What if naruto disapper after chunin exams and took nagato's rinnegan and return

The morning sun crept reluctantly over Konoha's damaged skyline, its golden fingers picking through rubble and collapsed buildings like a child sorting through broken toys. Three weeks after Orochimaru's attack, the Village Hidden in the Leaves still wore its wounds openly. Scaffolding clung to fractured walls. The acrid scent of smoke had finally faded, replaced by the sharper smell of fresh-cut timber and wet plaster as reconstruction efforts continued day and night.

Naruto Uzumaki sat atop the Hokage Monument, legs dangling over the carved stone face of the Third. Wind whipped through his blonde hair as his blue eyes narrowed against the brightness. Below him, tiny figures scurried like ants, rebuilding what had been lost.

"Some hero I turned out to be," he muttered, flicking a pebble into the vast emptiness before him. It disappeared silently into the distance. Just like his promises had that day.

The memory of Gaara's sand crushing opponents, of Sasuke's curse mark spreading like spilled ink across his skin, of his own desperate struggle against Neji—it all seemed hollow now. What good was winning a tournament when the village lay in ruins? What did his victory matter when the old man Hokage had died despite everything?

His fingers unconsciously traced the whisker marks on his cheeks. The Nine-Tails stirred restlessly within him, as it had been doing with increasing frequency since the attack.

"Naruto! There you are!"

Sakura's voice cut through his brooding. He plastered on his trademark grin before turning to face her, hiding the shadows that had taken residence behind his eyes.

"Sakura-chan! What's up?"

She stood with hands on hips, cherry blossom hair dancing in the breeze. The circles under her eyes matched everyone else's these days.

"Lady Tsunade's been looking everywhere for you! You were supposed to help with clearing the eastern district this morning."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry! I just needed some time to think, ya know?"

Something in his tone made Sakura's expression soften. She sat beside him, her feet not quite reaching as far over the edge as his.

"You're worried about Sasuke, aren't you?"

Naruto's smile faltered. Since the exams, Sasuke had become increasingly distant, training alone and speaking even less than usual. The curse mark incident had changed something fundamental in his teammate.

"He barely even looks at me during missions now," Naruto admitted. "It's like like he's seeing right through me to something else."

Sakura nodded slowly. "I tried bringing him some food yesterday. He took it, but " She trailed off, the unspoken rejection hanging in the air between them.

"I'll get through to him," Naruto declared, fist clenching with familiar determination. "Believe it!"

But even to his own ears, the catchphrase sounded hollow.

That night, the dream came again.

Naruto stood in ankle-deep water, the liquid black as ink in the dim light. Endless pipes ran overhead, dripping steadily. He recognized this place—the corridor leading to the Nine-Tails' cage deep within his mindscape.

But something was different.

A purple glow emanated from somewhere ahead, pulsing like a heartbeat. Each throb sent ripples across the dark water at his feet. Drawn forward, Naruto waded through the corridor, the light growing stronger with each step.

"Hello?" His voice echoed, distorted and strange.

The corridor opened into a vast chamber he'd never seen before. Where the Nine-Tails' cage should have been, there was instead a massive stone statue. Nine eyes were carved into its surface, but only one was open—the central eye, radiating hypnotic purple light in concentric rings.

"What are you?" Naruto whispered.

The eye fixed on him, and pain shot through his head. Images flooded his mind: rain-soaked battlefields, bodies piled like cordwood, a flash of orange hair, and always those eyes—the ringed purple eyes watching everything, judging everything.

A voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere: "The world shall know pain."

Behind him, the Nine-Tails growled, a sound of both warning and recognition?

"You," the fox rumbled. "After all this time "

The statue's eye widened, and—

Naruto jerked awake, gasping for breath. Sweat plastered his nightshirt to his body. His apartment was dark except for moonlight slicing through half-drawn blinds, painting silver stripes across his rumpled bed.

"Third time this week," he panted, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyelids.

The digital clock read 3:17 AM. Sleep wouldn't return easily now; it never did after these dreams.

Naruto padded to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. In the mirror, his reflection stared back, water dripping from his chin. For just an instant—a heartbeat so brief he might have imagined it—he thought he saw a flash of purple in his eyes.

He blinked, and it was gone.

"Focus, kid! Your chakra control is all over the place today!"

Jiraiya's massive hand cuffed Naruto lightly on the back of the head. They stood in a clearing several miles outside the village, the grass flattened in concentric circles from failed attempts at the new jutsu the Sannin was teaching him.

"I'm trying, Pervy Sage!" Naruto protested, wiping sweat from his brow. "It's not my fault you're a lousy teacher!"

Instead of the outraged response he expected, Jiraiya studied him with unusual intensity, all traces of the self-proclaimed super-pervert gone.

"You're not sleeping," the white-haired ninja stated flatly. "The bags under your eyes have bags."

Naruto kicked at the dirt. "It's nothing. Just dreams."

"What kind of dreams?"

Something in Jiraiya's tone made Naruto look up sharply. The old man's face had gone completely serious, his eyes narrowed to calculating slits.

"Just weird stuff. Eyes, mostly. Purple eyes with rings in them." He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "Probably just ate some bad ramen or something."

Jiraiya went very still. "Purple eyes with rings," he repeated slowly. "Like ripples in a pond?"

A chill ran down Naruto's spine. "Yeah. How did you—"

"The Rinnegan," Jiraiya murmured, almost to himself. Then, louder: "Did I ever tell you about the prophecy, Naruto?"

"What prophecy?"

Jiraiya sank down onto a fallen log, suddenly looking every one of his years. "The Great Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku made a prediction long ago. He said I would train the child who would either save or destroy the world."

Naruto's heart quickened. "And you think that's me?"

The Sannin's expression turned cryptic. "I've trained very few students in my lifetime. One of them possessed those eyes you're dreaming about."

"Really? Who? Where are they now? Can I meet them?" The questions tumbled out in typical Naruto fashion.

Jiraiya held up a hand. "That's enough for today. These dreams " He fixed Naruto with a penetrating stare. "If they continue, tell me immediately. Understand?"

"But—"

"Immediately, Naruto. Some doors shouldn't be opened without preparation."

The conversation ended there, with Jiraiya uncharacteristically tight-lipped despite Naruto's persistent questioning. They returned to the village in silence, the unspoken hanging heavy between them.

Two days later, the village buzzed with tension. An ANBU squad had captured an intruder at the northeastern border—a wounded man in a black cloak decorated with red clouds. An Akatsuki member, though not one high in their ranks.

Naruto heard whispers as he walked through the marketplace. Everyone had theories, everyone knew someone who knew someone with information. But actual facts were scarce.

"Heard they're keeping him in the high-security cells beneath T&I," a chunin whispered to his colleague as Naruto passed, pretending not to eavesdrop.

"Ibiki's been at him for hours," the other replied. "Guy's apparently tough—missing three fingers and still won't talk."

Naruto lingered near a fruit stand, casually examining apples while straining to hear more.

"Lady Tsunade herself is going down there tonight," the first chunin continued. "Whatever this guy knows, it's big."

Naruto's hand tightened around an apple. The Akatsuki—the organization Jiraiya had warned him about. The group hunting jinchūriki like him.

The decision formed instantly: he needed to hear what this captive had to say.

The Torture and Intelligence Division's subterranean facility wasn't meant to be infiltrated, especially not by a genin. But most security systems weren't designed with Naruto Uzumaki's particular brand of unorthodox thinking in mind.

A combination of shadow clones causing distractions, transformation jutsu, and the ventilation system got him into position above the interrogation room by midnight. Through a small grate, he had a partial view of the proceedings below.

The prisoner sat chained to a metal chair bolted to the floor. His Akatsuki cloak had been removed, revealing a gaunt torso covered in scars. His left hand was indeed missing several fingers, the wounds freshly bandaged.

Tsunade stood before him, arms crossed. Ibiki Morino loomed in the corner, his scarred face impassive. Jiraiya leaned against the wall, unusually somber.

"Let's try again," Tsunade said, her voice cold. "What is Akatsuki planning in Amegakure?"

The prisoner's laugh was like gravel being crushed. "You leaf-dwellers so arrogant. You know nothing of true pain."

"Answer the Hokage," Ibiki growled, stepping forward.

The man spat blood onto the floor. "Your petty village politics mean nothing. Pain is coming for all of you—the true Pain. The god of Ame will sweep away this broken system."

Jiraiya pushed off from the wall. "This 'Pain' you speak of—does he possess the Rinnegan?"

Naruto's breath caught in his throat. The Rinnegan—the eyes from his dreams.

The prisoner's head snapped up, eyes widening fractionally. "How do you ?" He recovered quickly, face hardening. "You're already dead. You just don't know it yet. When the Six Paths of Pain arrive, there will be nothing left of Konoha but ashes."

"Six Paths?" Tsunade pressed.

But the man began convulsing suddenly, foam bubbling at his lips. "For Pain for god " he gasped, before his body went rigid.

"Poison capsule in a hollow tooth," Ibiki declared after a quick examination. "He's gone."

Tsunade slammed her fist into the wall, leaving a crater in the concrete. "Damn it! We needed more information!"

Jiraiya's expression was distant, troubled. "Nagato," he murmured. "What have you become?"

The name echoed in Naruto's mind, connecting instantly to the purple eyes, to the voice in his dreams: The world shall know pain.

As the adults below discussed disposal of the body and increased security measures, Naruto slipped away, mind racing.

Amegakure. The Rinnegan. Pain. Nagato. The prophecy.

And somehow, his dreams connected it all.

Dawn found Naruto in his apartment, a backpack half-filled on his bed. His movements were methodical, precise. Ration bars. Soldier pills. Spare kunai. A map he'd "borrowed" from Iruka-sensei's classroom showing the territories between Fire Country and Amegakure.

On his small kitchen table lay a hastily scrawled note:

Kakashi-sensei,

There's something I need to do. Something important. Tell Sakura and Sasuke not to worry. I'll be back stronger than ever.

—Naruto

He paused at the window, looking back at the apartment that had been his solitary home for as long as he could remember. For a moment, doubt crept in. Was he being impulsive? Reckless?

But then he remembered Sasuke's face when the curse mark had spread, the hatred burning in his eyes. He thought of his own helplessness as the Third Hokage's funeral pyre had burned. He recalled Jiraiya's words about the prophecy and the man who possessed the eyes from his dreams.

"I need answers," he whispered to the empty room. "And I'll never find them here."

With a last glance at the village still sleeping below, Naruto Uzumaki slipped into the pre-dawn shadows and vanished, leaving nothing behind but a cooling cup of instant ramen and a note that wouldn't be found until it was too late.

In his mind, the ringed purple eyes beckoned, promising power, understanding—and perhaps, at last, a way to protect everyone that mattered.

Dawn shattered the sky in brilliant orange shards as Kakashi Hatake landed on Naruto's apartment windowsill, one hand raised to knock. The gesture froze mid-air. Something was wrong. His visible eye narrowed, scanning the room's interior in one practiced sweep.

Too neat. Too still. Too empty .

The Copy Ninja slipped inside, sandals landing soundlessly on the worn floorboards. The apartment held that peculiar hollowness unique to recently abandoned spaces—not the comfortable emptiness of a temporarily vacated home, but the resonant void of deliberate departure.

"Naruto?" His voice fell flat against the walls.

Morning light cut across the small kitchen table, illuminating a single sheet of paper. Kakashi's fingers brushed the note, and something cold settled in his chest as he read the hastily scrawled message.

Kakashi-sensei,

There's something I need to do. Something important. Tell Sakura and Sasuke not to worry. I'll be back stronger than ever.

—Naruto

"Damn it, Naruto," he muttered, crumpling the paper in his fist. "What have you done?"

Tsunade's office erupted in chaos.

"What do you mean he's gone ?" The Fifth Hokage's fist crashed into her desk, splintering the wood and sending sake cups flying. "He's a thirteen-year-old genin with the Nine-Tails sealed inside him! He doesn't just get to take a personal vacation!"

Kakashi stood impassive before her, hands in pockets, his posture deceptively relaxed while his mind raced through calculations of time, distance, and Naruto's erratic but surprisingly effective ingenuity.

"The note suggests he left voluntarily," he replied, voice level despite the urgency thrumming beneath his calm exterior. "Sometime between midnight and dawn, based on his apartment's condition."

Shizune clutched Tonton tighter to her chest. "Lady Tsunade, if Akatsuki—"

"I know!" Tsunade snapped, then visibly reined in her temper. She turned to the ANBU captain kneeling in the corner. "Dispatch four search teams. Northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. Full tracking protocols. I want that kid found before he crosses Fire Country's borders."

The masked operative vanished in a blur of movement.

Tsunade rounded on Kakashi again. "Any idea what triggered this? Any signs he was planning something?"

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled in thought. "He's been unusually quiet since the Chunin Exams. More introspective."

"It's not like Naruto to just leave without telling anyone," Shizune added. "Something must have happened."

The door burst open, admitting a disheveled Jiraiya who surveyed the room with sharp eyes belying his apparently casual entrance.

"So the kid finally flew the coop, eh?" He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his broad chest.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "You don't seem surprised."

"Because I'm not." Jiraiya pushed off from the doorway, ambling toward the broken desk with the loose-limbed grace of a predator masquerading as harmless. "The brat's been having dreams. About the Rinnegan."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Impossible," Tsunade whispered. "That dōjutsu has been extinct since—"

"Since the Sage of Six Paths?" Jiraiya's laugh held no humor. "Tell that to my former student in Amegakure."

Kakashi's head snapped up. "The Akatsuki prisoner mentioned Ame."

Jiraiya nodded grimly. "And I'm betting our favorite knucklehead ninja was somewhere he shouldn't have been during that interrogation."

Tsunade's face paled beneath her youthful façade. "You think he's heading to Amegakure? To find Pain?"

"I think," Jiraiya said carefully, "that Naruto Uzumaki is following his destiny, whether we like it or not."

"We have to stop him!" Shizune protested. "Akatsuki will—"

"Let him go."

Tsunade's chair crashed backward as she stood. "Have you lost your mind, Jiraiya? He's the Nine-Tails jinchūriki! He's an inexperienced genin! He's—"

"The child of prophecy." Jiraiya's voice cut through her objections like a blade. "Sometimes, Tsunade, the path finds the traveler, not the other way around."

