Ochako's mind had gone completely blank, she just stared at Izuku's limp form in her arms. Dimly she remembered Sasakura saying Izuku had left with the assault teams to apprehend Zeus. She'd actually forgotten that after Yo Shindo had shown up, but then it all clicked in her head. Izuku probably masqueraded as a member of QSU, not exactly hard when he was once with them. Then when she had walked in on Izuku and Bakugo's confrontation in the forest Bakugo had called Izuku, Deku. She hadn't been paying much attention near the end but now it all fit.

Partially coming out of her stupor she realized he was still breathing and felt relief wash over her. The vice clamped around her heart seemed to ease, and she realized that she'd been holding her breath. She let it out and carefully set Izuku down on the ground.

"I'll... admit... you three are fucking monsters." Zeus suddenly said, the exhaustion in his voice evident.

Ochako looked up at him, and pure hate rose within her. She noticed now that Zeus had a long gash along the leg not impaled by a knife and another on his left arm, dripping blood onto the floor. Lighting arced across his right arms and chest but it seemed to have weakened at his legs and she noticed he was no longer hovering just off the floor.

"But it doesn't change the fact that I'm still stronger." He said, and shot his right arm at Ochako, lighting flying from it.

She sent herself sideways, avoiding the bolt. Zeus meanwhile started moving as well, sending bolts at her. Now that he was free of the lightning rod trap, she had a difficult time closing in on him. Whenever she tried to make an attack he'd send a wall of lightning at her, forcing her to avoid it. Instead, she started throwing debris at him.

The chunks of earth, stone, and whatever else flew at him like bullets and he started intercepting them with thin bolts of lightning that took strange paths through the air, flowing in all sorts of different directions, often striking the large pillars. It was then that Ochako noticed that three of the pillars had been destroyed, all by Bakugo during his final attack. She spared a glance to the ceiling and saw several cracks had formed along it.

Then there was a huge flash of light and a massive bolt shot past her and hit the opposite wall. She focused her attention back on Zeus and saw he was now standing beneath the large opening leading outside. To her alarm lighting traveled down the pathway to Zeus. He caught it with his right hand, forming it into a giant bolt and then throwing it at her. She ducked behind a pillar and the bolt blew it apart, pelting her with rocks and some metal. Then through the shower of debris, a second smaller bolt hither in the hip and she spasmed, losing control of her ability to fly and she crashed into the floor.

As she shook off the pain and spasms, she saw him about to throw another bolt when something blasted into her and she was sent flying sideways. The bolt slammed into the floor where she had been a moment earlier, which was now glowing orange from the heat. She looked to her side and saw Bakugo, arm extended toward her, smoke trailing from his hand before passing out once more. She focused back on Zeus and blasted herself toward him, she grabbed remnants of the lightning rods that were scattered around and formed a protective orb around her. Zeus fired a large bolt from himself at her, but the lighting traveled to the lightning rod pieces and turned them into slag immediately, which also disrupted her ability to use them. She discarded the slag and tried to slam into him full tilt but he rolled sideways avoiding her.

She came to a stop and spun toward him, closing the distance with a quick burst and sending a kick at him. He blocked it with his right arm and there was a burst of lighting. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't strong enough to penetrate her suit and cause muscle spasms. She kept up the pressure, but the fatigue of all the fighting was getting to her. She could tell she had slowed noticeably, but so had Zeus. There were still on even footing, and for every gravity-fueled strike she threw at him, he retaliated with an equally strong lighting attack.

"You know... A lot of people who... fight me... don't... know their physics, as well as they, should!" Zeus suddenly started saying between the sounds of exertion and the noise of their fight.

Then he jumped backward and as if he were drawing an imaginary line, moved his finger in an upward motion. Ochako felt every hair on her body stand on end and tingling across her body. The area around her had started to glow slightly without her notice, she could taste iron in her mouth but there was no blood, and she heard a droning buzz. She noticed all the signs in the span of a few heartbeats, then a bolt of lighting slashed downward onto where she was standing.

The first thing she noticed was that she felt no pain, then the realization she couldn't move, then she was flying backward as Zeus slammed a double palm strike into her chest. She flopped uselessly across the floor until she slid to a stop. She could only move her head and she turned it to face Zeus, who had walked back to his spot below the hole.

"I guess you could say that was one of my signature attacks. Over the course of my entire fight, I've been building the charge in the air, took a while because of the lightning rods but eventually I managed it. I then use that charge to simulate an actual lightning strike, I use none of my own power, just harness nature itself. If I can't take the fight outside, I bring the outside to me essentially. I like to use it to disable my targets but messing with their nervous system, it's a temporary paralysis but so far... no one lived to tell the tale.," He said panting, and then laughed a bit as he raised his right hand once more.

