Chapter 9: A Flower in Gotham
If Metropolis was a gleaming glass castle of ideals and daydreams, then Gotham was the broken, soot-stained cauldron that had once tried to boil away its sins and failed spectacularly.
Dark alleys choked with cigarette smoke. Rooftops that sighed under the weight of rusted billboards. And the air—it smelled like regret mixed with gasoline and damp concrete.
And standing atop one of the tallest, most uninviting skyscrapers in the entire city was a girl who looked like she belonged in a sun-drenched field of sunflowers rather than this crime-painted canvas.
Himawari Uzumaki.
Eleven years old. Slightly over-prepared for fieldwork (thanks to a sealed scroll pouch nearly as big as her torso). Dressed in black, blue, and pastel pink. With hair like ink and eyes like moonlight—calm, curious, and currently... unimpressed.
"This place needs a mop and a miracle," she muttered, wrinkling her nose. A passing bat flapped past her, its wings ragged and its spirit broken. "And maybe a very strong air freshener."
She had arrived in Gotham only an hour ago, but already the place was tugging at her soul—people crying for help, suppressed screams behind broken windows, and the cold, bitter scent of injustice lingering in every corner.
"Honestly, why doesn't anyone clean these rooftops?" she said, brushing away pigeon feathers and a particularly rebellious piece of newspaper that had stuck to her leg.
Still, she had chosen this place on purpose. There had been options—glamorous New York, scenic San Francisco, or even the bizarrely polite town of Smallville.
But no. She'd clicked on a Gotham subreddit once, seen five mugging posts in a row, and decided, rather stubbornly, that this city needed someone to protect it properly.
"Metropolis has Superman… and now Boruto, which means it definitely doesn't need me."
She sighed, watching the distant city lights of Metropolis flicker on the horizon. The idea of her older brother flinging himself at Superman like a particularly reckless lightning bolt was not a theory. It was a certainty.
"He's probably shouting something like, 'I'm going to be the best hero of this generation!' while throwing Rasengans around like candy," she muttered, deadpan. "Father should beat him up. No… that wouldn't make a difference. But Superman?"
She clapped her hands together in silent prayer.
"I'm rooting for you, alien man. Please knock some sense into my brother."
With that heartfelt wish floating toward the heavens, Himawari turned her attention back to Gotham.
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To say Gotham had problems would be like saying the ocean was damp. It wasn't a city so much as a patchwork quilt of police reports, bad lighting, and suspicious clowns.
And it left Himawari Uzumaki positively speechless.
She sat cross-legged on a fire escape, a large white bow resting in her lap like a sleeping animal. Her Byakugan was still active, but at this point it was just showing her crimes stacked atop crimes like pancakes on a particularly cursed breakfast table.
"How is this city even operating?" she whispered, jaw dangling in sheer disbelief.
Down below, a man was getting mugged by a woman dressed as a Victorian maid. Two alleys over, someone was being chased by a man in a crocodile mask. A block further, a kid was trying to steal a donut from a crime boss and somehow winning.
And the most baffling part?
Most of the people down there weren't even shinobi. Just regular people. No chakra, no bloodlines, no superhuman anything. They were just... fighting for their lives with umbrellas, baseball bats, or very loud screaming.
"This isn't even a ninja village. It's just chaos. Organized chaos with bad fashion sense."
With a deep sigh, Himawari sat down on a rooftop ledge and cradled the elegant white bow in her arms.
It shimmered faintly in the gloom, giving off an ethereal glow that made it look more like a divine relic than a tool of violence. And in truth, that's exactly what it was.
Ai—the spirit of the bow—rested quietly inside, her presence warm and gently pulsing like a sleeping heart.
"You're too dangerous for this place," Himawari murmured to the weapon. "One arrow and we might accidentally erase Gotham. Not that anyone would notice."
She giggled softly to herself, and Ai stirred, a whisper of white flame curling around the gemset handle like a yawn.
This bow—her reward—had been given to her by her father the night before. While her brothers were off being boys (read: shouting, training, occasionally setting things on fire), Naruto had quietly led her into a hidden armory beneath their new house.
It had smelled of old parchment and sandalwood, the walls lined with weaponry so ancient and intimidating that even Himawari had felt her hair stand on end.
But the bow... the moment she laid eyes on it, the weapon had responded.
Naruto had explained it with his usual nonchalance:
"She picked you. Must be your calm heart and terrifying potential. Her name's Ai—she used to be a phoenix. Don't use the soul arrow unless something really nasty shows up. Like, alien invasion nasty."
To which Himawari, who still hadn't fully processed the words phoenix soul weapon, had nodded like a perfectly well-behaved child, while internally screaming:
"What do you mean 'soul arrow' could erase the MOON?"
Even now, she still wasn't sure how she was supposed to casually carry around something that powerful.
