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!

193. Chapter 193

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 193:

"Damn man," Kotsumura could not help himself and leaned to his left after Zach had come into the room almost right when class was going to start. The flat expression on Zach's face somehow kept anyone from saying a word to him on his way to his seat, even though they all had heard insane things that morning that added onto what they had already heard about before going to bed last night. "I saw something like 182 people you brought back-"

"206 was the final number," Zach replied, cutting off Kotsumura whose eyes widened more at the statement in such a cold and low voice. It was not happy to have brought those people back, or even upset, but just uncaring like he wanted Kotsumura to get the number right more than he was bragging about how it had been 24 people more than Keiji thought he heard. "I died two hundred and six times over the past twelve hours," Zach muttered lower, while pulling out a spiral notebook from his backpack and putting it on the desk in front of him.

"You, died-"

"That's what it feels like, every time I bring someone back," Zach said, taking out a pencil and flipping to an open page of his notebook. "All the damage done to them before and after death, and the feeling of death itself. 206 times." He looked to his right and made eye contact with Kotsumura without looking around at any of the others around the blond who were all staring at him with huge eyes too. Zach just looked in Keiji's blue eyes and said lower, "So don't bring it up again today, yeah?"

Zach looked back down at his notebook, his expression flat, not showing his exhaustion at all like he kept it out of his voice. I should be more tired though, he told himself, considering he only felt as tired as he was. Hazano came in the room and Zach looked up with a look showing he was ready for the day, pencil in hand and his expression not tired or angry at all. He just looked normally towards Hazano who wondered what Sazaki must have been talking about beforehand to have every student in the class darting him strange looks and pretending they weren't.

I knew he didn't sleep at all last night, considering it was only saying something like twenty before I went to sleep…

Over two hundred people in one night?! Shit, and I was wondering why he hasn't been doing this more often. Is he wiped? I can't even tell.

Zach, you die each time? Dendo watched Zach's face carefully even as class started. Zach just nodded along with the homeroom teacher about their plans for the day, wrote some stuff down, and took out a different book to get ready when the next class was starting. Dendo focused on class as well, but he kept trying to recover that anger he had the night before that kept him up so late he barely slept. That's not a… You don't really die. You're still here, after all. 206 people. They were saying not one person in all of Japan, and here you are just going to school the next day like the rest of us. How many people are dying right now you could still be out there saving? You don't look like you're even thinking about them!

Inasa stared towards the back of Zach's head with his expression lowered and his eyes upset at the cool and collected way Zach was taking the day. Has none of it been real? All your time here, laughing and joking around with us, were you just taking it as a joke the whole time?

Eagle Eyes walked into the classroom, and the teacher took a noticeable pause when he saw Sazaki in his seat. He thought to mention something about what Zach had been doing for the past day that had the entire nation talking, and yet the teacher found himself going along with his regular lesson plan and trying hard to ignore Sazaki's darker look than he normally saw it. It was still not even that dark really, more just a flat and calm expression nowhere near as cheerful as Zach always gave off as his natural tone.

His vibe was off. Everyone who had known him for two months now could feel it. The teachers and the students, and everyone in the cafeteria who looked his way and saw him sitting at his usual table but not the center of the conversation as he always was. The lunchroom was quieter without Zach pushing his classmates' conversations forward, and with all of them wanting to talk about the news of the nation that was still blowing up on their phones. Yet none of them wanted to bring it up after overhearing in that silent classroom that morning what Zach said to Kotsumura. Those few lines he said explained enough about what he had done, why he had only done it this much, why his vibe was the way it was, and the most unnerving thing of the day was the realizations each of them had that the peace and quiet Zach received from them had been decided by him when he explained himself first thing after sitting down.

With barely a few words he managed to keep everyone off him all day, Muoko stared towards Zach and grimaced at how he stood up without saying a word from his lunch table. He excused himself without speaking, and without acknowledging that his departure had stopped the others' conversation instantly despite him not even being involved. On Ranking Day, there was another reason he only went as hard as he did against us. Did he do the same thing with the Subspace Devils?!

I don't recognize him one bit today, Kotsumura watched Zach heading out of the cafeteria, and he looked down in a sadder way at his lunch he pushed at with his fork. Trabo and Kameko lifted their gazes from across the table to look at the blond who frowned so deeply down at his mashed potatoes it appeared like they were making fun of him for some deeply personal flaw of his. I want to think 'that's so unlike him,' but I can't even seriously believe that myself. He's never acted like this, and yet, it feels more like he's been acting unusual all the other times rather than he's acting weird today. That's all it takes. One day of not caring to cover it up, and you'll lose- no. No! No one's going to just give up on him. Not Class 1. He's a part of our class now.

Kotsumura thought it, but a look around showed him more than just upset and saddened expressions. He saw skeptical ones too, and angry looks, betrayed even and darker accusatory ones as they looked after where Zach had just walked without looking like he cared that other people were dying and he was spending his time in school.

"Did you see that phone video that came out with Zach and Deku on it though?" Jaime questioned Roger Whitewood who angrily just muttered something to his lunch table while looking after Zach. Jaime shook her head at her fellow American friend when he looked back at her, and she continued, "He explained why he can't go outside of Japan before he even started that spree. Someone questioned him about it, and he said the Japanese hero officials told him he can't leave the country anymore."

"They did?" Roger asked, his eyes widening and his eyebrows rising up high. The surprise lasted only a second though, but he did shift his anger, "Then it's their fault, fine. Why do they get to decide something like that then? They think Japanese people are more important than everyone else?"

"I heard there were multiple foreigners in the group that died…"

"I heard someone just died a little while ago. You think he's going to leave school early before…"

"What's he even still doing here?"

"Do they really consider him a student like the rest of us?"

"It's unnatural. He just decided to stop deaths for the whole country for a period of time. That's insane!"

The cafeteria filled with noise when Zach was gone, everyone feeling more free to talk about Lifebringer than when he was in there. The Class 1 students were talking about him themselves, but they turned as they heard everyone else talking about it too. Class 2 students held off from going to their Class 1 counterparts though, looking at them oddly which made some of the Class 1 students start getting more upset themselves as their association with Lifebringer was putting them under scrutiny.

"That kind of power is nuts."

"I heard he even brought back a guy who killed himself. Wouldn't let anyone die."

"And yet I bet today a few hundred people do die. Like, what the hell's wrong with him?"

"Why do they let him do that?"

"Why are they making him come here? My mom was freaking out this morning."

"…I mean, it was cool knowing he had the power to take on whole villain groups like the Subspace Devils," a young girl in the general studies course at Shiketsu started in a low voice to her friends. She gulped with another dart of her eyes around hoping Lifebringer was nowhere around her to hear her say something like this. "But couldn't he have just stopped with that? This kind of power. Controlling life and death-"

"So if you die, you don't want him to save-"

"Don't say that," the girl hissed back at her friend, praying Lifebringer didn't hear that. "If he hears you he might take it seriously. I'm betting we have a better chance of surviving death right now, just because he's around us! But still, seeing him do it on that wide a scale… how long until he could go around the whole world?"

"That's… I don't even want to think about…"

"He'd be like God."

Zach stood right outside of the cafeteria, his back up against the wall next to the open doors. He stared forward with his eyes half-closed and unmoving as he watched the opposite wall. He listened to those behind him, and he thought to himself, Natural reactions are mostly negative. More fear than hope. And the hope is still just on a small scale of hoping I don't let them stay dead. Even those people are still fearful of what I'm becoming. No way to reverse it though. Doing anything more, even referencing what I just did, it'll just make things worse. I just have to move- "He's over there!" Zach closed his eyes, but the voice he just heard in his head screamed out in agony a second later anyway.

I've lost the ability to believe the lie, he thought with his eyes opened again, as that memory he just thought of once had a nice calm replacement from Terra. I captured him and sent him to the Allied Forces. Our forward army was successful that day and had a party to celebrate. And sure that party was interrupted by nightcrawlers, but- that's all a bunch of complete bullshit. It sounds so fake even in my head. I actually expected people to believe this shit? Zach grimaced and thought in a darker way, Some people actually do. They're not idiots for it. I'm just a good liar. The best. Not anymore. Doubt I could even get past Norasaki anymore. Next time I'm questioned I'll have to either re-shatter my own mind and recreate the lies again, or just tell the truth, or lie and see if that bastard can actually tell- he's not a bastard. He's an administrator at a school teaching future heroes.

A good man. And a hero. Who has right to be suspicious of me, considering I'm the most suspicious person in the world. Considering I've killed more than almost anyone. Eziano's definitely killed more people than me though! All For One probably has too! And Shigaraki… could have, and I just don't know… 206 people, isn't even as many as were in that desert. I've killed more people in an hour than I brought back in 12. Zach started forward back towards Class 3-1.

He arrived before most of his classmates, and he gave a couple nods when the ones who were already there looked towards him. Don't completely ignore them. Just show them you're not in the mood to be in a good mood. I don't think I could fake a smile right now. It's enough like this though- "AHHHHH!" And when Enorma sensei comes in, it'll be good since I'll have to focus. Going over Iscariot's past. Thunderclap already has so much information on him out there though. All of his former cases, his childhood, shit! If we just go back over all of that I won't have a chance to- "What's wrong Reaper? Did you forget about what you did in that hole in Virginia? Those unarmed scientists, you slaughtered- Now!"

Zach's expression flattened out completely and he looked towards Enorma but could only half-focus for the entire lesson as she talked about Iscariot, the second most wanted man in the country. I let Amaterasu get to me because I had that wall up, and she put a tiny crack in it. I got sent into the Void, and I was able to believe that lie so easily. I was able to convince others it was the truth, because it's all I thought about for years. A fantasy. Detailed enough to convince so many people reading Oda's book. "No way Sazaki could have made this all up!" "Lifebringer really traveled to another world! This changes everything!" "Would he really have lied to all of us about this?" "Where else could he have been?! We never saw him for all that time, and him being off-world is the only way to explain how he suddenly disappeared and came back 7 months later!"

