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!

150. Chapter 150

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 150:

"Dendo has hit the ground, Sazaki is the winner," Hazano announced.

"Holy crap," Kerushi whispered, as he read Sazaki's lips on the monitor zoomed-in on the two competitors. "Dendo said, Sazaki wouldn't even touch him."

Flugeru turned his head slowly to his friend at his side, piecing together what Kerushi said and what they just saw Lifebringer do to Dendo. A couple of the others boys had heard Dendo say that too, and Inasa stared through the glass with his lips flickering between a huge smile and the serious look he attempted to have before. He already knew what Sazaki had been doing though. He had thought of it when he saw the very first knife placed on Dendo's foot instead of Sazaki taking him down right there. Inasa grinned a huge smile as his excitement won over.

"I've never seen Dendo beaten, in such a way before," Jaime Crowley muttered. The American girl gulped and glanced towards Inasa, who was her only classmate she had seen defeat Dendo before today. He's way too excited about that. I've never seen you beat him so, so- I don't even know what to call that! Dendo's an all-around…

I've never seen him lose his cool like that before, Kotsumura thought, staring out towards Dendo in a shocked way at the expression on his face. Does he hate Lifebringer that much, or did Sazaki just know how to draw that out of him? That was just… humiliating.

Zach turned his back on Dendo and walked away. His look was relaxed, and he was not panting nor even looked winded from that fight. Meanwhile Dendo was sitting on the floor, panting through his nose and curling his hands so hard into the ground that his fingers dug through the rocks and then crushed the pebbles in his hands into dust. He pushed down on his fists, but his mouth froze when he opened it to shout something at the other boy walking away from him. "You!" Dendo shouted after freezing up like that.

He slammed his fists on the ground and pushed himself up to his feet fast. His fists stayed clenched in rage, his fingernails digging into his palms through his green gloves. Dendo growled at Zach's back as the darker-haired boy kept walking away from him, "That's how you want to win? You really- you think tricks like those-"

"If that was a real fight against a villain," Zach started as he continued to walk away with Dendo without pausing. "How many times do you think you would have died right there? You going to make excuses after you're dead?" Zach's voice came out taunting, and he never even looked back at his opponent as he said it.

Is he- like I'm not even worth his fucking time?! Dendo's fists clenched even harder and his entire arms started to shake.

Flugeru glanced from Sazaki who was approaching the open door of the waiting room, back to his best friend who looked angrier than he had ever seen him before in the last three years. Shouldn't have brought up his parents dude! Flugeru had ignored it before, but he thought that now as he needed to convince himself that Lifebringer was not insane and that it was a justified reaction to have after what Dendo had been saying to him.

"Didn't have to do him dirty like that," Roger Whitewood muttered in English, the other American exchange student in the class of thirty standing near the door and saying it as Zach was coming in.

"Don't know what'chu mean," Zach said in a nonchalant voice back, also speaking English. He turned to the white boy on his side with short orange hair with a white stripe in the middle of it, raising his eyebrows as if asking him to elaborate on what he meant.

"Nothing," Roger muttered, returning to Japanese and shifting his eyes away from Lifebringer's as he got unnerved looking into his.

"Clear out of the gymnasium, Dendo," Hazano spoke into his microphone. Thought he was about to snap right there. Was Sazaki trying to get him expelled or something? If he had attacked a classmate outside of the training drill, he would have been kicked out immediately. Dendo's never been one quick on the trigger, but right there… He got-

Humiliated. He fucking humiliated me. In front of everyone, I lost so fucking- FUCK! That fuck is a villain, he's a killer and instead of making him lose his… wait. Fuck- no! That's not- He couldn't have! Dendo's eyes shot open wide for a second as he approached the waiting room, then he darted them down at the floor and took in a deep breath to stop himself from panting by the time he entered that room too. Did he know what I was trying to make him do, so he tried to get me to do it instead? I almost… fuck I almost just! And if I almost snapped at him right there, if I could do it- is he saying… what the fuck? Don't look into it so much! But he could, be saying that anyone could lose their shit if things got- this mother fucker. No! If he had snapped, that would have made him a villain! It would have shown his true colors…

A frustrated and confused look covered Dendo's face as he came back into the waiting room. He avoided everyone's looks as he just stepped in and walked to the back wall he leaned on with his eyes dark and shadowed by the messed-up flip of his bright green hair. "Dendo," Hazano began towards his student who did not even look his way after entering the room. Dendo rose his gaze up to his teacher's, and Hazano could see he was thinking hard about something but he needed to mention this anyway. "When you thought Sazaki was behind you and swung with such force that you cut the wall, you lost control over your Slicer. If you had hit him you could have killed him."

Dendo's teeth ground across each other behind his lips, but he nodded and lowered his gaze back to the floor as he saw his classmates all looking back at him with different looks. Some of them looked like they pitied him for getting scolded like that, like they could see where his head was at when it happened. A few looked pissed, and Muoko actually had a disappointed look on her face as she stared at her classmate who never got so riled-up that he would risk killing a classmate. Most others just had nervous looks though as Dendo's fists were still clenching super hard at his sides, and Sazaki looked back towards him when the rest of them looked so they half-expected him to pop off again.

"And Sazaki," Hazano began. "This isn't the time to mess around," his voice was lower and just as serious as what he just said to Dendo. "If you had finished it earlier, as you easily could have, you would not have been in that dangerous situation. You put yourself in it, and in a fight against villains you put anyone else around you in danger by wasting time like that."

"Easily," the only word that mattered to Dendo Takashi echoed in his head and just made him bite down harder. He moved around so fast, but I got caught up in his stupid tricks! Every fucking time I got misdirected I just happened to pick wrong, and he guessed which side- If he had used… if he had used his Quirk, I could have cut through Death easily. It's only Quirks you control afterwards that Death can knock you out! I could split Death easily! But- am I… if he used his Quirk, it would have been easier? Of course not. So, so then he beat me only using…

Zach was not looking towards Dendo. He nodded at the teacher and replied, "Sorry, Hazano sensei." Then he walked over towards Kotsumura and smiled when the blond looked at him with his eyebrows risen high and his eyes still full of surprise. "I get that doesn't make me rank second, but I bet I'm above twenty-seventh."

Reika heard Zach on Kotsumura's other side, and she lowered her bottom lip for a second before laughing out loud at the boy who spun his head. Kotsumura saw her laughing and looked back at Zach with his jaw dropped as that was all he had to say after that fight. He looked so pissed! Geez, what the hell. "Yeah, well I won't be twenty-seventh for long," Kotsumura said, and he turned his head and looked back towards Hazano who was typing something into a tablet he had in his third and fourth hands.

Zach spotted the teacher out the corner of his eye and looked back to see Hazano had two new arms suddenly sticking out of his sides. Didn't notice the extra sleeve holes earlier. Looks like there are four more not in use under the bottom two. Oh- Hazano sensei's Hachiman? He looks so different outside of his costume, and I never knew his real name.

"Sensei," Kotsumura spoke up, and Reika looked at the boy next to her in more surprise now. She stopped laughing in his expense and instead smirked wide as he darted a competitive look at her. "I'd like to challenge Reika next."

"You know the rules, Kotsumura," Hazano muttered in annoyance. He lifted up the remote in his upper right hand while Kotsumura sweatdropped and Reika laughed at him. "I randomize the battlefield first. What are you going to do, if the two of you wind up in-"

The flipping images on the screen came to a stop, and Kotsumura's expression fell while Reika started cracking up now. "A lake and a swamp zone," Hazano muttered, even more of a dead-pan tone now. "No retracting your challenge though. So go out there and live with it."

"That's fine," Kotsumura said, getting Reika to lower her head and stop laughing as hard though still smirking victoriously at her classmate ranked far below her. "I can beat you even-"

"Pssh- HAahahaha!" Reika blew air between her lips as she tried to hold in the laughs at Kotsumura's serious expression. "Alright, alright," she walked up to the boy's side as he got a more annoyed look on his face at the way she was laughing, especially because the others around him were not giving him very confident looks that he could do this. "Tell you what. If you beat me, you can call me Tiona too if you want." She even flashed Kotsumura a flirtatious look as she walked by, making the blond boy freeze up which Zach sweatdropped at the sight of.

He's so screwed, a couple of the people in there, including Zach, thought. The majority of them were not really focused on what Reika and Kotsumura were saying though, as eighty percent of them were still stealing glances at Lifebringer who so effortlessly defeated their second strongest classmate and was now acting like a normal member of their class despite having joined them less than an hour ago. The embarrassing way he chose to defeat Dendo had a lot of them giving him disdainful looks too, but Zach ignored almost all of them.

He saw Himazuri glance towards him though after she watched Reika's back for a few seconds. She had watched the blondes almost walk out into the gymnasium, but when she darted her eyes towards Zach for a second she quickly shifted them back to the glass when she saw him meet her gaze. Zach walked over to her, and he stepped right up on the shorter girl's left side. "What's Reika's Quirk, Himazuri?" The shorter girl looked to the side and up at Zach with a frown, then a hesitant look as he just looked back at her expectantly and ignored the disdain she had as she thought about how he just beat Dendo. She felt a little bad though as she could see Dendo in the back of the room out the corner of her eyes, and she spun back to the glass instead of responding to him. "Has to do with water, right?" Zach whispered quieter, almost like it could be to himself if Himazuri chose not to answer him.

I don't understand, Himazuri thought, her chest all tightened up as she looked through the window from just next to Lifebringer. How he could think about all that, during their fight- how he could think… She pursed her lips, then she slowly nodded her head and began softly, "It does. Reika's hero name is Tidal Wave. Her Quirk's called, Tide."

Makes sense that she's ranked fifth in the class, Zach thought, lifting the corners of his lips a little more as he stared through towards the blonde girl jumping from stone to stone in the lake area mainly covered by water. Reika was given the position Alpha to start at, so she was closer to them and able to loosen up for a little as Kotsumura ran across the gym to his own starting point. Bet it's not as strong as Mark's… Zach's smile dropped down, his chest clenching up and fear flashing over his face. No. Kotsumura- they wouldn't have looked at him like that if his Quirk was a water one too. So she won't- but it might not be exactly the same as what he did, back when he killed his friend. She could… Zach's heart raced as Hazano started making the same kind of announcement he made before his and Dendo's fight.

It's not Liquid Control. Tiona knows how to use it- except Mark thought he knew, back when he was trying to be a hero. I'm paranoid. I'm nervous. "What does Tide do?" Zach asked, his voice softer.

Himazuri had started focusing on the fight, but she glanced back towards Zach and then out at her blonde friend again. "Reika can push and pull water from any surface she's touching. She can rise tides or make them completely disappear. And she can move water away from herself too," Himazuri added, right as Reika dove forward off one of the stepping stone rocks near the middle of the room before the zone evened out.

She could make a bubble around her own head? Keep air and breathe underwater, Zach looked towards ripples in the water to watch for his classmate who was suddenly hiding from Kotsumura. His eyes rose from the water to the boy searching for the spot his classmate would rise from. "And Kotsumura's?" Zach asked, making Himazuri glance at him again wondering if he really was just as curious as he sounded.

Himazuri avoided some looks from her classmates staring towards her and Zach's backs, and she replied softly, "Kotsumura can weaken the Quirk of anyone he touches. It's a temporary effect-" Himazuri had looked back towards Kotsumura when she started responding, but she shifted her eyes to the corner of her vision for a second as she was mentioning how it was temporary. Her mouth froze open at the huge, hopeful eyes that darkened when he heard there was a duration for the Quirk's power. Zach's expression steadied an instant later though and he smiled again as he saw Kotsumura's eyes looking straight towards the spot he saw the water moving.

Of course, since she's ranked fifth…

Kotsumura leapt towards where the water was shifting around a lot like someone was rising. He rose up his arms in his costume, a sticky substance on his gloves that he pointed down towards the opening in the water. Then his eyes shot open wide, as it was not Reika's bubble running out of oxygen that caused that hole to appear. Instead it was just a hole, from the bottom of the lake that had no shallow section and was deep all around that half of the room. He fell deep into the lake, and it was only because Reika released her Quirk a second early that the walls of that hole flooded in and kept Kotsumura Keiji's legs from breaking twelve meters under the surface.

Zach shook his head, but he smiled at the effort and determination on Kotsumura's face when he made that leap. He really thought he- Zach's eyes widened, as did everyone elses' in the waiting room as Reika splashed up out of the water, panting hard, with a pair of hands grabbing her front and back. The hand on her front was slightly too far up, resting just underneath where the tight blue of her costume wrapped over her breasts. Her blue fabric there had the appearance of scales, as did the orange arms and legs of her costume that she flailed at the boy grabbing onto her front and back with his hands sticking to her like glue.

"He, got her?" Flugeru asked, raising his voice and asking if he was really seeing this right.

"Damn- get off!" Reika balled her right fist and slammed it straight into Kotsumura's face as he was panting just over the water too. Reika had been panting because her bubble collapsed as soon as he grabbed onto her, though she blamed that on almost being out of air already. She did not feel the power of the tides though, and her eyes opened wide as Kotsumura opened his squinted eyes after that punch. He powered up Deplete! Reika pulled back her right fist and slammed it forward again, but Kotsumura yanked his head away fast enough and the fist flew by his right ear instead.

Water droplets flew off Reika's fist, and Kotsumura kicked his legs hard below him to tread water more than the girl too surprised by his dodge that she stopped kicking her legs for a second. Kotsumura leaned his head back as he rose up over her, and then he slammed his forehead down into hers and knocked Reika's head backwards with her eyes rolling up into her head and a gasp slipping her lips. And then the two of them sank back under the surface of the lake.

Everyone leaned forward in the waiting room, staring through the glass from close-up. Even Dendo pushed off the back wall and stepped a few feet forward, looking at the screens above everyone's heads instead with his eyes wide. An arm splashed over the water at the mid-point of the gym, grabbing onto the ledge. Kotsumura hoisted up with a bare hand he had slipped out of his glove, which was still attached just beneath Reika's chest. Reika's going to be pissed when she gets up and sees that still there, if it's still there… Kotsumura yanked Reika up more with the hand he had on her back, hoisting her with one arm as he could since his arms were very muscular under his costume. He cracked an even bigger grin after he rolled up onto the edge of the lake next to her, turning his head to the side and looking at Reika's blank expression. Or actually, Tiona's gonna be pissed.

"Reika is unconscious it seems, Kotsumura is the winner." Hazano announced, a small grin lifted on his face for a moment as he stared at his student who smiled in so much pride hearing his name called right there. Great improvement this last term. You deserve this. Even if, it wasn't quite the first knock down, but the lake zone isn't very good for that anyway.

Kotsumura turned Reika on her side, patting her on the back a couple times with a worried look on his face. The others watching him, a few of them clapping or cheering for their classmate who won the upset, leaned forward with more nervous looks as Kotsumura's expression appeared to be. Zach's smile dropped and his eyes opened wide as he had seen Kotsumura put a hand over Reika's mouth and under her nose there before he turned her on her side. Some water spilled out of Reika's mouth, but as a few others looked to be about to run for the door like Zach and Hazano sensei were, Reika coughed and a splash of water hit the ground at her side.

"Holy- are you alright?" Kotsumura turned Reika more towards her stomach. He did not think much of it when she was not moving after he dropped her next to him, but when he thought about how they had both gone back under for a second, and she was already unconscious before that, the fear became reality. Luckily there was not very much blocking up her throat, keeping her from breathing there. Reika turned her head back, her eyes angry as she glared up at the boy who just asked her that only to lean away.

Reika bit down after opening her mouth to shout at him, a much angrier look forming on her face at herself as she thought about the position they were in. He beat me?! Her eyes shifted down to her chest, and a glove resting under it with two fingers bordering on and even touching the underside of her boobs. The anger towards herself was replaced, and she rose her eyes up darkly back to Kotsumura who stood next to her before she could lash out. "Great match Tiona," Kotsumura said, before turning and jogging off with a victorious look towards the waiting room.

Please don't, Hazano thought, as it looked like one of his students was again about to attack another after the fight had ended.

Kotsumura arrived back in the room adjacent the gym all smiles. Others in the class approached him and patted him on his wet back, giving him words of encouragement and mentioning his nice dodge. Kotsumura stepped up to his white-haired classmate with all yellow eyes that had small black pupils who gave him an encouraging nod. Porrolo Ven looked back through the glass himself towards an approaching and angry Reika, Finish celebrating soon, Keiji.

"Should've let her drink a little more water," Satoshi mentioned quietly, leaning over Kotsumura's right shoulder and whispering it in his ear. "Then you could have given Reika mouth-to-mouth."

"And then she'd be really pissed with you," Porrolo retorted without looking back at the idiot over Kotsumura's shoulder who had managed to get Kotsumura's cheeks turning pink though his smile did rise higher.

His risen smile lowered back though at Porrolo's warning, and he nodded with a smirk. Just the right amount of pissed, he thought, figuring any worse and it might actually lower his mood right now.

Kotsumura glanced over at someone he saw staring at him who did not come over with some of his other friends. He looked around Ven's head and saw Zach was smiling his way and gave him a nod once he looked. Kotsumura grinned back and nodded in response towards him and Himazuri who gave him an encouraging smile too, before turning her head and moving over towards Reika.

"Hey Kotsumura," Reika snapped, and three people between the door she just came in and the boy she talked to moved out of the way. Kotsumura turned his head and then his head snapped backwards, as a glove smacked into his face. "You forgot this," she mentioned, a smirk cracked back on her wet face that covered up her own disappointment and frustration. Reika reached back and she pried the next glove off of her back too that he had left on her in his hurry to rush off, and she threw it at him right as he pulled his first glove off his face, getting the second one stuck to it as he was breathing it, blocking his airways and making him stumble around in panic so that Satoshi had to quickly help him peel the glove off his face.

"And Hazano sensei," Reika started, spinning to her teacher next. "I challenge-"

"You have to wait one fight before fighting again," Hazano retorted at the girl who wanted to get in another fight to prevent losing her ranking now that she had been beaten by someone so far down.

Reika frowned at the teacher and grumbled some incoherent words under her breath for a moment. Hazano muttered under his own breath that he had not randomized the stage again yet, and he got to doing so while calling out at whoever planned on the next challenge to keep quiet until he called on them. Reika looked towards Hazano sensei and sighed, as it sounded like he was going to ask people in one of his "random" orders to try and get Ranking Day more organized, as he sometimes would if he was starting to get annoyed at them. The girl with long blonde hair reached up and squeezed the water out of her hair, and as she was doing so she turned her head and looked back towards a muscular boy back behind most of Class 1.

Dendo turned and saw Reika looking towards him, smirking and looking like she was going to challenge him next. His teeth clenched and ground over each other, but the girl looking at him did not even look away or nervous at his expression. Her look said 'I bet I could beat you too' and it had Dendo's blood pumping. Luckily for him, the next person Hazano called had a similar notion that Reika was showing on her face, and Dendo spun with an even angrier look as someone else called him out for a fight.

His angry look met a calm one though from his classmate in all black whose mask covered up everything except her eyes. Manzo Elia looked into Dendo's black eyes with dark green pupils, and she kept her calm even as his expression calmed too and returned to the more collected one Dendo usually had when he fought. The smirk and overconfidence did not return though, just a serious look as he turned and started for the door into the new gym set-up.

"It's been a match in between, but I didn't think Manzo would go for him so soon," Zach heard the tallest boy in the class saying behind him after the two competitors had gone in. He looked over his left shoulder, and Flugeru saw him and frowned for a moment but then turned back to Kerushi and continued in a lower voice, "Even if she thinks she could beat him. I mean, she's been the closest one to do it before, but Dendo's always challenged the most and he'd be more worn out later."

"She only got close last time because it was the end of the day," Kerushi muttered back at his classmate. "Though, if she's calling him out this early, it's probably so if she wins we don't blame it on him being worn out. Not like we could say that first fight wore him out at all. He didn't even get hit."

"Dude," Flugeru started, darting his eyes back towards Lifebringer. Kerushi looked too, but Zach was focused through the glass. His eyes were locked on Manzo whose dark costume he looked at closely. He looked at the weapons she had attached on what looked like a ninja costume, though he suspected there were more hidden inside.

He's not going to fall for the same tricks again, Zach thought, looking towards the girl who was dressed in a very peculiar way. She knows him better than I do though. She came close to beating him before apparently. Maybe she can do it this time too.

Zach watched the fight, and he followed the fighters' movements closely. His eyes were locked on them through the glass the entire time, only darting to the screens on the brief moments when they were impossible to see through the window alone. Kotsumura moved back near him but was still closer to Satoshi and Porrolo on his left, though Himazuri was on Zach's right and Reika moved into the gap between Kotsumura and Zach after she came back with Himazuri. Kotsumura looked at the girl who stopped on his right in surprise that she came right up to him, but she flashed him a smirk that left him in a very confused state once she looked back through the glass and towards the fight.

Who'd've thought he had the guts, Reika saw the confused and flustered expression in the corner of her eyes and hid her smirk only on the right side of her face that Zach could see in his own peripheral vision.

Reika thought she noticed Zach seeing her smile, and she turned a bit to her right to see if he had caught her. Instead, she saw his eyes locked deep through the glass and focused intensely on what he was watching. Her own attention returned to her classmates, but her focus shifted to the right a couple of times during the rest of the fight which was the longest one so far. Dendo got a couple of cuts during the match, but Manzo was the one coughing up spit into her black mask that she had to pull down to breath better, while down on her knees at the end of the fight.

The two of them returned, and the next students went out there as Tomoki challenged Muoko. Apparently the vice president was only one place below his counterpart, one of them thirteen and the other twelve. "They're dating you know," Satoshi mentioned, coming up closer on Zach's left side than Reika who darted an annoyed look at the black-haired boy for cutting between them. He had the tongue of a snake and vertical irises of gold to match. He looked in at his new classmate who nodded, giving him an interested 'huh' before looking back out at the two getting ready to fight.

He's getting so into this, Kotsumura thought, a glance back towards his new classmate on his right again. It doesn't mean anything to him. Not like it does to us, but yet he's so focused. It's like all he's thinking about, Kotsumura's eyes shifted past Zach to Himazuri on his other side who was staring back at Zach again with wide eyes as she read his thoughts.

Their "weaknesses?" Himazuri looked back through the glass towards her two class representatives who had very precise Quirks that required incredible amounts of practice to use. The two of them had taken Ranking Day seriously from the first term of the first year, and they had fought each other each time since then getting to know each other's strengths and weaknesses each time. Almost every time their ranking had changed by only a couple of ranks, one of them rising above or dropping below the other usually based on how they did in their fight against the other, the rest of their classmates meaning little in their overall ranking. It was the final Ranking Day though.

