Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 187:
Kirishima woke up and leaned forward on his bed with a loud yawn escaping his mouth. He reached to his side to grab his phone and check the time, though it felt like he could still sleep some more before getting up for class. He opened his phone and blinked a few times while staring at the notifications and messages, "Explosion in, Yutapu?" Kirishima shook his head around and sat up farther on his bed, glancing at the other messages with his eyes going even wider.
He clicked on the news story and it opened up straight to a video on his phone. He did not realize that his phone was on full volume though, until the scream ripped out of his screen and blasted into the room.
"OI! SHUT UP!" Bakugo yelled it at the wall as something just blasted and woke him up, though his shout was even louder than the video Kirishima was watching itself. Bakugo growled to himself as the sound continued for another second before getting lowered, though his growl subsided and a deeper frown replaced it at what that noise sounded like as it decreased in volume. The fuck was that?
"Hey boss. You see this?" Shooter walked into the boss's workshop and held his phone up for the teen lifting his mask to see.
Kaminari Denki pushed the steel mask up on top of his hair and lowered the blowtorch in his right hand. He walked around the workbench leaving wires sticking out of the black-paneled steel he was working on. "One casualty in Yutapu bombing," Raijin wondered while reading the article. "Who was it?"
Shooter lowered his phone a little and said in a low voice but with a small smirk, "Sazaki's landlord. The guy had been brought back in the days after the SFI, was letting Sazaki stay in a room rent-free the news is saying. You think this is good or bad for us?"
"Depends," Raijin said, humming to himself and then heading for the door of his workspace he had gone to right after waking up, having been enlightened by a dream he had the night before. He smirked as he headed out of the room to go check on the situation himself as he had been too busy that morning to even notice something so important had happened. "Has he been spotted since reviving the other dead?"
"There's a video of him, flying off actually," Shooter started, somewhat surprised at Raijin's reactions to all this. He doesn't seem like he knew, but it's like he's not even surprised. "Right before he flew off though, he started ranting about Eziano Moz-" Raijin's head turned to the side and his eyes widened this time with is eyebrows raising up high. "Yeah," Shooter admitted, a bead of sweat forming on the side of his face as he said it. "Kid looked… man he looked rough."
"The bomb did damage?" Raijin wondered.
Shooter nodded, and he realized why Raijin had asked him who the casualty was at first without looking like he thought it was Lifebringer in the least. He's surprised he even got hurt? "The supposed bomber is in custody though. Deku's the one who captured him…" Shooter thought Raijin might speak up there, but apparently the teen was not surprised that Deku had left U.A. in the middle of the night for it. "Though the report I just saw changed to say that it was Lifebringer who actually took him down, and Deku just brought him in. Think Deku stopped Sazaki from killing him?"
"Maybe," Raijin tilted his head and admitted. "Was expecting the assassin to just 'escape,' this time," Raijin added, smirking and shaking his head as he said it. "But if the assassin's in custody, Zach's still around, and he just pissed off Eziano in the worst way he could have possibly done?" The boy with somewhat shorter blond hair than Shooter's, though it was pretty long too just wavier and spiked up over his head, cracked a much bigger smirk thinking about how they were talking about Eziano in this normal conversation and using his name too. Doesn't matter now though. Everyone's going to be talking about him. Zach's fucking nuts! "Can't help but love him."
"I can," Shooter muttered darker. Raijin rolled his eyes as it felt to him like Shooter was bringing up how Zach had gotten him captured. "You and him spent the same amount of time in Tartaros. You got to learn to let shit go." Raijin waved a hand and Shooter just grunted in agreement, watching that hand hesitantly as the younger man stepped out into their living room where other villains at their forest mansion were watching the news. "Oh I hate him too. And if Eziano doesn't kill him now then I'm going to take my chance to put him down myself. We need him out of the way, obviously." Others looked back to Raijin who chuckled while watching that dark video of Zach up on the screen covered in Death and blood, looking so horrifying as he ranted about the assassins hunting him. "But just look at him. Turning everyone against him in a few seconds, and I bet he'll still keep up the ruse for whatever his plan is! Fucking crazy…"
Iida and Koda walked down the stairs together with the two of them staying mostly quiet. Iida had wondered at Koda if he saw, and Koda nodded back before Iida could finish, and the two of them were too lost in their thoughts as they walked to the first floor together. Midoriya was on the first floor of the building already, mopping the hard floor of the common room with his head bowed and his expression intense as he cleaned the place. "Midoriya?" Iida started while rushing towards his classmate who looked at him and tried to raise a friendlier expression than his serious one. "I saw mention of you on the news- did you, not get permission?" Iida's initial tone shifted to a more scolding one as he saw what Midoriya was doing which seemed like punishment especially this early.
Midoriya nodded his head, thinking back on his arrival back at U.A. Principal Nezu and All Might had scolded him for rushing out even in what he thought was an emergency, and the snarky robot who saw him had called out that Midoriya had the time to put on his clothes first. "I have a day of house arrest here because of it," Midoriya replied with an apologetic nod at the class representative. "And the news has it wrong. I brought in the assassin but Zach, caught him," Midoriya did not know why he started that in a defensive tone, and he looked back down at his mop with a frustrated look back on his face. I wanted to stay at the hospital and see how Zach was doing, but Recovery Girl will arrive soon and help him… He shook his head thinking about the message he received from All Might demanding he return to school, and he apologized again to his classmates for breaking the rules like that though Koda just waved his hands at him saying that it was fine.
In the girls' showers, Hagakure leaned back against the tiles below the shower head and sighed with her invisible body splashing water off still as she had pointed the head down to get her while she did this. She faced out towards the curtain and then lifted her head and wondered to the other girls in the showers with her, "Do you think he'll be alright? Those injuries looked pretty bad…" She trailed off before even finishing, getting even more hesitant as she thought about the parts of his scarred-up body not covered by blood or darkness. "Though, not as bad, as some of the older ones."
Jirou closed her eyes and pushed down the sickened feeling that rose up again in her stomach. In her mind flashed the face of that man who had gone to visit Zach's apartment only a few days before. His face, and his prosthetics too… just like Zach- They're Army of Death. They, they got those injuries being terrorists. The sick feeling returned and Jirou ground her teeth thinking about how closely she watched him at his apartment just the other day. If you know how to spot when people are following you, how did you not notice a bomb being set up?! Was the one who did it just that much better than… "Eziano fucking Mozcaccio!"
"Right?" Hagakure wondered to the other girls in the shower.
"Yeah," Uraraka replied softly, then again louder to be heard over the running water. "He'll be fine. It's Zach, you know?"
"Haha, yeah…" Hagakure responded but lowered her smile after a moment as she heard Zach's screams from that video she watched right after waking up. Her head bowed and she spun, turning off the water and shaking her head around to get herself composed.
