[The Fox and the Hare] Chapter 46 - The Mantis stalks the Cicada... (Patreon)

A bit over two months passed since the villains’ coup d’etat in Japan. Now, it was summer; it was a particularly hot day in June that had Naruto sweating buckets as he patrolled the outskirts of the city. 

“Hey, Ron, how long time left?” Naruto asked in a broken English. 

Ron was his partner, a Pro Hero in his early twenties. Tall, dark-skinned, well-built, rather handsome, sporting a stylish fade haircut, and having a simple strength-enhancing quirk, Ron was one of the most popular young heroes in Florida. 

“We’re here. We just have to find the kids. Maybe try using your enhanced sense of hearing? According to our reports, they’re causing a big ruckus.”

“Sorry, more simple words, please.”

Ron laughed and used his phone to translate his words into Japanese. Naruto started living in the United States about two months ago. Although he was doing his best to learn English, it was a work in progress. He was still far from fluent. 

Nevertheless, the Pro Hero agencies in Florida (and not only) were more than eager to get Naruto into their ranks. Once Mirko’s mother helped him get settled as a war refugee, just like his parents, and he became a legal resident, many recruiters from agencies all over the country started fighting for him. 

Although his notoriety wasn’t as high in the USA as it used to be in Japan, Naruto was becoming increasingly popular with every passing week here too, due to the fact that Japan had become the centre of the entire world’s attention after the villains overthrew the Japanese government. 

He could’ve landed a spot at a hero agency in Los Angeles or New York, but he turned down those offers and chose to work at a relatively low-profile hero agency in Jacksonville, the one that was the closest to his home. He didn’t want to be apart from his family again. 

Soon, thanks to his sensitive hearing, Naruto managed to find the location of the group of kids. 

About ten kids, none older than 15, were gathered in a circle, laughing and making all sorts of noises. 

“Jimmy, make sure not to let him go!”

“No worries, homie, I gotchu.”

“Alright, who goes first? Emily or Mitchell?” 

One kid was holding an adult alligator tied down with his quirk, which conjured leather straps, while two other kids who looked like they had some sort of body-hardening quirks were standing in front of the reptile with their arms extended. 

“What the fuck?!” hearing Naruto swear like that in English was funny as shit, but Ron couldn’t bring himself to laugh given the crazy situation. 

“Are you, kids, out of your minds?!” Ron screamed and quickly broke their circle. 

“Tsk. Party poopers are here again!” one of the kids clicked his tongue. 

“Nobody was getting hurt!” another one said. “They have body-hardening quirks. We are just training and having fun! What’s wrong with that?!”

“First off, an adult alligator has one of the strongest bites in the world. It could rip off your entire arm! Second, you’re not allowed to use your quirks in public without a license! Third, this is animal abuse! Fourth, [...]”

While his colleague was arguing with the kids and scolding them for the crazy thing they had been about to do, Naruto took out his golden chains and wrapped them around the alligator before grabbing the 200-pound heavy animal and taking him away from the kids’ grasp. 

‘Who the hell would let an alligator chomp off his arm?? I swear to gods, kids weren’t as crazy back in Japan,’ Naruto muttered to himself as he walked away from the kids to release the gator back into the swamp.

The longer he lived there, the more he realised that there was more than a grain of truth to the “Florida man” meme circulating on the internet. People there were just built different. 

⁂

It was early in the evening when Naruto finally arrived home. As was always the case, Eri was the first to jump into his arms when he opened the door. The little girl knew his work schedule better than he did. 

“How is my favourite little sister doing today?” he laughed as he grabbed her and put her on his shoulders. 

“I’m your only sister, silly!” Eri retorted, pulling on his fox ears playfully. 

“But you’re still my favourite!”

“Naruto! You’re back earlier than I expected.” Kushina also greeted him as she climbed down the stairs. 

“It was a slow day today. No activity other than a group of dumb kids tempting death by teasing an alligator.”

Looking at his father, who was also coming down the stairs after Kushina, Naruto said in surprise:

“You both look amazing. Is there a special occasion?”

Kushina was wearing a long and elegant red dress that left her shoulders and her back bare, and her long crimson hair was falling down her back in ringlets. As for Minato, his spiky blonde hair was slicked back and he was wearing a tuxedo and a bowtie.

“Nothing special. We just decided to go on a date,” Minato said simply and kissed his wife lovingly on the cheek.

“Eww!” Eri made a sound and looked away, making her parents burst into laughter. 

