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!

250. Chapter 250

A/N Hey guys. Sorry for the long wait. I finished my summer job and am back to the grind. This is one of the longest chapters I've ever written too. Enjoy!

P.S. Also shout-out to cartoonfan9 for making a TV tropes page for this story! We're in the big leagues baby! XD

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

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Chapter 250:

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Raijin slammed his right fist to his side while it was wrapped in a huge chunk of white armor that had fading and sparking blue lights on it. The sparks came out of several deep gashes in the AZ-AT that had curled itself around his arm like a Transformer. His Quirk still shot out of the condenser-tubes at the end of the flat section past his fist though, and the bright blue beam that was created by his Electricity fired at the four villains and five heroes who were battling it out on the right side of the road but whose fight's collateral nearly got in his way as he was zipping down the road.

Those heroes and villains started turning their heads at the sound of that scream and the sight of the flashing blue light. Black filled their vision in the next instant while their hair was still just standing on end from the static in the air. The wave of Death blocked the Electric wave, and then the wave all pulled in towards one point where the beam was thickest and almost breaking through the dark barrier. Zach did a three-sixty as he sped on the other side of his wall, and he kicked a much-more condensed left leg into the back of the blue beam his Death was pushing back against. He blew it apart with his kick. The Death in his wall on the other side of it was blown towards the group he had protected, but he split that shrapnel of Death and only pierced it through the four villains.

His wings flapped down and he sped after the trail of yellow and around the next bend. In the next second he slammed his feet into the ground that cracked below him. It put three villains off-balance as they were aiming their green cannons at the third floor of a building past some heroes who did not have flying Quirks and who were not going to reach them in time. Zach's eyes stayed locked on Raijin who just flew far higher in the air after rounding the corner. He pointed a white gun to his right at a building while Zach saw a flying white robot behind him dropping out of the sky in the opposite direction as Raijin and aiming cannon arms at some plated windows past it. Two Intel-ANTs from U.A. rushed at this robot, and panels opened up on either of its arms that fired out red lasers through the faces of those good robots that exploded from the far superior tech of Raijin's personal Anti-Zach weapons.

Zach's stomp on the floor cracked the feet below the villains being rushed at by heroes who could get to them before a second volley would be able to be fired at the civilians behind them. He pointed his left arm behind him while pulsing huge jets of black Death out of the soles of his feet to rocket him at Kaminari. A blue pulse of light fired out of Zach's left hand on a direct angle at the AZ-AT's left arm, blowing that arm apart while also slamming it across the front of the robot's body so it exploded only when hitting the second cannon arm too that exploded from the first's explosion. As the chain of explosions ripped apart the AZ-AT, and heroes rushed the stumbling villains below him, Zach flew up to Raijin's left side- but Raijin predicted Zach would focus on him rather than the other incidents surrounded them. Zach's intense speed to rise up there and stop him at the same time he was stopping those other attacks, meant his momentum towards Raijin was too fast to stop as short as he needed to when Raijin's arm blurred so the white gun in his hand was aimed at Zach instead of the glass window with a petrified older man on the other side of it.

Zach's body tore in half. His right side of his left body, and his left side of his right body, each were hit by shrapnel from the bullet that Raijin connected with lightning as it was passing through the miniature gap Zach created inside himself. The bullet tore apart and the tiny bone fragments tore into Zach's forming right and left arms of his two halves, making blood splash out of the darkness. Zach's legs kicked up towards Raijin who pointed his other hand down towards them and fired again out of the malfunctioning gauntlet he had created with another AZ-AT.

Zach's legs swirled off to either side of the beam and curved up like a ribcage around Raijin's left arm. All of those black tendrils got far sharper and denser, and then they slashed down through the gauntlet that Kaminari swung to his right to smash through one wall of the bladed rib cage. Even though one of the AZ-AT's earlier Zach had found to be completely coated in Anti-Death armaments, some of them really were just painted white as he hoped they were. They still had weapons that could damage him inside them, but not all were as protected from his Death attacks as Raijin's inner armor was that Zach's black blades broke apart on after they cut through the thick white steel around that left hand. As the gauntlet was breaking apart however, Raijin's left arm that was slamming outwards curled back in.

Kaminari's left hand opened up and grasped around the leg of his enemy that completely reformed as a solid mass when it connected with the inner Anti-Death armor around Kaminari's forearm. He wrapped his fingers around it and his whole body sparked violently with Electricity. Zach knew the signs and brought his other fully-formed half body forward while the huge broadsword in its hands was still only at half-size. It continued growing as he spun it around aiming at Kaminari's neck, sharpening it to maximum sharpness in hopes that it would slice through the fabric before breaking apart.

Raijin spun around. The blond did a number of lightning-fast spins that dropped the dashes in his backpack before releasing a Zach through his other body. The speed at which he released towards Zach's sharpening sword meant that the other half was unable to destroy itself into dark mist in time. That sword was not hit by any Anti-Death either, so Zach's body that had been solidified by Raijin's grasp was thrust straight onto the sharpest blade that Zach was able to create. Zach felt a cut on his right leg, but despite Raijin grabbing onto his leg he had managed to make the rest of his body less substantive so even as he felt the sharp blade and the jolt of hitting his other form, he was able to turn it all into a dark cloud and slam backwards into the building behind him as a cloud of gas that cracked windows but did not smash through.

Some blood did get on the windows though and was left behind as the pillar of dark smoke shot after Raijin who flew away with his arms pointed to either side, suctioning electricity from every telephone line and satellite dish, every light and appliance. Every building's wiring he passed fed him power, but Zach could see these were not packed generators that funneled fuel to his enemy. Just by passing these buildings, the lights cut off on several floors from just a bit of lightning zapping into Raijin's body. The speed at which he uses his Electricity is faster than he was able to store it. That's why he needed to store for months and years. Because he knew that even all the power in Tokyo today wouldn't be enough to save him on its own!

Kaminari's head shifted slightly to the right. His eyes darted into the corners and he stared back towards his best friend whose head pushed out of the front of the black pillar of smoke chasing after him. That black smoke started pulling in more and making an animalistic form that was smoother and more pointed at the front to turn itself more aerodynamic. Zach's form stopped wasting Death that pulled away from his sides while in a semi-cylindrical smoke pillar. His wings were thinnest at the front but still had enough mass to give him the extra boost of speed that he would not have to keep expelling darkness from the soles of his feet. Need to keep enough Death ready. Stop wasting- it's not a waste for speed. Speed keeps people alive. The "waste" protects them. It can't forever…

Raijin dropped out of the air as his pack used up more energy with his own flight. Even if he knew that Zach had to use more of his remaining Death for the same thing, it was not worth it if he did not reach another generator storage area soon, and they were fighting in the same district they had been fighting for the past two minutes. When every second of their fight was clashing on multiple streets and causing damage or more destruction to their body or equipment, the fast-paced fight could not remain in the same area for too long. Raijin was being pushed far, but he always knew that would be the case. To the Arakawa.

Electricity zapped around the blond-haired teen who shot three times as fast down the solid street as his feet moved with lightning bolts wrapped around them. His eyes darted to the side and back again. Zach's black wings flapped and he dove down but did not hit the street itself. He stayed up in the air even when Raijin touched down. Zach's wings flapped and the edges of them brushed against the pavement, and he sped up even more with a burst of black flames shooting out the soles of his feet as Raijin sped block after block in a second.

Wind gusts slammed into heroes who saw sparks in their peripherals battling with dark wisps. Their capes flapped and they stumbled around while looking for the source of the trails of black and yellow that zipped around their streets and past them without stopping. "Where are you going, Kaminari?!" Zach yelled towards the villain's back. Are those dashes a lie? Why show me them through the pack? There are most likely more possible dashes, and once all of them go to empty he'll attempt to draw me in by acting too low to keep running. Zach could see that Raijin's armor's pack was supposedly below half, and he was too close to his enemy for Raijin to stop or to even move his arms into a less guarded position at this point just to siphon energy from the buildings at their sides.

The road ended just up ahead. There was a slight rise after the street between two buildings that were also on slightly risen platforms up the curb. Those apartment buildings looked less damaged than much of the district they were in. Raijin sprinted towards those buildings and straight between the gap that he sprinted up and into the back of the buildings that each had fences there to keep people living in those buildings from being tempted to take a dip on the other side.

Zach sprinted after his enemy who looked to be sprinting straight to a dead end. Raijin pointed his right hand forward and despite no longer wearing a thick gauntlet, he did have power in his suit left to blast a hole in the chain link fence so that he did not have to jump or fly over it. It seemed like just as much of a waste of power to Zach who flapped his wings again while twisting his body diagonally to get between the fronts of the buildings that Raijin had sprinted between a moment before. Zach's body did not slow down past the alley as he hit the back fence either, even though his larger winged form could not fit through the narrow hole that Raijin had just made large enough for him to get through. His body and wings phased through the holes in the chain links and pushed through the gap back into its solid form on the other side.

Raijin had sprinted straight to the edge of the Arakawa River. And he cut to the left after sprinting onto the bank of it. Raijin turned south and sprinted down the bank straight to the edge of the water, and then his feet touched the surface and lifted back up quicker than the surface of the water could break apart and allow his feet to sink into it. He lifted up each foot as soon as he touched it down with just enough weight to be able to step off again. His legs moved more and more like a blur as he shot over the surface of the water that pushed aside from him and made a huge wake only a second after he had already passed between that area.

A trench dug through the surface of the river, and Zach flew between the rising waves on either side of Raijin's electric footprints on the water. Raijin's right foot touched down with a little more weight in it, and Zach noticed. He was just speeding up while curling his fists at his sides with the Death leaving them as he prepared to use his bare hands that would work on his enemy better than any Death attacks he had been attempting so far. His eyes darted to Raijin's right foot that dragged across the water allowing his heel to dip slightly farther in, pushing it down actually so that his lightning-fast drag of his foot along the surface would splash up a huge wave between him and Zach.

Zach did not fly straight into that wall of water. His pointed-forward body dipped down and he dove under the broken surface between Raijin's wake. His body swirled a bit on the edges but stayed far more solid in its condensed core that remained aerodynamic underwater. His hydrodynamic form faced little water resistance as it sped underneath the wave then shot back up and out of the water just as Raijin forced a huge amount of voltage out of his legs and into the surface below him. Zach picked the direction least expected by his enemy who thought Zach might try to fly straight through it or rise above, and it delayed Raijin's reaction to zapping the water that had such a huge volume that he would surely waste a ton of his Electricity on parts of the river that did not have his enemy in it.

He accepted the waste though. Raijin zapped out of his legs just as Zach was emerging from the surface behind him, and far too much of Zach's Death body was soaked in conductive compound. The fresh water of the river was not as conductive as salt water though, carrying the electricity slower and less powerful to the enemy who was unfortunately too close that that weakened effect still paralyzed him for an instant. Raijin continued sprinting south though rather than follow-up that attack with another or 5 on top. He just darted away in a straight line when Zach was stalled, his wings breaking apart slightly and his red eyes flaring after his enemy who he started chasing after again after getting within three meters right there for a second.

Zach flapped his wings before they were fully reformed and dipped down so close to the water that the waves that just pushed apart got twice as large waves following after them in the same wake. I WON'T LET HIM! Zach glared past Raijin at the modern suspension bridge rising from the river on pillars a hundred and sixty feet up before the high bridge itself. The Arakawa River banks were large and went higher than the river ever rose itself in order to prepare for potential floods, and because the water level had dropped in past centuries. Zach slapped his wings down onto the river's surface.

He shot in a diagonal angle towards the middle of the huge metal support tower that Raijin reached the base of where it touched the river. Raijin did not slow down. His feet lifted up onto the steel and he kept running, but he did not run straight up so that Zach's diagonal angle would catch him. He sprinted around the pillar and around it again. A yellow light spiraled up the steel pillar that covered in sparking electricity from being in contact with Raijin like this. Zach reached the huge support and reached his right arm out, then he snapped it lower down as Raijin had not gone as high on his most recent spin around the other side of the pillar that Zach could not see for a split instant.

Raijin went the same distance up on each spiral the previous two times, but Zach's right arm had risen slightly higher in preparation for Raijin's most recent one to be even higher than that. He did not try spinning around the pole himself as he knew Raijin would not stay on the other side and sprint up there as it would be too predictable. Raijin being lower down did surprise him though, and he lowered his head only for Raijin to shoot off the pillar past his back as Zach pointed his right hand down and fired out ten longer arms that bulged all over that side. Those arms curled under Raijin's legs and then shot up after the feet of the blond who pointed both hands towards Zach's back as his enemy was spinning to face him.

A spike of darkness was coming out of Zach's left side as he spun towards Raijin. More tendrils flew off the top of his skull to lead his enemy, but Raijin fired out the bright blue beams from his fingertips into Zach's body from nearly point blank that tore holes through Zach's suddenly gaseous form. Evading those beams by turning to gas slowed his own counters though, and Raijin's backpack pulsed bright blue which illuminated brightly lines of blue light covering his costume.

He has more up there! Zach knew it from the sight of how much Raijin was using just to get to the top of this bridge. He pulled himself together faster and flew after Raijin to the top of the base support and to the bridge itself. They flew up over the railing with Zach just on Raijin's tail. A long thick wire connecting to the floor just inside of that railing and all the way up to the curved arch at the top of the suspension bridge, was pulled far tauter than it should have been. So when the bolt of lightning zapped from a flick of Raijin's left hand towards that connection on the floor and unlocked the cable, it snapped up from the tension and slingshotted Raijin away faster than Zach could reach out and grab him when he was so close.

People on the bridge near that railing were already looking that way. Someone had shouted about the river from near the railing, and people had backed up as those blurs of yellow and black had neared the base far below them. A second later they were up above the railing though, and Lifebringer went flying past the people who gasped and pulled back away from the hero whose giant black wings sent him soaring up after Raijin who magnetized the metal aches high above and flew over to them. He jumped from one of the two arches that went over each side of the bridge to a middle connecting piece between the two arches. That piece was thicker than the others and looked to have a huge light underneath it, but that light although more luminescent than others as was its supposed purpose, did not need to be that size.

Zach flew up over the northern arch of the bridge and his eyes snapped down to the wires coming out of that "light" which were connected to both of the giant steel arches going over the bridge. His red eyes darted around at all the cables and beams coming out of those arches. Then they snapped back to Raijin who his arms were swinging forward towards. "Don't-"

Raijin's legs flashed brightly yellow. The huge generator below him activated and sent the surges through those wires to either side of the bridge. Tiny packs of plastic explosives connected to those wires blew up screws and popped open thick steel latches on either side of Raijin and on both arches of the bridge. To his left and his right side, on both of the sides of the bridge, tiny explosions went off in a chain that happened instantaneously as the electricity carried through the wires from one end to the other.

Starting from about a hundred and fifty feet in from either end of the bridge, the taut wires and supports that stabilized the bridge disconnected at the arch that they all pulled up into. Unlike the first wire that Raijin had disconnected from the bottom in order to be slingshotted upwards due to his own meddling, these other wires were not all pulled taut enough to just snap down towards the bridge. They were heavy though. Every single wire was a mass of thick cables weighing hundreds of tons. Three of the steel support towers as well on either side fell. They were not wires but just supports to help hold up the arches that wobbled back and forth from the explosions but would not have the supports to stay up like this anymore. They were about to crack and buckle. The one on the north side just in front of Zach leaned towards him in its largest piece still intact, but so did the south side archway that was breaking into three mega pieces as well and about to disconnect so that those pieces were going to fall on the bridge too. Those arch pieces would only fall on the cars and people below after the wires and steel beams had already collapsed onto them though.

Zach's red eyes darted all the way to his left then to his right. The bridge itself isn't collapsing, yet. Police blockades on either end of the bridge. They kept people who were in their cars here. Traffic stalled. People are sitting in their vehicles. The ends of the bridges were evacuated inwards as people tried to get away from the fighting. Heroes and cops aren't on the bridge. It's just civilians. Hundreds. Over a thousand. Zach's mind was shrouded in so much pitch black that the muscle tissue itself was blackening even while the organ was still there in his head. The thick steam of Death that came off of his brain as wisps shot in and out of it had just settled around his brain and coated the organ in darkness. …Three seconds before the first wire starts to touch. Four and it's chaos. Five and hundreds are dead already. They're looking up and screaming. No one can react quickly enough. In their panic some are going to jump. There're people already looking to the edges. They're quick. They'd rather risk it, but the fall will kill them. Their bodies will splatter on the river's surface. They'll be crushed in their cars. Burned in the flames of the explosions. Squished by debris.

Not one. Not one is allowed to die.

Raijin's feet were pressing down lightly on the generator below him that he pushed off of to lift into the air. He jumped towards Zach who dropped forward out of his black veil. That darkness pushed Zach's human form down and he fell onto the leaning support-less archway that eased his direction from the wind and explosions. His feet touched down on it while Raijin leaned his body forward after his jump and extended his left elbow towards Zach's chest.

Zach rose his left hand and caught Raijin's elbow. He had no Death on his body at all. Raijin smirked wide behind his visor and accelerated his elbow in the instant that Zach's left hand touched it. He pushed Zach's left hand aside and slashed a white blade in his right hand upwards. Zach's body twisted to the left so the blade passed in front of his chest. Raijin twisted the blade while leaning his head away and dodging the headbutt that Zach tried to smash into his visor. Raijin ducked and kicked his right foot towards Zach's left that picked up and stepped just to the side, then backwards as Raijin's foot touched the arch and then kicked sideways at Zach's leg in that moment it was touching down.

Zach's feet popped up off the floor and he kicked his right leg around at Raijin's side while the metal archway that was below him just zapped with electricity. Raijin could let Zach's kick collide with him while he was covered in Electricity, electrocuting his enemy who had no Death around his body to protect from a direct electrocution. Zach's leg started to visibly push aside the air though as it spun faster and Zach's teeth bared with his eyes flashing in anguish. Raijin leaned his whole body backwards, and the kick passed just in front of his torso. It followed-through and wind blasted off his leg so hard that the wobbling archway they were on dented down below that force of wind coming off Zach's leg.

Raijin flicked the white blade towards Zach. He did not hesitate despite just barely avoiding a kick that would have shattered most bones in his body. Zach was in midair and starting to spin his other leg while he was arcing down towards the metal floor again. Cracks shot through the archway that had been initially built in many pieces and was separating into those pieces without the support and tension wires holding it in place. His left leg that was kicking towards Raijin moved the slightest bit and Zach flicked his toe at the hilt of the weapon just after the blade had passed by his toes. The weapon on-track to hit him in the waist was spun around, and Zach snapped his body forward and grabbed onto the hilt that he flipped fully and jabbed at Raijin who parried with another bone-tevlon blade he pulled from a sheath with his left hand.

Zach's left foot was touching down on the arch first, and Raijin stomped his own right boot down on Zach's foot in the very moment that Zach's foot was touching down this time. He trapped his enemy to the floor, but the floor was breaking apart below them quicker due to Zach's last missed kick that destabilized and broke the archway farther away from them. The metal sheeting dropped below them faster than they fell, because of the two of them each stomping their feet down hard right there. So the shock that came out of Raijin's foot did not have the extra conductor of the steel, nor was it touching Zach's foot directly either as a tiny gap just formed between their feet as Raijin's boot kicked down on the top of Zach's foot that had no boot on it. Blood came from burnt skin on the top of Zach's left foot, but he kicked that foot up just along the inside of Raijin's boot that the inner sole of Zach's foot scraped against so even more burnt skin tore and a blister bubble that was there ripped and popped.

Raijin's left hand with the knife in it went down between his legs to block the kick, but the toes of that kick eased just backwards and missed his hand as Zach bent his knee in towards his stomach and avoided the block while also not kicking Kaminari in the testicles as the villain was worried about momentarily. Zach extended that leg and tried kicking Raijin in the stomach, but his enemy flashed with lightning and turned his body to the side out of the way so the leg went behind his back. The villain's right arm punched forward and Zach stabbed down at it using the bone blade in his own right to put through Raijin's armor. Raijin's right fist opened up early and bolts of yellow light shot from his palm into his enemy's chest from a short distance, and Zach dropped the blade in his right hand while swiping his left hand across the front of his body. He did not go for grabbing the hilt of the blade like he pretended though, instead just turning that hand inwards towards Kaminari and opening it into a palm as well that he fired blue light from.

Raijin's head snapped forward and avoided the blue pulse of light that passed behind him and singed some of his yellow hair. Raijin's right fist that had fired lightning snapped forward to grab the falling hilt just in front of him, while his head that pushed forward also leaned to the right to avoid Zach's fist that had curled after dropping the blade from a flinch when that electricity pulsed into his unguarded chest. It was not direct contact, but the bolts of Electricity into his singed and bloodied chest caused Zach's teeth to bite down hard with his bloodshot eyes twitching and shaking. Raijin figured some of that reaction was exaggerated though in order to make him reach for the knife, and yet he reached anyway while on the lookout for Zach's move that would come from stepping into his trap, which he believed was the punch of that right arm Zach had been shaking.

Zach leaned forward though while missing his punch. They were free-falling. He kneed upwards while grabbing Raijin's back with his left hand. The pulse of blue light he fired from that palm was smaller than usual and had about no recoil which allowed him to keep swinging that left arm forward after Raijin had yanked his head forward to dodge the light pulse. Zach grabbed onto Raijin's back and pulled him forward. His left leg had passed by Raijin's side, but he wrapped that leg around Raijin's lower back while slamming his right knee upwards into Raijin's gut.

The knee connected in the moment that Raijin surrounded in lightning that brought his power back down to what he had stored just before he landed on the generator at the top of the bridge. He cursed in his head as he pulsed it out because of Zach grabbing into him and locking him in place, but he also coughed and spat into the visor of his helmet as that knee lodged in his stomach anyway. They were at a weird angle and falling in such a way that being able to put that much force into a single knee upwards should have been impossible. Zach's physical strength was that much though, that Raijin surrounded himself in 10 million volts to force his enemy back, and yet he only got the attack off as Zach's knee was too close that there was no chance he would be able to avoid it.

Zach's whole body surrounded in electricity that caused his eyes to go white for a moment. His skin charred, and it was already so badly burnt and blistered that adding more on top caused whatever nerves were remaining to spike in the amount of pain that Zach felt. Raijin's body hunched forward even as he pushed back from Zach. His left hand snapped to his stomach and gripped over the point that Zach's knee had connected with. The fingers of that hand curled in lightly then moved away. Shock pads absorbed enough, Raijin grit his teeth but curled up the corners of his lips into a grin at the sight of how much damage his 10 million volts had done to his enemy before him… who had not used any Death in that last interaction.

Raijin's eyes shifted down. He had seen Zach's darkness leave his body and fly down when Zach was landing on the archway. Raijin knew that Zach sent his Quirk down to try and save some of the people who this bridge's collapse was going to kill. He did not expect that Death to fly back at him due to that, but he did expect Zach to have at least a little Death on standby to use during their clash which he did not see. All of Zach's Death had pushed out of his body in the moment he broke his wings from his back though. He had condensed it enough that whatever he had was able to fill the same volume of air if not just slightly more, as Zach turned what looked like a gas into something far more solid but with liquid and gaseous properties as well.

Kaminari Denki's eyes darted around the bridge that they were lowering to. His focus had to be completely on Zach during their fight or he could have been killed at any millisecond. They were high enough up too and he was facing the north for most of it, so he did not see what Zach's Death did when it reached the bridge before the wires had fallen onto it.

When Zach lowered to the top of the archway and sent his Death down below him, he drew in his enemy with the bait of his weakness. Raijin had to see that he was accepting that handicap and so he made no attempt at trickery. He landed on that arch and really had sent all of his Death down. Raijin was going to attack him anyway whether or not Zach kept some of his Death to fight with as well, because he knew Zach would have to waste at least some, but all of Zach's condensed Death flew down below quickly out of their sight as the boys fought each other above.

They had risen near the center of the bridge as that was where two of the few major support pillars rising from the river were for Raijin to climb up without over-using his backpack and wasting more of his remaining power beforehand. So Zach's Death mass that dropped down below him was smack in the center of a bridge that had heavy steel cables falling from end to end. That mass split in half and shot different directions. Each of the halves broke apart as well. Human-shaped masses morphed out of the cloud that was so solidly black that it appeared more like a liquid than a gas, and only liquid rather than solid because of the way it fluidly zipped between cars and pooled under vehicles and slipped between cracks.

One dark form had red eyes and emerged from the middle of the two dark forms that shot in different directions. It swept its right arm forward and that arm sprayed out of it like a firehose with a nozzle on it that spread it out fifty times from where it started at Zach's arm. The shocked people seeing this dark form of Death drop in front of them while they were still realizing that those giant wires were falling down on them, gasped and yelled out in surprise as the Death slammed into their bodies and threw them straight off the south side of the bridge. The Death that pushed them so fast stayed pooled around them but it curled on their bodies like huge black hands that cradled them carefully. The scared people thrashed for a moment but stopped themselves as the dark hands were not killing them or even making them feel weaker, and they could see the bridge and the chaos occurring on it that this hand had taken them away from. And they could also see up in the air as their heads lifted and they saw the two teenagers masterfully punching and kicking and stabbing at each other up above.

Zach was closest to the middle so he was able to react the quickest and easiest to saving the people just below him. As the rest of his Death that had split in half got closer to the ends of the bridge where the cables had snapped at the same time as in the middle, he did not have as much time. Luckily, more people had crowded near the center than at the sides where the police and heroes had been fighting villains. The heroes were winning in this one area of the city as the bridge had become known as a great evacuation center, and authorities from around the districts on either side of the bridge had brought people in dangerous areas towards that bridge to hand them off to the cops and heroes there. A lot of injured people were just at the edges of the bridge inside of the police lines, so they were just out of the way of the first wires too that only started another hundred feet in from each end of the bridge.

All the people between the start of the cables and the middle of the bridge were in a lot more danger. The cars were more packed in the lanes there than the center of the bridge which had been cleared to make space for all the new evacuations. Humanoid Death forms emerged out of the dispersing clouds pushing both directions down below Zach. They flushed down the aisles between cars. Legs came out of the bottoms of the dark clouds, and Death men sprinted forward and darted red eyes back and forth. Zach could see it all, and yet he was fighting Raijin at the same time that he could see everything that these forming dark figures could. His 'vision' was split, and yet he was handling the intake of more sensory information as he had done it before.

He had split himself up like this while fighting Ares. He had trained at U.A. since in dividing his body and fighting with all forms at once. And every time he trained, he split himself more and more while focusing enough Death in enough of a concentrated way to create full Death copies. The Death clones sprinted at civilians who were mostly looking up so they did not see those dark figures rushing them. They were staring up at falling cables or at Zach and Raijin's fight, while dark shadows sprinted towards them and grabbed civilians that they continued sprinting with as the people gasped out in surprise and panic.

One of Zach's Death clones reached down to his right as he was sprinting between two vehicles. Both cars had people in them, but the pickup on his left had a spun-out truck on its other side that was about to get collapsed by a giant falling cable. The smaller vehicle on his right had another second, but he reached his right hand under the side of that car and lifted up. Zach tossed the car off the edge of the bridge while focusing more to his left. Another dark figure ran on the other side of the truck but glanced inside to see that the driver had gotten out, and he recognized a woman farther down the bridge who looked like she was this truck's driver considering her cap had the same logo as was on the side of the vehicle for the company she worked for. The pickup that had a couple still sitting in the front seats of it, found a dark shadow flying through the passenger side window that had been rolled down so they could hear the instructions shouted by heroes out of a megaphone farther down the east side of the bridge.

Zach's dark hands slashed through their seatbelts which was quicker than unclasping the middle-aged couple's belts and waiting for them to get the safety straps off. He popped off the windshield by forcing a blunt wave of Death out of his back as he was grabbing onto them, and he yanked them through the windshield and out of the way just before the cable smashed through the thicker back of the truck on their left and then collapsed the cabin of their own pickup a half a second later.

That Zach tossed upwards for the Zach on the other side of the truck that had just extended its left arm out in front of it and swept up five different civilians including the female truck driver. That Zach caught the couple its clone tossed to it, before that clone shot to the edge of the bridge past the cable that smashed into the floor and bounced up once in the spot the other passenger vehicle had been in. He dove off the side of the bridge, reaching his right arm down so it extended and dug black claws through the car doors and the whole left side of the small car. Zach ripped that car's wall off completely, and then the arm with a claw at the end extended another arm off of it that condensed thick enough even in its stretched-out state that he did not risk the screaming passengers absorbing the darkness that grabbed the four of them and pulled them back out of the vehicle that fell into the river below.

On the other side of the bridge where people were sprinting to the west or falling on their butts as they screamed, more dark clones picked up people and dove out of the way of the falling cables. A wave of Death swept up three cars and the people who had climbed on top of them, just before a piece of one of the archways was about to fall down on them. Zach dropped the empty vehicles through his wave of Death as it was too difficult to carry them all, and they fell from the air with the cables and the arch's huge steel pieces.

A Death clone flew underneath a falling wire that he was too late to rescue all the different people underneath. That dark humanoid figure transformed as he got it underneath the cable. Its arms reached up and spread out like branches while its legs connected together and dug into the ground like roots. A tree of Death merged with the bridge and held up branches that caught the cable on either side, and the end of the cable dipped down past him only for a helix of Death to shoot out from his branches and yank up on the end that came down close to a woman's face as she leaned backwards while sitting on the sidewalk at the edge of the bridge's street. She stared up at the cable getting tugged back up in the air by the Death strands that seemed to be straining so hard to prevent her from getting hit… and then she was swept away, picked up by another arm of Death of another clone sprinting by her and adding her to a group of seven others each curled up by a gently-clenched fist of Death above him.

A flipping car hit in the hood by a huge chunk of archway flew up towards one of the flying Zach's carrying a group of people. That dark figure pulled to the side and tossed some of its civilians behind it, right towards another dark clone that leapt up as it ripped out of the back of another. That other just dove over a falling cable and saved a man who was reaching up and trying to use a weak Quirk to at least slow a cable that other Zach's had already rescued people from below without this man realizing it as it all happened too quickly. The one that ripped out of that one's back and caught more civilians, swerved through the air and flew the other way as the flipping car exploded against the wall of Death that the other shadow had created.

All of the wires had been disconnected at the same time, and the archway in the south that broke apart with the explosions and started falling right after, and massive steel beams that assisted with holding it all together, were all slamming down on the bridge at the same time. Cars flipped and crunched under the beams and cables. Vehicles slammed into each other and were knocked off the edges of the bridge that all the railings of broke apart and fell off of as well. The whole bridge was shaking at its lack of support. And on both sides of the bridge, civilians who had been all along it opened up their eyes and blinked in shock as they were placed on the ground in safety.

The heroes and firemen and cops and even some of the other civilians who were panicked in concern about people farther in the middle of the bridge, stared in shocked disbelief at the dark forms of Death that all landed down at once. Dozens of dark forms slipped out of there and pulled along the people with them that they placed in safe areas behind the other authorities. All those dark forms had glowing red eyes, and some of those eyes darted past the lines of cops and to where villains were all suddenly sprinting the other way on the other sides of the police lines. The red eyes in those figures were starting to fade though, as the backs of every one of the clones started wisping and pulling back towards the landing cables that bounced and skid to stops or lodged themselves into the street and through the vehicles on it that exploded on impact.

Flames covered the bridge. Darkness all pulled back through that fire towards the two who dropped down into the chaos as it was all falling around them. Zach leaned his head to the left as a giant cable was magnetized and pulled towards another. He dodged a fifty ton whip to the side of the head, then he jumped up as Raijin kicked a steel hood at him with sparks coming off of it and the hood only looking like a blur from how hard it was kicked his way.

Screams did not fill the air of the bridge around them. Raijin thought they would be landing to the sounds of horrified screaming and terror on all sides. He thought his enemy would have to split up here and go try to save as many people in imminent danger, and protect the wounded, but the bridge was quiet other than the scraping steel and whipping flames. Raijin kicked the hood of a car he landed just next to, after magnetizing that bouncing cable just before landing, and Zach dodged them both. Zach was up in the air though after jumping like that. He was up, and Raijin saw the waves of Death flying towards him from the east side of the bridge. He knew more was coming behind him.

