The Uzumaki Family (Naruto X Justice League)

Chapter 13: Of Pumpkin Sons and Peculiar Powers

(In which Kawaki returns with a mystery woman, Naruto nearly explodes, and hugs are dangerously contagious.)

The Uzumaki living room, which usually radiated the gentle warmth of semi-controlled chaos, was presently aglow with the soft pulse of chakra-laced silence. On the polished wooden floor, Naruto sat in the lotus position, as still as a scroll in a dusty archive, deep in meditation—or, at least, appearing so. In reality, he was busy trying not to explode. Quite literally.

He had lately taken to studying genetic codes and energy transmutation with the slightly desperate enthusiasm of a man who suspected he might accidentally vaporize a continent if he sneezed too hard.

It was in this tranquil (and potentially combustible) setting that Kawaki appeared, the front door clicking shut behind him with Bette trailing close. She had the curious look of someone who'd stepped through a wardrobe expecting Narnia but found herself in the lounge of an extremely powerful wizard instead.

"Father," Kawaki said, breaking the stillness like a pin in a balloon shop.

Naruto's eyes flicked open, golden and ancient for just a moment before settling back into their more familiar warmth. He tucked away his scribbled notes on unstable cellular resonance and smiled at his son—a real, proud, cinnamon-roll sort of smile that Kawaki was still getting used to.

The smile was contagious. Kawaki's mouth twitched into something resembling joy. And then Naruto's gaze shifted to the woman behind him.

From a quick glance, Bette looked thoroughly unimpressive: the kind of person one might find restocking shelves at a corner sweet shop. But Naruto had long learned that appearances were a most untrustworthy narrator. When he engaged the power in his eyes—his strange, shifting, truth-seeking vision—Bette's genetic code practically sang to him like an off-key banshee opera.

"Well, well," Naruto murmured, leaning forward. "An interesting find, Kawaki. What do you plan to do with her?"

Kawaki, ever serious, stood tall. "I brought her back to serve the Uzumaki Clan."

Naruto burst into laughter. "Earning brownie points already, are you? Come here, you little pumpkin."

He pulled Kawaki into a bear hug so tight it might've cracked ribs had Kawaki not been built like a reinforced chakra tank. The young man didn't flinch or squirm—he leaned into it. Filial affection was still new to him, but not unwelcome.

"Will this help?" Kawaki asked once Naruto released him.

"Oh, absolutely. Her powers are... different. They affect things beyond her body, without chakra or even natural energy. Unlike your case, which uses internal nature energy to reshape your body, she manipulates the world directly—causing explosions without so much as a puff of chakra smoke. It's like science and sorcery went out for dinner and got thoroughly drunk."

Kawaki blinked. "That's… quite the metaphor."

"Thank you, I've been workshopping it," Naruto grinned. "Anyway, with her, we might develop new techniques that work where chakra fails. Places like those cursed by the Gelel stone. This could be a major breakthrough. Still…" He leaned back, stretching. "This kind of power? It's small potatoes to us veterans. But for you lot—it might be useful."

Kawaki nodded, serious once again. "So… what are we doing with her?"

"Well," Naruto said, casually draping an arm over Kawaki's shoulder like an overly powerful schoolteacher, "she's a criminal. But no need to throw her in the lab. She's yours now—your responsibility. She'll serve you, since you brought her, and I've marked her with the servant seal. She won't be able to break clan rules now."

Bette, to her credit, only looked mildly alarmed.

Kawaki glanced at her. "Then I'll do my best. I'll train her, guide her… make her one of us."

"Excellent. Just don't turn her into another explosion-loving lunatic. We've got enough of those."

The pair laughed together—father and son, tied by blood and something even stronger: shared purpose.

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 Bette:

Bette's eyes fluttered open like the wings of a moth caught in sunlight — disoriented, blinking, and thoroughly unimpressed by the ordinary ceiling above her. For a moment, she imagined she was back home, sprawled across her grimy old couch with reruns humming on the television and a half-eaten burrito congealing beside her.

But no.

This was not home.

She sat up slowly, feeling the unmistakable stiffness in her neck that only came from being dropped like a sack of laundry. Her mind rushed to catch up. She remembered being kidnapped — which, while not entirely new to her résumé, was usually preceded by punching, screaming, and mild arson. This time had been... oddly tidy.

And there he was.

Her captor. A boy. A boy of all things.

Kawaki stood stiff-backed and serious, wearing the kind of expression that would be right at home on a stone statue guarding a forbidden temple. He had that air about him — someone who read far too many books without pictures.

"My name is Kawaki," he said evenly, as though this were a polite tea party and not a post-kidnapping interrogation, "and this is your new home."

