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!

233. Chapter 233: The Video

A/N ...well, 150,000 words for a chapter might be a little much. XD eh, you tell me. Hope y'all enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

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Chapter 233:

"…That must be a shapeshifter."

"A shapeshifter who could use your Quirk exactly?" Lemillion countered towards the defendant the instant he said it.

"Toga Himiko can do it. Everyone saw her use Explosion King's Quirk," Zach remarked at the hero prosecutor who was stopped by the men behind him from saying anything else as his reaction came reactively to Lifebringer's initial response.

The courtroom was not just loud in the front of the room though. William Wilson kept his eyes locked on the screen with his jaw still partially dropped after what he just saw. In front of his spot on the bench, Cyn-Thia spun from the big screen towards Zach Sazaki who eased back into his seat with a thoughtful look after Lemillion backed off from an argument there. Lifebringer decided against any stronger retorts and left off with what he said about Toga's Quirk, but Cyn-Thia stared at the teenager who looked a little too calm after the video that just played for them.

It's him, Imino's jaw finally closed and he spun to his side and looked towards Himazuri who already had several of her other classmates looking at her.

"It's not him," Himazuri whispered, her voice low but her eyes not moving to look at her classmates around her.

I can't even believe you, Dendo thought at the girl to his side who he stared at for another second before looking past the murmuring students in the rows ahead of him back to Zach. If you saw something like that in his mind, I doubt you would have said anything about it. There were no heroes there, and the Army of Death showed up to save them. And that wasn't just "stopping villains."

Jirou's hands curled over her knees and shook as she clenched them harder and harder. He left to go kill villains! To be one step down from a villain! That- that's not…

Kirishima bit down and glanced hesitantly to his left side at the pink girl sitting there who looked back even more nervously that Kirishima would give her that look. Sero looked to his right past both of them and saw Tokoyami's huge eyes turning to Zach again then over to the prosecutors. Before Tokoyami though, Yaoyorozu sat with her eyes normal-sized but staring towards Zach in a shaky way that Sero looked at darkly but in confusion at the surprise in her face. You already knew though.

He didn't change at all, Yaoyorozu felt the lump in her throat bounce up and down as she looked at him. He always hid so much, that I knew he was hiding from me how he really fought out there. Hiding all the worst things he did but- but you weren't a different person! You don't regret taking your helmet off that day even if it has brought us here, again. You took down those villains non-lethally. You saved the girl the way you know people need to be saved. Everything. You did it all without giving anything up. Without, compromising on anything.

"That's their evidence against him?!" Roger Whitewood yelled out at Jaime's apartment next door to his own in Yutapu.

Bibi stayed off Jaime's couch with her right hand over her mouth as it had been since Death removed his helmet. Her bulging eyes barely showed under her gray bangs, but those eyes were less full of fear and more disbelief with each passing second. Death was there in our class the whole time. He was right there next to us! Why?! And, why was Death saving- was Death always… was Zach, always fighting like that? Are all the deaths the Army of Death is responsible for, are they all like those ones in that desert where the villains shot each other?

Jaime whispered under her breath as she tried coming down from the shock of being in class with Death for months, "I can't believe it."

Midoriya glanced around him at the rest of Class A in the first rows of the courtroom. He looked towards a stunned Uraraka who had been un-convinced by the trial that Zach was Death, only to have that belief flipped again by the video and what Zach did on it. No one believes him anymore, Midoriya thought as he could not see a single one of his classmates trying to argue with themselves that maybe Zach was right and a shapeshifter was involved.

It's happening again. It's happening again. Why is it happening again? Aoyama's lips trembled as he looked towards his classmate sitting before the rest of the court and not looking behind him into the gallery. The three closest behind Zach did not look like they were in disbelief and shock as much as many of the people in the room, but Aoyama only focused on Zach and not his other classmates who he realized might have known the truth beforehand. The same reasons it knocked Zach down last time. The same reason! It's happening again, because he couldn't keep his helmet on. I can't believe- Zach learns from his mistakes. That's his whole thing! Aoyama thought as he heard a terrifying shout Zach made in the Enudora Forest about the amount of times he had lost, learning things that a winner like Raijin could never understand.

Kotsumura shook his head in confusion too as he thought about Zach telling them all on Ranking Day about learning from their mistakes. He imagined the regret in Zach's voice as he let him know about getting those anti-heroes who once saved him all killed. He did understand it though. It was impossible not to see the reason. It was the only reason there could be why Zach would completely ignore what had happened last time and risk it again. Saving that girl was more important.

Hagakure closed her eyes tightly and wiped away a tear that slipped out her right eye down to her cheek. Even in the middle of that fight he just couldn't do it. You could have left it to anyone else to save her! It didn't need to be you.

Nikko Enri stood in the office with her husband who had to keep his gaze from the woman who looked back to him in surprise after staring at the tv in shock. She had come to watch with him but knew that Kaizo had already seen the video himself too. "That's the video you were sent?"

Prime Minister Nikko nodded slowly at his wife. She looked back at the screen away from him so the back of her head was to his. She stared at the focused image of the courtroom and the back of Zach Sazaki's head. "Even as Death, he just kept being…" Enri whispered. Her husband looked back towards her for a moment then to the tv where there was movement at the front of the room again.

"Zach Sazaki," Dr. Rainne started as he stood before the courtroom. "Do you really claim that you were not the person in that video?"

"That was right after the CHAF explosion?" Zach wondered back. "Then it couldn't have been me. I wasn't even on Earth at the time," Zach responded.

Hanuri looked to her side at her seated defendant who kept his voice strong and defiant as he argued against the prosecution's renewed attacked. Rainne clicked something on his remote that replayed audio from the clip they had watched, and on the screen appeared another 100% match with the voice recognition software Rainne used against the response Zach just made against him. Zach started arguing about the abilities of shapeshifters to completely match their targets' voices, but Hanuri grit her teeth while curling her hands over her knees. We could get past this if you used another defense. Maybe… maybe it is you. Maybe he's Death, but- but that doesn't matter! I'm your defense attorney and my job is for you to be found not guilty!

If you had let me use the video from Sueguon, Hanuri thought in frustration though Zach did not give her a look to suggest he was even considering changing his mind about that. He wants to defend himself. Zach told me he appreciates the free legal counsel I offered, but he's doing this without me. I had the perfect defense when I showed up at his cell yesterday. But he wouldn't let me submit the copy of the surveillance tape from Sueguon that would have proved your innocence so much easier. Especially now! Now that we've seen Death with your face, we need to show Death with someone else's. With Underlord's!

Hanuri bit down on her bottom lip as Rainne said the perfect things to get Sazaki to lock into this shape-shifting Quirk defense. His lawyer cursed internally, No one will ever believe that. If I could say that it was another mask though- A mask that could exist! Those kinds of perfect masks are real. But Sazaki didn't want that evidence being shown to everyone. He won't even consider it… Which means we need to do this without that evidence! Damn it!

Sorry, Ms. Hanuri. Zach apologized mentally to the woman whose frustration he could feel radiating off of her. He did not even want to address what she was considering though, and he would shut it down just as fast as last time if she brought it up. The prosecution doesn't want to show that evidence that will make Death look like someone else. It would throw so much confusion into the mix here, and it really would do great at proving my innocence. Or at least keep them from "proving" me guilty. But I was the only one wearing a mask. And not everyone there that day is… Darling and Maelstrom are still alive. Airi's making her new life somewhere, and I can't let that video ever get out.

In a boxing gym in Italy, Bobo Cambri and his buddies and older half-brothers all stood in silence as they stared towards the television they were watching the trial on. "Did you really think he wasn't?" Emilio Cambri wondered to his sons who looked back at their father. They spun right back as the insane trial was continuing, with Lemillion getting back up with a darker and yet more sympathetic look than before as well as he walked towards the defense. Emilio's face returned to show how stunned he really was once his boys had looked away, That, is what got Death caught? Decades of sketchy and illegal activities swelled in Emilio's chest and made him feel sick for some reason he never really felt when Lifebringer came to Italy and forced them out of the crime game. All he could think of now was the way that small girl's expression changed though as Death's helmet came off, and the smile on that terrorist's face.

"Call off the trial!" Oran Mikeli shouted at the tv in Class 1-B's common room. "Free Lifebringer!"

"Oran-" Oribia started over towards her classmate. Oribia looked to her right at a classmate who had larger horns than her two small triangular ones. She expected to see Zeira making similar noise as their classmate, but Zeira's hands folded over each other and she just stared towards the tv more intensely with a look her friend could not read. Oribia turned back to Oran and continued to her wavy-orange-haired classmate, "He's Death. There's no getting around-"

"But all the reasons they're calling Death a terrorist in the first place were bullshit!" Oran shouted back. "They lied about all of it! Did that look like a villain?!"

Zeira glanced towards Oran then to the screen where her hero and idol sat before a serious Lemillion preparing to send him away to prison. If he's really Death… He is. That was the exact kind of thing, everyone knows that Lifebringer would have done. He just did it without being a hero. Stopped armies and… floods. I knew he had too much experience but- but he tried to pass on that experience to us! Zeira closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head to the side. I don't want him to go to prison! We need him!

"The day after that video was taken," Lemillion said to the court but specifically to the defendant sitting before him in a white prisoner's outfit. "An international force of heroes arrived in Mahrat to gain back control of the city that had lost power during the attacks. 438 villains were in the hands of local authorities since the CHAF explosion. Those villains were taken into custody by local militias and police who remained despite the surviving hero agencies being wiped out at the start of the attacks."

"The Anti-Death Task Force were well aware of Death's appearance in the region," Lemillion announced. "But getting the African nations that had lost most of their best heroes back under control was the top priority at the time and many heroes on the Task Force were redirected from their previous missions to assist. All reports said the same thing: 'The Army of Death were in the region the entire time.'"

"Our investigation double-checked after receiving this footage," Togata went on while looking back to the judges behind him. "All of those villains in the video were in an Egyptian prison. Many had gunshot wounds on their arms and legs that have not fully healed, and they line-up perfectly where the video caught them being hit. The video is real. The civilians who we saw killed in it admitted under questioning that they had been revived by Death. Though the girl in the video we tried to locate was reported missing two months after the video was taken." Lemillion said the last part in a regretful tone and then continued as if to explain, "Villain rates were still extremely high in the area…"

Her parents had been killed too far back for me. By the first villains who attacked and wiped out Sublima and AnubiGuy's agencies. They weren't the worst villains or the strongest, but they were the most excited and couldn't wait to attack after hearing the CHAF heroes were not returning. Ones who thought they could conquer Egypt like nearby Saudi Arabia had been taken over by Mongoloid. Like too many groups thought they could do so easily in the days of King's rule, when his lieutenants were telling them all to rise and conquer. They broke the thin line.

How thin it must have been, Zach thought darkly as he stared down Lemillion without changing his expression. The line that kept most of the world from descending back into complete chaos. It was so thin that one big incident could be all it takes if there's no one left. No support, to protect people like Eiliyah's parents who I was too late to save. Too weak. I could save her though. And I never forgot about her. I wonder if she and Snow ever met? Zach wondered, not as concerned about the missing girl's whereabouts as Lemillion thought he would be. The older hero felt bad but thought he was about to illicit some emotional response from the younger man who instead did not react at all, which Lemillion thought was just because he was too good a liar.

It won't get him out of it this time. How he can even stay stoic at a time like this…

Though, I'm sure Life City is becoming too big a place for everyone to know everyone. It already was before…

"While the video in question shows a remarkable act of heroism," Lemillion started in a low voice before looking away from Death again and to others around the courtroom. "Saving some people does not excuse Death for killing others. Acts of heroism do not give someone the freedom to break the laws that Sazaki is accused of. The laws that he broke." Lemillion looked disappointedly back towards the eighteen year old charged with too many crimes to let by. "And as much as he should be thanked for some of what he did," Togata admitted. Zach looked into Lemillion's eyes that got darker and more accusing again as the prosecuting hero finished, "He is guilty of too much."

Lemillion finished and stared down the defendant for a few more seconds before turning and walking back towards his seat.

If that was the evidence they had against him, Sero thought while leaning back in the row behind Zach, an accepting but sad expression covering his face. I'm not surprised those heroes were trying so hard not to fight him. None of them looked like they wanted to. Even now, Sero looked to his left and across the courtroom at the prosecution's side where people more against Zach from the start had been sitting. What kind of hero would take pride in this?

Kamui Woods stared from in front of the bench back through the court towards his wife who he could see struggling despite already watching this video before and reacting much stronger to it then. I know he saved you, Yu. He saved me before as well. Kamui Woods thought of Zolo's attacks that had left Star-Spangled Man and three others dead around him. The underground base of the League of Shadows was shaking in his memory. He saw Zolo's tail swinging at him, barbed and covered in the blood of other heroes that splashed off as it whipped at him faster than he could get a guard up when still stuck in the sticky green webs of one of Zolo's strongest men. Then he saw the explosion of Death that forced Zolo to jump backwards with amazing speed barely anyone could match, and which Kamui Woods had found hard to follow in the fight that he witnessed after.

He's not Zach…chan, Tsuyu's conflicted expression shook more at the sight of her old classmate standing up in front of her. Right? I thought, in the hospital when… It's not him. He's something else though. Someone, even stronger.

"What was it that Star-Spangled Man said before?" Zach wondered as he stood from his table and walked in front of Hanuri who he told to let him take this. He looked straight at the judges who appeared too convinced by that video. "In this world there are very few unique Quirks. In Japan we have had heroes who can change their appearances. Changeling, who was a great hero, had the ability to make himself appear and sound like others. In Japan we have had villains who can change their appearances. Himiko Toga, a murderer and someone still out there right now. That's two people off the top of my head from this country alone," Zach announced.

Lifebringer looked out into the gallery but did not look dissuaded or discouraged by all the expressions of doubt or disbelief looking back at him. If I mention masks then Lemillion will play that video. He'll look into it more at least, because if I mention it as a defense he'll wonder why I don't use the video. If I mention masks then he knows I was using a mask that day, which means the appearances of the others could be examined deeper. She'll never be able to have a normal life if people recognize her! Just forget it. Forget it and find something else. Zach showed none of the frustration or worry in his thoughts as he grasped at the potential defenses he still had locked away in his head.

"This happened in Egypt," Zach continued. "With a group of terrorists believed to be from all around the world. The USA, UK, Australia, all countries where the first language is English. The 'Death' written down Death's back is in English, and those English-speaking countries and others have a much higher combined population than Japan. Ten times as high, I would say. So ten times as likely for there to be shapeshifters in the population. Dozens of people who could have Quirks like that-"

"Are you using the Quirk-face defense?" Judge Kanno questioned towards Sazaki who frowned back towards the judge asking him the question seriously. "You're not the only one who has ever attempted it, and you should know that it almost never works out in a defendant's favor."

"Lifebringer had motive," Poloski countered a defense right off of the judge's words. "Clear motive and a declaration of that motive that his classmates' reports and All Might's statement indicated after the Lifebringer Incident. He has no alibi!" Poloski added, as that was the best way a defendant had been able to use this defense before and the only times Kanno could recall someone actually being let off with their crimes despite eye-witness accounts or video evidence.

"You're going back to circumstance-" Zach started.

"When you take the evidence we have and try to back it up," Utgardo said to the younger man with a provisional hero license. "You use coincidence and circumstance to solidify what you already know as fact. Everything you call coincidence backs up the claim that you are Death, making it clearer and clearer that it was you the entire time."

"The Death who used the Quirk Death was the same one spotted in Hatto in his first appearance," Rainne began to the boy who he stepped towards away from the prosecution's area where all of them were standing. They sounded confident though grim, yet Rainne's voice stayed firm as he stared down the teenager who he walked back towards as Zach stood in front of his own table. "The same one who used Death recognized in the attack on the League of Shadows, and in Frunoco, across all of Africa after the CHAF were killed, in China during the earthquake of Qingxiao and again in the Villain Summit fighting in Huangdoo."

"Maybe that was all the same person," Zach started. Earlier he had argued points that they were different people; that the one in Hatto and in Panzerstan and in Qingxiao were all different because of their heights. But everyone remembered that that terrorist was seen using Death's Quirk each and every time he appeared before Zach Sazaki turned himself over. Zach continued louder and reversed what seemed like his own reversal on his previous point, "But there is a chance their appearance was changing despite their Quirk remaining the same. Shapeshifters can change what their own bodies look like, but there are those who can change the appearances of others as well. Ones who can take Quirks from some people and give them to others. There are even people who can Copy someone's Quirk, just by touching them!"

Zach called that out and looked towards Monoma in the gallery whose eyes opened wide as he was looked at. "In this very room alone," Zach said while looking Monoma's way. Then he looked back towards Rainne and wondered at him, "The Phantom Thief, Monoma Neito, can only Copy someone's Quirk after touching them. Who is to say that someone else cannot Copy a Quirk using an alternative method? They could have copied my Quirk, and they could have copied my face and voice as well. Everything about me, just as Toga is able to by ingesting someone's blood."

"You're excuse is that Death looks like you-"

"I'm not even surprised that Death used my face!" Zach called out, shutting up Dr. Rainne as he yelled it. "People thought I was acting as a vigilante, so I wonder if Death was using my face that whole time to recruit other people?" Zach paused and he grimaced at the idea of it, then he added, "The defense I'm using may not be popular and it may not always work. Everyone knew that I had no alibi though and that no one could prove that Death was not Zach Sazaki. If Death had to choose the face of someone to use, in order to hide his or her own, then it makes sense that they would use mine. You say that this isn't a defense that works but I'm a celebrity, I'm famous," Zach said that while looking back at Kanno who he frowned at. "Anyone in the world could have decided to use my face. And if their Quirk that could change someone's face and body could also change Quirks, but they needed to make the person who they gave a certain Quirk look exactly like that real person, then it makes sense they would pick my Quirk too! It's a very powerful Quirk. Over-powered and dangerous, and it would be one that people who could copy Quirks, and who could use their own to make mine reappear, would definitely use!"

"It makes sense to me," Zach said, steadying his voice as he looked at Rainne in front of him then over to Lemillion who stared back in surprise as Lifebringer actually appeared to be trying to convince him. He only considered it for a moment though before just frowning deeper at the teen who sighed and said at the response he saw, "Death already knew that the whole world thought he was Zach Sazaki. If there was any face they thought they would be safe showing people, it would have been mine."

"You're right," Rainne started. Zach looked back at the prosecutor in front of him and hesitated at the way the man began his rebuttal. "It may make a little sense. What you're suggesting is possibly realistic, but! What you are saying tells me that any amount of proof we find against you, you would not go back and admit your guilt to these crimes. You are giving an excuse to never confess no matter how much we find. You are suggesting that because of Quirks that can do theoretically anything, we can never prove that you were Death."

"And that may also be true. But no criminal trial ever occurs with a one hundred percent certainty of guilt even when the guilty party is charged. In this world of super powers," Rainne said. "The best we can do is find the proof that we can find and charge villains based on that evidence. Death's defenses are as far-fetched as it can get, when the simplest answer is the one that makes the most sense and has the most proof to back it up. If Sazaki was caught in the act, he would have claimed that Death had a teleporter switch him out with Death who just looked exactly like him. If his DNA was on the scene, he would claim that the Quirk user perfectly matched his genetic code with their Quirk."

Rainne looked around the room while saying these things then looked back at Zach who he declared at, "Zach Sazaki is using Quirks as an end-all solution to discredit any evidence against him."

"You don't have DNA evidence," Zach said to the lawyer before him. "So don't tell me how I would defend that evidence. And you didn't catch me in the act. Nobody caught Death in the act," Zach said. He said it in a lower voice and stared down Rainne then towards Lemillion whose eyes widened more at the look in Zach Sazaki's. "A single video from an unknown source, sent by someone whose motives for getting me arrested should really be what we're questioning here."

"The video was verified-" Poloski started.

"What does that mean?" Zach countered with his head tilting back and his eyes glaring harshly at the UN special prosecutor. "There are Quirks that could edit the video too and hide that they did from current technology-"

"Again!" Yuranama bellowed, quieting down the boy whose arrogant expression and glare at the prosecution made Yuranama feel anger swelling inside him. He glared down at Sazaki who stopped himself and looked to the main judge himself, "This defense is not new. It has been used by many criminals before and holds no basis in reality. There is video evidence against you, and you deny the claims that you are Death. Villains have claimed before that they were framed and that all proof was staged in miraculous ways by use of Quirks. They stick by that defense through countless appeals after their trials because they do not wish to admit to their guilt."

"We act under the basis of proof and evidence in this court," Yuranama said sternly down at the young hero looking back up at him. "The assumption of innocence is provided to you. Not the assumption that all evidence laid out by your prosecution is fake. The prosecution had the video verified by multiple parties to ensure authenticity to elevate their video evidence to be unquestionable, but you deny it has any basis in reality one second, then you suggest in the next that the person in the video has copied every aspect of your person?"

"Those are the only possible explanations," Zach replied to the judge.

"Or the most plausible," Lemillion stated towards the defendant. "That you are Death. That you act like Death, not because you are pretending to be him, but because you are him. Your actions that so closely resemble Death's are not similar because you know how Death has acted before and chose to act like him. You just continued to act in the same way you did while you were gone."

Lemillion's voice deepened more but he continued in a louder voice, "You used these methods in Japan and in China during the recent Sleepless Outbreak." Lemillion lifted up a paper submitted as evidence that he spoke on to the court, "Your school chaperone, the pro hero Ectoplasm, reported on the conversation you had with your contact in China. He describes how it is that you located the Fabu," Lemillion's voice was dark as he called out Zach Sazaki on actions as recent as this past week.

People in China shot out of their seats though and started yelling at their televisions. Shouts of Lifebringer's name filled the streets, and shocked looks covered the faces of people worried and panicked that he was going to be thrown back into Tartaros for this. Fear filled hundreds of millions that Lifebringer would be going to prison due to possibly revealing that he was Death in order to save them all. "…The man you contacted in Yuanbo, China was planted inside of a villain group who were arrested for firearms and drug trafficking, all of them except for your vigilante contact who escaped authorities. He was responsible for capturing one of the Fabu and 'interrogating' the villain, before telling you where the Fabu's main base was located."

"You say you pretended to act like Death so that you could trick me," Lemillion told the teenager facing him darkly but unapologetically for what Lemillion was calling him out on. "But you used Death's methods in no attempt to put on an act." Lemillion looked to the judges and finished, "His actions not only resemble Death's, but they are Death's exactly. Death returned to Japan, for whatever reasons they do not matter. What matters is that he has continued to be Death even after turning himself over to authorities last July. If he still holds the power to order around other members of his Army out in the world. Members who assist him in hero work, ones who hack satellites and have the power to redirect missiles for him, then it is clear to the prosecution that Lifebringer not only was Death. But in this very moment, he is likely still the leader of the Army of Death."

"Objection!" Zach called himself straight at the hero who just stated that. "I am not Death nor have I ever been. My friend in China is not Army of Death either, and nothing we saw while in China suggests that he was!"

"Your teacher does not seem to think that is true based on his report," Rainne started. "Ectoplasm calls your actions in China 'clear evidence' that you are Death."

"Enough." Yuranama stated before either side could continue arguing with each other. They were standing in front of their tables directly disputing what the other side had to say. It was very interesting hearing the two sides argue, but he had had enough of it all. "Gentlemen, take your seats."

Zach grimaced but he nodded and walked back towards his table. Keep calm. It's not over yet. Think. No red eyes. Just think. Where is the hole?

Zach sat down next to his lawyer who was searching through her papers in a more frantic way than he was acting. He could see on her expression the fear of how badly their defense was going. She knows the prosecution doesn't plan on introducing anything else. And we don't have a defense strategy. I had very little I planned on bringing up. No need for evidence when I'm innocent. I believe the justice system won't punish an innocent man. Of these crimes I am innocent. I am… I need to back that up with proof.

They need to prove I am Death! Not the other way around- They think they have proved it. Saying it's fake isn't enough. Even when there's only one piece of solid evidence? The rest is enough circumstantial to add up to one or two full pieces, but only when added to the concrete piece they have. Zach took in a deep breath and he reached to a water bottle Hanuri had brought there for him. He unscrewed the bottle and took a sip, What can I use? Hisang Wang is a liar. All of them who changed their minds should be considered less reliable than the ones who never changed it up and said the same thing from the start. Death is still out there. If there was evidence of Death using his Quirk other than the sketchy revivals, I could use that. There isn't though.

Where is it? What do I have? I guess, the truth. Just repeating the truth again. The video they have isn't evidence. I know that Death either used my face that day or- or someone messed with that video. I didn't even know someone was filming then- that's because I wasn't there. Zach's eyes shifted down past the bottle he slowly lowered. His eyes squinted and he stared at the top of the table painfully for a moment. Just hold on. The trial isn't much longer. Death didn't notice anyone was filming- but they might have! That might be why they used my face! They knew people already considered him or her as Zach Sazaki, so they pretended not to notice the camera and showed off Zach Sazaki's face…

"…If the prosecution has nothing further to add, I would ask the defense to provide any last evidence before making their closing statements?" Yuranama wondered towards the defense if they had anything else to add.

Hanuri looked towards Zach, her face tired and worried as she searched for an answer from her client who she felt like was better at this than she was. The helplessness she felt did not reflect on her client's face though as he glanced back at her. He stayed quiet for a few seconds after making eye contact, then he just whispered at the woman, "I don't have anything." In the right corner of his vision, Zach saw his Class A friends just behind him looking at him in even more fear at the sound of that. They looked at him with wide eyes and even more afraid expressions than his lawyer who bit down and tried to come up with something on the spot.

"We have no evidence, Your Honor," Zach said towards the bench. He stood and stared at the three men up there, and he told them in a serious tone, "I know that I am the prime suspect. I always have been. That new piece of evidence they have is the only thing that actually suggests real proof, but it was staged. If those villains exist and really were injured that day, then it was by someone else. If the video itself is real, then someone edited it in post-production to put my face on Death's body. Or if Death himself really used my face, then it was through the use of Quirks to give them my appearance and powers. I don't have evidence to back up these claims, but my opponents don't have any to deny them either. They are possible reasons though. The only reasons I can imagine, because I know that I am not Death."

"Save this for your closing statement," Yuranama told the boy who was not providing any evidence as was just asked of him. If the defense were not going to produce anything substantive, then he was going to move on.

Right after closing statements is when they're going to make their decision, Yaoyorozu thought while staring towards the judges. After the decision of his guilt for being Death or not, then comes everything else. But it's over as soon as that happens. There's no denying it. What are you going to do, Zach? You must know… you're losing.

I need a strong closing argument. All I can do is repeat that. I was making sense, Zach bit down behind lips that stayed flat and hid his rising anxiety. It's not enough. I know it's not!

At least… some people will believe me. Others who don't will still, Zach lowered his gaze from the bench and then shifted it towards the prosecution to watch them give their closing arguments. Others who don't believe me will still doubt it. They'll call me Death. They'll all "know" I'm Death, but somewhere inside maybe they'll think there's a chance I am innocent. Maybe, Death will produce the real evidence that exonerates me. Maybe I'll get another pardon. I don't know. What I think I know though, Zach's eyes shifted from his prosecutors giving their strong closings, to the judges ahead of him whose minds were made up already. As convincing as I can be…

I'm not going to win-

The screen in the corner of the room cut to black from the last piece of evidence that was put up there. There was a white line going across the screen horizontally splitting it in half. That line was shaking but then spiked up and down as someone spoke in a deep modulated voice, "The following contains graphic violence and is not suitable for young viewers. Viewer discretion is advised."

"What is this?!" Rainne shouted towards the defense.

"I don't know-" Hanuri started too, darting a look to her client to see if he knew.

Zach's eyes were huge though as he stared towards the corner of the room that everyone else was looking at too. He lifted up his remote and pointed it at the screen, clicking buttons on it to no avail as nothing worked. Poloski lifted his own remote a second after he saw Sazaki doing it, deciding to try his own though he hesitated as Lifebringer was trying to hard to cut it off.

"Who are you-" Yuranama started, getting out of his seat while some other heroes in the room stood up or were leaning forward at least. Everyone was put on edge as the screen was taken over, but Poloski lowered his remote with his jaw dropping and Yuranama himself froze with his mouth open as well.

The screen cut from black with a white line across it, to a video that started as soon as it was switched to. Someone was looking down into a camera that they held at their waist level pointed up towards their face. The man was someone who had been on that very screen earlier. A picture of him had appeared there in an older costume that was not as black as the one he was wearing now, though they could see some purple highlights on the shoulders of the man looking down at something he was holding in his hands.

Danjuro Tobita finished fiddling around with the attached pieces on the sides of his helmet. He smiled a mischievous grin as the camera steadied on him despite the movement around them. There was a steel ceiling above the Gentle Criminal that rounded over him ten feet up before going behind his back where they could also see a couple small ovular windows on his sides. Gentle lifted up the helmet he was holding and turned it around to place on top of his head. The camera he was using was far better than the one used in Egypt, with far better video quality that made it impossible to even doubt the identity of the person sitting directly across the not-so-wide gap between the two sides of the plane he was flying in.

Why are you doing this?! Zach thought as he stared at himself on the screen of the courtroom. He opened his mouth to call out an objection towards what they were seeing, and in the corner of his vision he saw the quickest of the prosecutors opening their own mouths readying to counter his objection to try and get the video to keep playing. Why? Zach repeated to himself before calling anything out. His chest pounded violently in his chest but his mouth started to close, his eyes huge but then squinting in pain at what he was looking at. There should only be one choice to make as Death. Whether the decision you are making has more positive or negative outcomes. What makes the best outcome!

Which means, Zach told himself. He did not doubt the person who made this decision. The faith he had in that person was what got him to shut his mouth because he understood what the reasoning must have been instantly. He believes that my going to prison, is the worst possible outcome. Worse than even this becoming public knowledge? I can't- You can't show this! Zach's previous sentiments about why Death must be doing this reversed fast as his past self in the video looked towards Gentle with a frown on his face.

They sat in the back of a plane that had thick steel walls but made very little noise to show the engines were on and it was moving. Out the window on Zach Sazaki's left side though, they could see white clouds moving outside as well as another plane slightly ahead of their own but on even level of elevation. The sight of that plane out there suggested what the one they were flying in looked like. It was a wide jet with large twin engines. It was pitch black though with windows lining the sides. They could only see out that one window on the right side of Gentle's camera angle though, just to Sazaki's left, because on Zach's right sat a person who blocked the window behind them.

The woman sitting on Zach's right side had her eyes closed and was muttering while holding a cross on a bead necklace up to her mouth. Her expression was nervous and she was speaking her prayers into her rosary worriedly and with fear over her face that she was trying to calm down at that very moment. After Gentle put on his helmet, the screen showed a much wider angle than pointed straight up at the face of the white-haired man who had grinned down while starting the recording. Down to Gentle's left farther back in the plane were lines of people on either side of the wide aisle, dark soldiers all along it facing inwards with some in black helmets already while others, like Zach Sazaki, still had them off.

Zach's helmet was sitting on his lap as he sat across from Gentle near the front of the plane just behind the cockpit blocked off by small indentations on Gentle's right and Zach's left. There was a bathroom on one side and storage area on the other, then an open doorway to the front where the pilot was sitting and barely in Gentle's camera angle that did not bounce around at all even as the plane seemed to shake a bit. The woman next to Zach gripped onto her prayer beads tighter, but she whispered something to finish then shoved them down into the collar of her costume before reaching for her helmet. Zach had glanced to her on his side after frowning at Gentle, then he got back to what he was doing when Gentle lifted his head to him with his helmet on and recording.

"Don't shit yourselves on the drop!" A voice yelled out from farther back in the plane followed by some scattered laughter. "I'm serious! Shit my pants on my first drop, but I've only got one extra pair in my pack!"

"You didn't seriously bring extra pants!"

"Don't listen to him…"

Zach glanced to his right farther down in the plane then back forward at Gentle as he did another slash of the semi-thick curved blade in his left hand through the slit on the sleeve of his right arm. Zach Sazaki's arm made a scraping noise against the blade that he cut through the black armor he was wearing. The noise scraped on a spot just below his right elbow that he had bent in front of him and rested over his helmet. There was silver steel inside of that thin slit that Zach turned his scimitar and sliced back the other way through, sharpening the already sharp blade that he then pulled out and pointed towards Gentle's head. "What are you doing?" Zach wondered. His voice was scolding but not very much, his attention completely focused on too much else to care enough about what he just said.

He flipped the sword and slid it down into the one empty sheath sticking out over his right shoulder, as the other hilt was sticking out from his left. Zach Sazaki's armored body looked different than it did in the clip in Egypt. His body armor was thicker. He looked different. His hair was still tied back behind his head, but it looked a little longer anyway on the sides and in front where they could tell. The left side of his face was still clear of scars, but his neck looked different. There were dark red marks all around it, his skin looking raw and chafed, though not all of his neck could be seen. There was a white bandage wrapped completely around his neck, the red marks just sticking out above and below that bandage that covered the scab wound in the middle of his throat.

"You know we don't record our fights," Zach told the man who did not tell him anything about this new piece of equipment he was bringing in.

"Oh relax," Gentle told the younger man in front of him whose expression was calm and focused to a degree that it appeared as if he felt no fear or concern about where he was or what he was doing. Zach frowned at Gentle's response, so the older man added, "Think of it this way. Now we can watch the footage after, see what we could have done better." Gentle gave a practical reason, but then his tone and voice lifted as he called out, "And because this is our crowning achievement! The highlight of the Gentle Criminal's career."

Some people thought that the serious look on Zach Sazaki's face might lead him to scolding Gentle further or saying something serious against Gentle's tone. Instead, Zach smiled back at Gentle for what he just called out emphatically. Zach smiled at him in a way making Gentle look back interestedly at what that look was for, but Zach shook his head back at the man while keeping that confident grin on his face. "There won't be any need to go back and see what we could do better. Because today, no one's going to die-"

Outside of the window on Zach's side, the other plane flying through the sky blew up in a massive explosion that shook the jet they were in. Zach's head started turning to the left while he was in mid-sentence. His eyes were huge as he saw through the corners of his vision the exploding plane outside, but his eyes narrowed in the next moment before anyone in the courtroom a year later could regain their own bearings of what was going on. Zach Sazaki was out of his seat in the moment the plane was shaking from the explosion, his helmet lifting in one hand that he put over his head while Gentle was jumping out of his seat with the slightest delay of anyone else in the plane.

"Everyone out!" Death slammed his hand onto a button on the wall next to him, and the red lights in the jet turned green as the plane started shaking again. "GO! GO! GO!" Death screamed, his voice getting deeper with his helmet locked on him now and his voice going through the modulated filter. The back of the plane started opening outwards and down into a ramp while everyone else jumped out of their seats.

In the recording, the comms in Gentle's helmet came through the cameras attached to the sides so everyone heard as someone else yelled, "Was that Charlie Squad's-"

"Exodus! Respond!"

"Everyone out of the plane!" Gentle yelled to his side before spinning and looking outside as the entire plane shook. He looked towards the plane's wing on his side that had thin yellow lights flying up past it, and there was smoke coming out of the engine and a piece missing from the wing.

"I've got her!"

"Get out-" Zach yelled at people still getting up too slow and moving too slowly for the back.

Both lines of passengers in the cargo section of the jet were running for the back of the plane. Zach was screaming at a man in front of him to move, when a hole ripped through the floor in the middle of the plane and into the chest of the man leaning forward as he pushed the person in front of him. The force of the shot that tore a hole through the plane shredded straight through the dark soldier's chest and sent him slamming up into the ceiling. The shot kept going and ripped through the top of the plane too, but the soldier dropped back down to the floor near the hole that would have depressurized the cabin if the back doors had not already opened up.

"DAMN IT! Everyone out of your planes!"

"We're too far from the-"

"Angle your descents!"

"Delta Squad get out!"

"Pull off! All pilots pull off…"

Death scrambled forward and grabbed the back of the soldier who had a hole through his chest and out his back. The man had dropped his pack and a rifle he had already been holding on the floor, but Zach ignored those and just dragged the man towards the cockpit while Gentle spun and yelled at everyone else to get out of the plane. Only a few had yet to jump though, and they all ran to the ramp and dove out of the smoking plane too. "Death!" Gentle yelled while spinning the other way to their leader who had not left like everyone else even though the plane was starting to drop and continuing to get lit up by anti-air defenses of some kind coming from the ground.

"Come on! We're leaving-"

"I can pull off and get-"

"That's an order!" Death yelled at the pilot, unbuckling the man who got up but looked at Death in panic.

"I don't have the gear-"

"AHHh-RAAgghh-" Death's right arm was covered in darkness at the bottom of it where he had the top of his dead comrade's skull gripped in his palm. His other arm pressed on a buckle near his neck, and he slid his arms out taking a break for half a second from reviving the other soldier whose chest hole was closing up rapidly. "TAKE MINE!"

"But sir-"

"I DON'T NEED IT!" Zach shoved his gear into the pilot's chest and then yanked the man by the collar in the other direction towards Gentle.

Gentle turned and shoved the pilot in the back, yelling, "Put it on as you drop!" Gentle kicked the man out of the back of the plane, then the other wing was hit and there was an explosion out that side.

Death was stumbling back through the middle of the plane himself towards the back of it as the plane lost control and smoked out all sides. Loud beeping sounds came from the cockpit and even the green lights cut off in the back with all noise of a working plane cut. Death let out a final yell then yanked up with his right hand and continued running while moving with the man he pulled along with him, "It's your last life now! Make it count!" Zach threw the revived soldier forward while Gentle jumped out of the plane himself.

Gentle Elasticized the top of the back of the plane that he bent his legs into. "Gently- REBOUND!" He bounced off and shot past a dozen soldiers while flipping himself to look back up in the sky as he did it. The men and women in black armor blurred past his sides as Gentle moved faster than them out of the air, and Gentle's breath audibly sucked in as the plane up above erupted in a ball of fire similar to the explosion of the first plane that happened in an instant when it got hit. Out of that explosion though, came a form of darkness that shot down through the sky with a pair of large black wings ripping off his back and flapping behind him to send him faster than even Gentle.

"Death, sir!" A voice shouted and filled their headsets, coming out in Gentle's recording too.

"Exodus! You're alive?"

"What happened to Charlie-"

"Replay saw the plane exploding seconds early. Guardian covered the majority of us in a bubble-shield, but we are down five from our plane-"

"Grab their bodies and bring them to the Initial Respawn Point!" Zach's modulated voice yelled out as he shot past Gentle and farther down. His head that had turned towards the light-blue bubble full of dark soldiers dropping out a cloud of smoke pointed down instead, and Zach flapped his wings above him and behind again to soar through the air at an angle towards where the lights and bullets were firing up from.

All across the sky on Gentle's right and left fell dark soldiers out of planes pulling away and getting hit by blasts from below. There were still four jumbo jets above that stayed in the sky, though another was hit in its tail and started to drop down with a plume of black smoke coming out of it. Gentle saw a yellow beam of light dragging across the sky in his direction. Two dark soldiers ahead of him swerved using the blue lights coming out of their boots, out the palms of their black gloves, and out their shoulders and backs where the lights glowed brighter on one side than the other to barrel-roll them through the air.

Gentle swung his right hand out to his side then bounced himself into it with an elbow to his left in a smaller barrier that his elbow pushed out into. He slammed into the larger barrier and launched himself through the air, while Death just below him shot forward faster and underneath more soldiers who managed to jump later from their planes and closer to the intended drop sites. Everyone still had to angle themselves though to point the direction that the shots and beams were shooting up from. As Death flew ahead and below him, his head snapped to the left just as Gentle's did towards a group of three people falling close to each other. One spiraled out as they got clipped, another dove down more vertically to dodge, but the third was not as good with the flight gear and could not dodge as the hail of anti-air fire tore through their body.

Several shots ripped through their body completely, flesh and black armor shredding in the gunfire for a second until the body of the soldier was slammed into by the dark form that shot so much faster into them. Death let out a roar of pain as his black aura wrapped around the body of the man he caught in midair. "RAa- Everyone spread out!" Death screamed. "Don't cluster up!"

"They're ripping us apart up here!"

"We're like sitting ducks!"

"Spread out!" Gentle yelled, bouncing himself through the air and yelling it out to try and be heard over all the shouts and the voices in his helmet. "Don't move in a straight line!"

"FUCKING HELL! WHERE IS BLACKJACK!"

"I told you we couldn't trust a villain-"

"He just told us what we wanted to hear-

"He probably told them we were coming!"

"TRUST HIM!" Death yelled out, flying ahead of more of his forces and flapping back and forth across the sky as he shot farther towards the most far-forward of his forces who were falling best of everyone. The most composed soldiers who had their bodies pointed diagonally downwards and were zipping through the sky with their blue lights firing full blast and speeding them up even faster as they used subtle movements left and right to dodge the attacks flying up at them.

"Death," one of the dark soldiers to Zach's left called out. It was a woman's voice and the tall slender woman in her tight black armor with few weapons attached to give air resistance called his way, "What if Blackjack-"

"He'll be here!" Death yelled. "Trust me-" Death's head snapped to the left as an explosion blew up in the sky not too far away from the front of their forces.

"We can't fly through all of this!"

"Brightside's hit-"

"WHERE IS THAT SABOTAGE!?"

"All their guns are up!"

"You three, get over- Damn it!" Gentle yelled out. "Everyone clear the comms! Rebel-"

"Working on it!"

"I'll focus their fire."

Gentle's head that was snapping every which direction spun back forward at the sound of that statement from their leader. Around Gentle, the Army of Death were spread out across the sky as they dropped in a free fall. The entire Army was armed to the teeth. They were strapped with firearms, belts of grenades, pouches all over their dark armor, packs on their backs over the jetpack gear attached on their armor. They had sidearms in holsters and swords in sheaths, they had wings flapping behind them and other kinds of Quirks they used to redirect themselves along with their costumes. Some of them were dragging crates and huge bags with them that they fell with, and a couple were riding on top of black tubes that had blue engines on the backs of them controlling their drops.

Ahead of them all was Death though, looking the most armed of everyone. He had the two scimitar hilts sticking out over his shoulders. The curved blades thicker near the points were in their sheaths, as were the five katanas in the longer sheaths going down horizontally across his back sticking out from below his wings. Death had two sidearms on his waist, but there were two more underneath his arms strapped to his sides, and another gun on his lower back though it had a hook sticking out the barrel. Above and below the guns on his sides, and all around his waist, and strapped to the sides of his legs, his arms, and on either side of his back, were dozens of small sheaths with the hilts of knives sticking out.

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

"Death!" One of the soldiers closest to Death yelled out as the leader of the army's wings grew larger and flapped sending him forward and down in a blur of black out of the air much faster.

"After him!"

"Damn it! He's too far ahead!"

"Death wait!" Seraphim yelled as the man to her right shot ahead of her, then she just pulled her arms tighter to her sides and sped down faster as others started speeding by too.

Gentle flipped and created an elastic barrier above him. He caught a hundred and fifty plus soldiers in his vision when he did the flip, dropping from tens of thousands of feet in a skydive for an empty area that people a year in the future were looking down at in confusion as they did not see anything there. The only soldier in the Army of Death with purple on his uniform flipped and bounced himself past everyone else who had been gaining on or passing him. Gentle passed another soldier whose armor was all messed up and had untouched skin showing from Death's revival that just put him back together, and the man was screaming while pulling out the assault rifle from his back and switching to the grenade launcher function.

"You're going too far ahead!" Gentle yelled, Rebel taking his voice and passing it on to Death far ahead of him and getting closer to the ground each second, farther from the rest of the Army at the same time. Death's angle was not as diagonal anymore with him aiming more straight down, and the bullets and yellow lights flying up into the air were all pulling inwards giving the rest of the Army more breathing room to speed up themselves and stop doing as many evasive maneuvers. Death had straight lines of attacks flying up from several different directions of an empty landscape in the mountains, and it was clear now that he was aiming near an extremely tall mountain that some could tell was in the east based on the position of the rising sun in the sky. The valley he was heading for had smaller mountains around it but was a wider open section with a forest in it and snow on the leaves like there was on the sides of the mountain.

"He's taking all their fire!" A shorter woman yelled over her shoulder back at the rest of the Army who were too far back.

"Follow your Commander!"

Death's body spiraled through the air with an explosion of Death blowing out his right side and making the spin even faster as well as a giving a burst of speed through the air. The anti-air attacks followed him though, and explosions blew up fifteen meters from him, ten- then two! The blast hit Death and sent him flying one direction, but he flipped around and flapped his wings below him, changing his momentum back the other way while dodging hundreds of more shots aimed straight towards him. Bullets ripped through his black wings that he flapped forward into the bullets that were leading him and would have hit a second later, then he dipped his upper body backwards and fell into a dive again with black Death shooting out the soles of his feet to send him even faster down. Come on, Blackjack.

"WHERE IS THAT BAS-" a soldier to Gentle's left was screaming, but his voice cut off in his throat as something shimmered down just below where Death was about to reach.

Across the entire valley they were descending towards, a dome became partially visible for a few seconds. A huge translucent barrier of thin yellow light surrounded the valley so wide that it touched the base of the taller mountain but stretched all the way around the forest and to the bases of other inclines. The barrier only appeared, because it was flickering. There was a hundred meter tall steel tower in the center of the dome that had explosions going off down on the right two legs of it. The four-legged camouflaging tower was tilting to the right and the glowing lights at the top of it dimmed as more explosions blew up and made it start to fall. The rest of the yellow dome disappeared, while the video showing what was happening started to slow down.

The clip began moving in slow motion with cheers and yells getting lower pitched around the Gentle Criminal because of the slow motion of the footage. Gentle stared towards the ground under that dome, where there was no snow or forest. The ground was flattened out, and there were dirt streets cutting from one side of the dome all the way to the other. They interlocked in a grid pattern for much of it, though on the north side of the city below, the roads gained a different set-up near the five massive black towers each three times as tall as the steel tower that had been cloaking the city hidden in the mountains. There were hundreds of wooden houses and some stone buildings too, but mostly two-story to four-story wooden bars and taverns, hideouts and shacks, all over the place. And on top of dozens of these buildings, were anti-air turrets that all started exploding as bombs hidden on the turrets blew up in synchronization and made the entirety of the city shake. The cheers and battlecries in the video rose even louder in volume as the majority of the shots stopped coming, though Gentle's eyes shifted towards the black towers where no blasts came from and where there were still some anti-air defenses in play.

His helmet looked back straight at the city though full of explosions that were about to die down. The Army of Death were approaching rapidly. On the streets already and pouring out of buildings across a city that stretched for miles and was truly the width and size of an actual city, men and women were running around and yelling out. They were pointing up in the sky and yelling out in panic and fear, but many of them could be seen at this point so low to the ground as holding weapons of their own. Some wore costumes and others casual clothes or their normal attire. They had scary appearances even though many were looking terrified themselves. This place that no one had ever seen before, hidden in the mountains somewhere, was completely full of villains.

In the bottom left corner of the footage that was being shown to a court in Japan, text appeared in white letters as if being typed out on the screen fast but one letter at a time. 'March' was written out, but the day and the year had a black bar over them when they appeared as if the exact day was being redacted. Then below it, wrote out, 'Killmanjaro' followed by a comma then the name of the country which was also redacted and covered in a black bar to protect the classified information. Below those words appeared, 'A.K.A. Wampajawa: The City of Villains.' Another line appeared on the bottom left, 'Population: 7,000*.' It had an asterisk after the population for some unexplained reason, though everyone was more focused on the final line that appeared at the bottom while the recording was just starting to speed back up. 'Objective: Take the city.'

"Whoever took control of the screen," Lemillion started. He was hesitant during the start of the video but the fact that Zach Sazaki was not trying to stop it made him want to do so, "Is admitting false evidence-"

"Though I would like to submit this as evidence, and we'll have the authenticators check it," Rainne called out, speaking over the hero who looked at him in an unsure way.

Hanuri looked next to her at the young man who glanced her way as if ready to tell her to object or not to. But he did not come to the decision. He just looked back at the screen himself, his face stoic and like he was just watching with interest, yet he was not keeping as genuine as an expression as Hanuri had seen before. She looked to Yuranama who hummed to himself as well but looked out towards Endeavor to see if the top hero thought this might be part of some villainous scheme or indicated danger to the courtroom. He did not see any sign of concern on Endeavor's face though, just wide eyes focused on the video himself like everyone else in the room, and Yuranama announced, "I will allow it, for now."

The only one who could have this video is Death, Lemillion thought. Which means this isn't part of the villains' plan to get Sazaki arrested. Somehow, they're thinking ahead to something I can't imagine right now, Togata racked his mind trying to come up with it but he just moved back and sat instead with his eyes locked on the video he was as interested as everyone else in.

Endeavor's heart rate sped up the instant he read those words that the Gentle Criminal had added onto the footage. Endeavor knew that villain to be an entertainer, but the video quality and editing was not what Endeavor's focus was on. It was one word that he had heard spoken to him only once before. "…You're going to get yourself killed going after him, stupid hero! You don't know Death! You didn't see him BURN Wampajawa…" I didn't get any information about it. I had no idea… This, should be impossible.

Hazano Worrod was focused on something else that no one else in the courtroom was thinking of in that moment except for the defendant himself. Zach's Class 1 homeroom teacher imagined the boy standing in front of him in the costume lab where they were working together and Sazaki was telling him a story. "I met an enemy once… That man became my comrade though. I made him into a comrade, and he helped me save… millions." This can't be- He couldn't have! As much as Hazano was trying to argue with himself, the fact that this memory was so strong in his mind made him think of what those people had been shouting in the sky around the Gentle Criminal back there. And he heard Lifebringer's voice continue, "…That man wasn't a bad guy. No one ever, not once in his life, ever understood the Quirk he was born with though that he thought only he understood. The ability to know exactly how to speak to people, to Bluff, to get the exact reaction he wanted…"

"He knew how to speak the best. How to be the best at convincing and persuading everyone that he was on their side, and because of this no one had ever trusted him. Not really… I trusted him though. Because I understood it, immediately. Because I was looking for cursed Quirks, and as I was told that man's Quirk I understood what it would be like to live like that for his entire life. I trusted him," Hazano could imagine the strong and steady look on his student's face when Sazaki admitted this to him. And he heard that boy claim, "Because that man deserved to have someone trust him, at least once. And I trusted my other comrades' lives with that man, and without him we would have lost the war…" He put all of his comrades lives in that man's hands! The hands of a villain who could have betrayed them! One who he knew could have just been using his Quirk to lie and get them to…

"Without him we all would've died in the Siege of Razmatan, just like he did…" Hazano's eyes grew widest as he remembered that specific sentence Sazaki mentioned at the end. He had heard the term before, among his students and when he read a book that was a best-seller in Japan this year.

"We knew their exact location and came in from the air…" Tachibana stood in the guard box of Cell Block B in Tartaros. She held up a tablet like most of the guards in the prison were, all of them staring at the footage playing in Zach Sazaki's trial. Tachibana's heart rate was getting faster and faster, as her confusion and anger at Lifebringer for lying to her for months subsided in an instant. "They had heavy weaponry taking down our flying animals, shooting the buffalos and bison out of the sky. Five Arcasian Generals all there at the same time. Matching the five towers of their central fortress…"

Midoriya Izuku leaned forward in his seat with his eyes shaking as he stared at the video that he did not doubt the authenticity of in the least. He knew what he was looking at. He had heard about it before. "…I took off the head of the League of Shadows who had remained so powerful through my removal of three other Shadow Bosses, effectively shattering the organization. Its various parts could not hold together without King on top, and their strongest lasting connections were in Wampajawa where the villains could still meet and interact freely without consequence for another month." Midoriya had heard the term then and asked his friend about it, about the name in particular that made Zach respond: "The Siege of Razmatan…"

He always said there wasn't enough time, Kotsumura thought with his eyes as huge as Reika's next to him.

Every time, he dodged it, Reika thought. The fact that he had always dodged it did not make her excited. She only felt a deep pit of dread as her sweaty palms held onto the back of the bench in front of her.

"There wasn't enough time for it," Hagakure heard Zach's voice. She heard him say it like he was just giving an excuse when she called him out on always dodging when they were around the campfire in the joint training dome. He dodged it again. He told the story of the Battle of 6 Armies instead. Even that night he still, didn't tell us about this.

"…The battle was hard fought, but Ungard and Iranda Amplified and powered through as they had been from the start. Exodus' Amplify ran out, and most of the troops he had taken down the middle were…" Others who had been in the joint training dome imagined a part of Zach's story of the Battle of the 6 Armies. They imagined when he had said something that made them pause for a moment, correcting himself to mention "Excilian" instead which was the name he had been using for that particular character up until that point. The Class 1 and Class A students who first heard that name called out again in the video found themselves in disbelief more than anything else- because apparently that story Zach had told them that night was something that happened on their world.

He was lying about it, Dendo reminded himself. He was lying but… but maybe there's a reason why, it was so easy to believe the lies! Dendo thought about it but could not dwell on the idea for long. His eyes were locked on the dark form flying down below Gentle who was speeding up himself and bouncing again and again through the air to pass everyone other that Death. Death was now below where the dome had been initially and was dropping for the middle of the city as fast as ever before.

People all over the world watched what was happening in shock. Many had read about the aerial assault that Oda had mentioned in his book, though the part about the Siege of Razmatan was short and not everyone put things together as quickly as the perceptive heroes in the Japanese courtroom. Yaoyorozu was staring at the back of Zach's head though when her eyes left the screen. Her heart raced faster than anyone else's, her hands trembling at the quiet look on his face as he stared at the screen like the rest of them.

She could picture her sick ex-boyfriend whose temperature she just checked. Momo had focused on the scar on the right side of his forehead right below his hairline that she had pushed up so it was clearer and showed stretched over the top of his head a little too. "The Siege of Razmatan…" Yaoyorozu had felt her heart clench up at the memory of that day too many times. It had been worse lately though. She remembered talking about Seraphim with Zach just last week in China, and the confusion on his face at the way she looked at him after he referred to it as "Razmatan" again. The confusion she felt then had left an uneasy feeling inside her that she could not shake as hard as she tried. The way he referred to it, even in private to her, of the story she thought he did not need to use with her anymore. And she remembered back when he was sick again, "I know, I know… but it was bad. The bloodiest day of the war. As bad as the Battle of 6 Armies was, I didn't have as large a force that day as when I invaded the stronghold at Razmatan."

Momo had asked him about getting the scar then, and he had motioned towards the left side of his face that he ran his hand across. "As well as the one up here…" She had seen him slide his fingers over the scar that covered all of his left cheek and then brushing those fingers down to his chin and under it to his neck where the scar continued down. "…It wasn't like the 6 Armies either. There was a level of deception that went into every fight, but this was a full-on assault. An invasion the likes that world had not seen before. A force of my size, taking on the biggest army, and the strongest factions of that army, all at once? It was unheard of. Their biggest stronghold. The most fortified base in their world…"

She remembered where he said it was. She remembered what his delusional state had said about the place that he would ultimately turn into his "Life City." "…An entire city that had been the biggest stronghold for Arcasian forces. Giant towers, the best weapons' technology in the world, cloaking systems, in a hidden valley undetectable to almost everyone. It was, the perfect place for what I had always imagined… That hidden little city, in Kazakhstan…" Yaoyorozu had always wanted him to tell her more about it. She had wanted to ask so many times, for him to be more specific about how he got those scars or what kind of battle in real life could have equated to the kind of story he told… She never did. He said Seraphim died here. And he said she died in "Razmatan." He called it the name from the book. As much as this is scary for everyone who thinks the Army of Death are revealing Zach to be their leader- Wampajawa is about to be shown to the whole world!

Yaoyorozu thought of the things that should have been most important, but her chest just tightened up more as she looked at Zach's almost unshaken expression. This isn't something I think he's ready for either…

In the video taken just over a year ago, Death was farthest ahead of everyone descending at the City of Villains below. His aim changed from the center of the city near where the cloaking tower was falling through smoke of nearby explosions. Death's body turned and started surrounding in more and more Death that bulked out around his body and bulged on his arms and legs. His body curled in as he shot towards a plaza that Gentle turned himself to aim at as well, while he yelled out, "Pop smokes and break for mission objectives!"

Above Gentle the soldiers started grouping back together as plumes of green, blue, red, purple, and yellow smoke popped out of certain soldiers' bodies where their flares were attached. They all looked alike in their dark armor but there were differences between them that their comrades could tell thanks to the 'DEATH' written down their backs in various languages and the body types of their friends who they recognized best. Gentle's head turned slightly for a moment to look back up, but his focus and everyone else's was down on Death who dropped into the plaza filled with villains already. There were people in that plaza aiming up and firing, others running away, some still coming out of buildings.

Behind and above Gentle, someone yelled, "Let them have it!"

Gunfire rained down around Gentle in the opposite direction. Grenades were launched down at buildings that did not already have explosions on them, and more explosions blasted around though none close to where Death slammed down with his voice roaring out, "DEATH BOMB!" An explosion of darkness erupted from his body and shot out in all directions into the villains still lowering their weapons to the blur that had been moving too fast and expanding too terrifyingly for them to escape.

The waves of Death that shot out all around him knocked the villains off their feet. Dozens of villains dropped or were thrown back into buildings before dropping. Dark winds flew through windows and shattered them inwards causing screams from the people inside. Out of the explosion of Death, the leader of the Army of Death flew to the west and down a main road full of people who were turning and running from the Death or firing into that explosion of it themselves. Death's body was off the ground as he shot from his explosion and down the street, twin whips of Death spiraling off his body so fast that they slammed into the front walls of businesses and bases on either side of the road.

Gunfire slammed into Death and went straight through him as he rushed forward to the next intersection then cut right an instant before a mud wall lifted out of the ground in front of where he had been heading. He cut a different direction and flew up then came down with both arms swinging down, huge masses of Death pouring out of them and slamming down the block to three blocks away which was as far as the flames of darkness stretched. He then slammed his arms out to either side, pulling those flames out to the buildings that people tried to run inside, though not all villains chose the sides of the street as they predicted Death would attack that way next. Not all were running away in the middle of the road either, with four insanely fast villains shooting the gap straight at their enemy.

Another two rose over the buildings on the right side of the street Death was looking down, but it was much farther away to his left side that he saw a figure rising in an orange aura that flared as the figure looked his way and started flying towards him. That glowing orange villain moved so fast he was going to arrive just behind the speedy villains racing down the middle of the road, and Death leapt up over them and swung his right fist forward so it expanded and punched off a stretching arm. The glowing orange villain ducked down below the dark fist and slammed his feet on cracking ground below Death whose pitch black legs extended down to kick at him.

One of the fastest villains who Death just leapt over spun and slashed his right arm behind him sending a wind of green wisps blowing away the Death before it could hit the other powerful villain who was throwing a chunk of ground up anyway to prevent himself from getting hit while attacking at the same time. Two others Death left behind some wisps to shoot at them also dodged those while leaping up at Death's spinning body in midair- Two wings flapped out of Death and sent him down around the rising chunk of ground. One wing broke off and hit the two rising towards where he just was, while a different spike pushed through the green wind to hit the other guy, but Death's fists he swung down got pushed back by a flare of the orange aura one of the stronger villains pushed against him.

In the time Death was focused on the villains in front of him, two others who reacted immediately upon the assault on the city and were powerful and cocky enough to go straight after Death were flying towards his back. Each of them had swords in hands and were flying hundreds of miles per hour straight at Death's back while he was held off for part of a second by the glowing orange villain with bright orange eyes who smirked as he saw the other two about to slash through Death's back.

Death pushed his fists down harder then kicked up a right foot of Death under the chin of the villain in front of him who focused more on pushing back through the glowing veil into Death's arms to see the kick coming. He was also partly expecting Death to notice the two behind him and lose some focus, allowing him to be the one to kill Death. The other two villains who had been rising over the right line of buildings that Death was facing stopped where they were and stared with huge eyes as they thought Death was about to be cut too and allow them for a follow-up attack. Instead, the flying villain on the right of the two slashing for Death's back found his body slammed into by a moving invisible barrier as Gentle bounced off the wooden wall to the villains' right side and launched himself into them far faster than they were moving.

"Offensive Rebound," Gentle finished his elbow that pushed a moving Gently Rebound on the end of it into the villain slashing at the upper right side of Death's back. That villain was sent faster than he was already moving into the side of his comrade, both of them smashing through the wall on the left side of the street then out the other side of that building where they bounced on the next dirt road and slammed into two other villains caught off guard and screaming in pain when they were hit.

Gentle had appeared out of nowhere, and Zach's enemy in front of him was closing his eyes after the kick that sent him flying backwards and falling unconscious to the ground. Death and Gentle both landed down on the ground, and Gentle snapped at the boy whose back had been too solid for him to have allowed those blades to get so close to him, "You need to watch your back."

Death's helmet turned slightly, and Gentle's was looking off through the hole in the wall but turned slightly too so he caught a piece of Death's visor in his vision. And Death responded in a confident voice without hesitating, "That's what I have you for." Death's helmet shifted back ahead and up towards the two villains hesitating too much on whether to attack Death or not. They turned and jumped a different way, then a man with flames shooting out of his hands pushed both arms behind him and slammed his feet into the faces of the two villains at the same time.

"Let's go!" Death yelled, sprinting forward down the road covered in unconscious bodies. "Moving into G.S. 8 with Gentle. Air support and flanking maneuvers from Alpha and Beta. Tower Squads get those guns off or on our side. Everyone take care of your mission objectives! Move fast and don't give them time to recover!"

Gentle rushed after Death's back, guarding his leader who always rushed too fast and put himself into too much danger that he needed someone specifically for this position. A figure sixteen feet tall rushed around a corner ahead of them though and spun towards Death and Gentle looking enraged but with a huge sharp-toothed smile on his face. His mouth opened and in the back of his throat glowed a deep green light. "Launch me," Death ordered, jumping off the ground while Gentle threw both hands behind him.

Gentle bounced off an invisible wall he put at his back and slammed into Death. His arms swung back ahead of him after his push in the wall on his back, and another wall appeared in front of his palms between them and Death who he slammed the Rebound into so hard that it launched Death down the street faster than Death could fly on his own. Gentle sent him flying like a projectile that indented far into the chest of the beast-like man who coughed upwards a beam of dark green light that exploded in horrible green blasts that filled the air above them, and which dark soldiers swerved around as they descended down on the next blocks that Death himself landed down on leaving behind the unconscious villain his black feet had smashed into.

Tobita landed down after sending Zach flying, and the ground under his feet bent below him. He sent himself back up high in the air and looking down towards Death but also with his head on a swivel and darting every which way as their soldiers came down out of the sky to finally land in a city already under siege by the few fastest among them who arrived too quickly for everyone else to keep up with. Gentle came down behind Death near the end of the street, but Death had already cut to the left while shouting out orders as he ran around the corner. Gentle darted around that corner himself, throwing up barriers in the middle of the intersection where he saw villains running from a street back where other dark soldiers were landing and sprinting their way, trapping them between his wall and the squad dropping a block back.

Other dark soldiers flew over Gentle's wall though and dropped down onto the street behind Death's back when Gentle was looking back Zach's way. The two men stumbled on landing, one of them recovering faster and turning off the blue lights quickly while the other bounced off the ground then came down hard as he misjudged when to stop using the gear. That second man clicked the buckle near his chest and dropped his flight gear off his back, and at the same time he pulled two rifles off his back rather than his comrade's only one that he removed as well. "Death!" The man tossed his extra.

Death turned his head to the right and lifted his right hand to snag the second rifle of the man who landed on his right. "Light 'em up," Death ordered, pulling the gun in front of his body while villains down the road were hesitating or running off to the sides to get off the street. Two other dark forms dropped out of the air with weapons already raised, landing in gaps between Death and the two dark soldiers behind him on diagonal angles with his body. The other two dropped and fired down the road like Death, while the two who landed first pointed their rifles more off to the sides and lit up windows and alleyways. The guns fired semi-auto, the five soldiers jogging forward down the street as they unloaded around them.

Gentle took up the rear. His head stayed on a swivel to check their corners. He jumped to the right as a villain shot up out of the ground directly down on his left, swimming out of the floor and diving into the air as if it were water that he continued to swim in. The African villain shouted out while doing a swim stroke in air then slashed towards Gentle using a long blade four feet long with a serrated edge. Gentle swung his left arm back and bounced the blade so fast away that it spun the villain whose body moved as if submerged in air-water. Gentle spun his own body with the swing off the enemy's blade too, and he landed on the ground with only his left foot. The rest of his body kept spinning and his right foot nailed into the side of an even larger enemy's head. His leg lifted high showing a great amount of flexibility, though he also appeared to have insane amounts of force hidden inside him as his foot took the charging villain with sharp teeth off the ground and sent him flying through the wall of the building across the street that Gentle turned his body towards.

The Elastic barrier on Gentle's foot spun him back the other way off the kick, but it sent the villain he kicked smashing through a wall on his left then through the other side of that building with blood splashing off his body and out his mouth from the collisions. Gentle brought both feet down and shot forward to keep up with the others, two of whom turned back and fired near Gentle's sides, hitting others who Gentle would have had to fight himself but decided to let the others take care of. The villains were too focused on Gentle after seeing him take care of powerful comrades of theirs left and right, and they were slammed into while rushing at Gentle's sides as he ran right between them. Little projectiles flew by Gentle's sides, a few of them hitting into the villains who stumbled and fell, reaching for the darts but collapsing before even getting their hands close to them.

Gentle stomped down his left foot harder and bounced towards the right side of the V-formation of five dark soldiers ahead of him. He grabbed the right-most soldier and pulled backwards while whipping up a sidearm from his left side, firing up into the faster villain who his comrade did not see. Gentle fired twice then turned his body and crossed the pistol in front of his side while continuing to spin around his comrade he tossed back closer to Death, while shooting the villain behind him directly in the middle of his throat while the man was firing yellow lights out his pupils. Gentle leaned his body to the side to dodge the start of those yellow beams that faded off only an instant after they would have hit him. The man he shot in the throat dropped down to his knees then flat on his face, and Gentle spun and started sprinting to keep up with Death who yelled at the others around him to speed up.

Death turned and fired the rifle rapidly towards the side of the road where three villains turned and started running at the sight of some black wisps coming off this particular soldier's arms. Darts coated in extremely potent tranquilizing agents nailed the villains in their backs. The rifle clicked after he hit the third one, and right at that moment one building next to the alley those villains tried escaping down blew up at the roof. Huge shards of wood ripped out of the two-story building as the entire second floor was blown out the top of it as well, walls breaking outwards as a 30 foot tall villain grew out of it, already glaring down towards the street in front of the building where Death's men had been firing at his base. "DEATH HIMSELF!"

The villain's scream sounded excited more than anything. Despite his size, his right hand snapped up in a blur while holding a thin black weapon that the villain pressed his thumb onto the top of. The small black device curled around his hand and then extended in both directions twenty meters, and he spun around the double-sided blade over the top of his head before slashing down at the road in front of the building and ahead of the group of dark soldiers who stopped firing up at the man whose larger body and costume were apparently preventing them from damaging him. "Back!" Death tossed his rifle behind him and sprinted forward, while other villains ahead who were still on the street and firing Quirks or weapons back their way screamed out in fear and pain themselves as the blade slammed into the dirt road.

The giant villain had too much force in his swing. The blade cut through the road then dragged forward and tore it up into the air, huge chunks of ground lifting and smashing through buildings on the sides of the road as the villain slashed straight at Death. Gentle charged forward ahead of four other soldiers who backed away. They stopped just behind him as he slammed both hands forward, behind Death who ran ahead himself and jumped off the ground past the side of the blade that bounced back a moment later.

Two dark soldiers flying through the air dipped low enough to take the gaze of the giant who looked back and forth at them before finding his weapon pushing into something rubbery. The barrier absorbed most of the impact and after a second pushed him back, but all of that was just to put him off balance when Death emerged out of the rising dust and earth from the slash through the road. Death's left arm flew out to the side. His pitch black arm looked to extend and then expand a hundred times near his hand, the rest of the arm bulking as well to hold onto it as did Death's own left side that he dragged forward with a yell. "HA!" Death's hand gripped all the way around the side of the villain's head as his hand was taller than he was. He slammed forward and took the villain off both feet, smashing him down through the next building down the road.

"YEAH!"

"Get him Death!" Past Gentle's either side ran dark soldiers who roared out cheers as they tried to keep up with Death who landed and threw a pair of knives to his sides at villains charging him through small dust clouds that were somehow swirling around them to hide their positions. Both blades had darkness on them that sunk into the villains he hit or grazed for the faster one. Those two hit the ground or spun out then slumped into a piece of upturned earth respectively.

"Through the next intersection is the central quadrant sector 8-A!" Death yelled out. "All adjacent teams push forward and establish dominance of southeast quadrant to protect the infirmary and respawn." Death sprinted ahead faster, and faster, leaving some soldiers behind while Gentle raced past them all and caught up to his commander.

"The landings were all messed up," Gentle told the seventeen year old to his left as he landed from a bounce and started running at Death's pace forward. "They'll organize-"

"Only if we move too slowly!" Death yelled out. Too many of them had dropped in one section of the city closest to the edge as they had been shot out of the sky too early. As quickly as they were moving through it, this was a city they were in and there were not Death soldiers over all of it. More were still dropping to reach farther in, but they had to angle themselves more on the descent and were not as quick to drop as everyone already down there fighting. Death was prepared to alleviate that problem though, moving forward faster and harder towards sections of the city that were not yet engulfed in the battle.

"Don't slow down! We need to push forward and establish positions across the city!"

On the road just to their left, an explosion went off that Gentle caught a glimpse of over the tops of buildings on that side of him. He also saw a black blur of armor zip by the other end of the alley to keep up with Death's speed, just as someone on the right side of their building did which he saw as a villain got launched over the roofs of the bars on their right. "Right through South Main!" Death yelled out. "BREAK THROUGH!"

There was a road at the end of this one that went perpendicular to it but did not have other roads going the same direction for several blocks to either side of the intersection they were approaching. It was a three way intersection, but Gentle and Death were not stopping. They ran out onto the long road that had villains outside it mostly aimed up or down their directions. "Elasta-Armor," Gentle's body covered in Elasticity. Death's body turned more intangible as his form shrouded in thick blackness. Bullets flew their way but neither of them slowed down. The villains started to ready themselves if they had close-ranged Quirks, but the looks on their faces changed from somewhat ready, to scared, to where-can-I-flee-to in the matter of a couple seconds. The two dark soldiers were not slowing down nor did they look about to slow, and the villains yelled out and tried to pull away while Gentle kicked off the ground to fly faster than Death into a building on Death's right side instead.

Gentle bounced even in front of two other dark soldiers who were reaching that longer road at the same time. He passed by them to be farther when Death shot the Death out from around his body in waves to take out eight villains around him. Gentle shot himself through a window diagonally, so when the gunfire started firing at that window it was far behind him already. He hit a wall on the right side of the inside of that building, just above a railing of a staircase on the other side of the steps, between a villain higher on the stairs and lower. He saw another three farther up the stairs, and a heavyset woman across the first floor room from him who he recognized instantly as she finally stood up from her table that she had remained seated at with a cocktail in hand.

"So you've finally-"

Gentle bounced off the wall at that woman first. The one who was calmest and ready to speak as she stood up, had a foot slammed into her face before she could get fully to her own feet. Gentle pointed his right hand above him and pushed his fingertips off a barrier he formed there while curling his leg, and he went from kicking her in the face to stomping her skull through the floor. Her chair shattered below her as Gentle put her through it, then he pointed his sidearm he held with his left hand to his right across the front of his body and fired a shot into the chest of the closest man to him who shot forward with a gust of black wind coming off his hands that Gentle did not falter at the sight of.

Gentle bounced himself backwards, elbowed back on either side and took men off their feet. He fired three more times around him, then he pulled off an incendiary grenade and threw it at the stairs and the wall he had left a longer-lasting barrier on. He threw the grenade at an angled barrier that bounced it up to the top of the stairs, and screams rang out from above as the building burst into flames that also shot down the stairwell and hit two people trying to run down it away. They were thrown down the rest of the stairs, while Gentle started sprinting forward again towards the opposite side of the building where the largest of his enemies was trying to run out a back door. Tobita shot down a hallway to the end of it and bent both of his knees into the spine of the enemy that way, and he slammed the man right through the splintering doorway and out onto the street outside. After the kneed attack, Gentle pushed both hands behind him with an even stronger barrier formed there to keep his momentum pushing forward outside over the top of another barrier he had to dive to get his body over, and he looked to the left as he followed the villain with a broken back out the wall.

On Gentle's left, a wall was shattering open with four men flying through it. Blinding white light came out the hole in the wall that left all four of those men singed and burned black. Two villains just on the other side of that wall pulled back the other way instead of towards Gentle when they saw Exodus smashing through the wall. They came too close to a window that a female villain was thrown through with her eyes rolled back in her head. A slender woman in black armor dove out the shattering window and tapped her hands out to either side as she split the pair of villains still turning inwards in shock at the sight of a famous villainess murderer who was wanted for homicide in over a dozen countries. Both of their thoughts about it cut off though at one touch from Seraphim's hands that had the two villains' legs buckling below them as they fell to the floor.

Just past Seraphim, were a backpedaling villain with a sword and one with a gun who was dropping out of the air with singed wings that could barely keep him up. They were getting pushed back by a man rushing out of an alley that cut between the building that Death just smashed through with a wave of darkness around him and the one that Seraphim and Exodus just cleared. Michael slammed his right claw into the sword slashing down at him to parry, then he slashed upwards with his other claw and sent that villain rising up in the way of the other who tried to re-aim by moving to the left side where it was easier to dodge his comrade tossed up at him with three lines of blood splashing out of his chest. Michael had already bent his knees though and he leapt into the air and tackled the flying villain whose gun he knocked out of their hands before dropping them to the floor, pulling his sidearm out for a second while pinning them and putting the barrel directly into the side of the villain's neck that he fired at point blank.

Death flew through the wall of the next building down past Michael's alley. Beyond that was a shorter building connected on the walls, but another hole blew open in a wall just after Death smashed through. A short figure was thrown through the wall but while still holding the hand of another figure behind them who they flung forward and slammed down onto the dirt floor around a group of villains all spinning still as these dark soldiers came onto their street in a pack and all at once. Shang slammed Xia down hard enough that the ground around her cracked and put those villains off balance, then Xia immediately whipped her brother around as he was the one in the air now. As she swung him, Shang kicked in a circle around where they landed and sent six villains flying off in different directions, one of them to their back left where a set of Pincers caught the bulky villain who was not as hurt by the kick and who turned with his four arms raising up four submachine guns in them. Grabble gripped the man tightly around his chest and then swung his head to the right and smashed the villain into the corner of the building he just came around and that Shang and Xia had cleared out. Explosions blew up behind the twins as Grabble swung back forward and then back into the corner again before dropping the villain who he fired a shot down into with his assault rifle full of tranquilizers.

On the roof behind Shang and Xia, two shadowy figures lifted up glowing red hands that glowed brighter when they got closer together. Grabble noticed and yelled out about it, and Shang and Xia each looked back with wide eyes at the sight of the power that was so similar to their own. A woman flew between those two though, separating them while also slashing a sword across one's body and throwing them from the roof. The other yelled out for her sibling while Valkyrie spun around in the air and rose her sidearm with her other hand to fire back after slashing a heavy blade through one in preparation of their bodies being much stronger closer together too.

Behind Death, a woman with huge flaming wings shot over the top of his building and then higher into the air to stop a villain who tried escaping upwards when all the Death soldiers broke through. Iblis flapped her wings again when she was about to hit the other flying villain who was in no way expecting the kind of speed his opponent showed as Iblis got around his back before slamming both fists down on top of his head to drop him out of the sky. And just to Gentle's right but passing over the same building he just set aflame, Firefly flapped her dragonfly-like wings in front of her to stop for a moment so she could look to the left at all her comrades who had reached just before her but had already dealt with dozens of villains in those few seconds.

"Squad leaders! Get your squads organized and take your sectors!" Death yelled around him. "Call in for any assistance needed. Take the city at all costs!"

"Understood Commander!" A chorus of yells rang out, then the forces scattered to the left, right, forward, and upwards.

"Rebel! Isolate squad comms and keep all unnecessary chatter off-"

"Have you been hearing any un-"

"Shut up and confirm last orders!"

"I've got it!" Rebel yelled back, annoyed at being questioned when he was already doing it but yelling out a clearer answer this time as his hands moved like blurs over his station. He was not the only one moving that fast though, with Cherasaw and Rampart typing away and yelling out into their own microphones at different Army of Death members they connected with.

On the bridge of the Cloak too, a half dozen soldiers in black armor were moving at top speed and yelling out into the ears of different squad leaders they were in charge of supporting. The Support Team yelled relays towards Raylei and their squad leader Access who was attempting to assist Rebel with comms' control, though managing over a hundred and fifty different Army of Death members' communications was a precise job that barely anyone could manage, yet Rebel continued to tell them he could handle without assistance. Access called out while looking up at the screens scattered along the glass window around the command room of the Cloak, "Helicopters lifting off from Sector 19-D, and 19-A!"

Raylei yelled into her mic while operating five drones she just released from the base of the Cloak at Rivona's behest. "Exterior Squad establish the northeast corner perimeter first!"

"Exterior is facing heavy fire and- there's too many we need-"

"Death!"

"Foxtrot and Lambda Squads, reinforce Exterior until the first wave of attempted escapees is down. No one gets out of here!" Death yelled out, while he and Gentle rushed down the middle of the city towards a central plaza that had several large buildings over four stories in it, the only area of the city with such large buildings other than the black towers in the north.

