Opening - Courage by Haruka Tomatsu

X

"The village has been successfully evacuated; this much I know. But where did you move everyone? Somewhere outside the village walls?"

Alone in a cold and lightless room in Ame, Nagato opened and then quickly narrowed his eyes.

Wait, no, that's-

"-ridiculous. You wouldn't move tens of thousands of civilians outside the safety of the walls into a wilderness where they could be targeted from any angle by an invading force. A stronghold within the village, then."

It didn't take him long to finish that train of thought; there was one natural structure in Konoha that made an ideal foundation for such a base. Hollowed out it could fit the population of Konoha, shinobi and civilians all, and still bear incredibly thick walls.

"Under the Hokage monument?"

Itachi gave no reply to that, whereas he'd just began to open his mouth after Nagato had suggested the civilians leaving the village. The boy was clever, but that didn't exempt him from making human mistakes and this one wasn't hard to make.

"I suppose that'll work."

Across Konoha, the Deva Path continued its ascent with a bit more speed and confidence.

The Hokage monument. How very like Konoha, to hide their people behind the gaze of the Hokage chiseled from stone. It's some nice symbolism, I guess. Sort of poetic.

Yahiko stopped floating higher above the direct center of the village, or as close as Nagato could approximate it from such a height. Pain's hands came up in a Snake seal which was rather superfluous, given that Rinnegan jutsu generally needed no hand seals. Still, it helped him gather his chakra just a little more efficiently.

They'll be safe back there, so it isn't quite empty symbolism either.

On the other hand, some part of Nagato's psyche that thought without flinching at what he was about to do flashed a few still images from his recent memory, the faces of the last few people he'd seen.

Jiraiya-sensei and Tsunade. Your mentor and his last remaining teammate.

Nawaki Senju. A boy no older than Yahiko was.

Itachi. Your former comrade and the man you would've called a friend.

You're about to kill them.

"...I wish we could've agreed, Itachi, I really do."

The thought has occured to me, yes. But their lives shouldn't be worth more just because I know their names and faces. Jiraiya, Tsunade, Nawaki, Itachi. That's four people. Add in the six members of Sasuke's team and the total comes to ten deaths.

I've killed a lot more than ten people by now, to ensure the progress of the Eye of the Moon Plan. These ten won't be the last, either.

To ensure the creation of a better world for the millions upon millions left alive after today... you'd have to be stupid not to take that deal.

"But this is goodbye."

Nagato withdrew his consciousness from the Human Path and let it fall, the fifth of his Six Paths gone.

The remaining Deva Path brought up his right hand.

"Shinra Tensei."

X

Even at the start of their encounter, Jiraiya had known it wouldn't end well. That much had been obvious to him even before the first blow was struck.

If the news had come more suddenly, if Pain's identity had only been revealed the instant Jiraiya encountered him, it would've been easier to deal with. But as it was, the Toad Sage had spent two days drinking and dwelling on the thought of fighting Nagato. As a result, he was now badly hungover and depressed.

That much he could deal with. He had fought while drunk, hungover, emotionally broken. Thinking about it even now, he had no doubt of his capacity to raise his hand against Nagato to protect his village.

But even with his Sage Mode already active, he was more concerned with whether that would do any good.

Pain's first attack was a wall of invisible force that smashed into Jiraiya and Tsunade both, less than a second after he made eye contact with his targets. Within that span of time neither of them had been able to brace themselves properly, although Tsunade had started focusing her chakra to her feet in an attempt to withstand the Deva Path.

With half a second more time she would've managed it, but Pain had appeared and let off an attack just a bit too suddenly. She was thrown along with Jiraiya, blasted diagonally down from their perch on an unremarkable rooftop into another building across the street. They both ripped through its walls and smashed holes in the concrete foundation of the home.

Jiraiya sat up first, still buried up to his shoulders in chunks of concrete. Tsunade threw herself up out of the rubble only a moment later, climbing fully onto a broken-off slab of the floor while Jiraiya followed suit behind her.

"Dammit," she grumbled. "If that was really just the lowest level of his Shinra Tensei, it's definitely stronger than Naruto's. Get up, Jiraiya. I can't do this without you."

