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!

146. Chapter 146

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 146:

"You guys sure this is a good idea?" Mineta asked, looking to his left and up at most of his friends. For Hagakure he did not have to look up, though then again he would not be able to look at her anyway so he was still looking up at Ojiro, Sero, and Koda who were walking with him down a sidewalk of a residential neighborhood of a large city. "It's only been a day since he moved in, maybe we shouldn't just pop by so suddenly-"

"It's because it's only been a day!" Hagakure exclaimed back at the boy who was having second thoughts when they were so close already. "That's why it's called a 'housewarming' party. Even though this isn't a party, but still!"

What does 'house-warming' have to do with it being… I never really understood that phrase. Sero leaned back as he walked, putting his hands up behind his head and pressing his head back into them with his round elbows out to the sides. "What was this, a three hour trip? That's not too bad." Sero glanced up at the sky where the sun was high up above them though partially hidden as it was partly cloudy today. They had left that morning from the dorm and it was not feeling as cold anymore, though it was still jacket weather early in January and they were all dressed warmly.

Below a floating light-blue wool beanie, Hagakure turned her head to the muscular boy on her right side whose left arm she had both of hers held in the crook of as she held herself close to him on the walk. "Imagine he's not even there after we came all this way?"

Ojiro chuckled with a nod, as that would be something. He had a bead of sweat rolling down his face though which got cold and made him wipe it away so it would not freeze in the below-freezing temperatures. You're the one who insisted we keep it a surprise. I feel like that was a bad idea for a lot of reasons, but him not being there would definitely be bad.

"He said he was just hanging out the last time I texted him," Sero said, pulling his phone back out of his pocket in his black winter glove. He checked the message again but then pocketed his phone instead of sending a new one. "It's just up ahead," Sero said, waving a hand down the street and around a bend to where he was pretty sure the building would be after that last check.

"You guys think we're safe here?" Mineta asked. The others looked over to him, and they saw the short boy looking around up near the tops of the buildings around them. "Those guys who shot Zach could be around here, don't you think?"

"Well I do now!" Hagakure exclaimed back at the boy who just gave her chills at the idea.

"If they're going to do anything," Sero said, holding up a palm as he offered this up. "They wouldn't when there are another five heroes there to help Zach out. If anything, us being here makes it even safer. Okay?" Sero looked towards Mineta as he asked, and the shorter boy sighed and nodded, wiping his forehead of the sweat he had made form there with his own paranoid questions.

Koda watched Sero try and calm Mineta down there, but he did lag back a little and look up towards a black bird that flew down to him when he gave it a look. He rose a hand while his four classmates were still in front of him and walking down the sidewalk without noticing what their larger classmate was doing. Koda lifted his wrist where the bird landed up near his right ear and nodded his head a few times before whispering something back at the crow and releasing it into the air again.

Ojiro had his head turned partially to the side to talk to Hagakure, though his eyes did shift back at Koda when the larger boy was heading closer to them again. Koda met Ojiro's gaze for a moment and instead of getting flustered that he was noticed, Koda just shook his head in a way telling his classmate that there was nothing they needed to be worried about. Ojiro felt reassured that Koda thought so, and he agreed with Sero more confidently to his girlfriend as they continued down the road of Yutapu City towards their friend's new apartment.

The group of five U.A. third-years approached a building at the address Zach had given Sero the day before when they were texting about how far Zach's place was from the school he decided on. So much had happened in that single day that Sero had been texting Zach for over an hour and was still shocked by how much Zach said he had done with getting his license, getting accepted to Shiketsu, moving, etc. "Did he tell you what room number he got?" Mineta asked, figuring he probably should have asked it earlier after Sero told them he knew where Zach lived.

"Second floor," Sero started. "Room 13 I think. He said it was the same as his number in class."

"Let's go up then," Hagakure said, pushing forward to keep everyone moving along. It had been a long morning and despite sitting the whole train ride, she wanted to rest again and mainly just get out of the cold.

Zach sat in his bedroom on the edge of the queen mattress that still felt too comfortable under him even after sleeping on it the night before. He had his phone lifted up and held sideways in front of him, and he was on the device's settings looking at a list of the makeup and internal components the phone was built-in with. He scrolled down the settings to options he could pick for location trackers, and he checked to make sure they were all still off. If someone turned it on, would they really not have a way to flip those settings off too? Why does it matter? Anyone who wants to find me can find me. This doesn't even matter.

He took in a deep breath and then spread his fingers out on the screen which showed him all the different apps he had open at the moment. He tapped on another one, skipping over his music that was playing with a pair of headphones in his ears at a low volume. Zach unlocked his bank app and he leaned back on his bed that had a new sheet and comforter over it that he put on after flipping the mattress over. As he looked through his bank account and the transaction history connected with it, he scooted back and forth on the bed looking for a better spot with more springs so he was not sinking as far down. There was a lump in his blanket where it rode up too much that he slid himself over, and he had to lift his butt for a second to flatten it back out and then drop down with a frown at how uncomfortable it was.

I need to go do something. What? Walking around right now will just mean I have to go smile and wave. Do I have anything to buy? It's not like I need much. I lived on a single pair of clothes for a year. The place is really nice too. I should save the money Aunt Maye left me for something important. Zach frowned and looked closer at the exact amount his savings account had and then the checking account that he had opened up and split half of his money into. I'll connect the savings account to Arkitock and- Zach's eyes narrowed and his head spun. He pocketed his phone while getting off his bed, and he darted out into his hallway that his bedroom door way open to.

Zach made it into his living room and facing his front door before anyone had knocked. He heard their voices on the other side though and his right fist lost its black color and unclenched from a fist. Great. I was hoping they'd come. Sero tried making it seem like he was just curious, but I was hoping… Knock Knock. "Coming," Zach said. He leaned his head closer to his couch while calling it out, like he had been sitting on it which he figured they would guess once he had opened the door. Doing so made him grind his teeth for a second at something he remembered Jirou saying to him the day before, but he shook his head and returned to a calmer expression by the time he grabbed at his doorknob.

Zach opened the door and he smiled at the group just outside his door. "Happy housewarming!" Hagakure called out, jumping up and holding out a bag of drinks and snacks. There were sodas and chips in the bag, and a couple of the others had bags with them too that had sandwiches and finger food. Hagakure hummed to herself after jumping up at him, and she said to the taller boy on the other side of the door, "You don't look very surprised."

"I have a peephole," Zach said, nodding to his side at the door.

"Well you could at least act surprised," Sero said, while walking forward and making Zach move out of the way. Zach stepped to the side to open up his doorway without inviting the group in, though Sero thought nothing of it and was looking around the place as soon as he stepped inside. "You found something like this in a day? It's dope."

"You guys can come in," Zach mentioned, looking back out at the group who did not just all follow Sero right inside, though Mineta was already walking forward when Zach said it over his head.

"I can't believe you have your own place," Mineta said. Then he shivered and reached up a hand to rub his head nervously, "In only a few months we're all going to have to… brrr," Mineta rubbed his arms in apprehension of that day. Rubbing his arms like that though after stepping into a heated home made him sweat and he started unzipping his jacket. "Hey Zach, mind if I," Zach looked towards him, and Mineta already tossed his jacket onto the couch back, then pointed at it as if asking if that was a good place for it.

"This place really is, nice," Ojiro said after stepping in too. He looked around at the walls that were not chipping paint or anything, though the palish-yellow walls did look faded and old. The floor had carpeting over all of it, and though there were a couple of noticeable darker patches where there were stains, it looked pretty nice. Zach had his shoes laying near the door just at the edge of his open laundry closet that had a wood floor unlike the rest of the main room. "Put our shoes here?" Ojiro asked, motioning at the wood floor.

"Yeah, sure," Zach said. He looked around at the five and then back at Koda who was the last one to enter his apartment and stopped just inside.

Koda met Zach's gaze and the two locked eyes for a few seconds. Then Koda looked back behind him out the apartment again, and then back to Zach who he asked, "Want me to close the door?" Zach smiled more as he thought Koda was hesitating there for too long or thinking about something, and he just nodded at the taller boy with a bumpy rock-shaped head who turned back to close the door for the host who had moved a little away from it to make room for his guests.

"Hope you don't mind us dropping by all of a sudden," Hagakure started while standing in front of Zach, looking even shorter now after taking off her boots. She reached up and took her wool hat off too, as she continued, "But we wanted to see your new place!"

"And see how you're settling in," Sero added, looking back over from the edge of Zach's kitchen. He had walked around the counter to the tile floor in the small kitchen space over there, and he felt he had seen most of the apartment in only a few seconds after. "You like this place?" Sero asked. "Feels a little cramped if you ask me."

"It's bigger than your dorms," Zach countered, and Sero cracked a smirk for a moment before shrugging acceptingly as Zach did have a point there. Zach looked around at the other four who were more gathered around him and weren't just walking around his place freely like Sero was doing. "You guys want to sit?" Zach asked, motioning at his sitting area on the left of the entrance looking in. He moved around the couch so the others could come over and sit down, and Sero frowned as he got back over since the couch was taken up by Ojiro, Hagakure, and Koda, and Mineta sat on the recliner.

"Let's grab folding chairs," Zach said, motioning back at his kitchen table where there were only two more chairs for his whole apartment. He waved off Ojiro and Koda when they offered to let him sit on the couch, as they had sat expecting Zach to take the recliner only for Mineta to grab what looked like the nicest chair in there first. As Zach walked over towards his kitchen table with Sero, he thought, Good thing it was only five people. I guess, Zach thought it but realized he did not mean it, and he thought about the others who did not come for a second. "Ashido didn't want to come?" Zach asked, looking next to him at the other tall black-haired boy who he figured would have invited her.

Mineta looked over his shoulder around the back of his recliner chair. Sero started to respond with how Ashido had to take make-up exams because of bad grades at the end of the last semester, but Mineta chided over, "Sero and Ashido had a thing and now it's weird."

"It's not weird," Sero retorted back at Mineta with an annoyed look.

Zach had his eyebrows risen though at Sero after hearing what Mineta said. Didn't notice when they were at the hospital. It didn't seem weird to me.

"It's really not," Hagakure agreed with a roll of her eyes that no one could see but they all felt was implied. "Mina doesn't think it's weird either. They're friends again."

"'Again?'" Zach asked, glancing back next to him at Sero as he unfolded his chair out on his carpet to make a circle with his classmates. Sero sweatdropped as he put his chair down between Zach and Mineta, putting Zach between him and Koda at one end of the couch. "So it was for a little?"

"Yea-ah," Sero slowly dragged the word out, thinking of how he could describe it. "Things really were awkward for a bit, I admit." The others besides Zach looked at Sero in some surprise that he was talking about it, but the confusion went away as he was looking at Zach as he talked. It was something the other four had noticed, but Sero wanted Zach to know about it to lessen the gap between the rest of them, to let Zach in on what their lives had been like while he was gone. The others had not heard him talk about it before, but it had also been a while and did not feel awkward to Sero anymore so he didn't care. He grinned and leaned back on his chair and added, "I think we were really only connecting 'cause the two of us were the only ones not totally upset when you left."

Zach rose his eyebrows up high, while the others looked at Sero in surprise too but also like they understood it since they did remember how those two reacted compared to the rest of them. Sero continued, "We connected over that I think, because we both would rather talk about what you were doing then instead of what you had already done. I think we should've just stayed friends though, and Ashido agrees." Sero hesitated for a moment and then mentioned, "We still spar now though. I think when we started up again that's what finally ended things being awkward." We never got to finish that first time in the park. I'm glad we decided to have that spar, when things were still so weird. They'd been weird for too long, but we worked that shit out through the fight.

"I'm glad you did," Hagakure mentioned, breaking the short silence that she felt was getting awkward in itself. "You and Mina being weird with each other made everything feel so, blech," Hagakure stuck out her tongue just trying to describe that awkward feeling in class those days.

"Ashido's gonna be pretty disappointed," Mineta mentioned, grinning at the others who he figured she'd get madder at than him that they came here without her.

Koda got a nervous bead of sweat rolling down his face as he imagined Ashido yelling at him for this. "Well it's not my fault she bombed her classes last term," Hagakure said, crossing her arms defensively. She turned back to Zach and said, "It's yours."

"Mine-" Zach's eyes widened, and he grimaced while lowering his eyes back down. Shit. Her grades dropped because of that?

Sero saw Zach look down, but instead of backing off the subject he added on, "Spent too much of her free time distracted by stuff outside of school. Protests and rallies and such," Sero said, hinting it hard at Zach who nodded in understanding. "It's probably thanks to her you're out right now."

"Some of us helped too," Hagakure added. "But yeah, Mina went all out."

Mineta got a nervous look on his face and looked away feeling strange. I didn't want my grades to slip…

"You want to eat?" Ojiro asked, changing the subject while also lifting the bag and reminding his friends that they had been traveling all morning and had yet to eat their lunches.

"We made you a ham and cheese?" Hagakure said excitedly, though she ended with her tone raising up like she was asking if that was okay.

"Sounds great," Zach replied. They probably haven't left the bag with sandwiches out of their sight since they made them. I should ask. Would they be offended? I can't ask one of them to take a bite of mine- what if all of them are poisoned though, because the person who poisoned them doesn't know which one would be mine? Did anyone even know they were coming? I didn't even know, for sure, so how would assassins have planned this? "You made the sandwiches yourselves?" Zach asked while reaching out and taking the baggie with his sandwich from the invisible girl reaching it out to him.

"Yup," Sero said while getting his own sandwich tossed to him by Ojiro. "Kept a close eye on them too. Don't need to worry about any assassins or anything."

Zach nodded at Sero in thanks for saying that, which made Mineta stare at the two of them with wider eyes as he thought Sero was being too over-the-top or even making a joke about that. He gulped as he had to remind himself again that there could be villains coming after Zach even now, but he curled his hands tighter into the sides of his sandwich. I'm a hero! Get a grip. Zach deals with this every second of the day, I can deal with it for a couple hours!

The group started eating and Zach asked them about their trip there. It was Sunday so the trains were not very crowded, but Zach kept a close track of their journey to set a base time for it in his mind, plus or minus ten minutes. As Mineta started talking about looking out for assassins on the roofs near Zach's place, there was a knock at the door that made everyone spin to it with wide eyes considering their line of conversation. They all relaxed after jumping, even Zach, as it felt weird that someone trying to kill Zach would come and knock on his door.

"Want me to-" Ojiro began, putting his hands down on his sides on the couch cushion. He pulled his right hand back up after getting pricked by a piece of the fabric that was rough and scratchy without a cover on it, and he put his hands back on his lap instead since Zach had already gotten up and waved him off.

Zach stepped up to his front door and he looked through the peephole this time. His friends were too loud to be able to hear who it was who approached, but when Zach looked out he did not see anyone there. His eyes shifted down, and his expression darkened which made the others looking over at him get nervous looks on their faces. "What is it?" Sero asked.

