Chapter 7:

Zach stepped into Class 1-A and a hush fell over the room. He looked left at all the students sitting or standing around. Class had just ended so a few people had gotten up and were standing next to their classmates' seats. He saw his usual seat was left open, and the blond boy who sat near him grinned after a second of surprise. Zach also saw a relieved look on Yaoyorozu's face, and he wondered if she had been worried because he had not shown up that morning, even though she had said 'see you tomorrow' to him at the hospital.

Most of the other looks were just surprised, as the majority of the students thought Zach would have been out for longer. Kirishima had talked to Kaminari about it earlier though, and the boy with spiky red hair called out while turning from Tokoyami's seat he was standing next to, "Zach! You're back!"

Zach felt a huge amount of relief that that was the first thing someone said to him. Thanks Kirishima, he thought, right before leaning back as that boy and a few others came running towards him. Kaminari, Asui, Sato, and Sero all came up to him right near the door. Sero started with a look of surprise on his face, "I thought you got arrested!" Zach looked towards him in surprise that that was the first thing he had to say, and Sero continued in an annoyed voice, "It was really getting on my nerves. Thinking that fighting villains could make us villains ourselves-"

"The tv stations were freaking out about it, did you see them?" Sato said, wondering if wherever Zach was he had a television with him.

"Y-Yeah, I saw," he began in a low voice.

"You guys have no tact," Asui mentioned, and Zach looked left and down at the girl just a little shorter than him. "Are you alright, Zach?"

The others quieted down for a second, and then Zach nodded his head, "Yeah. I'm good," he replied, nodding at the girl with the Quirk- Frog.

"That's great!" Another girl popped up, jumping between Sato and Sero. The girl Zach knew before any of his other classmates, since they met at the Entrance Exam, grinned wide at him as she leaned forward. "We were really worried."

You were? Zach glanced around at the group standing around him, none of whom he had felt all that close to besides just being classmates.

The group kept asking questions and talking about the League of Villains' attack, as they had been for the past day now. Then Kirishima looked down at Zach's right hand and said, "So what is your Quirk?" Zach got a hesitant look on his face, and he saw Kaminari behind Kirishima and to his right a little get an apologetic look. Kaminari had wanted to tell them not to ask, but he also felt that by saying anything he would be making it seem like something crazy, as well as give it away that he knew something about it. "We were all guessing when we found out you had something."

"I thought you were Quirkless," Sato mentioned. Zach looked his way in surprise, since he remembered telling Sato that his would not be good for the situation back when they teamed up for combat training. "Thought you were just embarrassed about it," he admitted and scratched the back of his head.

"I'm thinking, it's like Thirteen's," Sero said. "Like you take off that glove, and it's a black hole. Or a warp to a different dimension."

That would be, worse, I guess, Zach wondered to himself. "A glove probably wouldn't even be able to contain that," he mumbled aloud.

"So that's not it?" Sero said, sounding a bit disappointed but also excited since Zach was answering.

"Is it a magma fist?" Sato wondered.

"Or-" Ashido began, but the boy they were questioning cut them off first.

"It's," Zach began in a soft voice. The group around him held their breaths in anticipation. Kaminari looked at Zach hesitantly, with a look telling him he did not have to say anything if he did not want to. Zach could not see well past the two on his left who were blocking most of the class, but it was pretty quiet in there as he took his pause, and he figured every person there was listening to him. Not, not yet, he thought, as the pause was taking so long that he knew he did not want to say it. "It's a secret," he replied.

"Aww," Sero released his held breath in disappointment.

Mineta eased back in his seat, some sweat on his face at that response. "A secret? That's spooky," he whispered. Shoji glanced at him from a seat over, then he wondered, What if just talking about his hand is dangerous? Like, the Quirk that cannot be named? The muscular boy with six arms looked over in an interested way, right as the door opened up and the group over there had to start getting back to their seats as Cementoss walked in.

It was time for Modern Literature to start, their last class before lunch. Zach headed across the room, trying not to look around that much as he made his way for his seat. He could tell most of the others were still focusing on him, staring at him. There was one person who was not staring though, and was in fact trying to do the opposite by staring straight down at her notebook. Jirou, Zach thought as he got closer to her, since her desk was right behind his own.

Kaminari followed Zach since his was only one back and to the right of him, and he began as they neared their seats, "But hey, where were you this morning? And you got that black box off too."

"I overslept," Zach admitted, looking back at the boy he was walking with. Kaminari laughed, and then Zach lifted his right hand and mentioned, "They got me a new glove too. Same as the old one."

"Really?" Kaminari asked in surprise. "That's cool."

