[The Renegade] Chapter 7 - Vow (Patreon)

Chapter 7 - Vow

"Konan, I-... I don’t know-" Naruto said, overwhelmed by the importance of the request she had just made.

"You're carrying the dreams of both Yahiko and Nagato. You are their legacy. I want you to have Nagato’s Rinnegan. Please," she pleaded, her eyes boring into his soul.

Those words made his grip on her hands subconsciously tighten as he looked down, unable to keep eye contact with her anymore.

"But I’m not the same person I used to be. I-..."

His voice shaking, he became silent.

"I’m sorry, Konan. You and Nagato believed in me and I promised Nagato that I would never give up on Jiraiya-sensei’s dream of peace... ...but I can’t believe in that dream anymore. Even before, I didn’t have an answer to Nagato’s questions. All I had was optimism and hope that things will be better one day… But Konoha took that away from me… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry."

His voice broke towards the end, and, against his will, tears started falling from his eyes.

Konan did not say anything in response. Letting go of his hands, she wrapped her arms around him, gently nudging him into her embrace.

That silent gesture of affection and support was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back. All composure was lost as he buried his face in her shoulder and cried his eyes out.

All the frustration, all the anger, all the sadness, and all the suffering that had been bottling up inside of him for years were let out at that moment. He had never cried in front of other people until then. He had always shown everyone a strong front and a happy face. It was the first time he broke in front of someone else like that.

It took him a long time to finally calm down and for his tears to dry, but Konan didn’t say a word through it all, only offering him a shoulder to cry on.

When he finally regained his composure and broke from her embrace, he looked down, too embarassed to meet her eyes.

"There is no shame in crying. We all cry sometimes," Konan said softly, knowing what he was feeling at that moment. "Some of your pain, I understand it. Growing up as an orphan, being betrayed, and struggling to make ends meet. As a jinchuuriki, you must have had a tough life. Even so, you are here. You have survived; you have persevered. You’re not crying because you’re weak. It’s because you’ve been strong for too long."

Her words nearly filled his eyes with tears again.

"I know you will overcome this moment too. I believe in you, Naruto," Konan said. Gently cupping his cheek with her hand, she raised his head to look him in the eye. "If you doubt yourself and if you think that you are unworthy, remember that Nagato and I have entrusted our dreams to you because we believed in you. If you can’t believe in yourself now, believe in Nagato, who has put his faith in you. Believe in me. I will never abandon you, Naruto."

That last sentence made his lower lip tremble. It was as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. It was as if she could read his heart like an open book.

"You’re carrying Nagato’s and Yahiko’s dreams of peace. I will repeat the promise that I made to you back in Konoha. Even if the whole shinobi world is out to get you, Amegakure and I will stand at your side."

That declaration left him speechless for a while.

"World peace… …I don’t have an answer for that. Never had. I realized over the past few weeks how immature and naive I used to be," Naruto said eventually. "So, before thinking about peace and prosperity for the world at large, I should find a solution to Amegakure first."

"What-, what are you doing?" Konan said startled when Naruto suddenly dropped to his knees in front of her and took her hand in his.

"I don’t think I deserve Nagato’s gift. But I will believe in you two who have put your faith in me," he said and he brought the back of her hand to his forehead. "Nagato’s eyes - I will use them to protect Amegakure. I swear. As long as I draw breath, I will protect you. It’s a promise of a lifetime."

"Stand up, please!" Konan said, and Naruto got to witness the look of her flustered face for the first time.

Seeing the faint rosiness blooming in her normally pale cheeks, he couldn’t take his eyes off her for a while. A mixture of feelings blossomed in his heart. Was it gratitude for her support and kindness? Was it amazement at her porcelain-like beauty? Was it admiration for her faithfulness and loyalty? Or could that actually be…

He paused, not daring to continue that train of thought. Was there truly a need to put a name to it? What he felt at the moment was enough. All he knew was that for the first time since he was thrown into the Blood Prison, he was relieved and… almost happy.

