Death

by tmb1112

What if the Quirk, Death, existed? A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough, when all your Quirk can do is kill people.

248. Chapter 248

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 248:

"Midnight! Die for me, will you?! HYahyahya!" Raiyena cackled at her old enemy who had been the one to throw her in Tartaros back in Kayama's early days as a rookie hero.

The gray-furred and blond-haired woman Midnight's height swiped her right claw and then her left at the U.A. teacher who jumped back while peeling fabric from her costume. Raiyena bent her fur-covered legs and leapt backwards herself. Her Hyena Quirk worked best in close range, but that was how Midnight had captured her in the first place. She smirked while landing and raising up wrist-launchers that she aimed at the woman ahead of her whose eyes widened for an instant as barrels on what she had thought were just wrist guards popped up and aimed her way. Ka-POP! One of the wrist launchers backfired and Raiyena screamed at the top of her lungs while spinning out and grabbing at her right wrist with her left hand.

The other launcher did not malfunction like the first had for some reason that Midnight nor her enemy understood. She dodged easier when it was only one attack flying at her though, and Midnight flicked her wrist forward after ducking to wrap her whip around Raiyena's neck as the villain's eyes clenched shut in the pain from her hand ripping apart. Midnight yanked towards herself while releasing Somnambulist. Her sleep-inducing odor hit the furry woman whose eyes snapped back open in panic only to close slowly as she muttered, "Well… shit-"

Raiyena collapsed to the ground, but Midnight could not celebrate her victory. Although her pink cloud of knockout gas kept other villains from swarming her when she was taking out her old foe, a few aimed into the gas and fired towards her anyway with their Quirks. "Very predictable, Midnight," a voice called towards the woman about to exit her gas in a sprint towards other villains which would get the ones firing at her from a distance to stop. Those men from the Grouch Gang who Midnight recognized because of their leader, Osucaro, continued firing even as Midnight ran at a villain who taunted her as she ran at him.

Diamondfist threw his right arm to the side and released the hero whose neck he just crushed in his Diamond grip. Midnight stopped short and leapt away instead of sprinting the rest of the way to the man she realized was confident enough in his Quirk's defensive capabilities that he was not concerned about being lit up by his comrades. Osucaro smirked while aiming carefully in the direction Midnight jumped to, but he spun at the last second to his left and pulled his entire upper body down into his waist. His torso from his waist up sunk down into his squishy waistband and made the fist coming for his face pass by above him.

Another of the Grouch Gang was hit though by a fist from Incognito who spun herself immediately to the enemy who Sliding Queen had missed. Osucaro kicked out into Sliding Queen's legs, then he dove backwards himself and rolled out of the way of the woman who had made both herself and Sliding Queen unnoticeable before rushing them. Osucaro jumped back up from his roll and aimed at the two of them who were blurry and almost slipped out of his sight. "Shoot them now!"

A flurry of snow condensed into a thicker blizzard that slammed into El Toro while he was mid-sprint on all fours. The Radian member charged through it anyway though and slammed his head up into Yuki who tried to dodge to the side, which caused one of El Toro's horns to pierce through the right side of her chest and made her scream out in pain. Her 46FF breasts and the thick breastplate she had over them was all that kept the horn from piercing into her vitals, and Yuki snapped her arms in and gripped that horn piercing her that she ripped from her body. El Toro spun his head to the side though as Yuki grabbed his horn after being lifted off her feet, and he threw her down the road where she skid on the pavement and got more of her skin ripped for road burns on her arms.

Midnight landed and cracked her whip at El Toro who reared his body back onto his back two legs only and leapt away himself to avoid her. Diamondfist lifted up a grenade in the corner of Midnight's gaze as she was about to rush at El Toro, and her eyes bulged and she spun towards the villain who pulled the pin and threw it at her. "Danger close," Diamondfist taunted the woman who he bet had only heard that phrase called out by one person in her life. The smirk that grew over Diamondfist's face dropped as she spun and smacked her whip into the grenade with perfect precision. The grenade went off in midair as her whip hit it, and Yuki screamed out as some of the shrapnel hit her on her way back up.

Another villain who had just spun towards Diamondfist confusedly at the shout and then looked up at the grenade also grabbed at his eyes and screamed out in agony as he was hit. Diamondfist's front turned to Diamond itself which protected him, while Midnight tried to turn to her side and make herself smaller as she cracked her whip. She dodged a bit of the shrapnel by turning like that in preparation, but her left calf was still pierced by a piece that flew through to the other side and bounced away. It was through-and-through, but it still made her drop down to her left knee for a moment and grind her teeth in pain.

Kayama Nemuri's eyes squinted open and darted to the handle of her whip and main weapon other than her Quirk. She pulled the handle in front of her face and grimaced at the strands of material that were left dangling off of it. She turned back to the man who lost his light-blue coating on his front and then took a step towards her. Get up, Midnight, she scolded herself. Midnight pushed her left hand down on the ground after grabbing at her calf. She left a bloody handprint on the pavement but stopped Diamondfist from walking closer to the hero who was actually still a danger as she stood up on that left leg and made more blood spill from her calf.

"Eat lead, Heroes!"

"Stop this madness NOW!"

"Lower your weapons!"

"Fat chance!"

BOOOOOM!

All the screaming and yelling of heroes and villains on this road quieted as the explosion one block away was too loud for them to hear each other. Some of them darted looks over and then snapped them back onto their enemies they were concerned might try to abuse their distractions. No one took advantage as a second explosion went off, Ka-BOO-CHH POW!

"AAAEEEEEEEEYAAAHHH!" A high-pitched scream of sheer terror rang out through the city in the same direction those explosions were coming from.

Diamondfist glanced to his right. Midnight looked to her left after just getting up and re-facing her enemy. Down the street and at the next intersection, red light glowed around that corner to the right from the direction they were looking. For a second, there was nothing after that piercing scream filled the air. And then- BOOOM!

"AHH!"

"FUCK!"

"We have to get out of here!"

KA-CHH… BU-DOOOOF

A larger explosion ripped through the city around that corner. The flames shot up so high they saw them over the roofs between them and that road. A few heroes backed away from villains near them instead of capitalizing on their distractions, because everyone was nervously glancing in that direction now. They were looking that way anxiously, because the road back there had been as filled with heroes and villains in the middle of clashes as this road had been. All of them had allies on that street. As they looked back into the intersection behind them, several villains were sprinting at full-speed or flying away from the right side of that corner.

Seeing villains running should have been good news for the heroes, but they watched as Gunhead walked backwards through that intersection while staring at something ahead of him in the area that more explosions started going off in. His eyes darted to his right down this street, then he just turned and sprinted away the same direction those villains had run. A few other villains in front of Gunhead who he had been fighting ran back into that intersection themselves, and two of them spun and rose up large green cannons in their arms.

"FIRE!"

"Take him down!"

"HOLLLYYYY SHIIITT!"

They fired while five AANTs flew over their heads and past the corner which made it too hard for the villains and heroes down this road to see them. Green explosions went off and made the flames change color. They fired more and more past the corner, and other villains came stumbling away from the intersection and then shooting off Quirks behind them with the most horrified looks on their faces that those on the intersecting street could imagine.

"KILL HIM!"

"Wha- It can't be!"

A car suddenly shot out past the corner of the buildings to the right. It was rolling side over side so fast it looked like it had been thrown. A villain down on one knee firing back into the direction of this craziness turned while getting up on both feet and tried to run. The car slammed into his back and his right side, making blood splash out of him as he was thrown across the intersection to a sidewalk he coughed up blood on. BOO- Ba-BOOOOM! Flames flew out into the intersection and hit a few villains who screamed and turned to run. One villain who had not reached the intersection was thrown by the force of an explosion that sent metal shards and heads of AANTs flying back around the corner.

The powerful robots of the League of Villains had been ripped into pieces and were flying back the way they came in clusters of scrap. That scrap hit around a man down on his stomach who had his fingernails dug into the pavement and was screaming out in terror, trying to drag himself away when the flames flew over the top of his body. Midnight lost sight of most of him when the flames shot out and filled the entire intersection that most villains tried to run from. She saw those hands digging into the pavement though as they were suddenly dragged back the other direction as where he was trying to crawl and out of her sight. His fingernails ripped off and bloody trails were all that remained to show where his hands had just dragged across the street.

The screaming at the end of the street had stopped. Explosions were not going off anymore. Flames filled the entire intersection that smoke rose up from. The flames tinted this road in their dark red glow that had several people stepping back nervously. Midnight had sweat dripping down the right side of her face. Diamondfist's eyes were massive though and his heart rate had never been higher. His head pulled back and he whispered just loud enough for the hero to hear, "No… No, I watched him die. I saw!" His voice cracked as he shouted that in a hoarse voice at himself to remind him that it was not true.

"He couldn't have survived that," Osucaro muttered. He cracked a nervous smile at even the thought that this might be…

In the flames at that intersection, a shadow appeared. A silhouette in the fire directly in the middle of the intersection. It was facing them, and two red eyes glowed off of that dark shadow that started moving forward.

"Oh fuCK!"

"Ahh haah, ahh AHH-"

"QUICK!" Diamondfist roared at the top of his lungs.

Sweat covered the League member's face. He spun towards Midnight though with panic and distress covering his expression. "Grab a hostage, now! Do it or you're dead!" He screamed in a voice that was panicked but calmer than any of his allies who all spun to the heroes closest to them too. Diamondfist sprinted at Midnight while screaming to try and save some of his comrades here. Interior Diamond Armor. And Diamond Coat! Diamondfist sprinted through the pink cloud that formed around Midnight.

He did not shout the names of his moves, because he was busy taking in a huge breath right before using his special moves. His throat turned to Diamond, as did his lungs and the insides of his mouth and nose. His exterior body covered in Diamond as well to protect from any possibility of Midnight's Quirk seeping through his skin. Midnight leaned back and took a step while raising her right hand. Her eyes darted to her hand as she suddenly remembered her whip was gone and she only had the handle left. The sight down the block was too stunning for her that she had forgotten that for a second, just as she had forgotten the shrapnel wound in her calf that made her wince. Her wince of pain opened her up for Diamondfist to grab her neck with both hands that touched her skin…

The heroes all over the street froze. Not one of them could move as dark wisps filled the street in the place of the villains who had been running at them and attacking. The villains were in midair and falling away from them. Their eyes were rolling back and all of them hit the ground motionless in a second that all the heroes were preparing to defend themselves. They had not even seen what happened. A flash of darkness just flew by them and made every hero blink a few times in shock as their enemies were defeated. Then they turned though, and a few of them spun the other direction and ran away after taking one look at the figure they saw near Midnight.

Midnight only blinked once before opening her eyes in utter shock that took over all feeling of pain. She stared at the space in front of her where Diamondfist just was. Her eyes lifted to the Diamond-covered arms that were still rising up in the air without being connected to a body anymore. Then she turned her head slowly to the left at the sound of the deep panting behind her. "Hahhh… ahhh, haahhh, ahh haahhh…" Dark smoke came out of the bottom of the head shape of the dark mass that stood behind Midnight. She turned her body more and stared at that tall dark creature who had Diamondfist's neck grabbed in its right hand.

Diamondfist's body was slammed into the wall at Midnight's back so hard that the wall had dented inwards around him and was cracking on all sides of the villain. Diamondfist could not even scream in pain at the loss of his arms that only just hit the floor on Midnight's other side. Villains all over the street slammed down on the ground motionless. Midnight glanced to her right and then nodded her head away at a colleague who nodded back quickly at her, needing no other motivation to get the hell out of there. Then Midnight turned her head back to the dark figure in front of her who looked to be human, but who had a body that was semi-gaseous and wisping dark tendrils up all over him.

That demonic figure in front of Midnight had a much more solid right arm though that was so condensed that the Death around it was not even absorbing into Diamondfist who was covering his upper arms in Diamond to stop his bleeding. He had lost a lot of blood in those arms of his that he could see hit the ground, even just in the top of his vision since his eyes were locked down on the glowing red ones staring up into his. "You…" Death's dark and scratchy voice spoke and sent shivers down Midnight's spine, while it made Diamondfist's mouth dry out before he could try to speak a single word at this monster. He made his throat cover in Diamond armor, only to feel the hand gripping it get so much stronger that the feeling of being choked returned in a second.

"The last time I saw you, you were stabbing Samurai in the neck in Koimou." Death's eyes glared into Diamondfist's and he pushed his head forward closer to the villain who was panting and pulled his own face away as Death's leaned closer. "You looked like you were having fun… I bet, you celebrated afterwards. I bet you celebrated when he told you, how he had killed Webb too. Didn't you?" Death wondered it at a villain whose entire body tensed up in the boy's grasp. Diamondfist's eyes bulged and the dark monstrosity in front of him became all he could see in his vision that blurred in the corners. "He told you how he killed Webb, I'm sure. I… I let you live."

Those red eyes clenched shut for a second and then snapped open and flared wildly as Death's right hand tightened its grip harder on Diamondfist's neck. Midnight's mouth was dry now too as she knew exactly what this figure was talking about, as she had been there to greet Zach Sazaki when he returned from his "vacation" the weekend that Diamondfist was captured. "I never should have told Webb anything. I should have come after you myself- I SHOULD HAVE RIPPED YOU ALL APART!" Death screamed into the face of the villain who had water forming in his eyes that were getting bloodshot as this monster gripped his throat tighter and tighter.

Midnight's left hand lifted and her mouth opened. She froze, unable to say a thing as she stared at something truly terrifying. "You… you had a chance," Death's voice was scratchy and turned somewhat confused. It was like he was baffled as he continued, "I let Webb take care of you. I… I let the police take you, that night, in Ugina." Diamondfist's eyes trembled even more as he looked back at a form that he knew was once a kid he had met and talked to when they were in the League together. A tear slipped out of his bloodshot right eye and slid down his face, to his chin, then down onto the pitch black hand of the creature that lowered its gaze to the tear and then snapped it back up in fury to the eyes of the crying villain. "You're afraid, now? You had- I gave you a chance! You- You escaped Tartaros, and you could have turned your life around. You could have gone ANYWHERE! But- but you chose the League. You chose evil."

"Tell me, Todo-kun," Death's voice became so much more menacing than it already was. His head cocked to the side and his body flared with Death that seared off of him in longer tendrils that squiggled more in the air above him. Darkness came off of his sides and pushed to the sides of the villain imbedded in the wall who pulled his head farther back in terror of the person before him who just used his first name. "Was it worth it? Do you think you made the right decision? Tell me, ARE YOU NOT HAVING FUN ANYMORE?!" Zach Sazaki screamed it at the villain who pissed himself as darkness filled all sides of him. Death's jaw unhinged as he yelled it and black tendrils spread like teeth across his upper and bottom lip that separated so far before he screamed into Diamondfist's face, "RROOOAAAAAAGGHHHH!"

"Kill… me," Diamondfist gasped out. This was too much. He could not take it anymore. He had never felt more fear than in this moment.

"Kill you?" Death's voice repeated it as a confused question back at his enemy. "You will not die so easily. Your sins are too great, Todo-kun. No… No, you will die. But you will not die once." Todo Viscucci's eyes bulged and trembled in the kind of terror beyond what they just showed. It was a new fear. A new level of fear that he did not know he could reach until he heard that last sentence that made Midnight's bladder pressure rise up behind the dark monster as well. "You think I can't do it?" Death wondered at the man. "You think I don't know the symbols? When I kill you, I will open up the portal to that world. I will DRAG you back here, just so that I can KILL YOU AGAIN! You think I don't know the words?! Anjey woash *&$# AEEkka- SHEE %#&!"

Noises came from the head of the dark creature that were like none that Diamondfist had ever heard before. Some language lost to time that had the most horrifying sound to it. The noises had no counterparts in Japanese or any language the two with Death could recognize. And Diamondfist's mouth opened wide but he had no breath to scream as Death snarled this dark magic at him. "I have died in every way," Death continued as he stopped with the gibberish that had made his enemy shit himself to add to the piss already in Diamondfist's pants. "And I know how to make it more painful for you than you can imagine. I will kill you, in every way that you can imagine and more. And when you get down to that place, I will head down there myself and find you. I don't have to die to get there! I WILL OPEN THE DOOR AND FOLLOW YOU BELOW! Trust me, Todo-kun, the creatures down there can get much harder than you. They'll have even more fun than myself! I'll fit in just fine with those demons, but you?! YOU ARE GOING TO ENDURE EVERY PAIN, AND EVERY TORTURE, FOR ETERNITY- SO TELL ME!"

"WAS IT WORTH IT?! ARE YOU STILL HAVING FUUUUUUN?!"

"L-Lifebringer," a small voice called out behind the boy whose own voice was so loud that he barely heard her.

The ringing and pounding in his own ears was so loud that for a few seconds he did not acknowledge the woman behind him. His right hand gripped tighter but his entire arm was shaking. The man whose neck he was gripping had passed out. He did not think that Death had slipped through Diamondfist's skin with how condensed he had to force himself to keep it all on his hand. The fear had just become too intense that the arm-less villain's eyes had rolled back in his head.

Zach's right hand loosened up and his fingers came off of Diamondfist's neck. The villain dropped from the wall and collapsed on his butt. Diamondfist's head bowed and his chin hit his chest, then he fell to the side motionless. Death did not feel the surge enter his body. Todo Viscucci was not dead… yet. Dark tendrils pulled off of the front of Zach's body and snaked across the gap between him and the crumpled body on the floor who he was glaring at through raging red eyes. Everything in his vision was tinted so red that it looked as if the world was dyed in blood.

"Stop, Lifebringer. You're… a hero," Midnight whispered at the back of the boy in front of her.

