Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 177:

"Sazaki! Zach Sazaki!"

"Lifebringer! Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, of course," Zach looked to his left and responded in a calm voice. His eyes lifted up and scanned the buildings near him, as he continued to walk down the sidewalk without fully stopping to talk to the reporters running alongside him.

"Where are you going?!"

"This is a crime scene-"

"The other heroes have it," Zach assured, nodding back towards the heroes who had been on the scene in the first place. "I just happened to be nearby, so I thought I'd come to help."

"But you're Lifebringer!" One of the reporters who ran along his side ran up in front of Zach who had not been moving very fast. The boy was unable to keep walking as his path got blocked, and the other reporters were able to stop moving and better corner him in. The one who just called that he was Lifebringer and blocked him off held his microphone forward as Zach looked back towards him. "At a scene like this you should be the one to face the media and tell everyone what just happened."

"Why me and not one of the other heroes?" Zach questioned, raising an eyebrow in semi-confusion while still smiling in a casual and friendly way. "I only stopped the last two there, FlyGuy and the other heroes did more than I did."

"Because you're Lifebringer-"

"You're the one people are looking to-"

"The Hero of the People!"

"People want to see you-"

Zach lifted his left hand up and put it between him and the microphone the closest reporter tried to shove closer to him. He pushed it back out of his face a little, and he interrupted before that reporter could yell out at him, "I think you guys are mistaken. I'm just another hero."

"Wha-" the man who pulled his microphone back hesitated, but his producer yelled in his ear and the camerawoman behind him was still rolling live. "That's not true! Lifebringer, you're the symbol!"

"Haha," Zach laughed and then asked the reporter in front of him, "Who isn't?" Zach saw the confusion on the reporter's face and glanced around getting a bit more hesitant for a second as all the reporters were looking straight at him. Then he looked back though at the man who got in his way first, and he continued, "Yeah, All Might was a symbol of peace, sure. Losing him isn't what made the rise of villains though. He was a pillar. A pillar," Zach said, specifying how it was singular like that was the important point there.

"And admittedly, he was the strongest one. But the world was weaker when he was there, from what I see," Zach said, speaking of it in his view while still smiling though with his expression looking serious too. He went on to the stunned reporter in front of him who had not expected to get much out of Lifebringer despite how hard he was trying, "Because the world is heavy, and All Might was the strongest most powerful pillar directly below the world holding it up. Losing him made it weak, but did we fall?" Zach tilted his head in confusion like it should have happened if that were the case. Then he continued, "Some people became afraid, and some felt too scared to leave their homes after the Sports Festival Invasion, and yet today everyone is smiling and out on the streets feeling safe again. You wonder why that is? In such a short period of time, things are back to normal, or even better than before. Why is that?"

Zach responded to himself without really giving a pause as it was a rhetorical question, "It's because we didn't have to rise from nothing. It's because we had Endeavor, to become one pillar to keep holding us up, and we had U.A. as another, and Class A, Lemillion, Star-Spangled Man who came all the way here to help rebuild, all the heroes domestic and foreign… Even in the times when U.A. had an attack, and cracks formed on that pillar, there were so many others keeping everyone's heads high." He paused for a second again and then said firmly, "And even if all of those pillar fell, more would have just risen in their places."

He smiled softly at the reporter in front of him and said to the older man, "Because there was never a time when a single symbol ever existed. The one people look to?" Zach asked with a look to his left at one of the other reporters who had called out something like that at him. "People will always look to something to be hopeful for, something to believe in. If people want to look to me then that's fine, but they shouldn't rely on me or what I have to say. Each of them is strong enough on their own. We look to these symbols to ensure ourselves that things are still peaceful, but we would just create new ones if the old ones fall. People always do. Regular, common people are stronger than anyone gives them credit for… We're all heroes to someone. Or at least, we all can be."

The way Zach worded that at the end was specific. Don't want to exclude anyone, he thought while refacing the reporter directly in front of him again instead of the ones on his left off the sidewalk. The people who might think that no one does rely on them right now, no one does think of them as a hero, saying it like that gives them the motivation to go out and be a better person and a hero to someone else. It'd be nice-

"Don't you realize, that what you're saying here is exactly what I'm talking about?" The reporter before Zach questioned, looking at him with eyebrows lifting but a smile on his face as it seemed to him like Lifebringer did not actually realize that. "How what you're saying will inspire people?"

