Chapter 260: Battle of the Gods ​

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A list of survivors, as eventually given by Minori:



Of Hidden Leaf:



Tsunade of the Three

Hyūga Hiashi, head of the Hyūga Clan

Sarutobi Asuma, head of the Sarutobi Clan​

Kazusa Minori, jōnin

Uzumaki Naruto, Nine-Tails jinchūriki





Of Hidden Mist:



Kurosawa Ren, Fifth Mizukage​

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This update was co-written by Velorien and @eaglejarl , since it would have been unfair for only one person to get so much doom.​

The woman was sitting in the Chair, the one that was always left open for those who were just now home from a really bad mission. It was in the corner, facing out into the room. The tables were arranged so that the person in the Chair could stand up easily and have space to fight. The civilian servers knew that when someone sat in the Chair you had one of the ninja take them a giant mug of mulled wine on the house and then you left them alone. If there were no other ninja in the house, you ran and got one, but you stayed the hell away from the person in the Chair.The woman in the Chair was staring into space and shivering. That was abad sign, since there were big fires going in both fireplaces and the room was actually hot enough to make people peel off their outer layers as soon as they came through the door. (The owner hated the cold, saying that it made her knees ache.)"Minori? Are you okay?"The words were soft, calming, yet they went through Minori like a lightning bolt, sending her leaping to her feet, her arms suddenly sheathed in twisting flames... then she stumbled back as if frightened of her own fire. She caught herself on the nearest table, the flames vanishing."Whoa, whoa! It's just me, Amane! It's okay, you're safe."Minori blinked back to awareness. "Amane?""It's me," the other woman said, coming forward one step at a time with her hands raised to show them empty of anything except two mugs. "You're looking pretty shook. Want to tell me about it?" She placed one of the mugs on a table where Minori could reach it, then settled slowly into a chair a non-threatening distance away but close enough to talk."I... I don't.... ""I was on duty in the Tower when Lady Tsunade came back," Amane said quietly. "I heard some of it. She sent me to find you, said to make sure you were okay and to get you to talk.""Lady Tsunade?""Yes. She's in the Tower. She’s in no shape, but she insisted on telling people what to do until she passed out. Now whenever she’s awake, she’s doing the same to the medic-nin treating her.""...Oh." She looked around vaguely, seeming fuzzily surprised to find a clay mug of hot wine between her hands. She took a sip and fell silent again."She said it would help to talk."Minori blinked a few times, then looked over. "Amane?" She looked around. "The Tag.""Yes. You're at the Soggy Tag. I went to find you at the hospital, but the medics said that you walked out before they could do more than check for broken bones.""...Yeah. Yeah, I did." She nodded, eyes focusing. "I couldn't... I couldn't be there. They would have sedated me, made me sleep.""What happened?"She took a larger pull on her wine and swallowed convulsively. "It was bad. Really, really bad. We were all in Mist, after the tournament. The Gōketsu girl won and Lord Jiraiya was over the moon. We were going to be going home soon. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day; plans were still a little fuzzy because it depended on how long it took Lord Jiraiya to nail down some negotiations. Then this Sand ninja showed up and said that Gaara of the Desert had been taken by Akatsuki. Just like Naruto and, as it turned out, every other jinchūriki. Next thing you know, there's a giant strike force leaving for Nagi Island. All five Kage, Captain Kakashi, Gai, every Leaf jōnin we had with us and all of the senior chūnin as well. A big assault group from Sand, plus most of the other ninja who had been accompanying the Kazekage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage."Her face crumpled up and tears started gathering. She sniffed, angrily scrubbing the tears away on the back of her arm. "Did you know that Orochimaru was here, in Leaf?""What?!"Minori nodded. "Yeah. Apparently he came in to give Lord Jiraiya the final pieces of the puzzle about what Akatsuki was doing and where. We weren't told the details, just that he would be fighting alongside us.""No way. No way could he be forgiven."She shrugged, not looking up from her endlessly fascinating mug. "I don't know if he was forgiven, but he was there. Good thing too. It was so incredibly close. If any of them