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!

139. Chapter 139

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 139:

"So, nothing?" Zach asked, tilting his head to the side and looking through the clear Cyn material at the guards who were not reacting to the story he had started telling them. He just started speaking out of the blue, but they were not looking back or conversing with him which was odd since neither had managed once to last this long staying silent since he first got thrown inside. "You guys mad at me?" Zach asked the two who continued just facing away from the cell he was in. Did some new evidence come out against me? Am I about to face another trial? They can't tell me, can they? Maybe it has nothing to do with that. Time to assume and guilt-trip.

Tachibana Miyuki and Edo Ebboro continued to stare forward in silence after Inmate 1667's question. They did not react, but slowly the two of them were getting more nervous as there was no noise from behind them despite the boy being just on the other side of the wall. He's never this quiet, Edo thought, as the boy just stopped telling his story instead of continuing and ignoring when they ignored him. What's he doing? We're supposed to be watching him. Edo turned his head to the side and looked back into the cell which Tachibana saw in the corner of her vision and made her grumble while turning herself.

The guards looked in and then their whole bodies turned with their eyes opening wide behind their visors. The prisoner's head was bowed just inside the glass, and he was staring down at his hands that he curled his fingers in over and over again with a look of disbelief on his face. "Am I, going to be in here forever?" He whispered, and Zach looked up in fear at the guards who were shocked by the fear on his face.

"What?" Edo asked, and he started shaking his head at the teenager. "No- why would," he hesitated and glanced over at Tachibana, but she was also looking in at the prisoner with a pitying look and appeared like she wanted to give him relief as well. "It has nothing to do with you," Edo started, and he turned back forward when Zach looked into his eyes. He faced the opposite wall and spoke in a lower voice, "There's a new prisoner coming into this cell block. We have to-"

"A new prisoner?" Zach asked with interest, losing the fear on his face and making sure that relief came through in his tone too. The guards did not reply for a moment, and Zach rolled his eyes while saying, "They're going to walk right past us I assume, so why not just tell me beforehand? It's probably better this way than if I'm shocked by who it is. Is that why you're keeping it quiet?"

"We don't have to tell you anything," Tachibana responded. "That is the reason."

"Oh," Zach pulled back and nodded, hearing some annoyance in the female guard's voice. "But, does that mean, you're not allowed to tell me?" Zach asked. He leaned back forward and glanced back and forth at the guards who he saw look inwards at each other for a second and then gain more hesitant looks under their visors. So it is someone I know. "Wouldn't it be, I don't know, safer? If you guys just told me now instead of when we come face to face?"

That, makes a little sense, Edo thought to himself. But it would also give you time to make a plan, if you want to- Would he really escape after all this time just to…

"He should be here any minute now," Tachibana started. Her voice was low and she continued to look ahead, though she darted a glance to her side in a nervous way at what she just started with. We're not supposed to give special treatment, but there has to be a better ward for… They're going to be in the same hall, which means he'll know soon anyway. No one said we couldn't say anything, kid. We're just trying to act more professional today- shit. She sighed and continued to the boy behind her, "He spent, the last year and a half in the psychiatric ward. But the doctors finally discharged him, say he's rehabilitated, not that that's going to reduce his sentence any."

"They don't want him put back with the other prisoners in gen pop though. Think it might be too much for him or the others might do something that messes with all his progress," Edo said it and he turned his head to the side to glance back at his prisoner to give him a stern look. Edo's heart skipped a beat though and he turned back forward fast. He started panting which his co-guard saw out the corners of her eyes and made her turn back into the cell herself. Edo looked back again too, and they stared at the teen whose head was turned to Edo's right and farther down the cell block the direction he had first come in from. His eyes were dark and shadowed over by his bangs, his jaw clenched but his teeth hidden behind his pursed lips, and his fists were balled furiously at his sides.

The panic started to rise in the two guards who had never seen their prisoner look like this before even when talking about the most intense stories of his year away. And then right as they were starting to panic, a loud clank came from the end of the hall that made the two of them snap their heads that way and look over towards a thick opening white door.

Oh fuck, Edo gulped and he turned back forward. Nothing's going to happen. "Kid- Inmate, stay where you are," he ordered.

Tachibana glared back for a second into the cell, but the prisoner was staying where he was and glaring just as hard in the direction of that door clank. Forget about the past few months. He's a dangerous criminal. Don't forget that. Her right hand moved down to her waist and she was not hiding the fact that she grabbed her zap-stick from the boy behind her. Watch yourself, Inmate.

A group of four guards led a man down a hallway who walked between them with his hands cuffed behind his back but no straightjacket on like he had to wear for almost a year after getting put in Tartaros. He had short blond hair and stubble around his cheek and chin that he had started shaving himself first under supervision and then on his own. He had a vertical scar in the center of his forehead with ridges on it looking like stitchings, and he had a bad burn scar on the right side of his face from when Endeavor caught him with a flaming right hook. The skin on his cheek and around his right eye was darkened and red around the outsides of the brownest area. He walked down the cell block with the guards staying quiet around him, and his head was bowed as he walked with a dark look on his face. His eyes were half-closed, his lips curled down into a frown, and he stared forward blankly as he was led to a new cell that he figured he was going to spend the rest of his life in.

There were two guards already in the hallway when he entered, and the man noticed that the two walking in the box around him who were at his front both glanced to their left sides though pretended not to behind their visors. The guards standing still on his left side looked tense too. They were nervous and he saw one grabbing at her weapon, though she was not looking at him through her visor but had her eyes pulled far to her side like she was trying to look behind her without actually turning around. So the man with his head partially bowed and his eyes half-closed rose his head up, and he looked through the Cyn glass of the cell, and he nearly had a heart attack as he stumbled to the right side and fell off his feet to the floor.

"Get up, Inmate!" the guard behind where he just fell shouted.

Jin Bubaigawara wanted to grab at his pounding chest but could not with his hands cuffed as they were behind his back. He could not even stand easily with his hands cuffed like that, so he was stuck squirming around on his butt and scooching away from the younger man on the other side of what was way too thin a wall. The other guard behind the prisoner snapped at his comrade to help him stand the prisoner up, and they warned the inmate not to do anything while they stepped towards him.

"R-R-R-" Jin stumbled over his words and choked on his tongue at the face of the boy staring at him through that cell wall. His eyes were dark with his head bowed and his hair shadowing over them, and his fists were balled at his sides in rage. His face had more scars on it than the last time Jin had seen, but the one on the right side of his face just below his eye confirmed who this was glaring murderously back at him. "Reaper," Twice whispered.

Zach lifted his head and his eyes unshadowed. He glared down at Twice and then rose his eyes as the guards pulled the man up to his feet and continued walking him down the hall. All six guards in the hallway felt their skin crawl though as Twice was being led away. "Reaper?" The two who were helping Twice move felt him shaking, and one glanced at the other nervously at the way the man's head started twitching the way it was. The two in front of him walked the prisoner past the cell after Sazaki's that was occupied, then they stopped at the one after that and opened the cell door for the prisoner.

"The docs told us that if you ask to see them, you can at any time," Kaitou snapped at the prisoner after putting him in his cell. "Now put your hands through this slot so I can take off your cuffs…"

Edo looked behind him again once Twice was through the hallway. He looked at the boy at his back who was turned to the left and glaring down the hallway in the other prisoner's direction. "Hey, kid," Edo started in a soft voice. Zach turned back to him, and the guard started shaking his head before saying in a low voice, "Why'd you have to do that? I told you, he wasn't-"

"Edo," Tachibana said, her voice low and scolding. There's no point in asking him. He's just another villain. They hate each other, and if Sazaki was out of this cell he would have murdered that man in an instant. You see that look in his eyes too. You know he wouldn't have hesitated right there. All he talks about- being a soldier, being at war. Even if he exaggerates some of it, which he might, I believe him when he says that's what he was doing. Fighting a war, and killing people. He doesn't explicitly say it, he just "defeated" or "took down" his enemies, but he mentions later on how they're dead without hesitating. Maybe they really were put to death at war tribunals, or maybe he cut them down himself. That's his reality. Twice is his enemy too. I won't let you do to him what you've done to so many others.

