A/N Notice: I changed the rating to M. Just a reminder, no particular reason I'm putting it here before this chapter...
Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 121:
"Stop!" Zach yelled. He ran forward and slammed down on the top of Jughead's rifle that the man snapped up and aimed at the boy in front of him who was holding a smoking gun of his own.
Zach looked down in front of him, and he pulled his head back with his face scrunching up in pain at the sight of the muscular man's body on the sand at his feet. Then he looked up at the kid holding a smoking pistol that shook as he turned his gaze from the man on the floor to the dark figure with swords sticking over his shoulders behind his back. The kid got a terrified look on his face as he stared at that figure, and Zach figured the boy recognized him.
"He just killed Jackhammer!" Jughead yelled, screaming it at the side of Death's helmet. "For his second-
"We didn't come here to hurt the kids!" Zach yelled right back, and he ripped the gun out of Jughead's hands that the big man had kept holding when Death just pushed it down at first. He turned his head as he shouted it, and he glared around at the other dark figures nearby who all started aiming at the other army they were mixed in with in the desert of central Africa. "We came to stop people from recruiting them, and to free the ones already taken, and indoctrinated…" Zach turned back to the kid who looked no older than twelve and kept that pistol raised in his hand pointed at him.
Mark started yelling loudly everything Zach was saying, only in the native language of the children and fallen soldiers all around them. Most of the adults in the area were taken down, unconscious on the sand or even with bullet holes riddling them. Zach continued while his face scrunched up more in his helmet, "…forced to kill their own families, so that they'd think they could never go back." Fuck this place. All the soldiers, everyone's just doing… they're doing such horrible things. How do they justify this? Just for, loyal soldiers? Zach stepped forward towards the young boy holding a shaking pistol, "It's not their faults. It's not your fault," he said it softer, and the boy in front of him pulled his own face back, before darting his eyes down to the dead man at Death's side again.
The kid started looking back and forth between Death and the dark soldier he had just shot in the face. Blood came out of the cracks in the dark visor and poured all over the sand, and the boy looking at that turned back to the other dark figure whose voice was so dark and ominous, yet sounded soft. He turned his head more to the dark figure who called out what he had just heard, only he could understand it this time. The boy's pistol shook more, and he started shaking his head at the taller figure in front of him who just stepped closer and held his left hand out more.
Zach extended his arm farther. Please, he thought. "Please," he said aloud, and then he stepped closer and he wrapped his hand slowly around the top of the pistol he pushed down. Zach pulled the gun out of the boy's hands, and the kid dropped his arms down to his sides. Then Zach checked the safety and tossed the gun into the sand. He looked around at the rest of the African children and teens gathered around, and he nodded at them. Guns started dropping, each of the child soldiers tossing them down and then backing away from the scary dark army that was stopping them without them even fighting back anymore.
They lost their leaders. The ones who abducted them all. It couldn't have been too long ago for most of them. Stuff like this couldn't have happened for long. And it can't happen any longer. I won't- I won't let it. I have to solve these problems though. Where can they go? The villages they were abducted from wouldn't let them back, their families are… but I can't recruit them. Not a group like this. I won't just take their child soldiers and make them mine. Fuck! The complexity of… he killed Jackhammer. That little… victim. That's what he is. He's fucking crying. Right after killing- Damn it! DAMN IT!
"Ahh haa ahh haa… Aahhhh," Zach sucked in as sharp a breath as he could. He leaned his body back and then lowered the sword he held in his right hand, dripping blood while dark wisps pulled off the back of it. He glared forward through his cracked black visor down the pier, and he stopped his panting while clenching his fists so much harder in front of him. His fingers dug into the hilt of his katana, and his left hand snapped down and whipped up his grappling gun he aimed and fired down the pier while starting his run down it.
Zach ran past the bodies laying to his sides without slowing. He even stepped right on one of the bodies in front of him, and he felt his heart lurch as it was a soldier in dark armor who he stepped on there. There was no time to focus on anything though. His mind was nearly blank, and he swerved in and out of the hail of gunfire that rained towards him. All the gunshots stopped at once, Zach's grappling gun was yanked out of his hand and the Death blown the other way off the weapon pulling away from him. He leapt up in the air and let the pull trying to yank his sword away tug him forward faster, pulling him with an extra burst of speed away from the spot a huge fourteen foot tall woman was dropping down from the sky on.
She smashed into the dock behind him, blowing apart the wood and splintering it in all directions. The water was already murky and full of trash off the pier, but more driftwood flew into the mix as the hulking pirate woman smashed apart the dock she landed on. She started running after where Death was getting pulled towards, and Zach started panting again though he released his sword and twisted his body in midair. Not enough to hold on without a solid source, Zach reached under his armpits and grabbed a pair of knives, one with either hand. He surrounded the blades with stronger Death and then spun his body in a barrel-roll in midair, flicking the blades off while he was in a blur and not showing where he was aiming.
Dark trails shot away from Death's body. One of the men he fired at dove away, and then all the Death leapt off of that knife and attacked him in the shape of a hand that pushed into and through his back. The knife slammed into the charging woman behind him, but she just stumbled while reaching down and yanking the blade out. She tossed it to the side and let out a roar, and Zach hit down on the ground into a forward roll, then had to dive to the side to dodge a huge wooden post the woman behind him tried slamming down. Bang bang bang Zach sprung off the spot he landed and tried to dodge the gunfire he spotted the instant it was coming as his red eyes darted up inside his cracked visor.
The dark being leaping away from all the attacks was pushed onto the defensive. The red glow that had started coming out of his head after a hit earlier had made the Somalian pirates hesitate, but the large crew who ran the port city Death had arrived in were not running anywhere with all their ships already sabotaged by the attacking army. The crew was larger than Zach thought it had been though, with the pirates recruiting a lot of people in the town between when he learned about the place and when he finally attacked with one of his squads. He heard a shout in his helmet of pain, then it was cut off with a bloody slashing noise that had Zach biting down hard in his helmet.
Barely any Death remaining. I used Trigger ten hours ago. There's no way. I couldn't right now, and I've been getting so banged up I'm sure the vials are already smashed in my pouches. Zach leapt up in the air and he threw his right hand forward, launching the Death Grenade at his enemies who he maneuvered in a way so that they were all to one side of him. He clenched his hand into a fist and started running forward at the same time. The darkness pulsed out and he saw it hit one of the pirates who had been in the middle of running the other direction and could not change his momentum that fast. He saw the big woman turn towards him after dodging, and she grinned big despite already being hit by some Death. Where the hell is that backup? "How far out are-"
"EEEEEIIIII-" Interference blasted in Zach's helmet so loud it felt like his eardrums just exploded. He grabbed his helmet and yanked it off while stumbling to the side, then he reached up and grabbed for his earpiece too. As he was reaching for it though, a bullet slammed into his right forearm through an already thin black veil. The bullet did not go straight through his arm thanks to the veil and his black body armor, but Zach realized that was probably even worse as he got a bullet lodged into his skin.
