[The Renegade] Chapter 15 - The Renegade (Patreon)

Chapter 15 - The Renegade

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With three heads offering him a 360-degree vision, Naruto extended his six arms in a circle around him before shouting:

"SHINRA TENSEI!"

⁂

A blinding light banished the darkness of the night. It was a world of white, and for a moment, even sounds ceased to exist.

When the world turned back to normal, Naruto found himself falling from a very high altitude in the sky.

Looking around him, he couldn't recognize his surroundings. The devastation was unimaginable. Now, as he was falling from a height of over 2000 metres in the air, Naruto himself was numb with shock at the horrifying power he had unleashed. He wasn't flying. The height of 2000 metres used to be ground level before the Almighty Push.

The once-tall and rocky landform had been turned into a massive crater. Four entire mountains had been razed off the surface of the earth, and the ground below his feet had been pushed and compressed to the absolute limit. Mountains, forest, animals, enemy shinobi - with him as the centre, everything in a radius of almost 10 kilometres around had been erased from existence.

'Is this the true power of the Rinnegan?'

Had Nagato used this power against him, he would have never been able to beat him, even if he had ten lives instead of one. Luckily, he had been needed alive, for the sake of extracting the bijuu sealed inside of him.

Another smaller crater formed at the bottom of the enormous depression as Naruto crash-landed on the ground. Thanks to his chakra enforcing his body, other than a slight sensation of discomfort in the soles of his feet, there was nothing to show that he had fallen from such a height.

'Did I really kill all of them?'

There were over 100 shinobi, of which one was a kage and another one with similar amounts of chakra. It wasn't the first time he had killed someone, but he had never killed so many people at once. Usually, he preferred to just beat his enemies into submission instead of killing them.

It wasn't that he regretted his actions or felt any guilt at taking so many lives because it wasn't like the time when he was forced to fight his former comrades and kill Might Guy. This time, they were enemies. Due to their contract and due to bijuu being sealed inside of him, Naruto and Kyuubi were one. So it was either him or them.

"Hahaha! You killed them like the miserable vermin they were!"

Kyuubi's laughter was so loud in his mind that it was almost giving him a headache.

"Wait. One of them survived. I can sense their fear and their hatred."

As the fox said that, Naruto felt a sudden feeling of exhaustion wash over him. The majority of Kyuubi's chakra left his system as the gigantic tailed beast materialized outside the seal.

"Why are you so much smaller now?"

Small was a relative term in this situation, seeing as the fox was still taller than a ten-story building. Nevertheless, Kyuubi's size was visibly smaller than a few minutes ago.

"I pushed a hefty amount of my chakra into you when you cast that Rinnegan technique," Kyuubi said, an evil grin of delight marring his face.

'So that's why the Almighty Push was so powerful this time?' Naruto came to a realization.

Granted, he had never used his entire strength when training the Deva Path's techniques due to concerns about destroying his environment beyond repair, but the jutsu's power this time had been way outside of his expectations. Even the Shinra Tensei that Pain had used to turn Konoha into a crater had not been on this level.

"Anyway, one of those dirty rats is still alive. I'm going to take my time ripping him to shreds," Kyuubi said maliciously before breaking into a run.

It didn't take long for the massive fox to dig out the place where the Iwa shinobi had been buried alive. Kyuubi wasn't surprised to see that the one who had survived was the same ninja that had tried to trap him with that large-scale mountain technique. It was Kitsuchi.

"That's one of the two ninja whose chakra reserves were similar to mine. He must have been the second in command after the Tsuchikage," Konan said as she landed next to Naruto with a flutter of her white paper wings.

"Kurama, I think it's best not to kill him," Naruto said when he saw the fox digging out the unconscious Iwa nin and starting to clench his clawed fist around his body.

"Why shouldn't I?" the fox growled menacingly. "They destroyed my home and attacked me unprovoked! They tried to seal me again! Once I'm done ripping this shitbag to shreds I'm heading straight to Iwa. I'll annihilate them all!"

"Iwagakure has one of the two largest armies in the world, alongside Kumogakure. Over 8,000 shinobi live inside the village at all times and another 10,000 are spread throughout the country. As powerful as you are, you stand no chance by yourself against such numbers," Konan said calmly.

