The wind pitches up around me and all I can think of is that Gust Boy is blowing the flames, ash, and lava around. Pumice and flames rip through my clothes and I spin the rest to ash and try my best to dodge.
Not only that but a jet of blue fire hits me in the back and sends me to the range of Volcano's next eruption. My own flames rally and try to get me out of the way but a direct hit scathes me and I get hit in the stomach with Dusty Ash's club once I hit the ground. I get up and dash off, getting my phone out to call Nemuri. She's at UA, and they're not too far away, especially if All Might's there. Holding my stomach, feeling the pain of my ribs. God, my ribs!
"Hey, honey!" Nemuri's voice courses through my ears and I almost want to hang up and leave her be.
"Hey...! I might be back in... in the saddle." I gasp as the heat of Volcano pitches up and I can barely muster a flame to divert the force, "Just... a bad situation, couldn't let it go. Outta practice."
"Koyurei, what are you talking about? Do you need me to come help?" Nemuri's voice almost chokes me up with tears and I can't let them out or let them see my weakness. My blue flames wink out as Volcano's eruption reaches its climax.
"Nemuri, if I don't make it, I love you!" I yell, "I gotta go!"
"Koyurei, stay on the line! I'll, I'll get my colleagues, we'll-"The eruption hits and blows down the wall as my phone hits the lava and gets consumed. All of this just because I wanted to help people. All this because I heard their screams and dropped everything!
Stepping through is Dabi, smoke drifts from his arms as he looms above me. Volcano moves off and his expression is deep hatred. The kind of hatred that he had on his damn face at Sekoto.
"Why won't you do it?!" he yells, "WHY?!" he kicks me hard in the side and I can't help but let out a scream, "All you're doing is ruining this!"
"What are you... talking about?" I wheeze as he grabs me by the hair and drags me out onto the cooling ground. He caught me off guard with this attack and just a few hours ago I just wanted stuff for dinner... fuck.
"You're only fighting with half your strength. It's not right!" his arm lights up and he grins, "So I'm giving you a little... INCENTIVE!"
Now I'm stuck being tortured by my brother in front of a bunch of scared civilians. I can't help but feel bad. Just the idea of me sitting here and taking it causes that cold grip of rage seize my heart and a cold wind breezes out of my mouth, clouding my breath.
But right as he screams incentive I lash my fist out at him, cruel shards of ice drive right into his cheek with blood bursting out of it. A frigid wind forms ice on my back and face. Snow and ice flecks off my body and I form a shield out of the bloody gauntlet on my arm.
"Haaaaaaahhhh... there he is...!" he burns away the blood and restaples his jaw.
"Volcano, Dusty, Gust Boy!" he calls, "Let's finish Enavant!"
They form up and I crack my neck. Each of them in a sort of standoff with me, "You're not fighting Enavant." my voice is thick with anger standing against them.
Our war falls silent.
Waiting for the next move.
Snow and ash fall together.
Heat and cold dance in a storm.
Then I move.
My shield smashes into Dusty's club as her ashes get spun up by Gust Boy's fan arms but ice slams into him and Volcano. Volcano blasts out more pumice. It slams into my ice armor. Swirling my spear of ice I bring it out for a throw into the volcano on his back. It bursts into water and refreezes stabbing into him like millions of tiny needles. It doesn't matter how many times they try to melt my ice. I can always make more thanks to their heat. My movements slow though as I skate away from their attacks.
I'm trying to get some kind of distance between me and them. But I know the real reason. My attacks are random and uncontrolled, just thrown at whoever's attacking me. Dusty Ash, Gust Boy, Volcano, Dabi... it didn't matter.
I just wanted them to leave me alone, leave my wife alone, I just wanted a normal life!
"Stop dragging me back into something I hate so much!" I yell, "Stop trying to make me like you, I'll never be like you!" I sling more and more ice at them, making ice caps and floes of ice in water. I don't even know where I am anymore.
Tunnel visioned, angry as a bull fighting a matador, and absolutely ready to knock them all down and bury them under twenty or so feet of snow.
