Chapter 47 - Acknowledgement

'T-This isn't going too well.' Misaki stuttered when she saw purple smoke coming out of the kitchen.

Rather hesitantly, she sat up from the sofa in the living room and went to the kitchen.

'Galatea?'

A blonde woman wearing a stained apron stepped out with a distraught expression on her face.

'I don't think cooking is for me. I'm just... not wired for this.' Galatea said after she got out of the kitchen and shut the door after her, to prevent the smoke from spreading into the rest of the house. She plopped herself on the floor in an unladylike manner and rested her back against the wall of the hall.

During the previous month, while Naruto was in a coma following his deadly encounter with Doomsday, Galatea and Misaki have become much closer than they used to be. Beforehand, Galatea had already resolved herself to become more sociable, to 'grow up' so she had already planned on getting more friendly with the sister of the man that she loved. Therefore, Naruto becoming bedridden only made the entire process of them becoming friends much smoother. After all, they both cared about Naruto and him being in such a perilous situation brought them closer.

'She looks so down.' Misaki thought. Coming next to her, she asked:

'Why are you so fixated on learning how to cook?'

It was the blonde's third failed attempt at cooking that week.

'What kind of woman doesn't know how to cook?' Galatea retorted.

'That's an outdated, sexist concept! We're not living decades in the past. At what psychology course did you learn that?! Cooking is not mandatory for women! If they want to cook, sure, they can, but it's not the end of the world if they don't. Nobody can be good at everything. Cooking just happens to be something you're not good at.'

The blonde perked up a bit at Misaki's words but she quickly went back to her mood when she thought what Barbara told her when they initiated their friendship

'Barbara told me that the best way to a man's heart was through his stomach...'

Misaki did not even try to stop herself from bursting into giggles.

'Ok, that sounds like something Barbara would say. Come, let's clean things up before my brother comes back.'

Sitting up, Misaki gave Galatea a hand, out of habit. She felt herself become red in the face when she realized that Galatea was someone that could fly and crush rocks in her hands. She wasn't someone that needed help to stand up. Misaki was about to quickly retract her hand when Galatea actually reached out and took it!

'Thank you!' Galatea said and went back to the kitchen to clean up the mess that she had made.

In the meantime, Misaki looked at her own hand, very surprised that the other girl had actually reached for it. It was just a simple act, but it was something that Galatea from a few months ago would have never done. Before, her most likely reaction would have been to raise a mocking eyebrow at the hand extended for her and say something snarky or sarcastic in response.

'She's changed so much as of late.' Misaki thought, a small smile appearing on her face.

Misaki had still not forgotten how, a few months before, Galatea melted off the skin all over her brother's face and torso. It had taken her a long while to get used with the idea that Naruto actually fell in love with someone that tried to kill him, someone whom he had also nearly killed before. Every time she thought about it, she would marvel.

'It's like out of a fairy tale.'

However, over the past few months, she lost all of the ill feelings that she used to have against the blonde. She watched every day her efforts in trying to become a better person, a better girlfriend, a better woman.

'She makes him happy. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks at her.'

With that thought in mind and a small smile on her face, Misaki went after Galatea, to help her with the cleanup.

Scene break

'Rupert, Rupert... I thought we were partners or something like that?'

The person in question, a very fat man in his twenties with a round face, threw a pitiful look at Naruto, his small and beady eyes becoming wet with unshed tears.

'H-He made me swear not to tell you where he went!' the fatty said, his voice shaking.

Naruto didn't really know how to act. Rupert Jones seemed to be more afraid of Kyuubi than he was of him.

'I could threaten him into spilling the beans...'

Despite thinking like that for a moment, he decided against it. Rupert had helped him more than a few times until then. Despite that he had no combat power, Naruto valued his talent in hacking and information gathering. While they could not call each other friends, Naruto had a favourable opinion about him.

'Where did that furball go?' Naruto said mostly to himself before turning his attention back to Rupert, an action that made the fatty almost jump in his seat.

Naruto sighed.

'I admit I can be pretty damn scary when the situation calls for it but, seriously dude, you gotta chill down a bit. Have I ever hurt you ever since we left the Prison Island?'

'N-No.' the fatty said.

Rupert could see that Naruto smiled a lot more and that he had become so much calmer in the past few months compared to how he was when he was brought to the Prison Island at first. He seemed happier and he stopped oozing killing intent like before.

That said, while Rupert could see the truth in Naruto's words, he would still never be able to fully relax in his presence. Rupert was finding it impossible to forget that he was the sole survivor out of the over 200 convicts on the Prison Island. He would never forget how, in an instant, a forest of massive bone-like spikes had suddenly covered the entire island and massacred hundreds of metahumans like cattle.

'Look, I won't get you in trouble with Kyuubi - I know what an ass he can be sometimes. Just tell me if he's in danger.'

A nervous chuckle came from the fatty.

'Him, in danger? We're talking about the same person, right?'

Naruto laughed at his words. Though, inwardly, he did not fail to notice how Rupert referred to Kyuubi as a 'person'.

'Ok, I won't keep you the entire day. But, before I leave, is there anything you think I should know?'

