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!

167. Chapter 167

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 167:

Inazuma Island, an island with a population of 0, had a great number of people on it for a Friday night. The island was off the coast of Honshu, the biggest of Japan's four main islands and where both U.A. and Shiketsu High were located. The island was currently hosting a fair, one that traveled internationally and was big news when it got to Japan… three months earlier. The crowds were still large, but there were no longer massive lines or sold-out tickets for the mega-fair going on. Because of declining turnout, the fair's owner had announced that they would be announcing their next destination "soon." This made for a bit of a resurgence in ticket sales as people who had yet to visit wanted to go before it left, including one pink girl and her friends who arrived to the island Friday night ready to see all it had to offer.

On the way to the main gates of the fair (which was surrounded by tall fences to make sure people had to go through the legal entrances), the arrivals for the fair had to walk down a gravel road from the docks that split off only once in an intersection for a slightly bigger road that wrapped around the island. The group looked to the left on that paved road towards the overgrown forest and an abandoned house they could see between a few trees in the dense thicket. A couple of tourists took pictures, though Hagakure was quick to pull out her phone too and snap shots with the foreigners who were unaccustomed to areas like this. In Japan centuries earlier, there had been a huge surge in migration towards more urban areas that left small towns and villages shrinking and disappearing when the elderly population that remained passed away. The young people moved to the cities for more work opportunities, and rarely any ever returned to their rural villages that became obsolete over time… and which were now considered like ghost towns that lingered across much of Japan.

The island of Inazuma itself was not very large, and the trouble of transporting produce from the island to shore and getting the necessities to the people living there became too much. Even the ferry from the mainland cancelled most trips and switched to traveling to other bigger islands, or to ones better for tourism than the small island covered half in a forest and half in some farms. Those farms had been long abandoned and overgrown, but where they had once been cultivated was now the location of the fairgrounds as the company had leveled out the overgrowth and built up on the flat land between the surrounding forest. Even some old barns and farmhouses on the land had either been knocked down or transformed into part of the fair as haunted houses (with minor construction updates to ensure safety), or as gift shops or staff buildings.

The sight of the fair itself amazed the students who knew about the island and did not expect it to look so lively even with a fair there. Ashido and Zach had done a lot of research on it and both saw lots of pictures of what it looked like, but from up close it still made them look up in amazement at the bright lights illuminating the entire island even in the middle of the night. Coming as late as they did they avoided the time when younger children were visiting with their parents, mostly, and instead the groups of people mainly looked their age or a little older in their early to late twenties. There were a lot of couples in the line to the front gates, but also some big groups of people too. All those couples and groups were turned towards the spot in the line though where a group of the most famous people in all of Japan were standing.

A group of eight U.A. students stood with another former member of their most famous Class A as they made for the tall front gates of the fair. Mineta Minoru and Ashido Mina were not ones to shy away from the attention and were happily talking to the people in front and behind them (Ashido with some guys and Mineta with a few college girls). Sero Hanta rose his eyebrows up in surprise as three girls started laughing in front of him, and he looked down at the top of Mineta's head in a somewhat impressed way. Mineta's head snapped to the side and he sniped Sero's gaze with his own, and he smirked catching Sero's look that made him even more proud and made Sero roll his eyes and turn back to his conversation with Zach and Ojiro on his left.

"The last carnival showtime is at ten! So if we can get through the other stuff in under an hour we could probably-"

"Booo," Ashido spun back forward from the back of the group and cupped her hands to her mouth to boo at Hagakure. "The show'll go to the end of the night, and I don't want to rush through everything anyway. There's so much going on here!"

"I think Ashido's right," Ojiro admitted next to him at his girlfriend. Hagakure pouted at him and crossed her arms over her chest for him disagreeing with her, and Ojiro leaned back for a second with both Zach and Sero looking over at him like he had made a mistake. "I mean, seeing this line, I don't think we'll be able to move as quickly from one thing to the other, as much as we thought we could…"

Hagakure turned her head forward and back, then she lowered her arms while nodding her head that had a beanie on it which let them to see what she was doing. "I guess," she admitted, as they had been talking earlier on the train to the ferry that they were going to be getting straight in everywhere. Hagakure Toru spun to Ashido and crossed her arms though, "You said we were going later because there wouldn't be any lines today anyway!"

Ashido stuck out her tongue with a giggle. "Yeah, my bad," she admitted as she did not think it was going to be this crowded, even if they were almost at the front of the line already.

On Ashido's right a couple of feet, Midoriya Izuku had his hands up defensively in front of him and waved them nervously at a group of girls who were trying to get more pictures with him as he was stuck in line with them and they did not like any of the pictures they had taken so far. Yaoyorozu Momo gave the awkward boy to her right a sympathetic gaze at how red his face was getting as the older girls on either side were pressing their chests into each arm they were grabbing. Then she turned back to the tall boy next to her who was frowning while staring over everyone's heads and through the gates to the inside of the fair, "I see quite a few people walking around with what looks like bear in their clear cups. Many of them appear to be underage," Iida Tenya said it in a disapproving voice that got a lot of the people close to him turning and giving the tall boy in more formal clothes than most people around a strange look.

Iida had a shirt collar sticking out of his nice sweater and had an intense look on his face to be visiting a fair. His eyes followed two people who looked no older than him, if they even were older, but those two he was tracking went through the red-and-white striped entrance to the huge tent near the middle of the fairgrounds. "Hmm, I do wonder if their choice to set up grounds at a location without any heroes was solely for the space and dimensions of Inazuma Island."

The girls around Midoriya backed away while whispering and looking over at the next Ingenium with anxious expressions. Thank you, Iida, Midoriya thought, even though he knew Iida was not saying any of that for his sake.

"Well there are heroes here tonight," Yaoyorozu assured the taller boy at her side who glanced next to him at his fellow class rep. "But do try to let up a little, Iida-san. Tonight is meant to be a fun time."

Iida nodded at Yaoyorozu in agreement and with a look like he was saying that he would try. When she looked back forward though and then turned to her left at Ashido, Iida's gaze shifted to his right at Midoriya on his right who also looked at him. Then the two of their gazes shifted subtly over to a black-haired boy with them who laughed with the others next to him and then continued forward as they were about to reach the gates. Iida's gaze shifted straight ahead again like he was examining more about this fair he had voiced his concern for, and which his careful looks around and examining gazes would now be seen as the reason for. Investigating a friend is not an easy task. Midoriya, I will ease this burden for you as I too, know who he really is.

"You say those people forgot about the bad things he did, but I think you're forgetting all the good, Iida." Kendo's voice echoed in Iida's mind, but he frowned deeper for a moment at the memory of it. I had been convinced that you were right. I accepted what Zach was doing and decided not to judge him, but that was then. That was before he returned to Japan with a new plan. That was before, he started this deception. Iida's gaze stayed locked forward but he watched Zach in his peripheral vision constantly.

Zach stepped up to the gates first out of the group he had arrived with. He pulled out his provisional license for the guy at the ticket booth who had barely looked up while asking how many they were. Each of the students was paying separately, so despite walking up together to the booth next to the gates, Zach just asked for one ticket with the hero discount. The guy behind the counter grimaced and reached forward to check the I.D. he figured was probably fake, since heroes didn't usually… His blue eyes focused on the provisional license and grew three times in size. His whole body tensed and his eyes shifted upwards, then he snapped up in his seat and blinked a few times at the sight of the people in front of him and specifically the boy talking to him.

"Hi," Zach said with a small laugh at the guy's stunned look.

"L-Lifebringer! Uh, wait-" he looked down at the license and then slid it quickly back over the counter and pushed away the yen Zach was trying to give him too. "You don't need to-"

"Yes I do," Zach assured the man back as he slid the yen forward again. Ashido rolled her eyes behind Zach as he denied the free ticket, but Zach gave the man behind the counter a semi-serious look and mentioned, "Don't want you getting fired-"

"I'd get fired if I charged you," the guy countered back immediately with huge eyes still.

Zach sweatdropped at that response, then he just said, "Well, tell them I forced you to. Now come on, got a lot of people waiting here," Zach motioned back with a nod, though everyone behind him was just staring towards them and made the ticket counter guy gulp again as he looked down at Lifebringer's money.

Zach sighed as he finally got his ticket, and he walked towards the gates and through before waiting for his friends to come in after him. Only Ashido had another problem as she leaned forward and asked the ticket counter guy why he didn't offer her a free ticket into the fair. Hagakure walked up to Zach and jealously put her hands on her hips with an expectant look on her face, or so Zach imagined. "It must be tough with that next-level fame you've got there."

"Eh, I think I just make people more nervous than the rest of you," Zach replied with a glance back towards that ticket booth where that whole interaction had felt so uneasy and awkward.

Hagakure lowered her hands from her hips and lost her look for a less envious one. "Oh," she said, wondering how she was supposed to reply to that. Is it really not because of his fame that the guy offered, but because people are nervous around him? Did he feel like the guy was giving it to him because he felt threatened?! Oh Zach-

"I can't believe you denied the free ticket," Ashido jumped up behind Zach after getting through the gates and snapped at him. Zach sweatdropped and then chuckled as Ashido got in his face and continued, "You could have given it to me and at least one of us could have gone without paying!"

"Worried you won't be catching enough villains as a hero?" Zach wondered at the shorter girl whose eyes opened wide at the response. "You'd be tight on money if you can't catch anyone-"

"That's not why!" Ashido exclaimed back at him, but Hagakure and Sero were already laughing next to them and Zach chuckled along while giving her a sarcastic 'sure.' "I just like to spend my money, sometimes too quickly. As you know," she added as a reminder to Zach about their shopping trip.

"Sometimes you like to spend other people's money too," Zach reminded back, as it was his money they went shopping with that day. Ashido held up a finger to make a counterpoint, but she lowered her arm with a bead of sweat on her face as she did not have anything to counter that point with. "Come on, let's start hitting the rides," Zach suggested before she could come up with anything, looking up at Sero who agreed quickly to back him up.

"What do you guys want to do first?" Sero asked with a turn to look around at all the others.

"Haunted house!" Mineta called out with a mischievous look on his face.

"Ferris wheel!" Hagakure called out right after. She looked over the carnival tent and at the tallest of the rides with cars that went up high in the sky all covered in bright white lights that showed off the amazing design of the beautiful ferris wheel.

"I'd rather the roller coaster over there," Sero mentioned with a nod to his left and the southern edge of the park where a fast coaster shot along the tracks with people screaming on it.

In Mineta's head he imagined a scared girl screaming and leaning to her side to hug to closest person to her, which was him, with a nosebleed. His imagination cloud puffed away and he pointed at Sero, "Wait! I change my mind!"

"I'll go on the ferris wheel with you," Ojiro assured his girlfriend who spun to him after seeing the trend of what the guys wanted to do.

"Well let's pick something fast," Zach suggested. He glanced at Midoriya while saying it who was already looking around at the crowd they were drawing towards them even if people were mainly staying to the sides right now and just pulling out phones to take pictures or record them. Midoriya looked back at Zach, and he hesitated for a second before nodding his head at Zach's suggestion. Zach turned and started walking while saying how they could split up and meet back together after the first runs, but before Sero followed after him his eyes shifted towards Midoriya and then Iida who he swore he saw Midoriya's eyes dart to.

Sero frowned and he looked back forward with a more serious look on his face. Did Midoriya really give up on what he was doing earlier? Iida's acting diligent and he's being socially awkward, which is just like those guys. But Midoriya was acting earlier, or doing his best to at least. The only way to catch Zach is to act like him, huh? Just like how Zach caught Kaminari off guard? You're all ready to act like the ones you're after. Damn it, I knew we couldn't just have a fun time here. Kid stuff like this, is a long-gone luxury for us. Sero's eyes shifted ahead and to his left as Ojiro got tugged away from Hagakure as they broke off from the group, Maybe not all of us though.

"I know what your plan for the roller coaster is," Ashido whispered as she leaned up towards Sero who let out a sarcastic whistle like he had no idea what she was talking about.

"I think you've got me and Mineta mixed up," Sero replied.

"What's the difference?"

Sero gasped and spun to the girl next to him who laughed and ran forward to tell Zach the joke she just made. Zach chuckled at what she said, but his eyes shifted back behind Ashido for a second and to a girl behind her who was talking to Iida again and missed his look back towards her. He turned back forward, Did I want her to see that look? I haven't really talked to her, yet. Zach furled his lip for a moment and got an unsettled feeling in his chest. Meeting with her in a big group was asking for things to be like this though. I won't get a chance to talk to her about… I don't know. I wouldn't have been able to just talk on a roller coaster either though, Zach admitted that to himself with a shrug and just looked at the ride with a smile again as their group headed there.

