~Zero to Hero: A Vigilante Deku Story~

Two: Eraserhead

Word Count: 4966

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It was the dead of night. The time when Zero felt most comfortable.

He took a running leap off of a building and swung off a nearby window ledge with practiced expertise. It had taken him some time to get the hang of rooftop traversing, but a combination of an extremely sharp learning curve with plenty of determination and a definitely unhealthy lack of self-preservation had resulted in Zero's quick mastery of the skill. Now it was like second nature to him, and he enjoyed the feeling of adrenaline that it provided.

Now, what should he do tonight?

He had already stopped thirteen muggings, six sexual assaults, four home break-ins, a bank robbery, and more drunken brawls than he could count (A/N: and a partridge in a pear tree). Of course, he'd crammed every single criminal's personal note with the worst puns he could think of. It was his payment for doing the police's job for them. And he'd seen several cops crack a smile at some of his better works, so he didn't think it was too terrible a price.

But currently, he observed from his perch several hundred feet over the ground, the city was pretty quiet. Police sirens echoed through the air, but they were a near constant presence here, and most people had enough sense not to go out at night in such an environment. His job was to look out for the poor souls that didn't- and to kick the asses of the less poor souls that took advantage of them.

Zero sighed. While he'd deterred a significant amount of crime, it wasn't enough to make anyone feel any safer. Not in this kind of place.

Really, it was amazing that one city could have areas with such different atmospheres.

Out west in central Musutafu, people walked with peaceful smiles on smooth faces and soft hands that spoke of easy living and cozy homes. They went about their daily business without a care in the world, swaddled in the comforting knowledge that they had the protection of heroes. At night, they returned home to hot dinners, welcoming families, and soft beds. They could walk to the supermarket without fearing for their life; they ate three good meals a day; they went clothes shopping every other weekend not because they needed new ones, but just because they could; they lived lavishly among swirling colors, skyscrapers, pristine store windowfronts, and flashing lights.

The only lights that flashed here were the red and blue of sirens and the flickering "OPEN" signs of cheap bars, filled with cheap beer and cheap people.

Unlike the vibrancy of the inner city, these eastern districts were largely populated by short, squat, and graffiti-infested brick buildings that were only sometimes bothered to be painted with peeling coats of ugly grays, browns, and reds. Tall structures like the one he stood on now were few and far between, so the skyline was low and dingy.

Here, there was a miasma, a sense of hopelessness that lingered in every breath of alcohol-and-cigarette-smoke-scented air. It skulked in every draft that made the houses creak and slipped through boarded-up windows. It was embedded in every crease of a stress-furrowed brow and every callus or blister or broken nail on an overworked hand, but more than anything else it was a weight in people's eyes: a heavy sense of knowing that things would never get any better than this.

This was the place where all the forgotten, forsaken, and abandoned of Musutafu gathered.

The human junkyard. The end of the line.

He'd only been living here for two years, but he already knew that much.

Well, maybe he was being too negative. He was walking proof that living in the central city didn't guarantee happiness and comfort, and he preferred his lifestyle here to the one he'd had while living there in several ways. At least now he could help people.