The Uzumaki Family (Naruto X Justice League)

This is another story, a completed story.

Daddy's Little Princess (Naruto X Justice League)

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Chapter 1: "Where immortals Walk Quietly"

—in which power wears no name, and even the shadows learn fear—

Gotham—

A city stitched together with shadows and stitched open by them just the same. It was a carcass reanimated by fear, and for once, it was quiet. The kind of quiet that made dead men twitch in their coffins.

The sun hung above the skyline like an executioner's lantern—golden and watching—illuminating streets too clean, air too breathable, corners too empty. The rats had either died, fled, or learned to walk upright.

Near Gotham University, where minds were fed and illusions fattened, a café dared to bloom in the dustless corner of the world. A place where dreams clinked in porcelain and gossip was brewed to taste. There, at a table near the window, sat two women—one born of blood and legend, the other forged in capes and scars.

Himawari Uzumaki.

The name sounded like a lullaby, but it wasn't. Not really. She was sixteen and stillness incarnate, wrapped in lavender silk and ancient promise. Her long purplish hair fell like ink down her back, her eyes the color of polished amethyst—gemstones that saw too much and gave away nothing. There was something imperial in the way she held her teacup—like kingdoms had been conquered so she could drink in peace.

Across from her, Barbara Gordon. Fire-haired. Knife-tongued. Nineteen and already half a ghost from her nocturnal hunts. She'd worn the cowl, danced with devils, laughed with maniacs, and still somehow remembered how to flirt and sip espresso like the world hadn't tried to gut her every other week.

"It's a peaceful day again in Gotham," Himawari said, voice light as breath on glass. "I hope we don't have trouble like the other cities."

Peaceful. The word curled in the air like smoke, tasting of denial and unburnt wick.

Barbara leaned back, the leather of her chair sighing under her. "You're lucky. This place used to bleed from every wall. Now? Now the muggers walk three blocks out of their way to avoid eye contact with the trees your father planted."

A flicker of amusement tugged Himawari's lips upward, but the smile was tight—like a scalpel's edge. "I'm happy that way," she said. "I dislike ugly things."

Ugly. Such a simple word for rot, for pain, for what Gotham once vomited into the streets.

Barbara chuckled, but the sound carried an edge, a jaggedness born from knowing too much. "You should see how you sound sometimes. That clean-freak streak of yours is terrifying."

"I'm trying," Himawari replied. No denial. No apology. Just an admission carved in stone.

The conversation drifted like their drinks—cooling, softening.

Barbara poked at her cup, watching the cream swirl into galaxies. "What about someone new? Anyone caught your interest?"

"No." The answer came too quick, too clean. "I don't want to make Father feel lonely."

That stopped Barbara mid-breath. The old warrior in her paused, blinked, let the silence settle like snowfall. "You really love him, huh?"

"He's my world," Himawari said. Simply. Like truth didn't need permission to be spoken.

Barbara looked away. Her eyes found the cracks in the café wall where plaster met old brick. "My last relationship ended with an alien in my bed," she muttered, venom coiled under her tongue. "He cheated. With someone who glowed in the dark."

"I'd kill him," Himawari offered, sipping her tea like she'd just commented on the weather.

Barbara barked a laugh, but the sound twisted into something uglier, something truer. "Forget it. Not worth the body bag."

"Still," Himawari said softly, "if you want to come to my place..."

Barbara perked up, lifting her brow. "The cleanest part of Gotham? Yeah, I'd like that. Your father's pet project has turned what used to be a war zone into Eden."

"Father likes to help," Himawari said. But there was steel beneath her silk. Everyone knew the greenest lawns in Gotham grew best over buried bones.

The two women stood, their shadows stretching across the café like blades drawn in secret. Outside, the air tasted of sugar and lie. The birds were too loud. The streets too silent.

But the girl with lavender hair walked like a queen through it all. And the city obeyed.

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The world didn't breathe in the Uzumaki Dojo.

It listened.

