Injustice Book 1: A Journeys Beginning (Naruto + Batman Comics crossover)

Chapter LI - Rose Wilson

"Normal Speech."

'Normal Thought.'

"Demon Speech."

'Demon Thought.'

"Other Speech variants."

Location/Time.

-X- Line Break -X-

Tuesday 1st December, 17:00.

Florida,

Location Unknown.

Bullets ripped through the air as the rhythmic sound of gunshots sounded in quick succession through the near empty gun range. Each bullet was perfectly aimed, hitting the numerous targets with headshots.

After having emptied his clip, Naruto lowered his gun and unloaded the clip while reaching for another from the line of six he had already lined up in preparation. The empty one being discarded on a small pile to his right while he knocked the clip into place with practised ease and pointed his gun towards the targets once more.

"Dads annoyed." Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of someone behind him, Naruto's aim was disturbed and the bullet struck the wall behind the target. "Ohh, I think you missed that one." The feminine voice teased and Naruto turned around to see a beautiful young girl with white hair pulled into a ponytail stood before him with her hands crossed over her chest. Despite being a few years younger than him the copious amount of training had done wonders for her figure giving her one that women twice her age would kill for.

Naruto would admit that he was shocked to learn that Slade had a recently turned fourteen year old daughter who he was training as a mercenary. However, Naruto didn't judge her based on her age considering he once got his ass kicked by a twelve year old kid. That was the last time Naruto was going to underestimate someone based off their age.

They hadn't gotten along very well at first, one thing Naruto had learned was that Slade wasn't exactly what you would call a loving parent. When Naruto and Rose trained with Slade, he would beat them both into the ground and would even go so far as to break bones. They were lucky they had a healing ability courtesy of the serum Slade had provided them both.

And yet, while Naruto received praise, Rose only got dismissed. Even when she beat him in a spar, Slade would just brush her off and scold her for not ending the fight sooner.

Naruto would have questioned how useful this was, until he noticed that Rose while annoyed by this, would only push herself further. She craved Slade's praise and attention to the point every time she was criticised, Rose would not stop until she fixed the problem Slade had spotted in her form. It got to the point that Rose – who had originally being weaker than him – quickly caught up and then surpassed him.

This in turn forced Naruto to improve in quicker to catch up and then surpass her.

Naruto didn't like Slade, but he certainly could praise him for what he had done. Using Rose's craving for his praise and purposefully depriving her of it and instead going one step further and giving it to someone else. At the same time, forcing Naruto to constantly keep pushing himself to either catch up to Rose or stay ahead of her.

Slade had purposefully built a rivalry between his two students and Naruto was too impressed at how seamlessly he had done it to be annoyed.

"Really, Rose?" Naruto asked dubiously as Rose's smile widened in response showing that she was not apologetic in the least. While at first, they hadn't gotten along – Rose not liking him because of Slade's plan to foster a rivalry – over the course of the six months Naruto had finally managed to break through Rose's cold and distant exterior. Now they were at least friendly, Naruto wouldn't call themselves friends for fear of being stabbed.