Death

by tmb1112

Death is a Quirk that can only kill. 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. Follow Zach Sazaki from his first day in Class A on a story that spans years, as he learns to be a hero, finds out more about his Quirk, and too much to summarize!

119. Chapter 119

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 119:

"Joining us today are Dr. Kimiko Honda, an attending physician at Musutafu General Hospital, and Keizo Horachi, the investigative journalist whose piece about Lifebringer being Death made the front page of the Japan Daily last week." A pitch black host whose hair just looked like an extension of his head because of how it was just as dark as his body held his hands out to either side to introduce his guests on his afternoon talk show. "Mr. Horachi, Dr. Honda, thank you for joining me today."

"It's good to see you, Saiko," Keizo replied back to a man whose show he had been a guest on before.

"Thanks for having me," Kimiko added with a nod at the tv host.

"Horachi, in your article you make it very clear your opinion, but I want to know just how confident you are that Zach Sazaki is Death? If you had to give a percentage to-"

"One hundred percent, Taiga," Horachi replied, using the host's last name this time as they got into a more professional mood. He looked serious as he said it, and he continued, "It is not my opinion, but an observable fact that Death is Lifebringer."

"We've never seen Death without his helmet on," Saiko Taigo started arguing back.

"The costumes alone," Horachi countered right away. "He's not even trying to hide it. I wrote it in my piece, but I'll repeat it here. The helmet isn't to hide his identity. He wouldn't be bringing people back to life, using his Nightmare mode, or wearing a costume so similar to his old one if he really cared about hiding who he was."

"The costumes are not the same," Dr. Honda cut in, speaking up for the first time as this "conversation" was going on without her taking part.

The news host looked glad she jumped in, and he turned to her before the journalist could counter her, "Dr. Honda. You claim to be a knowledgable source on the character of Lifebringer. You knew him personally, that's correct?"

"That's right," Kimiko Honda replied, nodding at the host while the other reporter gave her a curious look. He already knew whoever else was being brought on would likely counter what he had to say, but her introduction had not made him think she would be someone who knew Lifebringer directly. "And in my opinion, the odds that that boy has turned into a terrorist are slim to none."

"What do you have to back that opinion up?" Horachi countered right away. He had given a lot of his own reasons, and he faced the doctor who was not as used to this as he was but still frowned his way after a second of looking surprised that he was the one who questioned her this time.

"First of all, your 'evidence' is circumstantial, at best," Honda started. She lifted her head back and said, "I read your article, Mr. Horachi. It was well written, and it had some good points, but do not pretend like it is a certainty or that you are truly a hundred percent certain. Even in your article you admitted your doubt-"

"I put in the possibility of being wrong because it is not yet been proven-"

"Then don't change it up here just for the cameras," Dr. Honda said, and her quip was so sharp that Horachi froze with his mouth open.

He and Taiga were both surprised, but the news program's actual host managed to compose himself fast and he smiled at the change in pace he was not entirely expecting. "A lack of evidence really isn't a great support for why you don't think they're one and the same though, Dr. Honda."

"I met Lifebringer," Kimiko Honda started. She put her hands down on the table in front of her and took in a deep breath, reminding herself why it was she had agreed to come on this program in the first place. "At Musutafu General right after the Sports Festival Invasion. I was there working nonstop throughout the attack and over the following days."

"Thank you, for that service," Taiga started.

Horachi agreed quickly, "I'm sure you saved many lives, Dr. Honda. Lifebringer too, I imagine. However-"

"Let me finish," Honda cut him off, and she glared at the other guest who paused then nodded respectfully and in apologies at the doctor. She took in a deep breath and then started again, "From a couple of hours after the attack, until a few days later, Lifebringer was at the hospital constantly to bring back the people who were killed and had died of their injuries in the hospital. He was able to bring them back if they died within his time limit, so he stayed close in order to save them, and he saved dozens in those days following the attack."

"Shouldn't he have been there?" Horachi questioned, lifting his eyebrows at the other guest. "It was in part Lifebringer's fault-"

"Don't you dare," Honda said, glaring harshly and angrily at Horachi for the first time since they started. She glared at the man who pulled his head back at her look, and she continued, "The whole thing they did with him, the Sports Festival, Musutafu- as, a, whole. It was all a distraction for freeing the Tartaros prisoners which anyone with a brain understands." Honda kept glaring at the man whose intelligence she just insulted harshly, and she continued on without giving him a chance to defend himself. "He was exhausted, injured, and yet he was there constantly to save people he did not know despite having to take in all of their pain. I watched him, on the verge of death himself!" She called it at the man across from her and kept glaring in an intense way as she continued, "Yet he didn't slow down. He just dragged himself to the next person to save even if it could kill him…"

Kimiko Honda faded off at the end there, her voice getting quieter and her intense look softening a bit. She looked a tad apologetic for getting so worked up there, then she just shook her head once while looking back and forth at the two men at the table. "He's a kind boy," she said. In her head she saw the boy crying as he tried to bring someone back who had already died before, who he had dragged himself on top of despite looking like he was about to die. She remembered watching him pass out there after getting wrapped up by the man's wife who he had been sobbing his apologies to over not being able to save him again. Her expression steadied and she said in a strong voice, "There is no way, Zach Sazaki is Death."

---

"Villains," Exodus growled in Dormanian. He stood with over thirty other dark figures around him, facing a man who had seventeen other villains near him trapped with a cliff at their backs and enemies on all other sides. Two helicopters with their rotors ripped off and the tails snapped too were flaming to the sides and illuminating the base of the cliff where the fifty or so people were gathered. Exodus stepped forward and glared at the man straight ahead of him who was the farthest out from the cliff's base out of his group of villains. "Get down on your knees and surrender. There is nowhere left to run."

The boss of the group facing Exodus turned his head and he smirked big for the men behind him to see. He rose up his right arm, and his hand slid out of the extra long sleeve he was wearing. His hands had been hidden inside the sleeves, and when he slid that right hand out he showed that he was holding an empty syringe in it with the needle sliding out of his wrist. The dark figures ahead of the villain tensed and readied themselves, though they held their positions despite the other villains behind the boss shooting up as well. Their bodies morphed, bulging out with muscles or spiking new appendages to the sides, and reality started to bend around the area with the air tinting a dark green and then a blackish purple. The air swirled, bent, refracted, and the ground started shaking before small holes broke apart all over it with bamboo shoots spiking out that looked to wave around in the bendy air.

All the villains used Trigger at once, and the boss in front of Exodus stomped forward with one of the two legs that just ripped out of the front of his body in what looked like a really painful transformation. The man was smirking huge though, making it seem like their Trigger was laced with something else as he started laughing despite the blood coming out of the spots where his extra limbs just emerged from. "With our powers stronger like this!" The man yelled, and he stomped all four feet forward. His stomps made cracks on the ground, and a villain back behind him slammed a massive fist into the cliff behind and made that crack too. Other villains started moving, getting encouraged by their drugs and the boss's shouts as he continued, "Then there's no way we lose even to twice as many-"

Exodus lifted his right hand, and he injected Trigger into his neck. Thirty others around him did the same, with only a couple holding off on it. "Shoot up," Exodus said, though the soldiers behind him were already on it. Exodus' body erupted in a bright white glow that destroyed the darkened tint of the air and instead made everything so bright it no longer seemed like night at all. His eyes glowed pure white through his eye sockets, there were glows coming from his nostrils too and his mouth was pure white when he opened it next, though the glow was still getting brighter for the villains in front of him who were being blinded by it. "And take them down," Exodus ordered, and then he shot forward leaving a blur of his body behind as he moved inside the light, appearing behind the villain's boss and then grabbing him by one arm that he swung him around by.

Exodus swung him around so fast that he had to loosen his grip or risk ripping the man's arm out of his socket. He released the man towards the strongest-looking of the eighteen Triggered-up villains, then he shot a different direction where he saw one of the strong ones bearing down on two of his comrades who were preoccupied with two villains who were no pushovers either with all the Trigger injected. Exodus shot at the large and powerful villain's back, then the villain's body broke apart into a mass of crows that flew up in the air and reformed into a man above where Exodus's Light Punch just flew through where he had been running. Exodus's punch kept going when it did not hit anything, and it separated his own forces from the villains with the fast attack.

"Get away from the cliff!" Flare called out, and she fired five huge red flares at the cliff face as a warning for the others near it. Exodus's glow had moved a different direction when he chased other villains, so she had to illuminate what she just saw happen in the corner of her eyes. During one of the fights that had just broken out, a punch that missed carried so much force that the swing still widened the cracks made all over the wall when a villain smashed his enlarged fist into it. The cracks branched out higher up, and huge slates of rock started falling down illuminated in red flaring lights.

When Flare fired her flares towards the wall though, she made herself a target for other villains, one of whom pointed his hands over towards one of the helicopters where flames were still flickering about. Those existing flames ignited so much brighter, melting the steel around them as they got white on the bottoms and then a bright bright blue. Then all the flames pulled off of the helicopter's carcass at once and shot towards Flare in a fireball that everyone else pulled away from only to still scream in pain as it was too hot to avoid being burned. One of the Army of Death dropped flat to his stomach to dodge below it, and he screamed out in agony as the back of his uniform burnt through as did a ton of skin on his back.

"Gregor!"

"Shield!" Flare shouted, pulling back and crossing her arms in panic as she saw the bright flame about to reach her and already searing into her.

A blur raced by Flare's side, his hand swinging in front of him already and a blue translucent shield emerging that spread and curved backwards at their sides. The flames slammed into the front of the shield, exploded out around its sides, but the two inside the barrier were protected from it. The flames that blew around the sides started dancing there in the air though, and Flare called out as she saw it, "Guardian!" Guardian spun around, and his eyes bulged as he saw the flames already re-amassing and forming a new fireball behind him. He started lifting his other hand that way, and Flare pulled back towards him as her body started searing even inside her dark armor.

Then the flames dropped to the floor, and they went out fast as there was nothing to burn on the rocky ground and no one keeping them burning anymore. Flare and Guardian spun back around, and they looked towards the villain who had been attacking them, and their eyes widened while smiles covered their faces. "He's here," Flare whispered in relief.

"You should have surrendered when you had the chance," Exodus said, his voice ominous and dark as he turned from the villain he had been facing whose power was intense with the mind games he was playing. The villain whose body had turned to crows turned his head and stared over towards one of his downed comrades who was not moving anymore, just like the other four around him who had all fallen despite being powered-up by Trigger. The villain stepped back, as did all the others who were still conscious in the area.

"It's Death!" A woman screamed back near the cliff wall. She pressed her back up into it, and then a black hand shot out of the dark mass straight towards her. The hand slammed into her side while her jaw was still dropping as he decided to go for her first. The hand smacked her away, knocking her out, while also pushing her out of the way of a giant falling rock that broke off of the cliff.

Death let out a long dark breath of black steam in front of his helmet. He glared over towards Exodus for a second, then he said in a low voice, "All of you villains, surrender or die. Your choice."

Half of them dropped to their knees. Even on Trigger, they had no ideas of grandeur. Most of them already thought they were fighting a losing battle when the Army of Death soldiers all shot up with Trigger too. The sight of the actual Death landing in front of them and taking out a third of their guys in seconds was too much for another six of them. The villain Exodus had been facing turned to crows, but a huge beam of white light shot up above him and then to either side, forcing him back down and in the direction of Death who attacked and grazed some of the villain's strange body with his dark aura.

