[The Renegade] Chapter 29 - Overwhelming (I) (Patreon)

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Chapter 29 - Overwhelming (I)

Many people who should have been dead were now seemingly alive, standing at Uchiha Sasuke’s side.

‘Is this the jutsu Orochimaru used to kill Sandaime? Is this Edo Tensei?’

Naruto had heard the story of how Orochimaru had summoned the First and Second Hokages to fight at his side when Sound and Sand invaded the Leaf during the Chunin Exams, and he had also seen mentions of Edo Tensei among Nagato’s jutsu scrolls. But that was the first time he was seeing the technique with his own eyes. 

‘Raising the dead and enslaving their souls to obey your commands and fight for you... how vile do you have to be to do something like that?’

Uchiha Sasuke and the Reanimated shinobi jumped off the clay dragon, landing on the surface of the lake with a splash. 

“Yo! Long time, no see,” said Sasuke, smirking in a manner that looked out of place on his face. 

Naruto glanced at him silently for a few moments, and then his eyes involuntarily jumped to Nagato who seemed to stare into space. 

“What have you come here for, Sasuke?” he asked as he turned his attention back to the Uchiha. 

“You hurt me, Naruto. Not even a ‘hello’ to your brother? Look, I even brought friends with me. Nagato, come and say ‘hi’,” Sasuke said mockingly and made a ram seal. 

In the next moment, Nagato seemed to gain consciousness, and he glanced at his surroundings, startled. 

The wide, seemingly endless lake, the island in the middle of it, and the village filled with skyscraper towers on top of it. How could he not recognise Amegakure? How could he not recognise his homeland?

As his eyes fell on Naruto, Nagato said in a surprised voice:

“Uzumaki Naruto… …is that really you?”

Only two years had passed since Nagato’s death, but, in his memory, Naruto’s appearance was strikingly different. Sure, those whisker-like birthmarks on his cheeks were unmistakable, but other than that, he had changed a lot. He was taller, and his build was broader; he was an adult now. Furthermore, his blue eyes were replaced by a pair of purple, ringed eyes: the Rinnegan. 

“Yes, it is me,” Naruto answered quietly. 

“You’re in Amegakure… Why are you here? And your eyes… are they my Rinnegan?” Nagato asked for confirmation. 

“Not long after you died, Konoha cast me out. Konan was the only one who took my side. She saved me from prison. She gave me a home. Now, Amegakure is my home, and Konan is my wife.”

Surprise gave way to disbelief, which then turned into a smile. Nagato had a hard time believing his ears. 

“This is incredible! How much time has passed since I-”

But Nagato’s words were cut in the middle, and his body turned stiff. He became unable to utter any sounds, courtesy of the Uchiha, who made a one-handed ram seal, taking his free will away once again.

“How touching!” said Sasuke, laughing mockingly. “Unfortunately, we didn’t come here for you to catch up and chat.”

“What did you come here for then, Sasuke?” asked Naruto. “Revenge? Is revenge so important that you’d stoop so low as to raise the dead and enslave them to fight for you?”

Sasuke laughed again. A crazed, maniacal laughter that didn’t stop for a long time. 

“Revenge? I’ve already had my revenge. Konoha is no more. Nagato here-” he said and patted Nagato on the shoulder "had the honour of turning the Leaf into a crater for a second time.”

Naruto’s hands clenched into fists. He could tell with his Negative Emotion Sensing that Sasuke wasn’t lying. 

“So no, I’m not here for revenge, Naruto-kun. You have something that interests me. You have the Rinnegan. You see, I’ve been trying to get the Rinnegan naturally by evolving my Mangekyo Sharingan, but I haven’t been successful so far, and, sadly, I’m not patient enough to wait for another 40 years before I get my hands on the Rinnegan. That’s where you come in.”

Sasuke barely finished saying that when Naruto raised his hand and said:

“Bansho Ten’in!”

Unfortunately, Nagato was quick to jump in front of Sasuke and use the Preta Path to cancel his technique. 

“Tsk! Tsk!” Sasuke clicked his tongue, and his Mangekyo Sharingan came to life. “You’ll have to do far better than that if you want to catch me.”