Home? Bette blinked again. The house looked... disturbingly normal. A couch that didn't smell like regret. Walls with actual paint. And a big television she was half-tempted to turn on just to check if this was some elaborate prank show. Maybe she was dreaming. Or dead. Or both.

"I know you're a criminal," Kawaki went on, like it was simply another fact to list on a trading card. "But I won't kill you. This is your chance to repent for the sins you've accumulated."

Ah. There it was. The judgment.

Bette's instincts twitched. She wasn't restrained — no ropes, no glowing chains, not even a handcuff for old times' sake. Her first impulse was to bolt out the door, find someone, scream "HELP, CRAZY KIDNAPPER," and let the authorities sort it out.

But...

Flash hadn't stopped him.

Flash.

So maybe bolting was a terrible idea.

Her eyes flicked to him, calculating. He stood still, unarmed, casual. But he was the type who could snap your spine mid-yawn if you annoyed him. She could try to fight — she had fought worse, arguably — but something told her she wouldn't get past the first swing.

So, instead, she asked, "Are we in the US?"

"Yes," Kawaki replied, as if she'd asked him the weather.

"Why do you want me?" she said, arms crossed. "Why not throw me to the sharks? I'm not exactly Miss Charity 2025."

"Because I believe in redemption," Kawaki answered smoothly. "And because the military is not a threat to me. Not even close. You'll serve a sentence with us, and when it's done, you're free. Unless you try something stupid."

It was said so politely that Bette almost didn't register the threat until it chilled her spine.

"You'll be treated fairly. You can go outside, help people — doing good on your own brings better results. You'll be safe with us."

"With us?"

"The Uzumaki family."

Bette paused. The name rang no bells, but the way he said it — like the sort of people who made history books instead of headlines — made her shiver.

Still, she asked the golden question: "And if I say no?"

Kawaki's eyes darkened. His voice, once politely robotic, dropped into something colder than steel.

"Death."

Well.

That certainly clarified things.

Bette gulped, her bravado buckling beneath the pressure like cheap plastic under a sledgehammer. She didn't need a lecture. She needed to live.

"I—I am willing to serve... Master Kawaki," she said, her voice wobbling just slightly over the title.

He nodded. "Good choice of words. Do well, and one day you may go free. Or you may choose to follow me. That choice is yours."

Bette didn't reply. Her brain was still whirring like a broken vending machine trying to dispense logic in a situation that had none. She wasn't stupid. She'd play along. At least until she understood the rules of this particular circus.

"You may look around the town, eat from the kitchen, or watch television," Kawaki added, as casually as if she were staying for tea. "Training begins tomorrow."

And then, with a whisper of chakra and a shimmer of displacement, he vanished.

Gone.

Bette stood in stunned silence, blinking at the spot he'd just vacated.

A second later, she made a beeline for the front door. Not to run — not yet — but to look. To understand where the hell she was. The world outside was the U.S., all right — but somehow it felt more curated than any suburb she'd seen before. Clean. Unnaturally quiet. Like it had been built by someone who wanted perfection, and had the power to enforce it.

She stepped back inside, her stomach grumbling.

Well, if she was stuck here, she might as well raid the fridge.

And the telly was calling. She had a feeling it got all the good channels.

Still, her fingers twitched slightly.

Not in fear.

In strategy.

Because Bette may have just agreed to serve the boy-king of a hidden empire — but she wasn't going to roll over like a housepet. No. She would watch. Learn. Wait. And if a better chance came...

Well.

She wasn't a villain for nothing.

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Bette Sans Souci had never particularly enjoyed crowds. Especially not ones screaming in panic as she ran through them, explosives tingling in her bloodstream like a particularly fizzy soda left out in the sun too long. It wasn't her fault, of course—not entirely. The world had handed her unstable molecules and a very short fuse, both literal and metaphorical, and then seemed shocked—shocked!—when things occasionally blew up.

Her first public appearance had been something of a disaster. Not the subtle, mildly embarrassing sort of disaster like tripping on stage or calling your teacher "mum." No, Bette had gone for the full dramatic flair: suicide bombing attempt, bombs stitched into her outfit like some anarchist haute couture, and a grand declaration in front of the New York Herald-Express.

Unfortunately, Firestorm had also shown up.

Now, most people would have disarmed her by wresting away a detonator or hurling her into a containment field. Firestorm had, instead, chosen the most flamboyant solution possible—vaporizing her clothes. All of them.

The explosion never came, but the scandal did. There were memes. Statues, even. Somewhere in Brooklyn, there was a pub named The Naked Truth with her silhouette carved in stained glass behind the bar. Bette tried not to think about it.

But that was then. And this—well, this was now.

