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!

251. Chapter 251

A/N Well, second longest chapter ever. The last two were both over 60k, and I thought those were long... But here's an 80k+ chapter. XD Was wondering why it was taking me so long to finish! Been writing books for you guys every chapter. I hope y'all enjoy it. The Battle of Tokyo continues!

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

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Chapter 251:

"Alieri?! And… Aedepha?" Gran Torino stared ahead towards two shorter villains with wrinkled faces and gray or white hair. The slightly taller of the two was a man with hair that was only grayish-white, while the shorter woman farther past him was closer to the height that Gran Torino had once shrunk to himself, and her hair was whiter than either of the old men on that street with her.

Aedepha turned her head and glared through glowing black eyes that lost some of their glow at the sight of the man who just landed on the street with them. A small flirtatious smile spread on her face that made chills go down Gran Torino's spine, while also making a look of regret flash on his face. She was wearing a version of her villain costume that had been made to fit her size at only 4 foot 3 inches. The light-skinned elderly woman had blood splashed on her left cheek. Her fists were pitch black contrasting with the complexion of her face, but those fists were currently in the shape of large spiked-maces. They shimmered as her eyes lost some of their black glow, then one mace turned into a regular hand that lost its black glow, while the other turned into a sharp blade that extended four feet off of her wrist where her dark purple costume's sleeve ended. "Sorahiko!" Aedepha yelled while swinging her sharpened arm towards the tall and muscular hero who looked tired and had some cuts on his body, to the advantage of the villains who looked no worse for the wear than when the battle started.

The other villain on the street had not turned away from their younger enemy they were fighting before Gran Torino arrived. Alieri did lift the right corner of his lips up though as he heard Gran Torino's voice behind them. The smile was bloodthirsty, but rage also filled the gray-haired villain who had a pair of diamond-studded fingerless gloves on his furry hands. He had dark brown fur on his arms out from under the short sleeves of his black tunic, and that fur also went up his neck but got thinner before his receding gray hair or his light face. "Did you take her away, Gran Torino?" Alieri called out, his voice sounding mocking and yet barely masking bloodlust and fury as their objective was nowhere in sight.

Gran Torino needed to figure out what was going on quickly. He had landed on his own street where he had seen explosions going off in the distance. Smoke was rising from his apartment, and he could see Ragdoll's body partially crushed and unmoving under some rubble near the edge of the apartment building that had lost its front-facing wall to an earlier collapse. Most of the flames looked to be put out, but Backdraft's body with his stomach torn open was discarded to the side barely still in one piece off on Alieri's right. Blood dripped from the sharp fingertips of the old man who looked to have inflicted similar wounds to the eight other dead heroes whose corpses littered this street.

Gang Orca's body was still on this road too. It was the first one that Lemillion had seen when he rushed onto the road, and he had sprinted in fury towards the villains he had deemed responsible without realizing that Gang Orca's death had come much earlier. He approached and attacked the villains who were on a street that he had panicked to see explosions going off on. It had led him to splitting up from his classmates even though they were heading towards the League's leader at the time. Lemillion could not risk it though. Not when he knew who was on this street, and who very few people knew the location of. However, some of those who knew were at the top of their severely corrupted government. For the first time since Lemillion arrived though and found himself surprisingly outmatched by the old villains who focused him, he heard news of the girl who he had rushed here to protect.

They think I evacuated her. Ragdoll, where did you send the kids? Did you figure out that Eri was a target and… and why- I don't understand! "Why are you here?" Gran Torino growled at his shorter opponents. "It's been over thirty years-"

"And you still recognized me? I'm so flattered," Aedepha remarked to the hero who she started circling to the left side of while facing. Her guard was up and her black bladed arm stayed pointed in front of her at the man whose Jets his enemies knew well. Aedepha tilted her head back and called at him, "But now isn't the time to get caught up with old flings." Gran Torino bit down hard, while Lemillion's eyebrows rose up for a second before narrowing quickly at the male villain whose legs started bending as if he was going to use the momentary distraction to bolt at the young hero and rip him in two. Alieri just smirked though as Lemillion stepped backwards, and the villain did not need to look down to see the wounds on Lemillion's legs that caused the hero to wince as he stepped back like that.

Lemillion's hurt. I need to figure out what's happening! Where is Eri?! I must believe that Kota is with her. The two of them, they're hiding nearby somewhere. If myself or Lemillion come in too much risk, that girl will stupidly put herself in harm's way. These two are extremely dangerous though. Why are they here?! "Vostranus is dead!" Gran Torino shouted. Both of the villains lost their smirks instantly. The darkest looks Lemillion could imagine spread on the faces of the villains who snarled in response to Gran Torino's shout.

"That may be so," Alieri remarked. "But you know why we're here."

"You're senile," Gran Torino growled. "The two of you, crawling out of your holes… Look at yourselves. You're withering away-"

"Does it feel good being able to make fun of our age?" Alieri wondered. He stepped backwards closer to Aedepha's back while still keeping his eyes locked on Lemillion's. The two villains were right in front of Gran Torino's safehouse apartment complex. Lemillion and Gran Torino stood on opposite sides of them, glaring inwards at the elderly villains who had caused so much death on this road in the past fifteen minutes. "When you yourself should be our senior?" Alieri finished in a tone hinting ominously at the hero.

"It was so amazing to see you suddenly back at your prime," Aedepha remarked. "So amazing, in fact, that we had to find out why that was." She was staring into Gran Torino's eyes as she spoke to the man who bit down hard at what she was saying. "How was it that our old enemy was suddenly a teenager? As if, he had been sent back in time?"

"Reversing the flow of time to one's body," Alieri continued. "Is what we have spent the last thirty-seven years searching for. It is how we will bring back our Master-"

"Vostranus' body was destroyed!" Gran Torino yelled at the two insane enemies before him. Lemillion ground his teeth too in frustration at the reasoning behind these villains' actions, but a sharp breath still sucked in at that same moment as he saw past them to the older hero he had a lot of respect for. Even if Gran Torino meant it as his tone came out like he was calling these villains crazy and that their reasoning was flawed, a bead of sweat was dripping down Gran Torino's face at the mere suggestion his enemies were making. "Lavamander confirmed that no body remained-"

"Lavamander said that he was unable to locate a body under the lava," Aedepha countered Gran Torino whose eyes bulged huge at her knowing retort. "Don't try to lie to us, Sorahiko. We were right there. When you collapsed the lair's integrity with Vostranus still inside-"

"It was your own superweapon that exploded and destabilized the lair-"

Alieri turned and screamed towards Gran Torino, "It wouldn't have malfunctioned without your interference!"

Lemillion sank under the pavement and popped up behind the villains…

A flash of yellow flew into Lemillion's side and tackled him away from the older enemies who smirked even as Alieri screamed at Gran Torino in a moment of what had appeared like flustered rage. Gran Torino knew his own enemies better, and he tackled the younger man whose breath pushed out of his chest from Gran Torino knocking the wind out of him, and also from the shock at the sight of the mass of black pavement behind Aedepha that had spiked up in his path and nearly impaled him. It would have too if Gran Torino had not just moved at such insane speeds that he dodged both enemies' front-facing attacks while simultaneously saving Lemillion from the defensive counter Aedepha made at their backs.

"Do not act rashly, Lemillion," Gran Torino warned while glaring back towards the villains who were being as careful about Gran Torino as he was being with them. Lemillion gasped for breath and had to clench his eyes shut for a few seconds while on one knee at Gran Torino's side. Re-Destro and his army of Liberators had been no easy task to get rid of, and he had rushed here immediately after finishing that fight. He had been facing these two villains for a few minutes before Gran Torino arrived, and the other heroes who he had been trying to save when he got here had all fallen by the time Gran Torino showed up as well.

I wasn't ready to Permeate again. That would have impaled me! Who are these villains?! "Gran Torino… Who is Vostranus?"

"A relic from an age long gone," Gran Torino growled in response. He said it loud enough for his enemies to hear him too. Neither of them lost their smirks though while facing the man who had put his own safehouse behind him and looked to be defending it.

"Is she still in there?" Aedepha wondered. She cocked her head to the right side while stepping to her left and away from Alieri who circled the opposite direction and split Gran Torino's attention both ways. Her lips curled up more while her eyes glowed darker black, "The girl who can reverse time? Who can revive our Master?"

"You won't touch her," Lemillion started as he stood back up at Gran Torino's side.

Alieri frowned for a moment. I didn't see the girl in there. Gran Torino didn't take her though. He rushed here in fear for her life. Where is she?! A grin came back to Alieri's face. "Do you know where she would have run to, Sorahiko?"

"The two of you may have escaped back then," Gran Torino growled. "But now, I will be sending you to Tartaros where you belong-"

"Giving us the mercy that you denied our Master," Aedepha snarled towards him. Rage covered her face. Her expression twisted while her head snapped back, and she snapped down her nose at him, "I saw you smashing the machine. You knew! You knew that it would destabilize the base, because you were yelling at the others to evacuate! So you killed him, while he was busy facing off against all of your allies at once!"

"And Vostranus was injured from their fight." Alieri hissed. Pain covered his expression like it did Aedepha's. "The man who saved my life. Saved all of our lives… He was stuck inside the volcano as lava filled the base-"

"He was dying already!" Gran Torino yelled at his enemies who slammed their mouths shut and looked to flinch in pain from that yell at them. Gran Torino shook his head back and forth then lifted it and said towards them in a steady voice but one that shared some of their pain, and pity for them, "He was the one who destabilized your base more than anything with his wild attacks. Part of the ceiling came down on him… but still! Even though he was our enemy, Shimura did not want to leave him behind! Lavamander went back in because we weren't going to let him kill himself! We tried to save him! While you all, just ran-"

"We didn't run," Aedepha told Gran Torino. Her smirk returned and made dread fill the hero who grit his teeth at what she was telling him that went against what he had believed for half of his life. "We were right there when Lavamander returned to tell you what he found. Hiding in a Sideways of Lark. Lark made us our pocket of space right next to you imbeciles, and we heard what Lavamander said when he emerged from the lava. He never found Vostranus' body… But, that could mean one of two things:" Aedepha said while smirking more at the hero who gained an even more dreadful look as his enemies sounded more sane than he had hoped. Their words were not those of senile fools but the same intelligent and crafty villains he had been treating them as in their fight at least.

Lemillion did not like the look spreading more on Gran Torino's face. He stared back in confusion towards the villains though, wondering what the two things that Aedepha was referencing could be. Alieri continued for his partner, "Either Vostranus' body had been completely destroyed, or… someone had gotten it out of there before Lavamander searched."

Gran Torino's eyebrows rose up in even more confusion. "But-"

"But we didn't do it?" Aedepha wondered to finish his question. She tilted her head back and cackled, "AhhHEHEHEE! BUT WHAT IF WE DID?!" She screamed. Her head snapped back down and she yelled it at Gran Torino as if asking a question that she had thought back at the time. Sorahiko's eyes bulged while Lemillion still stared back at them in confusion. "Lark, Hanz, Annari, and even Alieri just wanted revenge in that moment! They wanted to leap from the Sideways and kill you all right there! But I could hear by the way that Lavamander worded it that he had not found Vostranus' body. I could tell that he was not lying either when he reported it to his own master who I could not see him lie to in such a way. Zaeus feared that Vostranus had escaped, but you were right, Sorahiko. Our Master was already mortally wounded."

"I don't understand," Gran Torino growled. He did not want to humor his enemies, but at the same time he was lost as to what they were telling him. If we didn't find Vostranus, and they didn't find him- but they did?! "When…"

"Perfect question," Alieri responded. He chuckled and answered his enemy, "Even though that anti-hero went back in immediately, before the base was even fully destroyed, there was a gap! A moment when none of us, and none of you were in there. A moment where the base hadn't collapsed yet. Before our Master's body would have been destroyed fully by the lava pouring into the lair. No one around. Schrödinger's Cat, Sorahiko! In that moment he was neither alive nor dead because none of us knew whether he was alive or dead! Either was possible. And if it was possible, in a world of Quirks…"

"Then we would make that possibility into reality. All it would require, would be a tremendous amount of patience," Aedepha continued. "The others have all passed on in that time. Lark was close to making it to today, but unfortunately he too succumbed to time and will be unable to see the day when we bring our Master back to life!"

"And that day is at hand," Alieri hissed towards the heroes who darted their eyes to their left side at the villain who stayed close to a wall on one side of him and made it so the heroes had to either look at one villain or the other on the side of this street. Lemillion turned more towards Aedepha this time while Gran Torino turned his body more to face Alieri alone. Alieri's fur stood on end and his claws sharpened more, and the villain said in a low voice towards Gran Torino, "The only ones who could have saved Vostranus were those of us there. We knew that he could still be saved. His body at least, as his injuries truly were so severe that he would most likely be dead whether or not we could return and get his body in time. Even just his body alone would be enough. After all, in this world of Quirks, someday, someone would have the power to bring back the dead."

"But Lifebringer has a time limit," Aedepha went on. "And we had already retrieved Master's body by the time we could have grabbed him. You, on the other hand, were brought back to your prime at random. No time limit to when you could be reversed-"

"How though?" Lemillion wondered. At this point it was sheer curiosity that made the younger man ask. He felt in way over his head here for a moment as he asked a question that was so prevalent in his mind he could not keep it to himself. "How did you get, his body?"

Gran Torino's expression was dark but he also searched Alieri for an answer to this question. I understand why they're here, at my safehouse… But Lemillion's right. That still doesn't explain how they got his body.

"We did not have the capability at the time to save him," Aedepha responded to her curious young opponent. "We couldn't do it from the Lark's Sideways right next to you four. Shimura, Lavamander, Zaeus, and you Sorahiko. Revenge was so close. All we wanted was to emerge and kill you four in that moment. But, instead we waited and plotted. As long as no body was found, then Vostranus could be saved. That was all we knew. For decades! This world of Quirks would allow it."

"And so we waited, and watched, and searched the globe," Alieri hissed. "We searched for years, decades… and then two years ago we found a man in what was a small group of villains at the time that was steadily growing in power. We would trade them the kind of technology that would turn them into the most powerful villain group in the world, and they would waste that technological advantage by flying their fleet straight into Wampajawa in a reckless attempt to take on Death themselves."

Gran Torino and Lemillion's eyes both bulged huge at the same time. Not only for the realization of what group these villains were talking about, but who specifically in their group as well that suddenly made all of this make sense. Sweat poured down Gran Torino's face more than Lemillion's as the enemies in front of him were getting way too close to actually succeeding at their goal. The idea of that made him remember how he, Shimura, and the anti-heroes they had sided with that day had looked at the end of the fight. None of them looked pretty after facing off against Vostranus and his allies. I must keep Eri away from here. If they come close to killing myself or Lemillion- if they succeed! She'll want to try to turn back time to see if she can revive us. We've never seen her do it. There's no certainty it will even work after death… But they'll promise to allow her to do so for us, as long as she brings back Vostranus first. They must have preserved his body somewhere nearby!

"This American's Quirk, was not what most people believed it to be. His Wormholes didn't just travel in space, but in time," Alieri continued to the heroes who wished they could deny this impossibility. Neither could do so though as they each remembered the most unbelievable part of the footage of Wampajawa. Gran Torino ground his teeth in frustration, and he balled his fists as he determined that stopping these villains in front of him was his new priority over anything else going on around him.

"Wormhole took us back," Aedepha continued in a cocky tone that seemed to be bragging at Sorahiko that their efforts all those years ago had been put to waste by the two villains in front of him. "And we took a quick stop to recruit a young and opportunistic Meta willing to do anything for a paycheck. We promised him that if he chose the path of the villain, that he would one day have all the riches, women, and fame that he wanted. And we weren't lying. He's had quite a life after his escape from Tartaros." Aedepha laughed madly then leaned her head forward and hissed in glee, "Meta went into the lava, and he found Vostranus' corpse before it had burned away, before Lavamander could reach the same spot! That fleshy, skeletal body is now preserved, only two years deceased. Wormhole fled to America when we tried to force him help us infiltrate U.A. at a time when we could safely grab Sazaki and make him revive our Master without creating a paradox. But it was only in our haste and burning desire to revive Master immediately that lost us our alliance with Wormhole and through him the Villericans. We had other options though. Other, avenues to explore," Aedepha remarked with a grin. She started to look more bloodthirsty herself as she glared through Lemillion's intense gaze that he realized had no chance of deterring these villains who had spent upwards of forty years on this goal.

"We soon found the League through the present Meta who we searched out in the current time after his escape. And the League had information, knowledge, and spies in the right places to learn all about this girl… who was protected by the same enemy we had faced so long ago," Alieri finished to that enemy who faced them now.

"You will not escape this time," Gran Torino growled. "Lark is not here to whisk you into another dimension, and I will never let you get to Eri."

"Where is she, Sorahiko?!" Aedepha yelled at the man who sounded a lot more knowledgeable about her whereabouts than he had been letting on.

Alieri also narrowed his gaze and started grinding his teeth at Gran Torino's heroic shout right there. Is he bluffing to keep us here?! WHERE IS SHE?! "Where are you hiding her?!" Alieri roared. "Where did you tell her to go in cases of emergency?! TELL US!"

"You'll never get it out of me," Gran Torino threatened the enemies who both charged forward in rage at that declaration. Where the hell did Eri run off to?! Gran Torino thought himself while hiding that thought from his expression. He had been glad that she was not here to be taken by these villains, but panic filled him in the sudden realization that no matter where she had run off to, those kids were still in danger.

Aedepha's eyes flashed pitch black. Her arms started to morph into even longer blades, but the floor below Lemillion and Gran Torino sank into a pitch blackness first that grabbed at the heroes' legs.

Lemillion sank down through the floor using his own Quirk. Gran Torino fired out Jets before Aedepha's Hard-Carbon could capture him. If it grabs me I won't be getting off the ground again. She landed below him down on top of her own malleable transforming platform that had missed Gran Torino. It pushed down under her legs then sprang her up into the air after the hero who spun around and ducked his head to dodge the woman who had pulled the ground so taut that she launched after him as fast as Gran Torino was moving.

The other hero who had sank through the floor to avoid Aedepha's powerful Quirk, popped back to the surface and was already spinning and kicking his bloody left leg at his enemy who once again predicted exactly where he was going to emerge from. Alieri's teeth were sharp and his lips curling up into a higher smile as the hero had a kick ready for him this time even as he predicted Lemillion's movements. His left arm was already rising though in case the hero had predicted his guess and tried attacking the instant he emerged from the ground. Lemillion was good. His leg passed through Alieri's left hand's claws rather than get gashed by them, but Alieri ducked down on the other side of his arm that he rose like he was trying to counter it while really that too was a diversion as his right hand snapped forward for Lemillion's stomach.

He did not keep moving after his arm passed through Lemillion's stomach. The twenty year old who just popped onto the surface stood on one leg that Alieri kicked at, making Lemillion turn that one Permeable so he started sinking through the floor again. Lemillion held his breath and was no longer able to see anything as he fell through the floor not because he wanted to but because he had to make his whole body Permeable when both legs already were. He's waiting on the surface! Which way do I move?!

Lemillion fell into an underground tunnel and gasped for breath as he emerged deep below. The hesitation to teleport back onto the surface made him sink farther this time, and he panted a few times after dropping into safety. He cursed under his breath that he was hesitating for too long. The bland-faced hero glanced down at his body but snapped his eyes up quickly. Doesn't matter, he reminded himself. I need to stop these villains, find Eri and make sure she's safe, and then go help the others against Shigaraki! I'll do it all!

Lemillion leapt at the ceiling and reappeared on the street in a different spot than Alieri was predicting. The villain was not hinging all his bets on the one location for Lemillion to appear this time though, as he figured the young hero might best him this time after being caught by his traps on multiple occasions. Alieri was frowning deeply instead that he had failed to finish off the young man, but he remained calm even as he turned and glared towards Lemillion's appearing body on the surface. He's Number 3 in rankings, but it was only lack of experience that kept him that low. He's caught up. Endeavor, Hawks, and Lemillion. The three strongest. I don't want to face any of them with Sorahiko at their side. With Aedepha we could have killed him already. That might have drawn the girl out. This Eri is supposedly attached to three heroes in particular. If either of these two die, we just have to drag around their body while yelling at the girl to come out. Then we bring back Vostranus! We're so close!

"I can taste it," Alieri whispered. His voice was hoarse as he said it. His voice cracked, his head tilting back and his claws shaking at both sides. Such focus and determination to succeed swelled in his eyes. His head turned sideways and he stared towards the hero who sprinted at him and kept a determined look of his own in his eyes that did not shake even at the insane and bloodthirsty stare of this villain about to kill him. "Such foolish youth," Alieri said, his eyes raising slightly as if to the woman dropping behind Lemillion, as if she had gotten away from Gran Torino for a second and was going to hit him from behind.

Alieri's eyes did not completely raise from Lemillion. Rather, it was like the man was saying a regretful phrase to the man about to be killed, while Lemillion only "noticed" that Alieri was looking at something in the top of his vision. Lemillion turned his upper body Permeable while darting his gaze to the side, only to see Aedepha getting hit by both of Gran Torino's fists up in the air. The older hero bit down and kept from shouting out in pain as her body turned black and ridiculously hard, hurting his fists even though he still did send her flying backwards from his momentum alone.

Alieri was in front of Lemillion. Even just darting his eyes to the side gave the other villain the moment he desired to reach the hero who had just finished a step and did not sink it through the floor. Alieri stomped onto Lemillion's right foot. He clawed through Lemillion's torso with one hand while stomping down hard on Lemillion's foot and then clawing through his own boot and then through Lemillion's below using claws previously hidden by his costume. Lemillion sank into the ground, and Alieri sprinted towards where Gran Torino just bounded over to to bounce off and into Aedepha's side.

Alieri leapt at Gran Torino's launching point. Gran Torino put on the Jets early before reaching the location he was going to spring off from, using the air instead and spinning himself before elbowing down on the top of Alieri's head. Alieri bit down hard, and his arms and legs bulged with dark brown fur growing out of them more as all four limbs pressed onto the floor below. The ground at Alieri's side turned black and wrapped up his body as Gran Torino did a spin in midair with his Jets firing off below his feet to speed him up before kicking down to get a second finishing blow on Alieri.

Hard Carbon wrapped around Alieri and blocked the kick, then Gran Torino had to lean his head away as a fist of Carbonized skin nearly slammed into his face too from the woman who just shot towards him with a blue blur of light barely tracking after her costume. She missed her punch, but her other hand was raised with a weapon in it that glowed the same blue color, though at the last second a vial of blood red sticking off the side of the gun leaked into the barrel and turned the light purple. Gran Torino's eyes bulged and he turned his regular dodge into a dodge at as fast a speed as he could manage as he was not planning on flying right back in anymore. "AHH!" Sorahiko yelled as the purple beam of light he recognized flew by his right side and still burned off part of his yellow costume.

"Gran-" Lemillion started yelling while sprinting towards the villains who were able to double-team his ally when he sank all the way down into the lower tunnel again as Alieri predicted he would. He knew I would take too long to get back up and used that to put pressure on Gran Torino! I can't leave him to face them 1 versus 2 again. They're too strong! Lemillion dove to his right while the villains switched their 1v2 to focus on Lemillion instead while Gran Torino was spinning out with smoke and blood coming off of him.

Lemillion did not want to sink back in the ground. They might predict where he was going to teleport up from, and if that happened then they could attack into that location and kill him when his eyes were Permeable and unable to reflect light that would give him the opportunity to dodge. The way these villains had been speaking to Gran Torino showed a level of experience that he doubted he would be able to surpass and trick them on a regular basis to dodge all of their predictive attacks. He also could not sink too far under and appear farther away than they could predict compared to the regular teleports, as that time he spent underground would be time they would use to kill Gran Torino. He did not sink under the ground when he dove to the side to dodge a purple beam, therefore. Instead he just rolled back to his feet and then started sprinting at the villains who were charging at him as soon as they fired off the first beam of light that they knew would not kill him.

Alieri darted to Lemillion's right. Aedepha bounced herself up in the air as the ground in front of her turned to Carbon but in a malleable form as she controlled the molecules below her feet. Her arms started to transform as well, but the blades she turned them into had small holes on the ends of them that were nearly impossible to see. The hero could not see these holes, and she had the strength to prevent any recoil as she pointed the blades at a hero dodging Alieri more than her because she was farther away and no longer holding her long-ranged weapon. Tiny black pellets slammed into Lemillion's chest, stomach, and on his right leg directly on top of a large gash that the pellets imbedded into.

"AGH!" Lemillion screamed and stumbled backwards. His body turned Permeable as a speeding animalistic old man shot towards him and slashed through the intangible form of the hero. Lemillion's right arm was tangible though, and he pulled his cape in front of himself as Aedepha fired out more tiny pellets from her blade arms that she started making bigger now as the hero knew she was firing. The tiniest pellets could not do as much damage as these larger shots could, but they ripped holes in the cape and through the other side where no hero was standing.

Lemillion appeared on the surface straight in front of Aedepha. Alieri sprinted at Togata's back. Aedepha slashed her blade-guns that really were sharp even if they had a dual purpose. Lemillion slammed his left fist forward. His fist passed through her head as her blades hit him. Neither of their attacks hit each other. For a moment his arm was blocking her sight though, and he bent that left arm sharply so that his forearm emerged from her face right before his elbow was going to connect, and right after both of her blades finished passing through him.

His elbow slammed Aedepha in the face and knocked her backwards, and Lemillion kicked his right leg back an instant later and caught Alieri in the stomach with it. Alieri gasped out… Then he clawed down into Lemillion's leg that he pretended not to see coming so that Lemillion would keep it solid while kicking him. Alieri had to accept the pain of that kick, but he actually gasped out because even being ready for it he was unable to avoid getting damaged. He got a bruise on his stomach, but deep gashes ripped through Lemillion's already injured right leg that the hero turned intangible too late to stop the heavy bleeding that came of it.

Lemillion fell through the floor and then popped up on the surface and had to dive away as Alieri was on top of him already and slashing downwards. Lemillion rolled up and punched forward, and Alieri curled his right hand into a fist and punched forward as well. At the last second, Alieri's fist turned pitch black, and Lemillion turned his fist Permeable to avoid all of his fingers being broken by a hand he realized was much stronger than his own as he saw the shading shift. Alieri's smile breaking out as Aedepha used her Quirk on him dropped into a more annoyed frown as his fist went through Lemillion's. "Kill Sorahiko now," Alieri said. His fist lost the dark color to it as he ran at Lemillion. His order was a threat to the hero in front of him who had leapt backwards after turning Permeable there and avoiding coming to blows with the villain who was tired of Lemillion's dodges.

Gran Torino had just staggered up to his feet, but the hero fell down to his right knee and grabbed at his right side with both hands over the heavy bleeding there. Vostranus' allies were more advanced than any at the time. More advanced than the forces for good trying to stop him. I should have seen that beam coming- Vostranus himself was the biggest monster though of the age. Far more active than AFO who controlled from the shadows. And as big a threat to the world… If he comes into play in this war- No. Don't think about that. We'll stop it here.

Gran Torino lifted his gaze, but he started coughing and brought one of his bloody hands up in front of his mouth to cover it up. He stared towards Aedepha who sauntered towards him in a way that would look silly to most people seeing the short elderly woman doing that, but only made Sorahiko gulp at the seductive look on the villainess' face. "Our time together is long past," Aedepha spoke to the man who pushed his right hand down on the floor at his side to try getting back to his feet. He was gasping for breath though, and Aedepha said almost regretfully to him, "I will miss you though."

The floor under Gran Torino's hand squeezed between his fingers then curled down and hardened over them. He yanked his right arm up, but he could not tear it from the floor as Aedepha's Quirk held him there. His right knee became trapped, as did his left foot that he tried to push Jets from but failed as the ground itself was wrapping up his foot to his upper leg. Aedepha's fully black eyes narrowed at the man while her right arm alone turned the same color. That right arm morphed and extended out eight feet from her side. It looked to be the same weight by the way that she held her arm up, just composed molecularly different than a moment ago, and sharper as it stretched out like a long black sword twice as long as her body was tall.

Gran Torino tugged and yanked his body trying to escape from her. Damn it! I needed to move earlier. Jet's too, slow. No excuse! Gran Torino clenched his eyes shut and pushed with all his might to move. He had been using Jets for too long though and his Quirk had drained through the earlier evacuations of dozens of buildings near where Gigantomachia was fighting. He had single-handedly removed thousands of people from skyscrapers and apartment buildings. He had fought against the giant monster too, and now he was fighting against enemies who were undamaged and more experienced than anyone else Gran Torino suspected were in the city at the moment.

Lemillion needed to get to Gran Torino now. The woman sprinted towards her enemy who was struggling to get out of his Carbonized binds. Alieri missed a claw at Lemillion who ducked down below it rather than Permeate himself as it looked like he was about to do. He did not sink into the ground to teleport back up behind Aedepha, as Lemillion saw Alieri was only intentionally swinging around the middle of his body in a way to get Lemillion to pass through him and slip into the floor. Alieri stomped towards Lemillion's left leg, but the foot plant was more of a way for him to dart back towards where he suspected Lemillion would rise back up. He was doing it so early in preparation for moves several steps ahead that Lemillion was able to see the weakness in both the swipe and the stomp in order to just dodge them without teleporting.

Alieri planted his missed stomp into the ground behind Lemillion's legs though. His thigh muscles bulged while his left arm pulled down to his side with his whole bicep flexing up as well. It made sense that his villain costume was a sleeveless black tunic, because his left arm was suddenly much too large just below the shoulder that it would have ripped up any sleeve he wore. His legs extended and he lunged at three times the speed he had been moving against Lemillion so far. The hero knew Alieri would come for his back now, but he would be in a better position to assist Gran Torino from multiple sides instead of popping up just behind Aedepha. Lemillion heard the crash of the ground breaking apart behind him. His eyes were only just starting to dart sideways to see where the man was attacking from and if he could work this with only turning part of his body intangible rather than slipping all the way through the floor. He did not just take the safe option of slipping through, because when he was facing Aedepha he saw her plunging her black blade towards Gran Torino with the weapon coming off her arm extending even longer in this final thrust.

"TWIN HORNS!"

"JELLO WALL!"

Alieri pulled his slash and yanked his head backwards. His body pulled away, and both of his arms swung away from the black horns that just fired like bullets between him and his heroic foe. The hero who fired them lifted his head back up and his eyes widened for a second before getting back to a steady look even though his elderly enemy managed to dodge that. The red-skinned teenager sprinted forward towards Lemillion who had stopped sprinting himself when those shouts interrupted the villains' attacks that almost finished him and Gran Torino off. Herobro's demonic appearance meant little when the nineteen year old was smiling ear-to-ear in the most heroic way possible that almost made him appear goofy instead, especially when he was wearing his brightly colored costume covered in flower patterns and white smiley faces.

It was only a small piece of purple viscous substance that slammed into Aedepha's arm first and put it off target from her opponent she was already thrusting at. The rest of the Jello Wall that shot onto the street swirled around Gran Torino's sides when Aedepha slashed harder through the first small piece to try to still kill the muscular yellow-clad hero before the rest could reach. Nagiso Mondo swung his right fist towards Aedepha's body while she was slashing at the wall he put in between her and Gran Torino. That wall was larger than the first mass of Jello he fired towards her to prevent the older hero's death, but it was still a smaller mass than the twenty foot tall purple hero who sludged his way onto the street and swung a fist off of his massive body down at the woman who had to make a quick decision. If she slashed into the wall it could slow her blade enough to prevent her from cutting through into Sorahiko. Worse, her arm could get stuck into it for too long that she could not pull away, and the huge fist coming down at her would connect.

Aedepha had to leap away while snarling towards the young hero whose right hand ripped off of his punching Jello arm. The hand exploded on the ground where Aedepha just was and splashed purple goo out in all directions. Gran Torino was protected by the splash damage due to the wall that only then started losing its solid form next to him. The black ground around Gran Torino's limbs started losing form as well and sinking back, allowing the hero to break free as Jelloman put himself between the older hero and their enemies. "We're here to back you up, senpai," Nagiso called ahead of him to Lemillion who finally tried swinging at Aedepha himself only to flinch as he punched and put himself at a weird balance with his horrible leg injuries.

Aedepha was darting backwards too quickly that she almost missed Lemillion who had been close to her back already when Alieri had rushed him. Alieri sprinted forward and got closer to her again, but he yanked his body to the left as Rylo pointed his head forward and fired off horns from the top of his head. The black horns that curved out the back of his head over the top of his skull were sharp at the points and looked deadly to the older villains who had to weave around the attacks firing rapidly at them. The Smiling Hero: Devilbro, changed the look of his smirk slightly as he lifted his gaze from the way his head was bowed forward to allow him to shoot like that. His eyes were shadowed over as he stood in that position smirking at them with sharp teeth and a devilish grin that vanished back into a hero's smile when he rose his head into a position that more people could potentially see him.

Rylo reached up above his head. His horns were growing longer out above the top of his red skull this time. He gripped the bases of them and pulled off, and the horns still sticking out of his head continued to grow until they were back at their usual size. The boy now held a two-foot-long bladed horn in each hand though that he held out to either direction like a pair of knives. "Herobro ready for action!" He called out heroically.

Lemillion had looked back at Nagiso when his kouhai called out at him that they were there for support. Nagiso shrunk back down since blocking Gran Torino from the villains' sights, and the younger hero was panting as he reformed a more humanoid face and legs to allow himself better maneuverability and speed. Togata looked back forward as Herobro called out as well, but then Lemillion spun back in Nagiso's direction as the boy he knew well from when they went to school together was walking forward in a smaller form that revealed the street behind him. "You take the lead from here," Nagiso told the slightly older hero who stared past Nagiso at the group who finally caught up with the faster heroes who had been leading them.

Lack of experience… Gran Torino was staggering back up onto both feet this time.

"It's alright, Gran Torino," Med-Med ran up to the older hero. Gina Jio held Gran Torino by one arm but lowered him back down to a knee. She was in an all-white costume though it had red crosses on both shoulders as well as her chest and back. Another student from U.A.'s previous graduating class like the first two arrivals looked over the older hero who appeared to be a young man. Med-Med crouched next to him while pulling both of her sleeves up and revealing arms that were hollow in the middle looking like two thick lines of skin and bones stretching from her elbows to her wrists, with vials lining the gap in the middle all filled with different liquids and labeled different things. "I'll have you back up in no time. Let the others hold them off for a minute," she assured the hero who they all knew to be very strong and who she knew might be reluctant to allow them to handle this themselves.

"Don't even think about it!" Valerino Kimchi shouted, pointing his right arm cannon towards the villains who looked about to rush forward. Bloodlust spread over the elderly villain pair's faces. Their eyes narrowed and they each glared between the crowd of youngsters towards their true enemy and the one who had the best chance of knowing where their target was located. "You're not getting past us," Blast growled, and his cannon started to glow.

"We've got your back, Lemillion!"

"Class B has secured our areas! We heard where you needed us and got it under control over there!"

Lemillion saw classmates of his and from the other hero course back when he was at U.A. himself. He saw some other second-year heroes from rival hero schools, as well as some of his senpais from when he was in his first years at U.A., and a lot more of his rookie year kouhais who were in Fantasma's class but never got as much attention as she did.

Endeavor is elsewhere, Gran Torino thought while looking past all these young heroes stepping past his sides and standing between him and the enemies before them. All of the teens and young twenty-somethings knew that these villains had to be incredibly powerful considering how Gran Torino and Lemillion looked. Considering how many dead heroes lay on this road. They were not hesitating though.

"Gran Torino!" Lemillion called out while steadying himself on both feet between Herobro and Jelloman. "Go. Find and protect Eri! We have this under control."

All of them are tired, Gran Torino thought. He could see it not just on Lemillion's face but the faces of every one of those former students who just emerged and stood before him and amazed him to look at. I should return to U.A. as a teacher… Why am I thinking that now? If anything, I know that it's unnecessary. Whatever they've been doing has been working. It's not just the current Class 3-A. Endeavor's become a better leader of all heroes as of late, but it's not just him.

A new generation of heroes has risen. Ones who got a taste of the old days I was used to where for years I felt heroes were getting softer and losing their ways. Becoming competitive, fighting each other rather than the villains… but that's the way we were able to act in a time of peace. These students were raised in that time but are fighting in a different one, in order to get it back that way. They graduated knowing what the world was turning into. They stayed as heroes even as it got hard. I know this generation will never forget this day if they win. It will define this generation of heroes, and yet, I know they don't need this event to spur them forwards because they're here already.

As teenagers following twenty year olds. Recent graduates of U.A. who are paving the way forward into a brighter future. Gran Torino tried to steady himself on his own legs against the protests of the young woman who was attempting to administer some emergency first aid to his injuries. "Thank you, Med-Med. It's time to fight though." She hesitated but stood up herself and faced off against enemies who she was not afraid to come to blows with. Her Quirk was for saving people more than it was for fighting, but that meant she had to train her skills in combat all the more in order to obtain her hero license. She pulled out a pair of hero tools from her toolbelt hidden under his white scrubs, and she pressed buttons on the sides of them to open them up into wider three-pronged electrified weapons.

"I can't go find her yet. As they may just follow me," Gran Torino announced. "If Lark really isn't dead and is just watching from a Sideways nearby." He suggested it and narrowed his dark glare towards his enemies who looked even darker back at him. He could not tell if it was because he saw through their ruse or if it was because they were actually hurt by the loss of their comrade and hated him for suggesting that.

The reason they brought up that Lark multiple times, Lemillion realized himself. It may have just been so the villain could track Gran Torino from a hidden Sideways dimension parallel to this one without Gran Torino expecting it. That makes sense.

That's the reason I say, Gran Torino thought to himself. Most of the others were confused as to what they were saying but just rolled with it for now as they were too busy focusing on these villains who had a backdrop of a blood-drenched street littered in heroes' corpses behind them. But I really do want to just run off and find that girl. Get her and Kota out of this city. This may be a new generation of strong heroes though, but Eri has made it possible for me to guide this generation. They saved her, and I need to protect them.

"You will pay for what you've done here, villains," Lemillion warned his enemies before him who he stomped forward on his left foot while glaring at. His wounds looked worse than Gran Torino's and made Med-Med bite down on her bottom lip as she stared ahead past some of her stronger classmates to Lemillion out in front with those wounds. He looked as strong as ever as he stood before them though, and Lemillion held up his right fist in front of his body and clenched it in a strong way in front of his mouth. When he pulled that elbow down and moved the fist from his face, a large smile was spread across Lemillion's expression in a way all his comrades tried to match. It was confident and heroic and without any doubt in their ability to win today even with all the dead heroes they could see at the moment.

"Haha," Gran Torino chuckled under his breath. He was looking ahead in concern for this group of young heroes he would have to protect, but he suddenly felt like all his concerns were for nothing as he heard Lemillion's tone. I understood where Nighteye was coming from, Sorahiko admitted to himself. During the Eightfold Cleaners' hideout raid, I understood why Nighteye believed so strongly in Lemillion. Even now as I see him leading all these other heroes in the fight against the villains- continuing to lead them as he has been organizing the defense from the start from what I can tell. He is an amazing leader who may be at the very top of all heroes right now… and yet Shigaraki's announcement was cut short, and the city has not been leveled yet as I suspected it would be when the man who destroyed Mount Yamagucha appeared inside Tokyo.

Lemillion may be leading all the heroes here, as he has led many investigations, joined the ADTF task force, soared up the leaderboards at such a young age… but I know that Midoriya was the right choice of Toshinori. It is Deku who will save this city today! But each of us has our roles to play. The students here now, Gran Torino's eyes widened as he stared ahead of him and saw the students turning translucent in his vision. Many others replaced them for a second in his mind.

The image of Camino Ward appeared in his head for a second. He could see All Might, as well as Endeavor… but he also pictured Best Jeanist in there. He could picture Edgeshot, and he saw Tora and then the translucent images of the other Wild Wild Pussycats behind him. Others who were not there started to appear in his mind. Yoroi Musha, flanked by Wash and Dry. Miruko flipping through the air. Floodgate, Frolick, Skylord, Grappler, Wonderlass, Eraser Head, Wrangler, Nighteye, and so many others emerged in his vision… And then as quickly as they had appeared, the new generation took their place and reappeared in their solid forms ahead of him. All Might turned into the young man in a torn red cape standing ahead of them all who very well could have received his Quirk if things had been a little different.

Gran Torino stepped forward and then blasted air out of his Jets to shoot into the sky and draw the villains' attentions up. As soon as they looked up, Lemillion moved forward as he was expecting Gran Torino to do just that. All of the other heroes ran forward as well, but the villains could not just bring their attentions back to them while Gran Torino spun himself and fired his Jets to plummet down at his old enemies. You relics will not bring back a long gone era! They won't let you. And I…

I won't let this generation fall like the last.

---

"Is that all your Inorganic Matter Control can do?" Danjuro Tobita taunted towards his enemy who flew down in front of him thirty feet away. He stood on an abandoned street covered in broken AANTs that looked like they should have been able to lift back off the ground as the Temp-EMP from before had worn off. Someone had deactivated them permanently however to Intanzo's annoyance, though Whiteout was far from the area anymore for him to get his revenge on her. That villain put his four giant metal feet down on the ground while his actual body stayed hovering up in the air.

The name that Gentle deemed Intanzo's Quirk made the villain's expression darken even more around his glowing green eyes. It was not what the public had been calling Intanzo's 'Matter Control,' but Gentle was mocking Intanzo's Quirk's limitations with his taunt at the spikier-haired villain facing him. "'Inorganic?'" Intanzo questioned. His lips were still curved down but his tone was similarly mocking back towards his opponent who did not flinch despite Intanzo's retort suggesting otherwise.

"Even after injecting with Double, you do not just rupture my heart or snap my spine," Gentle commented while lifting his right palm up at his side and holding it in front of him. He shook his head with a chuckle and remarked, "Not only do you fail to affect me directly though, but my clothing as well. And your inefficiencies extend to the ground beneath my feet at this very moment," Gentle added with his head tilting back and a scoffing condescending tone coming out as he mocked all the drawbacks of Intanzo's Quirk.

The ground all around Gentle's legs shot up in ten different spikes that pierced the air in an instant. The man standing between them leapt backwards over the tip of the point directly behind him, and he back-flipped onto his feet and stared past the ten spikes towards the villain who glared towards him even harder at Gentle's speed that matched the Matter he controlled even on Double. "Another defect of your Quirk, is the delay between when you decide to do something and when your material acts," Gentle added while scratching his beard as if easily analyzing more problems with Intanzo's Quirk in mid-fight. "And you failed to control the ground below my feet, spiking up the ground at my sides-"

Gentle's eyes widened and he tried pushing down harder on the cracking floor below him. Intanzo's eyes had been glowing dark green while Gentle was mocking him, and the villain lifted up the right corner of his lip as Gentle finally realized how hollow the floor below him really was. Bending his legs to get some pressure and be able to bounce up failed, because the slab of ground below him was falling too fast. It was falling slower than everything around it moving to Intanzo's whims, but the entire Earth below Gentle had sank into a sinkhole that he could not see the bottom of as his head snapped down. Gentle's huge eyes stared into the dark pit that just went down forever, and then his gaze snapped back up towards the villain who flew to the edge of the pit and glared down at the falling man wobbling off the crumbling platform of pavement that Intanzo found himself able to control now that Gentle was not touching it.

As Gentle rose his gaze back to Intanzo, he saw the walls of the pit around him sliding down. As if the solid mass of the earth underneath Tokyo was turning into liquid, it poured down like waterfalls into the pit. Dirt and stone and pavement alike all just lost any substance. They failed to stick together and just crumbled deeper and deeper. Some larger pieces bounced off the sliding walls though, and those pieces glowed green and shot towards the middle of the hole and the man falling in. "Do you really think those 'inefficiencies' are that much of a downside? Do you think I cannot kill you despite them?" Intanzo wondered into the pit, while the top of the hole started to close back in on itself.