Tomoki and Muoko fought even harder that Dendo and Manzo just were, even if the battle looked to be a little less difficult. Zach noted it himself, that he thought if either of the two out there had gone against Manzo they would not have beaten her, nor would they have lasted against Dendo very long at all.

Dendo was wrapping up his own cuts in the back of the waiting area where there was a small first aid station attached to the wall for their class's own use with no nurse to help them. His eyes focused towards Lifebringer's back and bored into the back of his head. Inasa glanced back towards his classmate who never failed to challenge him, even on Ranking Days when Dendo had already been challenged a half dozen times himself. Do it Dendo! I want a warm-up! Inasa's eyes shifted towards Lifebringer, and at the side of his intense face focused solely on the fight out in the gym right now. His own attention shot back to the fight, where Tomoki and Muoko were up close to each other suddenly using hand-to-hand combat instead of using their Quirks which were both generally mid-rangers.

Zach started to move away as he noticed Muoko getting the upper hand in the battle that was already close to being over. Tomoki was getting less stable on his feet, and Zach moved closer to his teacher while still watching the fight. Hazano was watching the fight closely to judge his students, and when Tomoki got a palm in the center of his chest that knocked him onto his back, the teacher announced the winner of the bout. As soon as he lowered his microphone, Zach questioned the man next to him, "Hazano sensei, I get that I didn't move up to rank second from that last fight, but what rank would you say I am now?"

Hazano turned to the teen next to him who he did not notice approach which made him frown even more than the question itself. "It doesn't work like that," Hazano responded. "It's cumulative."

Zach nodded in understanding once then turned back around. The two class representatives were talking out in the gym, and Muoko extended a hand down for her classmate whose frustrated expression faded a bit as he chuckled at something she just told him. I just needed to ask to show my interest. So that it's easier to get away with.

The class reps came back into the waiting room to lots of encouragement from their classmates for each of them. "Compared to the first Ranking Day," Hazano began, and the two who were being talked at by their friends turned to the teacher. Hazano just re-randomized the stage, but he was not watching the screens to instead smile at his young students. "The two of you have both made great progress. Don't let it get you down, Tomoki. This may have been your last chance to rank higher, but you will both continue training through the rest of the year so I'm sure you'll have more opportunities to spar together…"

Zach watched the screens flip until there were two new zones ready to emerge. Rock zone again. Desert seems similar just with less solid ground. I'm sure there are some people that works better for, but it would probably hurt him a lot more than help. I'll stay in the rock zone though. "Hazano sensei," Zach started once Hazano looked back to see which zones were emerging. "Could I challenge someone?" Zach asked, and the teacher looked back to his newest student and gave him a nod showing it was fine. Because there's been a fight gap between my last fight now. I'm not at the top and there's no way to tell until the end so it doesn't matter what anyone thinks.

Zach turned his head, looked across the waiting room, and he said, "I challenge Imino Kurinou."

A lot of the other students who had looked to Zach in surprise at his sudden declaration of wanting to challenge someone, spun the other direction in confusion towards one of their classmates they had not seen approach Zach yet. The chubby boy with dark blue skin stared across the room at Lifebringer with his eyes wide too, and sweat formed on both sides of his face as Lifebringer stared straight back into his eyes with a smirk crossing over his face at Imino's expression. With those pointy ears of yours, you've been listening to everything I said. More than Himazuri was even eavesdropping on my thoughts, Zach added to himself, while certain that the girl was currently listening to him which made her pull out again with a nervous look on her face.

How does he- no, he didn't know I was right there. He must've just been thinking weird things before while watching my expression, Himazuri calmed herself down after going wide-eyed right behind Zach. So he knew I wasn't listening. Why was he checking though? He must be, being careful about his thoughts… I should really stop trying. He's not thinking about, the stuff Dendo wants to know. Himazuri glanced over towards the muscular boy farther in the waiting room who had as much of a confused look on his face as most others around him.

Reika glanced up towards one of the screens that had the previous term's rankings on them. "Imino's ranked twentieth," she began, stepping towards Zach's side with a frown and confused look. "What's the point of challenging him?"

No one ever declines! Imino's breathing sped up, but seeing Reika counter Lifebringer like that snapped him back to the moment. Not once! Not since the first term, and I'm- I'm not going to be the first! "I accept," Imino said, cutting off Kotsumura right as he looked Imino's way and before he could say anything himself.

Zach nodded and started over to the door into the gym without waiting for any instruction. Flugeru stepped back and looked down, watching the boy walk in front of him with confusion over his face and an uncertain look too at the cocky, smug look on Lifebringer's face. After how he beat Dendo, this is going to be brutal, Flugeru glanced back towards his friend as he thought it and then turned away at Dendo's look of frustration still so visible on his face.

"You can do this, Imino," the boy on his side began, making Imino glance at the slightly shorter student with a large brown shell attached to his back.

Sure he can, "Curly." I still don't know everyone's names in here. You're up next though, so I'll figure it out in a minute. Zach confidently walked into the gym, his overconfidence showing and making a lot more people back in the waiting room frown out at him. Kotsumura's look was more of just confusion, as was Himazuri's, but Reika started frowning darkly out at Zach too as she saw him look back with a look as if wondering if his classmate was even going to come out after him.

Is he that mad about Imino listening in on him? He was just having normal conversation with us a few seconds ago… Himazuri got unsure about herself, but Zach was getting too far from her to check as Hazano sensei sent him to the position Beta across the room. Himazuri glanced to her side as Reika curled her hands over a railing just in front of the window, her body leaning forward and her eyes narrowed at the teen walking away from them across the gym. "Asshole tricked me. What's he trying to prove?"

I don't think… Himazuri closed her mouth that she just opened, turning instead through the glass to her normally shy classmate who came walking around the other side of the wall towards his starting point. Imino didn't want to decline because he felt pressured to accept. I don't need to be a mind reader to see that. This is, Himazuri pursed her lips and her eyes started getting angrier too as she brought them back up to look across the gym towards Zach.

"You can do this," Porrolo muttered, making Kotsumura glance next to him at his spiky-white-haired friend. "Come on, Imino. Wipe that look right off his smug face."

"Smug?" Because he's Lifebringer. Because he's a celebrity and has the whole country looking to him. Kotsumura Keiji started to frown and he glared out across the gym too, but after a couple seconds his gaze softened and he just frowned more but in a confused way. That's not right though. He wasn't just, tricking us. What's he doing? He's the Lifebringer. That's what his expression looks like he's saying. So why? It looks so real! So then why- Kotsumura's eyes shifted back to his classmate just on the other side of the glass.

Imino took in a deep, long breath as he set up on position Alpha. The glowing circle beneath his feet was split on rock and sand, but he stood on the sand side looking like he wanted to keep the battle on that half of the room. Across the middle split-line he could see Lifebringer looking back at him, stopping on his own circle and looking somehow straight back into his eyes. They were in the flattest area of the room right on the center line, with the sand dunes on the right larger than the rocky cliffs and uneven surfaces on Imino's left. The surface of the rock zone had changed up a bit from the one that Zach and Dendo fought on before too, and Zach took his eyes off his opponent to instead look around that area wondering what happened below the surface every time one of the areas dropped down.

Is he even focused on me? Imino thought, trying to get himself angry but just making himself more anxious really with the thought of it. The dark blue teen had on a black costume with dark blue sleeves and highlights on his shoulders, calves, waist, and under his arms on his sides. He had a belt around his waist that looked similar to Zach's but less compact, more of the support items he had showing on it than hidden in the compartments like Zach's were. Imino's hands moved down and his fingers nervously twitched near some of his weapons. I can do… I can! I can, fight him! But, he toyed around with Dendo. Dendo! I- I couldn't beat Dendo. But maybe, maybe he just beat Dendo like that because Dendo was being too cocky! That must be it. Dendo's too good- even the amazing way he was fighting, it just looked so much better because it was Dendo he was beating. And if he could beat Dendo because Dendo got too confident…

"Raise your right hands if you are ready," Hazano announced. Zach rose his first, but Imino took in a deep breath and then lifted his up as well. Imino's eyes narrowed in focus towards his opponent who smirked back at him seeing that composed look, which unnerved Imino again. Imino did not have time to analyze what that look could mean though, as Hazano counted down for them and the fight was started before he could re-prepare himself.

Zach ran forward. He sprinted across the middle of the room. He had his visor over his eyes with his dark blue helmet extended out of it up over the top of his black hair. His visor was dark tinted, but from his curved up lips Imino could imagine the super-confident look in Lifebringer's eyes that made his hands clench over the weapons on his belt he had been hovering them near. I need to get away from the wall! Imino darted to his left, towards the closest cover as he saw Sazaki nearing the halfway point of the room and not slowing down. His plan to move to the sand side to get Zach going right into the rock zone did not matter anymore, since it seemed clear that Lifebringer was going to charge straight at him no matter what zone he wanted them to be fighting in.

You can run, Zach reached his right hand to the side of his belt and pulled a rectangular piece up off of it. A sharp blade snapped out of the green hilt, a new hilt replacing it on the belt popping out from inside to be grabbed easily. Zach flipped the blade around in his hand and stomped his right foot forward hard, swinging his whole arm ahead of him and launching his knife across the room at the first cover that Imino was running behind. His knife slammed off the rock cover and bounced up into the air, and Imino froze on the other side instead of running off.

How?! He was so far- it was just a knife! Imino heard the loud noise and did not know what it could be for a moment as it was much closer than he was expecting, and the noise almost deafened him. The clank still rang in his head, but Imino did not lower his range at all as he thought about all the feints and misdirections Zach made in that first match before. Imino's Quirk, Echolocation, allowed him to keep track of Zach's position even after he had darted behind rock covers to stay out of sight of the boy still running towards the first rock that the knife had bounced off of. As Imino was running though, and listening to Zach get closer to that rock, he ground his teeth in frustration with his eyes snapping wide for a moment. I can't just run! I- I have to-

"But you can't hide!" Zach leapt up high in the air, and his eyes were focused behind the rock cover that there was enough of going along an edge that Imino had been able to duck down on the other side and zip away from. Zach snapped his head farther back in the direction he came from, as a pellet hit the ground and made an explosion of smoke twelve meters to that side of him. Two more pellets flew almost out of the smoke cloud that just emerged, but they did not leave completely so that Zach would have been able to see them. Instead, it was just two more explosions of smoke billowing out from the first blast of it.

No, Imino thought, as he held up a handful of smoke pellets in his hands and waited for a few seconds. It's you who can't hide. He waited until the sound of his light footsteps on the ground bounced off of an approaching object close enough that his smoke cloud had already engulfed it. Then he spun and released a dozen smoke pellets in an arc ahead of him. Zach got hit by one of the small round pellets, and the smoke thickened especially right in front of his face.

Outside of the smoke, all the students looked in closely towards the left side of the gym where a massive cloud of smoke just plumed in all directions when Imino filled a section of the rock area with it. Hazano clicked a button on his remote, and the tvs above the window flipped to a thermal mode which gave them a look of two heat signatures inside all that smoke. They could tell easily which of the two was Imino, based on the way he was running at full speed jumping up on elevated surfaces and darting through the smoke undeterred by the lack of visibility. The other red figure in that smoke was turning his head back and forth, staying in one spot but not looking very panicked by the calm movements of his body and sight of the small heat signatures coming off his face showing his calm breathing despite all that smoke.

"You think I need to see you?" Zach asked, turning his head the direction he heard the footsteps closest in. He took a step that way, then he leapt up in the air too. "Think I might misstep because I'm unable to see the ground?" Zach called it towards where he thought Imino was, and he came down hard with a kick that he swept before he thought he was going to hit the ground. He did not land the kick on anyone, but the smoke was pushed away by the swing enough that he saw the appearance of the ground below him and could land cleanly on it. After he landed, he did not hear any movement in any direction of him though. Close. An explosion of Death would knock him out for sure. What if I decide to use it?

Zach eased his body to the left, and a fist flew by his right side. He reached up his right arm and locked his elbow in, squeezing the arm that just punched by his back between his forearm and his bicep. He turned his head to the right, looking back at the boy so close to him that his face was visible. The smoke was starting to thin out a little too despite how many pellets were thrown, and Zach reached his left hand over to the arm he had locked up. "Don't move-" Imino began, bringing his left hand forward with a weapon in it near Zach's back. Zach yanked with his right arm though, completely throwing Imino off and right into the path of his left fist. Imino flicked the weapon he had been moving forward off of his own left hand, right up at Zach's left arm that he dragged away in mid-swing to avoid Imino's weapon hitting it.

Imino swung up his left leg while still being swung around Zach, and he nailed Zach below his right arm that was still swinging Imino's. Zach's left arm had dragged the other way to dodge that small black weapon Zach did not get a good look at in the smoke too, leaving his right side below his arm unprotected from the kick Imino just landed. Steel in the shoe, Zach thought as he let go with his right arm, stumbling away from Imino instead of trying to hold on which would have increased the damage of that kick he had to lean away from. Imino continued spinning, and he put his hands down as he was dropping, landing on his hands and feet instead of his knees or his butt.

I'm up! Imino snapped his head up, then he jumped backwards fast while Zach steadied himself after the stumble. The smoke was fading a lot more, but before it did, Imino rushed into the area where it was still the thickest to look for more cover. His heart was pounding, his ears ringing as he listened to his own footsteps every step bounce off of all the rocks around him and into Lifebringer. He closed his eyes in the smoke, and he had a full layout of everything within thirty meters of him based on the sounds bouncing off it all. His head is turning. He knows which way I went, but not exactly where in the smoke. Stop moving before it gets too thin. Imino slowed down, not wanting the small fluctuations in the smoke to give away his position in a few seconds when it would be thin enough to do so.

"Damn, he almost had him," Satoshi said, snapping his fingers and frowning more as he looked through the glass again to where he could see Imino in the same location as the screens showed him.

"Who almost had who?" Kerushi muttered over on Satoshi's right, not really to him specifically. If Sazaki had landed that punch, it would've been all over. Imino reacted fast with that kick after he was already lifted off the ground, but it's his costume and the extra power he's got in those legs that saved him. I've seen Imino land kicks like that before though, and no one ever just stumbles a couple steps away after getting hit. The steel toes aside…

"He doesn't even look fazed," Reika muttered, her eyes dark as she glared back through the glass towards Sazaki again. All the smoke faded away or rose up too high in the gym above them to block their views any longer. Fighting Imino up close is dumb. We all know that. Sazaki didn't, but I didn't think it would matter since it's Lifebringer anyway. Well, it doesn't seem like it will. His kicks are strong.

With a Quirk that works too well as support, and not well at all offensively, Hazano looked towards one of his students who had a power that did not allow him to damage his opponents using it. Imino's trained harder than anyone in combat. Himazuri focuses more on mentally facing off against her opponents, but Imino's Quirk is one of the weakest in the class. The teacher frowning out towards his students narrowed his eyes a bit more over at Sazaki who was scanning the hiding spots in the direction that Imino really was hiding in. So he's worked that much harder on close quarters combat, and with his weapons, than most anyone. Everyone knows about Lifebringer though. We all saw him fight in those Sports Festivals. We know, that he didn't know about the other uses for his power for years. Why he doesn't use that Quirk of his now, I don't know. But he's matching up his actual combat skills against Imino's, while Imino still has the use of his Quirk that gives him the upper hand. If Imino comes to this conclusion himself…

He had me. He could have used Death there to knock me out and win the fight. It's not just about winning to him though. With Dendo, there was an ulterior motive in place. Imino's eyes were focused and his breathing steadying as he held his back up against a boulder between him and Lifebringer. He wanted to embarrass Dendo. I heard them back in the locker room. I heard what Dendo said and I get why, but what's his reason here? I don't know, but he's focused more on it than he is about winning this fight! He has too many motives. His focus is scattered. And mine, is not!

Imino reached to his utility belt and pulled off a pair of tools he had attached there. He still had some smoke pellets left, but he did not grab them and instead pulled a small black weapon off the belt next to their pouch. His other hand slid through a handle that had openings for each of his fingers, and he pulled up from his belt to show that below the hole his pinky went through there was a sharp blade protruding. As he lifted that arm, he also snapped it to the side and made three blade spikes stick out of the black armor on his forearm. Imino crouched his legs and leaned forward, and he listened for the movements of the boy currently faced sideways from his rock. He's not going to fully turn away, because he knows which side I'm on. But if he rushes the wrong one…

Just as Imino was thinking it, Zach fired a metal hook out of his right glove and shot across the floor. He jumped up instead of skidding over his friction-less heels after skidding halfway though, and he twisted his body with a knife in one hand to throw down at the other side of the cover that looked the easiest to hide behind. He had a confident look covering his face as he prepared to throw it down, but there was no one behind that cover. Behind one of the rocks to his back now, Imino darted out of the cover to get even farther into Zach's blind spot. At the same time, he threw the black weapon in his right hand behind him at an angle of the rock cover he had been behind.

Zach turned his head and looked back and down at the sound of a steel noise. He caught a glimpse of movement in the top of his peripheral vision as to where Imino went, but he focused on the black weapon that bounced off the rock it hit. The flat steel weapon was in the shape of a bat, and after hitting the rock it seemed to increase speed instead of slowing down. The ricochet sped it up, the impact increasing the speed of its spin and making it shoot towards where Zach was coming down. It'll pass me- but that rock there, Zach noticed a bump in the cover he had leapt towards originally that his hook was still lodged in. The way that bump protruded created a perfect angle, that he had to snap his body to the side a second later when the bat-knife hit it and shot up twice as fast towards him.

As Zach pulled away, he looked closely at the weapon passing over his body even at the speed it was moving. Imino looked up and cursed under his breath that Zach was able to dodge when it was so close. His reflexes- Imino cut himself off from doubting because of Zach's strengths, and he jumped out and rose his right hand to the side while also lifting the outside of his left forearm towards Zach's landing spot. A small red glow appeared on the edge of the first bat-knife, making it curve in midair as it was slowing and starting to arc down. The first blade returned to Imino's hand, but when Zach looked that way after running around the cover, he saw three other similar weapons flying towards him or around him.

Just like he uses the sounds that bounce everywhere, Zach darted to his right to dodge the weapon perfectly on line with him. Another one bounced towards where he was dodging, then he heard the clink of the one hitting the cover behind him that he had just dodged. He can think ahead to at least two bounces off objects. He knows how things bounce too, which directions and which angles the fastest. Throwing the fourth back into the mix, at the ground? The angle will still have it hit my feet even if it bounces, Zach leapt up into the air, and he pointed his right hand down towards the boy jogging backwards from the cover he had just been behind. A hook fired and pierced through rock. Zach approached him quickly, and he shot forward much faster as the hook jet-propelled Zach there with how strongly his wire retracted. Dink-

There was a ledge on the floor. Must have been small. The fourth one that Imino had caught after calling it back to himself hit the floor below Zach, but instead of bouncing forward it shot back the direction it came. There was a small dip on the rock surface, but Imino did not just aim specifically for that. He got the first bounce on the floor before that ledge, at a low enough angle that after it sped up it shot into that little ledge and bounced backwards and up in the air, moving even faster again. The second speed increase while shooting back, made it fast enough that it would be near impossible for Zach to dodge-

Zach twisted his body in midair, releasing the wire from his right hand and letting the curved bad-shaped weapon pass just below his horizontal body. Blade doesn't look too sharp. Probably wouldn't have even hurt that much. Zach watched it zip below his face, and he snapped his head up right as it was passing him to give a serious look towards Imino. His smile was gone, his eyes focused, and his fists curled but opened in time for Zach to reach out and grab the cover he descended towards too early to get over it. He grabbed the top of the rock surface and swung his legs over hard, throwing himself towards where Imino had froze upon seeing Zach's impossible twist to dodge his last attack.

Imino's right hand moved for the smoke pellets, but Zach saw that coming and when he landed he came out of it in a sprint at his shorter classmate. He did not pull any weapons out of his own belt, instead charging straight at the other teen who brought his own hands up fast and spread his legs in a defensive position. He still had steel knuckles on his left fist with a sharp blade protruding out the bottom of it, while his right fist was in a black glove similar in appearance to the one Zach had been wearing. The extra material over Zach's glove actually pulled back into his watch as he was on that close sprint towards Imino, the black glove returning alone and no glove on his left hand where that armor pulled back too.

Too fast- there's no way I dodge! My counters he'll predict too! I heard Norasaki sensei! I- Only on the fight! Calm! Focus! Prepare! Imino's hands clenched harder, and his fighting stance got more steady with his legs spreading a bit more as he realized he was not as set as he could be. Zach slowed down too as he ran forward, his eyes examining his opponent's fighting stance closely though he was still running forward. He knows I can actually get attacks close on him. It's not going as easy as he thought it would! That's not good enough! Imino bit down behind his lips as for a second he almost felt good about his fight so far, which had a secondary meaning in his head that he was thinking even if he lost there, it wouldn't be a total defeat.

There you go, Zach ran forward, crouching his body on the final approach and raising his fists up in front of his face to guard. He darted to his right, then his left, then straight in at his opponent when he was only a meter off. Zach pulled his right hand off his face first, swinging it in a punch forward at Imino's head. He took another step in as he was swinging though, bringing the gap between them closer. It would have made for less power in his hit, but he curved his right arm so he still had a longer swing, only with his elbow instead.

Imino yanked his head to the side, and he snapped up his right arm and punched his hand up through the crook of Zach's elbow. The blade on his left hand dropped from the knuckles, as Imino punched in an uppercut towards Zach's right side just in front of his own left. He went for the same area he landed his kick earlier, but Zach's left hand snapped down and caught Imino around his fist. As Zach lowered his hand like that, he was also yanking his right out of Imino's hold with his superior strength. Both of his arms were occupied in that moment though, and pulled aside while the two of them were close in front of each other. They were so close, that Imino instantly remembered one of the previous fights and did not hesitate to follow Kotsumura's example after seeing how it worked out for him.

Imino was a bit shorter, but he slammed his forehead forward and caught Zach in the chin when he lifted his head up and pulled it back to dodge. If he had been an inch or two shorter than he was, the headbutt would not have collided with anything but Zach's chest which was covered in stronger armor than Imino knew. Instead, Zach winced and he pulled back farther after the collision jolted his initial retreat to a stop. As he pulled his head up and knocked Imino's head back with his chin, his lips curled down into a deep, pissed-off frown. His head snapped back down while Imino's head was still pulling back, and Zach dropped down to a low crouched position quickly. He threw Imino's left fist out to the side, so that Imino was opened up on his left side that Zach rose his right foot on upon his rising back up.

