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!

168. Chapter 168

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 168:

One Year Ago…

"Raaaa! Haaaaaa! CH-CH-CH-CH!"

Rmbmbmbrrrmmrmrmrm… Doof Doof DOOF DOOF! DOOF!

The tunnel around Zach shook, but he looked to his left and right while ignoring the sounds of the cheers getting louder every second. He ignored the blasting speakers and the thunderous drums making the tunnel of sand and concrete walls vibrate around him. The scarred-up seventeen year old with only a rag around his waist and a collar on his neck looked at the two men on his right, then the man and the woman on his left who were all staring at him and darting their eyes around in fear or determination, or both. Zach stared at a man to his left who looked determined but he could not decide for what reason. "Remember the plan," Zach said.

The guards walking with the group looked towards Lifebringer as he said it. "Nobody move. When it starts, just stand exactly where you are."

"Hey! Shut up about-"

Zach's head turned and he glared at the Nigerian villain snapping that at him. His eyes did not change shade, but the villain froze for a moment before smirking at the teenager wearing a collar like all the others. Zach looked around at the others despite that villain smirking again, "No matter what, just stay where you are once it starts. They can't kill us all."

"Oh yes we can," a guard leading the group started in a cocky voice, looking back with a long scar crossing his face from the top right to the left side of his chin. "We can kill every one of you at any time."

"They gamble on these fights with millions of dollars on the line," Zach continued while ignoring the villains who he knew might shake the resolves of the others around him. "They can't just kill us. As long as we don't play their game, we can all survive this. Just stand still!"

"We will."

"I promise- I- I won't move an inch!"

"…As long as no one else moves, I will stay in my spot." Zach looked to his left again at the man who said that, and he nodded firmly at the older man in a way that got his fellow competitor opening his eyes wide.

Then Zach looked to the muscular woman next to that man who stared back at him uncertainly, before nodding her head too. The woman who only had a rag around her waist just like the others started, "I won't-"

"RAAAA!"

"Ladies and gentlemennn! Are you READY?!" The screams got louder and the voice of a man each of the gladiators despised with every fiber of their beings reverberated through the tunnel. The light at the end of it was getting brighter and they could see it was a sunny day outside that was not going to help with the heat any as they were already sweating. The light spilling into the tunnel made the sweat on their mostly naked bodies glisten, and the sweat on Zach's body ran down it along the crevices and lines of the scars already covering him.

Don't get afraid by them. Get convinced. Be afraid enough of my scars to listen and not try to fight. Just listen to me and everything will be alright!

"…AND PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER AS FIVE GLADIATORS ENTER INTO… THE PIT!" The name of the arena made the entire coliseum shake, and the guards/villains walking with the prisoners all smirked and started getting rowdier themselves as they neared the tunnel's end and the opening to the circle of sand that made up The Pit's arena floor. The walls were made of limestone but colored the same as sand as were the benches wrapping around the top of the upper walls for the first several rows. Encircling the top of the arena's taller outer walls were verandas that extended over the top rows of nicer seats and cast shade over where the most wealthy and powerful villains were standing.

The gladiators walked out into the arena, five of them at a time, and a wall of limestone rose up from the ground behind them and enclosed the group inside a solid wall with no escape in any direction. There was a glowing red line at the top of the wall too right before it cut outwards and farther up towards the shady top rows. A hum came out of the line but was barely audible over the shouts of over two hundred villains gathered at the arena. All of them jeered and roared and cheered down at the gladiators, while directly across from where the tunnel had been, and all the way at the top row of the arena's outer walls, the man yelling into a microphone attached to his headset stood up. The man had dark black skin but wore contrasting bright colors and thin white fabric over his body. He had a bright blue turban-like headpiece wrapped around the top of his head, shiny various-colored jewels on his rings and necklaces and earrings, and his toga of white cloth was so light on his body that it was almost see-through.

Umbuju stepped forward to the edge of the top row on his side of the arena that only had a few chairs for him and the most important VIPs. The seats around where he normally sat were all filled at the moment, and the powerful African men in charge of entire groups of villains were already making bets with each other after seeing the gladiators step out. Across the arena from their top area though, there was also a huge screen that contrasted with the more medieval-style vibe of the Pit, and that screen already had five columns with the faces of each of the competitors in it. Zach's face was in the middle of the screen too as the gladiators walked out of the tunnel in the same order the screen had them in. The Nigerian villain in charge of the Pit looked down to the arena and straight into the eyes of the teenage boy on-line with him who never failed to glare straight up into his eyes with the most hateful look that had Umbuju smirking right back at the powerless kid who could not touch him up there.

The collars around the gladiators' necks could be detonated by any of the guards working at The Pit, better known as the Pit Crew. Umbuju's villains stood at the top of the encircling wall watching the gladiators inside who they had gathered and took care of for fights like these. The Pit Crew did not wear special uniforms, but they each did have automatic rifles in hand and pouches full of Quirk-enhancing drugs on their right sides next to their detonators. Their personal detonators would not be necessary even in the attempt of a break-out, during a match at least. The red line just below the top of the innermost wall was connected to the collars as well, and if one were to raise above it…

Zach stared past the red line. He stared past the four guards on the opposite side of the arena at the top of the wall, and past a few dozen strong villains sitting closest to their bosses who came here for the gambling and fun but also for an important meeting with each other. It was a safe place where they knew the meeting would go smoothly thanks to all of Umbuju's guards, and several villain groups yelled at each other and called out to make bets with the Pit Crew moving around and taking them from everyone there.

White glows appeared equidistant on the wall surrounding the sandy arena floor. Over each of the glows appeared the face of a competitor, and Zach walked straight ahead towards his but not without saying one more time, "No matter what. Just don't move." His eyes darted from Umbuju who started calling out about the matchup for the day, to the other villains all around who were getting competitive with this even though most were looking to him. The other four all look strong enough to get bets too. They won't be able to just kill one to get us moving. They can't! This has to work. As long as no one moves… Zach steadied his expression and made sure to look as confident in this strategy as possible when he turned back around. There was a circle glowing in white on the ground ten feet in front of the wall that had his face on it. He stepped into the circle and then turned and looked back into the arena, and he looked to his left and then his right at the others who made a pentagon with equal length sides with him.

Zach ignored all the shouts down at him. He heard various names shouted down at him, but he did not react to a single one and just stared his competitors down. His eyes locked on the most composed gladiator there who turned away from Zach after a second and turned to the man who had stammered his response back in the tunnel. "Not a muscle," the dark-brown skinned man growled, his shoulders broader than everyone else's and his tone warning for the tall man on his right who appeared scared but nodded at him in agreement with that.

"Let's see what we've got for our brave gladiators today!" Umbuju called out, the signal for his men to move forward right to the edge of the arena. The guard across the arena from Zach to his left pulled out a knife, a string looped through the hilt that he held up above his head. He dropped it off the side of the wall, but it swung back and hit the wall at nine feet high. The shortest of the men on the arena floor was closest to where the guard just dropped that rusty dagger, he looked up to the height it was dangling, and then he grinned while raising his eyes up to the guard who was smirking at him like he could not reach.

If none of us move, he knows the one with the least amount of bets might get blown up first. It won't happen though! Zach thought it even as he saw more of the villains up above calling out insults at the shorter gladiator. Some looked more closely at him though, wondering if he could jump up and grab that knife- but they all stopped thinking so hard about it and started laughing instead as a rag fell down to the ground a few feet away from the one female gladiator.

"Oh look! Some armor!" Umbuju called it out seriously, which made it all the funnier to the villains who couldn't hold themselves together. They bellowed down at the muscular woman and some started yelling out in anger or disappointment that she would have something to cover her tits up with. The 'armor' was not even enough to fully wrap around her body though, and the woman with short hair just down to her shoulders turned her head with wide eyes at the guard closest behind her expecting something more.

Across the arena from her though, something else did hit the ground. The thin man who was lean himself and not looking very weak, turned his head and stared ten feet from his white circle. He stared at the ground where there was a steel sword that looked light enough to swing around easily, as well as sharp enough to easily cut through- "Don't even think about it." The thin man rose his eyes and stared past the sword at the buffer and darker man glaring him down. "We aren't moving."

A rusty metal stake dropped down right at the edge of the wall behind the man who just warned that nervous one not to move. He glanced back at it, but then turned back forward in a calm way like he was not even thinking about it.

All we want to do is survive, Zach thought. He took in a deep breath and kept a calm look over his face, but not one that was ready to fight or anything. He stood still in place and had his arms down at his sides unthreateningly. The woman to his left who was despairing over not even having a weapon in close vicinity of her, looked towards Zach and she tried to calm herself down, though her eyes did dart to the left again at the more confident man on her own left who had looked too happy to get that knife. The man just farther around the circle from that short man was also looking to his other side in even more fear, before his eyes darted to his left again at the biggest man who was farther from the sword than him, but if that guy were to get a headstart for the best weapon down there-

"..And for our reigning champion!" Umbuju called out. The guard directly behind Zach stepped forward, lifted up his right hand, and then opened it up to show nothing in it. "Oh? Looks like he doesn't get a weapon to fight off the others. How unfortunate for him."

Is that why he didn't want us fighting?

Did he know he wasn't getting one beforehand?

Zach continued to keep the same expression, but he turned his head and looked towards those who were getting too anxious. People started yelling down at the gladiators they picked to win, and the more people who yelled out their names and cheered for them, the more some of them were thinking they had a chance to win this. Damn it. They all want to see me dead so much that they're not picking me. Even though I won the last one- and giving me nothing will make them even more confident to go against me and the spectators less likely to pick me. Shit. Look at my body! Look at my face! I don't look nervous do I? I have nothing to be nervous about if they don't move. If we just stand still, they can beat us and they can torture us, but we don't have to play this game!

"…you all know the rules of this Royale! Five enter. One leaves. Even think about using your Quirks and that collar on your necks will blow your head a hundred meters off your body!" The crowd roared and taunted the gladiators below, some of them leaning forward and spitting towards Sazaki who they jeered the loudest at. They screamed down at him, hundreds of people, while four others stared his way at the stoic and steady look he forced to cover his face despite it all. Come. Please I need you to come right now. They have to be looking for me already. They'll find this place! Even if the plan doesn't work, if I can just stall for as long as possible I-

"Hahaha…" Umbuju's low voice chuckled over the speakers and made the crowd grow even louder. The arena started to shake with the drums again, and the spectators stomped their feet down on the drum beat and made them yell and cheer. They leaned forward and downed their drinks or started splashing them around as they couldn't hold their hands steady at the excitement of the brutality they were about to watch. The other gladiators down on the arena looked around in fear above them, and they felt the collars on their necks as the hum of the red line above them got louder, and in the corners of their visions they could see their opponents and the weapons and which of their opponents were looking towards the weapons.

"Let the games begin," Umbuju said, and the crowd erupted in the biggest roar. Everyone was up on their feet and shouting down at the gladiators in the instant the match started.

"KILL THEM!"

"PICK UP THE SWORD!"

"GRAB IT YOU COWARD!"

"DO IT!"

Sweat coated their already hot and sweaty bodies, and it dripped down nervous and panicked faces. Stern looks faltered at the anxious ones of the other gladiators, ones who they shook their heads at to stay where they were standing. "Nobody move!" Zach shouted. He did not move his hands, nor his feet, he just yelled it and he darted his eyes around to each of the others who only darted a quick look to him before checking back on the others who they were more nervous were going to start moving anyway. "Just look at me! No one move-"

"He's tricking you!"

"KILL SAZAKI FIRST!"

"GET DEATH!"

"HE'S UNARMED!"

Someone's going to move.

They're all going to go for the sword! I- I could just-

He's going to move.

"Stop!" Zach yelled to his right.

The buff man glanced to his left again and saw Lifebringer looking so afraid. The sheer panic on the teen's face made the man hesitate, but his eyes shifted back to the right just as the shortest man two to his right looked inwards too. The man between them had stared across at the woman who suddenly moved in the corner of his vision. She was leaning forward, as if towards him! He did not see the glob of spit that just hit her in the left ear, and he took a step at the sight of her flinch. Any chance of him stopping and rethinking it, was completely cut off as the two on either side of him sprinted in that moment he took a step towards the sword…

---

Present

"…Then I'll disappear and you'll never have to see me again."

Zach's final words to his friends had everyone silent. Another cool breeze blew through the forest, and the teens felt their phones buzz but nobody reached for theirs yet. Zach's warning to Iida was meant for everyone, and they all just stared at their old classmate standing before them in that abandoned village overgrown with forest. After only ten seconds though, Zach's hands unclenched from his darkened fists and lost the black color to them. His eyes lost their red glow and his entire demeanor lost the threatening and intense vibe to it.

Midoriya's eyes snapped over Zach's head as he realized in all that tension that he had solely focused on Zach and forgot about the girl who flew up and away. How far- wait, Midoriya's eyes darted back down to Zach's face and he knew. She's gone. The way he looks, he thinks there's no chance anyone would ever find her again. Midoriya opened his mouth, but he did not know what he was about to say and just hesitated like that for a few seconds before closing it.

They all stared at Zach, whose expression did lose the hostility to it and yet was different from anything they had seen before that night. It was the look on his face after Darling had called him out as Death. Ashido was frozen as she had opened her mouth just like Midoriya, only to find her whole mouth dry at that look in his eyes. She had thought it was fake before since Darling had so quickly broken that dark, intense, and powerful expression with talk of the Void, but it was back again. The person she was looking at did not seem nervous about what had just been revealed, nor saddened as the person he claimed to love so much just left him forever, nor worried about the future. He was calm. His eyes steady.

Zach looked around the floor near him once he had lost his tense appearance and just looked different instead. The shift was as clear as when Kaminari started laughing and calling himself Raijin as he shoved his feats in their faces. Yet Zach was not attacking them, nor was he trying to run, and none of them feared he would after what he had told Airi a few minutes ago. Zach leaned down and he grabbed a chunk of wall that had broken outwards when Midoriya smashed through it and had been resting in the dirt. He lifted the wall up, and he turned it so the longer side was vertical before planting it down in the ground. Then he swiped his left hand across the top of it to flatten it out, breaking apart the bumpy and sharp edges. Then he curled his left hand along the sharp edge he had just created by doing that, and he dragged it from one side to the other to make it into a smooth curve instead. Then he turned back to the others and he sat down on the seat he made two feet off the ground.

Sero stared at Zach motionless as words echoed through his head. Things they had talked above over the past month, and things he had just heard, and his eyes blinked a few times when he realized how dry they were.

"Don't talk about Darling, like you know her," Sero thought about what Zach said in the hospital when they first asked him about the girl who had been there that night. "I won't. I'll tell you guys anything you want, but I won't talk about her. I won't put her in danger." I understood why. I really got it. And now that I've seen, I know that even if you had tried to explain that, we never would have understood. But, you didn't tell us anything. You didn't tell us the truth. And yet, now we know. Sero stared at Zach as he sat right in front of them, staring at the six of them in a calm and serious way Sero wanted to recognize on his face but could not in the least. Now we know what really happened… Death.

Yaoyorozu's hands trembled at her sides as she looked straight into Zach's hazel eyes. I knew. I never doubted since you returned, that you were Death. And then at the start of that conversation I really thought I was wrong, when she started talking about dimensions. I had to consider that she was working with you and that it was part of your plan for her to come here and say all that to make it convincing, but she didn't talk about going through a portal into a different dimension to fight a war with you. She just… the two of you wouldn't have lied to each other right there. Not when you weren't even paying attention to us. Not when you forgot we were even here, and when she was telling the truth to try and force you to leave…

"Alright," Zach said after he sat down and stared down the line at each of his friends. Iida was to his far right with Midoriya next to him, then Mineta, Yaoyorozu, Ashido, and finally Sero on his left. Zach slid his glove back onto his right hand and curled his fingers inside to get it tightened to his scarred-up skin. Then he put his hands down on his thighs and asked, "Do you guys have anything you want to ask me?" Silence fell over the group again at Zach's question that made a few of them stare at him in disbelief for it. "Whatever comes next," Zach continued in a low voice, steady and sure. "Let's talk first. I know, you might not have any reason to believe what I'll say. I know…" Zach paused and he felt hopeless even as he said it aloud, "My words may have no meaning. But I'll tell you the truth. Whatever you want to know, to clarify-"

"Did you really kill Stain?" Iida asked.

Some of the others did not know if this was really what they were supposed to do right now, but they looked to Iida at the sudden question and then back towards Zach. Sero darted his gaze over at his taller friend, then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked down at the message he had received. He opened his phone and texted Ojiro back quickly, 'The villain escaped the island. We're all fine. Let everyone know.' I don't know how much time we'll have, Sero thought as he pocketed his phone and looked back to Zach. But, this might be my only chance. All of our only chances.

Ashido looked down at her phone that she pulled out, glanced towards Sero for a moment too, and then she gulped while shifting her eyes around at everyone. Wh-What's going to happen after? Is this- Just trying to think about it had Ashido's chest clenching up more and her eyes watering as she shifted them back to Zach.

Zach frowned though at the one question asked of him already. "Is that really, what you want to ask?" Zach wondered.

Iida's eyes shot open wider at the question in response that was not a denial, but more like Zach was asking if Iida even had to ask. There was so much just said though, and Iida clenched his teeth after a second as that was not really what he wanted to ask. Why? Or, when? In what circumstance did he… Or, Iida's focus had solely been on Stain, but everything else rushed at him as he thought about all Darling had told him. His eyes rose up after he lowered them to the floor, and he asked before anyone else could bring up their own thing, "What was the Pit?"

Zach stared into Iida's eyes, and he nodded his head accepting the question. "You were fighting in death matches? Against 'gladiators?'" Midoriya asked. He specified it, his expression harsh while in his head he was more full of disbelief than anything. That was after she had revealed he was Death and he said he would stay. Maybe, she was trying to make it sound like he really had been somewhere else. If she had accepted it already she could have…

"I was," Zach replied to Midoriya who interrupted before he could explain it to them. "Other people who were captured just like me and sent to the Pit. Innocent men and women, and I cut them all down."

