On the screen, light swirled and shifted.
After being guided by Minato, Naruto regained control of his body.
In the real world, the Nine-Tails head that had emerged from the meteor suddenly retracted, and the surging red chakra quickly withdrew back into his body.
Then with a muffled thud, the rampaging Nine-Tails vanished entirely. In its place stood Naruto, clinging to the surface of the sphere with his feet, his Sage Mode active.
His short blonde hair fluttered in the wind, and his gaze was fixed intently on the black-and-red cloaked figure below.
Tendo Pain stood amid the ruins, looking up at Naruto, slightly surprised that he had recovered so quickly.
Naruto leaped and weaved his way down through falling rubble, landing on the ground to face Tendo Pain, and before he could move, Tendo Pain had already pulled out a black rod and quickly lunged at him.
However, Naruto raised his hand, moving faster than Tendo Pain. He easily snatched the black rod from Tendo Pain's hand and kicked him flying.
But he didn't pursue. Instead, Naruto reversed the rod in his hand, aimed its sharp tip at his own shoulder, and stabbed it in.
His Sage Mode's sensory abilities were now fully unleashed. Following the residual chakra on the rod, he traced it backward.
"Found you!"
In an instant, Naruto sensed Nagato hiding within a tree core made of Konan's paper. But first, he needed to deal with Tendo Pain.
Naruto tossed the black rod aside and formed a cross-shaped hand seal.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Two clones appeared to help him form the Rasengan.
Naruto's battle IQ shone brilliantly in this moment. He threw a smoke bomb to block Tendo Pain's vision, sent two clones to circle behind, and quietly summoned nearly a hundred clones disguised as rubble scattered around Tendo Pain.
Tendo Pain used Shinra Tensei to repel the incoming Rasenshuriken, easily subdued the two clones behind him, but then the nearly hundred clones hidden in the rubble leaped up simultaneously, aiming to grab him during the five-second cooldown window.
But just as Naruto and his clones were about to make contact, the cooldown for Shinra Tensei ended. Tendo Pain spread his arms wide, and the clones were instantly sent flying back the way they came.
Though what Tendo Pain didn't expect was that even while retreating, Naruto kept summoning more clones. He wasn't making a final struggle; he was stacking buffs.
One Shadow Clone jumped behind Naruto's real body, planting its hands on his back to steady him. Another added on, then another, then another—forming a human wall behind him, layer after layer, pushing back against Shinra Tensei's repulsive force.
"He… actually withstood it? Impossible!"
Tendo Pain was in disbelief, and in that moment of hesitation, Naruto seized the opening, formed a final Rasengan, and drove it straight into Tendo Pain's abdomen.
And with that, Naruto—all by himself—took down all Six Paths of Pain.
[Reviewing this battle, it's not hard to see that while Nagato appeared to have Super Kage-level strength, in reality he was purely a "mechanic-based" fighter. Behind the seemingly unbeatable mechanics of the Six Paths lay his lackluster base stats.]
[In fact, Nagato is quite similar to Obito during the Nine-Tails incident; his mechanics were strong, but his base stats had clear shortcomings, meaning his own fundamentals couldn't fully leverage his Jutsu's power. That's why the flow of both battles was nearly identical: they had overwhelming advantage throughout, completely dominant—'all in our favor'—and then suddenly, defeat out of nowhere.]
[This is the fatal flaw of pure "mechanic-based" fighters. From Obito to Nagato to Sage Mode Kabuto, the pattern is the same: once a single loophole in their mechanics is discovered, they fall faster than flipping a hand; no back-and-forth, no stalemate.]
[So if you want to see truly capable fighters, look at those "stat-monsters disguised as mechanics-based fighters." The Fourth Hokage and the middle-aged Obito are prime examples. On the surface, both rely on a "one-trick" style—Flying Raijin and Kamui phasing—seemingly dependent on their mechanics to survive.]
[But many overlook the terrifying raw stats behind them. Especially the Fourth Hokage, the most terrifying thing about him isn't his talent for learning Jutsu, or even his ability to develop new ones. It's that one stat that's always off the charts: reaction speed.]
