Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 186:
22 Months Ago
"Oh my God!"
"Everyone get out of here!"
"We need to evacuate the stadium!"
"Mom, Dad, come on!" Norita Ekusa shouted to her parents. The young woman in her mid-twenties rushed her parents, Eduna and Riku towards a tunnel out of the stadium where hundreds of other people were rushing to at the same time.
The Noritas made for the tunnel and looked to their right over the heads of other screaming spectators to see villains charging down the bleachers and attacking heroes while looking enraged and more powerful than the heroes they were attacking. More explosions went off farther to their right, and Ekusa screamed in fear that made her dad reach forward and grab his daughter by the left shoulder.
"It's going to be alright, Ekusa."
"The heroes will protect us," Eduna agreed, pushing aside people around her to get up next to her daughter's right side now. Ekusa looked back to her left at her shorter and pudgier dad, then to her right at her short and pudgy mom, both of whom were several inches shorter than their five-ten daughter who had a much leaner body than her parents in their low fifties. She regained a semi-composed look at the reassuring looks her parents gave her, but then Ekusa's face filled with fear as she looked behind her two parents right after they had entered the tunnel with dozens of other people.
"AHHH!"
"NO- NO NO NOOO-"
"Ahhhahh ahh-"
The blackish purple swirling portal that appeared at the edge of the tunnel released a small spiky ball that exploded as the civilians around it screamed. Ekusa Norita screamed as loud as anyone else, curling up into a ball and falling over as did all the other people in the tunnel around her. They were a little farther away from the actual explosion that detonated at the edge of the tunnel, but not far enough.
Ekusa screamed out in pain as she fell forward from her curled-up position. Something fell on her right leg and cut through her pants and into her calf, and she reached forward and grabbed at someone who kicked their legs back into her arms and face while trying to scramble away themselves. "Ahh- ahhhh-"
"Someone, someone help me…"
"Ekusa. Ekusa get up."
The young woman crying on the ground parted her clenched-shut eyes. She looked forward into the dark tunnel full of flickering lights and a dim blue glow from someone's Quirk though that light was moving away. Rocks fell from the ceiling, and there was a dead woman on her left side laying flat with her head turned sideways looking at her with blood all over it. Ekusa was terrified, but she heard a low voice again from behind her and turned her head around, "Ekusa. I have it, up- Nngg-" Riku groaned while yanking up the stone even higher off his daughter's leg. "Get out!"
Eduna held her fattened arms up harder and groaned in a louder voice; the ceiling she held up on her shoulders and hunched-over back pushed down more every second. "Mom, Dad," Ekusa whispered looking up at them.
Riku tossed the heavy chunk of debris to his side with as much force as he could muster. He reached down while stepping forward, dragging his broken right leg behind him with adrenaline filling his whole body. "Get her out of here-" Eduna started behind Riku, only for him to fall to his knees in front of her with a loud scream of pain. She lowered her eyes down to his back, and Eduna felt her heart break at the growing red spot on her husband's back around where his shirt was shredded.
"Dad?" Ekusa whispered at the sight of her father's agonized expression.
His eyes opened up, and he reached down and grabbed his daughter by her sides. "Run," he said, and he yanked up with all of his strength and pushed her forward. The ceiling started collapsing behind him at that moment and Riku turned his head back. His daughter screamed for her mother and father, but Riku's eyes bulged too in that moment as the ceiling was falling behind him. Despite all the heavy debris dropping down, his wife stepped forward and reached down for him with neither her daughter or husband able to see how messed up and bloody her back was. She reached down for Riku who was on his knees, lifted him up as rocks fell on her head, and she threw him down the hall where he hit the ground and rolled, his head hitting the floor too hard which knocked him out.
The Next Day…
Norita Riku parted his eyes slowly. The man was outside of a hospital under a white tent that had been set up with lots of patients in critical care underneath it. The injuries he had sustained had finally caught up with and killed him, but the panting boy with black hair leaning over his body cracked a small yet exhausted smile at him when his eyes parted. "My… family…" his eyes started to close, but in that moment they were closing he saw that exhausted smile disappear and the kid's eyes fill with pain again.
10 Months Ago
"Oh is that your daughter, Norita-san?"
Ekusa Norita looked over from the dining room of her father's place that she was visiting to eat dinner with him. She looked interestedly at the woman at the door who looked about as old as her father did, and who her father had apparently told about her. Riku glanced back towards his daughter too and then smiled out at his tenant who had stopped by, "Why yes, Ms. Chianou. We were just sitting down for dinner-"
"Oh my! I did not mean to interrupt-"
"Not at all." The short pudgy man with red cheeks shook his head and smiled at the woman outside who excused herself and let them get back to it. "Thank you. I will see you then," Riku finished, leaning out of his door and waving to a tenant of his who he was happy he never had to chase down for the rent.
Norita closed his door and then headed back for his dining room and his daughter. He did not notice his daughter's expression and raised eyebrows as he sat back down, so Ekusa mentioned as he took his seat, "Well you two seemed friendly."
Riku looked at his daughter in surprise, and then a sad look formed on his face that made his daughter's insinuating one disappear. She frowned sadly for a moment too, though she lifted her head with a soft smile after a second and started to her father, "You know Dad, you're not that old. You can get back out there, if you want-"
"Your mother was the love of my life," Riku replied with a soft smile back at his daughter who reminded him so much of her. "I, don't think I could love another woman like I loved her. And Ms. Chianou is just a tenant-"
"She didn't seem to be looking at you as 'just a tenant,'" Ekusa countered, and her father gained a surprised look on his face before looking back towards his door wondering if his daughter was right. "And Dad, I loved Mom too. It's already been a year though. She would want you not to spend the rest of your life alone though."
"I'm not alone," Norita countered. He smiled brightly back across the table at his daughter who smiled back as he said, "Because I have you."
7 Months Ago
'Dad! Check the news right now!' A text flashed over Norita's phone similar to messages being sent all around the country at the moment.
Norita Riku ran out of his kitchen and into the living room of his apartment in the apartment complex he and his wife used to own together. He turned on his tv and flipped to the news, and his jaw dropped at the story that was playing on this station and every other news station in the country. "He's back," Norita whispered, and then his expression got angrier. It got darker, and more angry still as he watched the news continue. "JAIL?!" A rare furious look even those tenants always late on their rents never saw in such intensity covered Norita's usually jovial face, and he started screaming curses at the judge and prime minister on the television.
1 Month Ago
"I cannot believe that Lifebringer is staying here," Chianou said to the man in her apartment who nodded his head with a large smile over his face. "He, brought you back to life before, didn't he?"
"That's right. I'm sorry I did not inform you and the other tenants earlier, but Zach wanted to keep it-"
"'Zach,' is it?" Chianou asked, bouncing her eyebrows at the man a couple inches taller than her who smiled brightly at what she was asking him. "You are on a first name basis with the Lifebringer. That's amazing."
"I let him stay here for free, to repay him for bringing me back-"
"Ohh? And how can I get in on that?" Chianou wondered, stepping towards the man near her doorway who got a nervous and hesitant look over his face at the question. She lost her teasing smile too as the conversation suddenly got awkward, "Sorry- I didn't mean," she stepped back, and her smile lowered just as his did.
"No, I shouldn't have said-"
"It's fine! I don't actually want to get out of- it was a stupid thing to say. Thank you for letting me know," Chianou added at the end, and Norita nodded before turning away from the woman. The two of them lowered their lips down into upset frowns, and they each thought at the same time, Stupid!