Zach smiled more at the sound of that, and he told the man in front of him, "I hope it does." The scars on his face and neck did not matter. Only the smile and the tone and the words he was saying got through as Zach chuckled and added, "That's why I came back to being a hero after all. Being a hero, more important than anything else is being something people can look to and believe in. But I think that more than that, a hero is someone I wish people could look at and say, 'I could be like him, or her.' I've made mistakes in my life, we all do, but I rolled with the punches and came back after it all to try and be better this time."

"You're a special type of person to be able to do that after everything you've been through though-"

Zach shook his head and cut off the reporter with that alone. "There's nothing unique about me," he countered, opening back up his eyes that he closed as he shook his head there and staring into the reporter's eyes as he said it. "I'm just, human. But humans are all special. We all have the ability to be the best that we can be. We could all be amazing if we tried. We could all be… good."

"Look at that little shit," Shooter growled, sitting on the couch of a forest mansion and watching the news with some other villains around him. Out the wide windows covering the walls to the left of the tv there was nothing but open forest for miles that they could see above since the mansion was on the side of a mountain too. "Talking all that bull for the cameras."

"I don't know," Shooter turned his head and looked over his shoulder and behind the couch to where a younger villain was standing. The twenty year old with short spiky red hair glanced at Shooter hesitantly, then he wondered while refacing the screen, "Hearing all that, it really doesn't sound like- I mean, you really think Death would say something like that? That was some gooey shit, even for a hero."

"It's Lifebringer, Rabbit, don't believe a word he says," Diamondfist muttered over towards a newer member of their group who had small bunny ears sticking out of his red hair. Diamondfist was using a pull-up bar attached to the walls on either side of the entryway for the kitchen of their hideout, and he let go with one arm but kept doing the pull-ups with his right while looking back to the tv. "He's Death alright. That innocent smile's for us, to make us think he's not so bad and show ourselves, so that he can come rip our throats out." His arms were feeling tired, but Todo Viscucci heard his own words in his head and continued working out through the pain.

"What do you think?" Sonic stood in a dining hall with a tall ceiling outside of the living room, and he looked towards the entrance of their mansion in the other direction around the corner as the majority of their gang. The blond teenager nodded his head once more at the leader of the three people who were leaving the mansion, and the tall, tan-skinned villain in black and red nodded back at Raijin once before shutting the door.

Raijin turned to Sonic and he remarked with a chuckle, "He's using everything. Thinking constantly about his next moves. Of course it's meant for us, but it's also a part of his master plan." Raijin walked with Sonic back around the corner and into the gap between the dining hall and the living room where the number of villains gathered at their hideout was double what it had been a few months ago.

The Tartaros escapee next to Raijin looked towards the television and watched as Zach apologized but started running from the reporters as he said he had things he needed to do. He had to remind them loudly over his shoulder that he was letting the other heroes deal with the incident they had responded to behind him. "How does any of that help his 'master plan?'" Sonic asked as he watched that kid call that with a laugh and a smile.

"I don't know," Raijin replied, though still smirking as he stared towards the television even as Sonic looked to him in some surprise that he would admit that. Sonic glanced behind him then as he heard the front door open again, but it was just Meta coming back with a dozen bags of groceries lining his arms, and a pissed-off look on his face though seeing Raijin's back he just kept his mouth shut and walked the other way to go around the stairs to reach the kitchen. Sonic looked back to the side of Raijin's face and felt a confidence rise within him despite how certain Raijin was that Lifebringer had some secret plan in the works. He felt reassured, because Raijin was chuckling in a smug way as he watched his old classmate run away on the screen. "But whatever happens, I'm going to outmaneuver him with my plan. I'm going to beat him. And then, I'm going to kill him."

