[Caterpillar] Chapter 5 - Rest (Patreon)

A long but rather narrow and sinuous lake surrounded by tall and steep mountains on all sides. It was a fjord, a place of rarely seen beauty. A simple wooden boat was floating gently on top of the water and on the boat there was a red-eyed man with thick and dark whisker-like marks on his cheeks. Despite his rather scary-looking face, there was an aura of peace and calmness around him. With a straw hat on his head and a fishing rod in his hands, the young man looked as though he was one with nature, an integral part of it. It was as though the paysage would be incomplete without him.

All of a sudden, with a quick jerk of his wrists, he pulled on the fishing rod in his hands. An enormous yellow fish about 25 feet long cast a shadow over the lake when it was yanked out of the water. It was even larger than the man's wooden boat! But there was no panic in the man's red eyes. With practised movements, he threw 5 shurikens at the large fish still in mid-air. The five shurikens moved almost as though they were remote-controlled drones not thrown projectiles and they started flying in circles around the fish. Then, the man clenched his fist and 5 very thin metallic wires appeared in his hands seemingly out of nowhere. But they had been connected to the thrown shurikens from the beginning.

Before the fish even started to fall, arcs of lightning travelled through the wires and zapped the large fish to death. Although the fish was now dead and the lightning had dispersed by the time the fish dropped back into the water, its body was still twitching, disturbing the previously still surface of the lake. But soon, the fish became immobile, its nerves finally ceasing their activity. The fisherman tied the metallic wires connected to the fish on one end of the wooden boat and then he grabbed the paddles and started to slowly move towards the shore. On the shore, a giant bonfire was burning merrily and a nine-tailed fox that was as big as a horse was pacing around restlessly.

The man and the fox in question were none other than Naruto and Kyuubi. They were in the midst of enjoying their holiday alone, on an unknown planet, away from civilisation. It was a planet from outside of the 3600 sectors of the known Universe protected by the Green Lantern Corps, in a star system located in the unknown void. Its living conditions were nearly identical to the Earth but there were no sentient creatures on this planet. There were only animals and because of that, nature was rich and pristine. It was Naruto and Kyuubi's secret refuge, a place where they sometimes went to heal their souls and rest.

⁂

One hour later, more than half of the enormous fish had already been cooked and eaten by the two of them. More exactly, it was Kyuubi who had eaten almost everything by himself. Lost in his greed and gluttony, he had even increased his size to that of an elephant so he could take bigger bites out of the fish and eat more at once.

In contrast to the voracious fox, Naruto was sitting cross-legged on the grassy ground with his eyes closed. As he drew in the natural energy of the planet, he periodically exhaled a greyish-black cloud through his mouth. Once every few years Naruto came here to expel the impurities that his body accumulated by drawing in the natural energy of the planets that were inhabited by sentient species. Whenever he used his Sage Mode on such planets, he would draw on the polluted, infected energy of nature. It did not have an immediate effect on him if it was in small doses but if left unattended, or if he drew too much of that infected energy at once, he could become like Jugo from the Elemental Nations and go berserk. Or worse, instead of going berserk, he could turn into a statue if he lost control of the natural energy in his body. He had gone through that in the past once so he was careful to not repeat his mistakes again.

"I love this planet. Such pure nature, such calmness, such peace." Naruto opened his eyes and said. "I feel like any Sage Mode user would be able to prolong their lifespan by decades if not even centuries simply by living here."

The elephant-sized fox's voice boomed from the bonfire.

"It's not about the duration of one's life but its quality. Look at me, I've lived for 1000 years but the last 60-70 years since you unsealed me from your body had been the best of my entire life. If I had to choose between the previous 1000 years in the Elemental Nations and 70 years in this dimension, I'd choose this new world in a heartbeat."

"You're right," Naruto acknowledged. "This planet is beautiful, pure and peaceful but there is nothing to do here. It's nice to come and rest once in a while but living here alone for years or decades?"

Most sentient living beings desire the companionship of other people. And Naruto was no different. Although he no longer got emotionally attached to persons and places, he still enjoyed living with people. He liked interacting with others, joking around, visiting restaurants, going to movie theatres and sometimes he liked even to just go to a bazaar and watch people haggle and argue with each other for prices. Although people had a very dark side to them, they had beautiful parts too. And the more he lived, the more Naruto understood that these two sides of people were like the 2 sides of a coin. One could not exist without the other.

As Naruto was sunken deeply into his philosophical thoughts about people's nature, a very loud beeping sound came from a small distance away. It came from the combat suit that he had left in a hut that he and his shadow clones had built when they arrived on this planet a few weeks before. Now, he was wearing casual clothes: a pair of brown pants and a light blue T-shirt. He had no weapons or any other devices on him except for the armband that contained the shurikens and ninja wire that he used in fishing.

