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!

254. Chapter 254

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 254:

This isn't the time for it. Zach opened back up his eyes. He stared down at the body he just rested over his knees. He looked up, then he glanced sideways and shifted his gaze past the windows of the building next to him on his right side that were lined with people. Zach looked behind him at the man he noticed there, and he bowed his head once more before looking carefully back at the body laying across his legs. He lifted his right hand slowly and moved Kaminari's corpse off his knees to rest him flat on his back on the cracked street.

"L-Lifebringer," Thompson took a few more steps forward and then ran around to Zach's left side. She winced and sniffled in after a look at Kaminari's motionless face, but she focused and bent down, grabbing Zach by his chest and back and helping him up onto wobbly feel as he forced himself to stand. "Are you…" she started. She did not want to finish her question with 'alright' though. There was no chance of that. She looked at his face though and her own filled with shock at the intensity that replaced his expression of grief and torment. His tears already seemed to dry even. She tried to do the same, and she forced up as much of a smile as she could which made Zach shift his eyes towards her in surprise at that look on her face.

"It was right, what you just did," Thompson whispered at him. "Giving Raijin that chance at the end. That moment, to choose. It… must have been the first time, in his whole life, right?" Thompson did not understand all that Zach had said, but if Kaminari really had been allowed out then that could have only been because Raijin really was something different. It was not a well-known fact, and most people did not believe that Kaminari and Raijin were different beings at all. She found it easy to believe what Zach had been saying though, because she knew that there had to be a reason why her hero had turned evil. She knew that Kaminari could not have been what they all said he was.

Zach's expression darkened angrily though after Thompson's question. He looked ahead towards Gentle who he took slow, staggered steps to walk over to. The Gentle Criminal himself started walking Zach's way at a brisker pace himself since if he waited for Zach it would take a lot longer. Blood dripped down the right side of Gentle's face, though most of it had dried by now. He had been impaled in his left shoulder and bicep by Intanzo's condensed beads too, and his right arm was aching at his side from the fractured bone in it. A lot of Gentle's clothes had been cut up, and he had dark red and brown stains on his costume over his right arm and on his chest.

Zach spoke in a low voice responding to Thompson but loud enough that Gentle heard him too. "Raijin may have decided it thinking it was his one moment of choosing for himself, but that's wrong. And really, it was smart enough that it probably understood the real reason too. It was trapped though and couldn't choose otherwise." Thompson stopped walking and turned even more in confusion towards the boy next to her. "He picked that 'choice' because he was losing to his Quirk. He 'chose' to give up control, in order to win against his Quirk… which at the end, meant that he was still a slave to it. He had to know that. That even when he was making the decision to end his own life, it wasn't a decision at all. It didn't want to die. And it didn't get to choose. The choice had already been made."

Thompson's arms lowered from Zach's front and back. She stopped in place and turned to look back towards Kaminari's unmoving body. Zach stepped away from her and closer towards Gentle. His eyes were half-closed and dark as he walked on agonized legs towards the other man who glanced up and down at Zach's seriously-altered body. Whether it was the sealed scars, or open wounds, bald spot from where hair was ripped, or the areas where his hair was much too long, or just the fact that he was slightly taller now than a couple hours before, Zach looked different. "The existence that just gave me that last talk with Kaminari wasn't the type of person to do it for sentimentality or to help him. Raijin, was a monster. And I told that monster it was losing. That it was losing to its Quirk and had been for its entire life. For something that always needed to win, Raijin couldn't end like that. Maybe it thought giving me a minute with him was enough. Or maybe Kaminari just grabbed on himself while that shade that was Raijin lost control. I don't know," Zach's voice was seriously dark, and he just finished, "but in the end, Raijin died a loser."

"He never once made a single choice. Even his last. It was made for him. I, made it for him," Zach stopped in front of Gentle and stared into the man's eyes. He was furious, so angry in every word out of his mouth, in order to hold back the despair that would have overwhelmed him otherwise. Fuel with rage. You're going to pass out otherwise. It's finished. It's finally- it's not over yet! Zach's eyelids that fluttered for a second at thoughts too relaxing that seeped into his head got snapped away as he yelled at himself to focus up.

Thompson hated Raijin. He made everyone hate Kaminari, she thought, reminding herself in that moment of how much she hated the villain. She did this because she flinched at what Zach just growled. But, killing him like that? Like he said, Raijin had to kill himself. Raijin "knew" why he was doing it, and he couldn't stop himself anyway?! That's, that's insane. Like he had planned on making Raijin suffer the worst death imaginable- Thompson cut off her own thoughts. She felt like she should be scared of Lifebringer for what he just told her he did, but then she thought of what she heard Kaminari apologizing for at the end. He killed Lifebringer's family. Raijin did that! The boy, who saved me when I was going to be raped. Who wrapped that curtain around me! Tears fell back out of Thompson's eyes, but not for Kaminari this time as she stared at Zach's back lined in so many wounds and battle scars.

Zach heard an explosion in the distance to his right. Gentle turned his head left in front of Zach, then refaced the boy before him who turned to him as well. "Gentle," Zach greeted the man standing before him on this street. People were looking towards them from the buildings on their sides. Zach saw a few had phones out, Wonder if any are recording? They should have been on their phones for a lot of the past several hours, and these buildings don't have power to charge up on. Maybe that's why it's so few. Of course some people still have battery though. Kaminari wasn't that precise.

Gentle nodded back at Zach. He glanced behind him then around at the buildings near them but more like he was looking past them at and at the overall city as a whole. "It's quite a mess." He looked back straight at Zach who nodded his head with half-closed eyes and an exhausted look that rivaled any Gentle had ever seen on his face before. "And you don't have any Death left, do you?" Gentle wondered.

Zach did not respond for a second. Then his eyes lowered down to Gentle's left hand. Gentle pulled something out and lifted it in front of him. "No," Zach said before Gentle could get it all the way up.

Gentle flinched and his eyebrows rose up high. "'No?'" Gentle repeated. He sounded confused. "If this many people die-"

"I have my right hand," Zach said. His voice was low. He denied the needle that Gentle had lifted up though. Thompson stared past Zach's back in surprise at the sight of the drug that Gentle had taken out, but she turned to Zach in even more surprise like Gentle was looking at him at his response. "No one is going to die. I'll find a way, to revive everyone- ack, kah-" Zach coughed and his whole body hunched forward from the agony that that caused him. He rose his head back up slowly, and he glared darkly into the villain's eyes in front of him, "If I, didn't have to, focus on reviving… I would have, to capture you right now, too," Zach told the wanted man who tilted his head back and looked down into Zach's dark eyes while lowering the needle of Trigger he had brought out.

"I'm a hero, Gentle." Zach denied the man he shook his head at once more while Gentle's expression flattened out. Zach turned away from the older man and looked back over the city. He stared past Thompson and out into the distance in Tokyo. "I can't inject myself with Trigger. That's against the law. I'll have to find a different way-"

Thompson's eyes bulged. She rose up an arm fast but gasped as she was too slow to call anything out. Gentle had moved quickly up behind Zach Sazaki. The Trigger vial raised in his left hand had the needle injected into Zach's neck. Gentle pressed down on it and Zach winced, his right hand moving up towards his chest and grabbing in front of it while his eyes squeezed shut in pain.

Gentle pulled the empty needle back out. "I can't inject myself with Trigger." That you can even think of this right now, just because people are watching you. Gentle dropped the needle then took a step back from the boy who stood on wobbling legs and just shook in place as the Trigger ran through his blood stream.

Zach shifted his head to the right and stared back at Gentle through the corners of his eyes. Inside the windows and cracked walls of the building on the right side of him, Zach could see all the civilians who were here watching him. Many had recorded Gentle surprising Zach with a dose of Trigger, but he could see their individual expressions, They don't believe it. They can all see right through me, Zach thought. Even Thompson lowered her arm while thinking of the same phrase that Gentle had repeated in his head, even though he already knew what Zach was telling him to do. It had all sounded convincing, up until Gentle stabbed the needle into Zach's neck and the hero did not dodge it. She could tell that Gentle had not really done that against Zach's wishes.

"Thank you," Zach said in a low whisper. He even lifted up a tiny smile as he gave Gentle one last look in the eyes. "My friend."

Gentle felt his own chest clench up while he stared at the barely functioning body of his good friend. Gentle nodded his head once back at Zach while red poured into his eyes. Zach's skin blackened. He started to pulse out Death from all over his body. Zach planted his feet harder into the floor as the Trigger coursed through his veins. Gentle spoke to the boy whose body coated in Death, "Good luck, Zach. I know you can do this. You must."

Zach nodded his head once more while it turned pitch black. His head then tilted up, and he shot into the sky as a pillar of dark smoke that curved above them and twisted around to point in the direction of the nearest sounds of gunfire.

---

"AAgghaa-" Yunami Kai screamed, blood spraying out of her right shoulder where the disfigured bio-engineered villain pierced her with a claw.

"Popfire!" Her old teacher Tarangla yelled her way. Other current Shiketsu students with Tarangla sensei turned back and ran towards their senpai who graduated years before them but was one of the most famous Shiketsu graduates in the country.

Popfire looked terrible. She had bloody gashes and bad wounds all over her body. The Nomu that pierced through her shoulder dug its left claw even deeper while pushing Popfire into the wall that bent backwards around her. Her eyes squinted closed when she was smashed back into it, but Popfire forced her eyes back open with both glowing brighter orange every second. The Nomu pulled back its other arm and swung forward, and Popfire fired a pair of orange beams out of her eyes that pierced the villain by its right shoulder this time.

The Nomu twisted backwards, but it only flinched for a second before curling that right hand into a fist and punching towards the coughing heroine with dimming orange eyes. Popfire's eyes squinted again and started to close while the bulky black fist approached. Endo, I'm, right behind you… A gust of wind slammed into Popfire's head and knocked it backwards into the dented wall behind her.

The Shiketsu students from multiple years in several different classes all stopped in place. They froze as did their teacher whose long purple hair was starting to extend off of her head. Tarangla's jaw dropped as she stared at the man hovering off the ground just in front of Popfire. He floated there with his red, white, and blue cape waving around in the wind that rushed around him from how short he came a stop after flying at supersonic speeds to the sound of those voices shouting in fear for Popfire's life. The man had a flip of brown hair at the top of his forehead that bounced as well when he stopped like that. The top half of his costume was blue and had white stars all over his chest. His pants and gloves were red, though he had blue and white stripes on the sides of his pant legs too. The man wore a golden belt that had a buckle in the center in the shape of the letters 'U S A.'

Star-Spangled Man gripped the Nomu by the throat and lifted it up off the ground. The Nomu ripped its left claw out of Popfire's shoulder and she screamed in pain. It swung both arms at the man holding it up with little effort. Star-Spangled Man's right fist slammed forward and smashed through the Nomu's head before either of its arms could connect. He obliterated the head of the monster and then dropped its limp form to the ground and glared past it towards the villains who were following after the Nomu's trail of destruction and covered the road ahead of him all the way through the next intersection.

"It's Star-Spangled Man!"

"Not just him," a low voice growled, though it was higher-pitched and came from the air above Star-Spangled Man where someone who flew a little slower than her counterpart dropped in.

She floated down just above the street in front of Popfire who she darted a look to her side at. The smooth purple-skinned muscular hero lifted her dark glare back up and down the street in front of her. The lizard-like but humanoid hero rose up both of her arms and bright spheres of red light the size of bowling balls formed around her hands. AANTs flew over the heads of the hesitating villains, and Coola yelled out, "RAA!" She fired beams of light down the road that tracked the dodging robots and annihilated each of them into raining scrap that fell over the heads of the faltering villains stepping back now in fear.

"Shoot them! We can do-" The shouting villain's voice cut off. A blur that moved as fast as Star-Spangled Man had arrived to save Popfire, smashed the yelling villain down into the ground before he could finish speaking.

Blitz might have been an old man with graying hair, but his muscular body was shown through the tight fabric of his costume. He lifted his head up and glared towards the upstart villains, with the look of a hero with decades of experience who just smashed the one villain he targeted to ensure no chance of an organized counterattack. They could see dead heroes on the road in front of them who had fallen recently considering this was the line where the heroes were fighting back against the villains' Nomu vanguard. We were too late. Stuck outside the city. Those fucking bureaucrats!

"We are here now," Star-Spangled Man said. His voice boomed out over the streets. "It's okay."

"Took you, long enough," Popfire muttered through a hoarse voice.

Coola bit down in fury, while Star-Spangled Man tried to keep a more composed look and even smile towards the enemies he was about to go take down. He was angry at himself too though. John glanced to his side at Coola then back at the villains before him who his harsh eyes narrowed dangerously at. We obeyed our orders and left our Japanese comrades to face the threat alone. Now, we will take all of the remaining burden from you.

"You did well," Coola said towards Popfire. She floated higher up in the air and rose her hands with the bright spheres of red getting much larger than the size of bowling balls this time. The red light tinted over her face, and down over the top of Star-Spangled Man's, which is what some of the villains tried to reason with themselves was the reason why the number 1 American hero's eyes started glowing red themselves. Blitz punched his fists together in front of the other two. The ranked 1, 2, and 3 heroes from the United States attacked, and the tired villains screamed and ran or feebly tried to fight back.

"Holy crap! The Americans are here!"

"Run away!"

"They are not alone!" Another villain yelled behind her while stopping her sprint down a connecting road away from the one the American heroes had just arrived on. She stepped back then turned and ran away, only to gasp out as an arrow of golden light shot down into the back of her kneecaps. The light pierced through both of her legs so she fell to the ground screaming in pain.

As Coola and Star-Spangled man flew north past the intersection littered with villains, they crossed the path of the Chinese man in a suit of traditional armor who rode his glowing chariot created through his Imagination Quirk. Blitz sprinted over the road below and stayed with his American companions, but he also crossed the paths of two other Chinese heroes who sprinted below Yue Fei's Imagined chariot and horses that he was firing his bow of light from.

Mulan jumped up as the sprinting older hero from America raced towards her right side. She was running to the east while Blitz crossed her going north, and she sliced her sword to her side while doing a roll in midair over Blitz's blurry head. She slashed her sword through the wing of a villain who flapped their wings and flew up to dodge the running heroes after the flying ones had just passed overhead. They thought they had lifted at the right time, but Mulan leapt up high and slashed her sword too fast for the winged villainess to dodge.

On the ground behind Mulan but focusing on villains cowered to the sides of the road or who dodged his quicker comrades' initial attacks, Szechuman slid over a spray of orange liquid that came out of his feet to keep him almost moving as fast as Mulan. The Spicy Hero slid around crashed vehicles and sprayed his orange liquid onto flames along the road. He slid towards one sidewalk where a pair of villains attacked him with their Quirks, and he ducked under the flying glass shards and red glowing spikes. He pressed his feet down harder while pushing out more of his sauce, and he sprayed it up by the way that he stomped on it in order to target directly into his enemies' eyes. They learned the real reason that he was known as the Spicy Hero as they screamed and dropped on the ground grabbing at their eyes that felt like someone poured hot sauce straight into them.