He nodded and climbed roughly out of the floor. "I don't think we can take him alone, Tsunade... we'll need our summons." he brought up his right thumb to bite it and she did the same without taking a moment to reply.

"Shinra Tensei."

The house around them both crumpled in the same direction they'd been thrown and were now thrown again, smashed into two more houses before they came to a stop buried within the resulting hill of rubble. Nagato took a single leap across the foundations of those homes and landed lightly in front of the wreckage, his hand already raised for another Deva Path blast.

The hill exploded and a great deal of its mass was thrown at Pain. He stood still and allowed his jutsu to do the work for him, presenting an invisible curved wall that deflected the rubble aside and kept even the dirt under his feet untouched. With his Sharingan Nagato glanced first at Tsunade with her fist held out after her punch, apparently responsible for the explosion.

Then he looked at Jiraiya with his eyes widened in what could only be realization, mouth opening to warn Tsunade-

"Shinratensei."

The wall of force shielding him rocketed forward, once more throwing two of the Sannin back through an assortment of buildings.

It's possible that Tsunade hasn't noticed it, and to maintain that advantage my next course of action should be...

"...Banshou Tenin."

Jiraiya shot forward out of the wreckage, a few chunks of it trailing behind him through the air. The Deva Path produced a chakra stake in its left hand and held it forward to skewer the approaching sage. Behind him Tsunade rampaged out of the debris once more, quickly making note of Jiraiya's perilous situation.

He twisted in his flight, reaching forward to slap aside Pain's piercing blade with the back of his left hand. Nagato couldn't brace himself to hold the weapon steady against the force of his sensei's Sage Mode, and the weapon was knocked aside. With his right hand Jiraiya landed a hard punch to what had once been Yahiko's jaw, and the Deva Path tumbled away while he fell to earth at the abrupt end of the jutsu pulling him.

Pain wasted no time throwing himself to his feet, using a burst of Deva Path force to do so even quicker. Jiraiya rose as well and crossed the remaining distance between them, fast enough to appear no more than a blur but not quite enough to match a movement jutsu.

His punch stopped a solid foot away from the palm Nagato held out to catch it; the aura of senjutsu chakra Jiraiya had wrapped around his fist was met by the similar shell of Deva Path force around Yahiko's. Pain's gaze whipped briefly past Jiraiya to see Tsunade begin a seal sequence to summon Katsuyu, but then he returned his focus to the Toad Sage and channeled chakra through his Sharingan.

Jiraiya's own golden eyes went wide, and he almost looked away in time to avoid the genjutsu. It was close enough that he thought he'd dodged it, but Pain took a broad leap backward that Jiraiya neither saw nor heard; to his eyes Yahiko stood in place without moving. He raised both of his hands and pushed at Tsunade, a sense of urgency carrying him along faster even than before.

"Shinra Tensei!"

This time he swept his arms up and Tsunade rocketed into the air. She was unable to finish her Summoning Jutsu, so she instead reached into an inner pocket of her green jacket and drew forth a hollowed-out eggshell painted black.

Thanks for this, Sakura.

She took aim and whipped the egg at the ground just ahead of Jiraiya, factoring in the lunging punch he aimed at the empty air where he perceived Yahiko to be standing. The grass-green powder inside exploded into a sizable cloud, aided by a bit of explosive at the center of the egg. The chakra powder entered his system and replaced Pain's previous genjutsu, not unlike a chakra pulse.

Can you occupy him long enough for me to summon Katsuyu?

"I-I don't think so," he took up a taijutsu stance and watched Pain take aim with his right palm yet again. "His Shinra Tensei doesn't have a cooldown!"

"So much for keeping that unsaid," Nagato grumbled under his breath, quiet enough that neither Sannin could hear. "Shinra Tensei."

How the hell does that work!? You said even the weakest level of it takes five seconds to recharge; what happened to that!?

Tsunade crashed to earth behind Jiraiya and immediately braced herself to withstand Nagato's attack. Ahead of her Jiraiya was thrown by the same blast; he tumbled backward while at the same time she noted a series of senbon-sized chakra stakes flying toward her on the unnatural wind. She managed to dodge all but one of the spikes, this last of which embedded itself in her right leg. She pulled it free without caring that the wound had gashed open her femoral artery; it still took only a moment for her to heal.