Enorma's leaving. Are we going to have any time to work on reports today? I've been stretching mine out. Saying I've been working on it while I hunt down leads and try tracking Kaminari. He's too smart though. He knows I'm coming, and he had all the time I was in Tartaros to prepare for the day I got out. He knew I'd be out early before I did. He knew Mina would succeed, and he let her succeed anyway. Or he knew that taking her out would have- "Please don't! Death! HELP ME! THEY'RE KILLING US!"

"They're ripping us apart up here!"

"We're like sitting ducks!"

"FUCKING HELL! WHERE IS BLACKJACK?!"

"He'll be here!"

"I'll focus their fire."

"Death!"

"Commander! There's too much, you'll never-"

"He's too far ahead!"

"Everyone follow your Commander!"

"We can't beat them!"

"THERE'S TOO MANY!"

"We have to run!"

"We will not run. We will not falter! Death will come for them all!"

"WITH ME!"

"RAAAAA!"

"Dea-ath! …ZACH!" They had her pants down already. THEY WERE GOING TO RAPE HER! He saw a sword slash straight through a man's skull, and another's head spinning around 180 degrees as he broke their neck. Pirates' bodies fell all over that warehouse, and he heard her scream his name again, It's no excuse. Any amount of Death would have knocked them out. I wasn't even using Death for most of it though. THEY WERE RAPISTS! He saw a man on his knees smirking towards him, towards a screaming little girl near him the guy pursed his lips at and blew a kiss to while his soldiers held her back. That same man was still bound, but he was now face-down on the floor with a puddle pooling around his skull that had a hole through it.

A small body flew backwards in Zach's head, blood splashing from her back that he could see through because of how wide the hole cutting through her was. La Brava, Zach heard Gentle's screams in his head of that name. "You bring her back! BRING HER BACK NOW!" The small body flew backwards again, and Zach saw his vision turning to two others who ran forward past where she was flying backwards. The men in dark costumes fired forwards, screaming out in rage and gunning down the villains ahead of them. Some of those villains turned to run, and he watched as holes ripped through their backs and blood splashed out their fronts as they fell in mid-sprint away.

"Death. I," I couldn't even look at him. I couldn't bare to. I thought, out of everyone Exodus could… "I'm sorry. I- I said I would- I-" He couldn't even ask me. Who he was wouldn't allow it. The kind of person, and yet- "I just need, some time. I- I can't… If you give me a day, I could- But Scotland, and the Mad Doctor's, India, and I kept going but- I'm not trying to make excuses. I know I'm failing you, by asking…" The fact that you felt that way, I must have shown it on my face. I never thought you'd ask me something like… I guess I never thought of you as, as human as the rest of us. You were like a superhuman to me. My most powerful friend who would follow me no matter- and yet I could keep going when you… I'm just glad, Darling was still out from Wampajawa so she never saw it.

I probably pushed you to that point. "Do you want this one destroyed like the others?" He asked it so coldly and detached, but I- I didn't think it would be Access. He saw the body slouched up against the burnt carcass of a building in a city pluming black smoke into the sky. "Yes." He destroyed them all. All our comrades, and I expected him to be-

"Would you like a cup of coffee? Black? It's fine. I'll put a cream and sugar in it for you." The smiling woman with long purple hair turned from him, then she was on the ground with blood splashed over her face and her hair splayed all over the place. And La Brava's body flew over Seraphim's corpse, blood splashing out of her all over him and Seraphim's body. And it flew back again, and again, over and over and over. "AHHH! STOP IT! STOP THIS NOW!" Crack! He didn't deserve my mercy!

The Mad Doctor's face appeared in Zach's head, as another Crack filled his mind. His vision shifted down, to where he had the man's hands grabbed in his own. He broke more and more of the Mad Doctor's fingers, snapping them backwards one by one as the man's screams rang through his mind. His eyes rose back up to the Mad Doctor screaming so furiously and afraid of him, and the mad scientist's face turned into Michael's no longer looking like the carefree and happy man he had known for months. After Grabble and Access, long after Cee, after everyone, Zach saw Michael look down at the floor, then raise his head to him and wonder, "Grabble, did he, die fighting at least?"

"Death! There are too many! We have to get out of- shit! Just take Tama's body! I'll protect- AH! Fuck-" Du-du-du-du BANG BANG BANG- BOOM! "Please, save… her." It was the last thing he asked me, and I failed at that too. I let them rip her into pieces right in front of me! I shouldn't have switched to trying to save him. I could have finished reviving her- or just flown away while holding her body! Anything, anything but instead I just- Even Grabble! It was his second time, I could have just grabbed him and her both from the start and flown off before they could surround us! I- I was tired. I wasn't thinking straight! I was trying so hard to get in a fight to get my mind off- "AHAAAAHHHH!" "AAHEEEEE!" "EEEEEAAAAA!" "WHa- huh- Wha ka- AAkhhh…" Those fucking screams! The Mad Doctor screamed too! While I beat him to death! WHY CAN'T I JUST THINK OF THOSE?!

"You think I care about you?!" He smashed the Mad Doctor's face down into his control panel, and he broke his fingers even more to the point he felt like he was almost ripping them off as the man screamed for mercy. After what he did, to Zeke?!

Hazano Worrod stood in front of his class who he was trying to explain how they would be presenting their reports over the next month. He looked over towards Sazaki over and over again during his explanation of the schedule, but he finally stopped talking and just frowned deeper at the boy whose expression was so unfocused and dark it looked like it did on the day of the attack on Desusuta. Is he going to use that as an excuse to get out of here again? Go continue his reviving spree? Do you really think you can use the same excuse twice?

The classroom quieted down completely. The silence seemed to get even more quiet as everyone looked to where Hazano was staring, to the person who didn't even notice him. Hazano's expression started shifting and his eyes widened at the boy who was staring forward no longer with the flat normal expression he had earlier. It was not panicked either, or necessarily sad or angry. Muoko looked back and to her left towards him, and her heart raced at the sight of his eyes staring forward without looking at anything.

Kotsumura just shifted his gaze to the corners of his eyes again and then back at his desk with pain filling his chest. Others who had found themselves agreeing more with the others in the cafeteria before retracted everything they had said and thought as they looked towards him in that moment. None of them said a word in that quiet classroom in a moment of silence with every person staring towards Zach Sazaki.

Hazano opened his mouth, looking straight at his student who he now wanted to tell something to. And then he thought about a line in the book that he had read over the past couple of days, "Usually Zach kept a good spirit about him when telling these stories, but we could always tell when something was a little worse than what he was telling us. The Battle of the Six Armies was something he referred to often but rarely ever got into, and I never questioned him why that was. We all knew from that single line he'd say about the worst of times in that world, 'We took heavy casualties.' It took me a few times hearing it, to realize that it was always how he referred to the amount of people he lost. Yet I know that he knows, exactly how many people he lost on those days."

Hazano thought of the line from the book, and then he heard Sazaki's explanation when he came back to school after facing the Subspace Devils. "I needed to, get out… I was having a hard time. I was, thinking about things that I, I usually don't think about. Things I can push back, most of the time… When I was gone, I fought in a war on a different world that took everything I had. I saw things and, I did things…" Hazano looked back at the rest of his class and continued talking as if he had not stopped there, surprising most of the students and making some of them get even more hurt looks on their faces as they tried to refocus too.

I didn't believe you, Hazano thought to himself. I didn't know how you were getting around Norasaki, but I knew I was just accepting your reasons because it was easier to. Because if it really took everything you had, if you really saw those things and "did" things yourself… this is what I thought you'd be like, all the time.

Reika frowned as their homeroom teacher just continued class like nothing was wrong, and she glanced to her right to see what her friend next to her thought. Reika's bottom lip fell and her eyes shook at the sight of her friend's face next to her, while Himazuri stared down at the top of her desk and failed at holding back her tears.

The wide-eyed brunette could not help herself in that moment of silence. She was terrified of what would happen, but no one shouted at her to 'GET OUT OF MY HEAD.' No one attacked her when she started reading his mind this time, and she knew that it was because he had no idea she had started to as she heard thoughts she wasn't supposed to hear. Himazuri's eyes trembled as she saw what Zach was seeing, as she watched those men in dark uniforms rushing at a building they were shouting had human experimentation going on inside of.

"Get back!" Zach saw his arm reaching out and grabbing a man of a slightly smaller build than him. He yanked Zeke back behind cover, and he, Spiral, Access, and Exodus all looked at him in fear for a second.

"I'm- I'm fine. It didn't- It didn't break through!"

"Holy shit!"

"You lucky SOB!" Spiral had leaned forward and checked out Zeke's helmet that had cracks all over the visor splitting off of a single point where a bullet from the defense system had hit into.

"Someone's got God on his side today boys… and it's me," Rebel's voice came out smug, right as the gunfire stopped. "Go on in. Outer defenses are all down."

"On me." We should have done more recon. I shouldn't have gone straight in. The doctor already showed he was ready for a frontal assault. I should have expected the trap. Zach saw himself falling through the floor that had opened up below him. The five of them dropped down into the steel box below, and they snapped their heads up as the floor above closed back up to trap them inside. "Find a way out! Exodus, light up the place!"

"Understood, Commander!"

"Death himself has come to my humble lab? What an honor- NOT! Hehehe-"

"The Mad Doctor, I presume-" Zach darted his eyes around the room, as vents opened up and poured the green gas into the room. "Seal helmets-" His vision blurred as he spun so fast towards the one person in that room he was most terrified for, and he heard his own voice yell, "Hold your breath Zeke!"

"Get us out of here Access!"

"I'm trying!"

"Oh God, Fuck! FUCK ME!"

"Block your helmet!"

"Exodus! Blast a hole through the wall!"

"I am trying!"

"Hold on Zeke!"

"It's in my helm- ah, AHH-"

"Don't take it off!" Zeke ripped his helmet off though, as it was filled with green gas and he could not breathe.