"Well that is not fair," Iida mentioned as he looked at a tall cardboard sign next to the start of the line. Mineta let out a breath of relief as the line for 'you must be this tall to ride' was below the top of his head, but Iida was looking up at the line several feet above that at around nine feet tall where it said 'you must be this short too.' He frowned at that, then he looked back towards the ride and hummed in acceptance as he saw the tunnel and the steel bars above certain parts of the ride that made it unsafe for people who might have mutations that made them that much taller.

"I agree they should have made it differently," Midoriya said next to his close friend. "But most people who can get that large can also shrink down as well. It is not perfect, but-"

"Aww, Dover never would have been able to ride this," Ashido said loudly with a spin to Zach who shrugged and tilted his head to the side with more of a frown on his face.

"Maybe if he walked on all fours… but no, not in the seats," Mineta admitted as the height limit was for when they were all seated in the ride.

Sero glanced back at Yaoyorozu on his left side and mentioned, "Dover's Zach's pet bear."

"Pet bear?" Yaoyorozu asked with a straight face though she could not help a corner of her lip from lowering a bit.

"Yeah, it came to visit him two weeks back." Sero gave her a serious look while saying it at the disbelieving one that she had. He nodded at her that he was serious and it was not just a story, then as her look shifted he turned back forward and headed up the line to walk with the others in the group ahead of him.

Yaoyorozu felt a twisting in his stomach. Just because that's real- Don't say something like that expecting me to, to? I don't know. Is he going to just spend the night barely talking to me? I came because you asked me to. Momo stared towards Zach's back and she lowered her eyes to the floor, then shifted them to the side at the two boys slightly ahead of her on her right. And these two have their own plan. I knew Iida had not seen you since, the hospital. Momo bit down behind her lips with a frustrated look on her face again, as she imagined what his face looked like when he looked at her in the hospital after he woke up. His face when he was on that bridge bleeding out on the floor, and when he had first looked at her just before… I believed it then. I, did I do something? Since then what did I do except… was it because I snuck up on him that day? Not giving him time in advance? Did he stop trusting me or, or he never did. He lied in the hospital from right after, but if I had asked him before getting everyone back in the room would he have told me the truth? What truth? Why he's really here? That he was Death? That he plans on returning to Death one day once his plan… what plan? If he was ever going to tell me, he would have already. But if I ask, tonight…

Would he tell me?

"Hey Sero, ride with me," Ashido said quickly as the car in front of them stopped and the bars all lifted up for the next passengers to get in. Sero glanced at his ex-girlfriend wondering what she was doing, as he doubted she was actually flirting with him here as they had both been in agreement for a long time that their relationship was a mistake. Then he saw in his peripheral vision who might have gotten in the car next to him, and he grinned while nodding in agreement and going towards Ashido to play-flirt with her.

Zach felt a slight sense of gratitude while also anxiety as he saw what the two of them just did. They want something that's not going to happen, but it does still help with what I need to do tonight. "Ah! Yaoyorozu sit here!" Mineta called over to the tall girl who was walking up towards the roller coaster and who sweatdropped a bit as Mineta called her over.

Zach looked towards Mineta, then he turned his head fast and watched as three girls who had been right behind their group in line ran forward and jumped into individual cars each. They looked to be friends, but now there were only rows with one open seat left in them each so the standing eighteen year old heroes would have to sit with one of them each. The young twenty-something girls each grinned over towards Zach, Deku, and Iida respectively who immediately switched up which car they were going to based on who was not looking at them with those eager eyes. Unfortunately, none of the girls were that picky about who they were looking towards, and they had actually argued beforehand about who to pick and wound up getting people they liked anyway but just had not agreed on.

Yaoyorozu sighed while walking to Mineta's seat, while Mineta looked disappointed too that none of those three girls had come to sit with him after he made it out like he was going for the hottest girl there, and most famous, and a hero. His strategy to get them all thinking he was in Creati's league failed, and he sighed with his chin down on his right hand as he looked off the side of the ride. It could have been… He thought, and he jealously looked at the three cars in front of him where the random girls were trying to talk to the male heroes with them.

Midoriya and Iida were not doing well responding to the girls who were all over them talking about how they had seen them on tv and thought they were amazing. Zach's partner at his side suddenly got butterflies and far too nervous instead of excited as the guy next to her turned her way. She stared at the scars on his face more than she looked him in his eyes, and her eyes shifted down to his neck and the various gash-scars and red marks that wrapped all around changing the shade of his skin. She stared at the scar under his chin on the left side of his face that wrapped over the curve of his jaw and up towards the middle of his face taking almost his whole cheek all the way over to his split ear. In her head she saw the dark form with bones showing through, and the faces of the dead from the Lifebringer Incident, and her head spun forward in the sudden uneasy panic she felt.

"Hey," Zach started. The girl darted her eyes back to the side as it seemed like he was talking to her, and those eyes widened as he reached next to him with his right hand that was closer to her. "Make sure the bar's down tightly," Zach pushed the metal bar down a bit more for a couple more clicks that the attendant walking down the line of the ride did not push down all the way. "You don't want to fall out," he said it in a relaxed and soothing voice that she was not expecting to come out so softly from Lifebringer.

"Ha, ha thanks," her face started to brighten back up and relief filled her as his intimidating appearance replaced with the idea she had of him in her mind before this. "The way you stopped the Subspace Devils was amazing, by the way. My friends and I were watching on tv the whole time and…"

The Class A group finished the roller coaster before Ojiro and Hagakure came down from the ferris wheel. They went to the base of the wheel and watched the cars go around for a bit while talking, as they saw which car their friends were in from Hagakure going to the window and waving down at them over and over for them to see her. The area around the ferris wheel was pretty open with lots of different booths set up for them to use while they waited. There was a house of mirrors to the right of the wheel that Mineta headed into with Ashido for a minute, while Sero walked over to grab a hot dog from a stand next to a barn with a sign on it saying to 'Keep Out. Employees Only.'

The fair was lit up by lights all over each of the rides, though one ride in particular made the fair seem even more lively. The second tallest ride was a tall pillar-like ride that had a round top almost looking like the carnival tent did. However, the top of the ride was spinning around and had dozens of thick wires coming off of it attached to seats where the most hardcore visitors were strapped in and spinning around screaming for dear life at the "fun" and horror they were experiencing. There was a guy from the previous round on the ride standing below it throwing up into a garbage can around the fence boxing the pillar and the controls off. He had lights flashing on his back of different colors, as around the pillar there were purple and green and orange lights flashing and strobing. The strobes worked even better as the chairs swung around blocking off the lights every second or two, which kept them coming at odd intervals and reflecting off all sorts of surfaces to bounce bright colors around the fair.

"You've never played basketball?" Zach asked the tallest guy in their group who he was still standing with along with two others. Midoriya and Yaoyorozu looked to Zach with lifted eyebrows as neither of them had either, and Zach turned to both of them in surprise. "None of you? Really?"

"Well, we never had the unit back in middle school," Midoriya started.

"Mine neither," Yaoyorozu said.

"Huh, mine did," Zach said. "But also my dad taught me. We had a park near our house with a hoop at it. He said he learned as a kid so he wanted me to, too."

"Why were you so surprised by me but," Iida stopped himself, wondering why he was asking in the first place though he was curious as Zach seemed less surprised by the other two.

"Well, I mean, look at you," Zach nodded up and down at the taller teen in front of him built like a basketball star. He grinned and added with a laugh, "If you weren't going to be a hero, you could totally be a basketball player."

Iida sweatdropped at that sentiment that sounded so carefree. What is he talking about? We have not talked in weeks and he… "I suppose," Iida said as Zach looked at him awaiting a response as Iida was just staring. Iida lowered his bottom lip after saying it as it was mainly just for the purpose of responding that he did. Midoriya and Yaoyorozu looked in with surprise at him that he would agree to that so easily. "Though there are many other things I would do first-"

"Can't take it back," Zach said with a chuckle.

Iida frowned at the track of this conversation that was not serious at all. He looked to his side and then stared across the open area between all the booths to an outdoor eating area with a couple tvs set up on the walls. There was news up on one of the screens, and Iida's eyes narrowed at what they were reporting on which was the same story he had seen earlier that day right before Midoriya came to him. "Army of Death pinned with five counts of unjustified villain deaths in January," Iida said, reading off the screen that had the other three next to him turning at his sudden statement to look over there.

Zach finished reading out the line on the screen as Iida didn't seem about to, "Lowest since they were designated as a terrorist group back in October two years ago."

Iida frowned, but he hesitated as Zach was not actually defending them, just reading off the part that he decided not to say aloud as it was not the important part of what he was seeing. "Seems like they're disappearing," Zach mentioned with a look to Iida who had brought it up like this was a huge problem.

Iida turned his head and stared into Zach's eyes, and he hesitated again as the two of them made eye contact without any glass between them, as Iida had perfect vision to see what his former classmate looked like. Zach glanced back towards the screen all the way across the fair from him and added, "I saw this story earlier. The ADTF has received some new funding and focus from the international community too, saying they will double down on their efforts. 'The world will no longer tolerate their continued presence without any oversight or authority to carry out their operations,' or something like that."

"You think that's a joke?" Midoriya questioned as Zach was not saying it in a very serious voice. He glanced to Midoriya who frowned darkly at him about this line of conversation that was more serious than Zach had hoped for.

He saw Yaoyorozu looking at him too for an answer, but Zach only glanced at her for a second before turning back towards that screen far off and saying, "5 counts of murder isn't an impressive stat, especially when it's being called the 'lowest' since-"

"That's not true," Midoriya replied before Zach could finish. He looked at Zach with a frown as Zach glanced back, saying 5 counts was nothing as he himself had been charged with 6. Zach gave Midoriya a frustrated frown back that they had to talk about this now, right here, but Midoriya gave him an intense look and was not going to let it go. "The Army of Death are as big a problem now as they have ever been. Only now, more people are willing to do something about them so they have to go deeper into hiding, which is why they've only been allowed to kill five people last month."

"'Only?'" Zach questioned with a raise of his eyebrows like Midoriya had just countered his own point.

"Yes, 'only.' Because usually they are responsible for killing many more people," Midoriya replied without hesitation while staring Death down. He looked Zach in the eyes with a look that showed he knew he who he was talking to and was not afraid to call him out on it. "They are terrorists who kill without mercy."

Zach's lips curled down into a frown at Midoriya's statement that sounded similar to what Kirishima told him in the hospital when he returned. He turned his head and looked away, appearing tired of this conversation and deciding not to talk about it any longer. "I'm going to find a game to play until the others get down," Zach said, as there was no reason to stand here and talk about something that was only going to get all three of the others staring at him more disapprovingly.

"You can't just run away from-" Midoriya started walking after Zach as he started in the direction of some booths.

"Iida-san, could you tell me," Yaoyorozu started as Iida was about to follow after the two and help Midoriya out. He stopped and looked back at the girl behind him who gave him a serious look as she questioned, "What it is you are really doing here?"

Iida turned around fully and looked into Yaoyorozu's light gray eyes. His hesitation was brief, and then he said in a steady voice, "I am looking to find something that incriminates Zach as Death."

"I thought so," Yaoyorozu whispered, surprising Iida who thought she would open her eyes wide or ask him something angrily in response. Yaoyorozu just turned her head though and stared after Zach with a frown on her face. She thought about what she heard him talking about with Sero, Ashido, and Mineta when they had headed back towards the ferris wheel after their last ride. She heard him talking about Arcasia when Mineta asked while laughing and excited from the rush if Terra had anything like that. He talked about the Quirk of an enemy he had fought, one of the top soldiers of one of those Generals he spoke of so often. The power worked to make them all feel like they were standing on top of a roller coaster as they fought, and how they had to have an entire battle fighting like that while feeling like they were moving two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.

I wanted to give you a chance. I came here to do just that, but you lie to them so easily and you have them all believing you. It's not just with me where you can see that I don't believe you. You told it to people you knew would trust you and did the same. Yaoyorozu did not feel a pit in her chest this time, and her stomach was steady as she looked towards Zach's back. I tried, Zach. I really tried for you.

Zach and Midoriya walked down the path with Midoriya continuing his interrogation harder than he usually, or ever, did with Zach. "Your friends aren't vigilantes, Zach. They're terrorists as they have been branded by the UN. They're just villains-"

"They're not my friends, but they're not villains either," Zach countered back with hardly a look at Midoriya to show he was not even taking him seriously. "And you're not going to convince me they are. So stop trying, and stop saying that I'm Death while there are so many people around-"

"But you are Death," Midoriya said which had Zach clenching his teeth in anger at the accusation in the middle of this fair. "You led a band of vigilantes who killed without repercussions, and you let them continue to act even after you left for whatever it is you're doing here."