"I don't remember asking you a damn thing."

"Calm down, will you? She isn't wrong. You're not at full power and even if you were, you couldn't take on an entire Hidden Village by yourself. Let this guy go back to Iwa and spread the word about what we've done to their kage and the dozens of shinobi they sent," Naruto reasoned with him.

"Nobody will ever dare to attack you or Amegakure again after news of this incident goes out," Konan also added.

The Iwa nin who had been stunned by Kyuubi, was now watching the enormous beast petrified with fear, not daring to make a sound.

"Kill the chickens to scare the monkey, huh? Alright. I'll do as you say this time…"

Bringing the terrified ninja closer to his head, Kyuubi said:

"I'm letting you keep your worthless life for now, maggot. So you can go tell the other worms in your village about what happened here today. But if you try anything like that ever again, I'll be coming straight to Iwa next."

After saying those words, Kyuubi drew his hand back and, standing on his hind legs, suddenly pitched Kitsuchi into the general direction of the Land of Earth like a baseball. It was almost comical how the Iwa shinobi screamed as he got launched into the horizon.

"Can you summon us back to Ame now?" Konan asked.

Naruto shook his head negatively.

"I dispelled all the clones while we were… you know."

She chuckled softly at his suddenly embarrassed countenance.

"I guess I'll be flying you there then," she said as she came behind him and wrapped her arms around his torso.

Before they could take off, Kyuubi suddenly said:

"Thank you, Naruto… You saved me this time."

The blonde grinned at him.

"Of course. You can always count on me. We're friends now, aren't we?"

"Hmpf. Isn't it because of the contract? Still, it's commendable that you kept your end of the bargain."

According to the contract that the two of them had signed, they were both required to help one another in times of need.

"You just can't be honest with yourself, can you?" Naruto laughed at Kurama's grouchy attitude.

"Shut it and get moving already," the fox said, shooing him away. "I don't have the whole day, I've got to find myself a new place and dig out a new home now after those worms destroyed my mountain."

Even Konan found herself smiling in amusement at the bijuu's awkward way of trying to put on a tough front.

"Alright, alright, we're leaving now. Stay safe, Kurama."

Konan wrapped her arms tighter around him and then flapped her large paper wings before taking off.

But she didn't fly them straight to Ame and landed on the grassy river bank a few dozen kilometres away from the Lake of Ame. That night, for some reason, she couldn't fly the entire distance in one go.

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked, confused about the reason they stopped there, in the middle of nowhere.

"I'm exhausted and a little sore. Just give me a minute and-"

"Sore? Where? Why? Did something happen to you? Did my Almighty Push hurt you?"

She couldn't help a grin creeping up on her face at his agitated reaction.

"Your almighty push did hurt me, alright. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to poke a hole inside of me."

It was interesting how even in the faint light coming from the moon peeking through the clouds, she could still see how his face quickly turned a bright shade of red when it finally dawned on him what she meant.

"I-, ugh-, sorry-"

His sputtering made her burst into laughter. He was so cute that she didn't even try to fight against the sudden urge she had to take him in her arms and squeeze him tightly.

Slightly confused and burning with embarrassment, he was surprised at her sudden embrace, but he was more than happy to reciprocate.

"I must've been too rough with you. I didn't mean to hurt you. It was my first time, and I-"

"Shh," she said, putting a finger on his lips, shushing him. "You didn't hurt me, it felt great. I'm sore now, but it's the good kind of sore."

He wasn't entirely sure how to interpret the expression "the good kind of sore," but he took it as a good sign and sighed in relief.

"How about I give you a piggyback until you can fly again?"

"No, it's okay. Let's just stay like this a bit longer."

He wasn't one to complain. With how starved for affection he had been his entire life, it didn't even register to him that Konan was acting a bit clingy. It was completely the opposite; he wished she was so affectionate all the time.

Not caring about the wet grass, Naruto sat down on the ground and put Konan in his lap, letting her rest her head on his shoulder.

