Opening - Courage by Haruka Tomatsu
X
I lost.
Once more, Nagato opened his own pair of eyes in the dark. He glanced toward Konan, who by now had returned to his chamber and this time locked the door. It kept out the sound of the endless rain, but wouldn't do much to slow down the Hokage.
I was so close, I almost had them... but I lost. He sighed and closed his eyes again; she hadn't seen him open them yet. If she had, she might've started asking questions. I can't just tell her that. I already know how she'll react; she'll want to stay here and die with me.
If it were you, said the voice he'd assigned to his own common sense, if you could walk and she couldn't, you would stay here too. You wouldn't run and leave her to die, so how can you expect her to leave you? That's not how people think and you know it.
He felt chilled now; winter had almost arrived and the miserable weather had swept into the room until Konan had returned and sealed the door. He had been shirtless in the cold, and sweating with the effort of his battle across the country. It was distracting, but only mildly so. He continued to think.
He turned his attention to the traces of his chakra spread throughout the entire storm, reached out and felt the monumental chakra signatures that marked the Hokage and his team. I have time, but not much. I need to act quickly.
"...Konan."
She jumped, turned toward him hastily and with wide eyes. "W-What's wro-"
She stopped mid-sentence; her mouth fell open just a bit and she stared blankly into his Sharingan. The scarlet eye began to spin slowly and sent out a wisp of chakra that reached her in an instant. The same whirling pattern lit up her own eyes for a moment, and then the tomoe moved further outward to the very edges of her irides. It was a simple and straightforward genjutsu; he simply needed to give a command for her to follow.
"Run. Run and hide; get outside the city and don't come back unless I call you within an hour. If I don't, get to our hideout in Yuu. Tell Madara to lift the genjutsu when you find him. Tell him I lost."
"...N-Nagato..."
He pushed harder, focused more chakra into the genjutsu. "Go, Konan."
She fought back, brought up her hands and made a Ram seal. He knew it was over then; she was putting up more resistance than he could handle. She dispelled the genjutsu and lunged forward. The slap hurt worse than he expected; she'd put quite a bit of force into it.
"You bastard!"
"You can't help me here!" he yelled back, panicking now. "Dammit Konan, you barely had enough chakra left to break that illusion!" He considered trying to cast another genjutsu after saying it out loud, but apparently Konan had thought of it as well. She was still facing him but her eyes were shut. "Whether you stay or go, my chances of survival stay the same. Yours don't."
"That's bullshit, Nagato! I know you better than that; you're already thinking about some millionth-of-a-percent chance that I end up saving your life here. That's worth it to me!"
"You're stupid," said Pain, the voice cold and accusatory.
"If I leave you here, then I'm stupid and alone with Madara and Tobi. I'll take my chances with you and the damned Hokage, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"Ugh!" he snarled, slumped forward and down. He knew he'd lost the argument then; any chance of persuading her to leave was gone. He thought next of forcing her to flee as before, but he drew a blank as to how and he was out of time regardless. The enemy was almost upon them now.
"Stay out of the way, Konan. If you don't, you'll get us both killed. Just stay back and don't draw his attention."
She gave no reply, simply turned toward the door and formed a few small paper shuriken floating about her right wrist. She could sense the colossal gathering of chakra behind the door, and she felt it stop just outside. The voice that came through was muffled but still audible. "Konan's in there too," said the voice of a girl. "She'll probably jump us."
The door handle shook a bit; someone outside was testing the lock. There was a brief pause, and then the handle twisted hard enough to shatter the lock entirely. The door swung open, and in stepped the Hokage. "So you're Nagato, huh?"
"Naruto Uzumaki." still the voice was cold, still in character, still Pain. "You've come a long way from Konoha and Suna, all of you. I can't imagine you're here just to assassinate me, so there's something else you want."
"Yeah," Naruto readily admitted. "We're not here to kill you, we just wanna stop you from making any more Zetsu clones."
"I see... and you expected me to tell you where the facility is for some reason?"
"Actually, I thought we'd have to get through your puppet bodies before we could have this talk." The Hokage's eyes narrowed just a bit. "It's funny... we haven't run into even one of them."
Nagato glared back without flinching. "I don't find that very funny at all."
Naruto moved forward faster than even the Sharingan could follow; by the time Nagato registered the event Naruto's fist was touching the center of his forehead. He noted with confusion that the Hokage could've killed him then, but he was distracted by an unfamiliar stream of information and emotions.
reading my mind
Nagato realized what memory his counterpart was looking for, and as a direct result that memory floated to the surface of his mind. He saw Naruto's eyes go wide at the sight of Konoha flattened, and then with his doujutsu he saw the Hokage's chakra build up.
"Shinra-"
"Tensei!"
Naruto had put up resistance with his Deva Path, but Nagato's was simply that much stronger. The Hokage and his team were thrown straight back through the open door, and a gust of force that wasn't quite wind swept out across the room and pushed Konan back just a bit.
A mantle of shimmering black and glowing orange materialized around Naruto; only then did the Sixth climb to his feet. "He destroyed Konoha," he told them with a shiver. "They evacuated into the mountain, but everything's gone and the Pervy Sage was...!"
Something wrapped in black and red came flying out of Pain's tower; it emerged from the ground floor through a window and shot toward Naruto like a bullet. The newest Path of Pain tackled the Hokage and then swerved straight up into the sky with him; he only slowed to a stop once they were high enough to see from one end of Ame to the other. A chakra receiver rod shot from his wrist and he stabbed it through Naruto's chest with the force of a Shinra Tensei; it lanced through up to where Pain was gripping it.