"You staying in the shower Kyoka?" Uraraka wondered, as she was stepping out right after Hagakure and looked back to the still-closed curtain that Jirou was behind. Uraraka and Hagakure had towels wrapped around their mid-sections, but Jirou's water was still running and the towel still draped over the wall next to her shower.
"Yeah. Few more minutes," Jirou replied back strongly, her voice sounding less fazed than the other two who just nodded in response at the sound of her tone. In her head though, Jirou's thoughts were running wild and she had to shake her head around again in the frustration at them. …Then did he mess up? That reaction was emotion-based! He just, went off right there! Even liars sometimes- but what about his plan? Would he have messed up whatever his plan was, just to… to? He called out that Eziano guy, on live television! That's not something a hero does! They're going to tear him apart in the media for this, for all of it, and how does that help his… plan?
"…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!" That's insane! A guy with that much power that he can order all these huge attacks on you? Shooting you on your way out of Tartaros in front of millions?! In front of so many heroes?! Attacking you on the streets and at home- and you're telling him to set a trap for you and bring everyone he has? Jirou narrowed her gaze through the falling water at the wall on the other side of it. It's because you're the most dangerous. The one even worse than Eziano who- "You killed my landlord." Jirou rose her right hand to her stomach and shook her head around, clenching her dark eyes shut in fury at the feeling she felt towards Zach, hearing that tone that echoed in her head.
Kirishima and Sero walked towards the U.A. building together, and they slowed and looked back as a voice called for them to. Mineta ran up behind the others while still slipping into his right shoe and putting his left arm through the loose strap of his backpack. He slowed down as they had stopped to wait for him, then he stopped panting and just walked in a slower way with his expression dropping down more similar to theirs. "So," Mineta began softly as they neared the main building of the school, other students walking ahead of and behind them all looking at their phones and talking in hushed voices at each other. "The Norita guy, he's the one who came to Zach's door-"
"Fight day," Sero said, nodding at what Mineta was starting to say.
Kirishima's expression darkened more as he thought about that guy who had come to the door too. "He was a good guy."
"Zach's gonna be pissed…" Mineta muttered, his voice staying low though his eyes also looking nervous when the other two looked back and down into them. He quickly flattened his expression which confused Kirishima more, though Sero was giving Mineta a look that Mineta noticed which was telling him to shut it. Mineta glanced up and then said still in a low voice but without stopping, "You can't say he didn't look it, Sero. He was…"
"Understandably angry," Sero finished for him. "The guy was letting him stay there for free since Zach saved him after the Sports Festival."
"Which the news is going to use to rip him apart," Kirishima muttered. Sero looked to his side at the redhead in a little surprise at Kirishima's addition, but then he lowered his gaze and thought about that in a darker way himself. Kirishima added in a low voice, "It's like he was getting paid for bringing the guy back to life. Shouldn't have accepted it, even if the guy pushed him to." Sero frowned more and looked back at Kirishima in a harsher way as it sounded less sympathetic to Zach and more like Kirishima was just pointing out his mistake here.
"Whatever happens," Mineta started. "Did you see him bring those people back to life?" His voice got softer there, and both of the others just thought about it instead of looking to their shorter friend's face. "He did it so fast- I mean, it sounded like a long time." Couldn't wait for those screams to stop. "But it was like a minute, and he brought back sixteen people at once. Can you imagine-"
"No," Sero replied. Mineta froze and shifted his gaze to Sero only to wince at the look on the dark-haired teen's face. "No one can imagine, what that feels like."
On the other side of the world, Endeavor stood in a pitch-black room other than the light coming from a screen on one wall and the hologram in the center of the table. Four faces were split across that screen in three boxes, while Endeavor stood with four other heroes around the table's hologram showing a 3D layout of an isolated landscape far from human civilization. The ADTF members meeting with him kept their voices low, but Outback Man started in an accusing voice at Endeavor, "You sure you aren't in denial here?"
"Death has to be Sazaki," Blitz growled in agreement from Mexico, where both he and Star-Spangled Man currently were on an international mission together which had them using the same camera to join the call. "We all saw that video Endeavor. That power looked exactly like Death's in all that darkness. The expression too, and even his damn tone."
Star-Spangled Man nodded in agreement with the more veteran hero working with him. He continued after the third-ranked hero of their country stopped, "He was talking about Eziano like they knew each other, intimately. The only person I can think of who would have that kind of rivalry with Eziano Mozcaccio, a Shadow Boss, the leader of all the assassins-"
"That's the wrong way to look at this," Endeavor countered the others in his force with a strong shake of his head. "Sazaki already knew about Eziano Mozcaccio long before," he said, looking around at the others who stared at Endeavor and hesitated at that statement. "He mentioned him during his Lifebringer Incident," Endeavor explained how he knew.
Michelangelo frowned deeply from across the table from Endeavor, and he said in a deep voice, "A sixteen year old who had never left Japan before already knew, while we didn't?"
"He had left Japan, I believe," Endeavor continued in a somewhat hesitant voice. He thought about a conversation he had had with his son just about a month ago when Shoto bargained with him to unofficially join the ADTF. "And I don't find it too coincidental that Sazaki knew about Eziano beforehand, because Sazaki had joined the League of Villains in Japan. They brought him out of the country, and even if he did not learn about Eziano from his time there, Sazaki spent much time dwelling in the underworld before his Lifebringer Incident. It has come to my attention recently that Sazaki was affiliated with a group of vigilantes inside of Japan, anti-heroes who he fought with…"
"The kid was all over the place," Outback Man admitted after a second's hesitation, and he shook his head around thinking of how crazy all of that sounded.
Blitz frowned deeper at Endeavor but he did hum and start nodding to himself after a moment which made Star-Spangled Man spin to him in surprise. "If anything," Star-Spangled Man started while looking back at his screen and the camera. "This new information should be further evidence of Death's secret identity being none other than Lifebringer. If he was already a vigilante before-"
"Despite the similarities," Endeavor countered without letting the first-ranked American hero finish. He narrowed his dark red eyebrows down that were not even enflamed as he kept the room darker on purpose, "There are coincidences too that we can't deny. Sazaki's prior knowledge of Mozcaccio put a target on him whether or not he was Death." A couple of the others hummed and saw Endeavor's point, but the top Japanese hero added at the end, "His status as a former vigilante makes us want to declare him as Death still without proof."
"This is all true," Michelangelo agreed with a stoic nod. "We are trying to place Sazaki as Death because it makes the most sense," he thought about something else he knew himself that made for a good argument that Lifebringer was Death, but even that he found inconclusive in his mind as he went over it again. It was part of the reason he did not bring it up right there just to add to more speculation, "However we are supposed to look for someone our proof points at, and the current proof is that Death is still out there reviving people while Sazaki's been in Japan for over 7 months now…"
"Wish I had gotten there a couple days later."
"You wouldn't have been able to stop it," Jetflame countered the man in front of him he just went to pick up at the rendezvous point they had planned out a week in advance based on what their headquarters' flight path had looked like at the time.