"You were right about the bijuu," he said after they spent several minutes embracing each other in silence. "They came after Kurama only a few days after I let him out of the seal. I can only imagine what the rest of the villages would've done to the other bijuu if I hadn't listened to you and let them all out."

But Konan didn't reply. Looking down at her face, he realized that she was asleep. Her exhaustion, coupled with the silence of the night, the relaxing sound of the flowing river, and the comfort and warmth of his body had lulled her to sleep. He smiled at the peaceful and serene look on her beautiful face.

The Land of Rain didn't have many forests, so he couldn't shinobi-travel by jumping from one tree to another as he would have done in Konoha. He would have to walk the old-fashioned way.

Putting his hands together in a cross seal, a shadow clone popped up next to him.

"Go to Ame as fast as you can and summon us there."

"Yes, boss," the clone replied before breaking into a sprint.

It would take a while before the clone arrived at Ame and summoned them, but he was content with waiting as he held the sleeping Konan in his arms.

⁂

Two days after the battle against the Iwa shinobi, Hidden Rain welcomed the first shipment of coal from Konoha through its docks.

It was only a third of the total amount of coal that Konan had requested from the Hokage, but, as a show of good faith and for the sake of solidifying their alliance, she delivered all the war prisoners to the Konoha delegation transporting the coal.

Nara Shikaku and a squad of ten ANBU welcomed their comrades gratefully before taking their leave. Although Ame and Konoha were technically allied now, it felt more like a pact of non-aggression rather than an alliance. Considering the prisoners' personal history with Naruto, Shikaku decided it was wiser to leave Hidden Rain as soon as possible, not wanting to risk giving them a chance to create an incident that would further strain the already complicated relationship between their nations.

"Your former comrades looked like they wanted to talk to you," Konan said as she and Naruto watched the Konoha delegation leave the village with the same sailboat that they had used to transport the coal. "Come to think of it, you've never talked to them even once while they were imprisoned."

"There was nothing for us to talk about," he shrugged his shoulders and said. "They came here to attack me. I was sleeping in a hospital bed when they ambushed me. We aren't comrades anymore. Nevermind that, I never knew they could come to Ame with a boat."

She didn't comment on his sudden change of subject and opted to explain to him the geography of their country instead.

"The two rivers coming from the mountains of the Land of Earth through our territory flow into this lake that surrounds Amegakure from all sides. But the Lake of Ame is an open lake. Open lakes are lakes that also drain into another river. In the case of our lake, it drains into the Shinano River, which flows into the Land of Rivers and ultimately into the ocean."

"Heeh, I didn't know you could get to the ocean like that," he said, mildly impressed.

"Did Konoha Academy not teach you geography?"

Geography was a very important subject that most Hidden Villages treated with seriousness because, many times, battles between average shinobi and kunoichi could be won or lost by making use of the terrain.

"I didn't pay much attention to such things. I was either asleep or ditching class most of the time," Naruto said, laughing.

"How did they even let you graduate?!" she asked in amusement.

"Well, you see…"

As he told her the story about how Mizuki tricked him into stealing the Scroll of Seals and how he had failed the exam several times before passing, Konan found herself giggling more than once. She had a hard time imagining that someone who had defeated Nagato had once struggled with something as trivial as making a Bunshin.

Hearing him talk fondly about his misdeeds at the Academy, she asked:

"Do you miss Konoha?"

He didn't reply right away.

"I don't know," he said eventually. "I wouldn't want to go back there, I'm sure of that. But I miss some of the people there… Iruka-sensei, Ichiraku, and Konohamaru… and even Tsunade, the Hokage. We used to be very close… but what would I even tell them if I were to see them now?"

He couldn't imagine what kind of conversation he would be able to have with someone like Konohamaru or Iruka after the news of him deserting the village and killing Might Guy reached their ears.

"I used to boast every day about how I'd become the Hokage, but look at me now. For all they know, I'm nothing more than a nuke-nin now, a traitor."

"Do you regret the way things turned out?" she asked.

"Things could've been better… but I'm glad you came to save me from the Hozuki Castle," he said and took her hand in his, intertwining his fingers with hers in a lover's hold.

