2 - Between Love and Loss
Naruto woke spotted Captain Yamato hovering over Sakura looking he guessed concerned though it was hard to tell the man simply didn't show emotion. At any rate he jumped to his feet regardless of how weak he felt and ran over Sakura's side. "What happened?"
"One minute we were talking while she was healing you from your four tailed state," Yamato explained which caused the whisker marked blonde to wince knowing what caused the slip in the first place. "The next a bright violet colored light hit her and she slumped over you, I pulled her off putting her up against this tree hoping to understand what occurred."
Naruto nodded looking at his favorite rosette haired medic sensing the flow of ring energy that surrounded her, the energy was in flux. Ring you said the Star Sapphire ring was dormant and wouldn't react to anyone I knew.
The ring's impassive voice sprung into his mind, incorrect statement, the Star Sapphire ring would remain dormant until such time as it deemed those you surround yourself with feelings would change towards you. Given further analyses of situation the following candidates are as follows leader of said group was believed to be the shy Hyuga as she was the strongest candidate for the Sapphire ring though on conducting further in depth studies her blind devotion borders on fanatism rather than actual love. The one known as Ino thinks of you as annoying younger brother, Temari, your fellow jinchuuriki's sister has feelings for the lazy sloth you call Shikamaru. Naruto chuckled slightly at mentioning the ring's thoughts on his friend. This Sakura's emotions were always influx between you and the traitor Uchiha, but the recent turmoil regarding you being in danger of hurting yourself her heart consciously chose, the Star Sapphire ring made the connection quickly and is proceeding to test her.
How long will that take? Naruto asked the Green Lantern ring and was almost dreading the reply. The GL ring for short had downloaded a lot of things when he picked up the mantel of being the last Green Lantern, among them was the for knowledge and experience of the previous wielder of said ring Hal Jordan. Naruto had been impressed and inspired by what he saw in Hal Jordan a man who endured countless hardships and fought battles against foes that were vastly superior to him and was lucky enough to have friends to aide him in many of these fights both among the Corps and the Justice League. He had seen similar traits of the Justice League in his friends, and he couldn't wait to broach this idea with his cousin and Hokage. With a sad smile Naruto thought about what else the ring downloaded into his mind, the first being his family line dating back to the Sage of the Six Paths, the first Uzumaki and how chakra came to be. But it was recent history that caught Naruto up, Mito Uzumaki Senju, grandmother of Tsunade making her and Naruto the last two members of the Uzumaki clan in the Hidden Leaf.
Naruto clench his right fist thinking about how his parents died, saving the Hidden Leaf and him above all, sacrificing themselves. What's worse the old man third never told him this, never explained how it came to be. Judging by what the GL ring saw he doubted Sarutobi knew the specifics of the incident he was in the village when Obito struck. Blasted hypocrite, he's the one who told that line to Kakashi-sensei, those who don't follow the rules are scum but those who betray their comrades are worse than scum. Guess what Obito you're officially worse than scum just like your nephew.
Yamato kept his face impassive watching the range of emotions on the blonde young man's face, he had been assigned to Team Kakashi by the Hokage for one reason, protect Naruto. He figured it was because of the Kyuubi but he had an inkling that it was for something deeper more meaningful. When he was first handed the assignment he saw a very frightened look in the Hokage's eyes one not associated with fear of losing a potential resource, no this was a deep fear of losing family. Her interactions with the blonde haired boy were very complex. To put it in to some prospective, one of his fellow ANBU tried to call the Hokage in good humor a year before Naruto returned granny and that ANBU ended up in the hospital, while at most Naruto earn an annoyed verbal rebuke. Clearly the boy was much more to the Hokage than many believe. It wasn't until he dipped into his own origins of being a clone of the First Hokage that he discovered the reason. The Hokage and the jinchuuriki were clan mates, family; as such the blonde boy was aloud in certain situations to take liberties in protocol. Yamato however filed that away for a later date. Focusing instead on the here and now, one teammate had run off, another was recovering from an injury, and the last was currently comatose for an unknown and very troublesome reason. "Naruto do you know what has occurred?"
"Yeah and there's nothing we can do at this moment except pray to Kami that Sakura-chan makes the right choice otherwise I'm going to have explain to granny why her apprentice can never wake up again or died of a brain hemorrhage," Naruto stated sadly.
XXX
Sakura felt like she was floating, looking around she found herself in a violet colored haze, when the haze clear she saw her inner persona standing there in a strange crystalline room hovering in front of her was a violet colored ring. "What's going on?"
"You have been chosen to undergo the right to become the last Star Sapphire, little girl," a voice from the ring stated.
A vein in Sakura's head twitched at the last words reminding her a little too much of her meetings with Temari while Naruto had been away to train. How Shikamaru could put up with her was beyond Sakura's grasp to comprehend. "Alright what does that mean?"