"The airfield is still too heavily guarded!" Another soldier yelled out, something that Rebel chose to be heard in Death's helmet which meant it was heard in Gentle's too as they had decided before the battle. "Blackjack didn't sabotage the planes-"

"Towers are still fully operational-"

"Death! Alpha has no sign of Blackjack!" Darling called out, her voice recognized by some students of Class A who had met her and heard her speak from up close for an extended period of time.

Ashido's heart raced at the sound of that girl's voice in the middle of the warzone she was watching. She was here too? In this… what is this place?

This video has to be fake, Lemillion's uneasiness rose more as he recognized another villain Death was running towards now. Ember caught the Ragtags. Everyone knows that! Did Death fail here then? Did all these villains escape afterwards?! Why would the Army of Death want us to see this? It doesn't make any sense!

"Should we wait for Blackjack and the underground codes?" Mark asked, also part of Alpha so his voice came over the footage that the world was watching in the middle of Death's trial.

Mark, Zach thought, recognizing the voice he never thought he would hear again. His eyes closed a little but his face stayed stoic showing a focused look on the footage. He curiously watched his own back as Gentle protected him again to let him remain focused on what members of the Ragtags had already grouped together in organized defense patterns behind their executives.

Death swung his left arm out and slashed Death off it down into a few enemies though most dodged out of the way. His right hand flung a knife off to his right, but it was attached by a string of darkness that he used to whip it around after missing the throw, slicing Death across three enemies including one of the more powerful ones in the middle of charging his Quirk. "No," Death replied to the question from his subordinates. "Missappear and Foundation! Join Alpha and move to Manual Protocol. Start Primary Operation Bankruptcy."

"Any sign of the 5 Capos yet?!" Death yelled out right after sending out those orders.

"Approaching the towers!"

"Sending jets for suppressing fire!"

"There are too many helicopters! They're multiplying them and we can't tell which are the real ones!"

"The airfield's defenses are down but Romborge and a group of Gravitous under Ala De Muerte are pushing us away as flights are moving down the runways- Death!"

"Delta Squad is facing heavy resistance in Sector 14- Shit! Allen's down!"

"Get him to the Respawn Point-"

"R.P. Alpha is under too heavy fire, it is not safe to land! I repeat, we do not have R.P. Alpha…"

"No sign of the Capos in Sectors 3 or 4."

"Smoke them out of the buildings!"

"Set the city ablaze!"

"COME OUT YOU COWARDS!"

"Holy SHIT- LOOK AT…"

The shout never needed to be finished, as everyone knew what they were looking towards. A city full of thousands stared towards the west and a figure standing up after growing nearly instantaneously. Their feet expanded fast so people trying to run away from his growth could not make it in time. They were smushed into buildings that broke apart as his feet did not stop growing as he slammed into them. In a second he had risen to Mt. Lady's height, and in the next second he was 10 times as large as that giant woman could dream of becoming. Gentle's head rose as did Death's and the forty villains on the road with them who had their attacks bouncing off a Gentle Dome he had made to protect them in this moment.

Most of the Army of Death were still on one side of the city. The naked beast who rose up had a long mane of red hair and a ferocious and bloodthirsty look on his face that was hard to fully make out considering how high up it was. The light-skinned giant was looking down though and he started laughing in a deep voice while his right foot lifted off the ground. Death stared towards that rising leg and spoke in a deep commanding voice, "Mark. Make it rain."

The leg was lifting up more and moving forward, when it started to bulge. From the foot of the man all the way up to his mid-thigh, his leg expanded and then twisted while bulging like that. POP! The sound was audible and echoed over the city as his leg burst, blood filling the air and blocking what a lot of people had just been staring at because of the obscenity of its size. The amount of blood that just burst in the sky though gave meaning to Death's order that left millions dropping their jaws. "Rebel." Death said the word then yelled out, his voice echoing through the city connecting into speakers all over it and out the headsets of his comrades as he announced in English, "SHRINK IN TWO SECONDS OR THE REST OF YOU POPS TOO!"

The villain who let out a deep agonized roar of pain bit down and focused on shrinking even faster than his instantaneous growth as he was already leaning backwards, his fall about to crush an even larger chunk of the city than he had stepped on. "The other villains who survived that around him are going to kill him after he shrinks anyway," Gentle informed Death next to him.

"I know," Death replied, while he sprinted forward out of the Dome that he knew the time limit for its durability. He hit the other villains still watching the falling blood and the shrinking giant, and Gentle caught sight of Death snaking in and out of them, smacking his hands into their bodies with both palms coated in Death that left black handprints over all his enemies in range.

Some of the villains were quicker to look down and rushed back at Death who was practically alone facing them, as Gentle left Death to handle most of them on his own while he stayed back to handle outliers and his own opponents. Five enemies rushed at Death, quick speeds and reaction times to be able to recover this quickly to the leader of the Army of Death facing them. A bullet flew in from a far distance and Death pulled his right arm back while he was swinging it forward with a bulging fist of Death at the end he was going to punch at enemies who would not be able to dodge how wide it was going to expand. The way he pulled his arm to dodge the shot he saw out the corner of his eye put his punch too high up, and the enemies running forward were even able to duck under where Zach broke apart the wider fist to yank the Death straight down.

His armor was grazed too even though he pulled his arm up. Blood splashed out under the arm, but Death did not flinch let alone slow down. He stomped his left foot down after pulling it back the same time as his arm, and he leaned forward away from a second shot that would not hit him anyway as Gentle was suddenly on his other side and bounced the bullet back. Gentle's eyes followed the trajectory of the Rebound of the bullet, then he launched himself up high in the air into a front flip. He pressed his feet against a barrier he made above him, and he slammed through a window that was partially cracked two blocks away above the third story of a villain base where there was a tiny tower sticking out with a crow's nest on top. The tower broke apart as Gentle collided with it, sending debris slamming into the villain who had leapt from his tower in fear that Gentle was about to hit him. The rubble smashed into that villain while Death took out the three at close-range who had ducked under his Death, before flapping wings off his back and launching himself into the building on the left side of the road that could get him away from the huge explosion that came out of the bubbling ground below where he had just been standing.

Gentle turned to the blast where he no longer saw Death, but his helmet tracked his commander anyway and he looked to his right from the opposite way Death had just been facing. He shot back through the air, ducking as he heard the whirring of jets flying in close that he did not turn towards except for a quick glance. A pair of fighter jets shot over the top of Wampajawa, unloading their high caliber weapons towards the specific floors of the black towers that had air defenses and ground defenses they were firing out around the city. Rockets fired from the towers, but flares shot out of the jets that pulled off at the same time. The rockets followed the flares and spun out, one flying over towards the larger mountain just to the west that it exploded on, another just spinning out and dropping into the city where it exploded in a huge blast bigger than the Quirk-one that a villain just tried to use on Death.

After the fighter jets flew by, twenty-five soldiers in dark costumes shot through the air with blue lights glowing out of their backs. "Tower Squads moving in!"

"Take the towers now!"

"Two jets are lifting off! One has a priority-3 target on board-"

"Exterior can't hold on any longer!"

"Whiteout!" Death yelled.

"This early?" Gentle landed near Death and slammed a villain down into the ground while making another Rebound above the guy. The Infinite Rebound went on in the corner of Gentle's visor, his recording partially catching the villain speeding up more and more as he bounced up and down into the invisible barriers before planting him deep into the ground with the final bounce off the higher barrier that lasted just longer than the first once placed.

Death turned to Gentle who questioned the order, but his commander hesitated for a moment at the question. Death heard more yells from different areas of the city though, and although he could go to the northeast himself and deal with the airfield and those trying to escape, there were other problems he determined he needed to take care of. "On my mark, Whiteout move towards the hot zone and get ready for the first Targeted Emp."

"It'll still be wide enough-"

"We're going to lose power for only a short time. But we're still using Blackout Protocol Alastor. Prepare and make sure they don't have a chance of reorganizing by the time electronic systems are back up-"

"There's a meeting of Rippermen and Triakuza on Tower Street in the Triakuza base-"

"Death! It's Wormhole!"

Death paused on calling out for Whiteout, even as Exterior and Lambda Squads yelled about being overrun near the perimeter. Whiteout yelled that she was ready, but Death called back, "Where?! If Redfox is here we can't let them escape-"

"You think we're trying to run?" A voice spoke into the Army of Death's communications. The voice cut into their comms links, and everyone in the Army of Death recognized the voice as he had made wide-scale announcements and released horrible videos of his actions all over the United States.

"There's only a small group of Villericans here-" Another soldier started yelling to get the information to Death after what Redfox's lead PR man The Patriot was just suggesting.

"Oh my-"

Just past the airfield in the northeast, a four hundred foot diameter hole in reality ripped open. Through it was darkness and glittering dots that looked like stars. It looked like a hole straight out into space. Out the reality rip bulged the purple front of a ship that was getting wider as more of it pulled out. Five other smaller ships started pulling out of the Wormhole around it, and a couple dozen jets started flying through it at the same time.

"Flight Squad!"

"IT'S THE WHOLE DAMN VILLERICAN FLEET!"

"DEATH!" A massive voice projected out of the front ship in the fleet, and Refox's visage appeared out the front of it as a massive hologram in the sky above. "I'VE FINALLY FOUND YOU!"

"Whiteout. Now," Death ordered.

"E.M.P!" Whiteout screamed, and a pulse of white light came from the airfield. It hit helicopters just outside of the city past the perimeter, falling down towards villains below who were trying to run and some who started spinning out and flipping in vehicles they were escaping in. Planes lifting off the ground lost their engines and started to fall. The white pulse flew out from Whiteout's body in one direction in particular, but she could not aim very well, and the pulse spread in all directions of her. It hit the ships up above coming out the Wormhole that Death, Gentle, Flight Squad, and a few dozen other dark soldiers all switched focus to target. When it hit Gentle though, the recording cut off and everything went to black.

Ryukyu recognized the flash of light as did other ADTF members around her. Popfire's eyes were still wide from all she was just seeing, but after the flash happened there was no way for her to doubt what she had seen anymore. That's real footage. But the Villericans weren't taken down by Death! That's not one of the groups who we know… it was, the last day of March that they were caught.

Star-Spangled Man was watching on his phone high over the sky far from Japan already. He had not continued to watch the trial as he thought he knew how it was going to end, but when he called into his agency his sidekicks yelled at him to get back on the live footage that he stared at in shock like everyone else. It wasn't Death! Charisma and Darkhound, and that team of heroes was responsible for the ambush… It was a lie. About not wanting to involve too many others in fear that the most powerful villains in our country had spies. They lied. The Army of Death got them to lie to me. To everyone! How could this have- I want it to be fake. It has to be fake!

The top American hero's hand curled tighter around his phone, I thought I knew all the times the Army of Death were really involved…

Endeavor's breathing had calmed more than most others in the courtroom he was in. He watched as video started fading back in gradually on the screen. It was staticky at first which he could not tell if that was by the Gentle Criminal's design or if the E.M.P. Whiteout had created faded slowly for some reason. Either way, the footage was returning and Endeavor continued to watch closely with his eyes locked on the recording. Of course they took down more villains than we knew about. I already knew that far more organizations than anyone else imagined were taken down, but this should be impossible. The amount of power they would have to have to keep all this hidden- is power I knew they obtained! I knew they were stronger, but if they really had more power than any nation then of course they could make it seem as if they always only just got around us. And they could leave even us as the ones who knew most about them, completely in the dark as to 99% of their activity. I knew it already. And yet, for a place like this to be real and no one ever knew?

Bakugo looked to his side where he sat next to Midoriya in the gallery. Even Deku doesn't know anything about this. I thought when they talked about the Villain Summit it sounded too much like that damn Battle of 6 Armies he talked about. Exodus is a real person. This is all real. The bastard was really fighting like this, while we were- damn it. I wish I had been there too, Bakugo thought it with his eyes shifting over for a moment to look at the back of Kirishima's head, though they quickly rose back to the screen and the continuing footage of the Siege of Wampajawa.

The Gentle Criminal, if everyone was to believe this was the same person behind the camera as before the cut to black, was sprinting down a road of Wampajawa farther to the north than earlier. The five black towers were no longer firing any heavy weaponry out of them, and instead some glass shattered in the background sixty stories up or so on one of the three buildings closer to Gentle. The towers were in the positioning of the Olympic rings, with two in the back farther north and three in a line closer to the center of the city. From Gentle's position now it was easier to make out just how tall these buildings hidden in the city of villains really were.

Tobita spun his head as an explosion of darkness came from the street one down to his right. He darted out from behind the corner of a building he just stacked up on, charging across a road that instantly had gunfire lighting up his position not around any other dark soldiers. Bullets flew into him and bounced right off his body as he sprinted into another alley then cut left and ran towards Death and eight dark soldiers who just combined in one force down the road. Death had his left hand up, four fingers on it before he swung that arm to the left and made a curving motion ahead. As he was swinging his other arm for signals to his other side, the muffled voices coming through scratchy out of the recoding started getting clearer, "…you-ch four get in… flanking maneuver. Go! Alright! Everyone hear me?! Sagitus and S.U.S. regroup with Charlie at the fallen cloaking tower before making your push to your tertiary orders."

"Essential positions!" Death yelled out.

"Exterior perimeter holding!"

"Respawn Point is up at point Bravo, R.P.A. was overrun and multiple guards are down. Splitting the Infirmary's-"

"Infirmary is established and holding, Commander!"

"Tower Squads!" Death yelled, running forward and checking over his shoulder as he saw Gentle behind him again. The others had all broken off to follow his orders on the adjacent streets where they knew many villains were still holed up in their buildings. Those two smaller squads of four were calling in Flight support now, and to Death and Gentle's left and right came flying dark soldiers who unloaded down on the streets below. They fired weapons that sounded louder and more like live fire than the shots from the weapons earlier that had a slightly different clicking noise to the guns when they fired tranq darts.

"Tower 1 is secure!"

"T-2 is ours!"

"Tower 3 secure!"

"…" There was a pause over the comms as Death was not getting any response from Tower 4.

Gentle and Death at that moment got attacked from both sides of the street. Two teams of villains rushed in coordination out at them, while a hole opened up in the floor ahead of them and a ramp dropped down into an underground area that other forces were supposed to rush up out of to join the others on the surface. Gentle turned right and Death turned left, while nothing came out from below ground except plumes of gray smoke and screams of villains down there which scared the other groups who thought they had comrades coming to assist them.

"Tower 5 is facing heavy resistance! Death, we've lost Faye- Oh shit-" BRRR-

"Tower 5 just got hit by something!"

"I'm seeing nothing from Tower 4! Tower 3 is ready to drop in-"

"Death! There's a large group of Hydrale pushing us back through Sector 5. We've already lost 5-C and D!"

"Must be the remnants we couldn't track down. If all of them are here-"

"They've got the Silver Splitters helping them-"

"The R.P. already has 18- make that 20 dead here already Death!" Another voice called out and made Death snap his head to the right and look back the opposite direction as the one he just turned rather than the towers.

"Death," Gentle started to the figure at his back as he leapt backwards from the strongest of the enemies he was struggling to face in intense action occurring simultaneously with the radio chatter. "We're taking too long for-"

"Tower 5 hold on. I'm on my way. I'll sweep through the R.P. in three minutes." Death responded to the various calls he heard in his helmet. He turned and punched past Gentle while the other villains rushing at him only just realized that Death's last enemies were tripping and falling with their eyes rolled back in their heads. They had stepped into the dark pools on the floor that wrapped around their ankles. Death spun and punched around Gentle's side and opened his fist that he swung in the direction of the quickest villain who flew up into the sky to get away. Death let him fly off rather than chasing, turning his body instead and pulling wings out of his back while at the same time speaking to the man next to him, "Gentle, head to the market. Highest priority. You have control." Death's head snapped to his back-up, and he ordered in a low voice, "Get them out of here."

Death bent his knees farther then shot up into the sky in a ball of darkness that rose up hundreds of feet in a couple seconds. His wings flapped down below him again and again so he could rise higher and higher. He spun around then flapped towards Tower 5 that had more windows shattering in it as the battle raged inside between the remnants of his Tower Squad 5 and their enemies inside. Gentle watched as Death slammed into that building and right through the wall that sent darkness exploding out from other shattering windows, then the floors above that one started exploding out with darkness one after the other too.

"Primary Objective!" Gentle yelled out. "Inner perimeter teams, status?!"

"We've got a box around the market! Some grounded choppers are in there though and a truck just pulled in. They've got their vehicles back up and running too!"

"Everyone ready to move in," Gentle ordered. He bounced off the floor and bounced himself across the sky as fast as he could. His voice got much more serious in his comms as he was soaring through the air, "Five seconds. Four, three, two- On me!" Gentle landed down on a road that four others jumped out onto from more secured positions at his sides. Cluster dropped the wall he had pulled together off a corner of a burning bar using debris from the ripped-up street that an enemy down the road had been breaking up for him.

Berserker ran out from the opposite side of the road and swung his right arm forward. His arm unbent all of his curled elbows and extended out ten feet, twenty, twenty-five where his wrist did a three-sixty spin of the battle ax in it and cut across the front of an enemy who the blade cut deep. Blood splashed out of that gray-skinned villain's chest, and Berserker sprinted forward with his other arm stretching out in front of him too and rapidly spinning around the ax in it. "Slow it down Berserker!" Fillian yelled from behind his comrade who he needed to speed up to keep up with.

Fillian tapped a hand down on the floor in mid-run, then he lifted up his rifle and aimed across the street. "Hold Sagitus!" The centaur-looking soldier in special dark armor pulled to a short stop, and Fillian shot past him into the body of a man morphing out of the wood of the wall next to him. That villain dropped out of the wall, and Sagitus stomped on him while continuing to run forward.

"Don't let any of them escape from this kill box!" Rivona yelled out, her voice echoing in the helmets of those all around the market. "Take every last one of these fuckers down!"

"Raze the black market!"

"Kill them before letting them flee!"

The yell that filled Gentle's helmet echoed over a year later in a courtroom full of heroes who stared at the screen in surprise after the way the Army of Death had been fighting thus far. Things were getting more brutal though, and they realized they should not be shocked as much as this was how they had been expecting at one point the Army of Death was fighting all that time. Those sentiments only lasted until Gentle hit the end of the road he was on with a team of four others and turned onto the street of the black market where villains were all over the place trying to load up trucks in an area that had not been hit by the Army of Death yet.

The reason the Army of Death had not just rushed straight in there though but established positions first, was because of the greater importance of protecting this part of the city compared to anywhere else.

"Get the wares into the truck- Hold them off!"

"Here they come!"

"Get inside the fucking truck!" A villain screamed at the figures in front of him who were slowing down and trying to make this take as long as possible.

"RRAAAOOOOOAAAA!" Berserker's voice roared down the road at the top of his lungs. His arms lined in ten elbows each stretched out as he unbent and bent in all the different joints to swing his axes out to the sides of the road, and he sprinted forward faster than ever with his helmet pushing forward and another roar of hate-filled rage coming out of him.

Berserker's rage was well-founded. The dark looks that many people were getting on their faces while watching the Army of Death's tactics wiped from their faces instantly as they looked down the most horrifying road they could imagine. The black market was covered in stores that were selling firearms and drugs, stolen goods like jewels and paintings, other illegal contraband that no one paid any attention to. All they looked at were the "wares" that one of the slavers had yelled out about. There were wooden posts outside of at least twenty different buildings each with opened front walls to show the insides of the buildings to the outsides too. There were a couple that had glass walls as if display cases for the people inside them, women with wrists bound to the wooden or metal poles they were strung to.

Slaves were chained up outside of buildings where they were put on display. "So many," Cluster's voice came out hoarse on Gentle's side. He had never been to Wampajawa himself unlike some of their more skilled infiltrators, but Gentle had overseen those missions and knew there had never been this many enslaved in the city in the past.

Gentle's teeth clenched and his fists balled tighter at his sides as he ran onto this horrible street. All doubts in his head about attacking the place that had been a great source of gathering information were pushed down at the looks of despair but hope on the faces of the slaves lining the block. They were all but naked, some of them wearing rags to cover up though that was mainly just the men, with some women only covered because villains would have to pay more to see them without those covers on. There were signs over some of the buildings written in English too, describing what the stores were selling be it services or the people themselves who had been on display.

It looked for a moment like Berserker was sprinting straight at over a hundred heavily armed villains all on his own with the rest of his team too far behind him. Then the rest of the flanking squads moved in. They were preparing for their enemies to be distracted by the head-on team attacking from the very start of the black market, and they rushed in at the villains from a couple blocks away on all sides all at once. They jumped up onto the rooftops of the slaving buildings, and others who targeted weapons' shops threw grenades into those buildings and destroyed stores of arms in explosions that made the villains all start spinning around as they did not know which way to guard most.

One of the fastest villains flew up in the air and intercepted a member of the Flight Squad who rushed over the roofs quickest. They caught the dark Army of Death soldier and dug claws into their dark armor, but they only managed to dig in an inch or two, still deep enough for the soldier to scream out in pain- Gentle slammed into the villain under his comrade, his right fist swinging into the man's nose. The villain tried dodging and had the quick reflexes to do so, but their claws got stuck in the strong armor of Death's soldiers and allowed Gentle to get the punch that broke off their claws instead as the force was too much for the man.

Berserker ran underneath Gentle, his arms swinging out to his sides continuously as the battle raged around him. His axes were not slashing at any villains anymore though. There was only one target for the axes in Berserker's hands, as he slammed them down into the wooden posts that these people were chained to. He slashed at the walls that the shackles were attached to and he slashed harder at the chains themselves. His axes' steel was stronger than the slavers', and he cut the chains between the feet of the slaves and cut the binds cuffing their hands. The former gladiator and slave himself let out another roar, "SLAVES! We are here to free you all! So rise, and take it all back! Take back your lives!"

Berserker looked to his right and slammed his ax down through the chains a muscular naked man held up in front of his body between his hands. "Take back your HOPE!"

Chains broke and Berserker charged faster with his head snapping up as he screamed at the top of his lungs, "TAKE BACK, YOUR FREED-"

A bullet slammed into the side of Berserker's helmet. Blood splashed out the other side of it, his head snapping to the side as he was taken off his feet. Gentle spun from his position on the street towards the building that a black market dealer just stepped out the doorway of and fired from the illegal rifle in his own hands. The villain smirked ear-to-ear which his huge lips allowed, and Gentle could not even rush at that man himself as two stronger villains saw one of their biggest threats distracted there for a second, and a second was all they needed to rush him.

Gentle lowered his arms to block the kick coming for his stomach, but he started pulling to the left too slow to dodge the villain coming at him from the other side who spun his right arm covered in glowing brown spikes that hit him hard enough to lift him from his feet and send him into the air. Gentle swung both arms behind him despite the pain in his right from where that brown arm hit him and took him from the ground. Where he had just been, a woman in black armor sprinted faster than the other two villains were ready for. They spun to the strongest of the gladiators from the Pit other than Zach, the leader of Epsilon Squad, and Rivona bashed the spiky-armed man's head in with a mace that sent brains splattering around her. Her head had already turned to the next of the villains though who had been the one to distract Gentle with the kick rather than try to hit him, for certain reasons regarding his comrade's Quirk.

Gentle reached his left hand over to his right arm that had been hit, and he grabbed it tightly while groaning in pain. He turned himself in the air to kick off a barrier though and go after the man who shot Berserker, but that villain who was turning his rifle to aim at another dark soldier was caught off guard from his other side. There soon became no need to go there himself. A muscular black man with shackles on his hands but a broken chain between the steel anklets on his feet had come up behind the slaver who killed Berserker, and he bashed his wrists down into the back of the villain's skull. He dropped down and bashed two more times, then he reached for the rifle he picked up himself.

He was not the only one. The odds that had seemed to be in the villains' favor at first at least numerically, changed in an instant as the slaves who were just freed watched the man who freed them get gunned down. Gentle landed and he growled as he gripped his right arm tightly for some reason most people attributed to the glowing brown spikes that had hit him. He glanced at that arm and saw a little blood coming out of a couple spots where the spikes had pierced through his armor. They had barely been pricks, and he thought the main damage was the force of the blow that sent him flying, but his arm was not broken yet there was something seriously wrong with it. That pain was starting to subside anyway though from the peak pain, and Gentle glanced back Rivona's way imagining why that might be in a grateful way to that woman. Rivona was calling in to Death at that moment about Berserker dropping, and Gentle lifted a hand to his helmet to control his comms on his own this time as one button push was all it took to get him on a private line with these particular people.

"Extraction team, move in now!" Gentle called out.

Gentle turned his head as he heard Death shout back at Rivona, 'One second!' Gentle looked towards the black towers where an explosion of darkness just ripped through the very top of one. A huge black form with massive wings coming out of its back lifted up high in the air with a dark flaming sword in one of its four arms. That flying form turned not towards them, but a different tower that it flew straight down at and then through several floors all in under a second. Explosions of Death blew out the windows for a dozen floors, and then actual explosions ripped out of the floor he slammed down into and where the Death stopped descending. "Death! Do you read-"

"I'm fine! Get them out of there Gen-"

"DEATH!" Over the same line of communication, some villain in the tower where none of the Army of Death were responding to Death's orders just screamed out their commander's name.

Gentle saw an explosion at the site of the tower he was hoping Death would be able to move through quicker than this. He grimaced that he was still stuck in charge of the extraction, but he yelled out for the Extraction Team to move in while grabbing Berserker's body and lifting the more muscular man up to hold over his shoulders. "Epsilon scour the surrounding buildings and make sure everyone's out. Get all civilians out and take down any villains hiding inside. Fillian! Assist them! Rest of Delta, get in your positions!"

The rest of Delta Squad started running towards different points on the street. They lifted up weapons and climbed onto buildings, guarding the area as three aircraft approached the black market rapidly. A pair of Osprey helicopters, choppers that had wings with rotors underneath the ends inside of circular tube engines, flew on either side of a supply helicopter larger than the other two combined. It was one of the largest helicopters anyone had seen before, black but with a painted-on jaw of sharp white teeth with blood on them around the front of the bird. That helicopter flew farther down the black market road and came down higher up than the two Ospreys, but the reason became clear as the back door of that chopper opened down into a ramp that pallets started rolling down as it descended.

"Steady Floater!"

"Bring it down carefully!"

"Establish Command Post Alpha-"

"Weren't we supposed to have the city under control at this point?"

"The towers are almost ours. After that it's just-"

"Shit- we need support in Sector 11!"

"What's going on?" Gentle snapped quickly, hating how many problems were happening one after the other.

"It's one of King's lieutenants! Stalsky Lenx. A Gravitous member just confirmed to me that he was meeting with the top Pueblo jefe Carter Diaz today-"

"Death!"

"Lenx has too much power already," Death responded while in the middle of a fight against an enemy keeping him at too much of a distance on a floor of a building full of dead bodies both villains and Army of Death. "If the two of them joined together- they become new priority Omega superseding the Capos. Redirect Capo search teams to break up their groups that will have already been organizing. I'm moving in with the revived in 60 seconds from the south, establish flanking positions!"

"All of you!" Rivona yelled after making sure an empty building really was cleared already. She looked around the street at all the gathered near-naked people who looked back towards this woman with a deep voice and bloody giant mace in her right hand. "Get aboard the choppers. We're getting you out of here!"

"I want to fight!" A burly man near eight feet tall and with disfigured bumps on top of his bald head shouted. He still had a rifle in hand that he had taken from one of the slavers he shot afterwards while that man had been surrendering.

"We're getting all of you out first!" Gentle yelled down, expecting this to be the response already and one they had planned for. "If you wish to fight you'll be outfitted with our equipment and sent back! Then you can return- There will be no discussion about it! You will leave now or be knocked unconscious and dragged out. Protecting you will put my life at risk-"

"JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Rivona roared at a man talking back to Gentle who pulled his head away at the shout from that woman. "And get on the FUCKING helicopters!"

The supply chopper was fully emptied out of all the useful gear the Army of Death needed inside the city but was too hard to drop with. A lot of equipment useful for cleaning up and taking more control of the city was not yet useful, as too many Sectors of the city were still locked in heavy battle. Soldiers grabbed out weapons though while yelling at the slaves around them to get into the vehicles, and pilots were yelling out too that they needed to go!

"You have a large force moving in on you from your north." Rampart called into Gentle's headset and that of thirty people close to him. "They just came out of a bar two blocks north and are pushing directly your way. At least a hundred- one fifty!"

"Death! Need the support!"

"They're coming out of the ground near the Villerican's crashed mothership!"

"Facing heavy resistance underground," Mark relayed. "Too many blast doors to get through quickly. No sign of the Banker yet!"

"Gentle! Get them out of here now!"

"GO! ON THE SHIPS!"

The urgency of the Army of Death in the black market rose up and some of them stopped trying to establish the Command Position that they were attempting to make. Rampart reported in of another group moving in coordination with the on in the north which kept them from moving around their own soldiers to better reinforce one side than another.

"Is that Impundulu…" Gentle heard the voice of a comrade he knew was on the other side of the city and nowhere near the positions where he already had marked in his head as necessary stops as soon as the extraction of the slaves was finished. He spun though at the sound of that villain's name, "The Grootslang are all with him! Where did they come from?!"

"Did they know we were coming today?!"

"Spotted Lang Tzi! The Triakuza and The Returned are both on Main Street pushing us back-"

"LIFTOFF!" Gentle yelled as forces guarding the edge of their safety zone on the north side started unloading and getting fired upon by more than just bullets.

Dark blue flames rose up on the other side of a building, red sparks coming out of them, and the temperature chilled twenty degrees at the same time. The three helicopters lifted off as they were fairly certain they got everyone loaded up in them. There were half a dozen dead slaves on the ground too near where Berserker had been lain, all awaiting someone they really needed right now.

"Moving to reinforce Beta Squad," Exodus' low voice stated over the comms.

"Death! Respawn is being hit by aerial attacks-"

"Flight Squad redirecting half to assist with guarding positions…"

"Death!"

"Gentle look up!" Rivona yelled, while spinning herself and slamming her mace into the much larger curved arm of a praying-mantis-looking man who just sprinted out onto the road and straight at her. He leaned his head over their clashing melee attacks and snipped pincers at her helmet, but Rivona ducked down then slammed the back of her head up under the bug-man's jaw. She parried his weapon the moment she got him off-balanced, and she swung into his neck and cracked it with blood goo splashing out. She sprinted past his falling body at the weaker villains who let their strong and cocky comrade sprint by first, roaring out at them while she left protecting the ships to Gentle who leapt up to keep flying villains and the others they were carrying from hijacking those vehicles.

Gentle's first Rebound blocked three of the huge group's flying portion that were assaulting the black market. "Should we assist-"

"Stay in your positions!" Fillian yelled to the other soldiers turning to look at this swarm of villains hitting the other end of the block. Fillian snapped up his rifle and took out a villain with a live bullet through that man's head right as the villain was lunging with glowing purple arms towards his comrade. His friend had looked away for a moment allowing the other villains their moment to attack, but Fillian took out the bad guy which gave his troops the second they needed to counterattack the smaller group of enemies attacking from the south and east simultaneously.

"Get them out of here!"

"Coming in for the assist-AH!"

A fighter jet flying back towards the black market tried to spin to dodge, but the huge line of pink rope that flew up into the sky caught it around the wing even as that wing pulled away. It ripped the wing off and sent the ship spiraling out of the air, but the glass cockpit opened up and the seat flew out with the pilot on it flipping around as he unbuckled. Vince slid his gloves up his wrists and clicked over and over, and the blue lights shot out of his shoes and lower back to send him flying back up right before he hit the ground. He pulled out his sidearm while flying towards the black market still anyway, and he dropped down on the other side of villains who some of Epsilon just pushed back, making those men and women feel like they were now the ones cornered as Army of Death were coming up behind them, making them look sideways for an escape route instead.

Gentle did not get the aerial assist from Vince that he had hoped for. The crashing jet only two blocks away did draw away some attention from him though for a moment, allowing him to bounce back and forth faster than before at the villains who had been getting used to his speed. One of them only pretended to look away though, turning their body as Gentle punched towards them so the soldier's arm passed in front instead. Gentle's other arm lifted under his passing arm with the barrel of his pistol aimed towards his enemy's chest, but two more arms shot out of that enemy's stomach and through his shirt to smack Gentle's gun away. At the same time the villain was kicking low for Gentle's legs, and Gentle no longer had Elasta-Armor around his body to bounce the kicks off.

Instead, the kicks turned Gentle in midair. He was confident in his ability to recover and defeat this enemy, but it was taking seconds. Valuable seconds they did not have. There were too many villains in the city. There were too many villains up in the air with him at this moment alone! Gentle swung his arms inwards and created a barrier wide enough to stop all his enemy's follow-up attacks, but it also blocked him from the helicopters rising higher and the three villains near the farthest back one and the largest, meaning it had the most people in it.

One of those villains grabbed onto the side of the chopper and it shook as it was slammed into. They dug a hand through the wall and started ripping, when a black hand grabbed that man by the back of the head and yanked backwards tossing him aside from a hundred feet up even though the villain had fallen unconscious. Death spun off the throw and attacked the other two, taking their attacks straight on as they had fired at him in the perfect timing knowing that he could not dodge and risk that helicopter behind him getting hit. Death flew into their attacks and smacked one away with his left arm, then as he was taking the second one down with a kick into the man's left temple while the guy was dodging to the left straight into it due to Death's previous feigned punch, Death spun his head before he even finished the kick and looked to the other side of the helicopters.

Rebel had yelled about it in his head, and Death saw the missile flying up from a hole in the ground that a slot had opened from. The missile was flying at the farthest forward helicopter which was already past the Exterior Squad's perimeter, but Death was faster than all of them and the missile. He shot towards the farthest forward Osprey and grabbed onto the missile flying right at it. "GO!" Death yelled, while he flapped his wings up and swung the missile out with both arms- ka-BOOOOM!

The explosion hit less than a second after Death released away from himself. The rocket was still in the air, and the blast shook the helicopter full of slaves escaping but did not take it down. Out of that smoke came a smoking figure though who had black wisps coming off just as much as the less dark smoke. His body was falling out of the air down for the ground, and Gentle took in an audible breath that he held as that figure sank… Then it flipped over. Black wings came out of its back and flapped, and he kept from slamming into the ground.

Death flew back towards the black market where his own forces had pushed back the counterattack on their own, though the perimeter of the area was facing heavy resistance still and their own counterattack was now being pushed back on different sides. "Death, we're not taking the city as quickly as we need to-"

"We have the contingencies for this much resistance," Death countered Gentle. "We didn't know how many high profile villains would be here today, but that just means we don't have to waste time tracking them down afterwards!" Death rose his voice louder for that, and Rebel had noticed the intonation change and already made Death's voice carry into the helmets of his soldiers all over the city. "Follow my orders. Listen to your Squad leaders. Stay off the comms and keep fighting. Infirmary do not stay in the same place for too long, their defenses are holding stronger than we thought. R.P. change position the moment I sweep through. Get the dead ready for me!"

Death reached down and grabbed Berserker's body alone, "Rrrgh- RAAA!" Death's right hand that swirled with Death shook and that darkness pulled up Death's arm covering his armor too. "RAAHHH- Berserker!" Death's head had shaken there for a moment with darkness coming out both sides of it, pulsing and sharp wisps slicing out the left side of his helmet like a spray of blood recognizable to all those who had watched Berserker get shot in the head a couple minutes before. "Hey! HEY! You hear me?!"

"Death- DEATH! THEY…" Berserker spun around and saw that there were no more slaves on the street. He knew it was later now but he looked down and saw the slaves that were killed when they moved in. "You said," Berserker snarled, reaching forward and grabbing onto Death even after his commander had let go of him as he needed to go. "You said this wouldn't happen again!" Berserker's voice cracked and the man ripped his cracked helmet off with his other hand, his face full of sheer rage. The dark-skinned warrior with missing hair on either temple shook his head back and forth violently and yelled, "YOU SAID! We wouldn't let anything like this happen again-"

Death snapped his right hand back to Berserker's collar over Berserker's own arm. He gripped the man by it just below his neck where the red marks showed just like Death's neck had on the helicopter if not even worse. "What do you think we're doing here!?" Death yelled back at his comrade whose eyes blinked a few times then his head shook around some more too. "GET A GRIP! And get these people to tertiary R.P. for my next sweep through when we can also get in secondary extraction! MOVE!"

Berserker nodded his head a few times, then he spun and looked down at the bodies. The muscular man's long arms started stretching and scooping up the bodies, and he yelled to his side at some others near him to guard him as they moved for R.P.C. Death at the same time turned and covered his legs with Death. His lower legs mainly around his feet and knees coated with the most of it, and Gentle leapt up first so Death would not get too far on his leap. Death caught up with Gentle and shot past him a second later, yelling out to his comrade who was checking out the slight damage to Death's armor on his right side where the missile explosion looked to have caught him worst.

"Lead the assault against the Grootslang, Gentle," Death ordered. "It was King who hired them, but Impundulu carried out the CHAF bombing. They need to see him pay. Don't let anyone kill him."

Death shot away and Gentle continued going the same direction. He saw a Quirk he recognized from the famous Grootslang who had ravaged North and West Africa over the past month and a half but in a more organized way than most other villains they had come in contact with. For Impundulu to be there today was something they had not calculated in their plans. It was not something he accounted for, but he rushed that direction to join as he heard Arko yell out in rage and pain at the same time over in Hotel Squad.

Death's screams filled Gentle's helmet before he could reach his enemies. They were agonized and ripped through the headset as Death apparently reached the "respawn point" that he and his soldiers kept talking about…

This is insane! Mineta's jaw stayed dropped as he heard screams that could only be from Zach bringing multiple people back to life at once. They were screams people had heard when Zach Sazaki was outside of his destroyed apartment building reviving those killed by Eziano Mozcaccio's assassins. They were screams like Chinese doctors and patients had heard in the morgue when Lifebringer revived multiple people at once. Screams people had been hearing for years now with every video they watched of Zach reviving people, other than the one time on Kipper's program… which was something so many had pointed to over the past month while they complained about Zach Sazaki's lack of revivals and how easy it was for him to just save everyone.

The screams of complete agony over the comms died down as Gentle met up with other Death soldiers. Different voices filled his headset instead, of soldiers around the city who Rebel needed to relay their comms to the command structure of the Army of Death. Soldiers calling for help and shouting about which villains they were finding inside of buildings that were still filled and packed with various villain groups communicating with each other and organizing better counters to the small groups of Death soldiers sweeping from street to street. Not all of the villains were hiding away either or getting ready for attacks, as Gentle heard from the north edge of the city.

"They're moving to retake Tower 3-"

"It's Lenx! This is his tower!"

"Tower 6 was more operational than we thought! Movement is spotted inside the construction zone, and the ones we captured here are saying it's the Neo-Syndicate's!"

The smaller tower that was harder to see behind the main five was still under construction. They did not think anyone was inside it yet, but Gentle heard their soldiers yell out about it and one added darkly, "They're saying the final Dragons are there, and they have assassins guarding them…"

"Assassins are here?"

"If Eziano's-"

"Stay on mission!" Gentle yelled out into his headset. Then he turned and yelled at a few soldiers ducked behind the wall of a building as the road between him and them had too many villains far down it to take on. Gentle ignored that resistance though unlike the other soldiers who wanted to wait for more reinforcements to help. "You three! On me!" Gentle ran out and sprinted straight at the enemies, while ordering others nearby to move on the same position he marked using a rifle he had grabbed from the supply drop in the black market.

Dots appeared in the visors of other soldiers around the city. Different colors attributed to different markings based on what they were for, but dark soldiers inside buildings around the marking Gentle just made heard his orders and saw what he was pointing at. It was quicker than giving coordinates or finding out who was around him, and while he drew the attention with his straight-on attack that he was protected from thanks to his Quirk he used over and over in front of him as he ran, a wounded Arko slammed into one of the flanks with twice as many soldiers as Gentle had with him.

Firefly dropped down over the soldiers turning to aim at Arko's group, and she picked up two of them and flew up into the air before dropping them as she strafed by the Grootslang. One of the enemies in the group ahead of Gentle was not distracted by anything else. He was walking Gentle's way first, then he sprinted to the edge of the road and dragged his hand along the fronts of all the buildings he passed. Small black circles swirled on every one of those walls, and little creatures with beady white eyes dropped out of them and all turned their heads in Gentle's direction. They had four legs, or six legs, and hands with sharp claws on them, they were hunched or down walking like dogs, and they dripped black ooze that made smaller circles on the floor that tinier creatures started emerging out of.

Another villain saw Gentle looking away from them, and he yelled at others to keep the Army of Death behind the "Purple One" out of "Konga's" way! On either side of the street Gentle had been running down, he also saw creepy-looking figures popping up in the windows and gaining confidence. The sweep was already supposed to be done through here. They were stopped early on, or we never made it because we had to drop too early. Whatever the reasons, there were far more villains in the area than just the Grootslang to fight back against the Army of Death.

The villains are getting more composed, Todoroki examined the villains of Wampajawa's fighting patterns. They were not running away at the sight of dark soldiers rushing them anymore. But then again, how strong are Zach's comrades? Todoroki just thought the villains were getting better, but the Army of Death were dropping them still like flies with mainly non-lethal attacks. Gentle lost sight of the main fight though as he was swarmed by little black monsters, and he tried to stay focused on Konga who himself started shifting to look more like one of those creatures himself…

This is the Gentle Criminal? Midoriya thought confusedly. The man he had listened to speaking on the plane before it was hit sounded like the same kind of man from the videos he had once watched when younger but watched so many times after the Lifebringer Incident to try and figure out why Zach had picked him. The villain setting up a camera to record his crowning achievement had sounded selfish and like he was treating it all like a joke, but then he freed a black market full of slaves before taking on a larger force of powerful villains on their home turf. Zach said he trusted him. That the person he was before their war was different from after. I thought I was seeing differently but, but this is crazy! How did something like this happen without anyone finding out?

Depending on when in March this was, Hawks watched the video with immense focus on many of the African villains Gentle was combatting at the moment. If it was late enough, or if they just held the villains in cells to spread out their captures so it would not be noticeable- They could have! Was it all them? Lenx, Impundulu, Redfox, all of them? Sazaki stopped them all.

It wasn't just the Shadow Bosses, Popfire's fingers curled into her knees at the sight of villains who had killed other heroes she worked with in the past. Ones who had killed people she admired, and villains who she had fought against and always thought other heroes like her had captured. Death crushed them. He crushed them under his- Popfire's thoughts cut off as Gentle was clawed across his left arm and blood splashed out, then through a dark monster leaping at him, a larger black fist punched through quicker than Gentle was preparing for the attack and hit Gentle square-on so the camera shook and flipped around suggesting maybe Gentle himself had been sent flying. It shook worse as he hit into a wall that cracked around him, but Gentle crossed his arms in front of his body and created a barrier in front of him that bounced Konga backwards on his follow-up attack.

"La Brava. If you would be so kind as to come to my-"

"Gentle!" A voice shouted from that street, the short dark-armored figure who yelled it there in an instant to help him.

Gentle's voice chuckled inside his helmet, and he sent himself towards the woman while Konga was still landing and digging his feet down to charge back again. The smaller black monsters with thin legs chased after him quickest, but they stopped in their places as well while Impundulu himself turned down this road from back behind Konga at the sight of the flare of pink light that just erupted around the Gentle Criminal.

Konga's eyes were still growing wide as La Brava whispered far behind her lover, "I love you, Gentle." Gentle's fist slammed into Konga and surrounded in Elasticity the moment of the collision, hurting Konga less but launching him much farther and protecting Gentle's knuckles that would have broken at the speed he punched otherwise.

Impundulu had his mouth open and was making orders to the others around him, when Konga slammed into his body so fast that he was thrown between three of his subordinates and through a window behind him. Blood coked the cracked glass shards that cut them when they flew through it. The other villains all shouting for Impundulu and looking towards that window in shock, were in no way ready for how quick the Army of Death reacted to their slightest distraction and the fear that only multiplied when those dark soldiers all popped out from cover or rushed through enemies who had been fighting on par with them. Their remaining enemies feared them more as dozens of their comrades dropped in seconds, but the push was not enough as one of the Grootslang slammed his hands down on the floor and turned the entire street into a waving mess including the buildings on the sides of the road that could not remain standing with the floor shifting like that.

Buildings' foundations cracked and roofs caved in. Dark soldiers and more villains poured out of them, joining a crazy fight on the streets packed with over two hundred people- including the fifty or so villains already on the ground and the dead dark vigilante amongst them as well. As that one body Gentle could see of a comrade slid past him when the ground waved up on his right side though, he still ground his teeth in frustration at the sight of another of their men down. More shouts filled his headset at that moment of other intense fights going on around the city, and Tower 4 yelled about evacuating while planting charges behind them that they could set off at a shout from Death who was taking on Ling Tzi and the Triakuza in a different part of the city.

"We didn't take down all the Villericans!"

"Make sure to keep Wormhole out of their reach! If they wake him up-"

"Death's in trouble! I can't- we need support in- AHH-"

The voice of their comrade cut off before he could finish explaining what was happening to Death and him. Gentle was beating men and women back and forth back using his insane amounts of strength that La Brava had given him with her Quirk. He leapt away in an instant though, yelling out, "Keep fighting! Take them all down and stay on mission! Do not kill Impundulu, as he has to face justice!"

"Death! Are you alright?! I'll come-"

"Stay on task, Darling!" Gentle yelled to the younger woman who sounded like she was about to drop everyone to help him. "I have his back!"

In the Tokyo courtroom the recording was playing live, the majority of Class A felt completely lost. Most of the court wondered who his "darling" was after it seemed like he was with that La Brava who they all knew he was already together with before the Lifebringer Incident. Class A thought of the girl though who Zach had called "darling" in the Lifebringer Incident. For years they had made assumptions about Zach and that girl, who they were now learning was apparently named "Darling" and had nothing to do with Zach's relationship to her as most of them thought. Just her name left them making conclusions and asking questions that had no basis in reality, throwing their understandings of what happened that night out the window.

Did everyone really call her Darling? Ashido thought in amazement as Gentle did not even laugh or use a comical tone when referring to her as such. It was just like that was her actual name, stunning Ashido who had heard Zach call her it many times but still did not really think anyone else would have.

Gentle shot through the air over Wampajawa in a straight line indicating he knew exactly where Death was at that moment. As he was shooting off that direction though, Death's voice yelled out in his helmet, "Don't get closer Gentle!"

The Gentle Criminal flipped himself in midair and bounced off a platform up to even higher in the air. "Why should I not?" Gentle yelled back, while still getting closer but with caution in his movements and intense turns of his head in different directions on his approach.

Gentle hit part of the air where he could look down right towards where Death was. He stared towards his commander who was on a road and centered in the middle of it. A few villains were on the ground near him, laying unconscious- different from the one Army of Death soldier farther down that road who was face-down and in a pool of his own blood. Far more than the motionless bodies on the street though, were the many men and few women standing around Death. A group of three villains ran up to the edge of a roof on Death's left and in front of him, while Death glanced over his shoulder to see a man beckoning a group of 8 others down an alley yelling about Death's location.

"Get him surrounded!"

"Everyone hold!"

"There's a Quirk Deactivator somewhere around here. They have a field up," Death told his comrade who he spotted up in the air high enough above him that his Elasticity was still working.

"I will search for the-"

"No! I'll do this. Don't get inside the field," Death ordered. "Nobody come this way!" Death called out for mass communication. "I'll handle it on my own! Stay on your missions!"

Death looked around him and at villains who stepped out of a building on his right that looked partially burnt but like the flames had been stopped earlier before burning through it all. There were shattered windows that men looked through and lifted up rifles from behind, but others were stepping out the door and onto the street with smug looks on their faces and weapons in hand. Death spun the other way as he heard the cocking of a pistol then saw two others clicking in large magazines for heavier assault rifles. Down the road were two women who stepped out from behind an eight foot tall man with four arms. They came out on either side of him, holding yellow beam rifles in their hands.

On the roof behind Zach and to his right, villains who climbed up ran to the edge and started smiling wide as they saw Death down on the street surrounded by over thirty other villains now. "We've got Death!"

"He doesn't have his Quirk! This is our chance!"

"Whoever's deactivating my Quirk!" Death yelled out, his deep voice carrying over the villains' who lowered their voices to listen to him for a second. "Stop it now! You-"

"Hahaha!"

"He knows he can't win!"

"You don't know what you're doing!" Death shouted louder. He glared to his right through the dark visor as some villains on the closest perimeter to him were looking daring and like they might rush forward first.

Those men just grinned more at him though. A red-skinned one lifted up his four sharp lobster claws, and out from under his shirt came many smaller thin legs of his body that curled around in front of him with sharpened tips. The taller man at his side just put his hand down on a filled holster while already holding another pistol from the empty holder on his other side. On Zach's left, two Asian villains pulled katanas out of sheaths, while a man with dark red fur who had a single yellow horn over his head lifted his paws and turned into a fighting stance more serious and intimidating than most others around him. Out from the ends of his paws extended sharp claws that glinted in the sunlight beating down on the city.

"This is where Death dies!"

"If we kill him they'll run."

"Without his Quirk-"

"Taking my Quirk won't do anything!" Death yelled out. He rose his voice and yelled at the villains around him but to one villain in particular who he could not pinpoint, "You having more people than me doesn't even the odds like you think it does! Taking my Quirk just means I can't hold back-"

"HAHAHA!"

"He's desperate!"

"Death is begging!"

"LISTEN TO ME! I won't be able to hold back anymore-"

"You men! Get over here!"

"We're going to kill Death!"

"I'm warning you," Death seethed. He said it while drawing a pair of knives that he kept down at his sides. His hands stayed down but his whole body was tensing up while the villains gathered more and more to stand around him. Villains in front of him smirked, others up on the roofs held their guns tightly as they readied to attack. Some were feeling like they had enough already, and the more cautious ones were starting to grin more too now and were lowering their arms that they had held up to keep their comrades from doing anything rash before they had an army to surround him with. Death ground his teeth though and he pleaded, "Drop the field! Please!"

Death's shout came out pleading. The villains were ready to attack. Many were leaning forward. They gripped their weapons tightly and grinned like mad men at the aspect of being the ones who had the drop on Death. Becoming the famous villains who killed the worst enemy their kind had; they could see it already. Death's pleading cry sounded so desperate though in that final shout as his hands gripped tighter on his knives' hilts. A few of the villains stopped smiling for a second. One or two of them gulped, because Death was not pleading for mercy. Death was pleading for the ability to show them mercy. Those looks vanished after a moment though as all the villains around him started laughing more or smirking as they called Death's bluff.

The situation looked bleak. Gentle did not know which direction the Quirk Deactivation field was spreading though, and so he could not move in any way around himself except up which he did at Death's last shout. He bounced his body up higher while staring down with his breathing steadying more and his head not snapping around to look for someone nearby watching the fight they were causing. His eyes instead locked down on Death, which allowed many more people to see the same horrible situation Death found himself in that looked inescapable.

They knew Death's shouts were not empty though. The people watching the footage the Gentle Criminal had taken of that day were fairly certain that the same person from that video was sitting in the courtroom in front of them. That person had escaped from being surrounded and unable to use his Quirk, and his threats did not sound empty to them because of it. They knew that Zach survived this fight, and many leaned back in their seats as Death's voice roared, "DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS!"

Dendo's eyes bulged as his hands gripped onto the seat on either side of his legs. His body leaned backwards as he stared towards the screen and his classmate and friend, yelling in a resigned voice showing he already knew the villains were not going to back down.

Someone must have come and saved him! Ashido's eyes shook and her hands were trembling over her lap. Zach wouldn't have… Not managing to finish that thought told her how uncertain she was that she could do so with any confidence, and her breath hitched more as the villains started to move.

He's not bluffing, Lemillion wanted to check what Sazaki in the present looked like, but he could not pull his eyes off the screen that he dreaded the images he was about to see.

A cameraman in the back of the room heard a voice in his headset shouting, "We need to cut the broadcast! NOW!"

"Not a chance! Everyone's watching!" A different producer yelled making the cameraman's shaking hand hesitate near the button to cut off the live filming.

Even Bakugo felt his palms sweating, though his body still leaned forward and his panting breaths got louder. He would.

"Aim!"

At the shout of 'aim,' Death sprinted forward. He did not wait for villains to finish lifting weapons or aiming at him. Even the ones who had managed to aim quick enough, would have waited for the shout of 'fire' from the villain attempting to organize from a roof on Death's left and ahead of him. Death ran straight forward down the middle of the road rather than to either side or any angle. His speed was too much that those who started firing because he ran only shot the ground back behind him. Two dragged their automatic weapons after him, but they had to stop as they were shooting across the street and there were too many villains around now that shots were passing and other armed villains were yelling back at them to stop. A villain on the roof behind Death and on his right kept firing off shots though with his semi-automatic rifle he unloaded even as Death ran between two villains and then past another only a foot away on his right-

Blood splashed out a bullet hole on the front left of that villain's chest as the man was turning inwards towards Death. Death ran past the first two lines of villains and reached the third row where a young villain holding a rifle was standing waiting to get a shot when the others ran forward. The man looked like a twenty year old or even younger, and he watched as another villain fell forward in front of him with blood coming out of the bullet wound. Others turned towards Death who was faster than anyone there without a Quirk, some stepping after and others raising their weapons while some who were shooting stopped- Death slashed the knife in his right hand across the front of the young villain's neck, then flipped that bloody knife around in his fingers and flicked to his left into the right eye of another fast villain who shot out between others to charge him when Death focused on another villain.

Death barely glanced towards the man whose eye he just threw a knife into. He only flicked the knife so it went into the man's eye shallow, causing him to scream while stumbling grabbing it, too much momentum with his speed that he fell to the ground and rolled instead. Death only flicked it so gently because he did not want his hand moving far from the villain in front of him whose neck was still opening wider, his hands lifting up to it which meant he released the rifle. Death's now-free hand grabbed it and pulled back towards himself. He turned and ran towards a villain with sharp claws who darted a look to his left and up in fear that the three villains who all just started shooting again were going to hit him in attempts to shoot Death.

Other villains too close to Death pulled back leaving only four still close enough in rushing distance that Death knew he had to focus on them. He stabbed the lobster-clawed man using his left hand that had a knife in it, plunging the blade into the man's chest then yanking it to his right and blocking shots from that direction using the man's hard body while he twisted his own. Zach unloaded from the automatic weapon in his right hand back behind him at some other villains who had pulled back and mainly armed ones who stopped shooting. "SHOOT HIM-"

Death fired off a shot carefully into the head of the villain who had been organizing them the most. That villain fell off his feet up on the roof that his blood was spraying out over. Others had heard the order before their fellow villain was shot though, and many of them lifted their firearms again only for Death to rush to one side of the street that had five villains on it who were not armed with guns. One of those five yelled out, "We have this!" Shots stopped or came out more sporadically as Death tossed aside a body riddled with bullets and an empty gun, sprinting at a furry man who ran at him and slashed forward.

Death slid down onto his knees and slashed to his right across the villain's left leg. He came out of the slide and snapped his left hand out, grabbing the wrist of the stabbing hand of a villain jabbing a thin sword at him. He yanked across the front of his body while leaning back and away from another sword slashing in front of his face. Death pulled the thin sword by him while dodging another attack, and he jammed the end of the blade that passed in front of his body into the head of another villain ducking around the side of the larger furry villain who he thought had blocked Death's sight of him for long enough he could attempt to catch him off guard. That villain's eyes never had the time to look shocked before the blade of his comrade stabbed out the back of his head.

Before finishing any of that fight, Death jumped and kicked in front of him and flipped backwards. He flicked a couple knives at a rooftop of villains quick on the draw, making them pull away though the knives were off-angled and the villains only dodged as they were expecting Death to come close to hitting them. He prevented them from shooting at him before he landed though, allowing him to dart at the woman who ran off when Death was coming down her way to give other villains a shot. He ran right past her though as some who did not shoot before fired now seeing that Death only did his last move to slow them, and those who pulled the trigger watched as the woman Death ran by got lit up and slammed into the wall next to her that her blood splattered all over.

"I'm telling you!" Death yelled out as he rushed forward to meet a huge four-armed man head-on. He was not pulling away, and he hit that man with his left fist that made the more muscular guy wince. The eight foot tall man with light gray skin and four muscular arms pulled his right side back, then he swung down with both left and right lower arms at once. Death stepped back though and swung his right arm around his body while turning it to the side, jamming a knife just below the sternum of another villain rushing at his left side and behind him. That villain's hands left his own knives and snapped to Zach's wrist as soon as Zach's knife hit him in the chest, stopping the blade from pushing in as the tip just pierced through his shirt and skin. The larger villain just in front of Death reached forward, but Death stepped to the left and the larger man's right hands just passed by Death's back.

Zach slammed his left palm into the back of his hilt, jamming the stopped knife five inches into his enemy's chest. He jumped up and kicked that villain in the throat and face, dodging a kick from the bigger man in front of him on his right now who got tired of Death's dodges and kicked across the front of his body to not be able to miss. Zach's back curved over the kick going below him though, and on the flip his eyes darted from behind his visor at eight others who were rushing at him from ground level now. They decided to stop trying everything at once and just went for a frontal assault.

He landed out of the backwards dive into a roll, pulling the sidearm off a man who brought it into the fight with him even though he had a machete in hand now. Death pulled the sidearm out of the man's holster and shot down into the man's knee, then as the man dropped down to that knee in pain, his head was now at barrel-level of the pistol that blew a hole through his skull. Death spun and unloaded around the sides of the four-armed man who winced and flinched as Death fired his way. Death fired to the left and right though, moving in a circle and using the big man's body as a barrier against others who did not want to shoot him when he had been lasting longer than anyone against Death so far.

Death fired and hit a man in the shoulder just past his bigger target. He fired again and missed. He fired two more shots and hit a villain in the lower left side then higher up between the ribs and into the lungs and heart. He aimed up to his right and shot at a roof with a few shooters lifting their guns to shoot down at him, and he fired towards them right as the big man in front of him realized that he was not being shot and got a look of sheer rage on his face. Click. Death dropped the pistol right as the huge man in front of him was charging, and he saw someone else very speedy rushing at the large guy's back in a curved sprint down the street. Down the road past his large enemy who this smart villain used as a shield too after catching on quickly to Death's strategy, the man used Death's inability to see him past that brute to pull the pin on a grenade and throw it up over the charging villain whose life he cared little about.

Death's larger enemy did not see the grenade yet but Zach saw it lifting up and paid more attention to it than anything else. On his left side the three villains on a roof were waiting for a good moment to shoot him and around him in all viable dodging directions. He saw them make the plan over the past ten seconds, and so they became his primary targets. Death leaned to his right and allowed the thrust of his faster enemy's blade to pass his left side. He reached back for the stabbing wrist with his left hand while ducking his body as the larger villain just ran forward and tried grabbing with all four arms to stop the spry vigilante from escaping him again. The man behind him was too quick for Death to grab by the jabbing arm though, and he pulled his sword away then slashed again at Death's back. Death dropped down to the ground and barrel-rolled to his left, pushed his hands down under him while his back was on the floor, and he kicked his legs in a circle around him and pushed back another villain who just rushed his way out the alley between the buildings that had three villains on top of one and one that just had a dead man's corpse on it now.

He spun around with his kicks around his body, then got partially up to one foot but kicked off that anyway so his body moved into a backflip. His other foot dragged up the floor as one leg was lifting over his own head, and then that other foot swung up off the ground and diagonally into a small round object arcing directly where Death just put himself. His right foot curled down as it touched the grenade. His foot was moving into it and yet pushed back at the same time, curling downwards to soften it and slow the momentum enough that the grenade did not explode. Then his kick sped up, and he flicked the grenade off his foot towards the edge of a roof with three villains who just chose that moment to fire.

Their gunshots missed badly, one hitting the man behind Death who was going back in for another stab but did not expect to be shot in his jaw that shattered and sprayed out blood from getting hit. He had no reason to hold a grudge though against whichever of the three was the shooter though, as they tried jumping backwards or dove for cover too slowly. The grenade hit the edge of the roof just in front of them and exploded, shrapnel and shards of wood flying up into the three of them caught in the explosion and torn apart by it. Some of that shrapnel flew down too at villains closer to the wall instead, and the man who threw the grenade looked that way in shock with his jaw dropped as his weapon just took out six of their members all at once. When he turned though, he glanced behind him and saw twelve more villains all rushing out of different alleys at the same time and his grin came back up.

Death saw them too and his teeth ground in frustration and even more rage. Some others were behind him, and a few back there had guns too. He did not know which direction the Quirk user taking his Quirk was in, nor if there were other traps waiting if he tried to flee. His hands tightened even harder on the new hilts he pulled out from his waist as the four-armed man darted to the left, then right, then straight at him. Another man rushed at Death from his left, while a villain taking charge of the attacks yelled down from a rooftop on his right, "Don't bring any guns close to him! He'll just take them and use them on you!"

"Rush him all at once!"

Death sprinted forward at his bigger enemy trying to use his own speed as a tactic who had underestimated how fast Death really could move. Zach darted to his left and made the man start turning, so when Zach was back directly in front of him he was too close that the man could not swing his arms in easily. Death slashed both knives across the front of his stomach that was closer to his own upper chest level. He cut through the villain's shirt but the man trusted his thick skin and kept swinging his arms anyway… The slashes hurt, a lot. The stunned villain did not think a Quirkless Death could cut his rough skin deep when even heroes with sharp appendages or weapons could not break it. He moved his lower arms down to grab at his stomach that filled with pain as he let out an agonized roar- "FAAUU-"

Death snapped his arms up and batted away on the inside of either of the villain's upper wrists as they were reaching in. He hit the larger man where his arms were thinnest and with such force that it pushed both those arms out to the sides. Death could see a villain running at him on his left side, sharp teeth in that villain's mouth and a taser in one hand. The man rushing at him had a nose ring and black rings on his eyelids too, not to mention the eight stud piercings in either ear. Death stabbed his left hand at the higher chest of the tall villain only half a foot in front of him, making the villain lift his lower arms that were closer to the spot to try and block it while his upper arms were still pushed apart. As he rose his arms though, he left his injured stomach unguarded.

Death flicked the knife in his right hand under the right arms of this villain, just missing the guy with the many piercings who was quick and sidestepped while pulling back his machete to swing at Death's back. Other than this machete-wielding punk on his left, Death could see other villains rushing at him from behind the brute and two more on his right side, not to mention the six coming at his back now. Death shoved his right hand into the x-marked slashes in his enemy's stomach. Crack. He snapped his right hand in then pulled it out with a hard yank, causing the man in front of him to wheeze out an agonized breath instead of screaming as he found himself unable to after his own lungs were just touched and slashed. He did not know what had slashed them or what the searing pain in his chest was, or what that cracking noise had been.

The vigilante stepped towards the many-pierced man though and his right hand swung forward faster than the guy could bring his machete in with a sudden swipe. The man's machete still hit Death in the shoulder, but the swing had just gotten so much weaker and did not break through his thick black armor. That villain's slash became so weak, because Death just stabbed the jagged edge of a broken rib into the left side of his throat. Death's black visor stared straight forward into the villain's fluttering, panicked eyes, before the eyelid rings got too heavy for the man to hold his eyes open anymore. Death jabbed a rib into the man's throat in a moment that made everyone else on the street stop. The villain behind Death was frozen in fear as he realized what Death had just stabbed his comrade with, That's my-

Death jumped into the air and spun around while ripping the broken rib from the smaller villain's throat. He had to jump to get on a better level for this, as he twisted his body 180 degrees and swung his right arm out into the thick gray neck of the four-armed brute behind him whose eyes bulged as he was stabbed in his own throat this time by his own broken rib. Death stabbed the rib in so hard after feeling how thick the man's skin was before, that the bone blade stuck out the other side of the man's neck when Death shoved it all the way through.

Death dropped down to his feet in a crouch then stood up just as fast as the bodies in front and behind him collapsed to the floor. Blood dripped off his hands and down the front of his armor. All of the front of his armor had some splashed on it, but his arms from his elbows to his fingers were drenched entirely in red. "I am telling you, I do NOT want to kill these men!" Death roared out, right before someone in front of him yelled about getting Death now, and all of them charged together.

They ran at him slower on different sides based on the amount of rational fear they felt of the red-handed Death in front of them. "The ONLY one who I will go after today with the intent to kill, is YOU!" Death let out a roar of it while sprinting at his fastest enemies rather than the slower ones, letting the ones with more fear in their hearts already sit in it even deeper for a minute as he took on what looked like the strongest and bravest of the villains fighting him. "The one who is forcing me to do this!" Death yelled out, raising his voice so loud to make sure that whoever that was could hear him. He suspected the person had to be in the same field that they were all in right now and was hiding in one of the many buildings around him that he would not risk going into and getting cornered in without his Quirk. Death's voice got deeper and more menacing as he let out a scream, "WHEN I FIND YOU, YOU WILL NOT DIE QUICKLY LIKE THE REST OF THEM!"

Death's roar inflicted too much terror in the fearful man Death had suddenly changed his attention onto and ran at. The guy lifted his arms that were split apart after his shoulder in five long strands even with his Quirk deactivated and waving around as actual appendages he could control as simply as anyone else could their own two arms. It was a mutation he had been born with that Death considered in that moment might have led to discrimination that led him into this life of crime… Death shoved a knife into that man's throat, then he kicked forward into the man's chest to knock him backwards into two others running forward just behind him. He slowed them down while flipping himself backwards, his arms crossing his body during the flip so no one could see them moving when his body was curled in.

As he came out of the flip, his arms crossed back out in front of his body and each of his hands had three knives between his fingers. He flung the six blades off at the villains in front of him. Then, since his arms kept crossing after he released the blades from his hands, his hands touched his opposite shoulders where he grabbed off two more knives from just under his armpit and emptied out the sheaths there to have four more in hand when his hands swung back in front of him again. He aimed more specifically this time with only four knives, and he had clearer targets of his enemies who had dodged or were still moving to one side or the other in ways that they could not change up as easily to dodge again. All four of those knives hit unlike only one connecting strike from the first six. And the one from that six had only grazed a man deep on the outside of his right thigh, while all of the other four knives stabbed men and women in their stomachs, chests, or the neck of one.

"I am not here to kill you," Death snarled. "But the one who forces me to kill you all here, is the ONE villain who I will go after with the sole desire to tear limb from limb! I will find you! And when I do, I am going to rip you into little pieces! I am going to tear you a new asshole, then I am going to shove my arm up it and rip your heart out- AND I WILL CRUSH YOUR SHIT-STAINED HEART IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES!" Death pulled his elbows in while turning his head to the left then spinning it right and glaring all around him through his visor. "UNLESS!" He yelled, his elbows pulling in even tighter to his sides and his body curling in preparation. "You give me back my Quirk, right now!"

"WAIT!"

"Don't do-"

Villains who were waiting for their moments moved. The ones who had been taking too much time but just considered themselves cautious more than anything dove towards him. A villain with a mutation that allowed natural camouflage that had nothing to do with their Quirk leapt up off the dirt road just three meters from Death's back left where they had been getting closer and were almost in range. Three were dropping from rooftops, and one just flapped their wings behind them and shot through a broken window from the building they were hiding in-

Eight big black spikes of Death shot out of Zach's body and pierced through the villains who charged at him in that moment. A second later all that Death pulled into him as the closest villains to Death all dropped. "RRrrggghhh- RRAaaagghhhAAA-" Death's arms pulled into his shaking chest and his body hunched forward, the snarl turning to a growl that got deeper and scratchier and full of absolute rage as his body engulfed in Death. All of those spikes that pulled back into him looked to turn Death into a pitch black figure that quickly turned into a bulging mass of Death with no clear shape. It pulsed though, and then the villains farther away all turned and screamed as they ran, but it was too late and they were too close.

A wave of Death exploded out from Death's body in every direction around him. It shot out like the blast from a bomb and hit the buildings on either side of the street. Windows shattered and walls cracked. It flooded into the alleyways and hit buildings a block down on either side of him, where he knew none of his soldiers were because Gentle was watching from the sky and he had ordered them not to come assist him. Gentle stared down into a city where Death was able to use his Quirk again, and the area between three blocks wide and three long was all hit by a blast of Death that went into every single building there. And then as quickly as it all exploded out from him, the leader of the terrorist army pulled all that Death he did not want to waste back into his body, ensuring too much did not get wasted or absorbed into any single enemy falling unconscious around this chunk of the city.

Lemillion's bottom lip lowered and he finally darted his gaze towards Zach Sazaki sitting at the defendant's table. He told me, that if I had tried teleporting away he could cover everything for over thirty meters in Death. Was that his maximum? Was that just a safe range- Was he just toying with us that whole fight?!

He couldn't even use his Quirk… Mineta's heart pounded but the thought just made him think again of those red marks on Zach's neck. Those red marks he had recognized again on the necks of some of those who the Army of Death had taken the collars off of in front of the Gentle Criminal. And those same red marks he had seen on the neck of the soldier who died freeing them, one who Mineta knew had to be one of those gladiators that Darling had told them Zach had inspired to join him. He promised he wouldn't let it happen again. Not after what those gladiators had to go through. Fighting without their Quirks, to the death- Zach never wanted to use his Quirk. He was always the best without it, but… but they were heavily armed too! Some of them looked really strong!

"Warrior." Bakugo stared at the figure on the footage who stood alone on that street now. Dozens of bodies littered the road and there was no easy way to tell which were alive and which were dead, though there was a lot of blood around and few that gave away some hints. Only one word bounced around in Bakugo's head. He heard what Zach had called himself in the joint training dome. What he had been when he was gone. The fact that he knew now that Zach was not lying then, was overshadowed by the surging sense of awe Bakugo felt as he finally put a definition of his own to that word: Warrior. It was exactly what he was looking at in this video.

Everyone in the courtroom was silent as the Gentle Criminal dropped down to the street and bounced off once before stopping next to Death. Zach Sazaki himself in the present lowered his head for a moment and could see Hanuri's seat inching away from his in his peripheral vision. How did I forget? He looked back up and just looked on as if he had not seen this before, an interested look but also one taking it less seriously than others around him. Inside though, his heart was clenching up as he remembered it. Why did Gentle have to be there to see that? I really, remember that. Wampajawa. The City of Villains. Not Razmatan but, but the real- Zach held himself back. He forced the thoughts he was having into the back seat of his mind, needing to keep a steady look on his face as he watched as an actor. I need to hold on! Not now! I can't though- WAIT! You have to still convince them.

How could I have been so wrong? Hanuri tried to keep her eyes forward even while pulling herself away from Death in the least noticeable way she could manage… She stopped as she was focusing on the screen even as she thought in the present about needing to get away from the boy at her side.

Death had jogged over to the body of a dark soldier on the ground on this street and put his right hand on him. He held it there tighter for a second then eased his palm off the body with the darkness on it fading. Death grabbed a marker from a pouch on his chest and slashed an x across the visor in some sort of invisible ink that the people watching could not see but showed up on the visors over Death and Gentle's faces. He stood back up next to that soldier, panting lightly, and his helmet turned slightly so he was looking to his right. The dark soldier stared over at a villain just a few years older than him who lay face-up on the street coated in blood from the deep slice in his neck. "Death," Gentle started.

"I warned them," Death whispered as he looked from that body back to his comrade.

Gentle looked back at the visor in front of his own of a boy standing his height. Death stood around five foot ten and on even level with his comrade who replied in a low but intense tone, "I know." The low tone told Death that Gentle really did understand and was being serious about it to tell Death that it was alright. The intensity came more from pushing Death to stop thinking about it now because they had more important measures at hand. Death nodded back in response at the short reply that warranted no other conversation on the matter of what just happened. Death turned his head instead and looked around him in different directions of the city, "Rebel! Where am I needed?!"

"There are three teams in serious need of-"

"Wait Death! The Infirmary is under too much pressure-" Cherasaw tried cutting in to stop Rebel when the people he was talking to also needed Death right now.

"Death! We see Capo designate 4, Countess-"

"On my way!" Death was already in the air as he said it, Gentle chasing after him but barely keeping up with Death who moved so fast to get to this destination. He shouted while rushing that way as fast as possible, "Destroying their command structure is the only way to end this battle quickly! Once the five Capos are defeated there will be nothing keeping the villains fighting…"

In the back of the courtroom where several cameramen were trying to catch the best footage they had ever taken, the WWNN reporter held her hand up to her ear with her eyes opening even wider than they were just from watching this video. "What do you mean we're off the air? What are you doing-"

Her producer snapped back in a similarly angry voice, "The network intervened. They're afraid of lawsuits against the channel because of the graphic violence and how many kids are suspected to be watching…"

Much closer to the front of the courtroom and with a better view of the recording showing in front of him, Sero Hanta reached down to his pocket and pulled out his phone at the feeling of it buzzing. He turned it over and stared at the texts of his ex-girlfriend from earlier in that same term. Azure: 'What's happening?!' 'Every station cut off their cameras!' Sero lowered his phone slowly down in both hands as he was preparing to text back that nothing was wrong. What are they doing back there? People need to see this… Zach doesn't want them to, Sero looked to the back of his friend's head and part of the side of his face that was staying steady with a look on it as if this was the first time he was watching it himself. Does he? Does that matter?

Sero's expression darkened and he looked away from Zach and to the screen where Army of Death soldiers cheered due to their commander instantly taking down the Countess who his men had had distracted in the moment before he flew in and slammed her into the floor. He was yelling about taking down the other four and continuing their other objectives in order to take the city, but the Countess had other very powerful villains around her who apparently expected Death to come after the Capo in the open. The men who had been with Countess were scared and backing up, but Ling Tzi came out of nowhere and put his left and right palms together while still in midair twenty feet behind Death who just spun to him in mid-speech. Triakuza and other forces allied with them attacked and Gentle got slammed backwards barely getting his barrier up in time to only launch him away but without much damage.

What matters here? Sero wondered. If people see all of this, then the truth is out. The truth that has been kept from them for so long. Something I, as a hero, should show them. Even if Zach doesn't want it. But it's more than that! Sero opened his phone and darted a look down to it before lifting it up just to his shoulder level. He aimed it over the wooden bench in front of him while Yaoyorozu and Kirishima looked his way, and the others in the row behind him looked to their classmate in confusion but without questioning after seeing the look on Sero's face. You said you trust the Gentle Criminal. You say the guy behind this camera is the person you chose to be Death, which means you think he'd do things the same way you did out there. Not what you want as Zach, but what Death would have wanted. And Zach's my friend. Zach is my best friend.

But Death ended the Age of Villains. Sero clicked on the record button, and he started streaming on Quirkbook. He did so as Death shot back and took out two villains attacking Gentle together, which gave him and Gentle the ability to rush back as a pair and assault the Triakuza who were missing Ling Tzi now after the sudden attack. Some of the AoD had been killed in the meantime, but others rushed in for reinforcements too, which brought more villains with them into a chaotic area of the city that Death started yelling at everyone to move away from.

"Why not bring them back here-"

"The area will be targeted! Get their bodies to the Respawn Point!"

"Don't question your Commander's orders!"

"Gamma Squad on me!"

"Kappa's back to Sect- shit! They're behind us. We're cut off-"

"Flight Squad give support to Kappa. Support, send in the Argentinians and South African reinforcements!" Death ordered while running off with Gentle away from the body he left back behind him, which on the recording just looked like another unconscious villain. The Capo was dead back there though and collapsed in a different kind of heap on the floor, amongst the rest of the villains laying around there.

As the entire street behind Death and Gentle started exploding, Sero glanced back at his phone for a second. He was stunned but only a little by the thousands of people who had shared his video already. Hundreds of thousands were watching, and as he darted his eyes to the screen then back, he watched the live recording go up over a million. Everyone must have been looking for it, Sero thought. All the people around the world who were watching the live broadcasts went searching for what was going on. They searched for somewhere else to watch it, and his video was trending within a minute of him sharing it. He gulped at the idea of how many were going to be watching this in a few minutes, but he brought his other hand up to the free side of his phone and made sure to hold it steady as the battle raged on.

"Taking down the rest of the Capos will lead to all their resistance crumbling! The whole reason the Capos won't fight us ourselves yet is because they want to send waves of disposable minions at us first! Watch them all die!" Death yelled it while running at a group of six enemies who seemed to have a plan for fighting him. "Announce any Capos immediately," Death ordered, "and I'll come to your location without fail."

Death's black aura had thinned out around his body. He had felt the surge of power from killing the Capo back there, but the surge did not even fill him up enough to recover what he had lost with the wave he blasted out at the end of the Quirk Deactivator's attack. As much as he had been able to suck back into himself, he had been careful about making any of it too thick on the wave so he did not wind up killing everyone on all sides of him. He made it just enough that it could knock out his enemies. Since it was that thin though, a lot of it had wisped away into the wind or too small for him to pull back at the end of the attack he still hoped had stretched far enough that it hit the villain he needed out of the way for sure. He based his attack off of the distance Gentle had been above him though, and he was banking on the fact that one of their potentially most dangerous enemies was out of the way.

"Death! The ground is opening up at Gamma-"

"We don't know who's trying to get out from underground!"

"Alpha do you see-"

"It's not near us!"

"Gentle, let's go," Death turned sharply to the right as Rebel sent him the exact position of his comrades calling for support against the unknown force about to pop up near them.

