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!

205. Chapter 205

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 205:

"…Impersonating one Runodo Inezzi." A picture of the villain appeared on the screen for all those watching. "His appearance even now remains as Runodo's, an officer of the Kyoto Police Force whose wife claims had been acting weird for several days. Apparently this villain had completely stepped into her husband's shoes."

"Now are we sure this is not Officer Runodo himself? The 'disguise' he is in has not come off, so it would appear that Runodo's appearance would have had to have been this man's-"

"Or there was a Quirk involved to make it look like him. Either way, he is not Runodo Inezzi. The assassin's DNA does not match up with Officer Runodo's. And although police have yet to identify him in any way, he has had to be stopped from killing himself when he tried again after waking up in his cell, the first time being when he tried to take a cyanide capsule hidden inside a fake tooth that Lifebringer noticed and pulled out before he was able to do so."

"Quick thinking on his part. But we've been having this problem now for a while."

"Nameless assassins, coming after Lifebringer. It's been happening since he came back. Some have been identified too, mostly as foreign villains who came to Japan to kill him, but most have had no identity at all! And not one has said a word to the authorities on who they are or who they work for."

"Well it seems to me like Sazaki knows who's after him. Eziano Mozcaccio's existence has been confirmed by several top heroes including Endeavor, who recently made public that Eziano was a former Shadow Boss of the now defunct League of Shadows."

"The bomber who destroyed Lifebringer's apartment and killed Riku Norita also killed himself in prison as this new assassin attempted this morning. It's crazy to think about the kind of dedication these villains have to have to this Eziano Mozcaccio that they would rather die than reveal anything about him…"

The screen in Class 1 paused, and Enorma turned back to her class after playing this clip for them the day after the Higashine Jazz Raid… which had been overshadowed on most news stations by what happened right after it. People were praising heroes for the assault, and yet the fact that a third year of U.A., and a famous Class A student, was the only one killed put a damper on things. Sugarman's contributions to the raid were emphasized and the fact that it was against the enemy base's leader who he fell to impressed citizens who heard he took her down as well, but the victory had been tainted. The death of a teenager surrounded by heroes and his own principal, while on leave from his school for a special mission some believed the heroes only took him on as a public display more than anything, diminished the idea that the raid was a big success for heroes. That, and the ominous feeling that stirred inside when people heard about the Radian member who had been delivering weapons to the Jazz, which did more to scare them at that camaraderie between villain gangs rather than encourage them on the fact that a Radian was taken down.

Enorma did not have much to say about the raid itself either. She played the clip she just paused on purpose, and she looked back at a student of hers who the rest of the class looked to and who stared right back at the brunette teacher wondering what she was doing. "Do you have anything to say?" Enorma asked him. Zach rose his eyebrows more at her, getting a confused look on his face while some of his surrounding classmates got more nervous and glanced back towards their teacher hesitantly. Enorma frowned as he did not take the bait, and she sighed before specifying, "As you did with Raijin. Have anything for us?"

The rest of Class 1 looked back towards Enorma sensei in surprise, but the teacher who had never heard of this villain before a couple weeks ago now felt a much more real understanding of this villain Sazaki revealed to the world. "What do you know, about this Eziano Mozcaccio?" Enorma wondered.

Nothing I should tell you. Zach hummed while staying seated, a look of uncertainty forming on his face that made more of his classmates frown as Zach was rarely out of the know about anything. I told everyone his name. Everyone can make assumptions from here on based on that, and he can't kill them all. If just you guys knew more specifics though then he may wipe you all out. Make it so no one is allowed to know how old he is anymore, instead of people not being allowed to know his name. It's better not to put you all in danger… But you're all heroes. He has spies in the country. He has villains everywhere, and the only way they'll ever be stopped is if everyone is educated! I know that, and yet I keep secrets unnecessarily. But I also can't make this decision rashly! If I choose to bring them into it, I could be signing their death certificates… I don't know.

"He's an assassin. And I knew he was part of the League of Shadows, but now that's common knowledge too-"

"If you only know as much as everyone else, why would he be gunning for you so hard?" Kerushi questioned up a few seats towards his classmate.

"Because I told everyone his name," Zach replied, like it was that simple. "And there are other things I've heard, but…" He stopped himself and pursed his lips for a second with the right corner of them curling down. He's my worst enemy right now. The one I need to focus on above all else. "But I've never found anything useful on him. Nothing to help me track him down. Nothing to help you," Zach finished with a shake of his head back at Enorma who just frowned darkly at the teen. He did not sound like he had told her everything he knew, but Sazaki also sounded like he was not going to tell her everything even if she pressed him.

Enorma kept frowning for a few more seconds, then she started in a stern voice, "Fine then. Today we'll continue with the Tartaros escapee Meta, focusing solely on him instead of his whole former gang…"

Zach glanced towards the windows and out them into the blue sky above. Hazano sounded serious earlier. The meeting after school is not going to be pleasant. At least I'm still in class today. Tomorrow's supposed to be my presentation too, but I'm just so… No. This isn't the time to be tired. Not the time to give up or start slacking. Eziano's going as hard as ever. He doesn't tire. Doesn't falter. And I let my guard down yesterday at the moment I should have predicted was the moment I would let my guard down the most. Not while I was busy reviving, but in the instant afterwards where I know that anyone who would have attacked me would have chosen during the revival. The instants after were where I felt the most safe because it wouldn't make sense to attack me then, just like sneak-attacking at the end of a fight. It's the same thing. That assassin put a hole in my back right behind my heart. My heart was there too. A little slower and I was dead.

You told me he cut your throat, Himazuri thought as she stared Zach's way during class. So you have to know more. I know you do. Why not tell everyone? You warned us about Raijin too and how we should contact you if we ever bump into him. Is- Is Eziano that much worse, that you think if we ever see him it'll be too late for us?! Oh my God. You're afraid of him… Himazuri's eyes bulged and she darted them down to her desk so Enorma would not see as she continued her lesson on Meta. That there's still anything you're afraid of- I didn't think it was possible.

Bibi Reina sat through her morning classes with her focus barely managing to stay on her teachers. Her eyes kept shifting towards the boy she had once been afraid of, who had become her friend, and who now… Other people died last night. A lot of people, and a hero who died in a car crash on the way to the scene of a different crash! Turbo-Rider's death is barely on the news though. Once the time limit passed, people gave Zach excuses and said he wasn't able to get up there. He was a kind hero. Bibi thought of the man who had been a hero of her hometown, and her eyes narrowed more staring out through silver-gray bangs angrily in Zach's direction. She reminded herself where she was and refocused on class, but her thoughts stayed locked on her classmate who was taking notes as if it was any other day.

You let them die, but you saved your friend? Bibi felt her stomach clench up and she pursed her lips in frustration. What kind of code is that? It's like you're really just deciding based on how you feel at the time!

How long 'til the news turns on him? Kotsumura wondered from his seat on Zach's right. He stayed quieter through the morning than usual, not saying much during the breaks between periods and not talking to Zach when he did speak up. It's obvious what he did. Once the immediate "He saved Sugarman" wears off, it'll be "Why Sugarman?" And yeah, why is that? Kotsumura did not feel like he did when Zach came into class the morning after he stopped the plane-crasher and brought back the Korean Aero passengers. He did not feel enthusiastic or excited about what his friend had did. He was willing to leave right in the middle of class! He could've gotten in a lot of trouble, or like even arrested! But bringing back Sugarman was important to him, so he took the time out and risked the consequences… For your classmate.

There were thirty people in Class 1, just as there had been for about half of the time since this Class 1 was created. People die during villain incidents. Heroes risk their lives to stop villains. And sometimes, heroes die fighting them. They were simple facts of life that the students of Class 1 had had to accept the year before, as hard as it was for some of them to do so. They had accepted it though. They had cried about it but come to the final stage of grief, acceptance.

But what if they never had to reach that point? What if they did not have to just accept it? And for many of the students in the classroom, the blame that they put everywhere, on everyone involved, which had ultimately faded for them to just accept that it was an unavoidable fact of life, returned in full force the longer they had to see Zach Sazaki sitting in their classroom doing his schoolwork as if people were not dying outside at that very moment. His calm look, the way he was taking notes as if nothing bad was happening, at least they blamed themselves when they could not save people. It was clear through his actions though that he did not care about the other people dying today, whereas yesterday it was an emergency when someone died. When his friend died.

So what if he was able to save her… Reika could not help but wondering it as she listened through a pointless math class. And he just didn't do it? He does that with so many people. Including heroes and kids! So even if he had been able to- did he let Ireni die?

We had to watch that, and you could have, Dendo glanced towards Himazuri in anger to see if she was feeling what he felt today. The two of them had been the ones to face the Stain Cult, who had seen their friend die and heard her screams, and he grimaced as he saw her just focusing on her schoolwork as if this was not suddenly bothering her. He saved his Class A friend like he had to! But when it came to one of us, I guess he didn't care enough back then. Didn't care about her. Or about us. If one of us had died yesterday would he have done the same, or was it because of Class A?!

Inasa stared towards his classmate's back with a similar frown as many of his classmates. He also got confused though at his own frustration, Zach wasn't anywhere near here to save her. It's not his fault. If it was his fault every time someone died, that's not what I'm… I know Ireni died as a hero. The fact that she could have been saved, doesn't matter. She wasn't. He wasn't able to- I think. It was the doubt that formed in Inasa's mind, that he only thought Zach had not been capable of saving Ireni, that made him frown even deeper as he considered the possibility that Zach had been able to, but chose not to.

When the morning classes were all over, Zach stayed in his seat while most of the classroom was emptying out. He reached down into his bag while there were still some people around, and he pulled out his own lunch that he brought to school instead of getting it from the cafeteria. He pulled out a bento box from a convenience store and put it on his desk. Something would go down in the cafeteria if I went today, Zach thought as he pried apart a pair of chopsticks and peeled the plastic film off the top of his lunch. The anger will only bubble stronger unless I look to be super depressed. The fewer people I save, even whatever amount I do, they'll not want me smiling. My smile was to show I was trying my hardest. Doing whatever I could, and people believed it. And it was true too.

He started eating his cold lunch and glanced towards the windows out into the blue sky again. Now they think I'm always half-assing it because I went and saved too many people one day. As many as I possibly could while staying inside of Japan. They all think I can save hundreds of people every day, so no number will ever be enough now.

Students started returning to Class 1 before the break was even a quarter of the way over. Zach glanced towards the doorway as they were entering in a cluster. Shit. Separating myself gave them time to bounce their feelings off each other. Realize that their feelings are "well-founded" if their friends feel the same way. Gives them time to get angrier. Mob up. Feel cocky that they're right, and have the moral high ground. Humans are so quick to action when they have others to act with them. That's a bad thought. They're your friends. Classmates. People you've known for a couple months and have lied to constantly about who you are. People who see through your lies now.

They approached Zach's desk while he lifted another piece of broccoli to his mouth and popped it in. He chewed casually while ignoring their looks clearly with something important to talk to him about. More than half the class returned to the classroom, and Zach sighed internally as it was only frustrated and angry-looking members. It was like the ones who were not as upset decided to just not join as their point of not being as against him, but he was wishing at least one of those people on his side or at least neutral had returned to moderate this. Even as he was wishing for that, his eyes lingered on Kotsumura who he hoped was someone who could at least partially be on his side despite his own angered look.

That probably won't work though. Kotsumura knows how much I care about Class A. He knows better than anyone, unless he's told them too now why it is I cared more about Sato than their friend. Zach lowered his gaze as he thought about Kotsumura walking away during the night of the joint training. I should have realized, that he would be the most upset after hearing all that.

"Zach," Porrolo started, putting down his lunch on his desk that he had brought with him like half of the others did. The angrier-looking ones including Dendo, Kotsumura, Flugeru, Kerushi, and Manzo did not have their lunches with them. Either they already finished or they were too preoccupied to even care about food today. Others took seats close to Zach's desk, but Kotsumura walked up on Zach's right side and did not even lean back on his own desk as Flugeru started leaning over from the next row down. Zach looked diagonally to his front right to the teen with spiky white hair who put his tray down but did not start eating to talk to him instead, "We have to talk about what you did yesterday."

"Our classmate, Ireni Kabbala," Kotsumura said down to Zach who looked more to his right and up into Kotsumura's eyes. "She died fighting the Cult of Stain."

"Yeah, I know-"

"If your friend Pinky had died fighting them, would you have come back to save her?" Kotsumura asked.

The question caught Zach off guard. He froze with his mouth open for a second, and Kotsumura said angrily at that hesitation with his classmates looking towards him in surprise as he went off on their newest classmate who had almost seemed like his new best friend, "If you could have, or if she had actually died, you would have come back for her then?! But not for Ireni?" He snapped it and his fists curled at his sides, as he was starting to think of this as more than just a possibility.

