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!

253. Chapter 253: Zach vs Raijin

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 253: Zach vs Raijin:

"We need everyone to find a seat up in the stands. Please! We need to open up space down here for the injured coming in-"

"What's going on out there?!"

"Why aren't we getting evacuated?"

"It's everywhere!"

"Does anyone have service?!"

"AHHH!"

"Mom! Mommy? Mom where are you?"

In a soccer stadium in central Tokyo, the few hero personnel and firefighters who were trying to keep things from falling apart at the evac site were struggling to say the least. Heroes did a better job of getting things calmed down, but that only lasted for as long as the hero was around for after dropping off rescued civilians. They would rush back out though into the fight, and fewer and fewer were returning with more civilians despite claiming to be coming back each time.

The open-air stadium had rain coming down over it now. It started off as a drizzle but was picking up along with the increasing speed of the wind. A tall teenage girl who looked mature enough to be in her twenties was not looking around for people she knew like some others around her. She was not panicking either. Her head was lifted up and her eyes wide behind her glasses. A few other people saw this girl staring up in the sky and followed her gaze up, and more of them started screaming at what they saw up there.

Four bolts of lightning flew across the sky in no way that could be excused as natural. They shot through the dark air at a figure who flew over the stadium and then enlarged ten times his size so that his body was wide enough for bolts of lightning to pass through him. Holes opened up in the pitch black figure's body, then a flash of lightning engulfed another figure at the other end of those lightning bolts who flew after them into the enlarged body of his enemy. CHH! A crash of lightning erupted from the collision point. Darkness and yellow light pressed against each other and shook the clouds. CRACK!

"Is that-"

"It's Lifebringer! He's alive!"

The girl with a short brown hair falling just to the tops of her shoulders rose her right hand up towards her chest. She stared up into the sky at the clashing figures who made the ground and sky shake. "…aaaaaaAAAAAAHHH!" Their voices were so loud. The louder and deeper voice the evacuees heard was unconstrained by lung capacity as he had no lungs at the moment having just opened up his chest to allow strong bolts of lightning to pass through without harming him. His scratchy and booming voice reached those down below staring up in awe at the unimaginable display of power.

Zach bounced back from Kaminari and pointed his left arm forward. A beam of darkness shot out of his side and turned his arm into a jet of black flames shooting a hundred feet ahead of him. Kaminari swerved out of the way and threw a blade towards Zach in a flash of white that Zach snapped his head away from. Kaminari used the metal in that blade to magnetize himself though and pull himself faster towards his enemy who he rose his right knee up at still in the Anti-Death armor that was damaged but not completely ripped apart yet. Zach's right arm lost the Death on it while his left was firing forward. He yanked his head back as Kaminari's knee approached, having predicted Kaminari using his own weapon for extra magnetism.

Kaminari had to try another attack from this close range or flee. He saw the white veil around Zach's arm though. His body lost most of the visible aura around it. And the sky itself that he was drawing power from was not shooting bolts of lightning down into him even as he forced up a positive charge. He's controlling it! Raijin's eyes snapped to Zach's right arm where that white glow got brighter and sharpened around his arm. His left arm was punching out of the missed beam that itself was sucking back into Zach's body so as not to be wasted.

Raijin flicked the new weapon he pulled out, but he did not flick it at Zach. He flicked the blade to his own left and tugged himself away by magnetizing the metal in his suit to the flying blade. The tips of his blond hair spikes got sliced. Kaminari felt the tug on his back, but his eyes darted up to the sky for a second instead as he saw something else that made him want to whistle out in amazement. Zach had flown himself down with a push of Death out the top of his head to add to gravity. That way the force of his slash did not risk going downwards at all. So instead it passed by Kaminari and hit the dark clouds above them, and Zach cut a slice across the sky.

The gash in the clouds pushed high up to look like a black ravine in the sky. The force of wind pulled in the rest of the clouds to fill the gap, and they all pulled in too quickly and then pushed downwards as they filled the gap completely but kept getting pulled inwards. Like convergent plates of the Earth's crust making mountains, the clouds pushed against each other and then downwards into the two boys who spun back to one another and clashed again inside a billowing down-swell of clouds that burst out in all directions away from them. As those clouds dispersed, no one down below could see where the two fighters had gone too. They were too fast that they were already somewhere else, leaving only a thin trail of black and yellow across the sky to the south.

Down in the stadium, a girl who tried to watch all of that lowered her gaze after the trails but lost sight past the edge of the stadium's top level. Rain started pouring down again even harder now. The girl's right hand clenched over her chest as she felt her heart squeezing. Strands of her brown hair fell over her face and spilled water down past her eyes. Her head turned to the nearby tunnel on the south side of the stadium, and she started running for it.

"Hey! What do you think you're- whoa! Wait!" The hero support staff team member who was the guard at this end of the tunnel as a final protection for the people inside swung his arms out with them transforming to grow three times in size and turn purple in color. They grew softer too as they grew in size. He swung forward, but the girl running at him ducked her head. Her whole body hunched really far down, and yet she kept moving at the same speed. She could not pick up her legs in this weird position, but she slid underneath his arms with her body ducked below the surprised support member. His eyes snapped to the floor below her feet that her soles just slid quickly over, then he snapped his head back up and called out, "You can't go out there! Come back before-"

CH-CRACK!

"Ahhh!"

"EEEE!"

The guard spun around thinking something might have happened, but it was just people screaming from the thunder. The panic was growing, and he turned back around to look down the tunnel but could only curl his large purple fists in frustration. He could not even call ahead to warn any fellow guards at this post because of their lack of communications' lines. You dumb kid. Damn it! He had to choose the group rather than the one person risking their life by running out of the evacuation center, for whatever reason she may have.

Up in the sky near the northern edge of the city, Raylei grabbed onto her desk and pulled herself back up onto one knee, then on both feet. She grabbed the counter tightly and yelled, "Get a hold of her!"

Chh- ch chh-

Errr Errr ERRR ERRR

KA-chhh-

Sparks flew out of different computers around the room. The alarms going off got even louder. Raylei spun to her right as she heard a yell her way, "Weapons' systems are going haywire!"

"The safeties are there for a reason! They won't start firing- AH!" La Brava leaned back from her computer as she got shocked.

"The airspace is too hot!" Rampart yelled through their comms. "You wo-chh …out of chh- chhh- you hear me?! Get out!"

"We need to go!" Raylei yelled towards the shorter woman.

La Brava grabbed onto the sides of her seat and nodded quickly back towards Raylei. If there was anyone she could look to in order to find a backing voice for staying there longer, it would have been her rectangular-headed friend who looked regretful but certain that they had to get out of there now.

The Cloak started turning and speeding up to get out of the city. Cloaking mechanisms were in danger of being shut off too. The amount of static electricity filling the sky over Tokyo was unreal. They could feel the hair on the backs of their necks standing on end. "You should have stayed 50,000 feet in the air," Rebel said in disbelief as he was reading the Cloak's systems' reports.

The Stealth Mega Jet that had arrived in Tokyo first had landed in the Cloak's overhead hangar when the Cloak arrived, and they were much lower down closer to the city now to provide additional support if needed. "It wouldn't matter," Angie whispered. She covered her own mic while responding to Rebel. He glanced her way for a second away from the many tasks he was doing on his monitors. Then he darted his eyes towards where she was looking in their Command Center and it made his fingers stop typing for a second.

I've seen that before, Rebel flinched. Rampart and Angie had not been around that night when he sent Zach the coordinates in United Korea. They did not see the kind of storm that was being shown on the American news station they had on in the center of several televisions across one of their walls. The live feed from Japan outside of Tokyo had the cameraman running away while pointing his camera still behind him. The shaking camera still caught the expanding and terrifying sight of a storm that flashed over and over as if shooting lightning, only all that lightning was staying inside the cloud instead of firing down as bolts. They're inside it right now. "Get the Cloak out of there," Rebel snapped once more while getting back to his work. Trust Zach. Just, trust that he has this. Again. Even after tanking that bomb… He can do this.

"Sir!" Crack yelled into her microphone. The American hero with short blue hair shouted, "Radio communication is back online in scattered parts of Tokyo. The power is fluctuating though- What?! We can't! They need our help!"

"What are they saying?"

"They're telling us to pull out of the airspace!"

"No way."

"Can you hear me?!" Earphone Jack yelled into her phone. She pulled it from her ear and looked at the bars on the top. She was confused for a second at why it cut off as she saw all the bars there, but then they all vanished, then three of them appeared, and then her phone sparked and she yelped while dropping it from the shock she got. Jirou snapped her head up and stared in disbelief past the walls on the buildings on either side of the road as her where the lights in the buildings were flickering and getting very bright, then turning off, and then several light fixtures in those buildings and out on the streets all exploded with glass shattering and making Jirou flinch at the sound of all that breaking glass. Nothing hit her, and she lowered her crossed arms she put in front of her eyes for a precaution to stare back up into the falling rain. She stared straight at a pair of figures who flew across the sky with explosions of black and yellow going off in a line following them.

The generators at Tokyo General short-circuited as Raijin flew overheard and used the roof of the building far below to adjust his flight. Bolts of lightning flew down and hit him, supercharging his magnetic field he used against the building that was already on auxiliary power. "This is insane!" A nurse screamed while holding his patient steady. The surgeon in front of him yelled at him to keep them still so she could finish making the incision which was difficult enough as-is without the lights flickering on them and the floor shaking under their feet.

Just outside of Tokyo's outskirts, a flying man evacuating people from the perimeter he was allowed to reach screamed back at someone talking in his ear in a scratchy voice the radio barely picked up. "I don't give a fuck!" Star-Spangled Man yelled. "You shove that fucking idea up your ass!" The hero using some very un-heroic language was screaming at his superiors over the phone.

"This is a DIRECT order, John! The President himself has denied your request. It's all over the news. Every news station around the world. Whether it's a rumor or not, it's something Raijin would do and you know it! We're ordering you to pull back! Who knows if Raijin's just waiting for every nation's top heroes to pour into the city before setting off a second bomb?!"

"We can't assume that-"

"If it's something we can come up with, then that criminal mastermind who could get past Mr. Principal definitely has a contingency like it ready! We have no confirmation from any Japanese officials or top heroes that things are stable. You are NOT to move in, Star-Spangled Man. That's an order!"

"You get me a line with the fucking President now!" John pulled off his visor with the mic built into it and screamed into it. "And we'll see if that order stands!"

Coola held her tongue while listening to the same conversation where she floated near Star-Spangled Man. The second-ranked US hero hated being stuck right here, but she thought in the defense of their own top hero officials' orders, Shigaraki's "revolution" will not end here. And if we all get ourselves killed by heroically rushing into this- But we're heroes! That's what we do! Fuck! FUCK!

"Damn it! Hello?! Can anyone hear me out there? Please! We need your help!" Jirou cursed and pocketed her phone. There was no response coming through despite freezing with the phone call still opened up on the screen, so she could not tell if her voice was getting through or not and maybe it was only her speaker that was damaged. They're abandoning us. We're so screw- I can't think like that. I need to keep going! Maybe it's not just the static. The radio jammers are the real problem here. Raijin is still blocking the signals even as he fights Zach. That's why this static is filling the city. He's doing it on purpose to keep everyone out of their fight! So I need to keep taking them down.

High up in the sky above Tokyo, Zach flew through a cloud towards the sparking mass he saw targeted inside it. As he got closer he could see the other sparks and sources of power surging around him. The one he was shooting towards was the largest though and in a condensed form. He stopped flying its way though, spinning to his right instead at something approaching so fast it could have just been a bolt of lightning.

Zach snapped his arms up and caught Raijin's hands in his own. The mass of surging electricity Raijin left behind as a lure for Zach all yanked towards them and slammed into the villain's back as he pressed Zach's arms backwards. Zach slammed his own arms harder forward, only for both of his arms to break apart as they had been pitch black and got shocked by too much Electricity as Raijin pushed it out of his palms.

Two new arms shot out of Zach's sides and punched forward, the black fists condensing but still breaking apart on Kaminari's body anyway whether they hit Anti-Death armor or just the skin of a person who Death had killed before. He had separated his last two arms at the shoulders before the electricity that destabilized the Death could hit the rest of his body and slow him down from a counterattack. His counter came out fast and hit his enemy who just leaned backwards from the force of the blows that dissipated instantly with no follow-through force. Zach may have had a ton of power in his blows, but his arms were like condensed masses of gas the instant they collided with the enemy.

Raijin was leaning back though to avoid the blows. So Zach's hits doubled the speed at which the blond was launched backwards through the clouds. Thinnest bolts of electricity shot down below Raijin and felt around through the static in the city. They touched the buildings closest to him and redirected his flight, flipping him over and then shooting him five hundred miles per hour across the sky and moving higher up in the thicker clouds too. Raijin crossed his arms as he felt the dispersement of static electricity below him. The disturbances in the air were all connected straight into his brain that glowed so brightly that it looked as if his eyes were aglow the same color as his hair.

Kaminari crossed his arms as all the clouds around him were blown upwards and away from him. Zach flew up even faster than his enemy who he just kicked a real leg up at from a distance to blow away the clouds like that. He swung his right arm out to the side and made a long black blade extend on it that hardened and condensed with all the other Death on Zach's body siphoning to it. A fast enough swing won't give it time to lose its hardness! Zach slashed above Raijin's crossed arms.

Kaminari opened his mouth. "RAAAA!" His scream emitted a powerful bolt of lightning that broke Zach's Death blade in half and pierced through Zach's right shoulder and out his back. Zach winced and he lost control over his flight for a second, which was not something he wanted to do while moving at close to a thousand miles per hour. Raijin ducked below the flying object that he stuck a blade up at that he whipped off his waist with his left hand. Zach twisted his sparking body to the side, and Raijin slid the knife in his hand in between two fingers that he flicked to the side at Zach's body that just dodged him. Zach regained control over his new flight ability though as he focused on the energy above him and pushed himself down, so that only a piece of the right side of his torso was sliced by the very sharp bone blade his nemesis flicked his way.

Blood splashed from Zach who took Death from his breaking condensed blade to fly back and catch all the droplets. That Death flew towards his stomach as he spun in midair and kicked his left leg around for Raijin who he predicted was going to try and zap that dark cloud and prevent Zach from maintaining his current blood supply. Raijin guessed that Zach would think he was trying to stop that though, and he was flying backwards instead and out of range of Zach's kick. Both of Raijin's hands opened up behind him while held down at his sides. His fingers twitched like crazy while pointing up at the sky. "TAKE…" Ten individual strands of electricity shot out of Kaminari's fingers and into the sky where five much larger bolts collided with each hand. The bolts grew larger and branched out above Kaminari whose entire body glowed brightly now to a point that his skin looked irradiated. His yellow hair spiked up more and shot out bolts of excess electricity too.

In the sky above Tokyo where punches and kicks had dispersed some of the clouds, millions of people stared up at a figure who illuminated a city shadowed over by the massive storm that had swelled in the last minute. They stared at the brightest strobe of light that they had ever seen that had ten massive surging bolts of lightning slamming into him. "THIS! ZEUS DECABOLT BEAM!"

Raijin's arms swung forward as Zach raced towards him to try and hit him first while Raijin's arms were still pointed behind him. Too fast! Not all of the power that Raijin had just absorbed solely went into the attack. The glowing body of Kaminari Denki was powered head-to-toe with lightning that allowed his arms to swing forward fast enough to counter Zach's speed. A burst of Death shot out of Zach's feet, and he shot himself up higher in the air. He grit his teeth as he did it too as he knew that Raijin was likely to predict this when one of his possible routes to dodge was already cut off. There was no way that Zach could dodge downwards, after all, where a city of millions would be behind him.

He pushed out much more Death though, skyrocketing himself over the top of Raijin's beam that the villain aimed upwards to chase Zach's dodge before firing it out. The lightning ripped away all of the Death that Zach pushed out of his feet to soar that much higher. Then Zach's body exploded in darkness anyway, with another burst of Death firing out of his back and blasting him forward over the top of the beam. He curved around the side of it and then back up from the bottom. A spiral of darkness flew back up the beam towards Raijin who cut it off fast and snapped his head to the side to avoid the kick Zach extended out for him. Raijin reached up his hands that stopped firing the beam to grab Zach's leg with, but the leg disappeared into nothing while another leg pushed out of Zach's thigh already swinging towards Raijin's head's new position.

Raijin smirked. He did not need to touch Zach directly with his hands. Not with the amount he still had within him. He expelled it. An explosion of Electricity pulsed around his body that made Zach cross his arms and stop his attacks while getting blasted backwards. Zach's red eyes squinted back open though and darted around the sky in all directions of where Raijin just expelled his power. Imprecise.

Raijin saw Zach analyze his last attack. It made the small smirk he just gained drop back down. His lips flattened. All this electricity up here and it still isn't enough. I can feel more than ever. Handle more than ever. And yet I know that no matter how much I gather up here, even with the power of lightning, I need the Conduit. Only it has enough power to close the gap, and flip it.

Zach shook his right arm out at his side to try and get the tingling sensation to stop. His right arm broke apart into darkness that swirled itself into his torso and then poured back out of his shoulder. Then the skin reappeared inside the black smoke and a real arm replaced it again, and that arm was no longer twitching. Zach glared towards Kaminari's face and under some of his blond hair that usually fell as bangs but was sticking up from the static in the air around them. Sparks continuously popped and zapped around the air near the two. The dark clouds swirled above Zach's head. His narrowed eyes twitched as he stared at the right side of Kaminari's forehead and a scar on it- From fighting the War Boys. Zach tried to force the thought out of his head. Side by side. Together against villains. Not like now…

Zach flew at his enemy without another thought that could slow him down. Raijin flew backwards to increase the time it would take Zach to reach him, and to start moving the fight without that being clear as he rose higher in the sky as well with his retreat rather than down towards the city. Lightning targeted the objects highest up, and Raijin forced out more charges to pull as much lightning from the storm as he could to himself. Zach's body surrounded in a veil of white again though, and the clouds above stopped spinning as much or getting thicker really at all.

Raijin felt the decrease in pressure in the air that matched a decrease in the amount of static he had scattered around them too. He snapped his right arm out towards a falling lightning bolt though, right as Zach was approaching him faster than Raijin had been dodging away. Zach reached while Raijin's fingertips touched the bolt. Lightning coursed through the villain's body. The glow in his body did not cover everywhere equally though. Raijin got a burst of speed exactly as Zach's right fist was punching forward not as Death but a normal hand. Raijin twisted so the fist would not connect directly with his body, while he uppercut at the same time towards Zach's face. He made sure to twist just enough that Zach still had a close call and might think he could hit him, so Zach kept leaning into the punch rather than pulling away in time.

All the glow in Raijin's body moved specifically into his left arm and them straight up to his fist that punched up much faster than ever. The fist collided with Zach's jaw that started to blacken but was very much a human jaw when Raijin's fist destroyed it. Zach's head snapped backwards while blood splashed out of his broken mouth. His right hand opened up while passing in front of Raijin's chest though. His wrist turned to Death so that it could spin around in its socket, but his fingers were still flesh and blood when he gripped onto the front of Raijin's Anti-Death armor. Zach yanked and tore the white armor and darker costume underneath from Raijin's chest while spinning out and with his head snapped up so his eyes could not even see what he was gripping onto.

Zach's left hand started punching forward but a burst of electricity slammed into him and blasted him one way and Raijin back the other. More of the villain's body was exposed than ever as more of his Anti-Death gear was grasped in Zach's right hand and finally released when the two were separated by a thirty meter gap. Zach's jaw started reconstructing painfully. His lips parted with his teeth baring. Zach bit harder specifically on the left side of his jaw that his upper lip furled higher on, and a new canine pushed out of Zach's gums and refilled the space that the last was blown clean out of. He shot forward towards Raijin while the villain snapped his right hand up above him.

Zach's jaw bone was still un-breaking and his skin regenerating around his lips. His red eyes flared while his right arm punched forward, and his left pitch-black arm pulled back…

Raijin forced out more of a positive charge, and he finally called down a bolt that took longer than he had hoped for. Zach's right hand opened up as Raijin aimed his left hand forward at him while flying backwards through the air. The villain caught the bolt above his head and forced it through his body that acted as a conductor to pass the lightning through himself without even slowing it down. The bolt flew out of Raijin's left hand at the same speed only redirected, and Zach's body sped up to counter in a way that shocked his enemy in front of him who watched Zach's forming Death blade in his right hand swing down, and slice the bolt of lightning in two.

The force of the blade swinging down knocked Raijin's left arm aside past the splitting bolt that Zach continued to fly through. Zach slammed his left fist forward while his right arm was still swinging down in a follow-through with the black blade sucking back into him. Condense it as hard as possible. His skin doesn't scatter Death as instantaneously as the Anti-Death armor. Zach's dense left fist swung forward. He had the opening. Raijin's armor was gone in the area. And his left fist collided and for a brief millisecond did not break apart.

It could not kill Raijin through Death, but the force of the condensed fist did not stop short against Raijin's chest. Some of the force transferred in, crushing skin and muscles inside, and popping blood vessels before Raijin was thrown off the end of the exploding fist from the brute force of the touch of Zach's hand. Zach flew after him, but Raijin slashed up a bone blade even with his eyes clenched in pain and blood trickling out of the corners of his lips. His left eye squinted open and it looked like he was winking. Zach tried to pull back from the immediate follow-up but still got slashed across his own chest.

Raijin spun himself around after dropping out of the sky for a few moments longer than necessary. Not yet in Minato district. Need to keep going. The air is weaker. Raijin took a few deep breaths while staring towards his enemy who ground his teeth and forced his skin to seal back up where his enemy had just cut him. He has to be exhausting himself with every time he regenerates like that. It's a new power. And it's hurting him to use, but is he repairing even his fatigue with it? Each time must double the amount of actual fatigue he's feeling, only to force himself to keep moving on despite it. And yet, I don't think it's a weakening of his power that is causing the storm to settle. Rather, it's an increase in his control over it that is making my own power weaker. He's not letting out as much of that pressure. The storm is still massive, but I can see the visible veil of energy he's surrounded himself in. It's not as random. It's controlled. He's controlling it! Remarkable!

The bloody corners of Raijin's lips curled up again. Zach flew at him and Raijin flew right back towards his heroic enemy. The two turned into a blur of black and yellow that spiraled through the air with shockwaves rippling away from them in the stormy sky. The two collided and blasted away from each other again a mile away from where they were a few seconds ago. Their speed was constantly increasing. Zach intentionally gained more control over the power he was emitting because he could see that the storm he was making was helping Raijin more than anything, and yet he could not bring the fight back to the city level at the power in which they were facing one another. So the only option was getting the storm to lose power rather than keep gaining strength along with him. It was already so powerful while they fought on ground level though, that bringing it up in the sky had done nothing but strengthen the storm and Raijin for the past minutes of the fight.