As lighting slowly flowed from the outside to his hand he continued talking.

"You probably noticed a lot of lighting striking the tree's on top of the mountain... thing is... those weren't trees. At least most of them weren't. They were mostly made of metal, disguised to look like regular trees. I feed my electricity into the pillars, and that charge travels through the pillars to the giant metal trees, which send them into the sky. That charge then acts like a homing beacon for lighting and I get a nice return on my investment." He said, giving her a tired but victorious grin.

The lightning formed itself into a giant bolt. He pulled his arm back to throw it and Ochako saw Izuku standing several meters away from Zeus. Zeus grinned triumphantly but was oblivious to Izuku behind him, before Zeus could throw the bolt Izuku threw something himself.

For a brief moment, time seemed to stand still, then the bolt of lightning in Zeus's hand flashed white, blinding Ochako. She clenched her eyes shut and then the loudest booming crack and explosion yet rocked the room. Then more noise followed, she opened her eyes and saw rocks falling from the ceiling, slamming into the floor. Two of the pillars cracked with an earsplitting noise and more started falling. With what movement she had regained, she pressed a hand to the floor, and summoning all the power of OFA that remained within her she sent a pulse through the floor, to the walls, and then to the ceiling. But she didn't stop there, she kept pushing, closing her eyes as she started focusing. The pulse traveled further and further down the mountain, encompassing more of the facility by the second. She felt the last remnants of OFA straining to provide her with more power. The entire facility had become destabilized, if the room she was in were to collapse, the sheer force would cause a chain reaction along the rest of the facility, trapping everyone inside it. She needed more power.

Even though she knew there was no power left to give she willed it to give up more, her determination and willpower seemed to rouse the faint embers that yet remained, like a bonfire they blazed to life once more within her, and with the mental equivalent of a scream, she forced the pulse down to the entrance of the base. Then she locked everything in place, every wall and ceiling were pushed together, reinforcing every room and hallway. Once she had done that, maintaining it became easier. She opened her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

She saw Izuku not too far away, scrambling around the floor looking for something. Ochako slowly moved into a kneeling position, her legs splayed out to the side while keeping her hand on the floor. She watched Izuku, exhausted as he pulled something from a mound of debris. He checked whatever it was, then started moving to where Zeus was.

She looked at Zeus and saw that his right arm was gone, all that remained was a glowing stump. Smoke flowed from it but to her horror and shock, she saw him still drawing breath. In a way, though she realized, while killing Zeus had always been the assumed method they would bring him down, alive had far more potential.

"What... what happened to him..." Ochako managed to say as Izuku walked by her.

"I threw a piece of metal into his hand. His quirk is generated from his skin, not his blood as I had assumed. He used his blood to move lighting across his body and amplify his abilities. Every quirk has a flaw, a weakness that can be exploited. The QSU taught me how to find those, even in the midst of a fight. Zeus's weakness is that his own blood would conduct his own lighting. It's why he didn't use his left arm after I slashed it, or float after his leg. The knife in his other thigh, missed his veins, hitting only muscle tissue and so it poses far less of a problem for him. So when I impaled his hand with a shard of the lighting rods I made, the lighting was conducted into his bloodstream and down toward his heart. Rather than die, he expelled it all while it was in his arm and it was blown apart. Instantly cauterized from the heat, he won't bleed out either." Izuku said as he walked up in front of Zeus and messed with the object in his hand.

After a few moments of tinkering and Ochako's rising confusion about what he was doing, she heard a distinctive click-clack of a gun being cocked. Then she saw him raise it toward Zeus.

"Wait...!" she yelled and felt a lance of pain in her chest from the exertion.

Izuku paused, and turned his head toward her, but not enough to look at her. Without Zeus's light, it was hard to see anything in the darkness, but the light from the hole illuminated him enough.

"Don't kill him," she said quieter and without pain.

She saw Izuku look back at Zeus, and after a moment he started shaking his head violently.

"No... no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" He screamed suddenly, pistol still aimed at Zeus.

"YOU DON'T GET TO SAY THAT!" He screamed.

"NOT AFTER WHAT YOU AND OTHERS DID DURING THE WAR! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE SAY THAT NOW! HE DESERVES TO DIE!" He screamed, clapping his other hand onto the pistol but she could see his hands shaking.

"That was different, and so is this. You don't have the right to make that choice," she said.

