[The Renegade] - Chapter 10: The Contract (Patreon)

Chapter 10 - Contract

"Now this is ninjutsu!" Naruto said, his voice giddy with excitement as he watched his five Shadow Clones conjure five Dragons made from five different elements.

His Rasengan and Kage Bunshin combo had carried him throughout his career as a shinobi just fine, but seeing himself be able to cast techniques for all five elements simultaneously left him with a special feeling.

‘I wish I had learned more techniques aside from Rasengan and Kage Bunshin.’

In retrospect, the two sensei that he had before never bothered to teach him their ninjutsu. Kakashi was famous as the "Copy Ninja" and was said to know over 1000 jutsu, but all that Naruto had ever learned from him was the importance of teamwork and the tree and water walking. As for Jiraiya, he had focused mostly on trying to make him control Kyuubi’s chakra. Despite training for over two years under the guidance of the Toad Sage, a Big Ball Rasengan and slightly better taijutsu were all that Naruto had to show for it.

But now that he had gained an affinity for all five elements thanks to Nagato’s Rinnegan, he felt like it would be a crime not to take full advantage of his newly acquired abilities. And Konan was more than willing to provide him with all the jutsu scrolls in the possession of Amegakure because the stronger Naruto got, the safer Amegakure was going to be too.

‘Is this how it feels to be a genius?’ he asked himself in wonder.

Although he had mastered the Rasengan faster than Jiraiya, Naruto had never considered himself a genius because he knew that if the training time of his Shadow Clones was added to the total, it would amount to several months, if not even a year.

But the mastery of the five elements given by the Rinnegan, coupled with the training experience received from his Shadow Clones, was simply overpowered. He had never had such an easy time mastering a jutsu until now. Whether it was a banal "Hidden in the Mist" technique or a large-scale "Swamp of the Underworld" jutsu, he mastered all of them within a few hours. It felt surreal.

"Okay, that’s enough. Now activate the Asura Path and cast two jutsu simultaneously," he ordered his clones.

A second pair of arms came out of his torso while his original pair of hands went through a quick sequence of hand seals:

"Suiton: Water Vortex."

As he started spitting out a violent vortex of water, he also finished casting the second technique with his other pair of hands:

"Raiton: Electromagnetic Murder."

A wave of lightning came from the Asura-hands and turned the Water Vortex into a technique not that different from Kumo’s prized kekkei genkai, Storm Release - it was a deadly vortex of electrified water.

On the opposite side of him, a clone was using the Preta Path, absorbing the techniques that he was casting. His other four clones were following his example too, with two of them casting combination techniques through the use of the Asura Path and the other two using the Preta Path to absorb the ninjutsu thrown at them. It was like an "infinite chakra glitch".

Nevertheless, even with the trick of using the Preta Path, by the time evening came, he still felt himself reaching the bottom of his chakra reserves. It used to be an extremely rare occurrence for him to run out of chakra, but ever since he got the Rinnegan, he started experiencing mild symptoms of chakra exhaustion nearly every evening. It took him several good hours of training for that to happen, but the fact that it happened at all spoke volumes of how chakra-hungry a doujutsu like the Rinnegan was.

‘One last jutsu and I’ll call it a day,’ Naruto thought and put his hands together like in prayer.

As a small sphere of white energy appeared between his palms, he said:

"Chibaku Tensei!"

⁂

Parting his palms, the white sphere of chakra became black and flew up in the air, easily breaking through the ceiling of the room and gaining nearly a hundred meters in altitude in just a second.

‘Wait, what’s with that ceiling?!’

Why was there a ceiling at all? He had been in the middle of nowhere, at the foot of a mountain, not far from the border between Iwa and Ame. There weren’t any human settlements anywhere close by.

"Naruto-chan?!"

"What are you doing?!"

Two shouts came at the same time, and at the sound of them, Naruto’s back broke into a sweat, having recognized the place he was currently in.

"How in the world did I get here?!" he shouted.

"Forget about that! Stop that jutsu or our home is-"

That voice stopped halfway as the ceiling and the walls suddenly splintered and started flying up in the air, attracted by Chibaku Tensei’s gravitational force.