"Alright everyone, please settle down," Cementoss' low voice started up and the class got out their modern literature books as they all sat in their seats.

The class went by slowly, with Zach noticing looks from all over the room, mainly from the students who did not come up to him at the door. Near the end of class, when Cementoss handed out papers for the students to pass back down their lines though, Zach held the papers over his shoulder for a few seconds without the girl behind him grabbing them. He clenched his teeth hard, then he turned his head and placed the papers on the edge of her desk, even though he was using his left hand. He looked back forward without a word, and he never made eye contact with the hesitant girl behind him.

Kaminari turned his head and looked at the girl at his side with a funny look, lifting his eyebrows at her as she was being weird. Jirou darted her eyes to him in annoyance at his look, then she reached for the papers to continue passing them back. Her fingers froze right before grabbing the papers Zach had just been holding though. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" She grabbed the papers and let out a gasp of air she had been holding. Jirou passed back the papers to the person behind her, while grimacing as she looked back towards the back of the head of the boy in front of her. Is it just his right hand? It is! Why am I so, "DON'T-" He really thought, we were going to die. In his voice, he thought he was about to kill us. Jirou started breathing heavier. Her ability was reliant on sound, and when she plugged her earphone-jacks into things she could hear even faint heartbeats. So she could not get the sound of his voice out of her head. She could not stop thinking about the tone as she had grabbed him by the arm, because out of the whole rescue training, it was the one time she really expected she would die. She thought maybe there was a delay, and while she sat on her butt after falling away from him, she expected for so long that her life would start draining for grabbing him.

Jirou opened her mouth and leaned forward towards the back of Zach's head after a few seconds of sitting there staring at it. She thought about how he had avoided looking at her face when he half-turned his body, which she only saw out of her peripheral vision as she had looked away as well. I need to say something, she paused with her mouth open, then Cementoss started talking about the sheet that had some homework on it for them to do by the end of the next week. The sheet itself did not look very hard and like they would need that much time to do it, but they were all going to be busy the next two weeks training themselves and preparing for the Sports Festival. Their teachers understood it too, and they were not giving the students a heavy course-load during this time.

The girl sitting behind Zach listened to Cementoss for a couple of seconds, then she leaned back in her seat and frowned. What was I going to say anyway?

The whole day went by faster than Zach thought it would. He was able to avoid any hard questions from classmates, and through the day he got a better feel on how his classmates all felt about what he had done. At lunch he sat next to Yaoyorozu, then Todoroki who sat across from her, and Tokoyami and Sero who sat on Todoroki's right side. They talked a little about rescue training and the attack, but their focus was mainly on the Sports Festival and how they were going to be spending most of the afternoon training for it.

Zach was surprised to hear when Ashido sat on his left side that the other classes had gathered outside their room the day before to check out their competition. Ashido looked a little hesitant as she mentioned it, then Sero began while leaning over the table, "Some guy from 1-B was being a real jerk. Said stuff like our class almost got the entire festival cancelled, trying to blame us for it all." Sero looked like he wanted to be more specific but also like he did not want to continued.

Yaoyorozu continued for him though on Zach's right side, "He called out asking which of us," she stopped but Zach knew what she meant and nodded at her with a darker look on his face. "But Bakugo called him an 'extra,' I believe, and then told them all to get lost."

"It was that guy over there," Sero added, motioning towards a table where some class 1-B students were sitting. "He's the blondie with the annoying-looking face."

Somehow, using that description Zach was easily able to pinpoint the boy they were talking about. The boy with combed-over blond hair in Class 1-B was one Zach decided he would make a point of avoiding during the Sports Festival, though he hoped avoiding the guy would not make it more obvious that he was the one he was looking to root out. Zach was also glad that apparently none of the others in his class said anything about it being him who killed the villain, though he was not getting his hopes up that it would remain that way forever.

After lunch, Zach was intercepted by Iida who tried getting him in a secluded place. The class representative apologized deeply to him, bowing farther than any of the heroes or his fellow students, with maybe the exception of Yaoyorozu back at the hospital. Iida said he was too slow to get the teachers, and that he could have been faster, but Zach interrupted him and told him not to apologize. He did not get into it, instead just telling Iida that it would not have mattered. Even though he thought about how it totally would have made a difference in his head, he did not want the class rep who he voted for himself to go on thinking that he could have done something. He did not know if Iida was convinced, but he managed to end the conversation like that so he could get back to class.

The second half of the day though, was dedicated to practical studies, which really just meant sending the students out to train for the Sports Festival. Zach was a bit surprised that the school was still doing the Sports Festival and taking it so seriously, but he knew they had to make it look like the villain attack had not done much damage. If the U.A. Sports Festival had been cancelled, Zach told himself he never would have been able to show his face at school again.

