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!

195. Chapter 195

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 195:

On Saturday on the weekend around a week after Zach's apartment exploded, Zach Sazaki came to Shiketsu to use the facilities that were open to students even on the weekends when they did not have school. Hero students were frequently called in on the weekends to do special training regimens, though Class 1 did not have anything going on that day for him to be at school. Still, he was not the only one to show up that day to use the training gyms on campus, and someone else from Class 1 met up with him in their Extreme Environments Engine so they could train together.

All-Terrain was off that Saturday though, so the EEE was off, which was why Zach chose it as the site for their training as he knew other students would not interrupt them there. Instead they just had a rocky environment that was leftover from what All-Terrain last turned the practical training gymnasium into. On the one part of the whole room that was even semi-flat, high up in the room on a thick rocky pillar that was more like a plateau though with a bumpy floor too, Zach sat just a few feet in front of the brunette girl in front of him who had her hair tied back into a short brown ponytail.

Himazuri's ponytail pulled her hair back from her bangs too revealing more of her forehead, while Zach had not spiked his hair up that morning and just sat in front of her in his hero costume like she was wearing too. He did not have his helmet on, and his black bangs fell over his forehead partially which covered up a scar on the top right of it. There was a new scar on the right side of his face though, one that stretched around the side of his head. It was thin on the right side of his face, and it disappeared quickly under his hair that he made sure covered up how far it stretched around the side of his head all the way behind his ear that also had the scar going across it too now. His hair had been thinner on that side of his head, but he evened it up on the left side the day before when he looked himself in the mirror and gave himself a quick makeover to correct his shoddy appearance since the explosion.

Although All-Terrain was off for the day, teachers were required at the training gyms to keep eyes on the students who could be training too hard and possibly hurting themselves. Ms. Anastasia was around and at the nurse's office in case of incident, while teachers like Ekusessu watched from spectating rooms at each of the gyms over the students who decided to come in on their days off despite how hard their training on school days already was. Ekusessu looked at the cameras showing the two students in the EEE who he had to come watch though, and he shook his head again while leaning back in his seat with his phone out. What are they even doing?

He was supposed to be making sure they did not hurt themselves, but there was not much to be worried about when the two had just been sitting there for over an hour now. Even if there had been microphones close enough to them for him to hear what they were saying, the two spoke so rarely from what he could see when he was actually watching them. It's like they're meditating. Himazuri could be reading his mind, I guess, which means he's definitely not Death. Still kind of thought that was a possibility. "Aawww," Ekusessu yawned and relaxed again as he looked back down at his phone, reading an article asking where Lifebringer had been since his crazy day of reviving people. The hero shook his head and thought to himself as he read that question, I have no clue.

Out in the gym, the two students sat on a flattened circle of rock surface that Zach had created with a blade of Death that extended from his left arm after he arrived up there before Himazuri arrived. He had been quicker to ascend to that wider summit without using his Quirk than she was, and he had motioned for her to take a seat on the spot he created once she arrived. They sat in front of each other with their eyes closed, and neither was saying a word.

This time at school is important to be the "public" Lifebringer. If I can't be it nonstop, I'll still need to isolate times like these where I can put away those bad thoughts. Thinking about them is hard and I doubt I'll ever want to voluntarily pick times out to do so, but I've decided that's the move and so I need to return to my heroic self now. I need to reassure not only Midoriya, but Himazuri, and all those I'm sure have seen Midoriya since the last time he saw me. Maybe he's already decided to come after me. Maybe he's told Lemillion what he knows. Heroes could be gathering outside right now to trap me in here. I can't stand trial. I won't. Maybe, Midoriya's had a change of heart though. I don't know what could keep him from coming after me after what I told him though, something that goes so against who he is as a hero.

I should not have let Himazuri find out in the first place, but I have to adapt to my changing circumstances. As long as I change it up and adapt faster than everyone else I can keep going. I need to practice this too, in order to stay where I'm needed most. I need a refresher since I've screwed up a few times now with her- "Nice job."

"Dang it. How?! I was doing exactly what you said that time-"

"No, I really mean it. That was great."

"It didn't take you two seconds to call me out."

"Sure, but I didn't notice you enter." Zach paused as the girl's voice did not respond showing a sense of confusion. He smiled too while still sitting before her with his eyes closed, "Once you were inside you took too long to do anything. You hesitated and thought too much about the next step, and that gave you away. You were inside my head but still couldn't hear my thoughts, because I wasn't letting you. It was a wall I created that you noticed, and that you could have attempted to go around but froze up because you thought it would alert me."

"Wouldn't it have?"

"Yes, but that is the next step. Getting past that wall alone, will make you stronger. Once you can get past it, then you can start training to prevent me from forcing you out. If you can't even get past that wall though you'll never get in the position to fight on an equal level with me or others who can defend themselves like I can." Zach paused and then continued to the girl humming in a thoughtful way in his mind, "Himazuri, this is a big step forward though. Much bigger than you realize."

"You think so?"

"Open your eyes."

Zach told it to her, and Himazuri wondered back while opening them like he said, "What is it?"

"Your mouth is closed."

"It's-" "What?" Himazuri gasped and leaned backwards from Zach with her eyes bulging. She pushed her hands down on the floor and leaned back more, almost standing up in the sudden rush of her heart rate at what just happened.

Interesting- "Interesting," Zach said aloud as she was not in his head to listen to him in silence anymore.

"How could you-" Himazuri blinked a few times, then she leaned forward again and tried to relax her tensed body. "How did you do that? You were, listening to my thoughts."

"There are many different types of mental Quirks," Zach started. He closed his mouth and gave Himazuri a look that had her start listening in his head again, and Zach continued to her with his thoughts, "The person who taught me about the peculiarities of this particular class of the Quirk taxonomy was a great friend of mine. Seraphim." Zach watched Himazuri's expression sadden a little, but he continued in a steady way in his head that had her refocusing seriously instead of getting sad about the face of the woman she had seen covered in blood with her purple hair splayed out everywhere. "Her Quirk, Brain Trap, was amazing though it had its own flaws that she understood well because of her understanding of her own mind. It's something few people with mental Quirks realize, but those who do, become much more powerful when they gain the understanding." The girl in front of Zach looked confused, and he explained in simple terms to her, "If someone like me whose Quirk is not mental at all can control his mind to this extent, defend and even fight back with it, then what if someone with a strong mental Quirk truly understood all the same things?"

You think I could- Himazuri frowned as she felt different than when she was speaking to him before. She was too conscious of the fact that she was not opening her mouth, and she was trying so hard to do what she was doing before again. She whispered under her breath to the boy before her, "I don't really, understand this though. You say your Quirk isn't mental but you were just listening to my thoughts. How could you have been doing that, or is it just something all people could do, if they understood their minds well enough?"

"No, I doubt that," Zach said with a soft smile and a shake of his head. He closed his eyes and Himazuri followed suit, and she listened inside his head as he continued to her mentally, "The reason you were able to speak to me without moving your mouth, is because your Quirk isn't Mindreading."

"Yes it is," Himazuri countered, her expression getting a little annoyed with her lips curling down at what he just said like he knew better.

"You're wrong. To be fair though, that's what you were told as a child and what you've always believed because no one has ever countered you like this." Zach's reply made Himazuri start feeling unnerved but also more hesitant about arguing with him again. "But your Quirk is potentially even more powerful considering we're having this conversation in my head." Zach's use of the present tense made Himazuri aware of the fact that she had just responded mentally again, though this time she kept her cool about it and just took in a deep breath at what Zach was suggesting. He continued after a second with a soft smile on his face at the calmed breathing he heard, "Because I'm not a mindreader, and yet you're not talking so how could I hear you otherwise? I don't have this ability. Now the late hero Mandalay, she was able to transmit messages into people's heads, but she couldn't read minds like you can so there was no possibility for conversation. Mandalay had a much wider range for her Quirk too though, and the number of people she could communicate with telepathically was greater."

"I can't send messages into other people's… heads…" Himazuri looked back at Zach as she was saying this. He was watching her too, as she was doing exactly what she said she could not. As the two of them were sitting in the gym still with their eyes closed, and yet they were looking at each other now inside of an emptiness that was almost like they were just seeing what they would see with their eyes closed. The only difference between staring at the back of their eyelids and this place, was that they could still see the other person in front of them staring back despite everything else just being dark nothing.

"How did you do that?" Himazuri asked, her eyes opening for read this time.

"I didn't," Zach replied with his own eyes opened too. "You did." Himazuri pulled her face back again and it scrunched up in anxiety. There was fear in her expression, and she bit down on her bottom lip for a couple of seconds before panting as her mind raced out of control with thoughts Zach could not hear but could plainly see on her face. "There's a lot about Quirks that we as a species have yet to understand, and yet Quirks like yours are perhaps the most misdiagnosed. The least understood of all Quirks," Zach explained to the girl whose breathing started to slow at the knowing voice he used that she nodded along with as he was speaking like a teacher whose every word she hung onto.