"Haa~" he sighed in annoyance "These guys don't know how to give up."

He went to his hut and took out a wristwatch. Then, he covered his face with his hand and made a downward motion with it. A white ANBU fox mask appeared on his face and his strawberry-blond hair became bright gold while his red eyes became baby blue. Then, he tapped the screen of the wristwatch with a finger and a hologram appeared on top of it. It was a human-sized humanoid rat.

A high-pitched voice came out:

"Seriously, Mr Uzumaki, where have you been these past 4 months? You didn't give us an update on your location and most of the time we couldn't even reach you through the lightwave. We've been so worried that-"

The hologram of the talking rat abruptly disappeared when Naruto cut off the transmission. But 2 seconds later, the wristwatch started beeping again.

"Hey! Why did you hang up on me, huh? Here I am, all concerned about your well-being and that's how you treat me? You ingrate-"

If the mask didn't cover his face, one would be able to see that a vein started to pulse on Naruto's forehead.

"Alright. I'll cut the transmission and switch off the lightwave receptor."

"NO, WAIT!" the rat-man yelled frantically.

He calmed down when he saw Naruto did not follow up on his threat and said unhappily:

"Sheesh, you're as grumpy as ever. No pleasantries, no joking around, nothing."

"Get to the point already!" Naruto couldn't help shouting. "I do joke around with most people but you're just so irritating! Argh, why do I even put up with you?!"

A smug expression appeared on the rat man's face at the blond's outburst.

"It's simple: because I'm the best at what I do."

Naruto let out a snort but did not contradict him.

"Look, I know you said you need some time on your own, but we've got a huge job on our hands this time. To be more exact, two huge jobs. With the payment from these 2 bounties, you'll probably be able to even buy a fleet of ships strong enough to take over a planetary system. Or legally buy a small-sized terraformed moon."

When Naruto remained silent the rat-man said in exasperation:

"I hate it so much when I can't gouge your reaction because of that creepy mask of yours!"

After a few seconds of silence, Naruto spoke:

"I told you I'm retired. At least for now. I don't really have a need for money. I have enough money to live in peace for a long time. I don't care about conquering planetary systems and whatnot either. As for owning a moon..." he trailed off and started to chuckle. He already had a planet twice as large as the Earth with perfect living conditions and nobody to mess up its nature and ecosystems. It was like a paradise. What was a mere moon compared to that?

"Come on, just this once? I need you to take this job, don't do me like this, man." the rat-man almost begged.

Naruto covered the forehead of his mask with his right hand and sighed, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

"What did you do this time? Did you gamble your wife and your kids and lose again?"

It was not a joke, nor an exaggeration what Naruto asked. The rat-man in the hologram was a degenerate gambler, someone who had really gambled his wife and 6 kids and lost them in a game. Granted, it was proven that the other party had been cheating and he didn't truly lose his family in the end but the fact that he was willing to gamble away his family for money spoke volumes of what type of person he was.

"I-..." the rat-man fidgeted as if he did not know how to explain himself. "I took the payment in advance for those jobs and-, and I've already spent that money. But don't worry, getting that money back is not an issue! At all! I swear on my honour!"

'A gambler's honour. Pfft.' Naruto inwardly said but stayed silent and let him continue.

"The problem is that 1 month has already passed since I accepted those bounties on your behalf and they told me they don't need their money back. Either we complete the mission or they will send the Gordanians after me."

Naruto felt the beginning of a huge headache. Anything involving the Gordanians was going to be nasty. They were infamous for being a warmongering race hell-bent on conquering and enslaving other planets.

"Explain."

That single word made the rat man tremble. He understood that Naruto was slowly getting pissed and he also knew better than most people that as easy-going and amiable as Naruto seemed to be, it was a terrible thing when he got truly angry.

A few minutes later, when the rat-man was done explaining and anxiously waiting for the verdict, Naruto asked:

"So, the first job you accepted was from the Psions. They want me to capture someone for them to experiment on him... tell me, Rui Nak, when have I ever accepted any jobs from those bastards?"

"Mr Uzumaki, please don't get angry!" the rat-man said quickly, desperately trying to stop Naruto from getting angrier at him than he already was. "I've checked the past of that bounty target. I spent a lot of resources on that but I did find out that he's caused several world wars and genocides in his homeworld. Whatever the Psions will do to him, he fully deserves it!"

Feeling that Naruto was mollified by his explanation, Rui Nak continued:

"As for the second job, I took it especially because it was connected to the first one. The King of Tamaran sold his youngest daughter to the Gordanians, as a slave, for the sake of peace. But the Queen of Tamaran, his wife, secretly put out a bounty to rescue her daughter. My sources tell me that the Gordanians demanded the princesses of the royal family of Tamaran at the request of the Psions."