Paveway ran forward past Cluster and Shang who were fighting sword to sword against three other enemies. The two of them parried off attacks, then Shang turned his blade inwards and blocked the third man's which allowed Cluster to run past the enemy pushing too much force in the swing that he did not expect to be stopped by the shorter and smaller man. Xia was ten feet behind him though with a rifle in hand she fired down the road and hit another villain in the back with a dart that took him off his feet. Shang and Cluster took on the other two closer to them, while Jughead and three others on the sides of the road trained their weapons and Quirks on the long ramp that just descended into darkness.

Smoke came out of the rectangular hole in the street, and for a moment it looked as if Alpha Squad had already passed through that area. Gunshots came out from underground first though. It was dark down there but light on the surface, giving the villains underground better shots on Jughead and the man next to him than those two had on the people below ground. Jughead's tall cylindrical helmet was opened up at the bottom of it in front of his mouth. He was hit in his right shoulder while the rifle in his comrade's hand was blown apart and shards through his hands that would have caused Gregor to scream out if he was not also hit in the throat right there. Out from the hole in Jughead's helmet sprayed tens of gallons of water though in a strong jet flying into the hole in the ground, Jughead pushing forward and groaning through the shot in the shoulder that was deep but went through and through.

"Do it Paveway!" Xia yelled towards her comrade who slammed his hands down too between his feet that were already causing the ground around him to ripple and move. The floor on the front of the hole at the top of the ramp shot out past the toes of his feet. The ground paved over from side to side of the hole too, and it rippled and waved over itself blocking more shots from inside that could not be seen on the surface do to the thickness of Paveway's Quirk. His Quirk locked back up the ground and stopped the shooting from the surface back into the hole too…

SHHHHhhh- Crash! The ground in front of Paveway froze in a smaller section than he had just frozen over. After the quick freeze though, a six foot tall woman with long black hair broke up through the ice with glowing purple rings around her wrists and knuckles. She turned inside of the iced-over rubble and pointed her hands down towards Paveway, punching her left then her right just past him to stop the Squad's leaders who were rushing forward to stop her. A purple ring flew into the left side of Paveway's chest as he tried pulling to the right too slowly. He spun off and fell to the floor then bounced ten feet backwards and flipped into a wall, which told Xia and Shang to jump backwards together fast enough and grab Cluster on the way, pulling him back too before the second ring hit the ground just in front of where they would have been if they had kept running.

Paveway landed motionless and Jughead winced but lifted up his sidearm as he wanted to save more of the water in his head and this powerful woman looked distracted. He snapped the gun back to aim behind her though as did his comrades on the other side of the road, but he was too late as the others who climbed out from underground had other Quirks they fired in the injured soldier's direction-

Death landed down right on top of the hole and sent four of the villains falling back into it. Three others collapsed just outside, while one man ran farther towards his ring-using comrade who spun her head around to see who just attacked behind her. "DEATH-" she spun with her arms raising and purple light glowing much brighter on rings that formed from her shoulders down to her wrists. Her comrade who ran towards her pulled a syringe out of his pocket and pulled the protective plastic off the needle with his teeth…

Shang swung his right arm forward and threw Xia who had grabbed him by the fingertips. She slammed the soles of her feet into her enemy's spine and sent the woman with glowing arms right into her comrade, using such an angle that it hit the woman's right arm into her comrade's chest before he could inject himself with whatever was inside that vial. The force of the two villains colliding blew the man apart and sent the woman spiraling out to the side of the road and halfway through a wall where she ended, slumped through with blood dripping down around her body. The body of the man Xia kicked her into had ripped mostly apart from the condensed rings, but his head dropped onto the ground and rolled away from where Xia landed and stumbled near with her eyes locked down on it. She had expected the female's villain's arm to have a lot of power in it due to all those rings being so close together, but the shock of that man tearing into pieces kept her still for a second.

"Focus!" Shang yelled at his sister who he ran up to and then past to get towards the unmoving bodies of Jughead and Gregor. "Get Paveway!" He yelled back at Xia, though Cluster was already running that way.

Cluster turned his head left and looked down the road more towards where he had seen Jughead hit by three different villains' Quirks all at the same time. "Death," Cluster started in a worried voice, but his commander had heard another call for help and shot away from this area before helping them any further or reviving any of the deceased either.

Gentle landed and he bounced right off that spot to keep up with Death who did not even go over the roofs this time as the next group calling for help was only two blocks away. Death flew down an alleyway and out into a fight between two soldiers of Death and twenty villains only one block down. He spun in the air and kicked towards the farther back enemies, taking out a dozen of them with a huge unexpected slash of Death from his right leg. His huge attack also caused the villains closer to his comrades to turn as they were worried about being hit by the all-powerful darkness. Them turning like that gave Death's comrades the opportunity to pull out their weapons again and fire into unsuspecting enemies' backs with darts that dropped half of those remaining to the floor, yet still four more of the more powerful ones for them to take care of on their own as Death had flown onto the next road now. One of those three did get hit with a fast-flying knee though as he ran straight into Gentle's path as Gentle chased his leader.

Death smashed straight through the walls of the next building down as there was no easy alley access to the fight he was actually called to. The two on the road behind him dropped their tranquilizer guns and rushed at their three enemies who they had never planned on calling for backup against, even when there were twenty of them. Death was at a group who did need assistance though, as there were enemies firing on them from both sides of the street where the ambush was placed, and Guardian could not protect from all the gunfire and their enemies' Quirks at the same time.

"Over there! Now behind!" Replay shouted, spinning and pointing towards an alley right before two villains popped out and fired their Quirks towards the huddled-up Charlie Squad members. Replay saw something else that made her grin big though she did not shout it out this time. She wanted the villains to be as scared as she just saw them, and they were when Death blasted a wall of a building apart a moment after the gunfire stopped coming from the windows over there.

"Death!"

"Commander!"

Gentle dropped down behind Guardian where one of the enemies had just gotten into his blindspot where his shield was not stretched to due to the number of bubbles he had to protect comrades with on this road. Guardian spun his head and looked behind him to his comrade who just nodded back then slammed his fist down at the enemy trying to push back up into the Elastic barrier that hit him in the ground. Gentle Elasticized the ground below that man while punching him harder into it, then he pulled his fist off and Elasticized the air right before the villain could bounce back up into it. "Infinite Vibrate," Gentle said, as there was not even enough room for the villain to Rebound up and down into the stretchy barriers. It gave the man whiplash and vertigo though as he bounced up and down hundreds of times between those invisible barriers, but no one saw the outcome of that move as Gentle was already far past him and fighting others when the barriers dropped and left the villain unmoving in the middle of Charlie Squad.

Down the road past Gentle as he kept fighting, a giant spider with black armor on different parts of its body sprinted down an intersection and out of sight in the next moment. Some people questioned if they really just saw the terrifying creature that just ran past, only for the Giant Huntswoman Spider to get flipped backwards and roll over on its eight long legs back in that intersection. Arachna got back up and Gentle spun that way for a second to see if she could handle it, but he hesitated at the sight of an even larger spider that ran down that road from the direction Arachna was just tossed back. This spider had thicker legs that were covered in black fuzz like the rest of its thicker body; a very hairy tarantula. Underneath the thorax of the villain though, unlike Arachna, his human body was dangling from the neck down with even his arms dangling there as the rest of his spider body rushed forward. His human body's right arm swung up, and the two giant hairy front right legs of the tarantula lifted and uppercut under Arachna's jaw, cracking her right pincer and making blood splash up into the air.

Gentle took a step, then a black spear flew by the side of his head and down the road into the side of the Tarantula's lower human body. The larger spider stomped forward its two front legs that it just punched up. Arachna had staggered back and was leaning against the corner of a building, and her eight eyes behind a black mask all opened wide as the terrifying figure in front of her slowly turned its more spider-like head to the left and glared down the road towards Death who himself stopped in place for a second on Gentle's side. He was in the middle of saying, "You can't hesitate-" but he stopped, staring down towards the giant spider that his Death did not instantly knock-out even though there was a great amount on that spear.

Because of its larger body, it took a little longer, Zach thought in the present, though he felt embarrassed by the way Death stopped speaking right there as the huge tarantula looked straight towards him and Gentle. It turned towards him more, took a wobbly step, then a stronger one- Arachna slammed into its side and decked it across the street into the side of a building that it cracked and slumped through.

Hagakure held her arms crossed across the front of her chest with her body shivering. Giant spider battles? Really?! She clenched her eyes shut for a moment, then she snapped them open as an explosion blasted out of the speakers and made Death instantly lift off the ground and fly towards it. Bright lights shone in other buildings on the sides of the road back where he was, and Gentle yelled out behind him while dong a spin in the air, "Get your Sectors under control, Exodus!"

Gentle was already gone before he could wait for any reply. He tried to keep up with Death, but the city was massive, and Death had every single area to protect and help his comrades push forward in. Unlike the rest of the soldiers who had mostly empty comms as Rebel and the Command center worked tirelessly on isolating audio, Death had the majority of his comrades' comms in his head at all times. Even the separate Squads' audios were sent to his headset if Rebel thought Death might consider joining their field of the battle due to what was being discussed. Death had no single sector or quadrant to push through. His objectives were many, and his movement came faster and faster as he rushed from one area to the next to the next… until he ran into a wall.

He was flying on the way to enemies he had to help Epsilon against. He knew the kind of woman Rivona was too, so the fact that she was calling for his assistance meant that the gladiators under her were not faring well against the enemies they were up against. Zach had to duck down though under the long whip of pink that came flying through the air at him. It was stretching on its way towards him, and when he ducked below he tried stopping short but was moving at too high of speeds to prevent himself from smashing straight into a wooden wall that lifted in front of him. The wall had a door on it still inside its frame, cracked windows but not-yet shattered, and Death plowed into it without being ready to smash through a wall, which meant he just hit it very hard and did not actually break through.

The wall that just swung into Death was pulled down after hitting him, the top of the wall angling back to the floor and then all of that wall swinging out of the air with Death under it. The Quirk-user who stuck pink substance to the wall smashed Death into the ground, and Gentle bounced over top of that wall squishing his commander into the floor. He rushed at the woman down the block who he got a good look at. She stood five foot eleven, just taller than Death or Gentle. In either of her hands was a long pink whip of some strange material that stretched and lay out on the floor in front of her though kept waving all the way down Gentle's sides as he realized just how long and how much control this person had over them.

In their helmets they heard more shouts from Epsilon who they were held off from. "…It's Uranus! Death there are assassins following the Mad Knight- Ted! Ansario!"

Death smashed up through the wall that had just slammed him into the ground. He flew forward, but he snapped wings down below his body to raise up higher in the air as the two pink whips connected together down below him on a swing upwards. Gentle swung his right hand behind him and bounced himself forward, but out from the face and body of the woman he flew at came a wall of pink goo that connected in a circle that he stopped himself from kicking into. He kicked a wall of invisible stretchy air instead that pushed him down at the floor behind himself. He placed his right hand down behind his back and made a diagonal barrier to bounce him around the left side of that circular wall of Gum-like substance, only to have to cross his arms as a pink fist as big as his chest flew at the exact position he bounced to which he did not see coming because the wall of pink had blocked his enemy from sight.

"Who is this villain?" Death snapped, asking his support teams who could see through his visor and had facial recognition tech to use on her.

"We don't have her on record!"

"Not picking up anything here either!"

"Remember my name when you're dead, Death! Gummy!" Her legs turned into pink stretchy substance that squished down at her knees and made her whole body crouched very low to the ground. The pink only appeared that stretchy for a second though before transforming back to a different kind of consistency that made it so all those folds were pressing against each other like tightly-coiled springs. Death was dodging the huge whip of pink goo that only her left arm was swinging up now, and apparently the strange movements of it were not controlled directly by her mind as his swing of Death into it had not knocked out the woman. He got ready for her to bounce up towards him, when Gummy appeared directly in front of his face with speeds he nor Gentle could beat.

Gentle's helmet snapped up and the sight cut his already heavy breathing from that punch his crossed arms barely protected him from at all a few seconds ago. Gummy was in front of Death who had knives in his hands he was swinging down at empty space below her feet, though his wings pulled in front of his sides at that second to hit her- only for Gummy to pull herself out of the way closer to Gentle with a seemingly impossible movement in midair. Gentle could see in his visor that the right hand punch that had hit him looked more like a sticky hand toy now as it was stuck to the ground in front of the wall he was leaning against. The long stretchy arm connecting that handprint to the woman in the air pulled her slightly out of the way, allowing Death's black wings to push in front of him into empty space, and leaving Death's back unprotected from the massively thick whip of Gum that she had disconnected from her left hand so it just hit Death and sent him flying through the air where she had just been and leaving his wings behind as they broke off his back.

Holy shit, Sato stared towards the woman who Gentle spun away from for a second only to have to look back at as she dropped back his way with a chorus of laughter at their failures to stop her. Some villain they don't even know and, and she's so strong. The whole city is full of people like this and worse. And every time they're stopped for even a few seconds! Sato could hear the calls for help in Gentle's helmet of the other teams that were getting attacked by more organized villains who were no longer caught off guard by the sudden assault on their city. What had looked like an amazing assault on a city with a spy on the inside who took down most of the city's defenses before their arrival, was turning into an all-out battle of attrition.

It said there are 7,000 villains in the city? Asui thought as she watched this single villain take on what she believed to be the two strongest in the Army of Death after what she had seen Zach and Gentle do from the start of this video. As many comrades as he had with him, Asui thought, as she had imagined the force of the Army of Death dropping out of the sky was larger than she ever imagined his terrorist organization had gotten. They can't win a battle like this! That's why Zach had them moving so fast from the start. He may have taken out a few hundred people already by himself, but not everyone with him is doing that much. And Redfox showed up adding who knows how many… They can't win this.

Gentle recognized the Quirk of the woman who dropped down in front of him. He bounced to the right then right again, and again, circling her in four distinct points where he left longer-lasting barriers to keep in play for the fight. He recognized it just as some others remembered Gentle seeing it earlier, when a long whip of pink something flew up and took down Vince's jet. Death flew back over Gentle's shoulders as Gentle was bouncing on to the next barrier. Gummy did not turn after Gentle this time but instead jumped at Death himself and closed the distance that Death thought she would try to keep away from him. Gentle did not wait until he hit his next barrier, creating a new one so he halved the time it took before he bounced towards the woman-

Gummy snapped both hands behind her and fired much thinner lines of Gum out of her fingers. She used the taut thin lines to slingshot herself backwards right as Death increased his speed to make her regret choosing to get closer to him in some sort of strategy. Death's body surrounded in more Death in that moment too, putting him and Gentle on a direct collision-line which Gentle tried to correct but also protected himself from at the same time. He covered himself in Elasta-Armor, while Death dropped the Death around him. Gummy unsnapped the thin pink wires off her fingers to swing her arms back forwards while she had backwards momentum, and she swung in ten thin lines of pink that she wrapped up Death and Gentle with in the same moment.

"Exodus!" Death yelled out as he and Gentle barely avoided smashing into each other but were wrapped up then slammed back into one another a second later preventing him from using Death easily.

Gummy swung her arms and sent Death and Gentle through five walls, sending them streets away before whipping down off the ground and up into the air again on the bounce. She leapt over the buildings she just smashed them through, chasing after them and swinging a huge steel girder on a pink rope over her back that she whipped down at the two only to yank them back in the air before it was going to hit. Her movements were erratic and caught them off-guard again, and she flew towards the two using a slingshot of her Quirk from her legs while pulling towards herself with her arms that the two were still connected too.

"LIGHT UPPERCUT!"

Gummy barely had her head turned sideways. A flash of white came out of the air behind her, a fist of glowing white coming out of the blur and slamming into her upper left side. Others who thought they were watching the strongest members of the Army of Death dropped their jaws at the sight of this figure who had appeared at the call of his name in seconds. He sent the villain they were fighting straight towards Death, who once closer to her was able to spear out a thick line of Death straight from his own forehead and into the passing woman who was still trying to hold onto her bearings and spin herself in midair despite that powerful blow that sent her flying towards him.

Death and Gentle dropped towards the ground and were too wrapped up to land easily, but Exodus caught them in his arms then ripped to either side to separate them. The two removed the Gum on them and looked at the larger and taller man who dropped to his right knee in front of Death. "Your orders, Commander?"

"You just completed them," Death replied to the man between panting breaths. "Now get back to…" Death lifted his head as the city shadowed over earlier than it was supposed to.

Exodus stood up and Gentle looked up into the sky too. White clouds and black smoke parted high up in the air.

"Oh my God…" Voices whispered in their heads.

"What are we supposed to do about that-"

"Everyone take out the villains staring into the sky!" Death yelled out. Then he spun to the left and the right, "Gentle! Exodus! With me!" Death's black wings snapped out of his back and flapped down into the ground. Exodus jumped up in the air and white light shot out of the soles of his feet while his arms pressed down to his sides and his body surrounded in an aura of white.

Gentle shook his head but jumped up then slammed both hands below him, and below him again. He swung his right down then his left, then right again, over and over as he chased a faster Death and Exodus up into the sky. A blur of darkness and a blur of white spiraled around each other, while the Army of Death took advantage of their enemies' distractions as Death ordered them to. They could hear the successful yells of their comrades on their comms as more villains were concerned with the falling meteorite than the dark soldiers in front of them.

"EXCALIBUR!"

"DEATH BLADE!"

Gentle slowed himself down, and he grit his teeth but shook his head back and forth. He reached down into his pocket and glanced down for a second while pulling out the needle he pressed into the inside of his left elbow in a tiny hole in his armor. "Pulling Trig!" Gentle called out, before grinding his teeth and groaning out into his helmet. "RRrggghh- NNn!" Gentle's voice came out pained in his groan, but he bounced himself up higher using just his feet then held his hands above him.

"Aim towards that mountain!" Death yelled, and Gentle turned the angle of his hands to make sure he did not just send all the debris straight up so it would come down again. He angled the "SKY TRAMPOLINE" he shouted out towards the mountain, slamming his hands up into it more and more until they could even see the translucent Elasticity in the air stretching hundreds of feet in all directions from the epicenter over his hands.

Death and Exodus flew straight up past Gentle's barrier that he created down below them but high above the city. The two of them slashed into the meteorite, but they did not slash all the way through it, making the two fly into the massive ball of rock falling out of the sky and keep slashing away until they broke through the other side of it. Exodus punched in different directions on the inside, slashing his sword in one hand and creating explosions with the other. Death turned his left hand and fired blue lights around making other explosions deep inside the rock, and Gentle watched from below while making the Sky Trampoline wider and wider, until the explosions finally broke the falling meteor into a hundred pieces.

Those pieces broke apart and hit down on the trampoline still moving fast, pressing down into it and bending the sky wall down towards Gentle who was the only thing between thousands of tons of rock and the city below. All those chunks of falling rock bounced back into the air and into an angle moving them farther from the city, however the bounce did not lift them high enough to get out of the city when they started to fall again which the three men up in the sky could tell based on how high they bounced back up. Gentle was panting heavily though and his arms straining to hold right above him to bounce back other pieces still falling in the first wave by the time other rocks were falling below him.

"Everyone out of the western sectors!"

"Evacuate from the Mountain Quadrant!"

"Rebel! Use the sirens!"

Death flew into the mass of falling rocks and looked down at the city below. They were falling mostly out of the city, but even just some of these pieces falling inside the border were going to annihilate the sectors they landed in. "Exterior Squad evacuate the landing site. Move back in as soon as the final rocks fall! Get ready!" Death swung his hands to the right and left, sending Death away from his body and around the falling rocks that shrouded in darkness as if engulfed in black flames.

Gentle was dropping down to the city below, but he stared off to the west and let out a whistle in an impressed tone at the sight. Hundreds of tons of rocks falling out of the sky had auras of darkness surrounding them. "Death Meteor Shower," Death growled, while igniting even more tons of rocks before reaching up his right arm that stretched fifty feet and opened up at the end in a massive claw. He turned towards Tower 1 which he had heard over the comms his troops had evacuated from to allow this. "Steer Clear of Tower 1," Death ordered anyway, just in case anyone had gone back or was fighting in the vicinity. His huge claw crushed more into the boulders it had grabbed in the sky, then he swung his arm and sent a literal meteor shower at the black tower.

The swing of his arm sent those smaller black rocks flying far faster than any others. Death had intercepted an attack that could have wiped out all his forces and the entire city, and he turned it into a weapon as he shredded through one of the city's massive towers and made the remains of it start falling. The tower collapsed while sirens around the city were hacked into by Rebel who turned on spooky tornado sirens from the internet at almost the maximum volume he could get them to. "OooooOOOOAAAHHhaaaaaeeee… OOoooooOOOOAAAHHhaaaeeeee…"

Dust rose up in clouds from the fallen building, billowing down the streets around it and forcing the dark soldiers inside those clouds to switch to thermal vision in their helmets. They used technology that their enemies were mostly unequipped with, and the soldiers of Death who had just gone back on the offensive due to the distraction in the sky kept up the momentum in half the city engulfed in clouds of ash and dust. Gentle himself dropped into an area getting filled with dust, and his camera switched onto thermal vision in post-production showing him the red bodies of enemies who were staggering around and coughing in the ash. More of them had come out of buildings once they realized what was going on and got organized, but the sudden clouds of ash hitting them and falling meteorites had them all disoriented.

"Return to your Squads. Organize while they are disorganized. Push them hard and don't let them regroup again! Everyone-"

"The ground is opening up all over Sector 7-"

"It's happening here too-"

"There are robots coming out…"

"They're equipped with rockets-"

"We didn't hear anything about these kind of defenses-"

"WHITEOUT NOW!"

Death wasted no time. And to his shout came a response: "E.M.P!"

The flash of white cut everything to black. And then the video was back up. Whatever robots were rising or underground defenses the villains activated to make sure Death could not change the momentum of the fight starting to turn against him, Death countered them instantly and continue the fight off-camera.

Gentle had his recording back on and the city no longer had the kind of dust and ash in it that it did right after Tower 1 fell. More smoke was in the air now though, and the sky itself was still illuminated but had a tint of red in it now from the extensive flames. On Gentle's right side and up in the air passed by a dark soldier of Death who pointed both hands down to his right, firing jets of flames along the roofs of two buildings. Jetflame pushed his hands down the other way, continuing to fire flames across the street and blocking a group of villains from rushing towards Gentle. He separated them from their comrades Gentle was already fighting to give his own ally a few more seconds of only fighting four at a time instead of thirteen. Jetflame then ignited the other side of the street and made the city even hotter, making more of those other nine villains hesitate and look around in doubt and fear at the amount of fire surrounding them that they wanted to get away from.

"…What do you mean, Replay? On Trigger you can see hours-"

"I can only see thirty minutes ahead," Replay responded to her Commander, their conversation scratching into focus in Gentle's helmet even though he was nowhere near his leader.

Gentle jumped backwards and reached a hand up that he tapped a few times on his helmet. "Comms are back up." He gave the report then bounced right back forwards with bouncy feet he pressed into the face of a cocky enemy who thought to charge after the Death soldier when the man was backing up, but that was just bait for the stupid villain who Gentle sent flying right into another Gently Rebound he had created twenty seconds ago. That man bounced into the barrier and then flew back into another of his comrades who tried rushing when Gentle fought his friend. Gentle took both of them down which gave him only two to worry about in the next few seconds, allowing him to more easily take them down before the rest of their group could arrive and assist. That meant the other nine who were already nervous were no longer reinforcing, but instead they were attacking a lone Army of Death soldier surrounded by injured and unmoving villains.

He did not stop like they did, instead using their hesitation to his advantage and attacking the men with the numerical advantage which instilled even more fear in them. While he fought the group of villains on a street surrounded on both sides by flames, Replay and Death continued speaking to each other in a conversation Gentle stayed out of but was listening to closely. "Where is the way forward? Replay! Search for it and-"

"Death! I- I can't see that far. I can always see that far if I need to. Death, I can't see the end of the battle."

"What does that mean?" Death ordered her to tell him, as she was being too hesitant and sounded too scared that she was wasting time he did not have.

"I- I think, I'm going to die again," Replay gasped out at him, trying to say it fast as she knew they were time-crunched. The statement came to no response from Death for a couple of seconds.

"Replay," Death's voice came through intensely, and the man stood in front of the woman he was talking to who Gentle just caught up with after hearing her too. His helmet was right in front of hers that he looked down at as the woman in front of him was shorter. "That is not going to happen."

"But-"

"I promise you, I am not going to let you die. I forbid you from dying." Death commanded to the woman whose head had already pulled back in shock at his promise. "Now climb on my back. Tell me which direction they're coming from. We'll fight together, and we'll change the outcome to whatever future you can't see yet. We will find the hole to thread the needle." Death turned his back to her and hunched forward, his legs bending and his feet digging into the floor as he surrounded in Death. "Come. Use the Trigger to give me precision I don't have on my own."

"U-Understood, Commander!" Replay's voice regained confidence, and she put her hands up on Death's shoulders and wrapped her legs around his stomach to hold on better. It was a strange strategy, but it was one that Death ordered and there was literally no time to argue against it.

"Gentle!" Death yelled to his left. "Kappa needs an assist! Replay has my back!"

"You've got it," Gentle replied, swinging his arms forward and down. He bounced himself up in the air over flaming buildings and spun around, kicking off the air behind him to launch himself into the distance.

In his helmet he heard the calls from Kappa Leader as well and Access' response to them that Gentle was on the way to assist. He also heard Death and Replay though, "On your right- Left!"

"Down that alley there are four who would ambush us- In the sky in three seconds!"

"Under the road up there are explosives!"

"Raylei! Fire a K-3 missile on my mark!"

"Firing!"

"Lambda is taking heavy fire evacuating Epsilon's corpses to the Respawn. Rivona's back on her feet and opening her wounds-"

"Get her to the Infirmary already!"

"We're trying Hank! She doesn't want to stop- Damn it. Heavy! Get her body!"

"That idiot!"

"Beta is on the way to assist!"

"Approach from the south! The villains control the flanks and are pushing us back through all five Sectors of the eastern quad-"

"Command Post is breaking down!"

"We need to pull back-"

"Changing Infirmary to position Mu- Miraculu! Finish up!"

"I'm… trying! AHHh, it's not working!"

"Curalia! Take her position…"

"Death! Behind us," Replay shouted.

Gentle landed behind Kappa's enemies and took them on, while two others on Flight Squad flew by his sides and dropped down to take out other enemies he pointed them at while up in the air himself. He used the same hand signals they used while under Blackout Protocols, so he silently ordered the two into battles with enemies who did not see them coming. The comrade on his right who had a sword in her hand slashed it into an enemy before flipping and slamming a knee into another's face to plow him into the ground. As she was pushing him into the floor though, Gentle's head snapped that direction as a black hole opened up in the ground and sucked up his comrade and her enemy before vanishing.

"Oh fuck- Was that Wormhole?!" Gentle's other flying comrade yelled, before jumping backwards and flapping her dragonfly-like wings to get away from her attacking enemies, some of which Gentle suddenly focused on and realized were members of the Villericans.

"Didn't we take them down already?!"

"They're getting up even after the tranquilizers-"

"Death used his Quirk on Wormhole though?! What's happening?"

"If they can get back up- if one of the villains can get the unconscious ones back on their feet!"

"We will locate and take down the villain doing that," Gentle relayed in a more calming and steady tone than his comrades were using. "Everyone be on the lookout for it- whoa-"

"Time for Round 2! DEATH!"

Gentle recognized the voice that made him spin his head and jump off the ground away from Kappa again. Gummy's voice filled his headset and made him bite down hard, harder still as Exodus relayed, "Retaking Tower 3 is more difficult than expected, but if that villain-"

"Remain on task, Exodus!" Death yelled back at his comrade.

"Understood, Commander."

Gentle ground his teeth but sped up more to catch up to his commander who had Replay on his side this time. Her voice hesitated as she was telling him the way to fight against their opponent who might have been an even better fighter than Death himself based on their last clash. Death was already able to predict his enemy's attacks very well though, so with Replay on his side he knew exactly which of the moves he was suspecting were the one his enemy was choosing each time.

Gentle arrived though right as Death was slamming a fistful of Death into Gummy's face with his body bent in a way just dodging her last attack that whipped below his feet in the instant before Death's fist collided. If he did not know exactly the angle it was coming, it would have hit him before he could have hit her with all that extra Death to keep her down this time. While he was making the finishing move though, Replay released his shoulders and kicked off his body to push him in a weird angle through the air. A beam of red light flew up into the sky in the exact position that she and Death were in, and she screamed out in horror and agony even before it had hit into her. "AHHHH-"

The beam flew through her chest and nearly ripped her in half from how thick it was. Death's body was falling out of the air, his right hand reaching up for the woman who clearly saw the beam coming with her Quirk. His comrade who knew the way they could beat Gummy who was too powerful an enemy to let keep fighting for any longer. A way she saw victory, one of the only partial-victories she saw in all the different ways she saw herself dying right there. All the different ways her future sights cut off, she picked one that at least took Gummy out too. "Replay!" Death yelled out, his hand flinching as the beam tore through her and cut off her scream.

Gentle snapped his head down then bounced harder on a barrier he made on the roof of a non-burning building. He flew down an alley and smashed a villain trying to run after the sneak attack, plowing the man into the ground then pulling out his pistol he fired three times down into the guy's back and back of his neck. Three darts stuck in there and left the man below him unmoving, then Gentle turned his head and looked out the alley back to the street where Death landed near an also killed Gummy who was hit by part of that red beam too and had a puddle spilling out her corpse. Death grabbed Replay though as her guts were spilling out, her torso only held together by a few inches on her left side.

Death said her name again, but there was no movement of the soldier he had caught. His arms covered in Death, and he gripped her tighter but there was no response or reaction, no yell of pain from the dark leader in front of Gentle. He lowered her down and pulled a marker out of his pouch again to mark her helmet with an x. Then he stood and turned towards Gentle, "On me."

Death's voice came out intense and focused. There was no hesitation and no pause after what just happened. His arms were red again with fresh wet blood, unlike all the more brown dirty and dried blood coating his costume. "Rebel, full comms." Death turned and started marching down the road past Gummy and Replay's bodies. "Everyone. Drop Restraint Level 2." Death marched forward and his arms covered in a thicker black aura. His feet started leaving black footprints under him, and he growled, "Do not kill if you don't need to, but do not risk your lives to spare our enemies. Victory is more important here than anything. Fight! Win! Survive… And push FORWARD!"

Death kicked off the ground and shot down the street, and Gentle flew right behind him. "Death! We can't keep up with him! Uranus is too strong! He's just ahead of- Agh-"

"Rebel. Coordinates."

"12.78 by 47.36."

"Input it in our helmets," Gentle added.

"I have him," Death growled, his voice intense and telling Gentle to stay out of it when they arrived.

"Then I will watch for other assassins," Gentle replied, right as the two of them sped up ten times their speed and shot across the city in more flames than it was earlier.

Death landed on a street with Gentle dropping down ten feet behind him. There was only one other person standing on the road with them. There were various other villains scattered around the road on the floor. Many had darts in them, some were slumped against walls of buildings, one was laying through a window that had shattered around him. The road they were on was not on fire at all. The buildings were mostly intact other than some bullet holes and cracked windows that were not shattered like one of them. The Army of Death on the street were all dead. Five bodies of dark soldiers, and a sixth dropped when Death arrived. The only man standing down the road had the dark soldier lifted by the throat and crushed when Death landed down ahead of him.

Uranus tossed to the side and then cracked his knuckles just by curling his fingers down at his sides. He was a Eastern European-looking man. His hair was blond and his face had the jaw shape of a Russian man, though his tongue was forked and pierced in the middle with a thin steel piece with tiny metal balls on either end. Uranus' hands spun around at the wrists with 360 degrees of motion, and his forearms spun below his elbows, his shoulders spun a different direction, then he stopped and cracked his neck to either side before staring down Death with arms down at his sides like he did not even need to take a fighting stance to face him.

"They did good in taking down the rest of your assassins," Death growled. He could see his comrades' bodies but did not rush in angrily at this powerful enemy. "Uranus."

"Zach Sazaki," Uranus said to the seventeen year old boy looking towards him through that dark visor. "Your forces have failed, so now you face me yourself-"

"I have no time for you," Zach snarled. "You will pay for killing the Chancellor-"

"Chancellor Ongwen was as corrupt as they come," Uranus countered towards the teenager. "In fact, I was doing you a favor-"

"And how many others have you killed?" Death growled, somewhat surprised by what he just heard but not letting it get to him.

"All part of His plan," Uranus replied, grinning at his enemy whose voice got much darker on the next question.

"And where is your leader?" Death growled. "Where is Eziano?!"

Uranus smirked knowingly towards Death, even chuckling at the boy's question which made Zach in the present bite down behind his lips as he knew exactly what that smirk was for. Deku recognized it too from behind Zach and felt his breath hitch at the look on Uranus' face in the footage that was so smug at how little Death knew. Death rose his voice though as he thought that smirk was for something else, and he yelled, "Is he here?!"

"Are you that desperate for him to cut your throat again?" Uranus wondered back, taking a step towards the terrorist who stomped right back towards him in step and closed the gap some between them.

"What did he tell you? That he 'almost' killed me?! Then tell me: Why did he run?" Zach's voice came out taunting and sneering at his enemy. He sprinted forward with Death shrouding only the backs of his knees and his feet. All the Death wiped from his arms, and Uranus sprinted forward at Death with a pair of knives sliding out of the long black sleeves of his baggy cloak-like shirt. Two knives slid into Death's hands at the same time, and the two of them ran full speed straight at one another. "Did your boss tell you how he ran away from me? How he fled like a coward, just like the rest of you!"

"I am going to finish the job my master started," Uranus replied, right as they were going in for the first clash of the blades in Uranus' right hand and Death's left. Uranus ducked down though and his right wrist spun around to slash the knife up at Death's passing left. Death let the blade slash through his armor though and clank off steel, and Death slammed his left arm down inwards without trying to slash, just smashing his hard arm into the side of Uranus' head-

Zach's right leg kicked up and hit the other side of Uranus' chest as the assassin's right temple he just bashed with his metal arm. He moved his prosthetic arm out of the way as he kicked Uranus across the street so as not to slow his momentum. The villain hit the ground and bounced up onto one hand, flicking his other hand up and releasing the knife straight towards Death's helmet. The blade flew fast right at the center of his helmet, and Death's left hand snapped in front of his head and caught the knife by the blade when it was just touching his visor. He did not slow down while he flipped that blade around and flicked at where Uranus had his hand on the floor for balance. Uranus pushed off with his fingertips while his left leg twisted at the knee to spin his lower leg towards Death's head.

Death ducked below it but got hit in the back of the head by the foot that spun upwards off the spinning leg to kick him in the back of the skull. Uranus kicked down with his other leg making almost a full-split in the air and almost fully dodged the slash of Zach's right knife- only for Zach to flip the blade between his fingers and flick that one that just got a little blood on it from passing Uranus' side, into the stomach of the man pulling away who could not dodge far enough to not get the blade stuck in him.

Uranus pulled out that knife while Death changed directions and sprinted around at Uranus' right side where the blade had hit. The villain flipped around the blade covered in his own blood and used it to parry the katana Zach pulled out and slashed down at him, screaming as he did, "Where is Eziano?! Is he that scared of me?! Is he that much of a coward?!" He lifted his sword and slashed down again and again, keeping Uranus backing up because to not block any of these would get him cut deep. What Uranus did though was turn his blade on the fourth slash, letting Zach slash the blade down towards him but redirecting it just enough that it passed by his right side.

The villain expected Death knew he was going to try that, so as he slashed around his other side and Death jumped over it to kick forward instead, Uranus already had his parry-hand twisted back inwards to stab through Death's foot…

Death expected more moves ahead than Uranus though. His other foot did not go straight forward but spun around and kicked Uranus in his twisting wrist, the steel-toe of Death's boot making a cracking sound in that twisting appendage. Uranus did not flinch but instead dropped the knife in that hand and kicked upwards into the hilt as it was dropping. The knife flew back up and caught Death in the right side between his stomach and chest. It was sent up fast enough that it broke through armor, but Death was the one who did not flinch this time and just slammed his left fist straight forward into Uranus' face as the older man was more focused on counterattacking.

Death slammed Uranus into the ground and across the road into a wall that he bounced off of then tried punching forward on the bounce- Death slammed his left fist into Uranus' and cracked all of the man's knuckles in a much louder way than before which actually made the assassin wince this time. Uranus twisted his body as all the fingers on his left hand broke, and around his back he spun his right arm with another blade in it meant for the soft part of Death's armor on the right side of his neck. It looked like he was really trying to finish the job Eziano started, cutting at Death's throat that others had seen the bandage over back on the plane. Death moved his head farther forward though and the blade passed by the back of his neck instead, and then when Uranus tried twisting his right wrist inwards to stab Death anyway, his Quirk failed to work because Death had broken that wrist with his steel-toed-boot and made it too hard for him to use his Quirk quickly.

"Is he in the city?!" Death yelled, while slamming the front of his helmet into Uranus' teeth. Uranus kicked his left leg up while taking a step backwards from the collision. It looked like his leg was just lifting because he was hit too hard, but out the toe of his boot came a thin blade that he kicked up and slashed through the front of Death's stomach armor…

Death stomped his right leg into Uranus' planted right knee. The bones of Uranus' shin broke straight through his skin as Zach snapped his leg like a twig. He reached his right arm out quickly and grabbed Uranus by the shirt that he yanked back towards himself so their faces were in front of each other's. Uranus could not help but let out a yell of pain as Death snapped his leg, but he squinted his eyes open and just smirked as Death growled at him, "Tell me! Where is Eziano?! Where is he?!"

Uranus pulled his right arm in through the pain in his wrist, but Death punched his left arm forward under Uranus' right armpit and then pulled backwards with the knife in his hand cutting through all the tendons and muscles keeping that arm up. Uranus' arm dropped limply to his side as the splash of blood came forward and got on Death's visor that he stared through into his pained enemy's face. "Tell me, Uranus! Where?! Where is your leader!? TELL ME!"

Uranus brought back up his left leg as Death had him partially lifted off the ground anyway so he did not need to support his own weight. By stepping off it after putting more weight back down, he changed the weight distribution and started to lower because Death was not holding him up with enough strength. His flexibility allowed him to kick his left leg all the way up and jam the knife back underneath Death's right arm into his tricep that Death did not pull away quick enough so a spill of blood still came out of his slashed black armor. Death released Uranus' shirt and pushed the man's upper body backwards. Uranus had no foot on the ground and his snapped leg touched instead, making him close his eyes in the pain which kept him from fighting back as Death caught Uranus' left leg in the crook of his right arm.

Zach turned sideways and lifted up his left arm, and he brought his metal elbow down onto Uranus' left shin to snap his other leg. He dropped the assassin to the floor with a pair of broken legs, then he snapped his right hand down and gripped Uranus by the face with the gloved hand that had no Death on it. He yanked the deadly assassin up after beating him mostly Quirklessly. He slammed Uranus' head into the wall behind him, then did it again while yelling, "Where is he?! Where is Eziano Mozcaccio?!"

Uranus smiled behind the hand gripping him by the face, and Death slammed that smiling face through the wall. He slid his hand around to grip the back of Uranus' head instead, and he screamed into the hole in the wall he shoved Uranus' face, "IS HE IN THIS CITY?! WHERE?!" Death bent his legs, pulling his right hand forward and pressing Uranus' face into the edge of the hole in the wall he just slammed the assassin through. He started running, dragging his enemy's face forward as he did and carving a trench through the front wall of the building. He smashed Uranus through studs and wooden planks, through the door frame and right through the next one with splashes of blood coming out as he roared, "Where is he?! WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS EZIANOOOO!?"

Death smashed Uranus through a windowframe and the glass still inside it. Glass shards sliced through Uranus' face and cut into his right eye. He smashed right through the other side of the frame then reached the corner of the building as he yelled out, "WHERE-" Uranus' body got jammed into the thicker corner four-by-four piece at the end of the building, and Zach's right hand curled into the back of his skull tighter before he ripped forward and smashed Uranus through that corner and released. "WHERE IS HE?!" Death screamed while releasing Uranus, tossing him and wood and glass shards away from his body with a swing of his right arm across the front of his body.

The assassin hit the ground and bounced, dragged on the floor face-first, leaving a skid mark of blood as Death brutally let go of the villain. Death marched towards where the assassin stopped, when Gentle grabbed him by the left shoulder. "Death!"

Death snapped his head to the side and growled, "We need to know if Eziano's here-"

"We have to act as if he isn't!" Gentle yelled back. "We're wasting too much time!"

"If he's here and we don't know-"

"Then we're screwed!" Gentle yelled back. "But we are not winning this fight as it is! We cannot act as if he is here."

Death grit his teeth and ground them back and forth in frustration. He turned to the other side and muttered under his breath rapidly, weighing the pros and cons as he judged how to fight this battle. He looked back towards Uranus whose face was torn up but who still managed to press a hand down on the ground and lift that blood-soaked face up. He had part of an eye dangling out of an eye socket, and the villain still smirked towards his enemy who he could see so frustrated and with no information that could help him. "There is the possibility that Eziano Mozcaccio is inside the city," Zach announced to his comrades, Rebel changing the comms instantly based on the tone of their leader's voice.

"If you see or come into contact with him, do not engage. Myself or Mark are the only ones who can kill him. Disengage on contact," Death ordered.

"Is Eziano here?!"

"That bastard's back for more!"

"Let's kill him this time!"

"Death! We need help at the Infirmary! Infirmary guards are being overrun!"

"Respawn Point is back up at thirty bodies, we can't move again with this many…"

"Beta Squad is facing heavy resistance! Some enemies just injected with what appears to be Double!"

Death marched forward and walked right past Uranus whose single arm was barely holding his body partially off the ground. Gentle moved after him, staring at Death's back as he wondered where the leader was going to go, while Death started giving out orders to different squads to redirect places he could not immediately go to assist. A gargling voice spoke up as they walked past, "All of yough- ahre, going to die- here-"

Death pulled out a pistol from his side and pointed down to his right as he walked past Uranus. In the corner of Gentle's vision he saw as a live round and not a dart fired into the skull of the assassin, blood splashing onto the ground right before the skull hit into that spray. Death slid his pistol back into his sheath, and Gentle never turned his head to look down at the assassin either. His visor barely caught it, and he just Elasticized the ground and leapt up after Death who shot into the air yelling out orders around the city.

"More of these villains are getting back up!"

"One I beat before has a beard now, and his hair is more white-"

"The woman I fought again appeared older too-" Death informed, as they all needed to brainstorm to figure out this biggest problem they were facing in the moment.

"I see her through Flare's helmet!" Access yelled out from the bridge of the Cloak. "It's Ager! The villain who aged me forward is in Sector 6-D…"

"Wait a second?" Spiral called out. "Access, how old are… Am I older than you?!" The nineteen year old yelled at his comrade who had appeared older than him from the day they met and was one of his closer friends in the Army.

Michael and Grabble started laughing, and Rebel put their laughter over the central comms anyway. Rampart and Cherasaw each glanced towards Rebel who was smirking himself but did not do what he just did for the hell of it. The fear of Eziano Mozcaccio being in the city was replaced with the hope that they knew which villain was getting their enemies back up, and Death informed them all a moment later that he was going after that villain himself which reassured them even more after the boost in morale.

Tides shifted again, forces over comms yelling out how they were making counter pushes against various groups of enemies all over the city. "Death! We're being stopped on the Main road through to the towers- Death?!" The surprise filled his comrade's voice as Death was there before he could finish calling for help.

"Send 2 K-4 missiles on coordinates 52.10 and 30.00. Cluster! Pull the rubble in for a wall!"

"Firing!"

They have artillery down the road-"

"Move away from there!"

Death leaned out in the road from behind the corner of a building, "Suppressing fire!"

Cluster sprinted out while keeping low to the ground. His katana was back in the sheath on his left side, and he dragged his hands up from his sides on the floor. All on his sides the rubble of broken buildings and upturned chunks of earth pulled together in front of him right as three different enemies attacked the team in the street.

"Need flanking maneuvers down Road designate: 2-4-Niner Sector 7."

"On my way!"

"Coming from his other side!" Seraphim's voice shouted out after Exodus' that came a moment earlier.

"Red beams, medium power. Eye needle spikes firing at a rate of four per second, and an Underground Disturbance-"

"That one's not real!" A voice back on Death's right shouted out after Death ran out from behind the wall that Cluster had created and was getting hit hard on the other side. Missiles hit down on the sides of the road down ahead of them, and Exodus blasted through some of the flames and took down one enemy before a flash of yellow light in front of him stunned him for a moment. Death sprinted forward to catch him, but Gentle was trying to keep up right behind him and stumbled to the right while Death stumbled left for some unknown reason. Three Death soldiers on the road near them fell down completely, and the same voice that yelled a moment ago called out, "It's Illusory-"

"We're rising so high!"

"AhhhhAAAAHHHH!"

"What is that thing-"

"Everyone all at once!" Death yelled out, his eyes clenching shut while his speed picked back up in front of Gentle. "Do it! ILLUSION BREAK!" Death whipped around with his arms swinging out, Death snapping around him, spiking up in the air and out on his sides with whips slamming around him. Exodus pulled his elbows in, and Gentle threw Elastic barriers out to his sides. Other dark soldiers tried to keep their comrades from the ends of their barrels as they spun firing their weapons in the middle of an illusion not caught on camera. Two seconds after the countermeasure Death shouted, Death started sprinting faster again and raced straight at an enemy stumbling back with a shocked look as he had been running forward to capitalize on the illusion messing with their enemies.

Gentle slammed his hands behind him to catch up to Death while yelling out, "Behind-"

Diving out of an alley that Death ran past, a woman in a black helmet flew horizontally between two men who her hands swung out to the sides into. One of them pulled backwards, but Seraphim's right leg kicked in before she even landed when she failed to knock him out. Her hands touched the ground while she dragged the dodging man by his chin forward using her right foot, then her left hand snapped to the side while she was in the midst of a cartwheel. She picked up a pistol and aimed past Death who turned to his back as Gentle's shout made it sound like he would not be quick enough to guard his back. Death spiked some Death out behind him, but he turned forward again anyway and saw the person Seraphim shot so close to him where they had collapsed below his spike which only hit the guy he had first been going after.

"Thank you, Seraphim. Now get back to your Squads!" He yelled it at her but also spun to Exodus who slammed a man he had lifted up by the neck into the wall next to him. Death turned back and yelled down the road at others recovering from the fight and getting steadier on their feet. "The rest of you! On me! Let's move!" He spun forward and started running, and Gentle ran up to his right staying just behind him while keeping closer to his back this time though.

Death ran down the street ahead of the rest of his forces. He took point and rushed the enemy forces who had long since gathered themselves and gotten composed for a fight. The villains of Wampajawa understood through earlier attempts and messages spread around from those who tried it, that escaping the city was not possible. The more they rushed for the exterior of the city too, the farther they got from other villains who had moved closer to the center to all be around each other for more protection. The decision for fight or flight had been taken from them, cut down to only fight. Death could see it in their faces as they looked towards him. Even as he rushed their forces with dark wisps coming out of his arms and rapid speed of approach, they just looked somewhat afraid of him.

They did not look like they were going to surrender. The most afraid villains in front of him were not even running, instead just resigned to the fact that they had to fight here and win. The sun was high up in the sky above them and beating down on the city that was already getting hotter from the flames. The soldiers on the sides of Gentle were panting as they ran, and Gentle himself had heavier breathing though he quieted it when it seemed like he noticed it himself. And he quieted it because he stared at the figure gaining distance between himself and the rest of his forces lagging behind. "Keep up with him!" Gentle yelled while speeding up himself, not even looking back to see if the other men with him would be able to do so, though all of them dug their heels into the ground and picked up the pace too.

Death's legs bent and he leapt to his right. A figure who just reached a rooftop on that side and landed inside flames dove off at him. The man's body looked like a mass of molten rocks, and right after he dove from the roof he started blasting flames out his back while yelling out, "DE-" His glowing white eyes behind the flaming veil in front of his face opened wide, right as Death slammed into him and shoved him back through the wall of the building that villain just leapt off. He pressed his hands into the man's body using his fire-retardant gloves, then he planted his feet on the man's torso only cracked through the wall. He launched off the villains' body with two stomps that also expelled Death on the kicks to knock him out on his way into that burning building. He shot backwards and over two shots aimed towards him, and he lifted his left hand that he extended a finger from while diving backwards in the air.

Death's left hand snapped back three times as if he was firing a revolver. Three short black lines shot out in rapid succession. They flew down the street towards a villain holding a rifle who rose his right hand from the gun and pointed it as a palm in front of him. A clearish-purple wall appeared in front of him and blocked those shots, while four other men ran down the road ahead of him towards where Death was coming down. A female villain on the left side of the road thought she was hidden in the shadows where she readied a short blade that slid slowly out of a crack in her skin on her left wrist. She flicked her left hand out as Death focused on those other four rushing him- and the blade bounced right back and cut through her arm.

Her arm slit open where the blade was cutting in, then it cut out the other side and her other hand whipped around to catch it by the hilt before slashing back at Gentle who just Rebounded her throw at her. Gentle ducked underneath the slash, only to have the woman's right knee already raising up at his head and a longer blade shooting up through her pant leg from a slit in the top of her kneecap. The blade hidden in her lower leg sliced up out of her skin on the knee upwards, flying towards Gentle's chin that the terrorist barely yanked to the right in time so the hilt of that blade just hit his helmet with a loud bang instead.

The woman snatched her longer blade with her free hand while backflipping from one foot as she continued the missed knee upwards and jumped off the other foot. She flipped back, a woman in her mid thirties who had a scar across the middle of her face and was completely missing her left ear, though the skin where it once was had a bunch of looped piercings right through her scarred bumpy skin where the ear used to be. The villainess slashed both blades down, and Gentle swung his right hand in front of himself to bounce both blades backwards and open her up for a follow-up shot to her chest with the tranq gun he was lifting with his other hand-

Her swings both stopped short before the invisible barrier, and she landed instead into a very low crouch. She darted around to the right into the road on the edge of the street and snapped her right arm to the side still with her short sword in it. Out from her elbow flew a knife at one of Gentle's comrades, and she sped at Gentle in the moment his helmet moved as he looked towards the comrade of his who did not expect Gentle to be having so much trouble. "Look ou-" Gentle had to leap backwards, and he ground his teeth but crossed his arms and created barriers around his own body right as the quick woman slashed from too close for him to dodge this time. Again he covered his body in Elasticity, but she did not push hard into him when the feeling of her blades into flesh did not feel like usual. The bounce was still too much, but she released the weapons so they bounced up flipping in the air instead while she reached forward and grabbed around the sides of Gentle's head.

Razor blades came out of her hands and the fronts of her wrists that were pushing into the rubbery barrier right in front of Gentle's visor, blocking his vision and then scratching the glass in two places as they dug in farther. Gentle swung his right arm, but his head got pulled back painfully as she jumped and flipped herself over the man whose helmet her fingers managed to dig under. Slits appeared on all her fingertips as she figured the Elasticity was only around his outside and she could cut his throat…

A hand grabbed her by the right foot. Gentle's vision was too blocked to see her flipping over him, so his own swung punch in front of his body missed the woman who had starting yanking his neck back and making him lose balance so he was not even focused yet on the attack coming from her fingers. Her hands came off of Gentle's visor though, showing the dark figure in front of her who was not covered in any Death though had caught that villain's right leg by the ankle before she could fully flip over his comrade. She glared back at the person who caught her, but she froze completely at the sight of who this was based on the black footprints he had left behind him that were wisping away showing how he rushed back here so instantaneously that she did not see him before her jump. There was no way she could pierce out the razor blade she had hidden inside her right ankle, because Death had caught her with his right hand that had a black glove over it.

The panic in her face was only caught for a brief moment on Gentle's camera before she was whipped down through the air into the ground on Death's other side. She hit on her back hard and gasped while arching her stomach upwards on the bounce off the floor that cracked her back- Death slammed his left fist down into her arching upwards stomach, making spit fly out of her mouth with her eyes bulging in agony. He gripped into her stomach after punching down like that, and he rose up then slammed her to the side into the wall next to him that he put her through with ease. He lowered his right hand with some black wisps vanishing from his fingertips that he used on that final grab. He looked at Gentle and growled, "Keep up."

Death's legs erupted in darkness and he sped back out of the edge of that alley then down the road again towards where the rest of their comrades had been stopped. "Get off the street!" A voice screamed in their helmets and from their left side, which the audio in their helmets gave away too based on which direction the shouting was from.

"Take it down!"

A helicopter down one block had turned sideways on that road, and two large man on either side started unloading from the turrets they grabbed onto down into the streets. Gentle stomped his right foot down on the floor for a jump, because he already could tell what was coming when Death's body hunched a bit right before wings snapped out of his back and an explosion of darkness came out from below his feet.

Death launched himself up at the helicopter that he grabbed the man on the closer side as him in the opened side door and yanked out. He tossed the man whose screaming quieted in a second out the helicopter, then he yelled out, "Dodge the falling chopper!" He slammed his fist into the stick the pilot had pulled his hands away from in panic as Death had flown into the cockpit of the huey and swung a fistful of Death past him into the console. That darkness vanished from around his arms though, as Death reached up and grabbed the man's seatbelt while the villain pulled back in fear thinking he was going to be killed instantly.

The other villain in the back of the helicopter had turned his head to the side when he felt the jolt of the enemy leader hitting their helicopter. He heard Death's shout about taking it down too, and he turned with his right and left arms glowing red and blue, while white light glowed from the back of his opening throat. Gentle flew across the empty back of the helicopter, and his right palm planted into the chest of the other big man. Gentle placed his palm right in the center of the man's chest, then he pushed forward and sent the man flying out the other side of the heli and over a hundred feet in a second from the condensed blow of Elastic that also took that guy's breath away and made him gasp out smoke and nothing more as he was launched, before screaming as he fell towards the city below.

Gentle looked to the front of the chopper and saw the pilot desperately fumbling with his seatbelt after Death clicked it in, the villain realizing what Death was doing as the terrorist had already broken the controls. Death broke the mechanism holding the seatbelt in though, crushing it in and locking it before pushing himself backwards and flapping black wings in front of himself to leap from the helicopter. Gentle glanced towards the pilot who started screaming while the helicopter was turning to its side and dropping for the ground not far below without slowing down. Gentle leapt out of the helicopter with a swing of his left palm forward this time that sent him from the turning air vehicle that kept spinning its rotors as fast on its plummet for the surface.

He turned and looked back for Death who had flown to a different street two down from the one they had been on before, but Death suddenly flew through the road that had been under heavy fire from the enemy helicopter to get back to their comrades yelling for help back on the road they had been on before. They had already been stopped before Death needed to take down that helicopter himself, but now they were being pushed back and Gregor was screaming for help while yanking Barkeep back behind a small barrier Cluster built up for them.

Death flew in ahead of his soldiers who their enemies had gotten cocky against. He landed and stared ahead to two others who got farther ahead of the main force of villains but were the main reason the rest of his comrades had to pull back. One of his men was on the floor in a puddle of blood to the right, another had her arm half-raised for a feeble defense but fell right as Death was landing. The villain who had their comrade's neck tilted to the side had his fangs buried into the soldier's exposed neck, easier to get to as her helmet was discarded to the side. The woman was short and had red hair that fell messy around her head, looking as disheveled as her pale skin and dead eyes made her out to be already. Blood trailed down the right side of her neck into her armor as the villain held her up facing Death and his comrades, while comrades of that villain himself approached around him.

"Flare," a voice gasp-whispered in pain on Death's back left. Gentle landed down and ran forward as Death did the same a second after landing, but the villain just behind the one who had dug into their comrade stepped forward and lifted his left and right arms. His hands curled forward and Death stopped where he was. WWhooom- The ground under them made a loud thudding sound and everything on their sides creaked. Gentle hunched forward, while others rushing in after Death on his sides fell right down to their knees. Death himself bent his legs as he stopped in place. All the ground around Death dented downwards. Dirt lifted for a moment then slammed down twice as hard, and the ground cracked and broke farther.

More villains emerged behind the one who seemed to stop Death with his gravity-altering powers-

Crash-DOO- Shhhhliiip- CH! On the right side of the road, a long wide sheet of metal imbedded deeply into the wall of a flaming building- as all buildings on both sides of this road were. The rotor of the helicopter that just crashed a block down to their left had flown off of the exploding vehicle so fast that it flew completely through the building between the two blocks and was still ripping splinters out of the wall on their left while imbedding into the one on the right. It also flew through the wall directly through the man holding his arms out to control the gravity and alter it. The rotor did not slice through his extended arms, rather it cut through him more in the middle of his torso that split in half near vertically down to his waist with his whole upper body falling forwards and backwards at the same time as he split like a banana…

Death moved the instant the gravity stopped pushing him down so hard. He rushed past two villains and straight at the one who had just drained Flare's life. His left foot was down on the floor while that villain with sharp fangs was still turned in shock towards his splitting comrade whose body was mid-split. His eyes shifted back slower and he saw Death's body spinning, his right leg up in the air and coming around for his body high up at his chest. Death's leg slammed into the man's left arm and broke it before hitting him in the left side of his chest as the man was screaming. "AHH-" his voice cut off into a gasp as the kick cracked ribs while it lifted him off the ground.

Gentle and another man moving insanely fast just in a normal sprint hit the two villains Death had shot right past. Gentle put the barrel of a pistol close to the man's neck and fired from close as the guy had turned and was moving to attack Death's back with sticky white glue coming off his fingers, but the pistol clicked and Gentle knew it was empty. He swung the pistol around then and hit the man in the back of the head with it without missing a beat, while on his left side the speedy younger comrade of his darted left, then right and jumped to inject a needle down into the bottom right of another villain's neck.

Gentle's head spun to the left to where Death kicked that bloodthirsty villain through the wall already splintered from the rotor flying through it. That building was engulfed in flames on the roof mainly but the walls also. The tops of those walls could no longer support a roof that had lost most of its central supports and beams already, and when one wall was broken through so forcefully to shake the building with that villain's collision, the center of the building collapsed down right where the villain had stopped after slamming into a bar counter.

"Ah- Shit-ack kA- Help! HELP! AH- FU-Aggh AAgghhii- IT BURNS!" Gentle could see through the hole in the wall to where parts of the ceiling had trapped the villain underneath. The ceiling beams were glowing red and smoldering, and more rubble from the flaming roof fell down onto the man lifting his arm out which got pinned down by more flaming hot debris. "AHH! HELP ME- AH- AHHHH! IT BURNS! PLEASE!" Gentle looked back forward at Death who just kicked that man into the building that collapsed on top of him but did not kill him, and Death marched forward without once turning his head that way, like he did not even hear the screams.

Flames danced on the sides of the street and their light flicked across Death's body as he marched forward towards other villains who backed away in such fear rekindled in this madness. "Gentle," Death said and seemed to shake the man behind him who flinched at the sound of his own name. "Get the dead to the Respawn then meet back on me." Other dark soldiers moved up past Gentle, readying Quirks and weapons, and Gentle nodded before turning and swiftly picking up their two dead comrades to get out of there while Death needed to stay and keep fighting.

Gentle was up in the air in a second and flying across the city in the next. Bullets flew up in the air at him, and on his right a pair of dark-armored winged figures descended towards the gunshots which cut them off. An explosion in the distance to his left sent a fireball rising into the sky, and making much more smoke which already plumed up from over sixty different fires around the city and outside of it now. The city was nearly unrecognizable from before already, with one of the tall black towers destroyed, a third of the other buildings in flames, and wreckage from planes, purple airships, helicopters, and giant robots littered all over. His visor glimpsed over a huge head of a giant robot the recording had never picked up before, disconnected and broken with lifeless eyes where it lay half-embedded in a building on a road split with a few dark soldiers and over forty enemies down the street from them who were pushing them back.

A fighter jet flew behind Gentle as he spun to his right and bounced off a platform he made in the air to dodge it and redirect himself to where he saw the Respawn which was not exactly where it was supposed to be. The air support from the black jet that flew behind him and fired on the cluster of enemies in a group of forty gave a moment for the Army of Death who rushed forwards despite being outnumbered 10 to 1 on that road. They roared out but their battlecries faded behind Gentle who dropped out of the sky himself a second later and took a few landing steps to slow himself near the Respawn Point which was getting moved in on from two different sides that were not being pushed back like the way Gentle had come from.

"Two more," Gentle called out to the R.G.C.

The Respawn Guard Captain spun his head back towards Gentle and yelled at the man with purple highlights before he could just fly off again, "Take Tyene!" Gentle looked to his right towards a woman in their guard slumped against a wall who he thought was dead but just coughed a lot of blood out her mouth, which made sense since she had a two-inch thick spike of barbed-purple-Quirk sticking out the front of her chest, ending in a point which suggested there might be a wider hole on her back where the entrance point was. "Get her to the Infirmary!"

An explosion hit on the south side of the Respawn Point, and the R.G.C spun yelling out at two others to reinforce and keep them off. "There are too many!"

"Tell Death to get here fast! We can't move to the next location with this many bodies! It's too late-"

The R.G.C. spun around and yelled, "Eight sneaking in from underground to the east! Bust open the ground or collapse it on them…"

Gentle ground his teeth as he was supposed to get right back to Death, but he bounced himself at Tyene and picked her up alone before anyone else here could get injured who would stall him even more. He bent his knees after picking her up carefully around her upper back and under her legs. One bounce put Gentle high enough that he could see the metal tent on the middle of a road that had four guard positions on the outsides of it and another watch tower being put together on top quickly by Carpenter. Other watch towers on the surrounding buildings had more people firing from them, but they did not fire anything at Gentle as he approached with Tyene.

Bullets did fly past Gentle's left side though, and a beast of a bird that flew out of the sky in a divebomb for him was lit up and shredded by high caliber turrets that turned it to bird mush. Gentle did not acknowledge the close shave as he dropped down and ran forward underneath the metal tent that was there to protect from aerial attacks. "Impalement wound through the chest," Gentle called out, while laying Tyene down on the ground-

"Don't put her on her back!" Hank yelled to his side with only a quick glance at Gentle who looked up at the doctor rushing from bed to bed and person on the floor to person on the floor.

Hank squirted something on his hands and then rubbed them around rapidly onto the cleared skin of a patient Gentle couldn't see well from his crouched position. He could see the spurt of blood coming out their body though and up in the air, and Hank stabbed a needle down into the lotion he just smeared around which stopped the spurting half a second later. Hank ran to Gentle and yelled at him, "Go! I have her! Tyene do you hear me? Curalia I need-"

"One second!" Curalia yelled on Gentle's right, her hands to either side of her and a constantly flowing green light coming out of them to heal the semi-injured who were leaning against occupied beds that the excess green light was also hitting. Curalia was panting badly from behind her helmet and sweat dripped off the front rim below her chin, but the two who she was healing looked up at each other and nodded before turning and yelling thanks to the doctor. She yelled at them to wait then just got yelled at by Hank again and turned to run to him as her other patients ignored her.

Gentle ran back out from under the tent, and he spun to his right and lifted his right arm to cover his face as a flash of white hit in that direction. "Catch the supply crate-"

"NO! Move out of the damn way-"

"AHH-" the huge metal crate landed down on a soldier who thought he could catch it with help but on his own knew he couldn't and dodged after everyone else. His right leg snapped and was crushed under all the weight that just dropped in, and two men ran to lift up the crate while another screamed at 'Typhoon' to put out the flames, as a parachute was in flames dropping down on top of the new supplies that had been shot down by enemies.

"East flank!" A voice yelled from up on top of the metal roof of the Infirmary.

Gentle looked towards another woman who was down on her knees just outside of the Infirmary's roof and had her hands put together in a praying stance. There were five heavily injured dark soldiers laying around her, a smaller ring of three people around her trying to guard but two of them broke off to go the nearest flank the I.G.C just called out. Miraculu sounded like she was praying, yet her mumbling got louder and turned to curses before she yelled, "Fuck fuck FUCK- I can't do it again so quickly-" her hands pulled apart and she shook her head back and forth, looking to one of the worst of the five who was a friend of hers and was dying on her second death already.

"Get up and protect the Infirmary then!" The I.G.C. yelled down at Miraculu who spun back and looked up at the Captain of their post. "Fight until you're recharged! Don't sit around…"

Gentle leapt up into the air as the Infirmary was facing heavy resistance like everywhere else but did not need his immediate assistance. He heard a loud blast from the north and glanced towards the towers again, but he heard shouting from Death giving orders to their other comrades still alongside him where he should be. In the distance to Gentle's left close to the exterior of the city, three giant monsters were fighting against each other. A huge green beast with large purple spikes like those of a Stegasaurus on its back punched a scaly right fist forward and hit the giant humanoid woman just shorter then Mt. Lady's maximum size, but the huge green fist opened up in the last second into a palm.

Zilla's fingers curled forward and gripped the Latina villain by their stretchy costume that grew with their body, whether because of the fabric or because their Quirk worked that way was unknown. The huge beast of a woman with green scales yanked to her left and threw the giant woman into a giant man a little bigger than his mother. He lifted his arms to catch her carefully, but her body blocked his eyes for a few seconds which was enough for the huge beast of green scales. That giant monster had black painted or tattooed into her stomach, sides, and on her back in the Russian for Death. The giant man started to lower his mother who screamed at him to dodge, but neither of them moved fast enough to dodge the beam of blue that fired out of Zilla's mouth with so much recoil that it threw her backwards and at the same time shrank her to 1/10th of her previous size, opening her up for attacks from a hundred others who had targeted her for her size.

Gentle yelled out, "Steamer! Mass villain reinforcements are moving for Zilla-"

"Lambda leader is down." A robotic voice called out, and Bullsnake growled through his voicebox, "I am moving in to save her. Get to Death, Gentle!"

Gentle was not planning on rerouting even if no one had responded to him. Rebel sent him through to Lambda though and he got in touch with someone close enough to assist their largest comrade who was still larger than most despite shrinking down ten times her previous size.

Tobita Danjuro flew towards where he saw an explosion of Death that all flew straight up in the air in a funnel moving away from where he assumed Death wanted it. That swirling funnel sucked back down though and into Death's body who sped out of it and left only a misty black haze behind him. He punched his right fist forward and it grew as it broke off of his arm. The fist flew down the road and villains dodged to either side of it, still firing and attacking the body chasing after that was missing its right arm now, only for more of that body to start breaking apart too.

It was not from the bullets flying through Death's fading body that ripped it to pieces. It was Death himself whose upper body leaned out of the huge punched black fist that sucked into his appearing back as he emerged during its flight and tackled a man into the ground. He rolled over the villain and threw the man off him into another holding a rifle who used it to bash his comrade aside then fire at Death who was in mid-jump at him. Death was fully engulfed in darkness though, and only pulses of black flames ripped out of holes in his back before Death landed on that man who let out a short-lived scream before Death dropped him aside too.

"RAA!" Death yelled to his right, scaring back two others who turned to him. Death swung his left arm out while glaring to his right, and a wave of Death flew ahead of him and rolled along the ground. It moved without slowing just as Death was. As Gentle ran ahead of panting comrades, some bloody and one helping another keep on their feet and keep moving as she shouted about staying with Death, Gentle saw his commander moving forward like an unstoppable force.

He was intimidating. An enemy down the road in front of him aimed his pistol and fired at the figure who started walking his way after punching some Death out at the two who made the critical mistake of hesitating for even one second. Death moved his body to the right, only needing to dodge slightly for the bad first shot. His enemy aimed better though and fired right for the middle of Death's body. Death could see the angle of the barrel and knew exactly the direction the bullet was going to take though. His left arm was swinging across the front of his body already, and he smacked his hand into the bullet flying at the center of his chest. He took another step, and his left arm swung back the other way. He used the back of his hand and hit the next bullet down into the floor on his other side, and the villain firing at him pulled his whole body back with his face covering in terror as Death smacked his bullets.

"Use an automatic, you retard," another villain snapped just behind that villain and on his left where he stepped forward and aimed at Death himself. Death stopped where he was, and the villain with long blond hair smirked a smile full of gold teeth that was either part of a mutation or a very expensive collection of fillings. The gold-smile man unloaded towards Death, and Death's left arm moved faster than it just did as he stood in place in the middle of the road. His left arm swung around in front of his body in a black blur, soft dinking and clanking sounds coming out as his hand swept to the left, then up to the right, then in front of his waist, then right in front of his own face as the villain shooting at him stopped.

The villain froze with his finger lifting off the trigger and his weapon lowering a little. Others behind Death and in front of him all stared towards Death who had his left fist curled out in front of his face. He lowered his left arm then turned his fist over and uncurled his fingers. The Death around him had disappeared as he stopped using it at all. Death stood there confidently in front of his forces. His expression was unreadable behind his visor, and yet the villains imagined a terrifying being in front of them behind that mask as he tossed a handful of crushed bullets up in the air above his hand.

The bullets dropped down into his left palm, then he tossed them up again. This time as he tossed them though, all the bullets were black and wisping darkness as they rose and hit the top of their arc. The villains ahead of him opened their eyes wider, and two turned around and lifted their feet. The one with the automatic weapon rose it back up and opened his mouth to scream, "HAA-"

Death's left hand pulled to the side and Death stepped forward. He swept his left arm into the handful of blackened bullets dropping back down for his open palm. He caught and released all those bullets in the same movement of the swing of his arm, and they shot out from his grip like a shotgun. The shot he fired from his left hand went under the rifle of his enemy who had given him the ammo, hitting him right in the chest and taking the blond man off the ground with all those crushed bullets colliding into him with the Death absorbing off and into his skin.

The other villains on that man's sides and in front of him were still looking inwards into the spot where their comrade just vanished from. One second he was standing there and the next he had flown backwards so fast they needed to see where he went, but as they finished turning inwards they saw Death standing there between them already. He gripped the scared man dropping his pistol by that villain's face, and he swung the man in front of his body so hard that the guy's legs lifted off the ground and kicked another man leaning back in front of Death so he was out of arm's reach. He was not out of kicking reach of the ragdoll that Death just swung in front of him though, and Death swung that ragdoll the other way and released towards a villain who was out of kicking-reach to chuck the villain into his comrade. He jumped the Death that he had left on his ragdoll into the one who was hit but tried ducking below, and he knocked him out at the same time as the one on his left who he aimed a finger gun at from much closer. Zach fired a thin line of Death through the guy's left eye and out the back of his skull, and that man dropped to the ground simultaneously as the others all dropping around him. Even the one he threw all those bullets at was still falling backwards from getting lifted into the air, and he dropped like the rest of the collapsing villains onto the street around Death who stood still as they dropped around him.

Death sprinted forward, and Gentle yelled out, "Keep up with him!" Others even on their own side had been staring at Death in awe at how he was able to keep moving nonstop and not even admire his own work to just move right on to the next enemies. Those dark soldiers sprinted after Gentle though, only to yell out in rage as Death was running past the right side of an enemy who he swung his left hand at to just do a brief touch to knock the fleeing villain-

BOOM! The villain running on Death's left side was turning towards his enemy and started twisting his body to attack, when an explosion blew up the road just on his other side.

Death's body slammed into a wall on the right side of the road. Gentle spun that way for a moment but Death dropped down on his feet and lifted his left arm that was hit by most of the brunt of the blast and had less dark armor on it now as well as a lot of blood. All that blood was from the guts and gore of the enemy he had been running by who just got exploded all over him. Death's left arm wiped across his visor and flung guts down on the floor, then he flapped black wings that ripped out of his back in that moment and raced down the street to attack the villains responsible for that attack on their own comrade.

Gentle glanced to Death's lower left side and saw something sticking out of his left leg. It was part of the reason Death just started flying, though Death had not let out a scream to even indicate that a piece of bone from his obliterated enemy had pierced through his armor and into his thigh. Death pulled that piece of bone out though and covered it in Death while flying by an enemy with cannons on his arms who just created two more explosions landing right behind Death each time. Death slashed across that villain's chest with the bone that covered in darkness right before he did it, and the wounds were shallow but his enemy dropped just like the other four around him…

"This way! Death!" Voices yelled on Gentle's right as he was passing an intersection, and he looked onto a connecting street to see three of their comrades being pushed back. "You four!" Gentle yelled behind him. "Assist your comrades!"

Death was busy, having been landed on by a beast of a figure twelve feet tall who had blocks of cements chained together on his ankles that did not break apart despite how hard he slammed them down into Death who tried raising his hands to stop them at the last second.

Behind Gentle, four dark soldiers ran up to his right side and cut around him onto the perpendicular road where many more villains were fighting. The road just ahead of Gentle was blocked up anyway by a crashed purple ship just past Death and this beastly figure covered in bulging muscles and who was naked other than a red rag around his waist. Death freed himself from beneath the creature and leapt away from it rather than attacking. "Wait! Why do you fight me?!" Death yelled to the creature that was foaming at the mouth and had its feet chained together.

"Are you being forced-" The twelve foot tall creature's arms started to drip some colorless liquid.

"That's BOMBARDIER!" A voice yelled into Death and Gentle's helmets, right before that crafty beast of a man stopped foaming at the mouth so insanely and curled the corners of his lips up instead. His tongue licked up the whipped cream, as he swept both arms in front of him and flicked off all the nitroglycerin at his enemies who leapt different directions.

Gentle turned back towards the blast and created barriers in front of him, but Death was the one aimed at more and Bombardier adjusted at the end of his flicks as he saw which way Death was dodging away to. More explosions blocked Death off from Gentle for a second, only for a black blur to fly out through them and right at Bombardier who leaned back thinking he had more than a second-

Death's right fist punched forward, then he went flying straight up into the sky while still in a position parallel to the ground. Out of Death's back pushed an explosion of Death to shove him down, but he flew right up through that blast of Death anyway as something had a grip on him and was sending him faster and faster into the air.

"Where's Death going-"

"He has this!"

"There's a Russian jet on its way towards Wampajawa," a voice from the Cloak spoke to Gentle. "Full of Russian gangsters. Engry Yurinokov is on board-"

"How did they get word out?" Mark snapped.

"They don't seem to know what's going on here-"

"Take control of their navigation!" Death's voice yelled out from wherever he had been brought up to. Gentle raced towards Bombardier who turned his way and started attacking the purple-tinted Death soldier, while Death himself was fighting against the upwards force launching him into the upper atmosphere now. His voice came out scratchier to those miles below him, as he yelled, "Force them into the city! Virus, take control of the jet if you need to!"

"Do we really need more enemies?!"

"Don't let them pull off! We will win the day- raah an- we-chh… WE WILL STOP THEM ALL!"

Gentle pinned Bombardier to the ground under a Gentle Rebound, and another, and explosions went off inside the Elastic barrier that Gentle curved on the sides of to make the blasts just around the villain and the floor. Bombardier screamed out in agony below him, but Gentle was more focused on that motivated scream that came out so much clearer. He thought Death was getting too far away to come out that clearly, so he looked up in the sky and watched as a black meteor shot out of the sky. He flew down moving hundreds of miles per hour, and Gentle spun to his right as there was no need to be worried about Death after all. He rushed towards his comrades down the intersecting block who were pushing forward though slower without him or Death.

He raced in front of Gregor who yelled out in panic as a wall of fire in the shape of a huge hand print was tearing down the street at him. The flames blew apart on the wall but did not all bounce backwards, instead wrapping around the sides and blowing past them, causing Gregor to yell out more and stumble behind Gentle as his right arm got burned.

Death landed on another street that erupted with darkness but flew in front of all his soldiers, smashing straight through a line of four enemies that gave his men the ability to rush forwards again. This road was not engulfed in flames like many others were, and there were villains all along it who came out of buildings right as Death appeared. "Now!"

"Get him!"

"You've got Gravitous at eleven o'clock. More Grootslang with Kongamoto behind them, he's the one with the long neck and big wings. Wild-Ones on your nine:thirty…"

"Eloper!" Death yelled out, while he rushed forward right past the attackers on his left who were either going to turn and come at his back or turn for his comrades who they would not want getting behind them. By focusing on his comrades they would be turning their backs to Death though, freaking out many of those villains who held their places instead in doubt of what the right move was. The voices calling out targets in Death and his comrades' heads transferred Death's message over to Eloper while Death started close-combat fighting with very little Death use on the enemies around him, keeping more of them coming at him as there were no big sweeps of Death anymore.

"He's getting weaker!"

"Take him down here!"

Gentle swung his left hand towards the group of Wild Ones that Eloper replied she was approaching behind. The villains who were her targets on the day Gentle met her were ones she was most familiar with, and as they started moving to get around Gentle's barrier, white Threads wrapped around a few of them and threw them into each other. On Gentle's right side, the men behind him attacked as one combined force into the group of Gravitous villains, while he chased after Death to attack the Grootslang members he had failed to finish off earlier. "Did Impundulu abandon you?" Gentle taunted while attacking Kongamoto, his voice laughing at the cowardice of the African villain group's leader.

"He wouldn't-"

"All I needed to know," Gentle replied before Kongamoto could finish, and the insane villain with a long beak froze with it open then bared his sharp teeth on both jaws to show an enraged look on his monstrous demonic-looking face. He flapped his thin featherless wings behind him and lifted up over Gentle's Gently Rebound that other Grootslangs' attacks bounced off of back into themselves. Gentle flipped up though, and although Kongamoto was a more famous villain and stronger than his subordinates with his expansive composite Quirks, Gentle had him getting angrier and sloppier with his taunts that Kongamoto thought were just a trick to get him to give away that Impundulu was still in the city. Everything Gentle said had three different purposes though, and his flip to gain distance also kicked off another Rebound into the air that his enemy's beak bounced off of, knocking his head back and opening his neck for an easy attack as Gentle bounced off the floor on landing and his his nice open target effortlessly.

