[The Renegade] Chapter 24 - Invasion (Patreon)

AN: One of my fics is close to ending, so I'm thinking about starting to write a new story once that happens. I have posted a poll with over ten story options on my FFN profile, so you can go vote there. It is a blind poll so that you do not get influenced by other voters. The poll will remain open for several good weeks.

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Chapter 24 - Invasion

It was a cold day in January. The sky was dark, a thick blanket of clouds blocking the sun. It was snowing so heavily that one could barely see 20 metres in front of their eyes.

Amegakure registered a large amount of precipitation throughout the year. Whereas it poured in the warm seasons, it snowed in the cold season.

Despite the terrible weather outside, a large number of people were trekking through the blizzard. Their red uniforms stood out like a sore thumb in that white environment, but with how hard it was snowing, it didn’t matter much.

“Captain, our troops aren’t in great condition,” said a blond-haired man with a scar on his eye.

“I can see that myself,” replied the captain. He was a large and burly man wearing a furred trapper hat. “How long until we arrive?” he asked as he turned to another one of his subordinates.

“At this pace, we should reach the shores of the Lake in half an hour,” said the guide.

“Then we’ll continue. We’ll take a break once we reach the shore of the lake.”

As per the guide’s estimation, the troops reached the shore half an hour later. Despite being in the heart of enemy territory, they were not afraid of making several campfires and warming themselves up at the fire. Nobody would be able to detect the smoke in that blizzard. Furthermore, the Lake of Amegakure was so vast that one could not see its other end even on a clear summer day. It would not be wrong to call it an inland sea of fresh water.

Once the break time was over, the captain gathered his troops.

Over 5000 shinobi gathered in front of him in an orderly fashion. Their red uniforms, brown flak jackets, and forehead protectors betrayed the fact that they were from Iwagakure.

In normal conditions, shinobi or not, it would have been impossible for five thousand people to sneak into the Land of Rain completely undetected. However, thanks to the terrible blizzard, they were practically invisible. Moreover, their guide was one of the civilian spies that Iwa had planted in the Land of Rain to familiarize themselves with the topography of the country and the patrolling routes of the Rain shinobi.

Now, they were all in front of the Lake of Amegakure, less than ten kilometres away from the Hidden Village itself which was located on the small island in the middle of the lake.

“We are finally here,” the captain said in a powerful voice. “Today is the day when our enemies pay in blood. They killed our Tsuchikage. They killed our brothers and sisters, our comrades. Iwagakure isn’t so weak that we would let anyone get away with that.”

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! We will kill them all! We will make them pay!”

“We are proud ninjas of the Land of Earth! We will slaughter anyone who stands in our way!”

Mindful of where they were, the five thousand shinobi didn’t break out into roars and cheers, but they all let out one strong word of confirmation. It was a quiet but deep shout. Their eyes were filled with resolve and anger.

The captain nodded, pleased with their response.

“Sensor unit, at the front.”

Two dozen ninjas walked in front of the army and took the first step on the frozen surface of the lake.

“Make sure you scan the area for exploding tags thoroughly. We can’t be walking into a minefield!”

The Iwa shinobi advanced for nearly seven kilometres on top of the frozen Lake with no incidents. However, the sensor ninjas didn’t let their guard down because the closer they got to the Hidden Village, the higher the chance for the lake to be booby-trapped.

“Are they really that confident in the power of their Rinnegan?” the captain asked rhetorically after a while.

According to his calculation, he and his troops had already covered nearly 9 kilometres by now. The island in the middle of the lake should be only one kilometre away. It was too suspicious that they hadn’t encountered any traps so far.

But just as he asked himself that question, a loud explosion boomed, and his people’s death cries filled the air.

Five of the sensor nins walking ahead of the main body of the army were killed on the spot.

“What the hell are you guys doing?!” the captain screamed.

The enemy still couldn’t see them despite being only a few hundred metres away in a completely open space on the surface of the frozen lake, due to the heavy blizzard limiting their vision. However, the noise of the explosion had surely travelled to their ears.