"HEHEHE! CAN'T BREATHE?!" The Mad Doctor's voice echoed through Zach's mind, and then he watched as he stood on the second floor balcony holding that man over a group of villains, his own men, and the monstrous people the Mad Doctor had created. The man screamed in pain as he saw himself bust back into the Mad Doctor's room, beating him nearly to death. Then he saw himself holding that brutalized man dangling over everyone again, and the fingers sliding out of his glove to make the man stop struggling before he tossed him like a ragdoll down to the horde below.

"HELP ME!" As the Mad Doctor's body hit the ground, Zach saw Zeke back in the basement grabbing at his throat and clawing at it while the rest of them tried to find a way out of there. Zeke spun towards him, and he held his arms out as Zeke charged at him with his eyes bloodshot and bubbling. "KILL ME! AHH- Ah- Kill- PLe- AGh-" Blood and bile splashed out of Zeke's mouth, and Zach could see inside his mouth in that moment all his gums were bleeding. Blood came out of his eyes while the man grabbed him by the front of his costume, as Zach pulled his head back away while red splashed all over his visor. "Plea- Ki- Ah- AHh, guugh, raack-"

"I- I can't. I already, brought you-"

"AAhahhgggghh acckk-" Zeke's hands gripping into Zach's front started sliding down as the man threw up his melting insides. His skin was falling off his body, as Rebel yelled how he had cut off the vents in that particular room, and Access got the door open. Zeke was unmoving on the floor though in a puddle spreading wider as ooze came out of the holes in his costume and all around his face covered in melted skin that had pulled inwards and spilled his insides all over around it.

Zeke's body replaced with the back of the Mad Doctor's he held in front of all those people. Facing his soldiers, backing away from the test subjects about to kill their torturers. They were about to really turn into monsters. I had to kill him. A defenseless man- Another!

"...I didn't know." "I didn't want that to happen…" "I never wanted this! I just wanted some money to get through college! My parents died first semester in a villain attack, and I couldn't get through it without the extra cash on top of the part-time job I already had!" He had slaves! HE ENSLAVED PEOPLE! He didn't know, but- but he was irresponsible and- and so he had to die?! Pedro, wasn't even a bad person. Not one who deserved to die! But what other choice was there?! I freed his slaves! I freed the Mad Doctor's! And- "I, I've even been using the money I got from the operation to try and find a way out, try and come up with a cure…"

"AHHHHH! NOO-"

"Dropping to twenty thousand feet… Ten thousand… Here we go!"

"Follow your Commander!"

"Alright Reaper, they might have given you status as an executive, but I know what you really are." El Blanco. He was- The League member talking down to him started running away in a dark forest, screaming at the top of his lungs as Death caught up with him. He fell forward, as the wave of Death surrounded him and took his life, and the surge of Death pulled back into Zach's body with a pulse of euphoria. He looked around in a tinted world of red as those men ran off in the forest, as he held up a massive ball of Death to throw at them, and then the environment changed so those were not the men running from him anymore.

"We're sorry!"

"WE SURRENDER!"

"RROOOAAARRRRRR!"

"It's no use! HE'S A MONSTER!"

"Where is everyone?!" Bodies whipped up by Death into the sandstorm, and then two huge tentacles of Death snapped up and grabbed one of the men flying up to try and escape. The tentacles ripped opposite directions and tore the man in half, screaming as it happened faster than the Death worked on him.

That gold-skinned druglord in America fell in front of him, and he heard a different voice yell, "Why did you kill Pedro?!"

"We'll ambush the heroes as they raid the Silver Splitters. Kill all of them at once, blame it on the Envious and take the territory while heroes search the north to meet the demands of the public. We'll turn this whole nation into our plaything-"

"You think I'd let you?"

"AHH-"

"Where did he-"

"Dea-"

"…What? Did- did one of you just shit yourself? Well, I suppose I'll spare him then, if you're that afraid- Jesus! Don't everyone shit yourselves at once! Hahaha… It won't save you all."

"Please! Just- just let me go!"

"You villains who terrorize this world, I will never let you go. I will never stop. I WILL NEVER LET YOU HAVE YOUR WAY WITH THIS WORLD!"

"Are you afraid?"

"Death comes, for all villains! None shall escape my wrath!"

"KILL THEM ALL!"

"THIS IS THEIR LAST STAND!"

"Death help!"

"THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM!"

"The Cloak's destroyed, Zombieman's our greatest enemy, and everyone's dead! I can't take this! I CAN'T HANDLE IT!"

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

"Death! DEATH PLEASE! They're killing us!"

"Ahh" chh "Ahh, Death, Death can you hear me? I- I don't have my legs, I need… No. No no no! AHH-"

"They've got Dead Silence! They know he's one of us, and they're toying with- Oh my God."

"They're draw and quartering him! They've got him by the arms and legs and are pulling in different, oh- oh fuck- Dead Silence! I'm- AHH- No no! I'm not actually… AHH DEATH! Save me!"

Zach landed on the ground and men and women flew away from him in the blast of Death that erupted from his body on landing. He looked down at the floor, staring at Dead Silence's head. Darkcry fell on his knees next to Dead Silence's head, and he grabbed his friend's decapitated head while spinning to his Commander right near him. "We could put his body parts together. They're still around here, somewhere- You could revive him!"

"The Muting only lasted 6 seconds!"

"What happened to Dead Silence?!" Zach heard different shouts from the start of the world loop cutting into Darkcry's shouts from the end of it. "He already died once." Just like you had, and would again that day after I left you. Darkcry, and everyone else. I was so strong already! SO POWERFUL! How could I let that happen- Why did I kill all those people, if it wasn't to stop something like that from happening?!

Men screamed and ran away in the Tusukan Desert. "Death!"

"Please don't!"

"KILL HIM!"

"HELP ME!" They ran and stumbled away, as the massive dark hands waved all over the place growing larger and larger each time he swung them around. Their screams echoed all over, but louder than the screams echoed something else from much closer. "Hahahaha… HAHAHAHAHA! AAAhahahaha HAAA! WHAT'S WRONG, VILLAINS?!"

"I've shown you my mercy, villains!"

"You know I have mercy! I have tried over and over again to show you my mercy… but my mercy is running out."

"I WILL KILL YOU ALL!"

"EZIANOOOO!"

"GODDDD!"

"DEATHHH!"

He saw himself falling into B16, glancing up above him at the demons falling after him, splitting apart and pulling back together again. Down below he saw the test subjects, and the researchers, and the clean-up crew, and God's subjects killing them all. "SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE!"

Water pushed around him as he swam fast away from a submarine he spun back to as it exploded. "Replay was…"

He ran and stumbled down a street, buildings on both sides of him burning in raging infernos. Bullets flew through him, and he stumbled to the right as an explosion blew up on his left. He threw a knife in front of him covered in darkness, and the blade slammed into one man's chest while the darkness pulled off at the last second and hit the villain next to him in the back when that man thought he had gotten past the attack. That left only the third man who looked to his side at the other two, in a single second which was all it took before Zach's leg was swinging around in front of his face, nailing him in the head and smashing him through a burning wall next to them right before the building collapsed down on top of that man he just kicked in the face without using any Death. "Ahh- AHHH! NOoo! Please help! Help meeee…" The sounds of that man burning alive faded as he continued to run farther from the building.

Someone else's voice filled his mind instead, whether it was in that moment that he was hearing it overlap or in the present he did not know. "He's going to save me! ZACH PLEASE! AAHHHHHHH-" Watching the skin and flesh melt from Jenny's small body, he could smell the scent of burning flesh he knew would have been associated with it from the experience of the other times he smelled people burning.

The sky ripped apart and Zach could see the giant black holes filling it. The ground quaked, but he saw Dead Silence's head sitting there on the ground. Then the man's decapitated head started speaking in his mind, "Death, I wanted to thank you for bringing me back in Wampajawa. I don't know if I said it… I know, but I wanted to thank you anyway… It's, it's just, I know things are tough right now, but we can do this." Prado Marsinnian. "…Back when I was just Prado, before I was Dead Silence, right before I decided to become that anti-hero actually, it was Lifebringer that changed everything for me. Not Death. Not the Army of Death, and not what Lifebringer did in the Lifebringer Incident either. Before any of that, so far back… before the War Boys, when I heard what everyone thought you joined the League of Villains for- I know, you're not Zach Sazaki, but he was my inspiration. Lifebringer inspired me to be the man I am today, just like you have even more since I joined you."

"A year or so back, I decided to become a vigilante because of Lifebringer. I've looked up to him, for a long long time. I'd never be out here if it weren't for him." Dead Silence's head turned to the side in a quake that shook the ground, and then it fell into a fissure as the ground split open under them. Lava swept through the bottom of the fissure, and the head fell into a river of it- And Zach fell into a river of blood at the bottom of a lab, screams of 'Sacrifice' echoing around him as he splashed out of it with those demons charging at him from all sides.

Death wouldn't work on them, and he saw Isabel in the surveillance room he just shut the door of. He heard a voice behind him, "Open this door Death! You don't want to do this!"

But he did not open it, and he heard his voice screaming as he watched himself even earlier attack the beast the first time he saw it. "Why didn't Death work on that test subject?!" He heard his voice yell it, while even farther back he watched the monster charge through the explosion of Death.

"I don't know what you-"

He saw Wreck'd's head splitting apart on the wall after the British man pushed him away. His voice cut off Isabel's, "DON'T LIE TO ME! What did you do?!"

"We know all about you, Zach Sazaki… The power to kill instantly, and the power to bring someone back to life. They're remarkable. Yet there are so many unknowns, things we can still discover."

"What kinds of things? And why, can't I kill that test subject? The one with red fur, hunting us down? Why isn't it affected by Death? …If you don't tell me-"

"You know why."

