superpierce: First love the Austin Powers reference second ouch that's gonna leave a mark.

Re: My Hero Academia: Vigilantes did it too. With Gojira, and Gamera~
In fact visually, it's just filled with fun little Easter Eggs, and I highly recommend it. Especially with that animated spin-off on the horizon~

Raidentensho: very nice. i do wonder if the song 'One for All' by Divide Music would be made by the oc and maybe have a few people actually think of All Might's approaching retirement. also wonder if there will be another rift leading up to a Gad cube from "Gad Guard" ending up in Takei's hands and making a Technode (the main characters') from 1/20th of the garbage from Dagoba beach including the pickup truck. i mean every Ratchet needs a robot partner so why not? this will indeed be epic. until then, later!

Re: Haven't seen Gad Guard, but I watched the trailer and added it to my Crunchyroll list, so who knows. Although I kinda do have the "Robot Sidekick" role planned.
ALTHOUGH… Get in touch with me on Discord, and maybe that'll change. The Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid crossover happened because of such… discourse~
Ugh, dad joke.

Harleking31: There is a joke to be made here... With what the Isekai protagonist getting blindsided by a truck-like villain and all
But I'm not going to go for it. Too easy
[This message has been truncated due to length]

Re: Technically he wasn't "blindsided"; Takei knew the Truck Villain was there all along, but Yomi needed saving.
Just like how Yusuke Yurameshi knew that sports car was coming but he jumped in anyway.

*AHA*

Mahatma Gandhi had a famous saying.

"Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

The whole premise of reincarnation had been deeply embedded in Hindu scripture for countless centuries; but somehow, I doubt that old Hindi ever stopped to consider what that saying would come to mean for people re-appearing in other worlds, as opposed to the one they had originally died in.

As for why this is important? Weeeeell…

*AHA*

"So you're saying he was one of ours?" Kuroko asked bitterly.

"From a few years ago, yes," Kuroyama replied from his end. "It's probably why he went after Takei the way he did, even when the guy was swimming in drugs and Gran Torino was trying to draw agro. It is a very distinctive uniform…"

"And how'd he survive until help arrived?"

"Well, see, that's what we're still trying to figure out."

"What, were there not enough witnesses?"

"Witnesses weren't the problem. At least on their end. The issue is, no-one can seem to agree on what actually happened down there," the police chief groaned. "Some of them are saying Kendo Itsuka-chan had a 'Plus Ultra' moment and kicked his ass. Others are saying the kid that got bitch-slapped through the house did it. Then we've got people saying it was the old guy, or All Might, or an OL as strong as All Might…"

"And what'd the three of them have to say?"

"It was like Jan Ken Pon, the three of them passing the buck in a circle, utterly convinced that the other is the one who took the Truck Villain out," he groaned. "No-one being able to agree on what happened, other than the fact that by the time we got there, the Truck Villain was face-first in a giant crater with knuckle marks in his skull… This might've been the work of Illegal Heroes; a power-type to do the heavy hitting, and a support-type to doctor memories after-the-fact and cover their tracks."

"If it's Vigilantes that saved Takei-chan, I might have to look the other way, just this once," Kuroko hummed.

"Is that really a statement you want to be making over the phone?"

"And who exactly is the kid supposed to rely on when all of the so-called 'Heroes' are too busy posing for the cameras to actually do their jobs?" Kuroko hissed back. "Vigilantes rose up when law enforcement was lacking, that's the way it's always been. Sure, Vigilantism's at an all-time low with All Might galivanting around… but in the little Podunk towns where Heroes barely patrol, and half the time Vigilantes are the only ones that can fight Villains."

"Well, no matter how you swing it, this'll probably wind up in the 'Unsolved' pile anyway. People with mind-altering Quirks have always been secretive about their abilities. Even centuries later, no-one wants to be called a 'Maverick'."

"Oh, you mean like Albert Maverick?"

" . . . Yeah, how'd you know that?"

"Takei-kun's a little history wiz. He's a bit selective in what he finds interesting or really cares about, but dinner conversation's never boring," Kuroko smiled, but only for an instant. "You sure you'll be able to hold onto this one? Tio had trouble with him even when he wasn't on neo-steroids, so I doubt it'll be any easier to hold him now."

"Don't worry about it. He had a 'roid crash', so he's weaker now than when he started out."

"And where, pray tell, did the neo-steroid he was on come from?"

" . . . "

"Kuroyamaaaa…!"

"And what do you intend to do if I tell you?"

"What any good Hero Agency would do. Get to the source of the mess, and tidy up."

*AHA*

Elsewhile, at the Okayado General Hospital at the heart of the "VIP Wing"…

"Doctor, is he going to make it…?" Hitomi asked worriedly.

"The majority of his body is relatively intact," the doctor answered, looking down at his clipboard. "If it weren't for the Gel Layer in his catsuit, and the Kevlar in that flak vest, that hit probably would've killed him. As it stands, that knock to the head is all he's really suffering from. Everything else seems to be healing remarkably fast; probably from an influx of MGH if I'm reading his bloodwork correctly…"

"So a helmet might've saved him…?"