The other sensor ninjas jumped away from the proximity of the explosion in a panic. They didn’t understand what was going on either. Their senses had not picked up any signs of chakra. If there had been any exploding tags buried in the ice or snow, they would have definitely detected them!

“Focus, you useless bastards!”

The sensors spread themselves out, putting more distance between each other so that they wouldn’t be affected if another accident were to happen.

However, merely two minutes after the first accident, another explosion went off. But this time it was not among the sensor ninjas but in the midst of the main body of the army. Over thirty shinobi and kunoichi were killed.

The captain was enraged.

“Worthless pieces of trash, you had one job!” he screamed at the sensor nins.

He was enraged to the point where he felt like killing them with his own two hands. But their clueless and frightened faces let him know that something fishy was going on. It made no sense that, among dozens of sensor ninjas, none of them would be able to spot those traps.

“Step back. Our cover is blown by now. There is no point in trying to be stealthy anymore. Everyone, on my mark, cast a Rock Gun Jutsu. Destroy the entire surface of the lake ahead of us.”

As the captain made a sign with his hand, nearly five thousand shinobi went through three hand seals before spitting out a small pebble from their mouths.

“Doton: Iwadeppo no Jutsu!”

Thousands of pebbles were spat in the air and only a moment later, those pebbles transformed into huge boulders, making it look like a rain of meteorites as they smashed into the frozen lake.

All the traps that Amegakure had prepared for them ahead of time exploded, revealing the fact that hundreds of shinobi might have lost their lives if they had continued like before.

Once the collective jutsu ended, the captain went to check the area by himself. It smelled of fire and smoke, and-

“Metal?! What the fuck have these shrewd pieces of shit come up with now?”

Exploding tags didn’t smell of metal. There was no metal in them; they were just ink and paper. In addition, there was no trace of chakra anywhere.

‘No matter. Their new explosives didn’t do them much good in the end.’

“It’s all clear now. Amegakure is only a few hundred metres away. Be ready to engage the enemy!”

“Hai!” the Iwa ninja shouted and broke into a sprint atop the water, avoiding the pieces of broken ice left intact by the rain of boulders and the following explosions.

Although the blizzard prevented them from seeing the walls surrounding Amegakure, by their estimation, they were now less than 100 metres away from the Hidden Village.

Suddenly, the shinobi looked up, startled. Even despite the noise caused by the blizzard, their superhuman hearing still picked up the sounds made by projectiles when splitting the air.

Some of the quicker ones quickly went through the required handseals and cast a wall of mud by making use of the pouches of dirt they carried on themselves for this mission. However, many of them didn’t react in time.

A rain of burning arrows split the sky, injuring nearly two hundred and claiming the lives of dozens.

“Don’t stop! Protect your vitals and advance at full speed!!” screamed the captain.

A second rain of arrows came, but this time the shinobi were on their guard, and most of them managed to avoid them. At least that’s what they thought until the cylindrical attachment strapped to each arrow exploded.

⁂

From the moment Iwagakure’s troops set off the first mine, the noise of the explosion alerted Amegakure. The Shadow Clone that Naruto had left behind was informed by his subordinates too, and he rushed to the city walls too.

It was snowing too heavily for them to see anything, but once he entered Sage Mode, he could sense that there were thousands of life signatures less than 1 km away from their village.

As a siren rang throughout the village, hundreds of shinobi dropped whatever they were doing, grabbed their equipment, and rushed to the walls.

In the meantime, the non-chakra users, the regular soldiers who had been instructed on how to use the new weaponry developed by the Takumi Village’s craftsmen didn’t remain idle.

“Are the Hwacha armed?” asked Naruto.

“Yes, Uzumaki-sama. But we can’t even see the ground below the walls, much less the enemy. The blizzard is too strong.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll guide you,” Naruto said, focusing on his Sage Senses. “The enemy is 150 metres away from the walls, at 11 o’clock. Aim your Hwacha in that direction, but at a distance of only 80 metres.”

The Hwacha handlers rushed to position their weapon as per Naruto’s instructions and lit up the fuse.