His wisps stopped moving in the air and on the floor where they had gotten close to Diamondfist's body. His jaw that was not even there at the moment formed so that it could grind back and forth. His head turned slightly to the left, and his red eyes glared backwards at the woman behind him who tried to hide the fear in her expression as she stared at her own student who had been in her class just yesterday. It was hard though. Never had she experienced fear quite like she had in the past minute.

"Am I?" His voice was low but less scratchy than a second ago. His gaze shifted back to the body of the villain he hated so much on the ground in front of him. He could smell his excrement that reminded him of every other villain he had defeated and left looking like this afterwards. Many times when they were missing limbs and smelling of shit like this though, they were also dead. Todo's heart was still beating. The darkness of the figure standing there on a road of Tokyo flared violently for a moment as he ground his teeth in rage while glaring at Diamondfist. "You don't believe that," his voice hissed in a deep and furious way.

Those red eyes squinted and looked down then back to the side and at the hero behind him. "I saw how you looked at me."

Midnight flinched. It's really him, she thought. A part of her had believed until that moment that this creature was actually some kind of demon and not Zach Sazaki. His voice was so dark and full of rage, but she knew where that rage was coming from. The whole world just turned on him. Everyone looked at him like… like he had really killed Nikko Enri. Midnight's eyes shook as she thought of the boy walking down the steps of Karebo. All his teachers and all his classmates, all his heroes and the people of the country he had been protecting, had stared at him like he was a murderer and a monster. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she heard it in her ears as he said that to her.

"I, can't even blame you," Death muttered. His voice lost some of the scratchiness again and his neck solidified more from the gaseous mess it looked to be for the last few seconds as his whole form rippled with black flames. "I believed it too…" His eyes closed and he started panting out heavy black breaths again, only to stop breathing entirely and just stand there in a messy black form that shook in place as his thoughts pulled together and he tried to solidify again.

Every last one of them, Zach thought to himself. His eyes clenched shut harder. His metaphysical teeth clenched as he imagined a girl only a year older than him collapsing in the underground subway tunnel. I am a monster. "If everyone already believes it," Zach growled. His voice was dark but sounded more his own even as his red eyes snapped back onto Diamondfist's body. "Then why not? Everyone knows it. I know it. Why not?" He wondered it so convincingly at himself that Midnight flinched as he sounded like he had come to a decision.

He's at the end of his rope, Midnight's breathing got heavier and she panted louder herself but stepped closer to the back of the boy that stopped raging so hard as he darted her a look telling her to stay away from him.

"That's not true," Midnight gasped at him. She shook her head and cleared her throat to find her voice so she could say it again but less raspy this time, "It's not true, Saz- it's not true, Zach." She got softer as she said his name. His red eyes glared back into hers and she pursed her lips for a second before telling him, "We- I… I did, believe it. I'm sorry." She apologized to him and shook her head with her eyes watering as this dark form stared at her then shifted its attention back to the man it was considering killing. Midnight's mouth was dry, but she continued at him in a stronger voice, "But, we only looked at you, like that… because we didn't want to believe it."

"That's why- that's why we looked so hurt. And betrayed- and we shouldn't have believed it! I know… But when you came out of there looking like you did," Midnight said in a more pained voice as she thought about that herself. Zach's eyes rose back up slowly and locked with the woman's that were so sad as she stared back at him. "Everyone, was devastated, to think that you had betrayed us." Midnight remembered how everyone around the building had looked, how their expressions had appeared when they saw him walking down those steps. "Zach… you just saved my life."

"I never thought you could have done what they said," Midnight continued with a small half-smile at the boy. Her eyes had some water in them and she tilted her head with sadness and regret covering her expression because of the way he looked now. "But you're too convincing, and, I just- I'm sorry. We shouldn't have believed it, but we looked that betrayed because we believe in you. Everyone believes in you so much, that that's the only way they could all look so betrayed, right? Because we trust you. Because we believe in you, it hurt us that much to imagine that you had done what they convinced us you had…"

His red eyes shook while staring back at her. They squinted and then darted down to the floor at her feet. His hands rose in front of his body and he stared at them. They wisped with darkness and became translucent as he gazed upon them. His hands curled into nonexistent fists that merged back into his arms of nothing, and his red eyes squinted all the way shut as his head bowed and his chin merged with his chest. Midnight's head tilted back and she squinted her own tear-filled eyes at that look on this dark form that somehow still exuded the most devastated expression she could imagine. The confusion and pain as he stared at his own hands, told Midnight, He doesn't know what he's doing anymore. Is he even… How did he survive that blast? How could anyone-

Only he could. She cracked a tiny smile at the thought, and then she kept it up as his eyes opened back up then snapped open wide at the sight of the smile on his teacher's face. "You weren't fighting to tell us that it wasn't you, so we believed it. If you had tried though, like you are trying to help still, even after we all… No one would believe that you were what the League tried to make us think you were." Midnight's smile grew more as she saw the shock in the glowing red orbs on top of this dark mass before her. She ignored all he had said and just focused on how he had saved her and the other heroes on this street instead, and she was fairly certain the villains on this road were not dead. He even restrained himself from killing Diamondfist, Midnight told herself. It was not what had appeared to happen back there, and yet somehow it was what she got from thinking back on it now.

"Why do you think you were allowed back?" Midnight wondered to him. "Why you're still here after all you did?"

The question was met by silence from the dark form in front of Midnight who was actually confused at her question. It seemed like she had an answer that he was not too sure about himself. She continued with a bright smile at him though and a tear sliding from her left eye down her face. "It's because we love you. We know that you're a hero, Zach. All of us, believe in Lifebringer." Midnight smiled at the person in front of her. She believed as she said this to him, that he was the one most likely to save them all. He didn't leave us. We needed him, and even though we treated him like a villain and- and he took that explosion all by himself… he came back, because we needed him.

The city was in flames. Villains were on every street and killing her friends and colleagues and the citizens she had sworn to protect. She was injured. They were struggling… and he came back. As much as he had given Midnight hope though, what Midnight just told him filled the dark figure with motivation that he was struggling to put together in his own mind.

His scattered thoughts were all over the place. The sight of Diamondfist, and then the sight of him going for Midnight's throat, had overwhelmed every other rational thought in his head. Zach stared at his teacher with shaking red eyes at the motivation she was giving him. His eyes shifted away from her and to either side. He looked up and in all directions of the city around him. The dark figure's expression that was hard to make out hardened nonetheless. His breathing picked up, Kaminari.

His head spun and he glared down the street. He took a step away with his fists curling tightly at his sides. He stopped after a few steps though. Zach froze where he was and took a few more deep breaths. Then he muttered in an extremely dark but grateful voice, "Thank you, Midnight…"

"…sensei."

As if a gust of wind flew down that road, Zach's dark body lost mass and blew away in a cloud of dark wisps that shot down an alleyway twenty meters past Midnight. She waited and watched all that darkness blow away and get thinner as it did. Only once it was all gone, did both of Midnight's legs start shaking and then buckle under her. She fell to her knees and winced upon hitting them. Her eyes bulged again and trembled as she darted a look next to her at Diamondfist who had passed out in fear, then back towards the alleyway that Lifebringer had just disappeared down.

She had meant every last word that she had told him. Midnight did believe that he could save them and had only felt that crushed earlier because of how much she believed in him in the first place. Her eyes slammed shut though and she gasped out over and over. She had never been one to hyperventilate, but she wished she had a paper bag to breathe into at the moment as she imagined that most terrifying moment of her life again that she had to try and convince herself was just Zach's way of being intimidating. She had waited too long to say anything though. And it was not until that last word that he said to her, did she know that Zach even recognized who she was. Even when he said 'Midnight,' it was possible in her mind that this was still just something else entirely. She knew that it had Zach's memories because of how it was referencing the way they looked at it on the steps of Karebo, but only when it called her 'sensei' did she gain full confidence that she had still been talking to her student.

He's, so intense. "Intense?" Is that what that was? Intensity? I don't… Midnight gulped and tried to calm down her own breathing. She bowed her head and shook it a few times before pushing down on the floor in front of her knees so she could get back up. The street was littered in bodies of both heroes and villains, and Zach had not revived the heroes around him when he suddenly turned and flew off for some destination he had appeared insanely determined to get to. Where is… I know where he's going- does he? If he's just getting up, he might not have seen what Raijin played for the city. He might have no idea where to find- I should have told him! I had no idea at the time…

Midnight imagined the screams that came from the boy she had just been talking to on the day that his best friend betrayed him. She saw him over Tsuyu Asui's body screaming and laughing in the most agonized voice she had ever heard until that day. As crushed as she had been to hear Raijin taunt them about shooting Aizawa in the back, she had been even more crushed as she watched that boy scream himself to the point of passing out that day. That teenager who had taunted all of them that he had electrocuted, who had slaughtered the heroes in Koimou, and who had orchestrated this battle today that had Tokyo at risk of falling, was now the target of the one person she believed was prepared to handle that. He'll find Raijin even without my help. And, he'll probably do a lot of damage on his way there. He's a hero though. I- I do believe that. I have to believe, that he'll manage to restrain himself…

I really hope I'm right.

---

"On your left!"

Jirou swung a metal rod in her right hand across the front of her body. Electricity slammed into the lightning rod that was still in her hand, but the rubber gloves she had on allowed her to hold onto it even as it was zapped. Her head turned only after she swung her arm. She listened to Mineta's warning directed her way and moved her arm before turning her head. Her eyes snapped towards the blond teen who shot back up to the first floor's edge and pressed his hand into an open electrical socket behind where a tv had fallen from the wall.

He did not show any annoyed look at failing to electrocute his ex or by the fact that Shoji and Sero just slammed down where he had been on a trajectory to land and forced him up in the air instead to the first floor. "Sure you want to do that, Creati?" Raijin wondered towards the black-haired girl who had out a new E.M.P. she created out of her chest. He had just shot electricity towards some surviving AANTs that were just deactivated on the floor, and now he was filling with electricity he seemed to be siphoning out of the wall. "Who knows? What if Principal Nezu is already in Heroally's servers? He might just be about to get control over the radio tower. After all, I can't be focusing on keeping up the jammers myself when I'm busy fighting you guys!"

Raijin leapt from the wall and grabbed onto the arm of an AANT that jumped off of the floor and had jets shooting out of its feet to bring it to its master. Raijin grabbed onto the arm swinging in front of his left hand, and he aimed his right down in the shape of a finger gun that he fired at Ashido who did a backflip then three more as she dodged away from shot after shot that he aimed after her. As she landed on her hands in one of the flips, the electricity slammed into the basement floor too close to where she put her hands. "Yah!" She yelped in pain and messed up her next flip, her eyes opening wide after squinting in pain as she realized she became an easier target.

Purple Pop Offs flew up in the air though at Raijin who re-aimed his right hand down and shot them out of the sky before they could hit him. The AANT that he was holding onto lost the speed it was moving at and dropped a few inches before its jets turned back on. Other AANTs that Raijin had reactivated from afar dropped too but stayed down unlike the one that he was touching and immediately restored power in when Creati used her portable E.M.P. anyway. She grit her teeth at the sight of the smirk that crossed Raijin's face as he continued flying across the air without looking her direction.

He's just trying to make me doubt myself. Yaoyorozu calmed down and gathered up her faith in her own ability and instincts to keep on going. Any hesitation on my part could result in the deaths of my classmates. I will not allow him to make me falter. Her breath came in calmly and then released in a sharp breath. Creati's eyes narrowed while a sack started pushing out of her chest and curved around her body to hide what else was emerging from within her.

Whatever she was Creating, Sero, Shoji, Mineta, and Ashido were going to make it hard for him to see it. They attacked with their longer ranged attacks while their melee-main comrades closer to them readied with lightning rods. The better close-ranged fighters were always prepared while Raijin was farther away to protect their friends using the lightning rods they were provided. Hagakure set off a flash between Raijin and Yaoyorozu when there was a moment that Raijin twisted himself in midair while pushing away from his AANT that Sato just leapt up at and slammed his bulked-up arms into. Ojiro stood behind her and swung both arms out to the sides. His tail wrapped around her body and he leapt away as Kaminari landed then shot in a flash of electricity towards where Hagakure was standing since the bolts of lightning he shot at her were redirected by her boyfriend.

Ojiro flipped around in midair with his girlfriend who trusted him completely to not drop her. He protected Hagakure, and Jirou slammed her hands into the ground of the basement on Raijin's right when his electrified fist swept through newly empty air that Ojiro leapt from. The solid foundation of the basement cracked and exploded upwards between Raijin and Yaoyorozu who swung both arms in front of her and flipped the sack that opened up towards him at the same time.

Sato landed back behind Kaminari and spun his head with pure white eyes to glare at his old classmate he roared at. Tape flew over Sato's shoulders, and Shoji dropped back down into the basement from the first floor he had swung himself up to using his middle two arms. Shoji had been swinging his upper two Dupli-arms at Kaminari and his AANT when they were flying through the first floor air. His bottom two arms held lightning rods as he could fight either close-ranged or long-ranged and needed no assistance from a comrade specializing in one or the other. The AANT they had been attacking was dented by Sato and deactivated by their team leader who dropped her E.M.P. to swing her Lucky Bag at the enemy theorizing what was inside it.

Most of the silver mist that had redirected his electricity upstairs from a grenade she had fired earlier had settled to the floor of the basement after the first floor collapsed. He expected some more of it to be lining the bag and prevent him from just firing lightning around it and at the girl who also had several lightning rods planted into the ground around her feet. He was surprised to see a strange orange liquid splashing out of the bag though that had been lined with hard plastic on the inside to prevent it from sloshing around and showing that it was full of mostly liquid. There was something shiny inside of the orange liquid, but Raijin did not risk touching any of it. Is it orange dye? He did not know what kind of liquid would look this color, so he assumed that she had added something in the chemical makeup of whatever substance she was trying to splash on him in order to surprise him. What liquid would I recognize without the dye then? Un-electrifiable. Self-harming. Or is it not for me? If Ashido's Acid mixes with it will it make a gas?

Raijin's thoughts sped up as electricity sparked around the boy's head. He was jumping backwards away from the sack and from the rocks blasting up from Jirou's attack. He ducked down as Iida drop-kicked through the air straight at him while he was in mid-thought. His head turned sideways as the leg coated in steel armor passed over his head. Lines of Tape passed over his stomach as his body bent backwards. His eyes focused on Sato specifically as that muscular teen in yellow sprinted straight at him with steps so hard that he was stomping footprints into the cement. The Tape was fired behind me and Iida's kick slows me from retreating from her mystery bag. Do they know what's inside or is this improv? Ojiro's landing on the edge now and has to put down Hagakure first before dropping himself. Iida will miss and needs to turn. His Recipro shouldn't be ready. Raijin's back was still bending backwards and the Tape was flying over him. His legs started sparking, as Iida proved him wrong and pulsed extra blue flames out the backs of his legs.

Ingenium's calves ignited brighter allowing the teen passing over Raijin's head to do a sudden flip and kick down. Iida's eyes widened as he watched the blurry form in all his classmates' eyes turn his head and stare straight up into his own. Raijin's bent-backwards body was in a weird position that made it harder for him to dodge. Iida was kicking straight through Sero's Tape. Pop Offs hit the ground on Raijin's left between him and Jirou who he had an angle towards even as she leapt backwards after her last attack. Raijin flashed with lightning and zapped across the floor in a burst of electricity. He had a knife in his right hand and came up between Sato's arms that had been behind him and were now directly in front of him.

The white eyes of the bulky teen with huge muscles bulged. They started darting down to the face of the electrified teen whose speed just shot to a level beyond what they had seen so far. He was smirking across his whole face. The smug expression seen by only a few of them able to track his movements sent dread through all of their bodies. Raijin slammed his knife forward-

"Sato!"

"STOP!"

Raijin's arm stopped. His knife stopped in front of Sato's neck while the larger boy's arms started swiping inwards. Raijin's eyes darted to the side and back behind him. He ducked down under Sato's arms as they crossed in front of his chest and just missed bear-hugging the teen who disappeared in flash of lightning. His disappearance stunned Iida as he used Turbo and nearly crashed into Sato who dropped his jaw as he did not even see Iida land from his drop-kick, let alone change his direction and speed up to him. Many of the Class A students in the basement and on the ledge of the huge hole that was the first floor above, had anxious expressions over their faces at the sight of Raijin appearing on Sato in a blur, and then moving in less of a blur and more just an instant teleportation up to the edge of the first floor and farther from Yaoyorozu whose eyes shook like her classmates.

Iida ground his teeth as he snapped his gaze up after Kaminari. Sato was pushed back by the shockwave of Iida stopping in front of him after zipping that way as fast as possible. Iida's classmates were even shocked by how fast he had reacted to the speed increase that showed them how lightly Kaminari had been taking them from the very start. They got more sweat on their expressions while staring up at their old classmate they did not dare to take their eyes off of after seeing how fast he could be. Yaoyorozu was not just focused on that speed he showed them though. She was the only one in there who thought about the brief instant that Iida was still landing and when Raijin popped up under Sato's arms. Why didn't he stab him? She knew it had nothing to do with her shout for him to 'stop' at the last second.

Yaoyorozu thought Kaminari was staring at her. He was smirking ear to ear while glaring back at the girl who had been leading this attack. She thought that he was taunting her with that smile about how screwed they really were now that he showed off his true speed… if that even was the fastest he could go. Chills went down her spine though for some other reason. She sweat down both sides of her face while staring up at Raijin, who despite smirking, had a bead of sweat dripping down the left side of his own. A lump formed in Momo's throat and dropped as she shifted her eyes to the left.

She did not dare look away from Kaminari. None of them could. He had been facing the same direction she was right now when he attacked Sato, but Sato's white eyes that were so huge from Iida and Kaminari's speed, were locked in her direction too. He was in the middle of turning around to look back up at Raijin when his head stopped while pointed sideways. His white eyes darted back and his body shook in place. Yaoyorozu shifted her gaze to the corners and looked behind her. In the basement behind her where there was still a ceiling of the first floor lobby above it, there was a cement stairwell in the darkness that led to street access to the building's basement.