"Death!" Zach heard a scream right as he got shot, coming in over the interference on his earpiece. The skull-faced dark figure that stumbled backwards with blood splashing out of his right arm glared towards his enemies, and then past them towards the large dock-houses lining the pier. "They got me cornered! I'm hurt and I need-"
CHHH Zach shook his head around in a fury and he knocked his own earpiece out. He glared back towards the boat-house he knew that voice had been coming from though. His eyes shifted down from that building and to the pirates in front of him. His black aura was thin around his armor making it start to look visible through the veil. That also meant there was very little shielding what his face really looked like right now, so there was just a skeletal skull with darkness seeping out around it and between the teeth, while red glows flared out the eye sockets. Death's true face had many of the villains looking his way pulling back in initial fright, and Zach used that as he started running forward without delay. I'm coming!
Inside one of the buildings that the pirates had been in control of, the pirates were taking back over and Darling was the only one of the three AoD who were in there that was still alive. Her black sleeves were ripped up from above her elbows and down, but her arms turned back to normal and she reached down for a discarded sword to pick up with them. She was feeling out of energy and starving, having shot too much ammo and nets from her arms that she was having trouble even forming weapons anymore with the amount of material she had available for use. Any more and I'll start breaking apart my insides- Darling was about to grab the sword, when a tongue shot out and grabbed the blade out from in front of her.
She jumped backwards to dodge as the tongue tried slashing at her legs with the cutlass, but then Darling started turning her head as she heard the thud behind her. She tried bringing up her arms to cross, but the man saw her trying and lowered his punch down a bit, hitting below her arms on her left side and crushing into her ribs with the blow. "AHhh-" Darling hit the floor and started rolling, then she put her hands down and tried pushing herself up only to scream out again and drop to her elbows. When she was rolling, her helmet cracked more and her voice that had been coming out deep and modulated came out in a much higher-pitched voice.
The eight foot tall brute who just hit her and was running across the floor slowed down. An aardvark-looking pirate curled his thin tongue back in and reached a hand out to grab the cutlass by the hilt, then he licked his tongue along the blade while walking towards the dark figure down on her knees and elbows. Darling coughed and through squinted vision she could see her blood hitting the cracking visor of her helmet. "Death," she said through a raspy voice. "Death? De-" Darling's eyes opened wide as she got slammed in the side by a kick that took all the breath out of her lungs again.
The kick flipped Darling over and onto her back. Darling hit the back of her head and clenched her eyes shut in pain for a second, then she slowly started opening them back up. Her eyes opened and everything seemed to slow down for her. The world slowed and Darling's eyes darted around through her cracked, bloody, dark visor. What am I doing here? Oh my God. Zach! Why isn't he responding? Is he okay? Am I okay? I can't move. Oh my God. They're looking at me like that! I can't get up! Darling started panting, and her hands opened up on the floor at her sides and started pushing her backwards, and she saw the smirks on those men's faces rise up all the more. "Dea-ath!" she called out, her voice rasping and blood trickling out the left corner of her lip as she tried yelling louder. Why am I in Africa? I'm fighting pirates! This is insane! Darling started rolling herself over, and she dragged herself back up to her elbows only for a hand to grab her by an ankle and yank her backwards, dragging her across the floor.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"That was a nice voice I just heard. I've always wondered what's under those Death costumes. Let's rip that word off her back, and see how scary she is then."
"ZACH!"
Zach had just hit the ground out on the pier, feeling a bullet digging into the back of his right leg, just behind his knee. He hit the ground hard and rolled upon his heavy landing. Then he snapped his head up and his red eyes flared brightly with dark black swirls in the middles of them, even though the rest of his body barely had any Death surrounding it. His Nightmare form was drained, and Zach was panting out heavy breaths of black steam that hung around his skull of a face. All sound around him drowned out, and his blurry red vision focused on the building ahead of him.
"We're gonna do it!"
"We've got Death to his knees!"
"Kakakaka! There he goes boys!" A pirate captain with dark brown skin and an eyepatch over his right eye stomped forward between two of his buildings. He was fifty feet tall and looked like a monstrous man with his hairy chest, huge sword that grew with his body, and the scars covering his arms and legs. The hardened pirate leader roared, "Let's cash in that bounty! Alive is more, but don't take any chances. Take him down!"
Zach! Darling heard that shout outside, and she turned her head towards a wall near her with a panicked look in her eyes. They're killing him! "Get off me!" Darling leaned back and started transforming her arms into rifles. A foot slammed down on her right arm while it was vibrating, and Darling opened her mouth to shriek in pain, "EEAAHH!" Her other arm stopped transforming too even though it was not broken like her right, but the girl could not focus as she needed to with Toolbody in order to transform.
After breaking her arm, the man who stomped on it reached down and his hands grabbed the top of Darling's body. She was on her back again, and she swung her left arm in to try and bat his arm away, at the same time she started kicking her legs to get the two men away from her lower half. "GET off- Get away! Death-" The big man grabbing at her breasts reached a hand up as she smacked it, and he grabbed her helmet that he ripped right off before grinning twice as wide.
The other two opened their eyes wide then smirked at the sight of that young pretty face too. Darling glared at them and then snapped her mouth open to show her tongue sticking out with a hole in the middle of it. A spike shot out of her tongue and at the anteater-Quirk man on her right leg, and he pulled his head away but still got slashed across his right cheek from the spike. The big man who ripped off Darling's helmet swung the helmet around and nailed the girl in the side of the head with it. Blood splashed out of a gash that tore in Darling's left cheek from the broken glass on her visor, and her head slammed into the ground hard disorienting everything for her.
"Flip her over!"
"I'll take her from behind first!"
Darling's blurry vision focused a bit as she heard that, her face once again covering in terror. She opened her mouth to scream, but she was flipped over and then smashed in the back so hard by something that she felt her lungs contracting. Her uniform was getting ripped through on her back, and her pants were quick to go too. "Ahhhmmmm-" Darling started yelling and then it turned muffled as the big man pressing down on her moved a foot to the back of her head and pressed harder down there.
One of the two men yanking down Darling's pants snapped his head up and then jumped backwards fast. Two small cannons appeared in the middle of each of the girl's butt-cheeks, but the other man back there did not jump back like his comrade. Instead he grabbed her by her ass and pushed each cheek in opposite directions, pointing the barrels away right as they fired. Then he slammed an elbow down on her lower back and Darling let out another muffled scream, and then the man took his other arm that he was not using for his elbow into her back and he reached it forward between her legs.