Zach said it in the same low tone, detached and with no emotion in his voice as he stated it. After the words came out though, some of those faces appeared in his mind. Faces he had never really thought about, but ones that he never knew he remembered so clearly. Blood splashed all over them, eyes gouged out and blood spraying from their necks. He saw the fear fading from their eyes as the life drained from them. Zach could feel the wet warmth on both arms, and his fingers curled into the fabric of his pants and his scarred legs below.

"Why?" Ashido asked. She whispered it, and Zach shifted his eyes that kept steady despite the pain in his heart at the way she stared at him. Hearing him admit that, emotionless for something that sounded so horrible, it made Ashido's heart hurt even more than his did though. "Why would you do that? How-" She could not ask, 'how could you,' because she already knew the answer. "…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…" Ashido remembered Zach telling that to Airi, and she felt her heart clench up just thinking about Zach being there in that position. "You, I know that you felt you, had to- but, but where was a place-"

"Nigeria," Zach replied. He cut off Ashido who was struggling to get out what she wanted to ask him. He paused and he looked around at the others, some of whom were closer to him now without those dark flames separating them. None had run at him yet, and Zach just sat still as he stared them down. "The bounty on my head was more to capture me alive than dead at the time. Everyone wanted me dead though, so even though Umbuju paid the bounty hunters to catch me alive, I was meant to die soon after. I was put in match after match, day in and day out. I wasn't captured for long but I…" Zach's teeth clenched and the words he had been getting out so steadily cut off. His face scrunched up more in frustration that he had cut off, as he was trying hard to get this all out calmly here. "But I…" he started again, but his eyes twitched and he saw so many faces flashing through his mind that he had not been thinking about.

"How many?" Zach whispered. His eyes pointed at the floor in front of where he had sat down on a seat still pretty tall for a chair so he was straight up in it, his body looking strong and his stature impressive despite being seated in front of people who were standing. His voice did not crack at the question, but his tone shifted from the monotone one before. His eyes could not stay locked as he stared down, his teeth clenching and his mind racking as he tried to come up with a number. "I fought in… I fought in a number of Royales- but I can't-" Zach clenched his teeth harder and ground his teeth across each other. "How many? How many times-" Zach brought his head back up and he said with a shake of it, "And I tried to tell the others not to fight."

He winced at the looks of his old classmates as they stared at him in either disbelief, or pity, or both with a mix of confusion in it. His expression looked so real, but what he was saying sounded so unbelievable, and they could not really trust any of it anyway so the disbelief they felt made them question if it really was: real. Zach shook his head though at the dark, sad, pitying looks staring back at him mixed with anger, shock, and doubt. "Everyone says they won't," Zach said while looking into Iida's eyes. "That they'll go in and they won't fight for the amusement of others. They won't kill… But once you're out there, and everyone's screaming down at you to do it. Hundreds of villains foaming at the mouth for the sight of blood, and screaming at you to do it or they'll kill you, and the whole place shaking and the fear! Fear so intense… There are only a couple of weapons on the floor, a good sharp sword usually closer to one person than the others so that person closest has that incentive to move-"

"Zach, what are you talking about-" Midoriya tried to interrupt with his own teeth clenched. "Why would there be, swords? Weapons? If this was real, they would have used Quirks-"

"The collars," Zach whispered. He said it and he rose his eyes to Midoriya whose gaze snapped to his neck and the red marks around it. The scars that wrapped around his neck, that Zach had said when he was asked about them in the hospital, "I had to wear a collar for a little, and I had my throat slit too…" Midoriya's expression shook, and he stared at Zach with wider eyes that stayed frozen like that as Zach continued, "If we used our Quirks, the collars would explode. And at the time, I couldn't control Death to the point that I could turn my neck and only my neck into Death to try and slide it through- and by the time I even started to try they would have blown my head off. And I couldn't die. Darling- Airi, and the others, and so many millions of people whose lives I felt like were… and I didn't want to die. I was in the same position as everyone else, but they wouldn't give me any weapons. And I would try even as the fight started to get them to stop, and I'd knock them out instead of killing but… but Umbuju would blow their collars if I knocked them out, so I was still killing them by-"

Zach closed his eyes slowly. He closed them and took in a heavy breath to stop from speaking so fast. He calmed himself down, but then he said softly while opening his eyes back up, "Sometimes I could get everyone to stay where they were for a little. But, but the tension rises more and more. Everyone psyches themselves out, and the moment someone moves, it's all over. Because where does your moral high-ground go when someone next to you is going to take advantage of it and grab a weapon while you stand still? And even if someone's just running for a weapon close to them in order to protect themselves with it, no one else thinks that's their reason. They all think the worst. They all run at them to stop them, to get that weapon first, or to kill him so he doesn't kill them. And only one could leave. Five people go into the Pit, and only one can live. How many times? How many times?!" Zach's left hand rose up and he put it over his eyes and his forehead, gripping in tightly as he tried to jog his memories but just saw more and more people. "How many times was I the sole survivor? How many times did I go in with four others and walk out alone? How many times?"

"Zach," Mineta started, his voice loud and getting Zach to lower his hand and stare forward into the short boy's eyes who he was about on eye level with. "You don't… You didn't have a choice. Something like that-" Mineta paused for a second and he shook his head with a pained look covering it. He stepped towards Zach and said, "If you went through something so horrible-"

Zach's forehead scrunched up and his eyebrows rose up high. "So horrible?" Zach repeated, his voice leaping in it almost like he laughed at what he just repeated. "That?" Zach asked, a corner of his lip rising up and a dark laugh coming out of his mouth. "You think that was the worst of-" Zach's mouth curled back down and his eyes shifted around at the others staring at him with wide eyes at how laughable he thought what Mineta just said was. But it was the truth though, and he shook his head with a darker look over it, "That wasn't even one of the ten worst…maybe- no, no not in the ten worst things. Maybe twenty? Thirty?" Zach bowed his head more, and he shook his head again. "But I didn't lose any comrades there. When I razed that place to the ground…"

The others staring at Zach in surprise or sadly or angrily, tensed up at the shift in his tone that sounded dark to the point that it was beyond something they would expect from Zach. His voice twisted as he said it too, and more than dark it sounded- "Zach, you sound evil." Iida said it and made Zach rise his head back up with that menacing and dark look over it, but there was no smile despite how Zach's voice sounded almost happy at what he just said. "The way you're acting. The things you're saying were bad but you- What did you do, when you 'razed' the Pit?"

Zach stared at Iida and his expression got darker in a different way, more like he knew the answer to the question was what Iida thought it was or even worse. Zach's eyes locked on the tall teen ahead of him to his right, and he said in a low voice, "The Army of Death came for me. They attacked the Pit while a lot of people were there, lots of villains and high bidders coming for the next Royale who we were able to track back to bigger gangs and villain groups afterwards… There were more of them than there were us, but my comrades were prepared to save me…"

---

One Year Ago…

Click

Zach's head was bowed. He sat on a wooden stool low to the ground inside a box cell in the gladiator block. His eyes opened up. His bowed head pointed his eyes down at his chest and stomach and legs and the front of his arms. There were rags wrapped around various wounds on each body part he looked at, though mostly just dirty bandages held to his skin by duct tape after the doctors had done the minimal work to stop his bleeding. He sat there without moving and opening up those wounds that had him in a constant pain and made his skin pale despite all the time he had been spending out in the hot Nigerian sun.

He opened his eyes when he heard the click, and he rose his right hand up to his neck without wincing despite the blood soaking through the rag around his knuckles. He grabbed the metal collar on his neck that he could not really see well despite trying to look down at it, and he pulled down from his neck and removed it with ease as it was turned off and unlocked. The steel collar came off easily.

Zach removed it and held it in front of his face, his head lifting up as he rose the collar higher and stared at it without the red light on it like he knew they had based on the ones he saw on his enemies' necks all these days. The cell was dimly lit by lights that went down the long sandy hall underneath the Pit that split the cells apart. Zach stared at his collar in that dim light, and then he stood up and he turned around as he heard from one end of the hall, CRASH!

Zach stood on damaged legs, but the pain faded completely from his mind. He walked towards the steel bars of his cell while most of the other gladiators in the cell block had just snapped their heads towards them after staring down nervously as they thought their collars were about to explode. Then their eyes opened wide as a collar went flying past all of the bars. Across the hall from Zach's cell, the most powerful gladiator in the cell block other than him who was there long before him, stared straight towards him with her eyes massive as he just tossed his collar down the block like that. "Over here," Zach called out, his voice low and loud.

"Death!"

"Commander!"

A squad of dark soldiers shot down the cell block, their dark helmets turning side to side with each of the soldiers inside them staring in shock at the men and women in the cells. Someone down the block yelled about looking for the keys, but the one who reached Zach's cell first was not going to wait. "Move back!" Michael called out at his leader standing just on the other side of the cell's bars. Zach moved to the side, and Michael picked up his right foot and slammed it into the keyhole in the middle of the bars where the cell's gate could open inwards. Michael kicked the door down in one go, then he stepped inside and got nervous about reaching out for Death who looked about to collapse with all those wounds. "Curalia, we need-"

Zach stepped forward and he walked past Michael who turned his head with wide eyes at how strongly Zach stepped right out of the cell. "Earpiece," Zach commanded, while everyone in the cell block stepped out towards their bars and looked towards the Champion of the Pit. They looked towards the teenager covered in scars and new wounds that bled through his bandages. None of the dark soldiers who just busted into their hall argued with him, and one of them had an earpiece ready that they handed him and that he rose up and put in his right ear. "Listen to me," Zach ordered.

"Death!"

"Zach!"

"Commander! You're alive!"

"Destroy this place," Zach growled. His voice filled the headsets of his soldiers all over the Pit already. The cell block shook and he heard shouting coming from the ends of the halls about losing connection to the collars and to the cameras in the cell block. "Tear it all down," his voice was menacing, ominous, and his soldiers hearing that rage in his voice felt the fury rising in their bodies. The fact that it could get the always calm and most composed Death to sound that enraged told them exactly who these people they were fighting really were. Zach turned his head after giving that order, looking down the cell block at all the gladiators at their bars and staring towards him.

"Open the gates," Zach said. The gladiators all staring towards their Champion, towards Death, opened their eyes wide at what he just said. Some of them looked afraid, others just looked at his neck and the bright red and chafed skin there showing how tightly his collar had been on and ripping up his skin. They stared at his wrecked body from the previous fights against the other gladiators who had been in that cell block with them, all of whom had left with him and never returned.

"Death, are you sure-"

"Take off your collars," Zach bellowed. He stomped forward, looking at the woman in the cell across from his whose strength he knew as she had won Royales of her own before. She had fought while he was captured too, in other fights where he had heard the roars of tigers and lions above that Umbuju had announced only for her to return with fewer injuries than he came back with after his Royales. Zach stepped up to her cell while she stared at him with wide eyes, and Zach pressed his right hand up to the keyhole. Darkness came off of his palm and he formed it more and more solid inside that slot as the darkness spread up his arm from his hand. The lock clicked, then Zach rose his hand and he pushed the door of the cell in for the woman who had been here longer than she could remember.

Zach's soldiers ran past him and were not going to argue any longer with all the fighting they could hear in their headsets. Some of them broke off to run at the villains in the Pit Crew coming down into the cell block, but others smashed down the cell doors or unlocked them with the keys they found. Zach turned and he walked past the cell the gladiator woman was in, and Rivona took off the loose collar around her neck that she had no longer even been able to feel considering how long it had been latched there. She rose it up in her hands and stared at it with shaking eyes which two dark soldiers outside her cell saw and made them get even more furious. "Rise," Zach growled, marching down the middle of the cell block as the gates were opened on his sides, as collars dropped to the floor one by one from each of the gladiators around him.

Men and women took off their collars, and their gates were smashed down from the outsides or from the gladiators destroying them themselves with their Quirks that they used without consequence. Death started running down the cell block, and his voice rose as all his emotions and adrenaline blocked out any pain. "Tear down the Pit!" Zach roared. Dark soldiers ran after Zach as they saw a few villains at the end of the cell block with no one between them and their commander. Those villains started running forward to get Sazaki, or to just get closer before shooting him, but two long red arms shot out between cell bars and grabbed two villains by the sides of their heads. Those red hands pushed across the hall and slammed those villains into the bars of the cell across from his, for another gladiator whose sharp claws extended from his fingers as he snapped his arms out from the cell to rip their throats open.

The others in the Pit Crew spun around and yelled about all the collars being off, and they turned their guns and fired into the cells closest to them where the gladiators charged at the bars. They started spinning back though as they saw the darkness in the corners of their eyes suddenly coming so much faster towards them. They did not spin fast enough, and four villains went flying down the rest of the hall and smashing into the wall at the end of it, blood smears sliding down those walls that cracked from the force they just flew into it. "RAAA!" Zach roared, his body engulfed in darkness and huge black wisps coming off of him and waving around in the air. On either side of him were dead gladiators who never made it out of their cells, and his eyes flared violently red with his body pulsing with two counts of death adding into his power.

"RISE!" Zach roared, his voice louder and deeper and booming through the entire cell block.

"Death! Your injuries-"

"RISE!" Zach yelled again, stomping forward and looking to either side at other gladiators still alive in their cells. The two who had killed the guards, one of which had been shot in the gut but stepped back towards the bars and nodded at him anyway. "There are no collars to hold you back anymore," Zach said, standing at the end of the cell block near the door and looking back down it. He looked over his shoulder at the cells opening up and the gladiators at the edge or stepping out where his soldiers were too. The darkness shifted off of his face but his red eyes still flared, and his skin flashed from real skin to bone and back again. "Bring justice upon those who enslaved us! Burn the Pit to the ground! Rise! RISE! RISE!"

The Pit did not take long to fall. The villains only there for the fight all wanted to run, and without their help the Pit Crew were outnumbered and outmatched. With the addition of the gladiators coming into the mix too, and the attack coming from all sides of them, the Pit Crew and the final fighting villains were pushed back into one location. The Pit's arena itself.

The stands were ablaze, the verandas up in black smoke that billowed up high, and the walls cracked and crumbling all around them. On one side of the arena, villains were piled up on top of each other and covered in blood, their status as alive or dead unable to tell as there were so many of them tossed in one place. The final villains who tried to surrender were being knocked out and tied up, struggling as they shouted that they surrendered over and over in hopes not to get killed.

Others were dragged out of the broken walls and the tunnel, and they were thrown down on the ground and stomped on by the dark soldiers and the bloody gladiators who wore nothing but rags and who all stood out in the arena too. Every one of the gladiators and the Army of Death members were all staring towards one man as he stomped forward near the middle of the arena. The final guards to still fight were unconscious around the man in charge of the Pit whose clothes were ripped up and who had blood coming out of the many cuts along his body. Umbuju was trying to crawl away with his bloody and broken legs dragging behind him, but he ignored how much pain it was to drag them as he looked over his shoulder and saw the boy marching towards him even without any darkness covering his bloody body anymore.

"Death, we need to get you help."

"Just let us finish this and…"

"Death…"

Zach stepped forward with blood dripping down his body from a dozen wounds that opened back up. He looked so strong despite how heavy he was panting, despite how much blood dripped down his body. He marched forward without pause, his right hand down at his side gripped around the hilt of a sword that dragged through the sand after him. His hair was caked in blood and fell straight but messy around his back to below his shoulder-blades, and the clumps were dripping with blood like so much of his body. Darling took a step towards him and rose a hand, but it shook at the sight of Zach's look of sheer rage and determination as he took another step forward. All the gladiators from the Pit were gathered behind him, stepping forward with each step the Champion of the Pit took. They had all heard Umbuju's shouts over the speakers while they were down in the cell block. They heard what Zach had done to the other gladiators, and they all stared at him as he stomped forward looking like he could keel over at any second… and yet didn't.

The flames of the burning Pit flickered on Zach's face, and the sky blackened above him as the smoke pooled together under an already dark gray sky. He took one more step forward, but he was already at Umbuju. Umbuju reached his hands forward to try and crawl again, but he gasped out in pain as Zach stomped down on his back. "What you did here…" Zach snarled. His voice was loud and it echoed through the headsets of all his soldiers, while the gladiators were close enough behind him to hear what he said. And all the conscious villains stared towards Death in absolute terror of the kid who had a look of murderous rage over his face, and his voice matched that expression. "Slavery, barbarism, murder…" Zach pushed his heel harder into Umbuju's back, and he rose his voice louder, "The innocent men I have killed now, their blood that is forever on my hands and that I will never be able to wash off."

Zach's teeth skid back and forth over each other, his eyes shaking in the most rage he had ever felt in his life as he stared down at Umbuju's back and listened to the man's snivels and begs into the sand below his face. Hearing the man beg like that just made him imagine how many had begged up towards the villains, towards Umbuju, begging him not to make them fight to the death. The same men he had cut down with his own hands, and his head tilted back with a new look of hatred spreading over even worse than the previous one. Zach reached down and he grabbed Umbuju by the back of his head and yanked it up with his left hand, "The innocents you dragged to this Hell, forced to kill against their wills. Thrown into a cage and jeered at as they were butchered… no more."

Zach slid his left hand around Umbuju's head and wrapped it across his face. Behind him, the gladiators started roaring, yelling at Zach to do it at the tops of their lungs. The Army of Death looked around at the gladiators wearing nearly nothing, each of their expressions looking like Zach's as they had all experienced this place that none of them had. None of them could say anything to their leader as they saw the way he looked and heard the tone in his voice that made each one of them feel the guilt of how long it took them to find him.

