Hero
Many thought hero work to be something glorious, something fun. Beat up evil doers, and enjoy the spotlight on your skin and face.
Everyone conveniently forgot the many heroes without a name, without a single feat to their name. They were forgotten.
No one cared about them. If they disappeared, only their families would cry about them, and they would be left behind like crumbling leaves at the end of autumn.
Skyward, was not even like those heroes. He only had a single friend in this life.
A short, wasteful life of someone who lost his only relative early on life, and had to take command of his destiny from there on.
His appearance was not something out of the ordinary, fairly mundane clothes with unkempt hair, and one eye hidden by an eyepatch. Few would guess he was a hero, if they would guess it at all.
If his job were less important, if the weight crushing his lungs were lesser, a burst of barking laughter would escape his lips.
A cruel, choking, painful laughter.
The book and pencil on his hands moved without input from his mind. He had done it so many times now. Three, or so, years ago, it was so hard to record anything at a meaningful speed, but now he could do it in no time at all.
It was a boring job. He wrote down everything his targets did.
Now he was searching for a drug den. He managed to drag down one of the places they supplied. Drug dealers and their armed henchmen. Skyward observed them for weeks and tracked some of them down.
He hid himself in everywhere nook and cranny he could fit, and watched from afar. It was hard to keep up with just one eye, but he managed. Ever since losing his eye, depth perception was a problem, but he managed it. Skyward had to.
Their routines were fairly simple at first. They handled drugs to addicts and took the money somewhere else.
He tracked down their “bank”, but failed to find where they took it to. He found an outpost of the drug den, but not its main location.
Fifteen people or so were in that operation. Four dealers, ten henchmen, and 1 “Leader” who was in charge of the operation.
It didn’t take long for Skyward to stalk specific members, the ones he thought were important or looked different from the others.
he tracked down their families. School records, and medical reports, and even turned their trash over to see what they eat and their overall lifestyle. Some of those things were legal, even if on a grayscale, while others were outright illegal.
Skyward didn’t care much, he had something to do. He had a mission to accomplish. He had long since learned that as long as someone like him got results, the Japanese Law wouldn’t care about HOW he got said results.
He looked at one of them, the “leader” as to speak of this specific dealing point.
He was bald and oversaw the others. He was gruff and mean, but behind the curtains, he was a loving father with a wife and a child.
One call and Skyward could get his family “in Police’s safety”, and bring the man down, forcing him to sell out his friends and coworkers for the safety of his family.
Another one had a large scar running across one side of his forehead to the other. His left leg was limp, and he had trouble moving his right arm. He was a drug dealer, someone who received the supplies, and then sold them to addicts.
His name was Marlow Sakazuki. He had a boy in the emergency room of one of Kyoto’s best hospitals. He had a degenerative muscle disease and needed lots of money to afford treatment.
He had a stash of money hidden in his house. He would use it to treat his mother and run away to one forgotten island, leaving his past behind.
Ruining his life forever would be a child’s job.
A morbid sigh left Skyward’s lips. Back then, he thought that all villains were evil. They all had to taste justice.
But a day has only 24 hours.
24 hours.
How much is it?
How long do you sleep a day?
How many minutes does it take you to eat your breakfast, your lunch, and your supper?
How many minutes does your shower take?
24 hours were little.
When weighted down, it was not much.
Four hours, and twenty-seven minutes, not a minute less, not a minute more.
Twelve minutes. Ten Minutes. Twenty Minutes.
Fourty-five minutes.
One hour a day to walk his dogs.
Another hour to put their food, play with them, or give them baths.
If you spent the remaining 16:04 hours observing people, villains. If you stalked them home, if you saw their families, their struggles, and their daily lives for weeks, for months, could you still wish them harm?
Justice had to be done, that was a fact.
But if you do this hellish job of his for long enough, you start to think of some villains as closer than the friends you made in high school, and never met again.
A day was short, and when you spent it observing your targets, you started to sympathize with them.
Skyward would stop them, but the darkest corners of his mind still thought if he went to a crueler path. It would be less effective.
Organizations would scatter, and only a few people would be apprehended, rather than stopping the organization itself.
By ruining their lives and using them as pawns, he could give the masterminds time to run away and bury the proof.
He doubted he would’ve got the guts to use other people like that, so consciously…
Skyward’s eyes peeked as an unusual sight appeared. A girl. Sixteen, probably. By her body language, she was tense and stressed. She wanted a way out.
She walked to the drug dealers. His heart sank to his stomach. “No, don’t do it. Don’t you dare…” He whispered, pain and powerlessness in his voice.
If he saved her, he would ruin weeks of hard work. If he stopped her from approaching them, Skyward would burn his cover, and reveal himself.
He looked at them. One carried a pistol, another one had a revolver, and they all carried blades. At least fifteen people.
It was out of his ballpark. Even if he wanted to do something, he was not strong enough to help. He grabbed his pencil with strength, and his remaining eye trembled.
She was handed drugs. She paid a hefty sum of yen for them, more than the evil things were worth. They overcharged her.
Skyward continued to write, rage and pain filled the words he wrote.
Powerless like an insect held prisoner by the husk of its corpses, he wrote.
That was the only thing he could do.
Soon, months had passed.
The girl was named Busujima Mari.
She proved to be a key figure in advancing his investigation. Soon she could not afford the drugs with only the money she made. She started selling stuff. Stolen or from her home.
Skyward didn’t know what was worse.
He continued to write.
Soon, the drug dealers took her to a place where she “could get drugs for free”. He knew his time was up.
He got a breakthrough.
The girl’s fate, although, would be horrible.
He followed after their vehicles in the shadows.
He found the Drug Den.
It felt hollow, an empty accomplishment.
He studied it, just like how he studied the drug dealers.
Skyward hoped and prayed the girl was okay.
That it was not too late.
Weeks after she went there, he gathered enough intel to call in a police raid. Their routine, their patrol patterns, the weapons they used, the people working on it, he gathered it all in a single report.
The raid came, and the pace was dismantled.
Amongst the victims of it, they found Busujima’s corpse, dumped somewhere in their basement, alongside many other girls, some alive, some dead, in gruesome conditions.
Soon to be shipped to human trafficking, he supposed. The police didn’t disclose any further information.
Johny held his face.
A bitter taste spread in his mouth. He wanted to cry, to scream to the four winds in petulant rage.
His fingertips dug into his skin. The policemen commemorated that they got to the drug den without many casualties on their side.
They took it down lightning fast too. “here, Skyward. The hero association gave you a hefty sum this time. Outstanding investigation work.” The head of the local police station spoke to him and handled a case filled with money.
His head spun. The world faded to gray. He wanted to puke, but his body trembled. “Don’t hold against yourself too much. You did what you had to. Be a little more egoist, Johny-chan.” She spoke with a soft voice.
She was no older than him and already was the head of a police station.
He felt inadequate.
“You… can’t understand it, Itsuka-dono.” Skyward turned around after grabbing the case.
It felt unworthy. All this money felt worthless to him. He condemned a life for his sake. For his mission.
That was not how a hero did things.
He pushed down his tears to the depths of his soul.
Skyward recalled his teacher, his idol. The one who told him he could be a hero.
How would Rosethorn react upon seeing her student like that?
An awful man who condemned a child for profit.
An awful man who forsakes the spirit of heroics.
He was trash.
That girl’s life would never come back.
But there was one thing he could do with this money.
Her parents would never get their child back, but they would need help to proceed with their lives.
May the money he got help them with something.