"Listen," Zach told her, and Himazuri nodded and went back into his head smoothly. Zach had a small block up in his mind too that she was used to feeling now after entering so many times that morning to feel it. Yet this time the wall did not feel as sturdy, and she could not hear Zach either though she suspected he was trying to speak. Himazuri closed her eyes and focused on the wall, and again she was able to see something in the darkness behind her closed eyes. Instead of seeing Zach though she saw a blurriness, weak and with a form behind it that she recognized. She pushed through the blurry wall and saw Zach on the other side, and when she saw him only then did Zach actually see himself inside a mental state facing off with his classmate.

She's getting better at it each time. She knows her Quirk well enough, after all, that it should be easier for her to catch onto this sort of stuff than it was for us. Seraphim was a patient teacher though- Can you hear me? I supposed you are past the wall so all these thoughts could be heard. Zach had seen the figure in his mind following along with his thought process before he was even intending to start to speak telepathically with her. Well this is smoother now than before, but it seems you can't put messages in my mind as easily from all the way inside. I don't understand why, but we'll figure it out. For now. Himazuri's eyes inside that mental world shot open wide, as she felt herself getting physically pushed backwards though not painfully. It was the person in front of her in that emptiness who shoved her back out of his thoughts, leaving what she could now see as a wall behind him yet he stood in front of her staring at her with none of his thoughts able to be read. "Let's stay like this, and practice just your speech inside someone's head who knows what they're doing. You can barely hold a conversation in here with me as you are now, so I doubt anyone without my training would actually be able to hear you if you were trying to tell them something without speaking, which could always be a very useful ability in villain incidents."

Himazuri calmed her breathing down in the outside world. She almost found herself opening her real eyes when Zach pushed her out from the deeper depths of his mind, but she breathed slower and cleared her mind of all else like Zach had taught her to do through almost two straight hours of meditation before. The teaching was getting more intense now, and yet she needed to keep calm and quiet in both body and mind in order to continue learning. The excitement she felt about these new aspects to her own Quirk had to be subdued for the moment, and as she breathed deeply externally, she was able to speak to Zach at the same time, "You believe I would be able to send messages then to others who are untrained, and open links for conversations like this one?"

"I think it is more likely that you would be able to speak to them, and they would be able to think normally which you could hear. It would be slightly different, but there would not be different levels in the mind of the untrained for there to be a conversation like this. Where I am both able to speak with you mentally, and have my own thoughts deeper inside." Taco taco taco taco. "Were you able to hear what I was just thinking about?"

"I… no. I tried when you said it- or thought it at me. I thought if I focused harder, I might be able to hear you."

"It's fine. What I was just thinking, is that Seraphim and I had several conversations about our deeper understanding of mental Quirks due to our training. I always thought on these sort of things so deeply, and I was glad that she had so much experience and knowledge on the matter like no one else. We spoke just like this, about how humanity has never really pushed to understand Quirks like the two of yours."

What do- Himazuri grimaced, then she whispered aloud as the confusion had pulled her out of the conversation as her mind became too foggy to speak back in his. "What does that mean?"

"Doctors can do a lot to find out about physical Quirks: emitters, transformation, mutant Quirks alike can all be identified, researched, and categorized by trained professionals. Even Death is easier for scientists to work with than yours. Other than thinking about things and asking if you can read their minds, none of them want you to go any further. They are not going to get you to try and delve into their deeper, darker thoughts, or ask the girl to mess with their minds just to test if she can. No sane person wants to put their own mind in that danger. We all understand, on some level, that minds are fragile things. But just like the body, they can also get stronger. Just as anyone else can train their Quirks, you trained your own, but there are ways to train the mind even without a Quirk involving mental abilities. Strength training you use weights. For experience in a fight you need practical training and sparring. Understanding the mind is harder so training the mind is harder, but for those who understand how it can be the most important training of all."

"More important than training your Quirk, or your body?" Himazuri wondered, speaking about Zach specifically.

"Yes." He surprised her with his answer that showed he meant what he said right there. He opened his eyes and looked at the girl who had opened hers as well in surprise, and Zach thought at her, "Mental Quirks are very often considered hack abilities. Abilities that even the strongest heroes could fall to, against even amateur villains if the Quirk is niche enough. Shinso Hitoshi can use his Brainwashing to defeat anyone who responds to his voice. There is also a first year at U.A. who I believe will be a remarkable hero one day, Zeira Eleinie, whose Mental Infiltration is limited but very powerful in its paralytic powers. Seraphim had to make contact, even if she was able to train Brain Trap to the point that a single tap to the head and she could knock most villains out, and could take just a second to take down even the ones who had trained their minds. Zeira can do it from a distance, and if she learned to be as strong mentally as Seraphim was then she could defeat anyone in my opinion."

Zach paused for a few seconds as he waited to see if Himazuri was understanding him here. Then he added on with an intense look into her eyes, "We don't know what the extent of your Quirk is. Many people go for years believing their Quirk to be one thing and then going to get it registered as something else when they discover the truth. I'd suggest holding off on that until you know your full skill set. However, I would like to see how far we can take this. The last mental barrier I made was weak intentionally, but using your Quirk you busted your way through it with a mental projection you created in my head for that sole purpose of getting through the barrier. Did you even realize that was what you were doing when you did it?"

"I- I didn't…" Himazuri pursed her lips again, and the corners of those lips pulled up so much a second later as Zach watched her. "This is all so amazing…"

Doubt we'll get much farther. The excitement is getting to be too much. We should take a break and once she's accepted all these new amazing things, we can move on and continue to train. She hasn't been speaking to me in my head for a little now. "It is," Zach agreed, smiling back at the girl before him who he was also excited for and allowed it to show on his face now. I wonder how strong Himazuri really is. She could save a lot more people in the future, due to results of this very training.

"Let's just work on holding a conversation inside my head though. No talking," Zach added, and Himazuri nodded back after a second of hesitating as she did want to keep exploring to see if they could find out even more. She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes though. Zach did the same, and he started thinking at her, "You can hear me. When you think back at me I may or may not be able to hear you… As for Seraphim's Quirk, her ability was not actually meant for conversations like this. When she used her Quirk to train us- myself and a few others who wanted to learn, she was using her Quirk in almost the same way she used it to attack others. She could control the strength of her Quirk though, so even though it was Brain Trap, we were not stuck inside our minds for long unlike the villains she fought who were out for hours to days on end, or for thirty minutes if that was what she decided when she touched their heads."

"…hear me? Can you-"

"I hear you," Zach assured, his thoughts coming through calmly so as not to make Himazuri feel too much relief or change the current mood she was speaking back to him in. She had been asking in a slow, consistent speed when he started to hear her voice in his head. "As I was saying though, I think it may have been easier for us to learn to control our minds because of her specific Quirk."

"Didn't you just say- or think, it wasn't meant for these kinds of conversations?"

"Yes," Zach replied, and he was glad to hear her response come out clearer this time. "But because her Quirk actually trapped us in our heads we did not struggle to stay inside while training. We did not have the ability to move around our physical forms, or open our eyes, at least during the basic training. Afterwards when I got stronger at repelling users of mental Quirks, I could move my body even while they used their Quirks on me. Even before I got them out of my head sometimes. Once, I trapped an enemy in my own mind after she had gone inside it to attempt to attack me, and she had never fought anyone with the ability to counter her Quirk before."

"That must have been…" Himazuri steadied her mind and tried not to get unnerved. She breathed steadily, and Zach did not think that her voice trailed off because of a failure to keep speaking telepathically to him. She started thinking more to herself, "That person must have been so afraid. They had never seen anyone even counter them, and suddenly they were trapped in his mind. In Death's head! God, that must have been-"

"Himazuri." Zach started, making the girl in front of him flinch hard. "You have to learn to differentiate between your own thoughts and when you're thinking at someone with the intention of them hearing. If you base getting this conversation going off of a certain mood or emotion, and then you continue to feel that way while attempting to think privately, you'll let the person you were using your Quirk on hear you."

"I…" I feel dumb. Can he hear that? "I'm sorry."

"It's why we're training," Zach countered, letting her know there was nothing to apologize for. "But you want to be the one in control. Now that you know you could speak in someone's mind, what if you could think in a different voice? It's not like we have vocal cords in our heads." Himazuri's face started getting confused but she nodded along and just listened intently as Zach suggested to her, "With practice, you could theoretically think into someone's head a thought. If villains only think you know how to read their minds, they might not even know it's you when the overwhelming urge to surrender fills their mind. Nothing but the shouts of 'Surrender' echoing over and over in their heads."

"There's no way! Putting thoughts in people's heads? Having a conversation like this, it's one thing."