A couple of others tried to run, but Exodus spotted one going for a different strategy. Flare was still looking through Guardian's forcefield from the other side, forgetting that the forcefield was not closed and there was an open gap behind her. A villain whose body was almost invisible but had a shimmering silhouette in the bright air rose up a blade that glinted its sharp steel as he reached for Flare's neck. "Excalibur," the villain started turning his head left, as did Flare and Guardian whose eyes bulged at the sight of the man who was appearing at the end of the trail of white light still brightening in behind them. The villain reached faster for Flare's neck to try and get a hostage to bargain his escape with, and he lost a little extra arm with the bit of extra reach he put in.

The villain reached up to his mid-bicep and started screaming, his body becoming visible again as he stumbled backwards with blood spraying from his right arm. The blood got all over Flare whose eyes had just widened huge in her helmet as she did not even know why Exodus was slashing, and now she saw a hand falling in front of her visor only inches away with a long serrated blade in it. She opened her mouth to thank Exodus when the blood sprayed all over her visor, but the screaming man ahead of her made it difficult to say anything. That man's screams cut off though, as a thin black line slammed into his chest and dropped him to the floor.

Zach knocked out another villain who was about to escape, then he looked around and checked on the Army of Death around him. "Miraculu, help Gregor," he called out, knowing the woman was there somewhere in one of the black uniforms. The woman he shouted at sprinted towards a man who two others were already trying to help, and Miraculu pressed her palms together in front of her chest while lifting her head to the sky. She whispered under her breath and her hands started to glow white, and then she reached down and touched her hands onto Gregor's back.

A white light pulsed around Gregor's body, and Miraculu smiled wide in her visor as did the other two at her sides. "Worked this time," Vince said in relief, and he patted a hand down on Gregor's back after saying it. Gregor let out a shout of pain, and Vince continued with a smirk, "Don't be such a baby. The wound's gone."

"Huh?" Gregor was just expecting the pain so much that he screamed on instinct, but now that he thought about it he did not feel any pain at all. "How?" he lifted his head and rolled over, wincing as he did but shaking his head as there was no reason to do so.

"It is a Miracle," Miracule responded.

"I told you not to go in without me," Zach said, speaking quietly in a whisper while standing right in front of Exodus. He leaned up towards the bigger man's head, "I told you, never to go in without me. What made you think you could attack like this?"

"Hold on, Commander," Exodus said while turning his head to the right. "Fizz! Put him down!" Exodus roared it angrily, and the soldier in black armor let go of the villain he was grabbing by the head with both hands. Fizz turned and ground his teeth in anger towards Exodus, but he froze as he saw Death glaring his way through his visor too.

"S-Sorry," Fizz said, seething it through his teeth and then rubbing the side of his helmet with one hand. "Must be, the Trigger," he said. "A bad vial maybe," he offered, though he was already glaring back through his visor down at the unconscious villain Death dispatched quickly, but not before the man had beaten him up in a humiliating way.

"They were about yo flee, and I had to move in," Exodus said as he turned back to Death. "No one died, and I knew you would be here in time even if anyone had."

"But I want to be here to stop anyone from dying too, not just to bring them back," Zach countered at the big man who did not seem to understand that from the way he was defending himself.

Exodus was silent for a few seconds, then he bowed his head. "My apologies. I will accept any punishment, Commander."

Zach shook his head and he calmed himself down behind his visor. "Lift your head, I'm not really… mad," Zach turned away and he grimaced as he looked around the battlefield that was a complete mess. "If you had let them go and we had to follow them to a new location, it would have wasted more time we could spend getting to the next location. Let's get these guys processed and-"

"Actually, Commander," Exodus began. "I believe this is not as simple as we first thought." Zach turned back to him and then walked with Exodus as the large man started walking over towards a villain moaning on the ground but not yet unconscious. There were some AoD already around him, and one of them turned the man over and then got him up on his knees in front of Death and Exodus. "HighPoint here, was no more than a middle man. He was discussing his orders, and he had said some unsettling things about experimentation-"

"Fuck you," HighPoint looked up with bloodshot eyes, a dark look, and he said it in an exhausted way at the two men in front of him. "If you think, I'm going to say-"

"Excalibur," Exodus rose up his right hand, and he created a long blade of light again in the shape of a longsword sticking out to his side. "Death, if I may take the lead?"

He's been doing well so far. I wish he would've waited a few more minutes; I had to use a lot of Death to get here so fast when I heard them fighting over the radio. Still, I trust Exodus's judgement. His mercy on the other hand could use some work… but, experimentation? Zach looked at the blond man who had been with him in Scotland, and he nodded at Exodus to let him do whatever he thought necessary.

Exodus turned forward after nodding back at Death. "Jackhammer. Lift his left arm."

Jackhammer hesitated for a moment, then he walked over to the villain his comrade was still holding down on his four knees, stomping on the backs of his legs as he tried moving. Jackhammer grabbed the man's arm and then yanked it to the side hard, the muscular AoD soldier only struggling for a second when he realized how hard HighPoint was holding it down. "Just talk," Jackhammer said, holding high up on the man's arm with one hand for a second instead of grabbing him by the wrist with both to hold it to the side. HighPoint turned his head with his eyes huge in terror at the tone of Jackhammer's voice, like the man already felt bad for him for what he knew was coming.

"You fucking wouldn't!"

"I would, and I will," Exodus said. He rose up his Excalibur in his right hand, and he pointed it high above his head as Death stood next to him without saying a word. A few of the Army of Death looked from Exodus to their leader to see if he would stop this, but Death just glared at HighPoint in silence as Exodus rose his blade. "Unless you tell me where your main lair is, villain. Who your real boss is. Where you acquired the Trigger you and your men had so much of. And what you meant, when you were laughing with your comrade about the 'human experiments,' not ten minutes ago." Exodus' blade extended more, and his eyes flared with a brighter white glow as his sword got larger like that.

HighPoint darted his eyes from the blade to the man holding it to the leader of the Army of Death and then back again. His eyes did loops around them, then to everyone watching him and waiting for an answer. He gulped, then his lips curled up and the corners of them pulled far to the sides in a smirk. "How about you shove those questions up-" Jackhammer yanked his arm harder to the side, sliding his hands far away from the man's shoulder, and Exodus slammed his blade down and through the man's arm and into the floor at his side.

Jackhammer stumbled away as he had had to pull with a lot of force considering HighPoint was tugging hard in the other direction. Jackhammer fell to the ground, then he tossed the arm he was holding with both hands off to the side, shivering at the feeling of it still tensed up but without any pressure going away from him anymore. "Fuck man," he muttered, pushing himself up and frowning deeply as he looked at the villain who started screaming in agony.

"Ooh, brutal," Spiral said, leaning forward and staring over with wide eyes at what he just saw. He turned to the right and asked in a confused way after seeing that, "I thought we were anti-torture. I'd say that's-"

"Human experimentation," Access started in a low voice to the younger man in front of him. The nineteen year old glanced back, and he grinned in his helmet for a second as it sounded like Access was trying to sound cool again which he noticed happened often. His smile lowered down though as Access' tone was different from usual despite it being serious which was already unusual for him. Access' fists clenched hard at his sides and he growled, "Is a different story."

Spiral lifted his eyebrows and then glanced the other way as he heard HighPoint start shouting all sorts of things as he begged the two in front of him to save his life. Exodus grabbed him by his bloody shoulder and started searing the wound shut, making the villain scream out in even more agony than last time. Spiral turned back to Access with a frown, "We fight murderers, sex traffickers, druglords, mafioso, and all sorts of fucked-up villains. I saw Death threaten a man with torture the other day and then just knock the guy out when he refused to say shit, and that guy was a lady-killing bastard-"

"There are much worse things people can do to each other, than just killing," Access muttered. He started walking, going to get closer to the man who started shouting all about the 'Mad Doctor' who caught Access' interest and his hatred. Be connected to Fergus, Access thought, his fists tightening even harder. I don't know what they saw down there. They never talk about it. What I heard that day though… And the way they looked when they got out… if the things Sandlot tried telling people, if they were true, if all of that madness was- they killed me to keep that place a secret. How many more places like that nightmare exist in this world? That's what Death and Exodus must be thinking right now.

How many more places like that lab exist in this world? Zach thought, his fists balled so tightly at his sides that he was shaking in anger as the woozy man in front of him rambled about all his secrets in hopes that he would get painkillers when his enemies were satisfied. If this is connected to Fergus then… but, if it's not- It has to be! No one else… no one else… The Chemist did human trials too. There are just, people in this world who would. How many? I'm not ready to see another place like Scotland… but I will go. Because someone has to, and it should be us.

---

"Mr. Keisei! Mr. Keisei! How do you feel about the outcome of the trial?"

On the steps outside of a courthouse in Feruchia, a lawyer in a black suit turned his head to the reporter who had come up and started questioning him with a camera in his face. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then the man with blue and red striped skin responded, "Disappointed."

"What were you hoping to get? What more do you want-"

"Justice," Keisei responded, his eyes cold as he glared back at the reporter. "There is nothing in this for myself, but I will get justice for my client."

"Your client is already out of prison, where he should be," the reporter argued back. "And he is receiving top medical treatment at the behest of the Japanese government. What else do you really think Psycho deserves?"

"My client, Yusuke Tachikawa. Otherwise known as the villain: Styles, was not a great man. He was a villain, but he does not deserve the punishment he faces as a result of the damage Lifebringer did to him." Keisei paused and he faced the reporter fully as he continued, "In the raid on Breakneck's Trigger lab, Zach Sazaki with a provisional hero license bestowed to him by the government despite his past actions sent my client into a coma. When Styles finally awoke from it, he has had a long recovery from the extensive brain damage that has made him slow, perhaps permanently."

"Psycho," the reporter started again. "Styles' villain name when he used his Rage Quirk, was responsible for killing police officers that night. He had murdered others too-"

"And he should have been put on trial for these things," Keisei said without hesitation, cutting the reporter back off. "That is what we do in a civilized society. We put men like my client on trial, and allow them to defend their actions in a court of law. I do not know if I would have defended my client in a regular case, however I cannot allow this injustice to go overlooked. And the government's response to simply keep looking after my client until they believe he is fit for trial so they can throw him in prison, ignoring the huge punishment he has already faced with the damage to his mind, is unacceptable. They claim there is no one to hold responsible, so there is nothing to be done. However they gave Sazaki that license to fight villains. They made that mistake, and it came back to bite them."

"Your client, faced off against a young hero in a fight of life or death," the reporter started, sounding defensive and not backing down from the lawyer one bit. "Videos show Lifebringer came in and stopped Psycho from killing others, and you stand there chastising his actions which saved innocent lives and the lives of his fellow defenders of the law." The reporter continued fast as Keisei opened his mouth, "Whatever your opinion on Lifebringer, you can't say that everything he did was wrong just because of the Lifebringer Incident. You just can't. Heroes have killed villains before out in raids just like the one your client was arrested in, yet Lifebringer did not do that. How can you defend this murderer's actions so far?"

"I am not defending his actions," Keisei stated bluntly and not in a defensive tone, as if the man saying it had no idea what he was talking about so there was no point in getting defensive. "And I do accept, that in fights between heroes and villains, sometimes villains have to be hurt excessively. However Lifebrin- Zach Sazaki's Quirk does not do this to everyone, and he was able to knock out several villains that night without sending them into comas. Does that not mean he went too far? Again. He went, too, far." He said it and then frowned deeper as she glared at the reporter he was about to turn away from, "Sazaki goes too far. He had done it before, attempting to infiltrate the League of Villains on his own which I do believe was his initial goal back then. But also the Lifebringer Incident, and the War Boys kidnapping which no one talks about but we all know there was something strange about how Sazaki somehow managed to locate those villains on his own. And we know, people are being brought back in places the Army of Death goes to," Keisei shook his head and then turned away with a deep frown and angry look. "So if he is with that terrorist group he needs to come back. To answer to his crimes at the Lifebringer Incident, to answer to my client who he made brain damaged… to answer to all of us."