The two sprang apart and Naruto raised his Truth-Seeking Blade; he swept it downward and let loose one of his signature jutsu. "Banshou Karu!"
asura metal pushed by deva force and wind release coated in non-elemental chakra for extra cutting power
Nagato swept his sword upward and let loose an exact copy of the crescent blade, coated in ultramarine blue chakra instead of orange. They crashed together in midair and halted each other; they both rang and wobbled with the impact as they began to fall. Naruto was the first to dissolve his blade with a thought, but Nagato quickly followed his example.
Hinata appeared behind him; he couldn't see her with only one Path but he could sense her arrival with the rain instead. "Rasenyari!" he dodged left and the spear of chakra shot past him; the jutsu crashed into Naruto instead. He was blasted away by its explosion and Nagato breathed a tiny sigh of relief; he'd seen how close the Hokage had been to successfully dodging it with an Empty Wind.
He whirled on Hinata and sprouted four more arms each ending with a cannon rather than a hand. He let loose an onslaught of explosive missiles that curved in flight to follow Hinata; she tried to dodge them all but eventually Nagato managed to position a set of missiles to surround her from all sides. They converged on her and engulfed her in a bright explosion; he knew it wouldn't be enough to incapacitate her but it would buy him a few seconds.
He used that time to turn and fire himself through the sky toward Tenten's war machine; he moved through the scope of her sword's reach in an instant and slammed fists first into the metal wall of its torso. The blows were backed by the Deva Path's pushing force as well as the Asura's brute strength; it was enough to shove Tenten back through the air but not enough to noticeably dent her armor.
She fought back; the thing's free left hand came up and snatched Pain with lightning speed. She briefly tried crushing him into her fist, but when his steel body held against her grip she switched tactics and threw him away into the open air.
He turned his momentum back toward her with the Deva Path, slowing himself to a stop for a moment. She swept her sword toward him just as he began soaring in again. One of Pain's left arms came up and shot forth a chakra receiver five feet long and several inches thick, he caught it with two hands and spun it to align its length with her incoming slash.
The massive sword slammed hard into his polearm and pushed him along its arc without slowing; he rode the sword's momentum down and to Tenten's left while the chakra rod took her cut for him. He took the chance to fly past her and switch targets once again; this time he flew at his top speed aiming at Gaara.
With his chakra receiver held out as a spear he punched through Gaara's sand shield without any trouble, and kept sailing forward with the weapon set to pierce the Kazekage's heart.
Naruto reappeared with his left hand just inches in front of the weapon's tip; it gored through his hand instead and the Hokage let out a scream as the bones in his palm were pushed aside and snapped. Still his move had been successful; Gaara was alive and Naruto could use his good hand next to slash into Pain's chest with the Truth-Seeking Blade.
Nagato flew back hastily, almost but not quite in time to dodge Naruto's sword. The blade carved a valley through the front of Pain's chest and robe, but at least it hadn't cut him completely in two. His dodge also tugged the tip of his spear out of Naruto's hand, and even as that wound began to heal Nagato went to attack again.
"Shinra Tensei!" he shoved Naruto back with nothing to slow him down in the otherwise empty sky, and he turned his attention to Hinata to catch her next Rasenyari. He considered the Preta Path but decided instead on Kabuto's chakra absorption; he gathered her chakra and aligned it with the Earth Release instead; he opened his mouth and let the chakra do what it willed.
The missile of solid rock that appeared before his open lips surprised him in its size, the thing had to be thirty feet long and no less than ten at its thickest point. It shot back toward Hinata who floated aside to the right; even she seemed mildly shocked.
problem: simultaneously manage four kage-level enemies and a wild card nowhere in sight without damaging a city full of civilians directly beneath us
area-of-effect attacks won't work because I'm right in the middle otherwise it would be a good plan
an area-of-effect attack from which I am protected it doesn't have to be lethal
attack their senses
flash bombs
Pain's arms transformed once more into steel barrels; he aimed them all out in random directions and let loose large silver orbs from each. At the same time a pair of solid black lenses emerged through the metal plates making up his face and clicked into position over his eyes, blinding him for just a moment.
In that moment twenty-four excessively bright flashes shone through the air around him. They weren't complete flashbang grenades since the sound of their explosions was soft and understated, but the one million candela of light each produced was enough to serve Nagato's purpose. When the lenses covering his eyes retracted afterward the sky was dark once more, and he hadn't needed to protect his ears the same way.
this will wear off eventually so isolate the most immediate threat the Hokage can heal he might recover faster than the others GO
Nagato flew at his target with all the force and speed he had, held back nothing and aimed to shatter the Hokage's bones on impact. It wouldn't really make much of a difference given his healing ability, but such an injury might stop him from fighting back while Nagato carried him well past the outskirts of the city. For good measure, Nagato spent their flight punching Naruto in the face with three solid steel fists while the other three held him in place.
It became clear that the reports Nagato had read on Naruto's abilities were now outdated; the Hokage now had some degree of enhanced durability without the armor of bone he'd relied on before. Otherwise Pain's punches would have reduced Naruto's skull to paste; instead they'd only shattered his nose.
Twice, given the healing factor repairing it for a moment. Nagato frowned when he felt it break again; this wouldn't be easy. The enemy resists injury and can repair whatever damage I deal. I need an attack that can kill him in a single blow even in spite of his durability. He shifted his aim straight down and shot Naruto into the ground far below with a Shinra Tensei, then meshed two of his right wrists together into a single larger cannon.
