Before Suigetsu and Jugo, Nagato slowly lowered his hand.
"Did Sasuke... send you here to save me?"
Seeing that Nagato still looked doubtful, Jugo stepped forward and spoke in a solemn tone.
"After the One-Tail hunt ended, Sasuke knocked us out at Akatsuki's base in the Land of Wind and took us back with him. We served Orochimaru to begin with. We were only forced to join Akatsuki after being captured during Deidara's attack!"
Nagato sank into thought.
"If we weren't here to save you, I could've cut your head clean off while you were wolfing down that Octopus Tail!"
Once again, Suigetsu cut straight to the heart of the matter.
Nagato had no reason left to doubt them. He sighed. "The people I once trusted betrayed me, while someone I once wanted to kill tried to change me, and redeemed me through real, concrete action..."
At the end of the Sixth Battle, Sasuke had told Nagato who "Madara" really was, along with the truth about the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Nagato's conviction had already begun to waver then. Obito's surprise attack, his imprisonment in this space-time dimension, and a month of hunger and cold had finally made him see reality for what it was!
For half his life, he had been a pawn in someone else's hands.
As a child, Madara had implanted a Rinnegan that did not belong to him. After Madara died, Obito had led him on with dreamlike lies, drawing him further and further from his original ideals!
Over more than a decade, he had single-handedly turned Akatsuki, which Yahiko had founded to achieve peace, into a terrorist organization whose very name struck fear throughout the shinobi world!
His sins were truly immense... Had it not been for Sasuke Uchiha, Nagato would likely have remained in the dark