But then again… her father was Naruto Uzumaki. His love language was "overkill wrapped in a hug."
"He really does love me," she said softly, brushing her fingers across the smooth crystal limbs. "I knew that already, but... this? This is next level."
She smiled—warm, bright, and utterly out of place in a city this miserable.
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Himawari Uzumaki had faced many strange things in her life.
She had, for example, survived growing up in a household where ramen was considered a sacred experience. She had mastered the Gentle Fist by the age of ten and stopped her father from accidentally blowing up the kitchen at least six times. But even she wasn't quite ready for a tiny blonde girl named Ai to appear inside her mind and start bossing her around.
"Hima, Master Naruto left locks on my body. You'll have to challenge the trials before unlocking one of the locks," the voice chirped, sweet and dangerously smug. "So you don't have to worry about accidentally destroying the planet, desu ne."
Himawari blinked.
"Wait. The planet?"
She had been aiming an arrow at a drug deal happening near the docks—a simple, silent shot meant to disarm the weapon smugglers without any fuss. But now her grip loosened as she tried to process what Ai had just casually revealed.
Meanwhile, the bow shimmered faintly in her hand. And in her mind's eye, Ai took shape: a small girl of about ten, with sunny twin-tails and a yellow yukata, complete with bunny slippers and the smug self-assurance of a creature that knew it was extremely dangerous.
"That makes sense," Hima mumbled, distracted. "So which level am I standing at?"
Ai spun in a circle and clasped her hands behind her back. "First level. There are ten. Each one has a unique trial your father designed—nothing you can just bulldoze through with power. Every opponent you'll face inside is equal to you in strength and skill."
Himawari's jaw dropped a little. "So I can't brute-force it?"
"Nope!" Ai sang, cheerfully cruel. "You'll have to think. Strategize. Use charm. Or, you know, cry a little. That works sometimes."
The bow spirit floated up and grinned. "Each level unlocks a new skill. The 100% accuracy and power stuff? That's basic. Wait until you get to the good part—I was made for you, Himawari. I'm your lifelong partner!"
Hima flushed at the warmth in Ai's voice. "Really?"
"Yup! You're stuck with me forever, so you better start appreciating my genius."
Himawari giggled. "Okay, okay. So… what can you actually do?"
Ai winked. "Can't tell you yet. You have to earn it." She spun in a puff of flame and perched atop a glowing sign in Hima's mind. "But I can give you access to the second-level ability right now. You've got a 60% chance of passing the trial, which is good enough for me."
A shimmer ran down the bow like starlight on water. Hima's eyes widened as the words Seeker Shot glowed gently on the handle.
"Seeker shot?" she read aloud.
"Just think of your target, fire the arrow, and voila—across the planet, it'll find them. Walls, oceans, invisibility... doesn't matter. If they exist and you've seen them once, the arrow will find them."
Himawari's lips stretched into a gleeful grin. "You're the best, Ai!"
"I know I am. I'm the best bow in the world."
There was a short pause.
"…Ai, my mother also has a bow."
Silence.
Complete, ominous silence in her mind.
Ai turned very slowly, her smile fixed but twitching at the corners.
"You will take the next trial tonight."
Hima gulped. "I didn't mean anything by it! Second-best isn't so bad, right?"
Ai, now curled up in a tiny sulking ball, didn't reply.
'Oh no.' Hima sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. 'Why is parenting so hard? And she's not even real.'
She tried again. "You're unique, Ai. Mother's bow can't talk. Or fly. Or vaporize moons—"
"Obviously," Ai huffed.
Hima mentally facepalmed. This was what her father meant when he said powerful tools came with their own... personalities.
Still, she couldn't help the affection blooming in her chest. Ai might be proud, pouty, and unpredictable, but she was hers.
"Alright," she said aloud, eyes narrowing on the smugglers below. "Let's get to work, second-level style."
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If Gotham had ever known peace, it had long since forgotten the feeling. The city coughed and groaned beneath its weight of corruption, like an old dog too tired to bark. But today, something strange happened. Something magical.
And her name was Himawari Uzumaki.
Standing atop a silent skyscraper, with her hair tied in a tidy bun and eyes shining with unshakable clarity, Hima took a deep breath. It was quiet—not the still kind of quiet, but the one just before the storm. The kind of quiet that made shadows nervous.
"Well… on to the hunt."
With that one soft-spoken phrase, the air itself shivered.
Down in the dim alleyways and smoke-choked streets of Gotham, things began to change. In one second, a gang of armed men laughed over stolen jewels. In the next, they were crying on the pavement—each one clutching a leg that simply wasn't there anymore.
There was no blood. No pain, either. The arrow had healed them the instant it hit—just a perfectly clean severing at the thigh or shin, as if politely saying: "No more running, thank you."
