His Reasons (Todoroki X OC)

S5 Chapter 26

Falling onto the hard pavement below, Todoroki groaned as he felt both his mind and his muscles screaming for help. His mouth ran dry as he flashed back to just a couple moments ago when he last felt Amari's warmth, a warmth that would soon be gone forever. No, this couldn't happen, he had to stop it.

But as he struggled to lift his head up, a boot came down on the surface, crushing his skull as the two men above him laughed at his misfortune. "So, can we kill him now? The boss said we could after we left that girl's sight."

Widening his eyes, Todoroki felt his breathing completely stop as he took that very sentence. Wait, they were never planning on letting him live? What kind of cruelty was that?

Amari had just given herself away for his sake and yet that villain was still only satisfied with shattering any speck of hope and joy she had left. After everything she had done, he was not going to let it end just like that.

The boy weakly lifted his hand up to activate his quirk only for one of the men to quickly grab his hand and use his other foot to slam the appendage into the ground roughly. "Oh would you look at that? Lover boy is trying to save the day. Face it kid, you're wasting your time, we both know you don't have any strength left."

Weakly struggling against his arms, the men only seemed to find the action rather humorous, smiling back as they pulled a gun from their pocket and twirled it around in warning of what was to come. "You can blame your hero father for this by the way. The boss wants to send a message and what better way to do that than killing his precious son?"

So that was it, it was all about his father. He knew being related to the number one hero would've had its challenges but the boy supposed it made sense from a villain perspective. They wanted to terrorize Endeavor through him.

He wasn't sure if it was going to work though, given that the two didn't have the best relationship. Although, that didn't make the reality any less terrifying. He couldn't die now, he still had to be a hero, he had to save Amari from her fate, he had to do something other than be a pathetic child.

Although his thoughts were slowly interrupted as the man cocked his gun before firmly placing his against Todoroki's temple without a second thought. "Any last words before I pull this trigger?"

Todoroki knew the man was probably hoping for him to fall apart at his words, to crumble and plead for his life. Although the boy had other things on his mind. "It won't work. Killing me won't invoke anything in my father."

And that certainly got a reaction out of the man, his brow twisting in confusion before thinking about his words and noticing the seriousness in the boy's tone. He couldn't be serious, right?

Whipping the thought away, the man's finger moved to grace the trigger as he shrugged. "Well, I guess we'll have to find out, won't we? Goodbye little Todoroki."

Although when the man expected Todoroki to close his eyes for his upcoming death, the boy remained still, staring straight into his soul, almost as if he wasn't going to let his murderer see his fear.

It was a very Amari move, one that the boy had seen over and over again whenever she was in a dangerous situation. No matter how terrifying it was, no matter how much she didn't wish for it, he knew the girl never faltered and because of that so wouldn't he.

The sound of gunfire echoed through the alley as Todoroki waited for the pain, for the utter darkness to overtake him but he was soon surprised to find that there was none of those things, only screaming, and it wasn't from him.

Twisting his brow in confusion, the heavy weight disappeared a moment later before two strong arms wrapped around each of his shoulders, cradling him with such warmth and concern.