2 Hours Ago
"Wow. That was, amazing," Norita said, putting down his silverware and picking back up the glass of wine in front of the empty plate on the table of his new favorite upstairs tenant. "Thank you, Chianou-san."
"Please, call me Ino," Chianou replied, and she put down her own glass of wine while smiling at the man across the table from her. It was late at night and the two of them had been talking throughout the dinner that had lasted so long because their conversation just kept extending longer and longer. They had already poured a few glasses of wine through it too, and after Chianou told Riku to call her by her first name there was a silence in the room that made the woman start to feel hesitant again as she once again wondered had she crossed the line.
Then, Norita's lips lifted into a small smile back at the woman across the table from him, "Then, you can call me Riku…"
5 Minutes Ago…
Norita Riku opened up the door of Chianou Ino's apartment, and he looked back as he felt a tug on the back of his shirt. Ino grabbed the smiling man by the front of his shirt when he turned to face her, and she pulled him back and into another kiss which lasted two seconds before he pulled back and started laughing, and Ino giggled too like a girl twenty years her younger. "Might want to fix that tie," Chianou said to the man in front of her who looked down at his shirt that he just noticed had the buttons one space too far up for each of them.
His tie was in a loose loop around his neck, and he laughed again while looking back at the woman in front of him whose apartment he was leaving past one in the morning. "Well then."
"Well then," Chianou repeated.
"We'll, have to do that again, sometime?" Riku said, raising his tone at the end with his cheeks going a little more red than usual.
Chianou smiled back out brighter at the man outside her door, "Definitely."
"Then, goodnight Ino," Norita said, bowing his head a little to her and then raising his hands to his tie that he started fixing with the biggest grin over his face.
Chianou shut her door, but she whispered out of it to her landlord walking away now, "Goodnight, Riku."
Norita was looking down at his tie that he fixed up while walking away from the room at the end of his apartment complex's second floor. He stopped after a second though as he realized there was no point, and he just laughed to himself again before smiling like an idiot with his head lifting up. What a night- His eyes focused back down in confusion at the floor in front of him another two doors down. "That wasn't there…" he slowed down and stared at the package outside of Zach Sazaki's door with a confused look on his face. "Hmm."
Someone must have brought it by after I went to Chia- to Ino's place. Norita smiled again with his dimples showing and his face looking fifteen years younger as he nearly glowed. I'll bring it inside for the night so no one takes it, then bring it over to Zach's tomorrow morning. I hope I can catch him before he heads off to school. Norita reached down and picked up the package sitting outside of the door. Click.
BOOOOOOM!
Present
Midoriya Izuku was up late. He lay on his right side with his eyes closed as he attempted to sleep, but he was restless and rolled over onto his left side as his thoughts wandered too vividly for him to get to bed. His eyes were closed but instead of darkness, he saw a forest in front of him that a giant made of Death stood in with Kurogiri gripped by his steel brace. "…Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world." "Your reign of terror ends here. Kurogiri, goodbye…"
He saw that dark form of one of the League of Villains' executives smash through a tree as Zach tossed his dead body like a piece of trash. "Hahaha hahahahahaaa… Who's next?" Zach's horrifying voice filled his mind, and Midoriya clenched his teeth with his eyes opening as he flipped onto his back. "Where do you think you're going?!" He saw that black ball of Death fall down on the villain whose terrified expression was frozen like that when the darkness faded. Midoriya could see that man laying in the dead grass afterwards as the rest of the villains ran, as Zach continued to attack and kill more of them.
Midoriya ground his teeth but shook his head around. They pushed him so far- He went to jail for this! He already got punished, and he's trying to change! "When I razed that place to the ground…" "Despite killing so many of them! Murdering other gladiators just like them…"
A girl's voice filled Midoriya's head overlapping with Zach's, "You inspired me. All those things you shouted at the gladiators in The Pit! The ones you had been killing in death matches for days! '…Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! Never again!' And those people who should have hated you, they all cheered your name and roared for you just like I did. You stood there, on the verge of death promising to change this world and destroy places like that- while you bled out, while your organs failed and your heart was stopping. Every single one of them chose to follow you, and every last one of them died… And Yemen?! The things you said to those people ready to go to war!"
Yemen. He saved an entire country from war! As bad as some of it was… he was doing- "I got that assassin and beat him half to death." Midoriya flinched at the cold voice he heard echo in his head as Zach had explained that to them. "I could see it… All the pieces were in place. The environment was volatile, the people were strained, and heroes were uncertain of the right path…" He made assumptions again. He always, predicts everything is going to go wrong! And because he makes those predictions, because he always assumes the worst-case scenario!
Midoriya's eyes opened wide as he stared at his ceiling, uncertainty and conflicted feelings covering his face as he heard Zach's detached voice speaking to those of them in the Inazuma Island forest that night. "…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… The people who fought tomorrow would not be holding back, not after their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, their children were killed by their enemies today." You didn't know that for sure. You couldn't have, because it's never happened before! It's not something you've experienced, and you can't say that you know it would have happened because you never saw what the failed result would have been! And yet you…
"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… 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 put my only 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." They weren't even villains! You said it yourself!
An agonized look spread over Midoriya's face as he heard what Zach said he did next repeat in his head, "…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… 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." Midoriya's huge eyes narrowed, his fists curling into his blankets that he yanked off of his body in frustration. "And suddenly there was silence. Absolute silence falling across thousands of people." Midoriya could see Zach's look when he no longer looked like Zach Sazaki to him. The look Zach had shown them that night that he was starting to get used to. The other side of his friend, whose dark voice he heard echo in his head, "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 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."
It's not just that he was willing to do it. Zach, has more than just the power of his Quirk. More than just his will. He incited those gladiators and took them with him, and they all died fighting for him! People followed him and were ready to not only die, but slaughter innocents in his name! Midoriya's fists curled tighter and he sat up, breathing heavy and shaking his head around to try and push these dark thoughts from his head he knew he would never be able to sleep while thinking about. They didn't do it though… but would he have? If the threat didn't work… would he have made himself the target for all their hatred to unite Yemen as one? I- I don't know. And that terrifies me.
If he ever feels like what he's doing is so right, that he'd be willing to slaughter innocents again?! I know he's been willing before, but- but he's my- That shouldn't stop me! I know what's right! I know it's so dangerous having him free when he thinks like that! If he thinks someone might reveal his identity, and that could get people killed, then wouldn't he try to "stop" them in any way possible?! Even if they were innocent, or a hero? Midoriya's face scrunched up and he had to slam his eyes shut with self-hatred covering his face. I can't do it! It's not fear of what everyone would think! I know the others would hate me, but I-
"Because I'm a hero. I need to support my friends in their hardest times, and if you're having a hard time I want to help you too Zach. And I want to get to know you again, and, be your friend again."
It was Midoriya's own voice that echoed in his head this time. His fists unclenched, as he saw Zach's face in the national park that he had chased him down in after the confrontation he, Bakugo, and Todoroki had had with him. I said I would give him a chance. I already knew he was Death then too, even if I didn't have proof, but- But?! I gave him that chance- no I didn't. I haven't, not yet. He's still trying, and he hasn't messed up, and just because I know more doesn't mean he's stepped off the path! I know that! He told me he wants to be a hero, and he can help so many people but- but he could also- just as easily… Midoriya's hands rose up to his face and he put his palms over his eyes.
