Author's Notes: when I started writing this part, I had only seen about 30 seconds of Fuyumi's screen time, so I was kind of guessing at her mannerisms, but after watching later episodes, I think I'm happy with how she came across. Happy to take suggestions though!


The following morning, when only Fuyumi was still home when he got up, Shouto resolved to take advantage of the days off and do what he'd decided to do during the award ceremony. It was time to visit his mother. He nearly lost his nerve at the door to her room, but he was glad he'd kept up the courage to go inside. She was happy to see him – left side and all. They talked for hours, and when he left, he felt hopeful and peaceful, as well as committed to working that much harder to reach his goals. Aside from becoming a hero, he also promised himself to free his mother. She wasn't mentally ill or unstable. She had impulsively done a terrible thing under duress, but she wasn't the villain in this story; she was a victim of Endeavor's abuse, just like Shouto. She had no place in that hospital.

With all this on his mind, Shouto didn't notice until he got off the train how cold he was. Wishing he'd worn warmer clothes, he hurried home. Surely I should be able to use the fire now, he thought. He sat meditatively on his knees on the tatami mats, thinking on his reconciliation with his mother as he kindled the flames.

But it wasn't enough. She'd forgiven him and encouraged him to embrace his whole self, yes, but there he was indulging in the same power that had driven her mad, and this time he could clearly see her present-day face in his mind. HOW do I embrace it? Shouto wondered as he breathed through the nausea. He knew he had her blessing, but it seemed one conversation couldn't undo the damage. It was still unbearable. He took another deep breath, but it hurt his chest and he started coughing. Without the fire to keep him warm, he was suddenly chilled and shivering.

Shouto stood up and found a blanket, then sat wrapped in it and stared out the windows. Even though two days had passed since the sports festival, he felt run down and exhausted, and he'd never been able to get warm. Since stepping off the train, though, he'd felt different, chilled like he was coming down with something. He coughed again and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, admitting to himself that he was sick. He could almost hear Endeavor in his head, scolding him for his reckless excess with the ice during the sports festival. That thought did nothing to make him feel better.

Neither, unfortunately, did that night of sleep. Several times he woke up coughing, and when he got up to get a drink of water, he was so cold that his bones ached by the time he got back to bed. In the morning, he was even more tired than the night before.

"You're not staying home sick, are you?" Endeavor asked the next morning, looking at the clock. "It's just a little cough. Put on a mask and get to class. You're going to be late."

"I'm not skipping school," said Shouto. "Aizawa gave us the next couple days off."

"Good. Then you can train with me this afternoon."

Shouto sighed.

"Eat something, son," Endeavor continued. "Building your quirk takes energy, you know!"

"I'm not hungry."

"I wasn't asking. Eat!" Endeavor repeated. "You want to erode your strength by starving? That's no way to grow up and succeed me!"

"I said I'm not hungry."

Fuyumi squirmed on the other side of the table. "Shouto, please, just try and eat something." She looked nervously at Endeavor as if pleading with Shouto to do something about it.

"Fine."

He force-fed himself a couple of pickles, but ate slowly so that the others had to leave for work before he'd finished. Once they were gone, Shouto was suddenly aware of a vacuum. Rarely did he have a whole day at his hands and nothing to do. He was alone in the house, had no school, and wasn't feeling up to doing much. What then?

He ended up spending most of the day alternating between watching TV, reading news on his phone, and sleeping. A couple times he tried warming himself with fire, but quickly decided it wasn't worth the side effects. Knowing his father was bound to make him use it soon anyway, he decided to save his endurance for later. Indeed, he hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep when he was abruptly awakened by Endeavor yanking on his arm.

"Sleeping, at this hour? Did I raise you to be lazy?"

Shouto blinked quickly, sitting up and closing the distance so his shoulder wouldn't get dislocated. Endeavor had grabbed him right on the bandages on his left arm, and though the burns hadn't caused him much pain over the past few days, being seized and tugged roughly definitely hurt. He didn't bother retorting that he was sick; that excuse had never done him any good in the past, and he was sure this time would be no different.

"Why on earth is your left arm so cold?" Endeavor wanted to know.