There were three Hwacha on that side of the wall. Three Hawcha were capable of firing 200 arrows per shot. A total of 600 arrows were fired in less than 10 seconds.

The Iwagakure shinobi’s screams of pain carried by the wind were proof of their success.

“Fire the exploding Hwacha now!” Naruto ordered.

The soldiers rushed to bring over the boxes containing the exploding arrows and loaded them into the Hwacha.

“Aim at 30 meters. Ready. Fire!”

⁂

By the time the Iwagakure army reached the shore of the island, nearly 300 of them had been killed due to the minefield and the Hwacha's barrages of arrows.

“Squad 1, Earth Rampart!”

“Squad 2, Iwadeppo no Jutsu!”

“Squad 3, go underground!”

At the captain’s words, several dozen Iwa nins placed their hands on the ground at the same time and shouted:

“Doton: Doryu Joheki!”

A gigantic rampart rose from the ground until it was as tall as the walls surrounding Amegakure, protecting the Iwa nins from the rain of arrows the Ame soldiers were firing at them.

In the meantime, Squad 3, which consisted of nearly a third of Iwa’s total number of ninjas, started sinking into the ground. It was one of Iwagakure’s bread-and-butter techniques, Doton: Hiding Like a Mole.

The plan was for Squads 1 and 2 to start a head-on siege while Squad 3 infiltrated the Hidden Village by travelling through the ground, bypassing their defences, and striking from within.

But plans don’t always survive the first contact with the enemy.

Naruto and the rest of the sensor nins in the village noticed their scheme, and they took action right away.

It wasn’t the first time Amegakure had been at war with Iwagakure. Not by a long shot. Konan and the rest of the veterans from the Third Ninja War were deeply familiar with Iwa shinobi’s modus operandi. Therefore, they had transformed the underground soil around the village into a minefield too, just like with the lake.

“Detonate the underground bombs!” Naruto ordered.

Blood seemed to have drained from the captain of the Iwagakure army when the terrain around the village collapsed and muffled explosions and screams came from underground. More than half of the Third Squad was annihilated by the underground mines.

The Hwacha weren’t the only weapons that the Takumi Village weaponsmiths had created after studying Naruto's Asura Path. The mines that Konan had used to booby-trap the frozen lake were their creation and it was the same with the remote-detonating bombs that the ninja of Ame had buried underground. Seeing as they weren’t chakra-based traps, they had escaped the Iwa sensor nins’ detection.

⁂

While Naruto was watching in satisfaction how the defences that they had prepared against Iwagakure’s invasion were cutting down their numbers, an Ame chunin suddenly appeared in front of him and dropped respectfully to a knee. It was a girl with short brown hair, no older than 15.

“Uzumaki-sama! There’s trouble!”

“At ease; there is no time for ceremony at this moment. What happened?”

“The mines we had set on the frozen lake exploded all at once. It’s the Raikage and thousands of ninjas from Kumogakure! The Raikage waltzed through the minefield all alone, setting them off. He doesn’t have any injuries!” she said in a rush.

“The Raikage?!” Naruto said in disbelief.

It didn’t make any sense! His original self and the rest of the Kage were, at that moment, all in the Land of Iron. It was several long days away.

‘I know the Raikage is fast, but he can’t maintain maximum speed over such a long distance. It’s impossible. What the hell is going on?!’

“Thanks for reporting. Back to your post. I’ll go deal with them myself!” Naruto said, disappearing with a Shunshin.

Not a second after he arrived on the other side of Amegakure, a strong tremor shook the massive outer wall of the village.

“Lightning Straight!”

As that scream reached his ears and he saw the huge hole that appeared in the wall, Naruto was convinced that the chunin wasn’t mistaken in her report.

“Dogs of Amegakure! This is your final day!” the Raikage shouted as he stepped through the hole in the wall, a powerful aura of lightning surrounding his body.

Before Naruto could intervene, however, a kunoichi in her mid-thirties appeared in front of the Raikage and threw a palm strike.

