Rescue // Shoto Todoroki x OC Fanfiction

Chapter Seventeen

Katsumi was now being held at the police station, where they could keep a better eye on her. 

Shoto paced the room, having tuned everyone out a while ago as they discussed what to do. In a conference room sat Midoriya, Uraraka, Bakugo, and some other people from the police. They were all trying to figure out what to do next, but there didn't seem to be anything that could snap her out of whatever trance she was in. 

Bakugo had suggested they focus their attention on finding Mind Maker and making him relinquish the control himself, but that could take too long. Unless sedated, she wasn't even letting the doctors near her to heal her wounds. 

Shoto racked his brain, trying to think of a way to get it done sooner. He didn't want to leave her like this any longer than they had to. 

"Maybe if we hit her in the head hard enough, that'll do the job," Bakugo suggested. 

"Kacchan! We can't do that!" Midoriya squeaked. "She's already been through a lot... and we shouldn't give her a concussion if we don't even know if that would work." 

Baguko grumbled. "Well, I don't see you making any suggestions, nerd!" 

"Guys!" Uraraka interjected. "Sitting around arguing isn't going to help Katsumi." 

Shoto was pulled from his thoughts at the mention of her name. He looked at the others, who seemed just about as lost as he was. 

"You know..." Uraraka started, "there's always one other thing we could try, though I don't know if we'd be able to get Aizawa on board with it." 

"What is it?" Shoto asked. Before Uraraka could answer, Midoriya jumped from his seat, his face lighting up. 

"Eri!" Midoriya exclaimed. "She could reverse Katsumi, and that would fix it, I'm sure!"

"Pink Cheeks is right, though," Bakugo stated. "Aizawa doesn't like her being used for things like this." 

"Well, he'll have to agree," Shoto stated matter of factly. "We don't have any other options. Though ultimately, it is going to be up to Eri."

Shoto finally sat down for the first time in a while, and let out a huge sigh. This could be it. This could fix her--and then he could apologize and be there for her like he should have been in the first place. He rubbed his face as the others kept talking. Midoriya was already pulling out his phone and dialing their old teacher. 

"There better be a really good reason you're calling me at this hour," he heard Aizawa say through the phone. Shoto tuned out the rest of the conversation, instead heading down the hallway toward where they were keeping Katsumi. 

They wouldn't let him into the room, but there was a window where he could see her. From where he stood flanked by two police officers, he peered through the window and into her holding room. 

She was still in the Iron Maiden in the middle of the room. Her head was slumped over, and her hair obscured her face. They were keeping her completely sedated until they could figure out how to help her. For the first time in a while, Shoto felt hopeful. If Midoryia could get Aizawa and Eri on board, this might actually work. 

Eri's quirk allowed her to reverse people, so if they could get her to reverse Katsumi back before she was under his control, Shoto could have her back for real this time. The thought of finally speaking to her again made his chest hurt in a funny way he wasn't familiar with. He clutched his chest as he looked through the glass at her, trying to ignore the nervousness building up behind his ribs. 

What if she didn't forgive him? What if she wanted nothing to do with him anymore?

They'd spent the better part of their lives at odds with each other, and during their mission, it seemed as if he was finally able to break down some of the walls they'd both built to keep each other out. All he wanted was to be able to call her a friend after this. He hoped with everything inside of him that she would forgive him for letting this happen to her. 

* * * 

While Katsumi was sedated, she was still awake inside her head, completely in the backseat to anything that was happening. Doctors had tended to the various cuts and bruises she'd collected from her short stint outside the hospital, but she was not being held somewhere else. 

She knew now that they were aware of the situation, and she was thankful that they'd finally taken proper measures to keep her from hurting anyone else. She wanted to punch herself in the face for having laid a single finger on Todoroki. She could see it in his eyes when he came to her--he wanted to help her. But there was nothing he could do but stay away. That she knew. 

There might not be a way to fix this after all. She'd have to be kept locked up until they could figure out a way to find and stop Mind Maker. There was nothing she could do but wait. 

Her body ached now. All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed at home and sleep. With the way she was still awake inside herself, it felt as if she hadn't had proper rest in days. Even if her body was completely subdued, she was aware. She was present. 

Her memories were starting to come back in tiny little pieces from before she was captured. She wasn't sure in which order they went, or if they belonged there at all. All of them contained Shoto Todoroki, which only made things ache even more as she tried to piece them together. Just thinking about him made her body feel on edge. 

The sedation was starting to wear off again, and she knew that someone would be in shortly to fix the problem. Her head rose and stared forward at something. In front of her was a mirror, which she assumed to be a one-way window so that they could watch her from the outside. She stared forward and saw her own reflection. 

Her blonde and purple hair was a matted and grassy mess, and her face was covered in little bandages, presumably covering spots that the glass had cut her upon her escape from the hospital. She looked absolutely deranged as she bared her teeth at the reflection. 

Though to her, it felt as if she was staring through herself, thrown off by something that was behind the glass. Her body was starting to wake up, and it was completely on edge as it trembled within the Iron Maiden. As she predicted, someone in a white coat came in not even a minute later and administered the sedative, and she quickly fell back into the stupor she was in before. 

She curled herself up in the corner of her mind that she'd been banished to, and tried to focus on the dark nothingness she found there. Katsumi tried to shove the faces and thoughts out of her mind and tried to find some semblance of rest. Of course, it never came.