---

"Heehehehehe! HEEHEHEHHEEEEEEEE! How did you like my Avon Gas?! I think it was particularly effective on that young man…"

Zach stepped out of a room that green gas started pouring out of around him. He walked into the wider laboratory basement, and he ignored the voice coming out of the speakers on the walls so it was all around him. His helmet was locked on tightly, as were the helmets of the three who walked out of the room behind him. A soldier in black armor whose cracked helmet was discarded to the side lay in that small room back there, a room made of such thick steel on all sides including the only doorway that there had been no way to get out. Even the hole on the ceiling that had opened wide to make them all drop through had closed back up too tightly before the gas poured in.

Exodus stepped out behind Zach and onto his right side. Spiral and Access came up behind them, their helmets on too and both of them completely silent inside of them. Rebel was quiet on the other side of their headsets, the only one currently awake in his command room and the only one connected to those four on their mission. They were after Ubiquitous and the Nowhere, as well as their crazy scientist: The Mad Doctor. They knew the madman was somewhere in the building, and they heard him laughing from wherever that location was though his voice did trail off over the speakers.

Zach lifted up his left hand, and he motioned it forward to the left over at a hallway. Spiral's lower half spun around and turned into a blur, using his Quirk, Top, and racing over to the hallway fast while Exodus ran that way too and lifted his shield in one hand that he took off of his back. Zach rose up his right hand slowly with a blade on it, and he gripped the hilt so hard it hurt. His teeth were bared furiously in his helmet, and his eyes had tears streaming out of them and down the sides of his face to his chin. He turned his head sideways to make a motion at Access. He hesitated as his eyes looked back towards the room of thick green gas where the gas had seeped out of a bit, making it not as thick inside, and making the silhouette back in that puddle on the floor visible.

The Army of Death's leader shifted his attention fully to Access and he made a nod in the direction of the other side of the deep dark basement they had finally busted into. The basement was dark, but their helmets had night vision to keep everything green around them, a color that was making each of them grind their teeth as they seethed in rage. Access lifted up his assault rifle, and he ground his teeth in anger to keep them from chattering, though sweat continued to pour down his face. The Mad Doctor's tone shifted as he had kept speaking to his intruders, "…I'd like to introduce you fellows to some friends of mine." Clank… Clank… Clank…

Brrmmm Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch… Clunnnk

Steel clanks followed by whirring noises in the walls. Locking mechanisms switching, and huge steel panels in the wall raising up. Down the hallways on either side of the room where the four Army of Death soldiers just separated over to, cell doors opened. Wide doors rose up into the ceiling, and the jangling of chains as well as more clanks of those chains falling to the floor filled the air. "Army of Death, meet- The Army of the Damned."

Access backed away from the hallway he had stacked up on the edge of. Spiral lowered his rifle on the opposite side of the room, and he took a step back. Then the nineteen year old with a horrified look on his face spun to the right as even in the larger room and not down the halls to the sides there were even more cell doors that had been disguised right into the walls. Wide steel panels rose up, revealing small boxes on the other sides with grates on the floor, no furniture inside, yet people in them. Chains dropped off of the collars around the necks of those in the cells. The steel chains clanked on the ground or on feces and blood stains, and the prisoners started stepping out of their cages all with those collars still on their necks with small glowing red lights on them.

"Access, use that panel in the wall," Death said in a low and quick voice. "Find controls for their collars. Now."

Access slung his rifle over his back and sprinted to the wall. Spiral kept backing up towards the middle of the room, though he gulped and snapped his rifle up as he saw down the hallway one of the men turn his way with glowing green eyes and look straight at him even in that darkness. Lights turned on a second later though, and the disorienting sight of so much brightness in their night vision made Spiral clench his eyes shut and grip the trigger of his gun. The barrel of his rifle pointed up, Bang bang bang- "Stop firing," Exodus ordered, while holding the barrel up so Spiral would not shoot which he had seen coming through the light that did not bother his eyes one bit.

Exodus turned off his night vision, and Spiral took in a deep breath while bringing a hand up to do the same to his helmet. Zach felt relieved as he darted his eyes over and saw Exodus stopping Spiral there. Then he turned his head and looked down a hall at a group of ten figures stepping out from either side of the hallway. He looked around and his heart fell even more at the sight of all those people either in rags or naked, looking like they had been abused in the worst ways he could think of. Most of them looked scared as they glanced around, wondering what was happening. Some just had dead eyes though as they stepped out, their motions robotic and their gazes dark or aimed down at the floor in subservient ways.

"You lot," the Mad Doctor's voice called out, and the majority of the people in the basement cowered and pulled away, some moving back into their cells in fear. "Kill those four in black. Each of you who manages to kill one will be allowed to leave here. If you refuse, then say goodbye to your heads-"

Ding. The scared prisoners all started looking around in fear at each other, mainly at their necks and the collars the mad scientist was referring to. On all those collars though, the red lights glowing on them turned green and then the collars unlocked. Clank. Clank dink clunk… Collars fell to the floor all around the basement, and the Mad Doctor's voice that had cut off came back furious, "Fine! Take all the fun out of it! I thought we could play a game, but I guess you just wanted to see all these people die! Enjoy the Avon Gas!"

"You don't have control over the gas-release valves in here anymore, or the air vents," Access said in a low voice. On the wall next to a metal keypad on a secret doorway that had yet to be opened, Access had attached one of his Access Panels. The steel black sheet on the wall overlapping with the actual wall panel was now the new control point for most faculties inside the building, and Access continued tapping into the panel as he stole control over the lights, and the water, and the locking systems on all the doors too. "Let's lock the exits," Access continued, typing away and letting a smirk spread over his face. "And is that your control room? Oh, let's take the power from there."

The Mad Doctor's voice that was in the middle of shouting in anger at Access to stop cut off. All the speakers on the ceiling shut off, and the prisoners around the room started looking around in confusion as to what was going on. Some of them started running at the dark figures, and they all stopped as the dark man ahead of them surrounded in so much more darkness. It surrounded his body and flared around him in a menacing way that none of them wanted to get close to. "You're on, Death," Access said, taking the speakers he just gained control over and attaching them into their headsets.

"Stop," Zach ordered, glaring towards two men who had been running towards him. They were covered in bumps, disfigured and looking like monsters with half of their bodies morphed and spliced with what looked like animals or maybe other people. Zach tried not to get disgusted as he looked at them, he tried not to stare, and he cursed in his head at how gross most of them looked in the light. He cursed himself for it because of the looks he saw on most of their faces, looks of people who were just as scared as any others he had saved before. "We have come to free you. We're going after the Mad Doctor and the ones who financed this place. The ones who protect him and pay him for his research."

Death's voice echoed over the basement, and over the entire building as Access spread it around. His deep modulated voice was even scratchier as he was surrounded in Nightmare, and he snarled in a lower, furious tone, "We are going to take him down. Right now. And we're going to get all of you out of here. You don't have to do what that villain said anymore. I know you think he still has control over you," Zach stepped forward towards the two men who had been running at him but stopped short. He glared at them but spoke in a softer voice despite how scary it still sounded, "But he can't hurt you anymore. So stand down." He turned from those monstrous figures and glared away, finishing strongly, "We're here to help you."

"I have the Mad Doc's location," Access said. He looked to Death and said in an angry voice of his own, "Let's go get-"

"The collars are off!"

"We're free!"

"Get the doctor!"

Access spun to his right as he heard that roar, an emotion in that voice of rage unlike any he had ever heard before. He saw a woman who had looked so shocked while staring down at her collar on the floor lift her head with a massive smile spread over it and a dozen snake tongues pushing out between her lips. She smiled like crazy and yelled, "KILL HIM!"

"RAAAAA!"

Zach spoke lower in his headset, "We need- Access, cut the speakers." Access did what Death said, then only Death's comrades could hear as he said, "I have to get to him first. I know they're right to be angry, but don't let them start a rampage. They might look like monsters, but these people still have a sense of themselves. They're just angry. Don't let them convince themselves otherwise." Zach sped off, leaving dark footprints on the floor where he was just standing as he zipped away too fast. His aura faded behind him, a trail of it pulling after him in the direction of the location that just appeared on the inside of his visor.

He's worse than the Chemist, Zach thought, as he raced off alone in a laboratory basement that made him sick to the stomach. He's been rearranging people's bodies for over a year. Doing tests on them to make their physiologies different, sometimes through changing anatomy and biological structure on molecular levels. So that they can permanently withstand Trigger… is that really worth- if he had perfected it, making villains' bodies different. Making villains able to inject with Trigger, and stay that strong forever. That bastard. That fucking… Just for that he- just for the money he could get- and it's not just that! I heard his voice. He enjoyed it while Zeke was… Zach shook his head and ran faster. Move past it. Don't get caught up in the moment. "Death! Help me! Agh-ack- AHH- PLEASE!"

"Mad Doctor!" Zach yelled, as he sprinted down a hall for a doorway in the middle of being pried open. The scientist on the other side lifted his head, and he pulled back with a look of terror spreading across his face as Death found him. "THERE YOU ARE!"

The former prisoners locked up in the basement were going wild. They looked unhinged, and they kept letting out animalistic roars, and some dragged chains with them as they charged for a staircase up that Exodus, Spiral, and Access all ran towards with them. Spiral glanced to his right at a man whose normal body was surrounded in red muscly enhancements that were morphed into him, extra legs sticking out of his stomach so that his normal body had to be hunched forward and those four legs could run in a mismatched way like someone had just slapped them on his body. Out of another woman's back there were six long thin black legs that she tried running on because they were longer than her regular ones and yet she still kept falling and having to stumble on her old legs, or at least on one of them and the other's knee since that leg was more of a stump.

"Look there!"

"The prisoners are out of their cells?!"

"Use the collars to- what?!"

"KILL THEM!"

"We don't have your collars for you to control us!"

The fastest of the prisoners ran forward, his body slumping forward to his right with each huge step of his muscular legs. He looked like he was staggering, but he was staggering at forty miles per hour across the huge lab's first floor so the villains looking his way all started backing up. Some of them aimed guns at him, the test subject was too fast and sprinted in and out of shots coming at him though. He reached his arms back and they started bubbling and melting skin off of them, though that skin swirled around hanging off his arms and turning into sharp objects that dangled off ready to be swung forward and thrown like projectiles. A bullet slammed into his right shoulder, and the bullet dug an inch into his skin before getting stuck in the thick exoskeleton that covered his upper torso. "DIE!" He roared, biting through the pain and then starting to bring his arms forward.

The two men directly in front of the prisoner got lifted up by their faces and then slammed into the floor. They were smashed down hard, while the white blur behind the muscular man who slammed them into the ground was fading at his back. The attacking prisoner froze with his arms not yet fully swung forward, and the sharp bits of skin that had melted off of him just swung back instead of releasing forwards. The other prisoners running forward all slowed down, and they looked around with wide eyes as the doors on either side of the room busted down and flew inwards. The doors slammed into villains trying to run to them, and then windows up higher in the lab shattered and people in dark uniforms swung through on ropes or flew inside using wings.