They were silent on their way back to Konan’s office. Even so, it was not uncomfortable. Naruto couldn’t put his finger on it, but even he knew that a subtle change had occurred in his relationship with Konan. She was no longer just Ame's leader and her saviour for him. She became something more.

⁂

"Before we infiltrate the village, please keep in mind one thing: don’t underestimate Amegakure," Kakashi said when he stopped and turned to look at the rest of the members of his team. 

"Amegakure may not be as powerful as the Five Elemental Nations, and, individually, Ame Shinobi may not be as strong as you, but they are numerous. Furthermore, they are very skilled in the arts of genjutsu and assassination. Last but not least, remember that we are in the middle of enemy territory. Taking Naruto back by force should be our last resort. If Amegakure mobilises all their forces, we might not come out of this alive. We can’t hope to take on all of them by ourselves."

Back in his days as an ANBU captain, Kakashi had not had to make such obvious remarks, but with inexperienced people like Sakura and Tenten or muscle heads like Rock Lee and Gai in his team, he felt the need to remind everyone how dangerous and delicate their mission was. It was not deemed an S-class mission for no reason.

"Gai, if you will-" Kakashi said.

Gai bit his thumb to the point where he drew blood before going through a series of handseals and saying:

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

A big plume of smoke filled the surroundings, and a few moments later, everyone could see an enormous tortoise appear in front of their eyes. Its head alone was almost as big as a house.

"It’s been ages since you’ve last summoned me, boy. What’s the occasion?" a loud female voice came from the huge tortoise, startling almost everyone there.

"Haha, it’s good to see you, Granny Kameko. I have a favour to ask."

"...Of course you do," the tortoise said.

Gai coughed into his fist and cleared his throat before saying:

"We need to infiltrate Amegakure. But it’s almost impossible to go there on foot without them detecting us."

Amegakure was surrounded from all sides by an enormous lake, and the only way to get there on foot was through two bridges. Of course, as shinobi, they could walk on water or even swim underwater for longer periods of time without needing to breathe as often as civilians would but that would not stop them from being detected. Even after Pain’s death, Amegakure’s security was still top-notch.

"I could do it, but you do know the price, yes?"

"Of course I do. Then, I’ll be relying on you, Granny Kameko!" Gai said and bowed from the waist.

Tenten, Sakura, and Neji instinctively stepped back when the huge tortoise suddenly opened her mouth.

"Gai-sensei, don’t tell me you’re expecting us to-" Tenten began to say only for Gai to grab her by the back of her neck like a kitten and throw her into the tortoise’s huge maw.

"We don’t have time to waste. Everyone, step inside," Gai said, and, although reluctantly, the rest listened to his words and let themselves get swallowed by the gigantic summoned creature.

Once everyone got inside, the boss tortoise closed her mouth, and her size unexpectedly shrank until she was no bigger than a palm-sized turtle.

⁂

"I swear to god, I’ll never forgive you for this, sensei!" Tenten said in an angry whisper while trying to wring her soaked clothes.

After she took the Konoha shinobi and kunoichi in her belly and shrank her size, the Boss Tortoise swam through the lake and went up one of the sewage pipes until they arrived in the middle of the village.

By the time they were spat out, everyone’s hair and clothes were soaked with saliva and other liquids from the tortoise’s stomach.

Sakura was gritting her teeth too, but she knew better than to make a scene.

"How is it outside, Neji?" Yamato asked the Hyuuga who was checking their surroundings with the Byakugan.

"There are only civilians as far as I can see. We seem to be close to a shopping district."

"Alright. I’ll go out of the sewers alone and bring back someone we can interrogate," Kakashi said.

"...Are we going to torture someone?" Rock Less said, gulping nervously.

Being in the middle of his first S-class mission made his imagination run wild.

"We don’t need to torture anyone. Kakashi can just use his Sharingan genjutsu to force out any information he needs, painlessly," Yamato explained, and Rock Lee secretly sighed in relief.