"I told you what I'm doing here-"

"And I told you I don't believe that," Midoriya countered right back. "If it was just for All For One, then you wouldn't continue the farce after getting out of prison where you were hiding from him."

"I wasn't hiding from him," Zach growled. He snarled it and then froze, and while Midoriya stared at the side of his head with wider eyes, Zach turned his head back and glared into Midoriya's. "I wanted him to come for me down there. In a place he couldn't escape from. I gave him a target and hoped he would come for me down there." Zach leaned in towards Midoriya and whispered menacingly, "I wanted him to know exactly where I was while I waited with all my strength, and I trained every day preparing for his arrival so I could cut, him, down."

Zach turned back forward and he cracked a smile as he said in a cheerful voice, "Or did I?"

Midoriya was still frozen behind him and staring at his side, but then his eyes widened even more and he shook his head as everything Zach just said could have just as easily been a lie. In fact, he thought it was a lie, but the way Zach had said it sounded so real and like he was admitting some dark secret to him. "Whatever I tell you, you're not going to believe a word of it, so stop with this already Midoriya. There's no fucking point-"

"But there is, if you'd just tell me the truth. The real truth-"

"You mean the 'truth' that you believe and want me to admit to. That's the 'truth' you're talking about, right? Because you've already figured it all out?"

Midoriya darted his eyes away and bit down himself. "No. You're right, I don't know everything." He turned back to Zach who looked his way though, and he saw the pain and the betrayal on Midoriya's face, as well as the determination not to just let this go here. "But I know enough. I know that at the least you pretended to be Death while you went around as Zach Sazaki. I know that you had subordinates who followed you-"

"I had comrades, sure," Zach replied darkly back to his classmate who was speaking in much too assured a tone.

"Insane comrades," Midoriya continued at Zach's response. "I caught one of them," he continued, and Midoriya's heart raced faster as he saw Zach's expression darkening and his eyes shifting back in an angrier way. "The man I captured was out of his mind. He was a maniac given powerful tech to break the law with by the Army of Death. He was a lunatic babbling like crazy and I know that a crazy villain like that shouldn't-"

"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead," Zach growled. He turned away from Midoriya and walked forward away from his classmate standing frozen where he just was.

"What?" Midoriya stared ahead and muttered, then he turned and looked towards Zach's back with his eyes huge and his stomach clenched up at what he was just told. He sprinted forward as his mind started to process, and he asked quickly, "Explain yourself! What do you mean by that-"

"I don't know what you mean," Zach said as he continued to walk.

Midoriya stared at him with shaking eyes and his hands twitching at his sides. Wait- wait wait! Zach, he called Kirishima out in the hospital for talking ill of the AoD as terrorists too! He said they were fighting and dying, so he could just be saying it like he suspects he might be dead- but this time it seemed a lot more personal! It sounded like he knew! He did know. What he just said was proof… He just told me. He just, told me. Midoriya's hand moved down for his phone while Zach walked farther ahead of him. Iida had been looking down the dirt path towards Midoriya, and as Ashido and Mineta got back over and talked to Yaoyorozu, he started towards Midoriya whose face he saw take a sudden turn.

Zach walked forward and returned his face to normal despite the thoughts rushing through and his heart pounding like crazy. He turned his head as he heard a click and a snap, and he looked over towards one of the booths near him that only had one person on it playing the game for a prize from the shelves on the side walls. There were many booths with a ring toss, tossing a ping pong ball into a goldfish bowl, among others, but Zach smiled more as he looked at the guy who aimed the rifle in his hands and leaned forward more to try and get a closer shot on the targets across the booth from him.

"One more shot," the booth's worker said with a grin. "You can't get a prize, but at least try to hit one-"

The man holding the air rifle fired again and then cursed as the tiny ball missed the target by a few centimeters and hit the soft wall behind to drop into a collection tray.

"Oh! So close!"

"Screw this, those targets are too small," the guy in his early twenties muttered while putting down the rifle and storming off, his hands down in his pockets.

Zach rolled his shoulders while walking up to the booth, and the man behind it stared out with wide eyes at who was approaching him. "How much to try?"

"Uh, five hundred yen," the man replied hesitantly. Oh crap. Is Lifebringer going to figure me out? Those are other heroes behind him too! This game's totally rigged!

Zach picked up the rifle and he asked, "How many shots do I get?" He pulled out a five hundred yen coin and flipped it to the booth's manager who bobbled it for a second then snatched with both hands to pull it close. "And do I get any of those?" He asked with a nod at the shelf on his left that had different prizes on each of the three rows.

"You get five shots. If you hit, at least three, you can pick from the bottom row-"

"Four from the middle? Five for the top?" Zach finished for the guy speaking too slowly but who he figured out would say the rest. The man nodded, and Zach checked the gun to see if there were still more shots in it. "Alright," Zach lifted up the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and leaned his head closer to it. He pulled the trigger. There was no wait after he brought it up to his shoulder, he just fired at the target straight ahead of him. The ball missed and Zach lowered the barrel of the rifle and turned his head to the left to stare at the manager of the booth whose eyes shot open huge.

Zach looked back forward after giving the booth's runner a start, and he turned the barrel when he lifted it up again. So the sights are off.

As Zach adjusted his aim, he completely ignored the two farther back along the path who were talking while staring towards him. Iida's eyes opened huge and his heart skipped a beat at the word Midoriya just said to him. "Proof?" He's, acting like it wasn't. He's smiling and pretending like what he said was not damning at all, but that's incriminating evidence! I knew it! He had to be Death and there's no denying it now! As sure as Iida was, the shock of what Midoriya just told him showed him the doubt that had still been lingering inside as it all disappeared.

Hagakure and Ojiro reached the bottom of the ferris wheel and got off, with Ojiro holding Hagakure's hand and the invisible girl next to him blushing hard as she got worried that everyone was going to know that she and Ojiro kissed at the top of the ferris wheel. Ojiro was better at hiding his own expression though and just asked what the others wanted to do as Sero came walking back over too, wiping his hands on a napkin as he saw the others gathering about.

Clink clink clink clink.

The man standing inside his booth turned his head from Lifebringer and looked at the targets behind him. But… what?!

Zach put the rifle down on the counter and gave the man behind it a smug look that turned into a completely oblivious one a moment later. "Well look at that, I guess I just missed one. Second shelf, right?" He turned to the left and looked below all the huge stuffed animals that he told himself would have been a hassle to lug around anyway. After thinking that though, he looked at the medium-sized ones with a look of hesitation too. What do I need a stuffed animal for? It's not like… well, I might not want it but, Zach pointed at the stuffed animal he was thinking of, and his head shifted a bit to the side with his eyes looking left down the dirt road to a group of six people all gathered together now.

His eyes lingered on one girl in particular, and then they shifted closer at two others.

Midoriya's eyes shifted to the pole on the right side of the booth. He stared at a flash of purple light, and his thoughts cut off mid-stream. The tall spinning ride's purple light was not facing them, as the side he just saw purple flash from was the opposite direction, closest to the outer fence on this side of the fairgrounds. Time started to slow down, as his eyes shifted past the fence while his head was snapping to the side, towards some reflective surface he saw out in the forest through the chain-link fence and between two rides. The light vanished, but his body was already twisting, Someone's taking a shot!

Iida's Engines turned on and shot him across the ground faster than Midoriya moved as that light disappeared. It's the one Zach missed who vanished! Iida and Midoriya had the same thought at the same time, as they both heard the last report about the attempt on Zach's life and knew one of the villains had gotten away.

"No! Wait-" Zach turned while yelling it towards Iida, his face covering in panic as Iida sped away from him. No no no no no! He spun back from Iida towards Midoriya who looked at Zach and saw a look of sheer panic and fear over his face that had him curling his hands into tight fists.

"What's going on?!" Sero yelled while zipping over on some Tape.

"Guys?!" Ashido exclaimed.

"There's a villain in the forest!" Midoriya called out, then instantly regretted it as there were a lot of people between him and his classmates who he informed since they were all heroes. "Protect the fair!" He called it out while bending his knees.

"Midoriya don't!" Zach yelled while running towards the fence that Iida had sprinted to and leapt over in one high leap.

"What's going on?!"

"Did he say 'villains?'"

"Everything's fine!" Yaoyorozu called around at the people around her, not wanting to start a panic. "There are several heroes here to stop whatever is happening. Just stay calm."

"I'm not staying here," Sero said, watching as Zach leapt over the fence calling after Midoriya who shot much farther ahead of him moving faster than Zach was and almost catching up to Iida.

"Me neither!" Mineta called out, pulling Pop Offs from his head and throwing in front of him for stepping stones he was going to use to bounce over the fence with.

"Hagakure! Ashido! Ojiro!" Yaoyorozu turned to the three behind her while tugging on her jacket at the back collar to pull her clothes farther from her skin where something was emerging back there. "Stay here and keep everything under control!" What am I saying? Ojiro has better mobility and should- Yaoyorozu spun before she could think more on it, looking towards the forest where her classmates were running towards and then firing the flames out the bottom of her jetpack to fly over the fence Sero and Mineta were rushing over.

"I'm not staying!" Ashido called out, and she sprinted ahead sliding on Acid as she realized she was going to be left behind if she stayed any longer.

"Mina! Wait-" Hagakure closed her mouth as Ashido did not even slow down for a second.

"Come on Toru," Ojiro said as he looked around and saw people spreading rumors too quickly that they needed to take control of. "Everyone listen up…"

Iida's jets burned bright behind his legs as he shot into the tree line and a dense forest that had not been cut or maintained in decades if not centuries. The fair company did the minimal amount of work towards any areas they did not plan on building up over, so once they were past the fence the entire island became as abandoned as it had been before the fair moved in. Iida could not move the same speed that he had been going across the field, but he spotted movement through the trees, and moving away from him. "Wait! Villain!" Iida spotted the head of the figure turn for a moment, then a blast of red like what was coming out of his own engines to propel them farther into the woods and out of sight.

Iida leaned his body forward with his eyes darting left and right and every which way ahead of him. His left leg bent down hard on his next step, his route planned out in his head, and he shot forward yelling, "I said not to move!" The assassins after Death. Powerful villains who can even escape from Zach, and who are here to kill him!

Midoriya bounced off the tree closest to the tree line and ignored Zach's shout behind him and getting more distant. Does he not think we can handle the villains he deals with regularly? The ones who are hunting Death?! Zach, whatever we have to do next doesn't mean anything here! If these people are here to kill you…

We won't let them get away! Iida's face covered in anger and he jumped up, and he kicked off the side of a tree that had lots of weeds and tall roots and bushes all around it. He bounced over the bushes and then pointed his calves up as he was nearing the ground so as not to catch the bushes behind him on fire. He turned off his engines for a second and came out in a full sprint towards the person he caught another glimpse of up in a tree branch jumping farther ahead of him and keeping the same distance he saw them at when he entered the woods. They're fast! Iida lost sight of the person right as Midoriya hit the tree on his right side and pressed his legs up on the trunk, splintering the old tree and making pieces of bark break off of it.

"You won't get away!"

"This is a small island!"

Mineta heard the quiet shouts deeper in the forest as he was nearing the edge of it, and he spun to Sero who used his Tape to pull to the tree close to where he just bounced to. "Should one of us cut them off at the docks?"

"Ojiro will stop any boats from leaving," Sero said without looking to his side at the shorter boy. "And they might have their own means of transport away from here."

The fact that Sero did not say 'boat' made both Mineta and Ashido sliding up behind them going wide eyed as they imagined some kind of aircraft parked on the opposite side of the island or something. All three of them sped up into the forest, chasing after Yaoyorozu who flew ahead of them with her jetpack, after Zach who was ahead of her and sprinting through the trees leaving a dead path behind him. Zach had black wisps coming out of his legs and feet, and he sprinted faster than normal men could as he made a straight path through the forest with his fists clenched furiously at his sides.

This is bad! What was I thinking?! Zach had sweat on the right side of his face and opened his mouth to yell ahead to Midoriya and Iida again, but the two of them sprinted too far and leapt straight off the ledge that they hit and figured out why they lost the person they were chasing. They won't stop. The two of them were going to call me out on being Death! Why couldn't that have been the worst thing to happen tonight?! This is- I can't- Zach's teeth clenched even harder and his feet dug into the floor as he seethed air through his teeth. It's all getting fucked!

"Midoriya! Iida! Stop!" Zach yelled ahead through the forest.