Midoriya rubbed his eyes around and then dragged his hands down his face. When his hands left from over his eyes though, Midoriya realized his room was more illuminated and he turned to his bedside and his phone that just lit up. He reached over and grabbed it off of the charging pad sitting there. 'Gas explosion in- Yutapu?!' Midoriya opened up his phone while shooting out of bed and putting his legs off the side of it. He stood up and paced forward while getting open a live video feed from a late-night reporter rushing to the scene with a cameraman just behind her.
The sky was illuminated in red on the camera that panned up over the woman's head as they ran from the van they had to get out of as they were not allowed to go any farther. "Is there danger of any further explosions? Is there a gas leak?!" The woman called out towards the police car that was sideways on the street with two cops outside of it holding up radios they were getting new information from. The two of them both went wide-eyed though and spun the other way, then one looked back as the reporter ran right up to him. "What's going on? Do you have any information?"
"It's, not a gas leak, like we first thought-"
"Then it's safe for us to get closer!" The reporter called out, and she turned and ran ahead. A cop started calling after her, but the other told his partner to get in the car they were going to drive closer to the scene now only another two blocks down.
"Are you sure about-"
"Follow me!" The woman who did not have a great shift to be the on-call live reporter for channel 3 news was acting like an intrepid journalist as she ran towards the explosion and sound of loud sirens blaring across the city. The reporter looked over her shoulder while getting close to the block it seemed like the explosion had been on, "We are nearing the site of the explosion now. We will stay a safe distance but try and get a look at what's going on up there. Look! It's Kimona!"
The reporter pointed up above her, but the cameraman only panned up for a second before pointing back down and down the block where two cars were racing their direction with ambulances behind them. "That's All-Terrain's car! And Bug Queen is there too!"
"Let's get closer," the reporter said after a few seconds of her cameraman panning after the vehicles that turned onto the next road where the explosion had gone off. With so many heroes getting closer, they figured they could too without being nervous about any villains. "Hopefully there were no casualties at the site of the blast. If there were though, we can only hope that the blast woke up Lifebringer, wherever he is in this city. Coming to you live from Yutapu, this is Toyota Emiri. We are nearing the blast site now, where it seems the fire department has already arrived as the flames are definitely lower than what we saw from afar. The sky does not look as bright either, though there is still a lot of black smoke rising… No look!"
Toyota ran faster towards the scene of the explosion, and she was able to get close as there were not enough police working to keep people a distance away as not many people had come outside yet to see what was going on. Most people nearby were staying in their homes or had gone out to get away from the site of what was initially assumed as a gas explosion. A few cops kept the reporter and her cameraman back, but the cameraman stepped to the side and pointed past the front of the cop car to the edge of the street where some debris was scattered among the cops and paramedics up there. A few fire trucks had come in too, but the firefighters were not doing anything and just stared towards the burning building that was losing more and more of the flames that had been covering it.
Toyota stared past the cops who turned around too, and she lifted her head and looked left and right at the apartment building that was getting put out by darkness that was not all black smoke. The right side of the building from her angle was still standing a full two stories, but only for a couple of rooms inwards on the top floor and one or two more below that. Farther down the building in its center almost all the way to its left side, there was a massive hole showing the walls had been knocked down and the ceilings collapsed. The building was more a pile of rubble in most of the middle of it, though the bottom left corner room was partially standing with only half of it destroyed.
A cop car on Toyota's left side moved aside, and an ambulance waiting out on the road pulled back in there for a couple heroes to carry a woman covered in burns towards it. She was groaning and the camera pointed towards her for a second only to shift back to the reporter as she started speaking, "The heroes have already arrived on the scene, and it looks like Lifebringer is inside the site of the explosion, putting it out with his Death! Let's just hope that he gets out whoever was still-"
Crash- DOOF! Rubble pushed to the side, and a chunk of wall got thrown backwards by a dark arm that moved inside the smoke and made the cameraman flinch while the reporter spun back around and then took a nervous step back still in the camera's angle.
Zach leaned down and he reached an arm out of his dark mass, and he touched the side of a neck that already looked mostly crushed and broken to him. He checked anyway though, then he reached down with a large dark hand and lifted up more of the rubble crushing that body. He grabbed the body with that dark hand then, and he walked over debris of his apartment building to the edge of the complex where he lowered the dead man down to the ground. The rising pain left him, then he turned back and headed inside again as there were still flames all over the place and loose debris moving around and possibly crushing more corpses that were burning worse each second.
Silence fell over the scene for a minute, as that dark form went back inside and dragged out corpse after corpse that were crushed and burnt and disgusting. All the bodies were messed-up badly, and Zach lined them up outside of the building that other heroes evacuated the edges of while Sazaki moved around inside the most destroyed part.
He got here so fast.
Why isn't he bringing any of them back to life?
What is he waiting for?
Toyota looked back at the camera she heard was still rolling from a voice in her ear, though her producer had stayed quiet there for a minute too forgetting she should be reporting something. "It seems, Lifebringer is getting ready to revive all the people who died here. These images are graphic, and we would advise parents against letting any of our younger viewers witness what we may be about to see. If we can though, we will try to show you as Lifebringer brings back, these people." Toyota hesitated while looking behind her again, as a loud crash was following by a growl of pain from inside the building that came out dark and scratchy over the camera.
Midoriya found himself staring at the scene on his phone with more sweat on his face each second. It's not a gas leak? Was it villains? Where are those villains now? Why is Zach… he acts better than this for the cameras. Is it because he's going to have to bring people back here? I know he hates doing it, but- those bodies look so burnt up and crushed. A few of them are barely even recognizable, most of the flesh burnt off the bone. It's horrible. Zach, you have to save them.
Zach finished searching the debris. He stood on top of a small part of floor on the floor right below his own and outside what would have been the doorway underneath his. He stared down at the ground and some gore covering pieces of really destroyed debris, and his head rose back up with a pounding noise echoing over and over again in his skull. Zach walked out of the rubble that was no longer flaming in any direction after his Death had covered up all the flames and put them out from lack of oxygen. Smoke continued to rise from the rubble of the building as Zach stepped outside of it, towards the line of bodies. There were two people hunched over at the left end of the corpse line with tears streaking down their face who his head turned to.
The couple lifted their heads from the small body in front of them, and the woman with a burn on her right arm stood up on shaky legs and stepped towards Zach with fury on her face. "This is YOUR fault! Lifebringer!"
"Get back."
The woman screaming at Lifebringer froze with her mouth open, but her husband stood up behind her and grabbed her by her non-burnt arm to pull her away with. Everyone stared at Zach Sazaki with their eyes opening wider and wider, as Zach stood there in Nightmare form but with no bones showing through the darkness. He was completely black from head to toe with dark wisps coming off of his shoulders and arms and swirling off the top of his head like a flame. He rose his right hand out in front of him while standing in the center of the line of sixteen bodies, and Death flooded out of his palm and onto the closest body in front of him. It hit that corpse that was so burnt up it was unrecognizable, and then the darkness spread out to both sides all the way down the line of corpses.
"Can he, do that?" The cameraman whispered, confusion filling his voice as he watched this with eyes as big as plates.
Midoriya held his breath with his eyes shaking at what he was watching on his phone. "Zach?" he whispered, his eyes shifting to the corner of the screen again and where that couple had pulled back to away from their dead child. Why would it be his fault?