⁂

At the same time, in another part of the village, Naruto was sleeping soundly despite being in the middle of the day.

The eye-transplant surgery was not a difficult operation for the advanced medical techniques of the shinobi, but the patient still had to be administered an anaesthetic and put to sleep for it.

While the operation had been quick and successful, Naruto had yet to come out of his slumber. Instead, his consciousness moved to another place.

The ankle-deep pool of water on the floor, the sound of dripping water, the semi-darkness, and the numerous pipes running along the walls made it impossible for him not to recognise what that place was.

"Whoah!!" he shouted startled when he looked at his reflection in the water flooding the floor and involuntarily took a few steps back.

Instead of the bright blue irises he had inherited from his father, the cold, steely purple colour of the Rinnegan dwelled now in his eye sockets.

‘What would baa-chan think if she saw me like this now? Or Sakura or Kakashi-sensei?’ he absent-mindedly asked himself but he dismissed that thought right away. With how things were between him and Konoha at that moment, it was irrelevant.

‘Ah, no matter,’ he thought, shrugging. It's not like I’m going to see them any time soon. More importantly, why am I here?’

After his father repaired and strengthened the seal, his connection with Kyuubi was cut off almost completely. Nevertheless, he figured that him being there had something to do with the fox.

And his thoughts were on the money because, when he finally arrived in front of the enormous gates, Kyuubi’s enormous face was stuck to the bars, his malevolent eyes watching him intently.

"How did you get the eyes of the Sage?"

"What’s it to you?" Naruto shot back bluntly.

Kyuubi growled as he stood up on all fours and started circling around his cage restlessly.

"HOW DID YOU GET THE RINNEGAN?" he roared again and slammed his clawed fist into the gates violently.

Naruto observed the bijuu’s actions silently.

"You look…scared."

It was the first time he had seen the Fox behave like that. Usually, it was just hatred and contempt. Sometimes, it was hatred and wariness - like the last time Uchiha Sasuke came face-to-face with him due to his Sharingan. But it was never outright fear.

Kyuubi didn’t reply, but his growls increased in intensity, his slit crimson eyes glaring murderously at his jailer.

Naruto let out a sigh and sat down on the water in a cross-legged position. Whether it was because of the anaesthesia or because of the fact that his new Rinnegan eyes were draining a large amount of chakra from him, he wasn’t sure why but he was exhausted.

"I thought you could see everything through my eyes. You always knew the perfect moment to push your chakra into my pathways to make me go berserk or to heal me."

"I can’t see anything. Not anymore. There is only silence. There is only darkness."

Before the fight against Pain, Kyuubi had been able to see everything that happened outside through Naruto’s eyes. After Jiraiya weakened Naruto’s seal, Kyuubi could even feel Naruto’s emotions and some of his thoughts.

However, after Minato repaired and strengthened the seal, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was cut off almost completely from Naruto’s senses. He didn’t know anything that transpired in the several weeks that followed Pain’s invasion. He didn’t know about Naruto’s imprisonment, his defection from Konoha, or his new allegiance to Amegakure.

Naruto winced when he heard that. After spending nearly a week in solitary confinement at the Blood Prison, he gained a new understanding of what Kyuubi must’ve felt about being imprisoned.

‘And he’s been imprisoned for many years. For decades… Nagato was right. If you don’t share someone’s pain, you can never understand them.’

Standing up, he came closer to the gates and looked into the fox’s eyes searchingly.

"I got these eyes as a gift from-"

"Gift?! You don’t deserve those eyes!" Kyuubi screamed, barely able to contain his rage. "Despicable humans! You’re not worthy to have HIS eyes! You’re not worthy!" Kyuubi roared and smashed his claws against the gates again. He was so enraged that he was panting.

"I know that," Naruto said quietly.

His answer took Kyuubi completely by surprise, and he became silent.

