Chapter 38 - One finger

'Batman has started to call me to meetings quite often as of late.' Naruto mused as he jumped from the rooftop of a building to another. This was quickly becoming one of the things that he liked to do the most.

Landing on the rooftop of a particularly tall building, he stopped at its edge and sat down, his legs dangling out. Looking at the world below, a sigh of admiration left his lips as he took in the cityscape spread beneath his feet. Watching Gotham City from above during night was truly a wonder.

A small gale of wind blew as a silhouette landed next to him. It was a woman.

'You seem distracted tonight. Is it because of what Batman's butler said?' she asked rather softly and took a seat on the edge, right next to him.

Only a few minutes ago, Naruto was doing a small routine workout before going to bed - it was night after all. That's when someone called on his cellphone (he had bought one just so he could communicate with his sister when she was away, hanging out with Barbara Gordon). It was Batman. He didn't give many details on the phone. He only told him that he knows what his grandfather's next move going to be and that they will discuss the rest face to face.

Had he found out about the League of Shadows' next move before his conversation with Kyuubi, Naruto would have had no problem to go and face them. But after learning the truth about his parents and what Sarutobi Hirzuen had done for his family, he could no longer bring himself to keep a grudge against him.

Kyuubi told him that Sarutobi had taken his parents out of a secret facility during one of his raids under the League of Shadows' orders. Minato Namikaze, one of the scientists working at the laboratory where Kushina was being held prisoner had fallen in love with the one he was supposed to be researching, at first sight. And Namikaze was the one that helped Sarutobi infiltrate the well guarded laboratory to bring down its defence system. From what Kyuubi told him, apparently, Sarutobi and his team's mission had been to kill all the military personnel in there and capture all the imprisoned metahumans for the League of Shadows. However, in exchange for Minato Namikaze helping him infiltrate the base, Sarutobi let him and Kushina Uzumaki keep their lives and freedom.

But their happiness was not meant to last. After only two years, right after Kushina Uzumaki had given birth to Naruto, the Russian government reached them. Minato was just a scientist and Kushina was only an ordinary woman because after witnessing Mito's fate, Kyuubi had decided against making his presence known to Kushina. That said, the two of them never stood a chance against the team of trained special agents that the Russian Secret Services had sent after them. They were killed and Naruto and Misaki Uzumaki were taken away.

It could be called fate that only a few months later, Sarutobi happened to raid another laboratory...the very laboratory where the little Uzumaki siblings were being held...

Now that he knew the truth, Naruto couldn't hold any kind of ill feelings for the old man. Sarutobi Hiruzen had saved both his, his parents' and his sister's lives more than once. And, if that was not enough, he had taken it upon himself to raise orphaned siblings until they grew up, while he was not even blood related to them. Furthermore, Sarutobi had never expected for anything in exchange. He had never sought any reward for what he had done for them.

'However, Kyuubi will obviously not stay put. His hate for the Sharingan has not diminished in the least... He will definitely jump at the chance of exterminating the Uchiha from this world.'

A frown marred his face. Everything would have been so much simpler for him had he not known the truth. If he had not known what Sarutobi Hiruzen had really done for him and his family, Naurto would have been able to simply wash off his hands in regards to Sarutobi's fate. But now, he couldn't. Naruto had many flaws and he was very from the definition of a good person. But he was not ungrateful. And the least he could do was to not go against him. Either way, in Naruto's mind, there was literally no chance for the League of Shadows to survive in the upcoming confrontation anyway. There was no need for him to butt in.

'They will be up against the entire Justice League. And, as to cement their fate, two other monsters are most likely going join in the frame as well - Kyuubi and Galatea.'

'Naruto?' Galatea called out when she didn't receive an answer, breaking him from his train of thought.

'Yes? Yes... I guess I am.' he said, rubbing his face with both of his palms for a moment. However, hearing Galatea expressing her concern for him involuntarily made him smile.

'What are you going to do?' he asked. It wasn't like he didn't know beforehand what her answer was going to be. It was just to make conversation.

Galatea let herself fall with her back on the concrete floor, her eyes pinned to the starry sky as she said:

'It goes without saying that I will be there. If Batman really knows what is their next objective, I don't wanna miss it. Although the chance for Uchiha Itachi to actually be there is not big - I presume that that organisation has hundreds or even thousands of members - I am not losing anything by going.'

Not wanting to be with his back to her, Naruto also let himself fall on his back, next to Galatea.

'Figures... I want to ask you one thing though. If you do encounter my old man, please do not hurt him.'

Galatea turned her head to the side to look at him as if she was searching for something in his eyes.

'Do you realize what are you asking me for? You want me to protect the person that is about to single-handedly start the 3rd World War?'