He could attempt to capitalize on it while Zach was mid-dodge in midair. Lightning surrounded him brighter than the red flames that cast the color on Zach's face. Zach's eyes glared straight at him with the flickering of the flames licking his face. Fear was absent. Defeat, was not a possibility in the eyes of the hero who just protected every person on this bridge from his enemy's attempt at killing them. And Raijin zapped so much brighter, before vanishing backwards in a blur that ripped a human-sized hole straight through the wave of Death approaching from the west. Zach landed down and kicked off the floor to sprint down the bridge towards the Death he had swirl back in then pull towards his body just as all the Death from the east came and slammed into his back as well.

That Death spun around as Zach sprinted into it and disappeared. His body morphed with the Death and he turned into a drill that spun around and around over the burning cars and felled cables. The bridge itself below was wobbling, and Zach roared out of his Death as he got to the western end, "GET OFF THE BRIDGE!" He did not slow down. He did not need to.

"Off the bridge!"

"He's right. It's unstable. Everyone off!"

Raijin glanced at a rearview mirror of the van he was sprinting past. I could kill someone- It would be my last moment. How?

How does he have so much Death?! I thought he was running low. He had much less than that. Where is he getting it all!?

Or, did he always have that much left? If he did then why hasn't he killed me already? Or- or what? What could have kept him from showing that much Death yet? It's… it's because, Raijin's teeth ground back and forth. He knew the answer even if it was hard for him to swallow. He knows I've planned for him. If I survived one big attack that wasted a lot of his Death, he might not have had enough Death left to protect everyone on that bridge. He saw it as a possibility that he would need to save them all. He means it. Zach means it when he says he won't let me kill anyone. He hasn't killed me using that Death because it comes second?! STILL!

How? How can it not mean more- Saving those insects means more to him?! I should kill right now- HE'LL GET ME! He has so much left. More, more and more- where is it all coming from? The bomb should have destroyed him. It should have wasted everything he had. I underestimated- no. No, I estimated all the different amounts. I made plans for if he had more. If he had far more than I was ready for…

Zach didn't use all that Death against me because he needs it to protect civilians first and foremost. He's, really trying to kill me, while saving it? He wants to revive everyone? Kaminari's lips curled up. His smile grew. He's insane. He's insane, but… Somehow, I believed him. I believed it when he shouted it. The right corner of Kaminari's lips twitched. He zapped with lightning that flew down the street ahead of him towards some vehicles that had injured heroes being helped next to them.

An explosion of darkness went off behind him and rocketed Zach far faster than he was just moving. Some Death split off and curved after Kaminari down the next street to keep close to him and prevent him from killing anyone else, but a lot of the Death swept through the intersection going straight when Raijin had curved off to the right at the last corner. The Death just caught up to the bolts of electricity in time before they hit vehicles that could explode into the heroes who started turning but barely saw the darkness that shot back the other way and back around the same corner as the other half of the Death had gone.

He wouldn't use it on Machia. He used it to take down Esiri and those others, so I can make the guess on how much there really is. He didn't hold anything back on that bridge. Calm. He used everything there. I know exactly how much he has, and, and what if that becomes more? How? He gets stronger from killing, and he only wants to kill me. So how is he getting stronger?! Was he just hiding it, or has he actually gained strength in this fight? I don't know enough. The powers he's gained from killing Ares exceeded my expectations. How strong he was to survive the Cyclone Bomb while looking- well, he looks like shit. But it's not enough. I know it's not. He's keeping up. He's still keeping up. I can't do it.

He's getting stronger even without killing. It doesn't make sense, but Zach's immortality is looking more like invincibility each second. Fuck. It's alright. This is it. This is the only fight that matters. So it's fine. We're coming up on Shinjuku. The blond-haired boy sprinted through another intersection then snapped both arms out to his sides just as he saw the dark flames catching up behind him. The trap was not one that Zach had not seen before. The panels on the walls turned inwards and fired off blue lightning in a grid that filled the air between buildings. Zach slammed straight into it and forced his Death forward, then the red eyes on the darkness grew wider as Kaminari sped three more blocks down, snapping his arms out each time and turning on trap after trap and separating the two of them farther and farther.

"I WON'T LET YOU GET AWAY!" Zach roared while pushing through the electricity harder and then snapping massive wings down below him to soar up higher than the top of the traps.

Kaminari had a small smile on his face. A look of acceptance had covered it. He disappeared down an alley to his right, then around a corner store and into an office building, and he went through that one and down into a basement in the back that connected to a sewer. He only zapped fifty meters through that sewer before darting up a hidden stairwell and popping into the basement of another building, at the edge of a college campus. Waseda, Raijin ignored the shocked people to his left who he had a chance of flinging some electricity at. He chose not to though. The villain ignoring them thought to himself, In a minute he won't be able to stop me from killing them all. He won't be able to stop anything, when he's paralyzed at my feet. Dying!

Raijin seemed to vanish to those who saw him for a moment. He zipped around a corner and out of a building only for a second to cross a brick-laid pathway into a science hall. Waseda University's Shinjuku campus was large, but most students had been evacuated from their dorms, and only some faculty who were on campus and bunkered down at the start of the battle were still around. The science wing Raijin entered was empty though. He flew down a hallway and sprinted down some stairs, then straight into a room he made a beeline towards.

Raijin opened the door and rushed inside. His eyes darted to the side and he looked behind him while the door closed. The second and fourth traps on Enichia Street were set to explode three seconds after activation. I'm sure that'll slow him enough. Raijin walked across the room and turned to his right. He walked between lab tables. The black tables with bunsen burners on the tops of them and sinks in between each station passed him by as he walked towards a line of cabinets at the back of the room. His breathing was fast but he steadied it as he moved to the end of the line of lab tables then turned slightly to his left. Raijin stepped up to that back wall, and he placed his hands down on the counter above the lower shelves but below the upper cabinets. They were wooden and had a finish on them that made them look shiny. The campus had clearly put a lot of money into its chemistry and biology programs.

"Ahhh- fwoooohh…" Kaminari put his lips together in the shape of an 'o' and blew out a long breath of air. His eyes closed for a second. Then his lips curled back up in a smile. This is it. Let's do it, Zach. You and I. 'Til the end. His lips parted and showed his teeth as he smiled wider and wider, his eyes opening and lowering to the drawer that his left hand moved to and unlocked with the Quirk in his fingers zapping the hidden electrical lock within. He slid it open with the corners of his lips twitching as he did not hear an unlocking latch.

Raijin stared into the drawer. He stared in the drawer that had nothing inside. He blinked. He put his left hand inside and slid it around, then his eyes darted around the counter and he slammed the drawer shut in confusion and rage that covered his face instantly. Then he turned his head to the left. He froze in place and stared back at the man he thought he gave the slip. He stared at the dark figure who just smashed the door down and stood inside the same classroom as him, even though the hero was far enough behind that there should have been no trail to lead here… Unless Zach did not follow him here.

"When?" Raijin asked. He stood on the opposite side of the room and glared towards the figure covered in darkness who absorbed some of it back into his damaged body that turned to fully face his enemy. The shadow's bent legs stood back up on the broken door he had smashed down. Zach glared with flaming red eyes into Raijin's infuriated ones that were truly shocked as to how this had happened. "How?! WHEN?!" Raijin roared at him.

Zach's face was clear through the dark veil that had pulled back into his skin. That darkness still shrouded his eyes though and shadowed over his face under his bangs. His red eyes glared through the shadows at his enemy who he bared his teeth at in fury but also agony at the question Raijin had for him. "That's impossible. You, couldn't have-" Raijin's body twitched and his head made an involuntary cocking motion to the right as he could not process it even with his mental capacity. "You didn't know! I- I just put it here! You didn't know- YOU DIDN'T KNOW! SO HOW?!"

Zach's teeth were grinding as hard as Raijin's were. His face was as full of rage but with far more agony and self-hatred than his enemy. "Before I let her kill herself…"

Forty minutes ago…

A dark mass rose up behind Himiko Toga in a subway tunnel below Tokyo. She stared into the red eyes that flared to life and stared back into hers. "Reaper…"

An arm disconnected from the side of the bulging mass that rose out of the tracks. And the right arm that lifted, swung forward. Its fist opened up and released a knife that lost the black aura around it as it flipped around towards the girl who rose her own left hand and caught it. Toga looked at the blade with a golden hilt that she caught, then she rose her gaze back up at that dark form staring her down. "What do you want me to do with this?" She glared back at the dark form that said nothing. "I-" she turned and glared back the direction she had been going in this tunnel. "I need… Tomura-kun, he- did he know…" Her head turned back and her chin tilted up, her eyes shaking at the sight of the horrifying black bulge that would scare anyone else into tears.

The girl only a year older than Zach just pulled her head back for a different reason though. The rage that covered her face as she marched towards Shigaraki started to fade. Her eyes stared into those red orbs that just glared silently back towards her. "I- they left me- he… Tomura-kun, I need- I…" She lowered her gaze for a moment. He wouldn't have… He did. I know he did. Her hand shook on the golden hilt of Zach's blade that she just wanted to go stab into Shigaraki's throat like she had Slidin' Go whose corpse lay in the tunnel with them now.

Her eyes rose back desperately to Zach. "I need to," she gasped towards him. As if saying it again like that would make him let her go. She stared at him pleadingly, but that dark form did not move. And her eyes lowered back to the blade that he did not toss her for her to go kill Shigaraki with. She looked at it and pursed her lips. Toga Himiko's eyes rose back to Zach's darkness. "Reaper, I… I need to know…" I already know. I need revenge! He- he betrayed me! They all- EVERYONE- Her head shifted more but her gaze could not tear off of the figure in front of her this time. Including you. Hate filled her eyes directed at the figure before her now. She glared at the bulge of Death that had risen in the tunnel and shrouded everything behind it in complete darkness, but that darkness was pushing forward at his sides and looked like it was going to keep moving now.

"…" The dark figure's red eyes glared back into Toga's. Her head shifted slightly and she looked away desperately towards Shibuya. Toga's eyes darted back to the dark creature that did not flinch. It did not change shape nor move in the slightest to acknowledge her yearning. Her desire to go after Shigaraki and find out the truth was ignored. Toga's look of madness started to shift. Her head tilted back and she looked back down at the knife he had tossed her. She turned the blade in her hand. Her eyes softened while lifting from the weapon he had tossed her to the boy ahead of her that she knew was inside of that darkness, somewhere.

Her lips pursed harder but the corners of her lips lifted slightly as she looked up and into Zach's eyes that she did not even glare at anymore. She smiled at him, letting out a single laugh as she did. "Ha," she smiled brightly. The girl naked in that tunnel after losing her disguise as the Prime Minister of Japan, laughed while looking at the boy who she had tricked with her impersonation. "I almost got you," she said with that smile. That dark form did not respond. And then, the top of the dark mass just moved slightly up and back down. It did that as if nodding in agreement that she did in fact almost have him. Then the dark mass started sliding forward on track to move straight past her left side. It moved a bit to its right so that it would slide just by her.

Zach could see the decision in her own mind. The way that she had looked him up and down and glanced around his darkness, before smiling in acceptance at him like that. Her eyes were sad. Despair filled the girl, but she made a choice as he moved towards her in no threatening way like he was about to attack her. Her eyes half-closed and she looked down at the blade in a bit of fear, but she continued to smile through the fear as she considered what was happening here. Her breathing got oddly calm after the decision was made. It was something she heard about people who were drowning. Once the notion that they could be saved was gone, and the water had entered their lungs, it actually became… peaceful. Her heart rate even slowed down as she stared down at the knife she was going to use rather than letting him knock her out here.

At the sight of his form still alive, she knew that Tartaros was her only other option. He's going to win, Toga thought. She did not think it sadly. In fact, a larger piece of her was happy in the thought that those who had betrayed her were about to face off against this creature. It looked so monstrous, but the fact that she was holding this knife in her hand actually disappointed her only in that she knew it was not actually a monster about to go rip apart every one of her old allies. A smaller laugh slipped from her lips as she rose up the blade. You really are kind, Reaper-

"Where is the Apocalypse?"

Zach had stopped on Toga's left side. She had already lifted the blade. Dark lines covered the top of her face. Her heart dropped and then sped up so much faster. Her eyes slowly shifted to the left. Despair that had faded somewhat came back a hundred-fold at that question. His red eyes did not shift towards her. He continued looking past from just at her side. He had stopped moving. The dark mass just stared past without looking at this woman who he could not bring himself to look at after that question.

Tears filled Toga's eyes. The decision had already been made. She had a choice. He gave her a choice, and then right as she was about to take her own life, he asked her that question. The question needed to be answered. It was a threat. If she did not answer, he was going to knock her out. He was about to take away the final choice of her entire life. Her head tilted back farther while her eyes filled so much with tears. Her smile rose back up cheek to cheek after a second.

What was she going to do? Not answer him? Was she really going to change the choice of her life just in spite? The only reason not to answer his question would be for spite, because she did not care enough if the League lost their secret weapon. She wanted those assholes who had betrayed her to lose everything, and so the question did not require much hesitation. Still though, she turned her head slightly to the left and looked at him through her teary eyes. "Ha- ha, you, really are, cruel." Her smiling lips pursed and she bit down on her bottom lip, then she opened her mouth and told him the exact location. There was no reason to lie. She did not want to risk it. She told him the answer, and then she stabbed his knife into her neck and pulled it across her throat.

Her body had not hit the floor, and he was already moving on…

Present

"…I forced her to tell me its location. Because, you left her behind. You had no reason to lie to her about its location," Zach hissed through the rage. "In fact, lying to her would only risk her finding out that you were about to betray her. So why not tell her? She'd be dead before long anyway!" Zach screamed it, even as his eyes were full of tears that made Raijin's enraged face actually pull back this time.

"I'm supposed to be the bad guy here, you know?" Raijin wondered, his tone raising as he questioned Zach as if it was actually the other way around due to what Zach did. Raijin knew enough about how things must have gone down when Zach found Toga to understand what it meant that Zach forced the confession out of her. The way that Zach looked showed him that the confession did not come before Zach gave her the choice, but after, once he was certain that it would not come to impact the decision she needed to make.

Zach's breath hitched. His whole body hurt. Head to toe he was in agony, and yet his heart hurt more than any of the wounds he had sustained so far. He hissed through clenched teeth, "I destroyed every last vial, Kaminari." His enemy's fingers twitched at his sides. Zach's teeth bared harder and he growled while leaning his head forward, "But since you're here, that must mean you were going to skip straight to Apocalypse. Let me guess, your armor alone makes you stronger than Trigger does, and that armor can't handle the excess Electricity that Trigger would give you?" Zach wondered it louder and tilted his head back more while calling out at his enemy he read like a book, "Trigger is useless once you've advanced your technology to a point exceeding the strength of Quirk enhancing drugs, especially if the enhancer would counteract your own gear- YOU FUCK! You were going to use Apocalypse so quickly? Are you that ready to die? Because I could just kill you here if you want me to?! Or- Please! IF YOU'RE READY TO DIE ANYWAY, JUST KILL YOURSELF! DO IT!"

"That'd be quite a defeat," Raijin remarked. His composure returned and he smiled in a cocky way back at Zach. His head leaned forward and his eyes narrowed in competition, "And you know I hate losing."

"I'll kill you. You already know I'll kill you!" Zach yelled. He bit down then snapped, "This proves it. I- I don't want to kill you, but me doing it doesn't make it your win. It just…" Zach's face scrunched up as Raijin cracked a bigger smile back his way and even started laughing under his breath. "It just hurts more," Zach admitted softly, though he shook his head as he knew there was no point in even trying to get out of it. He knows. He tried the Apocalypse option because it's true. I'm going to win. He's looking far enough ahead and has thought of all the options. I thought of them first. I thought of your contingencies. You know I haven't underestimated you. I knew the Apocalypse was on the table. I knew it was in the playing field as soon as I came back here. As soon as I followed Toga into that subway, I had already decided to stop this war.

And so I couldn't turn it off. I couldn't keep myself from forcing that out of her, because I know the best outcomes. I know every last possibility, Kaminari. I'm not letting you win. I stopped you from turning into whatever Apocalypse would have done to you. I prevented the worst possible scenario. So why are you laughing? Is it to make me think you have another vial hidden away somewhere? Or, because, because you just think any outcome now is still your win? Because I have to kill you? Zach's face flushed with anger at the idea of it. So I can't win? "Your death is my victory, as long as it saves everyone else," Zach reminded his enemy who stopped chuckling but continued to smirk at his dark enemy facing him in a cautious manner as Raijin was not fleeing yet. Zach knew the hiding place for the Apocalypse, but he did not stay here when he swept through before meeting Midnight sensei and Diamondfist. He did not check out the wiring in the walls of this room or look inside the lab tables for potentially hidden explosives or generators. After the previous set of traps outside which slowed him down and actually took him fully out of view of Kaminari for a few seconds, he could not risk running into another trap and letting his enemy leave his sight again.

"Until you're dead, you will not leave my sight again," Zach growled. His tone dropped lower and his eyes darkened. Raijin's lips flattened and his eyes darkened as well while glaring back into Zach's.

"Alright then," Raijin replied. "Tell me, Zach. Do you think-"

Zach stomped his right foot into the floor and kicked forward towards Raijin. His stomp broke straight through the floorboards and into cement underneath that his foot dug through before he kicked at his enemy. The pieces of debris were covered in darkness that changed shape while flying at the blond boy who darted to his right to avoid the rubble that could be sharp on the inside and risked slicing through some of his Anti-Death armor. He zipped out of the way, in the direction that Zach predicted he would move. Zach flew at Raijin while the debris he had kicked at his enemy slammed through the drawers and cabinets behind him and blew them all apart. Lab equipment went flying everywhere while shards of wood splintered out in the air around the two boys who clashed with sparks and darkness shooting off their collision. Zach's right arm clashed with Raijin's left in their forearms that pushed against one another, the blond's arm getting pushed backwards more.

No more talking. Zach's conviction was not as shaken as displayed a moment ago. His exclaimed plea for Raijin to kill himself was not a serious request, yet to his enemy it actually sounded as if Zach hoped he might consider it. Zach was just that good of a liar. Even his own thoughts afterwards in frustration about how the fight was over already, were in part to get Kaminari to begin ranting again as his enemy had been so keen to do throughout their battle. He had humored Kaminari during those other confrontations as well. He had spoken with him and argued against him, listened to the horrific things that Raijin taunted him with, and he led Raijin into a false understanding of the 'honor' of their fight. Zach's individual decisions throughout the fight did not all have this one moment in mind, and yet he understood after so many conversations had occurred thus far that it was an option that he finally decided to test out.

And Raijin was surprised. The surprise was not too strong and he was able to dodge, but there was a lack of readiness in his movements that allowed Zach to rush at him after Raijin's first dodge in a direction that Zach had predicted. In that moment, Raijin was only just fast enough to dodge, not quick enough to consider how Zach wanted him to dodge or all the counters he could come up with in a moment. The speed to dodge as the room was breaking apart from Zach's single kick was still incredible, but Zach's speed while having second and third moves in mind already was better. He had the time to recharge but used that time getting to the Apocalypse. He hasn't recharged. I saw his back just now. There are hidden reserves, but how much is the question.

Zach could feel those hidden reserves now. He had seen how little of the vertical bar on Kaminari's back was illuminated in blue when he entered the classroom laboratory and saw his enemy facing the counter. Yet the electricity he felt stabbing into his body as he clashed with his enemy was at a power beyond what the single remaining half-dash would have been able to hit him with when considering how much those bars had dropped during previous attacks of a lower voltage volume. Their arms pushed into each other and Zach leaned his head forward over the collision point. Raijin's right arm flicked up with a bone blade, but Zach's head was dispersing into a cloud of darkness too early that there was not any Death remaining in the space that the tip of the blade flew through. That blade flew all the way up into a ceiling tile where it lodged all the way to the hilt, only for the tile to break apart an instant later as a chunk of cabinet drawer smashed through the side of it and dragged across the ceiling.

Pieces of the ceiling fell down with the debris that had flown upwards from the cement smashing into the back wall. Raijin had flicked his right hand upwards, sending a knife up at Zach's chin, but Zach had more moves planned than his enemy who fell for the feint mixed in with those next moves. Zach therefore kept up the momentum after his initial push by keeping Raijin the same two moves back that allowed Zach to stomp his right foot out of his dark mass and into the floor between Raijin's planted left and where his right was about to touch down after his last step. Zach's left knee was swinging around towards his friend's side that had momentum in it still leading it towards that knee as well.

Raijin's eyes darted down, then right, then up at Zach's eyes, then to different pieces of debris flying around them he considered grabbing onto and using. He was also focused on dodging the individual shards of wood splinters that should not be strong enough to break his armor, but might be sharp enough to pierce through at the speeds they were flying. There was other debris mixed in with the wood too that had better chances of creating a rip in the tense environment they were in. When his second foot was almost touching down on the floor, he stomped it back towards Zach's foot that stepped between his legs. He slammed the heel of his right foot onto the top of Zach's foot that lost a veil of Death around it and showed his white boot ripping through Zach's burnt skin there and peeling off a blister that spurted blood out.

Zach's right arm that he pushed against Raijin's left at the start suddenly pushed harder. He turned his enemy who accepted that Zach had more force than he could push back with. Instead, Kaminari accepted he was being spun around and bounced back off the foot he stomped on Zach's as well as his other. He twisted his body while rising up over Zach's incoming knee that just passed below his body. Raijin's left arm swung around and towards Zach's head that was in mid-reformation after turning to gas to avoid the first knife. Raijin did not have a weapon in his hand this time, but his glove was anti-Death and had ridges on the fingers to allow for better grip. Those ridges gripped onto Zach's face through the darkness, and he tore to the side and ripped through with more blood splashing out of the dark cloud.

"Nn-" Raijin felt a prick. The shadowy right arm that pushed his left harder had had a fist clenched tightly and looking like it would punch in at him if he got the pressure to knock the blocking arm away. Zach pushed his enemy at a specific moment that Raijin thought was just Zach putting the extra force to knock him off-balanced and easier for his knee to slam into. The reality of the specific moment was when Zach saw the individual flying object that Raijin's eyes had not yet darted towards and scanned over like they had everything else in the field of play.

His right hand opened up while his enemy had been spinning around. Raijin's left hand that reached for Zach's face connected and gripped into the head that started pulling back slower than Zach could have dodged, which he imagined Raijin blamed on Zach not yet having put his eyes back where they should be so his reaction time was delayed. Zach knew how fast Raijin was reaching forward though. He knew his enemy was trying to get back the upper hand, go on the offensive in a moment that Zach was attacking due to an "imagined" weakness in the villain that Raijin was going to abuse. Zach was still a step ahead though from his surprise kick through the floor. He was only one step ahead now, but the environment around him worked in his favor as he spotted the scalpel flying from one of the drawers. It was on its downwards arc after getting tossed up at the start so it was not flying straight at them in any directly threatening manner that Raijin needed to concern himself with. But when it was coming back down, Zach saw the trajectory and how he could use it. He made Raijin turn, and in that moment he caught the blade and flipped it to keep it hidden out of sight as Raijin's head finished spinning so that Zach's hand was back in a clenched fist when the blond moved in for an offensive.

Zach slashed. The blade was thin. He did not jab it, as that would require too much of a stabbing motion with his arm. He punched the fist but missed below his enemy who jumped up. The scalpel flipped up though as Zach's fist passed below, as Raijin grabbed onto his face and yanked to the side while pressing hardest near Zach's eyes with his ribbed-fingers. Blood splashed from Zach's face. Then lightning zapped out and filled the entire room with flashing lights of yellow and sparking explosions from all the actual light fixtures and electrical outlets. Zach's entire right arm went numb. His fingers lost control and dropped the scalpel that Raijin's eyes darted down to with his eyes bulging and twitching in fury.

Zach stumbled backwards and nearly fell over from the electricity that slammed into him from point blank and in direct contact with him from Raijin's body to the scalpel blade to his own bare skin. His right hand charred again. The arm that had looked healed before was now burnt bright red and black. Skin peeled. Smoke came off of his whole body. And Zach stomped both feet hard into the floor that cracked worse below him in a section of the room farther from where he had kicked through before and still structurally sound so it was as if breaking through a solid slab of cement all over again just by putting more pressure on his heels.

Kaminari bounced backwards then zipped across the center of the room to the far side. He landed on a lab table with both hands down between his feet, and he curled his fingers in the middles over the edge of the table so he had the ability to dart in almost all directions in the next instant. He gave himself that position while staring towards his enemy shrouded in a black veil of Death that was twitching and glitching around his own unstable form. Zach looked to be slowed. His Death appeared to be under his control and yet paused at different moments that his body inside the veil twitched, and his head turned in jolting cocking movements to glare towards where Raijin had stopped due to Zach's immobility.

Raijin's eyes shifted down towards his chest for a moment then right back up at his enemy. He stared towards the dark-haired hero who glared back into his eyes with bloodshot ones dripping red from the corners. Then Zach too glanced down Raijin's chest and back up again. Zach did not smile in a cocky manner at the success that had Raijin's teeth grinding and his eyes flaring with rage. Zach just looked resigned but determined. He had accepted his fate. "Step one," Zach growled. His fingers twitched at his sides. His right hand was blackened and bloody, but the fingers that were curling into a fist stopped and then opened back up so his hand was more of an open palm.

Zach had a two step plan. It was simple. Raijin knew that plan, and even though he knew, there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening. His armor had been cut through. Now, Zach was going to touch him with his bare right hand.

The scalpel did not cut deep. Zach pressed the blade against his enemy's armor between his stomach and chest while Raijin's hand was connecting with his face. It felt to Raijin as if Zach's fist that was missing below his body had pushed upwards and was trying to claw through as he swung around. Despite feeling the sharpness of the supposed fist, he assumed that any sharp Death projection that Zach protruded from his hand would break apart against his armor as the previous attempts had. The scalpel only pushed harder after not breaking through at first, and Zach pierced his enemy's costume then skin with it. Raijin pushed out all his Electricity in that moment. He forced his enemy away and created a gap between them, but Zach's eyes just shifted down to the bloody cut around Raijin's sternum that could be seen dripping through the villain's armor.

Move! Raijin stared into Zach's bloodshot eyes and opened his mouth. He darted backwards. The wall behind him sparked and Zach flew towards it as fast as he could. Raijin dropped down and darted towards the entrance of the room. Zach snapped his eyes towards his enemy then back at the wall that Raijin hit some wiring inside of. There was no hidden trap inside the wall about to blow it open and allow Raijin out that way as Zach feared. He shot back after his enemy towards the door of the room as Raijin pushed straight through the dark humanoid figures that flew in his way over there. They managed to make him swing his arms forward though to create the gap and not absorb any, a waste of movements when Zach's main body flew behind him so close…

Raijin zapped across the hallway. He flicked his index finger to the left, and Zach wasted a movement by darting his eyes over towards a spot on the floor that Raijin seemed to target intentionally. He was slow in sending a whip of darkness over to intercept and prevent the activation- of another nothing. There was nothing there, and yet Zach still believed fully that he had to stop Raijin from getting across the next classroom that Raijin turned into instead of continuing down the hallway. Zach smashed through the side wall between the front and back of that room while some of his body still with red eyes chased Raijin straight through the doorway only a couple of feet behind him. Black wings flapped off that other figure and propelled it straight at the enemy who did a front-flip and stabbed backwards while upside-down into the face and chest of the dark creature flying far too fast to turn away in order to stop Raijin from reaching wherever he was going in this classroom.

Kaminari stabbed Zach's dark flying figure twice in vital areas. The bone blades pierced through what was only a dark projection, and wisps coming off the sides of it still shot forward like arrows and created a wave around Kaminari's legs that sparked with Electricity as he was about to collide into the side wall farther from the door of the classroom. His Electricity destabilized that Death trying to prevent his legs from touching that wall, and then the Anti-Death armor on those boots pushed that gaseous darkness out of the way so his boots touched directly against the white-painted wall.

Yellow and blue lines zapped through the wall so brightly that they glowed visibly through the inside of it. They wrapped around the inner walls of the room all the way to the opposite side that Zach was in the middle of busting through. His red eyes on the Death figure that he was actually completely inside of darted around inside of the breaking wall. He stared at the wires that were disconnected from the other walls and thus disconnected batteries from the C4 explosives also stuffed inside the insulation. A secret panel on the ceiling opened up above Raijin, and he flung himself up through it in a bolt of lightning that moved slightly slower than usual as his pack ran low.

BOOOOM!

Raijin sprinted down a hallway on the floor above. He was just ahead of the explosion racing behind him. He darted his eyes to the left and saw a pair of teachers who were hiding in a room here wobbling around and in shock down that hallway. His eyes snapped back forward but he did not smirk as he saw the flash of darkness in the corner of his vision even as the floorboards below those teachers were breaking into pieces. Raijin sprinted at the window at the end of the hall and jumped into it with his arms crossed.

He flew out of the building and landed down on the street that he darted to the left on and headed south. His feet pressed down into the ground hard with each step. Raijin slapped his left arm up from his side and towards the street sign ahead of him on the left side of the street. The corner slab of the sidewalk there dropped into a gap below and a generator popped up in its place. A thin bolt of Electricity connecting them became thicker while pulling into Raijin's extended arm. As he kept sprinting forward too, the distance between the generator and him shrank, but he could not shrink that distance completely as he had to spin around to check. His right arm shot up as he was spinning around while in full-sprint at a sudden moment he barely even thought about so it would be more random.

The dark figure in mid-flap of his wings slammed them down harder. Raijin was already more than halfway turned though as Zach tried to expel even more Death to fly fast enough to hit him before Raijin's right arm made it up. But the Death Zach needed to give him that extra pulse of strength was still flying back towards him from the area he lowered the surviving civilians he rescued from Waseda's halls. He made it eight meters from his enemy before the burst of lightning flew from Raijin's right palm and slammed him in his chest. Zach flapped his wings forward at his sides to try and change his momentum backwards and to the right, but Raijin stopped his own momentum first and pushed his right arm forward harder while continuing to siphon more and more power from the generator he did not sprint right past this time.

The helmet visor Raijin had on was shifting through different HUD screens. The Head-Up Display showed him the number he was searching for, and it connected him into the systems that he demanded. Zach dropped down to his feet and stumbled backwards, crossing his arms in front of him to protect from the waves of electricity that kept getting stronger and stronger. His wings pulled into his body while his arms grew thicker with darkness for protection. He'll run out- Zach tried telling himself it, but his eyes slammed shut and his shaky right leg buckled to drop almost to a knee. His leg shook so much but he kept off that knee hovering only inches from the floor, his toes sliding back on the floor behind it while his whole body leaned backwards. Raijin swung his left arm forward from the drained generator and yelled out, "HAAAA!"

The extra arm doubled the size of the bright yellow beam slamming into Zach's crossed arms. The Death that flew at Zach from his back wrapped around his body only to get seared away by the blinding yellow flash hitting him. Zach squinted his red eyes back open and they darted up over the beam. He stared with his teeth clenching even harder as his whole body shook and blood dripped from both corners of his lips. He bit harder even as blood pushed between the cracks of his teeth. It came out of his eyes, and his right arm could barely stay up as it was still so numb from the direct electrocution fifteen seconds earlier. The reason he bit down harder was because he saw that there was no imminent end to the amount of lightning that Raijin was firing at him. AANT after AANT was flying around the corners of the intersection and towards Raijin's back. Dozens of robots flew towards the executive of the League of Villains who laughed inside his helmet as he watched the display of the dropping battery life in his pack recharge faster than he could deplete it.

Small bolts of lightning flashed out of Raijin's sides and from his back into the many robots flying towards him. Those thin bolts expanded and pulsed back into his body with all the power from the robots he was stealing from. Buildings around Raijin started connecting to him with thicker bolts of lightning that tapped into the wiring and backup generators that those buildings owned in cases of emergency. They went into the power lines and into people's appliances they may have left plugged into outlets on the walls, and it stole all of the electricity in a widening radius around him that all funneled straight to his pack and then into his arms that he slammed forward farther while stepping back in Zach's direction.

"DID YOU THINK IT WAS OVER?!" Raijin roared out over the sounds of shattering glass and exploding appliances that were being overloaded at random by the surges of power coursing through them more powerful than they were prepared for. Electrical wiring was shredding apart all over the area as Raijin took too much for them to handle. He bent his elbows while stomping his right foot forward, then he pushed both arms out straight in front of him and made the beam of yellow flashing light much thicker as it pushed into Zach's arms. "DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT WAS ALL IT TAKES, TO KILL ME?!"

