Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia
Chapter 212:
Zach reached and passed the coast of Korea without stopping. The lights below him quickly faded to become more sparse and spread out. He glared into the distance with his red eyes at the silhouettes of the mountains he was approaching. So close, this whole time.
In northeastern United Korea, the mountains were especially high compared to the other mountain ranges around the country. A long mountain range stretched across the entire Korean Peninsula, but the tallest mountains in the northeast also came with the coldest and longest winters because of their elevation and latitude. Due to this, even the advanced farming techniques of UK that allowed for farming on the sides of mountains had left a huge expanse of the landscape untouched in a certain section of the mountain range. Attempts to move in any farther had failed to be cost effective, so even though the country was prioritizing its agricultural sector to prevent another famine that had become legend to the Korean people in how devastating it was, United Korean farmers stayed away from the Muindo Range.
The Muindo Mountains seemed to be against the Korean people. They had used reform alongside advancements to expand their farm program over the past century, where Korea had subsidized city-dwellers to move back out into the country and grow crops. Infrastructure had been rebuilt with roads leading all over the nation with a great highway system and good bridges. These programs were somewhat unpopular in big cities where most people lived and were paying for these things despite not being out in the countryside where they were used the most. Yet the programs still went on, because despite some public frustration at the high taxes, Koreans naturally looked up to those who moved out to farm.
They respected the hard work. Frontier-ish, even.
Everyone knew that another famine would be horrible, considering the first one had been disastrous enough to unite the separated Koreas. Everyone also knew that crime was much higher in the countryside where there were fewer heroes. Villains were most active in the Korean country during the recent Age of Villains, though Korean heroes did much to combat them, so people thought it was generally safe again. City dwellers considered the rest of the country as a safe place to travel around, where they could visit small towns, give some tourism to local attractions that drew in city folk on vacation who did not want to go too far but would still like a trip.
However, the farther northeast one would travel in Korea, the fewer and fewer towns and attractions they will find. None of the major cities are in the northeast, with Pyongyang being the farthest city north in the new United Korea. In the far northeast which was once a more populated area, people had long abandoned the towns and cities there to migrate south. Too split off from the rest of the country by the tall mountains, there had been a mass exodus a long time ago.
Despite some farmers returning to the far north over past decades to retake the land from nature, those areas were still divided from most of the country by tall mountains, and as such the people used sea routes to travel down the nation and trade goods with the large coastal cities. Other than sea routes, they could only use the air, but even the air routes went around the Muindo Mountains that often had dark clouds high above them and dropped heavy snow year round. The tallest mountains in the country, the Muindo Mountains also had the shortest recreational climbing season that only took place during a few months of the summer season. It was illegal to attempt the climb the rest of the year as it would put rescue personnel in too much danger to allow tourists to climb in the worst conditions.
Yet travel to the Muindo Range was rare, even in climbing season.
The range did not become something people pointed at and said that they wanted to climb as a challenge, because those who did looked up help on how to climb and failed to find easy paths. There were of course guides who would lead up the tallest mountains, but those guides charged high fees and lived far from the uninhabitable mountain range itself.
The countryside had been forcefully repopulated through government programs after the war and famine, so all of the land around that un-farmable region had once been abandoned. Empty towns, old broken-down houses, roads that were falling apart with no upkeep for centuries, and yet those were the roads climbers had to take to get as close to the mountains as they could before beginning their ascents. There was no service out there either, as cell companies knew no one lived there for them to bother to provide service for.
It was just a cold, desolate place. There were some small forests, abandoned failed farms where the land had been cleared and then overgrown in past decades, new but still abandoned buildings near them that the guides would often use as rest stops when taking regretful tourists towards the mountain range, a hike in itself just to reach them as there was no way to drive to the bases. No businesses had sprouted up in the areas around the range, even though one would think that some entrepreneur or a kid of a farmer would see the opportunity and start a business. They could market tours to city vacationers, hire some of the local farmers who act as guides for a high fee once in a while to become more full-time… Yet no one did.
There was something most people in United Korea did not know about the Muindo Mountains. Something only the locals who lived in the closest arable areas knew, or rather they believed in. It was why the cost of leading groups of the mountain was so high, higher than just a fee for their time, and their service; it was a fee the guides set knowing that it was unsafe as well. The trek was dangerous, and groups even led by guides were frequently discovered by heroes who went to search for them as having frozen to death, starved or died of exposure, fell off cliffs, etcetera. It was one of the most dangerous mountain ranges because of its lack of clear trails or professional guides, and due to few government regulations because of a lack of interest in mountains that were not very interesting to climb, (Most of the reviews discussing the trek mentioned how the fog and bad conditions made it so there was never a good view. They also discussed how the lower paths were all overgrown first, then became steeper and covered in snow that had not been traversed and made it nearly impossible to move higher up the slopes).
People knew that the path was not just dangerous and difficult, but that the guides would also overcharge and act superstitious for no reason, deciding not to climb on certain days or to turn back for reasons unknown to the disappointed climbers. The reviews claimed that they turned around like they were afraid of the mountains themselves.
The farmers who lived closest to the mountains did fear them though. Those locals had made stories about the things that lived on the mountains, and when acquaintances of theirs went up and died on treks, they were told that the deaths were from natural causes but who could be sure? What if the government was covering it up? What if there were monsters out there? Parents told the stories to their kids, kids who then heard about other farmers going missing and winding up found dead near the Muindo Mountains. Sure-footed guides who had done treks up the tallest and most dangerous mountain dozens of times, found at the base of a small cliff with a broken neck.
Superstition became fear. Why were those mountains infertile, even though some were still at a low enough elevation which their techniques had worked on other mountains in the south? Why was there a disproportional amount of snow in their region, every, single, year? Every bad storm became a cause for the people nearby to blame the mountain monsters, blame some God, blame their stories, even if to most of them they still were just stories…
Those stories stayed with the people of the region though. Local tales passed down through time, some that felt like part of the attraction to the tourists who did try the trek. It added to the "culture" of their vacations into the boonies. They were soon forgotten by the people returning to work in cities who were grateful for the hospitality shown to them by the country folk in the northeast but who did not actually take those country bumpkins seriously. Conspiracy theories require people to dig into them and look for answers… and so there was no conspiracy of the mountains, as no one seemed to care enough to make them up.
A few conspiracists had gone there to record once, but they accidentally died, showing they were not prepared for the environment they had entered just to prove the deaths were not accidental. They had stupidly frozen because they did not pack warm enough clothes and could not find their ways back after going in without guides. It became big news after a few of their deaths, but everyone knew the area was dangerous and those young college students were considered foolish for underestimating nature. Locals knew though. In the backs of their minds. The superstitions they felt ingrained since they were children, and that those people had gone to prove. The fact that they lived so close to the mountains, and yet their parents and grandparents never took them there. 'No hikes,' their parents would tell them.
"Don't become a guide."
People at the end of their ropes because of a few bad harvests or bad investments into which crops to grow, or who used their money irresponsibly, would often turn to becoming guides to get that extra cash… Another risky investment. And many would die because of it. In hiking accidents. It was an occupational hazard of being a Muindo Range guide, one of the few who actually traversed through the surrounding forests and up in elevation to where the trees could not grow.