He leaned down over Umbuju's body and yanked his upper body back by Umbuju's face, sliding his foot down Umbuju's back farther so that he could yank it up like that. He pulled Umbuju's body back and Umbuju let out a scream, right as Zach shoved the sword in his right hand through Umbuju's back and out of his chest. Blood splashed out of Umbuju's front and his eyes lowered down to the weapon, then over to the men screaming towards him in rabid glee. They cheered and looked like animals as they screamed in the most animalistic way at the sight of Umbuju getting killed like that. It was the greatest irony, and every one of those gladiators forced him to see it as they spat towards him and roared at the top of their lungs at his death.

Zach stepped off of Umbuju's back though before the man was dead, and he dragged Umbuju up higher using his left hand that gripped the top of the man's head, and by lifting the sword that cut higher up Umbuju's body and made his hands flail and reach for it to try and stop it from cutting any deeper. His face was panicked and blood splashed out of his mouth as he reached for the blade, and the roars only got louder as Umbuju grabbed the blade and let go as the weapon cut into his palms. He tried to let out a scream of pain, but blood just splashed out of his mouth more as he found it impossible to breath or make any sound. "YOU ARE NOT HUMAN!" Zach roared at the back of Umbuju's head as he held him up in front of the gladiators.

He held Umbuju high enough that his feet were touching the ground and somewhat made it so Zach was not holding all his weight himself. Zach's face twisted and he screamed past the dying man in front of him, "A place like the Pit, where villains gather and drink and enjoy their lives that require so many innocent lives to be ruined, will be allowed to exist NO LONGER!" Zach ripped the sword out in a single move, then he pulled to the side as he gripped its hilt with both hands. His teeth clenched and he leaned forward while spinning both arms across the front of his body as fast as he could despite how much his wounds bled at the force he put into the swing. "RRAAAA!" Umbuju's body was on the verge of collapsing, but before it could, a sword cut through his neck and separated his head from his body in the single movement of Zach's blade.

Blood splashed all over Zach's body as Umbuju collapsed backwards and the spray coming out from the top of his neck got all over the teen whose eyes did not even close as it sprayed on his face. His sword hit the ground the same time that Umbuju's head did, and the cheering and roaring gladiators in front of Zach all stared straight at him with their noise quieting down at what Zach just screamed. They stared at the teen whose body steadied as he breathed deep breaths in and out, as blood drenched his body both his own and his enemies'. His body only clothed in a blood-soaked rag around his waist looked like a body no living man could have, and his friends were terrified as they stared at him, wondering in fear how he was even still alive. His saturated bandages slid down his arms and legs, unable to stay on anymore. Tape got too wet and came off, and bandages fell from him that were not ready for the kind of movements he had been making and were already on the edge of dropping.

Zach continued to stare straight ahead. He stared over Umbuju's fallen body to the two dozen gladiators still standing in front of him who were all facing the boy who just freed them and killed their enslaver. His head turned to the left and then panned back to the right. His men, the villains looking at him, the gladiators, he started to all of them in a booming voice, "I am DEATH! And Death comes, FOR ALL VILLAINS!" His voice reverberated around the Pit. His eyes shifted back to the gladiators right in front of him, locking on Rivona who stepped forward straight in front of him holding a medieval mace covered in rust and blood, and whose body was also splashed in red too though nowhere near in as much as Zach's drenched body was. His teeth clenched as he looked at these gladiators, so many of whom he had been responsible for ending over the past week.

"I swear to you…" Zach started. He was panting, staring down the gladiators and his own army as he spoke feeling like he could take on the world but also feeling like he might die at any second. His face was pale, but his expression powerful as he said in a loud voice, "That I will not stop. There is no haven for villains in this world!" Zach rose his left foot and he stomped it forward onto Umbuju's head that cracked at how hard he brought it down. Zach's teeth clenched angrier, as the men and women in front of him were all shaking, grinding their teeth and nodding their heads with violent and bloodthirsty looks on their faces. "Any place like the Pit that exists on this planet will be torn down! I will crush it root and stem, and break apart all foundations of evil in this world!"

Zach's body started shaking, his right hand bloodied and covered in others' blood rising in front of his face in a fist. His eyes rose from his fist to the gladiators in front of him, "Villains will no longer be given free reign." His voice was low, menacing, and the tone in his voice showed no doubt that what he was saying would come to pass; that he was going to make it happen. "As long as Death exists in this world, there will be no quarter for those who would chain their fellow man. No quarter for the Umbujus of the world."

Many in the Army of Death started nodding their heads too. Most of them just wanted to get Zach some medical attention already, but they could not help but start getting more riled up, though not nearly as much as the gladiators staring at this figure before them in inspiring awe. Zach's voice suddenly rose and he roared around at his men, at the gladiators, and at the people they had captured, "This world belongs to villains NO LONGER! I will drag them out of their havens! I will destroy all they have built and treasure! And if they try to stop me I will RIP THEM TO PIECES!" Voices started to come from the gladiators who could not hold them in anymore, growls and roars of agreement coming out sporadically. But Zach still yelled louder than all of them, "Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! NEVER AGAIN!" He screamed it at the top of his lungs, and the people in front of him lost their minds. The gladiators threw their arms up in the air, most of them holding weapons of some kind be they the discarded guns of their guards or melee weapons that would have been used in the Pit itself.

Zach stared forward with his eyes widening for a second under all that blood on his face that was already dripping down over his eyes. He stared at these men and women screaming at the top of their lungs and waving their weapons up in the air, and he heard his own men on his sides start yelling too so that the entire arena was filled with their roars. Rivona slammed her bloody mace up in the air and roared out a scream of approval, and then she pointed the mace forward towards the young man right in front of her while her eyes glowed purple and blood was splashed across the right side of her face. "DEATH!"

"DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! Death…"

---

Present

"I released the other gladiators, and we rose," Zach growled in a low voice at what Iida just asked him. "Us slaves forced to kill each other for their amusement. And even though I was the Champion of the Pit," he spat the title out, disgusted by it. Then he shook his head and said through his grinding teeth, "Despite it! Despite killing so many of them! Murdering other gladiators just like them… not one of them left that day to return to whatever lives they had before." Zach's voice was low and his eyes were narrowed straight into Iida's which had his former classmate who had asked him so harshly about what he did to the Pit leaning back. Zach shook his head and muttered in a dark voice, "I didn't even know I was recruiting them, when I yelled my promise to them that I would never let anything like the Pit exist in the world again, but they all chose at that moment to follow me."

Zach closed his eyes for a second and said in a frustrated and deeper voice, "They decided of their own free will, to stand at my side and help make sure that a world without slaves came to be. That those who would make themselves masters would be cut down. And Airi was right… every last one of them, all of the gladiators who survived the Pit and the only ones who knew what it was like in there- they all died fighting by my sides. Every, single, one." Zach shook his head and then rose it back up losing the darker expression and returning to the intense one to stare Iida down wondering if that answered his question.

Oh shit. Mineta's lips pursed as he realized what that feeling flooding through his body was. Fear. Not fear of the things Zach was referring to, but of his friend himself who Mineta suddenly felt like he did not know at all. The person who's been talking to me for over a month, laughing and telling fun stories, that person isn't real. He can't be! Not if he's, been through something like this… "So horrible?" Something like this? Is it- is it really because he went through this? Or, is it because that's how he thinks of how bad it was? That it could have been worse? That, there were even worse things?! Mineta's pursed lips shook as he stared at Zach's stoney expression that made him impossible to read.

Iida tried to keep his expression stern, harsh towards his former classmate who was admitting his "crimes" right before him. He killed people. That's… Iida could not even convince himself while attempting to keep that harsh appearance. His look finally softened a little, as Midoriya asked in a low voice with his expression looking less harsh too but still dark and foreboding, "Why, wouldn't they-" Midoriya paused and he clenched his teeth frustratedly, but he changed up the way he was wording his question. "Why didn't they, let you use your Quirks?" Midoriya asked it quietly. "It wasn't just you, but everyone-"

"They wanted to see a more brutal struggle," Zach replied. He said it like it was simple, and he looked into Midoriya's eyes to see that Midoriya could not understand why that would be a reason for anyone. "There was no utility in it," Zach said to his friend trying to come up with some different reason why it had happened. "The collars were the ultimate failsafe. I saw one of them explode instantly upon Umbuju choosing to set it off. So, there was no choice but to do things his way. And the way he wanted, was for us to use our hands. To pick up the usually rusty weapons, weapons he never gave me at the start, and to fight to the death in close quarters with our nails and our teeth, sticks and stones."

"This place-" Yaoyorozu started. Zach looked at her, and she lowered her eyes for a second before snapping them back up with a look of denial on her face. "It couldn't have existed. The size of what you're describing alone, someone would've noticed…"

Just like Jirou. They've all realized it. Zach's expression shadowed over, the top half of his face just getting dark as he bowed his head. She knows I'm a liar. I lied to Momo. I'm a… I'm such a fucking asshole. But the others who died there, the others! "It was real," Zach said. He countered Yaoyorozu and rose his eyes back to meet hers. Mineta and Ashido both looked inwards at Yaoyorozu between them, and the two of them saw their taller friend curling her fists tighter at her sides as Zach said that like he expected her to just accept it this time. "In that Pit I cut the throats of innocents to the bone with a rusty knife," Zach said it while staring Momo straight in the eyes, and the girl's disbelieving look completely broke at what would not have been a lie.

Zach saw her believe him, then his eyes shifted back to Midoriya whose face was scrunched up with conflicting emotions. He's trying to put himself there, Zach thought as he searched Deku's gaze. "We fought with swords, axes, maces, sometimes just clubs or stones, but other times villains would throw bottles down at us, usually if the gladiators with me managed to hold their ground for a little. The broken glass from those bottles became extra weapons, which I wasn't expecting until a large shard of one cut through my kidney, here." Zach moved his right hand over to put over the point where he had been stabbed through, but Midoriya snapped his head up angrily at the way Zach finished that.

"You were stabbed through the kidney?" Midoriya asked. His voice was accusatory, and he narrowed his gaze at Zach while a few of the others darted looks in at Deku or harshened their own looks at Zach.

"In that place was there great medical care?" Yaoyorozu asked. She offered it up trying not to keep her voice from sounding harsh, but her eyebrows lifted up and she looked at him with so much doubt at what he was saying. "If not, then how could you have survived-"

"I didn't," Zach replied to her before she could finish. He stared into Yaoyorozu's eyes sadly at the way she was speaking, and his voice came out much darker as he continued while looking through his shadowed gaze to her. "If there had been one more Royale before my comrades came, I wouldn't have survived. I was dying already when they came though…" Zach's six friends in front of him stared at him first in confusion, but as he continued those looks started to shift gradually with their eyes shaking. "I had been sitting as still as possible so as not to open my wounds. The last two nights I'd been hit by constant strobes to keep me awake, and I hadn't eaten anything in four days. But when we rose, I ignored it all. I ignored all the wounds as they reopened over my body, and inside it, and I fought until I won and said what I needed to say. Then as they chanted my name…" Zach paused and he lowered his eyes down to where his right hand was holding his side, then he dropped his hand as his eyes shifted up his chest.

"I died," Zach said. He said it and rose his eyes back up to his friends who he continued to, "I collapsed in the Pit and they dragged me to the operating table. But I was dead. I died on the operating table, and for twenty minutes I was dead. Longer than, the first time." Zach stared at Yaoyorozu, then glanced to the right more at Midoriya and Iida too who were both staring at him in shock as well.

"W-Was it your Quirk?" Mineta asked. Can he even-

"No," Zach replied before Mineta could finish that thought. "I died on that operating table, but when my heart stopped, my friends didn't give up on me. They- Mark pumped my blood through my body to keep oxygen going to my brain, so I wouldn't have brain damage despite how long I was dead for without being brought back by Death. He didn't even know he could do it," Zach added while cracking the right corner of his lip up into a half-smile. Sero and Mineta both stared at Zach with huge eyes at the thought of the letter they had heard the first day they went to visit Zach. Zach continued in a quieter voice, "He had never done something so precise before, but he told me he needed to do it, so he just did it. He pumped my blood, while Hank and Miraculu cut me open and worked on my heart, as Curalia blasted me over and over and they took out my ripped up kidney. They sewed some of my organs together and replaced others, my comrades offering me theirs as replacements. I've got Gentle's kidney right here, and pints of compatible blood from my comrades, and my doctors sewed me up."

Zach rose his head and stared at the group as a whole before him. "They pieced me back together as they would a dozen times after and a dozen more on top of that. A frankenstein monster mixed and matched with different parts, who can't ever get too excited or emotional about anything anymore without feeling real, physical pain." Zach rose his right hand and gripped his chest over his heart, "In this heart that cannot take that kind of pressure after all I've put it through since. Earlier, I felt like it was going to burst when I broke down to Darling. My heart was about to POP and it's the Pit that the scar on my heart is from. It was real. All the others who died there were real too." Zach paused for a couple of seconds, then he finished, "That's the truth."

"Why-" Sero stopped himself. He paused for a second and then asked with a shake of his head at Zach, "Why did he- that Umbuju guy, why'd he do it? Why did he something like that to you? And to those other people?"

"Umbuju could have been doing it for money," Zach answered, while more of his old classmates were just staring over at Sero in surprise as they had needed a moment after hearing all that. Sero wanted to know though, and so did Midoriya who spun back to Zach after hearing that.

Midoriya's heart wrenched at the idea. Overhaul had grand reasons for why he was making the Quirk-Destroying drug. Restoring the yakuza and- and it wasn't just about the money! He was a monster to do those things to Eri, but he had reasons he thought were-

"…Lots of men cared more about money than anything. Money would get them women too, if that was what mattered most to them." Zach spoke in a steady voice full of experience like he had met many villains who valued either one of those things or the other the most. Then he added though, "Some villains cared about family, and to many their gangs were their families. Those were usually the hardest ones to break just by threatening them, besides fanatics." Zach shifted his tone again while still looking back at Sero, "To some, the ideologies really mattered. They believed they would change things for the better, make the world a better place or something through horrible, horrible acts towards innocent people." Again he paused, then he shook his head and said, "But Umbuju didn't buy me for the money he'd make with Zach Sazaki in the Pit. He didn't do it for the renown; to be known as the biggest baddest around who could capture me. Some men, just enjoy being evil. They like to see people writhe around and squirm under their pressure. Sometimes there is no motive. No reason for the chaos. Just horrible people doing horrible things."

Zach stared into Sero's eyes and shook his head once more at Sero's frozen look he was giving back to him. "It's not always possible to understand your enemies," Zach said. "Not all are comprehensible. Why they do what they do, doesn't really matter in the long run though. If they did it for a higher calling or just for shits and giggles, once they're stopped they're stopped. Who cares about the rest?"

That thing about Mark was signed -D. How could I ignore something like that? How could I still?! Mineta closed his eyes tightly as Zach spoke like a completely different person from the one he thought he knew. His closed eyes parted though and he stared at Zach in confusion, Were those tears fake though? When he couldn't- he couldn't pretend like he wasn't Mark's friend. Even though he was trying to, because he had to- but he couldn't. He couldn't do it and told us how much Mark meant to him, and if Mark really did save him like that, then that's why Death had to let him know. Or Gentle! The Gentle Criminal is the new Death, because Zach handed off the "mantle" to him? Is that all true? I- I don't know anything about any of this!

Yaoyorozu felt a pain in her own chest while looking at Zach after what he just said. Evil? Some people just enjoy being horrible? Her eyes closed and she tilted her head to the side to try and mask that expression she knew was on her face. So that beautiful world. Where people are inherently good. You don't believe in that anymore, do you? Momo's eyes shifted back to Zach who was making eye contact with Midoriya as his former classmate balled his fists and clenched them tighter and tighter each second.

I have to grab him. Arrest him now. Midoriya thought it to a bad taste in his mouth and a clenching feeling in his gut. Why does he want to talk now though? Is he saying he won't talk later? Will we ever get to see him again or will he deny us in Tartaros like he did before?! Is this… Is this really the last time, we can ever talk? Midoriya's fists clenched even harder. "When you," Deku began. His voice was low, and his eyes interrogating as he stared into Zach's. "Took on Mongoloid," he continued, and he searched Zach's eyes only to see a nod back for him to continue. Midoriya bit down and then asked in a strained voice, "How did you know what was really going on in there, when no one else knew?"

Mineta glanced to his left side at the taller green-haired boy next to him who looked and sounded so serious with that question. "Someone got word out from inside," Zach replied. He made Mineta spin right back to him, while Midoriya tried to keep his same unwavering look as he interrogated his friend. He expected a more vague answer or something about how Zach did not know but guessed- and yet Zach answered differently and made Midoriya just get more frustrated instead. Zach explained though before he could get questioned, "The images taken from inside the country would have been doubted though. Their authenticity would be questioned, and the UN would argue about what to do, they'd accuse Mongoloid and he'd send in the doctored pictures of his palace, and he'd have Firesale and Algebra Man make new pictures showing those same heads on spikes back on their bodies and looking perfectly fine. And in all that time waiting for someone else, for a hero, Mongoloid would have consolidated his control over the country and made it impossible to stop him. He'd appoint new heroes, and keep WhyFight blocking communications from inside except for what he wanted to get out, and he was planning on expanding control out into Gorran too…" Zach paused and he closed his mouth for a moment.

"Do you disagree?" Zach asked. He questioned the six in front of him who were not interrupting, and he stared directly into Midoriya's eyes after the question. "As heroes and civilians were being executed, as the old military and villains were being recruited into Mongoloid's army, as millions lived in the dark with no knowledge of what was really happening to their country, was it wrong to go in there when Mongoloid was supposed to have that month-long grace period?"

"No-" Ashido started.