He hesitated, glanced toward Ame and scowled. We're too close. If I use a fission bomb here, even a small one, there's a good chance the radiation will reach Ame. Even with the Infinite Tsukuyomi on the line, that's too much for me to risk.
He aimed the cannon and loaded it with his second choice of ammunition, a more mundane bomb. Webs of dark grey Asura Path steel unfolded from within the barrel and created a hollow wireframe of the bomb, first liquid but then solid metal cords. More steel began to fill in the design Pain had laid out; it didn't need to be a thick shell which sped things up a bit.
Then Nagato filled the bomb, more material poured into reality and hardened into a fearsome weapon. The missile was as large and powerful as Nagato dared make it so close to his village; he still had to be wary of it even though this one wouldn't give off a plume of deadly radiation. The missile alone was longer and broader than Pain's entire body, and the cannon it protruded from was half as long again.
I don't know Naruto Uzumaki well enough to call him smart or stupid, but he was appointed the Sixth Hokage which leads me to guess the former. He's underground right now; my Shinra Tensei smashed the ground and he got pushed through the rubble. He's currently buried and can't see me. He has a number of broken bones and hemorrhages which are healing right now, but he knows that I'm not holding back...
...Therefore, he has guessed that I'm preparing a large attack and will react accordingly.
He fired, and only an instant after he did Naruto shot out of the ruined ground, diagonally rather than straight toward him.
Nagato's eyes went wide and he realized what he'd been missing.
rinnegan can see chakra he saw me make the bomb he's dodging adjust aim
The missile swerved after Naruto, tracked the chakra silhouette that Nagato could likewise see and factor into his strategy. Even when Naruto disappeared completely from Nagato's field of view, its path continued to curve away from the ground and back toward its creator.
By the time Nagato realized this he'd already guessed that Naruto was floating behind him poised to chop Pain in two. It had been the Hokage's signature move for long enough that Nagato knew well by now to expect it, even though the two had never met. He dodged aside of the sweeping black-orange blade and only then turned to face the enemy properly.
My obvious next move is to use the Asura Path to disarm and dissolve the bomb before it hits me. Can I subvert the enemy's expectations in a way that's actually useful? My Sharingan will likely give me enough reaction time to dissolve the bomb as soon as Naruto leaves its blast radius, so if he leaves I can save myself even at the last second. If he stays I can allow the bomb to go off and catch us both; Pain will be destroyed but Naruto will die but the other four enemies will remain active unless...
...Unless I can survive the explosion.
The real Nagato smiled faintly with relief, and the flow of time resumed where it had left off. Naruto slashed at Pain once more, missed once more. Pain still held the larger chakra receiver rod in his left arms; he carefully sent it forward to catch Naruto's next strike and successfully caught it. The blade bit deep into the frigid metal, a third of the way into its core but that wasn't quite far enough.
But then the chakra was filtered and flowed into Nagato from Naruto's sword through Pain's glaive and a further network of chakra receivers connecting the puppet to its master, and the world went dark for a moment.
"Genjutsu?" Nagato mused, but the thought felt wrong even as it formed. "Wait, that was out loud... you're still reading my mind! You bastard!"
He whirled on Naruto and shot toward him with his only right arm held out; a chakra rod sprouted from his wrist and shattered on impact with an invisible wall before the Hokage.
"deva path doesn't work like that my weapon broke WHY-"
"Slow down a little!" Naruto interrupted, ears tilted back slightly. "Jeez, do you really think like this all the time!?"
"First you break into my mind and now you scold me for thinking too fast," came the reply, sharp and cold like a chilled steel blade. "My first instinct tells me I can't attack you here at all, but just in case, hold still." His right arm came up again, and again he was surprised to note that he only had one on each side of his body. It transformed into a cannon and this time the wireframe of a proper fission bomb emerged from it, smaller than the overweight monstrosity he'd just primed and fired in the real world. He began to fill in the empty shape, and Naruto began to talk.
"What the hell is a fission bomb?"
Nagato showed him a mental image of the tests he'd conducted; how hard it had been to find a safe place to do so given the radiation-
"Radiation?" Nagato showed him that as well, and he smiled without warmth at the horror on the Hokage's face. "You were gonna use that on me!?"
"Is there a point to this conversation or are you just trying to distract me? Because it isn't working."
"I'm trying to get through to you, dammit!" Naruto rallied, disregarded the scenes he'd just witnessed to focus on the more pressing matter. "I can see what you're really trying to do with Akatsuki, but-"
Nagato fired the atomic bomb on his arm point-blank into Naruto's face.
He couldn't be sure if that was what had ended their telepathic chat, but for whatever reason it did end in time for Naruto to flash-step away from Nagato and send a Banshou Karu to slice in two the missile that was now aimed exclusively at him. The Hokage brought his sword low with that swing, then raised it again with the next to throw another orange blade at Pain himself.
Nagato slashed his glaive through the air to produce a crescent blade of his own, but even as he did Naruto had already thrown two more with his enhanced speed. Pain's six arms spread wide and produced a set of new chakra rods, including the two arms molded together into a single cannon but excluding the hand that already held the longer staff. He swept all of them forward one after the other, producing a volley of blades to parry Naruto's.
he wasn't this fast before he can't swing a sword this fast when he needs to hit me otherwise he'd already have won that means he can only swing this fast when he's throwing these blades he'd probably shatter his arm if he tried
With just one arm Naruto was still throwing blades faster than Nagato with all six. All of the blades were piling up and deflecting off one another in midair between the Hokage and Pain; many fell away toward the ground but many more came flying in to take their place. Since Naruto was throwing more attacks per second than Nagato, he was applying more force to the clashing mess of metal and it was slowly pushed closer to Nagato.