Death continued pouring out of Zach though straight in front of his arms. It collected there in a wall that looked shaky, then started to solidify, then started to change shape too. The top of the wall grew wider and thicker, and the sides of it curved down towards the pavement that took enough of the electricity on its own and dispersed it as a bad conductor to damage Zach. His right leg pushed its foot down harder into pavement that dipped below his foot and created a divot for him to stay steadier in. Zach was breathing heavy, but he pulled out the reserves and filled the space in front of him. He's taking all reserves nearby. If I keep the fight here, preventing him from getting to another district, then this is his resting place. His squinted eyes opened back up fully even as he used more Death than he would have liked to just to have it ripped away by the lightning on the other side of the wall that pushed into him as a powerful beam… but nowhere near as strong as the strongest beam he had ever had to hold off like this before.

The beam cut off.

Zach stood up straight from his half-bent position. He sucked all of his Death back inside from the Death Shield he had produced. He did not move recklessly though. Zach could see the pulsing blue lines inside of Raijin's armor. He could not see around his enemy's back, but he did not need to to guess that the dashes on that backpack were filled up.

Raijin did not continue to force out that lightning in an attempt at a clash of attrition. Who knows how great his reserves still are? It could be less than what my radius of collection in this one spot could handle alone, and I just gave up my best chance of depleting him fully and killing him here. Or he has enough to handle everything here and more. I'll hinge my bets on the second option. Raijin cracked his neck to either side after stopping when he chose to do so. His HUD still had the same screen up, and he summoned more robots that showed up around him but did not immediately send him all the power inside. He did not care that he was leaving many of his allies in the neighboring districts at severe disadvantages against hero teams that they were staying close to in their fights solely because of the League's AANT arsenal backing them up.

"Tell me, Zach," Kaminari started to his friend standing on this street with him. Zach could tell that most buildings around them were evacuated already. They had clear signs of quick evacuations, and there were not even any other villains around here, because there were no heroes for them to fight either as the heroes were not bothering to guard in areas where everyone had been evacuated. From what Zach could tell, it was only those people who ignored evacuation orders and stayed at Waseda back behind him who were in the vicinity, and even those people were far away at the moment which left them a great battlefield to fight in. "Does one little cut really put you in command of this fight?"

Zach's eyes were glowing red even as his body lost the remaining Death around it other than the thin veil around his waist. Zach had stood back up straight, but he could not keep his body standing steadily as he glared down his enemy. He rose his left arm that had no fake skin on it, and he wiped some blood from below his eyes, then he spat some more on the floor to his left- "Ack, kah uck, ugh, agh-" Zach coughed more than he would have liked. He kept his eyes open during the fit, allowing blood to spray from his lips before he spat another glob of spit with more blood in it onto the floor in front of him.

"How many of your internal injuries did you really repair with your regeneration power, Zach?" Raijin wondered towards his enemy. "And how many have you just been avoiding by keeping your insides as Death this whole time? You know you can't do that forever. I know you can't," Raijin added as a taunt.

How? Recovery Girl? She must have taken files. The school had them on record. The Prime Minister could have gotten his hands on them. Or, he's just guessing. Kaminari's that smart. It doesn't need to be any form of betrayal. Zach took in a deeper breath, then he coughed but kept it back in his throat this time while balling both fists at his sides. His right arm shook as he clenched his fist like that. And then he gasped out, and his body waved forward as he nearly collapsed. His vision turned blurry, and Raijin's eyebrows rose up with his lips dropping flat for a moment before curving up high at the corners as the surprise wore off immediately.

That's not a feint! Raijin thought in glee. He called out, "How are your injuries, my friend?" Zach's eyes dragged back up from the floor he just stared at in shock through blurry vision. "Most people couldn't stand after all you've taken. You're well beyond your limits! It must be exhausting!" Raijin's taunts filled Zach's ears through the pounding of his own heart that he forced to remain in his chest no matter how much shooting pain was coursing through his internal organs at that moment.

Is it exhaustion? Zach wondered. It is. This is fatigue. How? Am I this tired? Most people would be. I can handle it though- but I'm not. I'm showing him weakness. He can abuse it. Utilize this and rush off while I'm so weak- why?! It's, because of the blood loss, but it's something else. Something that drains my energy. Something, that I need to do again right now, Zach closed his eyes slightly but he took another deep breath and did not start coughing this time. If I lose even one more liter of blood, I'll likely collapse. I'm strong, but human limitations… Zach's thoughts cut off and his breathing steadied more. His half-closed eyes got darker still while he glared at Raijin with his hunched over body leaning back to straighten out again.

"Human limitations are just excuses the weak invented," Zach spoke. His voice was dark. It carried to his enemy who lowered the corners of his huge smirk back down into a confident smile. The taunting look was gone. In a single response, Zach had taken away Raijin's feeling that he was seeing Zach on his last legs. It instantly reminded him of everything he had ever seen from his friend who just said something to him that he did not doubt was what Zach really believed in that moment. Zach breathed out deeply and thought, That's what Eziano said. He was a bastard, but he was right. Nothing can come in my way if I don't let it.

"True, very true," Raijin responded towards his enemy who was calming down and steadying despite the damage that Raijin was just thinking had finally caught up with him. Raijin glanced down at his own chest. "But if that's true, then you are certainly not the only person who can exploit the limitless potential of humanity." His eyes rose back up and his smirk grew more as sparks flew off of his skin around the bloody mark over his sternum.

Zach's eyes snapped down to Raijin's chest and the wound that was hard to see through the armor. Lightning sparked around it though. Electricity zipped in and out of his costume, like a needle sewing thread. And the skin underneath that was so resistant to heat and electricity, was hit by power that Raijin knew exceeded his body's ability to handle. He had tested his limits extensively. He knew how much it would take to burn his own flesh, and he exceeded that limit and cauterized his own tiny wound in such a precise way as to not damage himself greatly or put himself into shock. Only the specific parts of his skin on either side of the flesh wound were hit by enough excess Electricity for them to melt together. His wound sealed on his own. The skin zipped itself up. And Raijin smirked at his enemy who he called over to, "How about that? I can regenerate too."

Zach's bloodshot eyes glared towards his enemy's. Finger treads on his face showed where Raijin had dug in and tore to the side. Burns covered his whole body. Blisters all over his skin had popped during the fight. Bloody footprints were already forming below Zach's feet as they had anywhere he stood for too long during this battle. "Regeneration?" Zach wondered. The sky high above darkened. Raijin's lips stayed in a smile even as the clouds swirled up high above them. "That was your Quirk," Zach reminded his enemy. He has the power to move from this neighborhood. He has more to siphon all over, and I can't let him out of my sight again or he'll kill. I need to not get any weaker. I have strength that I'm not utilizing.

What is it that turns the sky dark? Eziano could fly. I saw him lift off the ground with no Quirk that could allow him to do such a thing. Flight still wastes Death. Wings. Pulsing from any part of my body. And yet Eziano and Ares could each fly on their own. I killed Ares. I can regenerate. How could they fly? Was it the pressure that I felt around them? Energy- some sort of natural energy, or the potential energy in the air all around me? It's not that I don't have the power! It's only that I haven't learned how to control it. My own pressure- the force of my being alone is causing natural phenomena that shakes the world around me. I know enough to be able to figure out that I am creating the storm on my own. Ares brought a storm that covered Korea. His power radiated enough to change the shade of the world, alter the atmosphere- he could grab objects from unknown distances and cut mountains with a single slash of a blade! AND I KILLED HIM!

Lightning shot out of the storm clouds high above. The sky rumbled and dark clouds churned dangerously, and rain started to fall from them. That rain was still high up though and had not fallen on the boys down on the street yet. Flying comes second. All the powers of Eziano and Ares mean nothing if I'm too exhausted to use them. And I know what is exhausting me right now more than anything. It was fixing my right arm. I can feel it. I felt it before he zapped my arm just now. It's brittle. Brittle because I did not regenerate it enough. I fixed the bone, but fixing a bone requires as much pain as Death. Each moment of it sealing itself is like feeling it break and then un-break, over and over, until it reaches a point where it no longer needs to be broken again because it is stronger. Regenerating makes me tired, but losing blood is what will take me out of the fight. I'm not dying here. I made promises! And so, I can't let these wounds continue to drain me. I can't let them kill me, just knowing that I'll have taken out Kaminari first and that's fine. I won't be able to kill him at all if I fall first. I know I have the will. I can do this. But, sometimes physical limitations are beyond what will alone can surpass, and yet it is also my will that can allow me to force regeneration beyond what I've already accomplished.

"Ahh… hahhhh," Zach took in and released a long breath. Wind whipped around his body. Blood dripped from his fingers, one last time. Then his right hand curled into a fist. His toes dug down into the floor below him. His knees bent and his elbows pulled in at his sides. "I will not allow you to win." Zach's voice came out seething. His head snapped up and his body tensed, pulsing in a visible way that caused a wind to expel from his figure rather than just swirl around him. As Raijin looked closer he saw something that looked like more than just wind this time. It was more visible due to the falling raindrops that pushed away from the boy who was about to be surrounded in them which would make him an easier target for the smirking villain about to zap the rain and attack the hero.

The white veil that emerged out of Zach's body kept the rain from touching him. The dry ground under Zach's feet cracked and then the entire street on both sides of him and in front and behind all started cracking. The branches of those cracks spread all the way out just in front of Kaminari who took a step back from Zach. He took the step back to be farther from potentially unstable ground, but he did not flee. He watched his enemy who was just coughing up blood and looked to be too shaky on his legs to still be the threat that Raijin knew Zach to be. It made Raijin's heart race excitedly and his lips to purse as he stared in amazement at the enemy in front of him who roared out in sheer agony while snapping his head backwards. The white veil flared at that roar and raged like an out-of-control fire surrounding his body.

"RRAAAAAAHGGG! HAAAA- I WON'T!" Zach screamed. His chin slammed down into his chest that was steaming and turning darker red like all of his skin around his body. "I won't let you win. I WON'T- I'll use, as little Death as possible… so I can save it for reviving everyone else! I WILL!" Zach screamed, then he bit down even harder as his bloody cuts started to seal. Biting down did not last as he let out a bloodcurdling scream again, "RAAAA- AAAAHHHH RRAAAAAAA!" His elbows pulled in harder to his sides. His muscles all tore up and healed themselves. His skin felt like it was on fire. Steam came off of his right arm, again. But this time it came off his torso too. It seared off of Zach's front and his back. His elbows shook into his sides, his chin pushed down into his chest in agony, and the wind whipping around him started to get faster and faster.

"How does my regeneration really work?!" Zach bellowed loudly as he was forcing it. As his skin around his neck burned in the agony of forcing regeneration, as it did under his black veil on his waist, and on his legs, and on the tops and bottoms of his feet too. "It isn't Death that speeds me up. Death, accentuates my power. It is growth. Power. Raw power, that I can translate… ahh- AHHH- POWER! That I can use, for many things…" Zach gagged as he felt his insides breaking down and pulling back together. The white aura around him pulsed stronger.

Rrrmm- BA-BOOOM! KA-CRSH! DOOOOF-Ba-KOOM! Thunder blasted in the sky above them that darkened deeper as Zach's legs shook on ground cracking more and more under the pressure of his power. "Where does it begin? Where does it end?" Zach called out, cocking his head to the side and glaring towards Kaminari but with the right corner of his lips twitching up then down again in the pain.

Raijin's excitement was still there, but his eyes were darting all around and then snapped back onto Zach's alone. Even Zach's eyes were less bloodshot now and just had red irises in the middles of them. The most recent damage to his face was sealing shut with thicker steam pushing out of the closing wounds around his eyes that glowed through the veil. Zach's muscles flexed and bulged, his whole body looking leaner and yet stronger and stronger. He grew an inch. And in the whipping wind, his wavy black hair started to push upwards off the top of his head. His body hunched forward, and Raijin could see the steam searing off of all the horrible burn scars and bloody gashes covering Zach's body. And as those were sealing, Zach screamed out in growing pains that did not just show on his height and the size of his body advancing in time.

He's, making himself older?! The impossible thought filled the villain's mind. Even in his intelligence to understand what he was seeing, it was too hard to believe. "This has to be Death!" Raijin screamed towards his enemy. HOW?! He hasn't killed anyone! I believed his nonsense about not using his Quirk, because I know there are limits to Death, but if not and he's doing this with his Quirk then where is the excess coming from?! "You can't have this much left! YOU CAN'T, be getting any stronger… if this is Death-"

"I'm not sure that it isn't!" Zach yelled out, his head snapping up even as the black hair waving over the top of his head continued to get longer. His rage-filled expression was so intense that it knocked Raijin's head back for a moment as Zach's changed eyes rose and glared through him. Zach's body sealed up. His skin lost the burns but stayed dark red all over it while steam continued to wisp out of every inch of his darkening form. His black hair extended in length over the top of his head while the sky cracked and his white veil glowed in the middle of the street as bright as Raijin had been glowing during his beam of lightning that he had fired at Zach a minute before. Zach smirked back towards his enemy who he called towards in a menacing way sounding intimidating and full of malice, "But Kaminari, tell me! How much Death is in the city right now?!"

Raijin's lips flattened and his wide eyes stared back in an anxious way at the question just asked of him. As the street they were on shook and the atmosphere around them darkened outside of the direct aura surrounding Zach, Raijin stared into his enemy's eyes and saw Zach seriously asking him that question. "What do we really know about Quirks?" Zach wondered towards him, as his longer hair whipped around in the last of the strongest winds then fell behind his back halfway to his waist. "About my Quirk in particular?" Zach added to narrow down the vague question he wondered towards his enemy.

"Is it that my body just blew apart so badly from the bomb that it's all still gradually pulling towards me in tiny molecules that had scattered around the city before I pulled myself together? Death particulate so small that we cannot see it with out human eyes, and yet it is constantly finding its way back to me? Or is it something else? Is it that there's more Death in the air than just my own destroyed body? Is that how I keep fighting as the battles go on into their late hours?! When all hope should be lost, because the deaths are racking up, is that how I maintain the ability to fight long after anyone else?!" Zach screamed towards his enemy. His questions did not sound like he was taunting him about the true nature of his Quirk. Rather, Zach yelled these things as if they were all possibilities that could exist because not even he knew enough about Quirks to have all the answers himself.

"What IS Death?" Zach demanded of his enemy. "Where is it?!" He yelled. His suggestion that each death in the city was adding to his own strength was a terrible prospect to his opponent who had to question himself in that instant if Zach was solely yelling this out to keep him from killing anyone else in fear that it would strengthen Zach even more. But Zach continued to him in a way sounding truly interested, "I wonder if you're really the only one with 'unlimited' supply in this city. Maybe, Kaminari, I don't really need to be the one who kills for my Death to get stronger in a city like this?! With Death all around us!"

"It isn't Death," Raijin growled. He said it in a low and dark voice towards his enemy who he decided was pulling all of this out of his ass. His Quirk couldn't do this. Zach didn't make the storm over Muindo that night. It wasn't Maelstrom either though. I thought, maybe his army had to have shown up, trying to help him or something. But it was Ares. And Zach's learning. He's learning how to control that vast power he absorbed from his enemy that night. Strength he hasn't had to tap since that fight. "I've been making you stronger throughout our battle, but you've been doing the same for me." Kaminari smiled towards his friend, "You're teaching me. Making me stronger. Better equipped to defeat you-"

"You can never defeat me," Zach snarled back. "Because it's as you say. It's as I have feared, more than anything else in my entire life." Zach's teeth clenched but he still forced the corners of his lips up while glaring down his opponent. "Maybe I am immortal." He admitted it with that forced smile so pained as he could not hide the agony in his expression and could not even attempt to. It was easier to say in this moment though even as he added, "I can definitely live longer than most men. Maybe not immortal, but if I'm stronger than Ares? How long… Long enough." He did not finish with the question that would terrify him too much to ask, especially since he was already accepting it. His tone just shifted darker and his eyes narrowed at the enemy who he was going to live long enough to see dead here.

"Kaminari, do you know how my regeneration really works?" Zach asked. "It's rapid cellular regeneration. And it has to come at a cost, however I understand that cost well. By speeding up those processes, I'm aging. Losing time by making them happen far quicker. Body processes that would occur over weeks and months, or years for certain injuries, can be healed in mere instants." Zach said this in a calm voice. He threatened his enemy with the truth even though Kaminari just told him that Zach's instructions were helping him. The sheer confidence to boast of this power against an enemy who thought himself to be matching Zach step for step, was like telling the villain that he had no doubt that he was going to kill him here despite the resistance Raijin had put up so far. Zach rose his voice louder, "And it isn't taking the time it would have taken and condensing it, but exponentially increasing that natural amount of time as well because that's the cost of making it happen instantly, whereas my body can only handle doing it on its own slightly faster right now."

"Doing it instantly? Healing wounds like these, right now?!" Zach yelled out while his body that had looked like a complete mess only a minute before now appeared to be undamaged.

He still lost the blood. He's closed off the injuries, because he knew he couldn't lose any more. Opening new wounds forces him to waste more years, but he won't reach his time limit that he can abuse before reaching the limit that his body can take. Both from blood loss and the fatigue that putting that much stress on his body for the first time must be wearing him down. Let's see how long he can keep it going then! Raijin tilted his own head back and smirked towards his enemy who was still going on at him in a way that was supposed to force the villain into despair and a realization of the futility of their battle.

Zach ground his teeth but kept yelling out, "You call me a God! You want to live forever with me, because you understand what this power means for my mortality! What does that mean, Kaminari? If I really do have that much time?! If I've stored up years and years of life… then what is it to reduce my lifespan? What are a few years of my life, if it means killing you?" Zach asked this while the winds stopped whipping around him at all. The sky stayed dark and rainy, but Zach's body no longer needed to heal and just stood steadily in front of an enemy whose armor was fully charged, and had a cut on it. Zach balled his fists and thought of a thousand first moves to make against his enemy right here. And aside from his combat thoughts was another thought train, I forced myself older. I guess I did have a little more to grow. How many years did I just- it doesn't matter. Progressing my cellular regeneration a hundred times more than the natural progression already had. My burns sealed. My skin is darker, like the dark reds of my burns were sunburns turning into a tan. I can feel my hair down my back. Did it accelerate at the same rate or did I just force some regeneration too high in my head trying to get my eyes? It's exhausting. But the wounds are gone.

Black wisps swirled off of Zach's shoulders. They poured from his fingertips and wisped off his back near his shoulder blades and all the way down his spine. The agony of forcing his body forward in time was still pounding inside of him. The memory of pain and the pain itself were not too far apart. Torn muscles ripping from the strain he put his body under had been healed by the same processes used to fix bones and organs and skin. The black lines swirling around his brain to unlock the limits that his advanced mental capacity understood just zipped through faster and faster as he analyzed the upcoming fight. It was no different from how Raijin's mind looked at the moment with the bolts of lightning zapping across synapses faster and faster. Signals shot through all the cortexes of his mind that controlled his memories and reflexes and instincts.

He's right, Raijin thought to himself. Excuses are for the weak. I was right to go for the Apocalypse, because this is really a God in front of me. Excuses are what weak men make though. I am not a man anymore. Just like you, Zach. I have become a God. And if you continue to accelerate your growth and get stronger throughout our battle, then I understand defeating you requires that I do the same. By the time this fight is over, my old friend, I will have surpassed you. "Well then," Kaminari spoke towards his enemy. He turned himself side-face and rose his arms up with his fingers curled in a martial arts stance. "Show me this new strength you've acquired. I'll show you mine."

This isn't Round Two. This is it. "One touch of my hand on your skin." Zach turned himself into a fighting stance to follow Kaminari's movements. He wants a fight though. Accept. Don't just taunt for the sake of not giving him the satisfaction. If he wants to fight head-to-head, it keeps us closer and keeps us away from civilians. I'll take him anywhere, but killing him comes secondary. It has to. "And that's it." He burned through a lot of Death. I can't revive the city without his power. It's something I've never considered. Killing Switch was in the moment. But I've decided to use the power of killing Kaminari to revive everyone. Premeditated murder. Everyone knows it. I don't care. His expression sturdied and his enemy's did the same as their bodies erupted in their respective auras. "I'm going to kill you now, Kaminari. Thank you."

"Goodbye."

---

"DIE!" Gigantomachia roared out. His right arm finished swinging downwards, and the giant in front of him had a huge tear from his left shoulder all the way down past his waist inside the cloak he was wearing. The giant of Ectoplasm ripped apart down the diagonal gash. The enormous ectoplasm-based giant that the U.A. teacher had created was falling backwards. The right leg it had kicked up towards Machia's side was just turning to goop like the rest of him as he fell backwards. It had connected with Machia only to bounce off to no effect, not even slowing the larger monster's swing at him. Ectoplasm's white eyes were wide and his voice cut off from the gasp of pain he had made when Machia's arm did not stop on his shoulder but instead tore straight through him.

That wasn't, long enough, Ectoplasm thought. He cursed his own weakness in his head as he was falling backwards feeling too weak to maintain this giant form for any longer.

Bakugo flew upwards anyway though. Machia's right hand curled into a fist and was pulling back up as if to slam down once more and finish off his falling teacher. Bakugo's hands pointed down inside the thinner gauntlets that Hatsume had sent him last. He had trained with these most recent prototypes only once and under her close watch because they were faulty and she needed to see where improvements could be made. He was confident that she had fixed those issues based on how well they had been holding up so far, but having thinner gauntlets also meant that the amount of sweat that could be collected inside of them was less. They were more compact, more durable, and they had not been destroyed yet which was more than he could say about his other sets and the majority of his costume that had been destroyed already.

"Midoriya, Bakugo, the two of you injured yourselves too much in the first round…" Bakugo heard a voice echoing in his head that made his teeth bare harder even as he flew up high with a giant crazed smile across his face. His eyes were locked straight with Gigantomachia's that shifted from Ectoplasm to the boy flying up towards his head that towered higher than it had so far in the battle. That just makes the target bigger, Bakugo thought. He kept his gaze locked with Machia's eyes even though he focused more on the dark marks under the monster's chin near the top of its chest and just below the neck. In his head flashed the look of pain and the sounds of pain mixed in with the rage when his more precise Explosions had been fired inside of Gigantomachia's mouth earlier.

His attempt to focus on the fight thus far was interrupted by his old homeroom teacher's voice again though, "…Sometimes real fights happen one after the other. Recovery Girl won't always be there for you like she was after the second event. If there was no break for other activities and lunch though, how many of you would have been able to give it all you have in the final round?" Aizawa sensei's voice echoed in Bakugo's mind. He thought of the sludge villain, and of Meta, but in this moment he could see everything around him. The damaged and destroyed buildings, his classmates and allies about to make their moves or currently making them, and the defeated heroes and dead civilians they had failed to protect. Gigantomachia swung at Bakugo a fist that was so heavy that it would either kill Bakugo or pass by with such insane force that if the boy dodged, it would annihilate Ectoplasm.

The punch was aimed downwards. Bakugo swerved and avoided the punch without concerning himself anymore with his teacher's safety. A speeding blur in a yellow costume flew behind Bakugo and into the side of the shrinking darker giant. Gran Torino grabbed onto the most solid mass of Ectoplasm inside of his gooey form. He tackled Ectoplasm away and then grit his teeth in pain while forcing as much power as he could out of his feet using his Jets. The powerful wind pulling behind him yanked all of the ectoplasm down with it and sent that goo slamming into the floor and splattering out in all directions. Gran Torino made it away with a coughing regular-sized Ectoplasm though, and he glanced over his shoulder and up in the air where Bakugo rose so much higher after dodging the punch, bringing Machia's eyes up as well after him.

Plamo and Mudman moved after ducking away from the splashing Quirk of their defeated teacher. Bondo sprinted out of his hiding place and pushed his head forward to start spraying the Cemedine out of the holes on his face. Honenuki slammed his hands both on the floor while glaring towards Machia's left leg. As Bakugo flew up high in the air and drew Machia's gaze after him that high, Uraraka watched from the edge of a building she held onto the side of. She floated weightless there and waited until the giant's eyes were too high up that she would be below its peripheral vision before making her move. I believe in you, Bakugo. This will work! You'll make it work! She swung her arms backwards and threw herself from the corner of the building so that she could cross the road towards another more weakened one that her eyes locked onto.

"…You should think on that though, and try to avoid making these mistakes in the future." Bakugo heard his teacher on the day he died. In their second Sports Festival, before the finals could begin, Bakugo heard his teacher's voice. The last advice Aizawa gave to them before he would never see his sensei alive again. At the lunch table where he congratulated them for making it that far. I failed that day by not being ready to face Inhuman. I wasn't able to face other villains after what should have been hard spars at best. In a time like this, real fight after real fight, I can't leave myself… I have to. Sensei, you were right. I finished off Meta quickly for exactly that reason, but, Gigantomachia is the most powerful. Like Inhuman was that day, and I maintained my strength to make it to this fight unharmed- though I wasted a gauntlet on Meta. It wasn't wasted. I did that for speed. Because haste is necessary. I was needed elsewhere. Everywhere. And I'm letting him stop me?!

I know Raijin is out there, and Shigaraki… but ultimately I can't fight here as if I'll have to fight more afterwards either. It's impossible to hold back for any longer, but if I know I'm going to get taken out of commission? Then, then nothing. Bakugo was not making his moves carelessly. Even now as his comrades moved and assisted him with a plan he assured them all he had, just by looking their ways or calling out their names, he still questioned it. Even as he moved into position himself, he searched for the alternatives that he had struggled to find but knew he needed to at least search for until the very last second. Aizawa sensei was right. You shouldn't let yourself get beaten too early, injured too early, and I don't know if this is early in the war or one of the last fights. I don't know anything about the state of the rest of the city, so I should act as if we're in bad shape and I might be needed everywhere… But I know getting taken out after doing everything I can is all I can do. Bakugo's expression hardened more and his smile grew considerably larger and more deranged as he glared down at Machia's expression from a higher-up position now. And it'll be enough, he told himself.

Even though he knew he should assume that things were going badly elsewhere, he smirked ravenously at the enemy he was going to go all out against even if it meant the destruction of his own body. Zach and Deku can take those other two I want to beat most of all. I know they can! Bakugo opened his mouth from his huge grin and screamed down at his enemy, "YOU WANT ME?! HERE I COME!"

"RRAAAAOOOOAAAHH!" Bakugo pointed his left hand up and blasted himself downwards below the force of Machia's roar that could have sent him spiraling backwards through the air again. Just that one smaller evasive explosion caused some blood to spurt from the gash already on his left arm and turning that entire white sleeve red. His other wounds bled on his chest and his right leg, and he felt agonizing pain in his back from getting thrown through buildings and streets mostly back-first for an hour. But he continued to smirk the whole time. He avoided Machia's roar then spun himself back up around the left side of the giant's head that spun that direction then snapped up because Bakugo's speed had him moving more rapidly than ever and leaving a trail of Explosions in his wake across the air.

It's too large now. Defeating that thing isn't enough. We need to get it to its knees! Honenuki Juzo thought. He curled his fingers harder into the floor while Bondo sprayed as much Cemedine out as he could behind Machia's other leg than the one his classmate was targeting.

Machia swung its right fist up in the air at the target that intentionally stayed within arm's reach above the giant's head. Gigantomachia missed his swing that looked like someone trying to swat at a fly, and not even coming close. It opened that fist and brought the other arm up too that it swept at Bakugo on the side he dodged to last. Bakugo's eyes widened for a moment as the giant actually forced him that direction closer to its other arm. Despite its looks and brutish nature, Bakugo saw combat prowess in the beast below him that was faster than it seemed it should be. That second arm coming up at him slowed down though, and Bakugo dove down and avoided the arm easier than if he had needed to set off larger Explosions to dodge.

Spunky gasped out and dropped her arms back down. She was panting and had bloody gashes on her face and left leg. She moved from her position though to get somewhere else in case Machia had seen her down there aiming up at his arm for a moment. When Gigantomachia rose its left arm to attack Bakugo, it had brushed that arm across a building that Uraraka was just about to reach. Her eyes darted up towards the shower of glass falling towards her, but she grinned anyway because the giant's arm had torn away more supports that would have made her next step harder. Uraraka already saw the structural weakness in this building that the last one she was holding onto did not have.

Gigantomachia's left foot sunk a few feet into the floor. And the giant seemed to finally notice the ongoing attacks of the others below it. Its eyes darted down from Bakugo, and the spiky-haired Explosion King ducked his head forward with his red irises flaring at the sight of his opening. Machia was fast. His reactions were quick. The giant had interrupted an earlier attack by just screaming at Bakugo and sending him flying away. All Bakugo needed was the smallest lapse in reaction time though, and his classmates created that moment as they hit the giant villain in his legs.

Machia swept again with its left arm through the air at Bakugo, but it was not really looking at the student who in that same moment dove down and exploded sweat below his bare feet that had lost their boots a while ago. He fired off Explosions on his palms as well and skyrocketed down past Gigantomachia's face while its right arm was swinging down for the street level that its left foot was sinking into. It had tried to kick its left to the side, but Bondo Kojiro had created the outer casing of Cemedine first then filled in the closest portion directly around Machia's foot last. That way the giant was unaware of the growing stronghold around its foot and ankle, right up until Plamo saw it glance down and finished his work by creating the final inner layer to give Gigantomachia no movement whatsoever in that leg.

Plamo jumped off of his own hardened Cemedine finish as he did not trust that the monster would not be able to free its leg for long. As that leg was stalled from kicking though, and Machia found itself getting more off-balanced as Honenuki dug deeper with his own Quirk to sink Machia lopsidedly into the floor, that right fist was punching downwards. Bakugo changed his trajectory after passing Machia's face to curve in towards the giant's chest. The blackened signs of Bakugo's earlier Explosion were the target, and Bakugo threw both of his arms forward while sparks came out of the collection centers in his back and shoulders and behind his waist. Not all of his gear other than the gauntlets had been destroyed, and these collection points were made to be able to withstand powerful Explosions that Bakugo needed to offset potential momentum shifts, so even smashing through walls back-first had not yet destroyed them.

"NUCLEAR DEVASTATION!" Bakugo fired off his largest Explosion. His teeth grit but he forced the corners of his lips up anyway. Even as the blood splashed from his left arm, and a new cut ripped open on his right arm that could not handle the size of the blast, he smirked at the feeling of that pain. Because through the flames and smoke, he could partially see the holding green gauntlets that started refilling with sweat in the tubes leading to them under his costume's white sleeves where the sweat had pooled after those gauntlets filled up. They refilled quicker than any others because of their thin size, and they were more durable which meant they survived even after his larger blast. The difference between them and the other clunkier ones was in how small and compact they were, but that also meant that they were negating less force from damaging Bakugo's arms as well.

The recoil did not get transferred fully to his gauntlets. They did not protect his arms from the pain he caused them, though Hatsume had assured him that the damage done to his own body was still less than what it would be without the gear. She had strongly suggested he still not go this far with these kinds of gloves, limiting his strongest Explosions in these gauntlets to about 60% of what he would normally use in his larger ones. Bakugo exceeded 100% of what he would need to destroy those larger gauntlets anyway though, taking the pain of using that much force without any gauntlets and just negating whatever could be negated through his gear.

Bakugo fired off that large of a blast into Gigantomachia's chest again. And then in the left corner of Bakugo's vision he saw Machia's right arm that was swinging down. It did not change direction to come towards him in front of the giant's chest. The left arm that Machia had swung above its own head was what the giant was going to use to try and flatten Bakugo into its chest. The right did not change its aim, and it flew down towards the street and the students down there who panicked. Bondo spun towards Honenuki while he was sprinting away, and the strange-looking castle-like student yelled towards his friend, "Honenuki, you have to-" Bondo stopped shouting. He shoved his face forward to try and make a wall in front of his friend who cursed angrily at the top of his lungs at the sight of Bondo stopping his flight to protect him instead, because Honenuki had not moved from his place of attack and was just sinking Machia deeper into the ground.