"…And as you just saw, Lifebringer has run off again to avoid further questions from the media. However, if you see this, Lifebringer, we do appreciate the time you gave us today. However short it was…"

Todoroki Shoto lowered his phone and he put it down on his desk in front of him. He had a pair of headphones in and continued to breathe quietly but heavily as he thought about what he had just listened to. What the hell is he playing at? Saying all that, for what? He was always so subtle before, so why go right out and say- say what? That we don't need symbols? That he's not a symbol, because we all are? He brought up U.A. and Class A without even mentioning his own school or class… We are symbols the media has talked about before though. Symbols through the past years when, when people really needed… Is that what that was? Was he reinforcing the idea that, the age of villains is over? He made it sound like all that villains rising and people being afraid was all in the past, even though Intanzo's out there, and Shigaraki and Kaminari were never caught. Midoriya tells me you think All For One's looking to destroy the world! So what was that?

Todoroki still had his phone out, and his fingers were moving aimlessly around the screen only for his eyes to refocus and see that he had opened up a voice memo application. He stared at the most recent recording which lasted several minutes, and he tapped on the Play button still with his headphones in, though he lowered the volume of his phone anyway for some reason. Todoroki closed his eyes and his fingers curled into fists on top of his desk as he listened to Zach speak, and to his own voice countering and snapping angrily at Zach every few seconds. He doesn't just mention Stain at the beginning. He brings Stain up over and over through the whole talk. So I can't even just crop out the beginning or end. It's all, useless.

His index finger of his right hand moved over to the garbage can symbol next to the recording, and he tapped it only for an 'Are You Sure' message to appear over his screen. His finger hesitated as he moved it to 'Yes,' but it pulled back again when he moved it over to 'No.' I need to, turn him in. But not with this. I can't use this, I need real proof. Proof that won't incriminate myself, and Midoriya and Iida, for the same kind of crime- it isn't the same though! And yet, I can't use this. It'll just complicate everything. I need better proof- Todoroki clicked on 'Yes,' and then his stomach gripped and his clenched his teeth in anger.

The thought he had refused to have beforehand pried its way into his head, That's just an excuse. "Damn," Todoroki whispered under his breath, his head shaking in frustration. "Why can't I-" I do hate him. Don't I? He left without explaining anything! He told me something like that, and he just ran away to leave me with that for years! With no explanation! You just told me to stop Touya- Touya, is still alive. If you weren't lying- but why would you have? You weren't. I know you weren't. But I also don't, want to believe that Dabi-

Todoroki leaned back in his chair and he lowered his phone down to rest on his lap, though his fingers tapped on the back of it with his expression staying dark. The teen brooding in his room lifted his gaze and stared out his window, and then his eyes shifted up to the top of it. He could see himself standing there on the inside of the window, looking up and getting ready with his ice, only he never needed it for the boy who he had heard up on the roof with Yaoyorozu that night. Shoto shook his head around, but when he stopped he looked back to that spot and his heart pounded in his chest faster than before. Stop. Stop fighting it. Just, think about it without, without acting like you don't anymore.

It's been so long. When he mentioned Touya, that secret he kept, it made me forget… How highly I thought of Zach. Todoroki's lips curled down at the corners but flattened back out quickly as he shook his head at his reaction right there instead of having the thought itself. He continued to himself while tilting his head back again, And while I've been suspicious of him and treating him like a stranger since he returned, an enemy even, Zach's gotten over some of his issues. Things he talked about on the trail that first time we confronted him, that he no longer seems to be struggling with. He's taken on assassins and the press, grief and Shadow Bosses, and he's been accused of being a manipulative asshole by his old friends every day.

I hated it the other day. I hated how I was so amazed by you, because it had happened before and I knew I was thinking of that Zach and the one I hated now as different entities, like you did yourself! Because I never stopped being amazed by those things Zach had done all the way back then. What I heard on that roof, that stuff you managed to come back from. That report that I never saw coming, in a million years. Todoroki's right hand curled around his phone, and he turned it over and looked down at the screen that illuminated as he turned it back on. And even you going after Diamondfist and saving Kaminari from Shatterer, even though you knew the consequences that breaking the rules could do to you. You knew better than anyone, and you didn't make those decisions lightly. You didn't do it again because you were stupid, you did it again because you were the kind of person who would always break the rules if it meant saving a friend, or stopping a villain.