His words fell on deaf ears. Midoriya and Iida reached a steep slope down to a sudden cliff. They knew they had gone uphill since the docks as the main path to the field was on an incline, but the forest had also been inclining for a bit until this ledge too. There was a waterfall hidden in the forest dropping into an overgrown river down below, and the two boys who reached the ledge looked down to see a person landing on a tree branch and then using the spring of the branch to bounce themselves back up and deeper towards the other side of the island. They went under the canopy too so neither were able to see the figure anymore, for a second before Midoriya hit the branch they had been on an instant before. Iida took a different route sprinting along the almost straight-down wall of the cliff on a diagonal slope around towards the waterfall. He ducked underneath it to stay between the water and the wall, the back of his head getting splashed by water droplets before he came out of his crouch and kept sprinting down the wall to jump into a heavily-bushed area that softened his landing which he ran straight out of.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu called ahead to the boy who was not slowing down as he got farther from her and neared the decline to the ledge.

He sprinted straight down it and leapt off with his arms and legs swinging in the air like he was hurdling the cliff, then he started to plummet for the forest below that he tilted his body forward into a dive for. I have to catch them!

Down at the lower part of the forest, Midoriya was hot on the tail of the person shooting ahead of him. They were wearing all black and had jets coming out of their back, but those jets turned on at rapid and sporadic intervals with the guy dropping and running for two steps then jumping to the side at a tree, then bouncing over to the left and hitting a window that they went straight through. Midoriya's eyes opened wide and his eyes darted around, and he realized in that moment that they had come across the village completely engulfed by the forest. He jumped towards the window and through it with his arms crossed in front of him and his eyes darting around for where the person in the house would be, but the front door smashed open as he was entering the window for the person to escape out of. They did not even look towards him as he was coming in, and Midoriya realized that his move to follow straight through that window was predicted rather than the assailant guessing he was going around.

Zach said on the ride here that the guy who he dodged the other day had a teleportation Quirk which was the only reason they escaped him. Midoriya rushed out of the building and spotted a sliver of movement going behind another wall ahead of him. His body glowed as he bent his legs and then shot at that house that he broke straight through the corner of. As he was shooting over like a rocket about to smash through that house, his fists were clenching and his face full of intensity as he imagined this assassin. If he isn't using his Quirk to escape, then the teleportation likely has a limit that Zach was unable to test when the man first disappeared. But if this guy had teleported right there and we continued to chase and found him, then he didn't use his Quirk because he wouldn't have been able to use it again that quickly! Or he doesn't have the distance to teleport off this island- but he's trying to get to the coast? There might be a vehicle! Whatever it is, I'll stop him here!

Midoriya broke through the front corner of the house, into the house itself, then through the side wall where the other person had ran around a moment ago to leave his sight. He broke through the wall and his eyes shifted to his right as the rubble did not slam into someone, so he thought the guy had gone faster than he adjusted for and was farther down the house. Instead, his eyes moving to the right started rising up instead as he saw the movement above him that was not a piece of broken wall. The person who had rounded the corner of the house had jumped up and was above Midoriya with a gun pointed down towards his head as he was raising his gaze towards it. His eyes started to grow wide, right as the white glow came from inside the barrel.

BANG

The white glow turned into a horrible bright flash that blinded the teen along with a deafening blast that turned into a ring and disoriented him even more. He botched his landing after smashing through the wall, and he hit the floor at a speed moving fast enough to break through those walls like that. Midoriya rolled ahead and through a thin tree growing between two nearby houses, before cracking the next wall he slammed into not fast enough to smash through but hard enough to make the whole building shake and risk collapsing on its old foundation.

The person who just set off the flashbang in Midoriya's eyes spun upon landing and took two steps. Then Iida raced around the opposite corner of the building that Midoriya had broken down, and as he was rounding that corner his legs started to glow blue on the back during his turn. His left leg planted down at the corner and his right leg rose up with a bright blue glow coming out of his calf in his roundhouse kick, "Reciproburst!"

On the front of the dark armor the person in front of Iida was wearing, on both upper arms and on their shoulders, bright blue light glowed. The front jets slammed the person's body backwards to a ninety degree angle as they also dropped on their knees at the start of their sprint. They were not moving too fast to be able to slide under Iida's spinning kick, but they did drop low enough and bend their body back far enough in the instant the leg was nearing that Iida could not readjust. He still had time in his Reciproburst and did not get deterred by his first miss that still broke apart the wall of the building next to him when his leg skimmed it. He slammed that leg down as the blue light shifted legs and he brought that left leg up high so his shoe's sole was pointing up and his whole leg was raised ready to smash down at the figure who had dropped to their knees and then slammed their hands on the ground.

Iida started to bring his leg back down, when the person on their hands and knees below him suddenly bounced up to his eye level. His right foot pivoted while Midoriya stood up from the wall he fell off of. Midoriya's eyes were blurry and his ears ringing, but he could see a blurry Iida with his left leg lifted up high. Blue flames came out of Iida's Engines and his leg started slamming down, but the figure who had just brought themself much closer to Iida's foot, did a barrel-roll in midair with jets firing out flames and a lot of black smoke out of their back on the right side only to make them spin like that. When their body first spun perpendicular to the ground was when Iida's leg kicked past them, in the middle of the spin with his leg just brushing the person as he tried to shift it even in that down arc. The dark figure yanked their head away as Iida's foot brushed by it, and as Iida's foot slammed down into the ground, the person stopped their roll with jets turning on at both of their shoulders and their right leg up high over Iida's head now.

Iida's momentum was still going down, with the ground around his foot breaking apart. Cracks split off underneath the foundation of the nearby houses and breaking apart roots of the trees in the vicinity that all shook like the ground below him. His and Midoriya's eyes were not on the shaking ground though, but on the foot raised above Iida's head with the heel coming down at the top of his skull. As Iida rose his head to see that heel coming down though, he saw the heel of the shoe opening up with a sharp blade sticking out of it and slamming for the center of his forehead. He was in no position to move, but the kick coming down at his head passed right in front of his face with the blade getting so close to his nose that he swore he felt the little hairs on the tip of his nose getting sliced.

The person's foot hit the ground, and then as if with Iida's Quirk, jets blasted off the back of their calves and shot them ten feet forwards. Those jets turned off though, as Midoriya appeared in front of the guy with his fists raised back up and his expression still ready for a fight. He could have killed me- he could have killed us both but he… he…

Iida was running up to the right, keeping a small distance between him and the person who stopped while facing Midoriya, but Iida slowed down his run too as he stared at the person who had lost the top of their mask when his foot skimmed it. The black suit the person was wearing had been ripped on the head piece, and in the dark of the forest neither had adapted to very well, with Midoriya's vision blurry and Iida's having been more focused on that knife that almost pierced his face, neither had focused clearly until that moment.

Thud Zach slammed down on the ground right where Midoriya had been standing, with Midoriya seeing the movement at the top of his vision at the last second and diving away towards Iida who stepped back in surprise and stumbled as Midoriya hit in front of him. Midoriya spun as he landed in his dive, and he stared back at where he just was in front of that person with his eyes as massive as they could get. "What are you doing here?" Zach growled, while glaring straight ahead at the person who was staring at him and not moving.

Midoriya and Iida stared ahead at the two of them standing ten feet away from each other. The person they had been chasing was standing there panting with a black mask covering the bottom half of their face from below their eyes down over their neck to the tight black costume that covered their whole body. Falling behind the person's back, and down their sides, and over the protruding area of her chest, was long brown hair that waved in a cold wind blowing through the forest. Zach stared straight ahead over the top of the mask and into the green eyes staring back at him so full of rage.

That's… Iida's eyes shifted from the girl in front of Zach back to his old classmate himself. Then those eyes snapped right back to the girl as her arms snapped up, only they were not arms when she raised them together pointed straight ahead at Zach. As Iida's eyes grew even huger, someone was flying towards their backs and opened her eyes in shock at what was getting more illuminated in front of her thanks to the ultra-bright glow-sticks she had attached to her waistband.

"Wha-" Midoriya reached a hand forward, his right foot lifting off the ground and stepping forward. The girl facing Zach just rose up a huge rifle with a scope on top of it, one that appeared literally out of nowhere as her hands had been empty a moment ago. Deku's eyes examined her arms as he was reaching forward, stepping forward, Her arms are the rifle itself- Midoriya's thoughts were jolted as he was about to delve into how all those crazy techniques had happened at the start of the fight. He was unable to continue the thought, because Zach snapped his left arm out and swung down as hard as he could with darkness completely covering that arm.

A whip of darkness shot off of Zach's hand and past the front of Midoriya before going another twenty meters past his left side. Zach's arm followed through when he swung it down to whip it behind him too, and he created a wall of Death that in a second split the abandoned village with him and the girl on one side and Class A's on the other. "Stay back," Zach growled, his eyes not shifting over to his side but his voice taking a deeper and darker tone to it that silenced all of his friends who were already there and staring forward in shock at what was now hardly illuminated again through that black wall letting through so little light.

Zach stared ahead at the woman in front of him pointing a sniper rifle at his chest, then raising it up so that the barrel was locked on his forehead with the girl behind it looking enraged out of her mind. Her teeth bared with her lips pulled far apart, her steady rifle aimed forward with a shaking trigger on it that needed no fingers to be pulled. Her head leaned forward and brown hairs of her bangs shadowed over those usually bright green eyes as she glared madly towards Zach's face.

His face was expressionless as he stared forward at the girl. His arms lowered down flat to his sides and his eyes locked on hers past the end of the barrel between them. Others were arriving behind where Yaoyorozu had landed near Iida and Midoriya. They could see the light and they shouted asking what was going on as they ran closer, only for all three of them to shut up as they got close and stared through the black wall at the two dimly illuminated on the other side. The tension filled the air so thick that it was hard for anyone to breathe, as Zach stood at the end of a sniper barrel and there was a wall of Death blocking any of them from getting to him. The other three who just arrived recognized who this was facing Zach too, but their eyes still darted back to the wall of darkness spreading in both directions to Zach and to this girl in confusion as much as shock.

Zach stared the girl before him down as she glared furiously at him and kept him at the end of her rifle. His eyes shifted to the arms she had raised as a single weapon, then he shifted them back to her face with a dark one covering his own, "Are you going to shoot me again, Darling?"

Zach's question cut the tension in the air and only resulted in making it thicker for the six people standing there watching this through the rippling black flames, flames continually getting fed by the pitch black line cutting from Zach's feet towards it so it looked to be raging infinitely. Wind blew through the woods but the dark flames looked unaffected by it, waving in the same random pattern and flaring in front of the heroes who looked like they may try to do something.

"Again?" Yaoyorozu stared towards Zach with her trembling eyes steadying and then shifting back to the brown-haired girl who bit down even harder and tilted her head back with a distorted and enraged look covering her face. Yaoyorozu's heart rate skyrocketed as Zach's bloody body appeared in her mind, laying on the ground covered in blood with a hole in his chest.

"Yes, I am," Darling hissed her response and then stomped closer to Zach and pushed her arms forward. She pushed the end of the barrel closer to Zach to make less of a distance between it and his face. "And this time, I'll go for the head." Her voice came out raspy and she slammed her teeth back together and ground them over each other in fury.

"Nobody move!" Zach yelled out. His eyes did not shift to the side, but Iida was considering sprinting straight through the black flames in front of him that only he could go through out of his classmates. He even considered for a moment that Zach had made those flames to put the would-be assassin at ease, so that he could catch them off guard. "Iida! Stay back," Zach snarled it and he stepped forward himself towards Darling. He stepped towards the girl who his eyes were locked on with his face covering in rage just like hers. His face twisted with his forehead scrunching up and his eyes filling with pain as he leaned his head forward. "Do it."

"I will!" The girl in front of Zach yelled, taking another step and pushing the barrel closer to Zach's face.

"Then do it!" Zach yelled, planting his feet down and glaring down at the shorter girl whose face twisted more as she stared up at that face looking down so furiously at her. "Shoot me!"

Does he know what he's doing?!

He's going to get himself shot!

Wait! THAT girl's the one who shot him?!

He knew, the whole time? Yaoyorozu looked back towards Zach with heavy pants coming out of her mouth and a nervous expression covering her face as she darted her eyes back and forth between the two.

Ashido's eyes shifted to the side at the taller girl on her left who she had run up to before freezing in place. Then they snapped back to the brown haired girl and specifically her arms that were shaking, almost like holding up that heavy rifle was too much on her body. Ashido also noticed as she made that comparison, even though she suspected the shaking was something else, that the girl's body was bigger than it looked the day of the Lifebringer Incident. Not just that she was taller as she stood in front of Zach, but more filled out both in the chest pressing against her black uniform, and at her arms and legs and shoulders. The girl was shorter than Yaoyorozu and closer to Ashido, but her body was lean and muscular under that tight black clothing she had pressed to-form.