Gigantomachia kept swinging that right arm down, but several things all happened at once. Uraraka ripped the building she had gripped onto off of its supports. She tore the damaged upper half of the skyscraper away from the bottom, tilting the top over her head while she fell so that it knocked away the glass that was falling towards her. Honenuki glanced upwards with a bead of sweat rolling quickly down his face at the sight of what Uraraka was doing. She spun herself around with little to no force allowing it other than the strength of her own abdominal and arm muscles, but her Quirk had strengthened to the point that the building felt as heavy as a baseball bat despite being larger than the train car she thought she was stretching it with earlier. Adrenaline helped too. The yelling girl swung back and down at Machia's right leg that she released towards before putting her hands together and returning that building's weight.

Presto Change-o teleported over towards Plamo and grabbed him. He started running with the student as the building flew at the back of Machia's right leg. As this was going on, Honenuki gasped in surprise but then smirked wide as Gigantomachia was sinking deeper on his left leg all at once. The giant became off-balanced at the perfect time for the students. His right leg suddenly had to hold all of the monster's weight, right before its right leg was going to come down and hit the ground. It wobbled and had to open that right fist to try and catch itself, because its left leg slipped through the sewer below the street and into a deep secret tunnel underground where it dropped over ten meters at once.

The extra weight it put on its right leg became even harder for it to hold up when the back of its right leg in its calf and behind its knee were slammed by the building that Uravity had thrown at it. Ripping steel and glass and building parts broke apart and exploded off the back of the monster's leg. Honenuki thanked his friend in his head as the wall of Cemedine blocked flying debris from hitting him. Most of the building fell behind Machia and into an empty street that Gran Torino got Spunky out of the danger zone of. Presto Change-o's Quirk had recovered too and he teleported away with Plamo into an alleyway between two husks of buildings that gave them some moderate protection from the flying debris coming their way around the sides of Machia's right leg that bent at the knee and bowed him forward while its right foot slid backwards.

Gigantomachia put its right palm down on the floor and caught itself. Its left leg was sunk so deep down that the floor was halfway up its shin, and its right leg wobbled and nearly came down to a knee. And Bakugo swung both of his arms in front of him as he shot back forwards after dodging Machia's left hand it slapped into its own chest to a noise like a sonic boom of the clap there. Bakugo had dropped slightly first so that Machia would slap below the target, and he flew back forwards over the monster's fingers to aim at the same darkened spot that was not yet broken through. No matter how powerful the armor. Even Unbreakable could be blasted through if Kirishima didn't re-Harden after enough blows. It's shown no ability to restore its armor. I haven't broken through yet, but when I do I won't wait to see if it has that ability. One crack. That's all I need. Here we go.

Bakugo took in a deep breath. He pointed his curled fingers forward from a short distance away from Machia's chest. The fallen giant was curling its right hand's fingers through the street it had grabbed onto for support and was growling from deep inside the throat just in front of Bakugo's face that he could hear the low vibrations inside of. The hero's mouth opened wide. "CONSECUTIVE…" Bakugo's arms tensed up and his muscles strained all over his body. Sparks went off around his back to keep him in place, and the pieces of his costume behind him started shaking and cracking as the sweat ignited. "NUCLEARRRR…" Veins popped all over Bakugo's arms and became accentuated through rips in his white sleeves that showed his sweaty arms underneath that were vibrating and igniting. "DEVASTATIONS!" Bakugo screamed- BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM…

The white sleeves remaining on Bakugo's arms shredded. Explosion King's roar filled the street and told his allies what he was doing. Uraraka snapped her head up and stared with huge eyes towards the cone of Explosions that started getting too large due to all the consecutive blasts. She lost sight of her classmate inside it, Bakugo! You… You can do it! Uraraka pushed aside her concern and ignored the sweat dripping down both sides of her face. She started sweating even more though from the waves of heat pulsing out from that brilliant red and yellow flame that rippled all around Bakugo Katsuki.

Uraraka's eyes darted back down despite the belief she had in her classmate. Machia's right hand was pushing up off the floor. Its left moved from its chest and curled a fist while that arm bent so it looked ready for an uppercut. Dread covered the brunette's face. The others down on the street stared in shock towards the monster that started unbending its legs and rising, as if all of their simultaneous attacks meant nothing to it. …BOOM BOOM BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

BOOOOM Boom… BOOM BOOM… Bakugo faltered for a second as he fired off too strong a blast in his frustration at Machia's apparent rise that it shattered his shoulder sweat containers. The back of his armor was already burning through despite how it was meant to be able to survive in such heats, but this break in his gear made it harder to regulate his own constant stream of blasts while remaining in the same place in midair. He was already firing off tiny blasts from the un-armored soles of his feet to keep himself elevated, but now he had to regulate the same power of blasts out of his back that filled with pain after a smaller Explosion out his palms caused him more anger than anything as he weakened his onslaught for even a moment. He returned to the previous strength as those blasts were still allowing Machia to stand back up, so nothing weaker could even be considered at this point.

JUST A LITTLE LONGER! I KNOW IT! It's the same physics for beating Kirishima. I know it is. Bakugo screamed internally at himself and reasoned logically for the benefit of just going until he broke, even as he felt skin rip through his burning back that felt enflamed at the moment. He was surrounded in so much fire from his own Explosions that every pore on his body had opened up and was dousing him in sweat that he tried to ignite all out in front of him as well as negating blasts in other directions to keep himself mobile and now flying backwards every time he blasted out his ripping-up palms. Skin on his fingers and palms started tearing more with each consecutive blast that was far beyond his capabilities, and Bakugo ground his teeth as he felt that and then started to see it as shards of his final gauntlets tore off piece by piece.

"It's not enough," Uraraka whispered as she floated through the air below the bottom of Bakugo's Explosions. The force from those blasts was pushing the weightless girl away, and she glanced towards the closest piece of upturned rubble leaning against a discarded wall of a broken building. Determination set in on her face, but then her eyes snapped up as did others who stared in shock and then horror as a figure appeared on the side of Gigantomachia's left fist, grabbing onto it and stabbing in with a hero tool-

Machia swung that left arm out to the side rather than inwards at Bakugo. Presto Change-o was launched from the swing faster than he could even process. His body ragdolled through the building on Machia's left, while Gigantomachia kept glaring down at the figure blasting its chest with little blasts that on their own felt like little pricks, but altogether like this were starting to bother him and sting a bit more… Machia's left hand started coming back in, but its eyes actually shifted off of Bakugo for a moment this time unlike they did when it just flicked off that fly trying to stall its counter on Bakugo.

Approaching from the opposite side as where Presto Change-o's corpse was just sent flying, Sugarman leapt from the roof of one building on Machia's right to the next roof which was the one closest to the monster's head now. "NOO-AAAAHH!" Sato screamed out in pain and loss while at the same time lifting his left arm and shoving his fist into his mouth. He opened that hand that he had just shoved into a pouch only to grab out all the sugar cubes instead of a few as he had planned while approaching from the roofs as he had planned beforehand. Whether it was his regret in making a plan and not just attacking immediately, or just the pain of watching his pro hero get slaughtered, Sato's mind was blanking even before he shoved twenty sugar cubes into his mouth.

"CRASH RUSH!" Sugarman screamed, right as his body was hulking out three times its normal size in his next two steps that cracked the floor below him. His legs bent, and he leapt off the roof that caved below him as the crater in it from his jump went too deep and collapsed the top of the skyscraper.

Unlike Sato's usual Sugar Rush, Crash Rush was a Super Move he had come up with that had little utility in battles. After all, Sato knew just like his classmates that taking himself out of a fight was never favorable to his comrades who would have to look after him after this attack. After a normal Sugar Rush he could usually keep functioning, but Crash Rush simultaneously accelerated the speed at which he got stronger from the sugar he ingested and made him that much stronger from how much he took in all at once. It also accelerated the rate at which the Sugar Rush would wear off though. So Crash Rush was a singular attack that would give him the power-up for the shortest amount of time at the most extreme power level, and the size at which Sato flew at Machia's head stunned his own classmates and rivals in Class B who had never seen him looking so menacing and large before.

Sato's body twisted as he flew at the giant villain's face. His fists pulled together and his body spun around, both of his fists slamming into the right side of Machia's head while it was swinging its right arm upwards. Gigantomachia saw Sato's growth as well, but at the size it was currently it did not believe that the boy would be able to damage it. So it was somewhat surprised after its head snapped to the left and its chin down, and it missed its right arm swing around above while standing more even as the attacks on its legs continued. Sato was falling after slamming both fists into Machia's face, but he was passing in front of the beast's head and he turned inwards towards it and opened his hands up while at the top of the constant stream of Explosions that hit him in the legs and which he ignored. Sato threw both of his arms forward into Machia's mouth that opened as it let out a roar of anger from that double-punch in the face.

Sato yanked down on the monster's bottom jaw, tugging its head farther down and making it bend its knees again. The monster's right arm that it swept up and barely missed Sato because its eyes were snapped away for a second, swung back towards the teenager who turned his head fast towards that incoming arm but did not push off off Machia's face fast enough. "SATO!" Uraraka screamed as he flew by her and into a Sato-shaped hole in the ground that she could only see once the dust settled behind her on her right where she spun to in order to check on her friend.

Uraraka spun back. Machia's legs were unbending once more. Honenuki tried sinking the right leg as well that broke through the Cemedine foothold completely. He was pulled away suddenly though by Gran Torino who saw the monster's kick to the side coming first and just managed to save Mudman. When Uraraka saw Gran Torino flying their way like that, she grabbed onto the floor below her and threw herself upwards. She just barely avoided the hail of rocks that flew below her and shredded another building that started falling at her back.

It isn't Sato, Uraraka thought. You're the only one who can do this, Bakugo. And, and no one else is helping anymore! Uraraka bit down and she ground her teeth as the building behind her fell her way. He's willing to sacrifice everything! She tilted her body forward weightlessly. Bakugo was screaming from the middle of his core of explosions. Her feet pressed lightly into the side of the falling building just as it was reaching her…

NOW! I NEED TO DO IT NOWWW! "RAAAAA! DIE DIE DIE!" Bakugo fired off Explosion after Explosion with each yell of 'DIE' through the flames.

Plucky's head snapped up from behind Machia and on top of a pile of rubble from a fallen building on the street. She stared through the flames above and at the monster inside that was swinging both arms in now towards Bakugo. That's- she thought with her eyes opening huge.

Uraraka kicked off of the building behind her. She flew underneath Bakugo's Explosions and then swung her left arm out and grabbed onto Machia's back. Uravity swung the rest of her body in more towards the middle of its body. She grabbed onto Gigantomachia's back with both hands that curled into ridges of its giant body on its lower back. This is the largest I've ever tried! She knew it was risky. She did not even know if she could do it. GO BEYOND… "PLUS ULTRA: DESTABILIZER!"

Machia's arms swung up way faster than it was planning. Uraraka glared upwards while she screamed into Bakugo's Explosions that blew past its sides and pressed so much force and heat onto her face. Machia's legs were still heavy enough that the monster swinging upwards that fast did not send its whole form flying up into the air. The arms it was swinging up towards Bakugo suddenly moved ten times as fast as the giant was planning though. As strong as it was, its arms alone were dozens of tons of weight that suddenly became nothing. It missed the boy inside the flames who heard Uraraka's shout and knew exactly where she was on Machia's body. She was holding onto its lower back, just below his Explosions, in a danger zone from the monster falling backwards or from his explosions hurting her as they wrapped around, or from any other danger like Machia squishing her like a bug against his form.

I need to go all out. RIGHT NOW! Bakugo's screams fell silent as he tried to scream again. He was dehydrated. Screaming at the top of his lungs had taken the last of the spit from his mouth and throat. And all the other liquid in Bakugo's system was not there to replenish his spit. It was as if his body knew where that liquid was needed more, and his sweat glands worked at maximum and tried to cool him off even as he overheated in a sea of flames that burned his skin through his flaming costume. Cracks covered his final pair of gauntlets, but Bakugo smirked his dry lips anyway even though he knew that they could not take it if he went all out. But what is a hero willing to sacrifice?

In his head flashed a form with a face ripping off, an arm splattering away while his body burned, his body riddled with bullets and stab wounds… 1,000,000% power. Rapid-Fire… CONSECUTIVE, NUCLEAR DEVASTATIONS! Bakugo's speed of releasing his Explosions intensified twice as fast as it already had been. The gauntlets on his hands and wrists shattered and exploded out in different directions while his back ripped up from the flames that Exploded behind him to keep him closer and closer to Machia even as he fired off as much power as he could force his Quirk to emit.

"HaaaaAAAAHHHH!" Uraraka screamed. She released Machia's back and touched her fingers together then grabbed him again and took his gravity back away. Gigantomachia was trying to move its legs, when suddenly it would find a leg without any weight in it. That leg would move too quickly then suddenly get its weight back, and it started to wobble as the girl grabbing onto it Destabilized his center of gravity. The giant was not used to being so light even in its smallest form. Having appendages that weighed nothing while the rest of it weighed so much also caused its back to start hunching at times when its legs felt weak and weightless while its arms were so heavy, or vice versa as it swung backwards and stumbled away.

Machia stumbled back then his right foot did not push through the road on a step as it had no weight in it to shred through the pavement it had sunk through and had not emerged from yet as the giant was too focused on Bakugo to try and raise that leg. All it had done was swing it towards Honenuki who was saved by Gran Torino, but it was only its mid-leg that would have hit the teenager as the rest was still sunken deep into an underground tunnel. It was raising that leg while pulling it backwards for support on the street, but the lack of weight in the leg got it caught in the ground, and it started to lean backwards with its legs bending again and his body falling. Arms it moved down to catch itself swung too far back and then got their weight back, swinging away into the buildings at the sides too fast that it changed its aim towards to try and slow its fall. Uraraka removed and returned its gravity faster than Gigantomachia could predict or adapt to the weight shifts.

And all the while, every Explosion going off into the same point in Machia's chest and the bottom of his throat seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. Uraraka felt the flames licking the top of her head. Gigantomachia was already falling. She gripped onto its back once more to decrease its weight for this last part, then she swung herself off to the monster's right side so she could get out from beneath it and allow Bakugo to fire off anything he was holding back because of her being there. "I'M OUT!" She bellowed at the top of her lungs towards the flames she knew her friend was still inside of. Uraraka managed to get that out before her cheeks puffed out, and she did not manage to cover her mouth as she needed both hands to catch herself and not slam face-first into a partially collapsed wall lifting off the side of the battlefield's main road. She puked all over that wall that she caught herself on, but she turned and stared with bloodshot eyes towards the falling monster and the boy above it who heard Uraraka, as well as another shout that came from farther down and was just as loud.

"IT'S ARMOR IS CRACKING!" Plucky screamed as loud as she could. She had run closer so that Bakugo would be sure to hear her, and she waited for a lull in his Explosions that came as he prepared to intensify the strength even as blood poured out of his arms that he felt all the muscles tearing apart inside of.

Bondo sprayed Cemedine at Machia's left foot and kept the foot angled upwards when it seemed like Machia was going to try and push it back down. He forced it farther up, while Honenuki sunk the leg that got caught in the ground deeper down again. Gran Torino stared up with his eyes huge at what Plucky had shouted she was hearing that he was stunned to hear himself, and yet that astonishment was not as strong as it would have been had he not been watching Bakugo Katsuki fire off bomb-sized Explosions one after the other into Gigantomachia for the past thirty seconds. A pile of Ectoplasm Clones dove onto one of Machia's legs, and Spunky slowed the beast's right arm that was clawing at a crumbling facade of a building and trying to grip some of that debris to use as a weapon even as it fell.

"DO IT, BAKUGO!" Uraraka screamed towards him from the vomit-stained wall she was gripping onto and leaning her head away from.

The pause in Bakugo's Explosions let him see through the flames for a moment. The monster's jagged and hard skin was blackened all around his target area, but Bakugo saw the lines of cracks in that burnt exterior that he had not yet broken through. His hands shifted ever-so-slightly towards the direct center of the cracks and the monster's weakest point. His own bloodshot eyes flared and his shoulders sparked violently. His skin cracked all over the top of his back. His trapeziuses tore as his skin ripped and the muscles below that burned as well.

Bakugo was in front of that crack in an instant. He flew directly in front of Machia's lower neck with his bloody fingers curled in at point blank pointing downwards. BOOOOOOOM! "RAaack-ahh-aaHHya- RAAAaahh!" Bakugo's voice was hoarse and it cracked as he screamed at the top of his lungs, which was not very loud at the lung capacity he had at that moment. Not much of his body was strong at that moment, but his Quirk was a different story. Blood splashed out of his arms violently all the way up to his shoulders to match the ripping muscles out of his back that kept him in front of Machia and not flying into the atmosphere as he fired off the Explosion that shook the entire city around him and lifted both of Machia's legs off the ground.

Honenuki stumbled backwards as the leg he was sinking came swinging up out of the semi-solid ground. A blur of yellow tackled him again, but this time it swept around and picked up everyone else on the street too. Flames flew around at all of the heroes who ducked and dove for cover only to be intercepted by Gran Torino who picked them all up. There was one person who the old-timer did not go for, but he had already seen her dodge multiple times when he was concerned he might have to save her too so he was not as worried for her safety.

Crack… CRACK! CHHH

Cracks branched out all over the top of Machia's chest and bottom of his thick neck. The rough armor that covered the monster's exterior chipped. Pieces of its jagged armor broke off and started falling to the sides and shattering around Bakugo who was thrown upwards as the Explosions out of his hands were stronger than the ones out his back. His eyes squinted nearly shut when he fired off that last Explosion he felt burning his eyes. His eyebrows were singing at the top of his vision. He stared down though at the monster that slammed into the city block and caused an earthquake around them. It bounced slightly up but not very high considering its weight. The monster roared out in rage and agony, but Bakugo did not care for its screams. His eyes glared through the widening cracks at the soft flesh underneath.

His back sparked, and the bloody mess around his shoulder blades ignited and sent him down through the cracks that Machia was swinging both arms in towards from where they were splayed out to either side. Bakugo slammed his hands down into the wet flesh inside of that cracked skin before the giant could protect itself. Sparks covered both of his arms. His smirk rose wider and wider. His lips curled up high as Machia swung its arms in desperately at the figure he felt inside of its own chest. Ch…

BOOOOOOOOOOOM! A flash of bright light blinded everyone around. The Explosion cracked the foundation of the city around them. It collapsed underground tunnels. Evacuated buildings in the district lost their remaining supports and started falling. They toppled to the sides and onto deserted streets that everyone had fled far away from during the battle.

"RROOOAAA-EEEAAAOOOWW- AHh- aagghh…"

The Explosion burned the monster through to its lungs that overheated as it was roaring. It gasped instead as its throat filled up with flames that burned the inside of its mouth and all throughout the inside of its natural body armor. The burns that did so little on the outside of the beast, burned it thoroughly inside its body that burst into flames that quickly went out due to lack of air inside. That moment of ignition throughout its insides was enough though. Machia's already blank eyes rolled back into its head. That head that was somewhat lifted off the ground as it roared, dropped back down so the spikes of its hair dug through the street and stopped its head from tilting to the side, leaving the monster's face pointed straight up at the sky as it lay motionless in the road.

The brightly glowing flesh on the inside of the monster that Bakugo had blasted up away from was losing that glow. Smoke continued pouring off of it though out of every crack that Bakugo's internal Explosion had created from the inside. Smoke poured out of Machia's mouth and nose as well. Its body was practically smoldering. Bakugo had not focused on any attempt to keep himself from flying away on that last attack. He just focused whatever strength he had left into the front of his hands, knowing that this was it for him anyway. He was launched up into the sky, spinning around and splashing blood off around him as he did so. His eyes squinted back open once more as he tried to stare down and make sure that he had finished the job…

He managed to focus on Machia's beaten and motionless expression for an instant, then his eyes shifted towards a figure flying towards him through the air. He winced as she slammed into his side. He was heavy, and they each dropped out of the air before she could take his weight away too just above the ground. Uraraka's cheeks puffed out again, and she touched her hands together while letting go of her friend. They each fell at the feet of Gigantomachia that lay still on top of the road. And then she dropped to her knees and elbows and threw up as her stomach made loud noises and her whole being felt sick. She was at least moving though, unlike her classmate she dropped next to her who lay flat on his back and winced hard at the feeling of the rough ground touching his torn skin.

Bakugo only winced a little though despite his back being opened up and touching jagged ground. After all, he could not even feel his own arms anymore, and his back was not much better off. He felt an exhaustion beyond anything he had ever felt before. He could not even cough right, as one cough came out and he felt like his ribs were going to break from his lungs expanding and contracting like that.

Gran Torino walked forward towards the feet of the giant. He was still uncertain whether to believe it or not. He looked beyond the students ahead of him who seemed more confident though. "He did it," Plucky whispered behind Gran Torino who heard the woman and believed it. Sorahiko believed that her Quirk allowed her to hear the monster's heart beat and its breathing to determine that it was really down for the count and no longer conscious. He knew it was not dead, yet, as he could see inside its cracked and broken armor on its chest to see a slight heaving signaling a beating heart. "He really…" Plucky whispered again, her eyes filling with water now as the fight was over and she was finally able to consider the other members of the Feisty Foursome: Vixen and Sky-Girl.

Spunky put her face down into her right hand that she covered her own eyes with. The leader of the Feisty Foursome bit down hard on her bottom lip and then turned her head to the side and looked down in pain. How did I let this- Lifebringer! Her eyes opened back up, but she pursed her lips after releasing the pressure of her bite on her bottom lip. He didn't revive anyone when he was here before. And, Raijin looked like he was winning, kind of…

Honenuki and Bondo walked past Gran Torino and then each looked to their right. Gran Torino did the same and stared towards the shrinking figure who was dazedly walking out of some rubble. He had a trail of dust and ash falling off behind him as he stumbled forward and towards his Class A classmates who each glanced towards the exhausted blank-faced hero who started wobbling as he stumbled forward with blood dripping off his chin from a gash on the right side of his face. Sato tripped and fell forward, collapsing unconscious on the floor with his arms only half-swinging out in front of him to catch himself before face-planting.

Uraraka tried to stand while opening her mouth to call to him. Her legs were in too much pain though, and she dropped hard on her knees. She was tired, and she gasped out before hurling again and bending her elbows towards her sides. Her arms crossed in front of her stomach that she gripped in pain, "Sorry, Sato…"

Gran Torino had looked to his right towards Sugarman as well. He did not follow that boy with his eyes though as the Class B students did who each started jogging farther forward too to check on Sato when Uravity could not. Gran Torino stared past Sato and farther through the city in a direction that made dread course through his entire body. Smoke, he thought. It was not a surprising thing to see in a city under siege, but it was the direction that he saw that smoke rising from that had his heart rate speeding back up and even faster than the end of this fight. The exact direction he was staring towards could mean a lot of different locations, but his experience also told him the exact distance that the smoke he was seeing was rising from. The safehouse!

Gran Torino's Jets turned on and he flew away. He did not even say a word to the others around him who spun towards that hero in yellow who seemed to just be flying off to go continue fighting as if not tired at all from that fight. Spunky lowered her hand from her face and stared off after Gran Torino for a second. Then she wiped her arm across her arms and shook her head around. "Later," she whispered. She turned towards Plucky whose head twitched and then lifted and turned to her leader. Spunky nodded at the younger woman whose lips pursed back but then flattened in a steadier way too. They each looked forward, and Honenuki checked back towards them after spinning to watch Gran Torino. He saw what the group members of his pro hero, Vixen, were prepared to do. His eyes locked on Plucky's green ones for a moment then shifted down and back to his side at Bondo who glanced back towards him then nodded his own head as well.

Honenuki and Bondo were panting but each looked back forward and at the fallen Gigantomachia. They looked closer too and at the others between them and the beast. The two looked past Sato's fallen body, at the brown-haired girl on both knees splayed out to either side who was gasping for breath after the last round of puking. She turned too to the other person that the Class B boys looked at whose chest was moving slowly up and down as he stared up at the sky above him with squinted eyes. Bakugo's body twitched and he growled deep in his throat like he was frustrated by the lack of movements he could make. Honenuki did not have lips to curl up, but somehow his jaw-line did shift in a way making it look like he was smiling, albeit with a bead of sweat rolling down his face.

"Those Class A's…" Mudman's voice was quiet and he was panting softly under his breath. His head shook once as he finished, "Really are a different breed."

---

"Destroy everything."

"Are you sure?" Koda wondered to the girl who just climbed back down the ladder and swung herself in through the fire-escape on the top floor of Heroally TV.

"Yeah," Jirou replied. She shook her head and started past her classmate who turned and jogged with her back into the control room full of complex machinery that had been difficult for the two of them to figure out. The dark-haired girl who just got off the roof she was checking out the equipment on top of continued to her friend, "The signals still aren't going through and I broke all of the supplemental jammers up there. He incorporated it into the station's own broadcasting gear," Jirou glared towards a control panel near ahead of her and then glanced down as she stopped for a moment.

The rancid smell of burnt flesh and the rubbery stench of burning hair filled the students' nostrils. The room had multiple dead bodies in it that had been deceased for over an hour now. Koda saw Jirou pausing, and he stepped in front of her and leaned down. The larger boy placed his hands underneath a body carefully and lifted it to move the woman out of Kyoka's way. "Do it, Earphone Jack," he told her while using her hero name. Jirou nodded her head seriously and got over the disgust and horror of their situation.

She stepped forward and then gently pushed aside the arm of a controller who was slouched forward in his chair to her right. His arms were splayed out over the panel, and she gently moved his left to the side while careful not to knock him over so he would drop on the floor. We have to be gentle with these bodies. Any damage we cause to them… Zach, he's going to revive these people. That's pain he'll feel, if- Not 'if!' She tried to keep the doubtful thoughts from filling her mind, but it was a difficult thing to do. I know Raijin. Zach knows him too! Not like I- yes, yes like I do. He knows him as well as I do. Better, if anything. Zach won't let Kami- he won't let RAIJIN kill him! And, and he'll still be strong enough, to revive all these people?

Jirou's hands shook on the control panel in front of her. Her earphone jacks were moving towards her hands, but they hesitated next to her gloves that she was about to inject them into. She missed the input holes and pursed her lips harder as she had to focus on her hands specifically in order to do what was usually a subconscious movement. She attached her earphone jacks to her gloves. I heard him in Fundong. How many thousands of people died in Tokyo already? He can't bring them all back. I know that. I know, but, her eyes shifted towards the corpse closest on her right that had been zapped through the machine she was currently touching. Raijin had managed not to destroy the systems even as he overloaded power through them to electrocute the people on every floor. Jirou stared at that body and bit her bottom lip hard, Any damage they take even after death, he'll have to feel too. If he's even still alive at the end of their fight-

Jirou clenched her eyes shut. Her jacks connected to her gloves, but she squinted her eyes back open and glanced down to her waist at a device she had clipped there after her friend tossed it to her right before leaving. Creati's EMP sat unactivated on Jirou's waist. If I set it off right next to this equipment… what's the worst that could happen? I might knock out all communications. Raijin may have connected failsafes for that exact purpose, connecting the different radio towers and, and preventing such a simple deactivation of his jamming technology! It would be the very first failsafe he would put in, wouldn't it? Doubt filled her again, but that made her hands curl tighter onto the control panel in front of her. I know what that gear looks like from the roof that isn't normal for the station. It may be inside this. So, here we go.

Jirou's hands clenched and her earphone jacks pulsed into her costume's support tools. The control panel under her hands cracked, and then it split open and broke apart all along the counter that was in front of her. Koda was behind his classmate and staring hesitantly at a large panel covered in switches and flashing lights on the opposite wall as Jirou was on. He had no idea what most of them did, but Jirou said to 'destroy everything' so he figured his classmate who he knew was better with this stuff thought it was a good idea. Or, at least she had exhausted her other options and ran out of patience and willingness to keep trying other methods while their comrades were all fighting outside. Koda was fine with ending this now though and going out to join the rest of them anyway.

His right fist pulled back, and then Jirou spun her head to the right and her eyes bulged. "Wait!" Koda already stopped himself and turned his head in shock though while his pulled-back fist just twitched where it was.

Jirou split apart the equipment in one part of the room, breaking machinery and splitting wires that sparked and then stopped powering gear there because her Quirk had cracked apart outlets and power sources as well. Her pick of what to break first turned out to be lucky on a day where heroes were short on such luck. Chh- "…ello-" Ch- "…an anyone- …me? I repeat-" Chhh-

Jirou sprinted towards a computer station in the room with Koda hot on her heels. She looked around the station and grabbed a headset off the desk in front of an empty chair that she quickly sat on and put the headset over her head. The headset was already bluetooth-connected to the computer, so Jirou just adjusted the microphone that curled around from her right ear to in front of her mouth. "Hello! I can hear you! Hello?!" Jirou called out in English because that was the voice she was hearing over the radio.

"…No response. We need-" Ch-

"…permission has not… Understood. Star-Spangled…" CH "Australian team…on standby forty kilometers out-"

"Hello!" Jirou yelled at the men who she was catching pieces of their conversation. Is that Outback Man?

"Did they say, they're on 'standby?'" Koda asked with his face falling and his eyes turning in confusion towards Jirou. "Are they, leaving us?"

"That's not…" Jirou started replying instantly to her friend. They wouldn't abandon us. The situation outside, it can't be that bad that they would just leave us to our own… "We can hear you! HELLO!" Jirou tried adjusting the signal on her computer and then she leaned over the other side of the desk and followed the wires over to an electrical panel on the wall behind her desk. She turned to Koda and motioned that way as she did not want to run from the computer where the headset might lose connectivity.

Koda opened the panel and he looked around at switches and levers that he did not understand in the least. He looked back confusedly at Jirou while flipping a couple of them, but she was busy typing quickly onto the computer's keyboard she was troubleshooting. "Hello? Can you hear me-"

"Who is this?"

Jirou threw her left hand up with an open palm. Koda pulled his hands back from the panel, not knowing what he did but nervous as Jirou told him to stop. His eyes widened more though as Jirou called out while grabbing her headset with her other hand, "Hello! This is Earphone Jack, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, but your signal is weak and you're not getting it out of that city," the female voice speaking to Jirou responded. Jirou got a confused look on her face then bit down and cursed under her breath as the woman continued. "This is Crack. I've gone around the systems and heard you calling out from the Heroally building. Did you take down Raijin?"

"No… Zach's- Lifebringer's fighting him!" Jirou called out. Are they holding back because they don't think we have a chance?! "Zach Sazaki is alive. He's fighting-"

"That's a relief," Crack responded, her face full of shock but her head shaking back and forth as she realized her shock was unwarranted. She shook her head quicker then got refocused on the girl she interrupted, "Listen. Whatever you did at that tv station, it's not enough. The signals all across Tokyo are still being jammed, preventing outside communications from getting in but also keeping your comrades in there from communicating with each other."

"Then send people in and come help us!" Jirou exclaimed at the woman. "What are you waiting-"

"Several heroes have rushed towards Japan as fast as they could. But you need to get communications back on. I want to rush in there to help you, we all do-"

"Then do it!" Jirou yelled.

"Listen," Crack repeated. Her voice came out steady and in a calming tone that she used to get the younger woman to get a grip. Jirou took a few deep breaths but calmed herself as shouting at Crack was not helping her here. If anything, she felt she was making it out as too desperate a situation that it may be clouding her judgement and getting her to call her allies to rush haphazardly into a dangerous fight… which she actually started questioning if she was doing. "We are going to help you, but you need to eliminate the other radio jammers that Raijin has established around Tokyo before we can enter. Everyone in the world saw Shigaraki's speech about the world's hero society that he was trying to destroy."

Jirou found the option on her screen to switch Crack's voice onto the speakers coming out of the computer. She took off the headset and just listened with Koda who walked up next to her chair and stared at the same screen. "Some nations… most, including my own, fear that the heroes in Tokyo are all dead already based on how the city looks from the outside. They think the radio blackout is too dangerous for them to send waves of heroes in to their deaths, leaving the rest of the world less defended for the League's next move."

"Raijin's Quirk could be amplifying those jammers to keep the whole city in the dark, so you taking them out might not be enough. It might take Lifebringer's victory before we can move in. But I have located the other jammers while I was searching for someone to talk to inside the city," Crack continued to the two young heroes who understood what she was starting to tell them. They each looked at each other while Crack read off the locations of exact addresses around the city including other tv stations, radio towers on top of buildings, even just satellite disks on apartment complexes. "…Someone else has taken out three of these jammers already, but it seems like there are way more of them than actually necessary so nearby ones to the broken jammers activated upon their destructions or spread their ranges to cover lost ground…"

"This is fucking ridiculous!" Rampart yelled in fury as he watched two more red dots appear that had been jammed from his prior sight by the equipment he just navigated Virus towards.