"Yeah, I know. But just, to be there for him right now." Blackstar leaned back in the passenger seat of the small cloaked jet that lifted back out of the dark forest with barely any wind coming out below it.
"How'd he look?"
"Good," Blackstar replied. "But… not great. And this? You saw how he looked. Kid's got a lot on his plate."
Jetflame shifted his gaze to the side in surprise that Blackstar would say that about him. Being a hero's harder than you thought, the former British hero thought, then he refocused and sped up the jet to fly north and into the storm heading away from their position.
Yaoyorozu sat in her seat through the first period of the day, her hand patting down on her pocket over and over as she waited for it to buzz from a text she had never received. During the break she pulled it out and wrote a message out, then backspaced it, then wrote two more and deleted those as well before spending the final few minutes of the break just hoping to receive a message. The four messages she had already sent were just sitting there on the screen though with no response, and she glanced over across the room towards Midoriya's empty seat to relax herself again. Midoriya will have helped him. He is just, swamped with everything he has to deal with right now. I can't, worry myself over this. He'll be fine. Her eyes shifted back towards the front of the room as Present Mic walked in for their next class, but her eyes shifted past another empty desk in her classroom that Present Mic found himself staring at for a second too after entering Class A today.
Zach opened up his phone at the break between his first and second period, but he was unable to respond to any of the messages as Hachiman called over to his seat before walking out, "Sazaki, principal's office."
Zach's Class 1 classmates all getting ready to jump up and surround him looked towards Hazano sensei with annoyed looks. Hazano's eyes shifted to one of his students who did not give him a look like that though, and he stared at the girl whose incident in the classroom he had heard about from Enorma. Himazuri kept her eyes lowered on her desk and only subtly shifted them Zach's direction once he had started up for the front of the room with an exhausted look on his face some of the other students shared.
Many in Class 1 had been woken up by the explosion that went off close to their homes, closer than most of them had realized Zach lived before the blast. The ones who had been to Zach's apartment before were shocked by the blast and hearing about the man some of them remembered from fight day too. Anima had woken her older brother up, and Kotsumura was not slow to throw on his clothes and rush outside, where he met up with half a dozen others from his class and scattered to scour Yutapu for their missing classmate. Ultimately they had found him at half past three when they went to the hospital on rumors that he had checked in, which he definitely needed considering how he looked now heading to the door of their classroom.
"Can't believe they let him out of the hospital," Manzo mentioned after Zach and Hazano left the room. "He needs to rest with those injuries."
"He practically forced his way out of there," Kotsumura admitted with a laugh. The others who had gone to the hospital with him had all left when they saw Zach in high spirits and looking alright, waiting for Recovery Girl back at four in the morning. Kotsumura had stayed there through the night, though he did pass out for a few hours before his phone alarm went off telling him he needed to get ready for school. Zach had already been out of his hospital bed at the time and was redressing his wounds without any doctors or nurses around. Kotsumura had offered to help, but Zach just told him to help him get out of there instead and the two almost snuck out together but were caught as someone recognized Zach even with Kotsumura's sweatshirt's hood up over his head.
Zach walked through the halls after Hazano who led him to Principal Memuria's office. He was not expecting only the principal and Norasaki when he arrived, though he held back his sigh at the sight of the police and heroes waiting for him in the office. He had to answer a dozen questions on how he had gotten to school and left the hospital, about the attack and how he had reacted on the news which could lead to a panic with his fear-mongering about some 'Eziano Mozcaccio' who they had no information on. Then he had to explain why he did not bring up Eziano before after he confirmed his existence, explaining how even uttering his name would get the man to kill a person, and how he did not want to risk putting more of a target on himself when the previous attacks had stayed isolated on him. "…He dragged other people into his vendetta against me though, and he-"
"Why does he have a vendetta against you?" Norasaki questioned, the lie-detector glaring at Zach as if daring the teen to try and lie to him. The man focused as intensely as he could to make sure that Sazaki could not get around him, if he had been doing so the other times.
"Because I mentioned his name once, in the Enudora Forest," Zach replied. Everyone else stared at him and their eyes opened much wider at the response that Norasaki did not find to be a lie. "I shouted his name in front of the heroes and villains around me on the night of the 'Lifebringer Incident,' and I am not exaggerating when I say people died because I did. That alone, made him decide to kill me."
"How did he, find out?" Hazano slowed down, as the question started sounding silly to him considering how powerful this theoretical villain sounded.
One of the officers in the room pulled out her phone as it was ringing, and she lifted it and answered after seeing who was calling her. "Yes? He- what? Are you sure…"
The lead officer in the room lowered her phone and ended the call. Zach grit his teeth and shook his head, before the woman even started saying, "The bomber took his own life in his cell just now."
Maybe he did. Maybe it wasn't really Eziano. The guy was a fanatic. Suicide isn't that far-fetched. And yet, he was trying to escape me. He wasn't going to talk or reveal anything to anybody, and I'm sure he has no real identity so it's not like anyone would have found out anything there. Zach's thoughtful look made the principal and her assistant stare at him closer like his homeroom teacher. Zach stood there with a metal hand sticking out of his school uniform's left sleeve, his right arm in a sling across the front of his body. He had white bandages wrapped around his neck, forehead, and diagonally from the top of his head over the right side of it just keeping far enough off his eye that he could still see out both.
"How," Memuria started, glaring towards the lead officer in the room with her. "Could that have happened? Did Deku not warn about the danger-"
"When the assassin woke up, he seems to have bitten off his own tongue and bled out. He, continued swallowing his blood so no one would notice how much he was losing, until it was too late. They have not started an autopsy yet, but he could have died from blood loss, or from drowning in his own blood if he intentionally breathed in while…" The woman saying these things was being stared at with wide eyes by the others around her, but she shook her head and just finished, "It's what I was just told. He fell face down in her cell and a puddle of blood poured out of his mouth, according to my lieutenant."
"And, still no identity on him?" Hazano wondered.
"There won't be," Zach said, shaking his head at his homeroom teacher he looked to. "Guys like that," he continued, and Hazano and Norasaki thought about a conversation they had on the first day of the term, about the five 'Mystery Assassins' that had never been identified. "They don't have real names."
"Every villain has a real identity," Memuria countered sharply at her student. "No villain was born-"
"What I mean," Zach started, interrupting her but doing so like he was making a correction on what he just said. "Is that their identities have been completely wiped from the face of the Earth." His expression was serious and his eyes intense as they stayed locked with the principal's. "I won't deny, that searching for Eziano Mozcaccio is one of the things I was doing after I left Japan. I never found him though. I could not find any credible lead on anyone affiliated with him, and most people just assumed he was a myth, if they had even heard of him at all. I, failed at stopping him, and now I'm paying the price." He shook his head in a regretful way, though his look did not take a darker one that the others were expecting him to get like they saw the night before.