The shadows on that staircase were deeper black than they were the last time she looked that way.

Yaoyorozu's heart skipped a beat.

She turned her body sideways. She did not fear suddenly being attacked, because she instantly put together why Kaminari had picked up his speed so much and darted away from Sato in an instant. Yaoyorozu stared back at dark tendrils that pulled through the cracks around the doors and swept down the stairs looking to move in a rapid wind. The dark winds spiraled around each other and started making a solid shape form inside that more of the Class A students turned towards each second as they realized where everyone else was looking. Their eyes shifted to the recognizable blackness that none of them imagined they would ever see again.

"No way…" Mineta breathed out.

Jirou's eyes filled with water as she stared towards the bottom of those stairs. Ashido curled her tingly hands into fists that shook as her bloodshot dark eyes poured tears down her face for a few seconds. She gulped though, just as a few others in that basement did while staring towards the red eyes that flared to life on the dark form that spun into existence at the bottom of the stairs. He was a shadow in the darkness that made the entire side of the basement he was in dip ten notches darker. The air itself all around them felt darker as shade was cast over the area.

"I, am so glad," Raijin started. He brought his right hand up to his forehead and his smile grew even more. A genuine look of happiness and excitement covered his face. "You really survived it. I- I wanted to believe it, but I… I guess, I should have had more faith in you." Kaminari Denki chuckled to himself while looking down into red eyes that glared straight back towards him. The dark figure forming in the basement stepped forward, then took another step, then stepped up just to Yaoyorozu's left side and then past her. "How are you feeling, Zach? Did you see the city on your way here?!"

The smirk madly grew wider on Kaminari's face. Electricity filled the entire half of the first floor her was on and made Hagakure stumble away and then spin towards Raijin with her eyes huge as he suddenly pulsed with light and shot lightning bolts off of himself in all directions. Light fixtures that had been cut off exploded and sparks shot from every outlet that surged with electricity for a second as that source of power erupted on the first floor of Heroally. "Not going to talk?!" Raijin called down at his enemy who his old classmates were darting their gazes to and then back at him again. "Don't worry about that electricity hitting anyone upstairs. I already killed every worker in this building!" Still no response. "COME ON!" Raijin yelled even louder. "I know you've been looking forward to this! You can't tell me you haven't-"

"You, left Toga, to die." Zach's voice came out low. His deep voice scratched over his regular one but was still clearly his own. His mouth looked to move but he was a form of pitch blackness and his head did not appear to have a solid enough form to be able to tell completely. There was movement on the bottom of his head though below those flaring red eyes looking so full of rage. Raijin's eyes widened and his eyebrows rose up high at the first thing that Zach had to tell him. All of Zach's classmates were staring at him still in shock but even more so at that statement which none of them had even thought about or cared about. Mineta and Yaoyorozu both flinched though at the tone that they understood and were baffled by nonetheless, just less so than the rest of their friends.

"Does that upset you?" Raijin wondered back. The right corner of his lips pulled up again after his lips lowered in a slight moment of confusion there. Zach's eyes continued to glare back into his with a glower on that dark face that made Raijin sigh and then tilt his head back. "It's not really a betrayal. She never trusted me, though, I suppose everyone else did know about it. You should be thanking me really!" Raijin called out with his tone shifting in a more interested way. "Because you stopped the bomb that was supposed to kill her, maybe she'll join your side now. I'm sure she wants to know if Shigaraki had-"

"She's dead." Zach cut off the villain whose mouth froze open and then slowly closed. All of Zach's classmates who could not call out to him froze as well. They stared towards their classmate who looked terrifying and sounded even worse. A few of them flinched at what Zach just said. Others got even more sweat on their faces as Zach growled lower, "And you're next-"

"Did you kill her?!" Raijin called out. Zach's voice cut off as Raijin interrupted him. The blond villain's lips rose into a mad smile and he laughed out loud. "HA! You really-"

"She killed herself," Zach responded. His voice came out darker and his red eyes flared in rage, but Raijin's smile just rose up higher and he pulled his head back in shock but amazement at the same time.

"But you made her do it, right?!" Raijin yelled back down. Zach fell quiet again. Raijin's teeth all showed as his lips pulled farther apart from each other. "I know you, Zach! Haha, you really- HA! You really fucking did that? You're insane!"

Zach's red eyes squinted and his fists curled down at his dark sides.

A dark mass rose up behind Himiko Toga in a subway tunnel below Tokyo. She stared into the red eyes that flared to life and stared back into hers. "Reaper…"

An arm disconnected from the side of the bulging mass that rose out of the tracks. And the right arm that lifted, swung forward. Its fist opened up and released a knife that lost the black aura around it as it flipped around towards the girl who rose her own left hand and caught it. Toga looked at the blade with a golden hilt that she caught, then she rose her gaze back up at that dark form staring her down…

"Do you even know why?!" Raijin yelled at the dark figure in the basement whose whole body looked to flinch at the question. He smirked more and chuckled in glee before calling down, "Did you really care about her that much? Or could you just not kill her yourself, because you're a 'hero?' Was that it?!" His shouts confused some of Zach's classmates who could not put together the taunts' meaning.

Ojiro had sweat all over his body as he imagined the things Hagakure had told him Zach did to Mysti, things he had tried to forgive Zach for but that he still remembered were some of the darkest things he had ever heard. His expression covered in confusion though as his panicked thoughts about the dark figure in front of them were shaken by Raijin's taunts for why Zach did the things that terrified him. Zach himself stood firm but Yaoyorozu noticed it on his side. She saw the trembling of those dark arms at his sides.

"…" The dark figure's red eyes glared back into Toga's. Her head shifted slightly and she looked away again desperately towards Shibuya. Toga's eyes darted back to the dark creature that did not flinch. It did not change shape nor move in the slightest to acknowledge her yearning. Her desire to go after Shigaraki and find out the truth was ignored. Toga's look of madness started to shift. Her head tilted back and she looked back down at the knife he had tossed her.

"No," Zach growled. His voice came out darkly but steady as well as he glared up into Kaminari's eyes. "All Toga ever cared about, was freedom." The dark shadow's voice was cold. His eyes did not shift away from the enemy he had come to fight. Rage still filled him though as he thought of the look of despair and betrayal on the girl's face down in the tunnel. The red lights on those walls mixed with his own tinted vision had bathed her in red in his eyes. "She, had a choice-"

"'A choice?!'" Raijin called back like that was a joke. "What? To either die at your hands or… No- you, you really…" Raijin's look of realization confused everyone else there who was listening to Zach in horror at what it sounded like he had done. Raijin's smile even lowered a little as he stared down at the darkness and into Zach's eyes that despite being purely red were still full of raw emotion.

"For Toga, prison would have been worse than death," Zach growled. His fists shook at his sides harder and turned into just masses of Death as he squeezed them too tightly. His body raged for a second like pitch black flames of Death ripped out all around him except on the right side of his back which was too close to Yaoyorozu who only just realized that Zach had gotten somewhat between her and Raijin. His voice continued though and Yaoyorozu felt her heart tear as she heard the strain in that dark scratchy tone, "Someone like her… she needed to have a choice. I gave it to her."

"She could run away, or try to fight you… and go to prison either way," Raijin said. His voice was steadier itself and his smile was small while his soft eyes stared back into his friend's. "Same as if she surrendered. You- did you tell her… no, no you couldn't do that. If choosing to fight you meant that you were going to put her in prison, if it meant you were not willing to kill her yourself, then you couldn't explain to her this insane plan of yours either. Were you trying not to break the law? Were you, pretending- what were you doing?" Raijin was trying to put it together. He felt like he understood the mind of his old friend better than anyone, and yet he still found himself baffled as he looked down into Zach's red eyes now. "How can you be so mad at me for betraying her, when you just forced her to kill herself? Ha- you're crazy-"

"I didn't force-" Zach started.

"You just told me you knew!" Raijin yelled back. Zach's voice cut off and his teeth clenched as they formed on a jaw that became visible through the black veil on the bottom half of his face. "You knew her well. You knew her well enough to know that she would never choose prison. And she knew that you could beat her. You beat her YEARS ago! And you've gotten so much stronger that she knew, she had no chance of beating you in a fight. The choice you gave her was to either die there by her own hand, or to get knocked unconscious by you and thrown in prison afterwards! She'd wake up in a straight-jacket and never be able to end her life on her own terms that way. So you gave her the choice. A choice that you knew how she would respond to."

"That makes it not a choice at all," Raijin continued down towards his enemy. His smirk turned more malicious as he taunted the unmoving form of darkness that he could still sense the rage radiating off of. "You… really are a…" He trailed off but smirked at his enemy in a way suggesting Zach knew how he would finish that sentence. Zach's dark form twitched and trembled as his red eyes grew larger and flared wildly at that comment. "Making choices for people and making them believe it was their own decision- it may have been kind to her in some way, some twisted way that you were able to manufacture! But you knew how she would respond, which means you made the choice for her! It's an illusion of free will, isn't it?! When your machinations extend as far as ours do?! How'd you make her do it?"

"Tell me, Zach! How did you make her kill herself-"

"Enough." Zach's body burned darker. His voice came out cold and menacing. And then he snarled in a deeper voice, "I gave her my own knife to cut her throat with." Ojiro flinched and his eyes shook nervously as he stared back at Zach. Sero gulped. His amazement and joy at seeing his best friend back to life actually got tainted at that comment that made his fists clench in anger, only to loosen up at the sound of Zach's tone when he continued. "That was the mercy I could show her. I could not let her leave. Nor could I kill her… But I would not leave her to imprisonment."

"Kaminari, I will show you a similar mercy. I will not kill anyone else today…"

"But I am going to kill you." His voice was determined. There was not an ounce of hesitation in it. Zach's red eyes bored into the villain's that grew in size as the Death around Zach's body rippled violently in the moment he said that. The smile grew over Raijin's face too though, even as Zach growled at him, "That is all I can do to save you."

Lightning shot out behind Raijin and curved around the room. The bolt hit a panel in the wall behind Hagakure to her right that no one else had seen. Explosives in the walls blew up and ripped the wall apart towards her back. A mass of Death shooting up to the first floor faster than anyone could track, shifted directions and moved behind Hagakure in a way she was familiar with. It wrapped around her like the hand that had curled behind her back in the only other moment recently that she had been this afraid around Zach. When he had fought Mysti though, she could not recognize him in the least. As she listened to the strained voice of pain that Zach had as he tried to explain his actions despite sounding insane as he did it, she still heard her friend.

The wall of darkness blocked the explosion completely. Hagakure stumbled forward from the force of it though and spun around to stare at that wall of Death that stretched the entire lobby. It had shot up on both sides of her and made everything in her vision flash black for a moment. As she spun in shock like that and stepped backwards, she slipped off the edge of the first floor and fell backwards. A pitch black arm extended away from the floor and opened up a huge hand that caught the invisible girl in it, then slowly lowered her to the ground. It was so condensed that Hagakure did not feel herself get any weaker even as her classmates looked towards her in a panic as she had never been revived and that should have done damage to her.

Zach's speed to put up that wall and block the whole explosion, and his ability to catch Hagakure with Death without knocking her out, did not surprise his classmates too much. They were confused and amazed by the power, but they had watched him surround a bomb meant to take out a district of Tokyo and kill all of them, and yet he was still standing here right in front of them. As all his Death moved like that though in the instant that Kaminari had attacked, his right foot stepped forward and then wobbled and buckled. His knee did not touch the ground though. His head bowed and he panted darkness out of the bottom of his Death face. His body waved around as if a cloud of gas barely staying in the shape of a human being.

Those teeth that had formed in the darkness had disappeared again while he was clenching them. His jaw broke apart into itself and the bottom half of his head just misted around and then pulled back together in less of a solid shape. Kaminari never saw any of this. The villain set off the explosion and forced away Zach's Death that he knew was coming for him in that very second. He shot away in a flash of yellow and disappeared out of the building through a shattered first floor window.

Raijin sprinted with a veil of electricity sparking around him. His eyes pulled to the corners and he glanced back, but he did not slow down despite not seeing anything chasing him just yet. I need to get the closest Anti-Death gear. His eyes scanned around and he checked the layout of the streets he was sprinting by. Terrenio Street's the closest. His left foot planted down hard and he zapped to his right, bouncing up to the wall of a building away from a fight on the street level he would rather avoid because of the sight of someone down there who could possibly slow him for even a second. His feet attached to the wall he sprinted along by changing the charges in the air and creating a magnetic field around himself. His feet became magnetized to the building he sprinted along without slowing to drop on the other side of a wall of green slime and the rising flames from dozens of flipped-over cars, some of which were exploding behind him as he ran past people who just darted looks away for a second at the sight of that vanishing lightning bolt.

The smirk on the face of the villain inside that bolt was locked in a state of perpetual glee. His heart was racing and his excitement surged as he had time with no current chase going on behind him. This is going to be more fun than I thought! He chuckled in a high-pitched voice because of how fast he was moving. Zach's alive! He's really, alive. I've never been more excited. I remember every moment of my life and know, I have never been more exhilarated!

Zach straightened his right leg back out that had almost dropped to its knee for a moment there. His human body deformed and then reformed stepping out of the dark cloud above on the first floor. A humanoid body emerged from the black mass that had protected Hagakure. Red eyes flared to life on that one the same time they were fading away from the former humanoid body that just turned into a black swirl of gas that sucked into a different section in Heroally then pulled towards Zach's wisping back.

He marched towards the window that Kaminari just fled out of. His breathing was heavy and his exhales made puffs of blackness come off the face that he just recreated. Pitch black tendrils seeped off all over his body and from the dark trails the slid across the floor and up the walls from the basement to reconnect with him. His left arm was deteriorating into black smoke but solidified much thicker in an instant, only for the right side of his neck to break apart and swirl up around his right cheek that was more defined than his left.

"Zach stop!" Yaoyorozu yelled, flying up with a jetpack from the hole in the first floor and landing in the lobby close to the elevators. The Death snaked around her and thinned out as Zach sucked more of it into his body. Ashido winced as she gripped onto some rubble and climbed up it, then she leapt over to Zach's back right instead of straight to his left where Yaoyorozu was. "Just, hold on for a second…" Yaoyorozu trailed off as Zach stood still. His body stopped moving. His eyes stayed pointed out that broken window and into a city outside full of large plumes of black smoke. Explosions and screaming rang out from all directions.

One especially loud blast made the students' heads all snap towards the recently-exploded wall that luckily did not seem to destabilize the structural stability of the building. "I can't," Zach growled. His voice was deep and scratchy. He sounded like himself but as he always did when Death was on his vocal cords. Yet those vocal cords got even scratchier then seemed to disappear as his voice disappeared more inside the deep tone, "I need to get him. I can't, let him kill, anymore." Zach's red eyes squinted while shifting back to the window and out it. He took a step and then winced and froze at the sound of the pink girl's voice behind him on his right.

"I'm sorry!" Ashido yelled. Her eyes were full of tears but she shouted it loudly at his back in her strongest voice. "Please, Zach. I'm sorry," she repeated softer after begging him for a second. He froze in place and she took another step closer to him while his darkness all pulled into his body now. He was ready to go. His head bowed though and his dark body twitched as she gasped at him, "I didn't- I shouldn't have thought, that you could have… You're so smart, and you always know what- what I'm thinking so, so I know, that you knew!"

Ashido grabbed over her chest with her left hand. Her hand was trembling and her face full of fear and overwhelming guilt and regret as he would not turn to look at her. "I know you knew I thought you did… if even for a second."

Yaoyorozu darted her gaze towards her friend for a second then back to Zach. As she looked Mina's way though, she saw the regret that covered the expressions of all her classmates trying to make their ways across the destroyed lobby and basement to get closer to Zach. They winced hearing Ashido's apology, and a few had to look away only to turn back with even more guilt as they realized that Ashido was right and Zach would have been able to tell what they were all thinking even if they did not come out and admit it now to him themselves. They looked at the black form that Ashido believed had been able to tell what they were all thinking to the point that she was apologizing for her own thoughts and how she had doubted him.

"It's not…" Zach started.

He tried to recreate teeth to clench them again, but the darkness on the bottom of his head just pulled closer together instead in a way that made him shake even more. His red eyes glared through the window and into the distance that Kaminari just fled to but where he was certain he would be able to find him. Zach tensed up though as his eyes darted back to his right and into the eyes of the girl behind him who looked to be filled with relief and yet searching for forgiveness from him. He lowered his gaze for a moment and started, "Don't-"

"I'm sorry too," Mineta called out. Whatever had happened since the explosion did not matter. Whatever Zach did to Toga was beyond his understanding right now. He had so much he had wanted to say but never thought he would be able to when that bomb went off. He smiled though and added instead of apologizing for what he thought Zach would have already seen on his face, "I should have believed that you would survive that bomb. Ha- there's no way you couldn't survive something like that!"

"That's…" Zach's voice was quiet and another friend called out over him before he could continue. Yaoyorozu gave him an uncertain look from his left side that she was walking closer to though. His red eyes shifted towards her and she tensed up even more at the saddened look inside them as he stopped himself from saying something that would hurt too much to say.

