Memories of Pain


Naruto had fought Pain before.

Pain was a tricksy little bastard. Pain was six individual bodies, all moving independently, all of which had completely different powers. One could summon giant monsters, one could nullify your ninjutsu, one could even bring the others back to life if you destroyed them. Pain was utterly overwhelming to face if you didn't know how he worked, and even with intel from the toads and slugs, even going in with weeks of prep, Pain had still been the most difficult fight of Naruto's life.

Without sage mode, it would have been impossible. He'd brought in three of the strongest toads of mount Myoboku to counter the animal summons, then chucked a senjutsu-rasenshuriken at Deva. Preta had tried to absorb it, but been turned into a statue by the sage chakra and torn to shreds by the rest of the technique, so that was him down. Deva had pulled Naruto towards Human and Naraka, who had been more than happy to close to melee with him. At least until he demonstrated his Frog Kata, which let him punch their heads off without resorting to the physical contact their instakills needed, taking them both out before they could react. After that, he was left facing the other three without any tricks left. Asura had had a ridiculous array of missiles and lasers, Deva could cancel out Naruto's ranged attacks with his force powers, and Animal was mostly useless, except that he could summon the others to him, and thus move them around the field and defend himself. Naruto had burned through almost all his sage chakra before noticing the five millisecond gap in the Shinra Tensei and moving to exploit it, and in the end he had only been able to take out five of the six before ending up paralysed by Deva's black rods.

Now, Naruto was stronger. Faster. He wasn't well enough synced with the Kyuubi to try and add senjutsu into the mix, but that just meant could freely summon a bunch of shadow clones if he needed to, allowing him to turn the numbers advantage against the six paths.

Naruto was confident he could beat Pain.

But fighting Pain was nothing like fighting Nagato.

"On your left!" He shouted, as a Bansho Tenin pulled him in, and B jumped backwards firing a water bullet, but Nagato caught the thing and absorbed it with one hand, while the other stretched out to grab the leg Naruto tried to kick with, and then he felt a tug and ow that's my soul-

There was a separate tugging and he gave in to that one, and a shadow clone swapped places with him, leaving him safe in the trees while it was immediately consumed.

"Buffeting wind!" Shouted Naruto, along with another few clones, and the gale he produced was sufficient to tear a giant gash into the forest, uprooting trees and hurling rocks through the air.

Nagato didn't even say anything, but the Shinra Tensei defense blasted to life, leaving him unharmed. He turned on Naruto and charged towards him, firing a barrage of missiles from slots that appeared from his shoulders which unerringly tracked his fleeing opponents.

Single-Body Nagato was fucking broken.

He was undead, and unkillable, which meant that even that one time a clone had plowed a rasengan through his head it hadn't so much as slowed him down. And since he wasn't going to die from ability overuse like Nagato was in life (and had, oh, unlimited chakra) he was capable of fighting with his original body. Which, Naruto noticed, was even faster than Deva had been.

Oh, and also he could use all of his abilities from one body.

Seriously, this wasn't fair.

"Know any sealing jutsu?" Naruto shouted to B, batting a few missiles away in annoyance. "Physical damage is useless!"

"A few!" B shouted. "But I'd need him to be stuck in place for whole seconds to pull any off! You?"

"Hell no! Unless you count the-" Naruto's eyes widened. "Yes! I can suppress him! Get ready, you'll have your time!"

That said, he ran back towards Nagato, forming hand seals.

Kyuubi! I can't throw the Rasenshuriken without sage mode! Any ideas?

I can't give you a bijuu bomb unless we're fully merged, which is the only thing causing the problem. But I can do this.

A pair of glowing golden arms extended out from Naruto's back and stretched forwards. Naruto focused his chakra through the arms and they came together, forming a rasenshuriken between them, and plowing it into the incoming Nagato.