They faked his death. Tortured him for, for months! All for what?! "We knew, from a report at VTS, that people you brought back to life before were not affected by Death. Something, changed, inside them." "How could a power that kills instantly just no longer work, just because someone had been brought back to life? It implied, that something had changed genetically about them. Unless it is a singularity where only your Quirk does not work against them anymore, then there was clearly something else at play." "When people are brought back, their diseases, their former injuries, they're all gone. Back pain, cancer, AIDS, and maybe even mental illness, PTSD, what about a concussion? We had to find out…"

All those people I brought back yesterday, how many of them will have good lives now that I've brought them back? And even if some of them- most of them are fine, what about people like Hawkins? Zach saw that red beast charging at him, and tackling him in the red river a mile below the surface as the walls exploded around him. And he got more blood on him as he cut apart the different versions, until he was on top of Hawkins' largest body and dug his knives into opposite sides of his skull, ripping it apart while bodies without any skin on them fell from the ceiling where they were hanging. Bodies were crucified to the walls and still living, and he saw himself swinging his right hand out as he ran past one, ending a life like it was nothing. And Zombieman?

Another man Zach had brought back to life filled his mind. "It isn't your fault, Death."

"He told me not to bring him back! I pushed him harder and harder, and when he finally could die! When he was going to die surrounded by friends who he loved enough to want to be brought back, I should have just let him- Instead!"

"RRRAAAAAAA!"

"Zombieman?!" "No! Stop it! Stop… please."

He smashed through a skyscraper in China and flipped himself over to look out the windows in panic as that monster shot through the sky after him. "GET BACK!"

Zombieman smashed through a hill outside of the city, "You're killing innocents! PLEASE!"

"DEATH!"

"Rappa?! You're, alive-"

"We have to kill him."

"You don't know him! That's Zombieman. He's a comrade-"

"Not anymore. I'm killing him!"

"I-"

"Your army is falling, Death. You going to let them all die to try and save him?"

"RRAAAA! AHHHh HAAA ROOOOAAARRR!"

"…We have to kill him."

He was my friend. They were all, my friends- It was hard to even think that, as he saw himself and Rappa covered in Zombieman's blood. Despite already being drenched in it though, they had to make sure with Zombieman's regenerative powers, and the two of them just kept digging back into his body and ripping out more flesh. Dark claws came off of Zach's front, adding another ten to the ones he was already using to rip his friend apart. They dug faster and faster, and then he snapped his head up as he saw what was coming in his peripheral vision. "RAPPA!" He had only just died the first time! And I- I could have seen it coming sooner- The entire Asian third army all at once, and not a single comrade around me. The most organized of all the 6 armies, other than my own.

The Battle of the 6 Armies, Zach looked down from so high up in the air, nothing but a giant mass of darkness below him. All the power from the Tusukan Desert at once. I knew the counterattack was coming and made sure not to drop to nothing anymore, but I had more power than ever. I used more power, and I still used Trigger at that most powerful, and I was- He saw ahead of him, and on his right and left sides as he stood there hundreds of feet high. Attacks flew up at him, but thousands were running in every direction away from him.

"PLEASE DEATH!"

"Help us!"

"They're killing us!"

The Cloak burned as a flaming carcass of its once great state. He heard his friends dying in his ears, while hundreds, thousands ran away from him. Those thousands started to turn as his comms were not the only ones back online. His enemies organized, with the strongest all moving towards him instead of away. The strongest ones came up on all sides, and the sides on his left and right were getting higher up as the elevation-changers adjusted the landscape. The sky trembled, as platforms rose and fell and pushed so close together they squished the people fighting on them to rain blood down. The black sky shook and started spinning around, and reality bent in front of him before the illusions started. And twenty of his huge black arms swinging around couldn't stop all the fastest villains flying up and running around him, attacking him from close range but moving back fast enough to dodge his attacks he could only make with split focus as he watched a thousand enemies at once.

Then the explosion came. The biggest explosion he had ever seen before, that he was right in the middle of. He couldn't see anything but darkness, and he climbed up finding it impossible to breathe even in the present. He held his breath without realizing it, as to breathe in would be to allow all that uck into his mouth. The blood and vomit and shit surrounding him, as he climbed up Bodies. He clawed his way to the surface, suffocating under all the corpses and bodies of the dead and unconscious. The bodies turned into nothing but a different dark muck that he could not see through and was drowning in, but he reached a hand up and grabbed the hand that had reached down for him inside it.

He snapped up to the surface and rose his katana, and the man in front of him held up a knife to his own throat. They kept holding each other by the other arm during it, and Gentle leaned his head forward and screamed at the boy ready to kill him, "Get your shit together! CAN YOU HANDLE THIS?!" Zach was panting, but he was breathing again and his head nodded at the man having a standoff with him in the middle of the battlefield. "Can you keep going? Because there are thousands of them still trying to kill us, and the heroes are still gathering. More are arriving every minute, but we're all going to die if this keeps up!"

The entire battlefield was on fire. Zach looked around, as the voice shouted at him, "Most of the army is dead! I'll gather as many as I can in one spot. Darling told Fabrica to wait on your command for her to return the rest to their uniforms. It's the only plan we have, so keep your shit together and LEAD US!"

"The Cloak is completely blown apart, but there's a group trying to evacuate the injured. Darling and Snow went to the doctors, but Hank is down and-"

"Spiral's down! We've lost at least sixty of us already. Death, what are we going to do?! There are only a couple dozen of us left. Everyone's dead."

"We're all going to die!"

"Drac's paralyzed. Gentle's losing too much blood and Curalia can't stop it…"

"Eziano's guys are running!"

"The heroes are here!"

"Don't stop fighting."

"Death?"

"There are thousands of them fleeing right now, and we'll have to track them down and face them again! They could regroup and attack us again like this, if we don't stop as many as we can!"

"Let the heroes-"

"They'll kill the heroes! This is not a request, it's an order! TAKE DOWN AS MANY AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU FALL! We will not let this be a loss. The Army of Death, has never lost a battle. And if we let them kill most of us today and still let this many of them escape, then WE FAILED EVERYONE WHO DIED HERE! NOW KEEP FIGHTING! Ack- gah ack kah- FIGHT!"

I lost them all. Everyone. And what was it they said? "The Army of Death took heavy casualties." "Good riddance." "I hope they just fade away." "They made the Villain Summit even worse…"

"Death! What's going on-"

"The villains gathered for a Villain Summit! They're trying to recreate the League of Villains, but the talks broke down..."

"Why did you tell the heroes that?"

"Why tell them it was a Villain Summit?"

"Because. No one needs to know that fifteen thousand of the world's worst villains had already allied themselves. If they knew, I couldn't hide the war any longer…"

"This is war! VILLAINS!"

"You think you can live in a city with SLAVES in it?! You thought I wouldn't come for you?!"

"This is not your world, villains! No one will ever know what happened here…"

"We will fight to the very last man!"

And we did. His own shout was not followed by another this time. No. No I was in Arcasia. I fought against trolls and vampires and dwarves more than humans. It wasn't that bad. There were dragons… In his mind he saw himself fighting Sunshine before they all got in the planes to escape. Not real dragons. I was hit by Trip, and the sky wasn't… Zach saw the sky shifting, the giant dragon filling it baring its blood-red sharpened teeth down at him as he soared through the air in a fighter jet. "Death!" He saw Valkyrie rip him out of the plane, and then as they were falling he watched her fall out of the air a different time with blood spilling from her open mouth and her eyes rolled back. Then he just saw a sword broken in half next to a body in a full black costume, and though he could not tell from the costume alone, he recognized the sword that second time.

The avalanche from the mountain his jet crashed into swept down over him, while Cyclone attacked him with massive funnels of snow and wind. His body went under, and he splashed back up over a surface of blood and screamed out a name, "GOD!" That dark being forced his mouth open, and Azrael puked black ooze into his face. "Now, I claim my perfect vessel." Zach's hand swung in towards it, "WHAT?! AH! AHHHH! NO! What, what is this… "

"Stupid fucking God."

Zach could see Azrael stirring on the ground in front of him. A piece of the ceiling fell and crushed him though. Gentle yelled at him how they needed to run, and the three of them remaining down there started to sprint away. Everything slowed down though, I shouldn't have looked around again. I didn't have the time! Why, did I… Zach saw it. B16. It flashed so vividly in his mind: the people ripping each other apart all around him, eating each other, screaming 'sacrifice' at the top of their lungs even while the walls and ceiling exploded and collapsed on them. They shot back up through the lab, and he saw Yuri's body getting slammed back from the elevator with bullets riddling through him, and Wreck'd's body slamming into the wall, and how he looked down at his bloody hands when he moved them away from Wreck'd's head as he tried reviving the man who lost too much of his skull.

"I lost, Pastor. Yuri, and Wreck'd too. All three of them." "In that place were monsters that… that never should have existed. A research facility, testing on humans! And, and it was… horrible. And I didn't have to go down there!" "But if I hadn't, then this doesn't mean anything! If we give up. If we are afraid!" "If there are things, even I won't do, none of it would matter. Because that's the whole point of the Army of Death… To go places no one will and stop villains who heroes can't, or won't…"

Pastor. "And say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come. He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." "I wish to save those who have strayed from the path, and to punish the false God who leads them to evil." You were a devout man, and you thought- "…God created Satan, he, he-ack kah, ack, he cast out Lucifer, to become the ruler of Hell. To punish sinners. And I believe, that God did that for us… For mankind, as a warning… So that we would all have the fear, of what would happen if we sinned. If we were evil in life, Lucifer would punish us. God sent his favorite, most trusted angel to Hell for eternity. Cast him out of paradise, to strike fear in the hearts of man…"

I'm not the devil. I know that!

"Are you AFRAID?"

"Villains! I am your reckoning!"

