Minato cautiously walked through the sewers of Amegakure. He had heard rumours about The Leader of The Akatsuki being here, and had come to investigate. While asking around, he'd heard of the man being called Pain, and that he was often touted as a God. Minato held a kunai marked with a Flying Raijin seal aloft in his left hand as his eyes darted around, searching for any signs of the infamous criminal leader.
All of a sudden, he felt someone's chakra behind him. He darted around and looked up to see a man with an orange ponytail, facial piercings, and the black robe with red clouds indicative of the Akatsuki. Plus…"That's…a Rinnegan!" Minato exclaimed, staring with confusion at the mysterious man. Minato had heard of the legendary dojutsu from his sensei Jiraiya, but he never thought he'd see it with his own eyes.
"Hello, Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze. It is quite unexpected to find you here. Not many shinobi are able to sneak in here without me noticing right away. I should've expected that from the famed Yellow Flash of Konoha." Pain narrowed his eyes, his Rinnegan glinting with ferocity.
Minato steeled his nerves, readying a battle stance. He ignored Pain's words and instead of responding, he charged a Rasengan and threw his kunai towards Pain. Pain dodged it and it stuck into the wall behind him. He scoffed, asking, "Do you really expect to defeat a God with the tools of a man?"
But just then, Minato disappeared, and before he could react, Minato had teleported to the kunai he'd thrown and he shoved his Rasengan violently into Pain's back. "Arghhh!" Pain spiraled forward, coughing up blood. He rocketed towards the bottom of the sewer, landing with a loud splash.
Minato jumped down towards Pain, being sure to remain alert. He was sure that had caused serious damage, but he didn't expect such a powerful opponent to go down so easily.
As the dust settled, Minato watched Pain floating in the water, the back of his clothing clearly burnt through. The wound on his back was very prominent, and Pain made no movements to get up.
Just to be sure, Minato rushed forward and slashed Pain's head off, watching as it bobbed in the water for a while before sinking.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He'd really done it. Now it was time to head back to Konoha. He walked away, putting his kunai away but making sure his pouch remained open so he could reach for it if anything happened.
About a minute later, as he was just about to exit the sewer, Minato felt a familiar chakra, along with two other similar chakra signatures heading his way. It was…No, I'm sure I killed him, Minato thought, tensing up and grabbing a kunai. He quickly turned and found himself face to face with three users of the Rinnegan. One was plump, another had long hair, and one was who he'd previously killed.
"Wh-what? How!?" Minato exclaimed, shock clearly etched onto his features.
"I am a God," the one he'd killed said. "Pain is immortal. You cannot kill us with the tools of a man," he repeated.
Minato smiled somewhat nervously. He was used to fighting multiple enemies at once from his time in the 3rd Great Ninja War. But fighting multiple people with immense power could be trouble. Even without having fought them at all, he could sense the strength of the three, and a singular bead of sweat fell from his forehead. Minato had lost the element of surprise now that Pain knew how his signature jutsu worked. This was gonna be difficult.
The Fourth Hokage and the Leader of The Akatsuki stared off, no one saying a word in fear of giving away any information. Then, Pain broke the silence, one of them slamming a hand onto the ground, yelling, "Summoning Jutsu!"
With a cloud of smoke, a three-headed dog and a giant bird appeared, both with Rinnegan eyes. Minato narrowed his eyes. Why do they have the Rinnegan too? But he didn't have time to think about that, as Pain summoned one more animal. A chameleon that swallowed all three bodies and turned invisible. At the same time, the other two animals charged, forcing Minato to throw a kunai up to the top of the pipes and teleporting to it, grabbing onto the edge and flinging himself up.
His mind went into overdrive as he thought of how to counter the animals. He could summon Gamabunta, but he wasn't sure if Gamabunta could handle 3 summons at once. Plus the invisibility of the chameleon was very inconvenient. Minato could sense it, but Gamabunta certainly couldn't. And in a battle like this, there was no time for Minato to constantly relay its location. He had no choice.