"Probably the same way Naruto can use Banshou Karu without a cooldown," said the Toad Sage as he stood, not far ahead of Tsunade now. "He just practiced until he could use a weaker Shinra Tensei than the five-second one."

"So he's kicking our asses with a watered-down jutsu. Great," the former Hokage scowled. "We can't keep going like this... switch places with me!" she lunged forward past Jiraiya, eyes and fist trained on Pain.

Nagato's lopsided gaze flicked from Jiraiya to Tsunade too fast to be seen, casting another Sharingan genjutsu to buy time. Unlike with Jiraiya, this time he chose a more obviously fabricated illusion since Tsunade was likely to detect the chakra entering her system regardless.

He chose to present her with an image of Nawaki standing before her in his full suit of wooden plate armor but without his axe. He took care in replicating even the eerily blank expression the boy had been wearing while he dismantled the Asura Path not long ago, and he guessed from the look on Tsunade's face that this alone was enough to disturb her.

Nagato made note of this anomaly and moved on without slowing. He jumped another thirty feet backward and with a thought he showed Tsunade her little brother melting inside his armor. Her flinch was purely instinctive and it didn't prevent her from bringing up her hands to dispel the obvious illusion with a seal, but it was an oppurtune moment for Nagato to time his next attack. He swept down hard with his outstretched hand and called yet again, "Shinra Tensei!"

At the same time Tsunade was blasted down into a small crater, a much greater plume of chakra smoke rose up far behind her. Crap. Time to switch tactics, then. Nagato paced back a few steps, and as if on cue Gamabunta's sword swiped through the air he'd been standing in. Next came a rather oversized Water Bullet which he chose to deal with by pulsing Deva Path force straight downward.

He flew skyward to dodge the Water Bullet, which exploded on impact with the ground where he'd been standing. Gamabunta emerged from the smoke cloud and adjusted his aim to fire more water jutsu after Pain in a continuous volley. Nagato swerved aside of them and kept ascending, only slowing to a stop once he was confident that any attacks Gamabunta fired would be child's play to see coming and dodge or block.

And the obvious next move the enemy will make is...

Another explosion of chakra smoke filled the air on cue, the arrival of Katsuyu heralded with all due fanfare. The giant slug wasted no time in taking aim and spitting a flow of steaming liquid the color of tarnished brass at Pain.

Nagato dodged aside in the open air, right palm outstretched and aimed at the front end of the projectile stream as it moved past him. "Banshou Tenin..." the off-gold acid curved in its flight; orbited around and past Pain until he was facing back toward the boss summons once more. Just as his jutsu began dragging the acid inward, Nagato cut it off and switched to his next move. "Shinra Tensei!"

Gamabunta dodged to the left but the flight of the acid stream smoothly curved to follow him, Pain simply adjusted his aim with the Deva Path to compensate for his target's movement. Katsuyu's attack struck home and scalded the huge toad badly enough to draw a scream of pain from him.

Pain was unable to make out what was being said so far below him, but he could see Tsunade's giant slug had turned to address Gamabunta. After a moment or two Jiraiya's summon exploded into smoke once more, and Nagato had no trouble guessing that Katsuyu had recommended he do so. Clearly the wounds from her acid weren't easily treated.

It's time. Four of our Paths are down and the Human is fighting Itachi alone. I have the upper hand over him right now, but in the long run I can't overpower him. I stand to lose very little by using Shinra Tensei now, and I'm already halfway to the altitude I need to reach. That just leaves one variable to factor in...

The Deva Path fell still and silent in the air, shielded by a bubble of Deva Path force just in case Jiraiya or Katsuyu tried to reach him with a ranged jutsu.

where

outside the village

no that's stupid

under the hokage monument

safe

go

Pain started flying higher again, this time faster and with more purpose, more surety. The scope of Konoha in its entirety was laid out far beneath him; at this point he could see from one edge of the village to the other without turning his head. This was important; he had to be positioned directly above the center of the village for his next move.