"You say 'go in there,'" Midoriya spoke at the same time as Ashido and spoke in a more steady and louder tone too. The pink girl turned her head and stared over in surprise, but then she eased back as Midoriya took a step forward towards Zach and became the closest one to where he was sitting. "But you invaded a country. You brought military hardware: helicopters and armored vehicles, automatic weapons and rockets, and you invaded a country with an army at your back-"

"I didn't-" Zach started, but then he cut himself off. "I mean I did, Death did-" Zach closed his mouth and clenched his teeth for a second. There's no way I'd be able to explain that to them. "I did," Zach started again, his voice softer while he stared into Midoriya's eyes to show he was not denying any of that. Deku closed his mouth that he snapped open to yell about how he knew all of that was true, and Zach continued to his friend standing straight in front of him, "But that's what was needed to beat him."

"That's not true!" Midoriya snapped back. "Doing something like that-"

"I didn't see you doing anything!" Zach growled, cutting off Midoriya as he leaned forward in his seat and narrowed his eyes in a pissed way at his former classmate. Midoriya froze with his mouth open, the others behind Deku all looking past at Zach with wider eyes too at that counter. For the first time sounding genuinely defensive, and angry at them, which at the same time made them each realize that he was defending himself here as much as he appeared calm and collected. As the others pondered over that though, Midoriya just thought on what Zach snapped at him, and he pulled his head back at the frustrated way Zach was staring into his eyes. "I didn't see anyone doing anything better, and people were suffering then. They couldn't wait, and there was no better way to do it if the better way meant waiting a month and letting a fucking villain like Mongoloid rule over a country with an iron fist for all that time. That is the better way you want to mention right? Waiting until I had better confirmation like the rest of the world was?"

"That's what the UN and all the heroes use as their excuse for why they didn't do anything to stop him. A lack of information," Zach glared deeper into Midoriya's eyes while saying it. "And because they couldn't 'confirm' that Mongoloid was a villain, they didn't do anything to stop him. But I did. I fought him in his palace and I threw him at the feet of the people he had wronged with as many of his Demons as-"

"Most of the Demons died before the war trials ever happened," Iida cut in. He stepped forward too to almost next to Midoriya, and he said in a lower voice, "Killed by your comrades-"

"My men were dying too!" Zach yelled back. He stood up off his chair and said it furiously while staring into Iida's eyes. "It was war!" Zach called it out and everything was quiet around him. He looked into Iida's eyes in a frustrated way, and he shifted them to Midoriya's too while his face scrunched up and his eyes searched for understanding in his friend's. "It was war," he repeated in a low voice. It was a word he repeated often, but always while he was talking about different worlds.

Midoriya closed his eyes for a second, then he opened them back up and responded in just as low a voice, "No, it wasn't." Zach curled his hands but they shook before going into fists, loosening up as his eyes just half-closed and lowered down to the ground. "You acted as a vigilante and a terrorist, carrying out operations using illegal weapons and Quirk-enhancing drugs in countries all over the world. You killed villains with no oversight to judge whether you were justified to do so. You were Death," Midoriya said in the most certain tone he ever said it to Zach before. His expression darkened more and he said lower, "And you handed the mantle off to the Gentle Criminal-"

"You need to keep that a secret," Zach said. Midoriya was going to just speak louder over any of Zach's interruptions from when he started on, but he got confused by what Zach said and stopped his speech that was leading to something important. Zach knew what it was already though, and he stared into Midoriya's eyes while the others all stared at the two of them having seen what Midoriya was about to do there. "Put the people I killed in Nigeria on me. Or any number of crimes other than being Death. But not that I was him." Not that I ever was.

"You were though-" Midoriya started.

"Death isn't a person," Zach countered back harsher than Midoriya was speaking. He stared at him determinedly and said in a steady voice, "It's an idea. If you're evil, Death will come for you."

"Don't you see that you're instilling fear with that kind of talk?" Iida asked, stepping forward angrily.

"I was merciful enough that it doesn't," Zach replied. He looked at Iida and said simply, "No one fears that the Army of Death is going to come and wreak havoc, as even in the most trying times I almost always showed mercy."

"And, what about Yemen?" Ashido asked.

Midoriya and Iida both looked over their shoulders. Ashido hesitated for a second, but then she walked a couple steps closer and looked curiously and softly past the other two and into Zach's eyes. "What Darling said about Yemen, she said you were going to kill them all." Ashido said it and her lips trembled as she tried to force a smile, "That, wasn't right, right? You wouldn't have…"

"Yemen was…" Zach trailed off for a second. He looked towards Ashido and said in a low voice, "The war was-"

"You weren't at war," Midoriya snapped. "That was a fiction you created!" He called it out louder, his teeth clenching afterwards in frustration as he saw Zach's look of denial towards what he was saying. Can he really not tell the difference? He said he lost his mind in that Void he was trapped in. And I- I still have to make him face justice here, even if that sounded like a worse punishment than I could imagine.

"It wasn't," Zach tried to counter, shaking his head back at Midoriya and then attempting to look over at Mina again.

"Yes it was," Iida said. He made Zach's head turn the other way towards him, and Iida shook his head with a similar look of conflicted anger as Midoriya had on his face. "It was fake. A lie. What you were doing was vigilantism, perhaps on a greater scale but nonetheless-"

"That's not-" Zach started and he grit his teeth to shake his head around for a second. "You want to know what I was doing?" Zach asked. He looked at Iida and asked if Iida wanted to hear it before saying that so assuredly to him.

"I want to know why," Yaoyorozu said. She stepped forward past Ashido who turned to her in surprise at her sudden move forward. She looked at Zach and stared in a steady way hiding the shaken nerves inside. "Why did you do, all of it? What was the reason?" Yaoyorozu whispered the final question with a softness in her eyes as Zach looked back at her. They locked eyes and Zach slowly nodded before lowering his gaze down to the floor thoughtfully.

Zach's lips curled down at the corners. "Why?" How do I explain, all the reasons… Zach's eyes turned mildly red, and they closed more as he thought faster and then rose those eyes back up with the red shade leaving them. He sat back down on the seat behind him and spoke in a low voice, "I was what the world deserved, not what it needed. That is to say, the world is amazing and deserved to have someone willing to throw away everything to save it. Yet the people of the world needed heroes. They needed to be saved in the correct way, and in that case, they deserved someone better than me too." Zach paused and he frowned deeper at the failure of what he just said to get across what he wanted to say. "In reality, the world, as in this planet, needed someone like me to do things the wrong way. Yet the world, as in its people, needed the opposite. The world was so great that it deserved to be kept alive in its beautiful form, but it couldn't be with the way things were going. It couldn't stay good with the villains doing what they were doing and planning a downfall, and the world deserved those things to be stopped no matter what."

He did throw away everything, he did but- Ashido's hands trembled at her sides. I don't understand. I don't- I just don't know.

"Even if the world deserved to be saved-" Midoriya did not know how he was starting that, but he disagreed strongly and shook his head fast at Zach despite not getting it out well. "Whatever it was, you could have done those things just as a hero. You could have saved so many and still-"

"The world didn't need another hero. What it needed, was a monster," Zach's words caused a chill to run down his friends' bodies. He sat there with his shoulders broad and far apart, his hands down gripping his thighs, and his face covered in menacing scars. "A monster to make it so the people of the world never have to accept that what the world needs in a monster," Zach continued, shaking his head as it came out because what he was saying already told him how this was going to go. He went on anyway though, "That's what I was. What we all were. The people who came to understand that became my comrades as they too did not want anyone else to fall like we had. And I believed, that if people ever accepted what I was doing, then I had failed. That if the world ever reached a point where people were ready to kill all villains, accept torture and legalize vigilante justice which is no justice at all when there is no due process, then I had failed in preventing that kind of world from rising."

"But you were doing those exact things," Midoriya said with a shake of his head. His tone was angry, but also so confused at how Zach could be saying such seemingly contradictory things to them.

"And they were illegal," Zach responded with a nod back at Deku who stared at him with wider eyes at the response. "I acted as a monster willing to do horrible things to ensure that no one ever accepts those horrible things as necessary evils. Because if anyone did, that's what it would have become. And people almost accepted me- Even though I tried so hard to make…" Zach trailed off and he paused with a reluctant look over his face while his friends stared at him with wider eyes that told him to continue that sentence. "Even though Kazania wasn't even me," he said in a low voice. "I was happy to take the blame, because I needed to be designated as a terrorist. It shouldn't have taken as long as it did."

"Why would you want-" Mineta started, stepping forward and shaking his head in disbelief.

"Because what I was doing was wrong," Zach interrupted the short boy who stopped where he was. He said it to Mineta and shook his head with such a frustrated look, "Right and wrong are not hard things to see. And I, I could see that other people struggled with them so often, because I had too! I had struggled with morality before, and I knew how hard it was for some people who had seen so much bad to determine what the right response was. What the acceptable response was. What they were willing to let happen… My actions were not based on morality but on the desire to keep the world's value of morality high. Because destroying that was everything the villains wanted!"

Zach panted a couple of times, his breaths coming in ragged and his eyes shifting from one confused friend to the next. "Even though from afar it would seem like villains would want to avoid like that, it's true. Because in that kind of world, the line between heroes and villains blurs as they all kill people, they just kill people who follow different ideologies. And yeah people would say that clearly one ideology was correct, the heroes' one. Yet when someone like Stain arises, or someone like, me?" Zach asked it while pulling his head back, and he looked at his friends who stared at him with much wider eyes at the idea he was posing to them. "What happens when the heroes pick one side and popular opinion might pick another? Or the sides are evenly split, and everyone is willing to kill for what they know is right. Sometimes, people are willing to kill for their ideals. Sometimes, they believe so strongly that they're right that anyone who disagrees is thereby wrong, and in a world where those who are wrong can be killed by those who think they're right and those people won't be punished, how long until wars start?"

"That's all conjecture," Iida started. "You can't make decisions to do wrong based on a guess of what might happen due to a change in human behavior-"

"It wasn't just conjecture," Zach argued back. "I saw it. I could see it happening and knew I needed to stop-"

"You're wrong," Midoriya said firmly. "It wouldn't happen like that-"

"It did!" Zach shouted. He pulled his head back after yelling and then leaned forward and called out, "It came close- SO CLOSE!" Zach yelled it and then shut his mouth with so much frustration over his face as his eyes shifted back to Ashido for a second, then to Yaoyorozu before going back to Midoriya right in front of him. "Yemen!" He called it out and then he planted his hands firmly down closer to his knees. His fingers curled down tightly and his breath came in with a steady inhale and then out in a quiet way. "King, Fergus, and Eziano Mozcaccio, I went to war with these men unlike I did with anyone else…"

"Who is, Eziano Mozcaccio?" Iida asked. He rose his eyebrows and questioned in as much an angry tone as a frustrated one that he still did not know this even though Zach had known that name back before the Lifebringer Incident.

"He's the one who's been sending all the assassins after Zach," Mineta said with a glance to his left.

"You knew?" Iida asked in a harsher tone. Then, his eyes widened more as he darted them around and spotted every other person there also knew this already.

"You could've known too," Mineta muttered in an annoyed voice back at the taller teen he turned away from to look back at Zach instead. "But, I don't really know who this guy is either," he added which had Zach look to the short boy frowning hesitantly at him. "So, can you tell us now? Who he really is?"

"Eziano Mozcaccio," Zach started. His voice stayed dark and his eyes darted towards the trees and nearby abandoned buildings, on instinct more than anything. "He instigated conflicts around the world for no reason. Conflict for conflict's sake. His motivation is still an unknown, but he doesn't do it for money. I don't know his ideology, though there may be some religious aspect to it based on new intel-"

"What new intel have you been receiving?" Iida asked harshly.

"The Canadian sniper I interrogated before turning over," Zach replied immediately and in as harsh a way back at Iida. "His partner was part of Eziano's actual organization and not just another hitman. The one who escaped me, just like the one who had been tracking me for weeks whose identity remains unknown to the police and never will be discovered, because he doesn't have a real identity anymore." Zach rose his eyebrows at Iida but did not hear another interruption or question coming so he nodded and continued. "He was at the Sports Festival Invasion. The worst assassin in the world, am I wrong Midoriya?" Zach asked. He looked to his green-haired classmate who hesitated with a look around at the others who all turned his way. "You've met him too, yeah?"

"Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking to the boy on her left whose eyes nervously shifted back to her.

Don't say anything about All Might, Zach… Why? Why is he bringing this up now? Why mention how I- does he just want, everyone to believe him? "Eziano is, real," Midoriya said while looking back around at the others to his right. He felt so uneasy as he said it, because he knew that he was saying it because Zach didn't want everyone thinking he was a liar. "And he was there," Midoriya added. "But, I don't know anything more about him, other than what you've told me," Midoriya finished while looking back to Zach, saying it like all the rest could be a lie.

"Really? That's all?" Zach asked. Midoriya froze at the question, and his face looked guilty as the others around him looked his way only to get more confused as to why he would react like that. "It doesn't matter though," Zach continued and had everyone looking back at him. "I know more about Eziano than anyone in the world outside of his organization. Those assassins are tight-lipped, and most under Eziano's employ don't know anything. But by February of last year I already knew how he operated. Bolivar explained it to me when I caught him."

"You didn't catch Bolivar-" Iida started.

"Yes I did," Zach said back without pausing. Iida's stern expression he had when he said that became so hesitant and uncertain as Zach just kept talking without even lingering to explain himself. "And unlike Zolo and Turbo who I had to leave to Endeavor, I had that Shadow Boss tell me everything. All about the underworld's inner workings that he knew better than anyone from the top of that world. And I learned all about Eziano's operations over the past several decades that Bolivar was around for. Things that ran deep and had such powerful impacts that Bolivar was visibly afraid of the man he was ratting on, just like most men in the world who know of him are. Eziano could cause a single assassination that would result in a rise in an ideology, create a martyr, or lead to a different person being elected in the next election based on reactions of the populace to the death. He looked a hundred steps into the future and made careful moves no one could track back to him, passed them off as accidents or ideological attacks by crazy villains-"

"Zach," Midoriya began. His voice was low, but instead of harsh it was more serious than anything. Zach looked into Deku's eyes while his friend stared back at him with a wavering gaze, "If he's that strong, why didn't you catch him?" The other five looked to Midoriya confusedly at the wording of that question.

Zach shook his head though at the question Deku was asking him. "I couldn't catch him," Zach replied. His voice was frustrated and angry, and he shook his head in that pissed-off frustration, "I tried, Midoriya. I really did. But he could disappear in an instant, and just as quickly he could appear in the middle of my ranks and kill people I cared about, then disappear again like it was nothing. His men and the assassins he brought with him weren't so lucky. Phinx and Lee attacked my forces with him at one point," Zach said it while staring into Midoriya's eyes in a dark way. "And when they attacked your mom I thought for sure that I had made a mistake letting them live, but you told me it wasn't, and I still believe that."

"That's not-" Midoriya froze after opening his mouth and starting to reply so quickly to that.

"Midoriya, did you know-" Ashido began in shock.

"No, I just," he turned back to Zach in so much more of a hesitant way. "We just talked about them before. But, you didn't tell me where it was you had caught them. You didn't tell me, that they had come after-"

"Phinx killed so many of my men," Zach growled at Deku before he could finish. "Gentle was leading them while I was in America alone with Darling for a little, and I later discovered that Phinx led the attack on them that killed seven of mine. I was so dumb, declaring war on Eziano Mozcaccio like I understood who it was I was going against…"

Yaoyorozu's breath hitched as she stared with shaking eyes at Zach. In her head she heard what she and Zach had talked about that day in the part when she first came to him in Yutapu, "…While I was gone, I thought I needed the Hunter's help again. So I called him, and EM picked up… I don't know how he knew, but he was angry with me for saying his name in that forest. Maybe he looked at the police records and some of you mentioned what I had said. Maybe some of the villains who escaped let him know. I don't know. But he had killed the Hunter, and he was waiting for my call… And I stupidly challenged him. I told him I didn't care that he was after me now, because I was going to destroy him and his whole organization."

He was, telling me the truth. That day he really, he was really telling me the truth! It was a stupid thing to do. I challenged him before I knew any of the secrets of the world. Before I knew about who he really was, about Fergus, the real League, the corruption that went deeper than anyone knew… the labs, Quirks, I didn't know anything about them. And I challenged possibly the most powerful man in the world… He was right when he called me green. I didn't know his power, but I would come to."

"But even Eziano's assassins not a part of his organization like Phinx, were insanely powerful and capable of anything. Phinx killed my men there, then he was there when we attacked the Syndicate in the Dragon's Den to stop the Christmas nuke. He was there when Eziano attacked my headquarters-"

"Christmas nuke? What are you talking-" Iida began in such a frustrated voice.

"I found a child with the power of a nuclear bomb who villains were using to try and-" Zach bit down hard for a second and his teeth ground over each other in pure, raw emotion. Iida pulled back and his eyes shook at the look on Zach's face as he started right there. "They were going to nuke Paris. Throw the boy into the city and make him explode, to cause so much widespread chaos in the long-term that the League planned on, and that they and Fergus hired mercenaries to make sure it happened. And that boy died in my arms, and the kid tried so hard to the moment he died not to let any radiation out, trying not to kill me despite it being my fault he got shot. A seven year old- or eight year old boy, holding back his glowing light because it was melting through my arms, after he had pushed me out of the way and taken Phinx's Spike to the chest."

"And in Yemen! I knew it had to be them!" Zach spoke faster and his voice got louder, his heart rate speeding up which had his chest starting to hurt inside. "I knew, it had to be him. I had seen it from afar. I could see all the hints that it was Eziano who was creating this increasing turmoil inside the country. Leading to a civil war where I was between two sides who believed they were right. Sides about to massacre each other, fight and kill and be willing to die over things that they already felt strongly about but got even more passionate for when a couple of their compatriots died. Both sides felt they had martyrs, they felt they needed to fight harder for the ones who had been killed already, as people always feel in those kinds of situations. Once blood is shed, feelings only intensify. And with blood shed on both sides, with both sides having people who are ready to kill if they don't get their way, and neither backing down when the other threatens to do it. There was war on the horizon, and I couldn't stop it! But-"

"Zach!" Sero's voice cut Zach out of his thoughts and his rapid speech. He looked to his left and back at Sero who did not come any closer to him. The others all looked back at him, and Sero asked while looking at Zach with such a confused look, "What are you talking about? What, happened in Yemen?"