The Raikage didn’t even attempt to dodge or block her. His Lightning Armor made him virtually indestructible to anything but the highest-rank Fuuton Jutsu. Taijutsu was utterly pointless against him.

But his eyes widened to the size of saucers when a spiralling ball of blue chakra appeared in the palm of her hand. It didn’t stop at being a palm-sized Rasengan; in the blink of an eye, it grew until it was larger than a basketball before it smashed into the Raikage’s gut.

“Oodama Rasengan!” she yelled and the tall and muscular kage was launched back through the hole he came from like a cannonball.

Greatly surprised but not any less happy with the new development, Naruto chose to spectate from the sidelines and watch the fruit of his training.

‘Shiraishi Amaya. She was the third-best among all Jonins. She was the first to master Rasengan and the fourth to learn Kage Bunshin. Her chakra control was so exquisite that she had even managed to learn the advanced version of Rasengan.’

Right after Amaya blasted the Raikage out of the village, another shinobi quickly came in front of the wall and placed his hands on the ground, filling the hole.

“To the Hwacha!” Amaya shouted amidst the cheers of enthusiasm from her comrades. “Shinobi and Soldier alike, don’t spare any exploding tags or frag grenades! Kill them all!”

Their morale was at an all-time high after watching one of their own repel the Raikage in such an impressive fashion.

“Fire!”

At her orders, two Hwacha fired 400 arrows, and one Hwacha launched 200 arrows with explosives attached to their tips.

The Kumo shinobi specialising in Earth and Water styles, were quick to cast Earth and Water Wall techniques, but they couldn’t protect all their comrades.

In the meantime, the Raikage got up from the ground with a groan. Unexpectedly, his Lightning Armour couldn’t protect him perfectly from the Rain Kunoichi’s Oodama Rasengan, and a red bruise was left in his abdominal area.

However, Amaya’s attack didn’t hurt Raikage’s body as much as it had hurt his pride. Enraged at having been humiliated like that in front of his own people, the Raikage decided not to pull any punches and go all out from the start.

“Bee! What are you waiting for?” he shouted. “Annihilate them all!”

“Big Bro, is it wise for me to attack from the start? What if the Nine Tails senses my bijuu's chakra and-” Killer Bee began to say cautiously.

“Just do it!” the Raikage cut him off with a shout. “That’s what we brought here for! What's the point in having a weapon of mass destruction if you don’t use it?”

“Fine. But don’t blame it on me later on if Kyuubi gets attracted and joins the battle!”

Leaving those last words, Killer Bee’s silhouette disappeared under a mass of flesh and muscles, and, merely two seconds later, a behemoth of a creature appeared in front of Kumo army, dwarfing even the large and sturdy walls surrounding the Hidden Village.

‘Oy, oy… things are getting out of hand,’ Naruto thought seriously when he saw Killer Bee turn into the Eight-Tailed Demonic Ox.

Clone-Naruto didn’t doubt that he alone would be sufficient in dealing with the transformed Killer Bee but he didn’t want to risk it.

‘All it would take is one hit, and I’ll get dispelled. After that, Boss and Konan won’t be able to return to Amegakure in time.’

Therefore, he decided not to take any chances. Boar -> Dog -> Bird -> Monkey -> Ram; once he made those five seals, Naruto placed his hand on the ground.

“Kuchyose no Jutsu!”

⁂ Back in the Land of Iron ⁂

Considering the fact that Naruto and his Shadow Clones shared the same sight through the Rinnegan, Naruto was aware of the fact that Iwagakure had invaded his village. However, he couldn’t just bail out in front of the Konoha shinobi. Besides, that’s why he trained his shinobi and put so much effort into sharing his techniques with them: for Amegakure to not be completely helpless without him or Konan. For them to have the power to stand on their own too.

Nevertheless, when his Shadow Clone saw Killer Bee transforming into the full form of the Eight-Tailed Demon Ox, he didn’t have a choice in the matter anymore.

“Rock Lee opened the Gate of Death?” Yamato said in disbelief before shaking his head and letting out a long sigh.