"Simple little girl, we are going to conduct an exercise in truth and see whether you've felt both loss as well as love, fail and I'll pour as much energy into your mind to destroy it rendering you a vegetable," the SS ring had been programmed by its creator to not only seek a counterpart for the Green Lantern ring but make sure its own power would not corrupted encase the candidate was otherwise blinded by another."I won't have a crazed Star Sapphire wandering this world I am not like the Star Sapphire rings of the past." The SS ring hovered closer to the rosette haired young woman, "however because of your recent exploits I've deemed you worthy to wield my power to help protect this planet from all its evil including the traitor you and your blonde goof are currently searching for."
Sakura couldn't help but giggle slightly at the SS ring's assumption of Naruto, she gasps covering her mouth in shock, "Did I just giggle because I was thinking of Naruto?"
If the SS ring could smirk it would have instead it hovered closer to the pink haired young medic, "This realm we are in is a representation of your emotions, the violet color represents your feelings of love towards a certain person, behold the crystal shards that represent those you come to know," the Ring moved and hovered over a violet colored table that held a group of shards, some were violet in color with various tints in them.
"Why do I see other colors inside those shards?" Sakura asked.
"Simple these represent your feelings towards your friends, no friendship is completely devoid of another emotion that is the nature you hold yourself back, an example would be," the SS ring hovered over a shard that had a mixture of orange and red. "This shard represents your best friend Ino, the taint of jealously and rage mixed in with your love of her as your best friend. But that has always defined your relationship her it's what sparks your rivalry, you perceive her as what you wish to achieve physical beauty and confidence."
Sakura wanted to deny it but the more she thought about it the more it came true, even Naruto seem to think that she hadn't changed, slumping her shoulders sadly. "You take Naruto's feelings about your own attractiveness out of context, how pretty did he think you were while in school?" the rosette froze thinking about that Naruto had always thought she was perfection. So asking him if she had change was like asking a man with no eyes if he still can't see.
Sakura notice one looked like it was on fire and had very little violet in it, "What about that one?"
The SS ring floated over it and Sakura could almost swear she saw it smirk, "Ah, this one contains the shard of friendship towards one Hinata Hyuga. You hold very little love toward her; you carry mostly jealously, anger, and fear but carry a small sliver of compassion because of her plight with her clan."
"Why would I be afraid of Hinata she's the most gentlest soul I've ever known, I can understand the anger and jealously part she's pretty much grown up into her role of Hyuga princess," Sakura spat out the last couple of words no really meaning too causing the emotional shard to flash red and orange. It was when she realize what the fear was for, she was feeling threaten because out of all of the other eight rookies only Hinata never belittled or made fun of Naruto all the while sporting that not so secret crush on him. "What is wrong with me?"
"You are finally realizing the truth; your reaction to the Hyuga is but a part of it. It took you four long years to realize it; I should know I've watched it more. His saving you from Gaara, his saving you from drowning in the land of Grass, his willingness to bring back Sasuke, rescuing you from all those booby traps the both of you boobied into in that underground, taking all that punishment against Kabuto, he didn't just do that because he was simply your friend, it's because he loves you," the SS ring stated the ring hovered over her almost seemingly to glare down at her. "What have you've done, back when you were a fangirl, you spurned his every attempt to get close to you so much so he had to use a henge just to talk to you."
Sakura felt a big lump in her throat when the ring mentioned a henge, one of Naruto's best skills had been to henge, the one he created in front of class that one time he did on purpose, he wanted people to laugh he also used it as an excuse to announce his dream, after that day his henge had been perfect. "W-What henge?"
"Before team selections during lunch he managed to tie Sasuke up and henge into him, he met with you and virtually spoke the exact words that ran through your mind at that point," the SS ring explained. Sakura's body went numb a small part of her that day felt that Sasuke was acting out of character but the fangirl in her stomp down that red flag before it could be given voice. Her mind had been just enough of a lie to feed her fangirl delusions for at least another year just long enough to watch Sasuke sink further into darkness. But this brought up something, "I can read your thoughts and emotions, all the rings in the light spectrum can it is how we choose our bearers, or would have if the other rings hadn't been destroyed only two remain one that embodies will and one the embodies love. I have chosen you to wield my power, but like I said you must choose to truly wield love and do so, you must accept the truth that you love the jinchuuriki, the goof, the hero, the class clown, the embodiment of the Will of Fire, and the Dead Last, with all your heart. I have given you all that you need it is time to make your choice."
Sakura grabbed her head seeing the true images of her life with the two people that constantly war within her heart. She focused on her childhood crush first, what she saw left her disturbingly cold, all she saw was a life on the run, from hunter-nins, from Naruto bound and determined to return them both to the Leaf, from an army of enemies she had yet to meet mostly from other villages, from Orochimaru's lackey Kabuto. They would never know a moments peace, when they weren't running they would train, Sasuke would never express his feelings toward her calling her useless in every sense of the word, a life of a missing-nin until one or both of them slipped up caught in something, Sasuke would be lucky to escape with a quick death, for her it could be a quick death or worse, rape, torture then death. She shuddered at this, her life with Sasuke would be miserable and end with her being alone and forgotten
She then imagined her life with Naruto, her begging him to stop chasing after Sasuke saying that it was a fool's promise made by a silly school girl. A relationship later filled with warmth, love, hugs and kisses almost from the start. It was almost night and day better than her Haruno counterpart, in this version she and Naruto actually marry, have a family. Her heart swelled almost to bursting seeing children in this life, something deep down she had always wanted. Tears rolled down her cheeks at how happy she saw the Sakura in this image. This was the true love she had always craved and it had been under her nose this entire time. "What do I do?" she asked the ring.