"I was- he almost, had me," Sato spoke through his Sugar Rush. He ground his teeth but then lifted his fat lips into a bigger smile while tears filled his mostly empty eyes. "You survived, and you saved-"

"Stop," Zach muttered. His voice came out deep and scratchy, but they could hear the pain through it anyway. "I'm not…" He stopped himself. His eyes looked down from Yaoyorozu's then back out the window in a determined way. He tried not to look at his friends behind him as he spoke in a low voice, "I, haven't pulled myself together, since the blast." Zach stopped for a moment then whispered softer to his confused friends behind him whose eyes were all growing wider and losing the relief in them as he continued, "My heart hasn't beat once since… And I, don't think I can put it, back. I-"

He stopped for a moment as he could picture their expressions even without looking at them. He could partially see Mina in the right corner of his vision and it made his mind fill with agony even if his heart could not race to see her looking at him like that. The relief that had filled her and made her so happy, was fading. Hope that had been eradicated was restored, but Zach did not want that hope to fester any longer when he didn't believe it himself. His dark head shook but he kept his gaze locked through the shattered window and started glaring much harder through it too. "I'm not even alive anymore," Zach growled. His red eyes flared while glaring out after his enemy he needed to start chasing. His tone turned into a deeper snarl, his body raging with dark tendrils that vibrated more rapidly as his voice filled with rage, "But I won't let it end that easily. I won't go down without him- Not until I've killed him. I cannot die, until Kaminari is dead!"

Zach's arms bulged and rippled violently with black wisps. "I'm sorry. I just, don't want you to think I survived," Zach said with his head bowing partially and his red eyes glancing once more towards Ashido. He looked at her in her eyes, one final time. Those eyes dropped tears that spilled down her face that tilted back in despair to see the apology and acceptance in Zach's dark red eyes. "This is it-"

"No." Zach froze and he turned the other way. He glanced towards Yaoyorozu whose voice he heard come from much closer than when he just had her in his peripheral vision too. Turning to Ashido had put her out of sight for a moment, and now she was only standing seven feet away from him. She frowned at the dark mass that looked back her way and into her light gray eyes in a soft way that was as apologetic as it was towards Ashido. "You aren't dead, Zach," Yaoyorozu told him.

"I…"

"You haven't tried to put your vital organs back together yet," Yaoyorozu scolded him. Her tone was frustrated but she took another step towards him and gave him a desperate look that was not just pleading for him to still be alive. She was pleading with him to listen to her, and he hesitated while looking at the smartest girl he knew staring at him like that. "Zach, you can't go out there fighting like you're already dead. You told me! That's what you did, when you were Death. You fought like you were going to die. You fought like you were already dead, and you did- you did things, that you CAN'T do as a hero!" Yaoyorozu yelled at him. She looked straight in his eyes with her own shaking and with water on her bottom eyelids. She did not let those tears fall though as she kept a stern expression bordering on angry, though she was more pleading him to listen to her than anything.

Zach paused. He stared right back at her with his red eyes shaking for a few seconds. They shifted back to the window on the right though and in front of where his body was still facing. "I, can't risk…"

"Momo's right!" Ashido ran up to Zach's right side closer to the boy who pulled his bulging and wisping right arm away from her. Ashido got more in front of Zach though and between him and the window. She stepped on broken glass and ignored it below her feet as she stared into Zach's eyes from in front of him. "You aren't dead! You don't know that, so- so-" Ashido's lips trembled and her head tilted back even more with her tears filling her eyes but not falling anymore. "So please don't talk like that. I- I don't want you, to die. Please, please try."

"Try, Zach," Yaoyorozu repeated on his left side that she took another step closer to. She got more in front of him as well, and Zach heard footsteps behind him and saw his other friends coming closer to his back. "You have to."

"I- if I do, and I-" Zach's voice got shakier. In that moment, they heard in his voice not the tone of him being determined to chase down Kaminari and defeat him. His own dark head tilted back as Momo got closer in front of him. In his head flashed a future where he tried to turn his body back solid inside a black veil instead of just being a condensed form of all Death. He watched as he failed, and whatever remained of himself fell to the floor in a pile of remains between his classmates. His head shook back and forth, "I can't. No one else can stop him. He, he was toying with… No matter what, I have to-"

"No! Not, 'no matter what,' Zach," Yaoyorozu retorted. She shook her head back and forth in front of him. "You came back here to be a hero. Everyone, sees you as a hero. I…" She paused and pursed her lips for a second. She thought of moving aside the top two pages and looking at that last page he had left for her in her envelope. "I know, Zach. That you always will be, my hero too." Yaoyorozu said it to the boy who knew in the way that she was looking at him that she had finally read his letter. He flinched but his head bowed as he heard her tell him that. "So you can't go out there and fight like Death again. I won't let you," Yaoyorozu continued softer to him.

"I don't want you to," she added quieter. He flinched and his head rose back up. He pulled it back in fear and regret, imagining the worst case scenario here if he attempted and failed at what they wanted him to do. "Come back to us, Zach. It's not always the worst-case scenario. You don't know that you're dead but you want to fight as if you are, like this is all that matters. Like once you defeat him, you can just let yourself fade away and that would be fine, but it wouldn't be. Not to us. And it shouldn't be to you, either. It might be the, the most important thing. But it isn't the only thing that matters, right?"

She lifted the corners of her lips a little and let a tear fall from her left eye. It slid down her face and broke Zach's willingness to slip between them in a dark stream and vanish out into the streets. Yaoyorozu glanced to her left for a moment and Zach snapped his gaze away from her face and to the pink hand that was reaching out on his right side. Ashido's left hand reached forward, and Zach twitched and pulled his right arm back that she was reaching for. Ashido stepped closer to him though and pursed her own lips. As much as she tried to believe Momo, a piece of her believed in the worst case scenario that Yaoyorozu was talking about too. She was terrified, but she reached for him anyway. For all their sakes and for his own.

"I won't let you hurt yourself, by fighting like that," Ashido whispered while looking up from their hands and into his eyes. His red eyes darted up from her pink hand into her eyes that so sadly looked into his but also desperate for him to accept what she was doing. She shook her head at her friend who she had heard worse stories from than anyone in her life. She had heard him tell her things, and she had seen him do things, that she knew the kind person in front of her was haunted by every moment of his life.

"You aren't dead. What you do, will have consequences you have to face yourself," Sero told his friend he stood behind. "I know- or, I don't know why, but you have to kill Kaminari. I don't… But you'll be doing that in a populated city full of people watching you. You need to fight as if you're going to face the consequences of that. And I know you will, if you know that you will."

Ojiro looked to his left and over to Sero whose words he was somewhat confused by and yet understood at the same time. "Please, Zach," Ojiro whispered towards the side of his friend's head.

"It's going to be okay," Ashido said. She flashed him a smile, as she reached forward more towards his right arm that stopped pulling back when she told him she would not let him hurt himself by fighting in this way. Her left hand reached for his right arm between his wrist and his elbow, or at least where she imagined they would be inside of the pitch black veil that showed no sign of any skin or flesh below it. Ashido did not know if she was lying, but she added while looking down at his arm, "I promise." She did not know if the promise was for herself or for him, but she curled her hand over his arm that flinched once more but did not pull any farther back.

Zach's red eyes darted down to her fingers that she touched him with. She did not care that he was covered in a thick coating of Death, she just curled her fingers onto his arm anyway. Death pulled down and up his arm in either direction of her fingers as they curled. He winced. Her fingers touched his skin, and Zach's red eyes closed as he felt his flesh touched directly. The Death that slid up and down away, continued to slide farther while his eyes were closed. He was breathing heavily but he continued the action of retreating his Quirk and did not open his eyes as he did it.

Had his eyes been open, he would have seen the wincing of the girls in front of him instead of just feeling it in how Ashido's left hand shook on his skin and nearly let go. Ashido's eyes were staring down on either side of her fingers that she was relieved had stopped on skin and had not just passed straight through dark wisps. She held back from gagging and just lifted her eyes from the red and blistered skin going up his already-scarred arm to his shoulder. Dark webs retreated from his shoulder to his chest that was so burnt-up and covered in bubbles and blisters that it was hard to look at for either of the girls standing in front of him. The burns went up his neck and to his face which was reddened like all areas of his body.

Despite having turned into Death, his entire body had been burned. Every cell that had transformed into his Quirk had still been burnt while he was nothing but Death. The explosion that he had held back with his own body had torn up whatever part of his own body had existed inside that giant cloud of Death over Karebo. His black hair was singed and his eyelids burnt. He was panting as the Death pulled back from his cheeks and into his lips, then back down his throat and off of vocal cords he re-established for real this time. Zach's left hand that had no fake skin on it pulled back to his dark chest that was getting lighter. He gripped over his skin that was naked and bare, some shreds of green and blue fabric falling from the darkness as it retreated completely. Remains of a golden belt fell from inside the darkness that partially remained around his waist after it had pulled up his legs and down his torso to below his stomach.

A tight black veil of darkness covered Zach from his mid-thighs to his waist. It did not flare but it covered him up as he had no clothes on anymore. He wore no shoes. His costume had been annihilated, and they doubted much of it remained if any below his waist if he was leaving the Death there for now. Koda winced for a different reason as he wondered to himself if Zach was just too afraid to remove the darkness from there, just in case that part of his body had received the same kind of damage the rest had or even worse as some areas on his skin looked to be more blistered than others. He had third-degree burns on parts of his lower back, and on his right calf, and the right side of his neck…

The red glow coming out of the crack of his clenched-shut eyes dimmed. His left steel hand curled tighter into burnt skin on his chest, and Zach gasped out in a breath of agonized relief as he felt his heart beat when he put it back together inside his chest. The Death that filled his insides faded away to restore the rest of his vital organs. His burned eyelids opened back up, and the red in his irises swirled with the hazel that took back over and then solidified as the only color remaining.

Yaoyorozu finally let out a breath of relief. It was the greatest relief she had ever felt to see those hazel eyes open and then lock with her own. I needed to tell you that, and I didn't think about it when you died because I knew how we needed to stay focused. I felt so much regret for not reading the letter sooner, for not telling you that sooner! You are my hero, Zach. "See?" Yaoyorozu wondered, her voice cracking for a moment. She spoke clearer though as she added to the boy who glanced down at his steel hand and his right palm that was covered in burns but still there. "You're alive," Yaoyorozu told him, speaking as if it had been obvious before anyway but that now he could see it clearly too.

Ashido let go of his right arm as her hand was too close to that bare right hand which still held all of Death inside it and was extremely dangerous. She took a step back from him. Her breathing picked up speed and got more ragged as she looked at Zach Sazaki's face instead of the face of a mass of dark nothing that she had been looking at before. Ashido started breathing heavier like that, because it did not matter whether he appeared as a human or whatever that dark nothingness had been. His intensity had not gone down. The understanding that he was truly alive, if nothing else, seemed to make his expression more intense as his eyes glared back between the girls in front of him and out into Tokyo again.

His back was still broad. His muscles still defined through burnt skin and flesh. His face was mushy around his cheeks and his skin discolored worse than usual all over his body. All of his classmates felt like they would tell anyone else looking to be in this condition that they needed to stop and get medical attention. Zach was not anyone else. He's had worse, Sero thought. He hesitated and had to wet his lips that were dry as he stared at his friend who was more imposing than anyone he had ever looked at before, while he was still only able to see part of his friend's expression. Has, he? Sero wondered to himself after as he looked at the mess which was Zach's body.

"We shouldn't have believed that you would kill the First lady," Shoji said behind Zach on his left. Zach's head did not turn to the side this time. His breathing was calming down and his fists curling as he lowered them back at his sides. "But you have to prove everyone wrong for, for believing it-"

"If you're telling me to spare him, I can't," Zach responded. His voice was firm and his tone sounding like the decision had already been made. "Whether anyone accepts my reasoning or not, is a consequence that I will face though. I will survive."

"I wasn't tell you not to do, whatever you think you need to," Shoji continued. He paused then added, "But do it as Lifebringer."

"That's who you are," Jirou added on herself.

"Save Tokyo, Zach. He really was, just messing…" Ojiro did not want to admit it. Zach was right though when he had started to say that Raijin was toying with them, only to stop himself as if to try and not hurt their feelings. That speed he showed off was so far beyond anything he ever showed in the Enudora Forest last time they fought. It, was faster than when he fought Fantasma too. Has he just been waiting, for Zach?

"You have to survive," Iida said. He stepped closer to Zach's back then ordered in a stern voice, "That is non-negotiable. As your class rep- …Please, stay safe."

"I know I told you, not to kill Mysti," Hagakure started in a whisper. "But if you really think that killing Kaminari is… saving him," she paused for a moment and glanced over towards Jirou who frowned deeper and then looked away instead of countering Toru aloud. Hagakure looked down herself while thinking of how Raijin had tried to frame her. Yet then she thought of how Zach had just been talking to Raijin about Toga, and about Kaminari himself, and she just finished, "Then do whatever you think is right." You always think so far ahead of everyone else. I- I don't want to believe that you're right about this too, but if you are… Hagakure's eyes filled with water just imagining how Zach thought of their enemy.

"I know you can do it," Koda spoke up in his high-pitched voice. He smiled towards Zach and nodded in certainty towards his classmate he really did believe in.

"Go," Sato growled. "And win."

"Do it, Zach," Mineta told him.

"It's up to you," Sero said.

"We know you can do it," Ashido said while stepping farther out of Zach's way herself. "We'll do whatever we can to stop the rest of them. You stop Raijin."

Yaoyorozu had her lips pursed. When she had come to Heroally thinking that Zach was already dead, she had apologized to him in her mind because she knew that she could not do what he had told her he always would. She had decided that they were going to capture him like they would any other villain. Yet she moved back to Zach's left and got out of his way herself, "I don't fully understand, still, why you have to kill him." She paused. Her voice got softer and her eyes sadder for him as she stepped away to give him room, "But, I'm just sorry." This time tears fell from both of her eyes. The smiles of the few classmates around Zach who were encouraging him to go for it lowered down as they heard Yaoyorozu's voice and saw the look in her teary eyes. "I'm so sorry, Zach."

He surrounded in an aura of Death that was much more in control than before. His body covered in Death, and then he shot out the window so fast that wind pulled into all his friends as he flew away. Black wings ripped from his back and flapped down, and his body broke apart into several pieces that swirled into black pillars and flew off in different directions.

Yaoyorozu stared after him for a few seconds just as the rest of her classmates did as they jogged up to the windows themselves to get a better look outside. Raijin had gotten far away from there though, and Zach was out of sight before long. Sero looked to his side at the girl on his left who he was right next to now having walked through the space Zach had left and up to the window Yaoyorozu turned back to herself. He looked at the tall girl who rubbed her eyes quickly once she was sure she could no longer see Zach. "Alright," Creati started.

Her voice was intense as she turned to her classmates who were still paused and staring out after Zach. They looked back her way as her tone implied she was back in the zone and so far from that emotional conversation they just had. "This city is under attack, and Raijin was not the only enemy we had here."

"Listen, our classmates who did not come here themselves were diverted by other enemies," Yaoyorozu continued. "And if they never made it, they may be having trouble winning those fights. Other heroes around the city may be facing enemies too strong of their own that we also need to assist with. We need to separate and help everyone we can. Koda and Jirou," Yaoyorozu went on while looking back to her right specifically at the two of them who were standing close to each other. "I need you to go upstairs and to the radio tower on the roof if need be. Restoring communications among heroes across the city is vital-"

"DUCK!" Iida slammed his hand down on Yaoyorozu's back and pushed her to the floor.

His body twisted in midair. Blue light pulsed out the backs of his legs. His calves ignited and he sped at full speed at the blue-haired enemy who fired twice through an empty space, then shot again while turning his arm and aiming his pistol at Iida's right wrist that yanked away just too slowly and was grazed by one of Sonic's bullets. Iida's legs spun through the gap between them as Sonic was aiming towards Iida's head to put one between Ingenium's eyes. Sonic leaned his body backwards then jumped off the ground and back outside of Heroally's lobby that he had just sprinted into and attempted to kill Creati who he had been eavesdropping on.

The wind of Iida's kicks swooshed past Sonic and spun his right arm away from his body and made it harder to make follow-up shots. "Ch," Sonic tssked as he missed his chance. Too fast to fight while he's around the others.

Sonic sprinted backwards then spun and fired off another two shots at the hero who landed and sprinted straight after him. "Listen to Creati!" Iida yelled out as several of his classmates just yelled out his name in shock after seeing a blur of something happening in front of them.

"Was that Sonic?!" Ashido exclaimed as she recognized the Tartaros escapee who they had had lessons on in class before. They had all seen him in action back in Koimou too, but the close call of the assassination attempt on Yaoyorozu was insanely close to working and would have had Iida not been there.

"Doesn't matter!" Yaoyorozu yelled. Her face was pointed towards the floor and had sweat all over it. Her heart rate had skyrocketed and she was panicking internally as she thought about how close to death she had just been. Her elbows bent though and she pushed off the floor hard to get back to her feet. She lifted her head towards Jirou and Koda who had run closer to her, and she yelled at her best friend who was closest, "Go! Upstairs, now! Do whatever you can to get the tower under your control. Koda, send birds to the roof first and have them report to you by the time you get up to Heroally's server room. There should be directory signs on each floor showing you the way. Have insects go into the machinery itself if he's messed with it. Jirou, you go with him. Both of you be careful of any booby traps he may have set up. Now GO!"

The two stopped hesitating at the order from their classmate giving instructions to them. She just wanted them to go though, and she was giving every bit of help she could, but she believed in their ability to figure it out and make these plans on their own too. Yaoyorozu turned away from them as they ran for the stairs near the open elevator doors. "Earphone Jack!" Yaoyorozu called out. Her best friend glanced over her shoulder then rose up her right hand. "Only use it if you have to," Creati told her friend who looked at the E.M.P. device anxiously but nodded her head in understanding.

"Where should we go?" Sero wondered to the vice-class-representative who he trusted would have good plans for each of them.