“Gate of Death? What is that?” Choji asked.

“It’s as the name says,” Neji replied to him. “It’s the last of the Eight Inner Gates. Opening the Gate of Death gives one tremendous strength at the cost of their life. It’s a suicidal jutsu.”

If someone had still harboured a glimmer of hope that Naruto might one day come back to Konoha, they realised the hard truth at that moment: he was gone forever.

While they were all silent and deep in thought, Naruto said:

“I’m sorry, but I have to cut our little reunion short. Something urgent came up.”

“Wait, Naruto, don’t go! I need to ask one more thing!” Sakura said quickly. “Do you know anything about Sasuke? He disappeared, and we-”

Naruto ignored whatever she was saying and turned towards Konan to take her hand in his.

The pink-haired girl had yet to finish her words when the of them vanished.

“What the…?!” Kiba said, mouth agape.

Neji and Hinata activated their Byakugan and scoured their surroundings, but there was no trace of them whatsoever.

“I can't believe it… was that Hiraishin?” Shikamaru said in shock.

“Hiraishin? As in the Fourth Hokage’s teleportation technique?! Don’t joke around!” Sakura said in disbelief.

Yamato and Choji were speechless. 

The group of Leaf shinobi didn’t know that Naruto’s clones could summon him thanks to Rinnegan’s Animal and Outer Path abilities. They mistakenly thought that he had learned the infamous Flying Thunder God Technique.

⁂ Back in Amegakure ⁂

The Rain ninjas' enthusiasm at Amaya’s feat of repelling the Raikage was doused as if someone poured a bucket of ice-cold water on their heads when a titanic silhouette appeared in the distance.

Not even the terrible blizzard could hide him. The Eight-Tailed Demon Ox was so large and intimidating that most of them became paralysed with fear.

Jinchuuriki had always been feared throughout the Elemental Nations. Perfect Jinchuuriki, however, were the stuff of legend and nightmares.

The Rain ninjas had not understood the terror of facing a perfect Jinchuuriki until that moment.

‘We’re going to die.’

It was the thought that ran through everyone’s mind when black and purple chakra started gathering at the creature’s enormous mouth.

It was the bijuu’s most powerful attack, the Tailed Beast Bomb. Let alone a small Hidden Village like Amegakure; even a large one like the Five Great Hidden Villages would be erased off the surface of the earth if they were to be hit with an attack like that.

Amaya closed her eyes.

‘Is it really over?’

They all knew that Lord Uzumaki and Lady Konan had left the village and gone to the Kage Summit in the Land of Iron. He had left a Shadow Clone behind, but she couldn’t imagine what use a mere clone would have in front of this disaster of nature.

Frustration boiled inside of her. She was one of the oldest active shinobi in Amegakure and a veteran of the Third Ninja War. She had been through hundreds of battles, and the many scars on her body were proof of her victories. Recently, she had even gotten more powerful thanks to their new Lord sharing his prized Jutsu with them. However, at that moment, she felt as if nothing mattered, as if everything she had accomplished in her life until then was for nought. No jutsu that she knew of and no ninja tools and weapons could defend against something like that.

“Bijuudama!” The Eight-Tailed Demon Ox roared and fired the enormous tailed beast bomb at Amegakure.

When everything looked as if it was lost, just before the massive orb of destruction was about to impact the walls, a man flew out of the village and stopped in its trajectory.

He raised his hand in front of him calmly and said:

“Gakido.”

The Rain and Cloud ninjas alike all watched with shock how the massive-tailed beast bomb stopped as if it had hit a wall. Then, its shape distorted, looking as if it had been liquefied before being sucked through an invisible funnel into Naruto’s palm.

The entire process lasted nearly 10 seconds, but the Kumo nins were so shocked by the new development that they could not do anything but stare open-mouthed at the scene.

Seemingly uncaring of the fact that he was alone against over 5000 enemy ninjas, Naruto landed on the ground and walked until he was right in front of the Raikage.

