Work Text:
Aizawa jumps off the platform, gliding above the stairs to face the group of villains. His goggles in place and capture weapon ready, he jumps between the villains and his students.
Shouto watches him go into the fight alone.
Aizawa’s hair flies up upon activating his quirk, eyes glowing red. Quirk’s deactivated, he takes the villains by surprise and wraps them into his scarf, pulling them together harshly. A mutant quirk villain rushes him, leaping into the air to punch him. Aizawa easily dodges and lands a strong punch on the man’s face, forcing him back.
Shouto flexes his hand, his knuckles feeling an impact. He pays it no mind though, more invested in his teacher’s situation.
Aizawa continues to fight, dodging punches and kicks easily. These low-ranking villains are easy to manage, the only issue being their numbers.
“Let’s go everyone,” Thirteen says, directing everyone back to the entrance. Shouto nods, tearing his eyes away from his outnumbered teacher and listens to her instructions. Thirteen leads them back to escape the villains.
The rest of the class are panicking, Shouto can see them shaking. He’s concerned, obviously (a group of villains have infiltrated the school) but focused. This is a targeted attack.
Before he, and the rest of the class, can escape. The warping villain blocks them. His smoking form appears in front of them, effectively trapping them and preventing them from calling for help.
Bakugou and Kirishima immediately jump into attacking him, the resulting explosion causing smoke to cover the area. The warp villain attacks them in return and with the smoke and quirk, the group are blinded. Some of his class group together in the confusion, Shouto stands his ground alone.
The solid ground under his feet gives out and he snaps his head down, just in time to watch himself fall through a warp gate.
Shouto assesses the situation quickly, remaining calm, if not a little angry. Upon seeing figures decisively not his classmates, he freezes the ground around him, ice spreading quickly to the awaiting villains.
Once the immediate villains have been apprehended, he looks around to where he was teleported. He notes he’s alone, quickly figuring he and his class were scattered throughout the facility through the warping quirk. He hopes the others are in groups, not all of them have been trained to fight as he has.
“He’s not a kid…. He’s a monster.” One of the villains mutter, looking at Shouto in fear. Rude considering Shouto isn’t the one who broke into a school and attack a group of kids, aiming to kill All Might. He ignores them though, walking back to the centre of the building – no use in staying here.
He shrugs off an ambush attempt, grabbing hold of the villain’s weapon, pushing his ice through the weapon and into the villain. Freezing another villain in the process, he continues.
Suddenly Shouto feels a sharp pain in his elbow. His soulmate is hurting. Shouto hisses, his right elbow is metaphorically crumbling and the pain is awful. He summons his quirk, trying to numb the pain with ice, but as the source is his soulmate, it does little to help.
He’s never felt pain like this before from his soulmate, dismissing the fleeting thought that it’s usually him to cause pain between them. He doesn’t like that his soulmate is the one hurting this time.
The attack continues, decaying his arm. He grits his teeth as he feels his muscles tearing. Whatever is happening to his soulmate feels like a villain attack.
Racing through his classmates, he pictures one of them being hurt similarly now. The chances of him and his soulmate being in a villain attack is too coincidental to ignore, the possibility of his soulmate being a classmate, being hurt right now, is unsettling. He can’t imagine Aizawa letting anyone get hurt though, so why does Shouto feel this pain?
Thankfully the pain stops and the tell-tale sign of punch echoes through Shouto’s knuckles. Clearly, his soulmate has the ability to fight back, to protect themselves. His elbow pain is dull, and his soulmate’s exhaustion is palatable through the connection. Shouto feels restless.
A blow to his head, his soulmate’s head, crushes Shouto. The brief respite not lasting.
It’s sickeningly painful, tears build up in Shouto’s eyes as his face is crumpled. A searing pain on his cheekbone strikes. His hair tugged on tightly. Shouto swallows the urge to vomit from the blow. His neck painfully jostles, and Shouto crouches on the floor. Hand down to steady himself from the pain, he shakes.
The pounding of his head starts anew. If he thought that the initial blow was painful, this feels like death. His head is repeatedly crushed and hammered. He folds lower, curling in on himself unable to stop the tears that follow. His nose, his soulmate’s nose, is definitely broken. His whole face is on fire, constantly being smashed into the ground, again, again and again.
