A Dragon's Heart // Shoto Todoroki x Reader

Chapter 21: Lost

Shoto POV:

Loud crashes echoed in the distance, surrounding trees toppled over before Tokoyami's dark shadow lunged toward us. I held tightly onto Amara, determined to keep her safe.

"Todoroki! Kacchan! You need to make light!" Midoria screeched, resting on Shoji's back. Reluctantly, I watched as Bakugo swiftly stepped forward and produced light, causing Tokoyami's dark shadow to shriek and shrink back to its normal size.

"Thank you, guys," Tokoyami panted. I felt Amara squirm within my arms and peered down at her exhausted face. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, her eyebrows furrowed together.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice frail.

"What do you mean, what happened?" I questioned, feeling my eyebrow arch.

"Guys, we need to go back to camp. We need to protect Kacchan and Amara," Midoria commanded. Amara stirred within my arms, slipping into a slumber. We began to leave as a group, and I hoisted her frame in a bridal-style carry. My eyes worriedly scanned her body for injuries, noting the cuts all over her arms and legs. My breath left me in a rush as rage built within me. I was angry because I couldn't do anything to help her. Her black eyebrows twitched slightly, snapping me out of my anger-induced trance.

"When did I leave the mountain?" I heard her groan.

What the hell is she going on about? Does she not remember?

"Uraraka, Shu! Are you guys okay?" I heard Midoria ask the girls we found along the road. My focus was fixed on Amara, barely paying attention to where we were going.

Suddenly, Amara disappeared from my arms in the blink of an eye. "I'll be taking her, thank you, good sir," someone said. I looked up to see a well-dressed villain in a top hat. My eyebrows furrowed as I sent a pillar of ice toward him.

"Give her back, you bastard!" I growled, but the villain evaded my attack.

"It's time I departed. I got what I was after," the villain chided before disappearing above the trees.

"He took Kacchan! Let's go!" Midoria yelled.

"Agreed," I seethed. We began to run after the villain as a group, my heart racing in my chest.

We were losing him, I was losing her...

"Uraraka, Shu. Please launch us into the air with your quirks. It's the only way we can catch him," Midoria commanded, despite his broken and busted-up arm.

"What?" Shu began.

"We don't have time for questions. Please, just do it," Midoria snapped. We stopped running, and Shoji wrapped one of his many arms around me. Uraraka used her quirk on us, making us weightless, and then Shu used her tongue to catapult us forward. I held tightly onto Shoji's arm as the wind threatened to push me out of formation. We collided painfully with the back of the villain, and we all fell down together. The villain scurried away, laughing at us.

"Midoria, Todoroki. We're done. He gave away his best trick. I'm not sure what your quirk is, but it has to do with these little marbles, right? The ones you had stashed in your pocket," Shoji said, holding three glowing marbles in his fingers. I breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Amara was okay. That's all that mattered.

"You rescued them!" Midoria beamed happily. The top hat villain laughed.

"Well, color me impressed. Just as I'd expect from someone with so many hands," the top hat villain jested. I did not hesitate to create a giant ice barrier between us and the villains.

"Nice job, Shoji. We can finally get back," I said. We were about to disappear into the complex maze of the forest when a giant Nomu with green-olive skin appeared from the darkness. "Quick, this way!" I yelled, changing direction. We halted when a familiar purple and black void wall appeared before us, the void creature's giant lime-colored eyes boring through me. The warp villain created portals for the other villains to escape.

"Don't worry. They were so impressed with themselves that I let them gloat. If I'm flaunting something shiny, it's because there's something else I don't want you to see," the top hat villain sneered, sliding his mask halfway off his face. He stuck out his horrid tongue, revealing three blue glowing marbles. The ones Shoji must have grabbed were fakes.

"He still has them!" Midoria shrieked. I ground my teeth together, preparing to tackle the villain.

"A little bit of misdirection," the villain uttered as he slowly stepped back into the purple void portal behind him. "One last bow and the curtain falls—" The villain was cut off when a blue laser shot through his mask. It was Ohyama's navel laser!

He grunted as the blue marbles dropped from his mouth. My body reacted before my mind could, and I found myself running toward the marbles with outstretched hands. I reached out to catch one, but it was snatched right out from in front of me. I looked up to see the villain who had created the blue flames. His eyes were a soulless blue, and it looked like dead patches of skin had been sewn over his face.

"Well, isn't this a tragedy? Poor little Shoto Todoroki," I heard him say. I fell onto my arms and skidded painfully along the ground. "She's ours now. You couldn't protect her after all." I didn't see what was happening but heard Midoria scream Bakugo's name.

Soon after, the portal closed and the villains disappeared. We were left with nothing but hellish blue flames that ate hungrily at the forest around us. We failed. I failed... to protect her.

Amara was gone.

"Todoroki, I need to talk to you," Midoria began, his voice brittle. I glanced over at him, barely looking conscious.

"There's no time. I need to get her back. I have to—"

"It's about Amara."