I just keep screaming, keep moving, and eventually I'm standing with the four of them already gone and snow falls on my already freezing skin. The wind picks up and blows the landed ashes around in it.
I look out at the spires and towers of ice, the jagged ruins of some buildings that almost fell apart if not for my ice. Everything goes sideways and dark. No matter how cold I got the angrier I became. Sharply taking the ashes out of my lungs it cleans the world and takes the ashes with it. That's the thing with my ice. I always get so angry when I use it. The fury never matches with the right element. It's ice instead of fire like people think.
The dream starts with me in my room back home. Sitting on the floor is my younger self crying and wrapped in bandages and trying his best to use his ice. But his flames kept lighting up in his hands with an eager fwoosh to life. His hair is mostly red with some flecks of white. His room looked like it was shared with someone else beforehand. Touya used to share a room with me. I guess this was after he died.
Then they hiss to death at the frost putting it out and the younger me stares dead-eyed at them. Again and again he does it. Almost like he's about to drive himself insane. I kneel and grab his shoulders.
"Stop." my voice is soft, "Stop it. You're not supposed to do that."
He looks up at me with a sad smile, "What else am I supposed to do? Dad's-"
"We aren't with Dad anymore." I smile back and smooth his hair, "We'll figure out what to do."
"I wish we didn't meet Nemuri." he says, "Things're too scary now. Everything's too scary."
Softening, I sit down next to him and pull him close, "Come on, kiddo. She's the best thing to ever happen to a loser like us."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." he sighs.
"Heh!" I chuff and we both burst into laughter as the room and him fall away. The weird dreams make things even weirder-
Speeding down the way like some sort of demon from Hell there's a fear in my heart that I'll get there too late. That my husband will be dead and I'll be alone again. I'll have failed yet another lover or friend.
But he's more than that. They're both more than that. I rev my engine and gun it towards the darkening sky and the quickly blistering cold. The day was a pre-spring warmer shaking off the chill of winter. This however was practically a blizzard. All I can think about is my husband lashing out at whoever he's fighting and by the time I get there I see the yellow-green flames of Burnin' and the orange flames of Endeavor working to keep people warm and away from the core of the storm.
The wind is sharp and slices through me like a knife, but I still trudge my way over. I dismount and head over to him, picking through the ice and snow in heels was not on the agenda today but here I am. The things I do for love. Endeavor glares down at me with his flames a little more pitched up than usual from the cold. He looms over me like a poor man's imitation of All Might's towering build. The snow hisses to steam as it dives into his flames.
"Do you have any idea what started this, Midnight?" he demands with his voice growling and rumbling like an earthquake. I nod and look up at him.
"It was because of Dabi." I state, "Now my husband was fighting him and I wanna know why you haven't caught him."
"We'll speak of this once we extract him." Endeavor dodges my question like he dodges responsibility. *He* did this. He forced Koyurei to this point of bottling everything up and now he's so ignorant of his hand in him lashing out?
We end up moving through the frozen block of buildings. The brutalized area rapidly cooled and warped by Volcano's attacks. The ice though isn't... jagged. It's curved and wavy almost smooth in the cold driving of the snow.
It's almost as though Koyurei instinctively tried to lessen the damage he'd cause. He's lying in the middle of it all with his chest glowing in the soft blue of his flames. Everything else was ice. His shoulders wrapped in jagged fractals and his face wreathed in it too almost like armor.
It looked just like Endeavor's own flames and he notices. He kneels and scoops up Koyurei into his arms with an almost solemness.
"Don't pretend I don't know my own weakness, Midnight." his voice sounds heavy and worn down, "My sons all have the right to hate me, and so do you and my wife and daughter. Why do you think I'm here?"
"To make up for it?" I guess.
"Yes." He states, "What little I can do. Now, I'll see if I can thaw him out."
I watch as he slowly heats up his body and the ice sloughs away from the scars he'd made. Endeavor seems like he's genuinely trying. Koyurei's breath whispers out clouds and he carries him out of there, glaring at the cops as we walk side by side, and the snow softly falling instead of hurtling down in a white nothing.