Todoroki lifted his phone up and he opened his messaging app. He paused, and he grit his teeth for a moment before opening up his texts with Midoriya, 'Midoriya, could you send me…'

"Didn't expect to see you so soon," Zach admitted, standing on a path in a national park where he had first talked to Todoroki after returning to Japan. It was where Todoroki had asked to meet him, and though he pretended like he had just walked up the trail to where Todoroki was reaching, he had been there for a few hours now. He came alone. It really doesn't seem like the ADTF are surrounding me. I couldn't get a lock on nearly half of their exact locations though, including Endeavor. So many of them are overseas too, it wouldn't make a enough noise even if they were to come to Japan.

"I'm sorry."

Holy shit. I knew it was just a chance this was a trap- but what- I don't… Zach's expression was genuinely confused and the teen ahead of him frowned more but shifted his eyes to the right for a second. He's, serious?

"Zach, you…" Todoroki tried to start again, but he failed and just stood there staring back into Zach's eyes. Zach looked surprised and confused, while Todoroki was uncomfortable and awkward, but he kept going after pausing for a few seconds. "I don't know, what it is you're doing here. I don't get why you came back after leaving like you did. But, as upset as I was about what you did that night, in the end it's always been what you said before leaving, about Dabi being Touya- that's made it impossible for me to forgive you. Or to even accept, the good in what you were doing."

"Todoroki I-"

"Just let me finish," Todoroki cut in as Zach started speaking. Zach nodded at him and closed his mouth, and Todoroki continued in a lower voice, "I've been mad at my dad lately too, but not for the old reasons. It's just because he doesn't even seem as strongly against Death as I am, and he's supposed to be leading the force against him. Against you," Todoroki said that softer, despite the two of them being isolated from all of society. "And I told him what you told me. I told him, about Touya."

I know, Zach thought, though he did not say it aloud as that day he learned that Endeavor knew was a day that he kept foggy in his mind. Instead he just nodded at Todoroki for him to continue, which his old classmate did, "But, as much as that was a terrible thing to do. Lying to me about that for so long, keeping that from me, and then telling me just that before you left? I hated you for it. Still, a big part of me hates you for that," Todoroki paused and his dark eyes stayed locked on Zach's that filled with guilt but shifted just as Todoroki's did when they lost the dark appearance in them.

"But, another part of me knows that you're not just the guy who made that one decision. I get why you did it too, and that doesn't make it right but I know you didn't do it for- I don't know. You really thought I never needed to know?" Todoroki was trying here, but his face scrunched up for a moment and his eyes got angrier again. Zach's face scrunched up too, but Todoroki returned his straight before Zach could respond and he kept on talking anyway. "But I know that decision doesn't define you. It shouldn't. It doesn't to everyone else, but it has defined who you are to me for so long now. I forgot, about everything else you did. And yet," Todoroki cursed in his head as he could not stay on a positive streak here, again his thoughts getting darker as he stared ahead at his former classmate looking apologetically back at him in a way he could not accept.

"Seeing you get tortured at the hands of Shigaraki Tomura, watching as your mind broke," Todoroki started in a low voice. "And on the night of Kaminari's betrayal, when you and Yaoyorozu were talking in your room," Todoroki added, and Zach's eyes lowered down to the ground with his hands curling into his sides as another of those days was brought up.

"That night, I heard you talk about things that had happened to you that I never thought you would be able to come back from, but you always did." Zach lifted his eyes back up and locked with Todoroki's again, and the other teen continued to him, "It's why I thought- I knew that you had to be putting on an act, during those two weeks you were playing us. I knew you had a plan, and yet I trusted-" Todoroki cut himself off in a frustrated way. "I believed you when you told me you didn't. In the hallway, when I-"

"I remember," Zach said, not needing Todoroki to specify it at all. "I was on my way out of the school. I needed a moment, because I was going to break character and lose it again," he admitted it to Todoroki who paused with a confused and uncertain look on his face as he did not know if he should believe this at all. "For all this time, I don't know if you've thought the way I was acting in that hall was fake, but- but All Might had just told me, about how my Aunt Maye and cousin Tsura went missing." Zach admitted it and he shook his head with a pained look covering his face as he thought on that moment, on what he heard but forced himself to react to in certain ways despite knowing what was happening to them. "I knew he was killing them at that moment, or that he had already killed them, Kaminari," Zach finished, specifying who 'he' was.