They weren't dead. They weren't even maimed, really. But they would never forget.
From above, Hima's bow—Ai—gleamed like a star in her hand, the string humming with satisfaction. Arrows made of white flame disappeared into the sky, reappearing only for brief moments as they thudded gently into knees and ankles all across the city.
Criminals screamed. Police radios crackled. One man fainted mid-theft and landed in a trash bin.
"You're being very efficient today," Ai murmured, clearly impressed. "I feel proud to be wielded by you."
"Thanks," Hima said quietly, her eyes focused, glowing pale blue. "Now let's go deeper."
With a flick of her fingers, more information came flooding into her head—not from any mystical source, but from a clone sitting several blocks away in a hidden internet cafe, surfing government databases and digital news archives like a caffeinated raccoon.
Corrupt mayors. Polluting companies. Business tycoons laundering money through Gotham's decaying systems.
"We're not vigilantes," she whispered. "We're auditors with arrows."
She raised her bow to the sky.
"Seeker shot."
The sky bloomed with hundreds of arrows, each gleaming like comet trails, zipping away toward skyscrapers and penthouses, toward marble offices with golden faucets and poisonous policies.
Some would hit knees. Some would disable cars. Some would simply sting—enough to leave a mark but not enough to justify calling it violence.
Let them panic. Let them question. Let them finally see the people they hurt.
And then, after the chaos, came the beauty.
Hima reached into her pouch and drew out a shimmering green gem—no larger than a plum. It pulsed in her hand like a heartbeat.
"This one's for everyone."
She drew an arrow from the gem, its body crackling with contained nature energy. Taking a deep breath, she aimed at the clouds above.
And fired.
A moment later, the arrow burst in the atmosphere like a silent firework—no noise, just light. Green light. Healing light. It fanned outward in every direction, blanketing the sky with a soft emerald glow that made even the moon peek curiously from behind a curtain of gloom.
And then…
The smog cleared.
Not a little. Not a patch. All of it.
The sky over Gotham turned clear for the first time in what felt like a century.
Street lights flickered. People stared from windows and rooftops, mouths open. Babies stopped crying. Old men stood still in parks and felt, for the first time in years, that they could breathe without coughing.
"You're showing off," Ai teased.
Hima smiled, not denying it.
"I'm my father's daughter," she said, eyes soft. "But… I want to be better."
And far below, Gotham blinked in the sudden clarity of a world it had never seen before.
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Flash:
The wind sang sweetly as it whipped past Barry Allen's ears, the world nothing more than streaks of color and flickers of shape. To most, it was a Tuesday. To Barry, it was a fast Tuesday.
Zooming across the highways and fields of America at speeds that made jet pilots feel insecure, the Flash was enjoying one of his usual patrols. No villains. No time paradoxes. Just him, the road, and the occasional enthusiastic pigeon that unfortunately got a bit too close to the Speed Force.
"Okay, pigeon down," Barry muttered. "Sorry, little guy—fly safer."
That's when it happened.
A glint of light. A shimmer of pressure. And—
Fwshhhhh!
An arrow.
A flying arrow.
Beside him.
"Okay, that's new," Barry said aloud, squinting sideways as the thing zipped through the air like a tiny comet on a mission.
Arrows didn't move like that. Arrows didn't keep up with him. Arrows didn't glow like that unless magic was involved—and Barry had seen enough magical nonsense lately to write a thesis.
"Green Arrow finally get enchanted gear? Please don't tell me he teamed up with Zatanna again."
The arrow gracefully banked left. Barry, being Barry, decided logic was for turtles and turned with it.
A few seconds later, the mystery arrow found its mark—a man in a ski mask with a rocket launcher casually walking toward a courthouse.
"What the heck—?" Barry slowed just in time to see the arrow phase through the man's arm like a ghost and—
Pop.
No more arm.
The man screamed, stumbled, and hit the ground like a sack of half-frozen waffles. The rocket launcher? Safely tipped over into a patch of tulips.
Barry blinked.
"Okay… wow. That had to hurt."
He zipped around the spot in circles, examining the man. The injury was clean—like a laser scalpel had taken a holiday through the criminal's biceps.
"Huh… no blood. No burn marks. That's just rude-level precision."
Then the arrow disappeared into the wind again like it had an appointment elsewhere. Barry stared after it, baffled.
"What in the multiverse is going on? Is this Cupid 2.0? Magic Sniper? Cupid's angry little sister?"
He considered chasing it. For exactly 0.3 seconds.
"Nope. Not my circus today."
With a little salute to the unconscious crook, Barry turned on his heel and resumed his original route.
"Whatever new force is on the move, let's hope she's on our side. And maybe a little less arm-melty next time."
He zipped off again, the wind swallowing his chuckle.
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Batman:
"Master Bruce, you might want to see this."
