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!

224. Chapter 224: Sleepless

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 224:

Zach Sazaki opened his eyes and stared up at the white ceiling over his head that was making some noise and looking to flap a bit as it was pelted with rain and wind. The first thing he felt was confusion as he looked at the ceiling and heard the rain hitting it. When did it start raining? It's already raining hard. Am I laying down? His eyes went from partially opened to snapping open wide. His jumbled thoughts focused, and his body sat up fast. Was I sleeping?! It had confused him as to what was happening because it felt so long since the last time he actually slept at all.

Zach turned his head to either side and shook it around. He clenched his eyes shut, feeling a sharp headache and his guts emptying. Pain. Fuck- why?! I don't remember it. What was I doing? I'm, in China. Zach stood up and looked behind him to see he had been laying on a cot touching the floor of a sterilized white tent with lots of other cots and some luggage bags laying around it. No one else was sleeping in there, and Zach wondered, This must be where staff and heroes can come to rest. How long have I been out? And why isn't anyone taking a shift right now? We need to alternate. Or is this just the, "Lifebringer Shift?"

What the hell though? I mean, when did I come in here? Zach picked up a mask and goggles that he figured were his. He was wearing his hero costume still, and he licked his teeth and felt some plaque on them that he thought about taking a minute to brush. I don't remember what happened. We got here. I remember the FLICC, and the briefings. Zach lifted his left hand and rubbed the side of his head as he stepped into a disinfectant tunnel he paused in, allowing himself to get sprayed by the mist as he had expected was about to happen.

Zach stepped out into the left of the two tents he saw when he arrived at the Fundong FLICC. He vaguely recalled this tent being where the less severe patients were brought before getting taken across the middle of the tents in the connection to the most serious patients and the ones who were kept alive by machines after falling into their Sleepless-induced comas. It's 100%. I was hoping it wouldn't be. That just makes the goal here clear though. I can only slow it down. Capturing the villains is the priority and only way to stop this from killing everyone. At least the virus doesn't survive outside of its human host for long. I'm hoping there were enough cameras on Beiju's Edamazi Plaza for them to figure out who caused this and track them down.

Lifebringer walked down the middle aisle of the tent between the lines of beds on either side of the room. The beds went four wide across the tent with smaller aisles between the beds of the first and second, and the third and fourth rows. There were even smaller gaps between each bed on a row, though still enough space for doctors and help to come to the sides of the bed and deal with the hundreds of patients Zach saw in the room. This place was nowhere near this full before. It's every single bed! How long was I out for?

"Lifebringer?"

"It's Lifebringer!"

"Ack- kah- Lifebringer! Lifebringer please," Zach looked to his right where a man leaned up from his bed which caused him to start coughing. He jogged over to the guy's side and the man grabbed him by his left wrist, "My wife. My- ack- ughh," he groaned, but he moaned out while lifting back up his head with drool coming down from the corners of his lips, "Kids? They got brou-ack, to the other tent. Check on- save- unnng," the man lifted his hand from Lifebringer's wrist and grabbed the side of his head with it.

"I'll do what I can," Zach assured the man, speaking Chinese softly to the guy who had a pounding headache from what it looked like. How long ago were they brought in there? It shouldn't matter. As long as it wasn't three days or something… This tent could have been filled up in a day.

Zach walked farther down the tent and spotted Rin over to his right wheeling a cart with Buccaneer alongside him. The two of them were bringing meals to the hundreds of patients laying in the tent. They wore gloves and had medical gowns over their hero costumes making it harder for Zach to recognize them until they got closer. Buccaneer turned and looked towards Lifebringer, then he motioned his head towards the middle of the tent which Zach just nodded in response at the motion of.

The morgue is connected to the other half, Zach reminded himself. It was kept closer to the serious patients who were mostly unconscious and would not be able to watch as bodies were carted off one after another. He understood why they did not want the people in this room to see what he was starting to remember those other tents looking like as he headed towards the central connecting section. Zach spotted someone else still wearing their hero costume from his class who came out of that central tent to move to this side, and she looked his way down the middle aisle as she saw him approaching.

Zach ignored the coughing and wheezing around him. Most people were staying calm. Some of them had sat up and were on the edges of their beds to sit and talk with others around them, including doctors who were asking about their symptoms and trying to keep them in good spirits by telling them hopeful things about treatments that were slowing the effects of Sleepless. Earphone Jack listened in to some of these conversations while trying to drown out the loud coughs and moans of people around the room too, though she disconnected her right earlobe from the ground as Zach was almost at her. "Finally up are you?" She asked while glancing to her side at him when he stepped right up to her.

"How long have I been out?" Zach wondered. "I don't remember what happened, after I started for the morgue," he admitted to her.

Jirou frowned back at him then looked around the room and back to the opposite side that Zach had woken up in. A group of civilians was being led inside, taking up the beds closest to the entrance that were cleared and left open for the new busload just arriving. "They're adding extensions onto these tents," Jirou said as Zach looked down that way. "The FLICC is at max capacity so they're trying to make it double the size, though three other tents have been set up outside local hospitals too that are now housing excess Sleepless patients. There are over a thousand infected here already. More vans and buses arriving every hour."

"How long-"

"I don't know. Half a day- eleven hours," Jirou looked down at her ERT she pulled out just to check the time. Zach noticed that she knew a more exact time of it, and he looked under her eyes to see the bags under them that showed him how she had not slept yet at all. "You're the only one who's gotten any sleep around here. We're too swamped for the rest of us to," she mentioned when she saw him looking at her in a regretful way, though she thought his gaze may have been questioning why she was being snappy with him. "The dead are piling back up in the morgue. Over sixty of them since you passed out."

"Okay. I'll get back to it." Zach paused and then added, "Let one of the newer hero teams that arrived take your job for a little so you can get some rest. I know not many of us got much sleep the night before getting on the plane to China either-"

"Mind your own business," Jirou snapped at him. "Maybe you should get less sleep and get back to the reason they brought you here." He has no clue how swamped we are. He just woke up! Jirou looked down at the clipboard she had with several pages of information on it she needed to get to the resource-production team, which really just meant she could go see Momo for the first time in six hours. She was feeling more frustrated by the second that she was being stalled to talk to Zach, but he nodded at her in a hesitant way while glancing down at the clipboard she was carrying then back at her.

"I thought I was going to be on surveillance too, but they needed my help with the sick," she explained in a frustrated voice before turning away and heading off. Why'd I assume that's what he was thinking about? He didn't say anything- I'm busy! Just, there's no need to explain to him either. Jirou looked around the room and she sporadically extended her left earlobe down into the ground to listen to portions of people's conversations all around as Yue Fei had given her the special permission for thanks to his total control under martial law. Still haven't heard anyone say they saw anything suspicious they didn't feel worth mentioning. I'll tell Momo and Recovery Girl what the other heroes have been keeping from me though, hopefully from us. I know not everyone needs to be in the know, but- Is that? No, they're not talking about… I don't know that word, damn it.

Jirou had started studying languages vigorously after Zach gave her and Ms. Clue the slip with Black a few weeks ago. She was better at Chinese than she let on to anyone else purposely, but she was still not perfect and it annoyed her that she could be missing things she was tying to figure out right now. People's lives are on the line and I can't even catch a full sentence! Focus- I need sleep. I need coffee!

Midoriya and Ectoplasm sensei aren't the only ones who can help find these terrorists. We all know finding them is the only way we're going to save these people…

Zach headed across the central tunnel and found it far more packed than it was the day before which he suddenly remembered as only having a few doctors in the space. There were dozens of heroes, doctors, and scientists rushing about. There was another connection tube he had not seen the day prior which went to a third long tent set up between the two barracks-style ones, and when Zach walked by it he looked into opening flaps as scientists were heading in. An on-site laboratory. Get the most fresh samples possible. Experiments straight to experimental treatments to save these people. Trying anything is better than leaving them to die.

"We have two more who just flatlined simultaneously," Fu called out while heading into the central area from the critical patients' tent. She was heading for the FLICC's command tent to tell Szechuman, but she had to go through this area anyway and told everyone else to remind them of the need to work as fast as possible. "Two more beds have opened up, in ten minutes get the most severe in Tent 1 over to 3-" Fu froze mid-sentence as she saw someone walking straight towards her. "Lifebringer," she whispered.

Zach nodded at Fu without showing recognition as to who this woman was other than the fact that she was a Chinese hero. Her expression betrayed her though, confusing a few others near her who saw that look on her face. She cleared her throat as he walked up to her and then by her side, "Uh, the morgue…"

"I know," Zach told her with a nod as he walked past. It's been eleven hours. I don't remember what happened before, but if my time limit's under eleven hours I'll be able to tell from the sixty plus who've died since. "Hey Fu," Zach started while facing away from the woman he just walked past. He stopped before heading into Tent 3 where the most serious cases were. "Do you know," Zach's voice was low as he spoke to the woman behind him, staying below the voices of the other people who all kept going after only pausing for a second when they saw Lifebringer. He turned his head to the side and asked the hero behind him, "Did I revive them?"

"You brought back eighteen people before you passed out," Fu said. "I rushed in when I heard you… screaming, but you didn't stop until all those you could bring back were alive."

Zach nodded his head. Over sixty more in the past eleven hours, but people are going to be dying at a faster rate all the time. Before that, there were still probably under a hundred for the entire 24 hour period leading up to me going into the morgue. "Thanks," Zach told her, then he continued and headed back to do the job he had been brought here for. Eighteen. Eleven hours. Based on 18, I shouldn't have a full 11 hours. That doesn't make me happy. Zach walked between rows and rows of patients out on ventilators and with tubes stuck in them, doctors doing whatever they could to keep these people alive. There were children and old people, men and women, and his recent fears of having no time limit faded to be replaced with fears that were much worse.

I can't save all of them. Zach looked over his shoulder and to the other end of the tent. All these are serious cases. This tent was more than half empty earlier! I remember seeing the number of empty beds and feeling… they all caught it at the same time. Everyone dies within the same amount of time. There's no cure. The fact that there are groups being brought here just showing signs of infection means that the terrorists have continued releasing it all over Fundong, all over the region! They're hitting the country nonstop. Do they know that we have nothing on them? Or are they moving faster because they know we are catching up? Has Midoriya figured anything out since I was out?

Zach went into the morgue and nodded at the older man sitting behind a table just inside the flaps who was ready to mark down new corpses being brought in. His assistants were behind him with some doctors were processing the newest corpses, but they stopped when they saw who just entered the room. "Lifebringer. Finally," one of the two assistants dropped the cold foot he had lifted to put a toe-tag on a body. "Get to it! We don't have all day!"

"Hey!" A doctor in a white gown rather than a blue one yelled at the assistant who leaned away at the harsh shout. "Lifebringer, please," the Chinese doctor looked back in a much more respectful and pleading way than the expectant one of the younger nurse from India who had volunteered to come help in Gangwe.

"It's alright," Zach assured the older man. "Show me the patients who died farthest back first." I feel refreshed. Human. Alive! I wasn't expecting the pain, that's why I dropped. I hadn't revived since killing Ares. Hadn't slept. Revival hasn't changed. It makes me weaker. It always has. Even with the power of that God- that powerful man. He was no God. He just made me stronger at base than anyone else. Which means I can handle this.

Steel cabinets were pulled out of side walls of the morgue tent that were not white flaps but actual walls that had been built to support these freezers. He went to the first one and checked the time on the toe-tag attached to the body of a girl in her late teens. Zach checked his ERT while asking, "How long after I passed out?"

The seventy year old man sitting at the table at the front of the morgue tent looked over his shoulder. He said in a flat voice, "Thirty seconds after you hit the floor."

So this minute exactly, Zach read the time label on his ERT and hummed before collapsing it and shoving it back into his pocket. Eleven hours and twenty-two minutes. Surprising Jirou rounded down. Let's see. Zach put his right hand directly down on her. Death came out of his hand through his glove and grew thicker as it wrapped around the girl's torso. He lifted his hand off and removed his glove. "Direct contact works best," Zach informed the others while placing his hand back down on her chest. Not a thing. He did not flinch. He could feel nothing but her cold body under his hand. The young woman's face was pale and her body rigid, though he could feel her fragile skin breaking under his firm palm. Many other bodies were laying around the room without having been put in cabinets yet. Zach suspected the room smelled of death, but he knew the same could be said of most of this place that he could not smell due to the filtration system in his mask.

"Next one." Zach lifted his hand off the body and moved to the next cabinet down. He checked the time on the tag again and then tried and failed to revive the person. "Next…"

---

I'm tired. Zach sat in the tent he had rested in before. He was at a table where he was eating food that was not the best but at least had taste. If reviving makes me weaker, I at least know I can sleep some more in the future. It will make me more human. I should have expected that, really, Zach reminded himself, as it made sense that reviving people would make him feel more human. The fact that it was a physical reaction of his body just made it all the more clear.

"Doesn't hold a candle to Lunch Rush," Rin mentioned while pushing around his mashed potatoes with a fork. His expression was grim and he yawned only to shake off the exhaustion and shove another spoonful of food into his mouth. As he chewed he continued, "He should be here making food for all these people. It'd make it go faster, and we wouldn't have to spend all our time on it." He looked to his right at his new friend who had been given a break at the same time as him and who nodded in quiet agreement.

Buccaneer looked up from his food and mentioned to Lifebringer at the end of the table to his right, "I heard you revived forty more people earlier?"

"It's not all of them," Zach said. I'm not all-powerful. "Anyone who had died more than five hours before I woke up was gone for good." There's no way it's more than five hours. I brought back someone at 4:51 back, though the five hours and fifteen minutes ago I didn't feel a thing. It's not exact, but five hours is insane. "People are going to die who I can't save-"

"I was saying it, as a good thing… I'm amazed."

"Thanks," Zach replied, and he took another bite of his own food. Need the energy. It sucks, that I can't save everyone. It wasn't a full 63. I could only revive a couple dozen of that group. A few dozen isn't going to knock me out again! That was a failure. More are dying quicker now. I can't just revive one by one each time they die. I'll make four hour intervals and bring them back in groups. It will hurt more having all at the same time, but I can't spend all my time reviving people. I need to get back to the command tent and help investigate more than ever. It'll be hard though, since when I'm done with revivals everyone stops me to help with morale boosting for patients and assisting in a hundred other tasks. I could organize everything. I should use my experience. But I'm not in charge here.

I have to let others lead. I'm just a student. Not a pro…

Shinso and Kendo came over to the group of other students who were eating together already. "Kendo? I thought you were going to get some sleep?" Rin wondered to the class rep who had seemed exhausted earlier when he saw her for the first time in eight hours, as she had been dealing with the critical patients in Tent 3 while he was mostly stationed in Tent 1 or outside to help build the extensions with Buccaneer.

"I didn't realize how hungry I was," Kendo replied. "I'm going to take a few hours after to get some rest." Kendo looked over her shoulder and to the other end of the room where some heroes and doctors had collapsed and were sleeping. They were mostly the Chinese ones who had been there for an extra day or two longer than the rest of them. Kendo actually questioned whether or not she should sleep at all when she did not recognize any foreign heroes over there sleeping, but she closed her eyes and pushed those thoughts aside. I wasn't functioning at my best. I need to be well-rested, and I didn't sleep last night while pushing to be brought onto this team.

