[PROFESSOR UZUMAKI] SPARKY BOOM BOOM (INTERLUDE)

Even though he was one of Naruto’s chosen few, as amusing as that was, Sparky wasn’t anyone special. He was fairly sure that if he were a character in a movie, or even a book, he would be one of those minor ones who appeared just often enough for the audience to recognize him before disappearing whenever the important parts of the story began. That was how utterly invisible he had been for most of his life.

The title of special belonged to people like Greg, who seemed to have a talent for becoming involved in things whether anyone had invited him or not. Hell, even Halle was more heroic than Sparky, and he would never have called himself a coward. You didn’t survive long as a black teenager in Brockton Bay by being one, but you didn’t survive long by being reckless either. There was a balance to it, and Sparky had spent years learning exactly where that balance was.

Keep your head down when you needed to, speak up when you had to, and above all else, know when something was worth risking yourself for.

An Endbringer had a funny way of making that last part considerably harder.

Sparky had been blindsided by Leviathan’s arrival, although he was fairly sure almost everyone except Naruto-sensei, and maybe the PRT, had been caught just as unprepared. One moment he had been worrying about missing his Saturday band practice, and the next he had been looking at a creature that had turned the entire city into a stampede.

His family was in danger, though, and that changed things.

He could have gone with the flow, as he did with most things, and nobody could have blamed him for trying to get his family out before worrying about anyone else. The universe had a funny way of punishing inaction, however, and Sparky had learned that lesson often enough to recognize when standing still was going to cost him more than moving.

So he acted.

His first priority was getting his family somewhere safe, and he used what Naruto had taught him to make sure none of them were separated or trampled as frightened people pushed toward any route that seemed to lead away from the city. Once they were in the Endbringer shelter, Sparky found himself helping other people as well, first because they happened to be in his way and then because he had already started and stopping felt worse than continuing.

He helped an elderly man who had fallen when the crowd surged forward, then found himself guiding a group of children toward a less crowded street where their teacher stood in fright. After that came a woman who had lost sight of her husband, followed by a family whose youngest child had become so frightened that she refused to move.

Sparky kept going, and before long he realized that he was doing something he had spent most of his life avoiding.

He was being a hero.

He didn’t even need to use chakra.

It wasn’t out of some misguided attempt to hide his abilities, since there was simply no need for them. Most of the people around him needed someone willing to keep them moving in the right direction, and Sparky could do that without drawing attention to himself or making the situation any more chaotic than it already was.

But Sparky knew that just as the universe punished inaction, it had a way of punishing action too.

A car came barreling down the street toward a child who had somehow ended up in the road, and Sparky knew immediately that he had a problem. He could use chakra, and he could push his body harder than an ordinary person, but even if he put everything he had into it, he wouldn’t reach the child before the car did. For most people, that would have been the end of it, since there was nothing they could do except hope the driver managed to stop.

For Sparky, there was another problem.

He wanted to save the kid.

No, he had to save the kid.

Ask anyone to tell you who Sparky was, and most people would probably struggle to come up with much. The days when he cared about being remembered had gone a long time ago, but even he knew that the most people could tell you about him was his name and the fact that he played drums. It wasn’t much, but it was still an identity, and identity held power.

Chakra was a funny thing, you see. And chakra nature was even funnier.

Without chakra-receptive paper, most shinobi could go their entire lives without knowing which elemental nature they possessed, and even those who did know often needed considerable training before they could do anything useful with it. That was the ordinary way things worked, at least, and as with any good power system, there were always ways around the rules people thought they understood.

Sparky had chakra, although until that moment, he had never possessed enough control over it to make himself fast enough to reach someone before they were hurt. The car was already bearing down on the child, who stood frozen in the middle of the street while the driver fought with the wheel and tried desperately to bring the vehicle under control.

Yet Sparky moved.

There wasn’t enough time to think about whether what he was about to do would work. No time to even think about what that thing was. He threw everything he had into that movement, focusing on the child ahead of him and the distance that still remained between them. His body strained under the sudden demand, his chakra surged through him, and every thought in his head narrowed down to a single desperate wish.

Please, just let me be fast enough.

For all the training he had received, for all the hours spent learning how to move chakra through his body and push himself beyond what should have been possible, Sparky had never managed to make himself move like Naruto.

But he didn’t need to move like Naruto. He only needed to move faster than he had ever moved before. And chakra, that funny little thing, answered.

There was a sharp crack behind him, followed by the deep boom of thunder as lightning tore across the street in his wake.