"I mean, helmets usually tend to lessen head injuries, but there's no helmet out there that can prevent a cerebral concussion," the doctor answered.

"Mmmm…" Hitomi shifted where she stood, the muted sound of sniffling reaching her ears from the closed room behind her.

*AHA*

When the Mon Squad had first heard that Takei had been hit by a truck, outside Doppel making an "Isekai Protagonist" joke, everyone else might've lost their shit. When they found out it wasn't a truck, but a Villain with a "truck Quirk", the lot of them wound up seeing red. Like any good Hero Agency did, they kept track of the Villains they put away; in particular, when any of them got out, that way they'd be ready for a "relapse". So to hear that it had been one of them who'd put their Young Ward into a coma… If "Truck-sama" as he was called on the streets hadn't been taken out by some Vigilante, they might've had to claw over one another to decide who got first shot.

He'd been with them for less than a year, but that they'd kill for him, showed how near and dear to their hearts he'd become. He wasn't theirs by blood, and taking him in had started out as a favor to a friend, but now, the Mon Squad couldn't imagine life without the little know-it-all. And not just because he did some of the chores they didn't want to do. Having him in their lives was like all the fun of having a kid with none of the child-rearing.

At the moment, it was Zombina manning the visitor slot. Doppel wasn't allowed past the front desk anymore because of those times she turned into an angel and convinced people they'd died, Tio was too grabby for her own good, and Manako was with the police convoy moving the Truck Villain on the off-chance she could put a .50 cal through one of his eyes, so there really wasn't anyone else. Kuroko for her part was actually doing her job at the agency, and trying to find out who the hell gave the Truck Villain parole so she could rake them over the coals and make sure it never happened again. And Kami forbid if there was bribery involved…

Takei for his part looked pretty damn good for someone that'd been hit by a truck on literal steroids. Apart from the bandages around his head, the breathing mask, IV, and electrodes on his exposed chest, he could've been any other twelve-year-old napping off a long day of school. His heartbeat was slow, but steady, though the fact that the word "coma" kept getting thrown around and there wasn't a medicine for that, meant they couldn't just slip something into his arm and get him out of it.

And it wasn't like she could use her [Zombie Virus] to save him, either. The kid was freakishly healthy, so her Quirk-borne pathogens wouldn't stand a chance inside his bloodstream. Immunosuppressants and Meta Growth Hormone tended to be a bad combination too, so the only thing anyone could do was wait it out.

And if the wait was hitting the Mon Squad in their sore spot, then it was positively killing Fujimi Yomi. Takei had had to come back for her because the sutures on her leg tore and the thing fell off, so of course she was going to blame herself for his current straits. Apart from getting her leg sutured back on, the Undying Girl hadn't left his side since.

"Takei-kun…! I'm sorry…! I'm so sorry…!" Yomi sobbed, apologizing for what must've been the hundredth time.

"Kid…" Zombina said somberly as she put a hand on her fellow zombie's shoulder.

"This is all my fault… I thought I'd learned my lesson, but if that stupid, fucking suture hadn't torn, he wouldn't have had to come back for me."

"Being a zombie girl's hard," Zombina said giving her shoulder a shake. "But at least you still have all of your bits. I can barely tell what's mine and what's from the morgue anymore," she shrugged looking herself over.

"Maybe I don't deserve to have all my bits…" Yomi said bitterly as she looked down at her re-attached leg, which in of itself was the very source of Takei's current suffering.

And even though her leg had been re-attached by a professional, there was just something so… impersonal about the work that made her want to pick at it, just so Takei's warm, caring hands could be the ones to make her whole again.

"You care for him a lot, don't you?"

"I really do. He's the only one who doesn't freak out when I go to pieces on him."

"Well, that one's on me. I've given him plenty of practice~" she grinned trying to make light of the mood.

It didn't work.

"Takei-kun…"

The Undying Girl choking out a sob, she undid the button-style hairclip from her temple, looking down at it contemplatively before opening up his hand.

"I made this a long time ago, you know? And I don't know how much 'true power' it's got left, but please…" she pleaded as she laid the button face-up on his palm before closing his fingers around it, bowing low until her forehead met his knuckles. "Jii-chan… Please… Bring him back… I don't want to lose him too…!"

*AHA*

"Ooogh…" I muttered as my awareness came back to me. "Anyone get the number on the thing that hit me…?"

Taking stock of my surroundings, instead of waking up in a hospital bed like I'd hoped, assuming I woke up at all, at the absolute worst what I expected to see was an open field or the middle of the woods; a common troupe of the Isekai sub-genre for any protagonist that bought the farm.

Instead of any of that, I found myself in some… place that felt completely unnatural. The sky and the horizon itself were a uniform shade of jet black, while the rocky ground all around me was a chalky white. Shadows stretched unnaturally or didn't exist at all, yet even without visible light I could still see.

Which was why when I looked down at myself and saw that the majority of my body was wreathed in a black, swirling vestigial fog, I almost crapped myself. I was able to cry out because my mouth wasn't covered, but half my face was, though for some reason I hadn't lost my depth perception. Bands across my chest were smothering my Mon Squad uniform, and only the fingertips of my right hand and the toe of my left boot were visible on their adjoining limbs. It felt like my body parts were still there, but every once in a while under that swirling mass I could catch glimpses of something… other… Something that nagged at the back of my mind.