Zach looked back and forth at the two guards just outside his cell. He watched as the other four headed back down the hall and left, each of them giving him dark or nervous looks as they went. Zach waited until they were gone, and then he turned his head to the left and he walked over to the corner of his cell closest to the end where Twice was. There was one cell between them from what he heard with those footsteps and voices, and Zach called out loud enough for the man two cells down to hear him, "Twice!"

Edo and Tachibana spun and looked back at their prisoner who had his face close to the Cyn at the edge of his cell and shouted out through it. "I know you can hear me!"

"Inmate-" Edo started.

"What? Am I not allowed to talk?" Zach snapped back, turning and glaring at the guard who pulled back fast at that look. "I'm in my cell. I'm in my cage, and I'm not trying to escape. He's my new neighbor, and I can talk to him all I like unless that's against the rules!" Zach spun his head back and he yelled louder, "HEY TWICE!"

"Why did they put him in here?" Tachibana growled. She darted a look over towards the cell with the newest inmate in it. We're not here to watch the other prisoners. That's what the cameras are for. But, if he's mentally unstable, there's stuff in that room that he could… to himself. "Inmate 1667," Tachibana turned and glared through the Cyn at the prisoner she was watching. "Stop this. Why are you-" she cursed at herself for questioning him. She wouldn't for any other prisoner, and she hated that she felt she had to ask because she thought she knew the boy already. "Stop this at once-"

"What?" A deep voice called over. It was low, and hesitant, and the others in the cell block did not know if it was the first time he said it or just the first time he dared getting that loud. Jenkins in the cell on Zach's right was up close to the Cyn, while the prisoner between Zach and Twice's cells was staying as far back in his and close to the wall as he could. Twice had his head bowed though when he heard Sazaki shouting towards him, his teeth clenched and his heart racing so fast at the roars he heard in his direction. He had calmed down from that first look he had received from the boy though, and despite wishing he had a cigarette, he was doing better now that no one was watching him.

Zach panted a couple of times after hearing Twice's voice. His eyes stayed angry and his fists clenched harder though he kept from reaching out to the glass he had leaned up close to. He was in the corner of his cell, and bowing his head was difficult because of how close he was to the walls. "Have you really been rehabilitated?" Zach growled, his dark eyes shifted far to his side and glaring around the corner in an attempt to see into Twice's cell despite how impossible that was. "Or are you just tricking everyone to get a nice cell in this place? Huh?" Zach rose his voice at the end and called it down demanding an answer from the older man whose head just stayed bowed and his eyes dark and half-closed again.

"I don't know," Jin muttered. Then he rose his voice a bit and made sure the teen heard him as he repeated, "I don't know."

"You 'don't know?'" Zach repeated in an angry and annoyed voice. "You don't know if you're insane anymore or-"

"I'm sorry." Twice's voice was just dark, and sad, and Zach continued to glare down the hall with his teeth grinding behind his lips at what he just heard. "Reaper, I'm sorry for what we-" Twice flinched and he clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head and then saying in a lower more regretful tone, "For what I did to you."

"Are you serious?" Zach snarled.

"Hey Inmate," Edo began. "What was that story you were telling us before? I was listening even though I pretended not to, but did you say that the Queen herself-"

"He did," Tachibana agreed, trying just as hard as Edo to get the kid to tell them a story and forget about Twice. "She was there at the battle. I felt like you added that just to get a reaction from us, but was she really-"

Zach was seething through his teeth and his fists clenched so hard at his sides that his arms and entire body were shaking. "Twice!" Zach yelled. His face twisted in rage like the guards had never seen before and made them lean away as Sazaki pushed his face towards the glass and yelled, "Do you remember holding me to that chair? Holding me still while Shigaraki forced me to watch them burn? You remember that?!" Zach's voice echoed down the hall and had every other person in the cell block feel their heart rate skyrocketing.

Tachibana stopped pulling her head back and she reached back down to grab her zap-stick again. The fear rose within her as she thought, He's going to make his move! The revenge many of them were initially worried he had come to Tartaros for was within his reach. She had never seen this look on Sazaki's face before, and hearing what he just shouted confirmed to her that this was definitely someone who would be on the boy's list.

Twice rose his right hand to his face though, as he dropped down onto his butt on the edge of his new bed. He gripped his forehead with his fingers and clenched his eyes so tightly shut as he heard that voice roar down the hallway, "You held me still! As Dabi killed my family in front of me, as Shigaraki carved up my face you were RIGHT THERE! As he dug the knife under my eye and forced me to watch. YOU LAUGHED!"

Edo's jaw dropped as he stared at the boy with a scar curving under his right eye whose voice was so full of rage. A heat started rising in Edo's chest and his skin got hotter, his eyes shifting down to Sazaki's shaking fists that he was nervous he was about to see a dark power emerge from. He darted a look at Tachibana, then he started reaching for his helmet to call in for help here as she wrapped her hand around her zap-stick. Then Zach snapped his head forward and he yelled down the hall with his face twisting in so much anger, "And I forgive you for that!"

Edo and Tachibana froze. The two prisoners in the cells on Zach's sides stopped looking so nervous and afraid. And Twice opened his eyes behind the hand he was squeezing his head with. He stared at his palm and then down at his lap, wondering what he just heard. Jin's hand lowered from his head and he stood up on shaky legs. "Wh-What?" He whispered, in no way loud enough to be heard by the boy two cells away.

Zach was shouting again though as Twice mumbled that to himself. "I forgive you! You hear me?!" Zach's hands stopped shaking and he backed up from the corner of his cell. Calm down. Think. Believe in the shrinks they have here. And calm, down. The mantra repeated in Zach's head and he took in a deep breath through his nose before shouting in that calmer tone instead of sounding so angry when he yelled it, "I forgive you." The guards just outside Zach's cell were confused. They were about to call in for backup, but the teen in front of them who had looked so furious was not saying or doing what they expected him to.

Twice ran up to his cell and slammed his hands up against the glass. "What?" He called it out in a voice that was broken and cracked. "I don't understand!" The guards spun to their right while looking at Sazaki's cell and then back at the boy who ground his teeth in anger again just hearing Twice's voice yelling his way. The cracked voice made it high-pitched too instead of deep, making him sound even more like Twice which had Zach's toes even curling inside his socks.

Zach ground his teeth so hard that he was unable to respond for a moment. That silence made Twice slam his head on the clear wall in front of him though. "You're lying!" He called out, raising his right hand to the side of his head and gripping it hard with his voice coming out in pain, "You're a liar. I couldn't be forgiven-"

"It's not your fault," Zach growled, though he forced his voice to sound more flat as he finished getting it out. You're crazy. You were, if you really… "It's not," Zach repeated in a lower voice, more serious and yet also in a soft tone showing he wanted Twice to believe him that made the man he was speaking to stare out of his cell with his eyes massive. "It's this stupid fucking world's," Zach continued. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead into the glass, and he let out a long breath before speaking in a lower voice, "That people like you could go insane because no one taught you the dangers of using your Quirk like that. That you would go and split yourself so many times, and turn yourself into that villain."

"I am that-"

"Shut up, Twice," Zach muttered, louder than the man was trying to counter him in the pained voice that Zach recognized too well from the first words the man spoke to him. Zach closed his eyes for a second and then opened them and looked sadly through the Cyn at the floor out in the hall. "I've seen so many cursed Quirks," Zach said. His voice was low so it was almost a growl, but it was not angry and more just sad and exhausted. "And yours made you lose your own damn mind. That's not your fault, even if you were stupid for not being careful in the first place, but it wasn't your fault that you went mad! And there is no support in our country for people like you, not until they've become mass murderers and are thrown in a psych ward of a horrible prison."

Twice was panting down two cells and he was finding it hard to breathe. He clenched at his chest with one hand and let out a noise that Zach heard a piece of through the glass, though the guards outside it heard it louder and felt their own hearts shaking at the sound he made. The cracked whimper of the man trying to make out a response to what he was hearing. "You were an idiot," Zach repeated darkly, "but, it's not your fault that my family was killed." Zach pulled his head off the glass and shook it while continuing, "You were just used by Shigaraki like the rest of his 'pieces.' Shigaraki abused the fact that society was cruel to you, to turn you into a terrorist who led the attack on Musutafu and killed so many innocents."