It was hard to tell from inside the lit-up white tent, but it was dark outside. It was the middle of the night technically into early morning, but even through the outer flaps of the tent leading outside it would be hard to tell it was dark out. So many huge spotlights were set up outside and illuminating the area around the FLICC to give a target for helicopters heading to the new landing pads, or for the workers outside adding sections to the command center and adjacent tents. The lights kept the road in front of Deng Park lit for the buses arriving full of patients from Beiju who had left earlier before a FLICC had been fully established in that city when it still made sense to transport all new patients to the Fundong FLICC.

"…Make sure you all take care of yourselves too. We are no help to anyone if we collapse and force someone to take care of, us," Kendo coughed and cleared her throat before immediately changing the conversation. "I heard numbers of infected in Beiju has risen over three thousand. Many are still pre-symptomatic, so it's believed the terrorists must have stayed in Beiju for several hours to the entire day. Doctors here are hoping that means Fundong's rise in infected might have a short reprieve."

I won't collapse again, Kendo. I don't think she meant me, Kendo suddenly cutting off what she was just saying went ignored by all there, including the one some of them thought may take it personal. She seemed to realize what she was saying there at the end, but I don't want to mention how I'm not bothered. I did what I could. No one can do any more than they can. Zach kept eating at a steady pace, his mask down in front of his neck and his glasses pushed up into his hair. The head scientists here even in costume development are all helping the doctors. I couldn't bother any of them to take the time to clear my visor as safe for use here. Besides, people need to see my eyes which they can't through my costume's helmet.

Sheshou walked into the staff rest tent and dragged her feet behind her. The hero did not have her costume on under her medical gear. She looked like any other physician or helper in the building. Her face was recognizable to most Chinese people though so she did not feel a need to show off her costume as she continued to aid them here. Sheshou's eyes were half-closed and she was just ordered by Recovery Girl to get some sleep. She had not left the shrill short Japanese woman's side since her arrival, as Recovery Girl and Creati moved nonstop to help in every way they could and were able to use her help with most of it.

Sheshou almost walked straight to an open cot that she thought about just collapsing face-first into. It just looked so comfortable after over thirty-six hours straight almost constantly on her feet except for some short breaks to eat. In the corner of her eyes she saw some of their foreign visitors eating now… Sheshou stopped where she was and looked at the side of one of those figures who was nodding along with the orange-haired girl speaking to all of them with a look of a leader. The others were all listening to her, and that tired girl smiled at them while giving encouraging words even as they discussed their grave situation.

Don't. She could not help herself. Sheshou imagined a wasteland in front of her that rose up and fell as if in waves. She saw a sky on fire and a dark man standing a hundred feet tall in the middle of it all. Then she saw the cluster of injured and dying dark figures who remained at the end of the day, looking around and asking about their comrades who were nowhere to be seen. Her mouth felt dry, and she wet her lips as she stopped her approach still a good six feet from the table. "Lifebringer," Sheshou started.

Zach looked her way and into the Chinese hero's eyes. Sheshou's expression cracked for a moment and her eyebrows rose up high on her wrinkled forehead. "Thank you," she gasped out at him, her voice hoarse as she thought about the line of dark soldiers holding back the flood in Qingxiao as she ran with the civilians she had evacuated from buildings that should have been destroyed. She heard the screams of the Army of Death soldiers giving everything they had to hold back the floodwaters, and the screams of Death as he revived the bodies brought before him that day. Screams she had heard again when that small group of gathered survivors of the Villain Summit lost a friend as they awaited their rescue.

The same screams she heard that day had echoed in her mind earlier when word started going around the tents about the commotion Lifebringer was causing with all his shouting as he used his Quirk to revive patients. Her expression shook as she stared at the person she just thanked. The teenage boy who looked at her smiled back gratefully in response and just replied softly to her, "You're welcome." Her eyes bulged. Sheshou was stunned, and she turned and hurried off towards a cot farther away to collapse onto, shaking her head around as she questioned what she was doing in her fatigue.

Shinso looked to his right and back at Zach, "What was she thanking you for?"

"I don't know," Zach replied. Shinso's bottom lip dropped and Zach just kept eating. "No time to waste figuring that out. She needs rest. We need to get back to work." Zach took another bite, his motions steady and fluid but with the purpose of finishing his meal and getting back to it. Rin and Buccaneer each watched Lifebringer take that bite, and the two of them looked back down at their food and sped up how quickly they were eating too.

---

"Here, Lifebringer," some nurses stepped into the morgue once the screaming had stopped, but one of them went straight to Zach while the others were calling to the most recent group of revivals to follow them straight to a bus that would get them away from there. The nurse who stepped up to Zach was ten years older than him. Her hair was hidden under the hood of her blue scrub-gown, but Zach could see through the clear face-shield that her hair was black like his own. She handed him a bottle of water, and he pulled down his mask, took the bottle's cap off, and downed three quarters of it in two seconds. "Are you alright?" She wondered to the boy.

"Ahh," Zach lowered the bottle and nodded at the woman before him. "I am now. Thank you, for considering me." He finished off the bottle and tossed it into a trash can past the woman on the side of the mortician's desk. The man sitting there was looking tired and barely glanced to his side and down at the pail near his feet. He lifted his right hand and fidgeted with his mask, pulling it away from his face and pushing air out from underneath to try and get fresh air in. The old man coughed a couple times and then rose his right arm and wiped the inside of his glasses too with his sleeve as Zach was walking past. Zach looked to his side and back at the man who wiped his forehead and put the goggles back on, looking back at his paperwork and picking up a pencil while avoiding looking straight at Lifebringer as he had spent too long staring as it was.

"Lifebringer! Thank you!"

"I love you!"

Zach headed out of the morgue while the people being led a different way by the staff realized what was going on and started shouting after him. He went into Tent 3 and looked just to his right side where a man lay on his back with a mask over his face that funneled him oxygen from the machine closest to the flaps to the morgue. The bed got closer. They're squishing them closer together to fit more. Zach looked down to his left and towards the middle of the tent in the connecting section where several doctors were wheeling stretchers into the critical tent shouting about hooking up the patients who were already serious but they had attempted to keep in Tent 1 as long as they could.

Others carried dead bodies Zach's direction. Zach saw three different pairs of people carrying corpses his way in the direction of the morgue. He walked to his right and turned his body sideways to shimmy between beds as he went to the closest corpse. His right hand lowered down on top of the man's chest and his arm turned black instantly. He pulled the dead man out of the arms of the two carrying him and placed him down on his feet, gripping the side of his neck with his left hand and flooding Death out of that hand as well. Alive.

Zach pushed the man into the nurse on his right who lifted his arms and caught the guy before he fell. Zach knew the victim would not manage to stay on his feet if he just let go of the guy which is why he did not just drop him. He leapt over a few beds too close together that he was going to have to shift the unconscious women and the machines keeping them alive. He pulled a little girl out of the arms of two others who were carrying her gingerly. "Hey just-" the one closer to Zach about to tell him to be careful with her froze as Zach hissed air through clenched teeth.

Alive.

He handed her off, not bothering to smile to the girl who could have someone else's face as the first one she saw. He gave her to the guy who clearly cared enough to get mad at him for not taking care of her gently. The last two nurses who were going to head to the morgue but waited because someone said Lifebringer was in there and not to go in while Death could be surging; 'Sazaki's words not theirs,' just lowered the corpse of the middle-aged woman with bright purple skin down to the floor. Zach did not bother walking all the way to her. He just reached his right arm out that direction and extended a black arm off of him that snaked through the air and all the way over to the body it made a sharp angle down towards.

He stood in place and groaned, his eyes clenching shut as he flooded Death across the room into that body. "FUnnnnkk- grrr, Stupid fucking God damn-" Zach spoke Arabic to keep anyone around him from hearing him curse like a sailor. It hurts so much more the ones who I wait longer to revive. Their organs have already melted by then. It starts so soon after death though. Sleepless must die itself minutes after, because the deterioration of the corpses does not continue.

It only survives on living organisms. Is that information worth telling anyone? We only care that it kills the living! Zach turned and started away when the third of the people was back to life. His right arm retracted back into his body and turned its normal color again in the blue sleeve of his hero costume. I failed earlier. I let nearly half of those who died after I got here in those first eleven hours die again. No more have died since, here. They're bringing bodies from other towns near Fundong and the cities with the smaller outbreaks, but once Beiju's deaths start compounding with these… And if it spreads even farther? What about when I next need to sleep? Should I have them pull the plug and kill off everyone most likely to die over a six hour period so that I can revive them before sleeping? Do I dare risk that? What about just the ones on Death's door? Have them drop those bodies so I can revive them, then the others who die while I'm asleep, as long as they die after an hour of me sleeping- or I just take a 5 hour nap! Not even. Four and a half should be enough.

"Sazaki." Zach's eyes focused on a dark figure walking towards him who he had not recognized yet. His mind was too far away with his eyes scanning over the immense number of patients in this tent who were going to die within the next two days. There were hundreds of them. The task was daunting. He looked to his teacher who stared at the boy who did not seem to notice how daunting the task was though, as Lifebringer just plowed ahead at full speed from what the math teacher just saw.

"How are you doing over here?" Ectoplasm wondered to his student. He stepped up close on his prosthetic legs that were lightweight and specially made for combat. "I hear you've been doing good work."

"Thank you, sensei. I'm doing fine," Zach assured him. He changed the conversation right away, "Is this really you, or just one of your clones?"

"It's me. Though my clones are out right now with the rest of the the team," Ectoplasm responded.

"I heard the Terrorist Search Team tripled in size when the second response group showed up. And there's a third massive response bigger than the first two in the works?" Zach wondered that optimistic question curiously as it was more a rumor he heard briefly than anything confirmed to him.

"The UN is working on a more organized international response team this time," Ectoplasm started, motioning with his head for Sazaki to follow him as he was heading for the command tent where it would be better to speak on this than out in the open. They moved for the central connector tent between Tents 1 and 3, and between the command tent and the lab. Ectoplasm continued as they walked, "The Chinese are telling them to stop wasting time. UK's top hero- the one in Europe," Zach nodded in understanding, as United Korea was not abbreviated in such a way as often as the United Kingdom was, but Cataphault's absence made it a possibility that Ectoplasm was talking about him.

"Governor Dengar has been recognized UK's top hero officially by the nation, as their interim Prime Minister made some big speech about unity and international cooperation. Declaring the number 2 hero as their temporary top hero, because he's letting The Proper Hero: Tea Master lead the unified response, hasn't done much to help the people here," Ectoplasm grumbled more frustratedly than in appreciation of the actions the British were taking.

"Is the UN stalling their release?"

Ectoplasm nodded his head, not surprised by the boy's guess. "They're 'ensuring the safety' of member nations' heroes. And since we can't be sure that we're actually safe here, there's no telling when they'll give the go ahead for Tea Master to take the team she's in the process of gathering. She's said she's ready to go at any time, but there's no telling when that'll be, and Yue Fei's telling us not to hold our breath."

"As for the TST," Ectoplasm continued. "The team tripled in size, at first…" he said to correct the student who glanced to the side and down a bit to make eye contact with the pro. Ectoplasm continued to the slightly taller student next to him, "…when the second team from Japan and several other countries arrived to less fanfare, but the team has lost members too as more resources and personnel have been getting transferred rapidly to help distribution and transport to the many other areas where patients are appearing."

The two of them headed into the corridor leading to the command tent, stopping as they needed to be disinfected again on their way in even after going through one of these together not a minute earlier. "Too many in Beiju returned to their hometowns and cities before showing symptoms, then went to hospitals there, which is straining all our resources as people in those places instantly panic and think the virus is spreading in their towns. They're clogging highways as people try to flee to their families' houses in other places around Gangwe, which just spreads the virus more and makes it harder for us to tell if the terrorists really have released the Sleepless virus in some of these areas or if it was just brought in from travel to one of these big cities…"

Zach looked around the command tent he had not been inside of for quite some time now. It was no longer set up in a way ready to give briefings to a large group of people. Rather, they had lines of tables set up with chairs on either side and high-tech computer systems all with traffic camera footage being scanned through. People were identifying all the faces of everyone who passed in intersections where it was suspected the virus may have been released. Others were collecting data on the types of people who had been infected, testing to see if there was any pattern indicating that a certain group might be more immune to catching it, which would give them a wealth of information on fighting the Sleepless disease.

Zach's red eyes darted around and checked all the screens he could see right after entering the room. It's all such vague searching. That means they still don't have any leads. Are those the number of infected in Beiju?! "Suspected." Are people staying home? Or did some really not get infected for some reason? If news of how high the mortality rate is starts spreading outside of hospitals, and it will when other doctors not sworn to secrecy notice that there haven't been any survivors… If we just had one person who has survived being infected for a full week. Anyone who can just beat the odds and start to recover! It's all we'd need to convince everyone that it could be alright, that we're studying how they survived to replicate it, to show foreign powers that it's not the end of the world!

"Ectoplasm," Szechuman began, lowering a pair of big headphones from over his ears down to his neck. Zach and Ectoplasm took off their masks as Szechuman continued to the Japanese hero he turned and saw. "The request we put out through the Ministry of Health was expedited by our governments. Your plane just left."

Szechuman smiled while saying it and nodded thankfully to Ectoplasm who just nodded back and replied, "Good." He turned to Lifebringer who was wondering what they were talking about, and he told the teen, "Officer Riekers took our jet back to Japan to pick up a new team. It's made up specifically of doctors this time. U.A. offered our plane to help transfer over, as it's getting harder to fly anyone into Gangwe directly now that all flights for personal travel other than Xing and Brungdo have been closed down-"

"It's the whole region now." One of the police techs sitting at a computer on Ectoplasm said it without looking away from his screen.

Ectoplasm and Lifebringer looked down to the back of that man's head then to Szechuman who nodded grimly to confirm the news. "Gangwe is isolated from the rest of China from the air. All flights and airports are being reserved for pandemic response. It's a measured response to ensure the terrorists do not escape now as it seems they're trying to move to bigger targets."

Zach's lips pursed but he kept his mouth shut while just nodding to Chinese hero wondered for a moment if Lifebringer disagreed with the tactic, but he turned away back to his command console as Ectoplasm faced his student to keep talking to him. Ectoplasm hesitated while staring at the side of Sazaki's face. What is he thinking- "Lifebringer. If you want to stay in here for a while and help out," Ectoplasm started. Zach looked to his teacher in surprise but Ectoplasm nodded at the teen who he knew might be able to help them just as much in here, "Go ahead. Take a break from reviving people and try to help us here."

"Understood, sensei," Zach replied firmly. He turned and walked to a table with a line of computers at it that he had not seen yet as he wanted to check on the work the people over there were doing.

As Zach got caught up on all aspects of the operation out of the Fundong FLICC, Ectoplasm and Szechuman separated themselves from anyone else's range in the command tent. "Still nothing?"