Kakashi watched the silent battle of wills between the two Sannin, tension crackling between them like lightning before a storm.

"Three days," Tsunade finally ground out. "I'll give him three days. Then I'm sending every ANBU squad we have to drag him back by his ear if necessary."

Jiraiya's smile didn't reach his eyes. "That's if they can find him."

Fifty miles outside Konoha, a grubby-faced boy with brown hair trudged along a merchant road, shoulders hunched under a weather-beaten pack. His unremarkable brown eyes darted constantly, scanning tree lines and shadows with the wary vigilance of prey.

No one would connect this nondescript child with Konoha's loudest, orange-clad ninja. The transformation jutsu Naruto had cast altered not just his hair and eye color, but subtly changed his height, facial structure, and even his gait. Not perfect—a skilled jōnin might see through it—but good enough to pass casual inspection.

His stomach growled. The meager rations he'd packed wouldn't last more than a few days at this rate. Naruto considered stopping at the next village but dismissed the idea almost immediately. Too risky. Tsunade-baachan would have search parties out by now.

The thought sent a pang of guilt through him. They'd be worried. Angry, definitely, but worried too. Especially Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei.

And Sakura

He shook his head sharply. No. He couldn't think about that now. About the hurt in her eyes when she discovered he'd left without saying goodbye. About the lecture Iruka would have ready. About how Konohamaru would feel abandoned.

"I'm doing this for them," he muttered to the empty road. "I can't protect anyone the way I am now."

The road curved ahead, disappearing into a dense patch of forest. Naruto's footsteps slowed, instincts suddenly screaming danger. Something someone waited in those shadows.

He veered left, abandoning the path for the underbrush, moving as quietly as his limited stealth training allowed. Through the trees, he caught glimpses of the road he'd just vacated.

Two figures emerged from the forest, their black cloaks with red clouds stark against the greenery.

Naruto's breath caught in his throat. Akatsuki. Here? Already?

One was tall, with a massive wrapped object slung across his back. Even from this distance, Naruto recognized the shark-like features and wickedly sharp grin of Kisame Hoshigaki. The other

Itachi Uchiha. Sasuke's brother. The man responsible for the darkness consuming his teammate.

"The Nine-Tails jinchūriki was definitely heading this way," Kisame's gravelly voice carried through the still air. "Trail's fresh."

Itachi's response was too quiet to hear, but his crimson Sharingan scanned the surroundings with mechanical precision, passing over Naruto's hiding spot once, twice—

The young ninja froze, not daring to breathe. If Itachi activated his Mangekyo

"Let's move on," Itachi finally said, voice carrying just far enough. "He's not here."

Kisame hefted Samehada with a disappointed grunt. "If you say so. Though I was looking forward to cutting off a few of the brat's limbs. He wouldn't need those to serve our purpose."

They continued down the road, their figures gradually shrinking with distance.

Naruto remained motionless for ten full minutes after they disappeared, cold sweat pasting his transformed appearance to his skin.

That had been too close. Way too close.

And if Akatsuki was already tracking him, his original route to Amegakure was compromised.

He needed a new plan.

Night fell like a black curtain, bringing with it a drizzling rain that plastered Naruto's borrowed appearance to his increasingly weary body. He'd pushed harder after the Akatsuki encounter, abandoning roads entirely to cut cross-country through forests and farmland.

A dilapidated temple appeared through the curtain of rain, its once-grand entrance now sagging beneath the weight of time and neglect. Perfect shelter for the night.

Naruto approached cautiously, senses straining for any hint of human presence. The temple's interior smelled of mildew and incense, an odd combination that spoke of abandonment punctuated by occasional visitors. Rotting wooden Buddhas lined the walls, their serene expressions somehow unsettling in the gloom.

"Hello?" Naruto called softly, not expecting an answer.

A wet, ragged cough echoed from deeper inside.

Kunai instantly in hand, Naruto edged forward, mentally calculating escape routes. Another cough guided him to a small side chamber where a single candle cast trembling shadows across crumbling murals.

An ancient man lay on a threadbare mat, his body curled in on itself like autumn leaves. White hair spread in a halo around his liver-spotted head, and his saffron robes hung loosely on a frame wasted by time or illness.

"I knew someone would come," the old monk wheezed, rheumy eyes struggling to focus on Naruto. "Though I expected Death himself, not a child playing dress-up."

Naruto stiffened. "What are you talking about, old man? I'm just a traveler seeking shelter."

A smile stretched the monk's papery skin. "Your eyes betray you, boy. No transformation jutsu can hide what burns within." He dissolved into another coughing fit, flecks of red staining his lips.

Hesitantly, Naruto released his transformation, blonde hair and blue eyes returning like sunshine after storm clouds.

"Better," the monk sighed. "To die facing truth rather than illusion."

"You're dying?" Naruto knelt beside the mat, ninja caution warring with his inherent compassion.

"All men die, child. Some merely arrive at the appointment early." The monk's gaze sharpened suddenly, focusing on Naruto with unexpected clarity. "But you you carry both death and life within you. The beast and the boy. The destroyer and the savior."

Ice flooded Naruto's veins. "How do you know about the Nine-Tails?"

"I was once advisor to the daimyō of the Land of Rain," the monk whispered. "I have seen many things. Including those eyes that call to you now."

"The Rinnegan," Naruto breathed. "You've seen it?"

"I witnessed its awakening in a child of tragedy." The monk's hand shot out with surprising strength, bony fingers closing around Naruto's wrist. "Listen carefully, boy. The path you seek is shadowed by pain beyond imagining. Pain given and received. Pain that transforms and destroys."

"I'm not afraid," Naruto insisted.

The monk's laugh dissolved into another bloody cough. "Then you are a fool. But perhaps the right kind of fool."

With trembling hands, he reached inside his robes, withdrawing a small scroll sealed with wax the color of dried blood.

"This map will lead you to Amegakure through passages unknown to most. Shadow roads. Dangerous, but hidden from those who hunt you." He pressed the scroll into Naruto's palm. "The eyes you seek belong to a man who has forgotten what it means to hope. Remind him."

"Why are you helping me?" Naruto asked, bewildered.

The monk's eyes drifted toward the ceiling, seeing something far beyond the crumbling temple. "Because I have waited fifty years for one marked by destiny to cross my path before I die. And here you are, right on time."

His hand fell away from Naruto's, landing on the mat with gentle finality. The breath left his body in one long sigh, carrying with it whatever spark had animated the frail form.

Naruto remained kneeling, scroll clutched in white-knuckled fingers, as rain drummed against the temple roof and the single candle guttered in a sudden draft.

Sasuke Uchiha stood in the center of Naruto's apartment, obsidian eyes cataloging details with methodical precision. The bed, made with uncharacteristic neatness. The empty ramen cups, washed and stacked instead of scattered. The closet, missing key items—the practical gear rather than the orange jumpsuits.

Planned departure, not abduction. The conclusion settled like lead in his stomach.

"Find anything?" Sakura asked from the doorway, voice small, eyes red-rimmed.

"He took his good weapons," Sasuke replied flatly. "Left the decorative ones."

Kakashi materialized beside Sakura, hands still in pockets, but his visible eye sharp with analysis. "The Hokage's search parties have found nothing. He's covered his tracks well."

"That idiot couldn't cover his tracks if his life depended on it," Sasuke snapped.

"Then someone taught him how," Kakashi countered quietly. "Or he's finally applying what we've been teaching him all along."

Sasuke's jaw tightened. The idea that Naruto—dead-last, loudmouth, eternally optimistic Naruto —had successfully vanished without a trace burned like acid in his throat.

"Why?" Sakura's question hung in the air between them. "Why would he just leave?"

Sasuke turned away, facing the wall adorned with Naruto's ridiculous collection of ramen promotional posters.

"Power," he said simply. "He wants power."

"Naruto's not like that!" Sakura protested. "He's not like—" She bit off the rest of the sentence, but the unspoken comparison lingered.

He's not like you.

"Everybody wants power," Sasuke continued as if she hadn't spoken. "The difference is what they're willing to sacrifice to get it."

His hand unconsciously rose to the curse mark on his neck, the seal containing Orochimaru's temptation. The power that called to him daily, hourly, with promises of vengeance against Itachi.

What had called to Naruto? What voice had finally broken through that insufferable determination to succeed the traditional way?

"We'll find him," Kakashi said, breaking the tense silence. "And when we do, we'll bring him home."

Sasuke said nothing, but his thoughts whirled like storm clouds. Part of him—the part still capable of feeling anything beyond the all-consuming drive for revenge—recognized the hollow space Naruto's absence created. The idiot had somehow become a fixed point, a rival, a measure against which Sasuke gauged his own progress.

And now he was gone. Pursuing his own path to power.

For the first time in years, since the night his clan was massacred, Sasuke Uchiha felt something dangerously close to fear.

Not fear for Naruto—the dobe was too stubborn to die.

Fear that when they finally faced each other again, the dead-last might have surpassed him.

"No," he whispered, fists clenching at his sides. "I won't let that happen."

Behind him, Kakashi and Sakura exchanged worried glances, neither noticing the faint flicker of the curse mark beneath Sasuke's high collar, responding to the surge of dark emotion.

Outside, storm clouds gathered over Konoha, promising rain and thunder for the village that had lost its most unpredictable ninja—and with him, perhaps, its brightest hope for the future.

Rain. Endless, merciless rain.

It hammered against Naruto's skin like liquid needles, each droplet another whispered warning to turn back. Three days of this—trudging through mud that sucked at his sandals, sleeping under the meager shelter of drooping trees, eating cold rations while water dripped from his sodden hair.

The border between Fire Country and the Land of Rain had dissolved into this hellish no-man's-land of swamps and half-submerged forests. The monk's map guided him through treacherous paths no sane traveler would choose—underground tunnels that stank of mildew, narrow ledges overlooking fathomless gorges, and now this forsaken marshland where the line between earth and water blurred with every step.

"Some shortcut," Naruto muttered, yanking his foot from knee-deep muck with a wet schlurp . His transformation jutsu had long since been abandoned—maintaining it drained too much chakra he couldn't afford to waste.

Something slithered past his ankle. Naruto didn't look down. After yesterday's encounter with a snake the size of Kakashi-sensei's summoning dogs, he'd decided some things were better left unseen.

The rain abruptly intensified, sheets of water reducing visibility to mere feet. Thunder cracked overhead, but beneath it—Naruto froze, ears straining against the downpour.

Voices.

He dropped to a crouch, chakra signature dimmed to the faintest ember, a technique Jiraiya had barely started teaching him before he'd left. Imperfect, but better than nothing.

Five shadows materialized through the curtain of rain—patrol ninja moving with the fluid coordination of experienced killers. Their headbands bore the four vertical lines of Amegakure, slashed through with horizontal gouges.

"Sweep pattern delta," the leader barked. "Sensory-type in the middle. Anything bigger than a rabbit, you call it."

One of the ninja—a woman with close-cropped blue hair—formed a series of hand signs Naruto didn't recognize. Her eyes closed in concentration.

"Wait," she said sharply. "There's something northwest, fifty meters."

Naruto's heart slammed against his ribs. Move, idiot! MOVE!

He lunged sideways as a barrage of senbon needles hissed through the space where he'd crouched. Mud splashed, obscuring his escape as he zigzagged between withered trees.

"There! A kid!"

"Catch him! Anyone breaching the barrier is to be taken to Lord Pain!"

Naruto's fingers formed his most familiar seal. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Twenty identical Narutos burst into existence, scattering in all directions like startled birds. The real Naruto dove beneath the surface of the swamp, using a hollow reed to breathe as he'd seen in one of Kakashi's more creative escapes.

Above, chaos erupted. His clones led the patrol on a merry chase, some throwing kunai, others engaging in brief taijutsu before deliberately dispelling themselves.

"It's just some brat! Why's he using Leaf Village techniques?"

"Doesn't matter—Lord Pain's orders are absolute!"

A massive explosion rocked the swamp. One of his clones must have triggered a paper bomb. Another series of pops told him more clones had been dispelled.

Five minutes, Naruto thought, counting the seconds. Just give me five minutes.

Murky water filled his vision, dotted with dancing ripples from the rain above. Through his reed, each breath tasted of rot and stagnation, but he forced his body to remain motionless despite the burning in his lungs.

When the sounds of pursuit finally faded, Naruto waited an extra ten minutes before cautiously surfacing. The patrol had vanished, but he knew they'd be back with reinforcements.

He consulted the monk's map, now protected in a waterproof scroll case. The hidden entrance to Amegakure lay less than two miles ahead—an old drainage tunnel forgotten during the village's reconstruction after the Second Shinobi War.

Time to move.

Amegakure rose from the endless deluge like a fever dream of metal and despair. Towering industrial structures pierced the low clouds, their edges jagged as broken glass. Pipes and power lines criss-crossed between buildings, carrying mysterious fluids and crackling energy through the city's steel veins. Massive stone faces with their tongues extended served as waterspouts, vomiting collected rainwater down the sides of buildings in perpetual stone vomit.

Naruto crouched in the shadow of an immense drainage pipe, taking in his first unobstructed view of the Hidden Rain Village. From this forgotten maintenance ledge halfway up the outer wall, the city below resembled a twisted mechanical heart, pulsing with dull lights and belching steam from a thousand vents.

"Well," he whispered, "no one said it would be pretty."

Adjusting the ragged cloak he'd scavenged from an abandoned outpost, Naruto pulled the hood lower over his distinctive blonde hair. The drain-pipe entrance had delivered him inside the village's outer perimeter but left him exposed on this maintenance walkway. He needed to get down to street level, blend in, and gather information.

Movement below caught his eye. A procession of black-clad figures marched through the rain-slick streets, herding a smaller group of bedraggled civilians toward a central plaza. The civilians stumbled forward, hands bound behind their backs, heads bowed against the downpour.

Naruto's stomach twisted. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good.

He scrambled down the side of the building, using chakra to adhere to the slippery metal surface. Reaching a lower rooftop, he leapt between buildings until he reached the edge of the gathering crowd. Keeping his head down, he slipped between bodies until he had a clear view of the central platform.

