Disclaimer: The characters and locations portrayed here all belong to Masashi Kishimoto and DC Comics.

Prologue

Sealing had always been extremely calming for Jiraiya. Sarutobi had introduced it to the three Sannin not long after they had become genin, not expecting the excitable young Jiraiya to take to the art. If anything, he had expected Orochimaru, the apparent genius of the three, to take up the art; instead, he never displayed more than a passing curiosity (at least as a genin). Jiraiya, however, had taken to sealing like a moth to a flame; he found something about the delicate brush strokes and complex calligraphy mesmerizing. In his later years, he had come to believe that these aspects of the technique provided a certain serenity; stark contrast to the brutality of war in the shinobi world. It was something he sorely needed.

And yet, as he sat before a long-extinguished campfire, working diligently at a deeply complex seal, Jiraiya was tense. The seal that sat before him was immensely complex, with impressive patterns swirling through the paper. To the untrained eye, the seal would appear to be a work of art; to Jiraiya, it was a work in progress.

Damnit Minato, he thought to himself, how did you get this to work so well?The thought of his deceased pupil led him to turn to the two tents behind him; his was empty. A loud snore would occasionally drift out from the other. He thought of his new pupil, somehow still as optimistic as ever, despite their nearly three years on the road. Jiraiya wondered if the boy would have the same sealing talent as his father. He wondered how both their lives would be different if he'd been in the village on that fateful day. He wondered if Minato would be happy with his attemts to train Naruto now, or furious that Jiraiya had all but ignored him until he was thirteen. He stopped himself.

There's no use wondering. What's past is past. He returned to his work. Jiraiya spent the next few minutes working in silence, allowing himself to once again become absorbed with the task at hand. Over the years, he had attempted to unlock the mysteries of the Hiraishin seal many times; the first was when Minato was merely his devoted pupil. As he passed the art on, Minato's skill grew quickly, surpassing his own within a few short years. Soon enough, Minato had unlocked the secrets of the Second Hokage's teleportation technique; he had attempted to share the secret with Jiraiya, but failed. The student had so far exceeded the master that the gap in skill was too wide, the necessary information too complex.

And so, here he sat, years later, still trying to unravel the secrets of the Hiraiashin. Occasionally, he would turn to look at a three-pronged kunai with a deceptively simple seal sitting to the left of his work, for comparison. He continued his work, occasionaly adding an additional brush stroke or muttering to himself under his breath.

If I apply this matrix, then theoretically, the seal should-

A crow behind the old man gave a loud caw; he flinched, tearing his brush across the paper and effectively ruining two weeks of study.

Damnit! Stupid bird. Now I need to-

His train of thought came to a halt.

A crow.

He turned. There, in the trees on the edge of the clearing, perched a crow with a red eye. Without warning, the crow opened its beak and spoke to him.

"Two minutes. From the northeast. Kisame is with me."

The crow dissapeared in a flurry of feathers.

Jiraiya turned back to the scroll in front of him. On the outside, he appeared as though nothing unusual had happened. Internally, however, he was panicking.

Damnit! Itachi said I'd have at least a few more weeks before the Akatsuki made its move. They must have changed their plans in some way, or received some kind of intel on our movements. Regardless, right now I need to think. The safest option would be to head back to the village as fast as possible - we're close enough to the village that if we leave immediately and travel at top speed, we should get close enough to call reinforcements before they reach us. But if we get out of here too quickly, we may reveal to Kisame that we've been warned of an attack - Itachi's position is too valuable, I can't risk blowing his cover. Warning Naruto will pose the same risk; if he can't act sufficiently surprised by the attack, it'll tip Kisame off. Plus, I'd rather he not know I have an inside source; the less people who know that, the better. I could maybe casually wake him up, but if we start moving now, even that might be enough to make Kisame suspicious. There's no way Naruto's strong enough yet to take on either of these two on his own, but if I hold them off long enough, he should be able to escape... Shit. My only option is to stay and fight... Naruto's reflexes should be good enough at this point to wake up and fight right away, but if not, I can defend him for as long as necessary.

Jiraiya began to clean up the sealing materials in front of him, moving slowly and casually. As he began to clean his brushes in a small pot of water, he mentally prepared himself for battle.

Naruto... I sure hope you're ready for this. If not... then forgive me, Minato.

Batman stared down at the amulet he held in his hands. He'd been fighting crime for a little over ten years; things were extraordinarily different from when he had started. At the beginning, he'd never worried about metahumans or magic. No metahumans had existed in Gotham at the time, and the various evil wizards of the world operated mostly unnoticed without prominent magical heroes like Zatara. Back when he had started, his main problems had been muggers in back allies; the worst he had to deal with were bank robbers or, on a very rare occasion, a conflict between the Falcone and Maroni crime families. When he had started, he worked alone (save for Alfred), prowling the streets with no hope for backup, not even from the police.

