The Uzumaki Family (Naruto X Justice League)

Chapter 6: The Quiet Crown

They called him The Main Man. Lobo. A joke of a name carved into the blood-soaked ledgers of ten thousand dead worlds. He was a storm in leather, riding the void like a rockstar in a hearse. And tonight, Earth was his stage.

Concrete screamed beneath his back as his body tore through steel and stone like a cannonball dipped in attitude. Lobo skidded, bounced, cratered, and came to rest amid a smoking ruin of glass and shame. A normal man would've died halfway through the ride. A smarter one wouldn't have picked the fight.

But Lobo wasn't either.

He stood, slow as a nightmare, bones cracking back into place, blood evaporating from wounds that closed out of habit more than biology. He licked the corner of his mouth where a tooth had tried to escape. It didn't matter. He had more.

"Not bad, girly," he growled, voice low and amused, like a wolf complimenting the sheep's kick. "But you're gonna have to try harder than that to scratch the Main Man."

Across the battlefield, Supergirl floated like fury bottled in sunlight. Her cape burned at the edges, and her fists trembled—not with fear, but the thrill of restraint. She was holding back. And it showed.

Beside her, Wonder Girl shook rubble from her hair, eyes glowing with the fire of Olympian rage. "We're not done yet, you freak," she spat, wiping blood from her lip with the back of her hand.

Batgirl didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her silence was the kind that cut. She stood in the shadows of ruined architecture, watching through the lenses of experience, calculating doom like a surgeon holding a scalpel to a tumor the size of a planet.

Lobo grinned. It was a horrible thing. A grin full of knives. "So, Super Chump's baby cousin's got fire, huh?" he said, flexing knuckles thick as meat hooks. "Let's see how long that lasts. Maybe when I'm done planting you in the dirt, I'll take your pretty little goth friend for a ride in my space-hog. Show her how the stars look from the wrong end of the galaxy."

He wasn't just fighting. He was performing. Every word was a nail in the coffin of dignity, every gesture a provocation wrapped in leather and violence.

Supergirl moved first. Faster than bullets, brighter than regrets. But Lobo didn't flinch. He laughed—ducked the haymaker and countered with a fist that fractured the air itself.

She flew backward like a comet denied heaven.

"Ha! That all you got, sweetheart?" he roared, the sound shaking windows miles away. "Thought you Kryptonians were tough. My grandma hits harder than that—and she's dust!"

In the smoke, Batgirl's voice whispered into her own silence: "Outsmart him. Not overpower him."

Because that was the truth of it. Lobo couldn't be beaten. Not really. He was a constant in a world that wanted sense. A living contradiction: pain that grinned back.

She moved then. Quiet as guilt. Smoke bombs bloomed like dying flowers, choking the field with grey, bitter ash. Not to blind. Just to distract.

Supergirl and Wonder Girl moved as one—divine fists in mortal gloves, striking with the kind of force that bent mountains into memories. For a heartbeat, the world itself paused to watch.

Then—

A laugh. Deep. Brutal. Infectious.

"You call that a plan?" Lobo emerged from the smoke, shoulders broad as murder, eyes shining with glee. "You kiddies ever read a comic? This is the part where the bad guy wins."

He cracked his neck. The sound was like bones screaming.

The ground trembled as he stepped forward. Unbothered. Invincible. Batgirl saw it clearly now—Lobo wasn't here for the kill. He was here for the game.

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They collided like titans dipped in blood and fire, bone and breath torn from the seams of stars. Supergirl and Lobo—immortals with dirty fists and no time for prayers—crashed in the hollowed corpse of Metropolis, its skeleton groaning under their fury.

A crater bloomed beneath them, asphalt screaming as Supergirl's fist met Lobo's palm with the sound of thunder cursing the earth. She was quick—faster than the human eye dared track—but Lobo was old in the ways of war, and older still in the practice of cruelty. He moved like murder with a grin.

"You're fast, sweetheart," he sneered, lips curled back like a dog before the bite. "But I've danced with demons that chew faster than you hit."

His knuckles cracked against her cheekbone. A star might have died in that sound.

She reeled, boots skidding, blood on her lip like a crimson badge of defiance. Kryptonian resolve burned behind her eyes, two suns rising in defiance.

"You'll regret that," she said, voice low and steel-twined. "I promise you."

But promises meant little to a man who'd sold his soul and bartered the receipt. Lobo stepped forward, laughter rumbling like a storm drunk on gunpowder.

And then—

A war-cry. Raw. Human. Furious.