A murmur rippled through the assembled villagers as a new figure emerged from the tallest tower overlooking the plaza. Cloaked in the black and red of Akatsuki, the man moved with eerie mechanical precision. His orange hair spiked defiantly against the rain, and his face—

Naruto's breath caught. Metal studs embedded in pale skin. But it was the eyes that transfixed him—concentric purple rings radiating from the pupil. The Rinnegan. The eyes from his dreams.

"Pain," someone whispered nearby, voice thick with reverence and fear.

The crowd fell silent as Pain raised his hand, surveying the assembled villagers with divine detachment.

"People of Amegakure," his voice resonated with unnatural clarity, cutting through the drumming rain. "Once again, we gather to witness judgment. Once again, the cancer of rebellion must be excised."

The bound prisoners were forced to their knees on the platform, faces raised to meet Pain's impassive gaze.

"These six have conspired with Hanzo's remaining loyalists," Pain continued. "They would return Amegakure to the days of perpetual war, of children starving in gutters, of foreign shinobi using our land as their slaughterhouse."

A woman in the line of prisoners shouted defiantly, "You're the one who's turned our village into a prison! Hanzo was—"

"Hanzo was a tyrant," Pain cut her off, voice unchanged. "As were the Five Kage who used him as their puppet. The old system failed. It will always fail. Only through pain can the world learn, evolve, find peace."

He extended his hand toward the prisoners.

"I am the god of this new world. And gods must be both merciful and terrible."

Naruto felt it before he saw it—a ripple in the chakra around him, a pressure building like the moment before a tsunami strikes.

"Shinra Tensei."

The words came as barely a whisper, but their effect was cataclysmic. An invisible force erupted from Pain's outstretched hand, slamming into the prisoners with such violence that their bodies simply came apart. Blood, bone, and tissue exploded outward in a crimson mist that the rain immediately began to wash away.

Naruto staggered back, bile rising in his throat. Around him, the crowd remained utterly silent, faces blank or averted, but no one— no one —showed shock or surprise. Just acceptance.

"Remember their failure," Pain intoned as he lowered his hand. "Remember that pain is the teacher of this world. Through my pain, you have found stability. Through your pain, you have found purpose. This is the will of god."

He turned, black cloak swirling around him, and vanished back into the tower. Only then did the crowd begin to disperse, moving with the stunned automation of sleepwalkers.

Naruto remained frozen, rain mingling with cold sweat on his face. What he'd just witnessed wasn't a jutsu—it was an execution. No, a slaughter . And the villagers had watched it like it was routine.

What kind of monster possesses those eyes? he thought, body trembling not from cold but from a deep, visceral horror.

For the first time since leaving Konoha, doubt crept in. What was he doing here? What had he hoped to find?

A firm hand closed around his upper arm, jarring him from his stupor.

"You don't belong here," a woman's voice said softly, her breath warm against his ear. "And standing around looking terrified is the quickest way to join tomorrow's demonstration."

Naruto whipped around, coming face to face with amber eyes set in a beautiful but severe face. Blue hair framed delicate features, adorned with a paper flower that somehow remained perfectly dry despite the rain. Her black cloak bore the red clouds of Akatsuki.

His blood turned to ice. Caught.

"I—I'm just passing through," he stammered, voice pitched lower than normal. "Got separated from my merchant caravan."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "There are no merchant caravans permitted in Amegakure without express authorization from Lord Pain. Try again, boy."

Her fingers tightened, and Naruto felt something strange—her skin didn't feel like skin at all, but like paper?

"Unless," she continued, studying him with growing interest, "you're something else entirely."

A sudden flare of orange chakra surged through Naruto's system—the Nine-Tails, responding to danger. The woman's eyes widened as the chakra brushed against her, and she released his arm as if burned.

"Jinchūriki," she whispered.

Naruto bolted.

He shoved through the dispersing crowd, ducking low and zigzagging between startled villagers. Behind him, he heard no pursuit, but that meant nothing—a member of Akatsuki wouldn't need to chase him like some common thug.

An alley opened to his right. Naruto dove into it, fingers already forming the Shadow Clone sign.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Fifty clones burst into existence, an extravagant use of chakra but necessary. They scattered in all directions, some transformed into villagers, others maintaining his appearance.

The real Naruto, transformed into a nondescript Rain civilian, doubled back past the blue-haired woman. She stood motionless in the center of the plaza, watching his clones with an unreadable expression. Strangely, she made no move to pursue any of them.

For hours, Naruto navigated the labyrinthine streets of Amegakure, constantly shifting his appearance and monitoring his clones' experiences as they were discovered and dispelled one by one. Each dispelled clone transferred its knowledge back to him—a market district here, a military checkpoint there, the strange reverence with which villagers spoke of "Lord Pain's angel."

The blue-haired woman. His clones had overheard her name: Konan.

Night fell, though in Amegakure the transition merely meant the grey day darkened to pitch black, illuminated by industrial lights that cast everything in sickly yellow or harsh blue.

Naruto found shelter in an abandoned manufacturing floor, nestled between massive rusted machines whose purpose he couldn't begin to fathom. His chakra reserves were dangerously low after maintaining so many clones, and his stomach growled with three days of insufficient food.

But one clone—one last, cautious clone—had found something interesting before being caught in a routine sweep and dispelled.

Pain's tower. The tallest structure in Amegakure housed not just the village's self-proclaimed god, but a secret known only to those in Pain's inner circle. According to whispered rumors the clone had overheard, the real Pain rarely left a hidden chamber at the tower's core, sending his "paths" to enact his will throughout the village.

"Paths," Naruto murmured, remembering the Akatsuki prisoner's words in Konoha. "The Six Paths of Pain."

Tomorrow, he would find a way into that tower. Tomorrow, he would discover the truth behind those hypnotic purple eyes.

Tomorrow, he would confront this "god."

Dawn brought no sunlight to Amegakure, only a lightening of the perpetual gloom. Naruto, refreshed by a few hours of fitful sleep and a meal scavenged from restaurant waste bins, studied the tower from the shelter of a derelict sky-bridge.

Security was tight—shinobi with rain headbands patrolled in pairs, and paper constructs shaped like butterflies occasionally drifted past windows and doorways. Konan's doing, no doubt.

Direct infiltration would be suicide. But no security was perfect, and Naruto Uzumaki specialized in the unexpected.

"Time to make some noise," he grinned, forming his signature hand sign. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

This time, he created just twenty clones—all he could safely manage after yesterday's chakra expenditure. But these weren't for distraction. These were for chaos.

"You know the plan," he told them. "Fifteen minutes, then synchronized transformation."

The clones nodded and dispersed, moving with purpose toward pre-selected targets. Naruto himself headed for the underground service tunnels his clone had discovered—maintenance passages that ran beneath the entire village.

Precisely fifteen minutes later, as Naruto positioned himself beneath a maintenance hatch in the tower's foundation, explosions rocked the village. His clones, transformed to look like Hanzo loyalists, had simultaneously attacked five different security checkpoints.

Alarms wailed. Through the mental connection with his clones, Naruto watched security forces rushing to respond, leaving the tower's lower levels dangerously undermanned.

"Now or never," he muttered, forcing chakra into his feet as he scaled the vertical shaft.

The service hatch opened into a dimly lit storage room filled with paper and administrative supplies. Naruto slipped out, transformed into a Rain shinobi complete with a forged identification badge his clone had pickpocketed yesterday.

He moved with purposeful confidence, chin up, eyes forward—looking like you belonged was half the battle in infiltration, according to the spy novels he'd borrowed from Kakashi-sensei's collection.

Two floors up, he encountered his first obstacle—a checkpoint requiring chakra identification.

"Purpose?" the guard asked tonelessly.

"Maintenance inspection of the upper observation deck," Naruto replied, flashing his stolen badge. "Storm damage to the eastern sensor array."

The guard's eyes narrowed. "There's no scheduled maintenance today."

"Tell that to Lord Pain's angel," Naruto shot back with just the right amount of respectful irritation. "The water's leaking into the communications hub. You want to explain to her why the northern district reports went undelivered?"

The bluff worked. The guard waved him through with a grunt of acknowledgment, clearly unwilling to risk Konan's displeasure.

As Naruto ascended further into the tower, the character of the building changed. Functional military austerity gave way to spaces designed to inspire awe—soaring ceilings, walls inscribed with philosophical texts about pain and salvation, and always, everywhere, the symbol of Amegakure watching like unblinking eyes.

His clones were being dispelled one by one, each death providing valuable seconds of distraction. The knowledge they transferred told him security was tightening, sweeps moving inward from the perimeter. His window was closing fast.

A strange sensation prickled along Naruto's spine as he reached the tower's upper levels—chakra, immensely powerful but somehow fragmented, radiating from behind a massive metal door at the corridor's end.

No guards protected this entrance, but paper seals glowed with obvious trap jutsu. Naruto studied them, recognizing elements of sealing techniques Jiraiya had begun teaching him.

"Right," he muttered. "Can't go through so I'll go around."

He located an air vent, carefully removed the cover, and squeezed his increasingly lanky frame into the narrow passage. Crawling on elbows and knees, he navigated by the pull of that strange chakra, moving steadily toward its source.

The vent ended above what appeared to be a small antechamber. Naruto peered through the grate, confirming the room was empty before carefully lowering himself down.

A simple wooden door stood opposite him, unguarded and unsealed. The contrast with the heavily protected main entrance was jarring—almost like a trap?

Or a test.

Remembering the monk's words about shadow roads and hidden passages, Naruto approached the unassuming door. The powerful chakra emanated from beyond, calling to something deep within him.

He turned the handle and stepped through.

Raining falling upward. That was Naruto's first, disoriented impression—droplets rising from a vast circular pool that dominated the chamber's center. The room itself defied conventional architecture, its walls curving organically like the interior of some massive seashell. Blue-white light pulsed from veins of chakra-conductive metal embedded in the structure.

And suspended above the pool, connected to a forest of cables and tubes, hung what Naruto could only describe as mechanical wombs—transparent cylinders filled with amber fluid.

Each contained a body.

Naruto moved forward as if in a trance, drawn by the hypnotic pull of the scene before him. There were six cylinders, six bodies—all with bright orange hair, all studded with the same black receivers he'd seen on Pain during the execution.

All bore the Rinnegan.

"The Six Paths of Pain," he whispered, reaching out to touch the nearest container.

The body inside—a tall, lean man with long hair—seemed to respond to his presence, the Rinnegan eyes tracking his movement despite the figure's apparent unconsciousness.

A mechanical hum broke the silence as one of the containers began to drain, its front panel sliding open with a pneumatic hiss. The body within—the one Pain had used for the execution—stepped out, water sluicing from its cloak.

"You have come seeking power," the body spoke, its voice resonating with unnatural harmonics. "Just as the prophecy foretold."

Naruto froze, kunai instantly in hand though he knew it would be useless against whatever stood before him.

"Are you Pain?" he asked, voice steadier than he felt.

"I am the Deva Path," the figure replied. "One of six paths through which Pain speaks. Through which god manifests."

"Where is the real you?" Naruto demanded. "The one controlling these these puppets!"

The Deva Path's Rinnegan eyes bored into him. "You already know the answer, Naruto Uzumaki. You have been dreaming of this moment since before you left Konoha."

Shock rippled through Naruto. "How do you know my name?"

"I know many things." The Deva Path gestured upward. "Including why you are here."

Naruto followed the gesture and felt his breath catch. Above them, suspended in an intricate web of life-support machinery, hung a seventh container larger than the others.

Inside floated an emaciated figure with blood-red hair. Skeletal limbs, spine protruding through paper-thin skin, ribs visible beneath a mesh shirt. Metal rods protruded from his back like grotesque wings.

But his eyes—those same concentric purple rings—blazed with living power.

"The true Pain," Naruto whispered.

"My name," the withered figure spoke, his actual voice reedy but charged with authority, "is Nagato. And you, Naruto Uzumaki, have finally arrived."

The container descended slowly from the ceiling, the machinery adjusting to bring Nagato face to face with the young shinobi who had traveled so far to find him.

"Now," Nagato said, his Rinnegan boring into Naruto's soul, "let us discuss why the child of prophecy stands before the god of Amegakure.

Nagato's Rinnegan burned like twin lavender supernovas in the dimness of the chamber, their concentric rings pulsing with hypnotic power. Up close, his emaciated body appeared even more fragile—ribs threatening to puncture paper-thin skin with each labored breath, joints protruding like knots in withered tree branches, fiery red hair hanging limply around a gaunt face that seemed carved from wax.

Yet power radiated from him in suffocating waves. Standing before this skeletal figure, Naruto felt the same instinctive terror prey animals must feel when facing an apex predator.

"You're shorter than I expected," Nagato observed, his voice unexpectedly melodic despite its weakness. "The child who would challenge god."

Naruto squared his shoulders, forcing steel into his spine. "I didn't come to challenge you. I came for answers."

"Did you?" Nagato's head tilted slightly, cables shifting with soft mechanical whispers. "Or did you come because you were called? Because those eyes you see in your dreams won't let you rest?"

The Deva Path circled Naruto like a predatory bird, its Rinnegan fixed unblinkingly on him. Other containers began to drain, other bodies stepping forth—a massive, hulking figure with a shaved head; a willowy man with long hair; a fierce-looking woman—each bearing those same haunting eyes.

"How do you know about my dreams?" Naruto demanded, fighting the urge to back away as the Paths surrounded him.

A sound like crumbling paper emerged from Nagato's throat—laughter, Naruto realized with shock.

"Because I sent them." Nagato's skeletal hand emerged from the life-support container, fingers spreading in a gesture that encompassed the chamber. "The Rinnegan sees across distances other dōjutsu cannot fathom. Across mountains and oceans. Across time itself."

"Bullshit," Naruto spat, kunai still clutched in white-knuckled fingers. "You're telling me you've been—what—spying on me through my dreams?"

"Not spying." The hand withdrew. "Calling. Testing. The way a flame tests moths to see which has the courage to approach without burning."

The Deva Path stepped between them, its expression mirroring Nagato's own. "When I felt the Nine-Tails' chakra signature nearing Konoha's borders during the Chunin Exams, I grew curious. Such power, contained within a vessel so young. So much like I once was."

