Before Naruto headed home, he stopped by to report all that had happened to his grandmother Tsunade.
After the report, Tsunade sent off ANBU to check it out where they found another woman in Nagato's grave.
Tsunade looked at Naruto. "Now, one of those corpse puppets was Yahiko, the new girl in Nagato's grave is Konan, Pain was Nagato and all of them were former students of Jiraiya's. How did they end up in the Akatsuki?"
Naruto looked at her. "I can answer that now, you see. From Nagato's memories, I know that the three of them founded the Akatsuki to try and make peace, but it all changed the day they met a masked man, who I'm sure is the same masked Sharingan user who unleashed the Nine Tails from my mother."
Tsunade was about to take out a bottle of sake, but chose not to as she wanted to be able to remember this. "Explain!"
Flashback, years ago, as seen from the eyes of Nagato...
Nagato stood in the endless rain with his fellow Akatsuki members, led by his best friend and brother in all but blood, Yahiko.
Before them stood a man in a one-eyed spiral mask. Nagato watched as the man said, "Hello, children. I am Madara Uchiha."
Nagato could somehow sense fear in his fellow members. Fear that he may really have been Madara. The only person who wasn't scared was Yahiko.
Yahiko looked at the masked man. "I don't believe you. Now, why did you want to meet with us?"
'Madara' pointed to Nagato, making the young rain ninja jump back in shock and fear. "I heard a report of the red-haired kid killing a ninja in a battle with just one touch and I want to know more about him. Wait. Your eyes have rings. You have the Rinnegan. Oh, the things I could teach you."
Nagato smiled. He wanted him to teach him how to use those weird eyes of his. He did kill a ninja that attacked him last week with a touch. He really needed to learn how to control that before he killed someone that he cared about. After all, it was his biggest fear.
But, the young Rinnegan user could sense the emotions of the Akatsuki members. There was relief, some amounts of fear and, from Konan, a little anger.
Konan then spoke up with rage in her voice. "How do we know that you just won't use him as some kind of weapon?"
The masked man claiming to be Madara laughed. "You've got guts, girl. I like that. Take some time to think it over. When you've made up your minds, just say my name and I'll be here, ready for your answer."
A large plant then popped up out of the ground, wrapped around the masked man and headed down into the ground with the masked Sharingan user.
The flashback ended...
Naruto then continued to tell the story. "The next day, Hanzo, who teamed up with Root ANBU, made a trap where Nagato had to make a choice to either kill himself or Yahiko or Konan would be beheaded.'
Tsunade's eyes widened. "What happened?"
Naruto looked down as tears rolled down his face.
Flashback through the eyes of Nagato...
Nagato stood there with Yahiko as he saw the blank-masked ANBU member holding Konan down so that she couldn't move or use jutsu. Nagato could sense the fear and rage coming off of her.
Hanzo then said, "Now, to test your loyalty to your village. Either one of you dies or the girl loses her head."
Nagato was in tears as he saw Yahiko pull out a knife. Yahiko had no fear of death. After all, if the end of his life would keep his friends safe, he would face it with a smile.
Nagato could sense Yahiko's emotions he could tell that his only fear was himself or Konan dying.
The last thing Yahiko did on this Earth was say, "Nagato, lead the Akatsuki to greatness!" With that, Nagato and Konan's eyes widened in horror as the knife entered Yahiko's neck killing him.
Nagato and Konan felt their world shatter. They felt numb, trying not to believe it before the horror of what had happened hit them.
At first, Nagato felt relieved since Konan was safe and because the overwhelming calmness that Yahiko had in his last moments in this world. But, then the grief of being unable to stop his best friend's death hit him.
Nagato fell to the ground, crying like a baby as the blank-masked ANBU member and Hanzo left. Konan was also crying. Nagato could sense her broken heart, her anger, her hatred for Hanzo, her sadness of the loss of their friend and her own sadness for not being able to do anything.
Nagato could sense that she was blaming herself for all of this as he heard her say, "If I was stronger, this wouldn't have happened!" But, what Nagato didn't know at the time was that she didn't say it. She thought it.
He walked over to the crying Konan to try to help her to her feet. Nagato was in just as much pain as she was, but Yahiko asked him to lead their group to greatness.
The feeling of pain and not wanting to let go of Yahiko would later lead to Nagato using him as his First Path of Pain, because Nagato would believe that as long as Yahiko's body moved and battled for them, he was still which them.
The loss of his brother in all but blood was the second greatest pain in his life and was the second strike that would push him into the path of madness.
But, at that moment, helping Konan out of her deep, dark grief was all that mattered. After all, he could hear her muttering, "It should have been me!"
End flashback...
Tsunade looked at her grandson, Naruto. He was in tears. He lived the memory through Nagato's eyes. He was crying just as badly as Nagato must have.
Naruto was holding his head. He felt the same pain the day that Sasuke left the village and threw away his humanity to become the monster that Shinji slew.
Naruto managed to cry out, "Right after that, Nagato called out to the masked man, asking him to teach him so that he wouldn't lose anyone ever again!"
Tsunade made a fist. This masked man clearly planned this out with Danzo and Hanzo so that he could use Nagato as a puppet to get what he wanted, whatever it was.