“We’ve been through a lot lately… you were attacked so often by villains, then we had to go into hiding, and then the civil war happened. We’ve just been surviving from one day to another... But life shouldn’t be like that. We should enjoy every day and appreciate the love that we have for each other,” Kushina said, taking Minato’s hand into hers. 

Despite the fact that they had been married for nearly two decades, Minato and Kushina loved each other dearly, and their passion for each other had yet to fade away. 

“We’re going to Paris tonight!” Kushina said. “I’m so excited!”

“Me too, dear. From now on, we’ll go every weekend somewhere,” Minato said, smiling at her exuberance. 

“How enviable,” Naruto muttered. 

Kushina put her hand on his head, patting him between his fox ears. 

“Don’t worry, dear. I’m sure it will all work out between you and Rumi-chan too.”

“Alright. We’re off now. Could you keep an eye on Eri tonight?” Minato asked. 

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Naruto said, but when Eri playfully pulled on his ears, he quickly added: “I’m more than happy to.”

⁂

Half an hour later, a girl’s twinkling laughter made many people raise their heads and look above. 

Holding Eri strapped to his back with his Adamantine Sealing Chains to make sure she would not fall off, Naruto was running at a great speed atop the rooftops of Jacksonville City. 

Eri let out a particularly loud shout as Naruto let himself fall off a building and didn’t do a thing until he was only 10 metres above the ground. She laughed and screamed in both panic and excitement when he finally wrapped a chain around an emergency staircase and slung himself back into the air. Riding a rollercoaster did not come even close to evoking the same thrill in her as when he gave her a piggyback. 

Maybe it was Naruto’s fault for getting her used to something like that, or maybe Eri was naturally an adrenaline junkie because not a day passed without Eri bugging her brother to take her out for a run. 

One hour later, Naruto and Eri could be seen on a tall building’s rooftop, sitting with their feet dangling off the edge and eating ice cream. If Minato and Kushina knew what they were up to whenever they weren’t around, Naruto would never hear the end of it. But he wasn’t reckless. One of his chains was wrapped around Eri’s waist at all times, ensuring her safety.

“So, how is your English coming along, Eri-sensei?” he asked jokingly. 

“Daddy says I’m getting better. I should be able to speak English perfectly by the time school starts,” Eri stopped licking her cone of ice cream to answer him.

“You’re going to school, huh?”

“Yes, I’m so excited!”

Naruto ruffled her hair playfully, but she didn’t mind it. She just grinned happily at his affectionate gesture. 

“Be careful what kind of friends you’re going to make, okay?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

“Kids here… well, they aren’t like in Japan...”

Eri tilted her head in confusion. 

“But how are they in Japan?”

Her question nearly broke his heart. He had almost forgotten how bad Eri used to have it before he and his parents took her in. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Naruto said, caressing her head gently. “Make as many friends as you can and have as much fun as possible.”

“Umu.”

At that moment, his cell phone rang. 

“Rumi?” he said in surprise when he took out his phone and saw the caller’s ID. 

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

After that, neither said anything for a few seconds. 

“It’s been a while,” he finally said. 

“Yeah… how are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m okay. I’m out with Eri-chan, spending some time with her now.”

“Should I hang up? I could call later.”

“It’s fine-,” he said, but when he looked at Eri’s pouting face, he changed his mind. “I’ll call you in one hour.”

⁂

Having finished spending time with Eri and after putting on a cartoon for her to watch, Naruto went to the balcony outside his bedroom and dialled Rumi’s number. It was as if the rabbit girl had been waiting for his call because she answered in seconds. 

“Hey. Sorry for earlier. Eri wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I spoke on the phone instead of spending time with her as I promised.”

“No, it’s okay. No worries. I called out of the blue.”

Awkwardness could be felt between the two of them.

Naruto and Mirko had not talked to each other in over two months, and the last time they did, they argued. 

“Are you okay over there?” he asked. 

“I’m okay… not so much for the ordinary population though,” she said and blew out a long sigh. “How about you? How is life in the USA treating you?”

“It’s been great. I found a part-time job at a Hero Agency and I get to see my parents and my sister every day.”

“I’m happy for you,” Rumi said. “I-, … I miss you, Naruto.”

A node appeared in his neck. 

“I miss you too.”

Silence was instilled between the two of them once again for some time. 

“I’m sorry. I was stubborn and I-”

“No, I was stubborn too. I’m the one who is sorry,” Rum cut him off. “I think you were right… it’s all in vain. All my sweat, blood, and effort are for nothing. I’ve been working my ass trying to keep people safe, but they don’t care. They don’t appreciate it. And it’s neverending. It just doesn’t get better.”