"Everyone thinks they've seen suspicious activity. The leads are taking us in circles. The last ten tips we tried to follow just brought us to people who are taking the lax quarantine measures inside the city to mean they're free to go about life as usual, which to some people is suspicious when they're so afraid…"

Ectoplasm glanced back towards the main hologram device in the center of the room that had a map of Gangwe with red dots growing on it. "Stopping flights from the whole region," Ectoplasm began quietly, though it did not seem as drastic as it would have had he said it the day before. The map's red areas were getting larger and more of them were appearing every time he looked over there. "Especially from Xing though," Ectoplasm continued, very surprised to hear that news.

"Agreed. It's a major tourism capital. Second biggest population wise in Gangwe," Szechuman said. "There are bound to be thousands of foreigners trapped here now which will cause more problems as other nations try to get their people out, wasting our time and resources by forcing us to focus on their people specifically. If we don't take it into account though and just ignore them, then we risk losing the aid we're getting from those partners," Szechuman kept his voice low. Speaking to a foreigner about something like this risked not sounding grateful to the person's home nation for the help currently being given, but the two heroes were on the same page with this and disagreed with the political aspect of it. Szechuman grunted and mentioned in a lower tone, "Thought maybe without the politicians looking down our throats that things might actually move smoother. Guess every job is there for a reason."

Ectoplasm nodded, glad he himself did not have to act as a politician and a hero. He was able to just focus on what was right, though he could see the Chinese heroes were all struggling to juggle the tasks that he had more assistance to help him with. He thought on more of a positive note and mentioned it aloud as he could see Szechuman needed it, "Riekers is bringing our jet straight to Fundong this time, at least. After he picks up the new team of specialists coming here to help."

"That's great," Szechuman agreed, though his voice was low and there was little optimism in his voice. His gaze was locked down on the Emergency Response Tablet in his hand and he closed his eyes for a moment with his hands shaking on the sides of the device. He pushed his hands together and collapsed the ERT again, before whispering in a lower voice, "Heiping's just tested positive." Ectoplasm's eyes shot open wide and his heart rate shot up as Szechuman turned and looked into his eyes. "She says she'll continue working until she can no longer. Beiju's in that sort of state that they need everyone to keep going."

"…Does she know, about the 100%?" Ectoplasm asked, as that grim bit of information was told to team A-1 shortly after A-2 had left for Beiju.

Szechuman did not respond other than a single half-nod to indicate she knew. Ectoplasm's expression darkened more under his mask, but he still had to pull out his own ERT and contacted Todoroki through it directly. He was concerned about the woman who had welcomed them and he got to know on their drive to Fundong from Xing. He had to be more concerned about others though first, and he messaged the student in Beiju first before messaging the entire Japanese team on the ground including from the secondary arrival group who were already scattered across Gangwe.

Zach leaned forward and asked the person whose head he just put his own on the right side of, "May I?" The man let go of the mouse and nodded at Lifebringer to go ahead. Let's see, Zach grabbed the mouse with his right hand and scrolled outwards while holding control on the keyboard to expand the paused image of Beiju he was looking at. He typed into the keyboard with his left hand without looking down at it or reading the Chinese characters closely as he knew which ones matched up with keyboards he was more used to. Hospitals. Police stations. Hero agencies.

Edamazi Plaza is not just a location with high traffic. If they were looking for taking out the most amount of people then they wouldn't have hit so early in the morning. They would have released it during rush hour. It's close to Szechuman's agency. It's public knowledge that he was in Fundong though. Trying to take out his staffers and sidekicks running the area in his stead? Or to make Szechuman sloppy by getting him emotional? I can see it eating away at him. His morale is getting crushed right now and there's nothing I could say to console him. I'm certain Heiping is not the first hero to have been infected. It's getting personal for him and he's still in command of Fundong's FLICC.

Crippling the hospitals where the first patients are most likely to be brought before they could set up a FLICC, doesn't make sense! They have to know that the primary symptoms are not bad enough to cause a collapse of the healthcare system- Unless they don't know. They know now though. They saw how quickly Mulan and Coola arrived and established a new FLICC. They saw how much of our resources it would take. Hitting a city so large and with so many people makes it seem to just be a target, but what if it's still the testing stage? They didn't want it too big. Too big, and the UN wouldn't hesitate. They'd send the third giant hero group immediately to help with the collapse of Beiju. No, no they made it smaller so that those of us here already could handle it. So that we could just handle it! Get us on the brink and cause just enough chaos to get everyone else riled up, putting pressure-

Are they ridiculously skilled or still trying to get started? Could it be both? Someone's running the show from the shadows and doing it through a group of- LoV? Possibly.

I believed they were the only ones to still be strong enough to pull something like this off. Was I right? Or have other groups burrowed deeper than I or the Army imagined? Who runs the show here?! The fact that I know nothing about them is what's most troubling. Kaminari's MO could be to get me out of the country. Would he do all this just for that single objective? I was already trapped in U.A. where I couldn't act outside of the school's campus. It didn't make any sense to send me out in the field! He has to know that. Which means it isn't him, right?! Or is it because I know that he wouldn't-

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.

Zach turned his head while continuing to cross reference data on the map. He stared towards the hologram of Gangwe and a new red dot that just appeared. Everyone stopped what they were doing at the sight of where that new case had just been confirmed. "No," the support member Zach had taken the computer from whispered. Zach stood up and stepped towards the hologram machine then looked to his side and towards Ectoplasm.

Just when things couldn't get any worse. Ectoplasm looked towards Sazaki and then to the head of the tent where Midoriya, Wonder Man, and Star-Spangled Man were all heading inside. If they had been outside for a moment longer his clone with them could have relayed what he was seeing. The three men who came in rushed forward at the sound of the beeping, and Ectoplasm began to them, "I wish there was better news for you…"

Why didn't I say anything? Zach felt his heart clench up. It wouldn't have mattered! I only thought of it minutes ago, and the release must have happened hours before for them to have tested a positive case there! I knew though. I knew and I should have-

"My flight was cancelled. Change of plans."

It's horrible. I hate to imagine it, Zach grit his teeth harder behind his lips and hid what he was feeling from those around him raising their voices and arguing about whether this was a real problem or just a fluke, or a case that traveled to the city of their Central Command. If I was in charge of command though, Zach thought while looking at the map and the red dot over Xing. If I was forced to make the decision to shut down, and I had made the measured response knowing that many flights were planned out of the city and that the terrorists might think this was their last way out!

It's the first thing I thought of when he told us the flights were cancelled. That imagined conversation! I would have set a trap. I would have had to cancel anyway, so why not use it to see if they take the bait! It was bait- there just wasn't a hook to catch them when they did what they would obviously do! If the villains were getting closed in on, and they needed to get out of Gangwe now or not escape at all, and then you shut down their one means of escape! There should have been a trap in the likely targeted areas. Or if I had the resources, I would track everyone trying to get a flight out of Xing and Brungdo in the last twelve hours. It's a shot in the dark- in the dim! It was something!

At this point we need to identify every single person in Gangwe now that the region is being cut off completely. Zach's fists balled at his sides and he had to look away as Midoriya spun to him with a concerned look to see how Zach felt about a case popping up in Xing. Why didn't they do- Maybe they did! They didn't. Yue Fei's busy dealing with everything, and it's the TST who have to set traps like that! But here you guys are still in Fundong. Searching for clues- no one wants to set bait. They want to find them without sacrificing anyone else! But people are going to die. More people…

If I was in charge of a response- I'm not! Zach got annoyed at himself even more as he was thinking too much on this. Here he was in the command tent of the FLICC though, in the city that the Sleepless virus first appeared, and he could see the computer in his peripheral vision where he had been going beyond what his job was supposed to be to figure out more about their enemies' strategy. I'm not in charge. I'm not tracking the terrorists. I'm just here to revive people!

I have decided on following my orders here. Believing in the other heroes' ability to do this without me taking every role. I don't need to do that anymore… Need?

I could at least give my advice? Would they listen if I don't take charge? Zach wondered it to himself and looked to the TST who were not all back but had a good number of their group in the room. Deutsheld shouldn't be on the TST. I thought it would have been better to have Deutsheld watching over the quarantine measures, because it would allow a lot more people to join the TST. "Deutsheld's All-Sight Quirk may be great for your search team but his Quirk still only covers a certain area. It'd be better, in my opinion, to have far more people on the search team and fewer on quarantine measures." Zach started his suggestion quietly but turned fully to his right side and Wonder Man who had come closer to him before taking part in the conversation that Zach had been tuning out of.

Wonder Man fully faced Lifebringer and stared at the boy next to him with a surprised look on his face. Others quieted down as Lifebringer was not speaking loud enough to just shut them up, and they saw Wonder Man looking at him as if what he was saying was insightful. Zach lifted his head and hesitated as Szechuman, Star-Spangled Man, and even Ectoplasm looked at him while all three had some sort of leadership roles here that he did not. He went on though, "Deutsheld can take the place of dozens of quarantine team members. We need more people to be looking for the villains."

"All-Sight is-" Star-Spangled Man began.

"Amazing, I know," Zach countered the top American hero before he could finish. He looked hesitant after interrupting, but he finished anyway, "But locating them takes more than just using a Quirk. It's investigative. It requires manpower that we're just not putting into it. That's why Ectoplasm sensei's on the team, right?" Zach looked to his teacher who had not interrupted him or told him not to question the ones higher-up in the chain of command as he was doing. Ectoplasm just thought of Sazaki's leadership in the joint training between Class 1 and Class A, and he listened as closely to Lifebringer as Midoriya was across the hologram machine from Zach.

They are listening. I don't have to lead, to help the leaders. Zach took a deeper breath then said with more confidence, "It'd be better to have far more people on the search team and fewer on quarantine measures. Keeping calm is important but paramount has to be locating the terrorists. In trying to mitigate the damage, we are prolonging the disaster."

"We cannot just ignore the immediate damage and what is going on around us," Szechuman started. "We're already stretched thin in so many areas. If we don't have the right number of people to keep quarantine measures in place we'll lose much more. Risk international support and even support just outside of Gangwe around the rest of the country. And the people of these hard-hit areas need to see us in full-force keeping them safe."

Zach hesitated again but then said in a lower voice, "That's something that heroes are oft to do. I know that," Zach paused and he did not raise his gaze back up after lowering it before speaking. I've always known it. "Heroes respond to the immediate danger. They save those who need saving, and preventing chaos from panic is something we can do in this moment that we know will save lives right away." He rose his gaze back up harder this time, and he continued strongly, "Yet I know that what would save more lives in the long run is stopping the terrorists earlier."

As the others spoke up and countered how they all cared about that as well, Zach could only nod along and accept as he had tried and shown them how he truly felt without taking it to the next step. I know that's important to heroes too. You don't have to tell me like I'm talking down to you because of it. It's the inherent difference in ideals rooted so deeply in what makes someone a hero that will keep Yue Fei from agreeing with me either, keep him from focusing our full combined effort on the terrorists.

The quarantine is a stopgap though. The panic is just a symptom. Even the plague is a symptom of the greater problem here that is so far removed that it's being ignored. Zach nodded and then just started listening again as Szechuman and Star-Spangled Man bounced ideas off each other and agreed to bring Yue Fei into the mix to get a grasp on how bad the situation in Xing was, though they agreed they had to wait a few hours before they would be able to tell if Xing was another Beiju or if it really was just an odd-case out.

Zach kept thinking to himself though as he listened intently, Like those villains who pulled the strings over all the lower gangs who heroes focused their full efforts on. Small-time villain groups that heroes would break up their task forces after defeating, without fully realizing who was responsible for them in the first place.

They'd stop the company pouring the chemicals in the river, but not the ones who had been paying them extra to get out their raw materials as quick as possible which caused them to ignore the safety measures. Ignoring the groups who hired the inspectors' bosses to be lenient on their inspectors who took the bribes so that even those smaller groups would think that they themselves were the ones bribing officials. And the officials they bribed might get named and taken down, but the bosses could keep hiring more and just move on to a new plant that heroes would completely ignore because they don't see it happening! Or worse, they can see it coming, but they just accepted at some point the way things are.

Take down one group and leave a power gap with nothing in its place. They know that's going to be a problem, but it's not their problem… until it is. We know the virus is our problem. We know it will make more cities to quarantine. But if we can handle the next quarantine and establishing another after that, just plugging up the holes in our boat with fingers- until every last finger is used and a crack opens that we don't have anything to plug it with! That makes us pull our fingers from those other holes to try and cover, just for another crack- It's going to be too much!

Or maybe they'll find them, Zach calmed himself down as he looked straight to Deku who chimed in with a more optimistic tone on their current strategies and offered more to add to them rather than upending them completely. Maybe it doesn't need an overhaul. It just needs someone who's willing to follow and help! Like I should be doing. Not trying to do things my own way! Not trying to put citizens as bait, and- I'm not suited to lead. Not an operation of heroes.

Deku could. He should- He's not experienced enough to. Star-Spangled Man and Yue Fei, Szechuman, Coola, and Mulan, they are experienced heroes who can deal with this! Zach shook his head around and nodded along when Wonder Man said something on his right side and looked to Lifebringer to see if he thought that might work. Zach smiled and agreed vocally, making a few of the others ease up on their own frustrated thoughts about how it felt like Lifebringer was just trying to hijack the operation and completely throw them off by trying to reorganize everything mid-incident.

Doing things someone else's way is tough for him, Ectoplasm thought as he had watched his student struggle there for a minute while hiding it poorly. Hachiman said it about his class. He took over that class and led them, and he did it really well. I can't deny that. This isn't a group of students though.

These are all pros you're dealing with, Sazaki. Whatever happened to you when you left, if I'm to believe some of the stories in that prison guard's book, I believe you were a leader wherever you went. It showed. It shows, considering you were willing to say your opinion even knowing it would likely be shot down. No one's going to stop you from speaking though. Not here. Ectoplasm looked back and forth between Lifebringer and Deku who nodded quickly with Star-Spangled Man who added something on with what he just said, before glancing Lifebringer's way and nodding too as Deku had suggested something that could get them more resources for the TST without taking much away from the quarantine teams. You're both smack in the middle of a complex incident with enemies invisible and hidden around us, and you're not faltering.

You've both come far. You don't need a chaperone here to watch you… Ectoplasm's eyes shifted back straight on the side of Zach's head. Well, maybe that's going too far.

---

The command tent of the Fundong FLICC was as crowded as any of the heroes inside had seen it. The Chinese Police Force, sidekicks, and NGO (non-governmental organization) volunteer groups were handing all quarantine measures in Fundong where new cases had not been rising as dramatically as they had in previous days. That was not to say the FLICC was not getting more overrun by the minute, as because of its status as the first established response point there were buses all over the region rushing patients to them, along with individuals who drove themselves or family members to try and get the best support possible. Many of them also knew that Lifebringer was reported to be in Fundong, and hundreds of sick people from Beiju had made it to Fundong without being brought by official transports that heroes were using to keep everything organized.

Cars were parked all over the streets and filling parking lots nearby Deng Park that the main tents were set up in. Tents had been pitched on sidewalks and more medical tents were set up every half block around the Park that was now utilizing every square meter of its surface for part of the FLICC. Many heroes of the Fundong Response Group were not in the command tent, as there still needed to be leadership in the rest of the FLICC and maintaining stability in the city under lockdown. Backdraft, Dragon Shroud, and Battle Fist were in Tent 3 with the critical patients, though Kendo currently found herself heading towards the morgue with her Big Fists held open and full with the small body resting on them.