There were some valleys in between mountains too with other forests, though most had not been traversed for centuries. The range went on for a hundred miles north to south, with around fifty to sixty miles wide across that hundred mile span as uninhabitable as well. Thousands of square miles, with barely anyone ever exploring the area, with a few "safe" paths through it that people still died on. And there existed no modern-day roads built into the area except to failed farming villages on the outskirts that were still considered part of the Muindo Zone because of their abandoned state.
The locals on the outskirts of the Muindo Range, on both sides east and west, and just to the north and south of the Range, all knew in their hearts what they refused to believe in their minds. The "stories" they told, were a better explanation than whatever else could be happening. The "monsters" they described, were more believable stories to tell themselves than the truth. Because that many accidents? That many coincidences? Too many smart guides who knew exactly which trails to take, where to step, and what not to do in the Muindo Range had died. And everyone died naturally. In a mountain range that should not have claimed as many lives. Mountains that are not the tallest in the world. An area not very far from places where people live… And yet they die.
A disproportionate amount of people die compared to how hard the trek should be. Yet they have been dying for so long, that to people outside of the area, that range is just one of the hardest to traverse. And locals who heard that consensus outside of their region: that their mountain range is just one of the most difficult to climb… they don't argue with it. They don't argue even though they know it's strange that people think that way. They stayed quiet while guides agreed with that consensus and got fewer people to travel there, fewer hikers, and much fewer vacationers who were just looking for a fun time and not a death sentence. Professional climbers still came, but among their community the mountains were considered over-hyped by "the locals wanting business" as the treks were nowhere near as hard as some they had prepared for. And so, the mountains were unpopular to all.
The Muindo Range was an isolated part of a longer mountain range, with no one living in its uninhabitable wilderness. The closest people to it had made up stories that were passed down over centuries about the Range… and yet the people around to that day who considered those stories as having been created by ancestors a few hundred years ago when the Muindo Range was named and isolated, or back only a hundred years to when farming villages were created and abandoned, did not realize that their ancestors' stories were also based on superstitions they already had and just adapted in a new form. Stories that had long existed in the area, but had been mostly forgotten for a few centuries of science. Local legends, that people remembered again as hiking to the top of hard-to-climb mountains became a worldwide sport. Old legends that were almost forgotten to time, and have been now, replaced by the new stories of the monsters in the Muindo Range. Stories of the inhabitants of the Muindo Mountains. A demon clan who would occasionally leave the mountains and kidnap an entire village.
Disappearances of dozens of people had been attributed to the Muindo Range claiming more lives, as not every body was found when the bodies piled up. Searches were called off though after a certain amount of time, every time, as the area was full of wild animals too so any dead body left out there for too long would never be located at all. Bears, wolves, and some even rumored tigers that must have repopulated on their own after nearing extinction in the region centuries earlier. It was rare to see them, but it was illegal to carry a firearm, and illegal to harm one of the endangered carnivorous animals, and so those creatures all just added to the reasons people believed the locals told stories of monsters. It was why people accepted that travelers would disappear without a trace in those woods, or with the only trace of them being their shredded belongings like a bear had ransacked their campsite, or just some blood splashed in the snow…
Locals had feared the truth for a long time however. Deep inside, most of them understood that their fear of the mountains had nothing to do with the "Natural" order and danger of mother Earth. Some thought it to be the will of God. Others considered that it was a secret government testing site- where all those who wander in on something they were not supposed to see were silenced. Fortunately, the United Korean government was not that evil. And yet it was corrupt at the highest levels, if only for one reason.
The top officials had not all accepted bribes. They were not being blackmailed… not technically. Most just pushed it from their minds too, though they all listened. They listened to the local of the Muindo area who would arrive after elections at their campaign offices, and who would be allowed a meeting with them in private to discuss local issues in their area.
Some politicians considered repopulating the whole of the nation as a priority. Farming supposedly "un-farmable" areas was a big deal too, to some. Yet those issues never got anywhere in regards to the Muindo region, a region that was not originally actually called "Muindo," a nickname for the area which meant "uninhabitable" in Korean. It was what the mountains had been renamed as solely because everyone started calling them that when the nickname spread.
Government officials would never see this local again. Some looked into him afterwards but never found an address for his name.
The man never threatened them. Others at the top of the United Korean government mentioned it to each other though. The strange man who had come to them and warned them not to do anything to encourage people to move into the area. He had warned them, about how many, many people would die should they push for more tourism in the area. Tourism that he claimed the people in the Muindo Range would prefer did not happen as it was dangerous for them as well. The officials assumed the man meant for the people around the Muindo Range.
The warning never mentioned why it was dangerous, as the messenger did not talk about the dangers of the mountain at all. He did not mention the treacherous environment, or the animals, or the stories, and yet those were to be assumed as his reasons for warning him. Those were the things the politicians told themselves late at night when they would remember that man from the start of their careers, or at some point during them as soon as they gained traction. Or when they talked about something unpopular about the Muindo Range. They believed he just came to give them the warning, so that they would hear from someone in the area what he thinks about their plans, or to just let them know not to get those plans any more in depth in the first place.
A few still pushed their ideas for Muindo but found very little support among colleagues who had heard the same warning. Colleagues who brought up how dangerous it is to push their people to enter such an uninhabitable part of their country. The safety of their people comes above agricultural and demographic reform, and policy has to be crafted around their safety most of all. And yet in those talks about safety, many of the politicians remembered the wording that never said what their people would die of. The warning to stay out of those mountains, from a man who seemingly did not exist other than to warn them, from a man who rookie representatives heard political veterans tell them about in hushed visitors had visited them as well.
The biggest conspiracy in the world, because the politicians of Korean could not begin to fathom what they knew was wrong in the bottom of their hearts. No one could comprehend it though. No one could imagine that there were powers greater than nations and corporations in a world seemingly run by them. Where governments were supposed to be the ones warning people about not going towards secret areas, where governments were supposed to be the ones creating conspiracies, why was it that the United Korea president still recalled his first days in the nation's legislature and acted as president based on that warning he heard?
Or rather, he did not act, and yet there was nothing to say about not acting either. There were very clear reasons to stay out. The warning could have just been a concerned citizen of that region doing their part. The threat was indirect. It was not a threat at all… supposedly. As long as people stayed out of the Muindo Mountains, they wouldn't die. The government cut the hiking season down. They did not encourage travel to that part of the nation as much as they did sponsor tourism in other more rural areas… Most politicians just accepted the danger and chose to forget about it. Few ever looked deeper, and those who did stopped quickly and just moved on with their lives.
The people around the mountains made stories to keep their children from sneaking out to enter the forbidden areas. People who grew up in the vicinity knew something was happening but stayed quiet, kept to themselves, and just traded their stories as fun tales to talk about in the bar, tales to scare tourists with… They joked about it when tourists would come and mention wanting to try climbing the mountains of the range.