Gentle swerved and bounced off air in his freefall to dodge pieces of matter flying at him. The walls around Gentle started to shoot in all at once though. Rubble on the street's surface flew towards Intanzo and covered up the hole from the edges inward. Intanzo marched his steel legs forward while raising his arms up at his sides. "Haaaa- HAAAA!" His eyes glowed brighter and brighter, even as the shading of his eyes themselves got a much darker green. Gentle was staring up towards the surface as he forced another Elasta-Armor around himself for better protection. Intanzo saw the anti-hero down below stop dodging the material to instead let himself get hit by pieces that would bounce away, and he clenched his teeth but roared out even louder and swung both of his rising arms inwards.

The walls of the pit that were firing debris towards him instead of letting it all slide down into the darkness, suddenly pulled together. The walls bent inwards and protruded thicker spikes. Bubbles of dirt popped out and closed in the gap narrower and narrower. Gentle slammed both hands down below him while bending his legs on invisible Gently Rebounds in the pit. So much rubble was flying in at him now that even surrounded in armor he could feel it pushing farther and farther in so it was touching his body now. At their full speeds, they were digging into his Elasticized shielding and nearly piercing him directly. They slowed very quickly though after colliding with him. He could feel it as they hit him and dented into his armor. They were losing speed as soon as they connected. He could see them gaining speed up until the moment they connected with him, but then Intanzo's control would leave the matter as it touched him or his Quirk forcefield.

Gentle bounced up into the air. He swung an arm behind him and then the next. In his eyes suddenly flashed an image of rising this quickly up from below the ground before. As the walls crumbled around him. Flames were rising, explosions getting louder, and his teeth clenched as a panic flushed through the hardened warrior who had been in a thousand battles and hated how his whole body tightened up and started sweating at this memory. "SACRIFICE!" Gentle's eyes snapped open and he slammed both palms down harder, and he instantly Elasticized the air three times before even bouncing off of it this time, as the hole on the surface was about to close and all he could see was a dull green glow coming from the tiny gap now.

Gentle blasted through the surface with his arms flying up over his head and crossing to be able to break through easier. Steel beams wrapped around his legs as he was getting higher over the street, and they whipped him down but never released. Intanzo smashed Gentle into the road then swung up the two huge metal beams that were not even connected to his Scorpion but just glowing green and swinging around in front of him. As those beams swung Gentle back up, the front right leg of Intanzo's Scorpion suit slammed forward and sharpened more at the point as Intanzo brought it to its full speed. Gentle threw his arms in front of him and created a Double Rebound, and Intanzo's Scorpion leg pierced through the rubbery barriers that slowed it just enough that the point could not break through the remaining Elasta-Armor it hit after piercing through two barriers already.

The speed it was still at though allowed it to dig into Gentle's body even without piercing his armor. It dug into his solar plexus and forced Gentle to gasp out all of his breath. The metal beams wrapping his legs snaked up higher and started wrapping his stomach as well. The Elasta-Armor weakened. He was thrown backwards by the leg point at the speed Intanzo jammed it forward. Even though the villain ground his teeth in anger that he failed to impale Death right there, he smirked in front of his grinding teeth at the agony on Gentle's expression as he was thrown backwards while being squeezed directly by the steel beams now.

Gentle reached his right arm under his purple cape and pulled out a gun he fired forward towards Intanzo. A dart that looked to be filled with tranquilizer flew at the man who opened his clenched teeth to let out a laugh, as he was wearing the thick armor of the Scorpion that would not be pierced by the tiny dart's needle- BANG! A bright flash of light went off as the dart cracked and exploded before reaching the villain who had to pull his head back and clench his eyes shut as he was blinded by the surprise flashbang.

A snake of steel beams he was coiling suddenly curled tightly around nothing. Intanzo squinted his eyes back open and stumbled his Scorpion legs backwards on the road. He snapped his head to the right as he felt something hit the front right leg of the Scorpion, but in his blurry vision he did not see his enemy there. The gun Gentle had flashbangs disguised as tranq darts inside of slammed into the side of Intanzo's face. Gentle curled his fist around the steel weapon and smashed it into Intanzo's head right near where the eye-hole was on the left side of the villain's face.

The gun broke apart as Gentle smashed it at full speed into Intanzo's head from the opposite side as the villain just looked to. Only a piece of Elasticized debris had been bounced into Intanzo's front right leg as a distraction, and Gentle bounced himself much faster from the left side of the villain to land that gun-held punch into Intanzo's face. The force at which he slammed the punch into the villain would have hurt him too if his hand was not covered in Elasticity, bouncing him backwards and flipping away from the man who swung up a hail of debris all around him to hit the man who just gun-punched him. Gentle avoided the storm of sharp shrapnel that flew around Intanzo with a ten meter radius. It flew up around his Scorpion legs, and he curved it precisely around his body without piercing through himself.

Intanzo rose his right hand and crossed his face, rubbing it over his cheek that had had steel pulled off of it by the force of that punch. His right arm had steel surrounding it, and when he rubbed it across his face like that he left some behind where it merged with the rest of his helmet and recreated armor around there. "Enough," Intanzo's voice sank deeper. He lifted his left hand in front of him as a curled fist. Pieces of steel slid up his Scorpion legs. Bubbles of metal started popping all over his body and pulled towards his left arm. His left arm was not getting any thicker even as the steel seemed to be thinning out a tiny amount all around him.

It's condensing, Gentle thought as there could be no other explanation for where this metal was going. Intanzo held his left hand out in front of them while debris flew up around his body so fast it was like reverse rain. All of that debris stopped at once and started falling from the air. Intanzo's eyes flashed dark green. All of the matter he had been controlling was just falling around him though. It was not even avoiding falling on him or his Scorpion legs anymore. Intanzo opened his left fist, and ten beads of steel flew up into the air. The beads were made of purple and black steel, but they were pulsing with green auras that flared wildly to match Intanzo's eyes. All of them started whipping around and separating to spread out in the air around the villain who bent his four huge metal legs and looked in a posture ready to pounce.

Fast! Gentle tried tracking all of the tiny pieces. Ten of them was a lot to follow though as they flew to different sides of him. Some flew through walls of buildings near him and shredded straight through concrete and steel before flying back out. As strong as the Quin Arrows of the Second Capo. They aren't sharp, but they'd pierce through my body in an instant. Elasta-Armor would potentially Rebound them, but the fight is dragging on. I wanted his Double to run out, but this attack will kill me or it'll slaughter the civilians still in the area. I can see it. He's done with this fight. He wants to finish me now.

Gentle pushed his right palm out in front of him to dodge as one of those balls flew towards him from his right side. He bounced himself backwards- Right as he was bouncing back, the bead grew twenty times in size. It expanded out and slammed into the front of his body, launching him backwards into a building that five other beads flew down at. Two of them dug through the walls of the building above Gentle's head, shattering every window they tore through while the other three flew forward from his front-right, front-left, and straight in front of his face.

Two of the ones coming at his front grew in size. One of the ones dragging down the wall of the building grew huge as well. The densely-packed Matter expanded, and Gentle still dodged it all as he Elasticized the wall he was pushing into. He bounced off the building towards the smaller bead coming in between two growing ones, and he swerved away and then smacked his left hand into the bead right as Intanzo made that one grow larger too. That bead Elasticized. The growing Elasticized ball hit Gentle and bounced him faster away, so that Gentle could avoid two legs of the Scorpion that had sprinted at him and tried impaling where he was going to be hit to by the growing bead. When it became rubbery though, it sent him flying farther than where the Scorpion's legs were already leading him as they snapped forward in an attempt to impale.

The reason Intanzo only grew the other two beads was because they were getting too close to Gentle by then that if he grew the middle one as well, it would have hit the two approaching from the sides and forced them away. He grew it because Gentle flew forward anyway straight at the attack that he would have even less time to dodge now, but by smacking his own hand into the flying marble of Matter, he had Elasticized it into his own weapon. It expanded when Intanzo had intentionally not done so in the first place, and the Elastic bead pressed into the sides of the other two that Intanzo tried changing the trajectories of to chase after Gentle as well. They were too close together for him to grow that third one, and so two of the attacks went bouncing off into the distance while Gentle swung his arms behind him and flew at the villain whose closest Matter beads had too much momentum away from him.

By utilizing the Elasticity of the bead he had flown straight at, Gentle still had his right hand that he had not smacked into it but instead prepared behind him for the angle he predicted he would be bounced in by the expanding bead that he had Elasticized. He had his hand moving into this position before Intanzo even grew that bead in size. He had it aimed behind himself in a way that only worked now to bounce him between Intanzo's right legs before the villain could pull the closest large bead of Matter that had been the one to bounce away the other two, and the one that Gentle had smacked himself. For Gentle to have been able to get off that angle in time meant that he knew before he even smacked the marble coming straight at him, that Intanzo was going to react to him doing that by expanding that marble so rapidly that it would slam into him and send him flying to the spot he just launched himself from.

Intanzo realized all of that as he was kicked by a pair of legs in his steel-encased head again. Gentle did not Elasticize his legs this time, just leaning harder into his kick then bending his body over his kicks and smacking both fists inside of an Elastic-Bubble down into the top of Intanzo's skull. The force that Gentle slammed Intanzo in the face this time made Intanzo lose full control over all his Matter for a moment, and Gentle kicked off the air above him that he bounced to after hitting both fists down on Intanzo's steel helmet too hard for him not to use his Quirk as it would have broken his fists otherwise. He bounced after the man whose Scorpion legs detached from his body when Gentle smacked him down, and he slammed his right fist into Intanzo's throat where the steel looked thin and like a perfect target.

Intanzo's green eyes snapped open. None of the metal legs around him or his armor moved though. Even as he was punched in the throat, Intanzo just slammed his own right hand up still in a steel glove that he pounded into Gentle's gut. Gentle smashed Intanzo into the ground, then he bounced away, and he bounced again as tiny metal beads flew at him and then curved back as soon as he dodged. The anti-hero appeared like a master gymnast as he cartwheeled and flipped away from the leader of the Radians who stood back up and swung both arms at the man who had gotten the drop on him but failed to finish him. All of Intanzo's focus was now only on offense, as his Scorpion armor fell apart and to the ground around him. His human body rose up still with some steel coating on it though. He flew into the air and snarled towards the man who got hit by one bead but managed to Elasticize his right arm in time, only for the bead to still fracture his bone inside and send Gentle spinning out and getting hit by two more beads that ripped through his left shoulder and left bicep.

"You called it 'Inorganic,' but there is organic matter that I can control." Intanzo's steel armor started to crumble off of him. It could not spread thin enough to cover him as his body grew in size. His green eyes flared while his whole body glowed.

Gentle's squinting eyes lifted to the flying villain he staggered back from, both of his arms waving at his sides in agony. He stared past the ten beads that all flew in front of him between him and Intanzo who he backed even farther from at the sight of. It was not that the villain could control the Inorganic matter touching his own body like Gentle thought he might be able to considering his flight. It was not Intanzo's clothes, as Gentle and Endeavor had hoped, that Intanzo was controlling. Intanzo's teeth ground in such sheer agony that Gentle witnessed on the villain's face, and yet he did not call out about the obvious weakness that Intanzo's Quirk could not prevent him from feeling the pain of his body altering in such a way. That pain pushed aside on the villain's expression in exchange for an exhilarated smirk as his arms extended, and his legs pushed out, and his body deformed in such a painful way with his muscles rippling out from below his skin then getting covered up by skin again and again.

It was a disgusting transformation that morphed Intanzo's body into a stronger form that crossed its muscular arms in front of its tan chest. The black-spiky-haired villain floating up above glared through Gentle with a bloodthirsty and insane look in his eyes. "Eliminating you, is something I do with hesitance." Gentle had stopped backing up. He paused before attacking though, leaving his facial expression still as cautious and nervous that he was only half faking as he stared up at this monster who could control his own body just like he controlled the world around them.

"You are Death's failsafe," Intanzo continued. "A natural counter to our greatest foe. Your Quirk is not controlled by you after you create it," Intanzo explained. "Your barriers can be surrounded by Death and you yourself will not succumb. So with your Elasta-Armor surrounding you, you are impervious to Death." Intanzo shook his head in feigned awe that looked like he was mocking Gentle with the attitude and expression he had while doing it. "I know you must have thought about it before. How you can stop him. I suppose Death could claw through it maybe, or use enough force to hit you hard enough that you still feel it, but you have La Brava to power you up and face Death with more strength. I bet her Quirk would be doubly-effective against him, as she has died before. As you may have as well… have you?" Intanzo wondered it and examined Gentle's face closely for an answer to that question.

Intanzo shook his head as he could not see a response in Gentle's expression. Nor did he care enough to find out, as it did not matter anymore. "Using Elastic cages to trap him, preventing him from using his Quirk- and mixed with drugs as your Army uses so often, he wouldn't be able to escape you. It would be so useful to have you on our side. For if he survives his current opponent. Our world is in danger otherwise." Gentle started frowning up at the man. He lost his anxious expression and stopped looking at him with such hesitance that Intanzo could see now had been faked. Intanzo lowered his smile and gained a darker look at the condescending appearance of Gentle's eyes.

"You know how dangerous he is," Intanzo growled. That look! Intanzo did not know what it was about Gentle's knowing gaze that seemed to be treating him as a child that made him so enraged. His projectile beads shook in midair as he considered tearing Gentle to shreds in that moment, but the insane villain's curiosity got the better of him. "I know you've seen it before!" Intanzo yelled at his enemy. "Death slipping. Zach Sazaki reaching his breaking point. He may have survived that bomb, but you saw the way he looked before it went off. You know we were able to convince him because he's LOST IT! Holding himself together so that he can fight and kill his own best friend, won't make him 'alright' come day's end. He's cracking, and soon he'll…"

"Hahaha… BAHAHAHA!" Gentle rose his bloody left hand up to his chest and bellowed laughter with his head tilting back. Intanzo's face twisted even angrier, but the beads flying in front of Gentle were just shaking there at the knowing laughter that sounded more condescending towards him than ever. "'I must have thought of this before?'" Gentle taunted. He mocked the villain who pulled his distorted face with a sharpened jaw-line back at that mocking expression on Gentle's face that made it seem like Tobita thought this was all very funny. "I was his 'failsafe?' You are deluded, you insolent ruffian."

His words may have gotten to anyone else, Gentle admitted to himself. His loud laughter turned into just low chuckles though as he considered that. His expression grew more serious though still with a large cocky smile on it. "Why would I ever need to be a failsafe against someone who turned me from a villain into something much, much more?" Gentle wondered it at the shocked villain staring at him in disbelief that this was where Gentle's mockery was stemming from. "Someone who I respect over all others?" Gentle asked. It was just the two of them there, and Gentle made these comments calmly and seriously to his enemy who searched for any sign that Gentle was just messing with him, lying to him to get him worked up here.

Gentle chuckled more at Intanzo's enraged look when the villain failed to find any indication that Gentle was lying to him. Gentle's voice lowered more to ensure no one was listening to them, and he said only to the villain before him, "You are the most wanted villain in the world right now. Even after Sazaki left us, his two greatest enemies: Mysti and Eziano, would fall at Sazaki's own hands. He is not 'slipping.' I have seen him at his worst- I assure you, and he is doing very well compared to then."

Gentle pictured a desert that he had finally reached to come help his Commander. He had rushed to help him, but that assistance was not necessary. Gentle imagined the sight from the helicopter he arrived on. As the sand changed color, as he spotted that singular figure standing alone, as he realized what those things sticking out of the sand all around him really were. That was the last time I ever even thought about it. But, even then, it was only for a second. "I thank you, Intanzo," Gentle continued to his opponent. "For all those hints, in case I ever have to face someone with Zach's Quirk."

"But," Gentle added with his eyebrows narrowing in past the enemy's weapons. A confident smirk had spread over Gentle's face, and he told his foe, "I had never even considered that before, somehow." A nostalgic look spread in Gentle's eyes, and he continued, "I don't know why, since I often wondered how I could defeat Sazaki. 'Defeating' him meant in a sparring session where I would not have to stop Sazaki's Death from knocking me out though so I never even considered the counters against it. He is that kind of person that I surprisingly did not mind following. And so, what could be less believable than the idea that he had assassinated the First Lady?" Gentle scoffed as if the thought of it was so ridiculous for the villains to have tried to convince the world of.

Gentle cracked his neck to either side. "He may have defeated my own enemies, but at least I'll be able to take out the big shot in Japan." His injured right arm pushed behind him. His left fist curled tighter in front of him with blood dripping through his fingers. A smirk spread wider over Gentle's face, "I will get the credit at least. Though we all know the one Zach is facing right now is the true mastermind behind this invasion. The most powerful and dangerous in the world, and the killer of my personal favorite hero: Fantasma." Gentle's smirk was a thousand times more deadly in the next instant.

Intanzo had transformed. Intanzo's weapons floated just in front of this injured man down below him who was still somehow speaking down to him instead. "She was fantastic," Gentle added in a way admiring her and yet somehow also sounding like a bloody hiss at the villain he leaned his head forward towards. "I am nothing but a chivalrous villain. I am not Death, nor anything you've been implying, those are all just make-believe," Gentle sneered his lies at the enemy in a louder voice. Intanzo's fingers twitched as he examined his enemy closely again even though he thought he had already gotten several good reads of Gentle's current position. Death was bluffing and smirking at him, but the white-haired man called out even louder, "If I was Death though! In a, hypothetical sense," Gentle paused ominously with his smirk growing even more.

What an absolute fool. However good their scientists have made their Double, it will wear off before long. And he won't be able to inject again. Gentle knew that he was far too interesting to the villain in front of him who was treating him with respect or as an equal here to let him say these things without just interrupting him. Intanzo was at the least taking him seriously enough to let Gentle keep talking, but the interest and curiosity of the villain were easy to abuse as well for the anti-hero who had found himself in an extremely dangerous position but spent the past minute and a half mocking his enemy to no repercussions while the drugs slowly wore off. "…Then I would not have been the only one to come here to fight against you villains. And with an army of highly trained soldiers sweeping the streets, easily deactivating your robots that gave you a slight lead against the heroes, unbeknownst to all the villains and heroes and citizens of the country- An army! That can disappear afterwards and make no impact, no splash, no one will ever know they were there…"

"What will the villains under you do, when their massive army is suddenly clashing with a secret army inside of your own trap?" Gentle wondered. Intanzo had seen the changing weather in the north where many of their forces were supposed to enter the city from. He had seen the flash that Whiteout made before that had taken out the AANTs in this area, and he had not found that woman who must have gone off to keep destroying their fleet of robots elsewhere. Gentle continued in a lower voice at his opponent, "An army that appeared so fast it was almost like Death had known that Tokyo would be the setting of the world's turning point, and that even though the Army of Death never acted inside Japan, they were sitting there in wait for Raijin and Shigaraki's move. Not Intanzo's," Gentle added insult to injury. "We've known it's been the League. Every action of your Radians were an extension of them."

"They knew this not because of any intel that we could have given Japanese heroes but kept from them, but because Raijin and Shigaraki had managed to defeat Sazaki before," Gentle explained. He laughed and finished, "And so they were clearly the only ones in the world to be worried about anymore." He said it like it was the most obvious thing. He laughed harder at Intanzo's stunned look as this part at least did not sound at all like a lie, but what Gentle and the AoD had really been acting under the assumption of. "You are one villain of one country that you're not even an important player in. Just a powerful but insignificant villain under the orders of others."

Intanzo bit down and snarled, but Gentle yelled at him even louder while ignoring how some of those beads flew half the distance between them. Those beads stopped as Gentle yelled past them, "We have molded the world into Sazaki's image! Into what Sazaki believes it can be when I never saw it possible myself. Sazaki sees a better world, a beautiful world, full of people inherently good and kind." Gentle did not shake his head disbelievingly at such words that came out of his mouth. He bit down for a second but called at the villain who had been speaking a few minutes ago under the assumption that the villains would win here and would have control over a world to follow that Lifebringer would be a threat to, "That world seemed impossible to me, and yet Sazaki made me into a believer. He made hundreds of broken people who had seen the worst in the world, into believers of his world, his ideal world, his naive…"

"Not naive," Gentle went back on that phrasing. Naive implied that it was impossible. He grinned in an encouraged way without fear and not in the same cocky and insulting demeanor either as he stared towards Intanzo's face and looked the insane villain in the eyes. Intanzo stared back with shaking huge green eyes that saw the man down below as the real insane one here for the things he was talking about as if he was serious. "It's a world that we could create, if I didn't already think it's how the world is now. We already created that world. A world based on kindness, and good, and heroes… A world that someone as small as you, Intanzo, have no place in interfering with."

Gentle bent his knees and jumped. The ground under him bent down as he used it like a trampoline to launch above the beads that all flew towards him. By the time they pulled upwards, Gentle had smacked a Gentle Rebound below him and another one behind the feet of his curled-in legs again. The Rebound he threw below blocked all the beads that had flown at him at once instead of keeping a few back this time for safety. Intanzo had snapped in rage as Gentle tried to use the villain's distraction to his advantage, and those Matter Beads flew into an invisible barrier too slowly as they had not gained enough speed before hitting the invisible wall they had curved up into.

I wanted to wait until the Double had surely worn off, Gentle thought as he bounced towards Intanzo again to fly after the villain who soared higher into the air to give him more time to pull his weapons after them. Intanzo's rage flipped as he saw his attacks bouncing away, and he realized that he was underestimating the bloody enemy way too much considering how far he had already been pushed. Gentle chased as fast as he could though rather than let the gap spread and let Intanzo waste even more time without fighting him. But I had really hoped I would have assistance by now. What are you doing, Number 1?

Gentle did not let the concern appear on his face, but in the corner of his eyes he did see a low orange flash coming from a housing complex down the street where his ally and one of their enemies had disappeared into before.

Inside of that building, a hero had been elbowed out of the sky by a Quirk-enhanced blow so powerful that it had shattered his jaw. Without shattering his jaw, the hit may have been too strong that it would have snapped his neck instead, but that was not much of a consolation to the hero who had blood pouring out of his mouth when he got to his hands and knees in the living room of a multi-story dormitory that had a large kitchen and dining area on the first floor. Many students had gathered on their first floor and stared towards the smoldering hero in shock and terror when he first flew through their roof.

Todoroki Enji had looked their way though as he was getting to his elbows and knees. He had tried to tell them to 'run,' but a garbled noise just came out of his mouth instead and he could only nod his head towards the front door which the students hesitated for a moment to listen to. Most of them followed Endeavor's directive, but two hesitantly came out from behind a corner and walked towards the injured hero who had more injuries than just the mashed-up bottom of his face from his earlier fights against Intanzo, the Scorpion, and all the AANTs that came with them.

Those two courageous young men who stepped towards Intanzo froze and then backed away fast as a villain dropped through the roof and stomped a foot on Endeavor's back. Heated wind blew away from Splodo's reddened leg that plowed Endeavor harder into a carpet that burst into flames around them. As much as the college students wanted to help Endeavor, they understood from one look at Splodo that this was not a villain they could even attempt to assist Endeavor against.

Furuki Keymar glanced towards the door that the civilians ran out of. He did not care to chase after them though. He only made a 'ch' noise in mild annoyance that none of them had stayed to watch him humiliate Endeavor. They saw what he looked like when he fell in here. When they see what remains of him afterwards, Splodo had stepped off of Endeavor's back, and he did not even make his right leg glow as he spun and slammed it forward into Endeavor's right side as the hero tried to push off the ground again.

Splodo's kick was too strong. He had been experimented on and was far stronger than the last time that Endeavor had faced him in battle. The man was more muscular than Endeavor now, if shorter by a little. He kicked into Endeavor's side and made the hero's arms come out from below him while he fell on his left side six feet from where he was just pushing up. Endeavor's eyes clenched shut as he was kicked so hard that his body rose off the floor and flew partly across the room. Splodo reached his left hand up to his hurt right arm while he marched towards Endeavor, and he moved with a bit of a limp because of the bloody wounds on his right leg that matched the new piercing injuries on his right arm and shoulder.

The thin jets of flames that Endeavor fired at Splodo before the elbow landed in his jaw had impaled the villain completely through to his other side. Splodo was bleeding badly, and his right arm was limp at his side as he tried not to move it very much after his elbow-attack had broken his own bones due to how strong he made it. He was not risking a lapse in regulation of his Blastoff Quirk again. He stomped his right leg down harder and grit his teeth through pain that he just smirked at as he could not care less about it for a moment. His left leg glowed red as he dragged it forward right as Endeavor was raising his right arm to point at the villain. Flames came to life on Endeavor's hand, and Blastoff shot out of the villain's calf which propelled Splodo's kick forward faster than Endeavor could get his attack off.

Splodo dug his foot down into Endeavor's side and made Endeavor gasp out in pain as the blow bashed his kidney. Splodo kicked upwards as he finished the blow, and he threw Endeavor up into part of the ceiling that was still above them farther from the hole that Endeavor had smashed through in the first place. The carpet around them was burning and spreading onto pieces of furniture that both hero and villain were ignoring. "Ahaha! Look at you!" Splodo laughed as Endeavor hit the ceiling and broke apart more of it. Splodo hopped backwards and wobbled on landing but just laughed harder as a chunk of ceiling fell down after Endeavor and landed on the hero, collapsing him to his stomach again when Endeavor tried to catch himself this time on his hands and feet.

Endeavor fell to the ground and his face hit the floor. "Ughgaa-" Endeavor could not hold back a scream in agony, but his jaw was too mangled for him to actually make out a loud noise. Blood splashed from his lips that stayed parted with no way for the hero to close his mouth. Endeavor groaned from the pain and pushed his hands down on the floor again. Concrete and sheet rock shifted on his back and fell to his sides. It burned like everything else around him as he rose his glare up to the scar-faced villain laughing in front of him.

Flames flickered on Splodo's face that tilted back and shadowed over as the villain stared down at a man who he wondered to, "How does it feel, Endeavor? Getting your ass kicked? Getting," Splodo shot forward and slammed his left fist down into Endeavor's left fist that the hero suddenly punched forward. Flames were pushing out of Endeavor's knuckles, but Splodo's left fist pushed through those flames and hit Endeavor's fist directly. CRACK!

"AHH!" Splodo roared.

"RAa-ckah!" Endeavor rolled backwards and then tried to get up quickly even as he felt several of his fingers break right there. Splodo was stumbling away and yelled out in pain again as he grabbed at his burnt left fist instinctively with his right hand, moving his broken right arm too much. His right arm also had a lot of ripped-up skin from just before he elbowed Endeavor earlier, as he had gripped that arm violently with his left hand to prepare it for that strongest blow. His left hand's fingers had dug into his own skin and torn through it when he failed to regulate Blastoff correctly, and he was suffering now because of that. His groans of pain cut off though as he saw Endeavor coming out of his roll and preparing to attack him again right after their last clash.

Splodo's teeth ground back and forth. His jaw locked in rage at the sight of the hero still trying even while looking like this. It was not just his one elbow that had caused Endeavor some of his most extensive damage. Splodo knew some of that blood coming out of Endeavor's mouth was not from wounds in the hero's mouth at all. He had felt ribs break on his first surprise attack on the hero when Endeavor was about to get the drop on Intanzo. Endeavor's left hamstring was cut through and his nose broken, injuries sustained before Splodo had even shown up. As much as he felt like a badass for ignoring his own injuries to keep beating on Endeavor right now, hatred filled him at the look in Endeavor's eyes that had not shifted at all. The hero's back was bloody and blackened from explosions he had tanked. His left hand was barely functioning to push down on the ground this time after that last punch broke several of his fingers, and yet Endeavor pushed it down anyway and struggled back up onto his right foot.

Bones stuck out of Endeavor's left cheek. Straight through his skin stuck bone shards that he could feel with his tongue that had some cuts on it but was in surprisingly good shape. His vision was not as blurry as it had been right when he crashed through this building after getting hit in the head harder than he could ever remember being hit before. Whatever long-term issues would come from that devastating head wound needed to be ignored for now though, because long-term injuries were not even a certainty at the moment as he stared at this villain who looked like nothing would please him more than ripping Endeavor in half right then and there. He could not even speak to make the villain hesitate and give him a moment to get back to his feet or strategize for a second. All of the hero's actions were instinctual and reactionary, because those were the only moves he could make right now as the villain in front of him started steaming out of his arms and legs that glowed darker red as if to match the rage that grew as Splodo searched for a single sign of fear in Endeavor's eyes and found none.

Their positions had been reversed once before, and Splodo could remember the panic and fear that filled him when he realized that he did not stand a chance against Endeavor. As his face had burned and he stared through blurry vision at a hero more terrifying than anything he had ever seen in his life, Keymar had run away. Blastoff was made for speed, but his body could not handle the boost so attacking with it always meant he would damage himself like he just did. Running away and not slamming into anything was perfect for him. He was faster than Endeavor when he fled, and yet he was terrified the entire time he ran away as he saw the hero give chase. As he Blasted Off faster and faster to get away, shaking in fear of the hero who he had been unable to take on at the same capacity that he now could. Even after closing that gap though, Splodo stared down at a man who gave him the same chills he had felt that day. Those chills disgusted the villain who felt so much more powerful than the hero he was fighting. His smoking fists shook at his sides, and his mouth curled up despite the beads of sweat that dripped down his face from more than the heat of the fire around them. "I need to kill you," Splodo whispered. His voice came out as a hiss, but it was shaky as he said those words aloud to the hero he needed to kill right now.

I should be fighting the Number 1 villain. Endeavor's eyes squinted more as a loud crashing sound outside reminded him of that. He struggled harder on his hands and knees to get one foot back to the floor so he could stand. As he tried dragging his right leg forward though, he felt something inside his right side pop. His jaw dropped farther and he gasped out in a noise resembling pain but too garbled for Splodo to understand it. My kidney, ruptured, on that kick, Endeavor had clear enough thoughts to figure out what that pain was from. I can't stand. I can barely move right now.

Intanzo's smirking face from the top of the Karebo Office flashed in Endeavor's head. It started to fade as Endeavor's gaze darkened and rose back up to meet Splodo's in a way that had the villain shaking even more at the sight of. But I don't have time to die here.

It has to be me! I have to be the one who beats Endeavor. KILLS Endeavor! Splodo's fists uncurled but his fingers wiggled at his sides. Cracking noises came from each finger as they twitched and curled with smoke coming off of them. The smoke coming off his arms and legs started to shroud him more and more in it, and he stomped forward towards the hero whose hands were curled down into the ground and the rubble but had not moved to drag him onto his feet as Splodo thought the hero would. Splodo had seen how quickly Endeavor seemingly recovered, but he only ground his teeth angrier as he knew that Endeavor could not have recovered from all those wounds. It was just his look alone that had Splodo hesitating. It had him still considering Endeavor as this massive threat, even though the hero he was marching towards could not get back up.

Splodo's left arm glowed darker and darker red. The glow started to leave the rest of his body and just turned his arm blood red in color with smoke pouring out of it. This is where he dies, Splodo thought. He pictured his fist going through Endeavor at such speeds that the body around where he punched was Blasted in all directions. Pieces of Endeavor went flying by his sides in his mental image, making him smile more and more as he stepped up onto a chunk of sheet rock from the ceiling that had fallen between him and the hero. Endeavor's hands had curled harder into the piece of cracked ceiling he rolled on after their last clash, and his hands were digging so hard while glowing with his flames that he had bored them through the ceiling so his arms were now partially buried to his wrists.

"Aghck-" Endeavor coughed. Blood splashed from his lips onto the ground between his wrists. His arms were shaking as he held them below him. His feet pushed back and his eyes started to shake as he stared at Splodo. Move! Make it look, like I just want to move! Endeavor yelled in his head, showing a frustration on his face that showed how much he was struggling to get up and fight this enemy who finally smiled more than ever at that look.

He knows it! I've done it! Splodo was happy. Endorphins rushed through him as he got close and could finally see the panic in Endeavor's eyes. He must have just pictured the same thing I did, Keymar thought to himself. Endeavor's exploding body was flashing in both of their heads. Endeavor bit down harder in front of him, and his back started engulfing in flames as the panic faded from his face.

Now to make him angry and lose that feeling, Enji thought. The hero did not like this kind of tactic, but he could understand his own physical state was not something to ignore. He pushed aside his pride as he glared at Splodo in a way showing the fight was not over yet, while he covered his back in some fire and looked to be steadying out his arms below him. Shaking those arms was not something he had been doing on accident though or against his will.

Splodo's smile twitched. His eyes bulged and filled with intense hatred as his left fist clenched violently and pulled back behind him. The dark glow on his arm that Splodo thought for a second might be overkill actually if Endeavor really was afraid, suddenly got even darker as Endeavor gave him a look like he was still going to fight and win this battle. USE EVERYTHING! ONE LAST BLOW! "RAAA! REVERSE ROCKET!" Splodo sprinted the last two steps and jumped at Endeavor. His left arm pulled back as far as he could get it while the front of his body leaned forward so he was aiming at the ground. Not just Endeavor's body! I'll blow the whole building around us away in every direction! I WON'T HOLD BACK! NOT ON YOU!

EVEN IF IT TAKES BOTH OF MY ARMS! Madness covered Splodo's face as he swung his left fist down.

Endeavor's head was lifting to follow Splodo up. His body bowed farther forward like he was pushing down on his arms. His head bowed forward too, and he made it out as if he was putting everything he could into just pushing his hands down so he could stand. That's enough, Endeavor knew he could not wait any longer. He stopped pushing flames out of his hands though. The thin jets coming out of his palms that got thicker after digging deep into the ground, cut off. Endeavor blasted flames out of his hands while pushing to his right side, and he threw himself out of the way of Splodo's punch the instant that punch was coming down for his back.

Furuki Keymar's eyes rose and darted to the right as Endeavor blasted to his own left with a burst of speed shocking for a man with his injuries. Splodo tried to pull his punch. He tried to change its direction, but he could not do so fast enough. His fist hit the ground. Then his eyes that had started darting towards Endeavor snapped back to the ground under him that his punch was about to connect with.

His fist was connecting with the floor between two wide holes that Endeavor's arms had been lodged through a second ago. Endeavor's arms had blocked Splodo from seeing anything below, and his body had covered up the cracks that lined the ground under Endeavor's body and had started to glow orange as well near the end there. The fire that Endeavor had been forcing out of his hands for several seconds had bored a hole deep in the ground below him. The flames acted as drills that burned away the ground and forced open a hole that went deeper and deeper, and then the flames continued to push down harder to create a gap of space above them with a pocket of air in it after the initial flames had gone out.

Splodo's punch ripped apart what remained of the ground between Endeavor's flames that he had just made, the air pocket, and the surface. The air pocket without any actual air in it opened up, and as the air from above sucked down into the ground that was just torn open, the flames that had pushed down got their oxygen back while being subjected to a giant force like a vacuum pulling them to the surface. Splodo's punch blew open the ground. Cement and ceiling chunks that had fallen on the floor ripped to pieces and flew out in all directions, including at Endeavor who crossed his arms while still in mid-leap away from that spot, but blood still splashed away from his arms and sides as shrapnel hit him. The force did not destroy everything though, because much of the ground that Splodo connected with was already a second away from being shattered.

It was not as hard a surface as Splodo thought it would be, so his arm did not break apart as much as it would have otherwise… But the flames that blew up from below the ground were much hotter than what Endeavor had just burned him with in their last clash. Splodo's entire body was over the hole that he blasted open in the floor too. Flames shot up out of the ground like a volcano erupting into the villain who screamed from inside them, "RAHHHHHH- YAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Endeavor hit the ground and rolled on his landing. He winced a few times but held out from making any noises of pain while he looked back towards his flaming pillar that was weaker than he had meant it to be with as long as he charged it for. Too much of his fire had been unable to last below the surface for more than a second out of his control when there was nothing natural to keep them going. The flaming pillar faded. Splodo fell onto the edge of the hole with his body covered in smoke so it was hard to see the villain who was gasping out in pain and for agonized breaths as his mouth had been open inside those flames.

Everything felt like it was on fire. He could barely breathe as the inside of his mouth and his throat and lungs all felt burnt. Splodo had closed his eyes but his eyelids burnt so badly too that it was hard to open them. Splodo opened his mouth and through all that pain screamed, "AAHHHH- FAAUUUCKKK! OH SHIT- FUUUU- Raaa-" Splodo was down on his knees, but he pushed his burnt and broken left hand onto the floor below him, then his right too, and he screamed out in even more agony as he struggled up onto his left foot. He started up onto his right, turning his burnt head towards the man he opened his mouth to scream at.

Endeavor bared his cracked teeth while shutting his jaw with all his might. His whole body clenched up in pain as he stomped his right foot forward again, getting within arm's reach of the villain who just turned towards him. Splodo's ears were too burnt for him to hear it as Endeavor made his last few steps, and his own shouts were too loud as well. A raspy gasp came out of the astonished villain's mouth, and he rose his arms to try and stop the hero. His broken bones just made him open his mouth to scream in pain though, while his eyes filled with the real terror that he had been searching for in Endeavor's eyes throughout their fight.

Splodo tried stepping back, but the ground was uneven and not really there for him to step on. His foot misstepped, and his eyes bulged wider, while his body flinched and he failed at bringing up his arms to block. Endeavor's right hand was still able to clench into a fist unlike his left. It glowed such bright orange that Splodo's burnt eyelids flickered as they tried to close to shield his eyes from the light. "HaaaAAAAAAA-" Endeavor screamed out while slamming his fist forward right into Splodo's chest. A fireball exploded out from his knuckles as they connected with the villain's body, and then Endeavor twisted his body and slammed downwards to his left as he followed-through across the front of his body.

The villain hit the ground and blew apart the floor even more than the explosion he had made by filling that gap underground with fire. Splodo's physically-enhanced body destroyed cement and blasted through a dividing wall, then through cabinets and an oven. He dragged through tiles and cement foundation below, more bones cracking while he burned in the flames that stayed on him after the fireball expanded on his chest. Endeavor froze after his punch, his whole body stuck in place after following through so he looked as if he was posing where he stood.

Endeavor stared past the end of his fist and through a crumbling wall into a destroyed kitchen. His body was trembling, but as he looked in there through the settling dust, he saw that Splodo was not trembling at all. The villain was not moving. He had won. It still took every muscle in his body to try and lower that arm. His head twitched and slowly turned. His eyes rose up to a hole in the ceiling and the sky above. Then he turned more and looked to first floor windows and out onto the street past them. Now… how do I… Endeavor dropped to his left knee. He gasped out and dropped his right hand to his side where his internal organs felt like they were failing on him. How, do I… His right hand moved from his side and grabbed the floor in front of him so he would not collapse onto his face as he almost just did.

Outside of the building, Gentle bounced himself backwards on the retreat from his enemy who flew after him with a deranged and twisted expression that had changed from the beginning of the fight. Gentle did not know if it was the Double Trigger that had allowed Intanzo to alter his own body like this, but the foe chasing after him was looking truly terrifying as the walls of buildings on either side of them shattered outwards and floors crumbled just from Intanzo flying by.

Every piece of matter near them started to tear apart as the villain flew after Gentle. Tiny metal beads swerved through the air and came up into Gentle's blindspots. Elasta-Armor isn't enough to hold them back. Shit- Gentle ducked and then kicked off a Rebound he made just below his feet to bounce away from three other beads that tried capitalizing on the first's ability to make Gentle dodge.

Four more came up behind him but swerved into different angles and all flew at him at once. A giant leg of the Scorpion flew up from the ground like a javelin being launched so remarkably fast that Gentle's eyes darted up for a second anxiously. He had to refocus on the attacks still flying at him, though a bead of sweat dripped down his face as he hoped the leg would not reach…

A giant metal leg slammed into a propeller blade that broke off and blew up one of the engines of a giant invisible ship in the sky. "FUCK! We're hit grr!" Electomuzz yelled out.

Others on the bridge freaked out for a second, but La Brava screamed towards the yellow-furred man with the face of a dog who fell out of his chair. "Muzz, Cleater, go fix that! Raylei keep us invisible!"

"Power is diverting to the other engines, we can speed them up without drawing away from the cloaking…"

Be careful, my dear, Gentle thought as he was not seeing any leg fall back out of the sky, realizing it had likely been lodged inside of his ship.

Intanzo did not realize that as he did not care where that leg would land after he threw it at Gentle. Gentle had to focus on it anyway in order to protect anyone it might land on, though this was not much better of an outcome. It did allow him to keep the fight in this area though, and that was something he was appreciative of as he changed directions and flew straight back at the villain giving chase after him.

Gentle's right arm hurt as it swung back behind him. He had fractured a bone on one of the metal beads before, though that was only slightly worse than his left shoulder and bicep that were pierced through-and-through by the beads that luckily did not hit bones after ripping through his costume and flesh. Gentle swung both arms despite the injuries on them. Elastic barriers bounced away from him and allowed him to press his hands against them and push off.

He bounced through the air back in the direction of the villain who swung both arms out to the sides. The walls of the apartment buildings on either side of Gentle started pushing outwards. They bent and cracked. Every single floor started sloping towards them. Furniture slid on the floor, people scrambling to grab onto something and not fall out of their buildings. Every single window was shattering. The civilians' screams rang out onto the street as Gentle darted in and out of a few metal beads, while others hit mid-air barriers that Intanzo could not see and deflected enough of the attacks that Gentle could manually dodge the rest.

Intanzo stopped breaking all the buildings to just grab what loose Matter he had and bring it all in at once at Gentle on his path. Cabinets flew with shattered glass that it almost looked like they smashed through though it was just Intanzo's Quirk breaking those windows at the same time that furniture came flying out. Steel beams and giant shards of glass and wall and pavement all flew towards Gentle, and fast-moving condensed steel balls flew through them and sped at the anti-hero who pulled his right fist back and surrounded it with Elasticity.

A flash of light filled the corners of Intanzo's vision. A smirk spread over Gentle's face. The villain with spiky black hair turned his head to the left. He looked back, but then his eyes darted down to the street where a man on both knees and one hand, had his other hand pointed up into the sky. It was all Endeavor could manage. The hero pointed one hand up and fired a jet of flames behind Intanzo. Intanzo knew why Endeavor did not aim at him the instant he saw Endeavor's arm. It was not because the hero had just failed to raise his arm enough to get the angle, though that almost seemed like an option considering the look of the bloody and beaten hero at the moment.

No, Intanzo could see that Endeavor had cast aside his pride and was not trying to stop him at all. That one move was just to take Intanzo's eyes off of his enemy for a second. And this was an enemy who Intanzo knew, he really should not have taken his eyes off of. Intanzo tried to take all that debris he was going to use for attack, to just surround himself instead…

Gentle was already upon him. Intanzo's head was turning back forward, but his eyes that had shifted down had to lift more than back at his same eye-level. Thank you, hero. Gentle's eyes were devious and cocky. He smirked wide as he made eye contact with the villain he had been taunting who had sent him on the retreat and put him in a lot of pain. The idea that that Scorpion's leg had not come down yet, made the smirk on Gentle's face a lot more bloodthirsty than it would have been had Endeavor's distraction that he had been waiting for come a minute earlier.

More and more Elasticity wrapped around Gentle's right hand. None of the Rebounds that Gentle coated his fist in spread farther from his body than the previous ones though. They just overlapped. Usually he would put them directly next to each other, pushing one into the next to intensify the strength of each. These were all just coating each other though. The Elastic barrier around his hand had so many individual barriers coating it, that Intanzo could see the Elasticized air around Gentle's curled and shaking fist. Gentle's body twisted in the air over the man he just flew towards like a rocket that zipped around individual pieces of rubble but let some pieces just cut through him so as to rush at this speed and not lose the benefit of the distraction. Blood was still just coming out of those gashes in his costume, spilling away from him so a drop fell on Intanzo's face just below his right eye as Gentle swung his right fist down.

"Bubble Punch!" Gentle slammed his right fist into Intanzo's face and dented the villain's face against the barriers. Intanzo's whole body flung upwards as his face bounced off of the fist at such speeds that he was sent plummeting from the sky in a constant flip and spin completely out of his control.