"I'd, probably have tried if…" Zach paused. How can I respond without just flat-out lying?! If Pinky had died, my story wouldn't make sense at all! Do they believe my lies- and what is with this confrontation!? What did I do to deserve this…

Manzo narrowed her eyes at Zach and she stepped forward closer to him from down the row just on Zach's right side. She moved up next to Dendo and frowned at Zach when he glanced towards the redhead glaring into his eyes. "Ireni was our friend. As close to us as Sato was to you," Manzo said it in frustration as she thought of the girl who used to sit next to her since the first day of high school. "She was killed fighting villains, just like Sato was." Manzo shook her head and her head pulled back tilting up as she saw Zach just frown back at her without getting emotional like the rest of them were. If anything, he looked annoyed at them for coming at him like this.

"Well I wasn't around to fight the Cult of Stain," Zach started. "Nor bring back the ones they killed," he added, darting a look around and making eye contact with as many of them as he could. "Now if you want to be mad at me for my part in creating the Cult of Stain, because I killed Kurogiri," Zach continued with his tone getting angrier. His classmates looked at him in surprise and confusion at how he was going on, though most stayed angry despite that. "Then that's fine with me. Faith made moves as soon as the League was not at full strength, and that was my fault, and I didn't stop him before he could get too powerful and get the follower who killed Ireni-"

"That's not what bugs me," Kotsumura grumbled, interrupting Zach and shaking his head at his classmate that he would have an angry look like he did for their confrontation. "It's that you clearly care more about your old classmates than you do the rest of us! The rest of the country, and regular people, who you're supposed to be…" Kotsumura grit his teeth and then snapped, "You're supposed to be their hero! That's what people call you, you know?"

Zach's eyes widened, and most of the others around Kotsumura darted him shocked looks to as he snapped that in as angry a way as the rest of them felt about Ireni. "Not just a hero to Class A… To people who, who I know don't really care the same way about you," he said it in a semi-regretful way even as it came out of his mouth. H felt he needed to say it though as he thought about how much Zach cared about those people who mostly ignored him or gave him dirty looks through the joint training. "Heroes have to care about everyone, equally," Kotsumura added.

"So if your family was in a villain incident, and there were other people-"

"Of course I'd care about saving my family, but no more than everyone else!" Kotsumura called right back at the darker-haired teen trying to counter him like that. Zach looked surprised at the answer, which hurt Kotsumura to see and made him shake his head with his expectations of Zach dropping just from that surprised look alone. "We're supposed to be heroes who are above that kind of stuff. Asking me that, like it's obvious I'd care more about… That's what we have to be above! And so many people look up to you, thinking you are above that kind of stuff, but you really…"

"He's right," Dendo agreed. He looked from Kotsumura to Zach who he felt the blond was only going off at so much because of how close the rest of them thought they were. Dendo glared at Zach who bowed his head a bit so his black bangs were covering his eyes, and he continued, "People look up to you. The news puts everything you do up for display, and you were taking that so seriously for a while. I saw that," Dendo said it to give the credit where credit was due. There were a few things Zach had said in the impromptu press conferences when reporters caught him on the street, that Dendo knew Zach had planned out or at least was saying because he knew how closely everyone took what he said and did. "But now you showed that heroes care more about their own friends than the rest of us- than the rest of the people of Japan. You care more at least, and you're the most famous hero in the country now."

"Where are we going with this?" Tomoki asked, the vice class-rep standing from his seat and stepping forward as everyone had gotten off-topic. "You saved Sato and let Ireni die-" Tomoki stopped for a moment as Zach rose his head and glared towards him looking so pissed.

Everything Kotsumura and Dendo were saying resonated in him, but Tomoki's words gathered up the frustration and regret he was feeling and transferred it all into anger as he was given the easy chance for it. "She was a hero too, right?" Zach snapped towards the class representative who was clearly representing his classmates' feelings. "She knew the risks, and she died fighting villains! How is that my fault?" Zach lowered his voice at the end as he asked that, glaring around at the others who got much angrier looks on their faces as the root of their anger was thrust in their faces by someone who did not know her like they did to be talking about her like that. "Are you mad I didn't bring her back?" Zach asked, raising his voice and leaning back in his seat to sit straight up as he glared around at them.

"No?" Zach wondered. "That wouldn't be fair either. I wasn't bringing anyone else back in Japan, so to bring her back would have just been selfish too-"

"It's not about being selfish," Porrolo began over.

"It's the fact that you made it obvious how much more they matter-"

"You can't put one life above another in importance!" Flugeru snapped, done with the pretenses. "Ireni wouldn't have… And she died because of villains who, who you weren't even in Japan to fight."

"You think I don't know that?" Zach growled towards the tallest boy in the class. "You think, it didn't kill me to see what they were doing in Japan?" Zach asked it with his pitch raising, his head tilting back and his eyes getting angrier as he stared at Flugeru and into his surprised eyes. "You think," Zach started harshly, darting his gaze towards Dendo now. "That I didn't want to turn around the second I saw heroes getting massacred by these people? Heroes I knew! Heroes I had fought with during internships," Zach seethed that through his teeth as he thought about the Wild Wild Pussycats, and about Gogogo, and so many others whose lives were taken by the Cult Stain in the months following his initial departure from Japan.

His eyes slowly shifted over to Tomoki past Porrolo's seat, "And to know that they were only as strong as they were, because Kurogiri was gone? Because there was a gap in power that Faith was able to take advantage of?" Zach seethed it through his teeth and he started panting, his hands gripping the sides of his desk as he leaned forward to ask that. He pulled back again, shaking his head but then glaring in front of him as Elinari opened his mouth like he had something to add. He shut up his classmate with just that glare, and he snapped, "Or do you think when I saw heroes and Japanese citizens getting killed back here I didn't want to abandon whatever it was I was doing and come back to save them? I am from Japan! I am Japanese! Why do you think I'm here now?!"

"Zach," Kotsumura started firmly. He used a voice he meant to calm Zach down, but he also continued as Zach turned and looked in his eyes, "I think you're here because of Class A. Right?" Kotsumura asked it and Zach flinched, his hands loosening on the sides of his desk and his eyes growing a bit wider at the question. "At least a big reason why, is that," Kotsumura continued. "But you can't do that. You can't, treat them as more important as the rest of us. Not while everyone's watching you. And if while you were gone, you felt the same way that you would have come back for them but not when the rest of us were…" Kotsumura grit his teeth in frustration as he thought about the possibility that Zach had done that in regards to Ireni.

"I do whatever I can," Zach said, his voice coming out half-seething but half as just a whisper. "And I'm sorry, I didn't save your friend," Zach whispered at Kotsumura with his eyes raising and looking guilty but getting angrier at the same time. "But I did-" Zach stopped himself, grit his teeth, then he darted his eyes around at all the Shiketsu students glaring at him like this. "I couldn't fight the Cult of Stain when everyone needed me to. I did beat Faith though. I made him pay, for what he did to her…"

Zach's teeth grit harder, his hands clenching back on his desk so much harder this time. "If that's what you're really mad about. That I didn't do anything," he continued with his lips cracking into a smile for a second as the rest of them stared at him in confusion with no idea what he was talking about.

"You didn't, beat Faith," Dendo started. His eyes narrowed as he thought about Bakugo and how he had given him a nod at the joint training during the conversation just to show his appreciation for what Bakugo had done. "Bakugo did-"

"What I did to Faith, in Tartaros," Zach continued with his eyes locking on Dendo's. Dendo froze. His breathing cut off and everyone stared at Zach completely stuck where they were at how that sentence started. "Is stuff Oda left out of his book," Zach continued. "I know you guys have read it," he continued, his voice seething and unapologetic as he glared around at the classmates confronting him right now. "But he left it out, because Oda was dead already, and he didn't see what I did to him."

"You wanted me to do something for Ireni?" Zach asked, raising his pitch and looking towards Manzo frustratedly at the way he remembered her just looking at him before the nervous and stunned way she was watching him now. "Well I did. I did, what I do best. When I attacked Faith from inside my own cell, calling him predictable and shattering his sense of self as I proved it." Zach's cracked smile flinched, the left corner dipping before rising back up as he continued, "Not just his self-importance, but everything he was. That he was just another random villain barely worth my time. Unimportant," Zach's smile could not stay up anymore, and his voice that was already getting lower just finished darkly, "And Faith will spend the rest of his life in a straightjacket thinking of how I so easily put him there. How I predicted his moves and his escape and even where he is now, I knew it all and he knows I knew."

Reika had come with the group, but she was sitting at her seat and eating like she was not as focused as the others though was ready to jump in at any point. She had stopped eating though and was just turned to her side with her eyes shaking as they stared at the teen who just admitted all that to him. "You-" Kerushi started, stepping closer to Zach's desk but pulling back as Zach looked his way and wiped the disbelief right off of Kerushi's face. "You're too, too kind to-" Kerushi really believed that, that this was what had him in so much shock here.

Manzo dropped her gaze from Zach and took a step back. The belief in him she was trying to hold onto was more than just shaken now. "I thought you were a good person," Manzo started, her eyes raising and glaring at Zach for what he just said.

"I am a good person to people I like," Zach replied right back towards the girl he had tried to help a lot after joining this class. Then he continued darkly to her, "But I can be a monster to the people who hurt my friends. Or hurt innocents."

Pinky was in critical condition after that fight, Reika thought as she stared over towards her classmate saying these things. I was impressed to hear about her quick recovery after the fight against the Cult of Stain. Then I saw you and her in those pictures spending a lot of time together, smiling like a couple. Reika thought about what Zach just said and she shook her head to look away from him, He just saw those prison guards that he made friends with killed him front of him too. He had reasons… but still, he's terrifying. Having that much power seemed fine for him to have as long as he was the person I knew he was, but this person is…

"Whatever Faith did," Kotsumura finally started after shaking away a bit of the shock of what he just heard. "He's still a person-"

"You can't be mad at me for not doing enough for Ireni then!" Zach snapped back angrily at the boy next to him who pulled back at the frustrated expression covering Zach's face. A few more of their classmates had just re-entered the room, and they were just standing near the front of it and staring over with wide eyes at this confrontation. "What is it?" Zach asked Kotsumura. "Did I go too far or not far enough? I was in a different world at the time, so what the fuck was I supposed to do when she died?" Zach asked it leaning his head away from his desk and glaring furiously into Kotsumura's eyes that made him lean back. Kotsumura pulled away at the angered question that Zach asked looking hurt that his friends would be this accusatory towards him despite what he had already told them. "What do you want from me? An apology? I'm sorry your friend died. Don't put it on me though," Zach hissed, his teeth clenching hard after he got it out, then he glared around at them all to leave him the fuck alone.

Flugeru backed off, and he walked away without saying anything more. He told me not to keep pushing him. That there's too much he's dealing with, and that was before any of this shit happened. I know I shouldn't be adding to it, and there wasn't anything he could do for Ireni!

Why are we being so hard on him? Porrolo looked away and he focused on his food he only had a minute or two to finish. He chowed down, in part to just make it so he was out of this conversation. All he did was bring a friend of his back to life. Yeah, it's kind of selfish. But I don't know how it feels having that power. He says he has to die each time he brings people back, so the fact that he saves strangers is amazing in itself. I think I could do it- but I don't know! I shouldn't act like I do.

"Zach I'm," Elinari began.

"Just drop it," Zach growled, glaring at his classmate who confronted him over this in the first place. "I get it, alright? I'm Class A. You're Class 1. And it pisses you off that I didn't save your classmate but I saved mine. It pisses you off that I'm letting everyone down by being a selfish hero. I completely understand all the criticisms you could tell me. So just leave me alone," Zach glared at Elinari to get out of the seat of the person who was supposed to be sitting in front of him and who had returned to the classroom already.

Elinari opened his mouth, as he had wanted to apologize. Zach did not sound like he cared though or even wanted the apology, and after a second he just looked away and got up off the seat. Zach frowned to his right at Kotsumura who was still standing there even as everyone else was going back to their seats. "What?" Zach asked, his tone harsh and like he was snapping the question at some random person coming at him with these complaints. Like the person next to him had no idea what it was he was thinking about or going through. Like the blond to his side had no idea who he was.

If that's what you think, Kotsumura thought, and the regretful feeling and his anger both pushed down as he took his seat. I guess if I don't know you, there's nothing to be mad about either. I'm just pissed because you're not that type of person, but maybe you are.

Zach crumpled up his bento box and shoved it back into his backpack quickly. He unzipped his bag and shoved his box inside, pushing aside his clothes and some water bottles in his bag that made his teeth clench so hard as he moved them. He zipped his back up before anyone could look inside it, and his hands shook on his bag with darkness just inside his skin pushing to slip out of his fingers. His eyes trembled, and he sat back up in his seat with an angry look covering his face instead. His clenched teeth ground back and forth, but he was struggling to keep it together as he saw the looks of the people all around him in the classroom directed his way. Looks of unfamiliarity, anger, doubt, and more dark looks of people feeling he did not belong there than he felt he had received on the first day of the term.

Hazano stepped inside the class, but Zach was standing up at that same moment. "Sorry, Hazano sensei," Zach started. "I should have went during break, but could I use the bathroom?" Zach asked.

