Nagato and Orochimaru!

"The Sharingan's ultimate evolutionary direction is the Rinnegan... Isn't that quite a coincidence, Nagato? A few days ago, I had just begun testing this hypothesis."

In the underground nest, Orochimaru led Nagato through a dim corridor, his words brimming with excitement.

Nagato laughed inwardly. Wrong. The Sharingan and Rinnegan were actually two independent ocular techniques; they had no evolutionary relationship. The key lay in combining Asura and Indra's chakra, which would give rise to the chakra of the Six Paths...

But... Orochimaru's misunderstanding at this moment did not affect the bigger picture. It would even do me nothing but good.

So he did not interrupt Orochimaru.

"Nagato, I was prepared to devote the next ten, perhaps even twenty years to proving this hypothesis. But your appearance has allowed me to stand directly upon the shoulders of giants of truth. Heh heh... It truly was a wise choice not to kill you all back in Amegakure~."

Orochimaru stopped before the door at the end of the corridor.

"We're here. Please, come in."

He pushed open the door, placed the oil lamp he was carrying on a lampstand, and then took his seat.

Resting his cheek on one hand, he stared with his vertical pupils at Nagato across from him in the flickering candlelight, his eyes filled with curiosity.

"Seeking truth requires a rigorous attitude. To ensure the purity of the truth, Nagato, I need you to tell me the full story."

"For a shinobi like Madara to entrust away the eyes he awakened himself, what kind of resolve and scheme would that require? It's simply unimaginable. Come, I am desperate to know..."

"Is that so? But before that, there is something that needs to be dealt with..." Nagato raised his eyes toward the tightly shut door behind Orochimaru and lifted a hand.

Banshō Ten'in!

Boom! The door shattered, and Kabuto stumbled as he flew inside!

Crack! Nagato seized his throat and slammed him to the floor. "You're called Kabuto, right?"

"I-I..." The sudden turn of events left Kabuto's face filled with terror.

Nagato said coldly, "Speak! Why were you eavesdropping?"

As though he believed death was inevitable, Kabuto threw caution to the wind. "Because I wanted to know your intentions in approaching Lord Orochimaru! I have no interest in truth. All I care about is Lord Orochimaru's personal interests!"

Nagato stared at his face, ready to die, and smiled faintly. "And... the place where you belong, right?"

"Huh?" Kabuto's pupils suddenly shrank.

In reality, Nagato was also an orphan, so he could especially understand the inner image of Kabuto, who was likewise an orphan.

He had received love, only to be betrayed by it. His heart had nowhere to rest, and he played roles that were not himself, forgetting what he truly looked like. He survived for the purposes of others while neglecting his own needs.

He did not know what he meant to this world, much less what the world meant to him.

But the loneliness deep within made him yearn for a place to settle.

To be needed by someone who understood his needs was to have a place to settle.

Once he found that place, he would offer up the loyalty of his soul. Should he lose it one day, he would descend into crazed obsession...

With people like this, if they could not be controlled, they had to be strangled in the cradle.

But he was Orochimaru's most valued assistant. He could not be killed, at least not yet.

And on a personal level, Nagato did not wish to kill him unless absolutely necessary...

Since that was the case, he might as well show some goodwill and plant a seed of kindness.

"If you wanted to know my intentions, you could have knocked and come in. Why sneak around and pull these little tricks?"

"Huh, th-this..."

"Or did you think the Lord Orochimaru you respect was so weak that he needed you to secretly keep watch, lest he be controlled by someone else?"

"I-I..." Kabuto was momentarily left speechless.

At that moment, Nagato released his grip on Kabuto's throat and smiled. "Find yourself a little stool and sit off to the side."

"Huh?" Kabuto abruptly raised his head, unable to believe what he had heard. "Y-you... You'll allow me to stay and listen to the conversation between you and Lord Orochimaru?"

Nagato looked deeply into his eyes. "Yes, but you must keep it absolutely confidential, understand? This is no joke if it gets out. People will die."

Gulp! Yakushi Kabuto swallowed hard, pushed up the glasses on his nose, and said solemnly, "Understood. I will not reveal a single word of what I hear today!"

And so, another small stool was added to the room.

In the wavering candlelight, Nagato gathered his thoughts before beginning his account in his own words.

"It all began with the battle between Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara at the Valley of the End. Yes, everyone knew that Uchiha Madara died at Hashirama Senju's hands, but that was not the truth. Madara survived, and he obtained Hashirama Senju's power..."

From Madara's defeat at the bottom of the Valley of the End... to Madara's death beneath the Demonic Statue.

Yakushi Kabuto listened in utter alarm, sitting on pins and needles, scarcely daring to breathe.

Orochimaru likewise fell silent. After a long silence, he asked a crucial question. "Nagato, in Madara's plan, you were a piece on the board. How did you escape his and Obito's control and learn of these causes and consequences?"

Orochimaru was certain to ask that, so Nagato had long prepared an explanation... And that explanation could not sound too ordinary, such as claiming he had happened to learn it from a White Zetsu's mind.

That would only lower his standing in Orochimaru's eyes.

"Yes, Madara's plan was exceptionally thorough. When I was young, he secretly implanted the Rinnegan in me. After I lost my parents to war, drifted through life as I grew up, found like-minded companions, and was preparing to make my mark, he had Uchiha Obito appear as his incarnation and guide me toward the path he wanted me to take..."

"For a long time, I truly acted according to his script, but..."

"Neither he nor Uchiha Obito expected much of me."

"One day, with these eyes, I saw something that even Madara had failed to see..."

"The past Madara had laid out, and the future that extended from it based upon those assumptions!"

Yakushi Kabuto finally could not restrain his shock. "You... No... You saw the future?"

"Yes, but that future was one in which I had made no intervention."

Orochimaru said solemnly, "Every ability must have an origin and an end. Was this ability an ocular technique of the Rinnegan? Could you tell me about it in detail?"

Nagato truly had not expected... Orochimaru to ask so specifically.

Without showing anything on his face, he pondered for a moment before saying, "'Ayakashi.' An ocular technique that breaks the 'predestined fate,' awakening only once in a lifetime and possessed only by those who are chosen. That was the message conveyed to me in the darkness when the ocular technique awakened."

Hahahaha, honestly, what Ayakashi, what breaking fate, what an ocular technique that awakens only once in a lifetime for the chosen... I nearly burned out my CPU making that up. Still, it actually sounds pretty convincing...

"I see. But only something like that could truly allow one to escape Uchiha Madara's control..." At this point, an incomparably expectant smile appeared on Orochimaru's pale face. "Nagato, what you just told me was the past. Then... what about the future?"

"The future?" Nagato smiled meaningfully. "Please allow me to withhold that for now."

Obviously. What if I told you everything without holding anything back, and you no longer needed me?

Since ancient times, sincerity alone could not keep a heart; only tactics could win one over.

"Very well." A smile appeared at the corner of Orochimaru's mouth. "Then let us change the question. Nagato, what do you wish to obtain through me in order to change that future?"

Nagato said, "Well, what I want is not much. First, a pair of Rinnegan... that belong..."