Naruto sighed. Certainly, that would be a very unreasonable thing to ask from her.

'I didn't ask you to protect him... just to not hurt him.'

Galatea turned her head back to the sky.

'Why? Didn't he abandon you and your sister? From what I understand, it was his disappearance that triggered all the problems that flooded your live until now.'

Naruto did not answer right away.

'That may have been the case...but he had done so much more for us...much more than I would've thought possible. I only recently found out about that.'

Galatea exhaled loudly, the steam that came out of her mouth dissipating in the cold air of winter night.

'Don't worry, I give you my word: if he doesn't get in my way, I will not harm him. But I will not let anybody stop me.'

None of them spoke for a while, both thinking about the following day.

'What are you going to do after that?' Naruto suddenly broke the silence. There was a strange tint of bashfulness hidden in his tone as he asked that question. He finally realized that, by laying so close next to each other, the two of them have unknowingly created a rather intimate moment.

'Are you asking me if I am going to come back to you?' Galatea asked, her lips curling into a smile towards the end.

Naruto could feel his face becoming warm but he didn't chicken out.

'Yes.' he said quietly. 'I would like to know you better. To know you outside of just fighting, like...I don't know...like normal people.'

It was Galatea's turn to have a blush dye her face red this time around. A knot suddenly appeared in her stomach, not having expected Naruto to actually voice out his interest for her that openly. And, although she reckoned that her face must have been burning in embarrassment, she spoke:

'I-, I would like that too... to know you better.'

'Then, I'll be waiting for you.' Naruto muttered.

'Yes.' Galatea said and nodded.

Naruto felt as though electricity suddenly started to course through him (different from his own lightning) when someone took hold of his hand. Obviously, it was Galatea. He turned his face towards her in surprise.

'W-What? Don't look at me!' she stuttered. Even through the darkness of the night, he could see that her face was boiling.

'Gaaah! Just what in the world made me do that?!' she screamed at herself internally, mortified. She was dying of embarrassment!

She was about to hurriedly retract her hand when...Naruto tightened his own hold on it. She thought that her heart was going to stop! And when his thumb lightly caressed the back of her palm she forgot how to breathe for a moment.

By now, they were both furiously blushing. Neither of them dared to look at the other, afraid of what would his or her reaction going to be at seeing the expression on his/her face. They kept their eyes pinned to the sky, absent-mindedly watching the glittering stars. Despite looking like adults, in that moment, the two of them were feeling like a couple of young teenagers that were falling in love for the first time. With their hearts fluttering, they held each other's hand and watched the sky in silence, for a long while, blissfully unaware of anything around them.

That heavenly moment was broken though when Naruto's cellphone vibrated in the pocket of his jacket. And it was not only him that felt a rush of annoyance at hearing the ringtone, but Galatea as well. She had an urge to take the phone and crumple it into a ball of scrap metal.

Naruto sighed. Taking out his phone, he realized that it was the same number Batman always used to call him. Better said, it was the number that the butler of the Wayne family, Alfred, always used to call him because their meetings were always arranged through the old butler. Bruce Wayne never called him directly as to not make anyone suspicious of anything should they listen on their conversation.

'Yes?'

'Yes, we're on our way. We'll be there in a 5 minutes or so.'

'Hmm? Yeah, I'm not alone, Galatea is with me as well. What, is there a problem?'

'OK, see you in a few minutes.'

When they sat up and were about to start 'walking' again, Galatea stopped him.

'Wait, you got some snow left on your jacket.'

Getting behind him, she gently patted his back, taking the snow down. Naruto was just about to turn around and thank her when she suddenly pushed him with both of her hands, hard. As he was falling off the tens of feet tall building screaming, he heard Galatea yelling:

'TAG! YOU'RE IT!'

A burst of chakra stopped his descent abruptly, right before he was about to smash into the street below. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

'Jeez, are you 3 years old or what?!' he yelled back at her.

'Wait, she really is 3 years old!' Chuckling to himself, his feet pushed against the ground as he shot explosively into the air after her. Galatea may have had the appearance and the intelligence of a young woman but, sometimes, proofs of her still childish heart were coming out.

Scene break

'Why do I have to go my room!? If I am going to be there tomorrow, we need to make the plan together!'

It was a young boy, around 10 years old with a rather mean expression etched on his face. He had a stature befitting someone his age and he was dressed in black. His short black hair, green eyes and rather round shaped face made it clear that he was related to the man standing in front of him - Bruce Wayne. He was his son, Damian Wayne.

'We? Who said anything about you coming along tomorrow?'

'Look, I am not a kid! I was trained from birth to become the greatest assassin ever! I can take on anyone!'

Bruce Wayne looked towards Talia al Ghul with a expression that was clearly asking her to control her son. But the woman pretended to not understand.