Hazano frowned at his student who cut him off before he could even start talking. Some of the class around Zach started losing the expressions they had, and Hazano's frown lifted back up within a second of looking at Zach's face. "Yeah," the teacher said, his voice quieter than usual. "Go ahead." He turned and watched as Zach walked by him and out of the classroom with his eyes stuck straight ahead.

Zach walked out of the class and he headed towards the bathroom with his breath coming in ragged and leaving in sharp bouts. He pushed open the door to the bathroom and walked straight past all the stalls, looking through the cracks in them connecting the doors to the walls to see if anyone was inside. Since lunch just ended though and the next period began, students had usually gone during the break and teachers did not usually let them go right after it was over. Zach spun back to the mirrors lining the other side of the bathroom once he passed all the empty stalls, and he gasped out as he stepped up to a sink and put his hands down on either side of it.

The water turned on automatically as he put his hands beneath, and he splashed that water up in his face that he bowed down close to the sink. He splashed a few handfuls up and gasped again before cupping some water and sipping it, then splashing more water straight up into his eyes that were already open. "Nn," he winced and then rose his head, staring at the mirror in front of him as the water turned off. His expression steadied instantly, but then his lips curled and pulled apart to show his clenching teeth behind them. He rose his right arm and started wiping his face off, What am I doing? Am I really hiding in the fucking bathroom, again?! Like a teenager in school trying to hide his feelings from his friends, like I used to! I still am a teenager, he reminded himself, and the corners of his lips pulled up his cheeks into the biggest smile. That's the funniest joke of them all…

"Hazano sensei," Kotsumura started, raising his hand not long after class started back up. The bald teacher turned back and looked to his student who said quickly, "May I use the bathroom?"

Hazano stared at the blond boy for a few seconds without saying anything. Then he nodded once at Kotsumura and watched as his student got up and rushed for the door he went out with a worried expression covering his face. Hope he's actually in there, Hazano thought grimly, before turning back and continuing to his students who he wanted to focus despite what he could see them all thinking about.

Kotsumura rushed towards the closest bathroom and hesitated at the door. He pushed open the door and let it close behind him, staring across the bathroom to the furthest mirror where Zach was standing at the sink looking into the mirror.

Zach's eyes darted Kotsumura's way, then back at the mirror as he forced that dipping smile to go back up. "Haha," he chuckled under his breath, and he tried to smile into the mirror and laugh despite his lips curling so far down after the fake chuckle. "Haaahh," Zach laughed once that turned into a long exhale with his teeth clenching at the end of it. Come on! School is one of the places I can't think of- one of the places I have to be positive! After letting Himazuri know, I decided this! I- I made the choice that this is where I can be- where I have to be positive! He thought that while staring into the mirror, and his right hand lifted up with his eyes squinting a bit. He watched his hand as it brushed across the scar on the left side of his face, and his eyes slammed shut to see the army in front of him in a burning city while his face bled so badly that he felt blood pouring off his chin that he knew he had already dried off so he could not pretend it was sink water.

His eyes parted again to see Shigaraki's face translucent in front of him, cutting that gash into the right side of his face that made him gasp out to watch the scar in the mirror being formed. And then he saw the blood splash out of his throat from Eziano's blade, and he brought both hands up to his neck fast before flinching as there was no blade there to grab and push back so it would not cut so deep. His head turned a bit to the left as he tried to look behind him at the man who should have been cutting his throat, but Eziano was not behind him this time. Instead he just saw Kotsumura staring towards him, and he brought his hands up from his neck to his eyes that he rubbed hard for a couple seconds. "What?" Zach whispered, moving his hands aside and shaking his head with a frustrated look towards his closest Shiketsu friend.

"Zach," Kotsumura started after seeing something that had his heart pounding. "We- I… I'm sorry. I was being too harsh before, and-"

"No, you were absolutely right," Zach whispered back with a crack of another smile and a shake of his head right back at Kotsumura who was apologizing to him here. "All of you, were right. That's what's so…" Zach grit his teeth and he turned back to the mirror. "I am a bad person. You all know it, and the fact that you know despite not even knowing half of- a fraction-"

"You're not a bad person," Kotsumura started, moving closer to Zach across the empty bathroom and shaking his head at his classmate. "I'm sorry if that's what, you think I was-"

"It was," Zach hissed through his teeth. "It's what all of you think, and you're right to think that way."

"We know you're a good person," Kotsumura argued back. "You just… Sometimes you," Kotsumura did not know how to say what he wanted to. The things he was upset at Zach for started seeming more trivial the longer he stared at Zach looking like this. "I don't think you're a bad person-"

"Well I am," Zach countered while looking himself in the eyes in the mirror. Those eyes were watery, and he squinted them shut for another second before snapping them open and looking at himself disgustedly. "And I can't-" He brought his right hand back up to his face, but it moved from the scar on his left cheek down over his neck to the reddened skin that had remained scarred for over a year after what scarred it had come off. "I can't, sit there and have everyone look at me like that any longer. I'm a bad person but-"

"You're not a bad person," Kotsumura countered, his expression getting sadder that Zach was saying that.

"I am," Zach whispered though. He rubbed his neck, his hand moving back and forth over the reddened skin as his breathing got heavier and more raspy. "You don't understand. I am… Waking up in that cage, with a collar on- And thrown into the arena with…" Zach's lips were trembling too much and his eyes clenched shut again as he rubbed the scar that disgusted him to look at. "I know I'm selfish. Yeah, I treat some lives more important than others. I care about my own life more than-" Zach bit down and he bowed his head down hard to slam his chin into his chest. He shook his head in frustration, "And I see people look at me all the time knowing how bad a person I am, but here- I didn't want that here and I-" They all think it, without knowing anything! They don't even need to know it all!

Kotsumura's breathing got quicker as Zach curled his fingers into his own neck over the skin that was discolored and wrapped around his whole neck. A collar? Kotsumura watched as Zach opened his curled fingers and rubbed again, rubbing back and forth along his throat and gritting his teeth in agony and rage and self-hatred beyond anything Keiji had ever seen. "And I woke up in the Pit- the Colosseum! A gladiator-"

"That chapter of Oda's book," Kotsumura started quickly. "I read, how you had freed-"

"I lied to Oda," Zach whispered with a look towards Kotsumura and then back into the mirror again where he glared at himself in disgust. "I- I was at war, but that's an excuse. I give myself that excuse all the time, but I killed a lot of people, Kotsumura. I killed, I killed so many." Zach shook his head while glaring into the mirror, hating that tears could come up at something that he did not deserve to cry about considering what he just said. But as he tried to force them back, his face filled with horror and he whispered, "And it wasn't just my enemies. I- I told you about the Battle of the 6 Armies. How I sent forces to be distractions, to be decoys for the others- I sent them to die," Zach gasped, tears dripping out of both eyes and sliding down his face.

"Zach you-"

"No! I sacrificed them," Zach hissed, glaring towards Kotsumura who he could hear was going to try to counter him. "I knew they would die, and I sent them…" He bit down so hard his jaw shook, and he hissed as he forced his teeth back apart, "I killed them."

"You didn't-"

"I did," Zach snapped, turning away and seeing Switch's face in his mind. "I killed my friends. I sacrificed them for my goals and- and I killed innocents too." Zach said it and looked into Kotsumura's eyes to see if he wouldn't try to counter that too. "Innocent people," he whispered at the blond teen in front of him who stared back trying not to jump to conclusions at the admission while also feeling his heart tear at the look in Zach's eyes. "Don't tell me I'm not a bad person, because you don't know. You don't know what happened in that arena. Turned into a gladiator, a slave! Forced to…" He stopped himself and bit down in rage at how he started that sentence. "Forced? I gave myself, so many excuses afterwards!"

"When they brought me back, again, I couldn't think about before," Zach whispered as he looked himself in the mirror, in disgust at who he saw looking back at him. "I could only look forward. After that, I just pushed forward so much faster. I stopped dreaming about anything because- I told myself it was because I couldn't sleep too heavily or my enemies could ambush me in my sleep, but I stopped dreaming so I wouldn't have nightmares anymore." Zach said it in rage through the tears that spilled down his face, "Because all I had for years were nightmares, and after Scotland, and the Pit- The Colosseum!" He yelled that louder then cut himself off as the reason for the correction was because he knew he was losing it in the first place.

His breathing was cracked and without rhythm. He could see Kotsumura staring at him in the mirror to the left of his own face, and he squinted his eyes more shut before rasping out, "I killed innocent people in that place. 'Five enter, one may leave.'" He quoted it, his head tilting back and his teeth shaking, his hands gripping into the side of his school uniform with sheer terror in his eyes at who he saw in the mirror. "And I killed them all-"

"Then that's not your fault," Kotsumura gasped out, stepping closer to Zach so he was right at his side next to the sink. He shook his head around while having to hold back tears himself at what he just heard Zach say, and what it was doing to him to think about that. He could barely wrap his head around it, but he knew enough to say, "If that's the case then it wasn't your-"

"I did it over, and over," Zach gasped, turning his head and glaring back into Kotsumura's eyes from up close. His classmate's eyes grew huge, and Zach whispered at him, "I didn't get to win and just be done. They put me back in, and I came back again! Alone!" He gasp-whispered it yet like he was yelling, tears dripping over his top lip and snot coming out of his right nostril he sucked back in with a sniffle. "I tried so hard to count how many people, I had killed! But in that place…" his heart raced so hard his hands rose and clenched over his chest in the pain of his damaged heart beating like that. And yet the guilt forced him to leave his heart as an organ and feel that pain he deserved rather than turn it all into Death. His hands gripped into his skin through his clothes, and he stammered with a look back at the face in the mirror, "I- I tried to- spare- but I! I couldn't use my Quirk and- and I still! I used my teeth to- and my hands. In that place," Zach stared at the monster he saw looking back at him. He saw himself looking truly horrifying, even though his appearance did not change at all from what it normally looked like. "I did it over and over, and over and over again! Innocent people who I killed to save myself. Who I was forced to-"

Zach bowed his head and he bit down in rage, but also despair as he continued to his friend at his side. "And when I broke out…" his tone shifted, still depressed but even more horrified now. He rose his head and turned to look with tear streaks down his face at the anxious teen next to him who tensed up at how Zach started there. "Against those who had pit me against innocents, force me to kill- ahhh," Zach gasped and sucked in a sharp breath at where he was going with this. He shook his head though while straightening up and turning his body more to face Kotsumura. "I wasn't forced to do it anymore. No one forced me, once the collar was off, to do what I did to the people who put me in there. Who put me in chains."

"And I can't handle it anymore," Zach whispered. Seeing them all look at me like that. Like they knew all this already! I can't…

"I don't know what happened to you," Kotsumura said. His arms were down at his sides and he stared at his friend from right next to him, not backing up despite all he just heard. He lied to the prison guards. Doesn't tell us anything like, anything like this- And even the stories he told, he doesn't really feel that way about them! He was the leader of that army and he told us his forces took heavy losses and we- But hearing that? That's so much worse. Kotsumura shook his head, and he whispered, "And I don't know what to say, after hearing all that." He admitted it with a half-shrug that he forced even as his lips were twisted down and his heart aching to see the amount of pain Zach was in right now. "All I know, is that you're telling me the truth."

"You're telling me what really happened," Kotsumura said. "And it's fucking horrible." He said it and shook his head more, even as Zach bowed his head and bit down so much harder to hear that. "And you've killed so many people. And I know, that no one could understand the shit you're talking about." Kotsumura paused and just bit down hard himself as Zach's head stayed bowed so he could barely see anything past his hair other than Zach's shaking lips. "Not one person in the whole fucking world, could understand what that was like," Kotsumura whispered. He had never pitied anyone more than the person standing before him in this moment. As he watched his friend losing his fucking mind, it killed him to look at and he had to rub his eyes while Zach was not watching.

Kotsumura took in some deep breaths to calm down while he rubbed his eyes. That's not what- Keiji shook his head around, and he straightened up and wiped his eyes harder to get all the tears out of them first. What he needs right now. I don't understand. I can't, even comprehend it. A different world. War. Killing people and losing friends like- I don't know what any of that feels like. I do know you though. I thought for a second there, that I didn't… I was just being a dick though. I wasn't thinking about any of this. Just how it felt for me to lose a friend. Ireni's long gone though, and you're here in front of me. And I looked at you like we weren't even friends-

But I can't relate. I can't tell you that I understand this. Kotsumura took in a long inhale and then breathed it out slowly. No one could ever understand what that was like… But, I understand you, enough. Kotsumura had the tears wiped from his face and his expression got calmer while Zach stood before him with his hands gripping his chest and his face covered in tears. "I'm going to ask Tiona out after school," Kotsumura said.