Mulan aimed her left arm up towards a wall of a building on her right side. Her robotic hand glowed blue and fired a beam directly into the back of the climbing villain four stories up who turned too slowly to realize that she had seen him despite his secondary camouflage ability. "YAOooww-" the villain fell from the air, their eyes rolling back before they dropped onto a crashed car's cabin imbedded into the base of the building. So much destruction all over this city. You villains will pay, Mulan turned her head and glared farther down the street that villains had been in control of.

"Hero reinforcements! We need backup on Kalou and 42nd street! There are more coming in from the west too through Setagaya-"

"We just need to run!"

"Everyone go go go!"

"It's the whole ADTF-"

"Even more of them?!"

Alieri backed up from the heroes facing him. He glared down Gran Torino who just placed his partner down unconscious on the floor behind him. Lemillion and dozens of other young heroes all faced the elderly villain who was past his prime but a deadly force to be reckoned with. He could see the tides of the battle changing around him. "Aedepha, I will try again."

"You won't be escaping- gah-" Gran Torino tried shouting at him, but he winced and his right leg bent at the knee when he rose his voice louder and tried to step. "Don't let him," Gran Torino snapped at the younger heroes who had spun towards their comrade who looked worst off on the street except for maybe Lemillion. Gran Torino gasped at them not to take their eyes off their opponent, but Alieri only used their distraction to start his retreat.

He'll come for Eri again! Gran Torino thought in fear. He ground his teeth and leaned forward, while Lemillion had a similar thought and staggered ahead despite the agony he was in. Their fights against Re-Destro and Machia before even reaching this one had left them exhausted beyond belief, but the thought of that little girl's smiling expression made Gran Torino and Lemillion push forward.

The two of them froze though. Alieri darted his gaze behind him and darted to his left, then he dove right into a roll that he came out of. It's tracking me- "Ah!" He gasped out as the loop of spinning gold flew over the top of his head and then tightened around his chest. The loop had a long rope coming off of it that pulled back and tightened the loop to a close, pressing Alieri's arms to his sides while yanking that villain off his feet and back through the air. The Lasso tightened even more and squeezed Alieri's old lungs, forcing all the breath out of them as the villain flew back down the road at the end of the retracting rope.

Outback Man caught Alieri by the back of his costume when the old man tried slashing his claws even while suffocating and with a golden loop holding him tightly. The younger Japanese heroes and Gran Torino all spun to the Australian man in a cowboy hat who smashed Alieri into the floor and then wrapped the golden rope coming off the Lasso loop around Alieri's legs that he bent backwards and tied even tighter while wrapping his rope around a few more times. Outback Man hog-tied the villain and then knotted the rope to finish it off before standing back up and looking to the heroes in front of him. "Good work tiring this mongrel out, mates."

He tipped his hat up and grinned at his allies, "We're here to relieve you. It's okay now." Fighter jets flew overhead and heroes leapt out of them while Outback Man turned his head and glared off in a direction he heard in his earpiece that more action was in. He finished to the Japanese heroes stunned by the sudden arrivals, "The whole world is here to take care of you good folks. You're not on your own anymore. We'll round up the rest of them from here!"

Television screens around Shibuya turned back on. The giant tv billboards flashed to life, and Crack's face appeared on them all. She spoke in Japanese to the people of the city she flew over in her own jet, "People of Tokyo! I am working to get the power back on. If you can hear me where you are, then know this! Heroes from 154 nations have arrived and are surrounding Tokyo. We are moving into the city! All villains need to surrender now, or you will suffer the might of all the world's heroes! Shigaraki Tomura is down! You have lost your leader. Give yourselves up, villains. You have lost this battle."

"I think she's right about that," Raylei mentioned to the others on the bridge of the Cloak with her. "Which is why all of you need to get out of the city right now," Raylei snapped into her comms.

"Good idea. Let's move."

"Army of Death, get out of there. Finish what you're doing and then move!"

Jetflame stood on a street of the smoking city holding one of his comrades in his arms. "This civilian is injured and needs to get to the hospital," Jetflame told the hero standing in front of him.

Jetflame's disguise was pretty good. Governor Dengar stared at his old comrade who held up a wounded and muscular figure who was dressed in plain street clothes just like Jetflame himself was. The Number 2 British hero stood in the path of his old friend, and Jetflame's words came out dry and unconvincing as he could also see that Dengar saw straight through it. Dengar took in a deep breath then looked the other way while releasing it. He had other problems to deal with, and Jetflame nodded at his old ally's back before pointing his free hand down and firing a jet of fire out of his palm to rise into the air. Time to get out of here.

"Three-pronged evacuation," Gentle ordered his comrades. "First two waves move now. If you can't start evacuating yet, I'll establish the third rendezvous for you to meet me at once heroes have taken control of wherever you're fighting. This is to everyone. Bring out any dead you see to the street. Make sure they're visible. Tell the heroes and civilians around you."

Gentle stopped giving orders for a second while their communications reestablished better than ever since they arrived. He imagined that last small smile he saw on his friend's face before Zach turned into a pillar of black smoke. He bounced himself through the air over the city, but he heard a warning in his ear and dodged quickly away around a tall skyscraper before the flying heroes could pass into his line-of-sight and potentially see him. I wish to help you more. I do not envy the task you are about to undertake. You knew you had to do it though.

Gentle's left hand shook at his side and his eyes darted down to it. He could feel the sensation of pressing his thumb down. I didn't kill him. I… I believe in him. I respect him too much, that I know he can do it even if the task is daunting. I know that he expected that much of me. My decisions have to be based on the most amount of good. He gave me that position. He trusted me to carry it out, even if it meant putting his life at risk. Can he survive this? I- I want to believe that he can. If he can't though, then, as long as he revives this city… it would still have been the right decision.

Because it's the decision he would have made.

A few miles from Gentle's perch on the roof of a building, there were still areas full of far more villains than anyone else. "Hey! You two are Jazz, right?! Come over here!"

"Some of Re-Destro's guys? Oh that's great, we're in a pinch over on 35th-"

"Haven't you guys heard? Shigaraki's down! Re-Destro's out too! We can't win this!"

"We aren't giving up yet," one of the Liberators on the road growled. The experimented-on warrior who had survived many trials to reach this point snarled at the cowards who wanted to flee. "This is our long-awaited revolution. We knew the foreign heroes would arrive sooner or later, and now we have the real chance of inspiring others all over the world that the revolution has begun by killing them too! RAAAA! Who's with me?!"

"YEAH!"

"I'm not running! We can still do… oh."

"You cannot, be serious…"

"Oh fuck. Fuck- FUCK! IT'S HIM!"

The Liberator who just tried to inspire all of the villains around him turned his head and glared towards whatever had all the others cowering and screaming. They started to run from there in the opposite direction that he looked, and even his fellow members of Re-Destro's 100 fled at the sight that he dropped his jaw at. Darkness fell over their street as the sky between buildings was filled with nothing but a swirling wave of black clouds that rumbled down the block. "That's just, not fair," he whispered, right before the cloud dropped onto the street and swept through dozens of villains at once.

The villains in mid-sprint were lifted off their feet by the speed of the rushing cloud slamming into them. Zach understood the potency of his Quirk on Trigger though, and he made sure not to massacre every last villain he rushed his Death into. Trigger at this strong. I never thought I'd use it. Before killing Ares I didn't even know what Trigger that powerful would have been. Now with Ares, and Kaminari… This won't last. The Trigger will run out quicker than it should despite how much it has been developed by so many years of research. I had nothing in the tank when I took it. I'm so powerful right now I can barely comprehend it. I need to revive everyone fast. There's no time!

The dark cloud hitting an intersection got several sets of glowing red eyes on it. The cloud ripped apart, and black pillars shot down different streets. It went over the heads of heroes while dipping down and sweeping through the bodies of villains. Other tiny pillars dropped onto the street around heroes though, and a low voice growled out of the darkness at each of them. "Move back." Zach's darkness flooded into the corpses that heroes were protecting or holding with tears in their eyes.

Zach spotted a familiar face on the road. The body of the man lay flat with his head sideways, his eyes still open. Zach flew down towards him and grabbed onto his old comrade's body using a right arm. "RaaaAAA! Roady, Roady can you hear me?" Zach revived his friend from long ago whose eyes blinked a few times and then snapped open wide when he realized who was in front of him. "You're alright. You're alright," Zach's right arm faded into black wisps while his dark head blew back up into the rolling cloud of darkness above him. I was right not to let Roady die so long ago. It might have saved his leg, but letting someone die just to save them from their injuries isn't worth it when they might die again so soon after…

"Lifebringer," Roady whispered while standing up on shaking legs. He felt exhausted and like he could pass back out in a second if he needed, but his heart raced as he stared up at the massive power of his friend who finally started to thin out after flying his massive form another two blocks away. Dark clouds spread out the width of several blocks and blackened the sky. He won. He did it! Roady lifted a smile even while others around him including people revived just like him continued to gawk after the unfathomable power that was Lifebringer.

Roady was so busy standing up that it took him a few seconds to realize. He could see the broken steel in the corner of his vision, and he turned his head towards the prosthetic leg laying destroyed on the street. His eyes twitched and then slowly lowered down…

"Everyone stay back." Zach's voice was scratchy and deep. The heroes around him backed away while Zach moved his huge body through the collapsed wall of an apartment building. Chunks of rubble lifted up and steel bars pushed to the sides. "Ragdoll," Zach whispered while lifting the body of the green-haired hero he filled with Death. More darkness sprayed out behind him and filled other collapsed heroes on the street.

Arms reached out of the dark cloud wherever the pillars flew down towards bodies. Those hands touched the necks of the heroes who Zach could not tell if they were alive or not. Lemillion turned his head from where he had been leaned up against a wall by Med-Med who was trying to help him and Gran Torino out as best she could. Gina Jio gulped in front of her and watched as Zach Sazaki's Quirk filled the body of Backdraft whose injuries were so severe that she knew there was no point in checking his vitals. The firefighter-looking hero whose stomach was ripped open hunched up in the air. "RAAAaaaa- Gah- HAAA!" Lifebringer's voice screamed out of the darkness while Backdraft's stomach sealed up. Blood faded on the bodies of the heroes around them. Ragdoll's eyes flickered open and then bulged huge as she heard the menacing voice screaming in agony all around her.

Zach saw her eyes open though, and he lowered Ragdoll down to the ground softly inside of the dark cloud. Herobro put his hands up over his red skull and grabbed the top of it in disbelief as he looked around the road that had been littered in the corpses of heroes a minute ago. Then he snapped his head back up and spun to his right as did every hero on the street who watched Lifebringer fly off. He's heading the same direction Nagiso went, Rylo thought, imagining his friend who had run off after Outback Man arrived and took down Alieri for them.

Jelloman reached the hero he had left behind on a different street a while back. He was panting but took in a deep breath and held it while looking down in pain at his colleague's body. "Bouncer Man," Nagiso Mondo whispered. "We did it. I want you to know, we held off long enough-" Nagiso's speech to his fallen colleague who he had sworn to the body of that he would carry on and finish the fight, cut short. He turned his head sideways and then looked up, his jaw dropping at the sight of the rolling black cloud that just burst out past the corner and then blew his direction.

"Move back, Nagiso," Zach ordered his old middle school classmate.

While Zach started to revive Bouncer Man, Herobro turned back himself back a few roads down. He looked towards the wall that Gran Torino and Lemillion were resting near, but he looked past them to the woman who was making a commotion that drew the others' attentions. Ragdoll was snapping her head back and forth and looking at all the young heroes in disbelief. "Search, it's working," Ragdoll whispered.

Gran Torino's eyes bulged as he heard the woman's voice behind him. He looked towards her and she stared off in shock after that black cloud that fully went around another corner now. She gasped in disbelief and then a smile spread over her face, as she breathed out, "I have my Quirk back."

Zach's black smoke pulled away from Bouncer Man whose chest heaved up and down while he lay on the street. His eyes flickered open but closed after a second anyway, even though he saw the dark cloud above him. "Thanks," Bouncer Man's voice was soft and he was unconscious again after a second anyway, but Zach heard him. Zach's huge dark pillar with red eyes on the front of it turned a bit to his right side at the older boy standing there staring back at him.

Zach and Nagiso met eyes. The nineteen year old's shock from seeing Bouncer Man back alive faded. He looked into the eyes of his underclassman who stared right back at him in a surreal moment. Then, the left corner of Nagiso's lips lifted up the slightest amount from being just flat. He gave Zach a nod, one that the dark pillar seemed to return to him as it moved down and up itself before turning away.

The dark pillar shot off to the end of the street at another intersection. Televisions and phones on all roads around him started playing the same message aloud simultaneously. Zach could hear them in his massive form. In all directions looked to be damage and dead, and so his massive form split and flew out in different directions with red eyes glowing on each portion. A familiar voice yelled out around him as he flew down different roads. "Attention people of Tokyo! Bring out your dead! DING DING! Bring out your dead!"

Crack typed away quickly on her jet's console but bit her tongue as she was pushed out of the very systems she had just taken back over. He used the links I just got up, because he's been in my systems already. "Rebel," Crack hissed at her console, speaking into her headset even while her line with other heroes was cut off at the moment. "One of these days I am going to hunt you down, you little-"

"Bring out your dead!" Rebel yelled into his microphone, though his smirk rose higher as he listened to Crack's threats. He cut off his mic's connection to all the televisions and phones he hacked through the city's WiFi he was getting control over, and he interrupted Crack herself on just a link between the two of them. "Promises promises. Mwha!" He smacked a kiss at her through their headsets before getting back to the announcements he was making to the people of Tokyo.

Crack dropped her jaw as his voice actually cut off from the important announcement he was making to the people in order to say that to her. Her fists clenched over her console and her face turned red with anger, redder than it already was.

"Zach's doing it?" Ashido whispered in disbelief. She shook her head around and then sprinted as fast as she could through a city still smoking and burning and with gunfire and explosions ringing out in different directions. The tides seemed to be turning in favor of the heroes, but the rumor going around quickly reached Ashido and she made for one location as fast as she could.

"Z-Zach!" Ashido yelled up into the air. "Come to me! It's Trabo!"

Zach did not hear her but had just reached a couple of others in his old Class 1 from Shiketsu. A dark shadow of a figure pulled off of the larger dark cloud that shadowed through the windows this girl had waved him down from. "Zach, it's Dendo," Himazuri told her friend who stepped towards Dendo and looked him up and down.