Ashido spun quickly back to Zach, "Yeah. You- what you're talking about isn't… There wasn't a war there."

"None of that…" Midoriya stopped himself. He paused and he bit down as Zach panned his gaze back to him. "How could- how could any of that have happened?"

"How could all this have happened without anyone knowing?" Yaoyorozu added more specifically.

"Because even in the bloodiest days of any war, in 99 percent of the rest of the world, absolutely nothing is happening," Zach replied softly. His breathing calmed down, and he continued in a lower voice, "In my darkest days, on death's door with my comrades slaughtered in front of me, dying every day with me unable to do anything to save them, I continued to fight without rest. And while I fought, I made sure to keep my war secret. Not so we wouldn't be caught or hunted by heroes, but so the world wouldn't know about those darkest days. I didn't want anyone to know just how close so many had gotten to war, to complete destruction of our society…"

Sero's expression shook as he stared at Zach's completely serious face while he said these things. Iida shook his head in more disbelief, and the six in front of Zach were pretty much split with half believing him like Sero, and others like Iida… "What you're describing," Iida began. "It's impossible."

"Why would you do that?" Yaoyorozu asked. Her voice was softer and she stared at Zach's face with her own nervous. She was willing to believe, but her heart was also pounding as she did not know if she could or not with something that sounded so impossible like Iida said. Like Iida, Mineta, and Midoriya all felt it was.

Zach answered her in a low voice that made every person there freeze up completely, "So that to the rest of the world, these things are impossible."

His response shattered Iida's look of denial, and his right foot slid back on the floor while he leaned his head backwards, staring at Zach with massive eyes. It took Mineta a couple more seconds as he tried to put that together with what he was just thinking in his head. It is impossible, though, right? But I- but what if I, only think that because… what? What?!

"My goal wasn't just victory. It was a total victory. Victory in all means. I wanted a victory where I could look around and see smiling faces and everyone feeling safe. In a world where people knew how bad things really were, in a world where people could see the things I had seen," Zach's face twitched and his eyes started shaking. "The horrible, twisted things that no innocent person should ever be plagued with the knowledge of- things that I wish-" Zach's teeth ground over each other and then all those images starting to flash through his mind cut away as his focus returned fully to the six people in front of him. What happens here decides the rest of my life. I have to, have to convince them of something. I have to save myself. As I said, a total victory.

"Just as I wanted to keep my actions in the shadows to preserve the good though, Eziano wanted the opposite. He wanted to hide his own involvement so that people would think that they were naturally worse than they were. He'd influence conflicts and then leave people to believe that other people just like them were capable of these horrible things when there really was someone pulling the strings above them all the time." Zach shook his head while his friends were all staring at him with huge eyes at the ideological fight completely in the shadows that no one in the world had any knowledge of. A battle to influence people's hearts and minds, and considering they had thought it was so impossible for these things to happen, made each of them start to wonder if it was Zach who was winning that fight.

Is that why Eziano's trying so hard to kill him? Midoriya thought in shock as he watched his former classmate talk about this in a steady voice. Zach sat there looking as formidable as any person Midoriya had ever seen before. His stature gave off a power unrivaled, and despite being shorter than them the way he was sitting, Midoriya felt like he was looking up at the person sitting before him.

"He and his assassins were always there. In every major conflict their organization had a hand in it. I'd see them popping up on all corners of the world as much as my friends and I were. And I was fighting on every continent, in every country in the world, but wherever we went, they were already there. He went so far as to infiltrating my own ship, killing some of the crew I left there before I could return, and then he cut my own throat in the ensuing fight." Zach rose his left hand and brushed it across the front of his neck over the red skin, where the gash scar indicated where his throat had been slit as he had also mentioned that first day in the hospital. "But I still forced him to flee while holding my own neck closed, and Curalia hit me before I could lose too much blood…" I knew I needed to do Wampajawa soon after, because the time it took to replenish those numbers and train new soldiers, and to recover myself, would give the villains time to reinforce that city even more. I had to send Blackjack in early… and I finally rushed too fast.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered.

Zach rose his head and looked to the black-haired girl who stepped forward so she was right next to Midoriya, as close to him as anyone there. Midoriya hesitantly looked next to him at the girl standing at his side who looked at Zach so softly right here. "Tell us," she said. "What really happened in Yemen. I want the truth. The full truth of what happened there." Zach stared into her eyes and could see the light gray of her irises in the light given off from the glowsticks on her waist. "Not what I heard on the news a year ago about a couple of protests, a couple that went wrong," she paused as Zach's face darkened and his eyes lowered to the ground. "Tell us everything about it. All that Eziano did-"

"It wasn't-" Zach started but he stopped and clenched his teeth tightly together. He rose his head and he looked up at the girl before him. He sat and although looking powerful, he did not appear intimidating as everyone else stood and he was in a more defenseless position. Zach stared at Yaoyorozu in a dark way as he rose his eyes to hers, "I thought, that it had to be him. When I saw what was happening from afar, I knew that there had to be a link between him and Yemen. That war that you deny happened, that you think were just protests and a couple violent clashes surrounding the issue of Quirk usage… It was more than that."

Zach sat up more and he spoke to the whole of the six before him and not just Yaoyorozu. "The protests had escalated. There was a march planned on the capital, but the government feared it would become violent so they declined the protest permit, but the protestors said they would march anyway and had the support of a few heroes who said they had the right to do it. It all happened so fast…" Zach shook his head for a brief moment with a much darker look covering his face. "I showed up too late to do anything to stop it. No heroes were reacting fast enough, because no one else saw what I could already see coming. No one saw what that protest was going to turn into, even though I could see it so clearly."

His dark eyes locked into Iida's eyes on his right, "The government said the night before the protest was still planned to happen, that any march on the city would be considered as a riot and be broken up by police with the assistance of heroes, which only made the heroes who had been defending those people get more inclined to go against it saying it was putting down civil discourse with authoritarianism. Other heroes countered that with the recent loss of life in two of the previous protests surrounding this issue, the government was justified to stop anyone else from getting hurt…" Zach paused and he bit down hard, then he shook his head and said in a seething whisper, "And I didn't know what side was right. The people who did not want change like the government, who were fewer in number but had the support of more heroes, or the larger marching group that became more legitimate with each hero to join them. I thought, I thought that this had to be Eziano's doing."

Zach shook his head with a dark and furious look on his face. "I'd seen the assassins and the League of Shadows trying to push conflict and war all over the world, and here it was finally coming to a head." The others before Zach stared at him in complete shock, with no idea of what this was or what he was talking about. "The first shot was staged," Zach whispered. He said it and shook his head, but he rose it up and looked at Midoriya, "The shooter who had admitted to it after being captured, a man from the conservative loyalists, believed the progressives pushing for change in Quirk laws would destroy the fabric of their nation. I investigated the site of the shooting, while my comrades went to infiltrate the protest groups beforehand to try and defuse the situation. And when I investigated the man who had taken the shot, I found that the guy was not in the right location for the angle of where the bullet hit that first dead protestor, and even if he had been, there was nothing in his past or with his Quirk that would suggest he could have made that shot."

"It wasn't hard to get into that town-jail he was being held in with so many heroes called to the capital for the next morning," Zach continued in a low voice, his eyes shifting to his left over at Sero who had taken a few steps forward but was still behind more of the others. "I interrogated him and found out who he had been convinced to accept the guilt from, and I did not have to go far to find that killer as the real assassin was there to tie up that loose end. He almost killed me, but I pulled away as the hole ripped through the jail's wall, and the shot only grazed my right side before blowing the framed man's head apart." Zach shook his head with an even darker look on his face, imagining the pain of the shot ripping through his right side deeper than he was giving the 'graze' credit for.

He looked to Mineta and continued in a low voice, "I got that assassin and beat him half to death." He said it seriously and darkly, and Mineta's eyes shook as Zach looked him straight in the eyes while admitting to that. "And I demanded to know how he was doing this to the country," Zach continued, his face scrunching up more as he looked into the shorter boy's uneasy expression. Mineta's face got more surprised, and then shocked at the pain that covered Zach's face. "I needed to know how he had gotten the protestors to kill three loyalists counter-protesting at the last big protest after the first shot, and how he was manipulating everything to come to what I could see would become a massacre. The next morning that I knew was going to turn so bloody."

Zach closed his eyes tightly, then he opened them looking at Ashido and into her shaking eyes. "I could see that the protestors were willing to do more at the last one when they killed the loyalists, as that one was well-documented and several arrests had been made, and this time the ones protecting the capital would feel that much more of a need to defend it from the violent rioters! He laughed at me," Zach said it in pain. He said it and shook his head while looking in pain into Mina's eyes, "A single man, in Yemen with the sole purpose to make the country go to war with itself, and he laughed as he said to me: 'Nothing.' He had done nothing, except take a single shot," Zach's heart ached and he felt it breaking as he watched Ashido's face cover in confusion and disbelief, then realization at what he was telling her to be the truth that just made it hurt even more. "He had taken a single shot, and he pinned it on someone willing to take the blame… or the glory as that guy believed."

"I couldn't believe it," Zach said with a look around at all the others. "I had, been lost as to how this was happening. While my soldiers were everywhere across the country and they saw no sign of other villains influencing these events. It was sunrise, and my men had already infiltrated both groups of protestors to try and keep things calm but- but I knew that day was going to get bloody and fast. I knew it as that assassin taunted me for how minimal his own involvement with it was. About how all it took was a little push, and he turned families against families, neighbors against neighbors, generations with different values pit against each other and all he did was give them a little nudge."

Zach paused, then his eyes finally locked on Yaoyorozu's as he whispered, "War, he said, was always that close. All over the world, as long as there are people there will be conflict, and what does Death do when there are no villains to fight? When both sides feel they are right so strongly, and now with their martyrs are willing to fight for their beliefs, what happens when one side marching forward doesn't stop and the other side standing firm doesn't budge? What happens when one hero says it's right and the other says it's wrong?" Zach's face shook and his teeth clenched as he felt a pressure down on him that he remembered that day, as he dropped the laughing assassin who could see that he realized it. "There is no stopping it! Because what you're fighting isn't me, it's human nature! And that's something, even Death cannot change…"

"…And with everyone knowing that this protest or lack of one would decide the fate of the country, how radical will those who show up be? How many of them will there be?" Zach posed these questions in a nervous way, his heart pounding as he asked his peers who were trying to wrap their heads around it all, as none of them were doubting it anymore.

"Things would calm down," Iida said. He shook his head at Zach who looked to him frustratedly, and he said, "The heroes would talk it out and-"

"The time for talk was over," Zach said darkly, interrupting Iida in a tone saying that Iida had no idea what he was talking about. "The government called for the protest leaders to come and talk," he continued before Iida could try to counter. Iida paused as he did not know that, or anything about this for the matter which made him close his mouth as Zach continued to him, "But they had already been talking and talking to no change at all. The government did not want the change and that had become clear, even though Yemen's villain rates were higher than ever, even though countries around them like Gorran, and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt had all started changing laws to positive impacts… They weren't going to wait. They weren't going to calm down and talk it out."

"I could see it," Zach whispered, his eyes raising up and his heart straining in his chest as he felt so much weight slamming down on his shoulders. His eyes looked glazed over as his friends stared at him, as Zach said quietly but so strongly, "All the pieces were in place. The environment was volatile, the people were strained, and heroes were uncertain of the right path. The rule of law? Where things had to be changed slowly and would only be changed over two years from then when the next elections were? Or was popular opinion what mattered most? They were there to fight for the people, right? Not for the government?" Zach shook his head and continued in a strained voice himself, "The heroes were uncertain over whether to stand with their comrades or to hold to whatever their beliefs were and stand firmly to those, but as conflicted as they were, there were those who had no uncertainty and believed in their sides so strongly after their friends had died for it. And those people were the ones who took charge, because the heroes had shown the weakness in their resolves, they showed that they all still wanted to talk… and so their voices were trampled on by those who were ready for action."

His voice got even darker as he went on, "And they had to decide. The heroes who were with the protestors could decide to stand down and stand with the loyalists instead to stop the protest, but if they did that, they might lose the protestors altogether and be unable to try and reign them in anymore. They'd be giving up on their beliefs too to join with others who had already condemned them. And the others, they had been given their orders and were going to stand their ground, and they could not stop the loyalists who arrived to help them from around the country." Zach paused and his eyes closed as he said in a low tone, "Hundreds gathered at first, then thousands converged on the starting place for both protests while the heroes did their own things."

"First, the fewer heroes part of the protesting group joined up with the others to try and keep things looking calm and legal to try and convince the counter-protestors to stand down. And the heroes who established a line just outside of the city, were passed by the counter-protestors who started to move and were allowed to march out of the city. They left to make their own defensive line farther ahead to not let the protestors get even close, as they thought their own weak heroes might back down if confronted by such a large crowd. The protestors were riled up on both sides, and my own comrades who were mixed in called me and reported that they tried to ease tensions as people hyped each other up, but anyone who went against that mob mentality like my friends tried to were called spies or anti-Yemeni and attacked by those around them, pushing them around and screaming at them to go away if they didn't want a part of this." Zach's voice got quicker and stayed in a low and dark tone, "They had to ease back and they didn't know what was right either. My men pulled back from the front lines, as more and more people seemed to arrive every second and moved forward with no intention to stop."

He shook his head and looked back straight into Momo's wide eyes, "The war was about the use of Quirks, people wanting to be free to use their powers and those who wanted to keep them restricted." He said it in pain and his face scrunched up which made Yaoyorozu's breath speed up and her heart race even faster, at the look of guilt rising on his face. "I felt responsible and didn't want anyone to kill each other over it. I, didn't want people to reach that point I had talked about in my research paper. I didn't want violence-" Zach closed his eyes and he shook his head so frustratedly. "But the Army of Death was looking for people inciting riots, the villains who must have been behind it, and yet when they got inside those riots themselves they saw what the truth really was. Riot mentality was legitimately terrifying, and it didn't really need a huge push. They couldn't stop it. If they weren't with the crowd, they had to be against it and were pushed around and yelled at for not being one with the mob mentality. The violence intensified more as people saw their own beliefs being backed up by violence that silenced my dissenting comrades, and they saw that violence worked at getting what they wanted- we couldn't stop it. I could hear them over my headset, the roars of those people in Arabic getting stronger and stronger every second. I told my men to stand down because they were being attacked inside the mobs just for trying to keep it calm, and if they couldn't do it then neither could the few heroes too conflicted to sound strong and stop it."

"Just because it was about Quirk usage, that doesn't mean it was your fault-" Yaoyorozu began to the boy who had rehearsed his speech and edited his report with her for so long. She said it in pain, and she shook her head at him for the guilty look she saw over his face.

"I know but I- I still needed to stop it!" Zach called back at her in even more frustration which made her lean back with her eyes even bigger at the panic on his face. "I needed to stop it but I had no villains to fight! I- I said my goal was just to stop villains but I-" Zach's fists clenched down over his legs and he shook his head hard while bowing his face to look down into his lap. "I flew back as fast as I could, which was faster than doing it myself. I was across the country, and after knocking out the assassin I needed to get there as fast as possible so I jumped in the villain's Super Jet on the roof of the building next to the jail, and I flew as fast as I could towards the capital. And I heard my comrades yelling to me asking what to do as the sides were screaming at each other now, as they were right across from each other on a field of sand outside of the city. I had to fly faster, and I became reckless and my comrades told me they couldn't stop it, that the people were talking about charging at the city, and some people were baring their Quirks or popping them off in the air to try and intimidate the others to back down… And I spotted them."

His face looked so dark as he muttered that last sentence. He said it and he rose his head up looking as dark as they had seen him before. All of them thought about what Darling had said about Yemen, about what he had said in his speech there that had each of them getting even more unnerved than just by his face. Zach continued in an ominous, dark voice, "I knew I had to make an entrance to cut the tensions and get everybody to stop and listen for a second, to calm them down and let me try to explain and blame it all on that assassin's first move…" He paused and shook his head, looking to Midoriya slightly on his right and saying in a low voice, "But I knew that wouldn't have worked. When I crashed that plane because I was moving too fast, because I didn't know how to fucking land it-" He clenched his teeth for a second, his left hand tightening even more though he could not feel the pain of his fingernails digging into his steel palm."

His friends stared at him with eyes growing even wider as his left arm shook at his side, his eyes lowering down to his hand that he opened up in front of his stomach. "And as I skid across the desert as my plane exploded into a fireball, I knew I would fail. That those innocent people would fight and kill each other, because a few others had already died. And if this became bloody as that assassin and I imagined it would be, how big would the next incident be? How many people around the country still not fully invested in the conflict would become radicalized, like Darling said earlier-" Zach cut himself off for a second and bit down in agonized frustration. They all remembered the words of his speech that Darling called out, as Zach spoke in that low and pained voice, "The people who fought tomorrow would not be holding back, not after their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and their children were killed by their enemies today."

His voice quieted down and shadows covered his eyes. "I knew all of that as I skid across the ground inside that fireball- and I could hear them outside the wreckage. I had to move. Instead of being the thing that stopped them for a second so I could interrupt, I was going to be the catalyst for what started a civil war." His hands tightened even more, but his right hand moved over to his left arm and he whispered, "I- I knew my left arm was gone, but I couldn't turn to it as I heard all those roars get even louder outside. And I had to get out of the plane even though I had a piece of broken plane impaling my stomach, and as I pushed my way out I ripped my gut open, and I came out of those flames having to hold my insides in with my only hand. I held my hand over it to try and hold it all in, but my intestines were slipping through my own fingers. Slimy and wet and… And in that place where I lost my arm and came so close to dying again, there were no villains."