I WASN'T. Snow. He saw a small face that he lifted out of the snow. The little girl covered in dirt in snow in burnt clothes and with hands about to fall off from frostbite. And then he saw that girl, watched her from the side of the hangar of their new Cloak 2.0 as she was getting on a shuttle with Mark. Mark gave him one look back too, and Zach heard the girl's voice whispering in his ear as he held her, "Let me stay. Please, I just want to stay with you. I- I'll be good…"

"I LOVE YOU! Why- why do you have to leave?! Explain to me your plan, and I could- I- I'll go to Tartaros too! Please!" Darling. Her pleading expression transformed into rage, and a gun snapped up in front of his face with dark flames rising on their side.

"Are you going to shoot me again, Darling?" His body rose off the ground at the edge of the bridge leading to Tartaros, snapping him backwards with a jolt into the wall on the plane shaking with red lights blinking inside. Outside the window a plane next to theirs was hit and exploded in a massive ball of fire, and Zach screamed at the others around him, "GO GO GO!" The back of the plane opened and everyone was running out, and Zach was falling from the sky but snapped his head to the side as two dark soldiers falling not far from him were ripped apart by yellow flashes of light and bullets flying up into the sky.

"You're going too far ahead!"

"He's taking all the fire!"

"Follow your Commander!"

It didn't matter how far in front I went. How much of their fire I focused on myself. I couldn't save them. A flash of white light filled the sky, and Zach smashed out of the giant ship he was in. He flew into the sky full of hundreds of vehicles falling out of the sky and about to hit the ground. Explosions blew across the landscape, though dozens of the ships were lowered slower or landed softly, while hundreds of people were already flying up there, and tens of thousands in all directions staring straight towards him.

Those people turned into less villainous-looking people, though ones who looked even more enraged and angry in the desert outside Yemen's capital. War. His vision shifted down and looked at his stomach he was holding inside with one hand, his intestines slipping through his fingers that felt so slimy and disgusting. And he turned his head to the left as he was inside of a burning plane, and he watched as steel shrapnel shredded through his arm and sliced it off at the shoulder. And it moved back even farther, as he flew down in a plane he was trying to land in that battlefield but was moving in too fast. The plane hit the ground, and it turned into a helicopter rolling across the sand outside of Hatto.

"We have to take this city from Mongoloid! Once he and his Demons are down, the country will be free!"

Mongoloid. Zach saw himself inside of the palace of Hatto, charging at Mongoloid in a building shaking with each of their attacks. King Then he saw himself in Russia, side by side with Darling he charged forward with at the leader of the League of Shadows. Bolivar. He stood before a Hispanic man pushing himself backwards with fear over his face, the rainforest burning around them and his final safe house in ruins at his back. Fergus. That old man sitting in his chair looking more fossil than human, screaming at him right up until he reached his right hand forward and grabbed the man by the skull with it. Amaterasu. Eziano. Mysti. Turbo. The Dragons. Phinx. Zombieman. Capos. Traikuza. Kabo-

Zach watched as he tossed that man out of the Cloak, and the man rolled down the slanted door and fell out of his airship screaming for help. Then he saw the underground casino he was in with him, surrounded by villains only for the next second his undercover soldiers to all be acting as Seraphim took down the villains' boss. "Underlord…"

"The Champion of the Pit." Umbuju! NO MORE! His sword slicing through Umbuju's throat, taking the man's head off with a scream while the gladiators cheered around him. Then those same kind of cheers coming from all sides, as he brought his elbows down to his sides and screamed at the top of his lungs. All around him villains leaning forward and yelling down at the boy in the arena, surrounded by four bodies, and then four different bodies, and four other bodies again. How many times?

"Five will enter. Only one can leave." "Oh look at that, bad luck this time." "No weapon for Lifebringer it seems." "KILL HIM!"

Four people who were tossed weapons stared at Zach. All four had collars around their necks, and the four of them ignored him to look at each other and nod instead. The four ran at him, even as he screamed back at them, "Please! I- I don't want to-" Three were dead on the ground, and Zach was in the middle of them with the fourth man on top of him pushing both arms down to try and stab his knife into the already bloody teen's chest. Zach's right arm was losing strength from the gash in it, but his left arm pushed up harder, and though his right could not be used for much pressure against the blade, he was able to swing it around their arms and shove his gloved fingers into the eyes of the man leaning down over him. That man pulled back up to avoid those fingers digging in further, but that put less pressure on the blade that Zach was able to take in his left hand with a strong push up and pull away, only to jam it back inwards a second later into the side of that man's skull and out the other side of it.

Blood poured down on his face and took out his vision of the death. He could still hear though with nothing but red in his vision. "…and still your reigning champion. Lifebringer. The Champion of the Pit! ZACH SAZAKI!" Through the red his vision rose back up, staring through all the cheering villains to the Nigerian monster calling down from above. And he saw himself stagger forward, grabbing Umbuju and pulling him up before impaling him with his blade.

"This world belongs to villains NO LONGER! I will drag them out of their havens! I will destroy all they have built and treasure! And if they try to stop me I will RIP THEM TO PIECES! Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! NEVER AGAIN!"

They all followed me. The crowd of cheering gladiators in front of him started to disappear. One by one they faded out while still waving around their weapons, then a cluster of them faded, and a few more, and the final four all vanished at once with the powerful woman at the front fading last from sight. Rivona. Everyone. You did it. I know, you did it. I just wish, you had all believed- "Why? Why did I follow you- ack, gaahhh… Mommy. I- I want my…"

"So many of them are still- kah- ack- so many! What have we even, been doing all this time?!"

"Save me!"

"Kill me!"

"JUST LET ME DIE!"

In his head they fell one by one. Faces flashed through his head as he saw them through the dark helmets that faded away. Dozens, hundreds of them, falling before him. A small red-haired girl burning. Spinner asking him for death on the stage of the Sports Festival. Begging him. He saw Kurogiri in his grasp, all of Class A watching him in his peripheral vision and that man's own eyes looking back at him so desperately. "Life-bringer… How many people, did we save?"

His eyes widened as he stared at the man in his hand who just died from the pulse of power he got from the two villains he killed accidentally with his Triggered Death. He stared with huge eyes at Kurogiri's body as the third pulse of Death flooded into him. "…and so is he." The shadowy figure in his hands replaced with a younger girl in his arms. The blonde girl gasped out at him with blood trickling down the corners of her lips, and he just heard one word that her face matched with that expression. "…frustrated…"

His eyes rose up and stared at the man;s body dangling from the fan in front of him. Then they went back down but the girl in his arms was replaced by a man. Hyper, Zach thought at the sight of that face, and the lips moving to mouth to words 'Kill me.'

"I don't want to die."

"Please, Zach, save me. Don't let me die- I, I don't want to. Not again, not like this!"

He saw men's eyes close, over and over again for their final times. And then a hand reached down for him, and he stared at it and rose his own hand up but the hand he saw himself raising was smaller. His small hand reached out and took his mom's, in a vision so blurry in the corners that it was just her face past that hand up the arm. Zach stared up at that face that twisted in that moment in terror, and then he watched as she started to fall as his hand turned black.

Someone else was watching too though. As Kaitlyn Sazaki fell, Zach was not to only one to see his mother falling from the touch of that small right hand. The smiling woman reaching for her son she so clearly loved, started to fall in slow motion in the boy's mind over ten years later. She fell, and Himazuri turned her head more towards the wall on the right side of her desk. She bowed her head more and brought her right shoulder towards her face, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible even as she buried her eyes into her sleeve.

Himazuri lifted her head up and refocused on their homeroom teacher wrapping up the final period of the day. Most people had actually focused back on Hazano, and Zach looked to be doing the same as he nodded along though still with such a blank look on his face it seemed like he was a thousand miles away. Himazuri had to shift her eyes the opposite way as Reika though as the blonde girl kept darting looks back to her and seeing the tears Himazuri was holding back. In her head she continued to read Zach's mind though, as his thoughts had shifted from his mother to the night of the Lifebringer Incident. To the moment he turned away from them all. To one face in particular he saw so vividly. Creati? The look of despair and fear in her eyes, in all of their eyes as the lightning flashed in that rain. Their pink-tinted faces behind the barrier staring at him in so much anger and horror, while dead bodies littered the forest around them.

Those images faded though and Zach's thoughts shifted so he was just looking down over a massive city. In his peripheral vision were the metal bars curving up higher above him, while down below the base of the Eiffel Tower spread out a bit. It was a good place. Turned off comms. Silent, that high up. Where I'd watch the city I saved from that nuke- Still on that tower, he flashed back even farther to an underground facility where he was holding the dying boy in his arms. The kid was giving off so much radiation that the child's body was melting through his arms, Why couldn't I have saved the boy? I may have saved the city, but I failed him, and Cee. Akhmed and Juno, Georgia died twice in that raid.

Found out later from Lee that Fergus himself had possessed Mysti at the Dragons' Den and used his Beams to kill Akhmed and Juno. Stopped the Dragons and their Syndicate that day. Prevented the wars that would have come from the Christmas Nuke. And stopped the League of Shadows before they could put in motion their next plans to destabilize the world and take over. So many plans. A world on the verge, teetering on the edge for so long with nothing but a couple dozen people to hold it off. Soldiers, warriors like me- and those cities that would never know they were saved, he saw cars driving around peacefully down below. People smiling and laughing as they walked in and out of stores. Then he saw the streets of Musutafu and Tokyo and Yutapu of late, only to flash back during those moments of walking around such a peaceful Japan. He saw the map on the huge computer screen, with arrows all pointing towards Japan. The blueprints for the dirty bomb, and in his head flashed an image from the Sports Festival where he saw Midoriya and Bakugo standing up in front of each other.

He was back on the Eiffel Tower, but he heard a smack of his hand on a steel wall. The tower turned into a dim room full of his most trusted comrades. His hand just smacked against the black and white picture of Hiroshima in 1945. He heard the words echo through the room, "…The nuclear warhead." Above the picture on the wall was the label in red of 'December 25th.' "That kind of weapon doesn't even exist anymore!" "We're not prepared for this!"

