Chapter 4: The Mayor, the Mission, and the Hanging Ninja
If Himawari was the quiet sunshine of the team and Boruto the thundercloud trying not to rain too hard, then Kawaki was the midnight sky—still, scarred, and far deeper than he let on.
He didn't smile much. Didn't complain either.
He simply moved—with purpose, with restraint, with the quiet intensity of someone who'd seen too much and felt too little.
And currently, he was robbing a corporate tower.
But not out of greed. Kawaki wasn't after jewelry, or cars, or one of those "gaming consoles" Boruto kept whispering about.
No.
He wanted knowledge.
And maybe, just maybe, a reason to believe this world was worth protecting.
Hours earlier, the mission had begun with quiet failure.
Kawaki—usually so stoic—had stood on the edge of a city block, his hands clenched tightly in his jacket pockets, cursing the realization that he had absolutely no idea how to gather information.
He didn't know the language.
Didn't know the customs.
Didn't even know how to Google.
"I've disgraced myself," he thought flatly, with the same energy one might use to comment on burnt toast.
The worst part? He'd made the same rookie mistake as Boruto, and that alone made him want to dig a hole and hide in it.
Still, Kawaki wasn't one to quit.
He had spent the last few hours in a borrowed apartment, silently watching televisions through windows like some kind of anti-social owl.
He listened. He observed. He memorized.
Commercials. News tickers. Talk shows. Children's cartoons with suspiciously violent undertones.
And slowly, like a puzzle falling into place, he built a map of the city's culture.
The conclusion?
"This world is broken… Just like ours used to be."
He saw poverty. Crying children. Tired workers. Hypocrisy dressed up in business suits and smiling PR campaigns.
But unlike the others, Kawaki didn't feel hopeless.
He felt angry.
Because he knew someone who had changed his entire world without ever asking for praise.
"Only Father can make a place like this better."
And that's when he saw the tower.
Tall. Smug. Covered in reflective glass. The kind of building that screamed, "I pay zero taxes and sleep like a baby."
Without a moment's hesitation, Kawaki's eyes narrowed.
"I'll rob it."
Not for fun.
Not even for vengeance.
But because someone inside that tower had answers, and answers were more valuable than gold.
He flicked his fingers together and transformed—silver hair, one eye covered, slouchy posture. A man he'd seen in his father's memories.
Kakashi Hatake.
Mysterious. Anonymous. The perfect disguise.
"Not that anyone in this world knows what a Copy Ninja looks like."
Still, it felt oddly respectful.
Kawaki dashed across the skyline, holding back most of his speed (he could run at Mach 300 on a good day, but the pavement here would catch fire if he even attempted Mach 4). He settled on Mach 3—a stroll, really.
With each passing moment, he weaved through the security systems, walking unseen past guards, phasing past doors, and occasionally snatching wallets with silent precision.
He didn't even take the money—just flipped through the IDs, phone screens, and keycards.
"These people aren't warriors," he noted as he scanned another open laptop. "They're... advertisers?"
A pause.
"...What the hell is a marketing director?"
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For all the strength in his limbs, all the power surging through his veins, Kawaki's real weakness wasn't a physical scar.
It was memory.
Sharp. Unforgiving.
And far too vivid.
The deeper Kawaki moved into the building, the more his excitement faded. Gone was the quiet thrill of stealth. The flicker of pride when he pickpocketed a wallet without being seen. The mission, the objective—it all blurred when he reached Level B3.
Because there it stood.
Cold. Still. Glass.
The Container.
A cylindrical cage of reinforced glass and tubes, humming faintly with a soft electric pulse. Almost identical to the one where Isshiki Otsutsuki had once held him.
Where Amado's tools had turned his body into something useful, where his screams had echoed off walls that never cared.
Kawaki didn't scream this time.
But he trembled.
Rage began to burn low in his chest like a bonfire in a dry forest, impossible to contain. His hands curled into fists, shaking. His breath came faster. Chakra surged out before he could think—like a dam breaking, like a child's sob after weeks of holding it in.
The world tilted.
BOOM.
A wave of power exploded outward—raw, unfiltered chakra erupting into a storm. Machines bent. Walls cracked. The very air seemed to collapse under the force.