The students got on the blue workout uniforms that they wore on the first day for their Quirk Apprehension Tests. They were told they could use Ground Beta on campus which was an urban environment setting and had been reserved for their class today.

Zach walked out towards the standard urban area to join in training with the rest of his classmates. They were all talking about the Sports Festival, but Zach noticed a few of them were staying quiet. They're the ones most into this, he thought, spotting Todoroki unfocused on anyone around him, walking near the front of the group with a far-off look in his eyes. He saw Bakugou's expression serious, not his usual smug and grinning self. Iida was leading the class, but even he was not as talkative now that they were heading to the training ground. This is the biggest event in Japan all year, after all. And after what happened, everyone's going to be watching our class closely. The ones who fought villains… and I bet they're going to be guessing which of us is, me.

Zach's eyes focused on one of his classmates as they neared the training area. A few people started splitting off to use different training areas, and Kaminari who was walking on his left talking to Kirishima mentioned how he was going off on his own to an empty rocky area outside of the training ground where he could use his powers more freely. Zach headed into the training grounds with most of the other students, but then they all broke off into groups or to train alone. He was one of the ones who jogged off on his own, but he was not just planning on going for a run the whole time.

After fifteen minutes of warming up by running the streets of the urban area, Zach started a search. Sero flew overhead as he ran down a street, using the tape coming out of his elbows to shoot through the air from telephone posts up onto roofs. Right after Sero flew over him, he saw Ojiro jump from one roof down the road to the one across from it by smacking his tail down hard on the roof behind him. Zach picked up his pace after seeing them, then he ran towards a skyscraper and sprinted straight through the doors. He sprinted to the stairs and started going up the steps taking every single one while moving his feet rapidly. He reached the eighth floor which was higher than most of the other buildings' roofs around it, then he ran the outside of the floor while looking out the windows.

There, he thought, then sprinted back to the stairs and was less intent on hitting each one on his way down. He was careful about how many he skipped at each time, but the trip down was still three times shorter than the one up. He sprinted across the first floor and out onto the street again. He ran down the road and around a corner towards a part of the training zone where the buildings were knocked over and set up as if a natural disaster had hit the place. On a street in the area, Uraraka had just made a bunch of debris float up in the air, and Ashido and Aoyama were using their powers to destroy that rubble.

When Ashido saw him running towards them, she lowered her hand that she just threw some acid with and cupped it to her mouth. "Hey Zach! Come use your secret power to blow away the debris!"

He ran closer to them and then right past Ashido, while saying in a soft voice, "My power can't do that."

The pink girl he ran past just hummed after he said it and she scratched the back of his head, as if that got her a step closer to figuring out the secret while also stumping her as her best predictions all seemed flawed now. Aoyama had sweat over a lot of his face as he watched Zach run by, and Zach had noticed the boy with the bellybutton laser took a step away when he had ran close to them. Uraraka turned to watch the spiky-haired boy who kept running, frowning and thinking that Zach looked sad when he replied to Ashido.

Zach glanced down a street to his right when he neared another intersection. He was around here, he thought. He looked up as he saw someone falling, and his eyes opened wide at the sight of Kirishima dropping from the top of a building. The red haired boy was smirking though as he crossed his arms in front of his falling body, and his whole body hardened and smashed through the ground with such force that the street broke and dust shot up around him.

He was not looking for Kirishima though, but this was the road he definitely saw who he was looking for on not long ago. Alright, all-out sprint to find him then. Zach bent down and put his hands on the floor in front of him, a starting position for sprinting. He pushed down hard with his front foot and swung his arms back, sprinting forward down the road that Kirishima was climbing out of a hole on. He grinned as he looked Zach's way, happy that someone saw how far he just dropped without getting a scratch on him. Kirishima opened his mouth to say something, but Zach sprinted towards him and jumped up on a turned-up piece of street from what Kirishima had broken apart. He landed on the side of some pavement, then jumped off to a different cracked chunk that wobbled beneath his feet, but he did not stay on that one long enough to see which way it would fall either though.

"Hey," Kirishima called after him. "Did you see-"

"Nice fall!" Zach called out without looking back.

Kirishima sweatdropped and scratched the back of his head. Where's he going in such a hurry? The boy with the Hardening Quirk tilted his head to the side as Zach reached the end of the road and snapped his head back and forth, then Kirishima really got interested at the sight of a smile forming on Zach's face. What's he looking for? Kirishima wondered.

Zach started running right down the road he just reached, and he called out towards the back of the person jogging ahead of him, "Midoriya!" Nice, the road is empty, Zach thought, while Izuku Midoriya turned his head in surprise at the sight of the boy running towards him.