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It was not every day one met a woman who had, quite literally, tried to blow up the New York Herald-Express while wearing a bomb-laced leotard. And it was certainly not every day that said woman ended up making herself a sandwich in a very unassuming kitchen while two absurdly powerful shinobi sparred in the garden like it was a casual Sunday match of Quidditch. But today was precisely that kind of day.

Bette Sans Souci, or Plastique as the headlines liked to call her (in thick bold letters no less), had not been having a particularly easy go of things. After all, being stripped naked on live television by a sentient nuclear furnace disguised as a man—Firestorm, they called him—did tend to leave one's dignity bruised and smouldering. Not to mention the laundry bill.

Still, she'd bounced back with the determined resilience of someone who had far too many bomb references in her nickname. Thanks to some tinkering by her shadowy handlers—genetic fiddling, minor DNA poetry, that sort of thing—she now possessed the delightful ability to explode things by sheer willpower alone. Handy for parties. Or political sabotage. She was undecided.

Her resume now read like a Bond villain's fever dream: attempted destruction of the Canadian Parliament (twice), a foiled Statue of Liberty kaboom (bless Captain Atom's timing), and one rather awkward assassination attempt on both the American President and Canadian Prime Minister. Bette was not proud of all of it. Some of it, yes. But not all.

Amanda Waller had since recruited her, of course. Because when your resume reads "walking bomb with high-end destructive flair," Amanda will find a folder with your name on it and a mission no one else wants. This time: infiltrate STAR Labs. No explosions. Maybe.

She didn't like being used—no one did—but she wasn't stupid either. She'd known about the control chip Amanda slipped into her bloodstream. Had kept quiet, biding her time. And then, Kawaki, in his wonderfully grumpy and oddly brotherly way, had helped her remove it. Possibly because he liked explosions. Possibly because he liked her.

Now here she was: barefoot, in a long T-shirt, standing in a kitchen that smelled faintly of toasted bread and ozone. She assembled a sandwich with the kind of precision only a demolitions expert could possess—knife poised just so, tomato slices laid like pressure plates, lettuce tucked in with tactical grace. Then came the thud, crack, and unmistakable boom from the garden.

Sparring.

She peeked out the window, biting into her sandwich as Naruto—blonde-haired, ridiculous, barefoot—cartwheeled away from a punch that cratered the lawn. Kawaki followed, moving like a shadow caught in sunlight, his palm glowing with chakra. Every time they clashed, a ripple of energy zipped through the air like lightning in a bottle.

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Kawaki:

The grass was lush and green beneath their feet, a summer's wind lacing itself between the leaves like a secret passed from tree to tree. Overhead, clouds scudded lazily across the bright sky, wholly unaware that a storm was brewing—not one of rain, but of chakra and raw, unfiltered fury.

Naruto stood quietly on the grassland, his hands loosely at his sides, golden hair catching the sunlight like a banner of challenge. His face was calm, almost too calm, in that maddening way teachers have when they know their students are about to get thoroughly humbled.

Across from him, Kawaki was already crouched low, his limbs twitching with anticipation. The soles of his transformed feet gripped the earth like claws, and his hands—now sharp, chitinous extensions of his will—curved into slashing arcs. His entire stance said one thing: Attack first. Ask later.

And attack he did.

Kawaki blurred across the field like a black streak of vengeance, claws slicing the air as he swung with the brutal energy of a tiger let loose from its cage.

Naruto dodged—not with grand theatrics, but with the minimal elegance of someone who knew exactly where each claw would land before it was even swung. He ducked under a swipe, letting it part his hair like a comb, and then… he snapped.

Not in anger. Not in rage. But into focus.

The kind of focus born of a thousand battles and the quiet philosophy of an ancient art.

He became the tiger.

Where others might block, Naruto advanced. Where others waited, Naruto struck.

His hands curled into the shape of invisible spheres—his paws—and with a growl that never quite left his throat, he launched forward. Not as a man, but as a force of nature. He caught Kawaki's bicep mid-swing, driving fingers deep into muscle, ripping as his palm crashed into the forearm with a bone-jarring thud.

The first lesson of the tiger: attack the arm that attacks you.

Kawaki staggered. Naruto pressed in, his eyes sharp and wild. He raked Kawaki's face with twin fingers—middle and fore—leaving red trails of agony across the boy's nose and lips. His other hand found Kawaki's throat and pushed, hard, sealing the windpipe like a clasped coin purse.

Kawaki gasped.

But Naruto wasn't done.