"RRRrrrggh… NNNGG… Aaah- AH-" Zach clenched his mouth shut, and then the dark form's jaw opened up and he roared in agony in a scratchy and deep voice that bellowed through the city and over the camera, "RRAAAAAAAAHHHH- AAAAAAAHHHHHhhh AAahahh- AaaaaAAAAAOOOAAARRGG…"
Through the black veil spread over the bodies on the ground, flesh started to recover on the burned-up corpses. Bones snapped into place, and Zach screamed at the top of his lungs with every person watching him stepping backwards as darkness ripped out of his body in flares up in the air and behind him only to suck back into him and push out of his right hand to pile more on the bodies. "YOU- AHHHH! AAEEEEEAAAHH!"
Skin sealed up over burn wounds, over repaired flesh, while bones reconnected with the tendons reforming between them. Faces reformed and cracked skulls sealed back up, eyeballs reforming and insides repairing in seconds. What had been instantaneous deaths for ninety percent of the dead, lasted for over a minute for the boy bringing sixteen of them back at the same time. And Zach felt it, each one of the deaths, almost at the same time as they revived one by one. The feeling of death hit him, sixteen times in a few seconds, and then that darkness settled on their bodies and started to fade away as Zach lowered his flaming dark right arm.
Zach wheezed out a few dark breaths, black steam rising in front of his face and partially blocking out his red eyes every few moments as it hovered there before fading. The couple who had been hunched over a small dead body before, rushed over to the eleven year old who stirred on the floor in front of them. They yelled out his name and dropped next to him, throwing their arms around him and hugging him as tightly as possible which woke up the boy more.
The shouting snapped someone else up who almost fell back down and passed out like everyone else. Chianou sat up with her eyes wide. She had still been just inside her doorway, leaning back against it with an ecstatic look on her face as she relived the night over and over again in her head. She got up to her feet and looked around the line of people mostly laying peacefully unconscious around her, then she turned and looked at the dark form who stared at her through the dark steam in front of his face. "Rik- Norita? Norita?!" She looked back and forth and shouted it out, and Zach's red eyes lowered down to the floor.
"Lifebringer," Kimona started, stepping forward towards one of his students who was just standing there in his dark form without saying a word after bringing back all those people. "You came quickly-"
"Where is Norita?!" Chianou asked, her eyes getting teary as she stepped towards the dark form. "I- I know it was his second time but-" she shook her head around as Zach lowered his head more, and the heroes and others around the scene started to get more confused at what was going on here. "Please! Look for him! You have to- you have to try! He let you live here for free!"
The mom who held her son tightly handed him off to her husband as the boy fell back to sleep, and she got up and yelled towards Lifebringer with anger covering her face again, "This was your fault! Take responsibility-"
"I, think-" Toyota started as she was piecing this together herself. She spun to the camera with a look of realization and then back again, and she called out, "Lifebringer! Was this where you were staying all this time?! What happened here tonight?!"
"Was it another attack on your life?" Kimona wondered, stepping another foot closer to Zach, and really hoping the kid would say something as this was starting to unnerve him.
"Go find him!" Chianou yelled at Zach. "He- He has to be-"
"I couldn't bring, him back," Zach started. His voice was low and still deep and scratchy, but not as terrifying anymore as his tone sounded apologetic and sad instead. "Even if it was his first… there's not even a body." Zach's mind worked fast as he had been standing there listening to Chianou. They were seeing each other. He was at her place late at night, and it was not part of his usual schedule. I was sleeping deeply. How- how did they- Norita walked by my room. He was heading back to his own. There must have been a bomb, likely inside of a package. Norita would have wanted to pick it up to make sure no one took it. He's a nice guy like that… Zach's teeth bared and then his expression flattened out but he could not risk taking the darkness off it yet as he filled with rage again an instant later. He was a nice guy like that. There's nothing even left of him. Maybe it was a sensor from when he picked it up, or maybe the assassin just thought he might move it and set it off while watching from a distance. They knew they'd mess up if Norita got it and brought it for me tomorrow saying someone left it last night.
"Did you really live here Lifebringer?!"
"He did!" Another of the tenants called out, a man who had been evacuated from the first floor corner room all the way on the right. "They blew up the whole apartment because of you, didn't they?!"
Zach turned his head and looked over towards another of the tenants of the building who got nervous and pulled his head back as Zach's red eyes shifted his direction. "Lifebringer," Kimona started. "Is that what happened here tonight?" He wondered to the boy who he figured would have an idea of it.
"I…" Zach started.
He looked at Chianou, then over at the camera still with the darkness over his body though it was wisping less each second. It was not getting any thinner so as to show bone inside, but it was getting closer to his body as just a thick but tight veil of darkness surrounding his form. As it got smaller like that though, people started to notice a different color on the right side of his body through some of the darkness. "I'm sorry," Zach said, looking back at Chianou and then over to the parents whose kid died in the blast. "For making you go through, something like that. For all your possessions you lost, the memories you can't get back. I'm sorry I got you caught up in this."
"Sorry?" The mother of the boy Zach just got killed wondered back in a hoarse voice. She opened her mouth again, and then she looked back towards her son who was alive and in his father's arms. She looked back painfully at Lifebringer and shook her head at him, thinking about how she had to hold her dead son in her arms only a few minutes ago. "Sorry isn't- it's not good enough."
"I know," Zach said softly, his voice still scratchy and deep though. He kept up the darkness over his body, though he hesitated and questioned if it was really best to keep it up and keep speaking like this. Maybe just remove, some of it, he thought. His thoughts were not too focused on his appearance though, and his eyes lowered back to the floor that he stared at with his thoughts jumbled in his head and bouncing back and forth so fast he could not think straight. "The ones trying to kill me… found me tonight…" Zach started it loudly like he was giving an explanation to the heroes, to the victims, and to the camera, but he trailed off.
Zach's teeth clenched, while more darkness left his body though some kept flaming on his back and off his legs. It flared on parts of him while fading away in other areas, and Zach did not seem to notice as some of it faded from the left side of his face revealing his parted lips and bared teeth. His teeth ground across each other, his jaw locked and his left eye glowing red even when the darkness faded from around it. The blackness faded down his neck too, though more of his left arm and his left side were covered by darkness while the middle of his body lost some of it instead. Zach had no shirt on, and as trails of skin formed to replace the darkness of his body, everyone awake past one in the morning and watching the news, as well as the few dozen people staring at Zach from close up, opened their eyes huge at the sight of all the scars shredding down the middle of his torso.
More darkness faded from Zach's right side, and eyes opened even wider as people got a look at where that red through the veil was coming from. Zach's right arm was cut up from near his shoulder all the way down to the back of his right hand. There was blood dripping off the right side of his chin and covering the bottom right half of his face, as well as around the right side of his head as there was a cut going through his black hair behind his ear that was full of so much blood he could not hear anything out of it. He could not hear much but the pounding of his own heart actually, nor did he feel much pain despite the deeper cuts on the right side of his torso under his arm and all over that arm itself.
"The ones trying to kill me?" Zach muttered, his voice raising. Though it was back in his normal voice, it did not have the same tone Zach took when he had been on television in the past since he had returned to Japan. His question caused everyone around him to stare nervously, and made Midoriya's eyes grow huge with his jaw dropping in fear and panic at the look on Zach's face. His eyes rose up from the floor and his black hair lifted up so the shadow was gone from over his eyes that lost their red shade to return to hazel. "Eziano. Mozcaccio."