A few minutes was all it had taken for Zach to start controlling that storm though. He weakened it from the surge that had allowed Raijin to en-static the city and spread his radio jamming signals and magnetic field all across the battlefield. With Raijin so close to him still however, Zach pulling in the edges of the expanse of the battlefield that the two of them were messing with had not dropped Raijin's power at all yet. The storm above was weaker, but the field around Zach was pressurized and full of energy that Zach was trying to pull more and more of directly against his own body. And while he focused on the entire city and his growing power and control over it, he fought against an enemy thinking of just as many broad-battle implications while in the midst of combat.

Death filled Zach's mind while electricity shot through Raijin's and allowed the two of them to think faster than any man should possibly be able to. …Zach's storm isn't growing any larger. His power might have shown its full potential, but if he's getting more control over it and pulling more of it into his body then he'll be even stronger than before. Which means Zach's getting stronger, and I won't be. And yet I am strong enough now. My body can handle it! And if it can't… well, Raijin swept his left hand forward and curled his fingers around Zach's right knee that just kneed up for his face.

Zach's eyes narrowed in suspicion that Kaminari would do that. Kaminari's left hand broke as his knee collided with it. And the force from the lifting leg sent his enemy flying backwards even faster. Raijin flicked his hands below him as he was shooting back, and Zach darted a glare down while flying forward himself in a more cautious way as he watched larger bolts than usual drop for the city that they were increasingly close to. What are we doing here? Minato. There's Tokyo Tower. He's heading towards it. I just kneed him towards it! Damn- Why did he zap the floor? I can't follow the signals. Something's happening! SOMETHING'S HAPPENING!

Zach sped forward but jolted to a stop as five huge beams of Electricity flew out of the top of the Tokyo Tower and past Raijin's sides. Zach twisted back and forth, but although he dodged the five bolts, Kaminari also attacked in that moment and added two more of his own that slammed into Zach and knocked him backwards with burning holes in his chest and neck. Smoke came off his melted flesh that started sealing up just like the muscles inside the burnt skin.

Raijin flew backwards until he was over the top of Tokyo Tower. He magnetically propelled above the tower that sparked violently with electricity that coursed through the metal tower that controlled most signals throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area. It was also under the control of dozens of AANTs that surrounded the tower and had not moved to attack any nearby civilian centers, only protecting the tower from heroes who had been foolhardy enough to attempt to take the tower that they thought might give them control over Tokyo's blocked communications. With the top heroes and hero prospects all involved in tasks of taking down stronger villains or protecting citizens, even those who were trying to unblock the signals had spotted Tokyo Tower's defenses and given it a wide berth in hopes of restoring communications by eliminating the other broadcast jammers instead and circumventing Tokyo Tower's controls.

All of those iron defenders that had prevented heroes from getting close to Tokyo Tower thus far, collapsed to the ground as power coursed through their bodies from all the nearby buildings that generators popped out of. The hidden generators inside of Tokyo Tower itself all flipped upwards as they emerged. The streets around the tower collapsed down into tunnels where large steel panels with circular dishes on them emerged. Some of those panels rose up out of the ground and connected with emerging power sources inside of the smaller buildings around the broadcast tower. Just like the point at the top of Tokyo tower that had just expelled several beams of lightning at Zach to stop his approach, spikes shot up out of the transforming city below Raijin that stretched much farther than Zach predicted it would.

The amount of construction and transformation that had to go on here was much more intensive than had to have occurred over the rest of the city that they had been fighting in already. In seconds after Raijin's appearance, the city below him had transformed into one giant machine that pointed hundreds of metal rods up towards the villain who swung his arms out to the sides and grinned a maniacal and crazed smile back towards his opponent whose red eyes shook at the aspect of what was about to happen.

In that next moment, a year of siphoned electricity shot out of the city and made Zach reel backwards as the beam expanded and slammed into him. Smoke came off his body as he was hit and charred and dropped out of the sky. His whole body filled with electricity and he gasped out in pain. His gasp released smoke too that was not as black as usual, as Zach turned into a smoking projectile that plummeted out of the sky and barely flipped over in time to land on his right foot and left knee as he skid backwards on a street of Minato.

Everyone in Tokyo could see it. Cameras outside of the city pointed in could see it. The skybeam of electricity that engulfed all of Tokyo Tower shot up through the clouds and put a hole through them and out the top. "It's all mine," Raijin's voice came out of speakers all around the power-control systems in front of Zach that had that beam aimed up in the sky and not just scattering power all over the city. It's what kept Zach from destroying the mechanism that surely was giving his enemy more power than ever. Zach's eyes darted around it and he feared that destroying even one part of this controlled system might scatter giant bolts of lightning through buildings behind him. All of those buildings had generators surging on them and then losing their surges and getting quiet as the power funneled solely into the machine that fired that electricity up towards Raijin and straight past him into the sky.

For a moment Zach thought his enemy might have been destroyed instantly by that much power. He got up off his knee onto shaky legs from how much electricity he felt surging inside him. His skin was darkened but he surrounded in a light white veil too that warded off sparks and shocks that hit him just from standing on the road close to this massive beam of electricity. "This is the Conduit. The ultimate source of unlimited power." Raijin's voice came through the speakers and blasted around the city. Televisions sparked and speaker systems filled with Raijin's voice as the broadcasting power of Tokyo Tower sent his voice scattering through all systems.

On the Cloak and on heroes' ships that they sat in outside of the city. In every headset and through every car radio. Rajin's voice emitted through the air as a radio wave that overpowered every other signal and made his voice echo through all of Tokyo and beyond. International news' reporters stuck outside of a distant perimeter beyond Tokyo's borders found their microphones cut off as Raijin's voice filled the airwaves instead. "And it's all, MINE!" Raijin's voice got louder, and Zach finally saw him inside of that beam.

It was hard to see through because of how bright it was. Zach's red eyes made everything around that beam tinted red. The beam of yellow going up into the sky was bathed in red on all sides in his vision. Zach stared up into the air above Tokyo Tower's silhouette to try and see his enemy inside of all that untapped and seemingly limitless power. There's no way he can control that! He's wasting most of it. No matter how much he's siphoned out, I can't see this lasting more than a minute! And his body won't last that long… anyway… No. Zach's red eyes bulged as he stared at where he thought he saw Kaminari inside of that beam.

"It's not just the energy that I've stored all this time, Zach! Through the interconnected network of power lines throughout all of Tokyo, I can connect the Conduit to the city's power supply. To every generator and power station. It's all connected! And now, IT'S ALL MINE!" More and more energy surged through the generators and blacked-out buildings on Zach's sides. He thought all of the power was out of them already, but those lights just started flickering for milliseconds as surges of power from all around the city surged through them in this interconnected web of electricity that Raijin claimed to be in control of. "Shibuya, Chiyoda, I can take power from Nerima and bring it to me! Places that should have been destroyed had our plans gone without a hitch, I still know their networks. I know every inch of this city. AND IT'S ALL MINE NOW!"

The dark clouds in the sky stopped sparking at all. The violently sparking electricity in the clouds was being sucked out into the beam that pierced through them. He can't handle it… Zach thought. He was certain of it. He knew something else though. Kaminari's too smart. But, how? HOW?!

Raijin's body was searing. His skin smoking. He glowed bright inside of the beam. The beam of energy turned more white than yellow, but inside of that white beam of pure power, a glowing yellow silhouette continued to exist. "I planned for all eventualities, Zach! You think reviving myself was the end of that plan? That should I bring myself back to life, I would not have a continuation? A body that could sustain even more electricity! A body that no longer needs to function. If I could survive in my own dead body, then I ask you: What use do I have for that body?"

"What do you think the mind is?!" Raijin bellowed. "Is it the signals that shoot between synapses that hold our thoughts, or the brain cells themselves? Is it MASS or ENERGY that holds the soul? I know the answer, as do you!"

Because I don't need any mass to think. Because I can be a cloud of Death. And I told him before. "You think Backfire can stop Death!? What is there to bounce back? Death isn't a force, it isn't something your pathetic Quirk can deflect! Death is a concept! Something that is coming for all of you!" I told him that I was conceptual. I was just screaming in madness, but there's something to say about my gaseous state not acting like a real gas. What is the atomic makeup of Death? Is there one?! He knows that my mind continued to function even without a true mass. Is that what he's saying?!

"And even though my body wouldn't have been able to handle all this Electricity while I was 'alive' per-se, I planned on the potential eventuality that you might kill me. So why not plan for after I brought myself back too? If you had the power to kill me with Death, then the Conduit would be necessary for the final push to kill my nemesis."

Koda stared away from the radio jammer on top of the building he and Reiko Yanagi stood on top of. The jammer just exploded on its own without the two of them doing anything. They barely paid it any mind though. They were staring with dropped jaws towards the giant beam of energy that Raijin's voice was roaring out of and echoing everywhere.

"Sensors that check the acidity of water levels. Charging stations in every building. Street lights and billboards and every computer. It's all mine. All mine to control. All mine, to be." Raijin's body was disappearing inside of the beam. Inside of the yellow veil around his form, the skin and flesh inside were vibrating faster and faster. The yellow glow that had pulsed in him as he filled with more and more electricity was now a continuous bright light rather than a strobe. "Can we explain such phenomena with science?" Raijin's voice roared through the sky. Echoed in every building and blasted in the ears of millions of terrified people. "The soul is not scientific! If the brain is not the source of our minds and our consciousness but just a conduit itself for our thoughts to be processed, then those electrical signals are our true minds! And if the mind is electricity- If thoughts are energy, then I shall cast off the cage of my human body!" Raijin's body broke apart inside of the lightning and only left a shell of an electric shadow inside of the beam of pure light, but his voice screamed out after it anyway, "And evolve into pure Electricity!"

A conceptual mush of Death. Immaterial. He's gotten this strong by watching me. Studying me. I thought that Death was unique. I thought it was a "next level" Quirk, but I failed to realize that I'm not that special. I trained my power to be this strong. And if anyone else could do the same, it would be you. Zach stared up at the energy that his enemy was inside of, more powerful than Zach ever imagined Kaminari could become. If I lost back when I was Death, I would have doomed the world. I wish it wasn't true, but fighting me made all of those villains stronger. It made them so powerful to the point that without the Army of Death, no one would have been able to defeat them. I did it again. I made the enemy that could destroy everything. In order to counter me, he got this powerful. Solely in order to defeat me.

Zach bit down as hard as he could. His fists shook at his sides and his eyes squinted to hold back any tears this time. I have to stop him.

"Science alone cannot explain Quirks. I understand that well, so I am able to turn into Electricity because I am Electricity. As much as you are Death, I am energy given thought. Given soul!" Raijin yelled it out and his voice reached everywhere that people could see him. They could see the shaking mass of electricity, and they watched in horror as the north side of that beam started to break off a few hundred feet off the ground. The edge of the beam moved away from the rest of it, and it started to lift up while transforming at the bottom of the tendril to gain shape: form of a hand, individual fingers. Another arm moved off of the south side of the beam. The pillar of electricity shooting into the sky stopped just blasting all of it higher than the eye could see, instead stopping around the level of the clouds and starting to take shape as well as something round but with huge spikes coming off the top of it. Those spikes looked like excess electricity flaring out uncontrollably but could also be imagined as spikes of yellow hair as the white beam tinted a yellow color while seemingly getting more under control.

Midoriya and the small kids next to him stared up towards that giant of electricity with jaws agape. Uraraka fell off of the steel beam she was sitting on and had to remove her gravity quickly before hitting the floor so as not to land so hard. She dropped on her butt next to Bakugo and kept staring off through the air that would have been blocked had all the buildings around them still been standing but was clear instead. Gran Torino turned from the bloodied and near-unconscious female villain he had gripped by the collar, while the younger heroes faced off against the other old-timer villain who darted his own gaze towards that giant electric form as well.

Zach stepped forward. He rose up off the ground as the voice continued screaming down at him. "I have become unstoppable! When I kill you, Zach, I want you to know that I will not stop there. I will kill EVERYONE!" Raijin bellowed. "I know there's a chance that you will be looking down on this world after death. There exists that possibility, and that chance alone is the only reason I need to kill everyone. SLAUGHTER THEM! In ways that even you can't dream of." Zach rose up higher in front of the giant mass of Electricity. A small human form flying up into the air in front of Raijin's massive body powered by the Conduit.

Zach's red eyes narrowed into that mass and at the core form he saw of a darker yellow body he imagined Raijin was staring out at him from. He bit down in fury at what Raijin just shouted that he honestly believed, despite being able to 'dream of' quite a lot. "I'll make your friends EAT each other! Kill innocents! I'll have heroes butcher some to save more! Turn the human race against itself. Turn it bloodier. MORE BRUTAL THAN EVER BEFORE! I will turn the beautiful world you believe in into a fiery ball of rock hurtling through space- I'll kill every human on this planet, or make them kill each other!" Terror filled the hearts of every person watching, though something else swelled in them too as many spotted the small figure flying up in the air in front of Raijin. They still felt fear, but hope rose within them too as they saw the one person they all believed had a chance to stop this terrible future from coming to pass.

"Every civilian! And every hero…" Raijin's voice rose, "And every villain too!" He yelled it like a man cackling in madness. David froze with his smirk still raised high in anticipation for the world that Raijin was describing. The two teenagers facing him in Musutafu who dared not look away from him watched sweat cover their opponent's face as his eyes darted away and towards that glowing mass of Electricity that just scared him shitless.

Hypnos's eyes trembled as she stared past the Nomu grappling with Tsukuyomi in front of her. Hawks was down on a knee behind his sidekick, only a few red feathers remaining floating by his sides around him and Shoji, but he saw the look in Hypnos' eyes of pure fear at what Raijin just threatened the world with.

Some villains getting nervous hoped that Raijin was joking. They all felt that terror grow exponentially though as he yelled, "There will be no chance for any redemption of the human race. I will kill every, last, one of them. Turn this world into a burning pile of rubble! I WILL SET IT AFLAME! And make every fight you have ever won meaningless through the extinction of humanity!"

In distant parts of the world, people screamed as the auto-generated subtitles on their screens told them what that villain just threatened them all with. Radio signals had stopped being blocked, but Raijin's voice was all that could pass through as every other attempt was overpowered by his ultimate energy. Broadcasts came out clearer than ever only to send fear through the global populace at the aspect of a Raijin-led extermination of their world.

Just as Death allows me to think without a mind inside of a form completely Death, he has figured out a way to think without a brain. Quirks allow it. Many Quirks can turn someone into a form that has no organ of a mind. I know better than most that we know very little about Quirks. Their origins. The extent of what they can really do… And I also know you, Kaminari. I should have known you had something like this stored away. I know that I can't save any more Death. I- I won't be able to revive! I have to- No. Stop thinking about it. Figure it out later- you're just pushing off the inevitable. It's not. I will find a way. Even without any Death? I can't hold back. Use everything. Every last drop. The dead… they won't…

Zach took in a deep breath. He released it slowly. And then his body expanded in size a hundred times. His body turned to Death, and the Death expanded wide while thinning out to its most extreme. He left gaps inside of him that were hollow to make the outside of his body appear even larger. Everyone's watching. The single human-sized figure who had been facing this giant villain was not enough and Zach knew it. Kaminari knows too. Doesn't matter. He made himself even larger. It was not a bluff for his nemesis. It was a reassurance to the millions who Zach knew were terrified of all his enemy had just shouted at him. I'm a hero. Remember that. You're not just fighting for yourself like he is. It's not about him. And it's not about you.

Zach had a lot of reasons for needing to defeat Kaminari. Most of them were personal. Because of how much he cared for his old best friend, he needed to kill him and end his suffering. He had made his purpose clear though and repeated it to Kaminari over and over through the fight, as much as he repeated it to himself. They matter more. It's not about me. It's not about me so it isn't about what I care about. Or… Or it's not all, about that. A hundred tendrils of Death shot out of Zach's back and curled around his sides. Eight massive arms broke off of his body and created hollow spheres off of them that looked more condensed than they really were. Kyoka knows it. She was right. It doesn't need to be a percentage. 99% of my reasoning can be for saving this city, the people of it, and this world from Kaminari… And yet that 1 percent can have a base amount that's still consequential. Because it is! It does matter! It matters to me, and I don't need to forget my own reasons just because I'm a hero.

I'll stop you and protect all of them. That doesn't mean it isn't personal. That doesn't mean, it isn't about us. Because it is! It's a lie to pretend like it's not. I won't lose track of what's more important. I swear I won't, Zach promised himself. Tears still filled his giant red eyes though as he glared forward into the mass of electricity that his enemy was laughing from inside of as Zach bluffed his true strength for the sake of making people feel safer. I know Lifebringer needs to stop him for all of them first. But, but I'm doing this for you, Kaminari. "I won't let you hurt them," Zach growled. His giant black mouth moved and his voice filled the sky. Against the personal thoughts he just had, he spoke his promise to the population who needed to know that there was nothing to fear.

And despite how powerful Raijin had just made himself. Despite all of his threats. The world could see the one counter that could possibly stand against such a threat, and they believed in him.

Fifty beams of light shot out of Raijin's body from all points. His arms swung forward simultaneously to wrap around Zach's body, and twenty more arms ripped out of the sides of his towering bright figure that shot forward off the top of Tokyo Tower which continued to funnel power straight into him even as he flashed away from directly over it. Raijin's giant body appeared closer to Zach and still towered over him like David and Goliath. Holes ripped through Zach's mostly hollow form, with beams tearing through Death and firing out into the sky past him. Some of the beams that hit lower down on Zach's body though were met by strong resistance that pushed back into them as Zach judged danger levels of Raijin's attacks and prevented only the ones that could hurt people behind him from passing through.

Such massive beams that Raijin fired off all around Zach's body only broke through thin veils on the front and back of him due to his hollow figure. It was a minor consolation to Zach that so much energy was expelled to do such little damage to himself. The fact that Kaminari could blast him with that much electricity though and in so many different places without holding back at all told him that Kaminari was not saving his strength. He wants me dead now. He's already talking about moving on and killing everyone else! Zach still believed that there could not be more than a minute or so of electricity for Kaminari to use in the Conduit, maybe a little more when he added the Tokyo network of connectivity to the apparent power storage site and not just what Kaminari had siphoned over the year. Kaminari can't possibly sustain this much power usage for long. But it's like my power. He's never used it before so it expelled far more at first, and now he's gaining control and could start using less without getting weaker. Allowing him to use it for longer too. If I assume one minute, he might be able to use it for three. I can't hold off that many attacks. Over that long a period of time! I don't have the Death- or the strength left- I have to go on the attack!

The realization that just defending against Kaminari's attacks would not work was met by a second realization. I don't know how to hurt him in this form! Zach refilled the holes in his body, but he knew Kaminari's next attacks would be more focused on his lower body to prevent him from just opening as many holes and wasting Kaminari's strength. The more precise the villain got, the more Death he would have to intercept the Electricity with, and the quicker he would deplete his own remaining reserves against Kaminari's comparatively endless supply. And yet even as Zach knew that he had to attack rather than just try and hold off this insane power from hurting the people around him, he could see no physical form inside of the Electricity to attack. He knew that Death would not absorb into that massive monster of power either. I can't kill him with Death. He's dissipated his material form. If I break the pylons supplying him his energy, what will happen to the excess? The storage units containing enough power to make Kaminari into this thing could explode if tampered with. He must have failsafes against my interference.

Zach needed more time to come up with a counter. No matter how fast his processing speed though, Kaminari was too quick an enemy to hesitate against. Arms of pure electricity passed through Zach's body that split into three sections as Kaminari's right arm sliced Zach's Death head from his upper body that was split in mid-torso by Raijin's slashing left arm. Then the other twenty arms that Raijin had pulled out all extended forward and into the tri-sected mass of Death that dispersed into dozens of black pillars of smoke trying to dodge away from Raijin's arms that all zipped around in different directions to give chase and ultimately connect with a pillar each. Those black plumes of Death were filled with electricity that sparked out of them violently. The clouds flared out black smoke as if the pillars themselves were writhing in agony and spasming in their electrocutions.

"RRaaaAAAA- AAAHHck- ga-GAHHH!" Zach's voice rippled out of smokey blackened air that some of the pillars that did not have electric arms chasing them had condensed into. Then Raijin appeared, a human-sized mass outside of the giant of Electricity. Connected to the giant behind him by dozens of twisting and sharpened lines of yellow light. His right hand shoved forward faster than Zach could dodge despite feeling his enemy's approach and seeing it from several angles. He tried to move. Kaminari was faster.

Kaminari's right arm shoved through the forming black chest of Death. Then the eruption of Electricity in all directions away from Raijin's scattering arm caused Zach's voice to scream out in pain again. Five black arms ripped from Zach's head as he screamed and punched forward into Raijin's Electric face, and the immaterial arms collided with a face of energy that reeled backwards from the blow. Neither knew how that made sense. Zach attempted it though, and Raijin backed up into his giant when he felt the fists of darkness connect and cause him real pain for the first time in a long time throughout this fight. The nerve sensors throughout his human form had been deactivated, but this was a new form he had taken. One that he was unsure of how to use. One that he had never used before.

Raijin hesitated this time. The surge in power like never before was matched by the weakness in his inexperience with his new massive body of pure electricity. Every movement was faster. His thoughts were faster too. But for the past half hour he had been controlling his body through precise electrical signals into every limb. Every thought was manual. His Electricity Quirk gave him the ability to control his own mind and revive himself and still have thoughts despite his own death. That took a lot of work to keep going though. The current surge of power and loss of his body allowed him a moment of reprieve from the strenuous task of constant body and mind manipulation through his Quirk. The Conduit had made it easier. Made him stronger to the point that those tasks were unnecessary… and yet it allowed him to feel pain. I'm not invincible. It was the understanding he got from that one collision of Zach's fists against his smaller body that he had sent forward for the extra speed that it would have that Zach would have no chance to dodge. That had worked. Yet Zach had countered, and he had not felt the need to move as he had believed that Zach's attack would do nothing.

I am not damaged. I felt pain, Raijin thought. He does not have the power to defeat me. I am most powerful! Yet, he also knows he connected. What will his counter be? What is he realizing right now? The same as myself. But what will he do with that information? How will he counter me now that he knows that he can? Do not wait to find out. Obliterate him now.