Or rather, directly above the center of the village and then moved some distance away from the Hokage monument, just to be on the safe side. There were thousands upon thousands of innocent lives depending on him to carry out his next attack with neither fail nor flaw, and any avoidable risks here were worth avoiding.

The population of Konoha would emerge from their sanctuary to find their homes annihilated, with five discarded Paths of Pain and the corpses of ten Konoha-nin among the wreckage. The loss would cut them deeply, but it was hardly a worst-case scenario. They could take refuge from the elements within the Hokage monument until the Infinite Tsukuyomi was completed, at which point they would all have homes again anyway.

They don't matter any more just because you know their names. The lives of ten people don't carry more weight than a hundred million simply because you've met the ten and not the hundred million.

"Shinra Tensei."

X

Just as the earthquake began, Pain's sole remaining summon abruptly stopped fighting and crashed down into a sitting position. Sakura was caught in the middle of lunging into her next punch; she lost her balance and called off her attack on the stone panda to regain it. Sasuke's Amaterasu struck home and lit up the front of the bear; his eyes had remained focused on it even while he was jolted completely off his feet by the quake.

Juugo and Suigetsu managed to keep their balance, the latter by leaning on Samehada for support. Karin and Kimimaro, on the other hand, both hit the trembling ground hard.

Next came the sound of the village being flattened, of however many thousands of structures were shattering to bits accompanied by a faint high-pitched hum from the Shinra Tensei itself. It was only then that Taka began to realize what was actually happening and that the earthquake was the least of their problems.

Each of them could guess what would come next, a tidal wave of pulverized rubble flooding through the hole Pain's summon had smashed in the village walls. It was Sasuke who took action first; his Susanoo burst into an upward torrent of translucent purple flame and carried him higher into the air. When his chakra settled down once more, it was in the shape of the same Susanoo as before, only with a pair of legs to double its height.

Susanoo strode into place to fill the hole in the wall, nocking an arrow of densely bundled black flame. Sasuke took aim and fired down just ahead of his chakra avatar's feet, and the arrow exploded straight up into a curtain of inky black. The tidal wave that had once been Konoha met the wall of flame and burned away to nothing but smoke and ash, only the tiniest trickle of which emerged on Taka's side of the wall. Even these remnants didn't last long with tongues of black flame still clinging to them.

Pain's bear summon waited patiently until the tremors began to settle down, but then it stood and took a step toward Taka while its chest remained caught in those same black flames. It stopped short when Sasuke and his Susanoo turned back around and glared down at it, however. Susanoo took a single step toward the bear, then drew back its right leg and punted Pain's last summon away into the forest. At a glance, it appeared to Taka that the thing would keep flying for miles.

But then Susanoo dissolved into flickering purple embers and Sasuke started falling to earth at a worrying pace. Sakura was first to note with some relief that his Cursed Seal wings were still extended and his fall was under control, but the youngest Uchiha still hit the ground hard enough that he fell to his hands and knees on impact.

His wings slumped into the dirt and he remained in that position for a moment, taking a breath. Slowly, sluggishly, the wings began retracting into his back and their bladed feathers gouged the earth under their weight as they passed. They disappeared fully into Sasuke's back and his skin color reverted from an eerie charcoal-grey to a tone that was normal if a bit pale for him.

Sakura offered a hand to help him to his feet, an offer he took without stopping to wonder if it was actually necessary, if his balance was thrown off to that degree. "My seal's out of chakra," he admitted. "I still have most of my own, but..." he trailed off and turned to look at the wall of black flame between Taka and what had been Konoha a minute ago.

"I'm gonna shut down my Amaterasu," he spoke up. "It should be safe to do that now, but be ready to jump back just in case." After a brief pause he focused his Eternal Mangekyou on the flames, commanding them to evaporate within moments. This revealed a scorched black cliff of piled rubble filling the hole in the village wall. It remained settled in place instead of tumbling down onto Taka, which was a relief that went unnoted.

"He destroyed the whole damn village," said Sakura in little more than a whisper. "It's all gone..."

"We have to get in there." Kimimaro peered up at the top of the walls. "As long as the Hokage monument is still standing, we have a chance to save everyone. We have to stop Pain."