Zach lightened his look as he glanced back, then he turned to the door, then he hummed and opened the door up. "It's a package," Zach said. Why did we have to be talking about that kind of stuff? I'd have to be careful of it anyway, but why when my friends are here? And could the villains really find me so quickly? Of course they could, if they're set up enough. Doesn't look like a bomb box though. Zach lifted the box and he glanced back at his former classmates who were all still stuck on their previous conversation too.

"Want to open it?" Sero asked, a grin spread over his face as he leaned forward in his seat. He looked around at the others who all spun to him, and he said, "We all know how to defuse bombs, right? We'll be fine!"

"Y-Yeah," Mineta agreed, trying to stop look so nervous himself. "Plus, what are the odds it's even anything bad?" He said it jokingly, but there was the slightest amount of hesitation in his voice that made it sound like he actually wanted those odds.

Zach walked over with the box, They're heroes. We're all heroes. We can take care of ourselves and each other. The odds are small, Mineta. Smaller than you. Zach relaxed himself with the joke in his own head, though he then reminded himself of how Mineta had grown since the last time they saw each other, and the odds being smaller than him did not make them too improbable anymore. "Thought it might be from Shiketsu," Zach mentioned, as he placed the box down on the floor in front of his seat. I haven't revived any of them before. I could probably block some of the blast too, if I hear something clicking in there. I have to be careful not to get blown into them though or I won't be able to revive- stop thinking so darkly! It's going to be fine. This is a good day. It's just a good package.

"What are they sending you?" Ojiro asked.

"Your uniform?" Hagakure replied to Ojiro while still asking as a question since she did not know.

Zach nodded at her question though, while still looking over the box that he turned on its side and then upside-down. Oh. Ohhhh. Zach lowered the box back down to the floor and he rose his left hand that he rubbed back through his messy black hair less spiky than it was when he went out. Really wish this had come at some other time. Why does everyone feel the need to surprise me with stuff? If one of you could have told me- well even if they had told me when they were coming it wouldn't matter if the other was still coming by surprise. I didn't plan out leaving with anyone else though. Yet since it hasn't bee very long, I should have guessed. Zach hummed, and he looked around at the others who gave him odd looks at his new expression.

"What is it?"

"Well," Zach hesitated, and his hesitation was making his classmates feel stranger about the box but also about Zach now as it seemed he knew what it was but did not want to open it in front of them. Although someone not wanting to open their mail in front of other people was not uncommon, it being Zach made them start to feel what was in the box might be something they were not supposed to see. "I don't think it's a bomb," Zach finished. "It's from a friend," Zach looked back at the box, and he reached his right hand down to the top of it. A knife slid out of Zach's sleeve and into his hand. He flipped the blade and stabbed it down through the tape, and he dragged the steel across the top of the box before flipping the knife again and sliding it back up into his sleeve in a single motion.

Zach reached both hands down and pulled the flaps of the cardboard box up. He was not hesitating to show them what was inside which made them feel somewhat relieved, though he was also showing them something a 'friend' had sent to him which made them nervous again. That, and the fact that he had a knife hidden up the sleeve of his black long-sleeved shirt that he was not going to refer to or anything. "Do you just carry around a knife, everywhere?" Mineta questioned.

"Around my own house at least," Zach replied with a grin. He opened the box and turned it to pull the other flaps open and press them down on the outsides too. In doing so he brought everyone's attention to the box, stopping any of them from noticing how he did not actually answer Mineta's question nor lie about it. "Now let's see what I've got. I really wasn't expecting a care package so soon after moving in," he mentioned so his friends would know he was seeing all this for the first time too.

"You didn't ask for them to send it to you once you got out of jail?" Sero asked, looking to Zach to see if that was what he was saying.

Zach shook his head back at the other boy and then they both looked down into the box together. Sero scooted his chair forward more, and Mineta sat on the edge of his recliner as the others sat near the edge of the couch. Koda stayed pulled back a bit, but he leaned forward a second later with wide eyes as Zach pulled something bright out of the box. He lifted up the bright blue costume, with green highlights on his shoulders, waist, and around the cool symbol in the middle of it. There was red on the back in lines that cut up and then down near his shoulder-blades around his front and up to the green shoulder-plates. Bright colors, huh? It does go better with the image I'm trying to make. This is just for show, though I'm sure its got its own cool features-

"Cool!" Hagakure exclaimed, jumping off the couch after staring in surprise at the costume for a few seconds. "You have a costume already?!"

"That thing looks," Mineta started hesitantly. "Bright," he finished, and he smirked towards Zach who he could not really see wearing something like it now. Zach was in all black as it was which fit him so much more that none of the others had even paid attention to it when they came in that he was all in black. "You should try it on!"

Zach looked towards Mineta, then back down into the box that he reached into and pulled the pants up out of too. He looked at the bottom part of the costume that was equally bright as the first part, then back down and at some other things inside the box he had to get to including the belt of the costume. He frowned and lowered the costume down to his lap, and he hummed with one corner of his lip farther down and a thoughtful look on his face. His eyes got a darker tint to them, his irises shifting somewhat red for a moment, a very brief moment in which Zach thought about full six sentences. "I can probably try it on now, but I can't go out in it. I'll have to get it registered first."

"Who made it for you?" Ojiro wondered, looking back up at Zach's face after staring at the costume and inside the box at everything that had been sent to him.

"I made friends while I was gone," Zach replied. "Some who feel like they might owe me, some who might have had their hero costumes stolen from them by villains."

Koda opened his mouth, but he froze which made Zach look to him and give him an easygoing look to make sure Koda thought he could speak up. "I thought," Koda began in his high-pitched voice. "You went to a different world, right?"

Zach nodded at the larger boy who was still bulkier than him but not by as much as a few years ago. "But I was here for a while too. I spent more than half of the actual time I was gone fighting the Doorway woman across realms. There were also several months I spent here though-"

"What do you mean by 'actual time?'" Hagakure asked.

"Yeah?" Mineta added, as he caught that but didn't want to interrupt Zach to ask about it until Hagakure did.

"Well," Zach hesitated for a moment. He looked like he was having trouble explaining it, and he started in a slow voice, "I spent about seven months in Terra after I went through that first doorway. But when I left Terra, and I went to the next world where I came out of a portal on board a spaceship, that world's time ran differently to the others. The Empress told me herself later on, and I figured out how in that universe she was known to have been the ruler for millennia, because each time she left that world and spent a day in another, a year would pass there. So even though I spent another nine months there," Zach paused while his friends stared at him with shocked looks. "When I got back here, it was still only the seven months I was in Terra for… along with maybe an extra day or so."

"So it wasn't, thirteen months for you?" Ojiro asked, trying to wrap his head around this. "But twenty-two?"

"Yeah," Zach replied, though his voice got softer there and his eyes unfocused. Nine months? Time, didn't keep moving. Shattered. Three months? Two months twenty nine days, is what I told Gentle. That time now, just feels like a blur. Because it was nothing. Just thoughts. For… "That's why," Zach started, refocusing as he noticed a strange look and then where his own thoughts had wandered to. "To me it feels like I wasn't here for that long, even though it would be more like half the actual time I was gone."

"And that other world had spaceships?" Mineta brought up, leaning so far in his recliner he was almost falling out of it.

Zach nodded towards the short boy, but his eyes shifted back into the box and he reached down and grabbed a golden belt from inside it. He lifted it up and turned the belt over while saying, "I learned how to pilot one. Quirks were more rare in that second world, but warfare was more focused around technology." Zach pressed a button on the side of his belt, which made a black material pop out of it and harden after flapping up above the belt. It hardened into the shape of a hilt, and Zach grabbed the weapon and pulled a blade with black steel below the hilt out from the belt. He brought the knife back in front of him, and he ran his left thumb over the end of the blade and to the tip that he pressed his finger into a little too hard.

"Hey!" Hagakure was worried he was going to cut himself doing that, but when Zach moved his left hand away there were no cuts in his skin. Some black wisp disappeared on the tip of his finger that had turned to darkness as he was dragging the knife just to be safe. "Oh, sorry," Hagakure realized she had no reason to shout right there and she leaned back into her seat.

"All that stuff looks, pretty expensive," Sero mentioned. "You have to pay for any of it?"

"I think it's a gift," Zach replied with a small smile.

"What else is in there?" Hagakure asked, leaning back forward and looking into the box along with the others. Zach piled up the parts of his costume on his side outside of the box, and he looked around the bottom of the box where there were a lot of other things laying and smaller boxes inside of the main one. There were some things wrapped in bubble wrap showing they were more fragile, and Zach opened up one of those above the box for everyone to see.

"A watch?" Mineta asked, staring at the black device in some confusion at why it was wrapped up so much.

Zach smirked and he tossed the bubble wrap to his side. He unclasped the watch and put his left hand through it, then he tightened it comfortably but tightly to his wrist. Let's see, Zach turned his wrist over and he looked at the face of the watch too which had a digital reading of the time on it. He stood up from his chair and the others looked at him in more confusion at what he was doing, until he opened up his hand with all his fingers spread far apart, then clenched into a tight fist while pushing his hand out. The top of the watch opened up, as did the edges of it farthest forward on his wrist closer to his hand. Wires and steel supports unbent from inside the main part of the watch in the middle and stretched down over the top of his hand, as did black material from inside what had looked like a thick strap because of what was inside it.

"No way," Mineta's eyes were huge and he stared at Zach's hand as the material spread to cover all of it giving him a glove over his left. The glove hardened and the wires over the tops of his fingers glowed blue.

Zach curled his fingers in a couple of times and then turned his hand over and looked at a darker black circle on the center of his palm compared to the rest of the glove. He made that circle glow blue with a clench of a couple fingers, and he loosened them which got that light to go down. It's got the same control specs as my old suit, but it does feel slicker on the inside, and curling my fingers is easier. The ease of the transition too between no cover and glove was smooth.

"How did you do that?" Hagakure asked in amazement. "What kind of, support gear is that?" She leaned even closer to look at the glove from close up in case she was missing something to explain what just happened.

"I'm sure Hatsume'd go nuts over it," Sero said, chuckling at the thought while still staring at Zach's glove in awe himself. How did it do that? How did he- that looked like some science fiction right there.

"The material itself is Quirk-finished," Zach explained. "This glove, and probably parts of the costume too," he turned his glove over and then looked back to his side at the rest of his costume down on the floor. "It means that someone with a Quirk that can affect material such as fabric and make it harder used their Quirk on this stuff. It's someone with a Quirk that lasts in perpetuity too, in such a way that other people can decide how to control their own clothes-"

"That's too crazy!" Mineta exclaimed.

"Well I doubt they felt it was all that great a Quirk," Zach countered. "As it wouldn't have helped much with them fighting or saving people, but with a lot of places around the world allowing Quirks to be used for regular jobs now outside of hero work, technology like this shouldn't be too futuristic for long. There's also the possibility the fabric material itself was created with someone's Quirk already with those properties inherently designed into them, or maybe someone had a Quirk that allowed them to alter animals or plants where the fabrics came from to make sheep with special wool or cotton plants that can make hard-cotton cloths."

"Are all those actually options?" Ojiro asked. At first he felt like there was some sort of trick to it, but the more possibilities Zach listed the more shocked he was getting. "Could all those Quirks…" he stopped himself, and he thought about it for a second which stopped him from needing to finish anyway.

"I wish Japan would allow broader Quirk use," Mineta muttered. "I want one of those. You did get it mailed in from abroad, right?"

Zach nodded, "Yeah. I didn't really make a lot of friends in Japan that year I was away."

"Two years," Sero corrected, checking if Zach forgot what he told them before.

"For me maybe," Zach countered without pause. "But it was only a year that I was away from Japan, even if in my experience it was longer. Time is a man-made construct, so I don't get to decide how long I was away for-"

"That's hurting my head," Ojiro mentioned, wanting them to get back off the time subject that he had been happy to ignore before.

Zach laughed and he looked back into the box. He tapped a button on his wrist of his left hand that made his glove pull back inside the watch that regained its original appearance too, then he took the watch off and placed it down with the costume next to him. "I'll have to get that registered too," he explained. Really, anything that could be considered a weapon I'll need to get registered. Including this, Zach unwrapped another thing of bubble wrap and he lifted up an arm that the others all gawked at. It was covered in skin and had scars on it that looked very familiar to his male classmates; a left arm from the shoulder all the way down to the hand. "And this," Zach said, nonchalantly placing it back on top of the pile on his right without making any bigger note of it.

"Umm, what?" Sero looked at Zach and awaited an explanation.

Zach glanced at Sero, then down at his own left arm, then back up and he rose his eyebrows at his classmate who opened his eyes huge at the silent message. Zach looked back into the box without talking about it, and the others who were all staring at him in shock felt so unsettled by how he just moved on because it felt like they weren't supposed to ask any questions about it now. As Zach reached in and took out a black grappling gun, he thought, Couldn't bring that into prison with me. Had to get a nice, regular replacement. It would have been considered a weapon with the tech I've got in there.

"Wonder what's in here?" Zach mentioned, pulling out another box from inside the main box. He ripped the tape off this time without pulling out a knife first, as he wanted to get to the next thing quickly to get the others' minds off of what they just saw. When he opened up the smaller box though, Zach sweatdropped and grimaced which got everyone looking closer at it. They all saw what he was doing trying to get their minds off it, but the way he reacted made it seem like he would have rather they talk about the arm.

"What is it?" Mineta asked, wondering what could be crazier than what they had seen already.

Zach was hesitant to lower the box back in front of him, but he also did not think he could get away with just closing it up and sliding it away. The others were already starting to look at him suspiciously, though showing them what was inside only made that suspicion worse as the group gawked at the stacks of bills in that box. Zach reached inside and he pulled a wad of cash out held together by a rubberband. "Huh," he muttered, flipping through the bills while a bead of sweat slid down his face. I didn't ask for this. I can deal with my own money problems. I have some cash and I would get more than enough in a few months- this is ridiculous. There's so much here. Do they want to put suspicion on me or something? Idiots. I'm fine. The costume's great. Thanks for sending me stuff. I love you guys. But come on, Zach rose his eyes and glanced around at his classmates who all looked back up at him from the money.

The stacks of ten thousand yen bills added up. The conversion of yen to US dollars which Zach had been using while abroad for most of the time was ten thousand yen for one hundred dollars. So having four full stacks of them was tens of thousands of dollars Zach just got in a box. "'Huh?'" Sero repeated, looking at Zach with his eyes still huge but his eyebrows rising even higher at the way Zach reacted to what he just received. "And we thought it was a bomb," Sero said, joking yet still with his eyes huge.

"Well, I did help some rich people," Zach explained slowly. He scratched his head uncertainly, and he lowered the box back down and into the bigger one. "I guess they wanted to help me get back on my feet?"

"You don't have another explanation?" Ojiro wondered. He asked it not as much like he thought Zach's reason was bad, but just that he thought Zach would have an excuse ready since he had been answering most things they had asked him so far right away. Zach shook his head though which made Ojiro frown more as he felt like the explanation made sense but was not very thought out. People know Zach doesn't have a family, and now that he's out of jail he does need money, so if he helped someone and they wanted to pay him back… I get it. It makes sense. He doesn't seem that sold on it though. Maybe, he just doesn't feel like he should be getting paid for the things he was doing?

