[The Renegade] Chapter 19 - Reconciliation (Patreon)

“Don’t underestimate me, you still wet-behind the ears brat. You’re 300 years too early to be going easy on me!”

“Come on, don’t get angry, toad geezer. We ought to take it easy at first and slowly warm up to heavy hitting.”

“Hmpf! You got yourself a new pair of fancy eyes, and suddenly we’re not good enough for you anymore, huh? Come. Show me how good you are with your newfound visual prowess.”

“The Rinnegan doesn’t give me any advantage in taijutsu unless I’m fighting together with other paths or clones…” Naruto tried to explain.

“Less chit-chat, more fighting!”

Man and toad got into the fighting stance of the frog kata and looked at each other silently for a few seconds. Then, they lunged at each other with their whole strength.

Despite the huge disparity between the tiny toad and the fit young man, the two of them were evenly matched in strength. After exchanging over two dozen strikes, neither could land a clean hit on the other; but that spoke more about the elder toad’s skill rather than Naruto’s because the toad could still keep up with him despite being severely disadvantaged when it came to height and arm reach.

“You’re not half bad,” the elder toad said while panting. “Looks like you haven’t gotten fully absorbed by ninjutsu. You didn't neglect your taijutsu and Sage Mode. I commend you for that.”

“Out of breath already, old man?” Naruto grinned.

“You’re decent when it comes to the strength aspect of the Frog Kumite,” the elder toad admitted grudgingly. “But what about the gentle aspect of the kata?”

“Gentle aspect? What do you mean?”

“There’s no better way for a thick-headed brat like you to learn than to feel it with your own skin,” the elder toad croaked before leaping towards Naruto.

As natural energy enveloped his fists, Naruto got into a fighting stance again and started throwing hands.

Whereas before the elder toad would meet strength with strength and counter-attack after every block with a closed fist punch, this time, his fighting style was completely different. Although Naruto had already grasped the concept of precognition and how to use it to determine his opponent's attack and counterstrike while using senjutsu, the elder toad seemed to have taken it to the next level.

‘Reminds me of Neji’s taijutsu,’ Naruto thought as the elder toad started deflecting his full senjutsu-powered strikes with the barest amount of movements, pushing his punches and his kicks to the side instead of blocking them head-on.

The elder toad leaned to the left and suddenly twirled his body in a clockwise pattern to avoid Naruto's hook before leaping towards his midsection and shouting:

“Frog strike!”

As the elder toad’s palm strike slammed into his gut, for a split second, Naruto didn’t feel a thing. But then, he fell on his knees, clutching at his stomach with both hands in agony.

“What… What the hell was that?!” he wheezed out as he struggled to fight off the pain.

“Frog strike. It’s a Frog Kumite attack that focuses on attacking the insides rather than the outside.”

Putting his hands behind his back, the elder toad paced around as he explained to him the concept behind that attack.

“Shinobi have mastered all sorts of ways to strengthen their skin and muscles and toughen up their bones. The Raikages of Kumogakure in particular are known for their nigh-impenetrable bodies. It usually gives them an overwhelming advantage over most taijutsu users. The Frog strike was designed to fight against those types.”

“This attack doesn’t deal external damage. Instead, it sends the senjutsu chakra inwardly in waves, damaging the internal organs. So far, I have not heard of any shinobi or kunoichi who have managed to strengthen their internal organs. Ninja cannot toughen up their internal organs.”

As he started recovering from the painful hit, he got back to his feet.

“If it’s so powerful, why didn’t you use only that attack to one-shot me from the start?” Naruto asked.

“The Frog strike needs to land either on the head or on the torso to have a significant effect. Landing on your arms, shoulders, or legs won’t do much damage. Besides, using a Strong Style is more effective and more unpredictable in most cases, which makes it harder to defend against. That said, ultimately, whether you’ll make use of the Strong or the Gentle style depends on the opponent in front of you. In the end, there is nothing to stop you from using both styles of the Frog Kumite, mixing them up against your enemies.”

For the next five hours, the blonde and five of his clones could be seen practising the Frog Strike on watermelons while the elder toad watched over him and advised him. The goal of that training was for him to turn the watermelon’s innards into a paste while the peel remained completely intact.

Had it been the old him, he would have struggled for days (even with his Shadow Clones’ help) because the Frog Strike was an attack that required perfect control over not only his chakra but his physical strength as well. But things were coming along much faster than the elder toad had expected and Naruto had to thank the Rinnegan for it.

