After dropping Gwen off at home, Roy drove toward his villa on the Upper East Side.
New York was much quieter at night than during the day.
But the traffic was still terrible.
Unless it was well past midnight, traffic in New York was rarely ever good.
Just as Roy was wondering whether he should simply use the Flying Raijin Jutsu to teleport both himself and the car directly into his villa’s garage, a familiar figure entered his field of vision.
Spider-Man!
Wearing his red-and-blue skintight suit, Spider-Man fired strands of webbing and swung rapidly between the skyscrapers.
Watching him travel through the city, a thought suddenly popped into Roy’s mind.
Should I follow him and take a look?
He only considered it for a few seconds before making his decision.
He had nothing better to do anyway.
He might as well follow along and see what happened.
Who knew?
Maybe he’d get to witness a good old-fashioned Spider-Man versus Green Goblin showdown!
Once he’d made up his mind, Roy didn’t hesitate.
He immediately summoned a shadow clone.
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke suddenly appeared inside the car.
As the smoke dispersed, a shadow clone identical to Roy materialized in the passenger seat.
After summoning the clone, Roy immediately used the Flying Raijin Jutsu.
He vanished in an instant and appeared on the rooftop of a nearby skyscraper.
Roy had left Flying Raijin formulas all over New York.
He had never counted them precisely, but there were more than five hundred scattered throughout the city.
After arriving on the rooftop, Roy took three things out of his system storage.
A white animal mask.
A black cloak embroidered with red clouds.
And a gourd a little over thirty centimeters tall.
The white animal mask had been designed and made by Roy himself, modeled after the masks worn by Konoha’s ANBU.
The black cloak with red clouds was the signature cloak of the Akatsuki.
As for the gourd— It was the smaller gourd Gaara wore at his waist during the Boruto era.
In addition to this small waist-mounted gourd, Roy also owned the larger gourd Gaara had carried on his back before the Boruto era.
Both the Akatsuki cloak and Gaara’s two gourds had been obtained as commission rewards.
In other words— The cloak and gourds were genuine items from the Naruto world!
Roy put on the animal mask, slipped into the Akatsuki cloak, and fastened the gourd to his waist.
Once he was ready, he mobilized his chakra and began controlling the sand inside the gourd.
Under his control, the stopper first transformed into sand and floated into the air.
Immediately afterward, the sand inside the gourd also rose against gravity and began circling around him.
Although it was still sand, it was very different from ordinary sand.
Roy had refined it with chakra.
It was faster, tougher, and much easier to control!
Sand Cloud!
At Roy’s command, the sand swirling around him immediately gathered together into a cloud roughly half a meter long and wide and only a few centimeters thick.
Roy stepped onto it and immediately flew after Spider-Man.
Catching up didn’t take much effort.
Swinging between skyscrapers on webs was certainly fast.
But compared to flying on a sand cloud, it wasn’t particularly impressive.
Roy maintained an altitude of roughly five to six hundred meters and kept several hundred meters between himself and Spider-Man, following at an unhurried pace.
A few minutes later.
He followed Spider-Man to the scene of a fire.
The burning building was a seven-story apartment complex.
Two fire trucks and several police cars were parked on the street below.
Firefighters and police officers were evacuating the residents.
The moment Spider-Man arrived, he didn’t hesitate.
He swung toward the building, smashed through the window of one of the rooms, and entered the apartment building engulfed in flames.
This scene looks kind of familiar.
Although it was nighttime rather than daytime, Roy realized that Spider-Man entering a burning residential building looked very similar to a scene from one of the movies.
Don’t tell me the Green Goblin is inside too?
The thought naturally entered Roy’s mind.
Rather than continuing to speculate, he immediately activated the only Kekkei Genkai he currently possessed.
Byakugan!
Activate!
Roy channeled chakra into his eyes.
His eyes turned white, and veins bulged around them.
The moment the Byakugan activated, everything inside the burning building became perfectly clear in his vision.