"Crazy bitch!" The other who jumped back shouted, and he started forward while reaching for his own belt. "But that's just my type."
"They kill Death out there yet?! Fucker thought he could come to our base?!"
"He's already long dead! Let's fuck the bitch and send her to him!"
Darling heard belt buckles clinking behind her and she struggled as hard as she could down on her stomach. AHHHHH! "MMMMNNNN-" Darling bit down hard and pushed her head up even harder to gasp out a breath as she was being slammed too hard into the floor that she could not breath. "Aaaahhh," she sucked in the biggest breath of her life as the man standing on her head pulled his foot away for a second to let her breath. Then Darling opened her mouth even wider with blood trickling out the corners and tears streaming down her face. "HELP ME-"
"AHHH!" the man standing on Darling let out a scream and stumbled away from the girl he had been standing on. Two other men's screams rang out at the same time, and Darling gasped out as she felt the hands pull away from between her legs. She panted there and started turning her head, and she rolled over onto her back while her eyes bulged wider and wider. She stared above her and at the dark figure on all fours right over her, a black sword in his right hand covered in blood. The sword's point was resting down on the ground like that figure could not hold the sword up any longer, yet it had been slashed up so hard that an arm was still rising up into the air above them and only started its arc back down when Darling flipped over.
"That fucking-" the anteater man who stumbled back started shouting. He lifted up his right arm that was gone below the elbow which he was grabbing with his other hand, and he bit down to stop screaming before glaring towards the dark, bloody, nearly dead monster with a look of sheer rage in his eyes. "HE TOOK MY ARM!"
"Kill him!"
"Death went in here!"
Zach was down on his hands and feet, each appendage spread out to his sides so he made a tent over Darling's body below him. His red eyes darted to the right, left, up in the air, and down at the girl below him. Darkness swirled around different parts of his body, mainly his feet, his hands, and around his skull-face. There was none on his back covering the dark uniform that had several gashes in it, nor on the backs of his legs where there was a second bullet hole on his right leg now. Zach could barely hold his right arm up while pressing his left fist so hard into the ground on his side that it was trembling, as was his entire arm and the rest of his body. Darkness swirled onto the blade in his right though, abandoning his fingertips and covering the blade in much more darkness.
Zach whipped his right arm straight up, towards a window that just broke and where a hand started reaching in. A sword covered in Death stuck into the palm that opened up to block it, then Zach snapped forward and up onto both feet while reaching his right hand up. He grabbed the arm that was coming down out of the air and swung it to his side, smacking the big man two arm-lengths away on his right under his jaw with his comrade's fist. Zach flicked a knife in his left hand while spinning to his right, hitting the other man who had leapt away with the anteater guy whose Quirk Zach understood a second later. The one-armed man's tongue shot out towards him, and Zach rose his left arm in the way of the tongue. He did not just block with his left though, but he curled his fingers around that tongue and then yanked towards him before the villain with blood spurting out of his arm even realized what was happening.
Darkness on both of Zach's arms and his face moved to his left shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Zach yanked backwards with such a powerful force he tugged the villain all the way across the room and over the top of Zach's head. He slammed that man into a villain who came in behind Death through a hole in the wall Zach had smashed on his way to Darling. Zach tossed the arm he was still holding into the big villain who was ready for it this time and caught it expecting to be catching Death's weapon. Zach released the arm though when he swung it, and all the villain had was an arm in his hands that majorly blocked his vision so that by the time he lowered it, Death had vanished from in front of him. Zach rose up behind that confused big villain and he jammed a knife down into the left side of the man's throat, and then he drop-kicked the man in the back as the pirate reached up for the knife lodged in his neck.
Zach hit his back and then kicked his legs up, and he let out a low grunt as kicking his right like that made him feel excruciating pain. He was used to pain though. Zach flipped up in the air and spun, landing down on his left leg while his right buckled below him. He dropped to the floor, while a giant outside slammed into the ground and slumped into the building he had been reaching in, smashing through the wall on Zach's right and breaking apart the entire building on that side. Zach had faced the two villains behind him getting up from when he threw one over his head, but he darted to his right and grabbed Darling who he picked up with his left arm while pulling another knife off his costume with his bloody right hand. Zach started running while tossing Darling up over one shoulder, and debris fell around him, bullets flew his direction, and then a huge crash hit behind him that sent rubble smashing into his back.
Zach tried pulling Darling in front of him to grab, but he did not have a great grip with only one arm, and his right lost its grip on the new knife he had drawn just a few seconds ago. Zach hit the ground and rolled, and then he scrambled up onto painful arms and legs and bear-crawled over towards the body of the girl he saw sliding away from him. Darling turned her head and watched as he barreled towards her on all fours, his eyes flashing red and then getting dimmer for a second before pulsing with that color again. Zach saw someone else realizing that the building's collapse was not complete or going to finish, and the woman in the middle of running on the other side of Darling turned in and ran the other way towards a Death who she saw looked on the verge of death himself. "You're mine!"
"RRAAAA!" Zach roared, his eyes flaring red, his speed picking up, his voice getting scratchier and more ominous than ever. Darkness flared out around his red eyes, and out his skull jaw that opened wide and stayed open to let that dark steam come out. Zach jumped up over Darling, and he reached to his side and grabbed a wooden plank that had stuck in the ground near him during the wall collapse. He ripped it out and swung it around at the woman who hesitated for too long after hearing that menacing roar. Zach slammed the wooden plank into the side of her head so hard that her neck spun around, wood splintering apart around her as he snapped her neck. He hit down on his feet and tried to land it but his legs collapsed under him and Zach dropped into a sloppy roll instead.
He came out of his roll with his right hand reaching forward and catching the sword that the woman just dropped by its blade. He turned and threw the blade back behind him, and his aim was so accurate that the tongue shooting out at him got split down the middle all the way back to the face of the man slapping it out at him. The man next to that pirate turned inwards with his eyes bulging and his jaw dropped as the sword split his comrade's face in half. As he looked that way in shock though, he saw five other pirates running into the room and he turned back towards Death looking enraged. All the others ran in towards Death too, and more came in on Death's other side near the woman whose neck he just snapped.
Zach moved back over towards Darling who was trying hard to push herself up to help him. A shadow fell over her and she opened her eyes huge again, and she snapped her head up to see the bottom of Zach's chin right above her as he covered her with his entire body. His teeth bared and his eyes glowed a dim red towards the enemies on one side, and then he turned his head sideways a bit and looked behind him to see the others he heard shouting behind him. The pirates attacked-
"Gentle Dome."
"Excalibur!"