Himazuri dropped back to her knees next to Dendo's outstretched and bloody legs. "I stopped the bleeding," Himazuri whispered up at Zach. She looked ahead at Dendo's closed eyes on his very pale face again. "I, I don't know if he'll make it though. I-" she sounded hesitant on what she was trying to say. Himazuri spun back towards Zach's dark figure then looked at the boy she had kissed before he finally passed out from the blood loss. "I don't know," she whispered, her hands shaking as she grabbed onto Dendo's legs that he had been unable to feel at the end there. "Zach, should I have, let him die- or should we, let him-"

"Dying is never preferable," Zach's low voice came out less scratchy as he looked down and into Himazuri's eyes that stared back at him without fear. Even as a wave of rolling Death hovered outside of the glass windows. "Dendo's life is valuable be it the first or second time. I promise, Himazuri. You did a good job stabilizing him. Now he needs more help-"

"You're right!" Himazuri did not know what she was faltering over. She had become doubtful over the thought that saving Dendo had been all important. The fact that Zach was here meant that he would have been saved anyway. Even one less death for Zach to revive is worth it! Dendo thought the same. It's why we fought so hard- part of why! "I'm going to go get him a doctor!" She yelled at Zach with confidence in her voice that that would be enough for him.

Zach's red eyes locked on Dendo's pale face for another second. He started nodding though and his body faded into wisps that pulled back into the larger cloud hovering outside. I don't have time to stand around, and I can't waste any Death if it isn't necessary. You're strong, Dendo. You'll pull through!

"Zach! ZACH! H-Hey! OVER HERE!" Ashido jumped up and down and waved down a pillar of black smoke she saw flying through the air above her.

"Mina?"

"It's Trabo! We were fighting Dismembermen together…"

Zach flooded Death into the body that Ashido turned towards only to blink in surprise as Zach was already there. Death swirled around her and she spun in a circle looking at it all. "How…" Ashido started to whisper. "You still had this much power?" She wondered in disbelief into the side of the cloud. Does he have an ear right here? I can't tell where-

"A villain injected me with Trigger. It's on camera," Zach explained to his friend who cocked her head to the side in confusion as to why any villain would do something so stupid.

Oh! A "villain?" I bet it was one of his Death friends! "Ah, well then. I see. I guess that means you can use the power it gave-"

"RooaaAAAAA!" Zach's voice cut off the girl whose eyes shook in fear for him. She reached out towards the dark cloud that pulled away from her hand. "What are- ahh, you-" Zach's dark body ripped away from Ashido's hand she tried to grab him with. "Still Death, Mina," Zach snarled at the girl he had never revived who was being way too careless trying to grab onto him.

"You don't have to do this, Zach," Ashido cut back in on what she was just saying. She had started it as a joke to justify his actions and jump in on the fake idea that Zach had not meant to get injected with Trigger. The sound of his agonized scream though made her reach for him out of instinct alone. "Stop it. You can stop," she gasped at him. "You can't handle this- Please!" She exclaimed as Trabo started sitting up on the floor in front of her while Zach stopped screaming for a second.

His dark head in the cloudy darkness turned towards her before he could fly away. "I'll be alright, Mina. I can do this. Trust me…"

Her hand shook as she held it up towards his retreating dark form. His red eyes were still looking down towards hers though. Zach was watching her expression and waiting, and Ashido gulped down her own voice and just nodded her head. "Okay," she whispered. She forced a smile onto her face. "You know I do," she added, knowing that he could still read her lips even if he had flown too high up now.

"Pinky?" Trabo muttered. He sounded a bit confused on where he was. Memories rushed back to him though while Ashido looked down and ran to his side that she dropped next to. She looked down at his face and her eyes had tears in the corners of them. He looked back in her eyes then turned away quickly and with reddening cheeks. "Oh man," his head bowed a little. "I made, a total fool of myself," he face-palmed thinking of the embarrassing final moments where he was crying and begging her not to let him die. Of course Zach was going to bring me back! He's the strongest guy in the whole world. Man, why did I-

"Hahh," Ashido sighed. "I was going to wait until you take me on that date to do this…" Trabo lowered his palm from his face and started to turn back to the pink girl. She grabbed him this time though and pulled him towards her, and she kissed the boy on the lips before pulling him back away from her still with that big smile on her face to see him alive again.

That look alone was all it took to tell Trabo that she was not thinking about his death as some embarrassing display of fear at all. She was just happy he was alive. He lifted his arms and put them around Pinky's sides. "Thanks," he whispered to the girl he had fought alongside and died in the arms of. Would have sucked a lot more to go through that alone, he admitted to himself. It had been scary enough as it was. Trabo lifted his head though after hugging the cute girl he now needed to think of a date idea for, and he looked into the direction where the dark cloud had flown off in. Thank you, Zach. Please, save any of the others if they've died too!

Two dark pillars flew in from opposite directions towards a tall building with a label on the side of it that read 'Heroally.' The darkness smashed into the building on the first floor, and then dark clouds pushed up through every floor of the building. Explosions of darkness pulsed out of the windows as Death rose up all of Heroally Tv. "RRAAAAA- AHH- raggh-ugh- GRAAA- RROOOAARARARA!"

The combined pillars flew all the way to the top floor and then burst up into the sky above after smashing out the windows up there. They swirled around and pulled back together, long tendrils of Death twitching and shaking as the pain of reviving hundreds coursed through his entire consciousness.

On another street, a heroine who ran back to it to make sure that it was still under control turned her head when she saw the dark pillar flying her way. "Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered to the boy who sped down this street and then screamed out in agony while reviving any of the dead heroes he could see.

There was a hole in one wall that he flew over to and landed inside of, quickly looking around to see if any of the civilians in here had been hurt. "Any dead?" His deep voice asked the people who all pulled back away from him, some shaking their heads rapidly to try and get him to go.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu called up towards him.

Zach turned and he dropped down to the street again. More of his dark cloud pulled into his body so he looked like a more humanoid form, though he was eight feet tall as he marched towards Yaoyorozu. Other smaller pillars of Death flooded into the bodies on the road and revived them while he yelled and growled in pain. Zach's voice got quieter though as he walked towards Yaoyorozu and looked at a pile of blood and guts and bones on the street in front of her.

Zach glanced over towards a tied-up villain with large shoulder vats who dropped his jaw at the sight of Death. Source was beaten and bloodied and tied up by very strong binds that Creati had made to hold him. "It's Bikergang, Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered to the boy who stared back at the pile of mush that had no clear body making it up. "I'm sorry," she said.

Creati paused for a second but then started in an even softer voice, "And I'm sorry, about Kaminari." Her lips pursed and her eyes watered as she brought it up, just thinking of how he had to feel right now with those feelings mixing with the agony of all these revivals. "Having to do that-"

"Not now," Zach said. His voice came out calmer. Small puffs of darkness poured out of his mouth then pulled back in like he was breathing deeply. He just kept staring down at the mush pile that was Bikergang.

Creati pursed her lips again and stopped apologizing to him. That's not what he needs to hear right now. I need to try and counter some of the negative emotions and pain. "Zach, Airi came," Yaoyorozu told him. He twitched but kept staring down at the floor. "She showed up and saved my life," Yaoyorozu added with a smile spreading on her face. "She saved a lot of people's lives here. Stopped Source. She was, amazing."

Zach took in another deep breath then smiled. His smokey black face curved up a smile on the bottom of it despite looking like a gaseous form. I did it. I didn't know after she left, but I do now. Without a doubt. It worked. She's alright. I succeeded. Yaoyorozu had succeeded too, because Zach felt more like a hero as he thought about the girl who was no longer here for Zach to see. They had said their goodbyes though. Hearing that she had come and saved lives was all Zach needed. "Okay," Zach whispered. "Let's do this," he told himself, hyping himself up even more in his head while on the rush of hearing about Airi.

Zach stuck his arms out and pointed his hands down at Bikergang's mush pile. I am strong. "HaaaaaaaAAAAHH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Do it! "RAAAAAAAGGHHAA!"

Death flooded down so condensed but still gaseous as it swirled around the mess of a corpse that Bikergang had turned into. Death swirled around pieces of a man who had been obliterated in the explosion. The screams Zach was making sounded frustrated at first, but Yaoyorozu heard the transition into agony as Zach kept screaming. She stared into the dark cloud that Zach had surrounded Bikergang with, and she watched as the flesh started rippling and pulling together. Bones reconstructed while Zach screamed in the pain of his own bones breaking, his own muscles tearing apart, and his own skin searing as it simultaneously reformed on Bikergang's body in an amazing display of how far his revival abilities had advanced to. Pieces of bone and chunks of skull pulled towards each other and expanded to fill in the gaps for pieces completely destroyed or blown too far away.

There was barely anything left of him, Yaoyorozu thought in shock. Not one part of her believed that Bikergang could be saved from the second she saw what Source's explosion had done to him. Here she stood though, looking down at the reformed body of a naked hero whose clothes had not been reconstructed when the rest of his body was. "Zach, that's amazing," Yaoyorozu whispered. She said it louder because the wheezing cloud in front of her needed more motivation and encouragement, "You did it! Zach, you're amazing!"

Thanks, Momo, Zach thought as he understood exactly why she was yelling that at him. He saw the reluctance on her face to do it. The pain that shouting this at him would keep him going and reviving even more people that would put him in even more pain. You're right. I am amazing. Prove it. PROVE IT! Zach snapped his head up and then flew into the sky again. I swore to him. I made that promise! And I can't stop until it's done!

"HAAAA!"

"OOww-YAAAAHHH!"

Fly-By looked up from his comrades he was facing at the edge of an alley full of more light than usual due to a broken corner on the front of the building to his north. Oslope was down on one knee in front of an older comrade of theirs whose eyes were still partly open while he lay slumped against the wall, his clothes still drenched from the ice he had been laying on earlier that melted a lot when Jetflame was near. Vintage's heart had finally stopped beating no matter how much emergency first-aid they had tried to give him.

Fly-By ran to the edge of the alley and waved a hand up in the air. "Lifebringer!" He called out.

Zach darted his red eyes down towards the alley. He flew towards the figure who moved to the side for him, and he flew over to the older man whose eyes were partially open and whose chest was not moving. Zach still reached his right arm out and touched a condensed hand of darkness too dense for even the smallest sliver to slip out. It acted more as a barrier against his own right hand despite being Death itself, as Zach just hardened the particles as a barrier between his fingers and the man's neck. Dead. These three are Army of Death. Zach started to revive Vintage and he groaned while the wounds on the dead anti-hero started to seal.

"Thank you, Lifebringer," Oslope started. He sounded hesitant. The big man looked past the dark shadowy figure in front of him and to Fly-By who tapped on his right ear a few times but was getting nothing. None of them had since some bright flashes knocked out their communications for good during Zach's fight against Raijin. "What should, we do next?" Oslope wondered to the dark figure who stood back up fully from Vintage whose head just bobbed a few times looking like he might pass out again right away.

"Stay awake, buddy," Fly-By snapped over to Vintage who shook his head around then jumped up and stared down at his sealed body and the smooth skin under his cut-up clothing. "And yeah, uh, Lifebringer. We're unsure-"

At least keep pretending like you're still normal civilians. "You were probably ordered to evacuate already," Zach said in a low voice. He turned back for the edge of the alleyway, and he told them before flying off, "Get going."

"Understood, Commander!" Oslope called up after him with a smirk spreading over his face.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Fly-By snapped at Oslope who pulled back at the annoyed look covering Fly-By's face.

"What? You watched that too. I wanted to say it to him at least once," Oslope retorted and shrugged while still grinning that he got to respond with that to the original Death. Lifebringer's the coolest. "You alright, Vintage?" Oslope wondered back towards the old man who he had rested against that wall himself after carrying his dead friend down this alley. "Good to walk? Because it's time to go."

Vintage nodded slowly while still looking up in the sky after Lifebringer. "Wish he would have stayed for another second," Vintage just whispered. "Thank you, Lifebringer."

"Let's move," Fly-By snapped, and he ran out into the street. "Let's head to the primary rendezvous. Just hope they haven't left us behind already…"

"…AAAAaaaahh- Raaa…"

Ballerclava shook her head around and got to her feet. She looked around her and watched as other heroes shaking on the ground opened their eyes. Black wisps pulled out of their bodies and merged together on the street then flew after that dark cloud she heard the screaming coming from when she opened her eyes. Ballerclava reached up and pulled off her ripped black ski mask, lowering it down to her side and curling her fingers into it while watching Lifebringer sweep through the city, screaming in agony.

"Did he, oh my God- he saved us! I'm alive!"

"Is this real?"

Ballerclava glanced around at some of the other heroes then watched as a comrade stepped over towards a corpse on the edge of the street. A giant shard of glass impaled the villain through their back and out their front. The whole street and both sidewalks were covered in glass shards, but this villain still had one sticking out of him. His eyes were wide open, and blood stained lines down from the corners of his lips and out of his nostrils. His eyes were still partly open, and he lay there over the hood of a burnt-out vehicle, his Quirk in mid-use so his stretchy arms were extended and laying coiled up on the hood and the floor below him.

This was not the only body Ballerclava could see. We stopped taking it easy on the villains early. With so many of us dying, we couldn't hold back. Ballerclava glanced around at the bodies, a few of which she was responsible for herself. He didn't revive them. Not one villain.

She lifted her gaze into the distance where she saw pieces of darkness scattering around the city. She thought again of his yells of pain when she opened her eyes. I suppose it's his decision, Ballerclava shrugged. Her lips curled down more though as she thought, He's doing it. He's honestly trying to bring everyone back? Except for villains- that's his choice. Only his choice. Because… Chills went down her spine at the unsettling thought.

He is Death itself.

---

"Dislocate every limb."

"I'm holding it down," Shoji growled next to him.

"Don't move, Hypnos!" Hawks yelled at the woman who clicked her empty pistol a few times then darted her eyes towards a nearby alleyway. "You won't escape!"

"You don't have the feathers, Hawks!" Hypnos yelled back at him. "Nomu! Throw them off you!"

"Hold on, Dark Shadow!"

"I'm trying here! WHOA!" Dark Shadow got knocked backwards. The bloodied and struggling Nomu staggered onto both legs, and the heroes had to wonder if it was regeneration or if the monster was just this durable and determined to keep fighting them.

Hypnos was running for the alley, and Hawks sent some feathers towards her but turned his head when he saw Shoji getting thrown off in his peripheral vision right after Tsukuyomi did.

Now in his peripherals was the white-haired woman who he swore he could see smirking the second he turned. She lifted her left hand that was on the far side of her body after she turned sideways, so it was out of Hawks' view for a second. She had pulled something out that his eyes snapped back to, though he had to dart them at the Nomu again as well when it turned towards him. His remaining feathers split directions. Two flew at the Nomu's legs and tripped it up, while the others shot at Hypnos to hit her before whatever she was arming could be thrown.

