Himura Residence - Morning
Tsubaki stood before the traditional Japanese house, taking in its elegant architecture. The building was old but impeccably maintained, with a dignity that spoke of generations of history. The morning sun cast long shadows across the carefully manicured garden, and a light mist still clung to the ground.
It was Friday morning. He had two and a half weeks until the Sports Festival. Next week, he'd return to school, which meant he'd only be able to train in the afternoons for the following two weeks. These three days—Friday, Saturday, Sunday—were all he had for uninterrupted training.
'I can't waste a single moment.'
Flashback - Todoroki Residence, Previous Evening
"You're going where?" Fuyumi had asked, her hands pausing mid-motion as she prepared dinner.
Tsubaki sat at the kitchen table, his expression neutral. "I'll be gone for three days. I'm going somewhere to train. The Sports Festival is in two and a half weeks, and I need to use this time before I go back to school."
Fuyumi's face creased with worry. "Tsubaki, you just got out of the hospital. The doctors said you should rest, not push yourself—"
"I'm fine," Tsubaki interrupted gently but firmly. "My body has recovered. I need to do this."
"But where are you going? Who are you training with?" She set down the knife she'd been using, turning to face him fully. "You've barely been home a day. Can't you at least—"
"Fuyumi." His voice carried a finality that made her stop. "Don't worry. I'll be fine. I know what I'm doing."
She'd looked at him for a long moment, clearly wanting to argue, to insist he stay and rest. But something in his expression—that cold determination she'd seen growing in him over the years—made her understand that arguing would be pointless.
"Promise me you'll be safe," she finally said, her voice small.
"I promise."
Present - Himura Residence Gate
Tsubaki had noticed the nameplate on the gate as he'd entered: Himura Residence.
A name he hadn't spoken in years. A name that connected to his mother, to a family he'd deliberately distanced himself from.
But now, standing at the door, he raised his fist and knocked.
'I don't have the luxury of pride anymore,' he thought.' If I want to be number one, I need every advantage I can get.'
The door opened, revealing an elderly man in traditional butler's attire. His posture was perfect despite his age, his expression professionally neutral.
"Young master Todoroki," the butler said with a slight bow. "The master has been expecting you. Please, come in."
Tsubaki stepped inside, removing his shoes and following the butler through corridors lined with traditional art and family portraits. The house smelled of incense and aged wood, carrying an atmosphere of discipline and history.
The butler led him to a dining room with sliding paper doors that overlooked a beautiful garden. Inside, an old man sat at a low table, drinking tea with the measured grace of someone who'd performed this ritual thousands of times.
Tsubaki stopped in the doorway, taking in the sight of a man he hadn't seen since he was six years old.
Himura Yukihiro.
His grandfather.
Even seated, the man commanded presence. His hair was grey—not white like those with ice quirks, but the grey of natural aging. His face was lined with wrinkles that spoke of decades lived, but his posture was straight, dignified. He wore a traditional haori over his clothes, deep blue with subtle ice crystal patterns embroidered along the edges.
But it was his eyes that Tsubaki remembered most clearly. Sharp. Assessing. The eyes of someone who saw through pretense and evaluated everything with cold calculation.
'Age has taken its toll on him,' Tsubaki noted. 'But those eyes... they're still as sharp as ever. This isn't a weak old man. This is someone who could still be dangerous if pushed.'
"Thank you, Tanaka," Yukihiro said without looking at the butler. "You may leave us."
The butler bowed and departed silently, closing the door behind him.
For a moment, neither spoke. Grandfather and grandson simply looked at each other across the room, the air between them heavy with unspoken history.
Finally, Yukihiro gestured to the cushion across from him. "Sit, Tsubaki."
Yukihiro's POV
Yukihiro observed his grandson as the boy moved to sit across from him. Even with the Todoroki name, the Himura blood was unmistakable in him. The white hair. The sharp features. The way he carried himself with that particular brand of cold composure that ran in their family.
'He looks so much like Rei did at that age,' Yukihiro thought.' Before everything went wrong.'
But there was something else there too. Something harder than his mother had ever possessed. A determination bordering on obsession, burning beneath the icy exterior.