All the Matter fell from the air around them. Everything stopped breaking apart in Intanzo's Quirk. Gentle felt his right forearm completely break on the punch. He winced but flung both arms above him anyway and kicked off to drop from the sky. Intanzo was still flipping around as he neared the ground, but the villain's eyes that slammed shut on the collision flew back open and his body suddenly twisted to face straight-up in the air. Intanzo rose his glowing green arms and grabbed onto Matter falling on Gentle's sides that he swung inwards-

Intanzo hit the floor. He was already using his Matter on the street to cushion the ground on his landing, but he did not hit a soft surface that would push him back onto his feet. Instead, he hit a rubbery floor that made his eyes bulge in shock as Gentle had already Elasticized it somehow. Gentle swung both of his arms out to the sides then kicked below him and bounced back up before Intanzo could use his own Rebound to bounce into Death. Intanzo swung towards his enemy as he was launched towards him, but his arm was only partly extended up when his face and fist both hit an invisible wall. He was bouncing upwards too fast, that that rubbery wall bounced him back downwards. He was on an angle as he hit it too, and it bounced him diagonally back into the floor that he tried to twist and land on, only to bounce off of the ground as well and into a wall behind him that Gentle just flew around towards.

Gentle was just on the other side of the barrier as Intanzo slammed into it. Intanzo was not expecting Gentle to be there nor was he expecting to have bounced into that spot a second ago when he was flying upwards. His gaze darted to the side and he looked through the corners of his eyes at the man behind him who was still smirking menacingly through the invisible wall at him. "Infinite Rebound: Cube." Gentle slapped his left palm into the barrier that Intanzo was pushing into, doubling the speed that the villain was launched from it, up diagonally into another wall of the Cube that Gentle had just created around the villain.

Endeavor had planned to give Gentle a moment to attack and finish this, but his eyes still widened as he watched Intanzo bounce around faster and faster inside of the Infinite Rebound Cube that Gentle had created. Unlike his own final blow that he knew would be enough to take down Splodo after the fiery explosion already burned him, Gentle did not have the power to put Intanzo down in one blow like that.

Intanzo had the ability to fly and contort his own body after the Double, but Gentle smirked more and called through to the man bouncing wildly out of control in the Cube, "What's wrong, Mr. 'Most Wanted'? Are you out of Double? Can you no longer stop yourself?!" Gentle called through at the man who was bouncing on all six walls of the cube like an unstoppable projectile. "Let's see if you can even control the Matter around you after coming down?"

Gentle made the remark after already allowing the top barrier of his cube to fade while flying over it like he was rejuvenating this wall as he had been doing to the rest. Matter that had fallen from the air and landed on top of the Cube fell through the Gentle Rebound on the air that had caught them and made them bounce up a few times like a trampoline. Gentle re-applied the barrier while Intanzo was still bouncing about, before the man would make his next bounce on a trajectory aiming him back towards the roof. Intanzo grabbed onto all that Matter as it sank through and started to fall though, and he flung it back up at Gentle just as the anti-hero remade his Cube's ceiling.

One shard of glass was too fast and sliced past the right side of Gentle's face before he could pull away. Blood flew from his cheek, and Gentle bounced away but curved down to reapply other walls of the Cube as fast as he could. He was panting and still had to swerve as occasional pieces of matter around him were flying after him. But all those other pieces started to fall as well as Intanzo lost control on everything outside of the cube. He had to focus more on the inside after all, as only one shard of glass had made it through the top wall when Gentle allowed it to open up. Everything else that Intanzo tried forcing up into him, had bounced back down right as Intanzo was being bounced up at that same ceiling.

He tried forcing it up all way too strong as well. All that Matter had pushed against Gentle's Rebound, and it got slingshotted back into the villain who spun out and then was hit in his back too as the pieces got caught in Gentle's Infinite Rebounds. Inside of the Infinite Rebound Cube, Intanzo, glass, wood shards, cement, steel, it all bounced around and into each other. Collisions of fast-moving projectiles and the man who tried to avoid them all as they bounced faster and faster and colliding with him on his sides, in his front, his back, all over his body.

Intanzo started to roar out in rage as he was hit more and more by pieces he could not see coming. Gentle was moving faster and faster around his Infinite Cube. He was panting and gasping for breath, wincing as he swung his arms over and over despite all of the pain they were in. I can't- Gentle flinched as he tried to swing his right arm again, and he failed and just pulled it back again in pain, reflexively grabbing over on it with his left hand. As such, he could not create another midair barrier to bounce himself off of and continue his path around the Cube. This is it then. I'm sure I've tendered him up enough. I'm sure… Gentle took in a deep breath.

Which wall will fall right before he hits it? North side. Gentle landed and he started running. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Intanzo's head bowing and his dark green glare flashing bright, right before a piece of cabinet hit him in the side of the head and made him spin out a second before a glass shard impaled his left leg. A cement block was about to crash into his back and break it, and for a split second Gentle wondered if he would even need a follow-up attack. That cement block turned into dust as Intanzo separated all of the atoms the moment it was about to hit him.

Endeavor spun from Intanzo back towards Gentle who was running his direction and had bloody arms looking too weak to get off any kind of final blow here. He gulped and tried to push down off his hands to get up again, but his right side hurt too much and he could tell he had lost too much blood on top of those internal injuries. Everything was hazy. Endeavor still grit his teeth though, I have to do it then! Endeavor shook his head around to focus up.

Then he stopped shaking his head. The hero stopped as he saw the somewhat anxious but still cocky look on Gentle's face as the villain ran towards him. Whatever expression he was looking at, he suddenly remembered the fact that he was looking at Death. Because Gentle's right eye closed and opened back up. The wink came as a surprise to the hero who could not gawk at the man even as Gentle's bloody left fist opened up and flung an Offensive Rebound ahead of him and on a diagonal angle pointing back up and behind him. Gentle curled his left fist and knew that the time on the wall behind him was just about up, and Intanzo would be bouncing into it in a second…

Intanzo flew through a wall that was no longer there. He thought the wall on the opposite side would fade first because of the way he caught a glimpse of Gentle running, but he only imagined that that assumption was all Gentle had wanted him to think. To make him somewhat less ready to fly out on this side, closer to Endeavor too who Gentle might have felt the need to protect which was the real reason he went running over here. Intanzo spun around and swung his arms towards Gentle who turned his head partially and lost his smirk for a second. His left fist curled and started to swing, but Gentle was not twisting his body to swing that punch at Intanzo.

Gentle's right leg had lifted off the ground but did not step back down. It would have been impossible for his foot to touch the floor, as there was a barrier around it that got covered by another, and another on top of that. Intanzo's eyes snapped down to Gentle's right foot. His leg got a bubble on it. A visible, clearer bubble than the one that had been on Gentle's Bubble Punch before. Gentle slammed his left fist forward, into an invisible diagonal barrier in front of him that bounced him backwards and just above Intanzo's body. Blood spurted from his left bicep and shoulder as his arm pressed against the barrier, but he needed to push it in hard to bounce himself backwards as fast as he did with a second Rebound pushing off his hand to double the speed as well. Gentle flew flipping over in the air above Intanzo. His whole body twisted, his right leg swinging around, and Intanzo tried to turn himself but failed to use as much of his Matter Control on himself as he had been able to back when he first injected with Double. Gentle was right. He had stalled and dragged Intanzo along for enough time to wear down the effects. And all of that Matter chasing after Intanzo or lifting back up as the villain rose his arms outside of the Cube, was slowed due to the side effects of using Double as having the drug fade meant he was weaker than he was before he had even injected.

Intanzo turned partly to the side, and then a leg collided with his face at such speeds that it would have broken Gentle's leg had it not been encased in a protective bubble. "BUBBLE… KICK!" Gentle's whole body was twisting and his leg fired downwards with force that put an Intanzo-shaped hole in the street, then blew a crater around that. Endeavor could not lift his hands off the ground to protect himself from flying debris this time, but his eyes he clenched shut opened back up in confusion then surprise as he realized that Gentle's diagonal barrier was between him and where Intanzo was just smashed into the floor. All of the debris that came flying his way was bounced harmlessly back away from him.

Intanzo broke bones upon his collision with the floor. He hit down and ribs cracked, as did his new jaw-line, as did his clavicles and one of his femurs. He did not soften the ground at all. Gentle hit him down into the floor too quickly for him to adjust it in his already-slowed state after the Double. Intanzo was moving though. His hands curled into the floor at his sides, and the floor just past his fingers started to move…

Fft

Gentle lowered the tranq gun he fired into the side of Intanzo's neck. Endeavor opened his mouth to call out at the man who landed next to Intanzo and pulled a gun on him. Without hesitation Gentle fired on his fallen enemy. Endeavor would have felt less nervous had he not recalled Death's brutal slaughter of many fallen villains that he had witnessed in the past. He saw the projectile come out of the barrel of the pistol that Gentle pulled out from below his cape though. And a more relaxed breath released from the hero's mouth as it fell back open.

The dart stuck into Intanzo's neck, and Gentle watched as Intanzo's curling fingers stopped dragging on the floor. The shaking ground around them stopped moving at all. Gentle put away his dart gun, smirking but letting out a few panted breaths as well when he saw Intanzo no longer moving. Blood dripped down both of Gentle's arms now, as his right had been cut too when he rushed at Intanzo back through his debris shield above. That one was not bleeding as badly as his left that had been punctured and ripped worse even after that.

"I assume Splodo is no longer a problem either?" Gentle wondered while turning and stepping towards Endeavor's knelt form.

Gentle looked the man up and down then chuckled as Endeavor failed to respond to him. "It seems you cannot respond to me with that broken jaw, nor does it appear that you can stand as it is now. I suppose that is the best thing for me though," Tobita admitted. He rolled his shoulders back and let out another deep breath. Then he turned his head to the right, then the left, and he chuckled again as he started hearing clapping and cheering coming from buildings. Some people in those buildings were in danger due to the damage done to them, but their friends and roommates and neighbors were helping each other out. Intanzo had been too focused on killing him to bother with threatening civilians around them, and the Radian's leader had been too confident in his own ability to win to think that doing so would give him any more of an advantage.

"The people here will assist you, Endeavor. It is my time to-" Gentle's head started spinning to the left. Endeavor turned as well and he pushed down to try and move.

Gentle reached back for his tranquilizer gun again while his face filled with panic at the sight of the ground below Intanzo suddenly opening up. HOW?! Gentle had never seen the drug in those tranquilizers wear off so quickly, and Intanzo looked nearly defeated right before he had shot him anyway. Gentle saw it though as the ground opened up below Intanzo and swallowed up the only somewhat sedated villain. It stopped injecting into his neck, Gentle realized. He saw the dart falling into the crumbling floor that pulled in from either side of where Intanzo was sinking. He was able to control the Matter touching him even in his weakened state, and the ground looked to swallow up the villain who sank straight into the solid mass that curled in from either side to cover him up.

Intanzo was laying on the ground badly injured and with some of that tranquilizer in his system, but he had forced himself awake and kept the sedative from injecting into his body when he fully focused on the dart and nothing else around him. He had tried to listen to Gentle for a minute, but he was feeling his lungs filling up with blood and knew that if he stayed there for much longer he might actually pass out and get arrested. The man sank deeper and deeper into the ground. Intanzo fell into a tunnel deep below the surface, then he kept sinking through it as he feared the two on the surface smashing through and chasing after him. He just kept sinking down. The villain sank himself into the dirt that moved like water away from him. A bubble forced away from the villain who just swam through the surface and coughed up blood as he desperately escaped from the two above who cursed to themselves as they lost their opponent.

Both Endeavor and Gentle knew how Intanzo's Quirk worked. Neither of them imagined they would be able to burrow deep enough and quickly enough to catch the man who could just keep sinking himself deeper and deeper into the planet. "That is, disappointing," Gentle admitted. He was sugar-coating it, as that was a terrible mistake he just made by not making sure that Intanzo was definitely unconscious.

Master, Intanzo sank deeper into the ground. His eyes closed as he thought back in sorrow and apologized to the man he pictured in his head. I failed to defeat them. I failed… Did I fail you? Intanzo's lips curled deeper down at the corners. You told me to follow him. I… I did so, even after you left. Because you did not give me any further instruction. Why? This was it. Did you know, this was how it would go? Is that why you abandoned the plan…

"Look at him, CHHHH- Shigaraki will be my next vessel." Intanzo could hear his Master's voice as they stared at a monitor together in a dark room. Only Daruma Ujiko was there with them but back in the shadows behind the two. Intanzo recalled the way he glowered at the boy on the screen. He had tried to hide it, but he heard All For One's voice next to him as he felt a hand on his shoulder, "Do not be jealous."

"I'm not…" The younger man Intanzo was imagining had lowered his voice after starting to argue against what his Master said. Then that young man whispered, "I would be the better successor."

"Hahaha, 'successor?' You misunderstand, Sot-CHHHHHH-" Intanzo's head hurt from more than the kick in it he just received. That kick was shaking up his thoughts more than he had realized though as he heard the start of a name that sounded so familiar to him despite being lost in his mind, blanked out by something that became so scratchy and hurt his head at the memory. I was more than that to you. Closer than him. What of your plan? What about… "…When Shigaraki Tomura is ready, I'll want you to still be at my side after the 'succession' occurs…" Master, where are you? If Shigaraki succeeds today, will you return? Will you be disappointed in my failure? Why… why aren't you here?

"It truly is frustrating," Gentle remarked to the man he finally turned back to as the ground showed no sign of opening back up like Intanzo was just hiding below for a second to wait for a moment to strike. A small grin reformed on Gentle's face, "But I imagine this takes him out of the battle. Though you yourself are also out of it now," Gentle added to the hero who could barely speak at all because of Splodo's jaw-breaking elbow. They communicated through their eyes though, as Endeavor stared darkly up at Gentle from the floor he had been staring at too.

"Don't worry, Endeavor. I am sure the good people of this city around us will come to your aid at any moment to save you. You shouldn't die here, probably," Gentle tilted his head to the side. "I myself cannot stay any longer though. It would not do for other heroes to see me, as I would have to leave on their terms and not my own. I won't be chased out of this city. I'll leave you to this, for now," Gentle added at the end.

"'Oh no! Gentle! Do not leave us yet!'" Gentle mock-called-out as if saying what Endeavor would if Endeavor was able to speak for himself. Endeavor grumbled as the man in front of him swung his bloody left arm out to the side and made a few droplets fly from his fingers. "Fear not, my good chap. I believe your city is very capable of surviving without my continued action. I must take my leave now, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise-"

"I, wi-ll urg, agk- hun… you," Endeavor growled. He could not make a 't' sound without touching his cracked teeth together.

Gentle heard what Endeavor said though despite the pain it must have put the hero in to say it. Gentle smirked that Endeavor had the strength to threaten him still. "Of course you will hunt me," Gentle replied to his ally. "After all!" He yelled out and grabbed his cape with his left hand to make it flap out behind him. "I am the chivalrous villain! The Gentle Criminal!" He spun around as he yelled it, looking to all the people around who started cheering again even louder despite the loss of Intanzo which had kept anyone from running outside to them yet. The people around him cheered for the man yelling about how he was a villain, as he had saved them from the Scorpion and Intanzo. No one cared about those things he shouted. They just cheered for the man who bent his knees and then leapt up and bounced into the sky…

---

"What are these things?! Are those Nomu?"

"Hold them back-"

"We are, better than Nomu."

Three creatures jogged down the middle of 23rd Street. Each of them had fleshy, muscular bodies that were both muscular in that they had large muscles, and muscular in that those muscles appeared to be on the outsides of their bodies. Only one of them was black like other Nomus, while another was red, and a third was yellow. The three creatures were extending out their limbs and grabbing onto vehicles that they tossed down the street at a huge police and hero barricade blocking off a section of the city that had been "secured" and had a lot of evacuated civilians in it.

The red creature running down the middle of the street extended both legs while turning its long extending arms into blades that it slashed down at cop cars in front of them, splitting each in half. Bright flashing lights caused the yellow creature to reel backwards though, a weakness a hero who had been chasing after these things had informed his allies about at the blockade. That one fell behind, allowing heroes to only worry about two as they dodged flying vehicles and sharp blades to attack the creatures, of which only the black one seemed to be able to speak as it roared out in a scratchy but human voice that the heroes had 'no chance.'

A villain watching from farther away than the rest of his allies was biting on his fingernails as he watched the images he still had on some of the flying drones in the city. "How could this be happening? The heroes should not have been able to make up for- no, no this was expected. Or feared-" Dice stopped biting on his fingernails and started typing into a computer in front of him. "I didn't want to release him. Raijin told me to wait until the worst-case scenario, but, I believe this is it? Is it?"

He held his finger over the 'Enter' key on his keyboard. The doctor rambled to himself while his eyes darted back and forth across his instruments and systems in anxious fear. "Only Dismembermen was really able to stabilize after this kind of treatment. And that greatest success doesn't even know his experimentation was different from the other bioenhancements our members received. It was only due to his split body gradually pulling back together, absorbing body after body to dilute it across and be able to handle more that he did not fall apart, and he was finished while still barely over five feet tall so the remaining two bodies were not even necessary! This one, I cannot even tell if he really retained himself. He was already so, so… I do not know. I don't," Dice checked the screens again and watched with his eyes growing huge. Heroes pinned down and captured the yellow one of the three parasitic-type Nomus that functioned better than others because of the isolation of patients' consciousnesses to the added Quirks rather than their bodies which were only merged somewhat and still had human forms inside of the muscly masses that the heroes and cops were fighting now.

"Fine," Dice whispered. "I doubt he'll be able to tell friend from foe, but this is no time to hold anything back. And this one is even more powerful than those Nomus." He pressed his finger down with his face twisting and an insane smile spreading on it. "Enjoy yourself. And get yourself some blood…"

Ka-BOOM! "AHHH!"

"Pull back!"

"Don't let them free the yellow one! Get it to the other captured… AH!"

Ch- brm, ch ch Crash!

A larger police vehicle than the normal patrol cars came rolling down an intersection a block past Trabo and Ashido and the villain they were facing. It slammed into a wall and burst into flames, and then a giant black-muscled villain dropped out of the air into the flames and on the cabin of the vehicle that crushed the legs of a cop inside trying to get out.

"Ahhy-EOOoooWww-" The officer screeched in agony as his legs were pinned.

Other vehicles tried speeding away, and other heroes tried fighting against the villains that were attempting to free their captured ally. The red one swung a huge scythe-arm that extended so far that it pulled the fleshy exterior of its body more towards its right arm and exposed some of a humanoid chest inside. That red arm was swiping at the large vehicle the yellow one had been contained in and was driving farther ahead of it…

Two orange beams of light flew down out of the air and sliced off its right arm. The monster shrieked and stumbled back in the middle of the road, then Popfire slammed both of her legs into its chest where she saw a piece of a vulnerable body inside that the rest of the fleshy exterior did not cover back up in time as it jumped back to reconnect with the main body. She kicked the red one back into other heroes, but she had to spin in midair and cross her arms to protect from the huge black fist of the flaming Nomu that leapt at her from the crushed police vehicle.

Popfire's glowing orange eyes were full of rage. Her arms were soaked in the blood of her husband whose body she left on another street with other fallen heroes and some still surviving but injured ones. The young woman crossed her bloody arms and blocked the Nomu's black fist while the red one was kicked away from her, but that one skid backwards on the road too as it survived her attack and then charged back at her. Popfire's hands glowed bright orange. One pointed to her front while the other pointed at the charging red one, and she fired while getting punched in the face by the black one she did not block this time to instead just attack it too.

The orange blasts exploded on the enemies, but a Trabo spun his head anyway as he saw the hero and famous Shiketsu graduate he was a fan of start bouncing on the road he was on and smash into an abandoned truck at such speeds she knocked it over. The version of Trabo that spun his head like that had a lick of his hair pushed up above his forehead. He was closest to the woman who just bounced away, and he opened his mouth to call towards her and ask if she was alright.

"X!" A voice yelled towards him in panic.

If it was any other voice, Trabo X would not have felt so afraid. It was Obart's though. Trabo Y's voice was slightly different from the other Trabos, and yet it was panicked for him in a way that made Trabo X spin back around and try to dodge or counter against whatever piece of Dismembermen was rushing him.

Two versions of Dismembermen's had connected together. Trabo X spun with his eyes down looking for the three foot tall men rushing at him, but his eyes rose back up at the four foot tall version whose body was still only a fraction of his full size yet looked so intimidating with all his bulging muscles covered in scars from his experimentation. Trabo tried to cross his arms. He was too slow. Another Trabo ran towards him while Pinky had to stop to defend against a smaller version focused on her, but those two coming to assist were too slow as well. Dismemberman's largest form punched between Trabo X's crossing arms, hitting him in the gut, and punching straight through his spine and out his back with blood spurting away from Agara's fist.

All four of the Trabos' eyes bulged huge. Ashido darted her eyes over then did a front-flip and kicked a leg coated in Acid down at the Dismemberman who tried to block it but then scrambled back as his skin seared through by the highly Acidic kick. "Uhh," Ashido started as she jumped backwards and landed next to who she thought was the original Trabo with the broken right arm. "Are you, alright?" Ashido wondered to her ally who was staring in terror towards Trabo X whose eyes partially closed as he went limp.

Dismemberman dragged Trabo X's body off of his arm and dropped the limp figure to the ground. "Oh fuck us," Obart muttered. He took a step back, then he turned to the Dismemberman that sprinted at him, and he snarled in pure rage and sprinted back at it. Dismemberman punched, but Obart sidestepped then dove forward and plunged his thumbs into Dismemberman's eye sockets. "NOW WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO AND DO THAT? HUH?!" Obart screamed, his voice not doing well at hiding the panic that all the Trabo's felt right now.

Ashido turned to her side at the boy who looked terrified but gulped and glanced sideways back at her. "I don't know," he responded to her question. "I, haven't ever been killed… All injuries sustained are kept when we join back together, though." Trabo gulped again while Ashido pulled her head back at that look of sheer horror in his eyes that she really understood now. "And, there is a time limit to how long we can be apart for, which is shorter now that I split into 4. I, I don't know, how long…" Trabo's eyes trembled but he turned them back on Dismembermen from the scared girl in front of him. She looked scared for him, but he suddenly thought of what he was saying and clenched his teeth together tightly.

The Dismembermen that Obart was brutalizing turned to mush that made the remaining three versions of Dismembermen grow again. That growth caused the villain's split bodies a lot of pain by the look of it, and all of them stopped moving to flinch and groan as they grew larger. "You see that?" Trabo wondered softly to the girl next to him.

The second Trabo and Trabo Y (Obart) had also seen it and all picked up on it at the same time as their initial body. Seeing it multiple times was all it took for him, and Ashido knew exactly what Trabo was thinking as there were still 3 enemy bodies left, though even the smaller ones were now the size that Dismemberman had been at when he punched a hole through Trabo X. And the largest was now taller than Ashido, glaring straight at her as it turned with an arm dripping in X's blood.

There's a moment after one of his versions has been destroyed that he's in too much pain from regrowing in size to do anything. It has to be then. We have to stop him in the moment that we destroy his other smaller bodies. Ashido took in a few deep breaths, If we can destroy two of them at once, and focus that pain even more on a single body! "I can incapacitate the main one, when it happens," Ashido assured him in a quiet voice.

"Do it then," Trabo said. He steadied his voice and stopped thinking about what would happen after this fight when he had to re-merge with his own dead Triplet. The fear of what might happen then had been pushed aside when he saw Pinky's look of fear for him that he reciprocated right back now. Because if he merged with Trabo X too soon and died because of it, then he would be unable to help her anymore against this villain who would tear her limb from limb if he got another chance at it. I won't let you die here too, Ashido.

It won't happen. The injuries he gets while split aren't as severe when he joins back together, right? Maybe, maybe he'll be fine! I have to focus! Ashido calmed herself and concentrated on the largest of the Dismembermen for now. "I'll take you on, big guy." She smirked in a cocky way at the villain whose pain from losing a body had faded now and allowed him to sprint right back at her.

"You might be stronger than us," the second Trabo glanced towards the original's hardening expression and decided to push his own fear aside for now as well. He spun towards the closer of the small Dismembermens that were over a foot shorter than him and Obart who both sprinted at him at once. "But there are more of us now!"

Ashido ran at the biggest of the three while the Trabo with the broken arm rushed the other smaller one to just distract for long enough for his clones to defeat the other. "I just love that killing one of you doesn't really kill you," Obart snarled as he hurdled over a punch that Dismemberman's small body televised too much while he was making it. "Because that means I get to kill you again!" The villain was good, but the hero whose skills were mostly in hand-to-hand close-quarters combat saw his moves coming. The fourth body of Trabo leapt over the swinging arm, so when Dismemberman was spinning to the other he had to attack next, the villain understood that he still had enemies on both side. The second Trabo had pulled out a hero-tool from his belt though that was deadly and not meant for use on humans, and he tossed the round red balls forward with blinking yellow lights glowing in rings around the middles of them.

"DIE!" Obart charged into the side of Dismembermen and lowered his shoulder. He lifted up as he collided and threw Dismemberman back the direction the villain started to dodge from. The villain barely winced as he was hit at the size he had become now, and the main Trabo leapt backwards while this was going on and realized that strength increase himself as a missed punch by a same-sized Dismemberman put a hole in the street and blew wind into him. Trabo smiled slightly though as the villain in front of him froze, his whole body twitching and flinching in pain as the other version of him that was this size got blown apart too much in the front of his body.

Trabo's eyes opened huge though as he darted a look over and saw those injuries causing the other four foot Dismemberman to collapse into goop on the floor. That fraction of the villain looked to be struggling to hold together even despite being hit directly by the grenade-like support tools for use against villains who could create hard walls or so he could blow open defensive positions of his enemies. The man groaned while his body bled at first from the searing wounds on his face, neck, and torso, but then it started to drop into nothing on the floor.

Ashido's eyes grew huge as well, because the height re-distribution did not go around evenly this time either. The version she was cartwheeling away from did not grow any larger right as she slowed down to change directions and attack him. She gasped out in shock and then had to swing both arms at the floor in between her and the Dismemberman slightly taller than her who was still sprinting straight towards her. The ground got slippery in her Acid and the villain slid on it, straight into the girl who tried dodging out of the way as Dismembermen swung at her with his bulky right arm.

A piece of that arm grazed Pinky and made her scream out in pain while spinning away in the air. The other shorter version of Dismembermen was growing to the same height as the largest one that finally paused for a second and then took some of that height as well while Pinky was on her side near him. He groaned in a bit of pain, but he rose up higher while his other body grew even more so until they were both taller than Trabo now…

The main Trabo still had his hero support items on him. He could only grab one with his left hand alone though, and he sprinted forward while priming that one and yelling out a war cry. The shorter of the two Dismembermen which had more to grow and seemed to cause it more pain because of that, snapped its eyes open wide and tried moving its arms in front of it to stop Trabo who could not just throw his grenade again at an even larger version of the villain, as he knew it would not destroy it this time. So he jumped up, and he slammed his left hand forward and shoved the support item into his enemy's open jaw, then he kicked both legs out into Dismemberman's chest and pushed away as the villain grabbed onto him.

It hurt as Dismemberman nearly caught his arm, but he pushed off hard enough to get out of the villain's grip… a second too late. BOOM! "AH!" Trabo yelled out in pain as his legs got hit by the blast. He was better off than the half of Dismembermen that lost its head completely though.

The one that had paused itself after knocking down Pinky, suddenly arched his back and let out a loud growl of agony as his second and only other clone started to dissolve into mush. His squinted eyes shifted back to the girl who struggled onto her feet. The second Trabo and Obart started running their way to help out too, but Ashido had seen this man's power at fractions of his full strength. Even with more of them fighting against one version alone, she feared what would happen if they lost this last brief opportunity to get him when he was re-growing and stuck in place due to the growing pains.

Pinky ran towards her enemy, but she stopped short once she made him think that she was going to run all the way up to him like Trabo just did to his other one. She cupped her hands together in front of her chest and squished her hands together to squirt Acid in a long-ranged attack. She only called it out after shooting the Acid away from herself, "Super-Corrosive Shot!" It was precise. The splash of clear liquid shot straight towards Dismemberman's face that the villain tried to pull away but failed to in the pain of his skull growing again.

Dismemberman did manage to close his eyes though… "Ugh- Ahh-AHHH!" He screamed out in rage and brought his twitching growing hands up to his face to get the Acid off. He rubbed and then started clawing at his eyes as his eyelids had burned through. The girl who fired her Quirk at him was grimacing deeply and had to bite down on her bottom lip after what she just did. The other two Trabos who stopped running towards her and even the main one who was grabbing his burnt legs while sitting down on Dismemberman's other side, all gawked towards the villain who staggered around and clawed at his face where blood was pouring down from around his eyes.

His bloody hands started swinging away from him. "HEY! AH- Where are-" Dismemberman turned. His eyes were bloody messes with acid burn marks all around the sockets. He seemed to remember which direction the sitting Trabo was in though and had not gotten spun around enough to be disoriented. Whatever had been done to his body must have raised his pain tolerance too, because the villain was focusing more on killing them than the fact that his eyes had just been melted. "I'll kill you," Dismemberman snarled. He was a huge hulking figure now that stomped towards the sitting Trabo who tried pushing back with both hands and let out a yelp of pain as he tried moving his right, which he cut off too late as he already told Dismemberman exactly where he was sitting.

Ashido lost her regretful look for having to go so far against this villain. She had permanently blinded the man knowingly, but she sprinted forward now and made it so her feet slid on each step to give her extra distance each time. Her hands cupped together again and she fired two more squirts of Acid from them towards the armpits of the villain in front of her that had gotten larger and made for easier targets.

Her corrosive Acid melted through flesh and muscle like it was nothing. Skin seared and the smell filled the street as Dismemberman roared out in pain and spun around, trying to swing his arms at the girl he heard coming up behind him. His arms did not listen to him though as he tried swinging them. Both fell to his sides as he lost the tendons and cartilage in and around his shoulders to move his arms. Agara lifted his right foot and stomped it down into the ground in front of Pinky, and he kicked it forward at the girl who dove while still in mid-slide. She dove over the top of the hail of debris kicked up by Agara's foot as it dragged through the street. She landed just on his left side, and Agara must have felt her hit down there as he picked up his other foot and tried stomping on the girl.

Ashido left behind some Acid while sliding past where she landed. Agara's stomp did not break through the ground this time. It only slipped on the Acid and put him off-balanced and made it more difficult for him to dodge her next attack. Even without his eyes, and his arms, he's still so dangerous. Pinky hated to do it, but she pressed both of her hands directly to the backs of Agara's legs behind his knees. Then she pushed off and did a back-flip away to avoid the man who she just left some pretty corrosive Acid on. She had to touch directly to use a more specific acidity though, as she did not want to melt completely through his legs even after all he had done. She did melt through enough flesh though that he could not stand any longer, collapsing down to his knees and face as he was unable to bring his arms up to stop from collapsing like that.

"I'm sorry," Ashido whispered as the man thrashed about on the ground and screamed in pain ahead of her. "I don't have the best Quirk for capturing villains. Sometimes, the danger is too much to take it easy," she grimaced but tried to force a heroic smile despite the actions she took to cripple this former officer of the law. He's insane. Everyone knows he went mad after his wife was killed, but that doesn't mean I can treat him any less harshly. And, I can't be stuck here any longer, while I can still fight- Trabo! Ashido spun to her right as she saw the two clones of Trabo start sliding her direction.

She looked at the two clones who were sliding on the soles of their feet over the pavement and towards the main version. Another body was sliding his way too, though it moved slower as it was between the three Trabos. The one sitting on his butt tried to stand, but it was too hard with his burned legs and broken arm. The second Trabo glanced next to him at Obart who started stepping backwards, pulling his body away from the rest of them while the second just bowed his head and accepted this.

Ashido ran towards Trabo's sitting form and got on one knee between him and the body that was just sliding across the ground towards them, leaving a trail of blood behind it as the hole in its torso continued to bleed everywhere. "You did it," Trabo said. He smiled at the girl who knelt next to him and was looking over her shoulder at Trabo X's body coming ever-so-closer. Trabo glanced around her side again and then he lifted his gaze to the second Trabo that walked towards him rather than away. That one made eye contact with the main version that was always thinking along the lines closest to it. "Try it," Trabo told his second.

The other nodded and moved to the third Trabo's body. The second stepped forward and looked as if it was crouching down as it merged into X's body. Trabo winced next to Ashido, his body leaning back more and making the Class A girl grab onto his sides to keep him sitting up as he was. Trabo's squinted eyes opened again and gazed in a depressed way towards X's body which was now the body of two of his clones, as one merging with it did not make it come to life but only made the alive one also dead. The trail of blood dragging towards him got slightly thinner though, as the hole on its body shrank a bit in size.

"Oh fuck. Fuck me, fuck this- fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK…" Obart was trying to run away. He looked like he was moon-walking though as every step forward he moved two steps back. He was sliding on the floor closer and closer to the prone clone that stopped moving where it was as Obart's struggle the other direction seemed to make it stop getting closer to Trabo. "I don't want to- NO! I don't want to die! I DON'T! AHHH-" Obart looked over his shoulder then pulled his head back in an embarrassed way full of despair as it caught sight of Pinky's shocked look. "Don't- Don't look at me like- Yeah! I'm scared! WE'RE SCARED! WE'RE FUCKING TERRIFIED! AHH- AAHHHHH I don't want-"

Trabo closed his eyes as he heard the screams from a version of him that had next to no inhibitions. Obart did not struggle to keep in his emotions as there was no filter on the clone that just kept screaming in fear as it got pulled closer to the body it was going to become a part of, also dying like his fellow clones already had. Tears came out of Obart's eyes, though they were in the corners of Trabo's too as he bit down on his bottom lip to keep from looking as embarrassing to the girl next to him. I don't want her to see me like that. That's so, lame, Trabo clenched his eyes shut as he pretended to care about that, even as Obart voiced his actual feelings of fear and anger and despair.

Ashido looked from Obart to the body near her to the boy on her other side whose face showed her that he was feeling the exact same way that Obart was screaming. And then Obart slid too close to the corpse at her back, and she closed her eyes shut tightly as Obart's scream started to fade. She opened her eyes back up and looked hopefully at that body. It did not stand back up. Its eyes were still partially open and looking at nothing above it. She extended her right leg behind her to stop the body when it got close, then she looked back at Trabo who she was still holding by his sides. Her hands started shaking, What can I do? I- I can't… It's his Quirk. If he looks this hopeless… "Maybe, you won't…"

"Yeah," Trabo agreed. He forced a smile and looked at the girl next to him with a similar look of hope on his face. "Yeah maybe," he said. He held back his tears but bit down on his bottom lip harder as he felt the tug towards his other body growing stronger. He had been using his Quirk with 4 bodies for too long. The limit had been reached, and he needed to merge back together now. "Nnn, grr-" Trabo groaned and tried pulling away from Ashido, but that just made her feel the push against her foot grow stronger and caused the pink-skinned girl to flinch.

She was the only thing between Trabo and the dead body going to merge with him and kill him. She was the only thing holding him back from imminent death. And as she suddenly found herself in that position, panic covered her face too as that pull was growing stronger still. Oh no, Ashido gulped and she pushed her leg out harder to keep Trabo's cloned corpse away from him. "I- I don't know what to do," Ashido whispered to him.

He did not want to tell her that it was alright to release his other body. As much as he wanted to tell her something like that, he was scared out of his wits. Trabo bit down harder that he could not hide that terror from the girl as he had attempted to by agreeing with her hope a few seconds ago. "I'm, I'm sorry, Ashido. I really, wanted to go on that date," he told her. He forced out a smile to try and look cool at the end here, but the tears started falling from his eyes now and he was hyperventilating at the same time. "Oh God, I don't…"

"It's… I-" Ashido did not know what to say. She looked around for some help, but they were all alone on this street now. Popfire had gotten back up and gone into her own fight somewhere else. They were alone, with a squirming and groaning Dismemberman nearby who was no threat as he was now. Ashido slid her right hand down Trabo's arm to his hand, and she curled her fingers with his. Ashido pursed her lips as she failed to come up with anything to say, and she felt her legs both buckling on her other side as she tried forcing Trabo's dead body away from his alive one. It was pushing stronger though.

"Zach's alive, Trabo," Ashido told the boy she had been fighting with. Her ally opened his clenched-shut eyes and looked up into hers as she let tears fall down to her chin and then off onto his face. She smiled down at him though and regained her hopeful expression even as she accepted a reality both of them were dreading so much. She held his hand tighter and then yelled down at him, "He's alive and fighting Kaminari! And he'll do it, he'll win… And he'll come here and save you. Then we will go on that date. U.A.'s dance is coming up, you know? I could use a date…"

Trabo's head tilted back more with tears pouring from his eyes freely now. "I-" he tried to thank her. He tried to smile back and just think of what she said in a way knowing that there was hope. But he saw her body curling up more and getting pushed up by the corpse trying to slide underneath her. Ashido tried forcing herself down in the way, but Trabo was pushing towards her front while his merged clones came at her back, and they were both pushing her up and out of his way of merging. "I don't want to die," he whispered up at the girl who put everything she had into staying in the way.

The harder she tried to stay in the way though, the longer Trabo was still alive, and it allowed the boy to gasp up at her again and again. "I don't want to die. I don't- I'm sorry. I'm sorry Pinky, I- Fuck, fuck me. Fuck this. I- shit." He tried rolling the other way as his other body, which pulled it stronger after him and made him gasp out in terror at the sight of his own dead eyes coming closer to him. "No no no-"

"I-I'm sorry," Ashido gasped back at him. "I- I d-don't, know…" Ashido felt the natural force of Trabo's Quirk push too much underneath her. It pushed her legs up off the floor between the two bodies, and she reached down between them to try and force them apart, but they started to merge with only her fingers in the way now, and then her fingers got forced up too as the bodies merged just beneath her. The two heads merged together, and the hole on Trabo's costume remained and allowed her to see the wound underneath that did not close completely even as all the bodies merged together.

She was staring down at that hole that her hands pressed down on as that was the same level on Trabo's body her hands were at when they were in between the two bodies. She did not want to raise her gaze up. Ashido kept staring at the wound her hands were pressing down on, and then she slowly dragged her eyes up his body to his face and his half-closed eyes. Her heart crunched and she gasped out in a distraught way at the sight of his dead eyes. "H-Hey?" She fell back onto her butt. Her hands lifted and she stared at her bloody palms.

Trabo's blood was all over them. He had been alive and fighting by her side and talking to her only seconds ago, and now he was dead. She heard Obart's screams and then Trabo's rambling voice at the end. It made it slam her eyes shut and then start murmuring as she heard another voice over it that was actually still speaking and groaning in the present. "Shut up shut up- SHUT UP!" Ashido screamed towards the squirming figure of Dismemberman who was still making noise even after being defeated. Ashido gasped for breath after screaming at that man she had crippled and blinded. She did not feel any guilt or regret as she glared over towards him.

That was so messed up. He knew it was coming, and there was nothing we could do. Oh- oh man, I need to breathe, Ashido grabbed at her chest and struggled to find breath. She moved her hands to her sides and pushed down on the floor. "I need to move," she whispered to herself. She was still panting but got up on her feet anyway and then started spinning her head to look around. I'll get Trabo somewhere safe and make sure Dismembermen is in custody. Then I need to keep fighting! I, I need to help out. Zach will do it. Zach will revive him- I can't rely on that! So many people are dead, and Zach will have to focus on civilians first. That's- That's so… Ashido saw those terrified eyes of Trabo's when he looked into the dead ones only seconds before the eyes would merge together into one set of dead ones. She saw those terrified eyes in the moments before he died, trying to push away from himself as she tried the same…

Her head shook around and she hyperventilated even worse while picking up his body and getting even more of his blood on her. "It'll be alright, somehow. It will," she whispered into his ear as she moved him around and then got him up onto her shoulder in a way easier for her to carry. "I'm sorry," she whispered even softer. "I'm sorry I let you die. I'm sorry, Trabo."

---

"Get him, out of, here," Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu's voice came out hoarse to the girl behind him who could barely make out the words he was saying. He was facing away from the girl who had her arms on either side of an older man who appeared like he was barely breathing and could not move on his own. Tetsutetsu hated having to tell her this, but he could barely keep his arms up any longer either and knew that this villain would get past him any second now.

"I can't," Princess Aya whispered. "I… I won't leave you, either," she tried to make her voice stronger and called out at the teenage boy who was the only thing standing between her and Makani Taizo. "Stop it, Taizo!" She yelled as the villain pulled back his right fist and swung it down at Tetsutetsu who brought his crossed arms up higher to cover his face and protect from the next punch.

Steel shards ripped from Tetsutetsu's forearms. Sparks flew away from the boy who planted his heels down harder to not skid all the way back into the girl behind him who leaned back herself as he came closer to her. She felt the wind blowing past her sides, and she caught a glimpse of the side of Tetsutetsu's face and the pain covering it as he bit down harder and planted his heels down hard enough to stop skidding a few feet in front of her. Tetsutetsu re-covered his forearms in Steel before Taizo's next punch, but his armor was even weaker this time and the cracking sounds came from more than the buckling steel as the force cracked bones in his arms.

"Taizo! Stop-" Aya started leaning back forward and getting in front of Toyo whose eye was only barely open to watch his charge foolishly move closer to the out-of-control villain. Taizo's eyes were pure white now and looked like they had rolled back or something. His body was larger than ever and towered twice the size of Tetsutetsu who he leaned over and continued punching down at.

Aya reached a hand up towards Tetsutetsu's back but froze right as she started shouting out and trying to intervene. "Don't! Princess!" Tetsutetsu yelled. His eyes squinted shut and he covered himself in Steel over and over as fast as he could while Taizo continued slamming punches into him. His heels that dug into the ground pushed even harder into the dirt of the courtyard and more wind blew back from the backs of those legs as Tetsutetsu planted them as hard as he could. "You just stay where you are!" He found the strength to yell at her even as his body was getting beaten brutally. His eyes were blackened and swollen making it hard to see the insane face of the villain still punching down into him. Tetsutetsu's legs stomped harder into the floor and he stopped feeling the pain as adrenaline rushed through his whole body. "I'm here, to protect you. I'm fine- I will not, let him, touch you!"

Taizo's mouth opened huge as those words reached his ears too. Both arms bulged and the monster roared down into Tetsutetsu's face, "RROOOAAAA!" Taizo lifted those fists and slammed down both of them at Tetsutetsu's shoulders.

"Now! Help your friend!" Blackstar yelled at the redhead who just decked Anchor towards him so that Blackstar could finish him off. They left the leader of the Cazzo Chargers down on the ground bloodied like dozens of other Jazz villains inside the Palace walls. Blackstar had a few more cuts on him now than when he arrived and sneak-attacked Duke Dread though, and Kirishima looked like a mess after tanking all of Dread's earlier attacks. Anchor's defeat created a short gap as the villains who decided to stay and fight had gotten cocky when they saw some of their comrades hurt the Army of Death arrival, and at the sight of the slowness of Kirishima who had been stumbling around all bloody and still hard-of-hearing from Dread's musical blows.

Blackstar had seen Tetsutetsu stop fighting back against the enemy he was most wary of since arriving. He needed Kirishima's help too, but he also saw the redhead from Zach's class glancing over and watching Tetsutetsu's struggle with a desire to help his friend. And Blackstar saw and heard Tetsutetsu too. With Anchor down, he had a moment's reprieve from the Jazz's onslaught, and he told Kirishima to help Tetsutetsu rather than make a plan with that boy to fight the rest of the 25 villains still facing him. Protecting the Princess is the priority here. That other kid knows it, but even though he's unable to fight back anymore, he doesn't sound worried. He gave us the time we needed. Held off for long enough that Red Riot's seen something. I can tell. He's got a better chance one-on-one with that Taizo, than I do against the rest. But… they don't know that.

"I can handle these guys on my own," Blackstar added in a cocky tone after telling Kirishima to run over to where dust just blew up into the air from Taizo's last double-fisted punch down into Tetsutetsu that smashed him into a crater.

"Real Steel!" Aya screamed behind the edge of the crater her hero just got smashed down into.