"…And I mean it. Every moment from the day after you left, I've been hiding everything, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when my family went missing, and it doesn't mean I didn't feel a thing when you told me that you had massacred my mentor's family in front of him!" You yelled that at Kaminari. Todoroki believed what was being said in front of him. I remember. That was, that moment?

"And because I knew that," Zach continued, lifting his head and staring into Todoroki's eyes stronger. He explained himself, "I was able to lie to you so easily. At that moment, I knew I was getting my family members killed just like I was getting the anti-heroes hunted, and the thought of lying to you did not really hurt anymore. It became easy, if it meant that I could have a better shot at taking down Kurogiri, and Kaminari… and Dabi. Though Dabi was, the least, important…" Zach trailed off as he admitted it because he knew saying that would only make Todoroki angry at him.

"Not even important," Todoroki repeated in a dark voice.

"Not, not important, just out of those three," Zach whispered in reply.

"I burned your letter," Todoroki said. He stated it and watched Zach's reaction, only to frown deeper as Zach could only nod once in acceptance for what Todoroki did there. "You didn't write anything about him on there. It was all I wanted to know, after you left. But you didn't ever tell me. You didn't leave an explanation, like I thought you might have when I found that envelope. Why, Zach?" Zach's eyes lowered more as he broke off eye contact with Todoroki who stepped closer to him so they were right in front of one another on the dirt path in the forest. "I want to know, everything."

Zach nodded his head and whispered, "I wish, I had told you a long time ago."

"So why didn't you?" Todoroki asked. His face had pain over the frustration as he felt himself getting so much angrier at Zach than usual, because the person in front of him was someone he had accepted again was not a bad person. "You said he was like a brother to you, that night in the forest.." His eyes got more accusing and darker, "The two of you, going to drug deals in China together, fighting together, talking so much that he told you… something like that."

"He didn't tell anyone else," Zach said. He looked into Shoto's eyes and said in a quiet voice, "I don't even know, if any of them have figured it out yet."

"Wait, you're saying the villains don't know?" Todoroki began confusedly.

"It was his secret," Zach whispered. He froze after saying it, and then he looked at Todoroki in an even more pained way at the way that his friend started looking back at him angrily again. "I don't care about him anymore. But back then, there was a long time when I had nothing. And when Dabi admitted in the Enudora Forest about how he thought I'd be able to bring back my family, a part of me really did know that he always felt that way. I knew he had never tortured me, as much as I told myself the burns were from him. As much as I wanted to hate him, he was the last person I really opened up to. In all that time I was back at U.A. after escaping the villains, it wasn't until Kaminari that I ever told anyone as much as I told Dabi that fall."

"Why? If you were just infiltrating, why did you get so connected?" Todoroki asked in frustration and anger.

"Because he vouched for me," Zach said softly. "Because, it felt to me, at times, like Dabi knew who I was better than anyone. All the way back at the summer training camp, he called me out on things I didn't even know I was… The fact that I had Stain's speech memorized, not just because we saw it in person, but because I had watched that video dozens of times. Hundreds even." Zach paused and he looked to his right and imagined a darker forest, imagined Dabi and Ganeshi moving through it with him. "And in that courtroom, I had no purpose anymore in life. It had just been taken from me, and Dabi gave me a path. He knew I would go through the portal, and he was the one who told Shigaraki and Kurogiri to open it up for me."

Todoroki stared closer at Zach and his eyes widened as Zach's voice got softer still while he continued to look far off to his right. "Shigaraki left him in charge of me. A kid, in some dark room somewhere with a box on his hand making him helpless to do anything but go along with them. And I told myself at first, that it was all just to lure them in. That I was some kind of super spy, and not just a villain with delusions of heroism." Zach cracked a small smile, and he looked back to Todoroki and shook his head again at the way he thought back then. "But even thinking back then, it wasn't like Shigaraki had this master plan to deceive me and use Dabi to trick me into being a villain. Dabi wasn't even trying that. He just, spent a lot of time with me. Maybe he saw some of himself in me too, just like I… I really wanted to save him." Zach said that with his lips curling and a look of failure forming on his face.