Naruto's mind raced. "You attacked Konoha. You sent those Akatsuki members—"

"A necessary reconnaissance," Nagato cut him off. "To confirm what the Rinnegan had already shown me—that you house the Nine-Tails, yet control it imperfectly. That you seek strength, yet lack direction. That you burn with a familiar fire."

Thunder rumbled outside, reverberating through the metal structure. The Paths shifted positions with eerie synchronicity, moving like dancers in some macabre ballet.

"You murdered those people," Naruto said, memory of the plaza execution flashing through his mind. "Blew them apart like they were nothing. And for what? To show off your power?"

"To teach," Nagato corrected, as if explaining something simple to a child. "Pain is the only universal language. The only lesson humanity truly retains."

"That's—"

"Look at your own life, Naruto Uzumaki," Nagato interrupted, his Rinnegan seeming to peer into Naruto's very soul. "What taught you compassion? The casual cruelty of villagers who shunned you. What taught you determination? The pain of failure, again and again. What taught you the value of bonds? The agony of loneliness."

Each word landed like a physical blow. Naruto took an involuntary step back.

"You don't know anything about me," he growled, but the protest sounded hollow even to his own ears.

"I know everything about you." Nagato's voice strengthened, gaining resonance that filled the chamber. "The orphan. The outcast. The monster-child. I walked your path before you were born, Naruto Uzumaki. I know every twist, every drop, every moment of despair that lies upon it."

Naruto's kunai clattered to the floor as his hand went slack with shock. "What are you talking about?"

The chamber's lighting shifted, illuminating a wall Naruto hadn't noticed before—a wall covered with photographs, maps, and documents. At its center hung a faded image of three children standing beside a tall, white-haired man with red facial markings.

Jiraiya. A much younger Jiraiya, his face less lined, his eyes brighter—but unmistakably the Pervy Sage.

And among the children—a thin boy with red hair and solemn eyes that had not yet transformed into the Rinnegan.

"You were Jiraiya's student," Naruto whispered, the pieces suddenly clicking into place.

"His first failure," Nagato corrected. "As you will be his last."

Rage flashed through Naruto, hot and sudden. "You don't know a damn thing about me and the Pervy Sage!"

"I know he filled your head with the same poisonous hope he once fed me," Nagato replied, each word precise as a scalpel. "Peace. Understanding. Cooperation between nations. Pretty lies told to children before the world reveals its true nature."

The Deva Path stepped closer, invading Naruto's personal space, forcing him to look into those hypnotic eyes at close range.

"Tell me, fellow student of Jiraiya—what do you think you're fighting for? What grand purpose justifies your pursuit of power?"

"To protect my precious people," Naruto shot back without hesitation. "To become Hokage and change the system from within. To bring real peace to—"

Laughter erupted from Nagato's withered form, sharp and cutting as broken glass.

"Peace? PEACE?" The word echoed around the chamber, amplified by the Paths who repeated it in perfect unison. "You stand in the ruins of what 'peace' between the Five Great Nations looks like, boy. Amegakure—the battlefield where your precious villages settled their differences with our blood!"

The chamber trembled, metal groaning as Nagato's chakra flared with his emotion.

"While Konoha prospered, protected by its forests and wealth, the Rain Country drowned in the bloodshed of your wars. While the Hokage preached noble ideals, children like me buried their parents and starved in bombed-out ruins."

"That's not—"

"DO NOT TELL ME WHAT IS NOT TRUE!" Nagato's roar silenced Naruto instantly. "I watched my parents die before my eyes, cut down by Konoha shinobi who never even saw their faces! I lived on garbage while your village grew fat on the spoils of conflict! I begged in streets flooded with the blood of innocents while your Hokage sat safe in his tower!"

The vehemence of Nagato's words struck Naruto like physical blows. For the first time, he glimpsed the raw wound at the core of this man—a wound that had festered and poisoned until it transformed into something monstrous.

"I'm sorry," Naruto said softly, the inadequacy of the words burning his tongue. "What happened to you was wrong. But—"

"But nothing," Nagato cut him off, voice suddenly quiet again, control reasserted. "Your apology means nothing. Your intentions mean nothing. Only action matters in this world. Only power can reshape reality."

Rain drummed against the chamber's exterior, the rhythm oddly soothing against the tension crackling between them.

"So that's it?" Naruto challenged, finding his footing again. "The answer is to become the very thing that destroyed your life? To inflict more pain? More death? How does that change anything?"

"It changes everything." Nagato's eyes gleamed with fanatical certainty. "I am collecting the Tailed Beasts to create a weapon of unimaginable destructive power. A weapon that will inflict such catastrophic suffering that nations will finally understand the true cost of war."

Horror bloomed in Naruto's chest. "You'd kill millions of innocent people?"

"To save billions yet unborn? Without hesitation." Nagato's skeletal hand emerged again, forming a weak fist. "One massive, shared trauma to unify humanity in grief. From that pain will emerge true peace—not the false peace of treaties and temporary alliances, but the bone-deep understanding that the alternative is extinction."

Despite himself, Naruto could almost see the terrible logic, the twisted path that had led this broken man to such a monstrous conclusion. In another life, with different choices

The thought chilled him to his core.

"There's another way," Naruto insisted, taking a step forward despite the Paths shifting menacingly around him. "There has to be!"

"Show me." Nagato's challenge hung in the air between them. "Prove to me that Jiraiya's naive idealism deserves to survive in this world. Prove that your path is stronger than mine."

Before Naruto could respond, a ripple passed through the chamber as another presence entered. Konan materialized from a swirl of paper, her amber eyes taking in the scene with cool assessment.

"Nagato," she murmured, concern evident in her voice. "Your chakra fluctuations—"

"Are necessary," he finished for her. "The boy and I are having a philosophical discussion."

Her gaze swept over Naruto, recognition sparking. "The Nine-Tails jinchūriki. I thought I sensed—" She stopped, attention shifting to Nagato with sudden alarm. "You can't be considering—"

"I'm considering many things, Konan." Nagato's tone carried finality that silenced her instantly. "Leave us."

Hesitation flickered across her face—the first genuine emotion Naruto had seen from her—before she dissolved into paper butterflies that fluttered toward the exit.

"She fears for you," Naruto observed when they were alone again, surrounded only by the silent Paths.

"She remembers who I was. Not who I have become." Nagato's lips twisted in what might have been a smile on a healthier face. "As Jiraiya would be disappointed to see what became of his prophesied child."

The Nine-Tails stirred within Naruto, reacting to some imperceptible shift in the chamber's energy. Orange chakra began to seep from his skin, surrounding him in a faint, shimmering cloak.

"Ah," Nagato breathed, leaning forward in his mechanical womb. "There it is."

The Rinnegan's purple light intensified, reaching out to meet the Nine-Tails' chakra in the space between them. Where the energies touched, reality seemed to warp, colors inverting momentarily before settling into strange new harmonies.

Pain lanced through Naruto's head, dropping him to one knee. Visions flashed behind his eyes—a red-haired boy weeping beside two corpses; a village burning as giant toads battled an enormous snake; a spiral-masked man materializing from nowhere to whisper poison into receptive ears.

Nagato's memories.

"You feel it," Nagato whispered, his own face contorted with similar pain. "The resonance."

Through gritted teeth, Naruto managed to ask, "What's happening?"

"The Sage of Six Paths—creator of ninjutsu, progenitor of both Senju and Uchiha bloodlines—was also the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki," Nagato explained, voice strained. "The Rinnegan was his gift. The Tailed Beasts, his legacy. They recognize each other, even across centuries."

The Nine-Tails roared within Naruto's mindscape, its voice thundering through his consciousness: HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH, BRAT. THE SAGE'S BLOOD FLOWS IN THIS BROKEN VESSEL.

As suddenly as it had come, the pain receded. Naruto found himself on all fours, gasping for breath, the stone floor cool against his palms.

"Now you understand," Nagato said softly. "Why it had to be you who came. Why the dreams called to you specifically."

Naruto raised his head, meeting those hypnotic eyes. "Why?"

"Because you are what I once was. Because you could become what I am now." Nagato's voice dropped to a whisper. "Or because you might—just might—find the answer that eluded me."

The Six Paths moved in perfect synchronization, forming a circle around Naruto. Not threatening now, but ceremonial—like priests at some ancient ritual.

"I offer you a choice, Naruto Uzumaki." Nagato's words seemed to echo from everywhere at once. "Join me. Accept the inevitability of my solution. Help me collect the Tailed Beasts and bring cleansing fire to this corrupt world."

"Or?" Naruto managed, climbing back to his feet.

"Or prove me wrong." A note of desperate hope, so faint Naruto almost missed it, threaded through Nagato's voice. "Show me that Jiraiya's dream isn't mere fantasy. That another path exists."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

The life-support machine hummed, fluid draining as Nagato's container fully opened. Without its support, he seemed impossibly frail, like a puppet with half its strings cut.

"By accepting my power. By walking with my vision." Nagato's right hand shakily formed a seal Naruto didn't recognize. "By taking my eye."

The words hung in the air, impossible, absurd.

"You want to give me your Rinnegan?" Naruto stared in disbelief.

"One of them. Temporarily." Nagato's lips curved in a ghost of a smile. "A loan, shall we say. To equip you for the test I have in mind."

"What test?"

"To find what I could not. The third path—neither endless war nor catastrophic peace." Nagato's breathing grew labored, the effort of sustaining himself outside his life-support clearly taxing. "If such a thing exists, the Rinnegan will help you see it."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then the Nine-Tails joins my collection immediately," Nagato replied simply. "And your journey ends here."

The Deva Path extended its hand, palm up, offering. "The choice is yours, child of prophecy. Die now, your potential unfulfilled. Or accept my gift, my burden, and perhaps—just perhaps—prove your master wiser than I believed."

Outside, lightning split the sky, illuminating the chamber in stark white flashes. The rain intensified, pounding against metal and glass like a thousand impatient fists.

Naruto looked from the Path's outstretched hand to Nagato's ravaged face, mind racing. Was this a trap? A trick to facilitate extracting the Nine-Tails? Or something else entirely—a desperate gamble by a man who had lost his way but couldn't fully extinguish the hope his teacher had planted?

The Nine-Tails' chakra pulsed inside him, reacting to his turmoil with crimson flares that licked along his skin.

CHOOSE CAREFULLY, BRAT, the Fox rumbled within him. THOSE EYES SEE TRUTHS EVEN I CANNOT PERCEIVE.

Naruto thought of Konoha—of Sakura's worried face, of Sasuke's growing darkness, of Kakashi's quiet guidance and Iruka's steadfast support. He thought of the Third Hokage's funeral pyre and Jiraiya's cryptic warnings about prophecy and destiny.

Most of all, he thought of his own nindō—his ninja way. To never go back on his word. To forge his own path.

The answer crystallized with sudden clarity.

"I accept," Naruto declared, meeting Nagato's gaze without flinching. "Give me your eye. Let me see the world as you see it."

"And then?" Nagato pressed, a strange eagerness entering his voice.

Naruto's fists clenched at his sides, determination hardening his features into something older, something that hinted at the man he might become.

"And then I'll show you that pain isn't the answer—it never was." His blue eyes flashed with conviction. "I'll find another way. The way the Pervy Sage believed in. The way you once believed in."

For a heartbeat, something like relief flickered across Nagato's wasted features.

"Then let us begin," he whispered, raising a trembling hand toward his own face. "The ritual that will bind my vision to yours."

His fingers touched his right eye, and blood began to flow.

Blood traced crimson pathways down Nagato's hollow cheek as his trembling fingers hovered at his right eye socket. The chamber pulsed with unnatural energy, metal surfaces reflecting rippling purple light that seemed to bend reality around them.

"Konan," Nagato whispered, voice barely audible above the mechanical hum of his life-support systems. "We require your assistance."

Paper butterflies materialized from the shadows, swirling together to form the blue-haired woman. Her amber eyes widened at the blood trailing down her companion's face.

"Nagato!" She rushed forward, only to freeze when his raised hand commanded stillness. "What are you doing?"

"What must be done." His gaze never left Naruto. "The ritual requires a third participant. Someone to stabilize the chakra transfer."

Konan's eyes darted between them, comprehension dawning with horror. "No. You can't possibly—" Her voice hardened. "This is madness. He's just a child."

"As we were, once." Nagato's skeletal fingers beckoned her closer. "Before pain reshaped us."

She stood rigid, conflict evident in every line of her body. "If you give him the Rinnegan, you weaken yourself. The extraction will be—"

"My decision is made." Steel threaded through his reedy voice. "Will you help me, old friend? Or must I do this alone?"

Something passed between them—decades of shared history distilled into a single, charged glance. Konan's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I have never denied you anything, Nagato," she said softly. "Not even this folly."

She moved with fluid grace, paper fluttering from her sleeves to form intricate patterns on the floor—sealing arrays Naruto had never seen before, their complexity dwarfing even the most advanced techniques in Konoha's archives.

"Come here, boy," she commanded, indicating a position opposite Nagato.

Naruto hesitated only briefly before stepping into the center of the array. The paper seals began to glow with cold blue chakra, spiraling outward from his feet.

"What happens now?" he asked, voice steadier than the hammering of his heart.

Nagato's lips quirked in what might have been a smile. "Now? Now we dance with agony."

His fingers plunged toward his eye with sudden, shocking violence. Naruto flinched as Nagato extracted the Rinnegan with surgical precision, blood spraying in an arc that splattered across the sealing array. The purple eye rested in his palm, concentric rings still spinning lazily, impossibly alive outside its socket.

"Your turn," Nagato rasped, extending his crimson-stained hand.

Konan stepped forward, strips of paper flowing from her body to create a bridge between Nagato and Naruto. "The seal requires your blood," she told Naruto, voice clinically detached. "And your complete submission to what comes next."

Naruto swallowed hard, pulse thundering in his ears. Around him, the Six Paths had formed a perfect circle, their Rinnegan eyes tracking his every movement. The Nine-Tails churned restlessly inside him, its chakra flaring in sporadic bursts.

CAREFUL, BRAT, the Fox growled within his mindscape. THOSE EYES WERE NEVER MEANT FOR HUMAN VESSELS.

"Will it will I still be me?" Naruto asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it.

