Obito-Sensei Chapter 88

Beyond Frost: Nobody's Prisoner

When Nagato ordered Gaara of the Desert to be pulled from the concrete cell he'd been locked away in below the CCCC and brought to him, he got a strange look from his normally unflappable subordinate.

"It's unlikely he can be turned," Azai said, in that particular tone he could manage where he was clearly cautioning his commander despite remaining monotone. "Your personal attention will likely not make a difference, Lord Nagato. And with the devastation Frost has just suffered-"

"We have no interest in turning him," Nagato said humorlessly. "But considering what you've reported about Yahiko and what just happened, I want to throw him a bone. Making progress with the Ichibi will probably help delay him in taking action, if worse comes to worst."

Azai bowed and retreated to carry out the order, and as he so often was nowadays Nagato was left alone in his suite. He sighed, leaning forward and showing weakness, kneading his forehead and closing his eyes. The distant blast had left him with a migraine. For a moment he'd been sure Cloud was attacking his home again, but the truth had been even worse.

The Land of Frost, ever the true victim in all this, had just suffered incalculable cruelty thanks to Nagato's passivity.

He had never been a decisive person. There was a nearly equal split in opinion among those close to him as to whether that was a blessing or a curse, but to Nagato it was a deep flaw in his character that ate at him every day. Despite the miracle of the Rinnegan, he had been hesitant to take action from the day he was born. Founding the Akatsuki hadn't changed that; overthrowing Hanzo hadn't changed that; creating the Nation of Rain hadn't changed that. He had always felt that there was an extra gravity to his decisions, and that made even minor ones difficult. His teacher's lessons had only clarified that anxiety: there was no power like the Rinnegan in the world, so its bearer could reshape everything.

It was exactly what Yahiko wanted out of him now. The thought that his friend wanted him to become so egotistical as to be a god made Nagato sick, like a minor vertigo that constantly swept over him. It wasn't surprising, because Yahiko had always understood the best out of any of them what the Rinnegan was really capable of. That didn't change the repulsive nature of it.

What right did anyone have to change the world? Amongst their little triumvirate, Nagato had always been the one preaching caution, Yahiko barrelling ahead, and Konan moderating and keeping everything together. But now Konan was gone, battling in the Land of Frost, and Yahiko had gone mad, putting truth to everything Minato Namikaze had told him just weeks before. There was a confluence quickly approaching, Nagato thought, where he would make history or become it. To align with Yahiko's monstrous desires was unthinkable, but to not act and let the Nation be buried in the past was all the more so.

There wasn't an answer to the puzzle; there had never been an answer to any of the puzzles that their teacher and their lives had put to them. The problems of peace and war, the necessity of resources, the brutality of colonialism, the corruption of ninshu into ninjutsu, they were all equal folly. There was a simple physics in the way the world had been set up, not by the Sage but by geography, human nature, and malleable ideologies, and right now, in the time he had left, the only paths Nagato saw forward to permanently change the world all revolved around violence.

To become the greatest mass murderer in human history, as the Hidden Cloud had; to erect the largest gravestone and call it peace. Perhaps Yahiko could stomach that hypocrisy, but Nagato could not. He could feel the potential for it in his bones at all times. His mastery of chakra, combined with the theft of the Flying Thunder God, meant that Nagato had no illusions. If he desired it, he could destroy the world now. He could travel to each Hidden Village in turn and obliterate them. Minato had been feared by the world for that very possibility, but where the Hokage would have needed hours, Nagato could do it with a wave of his hand.

And there was a temptation.

There was an undeniable temptation.

Such indiscriminate destruction would be monstrous, but the very same had been visited on the Nation. The Hidden Cloud, at the very least, deserved it. Nagato had seen karma and fate with his own two eyes, and all that was delivered was inevitably returned. He had felt and seen the blast they had unleashed in the Land of Frost just hours before. It had been apocalyptic, terrifying. Surely an accident, because destroying Frost did not align with the Land of Lightning's goals, but intent did not change results.

Their weapon could not be controlled. It had to be destroyed.

Was Konan still alive? If she had been caught in that explosion, she might not be. If Konan were dead, Nagato did not know what he would do. At that point, he would be weaker than he had ever been. Ideology and morality would melt away, and he knew that he would be reduced to the frightened child that had murdered two Konoha ninja with no consideration for them as human after his parents had died.

But it wouldn't be individual ninja this time. It would be villages. Nations. As his strength had grown, so had the danger of him breaking.