Just 1000 kilometers away from Zach Sazaki, Eziano Mozcaccio stood at the top of a mountain staring out to the east. He looked out into the sea of white clouds covering the sky, his expression dark and his eyes cold as he stood in the silence and freezing cold at the top of the mountain. He stood shirtless with his right leg lifted and bent so the sole of his bare foot was pressed on his left leg's inner thigh. He brought his arms up at his sides and put them together above his head, then pulled his hands down in front of his chest with his closed eyes opening as his hands passed in front of them. The toes on his right foot curled into the floor that cracked below and spread cracks down from that spot to thirty meters down the mountain from him. His toes curled like that and then his body rose up three more inches as he stood only on the balls of his right foot with his toes pushing down more and carrying his whole weight with his heel pointed up vertically.
His balance remained as he slammed his right fist out in front of his body, making the clouds ahead of him part and then swirl around the force of the punch. The swirl of clouds remained hollow in the middle while the clouds spun around it and then broke apart, and Eziano brought his right hand back in front of his body and pressed it firmly into his left. Then he spoke in a low voice, "No…" He stayed still on top of the mountain and silent for a few more seconds, then he replied, "Actions such as those would have his army on every assassin who acts now. This is not All Might." Eziano stared out with a cold breeze slamming into him without shifting his balance in the slightest, his toes curling deeper into the divot he made in the rock surface below it. "…No. Not yet," he said again after a few moments of silence.
Eziano lowered his left foot down to the floor and then jumped off the edge of the mountain on its steepest side. "That has always been an option. First, I would use the weapon. If you have managed to do your job… Good. Then, start preparations. He will know his folly soon enough."
"…Why are you even at school right now?" Zach had his phone next to his ear but turned down the volume a couple more notches. He sat in the cafeteria at a table with lots of Shiketsu students all wanting to talk to him, though they were all just holding what they wanted to say on the tips of their tongues for now. "You should have taken the day off! Even if Recovery Girl did go to see you-"
"I'm fine Mina," Zach said, then he rolled his eyes with a look to his right side as Reika smirked with a look to her other side at a disappointed Kotsumura.
"Pay up," Reika told the blond boy who bet her that it was Yaoyorozu.
Kotsumura rose his eyebrows up though and pulled back from the girl on his left, "But, we didn't put anything down-"
"You did not look fine last night! I can't believe I only saw it this morning, I wish I had seen right away. And you said all that stuff about Eziano Mozcaccio? Isn't that bad?!"
"…Yeah," Zach replied. "I shouldn't have said his name like that," he admitted, and he glanced around the table at the people who were all listening to his phone call even though they were trying to act like they weren't at least until he was done with his call. "Everyone knows now though and there's no taking it back. I'll figure that out too."
"Are you sure? Alright!" Ashido decided not to question it any longer as Zach's voice did make it seem like he had everything figured out. She opened her mouth to continue in a brighter tone, but she hesitated thinking about Zach's apartment again. Then, a great idea came to her and she started excitedly, "You know, you're going to need new furniture-"
"I'm sorry, Mina," Zach said, cutting her off before she could continue that. He kept his expression the same outwardly, despite the swirling feeling of dread in his stomach at what he was about to say. This sucks. I, would really like that- "I can't let anyone know where my new home will be."
"Ohh come on. You can't even tell just… You know you can trust-"
"I know, and I do trust you," Zach said, shaking his head while also focusing to his right side now and looking to Kotsumura who had mentioned something similar earlier that day. "But I already had a back-up plan if they ever found where I lived, and I can't let anyone follow people they know might be coming to my place. I can't widen their options beyond just following me, or I'll put more people in danger."
"Alright but-" Ashido started, accepting it quickly and coming up with another idea at the same time. "What if we just did the shopping thing again? We could go out and buy you all new furniture and everything, then you could just take it back yourself?"
Zach shook his head with his lips lowering even lower. "I still, don't think that would be good. Any public place we meet in could be," his voice lowered and the others at the table really did focus more on their lunches as they were felling bad listening in now. Zach hesitated for a few seconds and he could sense Ashido's disappointed and saddened expression through the phone. He explained softly, "My schedule is always unpredictable, so they wouldn't be able to set a good trap for me anywhere. The second a U.A. friend of mine gets on the train somewhere unexpected, it's a bright green flag for them to go ahead and follow straight to me."
"Do you think, they followed one of us to your place?" Ashido whispered.
"It could have been a hundred different things," Zach replied with a tone telling her not to think like that. "Which is why I'm removing ninety-nine of those potential possibilities this time. I won't make the same mistake twice. Don't worry though, I have a new place set up already and I didn't even lose all of my stuff. I'll get some new clothes tonight, and that's all I really need right now."
"Hmmm," Ashido hummed at him over the line, wondering if he was telling her the whole truth here.
"I'm calling you on my phone, aren't I?" Zach wondered. "And even my report for school is saved on my laptop that barely got damaged in the blast. Lost most of my notes, but at least I've got a good excuse…" Zach's dark humor was making the others at his table look back at him with wide eyes.
Ashido just smiled on the other end of the line though and said after a moment, "Alright then. You should still go back to the hospital though! Going back to school on the day after like that-"
"I heard you were back pretty quickly too after Grater," Zach countered. Ashido's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but a smile spread over more of her face as Zach compared what he was doing to that. "And I didn't get nearly that injured. If you could see me right now you'd realize I'm perfectly fine." Zach said it while looking to his right at Reika directly on his right side. She looked back at the right side of his head with the white bandage wrapped around it diagonally, and the bandages around his neck, his right arm in a sling, etcetera.
She snickered under her breath and Zach lifted a slightly larger smile himself before nodding a couple more times and making affirmative noises to his friend on the line with him. "Yeah. Yeah I know. I will. Maybe not later today- alright. No yeah, I hear you," Zach turned down the volume on his phone again. "Anyway, if anyone else over there is about to call me and they get annoyed that I don't pick up, I've got people all around me right now just swarming me with questions and I can't stay on the phone all day. I've got to eat too, so, just if anyone wonders why you got an answer and they- no, please don't say that. Mina?" Zach lowered his phone that the call had disconnected on, and he chuckled while lowering it down for his pocket with a more carefree look on his face than any of his classmates were expecting to see today.
The Zach you saw last night was the fluke, not the reveal of what's underneath. A slip up showing an old version of me, not a slip up showing who I really am. "Swarm away," Zach said, as he had been joking about that since no one was asking at the time, but he knew they all had a hundred questions to ask anyway.
"Who's Eziano Mozcaccio?"
"How long have you known…"
"Why is he after you…"
"Are you sure it was him…"
"Did you hear the guy who did it killed himself?"
Zach nodded across the table at Imino who had just seen an article about that. Most of the others did not see it yet and looked towards Imino in surprise then back at Zach too after seeing his nod.
"That Eziano guy, he's bad news huh?" Dendo wondered, and Zach looked down to the corner of the table where the green-haired teen was sitting and looking sternly over at him. "Bad enough you couldn't deal with him on your own out there?"
