Death

by tmb1112

Death is a Quirk that can only kill. A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough when all your Quirk can do is kill people. Follow Zach Sazaki from his first day in Class A on a story that spans years, as he learns to be a hero, finds out more about his Quirk, and too much to summarize!

192. Chapter 192

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 192:

"…There's not much else I can do. I can't force them to forgive me," Zach said, sipping out of a cup of coffee while he walked side by side with his friend down a Musutafu sidewalk. "And besides for Sero and Mina, most of the others are too busy with schoolwork to take much time out of their days like they could earlier in the term. I'm sure this final term is busy for you too," Zach added and took another sip as he waited for Midoriya to respond.

"Yeah, Lemillion has me busy with patrols… He's been having me patrol on my own recently, more often."

Zach nodded with a tilt of his head to the side in understanding. Midoriya only hesitated for a moment as he was responding, though he did not feel he needed to hide it as he had already told Zach how he had removed himself from the investigation into him. He informed Zach of it mainly so Zach would never wonder if he was hiding how they had new information on him or were about to catch him, though that also concerned him sometimes as he never knew if the others at the agency were ready to come after Zach when he went in to see them. Midoriya continued, "And our classes have gotten a lot more intense lately. Combat training is becoming more and more like the real thing. The other day we fought the teachers in groups of five of us against four of them, and they did not have handicaps like our first final exams."

"Really?" Zach asked in surprise, looking to his side and then grinning at his friend after he had asked in some amazement. "So you won?"

Midoriya lifted a small smile himself and nodded, before saying, "Every one of our teams did-" Midoriya stopped and looked surprised himself. He was expecting Zach to look surprised to hear that, but Zach just smiled more and looked like he was hoping and suspecting that was the case already. He really, has a lot of faith in us. Midoriya looked back forward and lowered his smile a little at the thought. He glanced across the street as some businessmen walking down it turned and pointed towards them. He smiled at the group and waved, and Zach turned as he saw what Midoriya was doing then gave a wave himself too using his right hand in its black glove.

They kept walking, and Midoriya glanced back at his friend while walking with his hands down at his sides as he did not get any coffee himself. "Don't you think, you should still try though? I know not everyone is going out of their ways to come see you, but they deserve explanations even if you won't tell them the truth. Explanations you never gave them about the Lifebringer Incident."

"I think every one of you knows why I did it," Zach countered with a half shrug. "I made it pretty clear, that night. Most of my shouting was meant for you guys, you know?"

Midoriya shook his head, his lips flattening and even curving down at the corners at the sound of that. Was it really? It felt like most of it was directed at Raijin. As you defeated him; the undefeated getting his first loss.

"Lifebringer! Deku!" A man jumped out of an alleyway in front of the two and ran towards them. He was five foot six which was over half a foot shorter than either of the muscular young men he ran up in front of. He had a pair of thin glasses on over his face that slid down a little as he ran forward, and he held up his phone in one hand and a tiny microphone looking like it was part of a gaming headset in the other.

Amateur journalist? Good on him catching us, Zach thought as he glanced around through his peripherals and saw that this was the only man coming. His search in his peripherals also showed him there were only two people watching him at the moment. Wonder if Midoriya even knows his agency is following us?

"Who's that?" Bakugo grumbled under his breath, speaking into a similar microphone as that man was holding up though smaller and attached to the top of his undercover outfit.

Lemillion kept his voice in a lower whisper than Bakugo's, "Probably nothing. Keep an eye out though. Could be part of an assassin's trap."

"Good. Hope that Eziano fucker's around here," Bakugo said with his lips curling up a little and his small red irises darting around in search for potentially strong enemies. He was out there all that time and knew about this assassin from the start, and he never got him. It's like his nemesis, and I'm going to fuck him up. Bastard, taking out Faith like that down in Tartaros. Your way finished him way more than mine did. Damn it. Bakugo's excitement started to fade as he did not see any signs of this being a trap.

"Lifebringer! Everyone wants to know what you were thinking when you saved Andel Novak?" The reporter asked it and slid his glasses up with a big smile on his face that he succeeded here in catching Lifebringer out in public. I knew staking out Musutafu for him was a better choice than Yutapu! No one ever catches him there anymore, while people have seen him here at least twice a week!

"I was thinking, that a small boy had died and I could get there in time to save him," Zach replied, scratching the back of his head with his left hand for a second and then lowering it with his look getting a little more serious. His expression showed he realized that whatever he said here would likely be seen by everyone who wanted to know the answer to this same question.

"But why him? Why not Casey Andrews? Or Xi Liping, a seven year old girl in China who died just last night?"

Zach frowned and his expression got pained for a second before going back to normal. He nodded and then said in a serious voice, "I couldn't save them, because I got in trouble for saving Andel." Midoriya glanced to his side in semi-confusion though he tried not to show it on his face despite not hearing anything about this. "I would save more people overseas but I'm not allowed to," he continued to the surprised reporter. "I had to gradually get to that point in the first place, testing out the limits of what my provisional license would allow over the past couple of months. I wanted to see how far I could go without being stopped. I finally got confronted by hero officials though for my treatment of Andel Novak's death."

"You did?" The reporter asked in surprise, his question mimicking Midoriya's expression that was also caught on camera here.

Zach nodded, and then he continued while looking more at the phone's camera than at the reporter himself. "The problem is that even though my time limit for revivals has gone up a lot, it's only by flying straight there that I managed to make it in time. I got in some trouble for that though and now, I'm not allowed to leave the country. At least until I get my full license at which point I'll fight that decision by the officials," Zach added, showing he was not going to let that stand in the near future. He continued though with a lift of his left palm, "Even then though I'll still have troubles going through proper channels of getting across borders and using my Quirk in countries that more strictly regulate how heroes from foreign nations can come in and use their powers."

Did he have this all planned out? Midoriya thought while trying not to let his expression show the surprise in his thoughts.

Zach continued without getting asked any more questions, "As it stands, it's likely I'm only not in more trouble because the Romanian government itself isn't upset at me. It's just our own." He paused and then added with a nod as he did not want to leave it sounding like he disagreed, "Which I understand, but I want to clarify that because of this it's not that I'm mishandling the use of my Quirk, I just know that I could get in a lot of trouble using it too frequently. And if I get in too much trouble that it keeps me from getting a full license, then I won't be able to use it later on and more people will die in the long run." He looked towards the reporter while saying that, then to the camera as he knew he got a journalist who was inexperienced enough to let Zach just push everything he needed to say without interrupting with potentially damning questions that could in any way counter him. Zach spoke directly to the camera, "I'm only sorry to the people now who I can't save because of this."

He finished there, and Midoriya held his expression steady and looked to the reporter himself to see if the man would just take that and go. The man who was not expecting Lifebringer to suddenly take the reins like that felt uneasy about asking anything else and having it taken out of his hands, so instead he turned to the green-haired boy who looked at him. "And what about you, Deku? Do you agree with Lifebringer's opinion here? How do you think he should be using his Quirk?"

Midoriya looked to his side at Zach, but Zach just looked back at him and had an interested look as if wondering what Deku's opinion was. "I think," Midoriya began, hesitating but opening his mouth again quickly as he knew he could not appear so indecisive on television where he knew this would wind up soon. "It's not my place to tell Zach either, how to use his Quirk." Midoriya stated that as his public opinion, and Zach lifted a small smile while looking at his friend next to him. Midoriya glanced to Zach then back at the camera and continued, "As I also don't have a full license yet, so I don't have the authority to say."

"But if you did," the reporter pressed. "What would you say to Lifebringer's methods of reviving only certain people-"

Zach pulled his phone out that made a noise all three of them looked to. He looked to his right quickly and said to his friend, "There's an incident nearby." Zach bent his knees, and he leapt twenty feet up in the air with some dark wisps coming off the soles of his feet and backs of his knees when he did. The reporter snapped his phone up to try and catch Lifebringer escaping, only to bring it down fast and then up again only getting small glimpses of blurs as Deku shot up into the sky after the dark blur that flapped wings to fly much higher up where Midoriya rose to.

"Wait!"

Midoriya and Zach flew up high above all the buildings in Musutafu in an arc to the north. Midoriya kicked his legs behind him and flipped up in the air over closer to Zach and onto his right side. "Did you make that up?!" He yelled over the wind pushing into their faces. I'm not in a hero costume. This isn't a time when I should be using my Quirk especially not on camera-

"It seemed like we wouldn't be able to just walk around and talk anymore, especially not in Musutafu," Zach responded while they leveled out in their arc and started to decline. Midoriya started frowning deeper at him, but Zach added, "I was waiting for an alert of a crime in a small town anywhere in Japan since we met up though. One really did happen out in Nagatomi."

"That's hundreds of miles away! That's not what our provisional licenses allow us-"

"Are we not close enough?" Zach asked back, the two of them dropping side by side on an angle towards the track of a middle school in Musutafu that Midoriya just realized was his own former middle school. Midoriya stared at Zach and hesitated at the question, and Zach called at his friend who seemed actually thoughtful about it, "I never got in trouble for that after I gave my reasoning, which means we're allowed to go save those people who might need us right now. Do you not want to come?" Zach called it out, implying he was going whether or not Midoriya was in.

Midoriya looked down towards where they were going to land, then back up and into the distant sky over Japan. He heard Zach telling him to the side of his head, "If they accepted it for me, they'll have to accept it for you too. Precedent and all that."

Midoriya glanced back sideways at Zach and nodded once. The two of them came down on the track in the next second. Midoriya's legs bent upon landing, as did Zach's though covered in a lot more darkness this time as was his spine and joints around his body. More and more darkness flooded around Zach's legs as he bent farther into his landing. Midoriya's entire body glowed while his former gym teacher who happened to be out there stared towards the two of them with his jaw dropped to the floor. Sparks flew out of Midoriya's glowing body, and Death flared out of the back of Zach's legs and below his feet, and the two of them shot up into the sky so much higher than before and faster too.

Zach looked ahead of him and then even farther ahead of him in the next second. A pair of wings came out of his back and flapped behind him, only for Midoriya to give another kick below him that ripped the bottoms of his pant legs at how hard he kicked. I have to tap into Limiter 1 just to keep up! An explosion of darkness blew out of Zach's back and propelled him through the air closer to Midoriya's side though a hundred feet to his right and down so they kept a wide berth from each other and would not mess each other up with their methods of flying.

As they both flew several times the speed of sound over Japan, Zach wondered to himself, Should I create a Limiter 2? Just for extra bursts like this, a smaller one I wouldn't need so much of as I do for fighting, but just for my optimal movement speed. Yeah. I need to figure out what that optimal level is with my current power to be able to reach anywhere in time. He frowned a little at the thought of that, Not that I need that yet. Just gave myself another couple months- not even two now, he reminded himself when he almost got optimistic on the amount of time he had to deal with it.

