This Corpse Was My Teacher

The rain fell without pause.

Someone in the sea of fleeing soldiers glanced back and saw the old man lying in the rain-soaked earth, motionless.

The Third Hokage had fallen.

Deva Path Pain descended slowly from the sky and landed before the figure in the muddy water.

He lowered his head and looked.

There was no pity in his Rinnegan, not a flicker of emotion.

"This is the power of a god."

His voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly across the battlefield and into the ears of every fleeing shinobi:

"Your villages, your Kage, everything you take pride in..."

"Before a god, none of it means anything."

The routed Allied Forces retreated like a receding tide.

An army of over ten thousand fled, abandoning their gear. Not one of them dared look back again.

Pain stood in the rain, watching the mass of people scatter. His voice was flat.

"Pass the order."

"Akatsuki members, go after them."

"If the Five Great Nations dared come here... then make sure they never forget today."

"Make them remember the name Akatsuki."

His words fell.

From among the ruins of Amegakure, figures in black robes with red clouds emerged one after another.

Kakuzu, Sasori, Juzo Biwa...

Red clouds joined beneath the curtain of rain. They caught up with the fleeing masses and cut down people already terrified out of their wits.

From that day on, the name Akatsuki was etched into the nightmares of every shinobi in the four great nations.

On a cliff at the border of the Land of Rain.

Uchiha En stood at its edge, letting the rain soak his robes as he quietly watched the battlefield blazing in the distance.

He had seen it all clearly.

From the Shinra Tensei overturning the charging Allied Forces, to three Elite