Imino slammed his right hand that had lost grip on Zach's arm forward. He swung it towards Sazaki's face, but even as Zach planned his own attack he was still focused enough on defense that his head moved away. It moved away the slightest amount too, as little away as was necessary to dodge. The wind from the punch grazed Zach's face, while he twisted his body and slammed his right foot into Imino's left side, the shorter teen's left arm still moving down to block it. Even as Zach's foot was colliding, Imino was moving his left arm down with one thought in his head, If I grab his leg I cou- "Gaughh-" Zach's leg dented into Imino's side and then threw the gasping boy off his foot and into the floor where he rolled for a few seconds before stopping face-down on the rocks.

Back in the waiting room, Satoshi exhaled and sighed with a disappointed look on his face. He snapped his fingers and tssked, "He almost had him."

His fighting was so straightforward. What the fuck is with that? You going easier on- Dendo ground his teeth and shook his head once while glaring through the window towards his classmates. Maybe it was because he was ranked lower. Maybe he didn't think he had to be as cautious with Imino. Or maybe, his distraction tactics wouldn't have worked when Imino could detect exactly where he was the whole time. He knew that from the start, and just went straight at him with that smile to make it look like he was overconfident. The prick still looked to be fighting hard, and that was a great strategy, and Imino got hits on him? I didn't even- I couldn't…

Zach walked over to the boy on his stomach who kept coughing for a few seconds, his left hand gripping his side in pain. A little harder than I should have hit him. He was really ready to catch my leg there though, had to speed it up a bit. Zach ignored Hazano who was calling out his victory, and he knelt down next to his classmate who stopped groaning as much when he saw Zach right next to him. Imino lowered his left hand from his painful new bruise and put it on the floor, pushing down which put his side in more pain though he tried to mask it from his expression this time.

Imino turned as he dragged himself to his hands and knees. He looked Zach in the eyes, and Zach smiled at his classmate while on one knee himself, "Great fight. You almost had me there for a second."

Confusion spread over Imino's face, then he leaned back and took his hands off the floor while opening his mouth to say something. He winced though as leaning back hurt his side, and he reached his hand back down and rubbed it. Zach rubbed his own right side as Imino did, and he mentioned, "You've got a strong kick." Zach stood up next to his classmate and lowered his hand from his side, smiling despite saying that he was in pain from it, and Imino lowered his own hand back down too.

"My kick," Imino repeated in a low mutter. He lowered his eyes to Zach's feet for a second, then he snapped them back up as he saw a hand in front of him. Zach had his left hand extended out, and Imino hesitated while looking from it back up to Sazaki's face. It almost knocked him down. The guy who beat Dendo. Lifebringer. I landed a hit on him. Imino lifted the right corner of his lip a bit and he rose his left hand to grab Zach's.

Zach hoisted Imino up surprising the other boy by how little he actually put into standing himself. It was easier this way though, and less painful on his left side that he rubbed again while hoping nothing was fractured. "Those smoke pellets were really annoying," Zach began as he started back to the waiting room. He looked to his side as he walked, and Imino began forward next to him as it felt like Lifebringer was going to walk with him instead of ahead of him. "Does the smoke not mess up the sound waves at all?"

Imino's eyebrows rose up and he turned more to his classmate. "Actually, there are some fluctuations in the echoes… depending on fog, humidity, air density, stuff like that. In the rain too I have a big problem, but those smoke pellets don't mess it up for me. I was worried about it at first too."

Guess people don't ask him that question a lot, but a Quirk like his is harder to understand than it seems. It's just a weak Quirk that works like a bat's radar, but even that isn't a certainty. Even weaker Quirks have their own downsides and restraints. Death doesn't work on certain people. It's hard to freeze someone who can break through ice or heat it up, and just as equally hard to burn someone who can push water out of themselves. Hard to use fire Quirks when your body isn't resistant to the flames. "If you had gotten the area smokey again before that fight there at the end, I probably wouldn't have been able to dodge that last swing you made at me," Zach mentioned right after Imino finished replying. "I was rushing you pretty fast, but those steel knuckles you put on wound up not doing anything."

"Ch," Imino frowned and made the noise through his teeth as he had already noticed that when he took them off a few seconds ago and picked up his dropped blade to deposit into his belt. Knew I should have pulled out more pellets. Just to have them ready or something. I could've actually beaten Lifebringer. He thinks so. At least, the way he was fighting I could've beaten him. What was his other reason? The ulterior reason I thought didn't matter, now that the fight's over… Imino looked towards his classmate who was facing back forward and looked out of the fighting mood. He got pretty serious there at the end though. I don't know what he was thinking earlier on, but when his face got serious- that's when I should've been pulling out the pellets, but it freaked me out too much and I didn't grab them. Damn, I had that.

"It was a nice fight though," Zach continued again as they were nearing the entrance back into the waiting room. "You put up more of a fight than Dendo did," he added, then he turned forward and returned his expression to normal as he headed inside. Zach did not glance Dendo's direction but also did not make it out much like he was hiding what he just said, and he just stared back towards the middle of the gym's side room where he had been standing before making his challenge.

"Imino," Hazano began once the other boy stepped inside, having hesitated outside the door with a lowered bottom lip at what Zach said loudly as he had gone ahead. Imino was again confused as to what Zach was doing, but he turned towards his teacher who paused himself after saying his student's name. "Impressive work. That first kick landed nicely, so you should work more on strength training. You each landed a strong kick, but yours was first. On someone who doesn't have a strengthening Quirk your blows need to be able to take them down, or getting him off guard like you did doesn't matter when Sazaki can recover just like that."

"And Sazaki," Hazano began after his other student nodded at him. "I thought I said," he turned and gave Zach a dark look when Zach looked back at him. "This isn't the time to mess around."

"I wasn't," Zach replied. "I'm flattered you think I was though, I guess," Zach added, which made his teacher frown deeper back at him and caused a few others around him to drop their jaws at his comment.

"Why aren't you using your Quirk?" Hazano questioned.

"And knocking out all my classmates?" Zach continued back as a question. "Risking seriously hurting them, when there's no need to."

"This is training," Hazano countered harshly at the student retorting too much to him. He thought after first meeting Sazaki that the boy was more respectful than that, and he had gone back on his earlier thoughts he had that day about Sazaki on account of the reason for his lateness. He gave the boy a harsh look though and added, "I know you can control your Quirk to not hurt the others here. Everyone here knows what they have signed up for…" Hazano started frowning more at the student whose lips were flat and who was looking at him back in a way that said his teacher did not understand.

"I don't mean there's no need to, as in there's no need to risk it during just training," Zach said, shaking his head at his teacher who realized maybe he did not understand. Zach grinned and he continued in a way that had Hazano and most of his students going wide-eyed. "I mean, I don't need to use my Quirk to beat my classmates," Zach's eyes shifted off Hazano, and he was still grinning as he looked over at a few others around him who had initially given him angry looks with their shock at what he was saying. "And as you said, this is 'training.' Well, I don't feel I would be getting much out of this training unless I fight without using my Quirk."

"You think you're all that?" Kerushi asked, glaring towards the black-haired teen who looked back at him and shrugged a shoulder with a competitive look challenging Kerushi to challenge him if he didn't think it was so. That just made the other teen frown deeper at Zach though, giving him a dark look and grinding his teeth in frustration as he darted a gaze over to Dendo for a moment.

"I'll teach you to look down on us," Reika said, making Zach look over at the blonde who had a low smile but darker eyes as she stared at him.

"This is Ranking Day," Hazano began to his newest student. "It's not a time for… Today, you're meant to go all out to take your rank in the class and your number. I don't just base your ranking on who wins the fights too, I also base it on how quickly the fights take and how efficiently you defeat your opponents. I'll have a harder time ranking you if you don't try your hardest."

I don't care about my ranking though. No, that's probably not the right thing to say. Not yet at least. They don't know me enough and they all care about this Ranking Day too much. It's the final one they've been building up to for years, I shouldn't take it away from any of them. They're just kids, at the end of the day. For a few months longer at least. This might actually be one of the last times they get to enjoy it. I'm being a dick. There's no need to be so serious about something like this. "Well, I'm sorry then," Zach began, though his voice was hesitant. "I just, would rather not use my Quirk. I'm not saying I won't use it. But if I take someone out with it they won't just get back up, they won't be fighting any more matches today, won't get to bump up their rankings or anything." Zach frowned at Hazano and finished, "I don't want to start off my first day of school getting everyone to hate me for ruining their final Ranking Day."

Everyone else in the room stared at Zach in surprise and confusion again. Some were confused because he just changed up his reason for not using his Quirk, and they gave him suspicious looks because a couple wondered if he was being serious about that or was just trying to give a better excuse. Others were staring at him in shock though, as the way Zach said it made that sound like his secret reason for the way he had been fighting so far without using his Quirk.

Zach Sazaki, cares about whether or not we all hate him? Kotsumura wondered, giving Zach a strange look after staring at him in surprise for a few seconds at his last statement. I guess he did try and befriend me pretty quickly. I thought I knew what he was doing though, just trying to get information on us, or something. He really was being a nice guy though, and I- he's our age. Just because he's famous doesn't mean…

"You can't weaken your Quirk to, like, not knock us out?" Reika asked, losing some of the annoyance in her eyes. She was planning on challenging him now after what he had said before, and she was not going to go back on that now, but she also did not want Ranking Day to end for her so soon. She would prefer him to use his Quirk on her if they fought too, but she really did not want to get knocked out for the entire day if she lost.

"Well I could," Zach countered, shaking his head back at Tiona. "But, I mean, one wrong move on my part and you could be out for a couple days. A little too much Death makes a huge difference." Zach paused and looked another direction towards people who had looked at him in a lot of annoyance before he started explaining. "And since I've never seen any of you fight before, it makes it all the riskier for me because someone could attack me in a way I didn't see coming that makes me react too strongly, or they could jump into it where it's too thick, or something… It's just safer this way." He turned back to Hazano as he finished, looking the man right in the eyes which had Hazano staring back into his.

He's not going to go all out. He's giving a lot of reasons, but that look, he's telling me he won't. Why am I trying so hard? Sazaki isn't really one of my students. He's here to get the final term so he can go out and be a hero. Whatever kind of hero he becomes, he decided it before coming here. I think I just want to see how he fights at 100%. "Fine, but your ranking will be based on your fights alone, not what kind of power you might be holding back. Don't expect a higher rank even if you lose."

Zach nodded in understanding back at his teacher, and he said firmly, "Understood, sensei."

Hazano lifted his remote and looked back at the split screen to randomize the next stage. As it was happening, Zach moved back towards the railing and just looked through the window out into the gym interestedly. He ignored the looks from the rest of the students. They stared at him from his right, his left, and behind him all around since he was not looking their ways to make them feel less sure about staring. Curly has his defenses up. He looked at me guardedly at first, and again in the hall when I faced him, but it was less when I challenged Imino. There are things that will leave him unguarded. Having that shell on his back for so long, his defenses are strong and his personality matches it. I'm sure it's difficult for anyone to get through his walls… If I break down his physical defense- he's fourth place though. Just physical force probably won't let me smash through whatever protective Quirk he's got. I'm almost sure it's a defensive one. If it has to do with the shell then, I'll use mainly the left…

Another challenge was made by students of Class 1 who moved out into the jungle and "moon" battlefield. Zach's interest perked back up as he looked towards the half of the gym that looked to be filled with just rocks like the section he had fought on twice before only whiter. The make-up of the elevations and natural structures was only a little different, but a small smile formed over his face as he watched the classmate heading for position Beta leap up while on the moon half and rise high up on the jump. Is it a Quirk? Someone could have affected the whole area, but it could just be state-of-the-art anti-grav tech. Amazing that they can make the low gravity only cover that half of the room without having a wall between. A physical wall at least, Zach looked closer and turned his head to the side, moving a bit more towards the middle of the room to try and catch a glimpse of what separated the zones if anything.

"It's cool, right?" Zach turned and nodded at Kotsumura who he had stepped closer to while trying to figure out the tech he was seeing. Kotsumura looked back ahead and let out a sigh. Whenever the moon zone was one of the two picked, someone was always quicker than him at challenging a classmate. I'm still pretty tired. I'll get the next one. Beating Reika, I'm already going to move up some today. Don't look her way, Kotsumura almost turned to the blonde girl he just thought about smugly, but he saw her looking his direction out the corners of his eyes and decided against it.

Reika Tiona was actually looking over at Lifebringer and not the blond boy next to him, but her focus shifted back to the gym as well when their classmates got ready. She moved forward up to the railing, and she stared out at her classmates Enjino and Dimarko who were ranked ninth and seventeenth respectively.

Dimarko glared back towards the window behind him, his expression darkening as Hazano was announcing the start of the match. Who is he to come in here like that? Treat us like second rate heroes?! He's not just a U.A. snob, but he thinks being on the news all the time makes him hot Shit?! Well he's not! FUCK HIM! Fuck all of this!

"What's Dimarko's Quirk?" Zach asked, moving his head a bit to Kotsumura's side without looking away from the hulking beastly figure before them.

"Rage Fiend," Kotsumura replied while still watching his classmate too. "He's looking even bigger than usual."

"I'm guessing the angrier he gets, the more power he can draw out?" Zach asked, glancing next to him at the blond who gave him a nod back. "I think he's got some new material to think about to get him all riled up." Zach smiled as he looked back out at his classmate who was clearly glaring at him even through the glass that Dimarko surely couldn't see him through.

"And Enjino?" Zach added, looking across to Dimarko's opponent who ran forward despite Dimarko doing the same at the start of the match. It looked to Zach like Enjino should probably take a different approach than running straight at the barreling bulked-up monster, but Enjino was ranked ninth so he kept from making any judgements just yet.

"Beam Body," Kotsumura replied, right as Enjino rose both arms and fired yellow beams of light from them.

Interesting, Zach watched as Enjino's arms started to get smaller after a few seconds of firing. The beams were strong, one of them stopping Dimarko in his path as it hit him moving too fast for the larger teen to dodge. The other Enjino did not fire at his opponent, but to his own side which propelled him from the edge of the jungle up into the air of the moon zone. The beam might just appear stronger because of the decreased gravity to let him throw himself up high like that, but with that kind of power he can fly around the moon area easily… There it is. Enjino landed and started running with leaps around the moon zone, while Dimarko charged in and kept his feet close to the ground to not have much hang-time on his steps.

Enjino fired off more beams at his opponent, as well as at the rocks around Dimarko that cluttered his path as they rose in front of him and took a while to drop back down. The more beams he fires, Zach noticed, as Enjino ran around again with his arms slowly regenerating out of nowhere. The longer it takes his body to reform out of those light particles. They come back so slowly it doesn't even look like a beam anymore, just some faint yellow glow at the end of his missing appendages- though that's a nice upside. Zach watched as a thicker yellow beam shot out of Enjino's chest, leaving the middle of his costume glowing yellow but his opponent flying backwards and then bouncing up into the air when he hit a rock. He can fire from any point on his body. It's not as good as creating Light out of nothing and making attacks with that, or just Beams to create without a charge-up or recovery time. Exodus and Fergus would each crush Enjino, but they both had a much longer time to train them. Fergus was old, and Exodus had… other things to help him.

Zach's eyes narrowed and he refocused on the fight, though he bit down and tried to not think of his annoyance or about the person he felt start listening to his thoughts again. The small tick he felt when Himazuri entered his mind was becoming a common occurrence at this point, though it got Zach to refocus solely on his two classmates which he used as a reason to lose his annoyed expression. Zach glanced up at a screen above him and the list on it that had not changed yet and still showed the rankings from last year. So if Curly was ranked fourth, then, 'Kameko Tatsurami' is my next opponent. He's been darting me looks while talking to Imino. Seems like he might want to fight me too, or maybe he just noticed me looking over earlier and expects it's coming. Not that they all aren't thinking about it now. I gave them the motivation. Tell them I won't use my Quirk, and now they don't need to beat me to challenge me. They don't need to think they can win. Anyone who thinks they can even force me to use my Quirk, wants to prove they can do it. It's the new goal. Be the first person to make me use it. I probably shouldn't have used it for that distraction on Dendo, but now they have an idea of what I can use it for too and that whatever rumors they heard are likely exaggerated…

Another huge blast from Enjino slammed Dimarko up into the air, but this time Dimarko was not able to land on his feet. He flew out of the moon zone and suddenly started moving faster, the attempt to redirect himself failing and making him flail around for a second. In his roided-up state he was still almost able to turn himself to try and land on his hands and feet, but then he slammed into a tree and bounced off flat onto the floor in pain. Zach hummed to himself and nodded as he saw the confused look on Dimarko's face more than pain when he slammed into that tree. Once he left the moon zone he should have known there would be trees he was about to crash into. Didn't even cross his mind. Zach watched as that large boy turned back with an angry expression as he got on his knees, looking to check what it was he just slammed into before his eyes opened wide in realization at how obvious it was.

It made Dimarko angrier that he did not realize what he had slammed into, but he still calmed himself down quickly when Hazano called out Enjino's victory. Enjino was still drawing his body back to him, yellow glows on his cut-off elbows and from the middle of his stomach that had cut in a bit to make him thinner. As Enjino reformed and Dimarko shrank down, Zach glanced over to his left and at a boy with a shell on his back who stared back into his eyes calmly despite Lifebringer turning to him. Zach turned away from Kameko and back to Kotsumura after giving his next opponent that look. "So what's 'Curly's Quirk?" He used the nickname Kotsumura used before, acting like he had not yet checked to see what Kameko's name was as that might make it out more like he would be Zach's next target.

"Haha," Kotsumura laughed as Zach used the name too, and he turned and glanced over at Kameko himself only to lower his smile a bit at his classmate's look. Imino was staring over too, after just muttering something under his breath for his best friend next to him to hear. "Why do you ask?" Kotsumura asked.

"Thinking about challenging him next," Zach replied just as casually as he had asked the question. "Does it have to do with his shell at least?" Zach asked, changing up the question a bit so that to Kotsumura it might feel like he was not giving as much away.

"Well, yeah," Kotsumura admitted. He already knew it anyway, he thought, shrugging back at his classmate with the shell who hummed himself while staring at Lifebringer. "It's called Tortoise Fortress, but that's all I can say," Kotsumura added at the end, just wanting to tell Zach the Quirk's name as he always liked it. He grinned more as Zach smiled too at the sound of the Quirk's name. Is he even winded after those last two fights? Kotsumura looked his new classmate up and down but saw no signs of fatigue from the scar-faced teen at his side who had his visor propped back up over his hair again. Feel like someone would tell him to sit it out for a little instead of making another challenge, Kotsumura glanced around then back at Zach again with a lower smirk. Except we'd probably prefer it if you kept going as many times in a row as you could. I don't think anyone but Inasa's going to beat you, and I know I'm definitely not going to try, but there are some others here who I think could make you use it.

Zach waited until the next stage was set, then he turned and saw that most of the room was already looking at him. He had not been speaking to Kotsumura softly, Imino had heard him and passed it along, and Kameko was already staring towards him with a dark and readied expression. Zach challenged Kameko Tatsurami, surprising Kotsumura for a moment as he half-expected Zach to call him out as Curly, though he then remembered the conversation they had back in the hallway would have made it easy for Zach to figure his name out.

Zach got the closer of the two sides this time, setting himself up at position Alpha with his back to the spectating room. Kerushi walked up near the window while they waited for their curly-haired classmate to jog across the gym to his starting line. Kerushi glanced down at his slightly shorter classmate on his side, and he frowned deeply which Kotsumura saw and looked up at. "What?" He asked, raising his blond eyebrows at his darker-haired classmate. Kerushi Garuda had dark brown hair and matching eyes, and he frowned down at his classmate who did not seem to understand his look just from the expression.

"What are you doing?" Kerushi asked, his voice low but not really trying to hide either. He looked back through the window towards Lifebringer's back, and he could see the side of that figure's face completely focused on his opponent heading across the room from him. "Why are you talking to Lifebringer?"

Kotsumura felt a twinge of nervousness, but he also felt pretty confident after his fight against Reika. He frowned in annoyance at Kerushi and just looked back out the window himself. "Because I've always liked Lifebringer," he replied, saying it like it was not against any unspoken rule to do so, even though it was. Some of the others around Kotsumura looked at him in surprise that he would say that, especially since Kerushi was one of the ones who was most outspoken against Lifebringer's entry into their class. Kotsumura continued though without looking back at his angry classmate, "Like, I don't know, 90 percent of the rest of the country?"

Kotsumura added the second part with the right corner of his lip lifting back up, and his eyes darting to the side at his classmate who was treating what he was saying like it was some super unpopular and unheroic thing to say. Kerushi lost his glare a bit, though he continued to frown at his classmate for a second before looking back through the tinted window himself at Lifebringer. Kotsumura continued, in just as low a voice that it was just to Kerushi, not that most of the class was not still listening since it was mostly quiet in the watching room, "And it isn't hard to see why people like him. He's a likable guy."

"I don't know about 'likable,'" Reika cut in from Kotsumura's right just past Kerushi. Behind Reika, a girl with a bowl cut of gray hair looked at the back of her friend's head with her eyes widening behind her long bangs. Reika grinned as she stared out towards Lifebringer's back intensely, her hands gripping onto the railing as Kameko had reached position Beta. "But he is beatable. I'm going to prove it."

"Then why haven't you yet?" Manzo questioned from farther back than the gray-haired girl behind Reika. Reika spun with a pissed off look that made Bibi scramble to the side, giving the blonde a clear look back at Manzo's eyes between the top and bottom of her black mask where her eyes were showing. "You could've challenged him right there," Manzo continued even after Reika looked her in the eyes. "Waiting for him to tire himself out first?"

"I'll fight just as many as he does before challenging him," Reika said, stepping back from the railing and narrowing her eyes with a threatening smirk across her face that exuded a murderous intent. "I'll fight you if I'm challenged, if you really want that top girl's spot from me," Reika smirked more and tilted her head back, looking down her nose at the other girl who got more damaged in her fight against Dendo than Reika did against Kotsumura. "We can see how that fight goes… again."

Kotsumura looked back with a big grin spread across his face as he watched Reika threaten their other classmate. Kerushi lost his upset look completely as he saw Kotsumura look at her like that, and he sweatdropped himself while turning back to the gym as their teacher began announcing the start of the fight. How in the heck did you beat her? He saw Kotsumura in his peripheral vision spinning back to look into the gym. His classmate who had never risen above rank 20 in the last three years was smiling like he was on top of the world, which Kerushi understood after seeing him take down a girl he had never been able to defeat himself.