“I should’ve killed you in the Land of Rivers when I had the chance! I won’t make the same mistake again. You won’t be leaving this place alive, Sasuke,” Naruto said coldly. 

Sasuke’s arrogant facial expression cracked when an eerie feeling of heaviness began pressuring him.

A cloak of crimson chakra started bubbling around Naruto’s body. His whisker marks thickened and darkened, and his teeth became sharp, like those of a beast, giving him a feral look. Furthermore, an orange pigmentation appeared around his Rinnegan eyes, betraying the fact that he had entered Sage Mode. 

That killing intent and that chakra pressure made Sasuke involuntarily step back, his back and forehead breaking into a sweat. 

‘Is this the power of the Rinnegan? No… that’s just the pressure of his chakra. Malevolent, heavy, and enormous… it’s just like that of Uchiha Madara… No, it’s even worse.’

‘Freaking monster… but it doesn’t matter. I have more than one monster on my side too.’

As he thought of that and looked at the numerous Reanimated Shinobi at his side, Sasuke regained his calm, and he spoke in a mocking tone again:

“Sasuke? Sure, he won’t be leaving this place alive… But that’s because Sasuke isn’t even alive to begin with.”

Those words startled Naruto, especially since he couldn’t detect any lies with his Negative Emotion Sensing. 

“The snake tail, the ghostly-pale scally skin, and the Edo Tensei… are you Orochimaru?”

“You’re getting warmer. But not quite,” he laughed. “As fun as it would be to keep you guessing, I’ll spare you the torture. I am Kabuto. Now that introductions are out of the way, it’s time for you to make a decision, Naruto-kun. What is it going to be? Will you give me the Rinnegan willingly? Or will I have to destroy Amegakure and kill your pregnant wife before I gouge your eyes out?”

When Kabuto said those words, Uzumaki Nagato’s emotionless face twisted, but he still couldn’t move a muscle. 

“Or maybe you’re confident in the Four Crimson Ray Formation that you conjured around the village? True, that may have posed a serious problem if I didn’t have Uzumaki Nagato on my side.”

As soon as Kabuto said that, Nagato’s body moved, and he shunshined away, heading towards the barrier. 

Naruto’s eyes widened, understanding what Kabuto ordered Nagato to do: to use his Preta Path to absorb the chakra of the Formation. It was, pretty much, the only way that the Four Crimson Ray Formation could be destroyed.

However, right as he lunged after Nagato, a very tall man with dark skin and packed with muscles appeared in front of him in a flash. His robust body was covered in an aura of lightning, and he bore a striking resemblance to the Fourth Raikage that Naruto had personally paralysed. 

It was the infamous Third Raikage, known worldwide in the past for his “Strongest Shield and Strongest Spear” combo: his impenetrable body, and his unstoppable lightning release piercing technique. 

“Hell Stab!” the Third Raikage shouted as he performed his strongest attack, the one-finger Hell Stab. 

“Out of my way!” Naruto shouted, and the air seemed to distort around his fist as Natural Energy gathered in his hand. 

Twisting their bodies, both Naruto and the Third Raikage managed to dodge each other’s attacks. The Third Raikage’s Hell Stab brushed harmlessly past Naruto’s ribs, and Naruto’s punch went past the Raikage’s ear too, missing his face. 

Or so it had seemed. 

Despite that Naruto’s punch missed, and in spite of the fact that the Raikage’s body was covered by the Lightning Armour, the Raikage’s head exploded like a watermelon.

Even as Naruto ran past the incapacitated Edo Raikage, a third arm grew out of his back and touched Raikage's body.

Kabuto watched in shock how, in one fluid movement, Naruto not only killed the Reanimated Third Raikage with one punch, but he also ripped the soul out of his body with his Asura Path arm. 

“Kill him!” Kabuto shouted, and the Reanimated shinobi at his side burst into action. 

Large amounts of iron sand flooded the shores of the Lake of Ame, courtesy of Sasori’s Kazekage puppet, but it all became inert the moment it tried to wrap itself around Naruto’s legs. 