"He's a villain, not a…" Todoroki stopped himself while Zach lifted his head and looked him in the eyes, those sad eyes asking if Todoroki really did not know. Shoto's eyes grew wider, and his heart pounded so fast he could hear a deep voice in his ears. "Touya was a failure." "What happened to your brother was unfortunate, but you are the one who will succeed where he failed…" He's not a victim. He's, a murderer. He's killed heroes. He killed Zach's family, so then why is it he can see him as a victim too… I'm just denying it myself. But I know, what Dad did to you.

"I had thought when I went through that portal that I had just lost everything in my life that mattered to me. My dreams, my goals, they'd come to an abrupt end instantly. My Quirk was in the open and I'd never be safe. My life was over, but Dabi saved me. I knew for a while, that he gave me the chance to become Lifebringer which is what brought me back from that darkest moment of my life to the point that I could make a plan to escape at VTS… And then he killed Jenny."

Zach's face twisted and his head tilted back as saying that aloud made him suck in a huge breath. Water filled his eyes from the mention alone, something he did not expect to happen after so much time, but happened because he spent so much time pushing everything emotional like this far from his mind. As soon as he mentioned her name, he felt the walls breaking and his face wrinkled up on his forehead and cheeks as those tears piled up on his bottom eyelids. "I loved her so much," he said to his former classmate whose head pulled back at the tears spilling down Zach's face. "My sister, the purest most kind girl in the world who I just wanted to protect. Maybe because of her red hair like my mom's, maybe that's why from the time I was a kid I wanted to protect her because I had killed my mom. She reminded me of her so I put that responsibility on myself to save her this time, and then I watched as Dabi burned her! As she burned, slowly, screaming my name even surrounded in fire- Ahh, ah ahh," Zach started gasping as he had to stop and he reached his left hand up to his chest and clenched on it as agony ripped through his body from how hard his heart was beating.

It's, as bad as it was that night, Todoroki's right foot that slid back there pressed firmly on the floor. His eyes were huge as he stared at Zach's face that he covered with his right hand and then started rubbing his sweatshirt's sleeve over. On the roof, I heard you talk about her just like this to Yaoyorozu, but I thought you really got over-

Zach was trying to rub the tears away, but he lowered his arm and snapped at Todoroki in an angry voice more directed at himself for what he was thinking about how it had been so long, "You don't just get over something like that! I can't! And, I could never think about it, about Jenny-" his teeth bared again and he shook his head, but Todoroki's eyes started widening for a different reason at what Zach was trying to say here. "And yet it hurt so much even when I pushed it so far down. Because every time I look in the mirror and see the scar under my right eye, every single day I can feel that knife carving into my face as I watched her dying. But I can only hate myself because I can't hate Dabi as much as I tried. As much as I hated Dabi, I couldn't hate Dabi, because I could see him treating me as an equal and being my friend, and because I know I found the good in him. I knew that Dabi wouldn't just kill a little girl, so he did it to get to me. Because he really thought that after I brought her back that we would really be able to trust each other as I'd never go against the League again…"

He paused and he ground his teeth with his dark eyes shifting down to the floor. "I hated Dabi, and I hated myself, but I hate most of all that I never told you anything about Dabi," Zach continued with his eyes rising back up to meet Todoroki Shoto's. His expression scrunched as Shoto glared at him for reminding him of that, as this was all stuff Zach could have told him years ago. Zach's face distorted more though and his eyes turned desperate before guilty, then frustrated and then angry at himself for getting frustrated as Todoroki had every right to be as pissed as he was. The frustration came back though and Zach started in a pained voice to his old friend, "When I came back though, two years ago, I couldn't think about Dabi without imagining him burning Jenny alive."

Todoroki's breath hitched as Zach's eyes clenched shut in front of him, as mentioning that again put the image in his head that looked so vivid to him no matter how long ago it had been now. "Without hearing her screams, seeing her melting flesh- and when I saw him at Breakneck's lab that only made it worse when I saw that look in his eyes, a look I couldn't even decipher because I couldn't think about him long enough to comprehend what I already knew! And the forest! Hearing Dabi admit that… more so than hearing about Webb and his family, or about Tsura and Maye, hearing Dabi say that almost made me break my own plan and charge at him. It would have ruined everything, but I was breaking apart inside when I heard it. I never knew how to handle thinking about Dabi, who was more a brother to me than- and! And I knew that I should tell you," Zach said, his eyes snapping open and looking into Todoroki's eyes in a desperate way again.