All six of his arms abruptly stopped flinging blades to hold back Naruto's greater onslaught, and it only took a moment for the orange crescents to resume flying toward Pain as though they had never been slowed. He let the chakra rods fall from two of his right hands and reached ahead, gathered his chakra and called, "Shinra Tensei!"
The stream of glowing orange approaching Pain split into a shower of crescent blades in every direction but his, and he shot forward into the space they'd left empty. Naruto had thrown one additional blade just after Nagato had fired his counterattack, which pushed its blunt inner edge back into the Hokage's chest. Naruto wasted no time in turning it to dust and he clearly thought of flitting away with an Empty Wind, but decided instead to meet Pain's attack head-on.
The Truth-Seeking Blade met and held back the longest of Pain's weapons, which he held with two left hands. The two shorter piercing swords in his lowest right and left hands then swept forward as well, and the Hokage floated back a bit through the air as he parried both. Nagato kept up the pressure with all three chakra rods and frowned slightly when he saw Naruto glance at the two empty hands remaining on his right side, currently clasped into a Snake seal.
now
The black polearm locked against Naruto's sword and held it steady while Pain reached forward with the Snake seal and opened it. An inch-thick sphere of darker black than a human mind could comprehend shot from between Pain's palms and landed on Naruto's chest.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
Naruto yelped and brought up his left hand to grab the singularity; he tugged as hard as he could but it remained rooted to the front of his chakra cloak. Nagato slashed forward with his chakra rods again, chased Naruto back and distracted him from his attempts to pry away the Chibaku Tensei core. Eyes wide, the Hokage backpedaled away from Pain's weapons until the first slab of land crashed upward into them both.
At that point Nagato stopped lashing out with his chakra rods and focused instead on the construction of the satellite around them both. The core would take care of most of the work, but there were two points that Nagato would have to assemble personally.
He raised up a wall of Deva Path force in a tube shape and positioned himself at one end of it. As the singularity began to fill in the shape of a false planet, the tube became clearly visible and connected Nagato at the surface of the planet to Naruto at its core. The Hokage was held immobile there by the tons upon tons of rock and the void that had assembled it and held it together.
If the Hokage were somehow to move, the core and therefore the planet in its entirety would move with him. Since Nagato was firmly attached to the rock just under the surface, he would be carried along as well. It would be impossible for Naruto to reach him until the singularity evaporated.
That left Nagato with one more task to complete, equally simple but vastly harder on his chakra reserves. One of his hands reached backward and just barely emerged onto the surface of the Chibaku Tensei with the tips of his fingers. He channeled the absolute height of his control of the Asura Path, and dark silvery metal flowed out across the entire moon.
It was a layer of solid lead an inch thick, more than enough to contain the radiation of the small fission bomb Pain aimed at Naruto along the chute between them. The explosion would kill Naruto and likely destroy Pain as well, but its explosion wouldn't quite reach far enough to break open the lead shield.
Nagato saw the understanding on Naruto's face; he recalled showing the Hokage what he was faced with when their minds connected. He fired the bomb and watched in utter silence as Naruto tugged his arm free of the rock caging him. He managed to align it with the chute and the missile flying along it; he even produced a Truth-Seeking Blade but it was all futile, the atomic bomb had already passed the halfway point between them and there was nothing a sword could do against-
wait no NO he knows how it WORKS
Inside the bomb were two pieces of enriched uranium, not enough to go critical and explode while separate. But when the first was pushed into the second by a conventional explosive inside the casing, the two pieces together would be enough to trigger a nuclear explosion.
Nagato's mistake was in showing Naruto his knowledge of the design, how it worked and how it could be made to stop working. At the time it had seemed practical, a valid attempt to intimdate the Hokage, but in hindsight it looked much less clever.
"Banshou Karu!" Naruto sent forth a crescent of Asura metal wreathed in orange light, and used it to cleave the fission bomb in two. Now there were four separate pieces of uranium and the explosive trigger had been likewise cut in two. The explosive went off but it was no longer contained and aimed to push the uranium into place, it was just a small burst of flame.
The Truth-Seeking Blade twisted out of shape and became a thin wall of black and orange between Naruto and Nagato; the ruined fission bomb including the four chunks of radioactive material stopped far short of the Hokage. He curved the wall and pressed it flat against the wall of the solid rock chute, holding back the uranium while allowing him a clear shot back at Nagato. He formed and threw a second Truth-Seeking Ball into Pain's center of mass. "Truth-Seeking Rasengan!"
The churning black orb didn't explode on impact; it held its shape and tried to keep flying unhindered through Pain's chest. Nagato activated the Deva Path to push back against the Rasengan, but instead it simply pushed on the invisible barrier and the barrier in turn pushed Pain.
"Shinra Tensei!" Naruto added, and that finished it. Pain was blasted out through the few feet of rock and lead behind him, and only then did the Rasengan explode.
Naruto dissolved his sword and grabbed the Chibaku Tensei core again. Just before he would've tried using the Preta Path to absorb it, the thing dissolved into black mist in his palm. In its absence the lead-lined planet began falling to earth instantly.