Jetflame slammed down from the window he flew in from, directly on top of a villain who was fading away in the corner of the room. His collision on top of the man who did not think anyone had seen him made the man fully visible again, and Jetflame lowered a flame down to the side of the man's face while slamming a knee hard into his spine. "Don't move, Ubiquitous," he growled, and the villain's head turned to the side with blood coming out of his nose and his eyes wide at that scary deep voice just growled at him in a modulated voice. The flames on Jetflame's fist flared around the front of his pitch black visor, and the villain below him did not dare to move at the sight of that dark figure in the backdrop of the fire.

The Nowhere were taken down quickly. Other researchers, just a few scientists in white coats that they were pinned to the ground in, were shouting in terror as the prisoners nearby started moving towards them. "Stay back! Monsters!"

"Get us away from them!"

"YOU DID THIS TO US!"

"Hand them over, or I'll kill you too." A woman growled, her voice cracking and slime dribbling out the corners of her lips and off her bumpy deformed chin. She glared at two men in black uniforms holding down researchers who she had seen with the Mad Doctor, who had injected her and operated on her with that mad scientist.

Vince and Missappear looked at each other. They glanced back down at the men they were holding, then at the people who looked so disfigured and full of rage. Neither of them wanted to die to protect the villains, and they both moved away from the men since the former prisoner kept moving towards them without hesitating to wait for a response. The fact that those two backed off, made all the other experiments and test subjects start moving forward more confidently. They moved up snarling and growling at the dark soldiers to get away from their revenge.

"Just hold on-"

"Back up, this is our fight."

"I'm gonna wip hif ongue ow, jut ike he iid, oo me," a man covered in green scales, with two horns sticking out of his blond hair, dried blood covering that hair, loudly muttered that at the man who was still standing in between him and his revenge. He rose up the chains he had ripped out of the wall of his cell once his collar had fallen, and he had that collar lifted in his other hand as he glared sadistically at the villain on the floor in front of him.

The Nowhere villain stared at the prisoner with huge eyes, as he remembered ripping out a defiant prisoner's tongue before, but the prisoner had looked nothing like the monster in front of him did now. "You," the villain whispered in shock, a whisper that made the former prisoner lean his face back with so much more anger in it that he was not even recognizable anymore. "What, did they-"

"Grrrr…" Another experiment stepped forward on all fours next to the man without a tongue, snarling at the villain who said 'they' like he was not a part of this. "You. Die."

"Death, these people are about to rip apart the-"

"All of you!" Everyone in the room snapped their heads up and to the east side of the building. They looked up towards a second floor area that there were stairs on the sides of the room up to, and they watched a dark figure step up to the railing there dragging a man with him that he tugged hard to toss the man's legs right over the railing. Zach held the man there by the back of his head, and everyone in the room stared up at the Mad Doctor whose face was bloodied and fingers were broken on both of his dangling arms at his sides. "Stop what you're doing, and back away from the villains we have captured."

"DOCTOR!"

"If you toss him to us," a woman shouted up in rage. Blood seeped between her fingers as her extended nails dug into her palms. "I'll settle with just him."

"NO! We're killing all of them. They made us into these things!"

"What did they turn you into?" Zach shouted down. He continued holding the Mad Doctor by the back of the head, and he ground his teeth at the looks of pain and anger spread all out before him. They're on the verge.

"Look at us!" a man shouted, stepping forward and glaring up with trembling eyes and shaking hands. He still could not comprehend well that he was out of his cell, but the sight of the Mad Doctor looking like that just made him angrier that the doctor was not being tortured worse. "LOOK AT ME!" He screamed up, reaching his hands to his face and grabbing at bumps of flesh he could see sticking out of him. He moved his hands from his face and turned them over to look at the horrific protrusions from failed experiments, and he pulled his head back and glared up towards the doctor again before yelling. "He deserves it! Let me rip him apart!"

"They need to die!"

"I just want to get out of here," a woman with spider legs whispered, stepping backwards in fear of all the black soldiers whose powers were too strong now that she thought about it. Her eyes darted around in fear, seeing those men at all the exits too keeping her from getting away. "I just want to go-"

"They're ours to kill!" A man yelled, stomping forward on six legs, four of which had no skin and were just masses of muscle. He snarled up towards the dark figure and shook in rage as he locked eyes onto the squirming Mad Doctor who pulled his head back into the hand holding him so much harder at that look on his test subject's face. "Toss him down here, and let us rip him apart."

"If I do that," Zach began, his voice modulated and deep. "Then you'll lose your humanity. If I let you kill any of those men, then they'd be succeeding in taking that away from you-"

"They already turned us into monsters!" A woman screamed up, tears splashing from her eyes. She stepped forward and yelled out in anger at the figure who could not understand them. "Look at-"

"I don't see monsters," Zach said. The people down in front of him froze and just stared up into that dark visor behind the source of their rage. "You are not monsters. Only your actions can make you monsters." Zach slid his fingers out of his glove, and the Mad Doctor opened his mouth to scream but froze like that. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his heart stopped beating, and all signals stopped shooting through his brain. Then Zach tossed forward, and the doctor fell limply from the balcony down to the ground that he hit with a single thud. The thud filled the room and sent chills down the spines of most of the test subjects who slowly rose their heads back up at the figure who killed the Mad Doctor instantly. "And now he's dead," Zach said, looking down at the scared people with his teeth grinding behind his visor.

He took away the strongest foundation of their rage. In an instant, the man who had had control over them for so long was gone. They stared in shock towards the Mad Doctor's body, and many of them clenched their fists at their sides in so much more anger. "You took, our revenge," a man started seething through his teeth, raising his head in fury towards the dark figure above.

"Is that who you want to be?" Zach asked. He stared down at that man who kept glaring so furiously at him, and he asked, "A killer? I don't know who you all were before they got their hands on you. But, people will accept you as victims of villains if you return. And maybe doctors can help get your bodies back to normal, if you feel you really can't live without that." The scared and tortured souls down below stared up at the dark figure and then around at the others all over the first floor who moved back forward and got between the prisoners and the villains they had captured. The Army of Death's soldiers had intense looks on their faces again, and they stood more firm this time to stop the victims in front of them.

Some of the prisoners fell down to their butts. Other started crying. A few of the angriest ones still stepped forward, they balled their fists or flexed their extra extremities harder. Muscles bulged and flames ignited down someone's back, white wings ripped out of another's with blood all over them as his skin reformed over them each time they pulled back to him. "We're monsters," the man with bloody wings snarled. "Transformed into-"

"Who told you that?" Zach asked. He dropped down from the second floor and landed next to the unmoving body of a man whose life he had just taken. "Him?" Zach asked, nudging the man's leg with a foot and then kicking it aside in disgust. The man he asked that to froze and trembled, as he imagined the Mad Doctor calling him a monster and laughing as he held up a mirror, showing him the disfigured mess that had become his face and torso. He was one of the naked ones in the room, and his bloody wings were not what most people saw first when they looked his way. "I know you're angry. You want to get the people who did this to you. But, I can't let you kill them."

"Who are you?" A woman asked, calling it out through a raspy voice at the dark figure whose face was blocked by his helmet.

"How long have you been in here?" the man next to her muttered. She glanced at him, and the angry man standing there started in a lower voice, "That's Death…"

"I want to help you," Zach said. He stepped closer to the people on the other side of the room. "I'll get you back to your homes. To wherever you belong, before they took you. And if you really can't accept this. If you still feel the need to fight. If you can't go back… then come with me." The most angry and vengeful at the front of the group of tortured subjects stared towards Death with their eyes opening up huge. Death stopped where he was and extended a hand out in front of him. "Not to kill the men who did this to you, but to stop other men like them. To stop places like this from existing anywhere else in the world. If you still feel the need to fight, then don't do it for revenge. Fight with those stronger bodies these villains gave you, to prevent others from becoming victims like you."

The people in front of Death only a few meters away looked past him and to those villains who were all staring at Death's back in as much shock as the former experiments were. Those few men and women who wanted so badly to kill those villains shifted their gazes back to the man in front of them. They looked at the man who clenched his outstretched hand into a fist. "Killing them won't do anything. It won't make you feel better. It won't change what they've already done. Come with me. I'll never treat you like monsters."

"I- I just want- I just want to go home."

"That's fine too," Zach said, lowering his fist and looking back at the woman who said that while down on her butt, her legs pointing to her sides and a terrified look on her face. He stared towards her and said in a softer voice, reaching up and tapping the button on the side of his helmet so it returned to normal-pitched as well, "We'll get you home. And we'll make sure the heroes who come for these men, know exactly what they've done. You will all receive the help you need-"

"I didn't escape one master just to join another," a man directly in front of Zach a few meters away started. He stepped forward, his skin still partially melted off of his arms though he had never gotten the opportunity to throw those skin spikes at the villains he wanted dead so badly. He had been the fastest of the prisoners, and he stayed up in front of them even taking another step closer to Death as he continued, "But do you really, think they have a way to turn us back?" He asked, glancing down towards his thick muscular legs, his right bulked up more than his left with more muscles protruding out of it. He lifted his eyes darkly towards Death's visor, his eyes pitch black instead of having whites and irises in them. Yet in those black eyes Zach saw sadness and fear, and Zach hesitated at the question of the man who sounded doubtful about it.

"They might, be able to," Zach began slowly. "I don't know," he admitted right after, as his hesitant response just made those behind the man he was speaking to look even more depressed and horrified as they looked at themselves and each other. "But stop being so shallow. No one's going to care about what you look like." Those people turned back towards him, and Zach snapped in a pissed-off voice, "You have people who care about you right? People who probably think you're dead? Would those people turn their backs on you because of how you look? I know it sounds hard going back to them like this, but they will greet you with open arms, not in fear."

"How do you know?"

"Because," Zach replied. "You haven't become monsters," he answered it simply, and the people in front of him who were so bloodthirsty a minute ago, so hungry for revenge, stopped looking at their deformed bodies like it was the worst they could have turned into. Death hesitated before adding something else in a lower voice, "You were victims of villains. They'll understand that. And maybe they'll be able to turn you back to normal, and if not! People will get used to the new you's. They'll have to." Zach paused and then looked at the man right in front of him again, "You all fought hard to survive this. You're all strong, to be making it out of this place I'm sure many didn't. You can do this too. You can take this next step, whichever way it takes you."

The man in front of Zach looked down at his legs again. Robbie, Eden, wait just a little longer for me. The man with skin melted off of his arms in little spikes rose his arms and pressed his skin back down with his palms, flattening his arms out flatter though not smooth as he did have a lot of black hair on those arms. He stepped forward on his muscular legs, looking to limp when he took a step with his right that was bigger than his left, and then he nodded at Death.

A tongueless man stepped forward covered in green scales, blood all over his blond hair that two horns were sticking out of, and he dropped the chains and collar he was holding while staring towards Death with his eyes huge. And a man more deformed than the other two with the mounds of flesh bumping out of his chest, neck, and face, stepped forward with his bloody white wings flapping behind him and then pulling back in towards his back. His skin repaired over those wings as he pressed them into his skin, and the man rolled his neck looking to be in a ton of pain as his body fixed up like that. "I'll come with you," the man said once his back finished repairing, saying it and looking towards Death with an intense look on his face.

"Me," the green-scaled man said, pointing a thumb at himself. He wanted to say 'too' but the 't' sound was too hard to make without his tongue.

"And the rest of us, can just go?" A woman behind the man with bulky legs who stood right in front of Death asked. "Leave, this place? Just like that?"

"Exodus, Jetflame," Zach started. "Access, Rebel, figure out who all these people are. Find out where each of them came from. And we'll help them get wherever they're going." Everyone else in the room who had not stepped forward like three of them had, started crying or falling down as they heard that. Dark soldiers came towards them, and some of those figures started taking off helmets after getting nods from Death when they looked his way. After knocking out the Nowhere leader, Jetflame walked towards the group of victims whose cries were making his heart ache. Jetflame took his helmet off and he reached out to grab the shoulder of a woman sobbing with her face in her hands, whispering 'It's over' over and over again to herself.