“What happened, Rumi?” he asked in worry. He could hear how frustrated she was from the tone of her voice. 

“Have you not seen the news?”

“I kind of stopped paying attention to whatever was going on in Japan…”

It was so that he would stop thinking about Mirko every day. Although they had a bad argument, he still loved her. No, he loved her even more than before, now that he was in danger of losing her. 

“The villains dug out more dirt on the Hero Public Safety Commission. It’s a video from the ROOT’s headquarters, from the night they captured you.”

“Oh… damn,” Naruto said when he remembered what had transpired back then. 

“Now the whole country knows that the leader of ROOT, Danzo, kidnapped you to turn you into a lab rat, all for the sake of making his agents awaken their quirks and take over the world.”

So many things happened lately that it felt as if several years had passed since that moment, but now that Mirko was talking about it, it was all coming back to him. Danzo’s speech to him before the doctors induced an artificial coma in him rang clearly into his ears. 

“Now there are protests in all big cities, demanding for the government to completely abolish the Hero system. The people of Japan don’t want heroes anymore.”

“This is crazy talk. Who is going to protect the weak when the villains act up? The police can't do anything about them.”

“Tell that to them. They’ve gone mad. They’re just lashing out in anger and frustration, turning against the very people who protect them… You were right… I shouldn’t have returned.”

Naruto and Rumi’s argument and consequent separation stemmed from their differing views on what course of action they wanted to take next. 

Whereas Naruto had wanted to have nothing more to do with Japan and to stay in the USA together with his parents and with little Eri, Mirko wanted to go back to her country and continue doing her job as a hero, to protect the innocent. 

“No, you were right too,” Naruto said. “Between the two of us, you are the real hero, not me. I’ve only ever seen being a Hero as a job. It is a way for me to use my quirk to get money and live in this society. It was never about becoming the symbol of peace and hope for the weak. I’ve always been in it just for myself and for my family. And I still feel the same... But you are different.”

“You, Izuku, Best Jeanist, and many others… you all went back to Japan for the sake of protecting the innocent, even if you aren’t getting paid for it now. You’re much better people than I am.”

Naruto had been a hero for his village and for his country in his past life. But in his current life, he has made a resolution to live for his family first and foremost. He would help other people too, if possible, but their needs would never come before his or those of his family.

In this life, Naruto wasn’t a Hero. Not like All Might. Not like Izuku. Not like Mirko.

“It’s hard to determine who was right and who was wrong,” Mirko said. “But I do know that I don’t want to stay in Japan anymore… It’s not just the government and the villains who are against me anymore; the regular people are against the Heroes too now.”

“I’m sure the opinions of a few protesters aren’t the thoughts of all people. They’re just louder.”

“I’m afraid most people are on the same page. It’s complete chaos over here. People have banded together in neighbourhood gangs and look out for each other or fight against other gangs. The police are helpless. And although me and the rest of the Heroes who are still here are arresting villains and gang members every day, they get released shortly after. They don’t get prosecuted for their crimes.”

“Now, even those who we’re protecting are protesting against us. We’ve been fighting in vain. It’s hopeless.”

“Then come back, Rumi-chan. Come here,” Naruto said. 

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“I stopped being mad the second day after you left,” he said, chuckling a bit. 

The two of them were both very stubborn, and Rumi also had a short fuse. Their disagreement two months ago had quickly turned into a loud argument which ended with Mirko asking Minato to teleport her back to Japan... And they had not talked to each other ever since. 

“So, are we… are we still a thing?” she asked in a small voice. 

“Whenever someone asked me out in these two months, I told them that I was taken,” Naruto answered. 

“Good. It would’ve hurt me to have to break your legs when I come over if you cheated on me,” she said half-seriously, half-jokingly. 

Despite the worrisome threat she had just made, he could tell from the upbeat tone of her voice that it was as if a weight had been lifted off her heart. 

He swallowed his saliva in nervousness before saying:

“Even when you were away, I never stopped thinking about you. I love you, Rumi.”

When she didn’t say anything, he asked:

“Rumi? Are you okay?”

His sensitive hearing picked up a very small sound of sniffing. Although the Rumi covered the phone’s mic with her hand, it wasn’t enough to prevent Naruto from hearing it. 

“I’m fine,” she said. “Can you tell your dad to come pick me up?”