At the edge of Nagatomi, a small town of 2,400 people, the two heroes of the town who rarely had to deal with incidents in their isolated area faced off against the five villains who stopped running after their drug deal got busted nearby. The cops were all back at the location of the bust and had not been able to keep up with the villains and heroes, and the villains were ready to fight now as the odds seemed more in their favor. Chaotic Good and Hula Hooper did not back off though, even when the villain who was already twice the size of all the others pulled a syringe out and rose it up with a dangerous smirk at the heroes before him.

The smirk and how he was showing off the needle like that made the heroes stay in place. He's showing it off to make us rush to stop him from shooting-up, opening us up for his friends, Chaotic Good noted calmly.

If that's Trigger we're going to have a problem here, Hula Hooper kept her expression steady and unafraid though, but the villain brandishing that Trigger did not get dissuaded from it and instead just started bringing the needle towards his left arm with his right hand he was holding it with.

There was not a wide gap between the villains and the two heroes in front of them. They were at the edge of the town close to a forest and not any of the roads away from it. Whether there was an escape vehicle hiding somewhere in the woods was an unknown to the heroes, but they knew they had to stop the villains before they got in the forest which would be much harder to track the five of them in. The villains were ready to fight, and the heroes prepared to stop them, and then two figures dropped out of the sky in that small gap between the two heroes and the five villains facing them.

The two pros ready to fight stared at the broad backs of boys in sweatshirts standing in front of them. Darkness faded from Lifebringer's legs, while Deku's legs were bare from the knees down though his pants looked frayed there like they were ripped recently with some fabric threads dangling off. The group of villains in front of the two teenagers all stared forward in as much shock as the heroes, but in a lot more sheer terror than the pros who looked past the boys and became more shocked by the villains' reactions.

"Lifebringer and Deku?!"

"Whoa-" the one all the way on the right stopped hissing his long tongue at the heroes, pulling it far back and gulping like he was swallowing it. His hands shot up and he held them high, as defensively as he could which a couple of his friends looked over at nervously, though they agreed and threw their hands up too while looking back at the dark-haired boy their friend stared at in terror.

The biggest one holding his Trigger halfway across the front of his body darted his eyes down to the needle, then back up at Lifebringer who stared into his eyes and made that man fear more than he had ever feared in his life. The guy threw his right hand out to the side to discard the syringe as fast as he could, then his right and left hands shot up and locked behind his head as he shouted, "I'm not resisting!"

Deku shifted his gaze that was harsh and that he was trying to make as intimidating as possible. He looked to his right, at his friend who smirked at the villains who just surrendered like that. Deku felt his stomach clench at Lifebringer's grin, and the way he said to those five villains, "Good choice."

A few minutes later, the police caught up and put the men who were down on their knees with their hands behind their heads into handcuffs then in the back of their cop cars. Hula Hooper and Chaotic Good thanked the two for arriving when they did, and they accepted the reasoning Deku gave them that they were 'close' enough to help out. The pros informed the teens that they would be put in the report, but the teens said they were fine with that and that they were just glad to help.

Neither of the pros mentioned it as they watched the teenage boys walk away, but they both noticed the way Deku kept looking over at Lifebringer ever since that darker-haired teen said what he said to the villains. And neither mentioned either how even they had felt some diluted feeling of fear that those villains had felt in full force when Lifebringer landed before them.

They were ready to go all out against us. But one look…

They didn't even want to risk it with him. Kid's terrifying.

As Midoriya and Zach walked out of sight of everyone, then into the forest to go far from anyone else to have a more private talk, Midoriya felt his anger simmering inside him that he was trying to hold back from showing until they were out of public. "I've never been around here," Zach started, and he climbed up over a log and dropped onto the other side with an adventurous smile on his face. "League could be hiding out in these very woods."

He suggested it and glanced over at Midoriya to see what he thought. Come on. What's with the looks? Zach turned back forward and pretended not to notice how Midoriya was feeling. I didn't even show my disappointment that they didn't want to fight. I acted happy instead that they cowered before me. Guess that would set him off too, as it's how he thinks I felt as Death. That I enjoy the looks of fear directed at me. Can't show villains that I don't want them looking at me like that though…

Zach decided to try and get both their minds off it, "You know, things are pretty peaceful here? They always have been, even at the worst crime rates we had. Japan was always safer than most places."

"We've had our fair share of bad," Midoriya replied, stepping behind Zach and on his left side in his own path through the woods. He moved forward over the flattest ground and where the forest seemed to make a natural path for him to keep going, while Zach jumped up and swung on a low-hanging branch to get over a dip in the ground that moved him too far ahead that Midoriya had to speed-walk to keep up. "Not many countries have had anything as bad as the SFI either."

"But some have had worse," Zach replied. "Not many, but at least a dozen, maybe two, have had incidents as bad or much worse than what happened that day."

Midoriya opened his mouth to argue, but he closed it and just held back instead to let that go by him. I could name a few, but not two dozen. Where as many people died? In Africa last February there was a lot, and those massacres in Canada too were real bad… I hate how he's speaking about these things though. So casually, and unemotional. "They were tragedies," Midoriya added, feeling the need to mention it as a reminder. Since you say you don't care about regular people as much anymore, that you don't care about all their lives, can you even feel what that word means? Midoriya's expression got harsher as Zach just nodded but without changing his expression Deku could see from the left side.

"They were," Zach replied. Then he continued with a more optimistic tone, "But those tragedies are over now. We all helped stop them, and I think they're in the past. As long as we can stop the League of Villains and whatever their plan is."

"We all did, huh?" Midoriya asked, moving quicker and getting more on Zach's side to show the look he was giving back to his friend.

"We did," Zach replied. "The AoD did their part too," Zach said, feeling fine with talking about it now that Lemillion and Explosion King were hundreds of miles away. "More so than anyone," Zach continued, his voice getting softer though he was not going to sugarcoat it. He looked forward off into a bright and vibrant forest, and he said with a relaxed and yet somehow intense gaze, "The entire world would be so different… So much has happened, compounding on top of itself to give people opinions on it and then strengthen their opinions and confirm their beliefs of what happened, and all of it is built on lies." Midoriya ground his teeth and hated how he had accepted this truth, and more he hated how Zach brought it up again this time unprovoked.

I can't deny it. But, every time we talk you seem more like…

"…Of half-truths that I convinced heroes not to talk about my involvement in," Zach continued in a quiet but proud voice anyway. "And I know that even if those heroes are the only ones who know that I had helped them, they won't know how I helped heroes in every other country and region and continent. They don't know that I have altered the history everywhere, and history will go down without mentioning me in nearly any of those places." Zach's steady grin flattened out and he continued after a pause, "…All my comrades who died will never be remembered. No one will ever know what they died for. Or how many people are still alive right now, living peaceful lives and condemning the Army of Death for their ways, because my comrades gave their lives so that everyone could feel that way. So that everyone could believe that no matter what, killing is wrong."

"And yet you all did it," Midoriya said. Zach glanced to his right, his expression intense, but Midoriya's more-so as the curly-haired boy glared back at him. "You were all killers."

"We were killers, so that everyone could believe that no matter what, killing is wrong," Zach countered back just as seriously to his friend who shook his head at the response. Zach nodded though and reminded Deku, "I know it is. I was fine with doing the wrong thing though, so that it would continue to be the wrong thing. That was my goal, and yet in Japan they accepted what I did and released me from jail in under six months after I murdered a handful of villains." Zach shook his head and tilted his head back as he continued to walk. He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "So I need to show them just as I showed the rest of the world by not showing them what I did and giving heroes all the credit. I have to show the Japanese people that I am not Death, and repent for what I did as Lifebringer even if no one else feels that I need to anymore."

Midoriya's anger bubbled more and more inside him, as he could see it so clearly on Zach's face despite all his was saying. You're not even convinced of your plan anymore! No one talks about your past and the Lifebringer Incident on the news. They aren't talking about how you came back anymore. That's all, it's old news. You don't even believe what you're saying, since you were just talking about how much good you were doing with the Army of Death like you never would before! Like you're nostalgic of the way you used to fight, which you can't be as a hero!

"You keep telling me you're trying," Midoriya started, and Zach turned his head to the left and pulled his hands from his pockets as he lost that relaxed look. He knew what he had done at the look in Midoriya's eyes his friend let fully come to the surface, and it was worse as Midoriya stopped while glaring at him like that in the middle of the isolated woods. "You talk about killing people and say that it was bad, but you don't regret it. You say it like it was necessary even though you're supposed to be a hero right now. Right here."

Zach started shaking his head, though he had to look away as he heard what Midoriya was saying. That's true. I did think that, not too long ago. "I know-"

"You don't know!" Midoriya snapped back, his voice raising and shutting Zach up with his black-haired friend looking back with wider eyes at the furious voice Midoriya used with him. Midoriya did not have to hold it back this time though. They were not on the sidewalk, or at a gazebo in a public park, but somewhere he did not have to hold back at all. Deku's fists clenched at his sides and he yelled in a scolding way at Zach, "You still act so villainous even though you say you know! When facing villains you try to be so scary and-"

"Everyone says that!" Zach snapped at his friend to shut him up. "But Midoriya, maybe I'm just a scary person. Ever think about that?" Zach asked it with his eyebrows raising and a menacing smirk over his face that Midoriya saw in surprise was not actually just to prove his point. The look on Zach's face was just, intimidating and scary. His scarred-up face, the tone of his voice, the expression he made, all while talking about how he was a naturally scary person; it all fit perfectly with that definition.

Midoriya frowned to himself, but he walked closer to Zach and then kept going forward that had Zach moving again. "We should go deeper into the woods," Midoriya said, suggesting in his tone that they get farther from the town back behind them where people may have seen them leave and could possibly be following and trying to find them.

Zach nodded at Deku and then headed after him and up to his right side to continue deeper in together. They stayed silent for a few seconds, then Midoriya just started in a low voice while they were heading to wherever was "deep" enough to have whatever this was about to turn into. "So this building, in Musutafu," Midoriya began and had Zach nod with him without turning to the boy who started without looking his way. "Ashido told me about where you met the other night when I asked her to clarify what you meant when you said you did something terrible putting that Romanian kid's life in her hands. She said she checked out the top floor and it was abandoned. An abandoned building in Musutafu that you-"

"It's not the whole building," Zach said. He explained as they continued farther into the woods, "All the top floor residents had gone to the Sports Festival in the same section and got blown to bits. Some of them, their families came and took their stuff. Others it seems to me, didn't want to go through the dead's places, or something. It's a ghost floor. A terrifying place and reminder to anyone who steps in of the horror of villains." Midoriya nodded after a moment, agreeing with that in a silent way. Zach continued softer, "As much as the city's recovered, not everyone has. 7,042 people died. An insane number. Not a number new residents could easily replace."