"We can't save everyone," Suigetsu answered, his usual grin gone. "If it took Pain this long to blow up the village, it means he was occupied until then. Whoever he was fighting until now is probably dead." As the two members of Taka with a wide assortment of friends in Konoha, Sakura and Sasuke both flinched. "But then again, Sasuke just blocked that attack with Amaterasu, so there's still hope."

"I didn't block the attack," his tone was flat; the situation he was faced with hadn't fully struck home yet. "I don't think I have anything that could block a Shinra Tensei that strong... it'd probably crack my Susanoo open like an egg."

"All the more reason for us to get in there right away, ya know?" Karin pushed up her glasses with a soft click. "We know Shinra Tensei has a cooldown that gets longer depending on how much power gets put into it... Pain's Deva Path should be vulnerable for a few minutes at least. This is the best chance we have to end this fight."

"Yeah." Sasuke took a step toward the village wall; his first instinct had been to spread his wings and fly straight up over it but that was no longer an option. This left him to scale the wall normally, with tree-walking chakra control. He turned toward the wall and paused to say "Let's go," then took a running start and began scaling it with the rest of Taka following shortly behind.

Kimimaro and Juugo both reached the top before he did, the former using his Pulse Step and the latter simply running as fast as a movement jutsu with the help of his senjutsu chakra. Suigetsu followed closely behind with his own Pulse Step, though it was slower than Kimimaro's to activate as well as move with. This left Sasuke, Sakura and Karin to arrive after them at roughly the same time.

"Look there," Kimimaro pointed with his longsword to the Hokage monument. It hadn't suffered any damage that would be visible from the other side of the village, but the mountain was buried up to the faces of the Hokage with rubble from the destroyed village. "The entrance to the bunker is buried."

"...Shit," Sasuke growled. "The cavalry isn't coming, then."

"A team of Earth Release users might be able to clear a path out, but that'd take time," Sakura murmured. "Probably enough time for Pain to recharge his Deva Path, and if he isn't dealt with by then, we're screwed anyway."

"Kimimaro, how much senjutsu chakra do you have left?" Sasuke asked, thinking of his own empty seal.

"Enough," came the reply. "I haven't been drawing on it as heavily as you; I still have chakra left."

"Hn." he glanced around at the rest of the team. "I think it's safe to say Suigetsu still has plenty of chakra..." Suigetsu grinned and hefted Samehada over his shoulder, "...and Juugo can draw in more natural energy as he needs it." Juugo nodded as well, currently in a fully human form but ready to activate his twisted Sage Mode at a moment's notice. "Sakura, Karin, that leaves you two."

Sakura shrugged. "I don't use up a lot of chakra with any of my moves; I can keep going."

On the other hand, Karin frowned and hesitated. "I... I've used up my Healing Bite for the day, along with a ton of chakra with my clones and chains. I can still fight, but I'm not at my best." she held up her right hand to see that it was trembling considerably. "But the real problem is this. The whole time we were fighting Pain's summons, there was so much adrenaline in my system. I was thinking and moving really fast with it, but now..." she made a loose fist, but her hand continued to shake. "I feel off. It's not my chakra that's drained, it's just me."

"...I think I can help," Sakura spoke up. "You're coming down from an adrenaline rush, and it sounds like a pretty massive one. From the way you're describing it, it sounds like you have some kind of mutation that lets your body produce and safely use much more adrenaline... it might even develop into a full-fledged kekkei genkai in your descendants, but for now we don't really know how it works. That's dangerous, even aside from the fact that you're not hyped up on any adrenaline right now. We don't know what'll happen to you once we take on Pain again; you might get hurt."

"So... you're not saying I should sit this one out, are you?" Karin frowned. "I can still help!"

"What I'm saying is that you should stay close to me," Sakura answered calmly, "At the back of the group. You can send out as many clones as you want to fight Pain, and I'll use medical ninjutsu to make sure you're coping well with a second adrenaline spike. If you are, then maybe you can jump into the fight."

"...Ah."