Zach fell silent for a second and his friends stared at him in complete silence as they tried to imagine this. As they thought of the kind of pressure they could hear in his voice with what he said last right there. The fact that there was no one instigating it, no one to fight and just make the situation resolve itself, and the six of them stared at Zach in shock as he mentioned climbing out of that plane sounding as messed up as he was in the story of the Pit. "And so," Zach began, his voice pained but rising in volume. "As I got my moment of quiet… As those people all shut up seeing me stumble out of the flames looking as fucked up as I did, I had a single moment and I screamed. I roared at them so loud my voice nearly broke and I made sure that every last one of them was quiet and would listen to me. Thousands of people on two sides looking in towards me, the only thing stopping them from starting a war, and I yelled at those people everything Airi said and more."

He paused for a second, then he recited in a low voice to his friends before him now, "I told them what was about to happen. I warned them in my loudest screams, in the best Arabic I could, what they were about to do. I screamed at them that they were about to kill each other because of something so small that none of them really wanted to kill or die over. Over something that should and could be changed by just, backing off and talking about it some more. And if those talks failed then talk about it some more, and make a compromise," he said it with his voice growing in pain, his eyes so distressed and horrified as he thought back on that moment so tinted with red. "And when they started to get riled back up, as some of them started screaming at me and getting back- I roared how I would kill them all."

Zach admitted it and he rose his left hand to his head, putting it over his forehead and biting down so hard for a second. "And suddenly there was silence. Absolute silence falling across thousands of people." He shook his head while his teeth clenched furiously under his hand that covered his eyes from his former classmates' sight. They watched as Zach gripped his head so hard with that metal hand covered in fake skin, and he continued in even more pain, "I told them that I would kill every last one of them, because if I killed them all, their people wouldn't want to fight among themselves but would turn all their hatred solely on me, uniting their country. And… and all of my comrades scared and not knowing what to do stepped out of those crowds and turned on the forces who stared in shock at dozens of people whose identities they suddenly discovered. We were in plain clothes, and they saw who I was under the burns and the blood, and they knew who we were."

His voice got even lower and he said in a hoarse voice, "And I would have… But I- I told them that I didn't want to. I warned them, 'Don't make me do that.' I didn't want to make their children into orphans, or to continue the cycle of hate in any direction. I knew that the early fighting, the first death was from a villain who wanted to knock over dominos and it worked perfectly, and now everything was pushed in motion and I had to derail it somehow. But… But would I really have…" Zach gripped his forehead even harder, thinking about how serious he was when he shouted that. "My men who were so unsure and hesitant, they all stood out there between the forces and got ready to fight. They stepped out and the people in those protesting groups suddenly realized what they were doing. Where they were, and what was about to happen, and I screamed at them asking if they really wanted to die over this. They had no idea whose homes would be destroyed, which towns would be for which sides as the people in them turned against each other to determine that whole town or neighborhood's ideology as it became something serious enough to fight and kill over. No one knew! Whose children would burn! Whose lives would be destroyed and how many people would die! And- and the point was to make those people disperse and go back to the drawing board, to get afraid and go talk about it again and again until they came up with a solution… but if that had failed, if that hadn't worked-"

Zach's left hand gripped into his forehead even harder so much that it hurt. "I didn't know what was right," he whispered. "How could killing so many be the answer, but if I didn't then what if- what if tens of thousands died instead? I didn't know the future but I could- I could see that it would happen. If four people dying meant a fight of that magnitude would happen, how much chaos would cover the country if dozens were killed that morning? What about hundreds? And if heroes fell too- the champions of the people who stood by their sides to fight with them- more martyrs thrown on the pile!" Zach bit down on his bottom lip and he shook his head feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. "…But it worked," he whispered.

His left hand lowered from his head, What would have been, doesn't matter. "It worked, and I got the sides to disperse. None of them wanted to die right there. None of them wanted their kids to become radicalized by their deaths. And they all wanted to talk it over again. I shattered the mob mentality and reminded them of their humanity." Zach lifted his eyes and said in a slightly louder and more steady voice, "And they did talk some more. And that volatile situation became the talk of the world for a day or so, because people were so surprised that Yemen's government suddenly had a change of heart and came to a compromise with protestors that more favored the progressive side than anything. Maybe they realized that they really did need more people to know how to use their Quirks, so that a foreign army couldn't show up and threaten to kill them all again. I don't know, but I just know it worked. I stopped that assassin's plan in which the outcome had already seemed inevitable…"

"And I didn't have to kill anyone," Zach whispered at the end, a grateful look on his face as he closed his eyes for a second.

As Zach finished and closed his eyes like that, each of his former classmates felt something new stirring inside them. They stared at their friend who they did not think was lying, even if they did not know if what he was saying would have passed actually would have. He did it, Midoriya thought, his eyes full of belief as he looked at his friend whose eyes opened with so much grief in them. Even though, he looks like he hates himself for doing it. The sheer agony at the idea that he would have had to kill all those people? Is that what he's thinking? Midoriya's head pulled back and his eyes shook at the idea, To even consider something like that! It's- it's crazy. How could he think that was right?! I… I don't know if he's wrong, or right. Midoriya thought it with his eyes closing a bit to become normal sized again and with much more of a thoughtful look in them.

Sero's head bowed and he thought back on the first day he went to visit Zach at his apartment. He told us all about America when he was caught on that security footage, and he really was there. He had left his comrades though, so he was in the Army of Death even when he was there? That, makes sense. And that story about going to the fraternity party while looking for drug dealers, it was true. I know, somehow, that that whole story was true even if he must have lied about so many others in that same voice. Sero rose his eyes back up with his lips flat as he stared to Zach who met his gaze. Because he talked about Darling that day. And what he said about her: "Darling drank though, a little too much actually… She was much better than me at going undercover, actually drinking and using sleight of hand to not put any booze in my drinks. Even with people around who thought I was drinking, no one noticed her keeping my drinks alcohol-free. Haha… She did it without telling me. She just knew that I didn't want to drink, not even a single sip-" She knew him so well. That day I knew it, but right there with what just happened, I saw that that Airi girl really was who Zach cared about most. He loved her, and she loved him.

Sero shook his head for a moment while looking away. I know it shouldn't mean much right now, so why is it all I can think about? The things she talked about… they were so dark. She was so covered in scars just like he is, so does she have as many of these stories as he does? When she was almost raped by "pirates" and you ripped them apart? What the hell does that- Was that in one of those dimensions? Not just the one where you were trapped for years but the one where she said your minds were merged, and she felt what it was like to be you? Sero turned back to Zach who had looked to someone else now. Just how much really happened to you out there? In a single year you were gone, how could so much…

A war diverted. A coliseum-like fighting pit, for slaves, destroyed, Yaoyorozu looked down at her hands for a few seconds and she failed at curling them into fists. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The other things. Those darker things that you say were so much worse than the Pit, her eyes rose up and locked on Zach's as he turned to her. I don't know how to handle this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, hearing all of that happened here without anyone knowing. A war still going on even, if Eziano Mozcaccio is still trying to kill you. How? How can everyone be so blind? …Or, is it really everyone? There must be heroes who know the truth. Ones who worked with the Army of Death and accepted credit for the things he talks about. People who were willing to keep quiet about his involvement, because he asked them to? Bolivar was a Shadow Boss? He "interrogated" him? He killed so many people. The way Darling spoke of the men who tried to rape her, she moved right past it but it was the truth. That you killed them all for that. Like you killed the ones who enslaved you at the Pit.

Whatever the truth is, what Zach was dealing with is beyond… Midoriya clenched his teeth hard at the thought he was starting to have, but his fists loosened anyway. How much do we really know, about what he was doing? I- I watched as you manipulated the media before but from the light. I saw you pushing your ideals and messages as a sixteen year old acting so well for the cameras. But, if you really wanted to do it more, from the shadows, just how much could you change? About what we believe to be the truth. About, what happened over those thirteen months you were gone. How much of what I think I know is just, misinformation? I- I don't know but I think- I don't know what I think. I need time to think, rather than just acting on impulse here.

Iida's thoughts were straying similar to Zach's, but he lowered his head and then just rose it the smallest amount to look up to the top of his eyes. "Zach, was what Airi said about Stain true?"

"Stain's, ideology, damaged the world too much the first time he was captured," Zach replied hesitantly. He shook his head though with a stronger look on it, "I couldn't risk it happening again. Even if I sent him somewhere where he would have received the death penalty, he would have been given his last words…" Zach saw Stain's face in front of his, as they both held swords and ran at each other. He felt the pain of Stain slashing him, saw his own blood, and then he saw his sword plunged deep through Stain's chest. "And Stain, killed so many heroes, crippled so many others…" Zach trailed off again while Iida curled his fists so tightly whether it be in the anger at himself for agreeing there or in anger at Zach for using what happened to his brother as an excuse of why he did something so horrible. Zach shook his head though and just said in a low voice, "I don't regret it. I don't regret any of it."

His eyes shifted back straight ahead, as he sat there on the seat he had created a few minutes earlier. The teens felt another buzz in their pockets but no one took out their phones this time. Zach shook his head with a dark look in his eyes, especially at the way some of them looked at him for what he just said. "I found a little girl in the snow, not far from a village that had been completely massacred by villains. And I was-" Zach shook his head once and his voice was steady as he said, "I was too late to bring them back. But that single girl, freezing to death in the snow, I saved her because I was there. Because I had an army and resources and was able to be there. And everything I did that led me to be able to save her life, I- I don't regret any of it." He shook his head with a steadier look on his face, "How could I?"

Ashido's heart leapt in her chest and started racing faster than it had the entire time they were speaking since Darling flew off. It's… it's still him. She felt like crying but could hardly take a breath at the thought she just had. Even after all of that, that's what he cares about?! I- I can't- Ashido finally sucked in some air and nearly gasped, though that inhale alone was loud enough.

"So," Zach started. He faced the group standing right in front of him, and he asked, "What will you do with this confession?"

Now?!

Why-

I have no idea-

What am I supposed to do now?

He, can't…

"Will you have me arrested again and tried on new crimes I did not admit to?" Zach wondered.

"How could we do that, having heard all…" Yaoyorozu paused. Her lips pursed as she felt the others around her turn to her with wider eyes. She did not turn to any of them though. Yaoyorozu responded, when everyone else was still trying to think, "Having heard all you were really doing out there. Zach, you haven't told us nearly, a fraction of what I'm sure was-" Yaoyorozu paused again but her expression became even stronger while Zach stared at her with his eyes growing wider for a second before returning to normal size. His expression got darker, going back to the stare he had that made him look more Death than Zach. And yet even with that look, Yaoyorozu shook her head at him in a softer way, "We don't really understand what you did. Not when you put out so much misinformation. Not while you were, pushing us to label you as a terrorist which I still don't…"

But I do understand. Because, it's the same reason you left the League of Villains. Yaoyorozu's eyes that had lowered rose back up to meet Zach's gaze in a knowing way. You were doing good things, bringing people back to life. It wasn't just that they wanted you to do more. You saw what you were doing influenced things in the wrong way. That it was selfish to bring people back solely because, you felt you needed to save more people. The way people do things matter. That's what you said-

"You told me," Ashido started, her voice quiet but getting Zach to look her way. "Just the other day on the phone," she continued, raising her eyes up and meeting Zach's gaze with her own shakier one. "That you wanted to do whatever it took to make the most possible good outcomes. And that now, you were continuing that goal from inside the law." Ashido hesitated and she looked at him desperately, "Because the means matter, right? You said that the means matter a lot for you to accomplish certain things."

"And that only in seeing how hard someone worked for it, in the right way, can some things ever come about," Zach finished for her, as he remembered telling her that well. "And I meant all of that."

"Then, how could you do those things if the means were-"

"Because I convinced the world that it was all the heroes," Zach replied. He said it seriously and nodded his head at her showing it was his real answer for how he could do that. "Because the 'means' that people saw, were heroes removing villains from power, and anonymous tips coming from the common citizens like themselves which empowered them even more to believe they were fighting back against villains, and, and although these things really were happening… I made it so that everyone would think that it was only those things, and that my involvement was limited and harsher than it usually was and too brutal to be called heroism. Even though thousands of anonymous tips came from my group, and even though scores of villains who heroes brought to jail were found unconscious in their bases covered in proof of their crimes when the heroes arrived."

Mineta's bottom lip lowered and he gulped before closing his mouth and shaking his head around. Everything he said he wanted to do in the forest. All the good he thought he could do outside of the law, without being a hero or a villain or a vigilante, just doing things his own way! He really did it! I- I mean… of course he did. Zach was always, always so good at it. At being that person. The first one to think of something so crazy. Is he right? If he hadn't done those things, would we have all started to accept doing things in a worse, less heroic way, because we saw how bad things were getting? Would heroes have started killing villains? Would nukes have gone off and wars started in the past year that he stopped?! I don't know! That all sounds so crazy. But, at the same time, despite everything he lied about that I believed so much… I still believe him here. That he didn't just say a bunch of lies to stay out of jail. That, he's really, that important of a person. And we never knew any of it.

Zach finished to Mina, "I said I would continue it from inside the law, and because people can see me now I have to stick to that. Because I'm back, I have to do things right now so that people continue to see that the things making their lives better, are things they can look up to and believe in. Heroes. Heroic deeds. And- and after what I've done so far now, to tell them all that I was Death too would be… It'd reverse all of that."

"I-" Mineta started. He gulped, but then he said it without looking at anyone else, "I won't say, anything." He looked at Zach with uncertain eyes, so unsure of everything Zach had said and all his feelings that were not settled inside him yet. There was one thing he was certain of though, and he nodded while finishing in a softer but more assured tone, "If you think, me doing so would hurt people. Or that it would change people's minds like… I don't know. I don't but- but I know that you do. I really think you know more than I do, because you've seen more of the world than I ever will. And because… you're you." Zach's eyes widened at Mineta's reasons there, but he shifted his gaze back to Mina who had stared at Mineta with wide eyes herself, before getting determined and turning back with a similar look as the shorter boy had on his face.

This isn't right. Iida's stomach turned upside-down as he looked to his right at his classmates around him. Then he looked closer, to the boy directly on his side whose head was not bowed but whose eyes were pointed at the floor. He looked at Midoriya and his face that was intense like Iida rarely saw it. What are you thinking about, Midoriya?

"You…" Midoriya began. He rose his eyes with an intense look over it, and he stepped forward towards Zach so he was right in front of his wall-seat. "You still shouldn't have killed though."

"It's a difference in opinion," Zach replied right to Midoriya. "I was at war." Zach put his hands down on his knees, and they stared at him as he sat in a position with his stature broad, his eyes darkened, and his expression scary. He looked deep into Midoriya's eyes even as the green-haired boy curled tighter fists, and he said, "A war that covered the entire world. Not just a fight against villains, but a war between the Army of Death and the armies of evildoers who plagued this world. Many were untouchable. Many thought themselves too good, too strong, too well-connected with governments. King, Zolo, Amaterasu, they had contacts so high in every government reporting to them. The corruption was more widespread than anyone knew, and anyone still does."

"More than what was discovered after the raid on their headquarters?" Midoriya asked lowly, his eyes staying locked on Zach's. "More than you revealed?"

"The Army of Death forced many popular government figures into cutting off all corrupt ties," Zach replied. "Ones that may have been blackmailed into giving away hero locations, or warning villains because those villains had threatened their families or their lives. I didn't always give them up. That would have caused people to lose faith in the democratic process if all their leaders had their true colors shown. If everything their politicians ever did wrong came to life, so I kept some things quiet." Zach shook his head as Midoriya started glaring even harder at him. "Many were simple to keep in check, some just needed the villains they were working with, or under, defeated. But all are prohibited from running for office again," Zach said that and the boy in front of him froze with his eyes growing wide again. "Told that their crimes would be shown to the world if they tried otherwise."

"And why do you get to decide that?" Midoriya asked, his fists clenching even harder and his teeth biting down as he questioned his friend. "What gives you the right to make that decision-"

"Because I thought of all the options, all of the results that would stem from each case, measuring them on case by case bases. It's not what you do within the law, but it's what I did outside of it. I judged how guilty the corrupt ones were, whether they just did it out of fear or because they really were villainous themselves. I made those choices, because I had the power to. And they didn't all deserve to be condemned because they took the risk of going into office and got threatened over it during the trying Age of Villains. And if they spent the end of their terms in office before stepping down making right the things they had done wrong, and if they spent the time I gave them to fix their mistakes helping as many of their people as they could, then why shouldn't they? I counter-blackmailed hundreds of powerful men and women," Zach said in a flat tone while staring deep into Midoriya's shaken eyes. "And instead of sitting in prisons to rot, those people who may have felt forced into doing those things wrong now have the chance to make them right… And if they fail, or if they decide not to do what they promised, then the proof will come out and they'll be arrested for whatever connections they had with villains. And the discretion of whether or not to get them arrested is now in Death's hands, as it was in mine."

"That kind of power…" Iida started. If someone used that power for evil, and he left it in the hands of a criminal! "How could you give it to the Gentle Criminal-"

"Because I trust him," Zach replied without hesitation. He said it firmly and stared Iida down while continuing, "Because we all changed out there, and he was with me at the very worst days. He stood by my side and saw worse things than you can imagine. And when I- when I hesitated, or when I didn't know what was right, he was the first one to get on my back and yell at me for not being ready to handle it. I picked him because he was the best person for it. Because he became the best person, while we fought together." Zach stared into Iida's bigger eyes, and he said in a firm and intense tone, "Whoever we were when we created the Army of Death, we changed after all we had seen in our time in it. Our time at war with the world that was full of more villains, more corruption, and more evil than anyone knew. More horrors than I ever wanted anyone to know about. And, I gave him the mantle because I had the right to. The same reason I was able to decide how to deal with the corrupt leaders and what means to use while fighting villains."