The wooden walls stood like monks—silent, patient, braced by the scent of pine, sweat, and incense older than most sins. The floor was polished with blood and effort, marked with echoes of broken bodies and unbroken wills. Light filtered through the rice-paper windows in strips, carving the chamber into sacred geometry. There were no mirrors here—only truths.

And at the heart of that stillness sat him.

Uzumaki Naruto.

Golden hair slicked to his forehead, skin gleaming with the sheen of effort that did not exhaust. His body—a monument to discipline. His soul—a tombstone to everything he'd lost. The Martial King, they called him. immortal of Hands. Demon of Flow. The last stop for men who thought they were strong.

He meditated not for peace, but because violence was too easy.

The door opened without fanfare. It never creaked. Nothing here dared creak.

Amanda Waller stood in the entrance like a gun in church. Her eyes took in everything—walls, weapons, weakness. But the man? She watched him the way generals watch mountains they plan to move.

"You've made a name that stirs continents, Uzumaki Naruto," she said, arms crossed like blades. "The strongest man alive. The Martial King. You could've sat on any throne, commanded nations. But instead… you open a dojo."

He opened his eyes slowly. As if nothing in the world had ever rushed him. And maybe nothing had. His gaze met hers—not defiant, not welcoming. Unmoved.

"How can I help you, Amanda?"

Calm. That word again. The calm of oceans before tsunamis. Of immortals before they weep.

Amanda smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Theories, that's all we're allowed when it comes to you. Some say revenge. Some say guilt. I say..." she tilted her head. "A little girl with purple hair and your smile."

A flicker. There. Barely. Like lightning behind distant clouds.

She pressed on.

"You've turned down every offer. Military contracts. Special ops. Hell, I once offered you a seat at the League table. You refused. So here I am with a smaller request: train my team. Twice a week. Maybe three. I'll pay thrice your usual rate."

Silence answered first. Then, movement. Naruto rose like a blade unsheathed—not sudden, not slow. Just inevitable. Muscles rolled beneath skin like ropes beneath silk. He didn't try to look dangerous. That was the point. He didn't need to.

"If it means I won't see your face again for a while, I'll accept," he said. "They follow my rules. If they break, they stay broken. If they disobey, they're gone. No exceptions."

Amanda's grin widened, predatory now. "They'll crawl if you tell them. I don't need immortals—I need dogs who've seen one."

He handed her a card. Plain. Clean. Practical.

Just like him.

She turned, stopped at the door. "And I hope your daughter remains the happy little princess you're so desperate to protect."

No reply. None needed.

But something in his eyes shimmered like a sword catching starlight.

When she was gone, he sat again—cross-legged, steady. A mountain that dreamed of not being climbed. His breathing slowed. Not for calm. For memory.

Outside, Amanda Waller slid into her car. Her fingers tapped the wheel, and for once, the gears of her mind ground slow.

"Both parents were rice farmers," she murmured. "No bloodline. No prophecy. Just loss. And yet... he broke a super soldier's arm in a spar and didn't blink."

She stared out at the neon-stained cityscape of Gotham.

"You're not just strong. You're chosen. But by what?"

The car pulled away, swallowed by the silence of a city that had stopped trying to understand power and had instead begun to kneel before it.

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The Spiral Café wasn't just a building. It was a breath drawn in a world gasping for kindness. Nestled in the cleaned bones of what used to be Gotham's broken heart, it stood among cherry blossoms that had no right to bloom and windows too clean for this city. The Uzumaki District, they called it now—a scar healed with gold leaf and stubborn compassion. Not even the shadows dared linger long where Naruto walked.

Inside, the café simmered with life—soft jazz melting into the smell of roasted beans and honey. The floor hummed with the footfalls of ordinary people trying to feel human again. And behind the counter stood the man they called Martial King, wielding a coffee pot like it was a blade.

Naruto Uzumaki.

Hair of sunlit straw. Eyes like open sky. An apron stretched across a chest that had stopped immortals and caught falling cities. He smiled not because the world was good, but because he refused to let it be otherwise.

Nora Fields watched him from her usual corner.

She always did.