“Amaterasu!” Uchiha Itachi also said. 

The Second and Third Tsuchikage both fired a concentrated beam of their Particle Style, Deidara hurled exploding clay birds at him, Kakuzu shot a pressurized blast of wind, Zabuza cast a Water Dragon… and so on and so forth. It looked as if the world was ending as the sky was covered with dozens of elemental and kekkei genkai attacks, all aiming at Naruto. 

Nevertheless, they all amounted to nothing. 

“Gakido!”

All the attacks seemed to converge and pour like in a funnel, straight into Naruto’s Asura Path arm, absorbed through his Preta Path. 

When the Gold and Silver Brothers all of a sudden appeared at each of Naruto’s sides and swung their treasured tools at him, Naruto took on a rather grotesque appearance: 3 more hands popped out of his torso, for a total of 6. 

Gingaku and Kinkau’s treasured tools were blocked by two Asura hands, and Naruto’s Sage Mode strength was so high that they couldn’t budge. The two infamous brothers didn’t even have time to react before another two hands grabbed their souls and ripped them out of their bodies. 

A rain of poisoned senbons darkened the sky and hit many of the Reanimated shinobi as Sasori fired his entire arsenal of thrown weapons at Naruto from afar.  The Edo Tensei shinobi would recover in no time, but that wasn't the cast for Naruto. 

Knowing how dangerous poison could be for him, Naruto was left with no choice other than to make use of his Deva Path:

“Shinra Tensei!”

The rain of senbons was blasted away, and so were the nearby Edo Tensei shinobi too. He was unharmed.

However, he would be unable to use his Deva Path for 5 seconds, and Kabuto didn’t miss the chance to take full advantage of that weakness. 

A white-haired young man with bones protruding from all over his body suddenly appeared behind Naruto and stabbed his bone spear-like arm at him. At the same time, Kakuzu’s numerous Jiongu threads came out from the ground to impale him. 

Chyo’s and Sasori’s puppets lunged at Naruto with their melee weapons too, and so did the three Swordsmen of the Mist that had been reanimated too. 

A thunderclap rang as Naruto slapped two of his palms together, and a blinding wave of lightning was discharged from his body, obliterating the ninja puppets and electrocuting to the point of death every single one of the Reanimated shinobi in his surroundings. 

“Nagato!” Naruto screamed, hoping against the impossible that the reanimated Uzumaki would hear his voice and stop. 

Alas, the older Uzumaki was not in control of his actions. 

Despite the fact that Naruto was successfully fending off his enemies and ripping their souls out of their bodies with every chance he got, their group attacks, both ninjutsu and physical, were making it impossible for him to catch up to the redhead. 

“Shinra Tensei!”

Kabuto and dozens of his reanimated shinobi were blasted away violently as Naruto cast an overpowered Deva Path technique once the five-second cooldown was over. 

Nevertheless, he was too late. By then, Nagato had already reached the Four Crimson Ray Formation, and his hand was only an inch away from touching the wall of the barrier jutsu, mere seconds away from destroying it. 

"Do it, Nagato!" Kabuto yelled from the safety of his armoured Susanoo and focused his entire will on the Edo Tensei technique to ensure that his reanimated shinobi would not disobey him.

However, Nagato’s body froze. Even though Kabuto had overridden his conscience and ordered him to destroy the Four Crimson Ray Formation, his body would not move. 

Kabuto became mute with shock when Nagato unexpectedly let out a scream, and his arm retreated from the formation. 

“I… I won’t!” he screamed.  “I will not!”

Kabuto, Naruto, the Rain shinobi watching the fights from the walls of Amegakure, and even the Reanimated corpses were all stunned as Nagato shoved his arm into his own chest and screamed:

“Ningendo!”

Nagato howled in agony as he tore his own soul out of his body, using the Rinnegan’s Human Path on himself. 

His love for his country, his loyalty to Konan, and hearing that she was pregnant pushed him beyond his limits. In a feat that went beyond logic and reasoning, for a brief moment, Nagato broke out of Edo Tensei’s absolute control, only long enough for him to commit suicide.

“KABUTO!” 