Minato placed the two pointer fingers of his hands together, forming the sign for the shadow clone jutsu. 2 slightly weaker versions of Minato appeared next to him, and they charged as one, all of them flinging dozens of kunai all across the terrain. The battlefield was Minato's to control.
Several of the kunai pierced the animals' bodies, and they screeched, turning to attack the 3 Minatos. The multiple Yellow Flashes all teleported to the kunai that had pierced the visible animals' bodies, teleporting back and forth between them, slashing all of their legs away in rapid succession.
As the chameleon watched from above, Pain barely had time to interrupt the Minatos before they had completely dismembered the animals. All of them glanced upwards and backed off before they were hit by the chameleon smashing its body on top of them. Then in the opening created by the short span of time spent recovering, they all created a large Rasengan and slammed them into it in unison, eliciting a loud screech of pain as it poofed away, leaving the Pains alone again.
Minato wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste. They again each charged a Rasengan and threw three kunai around the Pains to box them in. This move was called Rasen Flash Encircling Triangle Bomb Wave Stage Two.
Right before he teleported, the Pains gathered beside the plump one who held out his hands. Minato didn't understand the move, but whatever he was planning, it wouldn't work. All of them teleported from 3 angles, smashing the Rasengan Barrage at Pain. To Minato's great shock though, a transparent bubble appeared around the plump one, and the Rasengan were quickly absorbed.
The three Minatos reacted quickly, testing to see if Taijutsu was effective by whipping out kunai and slashing for the Pains' heads. All of their Rinnegan widened and they started to move out of the way, but their heads were off an instant later.
Minato sighed with mild fatigue as he jumped back and released the shadow clone jutsu. He knew his opponents were dead, but he'd already seen one of them come back to life before. He wasn't gonna fall under the illusion that he had won again. He once more raised his kunai, and carefully glanced around.
He frowned as he felt three more chakra signatures coming closer. He only hoped the ones he'd killed wouldn't join in. From what he'd experienced so far, he was more than fast enough to deal with Pain, but still…six opponents was a lot, and he couldn't make 5 shadow clones so easily.
Minato again turned to face Pain, this time seeing a young, spiky haired man, another spiky haired man with wrinkles, and a strange machine-like man. "Alright, Pain. Are you ready to finish this? I'm getting tired of this."
The young spiky haired one spoke up this time. "Minato Namikaze. You are certainly a formidable opponent. But I have understood your abilities now. You strike very quickly, but your main asset is your ability to teleport to any kunai you've marked with jutsu formula. Now that I've understood this, you cannot win."
Minato smiled wryly. "Well, we'll just have to see about that." He had already anticipated this development, but even if Pain understood how Flying Raijin worked it didn't mean he could counter it. Especially considering any potential counterattack he did have could be safely avoided.
Minato considered using shadow clones again, but he decided preserving his chakra was a better idea. He teleported to a kunai stuck in the wall behind Pain, and used chakra to push off the wall towards them.
Without even turning, Pain shouted, "Almighty Push!" rocketing Minato backwards at great velocity. The Fourth Hokage very nearly hit the wall, and was a bit dazed, but he instinctively teleported to a distant kunai.
While he recovered, he thought, My instincts dulled for a moment because I thought I was in control. Not a mistake I'll make again. But what was that jutsu? Is this one of the abilities of the Rinnegan? Can he just repel any attack at will? If that's so, why didn't he use this before?
He was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt two of them running towards him. He looked towards them, and saw the wrinkly one running towards the dead bodies. Minato instantly realized what he was gonna do. So that's how the summoner was revived before. And with that, the pieces began to fall into place in Minato's mind. The wrinkly Pain could revive people and hadn't shown any other ability. The repelling Pain only used one ability as well. The summoner. The chakra absorber. He hadn't seen the abilities of the mechanical looking Pain or the long haired one, but he was sure they only had one ability too. So that meant that each time he took down one of the Pains, he removed a vital ability from their arsenal.