He was a vigilante, not a hero, Hagakure thought. So he can't really get paid for stuff like that, but if it's sent as a "gift" then there's no harm, right? The sight of so much hard cash made Hagakure feel uneasy. Her lips felt dry and she reached for a bag and a soda. Hagakure paused as she was grabbing one though, and she turned to Zach and asked, "You want a drink? We have sodas and juice."

The others all looked to Hagakure, and Zach stared at her in surprise for a few seconds before nodding and smiling. "I'll take a cola. Thanks."

Mineta relaxed and sat back in the recliner again. What a package. It's like a starter kit for living alone as a hero. At least he keeps mentioning registering all his stuff. I wonder where it all came from though… but since he keeps saying 'friends' and not being specific about it, he doesn't want to tell us. Because he doesn't trust- no, it's because just talking about secrets when he doesn't need to is stupid. It got people he cared about killed. I get that. Zach's just, not going to tell us everything. That's fine. As long as, there isn't something really crazy still in that box. Mineta's eyes shifted back to the box and the bottom of it where there were a few more parcels yet to be unpacked.

Is the Army of Death trying to support him? Koda thought, giving Zach a hesitant look as Zach smiled again and took a soda from Hagakure. Or did he set this up before he even came back? Did he ask them to send him his things, in six months, because he knew he would get out of prison? Or did he contact them after he got out? Is he still, one of them? He's one of them and he just came here to, what? Go undercover? That makes sense. What for though? Or what if he's really not, and he never was? And this really is just something some friend of his sent him?

"Well let's finish looking through this thing," Sero suggested, as they had all gotten quiet there for a few seconds. "I want to see what those other cool tech things do." Sero leaned forward looking down into the box at other parts laying around. He glanced at Zach to see if it was alright and Zach gave him a nod, so Sero leaned down and grabbed a visor from next to the box that Zach put back inside with all the money in it. Sero lifted the visor and held it up in front of his face with a curious gaze, then he said as he felt a button under his right thumb, "What happens if I do this-" he pressed the button and the top of the visor opened to make a hard part shoot out and curve to make a round dome of a helmet.

"Couldn't just have a regular helmet?" Mineta remarked, a bead of sweat on the side of his face at how impressive all this tech was even when it seemed to be for no reason.

Zach held out a hand and Sero handed the helmet off to him before reaching down to grab something else out from the box. "Let's see," Zach put the helmet down over his head and he glanced around his old classmates. He reached up and tapped a button on the side of it, "Thermal, night vision," he tapped again, and again in a way that put a targeting system up marking the other five people in the room with him. He tapped a couple more times to get it back to normal, then he tapped a button on the other side and saw a syncing symbol searching for a device to pair to. "Oh," Zach reached down for his phone, but he hesitated and thought about something he had already seen in the box but was holding off on grabbing. I should toss the phone. If someone's tracked it already then it's too late, but the untraceable one is better to sync to the helmet anyway as there's less a chance of it being hacked.

Zach reached out and pulled a bubble wrap out from the bottom of the box which revealed the cardboard beneath as there was nothing left under it. He could see the phone through it already, but he unwrapped the device and then lifted up the slick new phone that he pressed his thumb on the front of which opened it up. He tapped a few different buttons and then saw the green light on his visor showing it had connected. Then Zach retracted his helmet back into the visor that he removed from his face, and he put it on top of the pile of his costume things. Zach pocketed his phone though, and he mentioned casually as he did, "I'll text you guys with the new one in a little. You can change your contact info- or maybe just add it as a second phone, since I think I'll keep the first one."

"Keeping two phones again?" Mineta asked with a grin.

"Why not? No need to return the one I just bought," Zach replied. He motioned back at the box and smirked, "Considering how rich I am."

Mineta laughed, and Sero chuckled too. Ojiro did not feel like it was much of a joke though. He looked hesitantly at Zach for what he just said for several reasons. The source of that money, the real reason Zach wanted two phones, and the fact that the money they saw did not actually make Zach rich. He can probably easily get more from whoever sent him this though. Yet, maybe he's saying he's rich just because of that money alone, because Zach was always poor and we never knew. That might be the most money he's seen in his life.

"Let's see what else I've got," Zach reached into the box and pulled out a box-shaped phone. It was black and had buttons on the front instead of a usual touch-pad, and there was an antennae at the top that Zach pulled up and looked at a screen above the buttons that illuminated and showed the satellite phone had full bars. "Cool," Zach reached down into the box and pulled out a black laptop afterwards and turned it over a couple of times while still holding the sat phone in the other hand.

"That's a thick computer," Sero mentioned.

"Really thick," Hagakure repeated, never having seen one like that before.

Zach nodded in agreement and he added, "It's heavy too. Probably some good anti-hacking equipment in there," he suggested as the reason, then he turned and put the two devices he just got out back on the tv stand behind him.

"Oh! I've wanted to know for a while now," Hagakure started. Zach looked back at her and Hagakure asked after hesitating for a second, "Those cuts you had on your arm before you left. Was the thing with Kaminari for real?"

Zach grimaced and looked away for a second. "I knew it," Mineta said, sounding annoyed though he threw up a hand to show it was in part mock annoyance.

"We all got new phones for nothing," Sero said, shaking his head in more mock annoyance though he worded it in a way showing there was no reason to be upset about it. Zach lifted his lips back up into a half-smile too when Sero said it, then when Zach looked back at his black-haired friend Sero asked, "So what were those marks from? You weren't really, cutting yourself, right?"

Zach shook his head which relieved the boy who asked him. "It was when I went to buy Trigger the first time," Zach explained. He turned back forward and leaned into the box, and he pulled out a bag of small black devices that he lifted in front of his face and looked through at them all closely. "Like I said in the forest, I knew which strains of Trigger were good and which weren't," Zach lowered the bag and then rose his eyebrows at Koda who he saw staring at them closely. Koda looked confused for a second, but then Zach leaned over and held out the bag for Koda to take which the boulder-faced teen did.

"So you had to go to multiple deals to find a good one?" Hagakure asked, then she nodded at Zach as he lifted up another clear bag with some cool electronics in it. He handed off the bag to her, and she asked, "But if they, tried to sell you bad stuff- wait, if there were multiple deals-"

"I didn't arrest the people at the first deal either," Zach admitted at what he thought Hagakure was trying to explain her question around. He looked regretfully around at the others for a second and explained, "I got pissed that they tried to sell me something bad that could have hurt me, as well as a lot of other people around me if I had lost it. I think I was angrier still knowing that I couldn't well arrest them for it, because it would give away what my plans were when people asked what I was doing in that alley with drug dealers. I wasn't expecting some low level dealers to actually have decent Quirks, which along with their own Trigger," Zach finished there, but the others understood what he was getting at.

"So…" Mineta wanted to say a lot, but he was having trouble wording it without sounding too accusatory as he did not want to. "How'd you even get them to meet with you in the first place? Wouldn't they have been suspicious of a hero, even just a hero student?"

Zach started to frown a little more and he shook his head after a couple of seconds. "No, they were just stupid."

He's lying. Why lie like that? So obviously, Ojiro stared at Zach's face and felt he should say something, but the fact that it was so obvious made him look deeper into it. Is it supposed to be obvious? What then- is it… he said, he wouldn't talk about her. He wouldn't put her at risk. If she's the one who actually made the deal, then he wouldn't tell a group of heroes… even if we are his friends. Ojiro glanced to his side at Hagakure who had the same realization while still staring at Zach with a more shocked expression that she wiped away so he would not notice.

No one noticed Hagakure's head looking back down except her boyfriend, but Hagakure leaned forward and looked into the box where there was not much left. The small bags that they had been looking at and passing around all looked like accessories for his costume. Many had labels on them in English which she found difficult to understand but could make out their general purposes easily enough. They were meant for surveillance and stealth, some working as phone jammers if they were placed within 3 km of a target location, others acting as hidden microphones and even pieces of tiny drones that could move around with those hidden mics and cameras in them.

Hagakure was looking for another cool device that she could ask about, but she tilted her head to the side when she looked at the bottom of the box and the cardboard flaps that were still sealed shut on that side. "Hey look," Hagakure said, while Zach was answering a question about one of the small surveillance devices Mineta mentioned to get the conversation feeling less awkward again. Everyone looked towards Hagakure though as she reached her sleeve down into the box and grabbed something at the bottom, "There's an envelope too. It was sticking out of the cardboard," she slid it out of the flap near the bottom of the box, and she lifted it up in front of her while sitting back to show she had gotten it.

The invisible girl lost her smile as she saw the looks on all five of the boys' faces.

Well shit, Zach thought. Luckily I don't know many stupid people. It should be fine. It's definitely fine. I could always play it off as a prank… not after pretending like I knew who it was all from at first. Shit shit shit. Don't be idiots. I know you guys aren't, but if you did this stupidly to try and get me back I'm going to be pissed. "You want to open it?" Zach asked.

Everyone spun back to Zach. Most of them were already looking at him out the corners of their eyes if they were not fully focused on the letter. It was addressed to 'Zach Sazaki' as they could all see from when Hagakure lifted it up and showed the front to them. They all felt like whatever was in the envelope, likely a letter, would explain what the box was for and who it was from. No one said anything after she lifted it up, but all their suspicions and questions built up to make them feel like the answer was right in front of them. They realized that apparently whatever Zach had been explaining barely stuck with them at all compared to what they were about to see.

His question got them all staring at him with wider eyes though. It was as if he was calling them all out on not trusting that the way he was explaining this was actually the truth. He did not look upset though, he just gave Hagakure a smile and a nod as a 'go ahead' for the envelope she was holding. If I open it myself and tell them what's inside, they'll only distrust me more unless I then turn it to show what is says. Even doing that though would just be awkward for everyone. So treat it like anything else in the box. "Whatever they sent isn't a secret. I'm sure they assumed that before the package would get to me that someone would have looked through it, read all my mail-"

"The seal is," Hagakure began, but she trailed off as Zach shrugged at her again. "Are you sure?" She asked him. "We don't need to, if you don't want us to."

"It's fine," Zach repeated. "I want to know what it says sooner rather than later, and if I read it alone I know you guys won't be able to sate that curiosity." Suspicion. Curiosity. A single word can make the mood stay fun. Really hoping that's just an alibi letter. Maybe an explanation that works with what I've said so far. It's always better to stay vague at first. They'll assume my reason was to protect whoever sent it, but I really could have just gotten caught in a lie the second I got specific.

Hagakure started opening the envelope up, but she hesitated again while giving Zach a strange look. She wanted him to stop her, and she glanced around at the others to see if one of them would say that she did not need to do it or they should leave Zach alone. Her eyes lowered back to the envelope she was holding though, and her own curiosity got the better of her as she slid her finger underneath the lip and ripped the rest of it open. "There's a letter inside," Hagakure said, as she could already feel through the envelope but felt the need to fill everyone else in on. "Want to read it first, before-"

"Hagakure," Zach said, and he smiled bigger this time at the third hesitation. "You can read it aloud. It's not going to be a secret or something terrible. I promise." The way Zach said that so nonchalantly and even in a joking tone made a couple of the others disappointed, as it really felt like this letter was not going to have the answers they wanted in it. Hagakure Toru felt more relieved though and let out a sigh while pulling out the paper and unfolding it twice as it was folded into thirds.

"What's it say?" Mineta asked as Hagakure had looked down at the paper but did not start reading it yet.

"Read it aloud," Ojiro suggested to his girlfriend on his right side.

Hagakure glanced up at him, then back at the letter and she cleared her throat a couple of times before sitting up straighter where she was. "'Dear Zach,'" Hagakure began in a clear and loud tone as the writing looked formal yet she could not be sure with it all in English. She had been taking English for years though, and near the end of her third year she was expected to be great at it already. She continued after a pause as she thought about what she was going to say before speaking it aloud, "'I hope this package reaches you promptly…'"

"Could you tell me who it's from?" Zach asked.

Koda and Sero glanced back at Zach oddly, as they felt like he knew who it was based on the way he mentioned his 'friend' earlier. Hagakure looked down to the bottom of the letter she held over her lap, and she said, "It's only signed, 'L.'"

Zach nodded his head in understanding. L wrote this? Weird. I feel like no one else would have written it and put L's name at the bottom though. "Alright sorry, continue," Zach said, nodding at Hagakure that she could get back to what she was reading at first.

"Um, okay," Hagakure nodded back and then looked down at the letter again and back to where she was at.

L knows that she's sending it to me and not Death. It should be fine. Actually, this will probably get the others to trust me more now that I'm letting them read it. Not hiding stuff is better, and it doesn't feel as shitty. I'm not lying. I'm not being a liar right now- not really.

"So it continues, '…reaches you promptly. I was happy to hear that you were released from prison early. I didn't feel like you should have been sent at all, and a lot of people feel the same way here in America.'" Hagakure paused for a second and she started to smile more at the tone of the letter she was reading. The others relaxed a bit too, as despite it not having the secrets they expected, it was still something they were interested in as much as it was seemingly just a letter from one friend to another. Hagakure continued more confidently now, "'We're all looking forward to seeing what you do next. The new suit design I've sent you had brighter colors than you're used to, but try it before you, knock it?'" Hagakure rose her tone up there at the end, getting confused at the wording and wondering if she had said something wrong.

"It's a colloquial phrase," Zach explained to the hesitating invisible girl. "You got it right."

Hagakure smiled and nodded back at Zach, "If you say so."

"Yeah, guess you'd know better," Sero admitted. "I think I heard Pony say something like that before-"

"Sero went out with Tsunotori too," Mineta cut in to Zach who looked surprised for a moment before grinning. Mineta looked jealous and he added with a point of his finger at the boy between them, "And now he's dating this second year girl Azure, total bombshell-"

Sero gave Mineta a slightly darker look that had the shorter boy shutting his mouth fast. Then Sero smirked though as the compliments to his girlfriend had not gone too far like Mineta sometimes could go, instead just making him feel more self-satisfied by the knowledge of how hot his girlfriend was. "What? Can't hold onto a girlfriend there, Sero?" Zach asked. Mineta's lips widened in an 'o' and then lifted up into a much bigger smile as Sero's smug look wiped away.

"It's not like that," Sero argued back. Zach hummed and nodded at him, not looking to believe it. "I mean it. It's never my fault- it's rarely ever my fault that things don't go well." Sero changed his counter midway, and it made both Zach and Mineta laugh at the correction.

"Ummm," Hagakure rose her voice and got the attention of the boys not sitting on the couch. They looked over and stopped smiling as much as they realized the others had just been totally left out of the conversation, still totally focused on the letter. Hagakure had a bead of sweat dripping down her face noticeably, as she felt somewhat responsible for starting that little break-off from the conversation. The others nodded at her to keep going, and Hagakure looked back at the letter she had stopped awkwardly in the middle of. "Well, he goes on-"

"She," Zach corrected. "Sorry," he added, as he interrupted Hagakure again which she humphed at as she never even got back to the letter.