"You mother fuckers!"
"Get away from Death!"
"Death!"
"Darling! What did they-"
"KILL THEM!"
"Someone get me Curalia-"
"Heal, me, quickly… I need to, revive the…"
Zach's eyes opened up. He snapped them open and darted them already red to his right and left. The boy in all black armor reached for his helmet while getting off of the seat he had fallen asleep in sitting up. "Everyone-" CRANK- BOOOM!
The wall of the truck on Zach's right ripped apart inwards. All the steel shredded, a few other soldiers in the back dove to the sides as they had just gotten in full panic mode already at Death's shout. The driver spun the wheel to try and steady but the force of getting slammed that hard made it impossible to control the vehicle, especially traveling over sand as they were. The truck started to flip as an explosion went off on the opposite wall as the projectile smashed through. The hook that made an explosion on contact with the second wall opened up with three sharp prongs that slammed into the base of the vehicle and yanked backwards right as it started flipping the other way.
Zach was thrown out of the vehicle with his face scrunching up in pain and his helmet flying from his grasp. Shit! He had no communications to call in to anyone else to come help him. He did not know who in that truck he was flying out of was still alive, but he tried to get a grip as he shot through the air after getting launched from the truck. Wait, he realized, as he noticed he was flying way too fast from the vehicle he did not even know how he got smashed out of in the first place. Zach swung his right arm around him, and he stopped moving so fast as he felt something let go of his back that was pushing him through the air.
As he swung his arm, Zach winced and felt a wrapped wound under his bandage scream out in pain. He was coming down for the ground, and despite it being soft sand in the empty desert that was around him, Zach favored his left leg for the hard landing he saw coming. As he was about to land down though, the spot he was being dropped in started to change color. The ground turned green and slimy-looking, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he saw a dozen figures popping out of the sand around him. Half of them were carrying strange weapons with hooks on the ends of them, but one in particular had Zach's attention as his red eyes darted towards that woman in a sand-colored robe.
Zach started moving his right hand towards his chest despite the pain his arm was in. He lowered his legs to try and land even on that slimy green surface, but two green arms reached up from the ground before he hit down and caught him off guard. They smashed him down into the green surface that stuck him to the floor, and stuck his right arm away from his body as it had tugged away during that yank. Zach strained his body hard to pull to the right while yanking his right arm in the other direction, and he was stretching the green substance below him sticking him down to the point that he had almost touched his hand to his body. Then three people dove on top of him, and the woman in the sand-colored robe grabbed him by the right arm and slammed down a black steel box that she started attaching to him.
"Hey! HEY!" Zach yelled.
"Scizor, cut the slime," one of the men who had dove on Zach started, as he did not have a great hold being stuck himself to parts of the desert.
The green surface below Zach faded and returned the ground to being sand. Zach reached down for a knife with his left arm, but another figure grabbed him by that arm, and then two men fired hooks over his legs that slammed down into the sand and tightened ropes against the his calves and hamstrings. A heavier man pressed down on Zach's lower back while someone yanked up on his head, and Zach was panting as the man in front of him held him by the chin and looked him in the eyes. "Hello there, Zach Sazaki." The light-skinned man was alone in that appearance surrounded by the black and Arabian men and women around him. He had a Russian accent, and a diagonal scar over his face that Zach tilted his head at the sight of before lifting his eyebrows.
"Did I do that?" Zach asked the man whose smirk twitched and his teeth snarled behind it. "How long ago was that now? When we passed through Russia right after Mongoloid? Damn, do you hold a grudge."
The man he was talking to slammed a fist forward and socked Zach in the face. Zach's head snapped to the right, then he slowly pulled it back to look at the man who eased back at that look in Sazaki's eyes. He darted his eyes around behind the boy and to his sides at the five people he had holding him down, but he still shot his eyes to the side and nodded at someone with an annoyed look. That guy he nodded at started running off to get their transport, then the Russian turned back to the boy in front of him and snarled, "I figured out who you were, Death. And I know everything about-"
Black spikes shot out of Zach's back in three different locations. A spike pulsed out of his right elbow and his left, piercing the two pulling his arms away too. Black flames shot down the ropes over his legs and made the men holding the grappling guns tight to hold him down throw them aside in panic. "You really think, I haven't figured out a way to activate it without my right hand?" Zach stood up in front of the man frozen still before him with his eyes shaking and huge. Those trembling eyes stared into the flaring red ones of the boy whose face slowly turned to bone and covered in a black flaring aura that burst out around his body. Five villains fell unconscious around him and Zach never looked at any of them as he did it. He just glared into the Russian's eyes and growled, "You really think I haven't mastered this power in the nonstop fighting I've been in?" Zach slammed his right fist forward and ignored the pain in his forearm. He smashed his black fist into the villain's face and crunched his nose, broke his teeth, and sent the man flying backwards unconscious over the sand.
He was reaching for his right as a-
He knew we-
Oh fuck!
Zach shot towards the man who tried running first. He did not need that guy getting farther away from this area. Half of the others who were still trying to fight him froze as they knew why it was Death would go for that man first, and they all felt their own urges to run skyrocket. Death turned his head though and reached down, pulling out a couple of blades that he flicked around in his dark hands. He faced the eight figures ahead of him scattered around the sand who were using their Quirks and trying to hide the fear on their expressions. He thought back on who was in the truck with him, taking him to his next location while he rested because he had been so exhausted. "Death has come for you. RAAAA!" Zach shot forward after roaring that in a deep, scratchy, overlapping voice.
Using Nightmare to a point where I couldn't have anymore wrapped around my body. Using it until I thought I had drained myself, to where there was only enough to cover individual parts of my body… and with Nightmare only on some parts and not all, I remembered the tingling sensation different from the normal one. Feeling it only around my feet, or my hands… my eyes. And that feeling I get while killing inside Nightmare, or just killing at all, I can focus on that feeling outside of Nightmare, and I can enter this form through willpower alone. "You think, I'm so weak?! That it would only take this many to stop ME?!" Zach swung his right arm and a Death Wind that flew off it expanded twice its size and then four times that size to expand and catch the villains who had thought they'd dodged it. Zach's head had already spun to the next enemies though, because he knew he had taken those two down without even watching them fall.
"Death!" Zach heard a shout behind him, and he grinned behind his dark veil at the sound of the voice of one of the people from his truck. At the next thing they shouted his teeth bared in fury though, his eyes narrowing in rage at the three villains who still thought they could run after all of that. I have to save some Death now, but I still have more than enough for you! Zach sped after the villain on the left of the three running off, and he slammed his foot into the man's back and then curved his leg to smash him hard into the sand. A crater blew apart under the man's body and blew sand away in all directions in a wave. The villain on Zach's right looked in at that wave in terror, then he started spinning off-balance and falling with a scream as a dark form flew out of that wall with hands reaching out for him.