"What about your next mission?" Rebel asked, questioning the leader of the AoD who had gone off schedule for his expected track for the day. Zach was looking around at everyone as Rebel spoke into his head, "Should I send Gentle in without you?"

"No," Zach replied, speaking softer and only in his helmet. "Have everyone hold off. This is important, but I'm not going to risk anyone just to keep up the schedule. I'll leave here as soon as I can. Once the new recruits understand, once I know everyone here is going to be saved, not just freed… I'll head to Gentle once I'm sure I'm not needed here."

"My name is… your name's not actually Death, is it?" The man closest in front of Zach asked. He shook his head after asking as it was a stupid question anyway. "Well then, my name is… Rapid."

"Angel Phoenix- wait. Angelix. Yeah, call me Angelix."

"Bu- Buw-" the man with green scales lowered his gaze to the floor in frustration.

"Bull?" The deformed man whose white wings were back in his back asked. The other man nodded at Angelix and then pointed at the scales on his torso and arms, and he put his hands together in front of his both and swerved them back and forth in a slithering motion. "Snake? Bullsnake?" Angelix asked, and Bullsnake nodded his head fast in agreement at the name he wanted but could not say.

"Rapid, Angelix, Bullsnake, welcome to the Army of Death. I want you to help the others here get home," Zach continued without pausing after his greeting. Maybe they'll see the people welcoming their family members back, and think twice about joining me. It's not the smartest, but I need help getting these people back, and I don't want them regretting not going back to the people I'm sure they have too. "Then I'll give you orientation and figure out what you can do to help us."

Zach nodded at the men and then looked away towards the others behind them. The three were surprised, but they nodded back and then turned and looked around all the others who the dark soldiers were trying to help. Zach looked past them as they started over to join with the aid, and Zach's eyes scanned over the room of test subjects who were deformed and crying and looked like they had been through hell. What if they can't get back to normal? What if their lives that have already been so hard, just get harder- well maybe not harder, but not as easy as they should be? Facing a government that's not going to want to admit that something like this was allowed to exist for as long as it did in its own borders. Mean people who won't understand what they've been through, people who call them monsters. Discrimination. I need a better solution than just letting the rest of the world handle them. I know by now it's foolish to have that much faith in the ones in charge. What I really need, is somewhere I can be sure they're alright. I need a place where all these people could go…

---

On the street behind U.A. between the main school building and the dorms, Momo Yaoyorozu and Mina Ashido were walking back from classes in the early afternoon together. The two of them were talking about their classes earlier that day, but Momo looked forward as she saw someone in a hero costume walking towards them. The older boy looked to be heading to the main school building or one of the training grounds past it, but he slowed down while looking straight at the two girls in the year below him.

Ashido turned forward too and her eyes widened a bit at the sight of the boy walking towards them. The black haired, muscular teen stopped in front of the girls and nodded at them in greeting before starting to Ashido, "Good to see you're alright, Pinky."

Ashido lifted her eyebrows more at the sound of that, and she smiled with a humph at the older boy. "I'm fine," she said. "Barely even got a scratch-"

"Nagiso-senpai," Yaoyorozu cut off her classmate. She bowed her head a bit to the older boy, and then she lifted it and said, "I never did get a chance to thank you for that day."

"It's fine-" Nagiso started.

"What do you mean?" Ashido asked, glancing to her side at Yaoyorozu in confusion.

"Do you not remember?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking surprised for a moment and then continuing fast when Ashido just looked confused. "When I was helping you to the ambulance during the fight against the Stain Cult, Nagiso-senpai saved our lives."

"It's really-"

"He did- you did?!" Ashido spun back to the boy who she could not remember doing that at all. After getting in that ambulance she had been shot up with a lot of drugs and most of what happened after her injury had become hazy in her mind.

Nagiso stopped trying to just stop them early since he kept getting cut off, and he just nodded once at the pink girl instead. "I'm impressed though. Your injury looked really bad, so I didn't think you would be back so soon. I heard from a classmate though that you were back right after, Pinky."

Ashido smiled wide at the praise, and she said, "You can call me Ashido on campus." She did not know if he just didn't know her name and was only calling her by her hero one because of that, but she smiled at the older boy and then said, "And thanks for helping me out. I don't really remember it too well," she scratched the side of her head with a sheepish laugh as that was another person she had to thank for that day.

"It's just part of the job," Nagiso replied with a wave of his hand like it was nothing. "I'm glad you were both fine, you did great out there."

Yaoyorozu saw him look to her as he said that, and she shook her head with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. The news only focuses on Class A's actions against the Stain Cult. It is unfair to you and to Indago-senpai who did so much-"

Nagiso shook his head and laughed while saying, "We've had a fair amount of publicity too." He hesitated and then added with a shrug, "Alright, maybe not 'fair,' but you know what I mean." Ashido laughed at the joke, and Yaoyorozu smiled a bit too as she saw he was not caught up on what she was apologizing over. Nagiso smiled too that the girls were, then he looked behind them and said, "Well I've got to get to training with a couple of my classmates. See you around?" He asked, while already starting to jog to the side to go around them. He looked in while asking, and the girls nodded at him and said their goodbyes too.

Ashido and Yaoyorozu turned their heads and watched as the older boy started running off in his hero costume. Ashido's smile lowered down a bit as she watched him go, and her eyes darted to the floor for a second. "Weird," she mumbled. "I just kind of thought…" Ashido turned back forwards and continued walking to their dorm, but she glanced in at Yaoyorozu whose smile she was a bit put off by. "Didn't Zach say, that-"

"Zach knew that Nagiso was a good person," Yaoyorozu said, as it was something she had already thought about though did not know that Ashido had known. She looked down and left at the shorter girl, and she added, "Zach believed that since he had lied about his Quirk through middle school though, that Nagiso would not like him even more."

"'More?'" Ashido asked, wondering what that meant. She did not really remember what Zach had said about him much at all, but she remembered the sheepish look he had when talking about the older boy like he thought Nagiso disliked him.

"Zach was the captain of their middle school cross country team from back when he was a second year…" Momo started to her friend whose eyes widened more next to her.

Ashido listened as Momo continued for a few seconds, and then she let out a low sigh and looked away with a sad look. Momo knows so much about Zach. More than I ever did. I really was, close… If the wound had been a little deeper they said, her hand moved down to her right side and rubbed at the scars she felt on the other side of her shirt. Would Zach not have come back? He's just a vigilante over in America, with that girl… While Momo and I- Ashido looked back at her taller friend who was looking at her in a concerned way. Yaoyorozu had seen that look on Ashido's face the same time she was rubbing at her side, and it worried the taller girl who Ashido smiled back at to relieve that worried expression.

She turned her head more to get the attention off of the way she knew she had just looked. "That Nagiso-senpai though," Ashido started, and she cracked a bigger grin. "Now that I know he's a good guy… he's pretty hot huh?"

Yaoyorozu sighed at her friend who smiled wider at the shake of Yaoyorozu's head. "What?" Ashido asked and then started laughing as she had to move forward again to keep up with Yaoyorozu who just started walking away. "He is…"

---

"Death, what he says checks out," Whiz said over the comms connecting The Cloak to the Army down on the ground. "The code was hidden in the initial message we intercepted. He wanted us to get it."

Maybe, Zach thought, narrowing his dark eyes at the figure in the middle of the room sitting on a chair surrounded by other dark soldiers. Maybe it was just a precaution in case we ever did catch one of his messages. But, I thought something seemed too convenient about us catching it right before a deal. A deal with a bigger villain gang than his own, so he was turning over bigger fish that I'd be more interested in and would definitely come myself. Could be a trap. Could be something else.

"Gentle, take point," Zach said.

"Alright," Gentle called out loudly, stepping forward and towards the man on the chair who he looked down his nose at inside his visor. "What you say checks out. You really did turn your comrades over, and those weapons' dealers we were looking for too. Great job," Gentle's voice was sarcastic and he leaned in to see how the man would react. The twenty-six year old on the chair leaned back as the man with the dark purple visor leaned towards him. "Did you really think that was all it took to join us? You're a villain."

"I know," the man started. He had short blond hair in a crew cut on his head, he had a tattoo of a black snake on his upper right arm that was revealed by the torn off sleeve taken from his arm. He took in a deep breath and then continued, "But, I want to make amends. And I can be of a lot of help to the Army of Death. I want to be, someone who stops villains instead of-"

"Your gang, were known as murderers," Gentle countered. He glared at the man he had leaned down towards, then he stood up straight and said in a flat voice, "Your boss, murdered two heroes in cold blood. All of you are accomplice to that crime and to all others-"

"Pike was cornered-" the blond man started, then he held his tongue and pulled his head back at the dark feeling he felt radiate from the man in front of him. "But I know," he continued, his voice strained as he said it. "I get, that it was wrong. I knew it right away and… And even before that I knew, but we'd become too big. I was just in it for the money at first, but Pike and the others wanted to keep getting bigger. Larger villain groups kept coming in and trying to make deals, trying to get our assistance or get us to join their organizations that were gaining power so fast with bigger ones getting taken out of the way." The man started breathing heavier, as the people around him were not reacting much to what he was saying. Of course they already know this! They're the Army of Death. I need, I need to go all out.

"I saw them going farther and farther, to become bigger or to impress the bigger gangs. I just, I couldn't do it anymore. I saw people looking so afraid of us-"

"Of course they were," Gentle said in a low voice. "You were a villain, Blackjack. And your gang were murderers. Why wouldn't they be afraid of you?"

"I never… but you're right," Blackjack whispered. He stayed silent for a few seconds, then he rose his head and looked through that purple visor. "My Quirk is called Bluff," the man continued. "It doesn't just let me know when people are lying though, it tells me the best way to convince people what I'm saying is true."

Behind Gentle, Zach lifted up his head a bit and his eyes were wide behind his visor. That's…

"So then what you're telling me," Gentle started. "Is that this story of a man who just wants to help us, is a facade?"

"No!"

"You have seen so much bad and feel so much regret that you need to reform," Gentle started, shaking his head in disbelief at the far-fetched story from a villain begging for forgiveness.

On the side of the room, Access leaned in towards Michael's side and whispered, "You know, telling us that was pretty stupid on his part." Michael grunted and nodded, then he grumbled to himself as Access continued, "He wouldn't have told us that unless he really was trying to reform, 'cause no way his Quirk told him that was the right thing to go with."

"Or maybe," Michael muttered right back. "His Quirk knew exactly how you'd react to hearing it. Some reverse psychology bullshit, or something." Access started frowning back towards Blackjack too, realizing what Michael said made sense as he had almost started trusting the man there.

"It's difficult to trust you," a low, modulated voice spoke behind Gentle. Gentle turned and then stepped to the side a bit while watching Death move forward towards a very nervous Blackjack. "So we'll trust your actions then."

Gentle rose up his white eyebrows high. Seriously? He thought, though keeping it to himself.

Blackjack's eyes opened huge too, as many others in the room had inside their helmets. "Death," Seraphim started towards her leader.

Zach kept looking at Blackjack, then he reached up his hands and grabbed his helmet. He lifted it off and lowered it down to his waist while looking into Blackjack's shocked eyes. "People must have never trusted him once his entire life because of that Quirk," Zach started. He stared at the man and tried to keep his expression serious and angry, but as soon as he heard the specifics of the Quirk something else stirred within him. A cursed Quirk, he thought, as he saw Blackjack's eyes open so huge and start trembling as he heard Death say that to him. "Everyone always assumed he was lying or tricking them. Not once did anyone give them their trust, so I'm going to trust him."

