So, the worst had happened. He'd seen her spying on him naked outside his window and more or less shouted it to the rooftops by calling her 'ginger tits' at the top of his lungs. He thought her a creepy pervy stalker and she still thought he was the cat's meow. But, then, she had never considered having a 'chance' with him, though her little crushing girly heart didn't give a rat's ass what logic thought, so yeah, it was depressing.

Point was, life was supposed to continue on. They'd get wrapped up in hero studies again, especially the passionately dedicated Bakugo, and her trespass would be more or less forgotten.

But, Bakugo ended up, through some sadistic twist of fate, in her group during natural disaster rescue practice. They ended up in the snow and ice section specifically because the cold was both of their weaknesses. Their other two members included Koda and Tsuyu, both of which were nearly helpless in the cold. The whole exercise was about coming up with a strategy for one's weakness.

Tsuyu was already slipping into hibernation when the jeep dropped them off.

Since Toru was the one holding her up and slapping her in an attempt to keep her conscious, she gave the first cuss.

"How do they even have a frozen section?" She looked around at the walls enclosing their area, along with the mini-Mount Everest in the center. Ceiling fans mimicked blizzard-like winds next to snow-making machines. "Just how much did this all cost to make? Come ON, Tsu!"

"Just push the rescue button for her, she's a goner," said Bakugo, looking right cozy in his winter hero costume.

Toru shuddered. She hadn't had a winter costume, so only her boots protected her from the snow. The air gnawed on the rest of her. "I have to at least give her a chance. Effort counts."

Bakugo rolled his eyes and his shoulders. "Whatever. You and Dolittle get going, I can handle this by myself." Bakugo took the first step off the road and into the snowdrifts. His foot sunk to his knee.

Koda, teeth chattering, just looked about. "I g-guess m-m-my quirk was never much use i-i-n this building..."

"Maybe they put, like, snow foxes in here for you, they'd have to give you that much for this to be fair-"

"Or the Yeti," said Bakugo, who hadn't gotten too far ahead. "Buzz off already, I don't need to rescue you extras on top of the victims."

Toru just groaned. Her jaw ached from the effort to hold still.

"Oh, come on, Tsu!" And she was even wearing more layers than her. Not hard to do when you wore nothing.

"It-t-t-t's okay, I can at l-l-least go with him," said Koda in his ever soft voice.

Toru dropped her head back. "This is so unfair..." then a thought occurred to her. When light bounced off a mirror, it could warm up stuff. That's basically how solar ovens worked. Lightbulbs, the sun-though those things probably had something more than light. But light was energy, wasn't it? Maybe if she reflected as much light as possible into a point, kind of like her flash, but focus it more inward instead of just outside her body...

Koda waded after Bakugo through the snow and Toru pressed her froggy friend's rescue button. Then, she hunkered down for warmth and did her best to focus.

Her first attempts just made more flashes. It brought out the details of the megalithic walls of the enclosure quite well. Them were some big bolts. Yep.

If her teeth chattered any harder, she was going to lose brain cells as her brain got smashed against her skull in jackhammer fashion.

More flashes. At this rate, she'd just have to let herself be picked up with Tsu.

And yet...that didn't bother her as much as knowing Bakugo was leaving her behind.

At the thought of him, shoving through the snow, she could see in her mind's eye the muscles along his clenched jaw perfectly.

An ache, like a horrid case of heart-burn, stabbed her chest. She curled around it, clutching her hands there as she focused, focused, digging around the light at the same time she shoved that image of his jutted jaw into that ache.

Warmth. No, white-hot heat, like fire, but the size of a candle, came into being.

At first, she thought some of that heart-burn ache had just leaked outside of her body. But looking down she saw just light, a ball of it, clutched in her gloves. Even as she looked, it dimmed, along with its warmth.

