55 Chapter 55
Heralds of the Dawn or Heralds of Hope that was what they were called from the day they decided to follow Naruto's path.
They accepted his words and most of them accepted his power to go beyond their mortal capabilities.
In his presence they felt complete. They were broken people with insecurities of their own in this dark world.
All around them were shadows haunting them at all steps, the past mistakes that never let them go and the present that kept pressing down on them.
It felt like they would just snap one day and break but they broke through and walked through this pitfall to become stronger.
They understand what Naruto meant because of such experiences. Living through such events, they could have always ended up taking wrong steps and chose the right path but not everyone is strong as them.
To make the world better it was best to make the world around them better so that people won't fall into those situations.
And they didn't have to become someone else anymore to go through with this, they can be themselves.
Many times had they thought of being someone else would make their life so much easier but now they had accepted themselves completely.
The bad and the good, everything was part of them.
It came to completion after hearing it from Naruto about how he lived with himself.
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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves.
Nothing is holier; nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them and whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought; I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers; I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. He who has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
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It really was a surprise that Naruto was so good at speeches and communication even though he actually didn't have much experience with people.
He was a natural and he was born to lead.
It was his demeanor. It was his aura that made people believe in him and follow him.
His presence made them safe and happy that burned away the tragic clouds.
He was the sunshine in the world of darkness.
These were things that none of them would ever have thought about and they only started believing after seeing Naruto in action.
He was an ideal and he was an idol that many people looked towards.
Nobody could deny how fast his presence had taken over the world.
You wouldn't find a person that didn't know him around the globe because Naruto would have at least made one visit in each city.
Among all Heroes, he was the busiest. No, among all people on this planet he was the busiest as he was operating everywhere and helping people through education and fixing their small problems.
For someone like Richard Grayson also known as Dick Grayson and Nightwing, this path was the one he wanted to walk.
He had been born in Gotham and suffered tragedy under the mobs there when they killed his parents.
Becoming Robin, he had wanted revenge but Batman talked him out of it and he just captured the culprits.
Life was getting better and fun but then many other incidents took place that challenged and broke him down.
His positivity was all but dead by the time he had become Nightwing.
He didn't like the way Bruce operated. He couldn't let criminals just captured peacefully and would brutalize them so they never dared to operate again.
He was a symbol of fear in the night even more than Batman could ever be because Batman didn't go out of his way to break them.
Of course Bruce had a problem with his actions and they had conflicts, and even fights. It led to him taking control of Young Justice to control his growing aggression that was partly because of his rage towards Starfire.
Starfire was the first girl that had wormed her way to his heart and stolen it. He did have a thing for Batgirl before but it was never that strong and they broke apart when he had a fight with Bruce.
Star was a pure girl with an air of ignorance around her and her past was tragic. She had been raped, experimented and sold by her own sister.
She had zero knowledge of human culture but was a good person at heart.
She was always positive and this positivity attracted him like the moth to the light.
He taught her, he trained her, he loved her and he gave her everything but in the end he was just human.
Their love was never meant to be and cheated on him, she cheated on him.
She could have said something. She could have just broken up with him and gave the reason. He would have understood that she needed sexual pleasure and that his human body could never provide.
He wasn't blind and he was never an idiot. He could see it clearly that she controlled herself and didn't enjoy it as much.
She needed it. It was part of her genetics.
He would never have blamed her if she had talked to him. But she broke his heart by going behind him.
Just imagining how many men she had slept behind his back, killed his heart and the tears could never stop before the rage overtook his heart.
If he was not a good person, Richard knew he would have killed Star. Even death would have been a mercy to what he wanted to do to her.
The rage, the rage was like an ever growing monster that burned everything around him before it settled down and depression started taking its place.
He hid his feelings behind fake smiles and a sense of duty to his people but anyone close to him would know that he was just acting.
BB knew and stayed by his side. They were closest of friends and even Cyborg would always check up on him.
They would talk to him and try to make him move on.
Even he had thought that this would never be a problem for him but when it happened, he was broken.
The love was gone but so was the trust in love and everything around him didn't give him any better picture either.
It was the time Naruto appeared when he started changing because of his words, actions and examples.
It wasn't a quick process but talking with him and opening up about his problems really helped him.