'He's been shaped by pain,' Yukihiro recognized. 'Just like the rest of them.'
The temperature in the room seemed to drop as they locked eyes, the natural effect of two ice users in close proximity, both unconsciously affecting their environment. But neither of them looked bothered by the cold.
Tsubaki's POV
Tsubaki met his grandfather's gaze evenly, refusing to be the first to look away. He didn't waste time on pleasantries.
"I want you to train me," he said, his voice clear and direct. "Push me past my limits."
Yukihiro's expression didn't change, but something flickered in those sharp eyes.
"Three days," Tsubaki continued. "That's what I have before I return to school. After that, I'll need training after classes until the Sports Festival. I need to get stronger."
"And what makes you think I can help you?" Yukihiro asked, his voice measured.
Tsubaki's jaw tightened slightly. "Because despite everything, you're strong. The Himura family is renowned for producing powerful ice users. You have knowledge I need."
He paused, then continued, his voice dropping to something colder.
"Normally, I would never ask for help from the man who sold his own daughter for fame. The man who played one of the largest roles in creating our broken family."
Yukihiro's expression remained calm, but his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around his tea cup.
"But I'm taking your offer now," Tsubaki said, "because I want to achieve my ambitions. And I'll use whatever resources I need to reach the top, even if that means accepting help from you."
Yukihiro's POV - Memory
The words brought back a memory, sharp and clear despite the years.
A six-year-old boy with white hair, standing in this very room, small hands clenched into fists.
Yukihiro had seen potential in the child that Endeavor was too blind to recognize. The Himura family had produced some of the most powerful ice users in history, and Tsubaki showed signs of inheriting that strength even at such a young age.
It had been an attempt to fix his mistake—to help the grandson of the daughter he'd failed so completely. Rei, whom he'd seen no potential in and had arranged to marry off to Endeavor for the fame and connection it would bring the Himura name.
"I want to train you," he'd said to the six-year-old Tsubaki. "You have potential. Real potential. Let me help you develop it."
The boy had stared at him with those cold blue eyes—already so much harder than a child's eyes should be.
"I'll get to the top without help from a useless old man," the child had said, his voice carrying far too much bitterness for someone so young.
Then he'd turned and walked away, leaving Yukihiro alone with the weight of his failures.
Present - Conversation
Yukihiro set down his tea cup with deliberate care, his eyes never leaving Tsubaki's face.
"You've changed," he said simply.
A small smirk crossed his weathered face. "Though you still talk like an arrogant brat."
Tsubaki's expression didn't shift, but something in his eyes acknowledged the point.
"However," Yukihiro continued, standing with surprising grace for his age, "I accept. I will train you."
He gestured toward the back of the house. "Come. We have work to do, and three days is not much time."
Backyard Training Ground
The backyard was enormous—far larger than it had appeared from inside. It was clearly designed for quirk training, with reinforced walls, various obstacles, and open space that allowed for large-scale ice formation without damaging the house.
As they walked, Yukihiro spoke, his voice carrying the weight of history.
"The Himura family has produced some of the most powerful ice users in this country for generations," he said. "We have techniques, understanding, and methods refined over decades. This is what your father sought when he arranged the marriage with my daughter—access to our bloodline's power."
Tsubaki listened, walking slightly behind his grandfather. He didn't like the man, couldn't forget what he'd done to his mother, to their family. But he would acknowledge his strength. His father had sought out the Himura bloodline specifically because of their ice prowess and strong bloodline.
'That fact alone proves he can teach me something worth learning.'
They reached the center of the training ground, and Yukihiro turned to face his grandson.
"Tell me about your fight at the USJ," he commanded. "Everything. Don't leave out details."
Tsubaki recounted the battle the one with Nomu—the overwhelming power, the desperate survival, the moment when his fighting style had changed, when his ice had responded to pure instinct rather than calculated thought. He described the cost, the frost that had covered his body, how close he'd come to dying.
Yukihiro listened in silence, his expression thoughtful. When Tsubaki finished, the old man was quiet for a long moment.
"Impressive," he finally said. "For someone your age, trained alone, to reach that level... it's more than most achieve in a lifetime."
He paused, his sharp eyes assessing Tsubaki with renewed interest."But you're holding yourself back."