“He’s not at home now. He and mom went on a date to Paris… knowing the two of them, you’d probably need to wait until tomorrow before he becomes available.”

“I see. What a bummer.”

“But we can still talk. How about we start a video call?”

“No, no, it’s all good! We could just talk on the phone,” she said quickly. 

Naruto chuckled softly to himself. Considering what kind of person Mirko was, he could tell that she didn’t want him to know that she had been crying. 

⁂

After the villains annihilated the HPSC and overthrew the Japanese government, the entire country descended into chaos. 

Rumi was not the only hero who decided to stay in Japan and fight against crime in the aftermath of the civil war. Izuku, Eraserhead, Best Jeanist, and many others continued to fight on after their injuries were healed. 

However, the Pro Heroes began losing hope when they realised that the new regime was not going to prosecute the villains for their deeds. From one of the safest and most civilised countries on Earth, Japan became no better those third-world countries which were ruled by warlords. 

The last straw that broke the camel’s back came when the government released to the public the footage from ROOT’s headquarters, showing Danzo’s speech and the way that Naruto had been strapped to a table and forced into a coma. 

Now, the population went out in the streets, protesting against Pro Heroes and the previous regime. But most of the people weren’t even sure what they were protesting for. They were going out there just for the sake of violence, to release their pent-up anger and frustration at their powerlessness. 

Nevertheless, that action led to most heroes becoming disheartened, just like Mirko. What point was there in fighting to protect the people when even the people they were rescuing hated them?

Furthermore, with the government not taking any action against villains, they had no way of putting the villains away for good…unless they killed them. But heroes rarely killed anyone. It wasn’t in their nature, it was not what they had been taught in school to do. In addition, killing people would just give the government a pretext to start hunting the Heroes down. 

From that moment on, most of the Pro Heroes who had still been active after the coup d’etat went into hiding. They stopped fighting for the people who hated them. Mirko lost her motivation too. 

All For One’s ambition had become a reality once again. There was no leadership in Japan. There was no order. The entire country was now part of his Empire of Crime. 

There was only one rule in Japan now: the rule of the fist. AFO was the one with the biggest and strongest fist of them all. Now, everyone bowed to him. 

⁂ Three months later ⁂

Time passed, and soon it was autumn. 

“Nii-san, nii-san! How do I look?” Eri burst into Naruto’s room without even knocking and asked before making a twirl to show off her new uniform. 

Luckily, he was decent; he was in the middle of writing a report for his boss at the Hero Agency.

He turned around to see his little sister. She was wearing a red plaid skirt, a white button-up shirt, and a black blazer on top.

“Look at you! You’re the cutest girl I’ve ever seen!” Naruto said, making a show out of expressing how impressed he was. 

Eri laughed happily.

“Cuter than Rumi-nee-chan too?” Eri asked mischievously when she saw that Rumi was on the balcony, knowing that the rabbit girl could hear what they were talking about perfectly. 

“Oh, you naughty little squirrel. Don’t let me get my hands on you!” Naruto shouted playfully and stood up, pretending to chase after her. 

Eri ran out of his bedroom, squealing and laughing. And she would have returned to continue teasing Naruto if not for Kushina who stopped her and reminded her that she needed to get ready for tomorrow. 

“I wish I was ever as excited about starting school as she is,” Rumi said with a chuckle as she came into the bedroom. 

“Can you blame her? She’s never had friends of her age before.”

Mirko came and sat on one of his knees. 

“Still not done with your report?”

“I would be done by now if not for a certain someone who decided to use a car’s roof as a springboard to launch herself in the air.”

“Oh, give me a break! If I hadn’t done that, that wasp dude would’ve gotten away! Flying types are always annoying to catch.”

After returning from Japan, Mirko started living together with the Uzumaki family, in their guest room. Now, she also worked together with Naruto at the same Hero Agency, they were even partners. 

She turned around in his lap and straddled his thighs. 

“Not now, Rumi. I really need to finish this,” he whined. 

“I’m not doing anything. I just want to hug you,” she said as she embraced him and rested her chin on his shoulder. 

He let out a sigh and tried not to think of any impure thoughts. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep it together when the rabbit girl was getting more affectionate and clingy with every passing day. 

A knock was heard on the door. 

“Naruto? Rumi-san? Are you decent?” Minato asked from beyond the door. 

“Yes, come in.”

Minato smirked a little in amusement when he saw how Naruto was trying to work while the rabbit girl was in his lap, straddling him and embracing him.

“Suffering from success?” he asked with a grin. 