Zach said the name and his expression was steady and pissed as he stared straight at the camera. "That's your name. Oh? Did I say it?" Zach's words unnerved the people around him, and the woman who had been yelling at him before gulped and stepped backwards, while her husband stood up and backed away with his son in his arms. Zach's expression got taunting despite the blood on the right side of it, and he said with the bloody right corner of his lip lifting up, "That name you take so much pride in, in the fact that no one knows it. That anyone who even speaks your name without permission is killed, and yet now it's going to be a household name. Eziano Mozcaccio, you tried to kill me again."
Zach's teeth ground again, his head bowing down and his left arm raising up and moving to the right side of his face where he rubbed it against a spot that felt very wet on the right side of his head. A few EMTs stepped forward thinking they should go help Lifebringer, but they were also way too unnerved to speak up to him or anything. Even the other heroes were all just quiet and completely silenced by what Sazaki was saying here. "You had the respect and fear of everyone who knew to the point no one would dare say your name, but now everyone in the world will know it. It's not a secret anymore. I made it not a secret, because you failed again. You failed, at killing me." Zach's teeth ground over each other and the corners of his lips pulled apart, a look of anger flashing over his face though his expression flinched as he saw the shaking camera aimed at him.
He hesitated, and then his teeth bared harder and he called out, "So I'm done! Done with all those attacks! I'm calling you out, Eziano! I'm tired of all these assassination attempts. If you want me, then just tell me when and where. Set whatever traps you want! Bring as many men as you want! I'll come ALONE! Ahh haa, ahh haa…" Zach's panted a few times then his voice got deeper and he growled, "I'm not afraid of you." Zach's face flinched, and his teeth bared so much harder, his eyebrows raising up and his forehead scrunching as he tilted his head back in pain. He sucked in so hard and tried to hold it back, but he still seethed through his teeth, "You killed my landlord."
Zach's eyes flashed red and darted to the left, then to the right like he was looking for something. Black flames ripped out of his back and created wings twelve meters in wingspan that flapped hard and slammed down into the ground. He shot into the sky like a missile with everyone snapping their heads up to follow him though they lost him in the backdrop of the night sky.
Hundreds of miles away, Midoriya shoved his phone into his pants' pocket and he pulled a shirt over his head as fast as he could. Midoriya threw his window open and leapt out without hesitation. He landed on the ground outside of his building, bent his knees, and jumped two hundred meters into the sky and in the direction of Yutapu. A robot outside of the apartments spun its head and zoomed in the cameras on its head as it tracked Midoriya away.
"Zach!" Midoriya landed on the roof and ran forward in his landing that came too fast for him to just stop at once. He stopped moving and skid to a stop though, staring across the roof from just past the middle closer to the side Zach was on. "Stop," Midoriya said, his voice stern and his eyes intense as he stared at Zach's back, broad and covered in darkness.
Zach did not turn his head around. He held his left hand out in front of his body, gripped around the throat of the man tugging at his fingers with his own as he gasped for air in Zach's hold. The man he held off the roof had dark black skin and the appearance of an African which Zach could tell too from the words the man had spoken a minute earlier. He was silent now though, other than the gasping for breath. His left eye was squinted and there was a bloody cut on the corner of his eyebrow dripping blood down his face to his chin where it dripped off onto Zach's steel arm. That arm did not have darkness on it like the rest of Zach's body had, though it did not have any fake skin on it either. The steel arm extending from Zach's shoulder had dark wisps at the top of it that snaked down his metal bicep towards his elbow, the black lines tugging away from Zach. They looked like they were straining to push even farther out along the straight-extended arm, reaching for the face of the man whose bloodshot eyes stared at those black lines in shaking fear.
"Midoriya," Zach whispered, his voice scratchy as he heard that voice behind him. He continued to stare straight at the face of the man he held out over the edge of the roof. "He killed Norita. He killed my, landlord," Zach hesitated before finishing, the word 'landlord' describing their relationship and yet feeling like not enough the way he was feeling right now. I took it for granted. All he did for me. "It was him," Zach snarled, his left hand clenching tighter after loosening for a second so that guy could start breathing in. The relief the assassin felt with his breath coming in was short-lived and his eyes bulged even wider at that new tone in Zach's voice.
"You can't kill him," Midoriya said, his eyes darker and his voice firm. He glared at Zach's back and stepped a foot closer to him. "I won't let you-"
"I'm not going to kill him," Zach growled, putting the emphasis on himself that made both Midoriya and the man in his grip gain looks of hesitation. The villain was quicker to realize what Zach was saying though, but Zach continued on anyway even as that look formed on his enemy's face. "He failed his mission. He killed an innocent bystander, and he failed to kill me," Zach leaned his head forward and bent his elbow to pull the man by his neck back closer to his face. Zach glared into the man's eyes with his flaring red ones, and the corners of his lips twisted up, "But worst of all, his failure resulted in Eziano's name becoming public."
Midoriya's eyes grew wider, and they shook with his right foot sliding back on the roof as he heard the menacing tone in Zach's voice. Zach's enemy stared at him with dread and a dark look as Zach glared at him from a foot away, and Zach snarled at that man's too-calm look, "The one thing Eziano Mozcaccio hates most of all. All the respect the villains of this world had for him? The fear the worst of them had to not even utter his name in private? Now his name will be commonplace. A household name, talked about all over the world tomorrow… And that's all because of you."
Zach felt the man he had gripped by the throat fail at gulping as his Adam's apple was crushed too far in. "Come tomorrow you'll be dead. It doesn't matter who I turn you over to. It doesn't matter where you are or how protected you may be. It's over for you," Zach warned the man in front of him, then he brought his face up close and growled into the man's straight expression, "Unless you tell me where he is right now. You know I can do it. He knows I can, and that's why he keeps sending all of you after me. You tell me where he is and I will go kill him right now."
Midoriya stared at Zach's back with his expression shaken, as he questioned all he had seen on the news before, all the signs he thought he saw of Zach snapping in that moment. It was all part of his plan? Or- or is he just, using it? He's going to find Eziano right now? If he does…
"Well?" Zach's grip loosened on the villain's throat, but the man's arms lowered down flat to his sides. His eyes stared back into Zach's calmly, and then the corners of his lips lifted up and his arms started moving out to his sides. He tilted his head back and threw his arms out with his palms open, a smug grin over his face as he pulled out of Zach's grip on his neck. The villain's neck that Zach loosened his grip on slipped out of his hand. Midoriya stepped forward and started coursing One For All through him.
Zach's hand that lost grip on his neck snapped forward before the man could drop more than a few inches, wrapping around the bottom of his face and wiping the smile off below his steel palm that gripped into his skull. Zach whipped the man around the left side of his body with his left arm, throwing him onto the roof and releasing with Midoriya darting his eyes to Zach's palm with them opening huge as he saw the darkness wisping off at the last second.
Midoriya looked at the man who hit the roof and bounced towards him but a little away on his left. The villain put his arms down as he was coming to a stop, but his elbows buckled and he collapsed to the floor unconscious from the small amount of Death Zach hit him with.
"Damn it," Zach growled, and Midoriya looked back to the edge of the roof where Zach was still standing with his back to him and his left arm lowering down to his side. Zach took in a deep breath while glaring off the roof, out over the city of Yutapu he had scoured for the villain behind him.
"How, did you find him?" Midoriya whispered.