Naruto had always been a very hard-working person, and his Shadow Clones had turned him into a genius of hard work over the years. Obtaining the Rinnegan on top of that was like giving wings to a tiger. There was no longer a ceiling for how high he could soar, his potential was limitless now.

Not long after noon, one of his shadow clones finally managed to execute a perfect Frog Strike. As the clone dispelled and Naruto received its experience, he managed to throw a perfect Frog Strike as well. When the elder toad sliced the watermelon in half to check the result, the fruit’s innards had been squashed into a liquid paste.

⁂

Later that day, Naruto and Konan visited the factory that she had ordered to be built in Takumi Town (formerly known as Takumi Village). Although Amegakure’s total number of shinobi wasn’t that high compared to the numbers that the Five Elemental Nations boasted, Konan had still stationed over 100 shinobi to patrol and protect Takumi Town’s weapon factory and the craftsmen working there.

As the two of them flew over the factory’s perimeter, she nodded pleased at her shinobi’s diligence on the job and their patrolling movements. They didn’t know that Konan was going to visit the factory that day, so it wasn’t like they were acting because they wanted to show their good behaviour in front of her.

“Shall we go take a look at their progress?” Naruto suggested. “I’m curious what they managed to create until now.”

They flew down and made themselves visible to the ninja below who immediately fell on one knee and shouted:

“Lady Konan!”

“Lord Uzumaki!”

Naruto scratched his cheek with an uncomfortable look on his face, but he didn’t attempt to dissuade them from treating him like that. Konan had had a serious conversation with him about that subject before.

For the ninja of the Land of Rain, the Rinnegan wasn’t just a strong doujutsu. For them, Pain had been a God and she had been his Angel. Naruto inheriting Nagato’s Rinnegan made the rest of the shinobi look at him as the successor of God. For better or worse, he was their new god now and he had to act as such when in public.

Fortunately, the weaponsmiths from the Land of Rivers didn’t share Ame people’s reverence when it came to the two of them, so Naruto felt more at ease while conversing with them.

“Greetings, chief.”

Knowing that Naruto didn’t like when others addressed him as if he was their lord, the craftsmen took to calling him ‘chief’ jokingly, and it stuck. Naruto got rather close to them over the past few weeks as they spent many hours pondering over the secrets of his Asura Path.

“Chief?” Konan asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

“We, the weaponsmiths from Takumi are more like a clan instead of a simple association. We’ve had to stay close and take care of each other as if we were family in order to survive in the times of peace that followed the Third Ninja War. But Lord Naruto doesn’t like to be called that so we acknowledge him as our tribal leader.”

It had started off as a joke but they really began calling him their ‘chief’ after that.

“Cut it off, you guys!” Naruto jeered at them, getting red in the face.

Konan found herself smiling at their interaction, happy at the fact that Naruto seemed to finally start opening up to other people as well. It was a sign that his emotional wounds were healing and that he was ready to let more people into his heart. After all, the blonde wasn’t innately gloomy and taciturn like Nagato. Now, he was slowly going back to how he used to be in the past.

“You have to see this devilish thing, chief!” an older craftsman said excitedly as he led them through the forge where dozens of other people were hard at work and ushered them outside through a backdoor into the factory’s outdoor weapons testing area.

“What am I looking at?” Konan asked, her curiosity piqued.

“This, my lady, is a new weapon that we’ve created based on the chief’s Asura Path powers. We call it a Hwacha.”

A rough description of the so-called Hwacha would be that it looked like a wooden box standing on top of a two-wheeled wheelbarrow. The wooden box was filled with 36 arrows which had a small, cylindrical attachment bound to their tips.

“Instead of explaining what it does, I’m going to show you.”

Saying that, the old man took out a matchbox and lit up the master fuse which was connected to all the smaller fuses coming from each cylindric attachment. As smoke and flames engulfed the box, the 36 arrows were launched out mostly at the same time, decimating the group of wooden posts serving as the target.

“An arrow-launching machine? How does that work?” Konan asked in surprise.

“These cylinders are filled with a special type of powder which explodes. It’s something we created from seeing Asura Path’s missiles. When the exploding powder starts burning, the arrow gets launched as if it were fired from a bow. The size of the weapon can vary, so one single man or woman could fire as many arrows as 30, 50, or even 200 people just by lighting up a fuse!”

It didn’t take a genius to understand the immense potential of such a weapon. Konan and Naruto were both startled.