It wasn't a state he wanted to return to, but what choice would there be? They had all done their best and been rebuked by killing on an appalling scale.

Perhaps there was a middle ground. There had to be, if he didn't want to become the bloody god that Yahiko desired.

'It's already out of the bottle.'

It was a phrase Jiraiya had used before in their talks regarding ninjutsu in reference to an old legend regarding destructive demons. Once the demon was out of the bottle, that was it: in the stories, it would never return willingly. If it was a tragedy, the heroes would be overpowered and meet their end thanks to their hubris in trying to take advantage of something beyond their control in the first place. If it was a drama it could be tricked back into the bottle, with a warning for future generations to never release it again.

Ninjutsu was more pernicious and dangerous than any demon. It was the act of sharpening your own body and soul into a weapon. Even if, Nagato thought, you became a god that ruled over the entire world and confined ninjutsu, forbidding teaching it on pain of death, it would eventually escape and plague the world once more. Someone somewhere would be born with a natural talent for it, and short of transforming the entire world into a panopticon their talents would spread and recreate the shinobi creed in some way or another.

But he found himself considering the idea nonetheless.

How long could you lock the demon away? Just a generation or two, or would it be longer than that? It was a monstrous thing, given that any Bloodlines would have been culled as part of the process, or at least forced to die out. Since war seemed an immutable law, would other methods of warfare advance while ninjutsu languished, leaving it forgotten? The Hidden Cloud had proven technology had its merits. While something like their cannon was probably impossible without chakra, weapons like handguns and shotguns were popular in the southern nations, and his Rinnegan could create things that even he could not understand such as self-propelled missiles: if no one could use chakra, would it be replaced by those weapons?

Or could you kill the demon? You couldn't kill the Tailed Beasts, for a literal example. Nagato knew that well enough from his work with the Sanbi and the three Jinchuriki in their possession. The Bijuu's chakra was eternal and recurring, locked to the earth and doomed to always return to it; energy could not be destroyed, and as living energy the Bijuu's will would inevitably reconstitute them. But perhaps with study, you could control the time and place of that reconstitution and ensure their constant destruction, locking them out of the cycle of reincarnation.

Ninjutsu could be the same way. It was megalomaniacal, so much so that Nagato couldn't help but chuckle to himself. Yes, this was exactly what Yahiko wanted, for him to be alone and panicked enough to consider such ridiculous ideas. It was his own fault for not making more friends; he'd accumulated subordinates and confidants over the years, but the Rinnegan had placed him beyond the reach of most people. Even ninja were terrified of growing close to someone with the eyes of a god.

Regardless of his fear of playing into Yahiko's hands, he couldn't afford to just sit here and think. He had to act, to leverage his power. Nagato stood up and started pacing, his eyes sweeping over the suite as he let his chakra sweep through Amegakure, feeling every gash and bruise that had been inflicted on it and its people. Konan's measured escalation to a proxy war had been wise at the time, but everything had been changed by Yahiko's idiocy in attacking Konoha.

More than that, what Cloud had done in Frost was completely unacceptable. No one with a functioning heart, least of all him, could afford to stand by and wait now that they'd shown just how capable they were of nearly obliterating a country. Nagato came to a stop, breathing deeply as he remembered the rage and dread that had filled him at the sight of the explosion. His chakra boiled around him, striking through the air like lightning. This was another part of his passivity, his hesitation. When he'd been younger, his anger had been a physical thing that could harm people without him meaning to: control and caution had been the only way he'd been able to reign it in.

'You are not like us! You could never build anything of your own!'

Pillagers, that's what the Hidden Cloud had proven themselves to be. People who could only take and kill, unable to make anything of their own but in their endless greed delighted in stealing whatever they could from their neighbors, be that land, artifacts, or lives. Even their cannon was the product of a genius from another nation they'd taken advantage of, though the Nation shared blame in sending him to the Hidden Cloud in the first place for something as base as espionage. If they'd understood, if Nagato had understood Katasuke Touno's true value from the start, this never would have happened.

But they had been too busy playing the game that all shinobi played, which could only ever end in death.

There had to be a change: there had to be action, and it had to come from him. Nagato made the decision then and there to go to the Land of Lightning the next day and to rip up everything in his path. There was no more time for careful considerations, politics and politeness. He wouldn't be Yahiko's god, but he could be Rain's protector. It was what he should have done from the start, if he had not been blinded by fear and doubt.