Alfred's voice was calm, polite, and unmistakably layered with that quiet urgency reserved for world-ending threats or someone tracking mud through the Manor.
Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy by day and walking sleep deprivation ad by night, groaned as he stirred beneath the weight of a heavy robe and heavier fatigue.
"Alfred," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, "unless the Joker hijacked another blimp, this can wait till the evening."
"It's… not a blimp, sir," Alfred replied, with the patience of a man who once raised a Wayne through puberty and several wars. "You'll want to see the sky."
Bruce blinked. "The sky?"
Alfred simply turned the laptop toward him.
A moment passed.
Then Bruce stood straighter, all traces of sleep evaporating.
Across the skyline of Gotham, captured from half a dozen CCTV cameras and a drone feed, was a massive emerald glow—hovering in the upper atmosphere like a second sun. It pulsed gently, strangely elegant against the city's usual smoggy night. Below, street cam feeds showed chaos of a different sort.
Criminals. Collapsing.
One man clutching his knee and crying about a "ghost arrow."
Another screaming, "My leg! It's gone! IT'S BACK?!"
Bruce narrowed his eyes. A single thought crossed his mind:
Precision strikes. Non-lethal. Surgical damage. Impossible shot angles. Magic? No… no this feels too personal.
"Alfred," he said in a low growl, already shedding his robe and heading for the grandfather clock, "bring something down below."
"Already queued your blackest coffee, sir," Alfred replied. "I took the liberty of adding two espresso shots. You looked like death warmed over."
Bruce smirked faintly as he stepped into the hidden passage that led to the Batcave.
Down Below: The Batcave
The Cave came to life with its usual quiet roar—consoles flickering on, engines humming, and the giant monitor lighting up like a beacon in the dark.
Bruce strode to the command console and tapped into his private satellite array. With a few keystrokes, the hologram of Gotham hovered before him—lit up with dozens of green signatures, all scattered across the city's most crime-ridden zones.
"All of them… neutralized?"
Alfred entered behind him, a tray of coffee in one hand, and a knowing look on his face.
"Twenty-three assaults, seven attempted robberies, two kidnappings, and an illegal chemical dump… all halted within three minutes," Alfred listed with the dry tone of a BBC narrator. "Rather efficient, wouldn't you say?"
Bruce's eyes scanned the data streams. Each arrow strike had been precise—disabling, not killing. And disappearing immediately afterward. The reports of phantom projectiles, glowing arrows, and screaming vigilantes filled his encrypted GothamNet thread.
"Someone new is in Gotham," Bruce said quietly, his brow furrowed. "And she's not just here to play vigilante. This was targeted. Calculated. A statement."
"Indeed," Alfred agreed. "And judging from the effect, I'd say it's less a statement… and more of a declaration of war against Gotham's filth."
Bruce paused the scrolling feed. His eyes landed on a still image of the sky at the moment the green burst lit up.
He enhanced the frame. There, faintly, was a silhouette on top of a skyscraper—a girl. A bow glinting in her hand.
Young. Calm. Watching.
"She cleaned the air," Bruce muttered. "She purged the sky."
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "Quite the eco-friendly archer. Perhaps we should leave her a thank-you basket."
Bruce turned to him, grim as ever.
"No," he said. "We find out who she is. Before someone else does."
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Himawari stood on the edge of the skyscraper, her white gem bow resting across her shoulder like a sleeping dragon. The green glow was fading gently from the atmosphere, but Gotham had already changed.
No more coughing clouds. No more choking haze.
From up here, the city looked… alive. Like it had just taken its first breath in a decade.
Hima smiled.
"Just like Father taught me… help first, talk later."
She let her body relax—shoulders sinking, chakra calming—after expending so much energy. Her internal gauges told her she'd lost around 15% of her reserves. Not a small amount, considering she hadn't even broken a sweat.
'Gotta pace myself. Can't go all Boruto and end up in someone's crater.'
The bow on her shoulder gave a small hum, and Ai's voice, cheerful as ever, chirped in her mind.
"That's because you used higher-tier skills without warming up! You're lucky I'm regulating your drain! Desu ne~!"
"Thanks, Ai." Himawari smiled and rolled her neck, but then—
She paused.
A figure darted across the rooftops below, sleek and fast—so quiet, even her enhanced eyes had nearly missed it. Black leather. Agile. A whip.
"Is that...?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"Catwoman."
She'd seen the name in Gotham's online forums. Criminal to some. Anti-hero to others. Known for theft, evasive maneuvers, and a moral compass that spun wildly based on her mood and outfit.
Hima tilted her head. Interesting.
"Ai, scan for weapons."
"Lightweight gear. Grapple claw. Whip. No fatal tools. She's more stylish than savage. Probably won't attack unless threatened."
"Then let's say hi."