Aside from Spider-Man, there were several other people inside.
But they were all ordinary civilians who hadn’t managed to evacuate in time and were now trapped by the fire.
After confirming that the Green Goblin wasn’t inside, Roy’s gaze shifted toward Spider-Man’s wrists.
Web-shooters!
Spider-Man’s wrists hadn’t mutated.
Instead, he wore a pair of somewhat crude-looking mechanical web-shooters.
So he likes Mary Jane, but he didn’t develop organic webbing like Tobey’s Spider-Man.
Roy wasn’t particularly surprised.
After moving his gaze away from Spider-Man, he kept his Byakugan active and began controlling the sand inside his gourd.
Roy had no intention of becoming a superhero.
Nor did he plan to become a vigilante like Spider-Man and fight crime for free.
However, he didn’t mind occasionally doing a good deed when it was within his power and helping ordinary people who needed it.
At his command, the sand inside the gourd shot toward the burning apartment building at high speed.
It wrapped around several residents whom Spider-Man hadn’t reached yet.
The sand shielded their bodies from the flames.
At the same time, it lifted them into the air, carried them out through the windows, and gently lowered them onto the street below.
Spider-Man, the firefighters, the police officers, and the surrounding onlookers all stared in confusion.
Before they could figure out what was happening, the sand covering the rescued residents rose into the sky.
Then everyone finally saw Roy floating above them.
The lighting at night was far worse than during the day.
On top of that, Roy was wearing a mask and an Akatsuki cloak.
No one could see his face.
But when the sand flew back toward him, everyone immediately understood that he was the one controlling it.
Once all the sand he’d sent into the building returned to his gourd, Roy deactivated the Byakugan and flew toward the Upper East Side on his sand cloud.
He had barely left the street where the burning apartment building was located when he noticed Spider-Man following behind him.
Seeing Roy stop the sand cloud in midair, Spider-Man landed on the rooftop of a building below him.
Standing at the edge of the roof, Spider-Man waved his right hand.
Roy thought for a moment.
Then he guided the sand cloud toward Spider-Man and stopped several meters from the edge of the rooftop.
Before Roy could say anything, Spider-Man spoke first.
“I’ve heard of you.” “You’re the Fourth Hokage, right?” Fourth Hokage was Roy’s username on the dark web forum.
It was also the alias he used in the underworld.
“What else do you know?” Roy asked.
“I also know that you normally take commissions on the dark web.” “And controlling sand isn’t the only thing you can do.
You can breathe fire and teleport too.” “The gangs in New York say that if someone manages to hire you, they can have anyone killed, because you’ve never failed a job.” “I thought you were just a hitman who killed people for money.” “But now it looks like you’re not quite as bad as the rumors say.” “You kill people, but you also save them.” Spider-Man continued.
“You chased me all the way here just to tell me that?” Roy asked.
“If you stopped killing people, maybe we could become friends.” “We could fight crime together and help people.” Spider-Man replied.
Hearing that, Roy laughed.
“First, I already have enough friends.” “Second, I’m not particularly interested in fighting crime or helping people.
I only saved them tonight because I happened to be there.” “Third, since you know I take commissions on the dark web, then you should also know that plenty of people want you dead.” “Maybe one day I’ll accept a contract to assassinate you.” The moment those words left his mouth— Roy vanished from the sand cloud.
He appeared behind Spider-Man like a flicker.
Body Flicker Jutsu!
Spider-Man hadn’t seen how Roy moved at all.
However, his Spider-Sense warned him immediately.
Without hesitation, Spider-Man explosively pushed off with both legs and leaped five or six meters away.
Roy didn’t use the Body Flicker Jutsu again.
He simply turned toward Spider-Man and spoke at an unhurried pace.
“If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” “One final piece of advice.” “Don’t follow me again.” “Otherwise…” “Tonight will be the last night of your life.” With that, Roy lightly tapped his foot against the rooftop and returned to the sand cloud.
Then he continued flying toward the Upper East Side.