hadn't been there, we would have lost." She smiled, weak and watery. "The Sannin. The Three, fighting together again. It was like being in a fairy tale. They actually arrived separately, Orochimaru with a handful of ANBU and Lady Tsunade with the main force about an hour later. He and Lord Jiraiya were in the war room studying maps when Lady Tsunade came in. She looked over and saw them, paused for just a second, and then walked over and said 'Oro'. And he said 'Tsunade'. And that was it. They worked together like nothing had happened.""Did he make it?" Amane asked softly, not sure which answer she wanted to hear.Minori shook her head. "No." She fell silent for several seconds, then looked over. "The other Kage and...well, everyone, were on skywalkers, dealing with Akatsuki's fliers. Me, Gai, Captain Kakashi, Lords Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi, and some other jōnin and ANBU were the ground assault, supporting the Three. You should have seen them; it was incredible. They moved around the battlefield like they were one person, and everyone they touched just...died.”It was a perfect, impenetrable cocoon of writhing black snakes. Scales like armour and a discordant hissing that reached for Minori's primal survival instinct, which begged her to start running and never stop. If there had ever been anyone inside that demonic shell, by now they would at best have suffocated and been crushed to death.A huge, three-bladed scythe burst out of the cocoon, slashing Orochimaru across the chest before travelling gleefully back to its master. The cocoon fell apart as half of Orochimaru’s torso fell to the ground, left shoulder down to right hip.“Take that, you creepy unnatural motherfucker!” Hidan crowed triumphantly, completely ignoring his broken neck and fang punctures deep enough to pierce his vital organs ten times over. He turned to look for a new target.Orochimaru’s remains were still on their feet. The wound across Orochimaru's side pulsed like a beating heart, even though his real heart was lying on the ground. Then ahalf pulled its way out of the wound, covered in goo like an insect emerging from a chrysalis. Apart from the torn uniform, it was like he'd never been hurt at all.“Lord Jashin, this is not a time to be screwing with me,” Hidan muttered.Orochimaru raised his arms in a leisurely motion, and an endless stream of snakes began to pour out in Hidan's direction, one from his remaining sleeve and one… one transmuted from his new flesh, fingers detaching and regrowing faster than the eye could see, and oily black veins erupting from his forearms. The snakes flew at Hidan like projectiles, then, upon missing, fell to the ground and went for his legs.But this time Hidan was ready. He kept dodging and leaping and blocking like a man possessed, which he possibly was, until the snake flow suddenly finally ceased without having touched him once.“Hey, are you human?” Hidan asked with apparent concern. “’cause I need to know if you count towards my human sacrifice quota for the day.”Orochimaru shrugged apathetically. “Humanity is overrated.”“Tell me about it. Guess I’ll just stick to the First Commandment: Kill them all and let Lord Jashin sort them out.”As Orochimaru rapid-fired hand seals that Minori recognised to be for the Summoning Technique, Hidan raised his scythe to his lips andOrochimaru’s blood off the blade.A second of wide-eyed confusion later, he went into a dramatic series of convulsions, finally collapsing with his limbs splayed out.Orochimaru walked up to the fallen Hidan and stuck a “For further research” tag on his forehead. Then he opened his mouth impossibly wide, and swallowed him whole.Captain Kakashi was a single blue line moving across the battlefield, fast enough that you could only tell where he was from the afterimages. He never slowed, and every time the line changed direction, it left a corpse behind.When he came to a sudden halt, Minori’s heart stopped.A wall of grey sand had blocked his unblockable attack. In a flash, the Lightning chakra poured out of Captain Kakashi’s hand and along a spike of sand, disappearing into the ground.Before Captain Kakashi could recover, a long blade emerged from his chest. Then another.In the blink of an eye, he was surrounded by a horde of puppets with Sasori’s mark on their backs. It took four of them to hold back Captain Kakashi’s arms so he couldn't use ninjutsu. Four more to immobilise his legs as he struggled. They didn’t bother covering his Sharingan eye.Then more blades came. The puppets numbered in the dozens, and none of them took any chances.Minori looked away. She couldn’t watch.