"Just keep working on it," Rebel snapped back towards him while typing away as fast as he could too.

"Crack… she's noticed our intrusion," Angie started hesitantly. "She's looking for where our signal is coming from… wait-" Angie was worried for a moment. All three of them were concerned in the Command Center of the Army of Death. "Never mind," Angie said. She cracked a smile and said, "She just stopped. Her focus is back on the jammers, and she's in contact with a couple heroes at Heroally who took out what looks like the main jammer."

Crack herself glanced away from a second monitor she just recommissioned to boosting internet activity inside of Tokyo rather than the instinctive tracking measure she did to figure out who was helping her. Don't want to spook the AoD into backing off. We need the help!

"There are too many for us to take out externally, and I don't know if whoever else is helping is actually just doing it from the outside or if they have contacts within the city as well who are also doing what I need you to do. I can give you the locations from here, but once you leave the station we'll be out of contact again. I know you don't have enough information about the battle outside for me to communicate with confidence to my superiors the situation inside. If the blockers go down though and the Prime Minister, or Endeavor, someone with enough sway in Japan can get in touch with the outside, we'll be in in a heartbeat." Crack finished and took a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry," she apologized. Her head bowed and her fingers curled over her own computers in the Ultra-Jet flying rapidly to catch up with Star-Spangled Man at his holding position where he was in a yelling match with President of the U.S. on a different line. "I know, it must be horrible in there. We're watching buildings fall, and there's nothing we can do without authorization… When we were ordered to stay out-"

"If we take down these jammers, do you swear you'll come in to help us?" Jirou asked. Koda was on her side and had a piece of paper out that he wrote down all the addresses that Crack gave them on. He ripped the paper in half and hesitantly held out Jirou half of it. His eyes showed that hesitation as his friend looked into them and saw that Koda understood their need for speed here outweighed their desire to stay together and protect one another. "Give me your word, Crack."

Crack closed her eyes. Her fists clenched. I don't have the power… "We will. The second word gets out from an authority in Tokyo that there's still a fight going on in there, foreign assistance will come."

"Alright." That wasn't exactly what I wanted. Maybe it has to be me. When we take it down, if none of the top politicians are able, or any of the pros, Jirou bit down hard. I'll tell them how we're fighting to the very end. Even if it's just me and Koda left out there. She darted her eyes towards windows across the room that she and Koda both stared out of and across a city on fire. Flames rose all over it, and they saw a completely different skyline from the one they saw out that window when they first got up here. They were facing the same direction that Bakugo was fighting Machia, so they saw fewer than half of the tall buildings in that direction than they had seen earlier while arriving on this floor. And some had already been taken down by that point.

"Talk again soon, Crack," Jirou told her fellow hero. She stood back up from the desk and grabbed the piece of paper that Koda was holding out for her. "You ready?"

"Not really," Koda admitted. He looked nervous. He was not good at hiding it, but he did manage a tiny smile to his friend who stepped forward and put her arms around his sides for a second. Koda pursed his lips then put an arm behind Jirou too and gave her a hug. "Be careful," he said in his normally soft voice.

"You too," Jirou whispered back.

Then they each ran back for the window that Jirou had climbed out of to go to the top of the building. Jirou gave Koda one last nod as he swung himself around for the ladder. He stopped on the rungs and nodded back at her, then he climbed up quickly while tilting his head back, "BIRDS! Come help me! I NEED YOUR HELP!" He rose his voice as loud as he could and used his costume's gear to help him out. Please! I hope you haven't all flown out of the city. Animals are smart like that, getting away when there's danger- instead of running straight towards it! Koda spun and saw a few birds flying his way while he climbed up to the roof. I need more. Many more. Why am I so big?!

Running up dozens of flights of stairs had been tough for the teens who managed to do so without slowing down but still took some time to do so. Neither was wasting that time by running back down the flights. Jirou took in a deep anxious breath though at what she was about to do. This is so dumb. Both of her earphone jacks slammed behind her into the wall as she dropped off the windowsill. Her jacks were strong enough to break through and they slowed her down, and her gloved right hand that she swung behind herself slowed her even more as she dragged it down the side of the building she was speeding down. One of her jacks popped out of the wall it was dragging down as it dug too deep for a moment and got caught on a steel beam inside. She slid down faster and put both hands behind her on the slightly slanted wall, her teeth grinding and her body bouncing as she nervously looked down to a ledge where the building got wider ten floors down. Her jacks dug back in and her fingers dug into the wall behind her with her heels slamming back into it as well, SO DUMB!

---

A listing plateau of dirt and grass pushed deeper down on its thicker side sinking into the crater where a pond in Yoyogi Park was still raining down around the boy sprinting up that tilted piece of earth. Midoriya sprinted up and up the chunk of ground as it rose, then he dipped his right toe into the floor as he was nearing the top of the diagonal piece. "Hawaii… SMASH!" He kicked just before slamming his left foot back behind him. The left foot stomp back behind him changed his reversed momentum from how hard he just kicked all that debris upwards towards the figure who just spiraled himself around while diving towards the younger man. Midoriya flew after the hail of rocks and dirt, only for the screen of rubble to turn instantly to ash and clear the space between him and the enemy who Decayed the entire attack effortlessly.

It was an attack that Midoriya had first used in Mosu Esupa years ago, and Shigaraki grinned as he remembered it well and how little it did to him back then too. Midoriya was right behind his rubble that he kicked at the villain, but he pointed all the curled fingers of his right hand towards the villain who swiped his right hand down at the teenager. "AIR FORCE: QUINJET!" All five of his fingers flicked out and slammed Shigaraki with condensed jets of air that knocked the villain back higher up into the air. Midoriya was thrown downwards himself by the force towards the park that his feet slammed into. He wobbled on his landing but glared up through hazy vision he forced clear with a shake of his head. His right leg bent farther than his left then steadied in the foothold he made from how hard he landed. It isn't enough, Midoriya glared up towards the villain who glared straight back in a frustrated and infuriated way, though still with a confident and calm look as well as his eyes shifted to Midoriya's left shoulder again.

Midoriya flexed his muscles around that shoulder to keep from losing any more blood, but what he had already lost was still affecting him. I broke his ribs. I felt them on the initial contact, but all attacks after haven't done any damage from what I can see. It needs to be direct contact! And yet, the last time I touched him he took an arm. If I fail again… I have to find a far-range method to finish this rather than just prolonging it. He cannot touch the ground. Midoriya bent his knees farther and then shot back up into the sky. Wind blew away from the teen and pushed the branches of trees around the park that was still mostly intact though had a large crumbled area with broken edges near where Midoriya and Shigaraki first restarted their clash. The younger man had gotten his enemy back into the air, but his reluctance to get closer to Shigaraki who was too resilient to be defeated from even the most powerful long-ranged Air Force attacks was only prolonging the battle rather than ending it.

His last Air Force did send Shigaraki hundreds of meters into the sky though. He jumped up a little less hard than he flicked his enemy upwards, so that Shigaraki was reaching the top of the arc while Midoriya's rise was slowing down below him and his arc just beginning. Midoriya stared up towards his enemy who had already flattened himself out in the air and was cracking his knuckles on each hand down at his sides while Midoriya leapt up. Shigaraki slammed his own hands backwards as Deku reached near the top of his own arc, and Midoriya kicked the air in front of him while Shigaraki sped up his sudden descent and jolted himself across the gap. The villain reached out his left hand but curled through empty space as Midoriya had better mobility with more experience maneuvering in the air. Midoriya's eyes still opened wide though as he stared towards his enemy who missed but made an attempt anyway whereas the last few times he had been just spinning around and trying to reposition in the air. He's getting used to it. His strength to be able to do that- I saw how hard he landed down in the park. Has he undergone some kind of experimentation? Or is it just training? He was already faster than I could follow back at USJ, and he's only gotten stronger. If he evades my next attack like he just bounded towards me, and he touches the ground…

Midoriya could imagine all of Yoyogi Park turning to ash. He saw people on the streets around it and the Decaying faces of those who he had evacuated out of the park with his Blackwhips at the start of their fight. The buildings around the surrounding roads all crumbled in his mind's eye, and in the bottom of his actual vision he saw that park approaching as they dropped through the air now with a larger distance between them. He had to get closer in order to try putting more damage on Shigaraki and to slam him with enough force to keep him from the ground, but getting closer to Shigaraki was becoming riskier as the villain adapted to their aerial battle with greater maneuverability each time they clashed. He was too slow last time, but he's getting faster up here. Am I getting slower? Midoriya had the thought but forced himself calm and ignored the agony in his left shoulder and the phantom pain filling his left arm which had been Decayed into nothing. There was a trickle of blood coming down that left shoulder along his side and over his green costume that he could feel already soaked on the left side of his torso.

Can't wait. No more time. Delay only helps him. So now then. Deku breathed in and then pushed out the breath while puffing out his chest. His body flexed and glowed as One For All coursed throughout him. Shigaraki missed his swing and was thrown off-balanced from his recovered state, but he quickly repositioned himself in the air again better than the last time to glare back towards Deku but with a grin as he could tell how much Deku was feeling pressed to rush in haphazardly. Shigaraki lifted his hands towards the boy who would not be able to hit him head-on, which was the only attack so far that had done any damage back when Deku first hit him on the street he made his announcement.

Deku's legs curled in. His knees bent closed to his stomach. His right elbow pulled towards his side. Where? The villain thought. Shigaraki's eyes started darting to his right.

First, knock him back off-balance… Deku appeared above the villain whose eyes that were darting right moved up now to follow. His arms started moving that way too and crossed as Deku was in the middle of a kick downwards. His body was twisting. His right leg kicked down, and the force from his kick at 70% was visible in the air as a massive pillar of force that slammed into Shigaraki but only hit the villain in his right side.

It clipped Shigaraki who had tried to dodge, but who could also tell as he was sent spinning through the air on a faster plummet that his enemy had intentionally not hit him directly. So he can get a second blow before I hit the ground-

The villain tried to recover and move as he understood the reasoning behind why Deku's kick was slightly weaker and not directly on line with him. Shigaraki swung his right arm around his side and grabbed at the boy he expected to dive down for a close-ranged follow-through. He twisted his own body to stop spinning so much, his eyes snapping upwards where he swung his arm, but Deku only sent himself down to fifteen feet above the villain before stopping himself short. The pop of Midoriya's right hand down below him for an instant stop made a shockwave that hit Shigaraki's arm and his head that pushed into the force to keep glaring up at the boy he tried turning his body fully to.

Deku's left foot glowed brighter. His body was twisting still after his kick that had so much momentum that it made him do a three-sixty. His right leg that kicked first started pulling back out of the way, because his left was pulled all the way back already. His steel-toed boot broke into pieces. Deku's leg glowed brighter and brighter. Shigaraki's eyes locked onto Deku's left foot though. Underneath the boot, there was white fabric looking very similar to the glove still on Deku's right hand. That foot-glove had toe-sleeves that were each curling in. Midoriya did not flick his toes down though. His whole leg rippled with 90% power as he ground his teeth and shouted, "ST LOUIS SMASH: AIR FORCEEEE!"

His leg slammed down at the villain unable to do anything but try and cross his arms. He only got his left to partially cover his face though, right as the force of Deku's kick collided with him and dropped him into the park below. Deku gasped out as he finished his kick and spun out in the air. His vision was blurry but he shook his head around and snapped his vision down towards the shaking park below him. Massive fissures broke out from the point that he just Smashed Shigaraki into. Trees uprooted and flew up in the air while giant chunks of earth lifted up and then collapsed down. A pond in the park spilled into fissures and created rivers at the bottom that rockslides fell into creating huge waves splashing up in the air and blowing even higher as the wind filled in spaces that just lost all their air from the kick that suctioned oxygen and altered the makeup of the atmosphere around them.

It was not a strange occurrence in the city today, but the sky opened up and poured rain down that would not reach the park for a few seconds after Midoriya changed the air pressure so drastically. Midoriya stared down through the dust and debris towards the impact point he sent Shigaraki crashing into. Deku wasted no time to punch his right fist behind himself and drop down into that dust. Don't let him recover.

That kick broke foundations of buildings around the park, Shigaraki opened his clenched-shut eyes in the deep crater. His body ached but he leaned upwards and pushed his hands down at his sides. The villain leader was surprised. I didn't think Deku would risk it-

The huge chunk of park underneath Shigaraki was blown apart in the moment it started Decaying. He leapt backwards and flipped away from the piece right as it got blown apart into a million pieces, only half of which were Decaying away into nothing. Midoriya did not need to see Shigaraki through the dust. He could see it in his mind's eye. The Danger Sense of his Quirk told him exactly where Shigaraki was the instant he touched the ground with the intent to Decay it. Deku was ready, punching towards the spot with so much force that it shook the entire Yoyogi Park and the district of Shibuya around it again.

Shigaraki threw his arms up and sped himself back towards the ground quicker than just falling. Midoriya was already sprinting towards him though. Bolts of electricity sparked between Deku's legs as he tore up the ground on a sprint at Shigaraki. The ground behind him both dipped down and rose up at the same time. It cut deep into the earth but both sides of the gash in the park that Deku created just by sprinting was lifted over twenty meters into the air in the very next instant. It rose like waves away from the boy who charged at Shigarki faster than the villain would be able to bend down and touch his hands to the ground again. That did not mean Shigaraki did not have use of his arms though, as those arms shifted from trying to Decay the ground below to trying to Decay the hero who he sprinted straight back towards himself.

Midoriya leaned his head to the left as Shigaraki swung his left arm forward towards the boy's face. He had to twist the rest of his body away as Shigaraki ducked and snatched at Deku's stomach with his right hand. Midoriya's curled right fist opened up fast to pop out a force to give him extra space, as he doubted even connecting that blow would keep Shigaraki's hand from nicking him, or he at least knew that it was a possibility and could not risk it on an attack that may not finish off his enemy. He spun himself around while kicking off the ground under him, breaking it into several huge pieces that way Shigaraki would not be able to destroy the city even with Deku dodging instead of attacking.

Shigaraki was not reaching for the ground anymore though. The city was not his target. Midoriya kicked off the ground after spinning away, but his eyes bulged as he stared back through the settling dust at the figure sprinting straight through more rising debris after him. Deku touched his left foot on the ground and started pushing down to jump off again, but Shigaraki's legs bent too and his arm started moving upwards. Deku's left leg bent at the knee to a ninety degree angle as Shigaraki pounced. His body bent backwards like a table parallel to the ground, Shigaraki's arm passing over it as the villain suddenly put on a burst of speed beyond what Deku had seen so far and yet within the parameters of what he suspected Shigaraki could be hiding away. Just bending his body backwards that quickly cratered the ground underneath him. It broke the floor under his left foot, which hurt him as he was mid-kicking his right leg up into the villain curling both arms down now to try and Decay Deku fast.

Deku pulled his kick. He stopped it short and just used the force from it to send Shigaraki up high, while also using the reverse momentum to push himself down hard on his back into the new crater. He did not risk a collision while Shigaraki's bare hands were just over his face and chest. He hit the ground while Shigaraki was tossed up in the air, but with Shigaraki's forward momentum continuing, he was thrown past Deku's head and farther into the park. Deku's kick that lifted the villain up was also closer to Shigaraki's feet while his whole body was extended outwards over Deku's bent backwards body. It threw Shigaraki past his enemy who he spun around in midair and swung his left arm back at, as Deku just shot after him and was spinning a new kick towards the back of Shigaraki's head.

Deku pulled another kick and flipped himself in a front-flip instead. He got his back just over the top of Shigaraki's left hand that pushed through the force of the pulled kick, and then every fiber of his being told him that he was about to die. His body filled with One For All as much as he could directed into his back. His costume ripped apart above the waist to his shoulders. He didn't even touch it! Deku finished his flip and stared back cautiously but hiding his panic at the sight of Shigaraki's sideways-facing expression that had murderous intent splayed all over it. The villain had not even touched him. He knew that he avoided enough that Shigaraki's fingers went just below his costume and did not even brush it, but he could tell that his costume was Decaying and that the Decay would spread to his body if left unchecked. Just the area around him, Midoriya saw small pieces of rock that were lifting or falling around where Shigaraki was landing down himself, breaking apart and turning to ash as if Shigaraki was touching them with his hands.

The force of his One For All had shredded the Decaying costume quicker than the Decay could spread to Deku's own body. He had no idea what he would have done though if that Decay had actually touched his skin. Is his Quirk getting stronger as we fight? Or was he hiding that he could do that? Can I get close to him again? It's just his hands. It has to be his hands. Unlike Bakugo, it hasn't expanded elsewhere. He needs to use his hands. I can hit his body. He's so fast though. Am I slowing down? Is he speeding up?

Shigaraki did not bend down to touch the ground while glaring sideways back towards Deku who had not rushed him again yet. His fingers were twitching at his sides, and the villain staring at his shirtless enemy grinned darkly at the look of caution that bordered on fear or panic on Deku's face. Deku tried to keep it just as cautious, but his body swayed a bit more than he wished it would as he stopped it suddenly when he noticed Shigaraki moving- only it was his own head that was not in the same position that made him think Shigaraki was moving about. He was not focusing on hiding his anxious expression as much as he was trying to remain strong in the face of this monstrous foe pushing him farther than he had ever been pushed before.

He knew it had to be a short fight when he started it. The bleeding he had stopped was all that allowed him to keep going for as long as he had, but the blood loss had already been too much that it was hindering his body and mind in this fight. "Is it too much?" Shigaraki asked. He started walking forward without showing any sign that he was about to bend his body and Decay the park. Midoriya was panting more than the villain who breathed silently after his question and kept walking while giving Deku a sideways glare out the right corners of his eyes. "You're off-balanced, Midoriya Izuku."

Midoriya pivoted his feet and continued glaring at the enemy who was circling close to him but so on-guard that even at his top speed he doubted he would be able to hit Shigaraki without trading blows. Trading blows was impossible though, when one touch by his enemy meant near instant death. Where is the hole? I need to find… I need, a plan. A strategy. A new one. I'm tired. I won't last much longer. Take that into account…

"The weird weight you're at right now, it's throwing off your kicks and punches. You're fighting worse than you did against Bakugo, against Takahashi… against Phinx even?" Shigaraki wondered it as if taunting that Midoriya had not been fighting at his best that day either. The taunt was double too though, as Midoriya bit down in pain and so much fury at the look of this villain who had ordered a hit on his own mother. Wonderlass, Midoriya thought in agony as he imagined the woman with a spike through her chest that he helped remove.

"All this time you've spent fighting me, your friends have been falling around the city," Shigaraki taunted. He jeered at the heroic teen who glared harsher at him and tried to make his expression match his thoughts, "All because you're weaker than All Might. So weak, that we didn't even start fighting and you allowed yourself to be crippled. Allowed yourself to be weakened so much, that you must have known this had to be a short fight. You needed to make it short, and yet here we still are. You're running out of time, Deku-"

"I did know it had to be a short fight," Midoriya agreed with his enemy. He turned more but pressed his feet down harder which made Shigaraki stop pacing as well. The villain turned more to face the hero with a dark look but still confident that if Midoriya pounced again, this time would be his last and the one where Shigaraki would succeed in predicting his move and Decaying him for good. Deku continued undeterred at the man whose confidence in being able to finish it in this next move he could see clearly, "But at the same time, I didn't know if I was strong enough to make it a short fight. It's why I couldn't just attempt to attack you back on that street." Midoriya's body steadied as he planted his feet down harder into the floor with his toes curling into the ground under him. Shigaraki frowned at what the kid was saying as if there were multiple reasons for Midoriya not just hitting him at full strength back there when Shigaraki was certain the only reason was the boy's weak mind to not be able to kill.

"If I had failed to take you down with a single blow," Midoriya continued at the villain. He shook his head once and declared, "The whole of Tokyo would have been held hostage. And I knew I was putting my arm at risk! I knew my life was at risk going after you, Shigaraki, but doing it like I did a part of me had already accepted the possibility and even probability of losing my right arm." Midoriya told this to the villain who searched his enemy's face for a sign that Deku was just lying to him about it. "I'm not missing that arm right now," Deku stated firmly to deny Shigaraki's search in a way that actually made the villain hesitate and pull his head back a little.

Shigaraki spread his lips apart though after a moment and taunted the hero, "Without it, you'll lose. You're too weak. And with Sazaki dead, and soon Deku as well," Shigaraki threw his arms out to the sides of him. "My Army of the Freed will take over all of Japan."

"You won't win, Shigaraki," Midoriya declared louder at his enemy while curling his right fist down at his side. He held it in front of his chest and shouted as that fist shook in front of his pounding heart, "Because you don't know what it means to sacrifice! Zach, was willing to sacrifice anything if it meant victory. And I can't do that! I can't, be him." Midoriya admitted that but his fist stayed clenched firmly and his expression as unwavering as ever before. "Zach sacrificed everything for this world," Deku said in a strong voice hiding the regret and pain in it behind the admiration in his tone.

"I never forgave him for all he'd done," Deku continued. "Zach, did lots of horrible things, and yet no one felt how horrible they were more than Zach. It was crushing him while he did them and in all the time after where he had to live with himself, but he did those things anyway knowing how bad it would feel for him as long as it meant he could save someone else."

The two of them were not standing that far apart from each other, but Shigaraki's sudden thought to be the one to attack Deku here cut off just as fast. He had been waiting for Deku's move that he would predict and counter in a way to kill the hero, and he questioned himself on his reactionary thought to attack instead if it was Deku trying to lure him into the same kind of counter. So he stayed where he was, only able to grit his teeth and frown deeper at the hero's annoying words that he retorted at, "Sazaki was insane." Shigaraki's eyes shadowed over but he smiled while sneering, "He was always insane, to think that way."

Shigaraki rose his head back and looked down at Deku with a knowing a condescending glare. "People just don't call it that because when someone is crazy but their crazy is useful to the rest of them, they accept it. You all just overlooked how much pain he put himself in for the rest of you-"

"You're wrong!" Midoriya yelled while swinging his right arm out to the side. It did not look like he was using his Quirk, and yet wind still blew away into Shigaraki's face from the swing of his arm along. Midoriya snapped at the villain he cut off, "No one looked past it. We all knew. We don't talk about it, and maybe we should have told him more. We should have acknowledged that pain he was in, but he didn't do it for our recognition, and in fact-" Midoriya ground his teeth frustratedly as he cut himself off for a second. His eyes squinted then he shouted, "To even mention it would have hurt Zach more! It would have, because seeing us in pain hurt him," Shigaraki frowned again even deeper at that look of assurance on Deku's face that he did not need to see as he did not actually find it hard to believe.

"So even though we were hurting when we saw him in pain," Midoriya continued. He lifted the corners of his lips up even as teardrops formed in the corners of his eyes as he thought of his friend he watched die so recently. "Even though it hurt, we smiled when we were around him! Our friend! And he was happy," Midoriya added still with that smile on his face. "Not when we told him how we understood or how we couldn't possibly, not when we tried telling him he was alright for it, or how we didn't blame him, or how he really had seen so much worse than we could imagine!"

"Only when we were smiling by his side," Midoriya finished that with his lips flattening back out. His face shifted steadier. Even with those tears in his eyes and the recent appearance of how hurt he looked or his bright smile, Shigaraki's body tensed up at the sight of the teen's shifted expression. "I regret losing Zach, but I don't regret my arm, Shigaraki. I won't let that stop me here." Midoriya's body was not wobbling anymore. His expression was hardened and his eyebrows narrowed down over his eyes that glared furiously into Shigaraki's in such intensity that the villain's eyes darted to Deku's fist and each of his feet in an instant as he needed to predict quicker how Midoriya was about to attack.

"I'll stop you! I'll protect the people of Tokyo at the same time, and I'll throw you and all your League of Villains in prison where you belong!" Midoriya yelled out at his enemy. I wasn't willing to kill him, Midoriya thought while screaming out his goal with full determination. That's what Zach may have done. When we talked about sacrifice though, I assumed Zach was telling me that I may have to sacrifice that ideal and kill someone some day. But Zach gave up his arm too. Not fighting a villain and losing it because the villain was actually strong and got him, but because he chose to fly that plane down in between two armies before they could attack and kill each other. He sacrificed that arm, even if he did not know beforehand that he would lose it, he sacrificed it for the sake of the people he was trying to save. And if it was between losing my arm, or killing a human like that and losing what makes me who I am, the decision is easy.

"I am Deku. That means I can do it!" Midoriya's knees bent. He leapt forward straight at Shigaraki, then he kicked upwards before reaching his enemy. His right leg extended out and kicked straight up showing a flexibility amazing for most men who could not imagine getting their feet above their own heads. Shigaraki was bending down though with his right hand reaching for the floor and his left snapping out to grab Deku when the hero would be trying to stop him from Decaying anything. Deku's kick's wind snapped Shigaraki straight up though and off his feet, but the force was not pushing upwards as much as outwards, and Shigaraki swung his arms to the sides and hit a tree he was passing on his left as he flew through the park.

Deku kicked back down his right leg that he had kicked up, and he launched himself at Shigaraki while barrel-rolling in midair. He flicked his right hand to the side and blew apart the tree he saw Decaying downwards towards the surface that he could not risk it spreading to in the next instant if he were to ignore it and just focus on hitting Shigaraki alone. He was still concentrating on his next attack on Shigaraki, and stopping all Decay, while thinking to himself, I can win without sacrificing anything of importance to me. Zach was right. A hero can't sacrifice anything. In Zach's head those choices always required someone making a bad choice to stop something much worse, but that's what people without power have to do! If one only had power, they wouldn't come to that conclusion in the first place. If they had enough power to go above the decision- Of killing Shigaraki right there or letting him destroy half of Tokyo, I will always look for that third option. An option that we have the means of finding as the strong!

Deku kicked his legs up above him and slammed into the ground below where he saw Shigaraki about to try and pop his arms up to hit down on quicker. Shigaraki did not finish popping his arms up, swinging them down instead while still with the momentum that he was not going to drop all the way to the ground. Deku saw his enemy's arms swinging at him and he pressed down farther as he needed to avoid the same range of a gap that Shigaraki's Quirk had reached him before. He ducked enough that his enemy who he would not be able to hit with the follow-up punch he was planning missed his own swipes as well. Shigaraki was still too far above the ground even in his downwards arc from that last kick that just sent him flying.

I created a new choice. Deku dug his fingers into the ground between his legs when he just pushed down farther to dodge Shigaraki's swipes. He had landed in a crouch and only pressed down closer to the floor because his enemy's arms were not above his head while his body was flying down faster at a hero. In that new position though he came up with a new attack, and instead of kicking debris at his enemy in a Hawaii Smash, Deku dragged his hand on the floor and threw debris at the villain who had to lift his hands between him and the hero rather than use them to Decay the floor the instant he landed. The one I picked as a hero. A complete victory where I stop Shigaraki, save the city, and keep to my hero name by doing it all the way I know that I can! The way I believe is right for a hero. To try and put every villain in jail no matter what.

Midoriya sprinted at the villain who still had his hands raised at Deku and could not get back to Decaying everything at any second of the fight with the hero on top of him constantly. Shigaraki saw his enemy looking at him with conviction that he had only seen on two heroes faces ever before. He imagined the older one for a second, grinding his teeth at the sight of All Might's muscular form sprinting in place of Midoriya but semi-transparent so he could still see Deku on the inside. Shigaraki backpedaled and then leaned to his right before leaping to his left and avoiding the punched force of air that came from Deku's right fist. He made it out as if he was reaching for the ground on his landing, only to twist his body suddenly and avoid the kicked force from OFA through the landing point below him. Shigaraki kicked behind him and snatched forward at Deku who flicked his right hand out and did a 720 rotation while also being forced several meters away from Shigaraki's fingers. He landed his spin with his left leg extending out at the villain who landed himself and twisted his own body, reaching for Deku's leg that would likely break his arm if it connected, though it would still turn to ash in the very next moment.

Deku stomped that kick down halfway through though. The ground beneath them cracked so much worse and made Shigaraki lose balance. Deku did as well, but dark wisps were already coming out of his right hand as he was falling sideways, and those Blackwhips snapped forward at Shigaraki even as the two wobbled and failed to keep balance. "Was that all?" Shigaraki asked while planting his feet harder even on a tilting section of earth that was up at a thirty degree angle right now. Water splashed into cracks behind him, but his feet dug into the floor and his hands curled out into the Blackwhips that Midoriya wrapped him with. He dispersed those whips in an instant before the Decay suddenly destroying them could reach back to his body. Shigaraki asked him this while he was less off-balanced than the enemy who had caused this listing section of park with his stomp. "All Might would have shattered it all, without damaging the outer areas too. You knocked me closer to the edge of the park? Are you certain the buildings out there won't fall from this?"

Midoriya could not help but snap his eyes past Shigaraki for a second and between a dozen trees to a street he could actually see after knocking his enemy too far back with his flexible kick before. Midoriya leaned backwards then pressed the toes of his feet down harder to crack their breaking section of earth into multiple pieces as he dodged Shigaraki's reach only for Shigaraki to follow-through with it by swinging a palm at the floor while Deku was mid-leaning-away.

Midoriya broke the ground but had to pop up into the air anyway as the Decay from one breaking section of earth connected to others and spread out from them onto the park's surface itself. Midoriya no longer had a shirt on already, so nothing ripped except for his muscles as he suddenly burst into using 100% of One For All with his body moving as fast as humanly possible. It's spreading faster! Midoriya had never seen the Decay tear up so much so quickly, but he also kept in mind what Shigaraki had just told him too and he could see buildings at the top of his vision that would not be able to take this. Focus OFA into the center of my fist! It'll be deeper and less damaging! Midoriya slammed his fist down.

The punch was more focused and allowed Shigaraki to avoid any damage at all while leaping backwards with his arms crossed in front of his body. His palms were out and Decaying most debris flying at him faster than ever, and he was chuckling even as Midoriya broke a massive hole in the park that seemed bottomless as he stared through the visible force of air into a pitfall twenty meters wide at least. Shigaraki landed down and skid backwards while trees near him ripped from their roots and tumbled away; even the concentrated force of Deku's punch too powerful to avoid some collateral damage.

"Weaker than All Might, and weaker than Sazaki. The weakest of them all!" Shigaraki yelled up at his opponent who arced towards him down from his punch.

"The assassins are all dead. You came here to stop it, and you failed. You failed at stopping me from killing too. All you seem to do lately is fail." Zach's voice echoed in Deku's head as he dropped towards his enemy still taunting him in a way he tried to tell himself to ignore. His right arm was in too much pain though from using his full power right there, and he heard Zach's voice again, "…And you can't hold a candle to me. You couldn't even take part in that fight. You couldn't save those villains you so desperately spent your time protecting. And you know you can't stop me so you're giving up before you even try?"

Midoriya curled his right hand back into a fist after it had opened up with blood spurting from three of his knuckles. He landed where Shigaraki was just standing as the villain jumped back early instead, and Midoriya did not swing because he did not want to knock Shigaraki onto the floor but rather wanted to be on the ground himself first before trying to attack again and get Shigaraki higher into the air next time. As he looked at his smirking enemy though, he could feel the blood on his right hand, and he could see the dripping of blood coming out of his left shoulder even if he had flexed his muscles and clenched shut some blood vessels to stop most of the bleeding.

"You want to protect?" Shigaraki wondered skeptically at a hero whose words were empty to him. "You and All Might, are liars. As much of villains as the rest of those fake heroes," Shigaraki's voice got lower and angrier as he said it to a hero who flinched and opened his eyes wider at that look on his enemy's face. "You're lying to everyone you claim to be a hero to," Shigaraki called out knowingly at his opponent. "Just as All Might did, for the sake of a fake pillar that crumbled and let society collapse because it was all that held the world up."

"So it isn't a pillar at all," Shigaraki continued. "It's a crutch." Midoriya bared his teeth and forced away the hesitation and pain of the hindsight in what Shigaraki was saying. He's wrong. It might have been, once. We can see that now! But, it's not the same as it was! "Your lie caused your friend so much pain," Shigaraki continued to his frustrated opponent whose eyes were re-narrowing at him. He could see Deku pretending like it was not getting to him as much as it was, and Shigaraki yelled out as he stood fifteen meters ahead of his foe, "He suffered so much because you lied! His torture would have been alleviated if Sazaki had had the information to give. Good information, that I had not known at the time and would have appreciated enough to stop torturing him… for a while."

