Follow the River [Shoto Todoroki x Reader: Fantasy AU]

Chapter 8: Plans

Shoto, his knight, Tenya and Izuku all walked together while sight-seeing, a few of them still taking the last bites of their food.

Tenya pointed to what seemed like a scattered pile of rubble, marble to be exact, with a large grin. "That was an old temple that was going to be rebuilt— but the ruins were left there because some tourists always came by to take pictures of it. And we made money, so there were no objections to leaving the trash there."

Izuku nodded along and seemed to be extremely interested in Tenya's rambling. It came as no surprise to any of them that Tenya knew all of this. He was stationed here as a guard for many years, after all. Although, the blistering sun was beginning to take its toll on the three teenagers, leaving Tenya to wonder why they were lagging a bit behind him.

Tenya stopped talking to look behind him, surprised at the long gap between him and Izuku, and the Prince and his knight. "Pick up the pace!" he exclaimed. "You guys just ate, what's with the slowness?"

"With all due respect, I'm boiling alive. Jeez, when did it get so hot?" (Y/n) groaned back.

Tenya laughed. "Ah. I almost forgot that tourists won't be very used to the heat here... especially you with that armor."

"You have armor too, how are you alive?"

"The heat of the sun seems to have a mind of its own on this island— it comes and goes and intensifies whenever it wants. I've had to get used to it in the past few years, and I get to take off my armor at times, but I understand what you're saying. Let's take a small break to cool off before we go any further."

Shoto almost didn't want to oblige. Who was Tenya to begin bossing them around? Shoto didn't necessarily harbor respect for Tenya just because he worked under his father for a little bit. The Prince didn't give just anyone who came along his respect, and he certainly had never taken orders from anyone other than his father.

Even though he wasn't saying anything that Shoto wouldn't say or command them to do as well, albeit worded differently— Shoto took all of this as a threat internally.

He was having a crisis and he didn't know it.

***

(Y/n) finally felt free enough to take off her helmet. No soldiers or guards around; it was a more enclosed area with only a few passerbys. She made sure to face away from the general public, however. It felt like she had been walking for hours and miles, and she was happy to finally sit down and have some peace and quiet.

"I heard what you said to Iida."

(Y/n)'s heart skipped a beat and she immediately looked off somewhere to the side. Can't she ever get some peace? Just for once? "Oh, you mean..."

He nodded. "I want to clear this up now."

She expected a scolding from the get-go. Nothing she wasn't already used to from the King back in the castle. From the Prince, however, it was still quite new to her.

"Look, I don't really care that you're objectively weaker than me."

"I see." She nodded.

"But you seem to care a lot."

"Maybe I do."

"You have this... excessive need to be better than me just because you feel like you have to— to be able to protect me, or whatever."

"Mmm." A bit harsh, but true. She noticed that Shoto was stumbling a bit over his words.

"That's not okay. At the end of the day, you're my knight. I may beat you in a physical match, but you have— some things— qualities that I will never be able to achieve."