The shinra tensei fired, obliterating the technique, and then not a moment later Nagato was holding his hands out to catch the "Big-Ball Rasengan Barrage!" Being dropped on him by a set of a dozen clones jumping in, staggered to hit right after the rasenshuriken had. (One mississippi-)

A third Kyuubi-arm thrust forwards, and while the Naraka path was capable of absorbing that, there wasn't anything it could do to stop the large boulder the arm had picked up and was propelling forwards at rapid speed. (Two mississippi-)

The boulder smashed into and through Nagato's right arm, separating it from his body, and with the arm went the Naraka's technique it had been employing. (Three mississippi-) The clones had been feeding chakra constantly into the rasengan, to keep up the pressure, and now the right half of them suddenly found that they were able to press forwards and shove through to Nagato's body, tearing the entire right side of him into dust. (Four mississippi-)

The clones that had moved through stretched their arms out and fired golden chains at Nagato's still regenerating back, as did the original charging in from the front, and the adamantine links wrapped around the Uzumaki's body just as (FIVE MISSISSIPPI COOLDOWN'S OVER-)

...And nothing happened. The other half of Nagato's body remained unrepaired, the golden links biting into his undead flesh and countering the regeneration. Filing that away for later.

But more importantly, they were nullifying his ultimate defense move. The other half of the clones who'd been keeping up the rasengans pushed forwards with no chakra absorption or universal push to stop them. They tore off Pain's other arm, then joined the rest of the gang in chaining him up so much he was barely visible beneath the yellow-green glow.

"NOW, B!" Naruto shouted, but B had already body-flickered right up to Nagato, wielding a scroll of some kind. The captive struggled for all he was worth, but couldn't match Naruto's strength, and then B was throwing the scroll around him and making hand seals and then the scroll began to glow and then Nagato stretched out a robot arm and B died.

Wait, what.

Wait, WHAT.

Naruto blinked, as suddenly B was collapsing backwards and something exploded on Nagato's body, blowing him up but also obliterating the chains, and Naruto desperately tried to recall what had just happened, because something had to be wrong here.

But his senses hadn't lied to him. A mechanical arm had manifested out of Pain's arm-socket, and grabbed B around the face. B, busy with the ritual, hadn't had the time to react, and Nagato had fired a laser from the hand's palm, searing a hole through B's brain and killing him instantly. Naruto had sensed the moment all of the emotions in B's head simply stopped.

But...But that's not fair.

He didn't get a chance to...I never learned his real name.

B's corpse exploded into broiling fire before it even hit the ground, and Gyuki (already disintegrating, for that is what demon beasts do when their hosts are killed) burst out into the physical world, roaring in anguish.

"YOU DARE-" It began, but Nagato had already reformed completely. He stretched out a hand and hurled a set of black chakra receivers at the bijuu. Naruto charged in, but another Shinra Tensei threw him back as Gyuki was pinned hopelessly to the floor. Another flick of Pain's will, and some giant stone thing appeared, and the Eight-tails' chakra was channeled through the rods and into the body of the statue.

GEDO MAZO! Echoed the Kyuubi's voice in Naruto's head. BROTHER, NO!

That more than anything, the Nine-tails in a genuine panic, kicked Naruto's brain into function again. His hands flew, and he substituted with a tree branch, teleporting himself right past Pain and jumping straight onto Gyuki's gradually shrinking body. He reached down and yanked free one of the chakra receivers, hissing as it burned against his skin and throwing it away. Then there was a pull on his gut as the Bansho Tenin sent him flying back away from the beast, no No NO-

He sent out more of the Kyuubi arms as he was pulled away, the claws digging into the red-orange chakra in some desperate event to win a tug-of-war with the fucking Rinnegan magic.

The chakra seemed to latch onto his own, and he felt something absorbed into his own system...but then it was gone. The statue vanished out of existence again, and Naruto was left to crash onto the floor next to B's body.

The process had taken less than a second. Gyuki was gone. B...

"I'm sorry." Nagato told him hoarsely. "I tried to warn you, but Kabuto took direct control of me. The Asura path is mechanical, not a jutsu, it isn't affected by-"

Naruto's Kyuubi-enhanced fist crashed into his face with a thunderclap. Pain's body almost completely disintegrated, the individual flakes of dust all being hurled backwards hundreds of feet as they tried to reassemble.