What Dendo said sounded like half-praise and half an insult. The praise was on how it would be surprising that Zach could not deal with it himself, while the insult was more Dendo accusing Zach of failing to capture this man before this incident occurred despite his huge strength. "Yeah, that bad," Zach replied. "Those rumors of me in Italy?" Zach brought up, seeing if the others had heard of those rumors and receiving nods form his classmates around him. "With a name like that, I figured it was a good place to hunt for him. Some of the villains I ran into had heard of him. Not a single one of them would tell me anything, and most changed the conversation or ran away immediately if I even spoke his name."
"Jeez, just from saying his name?" Kotsumura asked over with his eyebrows lifted up. He had not asked anything about it from Zach through the morning, more just worried about how Zach was doing rather than on what had happened. "How does a guy get people that scared-"
"It's the reason he's trying to kill me," Zach replied before Kotsumura was finished. "Because I said his name, once." Everyone at the table stared at Zach in confusion, then shock at his serious expression after he said it. "Those villains were right to run from the conversation. I know people who have been killed over just this. Just saying Eziano, Eziano Eziano Eziano," Zach repeated it three more times and chuckled to himself in a darker way for a moment before shaking his head and grimacing for a brief moment. Like I understand my slip up the night before and am trying to quit it, Zach sighed and lifted his left steel hand to the side of his head and rubbed it in a tired way. "But I'm guessing I ended that for him, now that everyone's saying it… Unless he plans on destroying the whole world."
"Ha, haha, haha," Kotsumura laughed, very insincerely and loudly towards Zach to show he did not find it as funny when this Eziano guy sounded insane and like that was something he might do.
"Do you think," Kameko started across the table. He hesitated with Imino looking to his side at his friend's face in confusion at why Kameko stopped right there. The curly-haired boy with a shell on his back shifted his gaze to Reika for a second though, before continuing back to Zach in a lower voice, "He's a bigger threat than Intanzo?
"Not to Japan," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "But to me? Oh yeah."
"Oh? 'Cause you think you could take Intanzo so easy?" Reika wondered, her eyes next to her at the boy who looked back and kept an intense look on his face.
"Not easily," Zach answered. "But Eziano's worse." He slit my throat before, Zach thought, wishing he could say that aloud to the girl next to him to explain it better. You've all seen that scar. And it's not from an assassination either. I knew where he was that time. I went after him on my own ship, hunted him in my own home, and he got the drop on me and cut my throat.
"Sazaki."
Zach turned his head and looked away from the table towards the gap out into the hall where Kimona sensei was standing and looking harshly towards him. "Go to the nurse's office. Ms. Anastasia is waiting for you."
Zach decided not to argue with the hero frowning so deeply at him, Likely thinking about how I looked last night. Hopefully it's just from the injuries that has him looking at me that way. He got up and started to leave the room, taking off more weight on his right leg that still had injuries on it despite Recovery Girl's kiss that morning which healed him up a little bit. My calf was one of the deeper injuries, he thought as he kept the weight off it by limping, ignoring how that must have looked to the people behind him who had seen him walking normally before this. Don't want to exacerbate it more before seeing the nurse. A few on my side were deep too, and it sucks I can't just keep my insides around the marks as Death. It heals quicker without me doing so though. I never realized the increased healing speed because I was hindering my own body's efforts by putting the Death there to prevent bleeding while I moved so fast everywhere. Then having Curalia and Miraculu made it so when I did have to take a break, I healed much quicker but never because, because of Death.
"…What do you think you're doing here today? Most people would take a sick day after what happened to you last night."
"The report's coming up," Zach replied with a glance to his side at his teacher who just looked at him unamused by the response. "I mean it," Zach said in response that changed that look showing Kimona seriously thought it was a joke. "I'd rather work on the report here than at home, and that's all I'd be doing today if I spent my time at my new place."
"You already have a new place?" Kimona asked.
"Had it ready a while ago, in case I ever needed to change addresses on short notice," Zach responded. "Going to do a better job at keeping this one secret, which I've already told Principal Memuria. She said she's alright with me not having an address on file with the school."
"Hmm," Kimona nodded as he hummed in response. Smart, decision. Damn the kid acts so fast. The way he looked last night, I thought he'd snapped. If the cameras didn't catch him like that he could have gotten past this easily it seems. But he got caught in that moment, and this is not going to blow over that simply.
Back in the cafeteria, students in Class 2 got up from their seats a few seconds after Zach Sazaki had left the room. Muoko Kimi looked over her shoulder as Class 2's rep walked over to her table. Crowley, Whitewood, Manzo, and Tomoki looked over to the edge of their table too where the short boy in Class 2 stopped and glanced back to the door of the cafeteria for a moment before speaking. "You all, saw Sazaki on the news didn't you?" Kaimie questioned, looking specifically at Muoko after questioning the whole table. Muoko nodded calmly, but that just made Kaimie Sazzo look at her in a more accusatory way.
A few guys from Class 2 headed directly to the table Zach had been at, and they questioned the largest group of Class 1 students who had been squeezed into that table and spread to fill Zach's seat once he was gone. "How do you guys not see it?"
"Dendo, come on," Class 2's ranked 1 student, Sama Ledoni started with an intense look at the boy who had felt the most like his counterpart in the other class over the past few years. Inasa was too much in a league of his own, while Dendo and him had had a strong rivalry that existed from their first inter-class training their first years. Sama shook his head at Dendo's intense expression back telling him to leave it be, "That look on Sazaki's face? Everyone can tell he's reverting back to the person he was before, if he ever did change in the first place," Sama added at the end with a darker look suggesting he had been fooling them all the whole time.
Kameko looked past Sama and the other three from Class 2 who had come over to accost them over this and the way they were acting so friendly with Zach still. He looked at other students from Class 2 and the other classes who were around the cafeteria but mostly looking their direction. Some had worried looks that he had seen over Zach's head through the whole lunch period from their tables nearest to the exit doors, though they appeared to be hiding them less now and whispering to their friends about Lifebringer much more clearly.
Imino frowned deeply at some of the things he was hearing all around the room, but then he sighed and admitted after a moment, "My parents warned me too this morning." His classmates looked over at him but Imino looked right towards the guys in Class 2 as he was speaking, "Told me to be wary of Zach, make sure I'm careful around him. But just like you, they don't know Zach."
"Yeah, that's right," Kotsumura agreed. "You guys haven't seen it, but Zach's looked that way before. He gets serious sometimes and, and well, he looks pretty intense when he gets serious." Scary's probably a better word.
Trabo grinned after listening to Kotsumura and he turned back towards their Class 2 friends too, "I agree. Zach's not 'going rogue.' Just, on the list of heroes who look most like villains, Zach is easily number 1 on the leaderboard."
Satoshi laughed once but then muttered under his breath in annoyance, "He's number 1 in popularity too."