Four giant yellow arms moved in front of Raijin and curled their hands towards each other with a gap of space between. "Stop this," Raijin dared. He said it as an order to Zach who could not do anything but try to do exactly what Raijin said. Because the villain was aiming on a downwards diagonal angle. While clearly full of power capable of annihilating several city blocks in an instant, Raijin aimed down at the city past Zach. A flash of light erupted inside of that gap. It was condensed. It shone so brightly it was astonishing that it remained in place instead of exploding outwards like a bomb.

Raijin was in control of it. The condensing Electricity sparked through the intangible fingers of his giant body. Zach's own huge form shrank down to compensate for the strength he saw gathering. Condense myself! He's too strong! Where's the opening? What's the move? I- I don't have any plan! The time to come up with a solid counter was not available. He shrank in an instant because the thought of remaining huge to be a beacon of hope for those watching had vanished from his thoughts entirely.

I can't hold back this much power. Zach could tell. The Conduit had given Raijin more Electricity than his human body could handle, and yet the consciousness of this villain was still alive and controlling it. There was no limit. No top to the power he could not even guess the size of gathering in front of him. It was hard to measure just how powerful the attack would be when compared to how strong all of Kaminari's previous attacks were. I need to. I will.

Zach knew that it was much stronger than him. He was focused though. Stopping Kaminari had become paramount. Thoughts of being a beacon of hope vanished. All thoughts of the dead who he had planned on reviving, thoughts on saving power and after the battle had abandoned him. Throughout, Zach had always had the idea that he would succeed and defeat his enemy. The second his friends convinced him that he was still alive back in Heroally and he decided that he would not throw his life away in the fight, he had believed in himself and that he would come out victorious. He had reason to believe that was true. After all, he always won.

And because of that belief, he could not turn off that part of him that always thinks of everything. A hundred steps ahead. Every side goal, ulterior motive, and every single important thing all rattled around in his head and clustered his thoughts with so many different things to focus on. But it was the idea that he would lose that filled his mind that finally brought his sole focus to the battle. A focus that Zach had barely ever had in his entire life while fighting with full strength. Always concerned about the damage his Quirk might do, the way people might see him, killing people, the state of the world, making people feel safer… his focus had shifted subconsciously from considering anything outside of the fight in that very moment. Defeating Kaminari. Stopping Kaminari. Keeping Kaminari from killing anyone, rather than just hurting or scaring now, as he had to limit what he was trying to accomplish in the understanding that Kaminari might actually kill him right here, right now.

I might lose. It had been a long time. He just told himself that he would succeed, and yet that new thought was loud in his head as his entire vision flashed golden light that fired out of Kaminari's hands and blasted towards him in the largest beam of yellow Electricity that Zach had ever seen. It was as wide as the street that his twenty-six-foot-tall body stood on with arms raised. Palms held out. Death surged through his body and up through his arms to his palms. "HaaaAAAAAAHHHH AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" He screamed out as the beam of Electricity hit his arms. He tried to fire his own beam of Death back out, but instead he felt the Electricity searing away at his giant black hands, pushing even farther into him while his feet broke through the ground and skid backwards and down deeper into the road. Pavement flew out from the sides of his legs into the walls near him. He screamed louder while his arms buckled backwards, only for his huge Death elbows to struggle and push back out, while his heels dug in harder to stop skidding as he leaned his head into the beam in front of him. Using his head and hands, he pushed all of his Death into the front of his body and against the end of Kaminari's beam.

The thought of losing had been absent for so long. He could always imagine losing something. Losing some things. He could always picture some aspects of some of his plans falling apart. He had contingencies for when those losses happened. But a total defeat? A loss where dying and losing would mean his enemy won a complete victory? It felt like he was back in the war. In a second he snapped back into a sense of himself back in the peak of the war. His war. When he did not know that he would always win. Back when the fear was there that he might die and lose and that it would all fall apart. Every second he had felt that pressure. But that fear of death was not a lack of confidence. He could remember that as well.

Zach's eyes burned brighter red. They glared through the darkness and the light to an outlined figure through it all who could see those eyes boring into him. Zach's back flared with Death and then all those flames sucked into his body and up his arms, bulging them while thinning the Death around his body. His bones even showed through on his back that was somehow still enormous for a human back. His body was not entirely Death, and yet his bones were not regular sized. His jaw showed through the veil of darkness on his head. That jaw opened back up and roared out an ungodly scream of defiance against the endless Electricity that burned away more and more of the Death that Zach had kept locked away. I can't! It's too much! I'll lose the battle of attrition. It'll break through and kill me, destroy the city- kill everyone! I can't. I won't let it happen! "RAAAAAAA! NOOOOO! I WON'T LET YOU, KAMINARIIIII!" Zach pushed his elbows out and stomped his right leg forward. He smashed his barely-veiled forehead into the end of the energy beam, and the remainder of Death seared off while he shrank more. Burns covered his face that looked disfigured and horrifying as Zach flashed out of a darkened state into a more humanoid form, all of his Death surging to his arms.

I can't lose. I can't die. I always could. The threat was always THERE! Zach shoved his arms out harder, his Death reserves depleting. I always could. Zach stomped his other foot forward even at that thought. Even as his Death was going away. Burning away. At the hands of his own friend. Zach stomped forward and made the larger giant firing a much more powerful beam than ever into Zach's arms, lean away at what was happening.

He'll die any second. He's out! What's that look?! Raijin's metaphysical teeth ground in fury inside of his giant Electrical mass. Zach's red eyes were still glowing bright and staring right back into his. And he could see in those eyes, that Zach thought he would win.

The possibility of total defeat had entered Zach's mind. But it was not overpowering. It only reminded him of a feeling he believed after Ares that he would never feel again. He had fought many battles where the possibility that he might lose everything was there. He could see those battles in his mind right now. He had been reminded of one not long ago. Just as Zach could see himself stepping towards the Capos and their army, he stepped towards Kaminari. Just as he had gotten back up to fight by Rappa's side and take down Zombieman, he forced back the tears and screamed out in rage towards his evil friend. All the times that fear had filled him, he never let it take hold. Because he knew that he had to fight anyway. Because the fear had never been that he would die. It was fear that he would die, and everyone would die because of his death… In his head he flashed back so far to picture two girls staring at him in fear as he was marched towards them.

One of those two girls stood two blocks away. She was panting and grabbing at her chest as she had been running around for a long time now and just sprinted across half of this city. She pulled something off of her waistband while darting her eyes from that giant beam of energy to the building on her left side. The flickering lights in that building happened a moment before the flickering of the next building down, then the next. She could see the sparks jumping between generators and through power lines. Jirou ripped the EMP that Yaoyorozu had given her off her waist and cursed while turning it on.

"Screw getting communications back online." Jirou could not care less at that moment about the goal she had had for the past hour. "I'm saving my friend," she threw the EMP. Jirou winced and pulled away from the flash of light that the device Yaoyorozu gave her just set off. Stronger than the ones she used before, Jirou squinted back open her eyes and saw the building behind where she just tossed the device was no longer blinking. None of the buildings on this road were. They had all blacked out for good. Every device in the vicinity transferring more Electricity towards Raijin's giant body short-circuited at once.

The beam that Raijin was blasting down shrank in size. His eyes snapped up and in the direction of a loss of connections. All the power he had grabbed from districts away and was bringing through that pathway were severed in an instant. Then his gaze shifted back down to his beam and the figure under it who still stood between the bottom of the beam and the city street that was getting hit by stray bolts of lightning that carved deep trenches through it. Burn scars sliced across buildings near them. The beam was weakened, but it did not cut off completely.

He stopped it though. Raijin cut off the attack and rose himself back up to full height while condensing more Electricity around his body. Zach dropped down to his right knee on the road ahead of him. His body was only ten feet tall. His bones showed through not a dark veil but just deeply tanned skin. His skin looked translucent to his abnormally large bones. His hands grabbed onto the floor in front of him in the crater on the street just past the edge of the steel platform with the outermost power rods firing more Electricity up into Raijin's body. The storage units were still filled with so much power as Raijin had focused on bringing in Electricity from farther away at first, just in case something like a break in the connectivity chain were to happen.

He glared down at the exposed back of his enemy. Down with both fists pressing on the floor, one knee to the street, shaking as he struggled to even lift his head after holding off an attack like that. "Need a second to recover?" Raijin wondered in a booming voice. "Because I won't give you-" He lifted two giant Electric arms while power from the Conduit continued to fire into him. Giant lightning bolts flashed to life inside of the rising yellow hands. He cut himself off though, because Zach's hunched body burst into dark flames and then grew exponentially in size in the blink of an eye. "Nothing but a shell!" Raijin roared at the growing giant in front of him who looked so thin he could practically see through his front and out his back.

Raijin slammed his lightning bolts down, but Zach's giant black arms swung out to the sides and hit the insides of Raijin's arms. His physical strength transferred?! Raijin's arms got pushed out to either side. He sucked the attacks back into his body rather than waste the Electricity by releasing the lightning bolts in ways that they might go hurt others which was a goal he had focused on before. He had to keep that Electricity, because another giant black arm was already emerging out of Zach's right shoulder while the right that just swung out to parry Raijin's to the side was fading away into wisps.

Zach's right fist swung forward. He stood over a hundred feet tall. His right arm bulged, while the rest of his body thinned out. His legs faded first. Up from his feet to his knees, his Death just faded as if blown away by the wind. Raijin's own right arm that re-bulged out of the side of his giant body swung forward while Zach's right swung at him. Zach's torso, his head, every part of his body other than his right arm, was barely more than a mist by the time Raijin's fist collided. Or by the time it would have collided, because there was nothing there for the electric fist to connect with. All of the Death that Zach could muster from his body had gone into his swinging right arm. That arm was the only thing not hollow on his fading husk of a giant torso of Death.

The right arm connected with Raijin's chest and knocked the giant backwards into Tokyo Tower. It did not look to physically hit the tower unlike when the Death collided with it. Instead the yellow mass just moved over the metal and surged quicker with the Electricity that no longer needed to jump to his back but had a direct connection. Raijin's body had Tokyo Tower inside of it. The Conduit was beneath him. Even though he felt the blow from Zach's arm and the pain of it connecting with his chest, he was not slowed at all as he slashed up two giant bolts of lightning that pierced the bottom of Zach's huge black arm and out the top of it.

A human-sized body of Zach Sazaki was already emerging out of the top of Zach's giant clenched fist though ahead of the farther-forward bolt. Just off the front of Raijin's body, Zach emerged and was swinging his right arm with a white veil surrounding it and pitch black Death coating his knuckles alone. He was an ant in comparison to the size of the giant, and yet Raijin could tell that the fist held even more power in it than the giant one that had just connected. He also knew that Zach had figured out the adjustments the Conduit had made to his own body. However Zach materialized his fist, it was not going to pass through this body of yellow energy without damaging him. This was going to hurt. And so a human-sized body of electricity shot out of Raijin's chest in a flash, and he swung his own small left arm out quicker into the fist that Zach punched at him. Their fists collided and a shockwave slammed into the two of their faces that pushed back from the force.

Zach's giant black arm pierced by twin lightning bolts exploded behind him and re-transformed back into a giant human shape that only he and Raijin understood was entirely hollow. Zach pulled his human head to the right side as Raijin's small Electric arm slashed out towards his face, slicing a burning gash across his left cheek as the sharp hand passed by. Zach kicked up his right leg while coating his kneecap in darkness. The giant behind him did the same while the giant behind Raijin slammed two massive fists down and dispersed the Death giant's head. That dark giant's knee continued up though and hit the more massive body of Electricity while Zach's own kneecap just touched the core's stomach before Raijin could block it, sending him back into his own reeling mass as they both knocked backwards.

The dispersing Death behind Zach pulled into his back while he started twisting his body. His black left arm had not reformed yet as his human body had emerged without any Death on it at first. He was twisting before the core of Raijin he kneed back into the giant had even touched it. A new core shot out above where the top of Raijin's smaller head was touching his giant's torso. As his small body merged back into the giant, simultaneously a new one was pulling out above that point and flew straight back at Zach. Death surged into Zach's back though from his destroyed giant arm of Death, and it funneled into his left shoulder while he was already punching the phantom arm he imagined there that created itself in mid-punch with the force already inside it. The force and momentum were there; the mass just took until the final second to create so Zach could pound Raijin in the Electric face that just flew back out of his own giant and towards him.

This time when Raijin's core flew back into his own more massive body, a new core did not instantly emerge to fly back at him. Instead the massive head of the several hundred foot tall Raijin just glared down at the small figure flying in front of him. The Conduit below them glowed bright, and beams of Electricity fired up as huge pillars in a circle around the two fighters. As if making a cage around the two of them. A cage made of the same Electricity that Raijin's body was made of. A cage of Raijin's control. A grid of electrical bolts connected each of the pillars firing up from all pylons. He surrounded Zach in so much power that he really thought he might see a flicker in Zach's red eyes. A loss of confidence. Doubt. Anything!

Zach just flew forward and attacked-

A long arm of Electricity snapped out of Raijin's chest and smacked Zach in the left side. The smack came so fast from the surge that Raijin just pulled out of storage that Zach had no time to put up a guard. He was disoriented from it so he had no preparation either for hitting the giant pillar of Electricity he was smacked into and electrocuted against. His body burned. Black smoke came off of him that was not Death. He could smell his own burning flesh even as he pulled some Death to his back and pushed away from the Electricity. His eyes squinted forward and he felt out the energy in the air that he manipulated to pull himself away from several lightning bolts flying at him at once from his enemy also swinging another dozen arms at him.

Zach pulled his right arm back and created a bolt of Death on it while dodging all his enemy's attacks. The singular focus in his mind, was still, just defeating his enemy. He threw forwards, and a hole opened up in the giant's body he aimed at to allow his Death bolt to pass straight through him. Zach did not feel the irony of how many times he had done a similar move to enemies. He had full control over his Death even while it was disconnected from his body. So instead of passing through that hole, it just hovered there in the middle of Raijin's body when the hole opened up. All its momentum cut off instantly. It sat there and disrupted the Electrical body that bent outwards away from it and needed to expend more energy by not existing in straighter lines.

Now. While he holds his power away from him. He's vulnerable. Raijin ignored the extra effort he had to exert not to surround the Death in the middle of him that he imagined Zach would use to disrupt his connections even further. He just fired out a hundred smaller bolts from the front of his giant body and up out of the ground and inwards from the cage pillars. None of the smaller bolts looking the size of actual lightning bolts would pack as much of a punch as his previous attacks, but there were far too many of them for Zach to dodge them all especially with some of his little remaining Death away from his body and unable to assist his maneuverability.

Zach had even less of his Death while holding some of it in the center of Kaminari's mass. He could not burst out Death for gains of speed. His flight was slower, and he swerved around to try and dodge as many of the tiny bolts as he could.

Through the giant pulsing beams of electricity firing into the sky, another girl staring towards the scene from half a mile away watched as dozens of tiny lightning bolts slammed into Zach's body. He was dodging so many of them. Raijin fired more and more though. Too many for Zach to dodge them all. Too much for him in his state to turn his body intangible enough for those bolts to pass through him like Kaminari was doing to his Death bolt. Small swirls of Death emerged out of Zach's skin on the points of collision between him and the electricity. His Death swirled with the electricity and pushed it back off him, and he did that twenty times a second as the jolts hit him all over his body even as he dodged dozens of others in those same seconds.

The bolts changed in size and intensity. Zach was focusing Death on blocking some of the bolts, but he was moving too fast to be able to decide which ones to focus on. He was already getting hit by so many, and now several of the bolts getting past his defenses were too strong that the swirls of Death he tried to parry them off his skin with were burning up quicker. In a second Raijin had changed up his attack strategy to hit Zach with stronger bolts, and Zach stopped blocking as many attacks in the next instant once two of those stronger bolts had electrocuted him. He missed more in order to only focus dodging where he saw the thicker bolts, trusting his ability to handle all of the tiny shocks that should have killed normal men but that he could swirl more precise Death against the collision points after getting hit by so many that he learned how his Death worked against the Electricity well enough to negate the blows.

Kaminari changed his attack patterns again. Several of the metal rods sticking out of the Conduit fired up into the air. The raising steel rods acted as transfer points redirecting electricity that hit them and bouncing around the bolts to come at Zach in new different angles. Zach's red eyes darted every direction while he flew around in a white veil with polka dots of black Death spotting up all over his skin for milliseconds to block direct impacts of lightning bolts. His body surrounded in a static charge from getting hit too much though. The electricity around him sparked while his skin reddened more than the tan shade it was already. Blood splashed out of a gash ripped from two bolts of lightning hitting consecutively in the same spot before the instant regeneration that Zach had been trying to carry out through any cells that got burned under his Death blocks. As soon as he needed to focus on sealing up a bleeding wound, he was hit by one of the thicker bolts that came from his blind spot and hit him in the back of the head.

The jolt in his brain was too much when he was thinking at such speeds in order to fight off the sheer number of attacks and constantly-changing fighting style of his opponent. Zach tried to pull his excess Death bolt back to himself as it had not disrupted Kaminari's speed as much as it messed with his own. He was falling out of the air with thick smoke coming off his body. His hair was on fire. Blood came out of his eyes, and his arms slowed when he tried to raise them below himself to catch his falling body. His eyes snapped open though as the metal sheet covering the ground over the Conduit flashed such bright yellow that there was no way he could catch himself on it. I'll never, get up- Zach stopped his fall short by flying, and he spun himself around in a mid-air barrel-roll.

The Death pulling back towards him swept above his twisting body and intercepted the bolts just above him that would have prevented him from stopping short there. Stronger bolts flew up out of the glowing Conduit below Zach though and hit him in the back before he could try flying back up again. He had just pushed his Death above him to block those bolts, so getting hit by the massive force of Electricity directly underneath him cut through his back and seared straight through all his skin that he could not protect. He felt it touching his spine directly. He could smell his own burning flesh and hair.

Zach squinted his eyes as the lightning he was blocking above him pushed through the Death barrier. That's not Electricity, Zach realized at the sight of a brightly glowing light that shone through his veil. He shifted his gaze past the Death and past the bolts that the Electric giant was going to push through into Zach once his enemy focused on the beams hitting his back. Kaminari also lifted his gaze and stared towards the projectiles that scattered away from each other like a grenade exploding and blasting shrapnel in all directions. Each piece of shrapnel was aerodynamic and had boosters on the backs of them that sent them flying farther from each other though. The giant grenade that flew towards the Conduit had just burst and sent every piece of "shrapnel" inside it scattering around Tokyo Tower.

Raijin's massive glowing eyes narrowed in fury. Bolts flew out of his body so fast that two of them actually collided before the devices could go off. That was why Creati had fired so many of them though. FLASH! The squinting girl a half mile away from the battle stepped back from the cannon she had Created on a roof of an apartment building. Jirou was not the only one who came to the conclusion that knocking out the city's power and communications was less important than damaging Raijin as much as they could. Yaoyorozu stared towards the flickering giant beams of electricity that faded away while the buildings leading to Tokyo Tower from all directions lost power. Every connection inside of the Conduit below Raijin split too. The generators short-circuited. Every chain broke apart at once as over twenty EMP grenades exploded and knocked out power for half the city.

Those were not temporary EMPs, Raijin. Every device will need to be replaced. Yaoyorozu's eyes narrowed darkly towards the giant that shrank down even after turning its head and glaring towards her for a split second. You can no longer sustain that form.

"That bitch," Raijin snarled while his massive electric body vanished and he stood on top of a sheet of metal with metal rods sticking out of the ground around him. His body sparked violently as he sucked in as much Electricity that he could into his body which was the only electricity-storage container still functioning. Small sparks shot off his body and then pulled back into him. His skin glowed yellow, but it was skin again and Raijin looked down at his hands that he could see a physical form of even while he could also see through his skin to the Electricity flowing through his veins. His fingers curled into fists and he let out a low chuckle before lifting his head and glaring towards the man who pushed down on his right fist to get back up off of his left knee too. "I'll make sure she suffers when this is done. More than any of them," Raijin promised towards his enemy.

Thank you, Momo, Zach lifted out of his hunched stature and forced Death back out of his left shoulder and down his side into the shape of an arm again. "Nnnnn- NN!" Zach groaned while his torn skin rippled across his exposed back. The burnt muscles got covered back up by a new thin wall of skin that pulled in from around Zach's sides and to his spine to block it from being exposed to the air any longer. "You won't hurt anyone else. Ever again," Zach swore while glaring back into his enemy's eyes.

I can't help him any more than this, Yaoyorozu stepped to the side of the roof with a new jetpack forming on her back. Her head turned to the left though and she stared towards Tokyo Tower. A brunette girl's face flashed in Yaoyorozu's mind. She had just seen that girl and fought alongside her elsewhere in the city. Her lips lifted up at the corners while staring towards where Zach was fighting Kaminari. I believe in you, Zach. I know you. I trust you more than anyone! I think, I…

It wasn't out of obligation to save you. I feared my feelings made me think like that. Like how it was for you and Airi. Unlike Airi though, you don't need to be saved. I was afraid just like you always were that if I accepted those feelings that it was out of obligation. Stopping the Conduit. Stopping Source. It's to protect you, but not because you can't help yourself. It's just because, I care. Yaoyorozu pursed her lips and forced her body back when it just started twisting in the direction of that insane fight she had to keep herself from rushing into. As much pain as you're in, you are not broken. You didn't become obsessed because of me, and- and I think Darling probably wasn't even like that either!

That was a fear you had, but although that fear made it impossible for you… it wasn't the real reason. Yaoyorozu thought of the look he gave her way while talking about Darling in the forest that night on Inazuma. That single look in her direction as he explained himself, as if everything he was saying was only one of the reasons. Then she imagined the confession he told her just the other night. Yaoyorozu turned forward and jumped off the roof, but when she turned on her jetpack she flew away from the Conduit rather than towards it.

Do it, Zach. I know this won't be it. You will survive this. I did what I could. I'm not going to let him stop you from making it back to us… back to me. I still haven't told you, what I know I feel too. So beat him. Save this city! Save us all!

"This is how it always had to end, Zach," Kaminari spoke to his opponent he stood on equal footing of.

They faced one another on a street covered in scars. The pavement and walls of the buildings around them had deep gashes on them from lightning bolts flying off the Conduit. The area appeared to be evacuated around them at least. Depleted robot bodies lay scattered around them. The AANTs guarding Tokyo Tower had scared off all civilians nearby, and they had not given chase to the evacuation centers due to the important mission Kaminari had given them to protect this tower alone. The street had broken glass all over it. Every window of every building in the area had shattered. Cars on the street were in flames. Some of the buildings were on fire too. Smoke rose over the city around them.