“By the way, depending on the type of cylinders we attach to the arrows, we could even make them explode upon impact. It would be like firing 36 arrows with an explosive tag attached to their tail, but the difference is that this exploding power is easy to mass produce and that even a civilian can operate this weapon. You don’t need a trained shinobi or kunoichi to man it.”

“This is incredible,” Konan said in awe. “Naruto, your idea was a stroke of genius.”

She and Nagato had never thought of making use of Asura Path to devise new weapons. But Naruto and his outside-the-box thinking led to the creation of such a fantastic tool.

“You give me too much credit. These guys are the ones who did the heavy thinking and lifting. I think they deserve a raise, don’t they?” Naruto said, smiling.

“Chief!” the old craftsman exclaimed happily.

“Genji-san, seriously cut it off! Or maybe you don’t want the raise?” Naruto said in annoyance.

“No, Chief! Sorry, Chief! I mean-”

Konan laughed at their byplay.

“Of course they do. Moreover, I’m going to assign 15 more Jounins to protect this factory. Also, I believe it would be prudent to expand the courtyard and make their families move in here for the sake of protection. I am not sure if you understand what a big game-changer this weapon would be in a war. As few as 10 civilian people could probably hold back even 100 low-ranked ninjas in a siege. With our shinobi and civilians armed with this sort of weaponry, Amegakure would become impenetrable from the outside. We would be able to repel even the full army of Iwagakure if they decided to invade.”

⁂

By the time they came out of the weapons factory, the moon was already up. It was late in the evening.

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” Konan asked.

“You’re the leader of a nation, you can’t just willy-nilly travel around,” Naruto turned her down. “It’s best if I go alone. I’ve sent word to the Hokage and my Shadow Clone has already reached Konoha and is ready to summon me.”

As Konan became silent, Naruto stepped closer to her and raised her chin gently with a finger.

“Are you perhaps worried that I wouldn’t want to come back?”

When she turned her head away, he smiled and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her to his chest.

Due to her perpetual stoic expression, most people would be fooled into thinking that she was borderline emotionless or that she was stunted. Only Naruto knew how deep her feelings for him ran and that, deep inside, her worries and emotions were just as strong as those of any other person.

“Kurama’s senses are a complete cheat. I can’t keep anything secret from you,” she muttered as she buried her face into his chest.

“Don’t hide away, let me see your cute face,” he said with a grin, gently forcing her to meet his eyes. Her pale cheeks were dusted with a red colour and she was biting her lower lip. It was one of the very rare times when her mask completely broke.

But he didn’t embarrass her for long. Pressing a tender kiss on her forehead, he embraced her again to his chest and said:

“There’s no way I’ll ever leave your side after all you’ve done for me, Konan. As long as you don’t turn on me like my former comrades did, nothing could possibly convince me to abandon you.”

“How about you leave your visit to Konoha for tomorrow? Stay with me tonight,” she said.

The pleading look in her amber eyes single-handedly almost made him cancel his plans. It was with great difficulty that he managed to turn her down.

“I’d love that… but I can’t put this off any longer. I have a feeling that if I don’t take care of this now, I might not have the chance to do it for a very long time. We'll soon have to start our trip to the Land of Iron for the Kage Summit, won’t we? My gut is telling me that things won’t go well there.”

“You don’t have to be so pessimistic,” she chided him. “I thought it was my job to worry about the future, not yours.”

He chuckled a bit at her words.

“I can’t not worry when I keep thinking about the Great Elder Toad’s prophecy. Even someone like me can see it: this looks like the perfect environment for a war to break out. The Akatsuki is no more, and the other hidden villages want to get ‘their’ bijuu back. They won’t take no for an answer. The whole thing about offering you the title of a kage is just a pretext.”

Konan couldn’t say any words of retort. She had seen through Mifune’s intentions in that letter from the start, she knew that he was right.

“Okay. I’ll be waiting for you at home,” she said, pressing a kiss on his lips that lingered.

“I’ll be back in three or four hours I think. Don’t wait for me, go to sleep.”

She gave him one more peck on the lips before he waved goodbye and disappeared in a plume of smoke as the Shadow Clone that he had sent ahead of time to Konoha whisked him away.

⁂
‘This upcoming Kage Summit is such a headache,’ Tsunade thought as she momentarily closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her palms.

The past several months had been like a nightmare, the most strenuous period of her tenure as the Hokage. The Akatsuki threat, Jiraiya’s death, Konoha’s destruction by Pain, Naruto’s defection from the village, and now the upcoming Kage Summit. It was the second Kage Summit in less than three months. It was unprecedented. And her instincts were even telling her that the worst had yet to come.