'Hm... did you know that they've raised a statue for you in Quebec?' (1)

'Wait, what?!' Naruto exclaimed wide-eyed and came next to Rupert's chair to look at the screen of his laptop.

Rupert simply typed in the searching engine 'Uzumaki Naruto memorial' and clicked on the Image section.

It was a 7 feet tall stone statue, depicting a tall, bare-chested muscular man. But, while the face of the statue was rather unique - there were 3 whisker-like marks carved on the cheeks - what attracted everyone's attention was its torso. Numerous spike-like bones were protruding from its ribcage. Another unique thing about the statue was that it was missing its left arm, from the shoulder. It depicted Naruto after his battle against Doomsday, the stone sculpture having the same size as the original body (it was 7 feet tall together with the height of the pedestal). The sculptor's attention to details had been so great that the statue almost appeared as though it was alive. One was able to feel how Naruto must have been at the end of the battle: exhausted, dizzy with agonizing pain, at the end of his powers.

Even Naruto, who had nothing in common with art, could recognize that the statue was a masterpiece.

'Actually, it was on the news this morning that Gotham City's mayoralty is willing to pay millions of dollars to Quebec City in order to buy the statue and bring it to Gotham. Not surprisingly, Quebec City is completely against the idea.'

Naruto was not able to find his words for a few long moments.

'In less than 3 days after releasing the statue to the public, hordes of tourists were attracted to it.' Rupert continued to speak while he logged in on a social platform and clicked on the profiles of various people in his Friends List. 'Look how many people took selfies with your statue and posted them as their profile pics.'

There were people of all ages and genders. Children with whisker-like marks painted on their cheeks were hugging the statue's legs, guys were taking cool poses next to it, while there were some girls that were even kissing the statue on the cheeks. It got to the point where - according to Rupert - they forbid people from touching the statue anymore, afraid of them damaging it somehow. Even so, the number of tourists coming to Quebec in order to see Uzumaki Naruto's statue still kept increasing every day.

Rupert's intelligence was not ordinary so it was not hard for him to deduce the reason for Naruto's silence. He said:

'I think you're not fully aware of it, but people have always had a good impression of you. Now, after you nearly died and lost a whole arm to stop Doomsday, they basically worship you.'

As to enforce his words, Rupert started showing him tens of blogs and articles about him. Some of them even creeped him out as they contained photos of him secretly snapped by what looked like paparazzi while he was doing simple, mundane things like eating at Ichiraku's restaurant from Gotham's China town together with his sister, going to Wallmart for shopping or Galatea taking him out for a walk in his wheelchair.

'There are even fan-made fictional stories in which you're the main character. There is also written smut where you're coupled most of the time with your lover, Galatea - most of your fans totally dig the relationship the two of you have - but there are many more stories in which you have a harem and you get to bag Wonder Woman, Supergirl and pretty much every hot metahuman babe you can think of. If you wanna be grossed out, there's even smut about you and your sister. Look...' he said and he started to read a paragraph from a story he found out:

'Misaki cried out in a sweet voice: 'Onii-chan, we can't do this. What would other people think?!'

'I don't care what others think. I love you!' he said and his lips -'

'Holy crap, that's enough!' Naruto cut his words off and shouted in disbelief. He palmed his own forehead not even knowing how to react.

It was only after Naruto left that Rupert finally allowed himself to fall into a bout of uncontrollable laughter. It was the first time he had seen such a vivid expression of shock on Naruto's face.

Scene break

The mood in the Hall of Justice at the top of the Watchtower was sombre. The occupants of the room were also much more numerous compared to other times seeing as nearly all the Justice League members not on duty in the field were gathered together.

'Do you think any of the people in power would actually listen to this warning?' one of the members said sceptically.

'The mayor of Metropolis is a good friend of mine. At my request, he will mobilize and prepare for an evacuation en masse.' Superman replied.

'Gotham City would, as well.' Batman added too.

'I do not see the mayor of other cities taking any of us seriously though. For that matter, I don't see anyone else really listening to any warnings we might give them.' Hawkwoman said and nobody argued with her words. The reason for that was that they had no real proof that anything was going to really happen.

Doctor Fate had been in seclusion for a few good weeks, assimilating the memories that the Future Doctor Fate had imparted to him before fading away. Now, he had finally come out and asked for the Justice League to gather, in order to confirm that Uzumaki Naruto's words about the future invasion were true and plan ahead for the future.

'We keep hearing that someone is going to invade the Earth. Who is it exactly? We need more information, we need to devise plans and strategies to prepare for it.' Wonder Woman said and a murmur of agreement buzzed through the tens of superheroes in the room.

Doctor Fate stood up from his seat to face everyone else.

'It's the Yellow Lantern Corps.'

Many of the ones gathered were not really aware of the existence of a Yellow Lantern Corps. But the two Green Lanterns there, however, were perfectly aware of them. It had been only 2-3 months since the Yellow Lanterns attacked Oa, killed a lot of Green Lanterns and also broke out of their confinement one of the most terrible enemies the Green Lanterns have ever faced - Superboy-Prime.