The pack that rematerialized on Kaminari's back was still broken. A sword had pierced through it earlier when it went through Kaminari's chest and out his back. It could no longer regulate the Electricity stored within him. It could no longer store the excess. His white anti-Death armor had taken a lot of damage too and exposed most of his arms and torso while he stood there back in mostly human form. His left arm was not human though. It was Zach's metal arm that curled its fingers as easily and fluidly as Kaminari's discarded real arm ever could.

"'How it had to end?' I guess you could ask." Kaminari continued as Zach did not humor him with the response himself. "I'm not pretending like I wasn't trying to kill you right there, but this is more poetic, don't you think? I can only use the electricity that I can handle without the support of extra systems. And you, well," Kaminari chuckled again and looked his opponent up and down.

Zach's left arm formed into a solid black mass. He stood steady on his feet. He had blood stains on his skin though that absorbed slower back into him. His back was still tender and barely covered in a thin layer of skin that regenerated slowly compared to earlier. Zach kept his mouth closed, but that just meant his wheezing breaths in and out of his nose were even louder. Focus regeneration only around vital areas. Death's low. Kaminari used most of his stored energy, or lost the rest. He still has the rest of Tokyo. Whatever isn't blacked-out yet. I need to keep us away from areas still with power in them.

"We'll never fight at that level again," Kaminari admitted while cocking his head to the left. He smirked though while leaning forward and lifting his arms up on either side of him. "But at the level of efficiency we've mastered by now, how low do you think we'd have to get to stop being the two strongest people in this city?" Electricity sparked around Raijin's whole body and he blurred into non-existence. He reappeared on Zach's left side. The shape of his body appeared first looking to be only made of energy again, then the rest of his physical form appeared inside of it already in mid-punch towards Zach's throat.

Zach's Death arm snapped up and his pitch-black left hand curled around Raijin's electric wrist. The matter formed inside of that wrist in mid-strike. Zach curled his fingers around it and twisted his body. The twist was a sudden jolt that pulled Raijin off his feet and into the air while Zach also swung his right arm around his body. Raijin lifted his right arm and blocked the strike, but Zach's fist had too much power in it that it bent the half-physical arm back into Raijin's forming chest and sent the villain flying through the air. Zach flew right there with him as he still kept Raijin's left arm gripped by his own.

The electricity in Raijin's left wrist shocked into the Death in such a way to destabilize its physical state enough for the villain to yank his arm straight through as if pulling through a gaseous substance. Zach took too long to re-solidify his Death to prevent the escape, but his own resolidifying left wrist twisted 180 degrees while Raijin's arm was coming out the other side of his own. His wrist bent back the other direction and he snatched the villain's arm before it could pull fully away. Raijin had some momentum in it though, and he sped up right as Zach was grabbing on as he knew Zach would try to do, whipping his dark friend around the front of his body and kneeing up into Zach's chin so blood splashed out of his tongue that Zach accidentally bit down on when his jaw was slammed shut in the middle of him panting in exhaustion.

The two neared the wall of a building and Zach could see that in his peripheral vision. A tail of Death stuck out of his lower back and reached around his body, grabbing himself by his own upper right arm in the same moment that Kaminari just grabbed lower down on it. Grabbing himself was easier than grabbing his enemy who Death had already killed once before and made his Quirk work less on. Zach tugged his arm with such strength in his tail that he launched himself and Raijin across the district down the straight block of the grid-like pattern of the city.

I never thought it would be easy, but that was close. Much too close. I can't lose here! Zach ignored all thoughts of fatigue but had to do so consciously. Can I manually stop it? Is it in the mind, or are my cells tired? My muscles are new! I've replaced so much of my body. Regenerating should make me new. So it has to be in the mind! If this exhaustion is all mental, then I'm getting out of my own way! Zach bit down in fury and forced away all exhausted thoughts. He yelled at every sore muscle and tendon while doing flips through the air with his enemy who he just sent flying with him across the city. He's right! I don't have as much Death, but I can do more with only a little than I ever could before. We've gotten that much stronger in this battle alone.

I might not have much to fight you with, but you're in the same sorry state. Zach snapped his eyes open and glared through his reddish-hazel eyes at his enemy whose golden eyes narrowed back towards him. We're weaker now but stronger than ever. Evolving through the battle! Our utilization is all that matters. All that matters, is that I can exceed his skill at any level of power the two of us have! Zach twisted his body in midair, while Kaminari magnetized cars down below him and yanked himself down to the road quicker.

The air around Zach pulsed without an explosion of Death. Just a ripple of the air above Zach's body that sent him flying down to the street right in front of where Kaminari landed on a car. Kaminari hopped backwards and swerved left and right just over the road while using vehicles to pull him through the air away from his enemy. He swung his right arm forward while jumping back and to his left, and a car he magnetized did not yank him towards it but instead propelled the vehicle the opposite direction.

Kaminari tossed cars like pebbles towards his enemy who swerved left and right, then sliced his right arm up with a black sword forming out of his grasp. Zach slashed a semi in half down the middle vertically and then cut his sword horizontally in front of his body and cut the smaller sedan flying at him in half that way. The cabin's roof rose up in the air while the bottom of the car dropped. Zach pushed his feet down on the backseat head cushions and launched off of them in such a way that the car's base imbedded deep into the road, while sending Zach flying faster at Kaminari who was picking up another car but had to stop it mid-throw to dodge instead towards that vehicle by reversing the polarity of his magnetism.

Kaminari flew towards the car for a second before reversing the poles again and bouncing himself across the road and into the wall of a building he sprinted up the side of in a blur of yellow light. Zach landed down on the car that he flew at insanely fast to collide with Kaminari in the second that his enemy's feet would have touched the roof of the vehicle had Kaminari not reversed the poles a second time. Zach crushed the car under his feet like a pancake. The road around that crushed vehicle rippled out in a wave that cracked the sidewalks and pavement and collapsed part of the road into the sewer and subways below. Zach jumped up in the air and reached the top of the roof that Kaminari just sprinted up and then higher above.

Zach thought Kaminari had kept rising in the air past the ledge of the roof at least, but that was just where the yellow blur alone had continued up to with no physical body inside it anymore. Zach was flying up after it but his eyes darted down to just past the ledge where Kaminari came up from a ducked position with an air conditioning vent cover hovering over one hand. That vent flew at Zach so fast that it connected with his right side in that same instant Zach caught sight of it in the corner of his vision. He could not turn his insides completely into Death to allow the vent to pass through. At the exact point of collision though? All the muscles just inside of there, and the blood, his bones, and portions of his organs? They turned to Death for the moment that the vent was hitting him until it had passed through his other side and continued flying higher into the sky from how fast Kaminari propelled it away from himself. It looked like Zach had the Quirk of Permeation as the vent grate just flew through his normal body without slowing down. Even where the vent passed through only flashed black for the shortest of seconds as Zach wanted to waste as little Death as possible.

He shot out of the air with a shockwave blowing wind down onto the position that Kaminari was just standing. It hit Zach in the back as he landed in that spot before his shockwave could reach. He bounced off the cracking roof and across it towards his enemy who spun around while diving backwards off the roof so that he was aimed downwards in a spiraling dive towards the street below. Zach reached out his right hand and curled it into the back of Kaminari's white Anti-Death waistband, and he tugged backwards so hard that he ripped it off in one tug that also jolted Kaminari despite Zach's intentional motion to shred the fabric rather than pull Kaminari alone up at him.

Zach discarded the waistband and included toolbelt over his shoulder while slashing his left hand down at Kaminari who twisted with a pissed-off look on his face and fired a beam of lightning out of his chest into Zach's face. Zach's head popped like a balloon as he turned it into Death alone, while he finished his swipe of his left arm at his enemy. Kaminari dropped faster though after pushing out that beam from his chest, and he bounced off the street and immediately flew down it before the claw could connect. Zach's Death claw would not have done much to his enemy who it would have broken apart against a second after touching anyway. Zach was able to use it to grab the ground underneath where Kaminari just bounced away though. His claw dug through the road and then flicked after Kaminari, chucking a chunk of pavement and dozens of shrouded pieces of concrete after him that Kaminari could not see clearly due to them being shrouded in black veils.

Some of the hundred of tiny black veils shooting towards Kaminari were hollow. There was nothing inside of them. Others had black shards of hard ground that sharpened even more as the Death surrounding them carved out edges and turned each piece into a deadly shuriken of shrapnel.

Kaminari swung both arms out to the side as he flew over the street. The walls of the buildings he was passing bent outwards towards him. Wiring from inside the building might not have had any electricity passing through it to power him up, but they still conducted electricity nicely and magnetized when he reached out for them. Steel appliances flew out of the windows he was passing and intercepted chunks of street flying after him. Wires shot to his arms and wrapped around them from his shoulders down to his hands where they whipped off of him in fan-like movements and blocked any shard coming too close to his body.

Zach's left hand grabbed onto one of those wires as he flew over the main chunk of flying ground that he had thrown at Kaminari too slowly that his enemy was faster on the retreat than that chunk could reach him. Zach pushed down on the Death-blackened pavement to slam it into the ground and slingshot himself forward at Kaminari who he punched his right fist at while grabbing the wires coming off Kaminari's right hand using his left Death fist. He yanked that wire towards himself to bring Kaminari into his right fist even harder, but Kaminari turned his right arm into pure Electricity in that second that the wire fell through. Zach's pulling on the disconnected wire just twisted his own body slightly too far due to the force of tugging towards himself with no heavy mass at the end.

Kaminari changed directions without needing Zach to pull him. He changed directions of his own accord though as he saw Zach twist slightly more than intended, so that when he flew back at Zach, the right fist Zach was punching went by Kaminari's left side without hitting him because he had turned too much before finishing that punch. Kaminari's left hand grabbed Zach by the throat and then slammed down towards the ground. Raijin brought down his right arm that reformed above his head with a bolt of lightning in it that grabbed even more from the dark sky above them that had not cleared from the insanity of their earlier fight leaving a lingering storm over their heads.

The bolt that dropped out of the sky tripled the size of the one that Kaminari just raised up to create the connection. He slammed down at Zach who hit the ground but curled his fingers out below him in the moment he was touching. He crab-walked at three thousand miles per hour off the point he collided with. Each step of his hands below him tore up the street from the shockwaves, but not as badly as the massive bolt of lightning just past the soles of his feet that still shocked him but did not do the damage it would have had he still been in that position. Zach flipped himself over and pushed off the ground as his curled fingers flattened against the cracking street from the speed he had been moving over it. He shot up in the air just above the fading top of the lightning bolt and kicked his right leg at his enemy whose back snapped backwards to a ninety degree angle for Zach's leg to pass just over his stomach.

Zach stopped his leg short with a tiny burst of Death coming out of his shin. It was just enough Death that he could pull that Death back into his body while at the same time changing his momentum to slam his heel down into Kaminari's chest rather than have his leg keep passing over him.

Kaminari grabbed Zach by both sides of that leg just as it was touching his chest. It had a lot of force in the downwards heel-slam, but Raijin allowed himself to get him the smallest amount to use that momentum. He was slammed down while grabbing Zach's leg, thus tugging him with him and giving him even more force in his swing towards the building at the end of the road that Raijin saw people inside a window of staring out at them. The focus was not on killing those people to hurt Zach, but just to bring his enemy towards civilians to mess with Zach's fighting style in a way that it would not affect his own.

He flipped and threw Zach, but Zach grabbed on too and kept Raijin flying with him at the last second. This would prevent his enemy from sending flying attacks his way that Zach would be unable to dodge in a half second due to the people he could also see in his peripheral vision. Raijin was grabbed onto by his enemy who yanked with him and pulled his right fist back. The villain magnetized the walls on either side of the street though, and suddenly the two of them sped up three times as fast, because the walls ahead of where they were flying pulled on Raijin while the walls behind him pushed his back even faster.

Zach was back-first to the building he was about to slam into. At the very last instant though, he twisted himself around and messed with the pushes and pulls on his enemy's body due to shoving Raijin first towards the building they were about to smash into. His enemy would surely not expect him to shove the villain into the same building that he was trying to protect by staying between it and him? Raijin adjusted too quickly. They slowed from their top speed as Raijin's back and front were no longer facing the same pushes and pulls of his magnetic force. The speed at which they were flying into that building was so quick though that he was about to be cut up on breaking glass and have his bones broken on the structural supports of the building. It would not cause him pain, but it would definitely damage his body more than he was willing to accept.

As their momentum carried them towards the wall of the building that the screams of civilians inside started reaching them from, Kaminari saw images flash through his head. He saw a television screen he was sitting in front of years ago that played a cartoon he had watched as a child. "But Speedy Sensei! That's impossible. It's a solid wall!" "Not for speedsters like us, Quickly Boy! All you need to do is vibrate at the right frequency…" Kaminari's electrons started speeding up. The newly physical body of the villain flying at the wall could not turn into pure energy every second after losing his source for replenishing his power. His atoms moved quicker though. His body vibrated in Zach's arms that Raijin's own hands gripped onto to make sure that Zach could not let go in an instant. Zach had flipped them around at seemingly the last second, but at the speeds the two of them were moving and thinking, Raijin still thought up and carried out his counter in the very next move.

Raijin's vibrating back hit the wall. A technique he had never used before but thought of before his back could hit the wall at this speed and break through glass and steel in a way damaging to his body. He phased through solid matter.

Death can move through the air. It can push through liquids where the molecules are slightly closer together. I can seep through any crack. Doorways and keyholes. Zach's arms were still gripped by the fingers of his enemy who he was pushing through a wall without that wall actually breaking apart. Kaminari had phased through a solid, and Zach's mind surged with Death zipping in and out of his brain cells through every memory of his own Death phasing through different states of matter. Solids are just atoms that are packed closer together than liquids or gasses. I don't have that much Death, but that's why it'll work better than ever. Thin enough to pass through even a solid wall!

Zach phased right through the wall with his enemy who smiled from ear to ear and started laughing as Zach countered his phasing ability by learning how to phase through solid matter himself. Zach pulled both of his arms to his sides. He was still grabbing Raijin by the arms, so pulling like that brought the two of their torsos close together. A hundred sparks of electricity flew out of Raijin's face and torso, but Zach's knee slammed into Kaminari's stomach first while he let go of his enemy's left arm. Zach tugged with his right arm while slamming his knee into his enemy's gut, and he twisted them around and flung Raijin's body off his knee down into the ground that broke apart while people screamed and dove for cover around the two who were suddenly on their office floor.

Kaminari smashed through two floors and flipped around while swinging his left arm back up and curling his fingers around Zach's own right fist. He pulled that arm past his own face while leaning up with two beams of lightning coming out of his eyes and flashing into Zach's. Zach clenched his eyes shut but opened up his right fist and interlocked his fingers with Kaminari's to prevent his enemy from flying off of him. Pieces of the breaking ceiling above him, and tiny bolts of Electricity, flew away from him too close to two civilians who were still lifting their heads in horror at the pair who just crashed through their ceiling. Before Zach had to close his eyes from the flash of light and pain from electricity hitting his eyelids, he spotted those two people in danger from getting caught up in their fight.

Wisps of Death flew around and blocked the debris and individual strands of lightning. Raijin accepted Zach interlocking fingers with him though, and he sped up with a jolt of Electricity surrounding his right side while he twisted to flip Zach around and throw him towards a cubicle. Zach squinted his eyes open and started kicking his right leg up at his enemy who he kept his fingers interlocked with when Kaminari tried releasing him so that they were both sent flying across the office. He had been sent flying towards more civilians though and needed to use any Death he could to protect them, which allowed Raijin to raise his other hand and create one giant magnet that pulled every single office appliance and piece of metal on the floor towards them.

A hundred projectiles all flew towards the two of them in the middle of the room. Office workers screamed and dove for cover while their phones were ripped from their hands towards the villain who they had not even seen appear in front of them yet as they were all too slow to process the battle going on in front of them.

Zach ignored the printer and copy machine that smashed into his body. They broke apart against his skin that was too strong for such blunt objects to even cause him pain. He kicked up into Kaminari and flipped them over more, before following through on his kick and smashing Kaminari out of the wall of the building that the villain could not phase fully through this time. Zach angled his kick to sent Kaminari downwards first, making his enemy drag through the floor and out the corner of the building while disoriented from dragging through the solid first without any time to prepare phasing again. Only just before he hit the wall did he manage to start phasing, not that the wall did not explode outwards towards him a second later anyway.

Zach did not bother turning himself into Death again even for a second which would still decrease his power. All those appliances smashed apart on his body without causing him any pain, and he knew that tanking through the wall was not even going to slow him for the smallest fractions of a second. The wall corner ripped apart away from where he flew through with no resistance. Zach could imagine Ares just walking through the cave wall behind the throne in the room he and Midoriya had fought Eziano. As if the solid matter he stepped through was as fragile as the air itself. It did not slow him down. It was not even in his way at the speed and power at which he flew after Kaminari.

Energy was a different matter completely though, or rather, it was not matter at all to just push through. He crossed his arms as the wave of Electricity flew at him on his way out of the corner of the building that was blowing apart around him. "RAAA!" He yelled out in pain as his right arm burned through to the bone at how condensed that beam of Electricity was. His left arm broke in half but reformed a second later and smacked the steel girder from the top of a building under construction back towards Raijin who flipped backwards and kicked upwards off the bottom of the iron beam to plummet at the ground before Zach could kick him in half.

Zach followed directly behind the girder he had smacked at his enemy, while his right arm was sealing itself up still at his side. Tiny black wisps caught droplets of blood splashing away from him, catching at least half of them as Zach tried to focus on regenerating while also flying after Raijin and planning out his enemy's next attacks and counters.

Raijin hit the street and then bounced straight back up in the air while Zach was plummeting himself to try and reach the point on the ground that his enemy was landing on first. There were metal pipes under the pavement though that Raijin connected his magnetic field to even through a solid barrier between. It pulled him down quicker and then reversed to thrust him back up at Zach who was too slow to change his attack speed before Raijin's left leg spun into his side and sent him flying a district away.

Zach flipped and spun and flipped again before catching a glimpse of the sky above him. He grasped onto some of that energy he could still feel all around him. It expelled out from what he realized now was the top of his body and smashed him down into the street. He saw Kaminari flying full speed after him and pulling back his arm far ready to stab Zach with a white blade he had picked up from somewhere along the way. Zach did not know where he was right now, but all of the buildings around him were either in ruins or half-standing at the most. He was about to touch down on the ground and saw the yellow bolt that was Kaminari flying so fast at him that that white blade was going to cut through his skull in the same moment.

So Zach stomped both feet down as hard as he could. The street under him pushed down ten meters. The end of that block under where Kaminari was flying crumbled. The next block back behind Zach had stayed in one solid slab though, but because the part that Zach stomped on pushed down, the sturdy street lifted up into the air back behind him. Kaminari lost speed as chunks of the road between him and Zach rose up, forcing him to slash back and forth to clear the path at the speed he was moving. Zach backpedaled in the meantime up the slanted street behind him so fast that his blur of black pulled the lifting cars and trucks with him in the wind funnel he had created around himself.

Kaminari hit the bottom of the slanted slab of road. His only bone-blade broke on one of the pavement chunks he had just slashed through, and he released the hilt while curling his hands down into the base of the rising pavement before the street could realize that it could not hold itself up and start to collapse. The lightning coming out of his body turned white and the road under his hands glowed bright red from the heat coming off of him and how much Electricity he had gathered there. Out of his feet and hands the Electricity melted the road and created a red trench that shot up the slanted block of pavement after Zach and split the street in half.

Bakugo and Uraraka spun their heads to the street at the north end of the block they sat next to each other on completely exhausted after their fights against Machia and Pinoko. All the tallest buildings around them had fallen which gave them a clear view of that road lifting up into the air on one end as the other side dropped down. A dark blur shot up it so fast that all the rising vehicles got pulled after it, and then a yellow blur even faster than that black one tore through the middle of the street and melted it from the sheer speed it rose up.

Every one of those vehicles pulling after Zach got yanked the other way as Raijin pulled himself faster and faster. The villain used each vehicle as a slingshot which threw them back behind him. He rose up his right arm with a bolt of lightning forming in his fingers that curled around it and clenched down hard. He shot off the top of the street slab that was melting below him from how hot his electricity burned just from sprinting over it. Raijin swung his right arm forward and threw the lightning bolt at Zach who was already twisting his body hard with his right side swinging down at his enemy.

Zach's right fist curled with Death rippling out of his knuckles. The collisions of Death and Electricity had happened so many times by now that he knew exactly how it worked. They had fought each other before. He saw how Death and Kaminari's own Quirk countered one another. Zach's right fist punched forward, and although most of the arm looked like a regular human arm, Zach only needed the thin veneer of Death between his knuckles and the end of the bolt where the energies entangled. His body pushed down into the bolt while his right arm bent back at the elbow, and he swung to follow through and send the bolt of lightning covered in dark wisps flying straight back at Raijin who continued speeding towards him in flight with his smile opening up into a wide-open mouth.

Kaminari chomped down on the redirected lightning. The fact that Death had merged with his energy did not dissuade him as it could not affect the villain who had revived himself already. The lightning seemed to change directions in his body as his mouth glowed, his throat next, down to his lungs, then back in his throat, and out his mouth again. Zach snapped his own body backwards this time though and the beam of lightning flew right over his chest in a wider form than the last one as Kaminari wanted him to try punching the lightning away again. Zach let the beam pass over him, and Kaminari's head too, then he reached up with his right hand and closed Kaminari's jaw with a quick pop up under his enemy's chin while Kaminari's mouth was open too wide and the beam was blocking Zach from his vision.

The size of the beam coming out of Kaminari's mouth made it so his jaw slamming shut like that could not stop the energy all at once. Kaminari tried to cut it off, but the beam exploded first and shot light out the cracks between his teeth, as well as blasting three of his teeth out of his slammed-shut jaw. Smoke poured out of his mouth while Zach slashed his left arm across the front of his body- Kaminari was passing over him which allowed Zach to hit him in the jaw like that, but as Zach's black claw started digging into the right side of the villain quickly enough that the Death did not break apart before cutting skin, Kaminari's left knee shot down first. All the Electricity in his body seemed to move to that leg to give it speed beyond what Zach believed Kaminari could reach at that second.