Seeing her smile made him smile as well. He would never get tired of seeing how her serious, usually inexpressive, doll-like face lit up whenever she smiled.

In spite of her smile, she pressed on: "So, do you regret it or not?"

Instead of replying, he gently pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers.

"I thought it was obvious. Is my answer clear enough now?"

"I don't know, it wasn't very convincing," she flirted back, slightly breathless.

But before he could lean in for another kiss, her body dispersed into a myriad of paper butterflies, getting away from his grasp.

"So you wanna play hardball?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said and flew away laughing.

If she had expected him to start chasing her on foot from one rooftop to another while she was flying, she was gravely mistaken because he raised his hand instead and said:

"Bansho Ten'in."

Konan let out an actual squawk of surprise when her body was suddenly yanked back, and, in the next moment, she slammed into his chest. His arms wrapped around her waist tightly and securely, not letting her move an inch.

"I can't believe you'd use your Rinnegan for something like this!" she said in a mixture of exasperation and disbelief while he was laughing in triumph.

"All is fair in love and war!" he said and playfully chomped on the nape of her neck, making her let out an undignified yelp.

But their playful fight soon came to an end when it suddenly started to rain. Nevertheless, his good mood didn't disappear because, after several months spent in this country, he was starting to get used to the rain.

As Konan created a floating umbrella of paper above their heads, she turned around in his arms and cupped his cheeks with her hands. Raising herself on her tippy toes, she gave him a loving kiss. In spite of the heavy rain pouring from the sky and the strong winds blowing at that height, Naruto and Konan continued kissing and embracing each other passionately on the rooftop of the tower with no care in the world.

For Konan, Naruto had brought colour into her life. After losing Yahiko and Nagato, after so many years of scheming and battles, when she thought that there was nothing left in her life, he reawakened her passion. He was making her feel excited to wake up in the morning every day, and his devotion to her and his fascination with her beauty were making her giddy with happiness.

For the first time in many years, Konan was happy.

As for Naruto, Konan was more than he had ever dreamed of. His dream had been to marry Sakura one day, but his reality - the present that he was experiencing - was ten times better than even his wildest dreams. In his infatuated state of mind, Konan was perfect. He would often draw parallels between Konan and Sakura in his mind but, every time, the balance would be completely skewed in Konan's favour. Konan never insulted him. She never punched him. Her voice wasn't loud and he couldn't ever remember her screaming. And she was beautiful, so much more beautiful.

But, topping all of that, Konan was one of the most loyal people he had ever met, and she had saved his life too. When even Konoha and his comrades had turned against him, she was the only one who stood by his side and came to rescue him. She acknowledged his skill and gave him the rank of Jonin. She made him her right hand and she even gifted him Nagato's precious Rinnegan. And now, every day, she showered him with her love and affection.

His feelings for her could not be put into words that easily. He didn't just love her. He worshipped her.

⁂

Later that evening, fresh out of the shower and with their desires temporarily satiated, Naruto and Konan were lying in bed together, cuddling. He was resting his back against the bed's headboard and she sat between his legs, with her back resting against his chest.

"The coal shipment from Konoha should cover our needs for the next four months," she said as she read a report from one of her subordinates.

"So you can lift the curfew now?" he asked, reading the rest of the document over her shoulder.

"Yes, I'll make the announcement tomorrow."

"Hey, I was still reading that!" he complained when she put down the papers and grabbed another scroll.

"Since you got the gist of it, you don't have to read it entirely, to the last letter. You need to learn how to read between the lines, or else you'll be stuck at the desk 24/7 just going through documents."

"Then I guess I should be glad I'm not in your place."

She giggled softly at his grumbles.

"Didn't you want to become the Hokage?"

"Not anymore. And I won't become the leader of Ame either. Don't think you can ditch your responsibilities on me!"

In truth, for him, becoming the Hokage had always been more about getting other people's acknowledgement rather than the position itself. But now that he had Konan's acknowledgement, becoming the leader of the village suddenly lost its appeal entirely. He couldn't imagine being stuck behind a desk just reading and signing documents for the rest of his life.

"We need to get you out of it somehow too," he said after a while, out of the blue.