Earphone Jack was out cold in the rest area along with her former math teacher who was a few cots down, both her and Ectoplasm still wearing their hero uniforms. Flowery Hero: Bouquet found herself in the closest hospital's female showers for doctors and nurses on long shifts. The Japanese pro with Response Team 2 who had arrived later in the day than the first plane with most of the U.A. students on it had her eyes clenched shut as she pressed her forehead into the tiles of the wall. She wished the water rushing over her head was louder to drown out the sounds of the sobbing nurses and doctors in the shared showers with her.

Almost everyone else who had arrived with Bouquet and came to Fundong, as a chunk of their group had gone elsewhere, were inside the command tent of the FLICC. Wake and Flyguy, Rainbow Sparkles and Encode, Lobscar and Gilgamesh who stood closer to the middle of the room where the round holographic machine was acting as a focal point for the evening meeting. Some heroes were still arriving into the room as they were told when the meeting was and that they could all come, and though some were expected and some others were instructed to stay at their posts, everyone who could come was inside and ready for the briefing. Buccaneer was tapping his foot anxiously in the tunnel between the command tent and the central corridor, Shinso standing behind him more composed but also with a more grim and pessimistic look on his face as he thought of the room he just left and the face of the woman who asked him a very simple question he had not been able to answer her.

"Am I going to die?"

The decontamination finished and the two young men stepped fully into the command tent only to have to stop right after entry. There was barely any room as it was, and some Brazilian heroes shifted to the left to give the teenage heroes some room and allow them to see up to the hologram that Yue Fei just stepped into as it was the exact time for the meeting to begin.

"This is Yue Fei, Operation Commander for the Sleepless Outbreak at the Central Command in Xing. I am currently speaking with several different groups at once who are all in the same call, so I'd ask you all to remain quiet for now and avoid any outbursts that will prolong this meeting and keep us from getting back to work." Yue Fei paused but only for a second before nodding and continuing, "Joining me as leads in the call to report for your FLICC's are Mulan in Beiju and Szechuman in Fundong. Also on the call is Governor Pi Leng, as well as Jake Long who has de-facto control over the provisional government in Beijing that was intending to hold a national election two days from now. Jake Long."

"The election can't be postponed any longer," the third-ranked Chinese hero's voice came out of the speakers of the hologram machine. "Citizens are getting restless and conspiracies are already popping up about heroes supposedly trying to overthrow the provisional government in a coup because of our involvement with the election. Not many people believe them now but rumors can be a dangerous thing. I am trying to distance myself while still forcing the coalition of governors to move forward with rules for how the election will be run. Right now, we cannot look weak and invite more villains to breach our strained defenses. We need a central government voted by the people. All the people, including the people of Gangwe-"

"That doesn't matter right now!" E-Lass The City shouted. The fifth ranked hero who had joined the meeting through the ERT in her hand appeared in a box on the hologram in the right corner above Yue Fei's head when she yelled out and the device recognized she was speaking. Many of the heroes in the different command areas knew that she was somewhere in Gangwe coming up with a way for the people under lockdown to effectively vote even under this massive quarantine that was bound to get worse. Her voice seemed to counter that thought though as she snapped, "The people don't care-"

"E-Lass The City," Yue Fei started, speaking loudly and over her to stop anyone else from thinking about calling out. "Do you have any method of getting the people of the region their votes, other than a purely electronic one they can do at home-"

"We can't do that! It's too easy to be manipulated by a Quirk user without any supervision!" E-Lass grit her teeth and then yelled out, "You know that! That's why you sent me here, but no one cares! The people here don't care who leads the nation right now! As long as they don't abandon Gangwe- ah, haaaahh…" She took in a deep breath as she was at a loss for it, then continued ranting louder, "My team does not have the resources to figure out a way to upheave our- our means for electing leaders, across a region of a hundred and thirty million people! In under a week! It's not possibl- ack, we can't! I couldn't! Ack- kah-"

Her mouth opened again as she tried to recover- "Ack ka kuhgh… ahh ha-ack-ack-ka-" E-Lass had her right hand over her mouth but the coughing got more violent and she heaved forward as she was already worked up. When she stopped, her eyes were watering and bloodshot as she panted heavily through her fingers dripping with saliva through the cracks.

There was a short silence where no one said a word. E-Lass The City lowered her hand from her mouth with her eyes down instead of at her screen. "I apologize for losing my composure." She left the call before anyone could speak, her picture disappearing from a black box that said 'DISCONNECTED' that vanished a second later from the hologram. A few of the heroes who were getting frustrated by the panicked and angry way she was responding just stood glued in place with their hearts racing at what just happened.

Jake Long lifted his right hand where he stood in the former Premier's luxurious and spacious office in Beijing. He had been working there nonstop to try and keep the country together over the past week while also setting up an election to make sure he could get things back to running at full capacity. I didn't think, when I asked you to make sure-

"Jake Long. Hold the election," Yue Fei ordered. "We cannot link these two incidents in an excuse to hold onto power. You're right in fearing how it will look. Stay in Beijing though. Make sure that whether Moon Sook, Tai Jin, or even Forest Lee get elected, they have their entire cabinet selected already. Have them all pick it out now. Don't give out any confidential information until the election results are tallied. I will relinquish authority over the response to our new Premier-"

"Are you sure that's a smart idea?" Szechuman questioned. "You've been heading this from the start-"

"Their leadership will be superficial, but it will mean more to everyone in the country to see someone they chose leading the operation." Yue Fei paused and hesitated for a moment but then continued in a steady tone, "Moving away from the election, I want to hear your updates from your respective FLICC's and the nearby metropolitan areas and municipalities that the smaller teams working below you should have reported in to you from. First though, I will get you all up to speed on the situation in Xing which is still under extreme stress though currently stabilizing. The initial panic and unrest that emerged because of my order to close down the region to all passenger air travel, seems to have gone away since the emergence of the wave of cases that rapidly swept through Xing this afternoon."

"The number of infected in Xing is currently over seven thousand." The number Yue Fei stated had most people looking at him go wide-eyed as most of them only heard about the very first case within the last few hours. Some were so busy they only heard about it right before pausing their mission objective to come to the meeting. Yue Fei continued on, "All in the primary stages of infection with most of them being sent home to wait until the same kind of facilities that have been established in Fundong and Beiju can be erected here. The Xing FLICC will surround Central Command, with my current location remaining as Command HQ while also being the Xing FLICC's command tent."

"How did the numbers rise so fast there?" Coola asked from the Beiju FLICC where she stood just on Mulan's right side.

"Compared to a release at Edamazi Plaza, where could have-" Deutsheld started.

"I can only imagine they learned from what went wrong in Beiju," Lifebringer responded while looking across the hologram to the top German hero who was asking an open-ended question for the call. "They were able to test out different methods of release, on different locations, with very little resistance." On Zach's left side, directly next to him, Wonder Man nodded his head in agreement. Lifebringer continued on, "The villains infected more in Beiju with one release than the likely multiple releases that we've seen here in Fundong," Zach looked to Szechuman who nodded along as the look was just to show that he had confirmation from their FLICC commander that that indeed was believed to be true. "We've never seen an outbreak of Sleepless before, which means whoever's Quirk it is has never used it on this scale before. It's never been released upon the public so we know that even the villains don't know exactly how the virus is going to act when exposed to a hospital, a playground, or a big city intersection. Enough of our data is public and I'm sure they're doing their own analyses on the results themselves and coming to conclusions on how better to release and spread Sleepless…"

Sazaki should be reviving people right now, Francois eased back while keeping focus on the teenager right next to the hologram at the center of attention in Fundong's FLICC. Francois kept his mouth shut despite his opinion. It was not because Wonder Man was nodding along and clearly engrossed with everything Lifebringer was saying, nor that none of the top heroes in China were asking him to stop so they could continue. That look, Francois thought back on the way Lifebringer stared at him as they crossed paths earlier that day. Was it weird? Was I just being paranoid? I don't know, but that one look assured me that Sazaki is Death and might kill me at any moment.

He might feel justified to do it, because of how long I waited to take down Fundonte. I- I wasn't waiting for an opportunity like I told him. He could see through me, I think. He let me go but he knew! Francois gulped as the eighteen year old continued on with things he had not even considered yet but he imagined were true about their enemies. He has the mind of a villain to know what they're thinking! I thought I did… Truthfully, Sazaki, I wish I could just tell you now, but you wouldn't believe me.

I got in too deep. I lost sight of my initial mission and the fact that the people I had infiltrated were my enemies, not my friends. I was there too long, Francois just tried to refocus on the meeting but it was hard with Lifebringer clearly in his vision and the threat Death made to him the last time they saw each other still echoing fresh in his mind. I suppose Sazaki doesn't understand why I felt that way. He doesn't get it despite his infiltrations, because the villains he got in with tortured him and killed the ones he loved… I wish I hadn't made an enemy of you, Lifebringer.

"…that's why the TST's current numbers are too low," Zach said while looking straight at Yue Fei, ignoring Szechuman and Star-Spangled Man on opposite sides of his peripheral vision. He turned instead to Wonder Man on his side who stopped nodding but kept smiling at the teenager he had worked with because the boy asked for his help.

"I talked to G-Man about this as well," Wonder Man spoke up. He turned to his left and added, "Who was analyzing the data closely with Encode."

"Even with Lifebringer's suggested increase in numbers to the TST," Encode began. Zach for a moment felt his heart rate spike while Wonder Man looked confused at what Encode was saying from just behind Gilgamesh who turned around to face him in surprise that the man he had been with for most of the day had been working on something else on the side. Encode finished though, "There is no indication that those numbers would be enough in a region the size that Gangwe is. And should quarantine measures fail and we allow the terrorists here to escape the region-"

"We would be spending all those resources looking for villains in the wrong place," Mulan finished for Encode.

"Except the chances of them escaping and us wasting our resources rises with every second they're out there with only a small team of heroes going after them," Lifebringer countered. "The second cases start appearing outside of Gangwe, everyone will come to believe that our quarantine measures did nothing and the lockdowns don't work, and we won't be able to maintain another effective quarantine like this one. There won't be the resources to expand the quarantine to another region, let alone to multiple if it spreads that far."

Allegra and Blue Wings, an American and a United Korean hero, each stopped thinking about how they thought it was a little strange that Lifebringer was pushing the conversation. Instead they started listening closer as Encode suggested a search-grid algorithm that could work for various-sized municipalities, be they cities, port towns, farming villages. The algorithm limited the number of heroes necessary to be on the grid but could only work if the heroes who were involved with the search could move at certain speeds and still get effective searching done while maintaining that speed.

Kurt 2 shifted his gaze towards Star-Spangled Man who checked Yue Fei's expression to see how the top Chinese hero was responding to these suggestions. Kurt 2 was the only member of Team Canada still on the ADTF and the only one who knew of Star-Spangled Man's secondary mission that over a dozen of them in that room were an active part of. Do we really want to stop Lifebringer from helping us? It seems like a bad idea to me. The man who had once been killed by Breakneck's henchman Inquisitor just nodded along with a focused look showing he was listening to the boy who he was also ready to ambush if the signal was given.

Wonder Man is well-liked and well-respected. Star-Spangled Man watched his colleague as Wonder Man referenced something G-Man said during their last conversation that he believed they should all hear. Zach started speaking up in agreement with Wonder Man turning and smiling at the younger man next to him whose ideas he was going along with here. Wonder Man spoke on Lifebringer like he is a genius, Star-Spangled Man thought back on a conversation the two of them had while floating high above Fundong and discussing various aspects of their current operation just that morning.

He told me about the details of the Korean Aero flight that I had not heard before. When I had previously tried to get information about Lifebringer's actions in United Korea in regards to the crash, no one I spoke to had anything new for me. I did not think to talk to Wonder Man because I doubted the man who Lifebringer had revived after catching that falling plane and being crushed under it would turn on him. Star-Spangled Man's expression stayed flat even if his eyes hid some guilt in them. His last thought was part of what was attributing to his overall bad mood, as he saw Wonder Man standing next to Lifebringer without even considering that what he told Star-Spangled Man might help him in an investigation which Wonder Man knew nothing about but was working to pin the crimes of Death on Lifebringer.

"The lockdown of Beiju has struggled over the past 24 hours as rumors about Sleepless's transmissibility have been greatly exaggerated," Blue Wings started. He looked apologetically towards Wonder Man and Lifebringer ahead of him who he had also worked with on the Korean Aero crash he had also come to help with. "Sea Fong just told me that they've arrested over thirty people who tried to ignore their orders for them to return to shore, some of them even using Quirks against the heroes out there."

Midoriya turned to Blue Wings and his forehead furled as he nodded along slowly with that. Uraraka said the same thing. She was really upset- but Zach's not wrong. I know he's experienced when it comes to- to anything! Everything, Midoriya shifted his gaze back to Zach who looked back to the hologram and listened as Mulan discussed how their quarantine containment and treatment resources in Beiju were exhausted, but how she also believed that he and the others had a point with redistributing some help over to the TST. I should back up Zach again. I know he's probably right, but the heroes here are all experienced too. Just because I know Zach's been through a lot, doesn't change that some of these heroes have been at the top of their field for decades!

"Ahh-ha-hem," Yue Fei loudly cleared his throat as an argument had started growing louder across the different points of contact about how best to utilize their limited resources. "I appreciate all of the input and feedback from you. This is why we have these meetings, and I would never ask you to hold back your, own ideas," Yue Fei paused and took in a deep breath while everyone looked at the holographic image of the man facing them. A few were looking at Yue Fei oddly after the way he cleared his throat, hoping he would have addressed it and made a joke or at least smiled for a second to ease their minds. Instead he just continued in a lower voice, "However I would like you to listen first to the rest of my report on the state of affairs here in Xing."

Yue Fei looked right at Lifebringer who had one of the more uneasy looks on his face of all the people in the various rooms Yue Fei was facing. "Three cases were reported outside of Gangwe. Luckily all had recently traveled from inside this region so we believe there has yet to be a release outside of it. Those people were all airlifted back into Gangwe to be treated… In Xing, the shutdown has been efficient and immediate. The sheer number of infected has kept people inside and kept them from complaining…"

"My decision to close Xing's international airport was not an easy one to make," Yue Fei continued. "People all over Gangwe had flocked there however, and the situation was turning more hazardous by the minute as we could not risk the terrorists leaving the region knowing what we know about the Sleepless virus." Yue Fei paused then said in a grim tone he attempted to hide with a straight expression, "Upon my announcement of closing the region and stopping all flights out, there was panic and confusion, as well as a lot of anger at the airport. I knew it would happen though… and I was there to try and explain the necessity of my decision and to calm down the crowd with my presence."

He paused for a moment and then continued steadily, "But in the end, I had to use Terra Cotta Army to get the crowd to disperse as it was turning into a riotous scene…"

Using his Super Move on civilians? Jedenwurst stared at Yue Fei's image in shock, imagining what kind of scene must have been unfolding for an army of Imagined soldiers to be required to disperse them.

Isn't he going a bit overboard? Gilgamesh kept his mouth closed despite his thoughts against the top Chinese hero's methods.