Raijin's knee hit Zach in the chest before Zach could prepare any counter. Then Raijin kicked out that left leg before Zach could go flying from it, and he spun himself around to send Zach flying at one of the half-facades of a former skyscraper. Zach hit the corner of that building and smeared along it before bouncing off. The wall cracked and started to crumble a second later, but not before Bakugo and Uraraka could spin towards it and see the smeared blood stain where that black blur just bounced off in too quick a movement for them to track. They had just watched Zach punch a bolt of lightning, but the two of them stared in panic for him towards the smear of blood that Zach left on that wall before it collapsed.

CHHH! Lightning stuck two more streets away from where the two heroes who just got a glimpse of the fight from up close thought those two were now. They spun around then turned even more as the fight was on the opposite side of their road now and spinning around in a double-helix shape across the sky.

The helix looked more yellow than black as Zach appeared mostly human while grappling with Kaminari's static-charged arms. The helix got even lighter though as they spun around and around each other while shooting through the sky. Ka-CRSH! The sky blasted with thunder directly overhead while Zach's body erupted in white aura. "HAAAA!" Zach screamed forward into Kaminari's face. He bent his enemy's arms back and flipped over, throwing down towards the ground while a gash in the center of his chest sealed up, though two other cuts on his right arm just stopped bleeding as badly and scabbed.

Even at the speed at which Zach sent Kaminari flying down at the ground, the villain still flipped himself over and landed on both feet. He even magnetized walls he passed between to slow himself enough that his leg bones would not snap upon his landing. He also forced out some of his Electricity from his feet to push back up against and slow him. Zach landed down on the street in front of his opponent who he kicked towards while dragging the toe of his right foot straight through the ground.

Kaminari moved like a blur between every individual piece of flying rubble. Zach was punching his right fist forward as Kaminari appeared in front of him. A jolt of Electricity surrounded Kaminari's right arm though and sped it faster than Zach's was moving. Zach's left arm shrunk in thickness at the moment Kaminari's speeding arm passed in front of Zach's own right fist. That extra Death Zach pulled from his left arm blasted out of his right shoulder and twisted his body faster so his right fist would hit first.

Kaminari was still quicker. His right fist opened up into a flat hand that surrounded in lightning and slashed across Zach's face deep through the left side of it. Zach pulled his head just aside enough that Raijin's hand did not cut into his skull, but the wound was still deep and had blood tearing away from his face fast while black hair flew off from his head in the white wind that whipped around his body. Zach's right fist punched quicker too with the burst of Death coming out behind his shoulder, but as Kaminari's hand hit first it spun Zach's face to the side and made it harder for him to see how Kaminari was dodging exactly.

The edge of Zach's right fist grazed the side of Kaminari's head though. As Zach spun backwards and stumbled through the dark wave he had blasted off his shoulder, while some Death flew out the gash on his face and tried to pull back blood droplets from that deep gash, Kaminari was lifted back off his feet and thrown five blocks away. Raijin opened his eyes that slammed shut when his head was hit so hard that he worried they might get knocked out of his skull if he kept his eyelids open. He opened his eyes and saw Zach above him again already with steam pouring out of the still-deep gash under his left eye that was sealing slower than ever, but still rapid regeneration the likes of which were nearly unparalleled.

Zach slammed his right fist down into Raijin's chest and then slashed his right hand up as the fist opened at the last second. His fingernails dug into Raijin's exposed torso and tore upwards, ripping through skin and all the way up to Raijin's collarbone after tearing through his pectoralis major. The release out past Kaminari's collarbone sent blood splashing up in the air while launching the villain farther away still. Zach flew after him with a shockwave blowing away from where he just clawed his enemy, but as he reached his foe again and tried slashing with the same arm only deeper this time, he saw Raijin's muscles and skin cauterizing in front of his eyes. The one person who could match the speed of his near-unparalleled regeneration was the one who stopped his own bleeding and then punched Zach's own prosthetic's fist straight into Zach's face with the palm of it glowing bright blue.

Zach pulled his head away from that glow, directly into where Raijin was aiming his right flesh palm that he held closer to his body. A beam of yellow light slammed into the top of Zach's face and snapped his head backwards from his body that spun out-of-control. "Ahh-raaAAHh!" Zach hit the ground while screaming out in agony from the pain of that Electricity hitting him straight in his open eyes.

Feel him out! The air around me! Zach flipped over and over on the street while sensing out with different senses now besides his sight that he needed to fix. His eyes were in agony as he healed them again. He listened around him, but he focused more on the energy that he pulsed out of his body so hard that he could feel everything in his vicinity, including the figure flying straight at him so fast that it stunned Raijin when the man with smoking eyes jumped up and to his left, dodging the left leg that the villain kicked at him.

Zach jumped and pulled his body away from the end of Kaminari's kick that came so close but did not even graze him. The sky cracked again as Zach stayed up in the air after dodging, using that energy that he sensed all around his body to keep him afloat instead of arcing down to the ground that he felt Kaminari aiming both hands to so as to blast Zach in the moment of his landing. Rain fell over the two of them, but the water droplets blasted in all directions as Zach flew over Kaminari's arms and kneed up towards Raijin's face.

A flash of electricity was visible even to Zach whose blurry vision was only just starting to clear. Kaminari spun around Zach's knee and elbowed backwards into Zach's side. Zach turned his skin and tissues in his right side into Death in the instant before that elbow was going to connect. Kaminari kept spinning as his elbow went straight through his friend's body and out the other side. The point on Zach's torso that his elbow would have connected with only looked black for the shortest of instants when his elbow touched and only lasted for the slightest moment after it came back out of Zach's body. The precision in timing for when Kaminari would surge his Electricity in order to dodge at the very last second was only matched by the precision of how short Zach kept his body intangible so as to waste as little of his remaining Death as possible in every movement.

The two of them clashed another two dozen times in that same space before one of Raijin's blows connected faster than Zach could turn the himself into Death. He wasted less and less Death each time he turned himself intangible due to how quickly he stopped using the Death-draining maneuver, but because he was trying to be so precise, a mere fluctuation in Raijin's attack speed managed to catch Zach a half-second after he had turned himself Death and back to solid. When Zach began predicting when he would need to turn to Death and when he had to be flesh again in order to save as much Death as possible, it gave Raijin the ability to predict those predictions and adjust his own attacks to match it. He tricked Zach into becoming intangible too soon by slowing down, then sped back up when Zach recreated his human body in the path of the oncoming elbow. That elbow hit him so hard he slammed through a wall of a building and out the other side, then over three rooftops, and across another couple of districts while a bolt of lightning chased after him. That bolt turned back into a villain in mid-kick who hit Zach before the recovering hero could punch into him, slamming Zach into the street below that Zach bounced on and up into a corner of a building that was sturdy enough for him not to break through.

Zach barely realized he had left the city of Tokyo. He bounced off the wall and spun, pointing both of his glowing arms at Kaminari who spiraled around to dodge the white light that flew off Zach's fingers both flesh and blackened. Kaminari slammed both palms into the ground below his back then kicked up his left leg towards his heroic enemy flying towards him who swung his left arm down into the bolt and disconnected the arm from his shoulder again. His former left arm of black Death swirled with the electricity behind him while he continued his dive at Kaminari and slammed him into the ground on this new street they were on. Zach somersaulted over Kaminari and flung the villain off him, between three people in front of them who were still turning towards this duo who just collided on this street in Musutafu without realizing where they were.

Zach sprinted after Kaminari but slowed down and coughed a few times while his eyes darted to either side of him in shock and horror. Electricity in buildings that Yaoyorozu's EMPs did not reach pulled from the structures around them and into Kaminari's body while Zach was distracted by the blood-soaked road around him. Kaminari sparked with newfound electricity but laughed at the horrified expression on Zach's face. "This isn't fair, is it Zach?! I can recharge but you can't? Come on now, that makes this NO FUN!" Kaminari screamed at his opponent who lifted his gaze up from the dead body on his right side and back towards his enemy. "In fact, I don't even want to win like that! So do it! Take some more power. All these dead kids around you, it was HIM! Kill David and get your energy back. Do you really think he's redeemable? Look! LOOK!" Kaminari screamed at Zach whose eyes darted around again and at the students of U.A. who lay dead all around him.

Zeira and Kimikaro could barely breathe. The air around them had just increased in pressure. The sky high above crackled. Zach and Kaminari were bloody and enraged. The two of them looked so insanely powerful despite just being human-sized and with faint auras around them. The two U.A. freshmen were shocked to see such power up close. David of Re-Destro's Liberators could not breathe at all though. His skin paled and his eyes trembled in absolute terror as he stared towards Zach Sazaki whose red eyes glared towards him and seemed to eat him alive with their look. "Kill him, Zach," Kaminari offered his enemy.

David's face turned even whiter. Zach's eyes looked bloodthirsty as they stared back into his own. Those eyes darted at David's blood-stained hands then back at the villain's face in such blind fury that David imagined he might die at any given second. His heart pounded into his chest while Kaminari yelled out, "Look at all these dead kids! He killed them all! And you won't be able to save any of them! You don't have the Death left to do it! You could though. You could save these children, if you just kill him and get the Death back that you'll need to do it."

Zach's breathing got heavier while his eyes darted back towards Kaminari then at David again. Kaminari stood in place without fleeing while offering Zach the opportunity to recharge like this. Zach's eyes locked on David's, and Kaminari yelled at him, "Is he really worth it?! He's not redeemable! Why let him live? Why?! When killing him could save them all?! Why not just kill him and exchange his life for the lives of those-"

"Take down Raijin, Lifebringer!" Zeria yelled towards her hero. "We have David. You take Raijin!" She screamed at the dark figure whose hesitant expression she needed to get rid of. Zach turned back towards Kaminari without looking towards that girl whose voice echoed in his head.

"Y-Yeah!" Kimikaro yelled at the older boy he had only had very short interactions with. "We've got this. You… handle your own shit." Kimikaro locked his own gaze back on David and pulled out a pair of his own bones that he pointed the sharp ends of towards his enemy. Please, Lifebringer. Take your fight away from here. And, please have more Death left than it sounds like. Kimikaro was worried about their classmates and upperclassmen who lay dead all over this road that Raijin had shouted would stay dead due to Zach's lack of Death remaining. Kimikaro chose not to believe Raijin though, focusing on his own enemy and allowing himself to believe that Zach would return here later to save the rest.

"RAAAA!" Zach screamed back at Kaminari. He forced his attention off of David who he wanted to rush at so badly and rip in half. They're right! Listen to them! A black shadow of Death ignored his thoughts and shot out of the left side of Zach's head with a terrifying expression that unhinged its jaws and bit towards David, roaring out, "RRAaYAAA-" Zach's right hand snapped across his body and grabbed the back of the black head pulling away from him, and he shoved that shadow back into his skull. His body twitched while he fought back down the enraged-looking dark creature that even Raijin gawked at for a second as Zach physically shoved it back inside. Those two are heroes who believe in me! I'll find a different way. Even if I can't, I won't kill. I can't! It would be worth it. But it isn't! RAAA! Zach struggled with his own internal thoughts, but he flew at Kaminari anyway and attacked without holding anything in reserve for the children he would need to revive on this road later.

Zach landed a few feet away and stomped towards Kaminari. He punched his right fist at the enemy who flashed closer towards him and spun around away from Zach's fist to back-hand the hero across his cheek. Zach forced an arm of Death out of his face that wrapped around Kaminari's smacking hand and whipped him halfway across Zach's body before the hand holding Kaminari's arm broke apart from a flash of electricity going through it. Zach kneed upwards though before that arm broke apart, and yet both of Kaminari's hands pushed down on the knee and flipped him off it over Zach's head. He landed on Zach's other side already in mid-spin, clashing his left arm against Zach's Death arm that paused it for a second before breaking, which was more than 9/10ths of a second too long that it allowed Zach to duck below the slashing yellow-coated arm.

A beam of energy fired from Kaminari's belly though and into Zach's face when he was lashing out after his duck. He got knocked backwards by the beam, then he snapped his body up and grabbed both of Kaminari's wrists when the villain's hands were lashing out towards him. Zach flipped over and slammed Kaminari into the ground, then kicked his enemy in the side and sent the villain flying down the road. Zach grabbed his own prosthetic arm on Kaminari's left side as he was kicking Kaminari as hard as he could. Kaminari could not pull back too hard or else the kick into him would carry its full force, and so he could only grind his teeth while the cauterization on his left shoulder was torn through and the arm on his left side ripped apart. Kaminari surged energy into that arm though as Zach was ripping it off. The arm exploded lightning out in all directions including into Zach's chest and his face. He stumbled away with deep burn gashes cutting across his flesh, and he dropped the messed-up prosthetic.

Kaminari twisted his left side backwards while blood starting spilling again from the ripped cauterization. Steel beams ripped out of walls behind him. The sides of cars dented and curled apart as the steel magnetized so powerfully. Dozens of vehicles rose up in the air and flew towards Kaminari while the walls of buildings on either side of him cracked apart. One prosthetic had been removed. Another replaced it that was fifty times the size of the last one. A giant metal hand made up of vehicles and building parts rose up to Kaminari's left side with a giant open hand made of fingers that each consisted of multiple vehicles each. Water pipes from below ground got wrapped up in the electrical wiring of buildings around him that held all of that massive prosthetic together.

Kaminari lost his left arm, and in seconds he had a left arm so massive that Zach stopped short with his heels dragging through pavement. Zach eased to his right side as the arm started swinging down into the middle of the road. A hole opened in the mid-section of the twisted metal mass though, and a giant steel girder flew out straight into the spot that Zach was dodging into. Inside of that mess of materials, Raijin had wound up wiring and pulled back so much tension using his magnets that the steel beam he coiled up fired out like a projectile being shot by a gun. The beam of steel flew out so fast compared to how quickly Zach was dodging, that he got hit directly in the middle of his chest. Zach started to turn the center of his chest into Death, but at the very last second he saw the veneer of white on the end of the beam.

Zach had not seen it happen. So many vehicles and steel beams had flown towards Kaminari's left arm at the same time that he did not realize that a small piece of metal inside of Kaminari's left pant leg on his left hamstring had ripped through his costume and up into the connecting arm. That small piece of metal had some Anti-Death armor on the edge of it. While surrounded in other pieces of magnetized left arm formation, the Anti-Death armor had flown over and magnetized to the end of the steel girder that Kaminari was about to fire out of the giant left arm so fast that Zach would have to try and turn his body intangible to let it pass through him. He did not see the small amount of Anti-Death armor that had magnetized to the front of the girder, but it was there. It collided with Zach's blackening chest and solidified the body of the hero who could not turn intangible and was instead bent over the beam flying at such speeds that he got shot back between the other three fighting on this road again.

The two heroes and one villain still standing on the street full of defeated heroes and villains stumbled away to either sidewalk as Zach flew back between them. They spun after him with eyes massive at the sight of the blood that splashed out of Zach's mouth from the girder slamming so hard into his chest that it dented his whole torso over the beam. Buildings around Kaminari bent and creaked from his aura while the villain cackled madly after him. Zach meanwhile slammed into a wall all the way down the block. The huge girder indented into his chest stayed parallel to the street below while pressed so deeply into Zach's body that it was nearly touching the cratering building behind him.

Zach coughed up more blood that spilled all over the top of the metal beam sticking out of his chest. He could not breathe. My lungs are shot. Zach's body hunched forward over the steel while he coughed madly onto the girder covered in sparking bolts. Blood dripped off both sides of the shaking beam. His right hand shakily moved up on his side and his fingers curled over the top of the steel. His torso had been dented inwards and his lungs contracted. His bones broke and blood spilled freely out of his mouth. Zach only used minimal Death to catch some drops of blood and absorb them back into his body, while his right hand just curled around the top of the girder pressing into him still as Kaminari forced that magnetic push against it constantly despite his distance. His grip crushed the steel. Zach's hand bent the girder in two from him just curling his fingers into it. He sheered the steel apart and tugged to his right side, discarding a giant ton of metal off down an intersecting block and out of Kaminari's vision.

Zach's chest popped back out which caused him excruciating pain. He staggered forward though back towards his enemy who swung his giant left hand of vehicles and building parts towards his enemy who flew back towards it. Zach turned to Death and swerved around the massive arm that ripped apart due to the tiny sharp spikes of Death that burst out of the spiral every millisecond or so to slice it into pieces. He reached Kaminari and his human knee came out of the black blur and slammed up towards Kaminari's chest. A pale-skinned hand reached down though and Kaminari caught Zach's knee at such speeds that it redirected the momentum and caused Zach to do a front-flip over his enemy's head. Kaminari sparked lightning out the top of his skull and caught Zach when he was trying to punch in mid-spin above him. It caused Zach to hit the ground hard on his other side and roll before skidding and leaving another blood trail over the pavement.

Zach came to a stop on Kaminari's opposite side as the other three also on this road who the two of them were ignoring. He was panting with his face turned sideways and half of it laying on the ground. Blood spilled from Zach's lips and dribbled on the floor around the left side of his face that touched it. Then his right hand curled into the pavement, and black fingers emerging from a bulge of Death on his left arm curled on Zach's other side and helped push him up. He groaned but got back to his knees, then to one foot-

"STAY DOWN!" Kaminari flew at Zach and kneed up into Zach's face. Zach punched his right hand forward when the knee hit him in the nose. He hit Kaminari in the gut and knocked his enemy back towards where Kaminari was just standing. The villain staggered back a few steps and rubbed where he was just punched. He grinned though while looking towards where Zach was rolling backwards with blood spurting from his broken nose. Zach skid on the floor face-first over the pavement. The second he stopped though, his shaking immaterial left arm and his fleshy right one curled back onto the pavement below him again.

"I told you… stay DOWN!" Kaminari roared, and he pointed his left hand forward and fired a beam of yellow energy into his enemy who got blasted back farther down the road. Zach fell onto his back, twitching with sparks coming out of his face and chest and the tops of his legs and arms. Zach's left arm was vibrating and breaking apart when he tried to grab hold of the floor below him. The Death arm broke apart, but his legs curled up anyway and his right fingers curled through the street- "ENOUGH!" Raijin pointed his right hand up towards the sky above Zach with his fingers twitching like mad, and he slammed down towards the street. A bolt of lightning fell from the sky and slammed directly where Raijin targeted, smashing the ground with a bolt that caused an eruption of energy around Zach.

"AHH-" Zach's voice cut off after only a second. The sparking electricity continued for a few seconds more after that. The yellow light faded off and left Zach laying there flat on his back. Kaminari was not satisfied though, and he stomped both feet forward then slammed his arms ahead of him and blasted Zach's left side with two huge bolts of yellow lightning that merged together right before hitting him.

The merged bolts collided with Zach's side and ripped through his torso. Blood spurted out while he got sent rolling over the street. Zach rolled and rolled. He flipped over and over until he finally just skid to a stop on his face and stomach. The dark coating around his waist that covered up his crotch and ass trailed away. The control of his Death that looked to remain until that moment as he at least covered himself up, faded. Zach lay face-first on the street, blood pooling around him. Raijin panted heavily with his upper body hunched forward and his eyes glaring furiously towards where Zach lay still on the street. "Now. Stay. Down," Raijin snarled towards his enemy who was not moving this time. The corners of his lips curled up as he stared at Zach's unmoving corpse…

Then Zach's right hand curled into the floor below him. He dragged his upper body up. Raijin leaned backwards while Zach pulled himself to his knees. "Ahhh- ha, ah hahhh," Zach gasped out a breath and spun his head to his right. He glared through bloodshot eyes that had trails of red coming down both corners of each towards his chin. Zach lifted from his knees though and up onto two feet. "I… will not die," Zach snarled back at his enemy who he turned his body back to face. Both of them painstakingly lifted out of their hunched-over forms, and then they appeared in instantaneous flashes in the space between the two of them.

Despite how exhausted both of them looked, Zeira, Kimikaro, and David were all shocked that they could not even follow the movements of the two fighters who appeared clashing with one another in the space between where they had each just been panting. Zach and Raijin were at fractions of their strength, and yet they collided so powerfully that the wind that blew away from them made the other three on the same street stumble farther away from those two. Discarded pieces of vehicles around them went flying from the force of their collisions.

Zach moved quicker though. He hit Kaminari with slightly more force that pushed them even farther away from the others, allowing him a greater chance to use his own Quirk without hurting those behind him. Five pillars of black smoke pulled off of Zach's body. Then his actual figure turned pitch black itself. Flares of red lights in small pairs of dots appeared on each of the smoke pillars at different times. Kaminari flashed yellow, and he moved so quickly that after-images of his own body were left in front of each of the black pillars that grappled with Kaminari's forms.

On the road in Musutafu, several Zachs tangled with multiple Kaminaris. They twisted and spun around. One Zach punched a Kaminari in the face but fell through him as it was only an after-image. Another Kaminari was slicing in front of it so fast that it cut a black pillar in half that had the shape of a humanoid form. The Kaminari that was at the front of the movements and newly appeared in front of one black pillar slashed at the one that looked to be turning most humanoid and even getting lighter like real skin was forming on it. That lightness faded back to darkness though, and Kaminari darted his eyes to his right to see another one of the black pillars avoiding a Kaminari it knew as nothing more than an afterimage to instead spin at him and punch a right fist at his real back. That right fist lost its black color while the entire form of Death there was turning into a humanoid figure of Zach Sazaki with his skin all intact.

Kaminari spun around too quickly though. Lightning flashed around him as he used so much of it to increase his speed and spin. Kaminari slammed the back of his right hand into Zach's face. The second his hand was getting close to Zach's head though, Zach's right cheek started to darken once again. Kaminari's hand connected with a blackening cheek that dispersed against the smack. Kaminari watched as the humanoid body of Zach turned into Death and broke apart, right as another dark pillar dropping down at him from his upper right was turning into a human form. Even though none of these dark pillars were even connected to the other ones at this point, the red glows in each of them transferred from one to the other in how bright the brightest eyes were. Kaminari himself could not keep up. He just learned this! Kaminari thought. He had not seen Zach even transfer his consciousness from a body looking like his human form into another that was only Death before, and so he assumed that Zach just learned another ability as he switched where the core of his Death was after each attack.

