Once the last of the Pains was down, literally taken half out of his reality, Sukuna was left there standing with a feeling of hollowness inside him.
He knew the fight wouldn't be that interesting, but he was even more disappointed. Sighing, he turned towards the tallest building still standing in the Hidden Rain Village.
That was where Pain should be.
He made his way towards that, ready to just end this farce. He tore through the building with almost no resistance, the walls, doors, and whatever remained between him and Nagato proving to be little more than an inconvenience as he moved deeper inside.
Annoyed at the disappointing fight, he mostly forgot about his usually refined, low-key approach towards things and cut down anything between him and Nagato, including his building's otherwise very impressive door. It was an entire iron door.
Even Konoha has a wooden main door, and this place got an iron one. Can anyone explain how come?
By no means was he subtle in his approach, and since he didn't get to do this often, he was enjoying playing villain for once.
By the time he reached the tippy-top of the tallest building of the big boss hideout, he was expecting to finally find the real Nagato, the crippled man connected to that massive network of chakra rods and machinery, just as he remembered from the original story.
That should have happened, right?
Nope.
The moment he entered the final chamber, Sukuna's steps slowed to a stop.
He didn't see a half-skeleton ready to kick the bucket in the most advanced chair this world had to offer. Nope. He saw someone entirely different.
This wasn't the Nagato he was expecting. Standing there was a man with long red hair, healthy flesh, and a body that looked completely intact, with the unmistakable Rinnegan staring directly back at him.
His brain for a second thought it was hacked. Was it lagging or something? Did his butterfly effect somehow make the villain stronger?
How?
There were no signs of the emaciated, crippled figure Sukuna remembered. This Nagato looked young, strong, and, more importantly, completely healed.
He barely had time to digest the situation before Nagato's eyes locked onto him and the air around him violently distorted.
"SHINRA TENSEI!"
The gravitational force exploded outward without warning, hitting Sukuna head-on with enough power to rip him off his feet and send his entire body violently crashing backward through the wall he had just entered through.
He was just slightly delayed at using his Kamui because of his shock. Good thing he had also worked on his reinforcement.
The surrounding structure groaned under the force as rubble exploded outward, while Sukuna disappeared into the debris. For the first time since entering the building, his expression wasn't bored. It was still calm, but his eyes had sharpened considerably as he caught himself before being thrown even farther away.
"Okay… finally something interesting."
-x-
[A few Minutes Ago]
Nagato felt it the instant the last Path under his control and arguably the most important one, since the Deva Path's body was Yahiko's body, disconnected from him.
The sickening silence where it felt almost like a piece of himself should have still been transmitting sensation back to his real body, and it wasn't.
Gone. All six of them gone, in the span of minutes, against a boy he hadn't even properly measured yet.
'Who is this Shinobi?' His normally dead eyes finally showed some emotion. It wasn't fear, not even that much of a surprise, but hesitation.
Hesitation that perhaps he wouldn't be able to achieve the dream Yahiko once dreamed of. This might as well be the first real defeat he had really faced ever since he had lost Yahiko and had finally started using his Rinnegan to its full extent.
His breath rattled thin in his throat, chest heaving against the weight of tubes and rods keeping his real body upright in the chair. He'd never actually needed to fight personally, not like this. He basically can't. He can't even so much as get up from his place and get a cup of water for himself without his puppets, and now all of them were gone.
"No, no… I can't lose here. Our dream, Yahiko's dream. I can't let it end like this."
'Think,' he told himself, though panic was already crowding out anything close to a clear strategy. Because he was certain that if that boy knew so much about his powers, then him knowing that his real body wasn't among those six Paths of Pain would not be that out of the ordinary.
He had no idea who could have leaked all that intel. It couldn't be anyone from Akatsuki, can't be. Even the other members of his own organization don't know what he is capable of, not entirely.
Only Konan…
No, no… she would never, absolutely not. So…
His mind went to two others.
Zetsu and Madara. It's most likely, though even they shouldn't know everything about his eyes and all of his powers, but they make the most sense.
'It has to be…' he thought, but unfortunately, he didn't get much time for that either.
"You're going to die sitting there," a voice said, low and unhurried, drifting out from somewhere in the shadowed corner of the chamber rather than anywhere close enough to actually be seen. Black Zetsu never stepped fully into the light — hadn't survived this long doing something as careless as that, not with a monster like this currently tearing through the district outside. "What are you planning on doing, Nagato?"
"Zetsu." Nagato's voice came out rougher than he wanted it to. "Where is Madara!"
"Watching. Same as always," Zetsu stated with a plain tone, but there was clearly a note of bitterness in it which Nagato missed since he himself wasn't in the best state of mind.
"Then why is he not fighting? Are you betraying me now?" Nagato shouted, anger rising in him.
Zetsu didn't have any response to that, because he did ask the same damn thing to Obito just a minute or two ago upon seeing all the six Paths of Pain taken out by a boy he had no idea about.
And his response? He looked like he had seen a ghost. Majorly, he didn't even recognize that Zetsu was asking him something, and when he finally did, he just stated one thing.
"I'm not fighting him."
Yeah, that's what he said. Zetsu almost felt like he would die out of blood pressure alone at that. If not him, then who? But no matter what, Obito refused to act against that pink-haired boy.
"He won't help you. Why should he if you can't even handle a single boy by yourself? If you're not capable of even that, then, personally, you're not the right person to carry out Project Tsukuyomi."
Nagato's jaw tightened. Of course. Of course the man who called himself Madara, who'd promised guidance and purpose and a plan worth building an organization around, would simply stand back and watch while everything collapsed.
"Don't forget that it was your fault that Konoha came knocking to the Hidden Rain. You have become impatient. You should have waited before acting against the Jinchūriki and the great nations. But you became too overconfident in your power. This is your fault."
Nagato's entire body seemed to tremble. The thing was that he couldn't refuse this either. It was indeed his decision, and this was just Konoha. He had already triggered Kumo as well. Not to mention the most likely dead Akatsuki members.
"So, you're just gonna let this happen, is that it? Why the hell are you still here then?" Nagato's anger flared up.
"I never said that."
Nagato paused. For a brief moment, he didn't say anything until he heard a booming sound coming right at the entrance of the building he was in downstairs.
Panic flared up once again inside him. He was right. That boy knew that the real body wasn't among the six Paths of Pain.
"Then what do you propose?" Nagato asked hurriedly, already suspecting the answer wasn't going to be one he liked.
"White Zetsu." The voice from the shadows carried an edge of urgency now, quick, clipped, no time for the usual games. "Merge with Black Zetsu. It'll restore your body to what it should have been before. You will be at your full strength. The burden of those eyes will still be enormous, but your rejuvenated body most likely will bear it during the fight."
Nagato's hands curled weakly against the chair's arms. Every instinct he had screamed against handing away control of anything, especially something as fundamental as his own body.
Merge with the White Zetsu. What was the guarantee that it wasn't a trick to let his guard down, that they weren't plotting against him?
Simple answer: he can't. But he didn't have any other option right now.
He knew for certain that if Konan was currently here, she could have fought tooth and nail to stop him from taking this offer, but…
"...Do it," he said. "I'll do it."
xXx
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