Naruto quickly put his hands back together like in prayer, and two seconds later, the technique was cancelled, all the debris it collected before falling from the sky now like hail.

"My home!" the female voice cried out in anguish.

"Ma!"

"Pa! Our home, it was-"

"Ma! Look at his eyes!"

"Ma" and "Pa", the two elders of the toads, looked at Naruto’s ringed purple eyes in trepidation.

"The Rinnegan!"

"Grandpa Sage, Granny Sage, I’m so sorry!" Naruto said, bowing repeatedly.

He had not intended to destroy their house, but their summoning was too unexpected. He was so caught up in focusing on casting Chibaku Tensei that he had not even noticed when he was whisked away.

Seeing Naruto bow and apologize like that, the two elder toads somewhat regained their calm.

"Why have you summoned me here again?" he asked.

"The Great Lord Elder has divined your future, and he wanted to see you," Lord Fukasaku said. "But more importantly, is my sight betraying me in my old age, or did your eyes change into the Rinnegan? What happened to you, Naruto-boy?"

"It’s a long story… but Konoha cast me out. I was framed for an assassination attempt on the Raikage, and they didn’t want to give me the chance to defend myself. I was thrown into Kusagakure’s prison with my chakra sealed."

"I can’t believe it!" Lady Shima said. "After everything you’ve done for the village, they did that?! If it wasn’t for you, most of them would be dead now! It’s thanks to you that Pain brought everyone he killed back to life!"

"If what you said is right, Jiraiya and Minato must be rolling in their graves now. But are you truly sure that is the case?" Lord Fukasaku said, also having a hard time believing his ears. "Are you sure it isn’t all a big misunderstanding or something else?"

"I don’t know what to believe," Naruto said. "One on hand, they told me that, all along, everything had been a plan to discover Kusagakure’s secret plans and that they never believed I really was guilty… But on the other hand, after I ran away from the village, Konoha sent their most elite shinobi to capture me and bring me back by force. Kakashi, Gai, Hyuuga Neji, and even Yamato, who has the Mokuton. They attacked me in my sleep, while I was in the hospital."

The toad elders listened in silence as Naruto narrated everything that happened. He told them how Konan had broken him out of prison and offered him shelter, how Konan gifted him Nagato’s Rinnegan, and how the Konoha’s shinobi attacked him while he was sleeping, recovering from the surgery. Lastly, he also told them that, when they saw how powerful he was now that he had the Rinnegan, Gai went as far as to open the 7th Gate and tried to kill him, which in turn forced him to use lethal force to stop him.

"I can’t believe so many things have happened in these few months we haven’t seen each other," Lord Fukasaku said. "But now I see why the Great Lord Elder wanted to see you."

⁂

"It was indeed I who summoned you… er…uhm…what was your name again…" the Great Lord Elder Toad began to say, but he stopped his act of bumbling like a senile old fool, and his eyes opened wide when Naruto looked up at him and locked eyes with him.

"The Rinnegan! Hagoromo’s eyes! Now it all makes sense!"

Naruto looked at him in silence, waiting for the toad to sort out his thoughts.

"I have received a prophecy involving you. More accurately, I have seen three visions. Are you ready to hear them?"

"I am."

"Soon, an old enemy will come to take from you something of great importance. I couldn’t see it clearly in my vision but now that you are in front of me, I can tell what it is. And you can probably tell that too."

"As expected," Naruto said, unphased. If his interpretation of the prophecy was correct, the "Old Enemy" was coming to take his Rinnegan away.

‘Uchiha Madara,’ Naruto inwardly said that name with hatred.

He was the one who murdered his mother and the reason why Yondaime Hokage had to sacrifice his life for the sake of sealing the Nine-Tailed Fox inside of him. He was the root of all the suffering and pain he had experienced as a child in Konoha, and, more recently, he was also the one who had almost killed Konan.

Seemingly oblivious to the negative feelings boiling in Naruto’s heart, the Great Lord Elder Toad continued speaking:

"In the second vision, I saw a war between shinobi that engulfed the whole world. Not one nation managed to stay neutral. Even our Mount Myoboku was burning. All I could see was war, death, and destruction."