Zach's clenched-shut eyes twitched, and then they slowly squinted open though his head stayed bowed. His thoughts slowed down too as Kotsumura continued to him, "On a real date, and I'm not going to beat around the bush treating it like a hang-out sesh or anything. I think she'd treat me like a pussy if I did that." Zach rose his head up and looked through eyes red from the tears but not actually glowing into his friend's eyes. He was confused, but he stared at Kotsumura who admitted with a shrug, "It might be too late in the term to get serious before the end of the year anyway. You were right, and I should've done something much earlier…"

Zach blinked a couple of times, and he stared with his eyes huge at the teen in front of him saying this stuff in response to what he just told him. He stopped crying, stopped losing it so much as he stared in confusion at Kotsumura. What is he, even talking…

"You helped me find this, confidence," Kotsumura continued slowly. He stopped and then added with his lips that just curled down a bit raising up quick, "And I know it'll translate over to me fighting villains too, as a hero, and I really do like Tiona and want to…" He paused, but he continued softer, "I like her. I am really, really into her," he admitted strongly, no hesitation in his voice as he said it. He tilted his head to the side with a half-smile that vanished in a second, but he admitted after pursing his lips, "I've never told anyone that seriously." Even myself. Kotsumura smiled again and continued, "And yet I know, you've known it from the start that it's more than just a crush."

"What are you…" Zach started but found he had not breathed in for long enough that he ran out of breath before finishing.

"You didn't make fun of me for not doing anything about it," Kotsumura went on. "Or for being too joking and not serious enough. Instead you've just been trying to help me since the start of the term. Zach," Kotsumura's lips curled down at the corners as his expression got sadder. "You didn't have to do any of that. You didn't have to help me at all. You didn't have to be this good a person." Kotsumura grit his teeth in regret at how little he understood and how much he assumed just a little earlier. "None of us understand you at all, and you've been through so much, and yet you've been helping each of us with our fighting, our worst flaws, our relationships…"

How did I not see all this? It's so fucking clear now! From the very first day. All those fights, all the training, everything! Kotsumura bit down in anger at himself and then said through a raspy breath, "You're a cool person."

Zach's wide eyes blinked a few times, and he gulped while pulling his head back and staring at Kotsumura in disbelief. "I can't say whether you're good or bad," Kotsumura continued with a shake of his head. "As I don't really know much about what happened to you. Or what you've done." Zach's lips that opened right there slammed shut again, but Kotsumura leaned forward and continued fast, "But Zach, you are by far the coolest person I have ever met. Turning down Tiona, you looked my way like- And being a hero despite killing so many people," Kotsumura did not know if that was a sentence he ever thought he could say, especially not in defense of the person he was saying it about. His heart just hurt more though at the look on Zach's face, and he whispered, "And being a friend to people who- who can't help you…"

"You made me a better hero. I can say that much. And you, you just helped me in general," Kotsumura added. I don't know what I've done for you, if anything. You've done so much for me though that I've gotta try here at least! "You helped all of us and we just, we took you for granted. And that's not cool. That's not heroic and- and we've got no right to tell you, anything! Not while we're judging you without knowing a thing."

"You do know now though," Zach whispered, his voice raspy as it came out as he was finding it hard to locate his voice after all that. "You know and-"

"I may know, but I don't understand," Kotsumura said with a shake of his head back. "I won't understand, no matter how much you tell me. That doesn't make me- I don't know. I don't know, what I'm even trying to say. But you don't deserve this kind of despair. Those things you were talking about like they're the worst things ever- those are things I couldn't have survived, let alone been able to move past and continue helping- God Zach. You're a fucking tank to be able to come into school and sit there with…" Kotsumura shook his head with his teeth grinding for a moment as he thought about what he had thought earlier. "And we think you're too calm or acting like it's not bothering you, but it is and you're just good at keeping that back so that we don't feel bad for you, right? So we don't feel even worse because you're feeling like shit?"

Zach could see Himazuri crying on her knees in front of him up on the roof. He pictured her face that hurt him so much to see after he had let her hear everything that went through his head that day. And he saw Kotsumura's face now that hurt him too, and he looked away to the mirror again where he saw himself but did not associate it with a monster's this time. I cared more about my own life. I killed innocent people so that I could live. That's despicable. I sacrificed my own men. Killed them! And I knew I was doing it but I did it anyway… And I helped Class 1 get stronger. It's not just bad. I'm not just bad. Things aren't that simple! There's good and bad in there. The fact that I've only showed the good to the people here and they still looked at me like that though, Zach imagined all those looks as the lunch break ended and he had to shake his head to get rid of them.

"Let's go back to class," Kotsumura said, and Zach opened his eyes back up and looked into his classmate's. "And dude, don't care so much about how we think of you. You do you." Kotsumura lifted a small smile and gave Zach a nod like that was enough, like he would not ask for anything else but for Zach to just be himself. "I'm sorry for pushing you. That was my b." Kotsumura reached forward and patted a hand on Zach's left arm. "Come on," he motioned away, but he was not turning yet until it seemed like Zach would be walking with him.

Damn it. Thanks Kotsumura. Have to keep my cool. I should have had better responses ready at lunch. I got myself like this by not preparing after bringing back Sato. I knew it'd come, and I didn't get ready like I could have. Zach shook his head around, turned to the sink and got the water back on so he could splash some more on his face. Don't let it show. He looked up, wiped his face off to get it back to normal with no lingering traces of his crying. I talked too much. Said stuff I shouldn't have. But Kotsumura doesn't care. That's been happening a strange amount of times. I have to stop that though! I barely held back anything to keep it sounding like that happened off world. "Alright," Zach said, turning back to Kotsumura and giving him a soft smile. "Yeah, let's head back."

"You good?"

"Good as I can be," Zach replied, which sounded more like the truth than had he just nodded or gave a positive answer to the question. Kotsumura tilted his head to the side and smiled himself as that sounded about right, and then he turned only when Zach walked past him to follow his classmate back to their class. After Zach passed Kotsumura too, he mentioned as he stopped at the bathroom door, "Thanks for coming after me. Kind of a girl move though-"

"Hahaha-" Kotsumura burst out laughing then stopped himself short as Zach opened the door and he did not want his voice carrying down the hall. He smirked in a relieved way and just said at Zach's back as he followed him out the bathroom they had their emotional talk in, "Asshole."

---

The U.A. cafeteria was quiet when Sato Rikido grabbed his lunch that Lunch Rush gave him an extra big helping of today. Sato tried to ignore that as he ignored all the looks his schoolmates were giving him on his way to his lunch table. Sato walked over towards where Iida was sitting and he sat down next to the class rep who scooted a bit to make room for his classmate.

Uraraka and Asui were sitting across the table from the taller boys, and they each looked to Sato who stared down at his lunch and then started pushing at it with his chopsticks in growing annoyance as everyone at his table was staring at him just like the people all over the cafeteria. He had only returned to school that morning though after going to the hospital, then meeting with hero officials and debriefing on the cause of his own death. He had even been scolded by one strict official who reminded him of the victory that they needed to show people the strength of heroes, U.A., and Class A, and how he had tarnished that win. Presto Change-o defended him and his actions that other officials had argued were not just justifiable but very heroic, but the whole incident and following sleepless night had everything feeling surreal to him.

Everyone staring at him now was not helping shake off that sensation any either. He had been awake almost nonstop for three days as he barely got any sleep on the night before the raid either, but other than a short nap at the hospital yesterday he was feeling awake and yet out of it at the same time. Sato rose his head and glanced to the girl across the table from him, but considering the amount of people looking his way now he reminded himself not to say anything to the frog girl who most still did not know had died before. He envied her thinking on how his own family had reacted, but even though he could not talk to Tsuyu in such a public setting, he was able to talk to Iida about it.

Iida was hoping Sato would say something, as he had arrived back that morning just before school and none of them had really been able to talk to him yet about what happened. "This feels, weird. Now I know that's what it's like that," Sato's big lips closed after he said that while getting slower near the end. He frowned deeper and then glanced down to his own chest where he could imagine that burning pain he felt before... nothing.

"Do you feel any different?" Iida wondered to his classmate.

"Did you?" Uraraka wondered, as she realized she had never asked Iida or Tsuyu about it. Too much had happened in those few weeks that it never really came across her mind if they were acting strangely, as all of them were different after Kaminari's betrayal. She glanced towards Tsuyu too but kept from making that noticeable in case Tsuyu wanted to keep quieter with others in the cafeteria looking their way and probably trying to listen in to their conversation. Other students did start talking again though after those few seconds they all stared towards Sato in an uncomfortable silence for the revived teen, and Sato relaxed more at that background noise and the conversation starting with his classmates who were not treating him any differently than usual. Even though he relaxed though, Sato felt a pit in his gut and his frown only deepened with a soured look on his face.

Iida hummed and he nodded his head, then he responded, "But not wearing glasses was a huge adjustment for me. It changed everything about my life."

Uraraka sweatdropped and just smiled at her friend who she nodded at in agreement. Your glasses really defined you as a person, huh? Uraraka glanced her other way to see if Deku thought that was funny too, but her other friend in their little group of three was seated on her side yet somehow isolated from them. He looked farther away even though he was not much farther from her than Tsuyu was on her other side, but his focus was so solely on his food and whatever he was thinking about that it practically made him invisible to the others who were not going to interrupt him with, whatever it was he was doing.

"Is there something wrong, Sato-chan?" Tsuyu asked, cocking her head to the side and putting a finger on her chin as something looked to be bothering Sato.

"How bad did it hurt?" Mineta asked, leaning forward on Tsuyu's other side as Uraraka and asking it with a nervous expression. Tsuyu smacked him on the head with her tongue and pushed him back, but Mineta rubbed the side of his head fast and kept looking to Sato who rose his right hand and rubbed it over his school uniform in a line where his classmates imagined he had been gashed. None of them had seen the wound itself, but Mineta gulped as Sato ran his hand from his shoulder down across most of his torso.

"Not much," Sato admitted. "It was, quick. Her heat blade cut deep. I knew, so I ate most of my reserve sugar to get as fast as I could to dodge her-"

"But you made yourself too dumb and forgot?" Mineta assumed.

Asui wanted to smack him again, but she half-believed Mineta's assumption was probably the truth. Still not a delicate way to say that, she thought with a glance back at Mineta before looking to Sato again with her eyes going wide.

"No, I remember. I kept backing off so as not to get cut, but it was so hot and she was too fast to close in on without getting burned." Sato frowned again but not as deep as before as his thoughts shifted back to the incident, and he stared down at the noodles on his plate with a frustrated expression. "I needed her to just give me an opening to move in, but she was trying to run while we fought. She got too close to the perimeter and if I backed up again all the cops were going to get dragged in, then I'd have to worry about all of them, and her blade blowing up cop cars… So I just picked a moment." Sato grimaced hard and he rose his right hand up to his forehead that he rubbed in frustration. His teeth clenched harder as he thought back, his expression getting angrier too at the same time. And even though it was my own damn fault… Fighting villains and, and I'm not special or anything!

At another table where Class A students were sitting, a few staring Sato's way took their eyes off him at the sight of how frustrated he appeared to be. Ashido and Sero faced each other across the table and they shared a look and a shrug, then they turned the other way as Sato's table as Kirishima started reading something off his phone in a low annoyed voice of his own. "'Zach Sazaki Saves Friends Over the Sick?' 'Thirteen people dead in Tokyo alone this morning.' Can't even give him this one?" Kirishima muttered his question in a pissed off voice.

Sero hummed in agreement with the right corner of his lip pulling into his cheek as he made a tsk noise. "Why do they keep doing that?" Ashido asked, getting annoyed herself and pushing some of her food around.

Sero looked at the pink girl across from him who started complaining to her right at Kirishima, Ojiro, and Hagakure about how Zach deserved better coverage. When even Kirishima's backing Zach, Sero thought, then sighed as that thought alone was a tough one to have as he thought back on how close Zach and Kirishima used to be. But we know. We know he can't do it all the time, and he shouldn't go during school since it's one of the only excuses he has not to constantly bring people back. Then we went and sent him a million texts demanding he go save Sato. I didn't mince words either. I told him to bring Sato back. Even if we didn't though… He would have still saved him. Sero shook his head in frustration at himself for the hesitation he had to even finish that thought. Of course he would have. No one else knows as much as I do either, just how much he loves us.

Hanta Sero leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms up over his head with a chuckle that made an annoyed Ashido spin back to him and give him stink eye as she thought he was laughing at her. He lowered his right hand in front of himself defensively, then he just got back to eating and said with no worried look on his face, "Zach'll handle it. He's got more support than they focus on, and he knows it."

"Yeah!" Hagakure agreed quickly, nodding her head as that sounded true to her. "We elected the Prime Minister just for Zach after all! I personally still prefer Ippo… But she wouldn't release him so that was a big fat 'NO' from me!" She crossed her arms in defiance and Ojiro chuckled at his girlfriend's enthusiasm in stating that.

I liked Nikko's other policies he said he would push in his agenda too, Ojiro thought as he got back to eating too. He's had a slow start though, but there've been some bigger things to focus on, admittedly.

Sato turned his head to their table when he heard Hagakure raise her voice while talking about the prime ministers, and that deepest pit in his gut sank even lower with his eyes dropping down to his clenched fists in a depressed way. Even those clenched fists could not stay very hard though and just loosened as he stared down at them with a guilty conscience. He saw the voting booth he had entered back in December. And he saw the buttons for Nikko and Ippo, his finger hesitating over the screen, then lowering over the former prime minister's.