Wonder Girl came like a meteor with a vendetta. Her form carved through the smoke—a immortal of broken skies and bruised knuckles. She aimed not for glory, but vengeance.

Lobo didn't blink. He turned, pivoted, backhanded with the force of an angry immortal. Wonder Girl folded in mid-air like a doll dropped by an uncaring child, her body crashing into a building that wept glass and concrete for her pain.

"Tough girls," Lobo muttered, flexing bloodied hands. "Tough... but not tough enough."

Supergirl didn't pause. Couldn't afford to. She launched—faster now, fueled by rage, duty, and the kind of pain only family can kindle. She struck, grabbed, lifted—trying to carry him skyward and away from her fallen sister-in-arms.

But Lobo knew the rhythm of hero hearts. He twisted before she could ascend, fist aimed for her ribs. She barely dodged, spun midair, and drove an elbow like judgment into his jaw. His grin cracked. So did something in his neck.

He stumbled.

That was new.

And dangerous.

For a second—just a second—Supergirl saw something flicker behind those red eyes. Not fear. Not doubt. But respect. The kind you give to an animal that keeps biting long after its legs are broken.

"Hmph," Lobo spat, wiping blood from his mouth. "Didn't expect you'd have teeth."

He lunged. A freight train of muscle and murder. She braced. Blocked. Slipped. Countered. But he was endless. A tide made of violence. His fists rained down like artillery, each blow a declaration: I do not yield. I do not break. I do not die.

Supergirl bent but didn't snap.

"You're strong," she hissed, catching one arm with both hands, boots digging trenches in the dirt. "But I've seen planets fall. I've stood where hope burns out."

"Good for you, cupcake," Lobo snarled, bringing down the other fist. "Let's see if you scream like 'em too."

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Naruto sat like a stone carved from purpose, hunched slightly over the steam curling off his plate. The knife in his hand moved with mechanical precision—cut, spear, chew, repeat—his movements a silent metronome in the mundane symphony of domestic peace. Around him, the Uzumaki home pulsed with the soft sounds of family life: the clink of utensils, the dull thud of passing feet on the wooden floor, the occasional murmur of idle conversation. It was the sort of evening that whispered of peace hard-earned and undeserved.

But peace, as always, was a lie told between disasters.

Himawari, the still flower blooming in the eye of her family's storm, tilted her head slightly. Her spoon hung in mid-air, soup forgotten. Something clawed at her senses—distant, wild, angry. Her eyes narrowed, the serenity in the room beginning to fray around the edges. A battle. Far away, yet near enough to echo in her bones. The kind of chaos that left scorched pavement and collapsed prayers.

She reached with her mind—not a jutsu, not a technique, just something older and more intimate. Empathy forged in chakra. A pulse of her spirit brushing against distant violence.

New York, she thought. Someone's tearing the sky again.

Then her father spoke.

"Inform her not to mess with him," Naruto murmured, his voice little more than wind against paper. He didn't lift his eyes from his food. He didn't need to. "His target is an enemy of humans, so let him be."

The words fell like steel. Cold, detached, absolute. Not a command, not quite. Just truth, laid bare.

Himawari stared. She had not spoken. Hadn't even breathed the thought aloud. But of course he knew. He always knew. He lived in a hundred places at once, bore the weight of a thousand lives in his quiet heart, and yet still carved time to butter his rice.

A thousand questions tightened in her chest like string pulled taut—Who is fighting? What kind of enemy? Why won't you stop it?

But she said none of it. She looked at her father—his eyes still on his food, his body relaxed, his soul a dormant sun.

And something clicked. He wasn't ignoring the chaos. He had already made a choice. Cold, perhaps. Detached, certainly. But not unfeeling.

"Thank you, Daddy," she said instead, the words soft and trembling, not from fear but from understanding.

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The girl in blue bled doubt, and the earth trembled for it.

Supergirl crashed into the ground like a fallen comet, her body carving a trench through concrete and steel. Each breath was a war. Each heartbeat a countdown. Lobo stood above her, the bastard son of some celestial slaughterhouse, grinning with fangs meant for extinction. He laughed with the force of wrecking balls and hit harder.

She rose again—because that's what heroes do, isn't it? They rise, again and again, even as their bones beg for reprieve. Her cape hung in tatters, a red banner of defiance waving in the chaos.

But Himawari's voice was a whisper in her skull. Cold. Clear. Certain.

"He is not the enemy."

A whisper against the hurricane. But it was enough.