Is this what happens to "Isekai Protagonists" when they bite it a second time without trying to reincarnate? Some kind of hellish, lonely Limbo with no sky and half a body?

"Where even am I…? Because if this is heaven, I'm going to be really disappointed."

"The notion of the afterlife depends on one's religion, and while this country doesn't have one consistent religious view…" a voice hummed, making me whirl around. "In this country's mythology, there is a place that exists between the living world and the afterlife. A land called Yomotsu Hirasaka."

"Yomotsu… Hirasaka…?" I rolled the words over on my tongue as I appraised the man standing behind me. The man that had most definitely not been standing there a moment prior.

He was an older gentleman, distinguished with a receding hairline but with a mustache, beard, and sideburns all in white with streaks of gray. He had a pair of rectangular glasses on his face, a cigar in his mouth, and the scar running over his left eye without blinding it gave him a toughened edge. His attire consisted of black loafers, jeans, a black button-up, and a denim jacket all filled out by an impressive musculature. His most-distinguishing characteristic, apart from how ripped he was, were the two horns protruding from his forehead above each eye.

"Wait… I know you… You're from Yomi-chan's story…!" I said as my finger raised up toward him, my body freezing mid-point as I turned my hand over and uncurled my other fingers, finding a familiar hairpin/badge staring up at me.

"That badge… You must be real special to Yomi-chan if she gave you that to hold onto," the older man said looking down at me; or more specifically, the item in my hand. "And what kinda grandpa would I be if I left you for dead?"

"That's great, but… I wasn't even holding this when I died…!"

'Course, as soon as I said that out loud, I immediately remembered to how Goku walked up to King Yemma with his weighted gear on; weighted gear he wasn't even wearing when he'd died…!

*Purrrrrrrr~*

"AAUUUUUGH!" I yelped as something brushed against my leg. Looking down after I'd leapt away was a fluffy black cat with a white chest, tip of the tail, left forepaw with little spots on his foreleg, and face save the area around his left eye split kinda like a yin-yang symbol. Around his neck was a thin red collar with a tiny golden bell on it.

"B-Bub -kun…?" I blinked as the other protagonist of Yomi's resurrection story came to mind.

"Well, that's as much of a ringing endorsement as you're bound to get around here," Yomi's grandpa added, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck as Bub circled my ankles, getting his scent all over me. "Come on. We've got a bit of a hike ahead of us."

"Wait, you mean I'm still alive…?!" I gawped, the old man grabbing my hand and feeling for a pulse.

"For now, but that's more-likely to change the longer you're down here," Yomi's grandpa answered as he started walking off, leaving me no choice but to follow after him.

Sure, everyone died at some point. Even quote/unquote "immortals". But if there was even a chance of coming back to life, I was going to take it.

At least I didn't wake up to the sight of a grim reaper in a pink kimono riding a boat oar. Had YuYu Hakusho been a part of this world's mythos…

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid was one thing, but legit demons running around… There was only so much nonsense my post/mid-Isekai mind could handle.

*MHA*

Elsewhere back in the real world, as Yomi continued to sob and Zombina offered what emotional support she was able to for her fellow Zombie, Shiori and Kuromi had gone one way, looking like they were talking about something incredibly heavy, leaving Itsuka and Tetsutetsu standing outside with Hitomi-sensei, who looked utterly crestfallen.

"Hey, doc, is he going to be okay?" the [Steel] user asked worriedly once the school nurse had stepped away.

"I should be asking that about you. I heard you had half a house dropped on you."

"Yeah, well, if it weren't for my Quirk, it might be me in there," he said with half a grin, his body flashing steely gray before flickering back at the doctor's disapproving look.

"Sensei, what's the prognosis?" Itsuka asked worriedly.

"Boiling his condition down, he's in a coma," the doctor answered, causing the Hero aspirants to hiss painfully. "You know, I've heard of people with amazing healing abilities. No matter how grave the injury, their bodies survive. However…"

"However…? However, what?" Itsuka asked.

"At this rate, if he doesn't regain consciousness, he might be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Tetsutetsu pleaded, feeling his stomach sink.

"I'm afraid it all depends on him now. It's up to him if he stays asleep or wakes up."

The doctor walking away, it was only once he'd rounded the corner that Tetsutetsu let out a furious yowl, banging his fist against the wall.

"Damn it! I should've done something… anything!"

"Tetsu…" Itsuka said pressing a hand onto his shoulder, the teen's free hand going to his face as tears rolled out of his eyes.

"I thought he was just riding their tailcoats, you know? That he didn't have what it took to really be a Hero. That everything else was a fluke. But when it came down to the wire, he came back for her, and me… I couldn't do a damn thing to help!"

"Tetsu, that Villain was hopped up on neo-steroids. Nobody expected you to stand up to that-"

"But I should've! What's the point of having a Quirk like mine if I can't get anything out of it when it really counts!" he raged, a nurse poking out of a nearby room and shushing him with an angry look on her face. "When he stopped you from saving that guy… I thought he was going to grow up to be the absolute worst kind of Hero… But all this time, he was more of a Hero than me. He couldn't tank hits like I could, but without a moment's hesitation he…!"