Zach growled out the last part of that sentence, and Twice grabbed his head harder with both hands as he heard it. The guards got even more confused again as they could not tell what the inmate was trying to do here with going back to that again after trying to make the other feel better. Zach gripped his hands into fists and he called out, "You aren't forgiven! Most people will never forgive you for the horrible fucked-up things you did! And you won't be able to forgive yourself either, I know that!" Zach clenched his fists so much harder, one last time, then he loosened them and called out, "But if you need it! I forgive you."

Twice had tears in his eyes that started spilling down his face. He could not hold in his voice, and a sob escaped his lips before he slammed them shut again as Zach continued, "You didn't kill my family, Twice. You didn't torture me. You were used by bad people, because you had the disturbed mind of a child." Zach shook his head and glared down, his fists clenching again but this time in anger directed at himself. "I watched as Shigaraki made you think that he cared about you, just like he did with Toga… He's sick, he's a monster, but you're just…" Zach rose his head and looked towards the wall closest to where he knew Twice was. "A victim of a broken system."

"Cursed Quirks like ours had no supports," Zach said. His voice calmed down back to normal and he walked over to his bed that he sat on and called out a bit louder from so his new cell-block-mate would be able to hear him. "No one helped us, no one taught us how to use our Quirks, it's just," Zach quieted down and he leaned back on the wall on the other side of his bed, sitting across it without laying back and just putting his hands behind his head as he sat there. "It's not your fault." Because you were crazy. I won't say it's not our fault, because I never- my mind wasn't destroyed. Not while I did those things… Why did I just go off like that?

Zach could see the guards still looking towards him in shock and some awe too. He could hear Twice crying down the cell block, and he did not want to hear that voice with the kinds of emotions he was hearing in it. He curled his arms in with his hands behind his head and covered his ears with his forearms, his elbows pointed out in front of him. That wasn't in the plan at all, Zach thought once he gave himself some quiet. I didn't know they'd be putting me with Twice, but even still… I don't know. Would Zach have forgiven him? He was- I was always, feeling bad for the two of them. I wonder if that will even help out Twice? Is that what I was trying to do? Help him?

A thoughtful look covered Zach's face as he stared across his cell. Maybe it wasn't for Twice then. I wasn't really thinking about- I mean I did want him to- but that was for me. Forgiving him. Twice was my old friend, my old comrade, and I needed that closure myself. And just maybe… Zach closed his eyes at a cluster of faces he saw looking at him in such betrayed and angry ways. A girl's face in particular emerged in his head, but he could imagine a similar look on Twice's face too what was probably under his mask that day. That might also be my way of apologizing for VTS. The way I betrayed you. You had been my comrade, and just as Shigaraki had used you by accepting the crazy that came with you, I had accepted that crazy to try and get you to trust me… I was as bad as Shigaraki was, to Twice at least.

So I forgive you Twice. And in doing so, I can forgive myself for betraying you.

---

"Oof," Sato dropped onto the couch of Class A's common room and let out a grunt of exhaustion. He reached over for the remote while Sero and Tokoyami came over and sat on the couch to his right, "Training, rough, today," Sato said, still a bit dull from the sugar he ingested in their final hero training for the day.

"You got that right," Sero agreed with a sigh, leaning back on the couch and then stretching his arms out in front of him and wincing at the soreness in them. He locked his fingers together and pulled his arms back pushing his tape dispensing elbows out to the sides. "Thought those ANTs were going to kick the crap out of us there for a second. They would have too," Sero turned his head and looked towards the kitchen where Bakugo, Kirishima, and Uraraka were talking. "If Bakugo hadn't popped out of nowhere."

Tokoyami hummed in agreement as he and Sero had been together in the Training Ground when they were separated from a bigger group. They got cornered by intel-ANTs, a new design from Hatsume Mei and Power Loader sensei that gave Class 3-A a run for their money but wound up still being 'just prototypes' or so Mei said when Class A destroyed them. "Bakugo has taken another stride ahead," Tokoyami said, and then he turned towards the screen that Sato turned on before Bakugo could look over and see him staring his way.

"Guess those study abroad trips really do a lot, huh?" Sero asked the darker boy on his side who hesitated but then nodded in agreement. "Still can't tell me what you were doing?" Sero added, raising an eyebrow and smirking as he wanted to know. Sato looked over with interest too as Tokoyami gave a nod that he had gotten a lot from his own study abroad trips, but the boy with the bird face shook it at their follow-up looks making the other two sigh.

Over in the kitchen, Kirishima lifted his protein shake and shook it around a few times while still talking to the other two with him. He turned though after finishing his sentence and started away without waiting as he started drinking his smoothie. Bakugo watched him walk away but his eyes were not too focused, especially because he saw where Kirishima just looked which made him stare that way too without getting annoyed like he used to when he saw that face on the tv. The three in the couch area all started focusing on the screen and their old classmate's face up there on the news, again. Bakugo's eyes stayed unfocused though as he caught a glimpse of that scar-covered face. "Miruko's the only one who knows…"

Uraraka tilted her head to the side while staring at the blond in the kitchen with her. "Bakugo?" Uraraka asked, shaking Bakugo back to the present which made him frown as he looked out the corner of his eyes at her. She did not lean away at his angry frown though, and instead Uraraka asked, "What were you thinking about?" She looked over towards the screen herself where there was a crowd being shown with a camera holding up protest signs while a reporter walked around and tried getting individual interviews with some of them.

"Nothing," Bakugo grunted, and he turned to head out of the kitchen himself.

Uraraka was done in the kitchen too though, and she started heading up to her room which was on the same floor as Bakugo's. She looked to her side after walking up to Bakugo, and she asked when he turned away in annoyance, "Did something happen while you were in Germany?"

The spiky-haired blond had only come back earlier that week after spending the first half of their fall term abroad. It was the final term they were allowed to go on such long internships, as it was a rule that they needed to be at U.A.'s main campus for the final term of their high school lives. Bakugo had gone on his first abroad trip with Miruko who was already out of the country as she had been since the April before right after the previous class's graduation, taking Fantasma along with her as her one and only sidekick. "Yeah," Bakugo replied after Uraraka's question. "A lot happened." He said it in annoyance like that was obvious, but Uraraka was used to him enough by now to not just get perturbed by his attitude, so she just kept walking with him towards the stairs and then up them together.

"You really kicked those robots' butts earlier," Uraraka said, and she swung a fist out in front of her as they continued up. "Is Germany, more dangerous than here? Were there harder villains to fight?"

"Hmp, not at all," Bakugo said. A few fucked up ones, but nothing hard. The April Fool's fuck was the last good fight… "Haven't had a good fight in months! Thought with you here maybe some villains'd try targeting us, but it's still boring. Nothing like those first couple months we were gone when-" "Miruko!" "Geez, I was going to say when the villains still had the balls to try big things. Wasn't going to tell little Explosion King here about you kicking it. Oops." Bakugo could see Miruko smirking at Indago as she fumed at their pro. They said those first few months after they left were hard. Fuck! I should have went that term- damn it!

"You're thinking about a lot, huh?" Uraraka asked, and Bakugo ground his teeth while darting his eyes back at the girl next to him who actually did lean back this time as she saw that got to him more than usual. "Sorry, just saying. You've been looking really thoughtful since you got back. You're thinking about Zach, too," she added, as she saw where Bakugo had been looking back when they were in the kitchen and his expression got to that far-away look.

"I'm not…" Bakugo started, but he clenched his teeth and looked away in annoyance that the short round-faced girl was able to call him out on that. He knew she was not dumb and decided not to pretend, but that did not mean he was going to say shit about it either. He opened his mouth to make a remark as they were nearing the fourth floor, but he was shut up by the pink girl who just rushed onto the stairs and shouted at them.