Darling's arms started ripping apart, but her right hand stayed pushed forward in the shape of a pistol that was aimed straight at Zach's face. She tilted her head back that shook as she glared at him, and she reached up to her face and ripped down her mask with her left hand and tore it straight off with the steel claws that her fingers had turned into. "I HATE YOU!" Darling screamed, making sure Zach saw her face and watched her scream it at him. She curled her head down with her chin nearly touching her chest for a moment as she scrunched up her face and looked deranged, her left hand pulling up and grabbing at the side of her head as she took in and let out huge breaths of air like she was wheezing from this moment. Zach's teeth clenched but his lips stayed covering them, and he stared straight forward at this girl emotionless as she screamed at him and looked at him in this way.

The others looking at the girl found themselves freezing again as they stared at her face. It was a face they recognized, not because they had seen it before in the light of the Lifebringer Incident, but because of how closely it resembled Zach's. Across her left cheek was a long scar looking like she had been cut there. Below her right ear there was a gash cutting down onto her neck and then curving up over her chin where there was a patch of scar tissue around her jaw and over her chin. There was a scar on the left side of her neck too curving around the front that was only slightly visible under her hair, and the top of two more scars could only be seen at the top of her chest at the lowest point her mask had been ripped off from. The rest of those scars were hidden under the clothes on her chest, but Sero, Ashido, and Yaoyorozu all stared at the girl in more shock than the other three with them.

Holy shit. Her too? Did he- was she with… Sero's eyes shook as he stared at the girl whose body he imagined under those clothes looking the same as Zach's.

Ashido rose her hands and covered her mouth with them, then her eyes snapped back to Zach who was glaring at this girl but could not keep the same expressionless face he had a few seconds ago. Ashido saw how tightly his fists were clenched at his sides and how hard his teeth were baring behind his lips as he kept that straight expression as calm as possible. Zach, Ashido thought with her chest pounding and her shaky eyes darting back and forth and getting watery even in all the confusion she was in.

"Then shoot me," Zach said after the girl yelled how much she hated him. He stared her in the eyes as she pointed that pistol towards him. She stomped her right foot forward and pushed the gun ahead more so that it was only a couple of feet from his face that it was pointing up at. Darling's gun shook, but Zach bit down harder and then said while staring her straight in the eyes, "Don't miss this time." Darling's teeth bit down hard this time and her expression twisted in so much raw emotion that no one else there understood but Zach. And as no one could understand what was going on, they realized in that moment that Zach did not care about them at all. Their being there, was insignificant to him to the point that the only thing he had yelled at them was to stay out of this, and he had put up that wall to keep this between the two of them with no one else involved.

He knows what he's doing. She won't shoot him! It was a similar thought that went through all the Class A students' heads, though none of them could believe it fully and were holding their breath as the girl bared her teeth again and looked so insane while aiming at Zach's face.

"I didn't dodge last time," Zach said. He looked into Darling's eyes and said, "So I know you missed on purpose."

"I didn't!" Darling roared at him. She yelled it at his face and her gun-hand steadied with rage completely covering her expression. "I wanted to kill you!"

"Then why didn't you kill me?" Zach asked. "You're the best shot in the world, and I didn't dodge-"

"You couldn't dodge!" Darling screamed. "Because you were distracted, by HER!" Darling's face twisted even more and her eyes opened wider as her head tilted back. Her right arm trembled in front of her but she kept the hand-gun aimed straight at Zach's face. Her face twisted in sheer betrayal, and guilt, and rage, and jealousy. "You knew they were after you! You knew they were coming to kill you and you let your guard down?! How could you do that?! How could-"

"So you shot me," Zach interrupted. He said it in a calm voice and the girl yelling at him in a cracking one froze with her lips trembling at what he just told her. The others who had thought they were following this and figured out why the jealous girl had shot Zach, froze and lost all idea of what was going on as Zach lifted his lips into a small smile. "Thank you, Darling."

"NO! That's not- I didn't-"

"You shot me so that I would make sure not to let my guard down again, and I've been able to stop all the real attempts on my life since then." Zach stared at the girl whose face was confused and in denial, and yet she was clenching her teeth so hard as the words he was saying echoed in her head with the tone of absolute assurance in his voice that she knew he was not wrong. And Darling pulled her head back as her gun shook more, as tears spilled out of her eyes and as Zach said, "Thank you for saving my life again. But now, you need to leave."

What- wait? She- Midoriya darted his eyes left and right through the rippling black flames in front of him. She shot him, because he let his guard down? Because, she wanted him to… that's insane! She's insane! And, and powerful. The best shot in the world? She took on me and Iida- and she wasn't even trying to kill us. She had the chances- could she have?! Midoriya's eyes shook and he turned back to the girl whose face returned to rage at how Zach just finished. She's deranged. That's her way of showing him she cares? He told her 'thank you!?' That's like encouraging this kind of insanity-

"Not. Without. You," Darling said. Her right hand steadied again, the pistol aimed at Zach's head and her eyes narrowing. She wiped her left hand across her face and glared Zach down as his expression lost the smile on it and got darker itself. "You have to come back."

"I can't," Zach replied.

"You have to," Darling said, raising her voice and tilting her head back again.

"Darling," Zach said. His voice was low and stern, but she just twisted her expression in more anger at the way he was looking at her.

"You don't get to tell me that! Not now! Not as Zach Sazaki!" Darling shook her head around while Zach's eyes got darker and glared at her harder. She shook her head though and Zach's breath started getting heavier as the girl rose her eyes to him. "You're not alright! You didn't make the decision to go back in the right mind! You have to come back with me!"

"Stop it," Zach said. His tone was warning, and he shook his head at her with the most serious look on his face. "Don't."

"I have to!" She screamed at him. "You need to come back to me! I'll, I'll make you-" She said it with regret and pain in her voice, but her eyes shifted to the side quickly and then back at Zach from those dark flames.

Zach's jaw clenched and his hands balled into tighter fists at his sides. "Please," Zach said. He looked at Darling desperately for a moment, but his face was full of more regret and pain than anything as he saw how much more desperation was on hers than his own. "Don't do it-"

Darling saw that look and pulled back, her eyes clenching shut and a flood of emotion slamming into her. "I have to!" She yelled. "Because you- you have to come back with me! This isn't where you belong!"

"Zach, what is-" Midoriya started through the darkness as he was going to get himself involved instead of standing there and being a bystander to all of this.

"This is where I belong," Zach said loudly, snapping his head up and looking into Darling's eyes. "I need to be here. This is where I belong now. I can't leave-"

"It never mattered to me," Darling cut him off. Her voice was softer, smaller, and it cracked as she said it like she was in pain. She stared at Zach who flinched and then shook his head. He shook it at her like she was wrong, but Darling rose her voice and leaned her body forward, "Only you! You were all I cared about! I- I love you! Why won't you be with me?!" Her voice rose shriller and her face looked insane for a moment as she screamed, "Why don't you love me?!"

WHOA! Mineta pulled his head back with a panicked look on his face at the sight of how crazed that girl's looked.

Zach just stared painfully back at the person in front of him though. "I do though," he whispered. He stared at her with his expression losing the anger and the detachment he was showing before. His voice got lower itself and he looked into her bright green eyes that widened as Zach told her, "I do love you."

Darling's wide eyes shook, and she pulled her head back with tears pushing out the cracks of them when she squinted in the agony she felt piercing through her heart. "Not, the way I love you," she gasped out. "You've never loved me like that. Not how I want you to," she said it in tears, while shaking a gun at his face and looking like she was having a mental breakdown. She rose her head and her squinted eyes pushed open, and she said to him with the rage returned to her face, "I would have followed you to Hell and back, and so many others would have too- but I was the first! The first one!" She yelled it at him and he pulled his head back at the look on hers full of despair, and abandonment. "I loved you the most! I did EVERYTHING for you!"

"Darling I-"

"I gave you my life! My soul!" Darling yelled it at him and then turned her head down, a flash of horror over her face as she reached up her left hand and grabbed the side of her face where the long gash covered her cheek. "My body-" her head lifted as she gripped that scar so much, then moved that hand over to her arm with a look of terror and rage mixed on her expression. "I-I put myself in those situations for you- and I- I-" she blinked a few times as her eyes were too full of tears and the memory was just making more push out. "And when those pirates tried to force themselves on me, you saved me from those rapists and-"

"Darling!"

"And you saved me! You covered me with your body and snarled at them like a beast to protect me!" Darling's lips trembled and she yelled, "And you ripped them to pieces like an animal for me! You tore them apart FOR ME!" Her heart ripped and she yelled at the boy in front of her, "And you loved me! I knew you loved me."

"I do," Zach whispered. He shook his head while his face filled with regret, and agony, and he told the girl in front of him, "But I never should have brought you along." Darling froze and her eyes shot open huge, her breath catching in her throat.

"No no no no-"

"I regret it," Zach said.

"NO!" Darling yelled. "Stop saying that! You have to come back with me right now!"

"No. I left-"

"You abandoned me!" Darling yelled at him in a voice that cracked during it.

"My work is done!" Zach yelled right back.

"It's not! It's not done until all the villains are gone." Darling said it and her voice got darker, and lower. Her face had an amount of regret on it but she did not stop even as Zach shook his head at her. "The you here doesn't do anything! Can't you see that? Compared to how much you did out there?"

"I can't leave-"

"You!" Darling called out, her face so hesitant and apologetic, and yet her voice louder and not like she was just yelling it at the boy in front of her. "The Savior of Paris!"

"Don't-" Zach whispered, one last time at the girl who shook her head and just continued in as loud a voice.

"Underlord! The man who killed Stain! The Champion of the Pit! Destroyer of the Shadows! Our Commander..." Darling shook her head around and clenched her eyes as she opened her mouth wide, and she yelled out at the boy in front of her, "Death!"

Wind blew through the forest and carried off Darling's shouts into a silence that fell across the overgrown town in the forest. Iida was already stuck to the spot from one of the epithets Darling shouted for Zach, while the others who had been stunned by that shout and the others were all focused on the final one. Zach's eyes shut and his head bowed as she yelled that word at him. Sero's eyes were as wide as saucers, and they shook as he stared at Zach and that appearance of dread and acceptance. Then, for the first time since Zach created that dark wall, his head shifted to the side the smallest amount as his eyes opened back up. He stared out at the six staring through the darkness at him.

His expression was so different from anything they had ever seen on his face. Zach stared their way without regret or dread, or any sort of emotion regarding what was just revealed so loudly to them. He just looked at their expressions and then turned back himself to the girl before him who was panting while looking at his face. And then Darling smiled. She smiled at the face looking back at her. "You're back," she said. She smiled brighter, and she laughed a few times while the others stared at Zach with shaking eyes at what that girl just said. "I knew it. Now, let's go before-"

"I'm not leaving, Darling," Zach said. He stared at the girl who started to look to the side to see how they were going to escape, and who spun her head back with her eyes confused and then opening wide at his serious look. "I told you, and I'm not changing my mind."

"You have to!" Darling shouted, though it was quieter as she cut it into a whisper halfway through. Panic covered her face with her eyes darting to the right at the other teens who were struggling to keep up and were also looking back at Zach now in confusion and shock as well. A few of them thought a moment ago that things were about to get crazy chasing them, but Zach shook his head at the girl who started to look at him desperately. "But they know! You have to-"

"I won't leave," Zach declared. He said it firmly and in the most certain tone, strong and with no room for argument that had Darling stammering to herself for a moment as she did not know how to respond to it. "If they throw me in prison then so be it. I won't be leaving with you." Darling stared at Zach with her eyes growing wider and wider, a horrified look on her face as she darted a look back to those heroes and then to him again. "I came back to Japan and I plan to stay here."

"Wh-What- why-" Darling stuttered a couple of times but then her voice faded off as she stared into Zach's eyes. His expression was unshaken, but her eyes started to shake as she stared into his. "How long?" Darling whispered. Zach's lip twitched, and Darling dropped down the gun that was her right hand and that had already lowered a bit when Zach's facial tone completely changed. She stepped forward and whispered, "I knew, it had to be so long. How long were you stuck in there?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with that," Zach said firmly.

"Tell me!" Darling called out louder.

"It won't change anything!" Zach snapped back louder, his voice getting angrier and coming out quickly which seemed strange when his expression looked so steady and strong like that.

Darling shook her head though as she stared at that strong face that was not fooling her anymore. "How long were you in that Void for?" Her lips trembled and she searched his face with a nervous expression over hers. He opened his mouth, but she yelled at him when she saw he was not going to answer, "How long?!"

"Two months, twenty nine days, sixteen-" Zach started to respond.

"Not the answer you gave Gentle!" Darling yelled back at Zach. "Tell me the truth!"