A scream erupted from Naruto’s chest as he spread his 6 arms apart, and 6 spiralling spheres of chakra appeared in his hands, taking on the form of enormous wind, fire, lightning, lava, boil, and magnetic release Bijuudama. 

“You, who are toying with other people’s lives! You, who spit on their sacrifice and tarnish their eternal rest!”

An ugly look appeared on Kabuto’s face as his instincts warned him of mortal peril. 

Clad in his orange Susanoo and holding the Yata Mirror, Uchiha Itachi stepped in front of Kabuto to protect him. Kabuto himself was surrounded by his Susanoo too and he even placed his arms on the ground, summoning three Rashomon gates. 

“You will die, Kabuto! You will die, and no one will mourn you!” Naruto shouted in anger.

Lastly, the Second and Third Tsuchikage put their arms on the ground as well and summoned an enormous mountain in front of Kabuto, a mountain whose peak rose even higher than the tallest skyscrapers of Amegakure.

“No one will remember you after I rip your soul out and tear it to shreds!”

If it had not been for the fact that Amegakure was being protected by the Four Crimson Ray Formation, Naruto would have never fired such a reckless attack in the vicinity of the village. 

The world went white. 

The mountain summoned by the Second and Third Tsuchikage was erased from existence, and Uchiha Itachi’s supposedly absolute defence failed as he, his Yata Mirror, and his Susanoo were obliterated.

The three enormous Rashomon gates that Kabuto had summoned didn’t fare any better, getting blasted apart like sand in the wind. Kabuto’s Susanoo was shattered like brittle glass too, the force of the 6 elemental bijuudama exploding at the same time having been too powerful for it to withstand it. 

The walls of the Four Crimson Ray Formation twisted and undulated dangerously, and a huge chunk of the lake was evaporated together with the bed lake and the rest of the island outside the barrier jutsu, leaving an enormous, miles-wide crater behind. 

All the Reanimated Shinobi had been obliterated by the explosions as well, but they were starting to regenerate. 

As the waters of the lake started filling the huge gap left by the explosion, Naruto rushed at the remains of the Edo Tensei corpses and began ripping their souls out. In their state, they couldn’t put up any resistance; they were killed instantly. Dozens of them lost their lives every second. 

“You won’t get away!” Naruto shouted when he was done finishing off the regenerating Edo Tensei. 

He realised thanks to his Sage Mode senses, that Kabuto had somehow managed to survive the explosion and that he had turned himself into a liquid form and blended with the waters of the lake, trying to slither away from the battlefield unnoticed. 

“Bansho Ten’in!”

Panic washed over Kabuto as he felt himself getting pulled out of the lake despite being in a liquid form. 

“I didn’t want to do this, but you left me no choice!” he shouted and slapped his palms together, like in prayer.  “Kuchyose no Jutsu!”

A white wooden coffin came out of the water, and Kabuto slammed into it with a heavy thud, but fortunately, it withstood the impact and also stopped the pulling force of Naruto’s technique. 

Kabuto let out a breath of relief and then actually started laughing when he noticed that Naruto seemed to have become petrified once the coffin’s lid dropped, revealing the shinobi inside.

“Haha! Are you scared? Is the mighty Renegade terrified?”

“What happened, Naruto-kun? Did the cat get your tongue?”

“Why so serious?”

A mane of spiky black hair, red Mangekyo Sharingan eyes, wearing a crimson red armour consisting of numerous metal plates, and holding a Kama in his left hand and a Gunbai in his right hand—that shinobi was unmistakable. 

His enormous statue in the Valley of the End was a sight that not one person in the Land of Fire had not seen at least once in their lives. 

Everyone would be able to recognise that man. He was Uchiha Madara. 

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While Kabuto started laughing, thinking that Naruto was petrified with shock at the fact that he had summoned the legendary Uchiha Madara with his Edo Tensei technique, the reality was that Naruto’s mind was somewhere else entirely at that moment. 

It was the Rinnegan’s shared vision with his Shadow Clones that left Naruto stunned, not Uchiha Madara’s appearance. 