Supergirl froze mid-flight, fists trembling, blood humming in her ears. Not the enemy? That didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. Lobo was a butcher. A storm of fists and cruelty. How could she—

Her eyes locked onto him. "Lobo," she rasped, pain cracking through the syllables. "What are you hunting?"

Lobo didn't even turn. He spat into the dust, his voice as rough as sandpaper on bone. "Krolotean. Shapeshifter. Nasty piece of work. Why the hell would I waste my time on a meatbag?"

Krolotean. The word curled in her gut like poison. A parasite. A deceiver. One that wore skin like a mask and murdered the soul behind it. The world tilted, clarity crashing in with merciless speed. The General... Tseng... he wasn't Tseng.

Her vision narrowed. The ruined building loomed like a mausoleum. Batgirl was buried under it.

With a scream of resolve, she soared into the wreckage, her fists breaking through stone and steel like they owed her blood. Dust filled her lungs. Shadows danced like ghosts. Then she saw it—him. The General. Too perfect. Too calm. And beneath that façade, wires twitched.

Supergirl didn't hesitate. Her fingers closed around his arm—flesh gave way to alloy, sinew to circuitry. She tore.

Metal screamed.

"There," she growled, tossing the broken arm to the side like so much trash. "There's your immortaldamn target."

Lobo stepped forward, unhurried, savoring the moment. The alien Krolotean twitched in the rubble, its disguise shattered. Lobo leaned in close, grin wide. "Appreciate the help, sweetheart. But I still ain't giving you a cut." He slung the creature over his shoulder like it was laundry and swaggered off, blood and soot in his wake.

Just another day's work for the galaxy's worst mercenary.

The dust hadn't settled. The ache hadn't either.

Supergirl hovered, her cape limp and her soul heavier than ever. "Batgirl?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

Batgirl coughed. Winced. Waved her off like pain was a nuisance she couldn't afford. "Just a sprain. But what the hell was that thing?"

Supergirl turned to her. Turned to Wonder Girl. Turned to the broken world that kept demanding answers from the wrong people.

"A Krolotean," she said bitterly. "And we almost killed each other for it."

In the distance, the city watched them, indifferent and broken. Heroes bled for truths they never saw coming. Enemies wore their allies' faces.

And sometimes, even immortals like Supergirl were just puppets dancing on the strings of lies.

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The Uzumaki household stood like a fortress at the edge of a dying storm—walls soaked in warmth, memories curled in the corners like sleeping beasts. Here, where laughter had once roamed untamed, only the echo remained, brittle and faint, clinging to the air like smoke after a funeral pyre.

In the kitchen, Himawari stirred with hands steady, but heart unmoored. The silence was not empty; it watched her, breathed with her. Every scrape of the spoon against the bowl sang with intention—small, domestic, defiant. She had sent the message. The Justice League moved like hounds unleashed, tearing down the shadows of Krolotean deception. And it had worked. The infiltrators lay exposed, devoured by justice clothed in steel and light.

But still, her thoughts refused peace.

She stepped into the living room, barefoot across the floorboards that creaked like old truths, and saw him there—her father, the world's discarded immortal, cloaked not in glory but in the gentle hush of ordinary life. He sat in his chair like a monument carved by grief and duty, hollowed by a century of consequence. Yet, to her, he was never more alive.

Himawari wrapped her arms around him, chin resting atop his head, breath light against his temple. Her touch was soft, reverent—not because he demanded it, but because he had never asked for anything at all.

"Daddy, I'm so happy that you saved them," she whispered, like a prayer slipping through cathedral glass.

He chuckled. Not the laugh of a man triumphant, but that of a relic amused by worship. "I did nothing," he said, the words gentle but barbed. "But if it makes you happy, then so be it."

To the world, he was myth—forgotten, mythologized, abandoned. To her, he was everything. And so she kissed his cheek with the pride of a daughter cradling the last light of a dying sun.

"No need to be so humble, Daddy," she said, the grin in her voice barely veiling the weight in her chest. "The world might never celebrate your heroism, but I always will. For today, I'll make you pudding."

She left before his silence could answer.

Back in the kitchen, sugar and milk, fire and care—all were folded into one act of devotion. The pudding was not just dessert. It was memory. It was hope forged in sweetness. But still, her hands hesitated, her thoughts drifting.

Will Daddy remember that day? Will Daddy be angry with me? Will he hate himself again?