"Yue Fei," Szechuman began. He did not bring up Yue Fei's usage of his Super Move, but he did continued in a low voice, "You know how dangerous it is to shut down the entire region. If Gangwe's population as a whole reacts like the people in XAX did-"

"They won't," Mulan countered. "Not when they're afraid that the virus might be outside their homes and they're safer staying in-"

"So we're going to act based on fear?" Francois demanded to know.

The way Mulan worded it made too many of the heroes jump to assumptions right away. Deutsheld growled in a deeper voice, "And if we cannot keep the peace, will the idea that being outside their homes may get them infected start to spread from Beiju's FLICC?"

"You'd have them live in fear-"

"They're right to be afraid!"

"This is an absolute necessity," Zach argued to his right when The Wall called that out. He continued to the Chinese man who no one else focused on as they all continued arguing, though a few had stopped to look Lifebringer's way, "And further measures need to be taken to get everyone to stay inside as we track, the villains…" Zach's eyes scanned over The Wall's face. "They're right to be afraid!" He's sweating. It's not fear and panic. It's not… Zach's face scrunched up and he bit down on his bottom lip for a moment, then he turned back to the hologram as Yue Fei loudly cleared his throat once more.

"AH-hem," he cleared his voice from the back of his throat and took deep breaths in and out.

All the heroes getting angry at each other and arguing strongly on one side or the other about too many issues quieted down to look at the incident commander. Yue Fei took a few more deep breaths then cleared his throat again, "Ahm, please, allow me to finish. I know you are all, concerned." Yue Fei paused again, his jaw locking up with his mouth closed and his face tensing. He continued a moment later while everyone was looking at him, many of them hoping he would address the way he kept clearing his throat from the back. "I just need to- ah- ah hem," Yue Fei paused and grit his teeth, for a second.

His mouth shot open as he could not keep it clenched shut so tightly, "ACK! KA- ak kah," Yue Fei rose his right arm and the coughing fit he was holding back released all at once in five seconds straight of a painful coughing fit that was all the louder due to the deafening silence in every room that his voice echoed into. "Ah- ahk KA- ka caghc, ack-ah, ahh haa, ahh," Yue Fei steadied his breathing and lowered his sleeve from in front of his mouth. He looked out of breath for a few seconds before taking in one deep breath into his chest and regaining a calm look. "As I was leading to," Yue Fei continued in a lower voice that no one was going to interrupt or speak over now.

"We have discovered that Xing's Ground Zero, the location of the release of Sleepless, was XAX," Yue Fei announced. He paused and let that sink in to everyone staring at the nation's top hero and the man supposed to be leading them through this disaster. Yue Fei continued with his teeth clenching for a moment in regret, "I should have predicted that this might happen. So many people were inside of XAX. With the chaos unfolding, there was no chance that any of the heroes there, including myself, could notice something suspicious… When I cancelled all flights out of the airport though- I should have seen it as a possibility, and now the people of Xing are all in danger-"

"The next attack could have been anywhere." Zach snapped it at the hologram in front of him and the man who lifted his gaze and stared in surprise at the image of Lifebringer glaring back at him. "All that matters is slowing it now and catching these villains so it does not spread anywhere else," Zach stared right into Yue Fei's eyes, and the top hero of China steadied his look and nodded back an instant later.

There was no time for anyone else to speak up, as Yue Fei responded, "That's correct." Lifebringer's words pushed his own regret deep down as he refocused on what they could do now and not what he could have done better before this. "All security footage from XAX and the surrounding streets is being gathered to be poured over, to see if we can find anyone who we overlooked before but had passed through Edamazi Plaza or was seen in one of the other release areas in Fundong…"

I should have said something, Zach had felt his heart fall when Yue Fei announced Xing's Ground Zero. I knew it before- I didn't know. But I guessed it could happen. I… I imagined a conversation. It might have been planned like that in the first place… spread the infection at XAX and make people believe that it spreads person-to-person when it suddenly appeared all over the nation- But even if that was it! I thought it might be at XAX. I thought the release could have happened there, before anyone was even infected in Xing. Just Yue Fei stopping traffic out- I KNEW! And I said nothing.

Zach had eased back after telling Yue Fei off while he was mid-regret, but his face scrunched up and covered in conflicted emotions as he thought about how he was starting to get into too much into a leadership role. I'm not supposed to be doing anything. I can't not say it though! If I had just suggested it, maybe- They would have had a few more hours, of searching. Hours that could save thousands. Save me from thousands of… Zach's face scrunched up more and then flattened instantly as he saw multiple people looking his way and at his agonized regretful expression.

I need to speak up. Zach lifted his gaze to Yue Fei who continued discussing his thoughts for how to respond to Xing's outbreak.

"And if the cameras don't pick up on anyone-" Star-Spangled Man started to counter Yue Fei so that they could prepare for scenarios that did not work out so perfectly.

"We should gather all traffic footage from streets and highways leading into Xing in the past two days," Zach stepped back up closer to the center of the room again. He looked right at Star-Spangled Man when bringing it up, suggesting to the American hero that this would be an answer to his question even if it just sounded like another idea that had nothing to do with the airport and surrounding area. Zach continued on as the task he just suggested would sound like a huge ordeal using up a lot of resources with too wide a range of suspects. "China has a vast camera network and facial recognition system that can be used to check everyone who entered the city in the past few days. Cross reference between people who live in Xing or who usually commute in and out of the city to cut down on the number of suspects. Even if the attack happened specifically at the airport, we know the disease first shows signs soon after infection, so the terrorist must have come into the city only recently after the release in Beiju and definitely after Xing was determined as our command center."

"The release at XAX was likely not because of how many people were gathered there," Zach continued. "But more likely it was to disrupt our response."

"They could have suspected that I would come to the airport after I made my declaration to shut down passenger flights in and out of all Gangwe," Yue Fei theorized, nodding along in a respectful way at Lifebringer. "Though they must have already been in the city in the first place, based on the timetable-"

"And your decision to shut down air traffic," Midoriya started off, his voice raising and his voice much more enthusiastic at his realization. "It may have stopped the villains from getting out!"

"You made the right call," Star-Spangled Man agreed to Yue Fei who had been receiving a lot of push-back a minute ago from other heroes. Those heroes were quiet now as Yue Fei's decision seemed to have trapped the villains in their region, while at the same time costing his own life. "One, that I am not sure I would have made in time."

"Well you're going to need to get ready for that," Yue Fei countered.

Everyone looked to Star-Spangled Man whose face covered in surprise, then a much more serious attitude at the implications of what Yue Fei said. Yue Fei continued on to everyone listening, "Like E-Lass The City has told me she will, I will continue at my post as long as I can. When I am unable to lead any longer, Mulan and Star-Spangled Man are to share control and work alongside whoever the new Premier is. I am also giving you the directive to bring in the UN leaders who we have to pressure to send in Tea Master and the much-needed 3rd response team," Yue Fei looked back at Lifebringer while saying it.

Zach nodded back as he could see that Yue Fei agreed with what he was saying about catching the terrorists sooner with all the methods he had been suggesting, but without more resources and manpower on the ground they did not have the capability to do so. Zach disagreed with the sentiment but did not argue that their current manpower could be better redistributed again. Yue Fei continued on, "I want you to get the UN fully on board that plan, Star-Spangled Man. You are their Anti-Death Task Force commander, and you must do what it takes to get them to listen to you. Mulan, you will relinquish command over Beiju's FLICC to Coola at the end of this briefing and travel to Xing to prepare for my incapacitation."

"While I will be forced to relinquish command temporarily," Yue Fei continued darkly. "I will return to command when first possible and continue the fight. No matter what," Yue Fei said that firmly and did not hesitate as he spoke on the assurance of his own death, and revival.

Zach bowed his head. His eyes closed. Even among heroes- no, I knew that heroes would be on the front lines so it would be disproportionate… At least E-Lass hasn't died before. The Wall nor Yue Fei… Heiping, is going to die. I can't change that. I can't save her. Zach grit his teeth then rose his head back up and looked around at a few others who had already been revived. He looked to Star-Spangled Man whose eyes grew wide as he was already looking Lifebringer's way and saw that pain in the teenager's eyes when Zach stared towards him. Zach looked next to him at Wonder Man whose chest tightened and face started to sweat, his heart rate racing as he imagined why Lifebringer would look at him in that way.

Szechuman, Kurt 2… Zach continued looking around at other heroes who had already died. I brought back so many of them. Plucky is coming with the third group, and Snowgun came with the second team though stayed in Xing at command. Zach thought of the Finnish hero who had stayed in the ADTF after dying in the League of Shadows' raid like Star-Spangled Man. Did Snowgun go to XAX with Yue Fei? Is he going to die?! How many of these heroes am I going to be able to save?

And if more heroes are catching it, is Kendo safe here? If she catches Sleepless…

I'm sorry, Heiping. Zach pushed thoughts of this woman out of his mind with concerns about other heroes and thoughts on the mission as a whole, but he could not help but think of the hero he could not help. The list of heroes I can't revive again is going to get larger… hopefully. Not smaller. Though right now, it seems that before any heroes are added to the once-revived list, one is going to be taken off. I hear Heiping went under today. So fast… and with 48 hours to live max with no hope of survival.

I can't slow down. I- have to keep reviving everyone else… everyone I can.

---

In U.A.'s teacher's lounge, a few teachers were sitting and eating their lunches. The news was playing on the tv on the wall to TyreFire's right and Power Loader's left as they sat across from each other at a round table they were eating at, discussing one of their students who was on the news right now. An investigative reporter had taken a video of him from inside the Fundong FLICC where they were admitted to ask him questions about their situation and what he knew of it. Lifebringer had answered a couple of questions before being called away by Ectoplasm to help with other patients, though the reporter calling after them accused Lifebringer of trying to avoid her last question about recovering patients.

A third teacher had just entered the room and scoffed as she looked at the screen where Japanese hosts were put back on to discuss Lifebringer's avoiding of that last question. Mother Russia went to the fridge to fish out her lunch, while behind her the teacher with dark skin and long silver hair that fell down to his shoulderblades shook his head as he turned it away from the screen. "The kid had to know they'd get him on any question he ended on when he started," Power Loader said with a sigh.

"Or maybe he doesn't know," TyreFire argued back, frowning at Power Loader and getting an annoyed look on his face. "Because he doesn't have the training to be ready for that."

"He probably didn't know it was an actual reporter," Power Loader countered in Sazaki's favor. "Anyone can pull out their phone and record-"

"That's not the point," TyreFire argued. His dark gray eyes looked into Maijima's dim blue ones as he complained, "Lifebringer's only been back a week and first he's sick, then he gets himself suspended- or under house arrest. And now he's gone," Power Loader tilted his head to the right in a way admitting that was all true. He stopped though and frowned a bit as TyreFire went further, "He's never going to catch up this way. It's like he doesn't care if he graduates."

Mother Russia sat down at the table and her chair scraped on the floor as it pushed back under her. She opened her sealed plastic bag and pulled out the steak she brought from the room she was granted at U.A., a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and she slammed down a full family-sized plastic carton of orange juice with pulp for her lunch. Caterina rose up her right arm as she bit into the steak she lifted with her other hand, and she turned the arm over to look at both sides and the damage on it while she chewed.

"I wouldn't say, he doesn't want to graduate," Power Loader began, though his eyes darted back to Mother Russia in shock as she put her steak down then pulled off her right arm with her left hand.

Her right arm twisted at her mid-bicep and she removed it and turned it fully over to get a look at the damage on the underside she brought right up in front of her face. "Hmm," she kept chewing her meat then put the arm down and peeled the fake skin back. "My arm was damaged from training Bakugo earlier," she said it as she could see her coworkers staring at her and awaiting her to say something about what she just did.

"I had no idea-" TyreFire started in shock.

She grunted in response to him and then humphed in an impressed way as during their "training" Bakugo had done quite some damage to the prosthetic. "It's no longer a secret now that a student has discovered it," she responded, implying that it had been a secret before that.

Power Loader was staring with larger eyes than their other coworker, standing up out of his seat even as he recognized the tech once Mother Russia slid off the skin sleeve so similar to his own left arm's. Mother Russia spoke up while casually examining the damage, "Sazaki has no reason being in school anymore. They should just declare him a pro and get it over with already." Her eyes shifted to the tv then back at her eggs that she started cracking and peeling open. She grunted in annoyance then grabbed her arm and slid it over the table in Power Loader's direction. "If you would," she said, not wording it as a question but still lifting her gaze to him for a moment in an expectant way for a response.

Power Loader nodded back at her. "No problem. It is Virtucorp tech-"

"Yes," Mother Russia replied. Not that they had a name like that when Khatri was testing the prototypes out on me.

TyreFire was still frowning after the last thing Mother Russia said about his newest student. He looked back at the screen too where the reporters were making assumptions and arguing about what Lifebringer left out of that short impromptu interview. "I wonder about that," he said. He looked back at the Russian woman and told her directly, "Sazaki's spent less time training to be a hero as any of his classmates. He needs more instruction before being looked to like this-"

"Sazaki's of much more use to everyone being in China than he is here, studying a pointless subject," her defense of the boy jabbed straight at TyreFire who glared back at her for the comment clearly about his calculus course.

"Calculus is important-"

"I've never used it," Caterina chomped into her steak after starting to counter like that. "And I doubt-"

"I think Mother Russia's right about Sazaki," Power Loader cut in before it could get too personal, though he did agree with Mother Russia rather than TyreFire. TyreFire looked across the table at Maijima with a frown but not a very surprised look. Power Loader continued cautiously, "Sazaki is often- he's always been a loose cannon, but he's also always tried to do what's right. You don't know him like we do."

TyreFire frowned deeper and glanced at Power Loader's left side, "Are you sure that new arm isn't clouding your judgement?" His eyes shifted back Mother Russia's way with a similar look in them accusing her of doing the same.

"It may be influencing it," Power Loader began. He continued though, "Just like every other good and kind thing that Sazaki does influences it."

Mother Russia took another bite of her cut of steak then spoke with her mouth full, "This conversation is pointless." She chewed and growled, "Sazaki came back to be a hero, for some reason, so that's what he's going to do. Our opinions on the matter won't alter his course." He'll be back soon, Mother Russia thought to herself as she continued eating, finishing her part of the conversation with her last definitive statement. Sure to resolve the crisis in Gangwe himself…

Maybe I'm the one with too much bias here, she wondered to herself after a moment. She considered it based on the assumption that she just made and which came naturally to her. Mother Russia hummed thoughtfully, but in her head she pictured the kid with his face half ripped off and blood splashing from his mouth as he roared down a road in a city enflamed… "Hmph," she grunted and cracked a knowing smirk that no one would understand as she continued to devour her lunch. I'm breaking the law myself right now by not saying anything. That is fine though, she thought, content with herself even in the knowledge she just considered. I do not feel guilty about it. Not one bit.

---

Kirishima sat at a table in Class A's common room, his elbows down on the textbooks below the worksheets he was trying to focus on. He had returned to class at the expiration of his punishment for fighting, but he was so far behind that Aoyama and even Ashido even offered him their notes after classes were finished. He was tapping his pen on the side of his head while reading through the information that was so much harder to absorb without a good teacher to help him with it. Bakugo was gone with Lemillion out patrolling the streets since so many heroes were out of the country though, and Yaoyorozu was not around to help him either and it was her notes that he was trying to make sense of right now anyway.