Right after he cast Bansho Ten’in to pull Kabuto out of the lake, Naruto saw through the eyes of his Shadow Clone how Konan started wincing from the contractions and the nurse and the midwife rushing to her. 

“Naruto, hold my hand, please,” Konan pleaded. 

“I’m sorry, Konan. I’m just a clone. Boss is not here,” the shadow clone said as he gave Konan his hand. 

Seeing as it was the clone that Naruto had left to watch over Konan, Naruto had infused a significant amount of his chakra into it, so it was not going to dispel just from Konan squeezing his hand a bit. 

The midwife and the nurse found a position for Konan to settle into. 

“Lady Konan, get ready!” the midwife warned her.

Konan winced and let out a moan of pain as the contractions increased in intensity and frequency. She was just about to give birth.

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Unfortunately, as much as Naruto would have loved to keep paying attention to the scene of his wife giving birth, he couldn’t afford to do so. Not when Kabuto was there, in front of him, possessing Uchiha Sasuke’s body. Not when one of the two most feared shinobi in history came to life in front of his eyes. 

“Finally, he managed to groom that Nagato brat and resurrect me,” was the first thing that Madara said as he stepped out of the coffin. 

“Unfortunately, that is not the case. You were brought back to Edo Tensei,” Kabuto said as he walked from behind the coffin for Madara to see him. 

Before Kabuto could even react, he found himself in a chokehold. 

“Edo Tensei? Who are you?” Madara asked as he raised him in the air from his neck, his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan eyes flaring. 

“I am your summoner,” Kabuto said, quickly liquifying himself to get out of Madara’s grasp and put some distance between the two of them. 

“What is going on?” Madara asked another question, frowning as he glanced at his surroundings. 

All he could see with his naked eye was just a vast expanse of water, a lake whose shores could not be seen, and in the middle of it, an island with a city that was covered by an enormous Four Crimson Ray Formation. 

“Where are we? Answer me!”

“We are in the Land of Rain,” Kabuto said. 

“Where is Obito? Where is Nagato? Who the hell are you, exactly? Your name means nothing to me.”

“I used to be Obito’s collaborator,” Kabuto lied with a straight face. “But both Obito and Nagato are dead, and so is Zetsu too. All three of them lost their lives at his hands.”

“So that’s why he has the Rinnegan?” Madara made his own assumptions. “I see.”

Madara walked towards Naruto at a leisurely pace, stopping only 5 meters away from him. 

“You have something that belongs to me, boy.”

Seeing Naruto not replying right away, Madara frowned. 

“You dare be distracted while you’re on the battlefield? While I am talking to you?”

He let out a shout as he threw his large gunbai at Naruto like a tomahawk. 

But Naruto didn’t even attempt to dodge. He caught the gunbai firmly in his hand and threw it behind him, suddenly pulling Madara towards him due to the chain that connected the gunbai's handle to Madara's wrist.

Although initially caught off-guard by Naruto’s monstrous physical strength, it wasn’t like he had never fought a Sage Mode user before. Hashirama Senju, his greatest rival, had been a Sage too.  The Uchiha burst into laughter as he was pulled forward by the chain of his gunbai and brandished the kama he was holding in his other hand, swinging it at Naruto’s head. 

An Outer Path black rod grew out of Naruto’s palm, and he blocked Madara’s kama with it. 

“Not bad! Not bad at all for a kid!” the Uchiha shouted in excitement, his fighting spirit rising at the prospect of facing a strong adversary. 

Madara suddenly let go of his kama and brought his right hand to his mouth, making a one-handed seal. A lightning needle shot from his mouth at the speed of light straight toward Naruto’s face. 

However, the lightning needle sizzled against an invisible barrier as Naruto absorbed it with his Preta Path. Simultaneously, he slammed his forehead into Madara’s nose, making him stumble back disoriented before he followed up with an uppercut to the stomach. Madara’s red metallic armour shattered from the force of the hit and he was slammed back violently, rolling and flipping over the surface of the lake like a skipping stone.  A Toad Sage Mode user's physical strength was fearsome. 