In a split second, Minato had realized all this, and leapt into action. Two of the Pains had almost reached him, and the repeller had raised a hand, but before they could get him, he teleported to the reviver, and snatched a kunai from the ground.
Minato immediately went from pulling the kunai with his left hand to slashing it across his opponent's body, but somehow Pain knew the attack was coming and had ducked even before Minato had slashed at him.
Shocked, Minato wondered whether this Pain was also a sensory ninja, and quickly glanced back at the others. He noted the fact that they both had their eyes on him, but before he could come to a sound conclusion, he felt himself being lifted from the ground and rushing towards the repeller. What!? I thought he could only repel objects! He can attract things too? He's like…a super powered magnet!
Minato's eyes widened as he saw the mechanical Pain pulling out its right hand with a sickening crunch to reveal a bunch of missiles underneath, which he blasted towards the approaching Minato with a calm smile on his face. This is bad..so this Pain's specialty is mechanical weaponry.
In an instant, Minato was gone, to the top of a pipe that he believed was a blind spot for them. He finally had a moment to think things through. So when I attacked that one Pain, he was able to dodge while the others were looking at him. Does that mean vision is linked between all Rinnegan users? It's certainly plausible. I'll have to be careful about that from now on. And now I have a rough idea of the abilities of all of them other than the long haired one. One of them can manipulate the magnetic laws of attraction and repulsion. One can use powerful weapons attached to its body. Another can use the summoning jutsu to great effect. There's the one who can absorb ninjutsu. And of course there's the most annoying one. He can bring the dead back to life.
With a sigh, Minato realized when he returned, he'd be face to face with 6 powerful enemies at once. He formulated a plan in his mind, and checked his pouch to see how many weapons he had left. He had several marked kunai and many shuriken left, along with a few smoke bombs and explosive tags.
He nodded to himself, then sneaked a glance down where Pain was. All 6 of them were standing, looking in all directions, not really searching for Minato as much as keeping watch. Right when Minato was about to teleport down for a sneak attack, they all started moving, hopping around to find him. Which actually sort of worked in his favor since it meant their shared vision wouldn't be as absolute.
Minato saw the summoner raising an arm to perform the summoning jutsu again, but he teleported to a kunai a few meters from him, and slammed a smoke bomb around them so the others couldn't watch.
Pain almost placed his palm onto the ground, but not before he saw a yellow flash and held his arm in agony, his hand completely severed. Before he could do anything else, his head was off.
The other Pains were alerted to Minato's presence, and they moved towards each other to face him together. Gathering in a circular formation, they glanced all around, but they didn't see him. One of the Pains risked a look backwards and was relieved to see no kunai placed there. There were several kunai near Pain though, so the 5 Pains left remained on guard.
From somewhere out of sight, a kunai was thrown over to the middle of their formation at blinding speed, and when Minato teleported there, his kunai was already poised to strike the Pain with the reviving ability. Pain had no chance. Minato was in and out almost simultaneously, and one of his most valuable abilities was lost.
The magnetic Pain raised his hand and looked behind him. The mechanical Pain lifted his Akatsuki cloak to reveal its weaponized body, preparing to strike at any moment as he also kept his gaze trained backwards. The long haired Pain ran in front of the one with magnetic abilities. And the absorber ran in front of the magnetic Pain.
Minato watched this impromptu formation taking place from afar, and assumed he could break their formation with pure speed. But he decided against it. This was no time for assumptions which could cost him his life in a battle like this. Instead, he attached an explosive tag to a kunai and threw it at the magnetic Pain.
Predictably, he said, "Almighty Push," shoving it away. But what he didn't realize was that that would only set off the explosion. And it did, sending their formation into chaos. They were all hurt, but none of them were dead. At least not yet.