The "Girl Snatcher" of East Rombando in Africa had been apprehended and executed in early April of the year before. He was arrested by heroes, tried by courts, and killed via lethal injection. The demonic villain part of the Grootslang who raided villages and flew off with young girls while his men set the towns ablaze and pillaged them of all they had, had his throat stomped on by Gentle's boot that dug down farther as Gentle loaded an empty pistol with his last magazine of tranquilizer darts. He pulled off the last mag from his waistband, and he announced while firing down a dart just above his foot, "Running low on darts."

"It's that damn Ager! Urp- that fucker wasted so much time!" Barkeep leaned up over a barricade Cluster had created, one hand on her lower right side while her other was on the rifle she fired down the road at enemies coming at Death's back who were more afraid of him than her. The rifle she was using was one she had to pick up off the floor, so she used live ammunition and unloaded half a clip taking down four villains who were not expecting the gunfire in their backs and sides. "Die you fuckers!" Barkeep pulled her other bloody hand from her waist and gripped the end of her rifle that was shaking around and making her aim worse. She stumbled to the right, and she unloaded the rest of her clip while Death took down two more powerful Grootslang members.

Down the road past the two he just took down, he saw another villain with his right arm and only his right arm in the shape of a four foot long sniper rifle with a scope popped right out of his bicep. It was not aimed towards him, and Death shot to the left and got in the way right as the shot flew for Eloper behind him who spun at the sound of the shot and got pushed back by a bullet that lodged into her armor but did not break through. Blood splashed out of Death's lower left side, the Quirk bullet going through the front of his armor, all his body which did not turn into Death, and out the back of his armor before hitting the woman just slow enough not to pierce into her chest. The bullet was dented into her breastplate just over her heart, and Eloper looked down at it after stumbling backwards. It was stuck in there just too shallow, and she snapped her head up and yelled, "Death!"

Gentle shot by Eloper and above Death who had two enemies from above dropping at him after that blood splashed out of Death's side. "Careful with my kidney!" Gentle yelled at the boy below him shot through the side, but Death was backing up from the attacking man who had super speed and rushed at him from his right side in a moment when the other enemies should have been drawing Death's gaze upwards. The shout was caught by Recovery Girl who had questioned the boy about it before and received nothing but a smile in response as to whose kidney was in his body. The short old woman sitting in the gallery was stunned by all she was watching but for the first time started to feel differently about the immature villain who had recorded this battle.

Barkeep and others fired down the road and made the villain with the sniper arm pull backwards, while another villain created three different Mud Walls out of the ground to block their shots just as Cluster and Gentle had been creating their own walls. Death did not have to look up and deal with the villains above him, instead able to stop the man who sprinted super fast at him to capitalize on Death's injury and a potential distraction. The speedy villain had short black hair and wore a suit that had an unbuttoned jacket flapping in the wind and showing the plaid red and white shirt he had underneath. That button down had the top two buttons undid, and he had two silver chains around his neck that bounced with his speed when he slashed his right hatchet forward. The villain had a pair of hatchets that he swung rapidly in blurs at Death who turned left and right while backpedaling fast until his back was into the wall.

At the moment it looked like Death's back was going up against the wall, Death moved forward faster and got too close that the hatchet-wielding villain could not swing close enough to himself. Death's right elbow hit the villain in the solar plexus. The elbow was the only part of Death's body that had darkness surrounding it in that moment. He hit his enemy backwards eight feet, and while that villain was falling to the ground, Death caught the pair of hatchets that fell out of his hands. He spun and slammed the back blunt side of the hatchet in his right into the left temple of a villain unmerging from the wooden wall at his back. Their body was still brown and looking wooden itself, when Death slammed them right back into the wall and out the other side on the inside of it where they screamed out in pain from how hard that blow hit them.

They were luckier than the other two who had run at Death's left side while he was elbowing their comrade. He spun towards them and threw a hatchet at one so it flipped around in the air then the sharp end jammed into the right side of his chest. There was no Death at all on it that time, and as that villain shouted in pain and leaned backwards, Death grabbed the handle sticking out towards him to rip the hatchet out while slashing the other at the second villain. That man crossed his arms and blocked with his arms turning entirely into some hardened material- Death kicked up under that man's crossed arms and sent him flying back, then he slammed both hatchets around the arms of the man who he had already lodged one hatchet into the chest of before ripping it out. The throw apparently did not dig very deep, but the next eight hatchet swings Death did while jogging forward at the guy who backpedaled but got slashed every time were all much deeper.

Death spun around and threw a hatchet so much faster with Death coming off the handle. It cut through the shoulder of the woman rushing at his back, then he turned and rose the other hatchet to block the katana swing down from an invisible figure whose sword was the only thing visible and dropped as the naked man released it. A pulse of Death shot out Death's waist in all directions from him for an eight meter radius. He caught the discarded katana with the hand he had tossed the hatchet with a second ago, while the invisible man who dropped it appeared in his naked glory as he collapsed forward. The katana blade Death caught he flipped and stabbed behind his back without turning, jamming it just to the right side of his body and piercing through the torso of the brown-fur covered figure who just dove at him. The weight of that villain even falling towards Death should have taken the terrorist down, but Death's feet spread apart and planted firmly with his body barely leaning forward even with all that weight impaling itself on his sword.

He gripped the hilt with his second hand then yanked to the side, cutting from the middle of his enemy's torso and out the side of him with a hard swing. He continued the swing around the front of his body and slashed around the blood. There was so much on the blade that it created a blood splatter in a line across the walls ahead of Death on the opposite side of the street. Death turned left and he rose the katana he grabbed with his left hand. He sliced it slowly across his right forearm just below his elbow. Then he cut it again with the blade angled the other way. He sharpened the blade in the sharpener in his armor then spun the katana around and slid in a fluid motion behind him into an empty sheath on his back where one of his katanas was missing from.

The movement happened naturally. Death grabbed the enemy's weapon and used it as his own. Every weapon he got his hands on was deadly. But it was that calm movement after cutting his enemy's stomach open, to sharpen the blade that had grinded across bones inside his enemy and belonged to someone who Death did not know how well their weapon upkeep was. Death sharpened the blade and took it for use later, as he left the enemy it belonged to in a pile of bodies he stepped over to move on to the next villains.

"As savage and cruel as they were, the world needed someone who could think like them to be able to counter their every move. The world had enough heroes. It needed a warrior." Midoriya heard Zach's voice in his head and the way he looked when he had said those words.

Those words filled his head and made Deku feel shame a moment later as he thought of a different conversation he had had with Zach at a different time. He thought of what he told Zach: "When I faced him, he taunted me about what 'real' heroes were while telling me how I wasn't. In that chaos, in what was like a war-zone with flames all around and more villains than heroes, Faith used your name to rally the villains…" A war-zone?

Izuku thought of the fight against the Cult of Stain. The battle was one of the craziest he had ever been a part of. The stakes had been higher than most fights ever had, and he had fought against more villains at once than ever before… I told Zach that was a "war-zone?" I said it to his face. Midoriya felt embarrassed, because he did not know what a 'war-zone' looked like until now. This is something though, more than in the Muindo- This is beyond anything I could have imagined…

'And how, you may ask yourselves as I once did, did Lifebringer survive on that world that he told us was inhabited by powerful creatures who had spent their lives at war or training their Quirks for it? Terra was full of 'warriors,' as he would often refer to them. In order to defeat warriors, Zach became one…'

Oda's book had too much in it that was far too reminiscent of the Siege of Wampajawa. Anyone who read it closely enough could see the comparisons with Razmatan, a story that in itself was not even a full chapter as Oda had only mentioned it in some paragraphs on the chapter of the "peak" of Lifebringer's war in Terra. There were lines about that battle referred to often scattered throughout that book that people in the courtroom could not help from thinking of as they saw Death sheath his enemy's blade after splashing the blood off it and making it sharper in a movement that he must have done before. It was so fluid, so smooth and without thought, that it looked as if Death had done it a hundred times before. As if his muscle memory alone remembered the movements and made it simple for him to take that enemy's weapon for his own as he was low on weapons himself just like Gentle who had called out about his low supply.

It was hard to imagine that the person sitting at the front of this courtroom who had taken down the Subspace Devils without killing a single person was the same one in the video. It was almost easy to forget sometimes because of the pitch black armor around him, but the longer they watched the clearer it became about how it had always been so obvious. Explosions went off straight down the road past Death who was sprinting ahead of Gentle. There were villains down that way facing the other direction, but they spun before Death could reach them. One man who had been in the back of the enemy group in the last fight against dark soldiers attacking from their other side was now the one at the front facing the charging Death.

The Caucasian man stood short and thin. He was bald with a shiny scalp and he wore a black suit with a tie tied nicely in a proper knot around his neck. The villain lifted up the violin he had in his hands that Death did not see while charging at the man's back. "That's Fillipo! Take him down now!" A voice yelled in their heads, and Death sped up only to split his own pitch black body in half right as a thin slice of red air cut through his body in that same position. Death tried to keep moving, but he pulled out a pair of swords as his body reformed and had to stop while cutting back and forth into the barrage of slashes of different colors that just came out of the villain's violin as he began to play.

"Everyone attack them!" Another of the villains on the right of Fillipo yelled out. He was three times the size of his comrade holding the violin next to him, and he rose up his right arm and swung his hand in a circle in front of him three times to create three circles of blue light that closed in with thinner netting that looked like lasers crossing the circles. "If Death dies, his army falls!"

The violinist on his side took in a deep breath while holding the violin up underneath his chin. His playing hand slid across the bow strings and his arm tensed up, while twenty others rushed down on his sides in the direction of Death and his comrades. 'Pling- plck-plck- vvooaaa zo-dodo…' The bow sliced back and forth along the top of the musical instrument, and out from it rang loud sounds of an unheard song that was masterfully written. No one could focus on how good the song actually was though, as more rapid movements of his bow on the strings meant the ground between the musician and his enemies was tearing up just as the air was getting slashed apart now.

"Gentle."

Death stopped his counterattacks as his enemy sped up to a point that there were far too many attacks to block. Gentle swung his left hand across the front of his body while stepping up past Death who he had already gotten close to. A wave of attacks flew into a rubbery wall right as other villains rushed forward to attack the sides that Death's forces might try to flank on while Death took all the attacks head-on. Gentle did not create a barrier perfectly flat to send all the attacks back down the road reflected along the angle they came from. Instead, his wall was curved and the colorful slashes of light that pressed into it bounced back in different directions all across the block, including into the man whose violin broke into pieces. The strings clipped with sharp noises and flashes of yellow lights, and the bloody musician cut by his own notes flew backwards in the air with his mouth gasping open and more blood splashing out.

"Forward," Death ordered. Villains had not yet dropped as all the slashes were just pushing through walls and villains who had blood splashing out of them or were in the middle of dodging different directions. Death jumped up over Gentle's wall as he did not know if his comrade had dropped it yet or not as it was still very close to when Gentle first created it. Gentle ran straight ahead though which informed the others who no longer needed to ask which direction to go. Gentle sprinted after Death who flicked his wrists out to the sides and sent small shards of darkness into villains rolling around or screaming down on their knees. A few who dodged saw Death approach through the dust that rose up, but they had lost most of their comrades in an instant and were scared as this dark figure silhouetted by dust and Death sped between them.

Death ran right past two men. They were on either side of him and pulled away to the sides before getting a grip on what had just happened in the last seconds. The moment it took them to get a grip though while looking towards Death's back though, gave the rest of Death's soldiers the second they needed to reach the two and take them down. Gentle grabbed a man by the back of his collar and tossed him backwards, right past a comrade of his who had his pistol raised already and shot the villain in midair with a dart that stuck into his lower back and injected him with sedative.

On Gentle's right, Cluster shoved the other man he had grabbed up against a wall and pushed his right forearm under the man's chin. He put the barrel of his pistol point blank to the guy's crotch and snarled through his dark mask, "Are there any buildings around here where your comrades are gathering? Who's giving out orders?!" Cluster yelled, while others ran past and sped after Death who had other villains already attacking him on all sides.

Through Gentle's headset he could hear the villain babbling to Cluster about how a friend from a different gang had a plan from the 'Disintegrator.' "Ask him where Capo 1 is," Death ordered, his voice coming through Gentle's headset too as the man recording rushed to keep up with him. Death ordered his subordinate what to do in a calm way as he needed this information, even though at that same moment out from below the ground a pair of hands had just gripped him by the toes.

A villain's hands curled over the top of his feet and pulled down a foot into the ground before losing all force as darkness came out of Death's legs. Death kicked his left leg up from under the earth and broke apart the ground while kicking up under the chin of an enemy lunging at him and stabbing down with a pair of sharpened sword-shaped green arms. Death's kick split between those swords and nailed his enemy under the neck, then Death ripped his right leg up out of the ground and tore more of it up with him. The arms that were on his feet fell limp to the ground on either side of the hole in the ground that filled in with too much of the rubble he just lifted up that only those unmoving arms were visible.

A second enemy trying to capitalize on Death's sinking into the ground was sprinting at him from the right. Gentle almost moved in to assist Death with him, but his head turned instead and he saw the shadows getting deeper in all four of the alleys closest to them. "We're being surrounded!" Gentle called out. "Cluster don't stray!" He added, and Cluster finally pulled the trigger but up into his enemy's stomach to knock him out.

"Gulf-Niner 5 1-" Death said but his voice cut off as he was suddenly lifted off the ground. The moment turned out to be the signal for other villains as he was telekinetically brought up into the air, and the ones who were already closer up and fighting Death looked more surprised but kept fighting too without hesitating as another fifty villains all rushed at them at the same time. Death's voice only cut off for a brief instant, before he continued, "8 3! Honduran and Inacter utilize Valorian Strategy. Slipspace, Hideaway, Hybrid, and all those part of the Upgrade Combo; hereby create Yankee Squad and move to reinforce and support…"

As Death gave out his orders, his body had engulfed in black flames and he flew straight at one of the four alleyways full of enemies. The rest of his comrades went to the one closest to that but across the street, and so the other two alleys were now farther away as it had almost been a box formation around them that they were "trapped" in. Gentle yelled at his comrades to come with him as they rushed the fourteen to their right, and they pushed in with support as a pair of others in dark armor ran to the other side of that alley and let out screams while attacking.

"RAAA!" On Gentle's left and right, his comrades sprinted by and screamed out in rage at the enemies who went from ambushing to being ambushed in a second. Gentle turned at the same time and created a wall to protect the end of the alley from eight different long-ranged attacks that flew towards them at that moment they focused on the villains they had rushed back at. The rest of those two squads were getting close, but an explosion went off down the block past all of them who thought they needed to sprint ahead to hit the Army of Death before all the rest of their comrades were defeated.

Those villains turned to see what the commotion was, and when they looked back Death was already back out of the one alley he had hit, the quickest to defeat a quarter of his enemies and three others he was already fighting all while forcing himself against the pull of a telekinetic ability user who ahead of him was bleeding out their nose as Death was too strong for him. Death could also see past this group, and he saw why it was that they did not look very concerned about what was behind them. "Death! We're blocked off- DODGE!" BOOM!

"Is that a fucking tank…"

Death ran forward. And the oxygen vanished from the air. His enemies just charged and many used their attacks. His comrades on his left and right behind them lifted their hands and grabbed at their necks. All of the villains ahead of Death went wide-eyed and stopped breathing as well. Death stumbled to the right in Gentle's visor, but Gentle started shaking and lifted his own hands to his throat which he gripped too. An RC car sped out of a dark alleyway that had been encased in shadows before and was now only shaded over by the close buildings on either side of it. That car had a speaker on top of it, and a voice called out from it, "Oh Death! I am on this street, somewhere. Let's play a game! I wonder how many of your comrades have died before that you could use a large enough attack to reach me before I suck out all the Oxygen…"

There was a camera on the small car as well. The voice stopped coming out of the speaker as Death's entire body cloaked in blackness. His form stood back straight up and his arms moved from his neck, then he rushed ahead and straight into the mix of the villains who this one had turned incapable and helpless for the moment. Death's body swirled pure darkness as he flew through his enemies, missing a good chunk of them as he only went by to get to that alley that the car came out of. He smashed through a wall of the alley closer to the direction he just came from, and Gentle lifted his head back up after falling to his hands and knees. His head turned to the left as strained gasping noises came from inside his helmet.

Other villains down the road who dodged out of the way of Death still rolled around on the floor clutching at their throats and clawing into them. Their eyes got redder and their faces turning pale or blue, or paler shades of whatever their skin colors were. One flipped onto his back as he spasmed, clutching at his throat as he choked on the air itself. And while this was happening, every single building on the left side of the road erupted out from the windows with explosions of Death. The first and second floors blew outwards from all the windows. Blasts of darkness came out each building and then six buildings back from the first one Death went into, the Oxygen returned to the air. The villain had sped his RC car down the block before pulling it out from that alley as a misdirect, something Death had expected was possible but was possible from any direction so he just had to pick one and go as fast as he could through it.

Gentle clawed the ground under his helmet that he looked back down at for a second while coughing. He snarled though in a hoarse voice, "Hit them fast. Let Death conserve his Quirk," Gentle sounded regretful, angry, and there was a trace of doubt in his voice as he brought it up. Despite how masterfully Death had just saved them from that by turning his lungs into Death and attacking huge areas like that, Gentle had already seen Death do something similar not long before. As he scrambled to his feet and ran forwards at villains gasping and panting on the floor, he snapped to his left, "There are too many of them left for you to-"

"Don't argue! Just fight!" Death dove back out through a window he had already blasted outwards so he rolled on glass outside that was not sharp enough to go through his black armor. He had no Death on his body though as he rolled or as he sprinted forwards afterwards. He did not respond to what Gentle was saying, as what he just did was a necessity to save those who still needed to breathe Oxygen at all times. Death pulled out a pistol as he ran and fired but he ran out after putting two darts into enemies who were still moving on the floor. He grimaced behind his own helmet as he wished he had taken more out during his initial rush, but he did not know how far his enemy's range was and how long he would have to leave his comrades not breathing. Death was already out of the darts though, so he spun and kicked his right boot into the face of a man who was pretending to struggle more only for a cannon to rip out the top of his back with a bulging muscly appearance and a horrifying appearance as if a giant tumor just formed.

Death kicked that villain in the face and ripped through his cheek with the force of the kick. He grabbed the man by his back tumor bulge and turned, throwing across the road using his strength alone and tossing the man as if he was a doll. He threw the guy halfway through a wall, then he ran at that wall and slammed his left fist into the guy's gut which made him collapse forward over Death's arm. Gentle yelled behind him, "Ammo!"

"A mag, Gentle!"

"Give it to Death!"

"Can we call in a-"

"Not here!" Gentle looked back down the road and saw a long gun turning their way. "Off the street!" There were too many villains rushing around the corners of that intersection to take it on yet, and Death and Gentle ran to opposite sides of the road with half of their comrades with each of them.

"Sir?"

"Go back around these buildings to-"

"The street we came from is back under their control…"

"They're taking it all back as quick as we take it from them-"

Ka—BOOOOOM!

The corner of the wall closest to Death ripped open and Death pulled away a foot while the others all ducked for cover. Death just leaned away as all the shards and flames blew by him. They were close but he only pulled as far back as he needed to, seen from across the street by Gentle who looked back towards him. Death looked into Gentle's visor for a moment, then he turned and said, "Inactor, give me covering fire with Cluster. Hyper! You and Barkeep bring up the rear. Don't collapse on me now!" Death made the shout to the woman who already had some bloody wounds on her but was moving with the rest of them through the city. "Gentle, on me. I'm taking down that tank! Support, you focus on Tower 3!"

"Sir! Our teams can't take-"

"Then take it down."

"Understood, Commander!"

Death rushed out of his hiding. "Covering fire!" Cluster yelled, and Inactor moved forward the next second as he was taking too long and not reacting the same instant his leader moved. The two of them had up rifles that were no longer firing darts as they unloaded down the street towards other villains.

Gentle rushed out of cover too, though he put his hands on his chest first and muttered, "Elasta Armor." He surrounded himself and charged out to follow Death, each step he took lifting him up a bit as it had some bounce in it. Each step he ran took him farther than others around him, but he was clearly used to the jump in his steps and moved accordingly still faster than any of his opponents. His body leaned forward and each step-bounce had him going farther as if he was lunging more with each move. His body leaned left then darted to the right, and he kicked off a building he bounced straight into the wall of, up into the air in a flip that his legs kicked up from. The bottoms of his rubbery feet pressed into the stretchy barrier he formed above them, and he slammed down in front of Death who hurdled the three villains he had rushed at.

The tank in the next intersection had treads on the sides and looked like a real old-fashioned military vehicle. It was painted with orange flames and red paint purposely dripped down it. The vehicle firing off huge cannon rounds had aimed towards Death, and despite all the other villains on the street between it and him, the tank fired. It hit the ground ahead of Death between the terrorist and the vehicle, blowing up debris from the ground that flew into the dark soldier who was in front of Gentle and therefore not protected by the barrier his comrade threw up.

Death allowed the debris and shrapnel to fly through his intangible form. He stepped forward at the start of a sprint to rush out of the dark clouds he made straight towards that tank, but not all the enemies around him had fallen to the ground or were no longer threats as they screamed out in pain from the blast that had hit too close to them. One man's body turned as permeable as Death's had been a moment ago, and he slammed his right fist through the smoke towards the side of Death's helmet that had no darkness around it. Death did not turn but did transform his head into darkness right as the fist was connecting, only for that fist to pass through as did the arm behind it as the villain dove through without having any Death absorbed into him.

The red-haired villain landed on the ground though and into a roll showing some sort of physical form. Death shot from Zach's feet towards the villain and spiked at him in different places, but that villain rushed forward back at Death again only this time jumping and spinning a kick. Death's left hand rose but the leg passed through his arm, then it passed through his head too even though his blocking arm had failed. The villain spin-kicking at Death brought his other leg around and into Death's arm this time. He did not pass it through that arm, but it was not a limitation of his Quirk, just a measure he took as Death protected his head with some of his Quirk but not that arm-

Death's arm felt contact and his hand spun one hundred and eighty degrees to grip into the leg that hit it. His hand had been in a weird position to grab on, but the steel hand twisted like there was no bone in his wrist that kept it from doing that. He gripped onto the enemy and tightened his grasp, then he used Death when the man did not phase through him as his Quirk could not work if someone else had a grip on him, or so Death assumed as he caught his enemy.

Out of the thinning smoke, Death saw an eleven foot tall brute of a figure running forward with a pair of huge war hammers in either arm. "Do you like my bone hammers? DEATH?! They'll be your-" Death spun and threw the man he had caught and knocked out towards the other enemy who stopped shouting to swing the huge hammer in his left arm forward at the projectile Death threw at him. The double-sided hammers had four lines of four white spikes each on both ends of them. The larger villain ripped his fellow Wampajawa resident apart with the swing holding so much force in it that the building on his left side got a huge dent blown into the wall that was then painted in red. As that swing was happening though, Death was running forward after the man's body he had just thrown.

Just past the villain Zach was rushing towards though, the tank had moved and the cannon was now angled past the villain he was rushing at. The time it took him to fight the first villain who survived the tank's last blast gave the vehicle enough time to reload, as he found out from the sight of the rocket flying out of the tank's huge gun. The rocket flew towards him right past the villain ahead who grinned at the sound of the firing behind him-

Not everyone had eyes quick enough to see it. Gentle looked towards the firing tank and Death who had taken another step right towards the rocket, before pulling his body to the right as it was about to hit him. He had no Death around him. He simply dodged the rocket that then flew into a curved Elastic barrier and bounced up in the air and down to the left into a building nearby that a loud explosion blasted from. Gentle did not turn that way though. He was too busy staring like everyone else at Death who had dodged to the right more on-line with the villain with the bone hammers that the man thought would make a difference against Death. Death was faster though, and he ran between that man's arms and jumped up in a flying knee into the eleven foot tall man's solar plexus.

Death knocked the wind out of the man but more than that he took the villain off his feet and sent him flying backwards into the tank's treads behind as it had only turned the cannon this way and not the entire tank itself that was pointed sideways in that intersection. The whole tank shook on the collision, but it was not until Death landed and then shot forwards with an extra burst of Death out his legs to do a second flying knee into the gut of the villain that he dented the vehicle's side inwards and crinkled the steel like plastic. Death reached up and his arms bulged with darkness while his legs did the same and around his abs as well. "RaaaAAA," Death pulled down on the tank's long gun while twisting his body to the side, and he dragged it along the floor with him as his body started to spin.

Death's arms bulged more and he roared out, "HAAAA!" He finished his twist and swung his arms back up in the air after dipping down at the last second. He pushed the tank into the floor then as it pushed back up he used the momentum and his own twist and force to launch the tank up into the air right at two bird-like villains chasing a soldier in all black who had bloody dragonfly wings and was trying to escape. Firefly spun her head around with a dropped jaw inside her helmet as her enemies screamed out before vanishing as nothing but splashes of blood left behind the trail of tank through the sky.

Gentle jogged up to a panting Death who just made an order in their headsets to 'dodge the falling tank.' He looked at the young man on his side who was panting more than Gentle though Gentle was taking some heavy breaths too. As the rest of the team behind them tried keeping up while breathing heavier than the two of them, Gentle wondered to his comrade on his side, "Was that truly necessary? Seemed a bit overkill."

"This isn't the time to joke-"

"I'm not joking. You are using too much-"

"Then we need to end this quicker." Death said that while looking behind him too. He stared back at the group of soldiers following him, and he ordered, "From here on we are pushing the positions they have taken back. We cannot allow enemies in the city to feel there are safe places to gather and organize. Keep them on the defensive and this fight will end in our victory." Death turned away without demanding a response from those comrades who were catching their breath. He did not give them any more time though, as he started jogging forward while calling in sitreps from all around the city.

It was an actual army, Shichi Koi thought. The old dalmatian-looking hero official sat stunned through all of this video. He listened to reports using mostly jargon and codes that he did not understand and that he figured most villains would not understand either if they hacked into the communications' lines. The coordinates they are using do not match up with latitude or longitude. They must have created an entire grid pattern matching Sectors, Quadrants, and individual coordinates. Every one of their Squads has a leader, and they have different branches of their Army that support in different facilities.

They're far more organized than we ever were, Popfire watched in amazement as Death ordered his men to follow him to a part of the city that others on their comms just yelled had been overrun so much that they had to pull back. That fight against the League of Shadows they were still only just beginning. This was months after. Months of fighting all over the world. Getting stronger. Getting to this point where they could actually, take on an entire city of villains? Am I really accepting that a place like this was real? All those villains though… I want to believe that the heroes who captured them really did. That they didn't lie- they might not have even known. Only we really could see what they were doing. But I thought we knew what was happening. I thought we were in the know, and that they knew that we knew… Did they trick us too?

The Task Force was not just not a match for them, Endeavor thought. I started to act as they suspected I would. I stopped villains they wanted me to stop and captured others they left behind for me. They were not just better than us, they were in an entirely different league. At one point they may have been weaker than we were, but Death surpassed me. I knew it then. I know that he is the strongest we have. I had no idea though, that even without his Death…

I never really thought about what it meant, that you were the Champion of the Pit, Midoriya stared with as huge eyes as his classmates as Death sprinted straight into enemy territory without any of his Quirk around him. Gentle's concerns were starting to come out more frequently, and Death was using less of his Quirk even though whenever he used it the power seemed to be limitless. Those who knew about Zach's title of the Champion of the Pit were the least surprised, as Death ran into a mass of enemies who had Quirks this time when he did not, and yet he had comrades with him this time and was acting less brutal than earlier. His fighting style had changed again, his comrades directly involved with his fighting as he ran past the first lines of enemies and had them split focus on him and the men behind him.

Death rushed towards an enemy twice as big as him who had bumps of green bulging out all over his naked body. Those green bumps hit the floor and rolled forwards, getting bigger as they sped towards the enemies- Death kicked one back towards the man it released from, flicking some Death from the toe of his foot onto the green bump that smacked its original owner in the face with a ball now of darkness. Death did not want to wait and see what this attack could do, and whether or not the green bumps were connected mentally to their Quirk-user, he had planned for it not to work by just kicking the ball he coated so that the Death would touch both it and the villain himself. He lifted his right arm and pointed a grappling hook suddenly in his hand at a villain spinning his rifle to aim at Death rather than the other dark soldiers who his bullets were never reaching.

A hook fired from Death's gun and pierced through the villain's left shoulder. Death yanked towards himself and tripped up a different villain speeding at him while Death's arm was busy with the hook. He knocked the man he had pierced with the hook to the ground in front of his friend, while also yanking hard enough while the man's hands were slipping off his rifle that the gun flew almost directly to him. He had to move to the right anyway as two men diving from the air used their Quirks on where he was standing. The ground turned brown and mushy then erupted in flames, and Death spun towards that landing area the two had just turned into a mess, and he fired his new rifle precisely at their legs and arms while simultaneously flicking two knives across the front of his body and hitting two more villains who had started running.

Right as he flicked those two knives, Gentle rushed up past the two men screaming for help as Death continued to put rounds in their arms and legs to ensure they stayed down where they got stuck in the bloody and hot mud anyway. Gentle rose up a barrier as six different Quirks were fired towards Death all at once. Death sprinted to the right for a second but then cut back left when he was pretending like the Elastic wall was still in front of him that he needed to get around. Villains not attacking because they thought their attacks would bounce off, suddenly saw as Death ran through empty space on a direct line to them. He ran right between two men who started pulling their heads back, only for Death's right and left hand to grip onto their faces as he continued to run.

He lifted their feet off the ground and ran three more steps before slamming their heads down into the ground. Their legs flew up in the air as he put them down into the floor with so much force, because the ground had just become soft and wavier anyway so it would not kill them even if he put that extra oomph. He kicked his right leg back into the gut of a woman behind him and yelled out, "PUSH!" The woman had turned to Death and got kicked in the gut, telling the others on the front line who thought about not turning to Death that he was not taken care of when she flew past their sides. They were turning towards him, but the rest of the Elastic wall had come down from where they actually knew it was and where the rest of those dark soldiers were hiding behind.

Two who just spun back to Death started turning the other way at the sound of his orders, but Barkeep and Hyper were faster and hit into them. Barkeep stomped a hole in the floor just behind the fat woman villain farther on the left who had halfway turned back only her upper body that was shaped with rough edges like a gear. She was starting to twist with loud clanking sounds, but despite whatever hard material she may have been made of, Barkeep let out a belch while swinging her bulging right arm in her dark armor into the side of the gear woman. Barkeep's enemy spit out her breakfast and morning mimosas, which Barkeep turned and got an envious sniff of as it flew out of her soaring enemy's mouth. She turned back the other way to help against the villain who Hyper had rushed at and hit four times, only for the smaller man's attacks to not do much on the bigger man whose growing arms were lifting up over Hyper's head.

Barkeep took a step to take him down, but she lifted the foot that she had stomped down so hard in preparation for her punch and which she forgot was a few inches indented in the road. Her foot tripped on the edge of the hole she made, and the woman who had had a couple more than a "few" drinks that morning hit the ground next to Hyper who had thought he was going to get help there. Hyper did not expect to fully need to dodge if Barkeep was going to help, and he crossed his arms above him to protect himself.

"Idiot," Gentle pushed down on Hyper's head while swinging his other hand above himself and bouncing the enemy's swinging massive arms down. The weight of those arms bouncing back up off the Elastic barrier caused the man's neck to open up completely for the drop-kick Gentle had already started by throwing his body forward over the top of Hyper's head. His enemy stumbled backwards while bringing his hands to his neck to grab it as Gentle closed his windpipe with the kicks. The villain's reflexes were quicker than the logical part of his mind that would have told him not to do it, but his reflexes did not remember that he had just turned his hands massive. The man punched himself on either side of the head and knocked himself out with blood splashing out his head on either side. "Get up," Gentle said to the woman on his left as he landed, and he ran forwards himself without waiting for Barkeep or Hyper who scrambled to keep up.

"Sorry about that Gentle I was just trying to give you a moment you see? I wasn't actually in trouble but thanks for the assist-"

"Urp- won't happen again," Barkeep tried to make a serious apology but running this much while her stomach was full of booze was making her burp as she had to force it all down.

Midoriya recognized one of those two voices of the soldiers running with Gentle. As many were questioning about the two of them, how one sounded and appeared drunk, while the other sounded like an immature child, Midoriya only focused on the childish one whose voice he recognized. His heart started racing faster and faster, while not far from him Tokoyami turned his head and stared straight towards Deku for a couple seconds only to confirm his suspicions at the look he saw on Midoriya's face.

"Hideaway's hit! Death over here- ah!"

Death spun and cut a different route than the one he was just taking. "After him!" Gentle called to his comrades, using the wall of darkness that Death left behind him blocking one of their enemy's routes and giving them the ability to forget them for a moment. "Keep an eye behind us! They have this whole sector."

"I'm coming-" Death pulled his body to the left but still had to turn his right shoulder into Death right as he was getting slashed at from an enemy that dove off a rooftop in the narrow pass they were going through. The man who slashed through him jumped back up and vanished over the roof again, only to fall back from the direction he had come from the first time. He slammed face-first into the wall on Death's left and above him, and Gentle saw in the top of his vision a dark figure on all fours running across the rooftops. Michael leapt the gap over them after taking out the real enemy who had made them think he would be coming from the other way next time using his decoy.

At the end of the alley though, that guy with the decoy's buddy was still waiting for them, and he rose up a fat weapon with four points around the barrel that all sparked with electricity and made the weapon start shaking. "Up!" Gentle yelled, slamming his hands down on the ground and making all the others around him jump and fly up in the air. It gave them a good view of the next road to make sure they were not running into any other ambushes, while Death himself just sped to his right and around the thick sparking white beam of electricity that the villain holding a crazy powerful weapon used on him.

Death smashed his left leg into the arms of the villain and made him drop the weapon he did not want to smash without knowing its power source. He lifted up the villain pulling his arms back and screaming, and he turned while hoisting the man up by his t-shirt with some German words on it. The German villain screamed out in pain and panic as Death flipped him over his head, but he started using his Quirk too which caused ripples to fill the air around his screaming head. Death turned and slammed down into the gun he wanted out of the playing field but did not want to destroy himself. He made the right move not breaking it with his own body. Death released the villain right as the screaming man was about to hit the gun, and when it broke apart the guy started seizing as sparks flew out of his body and flashes came from him. As if he was a cartoon character, his bones became visible inside his skin during the powerful electrocution that Gentle saw more of than Death who just sped away before the electrocuting began to not get caught up in it.

He spun his head left and right, and the woman who had yelled for his help a moment ago saw him and screamed past her enemy who had already taken her to her knees. "Death! Please- ugh-" A wave of Death slammed into the woman and the man who had just stabbed her through the chest with his bloody saw-shaped arm. Death ripped the man backwards and pulled him and his saw arm out and tossed him limply out of the darkness that he had flown into his comrade with, only part of a second too late.

"Dea-agh, Death I- it hurts." Death propped her against the wall next to him, while behind him his comrades started getting rushed on both sides by enemies. Gentle came closer to him to protect from the far end of the street closer to their own allies who were fighting even farther down this main road. Not many of the buildings were in flames, but the fighting here was intense as different sectors that this road cut through were under control of different groups of villains and different squads of Army of Death. "I don't- I don't want to die. Death please."

"It's okay," Death said. He looked down at her chest, as well as the right side of her waist and both of her thighs that had been cut up. His other comrade was dead on her right and his Death slid over and touched Hideaway which made him frown even darker behind his helmet as nothing happened. He knew it would not though anyway as Hideaway had only died the first time days before when Eziano attacked the Cloak. He recognized the voice of this woman too though, but he did not need to know who she was to recognize the tone in her voice. "Riser, you're going to be fine-"

"No- I'm dying. I don't- please Death," she gasped, her hands raising and shaking as she grabbed onto his arms. "I don't want to-agh… urgle- die-" blood that filled her mouth was spilling out of the corners. "Save me-ug again, you save-"

"I will," Death promised. "When you die, I'll bring you back. You're going to be fine." The terrified woman in front of him was so scared as her hands trembled on his chest, but for a moment they steadied at the serious tone in his voice right there. She was grasping on for dear life in her final seconds, but that statement eased her. She leaned backwards and a second later, her head slumped so her chin touched her chest. Death had his right hand on her chest as her chin touched down just above it. He held it there and did not feel a beating heart, and he gripped tightly with his black hand flaring but grit his teeth then pulled out a marker that he hit Riser with then grabbed Hideaway's body and marked an X on his visor too that only he and his comrades could see in their own visors.

He stood up, and he turned to the right. "Move." Gentle jumped up in the air and backflipped to go join the others behind them who were struggling against the other half of the street. He took out two who were nearly about to get fatal blows on a pair of their comrades, and Gregor screamed out in fear as the armed man he had rushed at to try and hit before he was able to fire, shot straight at his face. Those bullets bounced back though and shredded through the man firing them, and Gentle pushed the screaming Gregor backwards and to the floor as a second villain dove at them with a countdown marked on his forehead that was at 2 seconds remaining. "GET TO COVER!" Gentle yelled, while spinning and grabbing Gregor who he hunched his body over and created a small bubble.

BOOOOM!

The figure who someone had put a countdown on had looked fanatical and was laughing even as his head exploded. Other villains around them were not as crazy, and some of them backed farther down the road towards areas they knew far more villains were still running around in and had gained control of. They backed up because they did not know all the kinds of villains fighting with them, but also because they could see the other half of the road where Death was turning to face them from. Behind him ran forward nine dark soldiers, with two more flying above them on the sides of the road. One pointed down a flamethrower while the other aimed his hands down and unleashed fire along a whole line of buildings behind them that had been where villains hid in the first attacks but emerged and split their forces to be able to send this part of the city back into chaos.

The villains who had gotten out of those buildings were already unmoving all over that street that the Army of Death were moving down, and Death ran forward faster than the others and right past his comrades who had gone for cover in the last explosion. Death ran ahead with his arms snapping down in front of him, black whips coming out from between his fingers and cracking in the air as they became thick as solid forms. The cracking noises and supposed furthest extent of his cracked whips was a misdirect, as his enemies would come to know a second later as he cracked them forward again only five times as long as they just were. He slammed six different enemies into the ground closest to him where they were too clustered together and in too perfect of lines not to smack down like that.

The two whips he hit down like that rose up again, and he crossed his arms whipping them in an X-motion across the front of his body to cut different ways on the road. Then he snapped up and brought down four whips, ones that did not crack like normal weapons but moved like snakes that disobeyed the laws of physics and cracked towards where his enemies were dodging rather than where Death was snapping them down towards. After fighting so many people hand-to-hand and at close range for several minutes, it was like the villains had forgotten who they were trying to take on and what his Quirk was. Even people watching were shocked again as four whips turned into six that whipped all along the road ahead of him and smacked people around like their strengths and Quirks meant nothing. No one could even get close to him, and Death's army had gathered up behind him in mass force.

The two who could fly were called off to different sections, so only the areas behind them were enflamed while buildings ahead were in better shape. Dozens of villains had just been taken down, but more ran forwards as soon as all of the Death got suddenly pushed back to Death who skid ten feet backwards, ten feet less than most of his comrades. Some of his men could not even stay on their feet and fell, while Gentle just stumbled before regaining his balance and running forward to keep with Death who combined the three thinner whips on either side to make two long thick ones that still got pushed far behind him so they were coming down as if going to crack down on the street where all his soldiers were.

Those whips stopped five feet above the ground back behind him, and Death snapped both arms forward straight in front of him which slingshotted the two huge black whips that extended even farther than they just were to pierce through at least four enemies on either side of the road with even more speed than they were moving before. He pierced straight through lines of enemies who he pulled inwards then cracked out to the sides of the road and slammed them into buildings. At one of the buildings, gunfire instantly rang out for two seconds before the villains inside realized it was not Army of Death moving in but just one of their own unconscious comrades thrown through the window.

Death was rushing forwards though, and as he did, one of his men behind him tossed a grenade through a broken window on their left. "Fire in the hole!" Another three stacked up on a wall to their right just one building past the last one in flames, while two others taking up the rear stopped and yelled out about others running out of a flaming building behind them where they had hid as long as they could.

"Smoke them all out!"

"Get them- Death-" on Death's right side, his comrade yelling out in worry about him stopped as Death turned and slammed his left fist into the gut of an enemy who had run outside with a grenade in his own hand. That villain had sprinted out a door that slammed back shut right away, and he had been cackling for the instant before Death stopped him instantly with movements of his arms that the villain had not even seen. Death had snatched his right hand onto the grenade that had the pin out already but the lever still grasped. He yanked the grenade out of the villain's hand and slammed the man again in the gut with his left fist. He made the bald villain who just tried sucking in a breath lose it all at once with his mouth opened huge in a gasp- Death slammed the grenade into the man's open mouth and pushed it far enough in that the lever was not going to get unstuck easily.

Death grabbed the man by his shirt and the top of his collar, and he spun his body around and threw the man back into the building that he had run out of with a grenade in hand and a crazed smile on his sweaty and scared face. Whatever insane villains had sent him out to do this were still in that building, and they yelled out in confusion in some Central Asian language as their comrade was thrown through a window that had only been cracked before.

Death walked forward and snapped his left hand up, grabbing his diving enemy by the throat and curling his fingers in like there was no resistance at all. The figure trying to point his gun in to shoot Death dropped the pistol to reach for his throat instead. Death caught the pistol in his right hand and pointed it past the winged villain he dropped with one squeeze. As the winged man's body fell spinning to the ground with black fingerprints vanishing from his reddened throat, Death fired once, twice, three times ahead of him before the building behind him on his left exploded.

Gentle was behind Death on his right but he had moved forward after Death threw the fanatical villain through the window. He had seen Death shove a grenade in that man's mouth, and he heard the louder screams after the explosion that had blown part of the wall out and had smoke pouring from the holes in the wall and shattered windows. One man came running outside with his shirt in flames, his hands on his eyes with blood pouring through his fingers, and another crawled out of a broken doorway with both his right arm and right leg missing, though some of his right leg was still there above the mushy mess around his knee. His body was even more torn up by shrapnel that had a thick trail of blood behind the crawling figure.

Gentle looked back ahead towards Death who fired again and again with the pistol before pointing his left hand to his left at the chest of a man running at him with two arms looking like brown wooden clubs. Death's left hand glowed, but he pointed it down at the last moment from the non-threatening enemy. He fired at the floor behind the man's split legs that blew up the ground behind him and made him fly into Death who just punched him with that left hand that for a second covered in a little Death. He could have blown a hole straight through his enemy's chest, but instead he knocked the man out and onto the floor ahead of him- where a mortar hit down a second later as Death was just starting to run forward.

Death's direction was switched as he was lifted off the floor and sent thrown backwards. He flipped in the air after getting hit, and black wings came off his back that snapped behind him and sent him back to the front of his army and right through the smoke of that explosion. His comrades just starting to yell out his name had no reason to look back now, as Death ran to his left and kicked a two-headed woman speeding forward on her snake-like body that made Satoshi gulp when he saw Death send her heads face-planting into the corner of a building next to him that blood smeared onto.

Death had to spin to the right, his head like a black blur as he saw the woman on his side who had partially turned to look back towards him get hit in the right shoulder and then lower left side by bullets. She was back behind him and on his right, and he sped towards the right side of the road while swinging his left hand in front of him and sending a huge mass of Death down the street towards firing enemies and around a hundred others all pushing in from other sides of this sector they were not giving up without a fight.

Barkeep hit the ground, her mouth opening as she groaned out in pain rather than scream. Her groans sounded weak, but she turned her head and stopped making any noise at all with her eyes that were closing opening wider instead at the sight of Death's body mostly uncovered by Death on the torso get hit in his lower left side now right in front of her head where she had knelt down. Blood splashed off the left side of her face where the bullet grazed right through her helmet that cracked, but she was staring at the splash of blood that came out of Death's left side when usually only blackness would spray out his back when he was shot.

Death winced, but no noise came from him as he glanced back at Barkeep who had not been hit as directly by that last shot. He was not far enough back to reach her to get her out of the way, and even if he had tried to be fast enough to do it, he would have had to use more Death to get to her and definitely would have put too much into the woman still on her first life. "Octo-Rock, get her up-"

"Behind us there are more!"

"Hyper and Cluster stay up on Death!" Gentle yelled behind him. "You three, take up our rear. Death has the front."

Death ran forward to prove that, a black chain coming out of his right hand and dropping into a scythe on the floor that dragged through the dirt and left black marks down the street he ran on. Many of the enemies on this road were ones who had been dodging from his Death whips that he cracked around, and they were surrounding him better without getting cocky after seeing a single shot go through him to actual damage. Everyone had seen attacks go through Death already, but if that shot had gone through him it would have hit the woman at his back in her head.

Death could see the smartest among them thinking about it. He saw two of them flee away from the others, and he had a very bad feeling as he heard Rampart and Raylei both shouting about movement of the surface and high energy outputs on different parts of the city where there should not have been any infrastructure based on their surveillance.

The Capos knew that we had captured villains who had been to Wampajawa. They knew we would capture more. Zach thought as he watched the recording in the future, knowing already what was about to come even though the past version of himself in the footage had only an inkling of an idea. Death could not focus on that though, not with the amount of powerful villains all around him who were still attacking even as the rest of the battle raged and got more intense in all directions.

"Firing two K-3 missiles on Sector 10 coordinates 40.13 by 29.80. Beta Squad pull out of there!"

The gaps between the explosions on different streets started to get closer together. It was not only the Army of Death's missiles and explosions going off though. Gentle kicked one of the stronger enemies into the opposite direction of Death with an Elasticized kick that his enemy expected along with the extra distance he would carry so he was already spinning around and attacking again with the extra distance accounted for. Gentle dodged as he heard his comrades calling out, "They had secondary weapons' systems in Tower 3! Lenx is back in full control-"

"I'm bringing it down!"

"You're all out of rockets, Jason! You don't have the firepower-"

"I have the mass-"

"WAIT!"

Gentle spun his head as a jet flew overhead. He had to spin back but forced the fight to move so he would be turned towards the towers…

The jet exploded before it reached the tower. It burst into flames as it was unloaded on by turrets sticking out of windows on Tower 3. And as Gentle looked that way, he saw that it was not only machine gun turrets that Tower 3 had hidden away and were operational with Lenx back in control. Eight rockets flew out of the building towards different sections of Wampajawa, and the support squads of the Army of Death yelled out about them and their targets which caused everyone on the street with Gentle to freeze.

"Fuck-"

"Fire back at them! Missile defense priority Sector 4-"

"And 8!"

"Get inside everyone on 9-"

"Sir! We need more reinforcements-"

"Not yet!" Death yelled, as he dove forward and grabbed an enemy who just hardened his entire body into what looked like a boulder. Death wrapped his hands onto the crooks of the man's solid elbows, and he threw up towards the missile that was flying straight down towards them. He tossed his enemy into the path and created an explosion overhead that was too big and created a cloud of dust and ash to fly down after the force and heat that hit the villains and Army of Death who all kept fighting despite it.

Gentle felt a prick on the back of his neck, but he spun to see the hand that held the knife that was just about to plunge into his spine was disconnected from the arm it had been on. A black scythe cut through that arm, then it flew back towards Death who bent his body forward and let the black scythe fly over him with a yank of the chain it was connected to. He unbent after cutting across the chest of the villain about to break his back with the building he had lifted over his head. An entire bar was up in the air over the man, and when he was cut across his chest by the Death blade he stumbled back and his arms wobbled above him so the building looked to get heavier while it was really just his strength failing.

Death swung the chained scythe down towards three other enemies then yanked ahead of himself and whipped it in an arc around the front of his body and around his back. The chain wrapped around his own left side and got shorter so the blade imbedded into the side of the villain who started swinging again with the building. Death knew that it would take more Death to finish him because of how strong he was already proving to be, but by only partially hitting him at first he slowed the villain down enough to give him time to focus on other strong villains who would have taken advantage of the breaking tavern.

The bar fell and broke apart at the closest corner that crushed the villain underneath it as he was no longer holding it up. The rest of the weight was down on that corner too and the walls all broke apart, right as three Triceratops smashed through the wall on Death's left and came out onto the street charging at him. Death spun that way as the building broke apart behind him, and he swept some Death- only to get hit by the head of a dinosaur-looking man who ducked his head down and snapped it up. Death had to focus more on not being impaled, but the force of getting hit like that still smashed him into the broken building the dinosaurs trampled into only to get caught up in another set of explosions from three mortars that dropped down one after the other in the rubble.

"Death!"

"Look out!" Cluster yelled, running forward and pulling his arms together. The missile flying through the smoke towards them slammed into a flying piece of wood that got in the way just at the top of a newly forming wall, but the blast was too strong and knocked Cluster and Gentle down and backwards. On the other side of the wall, a couple armored cars sped onto the street, and farther down it some villain adjusted their target coordinates and fired off more mortars.

"We need Flight Squad support-"

"More of them are flying! So many have these white wings, it's got to be someone else's Quirk used on them- Chhhhh"

"Coming through the wall!"

"Cluster. Make another one."

Over the debris ran three enemies who wanted to take the change in momentum to push back the Army of Death. It felt like they were winning all of a sudden, and then the Death spiked up from under the rubble and pierced their bodies. Death's voice got less dark but still was deep and scratchy and modulated as he spun into existence in a swirl of darkness on top of the rubble himself. "Heavy Ordinance on coordinates 34.12 by 25.00 to 34.89! Drop fire on the whole street! Danger close!"

"Sir!"

"CLUSTER!" Death yelled, as more attacks were coming and the wall was not pulling together quick enough.

"I'M WORKING ON IT-"

"As soon as it hits," Death yelled out behind him as the wall was hit with Cluster yelling out in front of him, pulling more and more broken pieces and rubble together to form a barricade. Even the dirt and sand around them of the unpaved roads flew up and filled cracks, same with broken weapons and even littered corpses that all worked as the mortar that kept walls together, protecting them from other kinds of mortars. "Rush them. Take them all-"

"On our left!"

"AH! Shit-"

"Five seconds!"

"Hole in the wall-"

"I've got it!"

"HYPER WAIT!"

Death sprinted towards the hole that an enemy made. Hyper reached and punched his right hand into the villain's left ear… Then the explosions hit on the other side of the wall.

"OFF THE STREET!" Gentle yelled, as their own explosions were so close that he could not tell if it was their own attacks or their enemies that were blowing apart Cluster's wall.

"Here!"

"Get her inside!"

"AHH!" Gregor sprinted into the building and spun around, aiming his rifle at the insides of the bar though the place appeared deserted. He stumbled and then dove towards the counter as the whole world seemed to shake with louder explosions than ever happening just outside.

Gentle spun around after the others ran back in, but it took another second before Death dove inside carrying another figure. Cluster slammed the door shut behind them, and he held his back against it while the whole building shook and heat blasted through windows. Death ran to the right side wall from Gentle's view looking at the door from farther inside. He lowered Hyper down and leaned him against the wall, and he called out, "Cluster! Help me."

"We're so screwed man. Ah-" Gregor pulled back farther and yelped as his foot touched a chair. Gentle turned towards the man who was gasping out but whisper-yelled around while darting his head back and forth, "The city's not even close to being under our control. Everything's exploding- and there have to be way more than 7,000 here. We can't take this many man. We're screwed. We're totally, definitely screw-" Gentle slammed his right fist into his comrade's gut and shut him up.

"Hey! Hey Hyper listen to me," Death smacked Hyper on the left side of the face with his right hand a couple times. "Stay awake. You're fine!" Death lifted Hyper's mush of a right arm and the man who he grabbed there winced and let out a gasp of pain.

Cluster put down Hyper's helmet he just took off, and he said, "Bite into this. Hey man, you don't want to look-"

"I'm sorry Death, ah, I ran right into-"

"It's just a flesh wound," Death snapped, while he put pressure on Hyper's right shoulder where so much blood was spraying through his hands.

"Come on, Barkeep. Hold it together," Octo-Rock had put Barkeep down on the other side of the room. The woman coughed after he took off her helmet, and a line of blood was trailing down from the left corner of her lips.

"Booze," she muttered.

"Look at Death," Gentle growled at the man in front of him who had hunched forward and was grabbing his stomach in pain. He walked past Gregor and flicked his right hand at a shelf behind the bar where one bottle had not fallen off like most of the others behind the counter. He sent a small Elastic barrier behind the bottle that bounced it right into his hand, and he tossed that bottle after to his right where Octo-Rock just called for it. Octo-Rock caught it with his upper left tentacle arm mostly covered in black armor except the gray tip that wrapped softly around the bottle and lowered it. Gentle asked the man in front of him who lifted his head up partially to where Gentle told him to look, "Do you see him panicking? No. So get a hold of yourself."

"Morphine." Death said, and Cluster reached into a pouch on his lower right side and around his back, and he pulled out three different needles. He grabbed the smallest of the three while shoving the other two back in, and he gave the morphine needle to Death who injected it into his comrade who was starting to hyperventilate more than Gregor just was before Gentle got him to calm down. "Alright Hyper, look! Look at me!" Hyper's head was shaky but turned back forward while more explosions went off outside. The support team yelled along with Alpha Squad that called out how they were taking down the final missile locations from underground where they had redirected to from their current objectives. The explosions started dying down outside right after those shouts, and Death saw Hyper's blurry eyes focus on him a little more right at that moment.

"I've stopped the bleeding. Okay, Hyper? You're going to be-" Hyper's eyes were still partially open while looking at Death. He was not really "looking" at Death though, his eyes were just pointed ahead and Death was down on one knee right in the path of Hyper's eyes.

Gentle lifted his right hand to his helmet and he took it off. He rubbed his forehead of sweat with his other hand while shaking his head in frustration, lowering his helmet for a moment and putting it on the counter behind him. He reached over the counter and grabbed a different bottle of liquor still submerged in a tub of partially melted ice. He dumped some of the vodka on his own arm's exposed wounds, then he tossed the bottle towards Octo-Rock who had dumped most of the other one on Barkeep's wounds that he was bandaging. Barkeep pushed down on Octo-Rock's helmet with one hand and caught the bottle with her other, and she turned it upside down over her head that she tilted back.

"You shouldn't-"

"Leave her be," Gentle ordered Octo-Rock who looked back towards him confusedly then down at the woman's gunshot wounds in more shock as she was not actually just babbling when she was telling him to let her drink more. Bullets slid out of her body and the wounds that he had been cleaning started sealing up on their own, though Barkeep gagged and dropped the bottle to her side, before smacking herself in the face over and over to keep sober enough to fight. After just getting stronger like that, she bruised both her right and left cheek and made blood come out the right nostril of her broken nose that she winced upon feeling crack. Her teeth bared though and her muscles bulged more, and she lowered her hands down to the floor at her sides and curled her fingers into solid wood that cracked in her grip.

"Hyper? Hyper…" Death pulled back from the man in front of him he shook a couple times there. He lowered his head and grit his teeth hard, and he rose his right hand and removed his helmet with his left. Death's head came out and his hair was tied up but more loosely now in the bun behind his head. He put the helmet down for a moment and panted heavily without the rush he was in while trying to save Hyper's life with emergency first aid. "Damn it." He muttered it then grit his teeth harder and balled his right fist. "Damn it!" He punched straight over Hyper's head and through the wall over it. His hand put a hole in the wall that he slowly took that hand out of, darkness surrounding it and his fingers twitching and hovering over Hyper's head for a couple seconds.

"Ah hah, ahh-" Death put his hand onto Hyper's head and the darkness pushed down over him. He put his left hand on top of Hyper's shoulder, and Cluster leaned back while taking his own helmet off. Cluster reached behind his upper back and pulled out a tube from a pack on his gear, pulling the tube in front of his mouth and sucking water through it. He paused and winced himself as Death's right shoulder started flaring Death with harsh ripples all along his arm, as Death let out a scream, "AAAAAHHHH! AAAghh- AHH!" Death's left arm curled more around Hyper's shoulder, but he loosened the squeeze while his glowing red eyes looked down at Hyper's sealing right shoulder.

The mushy burnt flesh of his right shoulder and some of his side just below it was sealing. Cuts on his legs and arms sealed back up too, closing together with fresh skin appearing where the marks used to be. Up Death's reddened neck came darkness that stretched in webs along his skin and made his eyes flare brighter red, but Hyper's shoulder was closing and finally sealed back up with skin over it too. Blood had pulled back into his body or just stayed wet on his side and down his black armor.

Hyper gasped in a huge breath with his eyes shooting wide open. "I'm alive! Oh my God, Death I was dead and you saved me- AH My arm!"

"Hyper," Death growled. He growled it while moving his right hand from Hyper to his own chest which he squeezed the left side of for a brief moment before sliding his arm back down, the groan of pain he made in the back of his throat barely audible.

Hyper shut up instantly with his mouth wide open. Midoriya and Tokoyami stared at the screen in the courtroom and at this man's face with no doubt now. They saw a man they recognized, as did many people in the courtroom since the Italians had taken a picture of Hyper which was plastered all over the world after his "escape" from an Italian police station. The man shut up, but only for a second before he went, "I don't have an arm that was my arm that I really need. I mean, I can't fight with no- I'm not- Death, what if I-"

"Your arm's gone," Death said. His voice was calming, but Zach Sazaki stared into his comrade's eyes with his own back to hazel again. "But I need you to focus. This fight is not over, and I need you to keep fighting."

Hyper's head started nodding rapidly as Death told him how he needed him. He opened his mouth and started babbling apologies, while Barkeep stood up fully and took a step before steadying herself on a table that she almost knocked over with a loud skid on the floor. Death looked back at her, then he turned towards Gregor too before reaching up to his upper back and pulling a tiny thin tube out between two sheaths. He pulled it far and then curled it around the front of his face to suck some water out a pouch back there to keep himself hydrated. He released and like measuring tape it snapped back into his armor. Others took sips of water that they needed while they had this moment with the outside still full of ash and smoke. It felt like their enemies were taking the same time to recover after all the explosions died down that must have had them in a similar sort of way that the Army of Death found themselves in right now.

Death looked from Barkeep back to Hyper behind him who was staring up and shutting up on his own this time as Death looked around. Death had his earpiece still in his right ear, so even though he lowered his helmet and had it down in his hand right now, his voice came through the headsets so it was loud in Gentle's helmet while also being heard right in front of the helmet too. "There are more villains here than we thought," Death said. "And the battle is not ending as quickly as we had hoped, but that is why we made all the contingencies we did!"

Zach spun towards Gentle and said to one of his longest comrades, "We have not lost this battle. Not even close. But we have to stop making stupid mistakes!" Death yelled, not just for his comrades around him but for the others all listening in too as Rebel had them. Death spun to his right from the doorway facing inwards and yelled to the figures standing on that side of him, "Does 'sweep the city quickly' mean throw your life away?"

"No Commander!" The three on that side of him yelled out, Gregor slower and Barkeep slurring her words on it.

Death snapped his head the other way and glared at Hyper, "Does 'Danger Close' mean run into the Goddamn explosion?!"

"NO COMMANDER!" Hyper yelled back, his face covered in regret but also intensity as his Adrenaline started pumping as fast as ever. Cluster put his helmet back on, because Death did the same. Gentle grabbed his and lifted it up to put on as he heard shouts outside as well as saw some movement in that thinning dust.

"Do you all want to die here?!" Death yelled out.

"No Commander!" Dozens of voices yelled back as well as most people inside this building other than Gentle.

"Then show me! I order every single one of you to survive! I cannot win this battle without every one fighting with me! Stop dying… but remember! No matter what, we are winning this fight! Your secondary priority is staying alive, but victory is above all else! We cannot lose! If we lose, then they see that building cities like this works!" Death yelled it and glared around at the people in the room with him while also talking to an entire Army that had fallen quiet as they listened to him. "If we lose even a single battle then villains no longer fear us! And they won't run or surrender anymore, and we will have to face more battles like this. But more importantly, we do not lose! We never lose! Death cannot lose a fight against MAN!"

His voice shook in a deep and horrifying voice that the Army of Death were not intimidated by though. "We are not men to lose a fight. We are Death, and we will win this battle at all cost! I need every last one of you to harden yourselves for this battle. Stand up. Gather your strength." Death's voice lowered and he turned his head to the side and snarled, "And burn this city to the ground." He spun and jumped at the window on the front of the building that a man just leapt through with his guns risen already and a barrier around his whole body other than those arms that were sticking through holes in the semi-translucent wall.

Death grabbed him by his wrists and pulled those down while kneeing upwards, pushing in the barrier that was weaker than the villain helped by another was told it was. Gentle lost sight of Death as he got through the window and outside pushing back the enemy who had tried to hit them first. Gentle sprinted forward and yelled at the others around him, "Outside! Follow your Commander!" Gentle ran outside and spun to the right, seeing as a wave of Death rolled over five men, only missing two who jumped up and avoided, only to have two black tentacles throw another two villains up into those dodging ones. On the ground in front of Gentle just outside the building, sixteen newly unconscious villains were littered and more got sent flying away from Death with darkness wisping off their bodies as he went hard with his Quirk immediately after the rush outside with none of his comrades around him.

It had only been a second or two since Death got outside, but he was already in the middle of taking on 100 different enemies who had surrounded them, all at once and all on his own. Their attacks had gone through him enough that he got the full attention of his enemies, and Gentle and the others quickly realized they were not the only ones who had gone inside and were "waiting" for the right time to start the assault again. Death had known his forces needed the motivation. The lack of noise after the explosions showed how few were still out there fighting, but the entire city filled back up with noise with the full sector around them coming under Army of Death control in under a minute as Death drew the focus from all the enemies who thought that he might be one of the only ones left after not seeing any other Death soldiers for a couple minutes.

Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki sat silently but each could hear their heartbeats in their heads. They remembered the gazebo where Todoroki first confronted Zach about being Death. "You don't understand, Midoriya. The Army of Death doesn't lose. It never loses…" Midoriya's palms got sweatier as he heard things Zach had told him since he got back, repeated out the mouth of a younger version of him who had said those things in much more an inspiring way. "Not once. In hundreds, thousands of fights, I never once… not one…"

"I, I always said that. That we had never lose. But sometimes, even in our victories," Iida could picture Zach's face as his words had gotten shakier, like he was thinking of one event in particular that he had assumed had to be the Battle of the 6 Armies. "…Even in our victories, and every time was a victory, sometimes we had lost too much…"

"They were always victories, but so often I did not feel like they were. I always pushed forward and shouted about only having victories though, even as my heart disagreed because of the amount of comrades I had lost." Todoroki had to look down for a moment as he heard Zach tell him that while staring down at the floor under that gazebo. Todoroki had to look down himself and clench his own eyes a second later, thinking of the look of pain on Zach's face that he had doubted that day. He doubted any of it had been real, and he let that doubt show on his face. It was the same doubt he had showed Zach in every moment since Zach returned, and it was doubt that made him feel horrible and his stomach turn over now. He had to look back up though, watching the video of a battle more insane than anything he could have imagined ever happened.

Iida felt the most dread of anyone in a moment though as they started watching a whole new wave of the Army of Death fight against villains who had had quite some time now to prepare and organize defenses around the city still very much full of them. "…It was not a long battle like Wampajawa. It was longer than most, but only an hour, hour and a half max for the thickest fighting…" If the Battle of the 6 Armies wasn't long, "only" being an hour to an hour and a half, Iida's eyes grew wide at the memory he remembered that made his heart fall and his bottom lip open so he could let out a small gasp of air. How long was this battle? How much is the Gentle Criminal cutting out of this footage… or is it going to just have lost so much, from when that 'Whiteout' person knocks out footage…

"Sir! Delta Squad has no more tranquilizers."

"We're running low over here-"

"Calling in Reinforcing Armaments for 60 seconds at the Initial R.A.P. Don't leave any squad under half-manned from current capacity, but if you need to resupply get there within 30 seconds of the drop."

Death called out his orders then looked to his right at Gentle. "We're going as well. We'll defend the drop site." Death turned and yelled at a group of soldiers behind him, "You six! Sweep around and give southern flanking support to Beta! They're facing heavy resistance in Sector 12. Don't let them take it back after Beta just grabbed it."

"Understood, Commander!"

Through the sky over Wampajawa, a larger kind of jet than the fighter ones seen throughout the fight flew up much higher than the City of Villains below. Most of the anti-air weapons had been destroyed, but there were ones the terrorist army did not know about beforehand and defenses still operational that the Army of Death needed to be careful about. This jet was not coming low anyway though, and it did a sweep across the sky over the city with Death and Gentle only glancing up once as there was a group of 3 villains flying towards it. A single member of the Flight Squad flew up with her broadsword in hand, and Valkyrie took on the three of them and kept them from heading off their resupply plane.

The bottom of that jet opened up and four black bomb-looking devices dropped from it. The bottoms of the five foot tall black tubes opened up and revealed spinning drills inside the bottom eight inches. The rest of the tubes were slick and black, and the entire fat objects were flat on the tops of them rather than sharp and twisty like the bottom. Out the flat top of the tubes and around the round edges of it shone white and blue lights that shot the drilling objects through the air to perfect their landings. The navigation settings adjusted for wind and for human movements on the ground, and the manual human controller in the passing jet's co-pilot's seat made sure that the nav systems were double-checked as they continued flying out of the city's airspace.

"Clear the street!" Death yelled out, as he was kicking an enemy in the chest in front of him and sending the man ten feet through the air down the middle of the road. On the right side of the street two of his enemies came flying up out of an alley and screaming as they continued to soar uncontrollably into the air without stop, only to drop from thirty feet up after passing the left line of buildings from Death's perspective. Gentle bounced past Death and slammed his right knee into the side of an enemy fighting another of their comrades who just pushed onto this road but was parried on his next swing. Skater's feet reconnected via his Quirk board and he sped around Gentle's back as his comrade took down the man he had been fighting, and Skater changed the direction of his sword's swing to cut off the big red parasite Gentle had not seen latched onto his back.

Gentle turned his head and looked down at the bug as it fell. It was almost two feet long and had a long stinger on it that dripped red on the floor. Death stopped sprinting forward at him and instead looked to Gentle's left shoulder blade where there was some blood coming out of where that weird parasite had been connected. Gentle had been at his back for most of the fight so he did not know when it had connected, though Gentle just felt reassured that it had not been too long ago and he was not feeling drugged or sluggish, yet. "The only drug in it was probably the one that made you not feel it," Skater suggested, before turning and rolling farther down the road while yelling out, "Kappa keep me updated on every 5 point coordinate shift…"

"Reinforce quickly," Death told Gentle, nodding at the other man in front of him who again glanced back for his left shoulder but moved that arm around not feeling any worse for the wear.

"I'm fine," Gentle assured the commander. Death ran past him, and Gentle repeated in a tone more to himself, "I'm fine."

As Gentle said it the second time, four black objects dropped out of the sky and landed on the street that had just been secured by over thirty Army of Death members with more of them rushing into the area each second. The spiraling drills on the bottom of the black tubes pierced the dirt road of the Initial Reinforcing Armaments Point. The R.A.P. was secured, but because so many Army of Death needed to come and resupply, Death and Gentle could already hear the shouts of their comrades all over the city about being pushed back and needing help.

The outer shells of the four black drills opened upwards. Thin metal sheets pushed out from the tubes and lifted upwards with weapons attached on the inside walls which spun around while turning horizontal. As those horizontal shelves flipped outwards, the inner walls pushed out of the inside of the resupply tubes and popped out to the sides as well with several weapons extending only once they had the ability to. The guns locked into place at usable sizes and rested on hooks that protruded for the soldiers to grab. And above every popped-out interior wall of weapons, a timer on a tiny black screen started counting down from 0:30.

"Thirty seconds people! Get your shit and get back to your squads!"

"Make sure you aren't standing too close when time runs out!"

Gentle grabbed a few magazines of darts then moved out of the way as a woman on his left needed to grab other weapons. She took a sword in a sheath and grabbed a semi-automatic rifle, along with a belt of tranquilizer and live ammunition. She grabbed a new first aid kit too as well as a pouch with a universally understood 'biohazard' symbol on it. Gentle looked away as she was still resupplying, and he turned towards Death who just yelled at his comrades to grab whatever they needed and 'Go Go Go Go!' They were running off as soon as they armed themselves, not breaking for any longer than needed to get the ammunition and weapons to continue fighting at the fastest possible speed.

A couple grabbed canteens if they were out of water. Others replaced their guns that were damaged or lost in the fighting so far. Death looped one belt of knives over his right shoulder and clipped it on the left side of his waist, then he took another belt completely lined in hilts of knives and looped it over his other shoulder. The belts crossed each other over his chest. Then he grabbed three more katanas, needing to step around the side of the tube to grab more weapons as he was cleaning out one of the containers completely. He clipped a new belt with different kinds of grenades to his waist and shoved new pistols back into holsters, or took new holsters that he clipped onto belts he had just attached too. Death slid another katana and its sheath into the tightened belt wrapping from his left shoulder to his waist on his right side where the hilt stuck out forward and the rest of the sword pushed out behind his back instead of across it like the other five katanas he had on him that had hilts sticking out on the left and right side of his lower back.

Death grabbed a pair of assault rifles and slung them over his shoulders so they crossed his back with the barrels pointed up diagonally over either shoulder to the sides of his head. The timer was down to ten seconds, and Death grabbed another pair of pistols he slid back into empty holsters under his armpits that he only shoved his hands back into while already running away from the tube. "Too late!" Death yelled to his right at a comrade just sprinting onto the street. "Here!" He pulled his right hand back from under his left armpit and tossed a weapon to his comrade who he stopped from rushing to the resupply drills.

"Y'all have a force of villains with three S-Rank targets on your four o'clock. Tyrule is there…"

"On your right!" Death yelled at the man catching Death's pistol. His comrade was only on his three o'clock, and he and Gentle sprinted to the man and then past him while that soldier spun too with his back spiking white spikes outwards and his eyes focusing on where Rebel had just told Death and Gentle there were enemies incoming.

"You're pathetic, Tyrule!" Death called out in a cocky snarl towards the building that Rebel continued to inform them about the villains' status in. "Are you so shameful that you would work with the-"

Whatever taunt Death was making did not need to be finished, as the wall in front of them blew apart. Tyrule himself came sprinting around the back of the building the same time it was exploding though, and he flanked the Army of Death soldiers focused on the falling wall. Meanwhile, across the last street that was covered in Army of Death armaments and lots of weapons that had not been grabbed, Caesar clicked his tongue loudly twice on the top of his mouth and ran while crouched towards the closest of the drills that had no dark soldiers around it.

Caesar reached a rifle that he pulled off the tube faster than the others sprinting towards it… His eyes locked on the timer at 0:01, right before it went to 0:00. Death grabbed Tyrule's left arm by the forearm while the villain's fist was glowing bright white. He bent out and pushed Tyrule's arm while kicking the villain's left leg backwards and putting him too off balanced to stop the momentum. Tyrule's left fist hit his former enemy but current ally, Frugly Frog in the chin, at the same time that a wave of explosions erupted on the street next to them. Tyrule's punch seared through Frugly's chin right as his fat purple bumpy tongue was about to shoot out from close range into Death's helmet.

Death kicked backwards without focusing on Frugly who Tyrule just burned badly. He knocked back Frugly's strongest comrade and another villain they had marked as S-rank because of his power, and Death put his Quirk onto the sole of his foot that he planted in Ryperioman's thick stomach. That larger villain behind him with thick gray skin and a huge horn on top of his head who had just rose fifteen feet tall as part of his transformation-type Quirk, snapped his hands down and punched Death's leg into the floor after it kicked him. He had winced from it but knocked the leg away quickly and before the amount of Death on the vigilante's foot could absorb into him…

Death's right leg turned into Death as it was smashed through by both of Ryperioman's huge arms. That cloud of Death wrapped his arms then shot to the left at three others who were going around Gentle's back. And Gentle bounced to his right instead anyway and took out two others trying to take advantage of their other comrade's focus on one of Tyrule's men. Three Army of Death soldiers fought off the crowd, but Frugly did not get as angry at Tyrule as Death thought he would. That burnt man leaning into a wall with his lower face and neck covered in burns, just snapped his head forward and groaned in pain but also rage as his thick tongue flew at Death's head while Death's right leg was still reforming in that instant below his thigh.

Death yanked his head to the side, and the tongue passed him and put a hole in the closest wood wall behind his head as if an eight-inch round of a rifle just shot through it. Then Death swung Tyrule into the tongue as it was pulling back rapidly to be fired out again. The end of Frugly's tongue had almost gotten far enough back, but even just the end bit that Tyrule touched when Death swung that villain into the purple tongue was enough that it stuck Tyrule to it. Frugly had already been pulling back too quickly to avoid being stopped, and the frog-man's already huge eyes bulged just before he slammed Tyrule into his own body and toppled them through the wall behind them. Death had left some darkness on Tyrule's body too, so Frugly was hit by it and knocked out the same time that Ryperioman's eyes finally rolled into his eyes from the Death that had covered his arms after he punched through Death's leg.

"You two, with me to back up Kappa," Death ordered as he had heard more shouts of people needing help in his helmet during that fight. Not all of the calls for support ended when his soldiers who had come to resupply made it back to their teams. Instead their voices joined in as the problem was not their own half-squad strength but the overwhelming strength of their enemies. "Epsilon, push towards Kappa and join for Eko formation. I will lead through central quadrant and push back for the Towers. Tower Squads under Exodus and Charlie, eliminate resistance and push to us to connect a line through the middle of the city. We will take the center we separate their resistance, then we split them horizontally and take each quadrant sector by sector! All other Squads remain on task and push to have the sector taken by the time a main push comes through to join with. If you currently hold your sectors then search them for any hideouts while supporting Squads next to you! Keep pushing forward!"

The three ran through Wampajawa, a city on fire. Two others they passed joined up behind them at shouts from Death for them to follow. Then he reached a road with six Army of Death soldiers ahead using their Quirks against sixteen villains also using Quirks. They added five more to the fight, changing the odds as eleven AoD soldiers against sixteen villains was far from even odds. Death ran straight into his enemies, ignoring their attacks with his natural speed rather than using his Quirk as he moved through their ranks with ease.

The replenished tranquilizers started whittling down quickly, and the battle style of the leader in the middle of the pack of enemies had clearly changed as well. Behind the 16 who were already fighting, other villains attacked from both sides of him in an ambush that included an attack from the sky. "Flight Squad assist my position. Jetflame, organize the response." Death made his order calmly while firing a pistol full of tranquilizers off to his right and flicking back his hand covered in darkness to his left. He ran between flanking enemies and made it harder for them to attack him without hitting their comrades on his other sides, and then Death called out, "Push."

All of Death's comrades farther down the road sprinted forward, firing and attacking with Quirks as they ran. Death himself jumped backwards, bringing their gazes up in the air towards him but also putting his troops in their peripheral vision and causing their enemies hesitation. Death landed and rushed back forward while Gentle slammed his arms out in front of him. All the enemies who changed their targets fired into a wall, while Gentle called out, "Hold."

Death sprinted ahead and to the left, but he grabbed an enemy and tossed up in front of the quickest of the ambushing ones dropping from the sky. The one flying down had a pair of white wings on her back, and yet out of her horizontal thin eye socket that seemed to have no eyeball in it, a yellow spinning blade flew out and down towards Death. It sliced through the enemy Death tossed up without slowing down at all. Death dove to his right into a roll and slashed his left arm across his body with a sword in it, while he flicked four knives down the road at other enemies rushing this way. Those knives went right past a dozen closer villains to take out farther ones, and one of the knives hit a villain charging a kind of long-ranged attack. And then he yelled again, "Push!"

Gentle and the squad around him rushed forward, right as four of Death's comrades flew in the sky over them and intercepted a large group of different kinds of flying villains all trying to get the best angle on Death. Death slammed his right fist into the floor and punched the face of a dirt creature that was opening its mouth around his legs. He pounded it in its face then again more focused on where he thought its right eye was, while Gentle rushed at Death and created the barrier just past him which split the road again. All the other villains who Death and Gentle ran past got swarmed by overwhelming numbers of Army of Death soldiers who had been waiting for the moment of 'push' and rushed ahead at villains they knew were most distracted at the moment Death called it.

The villains' ranks were split. Other villains dropped out of the sky with tranquilizers in their bodies. They fell and broke bones on landing on the street. Blood splashed out of their other comrades who fought harder behind Gentle's barrier, though as hard as they fought there was nothing they could do when Gentle and Death turned and joined the fight to finish off all those trapped behind Gentle's barrier. The other villains shot towards them when Death and Gentle turned around, but his Elastic barrier split the road too well and forced them to just watch through stretchy air as their comrades were dropped in waves. Death dropped the back of an enemy's head that he had gripped with his left hand after the man had knocked down one of his comrades. He dropped the villain who collapsed to the floor as his own comrade got back up, then Death turned his head to the side and glared back down the road while the rest of his troops moved forward. "Push!" Death yelled, running forward this time with the rest right behind him and going straight through where the enemies all thought an invisible wall was.

"Wicked! Damn it… RAaa- urg"

"Death! Heavy and Wicked on your right three blocks-"

"After him!" Gentle yelled out at the rest of their comrades. They had been making progress and pushing back enemies, but Death had too many voices in his head telling him different directions and calling for help. Heavy himself did not call for help but the tone in his voice when he called for Wicked was angry and pained, and Gentle felt the pain too as he knew that Wicked had died before.