“Hokage-sama, the Land of Rain’s envoy has arrived.”

Tsunade raised her head from her hands and sat straighter in her chair.

A young man wearing a grey cloak entered the office. With his plain dark clothes, the conical hat on his hat, and the rebreather covering the lower half of his face, he looked exactly how someone would expect an Amegakure Jonin to look like.

“Leave us,” Tsunade ordered the ANBU who were hidden in her office to protect her.

If it had been the same Tsunade from half a year ago, the ANBU close to her might have tried to dissuade her from her decision, out of fear for her safety. However, after the brutal way that Tsunade massacred ROOT and Danzo, nobody dared to question her anymore. Even the Elders who used to have great sway over the matters of the village, no longer dared to say a peep anymore. The Slug Sannin was ruling the village now with an iron fist.

“You may take off your disguise, Naruto,” she said.

As he put away the conical hat and the rebreather covering his face, Tsunade stood up from her seat and came to stand in front of him. The two of them looked at each other silently for a few moments before he found himself in Tsunade’s bear-like hug as she embraced him tightly to her chest.

“I’m sorry, Naruto.”

Her shaky voice and the wet feeling on his nape were all the proof he needed to understand that she was crying. He had never seen her cry before. She was that tough and badass granny who almost never showed a moment of weakness. For some reason, hearing her cry her eyes out, he could find it in himself to push her away.

In the end, he had always seen Tsunade as his family (hence why the feeling of betrayal had hurt him that much in the beginning). Although he had still not forgiven her for how she threw him into the Hozuki Castle prison, time dulls everything.

After spending several months away from Konoha, basking in the love and respect he received from Konan and the people of Amegakure, his wounds gradually healed, and much of his anger faded away. Ultimately, it wasn’t in his nature to be vengeful and prone to rage. Even at the peak of his anger, when Konoha’s team attacked him in the hospital, Naruto had held back against his former comrades and tried not to kill them. It was only after Might Guy opened the 7th Inner Gate and tried to kill him that he responded in kind.

Letting out a sigh, Naruto put his arms around her too, returning her hug. At that gesture of affection, it was like a dam broke. Tsunade’s tears didn’t stop for a long time.

⁂

“I hope you kept my arrival secret?” he asked when she finally managed to regain her composure.

“You don’t want to see your former friends?”

He shrugged a little.

“Looking back, I wonder if I was ever that close to them. Were we really friends? How often did we spend time together and just hang out outside of missions? Not often. I guess I was always just that orphan kid who latched onto every bit of affection and attention I got and made things deeper than they really were… Anyway. I’d rather not meet them. What would I even talk to them about after I defected the village? After I killed Guy?”

“I understand,” Tsunade said. She didn’t continue insisting. “How is it in the Land of Rain? Are you okay? Are you… happy?”

For the first time since he arrived, he showed her a genuinely happy smile.

“Yes, I am. I'm in love with Konan. I'm happier than I've ever been.”

His declaration didn’t come out as a surprise to her. She had suspected long ago that something was going on between the two of them after witnessing their interactions and mannerisms during their previous meeting in the Land of Rivers.

“I used to imagine and dream about marrying Sakura one day, but then I met Konan. Those childish dreams of mine weren’t even half as good as the reality. Konan… she is amazing.”

In a way, he was almost grateful that Konoha had cast him out because, without them turning their backs on him, his relationship with Konan would have never been possible. After all, she was a former member of the Akatsuki and the leader of a Hidden Village hostile to Konoha.

But he shook his head and stopped daydreaming about his lover.

“By the way, I heard that Sasuke broke out recently. How was that possible? I thought you would have killed him by now, or at least kept him in a secure prison.”

“We have no excuses for that. Our security cameras showed that the plant-like member of the Akatsuki travelled through the ground with a special technique that made him invisible to the sensors maintaining the barrier around the village. He popped into Uchiha Sasuke's prison cell out of the ground, unhindered.”

“I should’ve killed him when I had the chance,” Naruto muttered.

His dark words didn’t startle her. She was of the same opinion as him. If it wasn’t for the fact that Sasuke had not committed any irredeemable sins against the village and that he was the last surviving member of the Uchiha Clan, he would have been put to death long ago. But she had hoped that they would manage to strike a deal with him for the sake of the village. After all, as the Hokage, she had to consider the benefit of the village before her feelings.

