[The Renegade] Chapter 26 - Freedom (Patreon)

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Chapter 26 - Freedom

Even before the creation of Hidden Villages, the Land of Rain had always been a target of oppression. Its fertile lands and industrialised capital had repeatedly been ransacked by the military of the stronger neighbouring nations. 

Things didn't change after the creation of the Village Hidden in the Rain either. Whereas before it was armies of samurai and regular soldiers that invaded the country, now it was shinobi. For the better part of a century, the Land of Rain was repeatedly invaded and pillaged by Iwa, Suna, and Konoha, and not only. 

However, now, for the first time in the history of the Land of Rain, they had successfully repelled the invasion of an enemy so much stronger than them. 

Although the armies brought by the Land of Earth and the Land of Lightning amounted to nearly 10,000 shinobi in total, the two powerful countries suffered a disastrous defeat. Kumogakure lost over 4000 of its troops, and Iwagakure lost over 3000. 

In the meantime, less than 20 people died on Amegakure’s side, those being the casualties resulting from the Iwa captain collapsing the outer wall of the city with his jutsu.

The Land of Rain’s victory shook up the world. 

⁂

Nearly two months have passed since Iwa and Kumo’s invasion of the Land of Rain and their subsequent defeat. Stories of Rinnegan’s prowess and the fact that Uzumaki Naruto could summon The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox into the outside world and perfectly control him had spread everywhere. 

Uzumaki Naruto, the Jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails, the Renegade, and the God of Amegakure. The crushing defeat that Kumo and Iwa suffered at his hands made his name infamous worldwide. 

Countries that were previously afraid of engaging in diplomatic and trading relations with the Land of Rain in fear of Iwa and Kumo’s retaliation started sending envoys to Amegakure, requesting an audience with Konan. 

Lady Konan’s brains and Uzumaki Naruto’s godlike power had ushered the Land of Rain into a golden age, into an era of prosperity and security. 

Naruto smiled as he sat on a tree branch and watched the city spread below his feet. After the Konoha team’s attempt at capturing him the previous year, Konan and Naruto did not remove all the trees that Yamato had summoned with his Mokuton techniques. 

Now, with the hospital at its centre, nearly a dozen tall towers and many other buildings were being “hugged” by trees and thick wooden vines, giving the centre of the city a rather interesting and exotic appearance. 

‘Maybe I should talk it over with Konoha and pay them for Yamato’s services?’ Naruto thought. 

The idea of Amegakure having more green and more nature was very appealing to him. The majority of the city inhabitants seemed to love the trees too considering that it had become a popular place for families and couples when they spent their time outside. It was a spot of green in a jungle of steel and concrete. 

‘I better talk to Konan about it.’

Things weren’t as simple as hiring Yamato from the Hidden Leaf and ordering him to grow trees all over the city because Amegakure's sewer systems could be damaged in the process. And that could become a disaster considering how much it rained in their country. It required serious planning and preparation. 

‘Speak of the devil,’ he thought in mild amusement as a swarm of paper butterflies converged on his location. 

He smiled when he felt two arms wrapping around his torso and her soft but sizeable mounds pressing against his back. 

“Done with work for today?” he asked as Konan walked around and plopped herself into his lap. 

“Yes,” she said, nestling herself against his chest and sighing in bliss when he wrapped his arms around her. 

“You changed your flower,” Naruto said, seeing that her hair ornament was an orange flower that day. “And your clothes are different too.”

“You noticed~”

“Are you kidding? You look like you’re glowing today,” he laughed. 

Instead of her usual black leather pants and sleeveless tunic, Konan was wearing an off-shoulders, low-cut cyan summer dress that went down to just above her knees.

It was only early spring now, so it was still a bit too early for people to wear that kind of clothing but she was a kunoichi. Chakra users weren’t as vulnerable to cold or heat as regular people. 

“What’s the name of this flower?” Naruto asked as he took a closer look at the orange flower in her hair. 

“It’s a hibiscus. You like it?”

“You know I love the orange colour. This is my favourite flower from now on!” he said, making her laugh. 

“You made yourself really pretty today.”

“Implying I’m not always pretty?” she asked.

He grinned, knowing that she was teasing him. Sometimes, it felt surreal to think that the beautifully smiling girl in his arms was the same as the gloomy and taciturn woman from a year ago. 