At the start of the fight, Zach seemed to go with the same strategy he had against Kameko's best friend in his previous fight. He charged across the gym towards his opponent, but then he stopped. He stopped in the middle of the room and watched as Kameko jogged lightly back towards him. Kameko's expression was stern and his eyes calm, focused on his opponent and examining his movements with careful determination. "I guess I am the challenger," Zach began, as his opponent was moving too slowly and not looking to want to meet him in the middle of the room.

The battlefield was split into two sections: one was a grassy field with small hills around it and the other a lightly wooded area of a forest. The trees were spread out but could give some cover, and the ground was just dirt and some roots sticking out for most of that zone. Zach was just on the edge of the grassy zone though, and he cracked his neck to each side before rolling his arms out. Zach reached up to his left shoulder and rubbed it while doing arm circles with his left, a dangerous glint in his eyes as he glared at his opponent who stopped where he was and glared right back towards Lifebringer. "You consider yourself an intimidating person," Kameko started.

The fourth ranked student in the class spoke in an unafraid, un-intimidated tone. Lifebringer's smirk lowered down at his question, and Kameko stomped forward himself and bent his body forward as he did. The shell on his back rippled and doubled in size, and within the second it doubled again. Zach started frowning after two seconds of watching Kameko create a larger and larger shell that encompassed his body and then more of the area around him so he was already five meters wide in diameter. It's not that I think myself intimidating, Zach thought, while moving towards Kameko again, his steps turning into a jog turning into an all-out sprint forward. His eyes flared red right as a strange face-like covering formed on the front of the shell closest to where Kameko's head had disappeared under the outside of it. Enough men have just shit themselves in fear before me that- shit.

Zach's smirk dropped for a brief moment, but his left fist clenched harder in his own frustration and he sped up more even in his sprint straight at his opponent. Let's see how hard that shell is! Zach charged right up towards it, and he darted to the right and then the left, dodging two brown spikes that protruded out of his enemy's hard shell towards him when he was still several steps away. The spikes protruded quickly, but Zach glared at the facial expression on the front of the shell that looked faint and through somewhat of a translucent brown plate. He didn't wait for my feet to lift off the ground, giving me far too much time and opportunity to dodge. Zach was mid-punch while thinking it, stomping his right foot just at the edge of the shell and smashing his left fist forward at full strength.

Zach's fist slammed into the shell, and his arm bent forward, his body bending over it as his momentum was stopped completely by his opponent's defense. Zach hunched into his own punch as he looked to throw his entire weight into the punch too, but Kameko stood firm inside his shell that had a perfect defensive barrier around him. "Did you really think you could just break through?" Kameko questioned, the curly-brown-haired teen glaring through his shell with dark orbs inside the plate that Zach stared right back into. "It's not going to be that easy," a spike shot out of the shell towards Zach, aimed at his right shoulder instead of straight at him.

He aimed away to not hit anything vital. Like I wouldn't dodge something aimed straight at me. If you had aimed in the middle, then the amount I dodged may have been… you don't know me enough I guess. I wouldn't just assume you would dodge and attack with a life-threatening move too. You're careful. That's your careful nature right there. Zach was in a backflip, dodging the spike as easily as he would have if it had actually been aimed in a better position to hit him.

Inside the watching room, most of Class 1 were smiling and a few even called out cheers when they saw how Lifebringer got stopped in his tracks with that failed punch. Dendo scoffed and allowed himself to stop wallowing for a moment to step forward instead, watching his strong classmate instead as he figured he could see some of Lifebringer's weaknesses by examining their fight.

Inasa was up close near the window too, an excited look on his face he was no longer trying to mask. How will he do it? He's impatient and… Inasa got a confused look over his face, while some more of his classmates laughed at Lifebringer's second attempt.

Kotsumura scratched the back of his head in confusion. "I want Kameko to win," he admitted next to him at Porrolo who came over and was watching in similar confusion though with a small grin on his face. Satoshi was cheering on his other side and laughing as Lifebringer went for that second punch only to be stopped short again. Kotsumura continued with a glance next to him at his spiky-haired friend, "But I want to know what, Zach's doing too."

Calling him Zach, Porrolo thought, his small grin lowering down as he heard that hesitation when Kotsumura almost called him Lifebringer again. He's not going to become a part of this class. We could lose some of this apprehension though, if he gets humbled right here… Porrolo rose an eyebrow and started to grin again, shaking his head as Lifebringer dodged to the side of a spike protruding from the Tortoise Fortress only to jump back at it and swing a punch into the shell with his left hand again.

Zach jumped up on top of the shell to dodge another spike, even tapping down on the spike as it continued extending below his feet. He tapped down with his feet to jump up, then he leapt in the air and did a few backflips to escape as a spike emerged from the top right where he landed. On his backflips, Zach drew two knives seemingly out of nowhere and threw them down at the shell near where he had been punching before. Both of the silver blades with black hilts bounced off of the shell without even leaving a mark, but Zach continued to grin and his eyes narrowed more in a cocky way once he landed. He stared straight at the face on Kameko's shell, narrowing his eyes and smirking at his opponent as he charged forward again with his left fist clenched in a clear sign of what his next attack would be, similar to his last ones.

So confident in your defense, you don't have the power to actually fight back against me. Not inside that shell at least, Zach charged around a spike extending at him too slowly, and the second one Kameko was preparing to go to the direction Zach dodged was not ready as he meant for his enemy to go to the other side. Zach had seen that the protruding spike was a bit on his right side though, meaning his opponent wanted him to dodge to the left. So he just moved faster even more to the right around the spike, and he ran up to the shell and punched it as hard as he could with his left fist. His eyes darted down to the grass below his arm as it connected, watching the edge of the shell and individual blades of grass it was pushed down on, and he snapped his head back up before the next spike could come out at him with a bigger grin across his face that made Kameko flinch behind his shell.

Himazuri was one of the few people in the waiting room not grinning as she watched Lifebringer's seemingly futile attempts to smash through Kameko's shell. She heard her classmates around her making fun of how Lifebringer did not know just how strong Kameko's shell was, that he did not understand its durability, and that Lifebringer was going to wear himself down as is Kameko's signature strategy. Himazuri had sweat on the sides of her face though, and she gulped again while watching Lifebringer start to run around his opponent. The shell turned to follow his movements, and Zach yelled out something about Kameko not being able to move his face to different parts of the shell but actually needing to turn himself, which made a few of the other Class 1 students scoff that it was hardly a downside as Kameko's shell had no weak points.

"What's wrong?" Himazuri glanced to her side and saw Bibi looking at her, the slightly taller girl's eyes hidden behind her long gray bangs. Reika glanced over from the other side of Bibi, wondering what she was asking for as she was chuckling and grinning like the rest of the class.

Himazuri did not answer Bibi's question though, looking back out towards Zach with a nervous look as she had been reading his thoughts not too long ago. People, shit themselves in fear, because of him. He- why did he suddenly curse and… he changed the direction of his thoughts. It's like he's being careful, of me. He knows I might be listening so he, he changed- how many people have 'shit themselves' because of him? Himazuri found her hands shaking at her sides, and she had to curl them into fists to try and calm down. What if he was thinking something like that, also because he knew I might be listening? And he cut himself off to make it sound more realistic… that's too, unlikely. What the hell was he doing all that time? Who- I was too relaxed! He's not just a normal person. He's dangerous.

"Is it called 'Tortoise' Fortress because of the shell, or because of how slow you are?" Zach called at the boy who turned his body slower than Zach was running a circle around him. Zach ran to Kameko's left side but then broke off the circle he made around his opponent, running towards the trees at the edge of the forest area instead. Zach curled his right hand in a way that made his watch open up and spread down to cover his hand in the tight material inside, then he charged straight at the trunk of the closest tree. He stomped his right foot down on the side of the tree, leaned his whole body just past the tree's side, and he slammed his left fist into the bark with a thunderous crack.

Kameko had his head turned towards Zach already, his breathing still steady as he was prepared for Zach to run around him like this. What Zach was doing now was not part of his plan to tire him out though, and his eyes opened huge on the inside of his protective shell. What is he-

CrreeEEAK! SNAP! The tree Zach punched his left fist through started to fall, and Zach moved his left hand wrapped in its glove out to the side. Zach opened his fingers and curled inwards at the tree while it was falling towards his hand, and he made a quick movement inwards towards the trunk. His fingers each dug into the bark, into the wood through it, and Zach bit down with the corners of his lips curling high up. The tree was six times as tall as Zach himself, and as thick as any of the other trees in the forest. Zach lifted it up though with his left hand, while pointing his right palm back towards Kameko with the palm of his glove glowing blue.

Hold strong! Kameko yelled at himself, and he braced as the blue light fired in his direction. The pulse Zach fired from his glove of some sort of energy did not hit Kameko though, instead crashing into the grass twenty feet in front of his face and making an explosion of grass and mostly dirt. That blast of smoke and dirt and grass separated Kameko from Zach for a moment, and he darted his eyes left and right to see which direction Lifebringer would come at him from. Then the veil of rubble rising in front of him was broken through, by a tree that came flying at him and slammed into his shell as he clenched his teeth and braced. Kameko did not even skid back as the tree smashed into him, and he started taking in a breath after the tree bounced off.

As the tree bounced back though, it stopped moving away and swung back down twice as hard as it had been thrown from the forest zone. Zach was in midair and he caught the tree with both hands this time, and he swung the bottom of the trunk up over his head and then whipped the whole tree down on the shell that the trunk shattered on. Zach still had chunks of wood in his hands as splinters and branches went flying everywhere, and as he landed in front of Kameko he sprinted forward and curled his fingers around those pieces of debris. Zach's smile covered his face and his visor locked on his opponent who stumbled back while faced with dirt, smoke, and exploding tree all in front of him masking where his enemy was.

Zach shot out of it all in midair though and swung his extra debris towards the unmistakable place where Kameko was looking through his shell. Zach came down at the shell higher up than it looked like he was descending then, and he smashed his left fist into the shell with his entire body weight thrown behind it. He gripped onto the shell's rough exterior with his right hand and pulled his left back again, then he slammed it down into the shell in the same spot again and again with punches that echoed out across the gym so loudly that the students inside the watching room were not smiling any more. The ones who thought Zach's attacks on Kameko's shell would do nothing started to get nervous looks, at the grin covering Lifebringer's face as he continued to bash that same spot another five times.

"Your attacks are too televised," Zach shouted, while sliding his body to the left down the shell and dodging a spike that pierced out at him. The area on Kameko's exterior got softer right as it was starting to happen, and Zach could see the change in color shade as the brown got a bit lighter before the spike shot out. Zach pulled to the left, dodging it easily, then he spun off of the shell himself as he let go of it completely. He spun his body with his left hand pulled far back, and he yelled out, "And not very strong!" He slammed his left fist into the middle of the protruding spike, and unlike the rest of Kameko's shell, this time his punch broke straight through the shell's protrusion.

Kameko let out a yell of pain, and the thick spike of his shell went flying away from the fighters to a hill in the grasslands it pierced through with its sharp point. "I'm guessing your shell lost some strength there, doing something like that," Zach said, as he hit the ground next to his opponent and bent his legs down into a crouching position. He curled his fists again, but it was his left hand that shook as he pulled it back. He slid his left foot back on the ground, bent down farther, and then he pounced forward at Kameko and straight at the point he had been bashing with his left hand. In Zach's mind flashed a fight he had seen a long time ago, a spiky-haired blond fighting a spiky-haired redhead. No matter how hard you make it, enough blows in the same spot… Zach slammed his left fist forward while Kameko was sliding back and trying to think fast on how to recover. Zach's fist connected, and Kameko yelled out again as small cracks formed on his shell like they never had before.

Dendo stared in towards Kameko and Lifebringer with huge eyes. No way! That's- I've never even… And just by punching- HOW?!

Too strong! Kameko jumped backwards, but Zach saw it coming and sprinted towards his opponent as it was coming.

If cracking the spike is possible and the strength redistributes throughout the surface, then it should regenerate even from a hole on the shell itself. Zach sprinted faster than he had been moving already, his feet digging down into the ground and his left fist opening up for a second only to clench so much harder as he swung his arm behind him in the most televised attack he could make. Zach leapt towards Kameko who was in mid-jump and rose above the bottom of the shell that Zach could see once Kameko leapt up. The retreating jump showed Zach the bottom of the shell was flat and covered as much of his body as possible other than two large feet below the center. Zach rose above the bottom and the edge, and he dodged the half-hearted attempt of catching him off guard with a spike on the rise. He did not even have to move very far, and definitely not far enough that he did not keep rising to the point the cracks had formed.

Zach reached out with his right hand and gripped around the small spike he had dodged. He used it to stabilize, and then he slammed his left fist forward while dragging his body forward even harder with his right and twisting his whole weight into the swing. Crack! The small cracks on the shell broke inwards, a hole snapping open into Kameko's shell showing Zach a hollow interior where his opponent was yelling out in pain after his shell was broken like that. Zach gripped the inside of the shell with his left hand he just smashed through, and he swung himself inwards through the hole he made.

Kameko's feet hit the ground but it was impossible for him to fall with his shell extending out from around his feet in all directions. He opened his eyes that he clenched in pain though, and he lowered his arms from above his head where they were connected into the shell's top, and he yanked his feet up from the floor leaving a hole in the shell's bottom. He can disconnect? Zach thought, though he kept his expression the same big grin he had had for a while. Could have tried shrinking the shell, but it took you so long to make it this big I doubt you could shrink it very fast. Zach balled his left fist again, and he pulled it back ready for a similar punch as all the ones he had been making on the outside of the shell. His attention was not on his next attack. His body was unprotected, unguarded, and Kameko crossed his arms and took a step back nervously inside his shell with his eyes darting around looking for an escape.

Kameko's gaze came from the hole behind Zach back to his opponent's body, when he finally noticed how many gaps in Zach's defenses there were as he ran towards him. Zach was super close, only a couple of steps away, and Kameko was a master of defense who could see a hundred gaps in Zach's guard. All I- Kameko wanted to prepare a counter, because if he could just dodge one punch and get an attack of his own in, he knew he could actually hit his opponent this time. Zach's left fist had unnerved him though, as it was the same fist that smashed through his shell, so his body was not going to be able to handle it at all. He realized the holes in Zach's defenses too late, and he waited too long to focus on dodging instead of blocking the attack that was so televised it was almost like Zach was giving him the opportunity to dodge it.

Zach swung his left fist forward. It was not as fast as he punched earlier, though he only slowed down a lot near the end of the punch so as not to break his opponent's ribs. Still, Kameko's tongue flew out of his mouth along with a mouthful of spit, his eyes bulging and his back denting backwards looking like Zach's fist was pushing through him. Then the top and bottom of Kameko's body followed the middle of it, flying backwards and slamming into the bottom of the shell, bouncing, and crashing into the shell's interior domed wall.

Still too hard, Zach thought, frowning as he stared towards his opponent who flipped over from his back onto his stomach where he continued to cough up spit on the bottom of his shell for several seconds. Though that makes it better. To prove the failures of his defenses. He was defensive from the first time he looked at me in the classroom. The shell was like a metaphor. Probably reserved, not easily trusting, but a defensive nature translates to a battlefield. I was open that whole time, if you had just one decent attack to use. Guess his hero work could focus on protection missions, working on a team with others who could be the attackers. Heroes should always be well-rounded though. Never just solely offense or solely defense. Those spikes were trash… Zach's red eyes lost their glow as Kameko coughed again, though he sounded to be trying to hold it back now to try and compose himself.

Zach took a step towards Kameko, then he noticed a few things at once. The hole in the bottom of the shell where only the soles of Kameko's feet had been sticking out of had started to shift locations. The hole in the back of the shell behind him was shifting too, and the shell itself looked a bit smaller. Zach darted backwards, and he dove towards the hole without any further delay. He landed outside of the shell in a roll, spinning and staring back with wide eyes as the shell was morphing down and changing shape.

Hazano lifted up the microphone in front of his face when he saw Sazaki roll away from the shrinking shell, stopping down on one knee when he spun back to it. He hesitated to call anything out though, as he watched the shrinking shell for his other student who he had not seen movement from since Sazaki leapt through that hole he created. I've seen Kameko's shell withstand powerful Quirks, blows from the strongest students, but he just smashed his way right through it. He looks strong, but not that strong. Especially not without a Quirk assisting him…

Kameko stood up before the shell finished shrinking. So when everyone was able to see him again, he was up on his feet facing his opponent who also stood back up again. Kameko had a hand over the bottom of his chest, grabbing it tightly through his clothes with a pained expression still covering his face. The top of his shell behind his head was cracked and still had a hole in it which hurt Kameko as much as the bruising on his chest. "Sazaki hit the ground," Hazano began, though he did not speak like he was announcing the match. He started it like he was asking a question, and Kameko frowned towards his opponent for only another second before turning towards the watching room and shaking his head. The look on Kameko's face cleared up what had happened inside the shell, making half the class who had allowed themselves to smile hopefully when they saw Sazaki hit the ground lose those excited looks.

"He almost had him," Flugeru muttered under his breath, grimacing and glaring out at Lifebringer.

"Yeah? Where?" Kotsumura asked, glancing over his shoulder at the taller teen who frowned back at him before just frowning more himself. Kotsumura added while looking back through the window, "Before or after he punched his way through Kameko's shell?"

How did he do that? Flugeru thought, grinding his teeth at his inability to figure it out. There had to be a trick. Kameko's shell is too hard to just break through like that.

Hazano called out the victor of the match to be Sazaki, and Zach returned to the room where the rest of the class was waiting. He walked over towards Kotsumura but looked at his teacher as he went, checking if Hazano had anything to mention to him this time. Hazano usually went over the person who lost first, but Kameko was slow making his way back to the room so he met Lifebringer's gaze first. "That was certainly impressive, Sazaki, but you should have been more careful at the end. If Kameko's shell had shrunk with you still inside there could have been serious problems."

Zach nodded in agreement, thinking about how quickly he turned and dove out of the Tortoise Fortress to make sure he did not get closed-in. "Kameko," Hazano continued, looking towards his other student who just made it back to the room and through the door he was closing behind him. The boy with a cracked shell turned his head and looked towards Hazano, masking his pain and all his feelings well behind his blank expression. "You need to work on your speed while inside the Fortress. Your attacks were too slow for Sazaki, as they have been for many of your other classmates in previous fights…"

Guess they already knew about that. I'm sure someone figured it out, and the others tried their luck after noticing it before. Not that it would make much of a different in the end for most of them. Just tire them out trying to run around and around him, until they were too tired to dodge him any longer. Zach examined the looks on some of his classmates' faces as they looked back over towards Kameko. For most of them who challenged him, he likely didn't even beat them. It would only take one Ranking Day for them all to try getting through his defenses, fail, and him to move up to a high enough place that…

"…But you cannot rely on the strength of your shell alone. Work on that, now that you know it's not as strong as you might have thought." Hazano finished without saying too much, as despite Kameko masking it he could see how hard his student was thinking about it already.

Imino took a step towards his friend when Hazano finished speaking, lifting a hand a bit to mention how hard it was to fight Lifebringer. His hand hesitated and then lowered back down though, as he saw through Kameko's expression better than most. His shell heals. He said it did back when he was a kid, but that it hadn't broken in… in so long. Imino's eyes shifted back towards his former opponent who was not looking back at them but instead just talking to Kotsumura who was also mentioning about how strong Kameko's shell was, which Imino could hear.

Hazano sensei's right, Kameko thought, his eyes lowering as he moved back towards Imino without really looking at his close friend. If I wasn't just relying on it, he left himself so open. Open enough that Dendo, or Imino would have easily been able to land a hit on him. Did he know he didn't even need to be worried about that with me? He just expected me not to be as good, even though I was ranked fourth? It wasn't just at the end of the fight! The whole time he ran around my shell- and in the beginning too! He left himself open, and if I had used a weapon, or if I just thought about how to fight him beforehand instead of just how to hold out against him… I was thinking about how he couldn't break in without his Quirk, that's all I thought about. Even with it, he wouldn't have been able to, or so I thought.

"Manzo Elia," Trabo called out, announcing who he was challenging as soon as the next stage had been set.

Zach glanced over towards the boy who made that challenge. Manzo, he turned and watched the girl in all black walking back towards the gym door that opened back into a room with a jungle on one side and a swamp area on the other half. Manzo's whole body from head to her feet was covered in dark clothes tight to her body, looking less like cloth in most places and more like she was wrapped in tight black bandages. She used some of those bandages like Aizawa sensei could. They look like they're stuck to her all around her body, but she's got more weapons hidden under some of them too. Dendo got cut by a couple shuriken I didn't see her pull out, but she has to be hiding them under there.

Zach's eyes shifted from the girl heading across the room back to the guy who made the challenge and got position Alpha. Trabo. "What's his Quirk?" Zach asked his blond classmates on his right side.

Kotsumura glanced left and Reika did from just a little farther down. "Trabo's?" Reika asked, looking back out the window with a smirk. "Triplet."

As she smirked and said it, the boy in front of them was splitting apart. Two other versions of himself pulled themself out of him to either side. They literally pulled themselves out of his shoulders, arms coming out first and grabbing on Trabo's sides to drag the rest of them out from inside. "Bets, taking all bets," Reika called out, still with a grin covering her face.

Betting on the fight? No one's done that so far. Hazano sensei doesn't look to be- he's looking back and forth between the two. Zach's focus switched solely to the bet for a few seconds, in order to raise his lips back up from the low way they dipped a moment ago. The beast roaring in the back of his mind that split into a dozen versions of itself disappeared as Zach focused on what Reika said and not on Trabo's Quirk.

"Left," Kotsumura guessed assuredly, leaning forward and nodding his head as he stared at the back of that particular Triplet.

"My bet's on the right one then," Reika retorted. Kotsumura frowned with a look back at her, but Reika kept smirking and added, "You know he's not going to give it away until after the bets are made."

"Right."

"Right."

"No look! He just turned his head back-"

"Trabo's going over his strategy. See, they're both looking. My guess is on right."

"Left."

Flugeru took his attention off Sazaki, even though he had been frowning at him awaiting some sort of reaction since his new classmate walked up right past him to stand in the gap between him and Kotsumura. "Right," he said, disagreeing with his blond classmate who was getting too friendly with Sazaki.

Zach opened his mouth to finally ask what they were all betting on, when the identical version of Trabo on the right lifted the left corner of his lip up the smallest amount. His head was turned left to face in the middle, so raising his lip like that was visible to the window behind and made half the class laugh and grin at their victories. Kotsumura sighed and then turned away when Reika looked his way with a big smirk. She looked over to Zach too as she saw her new classmate staring out with wide eyes. "They might look identical, but X is the best."

