You speak as if peace is easy.
"All it takes is love."
Your ideas make me queasy,
You're as innocent as a dove.
I will show you pain,
Then you will see:
Peace is impossible to gain
Without some sort of fee.
A toad sitting in the waters surrounding the rain village's capital opened its mouth. Two shinobi from the hidden leaf village hopped out. Unbeknownst to them, someone was watching from nearby below the dock, "So what's the plan, pervy sage?"
"Well can't you look through people's memories or something? Just use that on a couple of the villagers here."
"Well, uh, I can't."
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, "Whaddaya mean you can't?"
"I've used it too much recently. If I use it too much too quickly, I lose it for about a year."
"So then why did Danzō send us now?" Naruto shrugged. Konan, who was listening nearby gasped at the name. She had to tell Nagato at once. Danzō had taken over the leaf village and spread his corrupt ideals. Also, Jiraiya and the nine tails were here. They would have to act fast. "Alright well we can just ask some of the people here. Stay incognito, alright? We gotta be undercover,"
Naruto nodded and transformed into a fly.
"Grrr. Wish I could do that. Make things so much easier."
Jiraiya and Naruto had gathered 3 pieces of information.
1.) Hanzō had been dethroned
2.) The man who overthrew Hanzō singlehandedly was ruling over the village
3.) He could be found in the tallest building
Naruto and Jiraiya, still in disguise, headed towards the tower. When they came within a couple yards of the tower, they were stopped by a guard, "All visitors must acquire permission from lady angel or lord Hanzō himself."
"What? Um we have permission, Uhh, hold on a second," Jiraiya ruffled through his bag, "Oh dammit. Gary, did you forget the passes at home?" Naruto, AKA Gary, shrugged, "Alright we'll be right back. And with permission."
"Hold it," they herd a voice from above them. They guard bowed down facing the woman, "You two, come with me. Lord Hanzō wishes to speak," Naruto and Jiraiya looked at each other and shrugged, "And drop the transformation," they did so and followed the woman.
An orange haired man stood atop a tall ledge. He too had the Rinnegan, "Yahiko?"
"You are Naruto Uzumaki, is that correct?" Naruto nodded and Jiraiya stood there mouth agape.
"But I thought... Danzō he-"
"I am talking to Naruto right now, Jiraiya-sensei," he shifted his attention back to Naruto, "It has come to my attention that you have brought Danzō back from the path of darkness."
"Uhhh. If you mean 'mad him not a douche,' then yeah. I did."
"How?"
Naruto thought for a moment, "Well I just showed him kindness."
Pain tilted his head, "You just... were nice to him?" Naruto nodded, "What?"
"I would just be nice to him," pain was still speechless, "Uhh, what's wrong?"
He shook his head, "You talk of it as if it's so easy. It couldn't have been that simple."
"Well yeah pretty much. Every time he would try to break me, I wouldn't waver. I was kind and happy no matter what."
"And that... changed him?" Naruto nodded again, "What do you mean by 'When he would try to break me'?"
"Well when I first met him, he was hellbent on turning me into a weapon. Not too long before he found me, I promised myself that I would give love to everyone. I figured Danzō was no different. Turns out he was just sorely lacking any love in his life."
Pain scratched his head, "Boy, do you wish for peace in the world,"
Naruto squinted at the man and threw his hands up, "Uh, yeah. What kind of question is that?"
"How do you wish to bring peace?"
"Well by doing what I did to Danzō to the rest of the world. Giving love to everyone, regardless of who they are."
"Why? Would it be fair to love those who have done horrible things?"
"Sure. They're people. People make mistakes."
"So people who commit mass genocide should be forgiven?"
Naruto laughed, "No, dummy, those people will feel guilt when shown love. They'll throw themselves in jail."
"How can you be so naive?! I grow tired of your childish views. Let's see if you can show me love after this," He flew up high above the city and burst off towards the hidden leaf. Konan fluttered away, her paper floating upwards.