Yaoyorozu shook her head though. "I don't know the situation outside. None of us do. That's why we need to split up. Here," she turned her body and popped red guns out of her chest between the red straps of her hero costume. Her friends caught the flare guns she popped out at them, as she continued, "We'll all be in tough fights out there. Only use it in the case of the worst-possible scenario. If anyone else can spare going to each other's aid, we'll do it, but don't think that by firing out the flare from this gun that you'll for sure have one of us available."

"Understood," Sero replied to her, sliding the flare pistol down into the hard orange waistband between the white and black of his updated hero costume.

"Good luck, friends," Shoji said. His classmates turned to see him taking two steps backwards. Shoji turned his body and jumped. He spread his arms and the webbed connections between his dupli-arms allowed him to glide across the hole in the first floor of Heroally. He soared towards the front doors to head out that way, while most of the others ran out the broken windows on the same side of the building that Iida had chased Sonic back through.

"I'll go this way," Sero shot Tape from his elbows and flew back across the building to the opposite side as the windows they were all heading out together. Ashido looked back over her shoulder and towards her ex-boyfriend who gave one small nod back towards her. The two had only dated for a short time two years ago, but she still thought of him as one of her closest friends and as he also thought of her. He gave her a confident smile before looking away and at the broken window between two cracked ones that he could jump through to get outside. He fired Tape upwards after leaving that window, and he shot out of sight of the pink girl who held back from gulping and just tried to believe in his ability herself.

"Sonic targeted you for a reason, Yaoyorozu," Ojiro said to the black-haired girl who glanced back at him when he and Hagakure were about to run off straight away from the building down a road that Yaoyorozu did not look about to run down herself. She was looking to her right and down this street where she no longer saw either Iida or Sonic who had been too fast for the rest of them anyway. Creati looked back at the blond with a thick tail who gave her a serious look and stated, "We need you out here as much as Midoriya, Bakugo, or Zach even." She almost lifted a skeptical look but did not because of how serious Ojiro's voice was as he told her this. Yaoyorozu actually stared back at him in surprise to hear that serious tone showing he was not exaggerating in the least. Then she thought of how she had just stopped Zach from rushing out in a haphazard and dangerous way of imagining he was already dead before fighting.

"So stay alive," Ojiro finished to her. Then he turned to his girlfriend who had his left arm held by her right to show him she was still there. She had no clothes on at all to signify her position, and Tailman felt a need to protect her even though Zach was around and alive. I won't let you out of my sight, he thought with a sideways look at Toru. If you die all alone out there, no one would be able to find your body. I won't leave your side for even a second. Ojiro felt the hand clench on his arm to show she read his expression and understood his thoughts. Then he looked forward and ran off away from the rest of them.

Sato looked to his right at Yaoyorozu and gave her a stern nod. Then he looked to his left and ran away the opposite direction as Iida had gone. Ashido hesitated, looking all different directions herself. She glanced at Yaoyorozu to see if her friend had anywhere in particular she wanted her to go. Pinky stopped herself though. She pursed her lips then just nodded at her friend. "Good luck, Creati!" Pinky smiled brightly with her eyes closed for a second. Then she rubbed her face of some drying tears and ran off on her own in the direction of Iida, because no one else had gone that way and Iida was already busy with Sonic so this was a direction that needed more help than just him.

Mineta threw his Pop Offs and bounced away on them. He gave Yaoyorozu one last look, then he darted his eyes around and wondered to himself, Tsu, why didn't you come here? I would have thought you would have the most reason to come after him. I know, that as scared as you are of Raijin, you would have been here if you could have been. Mineta's eyes scanned in all directions in search of Froppy.

Sato sprinted down the street and he snapped his head to the right as he heard an explosion that way. He turned back to his left though and kept running as he saw a shaking building in the cityscape much farther from here. Windows were shattering all over that building, and the boy on a Sugar Rush ground his teeth with a deep growl coming from the back of his throat. There, used to be more buildings over there, he thought as he realized the skyline was different than it had looked on their way to Heroally.

Tokoyami, Shoji thought while searching for someone in particular himself. He swung an extended arm from his right side towards a streetlamp and swung himself up higher to be able to keep gliding over the roads. I know Raijin wasn't a good matchup for you, but I'd bet you're still fighting a powerful enemy right now. Knowing you… I hope you have Hawks with you, but I'm not putting all my faith in that being enough.

Yaoyorozu had watched and kept track of where all her classmates headed off to. She looked back to the left from the windows most of them had exited out of though. Sato had looked down one street he heard an explosion down, but he continued running a different direction because of how much chaos was occurring around the city. Creati made her choice and ran that direction down the street. She took in a deep breath and glanced different directions as she ran though. Where would Raijin have gone after running off? He expected to fight Zach today after the bomb weakened him, and that's exactly what's happening. As much as we're hopeful now that Zach is back, this was not beyond Raijin's expectations. Rather, everything is going exactly according to his plan.

Wherever he is leading Zach to, whatever strategies he has in place to defeat him, I know you'll be able to get past them. I know you can do this, Zach. Her lips furled in frustration and pity once more. She shifted her look though and pushed aside those feelings of sadness and pain for him. So I believe in you. And I believe in Midoriya. Todoroki will defeat his brother. We must all focus on our own battles. What is going on over here?!

She sprinted to an intersection and cut right down it instead of continuing to run forward like Sugarman had. Her eyes darted around defeated villains closer to this intersection where they were tied-up. A few injured heroes were in the back along with Recovery Girl who did not have time to even look back and acknowledge her student as she was busy with first response medical aid to the dying heroes on the road. Creati ran past the school nurse who kissed her patient whose bleeding she just stopped, then she pulled out a needle from her first-aid kit and injected the patient with it before scrambling on her knees to the next one.

"Creati!" Bikergang yelled towards the girl he saw running down the road he was on behind a barrier constructed of what looked like normal brown dirt. "The Chaisla Building is under attack! They evacuated all nearby structures over there into it and it needs support!" He sounded like he had only just arrived on this scene too and was about to rush into it after getting briefed by the injured sidekick whose back was up against the artificial dirt wall next to Bikergang's feet. His legs bent and he Sprung up into the air and over the wall towards the more violent part of the street which was closer to the evacuation site, which was not something any of the heroes were okay with leaving that way.

"Wait- Creati! I need-" Recovery Girl lifted her head when she heard who was on this road now. Yaoyorozu did not turn her head. She already had her right hand lifted to her chest, and she threw the replenished first-aid kit she made back to the old nurse who reached her hands up and caught it without another word. Thank you, Recovery Girl thought to her student. She had some specifics she needed to ask for, but Creati was not slowing down and she did not want the girl to. Recovery Girl opened up the case that she caught and smiled. Creati had prepared it for everything that she needed.

Bikergang pointed his grappling hook down towards Jackson who yanked his body away and Morphed his arm into a three-pronged stabbing weapon. The pitchfork/trident of his right arm stabbed forward with his arm extending out at the hero who twisted his body in midair and then Sprang at his enemy after landing. As the spiky-orange-haired hero with the Quirk Spring flew at Morph though, his head turned to the side and he rose his arms for protection… though his arms did little to stop the car that just flew at him and slammed into his side.

"Bikergang!"

"Damn it!"

"Somebody put him down!"

Yaoyorozu heard a hero yell that, and she would have felt that the phrasing was too much had she not already locked her eyes on this villain who was twice the size as any of the others on the road with him. The blond-haired villain had stitches all over his muscular body. The German laughed while Sheik fired from both of her wrist launchers at the steel-plated wall behind the remains of several U.A. Intel-ANTs. Screams from civilians rang out inside while the red spikes Sheik fired from her wrist launchers blinked a few times then exploded, denting steel and ripping through one layer, but not creating the kind of hole to the inside that she was planning on. "Hey! Help me out with this!" She yelled towards the German's back from closer to the Chaisla Building herself.

The German was mid-turn, when he saw a small black grenade-looking device flying over his head. He looked up and locked his Quirk on it, but the firing pin had already been removed and the flash grenade cracked. He tried to hold it together, wincing and clenching his eyes shut to keep from getting blinded while he also stopped the shrapnel. The flash was minimized, but the second two flashes from grenades that bounced on the ground by either of his legs were not.

Yaoyorozu could not announce her attack, so a few of the heroes around her were blinded too for a second. I need to focus on The German first. He's been experimented on. I should up the dosage, Yaoyorozu created a tranquilizer gun and adjusted the amount of tranquilizer inside based on the appearance of the brute who she recognized from his appearance and Quirk. She knew of him from his Tartaros profile, and from the fact that he had been arrested with Diamondfist who she knew Zach had helped capture a long time ago. Zach had even told her about this villain who he had worked alongside, who he had helped have arrested, who had once taught him a few German words while they packaged drugs together…

She jumped up and aimed closely to his neck. She fired at point blank, but The German yanked his head away and turned her gun at the same time. The dart passed in front of his neck and he stumbled away. Seeing the flashes on the ground at his feet had not blinded him as much as everyone else, because he had been staring straight at the flash grenade up in the air and had pre-squinted his eyes in case he had failed to keep that one completely closed. His vision was still bright and it was hard to see the girl, but he had noticed her flying over with a jetpack on her back when he had attacked Bikergang who he focused on first as the one about to take out Morph.

"What the hell is Raijin doing?" The German wondered in a heavily accented voice. He cocked his head to the side and opened his squinted eyes more while glaring at the girl frozen in place in midair. Her jetpack fired more flames out of it but she did not move, as it was stuck exactly where it was in place in the air. His Metal Mind gave him full control over metal in a certain range around himself that Yaoyorozu had gotten into to ensure a better shot at his exposed muscular neck covered in veins. "U.A. students everywhere."

"Zach has him busy," Yaoyorozu said. She slipped her arms out of the straps of her jetpack in that moment that The German's eyes opened wide and filled with fear for a split second.

"You LIE!" He smashed her jetpack down towards the top of her head as she landed. Yaoyorozu landed into a roll away from the villain though. She crossed her arms and a piece of shrapnel slashed her left forearm as the jetpack exploded in front of her in a violent way. She reached to her chest and pulled out the plastic weaponry she switched to that was covered in silver coloring that had no actual metal in it. The German did not know that and attempted to point her own new weapons at herself, only to have to jump away himself as his Quirk did nothing and plastic bullets fired at his legs.

"Lifebringer is alive!" Yaoyorozu yelled out. Her words were the truth, but most of the villains chose to believe that she was yelling it solely to demoralize them. Even though they assumed it was a lie, and some heroes imagined the same, her voice reached more than just them. People inside of the Chaisla building heard her. Hope filled them all. Heroes who heard her chose to smile instead and try to believe the girl they imagined might be using a ruse, but just having a little faith in it made it easier to face their deaths right here. Villains tried to ignore her, but the fear crept up inside them anyway.

Yaoyorozu strapped a similar wrist launcher as the one Sheik had on to her own right arm. Hers had a cloth band strapped without any metal clasp like Sheik's had, and the sharpened clear plastic spikes inside the launcher were full of purple liquid that that the villains dodged away from cautiously as she fired at them. Creati had a plastic pistol in her left hand that she tossed towards Gambita who snagged it out of the air in mid-sprint without calling out thanks to the younger hero girl. The rookie hero and recent graduate from Shiketsu worked in Tokyo, and she just broke off of her former pro's agency to start her own a few months ago. Gambita's feet glowed purple and she leapt up high in the air to dodge the sharpened grass blades flying out of a villain's mouth from the back of his throat. She fired towards him and hit the man who did not dodge away quick enough with a paralyzing dart, then she landed and rolled out of the way of a blinking red spike that Sheik fired towards her.

"If you target the civilians, you'll get Creati to-" A villain yelling this towards The German had to fly back up higher in the air as several heroes targeted her at once.

The German did not need the help though. He reached his right hand behind him while glaring at the student in front of him. Fingers on his left hand flicked up, and he pulled pieces of scrap metal out of flaming wreckages of nearby cars to put a wall between him and the girl who was arming the heroes with better means of fighting him. Their hero tools and support items were too metallic and many had thrown them away earlier on to protect themselves after seeing allies have their own weapons used against them. Yaoyorozu knew her fellow heroes' costumes well enough that they had temporary replacements in their hands that may not be as sturdy or long-lasting, but they had functionality for the moment.

The German's right hand clenched into a fist and he yanked towards himself. Ripped-up metal sheets on the walls of Chaisla ripped off. They bent outwards and tore from a building that people's voices screamed out much louder from as they were revealed to the city outside. The stakes rose for the heroes who saw the faces of the civilians now exposed to the violence and gazes of villains who were all willing to use them to make the heroes hesitate.

Gambita flew straight towards the third floor of the building and tried throwing her plastic gun into a shot from Carmen's rifle. The glowing green rifle had been fired at the third floor, and Gambita screamed out as she actually got her aim correct and intercepted the blast that blew up in her face. The explosion pushed back citizens inside the building who ran away to the opposite side. Most of them had already been running, and the green explosion did not catch any of them in it or cause more than just superficial injuries. For Gambita though, the blast caught the entire front of her body and burned straight through her flesh as it sent her flying backwards with a trail of smoke following her.

"Gambita!"

"Look out!"

"HAHAHAHAH!"

"SHIT!"

Yaoyorozu spun towards a distracted hero who had spun towards Carmen in rage as the Radian member cackled with glee at the sight of Gambita's falling corpse. Carmen waved her rifle above her head in glee, then she spun and laughed harder as a carcass of a burned-out car scraped rapidly across the pavement and smashed into a hero not dodging quickly enough. Yaoyorozu cursed and then dove herself away from a huge sheet of protective metal that the German just threw her way. Has his Quirk gotten stronger? Or did the experimentation make it more powerful- no! It left his range, Creati noticed it as the sheet of metal was passing behind her. The German attempted to change its course mid-throw, but it did not pull in towards her and instead just scraped away on the floor while the villain picked up a different sheet by raising his other arm.

His Quirk is better mid-ranged. His experimentation reduces his short-range weakness. It may make tranquilizers less powerful- Yaoyorozu theorized about this enemy who seemed to be the most powerful of the group whose other members she left to the other heroes with her, though their numbers were dwindling quicker than the villains' were. Her thoughts cut off though. Fly-By sprinted forward into fifteen meters which meant he was too close to these people for his Quirk to keep working. He had already fired a shot from his sniper rifle while farther away though, but as he sprinted forward he jumped up and kicked his right leg into the face of the woman with short gray hair who spun to him with her eyes bulging. Fly-By kicked Sheik so hard in the face that she flew backwards into the burnt remnants of a truck behind her.

The man who just appeared out of nowhere mid-sprint on the road landed and he spun towards the villain on his other side who yelled out, "Sheik!" Morph looked worriedly towards his comrade who slumped against that vehicle. Then he glared back at Fly-By who dodged to his right then left while sprinting towards him. Another male hero dropped out of the air, wrestling with a female villain who he managed to flip over so she slammed into the ground first, though both of them were hurt by the hard landing.

The German stumbled around and grabbed up at a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his neck. His head turned and he blinked a few times while looking at this civilian who did not have a sniper rifle with him, as Fly-By had tossed it aside after taking his shot farther away. The German felt a kick in the back of his right leg, and he spun his head and stared behind him at a huge man who had his right fist pulled back and then slammed it forward into the face of the enemy from the same country as him. Oslope grinned as his fist connected with his enemy's face. "We're just regular Japanese citizens," Oslope called out, feeling better about this the second time.

"We thought the heroes could use some help," Fly-By added while popping Morph's transforming left arm up and then elbowing him in the chest with his right. He had to twist his body and then leap away as Morph's right leg kicked up. Fly-By's heart raced faster as the angry villain who had spent time in Tartaros and was good friends with Sheik, glared at him in fury and sprinted after the "civilian" whose attire and words this villain actually believed.

Oslope and Fly-By were good at their attempt to seem like regular citizens. Yaoyorozu wished these Army of Death members did not do what they were doing while in front of a building full of potentially impressionable evacuated civilians though. They have combat skill. Neither are Japanese. This is a ruse. They don't want people to think after the battle that the Army of Death were here at all. Even if some people know, they're just writing themselves out of history as it's being made. Yaoyorozu understood Zach enough to know exactly what these people were doing. I was hoping they were already on their way after seeing the news about Nikko Enri. If they had waited until the bomb, they might have arrived much later.

Yaoyorozu's eyes widened and darted back to The German. They didn't adjust the amounts! She reached to her chest and started creating a new tranq gun, but The German was already back on his feet and had spun towards Oslope who had run at a different villain and punched him down to the ground.

Oslope started turning his head back as Creati yelled for him to 'look out.' His eyes bulged though as he understood quicker than Fly-By who had not seen what Geten had been able to take earlier. Stupid! He thought at himself while raising his arms to block, too slowly. The German's fist lodged in his face and sent Oslope flying backwards into a flaming vehicle, which bent around him and trapped him inside the fire. "AHHH!" Oslope screamed as his bones were crushed and he was engulfed in flames at the same time.

"Save him! Creati!" Fly-By screamed towards the girl who tossed the plastic pistol in her left hand towards that other AoD member while popping a fire extinguisher out of her chest instead.

The German flicked his left hand towards that gun while it was in mid-flight. Fly-By saw the piece of scrap metal soaring towards the pistol that was never going to reach him, so he adjusted where he was sprinting and slid on the ground towards the villain while pulling out a pair of knives. Fly-By thought if he got out his hidden knives quickly enough he could slash the villain's legs then release the metal blades before they were taken from him. The German did not even grab at his knives though, instead just taking Fly-By by the steel in his steel-toed boots and yanking him up in the air by his legs.