“DYNAMIC ENTRY!”Two seconds later, Captain Kakashi’s portion of the battlefield was empty. Not even the tiniest fragments of wood remained.Maito Gai leaned over Captain Kakashi.“What do you think you’re doing lying down on the job, Kakashi?” Gai demanded. “You can’t keep lazing around if you ever want to be youthful enough to beat me! Now get up! I’ll even let you off the thousand push-up forfeit this time. Just… please… get up…”It was then that Minori noticed how red Gai’s skin was. How brightly his eyes were glowing. How the left side of his body was starting to fade away like smoke.Gai knelt next to Kakashi’s body.“I guess… it’s up to the next generation… now. Even if we fall… the Spirit of Youth is forever…”The four-winged giant bird, with concentric circles in its eyes, followed the Mizukage relentlessly, its superior aerial view preventing concealment even as its speed prevented escape. The Mizukage fled, her motions barely smooth enough to hide a sense of desperation at attending a battle where she was hopelessly outclassed.As she twisted around to confirm the summon beast’s location, the earth shook with someone else’s ninjutsu, and she stumbled and tripped on a rock. The sight of the Mizukage on her backside would have been comical if it didn’t spell her impending doom.Recognising the opening, the bird opened its beak as it swooped down for the kill.At the last moment, the Mizukage rolled sideways and kicked the creature in the throat with both legs. The impact sent it flying upwards to smash into an overhang, which then proceeded to collapse on it as the Mizukage used the momentum of the kick to propel herself out of the way.A few seconds later, the Mizukage emerged from the summon mist, adjusting her hair as she crested the mound of rubble.“A Kurosawa never loses control.”The Tsuchikage zoomed across the battlefield with no skywalkers or mounts, flying like he’d been born to the sky. Whenever he dipped near the ground, walls of stone erupted to protect his allies, and narrow chasms crisscrossed the ground under enemy feet with pinpoint precision. Whenever he rose higher, Akatsuki’s flyers scrambled to seek easier prey.A series of explosions rang out around him in mid-air as if he’d stumbled into the middle of a trap array.“Hundred years old and you still fall for the oldest trick in the book, grandpa?” Deidara the dragonrider sneered. “Nothing more unsightly than a decaying old man clinging to his half-life decades after he could have gone out in a blaze of glory.”A raging storm erupted through the air, an explosive bombardment so intense Minori could barely track the bombs, much less imagine dodging them.The Tsuchikage didn’t dodge. He put his hands together and bomb after bomb simply vanished, removed from existence in obedience to his will.“I take it all back,” Deidara said with awe. “I think I’ve just discovered abstractionism.”Minori didn’t hear a sound, but the Tsuchikage spun around, his ability still active, to disintegrate some new attack. A second later, he plummeted to the ground, wreathed in black fire.Deidara watched the immolation with tears in his eyes.Blade met hand, over and over. Zabuza's swordsmanship just didn't seem to matter against this man, who blocked his attacks bare-handed and refused to take any damage. It was tiresome."Non-ablative armour," Zabuza grunted. "Haven't seen that in a while."Just as one of Kakuzu's hands swept the Throat Cleaver aside, his other lashed out, not punching, but extending on a series of threads as if Kakuzu were a puppet controlled by some higher power. The hand tried to close itself around Zabuza's throat. Not only tiresome, but honestly, boring. After what he'd gone through in Snow...Zabuza twisted around, spinning like a tornado. The hand, too slow to disengage, was ripped from Kakuzu's arm and thrown far into the distance by his angular momentum.Kakuzu looked nonplussed. "It'll take me hours to find that.""Not my problem. Hurry up and use your next trick.""Remember it in your dying moments: you asked for this,."Kakuzu doubled over. On his back, instead of something rational like deflecting plate, were four masks, each more pretentious than the last."Four hearts to your none, Momochi Zabuza."The masks detached, and before Zabuza's slightly impressed eyes, each turned into an elemental chakra beast that rose into the air.Zabuza considered Kakuzu and the masks."First things first," he said. "Non-ablative armour makes people overconfident."Before Kakuzu could react, Zabuza kicked him in the stomach with tremendous force, sending him slamming into the mountainside. Kakuzu's impenetrable skin didn't protect him against theeffects of blunt impact."Second," Zabuza said as he pulled his