"So you mean to say I'll be hitting two birds with one stone?"

Rui Nak nodded vigorously.

"Exactly! You can capture the target of the bounty offered by Psions and after you hand him over to them, you can also raid their base and rescue the princess of Tamaran."

Naruto hummed in thought.

"I'll need you to send me all the data you have on the bounty offered by the Psions. I will be the one to decide if the target is a scumbag or not."

"Absolutely!" the rat-man said eagerly.

⁂

A few hours later, Naruto was sitting next to a campfire with his back resting against a tree as he read on a tablet the information that Rui Nak had sent him regarding not only the Psions' bounty but also the current state of affairs in Tamaran, the Gordanians' attack. and the enslaved princess.

"This guy really is the best at what he's doing, but sometimes I feel like I wanna strangle him to death," Naruto said in annoyance.

Rui Nak was an information broker, one of the best in the galaxy. Naruto was not the only bounty hunter in partnership with him. Even Lobo took bounties from him once in a while. Rui Nak was not subordinated to anyone. He was a free agent, simply selling information to anyone who paid him. In spite of his despicable morals and degenerated persona, as a businessman, Rui Nak was excellent. He was an extremely well-connected individual: there was not an inhabited planetary system or prison planet in the 3600 sectors of the known universe where he did not know a guy or two. He made it his job to learn all about the latest bounties posted by the major powers of the Galaxy and contact the bounty hunters who might be interested in them. The bounty hunters were happy to get a juicy job, the clients were happy to have their problems solved and Rui Nak himself was happy to get a hefty commission from the bounty hunters and even from the clients themselves if they contacted him directly. The rat-man was not the sole information broker operating on an intergalactic level but he was among the best.

"He's not gonna get even one coin as commission from my reward after the shit he pulled."

Kyuubi was curled up very close to the fire in his tiny form as a fox cub and yawned lazily every once in a while.

"You could've just ignored him and not taken the job. But you couldn't help playing the hero again, eh?" Kyuubi jabbed at him.

Naruto glared at the fox and said in retort:

"What hero? I'm getting paid for it. Not to mention, we've worked together for so many years."

"Mhm. Keep telling yourself that."

Seeing Naruto becoming silent at his words, Kyuubi asked:

"So? Where are we going now?"

"To Earth."

"What would the Psions want from Earth?" Kyuubi raised his head from his front paws and asked, appearing as though he was very intrigued.

"Apparently, it's someone who has lived for nearly 50,000 years. He's the one who caused the two deadliest wars in Earth's history and numerous other atrocities. A human named Vandal Savage. I think the Psions will dissect him to the last atom to see what makes him tick, what gave him immortality when everyone else on Earth lives up to a century at most."

"Didn't think we'd get back to Earth so soon. Not that I have anything against it, mind you." Kyuubi said and the nine fluffy tails at his back started wagging.

Naruto grinned when he looked at the tiny fox's unveiled excitement.

"Oho, you look excited. I wonder why? My bet is that you can't wait for that woman to give you some belly rubs again~" he said snidely.

"Y-you!" Kyuubi sputtered at the unexpected verbal attack. "What does that have to do with anything!"

"Oh really now? Then tell me, what's the tail-wagging for?"

Kyuubi bit on his own treacherous tails in embarrassment. At the memory of the blissful feeling from the Amazon princess' gentle caresses, his tails had involuntarily started wagging on their own, out of his control. Kyuubi did not understand it himself why he had liked it that much; he did not know that it was because of the gift that the Olympian Goddess of the Hunt and Wilderness had blessed Wonder Woman with.

"If only the people from our homeworld could see this: the mighty Kyuubi no Kitsune, the strongest bijuu in existence, wagging his tails like a dog and purring like a cat from a simple belly rub! You were so cute! So adorable! Wahahaha!"

But as he laughed out loud, Naruto suddenly jumped up to his feet and, immediately after, he leapt into the tree behind him. From there, he broke into a mad dash, shinobi-jumping from one tree to another as quickly as he could. That's because a gigantic nine-tailed fox, the mighty Kyuubi in his original form as a tailed beast had suddenly smashed the spot he had been sitting on before with his immense claws. Hundreds of feet tall and wide and 9 tails that were just as huge as his main body. Even the enormous trees of that virgin planet were dwarfed by his gigantic size. Now, he was a behemoth.

"Naruto! Don't let me get my hands on you!" Kyuubi's demonic roar rang and the shockwaves of his roar flattened to the ground the forest around him for miles.

In his original form, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox truly was like a natural disaster, a calamity. But in front of that terrible might, obnoxious laughter could be heard in the distance, just as loud as his roar. Naruto had purposely infused his chakra in his voice, to make sure that the fox heard it.