"Hn. If you two are going to stick together as a pair... Kimimaro and Juugo, you'll be at the front of the group attacking Pain first. You both have senjutsu chakra left and you work well together. Suigetsu, stick behind them and look for an opening to attack with Samehada. I'll use both of my Mangekyou jutsu as soon as I can make eye contact. After that I'll throw ranged jutsu at him; that way I can also stay close to Sakura and Karin to cover them while Sakura works."

Taka replied with a chorus of quick nods and arranged themselves into the formation Sasuke had described. "Let's go," Kimimaro prompted and took the first leap from the top of the village wall.

Pain knew they were coming; he'd spotted them talking on the wall high above the dust cloud filling the crater that had been Konoha. By the time Taka took a step into the village itself, that cloud had thinned enough that Nagato could see their approach even without tracking their chakra silhouettes. Likewise, Kimimaro and Juugo could see Pain in the distance and lead Taka in his direction.

Sasuke aimed a twisting glare at Pain's chest and set it on fire as promised, but even as he cast Amaterasu successfully a frown crossed his face. Something was wrong, massively so, and along with the rest of Taka he was missing it entirely.

The flames on Pain's chest shrank down and flickered before winking out entirely; and he shot forth a large spiralling Water Bullet in return. Juugo dodged and kept charging at Pain along with Kimimaro, his right arm transformed into an axe as usual.

Sasuke caught a glimpse of dimmed sunlight reflecting off something on Pain's chest through the hole scorched in his Akatsuki robe; a moment later he made out the shape of a blackened flat panel of metal over the Deva Path's heart. The thing blended in with the burned skin it covered at first glance. It was different from the other chakra receivers peppering the Deva Path's body; all of the others had the same rod shape and he was sure that meant something.

Sasuke's eyes went wide; suddenly he understood why he was suspicious, confused, worried.

The Deva Path was standing his ground instead of running despite the cooldown on what seemed to be his only jutsu. He should have been defenseless, which meant he should've been running, but he stood and met Kimimaro's and Juugo's attacks without flinching.

"...Wait-"

Pain's right fist snapped out with blinding speed and force to match, splitting Kimimaro's shield in two. His left palm darted forward next and landed on Kimimaro's breastplate, laying what appeared to be a glowing blue fuinjutsu on it. For no more than half a second the knight kept raising his sword, still intent on following through with his initial attack.

The seal exploded, flinging Kimimaro back along with dozens of arcs of blue lightning.

Pain turned to Juugo next, bringing up his right forearm to catch and deflect the axe. His Sharingan locked onto one of Juugo's eyes and struck him with a paralyzing genjutsu. He drew back his right arm and twisted it outward into a steel cannon with a thick, broad barrel that he aimed at the immobilized sage's head.

Sasuke started forward, but without a movement jutsu he was nowhere near fast enough. Pain fired an orb of what looked to be clear glass, point-blank into Juugo's face. The glass shattered on impact and released its clear liquid contents. Steam bloomed off his face and he screamed in unimaginable agony.

Nagato simply moved on to the next target; he hopped a few yards away from Juugo and aimed his cannon at Sasuke. The single huge barrel morphed and twisted into a cluster of six smaller ones, repurposed to fire bullets instead of acid.

Susanoo flared into existence around Sasuke, Sakura and Karin, fully wreathed in its demonic armor. Pain's bullets chipped the outermost layer of the armor, but when they failed to chew any deeper he cut off his attack and reformed his right hand to make a Snake seal.

The ground buckled and tore upward under Susanoo, throwing all three of its occupants in different directions. The chakra avatar dissolved with no one inside, but Sasuke almost immediately reformed the ribcage and two skeletal arms even as he flew through the air. He aimed and fired an arrow of violet chakra from a hastily formed bow, but Pain merely reached up and absorbed it with the Preta Path in his left hand while reforming the arm cannon on his right.

He aimed to the far side of all three of them and spun up the six barrels, intent on mowing them down from right to left. Karin would go down first, then Sakura, and finally he would target Sasuke with different ammunition since his solid bullets couldn't get through Susanoo.

Karin had no chance of successfully running from the stream of bullets; doing so would take a movement jutsu she didn't have. Instead she was forced to stand her ground, channeling a fresh flood of adrenaline and raising her swords for a move she knew would likely get her killed.

no way this is gonna work

Her swords became a single translucent white blur between the salvo of bullets and her vitals. More adrenaline spiked her blood and her eyes went wider yet; the bullets were meeting her swords and ricocheting away instead of killing her.