A deathly silence was instilled when the venerable toad finished speaking.

"This war - what are the chances that your vision is wrong?" Naruto asked. "The Five Great Hidden Villages just had a Kage Summit in the Land of Iron. Konan told me that the Konoha, Suna, Kumo, Iwa, Kiri, and the samurai from the Land of Iron have forged an alliance to destroy the Akatsuki. I don’t think they will start a war amongst themselves anytime soon."

"Akatsuki may not be strong enough to fight against all five strongest nations in the world, but what if Uchiha Madara got his hands on your Rinnegan eyes? Don’t dismiss the prophecy. The Great Lord Elder’s visions have never been wrong, Naruto-boy," Lord Fukasaku said.

"You’re also forgetting something, Naruto-chan," Lady Shima said. "As far as the world at large knows, The Land of Rain is still the lair of Akatsuki, isn’t it? And the current leader of Amegakure used to be the right-hand woman of Pain."

Her words drained all colour from Naruto’s face as it finally dawned on him.

"You're saying that their alliance is for the sake of destroying Amegakure?" he said in shock.

"We can’t know that for sure, but it is a very likely scenario."

"...What about the third vision? What did you see?" Naruto asked.

In response to that, The Great Lord Elder called out a name:

"Gerotora!"

At his words, a small, black and orange toad appeared by the elder’s throne in a plume of smoke.

"You called me, Great Elder?"

"In my vision, I saw you storing yourself inside of Naruto."

"W-What?" the small toad said in outrage.

"Give him the Fourth Hokage’s seal."

His arms crossed in front of his chest, Gerotora was the picture of reluctance as he said:

"I have no choice but to do as you say, Great Lord Elder. But are you sure he is ready for it? I still didn’t forget what happened the last time Jiraiya asked me to loosen his seal. The beast inside took over right away."

Nevertheless, at the elder toad’s silence, Gerotora let out a long sigh, and his body grew in height before rolling to the side, revealing the fact that his torso looked like one large scroll.

When the toad finished unfurling his scroll-like body completely, a large and complex sealing formula appeared on it.

"What is this?" Naruto asked in surprise.

"It is the key left by the Fourth Hokage that locks and unlocks the sealing jutsu on your belly. It is the key to the gates sealing the bijuu inside of you. With this, you can even let the Nine-Tails run free if that is what you want," Gerotora explained. "Come, press on that square area there with your hand. With this, you will have the means to do what Yondaime has hoped for: you will be able to fight for Kyuubi’s power and wrestle its chakra away for yourself."

Knowing the hardships Naruto had endured the last time he let Kyuubi take over him, Gerotora had inwardly expected him to hesitate at first. But he didn’t. Right as the toad finished his words, Naruto’s fingers became alight with chakra as he placed his hand on the square at the top right side of the sealing formula.

He had wanted to find a way to release Kyuubi for weeks now - that’s the reason why the clone that was stationed in Amegakure had started studying fuinjutsu and why it was now helping Konan draw storage seals. Naruto didn’t care about fuinjutsu in particular, and studying wasn’t his strong suit, to say the least. Everything was for the sake of keeping his promise to Kyuubi—to free him from prison without losing his life in the process.

"Contract complete. I’m going into storage now!"

"Going into storage? What do you mean?"

"You don’t need to do a thing. Just keep your mouth open."

"What?" Naruto said and stepped back warily.

"Yes. Now say, "aah". Come on, don’t waste time."

"You sound suspicious as heck," Naruto refused to comply.

"Don’t act like a baby! Open your damned mouth!"

"NO!"

"Look, do you want the key to Kyuubi’s seal or not?"

That made him cave in. Two seconds later, as he was choking, gasping for air, he found out that he was right to be suspicious of the small toad.

⁂ Konohagakure no Sato ⁂

"The production of timber can’t meet the demand. It goes the same for producing bricks, tiles, and other materials for buildings."

"We’ve been importing grains from the Land of Rice and the Land of Rivers, and fish from the Land of Waves, for the past three months without paying for it. Our debts are piling up, and they request that we honour our deals."