Not the way stalkers do. But the way survivors do—people who've walked through Hell and come back with frostbite still on their soul. She had died, once. Not in fire, but in ice. A sickness that stopped her heart, paused her life. Wayne Enterprises had unfrozen her body and her future three years ago. They gave her a job. But it was this place that gave her a heartbeat.

And it was he who made her feel something stronger than fear.

He wasn't just handsome. He wasn't just kind. He was safe.

And in Gotham, that made him myth.

She sipped her tea like a confession and let her thoughts burn in silence.

I want him to cook for me... just once.

Why does he pull at me like gravity?

He already has a daughter. Am I selfish to dream?

Resolve formed slow. Molten steel behind shaking ribs.

Life is short, she thought. Too short for silence.

She stood.

The café didn't stop—but the world did. Because it always knows when something real is about to break.

She didn't notice the whispers until they curled like knives around her ankles.

"Another fool throwing herself at Mr. Uzumaki."

"She'll be rejected like the rest."

"She looks too fragile. He needs a lioness, not a lamb."

It hurt. Of course it did.

But she looked at Naruto again—and his smile caught her.

Not just warmth. Reassurance.

As if to say: "They don't decide who you get to be today."

She stepped up to the counter.

"Excuse me," she said, calm despite the storm in her throat.

Naruto turned, steam hissing behind him like stage fog. His gaze met hers—not piercing, not probing. Present. "Yes, how may I help you?"

"I love you," she said.

Not whispered. Not sugarcoated. Just... given.

"Would you go out with me—with the intention of marriage?"

The world paused to listen.

Naruto blinked. Not in confusion. But in respect.

He had known. Of course he had. The way a man senses rain before the thunder. But not this—not her honesty. It hit harder than fists.

Silence. The kind that judges.

And he answered.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant every syllable. "I'm not interested in such relationships. But I would be happy to be your friend and help you in any way I can."

No pity.

No cruelty.

Just truth—the rarest currency.

Nora nodded, throat tight. The pain didn't crush her. Because pain only crushes those who've never walked through worse.

"Thank you for your honesty."

She returned to her seat, past the stares, past the whispers.

And maybe they laughed. Maybe not.

But she had done something they never would.

She dared.

The café exhaled again. Cups clinked. Jazz resumed.

And Naruto... continued. As if nothing monumental had occurred. But when he glanced back at her table, there was a softness in his gaze not seen by many.

Not love.

But respect.

Outside, the city moved on. Unaware. Unchanged.

But inside Spiral Café, something rare had happened.

A girl had confessed. A man had replied.

And no hearts had shattered.

They had simply continued.

Because sometimes bravery doesn't change the world.

It just keeps you alive in it.

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Gotham had always been a city of whispers. Whispers of death. Of crime. Of vengeance screaming from rooftops in capes and masks.

But now it whispered something else.

Silence.

Not peace—never that. Gotham didn't know peace. But silence... silence was a stranger she had learned to love. The kind that hums like restrained thunder. The kind that warns: do not test this place.

And at the center of it all stood a myth.

The Guardian of Gotham.

No name. No face. No known shape.

Not a rumor—they were a presence. Felt in alleyways like static, in hearts like dread. No photograph captured them. No recording lasted longer than a blink. They were not caught—they allowed you to see what they wanted.

Three years ago, on the Day of Miracles, Gotham bled out her filth. And something—someone—stitched her closed with holy thread and unseen fire.

The Joker? Gone.

Two-Face? Gone.

Penguin, Riddler, Black Mask? Ghosts in memory.

Every cell in Arkham stood open that morning. Every criminal had vanished.

Not dead.

Not imprisoned.

Erased.

And then came the miracles.

The sick walked.

The blind wept at the sunrise.

Children once declared terminal now played in schoolyards.

Gangs turned into community patrols, unsure why they'd holstered their weapons but grateful they had.

No one believed it.

Not at first.

But when it didn't unravel—when Gotham stayed clean—faith followed.

They called the phenomenon many names.

The Cleansing.

The Reckoning.

The Wrath and Grace of the Guardian.

But for those who once ruled the night with fists and fear, it was something else.