Minato took advantage of this at once, teleporting to them one by one, slicing and stabbing them at godlike speed. They tried to fight back, but even the weaponized Pain couldn't react and only took a couple more hits than the rest. Then there was only the one that had done any sort of damage to Minato earlier. He charged forward at full speed, hoping he could kill him before he was able to react and use his repelling jutsu, but to no avail.
"Almighty Push." Minato as well as the dust from the explosion went flying.
He coughed and teleported to a faraway kunai, knowing Pain couldn't reach him from here. He kept his eyes trained on Pain as he recovered, and Pain narrowed his eyes. He flew up into the air, raising his arms once again. Minato could tell immediately that this wasn't going to be good. It looked like Pain was going to do his Almighty Push again, but why fly into the air?
Minato's eyes popped open in realization. He judged by Pain's position that it was likely he was going to unleash a stronger version of the jutsu, so he tried to stop him, teleporting to a position just below him, and jumping up to slash him out of the air, but before he could, Pain shouted, "ALMIGHTY PUSH!" and Minato yelled in agony as he felt the full force of the shockwave from up close. Just before he hit the ground, he was able to teleport to a kunai dozens of meters away, but it wasn't enough. He still felt the shockwave pushing against him like a tsunami.
He snapped his head backwards, looking towards the fast approaching wall. He slammed his hands onto it before his head could, and held on for dear life, but that too was destroyed, being smashed right out of position by the mighty shockwave.
In desperation, Minato thrust out some of the last few remaining kunai he had left, flipping them around and grabbing their handles. He dug them deep into the ground, trying to halt his movement by keeping a tight grasp on them, but the kunai just sliced through the ground as they too were pushed away. He only had one last risky option. If he used this method, a single minute mistake could spell the end. But it was the only choice he had left.
Minato pulled the kunai out and threw one of them forward with his full force, just barely pushing back against the force of the shockwave, and he immediately teleported to it, then grabbed a hold of it before throwing it forward again and teleporting to it, continuing in a pattern of pitch perfect accuracy and timing. He wasn't being thrown backwards anymore, but he was hardly making any progress towards Pain. While he continuously repeated the process, his eyes darted around to find some way out of this loop, but by now all of the walls around him had been blown away, and even the ground had been pushed down far enough that he couldn't land safely. Unless…
Minato teleported to the kunai and grabbed it again, this time throwing it downwards and in a loop he kept teleporting until he was able to throw his kunai at the ground, then landing safely, relatively covered from the blast.
He breathed a sigh of relief, listening for the shockwave to end. It was certainly lasting longer than the others. Maybe the fact that Pain hadn't used it before was because it meant there was a longer cooldown? Minato didn't know how long the baseline cooldown was, but he had noted that there were always several seconds between the uses, and it was only 5 seconds after he'd pushed Minato's kunai that he pushed Minato himself away. Perhaps 5 seconds was the cooldown. Or longer given the sheer potency of this version of it. Regardless, Minato wasn't going to take a gamble. He would attack the instant the blast had receded.
Thankfully he didn't have long to wait. In just a few more moments, it was gone. Although all the kunai Minato had placed were far away now, there was no problem. Minato simply kicked off the ground with chakra and landed at the top, then rushed forward towards the recovering Pain, greatly amplifying his speed with Shunshin.
Pain looked absolutely mortified as he saw The Yellow Flash blitzing towards him. He had clearly expected that last attack to finish Minato off, or at least hurt him enough to allow Pain time to recover. But he had underestimated Minato as he'd done this whole battle, and that was his downfall.
SHLUK! Pain's head dropped to the floor, the rest of his body coming soon after. Minato flicked his kunai to get the blood off, then he sighed with relief. "That should be the last of them."
He teleported to one of his kunai that had been launched near the border of the now roughed up village, and smiled. "Time to see how Kushina and Naruto are doing."