He paused and took in a deep breath, but he did not smile as he said, "Things are getting better. Yet Midoriya, in Japan there are still so many horrible villain gangs that exist and are stronger than almost any other villain organization in the world. Things like that ghost floor aren't the only reminders we have." Zach started to slow down, and he turned to the left while saying in a lower voice to his friend who looked back harshly at him, "I stayed out of Japan because I knew my friends could take care of things here without me-"

Midoriya's already dark expression twisted in a more upset way and he interrupted, "You couldn't expect us to stop them. We weren't all running around doing whatever we wanted!"

Zach's expression stayed dark itself though while Midoriya gave himself and the others that excuse. "I know I shouldn't have expected it, but it's how I felt. I'll deal with it myself now though, if I have to."

Midoriya balled his fists and got so angry. He has the Subspace Devils already! I can't even say that he can't, because he's doing it!

Zach eased his expression up and it became somewhat apologetic too, "The Japanese villains are better than most villains around the world though, so it's not like I think the heroes here have been slacking. I know Shigaraki and Raijin better than anyone, including you Midoriya." Zach reminded his friend of it, then he shook his head when Midoriya got a defensive and angered look on his face at what Zach just said like it was clear. "Despite your own personal connection with Shigaraki," Zach started. "Shigaraki and I were comrades once. I saw Shigaraki Tomura for what he truly was," Zach said and stared into Midoriya's eyes in an intense way that made Midoriya stare at him intensely but not denying what Zach was saying anymore. "I looked into the leader's eyes and saw the demon he had become because of this world."

Midoriya's straight expression started to drop. Daruma Ujiko's voice echoed in his head, but he stared at Zach in a shaky way as he thought, I thought Daruma said Zach didn't know! "Shigaraki never told Sazaki… He never admitted it to himself either, but Tomura always drew the comparison between them and I knew it. I saw it." Zach, did you make that same comparison yourself?! "Shigaraki and Sazaki are much more alike than you think."

Zach watched his friend's expression get shaken by what he just said, but he did not censor himself. I don't need to around you. I can say what I mean. Every time we talk I understand more about you and you learn more about me. "I knew already," Zach said, and Midoriya flinched as Zach spoke like he was reading his mind. "Just from what Shigaraki's Quirk is, I knew what had happened to turn him into what he was." Zach's voice got much lower and threateningly dark as he said, "I will never forgive Shigaraki." His voice rose back up a little, "But I understand what created him."

"It's the very reason I pushed my report on this country and the world. I myself was able to fight against the system that pushed me into darkness, but only barely." He paused and then said darker, "But I saw Shigaraki. I heard Dabi's story. I watched Toga's insanity control her, and saw Twice manipulated by those around him." Zach shook his head and said in a deep but soft voice, "As Death I treated villains like they were all just 'villains' under the same horrible label, excusing my actions against them. To some though, and how I sometimes try to look at it, villains are just victims whose stories haven't been told. I don't agree with that, but I understand."

"If you sympathize with them-"

"They're monsters," Zach said, countering Midoriya but much too strongly to the point it went beyond what Midoriya was trying to say to just make Deku get angry for Zach being too far on the other side of the spectrum now. Zach added, "Who have backstories that some may be sympathetic towards. But we all make our own choices," he said simply.

"We do," Midoriya agreed, though his voice was lower and his expression as intense as Zach had ever seen it before. "And you chose to kill Kurogiri, when you didn't have to."

"I did," Zach replied without flinching at Midoriya's intense and accusing look. "But when I did, it was a hard choice where not killing would-"

"Stop that!" Midoriya yelled. "Stop defending, killing people!" He yelled it with his fists clenched hard at his sides, his eyes furious and disheartened by what Zach was trying to say once again. "You don't get to make that decision! No one does!" Midoriya swung his right arm out to the side and a wind came off of it that blew dead leaves off the floor with dirt. Leaves rustled in the trees to his right and Zach's left, and Zach's eyes narrowed more as Midoriya's Quirk showed with the strength of his arm swing.

Or is that just his natural strength? Zach wondered to himself, as he questioned whether or not Midoriya was actually trying to show off his Quirk's strength there. Zach's eyes narrowed more as Midoriya showed off that force, making his dark-green-haired friend glare even harder at him that Zach would be getting angry after what he just said. "I can defend it though," Zach countered. He glared at Midoriya and told his friend glaring back at him, "If I couldn't I never would have been able to do those things. If I wasn't able to defend my actions then I wouldn't have done them in the first place."

"You killed people, someone you had captured already!" Midoriya exclaimed back. "I know it hurt you Zach, but you can't defend yourself or you'll always feel that you could do it again!"

"I won't," Zach countered. Would I? "That was before. I, I won't need to go that far again-"

"But if you think you have to?!" Midoriya shouted, as the way Zach was wording it was starting to change. You can't tell me this!

"If I have to, then I'll do whatever it takes," Zach replied with his eyes darkening and becoming colder as he stared back into Midoriya's. Midoriya's eyes grew huge, but Zach's expression hardened even more and he stuck to what he just said with his eyes intensifying as he growled out, "As far as I have to. No matter how far that is."

Midoriya bit down and he shook his head and darted his eyes to the right in fury but trying to break eye contact to control himself instead of just shouting back. "You said you're trying to be a hero," Midoriya said, his teeth clenched as he forced it out. "As a hero, you're not allowed to go as far as you're willing to go-"

"You don't know how far I'm willing to go," Zach scoffed back with his eyes glaring at Deku even darker.

"I know how far you'll go." Midoriya spun and looked into Zach's eyes and he shook his head, "You wouldn't-"

"You have no idea, what I am capable of," Zach's voice cut through the air like a knife. Silence cut between them as Zach glared into Deku's eyes with a fury that Midoriya had never seen in a look before. It altered the already dark mood of the conversation and made both teens stare at each other in a much more confrontational way.

"No idea?" Midoriya asked, taking that cold glare in stride and stomping towards him. "We all saw you that night. You killed those men, without mercy. Right in front of-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I've seen you kill people, Zach! But I know it hurt you, and I know you didn't do it lightly. It was a mistake, and you know- you knew that!"

"Midoriya, you have no fucking clue the things I've done." Zach leaned forward and looked straight into Deku's eyes, and he hissed, "The amount of things, so much worse than what I did that night." Midoriya's eyes grew wider at the look on Zach's face as he said that. The rage that was growing and continued to bubble over as Zach snarled at him, "The amount of people I've killed. The bodies I climbed over to reach my goals. Mercy? You want to know what I consider mercy?" Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his eyes shook with rage as he glared into his friend's. "Cutting a woman's tongue out, and slashing up her vocal cords, and cutting off all her fingers with a single knife."

"Wh-What?" Midoriya was not expecting to hear that, out of all the things he could have heard in this moment.

"Because I couldn't let her communicate anymore. Her Quirk was too much, she had too much power, and it was either kill her or send her to a prison where she would have escaped the first time she came in contact with someone. She could get in their heads, blackmail and twist and… and she was evil. She used this great power to kill thousands, and the answer was clear what to do with her. To most people the solution was clear at least, but I had mercy. I wasn't going to just kill her, because killing people is wrong. And because I don't like to kill. So I showed her my mercy." Zach's fists started to loosen, then they clenched so much harder and he bared his teeth at the green-haired boy right in front of him. "You think you know what I'm capable of? Because you saw me kill a few men? Back when I could still count, how many I had killed."

"You don't mean-"

"I do," Zach cut his old friend off before Midoriya could finish that sentence. "It was a horrible feeling, knowing that I had lost track." Zach's expression shook and all the darkness faded from it for a second. His eyes twitched and his head pulled back at the way Midoriya was looking at him. Shame covered Zach's face and he started softer while still staring into Deku's eyes though with his own full of more regret than Midoriya had ever seen in someone's eyes before. "Every time I killed someone, I counted. I counted for so long. Every time I killed someone I'd tell myself that it was necessary, that I couldn't have done it any other way- or I'd regret it but I'd- I'd move on and remember them because what kind of person forgets the people he killed? 'What kind of person can't count how many people he's killed?'"

Zach asked it and his face pulled back in an even more twisted way, his eyes shaking and his lips pulling far apart at the corners as his face scrunched up. "But, but things started moving so fast, and I-" Zach lifted his eyes up to the right and then clenched them shut as hard as possible. And in that moment he clenched them shut, he felt the sand buffeting all around him. And he heard a hundred screams. Blood splashed on him and his eyes snapped open with his teeth clenched so hard and a panicked look on his face as he looked back to Midoriya, "And one day I was in a desert, with a few comrades and we- we were just supposed to be doing some recon."

He paused and his breath sucked in so hard, his eyes trembling as he stared at his friend whose horrified look started to change at the scared one covering Zach's face. The look of absolute horror that exceeded his own a moment ago, and he pulled his own face back as Zach gasped at him, "But they knew we were there!" His voice was a whispered gasp, and it broke anyway despite how soft it was. His face pulled back and he stopped himself for a second, but he tilted his head back more and gasped in as he saw a woman's head blowing open right next to his own. "And they-" Zach stopped himself, and he watched as a pincer flew up in the air with blood splashing out of it. "They killed my friends, and I-" Zach's eyes shook as the forest around him turned to sand, and more people than he could count surrounded him. "I was alone, surrounded by, by so many and-"

Midoriya took a step back, feeling the deepest sense of dread at where Zach was going that could have him sounding like this. Don't- The answer to the question Midoriya had never wanted to ask had been given to him, but the reason for that answer was already filling him with so many different emotions. I can't let what you say, change what this means-

"And when I opened my eyes," Zach gasped, his head tilting up and Midoriya staring at him in fear at the sheer look of panic on Zach's own face. Zach's huge eyes trembled as he stared up in a wide blue sky unblocked by any canopy or anything. He blinked and a tear came out of his right eye and slid down his face as he was lowering it himself. He lowered it and stared back into that desert that no longer had all those people in it. "I looked down," Zach said as he lowered his head, staring ahead of himself and through Midoriya with his teeth clenched and shaking. "And I thought I must have had Nightmare form activated. Everything, for miles in every direction was red." He rose his right hand up and put it on the side of his head, and he looked into Midoriya's eyes that he finally saw again in front of him. "A desert of blood, and I was all alone, and- and I tried to count."

