Daichi Todoroki: Origin

Chapter 11: Todoroki

I wake up on the floor in a different room. My head still hurts, but not as much as it did before. I sit up and take a look around. I must be in a room behind one of those doors that were in the building. The whole space is filled with crates. There's no windows, and the door is without a doubt locked. Standing up, I try to move my arms but they're still bound together. What the heck happened?
This was such a bad idea. If I get back to school in all one piece, I could maybe play it off like nothing happened and no one would know. But Iida and Midoriya have probably noticed my absence by now. If I get hurt, Aizawa will kill me. I might even get expelled.
Ok, I have to focus on the task at hand. At least now I know some more information that could help me escape. Fighting won't do me any good. I can't kill them, so I'll have to escape. But how?
Maybe I could make some noise to get their attention. One of them would come in and I could get out through the door. No, all of them would come rushing and I'd just be overpowered. Suddenly, a thought appears in my head. I wonder what's in these crates.
I walk over to one, examining it. The lid is pretty much sealed to the box, it will take some force to get it off. I step back, bracing myself, and slam into the crate, hoping it will knock it over. Wow it's heavier than I expected. It tips a little bit and plops back down into its spot. I wait a minute. If they heard that, then they are coming.
I slam into it again and again but nothing happens. Surely they've heard me by now. I need to be quick. I raise my right foot and stomp down on the ground, covering it in a fine sheet of ice. As soon as it slides under the crate in front of me the ice grows under the crate, pushing it up until it tips over. It hits the ground hard and the lid comes sliding off. Hundreds of metal parts spill out onto the floor. They should be here any moment. I run over and crouch down, examining the pieces. There are about 10 different types of pieces. I think these are all parts to computers or radios or something. Why would the League of Villains be hiding out in a warehouse that stores computer parts? Could they be using these parts to create their own communication devices to spy on the school?
That might be part of it, but now I know one way that they're doing it. They're using me. If Dabi really is my brother, and they knew I'd be coming here tonight, then somehow I'm their tool, their weapon. It makes me feel so awful I don't even want to think about it.
Good thing I don't have to, because I hear the click of a lock and Shigaraki comes bursting into the room. He wasn't expecting the floor to be covered in ice, and he slips and falls to the floor with a thud, which buys me the time I need. I bend down and pick up the heavy metal lid. Just as he regains his balance, I fling it at him as hard as I can. It hits him square in the chest and he falls back down, groaning. "Gahhh!" He cries out in pain.
I then grab what looks like the sharpest piece of metal from the crate and freeze it to the ground so it's sticking straight up. I pull my wrists so the cuffs are stretched as tight as they can go and bring my arms down on the metal. It instantly breaks the chain, and the cuffs fall off my wrists and clatter to the floor.
Toga and Twice rush into the room, but I'm already in fighting stance with my right arm stretched out in front of me. This time I will not be taken by surprise.
I send a burst of ice flying their way, which catches twice but Toga dodges. She jumps on top of a crate and flings a knife at me. I dodge just in time, and it flies past my face.
She laughs maniacally and flings another knife at me. This time I freeze it in midair, but I still feel a sharp pain in my upper arm and something wet trickles down it. I look over. The knife isn't stuck in my arm, it just cut me, but I froze it. She must've thrown two. She leaps towards me, and I move out of the way. She slams onto the floor and her head hits a crate. She seems to fall unconscious.
So far I've taken out Shigaraki, Toga, and Twice. Only three left. Surely if I've recovered from the weird shared flashback by now, then Dabi has too.
Before any of them can get up, I dash across the ice and out of the room. I need to escape. Where is the window? Where is the door? I don't have time to find it. Outside in the big room, waiting for me is Dabi, Kurogiri, and Compress. Where did Twice go? I look back. He's not still in the ice.
This time I go for Kurogiri first. Like last time, he immediately swarms me with purple smoke, and I send a countering blast of ice towards his human body. I'm too quick and he can't move out of the way fast enough. The ice hits him head on and he yells, the smoke disappearing.
"Kurogiri! You stupid kid, I knew you would get those cuffs off somehow!" Dabi says.
I turn towards the others, but neither of them try to attack me. Instead, Twice jumps down from the railing above and lands on me, sending me sprawling to the ground. I kick both my legs out and hit him, I'm not sure where my kick landed though. I stand up quickly, ignoring the pain in my back and elbows and shoot a huge amount of ice at Dabi and Compress. I then sprint towards the double doors. If all the other rooms like the one I was in have only one door, this must be the exit.
I'm almost there when a cloud of purple smoke wraps around me, shielding my vision. "No!" I shout. I thought I had taken him out! I feel my body being warped somewhere else and I lose my footing as there floor completely disappears from my surroundings.