Things had changed since then.

The first sign of the changing tides had been the appearance of the Joker. About a year after Bruce had donned the cowl, the Clown Prince of Crime had made his grand entrance, and the Dark Knight's life hadn't been the same since. It was as if the Joker had inspired Gotham's worst to come crawling out of the woodwork; within a year after the Joker's first arrest, Harvey Dent had been scarred beyond recognition, Pamela Isley had gained a terrifying control over nature, and a cryogenic accident had forever changed a kind cryogenicist named Victor Fries. The landscape of crime in Gotham had changed so suddenly, so drastically, it had a ripple effect seemingly all around the world. Suddenly, the police were no longer hunting him, they were working with him. Suddenly, there were threats so potentially catastrophic that there arose a need for the heroes of the world to band together and form the Justice League. Suddenly, the idea of working with a partner appealed to him. A few years later he had found one.

"Batman, I've got news."

Superman's words snapped Bruce out of his stupor. He handed the Amulet of Aten to Zatara, knowing that he would best know how to care for it, then turned back to Superman, noticing the grim look on his face.

"We've received an update on the fire at Cadmus. Apparently, as firefighters were working, Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad appeared at the facility and entered it. The fire's been out for hours, but no one's reported seeing them exit the facility."

Batman's eyes narrowed. He turned back to Zatara.

"Do we have any means of immediately tracking Wotan?"

Zatara shook his head. "Perhaps if I had a few other sorcerers to aid me... But no, I have no idea where he went, how he got there, even whether or not he disappeared of his own volition. It would take days to figure out where he's gone on my own."

Batman nodded. "All hands on deck, then." He swept past Superman, heading to inform the other League members of their next destination.

He had no way of knowing, but things were about to change once again.

Naruto awoke with a start, an explosion outside his tent startling him into consciousness. He quickly stood up, drew a kunai, and exited the tent, prepared for combat. Exiting the tent, he saw Itachi and Jiraiya locked in combat, a giant fireball heading towards his master. Jiraiya responded by transforming the solid ground around his feet into a swampy marshland and sinking into it, causing the fireball to soar over head. As Naruto watched this quick exchange, the gears in his head, still a bit clouded by sleep, began to turn.

Wait a minute... Didn't this guy have a partner?

As if on cue, Naruto saw a shark formed entirely of water approaching from the corner of his eye, and was only narrowly able to jump out of the way of the technique. As he landed, he turned his gaze towards the direction the shark had come from, observing a tall, blue-skinned man with gills and dark blue hair, upon whose back sat a large sword covered in bandages which seemed to be... wiggling? Naruto's hands quickly formed an all-too familiar hand sign, as he shouted:
"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Suddenly, the clearing was absolutely covered in copies of the blond teen, half of which surged towards Kisame; the other half disappeared into the trees, covering the real Naruto's hasty retreat.

Alright, gotta stay cool and remember what Pervy Sage taught me... The first step was to survey the battlefield if I can, or something like that... Let's see...

As Naruto overlooked the clearing, he observed that a small number of his clones had gone to assist Jiraiya in his fight against Itachi; about half of those were simply standing there in some kind of haze, while the other half were attempting to pin the rogue Uchiha down with hand-to-hand combat. Jiraiya, meanwhile, was whipping through hand signs - preparing to summon a group of toads, Naruto guessed. Naruto turned his attention back to Kisame, seeing that the shark man had unwrapped the bandages from his blade, and was tearing through his clones as quickly as they came at him. Finally, Naruto noticed something odd - sitting in the middle of the battlefield, next to what he recognized as Jiraiya's pack of writing and sealing tools, was an open scroll inscribed with the most complicated seal he had ever seen. Suddenly, Naruto recalled what Jiraiya had said to him during his first (and only) attempt to teach Naruto the sealing arts.

"Now, seals may seem boring to you, but in reality, they're the most interesting and diverse ninja arts out there. You can design a seal to do pretty much anything you can imagine. Seals can be used to store things, to store chakra, for teleportation, and you can even use them to set traps for your opponents in combat. After all, how do you think explosive tags are made?"

As he remembered this, the gears in Naruto's head began to turn once again, albeit this time in the wrong direction.

None of the rest of Pervy Sage's sealing stuff is on the ground, just that one seal... He must have left it there deliberately. Maybe he wants me to try and activate it!