Tetsutetsu felt bones break in both shoulders on that last attack that buckled his legs as well. He was flat on his back inside of the dust that blew up all around him. And yet at the sound of Princess Aya's voice, his eyes opened back up in surprise at her shout of his hero name. I can't let her down! NOT NOW! Tetsutetsu's fists opened up, and he opened his mouth to scream in agony. Don't let her hear you! Tetsutetsu bit back down hard. Then he moved his arms while in incredible amounts of pain to curl his fingers into the ground. Every part of him wanted to stop moving. He was bloody and had more broken bones than he could count, and yet he started pushing down on the ground at his sides…

Tetsutetsu's eyes widened as he stared up through the dust at a huge pair of fists rising up again above him. "No!" A shadow passed between his body and the monster's. Tetsutetsu's hands stopped pushing down on the floor on either side of him. Both arms snapped up and wrapped around the sides of the girl who just dove over him. Makani Taizo's rage had blinded him, and the villain did not seem to process the scream or the sight of who just dove in the way of his attack.

Toyo gasped out in fear for the girl he had loved like a daughter for her whole life. He was barely holding onto consciousness and could not use his Quirk no matter how hard he tried though. His hand just reached for the girl who Tetsutetsu threw his arms around. There was no Steel on his arms as he wrapped up the girl who he knew he would hurt with his Quirk otherwise. He just grabbed her as she was still falling on top of him, and the hero tried to protect the princess who was protecting him right back.

Taizo's huge fists flinched while he swung them down. His rolled-back pure white eyes shook but grew larger as the swing was interrupted by what he was seeing. The villain punching his fists down looked past the side of Aya's head. A hand was on the back of her head and going through her long orange hair, just as the boy's other arm was on her mid-back where Aya's hair fell past too. Tetsutetsu's hand on her head pulled closer to him though, past his own right shoulder while the trembling girl in his arms opened her eyes wide at the switch again of who was protecting who. She knew even as she dove on top of him that Taizo might not stop, and she was still terrified that she was about to die until she felt that hold stronger and more comforting than anything she'd felt before. Tetsutetsu was glaring straight up past the side of the girl's head that was just to his right so his right temple was touching hers. His eyes glared in such fury at Taizo… and the villain stopped.

Processing that the Princess was there came second. Aya's face was pointed down at the floor so Taizo did not connect the flash of orange hair getting in his way to be her for a few moments. It was the look in Tetsutetsu's eyes though that he was already glaring down at that had changed as this girl dove on him. It was a look Taizo had seen before. He can't, care as much as I- Taizo's fists shook at the sheer ridiculousness of that. Then he realized who else he was swinging down at, and his head pulled back more, I almost-

"HAAA!" Taizo spun his head while still in shock. His fists were uncurling in a momentary pause of his rampage, and he did not curl them fast enough while he spun to his left at the figure who just charged into his peripheral vision and knew he was going to be seen anyway. Kirishima did not hold back his roar before diving off the ground with both Hardened arms outstretched. Kirishima Hardened his head too. He tackled Taizo away from the two who Kirishima rushed to save but thought he was going to be too late to protect when he saw Taizo start swinging his arms down.

Tetsutetsu's strong look broke the second Kirishima tackled Taizo away. His arms loosened slightly on the Princess he was holding so close, but he did not let go completely even as his consciousness was fading. She even struggled a bit in his arms to move from the position she was stuck in, only to freeze as she heard his voice whisper to her in a semi-conscious voice, "It's alright, Princess. Trust, my buddy, Kirishima." His arms that had loosened a little steadied around the girl's back and stayed there to keep her from doing something else stupid like how she just dove on top of him to try to save his life. He appreciated the thought, but he meant what he told her too as he trusted Kirishima enough to believe that Aya would only get in the way of a hero at work if she tried to interfere again.

Kirishima landed on top of Taizo, but the larger villain rolled with him and then threw Kirishima off of him and twelve feet up into the air. Kirishima flipped over in the air and Hardened his whole body as he dropped back down. Dust rose up around his landing point on one knee with his right fist punched down into the ground. Spikes of his Hardened hair had been broken off. Blood dripped from the various cuts that Duke Dread had ripped through him. Despite all those injuries, Kirishima rose up steadily and to legs that did not shake as he stared down a villain with a harsher gaze than he ever used even against other villains. I've seen him fight. He's winded from the others. I need to do this.

Blackstar saw out the corner of his eyes the close rescue he facilitated by letting Kirishima run off. He could not focus on it at all though, as he was under constant attack from all sides. Kree-Gee had backpedaled away from him as fast as he was running towards her which forced him to change targets from the long-ranged Jazz villain giving him a lot of trouble. Three other villains with stronger close-ranged Quirks had gotten between him and her, allowing her to shove her head back towards the floor so her long purple tongue could pierce through and burrow underground again.

Blackstar was on the lookout on all sides of him for which villains were trying to get close, or attack from afar, but he had under a second to react each time so far when he saw the ground start to open up above the sharp end of Kree-Gee's tongue. Her comrades knew to distract him more at these moments too, and the last two times he had been sliced across the back of his left leg in his calf, and grazed in his right arm that he had pushed down on to get back up from the floor after a roll away from a green explosion.

She's going to lead me. Need to make it out that I'm being cautious of these three, as well as the cannons aiming at me right now. Rembrance is still a huge threat. He's organizing the rest from a distance though and his Quirk's less efficient from thirty meters. He's darting his eyes towards the kid though, and I can't let Red Riot get interrupted here. If he falls against Taizo I'm fucked. I need to take down Kree-Gee now to draw him in with the other long-rangers watching my fighting style. Don't change styles yet though. Change it up once they get a "grasp" on my move-set and move in. For now, defeat Kree-Gee just by the skin of your teeth. You can do it. I really hope, I've got this.

Blackstar tried to take in a deep breath, but he had to dive forward to dodge a speedy villain who rushed at his back in the moment he planted his feet. He was acting like he was only dodging that villain behind him too, and that melee-focused enemy slashed towards Blackstar's back and growled as Blackstar dove forward rather than try blocking him. The villain had a sidearm hidden behind his back that he was going to whip forward and fire from point blank into the Death soldier when the man blocked against him with his Alloy ability.

Rodney Black was not just dodging the man behind him though who he glanced sideways at right as he dodged. A flash of green light went off and the melee villain pulled back then crossed his arms and leaned left as the explosion went off a few meters past where Blackstar had just been standing. It passed through empty space and hit the ground nearby, drawing the attention of the other close-ranged fighters there who yelled out about that proximity attack they would not just take sitting down from another Jazz member as they had with Dread's splash attacks. Chance! Blackstar was getting back up, but he slid his right hand fast to the left.

It looked as if he had all his pressure down on that one hand while his left was starting to transform into an Alloy weapon. The curving blade that was forming down on his left side was really holding him up though, even as Blackstar tilted his whole body to make it look as if he was leaning on his right hand. He was able to slide his right hand away fast then as he felt the vibrations under his palm telling him how close Kree-Gee's tongue was to piercing through it.

He popped up off his left arm-blade while kicking off the ground from the angle he was at that made it look like his knees might be on the floor still. He was up and sprinting forward with his body leaned forward in the same moment that Kree-Gee shot her tongue up through the ground at such speeds that the momentum actually yanked her head down closer to the floor. That made it so much harder for her to rip her tongue back out of the ground as quickly, and distracted villains in front of her jumped back as they spun and saw Blackstar sprinting at them. He slashed out but missed the melee fighters which annoyed him, but the distraction of the green explosion had made those villains cautious enough to jump back when they realized that their enemy was abusing the chance.

Blue light shot towards Blackstar the instant he hit Kree-Gee and slashed across the front of her reeling body with his left arm-blade. Blackstar ducked his head as he had already been watching Rembrance out the corner of his eyes and pretended not to notice that Rembrance was going to attack him in the moment he took down Kree-Gee. He ducked down and allowed the blue light to fly past him in an angle to hit the one ally of Kree-Gee who had sprinted towards Blackstar's right side without hesitating like the others near him. That villain screamed out in pain while Blackstar himself lifted his head and brought his gaze straight to Rembrance across the courtyard.

Rembrance stared in surprise and then full focus as he turned his body and ordered the others with him to focus on Blackstar completely too. "Let Taizo deal with the rest. We'll kill him first," Rembrance ordered everyone.

It was Blackstar's designed result. Yet he only felt dread and had to hold back a gulp as more villains looking his way actually focused on him rather than searching for a moment to go kill Toyo for revenge, or to take the Princess hostage and force an end to their opponents' struggles. A lot of the villains not looking towards Aya in order to avoid angering Taizo were still focused on her more than anything as she was likely the most valuable hostage in the city, and getting her away from her protectors would be a great way to move up the ranks of the Jazz or even the League. These ambitious and clever villains who Duke Dread brought with him all glared towards a member of the Army of Death whose Quirk they had gotten a good grasp of at this point.

"Heh," Blackstar chuckled and cracked his neck to either side in a cocky way. "Reminds me of Saudi Arabia." His smirk grew and he leaned his head towards Rembrance who he licked his lips at in a bloodthirsty way. The confidence was not really there, but none of them needed to know that. "And just like the Demons I faced that day, I don't think any of you are going to make it to the post-battle trials." Blackstar's right arm turned into a blade again to match his left arm's that was coated in blood. "Unless you surrender now, that is," Blackstar added to give them a choice.

He was encircled by twenty-three villains who all organized this time to get him and him alone. Some had split their focus when Kirishima ran off for Taizo, and they only avoided attacking the redhead right away because he had slammed into their comrade and drew Taizo's attention and wrath. Now they only had one target though for the two dozen of them. Blackstar made a few of them gulp. They had some sweat dripping down their faces too. But most were still smirking back at him. A couple laughed at the audacity of the man to order them to surrender when they had the upper hand. Japanese villains were shielded from the horrors we put the rest of the world's villains through. They don't fear us as much because our rumors didn't spread here like they did everywhere else. That sucks. Blackstar watched as his attempt to intimidate them did not work as well as he had hoped, but at the least it kept them cautious and focused on him and him alone. That was what really mattered.

I've got them all focused on me at least… which is so going to get me killed. If Red Riot can win over there soon though, maybe they'll all be scared and flee after the loss of their strongest fighter. Blackstar had to hold onto some hope, even though a piece of him suddenly remembered the last time he had gone up against this many villains on his own, and died. He stayed optimistic though, because he caught a glimpse of the redhead who screamed out at Taizo and attacked with seemingly the same move-set that Tetsutetsu had attempted on the villain only minutes before to a complete failure. Do it, kid.

Aya had moved herself around in Tetsutetsu's arms to put her back to the boy below her who was unable to sit up anymore. His broken arms could not hold her as tightly as he wanted to, and she was shocked that she had felt such a strong grasp at all as she moved his arms and actually felt broken bones through them that made her wince at the feeling of. She tried to stop moving and just turned enough so she could look off to their lefts and where Kirishima was facing off against Taizo. "He can't do this," Aya whispered. Tetsutetsu's right arm moved slightly behind her back. She moved her right hand to his and squeezed it to assure him she had not run off, as she was not sure he could see her through his squinted and swollen eyes. His arm movement was to keep her there as her worried tone concerned the hero holding her back.

She glanced back at Tetsutetsu's busted face then towards Kirishima again. "Someone with a long-ranged Quirk would be better suited. Or, or a mental ability… If you couldn't stop him," Aya whispered with her lips pursing afterwards in fear as she had already seen how this fight turns out. Kirishima rushed at Taizo and slammed his right fist upwards into Taizo's stomach, and Taizo matched his punch by slamming his own right fist down at the top of Kirishima's head.

Kirishima's Hardening made his fist sharper too. The punch was jagged and hit skin just below where Taizo's skin was already ripped, opening that wound a little more and tearing even more skin below. Taizo did not flinch though as the punch slammed into his gut. Taizo's right fist hit Kirishima's head just below where a spike of his Hardened hair had been broken off before. At the top of his forehead on the left side, landing directly on Hardened blood that scabbed manually thanks to Kirishima's Quirk, Taizo's fist collided and snapped Kirishima's head to the side. Kirishima's head turned right, but it jolted to a stop after the sharp spin that direction. "I didn't feel a thing," Kirishima growled while turning back towards the man he pulled his fist away from.

Kirishima's left arm swung forward this time in a hook around Taizo's right side. Makani Taizo snarled and slammed his left fist down lower this time, hitting Kirishima just below his chin at the top of his chest. Taizo swung his right fist back in too at the side of Kirishima's face that had turned back towards him, snapping it the other direction this time. Kirishima's head spun left but not as far as it had spun to the right on Taizo's last punch. His feet skid slightly backwards from the punch in his chest, but he dug them in and extended his arms farther as he landed a punch into Taizo's right side and then uppercut with his right fist.

Kirishima landed a blow under Taizo's chin that the villain pushed forward while extending his own arm farther after skidding Kirishima back a step. The uppercut knocked his head up and allowed Kirishima to stomp back forwards farther than he had been at the start of the exchange, and he pulled his left fist all the way back then swung forward into the lower part of Taizo's stomach. The villain who just leaned backwards after the uppercut, hunched his whole body forward as Kirishima's fist dug into his stomach and pushed him backwards this time with a farther skid on his heels than Kirishima had from the punch in his chest seconds before.

Aya's eyes were growing wider as she stared at the hero and villain fighting like this only a few feet from her. "Ah haa, ahh, haahhh," Taizo was panting as he stood back up straight and stomped forward to get closer to Kirishima after skidding. Kirishima saw his right leg start tensing and flexing in a way indicating that he was taking that step, and Kirishima stepped to his left and forward to close the gap towards Taizo who only just started moving that leg. Taizo twisted his body as Kirishima was moving onto his right side more, but Kirishima was already punching forwards as his right stepped just to the side of where Taizo's right foot stepped down. Kirishima's right arm made a big swing forward, and Taizo punched his own left arm down… and Kirishima's left fist slammed into Taizo's right side again as his right was only a feint with half of his strength in it.

Taizo bit down in pain as Kirishima's fist dug into his ribs just past his right arm that he was swinging forward at that same moment. He continued his punch and forced even more strength into it through the pain he felt. His eyes darted towards Princess Aya for a split second then in rage back at the boy in front of her as Aya had turned back to check on Tetsutetsu and Toyo in that moment. Taizo's eyes squinted as he punched faster and faster, his body flexing and a deep growl coming out of his throat. "RrrrrrRR- HA!" Taizo saw a moment and slammed his left foot up into a kick in Kirishima's left side that the boy just left open by punching that left arm again into an opening that Taizo purposely left open.

Kirishima continued punching his left arm, though it became a bit less hard as he landed the blow before Taizo's foot connected. The villain felt the normal punch hit him without tearing as much of his skin. Taizo's eyes darted to Kirishima's left side as his leg connected. He bit down in more pain and held back from screaming, even as the front of his leg tore up on the collision that shook Kirishima but did not move him from his place. Wind blew away from the collision of his leg with the teenager, but that incredible force did not move Kirishima from his position. Kirishima leaned away from the kick digging into his side, but he smirked as the look of pain on Taizo's face was more than he felt himself.

"Unbreakable…" Kirishima snarled. His whole body did not look insanely hard and jagged though. His Unbreakable focused solely on the area of his body that he focused his Hardening in. The force of Taizo's kick was gone now too, and Kirishima returned the Hardening into its strongest form directly on his left fist that he started pulling back from his enemy's body. He did not pull it back far though, twisting his body and swinging across the front of the villain who tried punching his left arm down as he was lowering his kick. Kirishima dodged the swing while screaming out, "PUNCH!" He slammed his fist in the hardest Hardening that he could manage into the inside of Taizo's left arm, just on the inside of Taizo's elbow that bent outwards more and caused the villain to roar out in pain again.

Kirishima leaned away as Taizo stomped forward and punched his right arm down at the top of his head again. He changed up where his Unbreakable was again and focused it in his hair where Taizo's right fist ripped on collision. Kirishima's chin still dipped as his head snapped down, for a second. Then he snapped it right back up and went for a left handed uppercut. He swung his right fist again, and his left, and Taizo started punching both of his arms faster and faster too as he saw how the boy was changing where his Unbreakable was focused. Taizo's mind was almost blinded by rage at the sight in his peripherals, but he understood Kirishima's Quirk well enough when he did not feel the same pain from that earlier punch as Kirishima focused on defense instead.

MORE… SPEED! Taizo sped up and his flurry of blows went faster and faster. His feet dug down into the ground, and Kirishima bit down harder and planted his feet down as well while speeding up himself.

Tetsutetsu had him beat in skill! He's durable though. More-so than us. Kirishima had learned from his friend's failure. Even as he started a flurry of traded blows like Aya had seen Tetsutetsu and Taizo share back when Taizo was smaller than he was now, something was different that even the girl not trained in combat could see. Kirishima re-administered his hardest Hardening only in the specific points that Taizo's fists were flying towards just as they were about to happen. Watch him! Every movement! Kirishima's eyes darted around at Taizo's arms, his legs, and the villain's facial expressions and eyes. Where Taizo was looking. What thoughts Kirishima predicted he was making. He focused on all of it and attacked precisely as he judged exactly where his strongest Hardening was necessary.

The flurry of blows sped up even more. Kirishima mis-guessed a few instances, keeping Unbreakable on his fists longer than he should have as Taizo was speeding up faster than he predicted. Blood splashed off of Kirishima from cracks in his armor. Earlier wounds against Dread opened more, while Taizo bloodied worse and worse from Kirishima's attacks too. "HAAAAAAA!" Kirishima leaned his body forward and punched harder and harder into Taizo's stomach, chest, arms, and chin. He landed heavy blow after heavy blow, and then something started to shift as Taizo's speed peaked and was faster than Red Riot was hitting back…

Fewer of Taizo's hits started landing. Aya was watching again as was the boy next to her who stared towards his friend without any jealousy, only admiration, as Tetsutetsu's belief paid off just as he knew it would. "Unbreaking- PUNCH!" Kirishima jumped up right after landing that blow this time he knew would make Taizo hunch forward. He leapt up in the air and brought his left elbow up, looking like he was going to hit it into Taizo's face that had thus-far been protected due to his height advantage. Taizo's eyes rose up after that elbow, and both of his arms started to raise to try and defend against it or fight back- Taizo's eyes bulged at the sight of Kirishima's left arm looking like a normal arm with no jagged edges at all.

"UNBREAKING KNEE!" Kirishima screamed while slamming his hardest right leg up under Taizo's chin.

He knocked back the villain who stumbled several feet away but managed to stay up on his feet. Kirishima ran forward when he landed down though. He sprinted at Taizo and slammed his right fist forward, meeting Taizo's right fist that hesitated just as it was about to collide with the teen's. "RAAAA!" Kirishima yelled at the villain whose hesitation he witnessed. Taizo's knuckles were already so bloody and broken that the villain paused and lost all of his strength as he thought about how badly his fist would get busted up by it. Kirishima did not slow his punch though, and it only resulted in Taizo's arm getting buckled due to that faltering resolve.

Kirishima punched through his enemy's counter and then slammed his Hardening forehead into Taizo's chest as the villain protected against another punch from Kirishima's other side. His moves came one after the other and pushed back the villain even farther. Taizo was stepping backwards even as he tried attacking back just as fast as he was before. Kirishima did not switch his Unbreakable off of his left fist this time as Taizo punched his right arm down towards Kirishima's face and the upper left side of Kirishima's torso. He just leaned to his right and ducked down a bit, letting the fist fly past him instead of changing his Unbreakable's position and decreasing the power of his next blow that he screamed out while slamming it into Taizo's stomach and knocking him back even farther.

Taizo quickly went from landing fewer blows, to landing no blows at all as Kirishima twisted his body left and right and dodged the telegraphed attacks that were full of speed and power but were too easy for the trained hero to predict. Taizo was gasping for breath and stumbling away with more bloody wounds all over his body than ever. His bones were creaking and his eyes shaking as he watched the red-haired hero march towards him in an unwavering way that made it out as if none of his injuries were affecting him at all.

Kirishima could feel all of his wounds. Every noise around him was still muffled by a dull ringing. He felt weaker than usual, and his own stomps towards Taizo were slower than he would like to keep up with him and follow-up on attacks. He made his marching and stomps forward look deliberate though. As he snarled at Taizo in a way that he could not remember ever doing to a villain before, Kirishima watched as it worked in making Taizo more afraid and confused and nervous about the unfazed hero standing strong despite all his wounds.

I remember how Zach fights. Every single movement is intentional. Kirishima bared his teeth but curled the corners of his lips up right before speeding up his sprint to close the distance to Taizo to even closer than arm's reach. He looked like he was preparing his left arm for a punch, but as he got that close he just grabbed his left arm by the elbow using his right, then he slammed his left elbow into Taizo's gut as the villain wrapped both arms around him for a bear hug. Taizo gasped out in pain as Kirishima dug his Unbreaking Elbow deep just under the villain's sternum. I saw Tetsutetsu's fight with this guy even while dealing with my own. Only because I needed to be watching out for the Princess, but I'm glad I did. I saw how he fights. It's only because I saw your fight, Real Steel! That I'm able to take this guy on right now.

I adjusted how I needed to fight him. Kirishima ducked down as Taizo swung both arms in faster to grab him even after flinching in pain from that heavy blow that took the wind out of him. Kirishima saw Taizo recovering though and avoided the grab, then he slammed his right leg forward into Taizo's left shin and Hardened it just before they connected. Zach keeps everything in view at all times. I have to do the same. I am doing the same! Taking down Taizo will break the Jazz's morale. I need to do this for more reasons than one. Zach never fights with just one thing in mind. It's always ALL on his mind!

I will fight, Kirishima stood back up straight just out of arm's reach of the villain who fell down to one knee and was now eye-level with him after Kirishima's last kick. Kirishima was panting but he stared in surprise for a moment at the villain whose strength he had gotten a good grasp on before even starting this fight. The clash had been going so well that it shocked even him. With more strength than I knew I had, as a stronger hero than I believed that I was! Kirishima thought in a way hyping himself up even more as he stared darkly into the eyes of a powerful villain he had brought down to a knee. A stronger hero who I've become thanks to my friend, Kirishima's teeth clenched harder.

He desperately wanted to believe that that friend was alive like Blackstar said. In his head he pictured that explosion above Karebo though and he was not too sure about it himself. I can only hope, Kirishima reminded himself. He took in a deep breath as Taizo staggered back up onto his feet from the position on one knee that looked too guarded when Taizo was not trying to stand but just defending against a follow-up attack. Kirishima did not change his expression to show he was glad that Taizo got back up, even though the damage on Taizo's lower left leg was causing the villain's leg to shake uncontrollably. And fight, just like Zach would.

Because if it was Zach, he'd always find a way to win! I've never seen it. Not once in my whole life. I've never seen him lose. The hope that Kirishima grasped onto grew in size in his chest as he reminded himself of that. He ran at Taizo who tried planting his feet harder on the ground to make a better defense and take his enemy on. He could see behind Kirishima towards the girl kneeling between him and the injured behind her whose eyes Taizo again remembered even as Kirishima bore down on him. Taizo was distracted. The villain whose thoughts were all jumbled, flinched from the pain in his fractured shin that he was standing on. He's full of openings, Kirishima thought while baring his teeth even harder and drawing out as much strength as he could for this next attack.

The hope that swelled in Kirishima came from a collection of thoughts that all flooded into his mind at once. The initial combat training in their first week of school where Zach showed off his martial arts skills for the first time without using his Quirk. He saw the first Sports Festival and watched as Zach knocked Shinso out with a single blow, and then he pictured Zach giving up before his next fight so he never actually lost in a fight. And the next year, he imagined it as Zach fought against Shoji who he was disappointed Zach was going up against, because it meant that their semifinal bout was probably not going to happen even though the two had promised to meet each other that year and fight it out. Zach did not lose that fight to all of their amazement even without using his Quirk. And even after suffering a fatal blow later that day, Kirishima remembered the smile on his friend's face after they had defeated Inhuman. The look of victory on Zach's face that they had managed to defeat Inhuman before Zach finally allowed himself to fall.

I cannot lose here. Kirishima charged at Taizo. He ran at his enemy and darted his eyes to the twitching right fist of the villain who was leaning more on that side too. Kirishima's next step moved more to his right, onto Taizo's left but not all the way on that side. He just approached from in front of Taizo and on his left side. Taizo slid his left foot back while twisting his body to punch his right arm across the front of his body, and Kirishima stepped farther to Taizo's left on his next step so he was coming up on Taizo's left now. The villain had to pick up his right foot and stomp in towards Kirishima in order to still have all the force he needed in this next punch, and Kirishima braced as he saw Taizo put all his weight on his left foot without that leg collapsing as he hoped it would.

Taizo's right fist flew at him as the villain stomped just in front of Kirishima who turned his right fist Unbreakable in that same moment and punched forward into Taizo's twisting chest. He hit Taizo first as the villain had to twist and swing his arm more across his body than Kirishima's closer jab. The boy's punch connected and then Taizo felt the sharpness of the hand go away against his own ripped torso. His own swing again lost strength, only for him to feel a normal skull when he collided with the boy who winced but smirked nonetheless as his gamble paid off. Kirishima's pre-Hardened left fist was swinging in much harder than his right just did, and he dug it into Taizo's right side aimed at the villain's kidney.

"Agh-" Taizo could not make out a louder yell as he felt the excruciating pain in his side from that blow. Both the force and the hardness of the hit made him stagger back again. Kirishima stepped forward with every step he took back though. Taizo punched his right fist down but it was slower as he stumbled when stepping onto his left foot he tried to brace, blood pouring down from his left shin. Kirishima ducked under the punch and then snapped his head up with it Hardened, ripping into the bottom of Taizo's arm while creating an opening on his side again as Kirishima pulled back his own left fist and slammed it in again at the same spot he just hit.

Taizo spun himself to not get hit in the same area at the last second. Twisting while using his left foot to pivot dropped him back on a knee though, and Kirishima landed his punch in the villain's left armpit. Taizo leaned back on the hit while swinging his left arm across his body to force Kirishima back for a second. Kirishima sidestepped farther to Taizo's left side, and around the villain who twisted on his one foot and a knee to keep Kirishima in front of him. Now that he was down on a knee though, Kirishima had an easier target as he darted to his left then jabbed at Taizo's face on his eye-level again. Taizo was hit square in the nose and knocked backwards.

The villain fell on his back and then rolled over and clawed the ground. His sharpened nails dug through the floor below him. His feet pushed down harder and he groaned through the pain but got onto both hands and both feet. His head snapped up with a furious snarl across it, and then his face pulled back and sweat covered it at the sight of the bloodied figure in front of him looking more confident than anyone Taizo had ever come up against. The right corner of Kirishima's lips curled up as he stomped his right foot forward. Taizo yanked his whole body away. For a second, Taizo saw someone else standing in front of him. Someone who mention of earlier had even shaken him from his rage. It was something Kirishima had subconsciously noted when Blackstar scared all the villains before; Taizo was as afraid as they were. He was afraid of the person that he could see now as Kirishima stepped forward with no sign of his injuries affecting him even after all Duke Dread had done to him.

Kirishima imagined himself there too in that moment. He pictured himself in Wampajawa stepping forward right next to his friend who he had wished took him along on that crusade. He saw his friend next to him with his face half-ripped off and all sorts of injuries that he ignored, because he had not won yet. Kirishima heard Zach's roars in that city as he stomped forward and all those around him stepped towards the Capos and their army too. Even in those hopeless circumstances, Kirishima had seen strength and confidence that had led to victory. And as he stood in a courtyard full of dead Royal Guards, his only fellow hero down at his back, and dozens of other villains ganging up on his sole ally… Kirishima had never felt more confident in the coming victory.

He was already close to Taizo when Taizo rose his head up. The moment of fear and hesitation that the villain felt upon seeing Kirishima's face was more than the teenager needed, planting that last foot he stepped forward down twice as hard and then kicking his other leg up and into Taizo's face. The villain tried to pull away. His feet were angled on the ground though to keep him on all fours, and he had to move his hands back first before moving his feet, but only by moving all four could he avoid the kick in the face that sent him scrambling backwards and falling to knees and elbows.

Taizo dove to his left as his eyes squinted open and he saw the redhead dropping down towards him. A blue light glowed in the corner of Kirishima's eyes, but he ignored Rembrance and attacked after Taizo who tried getting back up again and swung a claw-full of dirt up at the boy who sprinted through it and ignored the dirt he got in his eyes. The fact that Taizo swung dirt like that meant he was losing confidence in his own punches and kicks, which made sense as Taizo's hands were soaked in his own blood from bashing Tetsutetsu and Kirishima for so long.

As strong as he was, he was going up against two of the most durable heroes in the city. And Kirishima was hurting him. Taizo stepped back rather than counter as Kirishima was right on him again. A flurry of punches landing everywhere Taizo did not move his arms to block. Wherever he moved his arms, the fists landed just behind them and in spots where they were just guarding. His speed was being overcome, as Kirishima stepped towards him with every step that Taizo backed up. Blood splashed from Taizo's face, from his chest, his legs, his fists! Kirishima stomped between Taizo's knees and grabbed the villain by his face. He held it in place to keep the man from pulling back this time, while Taizo's eyes grew huge at the sight of the enraged teen in front of him who pulled his other arm as far back as he could.

Kirishima's right fist balled behind him and shook as he planted his feet as hard as he could on the ground just in front of Taizo. "Grit your teeth, villain," Kirishima snarled through his own bared teeth he clenched hard in preparation for the vibration he was about to feel. He completely ignored the other villains who got worried in the past few seconds while looking over that Taizo was about to lose, because those who had changed their attentions to him like Rembrance were quickly attacked by their other enemy who knew he just needed to hold them off for a little longer. Kirishima did not worry about being attacked from behind. He trusted all those who Zach told him about in his army, even without knowing any of them. He pulled his left hand closer to himself but let go of Taizo's face as he swung his right fist forward.

Taizo gasped out for breath as Kirishima moved his hand. His arms that were rising for his face to move Kirishima's left hand and free his mouth and the openings of his nostrils that had been blocked, flinched as the villain considered swinging those arms out instead to push Kirishima away. He was too unsure of the next move to make. And a fist connected with his face and knocked half of his teeth out in a single blow.

His rage and raw fighting power had been enough to take down several Royal Guards while Duke Dread was leading the Jazz forces. While the Royal Guards had to focus on several powerful enemies and a large robot that amplified the villain leader's power, Taizo was the enemy tank who could draw their attention and open them up for murder from those other villains. Taizo had yet to realize therefore, just how inexperienced he was. When his moves stopped hitting Kirishima, and when he got too afraid to attack with all his strength in fear that on the hits he actually connected he was doing more damage to himself than his enemy, the fight had already been lost. Kirishima's right fist to Taizo's head with all his power was just the finishing blow on a villain who could only take so much damage no matter how durable he was.

Taizo fell backwards from his knees to his back. "Baby…" As he was falling out of consciousness he heard a voice. "It's okay- ack, unngghh… Listen, baby. You need, to hide, my body…" Taizo could see a woman in his hazy vision even though his eyes had rolled far back into his head. He saw the woman he had lashed out at, and he could see her blood all over the floor and over his arms. He saw the look on her face though as she gasped out more blood on the floor where she lay. Makani Taizo could see the fear on her face, but he saw eyes that had been plaguing him for the latter half of this fight. It was the fear he saw in her eyes. "…because, bad people will try to hurt you if- if they find out what you did…" Taizo could see how scared she was for him. He saw the look in her eyes wanting nothing more than to protect him even then.

The look he saw in her eyes that day as he stepped back in horror from the dying woman on the living room floor, was the same look that made him hesitate before. He saw Tetsutetsu when his hand wrapped around Aya's head and pulled it down to protect her. Tetsutetsu's eyes had glared up at him while protecting the girl with that same look that showed Taizo he was not "tricking" Aya at all. They looked… Taizo's thoughts were fading away with everything else. He had been more hesitant than ever in that final clash though. He was unable to just push through all fears and focus on his rage or his desire for Aya above all else. If Tetsutetsu's look in that moment was the same as his mother's, then why was it that Toyo had looked at him in that same way? That man he had focused so much of his undying hatred towards over this past decade… Was I, wrong?

The back of Taizo's head hit the ground and stopped the villain from thinking anything else as he got completely knocked out. Kirishima panted heavily while staring down at the motionless enemy before him. Makani was not getting up. Kirishima took in a deep breath then coughed it out, but he took in another and let it out calmer this time. He turned his head to his right. Kirishima glared towards villains who had stopped what they were doing, but now several of them backed away from the older enemy who was back on his feet even after being knocked down himself a few seconds ago and had as many injuries as Kirishima who just now noticed how badly Blackstar had been getting damaged during his final clash with Taizo.

Blackstar was panting himself but forced up a smirk as he saw Taizo in the corner of his eyes. The hero next to their biggest threat's collapsed form was already looking his way and at the enemies he definitely needed help against. He had been unable to take many of them down, though some of the villains also sported wounds he gave them. His face just under his right eye was slashed though and that eye swollen closed with a lot of blood pouring down his face. More of his hair was gone now than just from the bald spots left during battles in Frunoco and Tibet.

The former Special Forces soldier chuckled to himself at the sight of a fallen Taizo next to Red Riot. That hero turned his bloody face in their direction and made the villains look back at him in fear which confirmed what Blackstar was thinking. His right hand moved up towards his head. Blackstar put his hand to his ear while smirking more at the demoralized Jazz in front of him. "We don't need reinforcements," Blackstar said to no one. The man pretending to be a normal civilian of Japan dropped the facade altogether as his eyes got a crazy look in them.

Aya was staring in disbelief at Kirishima since she watched her childhood monster fall. She turned towards that secret Army of Death soldier though as the man spoke to someone through a communications device in his ear. "I'm sure," Blackstar added with another chuckle and bigger smirk. "No, we have this handled." His hand moved down from his ear and he laughed as he said it, taunting his enemies who got even angrier, though even more afraid as well that the AoD apparently had reinforcements to give.

Even if they defeated this anti-hero, they might still have other enemies to fight afterwards in their current state? The Jazz glanced around at each other, then back at Blackstar and over at Kirishima. The group started to split their focus and turn towards one or the other based on who they thought their Quirks would work best against. Blackstar did not lose his smirk, but he really wished that this group would have started fighting each other about running away. Dread had brought some of his best with him to the Palace though.

"They're almost down," Ounuo Piliki hissed.

"Remember. Neither of them are Sazaki. They'll die with a few more hits," Rembrance told his men who he knew were afraid of these two, because he was too.

The villains all nodded their heads. They were serious. Every one of them was as focused as could be. Blackstar had taken down Duke Dread and Kirishima had defeated Taizo, but both were seriously injured. There was reason to be afraid but also reason to be hopeful.

"Take it carefully."

"They're both close-rangers."

"Kill them and we'll grab the Princess."

"We've got this."

"Call your reinforcements!" Aya yelled towards the man who just "told" his allies that he did not need any. She looked back at Toyo and then down at Tetsutetsu and exclaimed towards Blackstar, "And an ambulance! Right now!" She yelled it at the man who sweatdropped then just sprinted forward at enemies in front of him who started lifting grins at the Princess's shouts. He did not respond to her. The instant his enemies became the least bit smug about their chances again, Blackstar wiped those expressions from their faces. And Kirishima yelled out while pulling his elbows in to his sides and charging ahead as well.

Blackstar rose his left arm though without turning it into Alloy this time. He was still ten meters from the closest enemy who just called him and Kirishima both 'close-rangers.' That enemy was backpedaling while aiming his own medium-ranged Quirk towards this enemy, and that man fell over in fright and surprise as Blackstar's left palm glowed bright blue. The steel prosthetic glowed blue at the palm, and the villains in front of him yelled out in panic and dove for cover as he fired a blast at them…

---

Pew-pew-pew

FFwwwt! CRASH!

PEW- BANG!

Aoyama Yuga flew backwards and landed on the balls of his feet. He skid backwards down the pavement of the main Tokyo street he was fighting alone on. Smoke came from his costume after that last big beam he fired out that exploded just in front of his enemy who he was darting his eyes around for. Aoyama's eyes snapped to both buildings on his sides he predicted the villain might bounce over to and use as a launching point to attack him again. His gaze snapped back to the smoke though as something came flying through it. Pew- Aoyama cut off his Navel Laser early as he saw his target was just a chunk of concrete from a broken sidewalk.

He twisted his body while swinging his left arm out to his side. Energy pulsed through his costume from his bellybutton into the left sleeve of his super suit. A small circular panel on his palm as well as one on his left shoulder fired out beams that took more out of him due to the transfer than ones he fired straight from his bellybutton. The fight had been going on for a long time now too, and Yuga felt his stomach lurch just from the move he made to avoid the villain with rabbit ears sticking out of his short spiky red hair.

Rabbit landed down in the spot Aoyama was just in. His head turned after the hero who lifted into the air and just out of range of his legs which was clear as Rabbit only pressed his hands down on the floor upon landing and extended both legs up after the hero. The kicks were close but did not touch the hero flying away. Aoyama fired out beams from both legs and nearly did a split in the air while he twisted around faster. He left leg rose up after the three-sixty spin, a blur of sparkling light around it right before the beam that fired out the bottom to raise it up that fast, doubled in intensity out the top to kick it down at the villain who bent his arms then bounced backwards just before Aoyama's kick flew through the space he was just crouched.

Aoyama did a front flip as he put so much downwards force into that kick. He was high enough off the ground that his leg did not collide with pavement which would have hurt him a lot, and instead he did a front-flip and then fired his Navel Laser again from its main projection point to blast himself up into the air. Rabbit had just dug his strong legs into the floor before kicking them towards Aoyama, and a hail of pavement ripped from the street and flew just below the boy, ripping up in the downwards-aimed beam that hit the street and the projectiles passing over it.

The battle was ripping up the street they were on. Aoyama was trying to be careful of the buildings on either side of him that still had civilians inside. This street had been overrun with villains earlier before most people could start evacuating to the nearby evacuation center advertised by the loud speakers on the flying U.A. robots. People inside the buildings were scared. They were hiding until the street was clear, and Aoyama wished he could call out confidently to all the people he'd seen watching that they should make for that evac center. His enemy was too agile though. Even when he thought he had a great angle for one of his beams, Rabbit's maneuverability was proving a difficult match for his Quirk. His Quirk's speed was impressive, but the glow that preceded his attacks showed Rabbit which of the firing points Aoyama was using and allowed the villain to react and evade too quickly even with under a second between the glow and the actual shot.

Aoyama landed back on the street and twisted his torso to the right and fired into Rabbit's path. The villain hopped in what looked like a light extension of his legs, but that small of a movement still lifted the villain twelve feet off the ground and easily above the beam. The white light traveled in his path that his sprinting momentum continued him forward through but a good eight feet above due to his hop. Rabbit flew at the wall of a skyscraper and screams shouted out from inside as Aoyama started twisting after him even more and tilting his body back to fire the beam higher. He had to cut it off just before the beam would have hit Rabbit, as his diagonal angle from the middle of the road still would hit the building behind the villain even if he aimed just off of it where Rabbit's legs were bending.

He needed to cut it off too to restart the timer for how long he could keep the beam going, as he was about to be charged by that villain whose legs bent so much farther than the previous light hop that still sent him flying at the building. Rabbit extended his legs and shot like a missile straight at Aoyama. His right fist balled and started to punch forward- Bang Bang! Aoyama's eyes bulged but he reacted in time and fired out beams from his right arm rather than just jumping out of the way as he started to do when it just looked like Rabbit was coming in for a punch. He wanted their distance to remain closer so that there would be less time between when he started firing a beam and when it could hit his enemy as a counter to Rabbit's agility. The hero was not expecting Rabbit to suddenly pull out a pistol and fire into the position that Aoyama was dodging into though.

Rabbit had blood trickling down his face from his forehead where FlyGuy had smashed through his visor with an earlier headbutt. He left that hero with a bullet hole in his head back inside the same building he had just bounced off of to try and kill this younger hero-in-training. Aoyama just barely dodged the shots and flew away with a trail of smoke coming out of his arm from how hot he fired that larger beam to get out of the way. A trench of burnt street tore towards an alley behind Rabbit who glanced back at it to see how badly the street was ripped up in that attack. It doesn't matter that he's a kid. He's a hero. He made his choice, and that attack is too dangerous. I'm stopping him here. Damn, Class A.

Rabbit turned his head straight back towards Aoyama and glared darkly at the teenager. His left hand tightened harder around his pistol that he had just missed the student with, even though he knew that he had caught the teen off guard when he suddenly whipped it out. "Damn hero," Rabbit growled under his breath. He bit down then rose his voice louder, "I wish it didn't have to be this way, Aoyama Yuga. You know? If you state right now in a clear, loud voice: 'I renounce my hero license,' (provisional as it may be), '…and I abandon this rotten hero society!' Then, I'll let you live. How about it, kid?"

Aoyama fired a Navel Laser at the villain who bounced backwards and did two backflips away before kicking out his legs above him so hard that he bounced off the air and down into the street on all fours. PEW! Another beam passed above him as he bounced off the air to the floor. His eyes glared up under his spiky pink bangs, and he said with a small frown, "That was your one chance for mercy."

"I watched the Koimou Massacre like everyone else," Aoyama started. His voice was softer and higher-pitched than his enemy's. He narrowed his gaze at the villain who did not look that much older than him. His expression darkened just as Rabbit's did, and he said in an intense tone back at the villain, "What mercy?"

Rabbit's glare got darker still at the intense tone Aoyama took that replaced some of the teenager's look of anxiety and fear that Rabbit had witnessed in their clashes. "That's definitely the look of a hero," Rabbit said. He tssked and curled his fists tighter, the gun in his left shaking in anger at the look of a self-righteous hero glaring back at him. "So you're right. My offer for mercy is rescinded. You heroes don't care enough to show us mercy, so why should I?"

"You think you're the only ones fighting for something worthwhile?" Rabbit called out in anger at that younger man whose expression of righteousness appeared too condescending because it meant that the kid honestly thought that he was good and his enemy was evil. Rabbit rose his voice louder, "What does a kid like you know?! The heroes you look up to are the real villains. Heroes just perpetuate the…"

I've been scared all my life, Aoyama stopped paying much attention to his enemy who began ranting in the middle of their fight. He briefly considered that Rabbit was catching his breath after that last dodge, but his own stomach hurt too much from firing off a second shot too early in order to try and catch Rabbit off-guard in mid-backflips, which had failed. All it seemed to do was piss Rabbit off more and maybe make the villain think that Aoyama was stronger and had better hold of his Quirk than the teenager knew he had anymore as his gut kept lurching in pain even after the beams finished. It was tough to focus on what Rabbit was saying over the pain in his own stomach, mixed with his own frustrated thoughts of how he had been unable to assist his friends at Heroally by getting caught up here. Yet most frustrating of all was his hesitation to keep attacking that he could not tell himself with confidence was only because of the pain in his gut, and not because of the fear of how close those bullets just got to killing him.

Every time it's just up to me, Aoyama thought. When there are other heroes around I can do it. I can fight with a team. I can, try, at least. Assist the pros around me. Carry out my role in a plan that someone else put together. I want to be the star of the show! But, whenever I have the chance, I flop. My performance is a disaster. And- and people get hurt!

Aoyama could hear the screams of fear from the citizens of Tokyo around him. Smoke rose from buildings in all directions. Roars and explosions filled the air. And in all that chaos here he was fighting an enemy who was trying to kill him for some misguided reasoning that Aoyama did not have the confidence to try and talk him out of. He wanted to say something heroic and cut off this villain's rant about his "justifiable" reasons for taking part in this act of terrorism. Nothing came to mind though. His mouth felt dry and he wished he had water to drink right now. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his lips twisted as he feared the man in front of him who he had to take down or he was going to be killed. Every time, Aoyama thought again.

It was fear he recognized. A feeling that filled him that had filled him so many times that he hated it as it surged inside him again. I was too afraid to step out when Zach and Dabi were walking by. Twice and Ganeshi too! It was 3 on 2, even if I did… I did nothing then to stop him from going, even though he stopped Dabi from coming for me. And even though I did nothing then, I didn't help the others at Camino Ward. Aoyama wished his legs to stop shaking. He grit his teeth behind his twisting lips and forced a stronger look than he felt, imagining all this regret and using it to suppress his fear with what was as strong of an emotion to him.

That regret started getting even stronger than the fear though as he added more on top, I was too afraid at VTS to act! I let Zach be taken away to be tortured. My lasers are fast enough that it should have been me. Not Midoriya. I shout have been the one to stop that Nomu, but I hesitated and it cost Zach everything! Aoyama's teeth bit down harder and the pain in his stomach started to hurt less than the pain in his heart. I was so scared at the Sports Festival when those villains Triggered in front of me that I couldn't even go to an internship afterwards. I had 50 offers, but after the SFI I was too afraid to go. I was proud to get them and ashamed to have to decline.