hands back out of his holsters, "never give your opponent time to prepare."Kakuzu could, and did, survive the monsoon of explosive tags without a scratch on him. He did less well when half the mountain collapsed on top of him."Third, nobody thinks to guard against suffocation."Then he turned to face the four chakra beasts as they rose high in the air and began gathering chakra. He set his stance.One of the things that Zabuza had earned over twenty years of hunting powerful ninja was a nigh-infallible ability to gauge the odds."Damn," he said to no one in particular. "Now who's going to keep Yukino out of trouble?"Orochimaru slithered towards his latest target, moving in a sinuous sideways pattern that kept him just out of the way of every enemy missile. The enemy berserker he'd chosen for his prey stood frozen, unable to look away from that predatory gaze.It happened in an instant. A flash. A roar. The impact, not so far from Minori herself, felt surreal, as if it was bleeding over from another world. It took her seconds, dangerous seconds, to remember what she was doing and why.But a few snakes had been thrown clear of the blast and, insanely, they began to crawl towards each other as if trying to reassemble in the middle of the crater.Minori felt a rush of hope. The man might have been a legendary, hated traitor, but she’d seen him fight with everything he had to protect the village he’d turned his back on. If putting his life on the line in this bloodbath wasn’t enough to earn redemption, what was?Then the paper woman passed overhead, and an explosive tag landed with merciless accuracy on the head of each snake.In the end, Orochimaru of the Three hadn’t been immortalSomewhere on the edge of the battlefield, Uchiha Itachi and Kurenai Yūhi were having a simple staring contest.Minori sagged.“It was a damn nightmare. Enemies on all sides, just this blur of ninjutsu and fighting that went on and on and on so that I thought it would never end... and then Lord Jiraiya died.”“Oh, Sage’s mercy,” Amane whispered. ““Something distracted Lord Jiraiya...I don’t know what, but whatever it was, it was enough. Hoshigaki Kisame, the Swordsman, came in from the side and got him in the thigh with that famous sword. Nasty wound, got the artery so blood was spraying. Lord Jiraiya didn't even look, he just punched a spearhand strike through Hoshigaki’s throat." She stopped and shook her head. "I swear, I am not making this up. He punched through Hoshigaki's throat, grabbed his spine and turned his hand. Hoshigaki's neck snapped clean and his head flopped over. Lord Jiraiya dropped him, pulled the sword out of his leg and threw it at Uchiha Itachi. It punched through four clones without slowing down, and I thought it would get him, but then Konan was there. She formed herself into a dome over Uchiha and the sword bounced off. She separated again and came at Lord Jiraiya as a million pieces of paper, slicing and cutting at him. There were too many different pieces of paper to block and he was being driven back. I tried to get to him, but the dragonrider went overhead and my entire section of the battle was exploding. I got thrown clear, but I was out of chakra and I couldn't just wade back in."Lady Tsunade turned to help Lord Jiraiya. He was shouting, begging the paper woman to stop, but she just kept coming. He was in a bad way, bleeding out from the leg wound, and slowing down. Then he grinned with teeth and yelled 'Gōketsu Clan Technique: Kagome's Bliss!' and absolutely everything blew up. There was a massive fireball, bigger than anything I've ever seen. When it cleared, Lord Jiraiya's charred body was on the ground with a huge circle of ash around him, and a few tiny scraps of half-burned paper drifting down. And then Lady Tsunade went berserk, and...."Her voice broke and she curled forward, hiding her face in her hands as barely-controlled sobs wracked her body.Very carefully, Amane slid her chair closer so that she could rub her friend's back while she cried. It was the only solace she could offer against a world given over to nightmares.One final memory, the biggest drop of water in the chaotic whirlpool that was her mind.It was the mastermind. The man responsible for everything. The monster who’d killed or ordered the deaths of dozens of the best ninja the Elemental Nations had to offer, and who, according to Orochimaru, was now getting ready to unleash a power great enough to destroy the world.He could have been her little brother.Young, with a mop of untidy red hair. Thin, like he hadn’t been eating enough. Weird Bloodline eyes looking at her like he could see her soul. They were filled with sorrow, and that suddenly made her want to stop waiting for orders and just murder the bastard. What right did he have to feel pain after everything he’d done?