"Waaah!" Naruto let out a scream. He tried to struggle, only to realize that the Black Receivers impaled in his body were pumping powerful streams of Chakra into him, pinning him in place.
Shima wanted to fight back, but she had no strength left. After the Preta Path drained her Chakra, he casually drove a short Black Receiver into the ground not far from Naruto.
"Naruto... was defeated!"
In the distance, the Konoha Ninja who had been watching the battle by every means available stared at the shocking sight.
Pain, this mysterious enemy, seemed overwhelmingly powerful to them. They couldn't even summon the courage to oppose him.
In the original story, Pain had no idea what Naruto could do, while Naruto knew everything about Pain. On top of that, the Deva Path's abilities hadn't recovered, giving Naruto the chance to pick them off one by one. Once the Deva Path's powers returned, though, all it took to deal with Naruto was one Banshō Ten'in, followed by a Black Receiver.
If Senjutsu hadn't caught him off guard, and if Pain hadn't liked going on and on about pain, Naruto would never have beaten him.
The two sides had never been in the same league to begin with.
But now Naruto was up against a Nagato who had a G-level advantage in information. He gave Naruto no chance to exploit an opening or receive guidance in the middle of battle. The Peins simply crushed him without giving him a chance to fight back.
"How... could this happen?"
It wasn't just the Konoha Ninja who were stunned. The giant toads from Mount Myoboku, battling Pain's summoned beasts, couldn't understand what they were seeing either. They couldn't fathom how their leader and Naruto, who had learned Senjutsu, could have been defeated so quickly—almost all of them taken down in the blink of an eye.
"Shinra Tensei!"
After dealing with Naruto, the Deva Path didn't spare the giant toads. He leaped into the fray among the massive summoned beasts and unleashed a fully charged Shinra Tensei, blasting every one of the giant toads away. The only fighters left on the battlefield from Konoha and Mount Myoboku were Naruto, pinned to the ground.
"Not one person dares come to your rescue, Naruto. How pathetic!"
After dispatching the giant toads, the Deva Path surveyed the battlefield, now devoid of enemies, and sneered.
The Konoha Ninja all around them showed no intention of intervening. The ninja Tsunade had exhausted her Chakra to protect were utterly useless.
The Animal Path had been circling in the sky for so long, yet not a single ninja had dared attack him. Now that even Naruto had been rendered helpless, there was even less chance of anyone from Konoha joining the fight.
They hadn't dared interfere in the original story, and with Naruto defeated so quickly this time, they were even less likely to do so.
At a time like this, the elite Konoha forces loyal to the Hokage should all be trying to figure out where my real body is.
With that thought, the Animal Path guided Yatagarasu down to the ground. Yatagarasu spat Tsunade out, and the Human Path stepped forward to begin reading the information in her mind.
"So that's where they are? How convenient."
Soon, after receiving the information from the Human Path, the Asura Path headed toward the new location with Konan's Paper Clone.
"Now, it's time to deal with you, Nine Tails!"
As the Deva Path spoke, he walked toward Naruto. Then, through the Rinnegan's shared vision, he saw a figure leap up behind him.
"Why did you come here? You're no match for him! Run!"
Pinned to the ground and struggling alone with his despair, Naruto suddenly shouted in alarm.
His wide eyes saw a lone girl leaping gracefully into the air, her black hair fluttering with her movement.
The girl's eyes were as pure as pearls, and her air was gentle and fragile. Yet she stared resolutely at the overbearing Pain before her, her voice free of hesitation. "I won't let you hurt Naruto again!"
As she said this, she heard Naruto's shout. With her back to him, the girl first gave a soft, nasal "Mm" in response. Then she bit her lip, stubbornly stood her ground in front of Naruto, and faced Pain. "I'm standing here because this is what I want."
Raising her left hand as she spoke, Hinata Hyuga took up the opening stance of the Gentle Fist before the Deva Path.
Her stance was graceful yet strong. On that cruel battlefield, she was like a flower blooming amid the ruins, impossible to ignore.
"Ah, now this is unexpected..." The Deva Path shook his head, a complicated look flashing in his eyes.
He remembered. Something like this had happened in the original story, and it had moved him quite a bit back when he'd been a spectator. But now he was on the other side of the war. He wasn't about to show mercy to an enemy.
"Naruto, because I love you!" Summoning her last bit of courage, Hinata finally said what she had always wanted to. The gentle, almost fragile girl activated her Byakugan, glanced around at the five Peins surrounding her, then charged fearlessly at the strongest of them, the Deva Path.
To save Naruto, she had to attack the enemy first and create an opening to rescue him.
Naruto's pupils contracted sharply.
"Shinra Tensei!"
The immense repulsive force erupted once more. Hinata was sent flying high into the air, then slammed down in front of Naruto.
All five Peins walked toward the fallen girl.
"Stop! Stop it, all of you!" Naruto roared in a frenzy, pinned to the ground by the Black Receivers and unable to move. The Deva Path grabbed Hinata by the throat and lifted her up.
"That must be the purest Byakugan in the world!"
"I'll take those eyes!"
When he was done, the Deva Path tossed Hinata down in front of Naruto as if she were trash.
The flower that had just bloomed met its end at once. The love she had just confessed was twisted by Pain into a cruel, bloody tragedy.
The reason in Naruto's eyes gradually drowned beneath his hatred...
"Pervy Sage, Kakashi-sensei, Grandma Tsunade, Grandpa Fukasaku, Grandma Shima, and Hinata..."
Staring at Hinata's "dead" face, Naruto muttered to himself. His heart pounded uncontrollably, and his eyeballs swelled and reddened with each beat. An indescribable, blood-soaked Chakra surged out of him, rushed toward his brain, and wrapped around his whole body.
The corners of Naruto's eyes split wide open, stretching far beyond human limits until they became the bloodshot, vertical pupils of a beast. There was no trace of reason left in them.
It was obvious: the kid was about to activate his G.
The Deva Path took a step back, while the Animal Path moved forward. Nagato's moment had come...
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Chakra, once merely energy, took on the appearance of boiling lava under the force of its sheer volume. Accompanied by sounds like an erupting volcano, it appeared before the Peins, exuding a powerful aura of evil.
"Rooaaar!"
A savage beast's roar rang out from within Naruto. At first it sounded like a breath rising from deep inside him, but as Naruto rose upright against his will, that breath became a sinister, bestial bellow that echoed through the heavens and shook the earth.
The blood-dark Chakra, radiating an ominous aura, surged skyward with the beast's roar, forming a pillar of black that seemed to brim with hatred as it shot straight into the sky.
That hatred was beyond anything a person could possess. As it surged upward, it was as if the gates of hell had opened, making it impossible to tell whether this place was the human world or the underworld.
Then a sound like the beating heart of an ancient giant beast rang out in the middle of the battlefield. With every powerful beat, shock waves burst out around Naruto and swept in every direction.
The Nine Tails' Chakra had finally returned to the world.
"Summoning Jutsu!" "Summoning Jutsu!"
Nagato knew the story. How could he possibly be unprepared for Naruto, that blonde gigolo?
In fact, Naruto transforming into the Nine Tails after being provoked was exactly what Nagato wanted to see.
The Animal Path clapped its hands and used Summoning Jutsu on Nagato's real body. At the same time, Nagato's real body used Summoning Jutsu on the Animal Path.
And so, the two Summoning Jutsu activated at once, switching the positions of the Animal Path and Nagato.
Before you continue