The Uzumaki Family (Naruto X Justice League)

Chapter 3: Whispers Beneath Stone Thrones

The city of Metropolis, that towered lie of steel and promise, wept in alarms. Sirens screamed like dying children, echoing down glass facades that had seen too many heroes and too few miracles. Smoke clawed the sky above a ruined bank—its stone face ruptured, its vaults disgraced—while the people did what people always do in such moments: they ran or they watched. Cowards and voyeurs. The usual saints had already bled.

And from the heavens, like a silver tear cast by a dead immortal, she fell.

Supergirl.

Kryptonian.

Last hope of a world that never loved her enough to survive.

She struck asphalt with the grace of falling justice, red cape cracking in the wind like the banner of a forgotten war. Her eyes—twin suns cold in orbit—took stock of the wreckage. Bloodless criminals, still breathing, encased in ropes of emerald fire, sprawled like broken toys at a spoiled child's feet. Her lips were tight with suspicion. Hope was a myth she could no longer afford.

Then she saw her.

Not a villain. Not a hero. Something older. Something… true.

The woman stood like a crimson prayer in the heart of the wreckage. Her armor gleamed red as fresh wounds, laced with veins of pulsing green—a thing alive and aware and hungering. Her hair spilled like warpaint, flames licking the edges of an untouched face. Her eyes, not eyes, but blossoms—floral, blooming, unnatural. The kind of gaze that peered not at, but through. A bloom on the battlefield.

She turned, calm as death. "You may call me Phoenix," she said.

Kara stiffened. Words were never enough. Words were easy. Justice had many mouths and too many liars. "Ally of justice? Is that what you're calling yourself?" Her fists flexed. "If you're causing trouble, I won't hesitate."

Phoenix didn't flinch. "Then hesitate."

No fear. Just truth, spoken like gospel.

"I'm here to help. These men are taken. No one else is hurt."

And for a moment, Kara heard it—the tone. Not superiority. Not challenge.

Compassion.

And it stung.

"You look tired," Phoenix said.

Tired. A curse of the strong. Of those who must never be weak. Kara wore her pain like armor, and here this stranger stood, seeing right through it, through her, like it wasn't shameful to be tired. Like it wasn't failure to be human. Her jaw clenched.

"I can handle it."

But her voice cracked. The lie hung between them like the smoke.

Phoenix stepped forward, the ground beneath her pulsing green, soft as spring grass and deathless vines. "It's not wrong to want help. Not weakness to need it."

Kara flinched like she'd been struck, because the words did hit—low, deep, where the cape didn't reach. Her breath hitched, fists trembling.

"Let me help you," Phoenix whispered. "Not because you're broken. But because you're not alone."

And then—the touch. A hand, gloved but gentle, took hers. Kara tensed, every nerve screaming Kryptonian warnings. But nothing in Phoenix's presence felt like threat. No heat. No malice. Only warmth.

Then came the light.

It flowed like forgiveness—green tendrils of comfort coiling around her like arms that had held stars and still found room for a single, lost girl. It didn't burn. It soothed. A thousand aches eased. A thousand screams inside her head were finally silent.

And Supergirl wept.

Not like a child.

Not like a hero.

But like someone who remembered what it was to feel again.

When it passed, when the tide receded and her knees found strength again, Kara stood blinking away tears that felt like guilt and tasted like mercy. "Thank you," she whispered, voice raw. "What do you want in return?"

Phoenix only smiled. "A friend."

Suspicion, old and bitter, gnawed at Kara's thoughts—but she searched Phoenix's face, and for once, found no mask. Only meaning.

"…Friends, then," Kara said. It felt unfamiliar. But not unwelcome.

The sirens screamed louder now, the city's response to salvation too late and too loud. Phoenix stepped back, green light unfurling like petals in the wind. "Until we meet again."

Then she rose, ascending into night, a red flower blooming against a sky of bruises and steel.