The German held Fly-By up in front of him, then he yanked the knives from his hands and flung them at nearby heroes. One was pierced in the chest, while Yaoyorozu managed to dive away just in time so the knife passed by her side and into a sea of white foam surrounding Oslope who was groaning and crying inside the car he was still stuck and crushed inside of. Then, the German smirked while looking into Fly-By's eyes. He lifted up a syringe that had metal in it using only his mind. It rose out of a steel pouch on the side of his dark costume. The League member injected his bulging right arm with a dose of Trigger that made his head snap back and his breath to suck in sharply through his nose.

Fly-By screamed as his boots were crushed and all of his toes broken. The German reached his right arm out and grabbed around Fly-By's right leg while dropping him, and he spun his body and threw towards the hero girl who slid underneath Fly-By's body then rolled to her left as The German had enough range this time with the Trigger and changed her ally's trajectory in mid-flight. Her roll-dodge meant that the AoD member just smashed into the pavement instead, though his screams were more for his crushed feet than his bruised ribs or cut-up skin from being dragged on the road.

Steel beams ripped out of the building behind the German and flew forward. Yaoyorozu saw blood splash up on her left side in the corner of her vision. She reached to her chest that glowed brightly, while she lifted her other hand and fired out a plastic hook at the German's left leg. She jumped up in the air and spun around, pulling the pin on a new kind of fire extinguisher that did not have any of the flame-retardant material inside but did have the pressure to fire her over the German's head. His right hand snapped up fast and caught her by her black hair though, and Creati screamed in pain even as she pulled up on her grappling gun to try and made the German trip up.

His legs were too strong and muscular. They planted harder into the ground even though her hook had pierced through the side of his hamstring. He swung his arm down and slammed her into the floor. As she bounced up, he kicked his leg forward and sent her flying across the road. Two cars sped behind her and got between her and the spot she was going to hit down on the ground. Yaoyorozu knew she was going to hit down hard so she tried to readjust in mid-flight despite all the pain she was in. The cars got in her way before she could hit down though, and she slammed into them and gasped out all the air in her lungs at the hard and sudden jolt that dented the car doors without the German using his Quirk.

"Hehe- AHAHAHA!" The German's smile grew and the League member cackled instead of making any taunt. He muttered in German for a second but just cocked his head to the side while peeling off the edges of a steel beam he brought up over his head by raising his right arm and curling the fingers on his palm up towards it. The tip of the steel beam got thinner as he compacted the metal and ripped away from the sides of it to sharpen it as much as possible. The back of the beam tilted up higher and the front of it pointed straight at the chest of the girl slumped against the side of a dented car. Glass from the window above her body had shattered and gotten in her hair that still hurt from how hard he smashed her down, ripping some hair out in the process.

Some blood trickled down Yaoyorozu's face from her hairline down over her eyes. She put her arms back though and gripped the vehicle she started pulling herself up. I need to move! The panting girl thought desperately while looking at that huge steel beam aimed straight at her heart. She got ready to dodge by gripping the car behind her, but the metal behind her hands crunched in and she only pulled her right hand away in time. Her left got caught, and she reached over with her right hand and tugged away as hard as she could for a second.

Creati spun back to the German who laughed once more loudly. If I get out a blowtorch- Yaoyorozu cut off thoughts about welding back the steel, instead questioning if she should make a buzzsaw and cut through her own wrist as his arm pulled back and then started swinging forward. She did not have the time to cut through her own bone though. Other villains laughed, and a hero down on one knee looked towards the Class A student painfully at the desperate look on her face as her eyes darted around for an option.

The League of Villains member from overseas who had escaped from Tartaros, who had allowed himself to be experimented on in order to become stronger, and who had injected with Trigger to make himself even more powerful, swung his right arm forward- Fft.

A high-caliber bullet flew through the German's right shoulder. His body spun out while the bullet slammed into a burning vehicle in the middle of the road past him and made a loud Clank! The front of the car shook as it was hit by the bullet that splashed blood out the back of the man spinning around and roaring out in pain.

"What the hell?!" Morph yelled out, staring towards the German in shock for a moment. Fft. Morph was hit in his right shin by a round too strong that his right foot went flying away from his leg. He was thrown off the ground himself and screamed out, "AAHHH! FUUUCCCKK!" He hit the street and rolled around, reaching for his lower right leg and grabbing it as blood poured out.

Yaoyorozu pulled out the tools she needed from her chest to free her stuck hand from the crushed car door. She stood up fast and darted her eyes around as villains dove for cover and got behind other vehicles that the German had been sliding around and throwing on this road. The metal beam that the German had raised fell to the floor, but it started rising back up while he turned his head and lifted his left arm. He glared back the direction the angle he was shot from meant the shooter was, but another round flew through the tendons of his left shoulder and made that arm drop limply to his side. The beam had just risen up partially over himself, and the huge steel beam dropped down on his own bulky body that became too hard for him to move anymore with both of his arms too damaged to use for leverage.

"Where is it coming from- AHH!" A bullet flew through the hood of a car and into the left arm of a villainess who screamed as a chunk of her arm was blown out.

Yaoyorozu turned her head and looked straight down the street in the direction that The German had looked and where she also measured the angle of the rounds to be coming from. That rooftop, Yaoyorozu thought. She stared several blocks away and up to the top of an office building. A villain ran out of hiding behind Yaoyorozu and reached down to grab a wounded heroine off the ground. He got his hostage by the back of her spandex costume, and then his right hand he grabbed her with was disconnected from his arm as the sniper shot it off.

Fly-By had stopped screaming himself. He had dragged himself off the road and was still in agony, but he turned and looked away in shock. Do we have someone over there? Who's a good enough shot, to be hitting- no one is! They're only hitting non-vital shots. But they're hitting every shot!

Creati's eyes were huge as she stared down the street at the rooftop where some sniper was laying prone on the edge and staring through a scope straight at her. The "best shot in the world," he called her. The girl laying there had just saved Creati's life. The brunette sighed but then pulled her barrel to the right and aimed carefully at a different villain who turned to run away down that road. She inhaled a deep breath as the figure suddenly darted the other way, then serpentined back the initial direction before stopping for a second to throw off the shooter aiming towards him.

Airi Kobayashi measured the wind. She watched her enemy's movements carefully. Her finger rested on the trigger. Then she exhaled, and mid-exhale she pulled the trigger, and the bullet popped through the front of the villain's left kneecap that it blew out. He screamed in agony that she could hear from down the road while he hit the floor and thrashed around in too much pain to continue trying to escape. The former Army of Death member then looked back through the scope and into the eyes of a girl looking straight back at her. Better be grateful for this. Just, I know how much it would make him sad if you… Airi frowned and then sighed again. No, that's not it, she reminded herself. She cracked the right corner of her lips up, I'm just the good person he thinks I am. We don't want to lose you this early in the fight, Creati. Wouldn't be great-

Airi flipped herself around and fired jets out the back of her jetpack. She flew off the roof and fired a few shots at the AANTs that just shot up over the edges of the building she was on in an attempt to sneak-attack her. Her shots all hit their marks, and she turned her arms into wings that fired more blue jets out the backs of them as they were from the jetpack emerging from her spine. The girl turned herself into a miniature jet that soared over the same street that Yaoyorozu spun herself around on and yelled at the heroes with her to round up the defeated and screaming villains. They had to do that while fighting others who Darling had never finished taking out before she was ambushed by League robots.

"Who is that now?!"

Oslope rubbed his bloodied lip below his broken nose and stared up in confusion as well as she soared overhead. I have no idea.

Thank you, Airi, Yaoyorozu thought. But be careful up there. In the state he's in right now… it's too close to the edge. If he sees you, and you try to help him, and Raijin- Yaoyorozu felt chills just considering the outcome that might come from another worst case scenario there. Stay over here. He can take on Raijin by himself.

I think, he has to.

---

"Where the hell is it?" Raijin muttered to himself while sprinting back down the next block over from the one he just shot across the city on. The grid pattern of the streets in this district made it much easier to navigate and see far down each one, but his annoyance was growing as he did not see what he was looking for yet. I set your routes specifically for a reason. Idiots, Raijin thought. I'll kill the first damn Spider pilot I find out of place from where they should be. Let's see… Well, one's giving off a signal this way. He checked a tablet he slid back behind him into a pouch of his tight costume.

The black and gold costume was tight to his skin but had some tools protruding from it. His steel boots glowed blue on their sides as he ran with sparks coming out of his feet on each step. The goggles down over his eyes showed him the small pulsing signal of the object he was searching for. None of the other ones were picked up by his goggles that unfortunately could not bypass all the measures he had taken to block out communications and different signals around the city. His Quirk had assisted in making the communications black-out possible, but there were lots of radio towers and specialized expensive equipment on various roofs of the city that added to the range that he could not accomplish by himself.

Raijin darted around a corner and sped through a street that had holes all over it and large pieces of broken ice scattered around. Some cars were flipped over, a few melted so the steel was still glowing bright red, while some were just engulfed in red or blue fire, and some were just coated in chunks of ice. Raijin pursed his lips and then let out a laugh as he curved around the next intersection and saw the large steel tube he was searching for halfway down the block to the next intersection ahead of him. He pressed his right foot down and sped straight down the yellow lines in the middle of the road.

"You're just a pawn he created, Todoroki Shoto! That's all you ever were, that's all any of us ever were to him." The corners of Dabi's lips pulled up high into his cheeks. "He tossed those of us who were worthless aside, so that he could perfect YOU!"

"Touya! Stop this already!" Shoto begged. His voice was angry but he was panting and only stopped to catch his own breath. He did not know if he was making the right choice, because he did not think Dabi had stopped attacking him solely to shout about this. Todoroki could not tell if his older brother was actually catching his breath too or if he needed it more than Shoto himself did, but the right side of his body steamed while his left smoked more as he prepared another attack. Shoto grit his teeth so much harder as Dabi smirked wildly at him with blood coming out of the corners of his purplish skin that was all stapled over his damaged face and neck.

Blood dripped off of Dabi's fingers, but there was steam coming off of it as his fiery Quirk evaporated his own blood that could only handle extreme cold. Every attempt Shoto made to freeze his older brother had resulted in Dabi melting himself out of whatever he was trapped in without having any frostbite. He did not risk hurting himself in the deep freezes that Shoto caught parts of his limbs in, and only when he melted himself out did he damage himself more and more each time. Shoto had his own burns too though, but his chest hurt more than anything as Dabi's eyes narrowed towards him and his voice came out his way darkly, "Shoto. You forgave that man? You allow him to get away with it- with all of it. But I won't!"

"Now," Dabi growled. As he was speaking, a giant billboard up the building behind him and ahead of Shoto turned back on. Nothing was showing on it, but Shoto noticed that to his right and down two buildings up on the screen of another skyscraper's advertising board, the screen also turned on. Dabi turned his head and grinned as he saw screen after screen turning back on all the way down this road. They were turning on inside of windows and on giant billboards. He looked back to Shoto and taunted with his head tilting back, "As we fight, my pre-recorded message will be broadcasted to show everyone who I-"

A bolt of lightning flew between the two brothers on different sides of the street. Dabi's eyes darted to his left. Shoto's snapped to his right. Both of them darted their gazes away from each other for a second and to the figure with spiky blond hair who landed and skid towards a huge metal spike that had drilled into the street before the brothers had reached this road. "Haha," Raijin could not help himself and was laughing even as he stopped and spun around so his back was to the drill. The metal cylinder was twice as tall as him and wider than he was. He put his back to it and could not help but laugh, "You two should bring this brotherly spat someplace else-"

"Shut up!" Dabi yelled. Rage covered his face that twitched for a second. He snapped his eyes back to Shoto though. His hands covered in bright blue flames that tinted over his face. His smile returned as he himself appeared sitting on a chair with a bag of blood attached to his arm on the giant screen high above him. "This is not your moment, Raijin. I'm tired of you treating this all like it's your own little game!"

"Raijin," Todoroki growled in a deep voice. His eyes that were glaring furiously towards his old classmate shifted back to his older brother though.

Dabi lifted his arms up at his sides while the version of him up on the screens above started speaking, and he sneered at Shoto, "This is the heroes' reckoning..."

"My name, is-"

The screens all cut to black simultaneously. Touya's announcement cut off and made the smug man lifting his arms up at his sides snap his head straight up to see the black screen with nothing else on it.

Raijin had lifted his blond eyebrows up when Dabi yelled at him. He smirked though as Touya's announcement he already knew of was about to start playing. It was something not all of the villains in their ranks knew about, but he was too smart not to already know himself. His eyes rose up to that black screen closest to them though, and his lips lowered from his smirk as he got ready for hero society to be tarnished forever by the story of Todoroki Touya. The right corner stayed lifted up though as a white line shot across the middle of the screen horizontally.

That white line crossed the screen like it did on all the screens on this street, while most everywhere else the broadcast just shut off. VVRRUUMMMM!

Dududududu-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da da da da da dadadadadadada… VVRRUUMMMM! The drums playing behind the guitar got louder and banged closer together. The metal song that started blasting made the white lines crossing over the black screens start wiggling around, bouncing up and down like a heart rate monitor but to the beat of the music that blasted loudly across this part of the city.

Raijin's back sparked into the cylinder behind him. A line split down the middle of it. Panels opened outwards like doors and revealed all the white equipment on the insides of those panels. Shelves stuck out of the top and bottom of the inside of the tube, while armor pushed outwards as Raijin rose his arms out at his sides. Metal arms inside of the tube pushed out at his command and wrapped the white fabric around his arms right over the tight black and gold costume he had on. He had burned through his jeans that he wore earlier and revealed the black pants of his costume he had on underneath them, but those pants were covered up by the white armor that was wrapped around his legs and his waist.

Raijin's torso was covered. A helmet lowered down over his head as a different metal claw removed his goggles for him. The clear face-shield of his helmet had a white tint to it but did allow his face to show through. Two belts of weapons were strapped over his shoulders while another thick one was put around his waist. Then he bent his arms a little, and he allowed the straps of a silver and white backpack to be put on over his back. Two tubes sticking out of the cylinder and into the bottom of that pack glowed brightly, and a vertical bar with several dashes in it down the middle of the back of the pack started to glow a dim blue. The bottom dash glowed first then each one up above it got brighter and brighter. Power filled into his pack from behind him, and the arms of his white costume started to glow blue, and his legs, up on lines on his neck to his helmet that his blond hair was trapped inside of.

Duun- vruun- Vrruun- VRRUUN- Pulsing noises came from his pack as it filled with more and more energy. It surged into his pack from the storage unit behind him.

Ba-da-Ba-da-BRAM! VRUM VRUM VRRAAAAA- "WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" A singer's voice screamed out over the metal song playing out even louder across the city. It was hard for Kaminari to even hear the rising pulsing noises in his own gear over the sounds coming from every speaker for several square kilometers around him.

"How is this happening?! I'm being locked out of all our own systems- damn it!" Skeptic yelled. He was typing as fast as he could into different computer keyboards. He was at the top of the Rimujou Broadcasting Network and had the backdoor access that he had planned out beforehand with Raijin into their systems. It did not give him direct access to all that Raijin had done to the communications around the city, but it was something that Shigaraki had agreed was a good move because of Dabi's message which could further demoralize everyone and do more to surge the villains all over the world in response to their actions. Destroying the public's faith in heroes was an important goal of theirs, and the only way to make their 'revolution' really work.

Skeptic ground his teeth but fought against the hackers who were taking control over every screen from him and started deleting the videos on his own hard-drive now. "No- No no, I'm not letting you!" He rerouted their connection to his computer and cancelled the deletion. "Good. Now I'll just take the server's hardware and route the broadcast into any systems on the shared Tokyo network access-" Skeptic's screen cut to be blue and nothing else. His face covered in confusion as there was not even any writing on the screen telling him an error message or that a virus had gotten into his computer.

Virus had gotten into his computer though. Tiny letters appeared on the bottom right corner of the screen. They were so small that Skeptic leaned his face closely to the screen to read them. Then a blue hand reached out of the screen and grabbed the shocked villain by his collar, and Cody yanked down into the corner of the desk. Skeptic's face hit the desk hard and bounced off, then Cody's hand let go and reached for Skeptic's black bangs that he gripped tightly with his hand that reached as far as he could get it out of the computer. He was straining himself, but a smirking face covered the blue screen as Cody slammed Skeptic down by his bangs.

Skeptic's eyes slammed into the corner of the table. Cody pushed back then slammed down again, and again, and again. He bloodied Skeptic's face and made blood splash out while he tore the man's bangs out. Then, as he almost lost grip because too much hair had been ripped out, his blue hand slid down Skeptic's bloodied expression and gripped him tightly by his cheeks. Electricity surged out of the laptop and into the man whose arms and legs flailed around as he was electrocuted. Cody dropped the villain and his hand snapped back into the computer screen that cut off a second later due to the surge that just went through it. Cody was already speeding around through different network connectors that Skeptic had just opened to his computer anyway though, and he got himself into a security camera system on the same road that the loud music was blasting on. He had the microphones of the camera network under his control too, so he heard the music that was getting louder and building up too.

"Hey Maelstrom," Rebel took a big sip of his soda then smirked at his screen even bigger as he rose the volume louder. "I know you're busy, but if you could go ahead and give some world effects over Shinagawa about? It would really complete the picture here."

"Don't bother her," La Brava scolded.

"Heh, I think I could spare some power," Maelstrom responded from the middle of a tornado she was speeding across a forest inside of. She was panting, but she could not smile wider at the tone in Rebel's voice which told her who she was about to help out.

"NA NA NA NA NA- WAAAAAAHHH!" Buu-du-du-du buu-du-du-du Ba-da-ba-da BA-DA-BA-DA BADABADABADABADA…

People went back closer to their windows. They stopped cowering under their desks and beds. They moved closer to the street and looked around and then all in the same direction. Shoto and Touya Todoroki darted looks back to Raijin, then they followed his gaze down the street in the direction he had come from. The blasting entrance music, the fact that Raijin had just put on some kind of ultimate secret armor, or that he had warned them to get out of there, and the fact that the sky above them was starting to darken, made it easy for the Todoroki brothers to come to a conclusion on what was coming.