"Alright she goes on, 'The suit's made with only top of the line tech. Quirk and science blends, all the new best stuff from Dr. O. I know you know how to use it all already, but there are a few new tools in there you should try out before using on villains.'" Zach nodded along with what Hagakure was saying, noting it in his head to test the pieces that he did not recognize in the box so far. Hagakure hesitated for a moment, then she smiled warmly and read the sentence she just thought of how to translate in her head, "'I gave you some money, and don't think about sending it back. You saved my life and I'll never be able to pay you back enough for that. Plus there's a difference between humility and arrogance. You're a homeless drifter ex-convict fresh out of prison-'" Hagakure pursed her lips but then had to blow through them as she laughed at what she had just read.

Zach sweatdropped at the laughter and how that last sentence was worded. Koda gawked at Hagakure for calling Zach that, even if she was just translating a letter. Ojiro smiled, but Mineta and Sero were laughing like Hagakure and both mentioned that they were going to use those names to refer to Zach now. "Please don't," Zach muttered, though not sounding very serious and his own lips were having trouble staying out of a smile at how light the mood just got there. Thanks L-

"'I look forward, to the return of Lifebringer,'" Hagakure continued, lifting the letter again and reading farther towards the bottom of it. As she rose it like that, the boys in front of her noticed some writing on the back near the bottom and upside-down but it got hidden again as Hagakure lowered the letter and lowered her own voice. "'And I hope you keep saving people, like you saved me.' Then just a gap and she put a dash and L next to it." Hagakure finished.

"Made some powerful friends, huh?" Ojiro asked, looking back at the costume on the floor that Zach was getting for free along with all that money.

"I might have saved a couple of, well-off, people during my travels," Zach admitted.

"There's something on the back," Sero mentioned, nodding at the letter and speaking to Hagakure who flipped it over in surprise as she had not noticed it when she first unfolded the paper.

"Oh yeah," Hagakure said. She rose the paper and said, "There's a smaller message right here. It says, 'Zach. Mark's dead.'" Hagakure froze and she lowered her bottom lip after saying that without thinking. She just assumed it would be along the same tone as what was written on the front, and she said it without thinking about the translation as she had gotten confident in how she had been translating so far. She lowered down the letter though after saying it, staring up from it and across the small gap between them to Zach who was staring at her with his eyes wide. Hagakure let go of the letter with one hand and she reached it up to cover her mouth.

Everyone looked over at Zach. He turned his head to the side and got up out of his chair, then he turned his head back towards Hagakure with a more serious look on his face. Behind that serious expression though there was hurt on it too, yet Zach asked, "Could you continue? Anything else?"

The others were all still frozen trying to decipher what Zach's expression meant or what was going through his head. Hagakure nodded at him though as he met her gaze even looking into nothingness. She lowered her eyes down to the letter she was holding and read it, then she spoke in a softer voice and a much slower one too. "'He tried, infiltrating EM, but EM killed him… He's, coming after you. Be careful.'" Hagakure hesitated and she lowered the letter down to her lap again. "Then it finishes like the front, with a hyphen, and then a D." Hagakure stared at Zach as she said it, and her eyes opened even wider as Zach's eyes were snapped to the back of his apartment and the windows on the other side of his kitchen. Then his head turned more the other way and his eyes darted over to the windows on the side of his door that all had the blinds closed, though his eyes focused on the cracks in the blinds and the light coming in from out there. "Zach…" Hagakure whispered after finishing.

D? A message ending with -D? Koda gulped and stared up at Zach's face with his own eyes shaking at the intense expression on his old classmate's.

Mineta leaned back into his recliner with his own eyes darting over to the blinds and then back to Zach's face over and over. EM? EM?! Those initials, Mineta gulped himself, while Zach rose his right hand and started rubbing the side of his head with it, his expression getting real dark.

"Are you okay?" Sero got up behind Zach, making Zach turn his head back to the left to see his friend giving him a look only similar to the one Hagakure had but no one could see.

Zach nodded his head. "EM being after me, is something I should have expected. I did even-"

"Is EM," Mineta started. Zach turned to the shorter boy who leaned back forward on his recliner. "That name you said in the woods? 'Eziano Mozcaccio?'"

"You shouldn't say that name," Zach warned. His voice was low as he said it, and Mineta's eyes grew much wider as he gulped again. "Eziano doesn't like it." Zach said it, and then he glanced around and leaned back where he was standing. Zach sighed at the looks his friends were giving him, and he shook his head around and smiled at them to try and raise the mood. "Back when I was in America, I had made friends with a couple vigilantes: Mark and Danny. A couple others…"

'Danny?' Is that the D who sent the letter? Is that what he's telling us by mentioning his real name? Ojiro thought these things, but he did not feel much suspicion even as he did. His eyes just softened more and he bit down behind his lips as Zach sat back down and continued talking without stopping.

"…I told them what I knew about the assassins and hitmen organization that I knew a bit about after going after the Hunter-" Zach grit his teeth and his lips curled down. He looked around and then said in a frustrated and confused voice, "After… Why did you guys come here?" Zach asked it with his eyes soft and guilty, his hands curled onto his knees and his expression getting darker. "Even after hearing what I had done to that man?"

He's talking about the Hunter? Hagakure thought, her eyes huge as she thought about the part of the Lifebringer Incident that had haunted her for a long time.

None of the others really knew how to respond to the question Zach just asked, bringing up something so horrible that he did not need to repeat because none of them had forgotten about it. Mineta leaned forward far though and he started, "If that guy- you said that he was trying to bring you back to the League after you escaped." Zach stared towards Mineta with his eyes growing wider himself, and Mineta continued while shaking his head at the disbelieving look Zach was giving him. "And he would have brought you back to be tortured, and he was a hitman… and if making him believe, what you made him believe, is what saved those hostages from the War Boys…"

"Zach, who's Mark?" Ojiro asked.

Zach spun back to Ojiro. Mineta was trying to defend his actions around the Hunter, and he spun to Ojiro too with his eyes wider at what the blond just said. Sero was sitting on Zach's left with his own hands clenched and shaking on his sides, and he turned to Zach after seeing Zach spin to Ojiro with that look on his face again. Zach opened his mouth, but he hesitated for a moment and Ojiro said to his old classmate whose face he was staring straight at from only a few feet away, "You shouldn't try to just, pretend it's not getting to you right now."

Zach started shaking his head at what Ojiro was saying. But Koda spoke up on Ojiro's left, and Zach froze and ground his teeth hard as the softer-toned boy added, "You don't, need to pretend around us."

Zach saw Mineta out the corner of his eyes lower his gaze too. His own eyes widened more as Mineta did it, He was just… Even talking to me about Hunter, he could tell what I was doing. Damn it-

"Were you and Mark close?" Sero asked, leaning forward and looking around the front of Zach's face as he had not moved it in a few seconds and seemed to be stuck where he was.

"I'm sorry," Hagakure whispered too. Her voice cracked as she said it, and Zach rose his head at that pained tone, "The way I said that, just blurting it out without giving you time or-"

Zach shook his head at Hagakure again and said, "It wasn't your fault." He tried to give her a smile but failed, and he did not try again. He just continued while looking at her empty space of a head, "It shouldn't have been on a letter." Zach then turned to Sero and he replied to his question, "We weren't really." Sero frowned at Zach and Zach continued, "We fought together a couple of times, and yeah, I considered Mark my comrade. But he was just… He was just…" Zach trailed off a couple of times, still staring into Sero's eyes but his own looking less strong. His heart raced in his chest as he was unable to keep it as calmed as he had attempted at first when he shifted his thoughts far, far from what he had just heard. "He was…" Zach's lips twitched and Sero's eyes started to widen too, not that Zach saw them even facing Sero from only a couple feet away.

Water formed in Zach's eyes and his hands he had on his legs started digging their fingers down into his thighs. Mark…

---

18 Months Ago

The island of Muvalo sat several hundred miles northeast of Kiribati and the atoll of Tarawa. On the island was nothing more than a sole village on one shore and a forest covering the majority of it. The island was small enough that when it came time for the island's size to be measured by an official of the Vantan Islands which was the nation they were a part of, Muvalo's residents made an effort for the official to come at low tide when the most land would be showing. Despite its small size though, the village was large enough that the five passengers of a small ship that had been having trouble crossing the Pacific Ocean knew there would be some gas there to fill their boat up with.

"Are you sure this place is going to have what we need?" La Brava grumbled, rubbing her stomach and sitting at the edge of the boat ready to lean off of it again if need be. After facing a storm the entire last two days, which caused rough seas that kept them from making as much progress as they had planned on, everyone was feeling cranky and at least a bit seasick.

"You don't know these islands at all, so why don't you just shut up about it?" Cee muttered over at the older woman who darted a glare back at their newest companion.

"Well if we don't get gas and wind up stranded, it'll be your fault Cee. What kind of name is that even?" La Brava chided over. "Couldn't think of something better to tell us than a letter of the Roman alphabet?"

"We'll know for sure in just a little," Zach interrupted before the older women behind him could start fighting each other. The island was just up ahead, and Zach turned the wheel a smidge to approach from as due east as possible. "Darling you go to the west side of the island and look around the village for some fuel, some food too if you can. We'll look through the forest too for food though, and catch some fish, but we need that gas."

"You can count on me," Darling assured, leaning up from where she was sitting back with her face scrunched up in some disgust at the rocking of the boat she really wanted to get off of.

"I'll go too," Cee said. Zach looked to the girl who gave him a dark glare, challenging him to counter her and try telling her what to do.

Zach's eyes lowered from her blue and pink ones down to her neck though. The red marks were mostly gone, but then Zach shifted his eyes to her left leg that was mostly uncovered considering the summer heat. Her short shorts showed off the white bandages wrapping over some of her skin though. "How's your leg?" He asked the girl they had saved not too long ago and who was pretty injured when she joined them.

Cee ground her teeth at his response that was not as she was planning to retort against. "It's fine."

"Then that's a good idea," Zach said, agreeing with Cee. "You said you speak the language here, so it'd be better if you go along. You could look for some medical supplies too, so I can change that bandage-"

"I can change my own damn bandage," Cee snapped, though it came out as more of a mutter at him near the end as she did not know why she was getting so mad at him for the offer. As she told herself there was no reason to be mad about that though, she just ground her teeth more thinking about why she was mad at the boy who told Raijin everything. "Just land the boat," Cee growled.

Gentle looked over his shoulder from closer to the bow where he was sitting in a relaxed way despite feeling a similar rumbling in his stomach as the others behind him. His eyes shifted over to Zach through the windshield behind the console where Zach was leaning forward turning the wheel. Zach lowered his gaze after meeting Gentle's, as he had told Gentle at their last stop about Cee's old master Calico whose death Cee hated him for. Instead of getting some encouragement like he had hoped for, or just a reassuring voice, Gentle told Zach that it would probably be better if they left her behind then if she might turn on them. If she wants to leave, that's fine. But I won't leave her. I can't tell her not to hate me either. I deserve it for what I did to her. All I can do is try and help her, and hopefully she can help me too when we get to America.

"If we get enough extra tanks, we should be able to make it all the way to Hawaii on the next leg," Darling mentioned as they were approaching the shore and slowing down. "I'll try to get us as much as possible!"

"There's nowhere left for us to stop between here and there, so we'd have to do that anyway," Cee muttered, making Darling look back at her and glare at the girl older than her by a year who was not being very pleasant.

Darling held her tongue though, after Zach pulled her aside at the last island and told her not to when it came to Cee. It was not as hard to hold her tongue this time as it was when Cee was talking back at Zach in that tone though, but she kept seeing Zach glance her way when Cee started talking and knew she had to keep it to herself. "Great deduction," Darling said. "I didn't even think of that," she smiled at the blonde girl who got an annoyed look as that smile and nice act sounded very sarcastic.

La Brava smirked over at the two younger girls though, and she glanced back at Zach, "We should keep the engine running, Sazaki. Those two might come running back here with a mob chasing them."

"I'm an anti-hero," Cee snapped over. "I know how to keep my head down. Unlike some people-"

"I followed Zach for months with no one ever seeing me!" Darling shouted right back at Cee.

Zach bowed his head and felt like face-palming, while the other three all stared at Darling with weirded-out looks at what she just admitted to. La Brava darted a look up at Gentle and gave him a questioning look as she wondered again what they were even doing there. Gentle shook his head back at her and glanced back at Zach who he said in a very calm voice to, "What a team you have gathered."

"We're landing. Everyone just, try and get along," Zach said, giving up on trying to be subtle and working out their differences in other ways like sending two who were at odds on a joint mission across the island together. He stepped out from behind the console as he cut the boat's engines, and he jogged to the front and jumped off into the shallow water in front of the boat. He grabbed around the front and slowed it down then pulled back after the hull hit the sand. Gentle dropped down next to him and sighed but grabbed around the bow too and helped him pull their boat onto the sand and up out of the shallow water a few feet so it would not just float back out.

Darling hopped off the front with the anchor she pulled out of a hatch at the bow in her hands. She ran up until the end of the steel-link chain and then slammed the anchor into the sand and buried it to make sure it was set, then she looked over her shoulder with an annoyed expression. "Sure about that leg? We're trying to do this fast," Darling smirked at the girl still up on the boat who had not jumped down yet. Cee glared her way, then she jumped off onto the sand and did not flinch even as she purposely landed on her left leg with most of her weight. Darling had seen the wound on Cee's leg a few days ago, so she lowered her smile at the calm way in which Cee did that without even reacting like it hurt at all, since Darling knew it did.

Why would you do something like that? Zach thought. He kept his mouth closed though, hoping Cee knew she could take it and did not just open up her wound under the bandages for a petty boast.

"Hey Gentle," La Brava started, her voice having a tone of hesitation and also urgency like she needed the others to listen to her. Cee stopped jogging up towards Darling to look back, but Darling stopped for a different reason and was looking over to the north side of the beach.

Zach and Gentle started walking up the shore from where they had anchored their boat. The shore was steeper in certain areas than others, mostly up near the edge of the forest there were a couple of three-four feet drops from the dirt and trees. Zach looked right towards the north side where both La Brava and Darling had been looking, and he, Gentle, and Cee all saw the man too now. Cee started walking up the beach again when Zach and Gentle had gotten to her level, and La Brava jumped off the boat and started running up behind them. "Who's this guy now?" Cee muttered under her breath.

"Oh, do the residents of this island not look like that?" Gentle remarked, sarcastically. The group was faced with a Caucasian man twenty-four years old who had messy brown hair and a light tan. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of cargo shorts, yet he also had a holster on his right side with a black pistol hilt sticking out of it.