He growled as he reread the same page again that was apparently supposed to tell him everything he needed to be able to understand TyreFire's class today that he had been lost on. The real reason he was finding it so hard to focus crawled back into his mind though and he snapped, slamming his hands down on the table with a loud smack that made Mineta and Koda look back his way. The two of them were on the couches where they were keeping up with their other friends who both were also frustrated about not being there to help out.

"This is…" Kirishima growled and did not finish with 'bullshit' even though he wanted to complain about it. "What am I doing math homework for?! At a time like this, I could be in China helping Zach, but nooo."

"Could be helping find the League," Mineta agreed too, frowning as he watched all the news on China that was taking the attention off the very real danger still present in their own country. Raijin's going to hit us hard again. Last time he wiped out half our strongest heroes in a second!

"Our heroes are focused on increased patrols," Koda explained softly to his side at Mineta. "They need to show that despite many heroes going abroad… they still have a huge presence."

The way Koda paused suggested he was thinking about more than just the heroes not around because of the Sleepless Outbreak, just as Mineta was just thinking about. Kirishima jumped up from his seat and growled in agreement with that hesitation, "And we've got nothing on the big investigations going on!"

Mineta nodded with a frustrated look on his own face. Tokoyami and Bakugo don't talk as much about it, and Todoroki and Midoriya are gone.

"Tokoyami hasn't been…" Koda started hesitantly. "I think, they're getting annoyed when we're asking, because they weren't working on finding the League or the Radians the last few days."

Bakugo walked into the dorm as Koda was turned around speaking to Kirishima behind him. Koda turned and looked to the front door and felt sweat all over his face as he wondered if Bakugo heard any of that. Tokoyami was right behind Bakugo, and the two of them could see the news was on. It was saying nothing about the small acts of heroism the two of them had done that day while patrolling the streets and facing small-time villains trying to take advantage of the fact that Japan was about to send a third huge team of heroes out of the country.

Bakugo glared Koda's way but turned and headed for the stairs with a pissed-off look and angry stomp in his step. Damn it, he thought angrily of the day's actions and the fact that Koda just reminded him of what he wished he was out there doing. He also knew though, that the patrol he had been on was just to show the public what he was doing for a small part of his time at his internship. What do I have to be pissed about? He reminded himself in an even angrier thought. I have the power to end this pointless investigation- or I had the power. Bakugo frowned more as he heard Kirishima call out his name and run after him, reminding him about why it was he was stupidly stuck helping Lemillion investigate Zach.

Tokoyami was frustrated himself with what Hawks had told him to think about recently. I still wonder, Tokoyami hesitated before finishing his thought, but seeing Zach on television in China reminded him of why he was still so hesitant about accepting it. Even with new evidence, I'm not sure if he is Death or not. I had accepted a long time ago that the evidence was circumstantial, and I had believed it completely for nothing more than because I assumed it was something Zach would do.

I do think it's probable that Zach lied about his interdimensional travel, Tokoyami continued to himself. But Zach lying about that doesn't make him Death. Not when Death has still been reviving people as recently as a week ago. Hawks is fairly confident about it, Tokoyami thought while putting more weight to the idea of it. But I don't get the focus on Zach, he frowned deeper that this was even an argument he had to have with himself at such an uncertain time. There are so many powerful villains to concentrate on, and Zach's busy helping the epidemic in China.

So then why the sudden shift with so many of us focusing on him? Tokoyami headed to the kitchen to make himself a snack. Could Nikko be the reason? Or the government in general, as I know some Diet members were vocally against the pardon before the election? The public was on Nikko's side though- Maybe it's foreign governments leaning on Nikko? He should not feel so strongly to want to defend Zach after the way Zach talked about not wanting to speak with him… suggesting it was personal motives that could have influenced the decision- But if it was foreign governments, it's likely Star-Spangled Man pushing them to pressure the Prime Minister. Or they just want Nikko to take the accusations their heroes are making about Zach being Death seriously, possibly even threatening repercussions against Japan as a nation if they don't abide by the UN resolution marking Death a terrorist and target…

And so Nikko could then be pressuring top heroes to start getting more focused on Zach, Tokoyami theorized. Or maybe they're skipping the middle-men of politicians completely. Just Star-Spangled Man… who's in China right now, watching Zach's every move while Gangwe implodes. Tokoyami rubbed his forehead and heard a scary deep voice in his head, "I bet he's Death and you just don't want to face what that means." And what would that mean? Tokoyami asked the voice in his head.

"Hahaha… You know what that would mean," Dark Shadow taunted him, and Tokoyami grimaced with his expression darkening at the idea of a rematch with Zach. Dark Shadow fell silent as they imagined what happened the last time during the joint training. He took out half of Class A at once without needing his Quirk, except to stop Sero from fleeing. And even that was just because he had to do it without wasting any time, not because he couldn't have beaten Sero without using his Quirk. Zach's, far stronger than…

His strength doesn't matter, Tokoyami reminded himself. His expression hardened, Nor do the reasons surrounding why the investigation is ramping up so much now. Maybe I'm just trying to look for reasons to suggest that the ones coming after Zach have bad motives. That doesn't need to be the case. Zach's crimes would be hefty if convicted of being Death. There doesn't need to be any other reason to capture him with urgency on top of that knowledge.

---

Zach stepped out of the morgue and into Tent 3. The tent was nearly silent other than sobs he could hear at the end of the tent from a nurse breaking down on the floor and being consoled by Kendo who was down on one knee in front of the older woman. All of the patients brought into the tent were put into medically induced comas now, as there was no need to keep them awake, and apparently putting them under was making their bodies break down slower and elongating the time it took for them to die.

Another hero in the tent was sitting down on a chair between a few beds, staring at the one that Heiping was laying down on. Fu's eyes were closed and she had her palms held together in front of her bowed forehead as she whispered a prayer for her comrade. She opened her eyes up and then stood as she saw Lifebringer staring at her. The way she got up told Zach that she was waiting for him to finish the most recent round of revivals, and he started walking to her with his mouth shut and his heavy breaths coming in and out of his nose alone.

"Lifebringer," Fu whispered. She spoke in a quiet voice like it was possible that if she spoke any louder it would wake up the hundreds of unconscious people around them. "Thank you."

"What is it?" Zach asked her, seeing she had something to say that he wanted to hear now so he could get on to his next task.

Fu froze. She lowered her gaze for a moment and then whispered to him, "I wanted to tell you, that Ee was…" She stopped and whispered to clarify, "E-Lass, was my classmate at, Shanghai Hero Academy." Zach nodded along with her, and Fu continued to him steadier, "Ee's Quirk isn't actually that strong. It covers a huge area, but it's not great for combat, and yet she's made it up to the fifth ranked position of all heroes in China."

"Ee once told me back at school, how she had wanted to be a famous actress when she was younger." Zach smiled and nodded again, then Fu continued to him, "But when she was eleven years old she became famous across the country, and at the same time she decided she no longer cared about that. She decided she wanted to be a hero instead that day… You see, Ee had been on a class trip when their field trip came to an abrupt halt."

I haven't heard this before, Zach thought while looking closely at the woman in front of him who he was very familiar with. He also knew that Fu had seen some things that most people in the world would doubt even possible, and he listened as the woman with sharp claws on her hands continued softly, "A villain attack nearby had caused the forty-eighth to fiftieth floor of a fifty-seven story building to catch on fire. Heroes were rushing up to put out the flames and save the building from a full collapse, but the smoke and heat was too much on the upper floors. They didn't have time, and those people had to decide between burning and suffocating to death, or jumping from the building."

"When people started jumping though, Ee rushed in. She was just a kid, but she ran in and used her power on a wide area, and when those bodies hit the ground they pushed down into it as it became a trampoline." Fu smiled as she remembered watching this on television herself back before she even went to a hero school, and how amazed she was that Ee was in her class even though most others had forgotten about her by then as it had been years since what had happened. Fu continued, "Everyone for two city blocks around found themselves bouncing off the floor, and the ground bent so much farther down for the people jumping as it gave them exactly the amount of push they needed to not be jolted to a stop and killed. Everything just became, Bouncy."

"Her Quirk, Bouncy Castle, had never been used before like that to its full extent. She just slammed her hands down into the ground and used it as far as she could though. She made it Bouncy to save those people… and she did. The people on the upper floors were told to jump and that they'd be saved, and that eleven year old girl saved dozens of lives…" Fu quieted down and she looked into Lifebringer's eyes with a pleading look. "Revive my friend?" She asked in a hoarse voice, feeling guilt the moment the words left her lips.

"Of course I will," Zach replied.

He turned and walked away without waiting for Fu to say anything else to him. I'll save as many as I can. Zach listened as a loud beeping caused Fu to rush off behind him. A pair of doctors started running to the ventilator only to stop and spin as another flatline sounded at the same- a third flatline caused other doctors to rush in from the connecting section. Zach bowed his head and shadows covered over his eyes, Three more here right now. Added to the bus of bodies coming from Beiju. They cut the life support on people post-36 hours, to make it so they all died within my time limit- there are going to be so many when the ones from Xing start dying. Beiju's death count is skyrocketing. It's so much faster than here. I can't-

Zach shook his head around and lifted it to get the shadows off his eyes. I have to though. I have time before the next revival group right now, so I need to do everything not revival-based. Keep mind on goals. It's the best distraction from the pain! What pain? No idea. There's Captain Celebrity. Where's Vannessa? Do I need anything from her right now? Only if she has new information for me. Zach walked towards Captain Celebrity and started up conversation with the exhausted American hero who was sure to have his guard down based on how tired he looked.

Zach spent 10 minutes with Captain Celebrity, the two of them heading to the staff tent to get some rest as Zach said he needed and which the Captain was happy to agree with. After getting the American hero to admit he needed to clock out for a bit and watching him pass out almost immediately, Zach headed back out into Tent 1 where there were far more people still awake and moaning in pain while being helped by the heroes, doctors, and volunteers trying to keep them comfortable. Zach listened as heroes on either side of him promised that a cure was in the making, and how better treatments have been working to slow the effects of Sleepless on the body. They're not necessarily lies. The hope is false hope though.

Zach looked across the tent to a woman with maroon hair who was speaking with The Wall in a quiet voice while that hero was sitting on a bed they just got for him to lay on between a large group of children. He had told the sick kids a story a little earlier, but now they were being attended to by nurses trying to get them to eat, comforting them as the young boys and girls moaned about the pain and discomfort they were in. The Wall wore his mask just like Vannessa on his side, though instinctively he still lifted his right arm when he started coughing to cover his mouth.

She works in Alaska with Snowsh normally, according to Captain Celebrity. Snowsh likely works frequently with the CIA and assists their agents getting into other hero agencies by giving them recommendations and forging work experience for them. His isolated agency north of Fairbanks makes it so his staff would not be well known. It would be impossible for other heroes to check the truth. Snowsh makes it so they can easily get on jobs like Vannessa did to get with Captain Celebrity. The Cap said that she got a glowing referral. Snowsh may himself be a CIA agent turned hero; a plant in the heroes' ranks to give the agency the kind of information only heroes can get.

Vannessa herself is probably higher-up than Snowsh though. This is a mission of vital importance that she got on. I know how much she cares too, and due to how much she must have gotten credit for with Zolo's captured subordinates, she should have moved quickly up the ranks of the agency. Zach theorized more and more while Death surrounded his brain, I know the former CIA director was dishonorably removed from his post when heroes discovered the truth about Mark, after Endeavor got the UN to pressure the USA into un-redacting those files. She tells me that Mark was pardoned and is now being used by teachers at the agency for the dangers of dabbling in torture. I bet she had something to do with that, though it is only my suspicion that she has a higher post.

Then again, the amount that she told me earlier is something she would not usually have the authority to say. Either she ignored that and told me anyway, or she has a high enough position that she's able to tell me whatever she wants. I hope so. A leader should be the one to come where it's most dangerous, Zach turned his head and looked towards the central tunnel where a group of doctors had just rushed into with panicked looks through their clear facemasks.

Zach swiftly moved towards the connector tunnel and noticed that Vannessa was up and moving that way herself too. He entered into the middle tube then followed a group towards the command tent, listening as doctors ahead of him shouted at each other. His eyes darted to the right at the CIA agent whose eyes bulged at what she just heard a nurse shout.

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"We need to figure out if it's true before spreading any information-"

"He would have shown signs earlier if he had been infected in the first wave-"

"There could have been another release in Fundong!"

"He hadn't left the tents!" Others looked to the doctor who just got the lab results back and confirmed the older head mortician was infected with Sleepless. "He was inside the sterilized area, and he still got infected!"

"We need to tell people-"

"Tell them what?! We need to be sure."

"Front-line personnel are catching the virus without exposure?"

"We aren't sure of that!"

---

Szechuman looked to the flap connecting to the rest of the FLICC where Recovery Girl just stepped inside, keeping her mask on just as everyone else did. "Does everyone have a mask now?" Szechuman asked.

"Every patient in this FLICC, at least," Recovery Girl responded. "But news that it's transmitting person-to-person leaked, and it's not good."

"Villains broke into the two largest mask-production plants in Gangwe. The heroes in those towns had been called away. We are now at a critical shortage-"

"How did we miss this?" Yue Fei asked, then his voice and the background noise in Xing cut off from the call that he was taking part in though did not appear as a hologram. He muted himself and started a coughing fit after asking the question of the Fundong FLICC where the main lab testing the Sleepless virus was set up. He had been isolated in a private room because of the news of the Sleepless virus' communicability, and a few members of his staff were in the room but wearing full HAZMAT suits as they had this meeting.

"Doctor Gorn will explain," Recovery Girl nodded to a man who had come into the room behind her.

"Initially," Gorn started right away, stepping forward and looking towards the center of the command tent where the call was connected, though he also glanced around into the eyes of the heroes around him all wearing a lot of protective gear in preparation for the worse case scenario. "We made the broad claim that the virus could not spread person to person because it was not spreading via saliva or mucus. We have come to the conclusion that it is still not spreading in this way, as the virus has not been found in the coughs or sneezes of those in the early stages of the Sleepless infection."

"That is not to say that it cannot spread between people however," Gorn continued. "Cases are exponentially rising and it's hitting the initial medical staff who dealt with these cases first. Unfortunately, we had not seen this coming because we believed the first doctors who dealt with patients were likely exposed when Fundong Eastern Hospital was hit by a suspected release, or they got it somewhere else in the city. Then, when the virus became a well-known novel outbreak, every medical professional would have taken extra care not to get infected… Until we set up the FLICC, where we made the false assumption that we would be safe through the decontamination chambers, as the virus would not be spreading inside."

"How does it spread?" Szechuman asked, demanding the doctor get to the point.

"What we believe at the moment," Dr. Gorn started, his voice stern with the hero to keep him silent and remind him that this was still new information and that anything he said was not a definitive that Szechuman wanted right now. "Is that we were right in that the Quirk-based particles are not similar to a bacteria or a virus. Sleepless, seems to most-closely resemble a fungus. Just at a microscopic level."

"Explain," Yue Fei requested.