"It's only a conversation because I know what you're doing. I understand that you can hear my thoughts, and the voice I'm hearing is very clearly yours." Zach replied calmly and then added in a more serious way, "As I said, we know the least about mental Quirks. Maybe what I said really is impossible. I was just stating a possibility. Instead of saying it's impossible though, you should consider that a lot more is possible with this Quirk than even that. Practice, train, and try to use it in different ways."

"Death was once just a power with the sole ability to kill anyone who touched my right hand. Then I brought someone back to life. Then I touched myself with my hand," again, he added to himself, "and I activated Nightmare form. With a diluted amount of Death spread over my whole body that I practiced with for months with the League before I felt comfortable using it on a person. So many animals. Testing how much Death I could use in a Death Wind to only knock something out and not throw it into a long-lasting coma, or kill it. Death was too potent sometimes, and yet other times I used too little of it and only knocked something to its knees or somewhat slowed it down. And yet when I fought the Subspace Devils, I did not have a single incident of putting anyone in a coma, or even knocking someone out for more than two full days."

"Sero was out for several hours," Himazuri mentioned. She did not know if she was trying to think it to herself or at Zach, but he stopped when she was thinking it so she figured she had conversed it back. I could tell the difference too. Even without him stopping, this is not something he can hear…

"I don't have as good of control as Seraphim did with her Brain Trap. Especially because the density and potency of Death changes from time to time. My Quirk gradually strengthened, then got stronger in bursts, and I've used Trigger so many times too that I have to adapt my fighting to in order not to make mistakes like I did the night of the Lifebringer Incident." He paused for a moment, then he added to her after that brief silence in their heads, "I never really admitted that, to anyone. I told people I didn't mean to kill the five other than Kurogiri, but it wasn't just that I didn't intend for them to die at the start…"

"The Trigger, made you lose control?"

"No. It wasn't the Trigger. The Trigger did make Death too potent though. A single Death Wind at the strength I thought I was sending it at two guys charging at me, was actually much more potent on Trigger. It was not just a bigger wind because of my larger Triggered body, but the Death in that swing was thicker. It killed them easier, more instantaneous. As I was saying though, I had to learn that the hard way in the middle of a fight. It resulted in a lot of people dying. I'm not saying that would happen to anyone who doesn't train their Quirk as intensely as me, because Death is different and needs its user to go to much longer lengths for safety reasons. A mental Quirk, still unknown to its full strength like yours, could be very dangerous though and if you come to a point you're in a corner and you decide to test out some ability you wonder if you could possibly have, you could seriously fuck someone up in their head."

Himazuri's heart raced, and she bowed her head but kept her fluttering eyes closed as much as she was getting anxious in this conversation. I've never had to worry about that before! That's, that's why I'm- I need to stay relaxed to keep training. He said that thinking bad stuff like that was a good way for him to get me to get out of his head early on in the term. He'd think of stuff I was uncomfortable with that would get me to stop listening. I thought I was just stopping, but he said that if he could predict that reaction then it was still him doing it. I need to be able to listen in, even when I'm hearing things I don't want to. Shouldn't I want to hear this though? Mindreading has, always felt more like a curse than anything. At least in a hero school I met people who are good, but all my life I've seen the worst thoughts of everyone. This is a way to make my Quirk into something that doesn't just let me see the worst in people… Though that's not all my Quirk let me see. I saw you.

"…I trained Death every day. I saw Ganeshi looking nearly brain-dead from me using too much Death on him- actually, All Might had sent my flying in an attack on All For One in Camino Ward that just sent me flying in Nightmare form into Ganeshi… but that's besides the point. I hit him and stayed pressed against him, and then he smacked me away, and he absorbed too much Death that even with his strength and size it took him down and kept him down for months. So I trained Nightmare extensively so that would not happen again when I started fighting with my Quirk. And during my training, I tested out many things with my ability: Covering weapons I was holding in Death. Creating weapons out of Death. Firing Death out of my fingers as projectiles. Controlling the Death I threw even after I had released it from my body. Using the darkness of Nightmare form to revive people? Was it possible? I tested it, and I found that although most potent while using my right hand, even the diluted dark wind of Death has the ability to revive people if I use enough of it."

"What else can you do?"

"Turn my body intangible, in areas I focus Death thick enough that no part of my body remains within. Conversely I can condense it as thick but in the form of a solid, like my wings that don't wisp off any darkness when I use them so that I don't waste any Death during flight. Originally my wings wasted a lot of Death when I used them, but I needed to come up with a way to use them while fighting and I noticed the difference between how I was using Death on my back with the intent of keeping it in use for movement and the Death I was using on enemies with the intent of attack. When I make my body thick with Death to the point where attacks would pass through me, unless I keep my outer layer as skin, wisps of Death will come off me. After the attack on my house, I was wisping so much Death because my body was in the constant state that any attack on it would have passed through. I only stopped that night because I wanted to show weakness."

He can let attacks pass through him? And, and if that's true, then could he keep it as a passive ability? If he could, shouldn't that sniper shot never have hit him? And if he could sleep with it on he wouldn't have been hurt that night. Still, if he can do it while fighting, anyone who attacks him would pass through and knock themselves out when they pass through his Death. He's, he's unbeatable! He even trained all this mental stuff so that the few Quirks that could still beat him now can't!

"I'm not invulnerable, Himazuri," Zach assured the girl before him.

"You could hear me?"

"No. You were doing a good job. I just suspect it's what you were thinking based on the abilities I just described… But I do have my weaknesses. Before the attack on my apartment I had been keeping my body completely full of Death most of the time. I'm not anymore-"

"Why before it, and not, after?" Himazuri did not understand the time table here at all. "And in that case, why didn't the shot pass through you after leaving Tartaros?"

"I only started a little before the joint training. And I stopped because I got sick. When I took those sick days, I really was out sick."

"Really?!"

"Yes," Is that really shocking? Guess everyone thought I was lying, like always. "Because I was keeping parts of my body normal like it is right now, while leaving most of my vital organs completely shrouded in Death or even replaced by pockets of Death altogether. I need those organs to function though in order to sustain the rest of my body."

"Duh."

"Haha, ha," Zach chuckled aloud and then shook his head wishing he had kept it in this time. Himazuri giggled herself too though after a second, and Zach mentioned mentally, "Yeah, I guess it was pretty obvious. I didn't want to believe I was doing it to myself though. Not when I thought I needed to keep it up in order to defend myself from the assassins. See, Eziano's the one villain in this whole world who I think may be stronger than me."

"…The only one?"

"Yes. The last one." Zach breathed out heavily and he and Himazuri just sat there in front of each other with their eyes closed for a moment. "He's cut my throat once before. He's the worst villain in the whole world. Next time we meet though, I plan on winning."

Himazuri thought about a scar in the shape of a gash going across the front of Zach's neck. She felt sweat rolling down the side of her face, but she still wondered back to him in a semi-calm way, "If you beat him…"

"I don't know. I have no idea what the circumstances will be. I don't know if I'll ever see him again." You're right though. I'd probably kill him. I don't think there's another option. And, he deserves it. He'll deserve whatever I do to him.

Himazuri fell quiet as Zach stopped talking to her too. Silence cut between the two of them, and Himazuri bowed her head and took in deep breaths she let out slowly. This is out of my league. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I, don't even want to talk about it though. Not something like that. "Seraphim… What kind of person was she?"

"Seraphim was," Zach started in reply. He smiled and his mood changed instantly as he was glad to get off such a dark topic he was thinking of with a grim and determined expression. "Just the coolest person. Me and Mark agreed, her story was cooler than either of ours. Others among our friends considered the two of us like… Never mind." Himazuri smiled a little as Zach trailed off, like he thought it would sound like he was bragging or something and would rather not finish that thought. He continued, "She was awesome though. Came to find us soon after we stopped Mongoloid…"

In the spectating room of the EEE, Ekusessu and Norasaki watched the screens in front of them together. Ekusessu's wide eyes darted from the bald man next to him back to the screen that Norasaki just mentioned something while staring at. "How could he be? That's not how, Himazuri's Quirk works," Ekusessu hesitated as he saw the dark-haired boy sitting in front of Himazuri smiling while the girl in front of him let out a small laugh before steadying her expression again with a shake of her head. Then, he nodded in a slight way while the two of them continued to sit there right in front of each other with their eyes closed. "You're right," Ekusessu whispered as he watched what was clearly a two-sided conversation the two were having.

Sazaki is too much, Norasaki thought, trying to subdue his own impressed look as he watched their school's top student. Easily the top hero prospect from Shiketsu in years. Yet it does not feel like he should even be a student anymore. The experience he has is beyond anything I have ever heard before. It is to the point that I have to either accept that he is an interdimensional general who has fought in wars, or that he has accumulated the experience on this world to be able to find a way to lie to me. However, if he has found ways to counter Himazuri's Mindreading, and to advance it by training her like this, it is highly likely he is able to get around my Quirk as well. The only way he would have acquired the experience on this world to be able to do that, is if he was Death. Does Himazuri know? Has he convinced her to stay quiet? Or does she know that he really was in that world of Terra like Oda-sensei's book claims?