"Konan," Nagato breathed out, "We'll have to move to the hidden leaf quicker than expected. We can use Tendō as a decoy," Konan nodded. She left to set up a safe spot for Nagato to control the paths of pain from. She could do it in a day. If Naruto and Jiraiya returned to the hidden leaf, however, they might be more suspicious, and they could be ready for an assault. They didn't know the extent of the Rinnegan, so they still had an edge.
"Do you think he's attacking the hidden leaf? Shouldn't we go back?" Naruto asked frantically.
"Just... hold on a minute."
Naruto tilted his head in shock, "But he could destroy the village! We can't just let him."
"Doesn't it seem strange how he was so quick to leave his home unprotected?"
Naruto squinted, "No- maybe- yes- Oh I don't know. What's the big deal about that?"
"Well we could just destroy this whole place right now. He knows we're not here to join his cause, why would he take his eye off of us."
"I think you might be overthinking this."
"Whatever, kid. It would at least do us some good to check out the tower first. There might be something there."
"But we might not have time."
"You're right. We're just wasting time here. I just can't help but believe that there's something he's leading us away from."
"I'm just not willing to take that risk. I promised the people of the leaf I would protect them no matter what. I swore on my own blood. It's really important to me that they stay safe," Naruto began walking, "Look, we can send some shadow clones up there. We'll be able to do both. If we find anything tangible, like any documents, then we'll just be able to catch up with our actual selves."
"Alright. That's a good compromise. You know, you're actually not that stupid sometimes," Jiraiya grinned.
"Yeah, you're one to talk."
'Why are they just standing there? I thought for sure they would just blindly follow after tendo, loyalty to their precious village and all,' Nagato thought, 'What's this? Oh how amusing, clones. What will they do?' He watched as the clones scaled the tower, 'They'll just set off the trap. No need to fret.'
Naruto and Jiraiya noticed 6 human sized pods, 5 of which were closed. Before they could see anything else, they instantly vanished.
"Did you see that?" Naruto asked, Jiraiya nodded, "What do you think it is?"
Jiraiya shrugged, "There were those black rods everywhere. That could be something."
"Some spymaster you are," Jiraiya scowled at the remark, "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."
"So what do you think it means then? The bodies?" Naruto and Jiraiya had been working with the intel team to try and decipher the Rinnegans abilities.
"We still don't really know. Our best guess is that maybe when one dies, he can switch to another. It's just a shame there's no Rinnegan experts around," she let out a chuckle.
"Pervy sage," Naruto had an idea, "Do you think that old innkeeper guy knows anything?"
"What old innkeeper? There were a lot of them," Naruto motioned him over and whispered something. Jiraiya threw his head back, "Fukuro? The guy with all the information? I doubt it," Naruto started to speak, but Jiraiya interrupted him, "When we told him about the Rinnegan, he said, 'You don't have any proof'."
"Yeah. So what?"
"If he knew about the Rinnegan already, don't you think he would have just said no?"
"He knew about the Rinnegan, just not about who had it. If he didn't know what it was he would've asked about it. It'll take a day or so to go there and back. We'll be back like that," he snapped.
"Alright fine. If you're so adamant about it, I won't be able to get you to shut up," Naruto fist pumped, "Let's be quick. Start thinking of information to exchange."
"Sorry that it's taking so long, Nagato. The change in plans has really made it hard to move everything over," Konan had hollowed out an area of a hill close to the hidden leaf. It would have been too hard to create a tree, her original plan, and remain inconspicuous. Naruto and Jiraiya retreated to the hidden leaf and warned of the potential invasion, so security was tighter.
Making the cave took longer, about a week. On the plus side, security around the leaf had loosened quite a bit in the last day, "Everything should be prepared by later tonight."
Konan heard a loud screech from outside, and peeled back some of the paper door to investigate. She saw a large bird. Riding on the back of said bird was a man with long white hair. He was wearing a flowing red coat. No doubt who that was, "Nagato. I believe Jiraiya has left the village."
"Hm. Maybe we will have to begin the invasion earlier than expected. Get the six paths over here ASAP, I think we should take this opportunity," The girl nodded and walked over to the closed pods, "Naruto Uzumaki, you are so naive. You will pay for that."