"You can tell him you're sorry when he wakes up," she said patting his shoulder. "Come on, visitor's hours are almost over. We should get going."

*MHA*

Elsewhile, at the Mon Agency…

"I'll pay for his care," Gran Torino, out of costume, stated as he sat across from Kuroko, knuckles going bone-white on his cane.

"I'm not gonna blame you for what happened."

"Well you should. I took him out of school, his safety was meant to be my responsibility…"

"We all had a hand in getting him that costume, not just you. And after all the weird shit he lived through, maybe we thought he was a little bit 'invincible'. That he'd be the next big thing; great, but humble; the next golden ratio."

"This isn't my first time, you know. Having something like this happen to a student. But at least unlike that bonehead I used to look after, Takei-chan actually has a lick of sense about him."

"When he wakes up, he'll need someone to look after him," Kuroko said looking up from her desk, a moving crew carrying all of the Mon Squad's essential documents and equipment out. "This new strain of Trigger… It's coming from just a stone's throw away, and 'Truck-kun'… He made this personal. If this shit's already getting into the hands of low-level punks like that, we might run the risk of it breaking containment if we don't stop it here and now."

"So you little ladies are just pulling up stakes?"

"Not completely, no. We're going to maintain our office here, and we'll come running if Kuroyama asks, but Naruhata needs us more. Place's practically a ghost town as far as Heroes are concerned. That we all let it get this bad, so close to Tokyo…"

"Heroes can't be everywhere. Even if the HPSC is handing out licenses to anyone with a pulse, nowadays," Sorahiko huffed, adjusting his grip on his cane. "You sure he doesn't have anyone else?"

"Well, he's got Hitomi in his corner, and Elma's really come out of her shell, which is a shock. Then we've got Kuroyama and his little girl to pitch in. But I'd feel a lot better with a positive male role model who isn't an Avatar in a VR. Assuming the guys in his Fireteam actually are guys. And I don't want Takei-kun picking up any weird habits off Kuroyama, so asking him to play parent is a big fat 'no'."

"I'll think about it… Assuming he wakes up."

"Hey, don't write the kid off just yet. He's been through hell, but he's bounced back time and time again. Right now I'm sure he's just having a nice relaxing nap, healing up for his next big dustup."

*MHA*

"You know, the last time I did something like this, it was with my grandkid, and she'd gone all to pieces on me," Yomi's grandfather, 'Takuma' if I'm remembering correctly, said as we walked. "Certainly a lot faster, not having to go on a scavenger hunt for all her bits and pieces."

"Not sure if you want to hear this, but she's still going to pieces even when she's alive," I replied as I held onto Bub-kun. I always was more of a cat person, and holding the little guy made the oppressive atmosphere a bit more bearable.

"Huh. I'd have thought she'd have healed up by now…" the man said scratching his cheek. "Still, I guess her Quirk only being cosmetic now is more a blessing than a curse. Especially with him still wandering around…"

"Him? Him who?"

I had a vague idea, but there could always be more than one "him" that people spoke of in hushed tones. Like one of those "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" sorta deals.

" . . . There's no way he can hear us down here, so I guess it's safe to tell you the full story."

And tell me he did.

I'd already known about this "All for One" guy that parents told Boogeyman stories about. The guy that the HPSC wanted to use my DNA as some kind of "Magic Bullet" to put down if they could ever figure out what about my DNA made that other Quirk-stealing guy run off with his tail between his legs. But to hear from someone that had previously been alive when everyone quaked in terror of the very mention of his name like Moldywart or whoever, that All for One would basically barter Quirks to earn the allegiance of countless thousands and rule Japan from the shadows… It definitely put into perspective how-terrifying this centuries-old "Supervillain" really was; assuming he was-in-fact still alive.

That he'd allegedly been alive since the very advent of Paranormality, and in all likelihood he knew more about Quirks than anyone alive or dead, was in of itself terrifying all on its own because it meant everyone else was basically fumbling around the dark in an ignorant stupor. And it wouldn't surprise me if the guy lobbied to stonewall outside research into Quirks, if only so he could monopolize what information about Quirks he was able to accrue through his own research.

When I asked about how he knew about stuff he had no business knowing, Takuma revealed I was hardly the first person he'd conversed with down in Yomotsu Hirasaka. Many he'd encountered here were those whose Quirks had been stolen by the guy, and they had either been killed by All for One himself immediately after, one of his minions almost-immediately-after, or died in obscurity and failed to fully move on.

In fact, a recent influx of people he'd spoken with, assuming words like "recent" actually meant anything down here, had been collateral damage in a struggle between All for One and All Might. From the way Takuma told the stories that he had been told, it was almost like this All Might guy everyone had such a hard-on for was closer to One Punch Man than a Superman, only his strength didn't come from "satire", but from whatever Quirk he had that he always deflected away from whenever someone tried to bring it up in an interview.

The hanger-on that'd managed to hold out the longest before ultimately dying, painted a rather vivid picture of what it was like when "the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object" duked it out with no restraints.