"How?" Blackjack whispered in shock.

Zach ground his teeth and then looked harder at the man in front of him who he believed did send them that information. Leap of faith. It's risky. And stupid. And- "Because you deserve to once in your life have someone who does." Zach ground his teeth harder while glaring at the man who could see how hard it was to do this for the teen in front of him, a teen he recognized the moment the kid pulled his helmet off. "Never betray me," Zach said while staring into Blackjack's hazel eyes the same shade as his own. "You, always tell me the truth, or no one will ever be able to trust you again."

"I will," Blackjack whispered, while he stared at the figure in front of him in disbelief. He stared at him and his heart pounded harder than it had when he considered betraying his comrades, or when the Army of Death swept in during the deal and captured them all. "I promise, Death. I'll help you, and I'll earn that trust you're giving me…" Trust? Even my gang, even my family… There's no way he actually- Death nodded back at Blackjack, then he turned to Gentle and gave him a nod too which made the man in a purple cloak let out a long sigh and then start rubbing his forehead over his helmet. Death turned to Blackjack and pulled out a knife, and he sliced the ropes holding Blackjack to the chair, while Gentle took off his helmet and started an orientation for the man who could not believe what he was hearing.

Death turned and started away from Blackjack after cutting his binds. You deserve a second chance. To make up for those crimes not just by rotting away in some prison, but by using that Quirk of yours for me. I'll be watching you closely, Blackjack. And I'll slice your fucking neck open if you betray me.

---

Midoriya looked back at the hospital room door behind him, then he turned and walked away with his lips curled far down at the corners. He could hear All Might's voice back in that room after he started away, and he clenched his fists at his sides in frustration at the thought of the woman he and All Might were just talking to. The wrinkles all over her body, the pale skin, yet her defiant and angry face that looked as strong as it always did just did not match that body. Her lifespan, is about to run out, Midoriya shook his head to try and stop looking so frustrated. He glanced back over his shoulder towards Wonderlass's room though, and then he turned back forward and kept going to head out of the hospital.

She's dying, Midoriya thought. And there's nothing we can… He closed his eyes and then opened them with another shake of his head to push away a thought that tried slipping into his mind. Instead he focused on something else, Gran Torino still doesn't have his Quirk back, as Eri cannot control hers yet. If she could… but, that could be too far away. He grit his teeth and shook his head once more, trying to push all those thoughts out of his head. He had to shift what he was thinking on from a bad situation he couldn't do anything about.

The seventeen year old with curly green hair walked out of the hospital. He looked around and then started down a sidewalk back towards the train station. His hands slid down into his pockets and he did not walk very fast. Izuku Midoriya was in no rush to go anywhere, and he grimaced as he thought about going back to the dorm right now. His eyes shifted down to the floor and he thought about the looks of some of his classmates, the ways some had looked at him for a while now. Maybe, I really should… He frowned deeper at a thought he had had for months but never acted on. This time though, he countered his own quick dismissal of the thought. Telling all of Class A. It's a solution, not a problem. I heard a rumor from Class B that, that they could only know if my classmates told them what Raijin said the day of his betrayal.

I trust all of them! But, because they don't know how big of a secret it is they aren't keeping it like they should. Because instead of asking them to keep it a secret, I just pretend like Raijin never said anything. Midoriya balled his fists in his pockets and he grit his teeth harder, thinking about the day before the Lifebringer Incident. "You know, I didn't say shit to him." He saw that look on Zach's face after he had glanced towards him, after Kirishima had made a joke about All Might to him hinting at something, and how Zach had seen in his eyes that Midoriya thought he was the one who told Kaminari. Why did I do that? It was, it was because of that night after Kaminari… When Zach was shouting about telling the secrets that weren't his to tell, I thought he meant… Midoriya ground his teeth and shook his head again, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind.

If I tell the rest of the class, they'll keep it a secret. Right? If they understand how serious it is? But, telling so many people is bound to… Not everyone, could hold out like Zach did. If they were ever tortured… and if villains ever targeted them just because they knew I told them something… Midoriya frowned so much deeper at these thoughts. Most of them don't understand and I shouldn't include so many people in the secret, but there are those who won't just forget about it. Todoroki, Uraraka- I have to lie. To protect them! And, to shut down those rumors without telling anyone the truth. I'm just going to keep telling them that Kaminari said it because my power is similar to All Might's with my huge strength. A determined look formed on his face and he nodded to himself as he stuck with that story he had dedicated himself to sticking with for a long time now. It hurt him getting that determined over it though, and his hardened look faded with his lips curling down sadder.

I'll have to lie to the people closest to me to make it believable. Not just not telling them the truth, but actively lying. Midoriya felt his heart clenching up and he bit down hard while glancing up at the sky, How was Zach able to do it? Just imagining lying like that, hurts so much. How could he do it so easily?

Midoriya got to the train station and went up to get his tickets back to Musutafu. He waited for the train with his phone out, reading the news and frowning at the stories he saw on it. He scrolled quickly past an article about the Army of Death, and he focused on the Japanese section instead. Never any Death sightings in Japan… More people getting in trouble for using their Quirks. It's been happening more and more often lately. Midoriya got on the train and lowered his phone for a second. He was going to stand the whole time to let others sit, but the train was pretty empty so he took a spot on a soft chair instead and just kept reading the article he glimpsed at on the platform.

Midoriya rose his head and let out a small sigh. Quirk-training sessions in neighborhoods being called "neighborhood watch" meetings. Families taking classes from tutors who aren't licensed, and all parties getting in trouble for it… Just like Kota. Midoriya lowered his gaze back to his phone to think about something else, but his fingers curled over the screen and his eyes focused on scars on his right hand as he turned it over. Of course he's going to ignore it. The moment he gave me against Muscular, even though he should have just been running like the law says… it saved our lives. Ragdoll thought I could help him out, since he's struggling with it. With Mandalay and Pixie Bob, Tora, his parents… it's too much. I don't know if what I told him will be able to help him recover after so much loss. I, I have to do more this time though. Actively go work things out with him, and push him on a path that's not destructive like I let-

The green-haired boy on the train leaned back in his seat. He was so frustrated from seeing Wonderlass like that. He had a better understanding of her Super Quirk now, and he knew the reason she was in that hospital bed was because of how far she had gone at Breakneck's lab. Because I wasn't strong enough to… He shook his head not wanting to think about that, but everything else he was thinking of made him so frustrated too. I couldn't stop her from going too far. I couldn't stop Zach, and I couldn't protect Skylord. Or the others that day. Now, I need a new internship. I can't just spend my weekends regretting these losses. I have to push forward. Smiling. Midoriya lifted his lips and he tried to keep a forced smile, shaking away thoughts of all the bad things going on in his life and the world around him.

Midoriya hummed and thought about the problems he was just thinking on, though he tried to smile as he thought about them this time. He noticed two of the other people who were on the train with him had looked over and recognized him when he got on, and he wanted to keep a heroic expression on his face for them. The punishments haven't been very bad for the people who have been caught so far. It's different for the ones who get caught training them compared to people who have just been using them normally. Some heroes are trying to crack down on it because a lot of other countries are starting to get more lenient, to remind everyone here that we're not doing that too. Once people find out how much easier life is using their super powers though, they start to use them casually. Moving objects in their office to their hands if they can instead of getting up to grab them… like mom sometimes did in the kitchen. It's not a big issue… but if they don't treat those occasions like it it, then other people get encouraged to use theirs too. Rolling down a sidewalk instead of walking, or hovering over the floor but keeping feet close to the ground so they can drop down if they see cops or heroes around. I don't want to say anything to them when I see it, but seeing them drop when they see heroes makes it seem like they're afraid of getting caught, afraid of heroes… and heroes shouldn't be that separated from the people they're protecting.

The line between heroes and civilians, shouldn't be bigger than the line between civilians and villains. I've seen people talking about that on the news. And the people who do get caught by heroes for illegally using their Quirks, they get mad at heroes for upholding that law. Midoriya frowned thinking about some patrols he had gone on with Skylord before their fight against the Stain Cult. "I do this every day…" "No other hero stops me from doing this…" "Why do you care? I'm not hurting anyone…" Why is this only becoming a problem now? I never used to hear things about that, Midoriya frowned a bit and hummed to himself, before smiling again just for the others who he saw looking towards him on the train. It's because those same people are probably using their Quirks in secret to train, to practice in case of villains, and they realize how useful their Quirks are for every day activities while they train. People aren't going to stop training their Quirks though, because they don't trust heroes can protect them anymore. As much as the crime rate has started to drop, it's still so high, and some people point at other countries where crime is dropping faster and accredit it to their different laws surrounding Quirks…

Midoriya rose his head and looked towards the doors of the train on the side opposite him. Some others on the seats started looking that way and at a television screen on the wall above the closed doors. Midoriya's eyes opened wide at the title of the story he saw above the screen. There was a camera at a suburban neighborhood, and there were a few cop cars around as well as a hero who was walking with the two cops bringing a woman in handcuffs out of her house.

"Let her go!"

"You can't do this!"

Midoriya's eyes opened wide as he stared behind the police lines at the cars where the neighbors started shouting at the cops and the hero who looked around at them all. More people were gathering, and someone yelled towards the hero, "Fuck you Zebraman! Get out of here!"

"Sharon!"

"You're arresting her?! For what?!" A man yelled, pushing forward between two cops who grabbed him and shoved him back, which made everyone else around him start getting more riled up and angry at those cops who leaned back at the normal civilians' expressions. "We all asked her to help us! You gonna arrest all of us?!"

A lot of the people around the man leaned back at his shout, but there were others around there who started getting angrier yet more determined looks on their faces too. "Were you training your Quirk without a hero license?" Zebraman asked, walking away from the woman he had come out of the house with and stepping towards the man who leaned away from the hero in a black-and-white-striped costume. He questioned the man calmly yet his eyes were narrowed and he awaited an answer from the man whose neighbors all looked towards him.

"Yeah I did," he replied after that hesitation. He glared at the hero whose eyes widened as he expected the civilian to back down. "Because this neighborhood has been plagued by villains for months, and you didn't do shit about it!" The man's dirty mouth got bleeped out by the cameras, but again Midoriya could make out what he was really saying. "Now villains think twice about coming here- hey! Hey!"

"Let go of him!"

"Everyone disperse. This is-"

"Lifebringer was right!" The woman behind Zebraman shouted at the hero's back. Zebraman turned his head while the camera pointed back at the woman in handcuffs being led to a police car. She turned her body more and struggled against the cops who wanted to get her into a car faster. "Arrest me and slap a hefty fine on me for training innocent people to defend themselves. I don't care. When the villains attack again and the people who I helped survive because of that training, my conscience will be clear."

Midoriya's dropped bottom lip pulled back up and his teeth clenched hard. Zach, what you said… People are going to get hurt fighting villains and… and… And I need to stop the villains so they don't have to. It's not your fault. People would have gotten fed up anyway. And they feel they need to train because of the lack of a Symbol. I'll become that Symbol soon. I need to. So that I can protect this world, and so they don't have to.

---

Zach and Gentle sat together on branches of a Baobob tree on the island of Madagascar. The trunk was long and stuck high into the sky, and the two of them sat on high branches obscured by other ones all around them that they intentionally kept in their ways. They were in the middle of a prairie, fields of brownish orange grass spread out below them and across the flat landscape. There was a waterbed a few hundred meters to their east, some animals grazing over near it or sleeping for the night. There were a few other tall trees like theirs in the vicinity, but none too close to where the convoy of vehicles just rolled to a stop at a campsite in the middle of nowhere.