Zach's hands curled into his knees, and he spoke in a low voice while staring forward at Midoriya and Iida straight in front of him as he turned his body to his right. "I was the General, and the soldiers I sent out reported what they found, the dirt or how clean government officials were. How important they are, how corrupt they were, how truly evil, they are all factors in deciding how to deal with them." Zach paused for a moment, then he said stronger without caring about how it was going to sound, "It's not a law system. It's not even a code. It's just up to Death to decide, what is right and what is wrong. And if the people following him thought he was wrong in his decision, they were free to leave. And if the decisions of the Death I left in charge fail or stop being right, I know others will stop following him. As for now though, I believe in the next Death. As I believe in my ability to have picked a good Death to succeed me."

"But, when you killed Stain-" Iida started, stuck on the idea of this that had shocked him to his core when Airi shouted it aloud.

"I did what I thought was right," Zach said, though his face did darken a bit as he shook his head at Iida. "And some people left me because of that. But I stuck to my decisions." He said it determinedly and looked into Iida's eyes with an unwavering expression. "At first I did not believe in myself very much. Yet people followed me. They saw the things I was doing, and they followed me and everything I did. Whether I killed villains or let them live and had them arrested, they followed. I didn't trust easily, so the people who followed me into war, who obeyed my orders and rushed into fights to the death, I was amazed by how much they trusted me." He said it in an amazed voice too, while shaking his head again like he was still trying to wrap his mind around that. "They died for me. For what I thought was right. And I believed in them, because they were the best people in the world. And I've been to every country, but those people who followed me were the best anywhere."

Zach lifted a small smile, sad though steady as he kept the people in front of him as the ones he was more focused on than anything. "They really were all, so amazing. I believed in all of them, and they believed in me. So I started believing in myself more. I trusted my own judgement more. As heroes joined me and fought by my sides, as more and more amazing people entered into my ranks to fight solely for what I thought was right, I became more assured of myself. I gained confidence in my decisions as a leader, even when I failed and people died, because others continued to follow me despite my failures. They accepted our losses, and they learned from them with me. Yet they still believed in me as the leader. No matter how many of them died, or how much we lost, or even when I broke my own rules and went too far when I shouldn't have." He admitted it but stayed strong as he said to the two he needed to convince the most of this. "They believed in my decisions. Some of them left when I killed Stain, because they believed they were like Stain. They were motivated by him and the idea of real heroes not being seen by the media, but most saw what I did too. They saw that letting Stain get more press was the worst thing possible so soon after his cult had been destroyed. They saw that giving his followers or people on the edge of being villains anything to galvanize them, was a horrible prospect. And when I fought him to the death, and I plunged my sword through his heart, that was what I believed with all my heart would have happened if I had captured him alive and handed him to someone else to judge."

Sero's jaw dropped just as a couple of others' did as Zach described stabbing Stain through the heart. Holy crap- Sero's thoughts were cut off as Zach went on, "I believe in my own choices now, because I don't hate myself anymore." He said it in a steady voice, and yet his expression did darken for a moment at the admission he just made. "I… don't think I'm the worst person, because I believe in those people who trusted me, believed in me, followed me, fought and died for me, or even killed for me." And because, I believe that what I just did might finally save her. If that's true, then- then maybe I can really believe this.

"Or even killed?" Midoriya thought while staring at Zach in shock at how strongly he was claiming all of this. Killing, was beyond dying for him? The fact that Zach mentioned 'even' killing last, after how they fought and died for him, made it sound like the people who were with him would have found it so hard to kill. If they really were like that, then- then how could they be terrorists? Or even villains? That man I caught in Italy though… Zach said, he's dead. He died fighting for the world and we never even knew. I didn't know, and for so long I've held onto the idea that they're evil because a man like that is with them, but he could have died the very next day and I never would have known. Midoriya's eyes closed and his fists uncurled at his sides.

Zach, is wrong to believe all of those things so strongly. Midoriya opened his eyes and looked into Zach's with his expression more uncertain than ever. But, he spent years alone in an empty Void. And, and he sat in a cell telling stories of some make-believe world for five months. And he lost so much. So many friends. And I- what kind of punishment does he deserve? If I think of it like he does, and try to imagine what the justice would be for him instead of just what it would be decided on by a court. Because, the crimes Zach's committed aren't… they aren't covered in our law codes. The extent, and judging the good and the bad in the decision. Laws only judge based on the bad. He knew that too, so long ago. That no matter how many people he saved, the few he killed was really what mattered in determining his guilt. But, stopping nukes and ending wars before they even start… And the Pit? Stain? I'm sure there are even worse things he destroyed that he hasn't even told me… yet. And worse things that he's done himself too. I'll never know those truths though. I'll never know the reality behind the myths, behind the veil he put over the entire world to keep any of it from becoming known. And how- how could I ever become the number 1 hero- a symbol of anything?! If I don't learn… those harsh realities.

"Those people who followed me," Zach began again in a softer voice as he saw Midoriya's expression of so many conflicted emotions that it was hard to read what he was thinking or about to do. "They bled and died on every corner of the world fighting villains more ambitious than the League of Villains, more cruel than the Chemist, and more sadistic than Kaminari. I've seen the worst people in the world, the absolute worst monsters beyond Shigaraki and All For One. Who did things beyond even the Chemist's twisted imaginations. Who did things so horrible, so- absurdly, ridiculously inhumane, that I- I-" That I can't even describe them here, Zach finished in his head while just closing his mouth, and not thinking about those things himself.

"We fought against slavers and sex traffickers, cutthroats and hitmen, assassins and murderers, villains of all sorts. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of villains I faced over that year… And hundreds of thousands of villains fell." Zach's voice was powerful and low, the wind blowing by him and hitting his old classmates to give them chills as his words echoed in their heads. "And when we fell, no one knew our names. No one will ever remember them. Or know what they died for. They'll be called villains and terrorists because those are the names soldiers deserve in a world at peace, but it was not at peace. No one knew, what really existed in the shadows. The Shadow Bosses made sure of that, and when they fell, others corrupted governments to prevent their secrets from being discovered. Heroes were kept in the light, while a war raged in the darkness. The Pit was not the worst of the places I found in the cracks of this peaceful world. The City of Villains, the human experimentation labs: the Mad Doctor's, Fergus's, Virginia- so many…" Zach's face got more than just dark there, a look of pain and utter horror flashing over his face at the mention of 'Virginia' that he cut off quickly to trail away. Then he shook his head at his friends who he was saying this all to for a reason, "I know it's impossible to believe, but understand that's because I kept my war a secret in order to allow people to live in peace, blissfully unaware of what I was truly doing."

Ignorance is bliss, or so they say, Sero thought darkly while staring ahead at Zach's face while he said all this. And yet he tells us now… because he has to. And yet he tells us why he couldn't earlier too, also because he has to. Because he wants us to keep it quiet too, to keep that blissful ignorance alive. A place like the Pit, could I have seen it? Could I have really imagined something like that had existed in our world today? I… I don't think I could. And I'm- I guess I'm happy I couldn't. I guess it would be better, than feeling like this. Sero stared at the dimly lit red marks over Zach's neck that looked dimmer now than earlier, and his eyes shifted down to Yaoyorozu's waist for a second to see that the glowsticks were gradually losing their glow.

It wasn't a war, Iida thought, his eyes staying locked on Zach for a couple more seconds before pulling away and looking off in such frustration. But, but despite how much I disagree. Despite knowing that what you did was wrong! Iida closed his eyes and curled his hands into the tightest fists. I, owe it to you… Iida lifted his head back up and his eyes opened. To give you a chance. Because you saved my life, and you saved Kendo's while you were out there. As much as I hate what you were doing. As much as it should be so simple! Is it? Is my own morality, based around a system that you kept in place? Was the world really that fragile that something like that could have changed without you? I don't know. But, I will find that out for myself first.

"I owe you my life, Zach," Iida began. His expression was cold as he said it, and he stared Zach down as his sitting friend turned to look him in the eyes. "I don't agree with anything you did. I- vehemently disagree actually… But I do owe you my life." Iida's expression got even more stern after saying it a second time. "Right now I- I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what, I can say." Iida paused for a moment and then stood up straighter, the tallest one there staring down intensely into Zach's eyes. "You were a dangerous terrorist and villain. And you killed people." Iida closed his eyes, then he opened them and finished in a lower voice, "I will be watching you closely, and the moment I think you might return to what you were," Iida's eyebrows narrowed in and a completely serious look covered his face as his fists clenched hard at his sides. "I will arrest you in that very moment."

"Iida," Midoriya whispered, looking next to him with big eyes. Then he turned back to Zach himself, as Zach looked from Iida who he nodded at seriously, and to Midoriya too so their eyes met. "Zach," Midoriya said quietly. "You know, I'm working with Lemillion to prove you're Death." He said it softly, and the others behind Midoriya all turned and stared at his back with big eyes. "I can't just…" Midoriya started it but he grit his teeth and had to stop himself before talking about lying to the pro he was working with.

Zach's expression softened too as he saw Midoriya's frustrated and conflicted expression growing at why he just cut himself off. "I'm sorry," Zach whispered back at the green-haired boy standing his height in front of him. "If, it's any consolation," Zach continued in a soft tone. "I think the Army of Death really will start shrinking though. If, the reason for proving that is to try and stop them," he added at the end, as there was a chance the reason was just to get him arrested again. Midoriya curled his fists tighter as that really was a reason he had had himself earlier that day alone. Before he had heard… so much that changed his mind. Midoriya looked at Zach in semi-confusion at the sentiment Zach mentioned though, as much as there were other things to be thinking about.

"Why?" Deku wondered softly back to him.

"Because, everyone in it wants the same things," Zach replied, a small smile formed on his face. "The things I spread through the world, the idea of a beautiful life, a happy life, I know that the hurt and damaged and broken people who came and joined my army all started to believe in those things themselves. The more we spread them, the more I could see it." Zach lifted his smile a little more, nostalgic no matter how sad. "As much as I had them saving other people we met, I had always hoped I was saving them too. Like I hope, I finally saved Airi. More-so than when I was with the League and brought her back, or when I was a student and pushed her away because I was afraid of her obsession, or when I first asked for her help while ignoring the feelings I should have known would only grow stronger the longer she was with me. I hope that as Death I was finally able to help her." He got quiet for a moment, then said while looking around at the six in front of him softly, "Only as Death, have I actually had an impact on this world. Only through Death, have I become the hero I know Jenny thought I was."

The others all staring at Zach in quiet astonishment at what he was saying felt their hearts hurt at that reasoning. Yaoyorozu's chest ached, as she thought about how he cried on the roof of their dorm to her about what had happened to that girl. And they all thought about the screams they heard at the Sports Festival right before it was invaded two years earlier. And as they were thinking about her, Zach whispered in a low voice, "Maybe, I feel this way because Darling, was more of a little sister to me than anything." He said it like he was pondering it himself, and the others looked at his face with even wider eyes at the look of reflection on it like he was only realizing this now. "And in that case, I guess I projected Jenny onto her. My sister who I was never able to save, and the longer I went without being able to save Darling the more it felt like the same thing. Like I was failing all over again even though I swore it would be different this time. That I would save her…"

A beautiful world? Yaoyorozu was stuck on it as she looked at Zach's soft smile that started to lower again as his focus returned on the six of them. He says they all believed it. That that's what they were fighting for. But, after seeing all the things he saw there's no way he can see that. He's said that this world is far more horrible than any of us can imagine. The things he describes, are so terrible I can hardly believe them. Momo's pocket buzzed again, and she looked down only to see that her glowsticks were dim too and running out of juice. I, need to process all of this. I need time to… to think over everything we just heard.

Midoriya's hands shook at his sides while still staring at Zach from up close. Zach stood up when he felt that buzz in his pocket, and he pulled his phone out and looked down at texts from both Hagakure and Ojiro who were coming into the woods to look for them since no one was responding or returning to the fair. The smile he had a moment ago was completely gone as he put his phone back into his pocket and looked forward. He stared at the person right in front of him whose answer he had not heard yet. "Tell me, Midoriya. What are you going to do with this knowledge."

Deku shook his head and was thinking as fast as he could, adding everything up in his head and trying to come up with the answer. It's me. I'm All Might's successor. But- but I have to pick for myself! What do I want to do here? What do I have to do here?

"I'm not done yet," Zach said to his former classmate, and close friend. He said it in a soft voice while looking straight into Midoriya's eyes, but despite his low tone, his body had returned to a stature more befitting a military leader looking powerful and unshaken. His expression was stoic, and he continued, "I knew I could do good returning to Japan, so I came and accepted Zach Sazaki's crimes. Not the crimes of the former villain known as Reaper, or the leader of the Army of Death, only Zach Sazaki."

"Do you really think," Midoriya started, his face twisting up and his eyes staring into Zach's frustratedly. "Making an army to go around the world fighting villains was-"

"I know for a fact that it saved millions of lives," Zach interrupted. He cut Midoriya off, and the sentence he cut him off with made Midoriya's heart jerk and his whole body tense up. He wasn't bragging. Zach spoke it as a fact and glared Midoriya down which made him lean away at Zach's intense gaze. "Millions," Zach repeated firmly. "This world is beautiful. That is a truth I accepted long ago. It's something I believe in, with all my heart. In the world though, there are worse things than I ever dared to imagine. Things that almost shook my faith in this world's beauty. Things, that no longer exist. Things I made sure, people would no longer suffer from. The Pit is destroyed. How many of those freed gladiators joined me afterwards, despite what I had done in The Pit himself? People to bolster my forces, to take on mafias and villain gangs who traded in sex slaves and children, or both as one and the same. The sex slave industry across Asia is wiped out, simply because no one would dare get into such a risky business anymore after what happened to the old sex traffickers. Pirating villains around Indonesia and East Africa know not to attack boats anymore and take people hostage, make them scared, hold them for ransom. Future warlords in Africa won't even consider recruiting any soldiers under fifteen years old, or they won't be doing anymore recruiting at all… Midoriya, I couldn't tell you all the things I did out there, because I spent every minute I was gone working towards stopping more villains. Every single day, against villain organizations and powerful groups, the most powerful groups in every country-"

"How could you do all this?" Midoriya asked, his voice coming out seethed through his teeth as it was impossible to believe all of that. "How is any of that possible? And in a single year-"

"Rumors, are as dangerous as anything," Zach replied. "And in the underworld the rumors about me kept them in fear. The fact that the Army of Death is not in one place, that it could be anywhere and show up at anytime, keeps villains from ever getting complacent. It discourages people from even considering becoming monsters." Zach paused and got a more defensive look on his face, "The Army of Death was my creation, something I decided would be incorruptible from the start. Because at any time its members could leave, if at any time the ideology changed it would lose all its supporters across the world, and it was only because heroes didn't want to capture me that I was able to act as freely as I was through all that time."

Midoriya clenched his teeth together and looked away. In his head flashed the disappointed and angry looks of those Italian heroes who had turned away from him, but who he could feel were upset with him for capturing that Army of Death member. Through his mind flashed the dozens of reports he had seen of the Army of Death's appearances, where heroes had failed to capture even a single member. Even in their interactions with the Anti-Death Task Force, they had never once gotten into a fight with a hero. They never even fought me. He just, let himself get captured rather than fight back. Once I caught him… Midoriya stared at his friend before him who looked so serious as he searched Midoriya's eyes for his answer.

"Goals that could not be twisted," he continued quietly. "All decisions going through me. And I swear," Zach continued, his voice lower as he turned from Midoriya and looked to his right at Iida, then turned to the left and looked at the other four too. "I did good. More good than bad, so much good, that I think for decades, centuries even, the things I did that past year will reverberate through them and make this world as a whole a better place." He said it hopefully while looking into Midoriya's eyes in an almost defeated, but still hopeful way. "It's my biggest hope, my truest desire, something I hope to see while living a long life the same way I told Airi to."

Ashido, Mineta, and Yaoyorozu stared at Zach with their eyes growing huge at the sound of that desire. Yaoyorozu was already shaken as Zach had described the beauty of the world again, and this time he described it as a truth he believed in 'with his whole heart.' But this, was even more shocking to her and the others as they stared in shock at Zach. The main reason Iida and Midoriya did not, was because the two of them really did not believe Zach, at first. Then his face scrunched up a little though, and in a soft voice he explained, "I couldn't do it with her. I couldn't live that life with her, not without feeling like I was doing it solely to protect her, to satisfy her, and to save her. I knew she considered me like a God, and that would never be a healthy relationship. It's why I never touched her, despite how often she'd walk into my quarters naked 'on accident.' Like she forgot it wasn't her room…" Zach laughed a little, though his laughs sounded sad as he wondered if he really was never going to see her again.

That's for the best, he reminded himself, and he smiled more at the thought. Then he returned his gaze to Midoriya and spoke in a calm voice not trying to convince him of anything, not trying to save himself or defend himself anymore. He just said in a regular tone looking calm as could be, "Darling, Gentle, La Brava, all of them were my comrades. Those three you saw me with that night, were my amazing comrades who I've seen save thousands of people. Who helped me stop that flood in Qingxiao, and beat the League of Shadows, and storm into Hatto to free the people of Saudi Arabia. They saved me from the Pit, and countless other times besides that. And I know that whether or not they stay with the Army of Death, they'll do great things no matter what they do with their lives."

Iida's stern and steady look that he had since making his warning to Zach shook. He had wanted to keep it that firm until the end, but what Zach was saying did not sound so dark or menacing anymore. He was not speaking like Death, nor as Zach Sazaki though. He spoke in a voice sounding so mature, so experienced, that it made Iida feel strange having given Zach a warning about watching him closely only a minute ago. It made him feel like Zach could not have taken his threat seriously, which made him wonder if he thought that because he felt Zach was that far beyond just being another of his peers.