“It’s over, then,” he said in a calm, melancholy tone. “None of us ever had any illusions.”Lady Tsunade growled wordlessly. She stalked towards him. Wordlessly, she lifted her fist just slowly enough that the young man (everyone except Lord Hokage had called him Pain) could see his death coming.She stopped at the very last second as Lord Hyūga interposed himself between them, staggering but defiant.He’d assumed control of the Leaf forces the instant Lord Jiraiya’s death was confirmed, with Lord Nara being already gone, and directed them masterfully… though by that point he had hardly anyone to direct. But the price of drawing the enemy’s attention was that thesurvivors homed in on him like they had on Lord Nara. He was a stronger combatant than Lord Nara, but still ended up the most injured of the allies—other than Lady Tsunade, who by then had stopped noticing wounds. And while the real heroes of the battle were standing tall in the face of their suffering, Minori had made it through without so much as a twisted ankle because she'd been blessed with the luck the other warriors deserved.“Do you ever want to think before you act, woman?” Lord Hyūga snapped. “That man has enough chakra flowing through him to level this entire mountain. What do you think will happen if he loses control?”Lord Akimichi rushed in and caught him before he fell, his bodily strength exhausted.For the first time, Minori took in the whole scene. Pain was hovering, arms spread out in a crucifix position in the middle of a sphere of chakra so dense, the shimmering of the air left the back of the room a mirage. Beneath him lay a red-bearded man, mouth open in a silent scream, at the centre of an eye-watering sealing array. To the side, a great cluster of metal, in a shape so complex it could only be some kind of machine, wound its way up the wall like ivy.“For what it’s worth,” Pain said softly, “we really did try to take the path of least suffering. We had the firepower to level villages. We had the knowledge to trigger a new world war.” He looked pointedly between the clan heads and the Mizukage.“Either would have made our work much easier.”Insight flared in Minori’s mind like Lord Jiraiya’s incredible final technique. Suddenly, she knew how Uzumaki Naruto had really been kidnapped. She knew why none of her friends had come back from their secret mission, and why the Third’s hitherto concealed illness suddenly got so much worse that he wasn’t even receiving visitors. She knew what Momochi Zabuza had been about to say.She also knew that this was the kind of knowledge, or at least infallible logic, that got people dying tragically in a skirmish on some distant border.“I don’t expect you to forgive us. I don’t even expect you to understand. But I would at least like to go down in your memories as a well-intentioned madman rather than a bloodthirsty one.”“We’ll-intentioned?” Tsunade spat. “What, you want to be patted on the back for being less of a murderer than you could be?” She gestured around her, as if to indicate the entire world. “You think you have some noble ideal that justifies killing Jiraiya? Killing Oro? Killing everyone else who had the guts to stand against you?”“Yes,” Pain said simply.?”The question, more like a whimper, broke the hollow silence. Everyone turned to stare at Minori, and she suddenly realised that it was hers.“Because ever since the Sage’s failure, we’ve been living in a broken world. Because after a thousand years of sacrifice, the Five are still sealed, and I was born with the power to subjugate the Nine. Above all, because I had true friends who, each for their own reasons, lent me their strength so that I could finish what my precursor started.”“A broken world?” Lord Hyūga demanded incredulously. “The Sage of Six Paths gave us. He created. He chose the best of mankind and granted them the power and wisdom they needed to guide the rest! He saved us from anarchy!”“He gave us ninjutsu,” Pain said calmly. “The power for one ninja to kill a dozen with the wave of a hand. A hundred civilians. If I wanted to, right now I could kill thousands of them before sunset. Does it make you happy that you have that power? Does it make you happy that of the countless men and women in the world, only a handful dare to share your joy? Only a handful dare to to support you in your sorrow? Does it make you happy that your people obey you only because the alternative is worse?”