"The Tuschikage informs us that his scouts have been detecting unusual activity at their border with the Land of Rain. There are signs of large-scale, powerful jutsu being used. With how numerous the Land of Rain’s shinobi are, he suspects they are drilling their troops and preparing for war."

After another half dozen bad news stories, Tsunade said:

"Is there anything that goes well for once? Do you have any good news for me at all, Shizune?"

"I’m sorry, Tsunade-sama."

Suddenly, an ANBU operative appeared in front of Tsunade without a sound and lowered himself to one knee before reporting:

"Chunin Tenten has been sighted by the Barrier Corps and taken into custody. According to her words, the S-ranked mission in Amegakure has failed."

"What?!" Tsunade shouted in surprise, her chair making a screeching sound as she abruptly stood up. "Take me to her right away!"

⁂ T&I Department HQ ⁂

Half an hour later, Tsunade had a hard time hiding her disbelief.

"Naruto got the Rinnegan? Gai was killed??"

Shikaku Nara, Ibiki Morino, and Inoichi Yamanaka, who were present during Tenten’s questioning, were just as shocked as their Hokage. They had all witnessed with their own eyes the terror of Pain and his overwhelming, godlike power. He had single-handedly annihilated most of Konoha’s shinobi and turned one of the most powerful villages in the world into a crater.

"But Gai had the Eight Inner Gates technique. How could he have lost against someone who had just acquired the Rinnegan? Naruto didn’t have any time to master it, he was still in the hospital when you went to capture him, was he not? Furthermore, Yamato with Mokuton and Kakashi with the Sharingan… How could they have lost that easily?" the Nara said.

"According to our research, doujutsu have a sort of genetic memory inscribed in their DNA," Ibiki said. "Most shinobi with ocular powers know how to use their abilities instinctually."

"We have to do something! We are going to do something, right? We can’t leave everyone there!" Tenten said in desperation. "Hokage-sama, we are going to save them, aren’t we?"

"We can’t just barge into Amegakure now that Naruto has the Rinnegan," Shikaku said with a shake of his head. "Tenten, you weren’t here when Pain destroyed the village, so you didn’t see it… It was like the power of a god. Numbers are meaningless against such a power. Since it’s been more than two weeks since he acquired the Rinnegan, given Naruto’s track record with his Shadow Clones, he must’ve already mastered most of the Rinnegan’s abilities by now."

"Are you going to leave them there?!" Tenten shouted in disbelief. "We’ve risked our lives for the village more times than I can count! And Gai-sensei died! How could you even suggest that?!"

"Calm down, girl," Ibiki said, frowning at her. "Nobody said anything about abandoning them."

As Ibiki made a sign to one of the members of his T&I department, Tenten was escorted out of the interrogation room, leaving only the four of them sitting at the table.

"You’ve been quiet the entire time. What’s on your mind, Inoichi?" Tsunade asked.

"I’m trying to gauge Naruto’s mental state at the moment. We all know that he felt betrayed and probably thought that the village had cast him out. However, if Tenten’s words are anything to go by, he had not been fighting with the intent to kill them at first. That means that he still does not hate Konoha to the point of wanting to kill everyone on sight. But Gai’s death at his hands shows us that he is willing to do anything to not come back if pushed into a corner hard enough."

Ibiki nodded in agreement.

"I think so too. The fact that he had taken on Pain’s Rinnegan also cements the idea that he had switched his allegiance to Amegakure forever. I don’t think Pain’s right hand, Konan, would have offered him that power if she had not been sure of his loyalty to her. It may be presumptuous of me to say this, Hokage-sama, but I think we need to accept that Naruto might never want to come back."

Tsunade sat with her face buried in her hands, not saying anything for a while.

"What are your thoughts on their offer?" she said eventually and gestured towards the open scroll on the table.

"The leader of Amegakure let Tenten go, knowing that Konoha wouldn’t doubt her words. If she had only sent a letter to inform us of our shinobi’s capture, we wouldn’t necessarily believe it right away and would try to verify the information first by sending another team. By sending Tenten back to Konoha, the leader of Ame reduced any feeling-out process and wasted time, skipping directly to the phase of negotiations. Related to that, freeing Tenten doesn’t lessen Amegakure’s leverage over Konoha either because Tenten has no real value as a hostage - with or without her in prison, it was all the same. I must give it to her; if we’re talking about tactics and politics alone, Ame’s leader is not your average kunoichi," Shikaku said.