Sato rose his left hand and he rubbed his forehead. If he never got out, I'd be dead right now. And I voted to keep him down- Sato's fingers curled into his forehead in regret, his teeth clenching tightly together. I didn't even have his phone number. He's been back for months and I- I've seen him three times. I only went to see him once on my own, and we didn't even- DAMN! Sato dropped his hand and shook his head around. "I've got to go talk to him," Sato muttered.

Iida looked to his side at his classmate he was a bit worried about seeing him grabbing his forehead so tightly right there. Iida nodded his head in agreement with his friend who saw him nod and glanced back his way. "I will come with you," Iida said. "I have not seen him in a while." I should check up on him. His recent activity all seems within the law, with perhaps the exception of reviving Sato... I promised myself I would keep a close eye on him though when I heard the truth on Inazuma Island.

"Can I-" the two boys looked across the table. Asui looked inwards in a bit of surprise too, and Uraraka glanced her way into her friend's big frog eyes, before looking back at the boys across the table. "Do you mind if I tag along too? I, haven't gone to see him either," she said, looking at Sato in a similarly guilty way. In Uraraka's mind flashed Zach rolling over her on the Sports Festival stage to take the shot meant for her, like he did later on for Yaoyorozu only to actually die from that one. You're not the only one who's been a bad friend, Sato. I know he can't come to U.A. and it's up to us to go see him, but I just focused on class and interning with Ballerclava- that's no excuse. "After school?" she wondered, cutting off her own thoughts and asking with a specific time so this would not just be a vague plan in the back of her mind like it always was.

"Yeah," Sato agreed back, nodding firmly at the girl who made the plan he would have a harder time backing out of with more people.

Iida saw how Tsuyu reacted to what Uraraka was saying, so he did not think of asking the girl who looked away and back to her food. He did look at Midoriya though and mentioned it to his classmate who seemed a bit less focused on whatever he had been thinking of as he started rushing through his lunch to finish before the break ended. "Would you like to come with, Midoriya-kun?"

Midoriya absent-mindedly shook his head no and just kept chowing down. "Deku?" Uraraka asked, wondering if he actually heard the question.

"No thanks," he said, too focused to even note his classmates' reactions to his reply. The others all just let it go without thinking deeper on why Midoriya might say no, as it clearly was not for any personal reason but more just whatever he was focusing on. Lemillion accepted my request. The two of us and Kacchan are going to the scene of the Koimou Massacre after school today. Ever since Official Yuranama called it that, it's been dubbed that due to the repetition from news agencies. That's what we'll call it from now on. A massacre that took the lives of 38 of Japan's heroes, including 4 of the Top Ten. But it won't be a complete defeat. Raijin left clues. He made mistakes by being so arrogant. Fantasma almost had him! And we won't let that be in vain. She put it on us, and we will live up to that responsibility.

---

In a rural area of central Honshu forty miles from the nearest town of Uwuki, a pair of heroes were turning a weapons' factory upside-down in a forest that somehow had kept this place hidden from their sights for a long time. The building was abandoned when the three heroes arrived, and Gran Torino was now searching the upper two floors while the top two heroes in the nation searched the first floor together. There was no time to gather a bigger team than this. Each of them knew the chances of the place still having the villains and weapons they were searching for were low, but they had hoped by moving to it as fast as possible after ascertaining its location with help from Mr. Principal, they could be able to catch villains still packing up to leave.

The factory Carlos' truck was tracked back to was empty though. It was left in a hurry so it was obvious there had still been people there until the night before or that very morning even, but nothing of importance was left there. They did not find any booby traps either though, and so the heroes hoped to find a clue indicating where the villains just fled to so as to find them before they got far. They were hopeful they could find something too, considering the villains were rushing to escape so quickly that they did not leave any traps despite expecting they were coming. Endeavor ripped a hole in a wall that looked unusually thick, and he glared inside it at the insulation that he tore off to find money lining the inside of the wall. "Would they have left this all behind?"

"They care more about their freedom," Hawks replied back after glancing over Endeavor's shoulder to see what he found inside the wall. "But that shows either they had no idea when we were coming and just ran as fast as they could…"

"Or they just left after seeing us approaching," Endeavor finished darkly. "And they aren't far."

"I didn't see any fresh tracks outside of vehicles speeding off or anything," Hawks said with a shrug though as Endeavor looked back to see if that idea had panned out. Hawks had initially started checking nearby for running villains the moment they got there. "Found these though," Hawks added, and some of his red feathers flew around a corner of the huge room they were in at this factory in the middle of nowhere. "Might just look like random parts," Hawks started. His feathers were carrying what looked like junk, but one of the pieces had an oddly shaped edge that fit too well with another piece oddly far from where it had been laying.

"Weapons they couldn't drag with them, destroyed to prevent us from figuring out what they were," Endeavor said as he watched Hawks' feathers put some pieces together showing a potential for something bigger having been made with the parts. Unfortunately, the two pieces of steel Hawks put together were very large, and yet both still had broken edges on the other ends of them opposite where they were connected. Endeavor's look darkened and shadowed more under the flames of his eyebrows.

"The Radians may be crazy," Hawks said while dropping the scrap. "But this is unsettling."

"Selling weapons is likely where this cash came from," Endeavor said with a look back inside the wall. "So we have cut off part of their income stream."

"Let's hope it's a big chunk," Hawks agreed while turning and heading over to check out more of this large factory first floor. He heard a loud clanking sound upstairs of something crashing, and he shook his head with a chuckle while Endeavor just grunted at the sound of their older colleague working up there where he said he would check while 'leaving the first floor to them.' He had sped off without waiting for argument from the two heroes who were supposed to be the strongest in the nation.

Both of them knew the truth behind the Higashine Jazz Raid though. It was a truth few even in the hero community knew about. The two of them were supposedly called there as insurance to protect the raid and ensure that it went off without a hitch. Hawks flew into another room on the first floor and heard his venerable elder smashing around upstairs looking for clues himself, He's one of the strongest in the nation, yet he's doing his hardest to stay out of the limelight ever since his age reversed, for some reason. Hawks pushed that thought away as he always did whenever he considered it. He was supposed to be the failsafe though to save anyone faster than any other hero could, faster than the minute it would have taken us to reach the scene, but the old man was busy with villains inside and protecting the other heroes on the team.

None of the villains have talked yet, Endeavor thought darkly as he ripped more and more of the thick inner wall down to see if anything besides money was hidden in it. He frowned more even as he revealed to himself that he had confiscated more of their cash, as the more he found the less likely he was finding it that their cash flow was small enough that this damaged it. I need to search for laundering schemes. Those could bring us back to them better than searching like this could. I'll double the staff on working with the tax-collectors. It's hard to get that kind of personal info even from companies, but any suspicious activity we find and it's fair game. Endeavor reached into the wall and pulled out some stacks of ten thousand yen bills he flicked through to check them. Some five k's and ones in there too, but each stack is labeled with a million. Has to be tens of billions of yen in here they just left behind. That's not good. No amount of rushing should have led them to abandon so much. The Radians can't have so much more than this that it's an insignificant loss!

"It's not counterfeit," Endeavor muttered too as he checked some of the bills individually to make sure. He glared back at the rest of the cash, and he knew if the random stack he had searched through was real then it was doubtful it was mixed in with a ton of counterfeit bills too. "I have a bad feeling about this." Not one talked. They don't talk to heroes. Not Japanese villains. Abroad at least there were some who ratted quicker. Sazaki actually wanted us to let him drag Shooter away before reviving him. As a condition. Death. He's in our midst, but we're going to need him. That's what I'm feeling right now.

Hawks glanced Endeavor's way as he walked back into the room. The winged man whose wings were reforming with feathers flying back his way and connecting slowed down and he frowned with a look at the man whose thoughts he could read right now. Hawks grimaced as he thought of his own failure to arrive fast enough on that scene, and how he had kept Endeavor back after the teen's death to keep himself and Endeavor from the scene where everyone would know they had just been watching from nearby to have arrived so quickly. The fight had been over by that point, and Hawks held Endeavor back as he knew what was coming. The two had been watching though, and Hawks frowned more as he thought about just staring down there at what happened after the raid finished.

"Neither of us noticed anything off about the assassin who tried to kill Sazaki," Hawks mentioned. Endeavor looked back at the younger hero who glanced his way and then turned more to face him. "I didn't even realize that officer was getting into his blind spot. Not for a second, until he brought up the gun." Hawks paused for a second and then shrugged with a half-grin as he admitted, "Though even Lifebringer didn't notice while that 'Inezzi' was right behind him."

Endeavor nodded darkly in agreement with that statement, and Hawks' smile dropped instantly. His expression became flat as he stared down the larger man whose reaction he watched right there closely. "When did you realize Sazaki really was Death?"

Endeavor froze. His expression shifted in an instant, his eyes narrowing and the flames all over his body flaring for a moment as he considered Hawks tricking him right there. He just glared at the younger man without responding, and Hawks said after a moment, "It's clear why you stepped down from your task force." The younger man with red wings turned away and started walking across that room, and Endeavor turned away too as if not even acknowledging these accusations with a response. Hawks' voice lowered more though, his expression staying flat though his voice taking a tone that made Endeavor tense up, especially as Hawks said, "Does it have anything to do with the last Sports Festival?"

The Flame Hero and the Wing Hero kept facing away from each other. Endeavor was frozen completely but he did everything in his power to keep from reacting or even allowing his expression to shift as his heart pounded. Everyone knew Hawks heard things and was the kind of man to know the deepest secrets, but Endeavor was not expecting that question more than anything else Hawks could have said. His expression got much, much darker in the next moment as his head turned. He glared towards Hawks in a silence that filled the factory, and Hawks turned his head to the side looking out the corners of his eyes in a similar way as Endeavor.

The tense moment lasted for a moment until Gran Torino made noise above them. Then Hawks' shoulders slacked and he relaxed his facial expression. The younger man scratched the back of his head with a chuckle and turned away, then his smile just lowered a bit as he mentioned in a low voice, "I'm just anxious about Lifebringer is all I'm saying… But we do have bigger problems." Hawks thought about the rumors he had heard overseas of the missing villains whose final plans had been in relation to the Sports Festival. He knew something weird had happened with the way Endeavor and the other hero officials he had been protecting that day sent one of the officials to prison for life for a corruption crime he admitted to committing without any push during the trial, and yet without any proof against him either besides his own condemning confession. The fact that it had been kept so quiet, the missing villains targeting the Sports Festival, and Endeavor's reaction to what he just said confirmed what he had already put together as a theory, but as much as that was a concerning thing to know…

What he was seeing now, was far more disconcerting.

Endeavor refocused and moved quickly across the floor to where Hawks was staring at a piece of the wall he had to look at closely to even notice the crack looked too straight. A few of his feathers flew over and dug under the crack, and he pried what had looked like just part of the wall apart to reveal a hole behind it. Endeavor and Hawks each felt a dread neither thought they would be feeling today despite the worrying things already bugging them. They looked down on the first floor through the secret passageway Hawks found with the worst feelings rising inside them, at the sight of the collapsed tunnel at the bottom of the dark stairs hidden in that wall. That staircase opened up much wider right before all the rocks and dirt and rubble started to block it all up. The two of them stared down the staircase barely illuminated from the dim factory only lit by the light coming in windows near the top of the floor, and they stared at a tunnel that looked familiar.

The horrible familiarity of that tunnel was gut-wrenching to see for the top heroes who had seen one just like this not a week earlier. "You know," Hawks started in a low voice. "When the League suddenly went underground for a few years, I never really considered that they really, went underground for all of it." The statement was made in almost a joking tone that could have been taken as one if he was not so serious with what they were seeing. "But it makes sense why we couldn't catch them."

"There's one man I know has been here who must be working with Intanzo… or the League," Endeavor grit his teeth as he glared into the dark tunnel below.

They stared at a tunnel similar to the one under the League of Villains' base where Raijin made his return, while inside of a Radians' weapons factory, that had been selling weapons to one of the Jazz affiliated gangs. Endeavor glared down with his look infuriated and as intense as could be, "But this, this is the worst possible scenario."

---

"Where's Zach?" Sato wondered, looking at Iida who just checked his phone and a text he received a moment ago.

"He was held up after school for a few, he says he will be here shortly," Iida replied and pocketed his phone after sending Zach a brief response.

Sato nodded and then leaned back on the tree behind him. He crossed his arms, then lowered them back down to his sides while looking towards the entrance of the park he thought Zach would be coming in from.

Uraraka hummed to herself and she looked around the park some more as there were a lot of people there but few looking their way. It was chilly so they were bundled up, but their faces were visible so she expected more people to recognize them. Distracting herself with looking around for people who knew who she was did not work for long. She thought back on the question she asked Iida when he mentioned how Zach would come right after school ended to Musutafu. He revives people just to travel between cities faster. I know it counts as an emergency so he can use it, but it just, it makes people's lives seem like… Zach doesn't think like that though! So then, how can he do that?