“Medical ninjutsu,” Lady Tsunade said. “Try and argue that one away, you self-righteous asshole.”Pain nodded. He was either unable or unwilling to move any more of his body. Minori was reluctantly impressed that he was able to hold a conversation at all while carrying on with his unimaginably complex ritual.“The best thing that ever happened to this world," he agreed. "Now tell me, Lady Senju, how many of the people medical ninjutsu saves would not need saving if they hadn’t gone to war in the first place? How many more doctors would you have taught if we were all just civilians, and the people with the mental skills necessary to be a doctor weren’t made combat ninjutsu users? How much more research would you all have conducted together?”Lady Tsunade gritted her teeth.“Chakra beasts,” Hōzuki, the Mist swordsman, said dismissively. “End of discussion, can we get on with figuring out how to kill him now?”“Chakra beasts,” Pain repeated. “’Chakra’ being the operative word. But you’re right—I’m not going to float here and argue with you. I doubt it would buy me enough time.“You’ve killed my friends. We’ve killed yours. I think trying to make more of it than that would be an insult to their conviction. But now we’re at an impasse. If you kill me, the ritual is aborted partway. There will be no survivors, and I hope you’ve evacuated the island before coming here. If you don’t kill me, the ritual will be completed and I will bring about world peace.”“That’s right,”Hōzuki said. “We’ll just bank on some kid using a cobbled-together ritual to reshape the entire world inthe right way when the Sage of Six Paths himself couldn’t manage it. Whatcha reckon, Lady Mizukage, can we go home now?”“There is a time and place for humour, Hōzuki,” the Mizukage said coolly. “In your case, it is never and nowhere. Now be silent.”Hōzuki clicked his tongue disrespectfully, but obeyed.“Jiraiya of the Three is dead,” Pain said. “So is Sasori. We killed Orochimaru some time ago. I doubt there’s any ninja left alive who can decipher and undo this seal in time.”“Oro was here until the end,” Lady Tsunade growled. “He died a hero.”For the first time, Pain flinched in surprise.“He really was the best of us,” he said thoughtfully after a second. “He had the resolve to leave. The resourcefulness to survive our assault. The courage to challenge what he knew were impossible odds. Perhaps if he’d fought with us rather than against us…”“Enough prattle,” Lord Hyūga said. “Some of us need urgent medical attention. What do you want?”“The obvious wish would be to let me finish the ritual,” Pain said. “Once our hearts are united, war will not merely cease. The very idea will become laughable. We will look back on this dark age with the horror it deserves.”“Unacceptable,” Lord Hyūga said immediately, without seeking anyone else’s opinion. “Conflict is a necessary part of human nature. Without conflict, those worthy to lead cannot prove themselves, and society collapses into majority rule. Do you honestly believe that the peasant in the field has the same right to rule as the man who has proven his will and his power by overcoming all challengers? That the extraordinary Bloodline Limit flowing through your veins is of equal value to the blood of some common-born taken from the street? Deny the conflict that sifts the gold from the dross, and you reduce humanity to a foul homogeneous mass.”The others in the cave stared. That may have been the first time they’d heard Lord Hyūgahis famously elitist views. Perhaps Pain’s speech-making was infectious.“Well, he’s not,” Inuzuka said after a few awkward seconds. “I mean, you said it yourself, hovering man. The most obvious way that ninja and civilians are different is that we can kill them just by poking them hard enough. If we don’t remind them of that every once in a while, they might start getting ideas above their station, and that’s bad for everyone.”“You’ve lived down to my expectations, Hyūga Hiashi,” Pain said. “Anyone else?”No one said anything, which was answer enough. You couldn’t trust a mass-murdering lunatic with the fate of the world, even if you wanted what he was offering. Which Minori did. She’d lost most of the people she loved to war, some of them today.“It comes down to this after all.” Pain sighed. Some part of him relaxed that Minori hadn’t even realised was tense. “You can’t stop the ritual. You lack the skill. It took all of us to develop, and that combination of specialists will never be seen again.”“We can,” Minori found herself saying, with that tongue that refused to consult the rest of her. “Everyone else can get to safety, and then one person can kill him and take the consequences. I’m the least valuable person here, so…”Of all the gazes that pierced her just then, Pain’s was the most intense.