The screaming man tried fighting back, using his Quirk at the last second to protrude a long sharp horn from the center of his head out at Death. Death just spun around in the air though, his body twisting and dodging the horn with a bit more Death pushed out on the side he was moving away from. That horn stuck through the Death Zach forced there, and it was already enough to make the man's eyes start closing that Zach knew he did not need to hit him with more Death to knock him out. So Zach pulled the Nightmare aura down and up his right leg starting at his knee, removing all the darkness from that knee. Zach still smashed his knee into the man's dazed face and finished the job of knocking him out before Death had the chance to.
Zach hit the ground and rolled forward with his teeth clenched in pain. Why the right knee? That was stupid. Fuck. Zach slowly staggered back up to his feet, though he felt a huge amount of pain in his right leg where a couple of injuries just opened up. I need to meet up with Curalia again when I get to Sudan. Try Miraculu again too if she's ready. I can't have injuries slowing me down. I need to move faster. Zach started running after the last member of the group who just tried capturing him. Bounty's higher if they take me alive, and that overconfident fucker really thought he could get it. If it was the old me, he might've. Even the me from back when we fought in Russia. I remember cutting his face in the fight, and not finding that face after the battle when we rounded up all the villains. Another loose end finally, tied up. Zach aimed his left hand in front of him, pointing his index and middle fingers out at the guy he was not going to chase any farther.
His eyes focused on his right hand for a second. Zach thought about how he had just pulled Nightmare away from his knee to attack with, but he frowned a bit while looking at that right hand. Why is it only insta-kill in my right hand? I lied. I still don't understand it completely. I can't attack with that hand without Death on it, or it kills… but I may be able to change that one day too. Spread insta-Death out over my whole body if I need to, or focus it so intensely into a single other spot that no one can touch it the same as my right hand… or maybe even focus that power into my own body so that I could use my right hand outside of a glove. Zach flicked his left hand back and fired a thick ball of darkness that thinned out the farther it got from his fingers. Zach tilted his head left, right, and then pushed it forward and made the blast thin out into a sharp line that shot away and pierced into the retreating villain's back.
"Death! Are you alright? The others, they're all-"
"I'll go revive them now," Zach started, turning his head and facing the driver of the vehicle who had survived the rough crash like him. Death faded off of his body without him touching his chest or head, leaving him only in his armor again and without a helmet. He continued to the woman in front of him who he started jogging towards, "Call in a new transport, and let Raylei know we need some cooperative heroes to get here and arrest this gang of villains…"
In a large town in Rakat, a southern African country close to the east coast but without any ocean borders, Zach Sazaki darted through an alleyway between two adobe buildings. He was panting and had his left arm pulled back inside the sleeve of the robe he had thrown on. He had that arm held close to his chest inside his robe, hiding the bloody wound on it as he sprinted around a town full of smoke. The town was too big that the other forces around it couldn't close everywhere off and watch over the entire town, but it was not large enough that the entire town could not be in complete panic over the battle going on.
Zach had a dirty robe he had pulled off a laundry rack outside of someone's window while he ran through the town. His helmet was gone, discarded somewhere with his uniform that he believed only he would be able to find at a later date. He was panting hard and he had to lean against the side of one of the building's walls as he rested for a moment. This is fucking out of control, Zach thought, shaking his head and opening back up his eyes. He looked out of the alley and into a sand road through a marketplace, and he stepped out and started running with a group of people he saw escaping in one direction down the road.
KA-BOOOOM! Zach skid to a stop and stared ahead of him with his jaw dropped just like the other people around him. He crossed his arms and pushed forward, his eyes huge but glaring forward towards the explosion he saw deeper into the town. Some of the men around him tried crossing their arms too but they stumbled back and fell, while most people just turned and scattered off to the sides of the road. Zach lowered his right arm from in front of his body and dropped his left under his robe. His right hand still had a black glove on it, which was the only part of his costume that he still had as he even took off his black combat boots to trade for a pair of inconspicuous sandals.
Zach started running when the hot wind stopped pushing into him. He cut right at the next road though instead of running farther towards that blast, but then he had to cut right again fast back the direction he had come from to avoid the black cloud of ash and smoke he saw billowing out of another street. As he ran through a narrow path between some houses, he saw a door opening out towards him. A man pushed the door open and Zach saw a woman holding two kids back farther in the building. He reached out and grabbed the opening door, and he shouted, "Stay inside!" Zach slammed the door shut and then kept running, and he started coughing as the black smoke engulfed him a second later.
He got low and kept running through the path, then he darted around behind the side of a building that smoke was rushing past but not really wrapping around yet. Zach took in a deep breath and then lifted up the collar of his robe and held it just over his nose as he booked it back into the smoke. "Over there!" Zach heard a voice yell above his head, and he ducked down and crawled under a cart pressed up against the wall in the passageway he had just ran into. He looked up and watched as all the smoke in the path got sucked high into the air and dispersed into the sky above, allowing him to see a group of five heroes flying around up there and moving together in the same direction as the explosion.
The heroes did not look to be from Rakat, which did not surprise Zach in the least. He rolled out from under the cart as he saw people running in the road at the end of this alley again. "Everyone this way! We're evacuating the town!"
"Full evacuation is in effect!"
BWwwwooOOOOOPP Zach ran out onto the street right as a red flash of light covered the sky to go with that siren. Doors opened on the sides of the road where people were hiding in buildings, and the streets became flooded in citizens trying to escape the town.
Zach wanted to help the people around him. He looked to his right and saw a little girl fall, but as he stopped he saw a man reach down and pick the girl up before running with her. He spun his head around and looked at all the panicking people running the same way, then he looked back over his shoulder and glared towards the other side of town. He glared in the direction of the rising flames and black smoke lifting above all the buildings, and he tried to get a serious look on his face despite how hard he was panting. His chest heaved and his legs felt heavy, reminding the young man on the verge of running back that he had to go.
Zach turned back forward and kept running again. That's why I took off my uniform. I have no power. Trigger wiped me, and I went even farther after it wore off. Remember that! I just have to slip away, Zach kept running with the crowd, but he darted over into an alley where people were running the other way. He saw some cops up ahead along with heroes making a perimeter, and he ran to the side before freezing and spinning back out as he heard a scream of panic. The people rushing one way on the street stopped if they saw it, while others kept running that way. The groups sprinted into each other as they ran from different things, and Zach heard an explosion back over near that perimeter line he had just seen. Damn it! He shouted at himself while taking a step back towards the street, and he had to turn and run to avoid the horde of people who turned his way and started sprinting to get off the street altogether.