Gentle hit the road behind Death and ran forward towards where Heavy was trying to hold his ground despite getting shot at least four times right when Gentle arrived. Near Heavy's shaking legs lay a woman whose messy green hair splayed out of her broken helmet, near her unmoving body inside a quickly growing puddle. Gunshots were firing from buildings on Heavy's front, his front right, and his front left. The entire street ahead of him was empty with lots of dead villains on the ground too who looked like they may have been shot in the back by their own friends. Another two dark soldiers were crouched and pulling away across the road from the side Gentle entered from, having approached from the other side but failing to run out in the street to help with so many bullets flying this way. They were the ones who had yelled for Death to come help but neither could step out themselves.

Gentle had to create a barrier in front of himself right after coming into the road, and he pointed it diagonally downwards to slam the bullets into the floor rather than bounce them back when Death and Heavy were both ahead of him. Death ran towards Heavy, dodging and weaving but calling out at the same time, "Heavy! Get off the-" Heavy's right leg hit the ground, another splash of blood coming out the center of his back while Death was running his way. Heavy's hands shook more on the minigun that the big Quirkless man had been firing down the road at different windows and walls his enemies were attacking from after killing the woman he had been seeing romantically since almost the day they had joined the force together.

Heavy's shouts of rage had cut off, the pain taking over and blood splashing out his mouth inside his helmet. He heard Death running up behind him though, and the shots continued and so continued ripping into him even as he fell to both knees. Jorge Michaels' arms lifted up, holding the minigun for the man rushing towards him who shouted out his name as Heavy started falling forward. Death reached his hands over Heavy and pulled the light machine gun out of his comrade's hands right before Heavy collapsed lifeless. Death's body had dark wisps shooting out the backs of his arms and legs, out the back of his helmet and from his chest and lower body too.

Death started holding the trigger of the LMG, and the barrel of the personal minigun sped back up with a whirring sound getting louder as Death swung the entire weapon across his body starting from the right side. "RAAaaa- RA Ra Ra Ra Ra…" Death unloaded the minigun while walking forward, and he screamed even louder as Death poured out of his back and into the dead man on the ground behind him. Gentle rushed forward and created a new barrier with only a small hole for Death's Quirk to push through onto Heavy's corpse, and he kept looking forward during it as Death unloaded hundreds of bullets through the walls all over the street ahead of him without slowing at all as the enemies' rounds went through him.

The enemies rounds stopped coming before long when they saw it was not doing anything, before Heavy was revived even. Death stopped coming out of the commander's back as he stopped screaming, as others ran onto the road from both sides and increased their numbers seven fold in a few seconds. Heavy opened his eyes, and Gentle grabbed the big man off the ground and stood him up while Death ran backwards towards him. Death grabbed Heavy by the right shoulder while slamming the huge gun into Heavy's chest. "You with me?!" Death yelled out.

Heavy's head shook around fast, then his arms rose up and gripped onto his weapon. "Good!" Death shouted into his face. "Then reload and take up the rear! The rest of you, let's move!" Death spun and sprinted down the street littered in bodies and hundreds of bullets. The walls and windows all around this block had been ripped apart, and Death sprinted down the street without looking into buildings splashed with red on the inside. Death ran down the block to the building most torn up by his and Heavy's attacks, and he cut to the left immediately to get back on track with where he was before.

As he sprinted down the intersecting road, Death heard shouts around the next corner and to his right in the direction he wanted to go but which he wanted to move down from closer to the center of the city to better split it. If he kept moving to the center and then pushed north afterwards anyway, these villains on his right side were going to have flanking positions on him in a few seconds. He was going to split off some of the forces at his back anyway to guard their flanks and alert them during the push to control a line going north and south through the city, but he did not want to do so two blocks away from where he was heading. So as he passed by the intersection of the street he was on and the perpendicular one going north where he heard loud shouting of organization and confidence… he slid onto his knees while swinging his right and left arms to the right side of his body.

His hands pulled apart and his right elbow pulled close to his own body. The black bow he was creating rippled up and down from his hands, though his right hand was gripping the feathers of the black arrow as well as the appearing black bow-string that he pulled farther back and looked to tighten to actually have the tension in it to send the Death Arrow off the bow quickly. Death's enemies looking his direction shouted his name, and others looked that way to see Death sliding past the intersection on his knees with a bow pointed in their direction that he fired when halfway across the intersection.

The black arrow flew off of Death's bow and split into three after flying ten feet. The center arrow continued and hit the man who had been closest to Death and one of the quickest to react, not even shouting Death's name and just starting to use his Quirk that only reached half the distance Death's arrow did by the time the arrow pierced his chest. Death's other two arrows denied gravity and physics, cutting with Death's mental orders off to the right and left of the central one and going into other villains before flying through their bodies and after others who Death's red eyes glared at behind his visor during the slide. Darkness pushed out of Death's feet and continued to form on his knees and in front of them, allowing him to fire another arrow as he was reaching the end of the intersection and already turning his head back forward.

Gentle darted a look to his right and followed the rain of black arrows onto that street where the villains were running and getting hit by the second wave of black arrows as much as they did the first. Gentle still saw a couple dodging though, and he snapped behind him, "The three of you, down here! Flank the east side of the villains to our north in forty seconds." Gentle could tell why Death wasted some of his Quirk to clear that road, but there were still villains here who would flank their own forces going down the next road west in under a minute if their own forces did not push down this road too. He assumed their victory against the remaining forces on this road and gave the three follow-up orders to flank which put the pressure on them to defeat those remaining enemies in thirty seconds max if they wanted ten seconds to get in flanking positions for the next road west.

None of them argued with his orders though, and Death did not look back or question Gentle's decision either. Death just gave out orders and yelled, "Skater! You take this road and push north, hold on flanking orders. Elsa and Switch, follow Grabble to the western flank and give support when needed! Grabble! Skater! Use air support sparingly, it's needed more in the southeast quadrant!" Death called out that order while already cutting back down the middle road from before, and he added, "Heavy and Gentle! Guard our rear, we have two blocks down the north-south center unaccounted for…"

"Just spotted three enemies in SE Quadrant injecting with something."

"Delta is getting pushed back to Respawn Point, requesting guard support…"

"Beta en route to support Delta-"

"Beta wait! Gamma is facing heavy fire from the south, Exterior do you have-"

"Exterior is repositioning perimeter forces, hold on all support orders-"

"They've got Trigger storage ahead of Gamma B! We're pushing to search and destroy, Xia guard our rear!"

"Seraphim!"

"Beta is approaching…"

Death listened in to a deteriorating situation in the south which he wanted to be able to head to only after securing this line through the city. Just as they had repositioned in a great formation to cut all the way to the towers though, a shout from a young teenage girl filled his headset.

"Death! We had eyes on the Banker! He's with Capo 3 just locked behind new blast doors on the second level down. Missappear is KIA and Quicksand hit, Foundation split with Mark down a different route-"

"What're Darling's coordinates?" Death snapped.

As command responded to their entire army commander, Death turned towards Gentle. The two of them met gazes through their visors, and Death ordered, "Gentle, take this team to the towers. Do not stop until you link up with Exodus. Coordinate with each other and hold a path through the north!" Death's wings ripped out of his back and flapped down. He soared into the sky and to the southwest, then he flapped above himself and flew straight down at the coordinates he was given. Gentle did not look towards Death for more than a second though, as Heavy yelled out about behind them and Grabble shouted how the west flank was too filled to move down.

The three who just pushed down the west flank came back around the intersection they went down. Two were running backwards while Grabble went on his right knee and fired more shots to cover the retreat, then the other two knelt as Grabble spun and sprinted back between them with a big red target glowing on the front of his helmet. "I really don't like this!" Grabble yelled when he saw Gentle looking towards him from behind the ten soldiers who had just ran north down the middle road.

"We aren't going to be ready in the forty seconds, Gentle!"

"Out of ammo!"

"Take my mag!"

Gentle bounced up into the air and gave himself a view over the street Death wanted him pushing down and the two on either side of it which he wanted to have covered. Not even the road two to his right though was secured and under their control, and the path they had been going down in the center of the city was refilling with villains from the holdout that had been just ahead of where they were rushing before going to support Heavy.

"Epsilon is nearly wiped out!"

"Death, they need an assist-"

"He's fighting Xothuro in the labyrinth!"

"Once we take the underground we'll have-"

"We're hitting what looks like a Trigger store, but we saw several villains rushing different directions out of it when we arrived. No telling how many are out there-"

"I just stopped two from shooting-up in a building Delta pushed- Shit! More of them upstairs- IN HERE!"

"There's too many! We're going to get overrun in Sector 3…"

"All of you, pull back to Central Plaza," Gentle ordered the forces who had pulled to the same intersection Death left from. He had landed back in the ranks, and he ordered, "Skater, Grabble, take your Squad portions down the center, Tama do call outs and connect the line. Hold the center of the city until Death's back." Gentle spun and looked back to the north where a huge explosion of white light came out the middle of one of the black towers. "Or until Exodus calls for you to assist him."

Death had been the one the entire time to choose when to suddenly rush off in one direction to help their comrades all over the city. Gentle was keeping up with him and helping the others right behind him as much as he could, but separating from Death meant there was no one to tell Gentle which group needed his support most. He abandoned the push forward though when forces were getting overrun back in parts of the city they actually had, and instead their forces furthest into "enemy" territory started pushing backwards solely into one group of isolated enemies instead of all the forces surrounding their north at once.

"Take down that Capo quickly, Death-"

"Ruuah! You MOTHER FUCKER! Take-"

The city below Gentle shook, and he heard Alpha Squads shouts down below as explosions had apparently gone off during Death's fight with one of the Capos, still only the second one they had come in contact with in the fight so far. "Any sign on the other three Capos?" Gentle asked, while bouncing off another two platforms he created behind his palms. He made two of them and pressed his hands hard into both, skyrocketing himself diagonally out of the air this time and in front of Beta Squad just behind their first line of enemies-

Gentle's strategy was similar to how he and Death had been pushing forward for a while there. But the villains who were now between Beta Squad and Gentle did not need to spin or figure out which way to attack, because the moment Gentle landed he was slammed into by a six and a half foot tall Asian man whose body flew forward in a blur of white that pulsed out of his back. It was not light exactly, more a trail of dust that followed him and turned purple as he swept his arms forward after the purple-adorned dark soldier who flipped around and created a barrier in front of him.

The purple wisps of dust-filled winds hit the barrier, but only a few pieces were bounced back before the rest of the winds wrapped around the sides of the barrier and flew at Gentle. They turned yellow, and the air electrified all around him and the dark soldiers he'd been slammed back to the same position. Sparks came out of the static air, and Seraphim rushed forward on Gentle's left while a set of twins rushed in on his right. Two members of the Flight Squad flew down, but the man with colorful dust patterns only rushed forward to assist the front lines of villains when Gentle tried to isolate them from the rest of the huge group of villains filling this area. Those front lines had other powerful villains already on it.

A wall of stone spikes shot up between Xia and Shang right after Shang threw Xia forward, so even though her double-legged kick broke a man's ribs and launched him across the street into one of his comrades, she was separated from Shang and weakened because of it. "Don't let her hands touch you," another villain called out after seeing Seraphim's attack on two others, attacks which instantly dropped them and caused the retreat of the Dusty villain who had been forcing Gentle and others to pull back.

"Attack now!" Gentle yelled as soon as the Colored-Dust man moved back even the smallest amount. "Flank behind them!" Gentle yelled, shouting it at the top of his lungs as if to the group already back there.

He ran forward while attempting a misdirect that only worked on a couple of enemies. "Figures," he said, while swinging his right hand down and then pushing his fingers off a barrier he needed to bounce off into a flip in the air. Gentle grabbed his purple cloak from behind him and spun his body in midair, and a spike of flames cut through the cape missing his side by only a few inches. He pulled out a pistol from his waist while wrapped partially in his turned cloak, and he fired down at the villain with a long spike of fire coming out of his punched-forward left arm he thought he impaled his enemy with. "That's the end of the Gentle-" the cocky orange-haired man started yelling, apparently knowing already who Gentle was, only to go wide-eyed as Gentle fired towards him.

A mist of dark blue Dust filled the air quickly between Gentle and the fiery enemy, and the dart flying through that dark blue dust started moving in slow-motion. At the same time, brown dust that blended in all over the ground turned bright green, and Gentle hit down to instantly slip when he was going for a crouch position to leap off to his right and hit another enemy going for Xia. He was not the only one to slip, with five other dark soldiers slipping on the floor as well as three villains. More of the dark Army of Death soldiers fell though than their enemies, and there were already far more of their enemies anyway who pushed forward at the slightest sign of weakness.

Stone spikes shattered, and they surrounded in glowing red light with the sharp ends flying towards dark enemies who yelled out and pulled back. Gentle swung his left arm just in time and created a barrier in front of four of their troops, bouncing the spikes back and slamming into one villain running just behind them to capitalize after the spikes had injured his enemies. The red glows were still on the spikes someone controlled though, and the telekinetic powers pushed the spikes into the ground where they were trampled by the other villain who sprinted forward looking like an eighteen foot tall robot that transformed into a gray and black truck as he was running ahead. His wheels were spiked and crushed up the stones below him, and he pushed into an Elastic barrier that bent forwards too much that two dark soldiers on the other side were still hit by the force and thrown backwards.

Gentle was too focused on protecting more of his comrades who were facing off against a rapidly growing force of enemies who were not scared or pulling back from this group. It was not the same as when Death would drop in one a group and suddenly change the tides of the fight. At least not this time. No one watching could tell if it was Death's absence or if the villains were really that much better this time, but the Army of Death were pushed back and Gentle had to roll backwards to dodge as three villains all with sharp claws and looking ferocious charged at him.

He pushed his hands down on the ground and leapt upwards with what looked like just his strength, but he made his arms do that extra bend intentionally so it looked like the leap was through muscle alone. Two of his clawed enemies landed where he just was and jumped after him, but they bounced 1.5 times as high as they thought they would, the ground only slightly Elasticized but enough that their force of leap threw them off. Gentle pointed a pistol up and fired a tranquilizer into one's right eye, but as he pointed at the second he had to spin and slam his left fist forward with Elasticity forming around it.

He was too slow to use his Quirk, and the third villain who suspected something from Gentle opened his own fist and clawed through Gentle's black glove and into his knuckles. Gentle hit the ground and swung behind him into the floor, opening his own bloody hand and wrapping it around his enemy whose arm down to his back he Elasticized right before the man hit the floor. That villain bounced back up and into the second one who he had never been able to tranquilize, then Gentle quickly yanked his hands from the claws that dug harder into him as even bouncing around this villain, the man was still fighting him and smart enough to know that he had hurt Gentle.

Gentle did not release because the man was hurting him more though, he released because he was the farthest forward of all the Army of Death's soldiers now. On his left side he saw Seraphim's arms spread to her right and left as she took out two more villains attacking from her sides. She had crouched and snapped her arms out fast and between their own arms, tapping them on their foreheads before quickly slamming her arms forward to try and hit the guy who rushed straight at her in the second she guarded her sides. Seraphim was fast, but he was faster, and his fist slammed into her visor and shattered it before hitting her in the face with his fist and a helmet full of glass that imbedded deeper in her skin when the fist punched into the shards.

Seraphim was launched backwards, but Gentle was more focused on the man in front of him who just kicked Shang in the ribs and sent him straight back into Typhoon who tried to catch the Co-Squad Leader with Xia who yelled out for him but was too far from Shang's path to catch her own brother. Typhoon was knocked backwards though and rolled while holding his arms around a groaning Shang. Gentle saw how hard that kick was and grimaced more while backing up from the Dust-controlling man who had black and red dust swirling around his body. His muscles looked to engorge and his skin darkened with red lines cutting through his fists and up his arms all the way to his neck. The other villains on his sides and going behind him for over twenty meters now, over sixty of them in all, were yelling out at each other about their enemies' Quirks and to keep pushing them back as they had the Army of Death on the defensive.

Gentle stepped backwards, and the big man ahead of him swung his right arm forward while stomping a more muscular right leg on the floor. The ground under his right foot cracked and shook the floor where Gentle was stepping backwards, causing Gentle to stumble as he was trying to pull his body away from a thin piercing line of white dust at the same time. Gentle wobbled backwards and swung his barriers forward as the rest of his comrades ran up to stop a push they knew was coming. The stronger man in front of Gentle slammed his right fist into the Elastic barrier, then he opened his fist and grabbed into the Elasticized air that he ripped backwards.

Seraphim snapped up from where she lay and hit the man who had punched her in the face before he could even react to her surprising consciousness. Two more Army of Death soldiers ran in from an alley on Gentle's right, but they were pushing to assist and flank farther forward where the back line of the Army of Death had been thirty seconds ago where they thought it still was, and now they were separated from their comrades which gave a group of ten villains an easy target which they rushed.

"Pull back to us!"

"Look out!"

Any distraction the Army of Death had was capitalized on, and the woman who shouted out for their reinforcements to come back to their side to at least have comrades around them, got a claw in her throat in the very next second as she tried to spin back for her closest enemy. The one who yelled out at her to 'look out' was running her way, and he was shot in the right leg down below his knee, causing him to trip and roll behind Gentle who just quickly created another Gently Rebound in front of him, only for his Dusty enemy to rip through it easier this time. The Elasticized air should have been like rubber, but the man shrouded in red Dust shredded straight through it as easily as paper before snapping his right arm over Gentle's left hand for his helmet as Gentle's comrades screamed in pain around him from the rush…

The villain in front of Gentle vanished in a flash of black. The only thing in Gentle's visor for a split instant had been pitch blackness, and silence fell over the street as the blur of black that fell from the sky flattened the Dust-Controlling villain farthest forward of all the villains on the road. Others just came back out of an alley, hands dripping in blood and dark soldiers on the ground to their back. Seraphim just fell down to her knees on Gentle's left, but the five villains just ahead of her were hesitating and looking inwards just as Seraphim glanced inwards too. Others on Gentle's right for both sides glanced inwards, looking to the villain pushing farthest into the Army of Death's ranks, who was flat on his face with a beast of pitch blackness over his body down on four appendages.

And that black form that looked like a swirling mass of nothing but darkness, lifted up its left arm and slammed it down into the body of the man below it. The left hand loudly squelched into the back of the villain, then it lifted up and slammed back down again, and again. The beast made noise with each swing too, "Ruahg Ruugh Raaugh- Rrruuh-" The hand that pulled up again opened and black fingers stuck out of what was apparently a fist that had slammed down over and over into the villain's back. The fingers opened into sharp claws that slammed back down into the villain's back again, digging through flesh. Then that hand curled around something. "RrruUUG!" The dark form tore upwards with its left arm and out to the side, black flames rippling out of its back and flaring out to its sides as it tore out the villain's spine.

Blood splashed up in the air and everyone stared at the long jagged spine of a man who was alive only seconds ago. The black creature ripped it out the villain's back and to the left too, holding it there dripping red to the floor below it and with no Death on it so everyone could see exactly what it was that the creature just ripped from the villain's back.

Then, this creature that had landed and not lifted its head once as it smashed away into its once powerful victim, lifted up its head. It rose its head towards those villains in front of it, and the top and bottom half of its head pulled apart with thin lines of Death barely connecting the jaw and pulling apart thinner like tearing flesh… and it roared. "RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHH!"

Black flames encircled the terrifying figure and the spikes on its back flared upwards with long wisps of darkness pulling out and then forward. The tendrils reached for the enemies ahead who they struggled towards like they were trying to grab as many of them as possible and were barely being held back. The floor around Death turned black and burst into high flames of pitch blackness, as the horrifying beast of a creature that looked nothing like a human being roared in the most terrifying moment of any of those villains' lives, as well as the lives of many people in a courtroom watching it a year later, and a lot more people who only heard the screen as Sero had dropped his phone that he was live-streaming this on when Gentle caught the sight of Death tearing a man's spine out.

Mineta peed a little, while Hagakure pushed herself as far into her own seat as possible. Sero did not pick his phone up yet as he stared with trembling eyes past Zach's head and at a Death that he had never once considered existed in this form. If it's, this bad for us, Sero looked past Death, at the same moment that Gentle took a full step back from him.

Other Army of Death soldiers on Death's sides were staring towards him frozen in place. A couple others in Gentle's peripherals stepped back farther than Gentle did. The reaction was a lot more intense and hysterical from the villains on the other side of the black flames who lost all will to fight. "AeeEEE!" A grown man screamed in a cracking voice as he morphed back into one from the five figures he had split into before. He turned and sprinted away, slower than half of the others who had spun and were already running without bothering to scream.

So many of them sprinting away meant any who even considered fighting could not as they knew there was no getting the rest of their group to stay, and they were not going to fight Death without overwhelming odds that they were losing. The strongest ones even at the front turned and ran, sprinting as fast as they could in the other direction, some of them screaming, some leaving behind brown trails while others just had those trails of trails of shitty liquid going down their legs.

One man who backpedaled from only twelve feet in front of Death and slightly to his left, tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. His eyes clenched shut in pain as he hit down hard on his butt, while another figure scooting slightly behind him and on Death's right instead was pushing back with one hand while gripping his right side using his left hand to try and stop the bleeding of a wound he got in the fight. He was left behind by everyone else who he screamed at to help him, and his hand was slipping on the dirt ground as he desperately pushed himself away from Death.

The man who tripped over himself and fell on his butt opened his eyes and stared straight ahead into the face of Death that had risen and was looking at him. His body froze, his eyes huge as there was no one left on his sides. Only this being in front of him who he had heard too many stories of the horror of to withhold any sane thought. His left hand snapped up with a pistol in it that he did not aim at Death, but put up underneath his own chin and pulled the trigger of faster than Death could reach him. He even smiled in that last moment that he got it off before Death could rush forward and stop him to make it worse.

Blood splashed out the top of his skull and he fell backwards. The other man on his left and slightly to Death's right spun towards the other villain who offed himself rather than face Death, and he turned back with a horrified expression which flinched instead as he had thought to find a different way until he looked back at Death who he was now the one closest to. He did not have a pistol on him, but his left hand gripping his bloody right side snatched a knife off the floor next to him that he rose up to his throat. The knife was shaking and his eyes looked terrified, but he clenched them shut while lifting his right hand to the hilt of the blade too so he could push it deep, and he cut across his own throat.

Halfway across his own throat, his eyes snapped open and the cut got shallower before he threw the knife away as he had second thoughts. He grabbed at his throat though as he had cut too deep early on, and blood spraying out spurted between his fingers. He rolled on the ground spasming and seizing as blood poured through the cracks of his fingers and down his neck. He stopped rolling as much with just a few more seizes, then he stopped moving as the puddle grew around him.

And the road in front of them was empty. All villains had scattered, or killed themselves.

Midoriya Izuku's jaw was dropped, but his mind raced as he looked back at Zach in the present rather than the video. "…You're right. That's why, I say it was wrong. Why it was too much fear…" Midoriya heard a conversation they had not a week ago about Zach's methods in China that Zach had sounded so guilty about, methods which he told Deku he thought were wrong. "…I've scared people too much before. To a point that it's cost lives. Being so terrifying that it kills people, you don't get to shake that off. It's not that easy to just stop being that person."

I didn't know how you could be so scary that it would literally kill people. I didn't understand, that you were actually this much of a… monster. Midoriya could not think of any other way to describe the figure he looked back at on the screen whose darkness was starting to simmer and drop back down on his sides.

The huge black spikes on his back and flaring dark aura shrank down now that no enemies were around him. And the Army of Death around their leader realized why it was that he did not rush after all those villains when they were running away, as the darkness around his back faded more as it did around his arms and legs. They stared at the man who had gone off to fight one of the Capos and yet was here to save them, again, when they were getting too overrun by their enemies.

Gentle stepped back forward quickly as he looked down and finally saw the figure who had dropped on his would-be killer and ripped his spine out. Death had two long pipes of rebar sticking out of his back, but they were stuck so deep into him that they were sticking out his front too. One was coming out his upper back on his right side and the other his mid-lower back more in the center but slightly on the left of his own spine. As the Death faded from his legs too, Gentle could see the long deep gash that cut through both his right and left calves as if something had slashed across both his legs. And yet those legs were only shaky, as Death was not down on his knees but barely holding himself up on the toes of his feet and the fingers of his right hand that were just to the side of the body of the man he was on top of.

Death moved that right hand and pushed himself off the villain's body. Death's legs scrambled with his toes pressing down hard as he got off and pushed the villain's spine down on the ground on his left. His head snapped down as he pushed down with his left hand on something bumpy, and his entire left arm trembled before he lifted his hand and pushed off to his side and released the spine. At the moment of release, he gasped and then barfed, "Uuurraggh- acckuggh-" Death's puke came out along with a lot of red that all poured through the holes in the bottom of his helmet and out the bottom of it, and at the same time more blood poured out of his arms that had cuts on them, out the gashes in his legs, and a lot more poured from down the rebar that had impaled him in two different places which had been hidden by the amount of Death around him before.

His arms wobbled as he tried to push himself up on his feet, and Gentle grabbed the man near collapse by the back and by his left arm to help him up. "You idiot! We need to get you to-"

Gentle was lifting his commander, but Death's right hand snapped across the front of his body and he gripped Gentle by the front of his armor. "Agh- ack!" Death coughed and more blood and puke came down the chin of his visor and spilled onto his own chest, but his right hand gripped into Gentle's armor tighter and he panted out a breath then sucked one in. In a raspy and deep voice, Death hissed at him, "He was dead, on the first blow."

Death's shaking hand gripped Gentle's armor while his deeply cut legs tried to find proper footing on the ground and failed again as he stumbled instead after wincing in pain. He kept gripping Gentle by his armor though. "The first blow," Death repeated, begging in his tone for Gentle to listen to what he was saying; needing Gentle to understand.

"I know," Gentle said, not needing the younger man in front of him to explain himself to him. Others around Death heard what he said too though and glanced at the body on the floor, realizing why it was that Death had torn the man's spine out like that and screamed as he did. Some were still in shock and some still staring at their commander in fear, but his enemy's death had not been brutal, it had been quick. An instant death the moment that Death had dropped out of the sky on him. It was precise and done not in rage but for purpose. Gentle turned his head and handed Death off to a pair who grabbed him and pulled him backwards to Death's surprise. "Take him to the Infirmary, don't let him die-"

"More incoming!"

Gentle spun back around, and he ran forward to try and intercept the fastest as Seraphim had been looking backwards from her position on his left. Not all the villains had run very far, or they had scouts that told them the state of Death after his Quirk had faded. Seraphim was mid-turning back, her eyes full of shock that she was caught so off-guard-

Gentle was too slow. Death was not. The darkness around Death's body that had pushed him forward pulled away though before he hit Seraphim out of the way, and Death shoved her while swinging his right hand out. He had to pull his own head backwards as he swung his right hand though, and his enemy in front of him pulled his body backwards too to dodge the hand which swept at him too slowly and with not as much reach as the villain holding a katana had himself. Death pulled his head back though, and the enemy had to pull away, so the blade did not cut as deep as it would have through all of Seraphim's skull. It did cut through Death's helmet though, down from the top right of his head to the bottom left and through with blood splashing off the sharp edge as he continued the slash.

The two soldiers behind Death who had been pulling Death with them started running forward too just like Gentle had, but they had their jaws dropped as Death saved Seraphim again and took the blow meant for her. His helmet was sliced in half from the top right to the bottom left, and it looked like his head might have just been sliced in half, which terrified Seraphim who hit the ground and looked up towards Death in shock and yelled out, "Zach!"

Death's head snapped back forward after it pulled away from the slash just enough. Even though his helmet was breaking and falling to the sides of his head, he was still standing on legs filled with pain and blood pouring down his gashed calves. He grabbed a the long pipe of rebar sticking out the upper right side of his chest, and he ripped it out with his right hand. The impaling piece sticking out of his back yanked through the front of his body and flicked blood off to Death's right side. The enemy in front of him opened his eyes huge and flipped his bloody blade around, cutting it back for-

Death slammed the blood-soaked rebar he ripped out of his chest through the left side of his enemy's neck and out the other side of it. He impaled the rebar through the man's throat and into the building next to him that it pierced through as well and got stuck in. Death released, and he snapped his head to the right and sprinted across the middle of the road. He ran in front of Gentle who just opened his mouth and said, "Dea-" He himself only spun after Death started running, right across the street where another of his comrades had spun towards Death when he went to save Seraphim, which gave a different villain an easy target to kill.

Death's right hand grabbed the man on his right and pushed him down, while he ducked himself under the blade passing over his head so close that strands of his black hair were cut off by the passing sword. Death pushed his comrade to the floor, and he no longer had a helmet on his own head to cover the fact that his face had just been cut in half including right over his own right eye that was glowing red but had blood pouring down the socket. The right side of his face was closer to Gentle and the other soldiers behind him as he darted across his comrade's front like that, and Death had his left hand moving down to a sheath on his side as he ran for a comrade and ducked them below the surprise attack slash.

As Death ran, the tie holding his hair came off whether from the attacks on him or the wind going through it was unclear. His black hair came loose though and waved behind him down as long as to his shoulder blades or longer. The long black hair was splashed with blood, and as it waved behind him there were droplets flying off it. He still had a metal pipe with ridges all along it shoved through his body as he ran like this, and blood splashed out of the empty hole on the right side of his chest too. Death cut upwards with the sword he drew his left hand as he pushed his comrade to the floor and went by the front of this villain, but his enemy lifted up his other arm and blocked Death's blade with a second one of his own while cutting back down his first that had just missed Death.

This swordsman was even better than the first, and in this insane situation, in this madness, the right corner of Death's lips closer to Gentle pulled up even higher from the smirk that covered his face from side to side. Black webs shot in from his hairline over his bloody face that gained a second glowing red eye, as he spun forward and parried the second blade with a knife he slid into his right hand, before pushing himself off the floor with pillars of Death shooting out the soles of his feet as he could not find the force to jump up for the knee he wanted to slam between their parrying blades.

A knee of Death slammed into his enemy's chest, and an explosion of darkness came out of that man's back out behind him. Death landed, and his legs crumbled below him with his knees buckling and dropping- almost to the floor. Death's right hand reached out and he grabbed the wall to stop himself from falling, but in that moment he gasped in for a breath, he instead just puked blood out his mouth onto his own feet. Zach gripped his right hand into the wall tighter and turned his head to the left, glaring through red eyes that were not glowing very much and instead looked hazy as he stared towards villains coming back onto this road.

Gentle grabbed Death and yanked him backwards. "Go! You need to get medical-"

"We have to- keep going!" Death shouted, blood spraying from his lips as he pulled away from Gentle, only for two more people to grab Death's arms and yank him backwards while others ran in front of him and started yelling for organization with their comrades to try and keep control of this street. "Let go of-"

Gentle put his hand into Death's chest and his commander let out a gasp of agony at the touch too close to where the pipe had been impaled. "If you don't go, all of us are going to die trying to protect you!"

Death's red eyes widened and his resistance against the other two with him faltered. As they started pulling more though but without feeling Death pulling against them, Death yanked himself out of their arms. He did not do so to rush forward and join everyone else though, he just grabbed Gentle by his collar and yanked Gentle's head down towards his sliced face as he was wobbly on his feet and had to be caught by the other two again who needed to drag him out of there. "Don't stop, pushing forward." Death snarl-gasped into Gentle's face. Zach's hazel eye with red in the pupil and one hazier red and pouring down blood locked into Gentle's visor and he growled at him, "If you slow and let them organize for even one second, everyone dies. So don't stop moving. You have the Army, Gentle. Keep goin-ack ak-kagh uggh- Forward!"

"Commander!"

"Get him out of here!"

Death got dragged back and Gentle stood up fully after being yanked into that hunched position for a couple seconds. He stood fully and turned, looking to his right and then to his left at comrades of his who looked his way. "Well then, Ladies and Gentlemen. You heard your Commander." Gentle marched forward, and then he started jogging and others moved forward too to follow after him. He rose his voice louder and yelled, "Follow me! Forward!"

Many of the people watching the footage of Wampajawa did not know how to balance the images they were seeing. The sound of Death's voice as he begged Gentle to understand that what he did to his enemy had been an instant kill followed by the desecrating of his corpse, was hard to balance against the actual desecration that had been one of the worst things most people had ever seen. Sero's phone was already lowering when Death was smashing over and over into the villain's back, and most people were left for over a minute without any footage and only the sounds of what was happening before Sero managed to grab his phone and get it back into his hands.

The way Death had killed that man had stopped the momentum the villains had gained against his Army. His forces were back on the offensive and moving forward behind Gentle who actually made progress now and was sending different Squads off to take back control of the area. He leapt in the air and assisted the Flight Squad too, before refocusing and heading towards the west side of the city the same time that Exodus yelled about victory over the Towers. Support sent in a "drone fleet," as Gentle yelled over comms, "Don't bother with Curalia, bring him straight to Miraculu. Only one of her Miracles can save him now…"

"I know I'm charged! Get everyone to me!"

"Respawn and Infirmary together then!"

Yaoyorozu watched the intense battle but could not get her mind off a single second of Death's last fight. After his helmet had been cut in half and was still falling behind him, she saw him. Yaoyorozu's chest was tightened and her breathing coming out in sharp breaths, because she just kept picturing the smile on his face as he clashed with the second enemy after tearing out a man's spine. The curl of his lips, and the look in his eyes of enjoying the fight and the fact that an enemy had still been there to keep fighting despite how terrifying he had been or how many villains he was killing, it looked like it exhilarated him. I didn't believe him.

I told him that it wasn't true. That he was just putting himself down… Yaoyorozu pictured the person in front of her only he was sick in bed. The pain and regret in his voice as he spoke to her echoed through her head, "…It was always, supposed to be about saving people. I had… too much hate in my heart. I started to enjoy fighting, and I enjoyed it way too much. Fighting in the sense that I was…"

"…It shouldn't have been enjoyable. I shouldn't have liked it, but I had become a warrior. Not a hero. And I liked to fight, which inherently means that I liked hurting people-" It's not true! I, I told him that. I told him he couldn't be someone like that, Yaoyorozu gulped and clenched her eyes shut for a second as she thought of the look in his eyes when he pretended like he was accepting what she told him. As she saw him smile while fighting in the midst of a war, she could see that he was not just talking badly about himself. Despite all the horror of that day, I can see the adrenaline that was rushing through him. The thrill he's feeling in a fight so intense. Even while they all die around him…

Or is that just the kind of person he had to be, in order to survive?

"Gah- over here!"

"Gentle help!"

The Gentle Criminal was on his own. He had started moving faster though even without Death near him. The man in purple and black armor kept himself moving forward and attacking enemies rather than retreating or holding positions they already had. He was not the only one pushing forward either though, as others could hear his comrades yelling at each other about "battle patterns" and "operations" all with codenames like they had been planned out beforehand. The shouts made it sound as if the Army of Death predicted even this far into the fight, or at least that something like the position they were in now was possible and that they had made contingencies for it.

Gentle was trying to organize some of those contingency efforts when the shout for him to help came from close enough it was hard to tell if it was in his helmet or not. Even if it was in his own headset, the command center managing their communications would make the sounds come from particular parts of their headsets to indicate which direction to turn, similar to how headphones playing music would sometimes make different sounds come out of one side rather than the other. He spun to the right and changed his momentum in mid-leap, soaring across only one row of buildings and dropping into what looked like a major ambush as a group of three Army of Death were alone with over twenty enemies.

Two of the dark soldiers were already down on the ground, though one was on his right knee and trying to maintain a shield around himself. Guardian got pinned down on his back by a doberman-looking beastly figure with sharpened teeth and sharp claws that dug into his enemy's armor. Gentle was too far and got intercepted by three others expecting him already, but another figure flew down behind Guardian and kicked both of her legs into the dog-like villain's back.

Valkyrie spun and slashed her broadsword to her right and nailed the next closest villain who had been focused on the third member of the AoD ambushed rather than up in the air. She hit that villain in the side then spun and slashed the other way while flying towards an enemy behind her, only for her and Gentle to both catch sight of their third comrade who had been fighting strongest of the ambushed and not falling against the greater number of enemies, fall. He fell into a black hole that opened on the floor below him, stars sparkling on its borders and light coming from them inside. Their comrade dropped his weapon and reached for the edge but the hole closed on him before he could grab on and before Gentle or Valkyrie could reach.

Valkyrie was mid-flight to reach her friend, but her eyes bulged instead as the hole closed on him and cut off both his right and left hands at the wrists. "DAMN Y-" her head turned and she spotted the man responsible. But she should have stopped flying.

"Valkyrie! Damn it! How many did Ager get up before we stopped her?" Another member of the Flight Squad just dropped on two enemies who charged at Gentle's back when he dodged the other portal that opened up like the one Valkyrie flew straight into.

"Wormhole," Gentle growled, after watching another of his comrades go missing in a portal that closed up behind her and sent Valkyrie off to some unknown dimension.

"Gentle Criminal," Wormhole replied. The American man grinned back at the terrorist who stared him down in this burning city. Wormhole's fingers twitched at his sides, and Gentle shot forward off a bouncy ground. He kicked to his right and launched one of Wormhole's comrades into a portal Wormhole made on that right side of him, then Firefly flew between Gentle and where he kicked off that villain. She tackled another and then threw him forward as she stopped herself short in a roll to not dive into a portal like her good friend Valkyrie had.

Gentle bounced off to his left again instead of splitting back into the middle of the road when a portal appeared just in front of him and slightly to his left. Wormhole created one in the angle he thought Gentle would bounce to, and instead Firefly had to rise over it only to get hit by another of the Villericans who had been aged forward by Ager earlier which also woke her up. Temptress pushed Firefly's arms apart while slamming her knees into the soldier's gut, knocking Firefly back and to the ground which pinned down her wings too. Temptress leaned down next to Firefly's helmet and whispered, "Isn't Gentle looking-"

Wummmmm Firefly's helmet drowned out all sound, and the woman silently thanked the command post while she kneed up between Temptress' legs and hit her in the cunt. She snapped her right hand up and choked Temptress to cut off her voice then flapped her wings off the ground, before flying straight towards Wormhole while pushing his own comrade in front of her.

Wormhole smirked though that this enemy thought he might stop because of one of his more famous powerful comrades being used as a hostage. A wide Wormhole opened directly in front of Firefly as well as to her right, the direction Firefly actually tried to doge only to find herself going through a portal. Wormhole spun his head to the right, as three other villains not part of his group went flying backwards and Gentle flew between them on a straight line to him.

The villain backpedaled fast and created a series of Wormholes in front of him, only to step on a piece of ground he had not noticed the Gentle Criminal attacked while he was watching Firefly. He bounced up- straight into more Elasticized air, which bounced him into Gentle's path as Gentle just bounced off the ground like a missile and tackled Wormhole straight into the same portal that Firefly and Temptress had gone through. The Wormhole was already closing behind them, and it closed after the four were gone.

All other sound in Gentle's helmet cut off besides the grunting of Firefly when she hit the ground and then the panicked mention of his name from his female comrade. "Gentle," she gasped out. Firefly dropped Temptress and looked to her left and right, "What the fuck?" Her voice came out hoarse, and she spun towards where Gentle had been knocked off of Wormhole who then spun and nearly cut through the dark soldier with the thick serrated blade in his right hand.

Wormhole's right hand whooshed through a dark portal only the size of a bowling ball that his arm kept swinging towards after getting pushed away from Gentle. Another tiny black portal with glittering white lights inside it appeared on the right corner of Gentle's visor, and he ducked his head down right before Wormhole's arm came through to slash at his head. Gentle kicked up his right heel while still falling, slamming the back of it into Wormhole's wrist. The Villerican yanked his wrist back through his Wormhole as he jumped backwards and gripped it with his left hand while skidding back over the sand.

Gentle landed and ran straight towards Wormhole who was dragging two paths through the sand of the desert they were on. "If he makes a portal, make sure you get through it before it closes," Gentle warned his comrade who flew as fast as she could towards Wormhole too. Temptress had gotten up and was running his way as well, yelling at her comrade in English not to 'fucking leave me behind.'

On Gentle's right side that he darted a quick look at, there was an army of men charging forward on the backs of camels. A few of them had bows in hand they aimed towards Gentle's other side, where a majority foot army was running forward for over a couple miles in either direction. There were thousands of them, in different kinds of suits of armor and holding swords and spears, lances and bows. They were lighter skinned than the camel riders who had other forces in lighter armor back behind them running forwards on foot too. Arrows flew overhead, and Wormhole created a portal while he continued to backpedal with his mouth curving up in a smirk as the Wormhole was directly at his back.

All four of Firefly's wings flapped harder, while Gentle created Rebounds behind him that overlapped on each other and ones under his feet. He slammed into Wormhole going several hundred miles per hour, and he knocked Wormhole's knife out of his hand though the villain still only coughed once then kicked upwards as they tumbled through. Back out the portal behind them, Firefly shot through as it was just about to close, and Temptress' scream cut off just as the armies sprinting on the desert were about to hit the middle point that Wormhole had landed them in.

As Firefly flew through the portal, she immediately had to swerve to her right and dodge a falling rock covered in flames. Her jaw dropped and she nearly fell out of the sky, while Gentle's eyes bulged and he grabbed Wormhole by the shirt tighter and yanked them both away from a pterodactyl that opened its beak while flying straight towards them. It snapped its beak shut but missed them by a foot, only for a huge flaming rock to slam down on the dinosaur's right wing and drop it out of the sky with a screech of pain.

Gentle turned his head while choking Wormhole with his right hand and dropping out of the sky with nothing stopping them on the way to a ground tinted in red light. He looked off into the distance and saw a volcano with black smoke coming out of it and lava rolling down the slopes. Flames engulfed forests down on the ground, and cracks ripped across the landscape. One huge fissure broke open from a rock hitting the ground, and a huge herbivorous creature with a long neck stumbled and fell off cracking ground into the crack caused by the shaking planet below. Gentle's eyes were mostly focused on the sky above though, as the black and gray clouds had not stretched far enough yet to block off what was falling down out of the sky.

The meteor shower of glowing rocks was just what was coming first. He could see past them all. He could see the enormous rock shining so bright, and based on the kinds of animals around him, Gentle knew exactly what day it was. He and Firefly knew something that they would have called impossible only a minute ago, and yet it was easier for them to get over when they saw other people down on the ground running from cracking earth and dinosaurs and flames. He's brought people here before, Gentle thought while turning back to Wormhole and slamming his left fist down into the villain's face, then again, and again with blood splashing out of Wormhole now.

"Gentle! We have to get out of here!" Firefly screamed. She flew towards him and caught the two men before they were going to hit the ground, though they weighed too much and they all rolled upon landing. Gentle lost grip on Wormhole too who kicked him during the tumble and pushed himself away. Firefly got up quicker and flapped her wings behind her, soaring towards Wormhole who created another portal to his right, "Where is Valkyrie?!" Firefly grabbed the man and yanked his head towards herself before slamming her right knee up into his jaw.

Gentle bounced behind Wormhole and grabbed him by the left arm as Wormhole tossed a knife into that hand with his right and slashed around as Firefly came in again. Gentle bent Wormhole's arm behind his back as Firefly kneed him in the chest this time, and the male dark soldier who put Wormhole in an arm-bar felt the violent struggle from the villain in front of him that was nearly shaking him off. After the earlier fight against Redfox's fleet, Gentle had heard that Wormhole was back up, and the villain looked older than when he last saw him which was getting taken down by Death. That fight had happened quicker when Death was the one responsible during a time when communications were cut and they were rampaging across the fallen fleet of the Villericans.

Even before this fight against Wormhole though, Gentle already knew that there was a difference between him and other portal users. Most of them were just picked up by villain groups and used for their Quirks like Kurogiri and Potaru, but Wormhole was the second-in-command to Redfox and known as one of the worst villains in the world. His "murders" had numbers in the hundreds, and yet Gentle understood through this battle that Wormhole had a kind of power no one else really understood, and not all of those "murdered" people were really dead. He also knew something that he growled while breaking Wormhole's arm, "I suppose it really wasn't a transforming villain that the Villericans released on St. Louis then?"

A famous incident across the Earth, was the appearance of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that smashed around St. Louis until heroes could take it down. It was responsible for dozens of deaths, and the villain had to be arrested and put into a special containment cell inside of which he had never transformed back into a human since the event. Everyone knew the Villericans were responsible because of Redfox's appearance in the city that same day as he used the distraction to hit Fire Guy's hero agency while he and his top sidekicks were out, killing the rest of the sidekicks, all their support staff, and burning the building to the ground as retribution for an attack on one of his compounds that Fire Guy had led. American heroes watching the footage of Wampajawa were as stunned and in as much disbelief as everyone else in the world trying to wrap their heads around what Gentle was saying or what he was seeing after going through Wormhole's portals, but the question of why that villain had never un-transformed from a dinosaur suddenly made a lot of conspiracy theorists who had claimed something ridiculous very happy.

Gentle bent Wormhole's arm farther and growled at the man who roared out in pain as the broken bone pierced through his skin. "Get us back to Wampajawa, right when we're supposed to be. You'll die as well," Gentle warned, grabbing the back of Wormhole's head and pulling it back to point his eyes up at the falling rocks almost about to hit him.

The ground beneath the three of them opened up and they fell through, and instantly Gentle pulled out a pistol from his waist and fired twice into Wormhole's back. He had not even touched the ground in Wampajawa yet, but this villain was too dangerous to leave conscious for even one more second if Wormhole might have just been trying to lull them into a false sense of safety. Gentle was panting heavily as he dropped Wormhole to the ground, then he looked next to him at Firefly who was panting hard too but also gasping in fear and anger. "After the battle we will hold him until he returns Valkyrie, Yukon, and any innocents he has scattered through time."

"Y-Yeah. Yeah, the exact moment he sent them-" Firefly spun, and she jumped up in the air and flapped her wings to get backwards.

Neither of them heard anything in their helmets, and they had to dodge without any warning as a fifty foot tall giant's body got dropped on the road they were on. A beam of orange light above hit a pitch black figure that opened in the center and allowed the beam to go through, though when he turned and swung an attack of his own that way, a huge translucent hand smacked into him and dropped him out of smoke-filled air. Death spun after he hit the ground between Gentle and Firefly, and his helmet was gone though he no longer had a slash cutting through the middle of his face. He stared at Gentle with shock-filled bright red eyes on a tan face and then yelled, "You're alive?! Where have you been-" He spun to his left and slashed his katana in his left hand at a sparking man with three black horns on his head that all the Death slashing towards him pulled up above against Death's orders but did not touch him as they were caught in swirling sparking air.

Fifty tiny men ran down the road towards Death who stepped towards the sparking villain not so easy to take down. Firefly shot up higher in the air and flew into smoke to dodge a series of orange light beams firing at her. Her eyes also glanced up past the smoke towards the sun in the sky too much higher up, and farther into the west now to her shock.

Swarms of tiny villains all looking identical to each other rushed over the fallen body of a giant, and out from a hole in the wall behind Death, and between the legs of the sparking villain who fired back swirling sparking tornadoes of Death towards Gentle. Gentle could see something rushing towards him behind his back, and he slammed his hands on the ground and bounced up right before a series of green but see-through cars smashed through the walls behind him. Rotting and skeletal figures leaned out of those cars that had see-through cracked windows and all looked decrepit. Some of the vehicles slammed into the tiny figures who swarmed Death, though they could not feel it anyway as all fifty of them fell to the ground unmoving when Death just hit one.

Gentle bounced behind the villain who was charging at Death and swinging forward a hand sparking electricity. Gentle kicked into the three-horned man in the back, sending him straight into Death's right arm that Zach ran forward with it extended out to clothesline him with darkness that stopped the sparking. Death then reached out and grabbed Gentle with his left hand, and he looked around at Gentle's body to see him looking fine, "I can't believe you're alive."

"How long was I-"

Death's eyes glowed darker red and darted towards Wormhole's body near him, and he remembered what a comrade had said about who Gentle was fighting when they disappeared, back before Whiteout took out the comms again. His understanding came and he instantly cut off Gentle's voice trying to get to a similar level of comprehension, "It doesn't matter! Operation Power Control is in effect. When the comms come back on you'll hear it, then we begin the series! For now you have organizational power with support and command! I need-" Death spun as an spherical explosion ripped up into the air, followed by a line of them heading towards the north where flames had risen and were engulfing a huge section of the city. "I need to go! Just-"

Dropping from high above the city, ten fighter jets that looked slick and red flew down. Death saw them and spun back to his right in panic, "I need to tell Whiteout you're-" A flash of white light came from the direction Death just spun, as the woman he was talking about did not think anything of using her Quirk that would only damage their enemies in a time where she thought the Army of Death were all out of power anyway.

In the present, Zach stared at the dark screen in front of him in disbelief like most everyone else who had been watching for the past few minutes. I never asked him what happened during the forty minute span he was gone for. Why didn't I?! That was insane, and he got Valkyrie back afterwards though he said Yukon was dead when they found him. He handled Wormhole, getting people back, and I let him because he said he could… Time travel?! That's… completely possible. And absolutely nuts.

Static filled the screen, and the images faded back in slowly this time. It dropped back to thicker and louder static when they saw Gentle's camera footage just starting, and voices coming in with scratchy tones in his ears. The edges of the screen stayed blurry as it started coming back in, and Gentle spun to his right after fighting off a villain slobbering all over him who continued to do so as his upper half slumped over Gentle's arms without moving as much anymore. Gentle looked towards Death who was marching forward with his body erupting in darkness, growing bigger and more terrifying that even the huge beast ahead of him rising a hundred feet up in the air started leaning back. It had over twenty long red tentacles coming out of its slippery and thick body, waving around in the air and then all curling and pointing down towards Death.

Those tentacles started trembling as Death walked towards it silently ignoring the shouts from the massive villain of how it was going to kill them all. "…ch we have- ch too many of-"

"Sector 14 is lost! We have no -chh…"

The tentacles stopped hovering and they all shot forward at once, right as the blurry edges of the visor vision got staticky again and cut off.

Then it was back. Gentle's right hand was tapping on the side of his helmet, and he knocked it a couple times making the voices come out clearer. There was a gap between what was just going on and when Gentle got audio and video back working on his camera as well as in his helmet itself. They could tell it was a little after, because Death was running in front of Gentle and there were at least six other armored people in Gentle's immediate vicinity who he could see at the same time too. Death had a helmet back on but his darkness gave away that it was him behind the armor.

"Keep pushing to the west! Power Control post operation initiate in 10!"

"Give sit-reps to support and they'll transfer over…"

"Everyone ready for this?!"

"Send fear coursing through their bodies and push them into surrender! This is it!" Death ran forward, and he yelled out, "Rebel! Do it, NOW!"

"All Squads! Start the push!"

As another voice yelled that out following Death's order to Rebel, another sound filled all their headsets as well as the air over the city and through every single building in it. "WwwoooOOOOOoaaAAAAaahhh… WwwoooOOOOOoaaAAAAaahhh… WwwoooOOOOOoaaAAAAaahhh… WwwoooOOOOOoaaAAAAaahhh…" A horrible siren filled the city at maximum volume, though the volume changed going up and down as Rebel controlled it. And the man in charge of the Command room tapped the 'Play' button while smirking wide as the blaring alerts were overshadowed by a voice full of malice and killing intent.

"Villains. I have come for you."

"Push!" Death yelled out, his voice deep but not nearly as scary as his voice that had been pre-recorded with a message blasting over the city as he ran through it.

"Floater and Heavy! On your right, clear that building and push out!" Death yelled. He threw some Death into it himself, and the other two ran into the building right through clouds of Death that no longer affected them after their deaths earlier.

As Death shouted out his orders, he fought the enemies straight ahead of him at the same time, while coordinating efforts with the other streets that were all pushing the same direction as him. And during all that, his voice echoed out over the city in a terrifying voice for all the villains to hear, "Your city will fall! I allow you this chance to surrender yourselves. If you do, I will show you mercy. But if you continue to resist!"

"I will have no other choice but to kill you all."

Death just slowed into a jog. He slowed based on his own voice, and he stared through his visor down at the villains ahead who heard Death's voice and saw the darkness covering the arms of the dark figure down the road from them. His head cocked to the side, wondering if they would take his offer that echoed down every street and in the minds and hearts of all his enemies. One dropped his gun, and another taking steps back turned to run instead.

Death sprinted forward. He ignored ones who dropped weapons fell to their knees, holding hands up or yelling that they surrendered with their hands going behind their heads. Death ran right by them and they spun in shock but also relief as he went for the ones running rather than them. "None of you will escape this city. Your options are only to surrender or die! Make this easier on yourselves…"

"Death! Three enemies ahead of Gamma spotted using Riot! I don't think we can continue the push-"

"Kappa and Epsilon are getting stopped-"

"Push through them," Death ordered, while flying back the way he just came from and taking out the rest of his enemies down on their knees. He washed Death over them and knocked them out, then he yelled, "Use the Sensory Push! Three seconds, two! NOW!"

Death spun as his booming voice cut off and was replaced by feedback. The instant the feedback started, an enemy charging from down the street ahead of him stumbled. The thick man who had black ooze dripping from the corners of his lips that would sear the ground when it touched the dirt, stumbled to his right and brought his hands to his ears. All the helmets of the Army of Death made loud humming noises inside them that allowed Death and his comrades to sprint forward despite the screeching noises piercing the eardrums of their enemies.

Death jumped into a flying knee into an enemy's chest. Then he swirled his upper and lower bodies into tiny tornadoes of Death he pulled down to the right as he was split in half by a thin flat beam of white light. Down the street an enemy who just fired that from a futuristic gun dragged his weapon down, only for another swirling tornado of black to come out of nowhere and a leg to kick him in the side of the head. Four other villains on the road looking organized turned and fired or used their Quirks on the swirl of blackness, but that new figure transformed into another swirling form that shot behind an enemy to reform into a more humanoid shape again, and then it transformed into a single bat this time that flew up and turned back into a man coming out of a flip who kicked down on his enemy's head.

His enemy's head turned into some gelatinous mush that his leg instantly got stuck in, and Death spun his head while Gentle kicked off the floor to get there too. Death was faster, yelling out, "Drac!" He slammed his lower body into the gelatinous man, which allowed Drac to pull his leg out and flip backwards just in time before the next thick beam of white light flew through the space he had just been in. Gentle had to dive into a roll as it went through the air just above him, and Drac spun Gentle's way and turned into a cloud of black which upon closer inspection looked like a few dozen small bats all flapping their wings at once with the silhouette of a man inside who reformed behind Gentle and took out the enemy chasing him as Gentle went for the save. Gentle focused more on the one chasing Drac while Death took out the gunman who had a similar futuristic weapon as his comrade who Drac knocked out, with far too much firepower that the missing beam still hit one of their own comrades back down the road even from such a long distance.

Death looked back that way and yelled at others to get their split comrade out of there, while a few other dark soldiers came back out of buildings they cleared and ran his way. While a lot of people watching were lost in how intense the fighting still was that they were fully absorbed in, a few students in the courtroom gallery heard the name shouted over the sound of the feedback and the humming. They heard a name yelled out that most people ignored or thought was a nickname based on the Quirk, or something they must have just misheard over all the other noise.

Class 3-1 of Shiketsu had heard Zach's report on the history of Quirks. He had told them about people he met who had Quirks before they were even naming Quirks, and they heard the name that was cut off by a teacher entering the room. A name that Zach had never finished telling them. 'He went by, Drac-' Dendo's heart pounded in his ears and his throat was dry as Drac spun back and fought side by side with his old classmate.

They took down the enemies around them, then Death looked forward and saw two running his way and screaming at each other while they used their Quirks to communicate with others in their vicinity. "AND… MUTE!" Death roared.

All the sound cut off. Sirens dropped. Shouts silenced. The Army of Death accelerated from slow jogs and walks into all-out sprints. The men down the road in front of Death slowed and stopped while turning to each other, screaming but not hearing the person next to them- Death wrapped his right hand around the side of one of their heads, but the other saw him coming in the last second and jumped away... Only for Gentle to swing an Elastic wall into him that bounced him into the building twenty feet behind him and right off it. Then he fired from a pistol full of tranquilizers into the villain's right palm, as the guy managed to get his own hand up in front of his neck in time even after just hitting the wall. Just injecting into his palm was still enough though, and he collapsed after pulling the dart out and putting his hand to his mouth to try and suck out the sedative which was too fast-acting for the villain to stop.

Not a sound was heard through the action, and then all of a sudden shouts filled their helmets and gunshots that were only distant and occasional filled the air again. "What happened?!"

"The Muting only lasted 6 seconds!"

"What happened to Dead Silence?!"

"He's dead! They're pushing us back here-"

"More of them are injecting with Trigger, we can't push back-"

"Beta is completely surrounded, we can't handle this!"

"Keep moving forward! All of you!"

"Squad Leader- Yes ma'am!"

"Charlie cannot hold without our Squad Leader for any longer!"

"Alpha moving in to reinforce. The underground is set with charges…"

"The Respawn has over twenty people at it, Death!"

Death spun his head and glared back, then he yelled out, "Continue the push! Hitting Respawn now!"

Gentle spun around and bounced off the ground towards Respawn before Death could order him otherwise. Death grit his teeth but yelled at the others in front of him, "Keep moving! I'll be back in one minute flat!"

"Drop the bass." BWOOMMMM!

Instead of sirens or speeches, the ground shook from the bass that ripped through the city before the guitar solo the Army of Death ignored while rushing forward anyway. As the bass dropped, the sky overhead filled with swirling red and green winds looking like the Northern Lights. And in the midst of those swirling colors, fireworks started to explode and disorient the flying villains but not the flying Army of Death who hit them hard while they tried to collect themselves from the waves of coordinated attacks.

Gentle followed Death who passed by him and landed in a Respawn Point that had very few guards around it. The area was flattened out, and the closest buildings to give cover from were on fire too. The zone was too open, and Death yelled out as he landed, "As soon as they're up, move to the next zone-"

"We've used every planned point-"

"Rampart! Come up with coordinates for them- AHH AHAHHHHH!" Death pointed both his hands towards a pile of bodies lying in rows and even overlapping each other. As he started, another of his comrades tossed Dead Silence's body into the mass and made Death's voice rise even louder to a wince from his comrade who added to the pile. Zach's voice cracked and sound stopped coming out, but the Death continued to flow out of his hands and into the lines of bodies in black armor, covered in blood and looking broken and burnt and torn apart. "RRAAAAhh- aahh haaa- AAAEEEEEAOOOo-" Death screamed with his body flaring Death off his arms, his legs, out his chest and neck and head.

His body hunched forward and he pushed all that Death down onto the bodies, while Gentle yelled at his back, "You can't bring them all at once-"

"WATCH MEEEEEAAAAHHH EEEAAOOOWWW-" His arms bulged and popped, Death flooding out of sprays from his shoulders instead while he stumbled to the right.

"Death! We can't hold off in front of-"

"Alpha is here- ack-"

"Shit! Where did they come from?!"

"Death please! Help me- no- AH!"

Death's dark aura focused and condensed around the bodies in front of him that had sealing wounds and bones snapping back together. And then all at once, the Death froze and sucked back into its user's body. All the figures on the ground started to move. Death was panting and wheezing, his right hand lifting towards his chest for a moment before moving past his heart and up to his helmet instead that he gripped the side of. "Ah ha, ahh haa," he turned his head and looked away as he heard a shout of pain from a different squad still on the assault.

Then he heard one of the Respawn guards yell about the collapsing perimeter, which was not as bad as the Infirmary that had a guard screaming out, "Miraculu! NO!"

"She's down, get her to the Respawn-"

"She died in the Dragon's Den! There's no point…"

"I don't have time," Death growled. He looked around at the men and women on the floor who needed speeches, needed to be re-motivated, calmed down, or reassured that they would not die again. There was no time though. He just shouted at the pile, "GET UP! Get back in the fight with me, and watch behind you!" Death turned and flew off, allowing the Respawn to deal with their own problems and fight together against those rushing in from the other side. He had bigger concerns, and he flew back towards his old position where his men were only slightly farther ahead of where they had been when he left.

Death landed down and darkness erupted out of his feet and shot forward ahead of him. His sudden reappearance caught one of the villains off guard enough that his dodge only half pulled him out of the way, but Death used his Quirk in a wide attack and only took out one enemy while forcing others to only pull slightly back then attack forwards again.

"Seraphim!"

"Beta Squad Leader is down-"

"What?! What did she do-"

"She must have taken out seventy of them on her own before-"

"We need ours more than they need theirs!"

"Beta can't hold the line! We can't- YES!"

"Gamma here to assist Beta!" A female's voice screamed out. "I'm getting Seraphim out of here, the rest of you hold the- KAh-"

"Xia!"

"NO!"

"Gamma leader is… OHH SHIIIIT!"

"SHANG!"

"RRAAAHHHhh XIAAAA!"

"Shang's losing it!"

"That was her second time!"

Death jumped backwards, and he flung a knife down at where his enemy just kicked down on his last position. The ground below where his enemy kicked cracked apart, chunks of the road rising up in different directions including in front of his knife. The darkness on the blade pulled around the side of the chunk of ground, but another villain ran forward and kicked the back of the rock that sent it flying up at Death, only for that to bounce back down into them as Gentle rose in front of Death for a moment.

"More of them are injecting with Trigger, or Riot-"

"It's Double!"

"We can't handle it- the line is broken!"

"The charge isn't working, Death! We aren't going to win-"

"AHhh!"

"Fall back!"

"NO!" Death yelled. "Push forward!" He landed down on rocks Gentle just rebounded down in front of his enemies, and he ran down off the rubble and dove while swinging out blades on either side of him. He cut his enemies' sides in mid-dive, then he rolled to his right and avoided gunfire aimed at his landing. He reached up and pulled off a pair of assault rifles from his back while coming out of the roll with darkness spewing out behind him and speeding him up between lines of villains on either side. Death pulled all attention from the villains on the rooftops over here to focus on him as well rather than the streets to either side where this wide multi-pronged charge was taking place on as well.

Death's body slid forward on his knees as he pulled his assault rifles up to the right and left. The black weapons fired on automatic, and he lit up the walls as well as villains on either side of him. He dragged the weapons inwards from his sides to point in front of him, then he pulled up on the rifles and fired upwards and diagonally towards the rooftops on either side of the road while coming out of the slide. A villain rolled at him on his right on a single wheel that made up his lower body while blue jets fired out of his back.

Death dropped one empty rifle and grabbed the end of the right rifle's barrel with his left hand while coming out of the slide onto both feet. His body twisted right as he brought up the gun, and he slammed it down into the body of the enemy rushing him from that side so fast that the man thought he could catch Death off guard. Death knocked him backwards and into the ground, then he fired twice into the floor there- a bullet hit Death in the left shoulder and he winced while his body twisted back, then his left arm pulled a pistol from his waist that he aimed towards the man still shooting at him but only hitting Death-filled insides after the first one caused a splash of blood to come out of the enemy leader's body.

Death clicked a button on his remaining rifle and dropped an empty magazine, and a black hand came out of his side and tossed a new mag up that he smacked his rifle down into and clicked into the gun. He turned his body and fired the rifle off to one side of the street, firing the pistol the other way, while two black spikes shot off his back and into two enemies diving down at him from his blindspot. The large group at the Respawn Point was yelling out about how they were getting overrun at the same time, while his other comrades yelled about pulling back or about Shang who had started a "rampage" they kept hearing over the comms at the same time.

"His Twin Power is making him lose it! And this is Xia's second time!"

"How do we get him to stop?!"

"Can Death knock him out-"

"He already died! Death won't work on him-"

"When Xia died in Sueguon, Seraphim needed to knock him out-"

"Well that's great! Seraphim's dead too-"

"Let him rampage." Death ordered. His voice cut through his comrades' arguments, and he said in a deep voice, "Shang, get to the Respawn and protect our comrades."

"RAAAA-"

"If you can hear me!" Death screamed out in his helmet. He ran out of ammo in both guns, but he threw his pistol forward so hard it bounced off the head of the charging enemy in front of him who had just heard the click and was swinging forward arms covered in a thin red mist. That man's head snapped back from the force of the gun hitting it, and Death caught the gun on the bounce back and pistol-whipped the lighter-skinned enemy to his right who he had tossed his rifle at a second ago just to make the man lower his arms to try and catch it, which opened up the side of his head for the violent blow to the temple that knocked him off his feet. Death's voice was low as he ordered his enraged comrade, "Make them pay. Fight with me, Shang. Avenge her."

"The Double is too much- AHHH!"

"Sir! We can't hold much longer-"

"We have to pull back!"

"We, will not RUN!" Death roared. His voice carried over all the comms as he marched forward down the street farther in front of any of his forces in the adjacent streets. His arms shook as he rose them at his sides, Death swirling up over them as he faced down forty villains ahead of him, along with others on rooftops and inside buildings on the sides of this street where they had all gathered. The villains seemed to understand the Army of Death's attack pattern or were in their comms somehow, and they had set up in defensive positions while also sending forward more on counterattacks while they organized defensive patterns with far more soldiers than Death had at his disposal.

"I will not allow us to lose here. Listen to me! Beta, Delta, Foxtrot, H-K Squads, first half Flight squad, and second half of Exterior! Trigger on my command and move up." Death yelled it out, while he ran forward with no intent on stopping. His comrades behind him saw no hesitation or thought to stop for even a second, and they ran after Gentle who stayed closest to Death's back as someone needed to protect the idiot charging into the middle of smirking villains who were losing their smiles as this overwhelming advantage apparently meant nothing to Death.

"Support! Send in the Russian, Mexican, Sardonistani, and Bounty Hunter reinforcement-"

"Lavamander's coming too! We couldn't hold him back any longer!" Access yelled.

"There's no stopping him!" Death simply replied. "When half of Exterior moves in, the rest need to close the holes and guard twice the area! Extraction move back into the city, and support send in the second and third drone fleets when I give the word!" Death slashed a sword to his right and then curved it up, and Death flew off the blade and across the entire wall of the building next to him, then Gentle shot forward on Death's left and blocked all the traps that sprung at the same time from next to him.

"Reinforcements coming in!"

"Respawned Squads Mu and Viking are reinforcing the rear guard!"

"We can do this!" Death yelled out, as enemies around him started pulling back. Those men and women looked behind them and grinned instead though as another force of villains even bigger than the one Death just rushed into had appeared back there, and they were all injecting with drugs that were making their bodies shift in strange and dangerous-looking ways. "Do not fear! Do NOT FALTER!" Death screamed.

"RAAAAA!"

"Shang! You with us?!" Another voice yelled after that roar over the comms.

Sueguon, Jirou thought the name of the city and the footage she had watched in that alleyway. She thought of the woman who had knocked out the beast and who had apparently just fallen, as well as the other woman who had apparently just died again too like she had that day. A lot of the heroes in the room were thinking of the same video for a moment there, though there was too much going on for them all to be focused on one thing or another.

Lavamander? Ashido's heart was racing rapidly in her chest at the sound of that name. She had had a conversation with Zach after he had gotten out of prison about the anti-heroes, and she had asked him if he was responsible when Zach spoke as if Lavamander was dead. She had remembered the name from a briefing Wrangler had given before the Cult of Stain battle, and when she and Zach talked about him: "He was… very strong." "Yes… because of me." The way he said it, he wasn't talking about Raijin's purge at all! He wasn't even lying to me then- he wasn't! She realized it without ever doubting that moment between her and Zach, because she remembered the hesitation before he answered. He wasn't lying to me. It was his fault, and he knew that I would assume it was Raijin hunting him down but… but it was just his weird way of telling the truth.

Is this the day you thought of, when I asked you?

Lavamander fought alongside him? All Might had leaned back in his seat already when he heard the name 'Drac' which left him shocked, but hearing about Lavamander's approach was even more shocking to him after what he knew Zach was responsible for with the rest of the anti-heroes. I would have thought, Lavamander would have hunted him down instead. If he knew… Did Sazaki ever tell him?

"We're ready to fire missiles for- shit. Shit there's something in the system."

"No! They're in the computers- ah! AH!"

"Virus- whoa!" Raylei yelled out.

"They're coming out of our monitors on The Cloak!"

"Snow! Get off the bridge-"

"Commander! Stay there!" Access screamed into his headset as soon as Whiz yelled that last line he cut off himself. "We will handle the Cloak- All our missiles are firing and the navigation is out of our control- Fuck you!"

"We can handle it here! HAH- Virus, take control of the drone fleets! It's all you- CHHH!"

"More of them are using Trigger-"

"We have to do it now-"

"TOO MUCH!"

"Alright men!" Death roared, while he punched his right fist forward and shot a black fist off the end of his arm and down the road into one of his enemies. He yanked the man back towards himself while pointing his left hand forward, and he fired blue light from his palm into the ground just ahead of his body, while all his enemies ahead of him were injecting at the same time. After dust rose up from the blast into the ground, he continued to lower his left hand to a pouch and pulled out a needle as he landed straight into a run, "DO IT! TRIGGER NOW! ALL TOGETHER!"

Death slammed his left hand towards his right arm, and he injected into it while Gentle ran up and on his back left. Others were running faster towards Death now, and in the corners of Gentle's vision he saw three of the five comrades running within eyesight all inject with Trigger at the same time. Half of their enemies running down the street, snarling and shouting about using Trigger and how the Army of Death had no chance, skid to stops as the Army of Death injected with Trigger.

People watching dropped their jaws as both sides of the battle in Wampajawa injected with Quirk-altering drugs. The absolute madness already filling the city and getting worse each second became amplified in an instant, with explosions coming quicker and villains rising up into the air, hundreds of them all with white wings sprouting out of their backs and the ability to fly ingrained into their minds. "FLOATER!" Death yelled, while his body bubbled with Death and the darkness erupted out of him to flood down the street where it hit massive steel walls rising out of the ground and huge funnels of wind that pushed back into his attack.

Behind Gentle and slightly on his right, a woman who just injected with Trigger leapt forward and slammed her hands down on the ground while all her comrades kept running forward towards a horde of villains all running their way. The ground under her friends and her own feet started to shake like mad, and then six thick square pillars of dirt rose up out of the ground and curved forward towards enemies leaping and flying towards them. On the farthest forward pillar that rose high enough that dark soldiers on different roads all around could see, Death's body ripped apart into three terrifying versions that all clawed out of himself.

Bulges of Death pulsed out of his body and looked like humanoid forms all ripping out of him at once. They were fired at and attacked by different villains, and the huge mass of Death that just Triggered just grew larger and more repulsively uncontrollable each instant. Gentle bounced up into the air, right as the rising pillars below them were ripped apart by an air force that slammed them all to the left and through buildings on that side, into only other villains since none of their comrades had moved that far forward yet. The smash of those pillars into buildings and villains gave their comrades farther back on that side more room to rush in, right as transport planes flew overhead and another dozen allies of AoD reinforcements leapt out, though one of those planes was hit by a missile spinning around in the air and whipping back and forth.

"Shoot them down Virus!"

Drones flew in between missiles, and some of the missiles spinning in crazy patterns were blown up in the sky, while others spun out of control and dropped into the city. All those missiles crashing down caused a wave of explosions as big as one earlier that had caused everyone in the city to hide inside. This time though, no one was going into hiding. The villains and the Army of Death clashed in midair on different streets all over. Hundreds of people injecting with Trigger or other Quirk-enhancing drugs smashed into one another while missiles exploded and the city shook around them.

Death's body that was splitting apart suddenly yanked all together into a sphere that looked to be getting squished closer together. Out from the squishing ball of darkness, a single spike of Death shot over a hundred feet forward through enemies and then blasted apart near the end into a wall that was meant to block him from sight of whoever was attacking him. He still felt the pressure, but the attack loosened some of the grip and allowed for eight more giant black spikes to snap out of his body and into enemy ranks of flying figures who zipped around the darkness.

Gentle bounced into the air and then down under a pair of flaming wings that stretched fifty feet in wingspan and flapped Iblis over his head. People recognized the woman from the earlier video in Egypt, as well as in this video too, but her wings were far longer now and flared so much brighter too. The woman flying faster than anyone pulled her wings in close around her body while twisting into a spiral, and she shot forward like a flaming drill into a giant tree that was in the middle of rising out of the city and breaking apart the streets near it with its roots.

"Maelstrom! Floater! Give me a RUBBLE FUNNEL!" Death shot straight up out of an explosion of Death to lift higher into the sky where several flying enemies were getting higher and higher while facing off against dark soldiers and drones that had taken up the sky to prevent escape from a rapidly growing number of flight-capable enemies.

"Understood, Commander!" Two women's voices screamed back.

"Everyone else! Break up the city! Give them some AMMO!" Gentle kicked the air in front of him and bounced back into an enemy who just flew around his back and swung forward arms gooping with yellow mucus. He slammed the back of his helmet into that mustard-colored man's face, only for a long gray tentacle to wrap up around that man's body anyway and fling around that bloody-faced villain and then swing him down into the ground a second later. Gentle barrel-rolled in the sky using his Elastic Rebounds, then he pushed off the air above him and dropped to the ground of a street just partially torn up by huge roots ripping through it.

Villains were running towards him and the other Army of Death on that part of the road, but a few of them started yelling towards them and slowing at the sight of what those dark soldiers suddenly started doing. Two men behind Gentle lifted up rifles that they switched to grenade launcher settings and fired straight at buildings next to them. Another who looked like a beast of a man standing around ten feet tall and eight wide at the shoulders ran down the left side of the road with his arm extended and tearing straight through the walls of the buildings he ran past. Gentle swung his hands down towards pieces of rubble on the ground and he Elasticized the ground below them too while running and pushing down on debris with his feet or hands.

"What are you doing?!"

"St-Stop them… oh my God-"

The wind was picking up, and some of the villains looking into the air at the feeling of that increasing wind speed started to realize that the chunks of rubble that Gentle was bouncing up were not coming back down. Smaller shards of wood then larger planks started sliding across the floor, then rolling and tumbling, and lifting up into the air. The dark smoke above was swirling, pulling out and around into a circular funnel of wind that stretched the entire city and filled it with wind so fast that Inasa had his jaw dropped and was gripping the top of the pew in front of him in the courthouse.

"MAKE IT STRONGER!"

"I'm… TRYING- HAAAAA!" A girl's voice screamed in their headsets, and a building that Shang had just shredded his arm through a wall of started to creak loudly. Gentle felt his feet sliding on the ground, and he swung a barrier into the air in front of him. Without slowing his run, he stepped up onto the invisible platform and bounced himself up into the air, immediately getting sucked up by the wind into a funnel that was throwing around enemies and allies alike, as well as huge chunks of building and stone and dirt that got bigger with each mile per hour increase of the wind.

"Look to the mountain! Death!"

Gentle bounced away from a wave of debris that someone had sent flying up and was still enflamed even with the strong winds blowing around the shards. He spun his head and looked the same direction a huge mass of darkness flying above him in the midst of battle did, as did thousands of others who saw the face emerging out of the stone of the mountainside. Easily five times bigger than the giant that Mark had to pop a leg of earlier, only this giant was made of stone and Mark warned over their headsets, "Not any liquid for me to control!"

"SHIT! HIS FIST IS-"

"We can handle it!"

"Hu hu hu huuu… Die." The mouth of the face coming out of the mountain moved. Its lips seemed to go in slow motion while its right hand opened up and pushed back on the mountain, pulling more of its massive body out. The mountain that covered one side of the city split more as a man lifted his left fist and started swinging down towards a city surrounding in a huge funnel of rubble and flames that continued to spin faster even as more of the city's residents and invaders rose up into it.

Death got hit by a flood of green liquid steaming as it soared across the sky. Gentle bounced himself under it then swerved from a merging mass of glass shards that turned into spears and flew through the sky towards him. He bounced the other way towards a figure pointing hands towards him, but a building flying up into the sky slammed into the side of that villain who was struggling to fly using white wings clearly not his own. The villains were all seemingly proficient with use of those feathery white wings, but with the strong winds powerful enough to lift buildings into the air, it was not easy for anyone to fly without knowing the patterns of the Rubble Funnel and which areas would have the weakest winds or how Maelstrom would show them where those weak points were.

The building that slammed into the enemy Gentle was heading towards continued to rise up into the swirling tornado in a curve that kept the roof of the building pointed upwards. Somehow the roof was still connected, though the walls were cracking more each second and that made the roof behind Michael's every step crack out in branches. Michael ran across the roof of the building that cracked below him, and he slammed his right arm out to the side and knocked aside a villain diving at him, but two others pointed rifles at him while landing using jetpacks that kept them managing themselves in the crazy sky. Over the top of that cracking building, a dark soldier flew down and unloaded a rifle on a sweep in front of the enemies about to shoot his comrade. Michael sprinted between their bodies falling limp with darts in them then leapt off right as the edge of the building was breaking. Michael slashed his left hand across the front of his body and cut through the chest of a villain flying right back at him who punched forward a yellow hand covered in pink bumps that Michael pulled his head away from at the last second to avoid being touched by.

The flying Army of Death soldier zipped back around to catch Michael, while Death shot out of a green mass of liquid ahead of Gentle and straight his way towards the back of an enemy Gentle saw flying at his side using much larger and scalier wings than most others. That villain got slammed in the back by Death, and Death yelled, "Catapult!" Gentle was already changing the movements of his arms to stop trying to defend or attack, seeing that Death was going to come help him instead. Gentle's hands connected and he flipped himself over in the wind with his arms Elasticized, launching Death over his head. His leader's body spiraled with huge whips of Death coming off of him that slowed the wind in nearby areas as Maelstrom knew to have her eyes constantly on her commander.