Naruto didn't hurry him either and so they had yet to go and meet Star.
The hate and disappointment had disappeared, leaving only a happy heart.
He was trying to give it another try though it was proving to be a difficult task.
Poison had somehow taken interest in him but he didn't believe that was true, she was most likely using him as a rebound since her interest most likely went towards Naruto.
He wasn't a detective for nothing.
He was also unsure how the meeting will go with Star and ended up postponing it.
Right now he was the protector of Gotham and led a small team made from Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood and White Rabbit.
The League of shadows also helped out since they belonged to Naruto now. He had heard about them extended their reach to other planets and wondered how that would go.
For now he was relaxing since the era of darkness had come to an end and there wasn't much crime especially crime that needed them to interfere.
None of the heroes were normal humans anymore as they had all taken the super solider serum that was given to the law enforcement agencies.
The Hero Association gave higher quality dose to the people that needed it and the person was proven to be a great hero.
Nightwing also took the dose at first before getting chakra from Naruto. His stats were on the level of Jounin and his experience put him at the levels of Asuma.
Naruto helped them train all the time and even more since they joined him.
They were also very much connected to Naruto since he was the one that gave them chakra and could provide them with a boost when needed. He could tell if they were in trouble and needed his help.
It was an invincible bond of friendship and brotherhood.
Even though Naruto was younger than him, Richard had seen him grow mature in matters of months and knew that Naruto was now older than him because of his extensive use of clones.
In reality his body had only lived for 18 years but mentally he had lived more than 200 years by now.
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"What are thinking about?" Tim, the current Robin, asked him as they sat above the skyscraper with some snacks and drinks.
They were having a boys hang out, notably only the robins were invited.
He was the first Robin and then there was Jason Todd the second Robin, finally Tim Drake. Jason had died by the hands of Joker and got resurrected by a random Lazarus pit.
He took on the name of Red Hood, the same name Joker went by at the start after seeing the fact that Batman never even avenged him.
The fact that Joker was free while he had been dead and the crime was still the same broke him and he took up the guns to free this accursed world from scum.
The heroes hadn't known his identity and only fought him a few times but he came out in the vampire crisis.
Seeing that they had also taken the same path, he joined them and also became a Herald to have a better reach.
He had become obsessed with fighting for justice so the peaceful life wasn't for him and he needed power to go beyond this planet.
"Our future meeting with Star, you know. I don't how she is doing and what I will feel when we meet." Dick replied as he took a sip from his can.
"Jeez man, stop being a pansy and grow some balls already. She isn't going to eat you up and you aren't going alone. You don't even have to talk to her since Master is going to do all the talking, all because you were too slow." Jason muttered in a drunken manner, his words as harsh as ever.
It was a product of his new transformation.
"Come on bro, stop being a dick. You wouldn't understand love problems since you never had any so you should stop commenting on it." Tim threw some chips at him and Jason caught them midair with his mouth.
"I want to talk to her. I want to know why she did it. I want to take the final step and maybe it will help me find new love." Richard didn't take offence and replied calmly looking down at the city below them.
It had grown so beautiful in such a short time and the dark clouds of doom had been cleared.
"You can do it man, you are one us. Let the thot know her place."
"I will, don't worry." Richard smiled at Jason's encouragement and he got the message about the party.
"Guess we aren't having sausage party all night today boys, the boss woman just called for a party at home base. It seems good news about Naruto's goal from the tone I got since the children couldn't have been born in this month."
Seeing him get up, the duo also got up and cleared the alcohol from their system.
"Let's go then, it must be a big gathering today so we will meet most of our friends in one place today." Tim said before Richard stopped him.
"We get ready first or do you want to go in these clothes."
"Oh" Tim noticed they were in their combat suits and the trio went to the Wayne manner where they lived a big family to dress up.
The Wayne manner looked alive unlike before as Bruce had hired servants, married Selena and Talia after taking a page from Naruto's book and invited all the robins to live with him.
His vampire transformation gave him a lot of power since Crucifier made him a right hand man, meaning the girls could never beat him in bed even after taking the super soldier serum.
Talia had already given birth to his son so now Bruce was a father of a child named Damian Wayne.
It was a good life indeed for the bat family after so many decades of darkness.
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A.N Hope you enjoyed and comment
