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Cold.
So cold… I’m freezing.
Nastu isn’t able to cease his shivering, his body trembling as his quirk overloads his senses and- then… nothing. The numbness slowly moving up his limbs and closer to his core. His nose and ears are becoming so cold, they almost burn. His lips tinting blue and his tears freezing in red onto his eyelashes.
My quirk… My body…
Natsu’s breath comes out in visible puffs, clouds… Smoke…
“T-Touya…” Natsu’s breathing becomes rapid and shallow, each one sharper than the last. Every breath feels like it’s stabbing his lungs. He can’t see past the red frost created by his own solidified tears.
Everything around him grows as dark as it does cold. No. It’s not cold. He is. He’s so fucking cold.
Through the darkness and his frost covered lashes, he sees a blue hue, a warmth that reaches over to him. “Touya!”
Natsu moves through the darkness to reach the source of the blue flames, burning every inch of the way. Whether it's caused by his own quirk or his brother's, he doesn't know nor does he give a shit. Because Touya is right there.
The bandaged, smaller figure slowly turns to face Natsu, his vibrant eyes flickering until void of emotion. As if nothing but-
“Touya! I'm here, I'm right here for you! You are so much more than-”
Touya opens his mouth eerily sluggishly; falling inhumanly far, as if his jaw is just barely attached to his head. Once his jaw stops, an ear piercing scream fills Natsu's head. The pain causes him to flinch and lose his hold, the darkness swallowing him whole as Touya disappears.
Natsu fruitlessly tries to grasp onto something- anything- in the murky darkness. Below him, he sees a red glacier rapidly approaching to meet him. The only thing he can think to do is to cross his arms over his face and brace himself for the incoming impact.
He hears the sound of glass- no, ice shattering just before he hits water and-
Gasping, Natsu lurches forward, still shivering. It takes the young man a minute to process the dream. The warmth and light of the afternoon streams into his room through the window. The med student is surrounded by notebooks and textbooks, all his work still where he left it when he fell asleep early that morning. He reaches to rub the sleep out of his eyes and ends up pushing bits of red frost into them.
“Fucking!” Natsu mutters more curses under his breath as he moves from his bed to the bathroom.
He turns the water to a warm temperature and works on washing the extra chemicals of his not entirely frozen H²O quirk out of his eyes.
“Hey, sleeping beauty, I'm going to cook this evening. Is there-” Fuyumi pauses as she looks at her brother who is hunched over the sink and shivering. “Natsu?”
Natsu looks at her, his eyes still red, puffy, and highly agitated from his quirk. His teeth are chattering intensely. His nose and ears are red while his lips are blue.
She reaches forward to cup his ears with her hands as she slowly raises her body temperature, focusing in her hands. “You haven't had a nightmare involving your quirk in awhile.” Her tone is hushed, but not how it used to be. Not frightened and anxious, but calm and kind with only a light worried undertone. “How are you feeling? Did you…” Concerned. “Did you see him?”
Despite the tense topic and memories erupting in the wake of his nightmare, Natsu feels himself smile lightly. “Yeah. It's the same as the last one months ago.” His muscles slow from their shivering the more Fuyumi uses her quirk. “I'm… just tired, I-I think. I just don’t...” Natsu’s voice trails off.
Fuyumi hums as she stares at her younger brother and watches his gaze move away from her. An idea pops into her head and she pinches his nose for a short moment. “Shouto and I will get ready, so take your time.” She turns to walk out of the bathroom before pausing. “Oh, and be sure to grab your jacket. We'll be going out.”
Natsu stares as she leaves. He makes a hasty step for the doorway to shout down the hall, “Out where?”
All she does is wave at him as she enters the living room to speak to Shouto.
Nastu steps back into the bathroom to reach for his prescription eyedrops before he gets ready for whatever his sister is plotting for the afternoon.
~~~
As Fuyumi walks slightly ahead of them, Natsu looks over to Shouto and signs to him, asking if he knows why she’s kidnapping them.
The question is enough to bring a light of laughter to his little brother’s eyes, but otherwise Shouto just shrugs.
Great. She didn’t tell him either. He turns his attention back to Fuyumi, who is humming as she walks.
“Fuyumi,” Shouto speaks up beside Natsu, “where are you kidnapping us to?”
The older male damn near snorts.
“We,” the young woman turns halfway to look at her little brothers, “are going on an adventure.” She gives them a sly smile before turning back to continue onward. “Now keep up you two~!”
Shouto and Natsu share a look of excitement; a small grin touches Shouto’s lips and Natsu hollars out a couple of woops.
“A Fuyumi Adventure! This is gonna be awesome!”
The brothers quicken their slowed pace to catch up to their sister like a couple of puppies.
“First thing- what would you two want for a late lunch?” Fuyumi tosses her question over her shoulders to her younger brothers. “I suggest an energy booster and to keep it light.”
Shouto doesn’t hesitate to offer up his suggestion. “One of my classmate’s family owns a bakery. He’s probably there today. It’s the one you and I went to a few weeks back, Natsu.”
“That’s a wonderful idea Sho!” The ice user smiles brightly. “Bakery it is!” Natsu loops an arm around both of his siblings’.
Fuyumi giggles as her brother leads her and Shouto to the Satou Bakery. They make it to the sweets and bread cafe at a good medium between the noon and evening rush.
“Hey Shouto!” A buff teen with brown hair and an apron welcomes the Todoroki siblings from the counter in the near-empty bakery. “What brings you here?”
“Food,” Shouto deadpans. “For myself and my siblings.”