The smoke clears quickly and I'm on the other side of the room. I breathe rapidly and as I exhale, I notice fog swirling around my face. Now that I have a second to think, my hand feels really cold. In fact, the whole right side of my body is freezing. I'm using my right side to much. I start to activate my flames to melt the ice, but Kurogiri throws another attack at me. I don't have time. I shoot some more ice at him. He dodges. I begin to melt the ice, but he comes at me again and again. He fast. He's not giving me any time to calm down the ice on my right side. He's also not giving me a chance to use my flames. He pulled me away from the others and he knows that flames can't hurt him if his real body is no where near me. He's immobilizing me. And he's succeeding.
I keep throwing my ice at him but my movements are getting sluggish. It's harder to breathe and my hand and foot start to go numb, not to mention the growing pain in my arm. Toga cut me deeper than I thought then I'm losing blood too. My only choice is to use my fire, but it won't hurt him.
Then, a faint memory of training with my father from when I was younger surfaces in my mind.
His distant voice echoes in my head, "Your fire is not the only aspect of your left side, Shoto. Sometimes, when I fight villains, if it's a mission where we need to capture them alive, than I set something around me on fire and the smoke usually knocks them unconscious but doesn't kill them. That could be helpful to you someday." he had told me. I hadn't thought much of it then, and I've never tried it before, but why not now?
The building is mostly cement and metal, so it won't catch fire easily. I'll have to make it incredibly hot. But if these crates have computer parts in them that contain electricity...
This will take all of my energy left. I decide it's my only option. When Kurogiri comes at me again, instead of attacking back, I turn away from him towards a large stack of crates. Without thinking, I shoot a huge burst of flames towards them with all my might. The hot wind blows my hair back, and I have to plant my feet further into the ground, but I keep going. I can feel the ice melting on my right side as the burning on my left intensifies. The cut was on my left arm, and the pain is excruciating, but I grit my teeth and force my fire harder.
All of a sudden, a loud explosion noise fills the room. The computer parts did have electricity in them.
I'm sent flying backwards through the air and yet again, my vision goes black. It has to have been only five seconds later when I open my eyes and realize that I'm now on the floor. The whole room is spinning as I slowly lift my head. I can't even tell what's going on anymore.
The villains that I haven't injured are fighting with... wait. Is that Tsukauchi and the police? And Iida, Mr. Aizawa, and Midoriya? I must be hallucinating. Though I'm pretty sure it's real when I hear Deku call my name. "Todoroki!" He yells. He tries to punch Dabi one more time but Mr. Aizawa grabs him with his scarf and pulls him out of the way. Then he takes over fighting Dabi. I try to stand up but I can't. I settle for just rolling over and leaning up on my elbows. I cough, with all the smoke trapped in the room, it's so hard to breathe.
Iida speeds over to me and Deku follows him. "Todoroki we were so worried about you! Can you stand?" Deku asks as he tries to pull me up. He grabs my right arm and Iida grabs my left and they help me stand up. I yelp when Iida clutches my arm. "What's wrong?" He asks, but quickly finds out himself. "Oh no." I hear him mumble. That means it's worse than I thought.
Iida pushes my arm up on his shoulder so he won't have to hold it and I lean on deku as we try to get out of the building as fast as possible, dodging fighting and smoke on our way. I notice Deku limping a bit, so I try not to put my weight on him. "Midoriya, what happened?" I ask.
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine." He says, smiling. In that moment, like I have a thousand times before, I see his passion and aspire to be just like All Might. He really does have the potential to become a great hero.
After a minute, I can walk on my own again, but there's people fighting by the door so we can't get out that way.
"We have to get back to the car!" Iida yells over the noise.
"Yeah!" Deku yells back.
"Iida, why don't you just put us on your back and we can speed out of here?" I ask, fighting to keep from coughing.
"My engines are stalled. I had to fight and one of those villains rendered my quirk useless." He says.
I see out of the corner of my eye one of the villains -I'm not sure who- comes running toward us. I turn and shoot ice at him, right before he can land a punch on Iida. Deku comes out of nowhere, hitting the villain with his quirk. The villain falls over and we don't stay long enough to find out if he gets back up. The entrance is now clear of fighting.
We start to run out of the building as fast as possible. My legs won't move very fast, but Iida pulls me along. We burst through the doors and the fresh air fills my lungs, but we don't stop to catch our breath. There are more police officers outside and a bunch of cars and ambulances too. Deku, Iida, and I run over to them. They start talking about me, and some of them talk to me, but the blood pounding in my ears drowns them all out. One of them pulls me into and ambulance right before... I don't remember anything after that.