LCO | Ch. 26: Search and Rescue

                                    

                                          
*WARNING: graphic, bloody injuries depicting a broken leg
Author's Note: Uhhhhhhh idk what to say lol I got excited when the opportunity to write gore came up hehe. This chap singlehandedly added a content warning to LCO on Ao3
Enjoy!

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"TODOROKI!" Yaoyorozu screamed, shoving away from the floor to stumble over towards where Todoroki was lying.
By now, his screams had lessened to painful gags of pain—quieter, yet equally as bone-chilling to hear from his normally mellow self. When she managed to cross the space between them, Yaoyorozu fell to her knees in a hurried panic to survey what'd happened up close.
A chunk of the ceiling—though luckily a stand-alone piece and not an entire mountain of debris—had burst through from above, and crashed down on the back side of his right calf. As an instinctual reaction, his quirk had activated as well, enshrouding the rock and ceiling in ice crystals that Yaoyorozu hoped would hold the remainder of what was over their heads in place. With the rock in the way, she couldn't tell how badly injured he was, but she could only imagine by the obscenities streaming under his breath, and the by the way he kept wheezing, that the pain must've been beyond hellish.
"Oh gods, oh no oh no oh no—Todoroki, c-can you move!?" Yaoyorozu sputtered, her heart thrumming.
At the call of his name, Todoroki sucked in a sharp gasp. She could see tears forming in his eyes as he squinted down at the floor in pain.
"I can't," he finally hissed, "Augh—i-it hurts... #@*%, it hurts so bad..."
Yaoyorozu's eyebrows knitted together in intense concern as he thudded his chin back against the floor, still whimpering.
"Wh... what do I do?" she mouthed, eyes darting between his strained expression and the massive ceiling chunk, "Ah... aaah..."
Her head felt like it might split open—literally and figuratively, with the blood rolling down her head from her earlier fall. Yaoyorozu was normally well-versed in tending to injuries, but this? Todoroki's leg could've well been shattered. If that was the case, she knew she wasn't near qualified enough to attempt something like surgery. As brilliant as she was, that reality was closing in: the powerlessness of being nothing more than a young high schooler. It made her vision fuzz in and out of focus, and her breath quicken. She didn't know what to do—how to save him. She didn't know anything. She just didn't.
I can't lift this on my own. And besides, it's frozen directly to him! How am I supposed to pull him out!? And after that, then what!?
Her fingers trembled uncertainly in the air in front of her. She could feel herself hyperventilating, but she couldn't summon the willpower to steel her nerves. She'd never been good at that, and with Todoroki down, her pillar of emotional balance, how was she supposed to regain her composure? How?
"Yaomomo."
His strained voice snapped her out of her head like the yank of a chain. Hesitantly, she flicked her eyes to his side profile, and found him looking over at her with a unique expression. Pained, yes, but urgent. Insistent.
It was that face that told her what she needed to do. A face that made her realize how completely helpless Todoroki was—that she was the only one who could help.
He's counting on me, she realized, I can't let my nerves get in the way.
He seemed to read her mind when he croaked out the rest of his sentence, "Collect yourself. Don't panic, it's gonna be okay," he grunted, cringing as agonizing ripples continued to pound through his leg, "Just help me."