Kid's a great teacher, Ekusessu thought in amazement as he watched the conversation go on between the two who had not spoken aloud in a while. How is he even doing this?

"…She was a vigilante who was completely self-taught. A gymnast and volleyball player through middle and high school, she used her school sports to train herself. Gymnastics in particular was her forte, and she incorporated it into the martial arts courses she took outside of school. Seraphim once said that she would train somewhere until she was able to defeat the one teaching the classes using their own techniques, then she'd move on. She did that for years, going to school during the day and those extracurriculars in the afternoons. Her schedule was so packed, that no one could suspect her as the same person who donned a black domino mask and purple hood at nights to fight criminals."

"She did that as a high schooler?"

"Started in sixth grade," Zach countered. "Didn't like that crime near her was so high, and that people who tried to stop it would get in trouble from the heroes afterwards. The fact that heroes arrested those people is what actually turned her off the idea of becoming a hero herself in the future. It didn't make any sense to her. Then she just decided that even though heroes had to wait until high school or graduation to really start helping people on their own, if she was done with aspiring to be one of them, she should just start now. So she went out there and fought villains from when she was 11. Trained herself with those ways I mentioned, and was always cautious enough never to get caught by heroes or killed by the villains she was after. Smart enough to never get caught even once."

He continued while staring at the girl in front of him who was in the empty mental zone created with her Quirk. They each had blurry walls behind them showing that the other was blocked off to hearing whatever they were thinking outside of their thoughts directed to each other. The two sat in front of each other just like they were sitting on the outside, and even the emptiness around them was starting to make out shapes that seemed to mimic the outside though not exactly as it was based off what they knew their surroundings were. Whenever Himazuri focused on how the mental world was shifting around them it would go quickly back to nothingness, but it was interesting that the subconscious world was turning into what they actually knew to be around them even though their eyes were closed. As Himazuri focused back on Zach, the world around them gradually went back into loose focus and a shoddy image of their actual surroundings, but though Himazuri noticed, she stayed focused on Zach this time and just allowed her Quirk to do what it was doing.

"…Heroes had heard about her from the villains they caught after she had faced them, and yet she knew ways to get them arrested that I incorporated as everyday maneuvers for my forces. I knew some of the same tactics from when I followed Webb around, but Seraphim knew different methods and the variety she had made it harder for heroes to tell when it was actually us stopping the villains they would then go capture. We were smart enough about it that 'anonymous tips' actually became a well-known practice around the world, despite 95-99% of those tips being directly from us."

"99%?"

"Yes. We sent so many so fast that unless they blamed it on some conceptual shift in the public's attitude, there'd be no other way to explain it other than that it was us. So I convinced the world that people had just started being more confident about turning in villains. Heroes and cops knew though, as much as they ignored it. No civilians know who the villains are, what kinds of drugs and Quirks they have, where exactly they are or where they're going to be in a certain amount of time. As Seraphim knew though, if we were too obvious with our tips then police couldn't use those tips as an excuse to hold villains afterwards. We needed to be vague enough that it wasn't a sure thing it was Death contacting them, and yet specific enough that they would send the number of heroes we needed them to send, for the times when we couldn't go there to help them out beforehand and just leave the cleanup and arrests to them. That was about half of the time, while the other half I just had heroes going to the places I knew villains to be. Maybe even more times I had the heroes doing the work…"

It had to be heroes saving this world. But I just didn't have the time to stop them all. Not without sending my forces in without me, and I couldn't do that.

"…Seraphim and Cee got along great," Zach continued to Himazuri, changing the tone as he realized he was getting off-base there. "Because of their similar experience, though I knew Cee looked up to Seraphim a lot when the older woman came to join us. And Seraphim wasn't that much older, but Cee looked up to her like an older sister, or a teacher. The fact that Seraphim was not part of any associated anti-hero organization, that she was completely self-taught and self-made, it was amazing. And the extent to which she understood her own Quirk was something everyone in our force respected. She once had to sit there for ten seconds straight touching someone's head before being able to trap them in their heads for ten minutes, at the most. When she joined us she still had to hold on for a second at least, but by the end she was tapping people on their heads and taking them out for days. Jumping and flipping around with her gymnastics, using moves I taught her too and she incorporated into her fighting style. I did the same with what I learned from her, as she was one of the best fighters I've ever met, able to defeat me in hand-to-hand combat the first time we sparred together."

"It wasn't like she caught me off guard or anything either. I already suspected great martial arts ability from the description of her Quirk and the downside of how she needed to get close to use it. She beat me though." Zach paused and he said after a couple seconds, "She was a teacher, a leader, a great soldier, and a good friend."

Himazuri's expression dropped down sadly. She kept her eyes closed but she held off from saying anything to Zach, too worried that he might be able to hear her thoughts if she stayed in place with her deeper thoughts in so much disarray. He's hurting so much from losing her. He taught her, and she was a good person, but… "Zach, I still, don't understand you."

Despite her feelings she thought-spoke pretty clearly to me right there. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry. I don't, I mean I appreciate what you're doing here. I'm happy we're doing this, but, but when you talk about losing people you sound so hurt. Yet you're spending all of today with me, while people are out there dying." Himazuri shook her head and continued quickly, "I really don't mean to tell you not to help, or- but I just don't get it. Because, I believe you are a kind enough person that all those people you let die do get to you."

"I don't like it, that you say I 'let' them die," Zach replied in a steady voice though disapproving of her wording.

"It's true though," she countered right back. "I might not understand how it feels. I don't get the pressure at all, but no matter how you look at it there are people dying right now you could be saving. No one would stop you. I- I don't see how you can sit here with me, and not be thinking about them."

I'm always thinking about them. Zach did not respond with that to her. Why not? He wondered after he had kept that thought to himself. What's the difference between her and Mina? Why… Except, that's not the main reason. Not the worst, at least. I can't tell her… that? "I…" Zach started but stopped himself, hesitation filling his mind and his thoughts blocking out immediately with a thicker wall that Himazuri could feel in his head.

She pushed though, "I want to know. I, I have to. It's been bugging me since you offered, but to have spent this much time! I don't get it. And, and because I don't, I start to feel like it's me keeping you here. It's me keeping you from them. And when I think of it like that, that people are dying out there because of me, it makes me want to stop. And I don't like that either, because I really don't want to stop this."

She's right. And, I don't want her thinking I'm under that much pressure. Doing that to Mina was bad enough. I can't just put that on everyone… though I'm not sure this reason, will be any better. "Himazuri, I'm terrified."

"You are?" She asked it back in shock, like the idea of him being scared was laughable considering how he was just talking about taking on the villain he thought was strongest in the world.

"Of how powerful Death is," Zach continued. "Specifically, with how many people I can bring back. That number keeps rising. It's risen so much from the beginning, but even back when I could only bring back a couple sheep in one go, that was only a couple years ago. In under three years I've gone from bringing one person back, to being able to bring back hundreds in a day."

"That's amazing though…"

"Yeah, but it's still only hundreds. Maybe, if I had a global choice of everyone to bring back: the legal ability to travel everywhere, with no one stopping me, and I went nonstop for a full day, that number could be up at thousands... Twenty thousand people die a day in China. Over a hundred thousand every day. I can't save everyone. I can't even save a good fraction of 'everyone.' But if I start trying to do just that, then every day I've let tens of thousands of people die, while choosing to save other people in their place."

"It, wouldn't be 'in their place' though. It's just what you were able to do-"

"That wouldn't be good enough. Not for the people I let die. Not for the families of those people who scream and yell and complain that I saved other people instead of the ones they cared about. 'Why does he get to choose who lives and who dies?' 'Why is it completely up to Lifebringer whether or not we die?' And then, 'What is Lifebringer doing today?! Why hasn't he saved anyone today?' 'Why did he take a day off today when my children died, but my old neighbor of ninety years old got brought back yesterday?' 'It's unfair.' 'He let my family members die three times in a row.' 'I hate him.' 'He's treating our lives like nothing more than a job.' 'Did you see him eating lunch the other day? How many people died while he was sitting there?' And over time, I will have angered more people than I've helped. I will turn more and more people against me who were once on my side, when the people they cared about, their acquaintances and friends, and their families die."

"I, understand. It might not happen like that though. People understand you can't-"

"They don't when it's their loved one who bites it. They only 'understand' now, because of their hope that by saying that I'll want to keep going to one day save them. I've heard it. People afraid to tell me what they think of how I'm reviving people, or how many people I've been reviving, because they don't want to anger me. They don't want to risk me not reviving them when it's their turn. Even the people who support me, are covering up their own fear of me with hope that I save them. That fear inherently rises every time I bring back a larger group of people. What I did the other day, shook the entire world. Mortality doesn't mean what it once did… though for most of the world it does. Most of Japan realizes too that that was one day I did that, and not to expect death not to stick. They can see the day when that won't be the case though. People are waiting for me to get my pro license. Holding on to life, until I've started reviving everyone. They think that day will come, and the longer I wait the more and more people will turn on me. The more people will wonder 'What is he doing?' The more people forget about what I've done for them, and start asking 'What has he done for me lately?'"