Shouto clenches his jaw, tears now streaming down his cheeks as he waits out the attack. His gritted teeth muffle his huffs of pain. His whole body is completely tense the pain so unbearable.
His face continues to be smashed.
It then stops for a moment, but the pain is completely settled through the soulmate connection into Shouto’s bones. It barely matters the attack has momentarily stopped the pain is still very present.
Shouto curls up on the ground and takes a breath to calm himself down. As much as he hurts, he isn’t physically hurt, it’s just an echo of his soulmate. He feels bruised, and his face is on fire, but he’s fine. With his shaky hands in the possibly momentary pause in inflicted pain, who knows when his soulmate will receive another beating, Shouto pushes himself up.
He wipes his cheeks and starts to drag himself back to the centre of the USJ. If his soulmate is someone here, in the same villain attack as him, he can help them. He wants to help his soulmate, more than anything, he wants to atone for the pain he’s caused them for years.
He reaches the edge of the landslide zone, finally reaching the central area. His gaze immediately focuses on a giant, muscular villain. Large with a bird-like head, brain exposed with bulging eyes. The creature is inhuman.
Then, Shouto notices Aizawa. The creature has his teacher pinned. Aizawa’s body looks crumpled, held down by the villain. Blood has pooled around his head, his goggles smashed and uncaringly aside.
The bird-esque villain has Aizawa in a rough hold, bending Aizawa’s arm back at an unnatural angle. His elbow already bleeding. Shouto unconsciously touches his elbow, where his soulmate was hurt.
Aizawa’s arm keeps being bent back and Shouto takes a step forward, wanting to get to his teacher, to help him. Then, it snaps.
Aizawa screams out in pain, the villain breaking his arm easily. Shouto falls again, his arm, the same arm as Aizawa, ignites in pain. The bone is completely broken, the muscle exposed and crushed, the skin decayed.
Shouto feels it all, and he watches as the monster smashes Aizawa’s, his soulmate’s, other arm into the ground. The bones audibly crack and Aizawa lets out another grunt of pain. Shouto curls up, taken out by the waves and waves of pain. He’s so close to his soulmate, if only he could help, but the pain immobilises him.
Another crack to his arm, and a smash to the face. Shouto opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) to observe. The hand villain is by Asui, hand clasped over her face. Aizawa using the last of his strength, erases his quirk letting Midoriya punch the villain.
The force of the punch creates a blast of air. Shouto helpless to stop himself from rolling further away from Aizawa. Aizawa isn’t receiving any more pain currently, the bird villain racing over to protect the other. Shouto almost sobs in relief.
The blood continues to pool around Aizawa, Shouto straining to keep his eyes on him. A distant explosion followed by the cheers of his classmates sound; backup has arrived. Shouto keeps his blurry vision on his teacher, his soulmate, who endured all this pain to protect them.
Aizawa is Shouto’s soulmate.
Shouto takes a shaky breath, determined to get to his teacher. He needs to see Aizawa, make sure his soulmate is alright, and apologise for the years and years of pain. Before he can move, All Might races in.
All Might immediately goes to Aizawa, and Shouto sighs in relief. Aizawa won’t get hurt anymore, he’s done his job. All Might will take over and other pros are on their way. The number one then sweeps the other students into his arms and carries them a safe distance away, then turns to fight.
Shouto pushes himself up, watching as Midoriya carries Aizawa away from the battle. He jostles Aizawa in position and Shouto can’t help the small cry of pain at the movement. Asui turns to him at the sound.
“Todoroki,” She croaks out, hopping over to him. “What happened, ribbit. Are you hurt?”
“Aizawa,” Shouto says weakly, “Help Aizawa.”
“Midoriya is taking him to get medical attention now,” She answers calmly, “You don’t look too good. Do you need help too?”
“Bring me with Aizawa,” Shouto says, “Help me follow him.”
“Alright,” Asui easily agrees, carrying Todoroki wrapped in her tongue. She bounds over to Midoriya and Aizawa, following them to the entrance.
Shouto looks over at Aizawa, draped over Midoriya’s shoulder. The sight of him safe releases the tension in Shouto, and he passes out in pain and relief.