Shigaraki was so smug as he mocked his enemy that he did not see as Midoriya's look hiding the pain shifted. The determined hero could have just been hiding it better, and Shigaraki kept smirking at him for another second even as Midoriya's expression got stronger than ever. "You're wrong," Deku said aloud. He stood firm at the edge of a huge pit before the villain, and he admitted, "Maybe All Might's pillar was weak. Because the Symbol of Peace held up the whole hero society without enough built up around it."

Deku spoke without hesitation and called out about his hero, "All Might forged ahead with that new idea of a symbol in hopes of keeping villains down in a world barely ready for Quirks, let alone handling villains!" Midoriya was not degrading his hero nor was he calling the system that All Might put in place perfect. He yelled out in appreciation for All Might even as he added, "I won't become that same kind of pillar though, even if people come to know me as the Symbol of Peace that I hope they do. And I have Zach to thank for that!" Midoriya yelled. "For building all the other pillars that support the weight of this world and would continue to do so, even if I could become the strongest and support the rest of it all by myself. I know I would never have to!"

"Those other pillars will all crumble today-" Shigaraki started to remark back.

"And you're wrong!" Midoriya yelled at his enemy louder than Shigaraki was countering. That interruption looked to piss off the villain enough that Shigaraki might just attack head-on, but he hesitated at the look on Deku's face completely denying something he had said. "You're wrong, Shigaraki Tomura. Because Zach knew!" Deku yelled at the man whose face flinched and then pulled back at the tone of this hero who was not lying to him. "Even back then! Even during that torture you put him through, Zach had already known about One For All!"

Deku shook his head back and forth and then yelled at the man staring back at him in disbelief, "He didn't tell you, but you know how smart Zach is! So I know you can believe it when I tell you that Zach figured it out in under a single term! He figured out everything!" Midoriya yelled at the villain who clenched his teeth hard in frustration but also absolute rage at the idea that Sazaki had known even in those times that he knew the kid had forgotten and repressed so badly because of what he had done to him. "And yet, even in that worst moment of his torture, as Zach revealed everything else… he still held back One For All."

"And he must have known what he was doing on some level to have done that," Midoriya continued softer. "Even though he had broken and was so scared of the pain you put him in that he had to tell everything, by doing so, you villains would never suspect that he was still lying about that one thing." A part of me always wondered if Shigaraki just never put that clip in the Sports Festival Invasion. If the reason he found out, really was because of you. I never should have doubted you, because I know that you never broke. You kept my secret until the end! Zach, I won't… ZACH- Midoriya's face scrunched up as he tried to think something inspirational and meaningful towards his friend who he wanted to reassure. But there was no one to reassure. No reason to think that at him, considering that Zach was already gone.

Midoriya started again softer but he told the enemy before him, "You didn't know Zach lied, because you never would have shown that moment at the Sports Festival where he talked about my Quirk if you had known!" His voice rose back louder in frustration mostly directed at himself because he knew that any doubt he felt never should have existed based on that alone.

Midoriya's anger replaced instantly with one hundred percent concentration and nothing else. His emotions sidelined as he watched the opposite happen to his enemy who just had one of his biggest failures amplified and shoved into his face. Shigaraki vanished as he shot forward, or at least he would have to anyone watching who could not move at that speed as well. Even at Midoriya's speed though, it was only his last second switch to sheer focus that allowed him to track the enemy whose speed suddenly topped anything he had reached so far in their fight.

Deku leaned his body backwards. The heels of his feet pressed harder into the ground as his torso pulled backwards from Shigaraki's right hand. Midoriya could see something radiating out of Shigaraki's hand, and he imagined his body ripping into shreds- His body went from leaning backwards to snapping back as hard as possible, his counterattack cutting off to instead flick his right fingers all upwards to knock himself down into the floor quicker. Whatever it was that allowed Shigaraki's Decay to work without direct contact, Midoriya saw it hitting him even if he had managed to lean away in the speed he matched of his enemy. Midoriya had already dodged like this though, and as his back slammed into the ground below to allow Shigaraki's arm to pass over, Shigaraki lifted his own right leg and dodged the kick that Deku tried lashing out with while hitting the ground like that.

Shigaraki rose his right foot high, but his left foot dragged along the ground past Midoriya's missing kick. Deku saw that other foot ripping through the dirt and rocks without pause, and he tried to twist his body and move his right arm again. He was too slow this time. Shigaraki landed a kick into Deku's right side that made the teen gasp out spit while the leg indented into his body. What?! Deku was thrown from the floor and up into the air. His eyes that clenched in pain snapped open as he saw the man with waving gray hair flying up towards him like a rocket, the ground under where Shigaraki just stood breaking down from his lift-off speed. Even faster?! Midoriya slammed his right fist down and Shigaraki had to cross his arms as the boy suddenly attacked before he could reach as high as him.

Midoriya had to swing so suddenly though to stop Shigaraki, that his own body was thrown a hundred meters backwards and in a violently spinning arc up in the air. Where- I'm too- I hit him into the ground! Midoriya heard the explosion of earth from Shigaraki smashing down after his punch. He caught a glimpse of the sun up through parted clouds above, and he kicked a leg upwards in that instant that he knew which direction the sky was. Midoriya flipped over right before hitting down on the ground, and he dug his right hand's fingers into the floor while pushing his legs back behind him and glaring towards the still-rising cloud of dust and dirt from where Shigaraki slammed down. He threw himself forward, then his eyes bulged as a human-shaped hole came out of his side of that dust already flying at such crazy speeds towards him too.

Deku ducked while curling his right fist at his side as hard as he could. Shigaraki leaned his body to the left and side-stepped rapidly as Deku landed right in front of him and uppercut into the sky, just missing the villain who reached forward towards the left side of Deku's head. Deku snapped his eyes to the left as he followed Shigaraki but was unable to change the direction of his uppercut in time. The force from punching up with all that strength was dragging the air around him in though, and Shigaraki's right hand that reached for his face was pushed up in the second before it got too close. Shigaraki's body was pushed upwards, his arm missing, but as his legs were leaving the floor he kicked them out and slammed one into Deku's face, and the other into the mush on Deku's left shoulder which hurt much more even with the lack of power in those low-leverage kicks.

Deku's head snapped to the right with blood splashing from his cut lip and his left cheek. His right fist opened up and grabbed at his left shoulder though as he stumbled away then spun with his right leg already lifting and the ground below where he took his last step shattering. "CHICAGO-"

Shigaraki ducked on his drop and pressed his right hand down into the ground as Deku was kicking too high. Shigaraki pressed his right hand into the floor, and then Deku stomped his kick down into the floor. He saw Shigaraki's hand touch first. Shigaraki pressed his palm into the floor in the instant before Deku would stomp it apart, but he did not just start Decaying the park in that instant. He front-flipped using the one hand as a spring, and as Deku stomped through the floor, Shigaraki was finishing his flip and extending his legs out at the boy who had to swing his right hand in front of him and smack away the villains' legs that came through the billowing dust and were about to nail him in the face again. He was more concerned with Shigaraki's hand, and the villain was taking it to his advantage and chipped Midoriya's right front tooth while blackening his left eye as the feet just connected with his face before Midoriya smacked them away.

Shigaraki spun out through the rising debris. He did not have to swing his hands around it though as it rose past him, because all of it was Decaying already. Midoriya had stomped through the floor and made the park rise up around them. The ground was sinking down below, and every chunk of earth that rose at their sides was disintegrating into nothing between the two fighters falling away from each other. Deku snapped his head back forward with more blood dripping from his mouth as well as from the outer corner of his left eye that was squinting shut and swelling. Shigaraki just smirked while turning his head back in his spiral away from the hero who lifted his right hand to his face and wiped some of the blood while dropping.

Deku tapped his feet behind him as a Decaying boulder was leaning his way before he was going to touch the ground. That boulder blew into a million pieces, and Deku flew at the villain with his right elbow still high in the position that Midoriya had it when it looked like he was just wiping blood from his lips. Shigaraki leaned his head away and snapped forward his left arm, but Deku twisted his body in midair with a pop of his knees forward. He spun by the side of Shigaraki's arm, and he slammed his right elbow down towards his enemy's over-extending elbow-

Shigaraki's right hand was crossing in front of his body. His left arm would be sacrificed, but Deku's elbow would be touched by Shigaraki's right hand in the instant after Deku snapped his arm like a twig. And Deku grit his teeth as hard as he could but kicked out his legs from his popped knees instead. They did not have the force in them in the weird angle he was at to hurt his enemy, but he was able to graze the villain and knock him farther away to avoid Shigaraki's counter. I can't keep missing! Deku flipped backwards and then sprinted towards where Shigaraki was coming down the second his feet touched the floor in this crater before the villain's touched on the wall of it. I don't have the time. I can't, keep… this up.

Being unable to deal a serious blow to his enemy right there had Deku gasping for breath and cursing himself for dragging the fight out longer. A piece of him had even considered following through with his elbow to at least take out one of Shigaraki's arms, then somehow figure out a way to tear off his own right arm too before the Decay could spread to the rest of his body. Shigaraki could only use his arms after all, and Deku could use his kicks as well, so losing both arms in exchange for one of Shigaraki's might be an okay trade, right? He cursed himself even more as he sprinted at the villain that he was regretting not going through with that thought that had not even fully formed to give him the hesitation a second ago that would have gotten him killed anyway.

As Shigaraki was landing down, the villain in a torn black shirt just laughed at the sight of his charging opponent nearly reaching him. He did not even need to Decay the floor upon landing as Midoriya always feared he would. Shigaraki landed and backpedaled, forcing his opponent to keep sprinting for extra seconds. His foe's teeth ground harder as Shigaraki's movements dragged their fight out too long. He could see Deku's frustration, and he could see how the hero's sprint towards him was not a straight line but had swerved off-course for some unknown reason that could only be Deku not realizing that he was doing so.

"You'll fall any second," Shigaraki remarked at his opponent he started sprinting backwards from even faster than he was already backpedaling.

He'll stop short and change directions after forcing me faster, Midoriya thought in preparation for his enemy's next attack. But that doesn't mean, he's not intentionally forcing us to spend more time- AGH! I need a plan! A better one- Think! THINK! He can hurt me. He's physically strong. A single touch with his hands and I'm dead. I can't let him get too far from me either or he'll Decay the city. Only shattering his Decaying debris small enough do I prevent it from spreading. I can't risk him touching again. I have to stay on top of him. I have to stay close, but I can't get a single attack off into him where he won't Decay me in that second. Aizawa sensei was right! You don't let yourself get taken down by one villain. You don't get so injured that you risk failure and make it so someone else has to bail you out! No one else can. I have to do this! I have to win. "I WILL defeat you, Shigaraki!" Deku screamed as he picked up the speed and broke the floor below his last step.

"You'll die here," Shigaraki's feet stopped short mid-sprint backwards. His momentum completely halted without him even skidding backwards for a millisecond. He just reversed direction, at the same moment that Deku had just broken the floor below him by picking up speed so much towards this enemy…

In the right corner of Shigaraki's eyes, he saw it first. Midoriya's left eye was squinted and blurrier so he did not have good a view through the trees on his left, though he did see it as well after seeing where Shigaraki's eyes just darted to. Midoriya missing it for the first moment allowed him to adjust for where Shigaraki's hands were moving that were not adjusting to how he had twisted in mid-flight. Shigaraki did not adjust even after picking the perfect moment to attack a hero whose determined cry could not mask the recklessness of his lunge.

On the west side of the park just past the trees, a line of explosions went off through the air over the street. Windows shattered along the other side of the road between five and fifteen stories up. From their southwest at first and moving to their northwest, a chain of yellow and black explosions rippled through the air. Electricity and black wisps blasted from the shockwaves that burst in spheres all the way down that road. As the shockwaves were only just reaching perfectly aligned with the two fighting in the park though, Shigaraki's eyes snapped back ahead of him and completely focused on the smiling and heroic face before him that had less shock on it than his own.

Midoriya tried to recover as fast as possible from his shock. He had already moved in such a way as to avoid Shigaraki's risen hands, but he was unfortunate in that not realizing what Shigaraki had first led him to believe that Shigaraki might just be laying a trap for him. He had adjusted for where Shigaraki's hands rose but over-compensated for his caution, because why would Shigaraki be getting distracted in the middle of their fight? Deku slammed his right fist forward, but Shigaraki started to adjust finally when they were close, and Deku's feet that were touching down had to make a split second decision. How close? He had to ask how close he could get. If he went for direct contact, his fist would surely connect with Shigaraki's body directly before Shigaraki's hands touched him, but he would be touched as well before throwing his enemy from him.

Don't pull it, Midoriya thought. He did not want to pull the punch as it would lose too much force, and yet he did not think he could connect with Shigaraki either and still avoid being Decayed. I'm close! It'll work! Midoriya's feet pressed down on the ground and that leaned his body backwards. His right fist was swinging forward at that same time. His whole torso tensed and flexed with One For All. Light shone out of his glowing skin as he pulsed with his power, and his right fist swung in front of him at 90% then curled up at the last second. His fingers did not flick out this time as he used a ranged attack, rather his entire arm snapped out with more force than any long-distance attack he had ever made before. "FLORIDA SMAAAAAASSSSHH… SPACE FORCE!"

Deku's right hand punching forward with all his might curved upwards in front of the villain whose own body started leaning backwards as he realized in that final moment that no matter how far he tried reaching, his hands were not going to touch his enemy. In the corners of his eyes, even as he was hit by that powerful attack at nearly point blank range, he could see that black and yellow collision so close to them through the trees that for a brief instant he could see the silhouettes inside them. And then he was launched into the atmosphere.

Midoriya's final shift of where his arm was punching sent all the recoil pushing him down into the floor. His legs bent though and he avoided smashing down on his back and breaking a hole through the park. Rather, pressing down his feet that hard created fissures that split away from him and caused an earthquake inside of Tokyo. It made a passing Raijin and Zach dart their own eyes over for a moment as they saw the skyrocketing Shigaraki and the flying trees all shooting away from Midoriya Izuku's hunched-over form that looked so strong in a now open section of the cracking park. Waves of wind pulsed away from his body as he sent his enemy into the sky, and then those winds pulsed out away again as the boy standing there was suddenly gone and left only a trail of white shooting up into the sky that tried to keep up with him as he chased Shigaraki who he knew did not get taken out by even that attack as it had not connected directly to his body.

He's alive! Midoriya continued to smile as he flew up in the sky after Shigaraki. Tears in the corners of his eyes fell and blew away in the wind pushing on his face as he soared after a furious enemy who just spun around at the top of his arc and was diving back towards him now. Midoriya had no idea how much it was draining him mentally. It was not a motivating factor to him as much as it was just a crushing feeling that he only now understood as he felt it release his heart. His smile had not been heroic before. Every heroic expression had been forced and faked. Because deep inside, all he had felt for an hour was absolute despair.

He's alive?! Shigaraki's thoughts were similar to his enemy's. On his face was not encouragement and joy though. There was no motivation that surged inside him at the thought. But to say he did not get a boost in strength as well would have been a lie, and Midoriya could see it as he flew at an enemy who had a visible dark aura vibrating around him of sheer rage and insanity. The frustration that the villain felt amplified by how this development was seemingly affecting his own opponent whose visible signs of fatigue and collapse that had been so close to coming to fruition seemed to get wiped away by the single sight of Sazaki alive down there.

I don't know how Zach did it. How he survived, or how he still has the strength to fight Raijin after all of that- That thought made Midoriya's smile almost wipe from his face. He thought of the night before when most of the Class A guys were hanging out together. He imagined his friend using shock technology to prepare as if knowing what was about to come. And Midoriya thought of how he told Zach it could be enough already, but Zach refused him. Zach had one goal remaining that everyone could see mattered more to him than anything else. As tired as he had appeared, as finished with all of it as he had been, as exhausted and broken that he looked to them that they were able to actually believe what the League had framed him for doing earlier, there was one thing that Zach had been so determined to finish that all those things did not seem to matter. Because they all believed in him despite that way he looked when he spoke with such conviction about one singular goal that still mattered to him.

Midoriya was overjoyed. He was also sad as he thought of what Zach felt he had to do right now. But above all else, he was more determined than ever to stop the villain he flew up towards. He trusts me to finish this! He's believed that I could do it for longer than anyone. I'll trust Raijin to you. Everyone has their own fight right now. And they all need me to do this. Zach's always known that he won't be the one to fight Shigaraki. He's always known that it would be me. And even when he was harsh on me, and when we sparred and he told me that Shigaraki would kill everyone if I failed… he didn't doubt me! Zach doesn't doubt that I can do this. And I won't doubt it either. I will win! I won't let you down, or anyone- I can do this! I know what I need to do now. I know my plan will work. I know what kind of strategy to use. I've planned for it for years, and Shigaraki made me feel too rushed. He made me feel like all those plans meant nothing because I had to stay on top of him constantly to keep Tokyo from being destroyed. But I know now, Zach. I need to calm down and use my head. And I need to win, the way that I know how to. Alright, Shigaraki. Here I come!

Midoriya bent his knees. He kicked down and shot up straight in front of Shigaraki but twelve meters away. His right elbow was pulled into his side with his fist clenching tightly and his arm tensing up. Out of his left shoulder bulged darkness in a way looking too familiar in its way of emerging. It pulsed out of his arm socket as if Death spraying out of Zach Sazaki's ripped off left shoulder in Wampajawa. The Blackwhips pushed out while so close to each other that it looked like one large spray of Death instead of how Midoriya usually used his Quirk. Connect the ends! Midoriya merged the end of his Blackwhips while they shot out in front of him. Shigaraki just kicked his own legs back the way that Midoriya had in order to close their distance and grab the hero.

The enraged look in Shigaraki's eyes did not keep the villain from snapping those eyes to the right at the thick black whip of an arm that Midoriya slammed sideways into him. Shigaraki rose his arms up and blocked, and he curled his fingers onto the Blackwhip which Decayed Midoriya's Quirk in a second. Midoriya separated the end of his main Blackwhip though, while still using the thinner one that emerged out the back of his left shoulder instead of out ahead of him. Shigaraki was too focused on his arm, legs, and front-flying Blackwhips to notice the thinner one that also tensed up and coiled in behind Midoriya's back, before slamming outwards the second that Shigaraki moved his hands to block the first attack.

Midoriya's backwards coiled Blackwhip extended out and launched him across the gap at the villain who swung his arms back forward while kicking down below him this time to stop his drop. Midoriya's coil had pushed him higher in the air, and his kicks did not come straight-on but were coming down towards the top of Shigaraki's head. Shigaraki was already looking up though at the boy flying over him, his hands raising to that position rather than in front of him where Midoriya intended Shigaraki to try and block from. His fist was curled still at his side though from his initial feint. His legs he wanted to double-kick down on Shigaraki's face stayed pulled in, while Midoriya forced as much One For All into his fist as possible and then slammed down at Shigaraki's right hand that was reaching up for his face.

Midoriya stopped his fist short. Shigaraki's sleeve shredded. The white glove on Midoriya's hand tore apart as Decay hit One For All in the space between their bodies. The villain expecting Midoriya to just use that hand to try and send himself flying elsewhere realized it as the fist came flying at his own hand. What?! The Decay that had been searing away any matter that just got close to Shigaraki's hands, was pushed back and destroyed by the Quirk that slammed into it with so much force that it physically negated the power trying to tear away Deku's fist. The skin on Midoriya's hand ripped and blood splashed out, but neither he nor Shigaraki knew if it was from Decay hitting it for a moment or the One For All being so strong that it just tore through his skin.

The hero still did not risk actually hitting Shigaraki's palm directly, but the proximity of his punch still threw Shigaraki's arm down so fast that a loud snap filled the air the same time as the cracks from Shigaraki's mangling fingers. The rest of the force passing Shigaraki's arm hit the villain in the torso and face, shooting him down out of the sky while Midoriya finally extended his legs but in a way to shoot him straight down after the villain. As he hits the ground- Midoriya's eyes bulged. Shigaraki's eyes clenched shut as the force hit him in the face, but they snapped open and his left hand pushed up below Deku. Midoriya had already kicked off behind him to speed up and reach the ground before Shigaraki, but the villain he was facing who was flying out of the air below him blocked his path in a way that Midoriya's extra speed to reach first was going to slam him straight into Shigaraki's Decaying palm.

His right arm was not ready for another punch. He could only kick both legs that he had just kicked upwards back the other way now, popping himself out of his downward momentum and higher… NO! Midoriya watched as Shigaraki's arm that had been reaching out below him, curved. It bent and his fingers all pointed at the floor he was still plummeting at as fast as Midoriya had punched him down. It was all happening in a second, but Midoriya had just reversed his momentum and was not going to reach Shigaraki first. I can't get below him! I'm too far to hurt him enough that he won't do it!

The Danger Sense Midoriya had been feeling through the fight had never felt more intense. It was not his own body he saw getting turned to dust though in the shadows he saw in his head. All around him, he could see the buildings falling. He heard screaming people falling out of them turning to ash before they even touched the shattering streets. Sweat covered his body as he twisted himself around with his OFA spiking as much as he could, his whole body straining as he used everything he had without caring about whatever the next move might be or how much more he may have to fight today. How?

He twisted himself in midair and punched his right fist upwards. I'll kick him. I'll reach after. How?

Midoriya was flying out of the air, but Shigaraki had already touched down on the ground. His legs bent upon landing. His right arm was limp at his side for the moment, but Shigaraki Tomura was smirking despite it. The villain looking up at Midoriya did not stand up from his crouched form, reaching his left hand for the floor below him in the same moment he had landed.

Whatever's been done to his body, or whatever training he's endured, it's made him durable enough that my ranged attacks are too weak. How do I- Midoriya did not have the time to question how anymore. He had already punched his arm above him and twisted after it so his face was pointed down towards his enemy's. Shigaraki stayed crouched, but his right hand that had been limp with broken fingers at the end, started to reach down for the floor as well without the villain showing any pain that Deku had caused him. And his left hand that was reaching first, started to rise up towards the hero who was flying on a straight-on path with him. Even when my punch came as close as I could get it. Inside the range of his Decay! It wasn't enough. Not unless I connect directly. I can't get him back in the air at this angle. I can only end it here. Hitting him down will let him destroy everything, unless he's down for the count.

Shigaraki's adjusted too much to midair combat. Using his strength like I use One For All for his movement in the air. I can't keep fighting him like that. I need something else. I need…

Shigaraki's right hand had not reached the floor yet, but the ground below him started to break apart. The grass and dirt and stone started to crumble. And Shigaraki got more out of his crouch as his Quirk acted on its own. Deku had to get there now. He had to be close enough to stop the Decay and the villain. Deku's arm had flung down and swung around his body after he punched so hard upwards to return his downwards momentum even faster this time and reach despite knowing that Shigaraki had arrived before him. Shigaraki's left arm was rising into Deku's path again. It curled at the hero who had not changed his trajectory a third time. He could not. Even the single moment that Deku would spend dodging that arm would be too long that the Decay would spread too far to stop.

The mass of an entire mountain destroyed, means that even in the middle of this park there's no safety for anyone in the district. How much of Tokyo beyond Shibuya? I can't touch Shigaraki again, and even a full-powered Air Force from this distance won't hurt him or break apart the Decaying debris enough to end its spread in time. He's waiting for me to touch the ground. Waiting for me to reach him. He knows I have to keep going! There's no other way, no other choice, but to do it!

My arm is gone, Deku curled his right fist that he pulled back in. He did not have it in great enough of a position to get all of his force in it, but his left leg was also bending more at the knee and his right foot pulling farther and farther back. Shigaraki will expect one high-powered punch would be the way I plan on finishing this for good. The kicks are better for maneuvering at the end here. I want to kick him, but the motion of kicking down will push me up and away from the Decaying park. Unless the kick is strong enough. He's ready! He's too ready!

Midoriya closed his eyes. He plummeted at the villain whose left arm was reaching for where he had just punched himself down towards at rocket speeds, a shockwave still in the process of rippling in the air above him. And he closed his eyes. He closed his eyes but could see someplace else. Sitting on a couch in front of him was a weak and skinny man with graying blond hair who had a notebook out on the coffee table. Midoriya was looking down at the book as All Might spoke to him. "…all that I can tell you about the predecessors of One For All…"

I've never been able to make it show up before. Even with his eyes closed and picturing the memory with his mentor, Midoriya's Danger Sense was going off stronger than ever and the images of Shibuya turning into ash were invading his mental picture. But I've felt it. While I was fighting Bakugo when I needed to change directions. I needed the moment to still use my Shoot Style, and I felt like I slowed for a split second in that stadium. I know Bakugo noticed it because his explosion was off-target without me kicking or flicking my fingers to change my momentum.

I felt it again! When I was fighting Zach and all we were trying to do was get me to do it. But even though he told me that without keeping it in the air, everyone would die. Even as much pressure as he put on me… "You're going to let me touch down! ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN DO THAT?!" Zach had screamed at him while the two fought in Training Ground Theta. And then, Midoriya imagined what happened when Zach touched the ground. He could picture the shocked look on Vlad King sensei's face that could not hide the fear in his eyes from his students. Midoriya had kicked down to keep himself from touching the floor, but his eyes had bulged too as all of Training Ground Theta had instantly been covered in darkness.

Death had spread out from Zach's landing to cover everything. "What? You think he'll be slower? You think you'll have a chance to recover once you've made the mistake?" Zach's taunts were fresh in his head. He could imagine the Death breaking apart everything inside the training area. Just to prove a point to him, Zach had his Quirk destroy everything to end their spar. I was too slow. I couldn't keep it in the air, while using One For All's strength for my attacks as well as for my agility. I need to be able to use it only for offense! But I know, Zach. I know you wanted to see it beforehand, and I did too! But this is different.

You might be able to imagine it in things like the joint training. You might be able to trick yourself into thinking that your classmates were getting killed, and so a piece of you really can see those things as real. I'm not like you and Kaminari though. I was unable to stop you from touching down. My last attack on you didn't take you out, and it allowed you to destroy everything. You said Shigaraki would be the same. But I couldn't trick myself! That's the reason. I know it is… It has to be.

Because right now, I'm going to do it. Midoriya's heart was pounding but it settled even though he was moving so fast that he was mid-beat anyway. It was more a feeling of his heart settling. He did not have the time to take a breath, but even with his body tensed to the max, it all seemed to relax at the same time. In a spar against my friend, I couldn't draw it out. I couldn't rely on magically pulling it out during the final fight, but now there is no other choice. And when there's no choice but to do it, then-

I'm sorry! Miss Shimura! "ST. LOUIS SMASH!"

Shigaraki's left hand snapped through the air at the hero who had not started punching down yet. Deku's leg had started to swing, and that kick was going to hit hard. Shigaraki knew it but smirked so wide nonetheless. Because the angle that Deku was kicking meant his leg was going to collide with Shigaraki's torso as the boy fell within only three feet in front of him and looked to only be about to kick once he reached the same level… And Shigaraki's arm snapped out underneath the boy who did not kick down or swing his arm below to stop himself.

The villain's smirk was stuck on his face because it could not wipe away in that moment that his eyes rose from the tips of his fingers. Midoriya was grinding his teeth in regret where he Floated, and then his left leg spun around and he hit Shigaraki in both collarbones with his shin that also pushed into the villain's neck and knocked his chin backwards, reopening a scar there that the same hero had given him years before. Midoriya's leg dented into the villain whose body was lifted off of it and thrown backwards so hard that he hit the ground and tore straight through it. Midoriya was still moving downwards when he kicked in a roundhouse, hitting his opponent at an angle that caused Shigaraki to fly off his feet for an instant before hitting the ground back behind him. That ground was tearing up into the air in a massive trench, though with one narrower and deeper trench in the middle of it as Shigaraki was thrown through faster than the rest of the park could drag upwards around him from the force flying from Deku's leg.

Midoriya continued to Float in the air. Both of the other times in his life that he had felt it, the moment was so fleeting that he was unable to latch onto it. The sensation was familiar though. He did not raise his lips into a smile after finally doing it though. Even as he Floated off the ground with a power he had spent years trying to acquire, Midoriya only thought of the woman who he had apologized to in his head. He had to push thoughts of her mental image away though while thinking of a different one of his mentors who had warned him about this. Gran Torino had berated All Might in front of their pupil before, before scolding Midoriya in knowledge that the boy's personality might make him hesitate some time in the future when this fight came. It's not just because he's her grandson though, Midoriya thought even as he tried to push these thoughts aside and take Gran Torino's advice.

"Shigaraki and Sazaki are more alike than you think." Midoriya thought of the villainous doctor he had interrogated who smirked through the prison glass at him. He darted his eyes towards a rock that was falling back to the ground after being lifted up by the force of Midoriya's earth-shattering kick. The rock was still being Decayed ever-so-slowly, and without turning his body, Midoriya sent a quick flick of OFA towards the two ton boulder and turned the thing into rubble before it could land. Whatever small pieces it was turned into finished Decaying before touching the ground, and the ash it turned into seemed too small that the Decaying powers stopped working on it and stopped spreading already. Deku did not know exactly how long the Decay would spread for without Shigaraki doing anything, but so far he had stopped the Decay

"Hahhh," Deku breathed out such a heavy gasp of air as the Decay was not spreading any farther. His kick had broken the ground below him enough that the falling pieces that had broken off of the park's surface had all Decayed before touching back down on larger ground. And as he looked into the long trench ahead of him with dust and dirt still rising up and settling back down inside it, he did not see the floor or edges of that trench Decaying. It connected. A perfect hit. Midoriya did not see the world Decaying around him anymore with his Danger Sense. He could imagine the shock in Shigaraki's eyes that were rising above his over-extended arm to the leg swinging around towards him. And he saw the spit that flew out of Shigaraki's mouth as his leg broke the man's collarbones and crushed his lungs and windpipe… but, Is he down?

Midoriya did not want to have the thought. He was anxious though. Danger Sense was not warning him, but he did not stop Floating to touch down. Why? Midoriya questioned himself for the sudden panic that was surging through him. Why didn't I aim higher?! I probably wouldn't have taken his head off. I- Did I miss my chance… No. No, I'm Floating. It's not over. I see him.

There was a silhouette in the settling dust ahead of him. He's standing on the ground. I can't risk it all on one more attack. I'm not reckless. Losing my arm wasn't reckless of me. It was calculated. I'm in control of this fight!

"Oi oi, that hurt," Shigaraki muttered. His voice was loud though as he staggered forward and grabbed at his right shoulder with his left hand. Bones were broken, but he pushed back on his right shoulder and curled broken right fingers. His head tilted sharply to the right and a crack in his neck echoed around him. His costume was ripped up and exposed his upper muscular chest, where there was a huge bruise from the bottom of his neck to his lean but muscular pecs. The seemingly skinny villain was more muscular under his costume than he had appeared. The costume that had ripped up from the kick had more shock absorbers in it than Midoriya had realized due to how thin the costume had seemed on the villain. Dice said it wouldn't nullify, but it didn't even absorb. Unless it did, Shigaraki countered his own frustration in a thoughtful way as he realized that however much pain he was in right now was likely a mild version of what he would have felt had Deku's leg connected directly with his skin.

The villain stumbled around and his eyes widened as the shadow he was staring at through the settling dust vanished. A circular hole ripped in the ground ahead of him inside of the trench that water was spilling over the sides of from one of the ponds in the park that a fissure had connected to this trench from. Water rushed towards him and went over his feet and up to his knees. Waves splashed the edges of the trench, and those waves got rougher as the ground underneath Shigaraki was shaking worse and worse. He grit his teeth in annoyance while darting his eyes around for where the hero would emerge from. Would he come from right below? Shigaraki thought.

He had not started Decaying the floor below him, because he felt that it was the most obvious angle that Deku would rise from. The instant that he touched the ground at his feet, he expected the hero would emerge out from the ground in a different area and fly at his back to try and break his spine in the very next move. He won't kill me. That arrogance- I'll kill him for it. Shigaraki curled the corners of his lips up, but his teeth were grinding in a rage that would not subside even at the thought of Deku turning to ash at his hands.