An unwelcome replacement.

Bruce Wayne stood before the city that used to be his.

Perched high on Wayne Tower, he watched the lights burn bright, not in desperation but in comfort. The city no longer needed its Dark Knight. That truth clung to him heavier than any armor he'd worn.

He still trained. Still listened. Still patrolled when the itch crawled too deep under his skin. But it was like showing up to a battlefield already won.

He had been rendered obsolete—not by age, not by failure.

By something better.

Something beyond him.

His fingers curled around a surveillance feed—a loop that should've shown a mugging at midnight.

Instead, it was static.

Again.

Every crime attempt vanished from his radar. The Guardian cleaned it before it happened. No bodies. No collateral. No witnesses.

Not even the League could trace the force behind it.

Superman had once said, "I can hear every heartbeat in this city... except theirs."

Diana had whispered, "That is no man. That is a immortal who has chosen to be silent."

Bruce didn't believe in immortals.

He believed in motives.

In trauma.

In humans.

And that's what frightened him most.

Because this wasn't vengeance. This wasn't justice.

This was absolution.

Cold. Precise.

Final.

"Are we better off?" Alfred had asked him once.

Bruce hadn't answered.

Because deep down, he knew the truth.

Gotham was better. Cleaner. Safer.

But it was no longer his.

It belonged to someone who moved like mist and struck like judgment.

The Guardian didn't protect the city.

They owned it.

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There is a weight that lingers in men like Bruce Wayne—a weight shaped by graves, by alleys soaked in blood and childhood screams. No garden, no incense, no massage can unmake it. But Naruto Uzumaki, in his white gi and barefoot serenity, tried.

Bruce sat in the garden like a shattered blade waiting for the forge. Around him, the quiet was surgical—so sharp it cut thought. The blossoms did not rustle, the koi in the pond made no ripples, and even the breeze dared not interrupt the storm coiling behind his stern eyes.

His knuckles struck the earth like a verdict. "This is madness."

The ground didn't flinch. Naruto did not either. He came as silence often does—unexpected, unwelcome, but impossible to ignore. His steps were feather-light, yet they carried the gravity of a man who had walked through wars and come out laughing.

"What's troubling you, Bruce?"

Bruce looked up. The voice was not accusatory. It was not kind either. It was curious—and that was worse.

He gave the same answer he gave the world. "Nothing."

A lie. But in his mouth, lies and truths wore the same mask. Only Naruto seemed to see through it. He didn't pry. No probing. No gentle counsel. Just an offer.

"A massage," he said, as if it were a sword or a secret.

Bruce hesitated. Of course he did. There were places even his paranoia didn't reach—those were the ones that scared him most. But the Guardian haunted him more, and clarity was a rare drug.

"Wonderful," he said, and the word felt foreign.

The garden wound like a dream through petals and ponds and memories that weren't his. It was a world Naruto had built with peace in his hands like clay. And Bruce, despite himself, admired it—envied it.

The massage room smelled of stories. Incense curling like spirits from ancient tales. Shadows danced on wooden walls. Naruto's hands were not just skilled—they were intentional. He didn't knead muscle; he coaxed pain into leaving. Pressure points yielded like traitors under torture. Bruce grunted once. Just once.

He rose lighter, not because the weight was gone, but because someone had reminded him he still had legs to carry it.

"You can count on seeing me next week."

It was the closest thing to surrender Bruce Wayne had ever uttered.

Naruto smiled like a man who had seen immortals fall and still planted trees the next morning. "I respect what you've done for Gotham. Not many would wear their pain and call it armor."

That struck deep—because it was not admiration. It was recognition.

Bruce nodded. Words dried up in his throat. But before he left, he gave one last gift—a gesture of humanity.

"Give my regards to your daughter."

And he walked out, the old ghost of Gotham in a place too living to accept him.

Behind him, Naruto stood still, hands at his sides, gaze following not Bruce, but the idea of him.

The Guardian loomed large in Bruce's mind. A mystery. A threat. A solution.

In Naruto's, there was only stillness.

Because the Guardian did not loom.

The Guardian watched.