Kara watched until she vanished. For the first time in months, her shoulders felt lighter. The shadows still lingered, but hope had a name again.

Phoenix.

And Kara knew—some blooms only grow in fire.

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The moon hung like a blade above the skyline, curved and cruel, bleeding silver across the rooftops. Somewhere below, lives fluttered in fragile rhythm—hearts breaking, mending, forgetting. But up here, above the veins of the world, stood something older than grief, and colder than time.

She called herself White Rabbit.

A girl, yes—but not a child. A weapon disguised in silk and skin. She stood with the posture of a predator who no longer needed to hunt to prove her worth. Hair like spilled milk cascaded down her back, each strand whispering of elegance too deliberate to be innocent. Her eyes, red as wrath and wine, carried none of the madness her moniker suggested. Only calculation. And perhaps a glint of mourning.

She watched them—Supergirl and the one called Phoenix—beneath her, unaware of her gaze, tangled in something as quaint as compassion. A slow dance of words and unguarded truths. The Kryptonian softened, the edges of her suspicion worn down by Phoenix's fire, not the kind that scorches, but the kind that warms your hands in winter.

White Rabbit smiled.

It wasn't the smile of a girl impressed. It was the smile of a priestess watching prophecy unfold. Or perhaps an executioner admiring her sharpened blade before the fall.

"It seems Mistress is enjoying her time," she murmured, her voice a lullaby born in empty churches and war rooms. "Master should be pleased. The Kryptonian blooms under her sun."

She said "Master" like it was sacred, a syllable dipped in reverence and regret. Her arms crossed—not in defensiveness, but restraint. She'd killed with less movement.

Below, Phoenix vanished in a halo of green. Supergirl stood alone, face lifted to the night, a child tracing constellations with her eyes.

"She's come a long way," White Rabbit mused, tone brushed with something dangerously close to affection. "But Master always had a talent for kindling greatness from kindling hearts."

A breeze stirred the hem of her coat, sleek as a scalpel. She turned then, each step across the concrete sounding like the tick of a clock running out. The edge of the rooftop greeted her like an old friend. Cities spread before her—towers like broken teeth, neon veins pulsing, blind to their puppeteers.

"The pieces are moving, one by one," she whispered, and the wind tried to carry the words away. "Master always sees the storm long before the sky darkens. I only hope… Mistress can weather it."

Then, without pause or fanfare, White Rabbit stepped into the void.

No wings. No cape. No scream.

Only silence.

She vanished as she lived—between heartbeats. Between choices. Leaving behind nothing but echoes, and the faint scent of ash and jasmine.

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They met beneath the bones of the world—steel, soot, and memory wrapped in chakra, like scars that never healed. The basement was no mere room. It was an altar. A crypt. A forge of legacy that hummed with the whispers of wars fought in silence, of immortals walked among mortals, and of a man who once ruled the shape of nations.

Naruto's hand had carved this place, not as a father but as a mythmaker. And in the heat-stained armory, his daughters gathered like shadows of his former fire.

Himawari sat like a queen at the table—no throne, no crown, only presence. Her hair was the night sky unbroken, her eyes daggers honed on truth. And before her stood three others, cut from the same blood and stitched together by ambition, loyalty, and aching love.

Mea spoke first—youngest in age, oldest in sorrow.

"Hima," she said, her voice trembling on the edge of steel, "we wish to join you in your heroics."

A candle flickered. A silence cracked like bone under weight.

Himawari tilted her head, smirking with the grace of a viper about to strike. "Heroics?" she echoed, rolling the word in her mouth like poison she didn't intend to swallow. "You think this is about saving strangers? About 'using powers responsibly'?" Her gaze was a scythe, sweeping across the room. "Tell me, Mea. Tell me what I care about."

Mea faltered, her words caught like birds in a snare. "You want to help people…"

"Tsk." Himawari clicked her tongue. Her smile turned razored. "The people are nothing. A sea of ants crawling toward their inevitable end. I do this for him. For Daddy."