Zach's voice broke and got high-pitched as it cracked. "I wanted so desperately to be able to count. What kind of person can't count how many people they've killed?" He said it and clenched his teeth again pushing his face forward as he asked in agony. "Villains would brag about how many they had killed. 'Ten!' 'I've killed over two dozen!' 'You'll be my fifty-third kill, Death!' But, but that day there were hundreds of-" Zach bit down on his bottom lip and pulled his head back at what he was telling Midoriya, and yet he could not stop himself as he saw that desert of red around him. "And I knew in that moment that I was a monster, because I couldn't count anymore. I tried, I tried but- but there were arms and legs sticking out of the sand all around me. Faces half buried and, AND!" Zach shouted it at his horrified friend in front of him whose expression was becoming mixed with the horror at what he was hearing, and also how Zach sounded speaking back on it.

"And…" Zach whispered, his voice getting lower as he saw Midoriya's face looking back at him like that. "And I was all alone. Alone in a graveyard of my own making." His voice came out hoarse and in a whisper, and his eyes remained huge, though his lips lifted up at the corners even while dark shadows of despair covered his whole face. "I always tried keeping count, but I failed. I was able to for a time, but after that day I looked back and I couldn't… I had turned the desert red. I was alone. My comrades, my enemies, everyone was dead. For miles in every direction the desert was…" Zach whispered it, no longer panicked as he just repeated himself but this time in a tone that had Midoriya really imagining it through Zach's eyes.

And Midoriya couldn't imagine anything worse than what he saw. "…and no chance of ever counting how many there had been," Zach whispered. Midoriya rose his eyes that just shifted down to the floor, and he looked at his friend in some pity, but also with the darkest look Zach had ever seen from his friend before. "It was all a blur," Zach whispered it, and his eyes lost the glazed look to instead stare at Midoriya in a way even more horrified than with what he was just saying. "But Midoriya," Zach continued to his old classmate who lost that darkness in his expression as Zach continued like he was far from over, or like what he had said was not the worst part of this story. "A single kill made a noticeable increase in strength before. Killing Spinner, then fighting at Dandy's lab, the jump was- and multiple people made crazy jumps in power; how strong I was after the Lifebringer Incident that I could take on Hawks…"

Midoriya's expression started to get more shaken, his eyes growing wider and wider as Zach's did too. "But what happened that day-" Zach gasped it out then stopped himself, his eyes shooting huge and then narrowing with his whole expression flattening and returning to what it normally was.

"What happened that day, was just another day of a war no one in this world understands the intensity of." Zach said it, and suddenly he was excusing himself again for what he had done. His face was back to normal, except Midoriya could see so much of Death in it while the one who was just reacting to what he was saying seemed more like Zach to him.

The switch made Midoriya's fists ball furiously. He wanted to stomp forward, but the gap between them was small already and the two of them were glaring at each other with the thickest tension between them. "You think you can justify those things? Torture? Slaughtering people?!"

"Amaterasu was unconscious when I removed her means of communications," Zach replied. "That was not torture." His voice was cold, and Midoriya just stared at him in shock that he could say something like that. You only ever heard the best of what I did as Death. You knew these things happened though. You knew and to act on it now would be hypocritical! It would show that you were just intentionally ignoring it because of voluntary ignorance!

Zach's expression got furious back at Midoriya for a moment, and then it just got darker and colder though the anger was there beneath his calm facade. "The world needed an answer for an uncivilized threat in a civilized time. It needed someone who would respond in kind to the actions of villains." Midoriya glared harder at Zach who did not waver as he continued, "As savage and cruel as they were, the world needed someone who could think like them to be able to counter their every move. The world had enough heroes. It needed a warrior." His voice was cold and he glared into Deku's eyes savagely in a way that scared his former classmate. "A warrior's mind was necessary for the survival of this civilized world, because too soon the world that it was becoming would have created many more soldiers, more warriors, who would fight the war and bring the world back to peace once it went too far! I never let the world reach that level!"

"I did not wait for other warriors like myself to be created by the pit that this world had become and was deepening by the day." Zach stared deep into Izuku's eyes and said to his friend who had never heard him get this defensive of Death and specifically the most horrible things he had done as it. "I gathered those who already understood, or others who I trained and taught to understand, and I created an Army the likes of which this world has never seen in order to prevent armies from being created. There is a saying that every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people are killed." Midoriya stared at Zach in confusion as to why he would bring up the perfect argument against what he was doing, but Zach just glared at him harder for Midoriya's agreement with that phrase. "But as true as that may be," Zach continued, "the saying does not counter the idea that those wars are prevented. The saying, is a negative one towards the people attempting to stop those wars because they've killed people now, but we only have the luxury to look at them as monsters because the world is at peace and what they did was monstrous, villainous, and as heinous as we can imagine."

"But war is worse."

Zach growled it and his hateful and angry expression could not hide the pain so full in his voice that the anger attempted to mask. Midoriya looked ahead of him in uncertainty at the desperate look hiding in that pain and anger for him to understand. As the one person Midoriya knew Zach had told this to, he could see how desperately Zach wanted him to look like he understood even a bit of what he was saying. He wants forgiveness? Or, or just understanding, from me?! You know I don't- You know I can't!

"You say you did those things to prevent war," Midoriya started, his voice low and trying to stay steady despite seeing the impact of his words on Zach's expression that pained with each denial from him. "But if you never know the outcome of the other way, if you never see that future that you couldn't have predicted with a hundred percent certainty, then you killed for nothing. Zach, you can't blame your decisions on things that never happened. You can't say Kurogiri would have escaped from prison and killed millions, and use that as an excuse for why you killed him. It doesn't work that way! It never has, and it doesn't in any scenario! And if you would have killed all those people in Yemen?" Midoriya asked it and his voice cracked itself this time at the idea of what Zach had said that he could see in this moment was the truth he could not believe before and thought Zach had to have been bluffing to all those people when he yelled it.

Zach bowed his head and shook it, and he spoke up, "You say that because you don't know war. When it comes to war, any alternative is preferable," Zach whispered it and stared up into Deku's eyes with an expression like he had no idea what Zach really meant by that. "And I did see war. I saw, every war. I was in the center of one giant one, full of dozens of smaller ones, each with hundreds of battles…" his voice got quieter and quieter as he got smaller and smaller in his explanation. "But there could have been so many more. Ones that everyone would have known about. Ones that would have drawn in so many more people, killed more than-"

His expression hardened again, and Zach said to the teen before him still looking to deny what he was saying, "War is… I could say, that I prevented wars from happening, and that would be true. But, but I didn't stop them with as simple a method as 'trying' to stop the wars. I declared a war, to prevent future wars." Zach explained himself and thought back to the very beginning as he continued, "I started a war and did horrible things and had horrible things done to me, but because I did, I prevented those same things from happening on a wider scale all over the world."

"You don't know-"

"Mongoloid had plans to invade Gorran," Zach said. Midoriya froze, and Zach went on, "Working with villains inside that country to destabilize its own leadership. He was in contact with Shakad, and the League of Villains wanted to destabilize more and more of the region to get everyone else focusing on it. They never expected Mongoloid to be able to hold on forever, but once the international heroes all focused on them and came in to shut it down, that would have been the time for the villains in every other region of the world to make their moves. Slipping into governments that don't have heroes watching them closely anymore. Breaking the already fragile systems of leadership around the world, and taking control of them while the heroes were not watching."

Midoriya shook his head, shaking off the surprise of Mongoloid and the League's plans that Zach was saying like he knew it was true. "Governments aren't that easy to-"

"King corrupted the Russian government at its highest levels, easily. His attempted takeover of the Russian government started the day of the Lifebringer Incident, kidnapping the SOQUOC and his family who were saved by Mother Russia and other Russian heroes," Midoriya's eyes shot open huge as he remembered their homeroom teacher at the time having disappeared to go deal with this. His eyes shook as Zach continued in a way that made Midoriya stare at him in disbelief, "...But not before the SOQUOC was blackmailed and corrupted, and over the next year he would help them corrupt more and more of the government until Russia was nearly completely under King's control."

"You think you know how bad things were? You think you can judge me for the things I've done?" Zach asked it and ground his teeth in anger, though defensively as he thought about the way Midoriya was looking at him before that did have him nervous inside as much as he was hiding it. "France and China? The arms' race that never happened. And it would have! If that nuke went off in Paris and the Chinese took the blame. If France built up weapons with the backing of their allies who wouldn't be able to tell them not to after what happened, and then those allies wouldn't just ignore it but would do it themselves too once China and its allies built up. Heroes would start focusing on each other and trying to negotiate for peace, and the villains would again have their chance to move in! So many times!" Zach yelled it and balled his fists as he called out, "Weakening Yemen so they could slip in, and-" Even Japan! Never tell anyone about the Sports Festival, but it's true! EVEN HERE!

"War was possible anywhere. It went on, everywhere." Zach said it and started panting slowly with his chest heaving as he finished. What am I doing?! I never wanted to tell you any of this! The more I tell you the more likely it is that you stop me, I've always known that! And yet I keep coming and talking about more knowing this? Why?! Zach stopped himself with his internal shouting and just slowed his panting while watching Midoriya's shocked expression shifting backwards.

The U.A. student's hands that opened up at his sides shook for a few seconds. His fingers started to curl then straightened out, then all of them curled back into fists and his uncertain gaze narrowed back on his former classmate before him. The tension in the air was thick despite Zach's defense. Both of them looked at each other, knowing that what had been said could not be unsaid, and that it did change things. "You use those things, to defend your actions on a broader scale," Midoriya countered in a low voice. "But the individual worst things you've aren't justified by-"

"They were!" Zach snapped back. "Not, always," he added with his voice lowering back down too, but his expression rose with a look denying Midoriya's accusatory voice. "But I did terrible things and was still at a disadvantage because the lengths I would go to weren't nearly as far as what my enemies were willing to do."

"They're not supposed to be!" Midoriya shouted back, his voice raising louder this time. "You don't fight evil with evil!"

"You fight fire with fire," Zach countered.

"No you don't!" Midoriya exclaimed frustratedly. "You use water to put out fires. Water and fire. Complete opposites. That's what we're supposed to be!"

"And when using water doesn't work?" Zach began softer. "Firefighters will often resort to using fire themselves." Zach glared into Midoriya's eyes and spoke in a firm voice unwavering despite Deku's heroic glare back at him, "If the inferno rages too out of control for water to handle, they will set their own fires in front of it to help put that bigger one out. They still use water at the same time, but having their own fire helps when things rage out of control-"

"And that's what you were," Midoriya said. His expression did not change though as he kept glaring forward at Zach, and he ground his teeth but then continued with the metaphor, "But if that smaller fire they started to help them, got out of control itself, it's also their job to put that one out too."

"I wasn't out of control-"

"You just told me you couldn't count how many people you've killed!"