"Until not long ago, I was just an immature idealist. I didn’t see the world for what it was… No, deep down, I’ve always known, I’ve always seen it. But I chose to ignore it. All I thought of was to bring Sasuke back to Konoha and become the Hokage. Life was simple when I had the horse tacks on my eyes."

"What happened after Akatsuki’s invasion?" Kyuubi asked, his voice much calmer than before, curiosity winning over rage.

Naruto didn’t hide anything. He told him about Uzumaki Nagato’s change of heart at the end. He told him about Konoha’s betrayal only a few weeks after he saved everyone’s lives. He told Kyuubi about how they tried to take him back by force and how they’ve now sent teams to capture him. And he also told him about Konan and how he became a rogue nin and sided with Amegakure.

"I told Konan that I don’t deserve Nagato’s eyes. I’m not worthy to carry their dreams of peace. The world we live in is ruled by hatred. Look at us too: you were imprisoned in this seal by the First Hokage. In hatred, when you broke out, you killed my mother and tried to kill me too. But then you were sealed again inside of me, you were imprisoned against your will once more."

After making a pause to catch his breath, he continued:

"World peace is too far away. Is that even possible?" he said rhetorically. "How can I dream of world peace when I can’t even make peace with you, who share my body, or secure the Land of Rain’s well-being?"

Man and Fox were silent for some time, deep in thought.

"Do you know of a way to weaken the seal a little?" Naruto asked after a while.

"Why would you want to do that?" Kyuubi said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at him.

"I was thrown into prison a few weeks ago too, I spent most of my time there in the hole. Now I understand a little what it’s like for you to be imprisoned in this place, especially when it’s so unfair for you too. Yondaime’s chakra remnant told me you were being controlled by the Sharingan the night that you attacked Konoha."

Kyuubi growled at the reminder of that night.

"I can’t trust you enough to open the gates completely. After all, I don’t want to die just yet. I made a promise. I vowed to Konan that I would protect her for the rest of my life. I promised that I would protect Amegakure… but, at the same time, I don’t want you to suffer any more either."

"I’m not a seal master. I don’t know," Kyuubi said, this time his voice becoming rather low and quiet.

"I’ll try asking Konan about it when I wake up. Nagato was good with fuinjutsu too, from what I know. Maybe there is a solution in the scrolls and books he left behind."

With that, he turned to leave. But after taking a few steps, Naruto stopped and said:

"It won’t be in a few days, it won’t be in a few weeks either. I don’t know how long it is going to take me, but I promise that one day, I will set you free. Not just you but the rest of the bijuu too. You aren’t as mindless or insane as everyone thinks you are. You shouldn’t be used as weapons… you shouldn’t be imprisoned."

⁂

"How do you feel?" someone asked, and Naruto recognised that breathy, warm vocal timbre right away. It was Konan.

"I feel… kinda dizzy," Naruto said, a tired smile appearing on his face.

"You will probably need a few days for your body to become accustomed to the Rinnegan’s drain."

"Your voice is so beautiful. It’s calming and soothing; it sounds like music," Naruto unexpectedly said, startling Konan.

‘Is he still not fully awake? Is he still feeling the after-effects of the anaesthesia?' Konan thought. He had never complimented her so out of the blue until then and he had been living in Amegakure for several weeks already.

"You think so?" Konan asked.

"Of course. I’d never lie to you, Konan. You’re my favourite person in the whole world now!" Naruto said with a sunny smile.

‘Yes, it’s definitely the anaesthesia’s after-effects!’ Konan reasoned.

"But why is it dark? And why am I tired?" Naruto slurred and tried to take off the bandages covering his eyes.

"No, wait, don’t take them off," Konan said, and she grabbed his hands, preventing him from ripping off the bandages. "You’re not fully healed yet. Doctors said you’ll have to keep them at least for 1 or 2 days."

"Ooh. Okaaay," he said. "But how can I see you smile if my eyes are closed?"

