When the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path first struck the underground containment, the Land of Rain could not find the source of the command.
At the second impact, all nine interfaces opened at once.
Before the third impact landed, Konan had already ordered the surface evacuated.
The area above the statue was not uninhabited.
Residents of the Land of Rain, transport passages, and temporary medical stations still occupied the edges of the underground space.
To conceal the Akatsuki's core location, many passages had previously been left off public maps.
Konan opened the evacuation routes first.
The routes marked only safe exits, without revealing the depth at which the statue stood.
Residents did not need to know every secret to have the right to leave a dangerous area.
Nagato sat directly in front of the statue.
His Rinnegan could still see the nine interfaces.
But he had already lost the authority to close them all at once.
The fourth authority had been permanently severed.
The Aggregation Bus had not been restored, either.
Black Zetsu could not use Nagato to control the statue directly.
Nor could Nagato temporarily reconnect the bus he had relinquished just because danger had arisen.
Some questioned whether he had severed it too soon.
Had he retained control, he could at least have ordered the statue to stop.
Nagato did not defend his decision.
"Keeping the bus would also have let Black Zetsu get to it first."
Both risks existed.
The loss of control before them was a price they had to bear after severing control.
That did not mean leaving the only key within the Rinnegan was the right answer.
He disclosed every structure he could still observe.
The statue had developed no continuous memory.
It had not responded to names.
Nor had it distinguished which