"I thought of all the best locations to watch my apartment from. If Norita was leaving Chianou's apartment to head back to his own late at night, then it was likely the package the villain left outside my door was under his direct surveillance. He would not have been able to place it that long ago either, nor would he have risked it. There was a sixty percent chance probability in my mind that he was somewhere close to watch my apartment. More likely after the attack as well, when I was covering most of my body in Death throughout 'likely' to hide my injuries and not let him see how close he had gotten, and that he may have the ability to finish me off. During that time I contemplated all other options, all escape strategies from each of the potential spots he was watching me from." Zach continued in a monotonous voice while glaring off the edge of the roof, at buildings all around that had seemed to have glowing red and orange lines coming off of them like Roady once described his power was like to him. "I can see it. Every position he could have waited, and every path he may have run from that position to escape, or to feint an escape and lay an ambush, or to get to wherever his transportation is… or to hide for days in wait before leaving. And although the room he was initially watching from did have an angle on my apartment, he did not expect me to know which other rooms in that complex that did not have vantage points were vacant, or more specifically which ones had been rented out within the past two months like his was."
How does he know all of that? How could he know every buildings' layout and who owns what rooms? Why would he- for this? The amount of time he must have put in to the task of finding all of that out, for the possibility of…
Zach's head bowed on the edge of the roof, feeling Midoriya's judging eyes on his back. His expression remained so dark and he ground his teeth in frustration at the result of his interrogation. "He didn't talk," Zach muttered. Midoriya looked to his side at the man flat on the roof and then back towards Zach's flaring black back, the darkness on the back of his skull to the top where it rippled off of him like flames. Zach's voice continued in a low and scratchy voice he could only have in Nightmare form, "He knows I'm right. He knows he messed up worse than any of the assassins before him. I could see he knew it, and the fear… but it doesn't make sense. He's more afraid of Eziano than of me, so many villains are, and with you here it was clear who he'd be more afraid of. But then why keep quiet?"
Zach turned his head to the left, glaring towards where the man he tossed had skid to a stop. Midoriya flinched at the sight of the side of Zach's face too, and Zach saw that and started turning his body more to face his friend behind him. Zach's face was only as uncovered as his left arm was, as the darkness had spread down it in long lines after Zach released the man he could not risk holding any longer. Darkness spread in from the sides of Zach's face, bones showing through his cheeks and forehead, while black spiderwebs crossed the center of his face. Branching off of the vein-like darkness were wisps that cut through his skin and then left it darker as the skin reformed, his Death moving over his face in an unsteady and malicious appearance. And there was blood, smeared over the skin where the darkness faded for moments at a time, and still dripping down the right side of his face into the thicker darkness surrounding his torso.
His flaring red eyes shifted over to the man on the floor after he locked his gaze with Midoriya for a moment. "It's because it's never been about hired killing. Making money off of it, outsourcing to other assassins and controlling the actions of hitmen and hired guns all over the world, all of it is to make Eziano and his guys seem like just more hired killers. It's not about the money though. If it was, then what was that?" Zach glared at the man on his back who was willing to accept death right there. "He did not just want to die quicker, thinking Eziano would kill him slow. He was fine dying. That smug look, like I had no idea what I was talking about threatening him in that way. Why? They're fanatics. Chaos is their game. Murder and war their weapons. I can't…" Zach's voice trailed off and got even more frustrated, his eyes darting back to Midoriya's unsure and hesitant expression.
"What did you do to him?" Midoriya asked, his voice soft and his expression regaining a composure to it. His feet planted on the ground and he looked to the edge of the roof where Zach was standing wrapped in his Nightmare form despite there not being any more villains to fight. "Did you, torture him, before I got here?"
Zach stared at Midoriya and then shifted his gaze to the side angrily. "'Torture?'" Zach repeated back in a scratchy whisper. "I don't torture. I wouldn't, as a hero too. And that's what I'm…" Zach clenched his red eyes shut and bared his teeth. "Shit. I let everyone, see." Zach brought his left hand up to the side of his head and grabbed it in irritation. "Months of careful fucking, everything! And I destroyed it in seconds back there. All that for nothing-"
"Zach, what are you-"
"You saw, and you rushed straight here," Zach growled. He glared back towards Midoriya, and he said darkly to his friend, "Because it's the same for everybody. Everyone expects me to fail. You expect me to," Zach said lower, his eyes narrowing more at his former classmate who pulled his head back at the accusing look that Zach's face took, looking more like Zach as the darkness faded from it and from around most of his head. "I see it every time we talk," Zach said, his voice more pained and less scratchy now as the Death faded from his neck. "I even expect myself to half the time."
Midoriya lowered his eyes to the floor. He could not deny what Zach was saying, not to his face, not as he thought about all that had been keeping him up tonight. Not as he thought about why it was he came out here so fast. "Kill him?" Zach wondered, raising his eyebrows at Midoriya who flinched at the sight of Zach's bloodied and sad face looking back at him like that. He shook his head thinking of how Deku had interrupted and then ground his teeth and hissed, "And I know, I just put an even bigger target on myself." He brought his right fist up and hit himself on the side of his head over and over, "I know I should have just kept my mouth shut, but- but Norita-"
Midoriya opened his mouth, but Zach lowered his right hand fast and snapped his gaze back up to lock with Deku's. "And everyone thinks I'll snap one of these days. They think I'll be the villain again. Every single one of you sees me trying so hard to smile, and talking in such a heroic way, and as convincing as I can be I know every single person watching is just waiting. They're all looking for it!" Zach's tone cracked and he shook his head around in fury, "Damn it. Everyone believed that I couldn't really have changed, they've all been searching for that crack in the armor that will show them I'm the same as I always was. And there I went! Right in front of a damn camera I just- I couldn't keep it going."
Zach stepped towards Midoriya but moved in the direction of a metal pipe sticking out of the roof. He walked over to it and sat down, and his body no longer had any Death on it at all as he put his right hand on his forehead with his fingers extended out and rubbing back and forth into his hairline. He winced at the pain on the right side of his forehead but mainly just kept ignoring it, and he whispered while staring down below his palm, "And it's so hard."
Midoriya's shoulders slacked and his eyes grew sadder rather than intense like they had been since he landed. He shifted his gaze to the man Zach had been choking ruthlessly when he showed up, looking like a villain as the choking assassin tried so desperately to break free. Confused thoughts about Eziano and his true motives that Zach got him thinking about faded from his mind. Midoriya stepped towards the metal pipe Zach was sitting on, and he started in a soft voice, "I'm sorry, about what happened to your landlord."
"I dragged him into it," Zach whispered. He stared down at the roof below his feet and whispered, "I knew it would happen. I knew the moment I got out of jail that wherever I stayed would be put in so much danger. And I had to tell the government where that was. I had to tell cops and heroes, so that Lemillion could have an easier time following me around whenever he wants. And I told my classmates and friends, because I told myself that trusting other heroes is more heroic than being suspicious of everyone around you. A hero wouldn't just become a darker and more secluded person because of their hardships, but would overcome them." Zach rubbed his forehead with his right hand and ground his teeth in even more frustration. "I've been trying so hard to be a hero that I- I let him-"
"Bad things happen, Zach," Midoriya said, shaking his head and looking down into Zach's eyes seriously when he lifted his head to look back at his friend. "It's not your fault though. You didn't blow up the apartment. You didn't kill Norita."