They treated it like it was part of the fun to scare away urban dwellers… while at the same time they were trying to save their lives. Subconsciously. Not in fear that an accident would befall them, but because deep inside they knew something lurked in the mountains. Something evil. Not a monster. Not the things in their stories at least, but something real. Something that killed the few who had gone in with the hope to find and expose that something. Something that for some reason their government was not investigating. That for some reason heroes did not think was strange, even though it was obvious to them! And if it was so obvious but no one was doing anything about it, then why?! And those were the scariest questions of all. And seeing unknowing city-dwellers arrive to excitedly visit the mountains because they did not know that the conspiracies they believed deep inside were true, horrified the locals who scared them with their stories in hopes that they would never have to go in with the rescue teams for another search. Hope that they would not have to pull out more corpses as had been the job of those living closest to the Muindo Range for centuries…
…
Zach Sazaki neared the southeastern Muindo Mountains when he heard the lowest vibration in the air making the tiniest sound in his ear. His wings slammed in front of him and stopped him short in the air, his right wind slightly harder than his left so that he did a one-eighty too upon his brake. His eyes searched the red-tinted sky behind him as he flapped his wings down to keep him up in the air. He did not just keep Death pushing out the soles of his feet to hover in place, as that method of flight wasted Death unlike using his wings that looked solid and did not let a single wisp pull off of them. Damn him, Zach saw the dot in the distance who approached five times faster than he had been flying himself.
Midoriya stopped short and a huge gust of wind slammed into Zach and forced him to focus harder on not letting his wings get ripped off. He squinted his eyes and then opened them back fully to stare at the panting green-haired teen in front of him who was staring at him in relief but also anxiously at the expression on Zach's cleared face. "Midoriya," Zach said, and he grit his teeth for a moment. "Tch," he turned his head to the side. Nezu told him to come after me. The look on his face shows he doesn't plan to arrest me though. Nezu listened to the call to have gotten the coordinates as well. He must have made it to that room seconds after I left. "This is a problem," Zach muttered, and his wings flapped down again below him to keep him up just as Midoriya tapped his feet below him to do the same.
Both of them did small arcs straight up before stopping and then beginning a slow decline back down that they had to stop with more flight movements. The actions were background though and did not require much focus. Midoriya stared at Zach's intense face and saw none of the depression from earlier. Zach no longer looked out of it, barely holding up, or anything of the sort. He looks like a completely different person, Midoriya could see an expression matching the look Zach had on Inazuma Island at times when he explained what he did as Death. It was more intense than that, even, as Zach was already back into a completely different mindset.
"I heard, Eziano gave you his coordinates," Midoriya started to his classmate. "You can't do this alone-"
"If I'm not alone," Zach started, his teeth grinding for a moment as he locked his eyes onto Deku's. "He might run off. If he does, and he kills hundreds of people in retribution for me breaking my word," Zach paused with his face scrunching up even angrier and more frustrated at the boy flying in front of him.
"We won't let him escape-"
"If he wants to escape, he'll escape!" Zach shouted back furiously. "You don't get it!" He yelled, his fists balling down at his sides and a pissed-off look spreading as he looked down on Deku. "He can't run away from this after finally giving me the coordinates I asked for. Not after I told him he could bring as many men as he wants. Not after I gave him so much time to prepare for a battle where I would be his ONLY enemy! I need him to fight me, not run away," Zach paused and his expression darkened more as he glared at his former classmate. "And you coming here puts everything in jeopardy. My whole plan. Challenging him means nothing if he runs. And so having to deal with all that aftermath to my challenge would have been pointless," Zach said that in a low growl thinking of all he had had to deal with over the last few weeks.
"Just one more person, won't make him run," Midoriya countered with no doubt forming on his face from what Zach was scolding him about. "I have to come with you though," Midoriya said firmly. "I won't let you kill him, Zach. Or any of the assassins you may fight tonight."
"Fine," Zach said, shaking his head back at Midoriya with his thoughts still racing. Midoriya got confused at the agreement right there that did not even sound angry or frustrated. "I can't kill anyone now anyway," Zach muttered. "Not with you here. You'd feel like a shit hero if you let me kill again in front of you, and now that you're here even if I knock you out and go kill them all myself, you'd never get over it." Zach muttered all that with his thoughts still speeding through his head as he came up with an entirely new plan on the spot. He had known what he was going to do if ever he received those coordinates, but just making all those assassins disappear forever no longer seemed like a viable option. "But you still can't fight with me," Zach continued and shook his head more while looking into Midoriya's eyes again.
"What? Zach I came here, so that I can fight those assassins with you," Midoriya said. He lifted his right hand in front of him and curled it into a fist, "And to stop Eziano Mozcaccio who is not just your enemy. He's the world's enemy."
"That may be! But you still can't fight alongside me!" Zach shouted back. Midoriya opened his mouth to argue, but Zach snapped at him, "If you fight those assassins Midoriya I'm going to wind up killing them." Midoriya froze and his eyes widened at the frustrated expression covering Zach's face. "Because I won't let you die. And if it comes between killing an enemy or letting you die, I'll kill that enemy every single time. And Deku! It doesn't matter if you would have been able to stop it anyway. If I see even a chance that they might kill you, I'm not going to take that risk!"
"You can't decide that-"
"You haven't fought these assassins like I have," Zach growled back. He shut Midoriya up with the tone he used, and he snapped, "Sure they're your enemies too, and the world's enemies, but I'm the one who's been taking them on nonstop for years! A worldwide network of powerful and well-placed assassins and spies who would like nothing more than turning the whole world against itself and bathing in the bloodshed they caused. Ezaino was sending me a message the other day!" Zach yelled.
"If that missile failed to kill me, he knew it would still show me how much he is still capable of. It would show me that even in a world with the Army of Death safeguarding the shadows, there was nothing they could do to stop him from doing whatever he wants! And it would show me that should I go back on my challenge or bring more forces instead of just myself, which would make Eziano run, that he would then carry out attacks with that much power and slaughter thousands as retribution for my attempted treachery." Zach flapped his wings more behind him than just straight down this time and closed the distance between him and a stunned Midoriya. "But I'm hoping that with just you watching my back as support, he won't take it that personally and flee. I'm hopeful, because I'm thinking he's already pulled out too many stops on this to give it up just because Deku followed me. He'll know I didn't want to bring you."
"What do you mean, by he pulled out the stops?" Midoriya asked slowly.
"I don't know what to expect where we're going," Zach replied. "But I've heard strange news stories in the last couple of days that are starting to make a little more sense now that I've received his trap's location. A mysterious disappearance of a Secret Service member on board US Air Force 2," Zach paused and his eyes narrowed to glare into his confused friend's. "One of the Vice President's guards vanishing off the plane mid-flight on the way back to the States. And the Premier of Yugalvenia never showed up for a press conference this afternoon. I was going to investigate it after I flew off from that alley you found me in, because that small nation's head of state just straight up vanished earlier."