Nagato's remaining eye fixed on him with piercing intensity. "You will be more. Whether that is a blessing or a curse depends entirely on your strength of will."

Taking a deep breath, Naruto drew a kunai across his palm, blood welling in a bright crimson line. He extended his bleeding hand, mirroring Nagato's pose across the paper bridge Konan had created.

"I'm ready."

Konan's hands flashed through seals faster than Naruto could track—complex, ancient patterns that made the air around them vibrate with power.

"Blood to blood," she intoned. "Vision to vision. The eyes of the Sage pass from vessel to vessel, seeking the one who will fulfill the prophecy of peace."

The paper bridge began to curl around their outstretched hands, binding them together. Nagato's blood mingled with Naruto's, hissing like water on hot steel where they touched.

"Remember," Nagato warned as the ritual intensified, chakra swirling around them in visible currents, "the Rinnegan will fight you. It will tear through your memories, your beliefs, your very identity. Do not resist it—that path leads to madness. But do not surrender to it either."

"Then what should I—" Naruto's question choked off as Nagato's hand suddenly closed over his, pressing the extracted eye directly into his bleeding palm.

Pain exploded through Naruto's body, white-hot and absolute. His back arched, a scream tearing from his throat as liquid fire raced up his arm and into his brain. He was dimly aware of collapsing to his knees, of Konan's paper seals wrapping around his thrashing form, of the Six Paths moving in perfect synchronicity to stabilize the ritual.

Inside his mindscape, the Nine-Tails roared in sympathetic agony as foreign chakra invaded their shared space. The cage that held the Fox warped and buckled as reality itself seemed to fracture.

ENDURE IT! the Nine-Tails snarled, its massive claws gripping the bars. YOUR PUNY HUMAN BODY CANNOT REJECT IT NOW!

Naruto felt his right eye burning, melting, reforming. His vision fractured—half the world seen through his natural blue eye, half through something else. Colors inverted, chakra networks revealed themselves as glowing webs beneath skin, time itself seemed to stutter and flow in irregular patterns.

"Guide it to your eye," Konan's voice cut through the haze of pain, remarkably calm. "Will it into place."

Somehow, Naruto found the strength to raise his trembling hand to his face. The Rinnegan pulsed against his palm, eager and alive, seeking its new home. With a final surge of determination, he pressed it against his right eye socket.

The world exploded.

He stood in a vast, empty plain under a sky split between day and night. Before him towered a figure of impossible proportions—a man with skin like burnished bronze, white hair flowing around horned protrusions from his forehead, and eyes bearing the same concentric purple rings as the one now nestled in Naruto's own socket.

"So," the giant rumbled, voice resonating like distant thunder, "another child seeks my legacy."

"Who who are you?" Naruto stammered, though some part of him already knew the answer.

"I have been called many names across the centuries." The figure's Rinnegan gleamed with ancient power. "The God of Shinobi. The Sage of the Six Paths. The First Jinchūriki. But once, I was simply Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, a man who dreamed of peace."

The landscape shifted around them, transforming into scenes of ancient battles—massive creatures of pure chakra wreaking havoc, civilizations rising and falling in the span of breaths, bloodlines branching like rivers across generations.

"Your eyes," Naruto managed, transfixed by the visions. "They're the same as—"

"As the one you now carry? Yes." Hagoromo studied him with the weight of millennia behind his gaze. "Though what you possess is but a shadow of my power, diluted through bloodlines and time."

"Why am I seeing you? Is this real?"

The Sage's laugh echoed across the dreamscape. "Real? What is real, child? The chakra that flows through your body? The thoughts that shape your mind? The bonds that define your heart? All are illusion and truth simultaneously."

"I don't understand."

"You do not need to understand." Hagoromo extended a massive hand, and in his palm appeared a miniature representation of the ninja world—nations, villages, people, all rendered in glowing chakra. "You need only to see."

The world in his hand burned, consumed by darkness that spread like infection. Within the shadows, a spiral-masked figure pulled invisible strings, puppeting nations toward oblivion.

"The end approaches," the Sage intoned. "As it has before. As it always does when humanity forgets the purpose of power."

"What purpose?" Naruto demanded, frustration cutting through his awe. "Everyone keeps talking about power and pain and prophecies, but no one will just tell me what I'm supposed to DO!"

Hagoromo's expression softened slightly. "Because no one knows, child. That is the nature of prophecy—it reveals destination without mapping journey."

The vision began to fade, the Sage's immense form dissolving like mist before sunrise.

"Wait!" Naruto called desperately. "You can't just leave! I need answers!"

"What you need," Hagoromo's voice echoed as he vanished, "is to find your own truth. Between Ashura's love and Indra's power. Between the Nine-Tails' rage and your own compassion. Between Nagato's despair and Jiraiya's hope."

The world fractured around Naruto, splinters of reality falling away to reveal—

Blood. The metallic taste filled Naruto's mouth as he came back to consciousness, body convulsing on the cold floor of Nagato's chamber. Every nerve ending screamed in protest as foreign chakra rewrote his biological structure, forcing pathways to accommodate power never meant for him.

Through his left eye, he saw Konan kneeling beside him, her usually impassive face tight with concern. Through his right—through the Rinnegan—he saw her chakra network glowing blue-white against a negative image of reality, every molecule of paper chakra she commanded visible as distinct entities.

"The boy survives," she announced, glancing toward Nagato. "Barely."

"Of course he survives." Nagato's voice sounded weaker, his remaining eye sunken deeper into its socket. "He carries Uzumaki blood, as I do. Resilience is our birthright."

Uzumaki. The word penetrated Naruto's pain-fogged brain. We're related?

He tried to speak but managed only a wet cough, more blood spattering across the floor. The Rinnegan pulsed in his socket, each throb sending fresh waves of agony through his skull.

"How long?" Konan asked, pressing cool paper against Naruto's burning forehead.

"Until adaptation? Days, perhaps. Until mastery?" Nagato's gaze traveled to the wall of photographs, lingering on the image of Jiraiya with his three students. "That depends entirely on his capacity for suffering."

Naruto forced himself onto hands and knees, entire body trembling with effort. The world tilted and spun around him, reality refracted through his new dual vision. Ghostly impressions from Nagato's memories flooded his consciousness—a woman with red hair shielding a child with her body; a blue-haired girl offering a scrap of bread; a boy with orange hair laughing despite the rain.

"Make it stop," he gasped, clutching his head. "The visions—"

"Cannot be stopped," Nagato finished dispassionately. "Only endured. The Rinnegan carries the collective memory of all who bore it before you. In time, you will learn to filter the relevant from the overwhelming."

A spasm rocked Naruto's body, chakra flaring violet and orange in conflicting waves. The Nine-Tails' energy surged in response to his distress, creating a volatile mixture that threatened to tear him apart from within.

CONTROL IT! the Fox snarled in his mind. OR IT WILL DEVOUR US BOTH!

With monumental effort, Naruto focused on his breathing—in and out, each cycle slower than the last. The technique Jiraiya had taught him for accessing the Nine-Tails' chakra without losing himself to it.

Gradually, the maelstrom of energies began to settle, finding new equilibriums within his transforming body.

"There," Nagato observed, satisfaction coloring his weak voice. "He adapts already."

Konan's eyes narrowed. "Yet the chakra drain nearly killed you. Was this worth the risk, Nagato?"

"That is what we shall discover." He gestured weakly toward Naruto. "Help him up. The first lesson begins now."

"Now?" Konan's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "He can barely stand."

"There is no gentler path to power." Nagato's remaining eye fixed on Naruto with burning intensity. "Is there, child of prophecy?"

Something in that gaze—challenge, expectation, a flicker of desperate hope—sparked Naruto's stubborn determination. With shaking limbs, he pushed himself upright, refusing Konan's offered support.

Blood trickled from his new Rinnegan eye, staining his cheek crimson, but he stood on his own, glaring at Nagato with mismatched eyes—one blue as summer sky, one purple with concentric ripples of ancient power.

"I'm ready," he declared, voice raw but steady.

"No," Nagato replied, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. "But you will be."

The next seventy-two hours passed in a blur of agony and revelation. Naruto's body burned as it accommodated the Rinnegan's foreign chakra, his natural pathways expanding and restructuring. Sleep came in fitful bursts, each moment of unconsciousness filled with fragmented visions—some from Nagato's past, some from the ancient history of the Sage, some from possible futures that flashed by too quickly to grasp.

Nagato proved a merciless teacher. From his life-support cradle, he directed the Six Paths to attack Naruto relentlessly, forcing him to discover the Rinnegan's abilities through desperate survival rather than gradual instruction.

"The Deva Path," Nagato explained as the orange-haired body sent Naruto flying across the chamber with an invisible force. "Manipulation of attractive and repulsive forces. The foundation of the Six Paths' techniques."

Naruto crashed into a metal wall, blood spraying from his mouth. But something had clicked—a neural pathway connecting to the Rinnegan's knowledge. When the Deva Path attacked again, Naruto raised his hand instinctively.

"Shinra Tensei!" he gasped.

Repulsive force met repulsive force, the collision creating a spherical shockwave that shattered equipment and sent Konan's paper constructs swirling in chaotic patterns. The Deva Path slid backward several feet, its impassive face betraying no reaction to Naruto's success.

"Good," Nagato acknowledged, voice weaker than the day before. "Now the Animal Path."

Days blurred together as Naruto cycled through periods of brutal training and physical collapse. The Animal Path taught him to summon creatures linked to the Rinnegan's power. The Preta Path showed him how to absorb enemy chakra. The Asura Path revealed mechanical augmentations he could manifest with sufficient focus.

Through it all, the Nine-Tails remained surprisingly acquiescent, its chakra gradually harmonizing with the Rinnegan's power rather than fighting it. During one brief respite, Naruto confronted the Fox in his mindscape.

Why aren't you fighting this? he demanded, standing before the massive cage. I thought you hated anyone controlling your power.

The Nine-Tails' crimson eyes studied him with ancient intelligence. THE SAGE'S EYES ARE NOT CONTROL, BRAT. THEY ARE CLARITY. EVEN I CANNOT DENY THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE.

You knew the Sage of Six Paths, Naruto realized with sudden insight. Personally.

The Fox turned away, massive tails swishing irritably. SLEEP WHILE YOU CAN, VESSEL. THE REAL CHALLENGES AWAIT WHEN YOU WAKE.

When Naruto opened his eyes again, he found Konan watching him, her usual emotional armor temporarily lowered. Exhaustion lined her face, evidence of her constant vigilance as she maintained the delicate balance of chakra that kept both Naruto and Nagato alive during this dangerous transition.

"He's killing himself," she said without preamble, nodding toward Nagato's life-support cradle where he slumbered fitfully. "The strain of teaching you while his body adapts to the loss of one Rinnegan—it's too much."

Naruto pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing as his abused muscles protested. "Why is he doing this? Really?"

Konan's gaze turned distant, focused on memories rather than the present. "We were idealists once, the three of us. Yahiko, Nagato, and I. We believed peace could be achieved through understanding, through breaking cycles of hatred."

"What happened?"

"Yahiko died. Betrayed by the very powers that claimed to desire peace." Her voice remained steady, but paper petals fell around her like tears her eyes refused to shed. "Nagato broke that day. The Rinnegan's power, combined with his grief he saw a different path forward."

"Through pain," Naruto supplied.

She nodded. "Through shared trauma so profound that it would reset humanity's broken systems." Her amber eyes fixed on him suddenly. "But sometimes, in unguarded moments, I glimpse the boy he was. The one who cried for dead enemies and dreamed of a world without orphans."

"That's why he's testing me," Naruto realized, the pieces finally clicking into place. "He wants me to prove him wrong."

"Or prove him right." Konan stood in a fluid motion, paper reforming into her Akatsuki cloak. "Either way, his time grows short. Whatever you hope to learn from him, learn quickly."

She moved toward the exit, then paused. "Whatever happens, Naruto Uzumaki, remember that he chose you. Out of all the shinobi in all the nations, he saw something in you worth this sacrifice."

The weight of those words settled on Naruto's shoulders as Konan departed, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the sleeping form of his unlikely mentor.

The sixth day after the transfer, Naruto successfully manifested all six paths simultaneously—a feat Nagato claimed had taken him years to master. The Rinnegan throbbed constantly in his socket, but the pain had transformed from debilitating agony to a manageable, almost familiar presence.

"Your progress exceeds my expectations," Nagato observed from his cradle, voice barely above a whisper. The transfer and subsequent training had accelerated his deterioration, his already skeletal frame now looking positively cadaverous. "The Nine-Tails' chakra amplifies the Rinnegan's abilities in ways I hadn't anticipated."

Naruto stood before him, body marked with fresh bruises but stance confident. His right eye—the transplanted Rinnegan—glowed with steady purpose, while his left remained defiantly blue.

"I still don't understand how knowledge just appears in my head," Naruto admitted. "Techniques I've never seen before feel like memories I've always had."

"The Rinnegan contains the accumulated wisdom of all who wielded it," Nagato explained. "From the Sage himself through bloodlines even I cannot trace. It remembers what human minds forget."

A comfortable silence fell between them—student and teacher, jailor and prisoner, linked by blood and vision and the complicated legacy of Jiraiya's teachings.

"You're dying," Naruto finally said, the blunt observation characteristic of his straightforward nature.

Nagato's laugh rasped like dry leaves. "I've been dying since the day Yahiko fell. The only question is whether my vision dies with me."

"What happens now?" Naruto asked, unconsciously touching the skin beneath his Rinnegan. "You've taught me to use these powers, but not why."

"Because the 'why' cannot be taught." Nagato's emaciated hand rose weakly, pointing toward Naruto's heart. "It must be found here. In your own truth."

"And if my truth contradicts yours?"

"Then we fight." The words carried no malice, only tired acceptance. "And the stronger vision prevails."

The chamber door slid open, admitting Konan with a scroll clutched in her hands. Her expression, usually so controlled, showed clear alarm.

"Jiraiya of the Sannin has been spotted in the outer district," she announced without preamble. "With a squad of Konoha ANBU."

Nagato's remaining eye widened fractionally. "So soon? I had hoped for more time."

Naruto's heart leapt at the news. The Pervy Sage was here? Looking for him? Conflicting emotions warred within him—relief that he hadn't been abandoned, anxiety over how to explain his decision, uncertainty about where his loyalties now lay.