"STOP FUCKING KILLING MY MENTORS!" Naruto screamed, eyes red, tears falling down his cheeks. "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

"I'm so sorry. I wish it was anyone else that he used as a weapon for this." Nagato regenerated, returning to a fighting stance. Then he frowned. "When was the previous time? I brought Kakashi back to life, didn't I?"

The ground under Naruto cracked. "JIRAIYA, YOU DIPSHIT! YOU KILLED JIRAIYA!"

Slowly, Nagato's head tilted to the side. "What? No I didn't."

Naruto's mouth opened in outrage-

And froze, as he felt something familiar. Not 'familiar' as in 'he'd felt it with his Kyuubi senses before', he'd only awakened it that blooming morning, and only got a good sensing of four or five people.

But the particular blend of emotions approaching rapidly from behind him...he recognised it immediately.

"No way." He whispered.

There was a blur, and three figures appeared before him, facing Nagato. The one on the left was blonde, curvaceous and angry. The one on the right was dark haired, thick skinned and pale. Naruto couldn't actually feel anything from him. And in the middle...

Jiraiya turned around, and grinned. "Hey, little Minato. How's it going?"

Naruto's jaw dropped. "W-Whu-"

"Really?" Tsunade rolled her eyes at him. "Kid thinks you've been dead for weeks and the first thing you say when you meet him is comparing him to someone else? What's he gonna think?"

"Ah, yes," Orochimaru remarked, dryly, "because the lady Tsunade is notoriously good at understanding the complexities of interaction. Like that time it took her three decades to realise her attendant wanted into her pants."

"Oh like you can talk, Orochi-still-can't-talk-to-girls-Maru."

Naruto couldn't do anything but make a high pitched squeak. "How-" He coughed, tried again. "How are you all alive?"

"Oh, isn't that a story." Jiraiya sighed. "Okay, so basically-"


Weeks ago

"Alright then, let's get the horrible betrayal out of the way."

The chaos Hinata was able to hear was barely recognisable, but she was fully aware that it ended with none of her shadow clones present in the room.

No more chakra flowed into her body, and her brain began to throb.

I may have miscalculated slightly. She thought, dimly.

There was another sigh, and she heard Orochimaru come to lean on her bed. "So." He began. "Let's talk."

She (quite obviously) didn't reply.

"Yes, great question, why aren't you already dead?" He continued. "Truth is..." There was a pause. And then, the chakra flow was back. Orochimaru's, his palm on her wrist. "I have absolutely no idea."

Wait, what's going on?

"Well that's a lie, you'll notice I'm good at those. It's just that the mixture of thoughts leading to me not currently running through the hand seals to steal your defenseless body is...confusing. I'm not usually one who struggles to understand his own thoughts, but you, you, Hinata Hyuuga...are a very puzzling girl."

She heard him sigh. His voice didn't seem quite as lackadaisical as usual.

"I know that you know what it's like to lose family. You of course focused on the rage, as did I, when I first lost my parents. Now you could continue to chase that until it kills you, but I imagine that eventually you'll realise you're all out of things to be angry at. And you'll sit there, and be...empty.

I cannot stress enough how terrifying the emptiness is. The final aftermath of death, the dark twin of acceptance. 'Death is real. It has taken those I loved, and one day it will take me, and eventually there will be nothing. No feeling, no awareness, not even blackness, just...'. and that's where the thought process ends, for the human mind cannot model the absence of a model. It cannot empathise with emptiness. But it can be afraid. And it will try to fill that hole with anything it can. Anger, lust, greed, some objective or another..."

He chuckled. "I mean, 'learn every jutsu'? What ridiculous kind of goal is that? I just needed something, anything to focus on. At first I wanted to conquer death, to finally end the thing that had taken so much from me and my friends, but eventually...eventually I gained a power that would force me to choose. To choose to avoid that blackness myself, by sacrificing another to it. And oh, how I was afraid...

I'm rambling, my apologies, I haven't even gotten to the main point. Here's the thing, Hinata, you arrived in my presence with a smile on your face. A fake smile, obviously, but one so earnestly put in place. Whatever thoughts were running through your head at the time, you concluded that you were willing to expend effort to make the people around you happier.

And it worked, you little shit. You made me care about you."

She could practically hear him rolling his eyes, but was a little more preoccupied with the fact that she began to regain feeling in her extremities.