And with it, she saw Bakugo getting further. The ache increased, and frantic, she once more used that pain to focus, imagining she was shoving in a knife with the light-

And the ball of warmth returned. She clutched it close to her, letting its warmth cover her front. Once she was sure she had it stable, she reached back with her other hand and undid her thick mane of curls to cover her back. It would be a nightmare to work through tonight, but at least she would be warm.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked up from the road and easily spotted the black figure of Bakugo, some ways away, but not too far. She moved to follow when a flash of something caught her eye. She shifted her light and the flash occurred again to the left side of the man-made mini-mountain.

Could it be? A reflection for a call to aid?

Steeling herself for the cold, she thought of another image of Bakugo, this one with him cackling like some wacko maniac at a particularly well-done explosion, and dug that into the ache in her chest. Her focus increased, so did the heat, and she took her first knee-deep plunge into the snow.

It hurt. Despite holding heat to her front, it could only go so far past the snow. Her boots had to do the rest. But now that she was facing where she had seen the reflection, she could see it more now, flashing S.O.S. in turn. A grin split her face as she thought of the look on Bakugo's face when she once more beat him in an exercise and found it good fodder to feed the miniature sun in her hands.

Each step hurt more and more. Pain crawled up to her thighs. She kept her hair close to her back by pinching it between her sides and her underarms. But the pain just helped her focus on the light in her hands even more, and it grew. Soon the pain fell away from her bare skin and her feet went numb, and by then, she could see the little old man wrapped in orange furs, flailing his short little arms above his head with the little square mirror.

Red curls escaped her clenched arms, wiping her face. She didn't stop to realize she could see them, focused too hard on shoving a mental knife deeper and deeper within her.

She saw him squint through the gale. Then his eyes went wide. The mirror dropped from his hands.

"I-I-I...I'm not ready..." he croaked.

She had to let go of what little of her hair she had managed to keep caught against her side to reach the heat out to him. The palms of her gloves had gone from blue to brown and her hands burned, but the rest of her was simply cool.

The red curls came like banners, ribbons left to the wind.

"This will keep you warm," she said. Wow, even her lips were numb.

But the old man, one of the members of the professional troupe of distressed victims used to train heroes, drew back, his face gone as pale. He put up his hands.

"No! I'm not ready to die! This-this was supposed to be an exercise!"

Her little light faltered-but only for a second. "Sir, I'm one of the students. I'm here to help!"

"STAY BACK!" he hardly heard her, turning to scramble out of the little wooden seat made into the snow.

"Wait!" Her grade-her credit-Bakugo's adorable defeated face-

"What the hell, Ginger Tits!"

Sliding onto the scene, Bakugo cut off the old man's escape and flung him over his shoulder in one smooth move, even with his eyes on her.

And they were wide. Wide as the old man's, and fearful, even as his bared ferocious teeth said only rage.

"Are you insane?!"

And as he said that, she saw the red hair, circling about her like the hem of a clock, and her own white skin. She hadn't a freckle to her name. Not a freckle to tell her she was seeing flesh instead of straight through to snow.

White and red, holding a dying sun in her hands.

But, somehow, she couldn't figure out what she thought of that. She just continued holding it out to the old man, confused.

"But it will keep you warm," she said, so sad. All this way for nothing. All this way...all that pain...

Why did she even bother? Not even Bakugo looked like he was going to take her miraculous discovery, even though he was cold too. He didn't like the cold.

He didn't like her. No man could ever like her. No one.

The light was dying.

"Don't you dare-get up! Damn it, don't go invisible now-FUCK!"

No. She hadn't seen herself. The red had been blood. Her skin had just been snow. She hadn't made it.

"Yuki-onna-Yuki-onna-"

"Shut up, old man, it's the frigging invisible girl whose suppose to-fuck it, all this snow. OY! I said GET UP, Titties!"

"You mean she's-but she's naked!"

"Whoopty, you know your shapes, Alzheimer's is afar yet-TORU!"

She...she was an idiot.