"Ochaco!" Ashido called out, pointing a finger at her friend and then pursing her lips while the two in front of her had paused. "You're…" Ashido frowned and muttered, "seventeen still." She turned to Bakugo with a more excited look, "But you're eighteen…" she paused at that look on Bakugo's face, a bead of sweat forming on hers and making her turn away. "Actually, nevermind!" Ashido ran past and headed down the stairs quickly to the next floor that she turned onto. Uraraka and Bakugo both looked behind them, and though Uraraka had a confused look on her face Bakugo was glaring with his eyes getting a more distanced look to them again. Uraraka turned to her side to give Bakugo a look wondering what that was about, only to sigh at the expression he had on his face once again.

On the floor below, Ashido stepped out of the staircase feeling confident but quickly lost that sense as she looked down the doors on the boys' side. The first door outside of the staircase was Koda's, and she looked past it quickly since she did not think he would help her plus she had a feeling he was still seventeen years old. Her eyes then scanned past Kaminari's door without giving it a second glance, but she frowned on Iida's door too and hummed to herself before shaking her head and looking past with a sigh. Ojiro and Toru already said they'd come with me, but what about, Ashido turned her head to the left and looked down the connecting hall between the boys and girls' sides.

She got a hesitant look on her face and started to shake her head, but then she shook away that feeling and got a more chipper expression as she ran down the hall to Jirou's door. "Hey Kyoka!" Ashido knocked on the door and got the girl inside to come over and open up. Jirou opened the door and looked out at Ashido who had a bag on her right arm full of stickers that Jirou glanced down at with disdain. "Come with me," Ashido said, smiling and leaning forward which just made Jirou roll her eyes at her friend's attempt.

"I have stuff to do," Jirou replied.

"Oh come on, it'll be a fun day out too," Ashido started. "And I need help recruiting people to support the prime minister Nikko!"

"He isn't prime minister yet," Jirou said. She got an annoyed look covering her face too, and Ashido leaned back as her classmate added, "And I don't care about the election. At all." Jirou stepped back into her room and closed the door in Ashido's face while the pink girl was in the middle of opening her mouth.

Ashido gawked more that the door was shut in her face, and then she got an annoyed look of her own that her friend would do that to her. "No need to be rude," Ashido muttered, saying it through the door but also keeping quiet as she could not decide whether or not she was actually trying to say it to Kyoka or just mutter under her breath.

"Mina! You ready?" Ashido turned and looked down the hall to see Hagakure out in the hall and Ojiro coming out behind her and closing her door. Hagakure was running forward and sliding her arms through the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and the invisible girl looked towards the door next to Ashido for a second before looking back at the pink girl in surprise at where she was standing. In a quieter whisper Hagakure called over, "Is Kyoka-"

"Not coming," Ashido replied, this time louder and meant for the girl on the other side of the door to hear. "But let's go," Ashido did not want to lower her own mood, and the eighteen year old girl spun with a smile on her face back towards the stairs. "Some people just aren't as politically active as we are," Ashido said, looking to her side at Hagakure with a smug and joking smile that her friend giggled at and agreed with a happy hum.

"Ah, are you all ready?" The two girls and Ojiro looked up the steps at another of their classmates who was walking down towards them. Ojiro only glanced at her for a second and nodded, before looking to Hagakure who he saw spun towards him. He held up a hand defensively and smiled at the girl who he knew why she would spin to him like that, while Ashido kept staring up jealously at the tallest girl in their class who was walking down in a white turtleneck sweater pulling close to her figure. Her curves pushed out and the hem of the sweater dropped just above the start of her black leggings. She had a very expensive bag over her right shoulder that was bigger than Ashido's and had a designer logo on it showing how expensive it was, and her boots that came up to her mid-calves were as stylish as she was wearing her long black hair down behind her head in a braid instead of its usual spiky fashion she kept it tied up in for combat and during school hours.

"Wow Momo," Hagakure said while spinning back to her friend after checking on her boyfriend to make sure he was not as awed as she was by her friend's beauty. "That's a really pretty outfit!"

"Oh, you think so?" Yaoyorozu looked down in some surprise and hesitation as she did not know she had made herself look good.

That look alone made Ashido fume and then turn away in an even more jealous way, Without even trying?!

"Well," Yaoyorozu looked back at her friends and continued down the steps to their same platform. "We should get out as early as we can. I believe Sato and Sero should be-" Momo stopped and looked down the steps with the other three as Sero and Sato came running up.

"Sorry!" Sero said as he saw the four looking ready to go. "One minute!" He ran faster up the stairs, while Sato spun and stuck a thumbs up in agreement with what Sero just called out at them.

Ashido rolled her eyes at the boys who clearly waited until the last second even though they had talked about leaving at this time before. I wonder if anyone else would come, if I just put it in the class group chat? It's probably not a good idea if Momo didn't do it though.

"Let's go," Hagakure suggested, and she started down the steps without waiting. She looked over her shoulder and said, "They'll come running after us." She laughed and Ojiro chuckled while following her down the steps. Yaoyorozu looked hesitant like she did not want to make them think it was a bother, but Ashido grabbed her by the hand and started down too.

"You ready for this?" Ashido asked in an excited voice.

Yaoyorozu was surprised as she was suddenly being pulled along, but then she smiled and nodded at her friend who smiled brightly back at that. Momo continued down the steps towards the first floor of their dorm building, but while her three friends were in front of her and no one could see her face her lips lowered down into a frown. Zach. It's been over three months now. I wish, you would let someone see you. They denied me again, and this time I am sure they did not even go all the way to you to ask. I could have argued that they are doing something to you and that's why they keep you from seeing visitors, or maybe that you weren't even down there, but I believe you don't want to see me. But it's not just me, you deny everyone, and Zach you need to see someone. It's sad, that you had to spend your birthday alone again.

---

"Today's not one of Ms. Hanuri's," Zach responded to the guards just outside his clear wall. Kaitou frowned at his response, and a bead of sweat formed on the right side of his face while Neo just sighed as Sazaki did not flinch after they told him. "So no," Zach finished to the man just outside who frowned deeper at that answer.

"You have to this time," Kaitou started.

"No, I don't. I don't have to see anyone." Zach gave the man outside his cell a confused look, "But for you to be trying so hard, who came to visit me this time?" Kaitou and Neo both looked in at the boy in some confusion as normally he told them he did not want to know. The boy got a thoughtful look on his face though and hummed while looking back and forth at their expressions. "It doesn't seem like I actually have to go, but you're trying pretty hard. Now who would you care enough about to want to help, who I also know, and who would be coming to visit me today? I can think of only one person you'd feel like you owe enough to come down here trying to trick me over this. But you can tell All Might the same thing you tell everyone else."

Neo started shaking her head, and Zach turned to her as he did not think she would be the one to get mad at him for this. The green-skinned woman did not have an angry frown on her face though, but just one of pity and sadness as she looked through her visor into Zach's hazel eyes. "I feel bad," Neo started, while Kaitou just got a more frustrated look that he had been unable to convince or trick the inmate into taking his visitor call. Kaitou lifted a hand to his helmet to report back to the one who just called him what the prisoner's response was, while Neo continued to the eighteen year old boy in front of her, "You never see anyone. To have spent your birthday here alone, you know people came to see you-"

"I wasn't alone," Zach said. Neo got confused and then she cracked a smile as Zach added, "I had you guys. I'm fine just talking to you."

"Yeah well, you could do less of that," Kaitou said, turning his back to the boy and just glaring across the hallway with a darker look in his eyes.

He probably dislikes me the most of all the guards, Zach thought, looking to Kaitou's back for a moment and then turning himself and heading over to his bed. It's strange, Zach dropped onto his bed and flat on his back as he was laying like before Kaitou called over to him. He did not reach back for the textbook on his bedside table that was still open to the page he had been reading, he just put his hands behind his head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. On my 16th birthday I was Reaper, my 17th I was Death, and on my 18th I was Inmate 1667. Mom and Dad, and the Akers, would never have been able to see me in a place like this. A smile tugged at Zach's face, Aunt Maye probably could have seen it. Aizawa sensei too.