There were no wasted movements. Each motion was a link in an ancient, violent dance passed down through generations of warriors. The heel of one palm smashed into Kawaki's ear. The other ripped downward across his jaw. An elbow soared upward into Kawaki's abdomen, folding him like paper. Another palm met his groin. A rising elbow to the chin. A final strike crashed into the bridge of his nose with a crack that echoed across the field like a firework gone wrong.

Kawaki spun.

To an outsider—say, a neighbor peeking through a fence—it might've looked like a tornado made of arms and legs, too fast to follow, too brutal to understand. The choreography of chaos.

Blood flew in a fine mist. Kawaki hit the ground with a thud that shook the sparring field. For a moment, silence. Just the rustling of leaves and the whistle of wind.

Naruto stood over him, his expression unreadable. His chest rose and fell, but his eyes—those clear, cerulean eyes—remained steady.

The tiger did not rejoice in the kill. It simply moved on.

But Naruto didn't strike the final blow. He could have—should have, by the rules of the style. A double palm smash to the throat, the finishing Smashing Tiger.

Instead, he stepped forward and chambered his hands in the classic stance. Left at the shoulder. Right at the hip. His voice echoed like a war drum.

The twin palm strike sent chakra through Kawaki's body, crashing into key acupuncture points: the bladder and the cheekbone. A mix of science and sorcery, healing and harm.

Kawaki's head jerked violently. He dropped, groaning, coughing up spittle and blood as he lay sprawled like a rag doll flung by fate.

Naruto waited, the breeze playing with his cloak.

And then he walked.

Slowly. Steadily. As if giving Kawaki both space—and a choice.

"Kawaki," he said, voice low but unwavering. "Get up."

The boy stirred, face bruised, pride wounded, but not defeated.

And for the briefest of moments, the wind stopped.

Somewhere nearby, Bette, watching from the shadows behind a tree with the remains of her sandwich in hand, muttered under her breath, "Note to self: never, ever sass Naruto Uzumaki."

The tiger had taught his cub well.

And the match wasn't over yet.

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In the late afternoon sun, the Uzumaki backyard shimmered with the kind of golden glow that made everything feel just a touch too peaceful to be real. The trees were rustling gently as if they too were catching their breath after watching the latest father-son spar, and the faint scent of toasted bread and sharp cheddar floated from the kitchen where one unusually explosive guest had found refuge.

Kawaki, shirtless and sweating, plopped down next to Naruto on the garden steps, stretching out his legs with a groan. The spar had been intense — fast enough to blur, loud enough to shake dust from the eaves, and emotional enough that even the garden gnome by the hibiscus looked concerned.

Naruto handed him a cold bottle of juice, flashing a grin that would make any warlord rethink world domination. Kawaki didn't smile back. His brows furrowed like someone working through an Arithmancy problem in the middle of a Quidditch match.

"Should I really use his power?" he asked, the words sliding out like they left a bitter taste behind. He didn't say the name — Ishiki — as though it might curse the air itself. The mere mention made the shadows twitch.

Naruto leaned back on his hands, his gaze following a passing cloud with the sort of lazy ease that only came from decades of saving the world and raising energetic children. "Use it," he said simply, "Just don't let it use you."

Kawaki huffed. "Easy for you to say. You're... you. I'm not sure what I am anymore. With every passing day, I feel more Otsutsuki than human. What if I become like them? What if I start looking at planets like they're lunch?"

Naruto chuckled — a warm, rumbling sort of sound that made the birds in the branches momentarily forget they were terrified of chakra outbursts. "That's for me to worry about. You, kid, are supposed to be worrying about how many dumplings you can eat before dinner."

"But—"

"No buts," Naruto said, ruffling his hair so fiercely it looked like a chakra storm hit his scalp. "I'm your father, remember? And fathers are professional worriers. If you become evil, I'll just punch you back to normal. That's the Uzumaki way."

Kawaki blinked, then laughed despite himself. It wasn't often he laughed, and it came out a little awkward, like someone trying to remember how.

From the kitchen window, Plastique observed the scene as she crunched into her sandwich. She'd meant for it to be a quiet, emotionless snack — just bread, cheese, and internal chaos — but somehow, watching the sparring and hearing the banter had left a little warmth blooming behind her ribs. It was infuriating.

"These people," she muttered under her breath, blowing a piece of lettuce off the countertop with a spark of kinetic energy. "Who taught them how to be so annoyingly wholesome?"

Still, she didn't leave. In fact, she made another sandwich and stayed to listen.

Outside, the sun dipped a little lower. Naruto stood, stretching his arms overhead. "Now c'mon. Dinner's in an hour, and I'm not letting you eat unless you get in the shower first."

Kawaki grumbled, but followed, the burden on his shoulders feeling just a fraction lighter.

Sometimes, the weight of destiny could wait until after dessert.