"And yet we have to go…"

He heard his voice but as Cee's disheveled face appeared in his mind he put it over the backdrop of the peaceful French city. At least that city, we managed to save. The city stopped looking the same, instead turning into a different one down in Africa that a massive bomb blew up in while he was only several blocks away. And that turned into another city full of dead bodies in every street, men aiming guns down the road and firing at the civilians as they fled. And then he saw an entire city enflamed. Five black towers, some of them collapsing as planes spiraled down and crashed in massive balls of fire. Then all those cities faded back to Paris again, and Cee's face looked cleaner this time. She looked at him with her lips flat and an intense and heroic look on her face. After a couple of seconds though, the corners of her lips lifted the smallest amount and she gave him a nod of her head.

"I forgive you."

Thank you, Cee. You saved Paris. You saved the world. And, you saved me too.

Zach turned to his right side as he noticed a lot of movement in the classroom. He looked back down at his book and closed it before anyone could notice that he had not written much down for the past hour. As he bent down to put it into his bag though, he rose up his left sleeve for a moment in an action barely noticeable. He could have been doing anything as he brushed his sleeve up near the top of his face, over his eyes.

Bibi Reina was staring over at him though as she packed up her things. The girl who had rediscovered the fear she once felt for Lifebringer, just felt sad herself as she saw what he did so well at hiding. She glanced away, then she picked up her backpack and started for the door. Someone else watched Zach longer though.

A girl with curly brick-red hair falling to her shoulders watched the subtle movement and felt her heart skip a beat. He's… Manzo Elia stared down at her bookbag and her eyes were huge with the shock of what she just saw. Was he upset at me about it- "Why would it matter to me if you were a girl?" He said that and it- half the strongest people he knows are girls, and was he just annoyed because something like that, it's so small? Being self-conscious about being a woman, not wanting to be known as a "female hero" pissed him off, because the scale of what he's dealing with is… What was that?! He's so strong and smiles brighter than everyone most… most of the time. So what was, that?

Class 1 of Shiketsu got up and started making their ways to leave for the day. The day had felt shorter than usual and yet at the same time was so hard to get through. Kotsumura looked to Zach even though Porrolo just motioned for him to head out together, while Zach was still at his desk rummaging through his backpack. "So, Zach," Kotsumura began. Zach turned towards him, and though his eyes locked on Kotsumura's his attention shifted past him. "After school, are you going to continue…"

Oh yeah, Himazuri. Shit. Himazuri. Zach shook his head at Kotsumura, and replied in a low voice, "I'm tired. I'm just going to head back to my place and get some rest."

"No yeah, you deserve it…"

What was I thinking? Zach looked back down into his bag as Kotsumura started away, having told him that he understood considering Zach was up all night reviving people. Zach's eyes widened more though as the disappointed way he just thought that at himself started to shift in a more panicked way. What was I thinking?! She was totally listening. I didn't notice, but one look at her and I can tell. Which means others could tell as well, and they're going to ask her! She couldn't hold it back. Not right now. I, I need to try… But after what I did to her?

Zach lifted his head back up and turned his head, looking over towards Himazuri who rose her own and stared right back at him. He saw the look on her face as they made eye contact, and his eyes dropped down to the floor. He stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulders, then he headed off for the door slowly and resigning himself with each step.

He knows I know. He knows I know. He knows, I… Himazuri watched Zach walk out of the classroom, and she stared at the open doorway for a few seconds after he was gone. He knows that I know though. He knows I could- then, Himazuri's breathing started to speed up, her hands pushing down on top of her desk. Her eyes were locked forward and her heart pounding so hard that Dendo's voice came through muffled on her left side where he had just walked up to her.

"Hey, Himazuri are-"

"Himazuri?"

The short brunette girl ran to the door, but at the last second she looked back and said quickly, "I'm fine." Her friends did not think that was true by the look on her face, but they stopped at what she said instead of chasing after her.

Was she reading Zach's mind in class?

I saw her crying. She was totally in his head. Man he's fucked up to- he's got some fucked up stuff, in that head of his.

What did you hear? Dendo watched the open doorway with his eyes narrowing more, though he did hold back instead of going after Himazuri as she seemed to want him to.

Himazuri Hikari walked through the hallway with her head leaning left and right to look around the other people who were heading out of their classes for the day. She could tell the direction she was going was correct based on how many heads were still turned this way, and she caught a glimpse of the back of some recognizable dark hair up ahead of her. Himazuri focused on that person and tried to read their thoughts to see if she was correct, only to hear nothing instead which confirmed who she thought that was.

Where to go? She knows. I'm a fool. Do I have to leave? Could I get away with it? Zach frowned deeper and headed around the corner and down a hallway with a lot less people in it as it was in the direction to the back of the school. Everyone would believe her. It wouldn't matter that she was using her Quirk when she wasn't supposed to be. That would matter for actual proof, at least, but if she tells everyone that real proof won't matter. There's only one way to stop her. I have to, keep bringing people back. Right now.

Himazuri hit the turn in the hallway and spun to look the way she thought she saw Zach go. She was panting and her heart raced as fast as it had in a fight against villains at her last internship. Where is he going? Don't- She took a step down the hall, then she froze and her heart pounded even faster as she questioned what she was doing. I- I don't know him at all! It could all be… In her head flashed Lifebringer on his very first day at their school. The girl remembered him walking up to Kotsumura and talking to him, her, and Reika before they even reached the gym. And she saw him fighting all of her friends that day in such intense and serious ways, It could be, a trick? A trap for… that doesn't, make sense.

Why? Himazuri's feet started moving again, stumbling forward and then moving quicker into a run with her eyes opened huge.

"Did something happen between the two of you? You were actually, being nice to him today?"

"… I was wrong. He's not the person I thought he was…" Himazuri gulped but her hands curled into fists despite the confused expression covering her face. She ran to the back doors of the school, put her hands on the bars, then froze. Her eyes darted to the right and a closed door not far from the exit, and her hands lifted off of the push bars for the double doors at the back of the school.

"Should've come with to Zach's place for Fight Day," Reika's voice replaced Dendo's in her head, and Himazuri saw her blonde best friend with another blond boy next to her as the three of them hung out a couple weeks back. "I picked the winner right at the start-"

"Sanchez almost had it." She saw Kotsumura shake his head around though, then cut off the girl next to him who was going to rub in his face how the finals had gone again. "But Tiona's leaving out the real cool stuff. Turns out Zach joined the Italian mob while he was gone!"

"He didn't 'join' the mob… I think. You've got to hear this though, Hikari. Blew my fucking mind…"

Himazuri could see her blonde friends' awed faces as they told her what Zach had explained he did with/to the Italian mafia families. Then she saw the face of a redhead in her class who she had seen in the locker room right after she changed up her costume a little, letting it show off more that she was a woman than her costume did before. And when the girls in their class questioned her about it after they first saw, Manzo had ignored them and especially what Reika said about how it was Zach who caused the change. She remembered what Manzo was thinking as a response to them all though, 'The Stealth Hero isn't a female hero, Breathtaker isn't going to be one of the the strongest women in the country. Lady hero or heroine, whatever they call me, I'm just a hero. All thanks to…'

"How's your shell?"

"Stronger than ever. Not going to rely just on that though when the joint training comes. Zach told me he'd help out with a new training style he thought up for me. Don't know if it'll help out against those Class A powerhouses, but if he's offering…"

None of it makes sense! Himazuri ran up the stairs of the stairwell near the back doors, and she pushed open the roof access and stumbled out on the roof just in time. A boy twenty feet in front of her had his knees bent and was putting his phone back into his pocket, but he turned his head and looked towards the open door where a brunette just ran out and stared towards him with huge eyes. The black wings that just ripped out of Zach's back hesitated, and then they pulled back into his body straight through his school uniform and disappeared leaving no Death on him anymore. He stood straight up and turned around to face her, staring across the roof at the girl staring right back into his eyes with her own huge and her panting coming heavier than before.

She felt fear. Himazuri was more intimidated than she had ever been before, and yet she still started forward with hesitant steps that turned into a half-run which she stumbled through before stopping. Her eyes were locked on Zach's the whole time and she opened her mouth, only to close it and open it again with her head shaking as she tried to find the words. Zach grimaced and he pulled his head back at the look on her face, so full of desperation and sheer wide-eyed shock that he completely understood. I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't let you hear… If I just start reviving people again right now you might- except that was the problem in the first place! After all that I came here and…

No, that's not it, Zach admitted it to himself and sighed while watching the girl who he was not letting read his mind. I used bringing people back to life to fill me with so much pain that it would keep my mind off all that stuff. These 6 hours of classes weren't intense enough to keep my mind off everything. Fucking Midoriya. You got what you wanted. I brought back 200 plus people in the last day all because of you. Good for you. Damn it. This isn't Midoriya's fault! It's your own God damn fault. I'm stabler than ever to be able to think about all that stuff, and he needs me stable. It's better that I'm stable. Except, a stable me is only possible with full knowledge of everything, and full knowledge of everything makes for a darker me. Damn it! There is no middle ground. I'm a good actor, but I can't keep it up for one more fucking second at this pace. I need to just decide when I can let it be enough, when I can be completely me, and that time is not in school.

I already knew this. Maybe I wanted her to know. Subconsciously I never forgot she was in class. I ignored the feeling that I thought I never felt. I wanted her to rat me out, so that I'd have that excuse to leave and not stay here and do what I did yesterday. An excuse to throw myself into a situation so intense that it would get my mind off all the shit…

Zach's eyes glowed a dim red as he stared at Himazuri who found herself hesitating in front of the boy whose eyes glowed that color as he thought ten times faster than her. Even if she was trying to get through and hear what he was thinking, she was too nervous to do so after how easily she was repelled this time without him even violently expelling her from his mind like the first time. "Zach," Himazuri started, her voice strong though at the verge of cracking as she confronted him. His eyes returned to their normal color and he nodded once at her, and the brunette's eyes squinted with her head tilting farther back at the look on his face already accepting what she was about to ask. "You're, really him?"