'Why would the Yellow Lanterns be interested in Earth of all the places? The Guardians are certain that it's Oa that's going to be attacked soon, not any other place, let alone the Earth.' Hal Jordan stated.

'And that is exactly why they successfully destroyed the Earth the first time around.' Doctor Fate said grimly. 'Their attack was unexpected.'

'The Earth was ruined. A massive genocide occurred and the whole planet was eventually destroyed altogether... that's why I travelled back in time. It was a risky decision. I could have lost myself, wandering for the eternity somewhere in between realities but, at that point, there wasn't much more to lose than I had already lost. I had to make a gamble.'

Everyone was dead silent at his words and Doctor Fate took the chance to continue.

'In the first timeline, I did not save Uzumaki Naruto and Galatea, the clone, when the nuclear missile detonated. But the demonic beast that Uzumaki always keeps around had somehow survived. Once it recovered, it went to Russia and razed off the map the Moscow City and its surroundings. Over 10 million people died that day. But they were not the only ones to die. The Justice League intervened in order to contain the beast - and they were able to defeat it but they paid a great price. Many of you died that day.'

'Following that, when Doomsday appeared, Superman and Supergirl lost their lives too, sacrificing themselves to kill the beast.'

'The Justice League became just a shell of its former shell. It was severely weakened. By the time the Green Lanterns arrived on Earth, most of us had already been killed off. Even when the Green Lanterns came in the fray, the Sinestro Corps together with an evil alternate version of Superman decimated everyone.'

The previously dead-silent superheroes grew restless at the mention of an alternate version of Superman. John Stewart explained:

'He calls himself Superboy-Prime. After the incident with the Justice Lords, now we all know that there are several other alternate dimensions to our own. This guy is from an alternate dimension too. And he is nothing like Superman.'

'He is vicious, cruel and has almost no weaknesses. Kryptonite and magic don't seem to have any effect on him and he's so powerful that he alone had invaded Oa a few years ago. He broke through a 300 miles thick wall-like construct of willpower and slaughtered 32 Green Lanterns before he was finally overpowered. He was imprisoned until a few months ago when the Yellow Lantern Corps attacked Oa and broke him out.'

Feeling the continuously increasing negative emotions within everyone around him, Doctor Fate said:

'But that's why I travelled back in time: to change the future. Uzumaki Naruto and Galatea are both very powerful, you don't need me to remind you of that. And they will be on our side. The powerful demonic beast of Uzumaki will also fight by our side. Furthermore, Superman and Supergirl are still alive and none of the other members of the League perished against the beast either.'

'Together, we are far from being weak. Now, we are not as weak as we were in the future. In addition, we have time to prepare for their arrival. Hal Jordon and John Stewart will also make sure to inform the Guardians about Sinestro's next move.'

Then, with his voice taking on a powerful tone, Doctor Fate said full of confidence:

'I have no doubt whatsoever that we will emerge victorious in this fight!'

'Our only worry right now is this: we have to find a way to reduce the losses of human lives that occurred the first time around. If we evacuate the cities that are going to be targeted, we can prevent many innocent people from being killed in the fire.'

Doctor Fate's words instilled a feeling of vigour in the rest of the Justice League members.

'In the first wave of their attacks, the Yellow Lanterns will be targeting the major cities on the Eastern Coast of the USA. They chose the USA as their first target because they wanted to eliminate right away the only people capable of putting up a fight against them - the Justice League. We all know that while there are quite a few other groups of superheroes across the Globe, none of them is anywhere close to being as powerful as the Justice League.'

'Specifically, these cities suffered the burnt of their first wave of attacks: Metropolis, New York, Gotham...'

[...]

Scene break

By the time he got home, Naruto was still very distracted by the things that he had learned from Rupert.

'Those people had actually built a statue for me...'

It was not like it was the first time he was experiencing the feeling of being respected by the people around him - in his past life, after he saved Konohagakure no Sato from Pain and convinced him to bring everyone he had killed, back to life, the villagers also began to think of him as of a hero. However, before that, he had risked his life to protect the village more time than he could count. He had worked day and night, for years, in order to earn their respect, to be acknowledged. It had been his dream to become the Hokage and have his face carved on the Hokage Monument, next to his predecessors. But that was all that it had been - just a dream; Uchiha Madara had made sure of that. Madara had killed him and Uchiha Sasuke and ensnared the rest of the world inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

In his present life, Naruto had never tried to play the hero. Even when he fought against Doomsday, he did it with the safety of his sister in mind, not that of the strangers. However, as if to mock his entire past life's efforts, in his current life, he became a hero beloved by the people, without even trying or caring about it! People's respect for him was to the extent that they even raised a statue in his honour!

So deep in his thoughts he had been that he nearly missed the fact that someone was sitting in his bed when he arrived home and entered his bedroom. There on his bed, a very familiar nine-tailed fox cub was waiting for him half-asleep, his tails lazily swishing in the air every now and then. It was none other than Kyuubi. However, there was something different about him. A yellow glow of light was coating his body and a bright yellow ring was around his right paw almost like a bracelet. Previously not wearing any clothes, the fox was currently sporting a yellow and black top with the symbol of a lantern printed on the chest.

Kurama was now part of the Yellow Lantern Corps!