The True Mastermind

"Do you also feel that there is something wrong with the Sage of Six Paths?" Nagato said with a bitter smile. He had previously thought he was just overthinking things. "There are some things I didn't intend to tell you at first because they are very difficult to explain. As far as I know, Naruto should be the reincarnation of the second son of the Sage of Six Paths."

Strictly speaking, Naruto only possesses the chakra of Asura. However, in this world, chakra and the soul are inherently intertwined, so it can be interpreted either way.

"Is that so?" Konan closed her eyes and pondered for a moment. "Then what is your impression of the Sage of Six Paths?"

In Konan's view, since Nagato had witnessed the will of the Sage of Six Paths with his own eyes, his impression was the most important.

"Impression?" Nagato sneered and shook his head.

To him, a transmigrator, the Sage of Six Paths had always been a positive figure. He was the image of a grandfatherly figure who provided the protagonist with cheats and saved the world at critical moments.

However, after becoming Nagato and receiving all his memories, he felt the same way Konan did when she heard that the will of the Sage of Six Paths still existed. Nagato increasingly felt that the Sage of Six Paths was the greatest mastermind behind the scenes in this world.

He discovered a strange fact: in this grand scheme, those who had not fallen into the trap and those who had been in it all along had completely different experiences.

Black Zetsu told Sasuke and Naruto that the history of ninjas in this world was shaped by him because he had altered the stone tablet left behind by the Sage of Six Paths. Sasuke and Naruto, who had never fallen into the trap, believed it immediately, convinced that Black Zetsu was the ultimate mastermind. But the reason for this was simply that they were not the parties involved and did not know the true inner feelings of those who had been designed to fall into the trap.

There is a huge disconnect here between objective information and subjective perception. People like Sasuke and Naruto know the information about the Sage of Six Paths and Black Zetsu, but they are not insiders like Nagato and lack the correct perspective of those involved. Meanwhile, insiders like Madara and Obito did not know the complete information about the Sage of Six Paths and Black Zetsu. Therefore, in the end, they were unable to see the layout of the entire event. Only Nagato, who possessed both all the information and the perspective of an insider, could see through the entire scheme.

To put it bluntly, Nagato realized that when Black Zetsu bragged about deceiving everyone, the people he was bragging to—Sasuke and Naruto—had never been deceived, nor did they have the experience or understanding of the parties involved, so they believed him immediately.

But insiders like Nagato who had been deceived knew very well that from beginning to end, they had trusted the Sage of Six Paths, and it was only through "correct" logical reasoning that they began to believe in and execute the Eye of the Moon Plan. It had nothing to do with Black Zetsu at all; this is the key to solving the entire event.

What is Black Zetsu? Just a shadow that cannot see the light of day; no one ever took it seriously. Madara only brought Black Zetsu out when he was about to die. Nagato and Obito never trusted it either. And what of the stone tablet? Just a dead object. Nagato and Obito had never even seen it at the start, so how could they have believed in such a thing?

Therefore, in reality, they were not trusting Black Zetsu or the stone tablet, so there was no question of being deceived by these two things.

This is the key to solving all the information based on the understanding of the parties involved.

Take Nagato's past experience. Why did he and his companions, when facing the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—a thing that any normal person would see as evil—never think that this thing would bring them disaster? Why, even when Nagato suffered while summoning the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, did no one ever think of destroying it?

Was it because of Black Zetsu or the stone tablet? Impossible; they had never even seen those two things.

The reason is simple: it was just because this thing was summoned by Nagato's Rinnegan, and the Rinnegan is the same pair of eyes as the Sage of Six Paths. This is the foundation upon which the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was trusted, and it is the true truth behind this layout.

The status of the Sage of Six Paths is too lofty. To everyone who knows him, the Sage of Six Paths is a god. He is the one who founded the Ninjutsu Sect, the first to unlock the true meaning of chakra, a monk, and a saint who spent his life working for world peace.

This is the halo surrounding the Sage of Six Paths, and it is the inherent impression everyone in this world has of him.

Even after a thousand years, the deeds of the Sage of Six Paths have turned into myths and legends, but the image of the Sage of Six Paths has been passed down through the world, deeply rooted in the hearts of all who know of him.

Therefore, for people like Madara and Nagato who possess the Rinnegan, how could the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, summoned through the power of the Rinnegan, possibly be problematic?

You must know that the Sage of Six Paths represents justice, and his Rinnegan was used to save the world, so how could the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, summoned through the Rinnegan, not be righteous? And since the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path is the husk of the Ten-Tails, its only function is to resurrect the Ten-Tails, so the act of resurrecting the Ten-Tails became a matter of course. After all, the Sage of Six Paths was the first Ten-Tails Jinchuriki; could there be any error in someone with the Rinnegan attempting to become the second great Sage of Six Paths?

Finally, there is the implementation of the Eye of the Moon Plan. The Infinite Tsukuyomi is a technique cast by the God Tree summoned by the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki.

If one thinks about it carefully, with the righteousness of the Sage of Six Paths as a premise, all the parties involved would find that there is nothing wrong with any of these actions; the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan could not possibly be problematic. This is the logic of the parties involved.

Therefore, if someone had told Madara Uchiha in advance that his plan was flawed and that he would be backstabbed, Madara might have let out an Uchiha-style maniacal laugh, saying that what this person said was hilarious, and he, Madara Uchiha, would call this joke the strongest. Then, right after laughing, he would be stabbed to death by Black Zetsu.

Thinking about how Madara was finally "heart-pierced" by Black Zetsu from behind, his eyes wide and a foolish expression on his face, Nagato almost laughed out loud, even while in a state of serious contemplation.

Especially when recalling how Madara was loudly declaring himself the savior just a second before being stabbed by Black Zetsu, Nagato found it even harder to suppress his laughter.

The Uchiha Clan is indeed suited for being trapped; Black Zetsu was quite accurate about that. When they get slapped in the face, there is always a quality that makes people happy to see it—to put it bluntly, the Uchiha Clan is destined to be slapped.

As Nagato thought about this, he burst into laughter. Seeing Konan looking at him with a puzzled expression, he could only shake his head and say, "Sorry, I remembered something funny." After struggling to restore a serious expression to his face, he answered Konan's question: "I think your intuition is right; there is definitely something wrong with the Sage of Six Paths."

He was now one hundred percent certain that the Sage of Six Paths was the true mastermind behind the scenes; no one else in this world had the qualifications to be him.