"As I thought, using Ninjutsu against a Rinnegan user is useless," Madara said as he got back on the surface of the lake and walked back while waiting for his caved-in to regenerate. "It looks like you aren't entirely clueless when it comes to using that doujutsu. What's your name, boy?"

Naruto sneered at him. “Why does it even matter? You’re dead. And I’ll send you back to hell soon enough too.”

“Cheeky brat. I hope you’re at least half as good at fighting as you are at talking.”

The two of them stopped flapping their gums and rushed at each other. 

Having recovered his gunbai, Madara swung it at him like a club, but an Asura arm grew out of Naruto's shoulder and caught the blunt weapon again, just like before. However, this time, Madara picked up on Naruto's following move with his Sharingan and dodged his punch, before throwing a cross of his own. 

Making full use of the enhanced danger sense of his Sage Mode, Naruto was able to react in time and tilt his head back, Madara’s punch brushing just past his chin. 

Right away, another arm grew out of Naruto’s torso, and a Rasengan formed in the Asura hand before he slammed it into Madara’s gut. 

However, Madara’s Sharingan predicted that move again, and his eyes suddenly changed, turning into the steely purple colour of the Rinnegan. 

Realising that his Rasengan sneak attack failed, Naruto pulled all the stops and went all out.

For the first time in his life, Madara found his godlike eyes unable to keep up with his opponent’s movements because Naruto started attacking him with 6 arms at the same time, all with different patterns. 

Madara managed to parry the 1st hand punching at him, weaved through the jabs thrown by the 2nd hand, and deflected the 3rd hand that was wielding an Outer path black rod the size of a knife too, but the Uchiha was physically unable to react in time to 4th arm that punched him straight in the throat, crushing his windpipe. 

Although Uchiha Madara had an Edo Tensei body, having his windpipe shattered wasn’t a light injury. In the next moment, while his body was regenerating his wound, Naruto’s 6 arms turned into a blur as he started punching, stabbing, and slashing at Madara ruthlessly, not leaving him even a split second to recover.

Despite his disbelief at seeing the legendary Uchiha Madara getting beaten like a dog in close-quarters combat, Kabuto was quick to act while the two were locked in combat and unable to pay attention to him. 

"Sage Art: White Rage Technique!" he shouted, and a red serpentine dragon of light came out of his mouth, carrying a purple bead in its claws.

The red dragon started coiling around the bead at an extreme speed, and a blinding light exploded along with a sharp, deafening sound. 

Blinded and deafened by the unexpected Snake Sage Mode Jutsu, Naruto’s tempo of attacks broke, and Madara slammed the edge of his gunbai into his body, hurling him back violently into the wall of the barrier jutsu surrounding Amegakure. 

If Kabuto expected Madara to thank him for intervening in the fight to help him, he was sorely mistaken because the Uchiha raised his Kama at him and shouted:

“Do you want to die?”

“Sorry for-”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. Don’t ruin my fun, weakling. This is my fight. On account of the fact that you’re a Uchiha too, I’ll spare you this once. But there won’t be a second time.”

Having said his piece, Madara turned his back to him and started walking towards Naruto. 

‘That’s why I didn’t want to summon him,’ Kabuto thought as he glared at Madara hatefully. ‘I knew he was a wildcard. I knew that he can’t be controlled.’

He almost lost control with a lesser version of Edo Tensei Madara when the Uchiha didn’t even have his sense of reason back. He had known the risks of summoning someone like him, but Uzumaki Naruto had given him no choice. 

‘Let him be arrogant all he wants. Once he is done killing Uzumaki Naruto for me, I’ll just cancel the technique. Ultimately, I am his summoner. His fate is in my hands.’

"You still good to go?" Madara said, smirking at Naruto, who was breathing heavily as he picked himself up from the ground. Unlike the reanimated Uchiha, he did not have the benefit of an immortal body. "Don't worry about that guy. He won't intervene anymore. So come! Let's fight to our hearts' content!


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AN: If you're wondering why Kabuto didn't summon Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen, and Minato, it's because he does not know that Naruto had freed them from the Shinigami's belly. As far as Kabuto knows, all 4 Hokage are still sealed in the Shinigami's stomach.