She had to stop him from killing him. She felt, deep down, that if she didn't stop him, then the man Izuku Midoriya would die, and The Hunter would be what would remain.

"DIFFERENT! DIFFERENT?! HAHAHA!" He screamed, now laughing.

"NO! NO THIS ISN'T DIFFERENT! I'VE SEEN WHAT HE'S DONE! ON THE WAY HERE I SAW WHAT REMAINED OF THE PEOPLE AND ANIMALS HE KIDNAPPED! THEY...!" He said, suddenly unable to speak.

There was a pause as the gun lowered to the ground, and Izuku's head was lowered. Then in a sudden motion, he raised the gun once more.

"No... no this must be done, he has to die, he has to pay. Disregarding everything he's done here, in this fucking place, blindly, stupidly, disregarding the graveyards he's filled, the thousands who have suffered, the friends he's crippled, the families he's shattered! Ever since that day... I've done nothing but plan this out, I spent years preparing, all so I could put a bullet in his brain or a knife through his heart. For HER, FOR MY MOTHER HE WILL DIE!" He ranted, pacing and gesticulating with the gun.

Izuku stopped pacing suddenly, breathing hard and likely hyperventilating.

"You're right. He does deserve to die, and he will. Not by you though, the courts will decide that, and it will be justice that finally ends him." She said, tiredly.

"WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE! If he's going to be executed either way, then what does it matter if it's me who's the executioner!? I know you would have, you were ready to and so was Bakugo, your attacks had that intent, I could see it! So why would you killing him make a difference?!" He demanded, looking at her.

"Because when the war started, heroes were given the right to kill in the name of and defense of this nation and its people, not you, not civilians. We... we're soldiers Izuku, this country took kids like me and turned us into weapons, and that changed us. We... we aren't heroes anymore... maybe we never were." She said bitterly.

"You haven't killed someone in cold blood as I have. Like most of my friends have. Maybe in the QSU you killed people, but you know that was different, you could feel it. This... What you are doing now is different. You, a civilian came here in disguise, infiltrated a clandestine operation to subdue a terrorist, and now you threaten to kill him while he is incapacitated. You're already walking a fine line, but please, please don't walk off it. If you do..." Ochako had to swallow, as it felt like her throat was constricting her as she tried to get the words out.

"If you do... I... I'll have to arrest you," she said, and she could feel the fear in her heart at the thought of having to do it.

Izuku didn't say anything and didn't move for a while, but eventually, he walked back to Zeus and raised the gun, both hands clamped around it. Ochako closed her eyes, bracing herself for the report, and for what it would mean. Despite being braced for it, the gunshot made her jump, and she opened her eyes, feeling her heart break.

She watched Izuku sink to his knees, just like she was, and raised the gun to the ceiling, forehead pressed against the barrel. He started rocking back and forth, shaking all over and she heard a whine come from him that made her heart ache.

"why... why can't I do it..." he said in a broken voice through sobs.

It was then that she noticed that Zeus was still, barely breathing.

"I... I know he deserves it... but... but..." he continued through sobs.

"Because..." Ochako started to say, and she heard Izuku's breath hitch.

"Because despite everything you've done... you are still a good man," she said.

Izuku stopped rocking and she saw his head turn toward him. Then he turned his head back toward Zeus and his hands dropped at his side, the pistol clacking onto the floor. Izuku's head hung down toward his chest and he suddenly screamed. She could hear the hurt in that scream, as he realized he couldn't cross that line. When the scream finally subsided, he took several rattling breaths before slowly getting to his feet. She watched as he made his way to the hole in the room.

"What... where are you going?" she asked.

Izuku didn't answer, just clambered to the entrance of the hole and unable to do anything, she watched as he vanished.

Ochako desperately wanted to move, wanted to go to him, to hold him in his darkest hour. But she couldn't and it tore at her to have seen him broken and be unable to help. For a few brief moments, she wrestled with her emotions before she finally brought herself under control. She keyed for her comms and to her relief, she saw it was still operational. Though, most of the rest of the suit had been pretty well fried by Zeus. OFA was still present but it was fading fast, and she knew she wouldn't be able to hold the mountain together forever. She set her com to an open broadcast using the unique frequency only Angels could use that would override all other communications of registered devices.

"This... this is Angel Six... Zeus has been eliminated but the battle has destabilized the mountain. I'm holding it together, but it won't last. To anyone who can hear this... evacuate the mountain. I can guarantee you a few minutes, but I don't know how long I'll last. I repeat, evacuate the mountain as fast as possible." She said softly, too exhausted to do more than that.