"So why haven't you caught Dabi? Isn't he your perp?" I ask as Endeavor radiates heat over my husband's body.
"He is, but he's proven difficult." he answers almost as stiff as a board, "Given his pattern he would've been easy if we managed to nail down his real motive-"
"He wants to kill you, Endeavor." I interrupt, "And most of your family, leaving Koyurei alive like the survivors."
"Are you just scared of who you think it is?" I press a little further and he glares down at me, "I mean he's built just like Koyurei and almost looks like him."
He stays silent until, "I'll take the both of you home. Leave Dabi and the Volcano Thieves to me."
The clouds cleared throughout the evening but instead of a hospital Endeavor took me and Koyurei to our home. He even helped get him inside but there wasn't a single word between us. Just this silence that said everything he needed to say.
He pauses just a little bit and looks over his shoulder at me, "You're good for him, Nemuri. Please continue looking out for him."
"I will, Enji." I bow a little and he chuffs before leaving.
At that I get into the bed and pull my freezing husband close, the heated blanket warming the both of us up and I run my hand through his whitening hair. He groans a little and smiles. He's going to be okay.
When I wake up again I'm in a room. A hospital room. Panic fills me bolting upright and seeing Nemuri there waiting for me, "Whoa whoa whoa, relax!" she exclaims, "It's okay, honey."
"Where are they?" I snap, "They were right there and I just started lobbing-" I'm covered in thick blankets that smell like her. Was she sleeping in the bed with me? Maybe I'm not in a hospital room at all? The beeping sounds and of course that signals that yes indeedie I'm in the hospital. Seriously, 'yes indeedie?' What am I, an old man? Am I really getting that old? God, I'm- that's when Nemuri talks and I completely rip myself out of those thoughts.
"They're gone, Koyurei." she sighs, "You really scared me." Her eyes are full of things she couldn't really say like, 'What the hell were you thinking?' or 'I love you but that was terrifying, never do that again!'
"S-sorry, but they attacked me outta nowhere and- and I was scared that I'd never get to say goodbye if I died." tears stream down my cheeks, "Now I pulled you away from your job and you might get fired."
"Koyurei, I won't get fired because of this." she assures me, "You're my husband and no matter what I'll be right-"
"It's still not right!" I snap, shaking my head, "Putting your life on hold for my stupid mistakes isn't what I want. I want you to succeed. I'm supposed to be the one to support you, not the other way around."
Nemuri grabs my shoulders, "Koyurei, you sweet little guy, never change." she croons, "Just take it easy and rest. You caused a freak snowstorm in the middle of town."
"I did? Wait, are we in the hospital?" I ask and she shakes her head.
"No, Endeavor showed up and thawed you out. He also took us home." she smiles and gets on the bed, "Besides, he did it out of regret but hey, it's up to you." Dad and regret don't seem to make sense together in a sentence but whatever helps him sleep at night I guess.
My stomach growls and Nemuri perks up, "Hmmm?" she leans close and listens for another growl and there's the need. It just hit so now I'm hungrier than ever. She kisses me and gets up to go fix something.
And just like that I'm back to being cared for like nothing was wrong. No punishment for a personal vendetta.
"I'll be right back, 'kay?" she says before disappearing into the kitchen. Sushi bumps my hand and settles in near me. Of course I'm colder than usual but the toastiness of the covers goes without saying.
Nemuri wanders back in and the smell hits me like a truck. Pork. God, I love it. She holds out some pieces to me as I swallow them down, ignoring the fact that she's babying me. I happily eat and she giggles at how messy I'm being.
"Are you my little man?" she coos with a blush on her cheeks and at my nod she laughs, "Good!" she stops and smiles a little less wide and puts the bowl down on the side table.
"Look... I know it's rich coming from me, but please don't do that again." her voice warbles a little, "I thought I lost you." her touch is light as she traces my jaw, "Besides, I want our happy ending."
"So... business as usual then?" I ask.
Nemuri grins and wraps her arms around my neck, "Sure."