Sirens blared above.
The lab was reduced to scorched metal and ruined wires. The glass tube shattered, a mockery of the one that had caged him, and Kawaki collapsed to his knees—eyes wide, body shaking, his skin flickering with patches of black and gold from the Karma backlash.
He could barely breathe.
"F...Father..."
And then...
He was held.
Strong arms, firm and warm, caught him before he hit the ground fully. Familiar chakra surrounded him like a protective cocoon. A scent of wind and oak. The unmistakable feeling of absolute safety.
Naruto Uzumaki stood there, his face calm, but his eyes told a deeper story—one of sorrow, fury, and love so fierce it could silence storms.
"I understand," Naruto whispered, crouching down and holding Kawaki tighter. "So relax. Let it go."
There were no lectures. No blame.
Just a father, steady as a mountain, whispering the only words Kawaki truly needed.
"I'll never let anything bad happen to you."
Kawaki's breath hitched—and then he slept.
Not from exhaustion.
From trust.
His body healed even as he rested, chakra curling gently around his wounds like bandages made of light.
And in the chaos of the lab, Naruto simply raised his hand.
Gone.
With one thought, the wreckage vanished—dissolved, erased from existence. There was no evidence of their presence, no ruined lab or scorch marks on the steel walls. Just an empty room.
And the whisper of something unseen leaving the building.
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Lex Luthor:
The LexCorp Tower was still trembling at its bolts.
Elevators had halted. Lights flickered. People were running evacuation drills that no one had paid attention to in years.
But Superman was floating calmly in the aftermath, his red cape fluttering gently behind him like a flag declaring hope. His eyes glowed faintly blue as they scanned the interior—every crack in the walls, every inch of debris, every molecule of heat.
And yet…
Nothing.
No signs of an intruder.
No residue of explosives.
No prints. No footprints. No anything.
It was as if a miniature earthquake had been politely escorted out of the building before it made too much of a mess.
Superman frowned.
"Superman."
The voice came from behind. Calm. Eloquent. Mildly smug.
Lex Luthor stood near the scorched carpet, dressed in a dark grey suit that probably cost more than a small country's annual budget. His security team scuttled behind him like ants, scanning every inch of the building with eyes that would never be trusted to actually find anything.
Superman turned slowly, his expression unreadable.
"Lex."
Lex tutted as he examined a cracked screen.
"I assume you're here to gloat?" he said.
"You always seem to arrive at the most inconvenient times. Heroic intuition, or just good PR?"
Superman didn't bite. He never did.
"I'm here to help. Someone caused damage to this building, and it's my job to keep people safe."
Lex's lips curled.
"Astonishing. You must be thrilled—I've taken a loss. Half my lab is in ruins. A few billion in damages, give or take."
He didn't look thrilled. Or angry. He looked… intrigued.
Which was worse.
'There are no miracles,' Lex thought as he turned away. 'No one walks out of a blast like that unscathed, and no one breaks into my tower without leaving a single trace… unless they want to.'
His mind was already calculating:
Was it sabotage? A rival?
An inside job?
Or something entirely alien?
Superman's eyes narrowed, gently glowing as he looked through the walls again. Still nothing.
But in the quiet, he could sense it—not a presence, not exactly. More like an absence. A place where energy had been… edited out.
"Whoever did this," he thought, "is either hiding something... or someone."
"I'll look into it," Superman offered.
Lex gave him a slow, sardonic smile.
"How chivalrous. But I decline. I'll manage my own cleanup, thank you. You can go fly around and punch meteors or whatever it is you do when you're not hovering ominously."
Superman gave him a long, quiet look.
"If you need help, Lex, you know where to find me."
Lex straightened his cufflinks and didn't answer.
He didn't need to. His smile was already doing all the talking: Go away. You're the wrong kind of hero for this city.
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Lex Luthor was not a man who enjoyed being wrong.
He was, of course, rarely wrong—but the universe had an annoying way of delivering unexpected punches to the jaw when things were going too well. Like today.
For example, one minute his lab was humming along with delightful, dangerous science, and the next…
Boom.
A mysterious chakra-wielding vigilante had waltzed through his security systems, poked around his research like it was a grocery store aisle, and then exploded.
And the worst part?