It wasn’t only Naruto who had changed after coming to Amegakure. His presence and his relationship with Konan had changed her too. The perpetually depressed and quiet woman had slowly transformed, blooming into a radiant and happy person, just like a flower. 

“You’re always beautiful and stylish,” he said and kissed the crown of her head. “But today I can’t take my eyes off you.”

Konan turned her head to peck him on the cheek, but he cupped her face and kissed her on the lips instead. 

“Let’s go,” she said a few moments later, breaking the kiss. 

“Is it a date?” he said in excitement. 

“Indeed it is,” she said, smiling. 

After the end of the war, Naruto found himself with very little to do. Most of the chunins and jonins that he used to train started going on missions again and went back to their ordinary lives.

With Iwagakure and Kumogakure suffering a brutal defeat, the Land of Rain proved that it was not to be messed with. Their enemies were cowed into submission, and their village’s financial situation became better than ever after they annexed the Land of Rivers and got access to the ocean. 

He couldn’t go on missions either because he was the “God of Amegakure”. He would either have to wear a henge at all times and be very careful about others not to dispel it, or wear a mask and shades at all times, while also not using any Rinnegan abilities or the jutsus that he was known for. It was a pain in the neck. 

As for Konan, she was often busy leading the village. He only got to see her in the evening because she didn’t like having him next in the office, next to her. She couldn’t focus on her work because Naruto couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life and often distracted her. 

To make a long story short, Naruto was bored. He was very bored. Hearing that Konan took half a day off to go on a date with him filled him with excitement. 

He swept her in his arms and jumped off the tall tree, flying at great speed above the village. 

“Naruto, I’m wearing a dress!” she squawked as she pushed her dress down with both hands to protect her modesty. 

He just laughed as he zoomed through the air with her in his arms. 

⁂

Time passed, and it looked like Amegakure was going to have lasting peace this time around. Despite that several months have already passed since Iwa and Kumo’s failed invasion, the two great villages didn’t show any other signs of hostility towards the Land of Rain. 

After a lengthy discussion with Konan, the two of them concluded that it was safe for them to unseal the tailed beasts from the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. 

And that was how Naruto found himself in the middle of an uninhibited swamp in the Land of Rain, far from any human settlements, and close to the border with Iwagakure's mountain range.

He made the hand seals necessary to cast the Summoning Technique and placed his hand on the ground:

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”

A large plume of smoke clouded the entire area, only for it to disperse in the next second as a titanic, crimson-red fox appeared out of thin air. 

“Is it finally time?” Kurama asked in a deep and loud voice, making the surface of the water in the swamp ripple. 

“Yes. It’s finally safe to let them out,” Naruto said. 

Then, he went through the hand seals to cast the Summoning Technique once again and said:

“Kuchioyse no Jutsu: Gedo Mazo!”

An earthquake shook the entire swamp, and large cracks appeared in the ground as two enormous hands burst out. Next, a head and a torso climbed out of the ground. When it finally stood up on its feet, the wooden monster was even taller than Kyuubi. 

The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. The Husk of the Ten-Tailed Beast. It was a humanoid monster of colossal size. Such a creature could bring about the collapse of an entire nation by itself, even without the amp of the bijuu it had absorbed. 

The husk let out a savage roar at finally getting summoned. 

“Shut up,” Naruto said, and Gedo Mazo’s roar abruptly stopped screaming.

He jumped up and flew until he was on the same level as the demonic statue’s torso. Then, an aura of blue chakra engulfed his hand as he placed his palm on Gedo Mazo’s chest. 

“Outer Path: Release!”

Gedo Mazo let out a roar that sounded like unwillingness, but it could do nothing to oppose the will of the Rinnegan. Its mouth opened wider than it should have been possible as it started throwing up the bijuu that it had devoured. 

Sealing the tailed beasts into the statue by syphoning their chakra out of jinchuuriki had been an arduous and time-consuming task, but unsealing them happened in the blink of an eye. 

One by one, the seven tailed beasts that had been captured by the Akatsuki were spit out of Gedo Mazo’s mouth. 

For a few moments, the seven bijuu looked at each other and at their surroundings, confused, not quite sure what to make of their situation. 

But then, their attention was involuntarily drawn to the massive chakra signature coming from the midst. It was powerful, heavy, and far bigger than even that of the bijuus themselves. 

The bijuu could feel a hint of warmth in it but that subtle feeling was snuffed out by how oppressive and dominating it felt. 