"That IS the truth! I was in that Void for months and-"

"You're lying!" Darling yelled at him, while the others watching were getting more and more lost by the second. "I can tell! How long were you in there?! That dimension-"

"Two months-"

"HOW LONG?!"

"YEARS!" Zach screamed it back at Darling with his lips curling away and his eyes trembling. His right eyelid shook halfway closed and his face twisted and distorted as he brought his left hand up to his head and grabbed his temple with it, digging in his fingers and yelling, "Years! Darling. I was there for-" Zach clenched his eyes shut and he slammed his chin down into his neck, his head twitching and his right hand tapping on his right thigh which Darling snapped her eyes towards for a second before snapping them right back to his face that rose up and glared at her in panicked rage. "Years of absolutely nothing in all directions!"

The mention of 'dimension' had Zach's other friends staring at him in shock as they wondered for a moment if everything he had told them had had some truth to it. Instead though, all of them stared at Zach in increasing horror as he gripped into the side of his head with his metal hand even harder as he yelled out, "Never sleeping! Never getting tired! Never thirsty or hungry or- ahhh! Just straight consciousness in an empty Void for years!" Zach pulled his head back at the look Darling was giving him, but his breath was coming in and letting out too fast and he kept tapping so hard on his right leg that his eyes finally snapped down to. His left hand snapped from his head to his right wrist and he gripped it so hard but kept tapping, "And I wanted to know how long I was in there for so I started counting, but I didn't know that I'd never get tired of tapping the seconds, and that meant that I never stopped tapping! Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-" Zach ground his teeth and struggled to hold back the muffled noises in his throat of trying to say 'tap' more times, just as his left hand was desperately trying to pull his right wrist away from his leg.

"Zach," Darling whispered in a hoarse voice.

"I couldn't stay!" Zach yelled at the girl in front of him with a furious look over his face. "How could I? Like this?!" He ripped his hand away from his thigh and pulled his head back with a look of so much anger covering his face. "After I lost my fucking mind?! I couldn't lead anyone- I couldn't…" Zach bit down hard and snapped his head down to glare into Darling's eyes, but his eyes just got sad and pained and he spoke faster, "Sixty, sixty, twelve, twenty-four, thirty, four, twelve, three hundred sixty five, again and again and again…" Zach panted breaths in but wasn't getting them out, and then he gasped at the girl in front of him, "And I couldn't do it."

"But if you come back with me," Darling began. Zach's jaw locked and he clenched his eyes shut again, turning his head to the side with a look of anger over it at what she started saying. "You can't stay here! We don't have to go back, you could just come with me-"

"I can't go with you." Zach said it and turned his head back to look into Darling's eyes with his own bloodshot and full of regret. "All that time we spent out there," Zach paused and he lowered his head, his eyes darting to the left again but then back ahead at the girl he was speaking to who was all that mattered in the moment. "All that time fighting, every day, all day, I did too much." He whispered the last part and then pursed his lips like what he just said was some secret that slipped out. He bit down on his bottom lip and then shook his head with his eyes clenching again to hold back any tears. What he just said though, was opening up the dam. "Too much," he whispered again. "Weeks, and months, every day fighting for all that time and, and I couldn't-"

"I know. I had to too." She said it and Zach shook his head, but she rose her voice and called at him, "I know you went to more than anyone else, but if you went to the most then I went to the second most! All that time, I was by your side-"

"But I was in charge," Zach whispered in pain to the girl before him. "And so I couldn't let anyone see me break down. When things were bad, real bad," Zach whispered it and his teeth clenched. "I couldn't let anyone- I couldn't ever…" Zach's teeth clenched as faces were flashing through his mind, faces appearing and bodies dropping and pain filling his entire body in a way that had his heart in so much pain and forced him to reach up his left hand and grab his chest as the black flames flickered weaker on his left. "I had to stay strong the whole time, because I needed the others to believe in me. I needed them to see me strong so that they wouldn't falter. I did it because if I didn't then they might die, and then I'd have even more that- that I couldn't even react to. But I'm not, I'm not that cold a person that I could see them die and see all those things and be so emotionless… So I didn't think of- I didn't think about any-"

The girl in front of Zach started to tremble, her face shaking at the look on his of a man about to break. "And I still-" Zach started. He clenched his teeth and his whole face was vibrating like he was fighting himself and pain was coursing through his entire body. The way he just started that had everyone looking at him realizing his mental state not just a flash to when he was in that Void. His voice got softer but in a more introspective tone, "All I had done for so long, was look forward. The present and the future… but I didn't know if I'd ever get out the Void, and there was nothing going on in the present. So when I reached the point where I couldn't just make plans for when I got out anymore, because I didn't know when that would be if ever… I thought of the past. It all came rushing at me at once, everything I had buried down," Zach's voice cracked and tears spilled freely from his eyes. "As I thought of everyone I had let down, every regret I had, all the dead flashing through my mind and all the worst things in the world that I never even tried to understand or contemplate, things that didn't make any sense but that I didn't need to understand to push forward! In a moment that could have lasted a second, or years, because I stopped tapping! I stopped- I- I stopped tapping and, and since my reality and my understanding of time was based around tapping the seconds I had no idea how long it had been, but that single moment I missed a tap changed everything! And in that moment, the biggest regret I had ever had," Zach stopped for a second and he looked straight into Darling's eyes with his own so full of guilt and regret that it made Darling step back from him. "Was you," he finished.

Darling sucked in a huge breath as her own heart filled with the pain of hearing him just say that. "Don't-" she gasped out in agony.

"I never should have brought you with me," Zach said. He said it in pain but his words also made some of the others there glare towards him while darting looks to the girl who seemed like she had been with Zach through all these horrible things he was saying. They glared at him because he had brought her or because of what he was saying now, but Zach shook his head at the girl looking horrified by it anyway and said, "It's what I regret, more than anything."

"Don't say that!" Darling snapped at him. She shook her head in disbelief and then leaned her chest forward at him and shouted, "I came with you because I love you! Because you needed me!"

"But I shouldn't have-"

"You were right to!" Darling countered louder. "The only thing you did wrong was abandoning us! That's the only thing you've ever done wrong in your life! So come back-"

"My work is done!" Zach yelled at her. "I can't do it anymore, and I don't need to. The world is safer. Crime went down. We succeeded! Death can take care of the rest without me-"

"You are Death!" Darling called back at him in denial. "You can't just hand the mantle to Gentle and think I'll follow him for it. I love you. I breathe for you. YOU!"

Darling's look of lust and love and obsession made Zach pull his head back and look at her in the most pained way. He wanted to grip his chest to make some of that pain go down, but he didn't feel he had the right to do even that as the girl looked at him so desperately like this. "I never should have accepted your help in the first place," Zach repeated even after all she just shouted at him. She started shaking her head with a look like she didn't want to believe it, but he said, "The first time I ever went to you was a mistake-"

"What about bringing me back to life?" Darling asked. She asked it in a raspy voice with a look of utter rejection and despair over her face. She stared at Zach with grief covering it and looking like she would be destroyed by the answer, "Do you regret that? Was bringing me back to life when I killed myself, a mistake?"

"No," Zach said with a shake of his head. "Of course not."

"And that's why I love you," she said, looking at him in a way as if asking how he could not understand this.

Zach clenched his teeth so hard and looked at the girl before him in pain that turned to anger. "Well I don't love you," Zach said. "Not like that. And it never will be like that." He said it harshly but had to ground his teeth more as he saw her face twisting in reaction to it. "And I can't come back with you- I can never come back with you."

"You- well, if you don't-" Darling's lips trembled and Zach started shaking his head, muttering 'no' under his breath at how she just started. "If you don't- I'm going to kill myself-"

"GOD DAMNIT DARLING!" Zach screamed. He yelled it and the girl who just threatened to commit suicide leaned her whole body back just as everyone else around them did at that yell. Zach started panting after that shout, but his face scrunched up so much and he stared at the ground with his teeth grinding and his mind racing faster than ever, and yet to no avail. "I don't, I don't know what I'm supposed to-" Zach started it but he stopped and rose both hands to the sides of his head. He dragged them down through his hair and rose his head looking at Darling in the most desperate and defeated way. "I don't know how to save you," he gasped with a horrified expression.

"Wh-What?"

"There were a lot of reasons!" Zach shouted. They were in the middle of an empty town in an even more empty forest, and his voice carried over the harsh wind that just blew through making a lot of noise with the shaking branches around them. Zach shook his head while dropping his eyes to the floor again, then he rose them to Darling and he continued, "Why I came back here. In that untapped moment, I decided on everything and knew by the time I started tapping again that I was going to leave and go to Tartaros. How crazy I felt, my regrets with everyone back here, with how I left the country of Japan, All For One, none of it really mattered!" Zach rose his voice and he leaned towards the girl in front of him who was staring back at him in complete shock. "It was you! Darling, out of all the reasons I came back here, you were the only one that really mattered."

"Wh-Wh- I-I don't understand-"

"We were fighting every single day, and in fights where we were losing friends and almost getting killed ourselves and, and at some point I had accepted it. I had accepted that I wasn't going to make it," Zach said it with guilt overflowing in his voice. "And yet, even though I knew that I would die, and even though I knew! That if I died, you would kill yourself," Zach paused and he clenched his eyes shut in rage, all directed inwards as his hands balled into the tightest fists and his nails cut deep into his right palm. "I still fought, and I still let you come with me because- because I thought it was working. I- I couldn't leave you behind when I left because, because you thought I was the only one who cared. So I tried to show you that that wasn't true. I tried to make you care about people and I saw it was working! I saw you making friends and people caring about you, and you caring about them back! But no matter what happened, you only became more obsessed with me."

"I don't care about anyone else," Darling denied while shaking her head fast at Zach. She stumbled a few steps closer to him, but she stopped as Zach took a step back while looking at her in even more pain. "And I'm not obsessed with you! I'm in love with you! I have been-"

"Since I, brought you back-"

"No," Darling said firmly. She shook her head and sniffled in once, then she said strongly at him, "When I opened my eyes, and you were standing there in front of that portal, you told me that there would always be someone who cared about me. You did it so I wouldn't kill myself again, and I love you for-"

Zach closed his eyes and bowed his head while a gasp of agony slipped out of his lips. "I didn't know," he said through gasping out a breath. Darling stared at him in confusion, and Zach whispered while shaking his bowed head, "I didn't know what it would do. I- I didn't understand my Quirk but I, I said something so irresponsible and…" Zach rose his head and he looked at the girl in front of him. The girl who was still there, who had shot him in the chest because of how much she loved him, who was professing her love even as he denied her over and over. "And I didn't know what it would do to you," he whispered with tears in his eyes and the biggest look of guilt that made Darling lower her shaky eyes down to her hands for a second, as he once again had that look that made it seem like he knew something for certain, a look that she would never doubt seeing on his face.

"But- But I-" she rose her eyes back up trembling while the others were staring at the two of them at a loss for words. Her lips opened and shut, then she said in an assured voice that shook with hesitation, "But I chose to follow you. Because I do love you!"

"I know," Zach whispered. "And yet, it was an obsession nonetheless." He said it and shook his head at Darling while she stared so confusedly and in denial back at him. "I knew that saving someone didn't just mean catching them when they fell. I had All Might to, to tell me what I needed to hear- but he was a hero! He knew, the right thing to tell me while I-" Zach shook his head and let out a pained breath, then he looked back at Darling and whispered, "I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew, was what it felt like to die for you. Like with so many others I felt your pain, but never before had I been so sad while doing it. So hurt, and believing I meant nothing, but I knew that was how it was going to be! When Kurogiri hesitated as he told me, because he didn't know if I would want to when it wasn't an accident! But I did, because I knew what it was like to be the one in that position. And I felt what you felt like which is why I told you how I cared, so that you wouldn't do it again. And I only cared about you more as time went on, and I do love you, but you know it was never in that way-"

"But it could be," Darling said hopefully after hearing all of that. She looked at him with a yearning and hopeful look, and she continued even as he shook his head, because he looked to be wearing down and exhausted at how she countered in again. "Really!"

"That's not what I'm-"

"We could start over and be together somewhere I won't be in danger. And you won't have to feel guilty because you won't be putting me in harm's way- not that you did before because I was choosing to do that myself! Please! I just- I don't want to lose you-"

"But you did," Zach whispered. He looked at her and wished this was happening differently, or not happening at all. "I left and sent myself into the deepest hole to get away from you. Because I wanted you to know that I didn't care about you like that, because I wanted you to accept that maybe the others cared more about you than I did-" Zach's teeth clenched, as even saying all of this was undoing everything that he had done for this purpose. "To leave you behind so you would have to be away from me, so that you could realize that you had so much even without me. It was what I thought would finally save you, and I'm so frustrated that this still didn't work… Getting out of reach."