The Japanese teenager booked his way down alleys and around buildings through the town of Kwunkai. He reached down to his waist and pulled a grappling gun out from his waistband that was hidden by the robe he had stolen. He aimed up when he was getting too crowded by people, and he rose himself over their heads and up onto a roof of a building. Too exposed! He thought in panic, looking around and seeing too many flying people in the area to stay up there. I told the others to scatter and meet back at the rendezvous when things got too hectic. Too many heroes and villains here, this place is going to turn into an international incident soon that the whole world's focus is going to be on. Shit. I didn't think so many heroes would come. That's a good thing though.
Zach dropped into a yard more secluded than others that was hard to reach from normal roads and not on a clear path out of there. He dropped to the ground and then fell to his elbows and knees as even a landing from a second floor roof was too much at the moment. He started coughing and he had to spit on the floor as he wheezed out again and again. Africa… is in a hell of a state, ever since the Combined Hero Assault Force got fucked. Zach ground his teeth and started pushing himself back up to his feet. In a single week since most of the continent's best heroes got wiped out in that trap, the villains are already running rampant. Fighting organized villain gangs, drug lords, it was all so much easier than this chaos. Pirates and slavers and… and so many fucking bombs. I have to find who's making these things. Before they get any larger. Before, more heroes get wiped in another huge explosion. Before, towns like this aren't already in mid-evacuation when… Boooom
The boy turned his head to the right at the sound of a blast sounding smaller than the previous one and from farther away. He grimaced though and then shook his head while spinning back forward. I have to get out of here. The heroes have this. Heroes from other continents and up from North Africa came to assist. In countries where crime has gone down. Places where heroes have the ability to leave their countries again, because the rest of the world is doing better than Africa right now! It wasn't all for nothing! This isn't the state of the whole world! The fact that other heroes are here means they have relative peace- I need to run!
Zach stumbled forward and he reached his left hand out to grab a wall for balance. He pulled himself closer to the wall and looked down it as he saw a man running out of a different path and start spinning his head around like he was looking for something. Zach took in a few deep breaths, then he looked over his shoulder and back towards a rising cloud of black smoke where he saw a couple of foreign heroes flying over again. Rakat didn't have the power to defend from this attack. Too many of their heroes were in the CHAF, but they don't need us anymore. Not right now.
Zach turned back forward and started moving again. He moved for an open space where he could find another way through, and he saw the man who had started jogging one way turn back and look towards that robed figure who was facing the other way when he had looked over before. The man stopped and stared back at him, his eyes opening wide at the sight of the teenager's face. Zach pretended not to see that look and he kept moving for the end of the alley, avoiding the man's gaze and then turning left to head down a different path.
"Hey! Not that way!" The man called out, and Zach turned towards the guy who motioned with his head in a different direction.
Zach frowned but then looked back the way he was going to see a horde of people running around through that alley, including heroes who were yelling at them all to give them a safe direction to run. He turned towards the man and nodded before running after him as the guy had not waited to see if he would follow and just started heading away himself. Zach jogged after him slowly, wanting to let the man get away from him. Does he recognize me? Fuck. Hiding my face will make me look too suspicious in a city full of so many villains, make heroes come check me, and they'll recognize me for sure. I need to just keep my head down-
The man ahead of Zach turned his head for a second and looked back towards him. Zach's heart fell as he saw the man's face. The recognition he thought he saw before was what he was expecting to still see when the man turned his head, but instead Zach saw a smirk that made his entire body tense. Was I what he was look- Ka-Dunk Zach felt a sting in the back of his head, but he never felt the ground he slammed into a second later.
Zach lay on his back with his hands up over his body, pressing them into the face of the three hundred pound man lying on top of him. Zach pushed the man's face away, finding it hard to breathe but pushing all his strength up into his arms. He had his black glove over his right hand, but the shirtless boy covered in scars had no weapons on him to attack the man with. The bloodthirsty brute pushing down on him had a rabid look in his eyes, and the man pressed his body weight down while reaching around for Zach's face that the boy kept protecting with smacks of his arms.
Zach pushed the man's left arm away, then he shot his left hand up through the gap and shoved two fingers into the fat man's right eye. The man screamed and pulled his body back to get those fingers out of his eyes, but Zach leaned up as he leaned back to just shove them farther. He slid his body out from beneath the man as the guy reared up enough that Zach could get out, then Zach heard a shout of panic behind him. "Wait! Wait WAIT-" He heard the sound of a sword cutting through flesh and darted a glance behind him to see a man falling to the floor with a sword half-lodged in his neck. The man who had tried cutting his head off all the way started tugging back the other direction, while darting his eyes over to the teenager who glared towards him.
"Kill him!"
"Finish him off!"
Zach slammed his right fist into the fat man's face as the guy started raising his arms to attack him with. Zach knocked the man backwards onto his back, then he started running forward only for the big man to reach out a hand and catch him by the ankle. "Ahk kana un un YA!" The man dragged Zach backwards as he tried scrambling away fast to pull his feet away, but the larger man was stronger and yanked back with one hard jolt to flip the younger man over and above him.
The big man reached up and grabbed around Zach's neck, sliding his hands up so they were just under his chin and squeezing tightly. When Zach's leg came free from the man's grip though, he slammed it down once hard into the man's gut, then he brought it back and slammed down again. Then he reached his right hand up and slammed a fist into the side of his temple, before doing it again and again with powerful blows that made the heavyset man's arms start losing force into his strangling. Zach stomped down again into the man's gut, then he scrambled forward right over the man's dizzy face and he fell to his hands and knees in the sandy arena. Where he fell there was a knife on the floor, and his right hand slid over on top of it and wrapped around the hilt right as his head snapped up. Zach pushed himself up harder, getting to one leg and then the other slowly while glaring ahead of him at a man holding a sword in his hand yet hesitating back near the circular wall enclosing them.
Zach was panting, wheezing from that choke that started making the corners of his vision blurry. He took a step forward, then he felt the blade hitting his back. He started pulling his body to the side, but the blade pierced into his back on the lower right side and ripped straight through his front with a sickening sklurch. "Gah!" Zach leaned his head back, gasping out in pain as blood splashed out the front of his body. His vision started shaking and he gasped again, unable to breathe in but only out as the sword through his back dug even farther. He could feel the cold steel of the top of the hilt pressing into his back on the sides of the horizontal wound cutting through him. His vision started shaking more, getting even blurrier as everything around him felt like it was in an earthquake.