He continued. "Pathetic, right? Me? Getting paternal instincts over the little murder-child who I had every intention to consume? When it was almost definitely deliberate on your part? But I couldn't help it. You remind me of me when I was your age; young, talented, and oh so broken. You remind me that, yes, people who are alive are doing that 'alive' thing for a reason. And now I genuinely can't bring myself to kill you."

He paused. Her body started to feel hot, and she had the distinct impression of each of her chakra points popping into activity one by one.

"So here's the plan." He leaned closer. "I have shit I need to get done. It will be easier to do if people think I'm dead. You need to go murder your cousin, and frankly I think you'll do a better job of that than I will. So how about I drop a bunch of dead snakes about the room, you go out there and stop Kabuto killing your girlfriend, and we both go our separate ways?"

One second, two seconds, and then Hinata's body exploded into action. She snapped upright and she could see and Orochimaru was backed up into the corner of the room eyeing her warily and Karin was getting beaten up by Kabuto outside. Right, time limit, gotta deal with that.

She focused on Orochimaru, still thinking. Then asked, "You know what it's like to make mistakes, don't you?"

He nodded. "I've made many. My greatest was leaving Konoha."

And somehow, she knew that he believed it was true.

"Yeah." She replied. "Me too."

She put her hands together and bowed. "Thank you for the training, Sensei."

He smiled. "Thank you for the birthday presents."

She straightened, shook herself out, and turned around to punch a hole in the door.


Some days later

The area around Hidden Rain was admittedly kinda fucked up. To cut a long story short, some forestland had been very quickly renovated into a new extension to the lake.

Atop that lake, Pain held Jiraiya of the Sannin by the throat, eyes blazing with rage. "You have no idea of the suffering I have-"

"Oh, monologuing! Yes!" Jiraiya choke-laughed. "Let me guess, you also enjoy staring dramatically into the middle distance and pondering the meaning of life-"

Pain choke slammed Jiraiya onto the water's surface. His face broke under, and Pain held him there, head submerged, until bubbles started to rise.

Then, after another moment, he pulled him up again and threw him across the lake's surface. Half dead, coughing up seawater, Jiraiya was barely able to tread water, nevermind stand on the surface.

He was, however, cognizant enough to wonder how the hell he was still alive.

"You are," Pain declared, "without question, the most irritating, obnoxious, childish, pathetic creature I have ever laid my eyes on."

"Heh, I'm, ack, I'm getting that quote...framed." Jiraiya was able to cough out, oxygen slowly chasing away the blind spots that had formed in his eyes. That is officially the closest I've ever brushed with death. Second is that time Tsunade hit me, third is that time Naruto accidentally let out four tails on me.

"To think I once admired you." Pain shook his head. "Here you are, facing your own death, and instead of doing so with any semblance of honour, you use your final words to squawk like a baby! With no goal other than to piss me off!"

"...So does that mean it-"

"Yes it worked." Pain walked forwards and grabbed Jiraiya's hair, pulling him up out of the water. "And all you have done is bred more of your own suffering." He tilted his head. "What is the name of the nine-tails host? Naruto Uzumaki?"

Tired as he was, Jiraiya didn't have the discipline to stop his eyes widening.

"Ah, yes, he's your pupil, isn't he?" Pain mused. "You know, I've been avoiding a full-scale assault on Konoha, seeing if I could snatch the Kyuubi some other way. Not out of any fear of failure, of course, merely concern that if I did, knowledge of my powers' mechanics might spread. But I'm upset. So that's out of the window now. What's also out of the window is your chance of getting a quick death."

He leaned in, lifting Jiraiya's chin with his other hand so he could look into the older man's eyes. "I'm going to kill him. And your Hokage, Tsunade. And I'm going to raze your entire village to the ground. And then I'm going to send you a little genjutsu showing you absolutely everything I've done, and I assure you, the Rinnegan can capture events in exquisite detail.

And then I'm going to briefly use Naruto, Tsunade, and a few choice others as my Paths of Pain. Because they are going to be the ones to walk into your cell, and tell you you have failed. And then, using their bodies, I will kill you. Perhaps that will show you the true depths of the Pain you act so unafraid of."