Naruto formed a third Truth-Seeking Ball and spun it into a second Rasengan, then slammed it into the wall of rock encasing the left side of his body. It exploded on command and pulverized the stone, and the Hokage recovered from his own attack in time to soar out of the falling planet through the chute Nagato had left.
Only a split second later, the Chibaku Tensei met the ground and sent up a monumental plume of dust and dirt on impact. The lead crust covering its surface split open and spilled out the rock and earth inside, which crashed into the ground to throw out even more dust into the air. The cloud was easily as broad as Ame in the distance, and reached far higher than even its tallest skyscrapers.
Naruto glanced to his right and saw three human figures soaring toward him through the dust; he recognized the colors of their chakra silhouettes before his instinct to throw an attack jutsu even kicked in. Hinata carried herself through the air with a thin layer of water glistening over her barrier armor, Gaara stood atop a cloud of black sand, and Tenten soared thanks to the bands of molten glass twined around her limbs and chest.
"Guys, be careful." He turned to look for Pain's chakra silhouette through the dust. "He can do some really scary stuff."
"Your tone suggests you aren't talking about that," Gaara nodded in the direction of the fallen moon.
"No, it's way worse than that. He calls it a fission bomb." He spotted Pain's chakra and pointed with his Truth-Seeking Blade for Gaara's and Tenten's benefit; Hinata had a doujutsu of her own so she would have spotted him regardless. Nagato's puppet had been thrown a solid distance and seemed to have intentionally flown further away to recover. "That Chibaku Tensei was just to dampen the explosion so Ame wouldn't get wiped out too."
Hinata and Tenten gasped quietly and even Gaara shivered. "A fission bomb," Tenten repeated. "Do you know what it would've done?"
"He showed me with ninshuu. The short version is... it's like an explosion the size of a Tailed Beast Ball at full power, but the fuel it uses gives off 'radiation,' little bits of stuff that pierce through almost anything. It can put millions of microscopic holes through your body; it's like poison but so much worse."
He set his sights on Pain once more. "He can't use it now because it'd poison his village too, but still... I'm gonna speed-blitz him and get this over with right away." His Rinnegan eyes narrowed and he leaned forward with his sword held up. "Just gimme a few seconds."
At the outer edge of the dust cloud, Naruto appeared in front of Nagato and slashed down with his sword. Nagato brought up his black metal polearm but by then Naruto was gone again to reappear behind him. His mismatched eyes went wide and he flicked one of his swords behind his back to catch that blow as well. Naruto vanished a second time and appeared beneath Nagato's feet where none of his weapons could reach.
"Shinra Tensei!"
Naruto's blade met an invisible but very solid wall, so he flickered away and popped up several yards ahead of Pain, once again holding his sword high. "Banshou Karu!" he whipped forth seven blades of steel and orange light, and Pain dodged aside of the first six with increasing alarm.
Naruto's left hand clamped down on Pain's shoulder to hold him in place for the seventh. Again Pain resorted to Shinra Tensei to block the attack, which pushed hard against the Deva Path's force field and carried both Rinnegan wielders backward along its flight.
"I'm not gonna play nice anymore, Nagato!" He lifted up his sword and aligned it with the center of Pain's back since he was already inside Shinra Tensei's bubble of protection. Nagato leapt aside, literally tearing free of the Hokage's grasp. His robe and the metal armor over his shoulder was ripped apart where Naruto had been holding it, and he couldn't bother to repair the damage.
Pain turned back in time to see Naruto dodge his own Banshou Karu at point-blank range; a display of frankly staggering reaction time from someone not armed with a Sharingan. "I can talk some sense into you after I kick your ass!"
"Shinra Tensei!" Nagato thundered, pouring a great deal more power than usual into the jutsu. Naruto shot back through the sky and Pain aimed a machine gun at him in flight; the bullets wouldn't wound him as severely as a normal shinobi but there were still hundreds of them. "You won't touch me!" He aimed another cannon with different ammunition, fired dozens of glass spheres full of potent acid most of which hit their mark.
Naruto was on him again before he even registered it; the blows of his Truth-Seeking Blade came down on all three of his chakra rods like a force of nature. His left-hand sword split in two and he just barely managed to move the right to finish stopping that blow, at which point his vision was filled once again by something that wasn't quite genjutsu.
"Again with this crap!?" Pain seethed, and immediately he began forming a fission bomb as he'd done last time. "If you're going to read my mind to prepare for my next set of moves, at least be subtle about it! I can just think of new ones as soon as we disconnect!"
"That's not why I'm doing this," Naruto replied and appeared in front of Nagato in a flash. "Ninshuu isn't supposed to be used in combat anyway." Pain raised and fired the fission bomb, but this time its explosion was contained in a bubble only a few feet across, floating harmlessly in the air between Naruto and Nagato. "It's supposed to solve conflicts peacefully, which is why we can't harm each other here. The last time you hit me with that same bomb, it didn't hurt."
"Then why ARE you doing this?"
"I just wanted to explain that 'cause we're gonna need to have a long chat in here once I get back to the real you. It's better if you don't interrupt us with a bunch of explosions everywhere, ya know?"
"...I'm going to kill you and your friends and rip the Nine-Tails out of your corpse," said Pain flatly. "Talking to me can't possibly be this appealing."
Naruto laughed, killing just a bit of the tension since it was a real laugh without sarcasm. "You're smart, Nagato. I can tell that much... so you should really be smart enough to know that this cycle of hatred crap isn't gonna solve anything." Nagato visibly hesitated at that, which confused Naruto but he didn't bother to question it. "Your smartness is what makes you scary, but honestly... you just aren't Ten-Tails levels of scary."