That chakra belonged to-

“A human?” The One-Tailed Racoon growled in a mixture of wariness and disbelief. The human’s amount of chakra was several times bigger than his!

“Before you all jump to conclusions, this is Uzumaki Naruto. He is my jinchuuriki, and he has just set you all free from the Gedo Mazo.”

The seven bijuu turned their attention to Kurama when they heard his words. 

“We are free…?” The Three-Tailed Giant Turtle said, his voice betraying his shock. 

Making a ram seal, Naruto cancelled the Gedo Mazo’s summoning, making it disappear with a plume of smoke. 

“You are free to go wherever you want,” Naruto told them. “Most of the Akatsuki are already dead-”

“Except for the woman who is now warming your bed,” Kurama butted in, laughing at his expense. 

“Not now, Kurama!” Naruto snapped at him in annoyance. 

The Fox kept to himself most of the time, but due to how bored he was after the Iwa and Kumo invasion, Naruto often went to visit Kyuubi in his home. The two of them had gotten close enough to even laugh and make fun of each other over the last few months.

The other seven bijuu didn’t miss the nature of their relationship either. Having been siblings for a thousand years, they were all well aware of Kurama’s character: prideful and arrogant, violent, impulsive, and with a deep hatred for humans. Seeing him act like that around Naruto momentarily left them at a loss for words. 

“What about Gyuki? Where is he?” the Two-Tailed Cat asked. 

“Killer Bee, his jinchuuriki, is still alive,” Naruto answered. 

“If you wanted to set us all free, couldn’t you have killed him too?” Shukaku asked. 

“Gyuki and his jinchuuriki get along well. I don’t think he would appreciate it if someone killed his human.” Nibi said.

The Four-Tailed Monkey stepped closer to Naruto and looked at him in confusion before asking:

“If you are Kurama’s jinchuuriki, how is he outside the seal? And how are you still alive?” 

“Through the power of the Rinnegan,” answered Naruto. “I could not unseal all his chakra; one of Kurama’s tails is still in my body, but he is free to roam wherever he wants.”

“The eyes of the Sage… How did you get those eyes?” Nibi asked another question. 

“They were offered to me as a gift.”

“A gift?! Who would ever offer the Eyes of the Sage as a gift?!” said the Four-Tailed Monkey incredulously. 

“It was a former member of the Akatsuki. But she turned a new leaf and decided to help me destroy the rest of the Akatsuki and set you all free,” Naruto answered.

He was talking patiently, knowing that the bijuu must have had a lot of questions after spending such a long time in absolute darkness, completely cut off from the rest of the world. 

“Setting us free… why would you do something like that?” the Seven-Tailed Beetle asked. “Ever since Hashirama Senju captured us and sold us like slaves to the rest of the Hidden Villages, humans coveted our power and sealed us in many containers in an attempt to use us for war.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” the Six-Tailed Slug and the Five-Tailed Horse chimed in too.

“Naruto doesn’t need your power. He is far stronger than any other human that came after the Old Man,” Kurama answered for him. His voice sounded as if he were boasting. “Besides, he already has me, the strongest tailed beast in the world! Why would he need any of you?”

“That insufferable arrogance of yours is still the same!” Shukaku burst in annoyance. 

“It’s always the weakest that barks the loudest. You wanna have a go at it, you little sand racoon?” Kyuubi bristled at him too, goading him to start a fight. 

“There’s more to power than one’s number of tails, Kurama!” The Four-Tailed Monkey said in an offended voice. 

“How about you prove me wrong with actions, not words, monkey? Come, I’ll take the two of you both at once!” Kurama said, laughing boisterously while the monkey and the racoon were grinding their teeth. 

“We haven’t seen each other in so long. We shouldn’t fight!” Nibi tried to play the peacemaker between the three of them. 

Naruto snickered as he watched Kurama interact with his siblings. If someone had told him a few years ago that he would one day watch Kyuubi laughing and bullying his siblings, he would have never believed it. 

“As fun as it may be to watch Kurama bullying y’all-”

“Who is bullying who?!”

“This arrogant human!”

“Figures that Kurama’s jinchuuriki would be as irritating as he is.”

“-I want to make you an offer.” Naruto continued speaking without paying any mind to their shouts.

Hearing his words, the seven of them stopped yelling at him, and the Five-Tailed Horse asked:

“What offer? Are you, after all, really seeking our power?”