Zach whispered the last part, but it still reached Midoriya's ears and caused everything going through his mind to come to a short and sudden stop. He thought back on the day he went to the hospital with most of Class A after Zach was shot by the very girl in front of them now. "One of the reasons, the most important..." Midoriya heard Zach's voice as he talked about All For One, about how he had to hide his power from that villain so he sent himself to Tartaros. And yet the way Zach finished it… "I had to get out of reach."

It wasn't about him at all. Midoriya thought it with his own eyes trembling as he stared at the two through the flickering black flames in front of him. Zach had said it so seriously to him that day though, and Midoriya hesitated as he almost pushed all that talk about All For One aside. He thought about those other reasons Zach listed that were not as important to him, and All For One was one of those reasons even if it was just a brief mention. But he said All For One was trying to destroy the world! That wouldn't just be as important as… Midoriya stared out at Zach and the thing he was just thinking trailed off in his mind. Unless…

"But I didn't want you to leave me," Darling said. Her voice came out soft, and caring, and she shook her head at Zach like all he had thought was wrong. "And you didn't need to to save me. I was already saved." Zach shook his head, but Darling started to smile with the tears falling from her eyes dropping as more happy ones hearing all of this. "You're such a- you did that while I was already happy? I was happy just being with you-"

"You could only be happy with me," Zach countered in agony at how calm she was trying to turn this back around, at how she could not see what was so clear right in front of him. He shook his head and said to the girl who tried to shake hers back at him like he didn't understand, "I know, because you're here right now. Because I left you and abandoned you like you said, and yet you're right back here again instead of with the others-"

"Because you're the only one I care about," Darling replied.

"That's not true-"

"It is!"

"It's not!" Zach yelled right back at the girl who was getting angry at him denying what she was saying as truth. "I know it's not! I brought you with me and we made comrades and friends, and you cared about all of them."

"That's not true," Darling said while shaking her head quickly. "I've only ever cared about you. I've only ever loved you."

"You cared about Cee," Zach countered. He said it and Darling's face froze for a moment, and in that moment Zach continued softly, "I know you did. I saw you, crying when she died-"

"No!" Darling shouted back at him. She shook her head and said through a pained voice, "I was crying, because Cee died in your arms. And I knew how much you cared about her-"

"That's a lie, and you know it. That's what you told yourself, because you force yourself to believe that I'm the only one you care for." Zach said it, breaking down what her own mental state was while looking her in the eyes as he never could before. He saw her face twisting more, but he continued anyway, "She was your friend. Your close friend who you loved. And she wasn't the only one. You have other comrades. Other people you care about."

"I don't-" Darling started, but her voice was weaker and putting up less resistance to what Zach was saying.

"As much as I had my own protective measures to keep from thinking about it, what I did bringing you along in that kind of fucking warzone made your condition even worse. Because I never died so you latched on to me and pretended like you didn't care about the others." Zach rose his voice as she shook her head more and more at him, and he told her without an ounce of doubt in his voice, "But I know that you cared about every one of our comrades-"

"And they all died!" Darling yelled, snapping her head up with tears splashing off her face at the shout. Her own eyes widened at the shout she made but then her face scrunched up in even more agony, as dozens and hundreds of faces flashed through her mind. "They all died," she repeated in a whisper. "And I- and I need you-"

"You don't," Zach whispered back while shaking his head at her again. "You think you need me, because you think that the only time you can be happy is when I'm there. You think the only one who won't go away is me, but I left and you know that not everybody died. There are others out there. Our comrades who are still alive and who all still love you, just like I do." Darling closed her eyes and clenched them harder at the thought of messages she had received and never responded to from all the people searching for her. "And you don't need me anymore," Zach said.

"I do!" Darling yelled at him. She snapped her head up and shook it around, pushing away those thoughts trying to slip in. "You are the most amazing person in the world! I want to follow you forever! I, I don't need to but I want to follow you!" Zach frowned at the girl who looked desperately back at him and started to tear up at the thought of leaving him again. "I remember, every single speech you made. I didn't just fall in love with you for one thing, but for all of it- and that wasn't because I was obsessed! I just- You inspired me. All those things you shouted at the gladiators in The Pit! The ones you had been killing in death matches for days! '…Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! Never again!' And those people who should have hated you, they all cheered your name and roared for you just like I did. You stood there, on the verge of death promising to change this world and destroy places like that- while you bled out, while your organs failed and your heart was stopping. Every single one of them chose to follow you, and every last one of them died… And Yemen?! The things you said to those people ready to go to war! I remember every word!"

Darling shook her head at Zach as he stood there unwavering, and she shouted at him, "Those mobs ready to kill each other over nothing! A war about to start and you- I can see you out there, stepping out of your plane's wreckage with your stomach opened up and your arm-" Darling gasped at the memory in her mind, and she yelled at the boy in front of her, "And in that state you screamed at those people ready to massacre each other. The ones about to start a war, you told them 'You don't know who will die. You don't know whose children will become orphans who will believe in this cause a hundred times more than you do now once you've become their martyrs! You have no idea whose families will burn! Whose cities will crumble and the lives that will be destroyed!' And you told those people, the ones about to go to war… that if they wanted to fight someone then they could fight you. They could fight you and you would kill them all, to unite the country in hate for a single person instead of splitting it and causing so much more- And I ran out there to stand with you! I was there with you all the way! And we stopped that war before it started. And we stopped the worst villains in the world. And I saw you do the most amazing things, and be the most amazing person, and I memorized every word you said!"

"You were there," Zach said softly. "You were with me, and I needed you." The use of the past tense just made Darling's face scrunch up more instead of getting any happier by the fact that he was admitting that he did need her, once. "Because I knew that you would kill yourself and that- as much as that killed me and reminded me daily how I had yet to save you, it continued to save me. As many times as you saved me yourself, the idea that dying would mean you dying too kept me alive. I, don't think I ever could have defended myself in the Pit if I didn't believe that. I never could have made it through every one of those battles… But as much as I may have needed that then, it was so wrong of me to accept that at all. But I- I told myself for so long that as long as you were with me I could keep working on it. I told myself that one day I could fix things so that your life wouldn't be attached to mine, that you wouldn't feel like I was all that mattered, but I never gave it priority. Instead I- I thought it was selfish to think about you first before all the other people we were saving. Just because I cared about you more than the rest of them… But I don't care anymore if it's selfish. I just want to save you. That's all I want- that's what I want more than anything in the world."

Darling's emotions conflicted inside her as what Zach said sounded like he cared more about her than anything and yet at the same time sounded like he was telling her to go away. Her confusion bubbled as Zach whispered in pain, "I told myself that I would deal with it later, but I knew that I was going to die and never addressed it. I accepted that I was dead and just… pretended like I wouldn't have to deal with that because, because maybe it would resolve itself. And I thought it was working. Sometimes, I saw things getting better, and then the progress would reverse as soon as you saw me do something- as soon as we talked-" Zach couldn't finish, and he shook his head once right and left with a regretful look over it. "So I left you. Because you have to move on, which means I have to-"

"I was with you through everything!" Darling countered angrily, her voice raising over Zach's and her expression covering in anger to block out the confusion. "Only I know you! We- We went into that world where we lost our physical forms and I felt you." She paused and looked deep into his eyes that recognized what she said and got sadder as hers did too. "Our minds merged and I learned how you felt all the time. All that pain- I understand it. You know I do." Darling stepped forward and begged him in a pleading, final tone, "You don't need to be alone. Stay. If you need to stay then stay, but let me stay with you. Let me live with you and- and! You don't need to do this alone. You don't need to punish yourself anymore…"

Zach's eyes opened a little wider, but then they returned back to normal size. He lowered his gaze down to her feet for a second. Is that what you think? Is… Zach's heart tugged at him and he lifted his sad but affectionate eyes back up to the girl in front of him who looked at him with more care than anyone. Love. She really, loves me so much. Zach's lips pursed but he shook his head once more even with his eyes watery. "You don't think I want to?" Zach asked softly. He stared at Darling who looked back at him with giant eyes of confusion that he wanted to do what she said but would start like that, in such a knowing voice but determined to say no again. His eyes were soft and his face hurt though as he continued, "You don't think it was hard? Denying you over and over again? Turning you away as you'd 'accidentally' drop all your clothes again? You have no idea how much I-" Zach cut himself off with his face scrunching up in self-hatred that Darling didn't understand and neither did the others staring at him in confusion as to what he was talking about.

"Why didn't you?" Darling asked, desperate for the answer.

"Because I wanted to save you," Zach whispered. He looked at her with agonized eyes and answered her, "And when I saw you in that much pain every time I rejected you, it hurt me so much that I couldn't stay strong. I'd call to you and tell you 'focus on the mission,' or 'not right now,' and I left it open! I- I told myself it was because maybe, maybe one day I would really fall in love with you on my own and I'd be able to… But I knew, I knew each time that I was breaking because I couldn't stand to see you hurt, the long-term consequences be damned. Even though I knew that I could never be with you like that. Another mistake I made," he whispered quieter with the most regret anyone could imagine spreading over his face as he stared at the girl before him. "Because as long as I felt the need to save you, I'd always believe that maybe I should just accept your feelings. So that you wouldn't look that hurt anymore. I thought that loving you would have been the answer and I- But I knew! That if I ever gave in and accepted your love then it would be in part because I was just trying to save you. And I couldn't do that to you," Zach shook his head while looking at the stunned girl before him who stepped back with her whole face shaking and her body trembling with it. His black flames simmered down on his left side only a few feet high, but no one else was moving as they stared in shock at Zach. "Seeing how much you loved me, I couldn't pretend that I loved you in the same way if somewhere, deep inside, I'd always know that I was doing it just to save you."

"But I-"

"You deserve better than that!" Zach yelled at her as she tried to interrupt him. He yelled it at her and made Darling pull her face back, shaking as she stared at the boy denying her right to her face even while looking like he loved her more than anyone had ever loved her before. Everyone stared at Zach frozen at his shout, and Zach himself brought his left hand up to the side of his head and gripped it again. "What was I thinking? I dragged you along, even though I'd always known that. Was it because I needed your help? Or because I was willing to risk your life if it meant saving a million others? But I'm done with that! All I want is to save you, to fix my biggest mistake that brought you into a war that you never should have had to be a part of." Zach rose his eyes and lowered his hand with a shaky look into Darling's bright green eyes, eyes that made him smile as he finally appreciated seeing them again. For the last time, he thought to himself, with a matching expression that had Darling's heart ripping and her hands reaching up and grabbing her chest in pain.

"Please- you don't- we can still be-" Darling stammered with a defeated look over her face, making desperate pleas despite what she already knew.

"…The reason I didn't let the bullet go through me. You're right, and I couldn't dodge, but I could have done that. But I knew it wouldn't kill me. Because before I even thought the word 'sniper,' I knew. Inside I knew it was why I was being shot, who would shoot me at that exact moment…" Yaoyorozu stared out towards Zach feeling so confused and hurt and unsure, but she knew what Zach was saying made sense. She thought back on the moment he looked at her and paused, He really let down his guard. And in that moment where she would have shot him, both because of that and because of the jealousy. How didn't I realize it-

"Thank you Darling," Zach said again. "For shooting me, and for every time since. All that time I pretended you weren't following me stealthier than all the others."

"You never saw me," Darling gasped out with tears in her eyes.

"I never even let myself think about you," Zach said back to her in an even more pained voice. He shook his head and said through clenched teeth, "But you were warning me. I would see those glares on windows that I'd track right back to assassins that were too good to ever make such easy mistakes as those." Zach's jaw tightened so much while the others watching all shifted their gazes to the girl whose lips shook as Zach had known, he had known all that time, and never once acknowledged her presence.

"Please…" Darling whispered.

"I could never be with you," Zach said over her own whispered plea. "Without feeling I'm only doing it for you, and you deserve better." His voice was steady and assured, and he stepped towards the girl who had backed away from him during what he had just been saying. "Someone who loves you and wants to be with you because that's what they want. I would never know if that was my reason because though a big part of me did want to just accept you, I also know that I'm too kind and might just want to be with you because I want to see you happy. Because you did so much for me and you deserve to get what you want, but what you want isn't just me. You want someone who loves you back the way you love me-"

"I just want you-"

Zach kept walking towards Darling. He took another step that cut her off as she eased back, her feet frozen to the spot though even as she looked smaller compared to the huge presence walking towards her. "I'm sorry," he said to the girl sniffling and shaking her head rapidly at him back at that apology.

"The man who killed Stain." Iida stared at Zach as he smiled softer and took another step towards the girl.

"I'm sorry," Zach repeated in a quieter voice.

"Stop," Darling said, her eyes closed and her face rejecting what was happening around her. Zach saw through that rejection that she already knew though, and he stepped towards her again.