Zach's eyes narrowed at the pistol but he tried to keep a calm expression as he refaced the man walking towards them. What's that? Zach looked past the man and over through the tree-line at the edge of the forest. It looks like, a hammock? Those leaves are all clustered together too- he built a little cabana. Is that a bar? There's a television. What else? I can't, see, Zach's vision started to get clearer, but his eyes darted back to the man and the red tint forming in his eyes went away. He noticed the corners of his vision re-blurring as he focused on the man, Think about that later. Who is this guy? "Who are you?" Zach called out towards the man. We weren't supposed to see anyone on this side of the island. It's supposed to be an empty beach. "And why is it you have a firearm?"

Gentle shifted his eyes in towards the shorter boy on his left. "So, no small talk then?" Gentle asked, before turning back and giving a darker look towards the man whose expression did not change after what he was just asked.

"Why are you here?" Darling snapped towards the brown-haired man whose arms were down non-threateningly at his sides, yet who was setting off all her warning signals the same as he was everyone else's.

"I live here," the man replied in Japanese. "But why are you here, Zach Sazaki?" His question came with a drop in his tone from the casual way he spoke at first. The polite tense he used dropped too, his voice getting flat and combative. "How about you, Gentle Criminal?" He added, looking to the gray haired man next to Zach when he did not receive a response immediately.

He knows us. The news could easily be the reason why, La Brava thought. But he's too calm. Is he hunting us? How did he know exactly where we were going? The five of us decided it during the trip- that bitch! "You told them we were coming?" La Brava asked, looking towards the blonde girl who spun her head back to the short woman with pink hair. "Did you?!" La Brava snapped after Cee's eyes widened and her look started to turn pissed.

"No!"

"This really is his place," Zach said, trying to calm La Brava as well as defuse the situation a little. "So I'm sorry we landed here," Zach added. Something's up with him. He's not afraid at all. Not one bit. The media's been talking about me like a psychopathic murderer. Or at least that's being considered, so he should at least be somewhat hesitant! "We just need some gas and we'll be on our way."

"I don't think so," the twenty-four year old said. He narrowed his eyes at them and Zach spun his head to the right and down the shore towards the water.

No one saw Mark move. The man standing on the beach had his hands down at his sides in a non-threatening way, so no one was paying attention to them when it was his eyes that had drawn everyone's attention as he last spoke. Especially since his hands did not reach for the piece on his waist, no one noticed the slight movements of his hands that caused the ocean to recede away from the shore, beaching their boat completely out of the water and creating a huge wave that pulled in towards one spot behind their boat and rose up a hundred feet in the air in a matter of two seconds.

"Fuck! Up the beach!" Zach shouted, and he sprinted up the sand as fast as he could. "Gentle!"

"I don't need your assistance!" Gentle snapped, while reaching back and grabbing La Brava with one hand and creating a Gently Rebound with the other. The huge wave dropped down on the beach right in front of him and blew their ship to pieces, but Gentle jumped into his elastic barrier and bounced away before the huge rush of water could slam into him. The wave was going to slam into his elastic barrier instead, but after the edge of the water and some debris hit the wall and bounced back, all the rest of the water coming at it curved around the barrier and rushed up at Gentle twice as fast than it was just coming from rushing on shore.

Gentle and La Brava had started to smirk when they bounced away and the water got pushed back, but Gentle reacted fast despite the surprise when that water rushed at them in two big streams shooting through the air. He swung his free hand down below him and slammed both feet into it right before the waves would have hit him. The waves curved up as his feet were still coming down at the barrier, but he bounced fast enough that they only caught the bottom of his feet. Catching the bottoms of his feet for a second slowed Gentle down in his rise though, and the water he just escaped from merged into one big hand that reached up for him.

The hand of water swung the opposite direction that Gentle started dodging in his fall with La Brava pulled close to him. His head spun and he looked towards the man controlling the water, to see that man looking away from them with his arms raised up and one in the shape of a hand closing into a fist like the water hand was doing.

Zach rushed at the man on the shore, darting his gaze over to Darling for a second and calling out, "Don't hurt him." She was running with him just higher up the shore closer to the treeline, and Darling nodded back his way with her arms transforming into something other than guns. Zach was reaching for his own knives down at the back of his shorts' waistband under the hem of his white long-sleeved shirt. The others were all wearing short sleeves, but Zach's shirt was meant to give him at least a little cover to not draw attention to his scars. He gripped the knives on the back of his waist, but he skid to a stop with sand pushing out in front of the toes of his feet that he dug into the ground. "Wait!"

The man spun around hearing that shout, and Cee's eyes opened huge as the pink glow left them, because the man up ahead of her was no longer being affected by her Quirk. Ten jets of water rose up on that man's left side, huge cylinders of water that rose up as pillars and waved around in the air like snakes. They curved around over the ocean and then pulled up over the sand and waved around in crazy patterns behind the man's body and in the air above him. He held his hands up with his fingers twitching, and he curled his pinky and ring finger on his right hand in, causing the water that had collapsed down near Gentle and La Brava to suddenly jolt their directions and slam into them.

Cee spun hearing the shout of La Brava, then she jumped backwards and crossed her arms for some protection not that it still did not hurt like hell when the pillar of water rushed over her. Gentle hit the ground outside of the wave, and he spun around after snapping his soaked head up looking for his partner. As he snapped his head up though, a shadow blotted out the sun above him and he flipped himself onto his back while waving a hand over the top of his body. The wall of elasticity he created blocked the pillar of water that came down to pummel him into the sand, but it did nothing to stop the second pillar which shot under the barrier on Gentle's left and washed him out from under his shield, so that another pillar could drop down like the first tried to do and shoved Gentle into a crater on the beach.

La Brava coughed up water and she shouted over towards the person she loved the most, "Gentle!"

Darling fired a smoke grenade towards Mark, while at the same time raising a club that she had turned her right arm into. She planned on rushing through the smoke to the right, as she had fired the smoke grenade a little to the man's right side so he would dodge to his left (her right). One of the pillars of water flying above the man shot down five times faster than it was previously moving, two of the other pillars losing all control and just falling down to the beach as he sped that single one up so much. Darling thought she had a good read on the speed of the pillars already, so she was too shocked to even try and dodge when her smoke grenade was engulfed at the end of the water pillar that kept shooting towards her with the front of it transforming into the shape of a snake opening its jaws.

A black blur swept in front of the snake's unhinged jaws and tackled Darling up the beach. Zach and Darling rolled over each other up the sand, then Zach jumped off her and started sprinting over the sand in the brown haired man's direction. He has an unlimited ammo supply! The beach is where he's naturally strongest. Calm down. Dodge and get one hit. That's all you need. One good hit. Zach dodged to his right and then the left, dodging huge pillars of water that were coming down from the sky above him diagonally and curving almost at the very end when he would start to dodge. He changed up his dodges though, making feints while staring straight into his opponent's eyes.

The man facing Zach jumped backwards, and a wave of water rose up from the soaked sand around him. Zach's eyes widened, then he dove forwards into a roll that he came out of on his hands and knees and had to leap to the left using all four appendages. His speed had risen with the darkness surrounding his body, but there were less pillars of water flying around too despite more water coming up and joining them from the ocean at all times. There were less things to control, so even with more liquid added into the mix it seemed the man they were fighting had even better control over the thousands of gallons he was swirling around them. Zach was closer to the treeline after his last dodge, and no attack came down at him right away after he landed on his feet. He's good. Really, really good.

In the corner of Zach's gaze, he watched as two arms of water reached up from the sand and wrapped around Darling's feet. It tripped her up to the ground, and then a loop of water came out of the sand around the back of her neck and a few more wrapping around her body and pressing it to the floor. "Gah! Let go! Let me go!" Zach could see behind the girl who started yelling loudly about it with her head lifted up as far as she could get it. He saw Cee struggling to drag herself closer to the tree line, coughing up water and with her left leg getting red as the bandage soaked through and her wound had definitely opened up this time. Then he saw Gentle, and his eyes widened as the man covered in a bright pink aura that flared around him making his muscles bulge and his eyes look pure white through the veil.

La Brava dropped back to her butt behind Gentle, and she gasped out her panting breaths in exhaustion from the effort it took her to get to him. "Lover Mode," she whispered.

Gentle leapt up in the air high, and he came down hard on a dry patch of sand among so much wet sand. Zach was glad Gentle noticed, but he lowered his bottom lip as the entire wet beach around him shot up before Gentle's feet had even connected with the sand yet. Gentle's white eyes opened wider, as it became clear that the patch of dry sand had been a target that the other man was already focused around. Zach's head snapped fully back to his opponent, Too good. What the hell?! He definitely lives here doesn't he? Who is this guy? That doesn't matter yet. We have to beat him first. He saw me dodging his attacks so well though, and he used his water to increase the distance between us. Even looking into his eyes and making different moves, moves that my eyes did not give away, it wasn't enough to break his concentration at all. I should have let one of those pillars hit me. I have to take the sacrifice. It will hurt, but one blast is all it takes to knock him out. Then we get the gas- we go find a boat, and we get out of here! Darling still has the money!

Zach kicked off the sand and made it explode back behind him with darkness fading from sand particles it had seeped on in the kick. Zach darted across the sand faster than before, forcing some of the Death around his body down to his legs which made his bones show through more on his arms and his face. The thick black veil got lighter in different areas as Zach focused his Death elsewhere, but his red eyes narrowed towards the man up ahead of him whose eyes darted towards his arms and his skull like he had just examined Zach's Quirk and fully understood his weaknesses in a moment. Did Eziano send someone after me? This guy feels like he must be an assassin. The set-up was just to make him look like he lived here, probably to lure us in, but he decided to screw stealth and just kill us right off the bat!

A dome of water that had just surrounded the Gentle Criminal and closed him in exploded out in all directions as the soaked man in a pink aura flew out the north side of the dome. He bounced himself up into the air to dodge a water fist coming for the spot he broke through, but there was another smaller pillar of water that broke off of the first one going exactly where Gentle just dodged to. He smashed his fist through that arm and came down to the sand with a furious look spreading over his face as a dozen other fists of water flew out of the ground and at him from straight ahead of him, meaning he either had to dodge around and take a longer route around that would waste the time of his Lover Mode, or take the hits straight on and try to push through them all. He knew that he would be slowed down enough by those fists that he had already felt the power of though, that the man who had shown off his mobility would not be caught by that brute force advance.

Mark's eyes darted from person to person on the beach in front of him. The water wrapped around Darling dropped loosely around her body, losing its dense form and slipping into the sand as the punch of Death flew at her and surrounded her body. Darling got up inside that darkness and then ran out of it in Mark's direction, while the boy ahead of her who had punched that black hand backwards kept darting their enemy's way faster than he had been moving before. Mark cracked his neck to one side and then the other, then he stopped and his calm look turned into more of an upset one with his lips curling into a frown at what was just shouted at him.

"Why are you attacking us?!" It was a scratchy and deep voice that shouted it, but the frustration and confusion of a young boy. If I have the chance I take him down. If his control over water extends to blood, we're fucked. Except if it does, and blood is mostly water so why not?! Then he's not killing us for a reason! The panicked thought that Zach had when he was running was making him too conflicted and confused that he had to shout at the man facing them. Is it about honor or something? Maybe I'm wrong! I'm probably wrong! But if I'm not- then why is he- "Are you a villain?!" Zach yelled at the man.

The man's lips twitched and he narrowed his eyes more at the boy charging him. The fists blocking off Gentle that he went with trying to avoid all dropped down into the sand. Two of the pillars up in the air above Mark combined, and he glared towards Death who was too small for the wide pillar of water to miss even at his speed. The pillar's speed just increased too, and Mark said in a calm but dark voice at the boy whose red eyes were lifting up, "No. But you are."

Brace! Zach clenched his teeth hard, and he tried to cover some more of his face with darkness to hide that he was doing so. It would not have mattered. He was flattened into the floor by the pillar of water that continued crashing down on him for two seconds before finally letting up. Zach already had his mouth open as he could not keep it closed after that initial impact, but once the water was gone he was able to start coughing up all the sea water in his body. He curled his hands into the sand and dragged himself up in the crater to his elbows and knees. Then he started panting out dark breaths and spitting a few times onto the ground, before raising his head and freezing in utter shock at the sight of the man staring towards him with a dark look, not looking unsteady on his feet in the least.

"The news is very specific about your Quirk, as it continues to warn everyone not to get close to you," the man said to the wispy boy down on his hands and knees staring at him in shock that showed through even in that dark form. "Even without touching your body directly, just our Quirks touching you while under our control would be enough to knock us out or even kill us." The man used the Royal 'we' multiple times there, referring to himself as part of the group of normal citizens which it really did not feel like he was. He continued while narrowing his eyes darker at the boy starting to drag himself up to his feet, "But if I bring a giant pillar of water down at you and release it, does it just stop moving? It's a simple law of motion, not that a kid whose never taken a physics class in his life would understand."

He released the control a second early?! That's why the back of the pillar felt less powerful than the initial hit, because he wasn't controlling it anymore or keeping its speed up. It just dropped down to falling at gravity's level, and the water molecules probably pulled farther apart too to actually be more like liquid and less like I'm getting smashed by stone or something. Zach's neck ached, as did his back, and his ribs, and his shoulders and knees. The blow took a lot out of him, but his Death was not something it affected. He flared it around himself and growled, trying to make himself look stronger than ever despite the pain he was in. I should have brought more Trigger. I smashed too much. No! I decided not to use it again- but I could totally use it right now!

Zach sprinted forward as a hot pink blur shot by his right side. Their enemy started turning around for no reason, but he brought up a much wider dome of water around his body than the one he used on Gentle before. Cee glared angrily across the beach with her glowing pink eyes, How does he know?!

Spikes of water shot out of the dome on all sides, but Gentle rushed straight forward at one of the spikes made not as an attack but as an equal defense as everywhere else because of Mark's disorientation. The spike was not strong enough to handle Gentle's punch straight into the point, so the entire thing blew apart. Gentle smashed through the outer wall and the water closed back in on his right leg as he was almost all the way through it. The outsides of the dome were not just off of their opponent's body, but enough of Gentle had gotten through before his ankle was grabbed that he was able to swing his right fist forward despite his momentum being gone. He smashed that fist into the side of Mark's face as the man was turning towards where he now knew was the right direction.

Gentle fell down to his stomach as the grip on his ankle released and his body twisted in a strange way from the off-balanced punch. The water walls collapsed down on top of him though, and Gentle rose out of the falling water with his pink flare flaming brightly around him. "That's a nice technique," Zach's deep voice growled as the dark blur went zipping past Gentle's left side.

Gentle was panting, but he grit his teeth and curled the left corner of his lips up as he sprinted forward too. "You didn't think I showed you all my tricks already, did you?"

Mark pushed his hands down on the ground and kicked his legs into the air. He did a flip and kicked a leg out towards the two coming at him, and water rose up from the wet ground in a slice that Zach pulled one way of and Gentle the other. Darling fired a cannon made of both her arms at the end of the attack, and the slice was stopped short by the blast, then two smoke grenades came flying out of the black smoke of her first explosion. When she fired them he was blocked off by the first attack, and now they were halfway across the beach from her before the man in the Hawaiian shirt even got a glimpse at them. He had bigger things to worry about though, as both Zach and Gentle were barely slowed by his kick and he was about to land in front of them.