Trabo's Triplet on the center one's right side reached his hands up and spit on his hands. The other two Trabos looked over at him and frowned in identical ways, the two of them giving him the same look of exasperation as if asking 'every time?' "I don't get it," Zach began, a confused look on his face as he watched the Trabo on the right side start giving himself a different hair style. "Is it not just, Trabo splitting himself?"

"Well it is," Kotsumura replied. The version giving itself a cooler hairstyle with his black hair stuck up in the front turned his head again and looked back at the window turning his head left and right and looking closely like he wanted to see inside. Kotsumura laughed as the gaze was aimed towards their part of the window, and he figured that Triplet wanted to see Zach which Zach was amazed by. "But that one calls himself Trabo X. The other two are more identical-"

"And how different is he? Is he actually, his own person?" Zach wondered, looking back at Kotsumura for a moment and then back out in interest. That's crazy! The individuality of his own clone- while the other one is just so identical! They looked exactly the same until he started changing it up too. His personality must have split certain aspects, certain character traits are maybe more exposed in that one? I don't know if Trabo controls it, but it looks like he would rather there not be a Trabo X at all and for his clones to both just be like him. Trabo X. That's amazing! What if one gets hurt? What if one of the clones turns on the other like Twice's? Does the damage to one get carried onto the others? Is it like Hawkins- the Hydra. Hydra! Recon ghosts. Destroying them didn't do anything unless it was the whole body, not just one part. Focus on Trabo though. Figure out how it works…

Zach kept his eyes glued on his classmate's unique Triplet when he went out into action. Trabo wore a red costume, and his skin was light but had a tint of orange to it that Zach saw was even an identical shade between the three of them. Will Manzo fight Trabo X differently because he's more- wow. They split up, but they can each hear and see- and obviously feel what the others feel. It doesn't look like it's as intense for any of them though. Pain one of them goes through is diluted, just like the sight and sound probably, just a translucent vision over their normal sight maybe? What about death then? Could two survive if one died? I suppose they haven't tried it before, or I hope they haven't, if the Triplets can each have their own personalities.

"Does Trabo's other, Triplet," Zach began slowly to Kotsumura as they watched the fight. "Act out differently?" He finished when Kotsumura leaned back towards him a bit to hear what he had to say.

"Not really," Kotsumura replied, his focus still stuck out on the fight so he was not thinking too much on it.

"Well," someone started behind them. Zach glanced back, but Porrolo Ven stopped mid-sentence as he realized what he was doing. Zach looked at him though with is full attention, waiting for Porrolo to continue. "It's not that he acts out, not like X at least. Who I guessed was on the right, by the way," Porrolo added, turning to Kotsumura and mentioning it to his friend who grimaced again while Reika let out a laugh. "He's just like Trabo though. He's not just a clone Trabo tells what to do. They're a pretty good team, the two of them."

"The three of them too," Kotsumura added on. "Trabo just gets annoyed by it and says X ruins his plans sometimes, but the three of them move so in-step that if they weren't all the same person it would actually be kind of creepy."

Zach started watching some of that teamwork himself, having to look up at the screens above the window for most of it. The jungle was too thick for them to see into very well from the watching room, but there were a lot of cameras all over the jungle area which showed them their combatting classmates. Manzo's fighting style works much better in the jungle area than anywhere else. Zach's eyes scanned back over to the Triplets making their coordinated movements through the thickly wooded area. But if Trabo knew that and challenged her anyway, then- but she should realize that as well, yet she still went to the jungle side. She's going with her strengths, and by the way Trabo's moving she's doing exactly what he expected her to do. Except she would know, she does know, Zach's lips lifted into a small grin.

As Reika was darting her eyes back and forth between the screens above the window, Bibi walked up to her left side and whispered, "What's Trabo doing?" One of the three Triplets (not Trabo X) got hit unawares in the back by a shuriken that stuck out between his left shoulder-blade and his spine. It was a shallow wound, but all three of the Trabos winced and the one who was hit yelled out in pain. The hit Trabo reached behind him while spinning around to look for his opponent up in the branches, but Manzo had disappeared and was nowhere to be seen or even heard.

"He's putting himself out there," Reika began slowly, a smirk growing on her face as she saw a flash of a smile on Trabo X's face on his way to running to his injured clone. "Right in Elia's clutches. And when the three of them convene, well, he'll be attacked."

"Does he have a plan for when that happens?" Bibi asked, spinning from Reika back to the screen she saw who she thought to be the main Trabo running across the jungle on.

"He might," Zach began. The girl with gray hair in a bowl cut spun her head to the left in surprise at that voice. Reika looked over too and lowered her smile at Zach's grin after what he said, as she thought the grin meant he was suggesting something else when she was thinking Trabo had a trap set. Kotsumura looked to his left side for a moment too, and Flugeru ground his teeth while lowering his eyes from the screen above him to the boy on his right. "But Manzo knows that she's great in that area, and yet he challenged her and went into it anyway."

"She doesn't look to realize it," Kotsumura began slowly, looking back at the screens where he had seen Manzo acting like her normal self and fighting as usual. Even with a plan, what could Trabo do against her in that environment?

"But she does," Zach continued. "And, I think, she's just acting like she's fighting in the same way, to make sure Trabo carries out his plan. As soon as Trabo sets off his trap, that's when she'll make her move. She's the one trapping him here, making him carry out the plan by giving him the perfect conditions that he wanted-"

"You don't know her," Flugeru snapped, making Zach freeze with his mouth open. He turned his head and looked up at the taller boy with short red hair who glared at him harshly and then said in a lower voice, "You don't know us."

Zach nodded his head, "You're right." He said it before Kotsumura could speak up on his other side, as he saw the blond almost do in the corner of his vision. "I don't. Sorry," he apologized and turned back to the screens, to just watch quietly again.

Bibi looked at Zach's face on his right side for a few more seconds, then she looked back up at the screens where she caught both of her classmates in the middle of fighting a three-on-one. So, neither of them have made their moves yet? They're both fighting so hard, but they have other plans set too? Bibi Reina gulped and she clutched the hem of her shirt with both hands. Three years of this, and I've never caught up. I just want to be on their level. I, only got this far, I only made it to now because of my classmates. I never would have gotten my license without their help… I can't see myself beating anyone- how? How can they all challenge Lifebringer? How can they fight him and not be so, so… am I just a coward? I can't even speak, I couldn't even ask him what he meant when he was trying to- was he trying to help? Or just converse? He's a… murderer. Bibi curled her hands tighter into the hem of his costume's shirt, to stop those hands from shaking as she slid her feet a few inches to the right.

"Yeah!" Satoshi leaned forward and shouted with a grin on his face as Manzo landed on a tree branch, and that whole tree shook and started to fall. Zach continued to watch with a flat expression, though he heard Satoshi who he had seen smirking before when Trabo had been looking to be cornered, and who he had seen talking to Trabo throughout the morning too. He spotted Inasa leaning forward with an interested look, though Dendo did not seem worried at all and was just watching the screen closely without being surprised. Most of the rest of the class was surprised though, and Flugeru started grinning as he saw Manzo's eyes widen between the black mask of bandages wrapped around her face above her eyes and just below them too. The only part of her whole body that was showing was the slit on her mask for her eyes, and so as she fell towards the Trabos on all sides of that tree they felled with their new support tools, all of the Triplets saw her surprise at falling from the tree.

The tree was falling with Manzo, and she was just falling next to the leaning trunk. Then she vanished. She was falling with gravity though, and one of the Trabos ran towards where she was coming down despite being invisible. Zach's eyes shifted to the trunk though, the one falling just behind her that she had not flipped herself for her feet to point at until after she turned invisible. His eyes shifted from the point on the trunk where he suspected she planted her feet, then he followed a line from it straight out.

"Hazano sensei! If Manzo's invisible when she hits the ground-"

"If she hits down hard, she'll gasp," Hazano replied without hesitation. He could see that Trabo thought the same, as one of them called it out at the space where the invisible Manzo should have been falling. Another that ran forward jumped up to make her visible sooner, swinging at where he thought she was if gravity had kept taking her. Trabo X lost his confident look though, the spikier-haired Triplet darting his eyes around just as his attacking Triplet was going through empty air. Hazano noticed it too on a screen right as Trabo X started spinning with widening eyes.

The other two Trabos turned their heads at once, panic covering their expressions as a twig from the felled tree was cracked in Trabo X's vision. The sound of the falling tree covered up the sound of that snap, but because of that noise Manzo had not cared as much about masking her sprint. Trabo X rose his arms and crossed them for protection, one in front of his face and one across his chest. The other two came running towards him, but a blade pressed up against Trabo X's throat and became visible which made all three of them stop. Manzo was up close to Trabo X, less than an inch away from most of his body as hers was pushed up close to him in a position like she was half out of a crouch. Her head was on the left side of Trabo X's and down a foot, below his shoulder so her back was under his raised arm, her arm looped under his with the blade turned backwards in her right fist.

She reacted so fast! No hesitation, or… "You saw it coming?" The Trabos asked simultaneously, and Manzo pressed the dull side of her knife harder into Trabo X's throat. Trabo X sighed, and he shrugged towards the other two who frowned deeper at him for that reaction while they were both cursing in their heads and trying to figure out a way past this. Trabo shook his head though as Manzo turned hers a bit to the side to look back at him. "You got me," only one of them said this time, the main one. "I give up."

"Trabo Santosa has conceded defeat, Manzo Elia is the winner."

Trabo X grinned again once Manzo flipped around the knife she pulled off his throat and made it vanish into her costume. He nodded his head at her and to the side while saying, "Farewell, my lady."

Manzo's eyes narrowed at the figure before her, then she motioned her head back towards the Trabo who conceded defeat. Her annoyed eyes shifted the way they looked for a moment as his feet started dragging across the floor. "Yeah, have a good one, X."

That's amazing, Zach smiled again as he watched the Trabo's slide back towards the main one who they combined into. The main Trabo winced again and reached behind his back to rub over his uniform where there was no mark but he still felt the wound beneath. Then he walked over to Manzo to walk with back to the watching room. As they were heading back, Zach did not turn to look towards Flugeru. He did notice Reika look over though and see Flugeru's pissed-off expression, and he cracked a smaller grin when she looked at the side of his face that made her snort as she knew he saw her look.

After Manzo and Trabo returned to the watching room, Hazano changed up the arena again. The randomization ended, and Hazano awaited a challenge. Everyone expected Zach to make a challenge. He was looking around at them like they were looking towards him. After he learned the rules about a one fight gap and how he needed to rank up, he had challenged Imino and then Kameko leaving only one fight between them. Zach shrugged though as he looked at Kotsumura who he saw an expectant look from.

Hazano hummed to himself and looked around to pick one of his students to ask if they had a challenge for the day. As he started to look though, Reika spun back towards Zach and he saw her expression settle with a competitive look in her eyes. There was a lake zone out there and a grassy plain on the other side, and she grinned at Lifebringer. I'm not going to make a stupid mistake this time like with Kotsumura. Get ready, Lifebringer… Reika frowned as Zach shook his head at her. A confused look formed on her face as they made eye contact, and she hummed but looked away, deciding against challenging him.

"I challenge Yurinosuke!"

Hazano almost called out a different student, but he turned and nodded at the boy who just called out his challenge of a classmate eight ranks ahead of him who looked surprised by the challenge. As the two headed out into the gym though, Reika walked past Kotsumura's back and stopped right next to Lifebringer who was staring out the window towards them. "What's up?" Reika asked, some annoyance in her voice that they had let another two challenge each other on a zone she would have been great in. Zach pursed his lips and glanced to the girl at his side, and Tiona frowned deeper and added, "I wanted to challenge you there. Are you done?"

"It wasn't that I didn't have a challenge of my own," Zach began. "I just need to leave a space gap-"

"You did-" Reika started snapping right back at him, only to freeze. She stopped herself and turned, looking across the room which made Kotsumura's eyes widen too as he fully turned back towards Zach.

"You want to fight Manzo?" Kotsumura asked.

Zach nodded. He continued to look out at Yurinosuke heading across the gym to position Beta. He spoke in a lower voice just to Kotsumura as the watching room got a bit louder with rumors spreading around over to Manzo that Lifebringer planned on challenging her in the next fight. "I respect that fighting style she was using. I want to face it. It was impressive, and I might see something new."

Kotsumura rose an eyebrow and then asked in a low voice himself, "Do you even care about ranking up?"

Zach looked right at Kotsumura, then shifted his gaze for a moment to Reika who frowned at him again when she saw that look. Zach shrugged only half-apologetically though at them, as it was not like he had been going to Ranking Days for years and this would mean a lot to him, which he figured they would understand from that half-apologetic shrug. Reika tilted her head to the side in acceptance, tsking that he was not taking it that seriously without feeling like he was demeaning the entire day itself. "I still am going for number 1," Zach continued to the two, as well as to Himazuri who was watching from Kotsumura's other side, and to Imino listening from across the room, and unknowingly to Flugeru behind him who started paying attention after spreading it back behind him that Zach planned on challenging Manzo.

Zach went on, "But the main point of coming to Shiketsu is to train, yeah? Best way to train is seeing all the fighting styles there are to be better prepared against anything."

Kotsumura hummed and he glanced back through the window thinking about what Zach just said. He thought about his new classmate's previous fights and admitted in a mutter, "That probably works better, when you're good enough to be able to keep the fights going and see all your opponents' moves."

Zach shook his head in disagreement, making Kotsumura turn back to him in confusion. "It's the opposite," he said. No matter how much I learn in a fight that I win, I learn ten times more in a loss." Tiona rose her eyes and looked down her nose with her head lifted to see if Zach was being serious. Zach had said that in such an assured voice though, and she felt her heart racing in confusion as she tried to figure out what he was doing. Kotsumura stared at him with big eyes too, ones that grew wider as Zach added in a whisper, "I've lost a thousand battles though, so I've learned a lot."

Kameko looked at the side of Imino's face, wondering what his friend was overhearing for a moment before turning again to watch the fight that just started between their classmates. Imino was staring over at the back of Zach's head with his eyes wide though, and then he lowered them down and stared at his hands for a few seconds. Is Lifebringer really serious? If, he is, Imino looked back up towards the window into the gym and through it, though it was his own last fight that he saw and not the one going on now. What did I learn from that loss? That Lifebringer's stronger than me… sure. But what else? I landed hits on him. I caught him a few times, whereas Dendo and Kameko, two of the highest ranked in the class, couldn't. Was he purposely going not as hard against me, because I'm not ranked as high? It didn't look like it. Even if he was going just as hard as he needed to go, or as hard as he thought he needed to go, to fight us, I was the only one who exceeded his expectations then? I still lost, but I fared better than most. Against Lifebringer! Because I believed I could beat him. I don't know where I got that notion, but I believed in it and did as best I could and almost, I almost knocked him down!

Zach watched the fight going on closely. He watched the people on his sides who were watching him, and whenever he would turn his head to look at different screens above the long window he would check on the people usually in his blindspot too. Zach checked on Manzo who he saw had heard what he was preparing and did not look nervous but instead had a very intense look covering her face. No one looks like they're going to try and challenge me instead. It seems like they all want to see me fight more. They want to see as many fights with me in it as possible, in case they're the next one I'm going to challenge. They've seen a couple styles so far. I showed them what Death can do, and told them how I don't plan on using it on them. Manzo's good. Her weaknesses, well, her main weakness is easy to exploit. Shouldn't be hard to adjust either. Himazuri hasn't listened in for a while. She got a bit freaked out the last time I think. She would barely look at me since the fight with Kameko. I was too focused on him. I need to think about everyone, everywhere, all the time. The one I'm currently facing, the ones watching me, the ones listening to me and grading me and judging me. It's all important. The impression I make on the first day dictates the relationships I'll have with them through the semester. Be it fixing damage I did, or making better a friendship I started, or continuing work on support I gave. It all matters. This matters! Something like this…

But most important is the fight with Manzo. In the moment. Right now. What's she got?

Zach watched the randomizing of the next stage, as the previous fight had ended and they were all waiting for the new set-up already. Perfect, Zach thought, as the gym was set to be half a 'tropical rainforest' zone, and the other half a jungle. "'What's the difference?'" Kotsumura asked Zach, making it out like he was asking the question that was on Zach's mind so he could explain it.

"I know the difference," Zach replied before Kotsumura could explain it to him. Kotsumura paused with his mouth open, and he closed it and scratched the side of his head with an 'oh.' Rainforest has a thick canopy so there won't be plants down on the ground, while the jungle will be even thicker from bottom to top with those vines and bushes. Trabo found some good paths through it, but he had to push a lot away and she could have attacked him at any time on his way through. He didn't see half her attacks coming because of it. This set-up though, Zach looked left and right, as from just outside the window to as far as he could see there were just trees everywhere. He could barely see into the gym at all, and the rainforest side was darker as the canopy blocked off a lot of light from the ceiling as well.

"I challenge Lifebringer," Manzo stated when the forests had finished rising from below the gym.

Zach grinned more for a moment before getting a much more serious look on his face and turning to Manzo. Hazano frowned and got a sweatdrop on the side of his face, but he decided against mentioning how that wasn't the proper way to challenge a classmate. Zach accepted the challenge, and Hazano sent the two of them into the gym to get ready on opposite sides.

Kerushi walked up into the space Lifebringer had been in before he left. "This is Manzo's best combination," he said, looking to his left and up at Flugeru. "Think she can take him?"

"If he uses that Death of his, he could wipe out the forest in a second," Flugeru muttered darkly. "But if he messes around too much, against Manzo," his annoyed voice started to raise more optimistically and he nodded slowly as he thought of it. He glanced back through the room towards Dendo who had more damage on him from his fight against Manzo than he did from his fight against Zach, even if he had won his earlier fight against the seventh ranked Class 1 student.

Zach had to go to position Beta to start. On his way across the gym he was somewhat able to follow a line across the middle of the floor, as the jungle dirt had a slightly different shade than the rainforest's. The foliage was so thick even on the middle of the zone though, that looking back only halfway across the room and he could not see Manzo anymore. He looked back ahead, and he continued jogging across the room at a steady pace. His eyes darted over to a couple small hidden cameras he saw, though he barely checked them for a moment while making his way across the gymnasium. Sounds like there's a waterfall over there. I didn't see one on the screens back inside, but there's so much cover in these kinds of zones I'm sure there are dozens more cameras than usual, meaning Hazano sensei likely has to switch around during the fight to be able to see them all. With Manzo's Breathless though, it won't help him much. She's going to disappear. And I'm going, well, I only really need to vanish from her. There's no point in hiding from everyone else. Letting them see me make my moves isn't a bad thing. Show them everything.

The announcement to begin was made, and within a couple of seconds both Zach and Manzo were up in the trees. They were across the gym from each other with a lot in their paths between them, so there was no way they could see each other yet. The two of them, neither seeing the other, started running across tree branches and jumping to other trees. Manzo had climbed up the easiest to climb tree she saw around her at the start, while Zach just jumped up to a thick branch he saw on a tree to his right side, which from position Beta looking towards Alpha was into the rainforest zone.

"Is he copying Manzo's style?" Bibi asked, coming back over next to Reika which her blonde friend realized this time was because Zach was no longer standing there.

Reika frowned at the realization, but she shrugged and looked back up at the screens herself to watch her classmates stealth-ing their ways through the thick forests. "I don't know," she muttered. Why'd he want to fight Elia instead of me? I'm higher ranked. Then again, why'd he challenge Imino at all after already beating Dendo? It doesn't necessarily mean he thinks she's stronger than me. He looked like he was enjoying her last fight. I'll show him how I handle people next round… but what is he doing? It looks like Elia's, but he's good at it. The way he jumps and lands, it's soft without making much noise. He's not even watching where he lands closely, Reika shifted her eyes around fast to another screen where Zach just entered the angle after leaving a different one. Huh? What is that?

Zach lifted a hand to his visor and tapped a button on the side of it a couple of times, while he was pulling out a device from his belt that he crouched and attached on a part of the trunk. His dark visor kept its outward appearance, while on the inside of it Zach saw a small square appear on the top right of his vision. His visor perfectly covered all of his vision, and the screen that appeared in his visor was not fully solid so he could see through it while also keeping that angle in view. He had not just pulled out one of those devices from his belt too, and Zach tossed up in his left hand a handful of them before swiping that hand across his body and catching them all with a glance towards a camera he saw watching him.

It was through his visor so it was hard to tell, but Class 1 thought Zach just flashed a smirk their way without even smirking. His look in their direction while tossing up those small black devices made each of them stare closer at the piece he just placed between some bark in the tree to keep it there.

"Does he, have his own cameras?" Kerushi muttered, disbelief in his voice at what he just asked. "What is he doing?"

"He's setting up more," Porrolo mentioned himself, stepping forward and looking at a different screen that Zach had darted into before making a subtle plant of a camera that was almost impossible to catch. If we didn't already see him place one, I wouldn't have even known what he just did- Manzo! She doesn't know, so if she's watching, she might move out behind him and start giving chase. If she lets out a breath while coming up behind him- his cameras must attach to that headset he has on. It's a great plan, but Manzo might see through it. I might not have known what he was doing from that small movement, but Manzo's careful. She got Trabo off guard because he thought she had fallen for her trap… just like Sazaki said she would. So he knows, that she might see through it, which means that isn't his only plan here.

Zach jumped to the next branch, and he snapped his right hand up as he saw a small spinning piece of metal flying straight towards him the second he jumped. It curved! Which direction did she throw from then? Zach caught the shuriken right before he landed, the spinning blade with five points freezing between his fingers with the sharp blade millimeters from cutting through even the fabric of Zach's glove. He caught the shuriken in mid-spin, mid-throw, and as he landed he stomped down hard and threw it back in the direction he supposed it came from. The shuriken flew, spinning, at a tree that it imbedded into the trunk of halfway across the star. The shuriken looked like it would take a lot to rip it from that trunk, and Zach watched the branches around that tree but caught nothing in the next couple of seconds. No panic from how fast I threw it. No quick jump away to make a branch shake or a gasp to make her visible, not unless she's in a blind spot. She's great at this.

But I'm better. Zach leapt up high. He leapt up from the thick branch and rose farther into the canopy, into the small branches that would seemingly move more with each step so it would not be a great place to move to. The canopy was hard to see into though, and when all the canopies of the trees in the area started shaking, there was no way for Manzo to tell where in it Zach currently was. So she stopped trying to, and she darted away from the area to let him continue to make his moves for no reason.

Manzo darted away while Zach continued to shake the tops of those trees, and Manzo released her breath when she knew she was out of sight of him. Zach turned his head and he darted through the canopies, chasing after the girl who spun and looked up from a thick branch to the tops of the trees that were shaking on their way after her. How did he see me?! Manzo sucked in a huge amount of breath even though she was in the middle of panting, but she calmed down quickly after holding it in. She stayed where she was for a few seconds after breathing in, He picked a direction. He suspected I might run if I didn't know where he was, and back the direction he came from is the way he thought I would go. He called it, but he didn't see- A knife came flying out of the canopy towards the branch she was on, making her dart to the side while desperately holding in her breath.

