"Don't let me go."
"Don't worry, I won't ever let you go. I promise."
Ikari's scar is the first thing that people notice. And it drives them away, since it is the symbol of her father, one of the most feared villains of all time... before he died.
...
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*warning: death, violence, mention of suicide
POV—Todoroki Shoto
Your Hero
Don't let me go.
Sho-yo.
Sho-yo, my love. I'm sorry I had to go so soon.
You've saved me so many times, but this time,
you couldn't.
And I'm sorry for that.
Don't let me go.
The flood of memories is enough to snap me out of my trance. My body lurches forward, jolting awake, as the ground beneath me materializes and painfully scrapes at my back. Something tugs at my collar and I look up to find a half-blurred Nichiya panting, dragging me away from the debris. Thick smoke fills my nose, but I barely notice as I dig my heels in the dirt and claw free of Nichiya's grip.
Ikari.
"Stop it— they're going to take us if you start to fight!" Her grip on my collar returns and she just tugs harder.
"No, I need to go ba—" I don't see anything except for Ikari's face as she falls, her eyes dead stars. My limbs flail and I fight harder, ignoring the shooting pain running up my legs.
Something rips at my throat.
It takes me a moment to realize that it is my scream. That rip creates such an indescribable scream I want to believe it isn't coming from me. It isn't my scream, my sorrow pouring out and turning into the stars littering the sky. It isn't that. I taste salt on my tongue, tears down my face. I fall to my knees, digging my forehead deep into the debris.
Coward.
Cowardcowardcowardcoward—
A loud, gurgling gasp. Mine.
Are you afraid to fucking die for her?
Another scream rips through the night and my nails dig deep into soil, into hard cement blocks as all the air in this world disappears and there is nothing left for me to breathe. I take in gasps, long, drawn out, desperate gasps as my body shakes.
"Let me go back," my voice is too loud, too hoarse, too desperate to be my own— "let me go, please, please, let me go back to Ikari—"
If one of us dies, both of us dies.
What the hell happened to that, coward?
Scream after scream, intermittently paused by choking gasps. I grab at my hair and tear. I need to feel pain. I deserve this. I broke my promise to Ikari and now she's dead because of me.