He'd missed it by sixteen minutes. If he had stayed to review one more quarterly report, he might have met the masked menace face-to-face.
So naturally, Lex was furious.
"Show me the feed," he snapped.
Mercy, ever the competent and terrifying assistant, passed him the black-paneled tablet like it was the sword of Damocles.
Lex tapped and scrubbed through footage at lightning pace—until he froze.
There.
A flicker.
A flash of black.
A figure—masked, silver-haired, one eye covered. Tall. Graceful. Wearing an outfit that screamed I know twenty ways to kill you with a butterknife.
"Pause," Lex said softly.
The image stopped on a frame of Kakashi Hatake, or rather, Kawaki disguised as Kakashi, as he passed beneath one of the internal cameras. His figure blurred slightly with speed, but the illusion was good. Very good.
Lex leaned forward.
"Who… are you?"
He zoomed in.
Tactical gear.
A forehead protector with a scratched symbol.
A half-mask hiding the mouth.
Nothing that should exist outside of a comic book convention or a drug-fueled fever dream.
But Lex had long since abandoned the idea that reality played by its own rules. Metahumans, gods, aliens, reverse-speedsters—what was a ninja among such company?
Still… the outfit triggered something.
"League of Assassins."
The name dropped into his mind like a bowling ball into a teacup.
"Contact them," Lex said. "I want a meeting. Now."
Mercy blinked. "Sir, contacting the League—"
"Spare me the lecture, Mercy. Either they've gone rogue, or someone's dressing up in their tailor's worst nightmares. Either way, I want names."
And beneath the fury, Lex was calculating.
Whoever this masked figure was, they weren't just reckless. They were powerful. The explosion hadn't come from any bomb he could detect. It had been a pulse—raw energy from within.
"Energy-based intruders. Disguises. Precise movement. They didn't come to kill—they came to look."
Which meant this wasn't war.
This was reconnaissance.
And that… was worse.
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Boruto Uzumaki was many things:
— Annoying older brother.
— Prodigal pain-in-the-neck.
— Casual icon of misunderstood youth.
But at the moment?
He was a thief.
A grinning, lightly sweating, American-currency-toting thief, walking through the shadowy edge of Metropolis with an invisible strut and a ninja smugness that could be seen from space.
"Okay, stealing's bad. But it's not really stealing if it's from a corrupt politician," Boruto muttered, pocketing the mayor's wallet into his spatial storage scroll like a grandma hiding cookies from her diet.
The wallet had been easy enough. He didn't know the man, of course—but a heavy security detail, tailored suits, and three luxury cars was practically an invitation.
"If you're going to flaunt your wealth like a shiny beacon," Boruto reasoned, "then at least protect your chakra points. Amateurs."
He had no idea what American dollars were worth, but they were colorful and crinkly and could apparently buy snacks.
That was enough.
Boruto had just ducked into a quiet alley to begin Operation: Learn-This-Dumb-Language when a flicker of movement caught his eye.
A man. In the sky.
Flying.
"Huh?" Boruto blinked and stepped back into the open, his gaze narrowing.
No wings. No seals. No jutsu tags on his back.
Just a red cape flapping like a movie poster and the man's body hovering with the grace of a dragon and the glow of a power plant.
Boruto's instincts flared. His hand twitched toward a kunai.
Then he paused.
Instead of attacking, Boruto did what his father always insisted was the first step of shinobi work: observe.
His eyes pulsed—Byakugan activating in an instant, his field of vision stretching to 360 degrees, seeing through bone, chakra coils, and even the heart.
But this time, he added something… extra.
Jougan.
That mysterious eye with strange destiny tangled into its very threads, buzzing gently as it connected to something deeper.
Boruto's gaze locked on the flying man—and what he saw made his stomach lurch.
"No chakra coils," he whispered.
No elemental paths. No seal networks. Just… raw energy. Alien. Almost divine. It glowed inside the man's cells, fueling muscle, blood, bone—all humming with unnatural life.
"That's not chakra… What the hell is that?" Boruto whispered, leaning forward like a cat watching a ghost cross the garden.
Far above, Clark Kent paused mid-flight.
Something—someone—had pierced through him like a silent arrow. It wasn't just a stare; it was a full-blown scan. Deep and invasive. Like being read from the inside out.