There were tents set up around the camp, fire-pits between them, and there were some large animal carcasses laid out around the campground. There were strings held up between wooden poles that had lemur skins and corpses hanging from them, and then there were the spikes that had human skulls on them too. The wooden spikes crossed on either side of the entrance into the camp, just a dirt path that went between some tents and towards the much larger hut near the center. A man who looked like a witch doctor stepped out of the main hut, and Zach zoomed in more with his helmet that he used with the night vision off since the camp was illuminated by the fires in it and the headlights of the cars.

Most of the vehicles were the same brownish color as the grasslands around them, though there were a couple of black ones between the safari jeeps. There was also a long black hummer that stayed behind some other vehicles after rolling almost all the way to the hut. Zach glared at the witch doctor in front of his hut, standing there with very little clothes on, the top half of a human skull over his own hair, a bone stuck through his nose, and a long bone staff in his right hand that he was using as a walking stick too. The men around him looked like normal villains, some of them more savage and insane-looking than the usual villains he came in contact with. I didn't think a man like Takiti would be in contact with other villains, but this group we were waiting for is larger than I expected. I should have brought more people. "Rebel, anything yet?" Zach asked.

"Get a clearer look on that guy," Rebel said, as he had just gotten a picture sent to him from Gentle's helmet that did not have a video recorder in it but did have a camera if Gentle wanted to take a shot of what he was seeing in his visor. Gentle refocused and shifted over to another branch, swinging over Zach's prone body and sliding up before leaning off and peering more towards the sides of the villains' faces. Takiti turned his head to the side, and the villain he was talking to who had gotten out of the front jeep looked that way for a second too. Gentle took a picture in that second and it popped up on Rebel's screen, before a facial recognition software searched through all the databases in the world for a match.

"Got it," Rebel said after a few more seconds. "Uvuvuvwe Ukuku. Sound familiar?"

"Kabo's right hand man in Africa," Zach said softly. He slipped away after the League of Shadows. I knew going for anyone else first based on Kabo's information was too risky, it could tip off the League, but going after the League definitely tipped him off. He packed everything up and disappeared before anyone could get to him. "No doubt he's a big shot right now in the underworld. So what's he doing here?"

"Takiti is too small time for him," Gentle agreed, glancing back towards Death with a deep frown on his face. "Unless we are missing something."

What could we be missing? Takiti is a crazy bastard. He's a villain, a monster to certain people, but a lot of people in the villages around here treat him like some sort of god. They think he's all-powerful, and he killed the vigilantes protecting those villages. Zach's eyes turned red and he darted them around all the tents, around the prairie, at all the vehicles that Ukuku brought with him. Where's the meaning in this? Takiti has power, but nothing like the kind of power Ukuku has. And the people Takiti has power over are poor; there's nothing for him here. Why do they… No. "No. Fucking. Way."

Gentle turned his head and looked back at the hummer that Zach was staring at. He looked at the back doors where a man in a dark suit had just gotten out and held the door open. Out from that door stepped a woman who had a red mask covering the right half of her face, and that mask curved down below her chin and around part of her neck. The left side of her face had burn scars on it too though, though they got thicker and more disgusting towards the half that the red mask covered. The mask looked horrifying, the design of a demon on it that only made the burns on the left side of her face look more menacing. She had a tight red costume on, and a black cloak, and at the top of that black cloak was a hood, and a thin veil that hung off the front of the hood and covered part of her face. "Impossible," Gentle whispered at the sight of the woman walking forward into more light. "That's, not…"

"What are y'all seein' out there?" Rebel asked, leaning in towards his computer at the sounds of their disbelieving voices.

Zach turned to Gentle, "You said you killed her."

"I never said that," Gentle countered. "I said that she killed herself… But clearly, I was mistaken." Gentle could not tear his eyes off of the woman who walked right up to Ukuku and brushed a hand up his back and over his shoulder before stepping in front of him to face Takiti. Her smirk lifted behind her mask and on the burnt side of her face, and she started talking to the man whose eyes widened at the proposition she was offering him. Gentle continued while he stared at this woman, "I thought the reason we never found her body was, that it incinerated in the blast that blew up Mongoloid's kitchen… She had one arm, and was surrounded in flames when I left her," Gentle's eyes narrowed and he finally turned away from the woman who he never once considered might still be alive. He turned and said in a lower voice, "I have no idea how Arma survived, or how she got out of there on her own without anyone knowing in the condition she was in."

"Did you say Arma?!" Rebel shouted, pushing back from his computer and shaking his head around. He had been talking to Gentle right after his fight with that woman, and he could not believe what he was hearing though it made sense from the context. "That crazy bitch is alive?!"

What is she doing here? She shouldn't be my priority target but… The way she touched Ukuku, Zach felt unnerved as he saw that woman's unhinged smirk twist in rage at something she just said to the witch doctor. What if I had it wrong? Was Mongoloid really the one, who ran Saudi Arabia? They never would have accepted a Queen there… Holy shit. What is she doing in this country? How did she survive?! "She has both arms," Zach said softly, glancing back at Gentle as he had just said something contrary to that.

Gentle stared at Arma's left arm and watched as she lifted it and clenched a fist in front of her. She turned her arm over while Zach and Gentle were both watching closely, and then her wrist opened up and a thin steel cannon popped up out of it and aimed straight at Takiti's head. The witch doctor didn't have a second to drop his jaw, before his brains were splattered behind him and he was falling backwards. Arma started shouting at everyone around her at once, while Ukuku and his men aimed guns or Quirks around at the forces who looked like they were either about to run away or fight to the death. All of them started calming down though as the woman shouted at them, and she reached down and picked a bloody half-skull off the ground that she rose in front of her demonic-looking face and smirked at evilly. She took that skull and put it over her own head, and then she turned with blood running out of the skull Takiti had worn and shouted at his men who all backed away from her. And then they knelt.

"Well that didn't take fucking long at all," Gentle muttered. She's a formidable foe. Much more than I gave her credit for-

"Neither will this," Zach said. Gentle glanced at the boy whose body was already erupting in his black aura.

The tree around them started to darken, and Gentle reached his hands to his chest as he nodded at the boy. The branch creaked below Gentle as the tree started to lose its life, but Gentle jumped off anyway while saying in a graceful tone, "Elasta-Armor." He dropped to the floor and bounced right back up as he focused some Elasticity below the soles of his feet. He bounced himself up into the air, while the tree behind him cracked louder and started falling as it broke apart from how hard the second figure just leapt off of it.

Arma, Ukuku, all their soldiers, and Takiti's who were about to join them all turned the same direction. They turned, and then all of them dropped their jaws as a dark monster with huge wings behind it slammed down on the ground just outside of their campsite. Then a man in black armor with a purple cape, gloves, and dark purple visor slammed down next to that dark figure. The one with some purple highlights also had a thin translucent glow around him, and a woman in a red mask with a skull over her head started shaking in absolute rage after she looked that way in shock. "YOU!" She roared, and the two figures she yelled at scattered in opposite directions. The ground below where they had been standing ripped apart as it did in a huge trench backwards from that position. Arma snapped her left cannon arm up the direction Gentle dodged, while raising her right arm and injecting a needle straight into her chest.

"Everyone! Attack them!" Ukuku shouted at the soldiers around him who all started running at one dark figure or the other.

"That means you too, you monkeys!" one of Ukuku's men yelled at some savage-looking men and women who shifted their gazes to Arma and then nodded and started running out to hunt their new Goddess's enemies.

"I've been waiting for my revenge on you," Arma snarled, her head turning left and right as explosions started going off around her. She turned when she saw a man flying back, and she ran towards the dark figure she saw in a purple cape who turned his head to her when she let out a scream in his direction. "I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCEEEE!" Her voice this time started a trench just past the front of her body, a trench that expanded with her shout away from her and through a few men who let out screams as they were being torn apart by her voice. Gentle bent his legs far and then shot up in the air, and Arma rose her head fast carving a path through the air after him.

"I was a QUEEN! And you took away my KINGGGDOMMMM!" Tents blew apart on one side of her, and flames blew into the air from destroyed fires.

A truck exploded, and a jeep lifted up into the air and crumbled into a ball before getting thrown at a dark form that swerved around it in midair before flapping wings down and dive-bombing the African man with metal-controlling powers. At least Zach thought it was metal-control at first, until the ground in front of that man rose up and into a wall that he smashed straight through anyway. He flew into the other side, then he darted his red eyes back and forth behind his visor as the man he was after and the three others around him were all gone. Huge holes opened up in the ground and long brown snakes with five glowing red eyes each started reaching up at him, and Zach brought his arms from his sides to in front of him with his fingers outstretched. "DEATH CLAWS!"

Zach slashed his claws through the illusion in front of him. The men he knew to still be there tried backing up or screaming, but they all collapsed, including the illusionist whose snakes disappeared as he and the others became visible to Zach again. He landed and let out a deep breath of black steam as his instincts were right, then his head snapped to the left and he darted towards two vehicles that's engines just turned on.

"Is there truly a need to get revenge on me, my Queen?" Gentle asked sarcastically while landing behind the woman who was looking around for him in the flames of an explosion she just created attacking her own hummer. Gentle had bounced away at the right time so that she would destroy it on her own, and her anger at what she had just done gave him the time to get right up behind her. He continued while she started turning her head, her mouth open behind her mask and showing she was panting from all the shouting and the Trigger. "I assume the blast must have altered your memory, if you really think it was I who did such a horrible thing to your face. If you do recall, it was your own attack- well, that was anti-climactic," Gentle cut himself off in mid-taunt, frowning and looking at the boy who had a clear shot on Arma's back and was able to take her down instantly while she was fully facing Gentle.

Gentle started looking around, but Zach said, "Don't bother. I took everyone else out already." Gentle looked back in surprise, then he started forward in a campsite full of fire and unconscious and dead bodies towards a woman laying flat on her face. Zach stepped around her side too so that he was on Gentle's right when the man reached the woman they were looking at. "I wonder what her plans were," Zach said in a low voice, glaring at the unconscious woman through his helmet and then shifting his gaze around everything around him. "Look at all she managed since that day in Hatto. She was-"

"All 'she' managed?" Gentle questioned. "You do remember what we had as resources at the time of the invasion of Saudi Arabia?"

Zach nodded and tilted his head to the right once in agreement with that. He curled his lip and kept frowning down at Arma. "Still," he muttered. "I almost wish I didn't knock her out right away. I kind of, want to know what her big plans were."

"We could ask her when she wakes up," Gentle suggested, but Zach shook his head back at him.

"I want to hand her in to the Saudi's as soon as possible," Zach said. Gentle nodded in agreement but hummed as he thought about it. Zach continued, "It will definitely help the new president who's facing some push back from his people. The new democratic government needs this for legitimacy."

"We told those people that Arma was dead," Gentle began, reminding Zach in case he forgot.