[By the end of the Fourth Great Ninja War, the reanimated Fourth Hokage's reaction speed was so high that he could even hold his own on a Six Paths-level battlefield.]
[And how crucial is reaction speed? It determines whether, when you launch a surprise attack, your opponent just stands there and eats it, or calmly responds, counters on the fly, or even turns the tables on you.]
[A perfect example is Six Paths Naruto. His reaction speed was faster than Six Paths Madara's, so he dominated the fight throughout, even though Madara should theoretically have been stronger than him.]
[Even against Kaguya, Naruto served as the main damage dealer. When he went all out, even Kaguya couldn't keep up with his pace.]
[Now look at Nagato. The gap in his stats is obvious, he was caught off guard almost every single time.]
[During the invasion of Konoha, Konohamaru, whose overall strength barely scraped Chūnin level, used a simple Shadow Clone feint from behind and actually took down one of the Pains.]
[By comparison, when Chōji and his father ambushed and punched Asura Path Pain into scrap, that actually looks less embarrassing.]
[And after Naruto returned, the difference in performance became even more apparent. In the moments Nagato failed to react, Asura Path Pain was flattened by a single Rasengan from Naruto. In another moment, before Nagato could respond, Human Path Pain and Animal Path Pain were already caught in Naruto's Rasenshuriken's blast radius, forcing him to sacrifice Human Path Pain to save Animal Path.]
[Then, before he could react again, Animal Path Pain was caught in a toad's mouth and taken out; Asura Path Pain and Tendo Pain also kept repeating the same pattern over and over.]
[In other words, despite being inferior to the Pains in almost every stat—attack, defense, speed, and so on—Naruto was able to single-handedly take down five Pains six times over, purely because his reaction speed completely outclassed them.]
[And the reason there's so much controversy over Nagato's strength is because he produced extremely intimidating but ineffective output for 80% of the battle. He clearly looked like he had a massive advantage and it seemed like a sure win, but then he suddenly lost completely.]
[This also highlights a fundamental truth: if you spend too much time crushing weaker opponents, your skills will actually decline. Back then, Nagato had always played support in his three-man team, and never had to fight on the front lines. As a result, he lacked the decisive, high-stakes combat experience that truly matters. Add to that the fact that he spent more than half his life acting as a battery for the Gedo Statue, and his body was crippled, so he had essentially been sidelined from genuine high-intensity combat.]
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Akatsuki Hideout]
The Akatsuki members sat or lounged in various positions, each wearing a different expression. They all stared at Tendo Pain, lost in thought.
'So… the leader's strength isn't actually all that overwhelming?'
Could they… perhaps resist a bit?
But they quickly dismissed those thoughts. Even if Nagato was, as the Sky Screen said, merely a "mechanic-based fighter" used to farming weaker opponents, he was still at the Super Kage-level. Against him, they were exactly "the weak."
And Uzumaki Naruto was the Child of Prophecy. What were they?
Though arrogant, they weren't stupid. They now knew the abilities of the Six Paths, but Nagato also knew theirs… a direct confrontation would be an absolute stomp.
And then there was Konan, a die-hard loyalist to him; with 600 billion Explosive Tags, who would dare make a move?
Only Obito was truly displeased. 'Damn this screen! If you're talking about Nagato, just talk about Nagato, why drag me into it?'
Though, it wasn't entirely wrong… Even without Kamui, there weren't many in the current Shinobi World who could stand against him.
Mangekyō Sharingan, Hashirama cells, Wood Style, Izanagi, plus over a decade of combat experience—forget Kage-level, even among Super-Kage fighters, those who could threaten him were few and far between.
A corner of Obito's mouth twitched upward, but he quickly suppressed it.
'The screen is right. Reaction speed is key. The reason I lost to Minato-sensei during the Nine-Tails incident was because he was just too fast. Now, my reaction speed is much faster than before. If I faced him again, I'd most likely win.'
With that, Obito took a deep breath, pushing aside those scattered thoughts and continued watching.
After all, intel was more important than anything!
Though the Six Paths were down, Nagato's real body was still alive, and Konan was with him. So how exactly did they lose?
*****
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