"Will you return to them?" Nagato asked, studying Naruto's reaction closely. "Your training is incomplete, but perhaps enough for their purposes."

The question hung in the air between them, loaded with implications. Going back now would mean abandoning whatever insights the Rinnegan might still reveal, whatever truths lay buried in Nagato's cryptic teachings. Staying meant being labeled a missing-nin, a traitor to Konoha.

Before Naruto could answer, Konan interjected. "There's more. Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki have also entered the village. They're heading this way."

"Ah." Nagato closed his eye briefly. "The organization grows impatient with my digressions."

"We should leave," Konan urged, paper already fluttering around her in defensive patterns. "The secondary facility in the eastern district—"

"No." Nagato's voice regained some of its strength. "Naruto must make his choice now. And whatever he decides, I will face my former comrades here."

The air in the chamber grew thick with tension as all eyes turned to Naruto. The boy who had left Konoha seeking power stood transformed—one eye still the innocent blue of his past, the other the hypnotic purple of a possible future. In his chakra network, the Nine-Tails' energy swirled in complex patterns with the Rinnegan's power, neither dominant, both changed by their coexistence.

"I need to find my own answers," Naruto said slowly, resolution hardening his young features. "Not Konoha's. Not Akatsuki's. Not even yours, Nagato."

He stepped forward, placing a hand on the edge of Nagato's cradle. "But I think those answers lie forward, not backward. I'm not finished here yet."

Something like pride flickered in Nagato's gaunt face. "Then let us prepare to receive our guests. All of them."

Tsunade's fist crashed into her office wall, adding another crater to the collection that marked her tenure as Hokage.

"What do you mean, 'he's found him'?" she demanded, rounding on the ANBU messenger who knelt impassively before her desk. "Is Naruto safe? Is he coming home? Damn it, speak!"

"Lady Hokage," the masked operative replied, voice carefully neutral, "Master Jiraiya's message was brief. He has located Naruto Uzumaki in Amegakure, as suspected. He described the situation as 'complicated' and requested time to assess before extraction."

"Complicated?" Tsunade's honey-colored eyes narrowed dangerously. "What the hell does that mean?"

"He did not elaborate, my lady."

Tsunade dropped into her chair, fingers massaging her temples. Nearly two months had passed since Naruto's disappearance. Two months of increasingly desperate searches, of Sakura's tearful inquiries, of Iruka's quiet, devastated acceptance, of Kakashi's uncharacteristically intense focus on finding his missing student.

Two months of Sasuke Uchiha growing even more withdrawn, his training sessions with Kakashi becoming increasingly violent, his eyes tracking the village's borders with calculating intensity.

"Jiraiya," she muttered, reaching for her hidden sake bottle, "what aren't you telling me?"

The door opened without a knock—something only one person would dare. Jiraiya's former teammate, Tsunade's trusted advisor, Danzo Shimura entered with his usual measured steps, cane tapping softly against the floorboards.

"The Nine-Tails jinchūriki has been located," he stated rather than asked, his visible eye sharp with interest. "In the company of Pain."

Tsunade dismissed the ANBU with a flick of her wrist, waiting until they were alone before responding. "Your information network remains impressive, Danzo."

"Concerning matters of village security, nothing escapes my notice." He settled into the chair opposite her desk, posture rigidly formal. "The question now becomes one of response."

"Jiraiya is handling it."

"Ah, yes. Jiraiya." Danzo's voice carried a subtle note of disapproval. "The same Jiraiya who trained the very terrorist who now holds our jinchūriki. The same Jiraiya who, I believe, has been less than forthcoming about his former student's abilities."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "Your point?"

"My point, Lady Hokage, is that perhaps more decisive action is required." Danzo leaned forward slightly. "My Root operatives could extract the boy within forty-eight hours. Cleanly. Efficiently."

"And alienate him completely," Tsunade snapped. "Naruto isn't some object to be 'extracted,' Danzo. He's a Konoha shinobi who deserves our trust."

"Is he?" Danzo's question hung in the air like a poisoned kunai. "A loyal shinobi doesn't abandon his village. Doesn't seek training from its enemies. Doesn't consort with terrorists who seek to extract and weaponize the very beast sealed within him."

Tsunade's fingers tightened around her sake cup. "He's thirteen years old."

"He's a jinchūriki." Danzo rose smoothly, his seemingly frail body belying the predatory grace with which he moved. "And if Jiraiya's whispered fears are correct, he may now possess something even more valuable than the Nine-Tails."

"The Rinnegan," Tsunade whispered, the word escaping before she could stop it.

Danzo's expression didn't change, but satisfaction radiated from him nonetheless. "So you do know."

"It's a theory. Unconfirmed speculation based on Jiraiya's reports."

"A theory that, if proven correct, changes everything." Danzo moved toward the door, each step deliberate. "The last Uzumaki, carrier of the Nine-Tails, wielder of the Rinnegan. Such a weapon cannot be left to chance, Lady Tsunade. Cannot be left to the softness of Jiraiya's sentimentality."

"Naruto is not a weapon!" Tsunade's voice cracked like thunder. "He is a child of this village, and he will be treated as such!"

Danzo paused at the threshold, looking back with his single, calculating eye. "For now, I will respect your authority in this matter. But remember—the council serves the village's interests above any individual's, even the Hokage's."

The threat lingered in the air after he departed, mixing with the scent of spilled sake and Tsunade's growing dread. She turned to the window, gazing toward the distant horizons beyond which her most unpredictable shinobi faced unknown dangers.

"Hurry, Jiraiya," she murmured. "Bring our boy home before they take the choice from both of us."

In the shadows outside her office, a pale-skinned Root operative with a blank expression melted silently into the wall, carrying every word of the exchange back to his true master.

Month One

Metal screamed against metal as the massive shuriken sliced through the air, its edges catching the pale industrial light of Amegakure's perpetual gloom. Naruto twisted, his body responding a fraction too slowly, the weapon's razor tip carving a crimson line across his cheek before embedding itself in the wall behind him.

"Too slow," Konan observed, her voice cool as rain. Paper butterflies danced between her fingertips, transforming into deadly shuriken that launched toward him in a deadly white swarm.

Naruto raised his hand instinctively, the Rinnegan blazing in his right eye. "Shinra Tensei!"

The repulsive force burst from his palm in an uncontrolled wave, scattering paper projectiles but also shattering equipment and cracking support pillars. The backlash sent him staggering, blood trickling from his nose.

"Still too much power, too little control," Nagato's voice rasped from his observation cradle. "The Deva Path isn't about strength—it's about precision."

Naruto wiped blood from his face, frustration radiating from him in palpable waves. "I'm trying! But it's like trying to direct a tsunami through a drinking straw!"

"Then become the straw," Nagato replied cryptically, skeletal fingers twitching as he manipulated the Six Paths to demonstrate. The Deva Path stepped forward, extending one hand toward a single paper butterfly Konan had left hovering. "Watch again. Feel the difference."

A focused ripple of force struck the butterfly, sending it spiraling into a perfect landing on Naruto's shoulder. Not a single object in the room disturbed.

"Chakra isn't just about volume," Konan explained, materializing beside Naruto in a swirl of paper. "It's about intent. Visualization. You're thinking like a Leaf ninja—brute force techniques designed to overwhelm. The Rinnegan requires surgical precision."

Naruto closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath that tasted of metal and ozone—the perpetual flavor of Amegakure's filtered air. When he opened them again, his blue left eye sparked with determination while the Rinnegan's concentric circles spun lazily.

"Again," he demanded.

Konan's paper butterflies transformed into a hundred lethal projectiles. This time, Naruto focused on a single point in space, visualizing a narrow channel for his power rather than an explosive burst.

"Shinra Tensei."

The words emerged as a whisper, not a shout. A focused wave of repulsive force carved a tunnel through the incoming projectiles, deflecting only those directly in his path while leaving the others to harmlessly pass.

Nagato's lips curved in the ghost of a smile. "Better. Now do it without speaking."

Night in Amegakure brought no stars, only darkness broken by the industrial glow of a city that never truly slept. In his sparse quarters—a converted storage room near Nagato's chamber—Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor, sweat beading his brow despite the room's perpetual chill.

Balanced before him were twenty kunai, suspended in mid-air by carefully controlled gravitational forces—the Deva Path's domain. The strain of maintaining such precise control turned his muscles to quivering jelly, but he refused to release the technique.

Twenty-three minutes, he counted silently. A new record.

Within his mindscape, the Nine-Tails watched with surprising interest, its massive form lounging behind the familiar bars.

YOUR CONTROL IMPROVES, BRAT, it acknowledged grudgingly. THOUGH YOUR ENDURANCE REMAINS PATHETIC.

You could help with that, Naruto shot back mentally, maintaining the external suspension with unwavering focus. Instead of just criticizing.

The Fox's laughter rumbled through his consciousness. AND WHAT WOULD YOU OFFER IN EXCHANGE?

The question caught Naruto off-guard, breaking his concentration. The kunai clattered to the floor in a discordant symphony of metal, his twenty-three-minute record ending in failure.

"Damn it!" he cursed aloud, slamming his fist into the floor.

INTERESTING, the Nine-Tails mused. THE EYE CHANGES YOU ALREADY. THE OLD NARUTO WOULD HAVE INSTANTLY PROMISED FRIENDSHIP OR SOME OTHER SENTIMENTAL NONSENSE.

Naruto blinked, realizing the Fox was right. His instinctive response once would have been exactly that—some passionate declaration about bonds and trust. Instead, he'd found himself calculating, weighing options, considering what the Fox might value.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked aloud, retrieving the scattered kunai.

The Nine-Tails' answer came after a considering pause. MERELY EVOLUTIONARY.

Month Two

"Faster! Adapt or die!"

Konan's command cracked like a whip as the Animal Path summoned a massive rhinoceros that charged across the training ground, its horn aimed directly at Naruto's heart. The creature's feet barely touched the puddle-strewn concrete before a massive centipede erupted from the ground beneath it, Naruto's own summoning coiling around the rhino in a crushing embrace.

Sweat poured down his face, his extended hand trembling with effort as he maintained control over the chakra-constructed beast. The Rinnegan glowed with purple fire in his right socket, its power feeding directly into the summoning technique.

"Good," Nagato acknowledged from his observation point. "Now dismiss it and summon something larger."

"Larger?" Naruto gasped, already at his limit. "Like what?"

"Like something that can survive this."

The Deva Path raised both hands toward the chamber's ceiling, which peeled back to reveal Amegakure's perpetually weeping sky. The rain suddenly reversed direction, droplets rising instead of falling, gathering into a massive sphere of water that hovered ominously above the exposed training ground.

Naruto's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

Nagato's gaunt face remained impassive. "Pain is still your greatest teacher."

The water sphere plummeted downward with catastrophic force. In the split-second before impact, Naruto's hands flashed through seals, the Rinnegan burning with desperate power.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

A massive explosion of smoke enveloped the training ground. When it cleared, a colossal ox-headed creature with tentacle-like arms stood over Naruto, its broad back taking the full impact of the water sphere. The liquid exploded outward in a circular wave that drenched everything within fifty meters.

Naruto staggered, falling to one knee but maintaining the summoning. Blood trickled from his Rinnegan eye, but triumph blazed in his face.

"I did it! I summoned one of the Six Paths' creatures without your help!"

For a fleeting instant, something like pride crossed Nagato's wasted features. Then it vanished, replaced by his usual clinical detachment.

"Adequate," he conceded. "You're beginning to understand the Animal Path. Tomorrow, we begin work on the Preta Path's absorption techniques."

Konan materialized beside Nagato's cradle, concern evident in her usually stoic expression. "He needs rest. His chakra networks are still adapting to the Rinnegan's demands."

"There is no rest in evolution," Nagato countered, but his voice lacked conviction. His own condition had deteriorated visibly in the weeks since transferring his eye to Naruto, his remaining Rinnegan sunken deeper into its socket, his breathing more labored.

Naruto dismissed his summoning, approaching Nagato's cradle with steady steps despite his exhaustion. "She's right. You're pushing too hard—not just me, but yourself."

Nagato's eye narrowed. "Compassion for your enemy? Jiraiya's influence remains strong in you."

"Is that what we are? Enemies?" Naruto's mismatched eyes—one blue, one purple—fixed on Nagato with unexpected intensity. "Then why are you teaching me? Why am I learning? Why haven't we tried to kill each other yet?"

The question hung in the rain-heavy air, neither man willing to articulate the uncomfortable truth forming between them—that student and teacher, captor and captive, had begun to recognize something of themselves in the other.

"Rest," Nagato finally conceded. "Two hours. Then we continue."

Month Three

"Again! Feel the pathway open!"

Naruto stood opposite the Preta Path, arms extended as a torrent of fire—Konan's paper transformed and ignited—roared toward him. Instead of dodging, he held his ground, face serene in the approaching inferno.

The flames touched his skin and vanished. Disappeared into his body as though sucked into another dimension. Not a spark reached his clothing, not a hair singed on his head.

"Yes!" Nagato's encouragement echoed in the chamber. "Absorption complete!"

Naruto lowered his arms, body humming with the absorbed energy. Three months of intensive training had transformed him—his frame leaner but corded with dense muscle, his movements precise where they had once been impulsive, his chakra control refined to microscopic precision.

But the physical changes paled compared to the evolution in his eyes. The Rinnegan now activated and deactivated at will, the concentric purple rings appearing when he channeled its power, receding to leave his natural blue iris when at rest. More striking was his gaze itself—sharper, more calculating, retaining Naruto's inherent compassion but now tempered with something colder. More analytical.

"The Preta Path grants immunity from ninjutsu attacks," Konan explained, materializing new paper constructs around her. "But the absorption has limits—exceed them, and your chakra network ruptures."

"How will I know my limit?" Naruto asked, rolling his shoulders in preparation for the next onslaught.

Nagato's dry laugh rattled from his cradle. "When you explode."

Before Naruto could respond, the chamber door slid open. A Rain ninja entered, kneeling immediately before Nagato's cradle.

"Lord Pain, we've captured Leaf Village spies at the western border. Three jōnin-level shinobi carrying communications scrolls. They request audience with the jinchūriki."