"I can't! And that's fucking horrible!" Zach yelled right back. "And I tried so hard never to reach that point, but I- I was pushed too far! I saw too much and, and it numbed me-" Zach cut himself off and his head pulled down in an even more frustrated way. I'll never be able to convince him. I'm doing the opposite with every word out of my mouth. "I couldn't handle it all, so I numbed myself to it."

"You don't get to do that!" Midoriya scolded, his voice louder and his eyes so angry at the self-pitying look on Zach's face. "You don't get to just stop feeling bad for killing-"

"To all of it!" Zach yelled back, raising his head with his eyes so full of fury but also a terror that flashed in them as those words came out of his mouth. "Not just the people I killed, the people I hurt, the ones I terrified, my friends- dying every day in front of me. Screaming. In my arms. And the things I saw! You don't understand!" Zach called it out and looked so angry even as his eyes got wetter. "When I did all that dark stuff that was so terrible, I had to numb myself, and the things didn't even affect me-"

As Zach's voice was starting to settle Midoriya yelled out, "Stop that! You're trying to use this excuse that thinking about this stuff would hurt too much, but it's supposed to hurt!" Midoriya yelled it and threw his arms up in front of him while looking at Zach so frustratedly that he did not know something so simple. "When you do bad things it's supposed to feel bad, and that feeling is what keeps you from doing worse and worse things!"

Zach pulled his head back, and Midoriya glared into his eyes while raising his voice more, "You justify your actions by pointing to end results, but once you become the kind of person who does that, then you can start doing more and more terrible things and telling yourself over and over that it's alright and it's good even when it's not."

"I know it wasn't good, and they aren't justified but- no! They are. They were-"

"They're not!" Midoriya called back, his expression turning more desperate as Zach used the present tense naturally and had to correct himself into the past. "You have to understand that! Please Zach, you have to realize that the way you did things was so wrong, because I can see you still doing things like that. You still do horrible things and you just, push away the pain of what you're doing."

Zach shook his head, his eyes clenching harder as every word Midoriya said to him made too much sense that it was getting harder and harder to keep it up. "As soon as I accept that pain though," Zach began. He cut himself off, then hissed, "It's just added to the pile, and I can't just- It's too much." He rose his eyes up and looked with eyes getting so tired, and he said in a voice losing its emphasis, "All the bad. It was too horrible-"

"I know!" Midoriya yelled back as he was starting to lose Zach here. Zach's face flinched, and Midoriya grit his teeth but shouted at him despite the look in Zach's eyes, "It was horrible, and terrible, and you saw monstrous things and did some of those things yourself!" Deku shook his head and snapped, "But you can't just ignore them and keeping adding more on the pile like that makes it okay! You can't say that because of all the stuff that happened to you and around you that you just can't think about horrible stuff anymore-"

Zach's teeth clenched and he finally snapped back at the hero in front of him, "You don't know. You- You don't know how horrible the things in my head are." Zach's face twitched and his right hand curled all its fingers in when he stuttered on a word. He held his mouth shut though after he spoke, and Midoriya balled his fists much tighter than his former classmate's.

"It doesn't matter," Midoriya pushed. Zach flinched again, but Midoriya pushed even harder, "Because the fact that you can forget things like that leads you to make these bad decisions over and over again!"

"I don't forget them! But, the reason I had to numb myself to it, the reason I can't really think about the bad! It's because when I do open up that box it'll make me think of everything," Zach's eyes trembled and his face scrunched up as his hands flinched at his sides more and more, curling tighter each time they started to. "And in there the worst things are worse than you could imagine-"

"That's not a good reason!" Midoriya yelled back. "You can't just say that you're the only one who knows how horrible those things are, so that makes you exempt from feeling bad about what you've done!" As much as it hurt watching as Zach's face flooded with guilt, and panic, and despair and rage all at once, the look of twisted insanity only made Midoriya that much more sure of what he was doing. "You're not allowed to just ignore everything in your past because of some horrible incidents-"

"It was worse than just 'horrible,' Midoriya." Zach said it with his voice coming out as a breath, cracking even at that low volume. "There aren't words to describe! You- you couldn't imagine-"

"I can!" Midoriya countered back louder than Zach with his shakier voice. "I know you saw really, really bad stuff. I know!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW!" Zach screamed, his voice louder than any of them had gotten so far and so loud it cut through the forest and cut a silence between them. Zach's eyes darkened so much and his lips curled down as his glared angrily into Deku's eyes. "You… you couldn't… It was worse, than I could imagine." Zach tilted his head to the side, his eyelids squinting even with that look of Death in his eyes, still his expression changed to fill Midoriya with a new kind of dread that went along with those words.

"Do you understand that? Worse than I could imagine. And I could imagine a whole lot, Midoriya," Zach said it in a high-pitched voice and tears slipped out of both eyes and trailed down his face. "But time and time again I was shocked and my mind was blown by the level of cruelty and insanity I saw out there- but even then! Even after I saw all that, even after I had lost countless friends and killed so many people! I still couldn't even fathom- I couldn't, I couldn't comprehend what I saw-" Zach's eyes were twitching, and he clenched them shut before trying to open them and only managing to squint them open blurry and full of water. His teeth bared so furiously and in sheer agony that spread over his face, "Even then! After I had seen worse things than anyone else in the world! I couldn't imagine anything like what I saw in Vir-"

Zach's eyes shot wide then squinted, and his left hand reached up and grabbed at the side of his head. "It was, the worst thing in the world," he pushed it out of clenched teeth, though he lowered his hand and his breathing started to calm down.

Midoriya had stood there in shock for a few seconds there as he watched Zach losing it and talking about something, some singular thing, that gave him chills through his whole body. At the sight of him calming himself down though that easily, despite what he was just talking about, anger spread across Midoriya's expression in as much an instant flip as Zach did intentionally. "Don't stop," Midoriya scolded. Zach looked back in his eyes and his expression was flat and unresponsive to Midoriya's harshest glare. "You can't stop thinking. You can't decide not to remember, and you won't unless you tell me."

"Midoriya," Zach started.

"I mean it, Zach. Tell me-"

"The worst thing I could ever do to you," Zach started. "Would be telling you what happened there. I- I haven't ever done something so horrible to you, as what telling you what happened there-"

"I want to know," Midoriya countered his friend whose head started tilting back more. Zach's eyes shook but stayed so dark even as Midoriya stated firmly, "I want you to tell me." Because you need to remember.

"No," Zach said. "You really don't." His stoney expression did not falter this time, and Midoriya's face shook with anger instead at Zach's look like he was the one in the right for being like that.

"How do you not get this?" Midoriya asked in frustration. "That's just another excuse you came up with," Deku explained while trying to make his anger turn more scolding though it was getting difficult. Seeing the twitch on Zach's face though made him continue faster, "You were getting close to actually thinking about it, something that hurt you, so you just decided not to!" Midoriya rose his voice louder but there was a plea in the shout that had Zach's fists shaking at his sides, his stoic face scrunching up as Midoriya yelled, "And that's something you do too much! Something dangerous that I can't allow to-"

"A place! Where people are born, live, and die! All in darkness!" Zach screamed it and he brought his left and right hands up to his chest to clench at his heart that felt like it was ripping open. His eyes were massive and he yelled at the boy in front of him, "It was the worst thing I had ever seen! And I- I couldn't even comprehend what I was looking at. I ah, uh," tears spilled from Zach's eyes as he sobbed uncontrollably but spoke through it anyway, "Miles below the surface. A place so big I couldn't- and it was- ahh, AHhhh. SSsss," he sucked in breath through his teeth, but then he gasped it all out as he failed at getting a grip on himself.

"And when I saw- when I grabbed this head scientist next to the computers where I was watching the- the videos!" Zach tightened both hands into his sweatshirt and shirt below so hard that he ripped through them. Midoriya's eyes darted down as he realized how hard Zach was clenching as his shirts started ripping in his grasp, but he snapped his eyes back up to Zach's unhinged ones as he gasped out, "I asked that man, I- I grabbed him by the collar. Me! Someone who he knew had seen more horrible things than anyone else, in the whole world. And he watched as I- I asked him… 'What is this place?'"

The voice Zach used as he said it made Midoriya take a full step back from him. The tone of that voice, so beyond shocked it shook him at his core, and made his own eyes water as he watched Zach's face looking like he had completely lost it. Zach lifted the corners of his lips, and he gasped out a laugh, as tears spilled down his face. He opened his mouth and it twisted back down at the corners, his expression so horrified as his eyes glazed over, because all Zach could see was the man he continued describing. "And when I asked him that," Zach's teeth clenched and he had to close his eyes while more tears pushed out. "This guy who I thought was a monster, who I couldn't even think of as human- I watched- I stared into his eyes and watched as he lost his mind."

Zach's eyes clenched harder but more tears pushed out anyway, "Hearing me say that to him? Whatever thin lining he used to tell himself that he was a good person. Whatever reasons he had or ability he had to tell himself that all that bad was for a good cause, for the advancement of medicine, or the benefit of humanity as a whole!" Zach called it out in despair, and he yelled, "It broke! He knew I had seen worse than anyone and yet this?! This was by far the worst thing and- and he started laughing. His eyes shot open huge in shock, and then his mind shattered, and this man I held by the collar started to laugh hysterically. I dropped him and stepped back, because I had never looked a man in his eyes as he lost his mind before! And I watched as he dug his fingers into his eyes that couldn't stop crying as he laughed so madly I couldn't think of any worse sound to hear- until I heard their screams! Those people who didn't even know, what being people means- what, the world was! This place they were born in, raised in- and they had never even seen the light before so to see the surface?!"

Zach's face enraged and depressed, his lips twisted up and down, and he grabbed at the sides of his head as he lost it. "I've never thought about-" he started screaming. "I had to stay strong, for them! For everyone else! And I knew if I thought about this place I'd never-" Zach dug his fingers into the sides of his head and screamed out with his head leaning forward, his eyes shaking as he looked into Midoriya's, "People who were treated like lab rats! Animals for their entire lives!"

"Wh-" Midoriya could barely find air to breathe, but he finally managed out, "Where?" He gulped in his dry throat then took in more breath and asked, "Did you destroy the place doing it? The ones responsible-"

"How could I have destroyed the U.S. government?!" Zach asked, and his eyes filled with so much more despair at the way his friend took a step backwards with his face twisting in too recognizable a way. "That's right," Zach hissed out, his head that he leaned forward pulling back. He stumbled a step back on his own and then leaned back against a tree behind him. "The U.S. fucking government. A secret science division sure, but people at the top knew. Or they at least knew what their end goals were for the place, that they would allow it. So they could develop super soldiers for a powerful army to not have to rely on heroes. That was just where some of the funding came from though. While some of the scientists were doing private research to try and figure out the best strains of injections they would sell to the most extremely rich who knew about the program… But the people they tested on. People who were born in their labs, because they were simply experiments, and they were treated like nothing more than tools."

