Obito had been gone for several weeks moving from base to base unknown to Sasuke's location. With several advanced medical ninja it was easy to heal Sasuke and Sidra's wounds during their battle. They were back up to speed. Despite every eye in the lands looking for them they remain hidden. Meanwhile Konoha slowly rebuilds itself, however the damage it took was too severe many thought to simply leave the city for good. There was no sign of Danzo from these several weeks as well. While Naruto and Sasuke focused on finding Obito, Dias and Sidra expanded their empire in the west where the hidden shadow village gave allegiance to the neighboring villages after agreeing to help them in the war against others. Luckily Obito was driven off too quickly to be able to take the tailed beasts with him, only being able to take a part of their power about 90%, enough for the infinite tsukuyomi, but it was not full power. Pain retrieved the remaining power and managed to reverse the transfer and revive the 1 tail through 7 tailed jinchuuriki, and give the 8 tails back to Killer Bee. As gratitude the jinchuuriki were granted a place to live in either the empire in the west or the east. While Gaara went back to his city with a warm weclome from his brother and sister who were happy to have their brother and Kazekage back. The rest other then Bee who stayed in Kumo, decided to settle down to the Akuzura Empire (I'll refer to that as the combined cities in the west). They jinchuuriki didn't have full power back, but that didn't change their lives, living peacefully in the empire.

Sometime later, Sasuke and Naruto had some talking to do.

"Listen Naruto, I have to apologize to you, what I've done was wrong, and I truly regret killing Hinata, however it was Obito's orders to kill on sight."

"I know Sasuke, I know you only wanted to save your own clan."

"Yeah, I guess I just went apon the wrong way to do it, it looks like once we find Obito and kill him, my clan will flourish once again."

"So you and Sakura?"

"I guess ... on an alternate note, Obito has escaped us too many times, his kamui always gets him away, without Sidra to block it, this has become troublesome."

"Sidra's in the west fighting her own wars, it's going to be awhile before she returns."

"Yes I know."

"Tell me, have you seen Kakashi-sensei?"

"No, one day he seemed to have escaped to another place, probably with Kamui."

"Well, at least he's not dead."

"Are you thinking of bringing him back here?"

"Yes, then team 7 will be full once again."

"Hmm, I haven't thought about team 7 for so long."

"Yeah ever since 4 years ago, we haven't all been together."

"Tell me Naruto, what just have you learned while here?"

"You wanna see?"

"I want to see your progress."

XXXXXX

Uzushiogakure.

A large plain field, one with multiple trees and rocks for target practice, far enough that it won't destroy the city. "Check this out, ya know?" Naruto holds up his palm. "Almighty Push!" Naruto's attack slashes the rock into multiple shreds. "Not bad." Sasuke smiled, at least Naruto wasn't the weak genin he was before. After what Sasuke went through it was nice for him to remember the good times when he actually had the support of his friends.

"You want to spar?" Naruto asked.

"Why not?"

XXXXXX

Inside the Tower

"Nagato?" Pain turned around to see his sensei. "Jiraiya-sensei." Jiraiya stood looking at what seemed to be 2 of his students at once. "It's been a long time Nagato." Pain nodded. "Indeed." The last time they met was during the wars between the great shinobi lands, Nagato, Konan and Yahiko were war orphans and went to the sannin to have them teach them ninjutsu, Jiraiya did just that, in the process he transferred his ideals for peace to those 3. "It's been so long since I've seen you Nagato, but tell me, what's with that body?" Pain was controlled by Nagato, but he resembled Yahiko the other orphan of the 3 that Jiraiya trained, Jiraiya knew Nagato was Pain because of the Rinnegan in his eyes. "Did you kill Yahiko, Nagato?" Pain shook his head. "No, he died much earlier. Allow me to explain."

FLASHBACK

"After you left us, me, Yahiko and Konan, we all went to fend for ourselves, we created a group to fight against the war and bring peace, with Yahiko as our leader, our group gained more members more quickly."

"Hanzo the current leader of the Hidden Rain saw our activities and couldn't ignore us anymore."

"Yes, I know him, Hanzo the Salamander, the one who had a venomous snake bite him to give him the breath of a toxic snake."

"We met with him and he offered to have his forces join ours to further the plan for peace, it was about 1 year after you left us. We were naive children back then, we didn't know any better then we did, we shouldn't have went to that meet, because ... Yahiko died ..."

"2 days later at the meeting place, Hanzo and his men and the hidden leaf's Anbu black ops were already there, they arrived early and Hanzo held Konan hostage.

