Frostbite | Overhaul

The house was always too warm inside.

Reiko Todoroki sat on the Engawa, her bare feet touching the cold stone. She watched her breath fog in the November air, while inside the heating hummed away. Fuyumi liked to keep it at twenty-two degrees. It had been the way their mother liked it. It was warm enough for the drafty halls, warm enough to pretend it was still a home and not a shrine to the things they had lost.

Reiko had always preferred the cold.

She pressed her palm against the stone. Watched frost creep outward from her fingertips, delicate, spreading like lace across the surface. Beautiful. The frost thickened. The stone beneath her palm turned brittle. A small crack formed, then another. She lifted her hand, but the damage remained. One hard freeze, and the stone would split.

Her quirk was called Frostbite. It was an honest name. Her ice didn’t just chill. It destroyed, cell by cell. It slowly killed what it touched, the damage invisible until it was too late. Like grief. Like. . . losing half your soul at thirteen, and then spending the next decade watching the cracks spread through everything you tried to build since.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She whipped it out. A text, from Fuyumi inside.

Fuyumi: “Dinner in 20. Please come inside.”

Reiko sent her a thumbs up emoji. She’d go inside. She’d eat her dinner. She’d smile and nod and make polite conversaton while Fuyumi talked about her students, and Shoto sat in silence and Natsuo was absent - always far away - because none of them could really stand being there too long.

None of them could stand the ghost of Touya pressed into every corner of the house. Least of all Reiko.

She stood from her spot. The frost on the stone had already started to melt. By morning, there would be no evidence that she had been here at all. Like she was used to. She was invisible, after all. And that was fine.

______________________________________

Dinner was the same as usual. Quiet, strained, performative. Fuyumi had made curry. Her signature dish. Shoto ate mechanically, still in his UA uniform. He would probably leave as soon as he was finished. “You look tired,” Fuyumi told Reiko. It was directed at her with concern. Someone who had learned to manage rather than to connect.“I’m fine.”“Are you sleeping?” “Enough.”

Shoto’s eyes flickered to her, then away. He had stopped pushing months ago. They all had. Reiko was the quiet twin, the steady one, the one who kept the house running and all the bills paid and all the hospital visits scheduled. She was fine, functional. That was enough for them. It wasn’t enough for her.

After dinner, she retreated to her bedroom. Closed the door, and opened her laptop. The forum she logged into was one she’d found two years ago. An underground network of quirk specialists, information brokers, and people who dealt in secrets. She had created a dozen different ID’s, asked careful questions, followed threads that had lead her to dead ends and some that lead her to dark, dark places.

She was looking for any records about quirk research involving fire. Any facilities that had treated severe burn injuries in the past decade. Any. . . any hint that Touya Todoroki was still alive. The official story was simple. He had gone to Sekoto Peak. He had burned himself up. His quirk was too strong for his body. They’d never seen a body.

When she logged in, a message was waiting for her in her inbox. A contact she had been talking to for months - someone who claimed to have connections within the Shie Haassaikai, the yakuza faction that had been gaining power in the shadows. They said they had information about quirk-erasing technology. About research that could strip a person’s quirk away and give it to someone else.

About fire.

The message read:

Meet me. Warehouse district. Pier 7. Mignight. Come alone.

She knew she should tell someone. Even Shoto. He would know exactly how to handle the situation. But Shoto would tell the commission. The commission would launch an investigation. And whatever trail led to Touya would disappear behind police tape and classified files.

Come time to leave, Reiko pulled on a black coat. She twisted her long, white hair into a low bun. . . and slipped out the back door without a sound. The cold wrapped around her like an old friend. She let out a breath, then headed down the street.

______________________________________

The warehouse district was dead at that hour. The harbour water lapped against rotting pylons. Streetlights were sparse. Her breath fogged in front of her face as she walked. Pier 7 was at the end of the long dock. A rickety building stood, with one light on inside. She paused at the door, with every instinct she had screaming at her not to go inside. Every lesson her father had drilled into her as a child, screamed at her that she was walking into a trap. She was a Todoroki. Todoroki’s did not sneak around warehouses at midnight chasing ghosts.

Then Touya’s face popped into her mind. . . and se opened the door.

Inside, three men stood. Not her contact. These were Yakuza - she could tell by the tattoos visible beneath their open collars. By the way they stood. Their cold assessment of her. One of the smiled. An uneasy sort of smile. “Todoroki Reiko?”Her stomach dropped, “who are you?”“Someone who’s been waiting for you ever since you started sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Boss wants a word,” he said, stepping forward. “I’m not going anywhere with y-”Something pricked her neck. A needle. She hadn’t even seen the fourth man behind her.

The world suddenly felt soft at the edges. Cold. She tried to use her quirk, but the frost that formed was weak, sluggish. It melted as soon as it appeared.A quirk suppresant. Then her mind went blank.