Then the ninshuu world evaporated before Pain's eyes and he was free to glare at the real Naruto again. He leveled a Shinra Tensei against the Hokage to separate their locked weapons of choice, and only then did he realize something was wrong. There was no resistance; Naruto's weight hadn't even been pushing against the chakra rod.
"Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken!"
It was only after the Hokage's attack crashed into Pain's back that his afterimage disappeared. He'd shaped his most powerful attack from the tip of his Truth-Seeking Blade; the five blades whirled out perpendicular to the sword and he sent the flat side of it into the target. The blades were all warped backward with the momentum of the thrust, spinning and wrapping around the Truth-Seeking Blade to an effect more like a drill than a shuriken.
Pain was turned to little more than dust by Naruto's ultimate jutsu; Nagato barely even registered the impact before the line of sight from his Path vanished. Only a split second after that the Hokage appeared before him in person, with his chakra sword gone but his orange and black mantle still armoring him.
"...You left your friends behind," Pain pointed out, hoping to stall for time while he thought of a new plan.
"Hina-chan can see me from this distance; they'll follow her and get here in no time. Listen, Nagato..." he glanced to Konan who looked ready to throw an attack, even though she knew it wouldn't accomplish anything. He sighed quietly, deactivated his chakra cloak and went on, "...I know you're trying to do a good thing here. I saw that much when I used ninshuu on you; you really think you're the good guy."
"I'm better at it than you; at least I have a plan," Nagato replied.
"...It's kind of a stupid plan," said the Hokage, scratching the back of his neck almost sheepishly.
"I can honestly say no one has ever accused me of that before," said Pain, bristling even in spite of the monumental threat Naruto presented.
Naruto hesitated, shrugged and took a step forward. "Let's just skip this part of the argument, it's pointless anyway." he blurred forward and came to a stop with his knuckles pressed against Nagato's forehead.
"You just don't get it," Nagato scowled. "I tried doing things your way first! I tried that, and it just got Yahiko killed! I'm sick of that. I've seen enough families and friends torn apart by war, or worse, slaughtered all together. I'm not going to let it happen anymore!"
Naruto let Nagato's thoughts fill and shape the ninshuu landscape, replacing the blank void with an image of a bloodstained alley in Ame however many years ago the memory had taken place. Nagato frowned at this but took it in stride, thought of something else.
The alley was replaced in a flash by what seemed to be Ame in a somewhat distant future, a few decades from today. The chakra-laced rain had stopped since there was no need of it now; the skyscrapers had reached far higher than ever before and there were only civilians on the street, carrying themselves with relaxed posture in a total absence of threats and shinobi in uniform.
"This is what I'm fighting for," said Nagato, and the scene shifted again to show a massive forest overrunning today's Ame, reaching through every one of its streets. Displayed within tens of thousands of cocoons woven of seemingly transparent leaves, those same civilians slept safely and peacefully. "And this is how I'm gonna make it happen."
Naruto sighed. "I really should've cut right to the chase." the scene shifted a third time, and the cocoons were suddenly filled instead with dead-eyed white humanoids only barely resembling the people they'd once been. Years passed and the cocoons split open to release a horde of fully transformed Zetsu clones. "You don't know how the Infinite Tsukuyomi really works, since it hasn't been used in a thousand years. But I do because a guy who happened to be there showed me."
"oh kami they're people the zetsus are humans that's why they remember bukijutsu styles we've never seen before but not ninjutsu because they're soldiers from before humans had chakra THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING-"
Naruto pulled back his hand and let Nagato finish his thought process without it blaring into his mind as well. Just from what he'd already heard, there was a horrified expression on his face that matched Nagato's. A few seconds onward, the older Uzumaki turned to Konan with wide eyes. "We need to get to the Zetsu facility now!"
Hinata arrived then with the rest of the team in tow, including Haku who'd been unable to fight since he couldn't fly. "What's going on?"
"Follow me," Pain commanded and the machine encasing his lower body began to move. On a set of six thin legs branching out close to the floor, he lurched forward and made for the door.
"Nagato!" Konan called out in obvious shock. She turned to Naruto and let fly a small cluster of paper shuriken which he dodged with an Empty Wind. "What the hell did you do to him!?"
"It's not that kind of telepathy, Konan," Nagato spoke up quickly. "He hasn't tampered with my mind... Recognition code 927, I don't like pickles on my hamburger."
Naruto and Tenten burst out laughing in time with each other, which drew a disapproving frown from Konan. "W-What the hell!?" the inventress giggled. "Where did that come from!?"
"It's a code we set up years ago," Nagato explained and gestured for her to step aside since she was blocking the door. "The important part is 'code 927;' the second part is different every time and it's supposed to be ridiculous. We can use it whenever one of us thinks the other has been brainwashed."
"Huh," said the Hokage. "That's actually kinda cool, ya know..."
"Well if you haven't been brainwashed then what the hell are you doing!?" Konan exploded and chased after him.
"We were wrong about the Infinite Tsukuyomi," Nagato called back from the head of the group. "It doesn't create a virtual world, it just turns its victims into Zetsu clones." she paled and started to reply, but he went on. "Yeah, it's that bad. The sooner we get down there the better... if they can remember bukijutsu from a thousand years ago, they probably have memories of their whole lifetimes and we can save those people."