Midoriya wanted to ask what Zach was getting at here, but he was starting to feel a faint idea that he knew what Zach was saying and so sweat just formed on the right side of his face. His eyes looked past the side of Zach's head and to the mountain range in the distance that had dark clouds over it unlike above where they were now. Zach continued speaking as Midoriya looked that way, "…A student at a hero high school in Canada was reported to have left the school premises in the middle of classes, and it became news because his classmates and teachers had not tried to stop him. When asked why, they told everyone that he had started acting weird and even threatened them, saying weird things about being glad he didn't have to waste years there in school and acting in a completely different way than the people around him knew he normally acted. His family is concerned and heroes are searching for him, but nobody's going to find him!"
"That's-"
"Maybe none of these things are related!" Zach shouted at Midoriya. "But in the last few days I've heard about a weird number of disappearances, strange circumstances that are all the more odd because of how many of these people seemed to be in important places or near important people, some of them important people themselves. A couple of heroes could disappear and it would not become big news, because it happens in different countries in different regions and hasn't been noticed by anyone yet since they're so separated that there's no way these random disappearances are related. No one is connecting them, because they don't seem connected, because NO ONE can imagine the kind of power I know Eziano possesses."
"So if the missile was only stage one of the attack on me," Zach continued to his friend breathing faster now after all Zach just shouted at him in a pissed but more just serious tone. "With Eziano knowing that it could likely fail, and it was meant to make me nervous and force me to really come on my own. If it would force the one who broke the code to just send it to me in fear that Eziano would retaliate with missiles if other forces came… then what's waiting for me? Eziano responding to my challenge with coordinates means that it will be Eziano there, I am certain of that, but anything else is possible. Everything else," Zach corrected himself. "And even though I know of many disappearances that unnerve me, there are hundreds of other sleeper cells and agents I know were probably scattered all over the world. Recruits still in hero school who were getting prepared to spend their whole lives as spies for Eziano in important places, as important figures- Do you understand the kind of power I'm talking about?!"
"'Kill the President of Esquomalador.'" All Might explained that power to me well, Zach. I still didn't understand how Eziano could have done it, but you've made that painfully clear. Eziano has lived for centuries you've said. And if he's had this kind of power for that long, then he could have recruited children decades ago, and those children could now be important figures and even heroes all over the world. "I understand that kind of power," Midoriya replied, and Zach's face eased up as he heard an intensity in Midoriya's voice that showed he took it as seriously as Zach needed him to.
The President of Esquomalador might have been one of Eziano's assassins himself. He could have killed himself under orders, or maybe one of his advisors or guards had reached their position after full lives of infiltration. "I understand," Midoriya repeated. "And I'm still coming."
"Then you'll be my support," Zach replied. Midoriya frowned again at the statement, but Zach continued, "You cannot attack with me, or I will kill down there. I don't have the kind of power to stop all my enemies, hold back enough with Death that I don't kill them, and make sure they don't kill you at the same time. And that third part will become most important to me, to the point that I will ignore the second goal."
"Zach-"
"It's when I kill my enemies most often and with the least amount of regret!" Zach snapped. "When I am protecting a comrade, I do not know how things would have turned out had I left it to them and not killed the enemy targeting them. I will never know, what the outcome would have been otherwise. I can only assume and guess how things would have turned out, and I know that there would have been worse outcomes should I have let you deal with a villain sneaking up on your back. Or if I rushed them but did not use enough Death for an instant kill and they still manage to get a shot off..."
Midoriya hated all Zach was saying, and yet he heard it in Zach's voice that he was fully serious about this. "If it comes to saving your life by killing someone I will do it without question," Zach finished.
Hearing that unnerved Midoriya, and yet it was also a promise for the other way around. "Alright," Midoriya started. Zach nodded, showing he meant that with Midoriya agreeing here he really was not going to kill a soul. "I will step in if I feel I need to help you though," Midoriya continued with an adjustment to the promise. "And for when we confront Eziano Mozcaccio, together." Zach grimaced deeper as Midoriya said that with no room for argument in his voice this time.
If a big fight is to come I know the villains there will all be highly trained murderers and assassins who could kill me. I know that Zach would be worried about how strong they are, and I know that to move in after Zach's made this promise to me will only get people killed. It was a split second decision, but Midoriya nodded his head firmly at Zach whose expression re-hardened instantly in such a ridiculously intense way that it seemed to chill the air around Midoriya just to see that kind of seriousness. Zach rarely ever looked that serious anymore, so this was something Midoriya could see he was putting his full attention on with no other goals in mind other than what was happening tonight.
"Fine," Zach acquiesced. "Let's move," he turned around and Midoriya moved up to his side with a glance in towards his comrade's face that he tried to match the preparedness of. "Stay frosty, Deku. I have a bad feeling already," Zach's eyes shifted down to the dark landscape below that went on for a dozen miles away from the bases of the Muindo Mountains. He said it seriously and as he started flying forward again, but Midoriya still stared at him with wider eyes for a moment at the phrase he had heard Death say on the walls of Hatto.
Midoriya shot forward and kept up on Zach's side as they moved at a slower pace for the mountains still much faster than most people could move. He said it back then in a serious way too. People thought it made him sound like an American- What am I being distracted by? Eziano Mozcaccio is ahead of me. Midoriya refocused and his gaze narrowed on the mountain range the coordinates he had checked were over. The coordinates were right on the southern slope of the second tallest mountain in the range. Mount Sankastu. I checked a satellite image but there was a fog around much of the range. Some forests in the valleys between mountains. Where is the trap going to be? And, are there any people around we have to worry about getting… dragged in...
"You've noticed, Deku?" Zach questioned over the wind flying by them. "There's nothing below us. Farmland, but no real lit-up towns near those mountains. Pitch blackness." Midoriya's eyes darted to Zach then to the mountains ahead they started raising in elevation themselves on their approaches to. The black-haired teen let that linger between them for a few seconds without saying anything else. "Let's rise above the clouds," Zach continued, and he flapped down harder with Midoriya kicking down too to rise up with him.
"I really think you should go back," Zach said as they rose up over the dark clouds beginning near the edge of the mountain range.
"Stop, Zach. We're doing this together. I've accepted enough already to-"
"Don't you think this is strange?" Zach wondered. His voice was quieter, but it did cut off Midoriya who looked to the side of Zach's face and saw beyond the intensity on it for a moment. Midoriya's eyes bulged for a split second before going back to normal as his head turned straight forward.
Neither said another word for a few moments. Midoriya shook his head and pushed away his own nerves, ones that got worse when he saw that Zach felt fear himself there. This kind of power is absurd, Midoriya reminded himself. And yet it feels like anything is possible when we're talking about Eziano. Things no one else in the world could even comprehend. We know.
It's just the location for a trap. He wouldn't give me the actual coordinates of… of what? Zach felt a churning feeling in his stomach. I've never heard of this place being a location for villains. Villains hide in uninhabited areas, so why is this "uninhabitable" range not somewhere heroes find villains hiding out? Why have I never heard of anything happening here, and all of a sudden this is- No, just relax. He may have picked such an inconspicuous area so he could set up a missile. Maybe there are bombs all over the range. I need Midoriya to stay up in the air. I can't kill anyone. Deku can't let me. And, if Deku were to capture all these assassins, reveal the kind of organization that Eziano had… It'd be a great way to start.