And given the fact that All Might was alive now, obviously the guy won that battle; though according to that very last witness, All Might had fought like a rabid animal, even after having half of his entrails spilling out of his side, as opposed to the "paragon of justice" he normally styled himself as. So at the very least, All Might didn't have the same problem Superman did where he valued the buildings around him more than his own, you know… life!

And really, if All Might was ethically this world's Superman, what could All for One have done to cheese him off so much, that he'd basically punched the guy with city-leveling blows until everything above the jawline had been turned into a fleshy smear on the asphalt?

And all things considered, the guy looked pretty damn good for a guy that'd completed what most would consider a suicide mission with half his organs hanging out. That All for One had been stealing and bartering Quirks for centuries, with more experience using Quirks of all kinds than anyone else alive…

"Damn…!" he swore throwing out a hand to hold me back. "Even if All for One can't hear us down here, it doesn't mean there aren't still those that are listening."

"Who-?" I asked before an inhuman groaning wail met my ears. Pulling themselves from the ground or shuffling around from every dark corner were- "Glugh! Fucking Christ, I'm getting some serious Highschool of the Dead PTSD up in here…" I shuddered as the living dead of all descriptions made themselves known; everyone from office drone to Pro Hero, young to old, including Heteromorphs, some with weakened versions of the Quirks they had in life going off randomly, quite a few brandishing weapons, and assuming time wasn't 'linear' down here, there seemed to be a few ronin from the Meiji Restoration, as well as Westerners from other time periods as well. "And there aren't even any gravity-defying tits around to distract me either!"

"Do those count?"

"GOD DAMMIT!" I swore as the old man pointed me towards a zombie whose boobs were literally defying gravity; I'd heard that Quirks could be just about anything, but God damn...! "Are these things actually zombies or what?"

"They're creatures that've been in this in-between world for too long. They've forgotten whether they're alive or dead. By this point, they're little more than empty husks."

And that statement in of itself gave me some Mass Effect PTSD as the man drew a black M1911 Colt semi-automatic from his coat, eyes darting before he led me off to the side where the infestation was thinnest, shooting one or two that got too close and couldn't be avoided.

"Over here. This way."

"Don't have to tell me twice!" I said hugging Bub to my chest as I ran; thankful the terrain was relatively even.

*MHA*

After running like hell for who-knew-how-long, given "time" didn't seem to have the same sort of meaning down here…

"How come you're still here?" I found myself asking. "Not that I'm not grateful, but…"

"When your beloved granddaughter is counting on you, there isn't a grandpa living or dead who wouldn't move heaven and hell to help her," Takuma answered, a fierce looking coming to his eyes as his horns grew an inch and darkened, his sclera turning black. "And I'll take apart this world too if that's what it takes, to protect her happiness."

"You're a damn good grandpa, then," I returned. "If there's any sort of message you want me to pass on, assuming I make it back to my body… I'd be more than willing to-"

"Bub-kun and I said all we'd needed to say to her when Yomi-chan was last here. Can't have her hanging on the words of a dead man every time one of her little friends gets hurt, now can we?" the man waved off.

"Makes sense… I guess…"

Most of the kids at Damoto didn't actually believe Yomi about her out-of-body experience the previous summer; wrote it off as another Chuuni Fantasy… And I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical, but given I'd literally Reincarnated, I didn't exactly doubt she could have gone to some kind of Limbo-like place, galivanted around with her grandpa and cat, and gotten back to the world of the living with memories of such relatively intact.

That she could even smile, despite all she'd endured… Quite frankly, it was amazing how much willpower she had.

Come to think of it, how much willpower did Takuma have if, even a year later down here, he still had his sense of self?

Assuming "time" in this place was linear, which I was beginning to doubt. I remember Caboose from Red vs Blue saying time was made of "circles" instead of lines, and outside the fact that his justification for that statement was that clocks were "round", I was beginning to think "time" was either linear or non-linear depending on how-near or how-far you are from three-dimensional space.

Ugh. All this quantum introspection is making everything smell like fried hotdogs…

"Soooo… Do bullets actually work on these things?" I asked looking over my shoulder.

They weren't chasing us like the seemingly-endless hordes of The Walking Dead, they'd more or less lost interest once we left what passed for a visual range, but the more I knew about this place, the better.

Not that I wanted to be here long-enough to become an expert on the subject like Takuma is/had been. I'd rather leave the zombie lore to Yomi-chan.

"Since they were dead to begin with, there's no way to get rid of them. Best we can do is slow 'em down," he said adjusting his glasses, his horns shrinking atop his brow. "Glad you've got the good sense to know when to run. There's no point letting yourself get surrounded and devoured."

"Yeah, well, unlike Yomi-chan, I don't think I'll regenerate if they take a nibble out of me."

"So what were you even doing before you got here?"

"A 'Truck Villain' was about to run Yomi over, and before I knew what I was doing, my body moved on its own."

"You know, a lot of the Heroes that wind up down here said the same thing about their origin stories."

"That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence…" I said eyeing a few costume-clad zombies in the middling distance.