Jaina stirred, but said nothing. Cassandra's hands clenched beneath the table.

"Daddy was a immortal pretending to be a man," Himawari continued, her voice now low, reverent and violent. "He shattered mountains with a whisper. He bled stardust. And now?" Her lip curled. "Now he hides in gardens. Laughs at jokes. He… restrains himself."

She spat the word like it burned her tongue.

There it was. The core of the storm. Not justice. Not virtue. But grief.

"I will make him remember," she hissed. "If I must burn cities to awaken his flame, then I will stoke every fire. When he sees me standing at the edge of ruin—when the world cries his name—he'll come. And when he comes…" Her voice cracked like glass. "He'll be him again. Not this shadow. Not this father. But the storm."

A silence followed, thick with buried truths.

Then Mea rose. No longer the uncertain child, but a mirror—flawed, fragile, and determined.

"I understand," she said.

Himawari looked up, her smile returning—less cruel, more proud. "Do you?"

"We want to help," Mea said. "Not because of the world. But because we miss him too."

The other girls nodded. One by one. Sisters in blood, in cause, in madness.

Himawari stood, her shadow stretching across the floor like a blade. "Then we move. Gotham. Blüdhaven. Coast City. Separate, but not alone. We'll be seen. Felt. Heard."

"And Father?" Cassandra asked, her voice quiet.

Himawari's smile was now a snarl of hope. "He'll follow the echoes. He always does."

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They named themselves like immortals did—without apology, without hesitation.

In a chamber stitched from silence and reinforced with chakra-woven steel, the daughters of the storm gathered. Three blades unsheathed from the scabbard of royalty, polished in different fires, each bearing the same brand—the mark of Uzumaki.

White Rabbit stood nearby. No one truly knew if she breathed or merely existed. She shimmered like a broken mirror—reflecting reality but never part of it. Her maid's garb did nothing to diminish the silent threat she carried in every calculated tilt of the head, every ripple of warped space that danced about her ankles like obedient dogs.

"What will you call yourselves?" she asked, voice unbothered by time, light, or the rules of this world. It was not just a question, but a ritual. Names held power, and these three were not just choosing titles. They were carving destinies.

Himawari stepped forward first—always first. Her voice was not loud, but the echo it left behind hung heavier than stone.

"Phoenix."

A rebirth shaped by fire, sculpted by sorrow. Her past was a funeral pyre. Her future—still alight. She moved with the confidence of someone kissed by divinity, and when her hand pressed against the hidden panel, the wall obeyed like an old soldier. The armor that emerged was less creation, more legacy—burnished gold where the chakra flared brightest, blackened steel at the joints where the battles would be bloodiest. Every joint hummed with her father's love, forged into function. Naruto had shaped it not as protection, but as declaration.

She would never fall. Not while he breathed.

"Valkyrie," Cassandra intoned. She didn't rise so much as uncoil from her seat like a sword lifting itself from its sheath. Her armor lacked the theatrical gleam of her sister's. It was war made sleek. The quiet terror of a knife beneath silk. Functional, perfect, lethal.

Naruto had known. She wouldn't need wings to soar. Just a blade that never missed and armor that never faltered.

And lastly—Mea. The softest. The most dangerous.

"Wasp," she said, almost prayerfully. "Father already named us. He knows the outcome. He always does."

Her armor buzzed with chakra-pulses, delicate and deceptive. It looked light—meant to fool the careless. But its lines were sharp, the edges alive with venom. If Phoenix was the flame and Valkyrie the blade, Wasp was the sting in the dark, felt too late.

A silence followed. The kind that clings to prophets and graveyards.

Then Himawari raised her chin. "We'll be the Royal Knights," she declared. There was nothing democratic in her tone. She wasn't suggesting. She was telling the world. "Daddy is royalty. We'll be his guardians. His saviors, if necessary."

Cassandra chuckled, dry and sharp like crushed leaves. "That's cheesy," she muttered. "But I've heard worse from men in tights and capes."

