Finding Me (Todoroki x Reader)

Heroes Rising - Chapter 6

Dawn peeked over the horizon as I stood with my classmates in the ruins, gazing with alert eyes over the terrain. It was taking me all my strength to keep my eyes open, the weariness of the night finally weighing on me. My classmates and I had gone through the night with no sleep, planning out our strategy to hold off the three villains still on the island. We'd gone over it a hundred times; and I'd done so a hundred times more in my head.

I knew what I had to do. So why did I still feel so nervous?

Soft footsteps walked up from behind me until I felt familiar icy-hot boy's presence close to me. His hand slipped into mine like he'd done so many times before, his fingers entwining with mine so easily it was almost second nature to squeeze back. "Are you ready for this?" he asked.

"Is anybody?" I asked in return, my E/C eyes remaining out on the land in front of me. The connection between the main island and the island of ruins was thin and long, but it wouldn't take the villains long to figure out where we were hiding. The ruins were the safest place for the people to hide in and for us to protect. Here, we had the high ground. Here, we had a little advantage over our opponents.

For how long, though, was the question.

"We've faced villains before, remember?" Shoto said, the slight chuckle in his tone making me smile a little. He could always read my mind, damn him.

I shrugged. "I suppose. But each and every time we versed them, we always had our teachers or other Pros backing us up. Now, though..." It was just us. It was all up to us.

Shoto huffed. "You say that like it's a bad thing. But I must admit, for someone who is awfully scared, you seem to be holding it together quite well."

"Am I?" I asked, facing the heterochromatic-eyed boy. "Because I certainly don't feel like I am."

"Y/N." Shoto's hand slipped from mine, sliding up my arm where both his hands gripped my shoulders firmly. Even if I tired, wriggling out of his grip was as futile as trying to escape his blue and grey gaze. "I'm scared, too. It's okay to be. But right now, there are thousands of people behind us that need our protection. We cannot be scared. We have to be their heroes."

"I just hope that we'll be able to take care of everyone on this island while we're here. Be actual heroes for them, you know?"

I blinked at him a few times, shocked that he remembered my very owns words. It was so simple. How could I have forgotten what I'd vowed to do from the moment I stepped onto Nabu Island? My shoulders relaxed under his grip, finally finding it in me to let a soft smile tug on my lips. I lightly pushed his hands off my shoulders, giving them both a firm squeeze as I looked up at Shoto. "You're right. Thank you."

Shoto nodded in return, letting me go as we both turned to face the rising sun, once more. "We will do this. We can hold the villains off until the heroes find our message."

Hold them off. That's all we had to do. For the hundredth-and-first time, I recalled the plan Midoriya and Bakugou had laid out to us all just a few hours ago - just to be safe.

{A few hours ago}

Dismissing Mahoro and Katsuma to where the other civilians were sleeping, my classmates and I all gathered around the table in the meeting room. Midoriya had found a map of the island somewhere in the room, now laying flat on the table's surface for us all to see.

"What's the plan, Midoriya," Shoto asked, looking confused down at the map beside the emerald-hair boy.

"We know that there are at least three villains here," he said, pointing at a little island just off the north-western shore - not too far from where we were stationed in the factory. "If we use the castle ruins on the edge of this cliff as our base, that leaves the villains with only one route to reach us." With a red marker, he drew three arrows diverging from the main path towards the castle ruins - two arrows pushing along the shoreline's rocks, and the other running straight up the guts of the mountain. "When they approach, we'll split them up with a pre-emptive strike. We'll use the terrain to our advantage."