Then his left hand snapped in front of his body and he grabbed the blade by it. His teeth ground in fury and he started roaring as the steel cut through his palm and fingers. His eyes darted to the side, and he snapped his head sideways while bringing his right hand around in a wide motion around his body. The man at his back was too close to him to pull away, pressing the hilt directly into Zach's skin so the blade was all the way through him. Zach could feel it digging into him more as he spun his body like that, dragging the man's hands with his body for a second before the guy let go to try and pull back. Zach was faster than his retreat though, and he slammed his knife into the man's throat just above the steel collar around his neck. Zach's knife was eight inches long, and he dug it into the shirtless man behind him's neck all the way to the hilt in his hand. Blood poured out of that hole and all over Zach's right hand as he started pulling the blade out, and he had to stop as the blood spurted out and onto his arm below his glove and dripped off him.
Sllasshh Zach stumbled into the man he had spun towards and had just reached out to hold with his left hand. He knocked the man back a bit and reached his left hand out to catch him, while stopping his blade from sliding fully out of the terrified man's neck too. Blood still splashed out so much faster from that wound and Zach saw the man's eyes going dim as he held him there, the fear fading from his face. Zach focused on that look instead of the pain he felt from his right shoulder all the way to the left side of his waist down across his back. He felt warm liquid pouring down his back from that diagonal gash that just ripped through him, and his vision started to fade once more. It was already so red and shaky, but his teeth bared in fury once more as he stared through that haze and above the circular walls around him. Zach's right foot was tripping forward after the man who just fell backwards in front of him, then he slammed that foot down hard on the sand.
Zach stomped down and spun his body around with his right hand ripping the knife out of the falling man's neck with everything he had. The man behind him he slashed at pulled back far, a panicked and terrified look in his eyes. He had not cut any deeper into Zach's back because he was afraid of getting any closer in the first place, even having run in from directly behind the black haired boy. That teen had scars all over his body though, a sword through him, and he had just killed the only other person left in there other than him. Zach slashed his knife far though, extending his arm to its full reach, and the cautious man behind him with a terrified look on his face dropped the bloody blade he had started raising again. Zach saw more than his own blood on there, and he saw the big man who he had left laying on the ground not far away had a huge vertical gash through his chest. Zach's eyes barely focused on that big man for a moment though, as he had to squint those eyes an instant later from the blood shower that came out of the slit in the other man's throat just above his collar.
The guy reached both his hands up to try and hold his neck shut, but blood spurted between his fingers and still all over Zach who the guy started stumbling towards without any balance. The man fell forward and then down to the floor at Zach's feet where he was twitching while a blood puddle spread around him. Zach started slouching, and he collapsed to his knees with that sword still stuck through his back but sliding out as he leaned backwards upon hitting the floor. The shirtless teen was covered in blood both his own and of his opponents. He knelt there panting and slow for breath, his vision hazy as he turned his head and looked around the arena's stands where dozens of people just stood up and started cheering.
Then Zach's eyes focused on a seat up near the top of the stands around the arena. His vision got darker in the corners of his vision but his eyes narrowed and actually made the man he looked towards come into focus. Zach glared at the Nigerian man in a golden cloak, covered in fine jewelry and laughing loudly with the others around him. He swung an arm out to the side and called out louder than all the people cheering in the bleachers, "Hand over your bets, if you were foolish enough to bet against him! And let's hear it for the winner of the match, and still reigning champion of The Pit: LIFEBRINGER!"
Zach's head started to bow and everything was going dark around him. Darling, Gentle, La Brava, Mark… everyone. Please. Find me.
Owww… Zach stirred. His eyes scrunched up for a moment, then he started opening them. He squinted and white light pushed through his eyelids that was much too bright. He was laying on his back and his body was flat on the bed with his arms and legs not moving an inch. Zach opened his eyes more as they adjusted to the light, then he started breathing to keep himself calm. He recognized the ceiling above him. His eyes scanned down his body that was wrapped up with white bandages covering countless injuries until the blanket started down near his waist. He turned his head and he recognized the girl sitting on the side of his bed. He felt the weight of her head down on the mattress just to his side, and on that side he could feel the bed was wet from tears. Zach's eyes widened at the sight of the brown hair there, then he said in a soft voice, "Darling."
Darling lifted her head up and her eyes grew huge immediately after waking. She pursed her lips with tears in the corners of her eyes that Zach did not know if they just formed or if they had been there while she was sleeping which was why the bed was wet under her face. Her lips trembled as she got up, and she leaned forward like she wanted to hug him but she darted her eyes around his body and held herself back as hard as she could. "I was so scared," she began, her voice cracking. "It looked so bad, during the operation for a minute. Your heart-" she bit down on her shaking bottom lip and then leaned her face down in front of his. "Stop being so reckless, please-"
"How long has it been?" Zach asked. I can't just be laying here. I wasted too much time already. I'm giving them too much time to prepare, to recover from their losses, to recruit… "Darling, get Curalia," Zach said, using a stronger voice this time with the girl who had just pursed her lips at the first question. "I need to get back out there so no one else dies while I'm just-"
The door of the infirmary opened up and a group of people rushed into the room. Zach turned his head a bit from Darling and he opened his mouth to say something to them, but he froze as he looked at the ones who ran right up to his bed. "You're awake!" Mark called out in relief, running right up to Zach's bed on the other side of Darling. He was smiling huge and his hands shook but he rose them up to the sides of his head and just repeated while shaking his head, "You're awake."
Zach was busy looking past the foot of his bed as Mark said that again. He froze staring at Gentle and La Brava who had run in and stopped together straight ahead of him. His eyes were wide with shock at how relieved those looks on their faces were. Gentle reached up a hand to an earpiece on his head, and Zach swore he heard him say, "Rebel, he woke up." Zach could hardly believe that Gentle just spoke to Rebel in that way as much as he was stunned seeing La Brava actually have to look away before reaching up and rubbing at her eyes that he had seen tears in.
"Everyone was, so worried about you," Darling whispered, opening her mouth again and saying it in a cracking voice at the boy who turned back towards her. She looked so relieved again to match everyone else's expressions, and Zach felt his heart aching more than it already was while he just lay there. Darling continued in a soft tone as Zach glanced down at his chest where there were heavy bandages covering him, "The operation took hours, and Curalia, Hank, Miraculu, they couldn't… I tried to help, but then Mark-" Darling looked up at the brown haired man on the other side of the bed who shook his head at her saying she did not need to continue. Darling sniffled though and continued anyway, "When your heart stopped, he kept pumping your blood while they… and you were… I thought I'd lost you." Darling had tears pouring down her face as she tried to get all that out, and she buried her head back into the side of Zach's bed to stop herself from sobbing.