______________________________________

She woke up in a car. Her hands were bound together by cable ties, tight enough to bruise her wrists. Her heart was throbbing. The suppresant was still in her system, she could feel the absence of her quirk like a missing limb. Two of the men from the warehouse were in the front seats. No one spoke. They drove for what felt like an hour, deeper into the city, into neighbourhoods that got progressively darker and quieter. The buildings were older, traditional architecture, very unwelcoming. Yakuza territory.

The car stopped outside a compound. High walls, security cameras, the like. The gates opened before anyone touched a button. Someone had been watching, waiting. They ripped her from the car and lead her inside. Through a huge courtyard, past subordinates who bowed their heads and didn’t make eye contact, then down a corridor that smelled like anticeptic.

The room they reached at the end was sparse. A low table, tatami mats. A single figure was seated at the head, back straight, hands folded in his lap. He wore a mask, black, beak-like, covering the lower half of his face. His hair was dark brown, neatly cut. His eyes were amber, sharp and clinical. Gloves covered his hands. White, medical. He looked at her like she was a speciman on a slide. “Todoroki Reiko,” he said, his voice calm and measured and slightly muffled under the mask, “you’ve been asking questions in places you shouldn’t be.”

She should have been afraid. Terrified. She was afraid. But beneath her fear, was something else. A hollow, helpless hope that she’d found what she was looking for. “Where’s my contact?”“Dealt with.”No inflection, no emotion. “He was careless. You were careless. Coming here alone, without protection. Without telling anyone,” he tilted his head, “you wanted to get caught.”“I wanted answers.”“You wanted someone to see you.” His words landed like a slap, “the forgotten twin. The one who stayed. The one who plays house and and pays the bills and watches her family move on while she stands still.”Her chest tightened, “you don’t know anything about me.”“I know you’ve been looking for your brother for ten years,” he stood to his full height - tall, lean, precise in every movement. “I know you have exhausted every legal channel. I know you have been circling my organisation for six months. Getting closer. Getting reckless.”He stepped closer, stopping an arms length away from her. She held her ground.

“I know your quirk. Frostbite. Cryokinesis with cellular degradation. You can freeze moisture from the air or your own body, but the ice you produce is structurally unstable—sharp, brittle, destructive. Prolonged contact causes necrosis. You’ve hurt people with it. You’re afraid of it.” Her breath caught in her throat, “How did you-”“I make it my business to know things,” he interrupted, studying her face the way a scientist studied a specimen, “your quirk can be useful to me.”“I’m not interested in being useful.”“Everyone is useful. It’s just a question of if they know their place.”She met his eyes. Amber, cold. Not empty, though. There was something behind them, guarded, sharp, hungry.

“Kill me, then,” she said quietly, “if that’s why I’m here.”A look flickered across his face, too quick to read. “Kill you?” he sounded almost amused, “No. Todoroki Reiko. I’m going to give you exactly what you want.”He turned away, walked back to his seat. Sat down like the conversation was over. “Information about your brother. What happened to him. Who was responsible,” he folded his hands again, “I’ll give it to you. In time.”

“And what do you want in return?” “Patience,” his eyes found hers, “and obedience.”She knew she should refuse. She should fight, should run, use whatever was left of her supressed quirk. But he had answers, and she was drowning for ten years. “. . . I want proof first.”

“Reasonable.”He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a folder. He slid it across the table. Reiko hesitated, then stepepd forwards. She took the folder in her hands, slipped it open. Inside, a grainy photograph of Sekoto Peak. In the corner, barely visible in the smoke - a figure with white hair being carried by another grainy figure away from the lake. Her hands trembled, ice forming on the edges of the folder, crackling softly.

“Where did you get this?”

“That’s not a question you get to ask.”He stood again. This time, when he approached, he circled her. Slow, deliberate. Like a predator asesssing his prey. “You’ll come back. Every week. You’ll tell no one. Least of all your father. And when I decide you’re ready, you’ll do exactly what I ask.”“And if I refuse?”He stopped behind her. Leaned down. His mask was inches from her ear. “Then you’ll never know what happened to Touya.”His voice was soft. Almost gentle. She hated that it worked.

“Fine.”“Good.” He straightened, “Kurono will drive you home. We’ll be in touch.”She turned to leave, legs unsteady, folder clutched to her chest.“Todoroki.”She paused at the door. “You should know something,” his voice was different now, quieter, “I don’t let people into my space. I don’t make exceptions. I don’t want things.”She looked back at him. He was still standing where she’d left him, hands at his sides, watching her with those sharp eyes. “But I find myself wanting to know what happens next with you.”It wasn’t a compliment - but it wasn’t a threat.It was something in between. She left without another word.

______________________________________

In the car, she opened the folder again, staring at the photo.

It might not be him. It might be nothing.

But it might be something. That was more than she’d had in ten years.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Fuyumi.

Fuyumi: “Are you home? It’s late.”Reiko: “On my way back. Just went to the shop.”

The lie came easy - and it wouldn’t be the last.