"I'm not a villain!" Zach yelled, and he swung both of his arms in with the ends of his arms extending out and his fingers sharpening. "Death Claws!" Gentle leapt up as those claws were slashed in front of them, and he started raising his arms ready to redirect with a Gentle Rebound in whichever direction their enemy managed to dodge Zach's first attack.

"That's your own opinion," the man retorted, before leaping immediately upon touching the ground up ten feet in the air backwards, and then getting slammed into by his own pillar of water that flew up and that Gentle created a barrier to block. The pillar that was aimed at him at first changed direction and engulfed the man who had been fighting them, and it kept going to push him up into the trees and straight into a canopy that he disappeared into a moment later.

"After him!" Zach called out, and he sprinted towards the man while Gentle bounced himself that way up in the air. Whether he was just going to regroup and come back at them, or go inform the other people on the island of their arrival, they needed to defeat him now when he was away from the shore.

Gentle flew over Zach's head and into the trees after their enemy. He was faster with his pink aura than Zach was just with Death surrounding his legs, but Zach slowed down for another reason as he was nearing the tree line close to where he first noticed the man's cabana. There was a pile of leaves on the floor in between the beach and the forest, between two trees and piled up inconspicuously for most people but in a way that stuck out for the boy searching for clues. Zach darted over faster, the ground turning black beneath his feet as he stepped onto sand grass, and the trees dying on either side of him as did the leaves covering the canoe. It's hidden. And the cabana is off the shore, through the trees so it would be difficult to see for passerbys on boats. He's got food behind that bar along with the drinks. What is it? Just hidden enough to be out of sight but close enough to see anyone approaching. Why?!

The roof of the cabana blew apart into shards that Zach crossed his arms to protect himself from. Between his crossed arms he saw a dimming flame of pink slam into the sand at the edge of the forest and break apart the ledge down to the sand as there was a steep drop there. Gentle skid through the sand making a long trench down towards the water, and Darling spun her head with her eyes wide at the sight of their comrade face-first in the ground. "Zach!" Darling shouted as she spun around towards the dark figure in the woods.

Zach looked ahead of him towards the sound of rushing water that was shaking the trees through the forest. Stalks of bamboo and tropical plants were swinging around into each other, and Zach watched as water sucked out of some of those plants right before his eyes. Deeper in the woods more of the trees were being taken from than the ones on the edge where he was standing, and Zach's eyes narrowed again as he glared out towards his enemy. I have to test it. Testing it is risky, but I'm almost sure of it now already. He's had the ability to kill us so many times, yet he's not trying to, and yet… "I think it's about time we end this!" Zach yelled towards the man he saw walking straight towards him out from the shadows of the forest.

Water started to rain down on Zach's dark form. He stood still and allowed it to fall on him from where it was breaking apart up in the trees where their opponent had water swirling around and blocking out the sun. "Zach! Let me shoot him!" Darling shouted over on Zach's right and back behind him. "He's definitely a villain! That's why he's-" Although the small drops of water falling towards Zach could not suddenly turn and attack him, they were able to fly at Darling all at once and surround her head in a bulb of water. It was not just a sphere of water that covered her head though, but a swirling sphere as their opponent whisked around the water and then pushed it into the girl's open mouth which made her stumble backwards and trip over a piece of the man's beachside hut.

"Let her go," Zach growled. He pointed his hands out to his sides, and he fired a constant stream of Death in both directions at full power. The darkness around his actual body got thin and his bones showed through, as Zach killed the trees around him all over the treeline near the man's place. "Oh what? This make you angry?" Zach asked at the sight of the man's expression shifting angrily. "But you were just taking the water out of those other trees, so shouldn't it be fine if I do this?" Zach smirked and the thin coating of black over his jaw rose up making the man ahead of him flinch.

The trees around Zach were dying, withering and turning black as the water jets up near the canopies pulled away farther into the forest just over that man's head. "You want to fight, I'll fight you!" Zach yelled, and he curled his fingers in sucking all that darkness he just forced out to come back to his hands. Cee had jogged her way down the beach once she finally steadied herself, and she was turning Gentle over in the sand to try and get him back fighting. Darling rose her head out of the bubble that popped around her and she had to cough up a bucket of water, and Cee turned Gentle's head around while her eyes were huge at what she was seeing. Cee was the only one not to have seen Zach in the Enudora Forest out of their group though, so the others were not as shocked though still were stunned at how big he was getting.

Without Trigger? Gentle thought, his half-opened eyes growing wider in confusion.

"Beat him!" Darling shouted.

Six more people, Zach thought, his red eyes flaring with a black swirl in the middle of them as he sucked all the dark power back into his body. He let out a long breath and that black hovered in the air in front of him, then he brought his hands down to his right side. "Reaping…" Zach started, his wrists pressed together and a huge black sphere of darkness erupting in front of his palms. The forest around him was black, all the insects on the ground and leaves on the trees withered and dead from his Quirk. "DEATH…" the huge sphere of darkness on Zach's hands condensed into a tighter ball that his huge flaring body shrank down and sucked more into in a single moment.

All the water swirling around and spinning stopped near the man farther in the forest, panting hard and keeping his distance in the trees because he did not think he could keep facing them out in the open. He had fled into the area that he knew every inch of and his opponents knew nothing about, but Zach Sazaki was not chasing him any farther nor could he just leave this spot either. Water pulled out of other trees he had not fully killed in the first place. The ground dried up and started to look more like sand all around him, as the water sucked out of the roots and the trunk and the stems and leaves alike. Everyone was looking the same way, but the man facing the other direction at all of them smirked as his left hand twitched some fingers and made the ocean swirl back behind all his opponents.

There was a lot of focus necessary for the huge jet of water that Mark just created. He swung both arms forward hard and sent the mass of water above his head all shooting out towards Sazaki at once. As his hands were pushing out though, two of his fingers curled in. A thinner stream of water shot out of the ocean and then condensed as it flew over the beach like a missile. It combined into a single sphere that got denser and denser still, but instead of hitting Zach, it just hit the other end of Mark's own attack. He did not know that it did not collide for a second, because he stopped controlling both attacks before they would collide with either Sazaki or his attack. Yet the 'Wave' shout that Zach's comrades from the Enudora Forest were waiting for did not come.

Zach pointed both hands to his right side while running forward towards the end of the thickest water jet so close but that he knew the enemy would stop controlling earlier than usual because he would be expecting something else flying at it. Because the man would have to release his jet and not be able to push it back into his though, Zach also figured the guy was going to be running right after he fired his attack, whether or not the one he was bringing in from behind him was going to hit. Zach pointed his hands to his right and down at the floor, and he fired out the Reaping Death Wave super-condensed and straight at the floor on his right side diagonally. Zach blasted himself up into the air with a beam of darkness that took the majority of the Death he had just accumulated or pulled up from deep inside him.

An explosion of water ripped apart the dead trees around where Zach had been standing. Trunks cracked and splintered from not even that much force, and a wave crashed down on the beach where Darling was getting up that knocked her back down and then swept over Cee and Gentle too, as hard as they tried to roll away from it. Darkness exploded out from the point the end of Zach's attack hit the floor, and it exploded farther than Zach's Death had reached before to go kill another few dozen trees and everything around them to the north. Zach meanwhile crashed up through two different trees with loud cracks that made the trees start collapsing behind him. Before any of those trees hit the ground though, Zach flipped himself over and planted his feet into the strong trunk of a thick tree Zach had seen did not get its water removed or get killed by his Death before. His feet started to kill the tree, but they did not finish the job as Zach barely touched the tree for half a second.

He bent his knees after hitting that tree, then he unbent and sent himself flying towards the opposite side of Mark's water jet where the man had dodged to seeing the direction Zach had flown up. Zach rocketed himself towards the man running off, darting around the trees with ease as he knew the area like the back of his hand. Zach hit the ground behind the man and he called out, "Stop!"

Mark stopped and he spun around, his hands raising back up but no water around them forming yet. Instead his hands rose into a fighting stance, though Zach did see a twitch of his right hand on its way up like he considered pulling the pistol from its sheath first. The man facing Zach was panting, but Zach was panting too and he brought his right hand back to his chest and pressed his palm into it. His glove was still ripped from the forest as he had not found anywhere to get a replacement for that specific material, so the palm of Zach's dark hand touched his chest and the darkness faded from his body. "You live here, don't you?" Zach asked, his voice returning to normal though he was still panting a little through that sentence.

"What's it to you?" The man responded, his eyes still narrowed at the boy before him though he stopped panting unlike the kid. Another tree over on Zach's right and Mark's left cracked and started to fall, slamming into the ground with a loud noise that shook the floor beneath their feet.

"Do you really want to destroy more of your place?" Zach asked. He panted a couple more times and then took in a deep breath and stopped himself with the release. "We've already made the area pretty noticeable. Sorry about that."

The man was not relaxing, and he just kept glaring at the boy in a ready stance for a few seconds before lowering his arms down to his sides too. He stood up straighter and glared at the kid who stared back at him in a way the older man was finding hard to read. "What do you want?" Zach asked. "Why did you attack us?"

"I know you're on the run," the man responded. As he was answering, a couple of exhausted others climbed up into the forest back to their east.

"It looks like you're on the run too," Zach countered the man who just darted a look back over at Sazaki's accomplices. The man slowly turned his gaze back to Sazaki with his eyes wide and then getting deathly serious, more-so than Zach had seen even while they were fighting. "You might have been speaking Japanese, but you're an American. What's an American doing on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific?"

"It's a great place to live," the man commented, dryly. His voice was cold and his eyes discerning but Zach looked steadily back into them.

The others had gotten closer but they did not start attacking as it seemed like there was some sort of truce called for now. They stared over in confusion and surprise though, as Zach continued, "It's a great place to hide, you mean."

"I just like it here."

"Fine," Zach said, deciding against pressing that issue. "But I still don't see why you would attack us then."

"Because I know you're murderers," the man responded. He said it and glared straight into Zach's eyes, just as Cee started to glare towards Zach's back as well that she was being called one just by association. "Or at least you are," Mark corrected himself, and Cee's eyes widened and darted over to the man who she swore glanced her way out the corner of his eyes.

"You're right," Zach said. "I did it." He did not deny it but he did not look guilty after saying it either. "Kurogiri deserved it. Someone had to stop him, and I chose to do so."

Didn't mention anything about the others, Mark noted, though his expression did lose some of its dark, accusing feel. Him loosening up his expression that much though was followed by Zach slouching his shoulders and looking to far remove himself from the conflict they were just having, which made the brown-haired man start glaring at him again.

"You just, decided to kill people?" The man asked, and Zach frowned deeper and lowered his eyes to the floor for a moment.

"Let me ask you something," Zach said, and he rose his gaze up to meet the older man's again. "If you had beaten us, what were you going to do?" Zach tilted his head to the side and leaned the front right of it forward, raising a wet eyebrow at the man who frowned deeper at the question. "You weren't trying to kill us, that much was clear. But if you had captured me, you know they would have wanted to know who managed to defeat us. Even if you did disappear, the people after you would know where you were after we told them the Quirk of the man who beat us."

"You shouldn't try so hard to get yourself killed," the man warned, giving Zach a dark look like he was considering what the boy was telling him.

"No really, what was your plan?" Zach asked. He ignored what the man just said and continued to frown at him which got the guy losing that dark look which did not work on Zach at all, as much as it got the other three nearby all readying themselves for a fight again. "Or are you going to tell me you're really just out here living on this island in secret because it's what you decided to do? Someone as powerful as you, has a boat hidden under some leaves for a quick getaway that I'm sure with your Quirk would be easy as long as you're by water."

"I get it, you figured me out," the man said, even cracking a smile as he said it. But his smile flattened back out immediately and he said in a flat voice, "Now get out of here-"

"You broke our boat," Zach said, looking the man dead in the eyes and saying it to him in a condescending tone. "So now we're your problem." The guy staring at Zach opened his eyes wide and then darted them around at the other three who all stared at Zach and then back at the man looking their way who started to grimace very deeply at what was going on. Darling's expression became very smug in the next second, as she believed everything Zach had been saying and now believed this man had put himself in a very stupid situation. Gentle and Cee stayed more on guard, though Gentle did turn around and head back to the beach to get La Brava who he had left injured back when she applied Lover Mode on him.

"Well- you still can't stay here," Mark snapped after hesitating as he tried to come up with a way to start that sentence.

"Darling, go fix up some seats at that bar," Zach said without taking his eyes off the man he was pretty sure was about to attack him after that comment. The man did not attack though, and Zach nodded at him seriously and then motioned over with a nod of his head. "Let's talk."

"You…" Mark hesitated, then he ground his teeth and started over towards his own home that looked a mess from what he could see right now. "You people come here and bash up my place, then expect to sit down at my table-"

"You attacked us, smartass," Cee snapped over at the man. "Without even waiting to talk first. And I'm pretty sure you smashed Gentle through your own fucking house."

Which means Gentle must have had him desperate enough to do something like that. It was hard fought, yet I still feel like this guy was holding back the entire time. I don't want to ask him about blood though. What if he can't but starts trying- or he does but just doesn't want to yet or- it's risky turning off Death and talking with him but I feel like… I don't know. Zach looked to his side over at the man who snapped his gaze back to him in just as suspicious a way and like he was thinking about a bunch of different things as well. They both just looked into each others eyes and kept thinking for a few seconds, and then Zach motioned again over for the bar that Darling was setting back up and even trying to make look nicer by pushing some loose debris away.

Once Gentle and La Brava had come back over to the same area, the five new arrivals all gathered on the same side of the bar as the man who went around it to an area that remained somewhat intact so not all his belongings were scattered. "It's M," the man said after being asked by the boy sitting at the far end of the bar to his right.

"Wow, real original choosing a letter for your name," La Brava growled, her animosity clear as she checked on Gentle's wounds. He had been doting on her since he went to get her, but she was more just tired than anything from that first heavy hit, whereas Gentle had gotten tossed around and battered badly for several minutes while barely managing to land a few good hits on their "host."

Cee glared next to her at La Brava when the older woman said that, then she looked back at the man across the bar from her. "I'm Cee. I'm an anti-hero, and I just joined them a couple of islands back." The man on the other side of the counter lowered the left corner of his lip down farther and she glared at him in less of an angry way and more a mock insulting one, "So thanks for the warm welcome, asshole."

"Travel with murderers, and you might get treated as one," the man replied with a shrug at the younger blonde girl.

"I'm the only one who killed anyone," Zach said, not going to let that comment slide and making M turn back to him. "But are you really so innocent of that yourself, M?" Zach's eyes were cold as he asked it, and the man he was facing opened his eyes wide for a second before cursing under his breath at that reaction that he knew the others saw since they were all watching his face.