"Nagato." Jiraiya panted. "Don't-"

"You do not have the right to use that name." Nagato spat. "But thank you for proving my point. When given the appropriate vision of Pain, all facades fall away."

Jiraiya took a deep breath, with his eyes closed. Then opened them, and smiled. "No. I'm not afraid. He'll beat you. I'm certain. And if he leaves her alive, I'll get to tell Konan 'I told you so'."

Pain tensed, and Jiraiya's smile widened. "Oho. Looks like that's what you're afraid of."

Nagato didn't respond. The Rinnegan flashed, and Jiraiya knew no more.


Eight days later

Jiraiya looked up as Konan entered his room. He wasn't restrained (at least not sufficiently); the only thing that had been keeping him in place was a genjutsu placed on him by Nagato, completely screwing with his ability to move anything beneath his head.

When that genjutsu had suddenly broken earlier that day, he'd suspected what had happened...but Konan's face when she looked at him was confirmation.

"I'm sorry." He said. Somehow he didn't feel like going with 'I told you so'.

"I believe you." She replied, simply. A small paper bird flew out from beneath her robes, coming over to him and removing the cuffs on his hands that he could have broken free of hours ago. "Nagato is dead, no Leaf casualties. Amegakure has officially surrendered to Konoha. Some of their agents are here now."

"Am I being taken back home?" Jiraiya asked. "They probably think I'm dead."

"They do think you're dead. They're asking for your body to be returned." Konan paused. "I...would like to tell them that it has been lost or destroyed."

Jiraiya frowned. He was out of shape, but when you're alone in a cell, there's not much to do besides gather sage chakra. He knew he could take Konan if he had to. "Why would I let you do that? Given that I am, last I checked, still alive."

"Nagato is dead, but his eyes are intact." Konan replied, frankly. "I've tried to destroy the Rinnegan. Can't. And I know someone who is definitely coming for them. While I am alone, he will succeed."

"You want me to help protect your husbando's eyeballs." Jiraiya deadpanned. "Konan, there are people I need to let know I am okay."

"The world believes you dead." She replied. "You're a ninja. You know how powerful a position that is. The war isn't over Jiraiya, it's-"

"Only just beginning." He rolled his eyes. "Kami, you're such an anime character...I'm telling Naruto and Tsunade. You can't stop me. They can keep a secret, if they have to."

"Tsunade is in a coma." Konan replied. "And I already told Naruto that there was someone he needed to come here and see."

"Did you tell him explicitly that it was me?" Jiraiya checked.

"No." She frowned. "I told him implicitly, but so obviously that any ninja of genin-level common sense would immediately put together what I meant."

"Oh fuck. He doesn't know." Jiraiya sighed and leaned backwards. "Great. Guess we'll send him a paper bird or something...Is he still in Konoha?"

"Actually, my little friends tell me he's out on a mission." Konan informed him, breezily.

"Oh yeah, what's he doing?"

"Well I could be misinterpreting," she frowned, "but I'm pretty sure he's trying to tear apart the established power structure of the entire ninja world."


A few days later

Orochimaru, alone in the woods, blinked as the Kotoamatsukami was released, and said "Yo, holy shit."

Then he paused, and thought through exactly what it was that he had been forced to do by it. He recalled, once again, that leaving the village had been an objectively terrible idea.

Then he went "OH, you sly son of a bitch, that was why!"


Two weeks after that

Konan stepped aside.

A figure walked through the doorway.

Tsunade froze.

Then threw herself forwards, fist outstretched.

Jiraiya caught it in his palm. There had been no strength behind it, and she immediately collapsed into him, as he wrapped his arms around her back.

"What the fuck!" She cried, burying her face in his chest to compensate for the fact that she was screaming as loud as she could. "Why the fuck did you pretend you were dead? To ME! You swore, you swore, that if you ever went that deep undercover you would tell me-"

"I tried." He told her, simply. "Pain caught me, by the time I was free you were in a coma, and by the time you were out of the coma I was a little too preoccupied."