Hypnos threw it first though. Hawks grabbed the round metal device and pushed it more towards the middle of the street and upwards, then he crossed his arms as the fireball grenade went off and destroyed his remaining feathers. When he uncrossed his arms, he spotted Hypnos putting a new magazine into her pistol, but he could not focus on her much since the Nomu's arms coiled like springs and then shot out towards him. He saw that coiling motion a second before they released and punched towards him, so the feathers he just used to trip the Nomu pushed up on the bottoms of both arms. The swings came so close to knocking his block off, but he ducked forward too and just felt the wind over his back. Both of those arms passing over him whipped down though, and without the necessary feathers on his back to fly him quickly away, he could only try to dodge using his feet.

He dove to his right, but he got nicked by the right arm and then pieces of the street that blew up after him too when those passing fists smashed into the ground.

"Hawks! Shoji, hold it down- Ah!" Tokoyami was thrown backwards into a wall. Shoji jumped behind the Nomu to put it between him and Hypnos as he saw her aiming at him.

Even if I do defeat them, the tides have turned. I can sense that this battle is lost. It is time to leave and return another day. "We're getting out of here!" Hypnos yelled at her personal Nomu's back. "Come!"

"We can't let her escape!" Tokoyami yelled as he got back to one knee again.

Shoji ran forward and punched forward upper arms on either side. He got ready his lower arms that he showed the Nomu he was going to punch with, but the top arms extended while curving away from the bio-weapon. They punched past towards where he heard Hypnos' voice precisely due to his great sensory powers even after blocking her from his view with the Nomu's body. She was not expecting such precise punches to come flying at her, but she aimed her pistol closely and shot Shoji through his upper right arm that made him wince and stumble towards the Nomu. His eyes grew huge under his silver bangs to see the monster winding up a fist in front of him.

Luckily, Hypnos' order took precedence, and the Nomu leapt back towards the woman who it landed directly in front of while Shoji pulled back his shot arm. Tsukuyomi struggled to get back up again, Dark Shadow clawing the ground in front of it to try and drag his user to his feet. Hawks was bloodied but pulled even his burnt and mostly-destroyed feathers to his body to lift him up that way. They could still see Thunderclap's corpse in the costume of Iscariot near them, both of his arms destroyed. The sight motivated Hawks back to his feet even when his legs were struggling to stand on their own.

"Let's go," Hypnos ordered her creation.

She reached out for it while the heroes yelled at her to wait. Hypnos flinched. Her eyes shifted up as did the Nomu's, as did the heroes' ahead of her. Ka-BOOOF! Something dropped out of the air directly in front of Hypnos. The road below her and the Nomu cracked, and those cracks shot away from the landing spot and in all directions including below the heroes who wobbled around as the ground shook. Whatever just dropped from the sky was glowing bright white light, and Dark Shadow pulled back into Tokoyami's body which made the dark teenager collapse to the ground again as Dark Shadow was the only thing keeping him up.

Shoji darted a look towards his friend and started jogging towards him to protect his weakened comrade. He darted a look back towards Hypnos and her Nomu though, Who is… Shoji's thoughts cut off and he stopped running.

The figure who dropped from the sky analyzed the scene quickly. He reached his right arm out and grabbed Hypnos by the arm she tried to swing at him that had the pistol in it. Crack! Her bone snapped as he closed his fist around her arm. "AHheee-yaa! Faaahk- You! Who are- Nomu!" Hypnos screamed. "DESTROY HIM! Save me!" She screamed.

"I heard there was another Nomu spotted here," the blond-haired man standing over six feet tall stated. He was muscular and wore a white t-shirt and black sweatpants that each had a few rips in them. His face had scars all over it, just like his neck, and his exposed arms and lower legs that had some bloody cuts that showed this person had been in fights recently. He was not wearing a costume or anything, and he just said in a low voice, "I am regular Japanese citizen. Surrender, villain-" Exodus' eyes darted towards the dark creature that lunged at him.

Both black arms pushed out towards the man who rose his free arm faster than either of the Nomu's arms were moving. He pushed one dark arm aside while leaning his head away from the other. Hypnos ripped her broken arm from his grasp by prying his fingers off using her other hand, but she stumbled backwards as it felt more like he just released her while she was pulling away with all her strength. The Nomu's arms clapped inwards after Exodus parried one and avoided the other. He leaned towards the creature though, and he put both of his hands up on the sides of the Nomu's head first. Its arms finishing swinging inwards and clapped into his shoulders, and he winced. Then, a bright white light came out of his fingers and incinerated the Nomu's head between them.

The Nomu's arms dropped limp. It collapsed to its knees and then forward onto its stomach, not moving. Hypnos dropped her jaw while she stopped stumbling backwards, grabbing at her arm in pain. She had been looking for a way out while her Nomu fought against this man, but she thought she would have more time to do so.

"Th-That's impossible!" She exclaimed while looking down at the dead Nomu that had helped her fend off Hawks and those powerful teenagers for all this time. In a second?! Her head snapped up and she yelled at the man, "That was the next best Nomu after only the Ultimate! You, you couldn't have-"

"Is that what the one I just destroyed at U.A. was called?" Exodus wondered.

Hynos' face paled. So powerful. Stronger than the Ultimate? Her lips stayed trembling and her eyes nervous. She gripped her broken right arm with her other hand. "I- I surrender. Please, don't hurt me. Just do what I say, and don't hurt me. In fact," she stepped closer to him from where she had pulled back after breaking free during his clash with her Nomu. "I want you to do what I say. Whatever I tell you to do," she continued, stepping closer to him again while Exodus' head twitched and his eyes clenched shut.

"S-Stop that!" Tokoyami yelled. Panic filled his voice. He'll kill us all!

Hawks and Shoji had similar thoughts after seeing that man start twitching and the woman past him smirking more each second as she tried to take control over him. Hawks imagined the Wampajawa video and how Exodus was the one to fly in and bail Zach and Gentle out of danger. How he was the first one to land behind Death in the final charge against the Capos. Shoji could only imagine what had gone on at U.A., but a Nomu stronger than the one that had defeated the three of them had been bested by this figure leaving only minor wounds to be seen. He was not panting nor looked exhausted at all like the rest of them.

"Hypnos! Stop it!" Hawks screamed towards her, trying to interrupt her thoughts with some outside stimulus. His interference was unnecessary.

Exodus' eyes glowed white. His body stopped shaking, and Hynos pulled her head back while feeling a sharp pain in it. "Ahh- ah! How?!" She exclaimed while grabbing at the side of her head with her left hand as her head hurt more than her right arm did now. "How can you resist?! AHH- HOW?!"

Hypnos' screams of pain and frustration trailed off. Her heart raced faster than ever. He just broke free without any outside assistance. He fended off my control without… Hypnos' frustrated and confused thoughts cut. Her breathing started to get more and more rapid. Her complexion paled more so her skin was nearly the same color as her snow-white hair.

Exodus looked towards the body of Iscariot. He turned his head and looked around the area at the battle damage close to them. He glanced to the end of the block and saw Gargantuan's body slumped into a wall that he had cracked through and left a huge indent in. Then his eyes shifted back to Thunderclap whose arms were missing, who looked so agonized in death with dried tear streaks on his face that maintained an expression of despair Exodus' gaze locked on. The sensation of attempted-takeover he just felt in his head reverberated with the name that Hawks had called this villain.

The stoic man who always kept a very calm composure about him, turned his head slowly back towards Hypnos. Anger spread over his expression. Pure rage flashed while his glowing white eyes burned brighter. Exodus imagined it in his head while his hands shook in sheer hatred at his sides. Zombieman, Exodus thought. He could hear Zach's scream during the Battle of 6 Armies. He was surrounded by five thousand villains himself all focusing on him, and Zach had tried to assist with the Asian army as Exodus was trying to take them on alone along with all the Africans at once as the early distraction.

"ZOMBIEMAN! Stop this! PLEASE! We're your friends! AHHH- listen to ME!"

He saw that monster in the Asian Army sending his Commander flying. He heard the beast roar, "EEeeerRRAAAOoo RROOOOOAAAAaaghhuuUUOO!" Its screeching roars echoed in his head. He thought of it fighting its own friend. Their Commander who screamed in such pain to have to do it. Exodus then thought even farther back than the Battle of 6 Armies though.

He thought back on a scene not many knew of. The first time Zombieman died. Exodus thought of getting down on a knee next to him, and looking into Zombieman's eyes as Death spoke next to them. "…you said you didn't want it. I know you said that. But please, please Zombieman. We don't want you to go."

"Yeah, let Death bring you back."

"I- I've been…"

"I can still revive you. It's your decision, but please, let me."

Exodus remembered the hesitant expression on the dying man's face. Zombieman looked so young, despite being so much older than any of them who were there at the time. He recalled getting down onto a knee next to Zombieman who did not want to answer their Commander as he heard how much it sounded to be hurting Death to let him die. Exodus had heard that voice too, and he knelt on his right knee next to the old man who turned his face towards him while laying dying on his back. "You are our comrade. Our important comrade."

I am not great with words. Others have told me that many times. Exodus thought of how he stared into his dying comrade's eyes and did not know what to say. Zombieman was poisoned and dying with blackish-purple liquid mixed with blood dripping down the corners of his purple lips. Yet he remembered how those lips lifted up a little at the corners at what he just said. He had glanced himself to the side at Michael who just said something to the dying man, and then he looked back at the old man who looked so young, and he finished while making eye contact with him, "Our important, friend."

Exodus had never had friends. He called Zombieman a friend though as others around him called him the same thing. And he knew in that moment that Zombieman was a friend. And then the Triakuza turned him against us. Tortured him, by forcing him to fight us…

It was because Exodus had seen it before that he was able to piece it all together so quickly. It was his knowledge of the intricate power structure of the world's villain organizations that he knew everything Iscariot had done during his time as a villain. The hero Thunderclap. Turned against the people he swore to protect. Killing them. Out of his right mind! Exodus' body vibrated while Hypnos took a step back, and another step, panic covering her face while tears filled her eyes.

She tried to turn away-

Exodus stomped onto the back of her right leg when he flashed to stand right behind her. The bone of her lower right leg snapped and pierced through the skin. "EEAa-" her voice cut off as Exodus curled his left hand around the left side of her torso. His arm was swinging around his body in a blur of white light. It curled around her side and he grabbed onto her, then he released towards the opposite side of the road.

Hypnos slammed into the wall and coughed, spit splashing from her lips and cracks echoing in her head that rung from how hard she smashed into that wall that she bounced off of. A flash of white light filled her vision before she could scream again, and then she could not scream at all as Exodus' right hand caught her around her face. His palm covered both her mouth and nose while she was trying to breathe in after gasping out in that much pain. His blue eyes glowing bright glared into hers as he pulled her head close to his own. Then his palm started to glow, and he burnt her face around her nose and mouth while she screamed out a muffled yell of agony and terror at the sight of those eyes of righteous murderous fury.

Exodus slammed his left fist forward into her chest. He dropped her by her face and she breathed in, only for him to curl that right hand into her hair as she was dropping, and he burnt her long white hair off while tearing to the side. "Light Kick." He spun his glowing right leg into her body while she was dropping, and blood splashed out of her mouth as she had just finally gotten a breath only to cough it all up while more bones broke inside her.

She started to fly off from the kick, but he sprinted after her and kicked her back the other way against her momentum. Then he curled both fists together over his head and smashed her down into the ground. She hit the floor and ragdolled back up off it while Exodus covered his right hand in glowing light, and he slammed it down as a fist into her body-

"Exodus!"

Exodus' right hand opened up and instead of slamming the fist into her chest, his fingers curled around the fabric of her costume. Blood dripped out of Hypnos' nose, from her burnt crispy lips, and from the right leg and right arm that had snapped so badly that bones were sticking out of her skin. Exodus lifted his head and then lowered it as the dark figure dropped out of the air and landed on the street with him.

Hawks shook his head around and snapped the stupefied and somewhat scared look from his expression. He turned towards the dark figure who just dropped down while Exodus was burning and breaking the villain. "What are you doing?" Zach's voice came out more his own as he landed and snapped at his old comrade.

Exodus held her by her shirt while her arms and legs just dangled below her. Hypnos was still breathing, but her eyes were swollen and her body in bad shape. As Zach landed here and asked him that question, a separate dark cloud flew to the end of the street and absorbed into Gargantuan's massive body. "NnnrrraaaAAH!" Zach screamed out while dipping his chin down into his flaring humanoid chest that lost shape for a second as he felt giant bone breaks in his chest piercing his organs, like how they had for Gargantuan.

No Death smoke went towards Iscariot's corpse. "Put that villain down and get out of here, Exodus. I still have many more people to revive…" Zach started to lift back up off the ground, but Thunderclap remained dead on the street.

"Z-Zach!" Tokoyami called up towards his classmate.

Zach looked back over at his friend who hesitated for a second while looking back towards Iscariot. "Aren't you, going to revive Thunderclap?"

"No. I don't have the strength to revive all heroes, citizens, and the villains too-"

"Zach, Iscariot wasn't," Shoji started. He hesitated while thinking of what Zach had told him about Zombieman himself. Something suddenly clicked in his head as he thought of the way that Exodus himself had looked back and forth between Iscariot and Hypnos too before starting this smack-down. "She- Hypnos, was controlling him. Thunderclap fought her with us, when she released him."

Zach stared down at Shoji and Tokoyami. Then he turned and looked back at the armless body of the former hero who he had hated because of how Iscariot turned on the people who believed in him. The same rage that had filled Exodus bubbled inside Zach's body. He turned back towards Exodus and nodded down at him in apology for his earlier outburst and for not trusting his old comrade. "Sorry. Continue," Zach told the man who nodded back at Zach and then re-curled the hand he was gripping Hypnos with into a glowing fist.

Tokoyami and Shoji's eyes bulged and they spun back to Exodus themselves, while he glared down at Hypnos' half-closed swollen eyes that still managed to get a little bigger in sheer terror as Exodus' blue eyes stared into her soul. "I'm going, to have to step in here," Hawks said, limping forward on a bloody right leg. Exodus turned his way and Hawks smiled anxiously back at the big man. "Unfortunately," he added. "I can't let this just continue." He gave Exodus a hopeful look, as he knew that he did not have the strength to try and stop this insane AoD member right now.

Zach flew down towards Iscariot/Thunderclap's body in the meantime and he pointed two dark arms down at him. More of a dark cloud down the street flew towards Zach and funneled into his body as he pushed darkness out into the mind-controlled villain's body. I'm sorry this had to happen to you, Thunderclap. Zach felt like crying as he felt the extreme agony that Thunderclap had been in as he passed which had nothing to do with bleeding out from his destroyed arms. Those arms were reconstructing on the floor on Thunderclap's sides to the amazement of the other five on the street looking towards him. Five, not because Hypnos was looking his way, as she had finally passed out from fear and pain while Hawks was trying to talk down Exodus, but because Gargantuan had stepped off the wall and to the edge of the street where he was watching Zach Sazaki revive his old classmate and friend.