"I know," Zach said. "And I know, it will make our reputation a bit worse there. The people accepted the transitionary government though because of the war trials they were able to put on for Mongoloid and his Demons. The new democratic one never had a chance for something legitimate like that, and they've been pretty divided ever since they came in. They even lost some support right at the start because of us, because they had to agree with the international community that we were terrorists, even though most of the people there wanted us as their new leaders-"

"Not us," Gentle said. Zach frowned, but the man at his side countered, "They wanted you to be their new king. If we had Saudi Arabia too, we would not be dealing with those issues of finding places for the people who have nowhere to-"

"Not there," Zach said, shaking his head no in disagreement with the man at his side. He looked at Gentle and continued in a lower voice, "I'll figure out something else for that. But for this, I know that giving the president Arma will make him more popular. If we hand over Arma to some Saudi heroes and work with them and the president on how to handle this, so that everyone knows it was his leadership that got her and that he is the one putting her on trial, it will make the people of the country give him a chance at least. It will make us look worse in their eyes, but that's a good thing. The president capturing Arma, Mongoloid's wife and the leader of the 7 Demons who they thought was already dead, who the Army of Death claimed to have killed only for this discovery to be made. It will make people stop treating us like as much of heroes in that country, and the ones who want us instead of their elected leader might be convinced to change those opinions."

"You really want all those people who think so highly of us to stop?" Gentle asked, frowning in his helmet at the question. "I'd prefer it if people looked upon us more as saviors than villains. It would make everything easier."

"I don't, want it," Zach agreed with Gentle, his tone soft as he responded to the first part of what Gentle asked. "But, I do think, that letting them take the credit for capturing Arma will do the most good." Gentle nodded at him, and Zach finished, "And that's all that matters."

---

"Uravity!"

"Um, yes?" Ochaco Uraraka responded while standing with two other heroes in front of a crowd of reporters. There were cops behind her, as well as a black van with a few strong villains being taken away in on the north side of Tokyo. The girl had a scratch on her right arm through her upper pink sleeve of her costume, but that was wrapped with a white bandage and other than it she looked fine. Ryukyu and Popfire were both there with her, and yet she was the one having questions called at her which made the shortest and youngest girl there feel a bit nervous.

"I heard that you were integral in defeating those villains! How did you do it?"

"Oh! I, um, using my Zero Gravity I was able to take away all of the villains' gravity during the fight while Popfire had them off guard. And while they were spinning around in midair Ryukyu was able to defeat them without them hitting her with their Quirks-" Uraraka tried to mention how much the others had done too as she did not want anyone thinking it was only her, though the other two at her sides were looking in proudly at the younger intern who had really helped a lot in the fight.

"That's amazing!"

"Great job Uravity!"

Uraraka rose her left hand behind her head and rubbed it with a small sheepish smile on her face. "Ah, it was just, thank you." She smiled cutely at the male reporter whose cheeks turned red and who had to turn away for a second and clear his throat. The cute seventeen year old girl who had not grown much since her first year at U.A. smiled and felt more confident after that praise, even if she did not know if she deserved it all. She turned to the next reporter who called out her name and nodded, replying, "Yes?"

"Uravity! This is less a question about the villain attack, but we would like to hear your opinion on it at KZ-TV. Could you describe your relationship with Lifebringer, the villain from your class who some claim you were in a relationship with."

Uraraka's facial expression shifted. Her eyes looked down for a second and she frowned at the way that question was worded. She was hesitant, but she responded softly, "We weren't in a relationship, other than he was my classmate, and my friend…" Do I still have to be here? Is this what press conferences- I guess they won't always just ask things I want to be asked about. But, I don't want to-

"Did you see signs that Lifebringer was going to turn?" The same reporter questioned.

Ryukyu and Popfire both glanced in at Uraraka and then they looked behind her and at each other. The two of them stared into each other's eyes for a second thinking about the same thing. "We've fought villains before, but never on this scale. The fate of entire cities or countries rested on different fights, but the League of Shadows' influence spans the entire world! Spreading hate and chaos and evil around it! Today we end that terror!" The two older women then looked back at the younger girl between them whose expression looked frustrated at the questions the reporters were asking her overlapping with each other.

"Are you with me?!" Popfire heard the shout at the end of that, before their charge through that snowy landscape. She remembered seeing that army of scary soldiers in black armor who she thought she had come to fight, charge into a base of villains ahead of her. She thought about the man who he pushed her out of the way, when a turret popped out of the wall and started firing at her. The man had taken a few shots before firing at the turret himself and taking it down, and she remembered trying to help him. "Go on ahead… I'll be alright. It's my first, so- ack- go stop the League. Keep, pushing, forward…" Uravity, your classmate is, if he really is Death, he's… amazing.

Uraraka's eyes lowered to the floor in front of her. In her head she thought about how she, Tsuyu, Kirishima, and Midoriya had gone to Zach's room one day to try and talk to him about Eri. "The Quirk-Destroying drug, they were making that out of Eri… Using her blood, and when she couldn't make any more, he'd- he'd disassemble her, and put her back together." She remembered what Kirishima said, and she remembered right after he said it how tears had pushed out of Zach's eyes. Just hearing such a thing, about a person he had never met before, he couldn't… In her mind appeared Zach's face as he rolled over her, putting his back to K-Blaster instead of her own, putting himself in the way of a shot which she still believed saved her life.

"…Why did he do it? Why did he suddenly turn into a villain? Was it because of Raijin, or was he always a killer from the very start since USJ-"

"He's not like that," Uraraka started, lifting her eyes and staring painfully at the man who just called Zach a 'killer.' Again that relieved look on his face as he saved her life appeared, a look he had shown her in the same moment she heard those gunshots go off, when they both thought he had been shot instead of her.

"Sazaki is on the run," another reporter called up to the girl who seemed like she would be answering questions like these instead of saying 'no comment' which the woman suspected the girl would at first. "And some suspect that he is actually Death, the terrorist. Even if he is not, he killed six people during the Lifebringer Incident. How do you defend-"

"I don't know why Zach did the things he did," Uraraka started, and she frowned at the woman who asked before glancing towards a camera with her in a hesitant way. She looked back towards that woman thought and her face got more frustrated at that look on the woman's. "Or why he ran," she whispered softer. Her face steadied and she continued, "But Zach… Zach is, the kindest person I know." Everyone in front of her stared at the girl in surprise, as did some of her friends watching a live stream on their phones. Midoriya stared at the phone with his eyes wide in his dorm room, and then he felt his heart hurting at the look on Uraraka's face. He thought about an argument they had had about him just the other day, and he lowered his eyes for a second though looked up again when she continued talking.

"As much as it hurt him, he kept bringing people back. And when I asked him once why he goes so far, he told me it's because of that pain he felt when he brought them back. He said he knows they had to go through that. He knows that's the last thing they remembered, terrible pain, and they have families who go through even more…" Uraraka bit down hard as she said it, but she would rather go through the looks the people were looking at her with right now than to have just stood there and let those reporters keep calling Zach a 'killer' to her face without her standing up for him. Her heart ached though and her eyes lowered down after the last part she mentioned and faded off with. "Zach isn't a bad person," she started, and her eyes lifted back up with her face looking strong again, stronger than it had since the start of the interviews. "And no one, can ever convince me otherwise."

---

A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Alternating scenes from around Japan to scenes of Zach going around being Death all over the world. Arma! The Mad Doctor! Nagiso getting friendly with the girls... New recruits, Blackjack, Wonderlass is dying, and Uraraka defending the Zach she remembers. Lots of jumping around this chapter, and we see the Army of Death growing even larger than ever... The world is changing, and what will come next? I'm already started up on the next chapter, try to get it up in the next couple days! Leave a review telling me what you thought of the chapter or the developments you see coming that I tried leaving lots of clues towards...

Gamma-X chapter 118 . Dec 11

Great chapter! I'm surprised at how easily he handled both Mister G (Gentle) and Exodus. Quite inspiring for his men. I think I'm gonna like Eloper. Also, will those 4 girls also be joining the AoD after Zach gets rid of the traffickers? Assuming they have quirks, I mean... 'Cause, y'know... "Want to stop such things from happening to others like it happened to them," kind of motivation? And quick rundown of AoD members, please. Are the majority females or males? I feel like there are more chicks with the recent chapters, but not entirely sure... It's probably balanced right now, but want to be sure. Men are most likely the majority, but currently doubt it.

Thanks! Zach's always been martial arts based on his fighting, and with the LoV he learned even more with unique moves specific to the villains too. I felt like it was good to show since his Quirk is becoming so strong and OP that it might be easy to forget how good he really is at combat in general. We didn't see Zach invite those other four girls to join him, though this time we see a very similar concept as Zach frees those research subjects and offers them a way to stop things... wow, yeah pretty much exactly what you've got there^ XD so nice call on that. Seriously don't know with the majority being girls or guys. Each time I make a character it's pretty much a coin flip in my head. I'll be like "I need a Slipspace... Slipspace sounds like a girl," and then I write her in. It seems to me it's stayed pretty balanced that way, but anyone's free to count all the named characters in the Army of Death if they want to check for sure. Lol might take a while though... Thanks for the review!

Super Power Sensei chapter 118 . Dec 11

What I liked:
Zach's inner monologues always satisfy me. Most, if not all, of the time his thoughts are what my thoughts would be if I was in his position.
Getting some insight into what the AoD does on the Cloak was FANTASTIC! The dynamics between the soldiers(Veterans and Recruits) was solid and this chapter shows more differences between heroes and these soldiers. Heros talk about sidekicks and public morale while soldiers talk about staying alive and improving for the next mission.
Also love how just as Zach feels it's getting harder to lead his army, they "comfort him" in a way to show they still believe in him.
Zach is a true leader and badass(as you can tell with the training room scene)yet people keep doubting him. THEY KEEP DOUBTING HIM!
What I didn't like:
The chapter ended.
Other thoughts...
Zach says he wants to get rid of all villains but he must know that's not possible right? It's like feeding a dog and telling it not to ever poop. Violence, major or minor, is a byproduct of our existence. I expect Zach, considering his knowledge, perspective, and perception of reality, to know this already and if not to soon realize it. It would be great for him to broaden his horizons. Attack the cause for villians. For example, financially help the children of parents who become villians and are imprisoned. This would prevent those kids from turning to villiany in pursuit of money for basic needs. Or, since Mandalay is dead, have adopt Kota so he doesn't grow up strong but hateful and end up killing people.
Small note. Can you make it so the Cloak has windows and glass that can tint themselves. See through one moment, blocking all light the next.

Love that you're liking Zach's monologues, and the way you described it too is exactly what I feel too. I get really into the mindset of Zach while I'm writing, and his thoughts just kind of flow out as I type imagining I'm Zach thinking those things. I've gotten way too attached to him doing this though... to the point that sometimes writing out the really sad chapters just fucks me up. Always fun when the tears start rolling though, lol I'm glad you really liked the Cloak's daily routine. Zach's interactions with his army and the same with veterans and the rookies shows in this chapter too with those scenes closer to the start with Access and Spiral interactions, Zach trying to scold Exodus but agreeing over the methods since he does trust Exodus who's been there awhile, as well as when his soldiers started backing away from the experiments but moved back to block them from the villains after Death showed back up and told them why he was doing it. Anyway! I'm glad you like that kind of stuff because it's fun writing in the dynamic between them all. Zach does sound pretty naive with his goals to stop all the villains, and he knows it himself too as we've seen him doubting his ability to do it... I wrote out a bit more here but just backtracked and deleted it, 'cause who knows maybe it's coming up in the story and I don't wanna spoil anything here. Lol great review though! The Cloak's already got windows that can turn invisible and have shutters automatically cover them for nighttime in the day... I don't know how much more detail on The Cloak's windows I want to get into (Death's already 1.4 million words...) but maybe that's in the next upgrade! XD Thanks for reviewing!

Yes chapter 118 . Dec 9

Did those gang dudes actually think they could beat someone who can cause instant death...

Welp, they had the egos, the superior numbers, and most importantly the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed to convince themselves that they were a match for our... heroes? Vigilantes? Umm, for the Army of Death. Not the best move on their part though... thanks for the review!