A knife slammed into the branch between where Manzo's feet had just been, and then a second later a boy in blue and green and red landed down in front of her. Zach turned his head to the right, and to the left, his eyes narrowed behind his visor and his hands each gripped around a blade each. He slid his right foot to the knife in the branch and kicked it up out of where it was lodged. He swiped his right hand across the front of his body and caught that knife, making Manzo's eyes widen more as the knife she had just seen in his right hand was no longer there. Zach gripped the blade he had thrown that had a green hilt instead of the one with a black hilt that slid down into its hiding place in his sleeve when he made that swipe across the front of his body he knew she saw.

Which direction are you in? You're holding your breath right now. How long can you hold it for? What if my face was darker? Could you hold it in despite your fear? More of Zach's face shadowed over below his visor, and a red glow came out from below it that had Manzo staring with her eyes wider, though her breath stayed inside.

He wants me to gasp. It's like with Kameko. And Dendo. His tactics are brutal and intimidating. Villains who see him fight like that would give up early in fear of him. He uses that name, to make us afraid of him. And he can capitalize on it too. He's not all talk, but neither are we. Shiketsu's Class 1. Manzo Elia. The Stealth Hero, Breathtaker. Manzo stepped off the branch she was on, and as she fell, she smacked a hand on top of the branch she just stepped off of.

Zach darted his eyes to the spot on the tree he just felt a vibration and heard a noise on. If she's attacking she wouldn't land there! But objects she throws become visible, so that's her actual body?! It's a decoy, but it's her, unless she really can make things invisible for a short time too. Zach leapt up high, and his wristwatch opened up over his right hand, allowing him to fire a hook away through the forest that he sped out into.

Manzo turned visible below where Zach had just been standing on the tree, taking in a huge breath and then swinging herself back up over the branch. Her eyes darted after where he just sped away, then they snapped to her right as she heard a ringing noise. Manzo looked towards the trunk and saw a small black device partially hidden there. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of it, then she spun back the direction Zach just ran off where more ringing started, then back to her left and then to the right farther back towards position Beta. What are these things?!

The ringing got louder, and Zach spun around the trunk he had grappled himself to. He slingshotted himself back towards Manzo, a pair of knives in his hands that he flipped around in a crazy way showing off his mastery of the weapons. Manzo snapped her hands up with three shurikens in either of them, and she leapt backwards while Zach was coming down at the branch he had been on before. She threw three shuriken at where he was landing, getting ready with the second hand to throw wherever his head and feet gave away he would be jumping to next. As Zach was landing on the branch though, he did not jump away to dodge those three shuriken. They were all coming at the same speed, and all on target, and Zach slashed his knives quickly in front of his body to deflect two of them. The third slammed into his left arm, and Zach reached his right hand over and pulled the shuriken out of his sleeve where it got stuck with him not even flinching from the blow.

Manzo landed, and she stared towards her opponent across not that wide a gap. There were loud ringing sounds around them, though she could pinpoint where they were coming from and calmed herself despite how disorienting the noise was at first. If those work as cameras too, then he wasn't able to follow me before. I chose the wrong direction because this is the way he came from, but anywhere else and he wouldn't have been able to give chase. Manzo held her breath, and she darted down the branch to her left. Her own shuriken passed behind her back after where she would have been had she leapt backwards after turning invisible to another branch farther from Sazaki. She threw her shuriken behind her while Zach was on his way to the branch she was running down.

Zach saw the branch shaking though after he threw her shuriken towards where he first thought she was going. He saw the shuriken become visible and come flying at where he would be landing, confirming what he already suspected from the shaking that got worse gradually showing she was moving towards the thinnest part of the branch. Zach aimed his right hand towards the end of the branch, but the hook fired just short of Manzo and caught the branch below where she had just jumped off. Manzo kicked off a tree trunk to the right of where she jumped, then off the one she bounced over to, then she rolled upon landing on a thicker branch.

Manzo put her hands and feet down and leapt to her right over at another branch she lifted her arms to and swung on like a pull-up bar to another branch she landed on with one foot and jumped off of to another. She felt the vibration in the branch she landed on as she was rising off of it, but she held her breath despite knowing how close he was to her. Fall. It was clear what the next branch she was going to jump to would be, so when she landed and was about to jump to it, she weakened her own lift-off strength. As she fell between branches instead of moving to the next one, she saw Zach shoot across the gap faster than she would have jumped, meaning he would have slammed into her midway through it. His head immediately snapped down when he did not hit anyone, and Manzo cursed in her head that he was able to react so quickly to his realization of where she was being wrong. I'll never get the drop on him like this. I needed to counter as he was going for where he thought I was!

I'm surprised she was seventh. I guess in some zones being invisible wouldn't help much. The lake zone, swamp where she'd leave so many footprints, same with arctic and even desert and beach. Not as much there, as she could keep light on her feet and- shit. She's really good. Zach dropped off the tree, only to have to dodge as a short-sword came swinging towards him from a wire connected to the tree he dropped off of. To make it swing like that, she must have cut the other end of the wire from up there.

Manzo snapped her body to the left, dodging a knife that flew right past her left shoulder almost grazing her black costume. He thinks I jumped away! The way Zach's helmet moved when the branch shook from her dodge made Manzo see her moment. I can't jump at him though or he'll see the second vibration. It's up to chance! NOW! Manzo watched as Zach bent his knees and leapt up to the branch he thought she just jumped off of… Or at least, Manzo assumed he thought she just jumped off it. He's not high enough! Manzo realized it too late, that Zach's jump did not have enough force for him to rise to the branch she was on. She was going to make her move right as he was about to land, hit him and then stay hitting him as they fell to keep him below her so he would not have time to flip himself over or attach himself to a tree with his grappling hooks. Zach was a few feet short though.

Zach was still rising to the level of the branch, but the branch was at about his stomach level as he hit the top of his arc. His hands he rose like he was going to grab on at first, making Manzo think that maybe he had just misjudged the height of the branch, curled into fists instead of open hands to grip on. Zach curled those hands into fists, and he smashed them through the branch just next to where Manzo was standing. He also hit closer to the tree trunk than to her, so she could not scramble to a safer side, as the thinner part of the branch snapped off and broke apart from how powerfully Zach just smashed his hands through it. Manzo's footholds completely broke apart beneath her so there was not even anything solid enough for her to kick off of.

As Manzo tried to kick off of the wood falling below her, it just pushed away from her feet without giving her anything, making her gasp as the attempt flipped her around in the air. As she was falling, suddenly visible, Zach focused straight on her face. Her eyes between the black marks of her mask stared at his visor, and she twisted herself around in midair with her right hand in a fist. The two of them were dropping together, and Manzo punched as powerfully as she could, which was not very strong with no balance. Zach caught her right fist with his own, and he swiped up with his left in the same moment as she was reaching for weapons with hers.

Manzo's left hand froze. Instead of reaching for her shurikens that were so close to her fingers, she tried bringing her hand back up to stop the knife going for her side under her left armpit. She tried closing her arm down on Zach's hand, but he finished his slash first and cut straight through her costume on her left side. The black fabric below cut, just as the tight bandages on top that were wrapped all over as another thicker piece of armor. Zach's blade sliced through it all, yet Manzo's light skin that showed below the mark did not get cut as Zach stopped before going one level deeper. He swung her right arm out to the side while Manzo was still wide-eyed in panic that he had slashed her before she could block, and now with her left arm moving down to that side and her right tossed aside, her stomach was opened up for Zach's right elbow to slam down into after tossing her guard aside.

"Oooh," Reika leaned forward and exclaimed as Manzo's legs lifted up on one side and her head up on the other, her body bending over the elbow.

Doesn't he ever hit lighter? Kameko thought in pain, just as Imino was feeling a similarly traumatic kick at his side.

Zach landed down on the ground of the rainforest, and a dozen of the Class 1 students leaned forward with panicked expressions. The teacher rose up his microphone but knew he would be too slow. Yet the girl dropping fast with Zach who had no means of catching herself after that elbow, never slammed down into the ground. After slamming that elbow into her stomach, Zach dropped the knife from his left hand and moved his left arm around her back. He rose up his right hand into a fist and lifted his arm over Manzo's body, as he caught her in his left with her body laying horizontally over his arm.

Manzo felt the jolt of stopping, her body bending over the arm for a moment with a crack of her back, but it was not that painful. She tensed up as she realized she was about to hit the ground and probably just hit something else first, but her head never hit down, and her whole movement had stopped actually. Manzo opened up her eyes that she had clenched from the pain, and she stared up in shock at the boy holding her with one arm while his body was leaned over hers. His right hand was lifted in a half-hearted fist and his expression was stoney and serious, but he also started to grin as her eyes opened up despite his powerful elbow in her gut.

Everyone stared at one of the screens with their bottom lips dropping at the way Zach just caught Manzo. It looked romantic. Especially since Manzo's actual form was a bit more noticeable now, which others realized with their jaws dropping more at how much more her breasts were pushing out into the black fabric of her costume now. Manzo noticed it too, but her eyes were focused up on Zach's dark visor with her teeth clenching in anger at the way he just caught her. Then his left hand moved, right as she was opening her mouth and raising up her arms from her sides to attack him. She opened her eyes in shock that he dropped her after catching her in such a "chivalrous" way, making her think he wouldn't take her down like he had taken down her classmates. Manzo tried to bring her arms down to catch herself, but instead she grunted in pain as she hit down on her back and the back of her head from a two foot drop.

I didn't even think Manzo was on that branch, Inasa thought, his expression amazed as he stared at Sazaki standing over one of his strongest classmates. I didn't even think Sazaki knew Manzo was on that branch!

Hazano had his microphone lowered again, after raising it fast to try and yell at Sazaki not to seriously hurt one of his students. He was still tense though. He did not raise the mic to call out his newest student's victory yet. Those cameras. His gear. The devices, they made noise and, could they be motion sensors on top of cameras? That's how he was able to follow her movements even without seeing her? The tech, it's good. It's great. How does he have all that? It's compact. He has millions of yen worth of tech on him. Tens of millions even. Sazaki shouldn't have any money. Someone's funding him. Someone got him that costume and gave him great tech. I may not have even seen how powerful it is yet. The gloves that wrap over his hands, those blue blasts he fired, I've never seen gear like that. Not outside of prototype testing- but he isn't acting like they aren't safe. He trusts in the gear, showing he's been using it for a while. This is the first time since he's come back that he could though. So more than six months ago even, he was using this kind of tech. And it's still not known to the public? How far ahead is his gear compared to the equipment we make here?!

The hero who doubled as Class 1's homeroom teacher and his usual costume development teaching job glared towards Sazaki on the screen he was showed on. The kid hasn't talked about what he was doing all that time. Principal Memuria tried getting it, but either the big shots won't tell us what it was, or he never told them either and they just want to pretend like they know it by saying it's confidential. It's none of our business. Not unless it was illegal, which it almost certainly was. We can't just accuse him without proof though. Hazano lost his glare as he noticed students looking towards him wondering why he hadn't called out the winner yet, and he got to announcing Sazaki's victory.

Zach turned from Manzo and started away. The girl snapped up to her feet behind him, and her fists balled furiously at her sides. She looked angrier than even Dendo after his fight, and everyone in Class 1 got nervous as they looked at the screens and saw how pissed Manzo appeared to be. She reached up and yanked the bottom of her mask down, and the top part up and off too while glaring and panting at Sazaki's back. "Why?!" She yelled at him, making Zach stop and look over his shoulder at the furious girl.

Zach lowered his eyes from her face down to her chest that was pushing out now instead of looking as flat as her stomach like it had for most of their fight. I could understand it if your breasts got in the way, but I saw you earlier and they were small anyway. They don't get in the way like that. So why the excess? Why push them down, unless you were trying to hide something? "Why what?" Zach asked, lifting an eyebrow like he didn't know what she meant.

"You- why didn't you let me fall? Why did you, why- catch me?" She bit down so angrily, and then she snapped before he could answer as he was opening his mouth to do, "Don't look down on me!" Zach froze with his mouth open, and he closed it and looked at Manzo with a serious expression. He rose his hands up to his own visor that he removed the helmet from, retracting it back into the smaller equipment before pushing it up over his black hair that had pushed down again. Zach stared into Manzo's eyes and she got angrier by his look as he did not respond to her, "Just because I'm a girl, don't think you can treat me as less of a hero!"

Does she have something to prove? It doesn't really matter. Zach frowned more at the girl before him and he shook his head once. He furled the right corner of his lip and looked half-confused, half like he just did not care about what she was saying. "I caught you because you would have hit down too hard. I would have done it for anyone else too," Zach said. She's got a big chip on her shoulder. There's no point in hiding she's a girl, but the costume isn't just for its utility. She made it tighter there than it needed to be, since it would most likely constrict her lungs more than anything. It made her slightly slimmer, and it hides from her opponents that she's a woman, and she uses those excuses to justify restricting her Quirk's capacity? Maybe it doesn't restrict her breathing by much, but the fact that you care about this at all is holding you back.

Manzo ground her teeth at his response. She could feel the air on her skin under her left arm on her side where he had cut through her clothes, and she knew why he had done it considering the way he had looked down at her chest for a moment right there when he looked back at her. He was still just looking over his shoulder at her, and he continued too quickly this time when she opened her mouth to snap something else at him, "Why would it matter to me if you were a girl?" He asked it flat-out, an eyebrow raised in annoyance and even a pissed-off way at the girl who froze at the question and stared at him with wider eyes. "Half of the strongest people I know are girls."

Zach turned away from Manzo with that, and he jumped up into the branches above him. He leapt over to a new branch after landing on one, and he reached around the trunk and pulled a small, black, and very expensive device out of a crack in the bark. Most of the class are guys. The strongest members of the class are all guys. Same with U.A. Only Momo got into the semifinals, but U.A.'s hero course is full of guys too. Pro heroes are more likely to be men than women. Statistically, what I just said was a lie. It's probably less than half. Only someone who cares about something like that though has done the actual ratios. I've noticed it, sure, but to let it bother you that much that you actively try to not be seen as a 'female hero,' means that you see yourself as a 'female hero.' You're a hero. It's simple. You're not a hero who graduates from Shiketsu against ones who graduate from U.A. You're not heroes who are girls needing to prove yourself against the male heroes out there. You don't need to prove yourself to people that women can be heroes too, because you're the only one who feels like you need to do that. All Might is a man. Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist, even Lemillion rising above Miruko had to have hurt. But do you think Miruko gives a damn that the heroes above her are men? Miruko's an awesome hero. Just like Fantasma. Midnight too, and Mt. Lady. Creati and Battle Fist and Pinky. I've never seen one of them care about it, and they're all amazing heroes. No one cares except for you, and it's holding you back.

"Half of the strongest people I know are girls." Manzo stared up after where Sazaki vanished from her sight. She was frozen in place, a single sentence echoing over and over in her head. The look he gave her while saying it, was the first time in the fight that she felt like he was looking down on her. She thought she had seen it before when he caught her, when he was looking down after catching her in his arms. The way they had been facing each other up in the trees, during their fight, it had been intense and their fight matched that energy. The way he just looked at her though… He- he was looking down on me! He really… but, not because I- because what then? Why did he, if it wasn't because I'm a… he doesn't care about that, but, but I… do? Wha…

Zach grabbed the last of his gear, and he lifted back up his frown as he shifted his thoughts away from the girl back behind him. Alright. Time for the main event. I can't waste their entire Ranking Day, but if I want that number 1 spot there's still one person left I have to beat. Zach grinned as he landed in front of the long tinted window he knew his class was on the other side of. And before he headed for the door inside, he was already looking at a part of the glass where his opponent had been standing on the other side of for several matches straight. Zach looked through the perfect spot, that he stared straight into Inasa's eyes in a challenging way that everyone in Class 1 and their teacher saw.

Geez, does he ever even take a breath? Kotsumura almost laughed. If it wasn't suddenly so tense in the spectating room, he might have. He thought it might be tense from everyone's anger or something, but all that tension just came from one person's excitement, which all of them could feel as they looked towards Inasa and saw the glint in his eyes and the incredibly intense smile crossing his face. Not like that guy's going to give him a second to breathe. If you think you're about to face someone on the same level as the rest of us… except he doesn't. Kotsumura gulped, though he found gulping was hard at the way Sazaki was looking at Inasa too that showed he did not consider this another fight like the others he had been in. Even the intensity in which he had been fighting Manzo which made the fight seem so fast-paced and serious, in hindsight it felt so half-assed.

Wow, Reika thought, shifting her gaze from Inasa and Zach back up to a screen above her that showed Manzo slowly walking back across the forest. I don't know what he just said to her, but she looks fucking baffled! Like her world's just been turned on her head. She looked super pissed one second and then, what the fuck Elia? What'd he just say to you? Did you fall for him or something?

Hazano glanced over at Sazaki when he entered the spectators' room, instantly heading back over towards Kotsumura and Reika while pretending like he had not just been staring at Inasa through glass that they all knew he couldn't see through. The teacher's eyes refocused back up on his second strongest female student though a moment later, and his heart was racing at the look on her face that looked like something had just been shattered for her and she was trying to wrap her head around it. Did he just do, what I think he… Hazano's angry and suspicious thoughts towards Sazaki only a minute ago faded from his mind, as his eyes shifted around the room towards some of his other students.

Hazano stepped backwards to keep any of his students from noticing his expression, then he turned his head more and looked around at the others Zach had fought already. He stared at the crack on top of Kameko's shell, and the look on Imino's face as he talked to Kameko about that last fight he just saw, and then he turned and caught a glimpse of Dendo grinding his teeth all alone on one side of the room as the others were getting excited for a fight between Inasa and Sazaki. What is he doing? Seriously?! I've got to be losing my- Hazano's eyes stared at the screen above the window where Manzo had stopped walking for a second. Not many of the others were looking at her, too interested in Sazaki's next challenge that he had yet to make but had gotten them all interested and made them not watch Manzo on her way back to the room.

Hazano gulped as he noticed only two or three others watching Manzo, as she stopped in the middle of the gym and looked down at her breasts pushing into the black fabric of her under-costume that was still tight to her body but no longer squishing her breasts in so far that they were hidden. What is she thinking about? Did he get everyone focused on other things to give her this- Himazuri's… Hazano's eyes opened wide as he saw that brunette girl's bulging eyes while she stared up at the screen he and Reika were also looking at. This kid, Hazano's eyes shifted back over to Sazaki who was not just talking to Kotsumura this time, but Porrolo and Satoshi too, and then to Trabo who was close to Satoshi and who Zach mentioned something to about the difference between their two fights which Trabo countered with a 'plus, I'm not you,' that got a laugh out of Zach and Satoshi.

Does he even realize what he's doing? Or is it just coming naturally to him? Hazano watched his newest student's carefree expression as he laughed, making Trabo grin too after a second as he forgot why he wasn't smiling in the first place since his friends and classmates didn't seem to mind talking to Lifebringer like this. Whether it's natural or he's actively thinking it all out, there's no wonder why this country banded together to get him out of jail. The things he does, and the things he says, he's magnetic. A smirk crossed over Hazano's face and he shook his head once while looking away and back towards the screens that he noticed another student look to wondering why Manzo was not back yet. He rose up his microphone himself, "Manzo, get back to the room for assessment." Not that I need to give you one. That was a great fight, I barely saw any of it, and the one thing I could say I don't think I need to…

When Manzo heard her teacher's voice, she picked up her pace and steadied her expression again. She even remembered that she had pulled her mask off and reached up to pull it back up again. She covered the bottom half of her face but then froze as she reached behind her head to grab the black bandages and hood that she was going to pull back up over her messy brick-red hair. Her hair fell just down to her shoulders, straight but curlier near the tips, and Manzo held off on covering it back up as she lowered her hand with a confused look that was hard to see for most with her mouth covered up by her mask.

Must be hard getting that hair back in her mask, Kotsumura thought as he saw Manzo lower her arms. He looked back at Zach and asked, "You going to challenge him right after the next fight?"

"Challenge who?" Zach asked, before grinning as Keiji's look back showed he definitely knew.

Kotsumura shook his head at him that Zach would even ask that and play dumb after the way he just looked at Inasa though the window. "Just a warning, I think if I had to put a bet down," Kotsumura began.

Zach turned to his new friend and continued to grin, and he rose up an eyebrow offering Kotsumura to finish that sentence. He hesitated, but Reika was not as hesitant about it. "Then our money's on Inasa," she said, leaning past Kotsumura and giving Zach a serious smirk showing she meant it. "You ain't taking us all down today."

"And if I do beat him?" Zach asked her back, as she just made it out like she was willing to bet on this. Reika's eyes widened as did a couple others' around her, as none of them were expecting that. Zach shrugged his shoulders at her surprised look though, and he asked, "Then what do I win? You already said I can call you Tiona, so not that," he mentioned, glancing at Kotsumura as that was what she bet with him.

Tiona frowned, but only for a second. Then she cracked a smirk and said in a fake hesitant tone, "Well, I suppose if you beat Inasa, I would be willing to go on a date with you." All the guys around Reika and Zach spun to the blonde with wide eyes, while most of the others in the class just gave her skeptical looks like asking if she really just said that. Reika turned towards Inasa though after saying it, and she gave him an expectant look, "So you-"

"I asked, what would I win?" Zach repeated, his voice somewhat confused which made Reika drop her jaw, just like all the others around them now instead of just the guys who were jealous and shocked that Reika would make that offer. Reika spun back to him, giving him a shocked and skeptical look, but Zach just shrugged his right shoulder and replied at her look, "Sorry, not interested."

Be quiet while you still have the chance! Satoshi thought at the side of Zach's head.

He doesn't, want to go on a date with Reika? Kotsumura thought, still shocked by that, though for some reason relieved and then even more confused as he swore he saw Zach's eyes shift his direction for a moment there.

"'Not interested?' What? Are you- Oh, I see. You think 'cause you're mister hot-shot that you can have any girl you want, huh?"

"It's not that. I'm just not into you."

"Dude, be quiet-"

"Shut up snake boy," Reika snapped without taking her eyes off of Zach. "Alright then. If you win, then I'll let you pick the stage when we fight-"

"Well, I'm thinking this is actually going to be my last fight for the day," Zach countered. He rolled his right arm and then tilted his neck to the left and the right and then back really far. As he rolled his neck out like that, the scars on the sides of his neck got a lot of close looks from the others around him in a sudden reminder of how mysterious the person talking to them was. Reika suddenly realized who she was getting so heated by too, calming down herself as Zach spoke with the attention of the whole room but while acting like they were in their own private conversation. He spoke like he was used to having everyone watching him do every little thing in his life, so people listening in to his conversations was nothing new to him. "I'm actually getting pretty tired from all this fighting, and the next one's going to take it out of me for sure."