"That's-"

"And you don't understand, because this is only the start of it. You say it may not happen this way, but it will, and it is happening just like this. What's happening currently, is what I predicted would happen months ago when I decided against doing what I did just the other day. I knew that this would come, and I know what the next steps are too. I can see it all. But things get fuzzy when I try to look farther. As fuzzy as the future is though, I know what eventuality this will all lead to…"

Himazuri gulped, but she held it together and questioned the boy whose thoughts were getting seriously dark here, "What eventuality?"

"My loss of humanity." Zach replied it and his head bowed in the mental world he and Himazuri sat in even closer now than the world outside where they were being watched. He stared into her eyes and told the girl listening to his darkest fears, "Every time I revive someone, I die. People think it's not so bad. They think I'm prepared to do it if it means I can bring others back, because I'm not really dying. But I am. I feel death, but I feel more than that. All the damage and pain that led up to that person's death, as well as any damage their body took afterwards and the pain it would have caused that person if they were still alive. I feel what it's like to die for them and more, every time I bring someone back. And it's terrible. I hate it. It's pain so horrible I can't describe it. And the feeling of death itself that I have felt before, I feel that every time too. It's horrible. I'm so scared and nervous and hesitant every time I want to bring someone back, and yet I resolve myself into doing it and following through once I've started no matter how much it hurts. I have felt… things. Worse pain than anyone in this entire world…"

"And when I spend my entire days in that much pain, when I spend every day dying over and over for the people of this world, people who condemn me more every day, how long will it be before I start to question what I'm doing?" Zach posed the question, and chills ran down Himazuri's spine. Her breath caught in her throat at the serious tone in which Zach just thought that at her. "This is usually something I don't dare think about, because it makes it real. I know it's there though. The truest fear of what my power could turn me into. That much pain, for people who don't even appreciate what I'm doing for them. All I'll see every day when I'm searching the news and online for people who have died, is nonstop hate directed towards me. People will despise me with all of their beings even though I can't save everyone. I can't be fair to everyone. I'm not strong enough to be. And yet I'm strong enough that they'll want me to be that person. If I go out with my current strength and save a thousand every day, people will fight over getting the spots among that thousand when it's their turn."

"Except, I won't take money. I would never. I don't care about it. And yet what I do care about, are the people I care about. It will become very clear, when no one I knew personally before I started is dying. People will come to realize that I do have favorites. And I do. I won't deny it. If one of my friends here died, and I was sweeping across the Americas saving as many people as possible, I would break course and come straight here to save my friend. I know already that I would do that. There's no doubt in my mind that I would. And that is a horrifying thing… Himazuri, how long would it be before I started to save the people who were always online defending me? People who I believed really cared about me, just because of what I saw them saying on the internet or on tv? If my entire life at that point is bringing people back to life, the most human interaction I'll have is through stuff like that. The people who I'm still saving lives for, are the people in this world who I believe are so good and innocent… and in that much constant pain, the people who are being kind to me and accepting that I can't save everyone would be the ones I started caring about most of all. And I can see it. I can see a version of myself saving one person over another, because I'm always choosing to save one life over a different one, but I can see myself choosing based on whether or not the person is someone who cared about me. Someone I cared about too, because I saw that they cared about me and that helped make my horrible life a little better…"

Himazuri gulped again. She sat in front of Zach quietly, listening without a sound as he continued on without her pushing him to. There was nothing she had to add on either, as this was going far beyond anything she could say that she 'understood' anymore. As he went on her shock just grew more with a deep sense of dread and fear growing along with it. "People would see what I did there though. People would see that I made the choice, based on my personal preference. They would see that I chose who lived and who died, based on whether or not they were supportive of me or not. Governments would declare that as a misuse of my power. Governments already pressured by their people to turn on me because I had been failing them over and over and over again would declare me an enemy. I wouldn't stop though. At that point, it wouldn't really matter to me who was against me or for me. I'd be saving people on a scale unheard of before. And those people who want to be brought back, they'd still exist in countries that were against my presence. I'd go and save them too, because their governments don't get to decide that they have to die if their hearts stop. No one gets to decide whether or not other people get to live or die… and yet I could see myself deciding that. Because it's a necessity. Because people expect me to save everyone, and yet I wouldn't be able to save them all, so I'd have to make the choice. Every day I would be making that decision. Forced by the world to make it, and condemned by that same world for making the decisions I make because 'that's not what they would have done.' Or, 'I did it unfairly.' No one would ever think I was being fair. No one would ever accept my choices… Until they do."

"When they see that I've brought people back based on my whims, based on my preferences, how many would switch their attitudes to praising me for what I was doing? How many people would start to treat me, like a God? It's a terrifying thought, one I couldn't tell anyone in fear of what they'd think of me just that I could think something like this… Even telling you, I'm afraid what you'll think, but I can't stop now. I would start saving the people who love me. The ones who tell me I can take breaks, that I could stop for a while, that I could come to their homes and eat their food and rest. I would be so exhausted of reviving everyone at that point, so devoid of human contact, and in so much pain that I would accept the offers. I would take a break, and be considered a monster by half of the world as I stop reviving them. Then I'd keep reviving people, and yet the ones I'm reviving more often are the ones who thank me, who are so grateful that I chose to come to them even though I didn't have to. They'd all know that I didn't have to come to any of them. That I could have just rested, or I could have picked someone else, and I'd feel less shitty all the time if when I was bringing people back they were thanking me and actually grateful instead of just mad that I only saved them, and not their families, or I only saved their kid this time, and not the last time they lost a child."

"…The world's heroes would be coming after me as I started bringing people back more and more based on my own personal choices. Less random and thereby less heroic, I'd become what so many would call a monster, a villain. Heroes all over the world would come for me, but in some countries they wouldn't and I'd save the people in those countries more. And the heroes there wouldn't come after me as much because the people of those countries would overthrow their governments or take down their own heroes if their authorities tried to stop me. In the countries I'm treated as a God I'd be bringing back so many more people, and in the other half of the world where I'm treated as a monster they'd have to live with mortality. And no longer would I have the hard decisions to make of who to revive and who to leave dead, because the authorities of so many countries and their own people have decided that I can't go there anymore, and I'll just accept that. I won't bother going into those places to have to fight their heroes and avoid arrest and attack innocent people just to be able to save someone. I'll leave it up to the people of these lands to decide whether or not they accept me. Whether or not they want me there… and what happens when half the country so strongly wants me there and the other half doesn't?"

"You know why I'm so afraid of going out there and bringing everyone back right now?" Zach asked it with his tone getting angrier in his head, and yet full of fear too. "It's because I can see a future world where I'm treated as God by half and a monster by the other half. I can see governments being overthrown by civil wars where the people turn on each other for the promise of immortality. Where life and death become things determined solely by my will… I've always been good at predicting futures based on my own choices. And I can see it. What would happen if I brought back thousands and thousands, and people hated me so much for it that I wouldn't reward their hate with a second chance at life. I already bring back people I care about quicker than ones I don't. And it's not that I don't care about everyone, but it's that I can't care about everyone the same or it'd kill me to let them all die every day. And yet… No, I don't care about them. If I did, I wouldn't be able to hold back from going out there and bringing them all back right now. And I don't know how long I'd be able to keep this mentality, so I have to not bring them back. As much as I do care, I can't start saving them. I have to stay at this level of care. Caring enough that it hurts to let them die, and yet not enough that I'm willing to risk this horrible future I see."

"If I started that kind of life, I'm afraid of what life would become for all of us. Everyone's afraid of death, and the idea that they would never have to die would make billions follow me. It's terrifying. And so I have to thread a needle. No matter what I do, the most likely path for me is becoming a villain. Trying to save everyone will make me a villain. But saving no one would do the same…"

"I can't imagine," Himazuri finally whispered back to him in their internal conversation. And she couldn't. As much as this all terrified her, she could not really wrap her mind around it actually happening. He looked afraid though. He looked scared of this future he could see coming so vividly that he had all these details that did scare her. The fact that he was giving his own reactions to things that were going to happen too, unnerved her at what those future decisions of his were.

"…In a month, I have to figure out what mortality means for the human race. I have to decide what I'm going to spend my life doing, and if it requires me to brutally murder myself hundreds of times a day." Himazuri's whole body tensed up at the wording of that sentence. The way he said it like he was already angry, like the expectations everyone had for him were so horrible and he was tired of it. He went on though in a way that just made Himazuri pull back with a crushed look forming on both her mental and outwards face, "I can't kill myself. I can't give everyone else the excuse that if things got that hard they could do it. I want them to believe they can always come back, but I don't know how I can make those ideals stick when people see what becomes of me in the not-too-distant future. And I can't do that to my friends and the people who love me-"

"Do you want to die?"