Sato was trying hard not to judge Zach for his decisions on who to bring back to life. It was nearly an impossible thing to do considering who Zach chose to revive the day before, and yet he thought about the second-years in the hero course at U.A. who had confronted him after lunch. "Lifebringer brought you back, while a couple of grade schoolers drowned in a flash flood two days ago without him doing anything about it." "Why you?!" I don't know! I don't know why I get to live again and they don't. Just because, I know Zach.

Iida had seen that argument he had let Sato just deal with himself, as his interruption would only cause it to escalate considering his own revival at Zach's hands. Our underclassmen could see it had been bothering Sato as much as them though. Iida considered maybe the looks from some of the others in their Class 3-A had also caused those second years to back off, instead of it just being Sato's own confused and frustrated responses to them.

Outside of the park in Musutafu, Zach jogged down the sidewalk after flying to a car crash just at the edge of the city. He was able to avoid heading to the hospital first due to the highly-publicized breaking news' story about the crash. He only regretted that due to the amount of coverage the story got just to draw his attention, everyone was going to be doing the same thing again despite how rarely he actually responded to them.

He had too many regrets already to think too much on that though, and keeping up a smile was tough after the scolding he just got from Principal Memuria. "Thin ice" she says. The hell am I supposed to do about that? Leaving to save Sato wouldn't have been as big a deal, if I had at least gone through proper procedures or asked my teachers and then got her permission. Just opening a window and flying out of school in the middle of class isn't an "Acceptable form of communication." Idiots- no. It's not always better asking for forgiveness than permission. Permission would have gotten me out there without retribution- why is this so fucking annoying?! It's because I didn't plan far enough forward. Too fucking preoccupied in the moment- Smile!

Zach saw Uraraka and Sato and he stopped near the entrance, looking towards them and smiling as it was the first time he had seen them come out to talk with him on their own. His look showed a gratefulness that made Sato and Uraraka feel a bit more guilty that it had taken them this long, but Zach just jogged into the park and towards them to join the group of three. "Hey guys," Zach said as he neared them, then he focused more on Sato who pushed off of the tree and stepped out a bit onto the sidewalk cutting through the park.

A lot of other people in the park started staring their way with each of them recognizing the boy with his black hair spiked up over his head though a bit messier in style on the back and sides where it just waved around a bit in the wind while he ran. The teen in a black hoodie and dark blue pants slowed down in front of Sato and he asked with his expression getting more serious, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm doing great," Sato replied, and after a second he smiled at Zach and bowed his body in a grateful way. "Thank you, for bringing me back."

"No problem," Zach replied with a shake of his head like it was nothing worth bowing over. "Come on, you're drawing attention," Zach continued as Sato refused to un-bow that quickly.

Sato stood back straight up, and Zach walked forward on the path with a motion of his head at the others to do the same. The park he told them to meet him was a different one than where he had met friends in Musutafu the last few times, and he glanced around it in an interested way to see if he still recalled exactly all the dimensions of this park too. No eyes on me from the great positions. Two heroes were watching as I left Shiketsu, but they'll see I revived the boy at that nearby crash and won't have anything to catch me on.

"How was, the hospital?" Iida wondered as he jogged up to Zach's right side and then started walking with him.

"Didn't go today- but there was a car crash outside of town," Zach continued quickly as Iida was opening his mouth to complain at him. "Saved a little kid," he added, giving Iida a look telling him to have some more faith in him not just breaking the rules so easily.

Iida closed his mouth and he nodded his head at Zach who glanced behind him to see how those two would react to what he was saying. Zach mentioned to them, "Stopped taking the train a while back. It's a waste of time and I can revive people more often this way."

"Y-Yeah, that makes sense," Uraraka said while speeding up a bit right behind Zach, then moving to his left side more to walk with him.

Sato stared at Zach in surprise at how casually he was speaking here and the smile on his face that made it seem like everything was fine. It made the frustration he had felt before yesterday rise again, and yet he squashed that immediately with the guilt he had felt yesterday afternoon instead. "So how have you been?" Sato wondered, and Zach turned sideways as he kept walking to look Sato in the eyes. "With Shiketsu, and everything?" He added in a lower mutter, as he could have asked that question back during the joint training and felt bad he did not.

Zach thought about earlier that day in Shiketsu and the tough day he was having before even getting chewed out by Memuria. He thought about just dying, again, with his ribcage crushed and his heart punctured by broken ribs as were his lungs and other internal organs. He shrugged his shoulders as his smile lowered a bit right there, the shrug disguising the fact that his lips had curled down from his actual thoughts to instead just show things were 'alright.' "I have a big report I'm presenting tomorrow. It's pretty important to my final grade. Need to do well on it or I can't graduate, and no pro license. I'm not too worried about failing though," Zach added. That's not what's important about it.

"What's it on?"

"Secret," Zach replied to Uraraka, and he gave her a small grin that made Uraraka smile wide as Zach had said the same thing before his report their first years at U.A.

Like he's the same person, Sato thought, slowing down a bit behind Zach. He was surprised by how much that one thought stunned him, but the idea of it was mind-blowing to him that Zach was in any way similar to that person they used to know. Sato rushed forward as Zach glanced back towards him again, and he brought up, "I saw these stories about you in Korea and Egypt the other night. What happened?"

"Yes," Iida agreed with Sato's questioning. "I am also interested in the real story- if there are things that were kept from the media," Iida said, speaking a little too fast after saying 'real story' that he drew confused gazes from Uraraka and Sato.

"Well, there isn't too much to tell…" Zach started.

He recounted how he had been looking for something to do that night and heard about the plane crash. He led them off the sidewalk at one point towards a more wooded trail in the park that had a dirt path through it instead, still wide so it was not like hiking but at least less populated so there would be fewer eyes on them. "…I knew with that kind of teleportation Quirk it was dangerous to let anyone else go after him. One mistake and we could lose him forever. Though, as much as portal Quirk users are some of the most OP of us all, there are ways to contain them safely in prison without worrying about them escaping with their Quirks." Zach said that regretfully and glanced to his left at Uraraka and then back at Sato too afterwards.

Sato gulped at the look and what Zach just said, which sounded genuine and at the same time like something Zach had scripted for their conversation. Is he apologizing again, for killing Kurogiri? Saying he learned from it or something?!

"You went after Potaru too, first," Uraraka mentioned as she recalled the attack on Desusuta that Zach had stopped. "And stopping all of them was amazing too, but they were at least close-by… You went all the way to Egypt to-"

"It's not much farther to Cairo than it is to Desusuta," Zach countered as she was starting to complain about his methods too. How many fucking times am I going to have to say the same things? Don't you all realize I've answered this a hundred times already?!

Zach's response annoyed him, but it shocked Sato and Uraraka, and even Iida who was unnerved by how casually Zach said that without even seeming to be thinking about it afterwards. He was not bragging, Iida thought. He was defending himself. Flying around the world, is that casual a thing to him. In Iida's head he remembered a video that tourists in Paris had taken, where a dark blur had jumped off the Eiffel Tower and flown up into the clouds. The thought of Zach's disregard for any procedure back then angered him now even more as he knew Zach did not go through any procedure before flying into Egypt and attacking someone inside their borders.

"And you just flew into Cairo, smashed down a wall, and took down this villain you tracked down?" Sato asked, raising his voice to see if this was really the case. He said he was just helping, but he was describing events like he had been the one suggesting the ideas?! "And you made it back for school in the morning?"

"Yeah," Zach replied, his voice lower than Sato's was and making the large boy behind him flinch at the tone in it. All that and I couldn't even kill three hours. Could barely expel the Death I needed to. I need to push out more and more- That's bad. I've been ignoring it, but that's very bad. I know what this is.

"Do you-" Uraraka started but paused when she considered what she was asking. She had started already and Zach had turned her way, and she began in a low and serious voice, "Was that just a way to kill time?" Zach stared at her in a bit of surprise, but Uraraka just realized that he was not just being modest. He was not bragging because he did not see this as something to brag about, because it was just something he killed time with. "You were saving people and fighting villains, because you were bored?"

"It's hard to find something to do without a pro license," Zach started countering. "I can't do anything more than that-"

"That's still a lot!" Uraraka exclaimed in surprise and some frustration at how lightly he was treating this. "You did a great thing!" Am I mad, that he's helping too much? Uraraka got confused and she eased up her expression, but she was still looking confused and the others did as well. "If that was the only reason though…"

"I wanted to save those people too," Zach added, but the fact that he only mentioned it now was like he was adding it as just an aside. "The thing is," Zach started, sighing and then raising his eyes as if he was about to speak on some truth he was keeping from them. "The things I was doing in Terra, out in space," Zach shook his head and he frowned at the two who stared at him with wider eyes at how he was starting this revelation. Iida tried to match their expressions even as his eyes darted back and forth to the two Zach was lying to with such a truthful look on his face. "The consequences were always global, or bigger, and I was fighting nonstop against much stronger enemies who were much smarter than Jason Lee. The reason this doesn't feel like much to me, is because it wasn't that hard," Zach said with a shake of his head and a frown at the two for being angry at him for this.

"It wasn't?" Uraraka wondered quietly though. "What about, bringing those people back?"

"It doesn't hurt as much as it used to," Zach said. He glanced at Sato too and nodded his head to show he meant that. "I've gotten used to it, and the stronger my power got the less it hurt me to revive people."

Is that true?! Iida stared at Zach with his heart racing and his eyes huge. I have no idea! Even with what I do know, I can't tell the difference between the truth and the lies coming out of his mouth!

Zach looked back forward and continued walking again farther through the park that was brightly lit during the March mid-afternoon. A cloud just passed under the sun though and put a shadow over the forest where Zach's old classmates started lagging behind him. Uraraka glanced back and to her right into Sato's eyes, and the two each felt a strange feeling at how serious all of what Zach just said sounded. Things they assumed were lies swirled with the theories they had made for themselves, and they each looked at Zach with the unnerving ideas that he had really spent over a year in different dimensions fighting wars against trolls and aliens.

"How did you get out of Egypt fast enough to make it back to school though?" Iida suddenly began, keeping the conversation on something recent and something he believed Zach would be able to talk about more truthfully with them. "Was there another emergency here, or-"

"I waited until I was finished speaking with authorities and the press," Zach started back. "Then just flew back, checked Shiketsu General, and brought back the last person to die. That's how it usually works."

"And you know, Arabic?" Uraraka began. "To talk with their heroes and everyone?"

"Yeah, I spent some time in the Middle East," Zach replied with a shrug. "But I spent time everywhere, practiced a ton of languages-"

"And the Egyptian heroes weren't concerned at all about you just flying into their country without asking or-" Sato started darkly.

"Not one bit," Zach replied, scoffing at the idea. "They're busy in Egypt. They're still low on heroes, which is tough even with crime as low globally as it is right now. Crime's high in Egypt. They accept all the help they can get. But they're doing a great job over there; I'm not saying they aren't. The state of Cairo after what it looked like in the weeks after the CHAF got blown apart," Zach shook his head darkly but also in an impressed way as he was complimenting the Egyptian authorities to have fixed things from that poor state. Uraraka slowed down her steps though, while Zach continued ahead of her, "It's amazing how much the city has recovered. In barely any time at all-"

"But you still didn't trust them to take care of him themselves-" Sato started, as what Zach had said before seemed to counter the idea that he trusted Egyptian heroes' capabilities.

"The weeks, after the CHAF explosion?" Uraraka wondered, and Sato and Iida turned around to look at the girl who had stopped a couple meters behind them on the path.

Zach stared ahead for another moment, then he turned to the side and looked back at her in a similar confusion as to what she was saying. "But, your timeline for when you were off, when you have gone through that portal… The timeline wouldn't add up if you were there for that."

"Well I saw the state it was in, after I came back-"

"Wait!" Sato exclaimed, spinning to Zach with his eyes huge. "No! That's not what you were saying though." Sato's expression got furious and accusatory, and he snapped, "You were saying it like you were there!"

"That's not necessarily-" Iida began.

Zach rolled his eyes and he sighed in an annoyed way. He turned away from Sato and Uraraka behind him who each turned towards Iida and stared at him with their eyes going huge. "Really Iida? Defending me?" Zach muttered as he looked into the trees to one side and then rose his gaze up to the blue sky above again that got brighter as the cloud moved out of the path of the sun.

Iida's whole body tensed up at Zach's question. Uraraka and Sato slowly turned their gazes back to Zach from their anxious class rep who had been one of those who firmly believed Zach was Death and used to be more vocal about it. "The timeline doesn't work, Zach," Uraraka whispered, her eyes huge as she stared at her former classmate just looking up in the sky and frowning in so calm a way that it scared her. "You shouldn't have been here for-"

"No, you're right," Zach said with a nod. "I messed up right there," he admitted, and he rose his right hand and scratched the right side of his head farther from the two on his left farther back on the trail. "That was stupid…" He dropped his right hand down and turned more to face them fully.

Iida's heart pounded twice its normal heart rate, which was still slower than the two of his classmates in front of him who darted looks his way again before glaring back at Zach getting more serious each passing second. Zach! What are you, why aren't you denying it?! Come up with an excuse! Iida thought, darting his eyes to his right at his former classmate who just stared down Sato and Uraraka to let it soak in.

