She had always wanted to be a hero, but –

"Beautiful like the stars," her mother cooed, squeezing her face tight enough to bruise, "with the fragility of the snow."

– such a dream was impossible.

When Rei was young, Japan had only just broken away from the chaos of the Vigilante Era. America had swiftly branded their superpowered-citizens as Heroes, but the same couldn't be done in Japan. The true definition of the military was no longer definable when Quirks came to light. The first people to become Heroes in Japan were high-ranking political figures and officers - ones that were capable of holding society's trust - so they could find a long-term solution to the void that vigilantes had left.

A solution had to be found, and they found it in children.

U.A.'s Hero Course was founded to raise the new generation into Heroes; the First Hero Department was composed of Japan's ten most promising youth, tasked with guiding the future to what would later be called the Silver Age.

...

...

And then Shimura fell, bringing the Hero Course down with her. The ten Symbols of Hope, ten kids who wanted nothing but to do help, were reduced to a meager four survivors. OnlyYaoyorozu, Todoroki, Kyoto, and Yoarashi remained of the First Hero Course, yet Japan was told to move forward and forget.

The newly-minted HPSC told them to forget.

I won't forget. Todoroki won't forget, either. None of them will. That's my promise.

꧁꧂

Frost coated the outside of her glass in a moment of lost control, and Rei had to set it down before she shattered the costly cup. She didn't belong at a Hero Gala, but the (struggling) Himura family did, and she had a role to play.

(Grandmother called her a pawn, but the world wasn't a game of black-and-white wit.)

The air got a bit chilly; the only warning before her mother strutted up beside her, white-pale skin and eyes cold as ice. A set of nails plunge themselves into the strap of her dress, and Rei forces herself to breathe.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Rei looked over her opposite shoulder. Todoroki, visibly uncomfortable, was being circled by the dozens of Heroes desperate to hear from the next Number One candidate. Inwardly, she wondered if anybody else was capable of seeing the sorrow behind his eyes. When had the world become irreparably blind?

"You don't need to be a hero to save people." Father's words are far and distant beyond his grave, but she bitterly thinks that there's never been a better time to remember them. "Kindness is seeing the best in others when they cannot see it themselves, and you, Rei, are nothing but kind."

(Father was wrong, of course. But isn't it the thought that counts?)

"Oh," the voice beside her whispered, painted lips twisting into a grin that made her heart stop. Her mother's rapacious gaze locks onto Todoroki, and the realization dawns on her like the snow beneath her skin: a bone-chilling inevitability." I think that's a wonderful idea, Rei-chan."

And, with a single step forward, her fate was sealed.

꧁꧂

"It is such an honor, Endeavor-san!"

...

"...Himura has an extensive history as a prestigious family line -"

...

I want to save you.

...

Please, let me save you.

I can do nothing else.

...

Please -

꧁꧂

"Touya, did you dye your hair?" Enji's voice echoed from outside, and Rei freezes in place beside the door. "It's turning white."

"I didn't dye it," her daughter replied, and the tone of voice reminded Rei of broken glass, lingering frostbite, and smiles carved from ice. Desperate to impress. "...I think my Quirk is evolving."

Rei almost dropped the tray of tea in her hands.

Touya went on to speak, and if she hadn't seen her daughter's books and study habits, Rei wouldn't believe anything coming out of her mouth. It's Quirk sensitivity. Energy output. Augmentation.

Quirk Evolution.

"People look like their quirks," Touya elaborates, a frown clear in her voice. "The cold is like writing with the wrong hand or running backward. I can do it, but it feels... wrong ." She pauses, most likely to point out the growing discoloration of her hair. "But I don't think that feeling is going to last."

Rei heard: "I can't make ice, but I can make it cold," a sharp inhale from Enji, and knew that it was time to intervene.

"I made tea," she announces, noting Touya's relieved look when her husband's head is turned. "You've been sitting out here for too long with nothing to drink."

Touya smiled, Enji follows her inside, and Rei prepares for a storm.

꧁꧂

"I will never be Number One," Enji said to himself, though he must've known she stood behind him. "Not while All-Might remains active."

Her eyes narrow.

"You don't need to be," Rei answered. "Titles mean nothing. We know that better than anyone." The temperature spiked as Enji clenched his fist, and Rei breathes freely.

"You -"

"I want you to know something," she cut him off, and he finally turns around to meet her with a blazing eye; Rei remembers standing opposed to carnivorous glaciers, bloody blizzards, and a family carved from hail.

The chill beneath in her veins churns.

(I am not afraid of you.)

"I can't be Number One," he repeats, moving his eyes to the distant yard. "But she can."

"Touya is four."

"And smarter than I was at thrice the age," he replies thoughtlessly.

"That doesn't matter-"

"It does," Enji said, lacking the conviction he previously spoke with, and Rei gnashes her teeth together at his broken tone. "She'll be better. She'll be-"

"Meeting someone greater doesn't mean you should stop being great," Rei reminded him with a glare, and he flinches behind the familiarity of the words. " You will never be All-Might, Touya will never be you, and that's exactly how it should be."

He opened his mouth to speak, but Rei silences him with a frost-coated finger. A breeze forms from their opposing temperatures.

"You are Endeavor, my husband, and your daughter's Number One. Touya will become a Hero because she wants to stand beside you. Don't let the world choose what's important to you."

Rei steps past him with a final warning: "Don't leave behind a legacy that we have to repair."

꧁꧂

Her daughter's hand is hot with stress and something that's only known to Touya. Rei gives it a comforting squeeze. It's the least she can do, for how the world is about to change.

"Are you sure you want to keep skating?" she asks, quiet. The rink is a comforting type of cold, and neither of them could resist the smile brought to face. It's meager mercy that she doesn't have to be Himura or Todoroki in the complex - here, she's just. Fubuki. A woman who loves to skate.

Touya's eyes flash. "I'm not going to be afraid of something that you love," she insists, and with zero hesitation, tugs Rei onto the ice, leaving no time to think of double meanings and a too-sharp gaze.

"Not too fast," she admonished, more for her own sake than anyone else's. "One foot at a time."

Her daughter blinked at the unusual caution, immediately scanning for any sort of danger. "Okay," she frowned, poorly concealed worry darkening the shadows on her face. Like father, like daughter. "Did something happen?"

Rei softened, though her eyes lit up with mischief that she knew Touya would catch. "Nothing is wrong," she smiled, leading her through a turn. "You care too much." And then, because the girl clearly didn't buy it: "You'll be an amazing oneesan."

Touya faceplants onto the ice, and Rei lets herself laugh.

Chapter delayed because of the manga, and. Damn, that's a lot to unpack, and a lot of things to address.

But, TodoSibs, so... yay! (...With minor age changes. We'll blame it on the Touya Effect.)

We have exactly *zero* Endeavor backstory, so I've taken it into my own hands. (Also, how did All-Might supposedly go to U.A.? You're telling me that *nobody* in Japan knew his real name, yet he went to the #1 Hero School for three years?)

Yeah, no. In BtF, All-Might didn't go to U.A., and instead had a separate path to heroism with Nana, which will probably (definitely) be explored later. Setting up the plot is so fun.

Thank you for your patience! ❤