Rescue // Shoto Todoroki x OC Fanfiction

Chapter Fourteen

She could hear the commotion long before it reached her. She wanted to tell them that Mind Maker knew they were coming. She wanted to tell them that he wasn't going to be here when they got here. This mission would be a total failure. 

Yeah, they'd get her back, but at what cost? She had no way of telling them that the minute she could move her body again, she was going to kill Shoto Todoroki. The enemy would be long gone. Any of the other people who were still here when the heroes arrived were only there as distractions. 

The thought sickened her and made her want to puke. 

The door to her room burst open, and she noted two familiar faces in the bunch--both former classmates of hers who had also gone on to become pro heroes. Deku, and Red Riot. 

She cringed when she saw their faces when they looked at her. She was in nothing but a dirtied sweatshirt, completely covered in festering bite marks, and chained to the wall. She knew she had to be quite the site. She hung in her bindings like a ragdoll, unable to move, speak, or even think coherently. Her skin itched with the desire to spill Shoto's blood, and she wanted with everything inside her to yell at them to kill her. 

Deku immediately rushed to her side and began to undo the bindings that held her in place. She fell limply into his arms, and he picked her up like she was nothing and started carrying her toward the door. She couldn't even close her eyes as he carried her limp body through the warehouse, which appeared to have been completely cleared out. Outside the building, there were many cop cars, heroes, and too many faces to count. Just looking around her made her head swim and ache. 

Her breath caught in her chest when she saw a familiar face coming toward her through the crowd, and her skin began to itch and ache the closer he got. Her eyes locked onto his, and there were so many things she wanted to say, but there was no way to say them. 

Even if she could move her body, she could hear the train of thought running through her head, and it made her sick. 

'Kill... Kill... Kill... Shoto Todoroki...' 

Everyone was talking, but she couldn't hear anything besides her own heartbeat in her ears. He grabbed the zipper of her hoodie, pulled the dirtied piece of clothing up over her exposed shoulder, and zipped it up the rest of the way, covering her bitemark-ridden skin. 

His eyes were full of so many things as she looked at him. Guilt, pain, and sadness. His mouth was moving--he was trying to speak to her, but she couldn't hear a thing. Her pulse was loud in her ears, like waves crashing harshly upon a rocky shore, blocking out everything else. 

She wanted to tell him to run. To stay as far away from her as possible. She wanted to tell him to lock her up or end her. No one was yet aware of what had happened to her. Only she knew how Mind Maker's quirk really worked. Only she could tell him that he was in danger, and she was completely unable. 

Katsumi was set down on a gurney shortly after leaving the building, and Shoto followed alongside her as they carted her into an ambulance, and kept his eyes fixed on her as they closed the doors and drove off. 

Somewhere on the way to the hospital, Katsumi lost consciousness. 

* * *

Shoto paced the length of the waiting room, wringing his hands together nervously. He felt his heart break in two when he first laid eyes on her earlier. 

Her entire chest, shoulders, and neck were covered in bloodied and bruised bite marks, and she was so pale. She had been hanging on by a thread. Waiting for them to check her out and allow him to visit was taking too long. He wanted to see her and talk to her and apologize for letting her go in there by herself. He wondered if she'd continue to be stubborn about it, or if she was also upset she'd gone in alone. Knowing her, it was probably the former. 

The way Katsumi looked at him as Deku carried her out was burned into the backs of his eyes. Her eyes were filled with something like desperation--he didn't know how to interpret what he saw. He'd never been great at reading other people, but he knew there was something she wanted to tell him. She looked desperate. And he was too. Shoto needed to see her, talk to her, and know that she was going to be okay. 

He eventually sat down near a window and looked outside, trying to find anything to focus on to keep himself occupied. The trees were no longer blossoming, instead turning green, signaling that summer would be starting soon. 

Running through the mission debrief in his head helped take his mind off of the woman just in the other room he was waiting to see. 

There were far fewer criminals there than Katsumi had originally reported before she'd been captured. His mind lingered on her again for a second, but he shook the thoughts away and continued going over the mission. Mind Maker was nowhere to be seen when they arrived. Every criminal they captured were low-level thugs whose criminal records weren't too expansive. He supposed that Mind Maker and his top brass somehow knew they were coming and made their exit long before they got there. 

How he knew, Shoto couldn't figure out. What he also couldn't figure out, was why. Why allow them to come in and take her with little to no problems? He had assumed going into this that it was a trap, but there were no such traps when they arrived. Clearing out the warehouse was far easier than they anticipated, and the amount of heroes they brought along had definitely been an overkill. 

This only made him feel more guilty, knowing how long it had taken them to throw the plan together and get to her. If they'd only just gone in sooner like Shoto had pushed for, she wouldn't have gone through as much. 

Eventually, one of the detectives and a doctor approached Shoto, and he stood up, eager to hear what they had to say. 

"She's awake," the doctor started. This should have been good news--but the look on the doctor's face said anything but. "She's completely unresponsive, and won't stop thrashing around. We can't get her to respond to any outside stimuli. We haven't figured anything else out yet." 

Right as the doctor finished speaking, The doors behind them swung open, and a very distraught-looking Uraraka met them. They relayed the information to her as well. 

"Does she have any family we need to notify? She doesn't seem to have any emergency contacts in her medical records," the doctor said. 

"No--no. I, well, Todoroki and I are it," Uraraka told them. She looked at Shoto with a saddened expression, surely feeling as disheartened as him at hearing this update. 

"Can I see her?" Shoto asked. 

"We can't allow any visitors at this point in time," the detective stated.

"She has to be sedated," the doctor added. "She's not in any state to see anyone right now."

"I understand that--but I can't even see her? I just want to be sure she's okay," Shoto tried. 

"She sounds anything but," Uraraka added quietly. 

"Just let me see her, even if it's just for a minute," Shoto tried again. 

"As I've already said, we can't allow visitors. She's severely unstable." 

Shoto grunted and pivoted around, quickly exiting the waiting room. He ignored Uraraka calling after him as he slammed through the doors and found himself standing outside the hospital. He rested his hands on top of his head and sucked in a deep breath. 

He hated how guilty he felt. It was eating him alive. All he wanted was to be there for her, and he couldn't even do that now. All he could do was wait. Just like before, he felt completely useless and helpless in the whole situation.