"But why are we outside?" she persisted, still disoriented and confused. "The elevator is back insi-"
"We can all fly anyway so let's hurry." Nagato kept scuttling headlong off the side of the skyscraper's balcony, his descent slowed by rockets built into his mechanical throne.
"Well, he has a point," Hinata noted with a shrug and jumped after him. Naruto, Konan and Tenten all followed suit, leaving Gaara to follow shortly behind once he arranged a cloud of sand to support his weight and carry him down. Nagato landed before all of them in front of the door, and he promptly laid a hand on a square glass panel to its right.
The panel flashed momentarily from black to bright blue, and the heavily armored door retracted out of the way. "...That's definitely not fuinjutsu," Naruto mused.
"Fuinjutsu masters are rare," came the reply, "but you can find them across the entire continent. They could tamper with any seal Ame can write, but not this. Ame is decades ahead of its time with all kinds of technology; the only people who could break into this tower are civilians from this village."
Tenten whistled. "So what was it then?"
"It scanned my fingerprints and my chakra signature, and it checked for a hidden fuinjutsu on my hand that would fade instantly if I died." Nagato had already strode into the ground floor of the tower and crossed it to reach the elevator at this point; he kept talking as he wedged his fingers into the doors and pried them open to reach the empty shaft. "If someone tries to get in and they don't have all three, like if they tried to use my dead hand to get in, they get showered in fluoroantimonic acid."
"That sounds painful," Haku remarked.
Nagato jumped down the shaft without replying and slowed to a stop before a door near the very bottom; the shaft was at the very least thrice as deep as the tower was tall. He shoved it open as well and landed just past it.
Naruto arrived next to him with an Empty Wind and glanced around the room with a confused expression. "Is... is this it?" The room was easily massive enough to house the Gedo Statue and the army of Zetsu clones it was meant to produce, but it was completely empty. "Is there another room after this, or...?"
"No," said Pain frigidly, "this is the place." The spindly robotic legs supporting him clicked forward a few steps and his Rinnegan darted about the empty room. "Tobi was here. He's the only one who can access this room without me knowing; he can teleport in so he doesn't have to pass through my rain. The son of a bitch took everything!"
"B-But why?" Hinata spoke up hesitantly. "You two are allies... why would he do this without telling you?"
Nagato remained silent for a moment to think, but just a moment. "Hidan," he realized. "You captured Hidan alive and he knew where the facility was. We knew you'd come here to destroy it; that's why Tobi sent me to Konoha to fight you there instead. But apparently he moved the facility just in case you reached Ame and fought me here. And as for why he didn't tell me... it's possible he found out about your mind-reading jutsu, but it's really just the sort of move he'd make regardless. He'd do it just to remind me that I'm not really in charge of Akatsuki..."
"...So," said Pain, "at this point it's obvious what I need to do next. I'm already obliged to help you stop the Infinite Tsukuyomi now that I know how it works, but if I had any thoughts of remaining loyal to Tobi and Madara, they're gone now. Ame offers its unconditional surrender to the Shinobi Alliance, and if you have room for another village we'd be happy to sign up."
"Yeah... that's really great news, but..." Naruto frowned and hesitated. "As much as I'd like to just take your word for that, the Five Kage are getting real sick of me doing that kinda stuff. They're saying I'm too idealistic... So we've gotta do this a little differently."
"I'm listening."
"I need to get back to Konoha now, so I'm gonna set up a couple of Seal Summoning markers here in this room. One for me to come back in a minute, and the other for Gaara to come back with the Mizukage. We need to set up some kind of discussion here with the other Kage and they need to see that you can be trusted. We'll call the Mizukage first 'cause she's the patient one. The Tsuchikage and Raikage are both kinda insane, ya know?"
Nagato took all of this in, thought for a moment, then nodded. "Do it." The Hokage nodded back and crouched to lay his palms on the floor, producing two identical swirling seals one after another. He wasted no time in summoning a stone pavilion, stepping in and banishing the thing back to Konoha with himself along for the ride. "That looks convenient."
"I should be going as well," Gaara decided and went to summon a platform of his own. "Naruto trusts you now," he remarked over his shoulder, "which is reason enough for me to trust you too. At the very least, I can trust you to not try anything stupid while I'm gone."
Nagato nodded, shortly followed by Konan. "We're confined in a room with only one exit, conveniently blocked by two of the strongest ninja in the world and a wild card I still don't know how to assess," he gestured to Haku. "I don't have any Paths left online nor do I have the means to activate one from here. If I still wanted to fight, the only weapon I have that could actually deal respectable damage is a fission bomb that would kill myself and Konan and level our village. You've won."
Gaara turned back to the pavilion without another word, stepped inside and vanished.
"...So," Tenten spoke up after a moment, "you guys have machines that can scan fingerprints, chakra and seals all at once, and you have weapons of mass destruction that don't run on chakra at all. I kinda have to ask... what kind of stuff like that did you give Akatsuki?"
Nagato chuckled, briefly and darkly. "The day Madara came back from the dead, Tobi held me in place and ripped out my left Rinnegan. He handed it to White Zetsu and told him to kill himself with it in order to resurrect Madara. When he decided he didn't like that idea, Black Zetsu killed him instead. So then Madara comes back from the dead and shoves the Rinnegan into his eye socket. They all let me bleed for a few hours, and then he came back with this Sharingan and did the same thing to me." He pointed to his scarlet left eye. "No anesthetic, no medical ninjutsu, nothing. So tell me, Tenten. If it were you in my position, would you give those people nuclear weapons?"
"Um, no. I don't think I would."