Tsubaki's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"You've focused on control," Yukihiro explained, beginning to pace slowly. "On precision and efficiency. That's good—it's necessary. Many ice users make the mistake of pursuing raw power without the control to use it effectively."
He stopped, turning to face Tsubaki directly.
"But you've gone too far in the opposite direction. You're so afraid of the cost—of the frostbite, the hypothermia—that you've never practiced controlling your maximum output. You train with smaller amounts, careful amounts, always holding back because you don't have a way to nullify the cold like your brother does with his fire."
The words hit harder than Tsubaki wanted to admit because they were true.
"That's not all," Yukihiro continued. "You have mental barriers holding you back. Limitations you've placed on yourself, consciously or unconsciously."
"What barriers?" Tsubaki demanded.
"That," Yukihiro said with a slight smile, "is a mystery you need to solve yourself. But I can tell you this: think about your fight with the Nomu. Think about what should have happened to your body."
Tsubaki frowned, confused.
"A normal body would have shut down from that level of hypothermia," Yukihiro explained. "Cardiac arrest. System failure. You shouldn't have been able to continue fighting as long as you did. Yet you did. Why?"
Tsubaki opened his mouth, then closed it, thinking.
"Your body was adapting," Yukihiro said quietly. "The cost you're so afraid of—it's been reducing. Your tolerance for cold has been increasing. It wasn't just your quirk that improved in that fight. You broke through limits you didn't even know you had."
The revelation struck Tsubaki like a physical blow. He'd been so focused on the pain, on the frost covering his body, that he hadn't considered...
'He's right. I should have been unconscious within minutes at those temperatures. But I kept fighting. Kept moving. My body shouldn't have been able to handle that much cold for that long.'
"I... hadn't realized," Tsubaki said slowly.
"Of course you hadn't," Yukihiro replied. "You were too busy surviving to analyze what was happening. But now you know. Your body is adapting to your quirk's demands. The question is: will you continue to fear the cost, or will you embrace it and push further?"
Tsubaki looked at his grandfather—really looked at him. The man who'd sold his mother. The man who'd contributed to his family's destruction. But also a man who understood ice in ways Tsubaki had never considered.
"I want you to tell me more. I want to learn everything you know," Tsubaki said, and something in his voice—a hunger for knowledge, for power, for understanding—made Yukihiro's expression soften slightly.
The old man saw that flame—the same flame he'd seen in six-year-old Tsubaki, before the boy had hardened completely.
The drive to prove himself, to be acknowledged, to matter.
Yukihiro smiled, the expression sad but genuine.
"We'll work on breaking those mental barriers," he said. "The first step is making your ice an extension of yourself. Not something you create and control, but something that responds to your will as naturally as moving your own limbs."
He began walking toward the training equipment.
"After these three days, when you return to school, we'll continue training after your classes. We have two and a half weeks to prepare you for the Sports Festival. It won't be enough time to fix everything, but we can make significant progress."
He stopped and turned back to face Tsubaki, his expression serious.
"You mustn't run from the cold," he said. "You must make it a part of you. Accept it. Embrace it. Only then will you truly understand your power."
Yukihiro looked at his grandson—at the boy he'd wronged by failing his mother, by contributing to the broken family that had shaped him. He couldn't change the past. Couldn't fix his mistakes completely.
'But maybe,' he thought,' I can help him become what he's meant to be. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's how I repay the boy I failed.'
"Are you ready to begin?" Yukihiro asked.
Tsubaki's response was immediate, his eyes burning with determination despite their cold color.
"Yes."
The temperature in the training ground dropped as grandfather and grandson prepared for three days of intensive training.
And somewhere in that frigid air, the ghost of a boy who'd once been invisible began to transform into someone the world would be forced to acknowledge.
To Be Continued...
.
.
.
.
.
.
Author's note
Hope you enjoyed the chapter
I know some of you guessed correctly I thought I might as well explore the other side of the family.
And for all of you wondering if Tsubaki will ever overcome his weakness you got your answer if you have anymore you think he should learn or develope comment them and I'll consider it. It can't be to open yet like stopping time like Esdeath this early in MHA isn't something I'll consider now.