They looked kinda silly, but I'd heard of Marvel Zombies in passing, so I had a vague idea of how-much damage a zombie infestation with superpowers thrown into the mix could cause.

Probably why the WHO is so-stringent when it comes to Quirks with zombie virus-like properties. Zombina's bite might've only been able to turn people with AIDS into the living dead, and Yomi was wholly non-contagious, but there could be real world-ending level Quirks out there like in the "Bad Ending" horror movies.

I wonder if anti-zombie warfare came standard in police or SDF training…

*AHA*

"Bub-kun really seems to like you," Takuma said (what felt like) a while later, in response to me cradling the black-and-white cat like a baby and nuzzling his face.

"I was more of a 'cat person' than a 'dog person' before I died."

"As long as you have a pulse down here, you're still technically alive. It's why the zombies are bothering you and not me."

Shit, did I let that slip out loud…?

. . .

"Takuma-san, there's something I need to tell you. I don't know how-crazy it might sound but-"

"Boya, do you forget where we are?" the man asked jovially.

"Good point. I just don't want this to come across as another 'Chuuni Fantasy'."

"I was an expert in zombie lore before I died, and the WHO often consulted me for my expertise, so I like to think I have an open mind about… well, anything."

"I died and reincarnated from another world!"

" . . . Okay see, if we weren't here-here, I really would think that was some kind of 'Chuuni Fantasy'," Takuma said to me after a moment. "Go on."

"Hm? Oh, no, that's about it. I just felt I owed it to you to tell you this."

"And how do you know it isn't some kind of 'Chuuni Fantasy'?"

"Because I have memories of a completely different life before this one, back before superpowers were a thing. The fact that the events of Tiger & Bunny, my favorite superhero anime from before I reincarnated, is a part of this world's history kinda clued me in that this wasn't a time travel kinda deal."

"I probably shouldn't ask this, but have the Tears gotten any crazier since I died?"

"I call them 'Rifts', and I don't really have a point of reference, but twice-over I've been exposed to stuff from other worlds, so… Either I have real shitty luck, or things really are getting worse and our universe is legitimately falling apart at the seams."

" . . . I guess it could explain all this… though I prefer to keep my supernatural and science fiction separate."

"Peas & carrots. Right."

Notwithstanding that the "science fiction" to which he was referring was technically "science fact", but that was neither here nor there.

*RUMBLE*RUMBLE*RUMBLE*RUMBLE*

"Fuck, shit!" I swore as I took a knee, Bub-kun yowling in my arms as the ground rocked, rattled, and rolled, great fissures opening up around us and regurgitating countless throngs of the undead. "Oh god fucking damn it…"

"We must be getting closer to the exit," Takuma said as he took off his coat before tying it around his waist, eyes darkening, horns growing, and muscles swelling causing his black button-up to tear, exposing a bitchin Hell's Devil tattoo on his left shoulder. "Looks like we'll have to fight our way through."

"And me without a weapon…" I said as Bub-kun leapt out of my arms, his yowl turning into a hiss as his hairs began to stand on end, his posture as-threatening as one could expect from an adorable housecat.

"Here's a rock," Takuma said handing me a melon-sized piece of rock from the ground.

And the motion seemed way too practiced.

" . . . I guess it's better than nothing…" I said tightening my grip on the implement, staying close to Takuma as he swelled up like Schwarzenegger, his mighty fist making the head of a zombie twice his size explode like in Scanners.

*AHA*

I don't really know how-quickly or how-slowly time passes in "Limbo", but in the blur of nightmare-fuel action, somewhere along the way I'd swapped my rock for a broken bottle off a highschool delinquent, my broken bottle for a tonfa from someone wearing a gi, my tonfa for a baseball bat from what looked like a motorcycle delinquent with the bastard love child of a mullet and a pompadour living atop his head, and then finally I'd swapped that bat for the katana from what looked like a 16th century ronin. Yomi's grandpa on the other hand was an absolute beast, pulping heads with his bare hands, and even hulking up to the size of a squat All Might when one of the zombies used some form of [Gigantification] and tried to smother us.

To be frank, if it weren't for all those lessons from Stendhal and Bullet Punch, I'd have probably fared a lot worse. Hell, Bub-kun went absolutely feral on tender areas across the whole spectrum, and I wouldn't wish a pissed-off ghost-cat on my worst enemies, live or dead.

Eventually, however, Limbo or whatever this place actually was finally ran out of bodies to throw at us. That or Takuma's overwhelming presence finally convinced them that discretion was the better part of valor; that or cowardice was the better part of discretion.

Anyhow, once we were finally able to move on, pun not intended, I began to notice that the landscape was beginning to actually look a bit sheer off in the distance. Which is weird because there's no way I'd have missed such a sharp incline with the unobstructed view I'd had for as long as I'd been down here. The rocky wall, in of itself, eventually gave way to a valley.

That should've been the end of the line. The light at the end of the tunnel. Only, when the three of us finally got to the great fissure, a brilliant light shining from its confines like a beacon… there was someone waiting for us. And it wasn't another zombie.

Backlit by the light of salvation was a tall, hooded figure, that hood attached to a poncho of blackest night. Crimson eyes shone ominously from the depths of their cowl and as my eyes began to adjust to the sudden source of light, I realized the entity before us wasn't human.

