"Don't leave!"
"Let's talk a little more!"
Kurama panicked.
He was genuinely afraid Haru would just leave like that.
The most frightening thing was not endless darkness stretching beyond sight.
It was seeing a faint glimmer of light in that darkness, only for it to vanish in the very next instant.
Whenever a living creature was trapped in the abyss, as long as it could see hope, it would show unbelievable endurance.
So what if he had to stay inside Mito for another ten or twenty years?
He could endure it.
The bright future was still waiting for him!
Kurama encouraged himself inwardly. His chance to regain freedom was right in front of him, and he absolutely could not let it slip away.
"Thought it through?"
"You can accept it?"
Haru sneered inwardly.
This big fox had finally taken the bait.
"I can accept it!"
"So what if I have to endure another dozen years? I can handle it!"
Kurama thumped his chest, showing that he was still strong enough to overcome a tiny little problem like this.
Haru nodded.
Now that Kurama had started making concessions, this was exactly when Haru should push his advantage.
The initiative in the negotiation was already in his hands.
If he did not start setting conditions now, when would he?
"Then let's agree on three terms. I guarantee that after Mito dies, I'll give you your freedom. In return, you'll live near Konoha as its guardian tailed beast."
"Of course, Konoha will provide corresponding protection and guarantee your living conditions."
There was no way Haru was just going to release the Nine-Tails and let it become a wild tailed beast again.
Even if he became Hokage, he could never casually release the strongest tailed beast in the ninja world. The rest of the village leadership would never agree to that. It would be shaking the very foundation of Konoha's survival.
For all he knew, the moment he let Kurama out, the fox could just vanish and get captured by Madara hiding in some cave somewhere, only to become livestock and a mount again.
No matter how Haru thought about it, he felt he was doing this for Kurama's own good.
The only question was whether Kurama could understand his painstaking effort.
"Nani?"
"I still have to stay near Konoha?"
"That wasn't the condition just now!"
Kurama was getting furious.
Why was there an extra condition now?
Truly a damned evil Uchiha!
"What did I say just now?"
"I did agree to free you from Mito and give you freedom. I'm doing you a huge favor here, and you're not giving me anything back?"
"That's way too cold. You wouldn't happen to be as stingy as Shukaku, would you?"
"If that's the case, then I'll respect your opinion. Let's just say I misjudged what kind of tailed beast you are."
Haru pretended to be disappointed, as though he had looked at the wrong fox.
The way he spoke made Kurama feel like he had committed some enormous mistake and deeply let Haru down.
Especially because Haru had just mentioned Shukaku.
Out of the other eight tailed beasts, the one Kurama got along with worst was Shukaku. They fought all the time.
To be lumped into the same category as Shukaku was absolutely intolerable.
He was the strongest tailed beast.
Even if he died, he could not accept being put on the same level as Shukaku.
When he thought about it carefully, living near Konoha actually was not that bad. The huge forests around it were not much different from where he had lived before.
As for guarding Konoha, Kurama instinctively chose to ignore that part.
When the time came, he could always show up without really putting in effort.
A couple of Tailed Beast Bombs for show would be enough.
Any enemy who could not even handle a Tailed Beast Bomb would never make it all the way to Konoha anyway.
And if an enemy could casually tank Tailed Beast Bombs, then Kurama felt there was a good chance even he would not be able to stop them.
At that point, firing off a few bombs would already count as repaying Haru.
If he still did not run after that, then all those years he had spent in prison would have been for nothing.
No matter what, the first priority was agreeing now.
He had to get out of the little black room inside Mito first.
Kurama could not even remember what it felt like anymore to roll around in the grass under the sunlight.
As for everything else, he could deal with it later.
Thinking that, Kurama suddenly felt the world open wide before him.
His thoughts were no longer shackled.
As long as he waited patiently for the right moment, bided his time, and endured for now, then one day he would surely soar like a bird into the open sky and dive like a fish into the vast sea.
Damn, I really am smart.
Kurama felt the two flashy lines he had just thought up were incredibly cultured. The day he finally escaped, he absolutely had to say them out loud!
"For your sake, agreeing isn't impossible!"
"I, the Nine-Tails, am not the kind of tailed beast that forgets a favor!"
A sly smile appeared on Kurama's face.
The tsundere energy coming off him was intense enough to make Haru secretly delighted. This big fox was actually pretty easy to handle.
"Then let's agree on the three terms. We'll seal it with a fist bump!"
Haru wanted to copy Naruto.
He had heard that this sort of thing could connect people's hearts with tailed beasts, though he had no idea if it was true.
His heart was clean and he had no bad intentions toward tailed beasts. By the time Mito died, many years would have passed anyway.
By then, he might have already pulled the Rinnegan from the wheel, so what would he even need a tailed beast for?
"Fine!"
Kurama stretched out a fist bigger than Haru's whole body and bumped it against Haru's.
Sadly, there was no special reaction at all.
No resonance, no strange mental connection.
Maybe their bond just was not there yet.
Haru could not be bothered to care.
The main purpose of coming here had basically already been achieved.
Now it was time to talk about serious matters.
"Kurama, how are you planning to help me?"
Haru's face turned serious.
After following the Sage of Six Paths for so long and then living for a thousand years more, Haru refused to believe Kurama had no hidden card left.
Mito had not conquered Kurama the way Madara or Hashirama had, simply by crushing him with absolute power. Kurama definitely still had some way to influence her from inside.
"Hmph. I've been trapped inside Mito for so many years, and every moment I've been using chakra to erode the seal. But the amount each time was tiny, so tiny it was almost impossible to notice."
"But I don't lack time. Dripping water wears through stone. Mito will grow old eventually. She'll weaken eventually. As long as the seal weakens, I'll have my chance..."
Kurama gave a sinister laugh, looking thoroughly villainous.
Haru nodded.
He really had not misjudged Kurama.
Foxes were always sly and treacherous.
Haru gave Kurama a thumbs-up, sincerely praising his long-term persistence.
That made Kurama feel a little proud, and he continued,
"Once you get out there, I'll gather together all the chakra that's been eroding the seal. When that happens, the seal will weaken, and I'll do everything I can to seize back the chakra Mito stole from me."
"When that happens, she'll have to focus all her strength on suppressing me and won't have the ability to maintain her tailed beast transformation. I don't need to teach you what to do after that, do I?"
"Beat the hell out of that damned bitch Mito for me!"
Kurama grinned viciously, clearly holding absolutely no good feelings toward Mito.
She and Hashirama were two of a kind.
Neither of them had ever treated tailed beasts like people.
"No problem!"
Haru agreed immediately.
Beating up someone already in the water was something he was very good at.
If you wanted to establish authority, you had to crush the hardest target.
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[Thank You For Your Support!]