But this is bad. The worst case scenario here is really, really bad. "The worst villains I took down in United Korea," Zach started. "Were international ones. There, were never many very strong villains actually established in this country. The Triakuza were closest, but it was odd… I thought their Korean bases were just great at avoiding me, because it did not make sense for there to be as few as I had found." I didn't notice. Why question a good thing? I was suspicious that I wasn't finding them but they really were around, but what if they weren't? Is this his actual base? Am I just searching for reasons to believe that this is his base? I don't know if I'm giving him too much credit, or not enough. Are these clouds real or does he have someone like Maelstrom?
The tops of some tall mountains stuck out the layer of clouds he and Midoriya were flying over. Does Midoriya fully understand the kind of power I'm talking about? Zach darted another look back to Deku who glanced to him as well so they made eye contact once again. "You've never fully believed me," Zach started. Midoriya's eyes grew a little and Zach continued, "My stories of Eziano Mozcaccio and his agents starting wars in countries, having done so for, for so long… If you don't believe it in this moment though, you'll die."
"I'm not underestimating him," Midoriya assured.
"I'm more certain of it every second I consider it," Zach continued right away then in response to his friend. "But the lengths he'd have to go to. In order to convince everyone, and keep out suspicion, keep away heroes for centuries, having to make it look like something else…" Zach and Midoriya stopped over the clouds in the middle of the Muindo Range on the coordinates Eziano had given. Zach shook his head as he breathed heavily but with his heart rate calming down and his expression becoming steady. "I have no idea how he could do this. It sounds insane, but I also know it's not impossible to hide a place like that from the rest of the world. I don't think think Eziano just set up in an area without many people and is 'hiding' in this uninhabitable zone."
Zach's eyes narrowed and he seethed at his friend, "Eziano lives here, and that has made this region into an uninhabitable zone. Eziano's not hiding. That's not the word to use for a man like him," Zach shook his head and he glared down at the clouds imagining what was below them. For centuries, he could have holed up in these mountains without anyone ever coming for him. No one even knew he existed to come and stop him. He has people in every country. He's planted seeds for hundreds of years! I- I know that he is the most powerful enemy. Far more powerful than King or Fergus. His kind of influence goes far beyond. His level of fanaticism, for everyone to think that Eziano's assassins just do it for the money… What is his true motive?
"Why does he do the things he does?" Zach whispered, and Midoriya stared down too at the clouds that fogged the slopes of the closest mountains. "It doesn't matter," Zach whispered louder, shaking his head once and looking angry for a moment that it was even on his mind. "We're stopping him today. Hundreds of years of his terror, ends right now." Zach turned his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes one last time. "Stay up in the air. Don't watch me too closely or they'll kill you. Here we go."
Midoriya just nodded at the other teen who said that like he was giving out orders. Then Zach shot down through the clouds, and Midoriya followed behind him keeping a gap between him and the closest mountain. The two of them dropped below the cloud level above a valley between two peaks that did not dip down too far. Zach turned after dropping down though, and he flew over the valley to head to a lower elevated area, into a deeper valley where there was a thick forest that spread down and to the north and south at lower elevated areas. The slopes of the mountains around them had icy ledges and steep slants looking impossible to climb, but the forest was so heavily wooded it would be as difficult to traverse.
Then Zach flew through an invisible barrier and the forest ahead of him disappeared. The ground below the woods vanished as well, and the elevation of the valley showed for what it really was. A deep ravine that dropped hundreds of feet down just inside of the barrier he entered, and then dropped even farther into the darkness while spreading out wider to the sides. The slants of the mountains stopped going inwards on the valley and cut back out underneath the mountaintops, creating a huge wide area without any snow in it. The curved-in slants of the mountains had rocky spikes sticking down diagonally over the ravine, just as there were huge rocky spikes sticking out of massive crevices and out every wall in the deep dark pit.
Down a few hundred feet there was a level of more flat ground though the rocky surface was still bumpy and had dozens of tall spikes and pillars sticking out across the several square mile surface. There were cracks on that surface too that led even deeper down, and on the far side from the part of the barrier that Zach just entered, there was a giant skull-face made out of protruding spikes in a cliff wall. The open mouth of that face had man-made light coming from inside, but everything outside of it was only lit by fire. Torches sticking out of the walls where there were some thin stone staircases, or just sticking off of rock pillars and stone spikes scattered across the cavernous hell below. Some lanterns hung from ropes that dangled at the tips of wall spikes mostly pointed horizontally, but there were not many of them. The cavernous ravine was only dimly lit by the flames scattered around, faintly illuminating the many, many people gathered there.
Zach dropped out of the sky without hesitating after entering through the barrier. Midoriya entered behind him and froze with his eyes going much wider for a moment, then when he did start following Zach he did so slowly and stopped after just dropping down between the mountain's inwards protrusions. There could be enemies up here too. Careful of shots that come from outside the barrier. As much as Midoriya was focused on the potential for enemies attacking him, his eyes did track down after Zach who he could only watch in awe as he descended without a shred of hesitation.
Zach Sazaki fell through the air straight down, and his wings flapped at the last moment to slow him before he dropped on top of a tall stone pillar up twenty-two feet from the rest of the bumpy stone surface. His wings faded away and Zach yelled while standing there in black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt, "Deku followed me on his own, but he's just here to make sure I don't massacre you all!" His scream echoed around the landscape hidden in a barrier inside a mountain range with no people for miles and miles in any direction. "Be grateful for his presence. If not for him, you'd all die here today." Zach lifted his right hand up to his face and spread his fingers out in front of it. Those fingers curled inwards while Death bubbled around his head, and he dragged his fingers down with his ring and pinky touching and his index and middle coming together too.
He dragged a gap in the Death that formed over his face, leaving his skin visible under a black helmet that formed around his head. His eyes flared red and he rose back up his right hand to push up above his forehead, creating four spikes pointed backwards diagonally over the top of his skull from his forehead back. He rolled his neck out and snapped both arms down to his sides, creating black hilts in his hands that extended into black scimitars that had wisping dark gas coming off the top of it and black liquid dripping from the bottom.
Zach looked at everyone he could see in a three-sixty view from his pillar. He picked a spot right in the middle of the ravine's clearing, giving him an angle on enemies on all sides of him. He saw people he recognized and many more who he did not. As he looked around, more enemies emerged from all over where he had not seen them before. These enemies were in hiding before he even arrived, and he had not spotted them as he searched for everyone he had to be careful of. Zach already suspected there were enemies he could not see yet though, leaving himself calm even as Eziano's forces more than doubled in a single moment that made Midoriya's eyes bulge up high above.
Some of them I knew were missing. Others will surely be missed tomorrow- no, Zach kept his face steady below the black veil of his helmet though he wanted to 'tch' at the thought he had been having. People will be saddened as those heroes are revealed for what they really are. False heroes, false leaders, and- you mother fucker. Zach glared for a second longer at a man of over 500 pounds who he recognized well. Vinny, you piece of shit. Zach had been glad to see his friend in the Italian mafia was doing well when he spotted him at the boxing tournament he showed up at with the Cambris. Vinny's expression looked nothing like the carefree bookie he knew though, and so his eyes just continued scanning across his field of enemies.