Just as dealing with Gaara of the Desert should have been decisive. The Jinchuriki had been held since the joint Leaf-Sand attack on Amegakure, imprisoned but untouched. The ninja's brutality was obvious from a glance: Gaara was a remorseless mass murderer that had buried the Land of Waves' most populous city and tried to do the same to Amegakure. He had been broken by a heartless life and a pitiless demon, so Nagato could not help but pity him. That pity had given him pause, but he couldn't let it any longer.

He stood and pondered his many problems for several more minutes before there was a professional rap at his door, and he sat back down.

"Enter," he said clearly, and when the door opened Azai and Gaara were on the other side. The Jinchuriki walked into the room showing little fear with Azai just behind him; Gaara was bound in blood-red cloth covered in sealing formulas that glowed with inner crimson light to the Rinnegan, powerful bindings that would prevent him from molding chakra. Nonetheless, Nagato could see the seals were struggling with the chakra of the Bijuu that utterly permeated Gaara's system. The Tailed Beast seal had been leaking for a long time, and it was a testament to Gaara's fortitude and personal power that he kept control of his body and mind.

"Azai, please wait outside," he said, and Azai stiffly bowed, clearly unhappy. "I will speak with him alone. You will be called if you are needed."

"Of course, Lord Nagato," Azai said, and he closed the door behind him when he left. Gaara stood there with a bored expression, eyes boring into Nagato's. He stared into the Rinnegan without apparent fear, neither defiance nor surrender on his scarred and asymmetrical face.

"Would you like to be unbound?" Nagato asked. "To take a seat? I imagine your prison has not been very comfortable."

Gaara titled his head, his neck barely able to move for all the cloth he was covered by. "If you take this off," he said, his tone pleasant, "I will kill you."

"You could certainly try," Nagato said, standing up and approaching the boy. Gingerly, he took hold of the outer layer of the cloth and twisted the knot of chakra there, invisible to most eyes. The cloth began to unroll like a huge rug, freeing Gaara from within.

There wasn't a pause: Gaara struck out, trying to rip Nagato's face off with talons of sand. Nagato caught his fist and crushed the sand to powder, draining the Jinchuriki's chakra with a touch and stopping him dead in his tracks. Gaara strained, his eyes wide, and Nagato shook his head.

"You cannot kill me," he said as Gaara tried to pull away. "I brought you here to speak with you."

"We have little to speak about," Gaara said, unable to strike out with the stump of his other arm. The chakra of a Bijuu poured into Nagato: intoxicating, like thick syrup filled with forbidden spices. To the Rinnegan, Gaara was a luminescent storm, a golden pillar of defiance and rage that would have torn anyone else in the village apart.

It was tragic. So much strength, so much conviction, all turned to nothing. In that, they were perhaps similar. Nagato sat down, pulling Gaara down with him, and crossed his legs as he held the teen's hands and continued to drain his chakra away. Already beginning to totter, Gaara was forced to follow.

"I'm sure this is difficult for you," Nagato said patiently. "But you have proven yourself dangerous. Your crimes in the Land of Waves are considered unforgivable by many, including me. With both your village and Konoha unwilling to restrain you, I have taken on that responsibility."

Did he have the right? He thought that might be what Gaara would ask, because he was asking it himself, but instead, the Jinchuriki giggled.

"I did not commit any crimes," Gaara said, and Nagato felt a dull anger start to burn in his chest. It was absurd to be angry at a child that had clearly been raised to be incapable of recognizing right from wrong, but he could not help himself.

"What could possibly make you say that?" he asked, not letting his anger show, and Gaara fixed him with an incredulous look.

"Laws come from those strong enough to enforce their will," he said, which was shockingly more cogent than Nagato had expected. "But Waves was a weak country, a pathetic place without any ninja of its own. Anyone I killed there deserved it; they were too frail to save themselves from me, but they thought they could keep on living anyway? Isn't that simply naive?"

Nagato blinked, unable to formulate a response as Gaara continued. "It was Sakura Haruno's fault," he said matter of factly. "She refused to fight me fairly. If she had done that, she would have been the only one that died. Don't you think she would have preferred that?" He tried to pull his hand back, but Nagato would not release him, and after a moment Gaara gave up the struggle, his body barely able to stay upright. "She screamed and cried so much, but in the end even with all her friend's help she couldn't kill me. She scarred my face and she pierced my heart, but she couldn't kill me."

He smiled so earnestly and so joyously that Nagato couldn't look away. "That's why I'm not scared of you, in case you're wondering. I know how fate works: I can see how this is all meant to end. She and I are going to kill each other. Until that happens, I can't die. No matter what you do to me, how you torture me, I'll survive. I'll be ready for that day, even if she won't be, and we'll end each other for good."