“You really mean that, don’t you?” he asked.“I…” Minori’s voice was trembling now that she understood what she was saying. "I think if it has to be somebody, it should be me." The one who didn’t deserve to survive while everyone else died. She’d hidden in the shadows, reiterating her lack of power like a mantra, while her allies were dying around her one by one. Why couldn’t it have been Usamatsu who survived? Or Mana, or Shishi or Kuga? What haddone to deserve to live while they died?“I’m willing to offer a compromise,” Pain said suddenly. “Two hours to shut down the ritual safely.”“And what do you want?” Lady Tsunade demanded. “Because you can promise us the moon, but you ain’t walking out of here alive.”Lord Hyūga opened his mouth. Minori couldn’t see the expression on Lady Tsunade’s face from where she was, but Lord Hyūga closed his mouth instantly.“Freedom for my friends,” Pain said.“Your friends are dead,” Lord Akimichi finally spoke up. “I’m sure you’re lucid enough to know that.”“Freedom for my friends,” Pain repeated. “You’ll let them go, and you won’t fight any of them unless they fight you first.”“No,” Lady Tsunade said flatly. “Even if you can bring them back, which is bullshit, they don’t get to walk away after what they’ve done.”“You are injured and low on chakra,” Pain replied with the uninvolved air of one checking off boxes. “Factoring in Lady Senju’s wounds, I am presently the strongest shinobi alive. I could abort the ritual right now and destroy this island. I could shut down this ritual safely, destroy you all before you could confirm whether it was safe to attack me, and try to restart the ritual somewhere else. Or after destroying you, I could kill the jinchūriki since they are no longer any use to me, and use my powers to escape, leaving six Tailed Beasts to rampage across the Water Country.”He could abort the ritual at will. Minori's life still wasn't worth anything even if she tried to sacrifice it.“Freedom for my friends, in exchange for my life. I have the ninjutsu.”There was silence for a long time.“How do you know we won’t just attack them once you’re dead?” Asuma asked.“With the greatest possible respect,” Pain said, “you and what army?”“How do you knowwon’t just attackonce you're dead?”“I will tell them not to.”Ten incredulous stares.“I have gathered some of the most brutal, remorseless killers the world has ever known, and persuaded them to set aside their differences and follow me in pursuit of a single pacifist goal. Everything leading up to this moment has been possible only because of their loyalty and trust in me. Didn’t you wonder why not one of them tried to escape in the face of the most powerful alliance in human history?“Besides, with both your chakra and theirs depleted, there would be massive casualties. Will the few survivors on either side throw away their lives in the name of revenge?“I may be alone, but Akatsuki’s mission statement remains unchanged: let me save lives or you will die.”The glow around the young man was faint now as he stood at the cave entrance looking down at the battlefield.“How many more times before we’re satisfied?” he whispered.The survivors stood around him, each ready to strike the second he reneged on their deal. He’d already shown them, very slowly, the hand seals he was going to use.Pain didn’t raise his voice the way ninjutsu users usually did. It was even, so very even.“Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique.”The abomination rising from the ground was every bit as horrific as he’d described. She didn’t doubt for a second that it was a demon king from the Naraka Path, something that could only be summoned by a man who was an abomination himself. She needed only to look into its deep, baleful eyes, which were completely identical to Pain’s.The demon’s maw opened wide, as if to consume every corpse on the battlefield in a single desecrating bite. But instead, streams of beautiful green light, like dancing kami who’d accidentally wandered into hell, poured out of its mouth and unerringly towards corpses (or pieces of corpses) wearing black cloaks with red clouds. Before her eyes, bones reattached themselves, were covered in flowing flesh, and finally tightly in skin. Fragments of human being drifted towards a single central point and reassembled. Some had to claw themselves out into the open world while the light briefly sustained them. One man stood up, gazing in bewilderment at his hands as if seeing them for the first time.