"What are you talking about?" Midoriya whispered, unable to wrap his mind around any of this actually existing, yet finding it impossible to tell Zach he was lying when it took him this long to get Zach to start talking about it. This couldn't have happened. Something that big- and if he destroyed it then everyone should know! Your story doesn't make sense! And, and something like this- it couldn't have…

"The first thing I saw down there," Zach started back. His voice was sad but he looked into Midoriya's eyes and saw that despite all the denial there was willingness to listen, and to even possibly accept. "It was a genetic project they were doing to try and pick and choose what Quirks went to what people. Predetermination of Quirks before birth. They wanted to, inherently change what Quirks are by going around the natural methods to- summarily, they wanted to control Quirks. In order to completely control Quirks though, they needed to fully understand everything about them and every possible way they could take control of biology and alter nature to their whims. Humans can't decide. We have limitations as to what we are able to do to find out if that statement is true. They decided that those limits didn't matter. Even their own moral limitations, they all just, found a way past them just like they got past the legal ones."

Zach explained the reasoning for the first thing he saw, and yet he knew he was trying so hard not to actually think about what it was itself. His dark eyes lowered from Midoriya's as he did not want to look in them as he went on, "Someone could theoretically be born with any kind of Quirk, if injected with certain drugs during pregnancy. That's a long-term experiment though. Not only do they have to have the pregnant mothers, but they also have to observe the children through childhood in the strictest conditions to give validity to their experiment. And they need many subjects. And they need many trials… They had to make sure the conditions were right through childhood, through pregnancy, through adolescence for those who succeeded in order for them to breed the next batches as was determined by the scientists could hold potential for…" Zach trailed off and tears dripped off his nose as he stared down at the floor below him. "The environment was darkness. Testing if, environmental factors could influence the development of a Quirk. If they could create someone whose body determined their Quirk based off of an environment, then that person's genetic makeup would, I guess, have the potential for selective Quirk altering. I don't know. I don't know why they would- I need to justify it with reasons, because I can't-"

His face no longer looked as twisted and scrunched up as before. The wall was down and Zach was over it, but the despair on his face was so profound as he rose it even just a little to glance at Midoriya again. "Sometimes it didn't work, and if the children showed random, unique Quirks, they were put down as failures. I found the files, watched all the videos, and it was going on for decades." Tears fell from Zach's eyes, and they dropped from Midoriya's not a second later as he believed what his friend just said. "No one stopped it," Zach whispered. "No one could. Heroes work for the government. I- I killed Stain, because I thought Stain was a monster who was wrong in the way he did things and that his fame was too… But the idea of the government paying for heroes, that heroes can only be such if they work for and are authorized by a government, it's idiotic to me. I've seen corruption across every continent. In all the countries of the world. Corruption, and evil," he whispered while Midoriya stared back at him right in his depressed eyes. "And things that only villains should do. Yet the leaders of huge armies, people who tell their nation's heroes what is right and what is wrong, what if they're not heroes themselves?"

Zach's voice that wondered that was so soft, and pained, and searching for an answer because he had none. He sniffled in once then started again with a look to the sky and away from Midoriya, "I did destroy that science division. And I saved the children who were down there, and people who were older and had spent their entire lives in labs. Clones, a room full of people all made up of the same potentially great DNA. All of them also living in complete darkness. And I-" Zach cut himself off. "AHHHHHH!" "WHa- AEEEAAEEEaaa! "OOOOOAAAAAHHHH!" He clenched his eyes shut as screams started to fill his ears. "But the things I saw that day," he continued whispering.

"All the videos, including the most recent from only a few days before where- where one of the girls had developed an interesting Quirk. It was amazing, and unique, but not what the scientists were looking for. Nothing involving flames or light or anything that could have, saved uh her," Zach gasped in and his breathing got more ragged. "They walked her down a bright hallway that blinded her," a tear fell from his right eye and down his cheek, and Midoriya could see in Zach's eyes he was watching this at that very moment. "…And the guy held her hand as they walked to a panel in the wall he opened up and told her to climb up into. He put her inside and turned on the incinerator-" Zach could barely talk, his voice getting lower and more broken up as he tried his best not to just break down and sob. But he snapped his head up and yelled at his friend still in so much disbelief, "And that wasn't the worst! This place worse than you can imagine, there were things, but the screams! The screams…"

"Zach, Zach it's-" Midoriya's eyes shot open so wide and he stepped forward quickly, shortening the gap between them.

"None of those people deserved to be in that hell- Hell?" Zach asked it and laughed, and his eyes refocused on Midoriya for a moment as he said, "That wasn't Hell, because that's where sinners go! So why did those people who had never done anything wrong, those innocent people who didn't deserve, to be treated like animals! War doesn't discriminate. It kills women and children, the innocent and the guilty alike, war is worse than hell, but this place didn't even fit with everything else. I saw- Exodus needed time off! The hardest men I ever knew, couldn't keep it together this time. And I slaughtered those scientists, and we had lost countless friends the day before this in Wampajawa- I wouldn't sleep for days! But it wasn't the people I killed, or the men I lost, that haunts my every waking second as hard as I try to block it all out! It's not what's driven me mad! It's those people! It's their screams that keep me up at night! Those screams-"

"Zach come on," Midoriya tried again, his voice raising louder this time than the half-plea he did before where he was still unsure if he wanted Zach to stop. "Please just, it's okay." No, he has to- he doesn't! I shouldn't force him to. I can't anymore, Midoriya couldn't look at the look on Zach's face for another second as he brought up those "screams" again. "Don't think about that anymore," Midoriya said, his own voice cracking as he watched his friend's distraught face.

Zach's face shifted and his eyes locked with Midoriya's again. His distraught expression changed, straightening out with his breath coming in for a few steady breaths that he desperately needed. "Right after Wampajawa, and just losing so many of my closest friends, and I went there afterwards first to start off the world loop because just what I had heard about that place was enough to make me cross the world to stop it as soon as possible. And in the Siege of Wampajawa where I lost dozens of comrades, where we all should have died and almost did, through that lab where I killed the scientists who to me must have looked like what those test subjects had always looked like to them. And then the very next day was the Tusukan Desert. When no one else could handle it, when everyone wanted to sit out and do nothing and they were all lost in thought- I kept fighting and trying to get them all to so we could keep our minds off, but Tama and Grabble were soldiers! They didn't need much time and, and they were ready to fight but I brought them into an ambush. They were with me from before I even started the Army, and I got them killed. For Grabble it was his second time but Tama, they saw me trying to revive her so they- they ripped her body apart to stop me from bringing her back."

Zach spoke faster and faster, and the whole time Midoriya stared at him in shock at a full stop mentally other than listening. The speed at which Zach had told him he was moving had never before made sense to him, until now. As Zach continued speaking about one period of nonstop consciousness that spanned days of as much nonstop horror, "And I knew I couldn't die. Because if I just let myself die there because it was all I wanted to do, then Darling would kill herself, and the Army would fall apart as they all told me the last time I died. On that operating table after the Pit, they told me that without me they were all lost," Zach said it with his lip quivering and his eyes trembling at the memory of how he had felt in that desert. "And I had just seen the worst in humanity," a tear fell from his left eye and slowly rolled down the side of his face. "And I massacred those people. I couldn't hold back, and after a few kills I was gone. I went mad in that desert, as the sandstorm engulfed us and I- I couldn't breathe. I was drowning in Death as it took over and-" Zach snapped his head up again, and in regret and shame he yelled, "And I let it!"

He stared up at what should have been a blue sky, but it was a forest canopy instead that he lowered his gaze from to not see a bloody desert in front of him. He blinked a few times, and he rubbed over his face and eyes with his right sleeve for a few seconds. "I didn't feel tired after that. I didn't think I'd ever feel tired again. I didn't think I'd ever feel human again. After that, I ordered people back into the fight and to missions instead of asking. I got them refocused on the world loop, but then the R&D division got wiped out by Fergus, and he was possessing us and on the ship somewhere so we needed to finish him now instead of later. The world loop again got interrupted, as we hunted down Mr. Fergus' real body. And I killed that old man, as I fought a war on a hundred different fronts, and I was losing my mind and my sanity. And on that day of several days, in the peak of the war," Zach rose his voice and he took in a short breath and called out, "Yeah! I lost track of how many people I've killed. And I couldn't even dwell on it, because I had to move faster. I couldn't wallow in the fact that I didn't know how many people's lives I had ended, because I had the entire world resting on my shoulders, and every decision I made saved or damned thousands of lives. So yeah, I couldn't think about it. I couldn't sit around thinking of how bad everything was, because I'd never get back up and keep fighting. I'd have never been able to find the strength to move on."

He paused for a few seconds, and then he said in a softer and self-reflective tone, "And because I couldn't spend the time to process it, I left it all to me in the future to deal with it. Because I believed that I would die out there, no matter how much I knew I couldn't die. I wouldn't let myself die yet I knew I would, so even though a part of me knew that I was dooming a future version of me to be fucked when it all came back, I guess, I just hoped I'd be dead before that happened. Before this. Because the future is now, and I was just trying so hard to push it farther back," he admitted it to the curly-haired boy in front of him as he looked inside at the reasons he was trying so hard in the first place. "But I don't think I'm going to die anytime soon. And the wall already cracked when Darling showed up, but now it's down and I have to live with, with all of it. And that's a good thing. It's the safe thing," Zach assured with a nod at Deku that he was right, even though his lips were pursed and his eyes shaky though holding back any more tears.

You're right. I was right. Was that really what I wanted though? Midoriya's expression was conflicted even as he gave a small nod back at Zach. Is that why I pushed you even though I had already decided, what I was going to do? I know that it's safer now, but it's safest if I stop you here for good. Midoriya's face scrunched up for a moment, then he looked away to his right with his face even more conflicted. But if I could be sure of his hero mentality? I could accept that, because Zach still hasn't done anything since when I first decided. All he's done is tell me more of the truth from before, and I always knew those things were possible. It's why I never asked the question of how many people have you killed. I never asked, because I believed the answer would turn me against you. But if I already knew that, then I was making the active choice to let you remain! I was already doing it, so why couldn't I continue?!

"You still agree though, that those things were wrong," Midoriya started up slowly. "You know that killing people-"

"For any reason, is wrong."

"And it's not acceptable to choose doing the wrong things," Midoriya continued quickly, but this time there was no immediate response. This time Zach did not finish the line for him. "As a hero, you cannot do the 'wrong' things whether or not you understand that what you're doing is wrong."