When waking up from anaesthesia, people often speak without any filters or inhibitions. In fact, that was also an interrogation technique that some shinobi used in the past when the traditional methods of extracting information (like torture and genjutsu) didn’t work - making use of drugs to induce a state of delirium in the prisoners and weaken their mental defences.

Konan rarely smiled, much less laughed, in her daily life. Most of her subordinates have never even seen anything except a stoic expression on her face. However, at that moment, she found herself giggling at his words. His loony smile, his sunny disposition, and his innocent compliments were positively adorable.

"You will see me smile tomorrow," she said, ruffling his hair gently.

"You promise? I want to see you smile eeevery day!"

"I can’t make any promises, but I will try," she conceded.

"I spoke with Kyuubi when I was asleep, y’know? He was reeealy mad. Shouting something about the Sage’s eyes."

Konan’s expression immediately turned serious at those words, and she took his hand in hers.

"What did he say?"

"He was punching the gates," Naruto said and giggled. "But he couldn’t budge them. He was a little scary."

"What did Kyuubi say about the Sage? What Sage?" Konan asked.

"He said humans are baaad. And that I don’t deserve the eyes."

Konan let out a sigh. It was hard to keep a coherent conversation with Naruto with how out of it he was at that moment.

"But I didn’t let his words get to me!" Naruto continued. "I told him that Konan believes in me, so I believe in Konan!"

"You said that?"

"Yes! Konan is the best."

Konan knew that it was mostly ‘sleep-talk’ because Naruto wasn’t thinking straight, but she also knew that there was no smoke without fire. She understood at that moment just what kind of place she held in his heart because, ever since he woke up, he wouldn’t stop talking about her.

"Y’know, Konoha wants me to go back. But I will not! Even if Sakura comes to beg me, I don’t want to!"

"What will you do when they come?"

"I will kick their asses and send them back! My Sage Mode is super uber powerful, y’know?"

"Of course I know. I saw your fight against Nagato."

That afternoon, Konan stood at Naruto’s bedside and talked to him for more than an hour until a medic administered him some pills and put him to sleep again.

It was not a very productive talk, to say the least. However, it had relieved much of the stress and tension that she had accumulated over the months that had passed since Nagato’s death. Leading a Hidden Village wasn’t an easy task, especially when it was in a precarious financial situation like Ame's. Naruto’s post-anaesthesia talk was so wholesome and adorable that she felt as if it had healed her soul.

⁂

Later that night, there was only a candle lit at Naruto’s bedside as he slept in the hospital room. Due to Amegakure’s new curfew to preserve their coal reserves, the whole cityscape was plunged into darkness.

While the hospital was one of the few buildings that still had access to electricity, most of the lights were still turned off. The electricity was mostly used for the apparatus that was keeping alive the patients who were in critical condition.

With the hallways covered in semi-darkness, the two chunins who were tasked with guarding the entrance to Naruto’s room didn’t notice the three shadowy silhouettes sneaking up on them before it was too late.

A palm strike to the back rendered one of them unconscious, and a chop to the neck knocked the other one out cold too. When they opened the door, the flickering light coming from the candle on the nightstand revealed their appearance. The pale, pupilless eyes of one of the intruders and the silvery spiky hair and the crimson-red eye of the other betrayed their identities right away: they were Hyuuga Neji and Hatake Kakashi.

As for the third intruder, it was a slender girl in her late teens dressed in a traditional white qipao blouse and a pair of baggy red trousers. It was Tenten.

Understanding the hand signals Kakashi made, Neji activated his Byakugan and started scanning his surroundings. In the meantime, Kakashi signalled towards Tenten and the girl took out a sealing tag from her pouch and made a ram seal to infuse her chakra into it.

But, right as she was about to stick the sealing tag on Naruto’s forehead, a hand shot up abruptly and caught her wrist in a vice-like grip.

⁂⁂⁂

AN: you should search on youtube for some clips with people talking after waking up from anaesthesia. Look up "anaesthesia funny talk", you’ll have a good laugh.