It was 6:40 in the morning.
Manhattan's skyline was just emerging from the night, the edges of the eastern clouds brushed with pale orange sunlight.
The city was waking. Early trains rumbled underground, dog walkers jogged along the paths of Central Park, and the first pot of coffee at a corner café had just finished brewing, its aroma drifting onto the sidewalk.
A news helicopter was cruising low along the Hudson River on its way to an assignment. Bored, the cameraman adjusted his lens, bringing the skyline across the water into focus, then blurring it again.
He yawned.
Suddenly, a streak of gold shot beneath the clouds.
It moved at an absurd speed, trailing a stretched-out afterimage as it hurtled from the northern skyline toward Midtown Manhattan like a golden pellet fired from a slingshot.
The cameraman instinctively hit record.
"What is that? A bird? A plane?"
The camera locked onto the golden streak and zoomed in. A figure came into focus: blond hair, blue eyes, a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, black pants, and a smile so sunny it sent a chill down his spine.
Minato Namikaze.
The cameraman's pupils contracted.
He knew that face. During the Gotham Nuclear Bomb crisis, this Golden Little Flyer had saved the entire city from Bane, torn apart Batman's Anti-Yongye Armor, and forced the Joker to press the detonation button—only for nothing to explode.
Countless people had screenshotted his sunny face from the global broadcast and turned it into memes.
"Holy shit! It's Minato Namikaze! Golden Little Flyer! He's back!"
"Forget that garbage story! Follow him! He's the real headline!"
The helicopter pilot immediately turned to pursue the golden streak.
But they couldn't catch him.
Minato Namikaze was too fast, like a bolt of lightning drawn into a straight line.
He wove between the