Zach sighed and he turned his head to look at the wall next to him. He shook faces from his mind, and he thought, The last three birthdays I had different names, but the next few I'll probably still have the same one… Then again, when I was turning 16 I never could have guessed what I would become by my 17th. And I never thought a year ago that I would stop being Death so soon. A few months after that birthday, I didn't think I'd ever have another birthday at all… but if I did, I thought it would have been as Death. Amaterasu stopped me. That was a good thing though, right? I had more time to think about it, and I know this is the right move. It has to be. As long as I'm going to be stuck in here for, it was what was right. Leaving them…

Wonder how the others are doing? Zach turned his head back and stared up at the ceiling again. He took his hands out from behind his head and lifted his left above him, staring at his hand with a distant gaze and curling his fingers slowly a few times. Hope they're all fine, and that Gentle's slowed things a bit with the world more peaceful. Without me there to revive them if they make mistakes. La Brava's on her second life though, Zach curled his left hand into a fist and lowered it down to his chest where he felt his heart beating through his white prison jumpsuit. He won't take them for granted.

"We need to keep pushing forward-"

"AHHH! No! NO!"

"SAZAKI! You bring her back! You save her RIGHT NOW-"

Zach had his eyes clenched, and his whole body felt hot from flames. He saw La Brava's small body getting sent flying with a hole ripping through her gut, and could hear Gentle's screams of desperation and grief piercing his skin. He felt sick, and that feeling mixed with the memory of feeling his whole stomach ripping apart along with most of his intestines and other internal organs that La Brava had lost and he had to rebuild. His body that felt hot started feeling wet from sweat, but with his eyes closed the sweat felt like the rain of blood that day that covered everything in red…

His eyes snapped open and he stared ahead with his teeth clenched but panting breaths coming in and out of his nose. "So," Zach called out, and he swung his legs off the side of his bed and started back to the Cyn wall. He did not know how long he was laying on his bed for, having day-nightmares, but it felt like too long already. He doubted his studies could get his mind off it, but a story could. Neo looked back when Zach got close and she frowned for a moment that he was not looking like he had changed his mind about his visitors, but she smiled when he continued, "You guys have heard me mention the Siege of Razmatan before, right?"

"You going to tell us about it this time?" Kaitou asked, glaring ahead still and frowning as he made his question. "Or just skim over again and get all vague-"

"I'll tell you about it," Zach replied before Kaitou could finish. The man frowned more at that response though he did look out the corners of his eyes wondering if the boy behind him was serious after all the vague stuff they had heard about this particular event. Neo was more visibly excited though she wished one of the other guards who was not Kaitou was there to share in her excitement over this. "It was right at the peak of the war. Both of our sides were completely into it at this point. We had our strongest forces and even though we had been whittling away at theirs, their remaining forces had become prepared for us and were stronger and more organized than-"

Clank. Zach stopped his story and he spun his head to the right. Kaitou and Neo looked over too, and Tachibana came jogging down the hall in her dark guard uniform with a dark blue visor on her helmet she had lifted up to show her face. "What's going on?" Neo asked her comrade who jogged over and looked winded.

"Inmate 0865, just got shanked." Tachibana replied, pausing to pant again after running all the way here.

"Shanked?" Kaitou asked, sounding skeptical which made Zach glance at him in confusion.

"When does that happen?" Neo muttered herself, getting a confused look and then muttering quieter, "How'd we let that happen?"

"He didn't use anything they would have caught him with," Tachibana started. "Inmate 1021 in the cell next to his, pulled out his own teeth and used them." Neo pulled her head back and grimaced at the sound of that, while Kaitou hummed and understood how that kind of weapon could have been made even in their super-stringent security.

"So why'd you come here?" Zach asked, looking at the guard with an eyebrow raised.

Tachibana turned to him, and the other two guards did afterwards. The other prisoners in the cells on Zach's sides listened closely too as they had been hearing what Tachibana was saying without keeping her voice quiet. "The man who was stabbed, several times before we were able to intervene, was unable to be saved." She said it slowly but the boy in front of her was not reacting to what she was saying. She was not asking him anything, but it was very clear why she was there to everyone around.

"Sucks," Zach finally said after the guards just kept staring at him for a few seconds there. Neo got a slightly confused and then more hurt look as she saw the uncaring expression on the boy's face. Kaitou humphed but still felt surprised despite his outwards appearance, while Tachibana frowned more herself at the kid who she saw just the other day forgiving Twice in an act that had amazed her and still stuck with her more than anything he had told her in a story.

"That's all?" Tachibana asked. She did not have orders to do anything, but she was hoping he would make an offer to her right here after the prisoner she had brought to the infirmary had died while begging her not to let him. "He was-"

"I don't want to hear it," Zach said, shaking his head before she could continue. He glared out into her eyes and she glared right back into his with neither of them faltering. "If it were a guard," Zach started. "Then yeah, sure, I'd have brought him or her back," he admitted it with a shrug and just continued to glare out at the guard questioning his morals with her eyes. "But why'd he get shanked?"

"What?" Tachibana asked, shaking her head and giving him a harsh look that he would ask that.

"Why would a prisoner rip his own teeth out, in order to kill another inmate?" Tachibana's eyes softened and she pulled back at the pissed-off look in the inmate's eyes. "You think about that?" Zach asked. "And maybe it was a random act of passion or something, maybe the guy didn't do anything to ten twenty-one, but I don't want to hear about him. I don't want to know who it is or what they're here for." Zach turned his back and started back for his bed, deciding against telling a story anymore and just going for his textbook, "Death sucks. It hurts a lot for me to bring someone back from it. I'm not going through that for a villain I don't know or care about." Zach paused and then he said in a darker voice, "Sometimes, death is just death. For some people, there is no coming back from that."

While Tachibana eased off of the boy she had come for, Kaitou got a more annoyed look on his face at what he was hearing. He glared in at the teen and grumbled towards him, "And who decides-"

"I do." Zach turned his head and glared straight back into Kaitou's eyes through his visor. Kaitou froze with his mouth open and his eyes opening huge just as his fellow guards' were. They felt chills at that look, and more from the answer itself. "Only I get to choose. If you had this Quirk, you could make that decision, but you don't get to make it for me. No one, gets to decide how I use my Quirk for me." Zach grabbed his textbook full of squiggly Arabic and he fell onto his bed and lifted it over his face. I "get" to choose? More like I have to choose. Fuck all of you. You could never know, how this feels. And I'm not dying for some fuck I don't even know who was sent to… don't think about him. Not at all. Forget what she said. Make the choice on your own.

You can't save everyone. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible…

---

"Well, I'd like to switch topic from the election now," Kasami started to the older man on the news program with him. The young man with slicked-back black hair and pointy ears grinned and continued, "Onto my favorite topic which we have some new developments with in recent days. Aside from the obvious, the legality of the Lifebringer movie has been decided in court earlier today."

"And as I thought," Bob began. The bald man with wrinkles on his face chuckled and finished, "The proposal was denied. Now we don't know if Sazaki himself denied it, but he was the only one who legally could have shut down the filming. I wonder why he would do so?"

"Kid doesn't want a movie made about him, what's so strange about that?" Kasami asked with a shrug. "I'm sure a lot of people would prefer not to have their lives dramatized in a film. And he especially has already had so much of his life televised and put under scrutiny that I'm not surprised he's tired of it all already."

"Hm," Bob hummed and gave a single nod that it was possible that was the reason. "Well the film could have shown us some things that maybe we are all still hazy on the details of," Bob began again. He held up a hand and offered to the younger man who frowned back at him, "If they did go to Sazaki with the idea, while he was in prison which seems unlikely considering no one except his lawyer has been in contact-"

"Maybe they spoke to him through his lawyer," Kasami suggested with a shrug.