Momentarily putting down the scroll she had been reading, she turned her head sideways to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

"We ought to find someone else to lead the village instead of you."

"Why would you want that?"

"Why wouldn't you?" he asked in surprise. "Aren't you tired of staying with your nose buried in paper every day?"

"You know that I am made out of paper, right?"

At his awkward chuckle, she giggled too and pecked him on the cheek.

"I don't hate what I'm doing. I love Hidden Rain. I want to take care of my village and of my country. I don't want any other children to grow up like I did - orphaned, struggling to find food from one day to another or running and hiding in fear of enemy shinobi. I want Hidden Rain to prosper. I want the ordinary people to live safe and comfortable lives. I can't-, I won't let my job in the hands of another until I have achieved my goal."

Her feelings for her country ran deep. She was speaking with so much passion that he became silent. It was rare to see Konan be so outspoken about her feelings.

"If you like it, then it's all good. And since you're the brain, I'll be your brawn," he said and kissed the crown of her head, making her smile again.

"Is that what I think it is?" he unexpectedly asked a few moments later, pointing towards a small notebook with black covers.

"It's a Bingo Book. One of our spies in Iwa had it delivered to me."

"You have spies in Iwa?"

She was amused by his question.

"Of course we do. Most Hidden Villages have spies in other countries. Sometimes they send shinobi to infiltrate the enemy ranks while other times they make use of people who can't use chakra, civilians who were trained in the art of espionage. 'Civilian' spies are extremely hard to uncover but the amount and quality of intel that they can get is limited as well. Still, they have their uses. One such spy sent us Iwagakure's updated edition of the Bingo Book. My guess is that it's because you got an entry in it too."

Now filled with curiosity, Naruto stopped reading the document in Konan's hands (a report about the amount of kunai, shuriken, and training dummies needed by Amegakure's Ninja Academy students) and grabbed Iwagakure's Bingo Book.

His curiosity must have been contagious because Konan also put her documents down and started flipping through the pages of the Bingo Book together with him.

"Oh! You have an entry too!" he said when he stumbled over a page with Konan's photo on it and a few paragraphs underneath describing her abilities.

"Yes, I got it after Deidara found out that I was the one who defeated Sasori and made him join the Akatsuki. They were rivals, and he was more than happy to do anything that would upset Sasori any time they had an argument about art. So he leaked the result of our fight to Iwa."

In spite of his less-than-pleasant feelings about Akatsuki, especially Deidara, who had captured Gaara in the past, he found himself intrigued by her words.

"Art? Why would someone like them argue about art?"

She snickered at his incredulous voice.

"Those two were obsessed with art. Deidara argued that art was the beauty of that fleeting moment when something exploded, while Sasori was firmly convinced that art was supposed to last forever, he believed in eternal beauty. Sometimes, Pain had to step between the two of them himself to stop them from coming to blows. I'm honestly surprised one of them didn't kill the other on one of their missions."

As Naruto kept flipping through the pages of the Bingo Book, he incidentally stopped at the Uchiha Sasuke's entry.

Name: Uchiha Sasuke aka "The Last Uchiha"
Affiliation: the terrorist organisation, Akatsuki. Defected from Konohagakure.
Ninja ranking: genin.
Threat ranking: S class,
Notable feats:
- Killed Orochimaru, the Sannin.
- Killed Uchiha Itachi, the Kinslayer.
- Killed the Mad Bomber, Deidara.
- Defeated the Eight-Tails Jinchuuriki, Killer Bee.
Notable jutsu:
- Very high mastery of the Fire and Lightning nature transformations
- Chidori (lightning blade technique)
- Mangekyo Sharingan genjutsu
- Amaterasu (inextinguishable black flames)
- Susano'o (highly destructive and nigh-unbreakable avatar of chakra)
Bounty: 95,000,000 Ryo.

"That's one hell of a resume," Naruto couldn't help admitting. Itachi and Orochimaru had been two of the strongest shinobi that he had ever met. It said something about Sasuke's prowess that the two of them lost their lives at his hands. "And what's with that bounty?!"

An average civilian would earn between 15,000 and 30,000 Ryo a month. Ninety-five million Ryo was a colossal amount of money for killing one ninja.