Rhino Chick, Zach moved right past her without even stopping on a female hero he had met once in Texas. She sounded into what I was doing, so I spoke freely around her. Yet there was something about her at the time that made me against recruiting her, even though she seemed like she would have quit being a hero to join me if I asked. Nice try, cunt. Restless and Skyfaller are out of prison. Seems like they got a lot of old enemies I've defeated before back out for this. I knew some had escaped prison, but a few must have put doppelgangers in their places. Or they just escaped. Some I recognize from reputation.
There's Danny "The Devil," Zach spotted a muscular black man standing almost seven feet tall. He wore tight forest-camo different from the darker and blacker clothes of everyone around him including the two women at his back who dressed like ninjas. The villain whose mouth stretched from ear to ear was strapped with weapons all over while the three people behind him were unarmed. The two women each had black cloth over every part of their body except their eyes and stomachs, showing one of the women who was a little shorter also had blue skin. The other woman appeared white to Zach, just like the sixteen foot tall figure who had risen up out of the ground behind them and hunched forward with rocks dripping off of his muddy hands. That large figure was wider than Danny was tall, had wild spiky red hair above his head, and a bump sticking out over his shoulders showing he was a hunchback.
Nuomo, Zach stared to the end of a stone spike coming out of the ground slightly diagonal so that the Asian man on the end could sit with his legs dangling off and swinging back and forth. After he had leapt up there, his smile showing his sharp teeth and black gums, gums that Zach knew would spread the blackness down his teeth and into whoever he bit down on to kill them with his deadly Quirk. The smiling assassin with a sword on his back glanced down to his left as a six foot eight figure twice as muscular as Danny and wearing all white unlike anyone else in the ravine walked forward past him.
Don't know him. Looks dangerous. S-threat. Mark the worst targets. Isolate to never have to face too many S-ranked ones at once. And that bastard, Zach saw a man who his expression darkened more at the sight of. The thin figure wore glasses but took them off when Lifebringer saw him. He dropped them in front of him and stomped on them with a cocky smirk on his face as he stared at the boy who had brought him back to life once. Zach remembered reviving the man after he had found this innocent civilian dead when the man had gotten killed by a villain group he "accidentally" stumbled across right before the Army of Death showed up to take them down. He died then just so that he could be here now to face me, as a Death-resistant enemy. His name was Gunther, though I doubt any of the people here actually have real names-
A bullet came flying at Zach without a sound on its firing. J-1 lay flat between two spikes sticking out of a wall high up on Zach's back left, and the Japanese man who fired his sniper watched as his bullet went perfectly on target and hit the back of Zach's skull. The bullet flew through the other side of his head and across the ravine to stop in the ground underneath the curved-back second tallest mountain in the nation. The other assassins under Mount Sankatsu did not know where the shot had come from, as J-1 had set up his position a very long time ago and had been camped there for over a day.
Zach's head blurred to the left and he glared towards where the angle of the shot told him his enemy was. The same guy, Zach knew while shooting off the top of the pillar so fast that it exploded below him and collapsed down to the surface of the ravine.
In that same instant, a hundred different enemies moved at once. A few let out roars. Several lifted up in the air and flew after Sazaki when he turned his back on them. Others readied their Quirks, and one woman used her Quirk on the boy flying towards their teleporting sniper.
J-1 teleported from the spike he jumped up on into the air behind Death. He aimed his sniper down at the top of the boy's spine, as Zach continued to fly straight towards where J-1 was still jumping up. The wings that ripped out of Zach's back took some of his Death that J-1 hoped had been inside his body to make it so this second shot would actually do damage. Zach's body spiraled in midair as J-1 fired his second shot though, making the bullet whiz past the side of his neck without hitting him. The female assassin down on the ground whose hands had risen and were glowing dark purple stared at Sazaki in shock as her Quirk should have made the boy's eyesight be lagging behind and making everything that happened appear to be happening slower than in real time.
Zach remembered how fast J-1 moved around though from the time he smashed into the hotel room J-1 and the Canadian sniper had used to try and kill him. You killed the Painter! Now I will kill- J-1 glared furiously down into Sazaki's eyes that had looked into the position of the air where he knew J-1 to be based on the second shot's trajectory, even if the image of J-1 he could still see had just teleported to a different spot in the air. Zach's wings snapped forward on his sides and broke off his back to fill a whole area of the air where his enemy should be. In that same moment he filled every inch of his body and mind with Death, and down on the surface of the ravine's lower level, a woman's purple hands lost their glow as she fell to her knees and then down on her face.
Zach Sazaki's wings reemerged and pushed forward a second time, but this time instead of breaking off they just pushed him farther from the enemies who stalled or slowed ahead of him. They were wary that the second set of wings would break off too and come for them, but Zach just used the flap to send him backwards near the spikes that J-1 had established his sniping position on earlier. He bent his knees as he was about to hit the wall, but when his feet planted he was unable to push off in a jump three times as fast towards his enemies who just started moving his way again. The wall below his feet pushed in as if rubber, and then he heard a click inside the wall as his feet started sinking into the surface that had bent instead of giving him a solid surface to use for leverage.
The wall exploded, and Zach flew out of the blast with his right arm swinging forward already. He released the sword of darkness towards the fastest flyer of the group who pulled to the right to dodge it then increased his speed when the darkness suddenly yanked his way instead of just flying past. The villain slammed his right fist forward and nailed Zach in the right side of his chest where there was no Death- only for Zach's chest to open up as the fist was colliding and a dozen tendrils of darkness to rip out and surround him. The villain's speed meant nothing at that close a range, and Zach pulled back his tendrils to grab the villain by the top of his skull using his right gloved hand.
Zach shot down out of the air faster than the other flying assassins could move, and he tossed his unconscious villain away from him before flying over underneath J-1 and kicking him in a way that slowed his momentum enough for a second before he hit the ground and rolled unconsciously across the floor. A translucent ten-foot high ghost shot out of a pillar on Zach's left side holding a pair of huge scythes in its hands, and it swept them down at Zach who dodged with a dive to his right. In his peripherals he saw the scythes that were translucent too cut through the ground like butter, and so he came out of his roll with a staff emerged in his right hand and a scythe blade coming out the end of it.
He shot back towards the ghost as it was turning its head, and the ghost's pitch black eyes started to widen while Zach was already running past its other side and towards the villain in all white who just smashed straight through a stone pillar still exploding out in every direction. The ghost behind Zach was fading with the gash of darkness fading faster on its front, and Zach set off another blast of Death behind him to send him flying at his muscular enemy with huge bulky shoulders and a straight expression on his face. The Caucasian man in all white was strong for sure, and when Zach gave that extra burst of speed the villain just slammed his right foot down harder on his next step and made unsteady the ground below Zach's feet.
Zach did not slow down nor lose his balance on the shaky floor even as cracks appeared below his feet. Wings flapped behind him and an explosion of Death came out of his legs, and he spun around his scythe using both hands before ducking his body backwards at a ninety degree angle to dodge the swing of his enemy's large left arm. He shot by the enemy's lower left side and dragged his black scythe across the side of his body, dropping the villain down to his knees. The man turned his head sideways and glared after Zach, and as his eyes were closing, a smirk spread over his face right before he collapsed.