"It was that villain, Gargantuan!" Hawks called out towards the giant who was opening his mouth angrily at the end of the street. "She was controlling Ousuno the whole time. Took control of his mind, right after he infiltrated The League."

The look on Gargantuan's face shifted a dozen times in the next few seconds before he could make a sound. He looked to his reviving old comrade, to the villain Hawks claimed was responsible, to Lifebringer, to Ousuno again. "RRrrrr," Gargantuan's throat vibrated and he was so large that the low growl in his throat was still heard down the street.

Zach pulled his head back and tried to shake the feeling of despair that had just spiked inside him when he could feel Thunderclap's pain. He shook his head around after finishing reviving the hero, and then he flinched while feeling the Trigger inside his heart. I need to move faster! I can't get distracted here! Zach did not waste any more time talking to the people on this road. He just flew away as fast as he could with a puff of Death remaining in his place for a second before dragging after him into the air.

Ousuno Kanami's hands curled on the floor under him. His eyes opened wide and he stared down at the ground under his face. Why? His heart was beating. Why am I alive again? His eyes slammed shut. The pain he felt while dying came back in full force. The man once known as the hero Thunderclap turned and looked towards the limp form of the villain who controlled him that was rested on the floor, burnt, bloody, and broken. He lifted his gaze up to the blue eyes of the blond-haired man who stepped towards him and reached a hand down in front of his face.

Ousuno shook his head back and forth. He lifted his gaze the other way towards a giant set of legs. A dark glare his direction showed him how suspicious Gargantuan was that this was all some trick. He remembered their conversation earlier. He remembered all of it. Ousuno winced at the skeptical and dark look from his old friend who eased up that harsh expression a bit himself while finding hesitant thoughts fill his mind that maybe this was not all just some trick. Gargantuan bit down though, glaring at the man who had killed him an hour ago.

"Stand up," Exodus reached down more and for Ousuno's right hand. "Take my hand."

"I, can't," Ousuno whispered. His eyes squinted and tears fell from them. He stared at his own arms in sudden confusion as he realized he was pushing himself up, when he should not have had arms in the first place. He shook his head around again in confusion and pain. "I can't, face them. I hurt so many people. I killed-" His eyes slammed shut and his head bowed more. People will look at me, the same way Estirou is. I killed him! Like I killed Tracer. And all those people Hypnos ordered me to- the man brainwashed into turning into Iscariot gagged and then puked on the floor under him.

"Get up," Exodus stopped waiting for the man to take his hand and reached out instead, grabbing Ousuno by the collar and standing him up on his feet. "No one will accept you as a hero. You may even be punished for this, despite your brainwashing."

"I deserve-"

"You don't." Exodus cut him off. "No one will ever look at you as a hero again though. They will not forget so easily." Ousuno's teary eyes focused for the first time onto the blue eyes looking down into his. The man holding Iscariot up was bigger than the muscular hero himself. He was someone Ousuno recognized and suddenly realized who had come in and finally defeated Hypnos. As he was realizing it, that man in front of him continued, "They will always fear that you were lying about Hypnos taking over. Or blame you for not trying hard enough to escape her."

Ousuno winced and his face scrunched up in pain as he felt that he had not tried hard enough too. "You can make up for all you've done though. In another way." Thunderclap flinched. He froze up and his eyes that just shifted down and away in regret slowly shifted back to the man laying this offer out in front of him. Exodus let go of Ousuno's collar once the former hero was staring back at him. "Come with me," Exodus told him, and Tokoyami, Shoji, and Hawks all gawked towards the two of them who they could hear unlike Gargantuan who was looking away at the end of the block and in the direction of a black cloud he could see over some other buildings.

Ousuno's eyes were the size of saucers and shook as he stared back at this man giving him an offer. He was stunned to hear it. This is a second chance? Ousuno flinched out of his shock while realizing that Exodus was not lying to him. He would trust me? I was a villain- A hero infiltrating villains! Why would he trust me?! I could betray… Ousuno saw a willingness to trust in Exodus' gaze. A softness that the stoic-looking Army of Death soldier could not hide in the pain he felt for this hero whose circumstances were so terrible.

I will do for you what we never could for Zombieman. A second chance. "Make things right," Exodus offered him.

Ousuno nodded back at him. He blinked his eyes a few times in disbelief that this was happening. I know that sometimes a hero can do more in the darkness. More than any hero in the light could… I don't think I was wrong about that, just because I failed. I infiltrated for a reason! Because I know that it's true. Hypnos took control of me, but that doesn't make my reasons for infiltrating wrong. I just didn't have the help. The backup that this organization would have given me. He's right. I know it. No one would ever look at me the same way. I could even be charged. I'm already stripped of my hero license, and I don't see myself ever getting it back. I can't face them. I don't deserve to.

I need to make up for it.

"Alright. I'll come," Ousuno replied.

Hawks dropped his head and stared at the ground in disbelief. Did I just stand here and watch that? Hawks dropped down to one knee and started coughing into his right arm. What the hell could I do? Not that, I even want to do anything. Hawks glanced back up towards Ousuno who looked his way after accepting Exodus' offer. I think you're crazy. You were crazy for trying to infiltrate them after what happened to me and Lifebringer though. That you can even stand up again. The right corner of Hawks' lips lifted the slightest amount. You're a good man, Ousuno. Hope you figure that out while you're out there. And that you make your way home one day.

Exodus rose a hand to his right ear and said a few things quietly. Two ropes dropped out of the sky, and everyone on the street snapped their heads up to see nothing at all floating above them. There was a slight shimmer in the air around where the long ropes were dropping from though, as the cloaked vehicle that came to pick them up had to reveal itself when dropping visible objects like this.

"Grab one-" Exodus turned his head away while just starting to lower his right hand from his ear. He put it back up and listened closely, then he turned a different direction and frowned. He glanced back at Ousuno. "It will take you up. I'll let them know you're coming."

The man once known as Thunderclap still stared back at this man in disbelief for this option that he never imagined would be laid out before him. "Thank, you…" Ousuno started.

Exodus nodded back at him, then he waited for Ousuno to grab onto the rope like he had told him to. Thunderclap had more he wanted to say but could see Exodus was waiting for him, as if staying there to be able to stop anyone who might try to prevent Ousuno from escaping like this. So Ousuno waited to tell him anything else until later, grabbing onto one of the ropes and then immediately getting hoisted into the air. Exodus slammed both hands down behind him and flashed away down the street without another word, heading in the direction where he was still needed despite everyone else evacuating from the city already.

"Should we have stopped him?" Tokoyami wondered in a quiet voice next to him at his best friend.

Shoji shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't feel like we should," Shoji admitted. I don't think Exodus would have let us anyway. He's probably the strongest person in this city right now, if Zach's revived him before. Zach wouldn't be able to touch him… And if Zach hasn't revived him before, then that means he never died in that whole war, so maybe even if he hasn't died too. I don't know how Zach managed to get so many powerful guys like that to follow him…

Actually, Shoji countered his last thought with a tilt of his head to the side. I guess I do understand.

---

"Life-" Kimikaro stopped shouting up as the figure in the sky was already arcing down towards them. He leaned away at how large that dark figure was becoming as he shot down into their street.

Zach's body exploded in size right as he was reaching the road. Do it quicker! He yelled at himself while expanding down the road and absorbing into as many children as possible. He had seen these teenagers laughing and training at U.A. with one another. Some of them had come up to and talked to him just like the two first years who were still alive on the street of Musutafu.

"Don't waste any Death on David," Zeira called into the dark cloud that got thicker as it pushed into her friends and classmates. "We've got him," Zeira told her idol while he moved his Death away from the bloodied beaten member of Re-Destro's Liberators.

Three of the 100 Liberators were down on the ground while Zeira and Kimikaro remained standing. Both of them had injuries, but Zach darted his red eyes towards them and examined those minor wounds that both looked to be able to handle just fine. "I'm impressed. You- aahhhnn, you did good- AHHnn- RAAAAAGHHH!" Zach screamed while bodies pulled back together. Skin reformed and bones un-broke. His scream of sheer agony made the smirk on Kimikaro's face wipe instantly.

In seconds though, all of the dead U.A. students who tried to stop David earlier were alive again. Their hearts were beating and their huge eyes shaking as they stared into the trembling dark cloud screaming in pain above them. Zach's voice quieted down though and all the darkness pulled back towards him. He reformed as one large body around fifteen feet tall that floated over the street looking pitch black but with two flaring red eyes on his head.

"Lifebringer, wait! Are… Are you alright?" Zeira wondered. Zach's red eyes darted down to the strong girl with antlers sticking out of her head who looked up at him sadly despite how he told her that he was impressed. She felt bad for him though. Not because of the pain she just heard him screaming in as he revived her friends. Zeira thought of the fight she witnessed only parts of between Zach and Kaminari. He won the fight. Zeira thought of his face she saw only ten minutes ago, and the tears that streaked down it while he fought his best friend to the death. "Are you okay?" Zeira asked softer, looking up into his eyes compassionately and feeling a tug on her heart as he looked back at her.

You really are a great hero, Zach thought as he looked down at the girl asking him that. Zeira Eleinie. No… The corners of Zach's immaterial lips lifted up. "I'm alright. Good work, Lifesaver. You're already a great hero." Zach turned and he shot off, a small explosion of Death blowing up behind him to blast him as fast as he could towards U.A. High School.

Zeira's heart was racing faster than ever as she thought of that look in his eyes as he stared back at her for a second there. She pursed her lips. As much as she had been trying to help him, she knew why he said what he just said. As much pain as he's in, he's still that much of a hero. He said that to me because he knows how much it would mean to me, which makes it mean even more! Because you're that much of a hero that you can still think of something like that even with how you must be feeling right now! You are the hero that I want to become.

I thought you had died today. I knew you hadn't killed the PM's wife, or, I thought… but I thought that bomb killed you while everyone hated you. I thought, you died thinking that we all betrayed you. Zeira sniffled in once but still smiled even as she stared sadly off through the sky towards U.A. where she and Kimikaro had never been able to reach to help out at. I knew he was Death a long time ago, and I never hated him for it. I believed that he must have done it for a good reason. I knew that before the trial even! I knew, I knew and… Zeira kept it together until the last shreds of dark wisps had faded or trailed off after Lifebringer's path. A single tear slipped out of her right eye and fell down her face. She shook her head back and forth and closed her eyes. Of course he's alright. This is Lifebringer we're talking about. She sniffed in once more and her lips curled down, I can't believe I actually doubted him there for a minute.

Zach landed on the campus of U.A. and stared down at the various body parts of All Might. What the fuck? Zach flinched while looking at the dismembered form of his hero. He shook his dark head around and then swung his right hand down and swept Death around at the various pieces of the teacher that he pushed back close to each other. Rather not regenerate entire limbs if they're still there. Just reconnect. Zach pushed his Death into his teacher while holding him together as he was.

"Z-Zach?" Kotsumura squinted his eyes open and stared in disbelief towards Zach as he heard others shouting his name. Kotsumura had closed his eyes and thought he passed out there for a minute, but now his eyes opened back up and he stared past Reika's legs as she had stood up next to him where she was knelt after the fight.

Reika Tiona had tears in her eyes as she stared at the dark creature that started to scream out in pain as he revived All Might. Dark clumps flew out of his back and swerved through the air around the destroyed area of U.A.'s campus where the fight had taken place.

"Enorma sensei," Zach's voice came out low as he spotted her, while still in the middle of reviving All Might. More red eyes darted around and dark wisps scattered around the campus wherever he saw the path of destruction from whatever had come through here. Exodus had burnt the creature completely into ash, and when he had, all of the Ultimate's smaller created Nomus that were fighting the Class 1 students had fallen apart.

Hatsume Mei watched in awe as some of those dark wisps flew right by her and down into the teacher she sat at the side of alongside her Principal. Principal Nezu stared in amazement at the boy who flew down and shot straight into Power Loader's body. He revived him just as he was doing for Hound Dog and the other staff members who had not gone to Tokyo but remained and tried to fight off the Ultimate to protect their students.

"Zach," Mei whispered in awe.

"He's really, alive," Kotsumura's squinted eyes cried tears of joy while he listened to Zach's screams of agony. "Sorry," he whispered, knowing Zach was not listening but still feeling like he should say it as he could not help but cry those happy tears at the sight of his friend still alive. Reika looked down at him though, and Kotsumura looked back up at the girl crying just like him who smiled down at his idiotic face smiling despite the tears, just like hers was.

All Might sat up. He sat up and looked around him in shock. "Sazaki," All Might whispered in disbelief. All Might felt strange and grabbed at his stomach. He looked down and stared at the scar tissue that had been so much older than his more recent injuries that all just sealed up. The scar tissue just covered up the actual damage that remained inside him and made him so weak ever since he received it. All Might could still see the scars there… but he pressed against his stomach and did not feel any pain from the messed-up organs inside. My wound? He, healed it?

"Glad to have you back, All Might. You did a good job protecting them," Lifebringer told his teacher who looked back up and into those red eyes in awe to hear him say that. His heart pounded fast at the words of encouragement the boy gave him. "I'm certain you saved some of their lives." Zach turned and flew away from his teacher, wishing he had more time to talk to him, but knowing the limits of his Trigger were coming fast. No time!

Nighteye's prophecy came to pass, All Might realized. He stood up and stared after Zach's cloud of Death that flew back away from U.A. campus, small pieces of it dropping down into Musutafu here and there but mostly staying together as he flew back for another district of Tokyo. It doesn't matter. The prophecy that should have been the end of my life… It didn't account for Lifebringer. I am alive again!

Kazumi and Sahara sat up next to each other. They had died holding hands while on top of one another. The two sat up and stared into one another's eyes. The terror of their final moments flashed back to them as they had sat up, but then they looked into each other's eyes and suddenly remembered what Kazumi had suggested as they ran out into battle. Kazumi's bottom lip dropped as he recalled it, while Sahara smirked at the boy who she told, "No take backs."

"Like I would," Kazumi retorted after a second, and she looked surprised this time. Then he grabbed her with his right arm and pulled her in close, kissing his new fiancé deeply. Kazumi stopped the deep kiss short though right as Sahara leaned into it. She looked at him in confusion, then she snapped her eyes to his right arm that Kazumi was also gawking at. The arm that had been bitten off by the Ultimate was back, his bones, muscles, and skin all reformed to make his arm look so pristine that it appeared unnatural even. The two stared at it in disbelief, then they spun and tried to watch Lifebringer but he had already flown off again.

"If he made it all the way out here," Kazumi started slowly in realization. His eyes grew wider and he gasped at the very thought of it. Is he trying to revive everyone?!