Satou chuckles as he wipes his hands off on his flour-covered apron. “What can I get for the Todorokis today?”
Shouto doesn’t even bother looking at the menu. “I’ll have an order of Ichigo Daifuku.”
“One order of Ichigo Daifuku for you,” Satou mumbles to himself as he navigates through his tablet.
Natsu taps his foot as he stares up at the menu, muttering to himself. So Fuyumi steps up, having made her decision after a shorter glance at the selection. “May I get an English muffin with strawberry jam?”
The hero in training gives her a small nod and a smile. “Yeah, absolutely.” Satou repeats the order to himself as he scrolls to find it. After tapping the screen a couple of times, he looks back up to Natsu, who appears to have made his decision.
Natsu speaks swiftly as he crosses his arms, smiling. “I’ll have half a loaf of rosemary olive oil bread with cheese and a side of strawberries, please Sir.”
Satou chuckles as he types the request in as quickly as Natsu had said it. “My older sibling will get right on that, Sir.” Satou then muses to himself, “Today is a strawberry Todoroki day.”
~~~
As they walk down the sidewalk, Natsu snacks on a small basket of strawberries that the Satou kid gave to them as a treat. “Sew now wat?”
“Natsu, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Fuyumi chastises her younger brother. She then looks around the area, as if searching for something. What are we doing over here? Is there a new strip mall over here that she wants to take us to? But Fuyumi’s never been a big shopper.
Natsu swallows the berry before offering another one to Shouto, who happily takes a few. Natsu looks over to his sister. She has a particular glint in her eyes. Seems familiar…
“Oh! Over there,” Fuyumi whisper yells to her brothers as she gestures to a crowd of paparazzi that are looking over footage left over from a gathering of heroes about an hour beforehand.
Natsu knows exactly what they’re doing here. He smirks as he looks over to his sister. “Fuyumi, you delinquent.”
The young woman gives him a wink and Shouto is just confused.
“Are either of you going to let me in on this big secret?”
Natsu throws an arm around his little brother. “You are about to go through an initiation of sorts, Lil Bro. All the Todoroki children go through this when they turn seventeen. And since your birthday was a couple months ago…”
Fuyumi’s smile grows. “Okay, so here’s the plan.”
~~~
“Woo!” One of the reporters pats her cameraman on the back. “And that’s a wrap! Shall we call it a day?”
The cameraman opens his mouth to speak before something catches his eyes. “Is that a Todoroki?”
“Where?” The reporter whips her head around to see the daughter of the number one hero catching the attention of every person with a camera or a phone in the area. “Grab the camera. Let’s get over-”
“Hey! What are you-”
The reporter turns to see that the second youngest Todoroki swiped the fucking camera.
“Yo,” the young man gives them a million dollar smile and a peace sign before taking off with the camera.
“Young man, get back here!” The reporter takes off first; she’ll be damned if they lose that expensive fucking thing.
As the reporter and the cameraman take off after their thief, neither one takes notice of youngest Todoroki pocketing one of the phones left behind on the table.
~~~
It doesn’t take Fuyumi long to shake the crowd off her tail, quickly reaching the meeting point with Shouto, who has the reporter’s phone in hand.
“Shouto, I’m so proud of you!” Fuyumi cheers and congratulates her little brother. He hands her the device, a feeling of giddiness from the adrenaline bubbling in his chest.
Natsu slides into the area on red frost, sans the camera from earlier. “Did ya get it?”
Shouto nods. “Now what?”
His older siblings share mischievous smirks before speaking in unison. “Photoshoot!”
About five minutes and nearly seventy photos later, the phone begins to ring with a photo of the cameraman showing.
Trying to suppress her own giggles, she tells her brothers to quiet down as she answers the phone, putting the call on speaker.
“Hello, this is Fuyumi Todoroki speaking, how may I help you?”
The Todoroki siblings hear a choke on the other side. “Todoroki?!”
The three answer at the same time. “Yes?”
On the other end, they hear the reporter try to calm down. “Oh wow. Uh, hi. Hello.” They can almost hear the woman having an internal debate. And then there’s shuffling on the other side and a new speaker talks to them.
“As delighted as my coworker is, I would greatly appreciate it if you returned her phone.” There’s a slightly miffed tone in his voice.
Fuyumi’s smile softens. “Of course. We can text you a location we’ll meet you in. Our apologies for any inconveniences we’ve caused.”
It’s the cameraman’s turn to trip over his words now. “It’s-it’s okay, do-... don’t worry about it.” Any anger that had been has disappeared into thin air. “Uhm. See you soon?”
Natsu bites down on his knuckle to keep from laughing. Shouto hunches over to simply cover his mouth with his fingers, inhaling deeply.
“Yessir! I’m sending the rendezvous point now.” Fuyumi taps the message option and sends the location of the Satou bakery. “We’ll meet you there after sunset.”
“Thank you. Y-yeah. See you then. Bye.”
Fuyumi smirks. “See you then, goodbye.”
Once she hangs up, Natsu howls in laughter and Shouto looks away to hide his smile, but his soft chuckles don’t cover anything.
Fuyumi gives her brothers a smile, watching as the colours painted by the low hanging sun dusts over the entire sky. “Mission complete.”
With the warmth of the last light of day embracing them, the Todoroki children finally get to recover and bloom at their own paces as the fires of their damaged past begin to lay to rest. It's going to take time, but tomorrow is a new day.
And Fuyumi knows she'll be able to face it because she has her brothers by her side.