Naruto In My Hero Academia - Chapter 70

Anger.

“That dirty little mother fuċkɨnġ ċunt! How could somebody related to… that bitch doesn’t even deserve to be related to… does she even know how much… grrrrr.”

The second that Momo found her dorm room, Naruto took off the Shrinking Ray ‘Shrink Ring’ from his wrist and returned to his normal size, before he powered down. Momo, with a fresh change of pȧntɨės on, was just listening to him rant and rave. His face, now that the fur was gone, was blistering red with rage. She couldn’t say that she understood what he was going through, she never had siblings herself, and she had never experienced a death in her family that she could remember. Naruto’s rage, while she understood why he was feeling it, wasn’t something she had personal experience with.

“Do you need to talk about it?” Momo asked him softly.

Her fear from earlier wasn’t gone.

“I would feel more comfortable with…” Naruto muttered, thinking about Kirishima. This was the kind of stuff that he talked about with Kirishima, but he couldn’t bottle this in, not when he was so close to exploding at any moment. “… fuċk it… all my life… All my life, I’ve lived in fear of myself. My Mom went on a rampage when I was born, and killed both of my siblings… but she didn’t apparently… I’ve always thought my Quirk was the Quirk that destroyed my family. But no, not only was my entire LIFE a lie, but my flesh and blood sister is a fuċkɨnġ murderer…” Naruto stomped around, and Momo noticed something about him.

His eyes, his blue eyes, weren’t blue. In fact, they hadn’t been blue the entire time that he transformed back, they were the same angry red that he had when he used his Quirk, including the slit pupils.

“I understand-”

“No you don’t!” Naruto snapped at her for that one. His body jerked to face her, before he looked away in shame, upon realizing that he had snapped at somebody who was trying to help him. “… Ever since I learned about my parents, I’ve always been afraid of myself. I knew, that at any moment, I could turn into a monster and kill everyone I love. My uncle, Mina, Kirishima, you… I could cause so much pain and suffering… but I also… I wanted to avenge my parents… and my siblings… I wanted to become a hero that they could be proud of in the afterlife… they died before experiencing life, so I wanted to become a hero who could protect everyone… but…” Naruto had tears of rage in his eyes, falling down his cheeks and onto the carpet.

Momo didn’t see a hero standing in front of her at the moment, not the hero that she had come to know and respect. The man who could take all of the burdens of the world, take it with a smile, and ask for more.

She saw Naruto right now.

“Are you going to be okay?” Momo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him so that she was sitting next to her.

“Of course I’m not… all the training, all the effort, all the pain and suffering I’ve endured… I did it for my family… but… she is my family… I always felt pride, thinking that my siblings were looking down on me, cheering me on… but they were alive… they were killing people, hurting others… everything I was doing to help others, they were doing the opposite. All my life, I’ve dedicated it all to becoming a hero… but… my reason for becoming a hero… it…” Naruto didn’t even have the words to say to what he was feeling. All of the emotions in his head were conflicting, the reasons why he had done everything were lies. “I… don’t know what to do… I’ve got to stop her… her and Menma… but… can I still be a hero, after everything my family has done? Will I still be a real hero, or will I just be somebody who is cleaning up the messes his family made?” Naruto asked her as he tried to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

Why wouldn’t they stop?!

“This isn’t like you.” Momo spoke to him as she grabbed his hand, and tried to comfort him.

He rejected her.

“It feels like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I became who I am today because of my family inspiring me, but my inspiration was a lie. My life, goals, becoming a hero… that was everything… it was… that… it was all I really had left of my family. My father was a great hero… and my mother wanted to be a hero, but she ended up killing so many people. Now, I learn my siblings are murderers. I thought my mother killing was because she lost control… I never ever thought she was evil… but what if evil blood is in my veins… the voice in my head telling me to kill… it’s not my Quirk… what if it’s me… what if my Mom didn’t lose control… what if she just stopped pretending to be good… will I turn out like them?” Naruto started to reveal the stuff that even he didn’t know about. He didn’t know he had these thoughts, but as he spoke, more of them were starting to spill out of his lips.

Was he really just a villain, pretending to be a hero, out of a sense of guilt? He didn’t know who he was anymore, now that the truth behind the most important part of his very being had been revealed.

“I… you’re not evil… you’re the most kind, understanding, strong willed, determined… you’re my hero. You know why I became a hero? I became a hero because it was expected of me, yes, I wanted to help people with my power. I come from a wealthy family, I had a great childhood, with supportive families, and I always received praise from everyone. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re feeling, but you know what I do know?” Momo asked with a small, growing smile. She got into U.A. on recommendation just like Naruto and Shoto, but she was so different than both of them. Shoto, who was pushed by his family to be the best, and Naruto, who bore the weight of world on his shoulders by choice.

Naruto looked at her.

“A lot more than me.”

“I know, that you’ve made me believe in myself. Watching you, standing in your shadow, showed me a new path I could take. When you walked ahead of me, I wanted to follow behind you. You are a pillar of strength. With your strength, becoming a villain is easy for you. You could walk the path of easy domination, but you chose a different path. Despite being distrusted, you chose to forge your own path. Everyone else wants to become a hero recognized by the people… but you don’t… you chose something much harder. You want to become a hero that you recognize… you’re sacrificed your humanity to become a symbol.” Momo leaned in and pushed her head against his shoulder. She, even now, was using his strength to say this to him. She was guilty, everyone in the class was guilty of this. Whenever they had a problem they couldn’t solve alone, he was the first they turned to. It didn’t matter if Naruto was helping 1 other person, or 100, he always continued to strive to help others more and more.

It was his greatest weakness, even greater than his Hoshi no Tama was.

“… I don’t understand. A hero I recognize?” Naruto asked her, and Momo couldn’t stop her giggle.

“You say you wanted to become a hero your family could be proud of. But, in the end, it was always you who was the judge of what they would be proud of. So always set impossible goals for yourself, and when you succeed, you raise the bar even higher. You’ve created for yourself an impossible standard.” Momo intertwined her fingers with his. Even deep into enemy territory, holding his hand made her feel safer than she was. His warmth, the firmness of his hand, was a comfort to her.

Naruto was safety, and with him, she was safe.

“I have to always be improving, so I can’t just set my goals small.”

“God is almighty, so can God create something that even God can not lift?” Momo asked Naruto with a soft, loving smile. “When you do the impossible, you ȧssume the challenge wasn’t hard enough, so you create a harder challenge for yourself. You will never see yourself as worthy, because you are always overcoming your limits, and growing stronger. When you succeed, you think your challenge wasn’t hard enough for you… but when you fail, it’s because you aren’t strong enough.” Momo explained, and Naruto started to understand it.

She wasn’t wrong.

Whenever he made a challenge and completed it, he never really felt a sense of accomplishment. He always wanted to make something even harder for himself, because a hero had to overcome all challenges. Yet, whenever he failed, he had also used those as chances to feel his dėsɨrė for strength grow. His family wouldn’t be able to call him a hero, if he wasn’t able to overcome the hardest challenges imaginable.

“Still, all these challenges-”

“Are why you’re my hero! You didn’t just chose to walk the path of a hero, you chose to walk an impossible road! Every step you take, lights the way for everyone behind you, and shows us how we can grow! Even if your life was a lie, I don’t care! The Naruto I know, my friend, is somebody I look up to and respect! You make me want to become a better hero, so that I can walk your impossible road with you! I’m not the only one either. You think I’m the only person that you’ve helped? What about Mina or Kirishima, you think that just because your life was a lie, that the impact you’ve had on their lives is less than what it was?” Momo spoke with a passion Naruto had never seen her speak with. She had a glorious grin on her face, confident more so now than he had ever seen her. She stood up and looked down at Naruto, grabbing both of his shoulders, forcing him to stare her in the eyes.

She was done walking behind him.

If he was going to keep putting these impossible standards on himself, then she was going to be right there beside him, and remind him that he was just as human as she was. She wasn’t going to let him shoulder the burden of the world anymore, not alone. She felt shame that she had been content with just following in his path before now. Seeing him so weak though, seeing his heart on the brink of breaking, reminded her of the fact that he wasn’t just her hero.

He was her dear friend, and she should feel ashamed that she let him walk alone for so long.

“Thanks Momo… it’s just hard to accept… but I can’t let you walk-”

“Good thing you don’t have a choice in the matter. You might be able to chose the path you walk, but I chose my path. I’m my own person, and I’m choosing to walk with you. You’re heart is good, and if your blood is evil, I’m always going to be right there with you, to remind you that you’re my hero.” Momo spoke confidently to him. “Heck, your siblings are evil, so what. Your siblings being evil just shows how amazing you really are. You never gave into temptation like they did. You are more deserving of being a hero than anyone I know… so… lets walk together, okay?” Momo asked as she extended her hand to Naruto.

Her smile faded when it looked like he wasn’t going to take it.

“It isn’t going to be easy.”

“I’m sick of walking the easy road, I want to walk the difficult one.” Momo felt him grab her hand, and pull her to her feet. She smiled when she realized something in his blue eyes, his calmed down blue eyes.

She could see a new dėsɨrė forming in his eyes.