"Iblis!" Death yelled, as a pair of huge flaming wings dropped out of a cloud of pink gas above him. "CRIMSON DRILL!" The woman above finally gasped for a clean breath as her hands shot down and caught Death's in her own. Despite Death's arms being covered in Death, she grabbed him by the hands and then spun herself again and again, the two of them turning into a spiraling drill in the air that spurted off flames and Death in all directions as they flew into people. "Split off!" Death pushed off the woman as too many villains focused on them at once, and in the next instant lightning flew out of the sky between the two and scattered others who were flying into the same point to lead them with their next attacks. Lightning hit boiling spheres of water and dripping black spikes that were covered in orange liquid from a combo attack of three other villains.

Back behind Death and farther down towards the city, a huge stone fist punching down got pierced through the wrist by a massive spike of earth that rose over three hundred meters into the sky. "Whose is that?!"

"One of theirs!"

"They're losing the coordination!"

"MAKE THEM LOSE IT COMPLETELY!"

Death was dropping as he let out that roar, but as he turned to his left and saw something flying at him at two hundred miles per hour to catch him mid-shout, a different figure with long thin black wings smashed down on top of his enemy. Death spun his head and looked to a set of four jets that had pulled off away from the Rubble Funnel, and which had released around ten figures that were flying down using flight gear and joining into the battle fresh. One of them dropping close to Manbat but just not as fast as the winged Sardonistani vigilante-turned-hero, was a man who punched his right fist down and fired out a fist of lava from his arm. He did not wear the dark costume of the Army of Death like all the other reinforcements who came, instead dropping in his anti-hero costume that very few in the room recognized.

Enji Todoroki recognized it though. He stared in astonishment at the costume of the figure flying down to join Death. Twenty years, has it been? That's the one they call, Lavamander. He's not wearing the armor of the Army of Death. Sazaki didn't order him in yet but was told that he rushed in anyway. He doesn't have control over him, only calls him for assistance. The lava Quirk he just fired straight through villains. Burns. Kazania. Even if it was not them that day, they were in collusion with- or at least, coordination? The man had been the leader of the ADTF for too long not to make the connections instantly and theorize over the figure he was seeing there. Something more pressing came to mind though, as he watched the insanity on the screen, Death knew the fight could drag on, to have had such reserves ready. Replenishing forces and bringing fresh troops to a city of exhausted villains…

Death flipped around as Manbat and Lavamander dropped in front of him. Iblis was splitting off farther to his left, but a spinning figure flying through the air using his Quirk, Top, was getting closer to him. "Spiral!" Death flapped his wings behind him, and he yelled out, "Grab on and give me a BlackTop!" Death's hands reached forward as his red eyes analyzed a perfect moment and angle of momentum to keep Spiral spinning even as he collided with the man spinning around rapidly through the air he was being thrown in.

Spiral's hands locked on Death's, and darkness surrounded them instantly. The spin that Spiral's Quirk gave him pulled the Death around his body and turned his entire Top-like body into a spinning vortex of Death that started flaring out the top and bottom of it too. "At the mountain, NOW!" Spiral released on Death's command, and they shot different directions. Spiral flew towards enemies with the Death still wrapping around him, and he even had the power to control it as Death had covered him in so much excess that he could redirect it all from his own limbs. Death on the other hand, flew towards the mountain that just reeled back and was reaching its other hand to break off the spike that had pierced and locked one of its arms over the city.

Death's body grew and grew in size as he flew towards the mountain that roared out at him. "DEEEAAAATHHH- UUOOogh-" The mountainous figure pulled backwards and ripped a hole through its stone hand which sounded very painful. Then the flying black projectile slammed into its gut, hundreds of tons of rocks flying out in all directions around Death's collision.

"Rain Fire on the city." Death made the order, his voice echoing in their headsets from his position anchored deep in the mountain's gut. Flaming forces of his turned towards the rubble rising into the air and blowing away from the mountain towards the city. The wind speeds started to die down, right as Iblis and Jetflame, Lavamander and a revived Flare, among others, ignited a sky full of debris. Rocks covered in flames and buildings reignited as the fiery figures passed them. And the wind started to push down from above instead, while Gentle turned his head and looked down between huge masses of flaming debris surrounded by scattered smaller pieces.

"Dodge the falling, but descend into that chaos. Move amongst the flaming rain and finish this battle now. Into the fray!" Death flew from the mountain underneath the debris dropping at the city. He flew right below Gentle who wanted to wait for it all to crash down first before going in there himself. A few others hesitated in the air, but a beam of white light dropped into a villain trying to rise up through a crack of the falling rubble to slam him back down into it.

The white light around Exodus flickered and he dropped to his right knee, but he stood back up and shook off the pain as he was back from the injury and could not let himself get taken out again. "Charlie Leader!" One of Exodus' own squad screamed towards him as chunks of the city fell above them. "We need to use Trigger-"

"Only when Death gives the order," Exodus replied, silencing his comrade and pointing his right hand towards a flaming brick flying his soldier's way. He incinerated the debris and then pointed his hand a different way and fired at a ramp dropping down into the street which villains were rushing over to from hiding spots near them. "They are returning to the underground! Save your charges, Alpha." Exodus started a jog and the villains looking back screamed out at the being that shone bright white into a strobe even without any Trigger. "I will rip them from the shadows."

"We can't dodge all this debris!"

"The Cloak's enemies are putting up more of a fight-"

"Secondary reinforcing teams! Save the Cloak!"

"Help! Death there's too much- AH- ah, haa, thanks, Gentle."

Gentle landed in a group of Army of Death soldiers who had gathered up to be able to better protect themselves from the falling debris which was not limited to mountain chunks. All around them came raining down the stone and rubble that the Army of Death had broken apart to send up in the air themselves. And as much as they had a barrier around themselves and other abilities to destroy the wreckage and stay alive, they looked around and watched as beams of light and pillars of acid tore apart more debris too. Water put out flames, and some debris stopped falling completely, while other debris got smaller as it was nearing the ground to turn into tiny flaming pebbles that lost their miniature flames to wind alone.

And the fighting continued. The debris had not all fallen yet, but from their right and left sides at the same time, enemies rushed them clearly high on some kinds of drugs by the way they were roaring and looking maddened in their expressions. Many of the soldiers Gentle just protected only roared right back though, splitting to either side while Gentle rushed forward himself and bounced off the ground, spinning his body and dodging between two chunks of building about to slam into each other right before hitting the ground in a crater where an intersection between two streets used to be. He slammed a moving barrier into a rock flying too fast towards a squad that he was pointed out the location of in his visor's HUD thanks to quick thinking from Rampart who yelled how that rock was redirected by some external force and about to fly towards the moving Infirmary team…

A different kind of invisible wall slammed into Gentle. This one did not have any rubbery characteristics, instead hitting him like a blunt object that sent him flying through the air, into a storm of lightning and rain. That rain all stopped and pulled together in one sharp point, before shooting down in one section of the area and causing a mass of screams. Gentle backflipped and dodged a flaming wooden plank whipping around in the air, and he looked towards where a splash of water rose back up over the tops of cracked and damaged buildings in the area that had not been as damaged since powerful people in it had stopped the attacks falling on the city. Because they had stopped them, Mark and Death were already over here, and Mark rose back up on the splash which appeared as a wave lifting up over the tops of the buildings- only for another lightning bolt to come down and hit the wave that Mark dove off of and screamed as he was partially hit by.

A pillar of Death shot up from a different road and broke through a spherical mass of buildings all crushed together and slamming down over him. The pillar of blackness shot up into the dark gray clouds hovering only a hundred feet off the ground in a cartoon-like raincloud. As the pillar was about to touch though, the ground below Death shot up into a huge cylindrical pillar that pushed him straight up through his own darkness. Gentle bounced up into the sky to give chase, but the pillar of stone and the air around them, the clouds and the smoke, he and Death alike, all started gaining a more pastel-like appearance- and then it all got abstract.

The colors of the air changed and the appearances of their bodies shifted. Other villains flying through the air at them freaked out, but several continued to use their Quirks despite the change in atmosphere and physical reality in their vicinity. The city below turned shaky and bright, the edges of buildings getting smoother and flames moving at half the frames as if the real world was lagging around them. Two figures on the ground started to transform even in this uncertain artsy world being altered by Quirks that had gained far too much power on Trigger-like drugs. They transformed into beasts that were vibrant and terrifying, eyes much too large and teeth that seemed to keep extending while they ran at the injured man near them on the ground who was twitching and they thought just barely staying conscious.

Mark spun quickly though and he swung his arm up, wrapping the water all over the road that had collapsed with him around the legs of the beasts and tripping them to the floor. Death's stone pillar he was on broke apart as he was using it for footing to charge an attack between his hands that were too pastel-y and were smearing in the air. The Death around him flickered and appeared sharper and more solid, while the rocks below him breaking apart looked like slabs of clay that smeared trails of their gray color through the air and left the translucent hues there. The wind was picking up again, causing rocks to pull up into wind speeds that were so strong that lighter whites were smearing through the blue of the air, as smoke and dust pulled in as well and was turning all of the air into some horrifying painting without end.

It was getting harder and harder to watch the insanity propelling faster and more unbelievable each moment. All of a sudden though, the pastel art of the atmosphere around them turned back to normal, even though in one section of the sky Gentle could still see a mile ahead of him the air was still bending. He could see giant people running among tall buildings, buildings that he knew to be smaller along with comrades of his who he knew were not that enormous. His focus was shifted away by the sudden shift back to normal reality from the difference, as was nearly everyone's around him.

Death used the distraction of his enemies' bodies returning to normal. His own fist was regaining regular shape while he flew past Gentle going over a hundred fifty miles per hour. A jagged fist painting the air black around it turned into a normal fist and looked more solid only to erupt in a mass of Death that he swung off to his right side while flipping upside-down and kicking his leg out in front of him anyway. The sudden side-swing of his arm redirected the mass of Death he was forming to blow darkness into three enemies rather than one, and instead a slash off his leg was sent five times faster than the mass of Death would have but half a second later on the release. He kicked the slash at an enemy recovering faster than Gentle would have without Death sprinting by him and reminding him not to get caught up on any of the reality-bending mind-shattering Quirks he was fighting off one after the other.

He recovered too late though, and Gentle spun his head as he heard the warning shout in his ear. He turned and clapped his hands together, catching the arm swinging towards him so fast that catching it just made his hands slide up the spiky forearm and blood to splash out from his palms. Gentle slammed his right palm from off the spike into his enemy's chest just on the inside of his punching arm, while Elasticizing his left hand more at the same time as the enemy's punching arm that he bounced aside and made only cut slightly across the front of his chest and his right side instead. He pushed off with his right hand and kicked his right foot down, straight into a barrier he put behind his heel to kick that leg back up three times as fast-

His foot may have gained speed, but his enemy saw the bounce-back coming and was able to dodge using the moment he had while Gentle pulled his foot back instead, giving away where he was about to kick up. The man he kicked at pulled his body to the side and swung across his other arm that still had blood on it, just not Gentle's blood. He cut towards Gentle and shredded through Elasta-Armor Gentle just put over himself, the sharpness of the enemy's arm too much for his Elasticity to hold off. It was shredded through in a slashing motion rather than a piercing blow that his power could rebound easiest, and with the Quirk armor he had around his body gone, his enemy had an open shot on Gentle's chest. Gentle could see past his foe, towards Death who had five different flying enemies rushing at him all at once and blocked him off from his strongest comrade.

Two swirls of water wrapped around Gentle's enemy's ankles. His foe snapped his head down and saw the extending whips coming from a giant bird of water's body. Those whips pulled down while that bird flapped its huge water wings and sped up twice as fast, though his enemy spiked his legs sharper and cut through the water as it started yanking him down into the bird's path. He had a pair of white wings on his back that he flapped to get around Mark in that moment, but the wings vanished in an instant that made his eyes bulge and Gentle's grin to rise, because he could see the same white wings vanishing in his peripherals all over the place.

"I got their flight Quirk!"

"Then now's the time!" Death yelled while flying past two of his enemies who still could fly, and kicking the third who could but who turned back to Mark to take him down when Mark was going to slam down the spiky guy with blood on his arms. "Maelstrom! Second wave, hit them harder! Use Trigger! Exterior pull back and first half reinforce at the closer perimeter dimensions: Bravo Rho Zeta. Close in the border while sweeping through, and keep the skies full so they're trapped on all sides. Push their surrender now-"

Mark's huge watery bird body had engulfed a falling figure who was swinging around and trying to slash it all apart around him. He was flooding some of that water into his enemy's throat to take him out, but he sped faster towards Death the same time that Gentle was still putting his arms behind him to create a new set of barriers to help Death instead. Death had rushed at Mark and just took out an enemy flanking him, but he was spinning too slow and although turning in time to stop the faster of the two villains, they attacked in a combo that Mark blocked the second attack of while Death held off the first with a pair of knives lifted in his hands.

"CONNECT!" A different voice screamed.

The ground under the two Army of Death soldiers who just blocked their enemies glowed bright blue. They were making quick counterattacks, but neither of them were able to finish off those villains quickly as they glowed the same color as a single spot on the ground they dropped for. Right as the wind around them was picking back up, Death and Mark fell together towards a single spot on the street that eight different villains all used Quirks on at the same time.

On the east side of the road, the cracked ground split apart more and rubble blocked two of the attacks flying towards their location. Winged snakes released out the mouth of one man slipped through the cracks though, and the ground continued to get covered in a steaming mist as well from farther away and inside of a broken window they could not see into but could tell the mist was coming from. On the other side, Death rose both his hands up and created a pair of Death Grenades on them that he threw down one after the other while still dropping. His body erupted in Death but he kept it all on one side of him, wisps pulling away from Mark and curving near his sides rather than get close to the man guarding his back. Based on Death's fighting styles since Trigger had been used, and how cautious he was being here, some people could tell with a single look that the man falling with him had not died before.

They could also tell something different about this comrade of Death's compared to the others. The leader of Alpha Squad had the kind of confidence that even Gentle was not showing in his fighting. His Quirk seemed to have something to do with water, and yet earlier it was this same man who destroyed an enemy giant's leg in an instant and made it rain blood over the city. And now he was cracking the ground, by controlling the water inside of pipes that he ripped up through the surface and sprayed out into the snakes and mist and all down one side of the road while Death attacked the other.

Enemies came from the north and south as Death and Mark attacked the east and west where the street ran. These villains leapt out of houses that either they had just made their ways to, or which they had set up in beforehand and knew Death and his comrade were about to slam down between. They even waited for the two to show their hands on the first attacks where they landed, before they rushed out in pairs of two on either side, with a third just behind them to attack after the next move as well.

It was a constant stream of attacks, continuing one after the other. Strong enemies inside their earlier attacks continued to try and fight despite the blows they were dealt. As Mark turned to his right and Death turned to his own right, the two of them previously back to back which meant they were still at each other's back as they turned ninety degrees, they attacked the two who came from either side. One more rushed in from the side Death attacked with his dark grenades that had spat out shrapnel everywhere. A second after that one rushed at Death's left side where he was previously facing, three others came from the side Mark had attacked first while the two soldiers were attacking north and south.

Death slammed his right fist into the face of a villain who rushed at him by sprinting through the broken doorway of a building on his former right side. He hit the man slightly faster of the two, so even though they were side by side, Death got an extra fraction of an instant to lean away and dodge a dripping green fist that nearly touched him. The drips of that green touched the ground and turned into splotches that instantly spread the green around towards his feet, so even after Death had knocked him out by spiking Death out his own forearm from the first punch, he still had to jump backwards while warning, "Spreading on the floor."

Mark had swung both his right and left arms forward while he faced the two rushing at him from his own right side compared to the direction he had faced originally. He Quirk-grabbed his falling wings that were dropping down above him as he had been yanked to the floor too quickly with Death, and he pulled them into pillars of water that curved at his sides and followed the curvature of his arms to slam ahead into his two enemies who he did not run at like Death did. "Trade," Mark said, turning while also keeping the ground in his peripheral to see what Death was talking about with the green Quirk spreading on the floor. Death landed back just next to Mark after stepping away to quicker hit the two who had rushed from his right, and now with the two of them back in the middle of the street, they spun to their opposite sides that they had originally landed at only seconds ago where there were incoming villains who slipped their first attacks.

Death slammed his hands forward and blasted a wall of Death at three enemies prepared for water attacks, while Mark suddenly yanked all the water he had flooded the other way down along the street's surface. He picked up half a dozen collapsed enemies as well as the two who he had just slammed back into the building they rushed out of. Then he threw all of them and all his water at the one enemy who had dodged Death's grenades and started dodging these attacks too.

With as much control as Death had over the black wisps that had shot out like shrapnel from his Death Grenades though, his sole remaining conscious enemy had assumed this other man would have less control. Mark's water threw bodies at the villain though while at the same time splitting into ten different pillars. Each of them controlled so much power behind them that the enemy could not allow himself to get slammed into any single one, but out from the smallest ones split tinier streams of water that waved through the air after his dodges and got behind him where he was forced to dodge from the bigger ones. Even the smaller streams of water could get ten times thicker though as Mark did not need to keep any end of the stream close to his body, like he was pretending he needed to by keeping thin ends of the water all around his body which his enemy could see. All of the water in the thin jets sped up into the tips that grabbed him right before knocking his enemy back into the thicker pillars, and as the guy almost dodged the thickest one, a smaller whip of water wrapped out around his body and yanked him back into the end of it. The thick end of the widest water stream was too forceful and much more like a solid than a liquid because of how condensed it was, slamming the villain backwards into another pillar which broke apart into a wave that threw him back down into more water that all amassed into one point in what looked like a raging sea in the air over the street.

Then Mark slammed his hands down, and he brought all the enemies getting tossed around inside the water down hard into the floor. Most of the water seeped away to the sides, but some of it pulled back towards him and slid up into pouches on his sides and a pack on his back's thick armor that made him appear more muscular than he was. And even more of the water blocked up the nostrils and mouths of all the villains on the ground who had not been touched by Death. Whips of water choked them out in tight loops or even human-shaped water men who put people into sleeper holds, before breaking apart and leaving the street soaked. Some of that water started to rise back up though as Mark glanced back to his side at Death behind him who lifted his head up to see a flying building covered in villains that were all sticking to the sides of it, surrounded by others flying up and some armored flight-capable vehicles rising with them too.

"Just like Tulamador?" Mark wondered, while waves of water pulled towards him and started swirling around his lower legs.

"We'll win this fight too," Death replied back. "But you take them alone, Mark. I need-"

"Understood, Commander." Mark cut off Death to tell him that he needed no explanation for why his leader was not coming to help him. And then the water shot up underneath Mark and propelled him into the sky, long trails of jet streams rising up on his sides and after him for weapons or mobility, or any number of uses.

"Damn it! They're locking us out- Virus! What can you do?!" Cherasaw yelled.

"They're close enough already. I've broken the navigation, they're coming into the airspace…"

"Gentle, on me," Death yelled, while flapping down wings three times larger than they were when he entered into the city. "Too many are on Trigger," he called out over the wind that got so loud with how fast he started moving. Gentle slammed his hands back rapidly trying to keep up, his breaths panting loudly almost over the rapid orders coming over the comms and from Death himself. "We have to guard the aerial exterior! Any one of them escapes the blocker zone and we risk new waves of enemy reinforcements!"

"Ahh hah, haahh," Gentle breathed in one more deep breath as the wind around them picked up to levels too high that it would be hard to hear his own panting anymore. He rose up into the hurricane-force gale winds that swirled around a circumference of the city mainly up in the air over the street level. It kept a good amount of their enemies on the ground, while more and more debris was thrown up into the air by Army of Death soldiers who knew they needed to not only wreck the city but get it all sucked into the "Rubble Funnel" too. Floater was used to rise pieces into the faster winds, and the airspace was back solely under their control despite the loss of several jets and air support. Yet the sky still had enemy vehicles facing off with drones from the Army of Death, and another AoD jet was going down just outside of the perimeter, while the Extraction team's jet was shouted out to be falling before they reached back to the edge of the city with only the team's Death members coming back, none of the slaves they had left with.

Gentle kept rising up though. He passed some dark soldiers trying to take on an airborne fortress surrounded in enemies sticking to it as if their feet were magnetized or the ground and walls covered in sticky substance. The piece of earth had a broken building on it, yet that building was not collapsing as it had been held up by supports stemming from a couple of villains' Quirks making steel beams pierce through walls and through the earth straight out the bottom of the chunk. Two villains with flight abilities leapt off of the huge boulder and dove at Army of Death members, but as much as Gentle wanted to go assist them, his head snapped back up to focus on Death who had enemies of his own between him and their target.

Then the sky glowed red on their right though. Their enemies screamed just above Death where he was winding up for an attack and Death was massing around him in the eye of the hurricane he had just entered into. The fortress group just below still fighting each other became distracted, something the Army of Death pair below Gentle used to their advantage and attacked in that moment. They tried harder to ignore the red light that they "knew" would not be able to finish off Death and Gentle. Gentle was less confident about the mysterious light that appeared the instant he and Zach became focused on other enemies, and the red light glowed brighter and blinded him in a moment he had to close his eyes but dodge anyway.

Gentle's eyes squinted as he spun out through the air, throwing barriers based on hearing more than sight for a few seconds making his movements appear more erratic. He could barely see what happened himself when he was facing towards where Death had also flipped backwards to in the air, right in between two flying giants each over thirty feet tall who slammed their fists together on either side of Death who they pinned between them. Zach pushed Death arms out to the sides and they were smaller at first and buckled in when the pressure really hit, his arms squeezing in towards a body turning more into Death but unable to squeeze out easily from the widths of the two fists. His arms bulged though, and his hands lost the palm-shapes to them to turn into claws instead that gripped around the bigger fists and then spun around the giant men losing more of their strength just by being touched.

Death flung them but got hit in the middle of his body by an enemy who saw Death did not just allow himself to turn into a cloud of black mist or something to avoid having to block the attack. He was tackled by a man with a spinning red drill on his head, and the guy pulled himself out after impaling Death to try more attacks, though just that one had him closing his eyes. Death kicked him in the side of the head towards his left into a swirl of wind going the opposite direction and pulling a mass of glass with it. The broken glass embedded into the enemy's body and blood splashed away from him that Death flew straight through because that villain's comrades had taken the moment their comrade gave them by diving in first, to get around Death and all attack at once. More precisely, Death could see that they were really being held up in the air by one person in particular who thought they had a moment and threw their comrades forward in a surrounding formation with such precision it was as if each of them could fly on their own.

The remaining nine enemies flying the same way as the one with the spinning red drill-head yelled out expletives and attacked. Gentle bounced back towards them and slammed a barrier behind Death at the fastest of the enemies who curved around to move through the blood of his comrade too as their other compatriots were not doing. Death went towards four all rushing from the same direction, only for a flying figure in black armor to intercept the center one by slamming into his back. The woman with a bulky body slammed into that figure hard and tackled them right below Death who did not dart his eyes down to his former teacher who spotted herself while watching in the gallery of the courtroom. Instead she watched what happened on the clip behind her that she had not seen during the insanity of the day, interested in how her student had finished them…

Death flew right through the gap that Mother Russia had left for him. Death flapped off his sides and hit those villains, and Gentle evaded the others they ignored to chase after Death instead towards a jetliner that was inside of the funnel and surrounded by villains with more of them pouring out. Gentle slammed barrier after barrier in the air behind him and pushed his hands in harder each time to keep up with Death. They swerved around fighting villains and soared towards the jumbo jet that had smoke pouring from the right wing and was listing as people fought around it. Gunfire went off and shattered some of the windows inside, and a turret underneath the bottom of the plane got ripped off in a fight between two villains and a dark soldier who was the one falling with blood along with the broken turret.

Death landed on the wing and snapped his left hand out to the side, flicking Death into a villain that a comrade was just parried off of so that guy had his sword raised. The villain turned his head while screaming, "Death-" but Death's comrade slammed him in the back and kicked him into the swirling darkness coming his way and right off of the plane's wing that got hit by something else and made it start ripping near the side of the plane. There was a hole in this side of the plane too though, one that Death dove towards and tackled a big man climbing out with his chest opening up and revealing something truly horrendous grab the outsides of his rib cage to start crawling out. Death slammed him across the plane into the opposite side of the interior of the cabin and punched his fist into the villain's face before spinning to his left, while Gentle rushed inside after him and looked right towards the back of the plane instead.

Gentle put his left hand in front of him "Gentle Rebound!" The air in between him and the seats farther back in the jet that still had half a dozen Russian gangsters in it Elasticized. He swung his right hand out to the seats just to his right in the next aisle down and pushed a man back after the guy was pulling away from the overhead compartment that he pulled a rifle out of that started glowing bright yellow as he turned it on Gentle. He turned too fast and pulled the trigger already by the time he himself hit into the invisible barrier and bounced off, and the yellow line that shot out of the rifle cut across the floor then up the opposite wall and into the ceiling. He pulled away to not cut a full line around the plane, but by pulling away he hit another two overhead compartments, one with more guns like this and another with explosives in it.

The rifles all started firing out yellow beams of light across the middle-back of the plane just before the tail, and Gentle pushed his hands into his barrier and bounced towards the cockpit right as the tail of the plane ripped from the rest of it. Gangsters grabbed onto seats for dear life only for the seats to be ripped out of the plane and flung into the sky behind the listing plane starting to dip more towards the front, where Gentle was flying up to now and spun to kick an enemy in the head who was coming for Death's left side.

Death slammed his left fist into the knuckles of a villain punching right back towards him with the muscles in his shoulder bulging then pulsing to his bicep, forearm- but it didn't matter. Death's punch was harder. Even without Death on it, they could hear the sound of the breaking knuckles as Death slammed his arm forward farther and bent the villain's arm back with blood spurting from the oversized forearm that a bone jammed out of. He kicked up into that man's ribs and knocked him aside, then Death leaned his head quickly to the right and dodged a Lance that a villain pulled out of his pointy shoulderblades that stuck up past his ears and ended in points. The villain had pulled one out and jabbed it fast with his right hand, but it passed by the left side of Death's head only an inch away and actually made Gentle pull back more behind Death than it made Death dodge himself.

Death lifted his right hand that already had a grappling gun in it while he was punching the other villain in the fist using his left. Death fired the gun and his enemy pulled his head farther away, but Death was not aiming at him and had meant for him to pull away so the hook flew over the Lance-guy's shoulder instead and towards the cockpit of the plane. A villain who had fallen into the cockpit because of the tilt of the plane was climbing out and had hands crunching the steel on the outsides of the doorway that his arms were stretched out to grip onto. The hook pierced him in the right shoulder and made that hand release from the wall, his feet slipping on the floor and knocking down the pilot behind him who just got out of his seat in a hurry. "AHh- Blyad!"

The man who had dodged the grappling gun from much closer turned his head slightly to the side and saw his comrade back behind him get stabbed in the shoulder and was barely holding onto the other side of the door. He also saw through the cockpit and out the front windshield that was cracking but still clear enough to see the quickly approaching ground the plane was dipping farther towards. Death swung his right arm around this villain's face while he was turned to the side, and the guy was too slow to dodge this time as Death wrapped the wire from the grappling gun he just fired around the villain's neck and then pulled the trigger again to pull the hook back to the gun.

The hook had pierced through his enemy's skin farther up in the plane though and extended out so it was not going to pull back, and instead the wire yanked hard against the closer villain's neck and took him off his feet. The guy reached his hand out towards Death but missed a desperate grab while he was flung through the air down the aisle and into his comrade who he completely knocked off of the doorway and into the cockpit and the pilot of the villain's flight. Gentle reached forward and grabbed Death by the back of his collar as Death released his grappling gun that took those villains to the cockpit of a nose-diving plane, and all of the tangled villains screamed up in panic as Gentle slammed a barrier in front of Death and bounced the two of them diagonally up out the open back of the plane and back into the air.

Death reached out to his side and his right arm extended like a snake. A black hand gripped onto a falling Lance from his enemy that had fallen out of the plane and was spinning around near him, and he sucked his arm back in then turned and threw the Lance calling out, "DEATH SPEAR!" The spear slammed into the chest of a villain who had flown around the falling plane and tried to get Death on his way out, but Death had no hesitation and took him down from twenty feet. After shouting it, Death turned his head and screamed out, "SECTOR 11! Look out for the falling PLANE!"

"In Sector 13 the wing is-" BAA-HOOOOM!

An explosion tore up a chunk of the city farther to Death's right, but the majority of the plane and its other wing slammed down into a city street as well as part of the line of buildings that it started smashing through, explosions ripping out of it and blowing flames high into the air. Gunfire flew up at Death and Gentle when they looked towards the explosions for even a moment, and Death got hit in the upper left leg with blood splashing out in the corner of Gentle's visor. His helmet and camera was hit by strobe lights a second later, and in between the strobes, Gentle caught side of a villain slamming down into the momentarily flinching Death, slamming both hands down surrounded in huge steel gauntlets that did not break but did send Death crashing into the surface below them.

Gentle bounced away but was hit by some kind of invisible force that flung him towards the ground too but also into the distance, with Gentle swinging his arms and bouncing himself upright after he hit the floor once, though he bounced away a second time as the ground where he just was broke apart from the insane collision of Death with the road down the street. He looked that way and put his hands up to block the force that slammed into him and skid him back more. Buildings on both sides of the street lifted up into the air and were shredded as the ground in the middle of the road pushed out, and blocks of earth up and down the street lifted into chunks and cube-shaped dirt masses. Then a wind hit Gentle in the face, and he dodged to the right as a cube flew down the road his way. He saw Death on the street ahead of him facing the villain who had landed down after slamming Death into the ground.

Deku's eyes shook at the sight of the strength of this figure who he told himself immediately upon seeing, He must be on Trigger. The amount of city that broke apart just from the guy's feet hitting the ground and how hard he must have hit Zach down was insane. The ground below Death's feet had broken, though his legs were bent and some more blood just splashed out of his left thigh as that leg shook but steadied. Death slammed his hands forward, while darkness shot up out of the cracks in the deepened floor- but he jumped backwards and flapped wings from his back to in front of him to swerve away as another dozen cubes of earth that had hovered up at the top of their arcs all flew forward.

The man who broke the street himself gripped his hands to his right and left on different huge chunks of ground that had uplifted but were too heavy to rise like others. Then he shot forward too and threw one he dislodged at where Death dodged another wind-pushed cube, and this one hit Death's body but it had completely turned into Death this time, and the mass of black swirled into a tornado off of the hit and underneath the chunk. Death's red eyes darted right and left rather than just at the enemy with the steel gauntlets in front of him getting ready to swing another ten ton chunk of ground into him. On the backs of several huge sections of earth, villains were grabbing onto the pieces hidden from Death's sight until they had passed by him. It was only his red eyes seeing a man right as the cube was passing that made Death look back, to see that already seven other villains were riding ones, and they had noticed him notice them, so all of them attacked right then while Death had an unknown amount of others hiding among it all.

Death spiked out from Death's body in all directions. He slammed his left hand forward and it grew twenty times the size in a couple seconds so it was bigger than the ten ton chunk of earth his enemy was about to slam forward. Death's fist slammed into that chunk instead and then curled quickly around the sides though his enemy quickly let go and jumped back from it to dodge, as did some of the others around Death who had dove at him or just attacked more carefully. Some of the ones who dove, Death assumed his spikes would hit, but their momentums changed in mid-flight without them doing anything or using the Quirks that he could already see on them. They had combination attacks, but so did he.

An enemy who was diving at Death got pulled away immediately to safety and around the back of a chunk of earth that had flung in the path of him and Death to keep him hidden. A Decoy emerged out of his body and kept going past the rock while he stayed on it ready to go flank around the other side, his aerial-controlling comrade pulling his Decoy into the open… It didn't matter though, as another huge chunk of debris bigger than the one he was hiding on was bounced back down the road at its same speed and slammed into his to destroy it. All the debris to blew out and hit his Decoy as well as one of his other comrades who spun out as shards of dirt and rock smashed into her going a hundred miles per hour.

Gentle flew back into the fray, and gunfire shot off from the far sides of the street past the lines of buildings too close that were being ripped apart by the city-shattering action. No one could keep track of what was happening anymore though. The explosions and gunfire aside, Gentle's helmet getting hit by strobe lights and filling with screams of comrades all over the city fighting on Trigger and roaring at enemies, battling at an intensity too hard that it was getting to be impossible to watch. Gentle's camera, even with all of his special equipment that stabilized his video, was too shaky. Too much was going on. The violence around them sped up and his head snapped every direction, flashes of boulders flying by and red splashing on the screen with no ability to track the combat or what was happening.

So it was cut.

It faded out as Gentle swung his arms around and rebounded enemies and debris flying at him, the same time he was pushing his legs onto the floor and bouncing back up. The video faded out in the middle of the action, then it faded back in. The sounds had gotten quieter then they started to pick back up again.

In the moment of pause as the scene cut off, Lemillion blinked a few times and let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. He shook his head around, What are we all doing? A quick glance around at everyone staring towards the screen told him no one else had taken the pause to question it at this particular moment, even though some others had wondered the same question to themselves without saying a word about it as they immediately refocused on the video just as Lemillion did a second later. His eyes refocused because he realized something else, We've been watching this for over an hour. If it feels this long with the cuts he made, and the parts of the video that drop out from the EMPs, and whatever time distortion happened to Gentle when he…

Lemillion could not wrap his head around that. He could not even imagine that it was real, and he wondered, Is any of it? Time travel can't be but then maybe none of this is… I know that it is. Deep inside, Lemillion's surface thoughts could not trick him into doubting a second of the footage. As one of the few people in the world who knew that it was something they were capable of, one of the few who knew the extent of their actions. Or one of the few, who thought he knew the extent. He didn't know this though.

Gentle heard a voice yelling out for him as he was panting and drinking water with his helmet down on his side, stacked against the corner of a building hiding more in the alley with two of his comrades on his left side armed but with bloody wounds on their arms and one with a bad burn on his lower right side where his armor had been burnt off too. Another comrade of theirs was on her knees and applying some cream to his wound to keep the pain down so he could keep fighting as that man was snapping at her to do since he 'Did not need to go to the Infirmary yet. Not until Death brings Hank back.'

Gentle looked to his right and farther down the alley towards a short woman who was running his way. He crouched more and she slammed into him and wrapped her arms around him immediately. He lifted his helmet over her back as he put his arms around her, and he put his helmet back up over his head and then looked down at the woman who leaned back from him. She had a huge hole in the center of her armor on her chest, and from the hug Gentle's camera caught for a moment the matching hole on the back of her armor with nothing but exposed skin underneath and no wound. When he looked at her front, there were little blurs closer to the bottom of the exposed skin on this short woman's chest where the wound had been sealed up during her earlier revival that day. "La Brava. How are-"

"I'm so happy you're alive. When we lost contact with you for a little I believed you were still fine but…" She shook her head around and cut off those bad thoughts instantly. She heard a yell from one of their comrades leaning out of the alley and trying to fire one direction while the other with the burnt side fired the other way until he called out how he was out of ammo. "Let me hit you with another burst of Love," La Brava said, getting more serious.

"Can you-"

"It should be recovered," La Brava whispered back. "The one time I can use it twice. And I think we need it right now," she whispered softer as the edges of the building at the end of the alley were hit.

In Gentle's helmet he also heard at that moment, "Fuck- Death! They're pushing us at Point Zulu Echo- damn it, Kramee!"

"He's busy fighting the- chhh"

"Help! DEATH please! Please… mommy! Momma! Help meee…"

In the present, Zach lowered his eyes as he listened to the screams that Gentle heard in his helmet. He told Rebel to let him hear everything I was hearing. He needed to be able to react to the same things I was. And I told Rebel to give me all of it. Not to cut any of their last words. Not to let any of them die, all alone. Zach rose his head and stared back at the short woman who put her hands out and grabbed onto Gentle. And that was the only day she could ever use Love twice, because she had recovered fully when I revived her. Her death must have happened during a Blackout. Didn't it? I, I can't remember-

"Thanks to your amazing ability, my dear. The day is not lost yet," Gentle assured the woman whose hands glowed bright pink as she held onto him. Gentle's whole body started to glow too. He glowed pink and it got brighter around his body. Long wisps of pink energy came out of his arms and legs that he looked down at as La Brava stepped away from him.

"Nice, Gentle." The other woman crouched next to them whispered.

"Do it."

"La Brava, you fucking angel," the burnt man leaned back on the wall and said towards the shorter woman who just covered Gentle in that power. The shorter woman looked to her comrade in surprise, then she spun back as Gentle zipped out into the road in an instant. "Elasta-Armor," he said, crossing his arms over his body right as all the attacks flew at him at once. His legs bent, every attack flying towards him bouncing off in different directions. And then he bounced off down the street and slammed full force into a group of six villains pushing towards an alley they knew enemies to be in. Villains on the other side of the road started running in, but the group of AoD in that alley popped out and only had one side to focus on now which was all they needed to take advantage.

The enemies refocused on them, and Gentle turned his head to see La Brava poking out and firing out along with their other comrades who had run into the road more and were pushing those villains. Shots hit near the wall around her, and then a gust of wind slammed into the woman's exposed back around the hole in her armor and gave her chills up her spine, but good chills as a pink-coated fist slammed into an enemy down the road firing towards her. Their comrades were surprised he would switch focus back on this side when they had it and they were leaving the other half to him, but they looked back and saw Gentle's half of the road empty of villains other than their moaning broken bodies, some slumped against windows and others face-down in the dirt.

Gentle wanted to turn back and say something to his love who he just sped so fast by that she got chills from the wind he created, but he had to shoot away quicker as he heard the shouts coming from near Death. It did not take long to see the splashes of black and the huge whips of darkness slashing around out of a figure bouncing up and down into the streets that he had control of but were under attack from all different angles.

Gentle flew towards Death and slammed a glowing pink fist into an enemy so fast that teeth flew out of the man's mouth along with the spit and blood from those teeth cutting his lips. Death's head turned for an extra moment back as he noticed the pink aura around Gentle, but he did not need long to understand why it was that Gentle could use Lover Mode again.

The two of them together dropped down onto the road at a three-way intersection and took out the villains on it in a combination attack that did not last more than five seconds. In those five seconds they heard shouts from different sections of the city though, including the Respawn Point which was moving towards the Infirmary because they needed more guards to protect, even though they only had four bodies with them currently as the guards who had been killed were all on their second lives and left behind. Their voices continued shouting about that when Gentle and Death stopped fighting for a moment, looking towards a nearby building themselves that had a wall caved in and a dark-armored figure slumped through it.

The woman's huge spider body was mangled with her legs broken in several different directions. Her head was smushed but there was still some of it there, but Death said into his helmet in a low voice, "If you see Arachna's body do not bother to mark her as Second Dead or bringing her to R.P. She was brought back in Somalia. Leave her." Death sent out the order because her helmet was destroyed, so there was no way for him to use the marker on her visor as he did with other soldiers who had been laying on the floor that he did not want comrades to waste time dragging away for no reason. "Give me a sitrep on locating the Capos."

"Still no sign of any of the remaining 3!"

"We're searching every inch of the city, but villains we capture are saying they're still getting orders from the Disintegrator!"

"Destroy the underground. Sink the surface of the city. Call in all primary reinforcements. Charlie Squad and remaining Epsilon use Trigger. Alpha, at your own discretion. Exodus alone. Hold. Use at your will if the situation worsens again and needs an immediate fix." Death had darkness swirling around his head as he spoke fluent English quickly but comprehensively. He started to walk, while he swung his arm to the right and at a wall of a building that the darkness moved along into thin lines that cut across each other in a strange grid pattern with open squares at different points. His helmet focused on the shifting grid and darkness diagram he formed, "Shang! Listen to me and push to the NORTH! That's the direction of those tall towers. Rest of Gamma remains join up with Foxtrot and flank his sides, protect him and give support on his push to retake South Central and King Street."

The darkness on the wall broke apart and sucked back into Death as he started jogging again. "Epsilon on Trigger! Take back the black market and raze it to the ground! Exterior push in while they do it and reinforce a new perimeter farther in. The less space they have the more we can cut-" Death slammed his hands down and pushed out pillars of darkness from his palms. Gentle jumped backwards without any Elasticity use, but his Love power was so strong and still active that he leapt over the roofs of buildings as the ground below them crumbled like sand.

There was a pit below that had been filled with bubbling purple lava-like substance that steamed. A figure rose up out of that goo and had a huge glowing body with arms rising, but the darkness slammed into them when they were still rising up and dropped them back into their own Quirk pool only unconscious. Death stayed up in the air because the attackers knew he might be forced up, and the one trying to trap Death did not do so in such a foolish way that she did not have assistance ready to hit him when he reached the sky.

Gentle did not realize at first just how much assistance she had. Death dodged three enemies, then he punched his left fist out while kicking around his body, creating both a fist of Death that flew forward and a slash of it that cut around his body in almost a three-sixty degree loop going out on all sides. Up ahead of Gentle who was in the air himself and to his left, another dark soldier two blocks off was sprinting up the side of a taller building that was five stories tall, and gunshots rang out from inside the third floor while that soldier was running for a villain hanging onto the edge of it and firing a different direction. Shunfeng was hit and flung from the building, Kendo gasping and covering her mouth as she had just recognized him when Gentle glanced his way at the sound of the gunfire.

Kendo's gasp made Rin realize where it was he had seen that particular kind of building-running before. Yuanbo, Rin thought. He thought of the villain who he had overheard the conversations between Ectoplasm, Deku, and Zach about. The one he planted there as an undercover- did that guy just die… Wait, Kendo said not to try and stop him, Rin's eyes opened wider as he looked to the girl next to him. He remembered the way that villain had stopped outside of the door and looked towards Battle Fist's sweaty and pale face in fear. He, must have been there the day she died too. He recognized her and she could feel that he did! That guy-

Gentle looked away. Death did not fly that direction to help his comrade who just got shot up. Instead there was other shouting from Army of Death soldiers on the ground a couple blocks away. Death was busy trying to hit the enemy who had dodged his Death fist and was flying around him with better precision using tinier Quirk wings than Death could use with his own larger black ones needed to use more logically to hold up his body. His enemy's bones were light though, and the woman's small wings which seemed to defy gravity and physics just acted more like a bird's and zipped her around with the kind of amazing precision that Gentle knew well and made him grind his teeth at the sight of.

Gentle flew towards the person and threw barriers in different directions where they messed with the feel of the air. Their enemy was moving fast but did not have much mass that even pushing into those barriers they did not bounce very far, but with Gentle coming for her back while her attention was still mainly focused on Death, it did not take long for him to hit the villain in the side with a heavy pink fist. Her flapping wings resembling too much like one of Gentle's closer friends in the Army who had died on his watch, Hummingbird, stopped flapping as she was shot out of the air. Gentle yanked himself backwards right after punching her and he cursed as he was not able to follow through with all his strength to ensure she did not get back up, but the thing that flew towards him was moving far too fast for him to try and block or just dodge late.

Death twisted his body and snapped his head up to follow the figure who just tried to uppercut him and missed to continue rising high in the air. Midoriya blinked a couple of times as he watched the video, his body leaning forward as did many of his classmates who just dropped their jaws at the sight of the teenager in a green costume who just flew by Death's body.

Deku flipped up in the air and kicked above him to shoot back down at Death who flapped his wings behind him towards the surface. Two explosions went off on Death's right, and Gentle spun that way only to need to bounce backwards as a wave of ice rose up straight at Death but came up behind him and blocked off Gentle from his commander. The two explosions to his lower right sent the figure who used them straight at Death while swinging his arms from behind his back to in front of his chest. Despite all these heroes emerging out of nowhere, none of them were attacking Gentle to instead focus solely on Death.

Gentle flew towards towards a figure with half white and half red hair who had created the wave of ice that separated him from Death. He slammed his right fist down into the body of the young hero with a scar on half his face who did not turn towards Gentle even as he yelled out first to get the teen to turn. Gentle's fist imbedded into the head of the figure who broke apart under his fist into some kind of white mushy substance and lost all form. The ice was still there though, and Gentle had to bounce himself to the right then forward to get around it. "Stay up in the air! Guard my angles while Love still lasts!" Death yelled.

His words were focused at Gentle and not at the figures around him who some people thought he might be more distracted by. Zach ignored Explosion King too though and pulled back short allowing Bakugo to fly past the front of his body. A close look at that figure who turned his head to keep his eyes locked solely on Death, showed that their eyes were not globes of flesh in eye sockets but instead little black lines that swirled in a circle that came from a single point in the middle and wrapped outwards in three loops. Those looping black swirls shook and had jagged edges, and inside of those figures' mouths that opened up showed a black staticky element inside their jaws as well.

Death avoided the figure behind him with curly green hair sticking out due to the hood of his green costume being bunched down on his neck. Zach ran forward and darted to his right, while out of the mouths of the figures on his right and lefts came their actual voices, only a different single person speaking out of them. "How do you like my Quirk, Sazaki? I'm not surprised by how many you manifested! Haunt! That's it's name." Death looked down the road and between the buildings on his left and right that were lined with figures who stepped up to the edges of them. There were some real villains intermingled, but the majority of the figures he saw first all resembled people on the right side of the courtroom sitting directly behind Zach's defense table. There was a lone villain down the road a block and a half away, and between Death and that figure stood another two dozen figures. Some were in dark armor but had their helmets off, with a blonde-haired girl near the front who had blood trickles down either corner of her lips.

The bald villain who opened his mouth and showed the inside of it was as static-colored of gray and black as the rest of his creations called out with his words echoing on all sides of Death in different tones, "Hahaha! Can you defeat all of them? You've given me the power of the famous Class A at my disposal! Can you even fight them?" The question was followed by a shorter girl with red hair running forward from the middle of the pack, sprinting past others and then turning blue in the face as Death sprinted towards her.

His right arm was coming up with a katana in it. The blade did not hesitate for an instant. The girl's body was cut in half diagonally and white mush pushed back above and below his sword. Others sprinted at him in that moment. Death continued to sprint down the road with the darkness around most of his body vanishing as it had from the sword when he slashed it into the fake Jenny's body. He darted to his right and ducked down under the kick of the steel-coated leg of a man in all armor except his helmet who had no glasses on but beady swirls of black eyes as he kicked his ignited Engine-calf over Death's head.

Death bent his body low to the ground and sprinted faster. He darted down the street with insane speed and barely any wisps of darkness coming off of his footprints as he shot around left and right, dodging attacks coming from all directions. Then Deku flew at his back and kicked towards him, and he dodged to the left into the tumble to evade a huge hole that blasted in the ground. Out from the dust of that explosion came an explosion that blew some of the debris in his face, but Zach leaned around and smacked some of the potentially dangerous debris from the air, before grabbing Bakugo by his left wrist using his own right and pulling to the side the arm about to fire an explosion point blank at him. Bakugo swung his other arm forward but was kicking up his left leg and dragging his toe near the floor, but Zach just flicked his right arm backwards and threw Explosion King into Sugarman behind him who got knocked into and to the floor as Death took another step forward, only for Deku to bounce straight down at that position and force Death to back up a step.

As Death stepped back, his eyes snapped up and his visor rose just when Gentle started dropping too to try and stop this figure who leapt from a rooftop. The boy on the ground rose his arms up, but those big arms swinging down at him with fists at the end turned into steel. The shiny silver glisten of the arms that swung down at him showed who this figure with short spiky black hair was. Death's hands caught the arms of his father, Titanium in his glory and his costume that Dr. Rainne stared at with shaking eyes, especially as that heroic figure smiled horrifyingly forward at his son who flipped his dad over and flung him to the right at Grappler and Bikergang who were sprinting towards him, knocking them back into fake Roady who ducked below the three and then jumped up over a knife flung towards him.

Roady's jaw dropped as a fake version of himself ran at Death, but Death did not wait to fight him and instead sprinted farther down the road. He had to swiftly dodge a bullet fired at him from his right where a girl with brown hair who had her helmet off but wore dark armor had her arms combined into one rifle aimed directly at him that came closest of any attack to hitting him. Then he easily dodged Deku and Bakugo who he dove forward between a punch and an explosion that went above and below him. He kicked his legs out in a split and hit the two of them in their faces, then landed into a roll that he came out of with a pair of knives in his hands he flung forward into Earphone Jack who just shoved her earlobes into the ground but could not get off an attack before she was hit in the chest and throat. Death jumped up into a front-flip over the hardened figure with spiky red hair that he pushed down in front of Red Riot's face, then he landed in front of the bald villain who had Froppy and Pinky rush Death while he stepped back himself.

Death cut through Froppy and Pinky in an instant, coming face to face with Creati who stood in front of the villain and pointed forward a heavy revolver she just pulled from her chest. She fired at Death who dodged the bullets, while drawing a sword he cut through his ex-girlfriend and slammed it into the man behind her. He slammed the sword into his enemy's left shoulder, then he cut down across his body and a splash of blood came out finally. He did not put Death on the slash, but all of the figures chasing after him trembled and melted down into white mush that collapsed into puddles on the floor. Death instantly looked back up and down the street, then to his right, and his left, and he could see out his peripheral vision the road had closed up behind him too.

Gentle did not need to tell Death any of this. Even though all of those Haunt figures had dropped and disappeared, there were even more enemies on the road than when Death started fighting. Their enemies had figured that Death might win, and they had called other people over who Gentle was watching carefully and preparing to keep out of Death's fight that he had thought himself might last longer if his commander hesitated even for a second.

So many other enemies had gathered in that time. They were still calling for comrades, and as Death looked around he saw more landing on the roofs of surrounding buildings and running out of alleys and filling the buildings on his sides where they stacked up behind support pillars and walls but peeked for him. As much as the Army of Death was searching for the Capos in order to end this fight quickly, it seemed the villains had a similar strategy in place as over a hundred villains had surrounded Death himself in a minute. Worse, was the fact that not all of them looked tired or damaged in the least.

Gentle focused on some of the ones who did not look even a little tired. Then he looked to ones who did appear tired and damaged, but who were still conscious which meant that even not being fresh, they were some of the stronger villains in the city to have survived this long against their Army. As he looked down towards Death, he warned, "More are coming." He could see them from his aerial view around the nearby buildings to the other roads where villains were rushing at this block. "Some have clearly injected with Trigger or the likes. Maybe more stable Quirk-enhancing drugs based on the look of them. Appears to be one hundred and fifty, rising."

Gentle continued speaking to the man below him who stepped forward and reached down, grabbing the villain he had cut deeply across his body. Death did not put his Quirk into the attack intentionally. He lifted the villain he had cut by the throat and lifted the man whose arms were down at his sides and was still breathing but just barely. The cut was bleeding heavily through his clothes and down his torso. Death lifted him and they could hear the smirk in his voice, "You call that Class A?" His voice asked it skeptically like what the man had called out before was laughable; a joke even to compare those mushy creations he just fought to the real thing. Death squeezed the man's neck and some Death came out of his hand, then he tossed the villain to his right and like a ragdoll the man flopped away. He slid to a stop sprawled out with his limbs to the sides and a smear of blood across the ground he had skid on.

"...Executives of the Silver Splitters. The Returned's leader, careful of him." Gentle warned, "Flimace has killed more heroes than anyone in all of Asia. One of the most prolific murderers of all time with all the innocents included- and there's Burst Thurst. Consolidated half of Turbo's gun-running operations. He has been evading while working with King and Bolivar and now with their subordinates since their defeats. He's got some very strong subordinates around him too, none of which look even slightly winded. Somehow they were hiding since there's been no word of the Exterior breach-"

"I'll show you Class A," Death snarled loudly. Under his breath he stated, "Keep on my sky. I'll take them myself."

Just the Haunt villain stalling Death in one place for a minute alone was all the villains needed with fewer Army of Death around the city now and in smaller clusters where they still controlled area. Over the headsets of Gentle and Death, the people watching could only hear the AoD's forces losing ground rather than taking any. They heard that the Respawn had just merged with the Infirmary, and the Exterior were pushed back out while under heavy fire with all the incoming reinforcements assisting them on the perimeter instead of moving into the city for their former assignments as they were redirected by Alpha Leader who said keeping the villains in the city and maintaining the perimeter was paramount. Death ignored all of the shouts in his ears though. He ignored the fact that there were a hundred villains established in positions around him and a hundred others moving in on his sides. His voice came out confidently as he made that order to Gentle, while his enemies all tensed up at the louder declaration that Death had snarled before moving.

Death's hands pulled down to his sides and curled to point behind him as his body bent forward. Enemies on the roofs around him, in the buildings, down the street to his front and back, and hiding in all the alleys, moved. Death's fingers curled in at his sides while pointed behind him. Out from his fingertips sparked darkness that popped out like little bursts of Death. Bakugo's jaw dropped at the sight of the stance that there was no mistaking after the last thing Death said, and what he called out while those fingers sparked with Death:

"Class A JAMBOREE!"

Explosions of Death blew out of Death's palms and sent him flying into the air and down the street. At that moment two villains shot out of buildings in Death's path. One reached his left hand forward with a timer of 2 seconds written in black over the top of his wrist and the number sliding to the back of his hand as it hit 1. Death swung his right hand in front of him and to that side, making an explosion of Death that hit his enemy while at the same time working to maneuver him in the air, dodging below the enemy's attack on his left who was insanely fast and had a blur of white around them that then pulled from their body and down at Death who hit the ground below them.

Bullets flew at Death the instant he landed, but his legs crouched and he bounced to his left and into the wall of the building on that side. Then he shot across the street with a blur of Death around his body that then bounced into the floor and back to the building on the left only now he was fifteen meters ahead of the last place he slammed into. Deku as well as Gran Torino stared at the movements in astonishment, but they dropped farther on the spinning kick that the figure of darkness came out of the bouncing pattern to slam into his flying enemy's head, yelling, "BIG APPLE SLAM!" Death's leg was so high up above him that it looked like he was doing a split. It flared with Death while bent at the knee, and he kicked it down into his enemy's face and slammed the figure into the ground with a kick reminiscent of the New York City Smash Deku had ended the Sports Festival Invasion with years before.

His enemy hitting the ground had a lot of Death around him too. When he hit the ground where Death himself was expected to come back down in a second as there were no wings on him, all the villains who were rushing at that spot had to jump backwards or just fall unconscious when the wave of darkness flew out and hit them like a force of the blast from the kick. Death landed as most of the close-by enemies were jumping back or falling inside his darkness, and Death turned around at that moment rather than keep running forward where his enemies would have traps waiting for him. Instead he bent his legs and the backs of his calves erupted in huge amounts of Death that blasted him out of the explosion of darkness before it had faded.

Villains running the direction Death had decided to push stopped themselves and attacked. On Death's right side, villains fired towards him but screamed and pulled back as Death swung his right arm that way while the darkness was still forcing him forward insanely fast from his legs. Out from his right hand swung a wave of Death that was unlike any of his previous attacks. This one rose up in spikes that slammed through the closest three buildings on that side and rose up a hundred feet in the sky in a second, then pulled back into his body while Death jumped off the ground the second the street transformed to be slippery and slimy and sticky all at once from attacks on different sides. Once up in the air, he pointed his left hand in front of him straight down the road at other enemies who jumped up or got stuck but were still attacking anyway. Using his left hand this time, all the Death that just pulled back into his right side focused in his arm and then fired out as a single beam blasting him back the way he came while the Death flames coming from his calves had fully stopped sending him the opposite direction.

As he pushed himself back with the jet of Death though out his left hand, darkness erupted out his right calf again and he did a full spin in midair and slammed his right leg alone with far more darkness into the wings of an enemy turning and pulling away. He burst-kicked that enemy into the roof of another building where a few villains fired at him, and two jumped off and in his direction but were too far behind him as he sent himself flying with too much Death pushing out his left hand he still had pointed behind him. As he was flying back in the direction that other traps had been set and were still in place because the villains figured he might pinball around the road to fight them all at the same time, Death put his hands behind his head and stuck out his stomach instead.

A black beam of darkness even thicker than the one he had fired from his left hand in the other direction blasted out of the armored region around his bellybutton and slammed into a group of villains all looking to cover in someone's stone coatings to protect themselves. He blasted himself backwards, but when they ran right through his Death and didn't fall, they tried to skid to stops as they emerged from it to see that Death had not sent himself very far backwards with the beam from his stomach like he did with the black jet from his left hand. Instead, they saw the thin black lines coming from Death's elbows pointed out on either side of his head that he had grabbed the back of a moment ago. Black lines stretched to the buildings on his sides that they had pierced into and pulled much tauter as he was pushed backwards by the stomach beam, which slingshotted him back the direction he had just been going in that villains actually started chasing him from this time.

As Death flew back their way, a villain flying towards him in the air changed approach direction and swept down. Death's head snapped to his left and down towards her, and another thin line of Death shot out of his head this time just above his chin and wrapped up her torso. He whipped his head to the other side and flung her across the road into two other flying enemies who just bounced off a barrier Gentle created above them where he had moved to when they were trying to get a higher angle on Death and have him covered on more sides that he would need to focus on at once. They bounced down and Death's long black tongue threw their comrade into them, before the tongue broke apart and absorbed into the flying figures who fell out of the air, while he himself kept his momentum and crashed into stone figures whose coatings he apparently needed to break in order to force Death into their bodies.

Aoyama, Sero, and Asui stared with shaking huge eyes at the figure on the screen whose dark Quirk resembled their own one after the other. Todoroki and Iida were still gawking themselves, while Midoriya just put together how the 'Big Apple' was a nickname for NYC, which linked him to his own move he thought he had recognized after the movements of Gran Torino he had seen which he now understood were his own moves and not his teacher's. Bakugo's lips were still in a deep frown as they had been since he watched his fake's weak attacks fail to even faze Zach in the video. And yet he frowned deeper because of the question Death had asked his defeated enemy at the joke the villain made of those fake versions even possessing a fraction of Class A's real power. Even that did not complete why he was frowning so much at the screen, though the name of the villain's Quirk echoed in his mind even as he watched Death using their fighting styles merged with his own Quirk in amazing ways.

"Haunt."

Death flipped back through the air as a series of bombs were going off in front of him. Some planks of wood and chunks of ground lifted up and glowed yellow too when he got near them, but others were not bombs just fakes meant to direct him in a certain direction. Death stopped avoiding everything around him though, pulling his arms into his body and crossing them while all the darkness around him absorbed in and created the thickest solid coating around his body all at once. A blast of Death exploded above him then sucked back into his body before he slammed into the ground as a Hardened figure of Death. Dust rose up from the collision he made in the ground that Kirishima's eyes shook at, then Death let out a scream, "RAA!" He came running out of the dust with his body bulged twice its normal size, his arms huge and his fists slamming into two enemies who attacked with sharper objects that Death's bulged arms smashed straight through so the blades shattered.

Flanking on Death's right and left came another four enemies. Four arms broke out of Death's body below the larger more muscular ones that stayed pretty muscular though did shrink a bit as Death gave himself six arms instead. The bottom four arms snapped out to his sides and extended like Zach Sazaki's enemy in the final round of the Sports Festival before the Invasion had begun two years ago. The four arms punched his enemies then pulled in quickly and crossed in front of him, blocking and getting blown away by some flames that slammed him followed by water that pushed through the flames and skid him back. He turned his body to the side though and ran along a jet of water, then he dove forward and touched his right palm to the floor while splashing Death off to his side as he did a one-handed cartwheel, flipping into the air after and splashing more fluid darkness off in a gymnastics move with his body shrinking down, only to get even smaller on landing as he sprinted forward with his hands covered in dripping Death getting more solid and having flares of Death come off of them. "Deaaatthhh, RUSH!" He sprinted forward and swung his right and left hands frantically in front of his body and out to either side, his form too intangible that attacks smashed right through him as he threw little pieces of Death out in different directions.

Then his feet got stuck in the ground. He had no warning this time as the ground suddenly sank, the dirt turning to mush and then hardening around him just as fast while large invisible and almost-transparent forces pushed down on him. A light blue glow filled the air after the first push down, forcing Death's body farther into the ground that he filled up with Death before yanking his legs back out of it as whatever sucked him down stopped using its Quirk on him. Whether he knocked them out or they left in preparation for him to, he did not know. But he yanked his legs out of the ground and then swept his right hand across his body and ignited the debris he ripped out of the ground with Death. "Meteor-" he spun his kick into chunks of dirt he had covered in Death, breaking them apart only for a wave of water to slam through his attack and into him then the ground below his back. The water sank him down into the floor that became intangible only to raise his spinning body back up in a wave moving the opposite direction.

"Death-" Gentle spun and had to block the opportunistic snarling villain behind him flanked by two others. He took his eyes off of Death and made everyone watching in the future extremely anxious and wishing this was not the middle of a battle for Gentle too so he could just keep his eyes on Death at all times.

After a few seconds though, as Gentle's pink aura started to fade completely but his recent enemies fell below him with tranquilizers shot in their chests, he looked down and the spectators had no idea how Death got out of those attacks. He was though. Flipping backwards away from explosions and water and rising ground that looked malleable and mushy. He came out of a flip with his lower back bulging into a pulse of darkness that swung behind him when none of his appendages were in any position to hit the descending enemy who got an aerial angle while Gentle was distracted. The thick tail slammed into this villain's right arm so hard that their bone snapped, while Death removed two grenade-looking objects from his waist and tossed them behind him as he landed.

Gentle closed his eyes for a moment, but the villains on the ground did not and many people watching flinched too as the flashbangs went off. Death sprinted into disoriented enemies and swung his tail around into the blinded group, then he fired a line of tape from his lower right arm of the six he recreated. He splashed Death off to his left and pointed his upper right hand forward off an extended arm, blasting an Explosion from one of his Dupli-Arms, right before firing another beam from his Navel Laser-

As he fired the beam which pushed his body back, he caught sight of someone rushing at his back faster than most other enemies. They jumped up and pulled their knees high as the tail swung around Death's back, and they slashed a glowing purple sword that seemed to cut the air around it on a quick swipe at Death's upper back. Out from Death's upper back, a black claw swiped out and stopped the sword before another black claw emerged and grabbed around that villain's torso. A beaked-face snapped out of Death's back, plowing the beak into the throat of the enemy that his own Dark Shadow had gripped onto. At the same time, Death swung all four of his extra arms in front of him on his other side.

The four arms broke off of his body. All of that darkness started to pull together in fifteen different smaller forms that had wings sticking off them. Death swung his right arm forward while pointing his left to the side and firing a beam of black flames out into a larger enemy smashing down a wall of a building towards him. His right arm that swung forward was an order to the flock of black birds to race forward. They flapped their wings and sped at enemies who sprinted back his way or dodged, with only two of them getting hit by the birds that absorbed into them. As the flock passed by the rest of the enemies though, they broke apart into collections of black dots like swarms of insects that sped back at the enemies who had wider masses of Death with no set form to dodge now as pieces of the swarms broke off and attacked them as if with minds of their own.

Tokoyami and Koda watched in awe as Zach used their Quirks in unique ways with completely different styles of his previous attacks that his powerful enemies kept trying to adjust to. All of Death's attacks became less precise all of a sudden though, as the ground did not turn into mush or stick to him this time as it shifted. Death snapped his head to the side and looked down the road while the dark form that came out of his back and his thick black tail pulled into his body. He stared towards a brutish eight foot tall villain who had slammed shaking arms into the ground and split it with three different fissures that cut down the whole block and rose some sections up while also pushing all four separate sections split by the three fissures into each other.

Lines branched out from the earthquake which forced many villains out of buildings around him but just trying to steady themselves too. Incoming fire missed Death without him having to turn intangible or even dodge, as everything around him shook in the quakes. Death stomped his right foot forward and then his left out with a wide stance though, and he slammed both of his curled hands into the ground right in the two closer fissures to him. Instead of sound shooting out of the cracked ground all along the block, huge spikes of Death blasted out of the split-apart earth and smashed into enemies that he took off his feet. Death's larger villainous foe pulled his hands from the ground quickly and leapt back, other villains rushing forward along different-elevated sections of ground and dodging the Death that came out of them.

After only one or two dodges from enemies, Death could not stay in the same spot for any longer and he stood up with his hands rising from the floor. He did not back up or start looking like he may try to dodge these figures running at him who all hesitated at the idea of taking Death on after what had been happening to everyone else attempting the same thing. They slowed instead, hoping for more support around them as the earthquake had stopped and other villains were getting back on their feet and joining back with the fight.

Most of Class A had seen their Quirks in action now. From the splashes of Death mixed with gymnastic-like movements of Pinky, to the Death Rush of a crouched figure shorter to the ground resembling Mineta's moves, to a combination attack of Shoji's, Koda's, and Tokoyami's all at once. Only one person left, Kirishima thought after he had seen what he thought was Zach mimicking Jirou's Quirk with that last move.

Death's right hand lifted up to his chest as some of them were thinking it. Yaoyorozu held her breath while darkness swirled on the center of Death's armored torso. There's no reason for him to do it. His Quirk doesn't require- There was no point try to reason against the actions of the figure to herself. He was doing it anyway. At the same time that he reached for his chest though, his body was starting to grow. Death pulsed around his form when the villains stopped for a second, and their hesitation grew stronger as Death's body rose to eight feet tall, and then kept growing so even his brutish enemy who cracked the earth was lifting his head up to stare at him.

That's right, Todoroki thought in realization as he had looked to Yaoyorozu a second ago to think similar thoughts as his classmates. There's one more member of Class A other than her.

Death's body grew to ten feet, eleven, then twelve. Out of his shoulders came a cloth of darkness that formed while falling down over his widening back that was broadest at the shoulders. His right arm that lifted to his chest was growing before his hand had curled around the hilt that emerged from his body. His right hand grew in size as it gripped around the hilt of the blade. Death lifted his left hand towards his head that had swirling darkness over it but had not reshaped as the rest of his body was changing, yet. His left hand pushed up on the front of his face near his forehead. Death slid his left hand up the top of his skull, and two sharp spikes rose above his ears pointed backwards as if to work better aerodynamically. More spikes emerged out the top of his skull and spiked backwards. His left arm lowered, growing thicker still and becoming proportional to his body that stopped growing at twelve and a half feet, more than twice the size of the majority of his enemies staring towards and up at him.

His right hand was pulling slowly out of his chest at first, then the much larger number of villains flinched as Death yanked all of a sudden out of his body. He ripped out a katana unlike any other blade they had seen, because it was eleven feet long and did not drip with darkness, it only snaked it up in tendrils above the blade in scary trembling motions of the pitch black aura he coated it in. The black blade was as thin as any katana but held straight out to his right side with a length almost touching the closest building on Death's side that way. He then moved his right arm in front of him and pointed the katana down the street at the largest number of his enemies who had dodged the earthquakes around the one who used the Quirk at first and destroyed too many of their buildings that they had been hiding in and on top of. Death had a black cape that fell behind him and waved in a nonexistent wind as he faced down a miniature army that looked so small compared to his singular form.

One more person in Class A, Midoriya thought as he looked at this figure whose shape and form could be mistaken as no other's. Lots of other people recognized the fighting styles of Class A students they had been watching for three years now. Yet despite the sword getting pulled out of his chest resembling Creati's Quirk, it was his stature and use of his Quirk now that they recognized as the one and only. The same boy who could copy all his classmate's Quirks to such an amazing extent that it could be imagined that he only knew how to fight if it was through others' styles. Now they saw a style that could only be his own. Something the villains backed away from, because Lifebringer was always most terrifying when he was being himself.

And as Death pointed his sword forward, a flash of white light exploded back behind him in a smaller group of enemies who were hesitating themselves despite having an angle on Death's back. Exodus emerged down the street at the top of Gentle's visor, and then on the right side of the road from Gentle's perspective so behind Death on his back-left, a cracked wall of a building smashed down with villains thrown through it as a Gorilla-like man barreled them down. Barboon slammed his fists on the ground after blasting through the wall and turned to glare down past Death at the rest of those villains.

Shoji's eyes widened just above his mask. I thought for once, we would see how Zach fights. But that is also his style. Shoji had expected Zach to still have much worse odds and need to focus all around him on all his enemies, even worse with Gentle no longer having any of the pink glow that had made him stronger. Gentle was panting and sounded exhausted, but Death had other comrades too. He never goes at it alone. Not anymore. He did that too many times and failed. Zach brought comrades with him to the Lifebringer Incident. He won. He started beating villains, as soon as he started fighting with comrades by his sides.

"I commanded armies that would follow me to the end of the world… And they did." Edo and Neo stared at the boy they were watching while next to each other on the same shift at work. They heard the voice of the boy talking to them on a shift the two had shared back when he was still in Tartaros. And they heard it again as Sazaki was surrounded by enemies in the middle of a siege of a city full of them, his comrades gathered around him and protecting his back, allowing him to sprint straight at the largest numbers of them which he did without pause as his flank was secured.

Death slashed his long katana out in front of him, and the length of the blade blurred and became trippy as the darkness around it swirled above in strange patterns but only above the first nine feet of the blade. Because of the lack of any wisps on the final eight feet that the sword extended to, he hit lots of villains focused only on the section that their eyes naturally rose up above because of the swirling Death pulling their way. Death slashed across eight of his enemies in one swing, then he tossed his sword into his left hand and cut it along the sides of the buildings on his left that were less damaged from the earthquakes than the ones on his right that were nearly all collapsed.

The ground in front of his feet turned black in two lines that shot forward and spiked up and to either side at dodging villains. One dodged towards a pile of rubble on their left that they touched their hand down on and dragged across. A thick line of red smeared along where their hand was touching, and out from that red came bubbles and thin lines of something… Something that Gentle was not waiting to get a better look at. He dropped to the surface and his feet slammed into the shoulders of the villain crouched to smear more lines along the floor. He pinned the man to the ground and then stomped harder on the back of the guy's head he tried to lift up. He then pointed his pistol down after firing to his right and behind a pillar that a different woman tried jumping out of to claw him with her hairy bear claws. He emptied the last of his tranq gun, then as he was reaching to put it back into a holster, he was blown to the side by an explosion in the building on his left.

Gentle landed in a barrel roll and stopped on his back, needing to flip himself backwards to dodge onto his hands and knees and lift his head. He was panting even heavier now, and he coughed a couple times before ducking as a wall near him got a chunk blown out of it. He dragged himself forward though as Death flung five black knives around him and then pulled them into different patterns with whips of darkness connected to each one to not just take down five enemies, but twelve all with the same move.

Tobita pulled himself up to his feet and staggered back out onto the road, his head shaking around as the explosion affected him more than the camera gave away. The man heard some fuzzy shouting that came clearer into his helmet but that he did not react to as quickly as Exodus who sped above him and kicked a villain dropping on Gentle who had just walked right out into the fight. Gentle turned his head and stared across the road though to the sturdier buildings on the other side where a very large creature just leapt to from another block away.

A white figure in black armor that covered most of it but still had patches of white fur sticking out all over barreled across the roof of that building. Its muzzle showed through the dark armor on its face as it could not wear a normal helmet like the others. The figure was huge and on all fours as it pounded over the roof, slamming its whole body weight to the right with a sidestep away from gunfire, before unloading a minigun attached to its left side via a neural chip that it controlled with its mind. The smart bear jumped up and turned in the air, the huge gun ripping into pieces off its body as a thin slice of gray cut through the air and split two of his confused enemies apart but did not kill the bear like the stronger villain on the next roof down intended with the sacrificial attack.

Death slashed his swords around and flung knives away from his larger body while spikes of darkness shot up off the ground around him. "Death!" the larger figure on the roof behind Death and on his left yelled out. Death started running forward while that huge figure ducked its head and body down close to the roof, then snapped up and slammed its skull into the villain swinging sharp gray clothes out from his back. Just the collision of the bear-like figure's head with that villain knocked the man off the roof with cracking sounds coming from his body and blood splashing out of his mouth. The bear dove off the roof while Death jumped into the air, and a black whip swung to the bear and yanked it faster to right underneath him where one whip turned into a pair of reins that the larger figure of Death gripped onto as the bear slammed down on all fours.

"Though I'm sad Zach won't ride me into battle covering us in Death armor anymore. I wanted to-" The cut-off voice of the figure who had popped by Zach's apartment earlier that semester rang out in the heads of of Zach's classmates. Koda and Ojiro each remembered Dover's voice saying it in disappointment and then the follow-up apology from the bear that showed he was not lying about what he had said. Imagining it as an idea was one thing though, but seeing the Death around the man's body wrapping down onto the bear and covering it in a flaring black aura was a different matter entirely.

Mineta glanced to Ashido who darted her eyes to the corner at Mineta who she had theorized with about Dover's statement before herself. They both looked back covered in sweat as Dover's body erupted in darkness that ignited the ground around them into a sea of black flames. The demonic-looking bear creature snapped its head forward as its eyes started glowing bright red. It tilted its head back and opened its mouth while its vocal cords covered in darkness, "RRROOOOOOAAAAARR!"

Death snapped his right and left arms out to his sides, and longswords formed in his hands before a pair of wings as big as any he had created so far ripped from each side of his back and stretched the width of the road. The wings smashed into buildings on their sides before flapping behind them, as Dover ran forward barreling down the road at enemies who were turning and running from the insane sight before them which was not what they signed up to fight. The glowing red eyes of the roaring beast carrying the personification of Death itself chased them down. Dover could feel the swirling masses of Death on his paws growing thicker and giving him more utility at Zach's discretion, and he slashed his right claw across the front of his body as he reared up, creating four thin claw-marks of darkness that flew off him at an enemy who tried to ambush them while they chased most others who ran.

When Dover pulled up like that, a better group of villains setting an ambush for the moment Death slowed all pushed them at once. And so Death's huge wings snapped down into the ground, and he lifted himself and Dover off the ground to fly forward. Death leaned off Dover's body and slashed a sword down in a strafing slash that ripped a trench through the earth and knocked back three different enemies fighting and running from him. Death's left hand gripped tightly onto Dover's back and into his armor where one piece separated from others and there was a chunk of metal from a turret sticking out that had pieces broken off during the fight so far. "DODGE!" Death flung his beast of a comrade across the road and onto a roof, right as a pillar of yellow light shot down out of a crack in the air above him.

A beam of white light flew at that crack and into the yellow light a moment after it slammed Death into the ground. Gentle shook his head around and started sprinting forward, but Death crawled up out of a crater in the ground and looked forward towards a group of enemies who had emerged in something other than an ambush as it looked like they just sprinted over here and were attacking him in the midst of a different force's ambush. "Death," a man with long orange hair that fell in several braids behind his back said, then he chuckled as he stared down the anti-hero ahead of him who he called out at. "I've finally found you! I have been waiting on this for-"

"You're pathetic." Death's voice was cold and menacing as it came out so dark and scratchy with his deep voice overlapping a more evil one from the back of his throat. He stomped his right foot forward. "You want to convince your men that you wanted to face me? None of them believe you. You coward." Death's hiss came out so hatefully that the enemy before him who had looked cocky and actually appeared powerful too with comrades willing to follow him straight to Death, hesitated to respond. His eyes were still that of an experienced and focused villain though, darting behind Death to his right and left, as well as up onto a roof where a smaller figure on all fours ran forward before skidding to a stop and curling his claws into the ground as he kept himself from charging as long as Death was still in front of him and speaking.

Michael held himself back, while Barboon slowed from slamming his fists on the ground. Barboon pounded them into his chest a couple of times before smashing fists down on the floor below him over and over in rage he growled out intensified by drugs he had injected with too. The man with the Gorilla Quirk had become even larger and was snarling through his teeth hidden behind his helmet, while blood drenched his right arm from a deep gash up at his shoulder. Exodus stomped forward behind them, and Dover slammed a heavy claw onto the back of a moving villain behind Death on his left and just next to the building that Michael had skid to a stop on.

"You don't want to be here as much as anyone else in this godforsaken city." Death growled it and his fists balled with swirls of Death surrounding them. He was back to around his usual size but still had a lot of Death around him, and he spoke ominously to the figure directly in front of him, "You're afraid. And you are right to be." Death stomped his left foot forward, and he cocked his head to the right before tilting his chin back and straightening his body out. "I am going to rip you to pieces," he threatened, his voice getting louder as he snapped at his enemies who dared come to him. "You think I believe that you want to fight me? DEATH?! I will blot out the sun with darkness."

A second after he said it, shade fell over Death's head. Despite all the smoke in the air, the sun had been shining through most of the day. Death's words seemed to have an affect on the environment around them, but the villains who looked up realized that it was not just Death's words that made everything darker in their area. The shade crossed down the street and covered the villains too, and it engulfed the city past them and in all directions. Gentle's head glanced up and he saw the dark clouds that swirled underneath the sun and dropped the city into deeper darkness illuminated more by the flames engulfing it than anything else. He lowered his head back down and glared at enemies who stepped backwards, including the cocky one who had come to face Death but second guessed every decision he had ever made as Death commanded darkness over the world.

Gentle also glanced back and to his left where there was a shorter figure who marched forward on the opposite side of the street and slightly farther back than Exodus. Death continued to speak as she moved her hands, as Gentle looked back forward to his leader who continued, "I am going to bring down the storm on your world. Raze your homes and your bases. I am going to BURN you into nothing and let you blow away in the wind. Ashes, all that will remain of the once 'great' Karmile."

Death knowing his name did not compliment this villain. Not anymore. Not as a huge semi-translucent skull of darkness rose up behind Death with an opening mouth that looked like it screamed with dark wind flying past Death's sides. "You will die." Death ran forward and roared, "AND I WILL BE THE ONE WHO GREETS YOU IN HELL!" Death ran forward, his body growing and leaning forward with his arms bulging and getting sharper all around them. His hands turned into claws that he slammed into the ground, spikes of Death coming out of his back and wrapping around him from the skull that pushed forward too. "Beast Mode!" Death ordered as he transformed.