Raijin snapped his right hand up though and grabbed Zach's chest before it could turn fully to darkness this time. The humanoid body Zach had just turned into could not return to Death for another pillar of black smoke to take its place quickly enough when Raijin was willing to waste more of his own Electricity in order to catch Zach quicker. While engulfed in sparking lightning, Raijin flipped around the hero and slammed him into the ground. "Nice try!" He screamed down into Zach's face. Kaminari rose his other hand than the right he was pushing down into Zach's body. Kaminari's left arm formed out of his bloody shoulder as a yellow glowing mass appearing as solid as Zach's Death arm looked to be. A bolt of lightning dropped from the sky into Kaminari's left hand that aimed up at the clouds. The buildings around them had already been drained so quickly by the villain who had to use up all that strength fast to keep up to Zach's level, but the clouds were still full of static charge that blasted lightning into Kaminari's left hand and straight down his body into his right hand against Zach's clothes.

"RAAAAAA!" Zach roared in agony. He smashed both arms up and knocked Kaminari away from him. The villain leapt back so as not to have his arm broken at how hard Zach smashed his right arm up and created a left arm so dense in its punch that it might have caused him harm too. Zach staggered up to his feet in a veil of sparking electricity that had him flinching and wincing in pain. The dark teenager nearly naked as Death barely covered any of his skin anymore, staggered to his right and then steadied himself while shaking his head back and forth with spit splashing from his lips.

Zach was injured. He was shaky and in agony. His trembling eyes glared up towards Kaminari though in such rage that it made his enemy bare his teeth in even more fury. No matter how much he shouted at Zach to stay down in those last attacks he thought might have actually finished him off, Zach just kept getting back up again. Zach flew back at Kaminari without wasting any time. He shot at the villain just opening his mouth to shout something, and he punched his right arm forward first. Kaminari blocked it but then had to lean his head back from the uppercut of Zach's left fist that could be dense enough to cause damage before it broke apart on his chin. That was not enough potential damage though to interest Zach in even trying, and he only used that left to cause Kaminari to lean away. That way he could snap his right hand back in with a new opening and curl his fingernails out into Kaminari's side.

Zach tore his nails across the front of Kaminar's bare chest and shredded four lines of blood across his enemy's skin. Zach ripped though flesh and made his enemy bleed again. Raijin had replenished his lost blood by discarding an arm so proportionally he was at the same level, but Zach only had one prosthetic for him to take and he had removed that already, leaving Raijin with no blood in his left arm even if his vitals should have had a proportionate amount of blood still. Raijin's left shoulder had fully sealed itself up now inside the yellow veil, but he knew any more blood lost would not be replaced this time. Zach tore his right hand across Raijin's chest so that blood and skin cells would be lost even if Raijin cauterized the wound again, which the villain started to immediately. Raijin healed his chest while grabbing Zach's right arm using an arm of electricity that sparked out of his cauterizing chest where Zach would not expect an attack to come from when the villain was healing that spot simultaneously.

Raijin's right arm grabbed the front of Zach's left shoulder at that same time and pulled them closer together so Zach's left Death arm could not get the strength in it for a fast punch while they were so close. Zach could gain no momentum in his left arm when the two were pulled close like this- Zach opened his mouth and bit into Raijin's neck when he was yanked closer to his enemy. Raijin blasted as much Electricity as he could out into his enemy who bit down even harder while yanking away in agony from the villain. Zach staggered one way while Raijin stumbled back the other. Zach had a chunk of Raijin's skin in his mouth. Raijin had slashed his lightning arm around Zach's right side while stumbling backwards, managing to get his own attack off even as he felt Zach biting into his own neck on its right side.

Zach spat the right side of Raijin's neck onto the floor next to him. He gagged at the taste of Kaminari's blood. Zach stumbled back a few more steps with sparks coming out all around his body. His eyelids were twitching. He wheezed and blood spilled between his teeth, though it was hard to tell if it was his own blood or Kaminari's. His vision was hazy and shaking as he glared back into his enemy's eyes. Zach's bottom lip lowered and he gasped out over and over to find air to breathe.

A giant gash in Zach's right bicep started to vibrate and heal itself. A deep cut on his right side and under his right arm where flesh was dangling began to regenerate as well. Kaminari's own neck was burning shut though. The bloody wounds on the villain's body were healing, even if he had also lost some blood and flesh in that last exchange. "You know it's going to take more than that!" Kaminari yelled towards his enemy wobbling around just ahead of him. Zach stopped stumbling and planted his feet harder onto the floor, shaking his head back and forth to get a grip over himself.

"How many times have you had to kill me now?!" Kaminari roared back at Zach. He questioned his friend, "How many times will it take you? 10? 100?! You will have to tear me apart in order to win! Can you do that?!" Kaminari yelled. "Can you, Zach?!"

Zach's eyes that were already hazy glazed over. In his mind he saw a much bulkier villain than Kaminari roaring at him in far more rage and unadulterated fury. Zach's vision cleared up and he glared back into Kaminari's eyes. "Do you think you're the first friend I've had to rip to shreds in order to kill? The first friend I've had to tear apart into little pieces?!" Zach screamed.

Kaminari stopped moving. He actually froze where he stood and leaned back at the question. Raijin stared at Zach with his eyes huge. Then he nodded once while whispering, "I did think that." Zach's eyes bulged too. Kaminari stared back at him in disbelief, his own eyes shaking in utter incredulity at Zach's last question that had not even been a consideration of his until it was mentioned. Kaminari leaned forward because he needed to search Zach's face, trying to find a sign that Zach was just lying to him here to make him feel less unique.

Zach's face turned agonized though at that searching expression on his best friend's face. His eyes welled up and he pulled his head back at that look of astonishment in Kaminari's eyes. "You aren't lying," Raijin whispered. Zach clenched his teeth while his eyes watered.

Thoughts of Zombieman only made this fight that much harder to endure. I've already done this… He can't even believe it. Why? Why have I lived this long? Zach flinched so hard and his eyes squinted nearly shut. He did not close them while in front of such a dangerous enemy, but he gasped out in agony at the look on Kaminari's face that crushed him to see. It made it almost too hard to stand. I'm doing it again. Who- who else has experience in killing friends this exact way? Zach thought about how he just dug into Kaminari's flesh using his own teeth because it was an option that he could easily consider. Because it was something he was familiar with. Who else- what kind of cruel fate…

Tears spilled down Zach's face as he stared towards the enemy he was going to have to tear into shreds. As he stared towards his own best friend, he sobbed imagining what he was going to have to do if he wanted to win this battle. The thought of it alone crushed him. The opportunity to bite was there. Nothing can be off the table. Anything!

Kaminari blinked a few times in disbelief while staring towards his enemy who had his blood dripping down the corners of his lips. Zach just took a bite out of him but did not look to be near finished. He'll rip me to pieces to stop me. It's destroying him to do it, but he will. "This cycle you're in, Zach," Kaminari began while staring down at his enemy. "It won't ever end. You've done this before? Well, then you'll do it again. And again. And again."

Zach winced and Kaminari just shook his head back at him. "Over and over you'll always have to do it. As long as you continue to protect them. Is this life? Is this what your life is?" Kaminari asked his enemy who he cocked his head to the side at. "Don't you realize that this is all that you'll ever feel if you continue to live like this?"

"You're wrong," Zach countered Kaminari without any hesitation.

Raijin shook his head and smirked smugly at the hero who denied what he just said despite how much sense he was making. "It's not a cycle," Zach continued though. "It ends here. With you."

"Hah, me?" Kaminari scoffed. "You'll always have to do this. Even if I-"

"It's always been you," Zach countered. He interrupted the villain who glowered at him but fell silent as Zach growled, "I know you're not right. There are those who push evil. And I can end the cycles. All these times I've lost so much… how much of it has just been because of you, Kaminari?" Zach wondered at his greatest enemy.

"My whole life," Zach continued in rage. He glared in fury at the villain who he stomped back towards on his right foot. "So much horror, all because of you. The world suffers. And I know!" Zach screamed at the villain. "I know that you believe yourself to be unique, original! So you can't argue that there are so many more like you, right?!" Zach screamed at the villain who he knew could not argue such a thing.

Kaminari could not counter what Zach just said. It annoyed him, because he wanted to tell Zach that he was being stupid and that this cycle would continue. To say that would make his own actions sound less original though, which annoyed him even more than the idea that Zach might be right. If Zach was right though, and there really were very few people just like him who could cause this much terror, then maybe Zach really could end the cycle? That thought that he was wrong made Kaminari bite down in rage, and he shot at Zach again and feigned a punch with his right hand, only to kick up using his left leg into Zach's stomach.

When Kaminari's left leg connected, he also blasted lightning out of his left heel and twisted his leg around his body to launch Zach a different direction towards an area he hoped would still have electricity in it for him to draw more power from. He blasted off the ground after Zach to reach that new district back inside the literal boundaries of Tokyo compared the surrounding cities like Musutafu was a part of.

Zach and Kaminari smashed their ways back over blocks and across districts. Their movements were slowing down though. Even as they moved entire city blocks in a second, the two of them could feel the battle of attrition catching up with them. The clouds were not as thick high in the sky any longer. Zach still had that newfound energy to draw on though. As he twisted left and right and dodged two bolts that Kaminari fired at him, Zach slammed his left arm down to the side and stopped backpedaling. His left arm of Death surrounded in a white veil of aura.

Zach swung his right arm out to his side too and shrouded the skin inside with a black veil. The darkness was not so thick that his skin became invisible, but the dark veil covered his arm in a similar kind of aura as the white veil around his left. Kaminari's eyes narrowed towards Zach's two arms filling with power. He brought his own hands out in front of his chest. Raijin's right fleshy hand cupped against the curled palm of his lightning hand and sparked a bright sphere of energy to life. Zach slammed his glowing white Death left hand into the black-coated flesh right hand. A dark sphere and a white sphere collided together in front of his body and fired forward into the beam of yellow light that fired back at him.

The two of their attacks collided in midair. Zach's Death swirled with the energy he collected and pushed back harder into the Electricity, but Kaminari reached out farther away from him through the connecting buildings and grabbed onto whatever power sources he could feel. Zach kept them in an area where he did not see any lights on inside the windows, but only four blocks away to their north there were some buildings powered by generators. Kaminari sucked back that power and increased the strength of his beam. He quickly used up the entire power supply of that whole block, but it was enough to overpower Zach's beam that he pushed out harder into and made the explosion ripple back into his enemy.

Kaminari flew through the explosion while Zach was rolling backwards. Zach grabbed onto a piece of pavement he was rolling over and ripped it out of the ground on his next spin. His enemy flew down at him and spun his left leg around in a kick, but that was a feint for his left lightning arm that slammed down only to get blocked by an arm of pure Death that parried it. Zach swung around the small chunk of pavement in his right hand and smashed it into pieces on the side of Kaminari's skull.

He slammed his enemy into the building to his left and to Kaminari's right. Then he kicked off the floor and phased through the same wall that Kaminari vibrated straight through rather than colliding with, putting everyone in that building in danger.

Zach crashed out the opposite wall with Kaminari gripped by both shoulders. A spike of lightning shot out of Kaminari's shoulder and through Zach's left arm. The jolt of electricity disconnected that arm right when Kaminari's right arm was pushing forward on Zach's left like he was just going to grapple Zach's Death arm back. The spike that broke Zach's arm destabilized it so it could not recover before the villain's already-moving right arm could slice at Zach's throat on his left side. Zach brought his right arm across the front of his chest and stopped Kaminari's own right before the sharpened fingers coated in lightning could connect. Zach's right hand did not even get sparked though, and Zach could see that there were not even sparks coming off of Kaminari's fingers when his own right hand stopped it. By swinging his right arm across his body like that, he left the arm itself completely unprotected from Kaminari's left arm of lightning that slashed forward through Zach's forearm, his bicep, and out his tricep too.

Kaminari kicked up into Zach while blood tore out from the multiple cuts in Zach's right arm. The lightning kick into Zach's gut sent Zach flying, but Zach's left arm of Death had fully reconnected and gripped onto Kaminari's leg at the last second. He only caught it for a second before the hand destabilized again, but that second was the same instant that Kaminari's kick collided and sent Zach flying. The momentum carried Raijin through the air too, but he saw the area they were flying into and flicked a hand off to his side towards a garage of a parking lot that his Electricity traveled through up to that building's collapsible roof.

Pa-CHOO! Crash!

BOOOM!

Heroes and villains spun their heads down the street and watched as a figure flashing in yellow light jumped backwards over an intersection, dodging the helicopter grabbed by the tail that got smashed down into the middle of the road where he stood for a split second. The drone helicopter he had activated broke into more pieces, and Zach twisted his body and threw one of those large chunks through the flaming fireball and after Kaminari who he flew after too. Kaminari ducked his body backwards and underneath the piece of the chopper's tail, only for Zach's legs to wrap around his stomach when Zach collided with him half a second later.

Zach finished his front-flip and uncurled his legs to throw Kaminari down towards the ground. Raijin slashed his right hand up as he was getting released though, slicing through the back of Zach's right knee through the tendons on either side. "RRAAAAaggh-" Zach screamed but then clenched his teeth shut and ignored the agony while diving down at his enemy who tried to land but had too much damage in his own left leg that he did not realize due to the lack of pain he could feel.

Kaminari's leg buckled when he landed too hard, and he rolled away on the street but gathered up electricity again that he blasted at his dive-bombing enemy who got hit in the left side of his face and the center of his chest. Zach got shocked and thrown backwards down the road. Zach hit the ground and coughed up smoke and blood, while Kaminari sewed lightning through wounds on his arms and legs.

Hover off the right leg if possible, Zach thought. Don't regenerate anything non-fatal from here on. It'll knock you out. Just stay conscious, for a little longer… Almost have him. Zach stared towards Kaminari and looked at his enemy who had no pain on his expression yet struggled to stand on both legs.

Lightning continuously coated his right armpit, and his left leg around where the bone was held together. His chest was sparking harder than ever, and Kaminari thought, Keep the bones off the lungs. He was panting harder, not from feeling the exhaustion but just out of necessity because of his contracted lungs. Use less electricity in the left arm. Keep the heart pumping faster. Need more oxygen flow to the other extremities. It was a lack of blood flow that allowed the legs to crack worse. Make your left arm hollow like his body. At least until another refill!

Zach's right arm was still a mangled mess. Skin dangled off his limb, though Death did simmer on the insides of the wounds and constantly reabsorbed any blood that started dripping out. Zach's face was pale, but so was Kaminari's. Zach hobbled forward then lifted off his left leg too that he pushed down extra hard to dive at hundreds of miles per hour at his enemy whose legs might've been full of electricity, but still struggled to bend and twist him out of the way in time. The movement was difficult, but Kaminari managed to turn enough away that Zach's dive had him moving past the villain who kicked upwards and into Zach's face passing at his chest-level.

Zach snapped upwards from the kick. He brought his right fist together with his shaky black one though, and he slammed both down into the top of Kaminari's skull. He knocked his enemy down into the street and bouncing backwards. Kaminari barrel-rolled away as Zach's left foot stomped down where he was just stopping. Then he pointed his left hollow lightning arm at Zach and pressed his thumb down into his index finger. A bolt of electricity fired from his fingertip and hit Zach in the forehead that Zach was too slow to turn to Death, so only a small dot of blackness appeared there and caused slightly less effect to his body.

Zach still wobbled backwards and then collapsed down to his right knee and winced even harder as that just put more weight on the damaged joint. The whole city around them was effectively blacked-out. Generators were drained. Death had drained too though. Zach pressed his right palm down on the ground, and he glanced over to his left at a shard of glass laying on the floor near him from one of the broken windows above. His left arm extended over to it and the black hand at the end curled around the shard.

Raijin reached his right hand up towards Zach. The hand sparked, but Zach leaned his head away quickly and dodged the flying white blade that magnetized all the way from the rubble of the fallen helicopter. Zach had not waited to see what kinds of tricks it had in store before smashing the thing to pieces, trying to flatten Kaminari into the earth while he did too. Zach pulled his head aside fast and dodged the spinning white blade that Raijin caught in his right hand.

The two of them got back up on their feet and rushed at each other, slower than ever. The fight was actually visible again to people who could see the street. Those people did not lift up their phones to record though. Not this time. Hundreds of people stared down towards the street where Zach and Raijin rushed towards one another. Raijin's right arm flashed with electricity, moving faster than Zach's left and knocking the shard of glass out of his Death hand. Zach punched his right hand that curled in a fist, but skin on his forearm got peeled as Raijin slashed his white blade the other way across the front of his body.

Zach kneed up into the bottom of Raijin's hand and broke two of his fingers while flesh from Zach's right arm got shredded. The force of that knee upwards made Raijin stumble back a few feet, then his legs surged with power and he backpedaled quicker when Zach stomped his left leg forward and shook up the street. Zach jumped towards Raijin who was speeding backwards over crumbling city infrastructure. Raijin's chest, and his arms, and his wounds, and his legs all sparked with electricity that was not replenishing in a city with no power.

Raijin was off-balanced… but the walls to his sides magnetized to his body when he was looking wobbly on his run backwards. He was leaning diagonally back, when suddenly he did a backflip without bending his legs or pushing off the floor. The magnetism around him was that precise that it flipped Kaminari around on its own, and the white fabric on Kaminari's left knee slammed up into Zach's chest that was still wounded from before. He hit straight into a bruise that made Zach cough up blood again in agony while falling down to the street over Raijin's head.

Raijin spun around and flicked his bone-tevlon blade down into Zach's back. He magnetized the hilt after it jammed through Zach's skin, pulling it right back towards him as if on a rope of yellow light that he flung up over his head then back down into the ground where Zach just lay. Zach rolled to the side quickly enough this time though then snatched that blade impaling into the ground using his right hand. Zach ripped it out and stood back up, glaring towards Kaminari while wobbling back towards the villain who pointed his right hand off to the side of the road and pulled a metal post towards him.

The blond villain spun around and his left arm sliced out like an electric blade from his shoulder. It cut the metal he pulled towards him into the shape of a katana that he caught in his own right hand, before the lightning coming out of his left shoulder faded away again. Kaminari's chest continued to pulse with electricity, as did his mind behind his glowing eyes. He glared towards Zach who pointed the bone blade at him, while Kaminari pointed the new metal blade back towards the hero. The dark sky above was not stormy anymore. No lightning shot out of it. Rain fell over this part of the city though. A downpour the two of them only felt as they stopped moving for a couple of seconds, both of them heaving, panting, gasping for air while pointing their weapons at one another. Zach's left arm had faded entirely from his left shoulder just like the lightning arm from Raijin's side.

Zach's black hair pushed down on his head as it got soaked just like Raijin's. Steam rose off of Raijin's sparking body, just as some small slivers of steam came out of the worst wounds on Zach's. Smoke rose from the flames that went out at other fires near them as the downpour picked up even harder. The hero and villain just stared towards each other for a few seconds, so many ripped tendons and broken bones that it was hard for either to stand. "I'm, still, faster," Kaminari lifted up a malicious smile and then raced towards his enemy in the rain.

Lightning seemed to flash in the rain for a second. It was just the light sparking off of Raijin's legs though that glowed brighter as he sped up a second before reaching Zach who slashed down in front of him. Zach stomped all his weight on his left leg and ground his teeth but did not flinch in pain while his right picked up insanely fast. He kicked his right leg behind him where Raijin raced around to faster than Zach could spin to face him. He kicked without looking where his enemy was appearing, and Raijin twisted away from the kick that passed just along his side.

The extra spin that the villain had to do to dodge gave Zach time to press his right hand down on the floor. His fingers curled into the street while his eyes darted down past his chin to get a look at how Raijin was dodging behind him in order to target him. He flicked his right hand backwards with rocks curled in his grasp covered in darkness to shroud what they looked like and how many pieces there really were. When he flicked his right arm backwards, while only on one leg and using that hand to hold up his upper body weight, it would have seemed like he would drop down forward. He held his whole leaned-forward weight though up on his left foot that even curled forward to stand only on the balls of his foot just at the bottoms of his toes.

Zach's left arm bulged out darkness that looked like it would create another hand to hold himself up because he was off-balanced and falling. By holding his whole weight on that left foot, his left arm was able to swing backwards and grab the end of the metal blade Raijin was stabbing forward. That new blade was not covered in Anti-Death armor, and so the condensing Death that Zach blocked it with managed to redirect the weapon away from Zach's side. Zach's right leg twisted as Zach yanked his abdomen to the side after missing his kick backwards. He spun his right leg in a second kick at the arm that Raijin just over-extended forward only to stab into a black veil rather than Zach's back.

Raijin's arm lifted up and sparked Electricity down into Zach's bloody right leg straight into gashes through his tendons. Zach winced, but his spinning left leg did not slow down as Zach had barrel-rolled in midair with how hard he suddenly twisted his torso. His left leg came up off the ground and kicked into Raijin's lifting arm only moving fast enough to just pass above Zach's right leg's second kick. Zach kicked Raijin's arm and bent it backwards, but Raijin's other arm was swinging forward already. His left hand of lightning that burst back out for a second magnetized the falling blade from Kaminari's right hand. It pulled it at the side of Zach's spinning body that he had to push down with all his muscular strength and whatever energy he could try and feel out in the air around him.

The blade curved though as Zach even managed to dodge in that split second. Raijin saw him dodging and sliced down right before the blade was going to pass cleanly over Zach's chest. It sliced the edge of his left side, but Zach kicked his right heel back and using a third kick of that leg since he kicked it backwards off the floor, he hit Raijin with a graze in the front of the villain's stomach that did not pull back far enough.

Raijin staggered backwards and gripped his stomach hard with his right hand for a moment. Electricity sparked inside of his skin to repair the damage immediately, but now the villain's mind was focused on another heal while at the same time Zach spun back to face him again. Blood spilled freely from Zach's left side. A tiny trickle of steam came out of the wound for a second, but Zach was holding his breath and gasped out in agony. The steam stopped coming, and the blood kept trickling down. Raijin smirked while his electricity continued to work on the inside of his abdomen where it sealed a rip in the stomach organ from the grazed kick.

He can't regenerate any longer, Raijin slammed into Zach's turning body with a flying knee. He burst out electricity behind him and the shockwave that blew away from his body moving at such speeds scattered the rain. The air was clear around them as Raijin's knee imbedded into Zach's turning body, still with Anti-Death armor on that knee too. Zach coughed up spit and blood again while flying off the knee-

Raijin snapped his right hand out before Zach could fly away. He gripped Zach by his hair and slammed down into his other knee that he kicked up so fast that a second shockwave from the speed made another boom of sound scattering rain around the street. Pebbles and tiny pieces of debris lifted off the floor and dropped again from the second knee straight into Zach's face. This second knee did not have Anti-Death armor on it, but despite his ripped costume, Raijin's knee collided when Zach did not have the Death in him to turn his head intangible. It was still a knee from a revived person colliding with his head. Raijin was pulling backwards so hard on Zach's hair when he kneed his face the other direction, that the villain landed and stumbled backwards with a handful of black hair in his grasp that had ripped clean out of Zach's head.