“You never had any intentions of giving Konan the title of Kage or discussing the future of the Elemental Nations. This Kage Summit was just a farce, a trick to get Konan and me away from Amegakure.”

The Lightning Armour around the Raikage exploded in intensity, reacting to his emotions of anger.

“The Kage Summit wouldn’t have been for nothing if you had decided to cooperate!” he shouted. “We tried to solve this peacefully, but you spat on our good intentions by deciding to keep the bijuu to yourselves!”

“Good intentions? You? It takes more than a week to travel from the Land of Lightning to the Land of Rain. You had planned this attack a long time ago, and you even allied with the Tuschikage to destroy us. You're a two-faced scum. You are pathetic.”

Unable to take that disrespect, the Raikage lunged at Naruto with a lightning blitz, screaming:

“Lightning Lariat!”

But the blonde caught his wrist with his left hand, stopping his charge effortlessly. He was like an immovable wall and his physical strength was unlike that of a human. For the second time in his entire life, the Raikage had met someone who was above him in physical strength. He could not believe it.

Due to his Rinnegan eyes not changing their appearance, the only sign betraying the fact that Naruto had entered Sage Mode was the orange pigmentation that appeared around his eyes. But the Raikage had never seen a Sage Mode user in person.

In the next moment, Naruto grabbed the taller and more muscular man by the neck with his right and chokeslammed him, making a crater into the ground.

“Raikage-sama!” Darui shouted and a panther of black lightning burst from his hands, charging at Naruto at the speed of light.

Naruto didn’t even look in his direction as a third arm grew from his torso and absorbed the black lightning technique.

The Raikage screamed as he struggled with all his might to break free, but it was for nought. Naruto activated his Preta Path and drained all the chakra in his system, leaving him barely alive.

Turning his attention towards the army of cloud Shinobi in front of him, the blonde said in a cold, dangerous voice:

“I don’t want to cause a bloodbath. I don’t want to kill you all, but I will do what I must to protect my country. I am giving you a choice: go back to your country. Give up on this war and live.”

“Don’t listen to him!” the Raikage struggled to scream even as he was being choked. “Kill him! Kill him even if it’s the last thing you do!”

In response to that, Naruto lifted the Raikage by his neck and chokeslammed him again, deepening the crater into the ground with the force of his slam. No longer protected by his Lightning Armour, blood burst from the Raikage’s mouth from the strength of the impact.

“Let go of the Raikage!” a dark-skinned girl with long red hair screamed and charged at him with her sword.

“Karui! No!” a busty woman with short blonde hair shouted, trying to stop her, but the girl didn’t listen.

“Die, shithead!” she screamed as she brought her sword down on him.

An unimpressed look was on Naruto’s face as he watched her attack him. Letting go of Raikage’s wrist now that he was weakened, he brought his left hand up and slapped at Karui with the back of his fist.

Karui’s sword shattered like glass when his backfist clashed against it, and, in the next moment, her head exploded like a watermelon when his punch smashed into her face.

Blinded by fury, her teammate, a white-haired boy with dark skin, was the next to charge at him with his sword but Naruto punched a football-sized hole into his torso, killing him on the spot.

That was like a signal that jolted the entire army of Kumogakure into charging at him.

The militaristic and battle-crazed ninjas of the Land of Lightning were just built different. There was no retreat in them, no cowardice in the face of adversity.

“Raaaarrh!”

The ground and the walls of Ame shuddered with their battle cries as they charged at Naruto with bloodlust in their eyes.

“So you have chosen death.”

The old him would have still tried to hold back and attempt to talk sense into them. But he had long since stopped being that person.

The ninja of Kumogakure invaded his homeland and attacked his village. They came here to kill his people and destroy his home. He had already given them a chance to retreat but they did not take it. Now, he had no reason to hold back against the enemy anymore.

A cloak of red chakra engulfed his body as he raised his left hand in front of him and said:

“Shinra Tensei!”

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: The Hwacha and the Weaponsmiths of Takumi Village were mentioned in chapter 19. 

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. You can join me on Discord at https://discord.gg/Xy2rxw5f if you are interested. Until next time!