"HaaOOOOOO!" Michael tilted his head back and let out a howl, and Dover roared out too without any darkness on him this time but still a horribly deep menacing roar emitting from the bear experiment.

Barboon slammed his hands into his chest twice more then pounded them on the ground and chased after Death who reached his enemies and slashed as much Death into them as he did any others. Not all of them chose to run, even though what just happened was one of the more terrifying moments of most people's lives just watching this battle in action. Gentle ran forward and bounced up into the air as the ground below him and in a line in front of him all glowed red and started turning into dust, with Barboon tripping and falling into it with his body glowing red too as the Gorilla-like man let out a scream of agony. The red glow all stopped, but Barboon had been half glowed himself and started to collapse into the ground, which made Michael roar even louder while diving off a roof at two of Karmile's forces, ones who were hit by darkness anyway and trying to dodge, only to slow and get hit by another enemy who tackled them claws first.

Karmile was strong, but Death's wolf-like body grew three times larger and swung a huge claw at the man jumping backwards who did not jump nearly far enough without the expectations of how large Death was about to get. Class A recognized the beast that Death had turned into. They had seen it in the Enudora Forest, but never in action. Death had shot out of the wolf form himself in a smaller piece when all his enemies had run from him, catching Kurogiri before he ever did anything with the form they had caught a glimpse of before. It did not end that quickly this time. Death's huge form snapped its wolf head back while the spikes all along its back grew sharper but pulled close to his body like the fur of an actual wolf, as Death let out another menacing roar like his comrades had. Dover and Michael charged and took down enemies, and Gentle went back for Barboon who he pulled up as the man bled and died, and Maelstrom swung her right hand behind her catching enemies who thought they could flank them with a tornado that emerged out of her hand.

Maelstrom went one way and yelled at Gentle, "Give him to me!"

"No point," Gentle countered her though, as he knew Barboon longer than Maelstrom did and knew he had died before. He pulled out a marker that he crossed over his comrade's visor.

It was nearly instant, Iida thought, stunned as he thought of how Gentle had jumped up and looked back to see Barboon trip into the red and get covered in it before any warning could even be given out and before Death could take down the villain causing it. Death had done everything he could to intimidate his foes into running, and his comrades had done the same, but some of the powerful villains had attacked, and another of the Army of Death were dead.

Zach's so, so so so, so strong, Aoyama gulped at the sight of his classmate charging forward with his Death pulling back into his body, ordering his comrades around him to split back off after they had come to assist him against overwhelming enemy numbers that Support and Command had called them to assist with unbeknownst to Death himself. Aoyama watched as Death ran forward solo in a darker city with only Gentle behind him again, guarding his back as he had been since the landing in the city where Death was the first one down. No wonder we didn't stand a chance against him.

This is who he is, Asui watched the figure on screen who was what she recognized of her old classmate she saw in the hospital. The lies he told us that day were to hide this. To hide, Death.

His subordinate just fell right behind him, and he never even turned around! Jirou glared at the screen, her hands curling tighter into her thighs as she watched Death move forward like nothing had happened. He doesn't even care about them. Jirou hesitated after the thought, imagining Death cursing and slamming a fist into the wall earlier when one of his comrade's died. Then she frowned deeper and ground her teeth imagining other shouts through the fight about how they needed their men more than the enemies needed theirs. He wasn't mad because he lost someone he cared about. They're just tools to help him win this battle. Weapons for him. People he manipulated to come with him here!

The moment darkness fell on the city of Wampajawa at Death's command, Diamondfist leaned back into his chair and put his hands up over his head through his hair in stress. On his right side leaning forward nearly off his own chair rather than sitting back in it, Rabbit was biting his fingernails while The German stepped backwards behind their seats. The foreigner from Europe turned his head and looked towards a long-haired blond teenager who was watching the video closely and darting his eyes around to carefully watch every inch of his former classmate's online stream. The live stream Sero had up already had millions of shares and hundreds of millions of current viewers, and Raijin was one of those with the television in front of him and some others in an underground base playing the footage in front of them.

Intanzo sat forward like Rabbit but had his hands interlocked right in front of his mouth, while Dabi watched in the background near the exit farthest from the screen. On Dabi's left side and in front of him, Splodo took an anxious step backwards farther from the screen. "That's the guy we're up against?" Splodo finally whispered, at a loss for words for too much of that but finally finding his voice as hoarse as it came out. "We're trying to stop him?"

"This is what will put him away anyway," Dabi muttered without looking to the similarly scar-faced villain to his side who glanced towards him then shook his own head around while spinning back to look at the video himself. Dabi looked hesitantly towards Raijin after he said it, because he noticed Denki Kaminari's head turn a bit his way and the two made eye contact for a moment. Dabi looked away in a more unnerved way after seeing Raijin's look, and he stared at the same screen that Kaminari was watching closer for a different reason.

Every technique. Every move he never wanted anyone to see. I can see them! I know he would have rather kept this all hidden. So why did the Gentle Criminal reveal it? What is the motivation behind their move? Raijin would have thought more on the reasoning, if he was not just like everyone else: stuck engrossed with the footage he kept watching. Unlike the others around him though, the blond could not keep both corners of his lips down from resting in a small grin.

Death sped down a street and sprinted by a comrade of his who just yelled out 'thanks' for Mark who was nowhere to be seen around them by the time Zach reached that road. The plumbing that had been ripped out of bars on both sides of the road poured water onto the street though where it was spinning around this soldier past Gentle who started running forward after Death at the enemies just ahead of them. Death swung his left arm forward with a spear of darkness on it that missed an enemy, then his comrade sprinted under where that villain was coming down with their feet growing ten times in size. Those huge feet got sucked into the whirlpool of water that Typhoon created around himself though. Death's body blew apart into two different huge masses that went around the whirlpool carving down the middle of the street, suggesting his comrade may be affected by his Quirk if Death were to touch him as it would make more sense to fill the swirling water surrounding the soldier with darkened liquid.

The man inside the water had a gap in the swirling funnel though that he moved with just off the ground. His body was spinning inside it too, but he rose up a pair of pistols he fired out the small gaps where the water spun too fast that it broke off and gave him openings to shoot through. Death combined in front of his comrade, a larger body of Death swinging a long arm down to his right at a woman who just tossed up her arms and threw a pile of green leaves that all spun looking to have razor-blade like edges to them. Some of those blades flew past Death anyway and into the whirlpool that misdirected them but did not slow them from completely getting caught in the water.

Blood splashed off the dark-armored figure in his whirlpool, and for a second it slowed while Death turned his head and looked in, and Gentle ran by them and threw up a barrier as the moment Death turned they were attacked by eight opportunistic villains. The man inside the funnel of water yelled out though and the whirlpool sped up faster and larger, and Death turned back down the road before transforming his lower body into a spiraling dark mass that rose up to a similar size as his comrade's. Gentle leapt up in the air over his barrier, and the two spinning tornadoes of water and Death spiraled to the edges of the street below him and ripped down towards enemies realizing their mistake.

In a huge mansion on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, Gianni and Milo Arsassi were in a large living room of a coastal estate their mafia family had owned for decades. The famous Arsassi brothers each wore pinstriped suits of white and blue, and they sat with two other members of their crime family though non-related ones. In the room was one of their strongest bodyguards post-reforms and another of their guys who had proved much more financially-minded than they had realized back during their crime days who had become an indispensable part of their familia.

The bigger man on Milo's left and standing at the side of the fine couch the brothers were sitting on opened his eyes huge as he watched the video. "Wait a second," the nine foot tall reformed-villain started. "That Quirk, isn't that-"

"Oi Danamo, shut up," Gianni snapped, focusing completely on the screen like his bodyguard was interrupting.

"No look! That Quirk's Don Gino's! Remember?" He looked around at the other three, none of whom said a word. The surprise mathematician in their group who had peddled at a low level but more recently proved his skills to the family's benefit, did glance towards the mob bosses before gulping more and trying to steady his hands at his sides at the looks on their faces. Danamo stared back at the screen himself and saw the figure who Death and Gentle had come across going a different way down another road that was engulfed entirely in flames but had three villains down it standing inside the fire. Too much steam rose up as he sped in. and he was out of sight in a second, but Danamo said assuredly after he was gone, "That was definitely Gino's. I remember because when he punished Fillipe he used that same-"

"No idea what you're talking about," Milo grunted.

Danamo opened his mouth, but a different voice cut him off from saying another word. "Are you suggesting," Gianni started in a low, angry voice. He did not look towards his subordinate but just kept facing the screen, "That you think Lifebringer's vigilante friend, one who he introduced us to but was supposedly a stranger to him, is actually a member of the Army of Death?" Gianni's voice got lower, "A member that he left to watch us, and if we cannot get in line as was ordered of us by Death himself," Gianni continued, his voice getting sharper and angrier there but more at the realization that still had his throat clenched up and keeping his voice one notch from cracking. "Then the rest of the Army of Death will show up and kill us all? Is that what you're suggesting, Danamo? Because that's crazy. And it couldn't be. So never bring it up again."

Danamo's face covered in sweat at what Gianni was saying. The lack of any understanding in his boss's voice suggested that he was already pretending to not have any idea what Danamo was talking about. It was the idea that inside the mafia families there was an Army of Death member who rather than leave them to the police, would rather just deal with them himself. That a single dark vigilante ruled their crime families with the most power of any of them in all of Italy. And yet Gianni and Milo were still sitting in their mansion. Allowed to go on breathing despite having faced down Death himself, and despite being under close watch by one of his subordinates. The idea of it; the idea that they were living in freedom solely by the discretion of Zach Sazaki, kept the brothers from considering for even a moment to try and go against what he had turned their worlds into. They had seen what happened to Don Orzoni. They had watched what happened to Garbaldi. They knew the price they would pay.

Zach Sazaki sprinted at his closest enemy in a video that had been going on for over an hour and a half. No one had any control over stopping the footage at any time, and it had already been accepted as potential evidence. So much happened each minute that to try and interrupt to bring attention to anything would only cause the person interrupting to miss too much. They all kept thinking it would end too. Each time the screams over the comms got too frantic, or Death himself seemed to be losing the fight, or even the times when the villains were on the run and it looked like the Army of Death might have it… though those times were getting fewer and farther between.

Death's aura was gone from around him. It was not on his arms or legs either, and they watched as it formed around his fists or around his feet as he punched and kicked only right at the moment of impact. The dark swirling aura that had been so powerful minutes before was down to nothing. And yet he did not slow down. His sprint at his enemy stopped short, as he pulled back to dodge an extending chain of black metal that flew out from three streets away where it extended from. Death grabbed it and yanked towards himself, but the other end of the chain got pulled up into the air not held by anyone as the person who swung it released and darted away into the shadows blocks away to not get hit by him. The moment that Death took to grab that weapon, gave three other closer villains better shots on him. Gentle blocked two of them, while Death swung down the chain he had grabbed towards the third who fired anyway and let the end of the chain bounce off his Quirk which was a light pink barrier that Death stared at for a second too long after the chain's hilt had hit it.

Zach swept his left arm across his body to block the shot from the villain who put his own barrier up right after getting his shot off quicker than Death could attack him. His left hand missed the bullet but it ran along his arm, digging through his armor and making a grinding noise of steel against steel. Death released the chain he had grabbed by close to the end where there was a heavy weight, and he punched his right fist forward at the villain who he had been running at in the first place who charged at him instead and just tried punching a fist that did not look to have any Quirk affecting it. Death was still cautious and leaned away to dodge the fist while he punched himself, which allowed him to avoid the beam of red light that blew through the center of his enemy's chest from an attacker down the road who tried to shoot through him and into Death.

Death snapped his head up and shot down the road with a blast of darkness out of his back. He did not create wings, but he used the insane burst of speed to spiral through the air and twist himself in a way to dodge eight other red beams flying up at him. Then he flapped a pair of wings out his chest instead of from his back, changing his momentum in a strange way to slam into the man with the barrier who turned to run when he thought Death was coming for him, which Death pretended like he was not doing at all to instead go after the cloaked guy aiming beams at him.

Death slammed into the running villain's back and pushed into the pink barrier which broke apart as Death spun himself against it and slammed his left fist as hard as he could through. He gripped that villain by the back of his shirt and yanked to the left hard with some Death coming off his fingertips. Gentle had looked up that way after 'Perfect Rebounding' two more shots directly back into the barrels of the two shooters using more curved Elasticity in the air. When he looked towards Death, he saw his commander smashing through the barrier and gripping his enemy, then tossing him to the side in an odd way with the darkness coming off his fingers knocking the man out as it was. The extra movement was clear in its reasoning an instant later, as the roof below Death blew apart in a flash of red from a diagonal beam that cut through the front wall and up into the spot over the ceiling where Death was about to reach.

Black wings flapped in front of him and got torn up by the beam, then he flipped backwards off the roof and nearly got hit by the next beam that his spine curled over instead much too close for comfort after people had already seen the power of the beams. Death landed and ran forward at the villain in a gray cloak who had his hands lifted up and glowing red, but as he sprinted closer a silver spike covered in black barbs flew out of the villain's wide mouth with such force that it knocked his head back and pushed the hood off. Death could not see the attack coming but crossed his left arm in front of him and winced while skidding back to a sudden stop as it pierced through his armor and steel. He reached to his arm with his other hand and ripped out the spike that he threw back at this enemy and pierced the man through his right arm.

Another red beam fired from the villain's left hand, but Death easily dodged into the position where the right hand's beam had been about to come from. That beam had gotten dimmer and barely broke a hole in the ground where the arm pointed down at because Death just cut through the muscles holding the arm up. As the villain yelled out in pain, Death's form disappeared from in front of the man who darted his eyes left then spun right at the sight of the approaching figure. Death slammed his knee into the villain's chest and knocked him backwards into a wall where the man slumped down, and Death stomped down onto the villain's left arm at his elbow and broke it.

Death reached down and gripped the villain by the collar of his cloak. There was a strange symbol on the back of the cloak that Gentle caught a glimpse of when the figure turned sideways quickly to try and attack his dark enemy, but Death had seen the tattoo on the villain's forehead below his red bangs when the man's hood had come off. A square of black lines were drawn into the villain's forehead, and in the center of the box was a tattoo of an opened eye looking back at him.

"I know that symbol," Death growled down at the man who rose his gaze up and wiped the look of pain from his expression. "Tell me-"

"Your Army is falling," a creepy voice spoke through the mouth of a man who stared calmly up into Death's dark visor. Gentle darted his eyes every each way but kept Death and this man in his vision as he protected their corners. "And with it, you will die here today."

"You," Death snarled. His voice came out full of hate, and he leaned down to the man he gripped harder by the collar. Death pulled the figure's face closer to his own visor, and he wondered in a low growl, "Tell me, Mr. Fergus. Is your real body here in this city somewhere? I would very much like to snap your neck." His voice came out so cold and with seething hatred emanating from every fiber of his being.

"You failed to find me," Fergus replied through the mouth of the man he was possessing. "And now you never will. This city will be your grave-"

"When I win the day," Death snarled back and cut off his enemy. "I will finish rooting out the Fourth Eye across your conglomerate."

"You are irresponsible."

Death's hand curled tighter on the collar of his enemy and he snarled louder, "I won't let a mistake like Atlas happen again. I'll kill all your agents, and I will not cost another innocent worker their livelihood. Only the corrupt. Only the evil will pay. And when I find you, I am going to tear your heart out-" The villain's mouth that had lips stretched all the way to the sides of his face started opening wide, but before any kind of steel spike could fly out from the use of Fergus' possessed body's Quirk, different from Fergus' combination Quirk of Possession and Beams, Death slammed his hand that was on the villain's collar into the villain's face. His hand was suddenly wrapped around the villain's face and he put it through the wall behind him that the man was leaning on.

"Death please!"

"AH! FUCK!"

"We can't beat this villain-"

Death landed on a road before Gentle had reached the top of his arc. Gentle bounced that way while Death faced an enemy who quickly rose up his right arm with an open palm at the end of it. The scrawny man had a huge smirk on his face as Death came to face him, even though his left arm was broken and dangling at his side, and he had a cut on the right side of his face and one on his right leg. Behind Death on his right side, one of his comrades was reaching down and grabbing their right leg, while another on his back left had their left arm broken and dangling at their side.

"Any damage done to me will be done back to my enemy! Come on, Zach Sazaki! I know you won't order any of them to die for-"

Death sprinted down the street and he pushed aside the villain's right arm then slammed his left fist into the man's chest. Death leaned back himself after the punch, then he reached forward and gripped the villain by the head. He jammed his thumb into the cut on the villain's face, then he knocked the man onto the floor with a knee to the gut that dropped Death down himself almost to his knees. He reached down though and stuck his index finger into the villain's right leg, and he twisted it which caused the villain to scream out in agony. "Iblis," Death ordered. Then he snarled down into the face of his agonized enemy while Gentle finally landed behind him, "I have people who can heal my injuries. So if you try escaping I'll break your legs." The man's eyes shook in terror as he looked into Death's dark visor, and Death growled while digging his finger around in his enemy's leg and causing them both excruciating amounts of pain. "I'm sure that when my own injuries are healed it won't heal you."

Death grabbed the man under his shoulders and could feel phantom pain in his left arm that made him grin madly under his helmet while he tossed up high into the air. Iblis flew overhead with her red flaming wings flapping above her, and she reached down and caught the enemy Death tossed to her. "Get him to the brig as fast as possible and lock him there. Burn his left arm off if he disobeys."

"Y-You're insane!" a voice screamed down at him, though it got quieter while Death stood up and started running off at the same time Iblis flew faster away from him.

Death did not slow another second on a villain whose Quirk he imagined one of his comrades would have tried sacrificing themselves on just to get the guy out of the way. "FORWARD!" Death yelled with a glance backwards at three dark figures panting and grabbing at their injuries.

Gentle glanced back at them, and one of the three yelled at the other two to move with her before turning and running a different direction as Infirmary yelled about needing more assistance.

"Shang is down! Getting him to the infirmary-"

"Drac's been paralyzed! We do NOT have Sector 8 anymore- fuck fall back!"

"Trigger at will!" Death yelled. "All remaining reinforcements-"

The ground in front of Death became uneven. The Quirk used on the road did not appear very powerful. The elevation changed every few inches though. It rose suddenly and sharply and fell just as suddenly. Little excrements of rise and fall, ones that made it too hard to keep running and made Death break wings out of his back- ones that were immediately destroyed by blasts that occurred directly in open sky with no warning and caused Gentle to bounce backwards as there was no indication of which direction the Quirk was used from.

The attacks in the air right when Death rose up in a jump but before he could flap any wings slammed him into the ground hard. He bounced and rolled as those explosions were mainly behind him because he did not jump straight up but continued his forward momentum when the blast hit. Gentle crossed his arms in front of him as he was too close to Death's back, but he swung those behind him and bounced into the air then in a random pattern as an explosion blew up on his right in midair where for a second he thought he saw something shimmer. It was like a midair minefield where all the mines were see-through, making it hard for him to assist even as chains flew out from both sides of the street. Six silver steel chains connected by chain links swung out and wrapped around Death's body when he had to stop due to being surrounded by invisible mines.

A black chain flew up from back where Death and Gentle had come from, and it wrapped around Death's neck where his left hand reached up to stop the chain from pulling too tightly to his throat.

"He's low on Death!"

"He can't slip through them this time!"

"HOLD!"

"Fire team!"

Death grabbed a chain on his right that had wrapped around the other side of his body and locked with another strange chain that felt like it was Quirk-made as his own steel left hand was not breaking through the one on his neck. He could not easily see the one on his neck though and could not tell it was a different kind of black chain than the silver ones all around him, though one of those silver chains was turning black after he grabbed it.

Before he could extend his control of Death all the way up to that chain to whoever was grabbing it, three people appeared in buildings next to him that had only half facades of their walls as they were in an area that had already faced heavy battle throughout the day. The lack of flames on burnt-out sections could have been for any number of reasons other than a large-scale ambush being set up for him. He had chains on him though and got shot at by villains on different sides. Thin wires wrapped around his left arm and yanked it behind his body when he tried blocking more of the shots, then Death stomped forward two steps and dodged more while pulling against the chains that pulled back the other way.

Gentle ground his teeth but put his hands on his body while panting in an exhausted way. "Elasta-Armor," he whispered. He covered himself in his Quirk, then he bounced down at an enemy lining up a shot instead of firing behind Death who staggered forward some more and pulled two villains out of hiding where they were gripping the chains with all their might and trying to hold back. Explosions blew up around Gentle, and he rushed out of the flames and slammed his left fist into the side of a villain's face as the man was yanking his rifle up to fire at Gentle instead. A shot went off, and Gentle collapsed after his punch, reaching his right hand down and grabbing at his stomach that he looked down at and saw his Elasta-Armor had failed after the explosions. The bullet was lodged in the front of his armor though, only half-dug into it so it had been a painful hit in the gut but not something that was fatally wounding him.

"RAaa! HAAAA!" Death yanked his left arm around his body and broke the wires wrapped around it. Darkness flared around him and shot down the chains, slamming into a couple men which caused others to release and those chains to fling wildly after Death. Four of those chains harshly snapped back out to the sides though and yanked him even harder backwards right as he was taking another step, causing him to stumble. Death was not expecting anything to grab those again when they were all over the place with no one close.

Whoever grabbed the chains with their mind had a similar Quirk as five others who jumped out when Death stumbled. "Mental Squad! NOW!" Another voice yelled out. One figure directly in front of Death stared into his black visor and snapped up her hands that she curled her fingers of while facing him. Two others on Death's right emerged, one putting an index finger to their left temple where it stuck into a small hold in their head, another glaring at Death with blue waves connecting from their head to Death's. On his other side, two others who got closer to him when jumping out rose their hands that they aimed at him, one of them with their eyes rolling into the back of their head as they attacked.

As the five of them attacked, twenty others emerged who Gentle had not seen when he had gone for the member of the "fire team" without understanding just how many villains were still in hiding around here. He just turned and focused on one of the villains about to run by him from a nearby hiding spot though, and he ran after that man's back and tackled him without worrying about Death who had things completely under control. The five villains who used Mental-type Quirks on him at the same time, snapped backwards with their jaws dropping and yelps or screams of shock coming out of their mouths only for a brief instant. Explosions of darkness ruptured out of their ears and blasted from their eye sockets. Their mouths spewed darkness that just enveloped their minds, and the other villains running past these powerful mental-attackers who had sworn to be able to take down Death themselves, found themselves in varying levels of shock and fear.

Death's head snapped around and he took all those levels of fear into account. He measured each of their reactions and attacked accordingly, taking out another five before the mental-types had even collapsed to the floor. Some of the people watching had seen Zach Sazaki take on Zeira Eleinie. Present Mic, Cementoss, All Might, and Midnight had watched it. Endeavor had seen the boy break free from a Quirk that when he saw it he immediately considered recruiting the first year U.A. student as a new intern. Her Mental Infiltration was too amazing even with its shortcomings, and yet Sazaki had gotten through that mental Quirk using a method Endeavor had no clue about. He was not surprised to see those five enemies attacking Sazaki with their minds go limp though, but one girl watching the video found herself staring in shock at how lightly Lifebringer had still been taking her if he could take five people like her all at once and take them down so much more violently with those explosions of darkness she saw go off in their heads.

Just like when Zach had defeated Zeira though in that licensing exam, something got more brutal about his style of fighting immediately afterwards. It was a subtle difference and not easy to tell when Death would so often bash his opponents while snarling insane things.

Remarks about a "Mr. Fergus" and his "Conglomerate," as well as some secret organization that existed across them had the strongest heroes in the courtroom in complete confusion. There had been no evidence of collusion with other companies of the Fergus Conglomerate and the corrupted figures in the Atlas Corporation. There had been some strange disappearances of executives in organizations under investigation though. Disappearances that had the heroes who investigated them to no leads feeling sweat all over their bodies as they wondered if Death had followed through on all his threats to eliminate corruption without destroying the entire corporations this time.

Some were still caught up on the villain who had looked excited to fight Death one second but backed off in horror when the sky blackened. Others imagined the assassin underneath Eziano Mozcaccio who Death had not held back his rage one bit against, while others focused more recently on the villain who Death had tossed out of the way to protect from a red beam of light rather than let him get killed like the last enemy he had gone up against was blown straight through. A few could still imagine the brief moment Gentle had seen when he looked towards Death and saw the darker man had his left hand risen and pointed at the chest of a villain on his side, only to point down and fire through his legs instead to blast the man closer to him so he could hit him with some of his Quirk supposedly to knock him out instead.

And yet others still just watched in the moment as Death grabbed a chain loosely wrapped on his shoulder and snapped it out ahead of him. Most people doubted they could just grab a chain link and whip it out like that to such masterful control, especially considering there was not even any Death on it to suggest that the vigilante was using his Quirk to better control it. Just the swing of his arm caused the end of the chain to wrap around the neck of a villain running his way anyway. He yanked towards himself and tugged that villain off the ground with his strength alone and threw the guy past his side and behind him into another villain charging at his back who had to cancel the use of his Quirk to not blow away a comrade rather than their enemy.

Death reached his left hand to the side and grabbed a stabbing enemy by the wrist, and he snapped his forearm while pulling across the front of his body using that villain's own momentum. As the villain with a snapped forearm screamed out in agony, Death bent the arm more and pushed the jagged piece of broken bone out of his skin and stabbed that jagged bone into the throat of another villain on his other side who just ducked under a punch of Death's right hand. That right fist was never meant to hit him. Death pushed aside the man he had pulled in front of his body and used as a living weapon on his comrade whose throat he just impaled. He continued swinging his right hand around his body while twisting, and he slammed a punch downwards into the jaw of another enemy speeding around his back after feigning attacking from the other side, something Death saw through with ease.

His opponent could not even move his arms from his weapon to try and block. Death's punch was too fast. There were no Death on it but the blow alone knocked his enemy out, as well as knocked out half of his teeth as Death slammed his head into the floor and shattered his jaw like glass. In his helmet, Death heard the yells from around the city while he was stuck fighting this group, and as he battled them he continued yelling out what he was cut off with before, "Just use it! If you haven't used it yet take out a vial and inject! All reinforcements move in-"

"Should Exterior?!"

"No!"

"But sir! There's no one left-"

"Yes there is!" A different voice yelled out which had been shouting throughout the fight. "Rebel! Take control of the Cloak, Support is moving to on-site!"

"Are you serious-"

"We still need someone in there for the manual controls-"

"Snow! You have the bridge!"

"Access! You can't be serious-"

"She's just a-"

"Tell her what to do! We're heading in!"

"Rebel," Death growled. Darkness surrounded his body that made all the villains around him still attacking and not running off to set more traps freeze where they were. They had maintained hope that because Death was so low on his Quirk power, they could still beat him. And with his body engulfing in darkness they all understood that Death had wanted them to keep attacking him so he could defeat more of them, and that was the reason his power appeared to be so depleted. Whether it was the truth or not did not matter, and the few who tried shouting at others to keep fighting were the ones who Gentle and Death picked off in seconds after the others ran. "Blizzard Protocol," Death stated in a harsh and low voice as he finished off the last enemy near him and left him among a huge pile of bodies in the street. He turned and looked a direction more had run, before spinning as he got a call for help from other comrades somewhere else.

"If things are that bad," Rebel began.

"Just in case," Death muttered. He continued to run, and Gentle looked to the side at him while panting harder. Gentle's hands curled tightly into shaking fists at his sides, as Death ordered, "The ship can't fall into enemy hands, and neither can she. I won't let it come to that though! So just tell me you understand!"

"I get it- I understand, alright!?"

Gentle's eyes opened wider and he spun to follow as Death sprinted twice as fast down the road as a dark soldier blew past an intersection ahead with blood splashing out of their whole body. Dark footprints were left behind by each of Death's steps after he saw the figure blown backwards, and Gentle dug his feet down harder to keep up though he was not creating Elastic platforms on the ground to bounce himself any quicker. "Ah hah, ah hah-"

"I need help! AHH-"

Gentle ran onto the street and he spun to his right where Death had just run down. The commander was too late. Zach ran towards the Army of Death member who had an arm through their chest and a knife jamming into their throat as he approached. The stabbing villain spun and held Death's comrade up in front of him, but Death was quicker and spun around his own comrade, doing a spin-dodge past his body and slamming the back of his left fist into the side of his enemy's head. The villain's arms pulled out of their comrade's body as he was launched with a dent in his head through a window that gashed him with the broken glass on the inner edges.

Death caught his falling comrade with one arm and lowered him quickly to the floor, before spinning and pointing his left hand up at the roof behind him that two villains popped up on and aimed down at him. They screamed out right before he fired a blast of blue light there, then Death ran backwards towards Gentle and pulled out a pistol from his left armpit that he fired by Gentle's side as Gentle put up a barrier just past their fallen comrade to block two other villains down this road who pointed their direction.

"Guard me, we don't have a current Respawn," Death ordered. He gripped down on his comrade back near the intersection who he first saw and started dragging the other way, but he cursed and dropped him as he felt nothing. Death reached for his marker, but it was gone and he had no idea where it had dropped. He ran Gentle's way and dove for their other comrade who had blood pooling around his body. He aimed his pistol back the way he just came from, and he ordered after firing two shots, "Watch our six too!"

Gentle darted his gaze back to his side and saw Death pull the knife out of their comrade's neck. "Come onnn, yes-AH-" Death's voice sounded happy after he put his right hand onto the comrade below him, even as pain filled his voice along with it. "AHh- HAa raaghh GHA-" Death's left hand snapped to his own neck that flared with some Death that spurted away from him. His chest and back pulsed with some darkness too, as Death gagged and screamed out in agony.

Gentle had both hands risen in one direction, but he spun sideways and he threw his right palm up behind him to create a barrier on the other side. "Do it faster-"

"AhAhHAHAAAA!" Death screamed, his head bowing down as he bellowed out in complete agony.

Gentle turned to his right in an unguarded section and he lowered his right hand for a second to a pistol on his side, but as he raised it and fired twice, only one shot came out. He threw the gun at the second enemy flanking from that side, and he had to open that hand into a palm and make another Gently Rebound that the enemy dove far into and had their blade push inches from Gentle's face, before bouncing back into the building behind them that their back hit painfully.

He turned the other way as gunfire rang back out, and he threw both hands up again while gasping, "Ah!" He bit down, and his fingers curled then opened back up to full palms that bounced off attacks from different sides.

"RAa! HEY!" Death felt it. He shook the man he was knelt down on top of. He stood up and yanked his comrade up with him, putting the man down on his feet and staring into his black visor from up close. "Hey! Look at me! LOOK!" Death yelled it as the man in front of him was spinning his head back and forth and then looking down at his chest while raising a hand to his neck.

"I can't do this," the man babbled. "I- that was how dying was? I don't want to- I can't! Death please, I need to get-"

"Look at me," Death said, his voice getting lower and more intense even as he did not shout this time. "I need you. We don't have the manpower to win this," Death said in a softer voice, speaking directly to the man in front of him and no one else. "Not without every last one of us, fighting as hard as we can. I can't do this without you." Death's comrade's head stopped shaking as much and his focus locked solely on his commander in front of him who Gentle glanced towards before spinning back around and watching all their angles at once. He continued to look to them though and kept Death in his visor as much as he could, even as he panted harder than ever with his arms shaking as he held them up.

"I just… I'm scared-"

"I know," Death whispered back. "But if we don't win today, it's all over. And I can't win without every single one of you. I need you to survive, and I need you to keep fighting with me. There is no escaping from this city. We don't have the control to get you out of here, but if you want to run tomorrow then I won't stop you. But today, today we need to win. The world will burn if we lose. And I cannot do this without your help. Please," Death begged. "Stay with me. Fight by my side. Help me take this city!"

The soldier's head started nodding. He nodded faster and curled his fists at his sides, and Death smacked his hands down on the man's shoulders he had been gripping and called out, "Good! Then I need you to-"

Bang

Blood splashed on the front of Death's visor.

At the same moment, Zach Sazaki looked down away from the screen in the corner of the room. His head snapped down and his eyes darted to the defense's table, his jaw locking and his eyes shaking as he flinched so hard it was hard for some people behind him to watch.

In the footage, a bullet ripped through the helmet of the soldier in front of Death. Blood splashed on Death's helmet and Gentle spun from the two he just looked at to his right instead and down the road to a sniper who had moved closer down the road and fired past the shrinking Elastic barrier in the air. Gentle ran closer to Death and yelled out, "HAAA!" He threw both hands up over himself, "GENTLE DOME!" He created the barrier right as others started firing all of their ammo at the location that the barriers were weakest or had shrunk too much from that it allowed one of those dark soldiers to be hit. "We can't stay here!" Gentle yelled, holding his hands up but looking back and down at Death.

Death had been holding his comrade by the shoulders, but the man's legs were no longer holding him up at all. Death's hands slid down from the tops of the shoulders to the sides of them, and he lowered down himself while placing his comrade slowly down onto his back. His left arm slid around his comrade's back as he lowered down himself, his helmet pointed straight down at his comrade's cracked one, blood dripping from his helmet onto his comrade's. "Hey," Death spoke, his deep voice serious but soft as he whispered it. "Hey, I just-"

Death placed his comrade on the floor and he moved his right hand over the man's chest. "Death! He's gone!" Gentle yelled at him.

Death's fingers curled over the man's armor. Dark swirls came out of his fingertips and his fingers dug into the man's armor more, his head bowing and the chin-piece of the helmet pushing into Death's chest as he hissed, "Come on. Come on it's only been a few seconds- please." The man who he had just revived was dead again. His comrade's blood dripped off his visor and obscured his vision as he pleaded with his Quirk to work, but there were no screams of pain or sight of sealing wounds this time. Death's fingers curled more and then let go of the body he had desperately tried to bring back a second time.

Kendo's eyes filled with water and a tear slipped out from her right eye and down her face. "It doesn't work on people who have been brought back to life before," she heard Zach's voice in China and how confident he was about it even as others argued with him about the possibility of it working. "My Quirk brings people back from their first deaths, but it's failed countless times on people when they died a second time…"

"…Countless." Ectoplasm heard his student repeating that word in such certainty and despair. He stared at the boy on the screen who stood back up from his comrade's corpse, unable to revive him a second time as was happening more frequently throughout this video. And he saw the way Sazaki's head flinched to the side in the present right when the figure on the screen had a bullet shot through his head that splattered all over Death's visor. Zach had looked back at the screen now and was watching in a less emotional way, one that could almost convince a person that he had only flinched like that in surprise and because he did not like to see any person killed rather than a reaction to something personal. His old teacher felt chills, thinking, Everyone knew when the Army of Death members were reported to be dying, that it was strange that they were not revived like other people were. Unless, Death could no longer revive them. I understood that, somewhere deep down.

Jirou's heart pounded faster and faster in her chest as she watched Zach stand up in the video Gentle had filmed of the battle. Why? Her mouth was dry and she asked it to herself again and again, Why? I don't- I don't understand. Why? They're all dying! If he cares that much- Why? Why is he still- Why did he turn on- Betray! WHY?! Why are you doing this?!

"The world will burn if we lose." Jirou's heart tightened up and her breathing got heavier right as Death snapped his head and glared towards a sniper whose continued firing cut off instantly.

"Drop it now." Death shot out of the Gentle Dome without anything stopping him.

Gentle started running to try and keep up. He stomped his right foot down harder and jumped into the air, and he pulled out a short blade of his own from his side that he came down with at a villain on Death's left who spun their rifle to try and keep up with him on his sprint right by that Death still expected him to guard the flanks of. Other villains ran away on their opposite side as a dark explosion ripped out of the sniper's side that Death slammed his fist into. Gentle slashed back and forth as his enemy used their rifle at first to block his swings before unzipping a zipper down their left arm and pulling out a grenade from inside-

A knife covered in darkness hit that man in the opposite hand as the one holding the grenade, and Gentle jumped away while swinging both arms in front of him, but the force of the explosion that went off anyway still wrapped around the sides of his thin barrier and made him jump back again after landing. He dropped into a roll and dodged underneath the attack from another villain across the road, picked up a submachine gun off the ground as he rolled and rose to fire but the gun he picked up was broken. He threw it instead and then dove and tackled his surprised enemy back into a wall, causing the villain to gasp out before attacking again only then as they had a delay before they could fire off their Quirk after each use. That attack cut off as Gentle slammed his right fist into the man's nose.

Death ran by Gentle's back and kicked a different villain in the head and back down the road with darkness swirling off of their body and hitting the only other two still on the road. Gentle smashed his fist over and over into the face of the villain he had pushed into the wall, then he pushed to the side and into a small bit of Death that hit the man falling to the floor already with a busted face. Gentle turned to look around, his head snapping in focus but also panic as his panting was so loud and could just be heard over the crunching sounds of the bones in his enemy's face.

Death grabbed Gentle by the collar as Gentle spun looking for the other enemies who were not there, and Death leaned his face closer with blood smeared on the visor. He put his face close, "Next time-" Death's voice cut off for a second as his teeth clenched. Gentle's panting breaths stopped in that moment too, as Death finished in a hiss to him, "Make the barrier wider."

That dark soldier released his comrade then turned and started marching down the road. He reached to his side and grabbed a magazine while dropping an empty one from his pistol that bounced on the floor. He clicked the new one in and marched away, but Gentle's panting breaths had started up again and were getting louder as he was working himself up. Death's words sank in, and Gentle bit down then stomped his right foot forward and yelled in Japanese, "I CAN'T!"

Death took another step, and Gentle yelled towards his back, "We can't all keep going like this!" Explosions blew up on Gentle's right a few blocks away and he spun that direction before turning quickly back Death's way at the sound of screams filling their helmets. Death stopped walking and stood facing the same direction Gentle was which put the back of his head to his comrade's face. Death not turning around seemed to only make Gentle angrier, and he stepped forward again and swung his right arm to the side with a movement that showed cuts on his armor and some blood around the black. "We don't all have limitless reserves! We don't… I don't!" He yelled, his voice cracking at the call of it, followed immediately by a coughing fit as he was panting too much and was too out of breath to be screaming like this.

"I can't keep going, and with Miraculu gone there's nothing that's going to recover us now. Nothing we can do!" Gentle yelled.

Midoriya's eyes trembled as he stared in awe at what was going on. Despite the hopeless situation, neither Gentle nor Zach are considering it. I know killing would recover him but, but Gentle's shouting about this knowing that Death would never consider it. He would have said something already. All this time, I thought Zach was-

"We're all going to die here!" Gentle screamed at the figure in front of him who lowered his pistol down to his side. Death's arms dropped down to his sides and his left fist curled tightly on one side while his right gripped harder into the pistol. "You're going to get us all killed!" Gentle yelled, putting the life of their last comrade and all the others back on Death and not on himself. "It's too much for us right now. At least if we run, we can regroup and still-"

"If you even think that's an option," Death spoke darkly. His words were in English. He stopped before finishing that sentence, then his head that had bowed a little while faced away from Gentle rose back up to stare straight ahead. "If you weren't prepared to die then you shouldn't have come. I will not allow a single one of the filth here escape this city-"

"Gentle's right," Rebel's voice spoke up quickly back at Death. "They still have the fucking Capos in hiding and there could be thousands more-"

"None of them!" Death yelled out, cutting off Rebel too. "I won't let them run, so that they can continue to murder, and steal! Rape and enslave!" Death's head snapped to the side and he glared back towards Gentle who staggered towards him and opened his mouth up to yell again. "I will not fall here. I will not die."

"And if all of us do?!" Gentle screamed back. "You already let her die once today," Gentle snarled towards his comrade, knowing that Rebel had this conversation only between them with the leader of the Command Center listening in as the only other. Gentle's voice got much darker as he said it, and he growled at the younger man, "I will not allow you to throw her life away for a lost cause. We can't win! You'll run out soon too, and we just can't! If you get her killed-"

"I will keep fighting nonetheless," Death replied. His head was partly turned to the side and he glared through blood-stained vision at his closest comrade who had been fighting with him from the very beginning. "Letting them win a single fight will erase everything, prolong the Age… I won't let it happen anymore." His voice had filled with conviction. He turned back forward and started moving once more. "I will not wait another second. I will not sit around. I will not let them get away with it, for another moment." His seething rage came through in his voice resolved to end this no matter what the cost. He stopped though after he had continued moving again, and he growled in furious rage, "Make your choice, Gentle. Stay or leave. Whatever you decide, when the sun sets Death will still stand. And I will move on to the next battle, with or without all of your help."

"But without your help, I'm going to fail." Death said the last sentence softer, and then he started running.

"Full comms Rebel! Everyone, lower Restrain Level 3!" Death roared. "Do not allow yourselves to get hurt just to protect your enemies."

"I can't- I won't order you to kill anyone!" Death continued to yell out. "But I won't punish you if you do." His voice was darker there and only hardly masked the hatred that was so present in his voice when he spoke to Gentle moments before. That hatred pushed farther down though as Death rose his voice louder, "Above all else, we need to win!" Death screamed it at the top of his lungs, and he yelled out at his comrades all over the city, "We cannot allow a place like to spread, or this most important battle to be lost! Fight! WIN! Do whatever it takes!"

"Understood, Commander." Exodus replied, and Rebel chose to put his voice through to everyone else's headsets too.

"Support team using Trigger as soon as we land-"

"What is that?!"

Gentle looked over his shoulder and in the opposite direction. He looked away from Death who had run from him, and the video cut. Everyone watching stared in shock as they wondered for a moment if Gentle had actually decided to run. The footage returned a second later, the screen coming back on and Gentle running through the city and turning onto a street he saw Death down.

He really did try to run, Zach thought while watching the footage of Gentle running back towards his rear. He admitted that La Brava had forced him to stay. That she said she was not going to run. It was the first time, he told me, that she had ever told him 'no.' When he told her to run away with him.

"Ch- Ground support to the south is- ahh!"

"All of the drones are compromised! Rebel can't take them back, too many-"

"Multiple enemies are in the relays!"

"DIE! Army of Death! Ch-"

Gentle had an assault rifle in hand that he lifted and fired past Death's right side, making Death turn his helmet for a moment and look back at the man with purple highlights on his costume running back towards him. The sky was full of smoke and dark clouds higher up. Fire raged on both sides of this street. The infernos were so hot that men and women were pulling away from them farther into the middle of the road and closer to the three Army of Death members ahead of Gentle who controlled the middle and had their enemies cornered between fire and Death.

The drones were more fire-resistant though. They flew through flames and caused Gentle to raise his rifle and shoot towards them, hitting one and shooting it down. Others fired though, unloading on a street covered in Army of Death and other villains, and hitting all of them without discriminating. As Death and the others got fired upon down ahead of him, Gentle screamed out, "Whiteout!"

"I can't target anymore-"

"Just do it!" Death ordered in a yell as his comrades screamed in agony around him where they were dropping.

"E.M.P!"

The white flash came so bright and spread all around Wampajawa. Whiteout's earlier more-controlled Targeted Temp-Emps were not as violent with the spread of the flash. Wherever this woman was who managed to survive this long through the fight, her power had stretched across the city. It knocked out the relays and communications' links that they were already certain their enemies had hacked into. It dropped their own drones that had been hijacked by the enemy. And it descended the battle back into darkness and chaos that was unseen by the spectators who thought it was chaotic enough when people could still communicate with one another.

…chhh

The sound of static faded in as the camera had been cut sharply again. It had come in slower gradually after the later E.M.P's, but this time the footage was not returning in as simple a fashion. Chhh… "ah hah, ahh-ha ack kah…" chhh-

The screen looked black but turned staticky before any images began to appear. It cut back off again, then the static returned but the center of the screen became clearest first as the outsides remained blurry and out-of-focus. Gentle was running down a street somewhere, his own panting breaths louder than the static for mere moments before the static got louder. He yelled out right before it cut, as a ball of fire erupted on his right that he spun towards before the static cut again.

The screen came back with footage and louder static, CHH- "…elp me! Ple-" Chhh

Gentle's head snapped back and forth, the static quieting and the image getting blurry again but actually showing images rather than darkness and gray static. Gentle jumped up in the air and rose over a building, landing on the other side where another dark soldier was pincered between two enemies. Tobita landed and attacked one, but the villain had a strong Quirk that they fired out of their hands. The brown pellets flying at Gentle curved in midair, and he twisted his body but could not dodge them all at the slower movement speed he had now. He was hit twice, then his comrade snapped his head up and screamed at the sight above while the other villain still fighting him turned and ran as fast as they could.

Gentle had hit down on one knee, "Agh! Gaaughh-" he gagged and sounded like he was puking, be it from fighting far past when he was out of stamina, or when his Quirk was out of juice, or from the attacks that had hit him.

"Get up-" chh "Gentle move!"

Gentle's head had lifted slightly but bowed quick at the pain he felt, and his hands had moved to his own stomach and lower right side. He turned his head a little to the right and saw a comrade grabbing him and trying to move him, but the other man lifted his head up and looked to the sky again that had cast a darker shade all over them. Gentle rose his head more and the focus cleared up better this time, showing what looked like an identical image of the street around them only it was above them, and falling.

The images got clearer right as that mirrored city fell on them, and although Gentle hoped it was an illusion, his breath gasped out in acceptance and defeat at the notion that it was about to crush them-

"Gentle!" The voice on his side screamed, and Gentle got pushed out of the way and covered up by a dark soldier who only had a second. That soldier yelled down as he protected his comrade, "Don't let him get-" Chhhh…

CRASH!

Boom DOOF da-crsh KAA Tsss…

Chhhh

…

Chhhh

Darkness fell over Gentle's footage again. It turned to static and the sound faded out, then it faded back in only to fade out again.

Chh- ch CH doof Chh thunk chh

There were some fluctuations in the sound of the static. Even as the footage had not cleared back up again, there was sound of movement in the video that had been blocked up and cut off. It sounded like rubble was being moved around though. Yet those sounds faded just as the static did again.

Then the image started to clear. Gentle was moving, though his head was bowed and bobbing slowly. His head lifted looking like he was actually the one moving it now rather than it just being movement of him that was bobbing his head around with it. As he moved his head, the center of the image cleared up a little and Gentle could see his own legs dragging in front of him. His body was diagonal to the floor with his lower legs dragging and his whole form nearly limp with his arms down at his sides.

His head lifted more from his legs that were dragging down the middle of a road littered in unconscious and unmoving villains. Blood was splashed on the walls that remained standing, while far down the street ahead where he was being dragged from he could see an entire section of city burning in a wild inferno that a huge wave of water broke apart near with a dark figure on it flipping off and getting hit by three different flying figures that took him down and out of sight into the flames. Gentle rose his head more as explosions went off in the distance and some gunfire blared over the sound of static that began getting louder again. He stared into the sky that was so full of black smoke, and yet it had cleared a bit of some clouds. Despite clearing, he looked up and saw an orange glow rather than blue sky. It was not all just from the flames.

ChhhHHHH- The static grew louder and the corners of the camera angle got blurrier and more staticky for a second before clearing with the dimmed noise of the damaged camera.

Is the sun, setting? Yaoyorozu pursed her lips at the sight of the sky Gentle looked up towards.

No one could keep fighting for this long, Todoroki imagined. He corrected himself a moment later though as Gentle's head shifted a bit to the side and he looked behind him and up at the back of a dark helmet. No one else, Todoroki thought. They stared at someone whose empty dark sheaths crossing at the top of his back made him recognizable even without him using his Quirk.

"Hold on," Death said to the man he was dragging behind him. He glanced back and down at Gentle's purple visor after noticing the movement from the man he was dragging away. "I've got you-" Death spun his head forward and snapped his right hand up with a pistol in it while continuing to drag Gentle with his left hand.

An eight foot tall villain slashing both hands inwards with sharp claws opened their mouth as Death punched his right hand towards their head. They tried biting down on his wrist before Death could pull the trigger, but Death fired out the back of his enemy's skull while the teeth dug into his skin. He took another step forward and dragged that villain's body forward using his right arm that he struggled to keep up and extended out in front of him. Bang bang- Bang bang bang! Death fired twice more and pushed the barrel of the gun out the back of his enemy's head, shoving his right arm farther through so his hand was sticking out the back of his enemy's skull for the next three shots. He walked forward while dragging that body held closer to him now as a better bullet shield, blocking attacks meant for him while he aimed the gun through the back of his enemy's head and unloaded the rest of the clip into other villains who screamed as they were hit.

Chhh CHHhhHHH-

The blurry edges cut deeper into the middle of the visor as Gentle's head bobbed some more, but before Death's right arm could no longer keep held up, Gentle's head could not and dropped down as the static overtook and the footage cut again.

Kotsumura rubbed his right palm across his sweaty forehead with his heart pounding through his chest. In his head he imagined Zach standing in the bathroom facing the mirror with his face full of absolute panic. His teeth clenched as he wondered if it was more than just The Pit that his friend had been thinking about that day. Yet he shook his head anyway as he wondered to himself, He must have run, didn't he? I- I know he didn't. He never… Kotsumura thought back on Ranking Day. He never slows down. One fight to the next without getting tired. I thought what he did that day was crazy, but he's been fighting for hours! Hours!

Gentle's body bumped over something and the jolt jarred his helmet into a shake that caused loud static but also the recording to clear more suddenly. Gentle's head also rose from the jolt, and he lifted his gaze in his visor up to the figure who just dragged them into an alleyway and around a wooden crate that was mostly broken but did separate Gentle from the street a bit. Death leaned Gentle up next to the crate and got down on one knee next to him, pulling out bandages from a ripped pouch on his side that he just tore off as the strap was already damaged. He dropped the pouch and shoved some of the white bandages down onto Gentle's stomach, and he was speaking as he did this, "…listen you idiot, I'm not doing that."

They did not hear what Gentle had to say a second ago, but Death continued in a way that implied the severity of the conversation, "This is not the final battle. Ah, hah, ahh, you hear me? Do not treat, any life, like it does not matter. The war is not over." Death rose his head and stared through his visor into Gentle's and thereby into the camera that only had him in partial focus that got scratchier for a moment and then really clear as Death pulled out a pistol in his left hand and held it right in front of Gentle's face. He held it sideways as if to show Gentle what he was holding, then he grabbed Gentle's right hand with his own and shoved the pistol into it. "You never know when you're going to die, so make sure you don't. Don't give up your first life so easily. Guard yourself, Gentle. I'll be nearby, but I cannot protect you."

Death stood up fully in front of Gentle who dropped his limp right arm back down while looking down at his own lap. He looked at the gun his hand barely clenched around, and his other hand moved to his stomach and curled over the bandages on the right side of it that were already soaking through with blood. He lifted his head as Death himself turned back to the street they just came off of, where villains were shouting about regrouping and pushing back on AoD positions just ahead. "Ack- where," Gentle started, stopping Death who just stepped back towards that road. Smoke filled the air above them, and the building behind Gentle was broken apart halfway up the wall which he could see better when he turned to the left and his visor caught the huge chunk of that building missing. "Where, are you, going?" Gentle gasped at him, his voice in disbelief as Death just left him there with a pistol, wounded and alone in an alley to fend for himself in the City of Villains.

Death did not hesitate at the question though. He just pulled out a pair of knives he gripped tightly in both hands, and he marched out of the alley with a short growl back behind him that shut Gentle up and made everyone watching Gentle's footage stare in awe. Death's head turned to the side as he walked out, and he replied simply, "I'm taking this city." His head faced back forwards as he stepped out, and then he turned it slowly to the right at some enemies just past the corner of the building across the alley from Gentle that still had its roof and stood without as much damage to it. There were still burn marks and bullet holes along the wall though, as well as a smear of blood farther back down the alley that cut out behind the edge of Gentle's peripheral vision.

Gentle's hand curled tighter around his gun he looked back down at. He heard Death's response, and his hand on his wound moved to his gun as well, making the grip slippery as his left hand did not have a glove on it anymore but did have lots of wet blood. The camera shook around and started fading out, static noises rising but then falling as Gentle turned to his left. The clip looked to cut out a bit right there before reappearing, and it faded more after he looked out and saw villains getting tossed up into the air above the roof of the building across from him.

The fade out that came next was interrupted by a sharp cut to show villains running down the alley at Gentle. He was pushing back through a broken crate and tried firing at them but only hit one in the right leg which had too hard of skin anyway and only knocked down the villain without actually doing damage to him. Another cat-like woman running his way had sprinted up the wall of the building across from Gentle and pounced off it, while a third man was just laughing as Gentle shot around him and failed to hit his target. "Death! Gentle needs-"

The woman who pounced off the wall got a black fist underneath her right arm. Death slammed it into her armpit and ribs cracked loudly in Gentle's ear. He twisted his body and launched her into the laughing villain who ducked under her body, which passed him instead and slammed into the guy who had been knocked down by the bullet to his leg. When the crouching man heard his comrade behind him yell out as he was hit with their female friend, he realized an instant too late that Death already had contingency for if he ducked below for how to make his extra use of force to throw the woman still have meaning and utility behind it. Death's right foot kicked him in the face when he could see Death again after ducking below, his sight of the enemy leader cutting off for an instant when he crouched like that so quickly.

"Hold on, Gentle! We're going to do this!" Death yelled down to his side, no doubt in his voice as he turned from the three he finished knocking out to run back out of the alley. An explosion hit the corner of the near building along with some heavy gunfire that ripped it apart as Death ran out, and he yelled in rage and pain as he was knocked away. Gentle was closer to the corner himself and pulled himself from the flying splinters and dust, then he turned and opened his voice to yell but just started coughing instead and bowed his head again as the camera was losing focus.

Gentle's head was bowed but he rose it back as the images shifted from hazy to focused. He looked out on the road though and it was hard to tell if his camera angle actually had a more focused view of anything anymore. Water ran down the lens as soon as he looked up and the rain started to get on part of his camera, though the wind was so strong that only a misting hit him due to the buildings on either side of him that protected from the sideways rain.

He stared out on the road, and he saw Death back to his left a little so he was almost out of the picture but visible because of the crumbled corner. Being closer to the road meant he could see more of it, though the corner across the alley from him was not all that destroyed and due to the poor city planning, actually jutted out a bit from the more damaged one he was leaning up against anyway so it blocked more of the street that way. Death's enemy would have been harder to see then, if they were down on the actual street level, and if they were the size of a normal man. This villain was not though.

The villain facing Death had an appearance that made Ryukyu open her eyes wide, because she was nowhere near that big when she grew into her dragon-like form. This huge green dragon was perched on a building down the road across the road from the edge of the alley just on Gentle's side. It looked to have just landed there, and its talons pierced down hard under its huge legs that it gripped through the ceiling and cracked that roof to drop down more. Its head was large though and its neck long off its thicker body, and that neck curled up even as it pushed its legs down through the roof so it was glaring down at Death from a height of close to forty feet. The villain's head itself was almost as tall if not taller than Death was, and that scaly green creature bared huge sharp teeth down at its enemy while red flames puffed out from the corners of its lips that it had pulled so far apart.

The villain appeared to be baring teeth in absolute rage. It glared at Death, while above them a storm raged. Black clouds filled the air, and lightning shot across the sky with loud thunder rippling out almost in the same instant from how close the storm was above them. BaBRROOOOMMmmmrrrrrr…

"Death," the huge dragon growled. Its voice matched its body, bellowing and deep and yet somehow noble at the same time. It sounded like someone speaking down to another, and yet even in that condescending voice there was a hatred that matched any other. As the lightning shot across the sky above them, rain hit the back of that mighty dragon and the front of the enemy in front of it though a bit less now that Death had the dragon straight down the road from him and blocking some of the buffeting rain.

In between Death and the dragon, Gentle also spotted another figure who had a bloody hand pressed against the wall of a different alley diagonal from his own and slightly closer to the dragon. The man leaning there had just wobbled his way to this street, and the villain glared Death's direction when he heard the dragon and saw who it was looking towards. The villain bared his teeth, a man in his thirties with an Asian appearance despite the mutations that gave him thick black horns sticking out of his chest, back, and upper arms. The man glared at Death but tssked as he started raising his arms and felt them tremble and lower. He reached down to his pocket and pulled something out that Gentle opened his mouth to call out about, but he just coughed instead in a fit and ducked his head for a moment before raising and watching the villain inject with a vial of something.

Death said nothing to the giant figure who just spoke to him. He did not rush at the monster though. He stared at it with his helmet lifted a little like he was staring up into the dragon's eyes. He could tell the power that the dragon possessed, and he had heard about this villain already multiple times today. That beast faced him down in the middle of a storm, in the middle of a battle, and it yelled down at the man who did not respond to it, "I am the King of the dragons! Dorgon? Flygorn?! They were nothing! I was always the one in command!"

Out of Death's right hand burst a pocket of darkness. The Death shot out into a thin rapier off to his right side. Then it grew, getting thicker and turning into a two-sided broadsword that appeared to get too heavy that it dipped at the point five feet away from him and dropped into the ground. That action did not make the Dragon King very happy, his teeth baring more with his lips pulling apart.

A female dragon with purple and pink colors swirled in a tie-dye pattern landed back on the roof behind the cracked one the Dragon King had stepped off. She cackled, a giggle even like the sound of a hyena before seven tongues slid between her sharp teeth and slithered in the air in front of her, all seven of them forked. "Do it, My King. Finish him!"

The Dragon King's neck reared up and his claws dug into the street harder. "Zolo? King?! I was the one using them! They were MY pawns to take over the world! You have foiled my Syndicate's plans for the last time though, boy." Huge wings stretching wider than the sides of the street flapped out to his sides and broke through roofs on either side of him. "I will shatter the civilizations of man, and I will burn their cities to the ground! BRRaaaahhh!" The dragon whipped its head around and blew flames into the air, then it snapped its head down and blew those flames down the road into Death who engulfed his own body in darkness and pointed his left hand forward with a triangular-prism of Death forming out from him that appeared to split the flames.

The flames were just the first part of the attack though. The Dragon King was already sprinting forward in such immense speed that it looked a blur. It barreled down a road cracking with every step in a city that shook under the might of its charge. On the side of the road to Death's left, a drugged figure stomped out and rose both hands up that he pointed at Death as if grabbing a wheel. He turned that imagined wheel to the right and made Death's step forward through fading Death and flames look to happen in slow motion. As Death did that, the figure turning the wheel started to move his own hands slower, and then the charging dragon appeared to slow down as well. The Trigger was so strong and unstable, that a bolt of lightning flying through the air above the road started to slow down and the individual branches became more clear as it pierced the hazy sky.

The slow-mo villain twisting his arms suddenly yanked the other way, and the charging dragon was at Death in an instant only for both of them to slow down. Despite the sudden increase in speed, Death's body moved as he wanted it to. His spinning body of darkness that did a spin-dodge after a quick flutter-step the other way, came out just on the left side of the dragon's head. Death had moved to his own right, which put him closer to the alley that Gentle was in. The Triggered villain pointing hands towards them became blocked by the dragon's large body, but the neck of the dragon that snapped just past Death continued moving by him as the dragon's feet curled into the floor and started pivoting to turn in Death's direction. The Dragon King had snapped its teeth to chomp right through Death's body, but his teeth passed by the figure so close that the speed of its neck passing by was pulling Death away with it.

Death's left hand had gone to the hilt of the long broadsword that he rose off the ground in slow motion. He brought it up, and then time sped up and he slashed it down through the neck of the dragon. It did not cut all the way through, and the creature's neck reared farther down the road as the Dragon King turned it back and roared at him, flames filling its mouth again while blood spurted from the deep gash not going halfway through his strong neck. It was a deep wound though, and with the speed-up in time Death also yanked the sword back up after the initial blow and brought it down again, and he got it back up again with it more than halfway cut through now, and time started to slow down as Death roared in the deepest voice with his vocal cords slowed, "RAaAaAaaAhhHH!" His sword cut through the rest of the neck he had been hacking away at, and the dragon's body that was pulling back up fell to the side with the rest of his of neck below the cut flailing around for a second as it became disconnected from the head and top of the neck that just fell unmoving to the floor.

As the dragon's rearing body fell out of the way, Death flicked forward a knife that was in his right hand. His black sword was vanishing back into his body, but he had a knife in hand already that he flicked out the end of the disappearing blade. Most people focused on this knife even as the female dragon screamed at the top of her lungs, "KING!" Death focused on her instead of where he threw the knife, and he had the time to turn slowly towards her while everything around him slowed even more.

The Triggered villain across the road from the end of Gentle's alley turned his arms more to try and slow the knife as much as possible. His eyes were filling with water though and his mouth opening in panic and fear. His eyes even started closing too, but his own Quirk slowed him down so there was nothing he could do to dodge the knife flying straight at his head. Despite him slowing the time it took for things to happen, his Quirk was not actually slowing the speed or force behind the blade, so in slow motion it pierced through his right eye and back into his brain. His Quirk cut off while the female dragon flapped her wings and shot off the building she was on down the road much faster than Death imagined she would be.

He jumped backwards instead of attacking which seemed like the right move as she slammed into the spot he was just in and dug her claws deep through ground that looked like butter against her talons. Death landed from his jump near the head of the Dragon King that he had chopped off. He rose his left hand but turned his palm inwards and looked at a dim glow on his left palm that he could see thanks to much of the dark armor and the fake skin on that arm already being burnt or destroyed, due to him using it as bait more often than his other arm. Some of the fake skin and dark armor was still there, but there were also holes all over that arm and no blood coming out so those who focused even a little could see the steel inside.

Death turned his head slightly to the left and looked down at the head of the Dragon King that had permanently bared its teeth. The light of his arm was too dim that he doubted he could attack the dragon woman flying at him with it and do any damage that she would not just fly through, but he pointed his arm down and aimed at the gums of the Dragon King next to him. He fired at the gum on the bottom jaw right below a ridiculously sharp tooth that was thick and survived getting blown out of the dragon's mouth without cracking. Death grabbed the tooth and then jumped to the side as the Dragon King's mistress lunged at him to bite while screaming, "STOP TH-" She turned her head quicker as Death went by her side this time as she missed the lunge of her head that not many people could dodge as quickly as Death just did. His legs had covered with darkness for a moment though and given him a slight burst of speed too much for her to adjust to.

When Death sidestepped the woman, he stuck the sharp tooth of the Dragon King out into her using his left hand. He gripped his own left shoulder with his right hand to keep it up while he pushed his left arm out as hard as he could while sprinting forward. "RAAaaaaHH HAAA!" Death ran down the length of her neck and down her torso too as her legs buckled and collapsed to allow him to continue sprinting a line to her tail where her body finally curved back in so the tooth came popping out from under her scales. Death lowered his left hand down and gripped above his left shoulder in pain with his right hand that squeezed the spot hard, but he turned back and watched the dragon woman who flailed around, her body opened up from head to tail with purple blood spraying out the length of her.

Death dropped the tooth while panting, then he turned from the slowly spasming body of the woman. He did not watch as Gentle did as she turned in the last second and lifted her neck up, so that as her head fell, it fell on top of the Dragon King's with her tear-covered face resting on his.

The corners of the image got blurry as Death marched out of frame, and then it faded it out anyway and only faded back in when there was a gray fog hanging over the road in front of Gentle and into the alley he was in. There was a slumped body of a villain against the wall in front of Gentle, the man with a couple bullet holes in his chest and stomach panting quietly with his head bowed and low moans coming from him. Gentle's gun was on the floor next to him barely in frame as he stared down the dying man in front of him who was muttering something under his breath that stopped all of a sudden right after the image faded in.

Gentle turned to his left because he heard a loud clanking noise coming from the road. He turned that way as his enemy in front of him died from wounds that he had just inflicted. Gentle groaned himself while gripping on his right side with his left hand, but he turned his body more and looked out to see a silhouette marching forward in the fog. A black outline surrounded that figure who stopped and looked down the road in the direction the clanking was coming from. Gentle looked that way too, and up out of the floor arose three much larger silhouettes with clunky bodies that rose almost as high as the Dragon King had. There were still shadows on the street behind Death's silhouette where the Dragon King and his mistress' bodies lay, along with lots of other bodies now too.

Those watching had no way to tell the length of time between cuts, but the battle damage continued to pile up every time Gentle's filming stopped, or when he stopped showing it. It appeared like there had been some action in the last cut-out bit, but only when Death was there was Gentle showing them what he saw. At least, that was how some people reasoned it to themselves to try and make any sense of what they were watching.

Death's shadowy body in the fog was easier to make out than the larger ones, and it became easier still as floodlights turned on in front of him and pointed through the hazy air to show Death shrouded in the mist. The large forms that had risen up made clanking noises and shone bright light out from their bodies. They had thick blocky arms and tall steel legs, wide bodies dotted with holes, and missile launchers on their wrists and shoulders. Three giant robots rose from the ground, and at the top of the one in the center stood a man in a glass tube looking like the robot's head with speakers on either side of it that could be its ears. "Do you know me?! My labs that you-"

"Professor Jojo Plutonium." Death's voice was low, deep, scratchy but steady. His silhouette in the fog was covered in black wisps constantly coming off of him. He looked to be steaming black as he stared down the robots aiming towards him. "I had hoped, you were kidnapped," Death said, his voice coming out slowly. Panting black breaths moved in front of his head and mixed with the fog that appeared to get darker all around his body. Death sounded disappointed but also spoke as if no more words were needed between himself and the doctor who was clearly a villain himself and not someone being forced into servitude to other villains.

Death reached his right hand down to his right side. He grabbed the sheath of a katana, the only one still on his body at the moment, and then he put his other hand onto that sword's hilt. His feet spread. They slid apart on the floor with his left moving forward and his head bowing at the same time. At the top of his body, darkness spread out into the circular rim of a kasa hat that appeared above him and continued wisping darkness just as the rest of his body did. A black cloak fell from his shoulders and seemed to surround him closer than the previous aura all over his armor. The black tendrils continuing to rise off his strange appearance shook and then froze in time while Jojo was shouting at Death about "his creations" and how Death's Quirk would not affect him.

The instant the dark tendrils froze, the professor stopped his shouting and reached for the controls as fast as he could. Death stopped moving on the other side of the robots he had just been standing before. His sword was back in his sheath, and only a piece of steel was still glinting out of it. Death shoved the sword fully in, and behind him the robots cut into pieces with three distinct slash-marks cutting through their bodies. Those who could follow and had seen the movements Death made sat stunned while everyone else was too confused for a moment to understand what Death had done. The dark Iai moved too fast through the robots and also the glass tube that Death sliced into and across the body of the professor who screamed out behind where Death stopped.

The robots cut into pieces crumpled with sparks coming out of their broken forms. Blood splashed out onto shattering glass and the professor's scream got quieter after a second before fading. Death hunched forward after the attack but then snapped his head up and started forming wings out his back- "BWWAAAAAHH!" The scream from down the street just past where Gentle could see had power in it that must have been someone using their Quirk. The shout itself blew away the fog and suddenly cleared the entire road in an instant. It had enough force to blow the Death around the leader of the Army of Death away as well.

The darkness around Death's body blew away, and the man himself was thrown, though when he touched down he dragged his feet on the ground. His left foot hit a chunk of steel leg and he dug his foot down harder in that moment to stop skidding. He managed to hold on, but the scream from a second ago came back even louder, "HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO…" The villain who jumped forward just into Gentle's angle pushed his head forward and screamed with the air in front of his face rippling in visible shockwaves. The ground in front of him shook and the bodies littering the ground were picked up and sent rolling backwards. Death dug his feet down harder, his legs shrouding in thicker darkness and his body leaning forward into the shockwaves that rippled out into him and knocked his arms down as he was trying to raise them for protection.

Chunks of robot tumbled backwards, and Gentle got pushed back harder into the wall himself while the dead man leaning on the building across from him got a piece of his leg caught in the ripple which dragged his corpse out of there. Gentle groaned and struggled to move his body, his recording getting scratchier with the street out the alley blurring and filling with static. Death was still visible out there though. As the largest chunks of the robots bounced away and the bodies of giant dragons rolled, Death's right foot rose and then stomped forward. His body flared with Death again that all pulled tightly to his body and then down on his legs which looked to get five times as muscular. Death's enemy screamed even louder somehow, but the look on his face was getting nervous and then afraid as Death's voice roared out from the middle of the ripples his enemy was hitting him with. "RRAAAAAAAHHH!" Death roared in response to his enemy's screams, his arms pulling back up now despite having just been pushed back with so much force that continued pushing against him even harder now.

Then, his enemy had to take a breath. The villain's voice sputtered and choked, and he stumbled backwards while taking in a huge breath. Death sprinted forward in that moment though, and he punched while still only halfway to the villain whose breath caught in his throat as he meant to scream for a different reason than to use his Quirk. The fist of Death flew down the street and hit the villain. Darkness absorbed into the man who was lifted off the ground by the fist anyway. That Death had come from elsewhere around Death's body, even his muscular legs losing some of the darkness before he punched despite how that would slow him down. His legs still had some Death on them, as did his right arm around where he just punched a projectile Death fist, but there was no black aura on his head.

Death was lowering his arm that he punched out in front of him, when his head yanked to the left. He was just too slow. A chip of his helmet broke off on the right side near the top. Blood splashed out to his right and he reached up to his head while stumbling to his left. More shots flew at him from down the street, but his body engulfed entirely with darkness as he let out a yell and lowered his bloody right hand. The wound on the right side of his head where the chunk of his helmet was gone shrouded in darkness as well, making it hard to see even that his helmet was missing a piece. It would have been impossible to tell, if not for the red glow that came from the swirling darkness inside that no longer had the bone-infused helmet in the way.

Yaoyorozu flinched as she thought of exactly where that wound was based on Zach's face now. It was harder to see in Gentle's blurry and shaky footage. Rivera Hanuri looked to her left though from her seat and stared up at her client's black bangs, and underneath on the right side of his forehead closer to her where the discolored skin of scar tissue was. Ahead of Hanuri, Judge Wilson glanced forward himself and away from the screen to the defendant whose face he examined closely.

This is all true then, Wilson could not deny it to himself any longer. Any doubt remaining in his mind disappeared as he looked at the visible proof in front of him that what happened on this video was real and that the defendant was the one in it. Amazing. The thought of awe came so naturally that he did not even chide himself for it, and instead he just refaced the recording that someone really wanted them to see before this trial was finished.

The footage that had shaken and faded after Death was shot in the head cut back suddenly with the building behind Gentle shaking hard. He spun to his right and looked much farther down the alley to the other street connected to it that he only had a short view of. A crack split that street diagonally, and a worm-like creature moving underground flashed through the crack before coming to a stop. Death landed above the crack and threw his right arm forward and speared another villain who was running over the cracked street. His Death Spear flew over the crack that he had already pierced one spear through to take out the villain under it. That second spear was seen flying by the edge of the alley, and then Death himself ran with the rest of his darkness pulling back into him.

Chh- "…Can't hold on-"

"… Too many!"

"Death!"

"DEATH!"

"The Infirmary is being overrun- we can't- AHH!"

"Seraphim. Are the charges set?"

"Tower 2 is ready to blow! SIR!"

Death pulled a small black device up out of a pouch on his side. He looked to his left towards Gentle in the alley, and a red glow shone from the crack on the right side of his helmet even without any other Death on him. His eyes just remained red as he moved with calculated precision despite the screams of agony from his subordinates. "Switch to thermal in the clouds of ash that rise. Take them down in the shadows and regroup while they lose each other." He swung his arm down to his side, and Death pressed down on the red button at the top of the detonator. The entire city shook with Gentle wincing himself and turning to look to the north and up over the roof of the closer buildings. He could not see the falling tower himself, but the flames from the explosions and the cloud of dust was much larger than the tower had been itself.

The explosion caused the city to shake, but the tower hitting the ground made the rumbling continue. Death ran into the alley that Gentle was down and he sprinted right by his comrade, speaking down to him but also over the comms as he cut into the next road, "We're almost there! Keep fighting!" Death screamed it while running onto a road that a huge cloud of hot ash and dust were blowing down with people running away just in front of it. They slowed or stopped to not run into Death, and then the cloud that engulfed them caught Death as well, who they could hear roaring, "We almost have it! The city will fall, and we are going to WIN!"

The smoke and dust that was already hitting Gentle got much thicker and slammed hard into the camera that was already shaking as Gentle started coughing. The footage turned blurry and then got suddenly staticky in an instant before the footage was corrupted. The way it cut off looked different from other fades, and when it came back in the next time there was clear damage done to the recording that cut and distorted the images for several seconds. Duplicating images on top of each other made Death look even more monstrous as Gentle's camera came back and showed the dark soldier out on the road swinging his massive dark arm behind him across the road and sweeping through enemies.

That arm sputtered and broke apart as he was lifting it up high to swing onto the other side. It broke and he reached both hands to the broken piece and grabbed the thinning arm that transformed into a rain of needles he yanked down with his arms that lost the dark aura on them as well. Death coughed as he swung his arms down, raining Death onto the other half of the street and clearing it either by knocking out enemies or forcing them off the road. He was too slow to hit them all, with several ducking into buildings or slipping away from him while he grabbed at his own Death in a desperate attempt to hold onto it even as the darkness was clearly shaking. The raining Death did not pull back into his body. It hit down into the floor and vanished. Wisps that broke off as it swung faded away. Death shook his head around and then reached his right hand up and wiped away some ash on his visor that was still mostly intact despite missing a piece from the corner.

"Sir! We have lost the whole southwest! No one's left over there. What should we do?"

"Regroup and push back in."

"Commander! Foxtrot is no longer functioning without- shit! Behind us!"

"What are we supposed to do, sir?! There's no end to them!"

Death lifted his head up. He stood out on the road to Gentle's left. Gentle leaned against a wall slumped on his butt with his legs splayed motionlessly in front of him. Only thanks to the low breathing in his helmet did some people watching who thought he was dead already realize that he was still alive. Gentle's head moved now too as he saw Death lift his head to the sky while still with a red glow coming from the chip on his helmet. The glow was dimmer though, and Death himself was panting and even wheezing in his helmet though his breaths were calming down now and getting steadier, for some reason.

"What do we do?!"

"Commander?!"

Death reached down and into a pouch while he lowered his head and glared down the street at villains the corner of the building on Gentle's right was blocking from recording. Gentle stared out of the alley and at the younger man who reached into a pocket that made Rebel instantly snap, "Hey hey- Hey! Gentle, don't let him! It'll open too many internal wounds!"

"Za-ch," Gentle gasped out towards the boy who stopped himself.

Death stopped and his head bowed the slightest amount at the sound of Gentle's gasping voice. "Don't," Gentle pleaded in a hoarse voice towards him. "Your heart," Gentle whispered desperately. "You can't, take it."

Death's bowed head turned slightly to the side. Villains down the street were screaming at each other in complete and utter panic. Some were yelling about stopping him, while others screamed about needing to run, as Death himself was holding a needle in his left hand.

A second dose? Midoriya's heart was pounding in his chest. Next to him, Bakugo's eyes grew larger at the sight of what Zach was about to do.

"…while Hank and Miraculu cut me open and worked on my heart, as Curalia blasted me over and over and they took out my ripped up kidney…" Sero imagined Zach's voice in his head back during the confrontation on Inazuma Island. Mineta and Iida both remembered in the same moment that what had happened in the Pit had occurred before this battle. They had seen the red marks around his neck which had been slit more recently, but those red marks were still relatively fresh when they saw them.

"…died on that operating table…" Zach, Ashido's eyes spilled more tears as she saw Zach turn sharply away from Gentle. She closed her eyes, not wanting to watch as Death slammed the needle full of Trigger into his right arm again. How were you fighting like this, for so long?

Recovery Girl had to hold back a scream of frustration at the boy in the front of the courtroom as Death's body erupted in darkness. His Quirk surrounded him in a huge flare, and then all of that Death pulled back into his body. "Ahh-" Death's yell was cut short. He had no voice as he gasp-screamed out whatever breath he had. His shaking hands snapped up to the left side of his chest. His legs wobbled and he staggered backwards, his fingers curling tighter into his chest as the Trigger coursed through his body. It reached his heart, and he hunched forward with spit splashing from his mouth and dripping off the chin of his helmet through the filter. The red glow entirely vanished from the cracked piece of his helmet for a moment, all of the Death cutting away as it looked like Gentle and Rebel had been right, and this was going to kill Death rather than allow him to fight in a way that could somehow still pull out a victory.

He grabbed his chest so tightly it looked like his heart might have stopped. Then his legs, still wobbly, stumbled forward. His right hand remained gripped into his torso, but his left arm swung out to the side and with it came an explosion of Death out that side of his body. His left side ripped out into a huge bulge of Death that looked so solid and thick that anything that touched it would die. It was a massive bulge like a tumor of darkness five times the size of Death himself, and then it grew exponentially and flooded outwards into the buildings on his left. Death gripped his heart tighter with his right hand, while the darkness all over the left side of his body seared across the middle of his torso and spread all over him.

"Raaah RAaaAAAHHH! RAAAAAHHH!" His left arm swung up over him, and the bulging spraying darkness flew so high in the air Gentle could not see the top of it. Death's body twitched and spasmed as he ran a few steps forward and wobbled, looking to barely control the Death itself as he screamed out in agonizing pain. All of that Death spraying so high in the air had stretched itself out of the thickest mass of Death that had immediately pulsed out. He panted heavily before screaming again, and all the Death that was so high in the air started to change shape and angle downwards. It looked like black lightning coming out of the mass. Thin black lines fell fast from the mass and made sharp angles all over the sky, slamming into flying villains in front of him who turned and futilely tried flying away as they screamed in terror. Death himself got hit by shot after shot that went through his pitch black body and sprayed Death out of his back the whole time.