On Zach's left there were three enemies running at him, while the majority of Eziano's forces were now to his left as he had gotten close to one of the walls. He swung his right arm to the side, and a wave of Death came out of his hand. Then he flooded Death out of his body into the wave and accelerated it twenty times as fast so it shot across the ravine while rising up and turning into a mega-tsunami. Zach turned to the left himself while creating a wave that looked like one of Todoroki's attacks only made of Death instead of ice, moving so fast that the Death would not linger on anyone too long. He meanwhile bounced from one of the three assassins on his left to the others, though he only took down two of them before the survivors of his massive wave came rushing at him in the moments they thought he had figured they were all defeated.
Zach was in the middle of rushing at the Hispanic eighty year old woman with eight long pink tentacles sticking out of her back that helped with her mobility, when the young Canadian hero-in-training came up over his right shoulder with a hatchet in his right hand lifting up and swinging down for the side of his throat where there was no Death visible. He just turned more of his body into Death in that moment and let the hatchet cut through the opposite side of his neck where he figured the attack might actually be coming from, then he pushed a little Death out his back and hit the sixteen year old kid who thought he had a drop on Death for a moment.
Bang-ba-ba-bang! Zach turned to his right as bullets flew through him, and he ground his teeth as he glared towards Gunther. Zach kicked off the floor and shot at the enemy he had revived before faster than he had moved so far. He brought his knee up like he was going to slam it into Gunther's chest, then his left fist hit the side of the German man's face before the assassin even saw it coming. Zach slammed him into the ground and then grabbed him tightly with his right hand as the man was bouncing up, so that he could pound him in the face two more times using his hard left fist before throwing the bloodied villain to his side and cracking the man's back on a pillar that cracked itself at how hard Zach threw the man like that.
The ground under Zach's feet opened up and teeth appeared all around the edge of the hole. Zach started falling, as a voice spoke in English, "You got too cocky-"
An explosion of Death shot away from Zach in all directions and specifically below his feet to send him flying back up over the surface while knocking out whoever was speaking to him right there. He turned his body to the right while rising in midair, dodging the half-mile long spear of burning blue flames that just missed him. That spear retracted back just as fast as it had extended if not faster, towards a figure ahead of Zach in the air who flew there wrapped in an aura of blue flames. The villain's blue flames created wings larger than Zach's that flapped behind him when Zach made eye contact with the villain's burning blue eyes.
As that villain was flying towards him, Zach saw everything around him turn 45 degrees so the world was tilted. The skull entrance into some deeper part of this assassins' world flared with red flames and the stone face's eyes turned a deep pitch black with black liquid spilling out of them. His enemies all over the tilted ground started looking like demons, and the sky up above the barrier tinted darker red with the clouds rumbling and shooting lightning around the sky.
Midoriya did not notice any of these illusionary things that were not affecting everyone, only Zach. Zach swirled his whole insides with Death but it did nothing this time, as his enemies only needed to use their Quirks once on him instead of a constant use of it that would keep them connected to him. All Deku noticed was that his friend who seemed to be unstoppable with nobody touching him was suddenly flying sideways and down for a couple of seconds before redirecting, only for Zach's senses to get even more messed with to the point he had to stop flying to try and get solid ground where he would know at least that he was right-side-up. As he dropped, he sent out a blast of Death below him first that knocked out an enemy coming to get him when he was clearly disoriented, as well as the one under the ground but who was controlling the floor where Zach was landing to try and get his feet stuck to the surface.
That second villain Zach knocked unconscious with that pre-emptive blast was then crushed under the weight of the ground his Quirk was no longer keeping from squishing him. His body broke apart and stayed trapped under the surface with nobody on the surface even noticing as it was not Zach's Death that killed him, just the fact that he was unconscious underground that took his life. As Zach landed though, his fiery blue enemy shot two piercing spears of blue flames at him that were solid enough that they sliced straight through the rock surface ahead of Zach and behind him while hitting his body. The slices carved through him but caused little damage as Zach let his body turn to Death and start re-merging right afterwards.
His red eyes darted to his right where two enemies were rushing him. One was a woman with long blonde hair and a missing eye covered in an eyepatch, but as she saw Zach spotted her, the eyepatch pushed outwards and a snake shot out of her eye twice as fast as she was running to slither through the air towards him. The snake got thicker too so it seemed impossible for the anaconda to fit in her eye socket, but she also pulled out a blow-gun at the same time that she blew into and fired a dart towards where Zach's body was merging together on his right side near his right shoulder. The other enemy next to that woman jumped up in the air while she attacked below, and they clapped their four hands together in front of their round body to make a tremor in the air that had Zach's ears suddenly over-sensitive and filling with the noise in every direction around him.
He saw there were two other enemies rushing at his back, along with another underneath the flying fire villain shooting a hundred fifty miles per hour at his front to bring the total up to six. The one flying at him was flying upside-down, though Zach was pretty sure he was actually right-side up. It was the man to Zach's left who gained his undivided attention during the rush of seven villains at once though. He saw the man in green camo standing instead of running or flying at him. In the moment after the clap affected his hearing, he saw Danny the Devil's mouth move and heard his voice whisper. "Sink."
Zach dropped down to his knees as his body reformed. He was pulling away from the dart as he wanted to reform his body and not keep letting things pass through him which took too much Death this early. He had to spin out to dodge that while also feeling his weight suddenly exceed anything he had imagined coming. "Fu-"
"Sink into the floor."
This time the ground did not stop Zach from falling farther, and the ground below him broke apart at how hard Zach smashed through it. He fell through the ground that also fell around him in a hole just as big as he was, dropping him down into the surface where flames suddenly came up from below him. HOT! He knew the blue flames were actually coming from above despite seeing them wrapping around the back of his head, and he felt the heat on the front of his body as he burned. Conserve power. Eziano. His sons. Hundreds of assassins.
Out of Zach's back that was breaking farther through the ground fast enough that he was staying ahead of the flames another villain was sending after him, an explosion of Death stopped his downwards momentum. He also pushed out more above the top of his head though while creating sharper Death blades out of his legs he cut through the stone with and made himself a path. At the same time he whipped his arms above him into the falling stones that were bright red with heat as the blue flames pushed them down at him. His black arms extended up and around the fiery pillar dropping into the surface…
Midoriya was staring down towards the stone surface with a worried expression. His kicks slowed so he started to lower down himself, his anxiety winning over his faith in Zach- for a moment. Two huge black tentacles broke out of cracks in the floor that they expanded wider by emerging like that. One of them smashed down in Danny's direction and forced that villain to leap backwards and up in the air, releasing the pressure down below on Zach who emerged out of the surface an instant later right behind the fiery villain whose head started turning at the vibration.