Superman narrowed his eyes.
He looked straight down.
But whatever he saw… was gone.
The presence vanished, like it had never existed.
"Okay," Clark muttered, floating motionless for a beat. "That's the third weird thing today."
First the explosion. Then the energy spike. Now the invisible pervert staring into his mitochondria.
"Great. Either we've got a magician… or I just got side-eyed by a super-powered x-ray nerd."
He flew off with a scowl and a whisper of wind.
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The Uzumaki family dinner table was… lively.
Not quite explosions-in-the-dining-room lively (although with Naruto around, that had certainly happened once or twice), but more like the quiet before the storm. The calm of a father sipping tea, a daughter hiding a smirk, and two sons trying very hard not to look like absolute failures.
Naruto sat at the head of the table, serene as a monk, but his eyes sparkled with the mischief of someone who absolutely knew what you did last mission.
"So," he said, resting his chin on his palm with deliberate slowness, "how was the mission?"
His voice was pleasant. Neutral, even. Which, if you asked Boruto, was the most dangerous tone of all.
Himawari was the first to respond—not with words, but with a radiant smile and a hop into his lap, arms wrapping around his neck like a victorious kitten.
"Father, this is the result of my efforts," she whispered sweetly in his ear, carefully shielding her thoughts from her brothers.
Not that it helped.
Naruto chuckled. Her mind was like a brightly lit scroll—neat, elegant, and absolutely smug about her success. He saw everything: the stealth, the strategy, the jutsu control, the ethical reasoning. A solid A+ performance.
"You've done well," Naruto said, kissing the top of her head and smiling with quiet pride. "Professional… unlike our so-called champions here."
He didn't look at Boruto and Kawaki—but they felt it.
Kawaki had the dignity to avert his eyes, folding his arms as if the dining table had suddenly become the most interesting object in the universe.
Boruto, however, wasn't going down without a fight.
"Hey! I still got more money!" he shot back, puffing up like a cat cornered by a cucumber.
Naruto's face didn't change. But his aura did.
The temperature in the room dropped by a fraction. A slight breeze rustled the scrolls on the wall. Himawari subtly scooted her chair away.
"You stole," Naruto said softly, "from a good person."
That one sentence landed like a kunai in Boruto's stomach.
His instincts screamed RUN.
"Mooooom—!"
Pop.
He vanished in a flash of yellow.
Outside the town, a gentle wind whistled through the trees.
Boruto reappeared, hanging upside down from the front gate like a particularly noisy wind chime. Thick chakra ropes, probably overkill by most standards, wrapped around him like an elaborate birthday present.
A small swirling gust of chilled wind—infused with the same chakra used to knock out S-ranked criminals—nipped at his ankles.
"This… this is child abuse," Boruto muttered, swaying slightly in the breeze.
His chakra was sealed. His muscles wouldn't budge. And worst of all?
He felt warm inside.
The humiliation of being punished was somehow… comforting.
'Ugh. What is this feeling? Is this what people mean when they say "parenting" works?'
He didn't know. He just knew he wasn't telling Kawaki.
Back inside, Hinata walked in with a tray of tea, elegant as ever. She paused only slightly when she noticed the missing son.
"Where's Boruto?" she asked mildly.
"Repenting," Naruto said, sipping his tea with the air of a man who'd just watered his bonsai and spiritually cleansed the air.
Hinata nodded with approval and took her seat.
"Don't bring him in yet. Let him think about it."
"Mm."
The other two kids sat very straight.
Himawari was practically glowing, proud of her perfect record and unpunished status. Kawaki… was internally questioning whether throwing that beaker in the lab had been entirely necessary.
'Next time, don't explode things. Got it.'
Naruto looked at his family, finally together at the table.
His heart, once scarred by war and burdened by guilt, felt a little lighter.
"Tomorrow," he said casually, "we'll be taking a proper tour of the city. I want you three to observe the politics, economy, and culture of this world."
"You mean spy on people," Kawaki translated.
"Educationally," Naruto corrected.
"Can I wear a fake moustache?" Himawari asked excitedly.
"You may wear three."
Outside, Boruto sneezed violently and muttered something unprintable.