"Turning you away as you'd 'accidentally' drop all your clothes again?" Ashido and Mineta both stared at this beautiful girl who sounded like she would do anything for Zach. And yet as much as they had realized that early on, they turned to Zach now too just in front of her a couple feet and realized that the same thing was true about him.

"I'm sorry…" Zach whispered, his voice steadier even as he looked down with a resolute but sad expression. Zach stepped the last foot forward and he rose his arms around hers that shook violently as he moved. His hands went behind her back and he hugged the shorter girl into his chest, and he whispered under his breath, "Kobayashi, Airi."

Darling's head buried into Zach's chest stopped shaking. Her eyes snapped open wide as her entire body froze up. Her rasping and wheezing breaths all caught in her lungs, as that familiar name echoed in her head. The confusion rising was pushed away by the recognition that understood her confusion was just a denial of what she really knew. Darling's lips started to tremble and Zach whispered to the girl who he called by her real name, for the very first time, "It's your name. Your real name, not my 'Darling' that you named yourself, but Airi." Zach held her closer and then he slid the glove off his right hand with his left. "We had good times together," he whispered. "But our time is over."

"It can't be," Darling whispered, shaking her face into Zach's chest as the muffled words came out and only reached the boy whispering right down to the top of her head.

Zach lifted his ungloved right hand and put it behind her head. He stroked it through her hair and she tilted her head back to look up into his eyes from right there. "I'll always love you," he said down to her, "but you need to live a real life. You might think it was all for me, but do you know when I saw you the happiest? The moment where I thought maybe what I was doing was enough, because I saw you happier than you had ever been?" Zach lifted his lips up into a gentle smile and brushed his hand down the back of the trembling girl's head. "You had just pulled a family out of a burning building. You told them to run because you needed to get back to the fight, but they grabbed you. They grabbed you and they-" Zach saw Darling's face shaking more, tears spilling out of her shaking eyes at what he was saying. "They told you 'thank you,' and they grabbed you while crying and said it over and over, and you had just saved them on instinct in the middle of a fight but to them! You had just saved their lives and while bleeding out the right side of your face, bleeding for them, they looked at you like you were their hero."

"Ahhh," Darling tried to keep it in but her voice slipped out as she was unable to deny what he was saying. As what he told her resonated back in her mind and reminded her of how she felt in that moment.

"And I saw you smile at them as they ran off. I remember seeing the biggest, most genuine smile on your face not while you knew I was watching you do something amazing, not when you thought I was proud of you or happy with you- but when those people you saved called 'Thank you.' When they called it back to you in their native language that you only knew a few words in. But you knew that much, and I had never seen you look happier." Darling had tears pouring out of her eyes, sobbing as Zach told her that. "Before I knew it you had become the best person I knew," Zach said in a low voice. "So this, is my last order as Death. That you have to listen to and take to heart."

Darling opened her clenched and sobbing eyes, and she tilted her head back to look into Zach's eyes as he started like that. Zach lowered his head down to hers and he pressed his forehead against hers, and she stared up into eyes that were crying just like hers even while he had a smile over his face. Then he commanded, "Live. You're a good person, Airi. A great one. The best person I've ever known. But our time together is over. So I order you to live. Live a full, amazing life. If you don't live this life, then everything I did was all for nothing." Zach's smile shook and his face covered in terror that flashed over it in a moment only for him to try and return the look he just had. More tears fell from Darling's eyes and her heart leapt as he said that.

"None of it," Zach whispered. "Not a single thing in my entire life… ah- if you don't, if you aren't happy then I- I failed." Tears dropped off his nose and fell onto Darling's face as he continued to press his crying face down into hers. "I want you to live. Live a life you can be proud of. A happy life… And when you're old and gray, come back to me." Darling's eyes shot open huge, and Zach said to her, "I'll be waiting to hear all about it. All about your kids, and grandkids, and all your adventures." Zach smiled at her and shook his head with a broken laugh while she stared up in amazement and love, and yet also the maturity to realize what denying him even now would mean for them, which led her huge eyes to tremble and fill with even more water at that realization.

"If you don't live this life, if you don't live happily, I'll never be able to forgive myself. Alright? For me, will you do it?" He asked it and felt selfish even as the words came out of his mouth, but he hugged her closer and said in a hoarse voice, "The last thing you can do for me, is to live a full life. A beautiful life. A life, like the ones we told people all over the world could exist if they strove towards it." Zach's voice got higher pitched and more broken up as he finished, and his teeth clenched as he felt Darling's head nodding into it.

Airi started nodding, while sobbing, and she said, "I'm sorry." Snot ran down the bottom of her face and tears dripped off her chin as she sobbed at him over and over, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," Zach told the person he loved the most, and he embraced her in a closer hug with Airi throwing both of her arms around his back this time and holding on for dear life like she never wanted to let go. "I could never have asked for a better friend."

The dark flames completely died out between Zach and the others, as he had not even focused on feeding it the minimal amount for the past minute. All his focus was on one place and everything else around him became unimportant and unnecessary. He and Darling embraced in a loving way without any care for what was around them. The six other eighteen year olds had been unable to cut in through the confrontation despite all they had to say and all they wanted to interrupt with. At the embrace though that felt like a goodbye, with the darkness gone and no longer blocking them from the short distance between those two, reality came crashing back down to them.

Ashido shook her head around blinking several times as she had been staring forward so hard without closing her eyes as she did not want to miss a moment. The fact that this was all real shattered the surreal moment before her, and she leaned back while staring at Zach and this girl Airi, tears filling her eyes at what she was watching that was beautiful despite her not understanding this relationship. All they had talked about gave her the insight into the mystery of this girl Zach would never tell them about though, and as to why he would never talk about her too.

Mineta lowered his eyes to the floor at what he just thought, but then he whispered while glancing to his left, "She still… shot Zach."

Even if she didn't, Mineta, Midoriya thought as a lump bounced up and down in his throat. She was part of the Lifebringer Incident and never faced justice like Zach did. We'd, have to arrest her either way.

"Death." He really was. Sero's eyes locked solely on the back of Zach's head. I defended you every day but… I really believed, all of it. Every story. Every lie you told me. So why? Why don't I feel…

Darling's hands loosened on Zach's back as he started to pull away from her, but he felt that her arms were lowering more than just from him pulling away. He stared into her eyes once he could, and he used his right hand to brush the brown hairs out of the way so they could make better eye contact. She whispered up at him, "I'm going to miss you."

"I'll always be with you," Zach said, lowering his hand from the side of her face where he left it after brushing her hairs aside. He lowered it down to the top of her chest and gave her a caring smile as he pressed his palm against her heart. "But I'm going to miss you too." Zach lowered his left arm from around her side first, and then he slowly pulled his right hand from her chest as her arms lowered from him.

Airi pursed her lips together hard, but then she nodded at him in the most serious way she could to show she was following that last order, as much as it hurt her to do. Her eyes shifted once to her right while her head was still facing Zach's, and she just thought one more time in regret, I'm sorry. Her eyes locked back on his, and then she took a step back away from him. "Goodbye, Airi," Zach said.

"Goodbye."

In an instant, sharp wings snapped out of Darling's back and jets turned on all over her body including below her feet right against the ground. At that same instant, Zach's head snapped to his left and his eyes flared red while glaring straight at one of his old classmates. "Iida I swear to God," Zach snarled with his voice scratchy and deep, making Iida freeze mid-leaning-forward. His Engines sputtered instead of turning on as the immediate fear stopped him from getting any control over his Quirk. Zach's body turned while Darling shot off the ground and up in the sky, but no one was looking up at the girl escaping into the night. They all stared straight at Zach whose fists were balled at his sides and leaking black wisps as his red eyes bored straight into Iida's. "If you go after her, I will fight you right here and now. Then I'll disappear and you'll never have to see me again."

---

A/N ...Thanks for reading. I really hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. It's a pretty huge one, with a lot going on and happening, and a lot coming out for the first time. Ended it on a cliffhanger, but I've got the next chapter started and will try to get the next one up soon. Leave a review telling me what you think below!

Naruffoku chapter 166 . Jul 6

Hey so about the impossible 3000 metre shot, that's the dumbest thing I've heard. The bullet would take 9 seconds to reach Zach and by then he would already have knocked them out

Well... currently the longest confirmed sniper shot is 2500 meters, so I don't know why you'd think it's so ridiculous. Especially in the future with better weapons and the addition of Quirks. If the bullet came at an angle that he wouldn't be able to see beforehand as they were hoping for too, plus the bullets probably fire faster from better weapons too- anyway, just spitballing a lot of possibilities here. Thanks for the review though!

alexanderjuarez499 chapter 166 . Jul 5

and what happened to the letter that was for Momo, does she forget it or simply ignore it? since nothing of that subject is mentioned.

No spoilers. XD

xilios2000 chapter 166 . Jul 6

You know you kinda missed a oppertunity with zach's cover story. You could have made much more interesting lies about where he was all that time. Like for instance make him claim he was sent to warhammer 40k or a similar grimdark setting with the reason for turning himself in being him wanting to attone for the atrocities he commited while there. Or you could have made him claim he was sent into that white void from the amaterasu fight for that period but have time elapsed from his point of view be millenia in lenght with flipping from crazy to sane multiple times like professor paradox from ben 10 with his turning himself in being either the result of long introspection or more interesting for him to long back for the white void because he was institutionalised like in shawshank redemption after spending so long in there although that last one might not fit with the story it is still probably something you should ponder so you can do better next time. Some food for thought there. I will however say that i love this fic and that this is meant as constructive critisicim. Ps. Is the shadow boss king more based of king from one punch man or king from worm? Or does he have his own gimmick?

Those would've been a lot darker lies for him to talk about in such a carefree way with his friends... I'll just say that the backstory he had was fantastical and fun with a hint of darkness, for a reason. No need for a grimdark scenario when the reality was like that already, and as for how long he spent in the Void... well, I don't know if I should say nice job on calling it (since it seems like you thought it didn't happen), I know someone put it in an earlier review that they thought Zach was lying about the amount of time in the Void. Anyway, some of the stuff you wrote in here actually gets some nice parallels in this chapter so I hope you enjoyed those, and I'm glad you're still liking the story! As for King, that's just his villain name it's not based on anyone. Thanks for the review!

AMR-MNR chapter 166 . Jul 5

As the other guy asked, 'i thought there's be a chapter today?' will there be one on the 7th? Cause it looks like things are starting to accelerate into freefall. We still haven't seen anything on All Might and Hawk's end since the school roof scene, and that was pretty juicy in itself, and now Deku has his nose on a dangerous trail as well!
(Btw, where are the comments about Zach pinpointing a sniper from two miles away? AND getting there, AND BEATING THEM in less than thirty seconds? And then finding the tracker in less than thirty seconds as well? )
Anyways, hope you have good days ahead of you, I can't wait for more content!

So close! Lol it was 12:30 A.M. on the 8th as I finished editing this, started around 7:30 last night and really thought I could get it out on the 7th. Things did just accelerate as you thought- but we'll see what comes next. Zach pinpointing that sniper... might not have been all his own badassery on its own, as he admitted late in this chapter. Not to take away from how epic the rest of what he did there was though. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Momozaki chapter 166 . Jul 5

One last chance
MOMOZAKIIIIIII

Lol well, right when it seemed like it might be a Momozaki chapter it turns into a Darling one! XD however, things might look good for the ship with Darling flying off? Who knows?! Haha thanks for reviewing!

Guest chapter 166 . 19h ago

Hey I just wanted to say this fic is a monster not only in length but it's honestly one of the best stories on this hellsite. I tune into this more than I time into the actual show. I really want Sazaki to have a happy end like get a break, boy works too much. I don't know if you have a sequal in mind but I wouldn't mind seeing ex-warlord/illegal global watchdog leader/terror of the villain world/frequent annoyance of the hero world/ scariest mofo on the planet/etc. Being a friendly househusband to his hero wife Creati and a great dad. Like I'm imagining him in a parent teacher meeting and the teacher is shitting himself because he just told Sazaki that his kid got into a fight and Sazaki just asked him if they "went for the throat like he told them"

Thanks! Glad to hear how much you like Death so far, and that you're into it more than the actual show is amazing. Can't spoil anything about the endgame of Death, but I will say to you and everyone else that the predictions I had earlier about like "we have 70-80 chapters left" then "50-60 more..." might have been a little off... by under-shooting how long it's going to be! XD I think this story will go well past 200 chapters, possibly to even 220 or 230. I don't know and those might be long-shots, but I have the ending in sight and will reach it... some day soon. Anyway thanks for this review, and loved the predictions/hopes for what comes next though I won't say anything about them! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!