"Yet with Stain-"

"We were wrong!" Midoriya called out as Zach brought this up once again. "Not just in fighting him, but covering it up too!" Zach opened his eyes wider and stared at Midoriya with a surprised look that Midoriya looked away for a moment at the sight of. He looked back though with a steady gaze and agreed with what he just said, "I mean it. Because now it's a conspiracy. All those times you say that as long as no one knows, it's not bad, that's wrong. There's always the possibility of people finding out. And the longer the lie remains," Midoriya shook his head and saw a short-haired brunette standing in front of him, so much pain on her face as she called him a liar. He rose his gaze back to Zach's and said strongly, "The worse it is when that lie is finally revealed."

"Unless the lie never is," Zach countered, not accepting Midoriya's way of looking at it like it was an inevitability. "All the bad that would have come from you accepting credit for beating Stain-"

"Is comparable to all the bad that would happen if everyone finds out now, or in a few years when we're all pro heroes. If people look up to us then, thinking we always do what's right, then what will matter to them won't be that we defeated a villain but that we committed conspiracy against a country of people we're meant to tell the truth to and protect, breaking the very rules we enforce on them. And what's worse is that it was the government who pushed it on us, so it's not just heroes lying to them but a show that the Police Force would let things slide more for heroes, give us preferential treatment compared to if it had just been non-hero students who acted. Or maybe they just let it go because we won, while everyone would point to people who lose and are punished, and it would be horrible! It scares me knowing that this lie could one day cause so much damage-"

"It would only cause that damage, if someone like you were to feel too guilty about it and go rat themselves out," Zach said. His voice was lower, and Midoriya's eyes shot open wide this time at the wording of that. "I may have agreed with you if you did it from the start. Admittedly, it's like what I said about you telling everyone about One For All. You could do it, you could have with Stain too, but with Stain you had a choice to either accept punishment and credit, or keep quiet like you did. No one knows that that choice existed with One For All. No one is currently under some false belief of what your Quirk is, because you've never gone out there and fully described it to everyone. The way people look at you would only change for the people close to you who you've been lying to, while everyone would look at All Might differently if you reveal your Quirk's true nature."

Midoriya got a frustrated look on his face that Zach would suggest that again even though he was saying how it would change how people look at All Might. The frustration was compounded more with the point on Stain though, as Zach continued, "But you made the decision not to take the credit for Stain. You, and Iida, and Todoroki… and I knew about it too, so I'm part of that conspiracy. Admittedly no one would look at me differently," Zach added with a nod of his head to the right. "But you guys, they'd wonder why the newest heroes they all look up to so much have been lying to them from the very start, from their first years at U.A. high school. It doesn't matter if it's now or five years from now. Some people, will still look at you differently. I think Midoriya, that once you make the decision that's it. If you don't make the active choice to do things a certain way then you won't get blamed for it. And you never chose to keep your Quirk a secret from the public because the public never asked. They don't know your real strength yet because you haven't flown around like All Might stopping all the crimes easily. They'll ask though, and when they do that's when the decision is made. And that's a decision you have to stick to forever after that moment," Zach said it and Midoriya felt a deep sense of dread inside him just at the idea of that happening one day, most likely a day coming very soon.

"Every time we get started on you," Midoriya started. Midoriya narrowed his eyebrows in towards his nose and glared at his old classmate in front of him, "On the way you do things, you bring it back and compare it to me." Zach's expression flattened and it got a little darker at the angry way Midoriya started looking at him. "And I admit there are a couple of things I have to think about. Mistakes, maybe, I don't know. But stop turning the tables like my side is just as even as yours. "There are a couple of things I've done wrong since we started at U.A. together, but I accept that I did those things wrong and want to do better next time. I want to make sure I'm doing it right, always."

"It isn't a clear line," Zach started back. "You say 'maybe' and you 'don't know,' because it isn't that easy. It isn't just what's right and wrong, our actions aren't at least!" He called that out when Midoriya opened his mouth to counter, and Zach snapped at him, "How often are you faced with hard choices where one option is easily the better and more right of the two? It's not a hard decision when that's the case, but the world isn't black and white. The line isn't-"

"It has to be," Midoriya countered firmly back at him. "Staying on the light side of the line, is what makes us heroes."

"Then what about all the people heroes can't save, because of the gray?" Zach demanded to know the answer, leaning forward and glaring harder at his friend as he asked. "Because heroes have to wait until the incident has already started to go in? Because they need permits to save a little girl?! Because heroes have rules?!"

"Without rules," Midoriya yelled back. "Who gets to decide what's right and what's wrong? YOU?!"

"I was never deciding what's right and wrong. It's not something people can decide for themselves. Right and wrong are pretty fucking clear things. If I see people who don't deserve to be hurting, in pain because of the actions of someone else, then that person is at fault." Zach said that and guilt covered his expression as much as it stayed strong, though he knew enough people who matched that definition where he was the one at fault.

Midoriya calmed down a little at that definition as it was not sounding wrong to him, but he continued, "The rules are in place to decide those things. They're a guideline showing us for the times when we might forget or think that we can decide what's right on our own. The clear things, you can forget in the moment."

"Those rules don't cover everything," Zach countered, and Midoriya's face scrunched back up frustratedly at the response. "They don't even touch on speed. Speed doesn't matter when it comes to following protocol, after all. Because following the rules to the letter means taking so much time to let people suffer as long as you make sure you do things the right way. Those innocent people suffer, from the wrongs that fill the world, and what about those people who are suffering because of our rules? What about helping them? The ones who suffer more than anyone else, who laws and heroes can't reach."

"Heroes can always reach," Midoriya retorted.

"They couldn't reach that lab in Virginia," Zach countered. He said it and his expression got darker as Midoriya shut his mouth. "For entire generations they couldn't reach them... They couldn't reach, millions of people."

"I reached. And I, gave heroes the credit. I kept my involvement secret," he said that almost sounding regretful for it now. He shook his head though, then he looked at Midoriya looking dark in a way Midoriya was unnerved at the sight of. It was calm and collected unlike he felt at the moment. Despite watching Zach's face contort in horrifying ways not ten minutes earlier, Midoriya could hardly imagine that being the same intense and focused person in front of him right now.

"But what I did was necessary. As a person it's damning, but I was an ideal. I was bigger than myself…"

Zach said that too thoughtfully, and the pit in Midoriya's stomach grew much bigger. This is doing the opposite of reassuring me! Are you, thinking about how you're still like that? Because Lifebringer, is bigger than one person?! That's what's going through your head!

"Lifebringer, has to do things the right way," Zach assured Midoriya whose reasons for staring at him like that he understood. "That's what that symbol has to represent. It's the reason for coming back and showing everyone Lifebringer isn't a villain. I have to, be better this time. Not destroyed to the point where I'd do anything. That also means not doing anything to make sure that Lifebringer thing works out too. I can't, force Lifebringer to work out like I did with Death. As Death, I could do things in any way that was needed to accomplish my goals. To be the ones who could always reach. When others couldn't."

"You say that Lifebringer has to be better," Midoriya started in a low voice. "But you're failing at that right now." You sound less heroic, and more defensive of what you did as Death than ever before. Midoriya hated what caused it, but he knew it inside, He was able to so strongly decry Death's actions before because he did not let himself remember the reasons or the outcomes but only what Death did, and how bad those actions were, and he could look back at them as a hero and say they were objectively wrong. "Lifebringer can't defend Death, if that's-"

"I can," Zach responded. "And I will," Zach added on top of that. Midoriya stared at him with his eyes growing wider at the addition, but Zach continued with a thoughtful look away, "Heroes have done it before. It'd be hypocritical of me to be so critical of them. If someone asks Lifebringer, I might not agree with everything they 'did' but I won't decry them as terrorists. Maybe I would have before, but they're good people. Every one of them fighting for the world more than any hero. And fuck if I'm going to push any more negativity towards them, which could result in more heroes going after them, and hurting my friends who can't ever receive the credit but could at least use a break."

Midoriya ground his teeth, but a breath slipped out and he just stared at Zach in a moment of awe at the decisions he made in seconds. Zach looked back at his more indecisive friend who knew that he was being too hesitant there, and Midoriya bit down again before saying, "And what's going to happen when things push you too far here? When Lifebringer is pushed, in the same ways you were back as Death when the war got that bad?"

"Things won't get that bad again," Zach argued with a shake of his head.

"You don't know that. With the League still around, and so many people you care about," Midoriya hated himself for saying it but he gave Zach a harsher look despite the anger on Zach's own face at what Midoriya was suggesting could happen to those people. Deku said even stronger when he saw Zach's reaction, "Things here could get that bad-

"They couldn't," Zach replied darkly, his voice scratching deeply for a moment that made Midoriya shut up and open his eyes wide. It was not a slip up on Zach's part though, but intentional to make Midoriya be quiet so he could speak uninterrupted. "Because every time I took a life, it made me stronger. I'm not talking about a boost, Midoriya. That's not what that means." Zach stared into Midoriya's eyes and deep within them with his expression so intense and calm despite what he was saying that it had Deku frozen speechless. "Like I was saying before, it means that when I killed Spinner at the Sports Festival, I was stronger at Breakneck's lab. It means that after a burst of six lives at once, what I could do with Death was completely different. Maybe not the level of what it was on Trigger, but six more human lives was much more a base-Death boost than what I showed from the immediate boost of killing all the animals in that truck."

Zach narrowed his eyes more and said in an ominous tone, "I didn't know my power enough to realize the difference back with Shindeki Buda and Compress. But at that Trigger lab, I found I could fall from higher with less damage done to me, and I could force out more Death or have it cover more places, and I could fight for longer. Each time I killed a person using Death, Midoriya, I could notice a jump, a big jump in strength. A power-up, that allowed me to do more, a lot more. And if that's from just one person," his teeth bared for a second, but he got the message across and did not need to finish to his friend who already knew how many people he had killed. Too many. "And I didn't want to get any stronger, Midoriya. I told you I don't consider getting stronger increasing the strength of Death, because I didn't want to think of it that way and give myself any reason to kill. Yet as hard as I tried not to kill, and despite the fact that whenever I had the choice I killed without using it, so as not to let it grow stronger! I still wound up killing way too many with it. It's part of the reason I didn't want to kill Amaterasu, and showed her my mercy instead-"

"Mercy?" Midoriya gasped out at his friend who had told him about her. "That's really, what you consider mercy?"