"But I-"
"No!" Midoriya snapped back before Zach could counter. "You've always done that, and you've always been wrong. Don't push blame on yourself where it doesn't belong. Once you start blaming yourself for the people you didn't save…" Midoriya trailed off, hesitating instead of finishing that line. I don't get it, Midoriya hesitated more and stared in growing confusion at Zach. He doesn't care about the people he isn't saving at hospitals. He doesn't blame himself for that, when he would have before. But this is more personal, and yet he's speaking on it in broad terms like… wait. Midoriya shook his head around, and he started over, "Zach, you can't always save people. And you can't make their decisions for them," Midoriya hesitated when he saw Zach's face flinch right there. "When people like Norita decide to help you, that's their choice. Everyone saw you get shot on the way out of prison, he knew it was dangerous, but he wanted you-"
"Not everyone in that building signed up for that risk," Zach retorted. His expression was colder now too as what Midoriya said reminded him too much of something else, "You don't get to make all the decisions. You can't say you're doing something to 'protect' me and just think I'm going to leave it at that, do you?" "…And if I get hurt because of it, then that's a result of my decision. Got it? That's me telling you, I'm accepting the 'risks' of being your friend."
"Not everyone was willing to die for me, but I put them all in that position when I decided to live in that building. I knew how resourceful Eziano was but I chose to ignore it and believe that I was safer than I was. I pretended like everything was fine, and I got seventeen people killed. And Norita can't come back this time." Zach paused and he lowered his gaze down to the roof with a thoughtful look forming over the cold and dark one that covered his whole face. Then he felt his phone buzz, and he did not ignore it this time like he had the last twenty times he received a message. Zach pulled out his phone from his right pocket and looked down at the uncracked screen, and he focused on the top message of a list of them.
'Don't give up. Overcome this.' Zach stared at the message from Reika Tiona and his eyes widened for a few seconds at what he was staring at. That run we went on. I told her what I'd do if the assassins coming after me killed someone I care about. I told her I'd, disappear. I wasn't lying that day though. Zach's expression started to harden again, his breathing steady and calm, That I only came back here knowing that it was unlikely the assassins would risk dragging in one of my friends, as it would cause me to run off again! If I don't leave now, then that threat becomes empty! And if I don't leave now, they might even… kill someone else next.
'And I swear to God if you don't catch that villain we're going to have problems.' Zach stared at the second message that just popped, and his eyes lowered in an even darker way though he let out a single cold laugh. Oh yeah. It wasn't just me I said would disappear. She wouldn't have accepted it if tomorrow I said the villain escaped, or I couldn't find him. She feels the same way as everyone else then, thinking I'll break like this and kill again so easily.
"Zach, are you… How are you feeling?" Midoriya hesitated and knew the answer was not good, but he had to ask as he stared at Zach's bowed head and heard that dark laugh come from him a moment ago. What do I do? He looked so, so- someone he cared about was just killed, and he didn't kill the killer in revenge… Except it's Eziano he wants. Eziano he knows is responsible. And if he had Eziano in front of him right now, he'd kill him. There's not a doubt in my mind, he'd kill him.
"I knew I'd be targeted," Zach whispered. He looked at the other messages mainly from Shiketsu classmates who had woken up in the city nearby and figured out what had happened. Recovery Girl had also sent him a message though telling him to go to a hospital that he stared at last of all the messages. He put his phone back down and just rested it on his thigh with his eyes shutting and sadness covering back up his whole face. "And it was part of coming back, that I would have to deal with Eziano's attacks but… but I told myself that if I started dragging people into it, getting people hurt because I chose to be here, that I would leave." Zach lifted his head and looked at Midoriya who stared back in a pained way at what Zach was saying.
"You didn't drag anyone…" Midoriya started, but he could see Zach did not believe him and he did not even know if he believed it himself. "You're trying. I know, you're trying." Midoriya shook his head, "And I'm sorry I keep doubting, you," Midoriya hesitated to finish it but he did admit it to his friend and step another foot closer to him. "Nothing has ended though, just because of this."
"I only felt right coming back," Zach whispered in a counter. "Because I was sure Eziano would only target me. And if I could be sure of that, then it was fine, because I could handle myself." Zach shook his head and his face scrunched up as he gasped out, "But the bomb dragged in innocents. He's going to farther lengths to kill me. He could kill my friends here. And that would be on me." Zach said it firmly and without room for Midoriya to argue this time. He glared up at his old classmate with curly green hair who stared back with wider eyes as Zach hissed, "I failed to take down Eziano so many times. If I had just… but I didn't. I failed. I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of the selfish reasons I have for being back here."
"Your reasons aren't selfish," Midoriya whispered. He spoke faster as Zach always had a counter for anything he said, "You want to make the people of Japan think you're really alright and trying to be a hero. You want to show them that because you want them, you want them to believe that no matter how far someone's dropped they can always come back!" Zach lifted his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes with hesitation spreading over his face, and confusion that it was Midoriya reminding him of these things now. "Which I don't get…" Midoriya continued with a frustrated shake of his own head. "That you're trying so hard to prove to everyone that there are second chances, and third chances-" Midoriya bit down and then glared into Zach's eyes and finished angrily, "While you refused so many people those second chances yourself?"
Zach's eyes that he rose stayed locked with Midoriya's angry ones as Deku stood right before him looking down at his face. "If you really believe that you can be a hero," Midoriya started, his voice pained though he took another step forward and outstretched his left hand for Zach to take. "Then you can't kill Eziano Mozcaccio." Midoriya stared intensely into Zach's eyes that lowered to his hand and then back up at his face in a darker way. "It doesn't matter what he's done. It doesn't matter what he's done to you, specifically, or to the world as a whole. You can't go after him with the intention of killing him. If you say you'd do that, then I will stop you. But if you really are mad right now, because you let people see how angry you looked back there? If you really are upset right here, because you know how hard it's going to be to convince everyone that you're still on a path to being a hero? Then you can't contradict yourself. You can't go around acting like this, acting so dark and unheroic, and then expect to be able to convince everyone else that you're not really like that."
I know you're trying, Midoriya thought, and he held his left hand out farther and begged with his eyes for Zach to grab it. And I want to believe so much that you can do it. I know that when you set your mind on something, no one can stop you! So since you're really trying right here! Since you know how much you messed up, to get me to come all the way out here so fast, you know it'll be even harder. "Keep trying," Midoriya asked. "Get back up, and stay here." If he tries to leave- if he leaves! I won't be able to stop him if he just decides to leave again. I have a chance to stop him right here. I've had that chance already! And I don't want to take it. Not while I don't have to.
Zach lifted his left hand and clasped it with Midoriya's. He stared up into his friend's eyes and thought, I've always considered you my biggest critic here. Every time we talk, I see how different we are. I see how much differently you think than I do. If anyone would give up on me altogether tonight, it would be you. Yet I wasn't even trying to convince you otherwise, I wasn't. Here we stand though, Zach stood up from the metal bar and looked into Midoriya's eyes as their faces were only two feet apart. Midoriya tugged Zach's arm in and turned his back at the same time while Zach opened his eyes wider in surprise at what felt like an attack.
"Grab hold," Midoriya said, while bending his legs and pulling Zach's left hand over his shoulder and pressing it on his front to give Zach a grip. He did not wait for Zach to counter or take a breath, and he jumped high off the roof and darted his eyes around for the closest hospital.