“It’s over,” Pain said loudly but clearly. “Thank you for staying by my side, and for devoting yourselves to a madman’s dream. If I can make just one more selfish request of you, my friends… find your own ways to keep that dream alive. Even if there are no shortcuts to world peace, humanity can still do it the hard way.”With that, he fell to his knees, and was dead before he hit the ground.Down below, seven figures left in silence.He kept stumbling. His body was still in two minds whether to obey him, but on the other hand, he was alive. He walked to the Mizukage’s right, occasionally grabbing her shoulder when he felt himself losing his balance. Ancestors be praised that the water walking part was over. With his chakra in the state it was, there were times when she’d practically had to carry him.There was only one other. To the Mizukage’s left, a swordsman grinning like a lunatic, with what looked incongruously like a thousand paper cuts across his chest. Hōzuki… Suigetsu? No, Mangetsu. He couldn’t remember why he knew. His past was still a shattered kaleidoscope, and his future a terrifying blank, as if stepping into it would make him fall upwards into the sky.It was hard enough to hold on to the present, but he might be able to do it with the Mizukage by his side.She was everything he could have hoped for from []‘s successor. She’d been there as they all stirred to dazed, troubled consciousness, as they recognised ancient enemies, but also felt the kinship of survivors. She’d explained things to those still confused, and she reassured them that they were safe now, and would soon return to their homes under truce. She even defended them when Hyūga Hiashi insisted that they were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free.Then she’d taken them to the battlefield, and showed them the price of their salvation. It was carnage far beyond anything he’s ever seen. So many dead… all for his sake? The Mizukage gave a gentle smile, and told them that they shouldn’t feel guilty, but that they should remember this moment when the time came for them to decide. Then she offered him amnesty for crimes he must have committed, and the chance to return to Mist to be its champion in its hour of need. With [] gone, and the Fifth being the kind of woman she was, he dared to hope that this new life would be better than the one he must have left behind years ago.The gates of Mist. He couldn’t remember them, but he could recognise them. They felt like the home he’d come home to after every mission, except apparently the last. But the yard beyond them… had it always been so full?Standing with the Mizukage and Hōzuki, he stared at a crowd of dozens of ninja, wearing uniforms of every department, ages ranging from late teens to children barely out of the Academy. Off to the left, a veritable army of medic-nin stood ready with stretchers and bandages, but they weren’t moving yet.In the centre, there was a spearhead of three people, two men, and a woman in front. For some reason, despite now being a fellow Mist shinobi, he felt like he shouldn’t turn his back to her.The woman looked them over briefly as if counting. Then she took a small step forward.“Lādy Mizukage, the Alliance for Mist’s Illumination welcomes you back!”Every single one of the dozens of people bowed in unison.The Mizukage’s face went completely blank.“The Alliance for Mist’s Illumination?” she asked neutrally.The woman raised her voice slightly.“We are your future jōnin. We are the future parents of your chūnin and genin. Right now, when the village needs us the most, we are the light breaking through the mist and illuminating the way to your new, liberal regime.”“Mori,” the Mizukage said wearily. “How long?”Mori beamed. “If you mean the concept, that was when I was seven and Grandpa Ryūgamine said each child had the potential to become either a wonder or a horror. I took it as an optimisation challenge. If you mean the official inauguration, that was three hours ago. They say that in both love and war, timing is everything.”“Is that so,” the Mizukage said flatly. “And what are your demands?”Mori took another step forward.“The Alliance for Mist’s Illumination doesn’t make demands, Lady Kurosawa. We all feel a deep loyalty to the office of the Mizukage, and we will do whatever it takes to support a leader who does only what is best for our village.“All we want…”Mori’s innocent smile nearly plunged him back into the nightmares.“…is for you to do the AMI a favour.”Akimichi Chōza, head of the Akimichi ClanInuzuka Gaku, jōnin of the Inuzuka ClanKurenai Yūhi, jōninHōzuki Mangetsu, Swordsman of Hidden MistUtakata, Six-Tails jinchūrikiOf Hidden Sand:Tō Fura, jōninOf Hidden Rock:Rōshi, Four-Tails jinchūrikiHan, Five-Tails jinchūrikiOf Hidden Waterfall:Fū, Seven-Tails jinchūrikiOf Hidden Cloud:Killer B, Eight-Tails jinchūrikiAll others confirmed dead.