Naruto chuckled at his father’s verbal jab. 

“I’m not complaining…Not much. You need my help with anything?”

“Mhm. I just got a call from Principal Nezu. He wants to talk to both of you.”

⁂

When they arrived in the living room, they saw that the large screen of the TV was split into nearly 30 squares. It was a video call conference.

He recognised Izuku’s green hair right away. Then, one by one, he also noticed that most of the teachers from UA High were present, together with several other Pro Heroes such as Hawks and Best Jeanist. 

“Welcome. It’s good to see you again, Uzumaki-san,” Nezu greeted him. 

“Hello. What is this about, Principal?” he asked in return. 

“You may want to take a seat first.”

“Don’t be so suspicious,” Minato said when he saw Naruto hesitating. “We have a good plan of action now. I call this operation ‘The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind’. What do you think?”

Naruto groaned, and he could see that half of the people on the screen were face-palming too. 

“Who let my dad name things?” Naruto said, getting second-hand embarrassment because of his father. It reminded him of how Minato used to name techniques in his past life. 

“Hey, I’m hurt. What’s wrong with the name I chose?” Minato said, crossing his arms to his chest. 

“Let’s first hear what they have to say,” Mirko said, patting the seat next to her for Naruto to sit down on the sofa too. 

“Leaving aside Uzumaki Senior’s questionable naming sense-”

“Hey!”

“-we are planning on striking back at All For One,” Nezu said, not acknowledging Minato’s shout of protest. 

“What is this plan exactly? I hope it’s something better than simply waltzing into AFO’s hideout to kill him.”

“You think so little of us, Naruto-kun?” said Izuku. 

“The plan is to lure All For One out of hiding and strike when he least expects it,” Vlad King said. 

“The truth is that we cannot leave things as they are anymore,” Best Jeanist said. “The situation in Japan is as bad as it used to be before All Might’s reign as the symbol of peace. It’s complete anarchy now.”

“So how are we going to lure AFO out?” asked Mirko. 

“Naruto and I are one of the keys to this plan,” said Izuku. 

“It’s best only for one of us to talk,” said Aizawa. “Principal Nezu, if you will.”

“Yes, thank you, Eraserhead. As Midoriya-san pointed it out, the two of you will be one of the keys,” Nezu told Naruto. “According to what we know, AFO has always had a strong interest in obtaining your quirks. We don’t expect him to come out the very instant you are spotted in Japan. But if you and Vanguard were to act together in your capacity as heroes to fight crime, and if the two of you were to destroy an important asset such as Re-Destro and his company, for example, I am certain that word of your arrival will reach his ears.”

“The name your father came up with for this operation, although a mouthful, isn’t exactly wrong,” Nezu continued. “You will be the cicada, and All For One will be the mantis who will move on to hunt you, unaware of the fact that he is being hunted himself by the oriole behind him - us, the rest of the Pro Heroes.”

Mirko scrunched her eyebrows in thought. 

“Not to be rude, but how exactly are you planning on beating All For One? Best Jeanist, you were there with me when AFO kicked our assess, obliterated the HPSC, and killed Ryuku and Endeavour. You know how powerful he is. The two of us barely escaped alive thanks to Minato-san.”

Mirko wasn’t afraid of fighting, but she wasn’t a fan of throwing her life away in vain either. There was a thin limit between courage and stupidity, and this plan of theirs was clearly not on the side of courage. 

“I said that Naruto-san and Midoriya-san will be one of the keys,” Nezu explained. “The other key is Eraserhead. His quirk, Erasure, can cancel other people’s quirks as long as he looks at them. We have a rather short window of time to defeat AFO but even he will not be able to survive the combined attack of so many of us at the same time.”

“I remember that half a year ago, when you called Dad to teleport everyone out of the shelter, you were worried about a mole in your midst. Have you managed to find it?” Naruto asked. “If there’s a spy in our ranks, AFO will also find out about our operation too.”

“That’s where I come in. Yahallo!” said a young woman in an energetic voice and waved at the camera. "Finally, my time to speak! Finally, my time to shine!”

“Um, who are you?” asked Naruto.

He had never seen her before. He would have certainly remembered a woman as eye-catching as her if she had been a Pro Hero in Japan.

The woman took off her stylish shades and winked at him. 

“Allow me to introduce myself! I’m Makoto Tsukauchi, and I am a Hero Manager. But it makes sense that you wouldn’t know me since I’m not operating in Japan but in the US. Does the Playboy Hero ring a bell?”