Zach wanted to argue, but he was exhausted and just let out a sigh while turning his head as they soared through the air. He looked in the direction of the billowing black smoke that did not have any glow below it except for the ongoing sirens in the area of his old apartment. His eyes saddened and closed for a moment, and he thought about hanging out with Blackstar at his counter the other day. He saw Momo leaning over his bed to take care of him, and then back in his living room wrestling with Dover. The fight day at his apartment filled his head with all his different friends from Class 1 and Class A showing up… Zach's head bowed and he brought his right hand up from dangling behind him and rubbed the side of his head with it, as bloody as the palm of his glove was. A much more depressed look formed over his face thinking about painting the walls of his apartment, and the girl next to him laughing and singing with him.
He saw Ashido splashing paint at him and his head just tilted forward and rested into Midoriya's back. The memory of that day was so vivid as he thought about after all the shopping they did just the two of them. He could see the walls he had to look at every day for two months too, and he thought while pressing his face into Midoriya's back, I never did put a second layer of paint over those walls. Looking at that shoddy paint job reminded me of that… that fun moment- Zach rubbed his face into Midoriya's back as they started a downwards arc towards a hospital below. What am I thinking about? I'm almost down there in front of people again. I- I have to do better than this. Reika and Midoriya are right. I can't just give up on all the reasons I decided to come back, just because I lost one person. My goals aren't complete yet. I, haven't fixed all I broke…
When Midoriya landed on the helipad atop the hospital, Zach pulled from his friend's grip that made Midoriya turn in surprise as he was going to help Zach all the way inside and to the doctors. "You go take the villain to the police," Zach said with a shake of his head at Midoriya when he saw his friend getting ready to argue here. "I did not hit him with much Death, considering you were there. There's a chance there was a second man though about to go grab his buddy and run. So go. Now." Zach motioned away with a nod, then he turned for the door leading into a stairwell down that he had used before. He let out a long sigh and then lifted a smile on his face while Midoriya was still watching, and Midoriya nodded after another second and turned back around.
He leapt off the roof, and Zach glanced back and watched him fly off at the door into the stairwell. His smile lowered down and he looked back forward with dread covering his face. His right arm was covered in blood, his face was pale and bloody too, he had a cut in his black sweatpants up near his thigh wrapping around the front of that leg, and there was still wooden shrapnel sticking out of his right calf. His thoughts ignored all that current damage to himself though as he reached forward for the doorknob with a steel left hand. If there are any recently dead here… it's time to die a few more times tonight.
A/N Thanks for reading. Norita ;( Zach's apartment explodes, killing 17 people though he's able to revive 16 while on camera. Midoriya rushes out to Yutapu and comes across Zach with the bomber gripped by the throat, though Zach does not kill the man and restrains himself as much as he can, after his outburst about Eziano Mozcaccio... Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'll put in some responses for the last two chapters since I just ended the last one on "boom!" XD Leave a review below telling me what you thought, predictions, comments, or questions for what's to come.
alexanderjuarez499 chapter 184 . Oct 1
This chapter almost seems an insult to me because they treat the armed forces like a bunch of inexperienced children, do you know the life and training they carry? If we compare the work of real-life soldiers and anime heroes, the latter have it easy.
Hey didn't mean for that. Totally not trying to diss the armed forces or make what they do seem easy, this is just my AU BNHA world's view of the military in some distant future far removed from having armies. And considering the Special Forces soldiers went to that profession because they couldn't cut it as heroes puts the heroes over there in America as like the Navy Seals to our regular Navy guys. (It's not a great comparison), but yeah didn't mean to belittle it or anything, def not my intention.
Raven Mordrake chapter 184 . Oct 1
Hey, don't be offended, but replacing the armed forces with the heroes seems absurd and stupid, we go in the anime, the police and the S.W.A.T are still there, so why would they replace the a
I'll put this defense here for you and the others who didn't really like the portrayal of what I think militaries would be like in the My Hero world: Japan already doesn't really have a military, they have the JSDF which is the Japan Self Defense Force. If the Police Force in My Hero can't use Quirks, and people always talk about how the heroes are the only ones allowed to, I feel like they would have referenced the military before having exceptions to that. But so far in the canon there hasn't been any mention of real armed forces, but even I haven't just fazed out militaries completely from this futuristic world where everyone has superpowers. There was the military in Saudi Arabia Mongoloid took over and was trying to get under his control, forces in Gorran I think I mentioned, not to mention there are security forces that the Europeans were using to protect some of their interests, and the Americans have the Special Forces. I think the biggest issue with having militaries in the My Hero world though is that heroes and hero society kind of run the world. If heroes are in charge, and they have the best interests of their people at heart, I don't think wars between nations are likely to happen. They wouldn't want it to be easy to start a war either, and would have likely fazed out military spending as more people just want to spend taxes to support heroes instead who they know will protect them. I've also referenced how nukes aren't around anymore, as the AoD thought those weapons didn't exist anymore/ ADTF, Zach's friends all found it hard to believe, and there wasn't even an actual nuke with it turning out to be just another Quirk in the end. Anyway, this is why I think they would replace the army. Not replacing the Police Force makes sense so as to have a group to assist the heroes who are not as high in number as well as to do all the other jobs the police currently have that heroes would be too busy fighting to take part in. I think it's less likely there would still be large militaries all over the world, especially if the chaos after Quirks first came about resulted in a mass chaos where apparently those previous militaries failed to stop it, resulting in heroes emerging to take care of it. If heroes were the ones (and they are from like the first chapter of the manga) who rose in that chaotic time and put a stop to villains, I don't see armies really reemerging in the My Hero world when it's become clear that heroes are what are needed to stop villains. Then again, the militaries of the past may have failed in that new world and people might have thought they were obsolete and unnecessary, but Zach seemed to think otherwise and went and started his own more effective than all the heroes. So, this is just where the current state of that world lies. I think it's completely feasible, and though I didn't explain it all in the story to back it up, that just wouldn't have flowed very well in a conversation between any two real people in that world (unless someone was giving someone else a history lesson, and I already had enough of that in the last chapter and didn't want Jirou to seem clueless as to her own history for Ms. Clue to explain everything to her). Hope that makes sense to you. If not, I guess just suspend your disbelief on the matter a little more than usual so this absurdity can slide. ;P Thanks for the review, glad to explain it if people needed this.
NovaAwakening chapter 11 . Oct 2
Jenny is best girl, hands down!
Oh man... I feel kind of bad for this guy just getting into it.
Yoichi chapter 184 . Oct 1
Yay AoD, nice to see some old members come back, and wow jirou and Zach will never be cool with eachother especially now that she's basically gotten confirmation of his status as Death.
Great chapter as usual, but Blackstar's dream sequence was confusing at first, I had to re read the start quite a few times before I realised what was happening.
Hope hitting you with a second dream sequence in a row didn't confuse you too much! XD The second time was more intentionally confusing at the start as I just gave the location without a timestamp. Once I started mentioning Mark, Zach, etc. I expected people to realize it was a flashback, but since I didn't have that timestamp it wasn't actually a flashback that I wondered if anyone noticed (really just a stylistic thing if you didn't), but then it cuts off sharply with that blast! Thanks for the review, Zach and Jirou do not seem to have an easy road ahead... and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!
Super Power Sensei chapter 185 . 4h ago
I'm gonna guess Toga. She's using explosives because she is aware there's no way she can actually take him on. Her only chance was to catch Zach by surprise with something powerful.
Eziano Mozcaccio... but close! Lol nice guess, but it's the same guy over and over. Zach calls out Eziano on tv after getting nearly ripped up by the bomb. The League are moving in the shadows with a timetable of before graduation this year! Can Zach hold on? Can he survive!? Find out next time on Death! (and by next time I mean the combination of all the next times... but yeah)