"Yes," Zach replied. "It was," he added, putting it into the past tense but only as an aside. He shook his head at the shocked teen in front of him, and he said while looking down at him, "You can't even imagine the kinds of things I've seen. The things that could push me that far, so don't say they could happen here too." The look of pain and disgust on Midoriya's face did not make Zach feel bad about anything he just said anymore. He just glared harder and stepped forward closer to Midoriya upon seeing that look that he felt was to make him feel guilty. "If what I just said was my mercy," Zach leaned in and he asked in an intense but pained voice, "Then what do you think I could be capable of, when I choose not to show mercy?"

"You're talking like a villain."

"That's because you push me to act like one," Zach retorted immediately to Midoriya's dark statement. His friend's eyes opened wider again, his fists that had clenched so tightly there loosening just as fast. Zach glared harder at him, and he said angrily though there was a pained tone in his voice, "That's because you've yet to understand something, Midoriya. I don't want to fight you. You get all antagonistic against me over and over, and now you have even more reason to, but I need you to know this. I would never attack you. I would never, choose to fight you. But if you come after me…"

Zach's eyes darkened worse than Midoriya had ever seen them before. He started breathing faster at Zach's serious expression and eyes full of rage. "If you come for me, I won't sit there and let you. I won't just take it sitting down." Zach turned his back and started walking off into the forest away from Midoriya, "So if you're thinking about telling me when you change your mind, this is your warning. I will defend myself. If you come after me," Zach shifted his head sideways and glared back while still walking. "I will crush you."

His legs bent, and black wings flapped off his back ten meters long to either side of him. Those black wings slammed down into the ground and left marks of black where they hit, while Zach shot up through a gap in the branches above and high into the sky looking like a giant black bird. He flew away from Nagatomi without waiting to see if Midoriya would try to stop him.

Back in the forest, Deku took a step after where Zach just shot up into the sky. His hand rose up and his mouth opened to yell out, then his legs started to bend only to give up on that halfway too. If I fly up now, I don't know if there's anything to talk about after what he just said.

Why did I say it like that? Zach flew off with his expression lowering from the hardened and convicted one from a moment ago. He bit down and scolded himself, Saying it like that was ensuring that he was going to have to come after me! And why did I warn him in the first place at all? Why would I? The angry look turned more thoughtful for a second, then he frowned deeper at the answer he came up with, Something inside me is changing, not that that's a bad thing. Before I would have gone back to Tartaros without a fight, but I know how much damage that would cause. I can't- then why tell Midoriya?

Zach shook his head but got a darker look on it still, I might come to regret that. I'm already starting to… But a piece of me also still thinks that if Midoriya decides to come after me, that's what should be done and I should accept it. I know it would be right, but I know that not everything that's right has to happen. Shit- no, not shit. The part of me that would accept your decision, is fading, Zach hummed to himself while flapping behind him again. I don't actually care though. That's odd, but I guess it's less about me changing and more just that I realized things I didn't before. Midoriya doesn't always know what's right. Maybe, I was always wrong to accept that, and only now am I ready to do whatever I have to. Maybe… Just change your mind. Come.

Midoriya stepped back, and he leaned against a tree behind him and then hunched his body forward. He put his hands down on his knees while panting over and over, All those things- Focus! What he just said- all those dark things, he wouldn't have said any of them unprompted, or even just pushed lightly. I thought that it was that insanity and his broken mind that made him do those things, but it's those things he did that made his mind break like it did, and they really are so much worse than I could…

Midoriya brought his right hand to his head and put it over the front of his face with a small gap between his face and his palm. "It's impossible," he whispered, his voice in disbelief. He couldn't believe Zach and yet knew it was more than just a truth Zach believed. He stopped things worse than- than I ever could now that those things are all destroyed. Midoriya's fingers curled into his head more, his eyes wide and shaking as he stared into his palm. And yet I know what I'm going to have to do! Midoriya swung his hand down and stepped forward away from the tree, but he pulled his head back and his legs shook as he could not decide whether to bend them or leave them straight. But…

Come after me already! Zach yelled it in his head, pushing down the other thoughts telling him that was a stupid thing to hope for. Damn it! Just come after me and finish this! I gave you every reason to right there. So let's see who would win. Why? If you do, I won't be able to stay. I'd have to leave. Unless I acted like you had no proof. I could just fight it out in court, or- or not let myself get arrested in the first place! You'd have to bring in other heroes, and I'd face off against all the heroes of Japan. I could still win- Fuck. I'd fight all the heroes of Japan? That's what a villain would do! That, would get the Army of Death to come after me. I could take them all on too, since I never had to revive Gentle or Exodus. Stop! I could take on this whole country- Not that I've ever thought about that, until now! Damn it Midoriya, you make me think like a villain! Come chase after me so I can kick your ass for that! Come after me… Please.

No one came after Zach. Midoriya just stared up into the sky with his arms going limp down at his sides and the tension leaving his body. But I said I was going to give Zach a chance until he messed up. Zach just defending himself or admitting those horrible things isn't Zach doing more! Even right there, it sounded more like he wanted me to… I don't understand. I don't know what to do. All you've done since you come back is help. Help, way more than I ever have. Stopped more villains, saved more people, and- and I know someone needs to. It's too dangerous but, Midoriya's eyes he rose up to the sky in a semi-confident way shook and lowered back down to the floor. I can't do it.

I'm not confident enough in myself. It doesn't feel right enough for me to do it, or like I have any right to when I know nothing about the real world. I have no right, when I've… done nothing. Midoriya tilted his head back and let out a long, heavy breath. Then, the exhaustion and self-pity on his face faded and his eyes narrowed up at the sky above. That's no excuse, to do nothing now.

Zach flew far from Nagatomi, several hundred miles to the north before he descended below the clouds in a city having a rainstorm. Everyone had umbrellas over their heads, or hoods up with their eyes down, and Zach shot out of the air like a rocket anyway for the few who may have been looking up in that moment who could see him. He dropped between two buildings in a narrow alleyway where there were no windows on the walls on either side because the alley was too thin for there to be anything more than one side door for the one in front of him when he landed. The alley was barely his shoulder-width wide, so he came down parallel to the walls with his wings snapping straight up over him before fading.

His wings faded while he was still falling only halfway down the buildings, but he landed with his legs shrouded in darkness. He did not need to bend them on his landing as the force of the jolt hit in a moment that most of his innards flashed black too. The alley was something Zach knew to be a flaw in initial architecture when the buildings were being built. The first one behind him was put up with the second building in mind, but the designs for the second building changed to be a couple feet shorter in width than initially expected meaning the buildings were not touching at the sides. The developers who realized the mistake decided to add a door in on the building in front of him as a potential fire exit, but the alley was rarely to never used and the door was locked from the inside.

Zach put his hand forward under the old-fashioned metal handle on the doorway, and darkness came out of his palm and slid into the lock. The darkness hardened into the shape of a perfect key and turned, and Zach lifted his hand to wrap around the actual handle he pulled outwards towards him with it scraping on the floor of the alley's cracked cement. He stepped inside and grabbed a piece of plywood that was leaning up looking like it was just in the way, and he reached down and grabbed his backpack from below it that he slid his right arm into the strap of then his left after he leaned the wood back on the wall using his left hand that was not gloved but did not have fingerprints on the fake skin anyway.

He turned back around and stepped out into the alleyway that was getting wetter now as the wind had slowed down so some rain managed to fall down all the way to ground level. It was harder to stand out in the alley with his backpack on, so Zach stood diagonally in it while closing the door behind him. There was not enough width to create his wings yet either, so he jumped up and kicked his left foot into the wall, then his right on the opposite one, and he climbed up the walls to the roof of the shorter building he leapt out over with a final kick on the taller building's wall just below where its windows started. He shot horizontally over the shorter building and flapped two wings off his back down hard to shoot straight up into the sky and nearly to the dark clouds with that single flap.

As soon as he was into the clouds, an eruption of darkness blew out from his back as he lowered his legs down so the blast that came out the middle of his body sent him flying standing straight-up through the cloud. His head and legs pulled back a little as he kept shooting a stream of Death out his back to propel him through the air, but he needed to be upright like that as he swung his backpack around his front and unzipped the middle and second biggest pouch in the bag. He reached inside and took out a water bottle even while his face was already getting hit by moisture as he flew through the cloud completely masked in the air. He rose himself up until his head left the thickest part of the clouds, and he chugged some of the water then put it back into the pack he had on backwards so it was over his chest. He dug around in the second pouch some more and pulled out a protein bar and a bottle of vitamins.

"AHHHHHH! PLEASE NO!" Zach swallowed two of the vitamins and then sealed the bottle back up, snapping one hand out to the side as a pill bounced out of the bottle at the last second. He caught it and slid it back inside before putting the bottle back in his bag, then he unwrapped the snack bar and put the wrapper into his bag while protecting the bar from the wind with one black hand at the end of a third arm that had emerged out of his right side under his real one. That black hand was a little bigger and kept the wind from breaking the bar, and Zach lowered his head to it and started eating with a steady look on his face. "What is he!?" "OH MY GOD! IT'S DEATH!" "RUUUUNNN!" "You idiots! You can't run from it!" "HE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL!" "DEMON!" Please- Please no! NO! AHHHhh-"

Zach shoved the rest of the food in his mouth and swung his pack back around his back after he zipped it up. "Alright," he wiped his mouth and descended back into the thicker clouds, though he noticed they were thinner where he was flying anyway. He pulled out his waterproof phone and had to pull it close to his face, while he turned his body more horizontal and replaced the beam of Death shooting out his back with more sustainable wings that wouldn't waste any Death. "Let's see," he said under his breath, his voice getting lost in the wind of how fast he was moving. I ignored how many people I've killed for too long. I'll hit all the hospitals first, as they've all been posting about every death waiting for me. I can't leave the country so that's the wall. Can I make it around all of Japan? I have to. I have 12 hours.

This fucks with the plan. It's not about the big picture! Fuck the big picture, people's lives shouldn't be considered in that. Not when I have the power to save them right now. Zach grit his teeth then shook his head with a steadier expression replacing it again, and a smile coming over his face as he started to drop through the sky. Would be easier with my headset on but they'd know I planned to come out instead of just going to emergencies. It's stupid, when they all know anyway, but it is the excuse and I've already used it at the review. I'll just save them all for twelve hours. No one in Japan can die for half a day. Fuck the long-term, they shouldn't have to die, and I can save them. "NOOOO! AGHH- plea- NO! No no no! STAY BACK! AHHHH! EEAAAAAAAAAaahh… You… monster."

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A/N Zach and Midoriya come to odds. The Tusukan Desert and what happened in Virginia are revealed, as Zach opens up the dam and let's everything flow out. Midoriya knows the horrible truth of how many people Zach's killed, and the two split on a bad note as Zach warns him about his decision not to allow himself to be captured if that time comes. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading.