"If you become friends with her, you won't have to go through the trouble of spying, will you? And if she's suffering or harboring hate, she might eventually open up to you. You'll find a moment where you can actually step in. If someone hasn't become a villain yet, there's always a chance to keep them from drifting down that path."
Why?
That was the question I had put to my father, and this was his answer.
"A Hero's job is to catch villains who have committed crimes, but those people always have a reason for what they do. Often, it's a circumstance they couldn't escape. To me, a Hero's job is also to nipping those reasons in the bud before they bloom into something ugly. And more often than not, a healthy connection with another human being is the only cure for that kind of rot."
He flashed a bright, confident grin. "That's why I make it a point to be so friendly with my parishioners."
I knew my father was a former Pro Hero, but I hadn't realized he was still practicing a form of heroism in his daily life as a monk.
To hear him tell it, staying close to people's hearts, lifting them out of their shadows, and supporting them so they don't lose their way—that was the true essence of a man of the cloth. And he believed it was just as vital for a Hero. From his perspective, even if I couldn't "cure" Toga's darkness, I had a high chance of keeping her from acting on her violent impulses. At least for now.
Of course, to do that, I would need to understand what she was thinking and what specific desires she was burying in her heart.
That was why he insisted on "becoming friends." By understanding her, my options would increase. To put it bluntly—and perhaps a bit cynically—it would allow me to bind her to our side through emotional ties. This was particularly effective for people who felt suffocated by society; those who turned to crime simply because they couldn't find a way to be "normal."
The idea of using emotional kinship to prevent crime—rather than just waiting for a law to be broken—was a revelation. It was far more efficient to stop the seed from taking root than to cut down the tree later.
However, my father warned me that if I chose to close the distance, I had to be prepared for the consequences. I had to be ready to be her friend for life, and more importantly, I had to be prepared to take responsibility and stop her myself if she ever did cross the line.
That went without saying. To get close to someone only to abandon them when things got difficult would be an act of supreme bad faith.
"This is just my personal opinion, but..."
As we spoke, my father did something rare: he shared a glimpse into his own past. His voice dropped to a low, contemplative murmur.
"Maybe it's because I grew up in a temple, but I always wanted to be the kind of Hero who could save the villains, too. I didn't want to believe that everyone who committed a crime was 'pure evil.' When you look into it, there are so many people who are just minorities—people who were wired differently from birth and fell through the cracks of society because they didn't fit. People broken by poverty, or by the way they were raised."
I listened in silence, caught by the weight of his words.
"But even if someone only became a 'villain' because of their nature or their environment, there are times when you still have to fight them. There are times when you reach out a hand to help and they spit on it. ...Still, when I was a kid, I naively believed that a true Hero was someone who could save anyone. That they could save the soul, even while stopping the person. Real Heroes... well, they aren't usually that idealistic."