Shouto touched it with his right hand and shrugged. He couldn't feel a difference; everything was cold. Having used so little fire lately, he wasn't surprised, but Endeavor didn't know that. He stood up, resigned to following his father to whatever rigorous exercises he had in mind, but stopped in his tracks when he couldn't stop coughing.

"Go drink some water and meet me in the training room in five minutes," said Endeavor.

Shouto didn't much feel like drinking anything cold, but he needed to get his breath back if he was going to be working out the rest of the afternoon, so he did it anyway. Even the lukewarm water from the tap made him shiver, and he hurried to the training room in hopes that some physical activity might at least help him get warm.

"Alright, what are we doing?" He asked once he entered the training room.

"You're going to start by melting this."

Shouto's eyes widened at the dishwasher-sized boulder Endeavor was standing next to.

"Nan desuka!?"

"You showed the world what you can do with our fire. Now show me. After all those cement walls, one little rock should be nothing."

Shouto's skin crawled at his calling it "our fire". He clenched his fists and thought for the thousandth time that week of Midoriya screaming at him, "IT'S YOURS!" and resolved to think only of that as he went to work on the boulder. He had to do it in steps, stopping several times either because he was coughing or because he had to wait for his stomach to settle. Each time he stopped, Endeavor yelled at him to keep going, and the distraction was no help as he was trying desperately to focus both on honing the power and ignoring his swirling insides.

"What are you doing?" Endeavor shouted. "This is just a pebble! What's taking you so long? This isn't even a tenth of what you're capable of!"

"I know that," said Shouto. "I'm not at 100%, here."

"Heroes don't take sick days, you know. Get yourself together."

Shouto doubted that was true. Rushing into a battle or rescue operation knowing you wouldn't be effective seemed foolish, but he knew it was useless to argue, so he said nothing and directed his frustration at the remains of the boulder instead. When it was reduced to a puddle of bubbling molten rock, Endeavor nodded.

"If inanimate objects won't inspire you to bring any urgency to the fight, perhaps sparring with me will do it."

Shouto had expected this was coming, but he was no less irritated. So much for days off to rest and recover. Nevertheless, he turned around and immediately sent a barrage of ice towards his father, hoping to land the first blow and end this quickly. He was too slow and it was no use. Endeavor predicted the direction of the ice attack easily and melted it with a sweep of his arm, then went on the offensive and blasted his son across the room with a wave of flames. Shouto flinched as he felt a splinter from the wall pierce through his bandages and deep into his burnt skin. Blood dripped from his elbow where he'd hit the wall, polka-dotting the floor and streaking the tape around his arm.

"Finished so easily?" Endeavor prodded from across the room. "Is that all you've got? Get up!"

Shouto sent his next round of ice across the floor before standing, then got to his feet and repeated the attack, skating to his right to dodge the inevitable blast coming towards his left. Round after round they continued this way, and soon the floor was soaked in melted ice, and neither of them could easily keep their footing on the slippery floor.

"Where is your fire?" Endeavor boomed. "Why are you holding back?"

There was only one way out, so Shouto fought fire with fire. There was no way Endeavor would be satisfied if he didn't, and aside from that, Shouto had begun to feel the frostbite setting in several rounds ago. In spite of the exertion and the heat from Endeavor's hellflame, his biggest problem was still the arctic cold. Between the exhaustion and congested lungs, his inexperience wielding fire in battle, and Endeavor's lifetime of prowess, Shouto was no match for the onslaught of fire his father threw at him. His lungs burned both from the heat of the room and from days of coughing, and the nausea from continuing to force the fire was becoming overwhelming, yet Endeavor showed no signs of calling it off.

Desperate for a break, Shouto flung up a wall of ice that divided the room in two. He sat down on the floor, knowing he had seconds at best; Endeavor could have already melted the ice if he wanted to. Thinking quickly, Shouto pulled out his phone and texted Fuyumi Distract him. He wasn't even sure if she was home, but it was his only idea. He tried to breathe deeply, but couldn't do it without coughing. Meanwhile, his writhing stomach was practically begging him to let go, but there was no way he was going to give his father the satisfaction of knowing he'd pushed him that far.

To his great relief, he heard Fuyumi's voice from the kitchen. "Dad! I need your help!"