I don't know her well enough to try. I don't even have the right to, not after what I did, Zach kept his eyes locked calmly on hers though they got softer in the next second. Maybe I wanted it to be her. She deserves it, he nodded his head at her. "Yeah," he replied quietly.

Himazuri opened her mouth. She opened it to try and say something, but her face scrunched up so much more and she started raising her arms. She rose them up in front of her and took another step forward, but her legs were shaking and she fell down to her knees while staring at him through blurry eyes. Zach looked down into Himazuri's eyes and bowed his head with his own eyes filling with regret at how she looked. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I don't understand," Himazuri gasped out, her arms out in front of her reaching forward but then shaking and falling down to her sides. She leaned her head forward with tears falling from her eyes and a panicked look of desperation over her face as she stared into Zach's eyes. "Why- I don't…" Zach started walking forward, and he bent down and took a seat right in front of Himazuri only a few feet from the girl who cried while staring three feet away into his hazel eyes. "Ahh, I- I don't understand," she gasped at him, raising her right hand to her face for a second and covering her eyes with it, then rubbing her sleeve across her face over and over to get a grip on herself.

She stopped with her arm resting there though, and then she lowered it and said while her eyes filled with so much more water she was barely keeping back, "You've had, such a sad life." Zach looked at Himazuri in a calmer way than she was breathing and looking. He took in a deep breath, then he looked at her steadier and even brought the corners of his flat lips up a tiny amount. She shook her head though at the sight of it, and she clenched her eyes shut as his reaction was only in response to what she said. It's just because, he thinks I'm sad that he's- "I know," Himazuri whispered, her eyes that lowered down raising back up to him in a shaking way and watching his eyes that were dry and genuinely not sad. "I know you can't be as happy as you make yourself out to be."

You really are, a very good person, Zach thought at the girl gasping these things to him.

"I know that you're faking it. Always, and it has to be- you can't trick me anymore. I know, you must be crying inside. That's why you're hiding it now." Himazuri whispered that while trying to hold it back, but she leaned forward and gasped it at him with more tears falling from both eyes as she thought about the boy who had been so kind and friendly to all of them over the past two months. The boy who had come in and taught each and every one of them how to be better heroes, and not just in their skills and strengths, but the kind of person he was and always showed himself off to be… "I know," she gasped out in a voice that cracked at a higher pitched tone as she heard screams echoing in her head. "Because, that was- your whole life- after so much sadness, that I can't imagine!"

Zach moved a hand forward and put it on hers. She looked down to see he had put his left hand on her right. He was sitting down on his butt while she was on her knees with her feet splayed out to either side of her, and he leaned forward a little and put his left hand on hers with a small smile on his face. His fingers felt cold to her, but he squeezed in a comforting way nonetheless that made her raise her head back up with shocked eyes that stared back into his.

"I'm not faking it," Zach told the shortest girl in his class, and his smile grew a little more as she looked at him in so much disbelief. That this is really, what's first for you, Zach squeezed her hand a little more, not too much but enough to match the way he smiled at her. "My life isn't a sad one." He gave her a short but serious nod while still smiling, and he continued to the girl in less a comforting tone and more just one explaining something to her, "There are no happy lives or sad lives. Life has happy moments, and it also has times that are sad. That's why you can appreciate it when good things happen."

Himazuri's eyes could not have grown any wider as she stared at this man sitting in front of her saying something like that. And yet as shocking as it was, as much disbelief as she thought she should feel, she saw on his face a smile that looked so genuine and it matched all of those words that just came out of his mouth. This moment, Himazuri realized with her breath catching in her throat. She was shocked by the response and his expression in telling it to her, one that was as convincing as his words were even with her unable to check his mind to see if it was all true.

"The reason I can be happy so often," Zach continued to the shorter girl sitting before him. "Is that I have gone through all those horrible and sad things. So any time I'm spending with my friends, at school, in safety, they're all good moments to me." Zach said it aloud, and then he thought to himself, This is true. I forget sometimes, just how much other people don't understand this. I don't take it for granted though. Every moment, including this one, with you.

Zach leaned back where he was sitting and let out a long sigh, I can't just hate my life or I'll never make it. Even one more day of nonstop dying and I don't think I'd be able to come back from it. I have to enjoy the time I have with my friends, instead of spending days like I spent today. In pain, wallowing about that pain I was in, and thinking of only the bad times. "Other people probably wouldn't be able to take so much happiness out of everyday moments like going to school, or talking with classmates, or strangers they pass on the street even, because they don't appreciate them as much as someone who knows how much worse it could be." Himazuri had her mouth open and could not close it, as the person she now knew as Death told her with a soft and somewhat more sad smile, "So don't be sad for my past. Because I'm happy now, and if you get sad like this it makes my day not as great, because I hate to see my friends cry."

Himazuri's shocked look got even more stunned hearing him say that, and Zach hesitated for a second but then told the girl staring at him like that, "I hope we are friends. I, want to make friends with everyone in class, even if we only do have one term together. It's been hard adjusting, but I don't think I'll ever be just another classmate of Class 1 or fit in with the rest of you, be one of you. I can never be as close to you guys are you are with each other," Especially after today. "Or as I am with Class A," Zach added, "but I still hope I can make lasting friendships with everyone, in what short time we have."

Himazuri slid her hands back on top of the roof, and she rose them to her face and rubbed over her eyes with her breathing calming down. What's happening? What am I doing? She realized in that moment that she had gotten much too wrapped up in the moment here. She had held onto a sliver of hope that everything he had thought before was a trick. Maybe that was the lie and everything else was truth, and it was just payback for her reading his mind again! He wasn't messing with her though, and the shock that finally hit her in full force to knock her to her knees finally pushed down enough for her to remember her position and think about what she was doing. And as she sat there in front of her classmate, who had just called her a friend, she got the most conflicted look on her face thinking to herself, He's, Death!

I don't understand though- "I don't, understand," Himazuri said aloud, instead of keeping it to herself. She did not back up either, nor did she raise her voice as the two of them sat out in the cold air above Shiketsu's main building. Imino could be around. Maybe he followed, maybe teachers are watching… but!

"Why?" She asked it with the most desperate look on her face. Nothing made sense to her. Two full months of classes, every single interaction with Zach that had felt so real at the time was now in question. She saw every serious moment he had had with them, and then all those screams ripped through her mind again and she clenched her eyes shut at the sound of them. "Why? Why?" Her eyes snapped open and she stared at him accusingly through the fear and panic, and the need to know that covered her face. "Why are you here?" If any of that- if all of it was true!? I- I don't understand- no one understands! No one knows! What he really was… what they are!

Zach opened his mouth. He had a reason. It was a simple reason. This isn't Midoriya. These aren't my Class A friends, asking me. The people I couldn't tell, this. His mouth closed after he opened it so quickly, and then after a second of having a thoughtful look on his face like he was mulling it over he opened it back up. "I told Deku, that I'm back to try and be a hero…"

Deku knows?!

"And yet, I also told him I returned to try and bait All For One into coming for my Quirk. So I could get him caught down in Tartaros, or so I could kill him, I don't really know, because that wasn't it either." Zach paused and he lowered his gaze for a second. I already saved Darling too, but she's asking why I'm here. Now.

"The main reason, I think I'm here," Zach started. He started it so thoughtfully that Himazuri was shocked before he even started explaining it to her. The way he worded it too, indicated no such giant plan as she was worried he may have that he was lying to all of them for months in order to accomplish. He continued to the girl staring at him in utter disbelief, "Why I'm trying so hard, to fix things with my friends from U.A… It's because they were the most amazing people I'd ever met."

"My friends who would have rather sat out the second Sports Festival than let it go on without me because I had saved our classmate, and had to break some rules to do it," Zach said that with a soft smile and then shook his head and got his look becoming more serious again. "I loved them so much," he admitted in a quiet voice with his face looking more sad than anything as he said it. "But the thing I had done before the Lifebringer Incident made me ignore every one of my own feelings. All the horrible feelings of doubt, and indecisiveness, because I knew that my friends would be devastated if I left, I ignored them. I was able to, because I had decided to put everyone else first, to make up for what I had done that was so horrible I no longer deserved those feelings-"

"What did you do?" Himazuri asked, her voice quiet and her eyes searching his face for the reason. For why he had been able to go through with the Lifebringer Incident, when all she knew about him and all he was saying made him sound like someone who could never have killed six people… let alone what she had seen in his head. "What, could you have done, that would make you do something so horrible?"

"So horrible?" There are those words again. Zach lowered his gaze at the dark thought he just had. Then he rose them and said in a low voice, "I trusted Kaminari. I told him things, that got the anti-hero society I was a part of annihilated." Himazuri's jaw dropped again and she stared at him with trembling huge eyes at the calm statement he just said in such a regretful voice. "The people who had saved him with me when I went after the War Boys. Who I helped to track down and take down Diamondfist before that. And the people, who had saved me from the League of Villains. When those villains were going to torture me and completely shatter my mind this time, Webb-" Zach said his name and his eyes closed, his head bowing more in the instant regret he felt upon saying it.

Himazuri pulled her face back more at what he was saying that was so shocking to her and just added onto all the horror she had already seen in his head. "He saved me. He trusted me. And I told Kaminari who he was-" Zach grit his teeth, clenching his eyes shut even harder. "And Kaminari murdered his family, murdered him, and all the other anti-heroes he tracked down because of me." Zach seethed it through his teeth, then he whispered while opening his eyes and raising them back to Himazuri, "And the only one I could save, was Cee." The way Himazuri reacted to it told Zach that she had seen all of what he remembered thinking about not long ago. Himazuri's breathing sped up, as Zach told her with his voice losing the regret in it and turning steadier, "I saved her from the League's attack, after Kaminari had already hunted her and her master down, killing her family too."

"But she forgave you," Himazuri whispered out with huge eyes.