Midoriya looked back and his eyes widened at who was running his way, "Z-Zach?"

Zach took a few deep breaths as he slowed down in front of Midoriya, but his sprint did not last long and it did not take much to catch his breath. "Hey," Zach began, gathering up his nerves as he stood before the boy close to his height. He looked Midoriya in the eyes and gained a more serious look to his face, making Midoriya lean back nervously as he wondered what the black-haired boy was doing. "You mind training with me for a bit?" Zach asked.

"M-Me? Why?" Midoriya asked, as it felt like from the way Zach called out his name that the boy had been looking for him.

"Your Quirk and mine are both hard to use," Zach began. Midoriya's eyes widened a little more as Zach said that straight out, then they grew even wider as he continued, "And since you aren't training yours right now, I figure that means you still can't use it without hurting yourself."

Midoriya got a confused look on his face and he said, "Why does that mean-"

"I can't use my Quirk either," Zach said. "To train at least. I don't know whether or not you're planning to use yours during the Sports Festival," he added, but he was saying that he had made the assumption that Midoriya was not going to break his own bones during the training. Midoriya looked more intense after that though, and Zach could see he was thinking hard on the Sports Festival. He's going to take it pretty seriously too. Everyone is, he added to himself, as even the people he saw training with smiles around Ground Beta were doing their bests. "Anyway, I figured I could use a sparring partner, so if you're not going to be working on your Quirk, are you down to train with me for a bit?"

Midoriya glanced over his shoulder, down the street he had been jogging on. He already had his after-school training schedule down too, along with his weekend plans down at Dagoba Beach. Most of it consisted of running and muscle training- push-ups and lifting weights. Midoriya lifted a hand to his mouth and looked down as he refaced Zach. "I didn't think about training with a partner. If the Sports Festival has a one-on-one combat part though, as it does most years, then that would be great training. And in the festival we wouldn't have our costumes in order to keep it fair for everyone. I won't be able to use One-For-All without hurting my classmates, but I did control it that one time against the villain. I just need to focus on picturing the egg in the microwave. But that would still be dangerous and in most situations I should try using it as little as…"

Zach got a bead of sweat on the right side of his face and it slid all the way down before he wiped it off and said, "Alright, so that's a yes?" Midoriya had been mumbling mostly incoherently for ten seconds, and finally the boy with dark green hair lifted his head in surprise like he almost forgot why he started muttering in the first place.

Midoriya nodded, his look intense. Zach pointed towards a building on their left side, "Let's fight in there."

His classmate looked through the windows and saw the first floor of the building was mostly empty. "Let's do it," Midoriya said.

The two of them walked in, and the curious boy at the end of the street just around an intersection grinned from ear to ear at the sight of it. Zach and Midoriya are going at it? Kirishima looked behind him to tell someone to come watch with him, but the road was empty and he frowned. He looked around the corner again, and then he started over for the one that the two had just entered.

"Alright, so just on the feet fighting sound good?" Zach asked as he stood across from Midoriya between some support pillars on the first floor. There was a ten foot gap between them, and Zach continued while lifting up his arms into a fighting stance and spreading his feet apart from each other. "If you go down, we'll just call that a point."

Midoriya sweatdropped while getting in a fighting stance of his own. "You're really into martial arts, huh Zach?"

Zach nodded his head. "You know the Boxing Hero, Gr-"

"Grappler?!" Midoriya exclaimed faster than Zach could finish. "He's a manly hero who saves people in Hosu City. He has half a dozen sidekicks, but he could have more-"

"He just only picks people with fighting-type Quirks," Zach cut in, thinking that that was how Midoriya was going to finish. "I know. I've been watching the free self-defense courses he puts online for years. In most of the newer videos the past couple of years he repeats stuff he's already taught, but even when he does he always brings new experiences from fighting villains." Zach cracked his knuckles while stepping towards Midoriya with his back foot, and he changed up the fighting stance he had been in, opening up his fists to instead have both hands opened up with his fingers curled. "But you're pretty good too. Your fight with Bakugo got me really fired up back in combat training."

His smile is real, Midoriya thought. It was a strange thought to have as they were about to fight, but the entire day he had seen Zach during class and lunch, and the whole time he saw the other boy smiling, he had thought it was fake. Right now though, it looked like all the worries and doubts and regrets that Zach had were washing away. "Thanks," Midoriya said, referring to how Zach said he was good when it was clear to him that the other boy knew what he was doing. Zach's a fighting type. It's not his Quirk, but to come up with a defense against it… only he just showed me he could switch up which fighting style he uses easily. And Grappler is the Boxing Hero, but he has a lot of different fighting styles too. Whatever counters I start using- is that why he showed me two different styles? He knows that I come up with ways to beat my-

"You ready?" Zach asked. Midoriya stopped thinking so hard and just nodded his head, getting serious as he clenched his fists tighter. He's going to try and feel me out the first few rounds, see which styles I use the most. Midoriya, I didn't pick you just because of your Quirk. If anyone could come up with ways to beat me in just a regular fight, if anyone could show me where my weaknesses are in straight-up combat, it'd be you. "Then let's go," Zach said, and he ran forward.

Zach swung his right fist forward, and Midoriya's eyes widened as the black glove came towards his face. He pulled away fast, only to realize that the fist was stopping short anyway. His eyes darted to the side at the sight of Zach's left arm really punching forward, and he tried lifting his arms to block it. He brought both hands up and stopped Zach's fist, but his momentum still pushed Midoriya's hands back into his face. Midoriya stumbled a few feet back, then he brought his hands down only to have to duck as Zach swung his right leg around in a roundhouse. Midoriya ducked and he dove forward to try and grab Zach's other leg that was planted on the ground. If he got that one off, Zach's balance would be gone.

Before Midoriya's hand touched his planted leg, Zach slammed his right leg back down right on Midoriya's back. As Midoriya's elbows and knees hit the ground, Zach jumped back with his leg in front of Midoriya's hands and the one on the boy's back. He landed a few feet away, while Midoriya looked up with a pained look on his face from that hard stomp. He did not complain about the pain though or how serious Zach was with the kick, and he got back up on his feet fast and lifted his arms again.

Midoriya ran in first this time, and Zach started to turn his body right to dodge Midoriya's right fist that he punched forward. His dodge was just a feint though, as he knew Midoriya's first punch was going to be. He reached up his right hand looking like he was going to grab Midoriya by the wrist of the arm passing him, making Midoriya hesitate with his left leg he was about to swing up. Zach bent his elbow before grabbing Midoriya's arm though, and he used his right elbow instead of his hand to knock Midoriya's arm painfully across the front of his body. At the same time he snapped his left hand forward and hit Midoriya in the side of the face with his palm, while Midoriya's head had been turning with wide eyes to focus on his own arm that was quickly redirected in front of him.

The green-haired boy lifted off his feet and flew a few feet away from Zach before hitting the ground on his side. Midoriya turned so he was on his butt, then he took a deep breath and got on his feet again. He sprinted forward and punched with his left hand this time. Zach reached up and actually grabbed it this time with his own left hand, but Midoriya seemed to be expecting that and he kept up running forward while throwing his other arm around Zach. Zach lifted his right arm and bent the elbow to slam down on Midoriya's back as the other student had put his head against Zach's side and thrown his other arm around his body to push him back. Zach had lost balance, but he was going to make Midoriya let go before slamming him to the ground. When he brought his right elbow down though, Midoriya let go of the tackle and leaned back fast, yanking his other arm away from Zach's left hand as Zach was focusing all his current strength on his right elbow.

Midoriya leaned back enough that Zach's right arm went past the front of his body, then he punched forward with his right hand. Zach's left hand that had lost its grip on Midoriya's slammed forward while clenching into a fist too, and he slammed it straight against Midoriya's punching fist so their knuckles collided. Both of them winced, then Midoriya punched his left arm up underneath where their arms were punching. It was an uppercut and Zach was too close to pull his head back fast. He brought his right hand in to stop the punch, but he kept moving his arm and used his forearm instead to block it, making him wince in pain at the feeling. Midoriya had expected it before, but the uppercut was more of a test than actually trying to get Zach under the chin as he knew it could be blocked easily. He doesn't use his right hand at all while fighting.

The teachers said that my new costume has something else to put on over this glove for when I'm fighting. Even if I did use my right hand usually, I wouldn't right now, Zach pulled back a few inches and opened up his left fist. He grabbed Midoriya's fist as it kept pushing forward with his momentum, then Zach used that momentum to yank Midoriya even closer, while bringing his right knee up. He slammed his knee into Midoriya's gut while the boy who was just thinking about Zach's right hand tried to change what he was focusing on. I don't need my right hand in a fight though. But he figured that out pretty quick. Still, people in other classes and even our own won't rely on me not using it. Other classes because they might think it's some sort of secret weapon, and our class because they might just be afraid I'll use it if they take advantage. He grimaced at the thought of that, but then lost his dark look as Midoriya stayed on his feet after stumbling back from that knee in the gut.