Wasting no time after Endeavor had left the room, Shouto smashed down the ice and hurried to his room, locking the door behind him. Completely spent, he lay down on the bed and burrowed under the blanket. He had thought for a brief moment that the sparring session might have a silver lining of correcting his body temperature, but he'd only momentarily used his fire, and the rest of the heat had been external. Once he'd left the room, the sudden temperature differential had been like jumping into a snowbank after a sauna. Without his own warmth, he quickly returned to shivering.

Shout knew he needed to dig the splinters out of his arm and change the bandages, but it felt so good to lie still and close his eyes…

"Hey! Shouto!"

He awoke and sat up abruptly after the touch on his shoulder, then softened when he saw it was Fuyumi.

"Relax," she said. "I just came to see if you wanted to come eat dinner with me. You're welcome, by the way."

"Hmm?"

"I wasn't sure what to make of your text. I just shouted like I was in trouble and tried to quickly think of what the heck I needed his help for. All I could think of was that I couldn't get a bottle open. He was not amused. Luckily after he opened the first bottle I grabbed out of the cupboard, he got a phone call and left. Some last minute meeting with another agency or something."

"Oh. Thanks."

"Anyway," Fuyumi went on, "why don't you come eat?"

"Well…"

"I know, I know, you're not hungry. You've been saying that all week. If you two were sparring, that takes a ton of energy. We have a little of that cold soba you like so much. I was just going to finish off some other leftovers, so you can have that."

"Sure," Shouto agreed. He knew Fuyumi was right about needing energy, and although hot food probably would have been a better idea, his favorite dish sounded palatable, and he couldn't say the same about much else.

"So what's going on with you?" Fuyumi asked once they were eating. "Ever since the festival, you've seemed… weird."

"Weird?"

"Yeah, I don't know." Fuyumi took a bite of tempura and pondered. "I mean, you're always pretty quiet, but you've hardly talked at all since then. And then going to see mom out of nowhere? What was that all about?"

"One of the other contestants said something to me," said Shouto, dipping the noodles in and out of the sauce absentmindedly. "It's given me a lot to think about. I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay," said Fuyumi, brows furrowed. "Well… if you change your mind. You know I won't tell Dad about anything."

Shouto nodded. "Thanks." He set down the chopsticks and pulled his arms into his sweater, huddling up on the pillow and trying to get warm.

"That's all you're going to eat?"

"Yeah. That's all I can stomach right now."

Fuyumi frowned. "Usually you can't get enough of that stuff. You really aren't feeling well, are you?"

"Mm-mm."

Fuyumi sighed, watching her brother coughing and shivering with his knees pulled up to his chest. Despite being the youngest, Shouto was one of those people who seemed to have been born an adult; but even with whatever weight was on his shoulders, he looked like a sick little child to her at that moment.

"Do you have a fever?" she asked him.

"I don't think so."

Ignoring his answer, Fuyumi reached across the table and felt his forehead, then recoiled and looked down at her hand. "Whoa. Okay, not a fever, more like the opposite of that. Wow, you're cold."

"I know!"

Fuyumi shook her head and ran off, then came back with a thermometer. "Take your temperature," she instructed. "I've never felt skin that cold. And we're all half ice, here."

Shouto tried, and shrugged when the thermometer read only "ERR".

"Try again."

He did, and got the same result. "I don't think it's working. When's the last time anyone used this?"

"I don't know," said Fuyumi. She looked at the error message and shook her head, then cleaned the thermometer and tried it on herself. This produced a reading of a clean 36.7. "Works on me," she said, showing her brother. "Try it one more time. Maybe it just needed to be cleaned."

"Still says 'ERR'."

Fuyumi looked troubled. "You're not gonna like… hibernate if you go to sleep tonight, are you?"

Shouto almost laughed. "Probably not. I woke up this morning, didn't I? Sounds like it would feel good, though."

"Don't talk like that!"

"I just remembered, I need to change these bandages and get the splinters out of my arm," said Shouto, standing up and clearing his half-finished plate.

"Bandages? Splinters?"

Shouto nodded. "Sparring," he said simply.

Fuyumi sighed again. "Do you need help?"

"No."

"Okay. I'm going to work on my lesson plans for tomorrow. Put this back while you're in the first aid cabinet." She handed him the thermometer. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"I'm probably just going to bed after this."

"Alright. Just… set an alarm, okay?"

"I will."


TO BE CONTINUED...