Okay I mean, they weren't a zombie like the others, and the lowest common denominator was that this was just someone with a Wolf Quirk… but somehow, I didn't feel like that was the case.

What I could see of him from below the folds of his poncho were limbs coated in silver fur with leather wraps around the wrists and ankles, the hands bearing opposable thumbs while the legs were still digitigrade. But what was most-unsettling of all, were the wicked-looking sickles in his hands one apiece, their edges humming with their tips honed to an impossibly-sharp edge.

"Friend of yours?" I found myself asking.

"Not in the slightest," Takuma said as he forced himself to relax, his massively-muscled frame deflating before he took the length of chain he'd swiped from a motorcycle hooligan and had been wearing like a belt in his hand.

The next moment, from the depths of that cowl issued an ominous, almost melancholic tune, whistled impossibly through a vulpine snout, the hairs on my body standing on end before they started doing corkscrews. Bub-kun through sheer volume of fluff almost doubled in size, but unlike before he wasn't yowling. The little guy looked positively terrified, and Takuma… I didn't like the look of that sweat going down his temple.

"Boya. Get behind me," Takuma said as he stepped in front of me, both our eyes refusing to leave the hooded figure.

"You know, there's two things I can't stand," the ominous figure growled as more of that vulpine face became visible, a black blooming spread like the 'mask' on a racoon surrounding those baleful crimson eyes. "Cats, and you upstart little 'Isekai Protag-kuns'. Nine lives? Those can run out. But you? You little interlopers, galivanting around like you're the next big thing, shrugging off any and all responsibility to the natural order of things! It's enough to make a guy see red…!"

In that moment, some primordial part of my "lizard brain" told me who, or rather, what exactly, was out in front of us.

"Boya…" Takuma said as he let a length of chain slink to the ground from his hand. "Grab Bub-kun and get out of here. I'll hold him back."

Given the severity of the situation, I was smart-enough not to argue.

Takuma lunging forward with explosive force and meeting Death's sickles with his chains, I ran like the bats of hell were on my ass past the dueling titans. The valley in front of me steadily turning into a cave, the road still fairly rough, but with a light at the end that filled me with warmth.

Even if it was hard to actually see, anywhere was better than here.

*AHA*

The Greeks had countless stories about brave Heroes venturing into the Underworld, and as-unassailable as some claimed it to be, there were still plenty of big names that'd come and gone almost with impunity. Er, Odysseus, Psyche, Heracles, Alcestis, Aeneas, Theseus, Hippolytus, and Sisyphus to name a few.

The story that clung to memory the most however, was the sad tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, the prior of which metaphorically dropped the ball at the last second and utterly flubbed it. He was literally at the door to the Underworld, and if he'd refrained from looking upon his wife for a few seconds more, he and his snake-bitten wife would've been free and clear. At least until the next time either of them died.

As such, I kept facing straight ahead, not looking back. I used my hands to feel my way when I met an incline, and I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

Partway through I realized I was still holding Bub-kun to my chest like a football filled with adorable fluffy goodness, but I wasn't about to drop him or turn him around. Not after watching that one episode of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. The one with the alleyway in the spirit world and the mangaka with the proverbial monkey on his back. And the look on Kuromi's face when we got around to the "Stardust Crusaders Arc" didn't really help matters with how-intensely she was studying those centuries'-old pages.

Eventually the light got so bright I couldn't see at all, and even closing my eyelids and shielding my eyes offered no form of respite.

It was only when the ground fell out from under me and I lost track of Bub-kun that I dared to hope I might've made it back to my body.

*AHA*

When I opened my eyes, I found out that was not as such.

"Why hello there, little runaway~ We really must stop meeting like this~"

SHIT!

Looking around, I found myself standing atop an endless expanse of white that made me think of Fullmetal Alchemist, whereas the swirling corridor of clouds, orange up ahead of me and dark blue at my back, made me think of Kingdom Hearts. Thankfully none of it stank of Dante's Inferno; the game, not the book.

And up ahead, standing before the proverbial end of the tunnel in "the light at the end of the tunnel", was the wolf-like personification of death itself.

I say "wolf" instead of "werewolf" because he only had three fingers and an opposable digit instead of four-and. That, and to compare this form of Death to a mere Lycan, seems like a perversion of the concept, as well as a woeful underestimation of just how-terrifying he was.

"Where's Bub-kun? What happened to Takuma?!"

"Little boya~" the embodiment of Death tutted as he stalked towards me, sickles spinning in his hands. "Nothing can hold Death back. Nothing can outrun it either. No cats or old guys here. It's just you, and me," he said placing one sickle next to its partner before reaching into his cloak and flinging something out at me.

The object spinning as it hit the ground, stopping short, was the familiar matte cobalt and orange-accented matte finish of my P-90; and by the way it felt against the toe of my shoe, fully loaded.

"Pick it up," Death ordered tossing his other sickle back into his hand. "Pick. It. Up."

*Lub-Dub*

*Lub-Dub*

*Lub-Dub*

"Hoh…? What's this now…?" Death tittered as the shroud of vestigial smoke writhed around me in tandem with my pounding heart, beginning to evaporate under the glare of the light surrounding us.