"You've got that right." Everyone looked over at another student, one who had not spoken to Zach so far that day who Zach turned to and grinned again in a more intense way to match the look on Inasa's face.

No one even noticed that Manzo had come back into the room, and she was now focused like the rest of them on Zach and Inasa staring each other down. "We need another challenge in the meantime," Hazano said, before sweatdropping himself as he realized that wording it like that showed even he was just trying to get to that next fight.

"Rrrgg," Reika finally broke the tense silence with a low growl of annoyance. She darted her eyes from Inasa to Zach, then back at Inasa as Zach had just fought and needed the gap anyway, but she decided against Inasa as that would mean there would be another gap before the fight she wanted to see as much as everyone else. So she spun to someone else who had pissed her off today, only to get annoyed as Manzo had just fought too, and she couldn't fight Kotsumura since they had already fought once and you couldn't fight the same person twice on one Ranking Day. "Hisashi!" She shouted, as soon as the screens stopped flipping through the possible zones and before Hazano could ask if anyone wanted to be the next challenge.

The third ranked student in Class 1 looked over at Reika with his eyebrows raised, and then he leaned his head back at the look covering her face as she glared at him with the anger towards all the other people she had looked to before making that challenge. Even Zach and Inasa took their eyes off each other and looked to Reika after hearing that furious challenge, and everyone between Reika and the door into the gym moved out of the way. Manzo even stepped back as Reika darted her a glare on her way towards the door.

Hisashi started towards the door after Reika, and he leaned in towards Satoshi on his way and whispered, "Help me!"

"Good luck," Satoshi just replied with a thumbs up at his classmate who sighed at the enthusiastic response when he was actually being half-serious right there.

As most of the class shifted focus to the new fight about to start, Dendo Takashi glared even harder at Lifebringer's back. His fists were clenched at his sides, his expression angrier than it had been before not that anyone was looking towards him to see it. Fuck him! What did he do, to get- he didn't beat me! I fucking tripped up- that's, that's not! FUCK! They're not standing as far away from him anymore. What are you all doing? Dendo shot a glare at Kotsumura, but his eyes shifted around to others near them too. He gave a dark look at the others who were just ignoring that Lifebringer was standing amongst them and looking through the window towards the fight themselves.

"You were right. I didn't even touch you." Dendo's fists curled harder and he bit down hard to keep his mouth shut instead of shouting a hundred insults at Lifebringer like he wanted. That bastard- he, is he just messing around- all those fights! Fucking Manzo even, he looked like- he was fighting her hard and he was against Imino and Kameko too, he fought all of them like… They were actually fights! But the others didn't have a chance- they couldn't have, and he wasn't even trying- but there's no way. It's impossible to fake a fight like that, make it look so intense and hard-fought, if the other person didn't know what- but maybe that's why he got hit by Imino, because he didn't… but then, he didn't want to get hit? In which case Imino hit him when I couldn't? No! He fucking went hard against me! To, to make me fall…

Zach ignored the green-haired classmate glaring into his back as he had been since their fight. Instead he just watched Reika fight Hisashi, and for most of the students around him it was taking too long. Reika fought hard, and they fought for a long time that felt longer with every time Reika retreated back to the areas with the most water. Zach wondered if despite her anger, she was making sure she showed off this time instead of getting beaten before she was able to prove it to him that she actually was strong. She's got a shockingly level head, considering her personality. And that Quirk is closer to Mark's in strength than I thought. She knows her own Quirk much better than I do, so it's not my place to warn her about what-ifs. I can leave it in a conversation somewhere though, asking how her Quirk differentiates between water and blood maybe? Or just mention in a joking voice not to use it to push me away or pull me close, and say that since we're mostly blood she could probably- no, because then what if she tries it and rips someone apart?

Zach was the only one in the room not focused on him and his next fight against Inasa. Even Hisashi was somewhat distracted by it, and he got hit by a wave he did not see coming from behind him, one that tried to drag him back towards the lake using all the water Reika had missed him with already. He got knocked around by it, but Zach watched as the third strongest in the class refocused solely on his own fight and showed why he deserved that ranking. As Zach watched interestedly though, his classmates kept stealing looks towards him, especially Inasa who kept thinking Zach would turn back to him again and make eye contact one of these times in another intense way, but Zach never turned to meet him which just made Inasa spin back and try to hold it in for a little longer.

The fight wound up being the longest one of the morning, and Hazano checked his watch when Hisashi finally slammed Reika into the dirt. He dropped her on her back at the edge of the lake, before dropping down to a knee himself and gasping exhaustedly for several seconds. Hazano frowned as he saw the time, It's getting close to lunch. Maybe this fight won't last too long. Either way… "Reika's on her back. Hisashi is the winner. Get back in here and we'll have the next challenge, but that's going to be the last one for this morning."

Zach looked over at his teacher wondering for a second if Ranking Day would really end so soon without everyone getting all their challenges in. Hazano continued though, "After lunch we'll return for more challenges. Lunch, by the way," Hazano added while looking at Sazaki directly. "Does count as a fight between, in case those fighting in the final challenge of the morning have challenges ready."

Zach nodded in understanding and gratitude at his teacher for giving him the piece of information only he did not know. He glanced around the rest of the room after giving the nod, and by the looks on his classmates' faces when he made the scan, each one of them thought that him looking their way meant that he was going to challenge them after lunch. Guess it isn't too much of a stretch. I've faced a pretty big fraction of the class at this point, about to be a sixth, more. Maybe I will come up with some more later. Who knows?

He doesn't look tense at all! He's totally underestimating Inasa, Satoshi thought with a gulp and a grin at Zach's expression.

I want to think he's just being cocky, but he doesn't even look cocky, Porrolo thought, looking at Zach in an odd way. He just looks calm. I guess if the fight doesn't mean anything to him, or at least the ranking, then he has nothing to worry about except being knocked down? Is being number 1 important to him? The teen with spiky white hair furled his lip but in interest instead of in an upset way. Why even fight Inasa then? Is it because Inasa definitely wants to fight him too? Or is it to mark his place as the strongest in the class? He's already doing a pretty good job at that even without facing Inasa. He's made it out like using his Quirk would make this not even training for him, like we'd all be nothing against him. He didn't say it like he was trying to be a dick though, but the way he said it is even cockier I guess. Saying it like it wasn't a boast but a sure thing!

I thought Inasa couldn't be beat, I really did, Kotsumura thought while watching Zach out the corners of his eyes. He was staring through the window towards Reika and Hisashi who were almost back at the side room of the gym, but he watched carefully the expression on Zach's face as his new classmate also watched Reika and Hisashi approach. But I guess, there's always someone stronger out there. All those times he's said he lost, that means there's a whole lot of people who could beat him, at least at one point there was. Against him now? Who stands a chance?

Hazano rearranged the gym at random once he gave out his critiques to the two students who returned to their spectating room. The gym changed with the previous floors lowering down and sliding to the sides, and different zones moving back in and then up onto the surface. One side was 'safari' and the other 'desert,' which actually translated well with the room looking pretty natural with one side just having more low grass and a couple scattered trees and cacti. The desert was just sand all around, and Zach looked over both areas closely before turning and making his challenge. No one else had considered making another challenge yet, so some actually forgot the challenge had not been made and that Zach needed to make it. They were just expecting Zach and Inasa to walk out there.

Inasa nodded intensely back at Zach, failing at suppressing his excited grin that he had to turn away to finally hide. He stormed towards the door to get out into the gym in a hurry, even though Zach got position Beta and had to be the one heading across the room. Inasa waited at position Alpha as Zach jogged across the safari zone, since it was easier to run on the sand there than the desert which was looser and had more dunes going up and down than the safari which was mostly flat.

Inasa jumped up and down as Zach was heading across the room, kicked his legs out and punched his fists together in front of him. He had on a maroon costume that looked baggy over most of his body. It consisted of the coat over his tight blue under-armor, along with a matching cloak that doubled as a cape behind him and covered up some of his arms too. He had on a steel belt with rungs down his thighs and up over his chest before vanishing under his armpits and below his cloak. His pants were the same dark red shade, as were his boots, and both his pants and boots had tubes on them with holes pointing out in different directions. The shoulders of his costumes had similar holes, and his muscular arms were covered in thick armor too.

His gloves were tan, and they looked soft while also with black metal protrusions and tubes sticking out of them as well. He punched his fists together in those gloves, his right one just a bit less thick and without the steel as far down it. Inasa also had small tubes on the knuckles of his gloves, as well as sticking out of his sides and out the back of his costume below the cloak so his opponent could not have seen them yet. Inasa stopped jumping around and he stared across the room, his expression intense, and a gust of wind rushing by him and through his short-cut dark-brown hair.

Inasa's the one my friends told me about before I even left. The strongest. The one who placed above even Todoroki out of the recommended students apparently, though he didn't come to U.A. for some reason despite getting in. Zach was nearing his spot, and he turned around while continuing to jog, only he was jogging backwards now. He looked across the room towards Inasa, smiling like his opponent and with a similar level of intensity in his gaze despite it being less excited and more confident. It was not overconfidence that emitted from Zach's expression though, just a level of confidence in his own abilities that was somehow still humble, making it appear all the more intimidating and trustworthy to those looking at it.

Zach rolled his arms. He grabbed his right shoulder and rolled that arm out with a few big arm circles, then he rubbed his right hand over his left arm and over a mark in his costume where Manzo had pierced through the outer layer of his armor. There was no blood there, but Zach rubbed the spot while making some smaller arm circles with his left. He bent his elbows while grabbing his hands together, and he swung his elbows to either side. Hazano called out for the two of them to raise their right arms when they were ready, but Zach continued to do stretches for a few more seconds. Inasa got impatient as he wanted the fight to start already, but his expression stayed excited and serious as he wondered if Zach intended for him to get upset or something by taking a few seconds away while he was aching to fight.

He's really strong. I doubt I can beat him without Death. Ahh, Zach stretched his back by leaning backwards and pushing his arms up over his head with his palms together, then he set himself into a more readied stance. His eyes narrowed and he lowered his grin down a bit while lifting up his right hand like Inasa was doing. "Alright then. You both know the rules. First one to hit the ground, loses the match. Commence the fight in three, two, one."

Zach darted to his right. He moved for the safari zone at a sprint much faster than any run he had been doing through his other fights except in the first one against Dendo when he really needed to get into cover quickly. Without trying to hide though, he was showing off a full sprint across a zone with a more solid ground diagonally towards the middle of the room and also to the side wall. Inasa started a slower jog in the same direction, towards a middle point where they would meet each other if they ran the same pace. Inasa did not take many steps though, as his Quirk, Whirlwind, picked up. It literally picked up the one using it as the winds increased, and Inasa shot up high in the air of the gymnasium, while two separate wind funnels shot away from him to his right and the left.

Sand rose up into the funnels, yellow grass ripping apart and the few trees in the zone shaking and swaying from the force of the Whirlwind. Anything I throw will be off course. I can't adjust in mid-flight either, while even if I do get off a good shot taking his wind into account, he can simply change the direction again. Zach stopped running and his eyes glared between the funnels of sand to the top of a spinning tornado of wind his opponent was on top of. He looks like a guy with a pretty clear vision of what makes a hero. A definition he holds dear, and one that he feels I don't match considering the way he kept trying to look at me. But he doesn't hate me. He wants to fight hard, and prove to himself that he can beat me. It's not about keeping his ranking. It's not about showing everyone else he can beat Lifebringer or being the strongest in his class. It's not even about our ideologies right now, why he wants to be a hero. That's the most dangerous kind of person to fight!

Zach leapt backwards, dodging slashes of wind as one of the funnels broke apart still full of sand and sent gusts of it flying his way. He managed to dodge two of them with the leap, but three others slammed up from underneath him. Zach saw that Inasa intended for him to jump, to give his opponent an easier way of getting him up into the air. Zach rose, and he looked towards Inasa as he rose up without a panicking expression on his face, even as Inasa pointed his hands behind him and flew across the gymnasium so fast they would be reaching each other in a few seconds. So Zach only had a few seconds, and in his peripheral vision with a dart of his eyes down and around the gym, he could see that all the wind that Inasa was not using to shoot himself forward, was being used to cover up the entire gym floor around them.

Wind was crashing into trees and blowing through the grass and shrubs. It picked up sand but even without doing so Zach could see the trails of wind that were so strong anyway that the had become visible. Any grappling hook he tried to fire to dodge Inasa and pull himself down to the ground faster, would be thrown aside by the wind before reaching its intended destination. Zach could not fall or he would be knocked down by the wind, and even before that he was already going to come up against his opponent who brought his left hand back and had a swirling tornado forming on his palm.

Zach's eyes flared red inside his dark visor, the red glow coming out below it while his hands were clenching and his fingers moving in a certain way that his costume was reacting too because of the gloves connected to the rest of it. The soles of Zach's shoes glowed blue as did the circles in the center of Zach's palms, as did light on the back of Zach's calves, and on the back of his shoulders, and in the center of his back where his costume was thickest. His whole costume looked tight, but not tight to his body, as there were sections where the armor was clearly thicker than in other places. And in the middle of Zach's thick back, four small holes on the bottom of that thick area opened up and blue light shot out of there before fading only centimeters off of his costume. Zach dropped his hands down at his sides, his fists snapping open into palms that the blue light intensified on.

"No way," Kotsumura gasped, leaning forward over the railing he was already grabbing tightly when he saw Inasa's plan about to succeed.

"Impossible," Hazano began in shock at what he was seeing.

"He can," Reika began before panting again and finishing, "fly?"

"That's not…" Dendo started, his eyes huge like all his classmates as he stepped forward towards the windows. Without a Quirk that-

Zach sped up into the air above where Inasa was on target to hit. Inasa's eyes had widened a bit in surprise, but he redirected himself straight after Zach without hesitating. He threw the tornado of wind he had gathered at his opponent who pointed his right arm out to his side and kicked his legs out in front of him, retreating quickly away from his opponent who was hot on his heels. For once, it looked like Zach was on the defensive. It only lasted for another second. Zach did a flip over in the air as he pushed out his costume's full capacity to avoid getting dragged into a giant swirling whirlwind in the air of the gym. As he came out of his flip, Inasa jolted to a stop, as Zach had a black hilt in his hand, and a press of a button on the side of it extended a long silver blade from the hilt in three different increments that happened one after the other.

Then the blade turned black. Darkness spread from the hilt down over the steel and broke off of it like flames that moved in the wind. Inasa backed up and his look turned fully intense with his smile disappearing. He thought if he had gotten Zach to use his Death that it would have made him more excited for a more intense fight against an equal. Instead, the reality of what he had to do now hit him as he thought about all he knew about Zach Sazaki's Quirk. Zach felt the wind get weaker around him, though it was still there, just breaking off of other attacks Inasa was still controlling.

He'll figure out what Mark did. If he attacks with a huge force of wind and disconnects his own use at the last moment, he'll be fine. Already he can see the small parts of wind hitting me are not affecting him at all. The wind pushing the Death off my blade. The silence. The thrill of an opponent worth fighting. Can you feel it? How often do you have this opportunity? Can you see yet, that it is not an opportunity you are faced with? Zach's lips curled up, the red glow still coming out from below his visor, and the dark flames flaring harder over his sword.

Zach shot towards Inasa without warning. The smirk caught Inasa off guard, as did the black lines spreading down Zach's face from below his visor where his eyes were hidden. They branched off like veins over the scar on the right side of his face, and across his cheeks to the scar on the left side too. They moved like that as Zach flew using the impossibly high-tech blue and green costume glowing with blue light, and he slashed his sword of darkness across the front of his body when he was still several meters away from his opponent who had not decided whether to fly forward and meet him or to back off. Inasa increased the wind below him and rose up, before immediately cutting off his control of the wind tower when the black slash was about to go through it.

As soon as he stopped controlling that wind though, the black slash that flew off of the sword and came at him, changed directions and came up after where he was rising. Inasa twisted his own body as that slash of Death changed directions towards him, and a new gust of wind slammed into his side and launched him across the gym away from Zach. The right corner of Zach's lip lifted up a bit more, though in less of a smirk this time. The black markings disappeared from his face, though his eyes stayed red as he stared over towards where Inasa righted himself, over the desert section of the room where he could most easily use the environment to his advantage.

I've fought in more deserts than you have though. I bet you've never seen a real desert in your life. Zach stared towards his opponent who was staring straight back at him with a smile back on his face again just like Zach had on his own as they took that brief moment just staring at each other. He dodged, changed up his control, contorted his body in an immediate reaction. He's better than most everyone. Time to get a little serious, Zach rose his right arm out to the side with his sword held in that hand, and the blade flared wildly with the darkness rising off of it like flames. Inasa created tornadoes around him that rose up sand and had the entire zone around him filling with sand particles flying so fast they would damage anything they hit, though none came near him.

Zach stared into that sandstorm, his arm extended out to the right, and a bubble of darkness burst out of his back right over the blue jet on his right shoulder. The glowing circle became hidden by the darkness that flared out from that point, getting wider the farther from Zach's side it got. It expanded and flapped out six meters away, a huge wing of darkness that matched the Death covering Zach's arm from his hilt all the way back to his right shoulder. He kept his left hand pointed down with more blue light coming from it than when he had both hands, and the targeting system on his visor was locked in on Inasa's position through that sandstorm that was doing little to hide his heat signature.

Smiles vanished. Zach shot towards the desert zone, but Inasa flew towards him at the same time, an entire sandstorm moving along with him. Zach's black wing flapped behind him, and since it was only one, it sent him into a spiral right into that mass of sand that continued flying at fast speeds despite Inasa pulling his wind from the path Zach was flying through as well as anywhere within ten meters of him so that he would have long enough warning to pull from other areas when Zach attacked. Zach swung his sword towards where he knew Inasa to be, and Inasa flew upwards while slashing both of his arms across the front of his body in an X. Zach snapped his head up and flapped his wing down, shot stronger blue light out the soles of his feet, and he slashed his sword down the front of his body on his ascent to slash through an X-shape of sand flying down at him with a huge gust behind it.

The X broke and Zach flew straight through the splitting wind current that disappeared from sight as it lost strength with Inasa letting go of control when the slash came. The fading winds behind Zach grew stronger as Inasa pulled a hand towards him, and he swept it to the right too in order to slam the current of his Whirlwind into Zach's back left side. Zach got hit hard and spun in a barrel-roll across the air. He flipped his sword around in his right hand as he turned upside-down at one point, and as he continued the roll he twisted his arm in a backwards slash across his body. A circular slash of Death broke off from Zach's sword around his whole body, expanding out in all directions and making Inasa completely change up how he was controlling the wind currents over the gym. Half of all the wind being controlled quieted down, and Zach's red eyes darted around the far side of the gym from Inasa behind his back.

Controlling such a large area is difficult to do with individual currents, so he used large ones that he had to cut off pieces of he no longer controls. He had precise winds too, though weaker like the ones that hit my side. Maybe he kept those weaker in case I spun or covered that side in darkness as he attacked, hoping with less focus into it I wouldn't be able to damage him as much. People have broken down my Quirk's abilities in depth online, but everyone has theories and ideas about things I can do that are either right or wrong, and there are so many theories that there's no telling what's true and what's not anymore to the inexperienced eye. What can I do, Inasa? How can you attack me? How can I attack you? He's faster than me in the air like this. He might even be faster still that I need to speed up more, but if he's not showing it it's because he knows I'm holding back too. Just using enough speed to stay ahead of me and out of my range. My suit's power won't run out, Inasa. I don't need to flap this wing unless I want to speed up even more, and there's more energy in this suit than you know. How much do I want to show? I don't want to beat you with Death. I can beat you without using it on you. That's the goal. That's my victory. I can do this!

Zach sped back into the wind funnel Inasa was spreading towards him again, only using a lot more smaller currents instead of the large ones from before. There were dozens of separate currents moving different directions, creating funnels and winds that pushed Zach around and made him redirect power in his suit and change directions over and over to keep flying towards Inasa. Inasa started off the next bout by backing off, making Zach push forward through a maze of winds, but Zach created a pair of Death Grenades in his hands that he threw to the sides as he flew forward. He blew the Death Grenades up and explosions of darkness threatened to suck into many of Inasa's currents, so he stopped controlling them. Zach also threw forward as he did to the sides, and the weakened power of the uncontrolled winds in front of him may have been enough to drag the Death around in swirling patterns for a few more seconds, but it was not enough to stop Zach.

The wind did do a good job of spreading the Death through the air though, and despite being thin, Inasa pulled all of his wind currents away from it which meant he could not feel the interruptions in the air which would have told him where Zach was coming from. He could not even attack behind the dark veil where he thought Zach was approaching from, in case his opponent he could no longer see had surrounded that area in more darkness in preparation for Inasa's attack coming. Inasa shot up high, getting farther from the veil as it got thinner while darting his eyes all around to try and find the spot Zach would break through.

Inasa spun his head to the left as a hole broke through in the darkness, and he prepared a tornado as he rose up his right hand. Sand funneled up into it and the cyclone grew huge in a second, but nothing came through the hole. Inasa started spinning his head the other way, his eyes wide as the hole had broken out towards him looking like someone had jumped through it. A part of him thought maybe Zach had gone through just moving too fast to see, or somehow making himself invisible with his costume, but he remembered the first slash that came off of Zach's sword changing direction and pulling towards him. He has total control! The way the darkness broke out like that was to make Inasa think Zach had broken through at that point, while instead he had made some thicker darkness pool near the bottom of the veil and got underneath his opponent when Inasa was turning his head towards the first spot he thought Zach was coming from.

As Inasa spun back the other way, he saw Zach rising up from beneath him too close to easily dodge and moving at too fast a speed for his unmoving hovering form to dodge. Inasa swung his arm down below him, sucking himself into his own sand funnel that he released control of even as it hit him, so that he could not prevent it from beating him up too. It did shroud both of them in spinning sand though that was too thick for Zach to see up at his opponent, and when Zach swept his right arm he had covered in darkness with a claw at the end, the funnel continued to spin. Zach could not tell if Inasa had been controlling it up until he was hit or just before it. He saw a hole up in the funnel though, where Inasa made new wind to clear the area in front of his face and then his body as he made his way through the swirling sandstorm.