"So you believe in fate, then," Nagato said, not surprised to find the ideology being espoused by a mass murderer. "And that might gives you the right to do whatever you desire."

"No," Gaara said, surprising him again. "That's what stupid people think. That what's 'right' or 'wrong' is decided by strength. But you have the Rinnegan, Amekage. You should know better. Might is right. Strength is not the decision maker, it is everything."

He pulled away again, and this time Nagato let him. Instead of striking out again, Gaara collapsed backwards; so much of his energy had been drained that he couldn't even keep his balance. "I centered my life around strength: I defined myself by who I could kill, to prove the truth of my existence. But that wasn't right either, because so many people are so easy to kill. I didn't quite understand that until I met Sakura, but she showed me the way."

"You have no regrets for your actions," Nagato said, and Gaara nodded. "Moreover, you don't think there is anything to regret in the first place."

"I'm glad you understand," Gaara said, sitting up. "Let me go: I'll hunt Rain's enemies. Sakura and her team are traitors to you now after all, right? Villages like yours need the Tailed Beasts more than anyone else, and no one has mastery of the Ichibi like me." He placed his hand on his chest with a beatific smile. "You can't afford to punish me, Amekage. You need me. If that's how you decide to 'take responsibility,' I cannot stop you: you're stronger than me, after all. But it would be a stupid thing to do."

Nagato stared at Gaara, watching the play of his chakra with acuity that only he possessed. Gaara was telling the truth about his mastery of the Bijuu; the seal had to have been placed on him when he was terrifically young, or perhaps even in the womb. He had lived his entire life as an open vessel, perhaps the only living example of the melding of a Tailed Beast and a human that had survived as such. As a military asset, he was unquestionably valuable.

But Nagato did not want another military asset, especially an unreliable one. He wanted justice, but killing this boy wouldn't bring back anyone he had murdered. It would be like putting down a rabid animal, a necessary evil.

He was sick of necessary evils, he realized. That was the path he desired, the way he could move forward while living with himself. To do away with as many of them as possible, to kill the least, be the least cruel; to shape a world with his power that was kinder and safer even if the way towards it was not absent bloodshed and heartache. Tragedy could never be avoided, but it could be minimized. Rather than a bloodsoaked god, he could be a scalpel. But in such a paradigm, what to do with Gaara? What to do with all the Tailed Beasts for that matter, dangerous as they were?

In that moment, staring into the gorgeous horror of Gaara's chakra system, Nagato had two epiphanies.

They were both cruel.

They could both create a more just future.

He hesitantly pulled them close to his heart.

"Azai," he said out loud, and the door creaked open. "Fetch Karin Uzumaki for me."

Azai departed without a sound, and Gaara maintained his bored expression. Nagato could feel the Jinchuriki's ennui radiating off him like a cold wind. "Who is that?"

"She is the ninja that captured you," Nagato said plainly, and some interest appeared in Gaara's flat eyes. "You tried to kill her in Fukami City as well."

"I don't remember her there," Gaara said thoughtfully. "But she had the same chains as Namikaze's mother. They look alike: they must be related." He frowned. "I suppose if I worked for you you would keep me from killing her. That would be disappointing."

"You won't be working for me," Nagato said. Gaara laughed.

"If you were going to kill me, you already would have," he said. "You had days to do it. You want something from me, but you already understand me, Amekage. Bringing this other girl here won't change anything."

"I think that it will," Nagato said. "I want you to make a promise to me."

"Promises are worthless," Gaara said, some venom in his tone. "People don't keep them; they are just tools to fool yourself and others."

"If they're worthless," Nagato said coldly, "then it should be easy for you to make one."

"Very well," Gaara said after a moment. "What promise, then."

Nagato stood up, towering over the younger ninja, allowing some of his power to shine from behind his eyes and fall across the room. The shadows grew deeper, the lights harsher, and Gaara narrowed his eyes.

"If I can help you regret your actions," he said, and Gaara scoffed, "you will never kill again."

"An easy promise to make," Gaara said with a hint of a laugh, and then he sat in silence until Karin arrived almost twenty minutes later.

The girl entered the room without a word and stood at attention, ignoring Gaara completely. The Jinchuriki stared at her, his darkened eyes trying to bore into hers, but to her credit Karin kept the fear she was doubtlessly feeling off her face as she stood at attention, waiting for Nagato to acknowledge her.