Himazuri asked it, and Zach cracked a smile and almost laughed. He stopped himself though and just said with a soft smile on his face, "I'm just mentioning it because it's another option." He shook his head while responding, but deeper in his mind his thoughts got much darker despite the way he smiled outwardly and reassured the girl who relaxed with a deep breath upon hearing the response. "It would just prevent a lot of really difficult decisions from needing to be made. That's life though. Tough decision after tough decision. This is one of the hardest though."

"Ahh, anyway I'm sorry. Telling you all that, was a little far. It's not even something I predict will happen. I'd never let it get that far, especially because I can see it coming even now. I'm just saying that if I did what everyone expects, I could see that turning into one of the most probable outcomes. And, I wanted to explain why it's not that simple. It's not as simple as 'someone's dead, I should save them.' That's how simple it should be. It's what I tricked myself into believing again the other day. I always think things out for the long-run though. I think things out much farther than anyone else, which is why people are already getting angry because they aren't looking at the whole big picture. Just what they want to see…"

"This is the big reason that I can't tell Midoriya. He's been on my case constantly about not bringing back more people. About only bringing back a few. I see his judging eyes every time we see each other, but I could never tell him this because to Midoriya that's the worst case scenario long-term issue that I see as a potential but he wouldn't. To him it's always just about right or wrong. Because Midoriya's a hero, and if he has the chance to save people, he takes it. Sometimes I wish I could live like that too. It doesn't go any deeper than that for him…"

"For most heroes it doesn't," Zach admitted too, as he felt Himazuri probably agreed with Midoriya here. "But I don't trust myself. That's the biggest problem. You may say it's wrong to assume this future, and Midoriya may say it's just a worst-case scenario, but I've failed under pressure too many times. I've slipped up so many times. And to do so on this scale? If I lost it, while doing what everyone thinks I'm going to be doing in a month? …And just thinking about this worst case, is already proving that I'm not the hero the world thinks I am… or at least some people, think I am…"

He trailed off, and Himazuri hated the fact that she agreed with him more in that moment than through the rest of the conversation. Everything he had just said suddenly clicked, as he told her in that darker way about how "some" people thought he was that good hero. His tone that sounded sad but also frustrated that it was not 'the world' who thought of him as that hero anymore. He's not just being paranoid. He knows himself too well, and the fact that he already feels it now is what scares him! He wouldn't predict something like that if he didn't have a good reason to. And if he feels it now, then he can see himself still feeling it even if he's become a person who just brings people back all day every day. I can't imagine that being his life. It would be so horrible for him, and yet every break he takes… Himazuri scrunched up her face in self-hatred, People like me will question what he's doing, sitting around while people are dying!

"You don't need to bring everyone back. That's not what we all expect-"

"It is."

"Most people just want you to be a hero. A hero who saves people at the incidents he goes to!"

"I've already changed their expectations, by what I've done now. It can never go back to that."

"They-"

"They'll demand more," Zach cut her off without letting her make another attempt at countering him.

"And it's your right to deny them! And some people will hate you for it, but you can't make everyone happy." Zach hesitated, and he stared at the girl in front of him who leaned forward in the mental void that suddenly felt much more under her control. She leaned towards him and said firmly to the teenage boy before her, "No hero can save everyone. You might feel incredible pressure, but it's not up to you alone. There are other things you can do too. People may be upset you aren't reviving everyone, but we will still appreciate what you do. We will still care that you save people. The lives you save, don't mean nothing. People won't hate you for the people you aren't saving, as much as you think they will. Heroes save lives. You save lives. To all of us, you'll be a hero. Whether you bring a thousand people back a day, or a dozen, and spend the rest of the day as a regular hero. Or you could say that you can't revive people anymore! That your Quirk suddenly altered-"

"And then when someone I love dies, and I bring them back? The world will condemn me for lying-"

"So don't lie! Just tell them why you can't bring them back-"

"Because I'm afraid they'll turn me into a God-"

"Because it hurts!" Himazuri yelled that back, and Zach pulled back with a grimace on his face at the clear way she yelled that at him. "If you explain the kind of pain you feel, like you explained it to me- and even when you did that! I could see you holding back what it actually felt like, for my sake! So ignore that urge to help us by not telling us how much it hurts you! If you told everyone how much it really hurt you. If you told them all how horrible it was, they'd understand. They might be upset, but they'd understand, and they'd forgive you for not being able to save them all."

I hope they do. I won't tell them about that pain, Himazuri, but I hope they're able to accept it like you say. "There are… other things I want to do. Other ways, I want to be a hero."

"Then be that kind of hero. Don't be the kind of hero that you're afraid will turn you into a monster. Don't just become what people want you to be."

"Live in a way I'd be proud of," Zach finished in a soft way, and he reached forward and put his left hand over her right for a second. "It's what I'm going to do. And I'm glad, you won't judge me for it."

"I won't. It's what you should do, even if the whole world tells you differently. Even if every last one of them tells you that you should just be reviving them nonstop, you don't have to. Never forget that."

"Yeah… I won't." He replied to her with a smile that she saw as they both opened their eyes. Then he thought to himself afterwards, I want so much to be a good person. When Midoriya tells me over and over that I should be bringing back more people though, I feel like that's what a good person would do. Even though I never gave him my reasons, I still feel like he's right. I have other ways to be a good person though. Not just the most obvious way. I can be a hero, like other heroes. I can save people like they save people, without needing them to be dead first. I have saved more people in that way than I've ever revived. A public Lifebringer will always be expected to revive people as his job though, because that's what Lifebringer's always been. That's what it was born as. It's what I made myself. And I can't change how everyone sees me that easily, especially when they want me to be that person rather than just another hero.

I have things I want to do though. I want to fix the things I broke. Save the people here who I came back to help. And I can't give up! Still over a month before graduation, and even afterwards I could still keep going! As long as I have the chance to, I need to keep trying.

---

Knock Knock

"Rendo-san. There is someone at the door."

"I heard," the man who got up off his couch replied to his house's robotic female voice. The former pro hero with long messy blue hair walked slowly towards his door, frowning as he wondered who it was outside arriving unannounced. I'm really not in the mood right now Samurai. Could be Ebizu too. Thought he'd be back from injury-leave already, but he's still out. Rendo Yabura stopped behind his door while looking through the thick glass of it that blurred the image of the person on the other side so it was more a hard-to-make-out silhouette. "Hello? You've reached-"

"That you Grappler?"

Grappler froze on the inside of his door at the sound of that voice. His shocked expression lowered much darker in the next second, "What are you doing here, Sazaki?"

"If you let me in I can tell you," Zach replied from the other side of the doorway. Himazuri's right. I've been getting distracted by doing the stuff everyone wants me to do. Going out and doing press conferences. Bringing back hundreds. It's not part of the plan. I have stuff I decided I would do while I'm back here. The door opened up in front of Zach, and he stared inwards at the taller man who looked a bit shorter than Zach remembered him. "Thanks," Zach said, and he walked forward past Grappler who turned sideways to let the teenager into his house.

Grappler turned his head and watched Zach walk in with his expression intense. The former pro grimaced at the uneasy feeling he felt though. His eyes shifted to Sazaki's back hesitantly as the boy walked inside his house with his hands down in his sweatshirt hoodie's front pocket. The kid had on a plain black sweatshirt, and he had walked into Rendo's house without so much as a respectful look at the house's owner first. He just stepped inside and glanced around at the walls with some pictures on them, into the rooms he was passing, until he stepped into the main living room and kitchen that was all connected on the first floor.

"As I said," Grappler began, closing the door behind him in a hard way before stepping after Sazaki. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see you," Zach replied. He turned back towards the hero, and he frowned at the man with messy blue hair who wore casual clothes and did not look ready for any guests. Zach glanced to Rendo's left side and then to his right, frowning and then giving the man an annoyed look that pissed Grappler off much more at the sight of. "How are you doing-"

"Why are you here?" Rendo repeated for the third time, though his voice was darker this time and he took a large step towards Sazaki with his body looking bigger this time. "Why are you in Hosu at all? Just to see me?" Grappler asked it in frustrated accusation, and he questioned further, "When you could be out there saving people?"

"Maybe I just live in Hosu," Zach replied back in a snappy tone. Grappler paused and stared back at Sazaki in a more hesitant way at the boy's tone Sazaki had never once used with him. Zach frowned at the man who still had part of his left arm from his mid-bicep to his shoulder, a stub on one side of the otherwise armless man. "Maybe I live in this area, and I'm just walking around close to my new place."

Is he serious? He actually thinks, I'll believe that… It's not, impossible. "You just happened to walk here?"