The moment fractured as casually as it had been cast. Cassandra turned, her armor collapsing into its seal with a flex of chakra. "Good luck," she said over her shoulder. "And try not to do anything stupid. Or worse—something that hurts Father."

Himawari's eyes narrowed.

There it was again. That tone. That intimacy. She hadn't imagined it. Cassandra walked like someone who thought she belonged beside him. That alone was enough.

She watched her sister leave and the smile she wore now was razor-thin and sharp at the edges. Inside, something twisted—something not quite jealousy, but something that shared a bed with it. Possession, maybe. Reverence gone sour.

'She's getting too close to Daddy.'

The thought came unbidden, but not unwanted.

'She needs a reminder. A boundary. A leash.'

With a blink, her armor wrapped around her like a second skin. The golden crest at her breastplate flared once with chakra—Naruto's chakra. The teleportation seal activated, and in a blink of fractured light, she vanished.

The White Rabbit did not move. Only her red eyes tracked the sparks left behind.

"The game begins," she whispered, more to herself than anyone. Her smile was curved like a sickle. "And as always… the kingdom bleeds."

Outside, the city hummed beneath a blanket of ignorance.

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The Watchtower hung in the void like a forgotten immortal's eye—silent, watchful, and cruel in its distance. It breathed in low pulses of starlight and whispered promises of sanctuary in a world fast losing its shape. Beneath its chrome skin and perfect polish, war trembled in the bones of the metal.

Batman entered like a knife through silk.

He cut through the sterile calm of the command chamber, cloak a dragging shadow behind him, boots silent as regret. The air shifted to accommodate his presence—not because of power, but because of inevitability. Like a coming storm.

Zatanna floated midair—legs crossed, lips murmuring a language never meant for mortal ears. Runes flickered like dying embers around her. Her skin shimmered with sweat, and her soul glowed like something near breaking.

"Any lead on our mysterious Guardian?" His voice was steel wrapped in velvet. Not soft, not harsh. Just true.

She opened her eyes, and the magic bled out like light from a dying star.

"You're still chasing this ghost?" she asked, landing with a whisper of silk and breath. "I've tried it all—scrying, summoning, diving into the dreams of the moon and the memories of mountains. All I found was chaos. A madness that doesn't want to be known."

Batman didn't blink. Didn't speak. Didn't need to. Silence, for him, was a kind of weapon.

Then Diana entered—less a person, more a hymn in bronze. Grace in armor, myth wrapped in mortal shape. She moved like war but wore peace like perfume.

"You're wasting time," she said, her voice cool but not unkind. "The Guardian doesn't move. That's their nature. A fixture. They watch. They weigh. They do not act."

Batman's jaw worked once, the only sign of resistance. "That's not your decision."

Her eyes narrowed, but she held her tongue. Few dared argue with Batman when he set his teeth in something ancient and ugly.

"There is one," she said at last, like revealing a secret that had grown thorns. "Older than immortals. Older than names. Gaia."

The word hung in the air, heavy with earth and blood and time.

He tasted it, like a knife between the ribs.

"Where?" he asked.

"You don't find Gaia," she said. "You prove yourself to her. You bleed on her stones. You kneel in her forests. If she deems you worthy, she may open an eye. Or she may crush you like a bug beneath her heel."

Zatanna stepped forward now, voice softer, caution curling around every syllable. "You're trying to measure infinity with a mortal scale, Bruce. Gaia doesn't give answers. She is the answer. And she doesn't care about your crusade."

"She will." He turned, already moving.

"Bruce," Diana called after him. She didn't sound like a warrior anymore. She sounded like someone burying a friend. "Some ghosts don't want to be chased. Some doors only open to swallow you."

He stopped.

Only for a moment.

"Darkness is where I work best."

And then he was gone—into the hush between seconds, the shadow between stars. Hunting something older than immortals, with only his broken soul and sharpened will to guide him.