After creating a few dozen more clones to cover his descent, Naruto hopped down into the middle of the clearing, and after making sure that Kisame would take a minute or so to identify him as the real Naruto, and that Jiraiya was still in the midst of a difficult fight with Itachi, he bent down and began to channel his chakra into the seal. As he did so, the seal began to glow a with a deep, but gentle, red light. Naruto channeled his energy into the scroll as quickly as he could, but even though he had pumped in nearly a tenth of his reserves, the seal refused to activate.

Guess I was wrong... Damnit, now I've wasted my energy! I gotta get back in the fight, before one of them notices me!

Naruto attempted to cut off his chakra flow from the scroll, intending to engage Kisame, but suddenly found that he couldn't separate himself from the paper. In fact, the harder he struggled against it, the harder it tugged back, draining his chakra reserves more and more quickly. Twenty, twenty-five, thirty percent of his reserves were gone, and the scroll showed no signs of slowing down, as the red glow became brighter and his energy was sucked in faster and faster, the flow becoming stronger with each pressing second. The light became bright enough to attract the attention of the other three combatants; Itachi became puzzled, having never seen anything quite like what was happening in front of him. Kisame's face, meanwhile, lit up with glee, at having finally located the real Naruto. Jiraiya, however, had probably the worst reaction; his eyes widened, his face twisting into an expression of horrified shock.

"NARUTO, NO!"

"There you are, kid! Time's up - Samehada wants some of the Nine-Tails' chakra before we bring you back to the leader, and I'll make sure it gets it!"

Now that his attention was focused on the real Naruto, Kisame quickly cut a clear path through the shadow clones, mowing them down with ease as he headed towards his prey. As he approached, Naruto still unable to move away from the seal, he raised Samehada high above his head. Jiraiya screamed out, and Kisame swung the living sword down towards the blond boy - but the second he made contact, a bolt of blood-red energy shot out from the scroll, conducting itself through Naruto and into Samehada. Rather than absorbing any of the boy's demonic chakra, Kisame and his sword were shot back by the red energy, croursing through several trees and landing a bit outside the clearing. As Naruto watched Kisame pull himself together and start to get back up, he realized what a dire situation he was in.

My chakra's already almost gone... If this thing sucks up all my chakra, I'll die! But I can't disconnect myself from it, and even if I could, I'm so low on energy that I won't be able to fight! Shit!

As these thoughts entered his head, Naruto entered a state of rage and panic, losing nearly all control of himself. Just as he felt the scroll start to pull at the last bit of his chakra, suddenly, everything went black.

"What the hell did you do?"

Naruto awoke, dazed, to find himself standing in a deep puddle of water, in what appeared to be a gigantic sewer.

"Ugh... What the..."

As he gathered himself, Naruto realized that he had been to this place once before, and that he was staring into the face of the demon imprisoned within him, the Nine-Tailed Fox.

"What did you do? I won't ask again."

Naruto looked up at the beast, and took a moment to explain his predicament.

"And what do you expect me to do about it?"

Naruto huffed. "Hey, we agreed that you'd give me your chakra in exchange for living inside me! So gimme enough chakra to make that seal stop, got it?"

At this, the giant beast actually laughed a bit.

"I agreed to give you a small amount of my chakra. Based on what you've said, you'd need a massive amount to overload that seal, and I'm not even sure it'd be possible then. No deal."

Naruto groaned at this. "Damnit, you stupid fox! If this thing keeps draining my chakra, I'll die! What exactly would that mean for you?"

The fox paused, and considered this for a moment. He'd never heard of a Jinchuriki being killed with their Tailed Beast still sealed, and admittedly had no idea what would happen to him if Naruto died.

"Fine, then. Take it and get out."

Naruto nodded, and disappeared from within the sewer. The fox settled down, and bared his teeth in an unsettling grin.

"Go ahead. Make it all the easier for me to take control."

As Naruto snapped back into reality, he realized that suddenly, he was covered in a shroud of blood-red chakra, with a single tail protruding from his back. He looked around to see Jiraiya attempting to hold off both Itachi and Kisame at once; apparently, Kisame had given up attempting to wrench the jinchuriki away from the scroll, and was focused (for the moment) on killing Jiraiya. Naruto returned his focus to the scroll, pumping as much of the Nine-Tails' chakra as he could into the scroll as quickly as he could.

"One tail's worth isn't going to do it."

As the Fox spoke in his head, Naruto felt a rush of energy; another tail appeared behind him, and then another. Soon, the chakra shroud surrounding the boy began to turn a darker red, losing its' transparency; the boy developed a pair of fox-like ears on his head.

"Yes... More... Take more!"

More and more of the demon chakra surged into Naruto's body, only for the scroll to absorb it more and more quickly. The red glow of the scroll's text became brighter and brighter, eventually becoming so bright that the other three combatants couldn't even see Naruto any more.