Zach nodded his head back at her. "Yeah," he said, and he lifted his head a little more and had a calm and strong a look on his face. "She did. And she told me that I had to forgive myself too, and I've tried. I've tried everything. I replaced that society I destroyed, with something I thought would be even better to- to make proud the people who I had failed." He paused and his semi-smile he was raising faltered. He lowered it with his expression shifting backwards, "In order to fix my mistake I had to give up on everything I held dear though. I knew they'd all be crushed, but I ignored that knowledge because their being crushed didn't matter to me as much as other people's lives. I was able to ignore how they'd feel, because I put everyone's life on equal ground. But, I decided to start being selfish."

Zach said it and Himazuri stared at him with realization that he was back to explaining his answer to her first question. The 'why' of his being there, and she started breathing even heavier as he said to her, "I came back, because I hurt Japan when I left. All the people here who looked up to me were saddened when I left them. All my friends who wished they could have done more to help me… I can see their faces, when I turned away." Himazuri recalled the moment too, though she remembered him just locking his gaze on one of those people as he turned. She did not bring up that one girl, because she recalled all the other faces too that Zach had been thinking about in that memory that replayed over and over again in his head, around the same time as him killing his own mother. Her breath sucked in and she stopped breathing at all as he told her, "And I knew, that for the rest of their lives they would blame themselves."

"They'd always wonder what happened to me. They'd always think that they could have done more. I knew it before I did it, and yet I did it anyway. I left them in that forest feeling like they had failed at being heroes." He said it and his face scrunched up, his eyes lowering down to his hands that curled into fists over his own legs. "I knew that they would spent the rest of their lives hating. Either hating me, or just full of hate because of me, or just hurt from what I did to them knowing what it would do… Unless I came back and helped them." Himazuri stared at Zach in disbelief and her breath finally slipped out of her mouth, her eyes bloodshot as they had been stuck open so wide for too long.

He rose his head and shook it at her, "And I was ready to die before and leave things unsettled here. I was ready to just let everyone else be hurt forever because I had decided that all I was doing out there was more important, but what's more important than family?" He asked it with his tone raising, wondering if he should really feel that way in an uncertain voice. Zach then continued his question softer, "Than friends you cared about more than anything else in the world, and one day just decided to stop caring about? I tried so hard to stop caring about all of them in the moment I decided to make my plan, because I had done the most horrible thing in my life and needed to fix it. But maybe I did make up for destroying the anti-hero society by trusting Kaminari. Maybe I made up for all the terrible things I did, before the Lifebringer Incident."

He specified that timeframe and then shook his head with his teeth grinding in frustration. "But I couldn't make up for what I did that day, without coming back. I couldn't help the people I hurt that day, if I just died out there leaving everything unfinished." He bit down and rose his head to look back in Himazuri's eyes again, "And I can still see the ramifications of what I've done, but I've lessened them. People who thought I left never to be seen again, saw me return on my own terms and in good health. People who would have thought they had failed me forever, that they never saved me or helped me, saw me come back so confidently and apologetically, and they all think I still have a plan. They realized, that I'm not someone who needs anyone to save me." Zach said that quieter, and he said directly to the girl in front of him something he couldn't tell the Class A students, "They thought they'd never know what happened to me, and that for the rest of their lives they'd have to live with the idea that they failed to save someone right in front of them, or stop me from doing what I did… I just want them to know it's not their faults. I don't want those best people I knew, feel like they're anything but the best."

He paused for a few seconds and then more regret started to fill his face as he stared at Himazuri's. He had to shift his gaze away from her again, and he continued in a lower and more regretful voice, "Just by coming back alone I convinced a lot of them. The plans they think I have, and even just whatever I do normally that seems like part of my 'big plans' for returning, I know that when my friends see it they know that I'm alright. That I'm fine and there's no need to worry about me. And just by giving them that much, even if I can't ever make things alright with them, get them to forgive me… Just by them seeing that I'm here and around, I know that I've made things better than if I had stayed gone forever and left them forever not knowing. Not knowing what had happened to me or if they could have stopped me that day. And they couldn't have. Nothing could have stopped me… No one could stop me."

Zach said the final line with more regret than ever coming out in his tone at how dark his words sounded. I killed people that night. I was a killer... but all I want to apologize for right now! Zach rose his eyes back up and he said in a much softer voice with sad eyes and a look like he felt he did not deserve any forgiveness. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, for hurting you."

"You-" Himazuri started, freezing after the word came out as she was in disbelief as to what he was saying again. He's really back for those reasons? I saw him doing things, with the fate of the world! Secrets that- I can't even begin to… The Villain Summit?! Nuking Paris?! And you- you're really… Himazuri's eyes grew wider at how genuine his apology looked with the intense dread and regret spreading across his face after he said it.

"When you read my mind that day, I wasn't expecting… For so long, any infiltration into my head was an enemy attack and I'd trained so hard at fending them off violently. And I wasn't ready when you- but I played it off like I had meant to. I told myself I was fine, and that I really was just that mad at you for trying it," Zach whispered it and he closed his eyes tightly for a second before opening them and looking at Himazuri with his head bowed and his eyes half closed in a depressed way. "But I never meant to hurt you. I- I lashed out, at someone I never, never wanted to hurt." Zach pursed his lips and stared at a girl who was trying to be a hero, who he could hear screaming out in pain that he had caused despite her never doing anything to him.

"I shouldn't have…" Himazuri started it, but she stopped herself and pursed her own lips while staring at the man in front of her who looked so vulnerable in this moment. He's killed, so many people! He's… killed, so many people, the second time she thought it her lips pursed even harder to stop from trembling. Someone, this kind? How does he live with it? How- he barely can. Thinking about it all- he was thinking of those people he killed back at the Lifebringer Incident today! They plague him! I- I can tell what kind of person most people are from their thoughts, and your thoughts were just so full of- of horror! Of regret and sadness and, and grief. Himazuri lowered her eyes to the roof below her, and she could see those bodies in black armor dropping one by one. Faces splashed with blood, and people closing their eyes as they died in his arms, and she gasped before shaking her head at the thought of what he just said to her like it was one more thing on top of all that other regret.

"But I still hurt you," Zach whispered back at the response she never finished to him. "And I am so, so sorry," he said it looking deep into her raising eyes, and he gave her a soft nod after a few moments when he saw the accepting look that she believed in his apology to not be a lie. He continued anyway after seeing that, "And I'll teach you to defend yourself from what I did, if you want me to…" Himazuri's face filled with surprise at that last add-on, but Zach nodded again to show he meant it. "To defend your own mind like I can, and to get around people who can protect their thoughts, to make up for it." He finished, raising his tone a little as if wondering if that would be enough to make up with her for what he had done.

Himazuri stared Zach down and did not say anything for several seconds. When he was apologizing and offering to make up to her, she saw it and heard it clearer than she had ever understood someone through their thoughts. Despite everything! All the worst stuff he was thinking about, he still takes something like what he did to me this hard? That it weighs on him this much, Himazuri had to start pursing her lips again, but she started nodding at Zach too while she did. The fact that what he had done to her weighed on him that much despite all he had seen, it meant more to her than he knew. "I'd like that but-" Himazuri started, and she stopped as she felt her throat clenching up so her voice almost cracked.

She took in a deep breath and then stared up at Zach with the most disbelieving look at this impossible person sitting in front of her. "I don't care about… I want to help you," she said it with her head tilting to the side and her eyes getting sadder that he felt he needed to help her, just to make up for a sharp pain she had felt when she tried to read his thoughts without his permission. The fact that he took that as something so horrible that he had done to her, when she looked back on it now seeing herself as being in the wrong, and that he wanted to help her out because of it was so mind-boggling to her that she could hardly gather her thoughts in a coherent way. She stared at him in desperation though and whispered, "Those thoughts I heard, I- I can't even understand. I can't-"

Zach lowered his gaze down, and Himazuri spoke towards the top of his head with her eyes shaking at the things she recalled hearing. "So much," she whispered, as every single thing she saw and heard was more than she was prepared for. "I can't even, categorize them as good or bad. That world seems like a completely different one than our own, and- and you did that!" Himazuri whisper-yelled it at him with her eyes growing even wider and shaking as she thought about the Villain Summit again, only now through the eyes of the boy right in the middle of it. In the middle of thousands of villains- "What you did," she gasped. Her voice steadied more and she shook her head around as she saw him looking like the one hurting here, and she was trying to be stronger to help him but was not matching her words with her cracking voice. "What you saw, your…" Countless friends. Himazuri thought it so sadly but did not want to bring it up aloud again, not when he already looked to be thinking about so much again.

Himazuri reached her hand forward this time. She was hesitant, but she put her right hand that trembled for a second in front of him, down on top of his metal left hand that he had told them could feel touch. His eyes shifted over to the hand that she put on his, then he rose his eyes back up to the girl's as she whispered, "I don't understand it, but you don't have to hide anything from me, Zach." He stared at her with his eyes growing wider, and Himazuri smiled at him with her eyes watery again but stronger now and with the look of a hero staring back at him in a way he could not understand after all he knew she had heard. "Because I know you're not a bad person. More than you know it yourself, I know you're good."

"That's… that's not-"

"Only a good person would be trying so hard solely for the sake of his friends. A great person, no matter what you've done…"

"Even knowing all I've done," Zach whispered back at her, his shocked tone doubting her in itself. "How could you, feel that way?"

Himazuri did not respond to him. She did not have an easy answer to that question for him. She just pursed her lips and shook her head, like she did not know how to answer even as she thought it in her head. That's the difference between other villains whose heads I've looked into and yours. They always find a way to believe that, they were just doing what they needed to to survive. They enjoy it, or they make up excuses to defend themselves for all they've done, while you don't. Every last one of those horrible things weighs on you, which is worse than anything I can imagine. It's why those villains don't let it, because of how horrible it feels to carry all that guilt and regret. And yet you have more to regret than anyone. You have more to grieve. More to make you, question how anyone could see you as a good person. The look of disbelief in Zach's eyes hurt Himazuri to see more than anything. But I can, Zach. Not everyone could, but I see you.

You aren't the villain you think you are.