The Trigger's going to fade! This city's too large! The fight expanded in so many different directions. I don't… I have to! EVERYONE!

Zach connected all the Death he could into one form as he flew back over Musutafu for Tokyo. Don't save even one drop. It's all or nothing. Do it!

Far from the district that Zach just flew back into and scattered his body around, Iida Tenya slowly lifted up his right leg and stomped it down in front of him. He struggled to lean forward and stomp his next foot. The armored teenager took staggered steps and ground his teeth while dragging the villain he had tied up across the ground behind him.

"You can't hold me," Sonic hissed at the teenager who continued to drag him alone over the street. Iida glanced back and Sonic struggled more against his binds while continuously using his Slow Quirk against Iida. Sonic had blood dripping down from his nostrils over his chin but most had dried already. His right eye was blackened, and he still felt his head pounding with a loud ringing in his ears. "You might have knocked me out, for a second- Nnn!" Sonic tugged his arms against the capture-tape that Iida had wrapped him up with. "But you aren't Death. Your Quirk doesn't, cartoonishly knock me out. I'll escape from here, and I'll, I'll kill you!" Sonic threatened, pulling his arms away to make more of a gap between his body and the tape that he was actually precisely sliding around despite how he was sounding to just be making empty threats in frustration.

As long as he thinks it's futile, he'll ignore it when I actually slip out, Sonic looked more frustrated than he actually felt. I need to get out of this city. Just a little more…

There's Sonic. I'm getting out of this city, and if I have him with me, it'll be a piece of cake! I need to do this now. Heroes are filling the underground tunnels already. They're everywhere! An opportunistic female villain ducked behind a crashed car on one side of the street stayed low and in the shadows while watching Iida drag Sonic past her. Wait for it. Once he's in my blind spot… The woman grabbed the top of the car and swung her legs over, and Sonic cut off his Slow Quirk in an instant as he spotted her racing towards him.

Iida stumbled forward as his strained movements against Sonic's Quirk became too easy. His steps sped up and he stumbled, then he had to spin quickly and force out flames from his calves as he leapt up and kicked towards the woman whose lower body turned into a white cloudy substance that pushed her faster towards him then fluffed out above her which pushed her down below his kick. The knife she started slashing at Iida's other leg made him pull that leg back, but her swipe was only a feint so he would do that rather than kick at her.

The villain sliced down at Sonic's hands that he pushed towards her and gave her an easy target of where the capture tape was wrapped around his wrists. She sliced through, then Iida's Engines glowed blue and he continued spinning around. His first kick that missed did a full spin and slammed into the back of the woman who did not even see it coming from how fast he just sped up to.

Sonic did not start using Slow again until after Iida's leg had connected with his newfound ally. Sorry about that, Sonic thought, though he truly felt no love lost for the comrade he just let get hit. He used Slow while popping up on his feet and raising the cut capture tape that allowed his hands to move apart from each other. He dove at Iida's neck and slammed the capture tape he grabbed off his left wrist into the neck of the boy under his helmet but above his chestplate. Sonic flipped himself up over Iida's head while the teenager was landing, his blue flames cutting off and smoke puffing out instead. Sonic slowed time around them while twisting his hands to opposite sides and tightening the capture tape around Iida's neck.

Sonic dropped to one knee on Iida's other side and bent the armored teenager's back over his own. The villain smirked while pulling his arms out to either side, tightening the tape that would not break as Iida tugged at it with one hand while choking out. The boy's other arm swung at his side and tried to reach back, but Sonic had him in a compromised position that he could not move from. Iida choked, gasping for air that he could not find, while puffs of smoke just sputtered from his calves. His face turned pale and then blue under his helmet. "I told you," Sonic said in a low voice. He used Slow again, and Iida suffocated even longer with his eyes turning bloodshot as Sonic made his death more painful. "I was going to esc-"

Sonic's eyes darted up. "Get away from him!" A heroic voice yelled from a similarly armored body flying down at him.

Flames coming out of that figure's elbows brightened blue and flipped the hero over from his diagonal angle of descent straight at Sonic. He grabbed onto the front of the capture tape coming around the young Ingenium's neck instead and yanked away while using his own Reciproburst from his arms. He ripped the capture tape out of Sonic's hands even while slowing down, and he grabbed Tenya by the front of his armor using his other hand and tugged the younger boy out of Sonic's hold.

Sonic was already standing back up himself to full height when Tensei Iida spun back around and landed. The blue flames cut out of his elbows, but they turned back to red as he sped at the villain who glared at the man sprinting at him. Sonic ground his teeth and struggled not to show the pain he was in from his stretched-out fight with the teenager who was gasping for breath on the ground behind his brother. Tensei sped at him and then fired the flames out his elbows while in the middle of raising his arms that Sonic was wary of and preparing to move out of the way of.

By firing those flames down from his elbows, he rose off of the ground and kicked his legs up. Sonic smirked while grabbing the dangling capture tape off his right wrist this time. Time Slowed even more this close to his body, and Sonic spoke to the man through his helmet that Tensei glared down at him from. "I know you, former hero Ingenium. Your legs are destroyed after your fight with Stain-"

Tensei Iida's right leg glowed bright blue on the back. The steel guards on his calf popped open and mechanical engines popped out, straight from inside of his actual calf inside the armor. Bright red light shot out of his calf that sped up much faster and kicked into Sonic's chest. Sonic hunched over the leg, and Tensei leaned forward and grabbed both sides of Sonic's head to hold it up while the villain coughed up spit in pain. "I am not the former Ingenium. I am, ReNeo-Ingenium!"

Tensei's other leg swung around, jets popping out of that one too in the same place as his younger brother's. Tenya watched in awe as another new arrival to the city showed off the amplifications that Virtucorp had given his legs with his cyborginization. Sonic slammed into the ground after Tensei's other leg slammed into him so hard that his mind boggled and his eyes rolled back into his head again. The villain bounced away and imbedded into the car that his now-unconscious comrade had been hiding behind before, and Tensei landed down on the ground in front of his seated and shocked younger brother. "And my legs are stronger now than ever." He turned and smiled back at his younger brother whose reddened eyes filled with tears at the sight of Tensei back in his hero costume again.

A district away from the Iida brothers, Amakuza Sirio jumped up in the air then jumped again. Every step he took made another invisible platform below him due to his Air-Step Quirk. The young boy whose friends call him Siri and who recently got his provisional hero license sprinted up through the air towards the top of a building that had been under construction recently. He darted a look towards a strange-looking out-of-place generator that lay out of juice at the edge of the construction site. Siri then focused on the screaming civilians up above where they had climbed to in hopes a flying hero would save them while the lower portions of that same building had been on fire before.

Many of them had climbed onto precarious beams that it was hard for them to get down from, and Siri yelled up at the group who were still screaming in panic, "Don't move! Stay exactly where you are until us heroes can get you safely down. The fire in the building below has been put out. The battle is under control now, so just hold on! It's all going to be alright!"

At the base of that same building and across the street, some kids' voices yelled out from a pile of rubble that they had been trapped behind. "Please! Help us!"

"Help!"

"Hold on, kids!" A girl's voice shouted from the street.

Aiha put her head right in a gap in the rubble and stared through it. "How many of you are there?"

"AHH!"

"Please- please we're going to die!"

Aiha slipped into the small gap. Her Contortion Quirk twisted her body around as she slipped between chunks of debris. The short girl with black hair who also recently got her provisional license popped out behind the rubble and right in front of the kids who stopped screaming upon seeing her there in her hero costume. "It's okay now," she promised the kids who she smiled brightly at. "I'll stay with you until we can get all of you out of here safely. Okay?"

Siri stopped focusing on how to get the people down from the construction girders they had climbed onto. He turned his head and gawked as the sight he saw speeding down the street. "Zach?" Siri wondered in amazement at the sight of the dark cloud speeding his way.

A pile of rubble trapping some children lifted up in the air and then flattened out over the street. A pair of red eyes darted around under the rubble, but Zach did not see any squished corpses in it. Some Death flew into the charred lower floors of one building, but it looked like all the civilians inside had made their ways safely to the upper floors. Zach's red eyes spotted Aiha and Siri on the road with him. Just like Zeira. They came out and saved lives. My actions at the licensing exam weren't for nothing. It was all for today.

Every single move I've made since coming back here. I thought I was just insane. I thought, I was out of my mind that day. But even in the depths of madness, I've always been working to protect these people. I won't stop now. They expect it from me. I've made them expect it. I've led them to the belief that I will be here to save them, and I WON'T LET THEM DOWN NOW!

---

"That all, you got?" Rodney Black held up one metallic scythe that was struggling to keep form. Blackstar twisted it back and forth to hold the defensive stance in front of Princess Aya who was seated behind him with two other defenders even closer to her.

One of those defenders had messy gray hair and lay flat on his back, but still had his head turned and glaring at one of the villains of the Jazz who was too close. Tetsutetsu's eyes narrowed darkly at the villain who leaned his head back at how crazy this hero was to be looking at him like that while not even able to stand up again. The other person laying even closer to Aya was the one she had run to and started trying to help because his chest had been moving slower. Toyo's one eye still glared around though despite his vision being blurry. Just the idea that he might be able to fire another laser at the villains kept some of them at bay.

They also did not fire the weapons they had left now at this group, because Princess Aya was more important to capture than ever. "We need to take her hostage and get out of this city, now."

"Last charge. He won't be able to stop us."

"He can only focus one or two of us at once. Circle them up!"

Kirishima glared around at the villains mostly focusing on him. He had Hardened blood around his body, and spikes of his hair and arms had been broken off during his fights already. Duke Dread and Taizo had been defeated, but the Royal Palace still had fifteen evil villains standing in it, while Kirishima was the only one who looked really capable of still fighting. Even Blackstar was putting up more of a facade of strength than anything as he dropped back down to his right knee and started coughing up a fit in front of Aya who spun in concern for the one ally who had come to help the heroes.

"There has to be a secret tunnel nearby that the Emperor got out through," one of the gang leaders who Duke Dread had pulled under his wing hissed towards his comrades from before. "We take her and get out through there, and we maintain the advantage."

"Are we even sure that we're losing out there? I mean, maybe-"

"Something's wrong. We're getting out now, and we'll figure the rest out later."

"Then let's do it."

"Let's charge!"

They riled themselves up for another push against the small group. These remaining villains lasted so long though because they kept letting others charge in before them though and watching the enemies fight, trying to wait for them to get weaker. None wanted to be the next one to sprint at the group of crazed protectors of the Princess. But as one stepped forward, all the others did the same, and they all got convinced that this time, everyone in their group would attack together.

They had circled up around the Princess though. So a few of them were facing back towards the gates they had barged through before. "Now. Let's attack before… before…" The person directly behind Aya so she was between him and the gate just dropped his arms down at his sides. Hopelessness filled him and the others who spotted what he was looking at. His voice cracked while his gun dropped from his hands. "Oh that's cheating-"

A black cloud slammed down over the gates and separated to speed in a circle around the center of the courtyard where Aya sat with her jaw dropped amidst her saviors. "Zach!" Kirishima yelled. The redhead spun his head around and dropped his jaw as he was taking a step to fight alongside him, only to watch as Zach instantly knocked out every single one of the villains still around him who could not run or fight. Death swept like a wave through them that lifted them off their feet and dropped them just as fast.

Bodies lifted out of the moat outside of the Royal Palace. Corpses lifted all over the courtyard. Zach's red eyes examined the different styles of clothing of the dead villains and the dead Royal Guards who were dressed similarly to each other which made this easier. They were also dressed the same as the man next to Princess Aya who she spun to in concern but now with the ability to fully focus on him since the villains had all been knocked out.

Tetsutetsu's jaw was dropped where he lay a few feet away from Toyo and Aya. He stared at the swirling black cloud that lifted Royal Guards up in the air. "YAAAHHHH! AAhoooAAhhh RAA!" Zach revived all the Royal Guards in seconds and then dropped them down into the courtyard filled with unconscious and dead Jazz members.

Zach flew over and landed closer to his friends and the Princess. He was panting, black smoke coming out of his dark lips as he hunched forward after those revivals. "Ugh," his voice came out more his own, and he spat some black ooze onto the floor at his feet. His head shook around and his red eyes squinted to a close. Then those eyes squinted back open and glanced at the girl kneeling and staring up at him with trembling eyes. "Princess," Zach muttered at the sight of a girl he thought he recognized. He shook his head around and then bowed it more in respect.

"Th-Thank you, Lifebringer."

"Zach, you alright there?" Blackstar wondered at the shaking dark figure who pulled more and more darkness into his body. Zach glanced to his side and just nodded once at the man who nodded back as he saw Zach's response.

The Royal Guards being placed down around the courtyard mostly remained unconscious. The sight of Lifebringer's darkness around them assured the group who also spotted Princess Aya alive, that their job had been completed. A few managed to stand back up while most passed-out into unconsciousness. "Toyo, Toyo look! Lifebringer's here," Aya begged and smiled at the older man next to her who appeared destroyed by the fighting.

Zach watched as this 'Toyo's' body heaved a bit at his chest. The man sputtered up some blood but nodded for the Princess to see that he heard her. She looked terrified though while she held one of his hands. I don't have the strength, Zach thought. I'll be out soon. I don't have the time. I won't be around. This time, it's not a question. He's dying. "Princess, go with Kirishima. See if I missed any of your guards," Zach told her. She spun back to him in surprise and then Zach added, "I have to keep going, so do it quickly. I'm leaving soon."

Aya scrambled to her feet. He was not asking her to do this. It was an order that she either listened to, or he was going to fly off now without double-checking first and some of her Royal Guards might remain dead. Aya ran up to Kirishima who looked surprised as Zach told her to go with him to do this. Kirishima took a staggered step forward, then he stumbled and shook his head around of some of the pain he was in. Aya looked towards the redhead, "Come on. Red Riot, I need you to…"

Crack. Zach had knelt down next to Toyo behind the Princess and his friend. He had whispered something while bowing his head closer to Toyo's head, asking if he was fine with this if it meant he would be able to keep protecting the Princess. The smallest nod was all Zach needed to see, and he had seen the dying man's head move up and down that slightest amount.

Aya's body shook in place as she heard the cracking of a bone behind her. Her head started to turn sideways, and Kirishima's right hand snapped out and went behind her head. He softly placed it on the back of her hair but kept her head facing away. "Look around, Princess. Do you see anyone?" Aya stared at Kirishima's face that looked stoic despite also being shocked for a second there. Kirishima's eyes shook as he realized what Zach just did behind them.

Crack. Another crack sounded, this time of the neck bone going back into place. Zach groaned in his throat, but he moved his right hand away from the body of the man whose other wounds had also sealed up and fixed inside of his body too. Toyo opened back up both of his eyes for the first time in a decade, and he stared in disbelief with full perfect vision at the dark figure hunched over him who stood back up fully.