"But it wasn't because I wanted to keep it a secret," Zach said, trying to convince his friend with the explanation he had never thought of but knew was true as it came spilling out of his mouth. "It wasn't to help Touya or protect Dabi's secrets, or even to protect myself and the fact that I had that information the whole time… It's just that I couldn't talk about Dabi if I tried. Not to you." Zach gasped out and he paused for a second, his breath sucking back in hard and his eyes shaking as he tried to read Todoroki's expression and what emotions those were in Todoroki's huge eyes. "I couldn't let you see how much I cared, about the man who I hated most in the world. I couldn't say his name, without that memory pulling straight up to the top of my head and replaying over and over," Zach tapped on the side of his head so hard with his left hand while saying that, and the images on that tablet blasted again fresh in his head.

"Dabi's face as he burns Jenny alive is carved into my mind, right up there with Kaminari when he pressed his face up against mine in that basement," Zach said with a gasp as he admitted how close those two incidents were to each other. His own eyes clenched shut after the admission, I think of that as much of a betrayal?! No, not that high- but Dabi was the one killing her! Kaminari just- he just… They're both monsters. But, neither of them…

"You really, only didn't tell me because of that?" Todoroki wondered. He would have said that it was just an excuse, if he was not watching Zach's face currently filled with all those feelings as he had to think about things usually pushed so far from his mind. Todoroki's eyes narrowed as Zach lifted his gaze to meet his again, "You told me, it was because Endeavor was too great a hero."

"If people knew what your dad did to you guys," Zach started in a low voice. "To your mom-"

"The two of them, are actually-"

"It doesn't matter," Zach cut in, shaking his head to show he did not care to know or want to find out how Endeavor was currently doing with his family. "No matter how much good someone does, how much they redeem themselves in the eyes of some," Zach paused and his voice took a much darker tone to it. "When other people find out about the things of the past, those things just happened in their minds. To you who went through it yourself, you may be able to find it in your heart to forgive Endeavor. And maybe the rest of the country would have been able to as well, but only if they had known what he did back a couple years ago, and then they saw Endeavor the last few years save them so many times and represent our greatest hero. Instead, if they found out today they'd be seeing their greatest hero suddenly tarnished by all that bad."

"And that was a reason too," Zach admitted. He pursed his lips and then continued as he thought about it, "It was the reason I thought of back then, the reason I was able to think of because I didn't understand my own thoughts as clearly as I do now. I can look back and see the real reason, while also knowing what I thought back then was the most important reason not to say anything: 'Because if I told you, I didn't know if you wouldn't go and tell everyone else. The information could be useful to stopping Dabi and helping take down the League of Villains, so you might go around and tell people that secret which would lead to more and more people wondering how the son of one of Japan's greatest heroes, turned into one of our greatest villains.'"

I wouldn't have told anyone, Todoroki thought frustratedly back at Zach. It's my burden- I'm my own brother's keeper? That's what you told me. That's how you felt, too. "Now that you're back," Todoroki started in a low voice. Zach got a hesitant expression over his face and his old classmate looked at him closer as he questioned, "Do you think it's up to you to stop Dabi-"

"Yeah," Zach replied. "For the same reasons as before, but they're not all about me thinking of him like a brother," Zach said, correcting what he told Todoroki that night in the Enudora Forest. "When he first took that box off my hand, I could have killed him in that very moment. And, the first time I saw what Trigger was, Dabi was hurt and everyone was leaving him behind," Zach clenched his teeth, while Todoroki stared at Zach with wider eyes for a second before nodding as he had heard Zach talk about this that night of the Lifebringer Incident too. "But I saved him. If it had been any other villain at that time, I probably would have left them behind… But I didn't. And he's still out there. He's killed heroes. He's, someone I failed to stop so many times," Zach whispered.