Zach flapped his wing down below him and then let it get dragged off by the spinning funnel that was already wisping away at his wing. Darkness spread into the funnel, and Zach allowed the rest of the Death on his arm to get yanked out into it too leaving his body without any darkness on it as he shot towards the open space Inasa was shifting with. It was easier for Zach to see the open area than it was for Inasa to see the form in the spinning sand, but Inasa still did see Zach half a second before Zach would reach him. Zach's body was shadowed in that first instant Inasa saw him, and through so much spinning sand he could not tell if there was still darkness covering part of him or not. He won't, Inasa gambled, charging towards the spot Zach was about to bust through instead of backing away. His gamble paid off, as Zach had no Death on his body as Inasa expected, making Zach grind his teeth at the first look he saw on Inasa's face.

He thinks I'm holding back against him, Zach thought, his tinted red vision showing him the pissed-off expression of a strong opponent who was not going to let him get away with that easily. With that anger and desire to get a strong hit in to make Zach regret that choice though, Inasa tried putting too much power into a blow he would have got off in time if he had just gone for speed. Zach turned his body to the side and dodged a fist, then he pushed through the half-attempt at sending a wind gust into him when the fist was missing. He punched his left fist at Inasa's face, but when his opponent started pulling his head back Zach opened his hand and darkness came out of his palm covering the blue glow and all his fingers. Zach swept the hand across the front of his body, making Inasa flip himself up in the air above that wave of Death.

Zach slashed his right arm across his body and up towards Inasa, a sword in it that got covered in darkness again but slashed through nothing as the wind filled the tubes of Inasa's costume and sped him through the air. Inasa was coming down on Zach's other side while his slash was still moving up and to the right, but Zach's left hand opened up just a bit from the fist it had clenched into. There was no hilt in that hand, but a sword of darkness extended out of his hand anyway while his head twisted towards where Inasa was swinging some wind forward. Inasa swept his hands back outwards, just in time as Zach slashed his left sword where Inasa had almost sent a huge gust at Zach. As Inasa dodged though, Zach slashed his right sword back at his opponent and then his left too which made Inasa shoot himself backwards to dodge them both.

This time, Zach did not give chase after his opponent. Instead the black swords faded from Zach's hands that he had pointed down again, using the blue light coming out of them to stabilize himself a bit in the air. Zach took in a deep breath and then smirked towards his opponent who hesitated at that grin. Inasa's eyes darted to Zach's shoes that glowed brighter, and the others looking up could see the blue light glowing on Zach's back and shoulders illuminating brighter too. Zach lifted his hands back up, not needing to use them to keep himself in the air as the rest of his costume did it for him. Instead, he brought both hands down to his right side and pressed his wrists together, his palms opened up with his fingers curled forward.

The blue circles on the center of Zach's palms glowed brighter, and brighter, and the blue lines on the back of his gloves pulsed with it back into the sleeves of Zach's armor. The light on his shoes and back glowed a little dimmer, then brighter still and Zach's visor started warning him of the power situation. He ignored the red light on the top right corner of his vision though, while his hands glowed bright blue and he bit his teeth at the power he felt in his gloves. Alright, Zach's red-tinted focus darted around Inasa on all sides, at his opponent's face directly, at his hands and his feet, and Zach pushed his hands out in front of him making a blue beam fire out of them.

Inasa pulled his body back and shot downwards out of the way of the beam, but the beam did not continue as a beam though. It looked more like a blue ball of light with nothing behind it, which made sense considering Zach shot forward immediately after firing. He was heading straight towards where Inasa dodged, so that before his opponent came out of his dodging position in the air, Zach was already on him with his left fist swinging forward. Inasa did not panic though. He did not even fall for the feint of that left fist hooking towards the side of his face, even though Zach had shown how powerful his left fist could be when he smashed through Kameko's shell. Instead Inasa ducked down below the elbow Zach was swinging with his right arm that kept its hand open and looking like Zach was using it to help fly better.

Inasa's right fist clenched, and then his teeth clenched in pain and his whole body jolted down as an elbow slammed down on top of his skull. Zach saw the duck and though surprised, was able to change directions before Inasa could counter. It did not have as much power in it, but it was still enough that Zach expected his opponent to get dropped out of the air. Inasa's head was pushing up into Zach's elbow though, and Zach looked down through his visor as Inasa rose his head up, his eyes pissed and his teeth bared angrily at his opponent who started to lean back. Inasa swung his right fist up and caught Zach under the chin before he could pull his face away, and his head snapped back and went farther the more Inasa pushed up into his punch.

"Take- THIS!" Inasa followed through on that punch, sending Zach flying up in the air spinning in loops that looked like a giant translucent coil of wind. Zach spiraled up into the sky, while Inasa took the much quicker route flying straight up through the funnel and twisting his body as he did a flip towards where Zach was coming up at the top of the coil. Inasa flipped his body with his right leg extended out, and he started slamming that leg down while coming out of the flip to increase the power even more. Zach was off-balance and spinning through the coil, but as he was about to hit Inasa, he turned into a blur by doing a three-sixty roll so fast and extending his own left leg.

Zach did not have as much of a build-up before the kick, but the powers looked the same for everyone leaning forward in the spectating room. The kicks pushed into each other before bouncing off, knocking Inasa backwards and twisting Zach back the way he just came spiraling in from. Wind pushed at Inasa's back as he was leaning backwards, and blue light pulsed on Zach's back that sent him twisting back that way again. The two who bounced off each other came up with their right fists punching forward, both of them thinking they were faster to recover than their opponent. Zach's fist was closer than Inasa thought it would be, and he shifted the angle of his own punch a little to the side so it was aimed at Zach's right fist.

Inasa and Zach's fists collided, and metal bolts on the back of Zach's glove broke with blue light fading from that palm as the shockwave rippled through the air. Zach punched his left fist up, and he nailed Inasa in the gut as his opponent swung his own left fist over Zach's right arm and towards his face. The left fist in Inasa's gut made his arm get pushed back enough that it just missed Zach's face, but that fist opened up despite the pain Inasa was in. Zach flew across the entire gym in a second. It felt like a tornado just slammed into his face, and he got thrown out of it moving over a hundred miles per hour. He shot down towards the ground so fast that a dozen of his classmates' mouths opened up to shout, only for a huge pair of black wings to rip out of Zach's back at the last moment and flap down on the floor. Blue light glowed through those wings that broke apart while lifting him, and the costume pushed Zach up more after he was just stopped only a few feet above the ground.

The wings that broke off of Zach's back curved around the sides of his body, and he swung his right arm forward and then his left. The wing on his right flew forward as a dozen black lines, and the left dozen lines shot up a second later towards the part of the gym Inasa had dodged too. Inasa created a hundred strong winds, and he released his control on them when they got close to the black lines he sent them flying at, clearing the middle of the gym on his way down towards where Zach was flying up at him. Inasa shot down towards his opponent, and he sped up as they were about to meet to come up on Zach's right side with his right leg in mid-spin. Favoring his right. Maybe a former injury. Zach ducked down below the leg, and he slammed his own leg in a kick on Inasa's left knee that made his opponent wince harder than he should have on a kick from a weird angle.

As Inasa winced, Zach snapped up and moved in front of his opponent whose leg was still coming down and who had no counter ready for Zach being in this position. Zach punched his right and left forward, slamming Inasa below the shoulders in the muscles that hold the arms up, before rising a knee up into Inasa's gut and pulling his head back to dodge a strong wind Inasa tried to break them away with. After the knee into Inasa's gut, Zach backflipped as the wind he dodged changed direction to try and slam him down into the ground. There was a lot of wind though, and just flipping away from Inasa did not let him dodge it. Zach forced out more energy from his suit as the power tried pushing him down into the ground, but the red light was blinking on his visor, and Zach started to raise his right hand with some Death forming on it even inside a huge wind pushing him towards the ground.

Inasa stopped with his huge wind, having gained some distance backwards after those punches that made him sore all over. He rolled out his arms a few times while glaring towards Zach, because his opponent put out those dark flames as soon as the wind stopped pushing down on him. He's still worried about knocking me out. He still thinks he's going to win! And he thinks he can win without it! Inasa watched as his opponent balled his left hand into a fist, panting a little just like Inasa was himself. They had each landed hits, they were low to the ground, and the way it was looking, a single good hit right now was going to make someone fall. Neither were raising back up to lower the stakes back down though.

Zach balled his left hand into a fist and he stared through his visor straight towards Inasa. You're that kind of person. Zach's eyes were impossible to see, but his expression had Inasa clenching his own left fist as wind spiraled around his body and only around his body. That's how I want to play this. You see it. There's no other way for you. Not right now. Even without my Quirk, you can't dodge this. You can't run away. It's just, not you. Zach shot forward. He sped ahead with his body turning horizontal as his back pulsed more energy first, then the rest started glowing harder on the soles of his shoes. Not a great angle. Can't even use my right to steady it.

Millions. This fight is costing millions, Hazano saw pieces of Zach's high-tech costume breaking off up in the air, and as he watched Zach fly in an initially unsteady way he knew why it was. I should stop it now. The two of them moving that fast towards each other- Hazano stared closer with his breath speeding up just like most of his other students, though many of them were holding their breath instead as Inasa and Zach charged each other.

Inasa moved towards Zach faster than Zach was coming at him. Inasa flew faster and without wobbling as much, though Zach stopped his wobbling as well as he flew towards his opponent who had to come from across the gym after flying so far back a moment ago. The fact that Inasa had to approach from so far after Zach had just been punching him, punches that could have been covered in Death to knock him out, it made Inasa speed up even more towards his opponent who was losing his opportunity to dodge. Inasa's left fist balled tighter on his left side as well, his elbow pulling in and his body tensing to ready for the punch in a second.

Zach punched early. To everyone watching, it was clear his punch would not hit Inasa. Instead, it looked like he was punching so that his arm was extended and he could slam it into his opponent's face instead of try to punch at the last second when they were nearing each other. Inasa also though that maybe Zach was punching early because if he had the punch extra speed along with his own speed of flying forward, Inasa wouldn't be able to take it. That just made Inasa speed up more and get ready to punch and dodge Zach's punch he saw extending towards him early-

The fabric of Zach's costume ripped around his left shoulder, in a pre-cut location that allowed it to rip off cleaning unlike the tight white undershirt below that just ripped as it couldn't hold together either. Zach's body kept flying forward, slowly, while his arm broke off of him at the speed of his flight and how fast he had punched forward. Everyone gawked, including Inasa, as the fist that should have stopped in front of Zach's body continued going with a bright blue glow coming out of the back of it. There was a dim blue glow on Zach's shoulder now too, on a steel panel covered in little holes with a bigger one in the center that had some disconnected wires in it that were made to be disconnected like that. Zach's arm flew at Inasa faster than his opponent was ready for, and Inasa was only able to close his mouth and try pulling back, but it was not enough to dodge.

The fist lodged into the right side of Inasa's face as he was turning, and it hit him so hard that Inasa's head kept twisting to the side along with the rest of his body below it before the fist flew off his face and kept going while flipping around in the air. Zach's arm had not hit the ground yet, and Inasa had yet to open back up his eyes as he was flipped through the air, when Zach slammed his left foot down into Inasa's side. This time, the collision was at a perfect angle and with enough force behind it, that Inasa flew down into the desert below with enough force to blow apart the side of a sand dune.

Zach twisted around in midair and flipped himself over, landing on the sand at the bottom of the broken dune on his own feet. He put his right hand down on the floor as he landed, his left leg sliding out to the side and his body going low with his eyes fully focused on the cloud of sand that rose up on that collision.

The sand settled down, and Zach saw movement in the dune but from someone down on the ground getting up. Legs bent and hands gripped into sand, and Inasa dragged himself up to his knees and then on one foot, then the other. He stared towards Zach who lifted up into a straighter standing position as well. Zach faced his opponent who shifted his expression from Zach's own face over to his left side where he was missing an arm. Zach glanced there as well, and he frowned at the pain he felt as the nerve receptors ripped off right there. His shoulder moved, and Zach brought his right hand over to the spot where his arm was missing. He gripped it hard and turned his body to the side, while the blue light on that circular panel glowed brighter.

"What the-" Kotsumura had been staring out at Zach in shock since that crazy punch, but this blew his mind even more. He stared a few dozen meters away from the two combatants, to where Zach's discarded arm glowed brighter blue high up near the top of it just like Zach's shoulder was doing. The arm dragged across the sand for a second in Zach's direction, then it rose off the ground and flew towards him so fast that anyone in its way would probably get knocked out. Zach started turning his body in preparation, and he grit his teeth and spun a half-turn to the side as the arm slammed into his side back where it came from. He gripped it with his right hand, feeling pain inside his shoulder as he held it there and twisted a couple of times.

Come on. Thought this was going to get- "Nn," easier. Zach hummed out a strange noise as he felt the nerve connectors re-attach. He lowered his right hand and curled the fingers of his left a few times, raising it up in front of him and watching to make sure there was no time delay.

Inasa continued to stare towards his opponent mostly in shock, a shock he tried to push down right after the arm disconnected but was back in full now that the fight was over. He had that hidden away, this whole time? Every fight? Inasa thought through the day and his eyes twitched a bit wider as he thought back on Kameko's fight. He only used his left. That whole time he just smashed away with his bare hand, it didn't look like it hurt him at all. His hand wasn't even… It was more than just punching, I should have known that. But still, his arm. He's got a rocket arm? That's- that's, so cool.

Is the rest of his body like that? Reika stared out towards Zach with her bottom lip finally closing. No, it can't be. He was still wearing the glove only on his right hand earlier. Unless it's just to make people think that touching it would still kill them? Is he a frickin' robot? Not, that I don't see, how he might've lost it.

Shit. Kerushi rubbed a hand on his forehead with a nervous gaze out towards his new classmate. The fuck was he actually hiding under that shirt? Kerushi thought on how Zach changed in front of them, keeping most of his body hidden the entire time other than what was always visible, and his lower legs. His lower legs were covered in more scars than Kerushi could count, but he had just gone along with giving Sazaki dirty looks for keeping his shirt on like they wouldn't be able to handle what was underneath.

He's too calm. Too collected, Flugeru felt chills down his spine. Where does an arm like that come from? I didn't think stuff like that was real. The people who made it for him, the kind of power he's hiding- still? No, he was going all out even using his Quirk on Inasa, so there isn't much he's hiding anymore. He even showed something he was purposely hiding because he got pushed into too much of a corner!

"Hazano sensei," Hisashi started, glancing at his teacher on his right side. "Did you know about that?"

Hazano looked to his left at one of his strongest students who asked him that in a low voice. Then Hazano just looked back out through the window and he rose up his microphone with a dark look on his own face. "Inasa went down. Sazaki is the winner… Sazaki." Zach turned towards the glass and looked though at his teacher who continued after pausing for a moment, "Where did you get that arm?"

Even Hazano sensei's getting mind-blown right now! Satoshi spun back from his teacher to his classmate who he really wanted to hear from about that amazing arm.

Inasa started walking towards Zach over the sand, and Zach glanced back at him to see he was waiting for an answer too. "It's just, a really good prosthetic. And my only prosthetic, by the way!" Zach added louder, as he did not need to see the rest of his classmates to know that some were suspecting him to be some sort of robot. Zach turned more to just Inasa who walked straight up to him and stopped only an arm's length away from him, a little more. "Nice fight," Zach said, nodding at his former opponent with the right corner of his lip lifted up.

Inasa hesitated for a second, then he grinned back at Zach wider than Zach was smiling himself. All the annoyed thoughts Inasa had been having were proved wrong, but that just excited him more than upset him. The fact that Zach won meant he had no reason to be annoyed about Zach not going all out and getting beaten in a way that he wouldn't actually know for sure which of them was better.

"Yaaa, I lost," Inasa rose his right hand and rubbed the back of his head through his hair in an exasperated voice though it did not sound very tired. He was still smiling, and he laughed as he conceded his lost. His smile lowered down a bit and his eyes that squinted shut there shifted to the window on the side of the gym for a moment. He sighed in an actual more disappointed way, and he mentioned while looking forward into Zach's eyes, "Last chance at showing that us Shiketsu students could match up."

He was still speaking in a friendly way, trying to keep his smile on his face, but Zach saw it was less disappointment Inasa was feeling. He could see the window in the corner of his eyes too, but he just grinned in a more friendly way back at Inasa and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know what you mean by that." Inasa gave him a confused look, and Zach finished with a tilt of his head to the side, "Since I'm a Shiketsu student too now." Might've been your last chance of showing that your class could beat me, but you didn't let down your classmates by not doing so. I'm one of you now. It's easier to push away someone weaker than you. Pretend like that person isn't important and just ignore them, but it's going to be hard to do that with me at the top of your class. And you won't want to do it. Not if I'm making the Shiketsu name better, as that's starting to click in your head.

Inasa's lips curled up and he nodded at Zach in agreement. He started raising up his right hand, but he froze. He stopped himself, and then he rose up his left instead which Zach looked at in surprise for a second before a grateful smile came to his face. He lifted his left hand and shook Inasa's, and though a part of him thought maybe Inasa just wanted to shake his rocket fist, he appreciated the gesture anyway. "So," Inasa started after Zach let go, "how'd you lose your arm?"

Zach looked to his left side, and he smiled. He stared at his left shoulder as he lifted his arm up, a small nostalgic smile on his face that made Inasa look closer with interest. Then Zach looked back at his classmate and just chuckled, "It's a long story. I'll tell you some other time."

Inasa frowned, wishing that other time was right now. Zach turned towards the spectator room though and glanced to his side to see if Inasa was walking with him. Inasa stepped forward fast and walked right at Zach's side, smiling big again as Zach asked him, "How's the lunch around here? I doubt you guys have your own Lunch Rush, but it's got to be pretty good, right?"

"Of course! And maybe it's not Lunch Rush, but it's definitely better than convenience store chips and soda," Inasa grinned at Zach as he said it, while Zach got a sweatdrop on his face and scratched the side of it laughing nervously.

"Oh, you saw that did you?" Zach wondered innocently. "Well, not like I was going to any five star restaurants or anything, but I did have meals while I was gone too. Fast food, mainly," he added at the end in a slower voice, looking away as he admitted to it. Their fight just ended, but Inasa laughed along with Zach's admission and started asking more questions without waiting to get to lunch. Zach turned back with a smile and answered in the most vague way, with lies sprinkled in with the truth, the same way he would answer everyone's questions in the coming days.

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A/N Few things here to start: a rainforest really does not have as much vegetation on the ground as a jungle because the thick canopy of a rainforest prevents other things from growing down on the ground, due to sunlight not often reaching the surface. 100 yen equals $1, so if you need to make conversions where that appears in the story try and remember it (I know I've mentioned that before). Also, Longest Chapter! Also, the longest wait to get a chapter out, so sorry about that. Probably won't get another one out before graduation either, as I've been stacked with work and barely got the time out to edit and post this one. Anyway, Zach crushes Ranking Day all while full of ulterior motives that he's not even able to think of very clearly himself. I hope you liked his different battles and the new characters introduced this chapter. Zach's missing arm confirmed... but now he's got a rocket arm! Inasa never saw it coming. Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about the story!

Super Power Sensei chapter 149 . Mar 29

WTF?!
YO ZACH YOU GOTTA CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLL!
(not really, please don't chill)
WHY YOU GOTTA DO'EM LIKE DAT?!
I knew Dendo was gonna lose, but MY NIGGA ZACH made him look like a complete dumbass! Zach was clowning him yo. The disrespect on him was real. Zach shoving what Dendo said back in his face was eggcellent! XD(I'm about to make breakfast). Which Dendo totally deserved. I'm from the hood so I can tell you right now, unless it's an obvious joke(and very rarely even a joke is too much), DO NOT bring a man's MOTHER into your beef...ever. That shit will start a shooting.
Also I would like to briefly mention two more things. One, his grapple speed is 90mph?! Damn. Arkham Batman would be proud. Second, is it accurate for me to imagine the defaut kunai from "Naruto" as Zach's seemingly endless supply of knives(replace the black blade with a silver reflective one)? Because that would be sick.

Zach did him dirty! Dendo got made like a fool, and yeah he kinda deserved that. Zach's got that speed, and that strength, and that technique... and those default kunai! Lol Idk about the kunai's, they're a bit bigger than what I'm thinking of. More like small switchblades and daggers come to my mind: thin black hilts (or green) with a small silver blade sticking out (or black). Anyway, Zach does chill a bit in this chapter, but he still kicks the shit out of most of his opponents so, hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the reviews! (Too bad about missing review #1000).

lolmyster42 chapter 149 . Mar 29

Zach's gotten to that point in his life that he has a dmc-esque style rank announcer going off in his head, and if he doesn't come out of a fight with a SSS he gets mentally defeated.
(I'll also be snagging that 1000th review spot)

Zach finesses everybody once again, getting his SSS ranking even if some of those fights were "close." ;) Nice job on the 1000th spot!

yasideen1 chapter 149 . Mar 29

1000th review
And zach just straight up bodied dendo
Gg

Yeah... Since the reviews aren't numbers idk if you actually fall there on the list, but lolmyster42's review got up before yours did so...;) Zach bodies Dendo, and flexes on the rest of Shiketsu's Class 1. Thanks for the review!

GuestP chapter 149 . Mar 28

I'M SCREAMING
BADASS ZACK IS BACK
"You were right, I didnt touch you."
F**k man, can you get any f***ing cooler? Also, Zach making new friends is probs the best thing ive read so far. Im looking forward to his reaction to the rumors about him and Ashido.
As always I loved this chapter, cant wait for the next one!

Haha loved the review! We have seen Zach turn badass before our eyes, and I really like thinking back on original kinda shy, unsure, nervous Zach- man he's just gotten so cool, but don't worry... he can always get cooler XD. Thanks for the review, sorry for the long wait!

Logargon chapter 149 . Mar 29

"I didn't even touch you" that's just savage

Yup, just about the most brutal way he could've beaten him. Glad you liked it!

Rex559 chapter 149 . Mar 31

I'm curious this fic will have lemon?

Most likely no.

Guessst chapter 149 . Mar 30

Great chapter. Wonder how Zach is gonna fare with a mind reader in class? Might bring in some complications. Hope he steamrolls the whole class with the ranking tournament but it's not really fair the the students to be fighting Death lol. Life's not fair though hmmmm

Thanks! Zach does his best to watch himself with Himazuri on the prowl. He does go and steamroll the class though, snagging that top rank with a bunch of great fights (though against kids still in school). Zach doesn't fare with much issue in this chapter, as one would expect from Death. He's going to have to be on the lookout for Himazuri moving forward though, he's got a whole new class he'll be spending his days with, and we'll see what comes for him moving forward next time on Death! Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll be back with the next chapter soon as I can!