A bead of sweat dripped down Shoto's face as clouds rolled in above them and started spinning in a circle directly over their position. Those clouds got darker and blocked out the sun. Shade fell. The music rose to its loudest yet, then it cut off all at once as did all of the screens and the white lines on them. A black cloud of smoke flew out around the intersection three blocks away from them. It curved their way, and it flew towards them in a huge pillar that spiraled and twisted around the air over the street on its approach. It got one block away from them, and two other black pillars flew in from the corners on the right and left to slam into the first pillar that they had seen.

All three columns of black smoke combined with each other and then slammed down into the street just past the intersection and closer to the three already on this road. A pitch black figure stepped out of the darkness. All of the misting dark smoke pulled into his back that rippled with Death but simmered down as he got all of it back inside of himself. The dark man stepped down the street and then stopped while his red eyes glared between the Todorokis and straight at Raijin who wore a different kind of costume that he had put on before Death could find him.

Wind blew down the street. It blew the spikes in Dabi's hair, messed around Shoto's a bit, and some black wisps over Zach's head swirled around too. Raijin's hair was hidden inside of the full-body costume that covered him completely.

"Zach," Todoroki whispered. His eyes were huge. His mouth was dry, but the corners of his lips lifted up into a small smile after his suspicions were confirmed by the sight of that dark humanoid form emerging from the cloud. "You're alive," he said softly and in relief.

"He is," Raijin called out. "For now." Shoto turned his head to the side and glanced back to his right. He had almost fully turned to Zach even from his own brother across the street from him, but then again, Dabi had turned himself towards Zach as well and was staring at him with eyes stuck huge even after Shoto's had gone back to normal size. "This is it, Zach," Raijin called his enemy's way. Sparks came out of the tight white costume that looked hard and yet flexible at the same time. His appendages were limber and loose. His fingers curled a few times into fists then opened up and curled down pointed at the floor at his sides where bolts of lightning zapped off his fingertips looking much stronger than just tiny sparks. Five bolts off of each hand zapped across the floor under his hands and left black scorch tracks in random patterns away from his feet. The electricity itself moved to Raijin's will without his fingers turning to point. Each bolt just became more jagged off his hand and shot away to scar the street around the eighteen year old villain who grinned down the street at Zach Sazaki.

"You know how long I've been waiting for this?" Raijin wondered eagerly. He did not dare blink. He stared into Zach's glowing red eyes and then twitched his fingers to attack or defend as Zach's eyes moved.

Those red eyes shifted to the left. Zach's eyes shifted and glared into the turquoise eyes of Dabi. The red glow in his gaze dimmed a bit from the flaring crimson color it just had. He saw the bloody burns on Dabi's hands and over other parts of his skin. He saw the white hair showing through the dyed black color that made Dabi look more like his brother across the street from him. "Dabi," Zach spoke.

Raijin's forehead scrunched up. His face flinched and his fingers curled inwards but stopped before forming fists completely. His fingers vibrated though which Shoto saw in the corner of his vision and made his eyes dart up at Kaminari's that kept a facade of calm in them even as his expression darkened deeply. Look at me! Raijin's teeth clenched and he forced his lips still into a smile as Zach ignored him and turned to Dabi instead. He's just doing it to fuck with me! Don't let him-

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Zach growled. The dark aura around him tightened fully to his body. His black veil was thin. His hair looked visible through the aura though it was hard to tell as his hair was jet black anyway. Zach's red eyes glared into Dabi's and his question confused the younger Todoroki who turned back to his classmate then darted a look towards Touya again. Zach's jaw started showing through the thinning black veil on his face, which showed off the clenched teeth after his question that ground over each other in frustration.

"Reaper," Dabi muttered. "I, thought you were-"

"Fuck you," Zach snapped. He interrupted the villain whose eyes widened at that annoyed shout at him. Even Raijin lost some of his aggravation that his long-awaited fight was being stalled just because Dabi happened to be on this road. "Just, fuck you… you really did this?" Zach wondered quieter. His voice had a tone in it that made Dabi's expression shake. That dark figure glaring at him sounded so, disappointed. "You never changed," Zach said. His voice was quiet and disappointed, past just being annoyed.

"You know- I know, that you know, Endeavor changed," Zach said. He glared towards Touya Todoroki whose teeth bared at what Zach just told him in a condescending tone. Shoto blinked a few times in shock too at the way that Zach was talking to Touya which he himself had been unable to do since they started fighting. The candid tone sounding so familiar, reminded Shoto of the way Zach had revealed Dabi's secret to him. Raijin also thought of that night in the forest and tsked but just held where he was for a moment, as he decided to accept that Zach could not just ignore this. "But you… you just couldn't do it. Tell me, Dabi. Do you really think people don't change?"

"When you met me, was I anything like this? I remember that day!" Zach yelled in anger. His own tone came out as darkness fled from his face. It sucked into a burnt expression looking worse than Dabi's. His skin was burnt and reddened. His flesh looked seared and blistered. Zach's dark aura sucked into his body everywhere above his waist except for on his lower arms. It remained thick on his legs and below the belt. Everywhere else was exposed and Zach clenched his teeth in more anger and to seethe through the pain of all that burnt flesh exposed to open air and the wind that passed over the street due to the storm clouds overhead.

Rebel's eyes bulged as Cody's did inside the cameras. Those on the bridge of the Stealth Mega Jet high above Tokyo who also had drone footage being transmitted to them on a bit of a delay, stared in shock at the sight of Zach Sazaki's damaged form on that street. Electomuzz glanced next to him at Raylei and wondered in a hoarse voice, "I thought you said that a bomb like that was 'nothing' to him?"

Raylei's eyes were shaking as she stared at the drone footage that was zoomed-in but still distant. Even from a distance though, it was impossible to call that kind of damage 'nothing' as she had on their way here. "He's alright," Raylei said. She shook off that worried look and cracked a smile that was more confident for the rest of the team up there with her. "He can handle this." Others nodded along with her and got back to their work, but Raylei darted her gaze towards La Brava who had her right hand up on her forehead and was watching the footage anxiously as she saw Zach's current state. Raylei gulped at her expression, He can handle this, right?

Dabi flinched as he saw the look of Zach's torso at the bottom of his vision, but his eyes did not shift off of the locked gaze he had with his old ally. Raijin smirked more and chuckled to himself as the bomb did the kind of damage he expected it to do to Zach, though he admitted to himself he thought that damage would have come from the bomb just hitting Zach, not from him surrounding it entirely like he did. Either way, this works, Raijin thought to himself.

How is he standing- Todoroki cut his own thoughts off and felt stupid for asking himself the question. Nevermind.

"Well, Dabi? You know that I changed. I'm not the villain I was when we were together-"

"You were never a villain like us-"

"I WAS!" Zach roared back at him. He shut up Dabi and yelled at him, "We fought side by side! You and I, we, we were villains together. You taught me techniques, just like Toga…"

"Who he just killed, by the way," Raijin called out to inform the brothers who darted looks back at him then turned towards Zach themselves and saw Zach's gaze glaring back in Raijin's direction for a moment.

Zach took his eyes back off of Kaminari though and saw the flinch on the blond villain's angered face through the clear veil of the front of his helmet. He looked back towards Dabi and just shook his head for a second with his eyes lowering down to the street. "You told me it was impossible. You told me, that he couldn't change. Not really. No matter how much we watched it happen- right in front of our eyes! You wouldn't accept it. He chased me around the world. He hunted me down, and I fought by his side and know better than anyone," Zach paused for a second then seethed through his teeth at Dabi, "he's a better man. A good man. I saw it from up close but, but I know anyone can see it just by looking at him now. I know you can see it, as much as you choose to ignore it."

"That's what it is, Dabi. A choice." Zach's tone got angrier again from the desperate and disappointed one. The disappointment was still there but his glare was darker even without any red in it. When he saw the crack in Dabi's expression too, his voice rose louder and he yelled at the villain, "Do you even know what you're fighting for anymore?!" Zach threw his right arm out to the side. His teeth clenched harder from the pain of swinging an arm so covered in burns that hurt just to move. "Is this what you wanted?! You, wanted the world to doubt him- to doubt the hero society they looked to that would allow him… Is this- THIS?! Tokyo burning?" Zach's tone was disgusted. His pitch rose and cracked as he looked down his nose towards Dabi in such frustration and fury.

"And the entire world is watching this," Zach gasped. "They're, shaking. And they're crying, and holding their kids tight." Zach's lips shook and he bit down on his bottom one. "All so you can get revenge? All because, of a grudge?!" Zach roared in rage that grew and made black lines pull up from his waist and onto his torso for a moment before he took some deep breaths and forced those rising webs of Death back down. Zach's body shook though and his black fists curled furiously at his sides. "He changed! I changed! Shoto changed too! The only one who couldn't change, Dabi, was YOU!"

"You couldn't change because it would mean accepting that he had. You couldn't accept that he could change…" Zach's lips pursed and his head tilted back more but his eyes had some pity in them too. "Because if he could change, then you wouldn't have the excuse to keep on acting like you were. You, wouldn't be able to keep up the tantrum you'd been throwing since you were a little fucking kid. And that's all this is, Dabi. You couldn't change. And it's not because you're mad. It's not because something's wrong with you! You- you're just a coward."

"Ha!" Raijin laughed out loud in a way that taunted Dabi without even looking towards him.

Dabi's expression flashed with anger, and yet Zach just kept glaring him down darkly and Dabi felt sweat mixing with blood on his palms. He killed Toga? Is he the one who's "mad" right now… He's not right. He's not- Zach shook his head at him and made the blue flames on Dabi's hands flicker a little at that look so disappointed in him but disgusted too and dark to a point that it scared him not to say anything in response. What am I fighting for- it was that video! If they hadn't cut it off. If I can just-

"You're a coward, Dabi. What was it?! You think it wasn't hard for me to try?" Zach wondered. "You think it wasn't scary, knowing how much bad I'd done, to try and come back from that? But I did it. He, did it too. You saw us do it. And yet you wouldn't try. You saw us change, so you can only pretend like it isn't possible, to make it easier for yourself not to. That makes you a coward. Because what was it that stopped you? Did you really think, that you had done so much already that it was impossible to change? That, just like him, you were 'unforgivable' for all you had done? The innocent people you had killed? The heroes you'd burned to ash? So it was impossible to stop now, because how could you be forgiven?!" Zach shouted. Then his voice cracked, "So, you didn't even bother trying?" Some water filled the bottoms of Zach's eyes as he wondered this desperately towards the villain who was not responding and did not have any answer for him as he heard this impassioned yell that bored straight through him.

Touya could feel it in his soul as Zach screamed things that he had never really thought about. And yet he had been hesitating. He had been staring at Shoto with less hate in his eyes than he once felt, and he started this fight with a feeling of emptiness swelling where he had always felt hatred. Dabi's breathing got heavier and his huge eyes shook more as Zach yelled things about him like he knew Dabi better than the man knew himself. It resonated inside him, and his left foot slid back on the sidewalk as he stared towards that dark figure. Zach was so damaged and about to face his worst enemy, and yet the kid still took this moment to scold him and scream at him for everything he had been ignoring but could not anymore as it was shoved in his face.

Dabi bit down hard though. It was too late. It was for Him too! To even try, after abandoning us- after discarding me! After all of it-

"But Dabi, even after you killed my family," Zach started again. Dabi's breath sucked out of his lungs and his legs froze on the ground. His head tilted back while the other two on the street also stared towards Zach with their eyes bulging huge. Zach pursed his lips but then shook his head side to side and whispered towards him, "I could have forgiven you."

"I… I know, that back then you thought I would be allowed to revive them. You're a monster for what you did to her. Killing John and Mary, and the way that you tortured Jenny when you burned her alive…" Zach's face twitched and his expression flashed with sheer rage. His irises turned blood red and for an instant, Dabi saw his life flash in front of his eyes as he thought Zach was about to just murder him and forget about everything he was yelling. Zach continued on strongly though but with the red fading back out of his eyes, "But, but despite all of that, I really think I could have. It would have taken a lot! You would have really, really had to… I don't know. I don't know what you could have done to make me forgive you, but it was possible. You, could have been forgiven. Even after all of it… Had you not been a coward."

His tone got back darker again. His eyes lost the pity and desperation. Zach's regret and disappointment vanished from his expression. "But this, Dabi?" Zach turned his head to the right and then the left. Disgust filled his face and voice. He trembled in rage as his gaze turned back on the man he had once called 'brother.' "There is no forgiveness for this." Dabi flinched once more and pulled his head back farther as Zach glared at him like nothing more than a villain now. "For the people who have died today, Dabi, you will burn far worse than last time..."

Zach turned away from the man whose heart clenched up and fear filled his entire being at that threat. Zach glared at Raijin but snarled to finish to the man between them and off to his left, "In the Pits of Hell."

Smoke rose from all corners of Tokyo. The city was under attack by an army of villains. Zach knew that his comrades from the Army of Death were there. He also knew Kaminari though, and he doubted their arrival was enough to simply turn the tides of this war. "Kaminari," Zach spoke. His lips flattened and his eyes just stared through the clear visor and into his enemy's eyes. Dabi and Todoroki faded out the corners of his vision. His final words towards Dabi pushed him out of his mind completely. He had said his piece.

"Zach," Kaminari said. He took in a deep breath and released it. The tenseness he felt and anxiety that made him want to scratch at his neck like Shigaraki had subsided when Zach refaced him alone. Those few moments were torture for him. Zach finally came to face him, and he talked to Dabi instead? He smiled now though and just like Zach, his gaze was locked only on this one enemy.

Neither of the other two who had been fighting each other could get back to their own battle. Shoto did look towards Touya though and scrunched his face at the look on Dabi's so full of shame but also acceptance and determination as that glare rose back to his brother. Even after what Zach said… it's because Zach's right. Shoto understood it himself. His own hesitation was gone thanks to his friend's speech. Touya- no, Dabi won't change. I can't expect him to just switch sides this late in the game, because he's a villain. He's a coward. Shoto's expression darkened deeper than Dabi's half-assed one did. Determination filled the younger Todoroki brother who glared down his enemy but did not move, because both he and Touya were still anxious about the other enemy they had on this road who was not focused on them but might take the moment to murder them if they acted rashly.

"You know," Raijin started. "The trial would have been a good time to attack you. While everyone was there, watching you get sent to Tartaros, it would have been pretty great timing. I knew it would be, but I also knew it was too dangerous." Raijin rose his left hand that Zach looked past to keep staring at his face, though he did see the five fingers that Raijin stuck up in that white glove as he continued on, "There were 5 players who I considered threats in this war: Lifebringer, Deku," he put down a finger each time he listed someone off. "Endeavor, the ADTF, and the Army of Death."

Kaminari finished listing and lowered his arm down. "During your trial I knew that the ADTF were in force in Japan for it, in preparation for the AoD who could have also been coming to try and free you if you were convicted and sentenced. Imagining that both of them would be around, along with the rest of you? No way." Raijin shook his head back and forth and curled the right corner of his lips up even as the rest of his face darkened in more annoyance. "My main problem was always convincing the other villains to go along with my plans. It's why I left so many in the dark for the raid in Koimou. Villains are too afraid, 'cowards' as you call them."

"Having those 5 enemies there all at once was too risky that I knew no one would listen to me, but my plan here would have optimally eliminated 3 of those problems in an instant. And yet, you managed again to save Deku and Endeavor, and even yourself too…"

"Stop talking." Zach's voice came out cold. His expression was flat but there was rage in his eyes that he tried to hold back to no avail. Kaminari smirked more at just hearing a response from him. Zach continued towards him, "You love to talk. I realized it when you betrayed us, because as much as I thought about it, there really was no purpose in you waiting so long while using more and more of your electricity. You could have just run. It was right after a huge attack, sure," Zach went on. "But you could have just run away or stayed quiet… Yet, it doesn't feel as much like victory if your opponents don't feel that absolute sorrow like what you instilled in us down there."

Zach's singed eyebrows narrowed down more towards his reddened nose. Raijin smirked more maliciously towards him even as Zach psycho-analyzed him, "And you know that every word you speak through my best friend's mouth is torture for me. Just like it was that day. And, every day since…" Zach's teeth ground over each other and he had to stop for a second. "Is that why you didn't kill Class A back there as quickly as you could have?" Raijin's smirk lowered slightly as Zach brought up his failure to kill even a single of the Class A's back at Heroally. It was also a relief to Todoroki who darted a glance Zach's way but also past him and in the direction of the studio he never reached but had been worried about throughout his fight with his brother.

"You wanted to give them hope first before making them despair? You-" Zach bit down harder again.

His enemy just smiled at that look so strained on Zach's face. The darker haired of the two stared at his blond friend's face and at a scar over Kaminari's right eyebrow. Even just seeing that scar that his friend had received while captured by the War Boys made him feel sick. "I look at you and," Zach started slowly. "And every moment we had goes through my mind."

"All fake," Raijin taunted back at the sight of the agonized look on Zach's expression.

Zach shook his head back and forth though. His expression was sadder for a moment. He lowered his eyes down then slowly brought them back from the floor and stared into the villain's eyes. "Kaminari…"

"Thank you." Zach said and gave a small smile to his friend.

Raijin was stuck where he was for a second. His fingers curled into tight fists and his expression filled with unbridled anger. "What?!" He snapped at his enemy who just said something that made his entire being fill with disgust.

