The Fourth Hokage (Please Bookmark)

After sending Gwen home, Roy drove toward his villa in the Upper East Side.

New York was much quieter at night than during the day.

But the traffic was still terrible.

Unless it was the middle of the night.

Otherwise, New York's traffic was never going to be any good.

Just as Roy was considering whether to use the Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport himself and the car straight into the villa's garage, a familiar figure appeared in his sight.

Spider-Man!

Wearing his red-and-blue skintight suit, Spider-Man fired webs and swung between the towering buildings.

Watching Spider-Man speed along on his webs, an idea surfaced in Roy's mind.

Should I follow him and take a look?

After thinking for only a few seconds, he made up his mind.

He had nothing better to do anyway. He might as well follow along and watch the show. Maybe he would get to see a good Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin fight!

Having made his decision, Roy did not hesitate. He immediately summoned a Shadow Clone Technique.

With a bang, a cloud of white smoke appeared out of nowhere inside the car.

As the white smoke dispersed, a shadow clone identical to him appeared in the passenger seat.

After summoning the shadow clone, he decisively used the Flying Thunder God Technique. He vanished instantly and appeared atop a nearby skyscraper.

He had left Flying Thunder God Formulas in many places throughout New York.

Though he had never counted them precisely, he had left more than five hundred Flying Thunder God Formulas across New York.

After arriving on the rooftop, Roy took out three items from the System Space.

A white Animal Mask.

A black coat embroidered with red clouds.

And a gourd over thirty centimeters tall.

The white Animal Mask had been designed and made based on the masks used by the Konoha ANBU.

The black coat with red clouds was the Akatsuki's Red Cloud Robe.

As for the gourd.

It was the gourd Gaara wore at his waist during Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.

Besides this small gourd that could be worn at the waist, he also had one of the large gourds Gaara had carried on his back before Boruto: Naruto Next Generations.

The Akatsuki's Red Cloud Robe and both of Gaara's gourds had been rewards he received after completing commissions.

In other words, the Red Cloud Robe and the gourds were all authentic items from the Naruto World!

He put on the Animal Mask, donned the Red Cloud Robe, and hung the gourd at his waist.

After doing all that, Roy immediately mobilized the chakra in his body and controlled the sand inside the gourd.

Under his control, the gourd's stopper first turned into sand and floated up.

Then, the sand inside the gourd began floating around him as though unaffected by gravity.

Though it was all sand, this sand differed from ordinary sand. It was sand he had refined with chakra.

It was faster, stronger, and easier to control!

Sand Cloud!

Under his control, the sand swirling around him immediately condensed into a Sand Cloud roughly half a meter long and wide, and two or three centimeters thick.

Stepping onto the Sand Cloud, Roy immediately chased after Spider-Man.

It did not take much effort for him to catch up.

Traveling between skyscrapers by web-swinging was indeed fast.

But flying on a Sand Cloud was not exactly slow either.

Roy maintained an altitude of roughly five to six hundred meters and stayed several hundred meters behind Spider-Man, following him at an unhurried pace.

A few minutes later.

He followed Spider-Man to the scene of a fire.

The fire had broken out in a seven-story apartment building.

Two fire trucks and several police cars were parked on the street below.

Firefighters and police officers were evacuating the residents from the building.

Upon arriving at the scene, Spider-Man did not hesitate. He swung through the window of one of the rooms on a web and entered the blazing apartment building.

This scene looked rather familiar!

Though it was nighttime rather than daytime, Roy realized that Spider-Man entering the burning apartment building resembled a scene from one of the movies.

Could the Green Goblin be inside too?

The thought surfaced in Roy's mind on its own.

Without dwelling on it, he decisively used the only Kekkei Genkai he had currently mastered.

"Byakugan!"

"Open!"

After silently reciting those words, he controlled his chakra and activated the Byakugan. His eyes turned white, and veins bulged around them.

With the Byakugan activated, everything inside the apartment building became crystal clear in his vision.

Aside from Spider-Man, there were several other people inside the apartment building.

But they were all ordinary people who had failed to evacuate in time and were trapped in the fire.

After confirming that the Green Goblin was not inside, Roy shifted his gaze to Spider-Man's wrists.

Web-shooters!

Spider-Man's wrists had not mutated. Instead, he wore a pair of rather crude-looking web-shooters.

He liked Mary Jane, yet his wrists had not mutated like Tobey's version of Spider-Man!

Roy was not particularly surprised by this result.

After shifting his gaze away from Spider-Man, he did not deactivate the Byakugan and instead controlled the sand inside the gourd.

He 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 did not mind occasionally doing a good deed within his capabilities and helping ordinary people in need.

Under his control, the sand inside the gourd shot toward the apartment building engulfed in flames, covering the residents Spider-Man had yet to rescue.

The sand shielded the residents' bodies from the flames.

At the same time, it lifted them into the air, carried them out of their rooms, and lowered them onto the street.

Spider-Man, the police officers, the firefighters, and even the onlookers all wore puzzled expressions upon seeing this.

Before they could figure out what was happening, the sand covering the residents' bodies flew into the sky.

Then, they saw Roy floating in midair.

The light at night was far dimmer than it was during the day.

On top of that, Roy was wearing a mask and the Akatsuki's Red Cloud Robe.

Though they could not see his face, when they saw the sand flying toward him, everyone knew that he was the one controlling it.

After all the sand that had gone to rescue the residents returned to the gourd, Roy deactivated the Byakugan and controlled the Sand Cloud toward the Upper East Side.

Just after flying out of the street where the burning apartment building stood, he noticed Spider-Man following him from behind.

Seeing him hover in the air on the Sand Cloud, Spider-Man went to the rooftop of a skyscraper beneath it, stood at the edge of the roof, and waved his right hand at him.

After pondering for a moment, Roy controlled the Sand Cloud over to Spider-Man and hovered several meters from the edge of the roof.

Before he could speak, Spider-Man's voice rang out.

"I've heard of you. You're the Fourth Hokage, right?"

The Fourth Hokage was Roy's username on dark web forums, as well as his codename in the underworld.

"What else do you know?"

Roy asked.

"I also know that you usually accept commissions on the dark web. And you can do more than control sand—you can breathe fire and use Teleportation."

"New York's gangs say that as long as they can hire you, they can kill anyone they want, because you never fail."

"I thought you were just a killer who took money to murder people. But it seems you're not as bad as the rumors say."

"Even though you kill people, you save people too."

Spider-Man continued.

"You specifically caught up to me just to say that?"

Roy said flatly.

"If you stop killing people in the future, maybe we can become friends. We could fight crime and help others together."

Spider-Man responded.

Hearing him, Roy said with a smile, "First, I don't need friends."

"Second, I have little interest in fighting crime or helping others. I saved people tonight purely because I happened to run into it."

"Third, since you know I take jobs on dark web forums, then you should have seen that plenty of people want you dead. Maybe one day, I'll accept a commission to assassinate you."

As soon as he finished speaking, Roy, standing on the Sand Cloud, vanished and appeared behind Spider-Man as though he had blinked through space.

Body Flicker!

Spider-Man had not seen how he got there at all.

However, Spider-Man's Spider-Sense warned him immediately.

Without any hesitation, Spider-Man explosively pushed off with both legs and leaped five or six meters away.

Roy did not use Body Flicker again. He turned to Spider-Man and said unhurriedly, "If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead."

"One final warning: don't follow me again."

"Otherwise, tonight will be the last night of your life."

After saying that, he lightly tapped the ground with his toes, returning from the rooftop to the Sand Cloud, and continued flying toward the Upper East Side.