"I didn’t ask you to sing her praises, Shikaku," Tsunade said, mildly annoyed. "What I’m asking is for your thoughts related to this offer. Our reserves of coal are still plentiful for now, but we still don’t have enough to cover their demand, we’d be forced to import. But we’ve already amassed large debts by importing food from neighbouring countries. If we dip into our reserves of coal too, that is yet another large expense that the village momentarily can’t afford."

"We can’t just give up on our people either," Inoichi said categorically.

"You think I don’t know that?" Tsunade said, slapping the table angrily.

Sakura was among the ones held hostage by the Land of Rain, too. Sakura was her student, someone in whom she had invested much of her time and effort. She didn’t want to see her successor dead either.

"These conditions are too harsh on us," Shikaku said after a while.

The amount of coal that Konan demanded from Konoha in exchange for the lives of the Kakashi and the rest was astronomical. It would be enough for a large and populous city like Amegakure to burn for more than one year. In the first place, Konohagakure didn’t even have such a large amount stored up in one place.

"We should try to negotiate. Let’s request a face-to-face meeting. This way, we can gauge their strength, their intelligence, and their intentions much more accurately."

"Will they accept that?" Ibiki asked.

"Oh, they will," Shikaku said confidently. "The fact that they tried to speed up the process for the sake of this transaction lets us know that they are pressed for time too. If you recall what Tenten said, they first attacked Naruto in the hospital after the curfew, when the power was cut. Considering that they have a curfew and that they are trying to trade for coal, that means that their reserves are running low. Which is not surprising, if you ask me."

"That makes sense," Tsunade said in agreement. "The Land of Rain was completely shut off from their neighbours for almost a decade. No trading and no diplomatic relationships with the surrounding countries either. Considering that it has become known that the Land of Rain is also the Akatsuki’s country of origin, they must have a hard time finding a willing trading partner too."

"So their problems aren’t any less than ours, huh?" Ibiki said while rubbing his chin.

Having reached a consensus with her advisors, Tsunade grabbed a pen and a scroll from Ibiki and started writing a response to the letter from Ame.

⁂

Two days after he returned from Mount Myoboku, now back in the Land of Rain, the original Naruto wasn’t training for once. He was still away from the city, in his usual training ground, but instead of practising his Rinnegan jutsu, he was sitting cross-legged on the ground, meditating with his eyes closed.

When he opened his mental eyes, he found himself in front of Kyuubi’s cage.

Compared to their encounter several weeks ago, the fox was much more mellow and calm, merely watching Naruto in silence.

"What have you come here for?"

"The toads recently gave me the key to Yondaime's seal. The key to this gate," Naruto said, pulling up his sleeve and showing him the tattoo-like inscription that appeared on his palm and the back of his forearm. "I could open the seal right now, at this very moment, and set you free."

Now that got Kyuubi to stand up on all fours and look at him with such intensity that Naruto felt his skin prickling.

‘I’ve been imprisoned for less than two weeks, but he’s been jailed for nearly 100 years… God knows how much he craves freedom, how much he wants to get out of this darkness and see the world outside,’ Naruto thought.

"I want to keep my promise to you… but at the same time, I don’t want to die either. I saw what happens to jinchuuriki when the bijuu inside of them gets taken out. They die. That’s how Gaara died. That’s how my mother died too - but you did speed up the process by skewering her with your claws."

"If you’re expecting an apology from me, you can fuck off," Kyuubi said with a growl, his rage starting to build up.

"I don’t need your apologies," Naruto said. "They wanted to imprison you; you wanted to escape. If anything, the fault lies with them and with the First Hokage, who was the first to seal you and treat you as a weapon."

As Kyuubi remained silent, Naruto continued:

"Yondaime made this key hoping that one day I would become able to take your chakra and control your power. The toads told me so too."

Despite the fact that the fox started growling menacingly, Naruto wasn’t affected.