"You don't know where my apartment is," Zach replied.

No one knows where Lifebringer is currently living, Grappler thought. "There aren't any apartments in this neighborhood," he said aloud in a darker way at the kid.

Zach just shrugged back at the hero though. "Maybe I just said 'apartment' to throw off the fact that I live in a house." Grappler froze again, and Zach continued with a step away from the couch he had leaned back on for a second there. He stepped towards Rendo and said in a dark way straight up to the former hero's face, "I have a ton of money, so why wouldn't I have bought a house with it?"

Doubt filled Grappler's mind as it actually sounded like Lifebringer did buy a house by the tone and tense he was speaking in. That could just as easily be a lie though! He's- What money? What is he telling me?!

"What's wrong, Grappler?" Zach wondered, taking another step closer to the man who stared at the kid without pulling his head back though that was what he felt like doing as Sazaki closed it to a three meter gap between them. "Why are you so mad at me?"

"'Why?' Do you-" Grappler paused, the confusion that covered his face for a moment wiping away. Regret flashed over his expression instead and he had to look away. He slowly turned back, and he stared at the boy he could see as a wide-eyed first year of high school. He saw the kid showing off his moves so proudly while trying to hide his own excitement at who he was interning with. He saw the kid who had studied all of his moves, and who had patrolled the streets with him years ago as a future hero. I could have changed everything. What I told him, way back then…

"Do you blame yourself?" Zach wondered. He asked it, and Grappler's entire body tensed up with his harsh but regretful gaze shooting to shock as it felt like Sazaki read his thoughts. "You're right to," Zach continued, shocking Grappler more and making the man's right foot slide back on the floor as he heard it. "You made me the person I am today," Zach said to his former idol. Look at you now, Zach thought darkly and his expression matched those thoughts of disapproval and even disgust as he stared at the hero before him.

"That's-" Grappler began with his eyes huge, his heart racing as he stared at the teen who had come here to tell him this.

"Do you remember what you told me?" Zach questioned, turning around and walking farther back into the living room. He walked around the side of Grappler's couch and glanced to the television that was on but muted. He glanced at a picture of himself on the news, and then he turned back to look at Grappler who had slowly started walking farther into the room with his expression filling with rage at the blame Sazaki was putting on him. "You told me that I didn't want to be known as a hero who kills people. That, our justice system couldn't be known as one that allowed heroes to do that." Zach narrowed his eyebrows down and continued to Grappler, "That it would be an authoritative government that accepted a killer as a hero. The iron fist of the law, is what I would be to be a hero who kills villains."

"Then I did nothing to make you into this! I told you the opposite!" Grappler yelled, as the boy's words were proving what he said back then was the opposite of the cause of Sazaki's misdeeds.

"Yet you also told me," Zach continued, his head turning away with a half-nod right there at what Grappler said before he froze. He looked back out the corners of his eyes and said darkly to the man who pulled his head back, as Sazaki told him, "That sometimes I may have to kill a villain." Grappler grit his teeth so hard, as this was not something he had forgotten. Hearing Sazaki tell it to him himself though, was the biggest punch in the gut he had ever felt including during fights with villains.

Zach turned his head fully back to the former pro and said, "You told me that if I avoided the decision, it was the same as looking away. That the hardest decisions were the ones you couldn't look away from." Zach stepped back towards Grappler who started shaking his head and looking down at the floor. "You think you're to blame for all that happened to me, and you're right. You helped me train. You helped direct what kind of hero I wanted to be when I did not have a clear direction."

Rendo's eyes snapped open and shook in rage, but they darted down to his right side and then to his left and lost some of the anger with just a feeling of sickness filling him instead. He rose his head with that look in his eyes, just in time for Zach to tell him, "And I thank you for that. That help you gave me pushed me to my future, and I saved millions of lives." Zach did not elaborate on it. He just stared into Grappler's confused eyes that shot open wide and shook again as he stared at the kid in front of him.

Grappler shook his head to the right and glared away. "I heard what was in your book, or that book about you, and it's-"

"Fuck the book, and listen to what I'm telling you," Zach snapped. Grappler froze while looking away, and he slowly turned back with his whole body tensing up at what the teen just told him. "I want you to know, that those lives I took that night, I did feel I had that decision to make that I would have avoided otherwise." Zach stepped closer to Grappler, making a smaller gap between them now of only five feet. They stood there and Zach said to the taller man looking down at him, "I saw it there right in front of me."

"There was no decision-" Grappler began.

"I saw the choice though," Zach countered just as fast. He interrupted his once mentor and glared up into his eyes, "I could not help but think of ways to stop Kurogiri, even if it meant using my Quirk, even if it meant killing him. And I knew I couldn't be a hero if I let the opportunity to stop Kurogiri pass me by and let him kill countless others. I saw what I could do, and so I took the chance." Zach glared at the man who once told him that doing something like that was what made him a hero, and yet who he could imagine looking at him in such a way over the video call they had with Power Loader and Roady. "You disapprove? You think what I did 'went too far?' Don't make me laugh."

"I never told you to do anything like that," Grappler growled back.

"But I had the choice," Zach replied. "And you told me, that to ignore that choice would mean I was not a hero." Grappler ground his teeth and shook his head with his eyes squinting as he remembered telling Sazaki that very thing. "It was you who told me I couldn't look away, and yet you also have a choice right now." Grappler's head stopped shaking and his squinted eyes opened a little wider as he stared away, and they slowly shifted back and locked on the boy's who glared at him in such a disapproving way. "You're avoiding the decision too by putting all this blame on me."

Grappler's eyes narrowed darker, as he knew the decision Sazaki was speaking of that caused his body to shake in rage. Zach glared even angrier right back at him though and rose his voice, "You avoid it by treating it as a sketchy deal, but what's really holding you back?" Zach asked it and stepped towards the man already glaring at him in rage. He stepped two feet in front of Grappler without any fear or hesitation in his steps, and he looked at Grappler like he was pathetic, "Is it the idea of fake arms? Do you hate it that much? Why haven't you ever had prosthetics before this either? I'm sure you've been offered many times-"

"Stop this," Grappler growled.

"Why?" Zach asked back, tilting his head to the side and looking insultingly at the older man. He looked Grappler up and down, at his long and unkempt blue hair, at his slouched posture that no longer made him look eight feet but barely seven and a half, and a more tired and finished look on his face even when he was trying to show rage on it. Zach started shaking his head at Grappler who ground his teeth in anger back at Zach only to get no reaction from him. Zach just questioned him, "Why are you so pathetic?"

"You are… You need, to leave," Grappler's voice got lower, and that finished expression covered up more of the anger in a way that made Zach's face scrunch up and the anger on his own to flash off of it.

Zach ground his own teeth as he tried to make that anger reappear, but he lowered his eyes down from Grappler's and to the floor instead. He let out a heavy breath, and he shook his head in a way that Grappler thought he was actually going to leave. Zach stopped though, and he rose his gaze back up in a softer though still serious way. "You know, you were my role model as a kid. My favorite hero," Zach told the man, and he finished, "and All Might had caught me when I tried jumping off my roof to kill myself."

Grappler's body froze in shock. His eyes shook as he stared at the teenager in front of him, and Zach continued, "Yet it was Grappler who was my favorite. The one I always looked up to." Zach even managed a soft smile for a second, "And that internship, training under Grappler and taking all your advice to heart, it shaped the hero I wanted to be." Grappler heard this not in a snappy and dark tone this time, but instead just a softer one sounding, just so disappointed. Zach looked up at his former hero and said quieter, "Even though you were laying there without arms on your hospital bed, the advice you were giving was as heroic as any time you had fought a villain."

The former pro's eyes shot even wider and his breath sucked in at what the teen just told him. Zach looked right up into Grappler's eyes from a couple feet away, "You had just lost your arms," Zach said in awe, shaking his head while looking up into Grappler's eyes. "Your whole life was about to change… but you were still a hero. Never wavering," Zach whispered the last part and then closed his eyes and bowed his head with the release of another heavy breath. His voice got lower again as he opened his eyes back up, "That's what I remembered from Grappler post the Nomu fight, but after all this time, can you not remember that heroic self of yours? Was that just a lingering dredge, of what you once were? The last shred of heroism you had to offer?"

Zach questioned it less like he was asking Grappler and more just an overall question wondering if that was the sad truth. He rose his eyes back up again in disappointment at the man who stared in shock down at the kid who was disappointed in him, whereas a couple minutes ago he had been the one feeling like what Sazaki had become was the real disappointment. The blue-haired man opened his mouth, but Zach asked something that made him freeze up too fast, "Is the memory of that Nomu dismembering you too hard to get over?"

His hero's flinch was all the response Zach needed to see. He gained a sadder look himself, but he said in a darker voice instead of a sympathetic one, "I know you stopped with the training classes you were offering too. I wonder, were not many people coming for the cripple hero's sessions? You could have gotten more students, if you had arms to show off moves with. But you're too scared to try."