She stirred harder, trying to drown the doubt. The scent of vanilla did little to mask the questions that lingered like ash in the back of her throat. Her father had once carried nations on his shoulders. Now, he could barely carry the weight of his own peace. But she would drag him back, if she had to—drag him from the pit of indifference, from the graveyard of greatness he had chosen to sleep in.

Is it so wrong? she wondered, watching the pudding thicken, as if the answer might rise with the steam. Was it wrong to pull a immortal back into the light? Wrong to revive the man who once stood before the world and dared to rewrite its fate?

She didn't know. But she would do it anyway.

Because sometimes, saving the world didn't come with explosions and fanfare. Sometimes it came with pudding. And silence. And love so fierce it could burn through shame.

And in the room behind her, the immortal slumbered—not in rest, but in rebirth.

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The wind whispered low and cold across the steel bones of Metropolis, dragging with it the scent of oil, ozone, and secrets. The city sprawled below like a carcass at peace, unaware of the immortals perched on its spine—two figures outlined by moonlight and silence.

Kara sat with her cape curled around her like a second skin, eyes distant, heart still sore from battle. Her knuckles ached with memory, her chest with questions she hadn't yet dared to voice. Beside her, Himawari rested like a still blade, not relaxed, but calm—dangerous in the same way the eye of a storm is quiet. She didn't move much, and yet Kara had the sense she was always moving. Watching. Calculating.

"Thank you for the help, Phoenix," Kara said, her voice low, stripped of the cape, the emblem, the titles. It was just a girl speaking to another girl—grateful, weary. She dipped her head, a warrior's bow, humble in its grace. "I apologize that you had to be dragged into a problem created by us."

Himawari smiled. It was a small thing, light but full of weight. Like a sword held loosely before the cut.

"No problem," she replied, bright as sunlight slipping between bars. "They were going to harm the world, so it was my duty to help. It's not like your friends did any damage on purpose, so there's nothing to blame."

Kara blinked, struck by the simplicity of it. Duty. Not ideology. Not reputation. Just the unspoken vow to act when the world needed hands to hold it up.

But still, guilt clung to her ribs like wet cloth. She cleared her throat, tried again. "Even then, I consider it a favor. As such, please give me an opportunity to repay it."

Himawari laughed softly—one of those rare, delicate sounds that made Kara feel like she was trespassing in something holy. "If I think of one, then I will inform you."

And just like that, she looked away—gaze wandering out over the city, pupils slightly glazed, mind spinning across distances Kara couldn't track. Kara followed the look, but saw nothing unusual. Streetlights. Cars. Life unfolding like it always had.

But Himawari was somewhere else.

The silence stretched—not awkward, but expectant. Kara could feel it, feel her, a presence sharp enough to cut and soft enough to soothe. She wondered if this was what it was like to sit beside fire. No one warned you how peaceful it could be. Or how easily it could turn.

She frowned, then laughed bitterly inside her own head. Seriously, is it her powers, or am I in love? she thought, shaking her head in disbelief. It has to be her powers. There's no way my preferences changed this much overnight.

But even as she told herself that, the warmth bloomed in her chest—slow, steady. A sun rising in her ribcage.

Himawari, for her part, had left the conversation long ago. Her mind stretched across space like a queen laying hands on the corners of her realm. She watched him—her father—moving like a shadow among soldiers. He was training the Suicide Squad. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the women around him. One of them laughed. Touched his shoulder.

Her smile didn't change, but her eyes did.

Daddy, I really wish you wouldn't hang out with women sometimes. Can't Daddy find only guy friends? The thought curled in her chest like smoke, shameful and inevitable. She didn't even know if it was love or possessiveness or just the fear of being replaced. But it bit at her anyway.

She shook it off, refocusing, regaining balance. This wasn't the time to fall into spirals. She was still sitting beside Supergirl, still representing something greater than herself. And yet...

She couldn't stop thinking about it. About him. About the way the world kept trying to pull him away, bit by bit. And how she would never let it. Not if she had any say in the matter.

Kara watched her—read the shift in her posture, the slight furrow of her brow, the way her gaze turned inward. There was more to Phoenix than anyone knew. More than power. More than grace. She was layered like steel folded a thousand times. Beautiful in the way that blades are—silent, purposeful, dangerous.

"Are you alright?" Kara asked, even though she knew the answer would be yes.

"Always," Himawari replied, her voice soft as the night wind.

And in that moment, something passed between them. Not words. Not promises. Just... recognition. Of what the other carried. Of what they might become.

Below them, the city breathed. Above them, the stars watched.

And between them, something began. Quiet, strange, and full of fire.