Naruto's head snapped up. "Leaf ninja? Here for me?"

"Inevitable," Nagato sighed. "Your village grows impatient with your absence."

"What will you do with them?" Naruto asked, tension evident in every line of his body.

Nagato studied him with his single Rinnegan. "What would you do with them, I wonder? Three months ago, the answer would have been predictable. Now "

The unspoken challenge hung between them. Three months of absorbing Nagato's philosophy alongside his techniques had planted seeds of doubt in Naruto's once-absolute worldview. The binary morality of Konoha—where the village was always right and its enemies always wrong—had blurred at the edges.

"I want to speak with them," Naruto decided, meeting Nagato's gaze without flinching. "Alone."

"And if they try to take you back by force?"

A flicker of purple chakra danced around Naruto's fingertips, the Rinnegan momentarily activating in response to his emotions. "Then they'll discover I'm not the same genin who left Konoha."

The Leaf jōnin had been brought to a secure interrogation room—three seasoned shinobi with weathered faces and wary eyes. They rose as one when Naruto entered, their expressions cycling through recognition, relief, and then shock as they registered the changes in him.

"Naruto Uzumaki," the leader acknowledged, a scarred veteran with intelligence division insignia. "Lady Hokage sent us to establish contact. Are you being held against your will?"

Naruto leaned against the wall, arms crossed, studying them with an unnerving directness that made the jōnin shift uncomfortably. Gone was the hyperactive, orange-clad genin they'd expected. In his place stood someone older than his years, dressed in Rain Village attire of muted blues and grays, a single streak of orange binding his forehead where a headband should have been.

"I'm here by choice," he answered finally. "Tell Tsunade-baachan I'm fine."

"Fine?" The female jōnin stepped forward, disbelief evident. "You're consorting with S-rank criminals who've attacked our village! With the man who possesses the Rinnegan and leads an organization hunting jinchūriki like you!"

Naruto's right eye flashed purple momentarily, gone so quickly the jōnin might have imagined it. "There's more happening here than Konoha understands. Nagato—Pain—is not what the Bingo Book claims."

"He's brainwashed you," the third jōnin growled. "We're taking you home, kid. Orders from the Hokage herself."

Naruto sighed, pushing off from the wall. "No. You're not."

The three jōnin tensed, hands moving toward weapons. Before they could draw, Naruto's palm extended outward.

"Shinra Tensei."

The three elite ninja slammed against the far wall, pinned by invisible force. Their eyes bulged with shock as Naruto approached, his right eye now fully transformed into the Rinnegan, purple light casting eerie shadows across his face.

"Tell Tsunade-baachan I'm learning things I need to know. Tell her I'm coming back eventually, but not yet." His voice softened slightly. "And tell Sakura and the others I'm sorry for leaving the way I did. It was the only way."

The pressure relented, allowing the jōnin to slide to the floor, gasping for breath. They stared at Naruto with newfound fear, the reality of his transformation impossible to deny.

"The Rinnegan," the leader whispered. "He gave it to you?"

"Not gave. Shared." Naruto deactivated the dōjutsu, his eye returning to its natural blue. "Go back to Konoha. Tell them what you've seen. And tell Jiraiya-sensei tell him I finally understand what he's been trying to teach me all along."

Month Four

"Focus! The Asura Path allows mechanical manipulation of your own body. Visualization is key!"

Naruto knelt in the center of the training ground, concentration etched in every line of his face. His right arm trembled, flesh rippling as the Rinnegan's power flowed through him, attempting to manifest the Asura Path's mechanical augmentations.

Metal plates erupted from his skin, reforming his forearm into a complex mechanical device that hummed with chakra. His fingers transformed into pointed projectiles, ready to launch.

"Now!" Konan commanded.

Naruto's transformed arm whirred to life, firing the finger-missiles with pinpoint precision. Each projectile struck its target—training dummies arranged at increasing distances—penetrating vital points with surgical accuracy.

"Excellent," Nagato approved, his voice weaker than the previous week, his body requiring more frequent returns to his life-support cradle. "You've mastered four paths now. The Human Path and Naraka Path remain."

Naruto released the transformation, watching with fascination as his arm returned to normal flesh. No scars remained, no evidence of the mechanical marvel it had become seconds earlier.

"The Human Path extracts souls," he recited, recalling Nagato's earlier lessons. "The Naraka Path judges truth and restores bodies. Both deal with life and death itself."

"Yes." Nagato's remaining eye fixed on him with disturbing intensity. "But I wonder if you're prepared for their moral implications. To extract a soul is to kill in the most absolute way possible. To judge with the Naraka Path is to play god."

Naruto's expression hardened. "I won't use those paths. Not for combat. Maybe not ever."

"So certain of your moral boundaries," Nagato observed, voice neutral but eyes calculating. "Even now, after everything you've seen. Everything you've learned about the world's true nature."

A tense silence stretched between them, broken only by the ever-present drumming of rain against the facility's metal skin.

"You asked me once to find a third path," Naruto said finally. "Neither endless war nor catastrophic peace. I can't find it by becoming what you are."

Something like respect flickered in Nagato's gaunt face. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you simply fear the conclusion such power inevitably leads to."

"I don't fear the power," Naruto countered, rising to his feet. "I fear losing sight of why I wanted power in the first place."

Konan, who had remained silent during this exchange, stepped forward unexpectedly. "There was a time when Nagato said similar things. Before Yahiko's death changed everything."

"Konan." Nagato's voice carried warning, but she continued regardless.

"Show him," she insisted, amber eyes challenging her oldest friend. "Show him what we were before we became Akatsuki. Before the organization was corrupted."

Nagato held her gaze for a long moment before sighing in defeat. "Perhaps it is time."

He gestured weakly, and the Deva Path approached a concealed panel in the chamber wall. When it slid aside, Naruto found himself staring at a collection of artifacts carefully preserved behind glass—a tattered banner bearing an unfamiliar symbol, three rain headbands arranged in a triangle, and most prominently, a dog-eared manifesto titled simply "A World Without Orphans."

"Before Pain, before the Six Paths, before Akatsuki became hunters of jinchūriki," Nagato explained, voice taking on the cadence of remembrance, "we were revolutionaries of a different kind. Idealists who believed peace could come through understanding rather than fear."

Naruto approached the display, drawn to a faded photograph showing three teenagers—a younger Nagato with both Rinnegan intact, Konan without her paper flower, and between them, an orange-haired boy with a confident smile and kind eyes.

"Yahiko," Naruto whispered, recognizing the face from his Rinnegan-induced visions.

"Our leader. Our heart." Nagato's voice softened with grief decades old yet still raw. "He founded the original Akatsuki as a response to the Third Shinobi War. While the Five Great Nations battled for supremacy, smaller countries like Rain became their battlegrounds. We were children orphaned by their conflicts, determined to create a world where no more children would suffer our fate."

"What happened?" Naruto asked, though part of him already knew the answer from fragments of Nagato's memories that had transferred with the Rinnegan.

"Hanzo of the Salamander happened," Konan replied, bitterness edging her voice. "He feared our growing influence and allied with Danzo Shimura of Konoha's Root to eliminate us."

Naruto's head snapped up. "Danzo? From Konoha?"

"Your village's shadow," Nagato confirmed. "The darkness behind the Hokage's light. They orchestrated a 'peace conference' that was actually an ambush. Captured Konan. Forced me to choose between watching her die or killing Yahiko myself."

Horror spread across Naruto's face as the full memory suddenly unfolded in his mind's eye—transferred through the Rinnegan like a movie playing in brutal clarity: Yahiko impaling himself on Nagato's kunai, choosing suicide over allowing his friend to be forced to murder him.

"Yahiko chose a third option," Nagato continued, watching recognition dawn in Naruto's expression. "He died by his own will, using my hand as his instrument. In that moment, everything I believed shattered. Everything Jiraiya taught us about peace through understanding revealed itself as naïve fantasy."

Naruto staggered under the weight of the shared memory, feeling Nagato's past grief as though it were his own. "So you became Pain."

"I became truth," Nagato corrected. "I discarded comforting lies about human nature. Embraced the reality that only through suffering do people change. Only through fear do nations cooperate."

"And the current Akatsuki? The jinchūriki hunt?"

Nagato and Konan exchanged a glance laden with unspoken complexities.

"A means to an end," Nagato replied carefully. "Though not precisely the end our current allies believe they're working toward."

Before Naruto could press for clarification, a mechanical chime sounded throughout the facility. Konan tensed, paper already fluttering around her in defensive formation.

"We have visitors," she announced. "Unwelcome ones."

Month Five

"Concentrate! Feel the nature of their chakra!"

Naruto stood perfectly still in the center of Nagato's chamber, eyes closed in meditation. Around him, five of the Six Paths maintained defensive positions while Konan's paper constructs patrolled the room's perimeter.

The security breach the previous month had changed everything. Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki had penetrated deep into Amegakure's defenses before being detected, their objective unclear but their intent undeniably hostile. Only Konan's paper ocean technique had forced their retreat, and even then, Itachi's parting words had left them all unsettled:

"The eyes were never meant for either of you. When the time comes, they will return to their rightful bloodline."

Since then, Nagato had accelerated Naruto's training, focusing on sensory perception and defensive techniques. The Rinnegan's ability to detect chakra signatures at vast distances became their priority—an early warning system against future Akatsuki incursions.

"There," Naruto murmured, the Rinnegan active behind closed lids. "Western district. Near the industrial sector. Two signatures no, three. One's suppressed but massive."

"Describe them," Nagato commanded, his voice barely audible. The confrontation with his former Akatsuki comrades had drained what little reserves he'd maintained, forcing him to spend twenty hours daily in full life support.

"First one feels like paper cuts. Thousands of them. Sharp, precise." Naruto's brow furrowed in concentration. "That's one of Konan's shadow clones. Second one is plant-like? Divided somehow, like two chakra signatures occupying the same space."

Konan's eyes narrowed. "Zetsu. Black and White halves sharing one body. Akatsuki's spy master."

"And the third?" Nagato pressed, tension evident even in his weakened state.

Naruto's face contorted with effort. "It's strange spiraling, but contained. Powerful but hidden behind some kind of mask or barrier. It feels ancient but also not? I can't explain it better."

Nagato and Konan exchanged alarmed glances.

"Madara," Nagato whispered, the name falling like a death sentence.

"Or whoever uses that name," Konan added cryptically. "We need to move you both. The secondary facility—"

"No," Nagato interrupted. "Running only delays the inevitable confrontation. Better to choose our battlefield than have it forced upon us."

Naruto opened his eyes, the Rinnegan's purple glow casting shadows across his face. Five months of intensive training had transformed him completely from the boy who had left Konoha. His frame had elongated, approaching his full adult height well ahead of schedule—a side effect of the Rinnegan's chakra accelerating his physical development. His once-round face had sharpened into angled planes that hinted at the man he would become, while his spiky blonde hair had grown longer, occasionally falling across his eyes in a manner reminiscent of the Fourth Hokage.

But the most profound changes lay beneath the surface. The impulsive, wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve genin had evolved into something more controlled, more deliberate. Not cold—Naruto's fundamental warmth remained his core—but tempered, like fine steel folded and refolded in a master's forge.

"You still haven't told me everything about Akatsuki," Naruto challenged, fixing Nagato with a penetrating stare. "About who really controls it. About the masked man who calls himself Madara Uchiha."

"Because some knowledge is its own danger," Nagato replied evasively. "Some truths are better discovered than gifted."

"That's not good enough anymore." Naruto stepped closer to Nagato's cradle, authority resonating in his voice. "They're coming for both of us. For the Rinnegan. For the Nine-Tails. I deserve to know why."

Konan's paper butterflies swirled agitatedly. "Nagato, he's right. The time for half-truths has passed."

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the mechanical hum of Nagato's life support and the eternal rain drumming against metal.

"Very well," Nagato conceded finally. "But understand that what I tell you will change everything you believe about the world and its history."

"I'm listening," Naruto said, settling cross-legged before Nagato's cradle.

"The man who calls himself Madara Uchiha approached me after Yahiko's death," Nagato began, voice taking on the quality of a confession long delayed. "He found me at my weakest, my most broken. Offered perspective that aligned with my newfound hatred of the world. Helped me develop the Six Paths technique using Yahiko's body as the first vessel."

"He manipulated your grief," Naruto observed, pieces clicking into place.

"Yes. Though I allowed the manipulation willingly." Nagato's skeletal hand emerged from his life-support fluid, forming a weak fist. "He revealed a plan—gather all nine Tailed Beasts to recreate the Ten-Tails, use its power to cast an Infinite Tsukuyomi upon the world."

"A genjutsu?" Naruto's brow furrowed. "Covering the entire world?"

"A dream of perfect peace," Nagato clarified. "Where every person lives in an illusion of their ideal reality. No war. No suffering. No loss."

"That's not peace," Naruto objected immediately. "That's prison."

"Precisely why I privately developed an alternative approach." Nagato's eye gleamed with the fervor of long-held conviction. "The masked man believes I serve his vision. In truth, I intended to use the collected Tailed Beasts for my own design—a weapon of such devastating power that nations would be forced to cooperate or face extinction."

"Mutually assured destruction," Naruto murmured, the concept crystallizing in his mind. "But how is that any better? You're still threatening mass death!"

"Because my plan permits choice," Nagato countered. "Imperfect, painful, human choice. His permits none—only endless dreams while reality rots around empty shells."

Konan interjected softly, "Neither path leads to the world Yahiko envisioned. Neither honors what we once were."

An uncomfortable silence descended as Naruto absorbed these revelations, the enormity of the cosmic chess game he'd stumbled into finally becoming clear.

"Why tell me this now?" he finally asked.

Nagato's lips curved in a mirthless smile. "Because my time grows short. Because the Rinnegan chose you for reasons even I don't fully comprehend. Because maybe—just maybe—Jiraiya was right about you all along."

Month Six

"Again! Push past the limit!"

The Nine-Tails' chakra erupted around Naruto in a blazing orange shroud, three spectral tails whipping behind him. Simultaneously, the Rinnegan flared in his right eye, its purple energy creating an uncanny violet aura where the two chakras merged.