"I trusted them," he admitted, "but not enough to give them Ame's technology. And for the record, it's not as if we can mass-produce fission bombs... It was all theoretical until I actually tried to synthesize uranium with the Asura Path. No one else in Ame can make them."
"Which more or less explains why you didn't just bomb all the ninja villages and take over the world that way," Tenten guessed.
"No," Pain bit out. "I chose not to bomb your villages because doing so would kill millions of innocent people in just the initial explosions, let alone the radiation each bomb would give off. The wind can carry radiation; it's a miracle no one died when we discovered that! It would follow the wind currents around and wipe out even more villages made up entirely of civilians, and then there's the possibility of the fires setting off a nuclear winter! I've been trying to save the world here, not end it!"
"I'm sorry," she answered on pure reflex.
Nagato sighed and his voice softened. "But now you see my point. Someone like Madara or Tobi would use those bombs without thinking twice, and there would be consequences."
"N-Nagato," Konan began quietly, "Is it really safe to be so open with them? A few minutes ago we were at war with them."
"They defer to Naruto as their leader, and I've talked with him telepathically. He's really not planning to kill us, so they probably aren't either. And if they do try to kill us before he gets back, they'll succeed whether we talk to them or not." Konan nodded but still looked worried. "...On that note, he's probably going to attack me when he gets back. It's best if you don't get in his way."
"Wait, what?"
Naruto and his pavilion appeared as if on cue, directly atop the left-hand Seal Summoning marker. "How bad is it?" Hinata asked, having remained silent until now.
"They're alive," he confirmed quickly. "Fortunately the Pervy Sage has the same blood type as me," he went on as he stomped toward Nagato, "so I was able to donate, you son of a bitch!"
It only took one punch to knock him out cold.
X
Open your eyes.
Nagato jumped awake and tried to sit up, but found he couldn't move. His eyes went wide open on instinct; he was alone in a dark room with his mechanical throne removed so he could lay on the bed he was currently stuck to.
Much better. Zetsu dipped his hand down and pulled, and suddenly Nagato couldn't see through his right eye. The pain took a moment longer to set in; it was a horribly familiar sensation. The last time someone had ripped out one of his eyes, he'd at least been able to scream but now he found even his throat wouldn't cooperate.
I thought of just pulling your eyelid open while you were still unconscious, but that would've been less efficient. This way was quicker since I had your cooperation; thank you for that.
he's going to kill me
You're clever, Nagato. Even with just a Sharingan, you'd probably still be annoying enough to cause me problems during the war. I have enough problems to deal with already, so I'm afraid you'll have to go.
The yellow circle representing Zetsu's right eye sank into his head, and he replaced it with the Rinnegan. But I'm clever too, I had to be to last this long.
he's covered most of me with seals but what parts of my body can i move what options do i have breathe blink OW okay lungs and left eye what can i do with that
The thing's black hand settled into place on his forehead. Look at you, still trying to find a way out even now... but if you're as clever as I think you are, you might actually find one. I should make this quick. Human Path.
trying to read my memories he's taking his time reading it all carefully the human path can only reach so far back into my memory but he'll still find something useful
he's reading my mind right now he knows what i'm about to do
he can't really stop me though
IZANAGI
And suddenly Zetsu's hand was touching only air. Nagato was upright across the room, but only for a fraction of a second since he still didn't have the use of his legs. His hands came up and made a Snake seal as the rest of his body fell; they blurred next through a Tiger and Ram before stopping.
"Great Fireball Jutsu SOMEONE HELP!"
The flames bloomed out and filled the entire room, but Nagato was left unharmed since Izanagi was still active. They caught the entire room alight, but then the flames filling the air died out and allowed him to see Zetsu, likewise untouched by the attack.
right he has the preta path attacks like that won't touch him
what do I have that can stall him i just need time
Nagato's remaining eye went dark and he felt the power of Izanagi wink out. He was blind, disarmed, and on his knees unable to stand.
i don't wanna die
It was an odd sensation to feel and not see a massive surge of chakra filling the room before him, but he recognized its source in an instant. Naruto's Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken vaporized most of the contents of the room as it passed, but left a bit of space to spare Nagato where he was pressed back against the wall.
"Dammit, I almost had him! Hinata, can you see him anywhere!?"
"I'm looking, but he doesn't have a chakra silhouette! It's the middle of the night and he's solid black; I haven't spotted him!"
"The son of a bitch took the Rinnegan," Tenten commented. "Nagato's bleeding; he needs medical ninjutsu or something."
Naruto hesitated then sighed. "Ugh... if he's already gone, I guess there's nothing else we can do."
"I'll put out the fire," Hinata replied and there was a loud sizzling sound; Nagato correctly guessed that she'd doused the flames with a water jutsu. "Naruto-kun, what are you-"
"Hold still for a second," the Hokage instructed and his palm settled into place over Nagato's bleeding eye socket. He flinched at the pain, but it only lasted for a moment. "Scratch that; two seconds." His hand slid over to the blind Sharingan and a second pulse of chakra and calm flowed through Nagato. This one was much stronger and spread through his whole body; Naruto seemed to be having a harder time replacing an eye that was already there for some reason. "How do you feel now?"
Nagato opened both of his eyes and blinked several times; they itched slightly and his entire field of view looked wrong. It took him some time to realize he could no longer see chakra, including Naruto's silhouette which should've been staggeringly bright. Once he realized that, he opened his mouth to thank Naruto but stopped short as he realized something else.
"...I can feel my legs."
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