Zach flipped and rolled down the street. He bounced and jolted and coughed, and then he slammed his right hand into the ground and dragged up pavement before flipping up onto both feet and skidding back on them and one hand. He lifted his head up and then snapped his right hand in front of him and caught the third flying knee. Raijin's right hand and an electric left combined over Zach's head and slammed down when Zach caught the insanely fast knee in such a jolt that Raijin's whole body was pushing over his own leg. The villain was already prepared though in case Zach caught the knee despite his speed, and he swung down and caught Zach in his bloody scalp and smashed him down into the ground.

Zach curled his right fingers through Raijin's skin though even as he was hit in the head so hard his thoughts jumbled. He crushed inwards into the bone of his enemy and tried to tear his friend's leg off in the middle. The jolt came so hard that he forgot for an instant what he was trying to do, his grasp weakening while his face smashed into the ground. He was still holding Raijin's right leg though when he hit the ground. The momentary lapse of thought allowed the villain to yank his leg out of the hero's grip, but blood poured down around Raijin's leg that he struggled to stand on. The skin sealed up quickly with jolts of Electricity zipping up the flesh wounds, but Zach had gripped hard with a hand that Raijin saw flare with white energy at the last second as Zach put a kind of strength into the squeeze that most people with Strength-enhancing Quirks could never dream of reaching.

Raijin lifted the injured leg that he did not want to risk putting too much weight on even if he could not feel it. He hopped on his left leg, and then when he landed on his left foot coming down once, he kicked that same leg up and did a backflip where he stood. A slice of yellow light came off the toes of that foot and hit Zach as he was pushing off the ground with his right arm. He tried to push away harder when he saw the flash, but the lightning cut through his shoulder and ripped so deep he felt it in his bones.

Raijin sped at Zach and punched down towards his sparking body that collapsed face-first again. Zach rolled to his right, solely through fighting instinct that he guessed where his enemy would attack from and when the best time to dodge would be. He had gripped the discarded white blade in his right hand and flicked it at where Kaminari just punched his right fist almost into the ground, stopping short of busting his own knuckles. Kaminari opened his hand and caught the flying white sword by the blade. It sliced through his palm that sealed itself up immediately while Kaminari flipped around his own weapon, while he magnetized the discarded metal blade behind him back towards his body.

Instead of a lightning arm on his left side, Raijin held the sharpened metal blade just off of his shoulder wrapped in a thin veil of yellow energy that looked to exert less Electricity total. It was still as deadly though as the weapon moved up and down like Raijin was lifting and lowering his arm. He pressed down on his right foot lightly to test its standing strength, and Raijin managed to keep himself up while Electricity darted back and forth inside his own leg. He needed to put some weight on it after all, in order to kick off the ground even harder using his left foot to reach where Zach would roll to in a second and slash down two swords at him.

Zach slammed his face forward towards Raijin instead of dodging again. "RAAAA!" Zach pushed his face between the blades that were spread apart to hit different directions Zach might try dodging too. Kaminari slammed his own head forward though as he gave Zach the space, and he headbutted faster than Zach was doing upwards due to the momentum the villain already had. Kaminari smashed his forehead down into Zach's with all his speed behind him. The hero had the worse angle and less momentum, but Zach pushed his head back into Kaminari's headbutt while blood trickled down both of their foreheads. It spilled down their noses and in the inner corners of their eyes down to their lips.

The two of them pressed their heads harder into one another on a street that shook beneath them. "HAAAA!" Kaminari opened his mouth and screamed right back at Zach. Electricity flared around him and out of the point of collision on their foreheads. Zach was expecting Kaminari to do that though to get him to flinch and lose the pressure he pushed back into the villain. Right as Kaminari was doing it, the Death Zach still had swirled out of his forehead and made black lines shoot out around him that caught and tangled with every bolt of lightning that Raijin expelled. In that moment Zach would have flinched, Raijin would have slashed both blades back in and finished him off. Zach's right hand snapped up instead when there was no flinch because both of them expelled their Quirks into each other.

Zach's right hand snapped up and caught Raijin by the throat. He pushed up while Raijin slashed in at Zach's sides. The Electricity stopped coming out of Raijin's forehead because that plan did not work. By not having his Electricity there though, Zach did not need to block with Death on his head. As the metal and bone blades connected with either side of Zach's torso, his skin was turning pitch black at the very instant before the collisions. Raijin's blades seemed to permeate through Zach's sides and out the other side of him, and Zach slammed Raijin down into the street in front of him.

Crack- crck crea- CRACK!

The sounds of cracking did not come from the street itself that nearly buckled under the force of that slam. Zach and Raijin could both hear the cracks coming from inside Kaminari's own body. Electricity sparked on Raijin's chest and in his brain though while he lay imbedded in the crater. It fired up from a point between his heart and mind as a beam straight into Zach's upper body that burned while he was blasted up in the air. Zach's fingers were ripped from Kaminari's neck, and electricity zipped around the fingermarks that dug through flesh on their way off and spilled more blood from the villain's broken body.

Get up! Finish him now. As long as I have more Electricity, I'll be able to replace every part of myself! Kaminari focused his Electricity down into individual limbs. He spread it through his bones, and through his nervous system, and all over his body that pulsed like a heart beat of yellow light. One more blow, and he's dead. That won't have been it for him. One more! And I win! VICTORY IS RIGHT HERE! Stand. Focus! Every passageway. Every track of energy necessary to stand, to stab… one more time.

Raijin lifted up slowly. His left leg curled up. It stomped on the ground and his muscles held firm as he rose his upper body next, barely using his right leg but for a second to held steady himself. He rose his right arm up to the side a little, sealing more external cuts on it to keep his blood inside that he could figure out how to regulate afterwards. Bruises covered his exposed body. The white blade on the ground next to him magnetized up to his twitching fingers of his right hand and shot up into it. The metal blade was not next to it.

When he blasted the electricity beam out of his upper chest a second ago, he had done so in such panic and necessity to get Zach off him right then, that he had forced out a magnetic push too. The push had caught the metal blade that no hand had not been curled around at the time, because the blade itself had been replacing his own left arm. He stared towards that blade, and right behind it to a pair of unmoving legs that were not even twitching like they were when the body first landed there still sparking with electricity.

Zach's chest heaved up and down while he lay flat on his back. As injured as they were, as depleted of all their Quirks, Zach was amazed by how much power just slammed into him that Raijin himself was not even considering after blowing Zach away. All Raijin thought was how Zach would be getting back up again, but now he stared towards his unmoving enemy laying flat whose eyes were squinted almost to a close. That hit me right in front of my heart. I didn't have the Death to block it at all, from touching my insides. I- I feel it in my spine. Can I feel my legs? My heart is off. My heart beat? I don't know. That electrocuted me. He can't have enough to get back to an area with more. Right? If I'm wrong… if I'm wrong, and I lose?

Zach's right fist curled into the ground below him. His fingers felt numb but he curled and uncurled them a few times to try and get feeling back into them. I can't lose. I can't stand though! Please, get up. I need to get up! Zach bit down. His teeth clenched and he ignored the pain all over his body that lost its numb feeling to let the agony refill his senses. "Nnrrgh- Rraaa-agh," Zach gasped for breath and then wheezed harder as gasping hurt too much from all the blows to his bruised chest.

"You can't even get up this time," Raijin spoke towards his fallen enemy. "That's the difference between us, Zach."

Zach bit down even harder to hear those words that made his eyes clench shut too. That's not the only difference. It's not even an important one!

"I don't even need to 'regenerate' like you do. Can you see the legs I'm standing on?" Raijin wondered. Zach lifted up his head that the back of rested on the street. He tried sitting up, groaning behind his teeth in pain as he did. He stared down at Kaminari's legs. "I don't need the flesh!" Raijin called out. "Energy can replace the mass. Remember?" Raijin wondered to his enemy who had tried crushing his knee. Zach could see that there was a steady flow of Electricity passing through cut tendons and broken bones on the brightly glowing joint. "Less electricity just means I need more precise control, but I've learned that in this fight. The electrons of every atom of my body provide me with limitless energy…"

Raijin's whole body pulsed with yellow light for a second. His right arm started lifting up at his side and turning the sword in it back and forth despite how broken that arm was. "The tendons that hold up my arm and legs might be beyond repair," Kaminari narrowed his blood-soaked eyes and pointed his sword down towards Zach's prone body. "But I can use lightning to replace them. Not repair, but replace."

That's only true if you master that precision. You're not doing that now. That isn't your latent energy, it's just what you have left. Maybe with more experience, more control, you could really master that. Which is why you can't ever refuel again. Even like this, if I don't kill him myself, he might do it! COME ON! Zach tried to motivate his body into movement. He pushed every atom that he could to its limit and tried to sit up. Why can't I? There is no limit. Limits are for the weak! Do it- DO IT!

Where does my strength come from? Zach thought. He gasped for breath but curled his fingers down on the floor again. Those curled fingers twitched and shook, then he gently flattened his palm down onto the ground. Zach took in a deeper breath and released it slowly. Think of them. Remember. Remember what happens if you lose right now. All those who he'll kill. And all of those, whose deaths would mean nothing if you allow this! That thought snapped Zach's eyes back open. Wind whipped past Zach and into the front of Raijin's body right as the villain took a step on a very unsteady leg to get closer to Zach.

Raijin froze in place. His yellow hair pushed back on either side of his head. He flinched and glared down at Zach's flat body that he was certain could not move… and that body started to rise. Zach's legs were not bending. His arm was not pushing off the floor. Raijin's eyes darted below Zach's legs though. He stared below Zach's back and under his head.

Dark swirls came off the back of Zach's body all over him. Those swirls took shape though. As they pushed up into Zach's body and rose him up again, the swirls curled around his legs and around his sides. The swirls collected enough in small appendages. The tendrils combined together in tiny clusters of five. Each swirl of Death coming out of Zach's body looked like a hand that pushed up against him. Arms of darkness extended out from below the hands and pushed against the ground which made it look like the arms were coming out of the street instead and extending farther up closer to his head than the short arms near his calves.

All those black hands pushed Zach back up onto two feet. Then the swirls scattered as if exploding off of his back. They were so thin, but the final push of them blasting like that leaned him forward so he would not just fall straight backwards onto his back again. While the swirls exploded back like that to give him the last push, they swirled around as they flew away and behind him. All those swirls on their move backwards into fading nothingness, took shape of standing human figures for the briefest of milliseconds. The tendrils of Death created the appearances of bodies standing behind Zach, only to keep blowing backwards, taking another shape, and another, as if rows of those figures stood behind Zach going back over a hundred strong. One of the dark swirls had a cylindrical head, and another a pair of pincers, and another four legs, while another had eight. They all appeared so quickly and vanished just as fast that it almost looked as if a mirage that made Raijin blink his eyes a few times after they were gone.

"You're wrong, Kaminari," Zach whispered. His voice was weak but he found strength and made it louder, "What's different between us, is so much more." Zach reached his right hand towards the metal blade on the ground in front of him. He did not think he could lean down and pick it up, but Death swirled out of thin air in front of him in the shape of another arm that reached down and picked up the sword. A body appeared at the end of that arm, and that body had a pair of red eyes that stared into Zach's then looked back towards Raijin who twitched at the sight of this insanity that he felt like was just Zach messing with him. Why Zach would be doing it baffled him though as he looked at the figure's glowing red eyes that seemed to lighten, a thin white veil appearing over them for a second to make those eyes look pink instead.

"I am fighting for so many people," Zach told his opponent while pointing his own sword back at Kaminari again. The two of them held out their extended blades at one another, neither looking truly capable of standing despite the fact that they were. The dark shadow who handed Zach his blade scattered around him and created several other dark figures before the thin swirls faded off. One was more muscular, another had a darker shadow over the top half of his head, and another the Death seemed to make a scaly appearance to his torso. Again it all happened so quickly, but Raijin definitely caught some features this time that he recognized. "My fallen soldiers. The innocents you've killed. And, the anti-heroes too," Zach added to his enemy who had wiped them out himself.

"Like Webb, and Ganji… and Ms. Calico," Zach added at the smirking villain whose smirk slowly dropped down his face. "From Kiribati," Zach added. "And Cee," he finished. The red, almost pink eyes, that Kaminari had seen for a second glare back at him made him flinch hard. "The girl you allowed to escape," Zach said. His voice was strong and he declared at his enemy, "Who I saved from your League members you left behind to dispose of her. Who came with me. Without Cee, this world would not exist. She saved it. Because you failed to kill her, thinking that she was not important enough to waste your time on."

Raijin's teeth ground together back and forth as Zach pissed him off to no end. "And that is, your greatest weakness," Zach snapped. He wheezed a few more times then growled, "Your will is never going to be strong enough. We may be equal in power. Our Quirks both have advanced to new heights. You are my equal in so many regards. But you fight only for yourself!" Zach shouted. "While I have only ever fought for others," Zach's sword stopped shaking in his hand. Blood came out of his palm as the blade itself was sharp even where he was grabbing it on. Blood dripped from his palm and off the bottom of the metal blade that Zach pointed steadily back at Raijin's chest, straight at his heart. Last time it was one cut. He's struggling to keep it together with just that. One more blow. One more, fatal blow.

"And right now, I fight for all the people in this city. It's not just my own will anymore… And yet I'm also fighting for myself," Zach added softer. Even if I know that it's no longer likely… "For maybe the first time, I don't need to survive, but I want to." Zach stated that determinedly towards an enemy who only seconds ago thought Zach would never stand again, let alone survive this fight. "I fight this battle for the world to come. A world I want to see. The world that all the people relying on me around this city and across the world need! They need me to stop you to do that. And all the dead?!" Zach yelled, his legs steadying harder on the ground as he prepared to take a step which he was worried he might collapse upon attempting. "Every single person who has died to get me this far, they're relying on me to finish it too!"

Zach lifted his left foot and stomped forward, and he did not fall. His left arm swirled out of his shoulder and created a black fist that curled in front of him and pulled towards his chest. All those dark figures he swirled to life whether subconsciously or manually he did not know. He held them close though in that fist he pressed against his chest. "In one hand I hold the strength of all those who have died for this. And in my other," Zach swung the sword in his right arm down to his side and curled his hand around it as hard as he could. "I hold the living! The dead and the living. Everyone! All you have is yourself!"

Zach bent his legs. "And one person could never defeat the entire world," Zach growled.

"You are not the world," Raijin hissed back. He curled the corners of his lips up and stepped back himself closer to Zach. Electricity flashed around his left leg to make the motion possible. He took another step while Zach did the same. He rose up the bone-tevlon blade and mocked, "And you will never get to see the way this world turns out. Not from this plane at least." Raijin pulled his white sword to the side and slashed forward while Zach did the same with the metal blade he cut towards his enemy with.

Chng! Swwsh! Their blades parried and bounced off one another. Lightning sparked behind Raijin's right elbow, and he slashed a second time faster than Zach. Zach ducked and some of the uneven longer strands of black hair on his head got sliced off. He slashed upwards using his own right arm, and Raijin leaned to the side while sparking Electricity out of his left side into his enemy. Zach forced off his left arm of Death into the swirls of yellow light coming at him. The two of them kept slashing while the remnants of their Quirks that they could expel fought against one another between them.

They slashed through the swirls of yellow and black. Two one-armed swordsmen, clashing over and over with dozens of collisions as every slash of one was met by the blade of the other. Their footwork was slow, but it was matched because neither of them had the clear advantage on how badly wounded their legs were. Zach's still felt numb and electrocuted, while Raijin had to put so much manual thought process into each individual movement that they were taking slower now than ever. He was already manipulating the body like a puppet, but now he needed a thousand strings to connect every piece of the puppet in order to hold it together.

Their strength matched when their blades parried in between their bodies. The two swords crossed and pressed firmly towards the hero or villain, back and forth. Raijin attempted to attack off the parry and move to his left at the same time that he slashed more to the right. He wanted to get into Zach's blindspot, but Zach pivoted his feet and leaned away from the slash going to his right side, keeping Raijin in his view nonstop. More Electricity sparked out of Raijin's chin, and a strand of Death swirled out of Zach's face and collided between their heads. The tiny tendril of black and yellow swirled around between them and then faded away before both men slashed through the air where it just was.

Ch! Shwng! Wooosh! Clnk! Dnk-cling-clink!

Neither slowed. Every move was forcing another. Every attack could be the last. The sky was gray but the rain had slowed and stopped. No sounds of explosions went off around them. The city was quiet in their area, other than the clanking and clinking sounds of two blades clashing over and over and over again.

Then the two fighters slashed again between them. Zach was off-centered from his opponent who he slashed downwards at so targeting Kaminari's lower left side. Rajiin swung his own white blade across the front of his body, and the lower part of his blade near the hilt hit close to the tip of the hero's weapon when he blocked. The jolt of hitting the bottom of Raijin's blade close to his hand, and the tip of Zach's blade farthest from his hand, twisted them in opposite directions of each other. Kaminari's hand holding the blade swung back out to the right side and away from his own body enough that his whole twisting torso was opened up. Zach's body on the other hand went spinning even farther to his own right, leaving the entire left side of his body clear and with no arm to block on that side now that his right arm was so far off.

Both of their blades were far from the other's, and they had clear targets in front of them. Zach started twisting his body back, but by the time he brought his blade in, Kaminari's sword would just be hitting him in the center of his chest rather than on his left side now. While Zach twisted his body left again, he curled his right hand tighter around the steel sword Raijin had fashioned. He pointed it towards Kaminari's unguarded chest, needing to strike fast enough that the villain would not be able to swing his arm back in and block in time.

Raijin was not thinking about blocking though, only striking quicker than Zach could dodge or block himself. The two had been so closely matched and so aligned in thought that they each decided to strike at the same time. Both could see it when they were already stabbing. The other person was not trying to dodge or counter. They were moving too fast. They each gripped their blades while swinging back towards the other again, and the tips of their weapons passed each other without slowing down or getting any closer. Neither parried the other's blade. Both blades were perfectly on-target…

Zach could see past his enemy. His eyes did not dart away from Kaminari's eyes, but he could see the movement in his peripheral vision. Raijin could not see the person who ran onto the street though. Zach had twisted back and stabbed, and he saw the person who had slid onto the road and spun their way. That girl with long brown hair and a pair of glasses on stared towards the two of them in horror, and she screamed at the top of her lungs…

"CHARGEBOLT!"

The swords followed-through. Blood sprayed behind Kaminari and Zach's bodies. The girl who screamed towards them rose both hands up to her mouth and covered it. No, Jessica Thompson thought. He legs shook and then both knees buckled and dropped down to the hard floor below her that they scratched on. I was too late, tears spilled down her face from her eyes that she squinted shut in despair.

Zach's sword was plunged through Raijin's chest and out his back. Blood soaked the silver blade that had pushed through Kaminari's heart so violently that blood splashed out behind him. Zach's eyes shook and lowered down towards his own chest though. He stared down past his extended right arm where his hand stopped just out of the center of Kaminari's body. His own hand trembled while he looked below his shaking arm to the blade cutting beneath it.

Raijin's white sword stabbed Zach as well. It missed the center of his chest though. It stabbed across the right side of Zach's torso and went just below his arm, slicing through his side only inches away from a fatal wound. Where it stabbed could only be considered a graze though, at least compared to how Zach's weapon impaled Raijin nearly straight through his center. The white sword still trembling there against Zach's side fell as Raijin released it. His right hand moved towards his chest instead, and Zach released and stumbled away as sparks came out of the impaled metal blade. The sparks jolted him into stumbling backwards, but Raijin took a couple of steps back too while grabbing that weapon sticking out of his torso.

Clank! The white blade hit the ground and bounced. Thompson lifted up her head and stared back towards the two who stumbled away from each other. She could not see past Raijin at first, but her eyes grew much wider as she saw Zach pull his right hand back and grab over the gash on his right side rather than through the middle of his body where she thought Raijin's blade had impaled him.

Raijin held the metal blade sticking through his chest with his shaking right hand. His whole body wobbled. Sparks flew out of his legs that bright yellow light pulsed through harder to try and keep him standing. His chest sparked violently while he yanked out harder and harder. Raijin pulled out and withdrew the sword from his body. The metal spike was soaked completely and dripping in blood. Raijin tried to point that weapon back at Zach, but his fingers disobeyed and started letting the weapon slip through. Connect, aorta- vena- the legs! Raijin's heart was in such disrepair that he was trying to do another round of heart surgery on it, but that was too difficult to do while still trying to fight and stand and just to grip a weapon at the same time.

When he focused on his legs after focusing too much on his fingers and heart, the blade started slipping out of his grasp. So he refocused there, and immediately he crumpled to the ground as he could not stand on those broken legs any longer. Blood spilled out his front and back when he tried to catch himself, not focusing nearly enough on his heart or other vital organs. He panicked as focusing all around his body took too much Electricity out of his brain that was not functioning without a manual control constantly over it.

The sparks stopped coming out of Raijin's right arm at all that fell limply to his side. He wobbled up in his crumpled body and made it to his knees, but then even the sparks around his lower and middle legs rose up more towards his abdomen and upper body alone. Just hold him off until emergency repairs are finished. Too low on Electricity to, to do both. To do everything- I need more! Raijin's eyes darted towards the buildings around them, but not one showed any sign that they had power left in them. The two had been fighting on this street long enough for him to know already that that was a lost cause, and he panicked even more as he knew that he already knew that but was searching for an answer he did not have.

Zach glared down at his enemy whose huge eyes snapped onto Zach's and tried to look dangerous for a second. Can't stand! I need all my Electricity for my heart, internal organs, and brain. I- I can't even zap any towards Zach to keep him away. "Hsss," Raijin bit down and hissed through his teeth at the black-haired figure who stared back at him.

Even in this state, Zach squinted his eyes nearly to a close. That hiss was so vile and disgusting that Zach felt his heart wrench from the sound of it alone. His heart was clenched up for a different reason though. He doesn't even realize it? He can't. It's- it's impossible, for him to even think about. "That parasite should be in complete control of your mind, Kaminari," Zach whispered.

His voice was pained and came out hoarse as he gasped it at his friend. He was panting but pulled in a sharp breath and snapped angrily towards his knelt opponent, "So why hesitate? Why, did Thompson's shout cause you to pause?" Zach asked. "Why did it make you miss?" Zach gasped, tears in both eyes as he wondered it towards the villain whose body trembled while he tried to put together his insides using his Electricity alone.