Zach ran forward and jumped up while pulling his right fist back, his right leg bent, and then his left leg spun around while Midoriya brought up a guard on his left side to protect from Zach's right leg. He kicked Midoriya and the green-haired boy stumbled to the side, but he stayed on his feet again and then turned punching towards where Zach was running towards him. Zach was not expecting that quick a reaction and tried pulling his face away, but Midoriya's hand skimmed his left cheek and pushed his face even harder away while a bruise started to form. Zach got in close though while Midoriya's arm passed his face, then the green-haired boy brought up a knee just as Zach did when they had gotten closer before. Zach lowered his left hand and caught Midoriya's knee, before bringing up his own for the other boy's gut. Midoriya slammed a hand down though and stopped Zach's knee just as Zach had stopped his own a second ago.

Damn, Zach thought in annoyance, expecting that one to connect. He's quick, but I spent a lot of time honing these skills. If I was just beating on him though, this would have been pointless. Don't get frustrated. Despite what he told himself, each time he knocked down Midoriya, the following round lasted much longer. This is my usual style too, he thought one time, as Midoriya swung a fist in front of his face, then followed up with a kick in his side while his arm had blocked Zach's side for a second and made it impossible to see where his next move would be. He staggered back, then he reached up and caught Midoriya's right foot as the boy tried swinging it up at him as a roundhouse. But he clearly doesn't use kicks like this usually, Zach thought, as Midoriya had no balance at all when Zach caught his leg. He almost fell on his own, but then his right hand balled into a fist and he leaned forward, pushing off the foot that was wobbling and using it to dive at Zach instead.

Zach tried pushing back on that leg he had grabbed, but Midoirya punched his fist already and it nailed Zach in the face. Zach's head snapped back and his right foot stepped backwards, and while Midoriya hit the floor after his punch and winced from the position he landed, Zach also fell back on his butt and reached his left hand up for his face. "Ow," he muttered after a few seconds, lowering his hand from his face only after the angry snarl had wiped from it. "Lucky shot," he said, then scrambled up onto his feet fast. Midoriya got up quickly too though, and the green-haired boy narrowed his eyebrows in with an intense look on his face. He's coming up with ways to knock me down again. That's not a lucky shot, he's going to keep getting better. Is he some sort of genius or something? A natural? Zach started to get sweat on his face, then he realized what was happening and he let out a long breath, before breathing in and stepping his back foot up and spreading his legs farther. He rose both hands as palms and then curled his fingers out while Midoriya leaned back.

"So, you know about All Might too?" Zach ran forward as he said it, then uncurled his fingers and slammed only his left palm out into Midoriya's chest while twisting his body to put his back into it, knocking him back and onto the floor. He flattened Midoriya in a second, but Midoriya just sat there with a stunned look on his face as he stared up at the other boy.

"Wh-Wh-What are you talking about?" Midoriya asked.

"Stuttering that much isn't a very good cover," Zach said, stepping back and then stomping down hard with each foot and slapping his hands down on his knees. "Shouldn't get caught off guard just because of something your opponent says in a fight. The guy we went up against in the Mountain Zone was experienced, and when Jirou tried that, he didn't fall for it for a second." Midoriya's eyes opened even wider at the mention of that, since his mind was still racing over that last thing. "Sometimes your opponent distracts you," Zach said, though he was really trying to back it up to himself with these excuses as he felt like that was a pretty cheap shot.

He waited for Midoriya to stand back up, then he rose his hands from his knees back into his sumo stance. Midoriya stayed in the fighting stance he had been using, though Zach noticed some changes in it since the start of the fight. He's definitely matching more of what my first style was. His stance doesn't have as many holes in it as when he first got into it. Hopefully this training helps him too, I'd feel kind of bad if I took away time from what else he could be doing. "Alright," Zach started forward, but Midoriya was clearly distracted now. Zach changed out of his sumo style before he reached Midoriya, surprising the boy again as he got back into his original stance, and he used a move that Midoriya had already countered before to knock his training partner down again.

Zach frowned at how easy that was, and he knew Midoriya wanted to ask him something. At the same time though, Midoriya really did not want to ask him anything, in case Zach had just been distracting him with something random. Zach got out of his fighting stance with a sigh as Midoriya stood back up, because the other boy looked too unfocused to try and go another round while thinking only of counters and ways to fight him, and that's what Zach wanted Midoriya thinking about while they sparred. "He told me you knew too, more of an off-handed mention than anything else. I don't actually know if he realized it himself," Zach added while scratching the back of his head. "He was just telling me about after the fighting was over and everything, and when I asked about how you were doing he mentioned how- it doesn't really matter." Zach shook his head, and he said, "I just kind of, figured it out on my own," he said, scratching his head as he did. "So you do know, right?" Zach asked, as he still had not really said what he was talking about, since Midoriya had not yet confirmed it. As sure as he was of what he had concluded, All Might had given him his trust, and he did not want to break it on an assumption, even a well-thought-out assumption.