"AAAHHHHAAaaa RAAAAHHH!" Death lowered his right hand from his body and he brought it up in front of him too, pointing his palm down the street. Massive black wings formed out of the bulging bubble of Death that popped them into existence behind him. He fired a black beam from one hand, while flapping his wings down behind him, and raining down webs of Death lightning as his screams of pain echoed through Gentle's helmet. Along with Death's screams though, started coming a lot of different shouts as the soldiers in the city saw their Commander's attacks.

"He used Trigger again?!"

"Don't do it yourselves! No one else can handle that!"

"But-"

"Death's orders! No one can!"

"RAAAahhhYAAAA! AAHHHH!"

"He needs our help!"

"Don't give up now!"

"Death's still fighting!"

"HAAA!"

"RAAA!" More yells of rage and battle cries filled the helmet as Rebel spread the increasing motivation of a few of them around the army.

Explosions picked up louder around the city. Gentle groaned and curled his fingers into the ground at his sides. He bit down and his voice grunted through the back of his throat, "Nnngr- ucgh, ach ack-" Gentle pulled his hands to his side and started coughing at the same time, his throat too dry and his pack empty of water to refresh himself with. "Achh hahh, haaahhh-" he seethed out his next gasping breath and pushed his left hand back down on the floor, only for blood to spill through his right fingers which caused that hand to curl harder over his deep wound.

Gentle's feet that were sliding up the ground in front of him fell back out straight. He gasped and panted some more, but his breathing got drowned out by the sounds of the surrounding battle picking up in intensity.

His head bowed and his fingers uncurled as his helmet started to bob in a less controlled movement. Even as the shouting and gunfire grew louder, it dimmed at the same time in the future while those watching felt their anxiety spike at the idea that this was where Gentle stopped recording. The footage faded…

Then in the left corner of his black images, a flash of orange made Gentle lean away while spinning back to the open road on that side of him. If time had passed, there was no way to tell, but it did seem to cut out there for a moment as Gentle spun with a gasp like he had just been shaken awake. He pushed his hands both back down on the ground, leaning away for a moment and groaning in more pain as the street had been lit on fire which was flickering towards him.

Gentle stopped though. He stopped pushing back as his panting breaths caught in his throat and his hands nearly slipped on the floor. "Dea-gah-" Gentle started speaking but the flames just at the edge of the alley flared bigger as two different enemies down the road past where he could see were still attacking the enflamed location. Standing in that fire with Death in a very small aura around his body was a dark figure stumbling around and groaning in pain. The groans turned into yells out of panic and agony, as the flames grew taller around him and his hands moved to cover the parts of his armor that were already broken off and allowed the heat to get through.

Death's wounds burned in pain. He ducked his head down and grabbed at his neck with his left hand, but the hand had lost the armor and fake skin to it which meant his steel hand was searing hot and did less to protect him from the pain and more to just burn him itself. As his left hand yanked off, his right hand reactively gripped tighter when he felt the searing agony in his neck, and that meant he squeezed into a gash and an overlapping bullet wound he had covered on his lower right side. The squeeze caused him more pain that made him snapped his head around, though that could have also been to try and stop the fire from burning his skull through the crack on his helmet.

"Raagh- Ah- AHH-"

"Death!" A figure with a pair of flaming wings slammed down into the fire at full speed and grabbed onto her commander.

Iblis dove out of the fire and used her own flaming wings to burn out the oxygen around the spreading flames that tried chasing Death, forcing a weird gap between the fires where there was nothing at all but flames going out quickly because of the intense heat between them. Iblis pulled Death away and curled her huge flaming wings onto either side of him, then another figure sprinted down the street and jumped to the wall of the building just in front of Gentle and past the corner. "Cover me!" The man yelled out from his helmet, before diving from the wall and dodging bullets that slammed into it half a second later.

He fell into a roll, while another man halfway across the street sped down on wheels below a board under him. He snapped his arms up from his sides and unloaded from a pair of automatic pistols he had taken from a fallen enemy. Skater shot towards the villains ahead and made them pull back, and when he stopped firing and they popped back up, Sogdo was already there. The Korean man's super speed was faster than he had showed off a second ago when the villains could still see him, and only when they ducked for cover did he pick up his pace.

Skater kept staring down the road after Sogdo ran out of Gentle's visor, but he lowered his arms and turned towards Death when Sogdo won. Iblis lifted up and moved her wings away, and she stepped back from the man who had just shoved her away with a steel arm that was nearly completely exposed from the forearm down now. There were some cuts in the armor higher up too, and a couple dents and some damage to the weaponized arm itself though he could still curl his fingers and still had control over it. Death's body had barely any Death on it now, and the rest of that darkness faded as he shook his head around more while hunched with Iblis on one side and two other comrades near him still standing, a single moment of rest for the first time in a long time.

"Sir, there's no end to them," Iblis started. "The whole command structure has broken and-"

"There's still no sign of the other three Capos," the man on a Quirk board added. Skater kept his head on more of a swivel, but he did look straight back towards Death again to continue. "Everyone's dying, Commander. I don't think we can do this."

Sogdo ran back down the road. He had a rifle in his hands now, and he put his back to the others to aim down the street ahead where he had heard more villains close-by to the ones he had just taken down. The Korean man gulped and then glanced back, his helmet mostly gone though he had a black mask with a filter on it still over the bottom half of his face. Sogdo's eyes were full of fear, and through his mask he said past the woman with blood all over her right and left dark-skinned legs, "You tried with another Trigger, but we-"

"Everyone listen up," Death started. His voice filled Gentle's helmet just as those others' around Death had. Despite what his comrades had just been asking of him, Death's voice did not sound to be giving up. It was steady if not a little scratchy, "Based on their troop movements above and below ground, I've determined their hiding spot in in the northeast quadrant. Iblis, Sogdo, Skater, and I," Death looked to Iblis first then to the other two men as he said their names. "Will move east down the middle and then flank in from the north. All teams in Sectors 5 through 8, and 13 through 16, push north from the east and group up with us. When I find the pathetic little hole they're hiding in, or the pocket dimension, or the deep underground basement! I will flood it with all of the Death I have left, and when the Capos are down the battle will be ours."

"Do you even have any Death left-" Skater started asking.

Death's elbows shrouded in black. The darkness wrapped around them then spread down his forearms and created small spikes that stuck out and then pushed close to his arms like the spines of a porcupine. Death rolled his shoulders out, cracked his neck to the right and then stepped forward past Iblis and to Sogdo's left. "That answers that then," Skater said. And he laughed. He laughed and he kicked his ankles together and rolled forward, because Death started to jog.

"Iblis! Get in the sky and provide aerial support! Anyone else in Flight get up there with her!" Death yelled out.

"Alpha 1 is moving in on coordinates…"

"What about your burns-"

"They just cauterized my wounds!" Death yelled back at Sogdo.

"AHahaha!"

"Scout our forward positions and provide tactical! Rebel, don't let up on the comms for even a second! We've got their location, now we can-"

Bbrruump- DOOOF!

The ground under Gentle shook. It trembled violently, then the force from the explosion he did not see caused the dust on the ground to his left to rise up and blow away in a wave past the alley. Walls shook and cracked, and voices started screaming out in the headset while more explosions ripped out to the east. Gentle turned his head left and looked out past several roads beyond them, to see hundreds of purple tentacles whipping around and smashing through buildings.

A flash of light went off near there, only for a wall of stone to rise up out of the ground a hundred feet tall and push forward through a flash of light and extinguish it. More screams filled his helmet and overlapped each other, and they overlapped Death's voice too as he shouted for sitreps from other groups around the city who had just been yelling out after Death's orders. Gentle turned his head to the right and he watched as a silver eel-like creature sped by the other end of the alley into the north, a dark soldier caught in its jaws that had blood pouring out of them.

The ground shook again, and Gentle rose his right arm and gripped the wall behind him to try and steady himself. The wall was not very stable though and he looked to the right and farther behind him at the piece of wood his hand just went through and caused a shard to cut his wrist. Blood spilled onto his armor from the little crease between his glove and the sleeve. Then he snapped his head to the left as he heard a thump on that side of him, and he watched as a short man with his head only covered by a mask on the bottom half of his face ragdolled diagonally across the street and bounced off a wall, his body broken.

A second later, a beastly sixteen foot tall villain with blood on his hands bounced down the road this way and let out a roar of pain. His right leg looked broken like his left arm, but he rolled over as he was skidding and gripped the ground that tore under his right hand. A dark figure punching ten spikes of darkness towards that beast had to quickly slam both arms up above him and pulse-burst himself to the ground instead, as all the ground the villain had dug up in his skid had been curled in his fist and thrown up at Death. When he threw with that much force, his one leg that he tried to put all his weight on became off-balanced and he had to use his broken limbs instead. He hit down on all elbows and knees screaming, as Death landed ahead of him then kicked off the ground and sped directly towards his face. Death jumped up to knee the man in the nose in a way that broke it and shoved a piece of his huge nose bone into his brain.

Death landed and spun around from the collapsing corpse, then he flipped himself over it and used the villain's body for cover to protect him from heavy fire down the street as villains rushed out of cracked buildings on the left side of the road. The roofs were crumbling down completely now, too many explosions and quakes nearby for them to keep hiding inside waiting for a better moment than this one to attack Death. As they came out though, they put themselves in the open for another dark soldier who was on his way back to assist. Skater sped out from between two falling walls on either side of the alley he was rolling down. He came out behind the villains and spun their way with both arms pointed out from much closer than those four villains were to Zach. None of them stood a chance.

Death popped back up over his own enemy's body and ran down the road towards Skater, and he lifted his left arm quickly and caught the rifle Skater just picked up off a body to save Death the extra second. Death caught it in mid-jump and spun to his right, firing a few shots at where he saw movement then landing and trading hands to aim behind Skater back for the alley he had just run from, while Skater aimed for the alley Gentle was in that another villain running up the street was only ducking into to hide, not realizing that the Army of Death were watching the spot carefully already and it was the worst place to try hiding. The man near that corner Skater just shot fell and dropped with his head slamming down on the ground just outside the alley so Gentle only saw why Skater shot towards him once the villain had hit the floor.

"Iblis! Get away from him, he's about-"

"Ahh FaAh!"

An explosion in the air to the southeast made Death spin his head that way before quickly looking down and covering a single knife in darkness. He held it sideways in front of himself and then looked to his side at Skater while his legs were covering in some Death just around the backs of his knees and on his feet. "We need to-"

"Ack! Kah hah-"

"Iblis!" Death shouted, spinning back towards an explosion in the sky that Iblis was flying out of. The smoke parted around her, and she flapped her flaming wings to head back the direction Death had ordered her to go and where many of her fellow comrades were screaming out for help. They lost her aerial support, and she could hear them suffering, and she sped that way despite the faucet coming off her body from the shrapnel imbedded all over her.

Skater seemed to notice first that it was not smoke alone coming off the woman speeding through the air back their direction after a fight in the sky pushed her away. She flapped her wings and groaned again, her groan coming into Death's helmet this time more clearly agonized, "Fuuhh- ahh! RA!" Iblis shook her head around to get the blurry vision to snap out, but she could not remain focused for long. "Death, I'm going down-"

"Land right now, Iblis! Get down here and we'll-"

"I'm about to go," Iblis grunted in a hoarse voice. "So, before I do-"

"You don't know that! You can be-"

"It feels like last time," she gasped at him. Her body was still moving just as fast, but it was starting to dip out of the sky and angle more ahead of Death and Skater but a few blocks east of them. "I'll take as many of the bastards with me, as I can." She flapped her wings behind her and started twisting her body at the same time, yelling out while making the flaming wings grow larger and larger until she looked like a spiraling spear of fire.

"Iblis wait! STOP!" Death screamed it out and stepped, but Iblis was the fastest flyer in the Army of Death.

The flaming spiral dropped out of sight behind the tops of buildings ahead of where Gentle looked. It hit the ground in a harder explosion than many, and the fireball was much more massive as it rose up through the buildings around it that it seemed to engulf in one huge mass. As she hit down and the flames blew up, Death's head snapped hard to the right and pointed down. His head recoiled as his screams for her to stop failed, and he panted harder and harder while the darkness around him faltered.

"You and me then."

Death turned back and looked at the man on his side who nodded intensely back at his commander. "We need to push," Death replied in agreement after a moment. The darkness that had hesitated around him thickened back where it needed to be. "Keep my pace. We'll do this together."

Death and Skater ran out of sight again.

Yaoyorozu lowered her eyes from the screen. I know he survives. I know that Zach lives, but I-

"And they all died!"

"Airi was right. Every last one of them… They all died fighting by my sides. Every, single, one." Mineta bowed his head and clenched his eyes shut to stop himself from crying. He said it so coldly. I didn't think…

Lemillion lowered his gaze down to the floor. The one he called Sogdo, I recognized from Sueguon. One of the two who died- and the other who died that day, Xia, she also died here? And Iblis, Lemillion had thought back more because he wanted to ignore the woman he recognized more. The one someone had gotten video of in Qingxiao, flying people to safety from burning buildings. Her wings that were so recognizable that he could easily tell who she was when he saw the video from Egypt where she was one of the ones at the front line fighting with Death to save those civilians.

Watching that same woman from the earlier video go down in a fiery sacrifice made people cry across the country of Egypt who were watching the stream from a high schooler's phone. It was apparently her second one by the way she spoke like she had felt it before, so there was no chance of Death bringing her back.

Things were sounding grim in Gentle's headset. The push forward was not working anywhere across the board, as the villains put up some of their heaviest resistance… by the sound of it. Gentle was barely moving anymore, his body resting on the wall and his breathing slower. He was still turning his head a little when massive Quirk attacks or explosions would go off, but that was all.

The sun was hidden behind the dark clouds in the sky mixed with smoke. Those dark clouds were swirling around. Moving so fast it was as if a hurricane was there affecting them. And then the clouds slowed down, and they stopped moving very fast at all. Black smoke stopped swirling to just rise in thick plumes and make everything darker, though it all got a more red tint to it as well. The red glow was not from the sunset. Partly due to all the explosions without as many villains or AoD who could put them out anymore, and partly due to Iblis, and partly due to gas leaks in buildings too damaged by all the quakes…

Wamapajawa burned. As Gentle stared out at monsters and battles encompassing the nearby parts of the city in fierce combat, Wampajawa ignited in unconstrained fire. And then Gentle looked back down from the apocalyptic view of the city, to a much closer angle just of the street in front of him that Skater sped backwards down. His body swerved and swiveled, and he jumped up with is board under his feet while trying to avoid, only to be hit on his left side by a black ball the size of a tennis ball but hit into him far harder than a normal racket could.

The little sphere that hit him cracked a rib on impact even through his armor. Skater had more wounds showing through his armor now anyway, and when he landed he stumbled because of a deep gash on his right thigh that spurted some blood out of it when he put weight on. He snapped his right arm up at his side though and fired down the street towards the man attacking him, and then as he started yelling out in fury- his yell cut at the explosion of darkness that blew up just out of frame and took out his enemy for him.

Death was spinning himself back the way he had just been while coming out of that dark explosion in an arc farther down the street. He landed and stumbled backwards, but he spun his head to the left as he reached Skater's side and looked at his comrade kneeling there. "You alright?!" Death yelled out. He turned forward and rose his right hand with his fingers turning black and a thin short beam firing out of his index finger like a bullet from a finger-pistol.

"I'm not, ah ack," Skater coughed but then looked up at his leader. "Death, I don't want to die," his voice was full of fear compared to when they last saw him trying to get Death to focus and move forward with him. "If we're not going to win- please," Skater begged.

Death was turned his way, but he spun to his right while Skater spun left and looked down the street in the direction of the villains they kept running towards. The ground in that direction shook, and they saw a villain that made Death spin back towards his comrade he stepped towards and reached out his left arm for. "SKATER!" Death screamed, reaching his left hand out as Skater turned back towards him and rose up his right hand.

Everything started shaking so much worse, and in the corner of Gentle's camera they could see the entire street ripping apart on a straight path towards Skater, who Death was now going towards instead of away from. The Army of Death soldier down on his knees reached his right hand towards Death as fast as he could while the buildings on the left side of the road past him had the walls cracked inwards and the roofs collapsing completely while in the ground dug a trench five inches deep at the middle and then curved out past it in a thick funnel of straight force impact. "Death!" Skater yelled, his right hand reaching closer and his fingers nearing Death's. "Help MEE- AH-"

The funnel of air force was too strong. "AAAHHHHHH!" Death's body pulled back and twisted away as he let out an agonized scream of his own. His left arm was ripped from his body and blown to pieces at the same time. The armor was torn from his left side, his shoulder ripped from its socket and wires sparking among the broken shards of metal blowing away. Black liquid splash out mixed with red as Death's left arm was ripped into pieces in the same instant as Skater was. His body pushed the opposite direction as the force funnel came from, seemingly snapping his back from the impact that at the same time tore his armor from his body, and his skin from his flesh, and his flesh from bone. Only those who could move fast enough to see it all happen watched the full brutal death that cut Skater's scream off while to others they just watched the man turn into a splash of red in the air on the other side of where Death's arm was just ripped away.

The trench passed by Death's left side and tore apart the ground farther than Gentle could see behind the wall he was leaning on. He gasped out himself as he stared towards the leader of their army who stopped stumbling off just closer to his side of the road than the middle of the street where the edge of the air funnel had been. Gentle stared towards the man in the middle of the road who no longer had his left arm and stood there looking depleted of all Death. His head was bowed forward and his screams of agony faded into just wheezing breaths of a man who had been fighting all day nonstop, while dealing with old injuries, and watching his comrades die, twice.

Death stood there alone on the road. A stain of red was all that remained of the last of the three comrades who had come to assist him. Sogdo's limp broken body had just been sent flying while being shredded apart by the last attack as well. The ground was scorched black and cracked and uneven. Death's left side was farther from Gentle so it was harder to see it, but Death was also in front of Gentle a bit so that his back was to the older man. On the left side of Death's back, Gentle could see where his armor stopped as the attack had not just taken his arm but ripped through all the armor on his side under that arm as well down to at least his stomach.

Mt. Lady put her right hand over her mouth and then bit down on her bottom lip behind her palm.

How is he, alive? Bakugo wondered. Then, just as important a question hit him, How did he win?

Death stood in the road and rose his head up. His helmet faced down the street, and he took a step-

A villain moving so fast she was a blur of purple sped past the crumbled edge of the building on Gentle's left. She slashed down a sword at Death's right shoulder while he was just starting to raise that arm. "I'll take the other arm-" she started to taunt the dying man who would make her the most famous villainess in the underworld.

Her sword dug into the armor on his right shoulder, and it got stuck there an inch into it. Her speed did not equate to enough force to pierce the armor completely, though blood did come out of the crack on both the front and back of the terrorist's shoulder. Death rolled his right shoulder up and pinched his armor and his muscle below into the blade that she tried tugging up and out of him. As she yanked to try just that and go for his neck instead, her head spun to the left and her jaw dropped at the bulge of Death that burst from his open shoulder socket.

That Death snapped down his side and created an arm shape that punched behind him with no restrictions of an actual shoulder joint. He socked the woman in the gut, then his fist turned into a sword that he swung to his left side at a pair of buildings that a black slash flew out of his elbow towards. Every bit of Death below his elbow flew underneath the suddenly rising rubble. A line of eight villains who had set up their shots screamed out and dove for cover, while the villain who rose her arms and lifted all the debris up using her Telekinesis was hit in the throat with a slash of Death that knocked her off her feet backwards. Two others who were not lining up for a shot but instead sprinted ahead under the debris to get close while he was dodging gunfire, found themselves underneath a heavy falling mass instead.

One of them stopped short and tried to jump backwards but too slowly and got crushed. The other kept speeding forward though turned their head to yell at the others on the other side of the falling rubble who had managed to dodge the slash, "Don't stop when-"

Death stomped his way and spun his body, his right leg lifting off the ground and rising to his throat level as his body turned to the side. The shorter villain who sped up but knew that he was about to be separated from everyone else stopped shouting as he saw the leg spinning towards his eyes. Death's leg dented into the villain's face, and he slammed him right back into the rubble and a piece of plywood that had been snapped. He impaled the villain into that piece of wood, then he stomped his right leg back to the floor and turned down the street. His left arm that had lost its substance below his elbow reformed fully as a pitch black thick mass. His fist formed last and curled as tightly as his right was.

His left fist hardened and he slammed it into the sword still stuck in his shoulder. He broke the blade in half, and his right hand reached up and uncurled to grab the hilt sticking out behind his shoulder while his left hand just gripped around the other half of the blade that he snapped off. He covered that half-blade in some Death, while he whipped the shortened sword down in his right hand and walked forward with his own blood dripping off the new tip.

Seven villains ran down the road in his direction. They were shouting at each other and did not appear as fazed that he was fighting back as the last ambushers. They were coming at him straight on, and the one running from the front middle of the seven called out, "He's low on Death and has no help! It's our best chance yet!"

"Can't let him get out of here."

"Your bounty's all ours!"

Death rose his right and left hands. He swung his left down, and a slash of Death came off of the broken shard of blade. His flying enemy and the one jumping from rubble to rubble on the broken buildings to his left each dodged one direction, while the one running behind the center man but just slightly off to his back right moved closer directly behind his leader. Death then flicked the broken shard that he had just slashed down straight at the main villain who had called out loudest and cockiest. That villain quickly darted to his own left which was Death's right, but he heard a grunt and gasp of agony behind him that he did not need to look back at after seeing his comrade dodge out of his peripheral a moment ago.

Death had put one of his enemies behind another then used the front middle man's larger body to block his second attack's approach which sent the shard of blade flying straight into his target's chest. The leader who kept running by should have looked back though. He thought he did not need to because he knew what Death had done, but the attack had far more prongs than the villain suspected. The shard of blade that Death had broken off the front of his shoulder had lost all the Death on it right as it passed by the villain at the front. Only the blade had slammed into the slower man behind him, while the Death that hopped off sped at the lead villain's back and slammed into his neck that it absorbed into.

Zach sprinted forward. Two of his enemies had dodged farther away on his left and were angling back in to make diagonal charges and not arrive much later than their counterparts who were more to Death's right. He sprinted ahead and separated those other two even farther away from him which forced them to cut straight back in towards the road they had dodged farther from just to evade a small slash of Death that their enemy created first. Death ran ahead at the last three villains who were on his right, cutting the time they thought it would take for them to reach the position that Death was holding and fighting from. He slammed his left fist forward and an enemy with huge black claws blocked.

A knife flicked off Death's right hand coming out of seemingly nowhere, hitting the dodging enemy moving behind his comrade because he thought Death's fist might break apart on its collision and then flood past his sides to attempt to hit them too. Death saw his dodge coming and hit him in the lower left side with a blade shrouded in a little bit of darkness that made the villain slow down while reaching for it, then collapse down to his knees and onto his face. Death's black fist that got blocked was pushed backwards by an enemy stronger than he looked who bared his teeth and shook his head around trying to keep with it as Death could not waste much of his arm and did not let a lot absorb into his foe.

Zach jumped backwards, dodging the jumping enemy who suddenly leaped faster than he had been showing he could move, a technique Sogdo had used in front of him not long ago. He punched his pitch black left hand while retreating like that, causing three of his enemies to freeze as they thought he might punch all the darkness off it into them. It was just a feint though, as Death snapped his arm out to the left instead and fired a straight line out of his palm into a flying enemy diving at him when he thought that Death was about to use all his Quirk on the larger group in front of him.

The flying enemy was quick and turned, but Death's black line cut sharply and still pierced through their chest to drop them from the sky. As they were dropping, Zach snapped his left arm across the front of his body and actually slashed thin slices of darkness off his fingers. All of the remaining villains expected he was really going to use it on them this time though. The one with sharp black claws misunderstood why he was not knocked out before though, thinking Death had just gotten too weak to do it. So he ran through the lines instead, bringing his claws out to the sides and then tripping and rolling to a stop in front of Death who was backpedaling to get away from the other two and a third who just jumped out from his right side much closer to him and without any warning of their approach.

"He's mine!"

"Am I?" Death's voice came out in a scratchy tone more because his modulator sounded messed up than it was deepening it or his Death was affecting his vocal cords.

The scary question from a previously silent enemy caused the man who he was speaking to to suddenly find himself in little control of his bladder. Death ran towards that man too, then he spun and pulled his upper body backwards from the quickly-leapt slash, blood on his left side splashing off behind him out his dark veil at the sudden twist that made Death wince and growl in pain even as he punched his right fist over an enemy's attack and into their face. His right fist had no Death on it at all, but he still knocked his enemy out as he threw the guy with a single punch all the way across the road-

Death's left arm crossed under his right that he had just punched across his chest while twisting his body. He pointed his left at the two who tried getting in his blindspot and attacking directly at his back when Death had to twist to cover his left side. His right arm was now fully crossed over his chest and his left firing his fingers out into the bodies of two villains who did not expect his fingers to suddenly turn into sharp projectiles.

Someone appeared directly in front of Death. They were standing up too quickly for their Quirk to work any longer. Be it the anxiety of how close he got that made him lose focus, or the sight of the other three still up here falling like that, or the little amount of time he thought he still had until he was next. He moved too quickly and his eyes opened huge as he saw Death's head turn and the glowing red in the crack on the right side of his helmet focus on him. That man had blond hair flowing down past his neck, scars on both sides of his face, and even as his eyes opened huge he was still grinning more madly than ever as Death's arms were crossed in weird positions, and he was only three feet in front of the leader of the Army of Death.

The main reason he had moved too quickly too that he was spotted, was the speed in which he had risen up the weapon in his hands that he aimed straight at Death's head. Death saw him though and pulled his head to the right as fast as he could. Even with the villain that close and appearing literally out of thin air, Death yanked his head to the right in an instantaneous reaction with no hesitation.

It still was not enough.

BANG

The shotgun fired and Death's head snapped backwards. Blood splashed out behind his skull in a cloud of smoke and shards of dark helmet. Millions of people dropped their jaws at the same time. Death's body leaned backwards while the man who fired his shotgun had his arms lifting up from recoil and his shotgun shaking as his eyes trembled in disbelief. The shot came from nearly point blank, and Death barely started moving his head before the shotgun shell blew into his skull. The spray of blood mixed with chips of black helmet made Gentle gasp and caused a loud noise of pain to come from the back of his throat, his helmet moving off the wall as he watched it in horror.

Death's right foot came off the ground, his body tilting back diagonally and falling…

His foot stomped down. His upper body was still leaned back and his head caught in the puff of smoke from the barrel that seemed to hang there around his face. The villain in front of Death darted his eyes down with his head pointing towards the foot that made such a loud stomp that he had felt his own feet vibrate. The blond villain's smirk of disbelief and victory wiped from his face, and he leaned back only for Death's right hand to sweep forward in front of him in too fast a movement. Death's right hand gripped the barrel of the shotgun and yanked towards himself.

The formerly invisible villain had his hands gripped too tightly on the weapon. He was pulled towards Death and let go after a step in absolutely the direction he did not want to be moving in. He released the shotgun and pulled back away, but Death spun the shotgun to his right side and then whipped it across the front of his body. He swung the butt of the shotgun into the head of the villain in front of him which spun it around the man's neck 270 degrees. The villain's spine stuck out through his throat in an instant after Death spun his head around. Blood sprayed up, but as the still-standing villain's knees buckled and he fell, Death slid his right hand down the barrel of the shotgun and around its cocking mechanism that he gripped tighter.

Death cocked the shotgun with a single pump down and up, then he flipped it around and moved his right elbow out for a moment. He tucked his elbow into the side of his body and caught the barrel of the shotgun as it flipped around into the crook under his armpit, then he pulled the trigger and blasted a hole in the chest of the enemy behind him with a sword risen high and glowing green light as he was about to slash down directly in the middle of Death's skull. Zach Sazaki never turned around, as he blew a hole through that enemy's chest and out his back… while another ten villains were all sprinting towards him or dropping out of the air above him.

Blood poured down off his chin that a piece of helmet sticking to him detached from and fell. His enemy behind him blew backwards off their feet with the hole ripped in his chest. The one in front of him hit down on his knees and started falling sideways onto his twisted face. Death's black left arm vibrated and was only formed down to his elbow, so instead it started to spike while Death turned his dark red head in the direction of the most attacking enemies- right as an explosion hit between him and them.

BOOM- BOO-BOOM BOOM BOOOOM BOOOOM BOOOOOM!

Death had started stepping to his left as a second explosion hit closer and on his right side, right next to a charging villain who tried pulling away but got blown apart. All the attacking villains either pulled away or tried sprinting the rest of the way at Death despite the few explosions hitting way too close to them, but those few explosions turned into many real quickly. Ba-BOOM BRROO- Death crossed his arms but got thrown off the ground by the force of the blast anyway, straight into an explosion on his back that caught part of a building in it, and slammed him across the road towards two villains who were screaming and running themselves but got caught in three more consecutive blasts.

The explosions went off so violently and in such a wide area that Gentle pulled away in his alley, only to scream out, "AhhhAAAAH-" His helmet filled with static as the wall in front of him and the whole corner of the building was hit by a fireball that smashed it down all straight towards him.

The footage was gone. It was all static. If not for Zach Sazaki's appearance in the courtroom, many suspected he was just killed in that series of blasts. Some started to wonder to themselves if maybe Death had died there. The idea that he had survived was seeming less likely than the thought that Zach Sazaki was not Death. People had to remind themselves of all the times they had seen his face in these videos today, but even then they had to question why the footage had been presented and wondered if the Army of Death was trying to tell them that Death had died…

The static was loud so it was obvious when footage might be coming back. It started to get softer, and the corners of the screen blurred while the center lost more static and became a clearer but cracked image with a diagonal line near the right corner and another smaller one in the middle but cutting horizontally and slightly lower than halfway up the screen. As corrupted as the footage had been, it was more amazing to people that it was actually coming back again even after those last explosions so close to Gentle.

Everything around Gentle was covered in thick dust and smoke. "…Kuh, ack-" Gentle finally made noise, suggesting that he had not been killed right there as many thought he would be. "Ahhnn-" he groaned though after the first coughs they heard from him, and the groan of pain was worse than the earlier ones as this one sounded weaker too and more final. His head was bowed and shaking side to side, and then it stopped shaking and just moved to point down at his lower right side.

In almost the same spot he had been grabbing for a while now, something large was protruding from his stomach. The sharp shard of building that had impaled him made him let out a heavy breath of astonishment as he finally saw it. His right hand moved towards it and touched, but his hand flinched when he did and his whole body tensed up at the pain that coursed through him. His head leaned back and he released an even heavier breath, his breathing slow and staggered to a point that it sounded like he was dying.

He groaned though. He groaned and his slowing breathing cut off, as he heard staticky noise in his ear and then a voice. "Hello? Y'all better not be… Someone?"

Gentle closed his eyes behind his visor as he heard Rebel's voice sound desperate right there. He did not respond though. His head just tilted back on the wall and he looked back to his left. The corner of the building that had been in front of him was gone. Looking to his left, he could see that most of the wall behind him was broken apart too now but had been blown the other way so it had not collapsed on him. More debris from the building in front of him was in this alley than the building behind him. His turn to the left showed a few more long pieces of corner debris imbedded deeply into the partially standing foundation just at his side, showing if he had been seated another foot closer to the street that he would have been hit in all the vital areas. Instead, he was only almost mortally wounded with still a faint chance of survival.

His head shook around as he looked to his left. He turned left so his head was facing out of the alley, though it was less an alley now and just part of a line of rubble that split an area with slightly less debris all over it which could have once been called a road. Through the smoke above and the dust all around, Gentle could still see the orange and red glows from flames in all directions of him. His head raised towards a brighter part of the orange glow in the city, but he turned more to the right and looked down the road as he saw movement in the dust.

He could hear them before he saw most of them. The air started to get clearer over there though, and the silhouettes became more visible as funnels of air took the dust and ash and blew them to the sides and high up into the air. "No," Gentle whispered. The despair in his whispered voice was impossible to misunderstand. He stared down the street and looked at a force of figures already at least fifty strong, standing the width of the city block as well as stretched into the rubble on either side of the road. They stretched backwards down that street too, and more and more were running down the road behind the growing army. Gentle's whisper came from more than just their numbers though.

He looked to the left side where a figure stood at the front of the force, a black jacket on over a bright yellow suit, thick black hair spiked around his skull and sharp bangs raised above his forehead. On the right of the force marched forward a figure standing seven feet tall and nearly five broad at the shoulders, wearing a white tank top that did not look dirty in the least. He was bald and buff, and he wore a tight pair of black pants pulled close to his larger than normal leg muscles too. Then, out from the army of villains gathering on the road that had just been hit by the largest bombardment most people had ever seen before, a third figure walked between villains who stepped aside for him. He stepped straight up past the front of the growing force of villains and stood directly in the middle of the street. Another light-skinned man with thick elephant-shaped ears stepped forward behind him on his right, while a darker-skinned man on his boss's back left just lowered his arms and stopped pushing away the dust as they had fresh air around them already.

Gentle's head shifted. He turned more and looked back up the road to where the dust was thinning out where it had been thickest. Limbs lay littered on the floor next to burnt-out corpses, smears of red inside the black scorch marks that covered the road. And Gentle's breath vanished from the footage, as he stared at a silhouette in the dust that stunned him into breathlessness just by the fact of him standing there. The villains down the road all stared into that cloud of dust too and at a barely moving figure inside it.

His right arm was limp down at his side closer to Gentle. It waved slightly forward and then back, while his legs shook under him like they could barely hold him up. The faint red glow that came from that shadow in the dust faded away entirely. Gentle had last seen him getting tossed between explosions, and yet there he stood in a divot on the ground with his feet trembling and his knees wobbly. The figure's body was hunched forward. His head was pointed down at the floor, and there was liquid dripping off his chin too fast that it looked like a steady stream. "Aghk-" the silhouette's hunched body lurched, and the splash that came off its face was thicker than it had just been.

Something was dangling off the head of the silhouette that was becoming slightly more visible each second. The last piece of his helmet sticking to him fell off though as he lurched like that, and it dropped to the floor in front of his feet while something else was still dangling from his chin. Whatever it was had the liquid dripping off it, and the figure's right arm started to move inside that dust cloud. Others down the street who were staring into it held off as they looked in towards the man they could start to see better too. His right hand lifted up, and he moved it slowly. In an agonizingly slow movement, his right hand moved to whatever was dangling from his chin, more towards the left side of his face than the right…

As the dust thinned and settled on the ground more, it became clearer what was hanging from Death's face. He reached his right hand to it, and then it was like that was all the strength he could muster and his arm fell. His fingers had gripped onto it though, and he pulled down which ripped the dangling skin down his chin and his neck as well. His arm did not slow on the drop, and his fingers did not have a good grip on the flesh that he flicked down onto the floor as his arm returned limply to his right side. Death's chest was heaving and his breaths came out slowly and deeply in the settling ash, his body somewhat shrouded in it but more visible now to show what he looked like.

His head turned slightly to the right and bowed even more as he looked down at what he just flicked off his face because it was causing him too much pain. Now he felt that pain spread under his chin and to his neck too as the flesh under his peeled skin was exposed to the air and stinging as dust got inside. Death stared down at the half of his face that just ripped off, while Gentle winced at the sight of his friend whose face was one of the most horrifying things he had ever seen even without any Death on it.

The left side of Zach Sazaki's face was only visible through a shroud of ash, and only half of it could be seen when he turned partially to the side like that. Then his head that was bowed flinched and he turned it back, and he raised it up as well, lifting his chin that continued to drip blood as he panted and wobbled on his feet. Zach stared down the street and looked at the men at the front of their army of over a hundred. His helmet was gone but he had an earpiece in under it anyway that was still there. It was how Gentle continued to hear his voice, and what made the man watching Death lift his head as he heard a whisper, "The Capos, are here."

Death's voice was hoarse and had to be amplified in Gentle's head by the man controlling their comms who was silent now. Death's whisper did not meet any response. He continued speaking though, "Known position, where I left Gentle, coordinates…"

"Who are you talking to, Sazaki?"

The man in the front of the enemy army wondered it after the guy with large ears behind him whispered something towards the back of his leader's head. Death continued to speak out the last coordinates he knew from when he still had his helmet's visor over his face. He had been in this position for long enough to know exactly where he was, even if the city was unrecognizable on all sides from what it looked like earlier. The menacing villain in the front of the villain's forces was someone no heroes recognized as they looked towards him. He wore a black and white costume, with white gloves on his hands that had black fingertips at the end of each finger. He stood six and a half feet tall and was muscular but not as much so as the Capo on his left who was to the right from the direction Death and Gentle were looking.

"Listen to that."

"…Capos 1, 2, and 5 are right, ack-ka- right in front of me." Blood dripped from Death's lips as he spoke, spilling to his chin and dropping to his feet as he continued to wobble in place. He appeared disoriented and confused from the explosions, and yet he spoke in a low voice continuing on about fighting the enemies in front of him as if he still was. Some Death spurted out of his left shoulder, little sprays of it coming out and then fading as he failed to recreate an arm there or muster any Death at all. His eyes did not glow red. He looked like he could barely stand. Like the lightest touch would knock him over.

Death stood at death's door. His enemy straight in front of him had short blood-red hair, and the first Capo who stood with his arms folded across his chest uncrossed them and held his hands out to either side. "Listen," he called out to the younger man standing down the road from him. "Do you hear it?" The Disintegrator wondered the question and Death continued to speak without answering him. The villain grinned though as he listened himself to what he was telling Death to hear, and since Death was not stopping to listen himself, he just told the boy, "No one is going to respond."

The city was eerily quiet. All across it for hours there had been nonstop gunfire and explosions in different sections of the city mixed with screaming and shouting on all sides. When Gentle's helmet footage first came back on there were a few distant shouts and shots, but the fact that Gentle had heard the approaching villains who were talking to each other and not shouting as they made their move was only because no one else in any direction was screaming right now. The city still had noise from the fires, and the creaking and cracking of buildings, but the first Capo called out to listen and there were no longer sounds of battle going on around them. "Your army is destroyed, kid. They're all dead."

"…If you hear my voice, open your eyes." Zach continued speaking while he stood there with his body hunched but his head lifted just enough from its bowed position for him to stare down the army ahead of him. "Stand up and come to my coordinates. Make sure to approach from the south…"

"They're not going to come, because there's no one left to come!" Disintegrator yelled Death's way. "And anyone that's on the verge of death like you won't be able to stand against us. Completely fresh, as we bided our time so you're about to die and we're not even winded. You never had a chance to beat me, because from the start I had plans for what to do if you came here! Strategy that you've lost against!"

"…Rise. If you see the light, push it away. Grip onto consciousness," Death's voice came out lower in a hissed whisper, angrier as he glared towards his enemy who was taunting him so brazenly and making these claims while he was still standing. Death's legs stopped shaking as much, and his right arm stopped swinging at his side for his right fist to clench instead, blood dripping off it like it was off his chin. "Hear my voice and stand. Open your eyes, and come to my side. If we don't defeat the Capos, we can't take the city-"

"You can't take this city! Haha! Don't you get it?!" The first Capo yelled out. He stepped forward and shouted at the seventeen year old boy ahead of him, "You're all alone-"

"I am not alone."

A flash of light came down on Death's back left and slammed into the roof of a building still standing that shook from the collision. A larger man than Death landed on the edge of that roof, a chunk of his helmet missing and showing blood all over his short blond hair that stuck out now. The white glow in his right eye faded and the crystal blue of it glared down straight towards the Capos and the army behind them that mostly darted their gazes his way. Exodus had a second figure with him gripped in his right hand that he released when he landed on that building. He dropped Michael whose arms and legs were soaked in blood. Michael's attempt to land on all fours made him collapse down instead, his body twitching in agony. Then his arms slid up in front of him and his blood-soaked claws dug onto the front edge of the roof that he pulled his head towards with his sharp teeth baring furiously and visibly since he had no helmet at all on.

The three Capos did not look that way. They kept their eyes locked straight ahead. Death had not responded to the first Capo until that moment. His voice did not come out as a whisper this time. And the man behind the Disintegrator did not need to tell his boss what Death had said, as Death's voice carried down the street in such a dark and menacing statement that it made the Disintegrator's smile flatten out. That villain stopped after the single step and stared towards the dark figure whose legs he had noticed stopped shaking. Behind Death stood his menacing soldier who had several gashes in the front of his armor, blood dripping down from each one of them, which along with the blood on his hair made him almost as bloody as the crawling soldier at his feet was.

"Alone?" Death repeated. His body straightened out a little more which made him wobble but steady himself a second later. He looked towards the enemy leader who faced him from the closest distance of any of those villains behind him. "I stand, with the weight of billions behind me," Death spat it out, blood spraying off his lips. His face was covered in too much blood to see, but with all this blood loss his enemies figured his skin would have been ridiculously pale if they could see it. "I am never, alone."

"Well your army is destroyed!" The Capo designated as the first by the AoD yelled out. He swung his right hand out to the side and laughed while adding, "One man isn't…" He stopped calling it out. His hand stayed there risen to his side for another moment, before lowering as he stared between Death and the two on the rooftop just behind him.

A hand reached out from behind a chunk of wall still standing several buildings past the one Exodus landed on. The hand gripped the wall, and then a man in dark armor stepped out using the wall to hold himself. Just that one hand and the man's head poking out made the Disintegrator stop talking, but he only lowered his arm as he stared farther down the street and saw two others move in from the sides of the road and stagger onto this street back behind Death. Both of them looked even worse for the wear than Death did, and as a third stepped out on the road, they only made it one step before dropping down to their left knee. They put their hands down to try and push off, but instead they collapsed down onto their face with their arms buckling below them when they tried to put weight on them.

Gentle had glanced back himself and spotted the tattered and blood-soaked soldiers coming out of the rubble. He turned to the right again towards the villains then down at his stomach, moving his hands there and groaning for a second before gasping out in pain. He rose his head instead and looked away from the thick wood shard he had grabbed, looking to the Disintegrator who shook his head while chuckling in a darker tone, lower but still loud enough that it reached his enemies ahead of him.

A few of the villains behind the first Capo glanced backwards, only to see more villains on both sides of the street and farther back calling out behind them at others on their way. The majority of the villains standing down the road did not look damaged at all, and yet others moved in on their sides and joined them looking more battle-worn and tired. They smirked though as they joined forces with a powerful group of villains standing behind three Capos of Wampajawa. More of the strong ones who had been out there and fighting through the day marched forward to the front line of the ranks too, splitting the Capos and grinning at the sight of Death's appearance ahead of them.

The one-armed boy with half a face and not a trace of Death on his body was barely standing and had his own blood dripping down all over him. His long hair fell uneven around his head, messy, knotted, and streaked in red. The gash on the right side of his forehead had left that half of his face red and dark brown, while the pink insides of his other cheek dug so deep that there was part of his flesh just to the side of the corner of his mouth where one could almost see through the thin remaining cheek mush and into his mouth as he moved his lips. The explosions had blown through some of the armor on his right side, as well as on most of his arm leaving only a bit left up near his right shoulder and down the bottom half of his forearm and near his hand. The right shoulder's strip of armor connected what remained of his torso even though that armor barely looked to be holding together either because of the various Quirks and stabs and shots that had made their way through during the battle. His pant legs were destroyed from the mid thigh down on his right leg and gone from his knee below on his left, and while there was more blood on his left leg farther from Gentle, more of his scars were visible on the closer right leg to that alley.

A flying figure flapped their wings as fast as possible and barely held themselves off the ground as they floated onto the street on wings dotted with holes. At the same time that one dark soldier emerged down the street, ten more villains came into position from the west and got handed weapons or told where to set up in a defensive line of the villain's army. The Capo to Zach's left shook his head and chuckled. Capo 2 moved his right arm in front of him, and on his sleeve a bulge pushed out so it was visible through his jacket as it made its way down to his cuff. An arrowhead glowing red slid down his palm and between his index and middle fingers, and the arrow's shaft continued down until it rested gently on his palm with the end pointed down. Behind the first Capo on his back left so slightly to the man's right from Death's view, Gentle grit his teeth harder at the sight of Impundulu marching forward onto the front line. He had some dried blood on the left corner of his forehead and one of his sleeves was missing with a bandage wrapped around his left arm and some blood marks showing through it, but he looked much better off than most of the Army of Death he was glaring towards furiously.

"You think they'll make a difference?" The first Capo questioned. His voice was dark and his lips curled into a dangerous and deadly smirk like he planned on killing them all right here no matter how many broken soldiers Death had behind him. "You've lost, kid. You made it so far," Disintegrator rose his voice up and then chuckled and said in a lower tone, "just to die in an unknown land. So far from home. The mighty Death! Reduced to this?" Disintegrator looked down at the blood-covered figure who was panting and glaring back towards him, and Death's right hand balled into a fist at his side. His eyes appeared unshaken, and it made the Capo raise his voice louder, "You have no chance, Zach Sazaki! There's nothing-"

"I am not Zach Sazaki."

His hissed voice sneered towards the villain who froze with his mouth open at that response. Death's helmet was off. His face might have been ripped up, but the scar under his right eye was there. Everyone could see it through the blood that had traced over it. And yet his loud voice hissed that denial back towards the Capos and all the men and women behind them. "No?" Capo 2 wondered, raising his eyebrows up and grinning more himself. "Then who-"

"You know my name." Death's voice came out heavier. The hiss was gone and his tone spoke bluntly. He cut off the Capo whose smile disappeared at that response. Villains behind the Capos stared down the street towards this figure who they had all been grinning to see looking so defeated, but his voice did not sound defeated. His tone alone somehow superseded the sight before their very own eyes. "You know who I am," Death spoke. He spoke with his voice louder than anything else around him as he stared down the villains before him with his hazel eyes bloodshot but steady. "I, am, Death. That is all there is."

"And you." Death continued and the way he did so made the people in front of him open their eyes wider at the tone shift in his voice. As steady as Death had been keeping his tone, they thought it was an attempt to keep the weakness from his voice. What had been somewhat masked though could not hide itself any longer. As the corners of Death's lips twitched and twisted down. As his face distorted in rage for a split second as he spoke 'you' while looking towards them. "You, fucking cowards," Death spat the word out and blood sprayed from his bloodied lips.

Around a corner back behind Death, two dark soldiers stepped out onto the road. Jughead's head was squished in on the temples though he had a five-gallon tank of water up and was refilling his skull as much as he could. Cluster dragged a bloody katana on the ground next to him, his helmet off like Jughead's was so he was staring straight down the street and into the first Capo's eyes when the Disintegrator glanced his way. Cluster just snarled and ground his teeth back and forth as he glared down the leader of the city with no fear of the man who looked pristine and untouched. Disintegrator's eyes shifted right back onto Death's as the boy in front of him wondered at their army, "You call this, a strategy? Cowards," he seethed, his voice getting raspier as he repeated the taunt full of unbridled hatred at the man who bragged of his tactics.

"You hid away underground and waited for hours, sending wave after wave after wave... Until there was no one left between you and me. You weren't waiting for me to be weaker. You were scared! You were hiding because you never wanted to face me. Even when it was all of you and just me standing here alone! You stood there and did nothing, because you were afraid. You never wanted to look Death in the face-"

"You have notions of-" Disintegrator started with a crack of a grin lifting up, one which wiped away instantly.

"RRARAAAhhhag AHAghaHGA!" Death snapped his head forward and screamed incoherently at the villain. His head shaking back and forth, blood splashing off his neck and forehead, Death screamed like a maniac foaming at the teeth. He snapped his jaws shut and bared those teeth that had red stains on them. His wheezing breaths seethed between the clenched teeth and in and out of his nose that made him look like he was puffing and his chest heaving. His torso wobbled to the right and then back left, his eyelids clenching shut then squinting back open with his gaze rising back into his enemy's eyes.

Death's scream shut the Disintegrator up. It unnerved the villains behind the leaders of the city who had brought them all here to look at that. They brought them all to see to the end of Death that would be a staple of the villain world forever after. And they stared at Death who stood back fully straight after hunching forward a little, as if the screaming right there had taken the strength out of him. He found it back though as his head rose and his eyes glared unwavering down the road at them. His body was dyed in red but also cast in a dark orange shade, and the lights of the flames in the distance around were flickering on him. "Ahh haahhhhh… My army is destroyed?" Death wondered.

He asked the question as Seraphim stepped onto the street, glancing over her shoulder and snapping at the other three she found to keep up though they were dragging their feet and barely able to stand. Icefall stepped forward on the roof behind Michael who she dropped down on one knee next to. Icefall coughed blood through her filter as she dropped, so some splashed on his unmasked face that rose to glare down harder as he tried to drag himself more up than lying on his stomach.

"Your forces are dying," Disintegrator spoke down condescendingly at Death who was not turned around to see the state of his soldiers, one of whom just collapsed face-first into the street behind him where they stopped moving. "You don't have your weapons, your reinforcements are depleted- Your army is gone!"

"YOUR ARMY IS GONE!" Death roared back. His voice came out much louder than the first Capo's and echoed down the street over all the villains before him who started feeling uneasier by the idea that Death might actually think he was winning. Death leaned his head forward though and he sneered in such fury and hate, "This is your city that burns around us. Your homes, and bars, and businesses. Your evil lairs that lay beneath my feet, burning piles of rubble and ash!"

"How many thousands of you were here when the day began?" Death wondered. His eyes shadowed over more as his head tilted slightly forward, some of his hair moving in front of his face and the strands helping to shadow over his eyes. "How few hundred of you remain?"

Death's teeth clenched and his right fist shook at his side. It trembled and he rose it up, and he gripped his forehead with it and curled his fingers in tightly. "You-" he started. He cut himself off but tucked his chin down for a moment then shook his head and seethed it again. "You… fucking cowards- you thought you could come here, and live, like this? You thought- you thought that you could stay here and be happy, and free, and not have to worry? That you could laugh and drink and, and… sell people-" Death's fingers curled tighter on his head and then his hand lowered down and the look in his eyes of the absolute most hatred many had ever seen in their lives was visible in Death's gaze.

"You thought, you could live freely, in a city, WITH SLAVESSSS?!"

Death's entire body shook and his eyes of disbelief and sheer fucking hatred searched the villains in front of him who stared right back into Death's eyes. "You thought I wouldn't come for you?" Death hissed, questioning their stupidity that they would ever consider it was possible. "You thought because you had cloaking, and air defenses, and that you had bribed the government of BLEEP so that you would know if heroes were ever coming close, that you would be safe?!"

The incredulous question also made those watching stare at the screen in shock and disbelief. The loud bleeping noise of someone censoring the video to cut out what Death had said protected the location of the country that this city had been hidden in, just as the redacted black bar earlier had done the same when text appeared on the screen. No one knew where this city was, and yet the idea that the villains bribed government leaders to keep the place hidden from heroes was not a foreign concept or an unbelievable one at all. The lingering question of why the Army of Death had gone to this city without support of heroes, why they had risked it- suddenly became answered by the screamed taunts of Death.

"You have no safe haven!" Death screamed towards the villains who would dare feel themselves secure even in a place so protected. "There is no hiding from me. Death comes, for all villains. I have told you this on every continent, and in every country- I have said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand more! You cannot hide from me! You cannot run! Because I will find you… I will find you- I WILL FIND YOUUU-" Death screamed it at the top of his lungs until his breath gave out and he started wheezing more and panting, though his head did not bow this time. He stared ahead and took his heavy breaths, his rage not disappearing from his face, his menacing aura somehow intensifying even without a shred of Death around his badly wounded body.

A few villains eased backwards. They leaned back at the look on the face of a man who should have been dead. Or dying. Or at least trying to run! He looked at them like they were less than human. One man took a step back, and he got a push in his left shoulder from a larger villain behind him. "Don't you fucking think about it. He dies here-"

"Are you afraid, villains?" Death's voice came out as a low but loud whisper that reached all over. His cold eyes bored into those of a few villains who looked stronger than others but could not hide that fear in their own hearts. "Look at me- LOOK AT ME! Are you afraid of what you've created?" He wondered it towards them, then he got louder and called out, "Without you, I do not exist! You created ME! And now you're afraid. It's your own fault that I'm here. But you couldn't help yourselves. After all, you're all cowards. Every single one of you."

"That's why you're here," Death said. "In this city. Grouped together for safety. Ha- haha, not only are you hiding in the darkest corner of the world, but you hid yourselves all day. Hiding and telling yourselves it was strategy, and forgetting what the real reason you were in that hole was. You forgot because you're stupid. You were hiding because you were afraid."

On Zach's left and behind him, a muscular woman landed on the street. Half her face was covered in her black helmet she had been given by the Army of Death. Her whitish-blond hair was sticking out though and speckled with blood. Her right arm closer to Gentle's side of the road was missing the bottom half of it, and there was a red bandanna wrapped around the stub of her right bicep that was still there but looked a mushy mess. The bandanna could have appeared to just be red because of all the blood, and yet Power Loader and TyreFire stared closer past Death at the person who just flown down on the street and staggered on wobbly legs but kept themselves standing not far behind him. They recognized the teacher sitting in their very row who they had seen remove a part of her arm, after Bakugo had damaged it in a spar with the student whose eyes were also huge and shaking as he saw their old homeroom teacher land there.

A white bear pushed itself back onto the street. A woman whose arms turned into long white Threads stepped out on his side, used his body as a crutch to help herself get out there too. The bear's snarling face was almost as terrifying as Mother Russia's itself that bared bloody teeth towards the villains looking back her way. Dover and Eloper stomped towards their enemies who then darted their gazes across the road and farther down it to a dark soldier covered head-to-toe in blood due to all his patients he had been trying to save today. Hank walked forward at a steady pace with no intention to stop or slow down. He had a hypodermic needle in his right hand that was empty of any liquid though, just a needle full of air that his fingers were ready to inject, while he held a pistol in his other hand that shook and dripped in his comrades' blood.

The more soldiers of the Army of Death who showed up on this street still alive, when the army that had emerged from underground had only been up against one at first, the more uneasy the villains were becoming despite their similarly growing figures. Their own numbers were rising faster too, though some started to wonder about the exterior perimeter the Army of Death had established. If Death had called in all his soldiers here, then what if that perimeter was gone? The more Army of Death who emerged from nowhere, the more the thought of checking-out that perimeter was becoming enticing. A few took steps back, and Disintegrator moved and reached the second line back in the forces in a second, where he grabbed a villain whispering next to him that they should go.

That villain Disintegrated. The Capo's right hand pushed through the villain's body and turned him into dust in an instant, his body breaking apart and blowing away in the wind. "If you try to run, Death will kill every last one of you. And if he doesn't, I will!"

"I have shown you my MERCY, villains!" Death screamed. The first Capo turned back with the soldiers behind him losing their choices to run or stay. The Disintegrator stomped back forward to Death who shouted past him at the rest, "But my mercy runs thin." His voice got darker and more menacing as he snarled, "And, I cannot allow you to escape. If that means killing every last one of you then, so be it. But if you surrender, I will show you mercy."

A figure walked in front of Gentle and out of the alleyway. They stepped out and onto Death's back right, coughing and putting their right arm up in front of their face. Gentle looked back from that man and to a smaller figure walking down the alley who stopped right in front of him and turned his way. His breath caught in his throat, as a short woman standing there looked at his visor. Her helmet was gone, and so was her right eye with nothing but a mess of red on that side of her face. She still had a blur in the center of her chest around her nipples that would have been visible through the huge hole in her armor where she had a hole blown completely through her earlier. Her hot pink hair was a mess behind her head, no ties in it to keep it up in pigtails. Her lips were flat and her one eye a little nervous, but when she looked at Gentle she just pursed her lips for a moment.

"Get up, Gentle," La Brava said. "Please." Then she turned forward and looked down the street towards an army of hundreds of villains she could only partly see, and she stepped out of the alley as he made a noise and rose a hand to stop her. His right hand only lifted halfway up, then his fingers curled in as he watched the woman's back.

"If you don't surrender then I am going to kill you. And if you manage to run, I will find you- I will always, find you." Death's voice echoed out as Gentle lowered his gaze down to his stomach. His hands moved towards the long wooden shard in his stomach, and his feet slid up the ground in front of him. "When you're taking a shit, I will be behind the curtain!" Death yelled as Gentle's hands gripped around the shrapnel sticking through him. His leader's voice rang out louder, "And when you're fucking your lover I will be underneath your bed! And when you are trying to sleep you will know that I am in your closet AND when you finally drift off you will only have nightmares- and I WILL BE YOUR NIGHTMARES!"

"Nnngh-" Gentle ripped the wooden shard out of his stomach. Blood splashed out of his stomach and soaked the long wooden shrapnel completely. He gripped it hard in his right hand and used it to help push down on the floor next to him. His other hand balled in a fist and he slammed it down, pulling his legs up harder as he groaned out in agony. He slid his back up the cracked wall behind him and got to his feet. Gentle snapped his head up and glared towards villains who had seen him from the start looking like he was a corpse or at least close to one. He stepped out of the alley and marched towards La Brava then right in front of her, coming up on Death's right side by six feet and only slightly behind him so he was the farthest forward of anyone else.

Death did not turn his torn-up face to the side to look at his comrade, he just continued screaming towards the villains with his voice getting louder and more confident while still as full of rage as ever, "Are you afraid?!" He screamed it at villains who looked much more terrified after his last shouts. Their faces were getting more anxious and their hands shakier at their sides or on their weapons. Many were still holding strong, but even the strongest of them could not stand there unfazed by what Death just yelled. The corners of Death's lips had pulled up too, with the right corner closer to Gentle rising up his bloodied face as he asked them these questions in such a taunting tone, "Afraid that I might hurt you? Kill you?"

"You don't know!" He bellowed out at his scared foes. "You thought you were safe here, but there is no safety for you anywhere on this world as long as I exist. And as long as you villains exist, I will be there! I will be in every shadow, in every corner, behind every door!" Death roared it and panted heavily, and he bared his teeth before screaming out, "Do you fear me now?! Afraid to turn every corner in fear that I will be there?! Afraid to live your lives in peace because no matter how protected you think you are, I AM THERE!"

"Is it scary? Does it make your hearts clench up in fear?! Do you know what it feels like now?! Do you have any idea now... how the rest of the world feels... because of YOUUU?!"

The change in expressions came in an instant. The looks on the villains' faces shook no matter how steadily they were holding on. The comrades around Death glanced in towards him before glaring back towards the villains in even more rage with some snarls coming out around Gentle on all sides. The three Capos all opened their eyes wide as did Impundulu between the First and Fifth. Villains behind them had different expressions though than just astonishment at what Death was shouting it for. Death was looking at those men behind the front line. He looked at the ones all over the villains' army that had just been feeling more fear than they ever had at all Death was yelling at them, only for his final shouts to send their minds reeling.

Death's teeth ground back and forth, his teeth making grinding sounds as he stared at them all. The looks regretting every moment of their lives. Looks of understanding spreading behind the fear. The realization setting in that they were responsible for this. The terror that they felt that had surged so high made many of them feel sick, ones who never even considered how all those people felt. They had seen looks on many people's faces that they imagined their own expressions mimicked now. The irony, the feelings of regret in knowledge that they had brought this upon themselves, they spread on the villains' faces as Death screamed it at them to understand. "You don't get somewhere you can feel safe while everyone else in the world lives in fear of you! You understand now?" Death asked desperately, his voice pleading for a moment under the rage as his tone rose and cracked, his head tilting up and his eyes glaring down at the stupid villains who had brought him here.

"The constant fear that people without rules could be coming for them. The idea that no matter how hard you try, you can't stop them," his voice got lower and much darker again. His eyes were cold and full to the brim of determination, conviction, and sheer will. "Knowing you can't stop them, because they're a concept more than an enemy. Those people out there know they can't stop villains, but they fight them anyway just like you try to fight me." His voice got louder and his left foot lifted and stomped down in front of him, making the Disintegrator's eyes shoot open wider as another ten figures all took steps a second later in the same direction. "You try and fight the concept of death like you can actually avoid it. BUT YOU CAN'T!"

"Does that feel bad? Knowing you can't do a thing? The fear that no matter where you go or how safe you feel at the time I could always be there! Lurking in the shadows! Ready to rip you apart!" Death screamed it with no sign of any fear in his voice or that his wounds were weakening him at all. His cold loud voice filled with menace as he growled, "I have shown you where my mercy ends, villains." His enemies mostly backed away as his forced moved up. "You know you cannot beat me, because unlike you we will fight until the last soldier. If we die then we die! We've accepted that, but you cowards so terrified of me, how does it feel to face enemies who do not fear death? Enemies who are Death?"

"They can bleed, and they can die!"

"Nowhere you run will be safe if he lives right here."

"HA! Bring it on!"

The Capos yelled out towards Death who narrowed his eyes back at them and lowered the front of his head to glare out through insanely intense eyes. His lips were flat and he glared them down for a second until they had their mouths shut, then he stated in a deep voice, "That's the difference between us, villains. If every last one of us dies except for one man, and there's only one of you left standing, then that man will fight you to the last breath if it means stopping you! Wiping every last one of you and all of us out in the process, and then we'd all be gone! All the darkness! Everything cleared away to give them the best chance at living lives free from this. Free… from war."

"And this is WAR! VILLAINS!" Death roared. Thunder cracked in the sky above him and lightning bolts shot through the dark sky. Twin pillars of flames pushed out of Jetflame's hands and down into the pile of rubble to Gentle's right side that he glanced towards and saw the former British hero there with his helmet broken off and a gash across the middle of his face from cheek to cheek over the bridge of his nose. His expression was more stoic than most but the rage was there, his teeth grinding and his fists balling in fury as he glared down the enemy army that was holding hundreds strong and ready to fight. Death roared their way, "A war that you started! One that will always come when you try to rise, because you can kill me- but you CANNOT KILL DEATH!"

"Death comes, for ALL VILLAINS!"

Lavamander landed down on a roof to Death's left one building ahead of where Exodus, Michael, and Icefall lay. The anti-hero's body bubbled on his arms with magma that made the Disintegrator look his way and then smirk wide at the sight of the famous figure. Behind Lavamander on that next house down past him, Michael's claws dug through the wood at the edge of the building, his knees pulling up despite the blood coming out of them, and his elbows bending and shaking as he pushed himself onto all fours then up onto his feet. Behind Lavamander on the roof he was on, a woman with long white hair and no helmet on had a bullet in her stomach but limped forward towards the middle of the roof while glaring the villains' direction.

Hinata Juuzo felt her heart pounding ever harder in her chest. Shichi Koi's skin was paler and his eyes shook at the sound of Death's voice repeating in a roar in the official's head, "How many times do I have to tell you?!"

"You're fighting a losing battle!" Capo 2 yelled down the road in a taunting voice. "The heroes can't hold us all back any longer! More of us will rise faster than you can put us down!"

"Then I'll move faster," Death snarled back, his blood dripping out the corners of his lips that twisted into a bloodthirsty grin then back down into the deepest frown.

His head shook as his frown deepened that low and in such anger. "This is not. Your. World. Villains! And, it is not my world either. It's theirs. One that we have no business being a part of. No one will ever know what happened here. I will not plague a world at peace, with the war in the shadows. I will do it alone if I need to. I will hunt you all down. I will burn your cities, and I will raze your fortresses to the GROUND! Your armies will fall, your plans will fail, and I will not allow you to kill their heroes any longer!" Death's head snapped so his gaze glared straight at Impundulu, and it was as if the entire Army of Death all looked towards the leader of the Grootslang at the same time.

As hardened a villain as he was, Impundulu took a step back at the sight of all those figures who should have been long dead looking his way with the demonic looks or non-human ones impossible to see behind dark visors that kept them from showing human expression. The helmets being gone from over half of them did not make them any less intimidating though. Not when each of them shared looks just like their leader. Death sounded so angry it was to the point of insanity, and yet every one of those soldiers following him shared looks of sheer conviction and hate directed at these villains who had done nothing to them.

Softy stared at the images on the screen from where she watched on the defendant's half of the room near the back of it. He said he had become a monster. The same kind as his enemies, only he preyed on them…

"I will not let you do as you please with this world, any longer!"

"Ahh, raaah haa!" The loud breathing at Gentle's back got louder, breaths coming out in loud agreement while snarls growled out on Death's other side.

"You- you steal, and you rape-" Death's voice was shaking, growing louder and more enraged each second. "You take people from their homes and you- innocent people! You torture them, and you experiment on them- you sell them as slaves." Death's words had a profound impact on the people around him who were growling louder, stepping forward, standing back up after collapsing on their faces as they heard his words. They dragged themselves forward with their looks of intensity turning into more intense pure rage than anything else. "I am not waiting for you to attack me, villains," Death sneered towards them.

The villains getting more worried each word that Death said felt themselves flinch and their bodies tense up as Death seethed that their way and tilted his head back far. Through the sky over the street behind him, fiery jets shot out the back of a girl's ankles that launched her down the road and over Mother Russia so she landed on Death's side just to his left and not behind him at all. She slammed her hands down on the ground upon landing then snapped her head up, and she looked straight next to her at Death with her brown hair soaked in blood and messed up around her face. Her smile was stretched wide, and she shouted at him, "I'm with you, Death! Now and forever! I'll fight by your side to the last breath!"

Then she turned her head forward, leaned the enemies' way and snarled as loud as her throat would let her. All of Class A recognized the girl soaked in blood who had gashes on her face and all over her body but screamed that at the top of her lungs in the middle of two armies. She stood there at Death's side as he faced down hundreds, and she snarled at those hundreds of villains with no fear on her expression at all. Death looked to his side at her and whispered, "Thank you, Darling."

The Disintegrator stared towards this girl with his eyes wide. He tssked and grit his teeth while darting his gaze around at that whole army. The seething rage he heard from her and that look on all their faces showed him what Death had that he did not. The undying trust and loyalty of all those behind him. He thought Death was crazy, but one look around and he had to wonder if it was true for them all. And he was not the only one to wonder it.

"They're all mad," Capo 2 whispered, his voice almost laughing though he was also tensing up and shifting to stand in a battle stance as Death stomped another foot towards them.

"You underestimated us," Death snarled, then his chest pushed out as he sucked in a huge breath. "I am your RECKONING! Villains," Death's roar and his step forward were met by the first Capo stepping back his way, and other villains all lifting their weapons and readying their Quirks as well.

The Disintegrator stomped back towards Death and he swung his arms out to either side. "Alright then! Rush to your deaths! You can barely stand and you're vastly outnumbered! You can't win this- what? WHAT?!"

Death's lips had cracked into a smile. He laughed. His lips pulled apart at the corners and a laugh escaped his lips, and the villain screamed his way in confusion at what Death thought was so funny about what he was saying. Worse was that some of the other soldiers of Death had lifted grins as well. They looked all absolutely insane as they smiled through the pain and laughed at him for saying something that apparently they thought was stupid or misinformed. "'Outnumbered?'" Death asked, his tone rising skeptically at the idea of it.

Some villains darted their eyes around thinking they must be surrounded or something. The Disintegrator just shook his head once and shouted louder towards the insane figure laughing at him, "You are! There are hundreds of us, and barely a handful of you-"

Death interrupted by screaming out far louder than his enemy's voice, "How many of you, are each ONE of us worth?!"

"A hundred!" A voice screamed behind Death.

La Brava pulled her elbows in just on Gentle's right side that she had come up to herself. "One THOUSAND!" She screamed it at the top of her lungs as the villains spun their gazes towards the short one-eyed woman screaming that towards them.

No sooner was she finished that Michael's claws extended up on the edge of the roof and his head snapped all the way back. His body shook as he screamed at maximum volume, "ONE MILLIONNN!"

"RAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Death was screaming before Michael had finished yelling 'One Million.' Death's scream seemed to make the entire city shake around him. Gentle looked slightly to his left while others around him started screaming too, and Gentle looked up past the buildings on the left side of the road that were badly destroyed but some still had roofs to them. He stared three blocks away where a giant green figure rose up over the rooftops and opened her enormous mouth. Zilla screamed out in a roar that shook the city as much as her stomping her right foot forward while she grew back to that giant size.

The Disintegrator rose up his left hand and held a clenched fist over his head for all the villains behind to see. A man behind him on his right covered in an orange glow, and another aimed their rifle straight towards Death's head. Impundulu darted his gaze to that risen fist before shaking his head around and starting to transform into some horrifying creature with jagged wings that sparked electricity. The leader of the Capos yelled out as his comrades readied from his command, "Death's right in front of us and weaker than he'll ever be again! Kill him, kill those who remain behind him, and rid this world of all that remains in our way!"

"RAAA!"

"OOAHAHAAA!"

Gentle's growl was not as loud as the screams from some of his comrades behind him. He kept himself from coughing, but the noise of a grunt came from the back of his throat when he tried growling too loud. His last step forward was too wobbly and he was unsteady on his feet now, but his head started bobbing and his fists raising as he got ready to charge. Death's face on his left side was a complete mess. His jaw was open huge and his scream was spraying droplets of blood out in a mist in front of his face. He looked horrifying, and the scene was straight out of a nightmare as hundreds of villains prepared their Quirks against a group of a couple dozen at most who were all fighting while badly injured.

Then a figure dropped out of the air. A man in black armor fell out of the sky on Death's right side and tried to pull up but his white wings were burnt and bloody. He wobbled and fell between Death and Gentle, skidding forward on his face and stomach with his wings falling flat down to his back. The wings were very familiar even with all the damage done to them. They were reminiscent of white wings that so many of the enemies had been given earlier in the fight which allowed them to fly while they also used their regular Quirks. That flight ability had disappeared from the enemy's ranks a while back though, and Switch lay on his stomach with that stolen Quirk still visible on his back though the wings went limp as he stopped skidding.

Death's roar quieted and faded. The others' screams quieted down. The villains down the street all watched as that dark soldier fell down and just stopped moving. They looked towards the front of the Army of Death's ranks, and those feeling the most fear remembered that all that damage their enemies had taken was about to kill them anyway. The man who hit down on his own face had a broken helmet mostly off and some very deep gashes in the back of his armor around the wings that people had tried cutting off. His right hand had been on a pistol but the pistol was only loosely grasped in his fingers now with his arm sprawled out in front of him and his face unmoving in the dirt.

The fall of Switch on the ground there caused an eerie silence as everything so tense just stopped. Then Death stomped his right foot forward. He leaned down and snapped his right hand to the back of Switch's neck, and he gripped his comrade tightly with his gloved right hand and started yanking upwards. At the same time, a bulge of darkness popped out of Death's left shoulder and poured down into a thick shape that shot across the floor to his left where a discarded pistol lay. The end of the thick black protrusion turned into a hand before the rest of the arm condensed and turned muscular. As his new black left hand grasped that pistol, Switch's right hand gripped into his gun that he had almost released when he hit the floor.

Death yanked Switch up and his voice came back, "RaaaaAAAAAH RAAAAAAAHHHH!"

"HaaaAAAAA!" Switch's head lifted and his mouth opened the same time as Death's, and he screamed out as Death held him up directly on his right side. The two of them rose up their arms as the villains who had all stopped and thought their circumstances better stared at the two in shock. Bang-bang bang-bang bang-bang

"HOOAAAA!"

"AHAAAAA!"

Gentle screamed at the top of his lungs this time, as did all of those who had not last time. As Death and Switch screamed together and started firing, the screams already so loud grew twice what they had been before Switch fell.

Michael swung his arms down and let out a roar, while Exodus pointed his left hand behind him and fired a beam of white light out that sent him past the front lines of the Army of Death like a missile towards the fastest of the enemies running forward. The Fifth Capo rose up both of his muscular arms though and caught Exodus by his swinging right arm just behind the glowing fist, and he swung Exodus up over his head though Exodus fired beams of light out his feet at that same moment. Gunfire flew towards the roof he had been on, and a wall of ice rose in front of Michael who got protected by the woman at his side who yelled at him to follow her as she made an ice slide off the breaking-apart roof that Michael leapt onto with her even as he coughed up blood.

A line through the enemy ranks knocked villains to either side and into the floor as the 5th Capo and Exodus blasted through there. A few other villains were hit by gunshots, though the first Capo just turned to the side as a shot flew towards him, and instead it hit the guy with elephant ears behind him who tried hiding behind their powerful leader. Disintegrator opened his lifted fist and swung his arm forward. Up out of the ranks of the villains, twenty military-grade drones rose into the sky.

"It's the Third Drone Fleet!"

"Get it back-"

"Their hacker's too good-"

"I'm going into one!"

Gentle swung his arms up while sprinting in front of Death, and the wave of returning fire at the Army of Death bounced back. Some flew up into the drones though they were dodging and firing around the sides of the thin barrier that did not protect everyone. Two Army of Death running by on Gentle's right side got gunned down, and a man running on all four of his horse legs got hit too many times and tripped and rolled with blood splashing out all over his body. One woman faster than those trying to track her and shoot at her dove into the enemy ranks and grabbed the sides of Impundulu's deformed head even as he tried slashing at her. Then Seraphim got hit on the side by a different attack that knocked her through the ranks of villains who tried to swarm her while she was on her own, only for two figures to rise up an ice slide and drop down into the villains' ranks around her.

Darling popped around the left side of Gentle's barrier and her connected arms fired a grenade out into the air above the villains' charging army that barreled down the street. Death's black arm was vibrating and barely holding together as he held off on firing his pistol for a second. Gentle held his arms up in front of them harder while dropping to his right knee that wobbled as he rose it back up, groaning in agony. The canister Darling fired blew shrapnel down and smoke out, and she was running forward towards the enemies-

Gunfire rang out and the drones fired down despite the smoke. Darling tried to dodge to the side, but a shot hit her in the stomach, and blood splashed from her neck, and her right and left arms. Bullets riddled the girl who spun out as she tried to dodge, and a bear with white fur ran right over her and charged towards the enemies it dove into as they rushed at him. A muscular hero in disguise flew to the side of the bear and spun around, pointing her legs out and drop-kicking only to have her legs grabbed and swung to the side into a figure who burst into flames as soon as she hit him.

As Darling fell to the side with blood splashing out of her, Death's head spun her way then back towards the villains in front of him who had too much firepower with their stolen drones. "Virus! Get out of there! HAA- WHITEOUT!"

Gentle reached down with one hand and to the floor on his side where a comrade had dropped a rifle that slid his way after they were shot dead. His other arm shook as he held it up attempting to keep using his Quirk far beyond his own limits. He started lifting the rifle, his camera catching a piece of his own right side and the blood seeping out the hole in him as he stood up despite it. He looked to his left where he had seen the woman with white hair before and saw she was just thrown upwards by a comrade as Zilla stomped forward behind her and reached forward one hand.

Whiteout's body started to curl up. Her elbows pulled in, and she screamed out, "E.M- ah-"

Gentle spun his head to the other side and down to look away from the flash that would blind enemies for a second and give them a great moment as the drones fell and their enemies were blinded. He heard her gasp in his ear instead of the shout of 'P' that they were all listening for. In almost slow motion he turned back, watching in the corner of his vision as a comrade was grabbed by the Disintegrator and turning to dust, as another was hit by a hail of gunfire and thrown backwards with part of their skull blowing apart. He looked into the sky where a thin arrow with a glowing red point ripped a hole through Whiteout's stomach and out her back. It continued to fly towards Zilla, and it split apart into the Quin Arrows of the Second Capo.

The five arrows all with glowing red points broke apart around Zilla's reaching arm, and faster than she could even start swatting the arm around to knock them away, the arrows ripped in and out of her flesh like sewing needles facing no resistance. The arrows moved up Zilla's arm and then cut in and out of her body rapidly all the way through her back and then back out through her front, through her massive heart and cutting in both sides of her throat that blood poured out of in hundreds of gallons, all while Whiteout was still falling herself…

Whiteout's body had started uncurling after her gasp of agony from the single arrow piercing through her on the way towards Zilla. Then the Second Capo's eyes opened huge and he started pulling back his arrows from Zilla's huge body covered in holes, as Whiteout's hands curled anyway and her elbows pulled into her sides harder. "Ahhhhh!" Whiteout screamed, and a white flash spread from her that Gentle turned away from, his head pulling to the side so the camera caught in front of him one last time. The drones flying forward and unloading down, while dark soldiers soaked in blood charged forward and dove at villains diving right back at them, everyone colliding in the middle while a white flash engulfed them all.

And the video cut to darkness.

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A/N Thank you! Reading a chapter that long is amazing you awesome reader you. XD Just want to tell you that this chapter was something I had been anticipating writing for years. Knew it was coming before most other arcs. Had the idea for it probably before I published ch 93 and the Lifebringer Incident which had been the one I looked forward to most before this. The battle of Wampajawa had played over and over in my head for so many months, that I was worried I would never be able to get it all down and was concerned about how long the chapter would wind up being... Those concerns were well-founded it seems, as this is by far, by at least 3x as much, the longest chapter I have ever written. It's longer than most stories on this site. It's just a very long chapter. I don't know if any of you managed to read it all in one sitting. I know it took me several weeks to write, and over another week to edit on here for spelling mistakes, grammar errors, continuity corrections, etcetera. I know that it's still leaving on such a cliffhanger even after going for so long, but I was starting to get worried that Fanfic wouldn't be able to support a chapter any longer than this. Haha, well again, I really do thank you guys for reading this. I hope you enjoyed the battle and like the means in which it became shown to the world, as well as how the method of recording makes sense with Gentle's character. Let me know what you guys think in a review below! Any comments, questions, or predictions for what is going to happen next! I'd love to hear it all! There have been so many reviews in the gap that I want to respond to, but I also want to get the next chapter up and out quicker than I managed this one. I swear no chapter will ever be this long again. It's much longer than most books are. So if you just read an entire book and a half, I congratulate you and thank you for your time once more. I'm going to get started on the next chapter right now though, as I haven't been able to start it for a week now that it took me to edit this one, and I'm raring to get on with the story! XD