“No use in crying over spilt milk. We will catch him again. With how blinded he is by his desire for vengeance, he is bound to come out of hiding soon. The last Uchiha or not, I won’t spare him next time. We’ve already collected enough genetic material from him to inseminate dozens of women with his bloodline. I’m confident that many women would be willingly lining up at the chance of giving birth to a child with the Sharingan.”

“I see…”

Now that he had shown a different level of maturity, the way Tsunade conversed with him had changed accordingly as well. She was no longer treating him like a dumb and annoyingly immature kid. She had made that mistake once, she had already learned her lesson.

“What are you planning on doing at the Kage Summit? I have a feeling that the Raikage is up to no good.”

“I think so too,” Naruto nodded. “I haven’t told you before, but the Great Elder Toad Sage at Mount Myoboku made three prophecies for me. Two of them had already been fulfilled. I believe that the third one is inevitable as well.”

“What’s the third prophecy about?” she asked seriously.

“His visions showed him a war which engulfed the whole world. Even Mount Myoboku was burning. If I had to guess, that war is going to start over their desire to get back the tailed beasts they used to control.”

A worried frown appeared on her face.

“...Are you, by chance, in possession of all the bijuu that the Akatsuki had captured?”

“Even if I was, what of it?” he said.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Naruto. I know you’ve gotten even more powerful than before, but even you cannot take on the armies of an entire Hidden Village all by yourself, much less if they allied with each other to destroy you. It would be a repeat of how Kirigakure and Kumogakure wiped out your clan.”

“The Uzumaki were wiped out by Kumo and Kiri?” he asked in wonder. 

It was yet another thing that was normally taught in the Academy that he didn’t know because he had never paid much attention to non-shinobi classes.

“Don’t worry, baa-chan. I am strong."

Whereas before she would get annoyed at him calling her old, she found herself smiling at hearing him use that disrespectful but affectionate nickname again.

"Me who defeated Pain almost half a year ago… even 5 of that version of myself wouldn’t be able to defeat the current me. And we’ve been preparing for war for a while now. Amegakure is ready. I am ready. But my question is, what will you do? If a war were to break out, what would the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Sand do? Should I be worried that you will turn against us too?”

“Of course not!” Tsunade almost shouted from how offended she was. “I’ve signed a treaty with Amegakure. What kind of Hokage would I be if my promise had that little value? Besides… how could I bear to cause you any more pain after what I’ve put you through?” she said quietly at the end. “I can’t promise you that Konoha will support Amegakure unconditionally, and I have no authority to dictate the Land of Wind’s politics either, but there is one thing I can promise you: if a war were to break out, Konoha and Suna would not move against Ame unless you were the first to attack us. And if it ever comes down to it, if you ever find yourself at the end of the rope, Konoha’s gates will always be open for you. You will always be welcome to come back, Naruto.”

Tsunade and Naruto had a long talk, up until the wee hours of the morning. Although their relationship was far from being as close as it used to be before, it was in the process of healing.

⁂

Leaving the Hokage’s office behind, Naruto felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Making peace with Tsunade had meant to him much more than he had thought. He had not realized how important she was to him until then.

He followed the ANBU who served as his guide silently. As they arrived in front of an old and dilapidated shrine, the masked kunoichi turned to him and said:

“Hokage-sama instructed me to leave you alone. But make no mistake, foreigner, we will be watching you from a distance. Don’t get any funny ideas.”

Naruto didn’t pay any mind to her threats. He understood that she was just doing her job.

The moment the kunoichi left and he entered the old shrine, Kyuubi’s voice rang in his mind:

“You’re finally there. Make a Shadow Clone for me and allow me to take control.”

“You forgot to say please.”

“...”

Naruto grinned at the bijuu’s poignant silence.

“I’m waiting~”

“...Please.”

“There you go, it wasn’t that hard, was it?”

“Arrogant whelp, you’re lucky that you’re useful and that I need your help for the moment.”

The blond chuckled as he put his hands in a cross seal and summoned a Shadow Clone. The clone’s eyes turned into the red slits of a fox as it moved closer to the wall where about a dozen masks were being hanged on display.

“Hmm, not this one… not this one either…”

“What are you doing?” asked Naruto when he saw the Kyuubi-controlled clone taking the masks down from the wall and bringing them close to his nose to sniff them all one by one.

“I have a feeling not all the masks here are the real thing, so I’m trying to find the mask with the strongest smell of death so you won’t stab yourself more times than necessary.”