"It's why I never touched her…" "…I couldn't do it with her. I couldn't live that life with her…" So does that mean, you do want that life? Yaoyorozu stared at Zach with her eyes frozen wide. You still want to live it- Zach's eyes turned towards Yaoyorozu and her inner voice cut off as they made eye contact. His eyes shifted back to Midoriya who stood closest in front of him, but the girl he had just glanced to was staring at him stuck in place. What was that?

Midoriya stared deep into Zach's eyes from a couple feet in front of him. His breath came out steady, much steadier than his thoughts that were racing through his head and which he was holding back from mumbling aloud. …That flood in Qingxiao, and the League of Shadows, Saudi Arabia, and the Pit! Those things he just said are all amazing, crazy things! And yet! He was just repeating the same ones we already know. The same things we've already heard about. Things he explained to us because Darling brought them up…

What's your decision, Midoriya?

What would he do if I- if I what? Could we- Should we arrest him here? Should I? Is everyone else already decided, to just… What is everyone doing? What am I doing?! Do I turn him over? All those things were such amazing and trying things he had to deal with. How can I judge him when I don't understand any of it? If All Might could let someone like Eziano Mozcaccio get away… But I always said I wouldn't do the same thing. I told Zach! We said we'd stop him, no matter what… But why is it I wanted to get Zach earlier? It was what the League's doctor said. About Zach being the endgame. I needed dirt on him because, because I wanted him put away to stop his future plans! Because I didn't believe he was just here without a plan, but…

"My plan was to get sent to Tartaros!" Could it really be? "That was the full extent of it! I never thought I'd be out this quickly. I'm improvising!" Midoriya's eyes grew wider as he thought about what Zach had told them when he, Bakugo, and Todoroki had confronted him in the national park that day. "I just wanted to go to Tartaros, to get out of reach." He said it again that day! Like, it was really all he was thinking about?! He got himself sent to Tartaros so that Darling couldn't follow him! He- He left all of that behind, to save that- SHE SHOT HIM! She shot him and he, he thanked her and she- She's crazy! She's so powerful. I could have been killed if she was taking that seriously. Holy- All of those assassins after Zach, she's been the one spotting them and calling them out for him! She's the best shot in the world?! Is that true? I never even caught a glimpse of her when Zach was let out of prison, so how far was she or- or did she just slip away into the crowd? That girl is insanely strong, and she's a villain- and yet! I could never go after her! I can never chase her.

The realization Midoriya had despite all he had just thought about Airi, made him suck in a deep breath through his nose as he stared at Zach's face. Why her then, and not him? Why can't I be that confident about not, not going after you? Not turning you over? Why is it that when it comes to you I can't decide? Maybe, because it wasn't that girl's fault. You said it yourself, that you dragged her into it. And no matter what she thought on the matter, she was crazy and you took advantage of that. That's the difference. You aren't crazy. You made all those decisions yourself. And despite your time in prison already, you haven't paid for-

"…As long as he's doing alright. He was a real mess when he got in here, you know?"

The prison guard's voice echoed in Midoriya's head from when he visited the day before. He could hear Tachibana's voice, and he remembered how what he started to think about in that moment was pushed away as they started talking about the stories Zach told them.

"I get why you think I'm still manipulating, because I do too!"

What happened in the national park repeated in Deku's head; what Zach told them when he couldn't take their looks anymore. This isn't-

"I'm not lying! I really do, feel the same way as you! I can't even have a conversation with Mina without thinking, 'How would Zach Sazaki answer that?' Or, 'what would Zach feel like' if I heard what she said, and then how I could respond to make her feel good so that she thinks it's really me… I get so angry though, because I'm the only one who thinks I'm manipulating in that conversation. Because it doesn't take me any time at all to come up with those things to say, or how to pretend to feel like Zach Sazaki, because they're the things I want to say or would feel anyway."

All the signs were there. They've been right in front of me this whole time, but he's convinced me otherwise. He's so strong that it's impossible to see! It's always so hard to even imagine that you…

"I'm jumping through loops to 'act' like the person I actually am, because I can't just step back into Zach Sazaki's shoes. I can't!"

You've always needed it. Midoriya and Zach's locked gaze started to shift for both of them, with Zach's becoming less certain and somewhat confused at the way Midoriya started to look at him.

"YEARS!"

Our help. You could have gone to any prison. You- You could have gone anywhere afterwards. You didn't need to come try and make things better with us! Sure, that might be, because you had regrets and wanted to fix things you left broken too… But that's not the only reason.

"Years of absolutely nothing in all directions! Never sleeping! Never getting tired! Never thirsty or hungry or- ahhh! Just straight consciousness in an empty Void for years!"

He's Death. He was an international terrorist, who fought villains exactly as he said he would when he left us. He told us what he was going to do and, and he did it. He saved millions. And he… Midoriya stared into Zach's eyes that looked even more anxious now, like he was preparing for Midoriya to arrest him because Midoriya's expression had taken a turn Zach was not expecting in the least and could not read any longer. Midoriya felt like he was looking down at Zach all of a sudden at the fear in his friend's eyes, the last desperate look he was giving him making everyone else around Midoriya tense up too. And he… he looks like he's asking for help!

Midoriya's mouth opened. "Zach. Please, tell me." Zach nodded at Midoriya in a way showing he would. The two of them were only looking at each other with no one else around them even in their peripherals anymore. "What's your current plan?"

"To get a hero license."

"Why?"

"To be a hero."

Midoriya's questions stopped. He stared forward at Zach and ignored the faint and distant shout of 'Zach' that carried over the wind when that silence fell. A couple of seconds later they heard the faint call of 'Mina' too in a higher-pitched voice. Midoriya did not feel a need to rush though, as he had already made a decision. Zach's answers were simple. Whatever the long answers, or the details surrounding them, his second response said all it needed to. "Then, if you're really not one of them anymore… And- And you continue to act within the law…" Midoriya trailed off a second time, thinking about the things Lemillion and their agency had been investigating since Zach returned that made his fists clench so much harder in the potential regret for this decision. Two bad choices. A hard decision. But I- I know I'm right for this!

"Then I'll keep it a secret," Midoriya finished softly. His voice got quieter but just as assured, and he nodded at Zach while saying it as the black-haired boy stared in shock back at him.

Zach's expression had been more composed and unafraid than he had been letting on. But what Midoriya just said to him made his eyes shoot open as wide as his classmates' had been a couple times during what he had told them tonight. Midoriya?! He's the one I was most concerned about- maybe Todoroki but still! MIDORIYA?!

"…Yaomomo! Sero? Where are you guys?!" The voice came out distant, but closer than it was a few seconds earlier.

Mineta turned his head and glanced in the direction Hagakure and Ojiro were in. What do we tell them…

"If you've decided not to arrest me then," Zach began softly. His eyes lowered to the floor as it was hard to look at the six in front of him right now, and harder considering what he was about to say. "Then don't tell anyone." He rose his head up and his eyes were deathly serious again, making Mineta tense up most as the simplest solution for their latest problem was to just tell the two who arrived the situation. If it was just Hagakure and Ojiro…

"If you will tell, then just come to me yourself and take me in. It would be you anyway," he said that in an apologetic tone, as he knew he was placing the blame on one of them in the future if they told someone about it. He blamed the person who may have gotten angry at a friend because the friend or trusted confidant they told said they would not tell anyone. Zach put the blame on the person who told the secret first, not on the person who did not know it currently but who might turn him in. Even if that other person was also a friend of his, or someone else the others might think could be trusted, Zach just said that to tell someone else would be the same as coming and turning him over themself.

And that put their decisions solely on themselves. Mineta felt his hands get sweatier, and his eyes lowered down to his uneasy and shaking hands. Until that moment, he had figured he would be able to talk about this with someone and try and figure out what really was the best move. I- I'm not ready for this. I don't know what's right here! He did not even think about it before that moment, but it was only taking away the option of being able to go talk to someone else to determine if his choice was the right one, that he felt the pressure of the decisions he was about to make. Lying to everyone? Pretending I don't know anything about the Army of Death and what they were- that Zach's Death?! It's not just keeping the secret. What if I'm wrong and… and he does something- and I knew! If he kills people and I knew that… I… Mineta's uneasy hands steadied. He looked at Zach and made up his mind again, more confidently this time. He won't!

It might be stupid, but he's still Zach! All that stuff he was saying about just wanting people to have good lives? That's definitely, 100- 99.5 percent sure that's still Zach right there!

How does his body still function? After all of that, how is he even still alive? I'm- I'm so happy, you're still alive.

I need more time to think. If I do decide to turn you in, will you come quietly? You won't confess, so does that mean you'll deny this incident ever happening? Would I be forced to bring the others here into court to have them either condemn you or perjure themselves for you? If it comes to that, would you be willing to confess then? Or do you believe strongly enough in the ideal of Death that you spread, that you would continue to deny everything? The logistics of arresting you for being Death alone, are daunting. However the true impact would come with what else happens should I do that. How those you left behind in your army would react? No. Rather, how the rest of the world, how the rest of Japan specifically would react to learning that you were he. And should I do it, and everything you've done comes to light, what if I come to regret it? It is not something I can take back so easily. It is not something, I can decide on lightly.

I believed the stories. You made me believe. And yet even now I can't tell where the line is. What within what you told me was a lie and what's truth. I have no clue. You lied about everything. And at the same time, you were more honest with us than you've ever been before. You don't want people knowing the darkness that lay inside the world? I believe that. I believe you're that good a person, that you'd actually think about something like that. That you think the rest of our lives would be worse if we knew the kinds of things that happened to you. Damn it Zach. You're Death. You traveled the world and took all the power you needed to take on the worst villains there were… and you won! You kicked their asses. And now the world is, it's a lot better off than it was when you left. You- Was it you? Was it all you? You won't ever take the credit. You'll just be the greatest hero in the world and no one will know. That's- the fucking coolest thing. You are the biggest badass in the world!

I can't tell All Might. This is it. It's not graduation. It's this moment right now. I'm a hero and that means, decisions I make affect everyone. I have to protect people. I have to protect everyone! Not stopping Zach, could be putting a lot of people in danger. Maybe it's the wrong move… But Zach is a part of everyone! He- He deserves a chance! Doesn't he? I- I'm not just doing this because he's my friend. I'm not… "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…" I'm not being selfish? Am I? Am I doing what he did, to save her? If I only think of other people first… Like Zach, always did before it came to her. Zach. I- I really don't… want you to leave again.

"We're over here!" Yaoyorozu called out. Everyone looked towards her, including Zach who made eye contact with the tall girl once more. Their eyes locked and Yaoyorozu took in a soft breath, then she nodded at Zach in agreement to what he had said to them. Then she turned herself, and she started through the woods in the direction of the other two, already prepared with a story to tell them of what happened with the assassin who escaped them.

Despite how collected and quick Yaoyorozu was to act, her expression just fooled the other six around her. He's still here? I always thought- I always knew you were Death! And, and I thought I knew that if that ever came out then you would be gone again! I thought, you would maybe say it yourself, right before disappearing if it wasn't when you were arrested for it. I never even considered that we- that multiple people and myself would all keep- it's a conspiracy! But for Zach. After hearing all you did out there! Things that weren't close to the worst things you had to face! I was judging you and almost, I almost gave up. I almost gave up on you.

Whatever happens next, I'll always try. Because the person who cared about you most in the world is gone now. You sent her away to never come back. But there are still people with you who care. People who have always cared, and who won't stop trying- I won't come that close to giving up on you, ever again. Zach… I'm sorry.

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A/N Thanks for reading... The word is out. Zach's deeds are known by 6 now, and each of them are struggling* with what they've learned, (some more than others). For now though, at least for now, they're going to sit on this information that they're all still processing... Anyway! We see the Pit this chapter with the psychology behind how the fights happened, as well as what happened during the rise. The Pit resulted in Zach's heart stopping during a surgery we heard about at the end of 121 when Zach woke up from it, only for Mark to pump his blood and keep him going until he was fixed. I also hinted at Yemen earlier in the story, though really only on the news in Japan where they heard talks about changing Quirk laws in 124 as a surprising news story came around that the conservative government had made a surprising 180 on the Quirk issues after holding firm despite the recent skirmishes with protestors... XD Zach reveals his hand in events all over the world over the time he was gone, making it hard for his friends to judge him as they wonder what right they have to do so, as much as some of them want to just deny it as all just more lies. Lots happening right now, and this was a real long chapter (sorry for the long update time too, wasn't expecting this to be over 30k), but lots more coming right up! Haven't started on the next chapter yet, (about to though), but it's going to be a smaller one so hopefully I'll get it up within a couple days. I start up work tomorrow so might be tough, but I'll see you guys again soon! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, comments, or predictions as for what's coming next...

grimXblade chapter 167 . Jul 8

I'm a 17 year male... and I cried like a baby!
This was honestly both satisfying and heartbreaking(MY SHIP!) THANK YOU OH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WRITING THIS BREATHTAKING STORY! I'm gonna go cry in the corner now.

XD Haha thanks! I let a couple tears fall (maybe more than a couple) while I was writing it too, so I feel ya man. Thanks for the great compliment and hope you liked the new chapter!

.0 chapter 167 . Jul 8

I've been reading this story since it had about 60 chapters, and I continue to have my expectations exceeded. This story has turned into something amazing that I'm so happy I took the chance and read it. I never expected a fanfiction to be this good, and if anyone askes me what my favorite book/story is I'd tell them this one. I look forward to the updates for this more than the updates for the official manga, and I like Zach much more than any of the official characters (heck I think I like Darling, Mark, Cee, Grabble, and many of your other characters more than the original). I'll admit I cried a lot of times while reading Death, but this chapter hit me hard. Zach's break down scene where he detroyed his dorm room had me balling too, but his interaction with Darling and them saying goodbye got me good. (Also HOLY JESUS THEY KNOW HE'S DEATH WHAT'S HE GONNA DO) This fanfic is super underated and is probrably the best one I've ever read, I'm gonna be really sad when its overrip. I stayed up super late reading this and typing so to end this off, your story is absolutly breathtaking and I look forward to every update. Keep up the amazing work!

Thank you! I'm really happy to see so many people enjoying this, and that it's your favorite story feels pretty awesome. You're breathtaking! XD Thanks for this awesome review and I hope you like this new chapter you've been looking forward to!

Yatagarasu chapter 167 . Jul 8

And everything changes from here, I wish that the chapters had their own names so that key parts of the story are easier to go to.
Fuck, now what's gonna happen to zach? Slightly sad that the Darling ship won't sail, but I don't think anyone really expected it to. Is zach gonna have to face off with his friends, and leave to actually be a vigilante? Is THIS arc gonna be how this story ends? I can't really see where zachs gonna go from here.

Yeah, I think adding chapter names could've been a great move. I did that for my last massive story though, and that kind of got... eh, don't really know how to describe that even though I did it for the same reason in Nexus. The interaction gets tense a couple times here, but Zach keeps calm and defuses his situation... for now. Thanks for the review!

Guest chapter 167 . Jul 8

You hit me right in the bloody feels. I've been shipping ZachxDarling since I first read about Darling, at least she didn't die but c'mon! Why couldn't they be together! Why the hell doesn't Zach love Airi!? She would literally go to hell for him. Would Momo do that? No, ok so maybe she would but she would hesitate for like a minute or two while Airi would just immediately try to save Zach as soon as possible. When this story ends, can we have like an epilogue/in the future/x years later that shows how the world is doing and Zach's impact on it and how all the now older characters (especially Airi, definitely want her to have a happy ending, she sure as hell deserves it) are doing.

Always tough to sink a ship lol, sorry. Zach brings up his reasoning again in this chapter, but he knew she considers him like a God and that relationship was never going to be healthy for her, or for him either if he felt the whole time like he might only be doing it to save her. Anyway, I love Airi too, and so does Zach, but just not like that... Don't know about the whole after-story thing yet (since there's still a lot left to write in the main one! Got another million words left! XD maybe not, but actually...) Thanks for reviewing!

Todorokiii chapter 167 . Jul 10

CJSJSUABWUBW CLIFFHANGER?! I CANT LIVE! YOU GOTTA FREAKING UPDATE BECAUSE IM CRYING, SCRATCH THAT WE'RE CRYING AND REREADING ISN'T HELPING! IT'S ILLEGAL TO MAKE A CLIFFHANGERS, IT'S DEADLY! ESPECIALLY WITH A STORY AND A CHAPTER LIKE THAT! UDHWHSAHUA! THIS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME *PUN INTENDED*! THIS CHAPTER IS GOLD AND WILL BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHAPTERS! I LOVE HOW THE FLOW OF ZACH'S AND DARLING'S CONVERSATION HIT ME TO THE CORE. FLAWLESS. THANK YOU AUTHOR SAN FOR SHARING YOUR WONDERFUL MASTERPIECE! I WILL LOVE THIS FIC AND DARLING WITH ALL MY HEART!

HAHAHAHA I'M SORRY FOR CLIFFHANGING FOR SO LONG! I was really glad you guys all enjoyed the chapter so much, and the tension really was accidental as some stuff just came up this week that made me take a little longer. Anyway, you're welcome! Glad you love the story so much, and thanks for the EPIC REVIEW!

AMR-MNR chapter 1 . 4h ago

When I get settled with the 1-3 day update times you manage, seeing it go for over a week gets a bit vexing... Even if this particular update may be the most important one so far! I can only imagine what chapter 168 may hold, all of the events coming up to this - it may be a sixty thousand word chapter as far as I know, God knows you posted at least 10 thirty thousand word ones so far.
I just wonder, my good sir, when it will come. Be it in a few minutes, as I keep hoping for (which, I'll be honest, is a bit of an unreal expectation... But just a hope) or even a week from now.
I'll read it once I see the notifications anyhow. I again wish you luck! Ciao.

XD I had just started editing the finished chapter and eating my lunch when I got this review. Hope the last few hours' wait wasn't too tough on you! Here you go!