In Mark's mind flashed a classmate of his, a friend from high school, facing off against him with cheering fans all around them. His eyes darkened and his brown bangs shadowed them over. "No," he said, and then he rose his head and looked darkly through those shadows at the boy in front of him. "So your assumption that I wouldn't just kill you, to prevent anyone from finding me here… you might want to rethink it."

The others on Zach's side of the bar tensed up at the serious tone in M's voice as he said that. Zach stared into his dark eyes though, and he started shaking his head back at the man who he felt he had figured out but still could not understand very well. "Who's chasing you?" Zach asked.

"My past is my own," M replied. "It's no business of yours."

Zach frowned deeper and he glanced down the line to his right again. I don't know any of the others' names. Nothing really about them. What does that matter? I don't even care. That's not why, they're with me. We don't need to know each others' pasts to be comrades. Zach's eyes focused on Cee who he had just invited to come along with him, but who was fighting alongside all of them back there. His eyes refocused on the man across the bar from him, "What are you doing on this island?"

"None of your-"

"I'll reword it then," Zach said, his voice angrier as he gave M a colder glare. "Why, with so much power, is it that all you do is relax on an island while the rest of the world is in chaos?" The others on Zach's side of the tropical bar looked over at the sixteen year old who sounded so frustrated as he said that. "There are villains everywhere."

"I'm protecting the island," M said.

"You don't need to," Zach retorted with a scoff. "A tiny island that's peaceful-"

"It's only peaceful because I'm here," M countered, though he was wondering how Sazaki knew it was a peaceful island.

Zach had just assumed it was so though, and he shook his head back at the man's response. "Then couldn't you make more places peaceful too? Couldn't you help stop the ones making the rest of the world dangerous, so that you don't need to worry about those people coming here?" M stared at Zach with his eyes going wide at what the boy was asking him, because the kid was making a feeling of shame well up in his chest that he was usually able to push down pretty easily. Hearing those words from a kid he had been calling a murderer straight to his face though, made it harder to push it down than he thought.

He's so strong. And I don't know what kind of experience he has, but he didn't kill us even though it could have really been detrimental to him. He's not a hero, but he's not evil or a bad guy either, and he seems really pissed at me for being a murderer yet would probably be a lot more pissed if they weren't villains that I killed. Zach took in a deep breath, then he leaned over the bar and said, "Do you, want to come with me?"

"Hold on-" La Brava snapped her head back to the left so hard her neck hurt.

"What are you-" Gentle began.

Darling wanted to just agree with anything Zach said, but she had seen this man hurting Zach earlier and all she wanted to do was dive over the counter and start strangling him. So hearing that made her open her mouth to complain too, though she only made out a "Wha-" before she caught herself from disagreeing with him.

Cee looked over at Zach confusedly too but she did not have a sudden volatile reaction. Instead she stared at him oddly, thinking, He invited me because there were people after me, who he felt he was responsible for- because he was responsible for it! The other three were already with him… but I guess I didn't see how he got them to join him. It's early. There are only four of us following him right now, and yet, Cee's eyes shifted back to the man on the other side of the counter whose face scrunched up at that offer as much as she was sure hers did when the boy she felt was responsible for Ms. Calico's murder told her to come with him.

"Are you serious?" M asked with his eyebrows raised and a skeptical look on his face. The way the others reacted made it feel like the kid could be, but he still felt baffled by the request that also sounded like he was giving the man a better option than his current one.

"This man attacks us, and you would have him come with us?" Gentle asked over to the darker-haired boy on his left. "We have enough people angry at you as is," he added, making Cee frown more, not that she did not agree with what he was saying. "You're going to get us caught acting so reckless."

"We could do with more people," Zach countered at the annoyed Gentle. It was the first time he was recruiting just for the sake of it instead of necessity like with Cee. He looked towards Gentle for a moment in a serious way and then back at M who he spoke to with a serious look over his face, "So come with me."

"We don't need anyone else with the amazing Gentle Criminal here!" La Brava snapped over at Zach, having been a bit distracted looking at one of Gentle's cuts but remembering that she had to call that out.

M looked over at that young woman and then around at the others who were, except for Gentle, all younger than him. "You want me to follow you?" M asked, looking back at Zach as he asked and his tone getting lower again as he said it. What the hell is this kid thinking? Why would he-

"There's no decision to make," Zach said. He looked sternly at the man in front of him and said, "If you really think yourself a good person, M, then prove it and stop villains with me." M leaned his head back and Zach leaned his own head forward to match the distance. "That's what I'm going to do. Stop villains. I'm starting in America where vigilantes aren't hunted, but I think gathering more people up will make it easier to move from the U.S. to other countries, in time."

Cee looked over at Zach with her eyes wide too at what he was saying. "Making new plans, are you?" Gentle asked, turning himself more on his bumpy seat at the bar. "Mind filling us in on them-"

"I'm thinking of them as we go," Zach said, glancing over at Gentle again who frowned but did not say anything else about it. He had to look past Cee when he did, and she spun to Gentle in surprise at the way the two just interacted. For the first time, it became very clear to her who was deciding their course. Gentle was always so composed and well-spoken, and prideful, that it was hard to tell.

"And if someone like you, M," Zach started again, looking back at the man behind the counter who he had turned away from without worrying for a moment about getting attacked. "If you come with me, we can stop more villains. The world's becoming a more dangerous place. The villains are rising from the shadows, and there aren't enough heroes left to stop them. We're at the edge," Zach put his hands on the bar between them and looked deeply into M's eyes. "And we're about to go over, and descend into a darkness like this world hasn't seen in generations. Since long before any of us were born. That's what I think, at least. And that's what I want to stop."

"Villain rates have been rising ever since the Sports Festival, all around the world," Darling added. She was staring at Zach in amazement at what he was saying, and she spun to the man that the boy she loved was trying to convince to join them. "You seemed pretty mad that we're murderers, didn't you? Yet you're too much of a coward to leave this island you're hiding on."

"If you knew who was after me," M started, then he cut himself off before giving any of that away. What he started to say alone got the other five in front of him hesitating. Even Zach felt an unnerved feeling by the strong way in which M started that, implying whoever was after him was even stronger than he was, and they could barely stand up to him with all five of them together. M ground his teeth after starting that though, not because he wanted to keep himself from giving it away like it seemed, but because he felt like a coward trying to defend himself after everything Zach Sazaki just told him. "I don't trust you, and none of you trust me," M said, looking back at Zach and then down the line while shaking his head.

"You think I trust anyone?" Zach asked. The others on his right looked over again, and Darling frowned with a hurt look on her face, though La Brava also got a big frown too that he would say that after what they'd been through together so far. She humphed and looked away, though Cee kept staring towards Zach with her eyes huge at what he just said. She did not get mad in the least at his lack of trust in her, because the thing she hated most about him was that he had trusted Raijin… Zach looked deeper into Mark's eyes and added, "I'll never fully trust anyone ever again, but does my own fear that my comrades will betray me stop me from going out to make the world a better place?"

"That's what you're trying to do? That's why you killed those men-"

"Yes," Zach replied without hesitation at M's harshly asked questions. "That's exactly why I killed Kurogiri. Not for glory, because no one will ever look at me the same way. Not for revenge, or I would've killed Raijin and Dabi that night instead of forcing them to call their Warp Gate." Zach ground his teeth harder as he said that, and he looked into M's eyes with an intense gaze as he stated firmly, "I did it to help people. I did it, because I wanted people to feel safer in their homes, safer on the streets, safer from the League of Villains who had terrorized Japan using Kurogiri's Quirk for over a year. Now I don't know what we're going to do from here. I really, don't know. But I have ideas for how we can help people. And I think you can help me come up with better ones, and help make sure that when we come up against villains, that we outmatch them and don't have to kill anyone. Someone on the run like you, from someone as powerful as you're making them out to be, has to know how to avoid the authorities and not draw attention to himself."

Gentle hummed and he looked back at the younger man who he stared closely at and examined up and down. La Brava glanced at Gentle and then frowned more, but she glanced back at M herself and looked at him in a more thoughtful way instead of just snapping at Zach this time. Cee and Darling looked at the man across the bar who noticed their awaiting looks and opened his eyes wider. He darted them back at Zach and then deeper into the forest, then towards the shore that he could see easily since the trees that had been in the way were mostly gone now.

"I've been hiding here, for over two years now," M started.

Everyone looked at the man who turned his back on them and looked at his bar instead, the shelves that he had built himself and the bottles he had gone into town to buy. He looked to his left and back towards the west side of the island. If I go back, they'll still recognize me. Security cameras, and any cell phones that pick up my face will be enough for them to know. They'll come for me. And, they say the next stop is America too. It's like they came, to force me to go back and face it. Face my fears at least. "And in those two years," Mark continued, his hands balling into fists down at his sides. "I've seen this world deteriorating from the peaceful state it was in when I got here."

M turned his head and looked back at the others behind him. "Stopping villains, with no recognition, staying in the shadows." Zach nodded his head back at the man.

"We'll bring peace to this world, our own way," Zach said, finishing strongly and with no hesitation in his voice.

M nodded his head back at Zach, and the others on Zach's right all stared at the man in shock at that nod. "I accept," M said. "Your strange, unconventional offer, I'll accept it… but, if I do, I won't kill anyone," he added, and his eyes darkened at the boy in front of him. "And, if I ever feel like you're turning into a villain, I will try and stop you. If you kill any villains who I feel didn't deserve it, I'm done. I'm not a killer." He paused and grit his teeth with a dark look flashing over his face, Not anymore.

"That's great," Zach said. He cracked a grin at the man across from him, "Then, I'm sure you know the people on the other side of this island. Which is good, because you're going to need to get us a new boat…"

---

Present

"He was just…" Zach's voice trailed off as he found it hard to respond to Ojiro when a thousand images started flashing through his mind all at once. "He was…" Zach's voice was softer, his eyes getting wet even as he tried to hold himself together. "Just a…" he said again, but any sentence that started with 'just' was too hard to continue. It was too hard to keep up the lie when his heart was broken in half in his chest. Zach's wet eyes closed and tears slipped out of both of them in front of the five sitting around him. "He was the second- person that…" I can't say anything. But, but I can't lie. I can't be a liar. Not right now. I can't call him, nothing to me.

"Zach," Hagakure whispered, her own lips shaking at the expression of conflicted agony covering his face.

Koda stared at Zach in shock, and he lifted his hands but did not know what to do with them sitting across from Zach and he wound up just holding up his palms in an unsteady way.

Mineta felt like the person Hagakure had mentioned had been someone Zach knew, and he could see Zach was trying to just push past it so he tried to let him. Mineta pulled back though at the look on Zach's face as he tried to look away by turning farther left. "He was-" Zach started again, through lips that barely pursed open for a moment as he rose up his right arm and quickly rubbed over his eyes. "There were others who were closer," Zach said, lowering that arm and opening his eyes while shaking his head at his friends. "It's not like- I don't know. I don't…" Zach paused and he bit down on his bottom lip for a second, but he slipped his teeth off of it as there were scars on it already that his classmates suddenly noticed when they saw what he just did. "Mark was just," Zach whispered.

Saying that word, 'just,' again made him stop and completely freeze this time. Zach lowered his head and his eyes were wide as he stared down at his knees. Don't give anything away! Remember- just- remember! He shouted it in his head, and he "remembered."

"Zach! Behind you!"

"Border patrols don't get paid a whole lot. We certainly could go around, but we're trying to stop them as fast as possible right?"

"Don't listen to Rebel. As much as he might believe it, 'bitch' is never the right way to call a woman."

"That's what new rulers do. They consolidate power. It's the same in anything, business or politics, or even just common villain gangs. They give Mongoloid this month grace period, and all the power in Saudi Arabia will be his by the time…"

"Cee believed in you, to the very end. She was the strongest of us. Aside from you."

"You're not just my comrade. I'm following you, Death… I know that's not how we started, but it's true."

"What should I do with him, Commander?"

"No matter how many of our comrades fall, you never falter."

"And that's… well that's why we follow you."

"You know, I asked myself this morning what kind of idiot jumps out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute? I laughed at the question, but the answer was funnier. It's the same kind of idiot who would give up his nice retirement home on a tropical paradise to go to war when no one asked him to. But you know what? Seeing how things have gone, I know that island's safe now even without me there. And that makes everything we've done worthwhile. Death, I'd follow you to the end of the world, and then off the edge if you asked me to. So, please, don't ask me to do that… I really, don't want to die…"

"Now that I think about it," Zach whispered. Dealing with Darling, La Brava and Gentle were different, and especially dealing with Exodus, and all the others after him were more subordinates and comrades but Mark… he was… "Mark was my friend," Zach said. "My, best friend?" Zach lifted his tone afterwards because he did not know. He didn't give that designation out to anyone since Kaminari, and yet the emotions he was feeling now were so strong he could feel his heart in physical pain as it pounded so hard. "We'd been through everything together. Good times and bad. We were so similar." It was pouring out and Zach couldn't close his mouth, though he wasn't even looking at anyone nor remembered what the original question was anymore. "Mark was one of the strongest men I had ever known."

One of the few who I believed had the power to defeat me. Zach's expression got much more grim, his eyes darkening instead of watering up and his heart slowing down as that horrible look covered his face. How many still can? How many people in the whole world? I'm one of them, so I need to shut the fuck up.

Zach started to lift his head, but when it was only half up his whole body tensed with a very strong flinch at the hands that grabbed him. Sero's right hand smacked down on Zach's left shoulder, and he squeezed it closer to Zach's neck with his chair closer to Zach's than it had been the last time Zach noticed. At the same time, Hagakure grabbed his right arm with both of her invisible hands, and Zach flinched so hard because he did not even notice that she had stood up and was leaning in front of him to do that. He was glad she had not tried to hug him, as he felt like that would have just been too weird now that he remembered where he was. What was I doing? Shut up. You weren't here long enough, to care about someone that much… Zach grit his teeth and he shook his head back and forth a couple times to wipe that look from his face. "Or at least, he was one of my best friends," Zach said, somewhat retracting it without pretending like he was totally fine this time.

"Dude," Sero said, his voice quiet as he spoke up. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Mineta agreed quietly. "That's really…"

"Mark, and the other friends I made," Zach started. "I told them about the assassins. We went after Eziano, but no matter how hard we tried we couldn't stop him. I never even figured out where in the world he was hiding. Pretty sure it wasn't America though."

Zach's tone showed he wanted to change the conversation, or at least raise the mood back up a bit. The others were feeling like they needed to give Zach their condolences, and console him over what had just made him so sad for a moment, but Zach was trying hard to shift the conversation and Sero nodded while lowering his hand from Zach's shoulder. Hagakure backed off too with her eyes wide but she sat back on the couch again.

Fine. That's, totally fine. "You were in America for most of the time before you left, yeah?" Sero asked, as he needed a refresher.

Zach nodded at him, and Sero smiled at his friend and asked, "How was it over there? Me and Pony broke up actually because I wanted to stay and sidekick for Ape Man after I graduate, while Pony wanted to go home. Think I made the wrong move?"

