Chapter 174 – Blowing a shot at Freedom

Naruto wakes up sore, hungry, and thirsty. He doesn’t realize where he is at first until the reality of the situation comes crashing down on him. Toph’s training! He jolts up and looks around. He remembers that he is in some sort of cave that has been converted into a house. There’s a half-eaten piece of bread on his plate. He wolfs it down and recalls Toph saying something about giving him a day off.

Leaning back on the chair, he wallows in despair at having to do such strenuous training again. It’s inhumane! It makes no sense! He would rather train twice as hard as they do in schools back home than stay here! Even his mother and Azula at their worst don’t push him as hard as Toph does. Slowly.. ever so slowly rising to his feet, he gently walks around with shaky steps in pursuit of water.

Shuffling down the corridors, he opens each door. There’s no running water, but somewhere, there should be a vat of stored water for bathing, cooking, and other tasks. Bedroom.. nursery.. library.. bedroom.. classroom..

Naruto comes to an immediate stop and is transfixed. Inside the classroom, there are four large hand-drawn facial portraits. The drawings are almost lifelike in their realism. One of them he recognizes as Azula, but the others.. never had he seen such beauty in his entire life. Strangely enough, he even finds the man with monstrous features to be beautiful. The two women besides Azula.. one is exquisitely seductive and one is blissfully innocent. He imagines dying happy if he can have sex with one of them a single time.

He hobbles into the classroom and approaches the wall. There are no names on the art. On the drawer below the hanging pieces, however, there are a slew of sketches on smaller pieces of paper. He picks them up and arranges them right side up on the classroom tables. Most of them are depictions of Azula and two children in a variety of activities like training, eating, sleeping, playing board games, and running around. Azula is sometimes portrayed in an intimate, but not obscene, manner with the seductive woman.

Every now and then, the names show up allowing Naruto to slowly piece together the family tree. The parents: Azula and Nuwa. The children: Tulen and Zina, both of them around his age. Uncontrollably, he finds himself staring at the hanging portrait of Zina. Even though Nuwa might be prettier, his instincts tell him to stay away from her at all costs, much like how he would secretly perv on Granny Tsunade, but when push comes to shove, he fears her insane strength.

Zina is another story. He cannot tear his eyes and thoughts away. It’s the first time he has felt his heart throb for a girl’s face instead of her body! Something about that bright, innocent smile comforts him and makes him want to preserve it. If he were to use Icha Icha terminology, Zina would be the ultimate Girl Next Door.

He still believes in his goal to fuck all attractive women in the world, but that would have to come after he’s strong enough. Stronger than Granny Tsunade, at least. In the meantime, he will fantasize about having Zina and Hinata as wives. He smiles wide at the new addition to his perverted dreams.

Immediately, Naruto feels a burning desire to meet Zina in person. ‘If she’s in the Spirit Realm right now, I might be able to teleport to her just by thinking of her! The only problem is that Toph might know if I leave. She can find me.. I know she can.’

He doesn’t know how to escape, until he spots the Normality Ring back on his finger! ‘What the hell?! It’s back on my finger.. The same thing happened after Orochimaru made his rule. Toph must have used it, and for some damned reason it keeps coming back to me, but there’s an upside to this! I’m under the veil of normality again, and Toph isn’t strong enough to see through it. I can walk out of here in plain sight!’

Naruto does just that. He sneaks a drawing of Zina into his pocket and limps right out of the cave house onto the beach. Then, he closes his eyes and walks down the sand, keeping his hand on Zina’s picture and his mind on her face. Abruptly, the sand under his shoes shifts to grass and he opens his eyes. He’s in a jungle now, but there’s a problem.

A tall and lean topless man with abnormally large muscles for his frame, long orange spiky hair, three orange stripes on his face, and eight swishing white-tipped orange tails stands before him. Speechless, Naruto stares at the humanoid fox, hoping that the normality effect will make him go away. Unfortunately, he’s not so lucky.

The fox man plops his large hand on Naruto’s head and says in a gruff voice, “Heh, kid. I’ve been waiting for you. Sure took your sweet time coming, eh?”

Naruto starts to panic. ‘He doesn’t treat me like normal! Is this guy as strong as Granny Tsunade?!’

“The name’s Kuroda. From now on, you’re in my care.” Kuroda squeezes his hand over Naruto’s head and lifts his whole body up by the skull so that Naruto and him are eye to eye. “Don’t try to escape or I’ll break your bones. Don’t make any new rules with that Ring or I’ll break your bones. Don’t take that Ring off or I’ll break your bones. Don’t take advantage of the Ring’s effects to fuck around or.. what?”

Frozen with fear, Naruto sweats profusely as he dangles limp in the air and answers Kuroda’s question, “Y-y-y-you’ll b-break my bones, s-sir.”

Kuroda smiles, which reveals his long canines. He gruffly states, “That’s right, pup.”

Eyes swiveling, Naruto tries to look for any clues as to what the hell is going on. On the grassy floor of the jungle below him, he spots rope laid out in a circle. The trees nearby have runes on them.

“You’re curious about how you were caught?” Kuroda smirks and slings Naruto over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He starts walking and continues, “When you’re as in tune with the World as me, these things become elementary. It was made known to me that you’d be trying to teleport around this time. All I had to do was extend a net to boost your reach a little bit. The simple answer is that Fate wanted you here. Don’t worry. I may be your captor, but I’m not going to kill or eat you. Fear, however, is one thing you should always feel in my presence, young pup.”