"Of course," Gorn replied. "The closest analogy I can give you is to imagine a dying piece of fungus. Imagine a mushroom," he simplified it for the heroes. "Just as it reproduces inside the body by destroying cells and splitting apart, taking over and killing more and more cells with the body unable to create antibodies fast enough to stop it, it can reproduce in the same way when its host has died. It can only do so for a short time as it survives on living tissue, and by the time it has killed a person it has already deteriorated them to the point of their organs melting."

"The rate of decay rapidly increases after death, for a time, and then it stops as the Sleepless particles die off inside the body without enough of a host to maintain them. It would seem that Lifebringer quickly reviving someone would in theory allow them to be reinfected by a huge number of Sleepless at once, however we've found that the blood of those recently revived is full of 'dead' Sleepless particles. Whether his Quirk killed them or their bodies became strong enough to fight off the infection is currently unknown, however we are attempting to use the donated blood of the recently revived to test new treatments and cures…"

"Doctor," Recovery Girl started, suggesting he speak faster as some of the heroes around him were getting more frustrated but trying to hold their voices as everything he said sounded important.

The most important thing had yet to be mentioned though, and Gorn nodded quickly before continuing on, "Unfortunately, the degradation of skin tissue during the final hours of life and immediately post-mortem makes the skin so weak, that some of the 'spores' released by the vast number of Sleepless particles throughout our patients' bodies do get out and infect nearby hosts. The Sleepless particles literally push through weakened skin tissue when they're released in a way not forceful enough that it would separate healthy skin, but the brittle weakened skin of patients about to die or who have just died cannot hold it all in. Just because it was not in the lungs for coughs and sneezes to infect others, did not mean that the virus was not contagious."

"The particles are airborne, and we should expect both the morgue and Tent 3 to be full of them," Dr. Gorn stated.

Heroes and doctors who had spent a lot of time in the critical care tent felt uneasy and unsettled by that information. Between Tent 1 where the patients were coughing violently and still active, and the tent where most were unconscious, they had all felt safer from infection in Tent 3. Gorn went on, "On the bright side, our PPE appears to be working as not every one of those who have been working in those areas were infected. The decontamination points appear to work… I believe the recent infections of medical personnel, were likely all a result of human error."

"I saw the mortician pull his mask away from his face," Zach said, his voice dark but steady as he announced it to the others around him. "All of the other usual morgue staff have been infected as well. Just leave it understaffed for now. I'll handle the morgue by myself-"

"I will continue to help Lifebringer," Recovery Girl denied her student who she shook her head at when he glanced her direction. He did not say anything against it, but she reminded him when she saw that look, "I know how to properly protect myself." She turned and then announced loudly, "What we must do is give out mandatory courses to every healthcare worker in the region. We also need to make sure everyone knows how the disease spreads to prevent the panic and stop neighbors from turning on each other at the smallest sign of sickness. The fact that dead bodies also release the virus will hopefully change the minds of citizens who currently wish to stay with their families post-infection or to die in their own beds. It will give us a clearer notion of the true number of infected."

"We messed up," Yue Fei said softly, then he started coughing again and did not cut off his mic this time. He forced himself to stop and said in a strained tone, "But the disease is just so new, that we had to make assumptions and analyses- ahck ka- that we knew, were not tested extensively to ensure their, validity- AH-KAh, ack-" his mic cut off again, and Yue Fei put his head back on the pillow of his bed. His eyes clenched shut, This is worse than I imagined. I already had not slept in days, and I will not make it much longer before it puts me under.

"We will do what we can to keep everyone informed," Dr. Gorn told the incident commander, who at the moment was still in charge. "An informed public will be a more calm public."

"Unless in hearing that it isn't actually spreading so rapidly, they attempt a mass exodus out of the region," Szechuman replied darkly. How often did I spend around dead bodies? Even if Sazaki isn't Death, he seems certain that he can't save Heiping. Is this the end for- There's no time to think like that.

"I'll continue to revive patients as soon as they die. Try to limit the amount of Sleepless particles released on death…" Zach began. "And to strengthen the skin of those who I bring back. Make sure that all drivers taking transports of bodies from Beiju, and soon Xing, as well as from everywhere else stay separated from the bodies they're transporting," Zach stared at Szechuman while saying it but looked to the communicator that had them in touch with Yue Fei and Coola as well. "Make sure every morgue has twice as much protection as it currently has, and separate all critical care units into a stricter isolation. Make sure the oldest patients are isolated early on even if they're still conscious, as their skin will already be weaker and they risk spreading the Quirk particles at earlier stages."

"Sounds smart, Lifebringer," Coola responded. "I'll start on it."

"My sidekicks will- Ack-" Yue Fei lowered his communicator and clenched his mouth and eyes shut. He lifted his head and held up the device for Engineeress to grab. His top sidekick who was to help Mulan and then catch Yue Fei up to speed when he was brought back took the device and said, "This is Engineeress. I'll get to putting all those measures in place here in Xing. Recovery Girl, Dr. Gorn, anything to add?"

"I will start up on the safety video to be distributed to all front-line workers…" Recovery Girl began. "As well to the general public, to ensure that anyone who has PPE already can at least use it safely."

"Star-Spangled Man is hunting down the villains who robbed and burned the PPE production plants…"

"I'm getting back to it," Zach said. He turned and left the room, jogging out and shrugging his shoulders out as he waited in the decontamination chamber. Command is holding strong. Szechuman's got a negative attitude, but I would too if I was going to die. Fortunately, I won't die. Doubt Sleepless could kill me, even with how weakened I'm sure I am with all these constant infections. I've been staying up too as exhausted as I am. Forcing consciousness. If I sleep again, thousands will die. It was over a hundred in the last group- but I won't have to bring back that many at once again! Now that we're going to switch to immediate revivals… not that Beiju and the other distant places will get them here in time. Maybe we should have Fundong just be where the most critical patients are brought. Or just set me up a hut in the middle of nowhere, and bring me everyone soon to die. I'll revive the whole nation before you know it, and it seems like they can't be reinfected… Or it's just taking longer for them to be infected again, in which case I'll bring them all back for nothing!

Zach smiled and his head bowed as he let out a dry laugh. Pointless. It would all be- And I'm assuming that for no reason. His smile dropped and he shook his head around. He stepped out of the chamber that had finished decontaminating him a few seconds ago. I just need to move forward. Get to it again! I have time right now.

Zach moved towards Vannessa who was standing outside the lab taking a break, staring down at a water bottle she had grabbed but was hesitant about lifting her mouth to take a sip from. There were decontamination chambers on all sides of the connecting tube between larger tents, and she was dehydrated to a point that she was questioning if she was sick. "Don't do it," Zach told her, and Vannessa froze with her left hand partially risen to her mask. "Let's go to the staff tent. It's farthest from Tent 3 and the morgue," Zach suggested, and Vannessa nodded quickly as he seemed to know where it was safe for her to remove her mask.

They headed into the next decontamination space, and both of them pulled out their ERT's that they had to remove the microphones from again as they had each been having conversations using them where they needed the mics back in for. "All the dead and those who are about to die can spread it. The virus rips from their weakened skin and infects those around them. Those tents are full of it," Zach warned once she nodded to tell him her microphone was off to avoid all possible eavesdropping.

She nodded in understanding and then the two of them headed out of the chamber and across Tent 1. People were moaning and crying, and there was a general panic going around as the people in there were still able to use their phones and were hearing some very panicky things from their friends and loved ones outside of the FLICC. New tents had popped up in dozens of new places, the infection rate had shot up in the past 24 hours so there were almost double the total number of people infected from the day before. Fear of the mass quarantine and shut down of Gangwe had given way for panic about the loss of Yue Fei's leadership as he came out in a public announcement that he had caught the virus, unfortunately an announcement full of pauses for his coughing fits, as it had hit him fast and it hit him hard when it did.

The people in the Fundong FLICC looked to Lifebringer with terror in their eyes. He did not look around at them, and people eased away at the sight of him walking down the gap between beds. Shinso lifted his gaze from a bed where he was standing and helping an older woman nearing 100 years old, lifting a spoon to her mouth to help her drink the soup provided for her dinner. He's with that woman again. Does he know her?

Shinso was not the first person to question it in that tent when they spotted the two speaking to each other. Vannessa no longer looked nervous or excited about speaking with Lifebringer. The idea of hiding who she was held little importance to her at the moment. Acting like they were complete strangers was unnecessary now after a few meetings, and she spoke to him calmly and on a familiar tone which drew gazes from other heroes who spotted the two of them. None had the time or energy to focus much on them however, as they were in the worst of the outbreak and knew every person around them was going to die a horrible death. What Lifebringer and this woman were talking about mattered little to them.

It would have mattered more if they had heard what their conversation was about though. "…Yes. I have intel on new developments regarding our situation," Vannessa kept her voice low and they continued walking calmly towards the staff tent. "A source tells us there is a new group of villains in China. One, that De-Lavio is a part of." She looked next to her and Zach nodded his head in recognition.

De-Lavio. A Triakuza member I never found. He was in league with the Gazpaccio and Sabbrozzi. Never saw him in Italy, but he was there. Somewhere. In the middle of the war against King, he was slinking about and reporting back to the Triakuza on our tactics. Preparing them. He himself either survived the Battle of 6 Armies or never showed up. Perhaps he knew I would win. Or maybe he's just like the rest of them. A coward.

"The information mentioned an odd amount of 'inaction' among questionable people in China. Despite the movement of heroes down to Gangwe, a lot of villain groups are staying put. Strange movement at the gang level, but not villain attacks, nor noticeable wire transfers. No big shipments on the radar. Nothing, except a new group, and De-Lavio's apparent involvement," Vannessa said, her voice dark as it was very little to go on.

"Does the agency know anything about De-Lavio-"

"He's a ghost," she replied in a grim response. "Nothing on him other than a myriad of crimes and suspected offenses he committed on behalf of the defunct Triakuza. He's on our agency's top ten most wanted, and he's KOS."

"Kill-on-sight?" Zach wondered, mildly surprised to hear they used the term to designate De-Lavio. "Do you know his Quirk?"

"Unknown. Same as his real name. De-Lavio is believed to be an alias he used while in Italy to avoid being traced back to the Triakuza…"

As Zach and Vannessa continued their conversation, Jirou was in a tent that had been established solely for the cooks and volunteers helping make meals to feed the sick and the staff assisting them. She had just grabbed her meal but stopped near the supply closet close to the exit that would lead her back to Tent 1 which was between where she was and where she wanted to eat in the staff tent. She paused though and her ears twitched as she heard something on the other side of the closet door. She had been planning on going in to grab an extra blanket as she had passed out the last time without anything covering her, and she was planning on getting a few hours of rest after she ate.

Her right earlobe extended down and plugged into the bottom of the door as she stood still and kept her movements inconspicuous. "…No mom. No! Don't let her out of the house! Just, just listen to me. Listen!" Rin yell-whispered into the phone he held close to his head, his hand shaking forcing him to lift his other hand up to hold his phone still. "Tell dad to stop going to work. Just, get Lifen and stay inside. Don't say anything to the neighbors. Just stay in mom! Don't go out, and don't think that you can't get it from other people. That's- I'm fine. I have the gear- I have it. Just, mom please…" Jirou disconnected her Earphone Jack from the door.

We aren't allowed to release confidential information, Jirou closed her eyes and then opened them and just kept walking. What he's doing is against the rules. Selfish, and dangerous as his family can spread any information- he doesn't even know! He knows more than them though. The misinformation out there is getting real bad. He risks scaring the public into a panic if they spread information coming right from a hero at the FLICC and that he doesn't explain well!

If it were my family in the province this was happening in, Jirou thought about. She knew why it was she was keeping her mouth shut and decided against saying what she just heard to anyone. I know I'd be doing the same thing.

---

"Alright everyone!" Creati shouted to the room full of people standing up, looking around at each other, and taking deep breaths for the first time in days. They all looked towards the heroine who had called out to them in their confusion. "I am going to need all of you to follow me as we leave the FLICC here in Fundong. I know not all of you are from Fundong, but you were brought here and were just revived by Lifebringer. We have to process you and get you out of here as quickly as possible, so if you could all just follow me!"

"Thank you-"

"Thanks-"

"Everyone let's go! We have people waiting to be brought in," Yaoyorozu added in a more serious and stern voice with some of the people who looked like they wanted to say more to their hero.

Zach nodded at the group in front of him and then motioned towards the girl in his class who was wearing a white full-HAZMAT suit instead of her hero costume. That gear was now standard for healthcare workers in the critical tents of every FLICC, as was Yue Fei's most recent order given by message rather than a meeting where it would be difficult to hide how hard it was for him to continue on.

Creati led a group of thirty-two people out of the morgue. They left, and Zach's shoulders relaxed. The expression he maintained for those people after bringing it back as soon as the revivals were over, vanished in an instant and his teeth clenched. I don't think she noticed, Zach thought, as Yaoyorozu had not given him any kind of look before leading those people away. It smells like death in here. No one could have noticed. Zach lifted his right hand up to his head and pressed it into his forehead.

Recovery Girl looked to the boy who had just revived all those people in a single moment with a wave of black Death that he had covered them with in a shroud. She and Creati had stood back as Zach's body had turned fully into Death from which that wave had emitted, only with low growls and groans of stifled pain coming out of the dark clouds which cut off the same time his human body reformed and those people were opening their eyes. He had managed to keep his voice down despite reviving so many all at once, but Recovery Girl stared at him with her face scrunched up and saddened even as he lowered his own hand and took in a deep breath.

"Sazaki," Recovery Girl began softly.

He looked her way, and he grimaced again at the way she was looking at him. My last expression must have given away something, "I'm worried," Zach started. "Those people are returning to a world they won't recognize, compared to when they got to the FLICC 3-5 days ago for most of them." He knew the quickest to die still made it 3 days, with just under that being the quickest recorded death so far. "I'm sure it's going to be a tough adjustment, but I know Momo- Creati, can do it-"

"Sazaki, just hold on-" Recovery Girl started, as Zach was shaking his arms out and looking like he was ready to move.

"Sorry, Recovery Girl. I have to keep moving," Zach told her.

"Just!" She brought her voice up and made Zach freeze in place. Chiyo Shuzenji ground her teeth and then said in a sad and thoughtful voice, "I know you well, Sazaki. And I know your Quirk well. I can't count how many times you were brought to me just for the pain of your revivals alone-"

"I got used to it," Zach replied.

Recovery Girl's face scrunched up behind her mask and goggles. She looked at the boy who said that in a calm voice without flinching, and she told him, "The human body is shutting down because Sleepless is too painful for the patients. What's happening to their bodies," she continued, and she saw the twitch of Zach's expression that made her pause too. Recovery Girl went on though, "I've been having doctors put patients under sooner and sooner now, so they don't have to go as far as they were before their bodies put them out on their own…" Zach shook his head back and forth, though he did so slowly and his eyes shifted down from Recovery Girl's face to the floor between them.

Zach closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. That turned into a sharp breath that he brought in quickly, Remain calm. He opened his mouth to explain to her calmly how he was fine and needed to get going. His mouth moved but words were not coming out, and when they did, the words he spoke did not match the movement of his mouth which did shift in the way to tell her what he wanted to. "I can't," he heard his own voice and his eyes opened wide as his mouth continued to move without sound coming out of it.