Dark breaths heaved out and back into Zach's mouth. He shook his head around. Zach wobbled on both feet, but he planted them down hard and shook his head around again to try and focus. Not yet! Still not enough! I don't know if I can… I have to. Do it. DO IT!

Zach turned and looked down at Tetsutetsu who just watched him kill and revive Toyo in shock. Tetsutetsu rose his gaze up to Zach whose red eyes scanned up and down Real Steel's body. "How you feeling, Tetsutetsu?"

Tetsutetsu's face paled. His eyes bulged while everyone else who just looked back towards Lifebringer and realized what he did for Toyo snapped their gazes onto Tetsutetsu then back to Lifebringer again. Zach examined Tetsutetsuo's body as if checking to see if he should just do for him what he did for Toyo, and then he just flew up into the air and shot away without another word.

Tetsutetsu's jaw dropped. Was he fucking with me?! The Class B student wondered in shock. "That wasn't funny!" Tetsutetsu yelled up into the air after him. Then he started coughing as raising his voice that loud hurt too much from his damage against Taizo. A patter of footsteps coming towards him made him open his eyes he just squinted shut in that pain, and then those eyes bulged as a pair of thin arms wrapped around his sides. "Uhh…" Tetsutetsu darted his eyes from the back of the girl's head, over to the formerly one-eyed man who got up to his feet and glared down at the gray-haired boy who his charge was hugging. The young hero glanced around and noticed some other dirty looks from Royal Guards, but those looks were feigned from most of them who smiled after giving him those warning gazes.

Thank you kids, for protecting the Princess.

We could never thank you enough. You two heroes, and that man… where is he? "Hey, where did that guy go?"

Kirishima turned and looked at one of the revived Royal Guards who just asked that question. He looked around, and then his eyes popped open wide as did everyone else there who had looked up and watched Lifebringer fly away in the same moment Blackstar decided to dip out. Thanks Blackstar, Kirishima thought with a wide smile after realizing the Army of Death member had fled without a word, even in his injured state. We couldn't have done it without you. Or you, Zach… Kirishima's smile lowered and his concerned eyes rose back into the sky in the direction his friend flew off in. You're going to be alright, right?

Zach flew out into the city and pulled more clones of darkness away from other sections. The different humanoid forms of Death all had glowing red eyes and each shared the consciousness that Zach spread. He was in several districts at the same time that he was reviving the Royal Guards at the Imperial Palace. I'll need everything I have for this! He thought it in dread but also filling with conviction as he merged together on his way towards a part of the city that was missing a good chunk of its skyline.

Bakugo's eyes were closed on the slab of destroyed street he lay on. The ground rumbled below him though, and he heard Uraraka's voice yelp at his side. "Rrnn," he groaned and opened his eyes. His body felt like it was getting stabbed all around. His arms felt stabbed the deepest, and he could not move them at all. His head tilted up a bit.

Uraraka sat still while staring off the same slab as him in total disbelief. "Unbelievable," she actually whispered, unable to process for a second what was happening around her that Bakugo's eyes started snapping around at in realization.

The boy did not figure it out at first because of his weird positioning on the slab. The slab was lifting in the air though, which he could not figure out initially because every single chunk of fallen building around them was lifting up. The darkness rumbled underneath the debris on the streets where Machia had fought. Entire fallen buildings started to shake as Death wrapped around heavy beams and started lifting them up. Entire floors of fallen skyscrapers yanked into the air. Bodies ripped out from underneath the rubble.

Corpses pulled into the air in the cloud of darkness. So many, Zach thought in agony before even starting to revive them. I know they did what they could, but so many still died. Someone must have evacuated some of these buildings, but- but- Ahh… I can't- I have to. Do it! I can't! DO IT! "UuhaaaAAAHh, RRUUOOAAA- EEyaaRRAAAAAHHHHH! OOooAAHHH!"

Zach's screams echoed all over the streets. Squished and broken bodies impaled with glass and missing limbs started to heal. More of the fallen city rose up so Zach could reach all the way to the bottom of the rubble piles. "AHHHHHHHHHH! HOooo AAHHHHH!" Zach's voice came out scratchy and broken as he screamed in the pain of bringing back hundreds at once. Less than there could have been! He thought loudly in his head. SOMEONE SAVED ME THAT PAIN, THINKING THAT I WOULD SAVE THE ONES THEY FAILED TO! THEY MIGHT HAVE DIED KNOWING THAT I WOULD STILL DO IT!

Zach's Quirk wrapped around some others who he recognized but pulled back from them when he felt heartbeats. He was immensely relieved even in his agony as he felt Sato's heart pounding in his chest. The unconscious boy of Class A had already been revived once, and Zach filled with terror when he reached down for him only to feel that Sato was still alive. The Class B's were lucky too, Zach thought while moving away from Bondo and Honenuki who were unconscious with bad burns. Small wisps of darkness pulled towards Pinoko's burnt body as he realized what had happened on this street and started feeling the burning pain as he brought back Ectoplasm. She made Bakugo kill- "RAAAAHHH! YAAA- YAAAHHHHH!" Zach could not focus on figuring out what happened on the street at all. The pain was too intense.

Ectoplasm's body lowered down a few streets from his students who he was blasted far away from in Bakugo's fatal attack on him. He stared around him in panic as the city was rising up on all sides. Chunks of building smashed into each other as Zach piled them up and cleared pathways and openings for the hundreds of bodies he lowered down with all their wounds gone. Plucky's lucky too, Zach thought as he lowered a revived Vixen and Sky-Girl next to the living Feisty Foursome members, including the one who had been killed by the Chemist and who he would have been unable to revive. I haven't failed once yet- DON'T JYNX IT- "AHHHH!" He screamed aloud in pain again but then gasped out and dropped the remaining chunks of debris out of the way and the last of the civilians he had unburied and revived.

Ectoplasm sped over one of the pathways towards the form of Gigantomachia which was smaller than earlier but still a giant laying on the street. He spotted his students near it, and then he saw Pinoko's unconscious form slumped against one of Machia's giant legs too. She was covered in burns head-to-toe, and Ectoplasm stopped rushing over and just turned to Bakugo in amazement after seeing what had happened over here. Bakugo gasped out a breath of relief at the sight of his teacher whose costume was mostly blown off, but his burn wounds were all healed now.

"Good job, Explosion King. You defeated her-"

Bakugo shook his head once at his teacher to cut him off. Bakugo motioned his head next to him at a girl who looked back at him with her eyes growing wide as Bakugo passed off the credit. Ectoplasm looked surprised too and turned to the girl who stared at her classmate with a growing smile before spinning back to their teacher. "It was a joint effort," she told the teacher who just nodded back before taking a good look at the destroyed city around them. As he was turning around, he rose his gaze up just as those two students and all the other heroes and civilians did as well.

They stared at the dark figure who was a single black mass looking human-sized that vibrated and hesitated in midair after lowering all of them to the ground. His screams had stopped, and heavy dark breaths puffed a black mist around his face. His red eyes were dimmer and barely glowed through that black cloud. Uraraka's small smile as Bakugo shared the credit with her fell immediately as she looked towards that shaking form up in the air. "Zach," Uraraka whispered. That has to be enough now, right? That sounded so painful. He has to be out! If he's reviving, then he already beat Kaminari… He killed, Kaminari.

Is he still going? Bakugo forced his squinting eyes to stay open. How am I going to pass out, before him? Bakugo tried to scold himself. If he can keep going… If he needs to- I don't need to though… fuck. Hard as he tried, the hero passed back out. He made sure he stayed awake long enough to watch Zach go though. He watched in as much awe as any of them at the sight of Zach scattering in different directions.

Fly. Fly! Check everywhere! Do it. I still have some left. Double-check. Triple-check! Split the consciousness as much as possible and sweep the whole city! CHECK EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY, to make sure I've kept my promise…

I want this to be it. I just want to stop! I need to check again though. As long as I can move… I'm going to make sure I've got them all!

---

Inasa Yoarashi lowered a few hundred pounds of debris and then looked around him to all sides. All the civilians he had evacuated into flat open areas were separated from the mounds of rubble he had piled up with his winds too.

"Thank you, Gale Force!"

"You rock!"

"The Americans are here! I just saw Star-Spangled Man over on…"

"The heroes are winning…"

There are a lot of heroes around here. I'm not needed here anymore. Inasa turned his head and looked north. He watched a dark blur shooting through the sky in that direction. How is he still going? Those screams… Inasa shook his head around to shake off the memory of how terrible Zach's voice had sounded when he heard him reviving dead bodies back on a street where he had laid them out in a line and told some living civilians in the same area to shout up if they saw Lifebringer. He had been close-by but still a couple of blocks away, so hearing the sounds of Zach's screams from that distance made it feel all the worse.

Inasa shot winds down below him and flew after the dark blur he saw shoot away through the sky. He flew back into Adachi and over the shorter buildings than were in the city's core. He flew out over train tracks and onto a field, then he dropped out of the air and landed in a run that slowed as he approached where Zach just flew down himself seconds earlier.

The dark blur shot towards a forest littered with broken trees. The side of the forest closer to the field of dead grass was more destroyed than the rest of it, but the monstrous storm that had hit the forest affected it for miles. Giant craters were scattered across the landscape. The wrecks of huge Spiders lay scattered with dozens of broken ANTs laying on top and around them. Along with the destroyed robots and environment, there were hundreds of villains laying unconscious or twitching all over the place.

Some of the villains were crawling or trying to limp back into the woods. They turned their heads though and let out yelps or scream of fear, right before the dark wave dropped down onto them and swept into the trees. Heroes headed them off first to slow them down. They're out here, Zach sent his darkness into the trees, finding a few more injured villains trying to flee, but also just hundreds more defeated villains who had lost inside of the thinned-out forest. The green trees turned black as Death swept through them all the way to the heroes who tried to stop the force of a thousand villains first, or at least slow them while others evacuated the derailed train and had time to prepare for their arrival.

Zach dropped down next to a kneeling woman with short orange hair. It spiked up over her head but was pushed down a bit because of how it had gotten wet in the rain. The gray clouds turning white above her were getting thinner too, as she knelt there no longer using her Quirk to keep the storm in place. Some wet spikes of orange hair dipped down over her eyes that were shadowed over under her hair. Her left ear was ripped in half as the piercing in it had been torn out at some point. The sleeves of her black long-sleeved shirt were gone too, and blood soaked those arms, as it did the left side of her torso that the clothing had also been torn from to show stronger body armor underneath… which was also ripped through.

"Maelstrom, hey- NNnn- AHH! Raa- you, okay?" Zach growled while kneeling next to the woman whose head lifted up slightly and then slowly turned to the side to face him. Zach growled into her face with a pitch black expression that trembled and then rippled out as he ground his teeth and groaned in the agony of reviving heroes farther outside of Tokyo than he had gone yet. The battle had extended so far in so many different directions, and his red eyes twitched and squinted while he reached out an arm that he held against Maelstrom's back to keep her steady.

Touching her back made her start to fall forward though. Both of his arms shot forward and he caught the woman falling forward on her knees. Her legs slid apart a bit below her as Zach grabbed on. "Hey- hey," Zach's voice got more his own. The darkness on him pulled closer to his body and his voice no longer had the pain in it from the physical revivals he was continuing through the trees. When her legs slid out from below her, Zach snapped his red eyes down and realized why she was on her knees in the first place as he saw the amount of blood soaking what were supposed to be baggy green pants, but just looked brown now from all the blood that had mixed both dried and still wet. "Don't worry. I'm… I'm going to get you, help," Zach darted his eyes around.

He scanned over the area for anyone else he might have to revive here. "Any other, AoD… no?" Zach looked back down at the woman who he dropped on both knees next to and shook around as her eyes were not really focused on him. "Hey, hey hey HEY!" Zach shook her hard and made her focus on him. "I've got you, alright?" Zach asked, forcing the veil of darkness closer to his body and smiling at her in a way she would be able to see. Maelstrom did see the curve up of his dark lips on the bottom of his face, and the left corner of her own lifted the slightest amount, only for a trickle of blood to spill from that corner and start sliding down. "Just, just hold on…" Zach looked back down at her legs, then the bloody left side of her chest, and her arms, and back to her pale face that was already scarred but had new scratches on it too.

Her head shook once back and forth a very small amount. She breathed slowly, but calmly. The look in her eyes put a vice on Zach's heart. I know that look, water filled his eyes at the sight of the acceptance in hers. His lips trembled and dropped back down, his hands tightening on her body. "No," Zach whispered. "You, you really beat all of them? There have to be a thousand villains out here, Maelstrom," Zach whispered to her. He tried to force his lips back up. His red eyes squinted while the other teenager who landed behind Zach put a hand up to his forehead and squeezed above his eyes when he heard that tone in Zach's voice of despair with no hope in it.

Inasa had wanted to offer to fly her somewhere, but he could see what her body looked like too. There's, no chance. Inasa squeezed her forehead harder. "If I had stayed here, and helped you," Inasa whispered, his voice getting a little louder while he lifted his head and looked towards the woman who stared past Zach and to the young hero.

"Don't blame, yourself," Maelstrom spoke. Inasa's eyes widened as he did not even know if she had the strength to speak let alone talk that loud that he could hear her from several feet behind Zach. She shook her head at the hero again in a slightly stronger way than she just did at Zach in the shake telling him it was over. Her lips had flattened too, and she just stared seriously towards the boy sounding so regretful for leaving her alone. "You must have saved a lot of people, and with any more deaths, I don't know if Zach, would have been able to handle it all." She looked back closer to her and into Zach's eyes that shook more to hear that she had sent Inasa off to make sure he would not have to revive more people.

"You're right," Zach whispered at her and nodded his head quickly. "Just this much, is already…" He shook his head and closed his red eyes. "I didn't know if I'd be able to… snff," the dark form sniffed in and his hands held tighter on the woman's weak body that was still bleeding all over. Maybe. Maybe at this strong. Maybe because I'm on Trigger, I could do it! I really could, Zach found some hope he tried to yell at himself was not just wishful thinking.

Another person landed down next to Inasa who spun in surprise and then lifted his sad gaze up to the blue-eyes of the blond-haired man who landed there. "Exodus, did you find her? Report in. Her comms are down…"

Exodus tapped his ear and pressed a button on his communicator that shut up the woman asking for a report on Maelstrom's status. A voice came through their comms but it was not Exodus' or Maelstrom's. Exodus just listened himself while looking around the area and then out into the forest too where he could see hundreds more villains laying all over. "You thought about even that, while you were fighting all of them?" Zach asked in a hoarse voice to the woman he was holding in his arms as he knelt on both knees in a crater littered in villains' unmoving bodies. "You were trying to make sure I wouldn't get hurt more, and to protect all those people, and the heroes who would have fallen…" Zach's arms shook but he held them on Maelstrom's front and back a little tighter. His red eyes snapped back open and tears slid down his blackened face to the wispy black chin of the Death figure.