"It's all, a lie?" Uraraka asked, seeing if Zach was seriously telling them that by admitting his mistake a moment ago.

Zach shrugged his shoulders. "Are you Death?" Sato demanded to know, glaring darkly at Zach for an answer.

"No," Zach replied with a look into Sato's eyes. "I am not Death."

"And why should we believe you?" Uraraka asked, her voice raising and her eyes darting to Iida to see if that was a lie too.

"You have no reason to," Zach admitted.

"You were lying to us back then? About Terra and space… you just made that all up," Sato ground his teeth and his fists curled harder than they ever had before without eating any sugar. And I felt- His forehead scrunched up and the corners of his lips pulled so far apart in rage. "Lying straight to our faces with your fucking real plans hidden!"

"Sato-"

"Don't! Iida," Sato snapped, glaring at his class rep who apparently knew something beforehand. "What are you doing here?" Sato glared back at Zach and demanded to know.

"I'm trying to be a hero," Zach replied, like it was simple.

It was not simple though. Uraraka gulped as she stared at her large, muscular former classmate who had scars all over his body. The wounds visible on his face and neck terrified her to imagine if he got them on this world. If all he talked about different worlds was a lie… Was what he joked about wearing a collar? Getting his throat slit?! And the Battle of the 6 Armies, what even is that?! Is it all just lies- I don't know! I don't know anything about him! Uraraka's right foot slid back on the dirt path, and she flinched as Zach's gaze snapped onto her.

I forgot why I didn't go to his apartment before it exploded, Sato thought darkly with a furious glare at Zach. It's because I already knew this. He told us at the hospital and I knew, and I wasn't going to go there just to be lied to! And then I almost- just a few minutes ago I actually believed him! Am I that stupid?! That I did it AGAIN?! "Thanks for bringing me back," Sato said. He said it in part to calm his own thoughts, as he felt he was about to start shouting at his old classmate in front of him. And yet yelling even started to feel unnecessary at this point. I don't- I don't have anything to say to you. You aren't the person you pretend to be. And you're barely masking it, but I still almost fell for it. You think we're that stupid, and I really almost fell for it.

Sato turned and walked away. There was no more to say for him, not after the response Zach just gave him that was the most obvious lie showing him that anything he asked from here on would just be a set of lies for him to tell. I won't let you trick me anymore.

Uraraka turned and she opened her mouth to say something to Sato. She wanted to stop him as he turned and stormed off like that, but she slowly turned back towards Zach and Iida herself. The short brunette girl with her hair tied back in a small ponytail stared at them in a hurt way, and her eyes locked on Iida's before she asked, "Do Deku, and Bakugo know?"

"Know what?" Zach asked. Iida looked to his side at Zach with his face scrunching up too as that response was not going to help this situation. Zach frowned more himself too as Uraraka looked at him and showed her betrayed face that she had believed him before too. Hers showed it more than Sato's who just let the anger cover up everything else. "Midoriya knows the Doorway Queen wasn't real. Bakugo doesn't know anything but what he's figured out on his own."

"And you're really not Death?" Uraraka whispered again. "Wait, just… Just don't," she countered her own curiosity, as she knew that however Zach answered here it was only going to hurt her more. He saved me! I can't turn him in for, for what?! I don't know anything yet, and I don't want to! Iida wanted to but he, he changed his mind? I don't know. Zach is Death though. He'll lie about it some more. Kyoka's right. She's been right this whole time. Uraraka turned away quickly, and she followed after Sato with some more speed in her steps so she would get farther from Zach before letting her eyes tear up.

Zach turned from the trail behind him and he started forward the direction he had been heading before. Well that was a total failure. The fuck am I doing? Losing that badly is unprecedented! Zach sighed though as despite his own inner scoldings, they felt forced. He did not feel any rush to fix what had just happened. It's not a big problem. Neither will be able to stop me. Or even slow my plans. I can't even convince myself it's a big issue. "Sorry about this Iida," Zach started. He stopped and looked back at his taller friend who stared at him in an uneasy way. "They can tell you knew, so they'll be pissed at you too."

"Zach," Iida started. He was confused, and he said after staring into Zach's unafraid eyes for a moment, "What are you, going to do? I mean- You were so serious about not letting anyone find out, and just like that…"

"There are more important things," Zach replied. His tone was uncaring. Iida could see that he really did not care about it much, and he believed that after how easily Zach just let it slip up. Zach sighed as he watched Iida's expression of confusion and uncertainty due to the fact that his own actions were contradictory to things he had told Iida before. Zach slid his hands down into his pocket and shook his head after he sighed, and he started in a quiet voice, "I was trying my best nonstop to do everything."

"What?" Iida asked, his reactionary response to what Zach just said as something he did not at all understand.

"I had a thousand different goals when I came back here," Zach replied. "And really, I stretched myself out too thin. There are things that are important and things that aren't. Lies I have to tell and, lies I just tell because it's easy." Zach shrugged up his right shoulder and looked away, frowning a little more as he thought about what he just said. I treated every single thing like the most important thing in the world. And it wasn't. I just did that because it's how I knew how to live. Because not treating things that way got people killed as Death. That's how I lived, when I had those lives depending on me. I don't have that kind of responsibility anymore. No one wants me to have it, and I was putting it on myself alone.

"So you just don't care anymore, is that it?" Iida asked, his expression getting sterner with the teen he stepped closer to on that dirt path.

"Not about everything," Zach replied without backing down from Iida's step forward and serious accusation. "But you know how important saving Sato was?" He asked it and rose his eyebrows showing he was actually wondering if Iida knew. His old classmate just froze though with his eyes shaking as they opened huge. "I haven't actually said this out loud, Iida. It would be unfair of me to mention like it was important to me. But you know U.A. couldn't lose right after what Fantasma said."

"You-" Iida started in shock.

"I saw those messages and I knew it couldn't be a loss," Zach said. "Sato dies a few days after Fantasma promises everyone that Class A will save them? It would be disastrous. I couldn't let that be a loss. It was that important. Sato's death would have made that victory a defeat. He was brought there solely to make the win even more a win, and because he's strong, but mainly we needed people to see a Class A at the front of the charge." Zach paused and he shook his head at his taller friend who was in disbelief as he stared back at him, "I couldn't let the other heroes there be blamed for letting him die. I couldn't risk Sato's death destroying the momentum heroes had brought up after the villains' recent victory. Villains would have surged even more. Slaughtered way more people. Faith in Class A would have been destroyed making Kaminari into the biggest reminder of Class A instead of their heroes about to graduate now down so many classmates- How many different reasons were there to have? How many different things to force me to go there and save him? I can't mention a single one though like it's actually the truth."

Iida froze and his huge eyes shook again as Zach continued like that. "I can't defend myself when people call me out on saving Sato and not others, because they're right! I didn't care about any of that. None of those reasons mattered to me." Zach said it and grit his teeth in annoyance. "It was just Sato." When did I become so selfish? When did my feelings for a friend become more important than the greater good? Than the good of the world as a whole?!

He's, he's upset that he cares more- Iida shook his head once as he tried to put together what Zach was telling him here. "You can care about saving Sato and all those other things-"

"But I just came up with the rest afterwards, things I knew but- right there I listed off reasons that came so easily!" Zach shook his head back at his old class rep and scoffed at what Iida was trying to say in his defense. "But it's not like I focused on any of that… in the moment." Zach grimaced and he looked away from Iida again before letting out a heavy breath to ease his nerves. I needed to focus on what's important, and yet I acted in my own self interests. That's not "what's important." That's "what's important, to me." I can't be that person. I'm Lifebringer. I'm in public. And yet that's not even the most important thing either!

"We told you to go save Sato," Iida said, his voice quiet as he knew he himself had no right to talk about Zach's reasons for going when he was one of those who texted him to do it. "We all felt the same way. It wasn't about all those other things, it was just about saving someone-"

"A friend," Zach countered Iida, glaring at him and shaking his head when Iida opened his mouth to say it did not matter that it was Sato. "You texted me because you cared more about Sato. And I responded, because I also cared more about Sato. Everyone knows, that I did it because I care more about him. Cared. Care? I don't know, but that. That is something I can't do. That is selfish. You said you were going to be watching me, right?" Zach asked it in an accusatory way and then narrowed his eyes even darker at his old friend who stared at him anxiously and with wider eyes as he was finding it hard to come up with a defense or even a retort to that. "But you're clearly as selfish as I am, though at least I know that what I did yesterday was for personal reasons. If you can't see that your text was personal, then you're in no position to determine when I've reverted."

Zach stepped back from Iida, then he turned 180 degrees and walked down the path away from him. "Heard your brother's legs are working great," Zach finished while walking away from Tenya Iida. He rose his left hand and waved it, then curled all of that hand's fingers in and lowered his fist down to his side with a smirk on his face. That'll keep him off my case for a good while. This was a complete failure of an afternoon. I need them to back off me though. Separate myself again… Zach's smile started to drop, and his lips flattened out with his eyes getting colder and staring farther into the distance ahead of him. He noticed Iida turning the opposite direction back behind him and heading away, but he did not look back to measure his reaction or posture. He knows I'm right. He knows, however dark I just acted, it was in anger at myself over acting in a way too much like Death, so for him to go back on his prior decision wouldn't make any sense. And yet the way I said it was stupidly dark. Thus the mention of Ingenium. Leave him wondering if I really did plan everything- "Ahhhh…"

Zach seethed a loud breath out through his barely parted lips. His eyes narrowed as he walked through an isolated part of the park all by himself. He slowed down and looked to his right at a pond he had wanted to bring Uraraka and Sato close to earlier to show them how nice it looked. What kind of waste of time is that? Zach scolded himself with a dark turn of his head away from the pond that he did not see why he would even think of returning to now. Everything going on right now. My enemies all around me, and I'm still trying to play make up with Class A. It's been too long. I'm done treating this as the most important thing.

If I didn't save Sato, I would have lost all of them anyway, Zach stopped and he stared between some trees towards the pond that he saw a family walking around the edge of more on the opposite side of it though so they would not be able to see him easily. So many different reasons to save him, yet if I hadn't I'd lose every relationship I hold dear. All my friends would have turned on me. Everyone I love would hate me so much right now. They'd never forgive me. They'd despise me for not dying for him. And I still just did it for Sato though! All that is just extra benefits… right? Right?!

Zach's face wrinkled at his forehead and he lowered his eyes down to his right hand he moved in front of him. I don't know, he thought, a disturbed expression on his face as he stared up from that glove a bit. He imagined the burn scar under his sleeve, and his teeth trembled forcing him to clench them together as he pictured the child melting through his arms. I don't know what comes first in these situations! I think of too much at once! Did I want to save him because I wanted to save him or because I couldn't let him nuke us all?! What reason mattered more?! That kid just saved my life, but I needed to capture the Syndicate and save the Army. And Sato's my friend- but all those reasons! So many reasons I could have just saved him for! If those reasons didn't exist, would I really have been selfish? I think so! I'm just human, after all.

But I don't know. Zach turned away as he saw across the pond the father in the family looking his way as if the man might be trying to figure out his identity. Assassins everywhere, and I'm worried about how Class 1 looks at me? Kaminari's slaughtering heroes and, and I'm just going to school. Shigaraki's got the nation riled up. They're planning something big- massive! And, children like me are still being born in this world. I have to be better. I have to do more- more things of greater importance.

Every one of those things I tried my hardest at, they were not all of equal importance to split my time as I have. I had a thousand different goals and I treated each and every one as if it was an apocalypse in the making. If bad things happened because I failed at those goals, and I wasn't trying my absolute hardest, then those failures would have been on me. So many things, big and small, and I cared about all of them so much but it's impossible to keep that up any longer. I see that now. It's too hard to focus on everything at once, while constantly under attack, and under suspicion, and having flashes of… of just the most horrible shit that's ever existed. I thought I could manage it forever, Iida, but it became too much again. Messing up like I just did was bad but, it really doesn't change much if Uraraka and Sato don't say anything. I don't know if they will. I've saved both their lives before, but then again they both looked pretty disappointed in me there- Kotsumura's right though. I care too much about them, and about what they think.

Fuck what they all think. No one knows. No one understands the pressure I feel. The crushing weight of all these bodies. FUCK! Focus! I know, that Class A was going to be difficult. I thought it was necessary to try as hard as I could to fix things there to make up for what I've done, but it's been enough. I have to accept that the Class A's who didn't come out accepted that I was back but stayed away anyway. Others came out and talked to me, but whether I made up with them or not, I never deserved to be able to in the first place. Zach shook his head and he relaxed his shoulders as he took a walk through the park without any rush to go anywhere. His current train of thought was removing hundreds of pounds of weight from his soul, and his schedule was suddenly clearing up in front of him with an open path out into a more open area of the park without so many trees around him. I'm done trying so hard for something I don't deserve. Something that, only holds me back. I have shit to do.