"With WHAT!" She screamed. She was sagged against him, relief filling her to the point where she wasn't sure she could carry her own weight if she had to. "What could possibly be so important you could delay telling me for One Single Second!"

"Um." Said a familiar voice from just outside the tent. "That, I believe, would be me."

Suddenly, Tsunade found she could support her own weight after all. She shoved Jiraiya out of the way and charged out the door, and him grabbing her arm was the only thing that stopped her punching a hole through the lying, scheming, treacherous-

"Hi." Said Orochimaru, smiling.

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD-"

"Tsunade, it wasn't his fault, he didn't-"

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Repenting." Orochimaru pointed at his forehead. "See, I'm wearing my Leaf headband, I'm a good guy now."

"Your headband which still has the slash in it from when you betrayed us!" Tsunade pointed at it. "You can't just 'be a good guy' again, you were doing experiments on kids because you wanted to be immortal!"

"Wrong!" Orochimaru beamed. "I was doing experiments on kids because Danzo wanted Wood Release."

"You..." That made Tsunade stop and think. "Are you saying..."

"Kotoamatsukami." Orochimaru nodded. "Insidious little bastard."

"Danzo was on his quest into genetics long before he first started messing around with the Uchiha's eyeballs." Jiraiya explained. "Remember that Orochimaru was the first person to manage an eye transplant from a dojutsu to a clanless ninja? Danzo wanted him to try and replicate Hashirama's DNA in other people. See if he could create an army of wood-release superninja."

"I said no." Orochimaru told Tsunade. "At first, anyway. But then one day he came along with this lovely young man, Shisui Uchiha. This was before he put the kid's eyeball in himself, of course. And suddenly, I think kidnapping children to use in experiments is a swell plan. Seriously, even if I was totally evil, it was just a really stupid idea...I'm not promising I've never done anything immoral. I'm still pretty fucked up. But I am on your side."

"Why should I believe you." Tsunade narrowed her eyes at him. "You've only convinced Jiraiya because it's exactly what he's wanted to hear for over a decade."

"Hey, that's...fair, actually."

"Well, you can get Hinata to check whether I'm lying when we meet up with her." Orochimaru pointed out. "But I'm afraid we don't have that much time. This 'Madara' fellow is about to tear this whole planet a new one and we need to stop him."

"Madara is on the battlefield right now." Tsunade pointed out. "Where I should be."

"No, Madara's reanimated corpse is on the battlefield right now." Orochimaru tutted. "Keep up. The man who was pretending to be him is out there in the shadows, and he's what we need to be worried about." He leveled a steady gaze at her. "Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata are in danger, Tsunnie."

Tsunade clenched her fists. She looked across at Jiraiya, then back to Orochimaru. Tried to quash the small part of herself that was absolutely ecstatic that they were all stood together without trying to kill each other. "...Fine. Where are we going?"


Now

"Wow. That was really concise, well done." Tsunade remarked.

"Thank you." Jiraiya smiled. "Now then..." He turned back to Nagato. "Payback time."

"Be careful." Naruto warned. "He's stronger than he was when he kicked our asses."

"Perhaps." Orochimaru added. "But then, he was fighting individuals. Now, he faces the best team Konoha has ever produced."

"Little vain, Rochi." Tsunade pointed out.

"Oh, like you weren't thinking it."

"Naruto, go ahead." Jiraiya told his student, who was currently just stood there looking awestruck. "Catch up with your friends. Nagato Uzumaki is our problem; it's about time we dealt with him."

"Got it." Naruto nodded. He turned to go, but paused. "Hey, pervy-sage?"

"Yeah?" Jiraiya looked back.

Naruto smiled. "It's...it's really good to see you."

"Likewise. Now go kick ass."

Naruto fled into the forest.

As one, the Legendary Sannin prepared to enter battle for the first time in almost twenty years.


The writer giveth, and the writer taketh away.

Am I reaching? Yes, but I foreshadowed it, so it's okay. Plenty of you guessed Jiraiya was still alive from last chapter, so I must have got something right.

Did I organise the entirety of Shipppuden just so I could write Sannin Vs Pain?

Yes. Yes I did.

I wrote this entire chapter in one day and am uploading it minutes after finishing I literally want to die-