"Perhaps," Bob said and continued straight on without pausing, "But if they did go to him with this, then instead of shutting them down Sazaki should have given them his version of things if he felt they were skewing-"

"Bob, let's stop this," Kasami said. Bob frowned at the younger man who interrupted him, but Kasami frowned too and shook his head at the older man who was going too deep into this. "He doesn't want a movie made about him. Why's it have to be a big thing? Do we really need to scrutinize his decision here too?" Kasami sighed and he leaned back in his chair, and he held up his right palm while adding, "If he had done things like you just mentioned and they made a movie from the way he told things, then you would have just complained that they had too strong a bias towards his side. And sure, maybe that means we can assume that Lifebringer denied them the rights to make the movie because they were going to portray him negatively." Kasami said it sarcastically and rolled his eyes while mentioning what Bob had been suggesting at with the tone of what he was saying. "Or maybe he's tired of all this media attention as any of us would be if we were him. Three years now he's been a focus of our debates and a hot topic of interest, and now they want to make a feature length film about him? Yeah, how about no?"

"You're saying you wouldn't have seen it?" Bob asked, skeptically lifting his eyebrows at his co-host who chuckled at the question but kept an intense look on even his smiling face which had Bob frowning more again.

"I would have," Kasami said, not denying that. "But I'm glad he has the right to stop them from making it, if that really is what stopped the production. And all I'm saying, is that I would have done the same in his shoes. He's going to get out of prison sooner or later, and when he does I doubt he wants to be trapped in whatever perception of him the movie makes."

"He has to fight to change that perception-" Bob began.

"What perception?" Kasami asked, narrowing his eyes at the older man who continued to frown back at him. "The movie never came out, and now it never will."

"You know what perception I speak of," Bob said. "The one we both think it would have had to get Sazaki to shut it down as he has. That it would be a negative portrayal of all the damage he's-"

"I really doubt that the movie was going to be as negative as you're thinking it was," Kasami said. He cut in firmly and shook his head at the man who had just said they were both assuming something else. Kasami shook his head slowly and he continued while Bob stared at him in surprise, "I have never kept it a secret, my support of Lifebringer. I agreed with you on occasion, but with the public movement in support of Lifebringer I'm not going to hide it here, Bob. Lifebringer's still a hero."

"Kasami, he's- well, he's not. They took his license-"

"Screw licenses," Kasami said, then he hesitated and leaned his head back with a regretful look. The right corner of his lips pulled away with a 'ch' sound, but then he shook his head and said, "I don't really mean that, but the idea of heroes has never been about hero licenses. What makes a hero has nothing to do with a little laminated, thing! Whether or not Lifebringer's a hero isn't up to the government to decide. Sure, whether he's 'technically' a hero, that's up to them. But we all have our own heroes. I'm sure when you were a kid maybe one of your parents was your hero, right?"

"That's different," Bob began.

"It's not though," Kasami countered. "Zach Sazaki, is still Lifebringer to most people. You don't refer to him as such anymore, and I stopped for a while too but I regret that. He returned here to pay for crimes that not one person in this country really blames him over."

"I do," Bob said. Kasami frowned at him deeply, and Bob continued in a serious tone at the younger reporter, "I understand his reasons, but he was wrong. He deserves the punishment he received and more."

"And you're in the vast minority," Kasami said. "Because I don't know anyone else who thinks that way about Lifebringer. The League of Villains has stayed virtually silent since that night. The worst villain group we've seen in this country in decades, and he stopped them. We didn't realize it at the time, and that was because of all of us. The establishment that we are a part of, Bob. We in the media treated what he did as this terrible thing that had no positives, and our government treated it that way too, and it took a while but the longer the League was silent after Kurogiri's death the more our people understood that we said what we had to say. I never wanted to condemn him, and I apologize for cracking under the pressure of telling our people not to believe in him anymore. He was someone we all believed in and I took part in the effort to make people lose faith in him."

"We did that because of good reasons, and you're forgetting about all those reasons because it's been so long," Bob argued. "He wasn't the same person when he killed-"

"How do you know that?" Kasami asked. He leaned forward over the table, "Have you talked to Lifebringer since he came back? You got that exclusive interview with him that told you that he really had 'matured' since he left and that's why he came back? No?" Kasami paused and Bob just frowned at him as the questions were rhetorical and annoying. Kasami continued after a short pause there just to make his point, "Bob, whether he changed or not, that doesn't mean a thing to me anymore. I'm not going to just follow the 'accepted' story that we went with. You want the real news, Bob? What we don't hear because we all said the same story time and time again since that night? The news is that to regular, normal people, Lifebringer is still a hero. But more than that, Lifebringer is their hero."

"What do you mean?" Bob asked, humoring his co-host who was getting very passionate about this.

"He's the Hero of the People," Kasami said. He said it seriously and did not falter at Bob's look, which turned Bob's eyes wide and his expression questioning as he wondered if Kasami really believed that. Kasami continued to the man giving him that questioning look, "Everyone considers heroes as far removed from the rest of us. Only certain kinds of people can be heroes, only the best of the best." Kasami paused and he lifted the corners of his lips as he continued, "Then there's Lifebringer, who makes mistakes and had killed people in situations where normal people expect their heroes would be able to settle it without killing anyone. Then he got tortured and his loved ones killed by villains, and he wasn't heroic enough not to be destroyed by that. His best friend betrayed him, and he lost his…" Kasami shook his head and then continued in an inspired voice, "His mind was broken by the torture, like any of us would have been. So we can see ourselves in Zach Sazaki. Can't you? If you think about what you would have done, do you really think you would have been able to stick to hero values?"

Bob opened his mouth to respond, but he hesitated. In that moment of hesitation Kasami cut back in, "The thing is, only a certain type of people are able to withstand those things without breaking like Sazaki did. And yet he still managed to do a lot of good where most people would have been done. You always put him on a pedestal. You said it yourself, that you expected Lifebringer to be better. You wanted him to be the best, even after all that had happened to him you expected a kid to be able to handle all of that. We all wonder how we would have reacted to the things that had happened to him, we wonder what we would have done if it was our families that had been killed or if we were burdened with the Quirk of Death." Kasami shook his head and then continued strongly at his fellow reporter, "And when I do think of what I would have done in those situations, if all of that had happened to me, I can't see myself doing it better than he did. Despite all that he did wrong, not many of us can look down at Zach Sazaki's life and say that we would have done it better. The scars he has on both body and mind are intense. It's scary to think about all that happened to him before he even turned 18. He was a kid for it all! Yet despite all of this, all these horrible things, Lifebringer does what he thinks is right."

Kasami added after a second, "That's what we heard from All Might that next day after the Lifebringer Incident: that Sazaki killed Kurogiri because he thought it would help people and not for revenge. And though All Might warned us after that not to trust in or believe in Sazaki anymore, I never gave up on him. I always wanted to believe that he would come back some day. I suspected it would be after being arrested or taken down, and instead he surpassed my expectations and returned on his own. At this point, Bob, I know so much about Zach Sazaki, we all do. I feel like I know him personally and wish I could help him. There are a whole lot of people who want to help Lifebringer get back out there, to keep doing what he does- helping people. Bringing back the dead and trying to be a hero and… stopping villains." Kasami smirked as he said the last part, his tone smug and suggesting of something that did not even make sense anymore but was still fun to poke at after a year of speculation.

Bob let out a long sigh after Kasami finished his tirade. The older man hummed and did not just dismiss what his younger colleague said, but he also felt like Kasami got a little too passionate there more than he had hoped for. He figured if he tried to discuss it any longer or deny what Kasami had said was a widespread opinion of Lifebringer, he would get his co-host riled back up again. So instead he said, "Well, it doesn't really matter right now, does it?" Kasami looked back at Bob in surprise at the way he began that, and Bob continued, "We can spend years discussing Zach Sazaki, or Lifebringer's motivations and whether or not he's really deserving of the punishment he received. This will come back up anyway when Lifebringer gets out in 6 years-"

"If you really think," Kasami cut in strongly and with an intense look as he leaned back over the table. Bob's eyes widened and he froze as Kasami continued, "That people are going to settle down about this, you're dreaming." Bob's mouth that had frozen open parted more so he could try and speak, but the surprised man could not get a word in over the younger reporter who continued, "People aren't going to just accept what happened to Lifebringer. He was a kid who got kidnapped and tortured, betrayed and had his family killed… and all he did was kill the ones who had done that to him. And not even for those reasons, but he stopped a man who was responsible for the worst terrorist attack of our lifetimes and who released the worst villains in Tartaros back into the world. He killed villains responsible for killing thousands of people in his home city of Musutafu, ones who tortured him and murdered his family in cold blood. People say that there's no excuse, that there are no special circumstances and no one gets to be treated differently… but that's wrong. There are special cases. And if anyone ever deserved a different set of rules, if anyone deserves to be let free, it's Lifebringer."