It took a couple seconds, then Zach rose his head and he stood straight while saying, "But if you stop him, that's fine too. I just want him put in prison. Or dead, but preferably prison," Zach added, as he was trying to be truthful here. Dabi's not the type to just reveal everything once he's in jail, right? Even if he does, doesn't he have the right to? I said it earlier, we don't need all those symbols we think we do. If Endeavor falls, this country would be fine. People would be hurt for sure, and preferably it wouldn't happen because I really do think he's a good man, now. He's faced his own punishment too. The way his kids looked at him, learning the truth about Touya, his wife… He fought alongside me multiple times. His past, the wrongs of his life, he may have to face them like we all do when they come out. But there are also things that will always stay in the darkness. What we did that day, being one of them.

"I failed too," Todoroki admitted. "That night in the training forest… It's not just on you. We've all failed to stop him. He's still out there because of our failures. Still killing people."

"And we need to stop him," Zach finished with a nod back at Todoroki's intense tone he was taking here. "For Jenny, for the world, and for myself," Zach admitted in a quieter voice, though Todoroki nodded his head in agreement with all three of those reasons right there.

"Zach," Todoroki started, his tone softer and a look in his eyes with no apprehension. He just looked calmly at Zach and said to him a steady voice, "Tell me, everything Touya told you. What happened to him? After the accident… How did he, become Dabi?"

Zach hesitated for only a second, then he nodded his head back at his old classmate and took in a deep breath. "Alright. It was after that day I saved him, when he told me. The way he admitted it was… we were watching a news segment on tv, about your Dad and you. Dabi looked angry when it was focused on Endeavor, but I didn't get the way he looked when the news started talking about you. The two of us were alone. I was arguing with him, about the type of hero Endeavor was, how he was better now- And he asked if 'Shoto' ever told me what happened, to Enji Todoroki's eldest son…"

A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for cutting it off there, but I do so for obvious reasons. (Hopefully this arc we find out what really happened to him, and I'm really hoping I'm right about this theory so as to keep as much close to canon as possible). Anyone else up to date on the manga and hyped for this coming arc? Because I think it's going to be crazy! XD Anyway, Zach and Todoroki talk about Dabi, and Zach explains to Todoroki why it was he never told him all that time about Touya. Zach also has some more exposure on the news as he talks about symbols and how everyone could be good if they wanted to be, how they could all be someone's hero. :) The villains think it's meant for them to get sloppy, Todoroki thinks it's so people will feel the age of villains is really over, and Raijin's convinced it's all just part of Zach's master plan. The villains are up to something in the shadows while Zach works through issues with himself and his friends, and Raijin knows he's going to come out on top... But let's hope Zach and co. can stop those plans in their tracks! XD I hope you guys liked the chapter, and the speedy updates I've been up to recently. Finally got into the swing of work, writing, and visiting family, while enough of my friends have gone back to college or work that I have this extra free time now to accelerate Death! 30 or so chapters left, and still a lot of ground to cover! Hope you're ready...

Hehehehehehe chapter 176 . 17h ago

Idk why but I feel like the letter to momo is gonna be what incriminate him. And it seems the hardest to convince is gonna be jirou, who also might be the one he fails to convince to lie. Convincing icyhots a big accomplishment already, even if he only half succeeded. Maybe there's hope with jirou?
Honestly, despite zach's prowess at screwing with people I find it hard to believe that he'll manage to stay in Japan and not be revealed to the public as death, its not realistic. So zach's gonna have to pull some crazy shit to get everyone on his side, or another Lifebringer incidents gonna occur during his grand escape,when they inevitably find out. I just hope he doesn't end up doing to the Shiketsu's what he did to the UA's

Nice predictions. Todoroki gets over some of his own issues just as Zach does in these two chapters, with the two of them getting back on talking terms at least and Todoroki admitting to himself that Zach's not as bad as he had come to think of him due to his own anger after all that time. No spoilers about anything, so we'll just have to see if Zach can manage staying in Japan, especially with more and more people figuring him out all the time. His little speech in the beginning worked in part at getting some people to doubt more that he was Death too though... but again, we'll see. XD Thanks for the review. Didn't give y'all much time to review after last chapter, and I won't for the next one either as I'm sitting in Starbucks right now and about to get started on it! Hope to get it up tomorrow, so see you then!