Champion and Defender - Takashi Shirogane x Reader

Ch. Seven

It had been a week since Shiro lashed out. He was taken the day after, and he hadn't been back since. You worried about him incessantly.

Your dreams became more vivid.

Your leg would start to shoot with pain.

You stopped eating.

But when he came back...
When he came back there was no happiness.

He was empty. He was broken. He was on the edge of sanity. One heavy gust of wind would send him plummeting into the abyss.

His right arm was missing, replaced by a prosthetic similar to that of your leg. His hair bleached itself entirely in the front. He looked like your hallucination.

When he looked at you, the spark didn't reach your chest like it used to. His eyes didn't light up; They glazed over with a look of sorrow and remorse. He detached his gaze and dropped it to the ground.

You wanted to take hold of his hand, like you had the last time. You just weren't sure how he would react this time.

He didn't move when you sat next to him. He didn't move when the bowl of mush slid into the room. He didn't move when you got up to sit on your bed.

He did move when the door slammed open to reveal a sentry.

The robot made its way to you, hoisting you up by the arms and trying to pull you from the cell. It wasn't fazed by your weak thrashing.

You tried to fight, but due to your lack of sustenance, as well as the previous experimentation, it was futile. You wriggled in the sentry's grasp. Your heavy breathing was suddenly caught in your chest when a purple glow met your gaze.

Shiro's hand stabbed through the armor plating of the robot. The glowing limb protruded from the sentry's back, exposing wires.

The scream Shiro emitted was only describable as primal. The guttural sound stopped your heart and sent a chill down your spine. As you collided with the metal floor, Shiro ripped his hand back. The robot fell to the ground with a clang.

Your breath came in raspy heaves. This is the first time you had seen him truly violent. You were scared, yes, but not of Shiro. You were scared of the rage in his eyes. You were scared of his bloodlust.

But you saw him.

You looked through the veil of fury and saw the tears in his eyes. The sobs he held back finally escaped as he fell to the ground.

The shuffling sounds of the guards running to the cell were washed away when you crawled to Shiro. You pulled him close to your chest, clutching as if your life depended on his contact.

The guards tried to pull you apart. Shiro continued to cling to you, trying so hard to keep you safe from the monsters.

There was so much noise it seemed silent. Yells converged from both sides: the guards yelled at each other as well as the two of you, while you and Shiro cried out for each other. His screams for you broke every remaining fiber of hope in your heart. There was nothing you could do to comfort him if you let them take you.

In the spur of the moment, you kicked a guard in the knee. He toppled over, allowing you to rush to your only comfort. You lurched forward, but a hand wrapped around your ankle, throwing you into the metal floor.

Shiro yelled again. He couldn't stand seeing this. Seeing you crawling on the ground, fighting for your life. He wanted so much to destroy the Galra restraining him, but there were three of them against one of him.

So he watched them cuff you, and pull you out of the cell, while you screamed each other's names. 

Your new cell bought horror daily.

Haggar seemed to understand just how to get under your skin and into your head. She played with your mind like a cat does a dead rat. Every time she walked into your room, you were certain you were going to die that day, and yet she would leave, and you would continue to dread being alive.

You tried to search for a point, but now that Shiro was gone, you struggled.

You hadn't been used to heal anyone since you were taken away.

Days now blurred together. You had no more concept of time. They had stopped feeding you two times a day, settling for once every now and then. You eventually realized the only reason they were to feed you now was to make sure you stayed alive long enough for Haggar to experiment on you.

You began to wonder: if you were to stop eating, and let yourself die of starvation, would it be a better end result than waiting to be saved. You could potentially delay the Galra from inventing something that would give them an advantage. But then, you would never get to know if you were dying for the greater good, or out of self-pity. You still had someone live for. You still had someone to hope for.

If you were to die, you needed to know he was alright.

Shiro was first priority. Your lively hood was second.

You repeated a phrase like a mantra everyday.

Sometimes is was: "Never let them take you alive". Others it was: "Find a meaning, stay alive, save a fragile human life".

It worked surprisingly well to keep up your morale, until one day.

It was day two without food, you were tired, you were on the brink of sleep brought on by exhaustion. What kept you awake was the sound of alarms.

There was yelling, an explosion, and the sound of an escape pod ejecting. No matter how hard you tried to be happy for whoever escaped, you fell further into an oncoming wave of depression. Before, you felt like you could keep your feet on the floor of the ocean, and your head would never be fully submerged. Now, felt nearly impossible to breach the surface.

Your only shred of hope was that whomever managed to escape would come back, and they would bring backup.