Naruto’s body wouldn’t stop shuddering. Through whatever ability he had slowly been gaining, he could sense that there really is no escaping Kuroda! He’s stuck with the scary muscle fox! Not to mention Kuroda’s resemblance to the Nine-Tailed Fox Beast is uncanny! What if he is mistakenly construed as a Tailed Beast devotee by association? What possessed him to try a random teleport in the Spirit Realm when he was already free of Toph?!

Chuckling, Kuroda shouts, “Yes! This is a lesson you must learn. The weak should fear the strong. Run if you can, but know too when it is futile. As you are now, you cannot escape me, pup.”

He drops Naruto face first onto muddy ground, causing a good deal of pain in the boy’s already sore body. By now, Naruto feels like life cannot get much worse. Everybody, everything, and supposedly Fate itself is out to get him!

In the background, he hears Kuroda say, “Nurse that pup back to health.”

A soft pair of hands turn Naruto around and he feels a warm wet towel clean the mud off his face. When he opens his eyes, he sees a cute fox girl tending to him. She’s as anthropomorphic as Kuroda, but her gentle touch completely contrasts with her male counterpart’s manhandling. Her breasts might be even bigger than Hinata’s too. The arrival of this angelic figure is so timely that Naruto feels that life might indeed be worth living if he can spend his days with her.

Kuroda boisterously laughs as he returns from the lone house nearby and says, “Taken a fancy to my daughter, huh? Good. That’s good. I’ll give her to you if you train well. You’ll have to learn sign language to understand her. Kyuu was born mute, but she's a good girl. Very obedient.”

Kyuu's hands glow and she starts to use medical chakra to heal Naruto's body, while he looks between Kuroda and Kyuu incredulously. He mutters, "What do you mean 'give her to me'?"

Kuroda is already leaving though. He had only come to drop off some food. Kyuu smiles at Naruto and seeing his gaze turn towards her, she takes up the task of clarifying. She points at him, then herself, then clasps her hands together with interlocking fingers and puts them against her cheek.

Naruto comprehends this blankly for a moment and translates the mute fox girl’s words approximately to “you.. me.. together.” Then he proceeds to blush as red as a tomato. She has no problem being with him just because her dad said so? His degenerate heart cannot handle this degree of cuteness. Any prejudice he holds towards furries immediately becomes unsustainable. How could he sustain it when he feels his own shameful presence is tainting this bastion of holy purity? If he hadn't seen Zina earlier, he would be immediately infatuated.

She controls a small amount of water to go into his mouth and he drinks it down. “Thanks, Kyuu.” he says, finally addressing her. Three tails swish behind her as she smiles humbly in response. He gulps watching the serene beauty. Somehow his first instinct is to imagine her as a maid.

‘That Kuroda guy.. he’s not bullshitting me, is he? With his power, why would he? Could I do Toph’s training if it was to earn a maid waifu? The answer to that question is probably.. yes! Why does it seem like he had all this planned out from the very beginning?!’

Naruto’s eye twitches upon seeing Kuroda return with a new arrival! ‘Did I jinx myself?’

The fox man is holding an exceedingly confused Toph by the nape of her neck, with a single hand. ‘What is with this guy and picking up people with one hand?’

Toph flails and whines in midair, “What’s going on? I call sexual harrassment! Put me down you big bully!”

To Naruto’s bafflement, he finds that in contrast to her own words, her tone of speech betrays her excitement. The lady is getting off on this!

When Kuroda lets go of her in the same clearing as the others, she floats instead of falling and throws a punch at him. "Haha! I've got you this time!" she cheers victoriously. He blocks the punch, but the real attack is a kick to his balls. Before it can land, two of his tails come from under his crotch and provide him a fluffy zone of protection.

He proceeds to viciously punch the tiny lady in the face hard enough to slam her several inches into the ground, then turns his attention to Naruto, who is watching from the side. Taking a lecturing tone, he explains, "This one is too far gone to learn fear. Whatever you do, don't end up like her."

Noticing Kyuu's look of worry, he continues, "Don't give me that look. She's not even hurt. She's faking it."

Giving up the act, Toph jumps to her feet and starts to raise the earth around them. "Foxy man! I will defea-" before she can finish, Kuroda's tails extend and wrap her entire body up snugly, only allowing her head to move. "You sexy.. animal.. monster.. let me out of here! What do you intend to do to a ripe young lady like me?" whines Toph with a lick of her lips.

Kuroda seems irked as he orders, "Calm yourself, woman. I am not in heat and therefore I do not desire your companionship. If a fight is what you want, you'll have to train that normal-looking fellow over there. You'll have to train him hard."

Toph turns her neck and only now notices Naruto and Kyuu. She smiles and greets them, "Oh, hey Naruto. Fancy meeting you here. Random fox girl too. You want me to train Naruto? I was training him earlier, but he seems to be fine without it now."

"No," retorts Kuroda, "He still needs an.. abnormally serious training regimen."

Naruto pitifully looks to Kyuu for moral support. Somehow, his worst predictions had come true. He definitely jinxed himself! They are indeed going to put him through Toph’s training for the maid waifu. Kyuu balls her fist and swings it encouragingly in a ‘you-can-do-it’ gesture that makes his heart melt and sting at the same time. There’s no other option now. They’ve all played their respective parts to trap him completely in their sinister net!

Toph shrugs and says, "That's fine with me. You have to fight me properly after I finish."

Kuroda agrees, "I'll even bed you if you so desire, but only after I've decided he has been trained to a satisfactory level of competence."

Toph's eyes twinkle upon hearing that reimbursement offer and she begins to giggle in anticipation, but to Naruto, it sounds more like his own funeral bells.

(A/N: Furry alert!)