“Listen to what he has to say,” Kurama told her off. “I was suspicious of him at first too, but Naruto is a man of his word. He is not like other humans.”

Naruto smiled at Kurama’s show of support. Although he wasn’t saying it, it warmed his heart to see how much the fox trusted him now. 

“I’ll start off by saying that humans will never stop hunting you.”

Sensing that the rest of bijuu were about to retort something, he preemptively raised a hand to silence them. 

“It’s a fact. You are too powerful for the leaders of the ninja war to let you roam free. I know you are all very powerful and more than capable of destroying entire armies but you are also susceptible to sealing and genjutsu.”

When he put it that way, the bijuu quieted down. They couldn’t refute his words. 

“The Akatsuki still has two members, of which one is a Uchiha, and he possesses the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Putting you under his genjutsu and controlling your mind would be a piece of cake for him. As for the other member, he can use Mokuton Release. Even if the other Hidden Villages won’t come after you, these two members of the Akatsuki are more than enough to capture you all, one by one, once again.”

The tailed beasts growled at the mention of them getting captured again. 

“I have a solution to this problem. Bind yourself to me, to my Rinnegan. Sign a contract with me, and I will protect you all with my life.”

“That was your big proposal? To bind ourselves to you?”

“Exchanging one cage for another? How very novel.”

“Yeah, I’m outta here!”

Naruto shrugged his shoulders at the bijuu's jeers. He told them in a serious voice:

“Whoever wants to go, they’re free to go. But if you end up in the hands of the enemy, don’t expect me to be as polite as I am now. Mind-controlled or not, should you attack my village in the future, I will do everything to protect my home and my people, even if it means that I need to keep you imprisoned in my own body.”

“I understand you hate humans. But not all of us are the same, just like you are not identical to each other either. I do not want to enslave you. I know you aren’t monsters or slaves to be used as weapons of war. You are people too in my eyes. So, please. At least listen to what I have to say until the end.”

Shukaku, who was among the first to turn his back to Naruto, looking as if he were about to leave, stopped in his tracks. 

A large black rod grew out of Naruto’s palm, becoming even longer than he was tall; nonetheless, for the bijuu, that black rod was no bigger than a toothpick. 

“These are chakra rods. Rods that are created through Rinnegan’s Outer Path. All you need to do is wear one of these on your body. You can wear them as earrings or piercings. It’s up to you how you do it as long as they are connected to your body. For example, Kurama wears it in one of his ears.”

“So? What’s with these rods? What are they supposed to do?” the Beetle asked. 

“They will bind you to my Rinnegan’s Animal Path. Our chakras will meld, and I will be able to summon you. You would be able to summon me to your location too if you wanted.”

“But more importantly,” Kurama cut Naruto off in order to explain what he, himself, was most excited about: “Genjutsu will no longer work on you!”

“Are you being serious?” the Three-Tailed Turtle was the first to ask. As someone who has suffered at the hands of Uchiha Obito, he understood better than most how important that was. 

“It’s as he says,” Naruto confirmed. “Due to our chakras being linked to each other through the Outer Paths rods, there is a constant exchange of chakra between me and you. Genjutsu simply cannot take hold in this situation. And if the Hidden Villages were to come at you in great numbers to overwhelm you and seal you away, you can always summon me to your location.”

“It’s true. Naruto helped me out when the Tsuchikage and nearly a thousand jonin-” Kurama began to say.

“It wasn’t one thousand.” Naruto exposed him for lying and rolled his eyes. “There were less than two hundred.”

“The Tsuchikage had the dust release bloodline limit! My bijuudamas were being evaporated by his jutsu!” Kurama shouted at him.

Naruto snickered at his prideful and defensive behaviour but didn’t continue poking fun at him. 

“You’ll be free to roam the world and go wherever you want. And don’t worry about me summoning you any time soon," he told the bijuu.

“What’s in it for you? What’s the catch? Why would you go to such lengths just to help us?” Shukaku asked, still suspicious about the whole affair. 

“All I would gain is a tail’s worth of your chakra. A bit less in your case,” Naruto answered, prompting Kurama to start howling with laughter at the Racoon, who only had one tail. 

“Damn it, Kurama, stop provoking him! You know he has the short man syndrome. If you-”

“To hell with you both!” Shukaku roared in a mixture of rage and embarrassment and suddenly fired an enormous ball of pressurised wind from hs mouth.