Mother Russia talked down to us the whole week we underwent her intense training too. I thought, I regretted not going back then. I wished I had just taken an offer- but when Kaminari betrayed us, I couldn't get up with the others as quickly when they talked about chasing him down. I could, barely rise my head to watch Zach bring Tsuyu back to life. I wasn't dazzling after that. I had dimmed so much. I was so scared. He lost his mind while he saved her, and I was too afraid of how hysterically Zach had laughed that day that I didn't try to talk to him over the next couple of weeks. I wanted to let Zach "cool down," or so I told myself. Then all I could do was sit there and watch as my friend killed villains in front of me. And I did nothing. All those times, I did nothing.

Aoyama's feet planted down harder on the ground and he glared harder at the villain who rose his voice louder while yelling at this hero seemingly not moved at all by his horrible past and unswayed by his motivations for becoming a villain. Aoyama's lips parted and his teeth bared harder at Rabbit, as he reminded himself with even more regret that pushed aside the last lingering remnants of fear holding him back, And when Zach came back too! He came back to U.A., and Zach talked to me first. I spoke to him back and wanted to be a better friend- a better hero to someone who's always needed one. But there were so many other, better heroes by Zach's side who I thought could help him more than me.

I saw him fighting Raijin. He's alive. But, I still just stood there. Again. I just stood there and watched him explode! I tried to defend him when he called out about Toga, like the rest of the class, but would I have if I didn't see the others start trying to defend him? I still failed! That's not even what matters. I failed, and I failed even more because I believed it even for a second when I first saw him on those steps. Not again though. Never again. He's never afraid- Or even when he is, and he has so much more reason than anyone to be scared… Even when he is, he fights anyway. Fear never holds him back.

So I won't let it stop me… ANYMORE!

"…when heroes arrest villains like that, people praise them. They call their actions so heroic even though the heroes just hand their prisoners off to be taken to jails for villains. After that, it's not their problem anymore is it? The heroes don't care once they've taken down the villain. What happens to them after is of no concern to you! Is it?! If you took me down here, you wouldn't even follow up on it and see what happens to me. No hero does," Rabbit's red eyebrows narrowed down over his enraged eyes that Aoyama refocused on while opening his mouth to yell confidently back at this villain.

Rabbit's furious eyes flinched though right before Aoyama could yell at him. "And, why should they care? It's not the job of you heroes to run this nation's prisons… You know what it's like in most of those villain prisons?" Rabbit wondered to the teenager who actually focused on what he was saying for a moment and hesitated more as Rabbit glared at him so personally affected by something. "And my 'villainous' father who was just trying to support me on his own, he was thrown in with the rest. Labeled a 'villain' for using his Quirk while he stole. And once you're a villain, who cares what happens to you?"

Rabbit's teeth ground and his jaw locked harder. He yelled at the blond teen in front of him, "And when prison riots happen, the guards are so well-protected. The prisons have a lot of failsafes to make sure the guards are protected, but the prisoners? The ones trapped inside with the killers and insane, because they're all just 'villains' together?!" Rabbit yelled at the teen who furled his lip and tried to push aside his pity even as he realized where this villain was going with his emotional speech that he had heard all of even if he had tuned out for most of it. "No one cares when a riot kills a few prisoners. And the hero who threw him in there, never even cared."

"Stopping my father, that hero took his life. Just because it wasn't his 'job' to care what happened to him afterwards." Rabbit's left index finger rested on the trigger of his pistol he would fire without doubt on the next time he aimed it at Can't Stop Twinkling. "And there's something the League doesn't know. I never told them, but the hero who threw my father in prison, the one who led me down this life of crime..." Rabbit snapped his head forward and yelled out, "It was All Might!"

Aoyama tried very hard not to sweatdrop at the "reveal" which did not surprise him very much. All Might stopped a lot of villains, Aoyama thought. If I was Zach I'd probably make fun of him for that. But, if I was Zach, I'd also… Aoyama pictured his friend in the scenes that Gentle had showed them all from after Wampajawa was finished. I'd also, make sure the systems in place don't have these kinds of flaws, right? He said it's about stopping villains, but what does that really mean? This isn't the time to think about it! Aoyama reminded himself of that important fact as he saw Rabbit's legs start to bend, and his whole body started to glow as well as he had recharged his Navel Laser.

"Rapid-Fire Bursts!" Aoyama stuck his stomach out with his hands interlocking behind his head. He thrusted his pelvis towards the enemy who bounced to his left then the right, darting back and forth but hopping closer and closer to Aoyama with each bounce as well. Rabbit looked more like a blur of red as his legs pressed twice as far down instead of bouncing him away to dodge Aoyama's next beam. That was the final beam Aoyama wanted to use to force Rabbit into a position he would get an easier hit on him from close range where he would stop missing by just enough to keep Rabbit on the offensive. Rabbit ducked though instead of dodging one last time, and that duck meant that his legs were pressed down so much harder that his release sent him in a blur straight at the teenager who cut-off his own twist he started in order to fire in the position he planned on putting Rabbit in.

Aoyama was quick to react though. His knees glowed bright white as he twisted his legs back before the rest of his body could follow. Rabbit was swinging his right hand forward to punch the boy in his face, while his left was still farther off the side of his body as he had feigned going the direction Aoyama wanted him to even in his last moment of crouching instead of making it appear only as if he was coming from the front as he did. Aoyama's kneecaps exploded with light though and fired out a pair of beams that he forced his Quirk to the limit to fire that quickly from an exterior portion of his costume not around the main condenser.

The beams forced Rabbit to swing his legs up in the air rather than plant them right in front of Aoyama to get all the force into this swing. The villain swung his legs back and kept his momentum into the teenager who he tackled with Aoyama's knee beams cutting off. Aoyama's stomach glowed brightly, and Rabbit rolled to the left and swung the boy out of his arms and into the wall of the building on that side. Aoyama hit his back and gasped out, but he fired in front of him while his eyes bulged huge seeing Rabbit pointing a pistol straight at his chest. Bang Bang- "OW!" Rabbit flailed his left arm out and released the smoking and broken gun hit by the beam.

Aoyama fell down to his right knee and grabbed at his pulsing stomach in pain. He was staring at the sidewalk in shock. Adrenaline continued coursing through him though as he ignored Rabbit's pained shouts. I intercepted the bullets, Aoyama thought in disbelief. The beam of light had burned through the bullets, one of them only inches from his chest before the tiny particulate flew through the back end of the beam and speckled his shiny costume with ash. He could see on his costume that bullet particulate of the one that was milliseconds away from hitting him.

Can't Stop Twinkling snapped his head up and kicked off of his right leg to speed up. What am I doing?! Aoyama thought. He did not know if he was yelling at himself for staying down on one knee in fear, or if he was yelling at himself for sprinting at this enemy who nearly just killed him. He did not slow down though and yelled out when Rabbit spun and saw the teen already sprinting back at him, "POINT BLANK- FLASH!" Aoyama changed the type of attack as Rabbit moved in for an attack rather than try to dodge away at the sound of the start of Aoyama's shout. If Rabbit managed to avoid the beam from this close, the stronger close-ranged fighter might get him in a position where his Lasers could not do anything.

Aoyama had taken notes from another of his classmates though. The stomach focal point of his costume glowed so much brighter white than usual, and it was as if a flash grenade went off with the glass panel even shattering as Aoyama forced his beam as wide as possible. Rabbit stopped sidestepping to try to get around the kid, pulling both hands up in front of his face to protect from the bright white light that covered Aoyama's entire body. The teenager could not get another attack off so soon after firing that one, but Rabbit was blinded and Yuga was not giving up the opportunity while the villain was so close to him.

Aoyama sprinted forward at the man whose arms were guarding his face from the light. Aoyama leapt up in the air and he kneed forward with all his might in his right leg. The teen's knee slammed into Rabbit's body in his solar plexus and knocked the villain off his feet and to his back. Aoyama landed and dropped to his own right knee again, gasping out in exhaustion and pain from how hard he had just been smashed into a building a minute ago. His Quirk felt drained and was recovering slower than ever after all its usage. He lifted his head and then pushed down on the ground at his sides and struggled onto both feet again.

Rabbit had rolled himself over and was spitting up on the floor under his face. The villain curled his blackened left fist into the ground and then punched his right into the street that he extended his arm off of. Rabbit lifted his bloody face and glared furiously towards the teenager who stared back down at him and got into a martial arts stance. "Maybe you have a point," Aoyama told the man as soon as he saw that enraged look staring back at him. Rabbit ground his teeth and struggled harder to get up to one foot and then another again so he could face this teenager in a similar exhausted state as himself. His expression did not change at the words coming out of Yuga's mouth though.

"I, really never thought about that stuff before," Aoyama admitted. His own tired look started to shift. He stopped panting before Rabbit could do the same. Aoyama stood up straighter and his dazzling cape flapped behind him in a sudden wind that flew by the two and made Aoyama's blond hair wave around as well. He stared firmly towards the villain whose face distorted in anger at the perceived condescending voice of a hero. "Maybe it's something we should focus more on, and I'm sorry that I never even considered it… and I promise you, that after this battle and when you're in prison for the rest of your life, I won't forget about you."

"I won't forget what you said," Aoyama assured the villain he glared at even harsher despite sounding like he sympathized with the man on some level. Aoyama's gaze was angry as well though and he sternly spoke down to the man who pursed his lips and pulled his head back at the words, "But you're hurting innocent people. You've hurt so many. Whatever your reasons, you're just another villain. And I'm going to defeat you!"

Zach made sure that his victory actually meant something, Aoyama remembered his friend again after the battle over Wampajawa had finished. Arresting Rabbit won't mean anything if in doing so I create another villain just like him in the future. I have to do something different. Be better! Even if that work's not as flashy, it's just as important- more important! Because it's what the hero I look up to the most does.

---

"Nnn- uggh… ack- Ahh!" Dendo groaned and writhed on the floor when he tried moving his left arm instinctually to get off of the glowing section of street he was on.

He slammed his right arm into the ground next to him even while yelling out in pain. His mess of a left arm could barely move in the ripped-up state it was in, but Dendo's right fist was enough to Slice through the Grid section below him and prevent the large explosion that would have come. His eyes had slammed shut in the pain of trying to move his left arm though, and he only noticed the glow after it was getting brighter, too close to when it was going off for him to cancel it out completely. The ground still puffed out a smaller green flash that burnt his knees and toes and his right fist.

His back was all torn up and his costume ripped apart down his sleeves. His flight mechanisms were all disconnected and the pack on his back was destroyed by earlier blasts. Both of his legs were blackened and bloody. Dendo Takashi pushed down harder on his burning right knuckles to try and stand despite the agony he was in, and then his eyes darted down to his chest and some fabric that still covered it. A square of glowing green light pulsed on his body, reminding the teenager that he had been Scanned as well and that Genial only made the street below him glow in order to torment him and the girl who just sprinted at their enemy.

Himazuri darted her eyes back towards Dendo as she saw him look down at his chest and the glowing square on it. "I thought I told you not to move?" Genial wondered at her female opponent, right before Dendo blew backwards off his feet with a green explosion going off on his chest. Genial's glowing blue eyes dimmed again and she turned to the brunette girl who froze in place and was panting in terror and an ever rising panic as she tried to come up with a plan. The explosion on the street below Dendo made Himazuri stop hesitating, but the explosion that went off on Dendo's own chest made her freeze again in fear that Genial might have Scanned all of Dendo's internal organs as well and could blow her friend up at any time if she was not careful.

"Hold on, Dendo. Just keep fighting. Are you-" Fine. I'm, fine. Fuck that hurts. It's wet. I feel it dripping down- I'm fine, Himazuri! Dying- No I'm not. Fuck my thoughts. Dendo wished he had a better grasp on not letting his thoughts slip to the girl in his head. He wanted to give her confidence, but he felt his skin tear through on that blast that made his chest feel like it was on fire. Blood was pouring down from his sternum over his exposed torso as he got back up to one foot again.

He can't take much more. She's pulling out the device! I CAN'T LET HER SCAN ME TOO! Himazuri knew that without a doubt. She did not want to risk Dendo getting killed, but she could not give up on the fight either as Genial would kill the two of them even if she did surrender. She had heard that much inside the villainess' head that Genial also knew. Genial was not trying to convince Himazuri to stand down. She was not threatening the girl with what she would do to Dendo if Himazuri did not surrender, because she knew the girl was in her head and any surrender would certainly be a fake due to the knowledge they both had. That did not mean that tormenting Dendo had no utility though, as Genial wanted the heroine before her to believe that there was hope for her to save her classmate even when there was none.

Genial laughed at that desperate look on Himazuri's panicking face. Burns covered the villain's body after she had exploded the ground directly below her earlier when Himazuri had had her pinned. Her short-cropped red hair was singed and missing in most areas around her scalp. Her laughter matched the unhinged expression different from the collected and calm one the villain had fought them with at first. Her thoughts were no longer misdirecting Himazuri. Her clever persona had been pushed aside by the more sadistic woman Himazuri and Dendo were seeing now. Liberation Army? Liberators? Re-Destro really thinks I care about his stupid crusade. You want to know why I'm really with him? Why I really followed such a clearly deluded psychopath?

Because I knew a man like him would never be satisfied until he had his revolution. He would let me loose on a city of unsuspecting victims. Little girl, I'm just here to kill you. That's all I want to do right now! Genial laughed harder at the look in Himazuri's huge eyes showing the girl was reading every thought in her head. But first, I want you to watch your friend DIE!

The insane supervillain in front of Himazuri laughed harder while her eyes flashed bright blue again. Dendo's right arm that he was using to push himself up again started to glow green. It glowed a dark green color like Dendo's hair, and that glow was getting brighter as his arm was about to explode. Himazuri was about to spin towards him when she saw that glow out the corner of her eyes. She wanted to stop Genial and already took one step. Her turning head and her moving legs all froze. Himazuri flinched and her wide eyes shook as she heard the thoughts of the other person on the street besides Genial.

Himazuri sprinted at Genial who spun back solely on the girl and snapped up a blade as her gun had run out of ammo. She slashed at the teenage girl who ducked down and darted to the left to try and use her taser on Genial's left side. Boom! Another explosion went off behind Himazuri and made the girl flinch in pain and bite down so hard in regret. Genial smirked more and laughed mockingly at the girl whose friend's second arm she just destroyed.

Himazuri had to dart to her left again as Genial spun while slashing at the girl a second time faster than Himazuri could jab her taser forwards herself. Himazuri leapt backwards then dove to her right and rolled out of the way as Genial sprinted towards her and tried stomping down on Himazuri's left leg to snap it in half. Genial spun after the girl and pulled her right arm back with the short sword pulling back with it. She swung forward to release the blade-

Swwwshh!

Genial stumbled forward and collapsed down to her right knee. She coughed and turned her shaking head in pain to look behind her. "What?" She gasped out in an agonized and hoarse voice at the sight of the figure behind her shrouded in fading green smoke. "How?" She sneered, her eyes focusing on Dendo's right arm that was trembling in front of him with smoke coming off of it. His left mangled mess of an arm was dangling on his side clearly out of commission. She had used the same amount of power on the right arm though that should have left it in the same state as the left.

Himazuri had intentionally darted around Genial to get Dendo into the woman's blind spot though. Himazuri sprinted forward and slammed her taser forward, only for Genial to punch into the taser that went off into her right knuckles so it electrocuted her but still broke the taser and two bones in Himazuri's right hand. The girl stumbled backwards while grabbing at her right hand and failing to hold back a yelp of pain from that blow. Genial gasped out again and turned her head once more to look back at Dendo who she almost did not spin away from in time to knock back Himazuri. She was careful this time and focused back on that boy who pulled his right arm back slowly to get off another attack with Slicer as Genial feared he would.

She struggled to move. Genial dove to her left and avoided the Slice Dendo slashed down towards her that ripped up the road between them. Enough of the smoke had faded from Dendo's right arm that Genial could see it now. She could see the burns that were not nearly as bad as what she had done to his left arm but were still pretty damaging. Yet on top of the burn damage, there was more damage that Genial had not caused herself. Her eyes bulged and her hands slipped and failed to get a good grasp on the floor for another reason than just because they were still shaking from the shock damage of the taser. Blood was pouring down Dendo's arm from a bite mark on his upper bicep that looked to take a chunk of flesh out of him.

In the moment that Dendo had left Genial's view, he did the only thing that had been effective at diluting the power of Genial's Grid explosions thus far in the fight. Dendo had managed to cancel others out by Slicing through the Grids and breaking the surface of whatever Genial had Scanned. So since his right arm had been Scanned, there was only one way to cancel out her Quirk's power. Dendo had bit into his own right arm and tore away from it with all his strength, weakening the power of the following explosion and allowing him the continued use of that arm. And now Genial had a deep gash going diagonally across her back from her left shoulder down to the lower right side of her ribcage.

Genial's hands fumbled on the ground as she tried to get a grip and push herself up. He strengthened body from the experimentation had not been enough to protect her from Slicer. Blood poured down her back to add to all the damage from the horrible self-inflicted burns all over her body. She was electrocuted and in constant agony. But she pushed her fists down harder and sneered towards Dendo, "You're dead-"

"You aren't the only one with a backup." Genial heard the voice coming from right behind her. Panic skyrocketed in the woman who realized what Himazuri meant by that after she had thought the same thing earlier before pulling out a second Scanner. There was only one thing that Himazuri could be talking about, and that was the taser that Genial had just smashed into pieces and made her a lot less cautious of the girl she was turning away from. Genial spun herself back around, but Himazuri was not there.

In my head- Genial did not know which direction the girl was attacking from. Himazuri's taunt had come from directly behind her, but that was just a taunt that Genial realized was thought into her mind seemingly from behind her head. Sound was processed mentally. And Himazuri's Quirk influenced where Genial thought the voice was coming from, and Genial barely saw the flash of movement in the left corner of her eyes after she had turned her head the other direction so Himazuri had been moving with her turn to remain in her blindspot. Dendo recognized the movements that he watched through blurry vision as his classmate darted masterfully around Genial's side then stuck her second taser into Genial's neck, and slid her thumb up the side of it to maximize the voltage output.

Genial's body spasmed out with her eyes rolling back and smoke coming off her whole form. She twitched for a few seconds after Himazuri pulled back her taser… and then she collapsed forward onto her face, unmoving.

Dendo fell forward a moment after seeing that Genial was not going to be getting up. His right arm moved a bit to try and catch himself, but it had taken the last of his strength to attack using such a badly damaged arm in the first place. Without the adrenaline of knowing he had to keep fighting coursing through him, he could not even catch himself to avoid falling flat on his face. "Oof," he muttered as he hit his forehead hard and scraped the tip of his nose on pavement.

Himazuri lifted her head and looked towards Dendo who she stepped towards. She glanced back at Genial to see if the smart villain was just trying to trick her, but the evil woman's head was blank of conscious thought. Himazuri knew for sure that it was not a trick and that she was able to run to her friend now to check on him. Genial was not her only concern however, and Himazuri's eyes snapped to the sky as she saw two metal figures rounding a bend two streets over and eight stories off the ground. The AANTs did not appear damaged and were flying in such a way that it unnerved the girl wondering what they were doing. If they aren't in the middle of fighting anyone, maybe they were called to a specific fight right now so they'll ignore me. Or maybe they just finished off whoever they were fighting and are moving on to whatever their closest next targets are. I need to get us off the street!

The girl reached down and grabbed onto Genial by the woman's shirt that was holding together as it was made of some powerful material that only got badly damaged in their fight instead of completely destroyed. Himazuri reached into the slashed open area on Genial's back and dragged her with as she ran to Dendo and struggled more to get a grasp on his costume. "I'm sorry, Dendo," Himazuri gasped at her friend who groaned as she moved him and made all of his extremities scream out in pain.

Dendo held back any further noises of pain as he heard Himazuri whispering quickly to him about getting them off the street. "…We're in no way capable of fighting them as we are now. The worst case is they take us down and get Genial back. Where? Where- there!" Himazuri scanned the nearby buildings and located one that did not have steel plating nor any civilians hiding inside of it. Can't risk any civilians if they've already locked on our position.

"Ah-" Dendo cut his voice off not wanting to make Himazuri feel guilty.

She already winced a second before though as she saw his completely limp right arm bump on a chunk of ground without him reacting. It was only when his badly destroyed legs did the same that he yelped in pain though. "Just a little farther," she begged him, groaning herself as she dragged two larger bodies than her own. She brought them towards the building she kicked the door open to. Then she dropped Genial unceremoniously on the floor and more carefully dragged Dendo around the inside of the store's display window where there was a short wall to lean him up against.

Made it, inside. We're off, the street now… Fuck, I can't feel my arm. And, and I can't move my legs, Dendo's almost-closed eyes squinted open a bit more. They shifted down towards his legs laying out in front of him. He grimaced deeper at the blurry sight of them that cleared a bit as he tried to focus on his injuries. Well, fuck- "…Dendo! Hey! Are your ears hurt?!" Huh? I don't think so-

"…can't you hear me then?! Dendo! Listen to me!"

Dendo's eyes rose up from his legs and slightly to his left where the girl on her knees was doing emergency first aid on his left arm that had the most open wounds on it as anywhere on his body. She bit the end of a bandage she was wrapping around and tore the rest of the roll off, then she got to tying it tightly to stop the bleeding while continuing to speak loudly straight at his face that only now finally focused on her. "Hey! Hey," Himazuri lowered her voice again as she had risen it too loudly when they were supposed to be hiding. She knew she was in no state to be able to fight powerful robots whose minds she could not even read, without the powerful muscle of her partner.

Her eyes darted up and over Dendo's head to look through the display window out onto a deserted street, still empty for now. Himazuri brought her gaze back to her classmate whose other wounds she had to tend to, and she winced at the faraway look in his eyes as he looked at her. "None of your vital areas took much damage," Himazuri assured the boy who she could not tell if he was listening by the way he continued to stare blankly at her. His chest only had a shallow wound in the middle of it over his sternum but she could see it was mostly just burned and not bleeding as badly as some other areas. She leaned closer and made sure he could read her lips too as she continued, "You've lost some blood, but it shouldn't be too bad. I've stopped the bleeding in this arm but… The internal bleeding in your legs is more severe though and, and I don't know- I don't know how to fix that! I'm going to try and cut off the blood flow to your legs. I know it's dangerous, but, but I'm not sure what else to do. They're swelling up…"

Himazuri was panting as she spoke quickly to her friend who was not responding to a thing she said. She shook her head and looked back down at his legs that were worse off than she initially thought back on the road when she was more focused on his arms. Her gaze switched to his bitten right arm and she shook her head but scampered around his body on her hands and knees to get on that side of him. I can fix this one first. I know how to deal- it's so deep! Himazuri pulled her head back for a second at the look of the inside of the flesh wound on Dendo's right arm. She shook her head and glanced back up at his face again, "You're crazy, you know that? How did you even think of doing something so stupid?" She smiled even as she scolded him for the idiotic plan he had thought at her a couple minutes ago. "Biting through your own arm… It was an amazing plan. I don't think I could have broken the skin. To be able to do something like that, you really are, you're so, crazy…" Amazing.

Himazuri froze while trying to patch up the bite wound on Dendo's right arm. As she held back from telling Dendo he was amazing out loud, she heard him in front of her even though she saw that his mouth had not moved in the corner of her vision. Confusion flashed over her face and her hands stopped moving on his arm for a moment as she heard his thoughts. …Why can't I? Oh yeah, my arms aren't working. Damn it. I wanted… That would have been, a good moment- before I… Oh man. Is she listening? Her face is red. It's cute- agh. She saw what I was picturing- Is she listening-

Himazuri froze when she heard Dendo think about how he failed at moving a hand up behind her head. She wondered why he would want to do that, and her cheeks got more and more red with her eyes pointing farther down to evade his gaze as he could see her expression too well and realized she was listening to his thoughts about wanting to pull her down to kiss her. He was getting more embarrassed himself even with his hazy mind as Himazuri failed to hide that she had heard it all-

Dendo's eyes shot open wider than they had been for several minutes as Himazuri quickly rose her head and leaned forward. She pecked him on the lips, then she pulled her head back and looked back at the injury she continued working on. She smiled wide and had tears in her eyes as she got back to working on his wounds. "You're not going to die here, Dendo. I'm going to fix your injuries right up." Her face lifted and she looked him in the eyes with a bright smile. "We're going to make it through this."

---

"Oh fuck this," Mineta stumbled backwards and spun his head to his friend on his left side who gulped but did not back up anymore like he did. "S-Sero! We should, get someone-"

"Might not be anyone else still around here who can fight," Sero responded to his scared friend who pulled his head back in fear but stopped stepping away from the enemy ahead of them. "For real though," Sero continued even as he smiled in a false confident way. He let out a half laugh at a higher pitch than usual, before wondering, "Where the Hell were they hiding this guy away all day? You'd think, if he was out since the start, that someone else would have dealt with him already, right?"

Mineta gulped again as he realized that they could not run away from this fight. "Didn't, this guy fight Bakugo and Todoroki together? And even they couldn't…"

"BLOOOOOOD!"

Mineta winced and pulled his face back from The Death Row Inmate who looked different from the last time they had seen him on the news. He was not wearing a straight-jacket, but they recognized his Quirk that had him lifted twenty feet off the ground by giant denticles protruding from his mouth. The villain with the Blade-Tooth Quirk had scars all over his body looking like his skin had been patched together with different colored skin patterns all over his naked body. His mouth was unhinged and stretched the width of his face with no straps holding it open, rather his face itself looked to have been peeled of most of the skin below his eyes to surgically enlarge the gap for his teeth blades to emerge from.

The walls on either side of the street they were on had been well-patched by steel barricades the Intel-Ants of U.A. had brought to the fight. The students knew that Principal Nezu would not have wasted materials where they were not needed too, which meant that the buildings on either side of Moonfish most likely had large numbers of civilians cowering inside them. The blades coming out of Moonfish's mouth scratched the walls on their sides, proving to be stronger than the steel plating as they shredded through and peeled strips of metal away just by Moonfish moving down the street towards his fleeing targets who stopped evading shortly after spotting him.

The secret weapon Dice recently released onto the city no longer had much sentient thought at all. He was already deranged beyond being able to function in normal society, or in any villain group that had to constantly restrain him or risk losing too many of their members to the bloodlust of the psychopathic mass-murderer. A "step away from a Nomu" Dice had called him when showing him off to Shigaraki Tomura who Moonfish still recognized as his leader to take orders from. And Shigaraki had reminded him to follow Dice's commands. And Dice had just instructed him to hunt down the Class A students whose faces had been drilled into his head through constant repetition and mental training over the past year.

The bald-headed twisted villain with half his face removed curled his gums up in a way almost resembling a smile. His Blade Teeth retracted somewhat to lower him closer to the ground, only four of them remaining out and imbedded into the street as he recognized the targets he was chasing too who he had initially just chased after to cut them up. As they stopped to actually face him instead of just run as was their natural instinct that flooded through them at the sight of this monster, Moonfish appeared to see them for who they were too. "You're- Class A-" Moonfish cocked his head to the right. "GIVE… ME… YOUR…"

"FLESH!" Ten more long blades flew out of Moonfish's mouth and down the street towards the teenagers who really wished that anyone else had been there to take this villain on. The insane villain extended two of his elongated teeth off the ground behind him to push his body forward which doubled the speed that most of the blades shooting from his mouth approached the teenagers.

The extending speed from Moonfish's mouth added to the speed at which the villain attacked them was faster than anything the two had to deal with before today. They had come from fighting Raijin earlier in this battle though, and speed was something the two had already prepared for and had been ready for quick maneuvering in closer quarters of the inside of a building.

Neither of the teens said a word to each other as they dodged Moonfish's first strikes. The long razor-like teeth flew by their sides as the two maneuvered away using their Quirks. Mineta grabbed off the top of his head as fast as he could and threw without needing to think about where he was tossing them. He needed more in the field of play. He could figure out how to best utilize them while moving; what mattered most was moving at that moment. His muscle memory alone was enough to fling the first Pop Offs ahead of him but down at the floor close so his initial jump away had him landing on purple Pop Offs while he was already pulling more from his head. His feet landed on the sticky balls and pushed down on them, then they bounced him up in the air higher than the first of the long sharp blades that flew straight through the air over those Pop Offs where he had just pressed down.

He bounced higher in the air and flung his next two Pop Offs at the pair of long Blade Teeth flying at him in his higher position now. The Pop Offs hit the ends of the razor teeth but did not slow them down any. They continued flying straight at Mineta Minoru who accepted that he was going to be hit but at least threw his next two Pop Offs while getting slammed in the chest by the Blade Teeth. He flung Pop Offs towards the walls close to him where two other Blade Teeth were extending towards as the villain just slashed some of those dangerous weapons around haphazardly. Mineta was hit in the chest by the two razors that flew into him at eighty miles per hour.

He winced but kept track of the other two appendage blades he tried to protect civilians from. They hit into his Pop Offs that he flung with precision accuracy directly into their paths and stopped the buildings on either side of the street from being pierced. He also avoided getting pierced through the chest himself as the two elongating Blade Teeth just pushed softly into his body because of the barrier of his Pop Off balls stuck to the ends that were not sliced through but rather protected him on the collision and acted like a trampoline to send him flying back down the road.

Mineta bounced one way while the blades that hit him rebounded away as well. They each recoiled from hitting the kid in midair whose body naturally repelled his own Quirk. Mineta flew far back down the road but was glad that he had jumped up high before that collision as it gave him more time before a second collision with something hard like the street below him. He was moving so fast through the air that his eyes snapped up from the ground he was arcing down towards, realizing that he was going to hit the building all the way down the block before he hit the floor beneath him. The first Pop Offs he grabbed from his head he still flicked down at the ground below him as he soared over the street, more Blade Teeth chasing after him now along with those first two that snapped out of their recoil then extended twice as fast after him.

Mineta pulled off a second pair of Pop Offs that he held out in front of his flying body and pressed into the wall of the building he was about to reach. He bent his arms upon colliding, then he extended off to add momentum to his Quirk's natural repulsion force. Mineta bounced backwards and spun a one-eighty before his feet came down on top of the Pop Offs he had already flicked to the floor here, allowing him to toss the next two he had pulled off at some of the approaching Blade Teeth. He flung more at the walls on his sides, and he tossed even more onto the street ahead of him. On his landings on top of the Pop Offs, he angled the soles of his feet to push backwards against the front of the balls closer to Moonfish, bouncing him forwards instead of up in the air so he was even quicker as he bounced back down the street.

Moonfish himself seemed to focus more on the bouncy enemy who got farther from him at first but was racing back now. Still four of his Blade Teeth had shot towards Sero at first too and cut with sharp angles up after the teenager with even better maneuverability than his ally. Sero could not get any closer than he was to Moonfish though as all of the Blade Teeth that were shooting out of Moonfish were thickest directly surrounding the villain's body. Even the ones that extended after Mineta were a danger to him too if he tried to get close to the huge mass of sharp protruding blades that was shooting down the street past the area that he and Mineta had leapt off from in the first place now.

Sero avoided being hit better than Mineta who had to accept a blow and just managed to keep the blades from cutting him during it. If he missed even one of those throws he'd have been cut, Sero thought. He knew how much danger the two of them were in. Mineta's body was not large. Moonfish's Blade Teeth widened rapidly after leaving his mouth. Just one of them could cut through his friend's torso almost entirely if it were to connect. We can't risk a prolonged battle. The danger to the civilians this monster was just released on aside, we're dead if we make one misstep.

Sero pointed his right elbow off to the other side of the street as where he just pulled himself. He changed up his direction quickly. Moonfish's Blade Teeth were cutting after him, but Sero could also see just how many of these Blade Teeth were sticking out of Moonfish's face to the point that they were blocking the front of his head. Something's wrong with his eyes anyway though, Sero told himself as he thought he could abuse that mess of blades but doubted it would be as useful as he hoped. What was it about this guy? Was he blind? The noise of those blades grinding against each other straight out of his mouth should be messing with his hearing too. But he's tracking our movements.

He cut his elbow Tape off short and dropped out of the air a few feet before connecting another piece higher on the building and retracting it immediately to zip away from two Blade Teeth that just barely missed each time. Sero stopped retracting his Tape and just dropped a few more feet while still connected to the long line coming out of his right elbow, while he fired another piece from his left elbow he pointed behind himself as Moonfish continued moving forward during these attacks and was getting too close to being right below him. Do I move onto his other side? Is it better to have him focus on only one of us at a time? On this side I can help Mineta if he does miss, but on the other, one of us might see an opportunity… Wait.

Is he, Sero's eyes darted to either side of the street he was racing back over closer to Mineta who was heading the opposite direction towards him. Moonfish was chasing him but pulled more of his Blade Teeth down to go after Mineta who was heading in his direction. Sero knew he had to change trajectory to split Moonfish's attacks again, but he grimaced as he noticed what was sticking off of the buildings on either side of him. Can't tell if you meant to do that, bro. But I'll take the lead then. Find a gap, Mineta.

Mineta had already noticed it himself and was continuing to set it up, even if the initial set-up for their offensive had occurred without his intention. He's insane. They did something to make him stronger too it looks like, but nothing to make him smarter. He has pattern recognition. But he isn't thinking any deeper into his attacks. Or into mine. Mineta calmed himself down more than he thought he would be able to. The understanding of his enemy's shortcomings was helping him take Moonfish less seriously as an opponent though.

Mineta bounced closer and threw Pop Offs to the walls on either side of him. He flung more at the ends of Moonfish's Blades as well that he was more careful to dodge though while bouncing up in the air closer to the buildings on the left side of the street. Mineta grabbed a Pop Off from his head and winced as he was reaching his limit after all the fighting today. He stuck it to the wall though then pressed his hand against it and bounced off, and the Blade Tooth that was flying at him passed by where he just was and connected with the wall instead.

That blade tugged hard to get off of the wall it just stuck to. Then the blade snapped near the end. More Blade Tooth extended out from that one as the bladed appendage turned and shot back towards Mineta in the direction the boy bounced away from even more attacks. Part of a Blade Tooth was still broken off though and sticking out from the wall where it was attached to a Pop Off… just like a dozen others already were.

Mineta noticed it on the two blades he had first just protected buildings from by putting Pop Offs between them just as he did to protect himself. Moonfish's Blade Teeth were sharp but brittle enough that they snapped off rather than tearing away the sturdy steel platings from the buildings around them.

Sero had avoided higher up into the air at first to give him more time before the extending Blade Teeth could hit him, but also because he did not have much help on a city street like this where the buildings on either side were almost thirty feet away from each other. There were a few balconies on the upper stories, but the fire escapes were on the sides of the buildings in alleyways rather than over the sidewalks. He had little to work with. His Tape was flattening out against the walls and sticking to them, rather than wrapping around anything for him to swing using. He had to grab the tops of the buildings for the best grips so far as he avoided attacks that would kill him otherwise.

Suddenly all over the buildings on either side of the road though, Sero had protrusions sticking out and over the street much lower down near the villain. He took in a deep breath but dropped down into the path of Moonfish. He fired Tape out of either elbow and grabbed onto disconnected Blade Teeth in the walls that his Tape was strong enough to not get cut through by as long as the blades were not moving themselves. He wrapped around them and flung himself even closer to Moonfish whose Blade Teeth all cut back towards the closer teenager suddenly the one on the offensive rather than the retreat.

Sero leaned to his left and narrowly dodged a blade flying past him so close he felt the wind brushing by his face. The blade flew so fast it was a silver blur in the corner of his vision. And there were six other blades coming at him from above and below and right in front of his face. He jammed his right elbow out and shot Tape into the flat of the passing blade that came by him first. He stopped extending the Tape as soon as the sticky part caught onto the passing blade, and he was jolted after the end of the weapon that flung him away from the other blades as fast as those weapons were moving. He disconnected his Tape from his right arm as that blade was curving, and he shot another piece at a snapped blade protrusion on the wall across the street from the edge of the right sidewalk that he was just over now.

Sero pulled himself that way while dipping down closer to the ground. He fired at another one higher up on the left walls, his eyes darting every direction at all the Blade Teeth curving around and flying in at him as he shot closer to Moonfish again. He yanked himself higher but then fired another piece of Tape down from his right elbow at the middle of the street, and he plummeted straight into the path of the villain who curved all of his Blade Teeth in from the various angles they were slamming into parts of the street or buildings around them. Those blades all jammed in as Sero flew downwards. He snapped his right elbow to the side and ripped from it the Tape he just used to drop as fast as he could. NOW! Sero swung both of his arms out to the sides.

Tape fired from both elbows while he was close to the middle of the road. All of the Blade Teeth were flying in around his sides. He shot the gaps though and connected the ends of his Tape to similar elevations up on both buildings directly to his sides. As soon as they connected he stopped extending any Tape from his elbows, grinding his teeth as he felt the jolts in his elbows tugging to reel out more Tape from his bodily containers. Those pieces of Tape stretched out but he did not cut them from his elbow, and they were sticky enough to hold onto the buildings even as all of Sero's weight pulled down on them. The weight was distributed against both pieces of Tape that stretched out as far as they could, making Sero pull his knees towards his chest to avoid his legs from slamming into the ground.

His lifted knees stopped just over the ground. Then he shot up. A slingshot straight between all of the Blades convening in one location. Those Blade Teeth were fast and curved at the last second to try and chase Sero or close the gap he was trying to shoot through. He sucked in his gut while flying between the closest Blades that cut through the space just below him as he slipped through untouched. And then a dozen Blade Teeth slammed into each other at max speed just below him. The ends of the blades all shattered into each other at the speeds they were going. The blades were sharp but thin enough that slamming that fast into each other broke the brittle weapons and sent shards of metal flying out in different directions.

Sero only just shot the gap. He winced and bit down hard. Two shards of steel sliced through his right leg in the hamstring and the calf. Another smaller piece hit him in the middle back just to the left of his spine. It was an incredibly sharp shard of Bone Tooth. And it was also very small, piercing through his back and going inside deep enough that there was nothing sticking out of his back. Just a small hole in his costume that a piece of Moonfish's Quirk had broken through, like it had his skin, and his flesh inside, before getting caught between two of Sero's ribs where the piece lodged itself.

Moonfish's head had tilted back when he sent all of his Blade Teeth flying up at Cellophane. All the blades coming out of his mouth ground against each other and made loud noise while extending up towards the hero who saw his moment and took it. Somehow Moonfish still sensed the other coming though. Even though his face was blocked by the torrent of blades emerging from it, and the grinding noises of his teeth should have masked Mineta's approach, the small boy pouncing from his last Pop Off could see Moonfish's head dipping back down. All of those blades that had the ends of them broken off stopped curving up after Sero, changing direction with some of them breaking off completely at the middle and making sharp turns to extend more blade out down towards Grape Juice.

Mineta was too close though. He bounded at the villain and whipped his right hand up from his waistband and the hero tool belt. The white tool with a purple hilt extended the two prongs at the end of it. They zapped with visible electricity as he pressed his finger on the button on the side of it. One of the most common tools for law enforcement and heroes like him who needed to non-lethally take down villains without always having the strength advantage to do so. He had never used one previously due to the stickiness of his Pop Offs being good enough to subdue villains, most of the time. "If I get into a battle that lasts as long as… just, I think it's better if I'm better prepared in case that happens." A conversation he had had with Power Loader only days before came in very handy right now as Mineta feared his Pop Offs were already too un-sticky that someone like Moonfish would not be kept down just by sticking him here.

He needed one good hit, and Sero opened up the chance for him. He bounced towards the villain and swung his right arm around while Moonfish was still bowing his chin. He jammed the taser into Moonfish's exposed throat and zapped the villain full of electricity. A grin spread over Mineta's face as he connected. I did it!

Sero was biting down hard while he spun around in the air above Moonfish. He felt the shrapnel hit him in the back and his right leg, but the corners of his bared lips curled up anyway as he knew that he had opened up the path for his friend below. As he looked down though, his smile wiped away. All of those Blade Teeth had stopped moving the second that Mineta stabbed his enemy with the taser. Mineta dropped down to the ground and then jumped backwards to dodge some falling blades that Moonfish had broken off to just extend more down from the middle of existing ones. Sero swung his left arm down.

All of the Blade Teeth suddenly jolted from their stopped positions and shot down at Mineta. He stumbled on his landing and then jumped back to one of his Pop Offs that he pressed his feet down on to bounce from. So many of the Blade Teeth were flying so fast straight at him and around him though, and he was flustered as Moonfish barely looked fazed by the full power of his new hero weapon he had thought just saved them.

Mineta bounced up but the Blades would have hit him anyway as they were too fast and he was just off-balanced and flailing desperately to dodge. Tape wrapped around his body though and yanked him higher in the air. Sero pulled himself down faster towards his friend by pulling Mineta back. Mineta looked up towards Sero and yelled, "We need another-" Mineta's eyes bulged and his heart rate skyrocketed at the sight of blood splashing out of Sero's mouth and the agonized expression on his friend's face.

Sero only realized it himself when he swung his left arm like that. The movement shifted his whole body, including his rib cage. The piece of Blade Tooth stuck inside him moved around. Sero was lucky in that it was just too big that it could not go between the ribs of his rib cage and hit the vital organs inside. But there was a small edge of a corner jammed between the bones that was very, very close to piercing through the most vital of his organs. And he could feel that. He could feel that grinding on the inside of his body that made his lungs start contracting and expanding much more raggedly, and his heart to start pumping way faster than it already was, speeding up the rate at which his mostly white costume was soaking his back with red.

Sero hated that he had to do it, but he slammed his right arm at the building on the right side of the street from if he was facing Moonfish directly. He barely connected the Tape in time before five long Blade Teeth flew through the air where he and Mineta just jolted away from. Swinging his body the other direction made him gasp out in pain again, but he hissed at his friend who he pulled close to him, "You need, to get somewhere unpopulated- agh!"

Sero jolted as he ripped off from that building and connected to the street farther from Moonfish which took him extending his arm farther out and firing far more Tape which strained his whole body. He put his left arm around Mineta who his Tape pulled all the way back to him, then he loosened his grip a bit as Mineta pulled Pop Offs from his head. "Don't," Mineta told Sero who he could see was about to connect some Tape to a higher point on one of the buildings to slow their fast descent towards the hard street.

Mineta swung his Pop Offs ahead of them then twisted the pair so he was back-first to the ground. Sero grimaced himself, but a drop of blood fell from his clenched teeth and dripped on Mineta's face which made Sero grimace even deeper as he saw Mineta's anxious face not worried about how hard they were about to hit the ground like he was. This is fucked, Sero thought. Mineta's back hit the Pop Offs and bounced lightly off of them, not going as high as they would have if it were earlier in the fight and the Pop Offs still had the stronger initial qualities to them.

Sero and Mineta hit the ground at slower speeds past the Pop Offs and slid to stops. They looked back towards Moonfish who tripped himself and fell on the street ahead of them. They looked below him and saw that two of the Blade Teeth he had used to push himself forward had caught on Pop Offs that Mineta only placed to get close to the villain. Moonfish tripped himself up on them and gave the two boys an extra few seconds. Sero grabbed Mineta by the left shoulder as Mineta was getting up quicker on his feet. Mineta put a hand behind Sero's back on his left side to help him up, and his hand flinched off of Sero's back at how wet it felt around his left side that Mineta leaned his head back to look at over Sero's slouched shoulders.

"You need to go," Sero hissed at his friend who brought his gaze back to the side of Sero's face rather than his back. Mineta darted his eyes towards Moonfish again then back at Sero who he pulled up more to his feet, only for Sero's right leg to buckle at the knee and drop down to the street. Mineta only just at that moment saw the deeper gashes on the back of Sero's right leg that were as bloody as his back was. It didn't even hit me, Sero thought frustratedly at how badly he felt just from the splash damage caused by this villain's attacks.