Shigaraki spun to the right and narrowed his eyes at a crack ripping through a wall of this trench but past it and farther into the park. The crack widened ten times and turned into a huge fissure with rocks and boulders flying up in the air out of it all the way to the street where pavement tore apart too. The ground was shaking even worse than ever, and Shigaraki spun the other direction as another crack tore through the ground from that street back past the end of the trench behind him where he had finally stopped dragging after the St. Louis Smash. What is he doing… Shigaraki's grinding teeth parted as a breath escaped his lips of disbelief. He couldn't be-

Shigaraki slammed both of his palms into the ground. "GET UP HERE!" Shigaraki yelled.

The third crack connected the first two diagonal lines that had already been connected at one point. Deep under the surface of Yoyogi Park, deep enough that Midoriya knew that the Decay would not reach him in time, the hero was speeding through the floor without letting it slow him down at all. His body was stronger than the earth around him. His last kick ripped the final line of the triangle, and then Midoriya flew down and gripped his right hand onto the point of the tetrahedron that had the widest base on the surface. FLOAT!

Midoriya flew upwards. It's breaking apart! I need Blackwhips. It's so heavy too- If Ninety percent isn't enough, I'LL USE ONE HUNDRED!

Midoriya felt the muscles in his back straining and pulling. He flew up though. Despite the pain he was in, he used every last bit of his power. He ignored what Recovery Girl had told him about how using that much power could leave him unable to ever use even 90% again afterwards if he damaged his body too much. Deku screamed through the pain of forcing out that much power, and then he continued to do even more. Giant black whips of his Quirk shot around all the sides of the tetrahedron of park, and Shigaraki spun his head left and right at the sight of a dozen huge black whips flying up from the cracks surrounding him. The villain had slammed his hands into the ground, but the Decay was not spreading fast enough, and the block of earth that he was on was too large that he had to stop and started sprinting, only he had just started a Decay that did not immediately cut off and was breaking apart his footholds…

Shigaraki tripped. He had Decayed the floor below him when he was just trying to kill Deku deep below, but he would not have been running so fast that he tripped if he did not realize what was happening. Losing his foothold was one reason that he fell, but it was not the reason that his body immediately fell flat onto the surface of the park that was flying upwards into him so hard that it felt like a train just pushing into the front of his body only with far more mass than a train. Most of the park flew upwards with a boy at the base of it who had twelve giant Blackwhips coming out of his hand and blood dripping faster out of his left shoulder that's clenched muscles had loosened in strength.

Midoirya's eyes were squinted and the city out the corners of his eyes was blurrier than ever. He gasped out in exhaustion from what he was doing that had his right arm and his entire back straining as he used more One For All than he was ever able to manage. I'm not growing anymore. I'm as strong as I can be, and I can't use 100%. It's not about not being strong enough yet. It's just OFA has gotten too strong, stronger than a human body- NO! I won't believe that. I can't. Not now- I'm slowing. Is the Decay coming down this far? I can see it! It's almost here! He's not Decaying everything, just a straight line through the chunk towards me?!

Midoriya Floated his body upwards faster than he was already flying. He brought his chest close to the bottom of the mountain-sized chunk he had flown into the sky, then he pushed his arm up as hard as he could and extended his arm fully out above him, throwing the chunk even higher into the sky high above Tokyo. Half of the people in the city were gawking towards the sky as one of the city's parks was just flown so high that it looked like a spec up above… a spec no longer getting any farther away as it reached the top of its arc.

Deku dodged the hole that ripped through the bottom of the park tetrahedron he flew into the sky. He shot away from the base of the chunk then flew up over the side of it and stopped using Float for a moment to start dropping, right as the park began to do the same. Shigaraki no longer had the park pushing up into him, and he was falling at the same speed that it started to. It was as if he was standing up on solid ground for a second and glaring at a boy looking to float at the same level as him even though they were all just starting to fall simultaneously.

I'm losing it. I'm falling unconscious. That had to hurt him though. It's why he didn't just Decay everything. He thought I was flying in to finish him off, and he feared that I could really do it right there. He must be hurting badly. I am too. Deku Floated forward and down to the edge of the park as it dropped for the city below. I have a minute before this park collides like a meteorite into Tokyo. I have to defeat him and destroy this base that we're fighting on, before that minute is up. I've given myself a time limit now. I did this, because I know that any longer than a minute and I'll collapse. I can feel it coming. So push it off for as long as you can. One minute is doable. I can do this! I WILL!

He mastered her Quirk so soon after developing it. Shigaraki's murderous intent put a haze in the air between them that Midoriya found hard to distinguish against the haze that he was already seeing from the blood loss and fatigue. The first cracks isolating this park segment were so massive that Shigaraki had been unable to consider it. The park chunk being cut was too enormous for him to see it as a possibility, until it was too late. But with his ability to fly, Deku suddenly had the power to bring their fight back up into the sky without giving up the benefit of solid ground. Was he giving Shigaraki a second target to Decay in order to split his focus? Was it because Deku wanted footholds, or did he need some debris for him to be able to kick at Shigaraki as weapons or a smokescreen in this final clash?

Shigaraki could see his enemy's fatigue as clear as day. But he thought of all these possibilities that Deku could be considering with no thought in his head that the hero was on his last legs. There was not a moment of imagining that Deku was too weak to get a final hit in here. For the first time since he had touched Deku's left arm and watched his enemy cut the Decaying limb off, that supposed weakness and crutch that his enemy had given himself at the start of the battle did not once come into play in Shigaraki's thoughts. Out of Deku's left shoulder, after all, extended five long Blackwhips that waved around like tentacles from the hero who started jogging forward towards him on top of a falling meteor of Yoyogi Park.

The park had not been dug under by the villains. It was one piece of city that had deep enough foundation for Midoriya to fly it into the sky like this. Digger had warned his allies that a tunnel there could kill the deep roots of plants and trees on the surface and lead to investigation of what was causing it. Too risky for them to consider.

Around the falling park dropped pieces of rubble that could not stay on around the cracks that Midoriya had kicked. It was all falling at the same speed, though some had broken off as the park was still rising which led to there being a trickle of falling rocks and dust all the way up to the park itself several kilometers up in the sky.

Gran Torino rose his gaze to the sky as he flew across Tokyo from where he just left Gigantomachia's defeated form. He kept his jaw shut unlike most others who were gawking towards the falling island that could destroy the entire city if it were to hit. Even villains fighting in districts across the city were feeling anxious at the sight of such a massive projectile that threatened to kill them all if it were to connect at the speed of an asteroid hitting the planet. Midoriya… no, Deku. I'll trust you to handle this. The old man in the body of his prime glared back towards the smoke he was following from the corner of his eyes. Get there, Sorahiko! He yelled at himself, speeding up his Jets even more.

Koda Koji glanced up at a pair of birds that just flew over to the rooftop he was standing on with a "civilian" of Tokyo who had somehow gotten there right before him in order to shut down the same broadcast jammer that Crack sent him to. "What are they saying? That island's falling back on us! Is it-"

"We'll be fine!" Koda called out to his ally who he had just told the location of another jammer on his half of the list he split with Jirou. They were about to split up the work even more in this shaking city that needed communications back online. Koda smiled towards his ally whose eyes widened at the sight of the confidence on the young hero's face after that shout. "Deku will do it!" Koda turned and he sprinted to the other side of the roof and the direction of the next jammer he had to go to himself.

The Army of Death soldier back behind him had to raise an arm and wipe some sweat from his brow even with that confident yell from the teenager. Their eyes rose back to the sky and the plummeting meteor falling back towards them now. Are you sure about that?

Raylei was stuck out of her seat on the bridge of the Cloak. Everyone else up there with her had looked away from their computer screens as well for the moment. A small gasp left even La Brava's lips as she stared at the giant landmass that rose ahead of their cockpit to about the same level they were flying at now. No one could breathe as it reached its maximum height and started to drop out of the arc. In those seconds that it finished slowing and then started to fall back the other way, all of them could see the two who were on top of the island who faced each other with a city on the brink of destruction down below.

La Brava was the first one to snap back out of it and bring her glare back to her computer screens. Out the corners of her eyes she could still see some of the standing support team and the panicked expressions on their motionless faces. "Oi! Trust in Deku!" La Brava yelled at the lot of them, making her soldiers spin to the woman who was in charge on the Cloak even though Raylei was the leader of the support team. La Brava turned back to her monitor herself and got back to typing. Everyone else quickly got to their own jobs as well and tried recovering from that shock, but Raylei still glanced to the shorter woman on her side and cracked a smile as La Brava whispered, "…He always did."

The villain glaring at Midoriya through a haze of murderous intent smirked maniacally at the hero who sprinted at him. Even though Shigaraki was not underestimating his opponent at all this time, he smirked at the hero who sped up more but curved in his run to circle around Shigaraki's left side. Did he experiment on himself? Are those wounds healing or is he just using his broken arm and fingers despite the broken bones?

All of Shigaraki's fingers were twitching at his sides. His hands were moving like crazy with his fingers curling in and snapping out as his head turned and followed the sprint of the hero who could see just how fast Shigaraki was responding to his own movements. Shigaraki spun his body and ran at the hero who crouched down and then darted back the way he came instead of jolting farther into the circle he was making. Shigaraki swung his right arm still from a distance away, and Midoriya leaned his body backwards more even after darting back this way, as a tree stump ahead of him and all the ground around it suddenly turned to dust.

The area Shigaraki swiped his arm at Decayed from farther than ever. Shigaraki twisted his neck to the right and looked like a man unhinged as he started bringing his left arm around in a swing across his body. Deku bent his knees to make it look like he was going to jump up, but right before he could do so, Shigaraki's arm sped up and Deku just bent his legs even farther. His whole body snapped backwards ninety degrees, and Deku leaned his head back more so his nose would not get touched by something invisible that he still felt going just above his body and Decaying some tiny pebbles he saw rising in the space just above him. The wind from snapping his body back that fast kicked up some dirt, and that dirt vanished as it rose past his sides into the invisible Decay that stayed higher up in the air above the falling people so Deku was able to dodge a second later without it touching him.

Shigaraki was not making a second attack from a distance when Midoriya moved again. The villain was already sprinting at him. Shigaraki's left hand was reaching for the hero who dove to his left and curled his own right hand into the floor while pulling both of his legs in. His right hand curled around a rock that he thought about throwing behind him, then he flattened his hand down onto the floor and just pushed off. Both of his bent legs looked like he might try kicking some Air Force at Shigaraki before throwing the rock, or maybe after, but instead he pushed himself at full force back at the villain and extended his right leg out ahead of him.

Shigaraki spun around so fast his body blurred and both hands rose towards Midoriya's extended leg. As his right got close, it started to change the trajectory already before Midoriya's other bent leg could start to swing around. He sees it coming! Midoriya pulled back his extended leg and whipped his right arm downwards while curling his body up. He broke a hole in the floor of the park below him and launched himself higher in the air, as both of his legs were getting Decayed in his mental image provided by his Danger Sense.

It has to be right now! The pain in his left shoulder was getting less severe which was not a good sign to him. He felt more tired than ever, and he needed to be more alert as he could see his enemy even faster and more prepared for him than ever before. Where is the hole? I just need one moment. One more direct kick. I could see it on how serious he became after that. He knows it's close. He won't just let me get another that easily though. He's too experienced. He's been watching me all this time. He knows every one of my moves. If there is no hole then, I'll have to make one!

Why is he smiling? He's not happy. That's a smile that looks mad. He's enraged but it's something else. Not just about Zach, but about me. Think, Deku. Think! "Shigaraki!" Deku yelled while twisting his body again much higher than the surface of the island he was about to propel himself back down to. "Why do you hate me so much?! I want to understand!" Zach was always so smart about this. It's not about tricking people all the time. I really do want to know, which is why it's easier to convince him. It's easier when you're telling the truth!

Midoriya slammed down on his hand and feet to the ground behind Shigaraki's back twenty meters. Then he instantly had to push all three limbs down hard to his right and did a barrel-roll just off the ground in midair, dodging the Decaying trench that ripped from Shigaraki all the way to the edge of the island and exploded the end of it off, only for all that blasting debris to turn to ash and be left behind as the air resistance held it more than the air could stall the falling park. "Why?!" Midoriya yelled while still coming out of his roll. Why? "Is it just because I'm One For All, and you're All For One? Or is it this system of heroes and villains-" Deku slammed his right fist forward then jumped up in the air and kicked his leg towards where Shigaraki was sprinting to.

"Shut up," Shigaraki snarled.

Deku heard him. Is it getting to him? Why? I'm just asking questions. What about what I just said made him upset? There has to be something that just ticked him off even more. I mentioned All For One…

Shigaraki's the leader of the villains. I plan to become the Symbol of the heroes. It isn't just about our predecessors, but that doesn't mean it's not about them either. All Might and All For One. I look up to All Might. He is my teacher. My mentor. I care about him, and about what he thinks. If Shigaraki feels the same way, then, "…Because I believed that he might just get tired of ruling the world. After so long, priorities change. People change. He's doing it. Searching, for a world-destroyer." That's what Zach said right when he came back. Did he get "tired" of it? Tired of you?

"All For One isn't in on this attack," Deku started. His voice was soft as he was landing back on the island he had to re-steady himself on just as Shigaraki was rolling back onto his feet after the hero's kick hit just behind him and knocked him away. The park even listed to the east as Midoriya's kick was off-centered and made the island start to fall diagonally. Deku landed down on the lower-elevated part of the slant while Shigaraki hit back down on a floor rising slightly to meet him. The villain spinning back to Deku glared like a beast at the hero who rose his voice, "You're his successor, but you aren't All For One…"

All the Quirks he has, Shigaraki's thoughts of fury towards his enemy blinded him from anything else. Rage bubbled to the surface and had never looked so intense on his face before. He imagined how strong Deku had to be to carry that giant island and just to separate it in the first place with kicks tearing completely through the earth. He thought of how Deku's Blackwhips had held the island together even as the boy flew it into the sky with yet another Quirk of his. All these powerful Quirks belonging to his enemy… and Shigaraki was only responding in the same way. I'll kill him!

He doesn't have All For One, Midoriya thought. It was not something necessarily surprising to him, but the thought made his heart race at the implication. We're both supposed to be the successors. All For One can take and give Quirks to others, so why shouldn't that include his own? I thought- a piece of me thought, that Shigaraki might have it. That he might have all these different Quirks. And he doesn't. He doesn't have it, so- so why?! Why did I stop talking?! Midoriya was running back up the slant towards his opponent who was angrier than Deku had ever seen him, and yet that anger was all stemming from somewhere that Midoriya no longer wanted to delve into.

"There was once a boy who developed an unstable Quirk, and he killed his family with his own hands," Midoriya kicked off the ground that crumbled below his feet and launched himself at the villain who just slammed both palms into the floor and started Decaying everything around him. A hole ripped in the rising ash ahead of Shigaraki, and his hands rose and grasped… into nothing. Midoriya had only punched so that a hole would rip there and make it look like he was flying through. Shigaraki's eyes shot down below his crossing arms, to see the young man coming in low to the ground and through a second hole in the dust. Deku could Float, so he did not need the solid ground for a better lift-off as he kicked both legs up. The kicks separated Shigaraki's crossed arms while slamming up into his chest and just grazing his bloody chin as Shigaraki pulled his head back almost in time.

I won't forgive him! I can't forgive him for anything he's done. "…Shigaraki and Sazaki are much more alike than you think." Deku's teeth clenched harder. The similarities didn't end there. The League's doctor was just trying to get me to focus on my friend and not on the real enemies surrounding me at the time. But, but he wasn't lying! Deku landed back on the ground that had stopped Decaying a quarter of the way through the park chunk. He glared at the villain he had kicked upwards enough that even closer to the top of the tilted island, Shigaraki was still off of the ground with his head leaned back and some blood splashing from his face.

The villain's squinted eyes snapped down at the hero and then twisted in more rage than ever. Shigaraki flipped himself over and kicked the air above himself as hard as he could, but when he gripped onto the floor below him he did not Decay it immediately. He just gripped onto the falling ground and dragged himself down to the floor so his feet touched down right behind his shaking hands. His body was crouched and hunched over completely, his long grayish-blue hair shadowing over his eyes in the messy way it splayed over his face. "Don't look at me like that," Shigaraki hissed. The corners of his vision were dark red and the center of his gaze showed him only the hero who looked back his way in so much anger too, but with a look of pity on his face that disgusted the villain facing him to no end.

It was why Midoriya stopped speaking even though his taunts had gotten to his opponent just as he thought they would. He had figured out what it was that he was missing, and he could not bring himself to keep calling it out at even his worst enemy. Midoriya Izuku just was not that kind of hero. A part of him regretted that side of him as he knew that doing it the way he thought Zach would had actually been working there, but Midoriya could understand the source of the anger welling in his opponent too well to want to keep shouting about it. "…No one went to save him." Midoriya bit down as hard as he could. "Even though he was Shimura's grandson, All Might's master's own relative, the greatest hero did nothing." Someone did save him though. Someone else, who Shigaraki must have trusted more than anyone because of it.

Zach and Shigaraki were more alike than just because they killed their families. Someone- the one person, who they thought they had. The one person who they trusted… All For One left you behind, didn't he? "He's decided… All For One has given up on this world. He's no longer with the League of Villains…" Zach told me that All For One was going to destroy the world. Rumors spread and Zach knows it, so you probably heard about it too. Maybe you don't want to believe it. But he wants to destroy the world he promised to you. The world that you want to take over and, and does All For One think you can't do it? Did he abandon you, because of your failures?

"…No people, tried to help him." Ujiko said that, but All For One did. And then he abandoned him. That kind of pain is something I thought only Zach had felt. I always thought I would understand if Zach became a villain. I would have to fight him anyway, but I would have understood. And yet I hated Shigaraki, so I tried not to think of how similar they were! Even if I feel this way though- Even if I feel like he should have had a chance! A chance at a better life, and heroes who would have saved him- Even though I wish he had had that! I don't see a man asking me for help right now. All I see…

Midoriya flew at his enemy who had the most maddened expression as he charged right back. This man who had been about to destroy Tokyo and kill millions of people was rushing at him with the look of a man whose sole purpose was killing him and everyone he loved. He thought of his mom's terrified expression. He could see Zach held by hooks with this man carving into him. Deku's teeth ground in anger, though the hero was too heroic to call out about terrible things he knew would antagonize and make Shigaraki sloppy. He could not bring himself to yell that All For One had abandoned Shigaraki, in order to open his opportunity. As he saw these images of monstrous things that Shigaraki had done though and imagined the pain that would befall the world if he failed, new words came to his mind that matched Deku more than the taunts that would not escape his lips.

"'No one went to save him,'" Midoriya whispered aloud. He rushed at his enemy and slammed his right fist down to break apart the ground between and separate the two as well as put a smokescreen up as well that Shigaraki kept sprinting straight into this time instead of stopping on the other side of. Shigaraki spun to his right though on an island suddenly listing back the opposite direction so the ground below him was slanting downwards now. "'Surely the heroes will come!'" Midoriya yelled through the debris on Shigaraki's right side which made the villain snap his head that way and slam his right palm into the rising dust, putting a hole through the smokescreen that revealed the hero was already gone from the other side of it.

Shigaraki felt the hair on the back of his neck rising for reasons other than the words he heard that were making him grind his own teeth in fury. He felt the wind tugging at his back and slammed his other hand up this time towards the hero who called out, "'Nobody came to save him!'" Shigaraki's eyes widened as those were words he had once said aloud himself. It was something he thought about far too often and peeved him endlessly, yet Deku should not have known that. His shaking eyes glared ahead of him as Deku had made it away from his left side before the flying Decay could kill the hero the second time either.

Deku already had his right leg risen up high when Shigaraki stared through the dust ahead of him at the silhouette he could now see. Tilting his head up like that made it so he was leaning backwards when the force of the Manchester Smash: Air Force hit the villain who only caught a glimpse of the axe kick before it collided with him and smashed him back-first into the island. The island started falling twice as fast but with giant cracks ripping through it in all directions away from Shigaraki's body. "Zach thought those things too! He had to have while you were torturing him!" Midoriya screamed down at his enemy while the older man was just colliding with the falling park

He might have considered himself too much of a hero to shove Shigaraki's traumas down his throat, but Midoriya could not keep the hate from filling his voice as he screamed these things he meant with all his heart down at his nemesis. His back screamed out in pain from more than all the One For All he had filled it with before that pushed his muscles beyond their limits. Midoriya could feel the Decay that had left such a huge scar across his back from the last time he had faced Shigaraki in battle. It was not the pain in his back that hurt the most though but his heart, and yet he did not scream in sadness or pain but in resolve and righteous furor at the villain down below. At some point, you have to take responsibility for your own actions. You can't always say that it was the fault of someone's traumas as a kid that made them do certain things. "We all make our own decisions, Shigaraki Tomura!"

Shigaraki opened his eyes up again that slammed shut when the force of the axe kick had pushed into his face. He gasped for breath and tugged his arms upwards from where they were imbedded into the ground at his sides. The rest of his body was still stuck, but he needed those arms first and did not even have the time to Decay his way out of the floor as he could have. Both arms snapped up into the air between him and the hero whose face he saw through the waves of dust and rocks rising around them that gave a clear path to the hero's righteous glare and matching look of sheer anger directed back at him.

It was something else that Midoriya knew he could get to Shigaraki with. The things he yelled came from his heart and not from the singular desire to make his enemy as angry as possible and get him off-guard. Deku screamed what he meant at the villain who chose this life. He did not know if he would feel the same way about Shigaraki, if he did not know someone else who had faced the same and came out of it for the better. He could see past the cracking island's sides and into the smoking city rapidly approaching below. The sight of their nation's capital burning below him set a fire inside Deku that caused the air around him to tremble and the breaking island under Shigaraki to quake from the force of Deku's body tensing up above them.

Shigaraki's eyes widened more and more as he saw the hero's bulging figure and the way his body was tilting. The axe kick down had followed-through so Deku's legs continued moving behind him and now up into the air above. They were not curled in to kick off and send him flying down at his enemy, but Deku did not need to do that anymore. Speed just came to the hero who shot out of the air like a rocket with seemingly no propulsion to allow him to do so. His newest Quirk sped him straight down at the villain whose arms were rising at his sides and pulling inwards, but not nearly fast enough.

Deku's right arm pulled back farther and farther. His arm muscles tightened as he just pushed them to their limits and beyond. "TOOOKYOOOOOOO…" Midoriya slammed his right fist down faster than Shigaraki's palms could pull in at his sides. "SMAAAASSSSHHHHHHH!" His fist connected with the middle of his enemy's torso and fully ripped Shigaraki out of the mold he had made in the island, as the island exploded into a million pieces away from them. Shigaraki's head and legs pushed upwards for a second as his body folded around the hero's fist.

Midoriya got dust in his eyes as the ground below Shigaraki ripped completely apart with the two of them falling through it. The island exploded away from him so fast that Midoriya was grateful they were still high enough above the city that he didn't turn a hundred buildings into swiss cheese with all the tiny pieces of rubble that flew out in all directions. The citizens, should be, inside, Midoriya thought. Even as his consciousness was on the brink of fading, and his body started spinning through the air after putting all of his force into that final punch, he could not help but think of the people down below who he had done this for.

Blood spilled from his left arm faster as he stopped focusing a piece of his mind on constantly keeping his muscles clenched there, and since he had been doing that for so long, none of his body's natural healing had been able to start yet so it was as if he had just lost his arm again. He fell out of the air with his clenched shoulder opening. The thoughts he felt fading from his mind jolted as his body slammed onto solid ground. His blurry vision cleared for a moment as he gasped out in pain from hitting the floor so hard, though it was a good thing he was so strong as he just bounced up and then fell flat on his face again.

A minute passed. Midoriya felt like it was raining, though the rain was dry and he knew it was just pieces of the park that he was glad were not large enough that he was getting crushed under them. Am I in the park? Midoriya thought. I'm awake, he realized as he continued to feel those sparse dusty raindrops landing on his mostly bare body. His costume was shredded and only consisted of the top of his pants now. He could feel the blood pooling around his left shoulder, and even though his eyes were half-parted, everything was so blurry that he could not see- I'm face down, he thought.

Deku tried to turn. He only managed to tilt his head to the right before gasping out in agony as he had pushed himself way too far past his limits. He gasped out and splashed spit under his mouth. Everything was still blurry, but he did manage to turn his head slightly enough that he could stare up a cracked wall of the park near him that showed him he was in the crater that he had created by flying the park into the sky. In the haze of his vision Midoriya could see the smoke rising all around the city. He looked up past the edge of the park where a few tree trunks still stood but with almost no branches nor leaves on them anymore.

"Ahh… haa-ack, kah, haahhh… ahhhh-" Midoriya breathed in and out so heavily and raggedly it hurt. His chest ached too much for him to breathe any heavier, and when he tried to take in a deeper breath he just started coughing as his throat and lungs tightened up. I went past my limit. I… I did it though. In the corner of Deku's eyes, he could see someone else laying near him.

Deku's eyes rose up though and not down towards that unmoving form near him. Midoriya lifted his eyes to the sky and felt a bead of sweat form on the side of his face. Why did that one take so much longer to fall? Midoriya wondered about a chunk of debris that had been blasted upwards by one of his earlier attacks so it was far behind the rest of the park in falling back to the city. He tried to move. Uh-oh, his body would not move an inch. Even his head that he had managed to tilt to one side was just stuck in place now with his chin all that was holding his gaze up enough that he could see the giant boulder falling towards him. No! Midoriya clenched his eyes shut in panic and fear as he felt paralyzed and could not just suddenly find it in him to move away from the landing point.

"NEJIRE FLOOD!"

Deku's eyes snapped back open and gazed upon an older girl leaping above him in a costume ripped around her left shoulder from an earlier fight against Re-Destro and his Liberators. She smiled wide as she blasted apart the largest of the falling boulders that she had seen so far. Her eyes went down to the boy below who looked like he might be watching her, though his unmoving figure and mostly-closed eyes made it difficult to tell. Amazing! That that was the largest piece, and- Nejire Hado's eyes shook like crazy as she dropped out of the air not far from Deku.

Another hero sliding down the wall of the crater nearby jogged forward and slowed as he was reaching where Nejire just landed. "Is that…" Suneater started but did not finish. Tamaki Amajiki stared with sweat on both sides of his face at the unmoving villain laying a few meters from Deku. Tamaki's eyes shifted back towards the younger boy who opened his mouth and could only half thank Nejire-Chan for saving him, before breaking out into a fit of painful-sounding coughs. "He really, did it," Suneater whispered.

Nejire pumped her right fist in the air and started laughing in glee and relief. She hid the relief better from her face that she and her friend did not arrive and have to join this fight that Suneater had told her was still going on and needed their assistance now that their enemies back in Chiyoda had been defeated. They had split off from the third of U.A.'s Big Three of the year they graduated when a huge explosion back closer to Karebo had gone off. Suneater had yelled at Lemillion to 'Go' while he continued sprinting forward towards their initial destination in Shibuya, and Nejire-Chan chose to go with Tamaki rather than check on the same explosion that Gran Torino was flying to from a different fight at the same time.

The two heroes who arrived could not help but smile as the younger man ahead of them forced up the corners of his lips after thanking Nejire and coughing up a storm. "I, don't think, I can move… Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Suneater responded in a deadpan tone. He smiled back at Deku and then looked to Shigaraki once more before turning his gaze back on the city behind him. We need to tell everyone. Shigaraki Tomura is defeated. If we spread this now, we'll win!

---

I can't see Machia, Raijin sped down a main road of Bunkyou in the middle of Tokyo. The district was evacuated into various evac centers that were surrounded by powerful Intel-ANTs and the heroes who had repelled villains from each area. They had even sent more heroes to the locations needing more support, showing the lack of communication technology in this district was not enough to prevent the coordination of heroes who Kamui Woods was supporting in every way that he could. He was worried for his wife's safety, wherever Mt. Lady might be at the moment, but he heard from a runner in the Police Force that this district was facing tough assault by the villains so he came. After thirty minutes, the district was under hero control with clusters of captured villains scattered about along with piles of AANT rubble.

The district bordering Chiyoda to the north was half empty at the start and got moved in on by villains only after the war started. They had more ground to cover without the southern half of Bunyou being destroyed by the Cyclone Bomb that was supposed to devastate it, and that meant they had split up too much in their improvisation which Kamui Woods quickly saw and capitalized on. The top hero feeling confident that he had gained a somewhat decent control over this district and was planning on spreading out the network of runners and hero teams into the surrounding districts, suddenly found himself questioning what he was supposed to do in a situation like this?

Nishiya Shinji and the heroes with him could only stare down the street in awe at the clash happening before them at speeds too fast for even the strongest among them to follow. A flash of lightning exploded away from the last collision that became partially visible as Zach Sazaki's right forearm pressed against Raijin's left. Zach had reached his left hand towards his enemy's collar while twisting his right arm off of the collision that he had more power in, and Raijin had to dart away faster to prevent himself from being grabbed and held in place long enough for Zach's bare hand to touch his chest.

The cut in his armor no longer had blood spilling out, but the white armor was red in the area around it and showed where Zach had made the incision before. Raijin's zap away from their connecting clash happened so fast that none of the heroes even realized that it was actually the boy's body moving and not just a piece of electricity flying away from him. Zach saw it though, and he saw the flash of pain on Raijin's face before the brighter flash of lightning away from him that made him squint but still track after where Raijin was speeding away to. Using that much Electricity still harmed the villain, but it made Zach's left hand grasp at empty air instead of his enemy he was going to hold in place and kill.

Wings sticking out of Zach's back flapped down behind him. Two arms extended out of his shoulders and reached claws down into the floor ahead of him. As he flapped his wings again, his claws dug into the ground and tugged backwards to catapult him even faster after the bolt of lightning with a teenager inside it who swung both arms to the sides to activate a trap he was running past. Death intercepted the bolts before they could hit the buildings and put a wall of blue electricity traps between the two and allow Raijin to expand the gap even farther.

Shigaraki was on that island. I didn't feel it slam down, but he didn't Decay it. Did Midoriya beat him?! Raijin's teeth were grinding. In the past minute, he had witnessed very bad signs for his forces. Even as he considered the terrible possibilities of losing his most powerful allies, the distractions were barely enough to make him think about them for a second or two at most. In the corners of his eyes he saw the darkness getting between his electricity and the traps he had planned here in a section of Bunkyou that was so close to the Karebo Office that Zach might think he did not set up traps in it. He had hoped Zach would just explode Death off of his back to catch up quicker, wasting some of what remained and move him too quickly into a trap that Zach had more time to prevent due to the distance he still had and the excess Death still withheld to block attacks like that.

A few blocks away from the two of them, Earphone Jack held her hands on either side of a fire escape ladder. She slid down it and ground her teeth but held back from shouting as a screw sticking out of one of the poles cut her right palm. She needed to get back to the floor quicker than climbing down though, so she just kept sliding down floors at a time then dropped from the second story and rolled at the base of the building. I'm hurting myself and I'm not even fighting villains, Jirou thought in frustration as she instantly started running to the next radio jammer she had on her list of addresses. Her hands hurt now on top of her long earlobes already bleeding from how she got down from Heroally's top floor earlier. This is more important though. If Zach can't stop him soon, we won't get the outside assistance we really need to finish this fight now! Before any other people are killed…

She sprinted down the road and grit her teeth in panic as she looked at the next address on the list she pulled from her pocket. "I don't know where this is," she muttered in frustration. Jirou had to pull out her phone while running, only to curse as she realized she could not even check her maps app because her phone had no service or WiFi for "some"reason. She felt like face-palming that she even checked since she had checked it a minute ago back on the roof of the last apartment building when she took down its jammer, only to see that her phone was still being blocked just like everyone else's. Alright. I know where this one is though, she went down to the next address that she recognized the street name of, but she grimaced deeper as it was pretty far away from where she currently was. Anything better? I… I don't recognize enough- I have to just go for it! She was wasting too much time and knew it as she continued to hear gunfire and explosions in the distance that told her a lot of people were still in danger right now.

Jirou started running again, in the opposite direction as a classmate of hers who was a few blocks away to the north but spun her head south at the sound of something crashing back behind her. The short girl spinning around stared with huge eyes larger than normal back in the direction she just came from, while Jirou turned her head left and jolted to a stop at the bright yellow flash that she could see over the tops of buildings between her and… him.