"Your organization has become a nuisance to me." Hanzo held a kunai to Yahiko and Nagato. "Yahiko, you're the leader so you must die." Resist and I'll kill her instead, Hanzo throws the kunai down at Yahiko and Nagato. "You redhead, use that to kill Yahiko, if you do I'll spare yours and the girl's life." Nagato was in surprise, it was either Konan or Yahiko, either of which will be horrible. "Nagato, just kill me." Yahiko said. Nagato was even more shocked, Yahiko would give up his life in exchange for Konan and Nagato. Nagato slowly trembled towards the kunai and picked it up, he looked at it, it was like a horror film to his eyes, yet it was also a really hard decision, Nagato wished he could just kill Hanzo off the bat and then escape with them both, but he hadn't mastered his Rinnegan yet and couldn't do it fast enough without either of their deaths. Nagato turned to Yahiko and barely said his name when Yahiko ran into him, impaling himself on the kunai. Nagato's eyes bulged to the biggest they were, Yahiko spoke his final words, "You and Konan have to survive no matter what ... you are the savior of this world ... you can do it ..." Yahiko falls off Nagato's shoulder dead. "YAHIKO!" Konan screamed, Yahiko had blood out of his mouth and rain covered his dead body. Nagato didn't move he was in too much shock to move at all. "Kill him." Hanzo said to his men, they threw kunai at Nagato despite his promise to spare Nagato. Nagato remembers something Yahiko said. 'If all this useless fighting doesn't stop, then I'll become a god and make it stop!' Nagato's Rinnegan active he raised his palm and repelled all the projectiles and sent them down instantly. "He repelled them, how?!" Hanzo looked at Nagato. "Those eyes. Your no ordinary brat that's for sure." Nagato jumped at Hanzo, Hanzo jumped back and set off a fire jutsu on Nagato. The fire tags covered Nagato's legs and blew up. The fire ended, only Nagato's boots got burned off, Konan and Nagato were fine. "Konan, hold on to Yahiko and don't let go."

"Get him!" Anbu and Hanzo's men attacked Nagato. "Summoning Jutsu, Gedo Statue!" A giant statue smacked the men away with a single shot. "That's!" Konan didn't like the sight of this weapon. The statue bursted completely out of the ground, a sharp point extended into several blades and sliced into Nagato's back. They gained his chakra and slightly made his body shrink and become thin to his bones. A dragon spirals out of the gedo statue's mouth and roars at the men, a single shot it engulfs the men, stealing their souls instantly making them die. "Run, if it touches you, you die!" None of the men were spared from the attack, Hanzo was last. "It would seem that you were in the shadows as the real leader, the fact that you possess the Rinnegan is quiet a surprise." Nagato sends the dragon to kill Hanzo. "Teleportation jutsu." Hanzo teleports out of there in time to just escape from the attack. The rain fell like a shower of tears, Nagato took a kunai and scratched his headband containing the 4 lines out. "Yahiko died, I took over as the new leader."

FLASHBACK ENDS

"From then I implanted Yahiko's and 5 other bodies with black chakra receivers and now I control them all with my Rinnegan, I also sought revenge by returning Hanzo's favor, he died when my eyes were laid on him." Jiraiya heard Nagato's pain. "Do you understand, Jiraiya-sensei?" Jiraiya nodded. "Good, I plan to bring peace to this land, by giving people the true thought of pain, no one will fight afterwards." Jiraiya thinks in his head for some time. "I do understand, while I do believe it is not the best way, it does seem to be the only way. However I will not give up on trying to find another way to bring peace." Pain closed his eyes. "That is fine, I just do not want anyone to interfere." Jiraiya responded. "That's fine, I just don't want there to be war to stop war.", "Good to hear we're on the same page." Jiraiya was reminded of something. "Oh yeah, do you want to read some of my new books?" Pain was confused at this. "Well it's a good book for someone like you." Pain shook his head. "Uh no." Jiraiya held the book in front of him. "Come on you know you want to!" Pain pushed the book away from him. "Please no." Jiraiya held it back at him. "Come on!" Pain held up his hand and repelled Jiraiya. Pain mildly laughs, "Hahaha, some times never change."

XXXXXX

Akuzura Empire

Dias and Sidra had just returned to the center of the Empire. So far the empire had built a large complex for the center of the empire, it was called Zuraiya about the size of a small village, the center and most defended place in the empire, guarded by massive walls. The highest members of the empire lived or met there. Other places were Necragakure, East of the Zuraiya only 5 minutes of walking, west of the complex was a more state controlled from the center, it was renamed Xachiyo after Sidra's Xachikyu was used to obtain the land. It was about as large as Konoha was. It contained the empires western ocean ports, along with the ninja academy that was going to be constructed for the empire in the future, may people already lived there and they all peacefully agreed to be a part of the empire since they hated their previous leader, Otiain Kurichi who was killed in a fierce battle with Dias and Sidra, they appointed Uwajina Ukiari, a skilled samurai swordsman and water style user from the mist to keep the state in check.

South of Zuraiya was Burizen a city with a more tropical scene. The edge of the city was a wonderful beach near the seas. Hotels and inns were located among the city, they agreed to a part of empire one to avoid battle, and they would be able to expand their products by doing so. The current ruler is Daizou Inichimana, a famous and powerful water style user in the west, though he was mostly retired and laid back until the west went to wars where he demonstrated his skills when an army tried to take the city before the Akuzura arrived.

North of the empire were 2 cities currently at war. Hiroshi Kirasin was leading one force in the city Otoyama. Against them was Enta Otaki leading the city Hakuku. This was the next place that they empire would have to bring to peace before they were included in the war.

XXXXXX

Uchiha Base, somewhere between Otogakure and Amegakure

"With the final jinchuuriki in our grasp, I shall capture him." Obito said. "No." Madara denied. "I shall take the nine-tails, you failed too many times, I will capture him for good." Madara goes into the night ready to capture the nine-tails. "While you fell to them, I ... shall ... rise."