Nagato possessed "all" the information in this world. Once he turned a suspicious gaze on the Sage of Six Paths, he immediately noticed more and more things about him that seemed fishy.
First of all, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was something the Sage of Six Paths had created after splitting the Ten-Tails. The strange thing was, he had already used the Ten-Tails' Chakra to create the Nine Tailed Beasts, so why had he gone out of his way to leave behind the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?
With his power, wouldn't it have been simpler to just split the Ten-Tails into nine parts? When Minato Namikaze split the Nine Tails, he hadn't gone out of his way to create a separate body for it. The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path had only one purpose: to revive the Ten-Tails.
If the Sage of Six Paths hadn't done it deliberately, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path wouldn't exist in this world at all. And without it, Zetsu's so-called plan to revive the Ten-Tails and bring Kaguya Otsutsuki back to life would be nothing more than a castle in the air, with no way to get started and no possibility of success.
That meant the entire plan to revive Kaguya had been founded by the Sage of Six Paths from the very beginning.
Then there was the connection between the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and the Rinnegan, which the Sage of Six Paths had also created.
Even if the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path alone wasn't enough to make whoever obtained it use it to revive Kaguya, the Sage of Six Paths had given everyone who obtained it ample motivation to revive the Ten-Tails by lending the connection between the Rinnegan and the statue the weight of his thousand-year legacy and the authority of his iconic eyes.
What's more, obtaining the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path required awakening the Rinnegan. It was like a test, ensuring that anyone who obtained the statue had the aptitude to use it.
Only the Sage of Six Paths could have devised such a plan. In this world, only two people had ever awakened the Rinnegan in both eyes: the Sage of Six Paths and Madara Uchiha.
The Sage of Six Paths had been the first person in the world to awaken the Rinnegan in both eyes. He had also been the first person to possess the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. When he awakened the Rinnegan, the statue hadn't even existed yet. So the connection between the Rinnegan and the statue had been created after his time.
Then, when the second person in the world awakened the Rinnegan, Madara Uchiha had summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path with its power as soon as his eyes opened. If the Sage of Six Paths hadn't been behind all this, then who could have been?
It was just like how Itachi had tampered with Sasuke's eyes so they would use Amaterasu. As the first person to possess both the Rinnegan and the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, the Sage of Six Paths had every opportunity and the ability to connect the Rinnegan's power with the statue.
Nagato couldn't find anyone else to suspect. Kaguya Otsutsuki's eyes had been a pair of Byakugan and a Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan. They weren't ordinary Rinnegan, and she hadn't had the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. Besides, Kaguya had already been sealed away by the time the statue existed. So she probably had nothing to do with it.
And yet the connection between the Rinnegan and the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was the very heart of the plan to revive Kaguya.
As someone directly involved, Nagato knew perfectly well that things like Black Zetsu and the stone tablet had been insignificant to the whole scheme—virtually meaningless.
With the Rinnegan's ability to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path as its foundation, the entire plan to revive Kaguya had already been in place.
After all, the Sage of Six Paths himself had said that he realized sooner or later, a reincarnation of Indra would try to awaken the Rinnegan.
In other words, it was inevitable that someone after the Sage of Six Paths would awaken the Rinnegan. Someone like Orochimaru, for example, had never seen the stone tablet or heard Black Zetsu's nonsense, yet he had still managed to uncover the secret of the Rinnegan.
And once someone awakened the Rinnegan, just like Madara, they would inevitably summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Then, whether or not there was a stone tablet, the Rinnegan's user would inevitably discover the statue's purpose. Trusting the statue, they would inevitably revive the Ten-Tails. And from there, after becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, the Eye of the Moon Plan would fall into place. Madara had only become "one" with the God Tree after it urged him to do so.
Seen from this angle, even the Sage of Six Paths' act of scattering the Nine Tailed Beasts across the world had probably been deliberate.
Only by arranging things this way could the Rinnegan's user attract the attention of the entire world while reviving the Ten-Tails, plunging everything into chaos. In the end, surrounded by enemies, they would have no choice but to absorb the God Tree and cast Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Otherwise, what if the Nine Tailed Beasts had all been together from the start? Someone who obtained the Rinnegan could become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki without dealing with anyone, then quietly hole up somewhere like Sage Katsuyu and never cast Infinite Tsukuyomi. Wouldn't that ruin everything?
That wouldn't do. Anyone who wanted to become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki had to be willing to oppose the whole world, get humiliated by everyone in the end, and have no choice but to become one with the God Tree.
That was right. It had to be someone like Madara Uchiha, a madman who laughed wildly and wouldn't let anyone else dance. Not a listless shut-in of a thousand years like Sage Katsuyu.
When he imagined a shut-in like Sage Katsuyu becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, Nagato almost laughed out loud again. He pictured the Sage of Six Paths underground, so furious he was practically fuming, unable to keep the lid on his coffin. It was just too funny.
He even felt an urge to return to Shikkotsu Forest right then and transplant the Rinnegan into Sage Katsuyu.
Mm, good thing he held back.
"Nagato, why do you keep laughing?" Konan sounded a little reproachful. She thought Nagato was being far too unserious. He had just finished laughing, and now he was laughing again! Did he have no sense of crisis at all?
"Nothing." Nagato shook his head. "I just think we're the ones who actually have control over what happens. Whatever the Sage of Six Paths is thinking or planning, he still needs our cooperation."
He looked at the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path before him and added, "For example, if things go beyond what we can imagine, we can just destroy the statue. Then none of those schemes and plots will be of any use."
He might not be able to beat the Sage of Six Paths at cards, but he was pretty good at flipping the table.
Even Kakashi could use Kamui to destroy the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. With Nagato's current ability to pop eyeballs in and out at will, destroying it wouldn't be difficult.
Of course, that also proved the Sage of Six Paths was acting strangely. If he really didn't want the Ten-Tails revived, couldn't he just destroy the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and be done with it? It wasn't as if the Sage of Six Paths could be weaker than Kakashi, right?
Before you continue