"What are you talking-"

"If we die," Sero growled through a shaky, afraid voice. It was determined too though. In his vision he could see their enemy, but he could also see the still-standing walls of the buildings around them that they had kept in mind through their fight in order to protect the people inside them. Sero groaned but continued strongly to Mineta, "There won't be anything to stop this monster, from killing everyone here. Mineta, he recognized us. It'll chase after you."

"FLESH! Give- give ME!" Sweat covered Mineta's face as he turned back to the villain who just let out some terrifying screams towards the two he was being held back from. His stuck Blade Teeth broke off and then extended more blades that impaled into the street around him. New Blade Teeth pushed out of his upper jaw and down into the ground below him. They extended and pushed him higher and higher off the ground, more and more blades breaking off of the mass just pushing him up to start stretching ahead of him towards his targets instead.

"I'm not leaving you," Mineta pulled back on Sero and tried dragging him farther from Moonfish. Think! Think of a better plan! Anything! ANYTHING!

Mineta started reaching for the newest tool on the back of his rounded egg-shell waistband. Sero gripped him harder by his left arm, hissing, "No time." Mineta darted his eyes back and Sero gasped at him, "Leave! What is, our job?" Mineta pulled his head back at what Sero was telling him. "They die if we both die here. Lead him away. Someone else… will help you- please! I'm ready," Sero gasped at him, in terror but not just terror that he was about to get shredded by Moonfish. Mineta's eyes snapped all around them at the buildings full of people Sero was afraid were going to get killed if they failed here together.

Tears filled Mineta's eyes though even as the Blade Teeth flew towards them. He shook his head at Sero who tilted his own head back with despair all over it that Mineta refused to run. "I- I can't," Mineta whispered at him while pulling away harder. He turned his head towards those approaching Blade Teeth he would not let go of Sero and run away from. His tears spilled all down his face and the most extreme terror flooded his body. His face turned pale, and he screamed out while pulling with all his might to tug Sero backwards, "HAAAAAA!"

Mineta fell on his butt. He and Sero fell backwards next to each other while staring forward at the Blade Teeth that all stopped a single foot in front of their faces. The ends of the closest three Blade Teeth were still edging forward ever so slightly, but they could not come any closer to the boys who stared through the huge light-blue veil that had steam coming off of it. Both of their visions were completely full of the giant blue wall that just blocked the Blade Teeth. The ice intercepted all of them.

A figure slid down a forming slide of ice and dropped down in between the other two. He landed just in front of them behind his massive ice wall. Mineta's panicked and terrified expression twisted even more with his bulging eyes squinting and pouring even more tears down his face. "AHH- TOBO-DROKI! AHHhah AAAHH! I thought we were gonna die! Ahhh, ahh-" Mineta stopped wailing and his breath caught in his throat as he refocused on the heaving form in front of him whose whole body was shaking as he stood there in front of them.

The loud sounds of shattering ice came from the other side of the ice wall where Moonfish just broke all of his Blade Teeth off from. "YOU! I rem…EMBER- YOUR FLESH! PRETTY!" This isn't good, Todoroki Shoto thought with a quick glance behind him. Blood was spilling out from Mineta's "hairline" of Pop Offs that signified he had used too many already. Sero looked even worse though and Todoroki grimaced but turned back to the ice in front of him that he rebuilt by slamming his right foot down in front of him and forcing thick ice up all the way up just to the front of his body so they would have as much time as possible. From the growing sounds of ice getting broken and shredded though, Moonfish was not far from breaking through these defenses.

"I thought, we were goners there, for a second," Sero whispered. He was panting and gasping for breath as he honestly thought they were both dead just as Mineta did. He lifted his gaze to Todoroki's burnt back and his eyes widened. He remembered what Mineta was about to do when they had no time left so there would be no point in doing it anyway. He reached to his own waist after that one look at their classmate who had come to "save" them and who looked in worse shape than either of them were in. It was why Mineta stopped praising his relief.

Mineta looked to his side and his eyes widened as he saw Sero raise his right arm and fire the flare gun that Yaoyorozu had given each of them. A red light shot up between the buildings and high into the sky before bursting into even brighter red flare that left a trail through the sky up from their position. Todoroki did not say anything about what they just did. Must have been Yaoyorozu, Todoroki rationalized. He did not feel bad about Sero feeling the need to do that. He was short on breath. I ignored Midnight sensei and rushed straight back into battle. Now what?

Mineta whispered to his friend's back, "What happened, with Dabi?"

It was not the best time for it. Sero was thinking of the same thing though as he dropped his flare gun that hurt his ribs a lot to raise up.

In a far-off location, the Dissector leaned back in his seat and watched the drone footage in front of him interestedly. "If he is here, then that means that Dabi has fallen. A shame…" A smirk still covered Dice's face and he chuckled to himself under his breath after saying it. "But Moonfish is stronger than Dabi ever was. More versatile. Deadlier. My vital failsafe against even the likes of Raijin, with the anti-electrification bioenhancement I added when no one was looking." The mischievous doctor's grin grew more as he watched Moonfish's Blade Teeth smash through rapidly forming waves of ice faster than Shoto could create them.

Five blocks away behind the three male Class A students, one of their female classmates cut hard down the same street from a perpendicular one she just turned around on. The girl who had just left a defeated Dismembermen and the fallen Trabo at a nearby evacuation center with some heroes had spotted the flare rising into the sky. She had hoped to turn onto this road and see other heroes all converging on the same point together. She was alone as the reinforcements though as she stared down the road towards an ice wall that she could see over to the huge chunks of ice getting ripped apart by twenty giant swinging blades.

Pinky gulped and panted herself a few more times before picking up her speed to catch up to her friends. Guys!

"Todoroki?" Mineta whispered as there had not been a response yet from their classmate about what he had done about his last fight.

A younger Todoroki would have told them to mind their own business. He even wanted to just tell them to focus on what was happening in front of them right now, but the two who he just saved from certain death were only asking in concern for him. Shoto could hear that they were worried about how he was doing even in this situation as a deranged killer was screaming about their "pretty flesh" and getting closer every second. Neither of them had ever been able to talk to Todoroki about it before. But none of them had tried to stop him either when Todoroki had seen the blue flames earlier and headed off that villain. "I defeated him," Todoroki said.

Across the city and back in Chiyoda, Midnight had her Quirk Somnambulist activated and a cloud of knockout gas surrounding the villains being brought before her. The Karebo Office had dozens of heroes gathered near it. It was not an evacuation center, and neither Lemillion nor Endeavor were around anymore to lead the heroes' response, but Midnight had taken some control in the area. More and more defeated villains were being brought there like she had gathered heroes to drag Diamondfist and those who had fallen with him to the location. Re-Destro and his Liberators lay in a line in front of Karebo. Bitchess 'N Cream had been brought by some other heroes along with a hundred villains who had fallen with her. A lot of injured heroes had been brought by that group too and were separated slightly from Midnight to prevent her Quirk from working on all of them too.

Injured heroes like Cementoss and assisting civilians like Pop-Step had other heroes giving them treatment. Midnight was surprised to see Pop and Koichi who she had known for a long time, but she was happy that those former vigilantes came to help. Koichi was carrying another two tied-up villains towards her from the perimeter where a hero had just dropped them off before rushing back into the fight. Midnight looked down from Koichi though and to the floor where another recently arrived villain was laying. Midnight stared at the spiky-haired man with patchy skin that all looked sewn together but was bloody and burnt and in really bad shape.

The unconscious form of Dabi was one she made sure to hit with a lot of her Quirk in order to ensure that he stayed down. Kayama thought again about the look on the face of her student who she had tried to order to stay at their command center when he brought Dabi here and dropped him off. Her gaze lifted though and into the distance where she felt the ground shaking from the direction of; the same direction that Shoto had run off after dropping his badly wounded opponent at her feet.

Todoroki had rushed back out to get that last fight off his mind as much as to go assist his classmates in their own fights. That was why he found himself so unprepared as an extremely powerful opponent bore down on them. He had not thought of what he was doing when he charged in. The Flash-Fire Stream did more burn damage to Dabi's arms than either of us realized. He couldn't feel the pain, so we didn't realize just how much of his body I'd burned through. It wasn't until his next attacks that I saw how much slower his movements were. He couldn't use strong attacks without damaging his body even more, but because of his lack of nerve endings that he bragged about… he just kept going anyway. Past when anyone else would have stopped in the knowledge that going any farther would render their arms useless. Permanently.

Shoto thought of the pathetic way that their fight ended and lowered his gaze for a split second as he imagined the desperate look on Dabi's face as the villain tried attacking with pitch blackened arms no longer responding to his attempts to move them. "I left him unconscious with Midnight sensei," Todoroki specified to his friends so that they would focus as his vague response might have had them thinking too deeply into it. "Now move back. We have five seconds," Todoroki took his right foot off the ground where his ice had been shooting out of. He swept his right arm behind him and created a floor of ice below his friends that started dragging them away as Todoroki himself sprinted for the right side of the street.

It doesn't matter how tired that made me. Touya was strong. Fights happen one after the other though. Touya couldn't even lift- Focus! You'll die! Todoroki's own burns were severe, and yet it was his chest that was aching more than any of them. He wished he could just push all thoughts of his brother aside right now, but it didn't work like that. His head was not focused enough in the fight. And then the wall of ice he was running behind got shattered through only 3 seconds after he stopped building it larger with more ice. His eyes grew wider and darted towards the breaking ice that ten fast-moving Blade Teeth were flying through all along the width of the road.

"Todoroki!" Mineta yelled back towards their friend who crossed his arms but was hit by a chunk of his own ice and thrown backwards. It was better that he was though as another Blade Tooth flew through the space that Todoroki had been running towards anyway, and getting knocked backwards like that may have been the best thing to happen to him. The exhausted hero swung his burnt left arm up and fired a huge jet of flames into three Blade Teeth speeding straight at him. They broke apart in the explosion of that fire into them, but Todoroki snapped his head left and right. Two more Blade Teeth curved in on his right side after shredding all the way through the closer wall there, while four more blades jut in on his left side and extended even faster towards him with no resistance of a building in their way to drag against.

Todoroki cut off his fire quickly and pushed a spike of ice up from below him. He meant to get it rising fast enough to throw himself high in the air off of, but the pillar was cut apart by four of the six blades only a second after it started lifting him up. He spun around in the air, wincing from the pain his body was in after his earlier fight against his eldest brother.

"He's slow," Sero whispered. His eyes were squinted in pain, but he could see it easily from Todoroki's movements that were nothing like they should be as he was completely on the defensive here.

Mineta turned his head sideways and got a hopeful look on his face for a second at the sight of movement in their direction, before just biting down again as Ashido was the only person he saw running their way. Where is everyone? Yaoyorozu said… Well, if they're all fighting too, there's nothing they can do. Even Ashido looks like she might have just run off from her own fight- Ah! We're so screwed still!

Todoroki flinched while swinging his left arm to fire out more flames and reposition himself in midair. The left side of his body had the worst burns on it. His supposedly flameproof costume had completely burnt through so that there was very little of it remaining on his right side barely connected over the top of his shoulder. That last remaining piece of connecting fabric ripped through a second later, as Todoroki rose his right arm fast in the realization that he could not fire out flames in time from his left hand after he winced while lifting the burned appendage. It was only halfway up and that meant his palm was pointed at the wall of a building in front of him, and even to save his own life he could not blast fire into a populated building.

A shield of ice emerged out of Todoroki's right arm and expanded outwards to give more space between his arm and the five Blade Teeth all flying straight at him less than a second away. His ice emerged. It blocked one blade and deflected two others. The final two cut straight through the emerging ice not thick or strong enough to slow it down. Todoroki yanked his body to the left, and he tried to pull his right shoulder down as the upper Blade Tooth connected with his arm. He managed to avoid his right arm getting sawed off. The wound was deep though. Deeper than the gash on the right side of his waist that he felt grind against his pelvis and scrape his bone.

"Todoroki!" Mineta yelled up at his friend flying backwards from the hits that tore the rest of his costume's shirt from his body. Blood flew away from Todoroki and soaked two of the blades flying after him. Neither let up in the least. The villain pushing through the last of Todoroki's ice pushed himself up higher over the rubble and ice all over the street too. His Blade Teeth curved out away from him and dragged through the walls on both sides of the road. Then they curved back and down towards where Mineta just got flattened by his friend he tried to catch.

Mineta lay on his back groaning and feeling like an idiot as he had skid forward on his knees and held up his arms to catch his classmate only to skid too far forward and get hit too high so he botched the catch anyway. He was hit in the face by a hundred and ninety pound classmate who was not an easy catch, not that Mineta actually thought it would be easy. The amount of blood that just splashed out of Todoroki was enough though that he really did not want to see Todoroki slam face-first into the pavement after it.

Mineta shoved to his right side to get Todoroki off of him. "Fuck," Mineta muttered. "Am I really, the only one," he pushed his right hand down next to him and stopped complaining. His palm felt very bloody just from pushing his friend off of him. Mineta staggered to his feet and lifted his head. He stared up at the bald supervillain with fifteen long razor-sharp blades flying out of his mouth towards him. Mineta leaned his head forward and screamed, "HAAAA!"

Sero swung both elbows forward and wrapped up his friends' torsos ahead of him. He yanked backwards and a hail of Blade Teeth slammed into the street. Moonfish had the blades spread wide enough that they were not all smashing into each other, luckily digging into the pavement before breaking off and making new ones start to grow out of parts higher on the blades. Sero winced and pulled back when those blades hit the ground but felt minor relief that there was little shrapnel to be seen flying after his friends who he was worried might get injured like he was otherwise.

"Ack- I'm, okay," Todoroki gasped out and lifted his head from his hands and knees where Sero pulled him to. We'll die if I just sit here.

"What the hell, were you doing?" Sero grumbled at Mineta who was getting back up next to him quicker than Todoroki. Mineta glanced anxiously at his friend who should not be standing like he was in his condition. Sero was giving him a look like he was an idiot though, and Mineta just looked back at the villain he had screamed at in what he thought might be his last shout.

Just didn't want to die cowering, Mineta thought embarrassedly. Shouldn't be thinking of dying at all though. Maybe, I need to tell Ashido what Sero was telling me. Get her to run off, right now! Mineta leaned backwards as those Blade Teeth seemed to know they had not connected with any heroes, even though Moonfish's face was completely blocked by the wall of blades.

Ashido slowed down behind her friends still a block and a half away. Todoroki was not back up yet. Sero's back was to her, and she could see the expanding bloody stain on his back through his costume that was supposed to be white on that side but almost looked as if it had been designed red at this point. I'm too slow, her eyes grew huge at the realization. They're going to die before I get there-

Fwwsshhh

Ashido started lifting her head higher up. She brought up her gaze and caught a glimpse of a flash of yellow that flew over her head. She snapped her eyes after it and watched as it flew straight through two of the Blade Teeth on the left side of the street from her perspective. The force at which the object inside of the yellow veil collied with those blades made the man who they were coming out of stumble to the right. His Blade Teeth curved and several of them dug into the wall at his back. Screams came out of that building as Moonfish's blades caught himself on it. The villain dug some stabilizing ones into the sidewalk and base of the building too.

"Move back," Mineta hissed at his friends as they were given a moment he did not expect to have. He had pulled two more Pop Offs from his already bloody head anyway and had held them in front of him to attempt to be thrown back again. Mineta backpedaled instead and hissed again louder at the other two, "Now! Get distance before it-"

He did not know what had hit Moonfish. He was too focused on trying not to die to see the flash of yellow that Ashido had witnessed. Moonfish seemed similarly confused. The villain had staggered and dropped a bit from the raised central position in the street where he was about to rip into his enemies' flesh. Some of his Blade Teeth had been broken and he did not know by what. The projectile hit the street back behind him which he turned his head and looked farther from any of the broken chunks of ice to back near where he had started fighting Sero and Mineta, where a figure was on his feet looking like he did not just drop out of the sky like a missile. The street around him was scorched and there were two distinct burn scars leading to his smoking feet, but the blond villain back there was just confidently glaring back the direction he had come flying from.

Another flash of a new color flew over Ashido's head. Her breath had already caught in her throat but she sucked in even more as she glimpsed a flap of two black wings over her head that sent the shadow flying as fast as the yellow blur did. This one flew just ahead of the other three Class A boys though, smashing into some of the ice in the center of the street just below where Moonfish had just been held up by his Blade Teeth before falling off to the right.

That figure also landed on his feet despite the insane speeds at which he just crashed down that sent wind flying past the three right behind him and all the way another block so Ashido felt the wind hitting her. She had just stumbled forward from the force of the two flying over her that pulled her along. The wind hit her in the front this time though and she tilted her head back while staring forward with unblinking eyes that could not believe what she was looking at. Those two black wings pulled into the man's body. She thought she was seeing things, because the person she knew those wings had to belong to was not the one she saw when the wings pulled back into him.

All four of the Class A students already on that street had seen him within the past hour. This man was not the person they had seen. His landing knocked Todoroki back onto one knee, and Sero fell on his butt as he took a step back with the wrong leg and could not put his weight on it. Neither tried getting back on their feet. They were just staring forward at this figure whose black hair was waving around behind him and fell down past his waist.

He was larger than life. He was taller than he should be. His shoulders seemed broader. When he landed, his hair dropped down behind him but it split apart and moved aside before settling for a moment. As it moved around, the other four saw what his back looked like. Two deep gashes cut from the middle of his upper back to under his right armpit, and from his middle lower back to the left side of his stomach. But the four students staring at him could only stare in disbelief at how little damage there was on his body. His horrible burns were gone. His skin shade was darker. It looked as if all of the burns around his body had sealed and scarred up as damaged darker skin tissue.

It was hard to imagine what they tried to rationalize as the reason for why his skin was that darker color. Maybe it was his Quirk. Maybe his burns really had healed? As Todoroki wondered about that, he was down on one knee slightly more to Zach's right than the other two. He could partially see around the sides of Zach's crazy long hair, to Zach's right side and his right armpit where a piece of the cut was… Or where it was when Todoroki first saw it before Zach's hair waved to the side from the wind that came with him upon his landing. As the hair moved back into place, Todoroki lowered his gaze back from Zach's face he caught a glimpse of the side of and to where the wound he had just seen no longer was. Todoroki blinked a few times in confusion as he did not even see any blood on Zach's skin around where it had just been dripping down. Is my own blood loss, making me imagine things? He wondered at the sight of this unreal image in front of him.

"Flesh- I… I need, MORE- FLESSSSH!"

Moonfish's mouth opened wider and ten huge Teeth Blades flew out and straight through Zach. Three of them hit the wall of the building on the other side of the street, while most dug into the ground before it and shredded through the ice that Zach stood on top of. Zach's eyes were focused straight ahead towards Kaminari, but as he twisted to avoid the blades suddenly flying at him, he ground his jaw in rage as the attacks came in too fast and several of the blades cut through him. The second they were touching him he had to turn his insides to Death, despite how much that required him to use. His head turned furiously to his right. The right side of his body turned pitch black. A wave of Death flew out of his body so large that it rose seven stories in a second and smashed Moonfish back into the fourth floor of the wall behind him.

All the Death pushing into the villain hit so fast that it exploded back outwards or pushed around either side of the building. One giant spike of Death slammed into Moonfish faster than anyone watching could blink. It flooded around his sides and then stopped after smashing him into the building that he made a giant crater against the steel panels of. Screams rang out from inside of that skyscraper. All of the darkness coming out of Zach's right side pulled back into him in a single second. A massive wave of Death just sucked back into his body and vanished so that his right arm could reform from the shadows. Only the thin veil of Death around his waist and upper thighs gave him any cover as he glared back towards Raijin who moved the second Zach got distracted by Moonfish.

Zach hesitated to rush forward. I brought the fight here. Didn't I? His red irises darted left and right to the sidewalk squares that had flipped upside-down directly on either side of where Raijin had skid to after Zach slammed him out of the sky. In that exact location, dumpsters in the alleys on either side of Raijin past those sidewalk squares had dropped into the floor and replaced with even larger generators that funneled stronger electricity onto the street and into the villain there who no longer wore any helmet to hold back his spiky yellow hair with a black lightning bolt in it. Raijin swung his arms out to the sides already too and AZ-ATs hidden underground in that alley flew towards him while in mid-transformation, wrapping around his arms as powerful white gauntlets that stretched up to his shoulders and glowed bright blue at the joints and on his fingers.

Kaminari laughed at the hesitation he knew Zach was feeling at seeing him again in a position to be directly refueled by his preparations laid around Tokyo. "He's the 'Death Row Inmate,' Zach. It's a perfect time to recover even more strength. You know you need it!" Raijin finished pulling electricity into his body. Whether his pack was filled up, or he had finished absorbing all the energy he had stored in this location, Zach just knew that his enemy was sparking violently and there was no chance that he was any weaker than at the start of this battle.

His eyes did not shift towards that unconscious villain on his right side though who picked that very moment to fall off the crater on the wall and limply drop to the debris-covered sidewalk. There was a low thud of Moonfish's body slamming into the floor, but Zach had seen the scarring all over his body. He's been experimented on. He survived that fall. I won't kill him. That's not my job. Not my, prerogative. I don't need to kill anyone else. He's the last one! "No." Zach stepped his right foot forward and glared down from his slightly elevated position on the road compared to where Raijin stood. No other Death emerged from Zach even as he stomped forward and challenged his opponent who just charged up with so much more strength.

Raijin rolled his neck around and let out a loud and skeptical laugh that bordered on fury because of Zach's challenging stare. "You're serious- You… I'll show you, Zach. You can't beat me without it. Without all that strength you've gained from my death. I won't let you save any of it- You know! You know you can't win without it, and so you won't be able to save anyone- I'LL MAKE YOU USE EVERY LAST DROP! I'll show just how wrong you are, before I gut you like a pig." Raijin curled and uncurled his fingers, and twin hilts popped out of his wrists as he crossed and uncrossed his arms, drawing a pair of white katanas out of his own gauntlets that he covered in sparking electricity.

Zach lifted his left foot and then stomped down next to him. The ice platform he was on shattered. A sheet of ice rose up on his left side, and Zach smashed his exposed steel fist into it and broke the sheet into hundreds of pieces. Pieces fell in front of him, and his arms moved like blurs that sliced back and forth on the biggest chunks, creating a pair of ice blades that were each just as long as Kaminari's swords. He curled his hands around them and then sprinted towards Kaminari with steps that made the ground shake below him as he charged his opponent with wild furor.

Kaminari reached him before Zach reached his enemy. Raijin was on Zach's left side already raising up with the sword in his right hand. He knows my swords are stronger. He'll only use his own to parry mine and slow them without really trying to block or stab. If Zach attempts to stab me it will be in the few areas where my Anti-Death armor isn't covering. Raijin saw Zach's left arm moving up the ice blade, and he predicted correctly as Zach twisted his metal wrist in a way to have Raijin's white blade drag along it and down into the floor as Zach's blade moved along with Raijin's slash to redirect the swipe where Zach wanted it to go.

Bolts of lightning flew off of the blade as it slammed into the ground rather than Zach's torso. They hit the taller teen in the side while Zach was twisting and swinging his other blade up at Raijin with a small puff of Death blasting out of his right arm to speed up the slash. The surprise actual use of Death there made his arm swing fast enough that Raijin could not instantly capitalize on the jolt Zach received when that lightning hit him in his exposed left side. Raijin was flipping backwards with lightning surrounding his whole form as the ice blade came close to his face. He snapped his head back, letting the blade pass by and shatter into pieces as it was too weak to handle such a forceful swing. Zach was several meters away from the sidewalk on the left side of the street, but the steel-plate-protected wall three stories up above that sidewalk got cut when Zach missed his swing just over the face of his enemy who darted his smug eyes up and even let out a high-pitched whistle at the speed they were moving when he saw the visible force of that swipe nearly break through Nezu's defenses.

I was already learning all of my new strengths. Utilizing each of them against Kaminari just from killing Ares. Now with Kaminari's power too, I can speed up the rate at which I master those abilities against, Raijin… Because that's who this is! Zach's teeth ground harder as he snapped his jolted body closer to his enemy who leaned towards him while instantly straightening back out after landing at his side. Black blades formed in both of Zach's hands. One covered up an ice blade inside, but both condensed as hard as possible so no Death was leaking from them as Zach slashed at the enemy who slashed right back with a pair of bone-steel-tevlon katanas.

Did, Raijin say, he died? Sero was confused by what was suddenly happening in front of them. A minute ago he thought they were still going to be killed even with Todoroki's help. Now an entirely different fight was going on in front of him, not that he could witness any of it transpiring. They were moving so fast that it was nothing but a blur to him and he knew that was not just because of the blood loss, as they were blurrier than the rest of the street around them. And did Zach know to come here? He knows Yaoyorozu well enough, that he could have guessed that she would have given out flare guns to our friends to only fire if we were in imminent danger, and he somehow drew Raijin this direction… But? But Raijin had hidden generators, on this street?! So, did he? Or, what-

A black blade clashed against a white one. They pushed into each other and Zach's started to break through as the Death lost form. Zach backed his weapon off and re-condensed it. Seeing the momentary clash of blades against each other meant that the bones of his revived victims did not instantly dispel the strength of his Quirk. Although his hardened Death blades had been unable to pierce through any of Raijin's armor thus far, the speed at which they were moving now made the seemingly instant speed of Zach's Quirk's collapse against Anti-Death armor into a moment long enough for him to see a collision against Raijin's blades that stopped their movement as well.

It only took one clash of Zach's blade against his enemy's, and suddenly both of his weapons were swinging faster and faster than ever at the blond boy who rapidly slashed back and pushed harder into his attacks so that Zach's blades were pressed against his for longer than the momentary taps Zach was practically slapping his swords with. Even with the brief touches of Zach's blades though that he kept light in order to back them off quickly, the power in his swings was enough to make Raijin grind his own teeth that his heavy slashes were not strong enough to knock them aside or break them apart.

Blue light glowed in Raijin's left gauntlet just as Zach started slashing a third arm out below his right but a second delayed so that it would pass below Raijin's left arm's parry. The gauntlet on Raijin's left fist tripled in speed and force, shattering through Zach's Death blade and then through his second right arm he'd created for his own move in that instant. Those arms did slow Raijin's slash enough that Zach was able to yank his body backwards, but he did not try turning himself into Death as the arm was swinging too fast and had an Anti-Death blade grasped in it anyway. As far back- "AH-" Zach slammed his jaw shut after letting out the shout as Raijin's sword slashed across the front of his body.

He was twisting out of the way, but as soon as Raijin's sword dragged past the left side of his body and cut out, Zach slammed his left arm back ahead and extended his Death blade. Raijin grinned while hopping up so the blade would connect in his mid-body where he still had Anti-Death armor too strong, just in case the fact that he was already dead was not enough to make Zach's condensed-Death-blade break apart on the skin of his neck. Inside of that left sword though, Zach slid forward the partial ice blade he had not been using in his previous clashes to keep it from breaking apart. The ice slid forward through the darkness and Raijin caught a glint of the ice only as it stuck out of the Death on the moment of connection with his body. The ice was not that strong, but it was sharp enough and moving at a quick enough speed at that second that it sliced through armor and into flesh.

Zach jabbed forward with his right arm as he took another step to follow up on that slash. His right foot step turned into a stomp at the last second as he pulsed out a tiny puff of Death from his kneecap to kick the ground hard enough to make the street shake and Raijin wobble. Raijin saw the puff of Death though and predicted Zach's stomp's strength, so he magnetized the steel in his boots to the metal in his gauntlets and lifted his shoes centimeters off the ground. The shaking of the earth did not affect his movements at all, and he curled his left gauntlet and back-handed Zach's sword that broke apart when Raijin clenched that left hand onto Zach's right arm that did not pull away quickly enough.

Zach could not turn that arm into Death to pull away while the Anti-Death gauntlet was curled on it. Raijin's eyes darted to his right instead of left to where he just grabbed Zach's right arm though. He glared at the splash of Death that ripped from Zach's left side. The blood that just flung off of Raijin's sword when it cut through Zach's chest and followed-through off to the side, was caught by the Death that curled around the blood and pulled it back to Zach's body. The wound on Zach's chest sealed up with steam coming out, but no dried blood remained on his body as Death curled around it and then skin regenerated above.

I can't lose any more blood. Raijin can't stop himself from losing it. His body won't function without. That's what I need to do right now. A loss of function. Or destroy his mind. Or rip him apart! Zach bared his teeth harder while spinning his body to try and escape from Raijin's grasp. He could not yank his right arm free, but he could turn that shoulder into Death and twist himself in such a way impossible for men with actual shoulder sockets preventing one from twisting into this position.

Raijin's hand let go of Zach's right arm though as Zach was in the middle of twisting. Zach was ready for Raijin's right hand to make a move that he was already blocking, but Raijin letting go of his own right arm that he had currently caught and forced Zach to stay there was not the move Zach predicted. They were moving too fast that he could only guess several of Raijin's moves correctly in every half second that his enemy was making them. Raijin let go of Zach's right arm and snapped his own left hand forward while Zach started spinning, and he grabbed onto Zach's long hair and yanked back while lifting the sword in his right that just got parried upwards. Zach was staring up straight at a blade coming down while his head was pulled backwards.

A blade of Death came out of the upper strands of Zach's hair. It happened instantly as soon as Zach felt Raijin grab his hair. He did not expect the villain to suddenly let go of his right arm, but he did have a contingency plan for when his hair was grabbed. Raijin just started pulling it back to open Zach's face up for a stab downwards, but Raijin's arm pulled too hard when the majority of Zach's hair was spontaneously no longer connected to the upper third where a Death blade was prepared to emerge from and slice through just above the villain's grip. Kaminari was caught by his momentum and pulling back too hard, allowing Zach to finish his spin with his right leg lifting and coming around as a roundhouse that made Raijin flip around his sword going for Zach's face to instead point the blade at Zach's spinning leg.

Zach started turning the leg to Death even as he bit down in frustration that Raijin was able to use so much electricity that allowed him to get the sword in the way in a second. He tried to cut off the Death transformation and just change his own momentum again, and Raijin smirked more as Zach either did not think he could get it all the way into Death in time, or he just did not want to use Death anymore to allow objects to pass through when that so clearly used up more of his Death than anything else. Zach's leg got cut but he pulled back far enough that after getting sliced in the shin, he twisted his leg and kicked downwards into the blade to make Raijin's body lean off-balance…

Raijin pulled out another two swords. He dropped the one getting stabbed into the floor rather than hold on and get set up for Zach's next attack. He just popped two more blades out of his gauntlets and returned to slashing at Zach who swung his arms forward again and parried both with a new pair of Death blades he made and tried to condense as hard as the last ones. Shreds of darkness came off of each of the blades though every time Raijin slashed into them. And Zach had to recover the strength of his weapons while at the same time trying to find openings on a villain as fast as him, finding as many openings as he was, catching him off guard as many times as he got back at him the other way around.

Their swords swung faster and faster and faster. The two of them moved like blurs that were impossible for anyone to watch. I can't see what they're doing, Todoroki thought while desperately trying to track their movements. Even, if I was at full strength, he realized. This speed. Not just how fast they're moving, but how fast they're making decisions and going from offense to defense. New patterns and new weapons- I can't, even follow it! Todoroki could see better than his classmates, so he could comprehend that the scale of what he was seeing now was nothing like the fight that had just been happening on this street even if that one had been more destructive.

Moonfish was a nuisance to him. Just, in the way, Todoroki thought with a glance back over towards the fallen villain who would have likely killed the rest of them had Zach not appeared on this street. He snapped his attention back ahead of him and then darted his eyes around for two seconds searching before finding the two who were thirty feet farther away for some reason but moving even faster than a moment ago. Something else was bothering him though as he watched blood splash away from both Zach and Kaminari ahead of him in a flurry of swipes between the two. He had been the person who saw Zach most recently of the four in Class A watching this, and all of them were thinking about it in some way as they saw Death clouds fly out and catch all of Zach's blood before pulling it back into his wounds that sealed up below.

Mineta lost track of the two completely. He knew they were still ahead of him because of the high-pitched sounds of occasional grunting and clashing of blades against stone. He saw the sparks and wisps of darkness more than he saw two human figures inside of them. But his eyes scanned back to the closer position to them where Zach and Raijin had clashed a few moments ago. He's not leaving bloody footprints, Mineta thought. His legs look fine. His body, Mineta could more clearly see it now too that Zach's hair was mostly out of the way- just wavy and falling below his neck for now. Those wounds he first saw on Zach's back were gone. I don't get it. Zach, said that he was probably dead. He really sounded like he thought that was it back in Heroally, and even when he pushed the Death away he looked way worse than this! How is he, healing himself?! I don't understand.

Zach broke his arm a few weeks ago. Sero swallowed back some bloody spit and winced as even just gulping hurt his whole body. He stared ahead though from the one knee he got back up on, trying to watch what his friend was doing and failing most of the time to see any of it. He broke it doing whatever he did that night he came back. Fighting Midoriya, or something with the Muindo Mountains and the assassins maybe- since I saw the dead forests that looked reminiscent of him. I hit him in his arm that day and he came back in a sling, and then he had it off within days. He made it out like it was nothing. Like Recovery Girl had overreacted. But Zach was hurt when I touched that arm. He can handle pain. His arm was broken, and then it wasn't. It didn't make sense then but, but I'm starting to see, that it's not as impossible to consider…

"What's happening?" Ashido whispered while trying to watch the fight ahead of her. She jogged forward again and stopped once more, still farther behind her other friends but just too caught up in trying to watch Zach and Raijin that she could not keep running. I don't even recognize him. He was covered in third degree burns head to toe. That didn't look like him. Did it sound like him? "No." That's all he said, I think. He wouldn't kill Moonfish, so, that's good? Did he say anything else? I need to get closer… to that? I want to get closer to- Ashido hunched forward and to her right as the ground below her shifted.

The entire street shook as Raijin slammed both of his gauntlets together in front of his body after parrying away Zach's swords. It looked as if he was going to slash his weapons forward into the middle of Zach's body when he knocked Zach's blades aside, but Zach had allowed his arms to get moved aside during Raijin's last attack to focus his enemy's attacks to his front. Raijin let go of his weapons though rather than slashing forward into the trap. He slammed his gauntlets together. Both of his hands pulled back into the gauntlets that extended forward past his fingers and connected together with a collision that vibrated the air in front of the villain and shattered the ground below him. The vibrations and shockwaves that came out of the gauntlets collisions made Zach's ears bleed.

Zach was pressing his own feet down extra hard as he planned on Raijin attacking forward so he could sprint at those blades and slip just past the right edge and try to go for Raijin's throat using his left steel hand. The ground shook from the shockwave though that had his head ringing and his eyes struggling to stay open looking through the point-blank shockwave into Raijin's smirking face past those gauntlets. He did not do the step-off he was going to in order to dodge the sword swipes, but his left arm that was curled into a fist still opened up into the curled palm that he was going to crush Raijin's throat with.

He snapped his left hand forward and gripped both of Raijin's gauntlets. Two fingers each dug into the gauntlets before Raijin could pull them away from each other. Zach's face looked disoriented and his body was wobbly, but his left hand gripped through the Anti-Death weapons that were not as strong as the prosthetic that Zach crushed down with all his strength. He also pushed those gauntlets down while crushing them with his fingers, and he finally kicked off the ground but not to side-step around Kaminari's arms. He kicked his right foot over Raijin's arms that he just shoved downwards.

Raijin ducked his head and the top of his backpack popped open. A blue beam fired out of the pack and grazed over the top of Zach's right leg. Skin shredded and blood splashed out, but Zach continued his kick forward then slammed the leg down on Raijin's hunched back so hard and hit Raijin in his glowing backpack. BOOOM! An explosion ripped through the bottom of Zach's leg and threw him backwards. Damage to the pack focused all the excess electricity to explode outwards as a contingency for the villain at the most risk if his pack full of power was damaged. Zach's right leg that was just starting to heal itself was surrounded in a blast of pure condensed energy that the pack could no longer contain while not in the perfect shape that Raijin had developed for maximum capacity.

Rage twisted on Raijin's face. He shot forward with more energy flooding his body and making his eyes flash white as he sped forward towards where Zach was blasting backwards with smoke surrounding his right leg. Raijin's left arm moved too fast for his damaged gauntlet to stay on it, ripping into pieces as his left arm snapped out of the weapon and grabbed onto Zach's burnt leg while Zach was still processing that he was in midair. Raijin's entire body was zapping lightning in all directions as Raijin used any electricity he feared he might lose from the pack anyway in random bursts. There was no point in wasting it, so he used it to speed himself up to a point that he could feel his nerve-endings trying to shoot pain through him, though the actual pain receptors were turned off to keep him from even flinching at the feel of this power-up.

Raijin smashed Zach down into the floor and then rose up and started smashing down again. He stopped short though as after one slam down it was obvious Zach would be ready to catch himself on the next. Zach's arms he was starting to push down to catch himself on the ground just swung through empty air as Raijin stopped swinging him short to instead yank back towards his body that he rose his right knee up in front of with lightning flying off the back of it. His knee was still covered in a white coating of Anti-Death armor. It slammed into Zach's chest and made an indent appear on his back. Raijin had not let go of Zach's leg, so as Zach was supposed to go flying from the knee, he jolted short and tugged Raijin with him who skid on the heels of his feet that he dug down and prevented Zach from flying away, whipping him back around and throwing towards the north side of the street and through a steel-plated first-story wall.

Steel beams around Zach broke apart and glass shattered around him as the plating crumpled on his collision. It did keep him from flying completely through that building though as it nearly stopped his momentum just inside the wall. They went upstairs, Zach only heard screams coming from above him, none in the lobby behind him that he just crashed into. His fingers of both hands curled into the floor at his sides and ripped through a steel beam and a concrete slab. He yanked himself back towards the street while kicking both legs up, nailing Raijin in the stomach and chest as he twisted his body like a corkscrew in midair, fully predicting Raijin's approach rather than actually judging it based on the sight of his enemy's attack.

The perfect prediction of where Raijin would be prevented any of Raijin's feints to mean a thing as Zach did not see any of the false indicators Raijin gave before suddenly throwing himself back at the villain who thought he had another three quarters of a second before Zach would be back up. The ground below where Zach just threw himself from tore up after him like a wake following the boy whose hands passed through the floor as easily as if he was dragging them through mud. Neither stone nor steel survived either his prosthetic or real fingers that dug through them like butter.

Zach's bangs that shadowed over his eyes pushed up as his legs dropped back to the ground below him. His pure red irises glared up at the villain soaring away from him. Raijin had been sent flying backwards and up into the third story of the building across the street, but he was not using any of his electricity on the wall and potentially the people behind him. His legs just bent against that wall he flipped around onto while hitting, though he did need to put his right hand between his bent legs as a steadying factor as well. He could not judge the power decrease to his pack perfectly, but he could still see the dark burns around Zach's right leg that his enemy just landed on. Now. No reprieve.

His legs extended from that wall. His eyes were maddened but exhilarated at the sight of the cold, harsh, blood-red eyes that darted every which way while they fought. He accounts for everything! The corners of Raijin's lips twisted up even higher while he shot like a bolt of lightning down into his enemy. The electricity in the air magnetized from his inner gloves to the hilts of bone-blade katanas on the floor, only for one of the two that was flying towards him to get snatched in midair by the bare right hand of his enemy who slashed it while Raijin was still ten meters away.

Raijin was there before Zach's slash finished. He had to cut his own second weapon in from the angle of its approach so that he caught it while in mid-swipe himself. His right arm was slashing in front of his body, catching a blade flying towards him and speeding up in its own slash, and then he slammed that weapon down into the bone-tevlon blade that Zach just cut with using his right hand. Zach aimed his left hand towards the collision point of their blades and fired a blue beam. The charge-up in his prosthetic was too long. Raijin spiraled under the blade clash and dragged his own katana down the other one and to the guard of his weapons, a guard that he cut straight through and deep into Zach's knuckles that he cut to the bone and deeper before Zach managed to let go of his katana completely and pull his hand away.

The guard did nothing as Raijin knew it would. The white guard of the sword looked to be made of the same strong material, but Raijin knew how easily it was for Zach to pick up and utilize his enemies' weapons. He cut through his own guard with ease and slashed Zach's right fist into a bloody mess that Zach pulled away and swung behind his back. His right leg was still badly burned on the back side and cut through the shin on the front. He's landing hits faster than I can heal them all. And, I'm getting more exhausted and slower each time I regenerate. I can't slow down, but I can't let myself keep bleeding!

Death shrouded his right leg completely as it did his right hand he kept hidden behind his back so that Raijin could not see if he was using Death on that one too. "You're using Death! Is that okay, Zach? Do you finally accept that you need-" Raijin bit his tongue and smiled even wider though in a way not at all hiding the fury in his eyes as all the Death over Zach's wounds vanished. "Are you mocking me?" Raijin wondered with a sharp cock of his head to the right. "You can see how badly this is going for you. SO USE IT! Stop holding back, or my win will mean nothing. Your death won't feel as satisfying."

Zach grit his teeth harder as he could not keep hiding how slowly he was regenerating his wounds. He even let his right hand just drop back to his side. Death licked off of his fingers and caught blood to pull back into his body, but he did not hide how slowly his muscles and skin were regenerating on his right hand. Raijin tilted his head back as Zach chose to let him see that slowness, and he roared, "I'll make you use it! This is just a waste of time!"

"I swore to Kaminari that I would use the power I gained from killing him, to revive this city!" Zach yelled back at his opponent. I had no Death left. Barely anything after that final push to kill him. I could accept that using a little bit right there was just what I would have had whether or not I killed him, but if I use more now then I'm lying about that. I use any more and I accept that I'm dipping into those new reserves. Dipping into the strength that killing my friend gave me! "It's for saving lives," Zach growled.

"You know you can't win without using it!" Raijin yelled back at him. Raijin curled his fingers in front of him. His second gauntlet dropped to the floor. Bolts of electricity connected each of his fingers to fallen blades all over the street though. Ten bone blades that had magnetic steel inside of them flung closer to Raijin then stabbed into the ground with shallow cuts between him and Zach. Electricity connected the pointed-up hilts of the bone swords of different lengths. Raijin bent his knees and leaned his body forward. Visible bolts of lightning sparks off his body. An electrified grid of power connected the blades all over the street and the person who had created that power grid.

Then Raijin raced through his weapons. He sprinted between them, and his hands twitched near every weapon that he could pick up without actually picking up any of them. "You'll waste every drop trying to kill me," Raijin hissed in a high-pitched tone due to how fast he said it.

Zach pulled both elbows back as Raijin charged him. He's right. "I won't use it," Zach snarled. Unfortunately, that has to be a lie. I'll find a way to still revive them all.

The ground under Zach's feet shook as he planted his feet down harder. The entire street behind him vibrated. His hair waved around as a gust of wind surrounded him. His muscles tensed, and then his right arm started to vibrate more than anything else. Tear it up and repair. Repair faster. Like working out my arms every single day for months. Ripping them up and letting them heal, then tearing them up again, and again, and AGAIN! Zach's right arm bulged at the shoulder to his bicep and tricep, down to his forearm that grew thicker and stronger as he started bringing it forward. The arm was trembling as the skin over his muscles rippled from the action going on inside it. The skin had to rip apart and grow as well with the growth of the arm that had shards of Death shredding it into pieces on the inside. The amount of concentrated pain coursing through Zach's body at the destruction and reconstruction of his arm into a more powerful weapon was impossible to hide from his face, but that pain was masked by the unbridled rage finding its source in the doubt of his ability to revive everyone while dipping into Kaminari's life force.

He refused to even consider the possibility of failure, but the subconscious rage bubbled to the surface as he let out an infuriated roar while swinging his right fist forward and then throwing his legs back. Raijin never picked up any of his swords. Two of them dislodged from the ground though and flew at his sides as he just curled his lightning-tipped gloved fingers to dig into Zach's body with. Zach did not move towards him. Raijin was moving too fast to sprint towards. Zach threw his punch but curved his arm downwards instead of just punching forward and sending out a force with an arm he clearly just made more powerful somehow. Zach threw his legs back at the last second and slammed his punching fist into the ground.