"You said it yourself, Uchiha Sasuke has an impressive resume. One's bounty depends not only on the gravity of their crimes but on the difficulty of killing them as well. Furthermore, although it was mostly due to Akatsuki's actions over the years, his capture of Killer Bee was like the last straw that broke the camel's back. It forced the Five Great Nations to organise a Kage Summit."

"But I heard that the Eight-Tails Jinchuuriki actually escaped," Naruto pointed out.

"The fact that Killer Bee was forced to escape probably counts as a win for the Uchiha," she tried to reason.

As they flipped through another dozen pages, Naruto was beginning to think he was fortunate enough to not be listed in the Bingo Book. However, to his dismay, he was there too, on the very last page of the book.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto aka "The Renegade"
Affiliation: Amegakure no Sato. Defected from Konohagakure.
Ninja ranking: Jonin.
Threat ranking: Flee on Sight.
Notable feats:
- Defeated Gaara, the Fifth Kazekage.
- Defeated Kakuzu of the Jiongu.
- Defeated Pain, the leader of Akatsuki.
- Defeated Sharingan no Kakashi.
- Killed Might Guy, Eight Gates Taijutsu master.
- Defeated Uchiha Sasuke, the Last Uchiha.
- Killed Uchiha Madara
- Killed the third Tsuchikage and a large number of Iwagakure Jonin and Chunin.
Notable jutsu:
- Rasengan and Rasenshuriken (long-range, wind-type Rasengan, highly destructive)
- Kage Bunshin (over 1000 clones)
- Toad Sage Mode (immense physical strength)
- Doujutsu capable of controlling gravity
- Jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox
Bounty: 150,000,000 Ryo.

"What-, what is this?!"

His surprise was so genuine that Konan had to take a second look at his entry, thinking that she had missed something.

"I don't see anything wrong with it."

"What do you mean, half of that stuff isn't right! Gaara wasn't the Kazekage when we fought, we were just kids! And I didn't win, it was a tie at best. Also, I didn't defeat Kakuzu. Kakashi dealt the killing blow, and there was a whole bunch of us ganging up on him at the same time! Same with Nagato, I didn't win by myself, I had an entire village behind me, intel on how his Rinnegan worked, and an army of Toad Summons from Mount Myoboku! Also, killing Obito was mostly thanks to you and the Konoha shinobi. If it wasn't for you all, he would have escaped!"

"You can't expect them to know all these details," Konan said with a shrug. "Besides, even if they did know the entire truth, it's in their interest to twist the facts in order to make you look more dangerous and unhinged than you really are. This way, it washes away the shame of having their Tsuchikage and such a high number of elite shinobi lose their lives at your hands."

At his unconvinced look, she continued:

"Think about it: if word goes out that you have already defeated an S-class nukenin, the current Kazekage, the leader of the Akatsuki, Pain, and the legendary Uchiha Madara—all by yourself, no less—people won't think, 'oh, the Tsuchikage was an old cripple and the Iwa shinobi are useless weaklings'. Instead, they will think, 'Uzumaki Naruto is a monster'. Therefore, the narrative will be that they didn't lose because they were weak but because you are unreasonably strong. Remember, this is Iwagakure's Bingo Book. It was made by their new Tsuchikage, for their own shinobi. It was bound for it to be biased against you."

As he remained silent, Konan smiled at him.

"Orochimaru used to have the highest bounty, if I recall correctly. Konoha had put a prize of 100,000,000 Ryo on his head. But you frog-leapt past him. It's your first entry yet you're already at 150 million. This is great news."

"Yeah, I can't wait to fight against the greedy idiots who'll come after my head."

"Hahaha!"

She laughed heartily at those words.

"Nobody in their right mind would dare attack you. Iwa trying to make themselves look better and painting you in a bad light actually works in Amegakure's favour. You are 'the Renegade' now and you have a 'Flee-on-Sight' order. No one has gotten a 'Flee on Sight' threat ranking from Iwagakure before except for you and Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage. Your name alone will be enough to inspire terror. Your infamy will be the shield that protects the Hidden Rain."