I guess I've figured it out. These past few days. The hero work with Roady, as small as it was, led to bigger action with the plane crash. Bringing back Sato is such wide scale. I'm back on track. Subspace Devils gave me an easy shot. Everyone else knows me too well now, but Raijin's win will make others act in sloppy ways. I have to follow up on their sloppiness before he can carry out the next stage. I have to take action! Zach grinned and he rolled his shoulders in their sockets, cracked his neck to either side in a ready way. He winced at the feeling of the pain in his back where a bullet had pierced through before he turned his innards to darkness, something he had kept quiet about to everyone so no one knew the wound was there, covered in white bandages. The teen smiled through his pain though, People stood behind me for saving Sato. I thought I would get a lot more grief for it than I have, but people haven't been as much on my case as I or Sato thought they'd be. I saved a friend from Class A and let so many others die every day. I don't need to explain myself to anyone though. I don't need to put it on anyone else by explaining what that feels like.

It's my burden to carry. Shit to deal with on my own. And get past on my own.

And I can finish this school year however way I like, to do the most good that I still can despite my setbacks.

And I do criticize myself more than anyone else does. Yet I know I do a lot of good. Great things no one else knows about. It's not all important though. That murder case was not an efficient use of my time. Some things I do are worth the time though. Things I must take seriously with 100% of my energy. Things to focus fully on with a determined attitude to make them into complete successes. Like my report. As much as it was an aside from my other goals, it has become more now. And it's my turn tomorrow. To change the world, again.

I needed this today. Zach realized it in self-reflection and turned his head to look back the direction of his Class A classmates who were not even on his mind anymore. My guard was down, intentionally. To reveal what I did is a mistake I don't make. Subconsciously pushing myself to this realization. I am not defenseless anymore. Zach smiled in a calm way and turned back forward with his path clearing up before him. The person who hid behind a mask did so because he wasn't strong enough to keep going without it. The person I had been since returning was one I thought everyone needed. Zach Sazaki to return, showing he had not been broken but was stronger than ever. I had to show the people of Japan who I betrayed that I was a hero and someone they could look up to, because I didn't want them looking up to the last thing I had become that they remembered.

It was all so important to me back then. I showed them though, then I rose their expectations even higher by how heroic I was appearing to be, which I didn't know was possible. Zach chuckled to himself and then lowered his grin into a small smile with the corners of his lips risen ever so slightly. I had to bring them that high though in order to let them down again. They don't need me here. That reason never mattered, since I could only bring it high so they could watch me fall. It was dumb. All my ulterior motives and reasons, so few actually mattered. Darling, isolating my insanity from Death, the League… Eziano. I can narrow down what's important now easily. I've failed at some things which I should no longer try to complete anymore. There's no point.

All those relationships I built at Shiketsu were based on the person I forced myself to be too. To be strong, and heroic, and a teacher to my fellow heroes, always. They can never see me as that again. That was the best version of myself, but I was trying so hard to be that guy. Trying hard is good though. It feels good, and people around me were happier, which made me happier… but it was so tiring. Zach almost lowered his smile, but he shook his head instead and kept with his current train of thought being a positive thing for him. He let out another sigh of relief and also exhaustion, To try that hard meant I had to be focused on those things, which I couldn't be without breaking my own mind to get rid of all the dark shit that'd clog up my thoughts all day every day otherwise. As rough as it is to remember it all now… there is no going back. Not with the truth known to so many. I'd never be able to convince myself.

I have the strength to, the ability to, but, I don't think I have the energy for it anymore. Zach rose his right hand and slid it up through his spiked hair that he messed around to make it wavier than he had styled it that morning. He smiled a bit more as he did so, and he dropped his hand with a relaxed look on his face as he let out a long yawn. Right now I'm free. In this moment. I don't have the will to use my full energy to try my hardest every second. That requires a level of self-sacrifice I can't find anymore. Every moment of my life for years has been in self-sacrifice… Zach's smile wiped from his face and his expression got insanely dark in a moment. I'm just boasting to myself. Giving myself reasons to give up on these things- NO! I know I can't, and to half-ass it is worse than just giving up. You know you can't succeed at anything if you half-ass it all. Just going all out on the things that are important though, now that's something I still can do.

I beat myself up for no reason other than the guilt; the feeling that I'm so horrible that I don't deserve to take credit or feel good about what I've done. To keep me from taking a break. From relaxing. Zach rose his eyebrows and he thought to himself, I've never relaxed in my life. Choosing training alone over video games with friends. Choosing to go with the League, or to be an anti-hero and a hero at once, Death! And all that came with it! And creating my new persona, because I couldn't just give up in that Void. Zach shook his head and let out one more deep breath of relaxation. I wouldn't let myself think about it. It hurt too much to do. Would have hurt too much to stop.

The realization was hard to have. It made his expression darken to a new level. He stood still in the park with his eyes shadowing over by his black bangs. And yet I'm feeling that hurt now anyway because it was all forced out of me, but I'm still fighting too. All the pain I had to accept, finally, even though I always knew that once I accepted it things had to be over as there'd be so much to unpack. I knew it would have hurt too much that I would not be able to keep going! When it got too much, I had just accepted that I was going to die in order to never have to face it. And now that amount that I knew was too much to ever handle is on top of me, and at the same time I'm supposed to care about all this? About those goals, that mean nothing when I think of what else was out there! Things I intentionally forgot about because I'd never be able to take these issues seriously, as they are so small in scale compared to what I've done.

I need to finally accept, that it is over. I don't need to keep trying. Not so hard, that I have to spend every second with goals in mind. As has been my life for months. Every action, every step, and every thought were dedicated to a hundred goals, a thousand split focuses as I tried to better each of my classmates individually, better my image in their eyes, strengthen their Quirks to defend our people against villains, make friends with them, keep them from finding out I was Death, dealing with my teachers, graduating, and writing a report. And that is just Shiketsu alone! It was shit that all seemed so important at the time, but I can see looking in from outside that only one of those things truly matters. And only because I've made it something that matters now.

I am tired of the rest though. I am so tired- Does Kaminari care? Does Shigaraki care that I'm wiped? Do I think Eziano gives a fuck? Of course not. I waste time standing here thinking about all the bad. It is a waste, and I know I am punishing myself by doing it. I waste time questioning myself too and whether or not this new path will be the right one. I can't continue on like this though. Zach steadied himself, his resolve matching his expression as he rose his head and let the shadows lift from his eyes.

Decide. What is important? Had I let Sato stay dead, every friend I have would have abandoned me. Class A would have lost, U.A. a big defeat as well, and one for me for not saving him. Hero society taking an irrecoverable hit with the loss of a Class A days after Fantasma promised our victory. Their victory. A hundred thousand different reasons to save Sato, but I made my choice for the wrong one. The result doesn't have to be wrong though.

It was wrong of me, but that doesn't mean it has to feel wrong. I saved him. I saved a life. That is good. That's all I have to think about. Zach leapt up in the air and he flew straight into the sky above with a flap of huge black wings below him. I can act for the greater good when I need to. I can act selfishly too as long as it's still for the greater good. They are not mutually exclusive. So I saved him, not for any of those grand reasons for greater purposes. I just wanted to save my friend. I am selfish. I'm okay with that though. I know I'm not a good person. Being selfish sometimes. It's what I need, in order to take the other half seriously. As long as I get done the most important things, I'll have succeeded. Screw the rest.

There are those few things I have to do though. Things that I need to prioritize. Everything else comes secondary.

Everything.

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A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry it's been a little while. Moved up north this week, right into the middle of this blizzard hitting NY right now. So I spent most of today shoveling my driveway so I could get my car out and to the ski mountain I'll be working at all winter. Got back home after a couple runs and my driveway had another 4 inches in it (nearly 2 feet by now X/ ) but then I started editing up this chapter (after a couple episodes of Detective Conan). So, sorry about the distractions but I'm starting up on the next chapter now so I'll try to get that one out quicker! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! It was a long one, with Zach's classmates confronting him on his revival strategy and their classmate Ireni who was killed, Zach revealing a lot to Kotsumura as he nearly loses it, Sato and Uraraka learning some lies, and Hawks and Endeavor stumble upon a tunnel in a Radian base that looks very similar to something they saw below Raijin's... Anyway, Zach's got his priorities re-aligned, and he's moving on with his report tomorrow! XD Look forward to it, I'm enjoying writing it already!

yasideen1 chapter 204 . Nov 25

Zach needs a moral compass, someone who understands everything, but can stop him before he goes too far. He needs someone to keep him sane, to prevent him from overflowing with death and snapping. Other than that, great chapter, looking forward to the next.

Oh you are right. Unfortunately, no one knows everything he's been through, even Himazuri and Iida getting unnerved and confused a couple times this chapter from stuff Zach says. Someone to keep him sane... would be very nice, but instead Zach's on his own. His Death slips into his fingertips as he feels himself slipping... We'll see what happens. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Super Power Sensei chapter 204 . Nov 28

Sato...YOU HAD ONE JOB! You say he's strong Yaoyorozu, but not only did he die, he was the ONLY ONE who died! Sato has made Class A look even worse. And people wonder why Zach doesn't think much of heros(just kidding).
I've been thinking about this for a while but the whole "people becoming immortal because of Zach" argument doesn't work. Mainly because the people he revives can die again. Ethier from injury like so many times before or natural causes...unless they don't.
Now its' already been established that people who've been revived gain PERFECT health, so would they die from natural causes? I guess at the very least, ones lifespan would be doubled. And just because their DNA is perfect doesn't mean it will stay that way(because of cell imperfect multiplication). But at the most...if ones cells multiply perfectly, they don't catch any life ending diseases, infections, or cancers, consume the neccessary nutrients for bodily functions, exercise enough for sustained good health, and don't die from injury...then they could just live forever. Children who are revived will grow into adults, because of their genetic instructions, and then just stop aging. They wouldn't get older after a certain point. Old people who are revived wouldn't get younger though. The damage already done to their bodies wouldn't reverse. Rather their internal organs, blood, and other bodily structures become youthful again. They would look old but feel, think, and move like a 20 year old, at least for the next 30 years. From that point their insides would age as if their 30(if they are not immortal).
A game changer like this is probably one of the things Zach wants to be distracted from. Because for him, he has the responsibility of humanity's future in is hands. People in this story, and in real life, all have their OPINIONS about what life is and how it should be treated...
Author-sama please answer these questions:
-What was Midoriya's logic for making the decision to arrest Zach in chapter 194 other than pent up unease, resentment, and frustration of having his "purpose" of number 1 hero taken away? Midoriya has been on Zach's ass about reviving more people, and when Zach finally does Midoriya decides "now is the time to go back on my word about giving Zach a chance and attempt to arrest him?" If All Might didn't talk Midoriya down and he went through with it, he would have officially became the pettiest nigga on the planet.
-Would it have been okay for Zach to revive Sato if one of the Pro Heroes on the scene asked for his help instead of Zach's friends? Because if so then what the fuck is wrong with these so called "pros"?
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving Author-sama!

Thanks for another long review! Posted a lot of it down here (still not all like usual, though a little more than normal since only 3 reviews I'm responding to). Anyway, yeah Sato dropped the ball. This chapter he was more upset though about the fact that he had let down Zach so much since his return... though seeing him again kind of changed that. People becoming "immortal" because of Zach really hasn't been much of a thing either (not as much as they'd be able to prove it). What I mean is that it's so early on in the stages of Zach bringing people back to life, only a couple of years it's been going on, that people don't know what his Quirk really does to the people he uses it on. Thus, things like what happened in Scotland go down with scientists trying to figure that out, though luckily the Army of Death were around to fuck them up for trying. That said, since they never learned much before getting wrecked, we don't know as much either with Zach likely being the one to know the most of his Quirk and yet he knows there are still a lot of unknowns too (like when he got sick from using too much constantly inside him). And yeah, Zach does feel the weight of the world and humanity's future on him as we see a couple times in here, but at least he's accepted taking a little less responsibility? Maybe a positive. Maybe not... Alright, as for those questions: Midoriya had a lot adding up time after time for why he was against Zach, and I don't think it was a single thing that made him do it but all of it together, considering he already was the last one to be able to hold on back on Inazuma where he almost took down Zach in the first place but held off. Like he was on the verge then learned even worse things that made him think his initial decision was bad, though luckily All Might did talk him down. It was "okay" for Zach to bring back Sato, whether or not anyone called for him, he's still not being arrested for it or anything. People were going to call him out on bringing back a Class A anyway though, as he's so far chosen to bring people back all on his own, so even if he was called to help, people would have still said he could have said "no" but chose to come because he cared more... etc etc. Anyway, hope those answer it. Thanks again for the reviews and continued support, and happy Thanksgiving to you too!

R-dawg chapter 204 . Dec 1

Yo man, just letting you know i'm still following your awesome story. Looking forward to the conclusion as well as your next project if your still thinking of doing an original:P
Keep it up bro, stay frosty!

Hey glad you're still following and enjoying it! Still focused fully on Death as I'll try to be until it's over so I've got no focus on my next project yet, but I'm glad to hear you'd read that one too! XD Thanks for the review, and the few feet of snow I've got outside my door right now makes me think you knew something with that "Frosty" comment! Lol stay frosty too, and hope you enjoyed!