For months they had worked toward this moment—the perfect synchronization of the Nine-Tails' raw power with the Rinnegan's divine precision. The chamber, reinforced with Nagato's strongest sealing techniques, still groaned under the pressure of the combined energies.

"Now channel it!" Konan commanded from behind a protective barrier of thousand-fold paper. "All six paths simultaneously!"

Naruto extended his arms, body becoming the conduit for powers that would have incinerated a lesser vessel. The Six Paths themselves stood in formation around him—not as Nagato's puppets now, but as templates, models for the techniques Naruto was integrating into his own body.

"Deva Path!" A wave of gravitational force erupted outward, controlled and precise.

"Animal Path!" Summoning circles appeared beneath his feet, chakra constructs of impossible creatures taking shape.

"Preta Path!" The very air around him distorted as he absorbed ambient chakra from the environment.

"Asura Path!" His left arm transformed into a mechanical marvel bristling with weapons.

"Human Path!" Spectral energy formed around his right hand, capable of extracting souls but held in perfect check.

"Naraka Path!" The terrifying visage of the King of Hell manifested behind him, jaw open but restrained from judgment.

All six techniques, all six manifestations of the Rinnegan's power, balanced in perfect harmony with the Nine-Tails' chakra. Where once these energies would have fought each other for dominance, now they flowed together in a symphony of controlled destruction.

The Fox's voice resonated in Naruto's mind, unexpected approval coloring its ancient tones: IMPRESSIVE, BRAT. EVEN THE OLD SAGE WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THIS MASTERY.

Energy surged through the chamber in concentric waves, the culmination of six months of relentless training, of pain embraced and transcended, of limits shattered and reforged. In that moment, Naruto Uzumaki was neither fully human nor entirely divine—but something new, something unprecedented in the shinobi world.

Gradually, he released the techniques one by one, the tremendous energies receding like a tide returning to the ocean. When the final manifestation dissolved, he stood in the center of the chamber, body steaming but unharmed, control absolute.

Even Konan's perpetual stoicism cracked at the display, something like wonder crossing her refined features. "He's done it. He's actually harmonized them."

From his life-support cradle, now permanently installed in the chamber, Nagato watched with complex emotions warring in his gaunt face—pride, envy, hope, fear, and something deeper, more primal. Recognition.

"The prophecy," he whispered, voice so weak it barely carried across the chamber. "The child who would remake the world or destroy it."

Naruto approached his mentor, concern replacing triumph as he took in Nagato's deteriorating condition. Six months of intensive training had accelerated the emaciated man's decline. His skin had taken on a translucent quality, blue veins visible beneath its paper-thin surface. His remaining Rinnegan, once bright with power, now struggled to maintain its purple luminescence.

"You're dying," Naruto stated simply, no question in his voice.

"I've been dying since Yahiko fell," Nagato replied, echoing words spoken months earlier. "The difference is, now I can see what comes after."

"I won't let you die," Naruto insisted, the stubborn determination that defined his core personality flaring through his newfound control. "There has to be a medical jutsu, some technique—"

"Always seeking to save everyone." Nagato's laugh dissolved into a wet cough. "Some lessons even the Rinnegan couldn't teach you, it seems."

Konan materialized beside them, her customary detachment failing to mask her grief. "The suppressants for the chakra rods have stopped working. His nervous system is shutting down."

Naruto's fists clenched at his sides. "There has to be something—"

"There is," Nagato interrupted, a new urgency entering his fading voice. "Time to prepare. The masked Madara grows suspicious of my divided loyalties. Zetsu's appearance last month was reconnaissance, not coincidence. They will come for both of us soon."

"Then we'll fight them together," Naruto declared.

"No." Nagato's skeletal hand emerged from the life-support fluid, grasping Naruto's wrist with surprising strength. "You must return to Konoha."

The command hit Naruto like a physical blow. "What? After everything—after six months—you're just sending me back?"

"Not empty-handed." Nagato's gaze intensified. "You return with the Rinnegan. With knowledge of Akatsuki's true plan. With power to challenge gods."

"But alone," Naruto countered bitterly.

"Never alone." Konan's voice softened unexpectedly. "The lessons we've taught, the bond we've formed—these travel with you."

Nagato's grip tightened fractionally. "Listen carefully, Naruto Uzumaki. When I am gone, Konan will continue to protect Amegakure. But you—you must carry the torch we once held. The original Akatsuki's dream of peace through understanding, not fear."

"You're asking me to fight them?" Naruto stared in disbelief. "Akatsuki? The masked Madara? Alone?"

"I'm asking you to find what I could not." Nagato's voice grew fainter with each word. "The third path. Neither endless war nor false peace. The path Jiraiya always believed possible."

Before Naruto could respond, the chamber's alarm system blared to life, red lights pulsing in sync with the wailing siren. Konan's paper constructs immediately fanned out in defensive formation.

"Perimeter breach," she announced, voice tight with tension. "Multiple infiltrators. Southern quadrant."

Nagato's eye closed briefly in resignation. "They've come. Earlier than expected."

"Who?" Naruto demanded, the Rinnegan activating instinctively in response to his agitation.

"Konoha," Konan replied, paper already transforming into deadly weapons around her. "And Akatsuki. Simultaneously."

Nagato's dry laugh rattled in his chest. "Perfect symmetry. Your past and your future, converging at the crossroads of your present."

The chamber door burst open, a Rain ninja staggering through with a kunai embedded in his shoulder. "Lord Pain! The village is under attack from multiple fronts! Leaf ANBU have penetrated the outer districts, and two Akatsuki members—Uchiha and Hoshigaki—have breached the inner sanctum!"

"Evacuate the civilian sectors," Konan commanded, instantly shifting to battle mode. "Initiate rain sensory barrier at maximum intensity."

The ninja nodded and vanished in a puff of smoke. Konan turned to Nagato, silent communication passing between them before she addressed Naruto.

"This facility will become a battlefield within minutes. You must decide now where you stand—with us, with Konoha, or on your own path."

Naruto opened his mouth to respond when a second alarm—deeper, more urgent—echoed through the chamber. Nagato's expression shifted to one of genuine alarm.

"God Realm breach," he whispered. "He's here."

"Who?" Naruto demanded.

The answer came not from Nagato but from a swirling distortion in the air itself—a spiraling vortex from which emerged a figure in Akatsuki robes. An orange mask with a single eye-hole concealed his face, revealing nothing but the gleam of a Sharingan spinning lazily in the darkness within.

"My errant disciple," the masked figure spoke, voice unexpectedly light despite its underlying menace. "And his new protégé. How disappointing."

"Madara," Nagato acknowledged, straightening as much as his weakened body allowed. "Or should I address you by your true name?"

The masked man tilted his head quizzically. "Dangerous knowledge to share, Nagato. Especially with our host's jinchūriki. I expected better judgment from my most devoted apostle."

"Your apostle?" Naruto stepped forward, placing himself between the intruder and Nagato's cradle. "He was never yours. He just let you think he was."

"Ah, the Uzumaki boy speaks." The masked Madara turned his attention to Naruto, the single Sharingan eye focusing with disturbing intensity. "With such confidence, too. What charming nonsense has Nagato filled your head with? Peace through understanding? The redemptive power of pain? Or has he revealed the ultimate truth—that this world is nothing but an empty shell waiting to be rewritten?"

Chakra flared around Naruto—orange and purple intertwining in perfect harmony. The Rinnegan blazed in his right eye, matching the intensity of the intruder's Sharingan.

"He taught me enough to know you're nothing but a manipulator," Naruto growled. "Using others' pain to fuel your own sick vision."

"Vision," the masked man repeated, amusement coloring his tone. "An interesting choice of words from one wearing a borrowed eye."

He stepped forward, and space itself seemed to bend around him. "That Rinnegan belongs in worthier hands than either of yours. When I take it—along with the Nine-Tails—the circle will finally close."

Konan's paper surged forward in a tidal wave of lethal edges. "You'll take nothing!"

The attack passed harmlessly through the masked figure as though he were made of air itself. He tutted with mock disappointment.

"Always so predictable, Konan. Your devotion to Nagato blinds you to the futility of resistance."

While they faced off, a new commotion erupted from the corridor—shouts, explosions, the distinctive sound of Kisame's Samehada sword devouring chakra. The battle was moving closer.

Nagato's voice cut through the chaos, addressing Naruto directly. "The time for instruction is over. The time for choice is now."

Naruto stood at the crossroads—Konoha's forces approaching from one direction, Akatsuki closing in from another, the masked Madara before him, and his dying mentor behind him. Six months of training, of philosophical debates, of slowly understanding the cosmic game being played across the shinobi world, crystallized into perfect clarity.

"I choose my own path," he declared, chakra surging around him in a protective shell. "Not yours. Not Konoha's. Not even Nagato's."

The masked man chuckled. "Brave words from a child playing with powers beyond his comprehension."

"I comprehend enough," Naruto countered, hands forming a seal Jiraiya had taught him long ago—a transportation technique keyed to Konoha's outer borders. "Enough to know this isn't the day or place for our real battle."

"You can't escape me," the masked Madara warned, Sharingan spinning faster.

"He doesn't need to."

Nagato's voice, suddenly stronger than it had been in months, filled the chamber. The Six Paths, which had stood immobile during the confrontation, suddenly surged to life, moving with perfect coordination to surround the masked intruder.

"I still have enough strength for one final lesson," Nagato declared, his remaining Rinnegan blazing with renewed purpose. "Go, Naruto! Return to Konoha. Prepare for what comes next!"

"I won't leave you to die!" Naruto protested.

"My death was written long ago," Nagato replied, a genuine smile transforming his gaunt features. "What matters is what lives on after me. The will of fire Jiraiya spoke of—I see it in you now."

Konan's paper formed a barrier between Naruto and the others. "Go! We'll hold them back!"

The masked Madara's posture shifted from casual arrogance to battle-readiness. "This changes nothing. The Nine-Tails will be mine. The Rinnegan will return to Uchiha hands. The Infinite Tsukuyomi will become reality."

"Not while I breathe," Nagato vowed, the Six Paths launching a coordinated attack that forced even the masked man to defend himself.

In that moment of distraction, Naruto made his decision. Hands flashing through seals, he prepared the transportation jutsu that would return him to Fire Country's borders. But before activating it, he locked eyes one final time with Nagato—student and teacher, jinchūriki and Rinnegan-bearer, two souls connected by shared pain and shared vision.

"I'll find it," Naruto promised. "The third path. The way forward."

Nagato nodded once, understanding passing between them. "When next we meet, it will be in a better world—or in oblivion."

The transportation jutsu activated in a flash of yellow light reminiscent of the Fourth Hokage's famed technique. The last thing Naruto saw before the world dissolved around him was Nagato rising from his life-support cradle through sheer force of will, the Six Paths rallying around him for one final, glorious stand against the masked harbinger of false peace.

"What do you mean, 'lost contact'?" Tsunade demanded, sake cup cracking in her white-knuckled grip. "We had six ANBU squads in Amegakure!"

The elite Black Ops captain knelt before her desk, mask concealing all emotion. "Communication seals went silent simultaneously. Last report indicated they had penetrated to Pain's inner sanctum where Uzumaki was being held. Then nothing."

Tsunade's honey-colored eyes narrowed dangerously. "Jiraiya?"

"No contact in seventy-two hours, Lady Hokage."

Shizune clutched Tonton tighter to her chest, worry etched across her features. "This was supposed to be a simple extraction mission. In and out with Naruto before Akatsuki realized—"

The office door burst open, an ANBU sentry materializing in a blur of movement. "Lady Hokage! The western border patrol reports—"

Whatever the report was, it died on the operative's lips as Tsunade's office window exploded inward in a shower of glass. A figure wreathed in swirling orange and purple chakra landed in a crouch amidst the debris, rising slowly to reveal features both familiar and transformed.

"Naruto," Tsunade breathed, shock rendering her momentarily speechless.

He stood before them—taller, leaner, dressed in clothing that blended Amegakure's utilitarian style with subtle orange accents that marked him unmistakably as Naruto Uzumaki. His face had lost its childish roundness, cheekbones more pronounced, jaw more defined. His blonde hair hung longer around his face, framing mismatched eyes—one Konoha blue, the other

"The Rinnegan," Shizune gasped, stepping back involuntarily. "It's true."

Naruto surveyed the room with unsettling calm, taking in the shocked expressions, the battle-ready ANBU, the scattered mission reports detailing Konoha's clandestine operations in Amegakure. When he finally spoke, his voice carried new depth, new authority that silenced even Tsunade's imminent explosion.

"We need to talk," he stated simply. "About Akatsuki. About the masked man calling himself Madara Uchiha. About the war that's coming for all of us."

Tsunade recovered her composure, gesturing sharply for the ANBU to stand down. "Six months, Naruto. Six months without word. Six months consorting with S-rank criminals who've attacked our village repeatedly."

"Six months learning what I needed to know." His right eye—the Rinnegan—pulsed with purple light. "Six months preparing for what comes next."

Before Tsunade could respond, a second ANBU operative materialized in the doorway, tension radiating from every line of his body.

"Lady Hokage—urgent intelligence from the Land of Sound border. Sasuke Uchiha has been confirmed to have left with Orochimaru. Three Konoha pursuit teams have already been neutralized attempting to intercept."

The news hit Naruto like a physical blow, the calm façade cracking to reveal the boy still present beneath the transformed exterior. "Sasuke left? When?"

"Yesterday," the ANBU reported. "Intelligence suggests Orochimaru offered power—specifically, power to counter the Rinnegan."

Understanding dawned in Naruto's mismatched eyes—understanding and determination that hardened his features into something older, something forged in the crucible of Nagato's harsh tutelage and his own indomitable will.

"Then everything changes," he declared, the Rinnegan glowing with newfound purpose. "Starting now."

The rain pounded against Konoha's windows, an echo of the deluge he'd left behind in Amegakure, where a dying god fought a masked pretender for the future of a world teetering on the brink of catastrophe—a world Naruto Uzumaki had returned to save, wielding power in his right eye that no Leaf shinobi had possessed since the dawn of the ninja world.

The metamorphosis was complete. What emerged from its chrysalis was neither the boy who had left nor the god his mentor had become—but something new, something unprecedented.

Something with the power to change everything.