“Wait, wait, what?! Why would I be stabbing myself?! You never said anything about that!”

“Then how else do you suppose you’re going to cut open the Shinigami’s belly?”

“You left out a lot of ‘details’ about this whole thing. That’s so not cool, Kurama! Not cool at all!”

“Would you have still wanted to go through with it if I told you from the start that you’d have to maim yourself?” asked the fox.

“...Yeah, probably,” he muttered unwillingly.

“Then why are you still whining about it? Now stop complaining and let me concentrate.”

Naruto let out a few curses under his breath but didn’t disturb the bijuu from his task anymore.

“Found it,” clone-Kurama said and came to Naruto to hand him the mask.

“What now? Like, do I just have to put this on and stab myself in the stomach?”

“That sums it up pretty well. But make sure you slice your guts open wide enough so there aren’t any issues. Make it clean and quick. I’d rather not stay a second longer than necessary in this place.”

Throwing one last look at Kurama, Naruto put on the horned ritualistic mask. A terrible pain assaulted his senses, making him groan involuntarily. As the phantom of the God of Death appeared above his body, Kurama shouted:

“Now, cut yourself open! Don’t be afraid, once the souls come out of the Shinigami’s belly, my chakra will heal you!”

If anyone had told him half a year ago that one day Kyuubi would tell him to cut open his stomach and that he would listen to the fox and actually do it, he would have called them crazy. But life worked in mysterious ways. So there he was, holding the handle of a kunai with both hands as he stabbed himself in the stomach and made a gaping horizontal wound in his own flesh.

Blood started pouring out of his gaping wound like a river, and a similar wound appeared in the Death God’s phantom’s belly.

Four blue, indistinctive spirits came out from the phantom’s gaping wound, and clone-Kurama slapped his palms together like in prayer.

Three of those souls slowly rose through the roof of the derelict shrine and disappeared into nothingness, ascending to the Pure Lands. But the fourth one was obstructed. A scream of agony that sounded like a mixture between a human scream and a beast’s roar came from the fourth soul before it was split in half, one blue, and one red.

Completely ignoring the blue half of the spirit as it scurried away through the ceiling and disappeared, clone-Kurama opened his mouth wider than a human should have been capable of before inhaling deeply and swallowing the red spirit. It was Kurama's Yin Half, the one that Namikaze Minato had sealed inside the Shinigami's belly nearly 18 years ago.

“I’m whole again. Finally,” Kurama said, his deep voice carrying feelings that were hard to put into words.

“That’s great and all, but I’m dying here,” Naruto’s cranky voice came from the side.

Clone-Kurama dispelled itself, returning all chakra to the original. As Kyuubi’s charka entered his system again, his bleeding abruptly stopped, and the large slash in his stomach closed at a speed visible to the naked eye before recovering completely. If it wasn’t for the obscene amount of blood soaking his clothes, one would be hard-pressed to believe he had been critically injured a few seconds ago.

“You’ve truly kept your word. Thank you, Naruto. I will not forget your kindness. On this day, I promise you that I will become your bloodline’s Guardian.”

“I didn’t do it to get something in exchange from you-” Naruto began to say only for the bijuu to cut him off.

“Shut up and let me finish speaking for once,” Kyuubi growled in annoyance. “I won’t leave any of my debts unpaid. I am Kurama, the strongest tailed beast in existence. I don’t need charity.”

As Naruto became silent, the fox continued:

“I, Kurama, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, swear on this day to protect you and your bloodline. Your enemies will be my enemies, and your comrades will be my comrades. Up until the fifth generation that comes after you, I will protect you and your offspring with my life. I swear it upon the name given to me by the Sage.”

⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN:

(1) the Frog Strike and its characteristics are canon. Tbh, the Frog Kumite is insanely overpowered if you think about it. Naruto’s Sage Mode strength is enough that he can lift and throw dozens of tons, and the Natural Energy Fist is simply impossible to defend against unless you’ve seen it before (and it’s strong enough to one-shot kill most characters). I reckon Naruto’s final fight with Sasuke would’ve probably ended in less than 10 moves once they started going hand-to-hand if Kishimoto hadn’t forgotten that Naruto was supposed to know the Frog Kata lol.

(2) search “Hwacha” on google or youtube. It was a siege weapon that Koreans created several hundred years ago to fight off the Japanese invasion. It’s like an antique rocket launcher of sorts. One such hwacha could fire tens of arrows at once; some of them could fire over 100 arrows at once.