"But I don’t need it. I don’t want your power when the price for that is that you are imprisoned. I know what it is like to be caged. You don’t deserve that. You should be free."

"What are you scheming?" Kyuubi narrowed his eyes at him as he asked. "There’s not a being in this world that doesn’t lust for the power of the Nine-Tails. My power. Uchiha Madara wanted it. Konoha wanted it. You wanted it too. You’ve asked me for power more times than I can count. But now you’re saying you don’t need it?"

"Now I have the Rinnegan," Naruto said, looking at his reflection in the water pooling on the floor. "This doujutsu is so powerful that it scares me sometimes. I’ve barely mastered half of its techniques, but I feel like I could defeat even four or five of the previous version of myself at once."

Locking eyes with Naruto's ringed, purple Rinnegan, Kyuubi felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when the blond said:

"I have become strong. I am truly powerful now. I have no doubt that I could force you to submit to my power right now and rob you of all your chakra. But I’d rather set you free. You’ve been jailed for too long. You’ve suffered for too long."

Kyuubi was silent for a long time, his slit red eyes peering deeply into Naruto’s as if to gauge the truth in his words. Due to his Negative Emotion Sensing ability, the fox could tell that Naruto had not lied to him in the least. Everything he said was sincere, it was the utmost truth. But even with that assurance, Kyuubi was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that Naruto truly didn’t want his power. That he didn’t want him to suffer, that he wanted to set him free.

"You said you don’t want to die just yet. How do you plan on unsealing me?" Kyuubi asked eventually, his voice subdued and rather quiet, not carrying the rage and aggression from before.

"I’ve been thinking about it for several days before I came up with an idea. I could set you free as long as you sign a contract with me."

Although he started feeling suspicious at hearing the word "contract", Kyuubi couldn’t contain his curiosity and… his hope. For the first time in decades, a glimmer of hope appeared amidst the volcano of rage smouldering in his heart.

"How would you make that work?"

"By using the Outer Path and the Animal Path of the Rinnegan. Through these black receivers," Naruto said, and a black metallic rod grew out of his palm.

Then, under Kyuubi’s disbelieving eyes, he stepped through the bars of the gates confidently.

"Just try it. I will send you flying," Naruto dared him to attack him with a smirk.

Kyuubi let out a low growl at his provocation, but he didn’t attack Naruto. He was well aware of Rinnegan’s abilities.

"Here, feel it for yourself," Naruto said, and he handed the black rod to Kyuubi, who grabbed it with his long claws as if it were a tiny toothpick.

"I can feel your chakra being transmitted through this."

"It’s possible to make it go both ways. This way, your chakra and mine will be linked to each other. In times of need, you could push your chakra into my system and vice versa."

"What’s the catch? This sounds too good to be true."

"I told you, didn’t I? You’ll have to sign a contract. You will be tied to my Rinnegan. The moment you accept the chakra transmitters in your body, you won’t be able to take them out by yourself, and our chakras will become linked. I will be able to summon you, and you will be able to summon me too. A small part of your chakra will remain in my system at all times so I don’t die, and you also get to roam free and do whatever it is that mountain-sized foxes like you like to do in their free time."

Kyuubi started pacing back and forth inside the cage restlessly. He had wished for freedom for so long that now that it was presented to him, he was almost afraid to take it. The deal Naruto was offering him at that moment was almost too perfect to be real.

"What’s there to be hesitant about? You’ll be even stronger than before if you accept it. Think about what it means for our chakras to be linked."

Kyuubi stopped pacing around at that, his eyes becoming wide with surprise as he finally realized the meaning of it.

"Genjutsu will no longer be effective on me!"

Genjutsu had been the bane of his existence. That’s how Madara enslaved him a century ago, and that was also how he had been mind-controlled after getting out of Kushina’s seal. The fact that the Uchiha's Sharingan would no longer have power over him immediately removed any hesitation he might have had about making a contract with Naruto.

"You won," Kyuubi said.

"No, we both won," Naruto said, smiling in relief. "You get your freedom and protection from genjutsu and I get a reliable companion too."

As Naruto smiled and raised his hand, for the first time in a century, Kyuubi smiled too as he bumped fists with him.