He's, right over there- Zach hasn't stopped him yet. I know that. I knew- what am I doing? Jirou was running a different direction than she was supposed to be going. Her feet would not stop though. Panic covered her face as she thought of how long this fight had been going on for. He looked like he was about to collapse when we saw him! If he's still going right now, he might be about to get killed! I won't let you, Zach. I won't let you die all alone against him!

There! Raijin spotted something down the road that made the right corner of his lips curl up. The white drill at the end of the block was exactly what he was looking for, and Raijin spun around while still with his same amount of momentum so he was just now face-to-face with Zach while still speeding towards his target. Both of his hands rose up and flared brighter than ever, but the electricity actually surrounding those hands was not as focused as it may have looked. The bright flash was from chemical reactions he set off somewhat like flashbangs in his gloves to make the lightning shooting out of them seem brighter. The burning magnesium in the tops of his gloves that came from a tiny panel that just opened up on each, illuminated the street so brightly that it seemed like Raijin's attack would match the power of that light.

The way Raijin had just been fleeing showed Zach the back of his costume and the power source backpack he was wearing that had half of the blue dashes illuminated. This much electricity was surely going to drain a ton of that power, and Zach grit his teeth but forced himself forward anyway. I can't let him get in that drill. It's not just about the power he'll get back!

Is he calling my bluff?! Raijin thought with his teeth grinding as he focused all of his power instead on speeding up to the drill even faster. He strained all the muscles in his legs and put his nerve-endings to the limits as his body engulfed in lightning rather than shooting it out of his palms. After all, the dashes on the back of his pack that he knew Zach could see were only illuminated halfway up as a trick. Raijin made the pack look brighter and more filled than it really was, because he was running on fumes here and had merely scraps remaining from when he absorbed a neighborhood around him and dozens of AANTs while firing a beam at Zach. Zach had been on him nonstop since then, not giving the villain enough time to restore his power even while fighting at maximum power constantly.

Whether Zach knew his enemy's power was really low or not, Zach was not letting him get to that drill dropped by a Spider earlier easily. Zach's wings ripped off while his whole form turned pitch black. The wings moved upwards while a third chunk of Death split off from Zach and flew off to the right, flattening against a wall of a highrise there and then dropping flat to the floor and speeding past another restaurant that had floors of karaoke and entertainment centers above it. Tokyo Dome was just ahead of them another three blocks past the Spider's dropped armament case, and Zach could see more heroes there who were protecting what he suspected was the largest evacuation center for miles. The baseball stadium was a perfect place for heroes to protect a massive number of people. Telling from how empty all the buildings around him seemed, he suspected everyone around here had booked it for the dome the second the battle started.

Cars were abandoned on the street, and one of them exploded as a bolt of electricity slammed into it right as the shadow on the floor was snaking by. The Zach flying straight forward into the brightest flash was only hit by a little electricity compared to the huge attack he thought Raijin might hit him with. That made the one flying upwards inside the wings hesitate as he questioned if Raijin knew where he really was. The top form was where Zach had actually funneled his strongest amount of Death only in a more condensed form that made it difficult to tell that the shifting wings were taking shape into a man with glowing red eyes. The top one divebombed towards Raijin cautiously as his middle body flew up to absorb into his back, and the stalled puddle of Death on the floor shot ahead for Raijin's legs after speeding out of the car explosion.

Bolts of lightning flew behind Raijin at the drill while he stopped short. Zach knew where his enemy was going. The fact that Raijin did not send a second, stronger attack at the Death flying above the middle one suggested that maybe Raijin was bluffing his power reserves. He did not immediately jump to that assumption when the middle body was not hit by the huge power, as Kaminari could have understood that he was separating a stronger piece of himself in order to make the villain waste more electricity against less Death. As he was starting to believe that Kaminari just was running low on power entirely, his enemy stopped rushing to the drill that he apparently desperately needed to reach.

Raijin leapt off the ground while pushing his left hand forward, firing a beam into the body of his friend that just got collided with the body flying into his back. As he was merging with another form of Death that had just been partially electrocuted and slowed, he could not speed back up straight while in mid-divebomb. Raijin's arms shoved forward, and the spike of Death that Zach fired out between those arms at the slit in Raijin's armor did not reach in time. Raijin grabbed Zach's arms and blasted everything that he had from point blank into his enemy who screamed out in a scratchy and horrifying voice as all the Death shook in midair with sparks coming off of it.

Raijin pushed away from his enemy and flew down towards the drill that he had already zapped with some electricity right before launching himself at Zach in a reversal of where the hero thought he knew Kaminari was going. Zach forced open his red eyes and screamed at himself, MOVE! DON'T LET HIM! Zach was dropping out of the air, but the bulging sparking mass of Death on his back started to transform instead of finish absorbing into him. BIGGER! Zach forced his new wings larger.

The blond-haired villain stood in front of his drill and had lightning coming from his back into the machine that returned that lightning to him even stronger. His head spun to the side though and he yelled out, "OPEN!" Raijin hopped backwards and closer to the drill that was not opening up all the panels that he had zapped in such a way that they were supposed to open up for him. I need my armor! He had more inside that would reach out and cover him up in double the armor. It would cover up the slit in his costume that was the only source of weakness for him right now. Raijin put his hand directly on the drill behind him, but his split focus that he kept darting back to Zach finally shot more fully on the drill as he noticed something translucent on it right before his hand touched.

Is that… MUCUS?! Raijin's hand touched the drill and he ripped it back quickly but in rage as he saw the lines of sticky substance trying to keep his hand planted to the machine. FROPPY!

A girl who had hopped away from the drills she had been investigating stared back down the intersecting road perpendicular to the one that Zach and Raijin had just come down. She could see the drill and the villain standing there in front of it looking enraged beyond belief, and then Tsuyu could see even farther down that intersecting road to a different block parallel to where Zach and Raijin had come down. Someone just ran out of that other street and turned onto the perpendicular one, and she stared towards the middle point between her and Tsuyu too where Raijin spun back around and screamed out, "RAAAAA!"

His left hand aimed at Zach who just dove towards him so fast that he slammed Raijin back into the drill even as the electricity flared out of his enemy's left hand. Zach ducked his head to the right, and most of the yellow beam of lightning flying at him flew just past the left side of Zach's face. The darkness had left his face and most of his torso as well, all of it pulling into the wings at his back that were so large and powerful in the final moment before he flapped them that shockwaves rippled away from where he just was and shattered every window on the block. Zach was on Raijin in an instant, and the villain's frustration and rage at who he knew was responsible for preventing him from getting inside this drill as fast as he needed to, made him delayed in his reaction at Zach's appearance in front of him.

Zach ducked the left arm. His body was still moving so fast that he slammed into Raijin and knocked him straight back into the drill with his whole body weight. Kaminari gasped out, but his eyes remained squinted open as Zach had his left arm pressed against Raijin's upper chest and neck, pinning him to the drill that was too strong and did not break apart as the two of them slammed into it.

Raijin's right hand snapped across the front of his body underneath Zach's left arm. He grabbed Zach by the right wrist as Zach's right hand slammed forward towards the point under his left arm where the slit in Raijin's costume was. Kaminari grabbed Zach's right wrist and their arms both shook as the villain put all of his force in holding Zach's hand in place. Zach's fingers were pushing forward, closer, closer to the cut. Lightning zapped out of Raijin's hand, and more power came into him as he pulled it directly from the casing at his back to power himself more… but the mucus was blocking his electricity too much. The power he was filling himself with was not restoring faster than he was using it, and Zach started screaming and still pushing his right arm forward harder and harder despite the pain of being electrocuted directly by what Kaminari did absorb.

"HaaaAAAA! HAAAA! RAAAAAAHHH!" Smoke came off of Zach's body. The two girls staring towards them did not even recognize that dark figure for a few seconds as Zach had flown off of his wings too fast for them to keep up with, and all the Death was still pulling back towards him now as it had jolted the other way when Zach went flying so fast away from it a second ago. His long black hair was waving behind him and the ground cracking below. Jirou did not know where his wounds had went, and Tsuyu was covering her mouth as she did not even know he was alive until this moment as the realization crashed into her.

"THIS IS THE END, KAMINARI!" Zach screamed at his enemy who opened his mouth wider and screamed straight back into Zach's face. Kaminari leaned his head forward farther and roared through the clear visor of his helmet. He slammed his forehead into Zach's and pushed with all of his might back into Zach's arm he was electrocuting and searing all the skin back off of. "NOW, DIEEEEEE!"

Zach slammed his right hand forward. He pressed it against Raijin's chest.

The sparking lightning all stopped. In the center of Tokyo, Kaminari Denki's heart stopped. Zach's right hand pressed into the villain's chest. His eyes bulged wide as the power filled him. His right hand that was smoking and red, turned pitch black as power surged inside of him. His head tilted backwards and he pulled his hand away. The pitch black coating on his hand started to go away, but the wounds that had just been covering it were fading away as well. His body stopped smoking. His skin was still darker tan than before, his hair still falling halfway down his back, but as he stumbled a few steps backwards with an intense feeling of power filling him, Zach gasped out in fatigue beyond anything he had ever felt before.

He's dead, Zach stared at the boy who slumped forward. His body was pressed against the drill so it took another second before Raijin's legs slid forward and his body finally fell onto its back. Kaminari's eyes were still open. Zach felt power filling him, but he stared down at his friend's body and could not feel energized or happy or powerful at all. I did it. I killed him. That surge of power was something Zach focused on over anything else. I need to follow through. Your power, Kaminari. I'll use it now for them.

He did it, Jirou took a few steps forward and stopped herself. She was staring towards Zach in utter shock at what just happened.

Tsuyu Asui stared down the road in disbelief too but also with more sweat dripping down her face as she saw Zach turn around. Zach just turned his back on Kaminari. Jirou froze too as he turned away after only a second. Zach turned his back on his greatest enemy, his best friend, and he just stepped away…

Chhh

Inside of Tokyo, Gigantomachia, Shigaraki Tomura, and Raijin were all defeated. Three of the strongest villains in the city had been defeated, by three of the strongest heroes-in-training in the country. The three strongest some would say. At that moment, all three of their enemies had fallen. It looked as if the city was saved.

Chhh

In the biggest fights of their lives, Bakugo, Midoriya, and Zach had all come out victorious. The enemies they put everything they had into defeating were defeated or dead. But often when things look the best for heroes, opportunity appears for villains. After all, there was something no hero could ever forget about the enemies they fought on a daily basis. It was something that made them despise their enemies even more and part of why they needed to stop them.

Villains don't fight fair.

Chhh

A bright yellow flash illuminated in the corner of Zach's eyes. His single step away was all he took. Jirou and Asui froze in place as well. All the breath sucked out of their lungs. Zach's face was frozen staring straight away from whatever just flashed behind him. He could see the yellow in the corners of his vision. His head started to turn to the right…

---

"Someone should go help Gran Torino," Spunky started. "I don't know where he went running off to, but this battle isn't over yet."

"Let's go then," Plucky agreed with her leader.

"I'll handle things here," Ectoplasm assured the remaining Feisty Foursome members. He turned back towards the massive body of Gigantomachia that did appear to be getting a little smaller in its unconscious form, though it was still filling up most of the street at the moment. We need to find Creati. If I can get her to make sedatives… Honestly, she's the only one who can make enough to keep this thing down for good. We wouldn't have enough in the city otherwise.

Spunky and Plucky started turning away. Honenuki frowned deeply as he looked a direction where Vixen's body was. It's time to help the living, Honenuki reminded himself. Zach's alive. I can only hope he'll have the strength to save her after this. "I'll come with you…" Honenuki started telling his fallen pro's teammates. They looked towards him but then dropped their jaws, and Honenuki turned with his jaw dropping too in shock at the sight of who was standing up next to him.

Uraraka stared in absolute disbelief at the boy next to her who was rising up to his feet. She had thought Bakugo was as unable to move as Sato who she was trying to talk to now to no avail as the larger boy was completely unconscious. "Bakugo," Uraraka started in surprise but also a voice she tried to make sound scolding. "You shouldn't move-"

Uraraka noticed it before anyone else. Bakugo's face was covered in more shock than anyone else around him. His eyes were looking down at his own legs that just rose him up despite how much pain standing put him in. What the- Bakugo thought. He realized it as his thought cut off, and his mouth opened in panic that exceeded his rage as he knew what was about to happen. "MOVE-" Bakugo screamed, while his bloody right arm whipped around the front of his body and set off an Explosion into the unsuspecting Feisty Four members still alive near him who screamed and got blown away by the boy's Quirk.

The edge of that explosion also hit Honenuki who leapt away just too late to avoid the burns that got his face and his arms he tried crossing in front of himself. "AH!" He flew backwards and then rolled onto his feet, looking up and past Bondo who sprinted in front of his classmate to protect him.

"Bakugo!" Ectoplasm yelled at his student he rushed at.

"Sensei it's her!" Bakugo yelled, even as he spun towards his teacher with his arms pushing down at his sides and pointing behind him.

Uraraka could not stand up. Her legs were in too much agony to stand after landing on them with too much gravity too many times. She did fall back on her butt though while looking at her classmate who blasted Explosions behind him that ripped through the skin of his already torn-apart arms. Blood splashed away from Bakugo's arms that whipped ahead of him as the force of the Explosions behind him moved his arms forward faster than the rest of his body also being launched ahead. Ectoplasm leaned away from Bakugo's right hand that was sparking and looking about to cause an Explosion, but Bakugo's left arm twisted in a way that should have been physically impossible and made Bakugo roar in pain. That left arm reached farther forward and grabbed Ectoplasm by his teacher's collar. Bakugo yanked back towards himself and pressed the palm of his sparking right hand into Ectoplasm's chest.

Horror covered both teacher and student's faces- BOOOOM!

"AAHHH- SENSEI!" Bakugo screamed while falling backwards away from the back of his Explosion that just blew Ectoplasm away and through two different buildings several blocks away from them.

Uraraka rolled backwards and then spun and stared in disbelief and terror at what just happened. "EEehehee! That was amazing!" A voice screamed out in glee down towards the students from the cracked stomach of a beast that three of the teens all looked up towards at the sound of her voice. The smirking woman had six arms that she held up at her sides with her fingers pointed down towards them.

Bakugo did not need to hear her voice, and it did not matter that he could not turn his head and look up towards her. He had figured it out right before he attacked the Feisty Foursome. In his head he imagined the head of a hero he respected getting cut off. He saw one of the top three heroes in the country falling at her hands, and the other teens could all imagine it too as they stared up in fear towards her. She did not look damaged in the least from the battle thus far. Bakugo could just move his mouth and vocal cords enough, that his raspy voice snarled out, "Pinoko."

"Explosion King! I'm going to have you kill your friends now!" Pinoko yelled down towards the boy whose eyes shifted back from anger to panic once more as he spun towards Honenuki and Bondo.

The two of them had similarly panicked expressions on their faces as Bakugo Katsuki spun their way. "Oh shit-" Honenuki slammed both hands on the ground from his position on one knee. His face looked more terrified than he really was, trying to make the villainess hesitate to allow him to marinate in his fear. She seemed sadistic to him, and he had studied up enough on her actions during the Koimou Massacre that he figured he could get her to pause as well. And in that moment he tried to sink Bakugo into the floor.

Bondo used that same moment to block off what Honenuki was doing. He put up a wall of Cemedine that grew fast and hardened in front of Bakugo who was flying at them so fast as he blasted Explosions out of bloody palms and screamed out in agony and fury as he could not control his own body. The woman using her Quirk, Puppeteer, on him, just cackled as Bakugo flew into the air and out of Honenuki's Quirk. He flew straight at the Cemedine instead of around it, and Bakugo smashed straight through the hardening substance with one Explosion while shoving his other hand forward through the cracking debris.

"AHHHH!" Bondo Kojiro and Honenuki Juzo screamed as they were blown away by a classmate whose expression twisted in disgust and horror at the sight of them burning on the other side of his Explosion.

"Stop! Bakugo!" Uraraka screamed towards her classmate. She made herself weightless and pushed off the ground.

As she flew up though, Bakugo landed on the ground and turned his head. His head was twisting with his body following after it. Pinoko's eyebrows rose up at the feeling of the struggle against her, but she chuckled to herself, "Maybe if you were at full strength, this would be a challenge!" Her four top arms pulled taut to the sides and made Bakugo's body throw both arms up and to the sides while his legs jumped and kicked out to either side too. He looked like he was doing a jumping jack, and Pinoko laughed harder as his face twisted in more horror than ever, because his head snapped up and straight at the floating girl who just darted a glance towards Pinoko while questioning if she could reach this villain before Pinoko could use Bakugo to stop her.

Bakugo stared up towards Uraraka who turned her head back towards him with sweat pouring down her face at the look of fear in his eyes for her safety. In the corner of their eyes they saw Pinoko licking her lips and then finishing that lick with her tongue still sticking out the corner of her mouth. A deranged expression spread on the sadist's face showing that she loved every second of this. "Now, Bakugo Katsuki," Pinoko started to the kids staring at one another in horror. Sparks came off of Bakugo's fingertips, as Pinoko called down to him, "You're going to kill Uravity."

---

"Huh? Where are we going, Tamaki?" Nejire wondered in confusion at her old classmate.

Suneater glanced back at her then at the body of Shigaraki Tomura on the floor near Deku. Can we leave him here alone? I should leave Nejire… No, we need both of us in order to spread it quicker. "We have to tell everyone that Shigaraki is down," Suneater explained to the girl he worked closely with since they had left high school. Nejire's eyes widened as they had only just got here but Suneater was already thinking on what was next after what they just discovered. "The battle can end if the villains know they don't have a leader anymore."

I don't know, if it'll be that simple, Midoriya thought to himself. He was panting too heavily to speak up about it though while just shifting his eyes from Suneater back to Nejire's surprised and then enthusiastic expression at what her friend was telling her. Raijin, and some others, aren't going to just stop.

"…Capturing all the villains is necessary, but the priority right now is ending the battle. Telling them about Shigaraki will make them flee." The Army of Death had the right priorities at the Villain Summit. Suneater knew where he was getting his idea from but did not care in the least as he suggested it.

"Let's do it then," Nejire-Chan agreed and ran up next to her friend who she nodded at rapidly in agreement. "Sorry Deku, we'll be back as fast as we can. And we'll send other heroes to come help. Recovery Girl too, if I can find her," Nejire assured the injured boy they were about to leave on his own. A piece of her wanted to take Deku along, but she would rather not move him at all and risk injuring the boy whose missing left arm she was trying not to stare at too much.

"Alright," Suneater said. He also regretted having to leave Deku alone like this, but they did not have the forces necessary to leave one of them behind and still get this battle to end as quickly as possible. "Just hold on, Deku. You've done enough." He turned fully away and started jogging, Nejire jogging at his side. "We'll put an end to this battle for you-"

"Spin."

The voice came from directly between Tamaki and Nejire. Both of them were shocked to hear that voice between them, but they were unable to dart their eyes inwards to the man who suddenly appeared between them. They couldn't see anything but a glimpse of him in the moment they started to spin. Both took their next steps on pivots to the outsides, looking away from one another so they did not even see the man raising his arms up and holding out a pair of long serrated blades at their neck levels.

The dark-skinned man in green camouflage fatigues put his knives up to the necks of the heroes who were spinning completely out of their own control. Midoriya was staring at them and felt his heart leap into his throat as his breath cut off. The man was staring straight towards him and back into his eyes, while slashing across the moving throats of the confused heroes who felt cold steel on their necks but had no time to react before Danny "The Devil" cut them open.

Blood sprayed away from Suneater and Nejire-chan as the two reached up for their necks too slowly to stop the knives from cutting them. They stumbled away and collapsed to their knees, and Nejire looked painfully towards Tamaki ahead of her who collapsed to the ground with his own head just turning sideways towards Deku in similar pain. He did not even see Nejire collapsing behind him, but in his eyes he saw the unmoving boy behind him who would be unable to protect himself from whatever insane villain just somehow killed him. His body spasmed a few more times as his hands reached for his throat, but the blood spilled too quickly from his neck for him to stay alive more than a few seconds after his throat was cut.

"Y-You're dead," Midoriya gasped out in disbelief. Tears filled his eyes as he stared back up from the bodies of his senpais to the assassin in front of him who had a blue-skinned woman standing back behind him. Sly's expression was flat as she stared past Danny who did not smile while he was killing those heroes. The villain had stayed completely focused on what he was doing, even though he was looking at Deku while he did it. He had to see if the younger hero was just staying down because there were no other villains around, but he finally cracked a small smile as he saw Deku had not moved his body yet despite what he just did.

Danny stood up fully to his height of 6 foot 9 inches. His small smile stayed up as he glanced back down at the corpses on either side of him. He looked more specifically at Suneater. "Sorry about that. Can't let you tell everyone about Shigaraki this early," Danny apologized to the dead man with half-open glassy eyes that Deku could only stare into in a distraught way as he imagined how his former upperclassmen had been telling him they were going to help him a minute ago. Their smiling lively faces were gone and replaced by those of blood-streaked corpses.

There was a knocked-out Shigaraki laying not far from Midoriya, completely defeated and broken, but Midoriya had suffered severe blood loss and could not find it in him to stand. He stared towards the man whose partner chuckled herself while circling around Deku on Midoriya's left side, closer to Shigaraki, while Danny stayed straight ahead of the teen. He has no rules anymore. Eziano's gone. Ares too! Whatever rules that they had restraining them- I thought he was dead! They were all dead! This guy, Zach told me about him when we read that part about 'The Devil' in the God Book! He's supposed to be dead! What is he… what is he doing here?!

The Devil smirked down at the kid who was really understanding for the first time what was happening. Danny's mouth that stretched from one ear to the other opened and spoke in a deep voice, "No, I don't think Shigaraki was defeated by Deku."

"That's not how this story will go."

---

Chhh

The yellow flash in the corner of Zach's eyes repeated. Static filled the air behind him. He could see the bright yellow pulsing over and over on his sides. Zach's head turned to the right slowly. His eyes were massive. It's impossible, Zach thought. He knew it with his entire being that what he was thinking could not be true. And yet as his head turned sideways, it stopped short… at the sight of the electricity sparking on Kaminari's chest again.

Lightning zapped away from the body of the teenager behind Zach. A yellow glow surrounded the teenager whose pack had activated when seconds had passed with no heartbeat registered by the costume's sensors. Electricity zapped through the mind of the villain, hitting the piece of his brain that controlled his Quirk. It activated that part of the mind for a split second. And then signals continued to zap through the body. The synapses restarted sending signals back and forth. And the villain laying on the ground started to defibrillate his own heart.

A bright zap hit Kaminari Denki's chest again. His body glowed brighter, with bolts of electricity connecting the top of his head to the drill now that stuck out of the road and funneled more and more power into him. Zach started turning himself more. I felt it! I felt the surge- HE DIED! I can feel his power-

Kaminari's body started to rise off of the ground. Bolts of lightning pushed down under the back of his head, under his upper back, and under his waist. His body rose up in a way looking so unnatural as he did not use his arms or legs but just rose up diagonally from the ground. He rose up fully and then his feet flattened onto the floor as he got straight up. His eyes were glowing pure white. Lightning came out of his ears and from his mouth. It filled his entire body as his Quirk pumped his blood and restarted all of his bodily functions.

A giant smile covered the villain's face as his huge glowing white eyes flared wildly. And then he vanished and reappeared in front of the turning teen who got a fist in a white glove lodged in his right cheek so hard that three teeth flew from Zach's mouth and his nose shattered with blood splashing out of it. Zach flew off his feet and twenty meters back before hitting the ground on his side. He was still in too much shock when he was hitting down, his mind jumbled, that he did not hit the ground in a graceful way in mid-recovery but just as a ragdoll that rolled and tumbled and finally skid to a stop on his back.

Zach sat up his upper body. He was gasping for breath which hurt his gums where his teeth were gone and his lips where they had cut through on their way out of his mouth. Blood spilled from his broken nose down over his top cut lip and into his wide open mouth, filling it with blood as he stared towards the villain whose right arm was extended out in front of his body. Kaminari turned his fist and looked at it in amazement with his glowing white eyes that finally started to lose their glow to return to normal, though they were bloodshot still from the lack of oxygen that had reached them after he had been touched by Zach's right hand. "Hehehe- HAHAHAHA! WHAT'S WRONG, ZACH?!"

Raijin swung his right arm out to the side and leaned his body forward. Lightning zapped around him and scarred the street near where he had just fallen. The female heroes staring down the road towards him took steps backwards in sheer terror at what just happened. Raijin screamed towards Zach who was looking back at him in more shock than anyone, "YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T FALL, DIDN'T YOU?! AHAHAHAA!" Raijin laughed at the top of his lungs while buildings near him got hit by lightning bolts and then started funneling even more power to this figure whose whole body was flaring with Electricity that seemed out of control.

"You- You can't!" Zach pushed his hands down on the floor at his sides. He pushed up and staggered onto his feet, shaking his head back and forth over and over. "You can't- YOU! I killed you. I- I killed-"

"Did you think your Quirk would always work?" Raijin taunted towards his enemy who pulled his head back far at the taunt he had used himself on many people he had tried to teach not to get surprised like he was feeling right now. Raijin laughed at that look of complete shock though, and he yelled, "Did you think your right hand would always kill instantly?!"

That's not it! I've seen that it won't against Ares. But- but I felt him die! I FELT IT! "You can't be… I, I felt it," Zach whispered. He gasped it out in shock as he stared towards this villain who continued screaming at him with a look of such maniacal joy on his expression. This isn't- it's not, fair- "I felt…"

"Though I guess you weren't exactly lying before!" Raijin called out back at his enemy and shrugged his shoulders up as he admitted it. "You did say that you would not fall until I was dead. And now Zach, Kaminari is! THIS BODY DIED!" Raijin reached up to his helmet and ripped the thing off of him and tossed it to the side. He shook his head around and laughed as he rid himself of protective covering. "I don't need this anymore! Now that Death will no longer work on me. Hahaha! HAHAHAA!"

Electricity covered every millimeter of Kaminari's brain. It zapped around his spinal cord, through his heart and lungs, and every inch of his body was glowing yellow as the boy cackled madly at his staggering opponent too horrified to handle this. Tears filled Zach's eyes as he looked at the body of his best friend that was laughing in such a horrifying way at him. His eyes squinted and he gasped out, spit flying with blood from his mouth as those tears spilled down his face. "That must have been tough, wasn't it?!" Raijin screamed at him. "CAN YOU DO IT AGAIN?! HOW MANY TIMES, ZACH?!"

Jirou pulled her head back and stopped stepping backwards away from the villain she could see who was facing her friend she no longer could. Tears filled her eyes at the sound of that taunt that broke her heart. Zach!

Zach's eyes spilled more tears than Jirou's as he pulled his head away farther from the villain who was back on his feet again. I can't… Zach bit down on his bottom lip. One of his jagged broken teeth ripped through his bottom lip, and he had to cut off a sob with a gasp to try and hide it. "Now tell me, Zach! TELL ME!"

"WHAT'S MY NAME?!"

Zach's trembling eyes were aimed at the floor. They were huge and shaking so much as tears fell from his chin and down to his feet. His fists curled tightly at his sides though and his legs stopped shaking. Zach rose his gaze up and tried to make himself look stronger. That's not him. I killed him!

"Raijin," Zach hissed.

A look of pure euphoria covered the villain's face. "Yesssssss," Raijin hissed with his smile rising higher than ever. "You finally accept it now?! That he's GONE?! It's just me, Zach. And I'm going to kill you. Death won't work on me any longer! I AM AS IMMORTAL AS YOU ARE!"

"SO LET'S FIND OUT, SHALL WE?!" Raijin screamed with all of his violently sparking electricity pulling back into his body alone. He cracked his neck to either side and then leaned his whole body forward towards his opponent whose body erupted in Death and leaned back forward as well. Raijin's maddening cackles filled the air mixed with the static that pushed against black wisps of Death in a thick haze between the two. Zach's heart pumped faster and faster, his eyes stinging from the salt of tears he started holding back while staring at this monstrosity. "WHICH ONE OF US IS THE STRONGER GOD, DEATH?!"

"OoooROOOAA- GGrrrRRR RRaaAAAAAAHHHHH!" Zach pushed his feet down while screaming in an animalistic voice echoing around the district that started shaking around him as if being hit by an earthquake. The atmosphere darkened and shifted shades grayer and blacker in a pulse that pulled in towards Zach's body rather than exuded away from him. His eyes glowed pure red while Raijin's turned completely white again, and then the two of them shot off the ground and slammed into one another. Raijin's right fist slammed into Zach's, and a clash of yellow and black stronger than any before filled the sky of Tokyo.

---

A/N Thanks for reading. XD Hope you guys enjoyed the 60k+ word chapter. Bakugo and Midoriya succeed, but Pinoko and Danny move in as soon as their fights are finished and take advantage of the weakened heroes. Zach's victory is as short-lived as theirs. If anyone else has seen One Piece's Enel, that's where I first got the idea from of Raijin restarting his own heart after he'd been killed. Though he planned ahead for it more like how Goku revives himself while facing Hit. Raijin's that kind of a smart guy to have had the contingency plan, and even Death couldn't prevent him from restarting himself... now, with seemingly no way for Death to stop him... How will Zach defeat Raijin now that he's already been killed by Death? How will the other fights end up? Where did Gran Torino have to rush to suddenly?! Anyway, this chapter was a massive one, and I really want to thank you guys for being so patient with me not uploading at all this summer. My job had me working 16-18 hours shifts every single day for months. It was bruuuuutal. I just applied for a part-time job on weekends as a waiter, and I lied to the managers that I had a second job which is why I can only work weekends, when really I just want more time to write XD. I'm getting to work on Chapter 251 right away, so that'll definitely be out much earlier than the 4 month gap I just took which was by far the longest ever taken since I started this story. The Battle of Tokyo continues, next time! Now it's time for review responses... but there are wayyyy to many from the past months to get them all. I'll try to get a bunch though!

First Time Dead chapter 249 . May 10

Okay so I don't often review fanfics, but this one is perhaps the best I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It has a permanent tab on my phone it's so good. I love how Zach constantly defies our expectations of "He's at his limit." Also he is a protagonist who can pull of the "this fool thinks that he can outsmart me with my own strategies, but he doesn't know that he is but a puppet and I the puppeteer" while also being like "yeah fuck your plan I'm just gonna brute force right through it and nobody can stop me."
Zach is a super OP character but he's definitely "done right."

Dance Lightning Boy, DANCE! XD You may have won my favorite review of all time. It's between this review and the next reviewer's that I'm going to paste below. Because I was probably in the middle of a Technoblade binge-watch when I read your comment, and I was laughing really hard when I saw the Potato War reference. Thanks so much for the review, and I'm really happy that you like this story so much and Zach's character! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Hi chapter 249 . May 11

Ok so I think I messed up my review but idk.. basically I'm autistic and this fanfic is actually my special interest! Which is kind of embarrassing since I'm 15 and have to struggle to not constantly talk about a fanfiction. I've been reading this for about 2 years and I've reread it so many times. I don't think I'm ready for it to end because I'm so used to looking forward to a new chapter, your writing really helps me cope when I'm having sensory overload or a meltdown so thank you for writing this story :)) just so you know I'll definitely be reading your book if you do write one, whatever it's about.

You might be the winner of my favorite review ever too. :)) I was really happy to read your two reviews. Knowing that this story helps you out puts a big smile on my face whenever I go reread those reviews. Truthfully, I'm not ready for Death to end either. I've reread it a ton over the past few years, and daily I'll go back and read random scenes throughout that I still love even years after coming up with them. It's sad knowing I'm going to be finishing this story soon, hopefully by the time the year ends. It's tough when this story has been the main focus of my life for the past 3 years. It's time for a new chapter though, and I'm glad that whatever my next work will be that you'll be looking forward to it. Thank you!

Shmayn chapter 249 . Jul 8

Anybody know if dude is still alive?

Yep! Sorry for the long update wait. Still alive!

Jpx0999 chapter 248 . Sep 22

soo
zahc knows black magic now?
COOL!

Only posting your most recent comment down here, but I want you to know that I enjoyed spending the past few weeks looking forward to seeing a few emails a day with your reviews in them as you caught up to the story! Bet you weren't expecting a new chapter so soon! XD Hope you enjoyed the newest one!

-That's it for the review responses today. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed, faved, followed, or just reads this story! I appreciate all you guys, and I look forward to posting again soon!