Bibi glanced at the boy next to her and she hummed while looking back down at her plate. She thought of some of what she had seen on the news this morning, and she whispered in reply only Satoshi heard, "I doubt it, after that…"
The rest of the school day went by quickly for Zach. He was glad he had his indestructible phone still, and he left Shiketsu with the rest of his belongings on him as well. Zach slipped away from the school on his own, and he did not stop at any store near the school premises to do his shopping. He only had the single pair of clothes he had bought on the way to school while wearing Kotsumura's sweatshirt into the shop, along with his ragged pairs of sweatpants and underwear that were in the drawstring bag Kotsumura leant him too. He had to move some cash from his stocks on his Arkitock app into his bank account when he was taking out funds, as he realized he was much lower on cash than he thought.
Only use the ATM in Yutapu, Zach reminded himself at the train station already. And no hospitals for the rest of the day. The press will be waiting for me in every city hoping I'll show up to try and 'make up' for what I did last night. Barely slipped past them around the hospital and after school today. Bet they'll wait there for hours thinking I'm just waiting inside for them to leave before leaving myself. Zach lifted a small smirk at the thought of that, but after a second his lips lowered flat and curved much farther down at the corners. I can't avoid them forever. I don't know what I'm going to say yet though. I need to do it on my terms. I'm not going to have that chance though. The second they catch me I can't run off. Yet I also can't hide, which means I have to move fast and to places they wouldn't expect to see me- but that won't be enough!
Zach got on the train and he hummed to himself with a thoughtful look on his face as he went and sat down. People are looking at me now. Any of them could work with someone who works with someone at a tv station. They start texting around while we're on the train, there could be camera crews waiting for me at the next stops. Guess I can't go too far down the line then. Just need to get out of Yutapu for it though. Can't fly without a good emergency, and can't show up anywhere for an emergency without likely running into the media. Shit this is hard. Avoiding the media is so hard when you're not supposed to. I could always just become more like Aizawa sensei and try to avoid… but that's not the kind of hero I want to be. And I can't just flip flop like that. All Might always smiled on tv. Aizawa avoided the media altogether. I- I want to use the media to my advantage. They don't like that. They want to use heroes to get good ratings, and to make scandals and build up controversial stories. I can manipulate them though even while they think they're using me. People will call me out on it, Midoriya always has, but he knows right now that I need this.
He took his laptop out of his bag and put in headphones as he sat back on his seat on the train, making it look like he would be sitting there for quite a while. Two stops. Seems good, Zach opened up a half dozen tabs on his computer and searched for himself on every single one. Let's see what I have to work with…
In Class A's dorm, the students returning from their day of studies were beat from the afternoon training which felt harder than usual though some of them blamed how much was on their minds through it. Midoriya was moving from the kitchen to the tables between it and the sitting area of the common room. He had a bucket in hand and was finished cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, so it was time to wipe down the tables and chairs. Uraraka was walking next to him, telling him all about what had happened in their classes and training today since Midoriya did not want to fall behind and asked her to help him.
The two of them lost focus on their classes though as Ashido yelled out in annoyance from the center of the couches she jumped up off as she shouted. "You have to be kidding me!"
"…It's what a lot of people are saying right now. February is at an end. It's been two months now since Lifebringer was released from Tartaros, and what do we have to show for it?" The dark-haired anchor on the afternoon news program wondered with a lift of his right palm that the two women on his right side nodded in somewhat agreement with.
The host across from the one who just said that had his right eyebrow lifted up his dark blue face though. Gato Munio held up his own hand and offered, "Well, we have the fall of the Subspace Devils for one." He reminded the other hosts, and the looks he received in response made him frown more at the others who seemed against him for defending Lifebringer. "It's not like he hasn't brought anyone back to life too-"
"But he showed us last night," Omiora started shaking her head at the man closest to her on her right. "That he could bring back over a dozen people in a minute! And then he went and flew off, so he could have been doing that all over the place."
"It's true," the other woman next to her agreed with a disapproving look at Gato. "We've been giving him the excuse this whole time that he's too busy with school, or that he can't do it because he doesn't have his full hero license yet, but now what excuse can we give him? He's using his Quirk out in the open without repercussions already."
"Each of those times he used it could be considered emergencies," Gato started to counter.
"Of course," Taiko agreed from across the table. Gato felt like he slipped up there though at the agreement from the man who seemed the harshest critic of Lifebringer out of nowhere today. "All those times he's been reported at different cities, having arrived by using his Quirk to those hospitals we kept hearing he was at to bring back those who just died, those were emergencies. And it's like he said himself, he was 'close enough' to reach them with his Quirk. That doesn't mean he was nearby at the time, just that he was able to get there and so that's what he did. He has a provisional license and that's apparently enough for him to do that much, so why hasn't he been doing it more often?"
"I can think of one reason," Gato replied. "You heard him last night. While he was bringing them back, not when he was talking about that Eziano fellow, so don't tell me 'yeah, you heard him.' You heard him screaming right?"
"We've always known it hurts Lifebringer," Omiora countered. "But he fights through the pain and does it anyway. Are you saying he just decides not to bring people back because he doesn't want to get hurt again?"
"That's not what I'm saying-"
"Then what are you saying? Because if that's not it, then is Lifebringer just being lazy? We voted to get him out of prison so that he could come back and be a hero, but besides the Subspace Devils he hasn't done what people were expecting of him! Even that wasn't something we wanted Lifebringer doing. It's in his name-"
"People die. I'm not trying to say Lifebringer should be changing that… but he should be doing more. A lot more, especially if people are getting killed just because he's around. All those attacks on him I felt like he was handling pretty well, but last night he clearly lost it."
Shoji frowned at the screen in front of him from the right couch he sat on next to Tokoyami. "How quickly people forget about the good once something bad happens," Shoji said behind his mask. Tokoyami glanced to his side for a moment and then nodded his head in agreement while frowning back at the screen himself.
"Subspace Devils?" Ashido exclaimed as they brought them up again. She looked towards Momo to see if she was seeing this, but Yaoyorozu just kept watching the screen herself with a straight expression from the couch on Mina's left. "They keep bringing them up like that's all he's done! But, it's not like he's- He's going to school because he needs to! They told him he couldn't be a hero otherwise, and now they're what? Getting mad at him because he's following the rules?"
"It sounds pretty unfair," Uraraka started in a low voice, looking next to her at Midoriya to see if he felt the same. Midoriya stared closer at the screen though as the news hosts put up the clip from last night again, specifically on Zach covered in darkness and ranting about the one who tried to kill him. "Do you think, that Eziano guy will accept his challenge?"
"I don't think," Midoriya started. He trailed off though, Was that even Zach's purpose of bringing him up there? Or was it just to make him angry? Make him get sloppy, maybe? Or could it have just been him snapping, and I just assume even in that moment he must have had a plan, like how he used it to try and get the bomber to talk? Midoriya's expression shadowed over for a second, Zach was right. The guy's dead already. It says it was suicide, and it totally could have been if the guy was a fanatic like Zach said… but could Eziano have gotten to him? "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."