At the same time, Midoriya did not know whether Zach knew what he was talking about. So he thought of something to check, and he said, "Droopy bangs?" To anyone who did not know what they were talking about, it would not have made any sense at all, but Zach cracked a smile as he thought of the strange appearance of the man who had appeared in his hospital room.

"They sure look weird when they're not pointing up," Zach said with a small smile. Midoriya's eyes opened wide, and then Zach continued, "I want to be a great hero, like All Might. But it's more than that now, after seeing that. We've gotta become good heroes, faster. In case those League of Villains show up again. Like, at the Sports Festival…" Zach said it in a softer voice and looked up at the ceiling after it came out. Would they do something that bold? Most of them seemed weak, but the leaders got away. They got away from All Might and a group of pro heroes. That's pretty impressive. No, really impressive.

"I don't think they will," Midoriya said, and Zach lowered his gaze. His opponent had seen the look of worry on his face, and Midoriya continued, "After the attack, they're going to buff up security at the Sports Festival to a point the villains would have to be really stupid to try anything. I don't think they're the type to do something like that, just to get caught."

"Yeah," Zach said softly, then he rose his voice and nodded his head, "Yeah, you're right." He shook his head around and got a small smile on it again as he rose his arms back up. "Then instead of worrying about villains at it, let's worry about all the pro heroes going to be watching us. And let's get ready to show them our best."

Midoriya looked surprised again, then his thoughtful expression vanished and a smile spread across his face instead. An intense, determined smile, and then Midoriya lifted his fists. "Yeah, our bests," Midoriya said, and then the two of them ran at each other.

Outside, Eijiro Kirishima walked away from a building with his arms up in front of him, a serious look on his own face as he punched over and over in the air in front of him. Those guys were being so intense in there! That's manly as Hell! He punched a few more times, then did an uppercut before stopping and glancing over his shoulder. What were they talking about though? All Might? Droopy bangs? …Whatever. I've gotta get into it too!

Two weeks went by fast. Zach wound up joining Midoriya on afternoon training for a few days after school. He was the first training partner Zach had ever had, as his fighting training had always been mock fights with the training dummy on his roof. The fight with the villains showed him, despite the hits he landed against the enemies, that he was not a master in any fighting styles like he had imagined he was. He was better than his training partner, but Midoriya caught on fast and pushed him harder every day they sparred together. They spent a lot of time training on their own too, but two days before the U.A. Festival, Zach told Midoroya before their final spar that it would be their last round.

The suns were setting over the water while they faced each other on an empty part of a beach that Zach had thought was supposed to be covered in garbage until the first time they trained there. They faced each other and got as serious as could be before starting a fight. It lasted longer than usual, and the two of them punched each other in the faces to end it. They each stumbled backwards, then neither of them fell, but they both still left their fighting stances and stood straight up. "Finish this at the Festival?" Zach said, panting and rubbing a fist across his face to get some blood away from under his nose.

Midoriya nodded at him and then took a deep breath and looked down at his red knuckles. "I guess a day to rest my body is a good thing. Just to not be sore for the Sports Festival. But I should still-"

Before he could start a rant, Zach started laughing at his habit of muttering that he never seemed to notice until someone told him to stop. Midoriya looked up and Zach stopped laughing to just grin at the boy in front of him. "See you there then," he said, since the day before it there would be no school, so they would not see each other again after this until the day of. Zach gave Midoriya once last competitive look while the other boy started staring at him, then he turned to leave.

Midoriya stared at Zach's back in a hesitant way. He bit down on his bottom lip and looked frustrated. "Zach," Midoriya began, his tone serious but hesitant. Zach stopped walking but did not turn around, his smile lowering at the sound of that tone. Don't ask, Zach started thinking. "About the villain attack," Midoriya said, and Zach grimaced even more.

"What about it?" Zach asked, looking half over his shoulder so he was just looking back at Midoriya with one eye.

His training partner hesitated at that look, but then his look got more serious and he asked, "Did you need to?" Zach turned his head away from Midoriya. He stared the opposite direction, and he heard the boy behind him ask in a softer voice, "I didn't ask, because I just assumed you did. But then I heard-" he paused and looked away. "Nevermind."

"You heard?" Zach turned his head again and looked back at Midoriya completely this time. "From who?"