'Listen up, kid.' Batman said, ignoring the growl the came from the boy at being called a 'kid'. 'You are out of your league. Even I am outclassed by what happens around me most of the time. I am an ordinary human, I have no superpowers, no super-reflexes and no super intelligence. It is only the technology and my experience that allows me to keep up with all the superpowered metahumans... experience that you do not have.'

'Then how am I supposed to get that experience if I will always have to stay in my room?'

Bruce Wayne was quickly loosing his patience. Although he was approaching his middle age, he didn't have any kind of experience with kids. He had not had many chances to interact with them, especially not with kids as hard-headed and stubborn as his son was proving to be.

'There will be other opportunities in the future for you to gain experience. Occasions where it won't be the fate of the entire world at stake. This isn't a moment where a kid can come and play the superhero or the ultimate assassin as you believe yourself to be.'

'Two very important guests are about to arrive so go to your room. Now!'

At his father's words, Damian could not look any less aggravated than he was currently. With a deep scowl on his face, he left the room, slamming the door hard behind him.

'What did you do for him to grow up like that?' Batman asked.

Talia al Ghul narrowed her eyes at him.

'What is that supposed to mean? I raised him to be the perfect warrior, the best assassin!' she replied sharply.

'What I see is not that. I only see a bratty and spoiled kid, who doesn't want to listen to a thing his father says.'

'What did you expect? Today is the first time he saw you. You've never been in his life until now, of course he wouldn't listen to what you say.'

'And who is to blame for that? I didn't even know I had a son!' Batman shouted back at her. 'You were the one that kept me in the dark. And now that you're in dire straits, you came here and dumped him on my lap - 'Bruce, this is your son'. If it weren't for the current situation, you would have probably never even told me about his existence!'

At his words, Talia al Ghul kept silent. She knew that he was right. Moreover, she really depended on him so there was no meaning in antagonising him any further.

It was then that the doorbell rang - Naruto and Galatea arrived.

Scene break

'Che! Treating me as kid! I have more kills on my belt than most people twice my age. Who the hell does he take me for?' Damian Wayne muttered angrily to himself.

A thought bloomed in his mind:

'Uzumaki Naruto is supposed to come soon. The man that has tortured the Joker to death, all the while streaming himself over the entire country. There's also a rumour that he may have managed to defeat Superman and the Flash too.'

He smirked.

'Then, I'll take this chance to prove him what I am capable of! I'm going to kick this Uzumaki's ass big time. When father see that I took out someone as dangerous as him, he won't question my abilities anymore.'

Taking a sword from his luggage (he only recently arrived so he did not have the time to unpack yet), he strapped it on his back. He also filled his utility belt's pockets with shurikens and even some poisoned darts.

'Just you wait, father. I'm going to blow your mind away!'

With that thought in mind, Damian rushed along the corridors, towards the entrance door of the manor. When he reached the entrance hall, his eyes fell on the visitors.

A man over 6 feet tall, packed with muscles. He looked almost like a body builder. He had spiky blonde hair that fell nearly to his chin and the odd thing about his appearance was that 3 pairs of whisker-like scars marred his cheeks. He was dressed like an ordinary person - a pair of black boots, some dark blue jeans and a green, hooded parka jacket - but despite his ordinary outfit, there was an aura of dominance around him that was impossible not to notice.

As for the other person, it was a woman. She was only a few inches shorter than her companion but just as eye catching, if not more. Although he was still very young, even Damian Wayne could recognize that she had a beauty above any other woman that he had ever seen before. But that was not what occupied his mind. What did was the fact that he recognized her as the infamous clone of Supergirl. From the data that he had read about her, she was supposed to be even stronger than the 'original'.

The first impression the boy got from seeing them was that they were unmistakably powerful. However, when he thought about how his father 'disregarded' him as a kid, all thought of retreat disappeared from his mind.

With a burst of speed unexpected from someone of his age, the boy covered the few meters between them in the blink of an eye.

'Out of the way, old man!' Damian screamed in mid-air and drew out his sword in a vertical slash, seemingly uncaring of whether Alfred would have enough time to dodge it or not.

Scene Break

It took them a bit longer than 5 minutes to reach the manor because of their little game of tag, but they weren't late by much. On a side note, Naruto was still it, not having managed to catch her.

After ringing the doorbell, Alfred's amiable face appeared from behind the door.

'Good evening and welcome! Master Bruce has been waiting for you!'

'Good evening and thank you, sorry for being late.' Galatea replied, returning his polite greeting in the same fashion.

The butler opened the door wide for them to enter and, after closing it, he took Galatea's coat and Naruto's parka and put them in the coat hanger. Then, he invited them to follow him towards the guest room. It was in that moment that a loud cry was heard from the other end of the corridor and someone rushed towards them aggressively:

'Out of the way, old man!'