His eyes looked like they were screaming in pain. Zach stared into Recovery Girl's eyes with his eyes trembling and his hands shaking at his sides as he kept them from clenching in fists.

In the next tent over, Jirou looked away from Kendo who just passed on a message to her from the command tent. Jirou looked down the line of beds of unconscious patients, then she turned her head back to the morgue where she had heard Zach shout from before right at the start of the revivals. His voice had lowered though and she was surprised not to hear much of it before she heard the loud voices of the people waking up in that room who she knew Momo would be taking care of.

What's going on? If he's done in there, he should be back here already. Jirou plugged her Earphone Jack into the floor and listened into the morgue to listen in to see what was taking Zach and Recovery Girl…

Zach's mouth stopped moving as he was failing to get out the words he wanted to tell her. She stared back at him softly and with pain on her face as she watched his twitching expression. Zach bit down on his bottom lip and shook his head. "It's okay," Recovery Girl whispered to him. "No one expects you to keep it together-"

"Everyone does," Zach countered, his voice harsh but hoarse at the same time. He snapped at her and his eyes became furious at the same time, only for him to bite down again hard and start shaking his head once more. He tried to keep from showing it, but his heart was erupting out of his chest and he started panting heavily as it continued to feel like it was melting even though the revivals were done. "I-" he started. His voice was raspy and his eyes shook while full of water, "I can remember the pain. Memory of pain, is pain, isn't it? I didn't think so before, because I couldn't really remember what it was like in torture but- but this is different. I can feel, my memory of- It's so strong."

"If you need to stop-"

"I can't," he hissed, his expression angering just at the suggestion. "I can't- I can't but, but I feel it so condensed: days of discomfort and pain, and so much more that they never had to feel." His voice got angry and then guilt and regret covered his expression instead that he would get angry because of that. "I'm not mad. I'm happy they don't have to feel… That they don't- You don't understand-" His teeth clenched and ground back and forth over each other, his eyes watering move but the water staying in as he tried as hard as he could. "It's… I can't- It's so, so- I can't describe-" His head tilted back and to the side. He pressed the back of it into his left shoulder and rolled his neck that way, pushing his head down as he rolled his neck and seethed through clenched teeth, "All of that pain their bodies won't even let them feel, all at once, for one person would be… But all those people? All of them at once?"

His voice came out gasping, his eyes opening and looking at Recovery Girl in shock to ask if she was hearing the insanity of what he just said. "The memory of it is inducing pain itself," Zach whispered at her. "It's too strong- Don't tell the others." His voice suddenly became harsh and betrayed, his eyes narrowing at the woman in front of him who shook her head to tell him that she would not. As soon as he saw that assurance from her, his face broke again and lost all sternness to it.

"If it's this bad," Recovery Girl said quietly. "Then you should stop-"

"I have to keep going," Zach countered. "I can't stop-"

"That's not okay," Recovery Girl denied him. "There's a chance of it hitting you hard all at once, while you pretend like everything is alright. Like you were about to-"

"I just wanted to get back to the staff tent, so I can change my pants," Zach hissed back at her, a tear falling out of his right eye and sliding down his face to the edge of his pulled-apart lips from how hard he was clenching his teeth after saying it. "I-" he whispered. His body shook and he pursed his lips, bit down on the bottom one again as more tears slid out that got caught on the bottom of his mask pulled tight to his skin. "I shit my- I just, I couldn't feel… I couldn't control-"

"It's okay," Recovery Girl whispered his way. She walked up close to him and stared up in the teenage boy's eyes, "It's not your fault. You just… You need to take some time." He opened his mouth to argue, but she snapped at him, "It's possible, isn't it? For you to lose it while in front of them? And that, that is something you cannot do."

Zach's face pulled back and trembled. He turned to his left and bit down as hard as he could, "By tomorrow…" He closed his eyes and then whispered, "It will be too much."

"If you can't-"

"Not for me," Zach whispered. "Well yeah, for me too," he countered what he just said. He paused for a few seconds and then whispered, "We took too long. It's past the threshold… I can't save them all. And if another site gets hit- if an even bigger, than the wave that's about to slam us from Xing?! We won't… So many people are going to die," he gasped out, his voice cracking as he felt his insides tearing apart. "I'll revive as many as I can, but, but the death rate is going to rise so fast and everyone will… they're going to wonder, why I can't-" He bit his bottom lip and tore through it. "Why I won't save them? Like I'm choosing, not to… I- ah, ah I-" His face twisted and his heart rate skyrocketed to a point that he felt it thudding into his breastplate. "I- can't-"

"Take a break, Sazaki," Recovery Girl told him. "Take some time and get your head right before you come back here," she made it out as an order and spoke sternly as his face shifted back to try and return to his normal stoic one. "Do this now, because I can keep you from reviving people-"

"No you can't," Zach replied. He said it and then interrupted quickly as she opened her mouth with her face raising up, "But I'll get my head right though." I don't want it to come to that confrontation directly, he thought while facing the school nurse who was about to snap that she could. Zach shook his head at her, "I'll make sure I'm alright before I come back. Just, hold down the fort without me for a little." He flashed a smile at her then turned away. His head turned into pitch blackness, and he shook his dark head around before reappearing human with no tears or tear streaks on his cleared face. I need to get a change of pants. People would understand. They'd think it's because the patients lose bowel control. Not because, I couldn't focus on anything other than the pain.

Zach's face twitched and he bowed his head as he headed out of the morgue. Recovery Girl's eyes widened behind him as she watched him leave, as she was having a realization as she thought about why he was heading away at that moment. He was really telling me that I can't stop him. He meant it too, so I would not force the issue… What would he do? I, don't wish to find out.

Zach left the morgue and walked through Tent 3, avoiding making eye contact with anyone and keeping his eyes low as he moved quickly back for his tent. He kept his lips pursed to hide the blood on his lower lip and the fact that his teeth were violently clenched from the feeling of the dripping down his legs. Jirou kept her distance and her back to her classmate who did not even see her as he kept his eyes down on the floor while darting away quickly. She shifted her gaze to the side and watched Zach leave the tent, then she lifted her right hand and put it over her mouth only to seethe through her teeth as she could not even cover it up because of her mask.

How? Jirou clenched her eyes shut. How can it be- how can you feel that much… How?! She turned and stared right towards the tube connecting this tent to the one Zach just went into. Everyone's just, taking it for granted- Because you don't show it! No one can- I- I couldn't tell.

I owe a debt to that boy, Recovery Girl leaned back on an empty gurney in the morgue that needed to be cleaned due to one of the dead patients releasing their own bowels all over it. She could not smell it through her mask, but she thought about the look on Zach's face as he whispered that full of shame. Her eyes lifted up to the roof of the tent as she felt her heart aching for the child. Sazaki saved my life when the League of Villains took me. Midnight told me when I awoke how you had saved me… And what else had happened while I was asleep.

Recovery Girl remembered trying to thank him that very night. A light in his eyes had gone out by the next time I saw him. When he, asked me for the drugs… I couldn't even give him painkillers, in fear of what he would do with them. He said he never used the antidepressants either though. I- In the end I, couldn't help him at all. He had told me once before I gave them to him, that he could not take them because it would be like giving up… I don't want to offer them again. She knew why she was thinking about this now, but she could not bring herself to suggest that he try giving pills another shot. I don't know how to help him though. I, couldn't even hold his hand.

She thought about how she had considered it when she came up close to him. Recovery Girl knew that he avoided touching anyone with his right though, and his left was not even real, so when she considered squeezing his hand she just felt there was no way for her to do so and actually comfort him. He's always so serious and so focused. I know it's hard for him when he has to endure so much pain, without ever complaining about it. He never lets it show how bad it really is. He tries, at least, to hide it.

I don't know what I can say since he told me that I can't stop him. Her eyes shook themselves and the older woman bowed her head in failure. I'm supposed to be a hero, but I can't save him.

A few minutes later, Zach stood at the entrance of the FLICC that he just managed to get out of for "some fresh air." Zach walked out in a clean pair of pants yet started panting heavily again as soon as he was out of range of anyone hearing him. He walked down the street outside the FLICC where lines of new tents had been set up. Parents of young children were allowed to be camped just outside if they themselves were not infected, and non-essential staff were living out here as well to limit the amount of time they were inside the danger zone for. Zach saw some empty tents as he walked down the road, and he thought about what Szechuman was growling about an hour ago with their loss of most volunteers and many medical personnel when others in their positions started getting ill.

He turned a corner and walked out of the artificial lights set up around the FLICC. He walked down an empty street of Fundong. No cars drove past him. Lights were off in most apartments. What time is it? Zach had no idea. He did not know when the last time he had checked was. This city is dead. People fled for relatives' houses in the country. They panicked and escaped, which may have been smart. It puts a strain on us, but they all just want to live. That's all we want. Zach rose his right hand to his chest and gripped over his heart.

There are still people around. There are people everywhere! Zach panted as he continued to walk, lowering his hand in case anyone was watching from their windows. Where can I go? Where is alone?! I don't know! No one is alone enough. People could always see me. They could show everyone how I'm pretending to be in pain, to try and get out of it! That's what they'll accuse me of. Too many people have seen me revive so quickly. And so many today alone! More than… more than I ever have in a single day. I can say that confidently, right?

Zach felt his eyes watering up, and he clenched them shut and opened them with a dark look in his eyes as he filled his expression with anger. Find a place. WHERE?! I can't- Hold it in.

HOLD IT IN! Zach gasped out and he spun his head left and right. His breathing alone was getting louder, his eyes shaking and darting around with a brightening red glow in them. WHERE?! Zach's head snapped down, left, right, up-

Zach stared up and his eyes shot open wide. "Oh," he stared up into the darkness and the realization hit him. The next instant, he was a hundred meters off the floor and shooting faster into the sky. A much larger explosion of Death blew out below him and sent him soaring into the clouds above. He broke through the clouds and saw stars up higher. "Higher," he whispered, breathing harder but telling himself he was still too low. "Higher," he whispered again, still hearing his voice in his ears.

He rose up more and more, glancing down and seeing lights in the distance from another city that soon faded from sight as more clouds blocked it. Then he rose even higher than those so on an angle he could see the lights of something over the curve of the horizon. Higher, he thought to himself, lifting his gaze straight up and then slamming his arms down at his sides causing some massive wings that just ripped from him to flap down with all their might.

A stream of Death came out below him as he rocketed himself through the atmosphere. Higher.

Am I too high? Zach stopped flying but continued arcing up through the air. He rose with little resistance and just continued staring up into nothingness and stars. He turned his head to the right and his red eyes grew wider at how large the moon looked. Then he turned and looked down, and he opened his mouth to gasp out in amazement. His breath made no noise. Breath? Zach wondered, as he had opened his mouth but did not actually breathe. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened wide-

'AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh'

No sound came out. Zach opened his mouth wider and screamed as loud as he could, and he made no sound at all. 'Ahhh- AHHHhhhhh' The air was so thin it was practically nonexistent, but his lungs instinctually turned to Death when he no longer had the ability to breathe. I'm not breathing. I'm not even screaming. He closed his mouth, as somehow the lack of making any noise made screaming feel less. My vocal cords don't hurt, maybe? Zach wondered about the reason for not feeling any satisfaction. Then again, as his entire body floated there as Death in the upper atmosphere, he was not feeling much of anything. It doesn't hurt as much anymore- No, still hurts. Zach clenched his red eyes shut at the memory of the pain that coursed through him again.

I have to go back down there… Zach stared down at the Earth below him. To his left and right, he could see the curvature of the Earth. His head turned to the right and he looked behind him. Nothingness. If I got lost out there, I'd never find my way back here. Could I survive in the vacuum? I could test it… Zach flew farther up then stopped.

He turned and looked back at the Earth. I'm flying into space? Why not? I can keep not breathing. I need an empty space to clear my head- I just thought it! 'I'll get lost!' Zach tried to say it aloud to remind himself of what he had just tried to forget for a few seconds as a part of him convinced the rest to just fly out there.

He lifted his head back up and stared out into space. I can see so many stars from up here. More than inside the cities. I've been to dark places on Earth though. Camped at some, with my… They all died. Zach imagined the people looking up at these stars with him. The thought of them made him inch farther out, before freezing and turning back regretfully to the planet he came from. They died, but I'm still here. I can still… His eyes rose from the planet he stared down at to a different part of space. He saw the glow of the sun around the curves of the planet, and up higher he could see different stars he did not recognize from down on the planet. It's a wide expanse. Going on forever. Our world is so small… I could turn my stomach into Death too. Forever.

My whole body as Death, I wouldn't have to breathe. Wouldn't have to eat or drink. Zach closed his eyes and a peaceful expression covered his pitch black face. It's only half-and-half that makes me sick. Being fully Zach sometimes made me better, but I could also go the other way around. Always Death. Forever. Infinite. Zach froze up and snapped his head back down, noticing he had flown off quite a bit from where he had been before. He was getting farther from the Earth, and he was floating around and starting to move in an orbit of the world below. What am I thinking about?

What would people think? Zach wondered. The question was serious in his mind, and he asked himself, How would they manage without me?

They'd be fine… wouldn't they? He thought it and then reminded himself, My friends are amazing. The League wouldn't beat Midoriya. They couldn't-

But Kaminari could.

Zach's dark face filled with intensity. If Kaminari attacks and I'm not there, it will make all the difference. And if this plague keeps spreading and I'm not around, so many people are going to die horribly and remember nothing but pain and slipping into sleep… Zach shook his head around, bringing his hands up and smacking himself on either side of his pitch black face several times. He filled himself with determination while glaring down at the world below, I came to China wearing my hero costume! I'm going to be a hero! I can't just sit back and watch.

I chose this life. He reminded himself of the simple fact of the matter and started to descend again. People rely on me to save them, and I'm not going to let them down! He turned his body and shot the trail of Death out the opposite direction to return to the Earth. I'll revive them one at a time as much as I can to avoid too strong of bursts of pain that could slow me down like this. It will cause me to do it so much more often, but waiting for groups means I'm letting them stay infectious longer anyway. I'll get everyone. Nonstop. I will keep the death rate low. It's the only way to keep everyone calm. Keep them from realizing…

That they're all going to die.

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A/N Thanks for reading. Zach and the heroes deal with a nation under duress from a contagion that has become even more dangerous as it can spread from dead bodies and has hit some of our heroes. Zach's struggling to revive them all with how bad it hurts, and the entire structure of the heroes' response is doing their best but so far failing to slow Sleepless. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about the story!

Obakekarakasa chapter 1 . Apr 27

Took a break from reading fics as a whole around the chapter 200 mark, and I have no idea whether the story has been concluded or not. But I remember how amazing this story was, so I'm back yay.
Time to spend the next month of quarantine reading through this from the very start, jesus christ I forgot how beefy the chapters were.

Hope you catch back up soon! Though I'll try to stay ahead of you.. XD Thanks for reviewing (and coming back)!

MORE chapter 223 . Apr 28

GIVE ME MORE PLEASE! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!

HERE YOU GO! Lol XD hope ya enjoy the new chapter, and look forward for more to come!