Shoto and Dabi looked towards Zach as well. They stared at him, just as people inside their windows were looking out and trying to listen to the boys on the street who were talking loudly down the road towards each other. "Thank you, Kaminari," Zach repeated. "I needed to tell you-"

"Wha-" Kaminari opened his mouth and started to shout back. He froze though and his face just scrunched up in frustration then a smug expression that followed. "You're just saying that, because- you knew it would annoy-"

"I'm saying it because I never got the chance to," Zach countered his enemy. He looked towards him in a soft way and called out, "Back when we were together. I never told you just how much, I appreciated what you did for me."

"I used you!"

"I had nothing," Zach countered. He shook his head once then told his enemy staring back at him angrily, "I came back to U.A., and I had nothing. I… I spent every night, cowering. I curled up in a ball on my bed, and I grabbed my knees while in Nightmare form, and I cried in fear that Hackerman and Kurogiri would come get me at any moment. That they would torture me again. I was so afraid. It was terrifying!" Zach pursed his lips and shook his head again, then he yelled out, "But I had you! You were there for me, when no one else knew how to handle it… How to handle me."

"I only did that," Raijin remarked back. "So that we could betray you. It was all just-"

"But you saved my life," Zach countered. He lifted a half-smile and countered his enemy who glared at him but just stared back with flat lips this time as Zach's voice sounded true. "More than anyone else, you were there for me. You were my best friend… Kaminari, you are my best friend. I know you're in there-"

"You really think-" Raijin cut himself off and the biggest smile covered his face in the next second. "HA! Hahaha, you really- you're talking to HIM right now?!"

"I know-"

"He was nothing! A fabrication!" Raijin yelled back. He tilted his head back and rose a hand to it as if this whole situation was comical to him. "You're talking to something that was nothing more than a personality that I destroyed YEARS ago!"

"I know that's not true," Zach countered knowingly. He shook his head even as Raijin laughed harder at him for that response. "What's responding to me is only a shade. Nothing more." Raijin's laughter quieted down and his eyes got darker even as his smug and menacing smirk remained. "This thing that's speaking through your mouth is no more than a shadow. One that, has made you watch…" Zach bit down again. His tone got more strained even as Raijin shook his head with a cocky look on it. "And," Zach continued, his teeth grinding in anger but also doing so to keep his voice steady because of how much this hurt to confront. "And I'm, angry, that you are stuck watching this. I'm just angry at myself, that you would have had to watch yourself kill even more of your friends back there because I took too long to recover and get myself back here."

"But when I saw my mom, Kaminari," Zach shouted in a pained voice. His neck strained as he lifted his head and cocked it to the side. His skin was rough and bloodied all over. His entire body was burnt and there were dark wisps coming from below his waist and off his appendages. Kaminari's eyes suddenly widened though as did everyone else who could hear Lifebringer. "And I did," Zach continued. "That bomb went off and it ripped me apart. And as I faded, as my wisps separated farther and farther from each other… I saw her."

"She was reaching out to me," Zach growled through clenched teeth in his most strained voice. "All of them behind her, bathed in bright light," he gasped out even more painfully. He saw the image in his mind. His eyes clenched shut for an instant and he slammed his chin down. "Maybe it was real. Maybe, it was all in my head. Just a way that I was trying to trick myself into thinking: 'It's alright. I can rest now.' Like that's what she was telling me when she reached out for me to take her hand. Like I needed my mom to tell me that! But, I pushed her away." His voice got darker and his squinted eyes opened more. They rose up and glared past his dark bangs as his bowed head lifted a little too.

Red flames danced in his irises as he glared back towards Raijin straight past Dabi and Todoroki who could barely breathe at what Zach was saying. "I turned away from that light," Zach growled. "I grabbed onto the darkness and dragged it back out of the air. Every wisp I could clasp onto, every strand too small for the human eye to see, pulled back into one form with thoughts so mangled and dispersed across such a large area that I knew I wasn't even alive." Zach spoke in a malevolent manner that was ever more terrifying because of the nature of what he was saying. "Just a collection of power and thoughts. Or, so I thought. But… I am alive. I'm Lifebringer."

"I am Zach Sazaki," Zach said. His growl got more civilized and his head tilted back more so his eyes were less shadowed over again. "And I needed you to know that you saved my life, Kaminari. Because when I turned from my mom, and I dragged myself back here, it was just for you. You were the only thing that made me grasp onto this world." The smile covering Kaminari's face actually rose up hearing that from Zach. "The idea that I was going to leave this unfinished, tethered me to this realm."

"I'm glad I could help," Kaminari replied. His smirk was cocky but he added genuinely, "I really would have been disappointed had you not come back."

"I know…" Zach whispered. His voice was full of pity and sadness as he responded like that though. "Kaminari, I am going to kill you now." Zach stared down his best friend and his expression was full of pain as he said those words aloud. "You saved my life, and I love you… and so I had to drag myself back here so that I wouldn't leave you to keep suffering as I have been for- for so long." Zach's head tilted to the left and his eyes looked as pained as Kaminari had ever seen them which made him flinch at that look so apologetic in this moment. "I'm sorry," Zach gasped towards him.

"For what?" Raijin wondered back confusedly.

"For leaving this 'til now. For, letting you continue on like this, for so long," Zach gasped. "I- I told myself that I didn't matter when you betrayed us, so I couldn't focus on you first. As much as I should have! You- you were the person most important and… and I couldn't let that stop me." Zach rose his voice louder and yelled, "I decided to save everyone else first! To not be selfish and to just, save the world. Protect as many people as I could, so I went and became Death and left you to- to suffer."

"I left you here in Japan to our friends even though I didn't really believe they could stop you," Zach admitted. He confessed it in pain and sorrow, but the tone of hate lacing his words sounded to be directed inwards only at himself. "I left you to spend every day, plotting and scheming- killing innocents. Torturing people, and betraying everything you once stood for-"

"The Kaminari you knew was never-"

"He was the only thing that was real," Zach countered this shadow's retort before it could finish. "He was a full person- you were. You had so much, and I left. I left, and you spent every day since then being the worst thing that Kaminari could have become. I love you but I left you to torment more and more people. Ahh-" Zach gasped out in agony as he admitted his own mistakes. "And even when I came back!" He yelled out. "I- I chose everyone else. I was being selfish already, but I couldn't just take you down immediately and still help fix every other mistake I had made. I had to choose. Class A, Japan, Darling- everyone else! Or you."

Zach turned to his right and he bit down on his bottom lip for a moment. "So, I chose them. And I left you to keep suffering. But, but I did so much. I accomplished so many of my goals. And you were one of the most important, and yet I never got to it. Why? Why couldn't I just go after you with everything I had? If I was already being selfish, then I should have been able to get it done." Zach paused and his voice got deeper and more strained as he confessed, "So, it wasn't because of everyone else. It wasn't because I had to save others first- because I knew that by stopping you I would be saving way more people!"

"I didn't come after you, because I was a coward," Zach admitted. He looked Kaminari back in his eyes. "Because, when Dabi burned Jenny, I thought there could be nothing worse than the pain I felt then. Watching her burn, listening to her scream, it was like no pain I could ever imagine. No torture could ever compare…"

And you really, could have forgiven me? Dabi wished he had not thought it. He still looked towards his old friend though in disbelief though as he had believed Zach before and yet also believed that he was accurately describing the pain he had felt back then.

"I thought, nothing could ever be worse than having to watch your best friend die in front of you. Because of your own mistakes!" Zach yelled. "But then," he continued, and his heart clenched up as he saw the smirk that covered Raijin's face of pride before Zach even continued with something Raijin suspected was coming next. "Then you betrayed me. And, and the feeling when you turned on me in that basement? The pain of your best friend, betraying you? Somehow… Somehow it was worse. Somehow you had managed to top it. Killing our friends. Taunting me. Laughing in my face about how you had had my family killed, and how you were going to kill the rest of them?! It was more than I could take. It drove me mad. And I truly thought- I actually, had the thought of how it could not possibly get worse than that. But I knew it could. And I saw worse out there. Worse than anything I ever had to face."

"But… but what you did to me that day was the worst pain I ever had to feel. It was, what I believed, had to be the worst moment of my life. That nothing could ever surpass it!" Zach's breathing got more ragged. "I thought there could be nothing worse than your best friend betraying you in the way that you did. But-" Zach's teeth clenched again. His face strained and his skin tightened up. His fingers were shaking so hard at his sides and his breathing picked up even more speed. "But watching your best friend die? Having your best friend betray you? I knew… I've always known, that there is something worse. Something I never wanted to do. I never wanted to face it!"

"I've known I would have to do it for so long," Zach continued. His lips pursed and trembled as he looked sadly into Kaminari's eyes. "But I also knew, that as much as those other things hurt... killing my own best friend was going to be harder. Harder than anything I've ever had to do. But, I do have to do it." Zach cracked a small smile even as tears fell from both of his eyes and stung his burnt face. "I'm going to kill my best friend. Because I've let you suffer for so long. For years, I've made you suffer. I've let you watch, Kaminari, as this shade tarnishes your memory and taints the world with evil… and I've known that you were watching the whole time! Looking through your own eyes at what you were doing- gah-" Zach gasped again and his left steel hand rose to his chest and gripped over it, peeling some ripped skin and making a trail of blood seep out over his torso under his prosthetic.

"And I let it happen because I didn't want to kill you. Even though I knew you were in constant pain, I just focused on everyone else, and then just on some other people- and then on anyone but you! Because I never… I never wanted to get here." Zach paused then spoke steadily with his expression hardening, "But I couldn't let myself die after letting it go on for this long. I came back this time with the sole purpose of ending your suffering. Killing you, was the sole reason for which I survived your bomb." Though, I won't let it be anymore. It was the one thought that tethered me here, but Midnight was right. Momo and Mina, were right. I led them to believe I had killed Nikko Enri. It was my own fault, not theirs. I still do have people here for me. I still have things worth living for.

"It really seems like you're determined to kill me, Zach. Even though you're a hero? Even though, people are watching?" Raijin tilted his head to the left, then the right. He motioned at buildings where Zach suspected people were closer to the windows now and staring down at him. His focus stayed locked on Raijin's just as his enemy's eyes were focused on his. Zach's expression did not falter though at Raijin's question. "Good," Raijin remarked. He chuckled then narrowed his own gaze through the clear visor at his enemy. "I don't want you holding back. I pulled out all the stops for this. My Anti-Death armor's supercharged battery pack regulates my Electricity and allow me to use 1,000,000% of the Electricity output I could create on my own. Or something like that, maybe," Raijin added, raising his tone like he could be lying about the amount, or about the actual function of his costume, or about anything really.

"I know you would have noticed the power outages over the past years. The rolling blackouts across Japan. The League thinks I was using most of that energy to power our bases off the grid. They thought that I was using it for our generators, but that was a small fraction of what I actually siphoned out of those cities. I brought up that utility to them because they would never understand the real reason, if I were to have explained to them that it was all for today. Not for this war, but just for our single one-on-one fight."

Dabi and Todoroki darted their gazes back to Raijin and felt sweat form on their faces at the intensity and confidence that covered Raijin's expression. "Every other construction project in this city over the past two years. Every other tunnel that I had the Digger make. Generators hidden in every wall. Heavy ordinance I had dropped all over this city!" Raijin yelled that while standing in front of a huge metal tube that had been implanted in this road apparently for the sole purpose of making him stronger for his fight against Zach. "This entire city is a deathtrap I made for this day. I transformed it into a playing field where I would be able to counter you at your full strength, and I have updated it since Muindo! I didn't plan on fighting you at full strength, but if it were to come to that I did not plan on losing!"

"So don't think that killing me will be that easy," Raijin snarled at his enemy whose body started to wrap back up in a pitch black veil. It stretched in around his sides and over his torso. It came up his arms and over his shoulders to his neck. Then it pulled in over his face and hit his eyes that filled back up with a deep red glow. Raijin's white armor pulsed blue. Lines of power shot through the suit that looked slick but doubtlessly had hidden tricks to it that Zach was looking out for already. Yellow sparks shot out of the villain while deep black tendrils rose higher and higher off of Zach's body that engulfed in a raging dark flame.

"I never thought it would be easy-"

"I'm not talking about emotionally!" Raijin yelled at his enemy.

Zach's fists clenched and his voice darkened and got scratchier, "Neither was I." Raijin misunderstood just because of Zach's regretful tone in what he just said that made the villain think Zach was just talking about how difficult it would be for him mentally to kill his own best friend. Zach's eyes scanned over his enemy's body and he took in a deep breath through his Death veil. I've always known this would be the hardest fight, Kaminari. You're not an enemy I have ever underestimated.

"Killing you, will be the hardest thing I ever do," Zach told his friend he stared down through vision getting tinted in red. His voice filled with determination and his head leaned forward though as his arms pulled back at his sides. "But I swear, I will not let you kill a single person in our fight. From this point forward, I won't ever let you kill anyone else again, Kaminari." Zach made that promise to his friend whose eyes he stared into in a way that angered Raijin to no end. The villain's twisted expression distorted in madness as Zach was not speaking to him. Zach was not addressing him by his villain name. And now he made such an audacious vow that Raijin ground his teeth at the sound of. Zach said that he was taking him seriously and yet still made such a claim like it was within his power to win this fight and do so while keeping his enemy from killing a single person?

"If you don't focus solely on killing me," Raijin taunted. His voice was cocky but there was a growl coming from the back of his throat as his hands reached back behind his waist for something. Zach's fingers twitched and the two of them covered in thicker auras of sparking Electricity and flaring Death. "You'll be dead within the first minute."

"There are a lot of things, a hero has to protect," Zach growled back at his enemy who curved the corners of his lips that much higher at the sound of that comment. "I won't let you hurt them." Zach's right fist balled and an explosion of Death erupted around it to make it three times as large. "I won't let you kill them anymore." His other fist erupted to become as large as his right already was. "For their sake and for yours, I'm ending this. Here and now. Once and for all!" Zach's right foot pushed through the floor as his body leaned forward, and he kicked off the ground.

---

A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for the cliffhanger, but if you weren't expecting one by now I don't know what to tell you! XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Was a pretty fun one to write which is how I got it out so quickly. I also had a few days off this past week to write it... but unfortunately, I work at a ski mountain as a ski instructor, and the next 3 weeks are spring breaks. I have barely any off time for the next few weeks, so the next chapter will probably take a bit longer to come out. Sorry 'bout that. Just letting you know beforehand. Anyway, Zach and Raijin face off! You all knew it was coming. And the fight is here. Darling also shows up! Airi saves Yaoyorozu and lives up to her title as the best shot in the world. Zach was pretty brutal towards Dabi... and a bit more brutal towards Diamondfist... O_o Hope y'all liked that scary scene! Let me know what you think is coming next, predictions, comments, or questions for the story in general! Review response time:

Angryshadow04 chapter 247 . Mar 3

Alright so I finally finished the chapter after managing to find time to read it and hoo boy was it an exciting one. I really like how all of the AOD member arriving in Japan really did have a huge impact despite there being less than 60 of them. One thing I am wondering though is where is Darling? Like surely she has at least thought of showing up, especially after Zach 'died'. It's interesting to see that Blackstar used Zach's name and power to scare the villains similar to how the AOD just being there is enough to scare the villains.
Speaking of Zach, his entrance was quite chilling. Toga killing herself (at least I think she did) and Zach reviving the hero silently and just going past Toga's dead body like its nothing is definitely showing just how different he is acting. Like he just basically made someone kill themself right in front of him that is someone he has known for years. Yet he just goes past her like its nothing like damn. He has 100% snapped and I can't wait to see how the next chapter plays out.

Darling is here! She did not arrive with the Army of Death, as just like Zach she has retired. However she came to help nonetheless! Blackstar scares the villains by using Zach's name, but he's not the only one as Momo does the same thing when she's fighting the German this chapter. They're right to use it too, because Zach is one terrifying person as he shows off this chapter a lot. Nice call on Toga killing herself. I tried to leave it more vague but also like Zach had done it, and I think it was 50/50 in the comment section for who figured out that she killed herself rather than him killing her. Wasn't as much him snapping fully though as I made it out to be, as he does defend his reasoning (as crazy as it sounds), to Raijin who could tell that the reason that Zach did it was out of care for Toga and not hatred. Anyway! Hope you enjoyed how the chapter played out. Thanks for reviewing!

sloganlogan chapter 247 . Mar 1

Another great chapter and what an end to it. Can't wait to see what comes of it. Tho I do admit the last paragraph or two have me a bit confused. So Toga had her throat slit, was that something she did herself or was it Zach? And if it was Zach did he use Death to do it or did he use that blade? I reread it a few times and wasn't sure. Either way things are definitely picking up. I'm sad that this story is going to be concluded soon but I'm glad I was along for the ride, been around since the inhuman arc and it's just gonna be weird not looking forward to an update anymore. Well anyway that's not something to worry about just yet, love this story and I'll be waiting for the next chapter.

Thanks! I did leave it a bit ambiguous, so no fault on you for getting a bit confused there. I didn't explain whether Zach did it or if she did it until this chapter. Wanted people to make some theories and guess about it, and I was pretty happy how that played out in the comments! XD The story is concluding soon, but still a good bunch of chapters to go, so look forward to some more months of Death on the way! Really glad you've stuck along with the story for this long, and hope you enjoyed the newest chapter! Thanks for the review!

sellinuh chapter 247 . Mar 1

YES AOD KICKING ASSES AND ZACH IS FUCKING BACK AND HE IS SURE PISSSSSSSSSEEDDD. VILLAINS NOW TREMBLE IN FEAR!

Hahaha! Zach started this chapter out pisssssssed is right. The villains did a bit more than trembling in fear though... Almost makes you feel bad for Diamondfist. ;/ or not. Thanks for reviewing!

papaprep chapter 247 . Mar 2

Fuck, Im so glad I didn't read the comments first before reading the new chapter.

Yeah... spoiler warning should be a given! XD That would have been a rough one to see beforehand though more so than usual. Thanks for the review!