“What do you have to do with that piece of shit?” Naruto asked with a deadpan.

Of course that he recognised the name. The Playboy Hero was one of the top 10 Pro-Heroes in the United States and easily one of the top 5 most controversial celebrities in the country. 

“Naruto, it’s not polite to talk like that!” Minato admonished him, but he didn’t put his heart into it because his thoughts were the same. 

“I’m not a student anymore, so it’s fine. Besides, it’s a fact that he is scum.”

“I’m his manager!” the woman said happily as if she hadn’t even heard the way Naruto was talking about her client. “But I’ve got to say you have guts! And the looks! Oh my, you look even more handsome than in the pictures and videos I’ve seen of you. That tan is gorgeous. And that golden fur-”

“Can we please get back to talking about the matter at hand?” Mirko cut her off in annoyance. 

“Tsukauchi-san, please,” Nezu said. 

“Fiiiiine, way to suck all the fun out of it,” she threw her hands up in exasperation before saying in a serious voice: “My quirk is Polygraph. I can tell if someone is lying or if they're speaking the truth. I have tested it on everyone except for Mirko, you, and your family. I am certain that everyone in this video conference is clean. There are no traitors among us. And you can trust me because I’m Detective Tsukauchi’s sister. He was All Might’s best friend; me being part of this operation is only thanks to my brother asking me to do him a favour.”

“With that out of the way, what do you say? Are you in? Will you work together with us to take out All For One and restore order to Japan?” Nezu asked. 

Naruto mulled over their words for a few seconds before saying:

“I am in. But there is one thing that you need to know and one thing that all of you need to agree with before we do anything. If you cannot agree with this one thing, I won’t participate.”

“Let us hear it.”

“First of all, you have to know that even if Aizawa-sensei can’t stop All For One’s quirk, I am strong enough to take on All For One by myself.”

When the Pro Heroes on the other side of the screen started talking at the same time, clearly unconvinced by his words, thinking he was boasting, Naruto said bluntly:

“Age and seniority mean nothing. It doesn't matter if you’ve been a Pro Hero for 10, 20, or 30 years. Only strength matters now. I am strong. And Izuku is just as strong, or maybe even stronger than me at this point. He had long since surpassed All Might. So take that ‘you’re a student who needs protecting’ thought out of your minds.”

“Second, the thing that you all need to agree with is that I am going to kill All For One with my own two hands.”

If the Pro Heroes murmured in disagreement the first time, they have outright started shouting now. 

“I agree with Naruto,” Mirko said over their shouts.

“So do I,” Minato also spoke in favour. 

“I do too,” Nezu said, unknowingly making the arguing Pro Heroes quiet down. 

Taking advantage of their silence, Minato said:

“All For One has been chasing my wife and her side of the family for 3 generations already, all for the sake of stealing their quirk and killing them. She’s had to live in fear her entire life, and we, as a family, had to go into hiding for years, out of fear for our lives.”

“But you won’t have to worry about any of that once he gets imprisoned in Tartarus. Why would you agree with letting your own child stain his hands with blood?” asked Midnight. 

“There’s no guarantee that Tartarus will be able to hold AFO,” Minato countered. “Someone like him is too dangerous to be left alive. And you still seem to not understand what kind of person my son is. Naruto will stop at nothing to keep us, his family, safe. As long as AFO draws breath, he will always be a threat to us.”

“Why are we even debating over such a thing?” Mirko said with a frown on her face, losing her patience. “Look at what this villain has done to Japan! Look at how many hundreds of people perished at his hands! He deserves to die 10 times over for all the crimes he’s committed!”

“That is a dangerous line of thought. It’s not our job to decide who gets to live and who gets to die,” Ectoplasm said. “You sound no different than the Villains now. We are heroes, not juries, judges, and executioners.”

“All For One has the government in his pocket. Do you seriously think he’d get a fair trial? Or that he’d get a trial at all? He’d be released right away. I agree with Naruto. Unless we all agree that AFO needs to die, I won’t have any part in this operation either,” Minato said. 

Naruto let out a sigh.

“Let me make two things clear: first, I’m not asking any of you to kill him. I will do it. And second, I’m not doing this for the country of Japan or for the people living there. I’m doing this for myself, for my mother, and for Izuku. All For One needs to die. If you agree with that, I’ll use my full power to support your plan. If you don’t agree, then there is nothing for us to talk about. Make a decision now.”

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: If you're interested in joining my Discord server, you can do it at /x7xdd53WqE