"Deku?" Uraraka wondered, seeing the frustrated look on her best friend's face that confused her based on what she asked. "What else happened this morning? When you went to see Zach?" She specified, and Midoriya looked to his side at her with his intense look fading and his eyes just shifting in a more reassuring way.
"We talked about what he had said," Midoriya replied, looking back to the screen though the video cut off at the worst part, right before Zach gasped out painfully at the end, 'You killed my landlord.' Midoriya shook his head in frustration as even Gato had to admit that Sazaki looked like he was back to his old self again right there. "And," Midoriya finished, "he said he was going to try and fix this."
"This?" Uraraka wondered while looking towards the tv herself. Ashido was getting angrier and shouted at the hosts for all talking badly about Zach after showing that cropped clip of what happened. Gato's defense got meeker, and the others felt more emboldened to discuss how Sazaki seemed like he was talking like he would have back before the Lifebringer Incident. Uraraka whispered as they mentioned how maybe everything they had seen from him for two months was like what they saw in the weeks leading up to that incident, "Zach saw this coming?"
"He knew it," Midoriya replied. His voice got darker as he said it to the confusion of Uraraka who glanced his way before deciding it just had to be due to the situation Zach was in now. He knows how the media will react. He knows how people will react when he does certain things. I could see he was accepting on that metal pole he sat on, everything he was already predicting they would say about him on the news. He thinks he knows what the future will hold, and he makes those predictions so often only to find himself right. And every single time he's proved right, he'll believe more and more in the predictions he has for the future. Midoriya's eyes narrowed at the screen and then lowered down at the floor, And when Zach makes decisions in the present based on what he predicts would be best for the future, he so often does something horrible that is justified in his mind.
Because to Zach it's not about being forced to kill someone because they have a gun to a victim's head about to pull the trigger. It's predicting that someone might use a gun to put against a person's head, and he doesn't want that victim to go through even that in the first place, so he decides to stop it early to protect them from even that much. Midoriya bit down behind his lips and curled his fists in, squeezing water out of a rag he was holding in his left so it dripped to the floor next to his feet. He'd make that decision, wouldn't he? If he knew it would happen. He's made decisions like that based on what he knew would come. He killed Kurogiri because he knew Kurogiri would escape, but that's not necessarily true. Potaru hasn't escaped Tartaros. Maybe Kurogiri wouldn't have either. So there are times when you're wrong. Times where you killed people, and you really didn't need to. And what happens when that time comes again and you kill someone, and I know you didn't need to, but I let you do it because I knew you would all this time leading up to it? What happens, if you fail and I let you? I can't let that happen. And I can't give up on you either.
I won't give up on anything. I'll stop you from killing again. I swear it.
On a bullet train speeding across Japan, Zach leaned back in his seat with his face unable to smile despite the camera he noticed recording him from someone else's booth. His eyes locked on the screen of the same program a lot of Japan tuned into as there was a special guest appearing on it. "…Now welcome, Norita Ekusa to the show."
A tall young woman walked out onto the stage at her cue and over to the soft chair next to the desk the talk show host was sitting behind. "Please, take a seat Ms. Norita. And can I say, my deepest condolences for your father."
"Thank you," Ekusa replied, sitting down and scooting in it for a moment before finding a comfortable position. "I was getting calls to come on one of these all day," she added while looking to the host, wondering if he would start talking to her already.
"We know it must be an inconvenient time for you, but we at Nichiori Terebi appreciate you coming out today. There are things everyone would like cleared up though that we feel you might have a unique perspective on, as the daughter of the deceased, Norita Riku."
Ekusa's expression saddened though she quickly returned it to professional. She sat there in a black dress-skirt with her legs crossed, her arms folded over her lap and her expression steady despite what she was going through. Remember why you said yes. She cleared her throat and nodded at the host in front of her who gave a small smile and then lifted up some cards he tapped down on top of his desk.
"Then let's begin. What we have heard so far about this whole, tragedy, is pointing at a rather strange occurrence at your father's apartments. The current reports suggest that Zach Sazaki was not paying for his apartment that your father leased out to him?" The host rose his eyebrows wondering if what he was saying sounded as strange to everyone else as it did to him. "And what's more, records show that your father was killed once before, and Sazaki had brought him back to life. He had your father give him a free room as payment for his revival, didn't he?"
Ekusa's straight expression lasted just until the end of the start of the questioning. "Let me tell you something-" she stopped herself after starting like that. Then she frowned deeply even after pausing and seeing the talk-show host lean back and looking at her in surprise at the outburst. "About my father," Ekusa continued, her voice sounding less confrontational than it seemed like it was about to. "The kind of person my father was, was the type who hated tracking people down to pay their debts. He'd always get pissed off when people were late with rent, saying stuff like 'How do people do this?' Or, 'What kind of man…' Stuff like that."
Ekusa continued with her eyes softening as she thought back, "He felt like he was in debt, and that he had to give Lifebringer the room. So he tracked him down to offer it."
"As a hero, Sazaki shouldn't have accepted-"
"He told me!" Ekusa interrupted the host louder than he was trying to counter. "That Lifebringer tried to deny the offer but he wouldn't allow it. He told me that it wasn't just about the debt, but that he cared about Lifebringer too and felt that kid needed someone watching out for him." Ekusa said it strongly and narrowed her eyes more at the host, "And then you come out here on the air talking about how Lifebringer got him killed?" She asked, her voice accusatory and shaming as she leaned forward in her chair with a harsher look at the host who leaned back in his own. "You should feel ashamed, all of you, because I know my father's rolling around in his grave at the idea that his name is being used to make Lifebringer out as the bad guy here."
"I heard his voice when he came out of that fire," Ekusa continued, her voice lowering as she almost hesitated mentioning her father's 'grave' as the police had told her there was not enough left to give them anything for remains. She continued though despite thinking of that, "The emotion as he mentioned his 'landlord,' I know he cared about my father." Her eyes shifted towards a camera and she said lower, "And I hold no hatred in my heart for him. I just hope that he'll succeed in finding the others hunting him down, and that he'll bring them all to justice like he got the bomber last night."
The man behind his desk cleared his throat and sat back forward, "Ms. Norita, I understand that you have some very, very strong feelings regarding Lifebringer here." She frowned back at the man who sounded like he was still going to counter her, but he did anyway as he continued, "But Lifebringer does not have the right to go after those villains on his own. Not as a-"
"No one else is stopping them!" Ekusa exclaimed. She cut off the host who frowned more but then hesitated himself looking like he understood where she was coming from, even nodding his head to the side in reluctant agreement as she went on, "Assassins keep going for Lifebringer, and we're stopping him from going after them with that rule that he has to finish school first. This Eziano Mozcaccio, it sounds like Lifebringer really wants to go after him, and no one else is stopping him! So let Lifebringer go for it I say. Let him avenge my father, and bring all those villains responsible to justice. Instead of forcing him to just react after they've attacked him, as he's been doing for months now…"
"Thank you!" Ashido fell back onto the couch she had been standing in front of for a while, and she humphed with her arms crossing under her chest. "Contradicting themselves, all of them. Getting mad at Zach for letting this happen, and then getting mad if he tries to do anything about it. Stupid. Baka." Ashido started muttering under her breath, but a few others near her nodded at what she just said.