The road ahead of him broke in half. The middle of the road split. Rocks and pavement blasted into the air and caused Raijin to magnetize partially to the building on his left to swerve away from them. Zach opened his right fist he punched into the ground. He curled it into the floor and flicked his body using the extra strength in that bulky arm disproportionate in size to the rest of his figure now. He threw himself with such force towards Raijin that he could barely control his body as it spun around six times, though he looked as if in perfect control to Raijin who saw Zach's legs and arms all twitching every spin he made as if he was about to punch and kick with each of them at the end of this spin. Not one limb had more of a tell that it was going to be the one ultimately used, and none ultimately were as a black tongue shot out of Zach's mouth and wrapped around Raijin's neck while the villain spinning around himself was preparing moves of his own against any one of the four limbs that could be used to strike him.

The long condensed Death-tongue wrapped around Raijin's neck and tugged back towards Zach as hard as possible before breaking apart against Raijin's recently deceased neck that also sparked with electricity to stall that Death from pulling back into Zach. As that Death tongue broke apart and hesitated, Raijin knew that if he hit Zach away there was no way that Death was going to pull back into the hero's body but would fade instead and cause Zach to lose some of his own power. Zach still pulled Raijin closer to him though, so even as Raijin hoped to knock Zach away from that Death, Zach had succeeded in getting his enemy even closer to him to put his enemy's counters into disarray. Any of the moves Zach could use now were closer than Raijin was ready to counter.

Raijin did not plan on countering any longer though. Zach's left leg was what came around the side and hit Raijin in the lower right leg, spinning the villain for a follow-up with his newly strengthened right arm he was going to smash down to rip his enemy in half. The second his left leg connected though, Raijin shot all of his electricity into his own right leg and directly into Zach's left leg. Zach's skin directly touched the conductive material where all of Raijin's lightning focused in that instant.

Smoke covered Zach's body as he flew away from Raijin who went spinning around in midair from the kick anyway. That damaged my leg. Fuck. Not good. Grab the buildings. Bolts of electricity connected Raijin to both sides of the street. He went flying while still upside-down towards the side of the street where Zach was flipping over to grab onto the wall behind him. He only looked to be getting ready to hit and bounce off that wall though, as a burst of Death larger than he had used since Raijin revived himself, exploded behind him first. He flew into Raijin who he had expected to follow-up instantly even after the kick once he was hit by that huge blast of lightning that must have taken so much that it would prevent Raijin from instantly recovering and changing directions a third time.

Zach slammed into Raijin and tackled them both down into the street. Lightning again zapped out of Raijin and into his enemy as he pulled more from his backpack that was about to slam into the street and might lose more of what it had left. Right before they hit was when most of the electricity pulsed out of his front and into Zach who had to let go while reeling backwards. He released Raijin into the road back-first, and Raijin skid away from him before flipping over to both feet and flicking his hands at four bone swords around Zach. Each of them had retained some of the electricity he threw at them before, and by reconnecting he set off the trap and made bolts of lightning come out of all four hilts towards the middle of them and into Zach who was only just stepping forward after his enemy.

Zach stumbled and put his left hand down on the ground. The steel of his arm distributed the electricity hitting him into the pavement. His metal fingers curled around that ground though and he flicked towards Raijin who raced back towards him and darted left and right to dodge all the tiny pieces of black pavement. Zach kicked off the floor and swung his right arm out to grab the hilt of the fourth bone blade sticking out of the ground closest in front of him between him and Raijin. His enemy focused on dodging those small pieces of road while sprinting full speed back at Zach again. Zach grabbed the blade that had sparked out most of its electricity already, so he did not flinch as he ripped it from the ground and stabbed forward.

Electricity sparked out of the front of Raijin's body and into the bone sword he started dodging to the left of. He was going to move just along the inside of the weapon. His right hand rose and lightning sparked off his fingers he was going to jam into Zach's neck. The bone sword got hit by electricity that went up the weapon into the conductive hilt and hit Zach's hand. Zach did not flinch. The same amount of electricity had been effective against him in making him flinch for split seconds in the past. And in a single instant as Raijin moved to Zach's right but did not dodge the sword that moved with him, he recognized the impressive strategy that his enemy who had been training with Hatsume's shocker just used. Zach handled the shock without flinching even as the pain filled him. His stronger right arm pulled in with Raijin's dodge that only happened at the very last second anyway.

There was no time for Raijin to dodge again. Every move happened in milliseconds. So the failure of his shock to make Zach hesitate meant that Zach's blade was directly in front of his chest while he was still running at full speed forward. Zach stomped his right foot forward between Raijin's legs and shoved his right arm forward as hard as he could. "RAAAAAAAA!" Zach screamed out while his head shoved forward towards his enemy's that knocked back when the sword pierced through him. It cut through his Anti-Death armor, then through his chest, and straight out his back and the other side of the armor as well. Zach impaled Raijin through with his own weapon more than halfway up the blade.

He stabbed Raijin so hard that his enemy's feet came off the ground. Zach planted both feet down and screamed out even louder, "HA-RRAAAAA!" He grabbed the sword's hilt with his second hand and shoved upwards. Zach lifted Raijin higher over him. Instead of stabbing forwards into his enemy's body, he held the villain up over him while he dug the sword even deeper through Raijin almost all the way to the hilt. Blood spilled down the bottom of the blade to the hilt and onto Zach's hands as he held his enemy pierced through the chest up over his head.

Raijin gasped out. His mouth fell open. His eyes unfocused. Zach's classmates behind him dropped their jaws as Zach stabbed Raijin straight through the heart. And Zach gasped for breath too as he held his enemy above him with arms that shook as he stared into Raijin's unfocused eyes. The second he gasped himself, Raijin's eyes snapped back onto his and the biggest smirk spread on Raijin's bloodying lips. Both of Raijin's arms snapped inwards and his hands grabbed onto the piece of the blade sticking out of his chest between his body and the hilt. Both hands grabbed onto the blade, and it looked like a lightning bolt dropped out of the sky on them because of the sight of the huge flash of lightning around the two of them that shot so high into the sky.

The pack on Raijin's back sparked violently as it was pierced through. What sparked even more violently still was the center of Raijin's body that sparked and sparked and blood pumped around the blade. His body jolted too when he grabbed onto the sword that trembled as Zach's arms lost feeling and started to drop. Zach's arms started to lower, and he was letting go of the weapon, but he was slowed by that giant bolt of lightning as Raijin forced out everything left that he might lose from the pack getting pierced. The villain knew it was most of his storage, but it caused Zach to actually flinch this time as it was way more than he had used last time before getting impaled.

Raijin's left hand snapped forward off the blade and grabbed Zach by his right wrist before Zach could pull his hand away from the hilt. He caught Zach's wrist and then zapped him again with more focused lightning that this time it did not look like both of them were hit, only Zach. All of the condensed electricity zapped around Zach, while Raijin rose his right hand rapidly over his shoulder and pulled out a dagger with a bone blade and hilt that he jammed forward into Zach's face. Zach yanked his head backwards but was slowed by the second bolt of lightning. He tugged his right arm away again, but Raijin's left hand released it anyway while snapping up for Zach's throat that he grabbed and pulled back towards himself while throwing his full body weight forward and plunging the dagger in his right hand into Zach's left eye.

"YAA-RAAAAAAGHH!" Zach staggered backwards while raising both arms for his face and Raijin's right hand that he could not let stab any deeper into his eyeball. His right arm stopped short and went for the left hand in a white glove that curled tighter on his neck and closed his windpipe. Before he could grab at that hand though, Raijin had already pulled it away and above the hilt of his bone dagger he was pushing down hard with his right hand. Darkness sprayed out of Zach's face around the left side and into the air as he stumbled backwards and staggered to the right and left like a chicken with its head cut off. He grabbed Raijin's right hand using his left, but then Raijin's left palm that just rose from Zach's neck slammed down flat into the back of the hilt and plunged it another inch and a half through Zach's eye and into his skull.

Raijin's smile rose even higher and he started cackling at the top of his lungs as blood and Death sprayed up in the air from Zach's face. "EEEHEHEHEEEE! AHHAHAHAAA!" Raijin pushed his head forward and down just behind the hilt of his dagger he was digging into his friend's head. He laughed from a foot in front of Zach's face as loud as he could- then Zach's feet stopped staggering around and planted into the ground hard as a pressure dropped around them and made every building on the block shake.

Zach's right arm did not raise like his left to try and pull out that dagger or stop Raijin from pushing so hard. Zach planted his feet, and his right arm swung forward while the sky around him crackled with thunder much louder than Raijin's laughter. Krr-BADOOOM! Lightning flashed through the stormy sky. Raijin pushed both hands off his dagger's hilt and flipped backwards and just above the force of Zach's arm swing. Just being that close as Zach's right arm punched though caught him in the force and dragged him back three times as fast as he just tried flipping backwards.

Chh- Ch Ch- Chhh

Static filled the air and lightning bolts shot through the sky high above them. Zach's bare feet planted deeper into the street that cracked out from the sides of them to the sidewalks that broke apart even easier than pavement and disconnected from the curbs. Raijin flipped backwards even faster but started spinning around in a midair barrel-roll as well while he grabbed onto the hilt of the blade coming out of his chest.

Zach blurred out of his planted position and shot through the road so fast that a trench tore up along the right side and then diagonally across the road as Zach sped below Raijin and slashed up at him using another bone blade he pulled out of the street while running. Raijin slashed the bloody blade he pulled from his own chest down into Zach's picked-up sword, and he zapped lightning through the blade and into Zach's the moment their blades touched. Zach stumbled at the speed he was going as the ground in front of him was already torn up and he was suddenly hit by lightning while trying to cut through Raijin again. He was moving too fast that to stumble meant falling and rolling so hard into the steel-plated wall ahead of him that he made a huge dent in it that he bounced off of.

On his bounce, his body switched which direction it was facing without him actually twisting around. For a brief instant his whole form just turned pitch black, and then suddenly his back was his front. His face switched which side of him it was on while Raijin sped at him and plunged his sword into the spot on the street that Zach was just laying and saw the approach from due to glowing red eyes spinning around his head. Zach was up in the air and kicking his right leg around already, and Raijin connected lightning behind him to two more swords sticking out of the ground that came up from the pavement as they magnetized to him and pulled him away from his enemy.

As he pulled backwards, the openings on his chest and back were closing up. His heart continued to zap with lightning while he performed surgery on his internal organs in mid-fight. "YOU EVER FIGHT SOMEONE PERFORMING HEART SURGERY ON THEMSELVES BEFORE?!" Raijin screamed in maddened glee towards his enemy who parried away one of his flying two bone swords but got cut deep through the right side of his stomach by the second that suddenly slashed as if someone was holding it rather than just continued flying straight through with a jab like the first that Zach dodged had.

Zach stumbled to his left when his right side was cut through. His right hand moved down to his side and he gripped it hard, but his left hand moved up to his face and the dagger still sticking out of his head. Half of his head was nothing but a pitch black ooze. That had messed with his depth perception, allowing him to be cut through by a regular attack like that that he scolded himself for not dodging. Zach grabbed the dagger and ripped it out of the left side of his face where a tiny glowing red dot had moved up onto his mushy black forehead.

Raijin's chest sealed up as lightning stitched through a cauterizing wound. Zach's face looked like a pool of darkness that reverberated as he pulled out the blade. Skin started to pull back in from around the edges of the Death pool, moving towards his left eyeball that reconstructed in a disgusting show of regenerative power that had those watching in horror gag at the sight that was almost as brutal as when the eye had been stabbed itself.

AANTs flew out of the sky behind Raijin as he had tapped on the left side of his waist a second ago. They flew towards him and then dropped lifelessly to the ground as lightning connected his back to the mobile weapons he pulled from other fights without caring about any of his comrades they might be helping. His pack was sparking uselessly behind him, but most of the rest of the components were still functioning around his armor. He was already manually controlling every function of his own body. Adding the functions of his suit that were usually self-functioning was not very difficult in comparison to the completely new sensations of managing his bodily control.

His Death is catching the blood that poured out of his face. Even a head wound that bleeds that much means nothing in the long run if he catches his blood and returns it to his blood stream. I'm at a net loss on our clashes if this battle of attrition continues any longer.

As Zach's left eye was still repairing, water spilled from his right. The one functioning eye squinted and cried uncontrollably even as Zach kept in any noise. Even the extreme agony he was going through in reconstructing his own eye paled in comparison to the look on Raijin's face that grew in smug glee as the villain saw his tears. "That must have been hard," Raijin added while looking into Zach's eye that squinted harder at the sound of that mocking voice. "Did you really think that was it, again? Stabbing me through the heart? I'm not that easy to put down, ZACH! EEHAHA HEE! Look at me! How many more times are you going to kill me, my friend?! HaAhaHA- ah, ah," Raijin panted a few times as he was laughing too madly after just having his lungs cut through. Lightning zapped around inside him to continue necessary work on his organs if he was unable to laugh that hard without needing to take in more breath.

Zach finished repairing his face. His skin fully healed around his eye socket too. He moved his right hand from his side where the wound was shallow now but stopped healing as it was not life-threatening. "Ahh, haahhh, ahhh…" Zach panted more heavily than his opponent. He breathed out that deeply making it look to just be in exhaustion, and not just the heavy breaths of hyperventilating as he struggled to raise back up his arms into a fighting stance. How many times? Zach wanted to squint his eyes shut to force out the last of the tears and just keep going, but closing his eyes would risk everyone's lives against Raijin who just replenished some of his electricity with those discarded robots.

As many as it takes, Zach forced himself to think while hardening back up his expression.

Ashido rose her trembling hands up over her mouth and covered it up as her own tears flowed freely down her face. "I don't fully understand, still, why you have to kill him." Ashido thought about how they had all encouraged Zach to go out and do what he needed to do when he was about to chase Raijin. She had just told him that he could do it and that she knew he could beat Raijin, and then Yaoyorozu had said this to him. "…But, I'm just sorry. I'm so sorry, Zach." Ashido had seen Momo crying when she was apologizing right before Zach flew after Raijin. She had not been able to tell because of how deadly and serious Zach had sounded about ending their enemy's life back in Heroally. As she watched him agonizingly lift back up his hands and prepare to kill his best friend, again, Ashido couldn't breathe herself at the thought of how he must be feeling in that moment.

Todoroki pressed both hands harder down on the ground in front of his knees. I have to help him. Or, I could be the one, to kill him… I'm kidding myself. I can clearly see the gap in our strengths, but, Shoto rose his head and looked sadly towards his friend who he desperately wanted to assist in this fight. He knew he couldn't, but he did not care about what he knew.

They're both healing their own injuries, Mineta thought as he watched the two in utter confusion. I don't get it. I can't keep track at all of what they're doing or- or how they're doing it! But Kaminari's definitely dead, and yet he's still fighting-

"Raijin," Zach snarled. More of his body covered in Death as he hissed the word in such a deep and scratchy voice that it sent chills down Mineta's spine.

It was not just the tone of Zach's voice that made Mineta feel that way though. "But I don't hate him." Mineta pursed his lips and stared towards his friends- two of the closest friends he had ever had. "I'll never call Kaminari by 'Raijin.' I never have." Mineta heard Zach's voice in his room after the Death trial. He remembered hearing what Zach had said then that made him cry as he fully believed Zach knew what he was talking about then. Why's he calling him 'Raijin' now? Does he no longer believe it? He was calling him Kaminari earlier today! I- I don't…

"I've realized, that Kaminari was just like me. As a kid he blocked off some of the good parts of his brain when he tested out controlling his mind, then the bad parts of his mind told him to block more, and those bad parts were never going to just accept his full mind again." Mineta's eyes grew even wider, He can't have changed his mind on it! "…And when I shout about how I think the world is good, how all I want to do is make it more beautiful than it already is, how I believe humanity is good! Kaminari doesn't make me falter, because I know! Kaminari's just like me!"

Ashido had gotten closer too and heard Zach's voice echo through her head as he hissed out their enemy's villain name, for the first time she had ever heard him use it. "Kaminari, was the one I was protecting at USJ, when I killed Shindeki Buda… So no. I didn't know my best friend was betraying me the whole time. He's a villain. He's, my nemesis."

"I killed my own mother with my Quirk, the same time that Kaminari was destroying his own mind without realizing what he was doing. Ahhhh…" Oh God, Zach. You haven't actually changed your mind. I saw that look on your face as you were saying it then, Ashido cried freely and felt her heart shattering as she watched the pure rage spread on Zach's expression to cover up how she knew he was really feeling underneath. "Kaminari was never taught to use his Quirk early enough to know not to use it on his brain like that. No one knew! No teacher was trained to explain to children displaying electricity Quirks that might be too powerful, not to block their own synapses or risk mental damage. No one knew they needed to stop that to lower the risk of turning a kid into a supervillain."

"I know. That the bad part of Kaminari just pushed aside the good, and then it allowed some of it to come back. I can't accept 'Raijin' because the myth about only using 10% of your brain is just that, a myth. We use so much that I don't believe Kaminari could actually split into multiple personalities just with some extra brain power. He might be smarter, but he really just released the good side of himself while making sure he had enough strength to take back power and make some important decisions. Keeping blocked the synapses where he knew his true strength and he knew what was going on in the backdrop of his own mind. But other than that, I believe the good Kaminari we knew had the most of him. It was the most real him because the bad allowed a lot of bad traits like stupidity and perviness, and sometimes being lazy and getting angry. It was the most full version of Kaminari there was!"

All four of those watching them now had heard Zach say these things only days ago. They did not know when Zach had stopped calling him 'Kaminari,' but each of them somewhere deep down understood the real reason for it beyond the notion that Zach had already killed 'Kaminari' and so now there was only 'Raijin' left. Zach knew that truth himself too, as much as he was burying it as deep down as he could and pushing away any of those same beliefs that he had held so deeply for years.

Zach swung both arms out to his sides. When his face just repaired itself like that, his hair had grown out a few inches again. Swinging his arms made that hair bounce and show that his whole being had been affected by whatever it was he just did to heal himself. His skin around the eye was rougher. The shading blended well across his face, but there was a distinction between the tanner recently repaired and what had been healed earlier.

When Zach swung his arms out, they extended. Both of his hands pushed off of his arms that turned into long black snakes shooting towards discarded weapons on the ground for him to grab. Raijin was in front of him before Zach could swing both swords back in at his enemy. Raijin's left palm slammed into the inside of Zach's right elbow while he was bringing the sword around. The weapon popped out of Zach's grip and flew across the fronts of their bodies due to the momentum it already had. Raijin leaned his face forward and bit onto the hilt while slashing his other sword in a way forcing Zach to block it with his own left-handed weapon.

A third and fourth appendage of darkness emerged from Zach's chest and blocked the sword slashing down into him. He tried to harden the Death, but the sword was sharp and Anti-Death. It required too much of his Quirk to solidify his Death, and even as he dipped into reserves he did not want to use, Zach's Death was cut through and more blood cut out of his front past the sliced arms. His ripping Death flew after each and every blood droplet. Wisps flew away from him and caught his blood the second it spurted out. Raijin did not slow. Zach tried to punch his right fist in that had released the blade, creating a new Death knife in his hand but with no other weapon inside it. When he slashed across Raijin's armor it did not cut through but just broke apart on the exterior.

Raijin dropped the sword he slashed down using his teeth. Blood that splashed forward into his face was lapped at by the dark wisps that poured out of the huge vertical gash on Zach's body. Raijin elbowed forward through the dark mist and into Zach's face that Zach just tried to headbutt forward into his enemy who ducked behind his left arm that he elbowed in while parrying off the sword in Zach's left hand. Zach ignored the elbow to the face but could not follow-through with his counter after being parried when he knew that the sword in Raijin's right was cutting towards his face that had an elbow in it blocking his sight for the second. He ducked down and flipped forward, kicking his heel into the flat of the blade passing through where his neck just was. He popped the blade up and punched his right fist forward under Raijin's left.

The huge gash in the middle of Zach's body was sealing up, but he had stayed close to his enemy and punched at him again while Raijin must have been getting lower on his electricity reserves that he no longer had a functioning pack to control. Somehow the villain was still moving faster against him though, leaning back away from Zach's right hand when it passed his own as he was not going to risk trading blows here. Zach's physical strength topped the villain's, and Raijin smirked at the frustration on Zach's face when the end of his fist stopped just in front of Raijin's body that leaned away just out of reach.

The top of Zach's arm just below his shoulder extended out when Zach made the face of frustration. His lower arm that was still a human fist stayed the same, but the propulsion of Death out of his shoulder made his punch speed up even more into Raijin's gut. The extending darkness from Zach's right shoulder while he was still flipping in midair himself, coiled like a snake and then curved down into the ground still with a light-skinned fist at the end of it that did not break apart or lose force against Raijin's Anti-Death armor.

Zach planted Raijin into a hole in the ground. He landed his flip and ran forward, biting down through the pain of his bloody chest that was sealing up with a veil of steam rising in front of his face. He caught one of the blades that fell from Raijin's hands when he was knocked backwards. Zach flipped it and slammed down for Raijin's neck. I'll separate his head from his body! That will finish him for good! Zach smashed the sword through an empty space and straight down to the hilt. The road around the blade split. Five huge fissures ripped away from the blade that Zach plunged through the street so hard that the city shook around them. "RAA!" Zach roared as Raijin had vanished in a blur of yellow up to his right side. Zach spun his head in a blur of his own with his reddened eyes flaring wildly and madly at the man rising up on that side of him with a pair of smaller bone shortswords in his hands.

Zach formed a second blade of pitch darkness that he swung up along with the white katana in his left hand that he ripped back out of the ground and swung with full force up at Raijin. His enemy twisted around that blade coming with too much force that it was so telegraphed to him. He did not allow the second attack from Zach's black blade to hit him either though, avoiding it despite its aim towards a part of his body that had Anti-Death armor on it. Raijin's legs both glowed blue as the electricity stored there functioned with his costume even in the state that its main power source was in.

Raijin hovered over the ground as light pulsed out the backs of his legs and kept him suspended. Zach's weapons both passed him by, then Raijin spun around and slashed his right hand with the bone shortsword in it. He intentionally missed Zach while swinging the other hand around towards Zach's right wrist that was twisting with the weapon in it- Zach refocused on the second attack coming for his wrist, not realizing that the blade passing him by was never meant to connect as Raijin pulled his right hand slightly more towards Zach's body instead and just grazed the back of his glove against Zach. That glove got very prickly all of a sudden as electricity zapped a mechanism inside of it and turned the glove into a tiny porcupine, shredding through Zach's collarbone above his left shoulder and taking a piece of his cheek as well.

Zach cocked his head to the left as hard as he could and caught a piece of Raijin's right arm against his shoulder before his enemy could finish pulling his arm away. He caught Raijin there and then kicked up his right foot and blocked Raijin's second sword he tried to stab Zach with when his enemy caught him. He started zapping Zach's body through his hand, but Zach shrugged his left shoulder up first and pinched Raijin's arm just above his elbow between the hard steel of his prosthetic and his locked jaw that he dug into Raijin's bone to try and break it.

Electricity hit the two of them and they each stumbled back from one another. Zach nearly fell when the leg he kicked up into Raijin's left arm dropped back down but in the moment he was shocked so he failed to catch his footing. Raijin was stumbling backwards from pulling his right arm back so hard and from the kick in his left. They each stopped stumbling at the same time, and they slammed back into one another in the start of another fifty clashes that occurred in the next seven seconds. The two of them moved so fast that wind was flying off of their arms and weapons whenever they moved them. Neither wanted to give up any ground. Neither were running away this time. The battle was offensive against offensive. Defense was thrown to the wayside, and the flurry of their arms and slashing blades turned into a bloodbath seconds later as cuts opened on both fighters who did not want to slow down their attacks despite it.

They were moving so fast that Zach's Death blades only needed to hold for the briefest of instants before the parry bounced them away. Even if he was not condensing as hard anymore, he only had to hold them together in their strongest state in the exact point that Raijin's blade was going to touch in the exact moment that the blades were touching. His dark weapons looked more fluid as they only solidified in a single area in the moment of Zach's choosing that occurred for the smallest fraction of a second each touch now. Raijin's swords were changing speed and style too though. The weapons only covered in electricity in the moment that Raijin wanted to speed them up into sudden jolts rather than the same lightning-fast speed he was constantly moving at. His bursts of power added to their new base speeds faster than they had ever moved before meant that in those brief nanoseconds that he sped up almost too fast for even Zach to see.

His body can handle that speed! It's meant to handle electricity. If he keeps moving that fast it should tear his insides though- Zach punched his left fist towards a cut he had opened in Raijin's chest that he wanted to damage further, maybe bust blood vessels inside his torso that would spill blood faster from the wound and slow Raijin down. The villain vanished though. Zach had to blink. His face was humanoid instead of Death, even as more darkness had been coming off of his arms and legs for bursts of speed of his own that he needed to keep up. His eyes were red though, and yet he still lost sight of Raijin as his enemy saw him blink and had apparently been waiting for it for as long as it had been since last time Zach had observably done so.

Raijin closed the gap between them so close that by ducking he was momentarily out of Zach's sight. He grabbed onto his own right arm with his left hand just below his elbow. The right itself was still repairing internally with lightning needles in his arm fixing blood vessels. This arm had the stronger Anti-Death armor still around the outside of the elbow though, and there were prickly bones of the formerly revived that stuck out of it when he curled his left hand around the sleeve. A bolt of lightning flashed just under Zach's nose while his head was bowing to see the spikes of yellow less than a foot in front of him.

His enemy spun. Zach tried to block with an explosion of Death blasting out the front of his stomach. It forced into Raijin who elbowed through it anyway and connected with something that he did not see while inside of a black cloud of Death. Zach flew out of his own cloud that twitched and faltered in the air, before slowing moving after the trail Zach left behind… Raijin zapped the cloud of Death and prevented it from going back to Zach. "Fade, fade away," Raijin taunted through the Death that Zach was trying to pull back into himself.

Zach lay on the ground twenty meters back. He was in a trench in the ground. Walls on either side of him were ripped through. The one on his right was worse off and had chunks of street smashed through it that knocked down some metal beams that had been between lobby windows. Zach was on his back but sitting up as the ground had folded up behind his skidding form and pushed him nearly onto his feet again by the time he stopped moving. He glared ahead towards Raijin who mocked while walking through the shocking black cloud, "You're losing it all! Watch it go! HAHAHA HEE!" Raijin kicked down off the ground below him while Zach rose his right twitching hand towards the building on that side of him.

His body leaned up off the crumpled ground at his lower back. His feet planted on the ground while his right hand twitched towards that wall off to his right. I'm losing too much Death. That was a loss with no benefit. He still broke through and hit me. I was barely able to move to the side and he still crushed a kidney. I made sure it was mine and not Gentle's though. I don't know if I'd be able to manually repair that one. Don't even know what I'm doing to fix the ruptured one right now. Blood pooled in Zach's mouth but he forced himself to swallow it into an esophagus that he turned to Death for a second to absorb the blood back out into his bloodstream. As he rose his right arm towards the building to his side, black wisps came out of his fingertips towards a steel beam on the floor in there that he could see in the corner of his eyes.

CRACK! Ka- Brrmmm BOOM! Thunder sounded out like a canon about them. It sounded like the loudest blast of thunder anyone on that street had heard in their lives, other than Zach who had heard these noises before. The pressure he created spread around a country. Mine has changed the weather. I've been able to focus it internally to fix myself. It's all around me though. The pressure. Focusing it closer makes the weather shifts more extreme directly overhead instead of spread out over a larger area. I need to focus that pressure down though. It should be strongest around me anyway. Stronger since Kaminari's… I can feel it. At the tip of my fingers! IT'S SO CLOSE!

Raijin sped at Zach and flipped around a blade in his right hand he was going to stab into his standing enemy's heart. He had felt something inside of Zach's torso blow apart on his elbow. He felt it through Zach's skin even though he had been unable to see anything in the dark cloud he had been stuck in. Finish him! In the corner of Raijin's eyes, he saw the long black arm reaching for the broken wall on Zach's right side.

The arm was faded. It looked to be extending from Zach's arm, and yet it looked as if Death was forming out of midair and connecting into it. The wisps that had just faded behind Raijin may have just been too small for the human eye to see, because they were reconvening onto that arm from Raijin's back to create a more solid appendage that extended well away from Zach. A hand reached down for a steal beam on the floor of that building that was four inches wide and over twelve feet long. Before that hand touched the beam that Raijin knew Zach would not be able to pick up and swing at him in time, the beam moved. He didn't grab it yet! Raijin screamed in his own head while stopping short and slamming his heels down into the ground as hard as he could. He flung the blade in his right hand towards Zach while jumping backwards, right before the metal beam flew out of that building now wrapped up in Zach's Death-handed grasp.

Zach swung the beam in front of him and just barely missed his enemy, though he did knock away the blade that Raijin threw towards him before the weapon could pierce his skull. Zach retracted his Death arm to himself and then created a thin black veil around the bottom edge of his left hand just past his steel pinky. He turned the long beam in his right hand and chopped off one end of it to shrink its size down to around four feet long. Then he curled his left hand around the steel beam and pushed it through his curled grasp using his right, peeling off even more excess steel. The pre-made slit in his knuckles sharpened the piece of building foundation to fashion himself a weapon.

Death covered up the sword that Zach just made for himself. He slashed it in front of his body and then held it vertically from in front of his waist so the blade rose right between his eyes. He glared past either side of the flaring weapon towards his enemy. His body covered in more Death. It climbed up from the hilt of the flaming-black sword to his hands, to his elbows that it flared off of. Both of his feet shrouded in darkness. Webs of Death curled in from the sides of his face towards his nose and mouth and eyes. I cannot hold back anymore. Whatever happens, I'll find some way to revive later on. But I need to use everything. He's no weaker dead than he was alive. I'll fight with everything I have. Stronger than I have ever been!

Raijin pounded his own heart faster and faster. Electricity zapped the part of his brain releasing dopamine and adrenaline. He did not know if he had just done it manually, or if somehow his body subconsciously did it on his own without him telling it to, but his pores opened up and the villain started sweating at the new look spreading over Zach's face. "Ha, haha," Raijin's own smile grew higher and he snapped his arms out to recall two more bone blades back to his hands. He pointed those weapons to the sides, and the entire block around them blacked-out. Zach did not rush him as the electricity hitting his enemy's blades was only coming towards him and not flowing out into those buildings that all lost power as the villain charged up. "Alright-y then." Raijin called out in a sing-song voice. "Let's try this again!" Zach didn't pick up that beam with his Quirk!

Zach imagined a sword flying through the sky from some unknown location and smacking straight into Ares' grasp while his enemy flew in the sky in front of him. He pictured that man swinging his sword and cutting completely through a mountain. Anything he can do… Zach pushed his right foot down into the floor and then kicked off the ground while another crash of thunder ripped through the sky above him. A flash of lightning branched out in the sky and illuminated the shadowed-over street from how dark those clouds had gotten over the block that no longer had any electricity. Zach slammed his blackened new blade down into the ground in front of him and caused Raijin to hop up onto his right foot and lean away.

The villain was still rising up to the left of Zach but his eyes darted past the end of Zach's sword and several blocks away where a discarded car sideways across the middle of the street got crushed down into the floor and then exploded. Zach's pitch black hair rose up behind his neck and waved higher as wind swirled around him and helped him spin to his left side while dragging his sword back out of the shattering ground and after Raijin. The villain had a populated building to his back, but Zach's sword was rising up towards him looking to have a similar amount of force in it to what he just used.

Raijin knew Zach better than that. There was not even a momentary lapse in Raijin's judgement of wondering if Zach had lost it or was not in complete control of how much force he was using. All that electricity he just siphoned out of nearby buildings in the final second before Zach charged had been an emergency measure to fill back up, but Kaminari could feel the power inside of him differently than usual as well. It was easy to grab from those buildings. There's static in the air. His pressure is bringing this storm down on us, and he can't control it. The lightning in the air may be from his power, but it's mine to use- FAST!

Zach's left hand snapped off his weapon's hilt and grabbed Raijin by the back of his costume. Zach ripped backwards with so much force that he tore the Anti-Death away with his metal left hand. His fingers dug through Raijin's back and bled the villain from wounds that cauterized an instant later. Zach had torn through the outer armor and Raijin's costume underneath. He tugged backwards on his enemy and then slashed his sword down for Raijin's chest as the villain was still falling backwards. Electricity sparked out of Raijin's head and left side, magnetizing him to the closest building that he instantly connected to as static electricity in the air turned into a solid bolt that he utilized.

Raijin dropped to the broken street instead of moving with that magnetism all the way. He only tugged just out of sword-reach, before dropping on the ground and speeding around Zach's right side and stabbing forward into Zach's right shoulder that Zach twisted away while still holding onto the sword that appeared to slow him down. As Raijin stabbed into Zach's shoulder, that shoulder suddenly turned into a pitch black cloud that Raijin attempted to stab through quicker. He could see Zach using more Death than he had been trying to for a while, which meant that Zach might be able to disperse his own shoulder so that even a stab with an Anti-Death blade would not cut through it.

He was right, partially. Zach would not have been able to turn all of it to Death though, but he was fine with the sacrifice. A second arm was coming out of his armpit. The top of his right arm disconnected from his shoulder as he was able to turn the part just below his shoulder purely into Death in such a non-condensed way that his arm started to drop. The arm reconnected to the new shoulder he made below his original. Most of his real shoulder behind the front layer of skin turned into a Death mist, but Zach allowed the front layer of flesh to be stabbed through so that Raijin would think for the brief moment of impact that he had actually pierced Zach and forced him to keep his arm in place.

The wound Raijin inflicted was minor though. It pierced Zach's shoulder all the way through, and Raijin knew something was wrong because he did not feel the bone blade scraping against bones on the inside of Zach's arm. He saw the blood spurt out of the darkness on Zach's right shoulder, but he also caught a glimpse behind that thin veil of darkness that there was nothing behind it. Zach's arm holding the Death sword swung from Zach's right side across the front of his body. Raijin tugged back with his left hand but then let go and just jumped backwards as fast as he could, magnetizing all the steel on his body to anything it would connect to behind him. A flash of lightning went off in the sky again at the same time that all of the electricity flowed out of Kaminari's back and pulled him away.

He was fast enough to get past the four foot length of the steel blade he knew was inside of the longer Death weapon. But Zach again pushed the real weapon he was pretending to have his hand curled around through the darkness itself so the tip of the steel blade extended out past the end of the Death exterior that shrouded its appearance. Kaminari was flying backwards, and a sword sliced across the front of his body just between his head and torso, and it stretched just too far for Kaminari to pull back away from in time.

The villain hit the ground on his feet and skid backwards while his head tilted farther and farther back. His neck from left side to right side had just been opened up by the blade that sliced through it. His esophagus and trachea were opened up. His jugular was cut. Kaminari's head barely looked to still be attached to the rest of his body. All that electricity coming out of Kaminari's back flooded into his neck and his head pushed back forward. His chin dropped down and his bloodshot eyes flared with electricity sparking out of them while it sewed up the split tubes in his neck. In a second, Zach watched as Kaminari reconnected his head to his torso in a way he seriously doubted the villain would be able to do until he watched it with his own eyes. Zach's red eyes grew wider than Raijin's were as he watched the villain repair his own neck and so precisely zip together all the damage. The tubes and vessels that were cut seared together just on the outsides of them to connect tops and bottoms of the cut. His neck skin sealed up last and left a very similar scar on it to the one on the front of Zach's own neck.

I lost too much blood there. That solidifies the need for blood redistribution. The only way to keep the fight even. Raijin disappeared and reappeared in front of Zach with no hesitation.

I was so close- was I? Even if I had cut all the way through, would it have been enough? Would he have zapped his disconnected torso with electricity from his head? Get his arms to pick up his head and put it over his neck, then sew it back on anyway? What am I even supposed to do? I- I guess, I'll just have to do it again. And again- AND AGAIN! "WHY WON'T YOU, STAY DEAD?!" Zach screamed as Raijin reappeared in front of him.

The following clash took place over a total of just under thirteen seconds without moving from a seven foot radius circle on the street. Every single move for the first four seconds was parried and countered perfectly. The two leaning into each other slashed and parried so rapidly that it looked like they had ten arms each, on both sides of their bodies. The sky on Zach's side of the street was darker than the illuminated sparking air on Raijin's. Both sides had wisps of Death and sparks of electricity zipping around in them though- not due to the two trying to curve around attacks at their enemy's back, but just because of the vast power they were emitting that spread out away from them in all directions including past their opponent.

Zach slashed the bloody half of his steel beam sword that he had ripped off for his left hand down at the legs of his opponent who repelled the weapon with a magnetic field he created out of his own right leg. Not jumping or side-stepping to avoid the attack meant that Raijin did not have to change the angling of his own right sword slash that was coming from Zach's upper left side. Zach had slashed downwards at his enemy's legs so that his left arm was still in the way of his vital areas though on his body, protecting him from any body slashes. The magnetic field Raijin built up around them though as they fought in a single area for this clash was not just around his legs. His approaching sword to Zach's left arm suddenly shifted the angle of its approach without Raijin's arm or upper body altering the direction it was coming in, and without Raijin pulsing any excess electricity with his Quirk into the arm.

He kept the same momentum even as his weapon pushed against the magnetic pole in such a way that it did a bounce in mid-flight that now brought it on an angle above Zach's shoulder towards his neck. Zach took the bounce-back of his left arm though and continued with the repulsion from the attempted leg slash that Raijin did not allow in that same moment. He saw Raijin's right handed sword bouncing in the air to a better angle with his neck, and he was able to shrug up his shoulder faster because of the way Raijin had just repelled it from cutting through his legs. Zach put more weight onto his right foot as well which was easier with his body being repelled by a magnetic force pushing onto his left. Shrugging up his left shoulder alone would have only nicked the bottom of the blade enough to push it higher and into Zach's face rather than his neck, but by tilting himself diagonally to his right he added a slight bit of extra height that made Raijin's ricocheting sword only cut through his hair above his tilting forehead and not even touch his face.

Zach's left hand opened up from how it was curled around his makeshift sword while he was leaning. He released and started pointing his palm towards Raijin's body that was very close to him. His right hand was already swung forward with the other half of the makeshift sword and Raijin was blocking it with the sword in his left. He opened his left palm but then quickly curled it around his weapon before it fell. Out of energy. Or his shocks have messed with the cybernetic links. The neural connection is maintaining strong movement through my arm, but the pathways are too slow to respond to funneling its power to the palm for a short burst of expulsion energy. Zach understood within that fraction of a second that he had released his blade that firing out a burst of blue light from his left would not work at the speed they were fighting right now, so instead he just caught his own weapon and used the fact that he had loosened his grip on it as an attempted feint on his opponent who must have figured he was going to use an energy attack instead.

Raijin grinned wider at his enemy who his eyes darted back and forth along while fighting at faster speeds than either of them had ever fought at before. Is it mechanical error? Doesn't matter. The fact that he was able to comprehend some sort of error and then react to catch his own blade means that the signals connecting his mind to the prosthetic hand react as fast as the human body can to a brain's commands. Depending on the speed of the neural connection, it may bypass pathways that an actual human body has to pass signals through too. A straight line to the receptors from the brain. It really is a prosthetic greater than his old arm.

Raijin did not get tricked by the feint. He slashed down using the blade that had passed over Zach's face. The fancy footwork of the darker fighter pulled his body away from the white weapon before it could cut down into his head though. He danced aside then cut back while slashing upwards with his left arm. He saw that Raijin was moving to block his left sword, so he slashed his right even lower towards Raijin's left hand's blade that was going to intercept his own left. Raijin saw that Zach's right hand was not actually coming around to block, but yet Zach did not stop short or extend that weapon to try and cut him again. Rather Zach swung the steel down farther past Raijin's own weapon that curved back to protect from a potential body shot from that blade he just mis-predicted. Even though that made more sense to him and so he protected from it, he saw that Zach was only faking at that being behind the first feint. Zach slashed down into the blade in his left hand raising up that he saw was going to be blocked.

Raijin's right hand swung back after his last miss on Zach's face. He slashed across the front of his chin and cut in half the tiny shard of metal that Zach just broke off from the blade in his left hand. He swung past Raijin's intercepting blade and hit his own in a strange move that spun his body back around while breaking apart most of the half of a sharpened beam in his left hand. The tip of that blade broke off though still with upwards momentum towards Raijin's head even as both of Zach's arms were swung away, but the projectile fired up at Raijin was slashed in half and both tiny shards flew by either side of the villain's skull. The intercepting blade Raijin pulled back to protect himself cut back towards Zach's chest while Zach's arms were still moving down. Raijin had realized the angle of Zach's left blade would send a piece of shrapnel flying at him an instant ago, and since that was Zach's plan it meant he could move his right arm back and was slashing it down diagonally towards Zach's chest that was a wider target and could not avoid at the last second as easily as Zach's head could.

Zach had hit his own left blade hard enough though and with so much force in his right arm's swing downwards that he cut the ground at his feet. He spun himself fully around using the force from swinging his right arm that hard across the front of his body. He smacked his spinning left arm as it came around into the blade that was cutting at his chest, parrying with his prosthetic that some electricity passed into as Raijin saw what Zach was going to use to block with. Zach kicked his right leg up though at the moment after Raijin zapped him. He waited until he felt the shock to do it, so his movement was uninterrupted and came at the same time that Raijin's follow-up did at an angle that was going to miss as Zach's body dropped backwards parallel to the floor while stood only on his bent left leg. Raijin's swing went over the top of Zach's body while Zach's right foot skimmed along the front of Raijin's costume as the villain stepped backwards rapidly. Raijin then stomped back forwards and bellied out into the leg that had curled its toes against his body while passing and tried to rip off more of his costume… only partially successfully.

Raijin bodied the leg while still with some Anti-Death armor on the front of his torso. He dropped the sword in his left hand even while reaching down and grabbing the top piece of dangling fabric from the bottom of his own chest that he folded down on Zach's leg that started pulling away to avoid being caught inside the powerful white armor. Zach tugged backwards but then found it easier to do so as Raijin frowned at the lack of force that went into Zach pulling away from him. As he released, he regretted his decision and questioned if Zach knew that he would suspect a trap of Zach wanting his leg to be trapped in the Anti-Death. Either way, the move had been dropped and Zach's right foot touched back down on the floor with his left fist already rising in an uppercut that had a small shard of one foot long sharp steel sticking out of his grasp.

Sparks flew for a different reason as Raijin slashed down at Zach's left arm but only aimed at the piece of shrapnel rising for him. Raijin caught his own dropping sword from his left hand when it was down at his waist, while in mid-jab forward down at Zach's right leg that had avoided his plans for it. He caught the weapon and stabbed at Zach's leg that stepped two inches to the left and avoided the cut just behind the back of the blade.

The weapon that Zach used to parry the other move was already broken. It was a piece of steel from a broken wall. When Raijin cut at his weapon, Zach brought his left arm in to try and knock away Raijin's sword after it broke his weapon even more. Raijin's sword had sped up at the last milliseconds before it collided with the shard of steel though. It was a slash meant to break another sword, and when it broke through Zach's it faced little resistance. So it passed down along the inside of Zach's left arm and hit him in the upper left side of his chest.

Blood rose up through Zach's throat. He could feel it rising but was still biting down in the same breath he had been on ten seconds ago when they had started this. His left arm he pushed against the inside of Raijin's blade was now incidentally dragging the white weapon farther along his body it had stabbed into. He had to curl his left hand around the weapon and stop Raijin from moving it any more. Raijin zapped electricity through the weapon and into Zach's conductive arm, and into his body, and then wastefully into midair as the blade had been snapped in half where Zach had grabbed onto it. The Anti-Death weapon curled and balled-up inside of Zach's hand that folded the hybrid metal like putty.

The curl of Zach's left hand showed the strength of the prosthetic, but the pop of air around his curled fist that slammed wind into Raijin's face and made his hair all push back was not the strength of the prosthetic being shown off. Zach swung that left hand while opening it and threw a piece of the blade at Raijin's face. Kaminari pulled his head back while back-stepping. Zach stepped forward the same distance of each of Raijin's two steps backwards. Their feet stayed close to each other, and Zach's left hand that released the weapon snapped forward and grabbed Raijin by a piece of fabric dangling from his stomach that was falling farther now than before after Raijin had tugged on it to try and wrap Zach's leg. He caught just a piece of that fabric and pulled towards himself, before curling his fist and jabbing forwards into Raijin's stomach.