Zach pulled his right hand up at his side. He did not have a glove on it which he just realized and froze at the sight of, but then he kept bringing it back and he put it down on the top of Darling's head. He brushed her hair with it for a second and then rested it down on the back of her head softly, and he clenched his own eyes shut at the pain he heard in her voice as she sobbed there. He lifted his head a bit and opened back up his eyes. He looked past Exodus who had walked up just to Darling's side, and over towards the door of the room where he saw Grabble standing with his back against the wall and a relieved look on his face. Hank had come in and was standing with Curalia looking like they were ready to come over and help him, and Zach saw that the hall outside the infirmary was so packed but no one else was being let through by Seraphim who stood right in the entryway.
This is why, I couldn't die. It's why I had to fight. There was a reason for it. I… Don't think about it now. Don't let it get to you. Zach tried to harden his expression to stop thinking about The Pit, and then he tried leaning up to sit on his bed instead of lay there in front of everyone. He scooted back a little bit to be in less of that position, but Exodus reached out a hand and put it down on Zach's right leg to stop him. Zach looked at Exodus in surprise, but the muscular man there had a look on his face that made Zach's eyes open even wider. He stared at the serious man who always did whatever he asked, who followed him anywhere and was the most dedicated soldier in the Army of Death, as well as the strongest man Zach knew. Exodus had a pained look on his face as he looked into Zach's eyes, and he said, "Death. I am glad you are alright." He hesitated and then said in a lower and sadder voice while shaking his head, "Without you, we'd all be lost."
Zach looked around at the others surrounding his bed. He ground his teeth behind his lips and held back all the emotions tugging at him at their looks. Seeing them all around him, all the other commanders of the Army of Death. All the leaders of squads and undefined officers of his army, all standing around him at once made Zach have to frown more than anything. I wish they had kept going even without me. I don't want, everything to be over if I'm gone. But, but I'm glad they aren't out there. So I can keep protecting them as we fight together. "I'm sorry," Zach started. He lowered his gaze for a second and then looked around into as many eyes as he could, making eye contact with everyone in there for a second. "For getting so close."
He looked at Darling as he finished, telling the girl who sniffled in again hard on his side before leaning back with her eyes wide at what he continued with. "Now, there's work to do," he said. Zach pushed himself farther up his bed without Exodus stopping him this time, and he winced which made him turn straight to Curalia and not the others who all leaned in worried he had hurt himself. "Curalia," he started, his voice commanding like he was giving orders. "Get me up and able to move as fast as possible."
Curalia started forward while shaking her head in disbelief. "You just went through open-heart surgery, and you had a kidney transplant! You-"
Zach started looking around, but no one around the bed changed their expressions at what Curalia just said. They all looked at him with too straight of expressions, confusing the boy who asked after those looks, "Who gave me their kidney?"
Curalia continued walking up to the bed and she stopped at the foot of it to frown at her stubborn patient she was not finished talking to. The woman with short brown hair only an inch long over her head began again, "It was an anonymous donation, intentionally. They asked that you not-"
Zach turned his head from the doctor and looked at Gentle with his eyes wide. Everyone else around the bed opened their eyes wider too and then grins cracked on faces all around except for Gentle who rolled his eyes and looked away in annoyance. Mark and Grabble started laughing as it took Death 0 seconds to figure it out, but it quieted down quickly as this was still a serious mood they were in. Gentle looked back after turning away for a second, annoyed at the sentimental moment. "You still haven't fulfilled your side of our deal," Gentle said, looking Zach in the eyes.
Zach made his face more serious too. He nodded back at Gentle, while everyone else in the room except for La Brava and Darling stared at the two of them in confusion and surprise at the conversation. "I haven't forgotten," Zach said. "And thank you, Gentle."
Darling leaned in towards Zach right after he said that, and she said to him while he turned to face her from only a few inches away, "I would have given you both of my kidneys-"
"She was not compatible," Curalia cut in, an annoyed look on her face that Zach sweatdropped at. He could imagine Darling yelling at the doctors to take her kidneys out and give them to him, and he cracked a small smile on his face at the thought.
"Thank you," Zach started to the girl.
"I'll try to still love all of you, even if a piece of you is Gentle," Darling added.
Gentle's bottom lip lowered, and La Brava got an annoyed look on her face pointed over at Darling who just smiled wider as she saw Zach lift his lips into more of a grin at that joke. The others were less restrained and laughed a lot harder, but everyone in the room shut up as Exodus chimed in, "I also would have given you my kidneys."
Zach kept smiling and looked past a frowning Darling so he could face Exodus. The large man was an awkward guy who did not seem to get the mood as he said that in a completely serious tone, but Zach knew that and did not need to hide a sweatdrop or anything as he expected to hear something like that from him. Zach nodded at the muscular man and responded, "Thank you, Exodus." Zach took in a deep breath after saying that in a serious and grateful tone. He looked around at everyone and then started in that serious voice, his lips flattening out, "I was serious though. We have to keep up our work. Everyone head out of here except for the doctors. I want attacks planned for as soon as Curalia gets me up on my feet. Understood?"
Gentle frowned at Zach as he was treating all of this like it was no big deal. Darling got hesitant like she wanted to stay in there with him, and La Brava looked up at Gentle who she wondered if he had something to say about how Zach should stay there longer. Mark looked nervous too as he thought about how worried he was Death was going to die back during the surgery, but Exodus responded in a strong reply, "Understood, Commander."
"I said 'Understood?'" Zach repeated immediately as Exodus was the only one to reply.
This time everyone in the hall who heard him and everyone else in the room called out too. In unison, in a loud voice that echoed around The Cloak, the Army of Death shouted, "Understood! Commander!"
A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, or predictions for the upcoming chapters.
born75th chapter 120 . Dec 14
I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED THE LAST SENTENCE OF chapter 119 when i saw the notification for 120. THANK YOU SO MUCH
Bam! 3 chapters in 3 days. Getting back to the grind! You're welcome! And thanks for reviewing!
Yes chapter 120 . 8h ago
The one time I do not check for updates, you upload. It's usually a 3-4 day schedule :p
This chapter focuses on developments between zach and others, reminding us that they are all humans too. I liked it, a sort-of-filler-not-really chapter that taught us more about the working of each character.
Haha! Not anymore. A chapter a day keeps the doc away... or in this case, I mean, lots of doctors needed in this chapter. Trying not to make these chapters seem like fillers while also not expanding every scene into full chapter-length scenes. Reason I bounced around so much last chapter (this one and a few of the recent ones too), is to show how fast Zach's moving around everywhere, and there's so much going on in just a couple of days for Zach that expanding every one of those scenes would get us moving at a snail's pace through this. Like a few of those scenes last chapter probs happened the same day as each other, and we were still skipping stuff in between each one so... Anyway, I'm glad you liked the last chapter and hope it didn't get boring. Thanks for the review!