I don't agree with everything he does, Tokoyami hummed to himself. And there still exists the possibility that he is Death… But this is a little much. Everyone expects too much of him while he is still in high school. They pardoned him, and now they're upset that he's going to school instead of just going around reviving all of them every day. People are starting to get upset at Nikko too. Releasing Zach, and also giving a provision that makes it so he can't save everyone at all times? It's like he somehow managed to anger all of his own voters and the people who voted against him in a single night. Must be stressful.
Nikko Kaizo sat on a couch in his office staring at a screen on his wall with the most exhausted look covering his face. He brought his hands up to his forehead and rubbed up into his hair and then down over his eyes as he heard footsteps walking towards him. "Not now Enri," he muttered through his hands.
"Lifebringer is smart," Enri started to her husband while walking up behind the couch. She put her hands on his shoulders that were even more tense than she thought they would be, and she rubbed his shoulders with him groaning under her touch. "He will find a way to get back on everyone's good sides. He will regain the media's favor, and you could do something to help that out by supporting his actions publicly? Add how well he handled the event, and be sure to refer to it as a national tragedy."
"I can't," Nikko said, shaking his head and dragging his hands down the rest of his face before darkly looking up to the television screen. "Something like that…" What if that's not what they want me doing?
"It's exactly what you need right now. Show the people, that you really can take-"
"I said-" Nikko started louder and more frustratedly, but he stopped himself before shouting at his wife. He paused and felt her hands leave his shoulders, and he bowed his head and gasped out a heavy breath full of exhaustion.
"What is it?" Enri wondered, her voice soft though a little stern at the tone he had begun taking with her. "This doesn't seem like just the pressure. Something else has been up with you lately."
"It's nothing," Kaizo assured her, starting up to his feet and turning to his wife with a smile back on it again. "I promise. I'm just stressed, and this on top of everything is so-" he shook his head around and then flashed her a smile again. "It's okay. Okay?"
"Yes, okay," Enri replied, nodding her head and lifting a small smile of her own before turning away. "I'll go get back to work. Please do try and take it easy."
"Thank you, Enri."
Enri Nikko walked out of her husband's office, and her uneasy nerves spread across her face. What was that? The woman started away from his office's door but her expression was dark and afraid. Why would he smile like that? Like, he didn't want me thinking anything else was wrong. That's what it looked like! Why? What is going on with him, that he doesn't want me finding out about? An affair, is possible. But the look in his eyes, despite the smile, he was afraid. Not afraid of me finding out, but- but what?
The Prime Minister, is a very powerful position. It could be something worse than an affair. Is he doing something- no. No no, I'm overthinking this. Enri shook her head around, pushing down the doubt as she chuckled at where her thoughts had been wandering for a minute there. We're partners. He would tell me if he gets caught up in something bad, and we would work it out together when that time comes. I, know it...
Zach let out a sigh as he packed up his things to get off at the station the train just stopped at. He had not looked like he was getting off there at all while the train slowed down, but while it was stopped at the station he packed up quickly and got off the shinkansen. He kept his headphones in while popping up a new podcast on his phone of someone who had always been skeptical of his reemergence in Japan and how genuine he seemed while he was there. They were not hesitant to give him credit where it was due either though, and it was the neutrality of the podcast that made him listen in to see how people on that middle ground were feeling today.
I'm getting so much bad press now. "No! What I can't get over is that way he looked after the explosion. I don't care how much it sounded like it hurt him to bring all those people back. He shouldn't be bringing that many back at once in the first place if it's going to set him off like that!" No one just accepts reasons I might be acting dark anymore. Not like back then. They all understood after Kaminari's betrayal. But I was just a kid back then. Since I've come back, I've acted like a pro hero- no. I've acted like the ideal hero. It's what I wanted people to think I had become after my penance.
"All that darkness. It didn't look like his old Nightmare form. It was just pitch black. The threat he said to that Eziano Mozcaccio too? It was so, so menacing. Ominous as Hell more like!"
"It's clear that the Lifebringer we've been seeing who smiles for the camera is just telling us what we want to hear."
"It doesn't have to be that cut and dry. Maybe Sazaki's really trying to be better, but something like this stirs those feelings he pushes down. I know I'd be pretty upset if people kept trying to kill me. And if they dragged innocent people into it?!"
"Sure. Sure that makes sense! It did seem to be why he was most upset… but then again, Sazaki did drag those people into it in the first place."
"Didn't you just see that same clip I saw? Norita Riku pushed to get Lifebringer to stay at his…"
All this bad press I'm getting, and somehow Norita-san's still helping me out even now. Zach closed his eyes and stopped walking for a second on his way to a mall in Jakku City.
"I'm so sorry," Zach whispered under his breath. He reached up and he took his headphones out of his ears, I need to try even harder now that I slipped up. His expression became focused and he walked forward with a purpose in his step. What Ekusa said won't immediately fix things. People are going to be hard on me, and I deserve that, but I need to get things back the way they were. I need to do something big before public opinion is shifted the way the news decides it should go without my interference. Unfortunately, just doing more good things won't cut it this time.
This time, I need to be a political hero.
A/N Dealing with the fallout from the explosion here. Lots of bad press hitting Zach, as well as some complications at school though he's maintaining his posture now and reassuring everybody that he's alright... But he knows he needs to do something more. Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, and review response time:
Polw3 chapter 186 . 9h ago
I never want to go against you in a strategy game. You'd be ten thousand steps ahead of me the whole way.
Haha thanks. I, am really good at chess. And Stratego (if anyone's played that, awesome game). XD Enjoy the morning chapter!
Aar0nC0le chapter 186 . 9h ago
Fuck man. This dream sequence stuff really fucked me up. In like- a good way. Excellent stylistic choice these last 2 chapters with that stuff. I'm really hype for everything that's brewing here-angst, turmoil and plot plot plot. And like Zack, I'm always struck by how different him and midoriya really are. Like I LOVE Izuku and I LOVE Zack and I can't help but see both of their point of views. It really has me conflicted, which I think is the intention, to emulate for the reader how both Zack and Deku feel about eachother. (At least I think so somewhat?) love shit like that. I'm excited and nervous to see what comes next ! - ;) Aaron
Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed the chapters and the style choices. And finally! A Midoriya fan here lol, I never meant to bring so much hate to Midoriya's character as some of the comments I've been getting have. I'd been trying to show both point of views, and I do think Midoriya has as much a point as Zach a lot of the time (especially since he doesn't know all that we do), but I'm glad you've been picking up on some of that stuff and really enjoy it. I hope you liked the new chapter, and thanks for reviewing!