Zach parried away Raijin's left sword with his right-handed weapon, before dropping his blade there too and grabbing onto his enemy's white sword while it was in the middle of parrying away. It never reached the point it would have cut back in from as Zach stopped it short, before yanking towards himself while gripping on a blade pulling away from his right hand. Blood spilled from his palm and the insides of his fingers as Kaminari pulled so hard on the left blade. Zach had pulled towards himself though and took two more steps forward while Raijin had only stepped back two before stopping to make Zach stop as well by showing he was not retreating. Zach stepped even closer though to a distance that put their faces so close to one another. Zach's head was slightly higher and his red eyes glared down into Raijjin's that grew wider as Zach leaned the left side of his body forward with a fast jolt forward as he stepped that close. The half blade of bone-tevlon still sticking out of the left side of Zach's chest stabbed into Raijin's as Zach body-slammed while standing on both feet.

He just chest-bumped his enemy and stabbed him while tensing all of his muscles in his chest around the entrance wound and preventing that weapon from stabbing any deeper into himself. Zach yanked back and left the jagged weapon stuck inside Raijin's upper torso, caught underneath his own collarbone where Zach's chest had stabbed it into. As Zach was stepping back and pulling away his right hand to heal along with his chest though, Raijin stepped back forward himself and leaned his own neck towards Zach's retreating form as if to stab that blade into him again even before reacting to how he had just been stabbed-

Zach's left arm swung in to grab onto the protruding blade and turn this into an even worse fatal injury. Raijin suddenly stopped his forward lean though that had seemed to be reactionary and in rage about how Zach had just managed to stab him. All Raijin had wanted for several seconds now, or actually from the start of their clash, was a moment just like this as Zach was so close to him that trying to punch his left arm in between their bodies had Zach's left arm fully extending across the front of his chest. Raijin leaned backwards as Zach's fist passed between them. There was no room there except inches of space between Zach's arm and both of their faces that they looked over into each other's eyes.

Raijin's right arm snapped up. It bumped into the blade piece sticking through his chest even, but the wound there was shallow and Raijin felt no pain. He magnetized the blade already and kept it locked in place far enough from any vital organs and veins he had already sealed the gashes on inside his body. Raijin punched his right arm up in what looked like an uppercut on Zach's side of his left arm that was held between them, but Zach did not lean his head away from that punch as he could see something else was happening here. He tried to swing his right arm across his body to stop his own momentum from his left arm's punch, but Raijin parry-slashed his left sword towards Zach's right hand and forced him to move that arm or risk it being cut off.

The villain hooked his right arm up in front of Zach's chest between his pecs. He did not punch into Zach's chin though. Raijin curled his right arm back towards himself and wrapped it around Zach's left, while he stepped to his right and more towards Zach's left shoulder. When he slashed with his left hand towards Zach's right arm, he forced his enemy to pull his right hand away, and only then did the fantastic smile appear over Raijin's face. Zach was moving his right hand away but jolted it to a stop and tried swinging back as Raijin dropped that sword in his left hand.

Raijin's left hand snapped up to Zach's left shoulder while the villain himself did a spin onto Zach's left side and matched the footwork Zach did himself to try and pull away from his opponent. Raijin's feet lifted off the ground. The extra weight on Zach's arm was easy to hold up, but it meant that the force in which he was swinging around did not throw off his enemy who practically wrapped his body around Zach's steel arm. Raijin's left hand moved up to Zach's shoulder and tapped fingers down on it, then it wrapped around the bottom of the arm that he was bending backwards by whipping his whole body around Zach's back and magnetizing the arm he was holding onto to the building at their rears. Zach was off-balanced. His arm was bent in a way hurting his left shoulder that he could not turn into Death while one of those revived by his Quirk was grabbing onto that shoulder already…

Click. ZAP!

Zach winced and stumbled to his right. He was leaning more to his right already to hold up the extra weight on his left side. That weight was gone though. Two hundred plus pounds of the weight of his enemy and his gear and the arm itself, were gone. Raijin landed and bounced backwards while still holding onto Zach's arm. Zach was twitching in pain, because the unlocking noise in his arm was followed by a giant blast of electricity into the forming gap and straight into the circular panel that should have been glowing bright blue right now to call back his arm to his body. He was failing to recall that arm to himself though due to the huge shock that Raijin just applied directly to that mechanism.

In that moment of pause as Zach's prosthetic refused to respond to his mental calls for it to return, Raijin tilted his head to the right while lifting his left arm up high above his head. Lightning surrounded his chest and pumped his heart over and over. His arm was zapped by that electricity too as he held it high over his head. The blood pumping in his arm only pumped in one direction though as he blocked the blood from pumping back into it. The arm started to shrivel as electricity coursed through it. Raijin bit down while holding his right arm out to the side with Zach's prosthetic left held firmly just below its shoulder. Raijin bit down harder and harder, and in between his teeth formed a blade of lightning that stretched out five feet and sharpened into a visible bolt that shook violently in the bite of the villain whose lips curled up into a mad smile as he snapped his head towards his left arm and whipped it around to slice the blade through his shoulder.

Zach flinched. His eyes grew huge and he pulled his head back at what his enemy just did. Raijin's left arm was falling away from his body. Very little blood spilled out of the severed limb or from the opening in Raijin's left shoulder, though Zach could only see that opening for the shortest of instants before Raijin slammed the steel left arm he was holding into his own left shoulder socket. Raijin's right hand burst bright with electricity. Steam came out of his shoulder as the flesh around the wound melted into the steel of the prosthetic. Flesh melted over the flat end of Zach's shoulder like glue. The skin reddened and seared with the intense cauterization of Zach's prosthetic limb onto Raijin's body. And then the neural system connected. The electrical pathways that lined the inside of the prosthetic were rewired and reconnected to a new system, a new owner. Raijin let go of the arm with his right hand and moved his right as a curled fist back down to his side. And at the same time, his new left arm started to raise up at his other side and curled each of its fingers individually into another fist that he held up at the same height as his right.

"And just like that," Raijin spoke while everyone watching him held their breath. They had been frozen in shock. They stared at the villain who smirked towards Zach and taunted, "Your battle of attrition is reset."

Zach bit down so hard his jaw hurt. The last second of Raijin still having his old arm replayed in his head. He saw how the skin sank in. He saw how the blood in that left arm had been pumped in only one direction by Raijin's manually pumping heart. Every wound he sustained so far, it means nothing!

"I have now lost the amount of blood proportionate to one arm's worth," Raijin confirmed to his enemy. "Luckily, that does not mean my body has any less to pump to all vital areas. And considering the strength of this prosthetic," Raijin uncurled and curled his fingers again even faster to double-check that the neural pathways he had connected still worked as fast as Zach had been making them. His smile grew wider than ever at the incredible speed that he was able to confirm while in direct control of those neural links as a judge against his real limbs. "Ha- Haha, I should make the rest of my body robotic! Who needs replacement bodies to put my mind into?! I'll just put my brain in a robot shell after this! HAhaha- HEEE hehe, haa, haahhhh…" Raijin let out a cathartic breath at the end of his cackling laughing. Then he leaned back forward and continued to grin but in a way showing he was as cautious as ever even after stealing his enemy's arm. He had to be that careful though.

Zach lost his angered and frustrated look from realizing what Raijin replacing a limb mid-fight meant. A pitch black bulge bubbled out of his left arm socket that was failing to re-connect to his old limb. That bubble popped and an arm shot down his side. It was a dark appendage that looked solid. It was the size of his right arm if not slightly thinner. The end of his Death arm had a hand with five curved fingers that all sharpened at the end. That arm bulged at the fist and rippled up through his forearm to his shoulder and then into his back that was not covered in Death but rippled all the same. Across his back and towards his more muscular right shoulder, muscles bulged on them and none could tell if that meant that there was Death inside of them pushing them out, or if something else had just happened. The only other Death besides what made up Zach's left arm was the thin veneer around his waist and crotch area. His arm had just been ripped off. His other wounds had closed though. And the right corner of his lips had lifted up.

Nonstop fatal wounds did not stop the two of them. Losing limbs meant nothing to the men who stood steady on their feet while everyone watching could barely stand and if they could it was on wobbly legs. Ashido was finding it hard to keep standing on her shaking legs though. Her hand that she had covered her mouth with before had risen up to her hair that she ran it through over and over while trying to keep track of her best friend she kept losing sight of until the end of that clash when his arm was taken. Both of them had lost an arm, and yet neither looked like they had lost any strength at all.

Raijin lifted up his new hand and removed a piece of blade sticking out of his chest with it. Then he sealed up the skin with a burst of electricity so hot that it easily closed up his flesh. He did not need to close it fast and showed that he did not. His manual control over his interior functions was getting more precise. The slowing of his pumping blood could occur to an extent without denying oxygen to all parts of his body for too long that they would be any weaker. He knew that extent. He had mental access to everything he had ever read. Bolts of electricity connected every synapse that could hold important information to his own survival, but more importantly to his victory! Raijin tossed aside the shard of blade that bounced away on the floor.

Mineta opened his mouth. He wanted to call something out to his old friend who he hated. He wanted to shout to Zach that he would help him. But he did not have any breath to breathe as the air thickened around him even more. And his eyes trembled as he stared towards the side of Zach's face and saw the corner of his lip was up even in this situation. Even as his arm had just been taken by his nemesis. Even as he fought for his life… he smiled. Mineta thought he may have seen it before but could not believe his eyes, but Zach was not moving right now for him to doubt what he was seeing. Wh-What the fuck?!

The air was darker than ever. The sky rumbled deeper but without loud cracks of thunder echoing out. The lightning was stuck inside of those rolling clouds that seemed to spin directly overhead as if they were in the eye of a hurricane. It even sounded like they were in an eye of a storm as the noise of a city supposedly at war had quieted around them. Everything was quiet. Small zaps of light inside those clouds and rumblings of thunder to shake the ground did not pierce through the thick silence that saturated the air as Zach glared down Raijin.

The smile could not hide it any longer but Zach was still forcing himself not to consider it. His eyes were bloodthirsty and full of rage and yearning for this battle. Raijin's own smile was dropping though as even he saw through it. Not all of those behind Zach could see it though while Zach was trying to convince himself otherwise, which was much too convincing for most people. Sero doubted he had heard it before, but he thought of the insane smile on Zach's black-spiderweb-covered face while he and Raijin leaned towards each other slashing at speeds that turned into a flurry and blurred in his eyes. And he thought again of the sound of laughter he heard from that flurry that he had wished with all his heart had only been one voice, but knew to be a lie.

Why is he smiling? Ashido bit down on her bottom lip and nearly fell to her right knee but just caught herself. The air is so heavy! I can't breathe! Why? Why is he smiling?! I don't… Ashido had seen such a contradictory action before though. Watching Zach rip out a man's spine and then smile just like this while fighting seconds later. Even if he just felt the surge from killing Kaminari- that has to be it! That's, to blame… It's not everything. Not the whole reason. I saw it before. I wish I didn't know, Zach. But I remember. You had just begged Gentle to understand that you only did that to intimidate your enemies and that you had instantly killed him, but you fought and killed those next enemies with a smile on your face! Right after ripping a man's spine out!

Even while he's killing, which is something Zach despises, he smiles, Sero's lips shook as he stared towards his friend whose thought processes he could not wrap his own head around. He's not just smiling right now because a hero is supposed to smile. That's not the look on his face. And it wasn't back then either. It's why Zach and Bakugo were able to fight like that even though it meant Zach was getting arrested. That was so serious, but it doesn't mean he won't fight like, this. I should have noticed sooner. It's hard though.

Zach's selfless nature and his horrible life, his busy actions and always being on the move, have just made it difficult to see. Todoroki stared forward towards Zach too and gulped at what he was looking at. Had he been around all 3 years, then I may have noticed it easier. I barely paid attention back then, but I remember him beating Shinso…

…I remember seeing him during the Second Sports Festival too, Sero realized. In that big fight at the summit. Against a half dozen of our classmates all at once. And in real fights. Fighting against enemies while already impaled, bloody, gashed- and forced to kill others in a Pit… He was able to survive that even without his Quirk for a simple reason. It's something that's always been who he is that we never realized it. Because no matter what happened to him, there wasn't a "change" for us to realize. It was always there, it just didn't fit his personality like it fits Bakugo's! Zach, likes to fight. He loves it!

The way he talked about Rappa from the Eightfold Cleansers, Ashido thought while biting down on her bottom lip and shaking as she stared towards her smirking friend who should have been in more pain than anyone in this moment. I know that he managed to get that guy who Kirishima knew to join him because they were similar, not just because Zach had to force himself to be like that. The more intense the fight, the better? Zach himself might not even realize it, but it wasn't just as Death. Ashido thought of all the times she had seen him fight in her life. The others all imagined the same things. They had fought by Zach's sides before. They had fought against him in class trainings and in Sports Festivals. There was supposed to be a difference between the training and the real thing, but some things were ingrained in a person's personality too deeply.

Mineta imagined how Zach and Kirishima promised to fight each other back before the SFI. Then he imagined looking up at his friend's face as they jogged into the Training Ground to start the capture the flag game. They were up against three of the strongest guys in their class, and Zach had looked excited. For Bakugo it made sense because of how strong he was and the cocky attitude he always had, but Zach? Why was Zach so excited? He could see it now. That it was not because Zach had all this strength that he was looking like this. Because when Zach had no power at all he had still looked the same way. All the way back to the cavalry race of the first Sports Festival where he had seen Zach's team fighting so desperately… while Zach sat on the shoulders of his best friend who stood in front of him at this moment three years later as a supervillain trying to kill them all.

I know him as well as anyone, Ashido put her hands together in front of her chest and tried to steady her legs on the ground. Do I call out to him? Do I remind him of where he is? I don't seriously think he's forgotten. I don't… But I know, that he is not just a perfect good like I attribute to him. I always try to justify the bad things he does to myself. That he just tries to do what's best, all the time. And he's this amazing, perfect person, sacrificing everything… he still is. But, he is in love with combat. That's really why he was able to do what he did as Death. The thing that set him apart. Zach left with the sole purpose of doing what was right and helping as many people as possible. He could have become many things; he could have become anything in the world, and yet he became Death.

Because Death would fight every single battle. Go to every single villain and beat them up, personally. Take the strongest enemies at every fight. The hardest challenges. Ashido was breathing again but heavier still as she felt weight pushing down on her shoulders that she doubted was just from her own feelings. Her eyes darted up towards the storm clouds above them then back to the two fighting before her who were completely out of her league. They were her classmates. She had had fun with the two of them and laughed with them, and the two of them facing each other made the atmosphere around her feel like it was dry and cold and devoid of oxygen that had her panting faster to try and catch her breath that she kept gasping out. And yeah! Zach did all that to save lives, both of the innocents he was protecting and of his own soldiers by fighting the strongest enemies… but he also did it for him. Because he enjoyed it. The fight. Combat. He must! No one could voluntarily do what Zach did without enjoying it a little! No one could be as good at what Zach did without enjoying it. It's, easier to be good at things you like to do. And Zach has always liked to fight. He told me! He had trained since he was a kid to be the best fighter. He never wanted to use his Quirk, and he still thought he could be a hero anyway just by fighting!

I remember the day we met, Zach! Ashido's eyes watered but she forced a small smile of her own up as she accepted what she fully understood without losing any of her love for the person whose muscular back was to her. She watched in her mental image as that seemingly Quirkless boy rushed in and saved her using just martial arts. Destroying a robot that moved so predictably to him that he did not even have a hard time with it. I remember thinking that day, he was cool.

Despite all of Zach's friends' reactions to seeing him smile so menacingly at his enemy, one person on the street got an even darker look in his eyes at the sight of it but for a completely different reason. Raijin saw the hesitation in Zach's smile that the others could not. Because he was also looking in Zach's eyes that were faced away from the others. And for the first time in a while, Raijin saw that that look was entirely faked when before he knew that Zach had not been hiding his feelings while fighting in such a brutal and excited way.

With as much danger as this city was in, and all the infuriating things that Raijin had been saying and doing and showing off to him, Zach had not been smiling at all for most of this. But despite not smiling during their battle, Raijin could feel the intensity in each of Zach's swings. He could picture the exhilaration just by looking at Zach's face and seeing that thrill in his eyes even while Zach forced an angry expression out. His own frown at seeing a faked look back at him lifted back up again as he let out a scoffed laugh at his opponent. "I was saving this one," Raijin admitted. Need to remind him of that hatred. Don't want him to revert now, do I? Not while we're having so much fun!

Raijin reached his right hand into his shredded white armor and to the belt of his black and yellow costume underneath that was slightly more intact still. The villain grabbed a white blade off of the inner toolbelt and pulled the dagger out of its sheath. He turned the weapon over in front of him while facing his opponent he smirked at in such a way that Zach's lips flattened back up. The dagger had been labeled with a 'K' on it, but that letter could not have been for his name that this villain had discarded long ago. That did not make any sense. "It's for 'Kyro,' Zach. You remember him?"

Zach twitched. The air shook around them but Raijin did not react. The ground shook under Zach's feet. I was able to grab that steel before touching it with Death. I managed to pull it to myself faster and cut his throat. It's in figuring out these new powers and utilizing them that I get a brief advantage. It doesn't matter if he's still got the blood that I was trying to slowly drain out of him. Enough people in this city have prosthetics that he knows about. Slow damage won't work as he'll just slowly build himself a robot body, and I don't have the Death to last that long, let alone this power that has me fighting beyond the point of all exhaustion. Don't think about that. Use more anyway. Killing him recovered your fatigue. You were at 0! Refreshed! And using the power a second time requires less waste. More precision means not using all of it at once. It means… it means- Kyro? Kyro. KYRO!

"He was the only one to die in that village in Tajikistan," Raijin continued. "The kid who came out and helped your army that day, at the cost of his own life?" Raijin smirked more and chuckled while the other four looking at him suddenly realized exactly what kind of weapons and armor Raijin had been using throughout this fight. Mineta gagged and his eyes snapped to the floor in shock at the thought of what Raijin was suggesting he had done. "Kyro was well known as a hero in the town already after that. Despite how young he was, people believed he would be a great hero one day for how he had sacrificed his life for them. They all believed that he was the top recruit, or that he would be once he was old enough to get into high school… Too bad that day will never come." Raijin rose his tone higher-pitched as he sarcastically finished with that, and then he brought the blade to his mouth and licked across it like a psychopath. "HEHEHEHE!" He cackled wildly at his opponent who had tears flowing freely out of his eyes again.

Stop. Stop it- Just be angry! Zach's eyes squinted more. His baring teeth shook as he saw what Raijin was doing by yelling this stuff at him. He knows it. He knows I know already. Or that I stopped believing- Or that I stopped allowing myself to believe it. I- I just can't though. Zach stayed silent while watching "Raijin" say these horrible things. It's Raijin, he thought. There was no emotion or belief in his own thoughts though. It sounded like a lie in his head as he stopped moving for long enough at this point to think again. "You're… it's a… It's a lie," Zach whispered.

Raijin frowned. He stopped laughing and dropped the corners of his lips fast as he knew that Zach was not referring to what he just said. They both knew that that was the truth. "What is?" Raijin hissed. His seething voice filled with malice. The air around him sparked and those sparks connected to each other and scarred up the ground at his sides in what looked like flinches of fury from the villain.

"I let this thing win," Zach said quietly. His voice was soft but the world around him was quiet. He remembered why he had come to this street anyway and could still see them behind him right now. He wished he could believe what they were thinking about him. I let myself believe it. "Because… it hurt too much to keep fighting it just to make 'Raijin' think it lost." Zach admitted that while staring straight into his supposed enemy's eyes. Raijin stuck his tongue back out partially but bit down on it to stop from just screaming out in frustration at his enemy. He tried to smile madly instead that he had caused Zach so much pain that he could hear in the hero's voice now. Those behind Zach were getting confused at who Zach was talking to though, wondering if it was to them, or to Raijin, or if Zach was just saying it aloud to himself.

"I'd rather let the shade believe it won than keep believing the truth myself," Zach confessed while his squinted eyes let out more tears before his enemy. He remembered it screaming at him ordering him to say its name, and he had allowed himself to say the response that that monster wanted him to give. It had been the easier choice. "I accepted the monster's lie- ah, so that it wouldn't hurt as much," Zach admitted aloud. He forced himself to say it aloud and not just think the thoughts that he had kept from putting into any coherent concept when they tugged at his mind he had kept focused on combat instead. "So, that I could keep fighting," Zach continued through a seethed breath. "When I knew I wouldn't be able to otherwise. Seeing you bring yourself back to life? Pumping your own, heart-" Zach gasped the word out and could barely breathe as he said it. "I couldn't- I- I couldn't, keep going. I just couldn't imagine having to keep killing my f-friend… so I forgot the truth on purpose, so that I could keep this up beyond when I was still capable of doing so."

Todoroki flinched and snapped his head up. Fury covered his expression as he glared towards Raijin who he desperately wanted to stand up and take down for his friend's sake. He froze though and looked back closer to himself and the side of Zach's face that hardened even though there were tears still covering it. "But Kyro was a great kid," Zach said. His voice was stronger and the shakiness had shifted out of it. "He inspired the whole region with his acts of heroism that day… and he was just a child! A twelve year old boy-" Zach's fists both light and dark clenched at his sides in determination. The determination was just stronger than the rage, but it was a far stronger emotion that kept him going easier than the rage could. "So I can't give up even though I know the truth. Even though, this really is still Kaminari I'm fighting," Zach said aloud and had to bite down on his bottom lip again. He released his lip though and added, "I can accept that and still fight. I have to, for all of them! All those you killed for this…"

"But Raijin isn't real," Zach admitted. He said it for himself to remind himself of that simple fact while also making the enemy in front of him lose all composure. Raijin did not even try to hide the rage that twisted up and gnarled on Kaminari's expression. "This thing I've been fighting," Zach said darkly. "I wanted to believe it, and for a second I actually accepted it, but that was just to allow me to keep fighting. Because I was too weak to stand again. To kill my friend AGAIN!" BOO-CRACK! Thunder broke the surrounding silence that had until then only been cut through by Zach's voice which had been getting louder over the past ten seconds.

The atmosphere around Zach's body darkened even more, but the color of the air was shifting grayer as well out from Zach's body. The gray atmosphere touched the buildings at his sides and expanded to the sky above. The ground under his feet was shaking as his mind multi-tasked to come to an acceptance over the reality of his fight while at the same time moving on with the combat necessities he had been trying to distract with before he thought about Kyro. "I'm not proud to admit, that I lost by lying to myself and giving this shade its victory! Calling you 'Raijin' was letting that shadow win, and I did it because it hurt too much. But right now I'm not even fighting a shadow. Or a shade! You're already dead, Kaminari! So this thing controlling you is a ghost- a phantom of a shade! A REMNANT!"

"RRAAAAAAAAAAAEEEE!" Kaminari screeched towards his enemy through the whipping wind. More than anything he wanted to believe that Zach had come to accept his existence, and Zach may have considered it his own defeat by giving Raijin that momentary victory, but Raijin also felt his victory slipping through his own fingers. Zach's feeling of defeat mattered little to him in this moment. Because his victory was solely based on his own view of victory, and Zach had just ripped that away from him. Kaminari's eyes darted to Zach's legs then the air around him and the sky before going back to Zach's feet again.

"But I don't need to deceive myself any longer," Zach growled. The air thickened even more. Raijin's eyes snapped again to Zach's feet as his enemy's head was not at the same level it had just been at. The ground under Zach's feet was dipping down. The floor pushed down underneath him while the street they were on and the city around them trembled. Dust rose in a circle around Zach and then pushed out, and tiny pebbles were bouncing on the floor while larger rocks were being dislodged from the quakes. Bring that feeling below me. I saw that beam lift before I touched it. I was able to condense this power strong enough to lift an object. I felt the pressure.

I can feel this energy that is altering the world around me. I can control it. If I could lift something up with that energy that I've accumulated, energy that I can feel in the air and inside my own body, then I can move more of it beneath me! The energy changes the weather because I've let it spread out too far from my body. That's what just a weak amount spread that far from me can do. Making it more condensed, can lift a steel beam off the ground. I used Death to grab it, but I didn't need to! That was for extra speed. And now that I've felt it, I know the sensation. It won't be as slow. Speed it up! Accelerate the growth. Exponentially stronger! STRONGER!

The ground a meter out from Zach's legs dropped deeper into the street. The air stopped just feeling thicker and actually became visibly distorted. A thick haze made Zach appear blurry to those behind them. They found it hard to keep their heads up and watching him though, as that haze came with an increase in the gravity around them which was so strong near Zach that it seemed to be the cause of why the ground just dipped below him. Ashido fell down to her hands and knees. The boys just ahead of her gasped while grabbing onto the floor as well.

Mineta spat up on the floor as his eyes bulged at the feeling of this weight pressing on him. Is that Zach?! "Ah- Hah- AH- hahh, ahh," he was panting and gasping for breath as his arms and legs trembled underneath him. His head struggled to lift up. He stared ahead and fear filled his eyes at what he was looking at. Earlier he had been able to at least rationalize what he was seeing. He had not even felt fear when he saw the crazed smile on his friend's face that he justified to himself in as many ways as he could. There was no rationalizing this though. He stared forward into a haze around Zach that his classmate was clearly the center of. There was no questioning coincidences anymore. The regeneration and battle itself against Kaminari was mind-blowing, but he feared the understanding that there was no chance of Maelstrom just being there and trying to make Zach look more intimidating. How is Death so strong? How is Zach still this powerful- Where is the Death? I- I don't see any…

Power to destroy the world, Todoroki thought. His squinted eyes pushed up and he stared through his singed bangs towards the two. Then his squinted eyes somehow pushed against all that pressure as they grew three times as large.

How is he- Ashido's thoughts cut short.

Sero struggled too much to lift his head with how much pain his chest was in. He dropped more to the floor though off his shaking arms, and his chin rested on the street in such a way that he was able to see ahead of him. His eyes slowly rose up.

…All the magnetism of every building around me. The Iron in the steel. Nickel and Cobalt all around me. Raijin's eyes snapped up from Zach's feet. Every building. Every car on the street and satellite dish on the roofs. Every fire escape ladder and radio tower. They all have magnetic fields that push and pull electrons. Generating electricity that I can harness. Connect it to my neural network. All of it! RIGHT NOW! Every piece of static in the air from this energy field he's creating can link me to the surrounding environment. Grab onto it! Steal from it! Raijin's hands rose up at his sides as Zach's elbows shook while tucked into his own. Small thin bolts of lightning came out of each of Raijin's fingers and touched the walls near them. They branched out near those walls and became so thin that they were invisible to the human eye, nowhere near powerful enough to electrocute whole buildings full of people that Zach knew had had all the power drained from them already.

Raijin was not siphoning any more power out of those buildings though. His Quirk focused more downwards on the base of the buildings and exerted the magnetic push back towards his body and the steel plating inside of his shock absorbers. The metal in his costume pushed against the magnetic fields he grasped with his own Electricity and dragged around himself and held there while his body started to feel lighter on the ground.

Raijin did all this in the instants he saw the pebbles and rocks at Zach's feet not just bouncing around on the shaking ground any longer. Those tiny rocks were lifting up inside of the thin white veil that had surrounded Zach as he brought all that pressure so close to his own body that it looked visible in the center of the haze. Where the haze was thickest it was hard to see, but the air around him had condensed visibly to a translucent aura that extended to the edge of the circular crater that Zach was standing inside of. That crater was cracking the street around it all the way to the edges of the shaking buildings. The whole street was rumbling, glass windows were shattering, and the rocks at Zach's feet were lifting up in the air and breaking apart into dust. The amount of pressure around him to break apart the pavement and disintegrate the material in the air sharing his space was insane. But it was not the power that Zach was exuding that made Raijin act so quickly. It was the fact that those materials had just lifted off of the floor on their own without anything touching them. He could see what Zach was about to harness and instantly needed a counter against what was coming.

Zach's feet lifted up off of the ground. Raijin smirked as his own lifted up at the very same second. Electricity sparked around the villain who utilized his own magnetic field and the metal touching his body to raise himself off the ground. He could feel the buildings around him. He could feel the magnetic fields pressing against his own. The necessity came to rise to the challenge, and he rose with it. Despite his smirk though, Raijin was deadly serious even in his glee while he stared back into his enemy's eyes and saw wrath.

Mineta looked underneath Zach's feet as they lifted up out of that divot in the street. He was not breathing any longer but his face turned pale for a different reason as he looked at him. He doesn't have wings. There's no Death coming out of his feet either! What- WHAT?! He forced himself to blink several times to try and see better through that haze as clearly he was not seeing correctly. The sky darkening could have been Zach's allies in the Army of Death. His regeneration could have been something his Quirk had advanced… but this? He looked like some powerful God in Wampajawa because they made that happen- That was all an illusion! Zach was just tricking everyone. That's- that's what this has to be! But he had planned that out. There's no way, Zach had any of this planned. Is he just figuring this out… I don't understand. I- I don't- Mineta looked past Zach and to the sparking villain who also rose up into the air and looked so murderously back towards his friend. He winced at the sight of Kaminari's enraged face still looking so happy and excited with the fight, and his eyes shifted back to Zach again. I don't get how you're doing any of this, Zach. But if it's what it takes to win, then that's what you'll do. You can do this! Say it. Speak! BREATHE! Mineta gasped again and felt his lungs constricting as he tried to suck in another huge breath, making him hyperventilate instead.

This street is empty. I may be able to utilize its magnetic fields against him, but I need to recharge. That's how I get the advantage back. This is a bad spot for me. I know Zach doesn't want to be here either. Unfortunate that I can't kill him here though. In front of them…

It's time to bring this fight up high. We need more room for the battle. I won't be able to help out down here any longer. But I'll also be bringing Kaminari out of the field of play. He's too dangerous to be allowed down here any longer at the speeds at which we're moving. And, I can't continue to fight in this city. Not while bringing out this power that wrecked a mountain range. It's hurting my friends. I risk knocking down buildings at this rate. Time to get him out of here. I'll rip him apart in the clouds.

Kaminari started to vibrate in the air ahead of Zach. Zach's elbows were still pulled tightly into his sides with his fists held out in front of him. Zach was glaring straight into Kaminari's eyes that vibrated with the rest of his body. And then the blond blurred to the right and backwards, and Zach blurred forward. Both of their bodies left behind after-images that dragged after them as they shot away so fast that the human eye could not follow. They each just ripped out of their positions in the air and collided twenty feet behind where Raijin just was and eight feet higher, as well as a bit closer to the wall on Kaminari's right side.

A shockwave blasted through the air and made those who were confused as to what happened to the blurring figures who zipped away look up. They felt the pressure lift off their backs and shoulders, but they stayed down for a few seconds as a chain of shockwaves bounced back and forth over their heads. They clashed twenty times in midair before Zach's right leg passed underneath Kaminari's block and hit the blond teen in the upper right side. He sent his enemy cartwheeling through the air and into the corner of a forty story building near them that he bounced off of and cartwheeled even more out-of-control into the sky. Zach flew up over the skyline and closer to the clouds himself, which caused lightning to drop much faster due to his proximity.

The spinning enemy above Zach righted himself and then cackled madly as he swung his arms up and became a lightning rod for the storm around them. This close to the clouds there was no travel time between the descent of the bolts and when they hit the villain who gladly accepted all that extra electricity. He slammed both arms forward as Zach pulled up and spun to the left to dodge. Kaminari was able to speed himself up more though while also still firing off massive bolts only slightly smaller than if he had not used some of his Electricity just to reposition and aim at Zach better.

He fired bright bolts of yellow lightning out of his palms towards Zach. And Zach's body grew three times in size. Two huge holes ripped open in his pitch black torso that allowed the electric projectile bolts to pass straight through him. He may have been using more power without Death than ever before, but Zach had also decided not to hold back any of the Death he had gained from killing Kaminari anymore. The second largest surge ever after Ares. But far more raw power than then. It's enough. It has to be. Zach restored his body and flew forward, then he flapped two huge black wings out of his back to accentuate the pulse of Ares-like power that he had just focused around his back and exploded outwards to send himself flying. He doubled his flight speed while Raijin was slower because of how much lightning he just shot out without even dealing damage, and Zach managed to slam his right fist into his enemy's face that snapped it to the side and made Raijin fly back through the air with blood coming out of his upper lip.

The villain soaring back tucked his chin and glared down his nose towards his heroic enemy who flapped his wings again to keep up with the man he had just smashed into the horizon. Raijin tasted his own blood on his lips. Electricity sparked around his upper lip and sealed the cut. All the nerve-endings he was permanently destroying meant little when he had already disconnected all pain from his mind. He was fine with a numb lip. As long as it meant he was no longer bleeding. The villain smirked his reddened lips towards his approaching hero before flipping around and grabbing a new pair of white knives from his waistband while in mid-flip when his hands were hidden from his foe. His metal hand and his flesh hand wrapped around the hilts of his blades, and then the electricity coming off the bottom of him linked to the tops of buildings he was soaring above and dropped him two feet down fast in a jolt while he was only three-quarters of the way through his flip.

Zach had sped up when Raijin flipped to hide what he was grabbing. He was already at his enemy before Raijin had finished his flip, but the magnetic pull between Raijin and the top of a building they were passing over made Zach's swinging arms miss the villain who dropped right through his grasp and then slashed up into his legs before Zach could curl his knees and get them all the way away. He re-extended those bleeding legs right after the blades came off of them, kicking with so much force behind him that he spun out his enemy while also thrusting himself farther away from Raijin. Zach's eyes darted down to his legs that he had turned into Death while accepting he had to go all-out here for any chance of victory, and he could see the blood trickling out of his dark aura.

Lightning flew down at Zach while he was pushing more wings out of his back. The lightning bolt targeted the highest objects, as lightning does, and Zach's eyes darted to the right as the bolt was coming down slightly on that side and towards his head. Then the bolt did a ninety-degree right turn and sharply cut over his head. He spun his head back forward and glared through flaring red eyes at his enemy who swung his right arm out and caught the bolt. "AAHAHAHAHA!" Raijin laughed madly at the amazing feat that he accomplished by focusing positive charges towards the sky, attracting the negatively charged bolts searching for an equalizer. The first attack was a test, but this time was on command and far more accurate than just acting as a lightning rod and then redirecting the lightning through his body. Kaminari pulled his right arm back towards his body that was sparking like crazy with long static bolts zapping around his form and then whipping around seemingly at random and yet also appearing as if the villain himself was controlling it due to the unnatural nature of the curling bolts.

Kaminari swung his left hand in front of his body and filled it with power. The palm of his hand glowed blue as the blond tilted his head back at the top of his arm. He smirked down the length of it and straight towards his enemy who bit down in fury and then roared out, "KAMINARIIIII!"

"That's RAIJIN!" Raijin flew back at Zach who shot towards him over the top of a firing blue burst of energy. The sky filled with darkness on one side and flashed with lightning on the other. And the two collided…

---

A street at the eastern edge of Yoyogi Park was supposed to be empty. All civilians had evacuated off the road to a safer distance while Deku and Shigaraki Tomura were fighting. It had been empty for most of their fight, though two heroes had run across it only a couple of minutes earlier on their way to assist Deku. Two more people stood there now though. Very short people, stood at the edge of Yoyogi and stared into a park that still had some trees standing near the edge they were on. The land also dipped down just past those trees so it was impossible to see what was going on farther inside. It may have been easier for them to see down the slope and to the new base of the park, if the kids were at least four feet tall.

Neither Eri nor Kota were that tall though.

The eight and nine year old children stared forward side by side into the destroyed park that they had seen falling from the sky five minutes ago. This had been the direction they were running, and the kids had looked up at the falling island in amazement only to see the person they both expected to be there falling amidst the rubble. "He hasn't come out yet," Kota whispered.

They had kept running this direction in hopes of finding somewhere safe after seeing their hero. The safest place had to be with him. Kota gulped while glancing to his right side and at the girl he had been playing with at her apartment in Tokyo which was no longer a functioning safehouse. Kota bit down on his bottom lip as he had seen what Eri did not back there before he grabbed her and started running. When he helped the girl who had a bloody scratch on her left arm up to her feet, Kota had run with her without letting her look back to the rubble that a badly injured Ragdoll had pushed him away from. "Run… away, Kota," he heard Ragdoll's raspy voice and imagined her face with blood trickling down both corners of her lips. "They're probably, here- ack, for Eri. Take her, and run- Now!"

He tried to push away the image of Ragdoll's bone sticking out of her right leg, or how badly crushed her abdomen had looked. Ragdoll, he took in a deep breath and then shook his head around to get his foster mother's image out of his head.

"Deku," Eri whispered while staring into the park herself. The slightly older girl than her playmate stepped forward, and Kota reached his right hand out and grabbed her left hand as she did. Eri froze and turned her head with her big eyes staring back into Kota's huge and shaking ones. Her hand curled back into his and she forced up a small smile through all the fear she was feeling.

Kota tilted his head back in fear but bit down harder on his bottom lip at that look of hers. "You know, it might not just be him… We might just get in the way- We probably will," Kota took a breath as he tried to say more but was ranting too fast without breathing. He panted hard and then tightened his grip into her hand even as his hand was starting to shake more. "I don't know, if…" Kota lifted his gaze above her and into the park. I do know! If, if Midoriya's alright, then why hasn't he come out yet to help the rest of the city? He would. No matter how injured he gets.

"I can help him," Eri told her friend while loosening her grip on his hand. "I know I can," she said assuredly. Her eyes shifted back to the park in front of her and the small terrified girl forced a bigger smile. "But you don't have to-"

Kota gripped her hand tighter before she could let go. He stepped forward to be at her side while giving her hand a squeeze of confidence that he did not actually feel. The two determined kids looked in at each other. Kota gulped. Then he nodded though and Eri nodded back. They looked forward into Yoyogi, and they sprinted forward together.

---

A/N Thanks for reading! That took me a few days to edit, not gonna lie. XD Whole lot of scenes this chapter. I really could have split it up... but hey, hope you enjoyed that book you just read! Lol, so anyway, that villain at the start 'Vostranus' was mentioned in Lavamander's thoughts back in like chapter 101 or something when he and Cee had their flashbacks. It was an off-handed mention that I never planned to do anything with as Lavamander just thought it alongside others from that old generation with Shimura and Gran Torino... but then I had a cool idea for it and went for it this chapter! After that we had Gentle and Endeavor beat Splodo and Intanzo, though Intanzo does manage to slip away at the end there. And Endeavor's down for the count in the fight too with severe injuries. Dismembermen goes down against Trabo and Ashido, but sadly they don't both make it through that one... ;(. Kirishima steps up against Taizo. Genial falls to Dendo and Himazuri who have a moment afterwards ;), and then the big scene as Moonfish shows up... oh wait and Rabbit vs Aoyama, can't forget that most important fight XD! Haha but then the Moonfish battle followed by Zach and Raijin showing up. We see a continuation of their fight that gets more and more intense with both of them powering up even more every second! The Battle of Tokyo continues! Only a couple chapters left, hope you're excited! Sorry for the month and a half update. But there's a lot I want to write as I make sure to finish up some characters' arcs and not just skim past them. It's impossible to write them all... (rip to the Dabi fight's end, but I felt I'd gotten all I could from that already). Hope you're still enjoying the battles though and that you're excited for the next chapter! Eri and Kota, don't go in there! Can Zach stop his seemingly unkillable opponent? What about Pinoko, Bakugo, and Uraraka? Find out what happens with these next time, on Death! Review response time:

TachyonPhantom chapter 250 . Sep 23

The man promised and he DELIVERED. Great job.

Thanks! XD always will deliver. I'm trying to finish Death by the end of the year... and I'll try to stick with that! (As as best I can). Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

cartoonfan9 chapter 250 . Sep 24

HELL YEAH YOU'RE BACK! Thanks for the shoutout lol.
Everybody won as expected. The fights were brilliant - the parallels between Zach and Shigaraki, Bakugo thinking about Aizawa, Midoriya's joy when he sees Zach is alive, and obviously the twists in their actual fights.
Pinoko's Quirk seems OP. How did she control Bakugo? It's so cruel because Bakugo is so injured and she's making him fight other heroes who are also injured and would stand no chance vs Bakugo. Double pain for heroes. Pinoko's a coward for coming in like this.
And same with Danny and Sly. Cowards. Super sad that Nejire and Suneater are dead :( but hopefully Zach can revive them. I have no clue how Midoriya is supposed to defend himself, and if not, who will come? Literally everybody is doing something else. Side note, I might have liked Japan Smash more than Tokyo Smash as the final attack name because Deku's saving all of Japan, but this is Battle of Tokyo so it makes sense. Though Tokyo Smash sounds better with Midoriya's voice actor in my head.
I'm surprised by the Raijin revival, but I'm not worried. Zach killed many people with his bare hands so Raijin will get that fate too. And Zach got the power boost so Raijin is even more of a scrub than before. Unless...is the power boost going to fade away?
That got longer than I was hoping, but oh well. Hope to see what Todoroki, Endeavor, and Gentle are up to as well, maybe in the next chapter. Also if you have nothing to do...we all know how quickly you can update. Used to do 10k chapters in a day, so 60k should be one week easy...maybe...maybe not. I look forward to it.

I'M BACK, BACK AGAIN! And you deserved that shoutout! XD Glad you enjoyed the fights last chapter and hope you liked the fights this time too. Pinoko really was the dark horse in the Koimou Massacre when she popped up from not being on anyone's radar to one of the most dangerous around. We saw how deadly she could be back then, and at the start of this Battle too when she messed up Gang Orca's attack and opened him up to be killed by Meta. She's definitely a big threat to them, and her Puppeteer Quirk for sure is OP... but we'll see what happens with that next time! No spoilers ;P. And lol, Tokyo Smash sounded better in my head as Midoriya's able to hold out that 'kyoooooo' before screaming Smash, but Japan Smash would've been cool too! Zach tried to use his bare hands alone on Raijin this chapter as we see them fight, but he has to use that power boost from killing Kaminari that he wanted to hold back to use for revivals. Todoroki does show up to fight against Moonfish in this for a bit but gets even more injured than he already was from his fight against Dabi. We see the end of the Endeavor and Gentle... and as for how fast I used to update? Well, it's tougher now for sure. Back then I could write nonstop. New ideas popped into my head which made it super easy to just write them down as soon as I had them. They were fresh. Exciting... Not that writing now isn't, but it's different when I've had the summaries for these chapters written out for so long. When I've imagined the fight scenes for long times and set up a lot for them that I've played through in my head a thousand times. It's tougher to write scenes like that than if I wrote them as soon as I had them. It means the writing is better because I've workshopped it so much before posting, but it also makes it harder for me to write for a long time straight if I've written enough in the summaries that not enough is new and in the moment. If that makes sense. :) Thanks for reviewing, and again hope you liked the chapter!

papaprep chapter 250 . Sep 24

Since zach is making himself older, can we have zach with beard? Bet he'll look like gigachad.
I think zach and ka- raijin need to take their fight to outer space, dont think the earth can withstand their blows at their current lvl

XD Oh I considered it for sure. But, most Asian people really don't grow much facial hair. I could've gone with the fact that I've kind of established that Zach has some American heritage... but idk it sounded cool in your comment but I couldn't imagine his face with a beard on it. If you want a canon reason- the scar tissue on Zach's face from having half of it ripped off before, and from the excessive burns he received earlier this day, may have permanently damaged any potential hair follicles in Zach's face... I guess. Haha thanks for the review, and Zach and Raijin are taking this into the sky! Zach had the same thought you did. The city can't handle his power anymore!

pink9571 chapter 250 . Oct 26

Yo I just spent 7 hours reading this last chapter...and every second was worth it. You exceed my expectations every time! You got like an Instagram or Twitter?

Glad you liked it! I'm happy to be exceeding your expectations. I do not have any social media anymore. Sorry. Best I've got is this fanfiction account. Lol, but I am always happy to respond to PMs I get, and to some of the comments on each chapter! Anyway, thanks for reviewing. Bet this chapter takes you a lot more than 7 hours to read! XD Hope you enjoyed! And thanks everyone else who reviewed, faved, followed, and those of you who just read this story! Going to start up work on the next chapter soon as I post this one, so look forward to that soon!