"No... No, it's taking too much... I won't be able to take control... NO!"

At this point, the demonic voice in Narutos' head was far-off and fuzzy; the world around him began to blur. Soon, the red light swelled to an overpowering beacon, visible from miles away; then, suddenly, the light and Naruto were simply gone.

"You hacked Justice League systems, disobeyed direct orders, and endangered lives. You will not be doing this again."

As Batman stared down at the four young heroes, any observer could tell that he was furious. Inwardly, he was still furious, but also just the slightest bit proud. He would never let that show in this situation, of course - he knew it would only encourage them to pull a stunt like this again later on. But at the same time, he knew that the three, now four, teens had done good work. They'd successfully infiltrated and exposed a dangerous illicit facility, freed a group of subjugated, abused genetic experiments, and had taken down an incredibly dangerous metahuman. Yes, the boys had done very well.

He was still furious.

"I am sorry, but we will."

At this, Batman was a bit taken aback. He had expected Kid Flash to argue, suspected Robin even might, but Aqualad? Out of the three trained sidekicks standing in front of him, Kaldur was without a doubt the most respectful, polite, most disciplined. It was hard enough to imagine him going along with the other two to invade Cadmus, even as a reluctant participant... but now this?

Aquaman turned to interject, "Aqualad, stand down."

"Apologies, my king, but no."

If the earlier argument had shocked Batman, this was almost doubly shocking. Not only was he arguing with Batman, a senior member of the League, but now with his sovereign king?

"We did good work here tonight. The work you trained us to do. Together, on our own, we forged something powerful, important."

"If this is about your treatment at the hall, the three of you-"

"The four of us. And it's not." Kid Flash cut his mentor off. This surprised Batman less; the boy was brash, impulsive. And yet, Batman could tell this wasn't just teenage rebellion; it was something real.

"Batman we're ready to use what you taught us. Or why teach us at all?" Now Robin spoke up. He could tell, the four teens were rallying, gathering around an idea.

"Why let them tell us what to do? It's simple. Get on board, or get out of the way."

As the four young heroes turned to face Batman in solidarity, his eyes narrowed. He knew the argument was lost. He saw in their eyes the same determination in his own eyes, in Superman's eyes, in the eyes of every hero in the League. He could tell that, no matter what he did or said, they would do as they pleased - mentors be damned. As he prepared to respond, to figure out exactly how to manage this situation, a noise like a cannon shot out from the sky above, as what looked like a rip in the night sky appeared. The rip leaked a blood-red light; without even giving a command, all of the heroes present assumed a combat stance, ready to fight. Before Batman could even give an order, the rip swelled, and suddenly it was gone, leaving what appeared to be a glowing red figure in its' place. As the figure fell towards the earth, the heroes could make out four tails behind it, swirling in the breeze, and what looked like animal ears sprouting from the top of its' head.

"Superman!"

Batman called out the fellow hero's name, knowing that he was still close enough to hear what was going on. On cue, the Man of Steel shot back on to the scene, hovering in front of the bizarre creature, ready for combat.

The creature landed, and almost immediately, the red glow around its' body began to fade, revealing a blond teenager, wearing a torn up orange and black jacket, with matching orange pants. It was difficult to tell from a distance, but Batman thought the boy was wearing some kind of headband, and he seemed to have... whiskers? As the group of heroes observed the teenager, he staggered back to his feet, clearly injured, and looked around. He muttered something unintelligible, and keeled over; whether from exhaustion or injuries, it was difficult to tell.

Superman landed in front of the teen, and Batman also approached, ready for anything. Superman looked him over with his x-ray vision, observing the boy's condition, then turned to Batman.

"It almost seems as though something was tearing him apart; possibly that energy he was exuding earlier. However, he's healing at an incredible rate, to the point that his injuries are almost nonexistent. He seems to have some kind of secondary nervous system, clearly not human. He's stable, that much I can tell."

Batman thought for a moment, then turned back to the four teens, who were clearly shocked by this sudden development.

"We'll finish this later."

A/N: I've had this idea bouncing around my head for quite some time now, and I just had to get at least part of it out. I've never seen any stories that crossover these two while keeping up both worlds; usually, it's just Naruto showing up in the DC world, cut off from the shinobi world forever. That's not my plan. Should anyone end up reading this, try not to hope for anything resembling a regular update schedule; I'm looking for a job, and I'll be out of my home country during the fall, so I can't make any promises in terms of continuing this regularly. Not only that, I'm really not entirely sure where I'm planning on going with this (although I have a very general idea). I was actually planning on including a bit more stuff in this chapter, but it got too long, so I think I can at least guarantee another entry in the near future. That being said, thanks for reading.