Nagato frowned and turned his aim downward below the reach of her swords. Four bullets bit into and through her legs; she fell with a scream more of shock than pain. He adjusted his aim toward her head next.

Kimimaro sailed forward through the air with his longsword held out to stab Pain. With the help of his Sharingan Nagato hopped a bit to the right and let the sword pass under his left arm. He curled his hand around the blade; they drew sparks from each other since that hand had been remade into steel. His thumb met the crossguard of Kimimaro's blade and the knight's momentum stopped.

Nagato noted that the boy had shed his armor and powered down his Cursed Seal to its first stage, sacrificing power and defense for speed. It had almost worked; another half-second and Nagato would've been skewered by the longsword. Karin was still alive, so his move hadn't been for nothing even though it had failed to kill Pain.

But it had a cost; the boy's entire body was now easy to target. Pain transformed his arm cannon once more and aimed it point-blank at Kimimaro's chest, firing a rocket that carried him back even before it exploded and engulfed him in a midair fireball.

Suigetsu attacked next; he lashed out with a few deceptively quick swings with Samehada that took some effort for Nagato to dodge. He even managed to land a hit on Pain; he pulled his left hand from the greatsword's hilt and fired a tiny water bullet with it instead. The shot pierced clean through Pain's chest, which would have been a serious problem if Yahiko was alive.

But then Pain counterattacked, punched Suigetsu in the face with all the fearsome strength of his Asura Path. The boy splattered and Samehada fell into the puddle with a loud splash. With the arm cannon still replacing his right hand, Nagato fired an acid-filled glass orb into the puddle and checked to make sure that the two liquids had mixed together.

It wasn't fatal, but it would take Suigetsu time to separate his own body from the acid. Until then he couldn't reform; for fear of burning himself inside and out with said acid. In the meantime Pain turned his attention back to the remaining members of Taka, counting how many threats remained.

Sasuke and Sakura were still unharmed, major threats to be eliminated. Karin was bleeding and incapacitated but alive, and Juugo's screams had grown less horrifying. The boy's unnatural healing was likely close to repairing the damage to his face and eyes, which meant Nagato would have to deal with him again. Likewise with Kimimaro, the knight had still been wearing a layer of bone armor under his skin and had survived the missile's explosion.

He turned his attention on Sasuke and Sakura; once they were dead he would be free to finish off the others. Both of them stood within the shelter of a fully formed Susanoo, eyes wide with shock. He transformed his left arm along with the right and took aim at the chakra avatar with two cannons instead of one.

He began rapid-firing orbs of contained fluoroantimonic acid at Susanoo, watched steam pour off its armor as he strode toward it. Sasuke made eye contact and struck him with Tsukuyomi, but his version of the genjutsu was even weaker than Itachi's and easier to dispel. The illusion shattered as quickly as it had formed, and Pain continued to approach his targets without interruption.

I need to maintain this advantage, this fear.

"You imagined you had made some kind of progress," said Pain, audible over the sizzling acid despite his voice remaining calm and level. "That you had gotten closer to defeating me with each Path you destroyed. And perhaps when you stood atop that wall," he nodded to the torn and bent-outward walls of Konoha, swamped with rubble, "you even felt sure of your victory."

"Know this, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno. You wouldn't have come as far as you did if my Paths had not been expendable. I expected them all to be crushed, planned for it in depth... but I confess, I thought I would've destroyed them myself. I expected them to still be standing when I crushed this village; they would've been obliterated as well."

"But I suppose it's better that you eliminated them instead... because until now, you've had hope. To have it ripped away so suddenly like this, to be faced with total despair when you least expect it... that is a kind of Pain far deeper and richer than physical suffering. This is the Pain I've chosen for you."

The purple chakra making up Susanoo was beginning to droop downward; it hadn't quite liquefied under Pain's acid but it was getting there. With this in mind Nagato switched weapons again, loading a pair of missiles instead.

He fired, the missiles exploded on impact, and Susanoo's armor caved inward.

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