"The kid's a hero in my eyes," Kasami finished, looking at the camera as he said his opinion without holding it back at all this time. "Only eighteen and he's already one of the best heroes I've ever seen."

---

Zach had his right hand gripped around the metal shower bar that curved out from the back of his wall. The curtain was pulled all the way to one side so it was out of his way, allowing him to do pull ups on the bar with only one hand that he alternated with every six reps. He stared out through the glass while he was working out, watching the guards on duty who were quiet and staring across the hallway seriously. They didn't seem in the mood to hear a story today. Edo and Neo are usually really into it. Even lately, though I feel like a few were put off by what I told Tachibana after she wanted me to revive that prisoner. So there are a few reasons they might be acting distant.

He switched up hands again and continued doing his pull ups while in his full white prison jumpsuit. Last time they acted anything like this, they were bringing in Twice. Weird. "Hey Jin!" Zach called out loudly, and he continued doing his reps, pulling up and then extending his arm fully with his legs tucked back so they would not touch the floor on his descent.

Jin Bubaigawara sat on the edge of his bed with a book in hand that he was reading slowly. There was no rush while stuck in there for life, so he took his time and just played out what he was reading out in his mind as if it were happening in front of him. He heard the voice he recognized and lowered his book, lifting his head and looking over to the wall between his cell and the cell between his and Sazaki's. "Yeah?" He called out back after a few seconds of wondering what this was going to be about.

"The cells on the other side of yours are all occupied, right?"

Neo and Edo both glanced back into the cell that they were guarding. Zach was staring out at them and just hanging from the bar by his left arm now, staring at them as he listened to Jin call back that he was pretty sure they were occupied. "We don't have any space on this cell block then," Zach said, looking at Edo in confusion which caused the man to shake his head and turn back forward with an exasperated look on his face.

"How'd you-" Neo began, but she cut herself off and humphed at the smirk the inmate gave her. "Well you're wrong anyway," she said, turning back forward like her guard-mate and standing at attention again. "No one's being moved to this cell block. As you said, it's all filled up now with our new addition."

"Then what's with the real formal attitude?" Zach asked. He dropped from the bar and started forward, grabbing his towel to wipe off some sweat as he moved closer to the guards he knew pretty well at this point. "They doing inspections or something through the cameras, gotta pretend we aren't friends?"

"We aren't," Edo said, glancing inwards and back at the prisoner who gave him a skeptical look in response that made him lower his bottom lip. Neo smirked and let out a snort at Edo's look, then she tried shutting her mouth fast as she continued to stand at attention. Edo continued after dropping his lip, "You're our prisoner, and we are tasked with watching you."

"Yeah yeah," Zach waved a hand at him and then tossed his towel back so it landed nicely on the metal bar and folded over it. He turned back with a grin that he made a nice throw, and he stepped up to the Cyn wall and questioned through it, "So if it's not that, then what?" The way they reacted told him that he did not get it right on that try, though he did not expect it was what he questioned with anyway when asking.

Neo looked to her right towards Edo, then she looked back at the boy behind her. "Well," she began. She stopped when Edo looked at her, then she rose her eyebrows at him from behind her visor and said, "Didn't last time he made a big deal out of it? Might want to say something in advance this time," she suggested, though Edo just grimaced more thinking about how intense and nervous he had gotten the last time a new prisoner had been brought in there while he was on guard duty.

"So it is a new prisoner," Zach said, though he sounded a bit confused hinting that he wanted to know why if all the cells on the block were filled up. "What's going on?" Zach asked. "Oh!" He looked to his right at the cell closest towards the side he initially came in on, "Did I miss it and Jenkins finally kicked the bucket? I didn't think the old man's cell would be filled so quick-"

"Oi!" Jenkins already had his book lowered and resting on his chest as he lay on his bed, but the old man who was smiling at Lifebringer's conversation with the guards as he usually did snapped that at the what the kid was saying. Amuno started laughing on Zach's cell's other side, and Twice sat back on his bed with a darker look though he did gain a small smile at the joking tone in that boy's voice he heard.

"Guess not then," Zach said, in a tone like he was mildly surprised that Jenkins responded since he could have been dead.

Edo was still thinking about what Neo said, and he hummed to himself while Sazaki was talking before deciding that she might have had a point. "I don't want you saying anything this time, Inmate," Edo began to the boy behind him without turning around. "This prisoner deserves to be in maximum security for the rest of his life, no parole, no chance of freedom, isolation, the works."

"But he's getting out?" Zach asked.

"No," Neo replied with a quick shake of her head.

"He suddenly gave up a bunch of valuable information," Edo began. "If the info paid off, he was promised certain things. We're keeping our side of the deal because he helped heroes catch some bad escapees. Some of the last few remaining out there, including the one who killed the previous warden."

"Why's he coming through here?" Zach asked, his smile gone and his expression starting to darken.

The guards did not notice the look of the boy behind him who started shifting his eyes back and forth at their backs. Edo continued explaining, "The maximum security level he's coming from is farther in than this one. They're moving him to a general population cell block as he requested. His sentence was not reduced at all, but it's a small improvement for him. Not that he deserves it," Edo added in an annoyed and darker voice.

"He got us the Warden's killer," Neo mentioned in a partially defensive tone.

"And he killed how many heroes in…"

Well, here he comes. As Edo continued in a low voice countering what Neo just said, Zach's eyes shadowed over and his eyes shifted in a dark way at the guards' backs. That confirms it there. Let me guess- "And to get to the gen pop block he's being transferred to, the path is through here," Zach said. His voice was low but not too off-setting, just a knowing voice that Neo nodded with and Edo gave an affirmative response on.

Clunk. Down the cell block to Zach's left, he heard the noise of one of the thick doors unlocking and then the scraping as it opened up.

"How many guards are with him?" Zach asked.

Neo had turned her head to the left for a moment, but she turned back to the prisoner she was supposed to be watching and got a hesitant look on her face while Edo got sweat covering his. Neo did not think as much of it as he did, and she looked back down the hall to the prisoner in a white jumpsuit walking her way inside a box of four prison guards. He had his hands cuffed behind his back and his head pointed straight forward with a calm expression on his face looking like he just wanted to walk through and get to his new destination. "Why?" Neo asked, glancing back at the boy whose expression gave her a more nervous look on her face like Edo had on his.

"You're not thinking of," Edo began, but he frowned and cut himself off. The last time he thought something was up, with Twice, he had been very wrong and almost called in backup for no reason at all. "What's happening?" Edo asked. "What are you doing this time?"

"How many?" Zach repeated.

"Tell me first," Edo said, turning back more to the prisoner and guards heading their way.

Zach turned his head to the left and looked down the hall through the Cyn material to where he caught sight of the first two guards. Two and two probably. It's regular security even on this kind of prisoner? Idiots. You idiots! Zach's expression flattened completely when the front of the white jumpsuit came into sight, and the two guards just outside the glass fully focused on him as they got ready for that prisoner to walk by them.

Click A sound of something clicking filled the hallway and seemed to echo back and forth down it in slow motion. The two guards behind the prisoner lowered their eyes down from the back of his head to his hands, to the cuffs that were falling from his wrists and the cracks that were forming all over his black gloves. Those gloves shattered into pieces while the guards behind him were reaching, one of them for his waist and the other out for the back of the prisoner she was going to send into a deep sleep with her Quirk.

Blue lightning shot back at the two guards behind the prisoner. Turrets dropped out of the ceiling in three different parts along the hallway. The two guards in front were quick to spin around, and one of them had a speed Quirk which had him at the inmate's back before the villain could bring his hands up in front of his body. The zap-stick stabbed into the villain's body, zapped him full of electricity, and then the inmate's eyes glowed bright blue while more lightning shot out of his hands that he rose above him instead of out in front of his body.