However, Alfred had not been prepared to be assaulted in his own home, and clearly, not by the son of his master, with a sword. He was too late to react. He didn't have the time to dodge it. But Damian did not stop his slash.

Naruto's eyes narrowed dangerously and his hand shot forward.

For a moment, everything was still as if they were all frozen. Then Alfred gulped nervously - the blade of the sword was only 2 inches away from cleaving through his shoulder! What had stopped it from doing just that? Naruto had caught the blade in 2 fingers!

'What is the meaning of this, boy?' he asked dangerously.

Damian Wayne could not believe his eyes. A swing of the sword in which he had put his entire strength, was casually stopped by the man in front of him with only 2 fingers! He grunted in exertion as he tried to wring away his weapon from Naruto's grasp, but it did not budge in the slightest, no matter how hard he pulled. Then, a reverberating sound of a metal breaking was heard as, with just a twist of Naruto's fingers, the fine blade was snapped in half!

Although petrified at the display of power for a split second, Damian shot forward with a high kick towards Naruto's jaw. However, the boy miscalculated something. He was so short that one of Naruto's arms was almost as long as how tall his entire body was. Damian's kick never had a chance to connect with its target and he suddenly found himself in a choke hold. Even then, the boy didn't give up; pulling out a knife from his boots, he decisively stabbed it into Naruto's arm, intent on escaping from his hold. But the next moment, his own hand became numb and the knife dropped on the floor with a clatter - for boy, it had felt as if he had tried to stab into concrete, not into someone's flesh.

'Kid or not, you better stop this nonsense or I'll snap your neck like that of a chicken.'

If his words would not have effect on the boy, the short burst of killing intent that leaked from Naruto definitely did. Damian's body became still as though he had been paralyzed.

It was a rather low level technique from his past life that could be performed even by Genins if they trained in it hard enough but was generally used only by exceptional shinobi like the Anbu or by individuals with very powerful killing intent. The reason for that was that these types of shinobi did not even need to make hand-seals for it, they could cast it simply by looking into their victims' eyes. The name of this technique was Kanashibari no Justus and, at some point in his past life, Naruto had also gotten to experience it on his own skin due to Orochimaru. One look into the Snake Sanin's eyes and his young self was rendered paralyzed for a few good moments, as though he had been bound with invisible ropes of steel.

'Mister Uzumaki, please put him down. He is Master Bruce's son.' Alfred said awkwardly when he recovered from his near death experience.

'Huh, didn't know Batman had a son.' Naruto said and threw the boy roughly on the floor. 'And certainly, I didn't expect for him to be such an idiot.'

Damian coughed, his eyes tearing up involuntarily from having been choked so hard. When he heard Naruto's words though, the blood rushed to his head:

'What did you say?! You just caught me off-guard. Give me my sword back and I'll hack that grin off your face!' the boy yelled in anger.

Naruto's smile widened at the sight.

'Ah he reminds me of how dumb I used to be when I was a child in my past life!' Naruto said to himself and chuckled when he remembered the moment when he challenged Tsuande Senju to a fight. It was in the evening of the day when they met from the first time - he could still vividly recall his humiliating defeat back then and Tsuande's words before pummeling him into the ground - 'With one finger. This is enough to take you down.'. And true to her words, the soon to be 5th Hokage sent him spiralling through the air by simply flicking his forehead. Had it not been for his constitution as an Uzumaki jinchuuriki that mere flick on his forehead would have probably cracked his skull.

An idea came to him mind. An idea that made him almost outright start laughing. He kicked the remains of the sword back to Damian and stepped forward, while extending his arm, showing him his forefinger.

'Come boy. With one finger. This is enough to take you down.'

Alfred was about to intervene between the two of them for the sake of Damian but then, someone grabbed him from the shoulder. It was Bruce Wayne, who had also arrived at the scene in the meantime.

'Let them be. Damian needs to be brought down a notch. And unless he gets to feel it on his own skin, he won't believe it.'

The boy in question did not notice his father's arrival. Blinded by anger, he grabbed what was left of his sword and plunged towards Naruto with a yell, slashing diagonally in front of him, as to make it impossible for his opponent to dodge it in the narrow space of the corridor.

Damian Wayne did not even see how it happened: one moment, Naruto was more than 12 feet away from him but in the next one, it was like the tall blonde had teleported right in front of him! His sword was still in full swing, when he felt as if someone shot him in the forehead. The boy was flung backwards violently, as though he had been hit by a truck! His body smashed into the wall at the end of the corridor and blood began to pour from the spot where Naruto's finger flicked him. Right before falling unconscious, he heard the blonde man's amused voice:

'As I promised, I only used 1 finger.'