Kaminari had lost so much blood though, and his organs were more damaged than he thought from Zach slamming him into the street before, and his bones were chipped and broken too. The body he had used like a puppet could barely function anymore even in the most basic of regards: keeping him conscious. Raijin could barely move. "Rrg- you don't," Raijin started to growl. I didn't miss! His thoughts were only focused on fixing his body, and yet he could not force out Zach's thoughts as much as he wanted to. The question Zach asked was something that should have been on his mind already, but he screamed at himself in defiance rather than let Zach's question dig itself deeper into his head.

"Why?" Zach repeated. He shook his head though and then responded, "I know. I- I know why… It's because you understand, Kaminari," Zach told him. "Somewhere inside, you know, that the only time you were ever really a winner, was when you were Chargebolt." Zach bowed his head and bit down harder then glared towards Kaminari in fury. "All I've been saying much have stuck somewhere, because your mind that can only act in the purpose of winning! Your mind that can't do anything that would contradict that singular purpose, missed! Because you couldn't risk destroying your one ever real victory… by hurting the girl you saved."

Thompson had pushed herself back up onto her feet. The girl who had rushed out of the evacuation center to go find her two heroes and try to stop them, stared with trembling eyes that spilled tears down her face too at what she heard Lifebringer shout at Raijin. Kaminari's head shook back and forth as he forced out what Zach was shouting at him that he would not accept. "That's not-"

"You missed," Zach hissed towards him for trying to deny it. "You missed. A chance to kill me. Your final chance, and you missed. You couldn't do it. Because the one time in your life that you were ever a winner! Was when we saved her. Chargebolt, was the winner. Not you. Not, what you've become."

"This, is who I've always been," Raijin snarled back towards Zach. He did not dare look behind him though towards the girl staring down towards that villain's back in shock at what Zach was telling him. "I didn't 'become' anything. All this time, and you still don't get it!" Raijin yelled. Quicker! Fix it. I don't have the Electricity! If I take his heart beat. The energy inside his body alone could add to mine? Why his body alone?! There are two of them here! Raijin's eyes shot open wide and he bit down hard that even in his thoughts he had subconsciously removed the possibility of adding the electrical signals inside of Thompson's body to make him stronger. He's wrong! He has no idea what he's talking about!

"You lost, Kaminari," Zach whispered while looking at his friend who could barely keep himself upright on the street in front of him. It was still dangerous to get closer to him, though Zach did not know if it was because of that danger or because he could barely stand as it was that he was not approaching. "You failed. At everything. You missed that last stab- damn it! You know you did!" Zach yelled. "Deep down you must accept that victory means more than just what means to you! She was the only person in the whole world who still considers you a winner. You couldn't kill me in front of her. All of that, grandstanding. It was all a lie. Were you lying to yourself? You just, couldn't face the truth-"

"Shut up!"

Zach was panting in frustration and anger but did as Raijin said. He stared at his knelt enemy who was not dying. The Electricity that the villain controlled was not being wasted. It was all going towards reconstructing his insides so that he could potentially stand again. "I have to stop you now," Zach whispered. He kept standing in place though. His legs were heavy, but Zach did not know if it was because of an actual lack in his physical ability to move or just a lack of motivation. His shoulders slumped. His right arm was slashed, bloodied, like his right side where Kaminari just slashed him too, like so many other places on his injured body. "But," Zach continued. "I just, I can't cut you into little pieces," Zach admitted.

Looking at his kneeling friend before him, Zach could not find it in him to even try. He's still suffering. End it! I can't, Zach yelled at himself to do it, but the exhaustion he felt was more than physical. He could see the blood trickling down Kaminari's forehead, down the cut on the center of his chest, in so many different areas where the Electricity was melting the flesh still to keep more of his blood inside. He doesn't have the strength to fight back. He'd spark me if I got close but, but I'd win that struggle. I still can't. Zach rose his right hand up to his forehead and pressed down hard over the cut he felt there from their headbutt that was giving him a headache and making him feel even woozier.

"You were stronger than you've ever been before, Kaminari," Zach began softly. He lowered his hand from his head and stared down at his shaking opponent who was still trying hard not to think of the doubt Zach just forced into his head. "We both are," Zach added. "The difference though, is that you were willing to sacrifice your body for all these gains." Zach shook his head while Raijin lifted his gaze back up and met Zach's. "You got killed. Removed one of your own arms. You accepted that you would die but that that was alright at some point, didn't you? Just now," Zach added. "You should have known that you needed more Electricity, but if you could finish me off first then that was more important, right? Even if it meant you couldn't get any more… you were ready to die?"

"And you, aren't?" Raijin taunted back, calling Zach a liar with his tone.

"I told you," Zach hissed. "I wanted to see…" Zach trailed off and shook his head again as there was no point in arguing about it. He looked down though and thought back on his friends at Heroally. "I may have lost this fight if I had fought like you did," Zach confessed. They saved me. They saved the whole world. "Ack-" Zach coughed and moved his right hand in front of his mouth, before pulling it away slowly and staring at the blood on his wrist. He lowered that hand and glared back towards Kaminari again. "If I had come at you, while solely thinking of killing you and without caring if I died or not?" Zach wondered.

He hesitated but then admitted while truly believing what he was saying, "Then I probably would have let myself die on some final move to kill Kaminari a long time ago, which would have left this city destroyed, because you would have revived yourself anyway. But, you still wouldn't have been able to do all you threatened. About what you would do after?" Zach lifted his tone, asking if his enemy recalled shouting all of that before at the Conduit. Zach shook his head and continued, "Those were all empty taunts. You know that. You must know, that you can't really keep your body going forever like this. You're already dead. You've been dead since my right hand touched you…"

"You're, wrong," Raijin growled back.

He's too smart. Inside, he has to know that I'm right, Zach countered his enemy's retort in his own head but just shook his head rather than say that aloud. He stared back into the blond's shaking eyes and winced at the furious and hate-filled expression staring back at him. "Death kills too much," Zach whispered. "Those cells you've been moving are dead. Every cell. They're just barely damaged. It's the same with all the people I've killed with Death. Their bodies just stopped moving. No signs of death other than that there were no signs of life."

"You brought your own mind back using a jolt of electricity, and you moved your body using it. You gave it the illusion of life. You pumped your own heart while manually breathing to fill your body with oxygen. Keeping it strong and possible to move around, because the body was barely damaged, even though it was dead. You could move around as if you were a real person!" Zach called out, half in amazement and half in disgust at the incredible power that had allowed Raijin to face him for so long since his death. "You are dead though. You're dead, just controlling Kaminari's body just like you always were," Zach gasped out softer.

"That self-destructive fighting style that has left you unable to even move was the difference in our fight. So, it's Class A who really defeated you, because they forced me to fight this as if I were alive. As if I would still be alive at the end of the day," Zach finished. He sniffled in once while thanking his classmates in his head for what they had done for him. "I always thought that was a weakness," he admitted with almost a laugh as he cocked his head to one side. "I thought that I became stronger when I accepted my own death as inevitable, and to just fight without fearing it. But I won't die here. I refuse- ack, kah-ack," Zach coughed again but bit down through the pain and lack of air his lungs were getting, forcing down that pain and fatigue before glaring back into Kaminari's eyes once more. "That was the mentality I needed. Not accepting death made me the winner today." Not allowing myself to die, meant that I had to learn how to regenerate. Had I not learned that when I did, had I kept bleeding back then, I don't think I would have stood a chance.

"But you?" Zach whispered. His voice got even hoarser and cracked when he wondered about his enemy. "Fighting so hard, fighting to the death, just to kill me?" Zach bit down harder and then hissed, "And then missing at the last second? What was the point? Why- why even do it anyway, if that's how it's going to end?"

"It's not, over," Kaminari growled at him. Move blood through the heart- shit! The tissue can't hold with even a single beat. I have to seal it back together every pump! Ignore him! FIX IT!

"It is," Zach countered softly back. He stared at his enemy who looked so frustrated while trying to carry out heart surgery without even looking. As amazing as you are, it's just too much. Too much for you to do with so little Electricity remaining.

"You, couldn't understand it," Zach said. His voice cracked again but he tried his best to steady it while taking a short and painful step towards his enemy. Kaminari leaned backwards then snapped his eyes down to his chest. His bloodshot eyes were not receiving enough oxygen while he focused on fixing his internal organs, staring down at his chest that sparked while he tried to figure out what he was doing inside his own body. Those eyes snapped back up and stared at Zach in the center of a blurry vision so that Zach was the only thing that he could see clearly. "Why you even did that? For Thompson, you don't get it do you?"

"I just- missed," Kaminari sneered. "You're imagining- I didn't-"

"We both would have stabbed each other through and through right there. As much as I want to live, that was it for both of us. I knew that was it for me," Zach admitted. "I plunged forward with all my strength and accuracy… and you missed." Tears filling Zach's eyes dripped down his cheeks. "You're running out of Electricity now. You have to keep too much of it inside, so you can't even move. Even if you could though. Even if you could attack me, would you?" Zach wondered. "After you just missed?"

Zach clenched his eyes shut. I can't. I can't rip him apart. I can't leave him either. I can't let him continue to suffer. "You don't get it," Zach whispered. "You don't get it, because you can't understand it. You couldn't beat me, even though I'm the only one who's ever defeated you? Except, that's not the truth," Zach explained. "I wasn't the first one to beat you. I wasn't, the one who was your worst defeat."

"It's these Quirks of ours," Zach hissed. "Your Quirk you are so proud of, is as cursed as my own," Zach told his enemy who stared back into his eyes in anger but with sweat dripping down the side of his face. "You blocked off a part of your mind, the part that would have told you that winning wasn't everything. It's something we're all told as kids and only learn is true when we grow up. It's not everything."

"Winning is, it's what I- what I want," Raijin snapped back.

"No," Zach retorted. "You just blocked parts of your mind as a child and separated that section that told you that winning was all that mattered, and you put it in control. You did that manually so that you could win more. That, was the last real decision you ever made," Zach said with his head tilting back and pain filling both eyes. "Once it took control, it told you to block off the distractions and everything else that could make you 'weaker.' 'Weaker,' in that you might not win. Kaminari, you handicapped yourself, broke yourself, because no one ever taught you otherwise."

"You're wrong-" Kaminari tried to argue.

"I hate," Zach started, interrupting Kaminari as he snapped that with his eyes clenching shut. "I hate that it happened to you," Zach hissed. Kaminari froze and thought that Zach was going to finish that interruption by saying 'I hate you,' but he pulled his head back at the way Zach actually finished. Pain filled Zach's chest for a different reason than the terrible injuries he had sustained. "I am sad, for you and that cursed Quirk. A Quirk that- damn it, it was a Quirk that destroyed you. Longer than we've even known each other. I couldn't have been beating you more than anyone. Because you've been losing to it from day one."

"That 'Kaminari' you created," Zach said, sounding like he was speaking to the shade of a person who had the control and who had been fighting him all this time. "That was the closest thing to the real version. You just released more of your mind. Even the parts that were bad like the one that only cares about wanting to win, is something that Kaminari already had. It's not like he didn't have those parts of his mind too, like how you've actually blocked so much off eternally from yourself. He was the complete mind. The full person. While you? 'Raijin?' You're nothing more than a shadow," Zach told the shadow he was speaking to that glared back at him but could not attack or try to shut Zach up this time. He could not even block off his ears from listening or his mind from having stray thoughts, as he was too focused on just keeping himself alive to risk spreading out his Quirk elsewhere.

"Stop. Talking," Raijin growled. His own eyes clenched shut and he was desperately trying to keep his mind off what Zach was saying. Without using his Quirk to do it though, he just couldn't manage such a task. A step on the street made a noise that Raijin darted his eyes to the side to look back at.

Thompson froze for a second. She stepped forward and then stared towards the side of Kaminari's head, and Raijin's whole face twitched when he stared back towards her. His eyes shook at the sight of the girl looking at him, sadly, tears in her eyes that spilled down when they made eye contact.

"Kaminari Denki was a hero," Zach told the knelt villain in front of him who glared back and chomped his teeth. The cornered villain bared his teeth in anger at Zach who just continued angrily back, "The reason you tried so hard today to brag about all you've done to me was to erase from our minds everything we knew Kaminari to be. You wanted me to forget what I knew was true," Zach said. "And you still deny it so strongly without even knowing why that is yourself," Zach added. "The reason! The reason why you get so angry when I call you Kaminari! The reason why you needed me to call you Raijin, was to convince yourself! More than any of us, you needed a constant reaffirmation that you are real. That you are the real person, because you're not!"

"Deep down you know why," Zach hissed.

"Please," Raijin snapped. His eyes bulged huge and trembled in panic while looking back into Zach's. Thompson stared confusedly at the back of Kaminari's blond head then darted her eyes towards Lifebringer confusedly as she did not get where that panicked plea came from.

Zach flinched himself but shook his head and kept staring down into his eyes. "You could never admit it to yourself, or you would have to kill yourself," Zach told the villain who sparked different pathways in his head to try and shut Zach up but then had to re-force the Electricity back down into his heart again. His breathing got more staggered as Zach continued louder to get past any block Kaminari could put on his ears, "But Kaminari was the real version! He was a child who messed with his mind and put the part of him that only wanted to win in charge so that he could win at a game!" Zach yelled. He coughed a few more times and then continued in even more pain, "But that part of your mind that only cared about winning would never let the rest of your mind take back over, because all of your mind together would not be as good at winning as you had become thanks to your Quirk. That winning persona that was such a small, insignificant part of a child's mind, infested the rest of your brain and took over."

"Kaminari, has been losing his entire life," Zach continued. Tears fell from his eyes and down his face in agony while tears filled Raijin's eyes too. The villain's mouth opened but he could not speak, as Zach spoke over his gasping breaths, "Your whole life ruined, and twisted… You betrayed everyone who ever cared about you, everyone you ever loved… just so you could win?" Zach asked. His voice cracked, "Win what? What does winning mean if it's like this?"

"What does it even matter when you're all alone, stuck inside your own mind? A loser to everyone else in the world because you lost the fight against your own Quirk!" Zach yelled at him. The expression on Raijin's face twisted so much more as the thought filled his mind.

Thompson spun her head back towards Zach and her eyes trembled in a horrified realization as she remembered something he just said, "…You could never admit it to yourself, or you would have to kill yourself." If his mind really only cares about winning, she thought, and she turned back towards the villain whose head bowed while sheer terror covered his face.

"The only way you could really win against your Quirk," Zach said in a soft, regretful voice. "The only way you could ever beat the one thing that you've never actually beaten," Zach paused again. He winced but then told the creature in front of him, "The one thing in your life that has always won… I was never your worst enemy. Your Quirk was. And there's only one way to win," Zach finished to his opponent whose head stayed bowed but who stopped twitching at that moment.

Raijin was already crying. He knew what Zach was telling him. The only way to win against his own Quirk and the way he was born was obvious. He could not cover his ears, and he listened to what the man he thought of as his own nemesis shoved his true enemy in his face. His need to win was all-important. It controlled every moment of my life, the thought came to a mind fading, sparks disconnecting the lines of control that gave that part of the mind its essence. The specific tone of thought patterns that only existed while those connections between 'control' and 'need for victory' was lost as the lines cut directly. It could not be a passive action. The lines were there and had to be sliced using his own Quirk. Raijin's thoughts cut off, as the villain himself sliced the control from himself. What made him him was in that control though. Because the part that wanted to win more than anything would still exist, but it could just be ignored…

All of their fighting could not end it. The paradox Zach introduced was something Raijin could not ignore though. If all he cared about was winning, but his own existence was a loss to his Quirk, then he could no longer exist. So he cut the cords, and Raijin ceased to exist.

Zach clenched his eyes shut as the villain's head in front of him stopped twitching and just bowed so his chin touched his chest. Silence fell over the block. The kneeling blond-haired man froze in place, and then his lips moved. "Zach?"

The vice grip curling over Zach's heart tightened as hard as he had ever felt it. His eyes that were already closed clenched so much harder shut. His jaw locked and he bit down so hard he was close to chipping teeth. Zach's whole body trembled while his own bowed head lifted up, and Kaminari's bowed head lifted slightly in front of him. The knowledge of how to run his heart and mind was still there, even if the evil controlling shadow of his brain that only cared about winning was not. Every fiber of his being wanted to stop using his Quirk in that second and just let it end. He wanted to collapse and die, but he found himself pumping his own heart, and keeping his brain functioning so that he could lift his head and stare back up at Zach.

"K-Kaminari?" Zach whispered.

Thompson bit down on her bottom lip behind Kaminari. She brought her right hand up and held her mouth closed, but tears flowed freely down her face harder than ever.

Zach staggered forward. Strength he was not certain he had until that second filled his legs and moved them forward. "Z-Zach," the boy down on the ground repeated. His right hand moved slowly up in front of him that his eyes darted down at, panic rising inside him. Kaminari felt fear and agony and so many horrible emotions beyond anything Zach wanted to imagine. Zach dropped down to his knees right next to Kaminari and reached out, grabbing him by the side as Kaminari lifted his eyes and looked up from his hand to Zach's face. "Ah- haah, ahh, I'm…ahh-" he started, before gasping out and crying while slamming his eyes shut. "I'm, sorry, Zach."

It didn't kill itself immediately. It struggled to hold on, giving him a minute to try and hold on? Or did it give us- I- I don't know. I wish you'd just die right now. Please, you don't have to feel this. Not with everything yours again. Zach could see the full wave of emotions crashing over Kaminari's face as those feelings were allowed to be felt. Kaminari had to start doing the same surgery that Raijin had almost completed, because his heart pounded so violently in his chest that it opened up cauterized stitching to his organs. "Oh God," Kaminari whispered. "I- I-" Kaminari's right hand reached out and grabbed Zach by his right arm that Zach was holding his side with. His fingers curled onto Zach's arm but were shaking like Kaminari's face that snapped up and stared into his eyes in horror.

"I forgive you, Kaminari," Zach whispered. He leaned his head close to his friend's and said it while staring deep into his eyes. "I promise you, I mean that." Zach panted himself while looking at a pain in his best friend's eyes that hurt him as much as anything in his entire life. His own lips trembled that Kaminari's were doing the same. "It wasn't- ah, your fault- ah hah, ahh."

"I- I killed so m-many," Kaminari's voice cut off and he wheezed out a breath that was hard to make. He sucked in breath as hard as he could, "And J-Jirou? I- Zach, please, tell her- tell her too. Please," Kaminari's hand desperately grabbed onto Zach's arm while his body shook there on both knees. He gasped out again and Zach slid his own hand around his friend's back and grasped it tighter himself for reassurance.

"I will," Zach promised.

Thompson lifted her head while walking closer towards the two of them. She did not know what to say. She struggled to come up with any words while crying silently herself behind him. She stared over their heads though and towards a man who just landed on the street back behind Zach. That man with gray hair and a purple cloak looked injured as he had been in tough fights today too. He stared towards Zach and stayed quiet though as the two boys knelt there in tears, desperately holding on to one another.

Kaminari's arm slid up more and his hand grasped onto Zach's shoulder. Zach flinched and Kaminari gasped out in pain too, as they both thought of Kaminari putting his arm around Zach's shoulders after telling him the news about Aizawa sensei… who Kaminari had killed himself. "Ahhhh," Kaminari sobbed at the thought of it. "Ahh, Ai- ai- sensei…" Thinking of that hospital room where they had the talk about that, Kaminari thought of something else he had said to Zach in there. "I wouldn't have kept, bringing her up…" In his head he could see himself leaning forward though. Leaning down towards Zach's horrified expression, "And you can bet, I told Shigaraki as much!" Kaminari gagged and clenched his eyes shut. He thought of noticing Shindeki Buda coming up behind him, and not dodging, while he was pretending to try and get through the radio jamming of their enemies. Every moment! "I- I killed them… I- I, I- k-killed your family," Kaminari gasped out.

"No, no you didn't," Zach whispered back. "It wasn't you. It wasn't," Zach repeated. He saw it all. Every single second, he was in there! I knew it but- but why couldn't I have been wrong?! Zach curled his hand tighter into Kaminari's back in regret and pain that got worse each second he imagined his friend thinking of all of it. "You, saved me, Kaminari. I meant that earlier. You heard me, right? You saved my life. And I saved, this whole world," Zach gasped into his friend's ear, bowing his head into the side of Kaminari's and telling him it while raising his hand and grabbing the back of Kaminari's head, holding it there against his own. He heard the whimpers coming out of his friend's mouth that could not even make any more words through the horrified agony he was in. "So you saved it. You made me, into the one who saved it, and who will keep saving-"

"B-But," Kaminari forced out through a breath. His head pulled away from his friend who turned and then tilted his head so far back at the sight of the rapidly spilling blood pouring down the corners of Kaminari's mouth. "But I- urg- I- hurt, you," Kaminari whispered, stuttering through the blood that splashed off his lips. The consolation that he had helped make Zach into the person who could save the world, meant nothing. Zach heard how little Kaminari cared about that in his tone even through the gurgling blood, as Kaminari failed to hold his body together. He just was not as experienced, or focused, on staying alive inside this dead body. "I hurt, y-you."

"And I forgive you," Zach said. He slammed his forehead back into his friend's and stared into his crying eyes with his own. "Listen to me. Know that I mean it," Zach begged him. "You know me. Now know, that I forgive you. I do, Kaminari." Zach forced a smile up on his face and laughed while holding the back of his best friend's head to press their foreheads together. "I always have," Zach said, closing his eyes while flashing his brightest smile at the boy in front of him whose eyes clenched shut, one last time. A smile stretched out on his face too, so that when Zach opened his eyes again, he would see it. A smile that could only exist if Kaminari believed his words. Words that Kaminari could hear Zach needed him to believe right there. Zach squinted his closed eyes back open when he realized that he was the only one still holding Kaminari's head up. He stared at Kaminari's unmoving face, and that smile that his friend forced up just to show him that he understood.

The look on Zach's face wiped and his eyes slammed back shut while he dropped from his knees onto his butt. He sat down on his legs and lowered Kaminari slowly down in his arm. "Aaahhh," Zach breathed out harshly and with tears falling fast down his face. "Ahhhaaahhh, ahhh, RAAAA!" Zach screamed, his chin slamming down into his chest. He shook his head back and forth, and he lowered down the boy whose heart beat a few seconds ago for its final time. Zach rested Kaminari's body down onto his own knees. He felt no movement. No twitching. No breathing.

Goodbye… Kaminari.