"Get back!" Kaitou started shouting at his fellow guard who had been in the front two leading the inmate known as Faith to Cell Block D.

Faith's lightning was not aimed at his fellow guard, but up at the ceiling that the sparks shot into and across the entire block in an instant. The lightning danced around the ceiling and charged into the turrets and cameras all around. The lights turned off and plunged the hall into darkness for a second, before a green flash came out of Neo's skin and illuminated the woman who had a long green tail sticking out of her lower back and curving up with five sharp points breaking out of it.

Another flash of blue came with a spike of blue lightning through Neo's chest with her visor shattering and her helmet falling backwards behind her body. A scream ripped down the hallway as red emergency lights turned on, and emergency doors shut down through the hallway blocking off cell after cell from each other with walls of thick steel falling from the ceiling. The thick steel walls blocked off the hallway in equal gaps by extending from the sides of the cells, and the two walls that dropped down in the hallway in Zach's view slammed into the floor only a couple of seconds after the prisoner tried escaping. The prison's failsafes effectively shut Faith in and prevented him from escaping, while also leaving him stuck face to face with the boy on the other side of the Cyn wall.

Thick steel walls blocked Zach and Faith from the other prisoners whose shouts became quiet and muffled when the walls closed. All of the guards were inside of Zach's blocked-off area. He was glad Faith had waited until it was a sure thing that he would be kept in the same area, and even the two guards behind him had avoided being too far back that they were not squashed by the wall that had fallen from the ceiling. Zach lowered his eyes for a moment in the red-lit hallway, looking down at Edo and Neo's bodies that were unmoving like most of the other guards in there. Only one guard was still moving, and that was Kaitou who was sliding farther away from the villain who was not attacking him but just standing there and looking down at him.

Faith continued to look down into Kaitou's eyes, then he just turned his head without bothering to finish off the guard who froze but cursed himself in frustration that he could do nothing in his intense fear. All he could do was slide farther away and flinch when he touched the cold steel wall behind him. Kaitou looked forward and watched as the prisoner who just killed all his colleagues walked up to the Cyn wall and stopped a meter away from it to look in at the prisoner standing there. Kaitou felt terrified of the villain who had just done all this, and yet at the same time he had seen in his peripheral vision the inmate in that cell for the entire few seconds that all that happened.

Zach didn't flinch. Everything the other inmate just did, Zach stood there without moving a muscle and just stared out at the villain even as the man approached him. He did not look surprised, and Kaitou thought that maybe this was planned out between the two prisoners. He only thought that for a moment though before getting completely thrown off by the way the two were looking at each other. Zach stared at the villain before him in an uncaring way with dark eyes and a blank expression, while Faith hummed with a small knowing smile and a thoughtful look in his eyes. "Lifebringer," Faith began. Zach did not respond, and Faith glanced to his side and up at the corner of Zach's room, then back at the prisoner before him. "I believe I turned off your cell's defense systems as well. Your camera is off and the turrets won't work."

"They wouldn't anyway," Zach said. His voice was low and his eyes darker than the area around them itself even with everything covered in a dark red tint. "It's been a few months, but I guess this is about the time I figured you'd show up."

"You knew I was coming, did you?" Faith asked. He smirked at the teen on the other side of the glass. "And what am I here to do-"

"Of course I saw you coming," Zach said, scoffing and looking aside still with barely any care in his eyes or voice. "If anyone would come to me while I'm down here, it would be you." Faith started to lower his smile, and Zach stared back into his eyes while saying, "Coming up with a way to get yourself marched right past me, turning on the guards in a way that we could have this conversation, all very…" Zach hesitated like he was coming up with a word, maybe 'clever' from the way his tone was sounding. Then his lowered his lips into a deeper frown and just finished sounding like he would rather sigh, "Predictable."

The flinch on the other villain's face was so noticeable that Kaitou pulled back far at the movement. The action unnerved Kaitou, and Faith's eyes darkened with his entire body tensing up in a dark way. Then his lips curved back up at the corners, "I'm predictable, am I? After so long in-"

"You are," Zach responded, not letting the man continue with whatever he was about to rant about. "It's how Lavamander caught you, twenty odd years ago." Faith's eyes darkened again and his fingers twitched at his sides as he glared in at the teenager. "He told me you were predictable, and it's how he got you. As much as you thought you were doing all those random things, he figured you out and caught you. It's the same way they caught you this time too. You're just, predictable."

"If I'm so predictable," Faith started, smirking but grinding his teeth which Zach could see past his parted lips. "Then why are so many of these innocent prison guards dead-"

"Because the cameras were still on," Zach replied. Then the skin under his eyes started to blacken with dark lines that spread out like branches across his face and around the sides of it. His black hair waved up behind his body and darkness wrapped over his white prison jumpsuit. It spread over his skin and his clothes, a black layer so thick that none of Zach's bones showed from inside it. His voice came out lower as he continued, "Because I couldn't just attack another prisoner out of the blue, or I'd get a longer prison sentence, and you'd still get a comfier one." Zach's eyes turned red and flared as his entire body covered in a thick black aura that got more violent around him each second.

Kaitou could not breathe as he looked in at that dark form making everything around them darker as he blocked off the emergency lights in his own cell. He turned half of what they could see into a darkness unlike anything Kaitou had seen before, but Faith was the one who was really losing it with his expressions turning furious then calm and then confused and full of rage at the teen in front of him. He opened his mouth but the deep scratchy voice came out first, "You're predictable, X. I knew you would come. And whatever you wanted to say doesn't matter," Zach's dark aura shot forward and straight at the slot that he had his food passed to him through. The darkness rushed at that slot so fast that it pushed through all the cracks and shot at the villain on the other side of the Cyn who darted his eyes down at the slot that he did not even realize he was standing in front of as it just blended in with the rest of the wall when not being used.

In the moment that Faith looked down at it, he could see that the position Lifebringer had been standing in from the moment they came in sight of each other was the perfect location for his darkness to rush through that into where he was now currently standing. Blue lightning sparked out at the darkness, but Death rushed around to the sides and curved in even as some electricity pushed against the parts that flooded straight at him. Tendrils of darkness slammed into Faith's sides and took him off his feet, collapsing him to the ground and then pulling away so he would not kill that villain. Zach stared through glowing red eyes at the villain laying unmoving on the floor, then he looked around at all the other bodies out there.

"Kaitou," Zach said, his voice still low and scratchy. "Check their pulses," Zach ordered the guard who out of the ones who had a shift watching him was always the most apprehensive towards him. Kaitou blinked a few times still in shock while staring in at that ominous dark figure, then he glanced at the others all laying around him. "Tell me if they're really dead, and I'll revive them from in here." Zach continued to push out more darkness through the slot in his cell, and all of it was collecting just on the other side of the Cyn in a huge black mass awaiting instructions. Zach's red eyes were cold and his skull expression started to show through the thinning dark veil in front of his face. Kaitou looked at that face that scared him more than anything he had seen in his entire life, and he listened as the boy finished, "I want to bring them back."

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A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think/ predictions or questions for the future!

Cat not a person chapter 138 . Feb 9

This is my favorite story and this is my second favorite chapter in the story after the one where Zach leave class 2-A keep
P.S first review on chapter 138 for the win

Awesome! Really glad this is your favorite story, and I'm happy you liked the last chapter (it was a ton of fun coming up with). And lol thanks for the first review XD

xilios2000 chapter 138 . Feb 10

If zach used his right hand on godzilla would it kill him or would godzilla resist it. What about cthulu or even better alucard from hellsing or thanos with the infinity gauntlet

I've seen no reason to believe that it wouldn't kill any of them. So... sure!

WomanSlayer chapter 138 . Feb 10

Brilliant. This is so brilliant.

Thanks! Glad you're liking it!

Mark chapter 138 . Feb 10

Well, that's enough internet for today...*BA DUM TSSS*

Hahaha nice