It was supposed to rip Naruto to shreds and tear the land asunder… but it did none of that. The enormous wind jutsu was absorbed into Naruto’s palm effortlessly. 

“Shinra Tensei!”

In the next moment, the giant racoon was sent flying through the air for over 300 metres, creating a great splash of water and mud when he finally crashed into the swamp below. 

“I suggest you all to behave,” Naruto said in a light but threatening tone to the rest of the bijuus, who were now looking at him warily. “What I said weren’t empty words. I’d rather not use violence but I won’t be as merciful the next time one of you attacks me.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not all as stupid as that pea-brained Tanuki,” the four-tailed Monkey said. “I will accept your contract.”

“Son Goku! Are you really sure??” the Beelte asked, fearing that he was too hasty in making a decision. 

“I want it too,” the Giant Turtle also said. “Other than losing some of our chakra, there are no downsides for us in this contract. I’ll gladly give up on that if I can prevent ever being mind-controlled again.”

With the Monkey and the Turtle breaking the ice and Kurama, the strongest of them all, vouching for Naruto’s integrity, the rest of the bijuu started voicing their approval too. It was a win-win scenario for them; there was no reason to refuse Naruto's offer. 

A while later, the bijuu started snickering amongst themselves as Shukaku finally made it back; the giant racoon was uninjured from being blasted away, but his entire body was wet and covered in mud. 

Their laughter only got louder when Kurama started making fun of Shukaku after he became almost half as small as he used to be once he received Naruto’s Outer Path rods and his chakra was sucked into the Rinnegan. 

⁂

Lying in a large tub filled with hot water, Naruto felt his eyes grow heavy from the blissful relaxation. 

After spending the better part of the day getting acquainted with Kurama’s siblings, learning their names, and binding them all to the Animal Path of his Rinnegan, Naruto summoned himself back to Amegakure by making use of his shadow clones. 

Now, he was taking a bath and resting as he waited for Konan to come back from her office. 

‘I really need to find a way to convince her to take it easy.’

Unlike most of the countries around them, the Land of Rain didn’t have a Daimyo. Konan was dealing with military, domestic, and diplomatic matters all by herself. She did have a number of advisors, but she was carrying all those responsibilities on her shoulders. 

‘How do I make her hire a Daimyo or something? I don’t want her to shout at me again.’

The two of them had actually gotten into an argument the other day because of that.

It was rare for the two of them to fight and disagree on things. However, Naruto truly missed her and wanted to spend more time with her. But Konan was obsessed with taking care of Amegakure and making sure that everything was perfect for the sake of the people. She was a workaholic. 

He took a deep breath and submerged himself under the water, letting out bubbles as he blew out a sigh. 

‘I should get out,’ he thought when it dawned on him that the water was starting to cool off, a sign that he had spent a long time in the bathroom. 

But, right as he was about to stand up, the door of the bathroom was pushed open so hard that it was almost blown out of its hinges. 

“Konan?! What’s wrong?” he asked when the blue-haired woman burst through the open door and rushed to the toilet, kneeling in front of it. 

His answer was a retching sound as Konan started throwing up. 

He quickly got out of the tub and wrapped a nearby towel around his waist, going to check up on her. 

“What’s wrong? What happened? Were you poisoned??”

A ninja of their calibre seldom got sick. Even more so for Konan due to her paper-like physiology. 

“No, poison shouldn’t even work on you…” he muttered to himself as he gently grabbed her short locks of hair and raised them up so they wouldn’t touch the toilet bowl while she was throwing up. 

Half a minute later, it looked like her nausea had subsided, and she stopped throwing up. 

“Ew, really? Come on!” Naruto scrunched his nose in disgust when she wiped her mouth on the towel around his waist. Despite how bad she was feeling, his reaction made her giggle.

“So what happened to you? Are you okay?” he asked now that she finally seemed capable of speaking. 

“I’m more than okay,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re… you’re… pregnant?” he asked slowly.

He couldn’t believe his ears. 

“Yes, Naruto,” she said. “We’re having babies.”

“Babies?”

“Yes, two of them. I’m pregnant with twins.”

In the next moment, Konan let out a cry of surprise and shouted Naruto’s name as he fell on his back like a sack of potatoes.

He fainted. 

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AN: I have attached a pic of Konan wearing a beautiful dress and a hibiscus flower in her hair, like in this chapter. The pic is safe for work so don't worry.