Zach slammed his left hand down on top of the villain's head and pushed him into the floor while landing on top of his body, then he dove off and parallel towards the snake that raced below his body with its head turning up at the last second and unhinging its jaw. Zach's fist he was about to pound into the one-eyed woman's chest opened up and he curled his blackened fingers into her shirt instead. He clenched and yanked upwards, and the slash from his other enemy's Quirk went below the woman he yanked up so she would not be killed. He himself was sliced across the middle of his chest, only for darkness to erupt out of the slash and shoot forward at two of his enemies, only one of which was able to slide down under it.
Zach flung the woman he was still swinging up to his right while pointing his left hand in Danny's direction. His palm opened and a blue light glowed on it and fired at the man landing down a distance from him. The ground in front of The Devil exploded and rock shards shot up in his face out of the smoke, causing him to dive to his right into a roll. Zach had dove to his own right after firing towards Danny, and he pointed his left hand behind him while coming out of it. A bow of darkness was forming in his right hand, while wires shot out of his left arm from his elbow to his wrist aimed at the fat villain behind him whose arms just spread getting ready to clap again.
His attack missed and he saw his enemy was actually a few feet to the right of where he aimed based on the amount of reaction the man barely in his peripheral vision had to just almost dodge by leaning one way even though the attack would miss anyway. The wires stuck into the ground instead of an enemy, and Zach pushed off his feet before clenching his fist and making the wires jet-propel him backwards with his body spiraling and his legs looking like a drill as the spinning Death surrounded them. He slammed the soles of his feet into his fat enemy's chest as he shot right between the man's arms he was clapping, then he snapped his own torso backwards at a ninety-degree angle and turned his head to the right while pulling his left hand across his chest away from his right arm.
The black arrow that formed in the longbow in his right hand got longer and flared larger as Zach pulled his arm across his chest. He stayed with his legs straight up only to his knees where the rest of his blackened body was bent and parallel to the floor. He released and sent his arrow flying just over the ground while another enemy dove over his body with their scissor-like arms snipping nothing but air, their eyes lowering down wider at how fast he snapped his body back like that after kicking the fatter man. Zach slammed his head upwards while that villain lowered their eyes, and he snapped the guy's head backwards with blood splashing out of his nose and his eyes rolling back as Zach's black helmet hit too much Death into him.
The black arrow flew away from Zach so fast that Danny was unable to even get footing to push off the ground and dodge. A woman in all black moved so fast it almost seemed like teleportation, though Zach had seen the actual movement the short blue-skinned woman made to get in Danny's way and grip her hands around the black arrow to keep it from passing fully through her body when it impaled her between her breasts. She spun out at the force of the arrow that impaled her, but she did make it so Danny was able to jump backwards and get away, as he went into a full retreat to get away from his enemy he was staring towards with huge eyes.
Despite the powerful combination attacks his enemies had hit him with, Zach Sazaki spun and punched his right hand so hard that his arm ripped off at the elbow. His Death fist flew out and hit the last of the four enemies still closest to him, knocking her off her feet so she was flying back like the three others all were. The eighteen year old planted his feet back down firmly and stood back up in a powerful stance with his body losing some of the excessive Death surrounding it that he did not need at the moment anymore. The ground around him was on fire and breaking apart, and yet he looked balanced on the chunk of stone that enemies of his were sliding off of and away from him.
He still had enemies in all directions of him. Insane assassins who had killed hundreds, thousands of people across the lot of them. And as unfazed as Midoriya felt some of them looked to his amazement after what they all just witnessed, he saw that he was not alone in his awe. Zach, Midoriya thought. His friend's straight and calm expression remained the same, even as his black wings ripped out of his back again and slammed down into the sinking ground below him to send him up twenty meters into the air. Shots were fired towards him and enemies flew his way, but he dodged them all calmly and with precision in every movement. Midoriya's mouth felt dry and his huge eyes shook at the sight of it, You're the only one who could come to this hellish place and make the world's worst assassins, fear you.
A/N The battle begins! Zach tells Midoriya to stay out of it in return for him not slaughtering the assassins, which leaves Zach taking on Eziano's legion with the goal of not killing them all. Eziano has yet to reveal himself, but Zach faces off against many other powerful enemies. Will Deku be able to stay out of it or will he be drawn in? Can Zach maintain enough strength to take on all these villains knowing that he has to face Eziano at the end of it? What else? I don't know! No spoilers! XD Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think is coming in a review below!
Gillian chapter 211 . Dec 31, 2019
What is in play on the next chapter is not only the fate of Japan, but also Zach downfall and even Class A redemption.
Because if Zach dies, then Japan is screwed. If Zach kills someone then his downfall is assurred. And if he escapes at the end or any lf the previous outcomes mentioned become true, then Class A(Deku of all people) will have failed Zach as a friend.
Idk what to say anymore. Class A gave the cold shoulders as always, and Zach seems to be growing out from them(aside from some exceptions). And Zach is right: they are completely diferent people now. He is not the Zach from before, and clearly all that happened has made him forget even more who he was. Is so sad, and the most distraughting of all this is that this could be fix his friendship with his Class A if went honest with them. But doesn't really that matter now? With broken and Vexed Zach has become, his lack of affection from this ex-friends and these unwillingness to restore the bond, the country polarized about him, and the fact that Ezziano is even willing to kill those who are dear to him just to get the kill, thus endangering anyone close to him, will Zach really leave?
Jeez, damn author, making me worry about a fictional character. But noneless you did a great job in the build up for the next fight. I see is not the final battle yet, but is definitively gonna be a climatic moment for Zach.
Also, I'm calling it now: Midoriya is going to die trying to save Zach and he will have to revive him.
Not just one chapter here, we've started a full arc! Zach and Deku need to make it back to Japan for that ultimate fight we all know is coming with the League, but that doesn't mean they've got an easy task here or that they can even do it. Zach's return wound up not being as permanent as it seemed, and people's minds really don't just change suddenly even with Ashido's heartfelt speech to them that got them to allow Zach to come back. It wasn't going to fix everything immediately though, and the fact that none of them knew what was happening to him put a real distance between them when he entered the dorm. Zach could see they were still so far away from each other, and at this point he was ready to disappear again only for Midoriya to chase him down again. As for what happens after... we still need to see where this arc leads us first. Eziano's army was waiting for Zach to arrive, and now they have to face the world's strongest assassins and villains. Will Midoriya die? I won't say. But nice prediction though! XD Thanks for the review!
Long-sam-yo chapter 211 . Dec 31, 2019
And the build up for this fight has finally paid off.
So Ezziano is finally coming up, huh? And Deku is even joining the party!.
Omg, a climax point is about to happen! ZachIzuku vs Ezziano
Oh it's here! What was just a random character I once decided to throw in to try and kill All Might during the Sports Festival, has now become one of the pivotal villains of this story. Izuku's determined to join the fight against Eziano too, so that ZachIzuku vs Eziano is not far off... maybe. ;) Enjoy the next chapters! And thanks for reviewing!
Sea gull chapter 211 . Jan 2
Man I just realised that Eziano is only in this story. Got me reeling thinking this was Canon.
He's been in Death for so long now and outlasted a lot of canon characters who couldn't make it this far. Hope you enjoy his character though... and that you start to like him more, (or hate him) in this coming arc... Thanks for reviewing!