She stared up into his watering and crying eyes as he stared back down into hers. "You can't die, Maelstrom," Zach whispered in pain.

"I am going to, though," Maelstrom whispered back to him, her voice somehow louder than his even as more blood spilled from her chest. "You'll need to take my body," she said with a glance towards Exodus who she also saw land behind Zach. She refaced the boy holding her though, "I've already died, so you can't bring me back… but no one is allowed to die today. No deaths. It's better this way. Ack- kuh- that way, the villains don't win anything. Victory, only. A perfect victory," she whispered at the hero who held her even tighter that she was thinking about that even now, as she was taking her last breaths.

"Taking down a thousand of them all on your own," Exodus spoke behind Zach. He had been looking around at the devastation before refacing Maelstrom after she spoke to him. "That entire force. All of their robots and on enhancements too… I could not have done that myself. You are truly, the strongest." Exodus stared into Maelstrom's surprised eyes and then bowed his head after she smiled back at him and let out a laugh that she winced upon making as it hurt too much to do so.

"Heh, haha," Maelstrom squinted her eyes and smiled. For Exodus to say it, when everyone else would say the same about him-

"Maelstrom you-" Zach started, his voice strained but speaking quickly as he felt panic rising within him. He could feel her heartbeat through her body that he held in shaking wisping black arms. "Without you, we couldn't have done any of it…" Maelstrom's squinted eyes opened up a little more and she stared at Zach's trembling eyes as he held her while on the verge of breaking down. His face scrunched up and tears spilled freely from his eyes in a way that hurt her chest even more than the wounds ripping through it. Zach's red eyes slammed shut. "We were nothing before you. Nothing- we couldn't have done any of it. You kept us hidden. You turned our small scale actions into something more. Everything we ever did worth doing- all of it! It was always you."

"They say we bring the storm, but without you there was no storm. Without you, we couldn't have stayed hidden. We wouldn't have won Wampajawa, or any of it!" Zach bowed his head closer to hers and held her closer to his chest. He hugged her tightly but carefully too in care for all the wounds he did not want to hurt her any more. "Ahhh, you- I've seen you, grow from that timid, scared girl, into the strongest fighter in the world. Into the bravest person I know. I couldn't have done any of it without you!" Snot came out of Zach's darkened nose and he bared his teeth while Maelstrom's eyes started shaking. Others who were listening to this over Exodus' comms closed their teary eyes as well or covered their faces up as Zach begged her to hear all of this.

"The whole army would have been destroyed long ago without your help. All those times we fought together, I saw you do things no one ever thought possible." Zach imagined tornadoes ripping apart buildings and scattering hundreds of enemies thanks to the girl he was holding now. He saw himself rising in the Rubble Funnel of Wampajawa and told her with no doubt in his voice, "The biggest battles- our greatest victories! They say that 'we' bring the storm. That Death is the storm, but you were the storm, Maelstrom. You were Death. It was without you that we were nothing. The world would have fallen without you. You really, saved the world." Zach took in a deep breath after saying all that, speaking it as quickly as he could while he knew her heart was still beating. He panted over and over while holding her tightly, watching her pale face twist in a way that lifted her smile in such a way that it cracked Zach's heart while also forcing a smile on his face to see that she heard and believed every word he said. She trusted him, and she knew he meant it, and he knew how much that meant to her as well that it brought his quivering lips up into a smile.

Inasa cried quietly behind Zach as he listened to all of that. He looked away while Exodus closed his eyes next to the Shiketsu student. Zach pursed his lips after a moment of smiling as it was too hard to keep his lips up like that while watching his friend die. Another friend dying in his arms, so soon after the last. His heart felt like it was in a constant state of breaking as he watched her slowing breathing in his arms. One of her hands turned though and squeezed him by his left dark arm. Her own soft smile in gratitude for him saying such things to her, shifted back to the serious look of the warrior that she had become and which Zach just reminded her she was. "Remember, no one dies," she whispered, her voice hoarse and soft, and yet somehow firm at the same time. "It's, our victory. This way, I'll just be one of those nameless citizens, who stood up to protect our city. Us citizens, who don't step forward to take the credit afterwards." She cracked a small smile at the idea of the deception her comrades were going to push on the world about who had stepped up to save the heroes today.

Her breathing seemed so slow and yet she was somehow still able to speak. Her voice serious despite its softness. "No one dies today. I am not, a martyr. No one need know that I died…" she just repeated it while her heart beat slowed down. While her voice got even softer. Her serious eyes softened too while she squeezed that hand on Zach's arm just a little harder in a caring way. That hand loosened on his arm and rose up towards his face, touching his cheek and wiping a tear off it with her thumb. She lifted both corners of her bloody lips up while staring up into Zach's red eyes. "I know you'll remember me. And that's, enough…"

Her hand fell from his face limply down to her side.

Darkness dispersed from Zach's right hand in an instant. No time wasted. He felt the moment her heart missed its beat. The moment where it would never beat again. Her eyes were still partially open but stopped focusing on anything. Zach kept her body laying over his knees while pressing his bare right hand into the blood-stained ripped skin of her chest. "Okay," he whispered. "Work, please. Worrrrkkk…" Zach curled his fingers into her chest. Tears still covered his darkened face but it got much more serious and determined as he focused his Death down into his right hand. "Come on. Come on!" Zach hissed. "Please," he whispered, his voice cracking as he choked on air and spit.

He was exhausted. Every inch of his body was in pain even though he was not currently reviving anyone. Inasa bowed his head behind Zach after finally turning back to listen to Maelstrom's last moments. His own heart crushed again when he heard what she told him while touching his cheek. That's what he told his soldiers at the end of Wampajawa. He would remember them. That's all she needed. A tear slid down the right side of Inasa's face and then he closed both eyes again while watching Zach desperately grasp at his fallen comrade with his bare right hand. As strong as your Quirk's gotten, Zach. That's not how it works. That's, not going to work.

"Come on," Zach snapped again. Darkness bulged on his back and then left his back clear as it pulled down into his right arm and into Maelstrom's body. "Nnn, please," Zach's fingers curled but he stopped pressing so hard against her. It's not working. Of course it's not working. Even if I hadn't used up most of my power, it doesn't matter how strong I am. Death doesn't revive twice. That's- that's a limit I have to accept. Even Death is not all-powerful.

Zach stood up. He got up to one knee then the other, lifting Maelstrom in his arms as he did. Her body was small. Blood dripped from all her limbs as he lifted her. Exodus stepped past Inasa and closer to Zach who turned to him. He'll dispose of the body, Zach thought. She said to "take her" rather than "dispose" because Inasa's here. That's not something to do in front of a hero. Zach stared back down at Maelstrom's face while he handed her off silently to Exodus. She never stopped. Even as she died, she was so strong. Every victory mattered. She exemplified that! Zach breathed out a heavy gasp and then pulled his arms back after handing Maelstrom off to Exodus.

I have to keep that quiet too, Inasa thought. It was her dying wish. I want to give her credit. I want people to know who she was and that she died to save us! HOW?! Inasa looked to Zach with his eyes huge as he felt this feeling for the first time. How do you go on, knowing that none of them know? Just the idea of hiding Maelstrom's efforts that cost her life for the sake of Tokyo, made Inasa feel like he just got his chest stepped on by an elephant. He rose a hand up and squeezed over his chest imagining people not knowing her sacrifice, and he had to shake his head around to try and force out that horrible thought. She wants the city to go on thinking the villains didn't win at all. That they didn't defeat any of the defenders who all had flawless victories? Sure, that's what Death tried to… she was, she was so cool. Inasa smiled ear to ear while looking towards that woman who had come and definitely saved his life by taking this fight instead of him. She was a hero.

"Thank you, Commander," Exodus said to the young man who just stepped backwards after handing off Maelstrom. Zach seemed to stumble a bit as he moved away from the big man who he did not want his right hand to touch while he was feeling out of it. Exodus nodded to the boy who refaced him and tried to focus his eyes. "For everything," Exodus added to the boy who tried to nod back at him but just wobbled around a little more.

I doubt we will see each other again, Exodus thought while turning his head away from his leader. He held the girl in his arms close to his own chest the same way he had seen Zach holding her as she was dying. The moment he snapped on Hypnos back in the city reverberated in his head. The anger he felt directed at her was all because of Zombieman. His chest hurt now too as he looked down at the face of his comrade who he had fought alongside for over a year. Death. You treated me with compassion none had ever shown me. Gave me friendship that had been unknown to me. I offered you my life, and in return you gave it to me. You gave me a real life. With real comrades. With purpose. With friends. Which is why I now understand what it feels like to lose them. Thank you, Commander. For I appreciate even this pain that tells me I am human. I do not wish to turn back and look at you again, when it is very clear to me that you are in no better shape that she was. Farewell, Death. Words could never describe the debt I owe you.

A flash of light occurred behind Inasa on his left side. He did not turn to watch Exodus fly off with Maelstrom though. He took an uneasy step forward closer to Zach who wobbled around while turning back towards Tokyo himself. "H-Hey," Inasa started to his old classmate.

"No one, is to know, about her, death," Zach gasp-growled at Inasa without turning towards the boy who froze and then nodded back quickly. He did not think Zach could speak so firmly considering the way he looked.

Zach stopped wobbling though and narrowed his red eyes back towards Tokyo. Inasa spun towards the trees that were blackening even more themselves. All the green trees turned dark as Death swept back through them. The remnants of what had been leftover after Zach revived the heroes through those woods came back towards him. Inasa saw Zach glaring back at Tokyo, and he turned to his comrade's face to see Zach's mouth moving. In a low voice that came out slurred, Zach growled, "I have to, go again. Another loop. Just, in case." The black lines coming towards him trembled in midair. The wisps coming towards him were shaking violently as they sped towards his back. "Check again. I need, to check under, the rubble. Make sure that- she's right…"

Those dark wisps broke apart before reaching him. They had gotten too weak on his revivals of the other heroes. The dark veil he just re-spread out around his humanoid form was fading too. His skin was wrinkly underneath, tanner and scarred and caked with a dried layer of blood over nearly all of his body. "Make sure…" Zach repeated, while his right leg lifted and stepped forward. "Triple-check… everywhere…" His foot missed its step. His eyes started shifting down from the blurry city to the blurry ground below him, but he became confused as he was unable to even see that ground, because he had stopped keeping his eyelids open and they just dropped to a close over his eyes.

Inasa was too surprised as he actually expected Zach to fly back at Tokyo until the moment Zach tripped and fell face-first into the dirt. He ran forward, his footsteps echoing into Zach's head just under the sound of the thumping in his ears after he collapsed. Zach could somewhat hear them but did not know what those footsteps were, not that he comprehended the thumping of his heart either before his hearing shut off like his vision. Since his thoughts cut off just before the hearing did.

With Zach Sazaki's collapse, the Battle of Tokyo was finally over.

Heroes had won a complete victory.

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A/N Thanks for reading. ;( Another sad ending to a chapter. Zach goes around reviving Tokyo this chapter after Gentle shows up at the end of the last one and pulls out a vial of Trigger he stabs Zach with to give him one last boost. The battle's falling action has ended now and I've wrapped up the remaining fights too. I really hope you guys have enjoyed the Battle of Tokyo that I've uploaded over this past year+. Only 3 chapters left in Death. It's coming up on 4 years now that I've been writing this story which is one of the longest pieces of literature ever written I believe. And in those four years I've gotten very attached to my characters, so let me tell you that these last two chapters have been brutal for me. First my favorite villain character I've ever written and a friend in Kaminari, and now Maelstrom too was also a tough one to write. Both of them had me needing breaks and tissues. Phew. Always tough writing the emotional scenes, especially as connected to Zach as I feel after writing out his thoughts for years and putting myself in his shoes to try and know exactly how he'd act and think. Anyway! Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Only a few left that I hope to get out in February, though I'm pretty sure this whole story will be done by the end of March by the latest. (Not going to set an unrealistic expectation on myself like the end of the year this time XD ). Not much left in the story but leave me your predictions for what's to come and comments on the final scenes of the Battle of Tokyo! Review response time:

NBoss01 chapter 253 . Jan 30

Well, seems I picked a climatic time to start/finish reading this fic. 2 Weeks and 6 days encompassing all my free time is a good score IMO but from the top performers I've seen in the reviews I'm lagging behind ;-;
Anyways this was something phenomenal to just binge out and I can't wait to see the fallout in the next few chapters, something I want for Zach is for after he revives everyone for the amount of total death he has to fade away so that he can just live a more normal life without having to deal with the weight of the world on his shoulders anymore, deku needs to give his brother the break he deserves and show the world his pure might! Also-also, I wanna see Darling, Gentle and La Brava scenes settling down with Zach getting his Momozaki!

You picked a great time to read, and I'm glad you caught up! XD I loved reading all your reviews these past few weeks and hearing how into the story you got as time went on. The review about 235 was about the same as I felt while writing that chapter, as it was the most emotional I think I'd ever gotten while writing. Anyway, I'm glad to update again right after you've caught up now, and hope you enjoy these last few chapters! Thanks for all the reviews!

Angryshadow04 chapter 253 . Jan 21

Man I almost cried.
I'm gonna be so depressed when this story ends cus it's too fucking good reeeeeeee.
My hopes of Jenny somehow being alive this whole time with the villains using overhaul to bring her back finally turned out to be wrong rip cus man that shit would've been so fucked and yet so good.
Mayhe you can do it in a spin off cough cough

Thanks! Glad I can get you emotional over this, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter too. Think I'm going to focus on finishing this one before considering any spinoffs lol, but could always be a fanfiction about my fanfiction that does that! Who knows?! XD

Jxgod chapter 253 . Jan 20

Im speechless. This was beyond worth the wait. I remember way back u said in one of your AN that u would create the best ending any of us have ever seen and honestly...I believe you.

Thanks a lot! Really happy you enjoyed the chapter. The ending's coming up, so I hope to keep you entranced as we get towards it and that you're satisfied when it comes. Thank you for reviewing!

pink9571 chapter 253 . Jan 30

Oh my God! The fight seen was so detailed I could visual everything. Great work as always!

Love that you said that! I'm glad you could picture it in your head as it was what I was doing as I wrote it. Always hope for the readers to be able to picture the same fight I'm seeing in my mind and trying to put down on the page. Thank you for the review, and thanks to everyone who reviewed! There were a ton of reviews for 253 and I can't respond to them all, but I really do appreciate all of them! Starbucks closes in 13 minutes and I need to finish up editing and get another free refill before they kick me out of here! XD So until next time, I want you all to know how much I appreciate you for reading, following, favoriting, and for all the amazing reviews to this story! I don't think it would have gotten so far without all of your continued interest and support. So thank you again, and hope to get out the next update for you guys soon!