"No one told me," Midoriya said, his voice apologetic. "I just, forgot something in the classroom after school yesterday. When I went back to grab it though, I heard Kaminari and Jirou arguing about something. I didn't mean to pry…"

Yesterday

Midoriya reached for the door handle but froze at the sound of the voices on the other side. "… And you're avoiding him like the plague. You could let up a little. He was trying to save you!"

"I'm not avoiding-" Midoriya heard Jirou's voice snap back at Kaminari, but she did not finish that sentence. "The heroes were there. If he had waited…" Midoriya turned and rushed off, not wanting to eavesdrop on any more of this conversation.

Inside the classroom, Jirou faded off and then looked away at Kaminari's annoyed look. "There could have been other ways."

"Yeah, maybe," Kaminari said. "But you're still acting weird. Just give him a break already. It's not going to kill you to be a little nicer to the guy-"

"What if it does?" Jirou muttered. She shook her head, then looked back towards Kaminari who was looking at her in surprise, and then he frowned at her for saying that. "I can't help it," she said, her voice quieter as she admitted that to the blond boy in front of her. "It's not about what else he could have done, or what we could have done to stop it, it's just- how easy it was. Not the decision, but just how quick his Quirk. I mean the guy just died. Instantly," Jirou said it with wide eyes like it was an insane power, and Kaminari kept frowning but he nodded his head.

Death, Kaminari thought about the name Zach gave him for his Quirk. He opened his mouth to say something to Jirou, but then he closed it and just furrowed his brow at her. I shouldn't. But, out of everyone in the class, I feel like he's- I should tell her that at least. "Listen Jirou, I don't get what you're thinking about, but can't you just think about how he feels when you avoid him? The others are probably easier for him, since they don't know what happened. But you were there, and you're still acting like this, so everything he's worried he did- you're pretty much confirming it, don't you think?"

Jirou stared blankly at the boy in front of her for a few seconds, then she turned away and muttered, "For an idiot, you make sense sometimes…"

Present

Unfortunately, Midoriya only heard a part of the conversation. He asked anyway though, because it had been something he thought on even before he heard that conversation but had always pushed from his head.

She doesn't think I needed to… I knew that, but, Zach bit down hard and ground his teeth while staring away from Midoriya. He spoke while looking away, "You want to know, if I used my Quirk rashly? If I killed someone without thinking hard enough about it?" Midoriya held up his hands defensively to say 'of course not,' but Zach continued before he could, "Well I did." Midoriya froze with his arms lifted and mouth open, and his eyes slowly started widening as he stared at Zach's back. "There were things I could have done. I can't say, that I didn't have time. If I had waited another five seconds, ten seconds, we probably still would have been saved. I didn't even think about distracting the villain, try to make that time longer so that the others could think of a better plan than mine. I didn't even threaten him. I could have told him, 'I'll kill you,' but I didn't want to risk him killing me before I could do anything, I guess. I thought that if I tried telling him my Quirk and how quick I could be to finish it, that he might just be faster. So I just killed him. I did it, but there were other options. Better options. I did it, but she's right, I didn't need to."

Zach started walking again. He walked away from Midoriya who lowered his arms down to his sides and just stared at the other boy walk away. There were things he wanted to say to Zach if that was his answer, things he had thought about beforehand. His own power was one that could easily kill people, and when he went to punch Shigaraki Tomura, he was ready to punch with everything he had. But he never regretted that decision, because there were people he was trying to save. As he stared at Zach's back as he walked off though, he could not say anything, because even though he did not regret it, he wondered if he would feel the same had his fist collided.

The boy walking away on the beach with short, dark spiky hair glared ahead of him with such an angry look on his face. I could have done so many things differently. I try not thinking about them, but right there, I was able to come up with so many ideas on the spot to tell Midoriya. Why did I panic so much in that situation? Why didn't I try, threatening that villain? I could have put my hand near him and started the threat, or even put four fingers on his leg and start intimidating by saying what would happen if I put down the fifth. He could have zapped me- but I could have lied and said if I took my hand off him it would kill him… Would he have believed it? Just because of my glove, that's not a very convincing argument. And no one's ever heard of a Death Quirk before, so he'd have thought I was bluffing. But it would have gained me time as he called my bluff and I countered, probably telling him truths to get him to listen. Told him about mom… but before I would have even got to that, Snipe would have been there. I just had to say something. I rushed it. I, killed a man, for no reason. I thought it in the moment, and I tried to tell myself otherwise since, but even with this time to think, I still did it. Number of saves, still zero. Number of kills, a lot plus one more.

A/N Hope you enjoyed. Zach and Midoriya train for the U.A. Sports Festival that begins next chapter! Thanks for reading! Leave a review below!