"Karin," he nodded, and she infinitesimally relaxed. "Take a seat, if you'd like."

"I'd prefer to stand," she said stiffly. "If that's okay, Amekage. Is it alright if I ask why I was called here?"

Having learned to unleash the Adamantine Chains, Karin was an incredibly formidable ninja that had subdued the One-Tailed Beast almost entirely by herself, but she had not yet internalized her power and the confidence it should give her. Nagato could sympathize.

"I wanted your help with Gaara here," Nagato said, gesturing to the Jinchuriki. He remained still, aware that even if he wasn't bound he was functionally helpless. "I'd like to try something I haven't attempted before."

"What do you mean?" Karin asked, her nervousness growing more obvious.

"You were there for his attack on the Land of Waves," Nagato said, and she nodded with a worried look. "And again, for his assault on our village. More than anyone, you've felt exactly how much pain Gaara inflicted."

"A guilt trip?" Gaara said with a smile. "I already told you-"

Nagato ignored him. "Take my hand, if you would," he said, reaching out towards Karin.

"Nagato," she said quietly, using his name for only the third time ever. Despite being clansmen, Karin had always treated him as an unquestionable authority. "I don't know what this is, but I'm getting a bad feeling. I don't know if I want to do this."

"That's understandable," Nagato said. As they spoke, Gaara continued to protest, but neither of them paid him any mind. "I won't force you to do anything you don't want to, Karin. But this boy has no empathy, no sense of right or wrong. Killing him would remove the danger he presents, but it wouldn't punish him beyond ending his life." He felt boundless potential shine from behind his eyes.

"Wouldn't it be better if he could actually be disciplined?"

Karin paused for a moment, and her eyes hardened.

She took Nagato's hand.

"Thank you. Now, painful as it would be, recall. Everything you saw, everything you felt. The death that surrounded you," Nagato said gently. At the same time, he not-so-gently reached out and seized Gaara's shoulder, fixing it there with irresistible strength. Gaara sneered and tried to knock the hand away, but it was hopeless: the three of them were bound together now like chains in a link, inseparable.

Karin looked down, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. There was obviously an initial resistance; recalling pain was never easy, and what she had experienced was beyond it came to sensory ninja, Karin Uzumaki was a prodigious anomaly. Her senses extended far beyond what most sensory jutsu were capable of, and had felt the deaths of thousands as if they were her own, misery and agony washing across her with a psychic clarity. All Gaara's fault; the victims of a thoughtless merciless beast.

Nagato concentrated, and the King of Hell rose behind her. Its hands quested out and grabbed hold of Karin and Gaara's shoulders: the both of them were only able to see it when it touched them. Karin ignored it; Gaara flinched, worry appearing on his face for the first time as he beheld something he couldn't understand.

"What is this?" he said. Nagato ignored him. "Amekage, don't waste our time. No matter what you inflict, this is pointless."

"Are you sure about that?" Nagato said, a pitiless feeling welling up in his gut at the look on Gaara's face. "How about you sit awhile, and then consider that again?"

He opened the channel, and everything Karin had felt and seen in the Land of Waves and the Nation of Rain poured into Gaara all at once.

His sensei would call it abominable, and Nagato would agree. What he was doing was similar in principle to Ninshu, though functionally it was essentially a genjutsu. Karin's experiences were processed by the King of Hell and his own peerless chakra, transformed into unvarnished truth, and then blasted Gaara's soul.

Once.

Twice.

Several hundred times.

Rooted in place, Gaara experienced every death he had caused again and again and again, feeling lives crushed in his sand, torn apart by his jutsu, or ripped to pieces by his Bijuu slip away countless times. Karin started crying: the returning memories savaged her, tearing open old scars and leaving her weeping quietly as Nagato gripped her hand.

When it was over, Gaara fell, drool slipping out of the corner of his mouth. He was barely conscious, his hand spasming as he tried to push himself back up. Nagato gingerly wrapped him back up in the sealing cloth and rebound it, leaving the Jinchuriki imprisoned once more.

"I believe that you will be executed in several days," he said, and Gaara's jittering eyes refocused on him, filled with horror and pain. "Perhaps a week, depending on how things go."

He stood up, pulling Karin to her feet. His heart was hardened: his gaze was already moving beyond the crippled boy and sweeping east, towards the Land of Lightning. He had chosen his path, the narrow blade between Yahiko's bloody god and the passive guardian he had resigned himself to be.

"Take that time to ponder any regrets."