"Speak the Star Sapphire oath and all will be clarified, my sister," the SS ring stated almost feeling true joy.
XXX
Naruto and Yamato watched Sakura stand up her eyes still closed as she held her right arm up into the air. While Yamato was confused by this gesture, Naruto knew this all too well as year ago he had done the same when he accepted his role as Green Lantern, he did wonder what the Star Sapphire Oath sounded like, "For Hearts long lost and full of Fright, For those alone in blackest night, Accept our ring and join our fight, Love Conquers all with Violet Light!" A bright flash of violet color light filled the forest almost like a beacon when the light dimmed Naruto, saw Sakura's outfit, gone was her red vest in its place a black and violet colored chest plate that wrapped around her breasts with the Star Sapphire crystal design in the valley between her breasts, a pair of black leather straps going around her back and shoulders keeping the plate in place. Gone was her grey skirt, thigh shinobi sandals, and biker shorts replaced with something that would make Anko proud, a pair of long high heeled boots and tight violet colored leather pants with a wide black leather belt and a belt buckle that had the Star Sapphire crystal, she still wore gloves only these were now fingerless and her right ring finger sported the Star Sapphire ring. Her Leaf shinobi headband now had the Star Sapphire insignia embedded with the Leaf instead of the Uzumaki like swirl. Needless to say Naruto had to check his nose to make sure it wasn't bleeding, just before Sakura began slump forward, he rushed over and caught before she fell. He felt her arms go around him as her head landed on his chest.
"Sakura-chan?!" he whispered sharply in concern. He watched her eyes fluttered open when they focused on him he met a gaze from her that wanted so long that if he could he would have pinched himself.
The moment the last phrase of the Star Sapphire oath had been spoken Sakura had been bombarded with the light spectrum of love and in doing so had been cleansed of all her lingering doubts. She no longer felt any feelings for Sasuke except for what she should feel for him both a sense of loss and a greater sense of pity. Loss at being her childhood crush and her first perceived love and the sense of pity at how far he had fallen to achieve his dark path one she will never be able to follow. She looked up at the one she now felt unconditional love for; the one she would give her life for, the one that was showing so much concern for her. She gently reaches up and caressed his cheek, smiling softly at the feel of his whisker marks under her fingertips. "Naruto-kun," she whispered closing her eyes and falling asleep as exhaustion from her recent power surge overtook her.
Naruto stared at the rosette haired young woman before turning to Yamato, "please pinch me."
Yamato blinked, "Why would I do that, Naruto?"
"Did she just use the 'kun' suffix on me?" the whiskered marked blonde asked.
The emotionless captain gave simple nod, "I believe so, what was that strange poem she spoke about before her clothing changed?"
Naruto gently cradled Sakura into his lap before leaning up against a tree, "It wasn't a poem, it was an oath and a similar oath to the one I took a year ago."
"Oh and what was the oath you had to make?" Yamato asked.
"In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night, No Evil shall escape my sight, For those who worship Evils might, Beware my power, Green Lantern's Light!" The moment Naruto uttered the last word a bright green light flashed. Naruto's burnt orange and black shinobi outfit was replace with a sleeveless black shirt that showed a circle insignia of white with a green lantern at center of his chest, a forest green Hokage style coat with black flames on the hem, black shinobi pants, black combat boots with forest green laces, forest green fingerless gloves with the lantern ring on his right ring finger, black forearm guards that extend from the gloves to just below the elbow. Naruto's headband stayed black and extended downward to cover his face creating a mask, the swirl part of his leaf insignia was replaced with the lantern. Yamato was shocked at this change. "Granny knows about it, been trying to keep it a secret. But basically with that oath comes a whole lot of responsibility one of which may include if I have no choice killing Sasuke."
"Is it related to what happened to Sakura?" Yamato asked.
Naruto nodded a faint smile appeared on his face, "as far as I know Green Lanterns are basically fueled by willpower, the Star Sapphire are fueled by love, if Sakura-chan called me Naruto-kun then I guess I got my primary dream fulfilled."
"I thought your dream was to become Hokage?" Yamato asked.
Naruto nodded, "yes, but what good is it to be Hokage if I'm alone Sakura-chan always came before being Hokage," he closed his eyes. "Just accepted the fact I'd be Hokage without her when she asked me to bring Sasuke back."
He felt a soft hand reach up, looking down his green powered eyes met violet powered ones, "Not any more, I'm yours and your mine," she giggled slightly. "Believe it."
Author's Note: I'm looking for any talented artist to come up with a Jpeg picture of Naruto and Sakura as their Green Lantern and Star Sapphire personas love to put it as my cover page for this fic.