Naruto looked at her as he wiped his tears. "There's more. As Nagato trained under the masked man, he mastered the Rinnegan to the point of being able to use one Almighty Push attack to destroy a whole army. He grew arrogant and started believing nothing could take him down. That he would always be able to keep Konan safe. But, what happened next shattered all of that."
Naruto spoke this coldly. He could compare Nagato's love for Konan to his love for Hinata. Like Nagato, he, too, was getting overconfident in his powers, but now he knew what the cost for the sin of overconfidence was.
Flashback through the eyes of Nagato...
Young Nagato was smirking he had just wiped out an army of wood clones that his masked teacher had made with just one Almighty Push. He began to think of himself as unstoppable, and, man, did it show.
He had his fists on his hips in the hero pose with a giant smirk that smelled of overconfidence.
Konan just looked at him with a displeased look on her face. "This new ego of your's will be your undoing one day, Nagato."
Nagato paid her no mind. He was too busy going over how awesome he was in his head. Ironically, as he did this, he began to sound like Naruto which would bring the tragedy about to befall him to tears.
Konan felt a bit saddened to see her friend so full of himself. She believed that the mask man was using him. Changing Nagato into something that the masked man could use for his own ends. Nagato could sense this, but he brushed it off as Konan being silly.
But, neither knew how right she was.
It had become well-known in the village that Nagato could not be beaten by anyone. Men like Hanzo and Danzo knew there was more than one way to defeat someone.
Outside of the Akatsuki base, an army of Rain shinobi were gathered. Without thinking, Nagato jumped outside and summoned out the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
The statue injected black metal rods into Nagato's body, connecting them. In the next second, the army's life was brought to an end by the statue which using a dragon-like energy being to remove and eat their human souls.
With the jutsu done, the rods in Nagato broke off from the statue as the demonic statue that he would later learn was the corpse of the Ten Tails returned to where it came from - the moon - in a large cloud of smoke.
When the smoke died down, Nagato began to removing the rods from his body as he heard someone say, "HANZO KIDNAPPED KONAN!"
Nagato's ringed eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. In his overconfident display of power, he not only failed to think about the others in the base, but the smoke from the jutsu also gave the kidnappers cover to get away.
Because he was not strong enough, he lost Yahiko. Now, because he was too strong, he lost Konan. That was messed up. It was his fault. No. No. Not again. Without removing the rods from his body, he left. He knew who was behind this. After all, only one person he knew was evil enough to send an army to their deaths just to kidnap one girl and his name was Hanzo.
End flashback...
Naruto had tears running down his face. "What happened next is too horrible for me to remember through his eyes. He made his way to Hanzo's tower and slaughtered all who got in his way until a trap made by Hanzo robbed him of his legs, so he threw on of the rods in his body at Hanzo. This killed Hanzo by impaling him through the heart. He never used it, anyway."
Naruto took a breather and finished with, "So, he used that Asura Path's machine power to build himself a pair of temporary legs to find Konan. When he found, her she was naked and being raped and tortured by Hanzo's men. In a fit of rage, he killed all of them."
Flashback through the eyes of Nagato...
He wrapped his coat around Konan as he cried. She was right. No one is unstoppable. He had no legs. Sure, he could get around using the robotic ones that he made, but they were metal. He couldn't get around like a true ninja anymore. He had lost stealth and agility, the main focus behind his fighting style that he had trained his whole life to master.
Nagato cried as the loud sounds of his robotic legs echoed through the now empty halls. He could sense Konan's emotions. She was broken. She was telling herself that she had been raped. She could never get married or have a family now. She had lost Yahiko, so her only reason live was to help Nagato make peace.
He cried. He could feel Konan's mind blocking out her emotions to handle the mental and physical abuse that she had gone through. He had failed her. He had failed his sensei. He failed the Akatsuki. But, most of all, he had failed Yahiko.
Soon after that day, Nagato locked away his emotions so that he would never again feel pain, but he promised that the world would know it. He used corpses as puppets to fight and take over his village where they would worship him like a god. There was no more Nagato. Only PAIN!
End flashback...
Tsunade was crying as she looked at her grandson, Naruto. The boy was in tears with his hands covering his face.
Naruto compared Nagato's love for Konan to his love for Hinata. If something like that had ever happened to her, he knew that he would become the same kind of monster that Nagato did.
Naruto got up and left. He need to hold his Hinata. To tell her how grateful he was for her love. To make sure that nothing ever happened to her. As long as he was around, he would make sure that she never knew pain.
To be continued...
Omake...
Shinji's Sharingan Secret.
Shinji was sitting in a shinobi doctor's office. Someone told him that you could only get the Eternal if you took the eye of a sibling or other family member. He wasn't related to Itachi, so why did he get it and, also, why couldn't he turn it off?
So, the boy went to the doctor to have some tests run.
The doctor came in with the test results. "Well, looks like your Sharingan is a slightly mutated strain. It should allow you to gain the Eternal from any other Sharingan user. That's a bit of an improvement over the normal strain. As for not being able to turn the thing off, well, we'll just have to guess that it has to do with the fact you aren't related to Itachi."
Shinji felt a bit more puzzled. His mother's soul which was inside of EVA-01 had giving him a mutated Sharingan. The answer just kept getting weirder.
End omake...
Next chapter, six Angels in one. What the heaven?