"Well, I don't know about," Zach hesitated as he did not want to make the call there. Instead he just continued with, "But America's great. I loved it over there at least."

"You were there with that girl, Darling, right?" Hagakure asked. She asked it cautiously as she knew he did not want to talk about her much. She added on top before he could get mad, "Because we saw this clip of you over there, and there was this girl with you…"

Zach nodded his head and did not get upset like she thought he might. Instead Zach smiled nostalgically as he thought back on his time in America, back in the time around when that video he had already seen was taken. "Yeah, the two of us traveled together for a little while," Zach said softly. His smile started to lower, When I should have been protecting the others. He shook his head and kept his lips somewhat curled up as he focused on the good parts of that time instead of what he regretted about it. "We traveled all over America actually. From west coast to east coast, Las Vegas to New York."

"Being a vigilante?" Mineta asked, leaning forward again interestedly and shifting his own mind away from the dark talk they were just having. Zach nodded at him and Mineta grinned bigger at it. The short boy opened his mouth to mention how it was probably easy for Zach to get started over there, since he was used to being a vigilante already, but he held off on it as he knew it could drag the mood back down again. "What were you doing in Mississippi? That's where the convenience store video caught you."

"Then?" Zach began, lifting his eyes up as he thought back to that time and not the earlier time he was in America with a lot more comrades. It was the time he was actually there with just Darling like he mentioned, and he thought back to the days they spent at the end of October and start of November back in the United States. "Mainly busting up drug deals. I went into Mexico for a little too while I was there, just hopping back and forth looking for villains and the products they were trading." The others were looking at him with more serious looks at the answer he was giving, and Zach paused as he wanted the conversation to be more fun than this. "Actually while I was over there, I went to a fraternity party."

"A fraternity?" Ojiro asked in surprise.

"Like those ones in the movies?!" Hagakure asked excitedly, leaning forward off the couch as she did.

"Were they villains?" Sero wondered, and Zach shook his head which just confused Sero more.

"No, but I figured I could get information, since I was sure some of the college students there would be doing the drug I was looking for the dealers of." Zach paused and he grinned more as he thought back on that night, "Halloween in America is awesome. Even if it's not on the exact night, everyone's just so excited by it. It might be my favorite holiday too now."

"Was the party that crazy?" Mineta asked with his eyes wide. Having never been to a college party himself, Mineta had no idea what to expect and was just staring at Zach in anticipation to hear about the crazy event. He felt it was likely full of hot girls in sexy costumes, or at least that was what he was starting to imagine from Zach's expression after his question.

"Yeah," Zach admitted. "There was loud music, and everyone was dancing, and they were all dressed up and getting drunk and just-"

Hagakure made a noise that got Zach to pause, but she hesitated after making it like she wanted to hold back her question. Zach noticed that Ojiro and Koda also seemed hesitant too, but Hagakure came out and asked, "Were you drinking?"

Zach shook his head back at the invisible girl. "I don't drink," he replied. Hagakure nodded at him, though his answer still sounded weird to his friends. It sounded like he thought it would have been fine to answer either way but it was just personal preference, nothing to do with the law. Zach continued with a small laugh, "Darling drank though, a little too much actually." In his head he saw her red cheeks when he asked her, the shocked look on her face as she realized it herself. That was the first time she got drunk too. She didn't even plan on it. "Haha," Zach laughed at his own thoughts and then added while lifting his eyes up to the ceiling, "She was much better than me at going undercover, actually drinking and using sleight of hand to not put any booze in my drinks. Even with people around who thought I was drinking, no one noticed her keeping my drinks alcohol-free."

Zach paused for a second, then he added quieter, "She did it without telling me. She just knew that I didn't want to drink, not even a single sip-"

"Zach," Ojiro started. The nostalgic and somewhat sad look on Zach's face made him cut in, and Zach lowered his eyes down to the blond boy who had a conflicted and also upset expression. Ojiro wanted to look stern, as the person Zach was talking about was someone who he had felt so strangely towards Zach because of for a year and a half. Yet the way Zach was talking about her also made him frustrated at the fact that he had no idea who this was. "Who was she? Why do you call her, Darling?"

Sero was still staring at Zach wide-eyed from what he said about drinking. He sat there with his eyes stuck on Zach but unfocused as he thought about the night of Kaminari's betrayal, about the things Zach shouted from his room about addiction and his father. She knew? I wouldn't have even thought, to not ask Zach if he- That girl, really knew him better.

Zach started shaking his head at Ojiro after those questions, but Mineta leaned closer to Zach and rose the corners of his lips high. "I knew it! You must have really been going out." Zach turned to Mineta and held up his left hand defensively with a shake of his head, but Mineta shook his back faster at that denial. "Come on! You were doing it the whole time weren't you?" Mineta bounced his eyebrows a couple times at Zach and then opened his eyes wider at the slight red that came to Zach's cheeks.

Did it? It's not like, she didn't try. She was- Zach imagined Darling stepping in front of him and dropping her bathrobe. He could see her face when he opened his eyes leaning over him, and his cheeks turned red thinking about the time she walked into his room and stripped seductively without waiting to find out that Gentle was standing around the corner in his bathroom. "No," Zach said after a couple seconds. "We weren't, doing it." He shook his head and looked into Mineta's eyes to convince the shorter boy humming at him. "It was never like that."

"If you weren't like that, then who was she to you?" Ojiro tried to push it farther. "Your Quirk didn't-"

"Stop." Zach said it flat, his eyes shifting over to Ojiro and the mood dropping instantly. Ojiro froze with his mouth open, and Zach continued to him, "I said to never ask questions about her." He stopped the conversation dead and then grimaced hard at the looks of his classmates. "I'm sorry," Zach started again, "for bringing her up in the first place. I should have known that would make questions-"

"It's okay!" Hagakure cut in quickly, her sleeves raising and waving at him. "I still want to hear about the party. How'd you even get in? Aren't the alcohol laws in America like, super strict?" Please don't stop talking to us, Hagakure got nervous at what Zach was just saying which made her feel like he was about to distance himself again. She nudged Ojiro with an elbow as she lowered her arms, and the muscular boy on her side in the middle of the couch frowned but tried not to make himself seem all that upset that Zach wouldn't answer his questions.

"I bribed the security guard at the door," Zach said after a moment of hesitating when Hagakure asked those questions. He was already dodging one set of questions by moving it away from Darling, and the idea of lying right after that made his stomach churn. What's the point? This is stuff that happened before I left. I shouldn't lie, when I don't need to. That's what a liar would do. I'm not, what Jirou said. I'll prove it.

"How'd you get the money?" Sero wondered. He dropped his bank card in the mud that night. Maybe that girl was loaded?

"I usually kept a good money flow robbing drug dealers," Zach replied. His answer made Sero drop his bottom lip as it was not what he was expecting, and Zach looked around to see all the others gawking at him too for that casual response. "It was good business," Zach said with a half-shrug at those looks demanding an explanation. "I'd kick the crap out of them and take their money. Scare them with some Nightmare and threats about what would happen if they kept selling drugs, then I'd dip out."

Zach's tone had changed a bit when he started talking about this, and he was more relaxed back into his folding chair looking calm and even a little scary. Zach added, "Only the small-time dealers I'd steal from, instead of calling a tip in to the cops or something. I'd rob the low tier dealers, and most of the time I didn't need to beat them up to scare them straight, though I would sometimes just to make sure they remembered it, or maybe as a punishment since I wasn't turning them over."

"Why weren't you?" Koda asked in confusion, trying to push away the anxious feeling at the dark stuff Zach was telling them to figure out the reason for himself.

"I didn't want to ruin their lives," Zach replied. "They weren't really villains. Not the kind I was after, at least." Zach leaned back forward and glanced over to his left at Sero and Mineta, and he added in his explanative tone, "Most of them were just being stupid. A lot were young around our age or just a little older. Some just needed money for important things, or because they didn't think it was a big deal. They weren't villains, I couldn't see them as villains at least…" Zach's eyes darkened and he put his hands down on his thighs, thinking of a few times the things he was describing really happened. "I showed them what real villains were like though, and I never had to come back to one of those people after teaching them that lesson."

Zach's head turned a bit to look more towards Hagakure and Ojiro who were still looking at him in confused ways, but also like they wanted to see where he was coming from too. They were willing to listen at least, and Zach added, "It's hard in America for people with drug convictions to get into good schools or get good jobs, and those people begging me not to turn them in for it weren't bad people. They really weren't. But I took their money and beat them up, showed them my scary Nightmare form and warned what would happen if they kept selling drugs. Usually it was just some ominous, 'I'll be back.'" Zach tried to make a joke out of it even changing up his tone to be all low and fake-ominous.

A couple got nervous smiles on their faces, but Zach still sweatdropped, I totally ruined the mood with this. What am I even talking about? Zach frowned and he glanced to his left at Sero who only tried at a fake smile for a second before lowering it down. "What did you think I was doing, if not stuff like that?"

Sero shrugged at the question and said, "You got me there."

Mineta nodded past him and Zach looked over to see the shorter boy losing his nervous look as he admitted it to himself too. "I guess, I kind of expected stuff like that," Mineta admitted aloud. "But it just sounds strange hearing you talk about that illegal stuff without caring about the consequences. Though I guess since you were pardoned-"

"I didn't talk about it at my trial or anything," Zach countered with a shake of his head at the shorter boy who got confused once again. "I wasn't on trial for that stuff," Zach explained simply.

"Wait, but does that mean they're secrets?" Hagakure asked. "If we tell people will you get arrested again?" Her eyes were wide which Zach could tell despite them being invisible.

Zach frowned and hummed for a moment, then said, "I might." The other five stared at him in shock, and Zach added, "Though I'm not sure as to what the Prime Minister would do. It's not like anyone expected I was just sitting around all year, but I got pardoned anyway." Zach shrugged while saying it and looked around in that carefree way to get the others to stop thinking it was as big of a deal as they were treating it. They each started to calm down too, and Zach continued, "Maybe with proof they'd convict me, but what proof is there except my confession right here that I'd never admit in court. There's no proof I did anything, and what reformed drug dealer is going to leave their new life to come to Japan and talk about how they used to sell illicit substances and want justice for me scaring them and maybe giving them a black eye?"

The others stared in surprise at Zach again at the explanation, but Sero admitted after a couple seconds, "That… is smart." He slouched in his seat and cracked half a smile as he looked across from him at Ojiro, before turning back to Zach and saying, "And it's a good way at looking at it, since I'm glad I can see it that way too." Zach relaxed with his shoulders slouching and a smile returning to his calm face. "It sounds pretty cool what you were doing too," Sero continued, and Zach's returned smile dropped a bit in surprise at Sero's response.

"Sero," Ojiro started across the gap to his friend.

"What?" Sero asked with a shrug back at Ojiro. "The prisons are full enough as they are, and sometimes giving people some mercy instead of sending them to jail might be…" Sero trailed off. It was not because of the focus of the conversation itself, but just the weird feeling he got mentioning 'mercy' and Zach in the same sentence.

Sero was not the only one to feel weird about what he was just saying. Zach understood why the others got those weird looks on their faces. "My mercy, huh? Maybe that was, something to make up for it. To myself."

"Zach," Hagakure started softly. He looked at her, and she paused but then said what she was thinking about, "Why'd you…"

"I get why you killed Kurogiri," Sero said on Zach's left side. Zach did not turn to his friend next to him, he just stared down in the middle of the floor at the nearly empty box. Sero continued to the side of his friend's head, "I get what you think you needed to, at least. But those other people…"

"I know," Zach whispered. His voice in those two words alone got through eighteen months of regret, but Zach was not satisfied with just that. His head snapped up with his teeth clenched and his eyes staring around at each of his old classmates closely. "I'm sorry," he whispered. His voice got hoarse as soon as he said it this time, softer and more emotional than he had been at the hospital when he apologized right off the bat. It sounded more genuine after the conversation they had been having, after they all felt like they knew for sure who the person they were talking to was, or still was. "I didn't plan on… but that doesn't matter. They got killed- I killed them, after planning that night out. It's my fault, and I should have held back more. I should have, practiced using Trigger before instead of just using it like that and going…"

"You said on the news that you were sure you wouldn't lose your cognitive functions," Ojiro started. "But, that night, you weren't all there. It wasn't, you. Or at least not you, in control."

"That wasn't from the Trigger though," Zach said quietly. He shook his head at Ojiro and the blond boy hesitated but then nodded, remembering what Kirishima told them in the forcefield that night when Zach was losing it. "I didn't know how strong it would be, when I swung my arm at those two and, killed them. After that, and the pulse of Death that killed Kurogiri too…" Zach rose his right hand and he curled his fingers into his forehead.

"Oops. I don't know my own strength in this form. But telling from that power boost, the two of them are dead… And so is he." Zach's friends remembered the voice echoing over that forest in such a dark and evil way. The tone had been so cocky, and even taunting, as he said those things. The way he threw Kurogiri's body after that, and the rampage he went on killing another three people, it wasn't the Zach they knew nor the one they were seeing now.

That was Zach, when he kills people, Hagakure realized at what he was trying to explain to them. If it wasn't the Trigger, then it was really all just from his Quirk?

We never knew he could lose control like that, Ojiro thought. Because he had never killed multiple people like… He didn't even know himself, what would happen.

Zach apologized in the letter for killing those animals in front of me. Then he, killed a bunch of people. Koda pursed his lips while looking at his old classmate whose tone from when he said 'I know' was still filling Koda's mind. Someone as kind as him did something so contradictory. Zach, I still can't understand…

A Quirk that makes him feel good when he kills people, makes him insane, and also makes him stronger? Mineta usually felt somewhat nervous when he thought about things like that. As he stared at Zach curling his fingers into his head though, the look of regret over his face as he talked about that night just made the short boy feel pity. I always thought it was such a creepy Quirk, and scary. But the one it must be scariest for, has to be you.

After that night, I should have known, Zach thought. His fingers curled harder into his forehead even though his mind was far from the Lifebringer Incident now. Instead, there was sand all around him. His eyes were open but he was no longer in his apartment. His eyes opened wider as he stared down in front of him below the box on the floor, to the red sand that stretched out in every direction. He didn't want to turn his head, but he could picture it all in his peripherals and his eyes opened wider as his breath started to come out more staggered. What happens, when I kill too many… Zach clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, leaning back in his seat and opening his eyes to remind himself with the faces of his classmates where he was.

"I'm just, sorry," Zach repeated. He looked back at Sero who shook his head at Zach like he was saying Zach did not need to apologize to him.

You didn't hurt me, man. You didn't hurt anyone, as much as you hurt yourself.

Zach looked around at everyone sitting in his living room. The friends he felt so happy came to visit him, and who he really did want to be his friends again. I can't make amends if I can't be with you guys. I can't make it right with anyone, I can't help… anyone, if I can't first clean up the mess I made when I left. "For leaving you all like that," Zach said, his voice louder and steadier as he looked at each of his friends. "I'm sorry, and I'll do whatever I can to make it right."

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A/N Thanks for reading...