For a moment, everything went completely black as the smoke smothered me, but then, it parted like a shed skin, revealing… my old body!

Tall. Adequately healthy. Well-trodden shoes. My favorite "100% Vegan Compost" T-Shirt with the flip-flop-clad foot sticking out of the bag. The long limbs I'd forgotten about having, the facial hair, this incarnation of Death no longer looming so-tall over me. At least not in the literal sense.

"You know, you never forget your first~" Death tittered, my hands shaking as I took up the P-90, the implement now much smaller. It felt lighter, sure… but it also felt clumsy in hands I'd forgotten how to use.

The next moment Death bolted, feet *taptap-taptap-tap*ing as he devoured the distance between us like an oily blur, hood flying back. A panic I wouldn't have felt before filling me at his approach, I leveled the SMG and pulled the trigger.

My P-90 belching out rounds, it only took me a moment to realize that the muzzle climb… that wouldn't have happened in my new body. Sure, "Takehiko" was weaker than… than I had been… But his hands were practiced. More-confident. I'd probably fired more bullets in a week as him than I had in my entire other life.

Not that any of that mattered as the gun clicked empty, Death like a streak as he descended on me, my body clumsily rolling away as the curved edge of his wicked-looking sickle nicked my brow. Coming to a fumbling stop, I felt the sticky, warm trickle of blood dribbling down the side of my nose, down my lip, the coppery taste of iron whetting my tongue. The taste of life.

The taste of death.

Fight or flight instincts going crazy, I leapt up as Death approached, whipping out my depleted weapon like a club.

"Slow. Sloppy. Sad!" Death chuckled as he bat aside every swing with the flat of his sickles. "You're not living up to the hype, boya."

A vicious kick catching me in the gut, folding me over and sending me tumbling further back beneath dark-blue skies, as I wheezed for breath, images flashed before my eyes.

Hitomi. Mitsumi. Kuma.

Sorahiko. Kuroko. Tio.

Doppel. Zombina. Manako

Papi. Koichi. Chiyo.

Kayama. Kaori. Katsu.

Atsuka. Mei. Shizuru.

Yomi. Shiori. Kuromi.

Naruko. Togami. Kageto.

Tomu. Tetsutetsu. Itsuka.

"What's the matter? Lives flashing before your eyes?"

" . . . No. Just the one," I said, feeling a smirk pull at my lips, the crackling of glass heralding thin rays of light as fissures spread across my stomach through my clothes, but I didn't fear it.

The cracks continuing to spread, issuing yet more light, in a radiant explosion, the body I'd once had, the body I'd died in before… vanished, giving way to the new me. The new "me" I'd finally come to accept as me; no quotation marks.

Yeah, I'd died before. People die all the time. And maybe I'm only one of a select few that get the chance to do things over. But Takehiko Tokei… He wasn't him anymore. He, was me! I was… I am, myself!

And nobody else!

"Ready for round two?" I grinned reaching into my flak vest, reloading my P-90 with practiced hands, the added weight a familiar comfort as I leveled the dot sight at Death's blackened shroud.

"I only need one~"

Death closing the distance once again, I aimed low and kept low, Death forced to bat aside the 5.7x28mm rounds that more-reliably chased him, tears opening up in his hooded poncho as he was forced to dodge away.

Leaping forward to pursue him and leveling my starting gun at his muzzle, with a loud *POP!* I forced him to cry- "Los hijo de puta!" -, his hands going to his lupine ears. Sickles falling from his hands as he staggered about, unfurling the baton from my side, I dove at him, striking at any and everything in arm's reach, Spanish expletives filling the air as I positively wailed on him, every ounce of training from Gran Torino, Stendhal, Bullet Punch, and the Mon Squad coming to the fore.

After several minutes of just beating on the guy and feeling my adrenaline start to flag, I remembered that while discretion was the better part of valor, cowardice was the better part of discretion.

In summary, I cheesed it.

"You think you can just walk away from me? Turn your back on me?!" Death howled furiously at my back, slapping his sickle blades together, the swirling orange skies ahead of me and at my sides as I came to a stop.

"I never once turned my back on you. Every step of the way, every single day, was always going to be toward you, no matter what direction I chose," I said over my shoulder, the higher pitch of my voice a pleasant sound to my ears. "This second life, this second chance, it's a gift. One I know I'll have to return someday. But until that time comes, whether it's from you or some random Villain, or maybe just pure dumb luck… I'll live it through to its conclusion. And maybe the second time around I'll actually stay dead. Don't know how many times I can go through all this, to be honest…"

" . . . Hmh. Good answer," he smirked as he holstered his sickles at his sides. "Live your life. Live it well."

Death throwing his hood over his head and turning back toward Yomotsu Hirasaka, I continued on toward orange skies, and the light at the end of that long tunnel.

*AHA*

And that's the story of the time I died and came back to life.

What actually happened after I woke up, is a story for another day.

And the day after that. And the day after that. One day at a time. Day by day.

Keep moving forward.

*AHA*

Yes I saw Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and yes I thought Death was really cool. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?