"Why are you-" Grappler began. His teeth were grinding there in anger for a few seconds, and he snapped at the teen glaring at him in almost a taunting way again, "Why are you like this? You're, being mean. The kid I knew wasn't someone who'd call his former hero a 'cripple.' You've turned into a menace."

"And what'll you do about it?" Zach asked. He scoffed it at the man whose eyes opened wider at the smirk the teen gave him. "What could you do to stop me?" Zach asked in a taunting tone, then he narrowed his eyes and added louder, "Someone you created yourself!" Grappler's wide eyes stared in shock back at the kid who stepped forward and pushed him right in his chest, making him stumble a step backwards and drop his jaw at the kid's expression that turned from almost evil, to so frustrated in a second. "You can't have it both ways!"

Zach yelled it at the man and then ground his own teeth at the shocked expression Grappler was giving him without really listening to what he was saying. Zach narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly but in such a dark tone to the man who really started listening to him as Sazaki gave him a look warning him to listen, "You can't say that I'm a menace and turn down the arms I so generously offered because of the bad things I've done or the bad person I am, because if you actually feel that way then shouldn't you be the first person to try and stop me?! You need arms to be a hero, and you think you've created a monster, and you still won't do anything? You think I'm your fault, and you're going to just sit here and let me do whatever I want?!"

The teen ground his teeth and then pursed his lips as he saw Grappler's shocked expression be because of something completely different now. I gave it away right there, I guess, Zach thought, grinding his teeth harder and looking away in frustration as he had to seethe his breath out through clenched teeth. "You inspired me," Zach hissed out, hating that any ruse was up considering the way Grappler was staring at him in so much disbelief here. "I, I hate that you're like this now. I hate seeing you like this, because the hero I looked up to wouldn't turn away if he really thought he had created a villain. He would do everything in his power to stop it… He wouldn't look away from that decision."

Zach said it and looked back up into Grappler's eyes with a soft shake of his head. "I could see it in the way you looked at me on that call. And yet you never got new arms. You sit here, afraid to be a hero again, even though you think you created something so bad."

"Maybe, I didn't," Grappler admitted. He stared at the teen who he just realized all at once why he was really there. The anger Sazaki had shown him, all signs of evil and villainous intent, it was all for this point he was making now. "Maybe I'm wrong about you-"

"But the fact remains that you didn't think that a minute ago," Zach snapped back. "And yet you were willing to just, send me off? Have me leave your house? Was that really all you were going to do about it?!" Grappler's teeth started grinding again, but he could not direct his anger at Sazaki as much as he wanted to continue doing so. Zach continued louder at the man looking full of self-hatred and self-pity here, "And what if I went and hurt other people after I left? Like you looked like you thought I would! Would you have just continued to feel bad for yourself?! Feel guilty, and pretend like there's nothing you could do?!"

"There isn't- I'm not the man-"

"You could be!" Zach snapped back louder than how Grappler started arguing to defend himself. "Roady and Power Loader have new limbs! Better limbs! It wouldn't take much for you to get back out there, and yet you won't! Why?!" Zach yelled it and he stepped closer to Grappler, only to snap his left arm out and grab him by the front of the shirt using his own prosthetic. He used his fake hand to curl his fingers one by one tightly into Grappler's shirt and pull it forward and down, pulling the older man's face down too by the strength at which he yanked him. "You'd even be able to feel the arms, like I can feel my hand curled into your shirt right now! So what's stopping you?!"

"You don't-"

"Understand?!" Zach finished louder for him. "What don't I understand?! What it's like to lose an arm? Or is it just that you can't get it out of your head?! Watching that Nomu rip you apart?!"

"YES!" Grappler yelled back at the boy's face he had been pulled right in front of. Zach released his shirt, and Grappler snapped his head back with his eyes shooting open huge at what he just shouted. What he admitted to echoed through the house, in both Zach and Grappler's minds. Grappler ground his teeth for a second, and then he repeated aloud softer, "Yes. I can't, stop thinking about that. Call me a coward, but I- I can't! I see it in my dreams. I hear it, crunching my-" Grappler pulled his head back more at the look the kid was giving him.

The disappointment was gone. There was no pity either though. Zach just nodded with what Grappler was saying, in complete understanding. "I know, what that fear is like," Zach whispered back to the man in front of him. "You think I don't?" He wondered, to see if Grappler would give him a look or tell him he didn't understand again. Instead, Grappler stared at him in understanding to what Sazaki just said. He looked at him closer, and then in stunned awe as he did believe that Sazaki knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Then… how?"

"It's by admitting that fear," Zach replied just as simply. "The fear you just told me, is rooted so deep within you," Zach said it and he gave the bigger man a smile that caused Grappler to take a step back. "It's not something you can get over though, without fighting. It's scary. You might go back out there, and the first villain you see you'll remember the Nomu. You'll remember it ripping your arms off, and it'll scare the shit out of you. But, that's when you have to face that fear head-on. It'll be tough. It isn't easy, to choose to face your fears. Being brave isn't lacking fear, that's just being stupid. And you're not a coward for being afraid either… you're a coward for letting that fear control you. Letting that fear control your entire life."

"You… you don't…"

"I understand," Zach replied. Grappler was not able to finish what he wanted to say, because he already knew Sazaki did know what he was talking about as much as he wanted to deny that the teen did. "I have more reason to be afraid than anyone in the world. Worse things have happened to me my entire life, but that's also why I'm better at handling it than you who just had your arms ripped off once." Grappler flinched, but Zach shook his head at the man who flinched at how he said it so casually again. "It ripped your arms off. It did something, to mutilate you. Something only you and the other heroes who saw it happen remember exactly as it went down. I'm sure that sucked. Now suck it up, and take the arms."

Grappler's head that bowed there so his chin was pressed against his chest started to rise back up. He rose his head and stared straight into Zach's eyes, and the eighteen year old gave him a small smile and a nod of his head after what he just said. "You've admitted the fear. You know that's the only thing holding you back. So now there are no more excuses. You have nothing you can say to me that will convince me you're anything but a coward, if you say no. We both know that you're not a coward though. You're a hero. You were my hero," Zach said that with his expression getting more stern, his eyes narrowing and his offer sounding much more forceful. Zach held his left hand out as a fist in front of Grappler's left side, and he finished, "Now be someone else's."

Grappler stared at that hand and then back straight into Sazaki's eyes. In his head he saw that black beast digging its claws into his flesh, pressing him down into the ground and snapping its head down while other heroes around him shouted at each other not to attack as they might accidentally hit him. Others yelled that they would get it off him, but they were all too slow. Teeth dug through his left arm and shredded it, then the Nomu pulled its head one way while still digging its claws into his right arm so hard that it ripped his whole right arm off. It's claws sliced through up near the top, but the bones themselves broke and ripped off each other at the tendons with his whole right arm being ripped away, and then those teeth shredded the rest of the way through his upper left arm. His eyes clenched shut, his breath coming in fast as a sharp intake that made Zach stare at him with wider eyes and a look of regret but also fear as he kept holding that fist out, even extending it a little farther and closer to Grappler's stub he wanted the man to lift. Grappler's sharp breath he took in though, slowly released from his mouth with his eyes opening back up too.

I'm afraid, Rendo thought. I've never been this afraid. I never thought… But I'm afraid. I've been, terrified for a long time now. I didn't know how to deal with this fear. Rendo stared at that outstretched hand, and he rose his eyes back up to Sazaki's while lifting his own left stub of an arm. I was wrong about you. I didn't create a monster, or a villain. Or at least you aren't being one right now. You're just being, a hero- no, no this is the move, of a friend. Grappler turned his body a little to the side and bumped the end of his stub into Sazaki's fist.

"Next time," Zach said, pressing his steel fist into what was left of Grappler's left arm. "I'll bump this fist with your new left hand." Zach lowered his hand down and nodded at the man in front of him who stared at the teen before him in amazement. "A doctor's flying in to Hosu General tomorrow for your surgery at eight o'clock at night." Grappler's eyes shot open wide as it sounded like Sazaki knew how this conversation was going to end from the start. Zach smiled at the man, in a way like he knew from the beginning that Grappler would accept the fear and choose to overcome it.

When he would leave Grappler's place though, he would need to hop on the phone to make the appointment he claimed already existed. As much as he made it look like he thought Grappler was going to do this from the start, a part of him had still believed Grappler might go back on it given too much time to think. The appointment he gave Grappler was short notice, though Zach also knew, the people he would ask this of would accept without any argument about how they needed more time.

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A/N Hope you enjoyed! Zach and Himazuri train mentally, and Zach reveals to her one of his deepest fears of his own Quirk and what the future could hold for him if he isn't careful with it. Then he heads out to Grappler's place to convince his former hero into taking the arms, with a bit of tough love there.. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, comments, questions, etc!