AN: This is kind of a Prologue, or a Chapter 0 for this story. So while it was posted 3rd, I will rearrange the order of the chapters.
"The same eyes as that of the Sage of Six Paths", Jiraya sensei had whispered.
"Eyes like Fathers?!", the Six-tailed beast had raged before he had sealed it in the statue.
"Those eyes are a burden, but they are not meant for you to carry." An old monk had said before Nagato had crushed his temple and banished him away from Amegakure.
Nagato had wondered just what kind of person the Sage was to have left behind a shadow so large even after a millenia. He had never thought he would get to see the person.
He had first seen the figure hours ago, floating in a lotus position. It was the only thing he could see for miles around him, and the first after he was released from the Edo Tensei. Since then, he had been walking towards it. After hours of walking, he felt like he had gotten in shouting distance from him. But then the scene changed, and suddenly there were two more people in front of the man.
Uzumaki Naruto was unmistakable. And that must be Uchiha Sasuke.
He kept walking as the three people spoke to each other. When the two young men turned to leave, he considered calling out, but thought better of it. He has said his last words to Naruto twice now. A third would be a bit too much. The second time around the boy's reaction was to give a thumbs up. Perhaps even Naruto was getting tired of it.
"Did you hear all that?" The Sage addressed him for the first time.
He nodded.
"What did you think?" It was hard to tell if the man was genuinely curious or testing him. In either case, he was already dead. There was no reason for lies or shinobi subterfuge.
"Your achievements were greater than mine. But so were your blunders."
"I suppose it was inevitable that you'd compare yourself to me."
"Do you find it insulting that I would do such a thing?"
"No, I did not mean that you are not worthy of comparison to me. Just that you have no reason to do so."
"Some would so, that I have more reason than anyone else."
The old man hummed. "Did the comparison make you feel better, then?"
"Perhaps." His lips quirked. "Just a bit."
He harrumphed, but looked quite distracted.
Nagato couldn't see what the Sage could, even with his Rinnegan. So he turned his focus on the first Rinnegan he had seen that was not his own, and observed the flow of chakra. He had been fascinated by other dojutsu before, but while he could see it, his eyes could simply not circulate chakra in the same way that Itachi had been able to. To his surprise however, his eyes easily imitated the technique that the other Rinnegan was using.
Turning his head again, he could finally see a battlefield. There, what was likely Uchiha Madara, was attacking Naruto and his friends with multiple meteorites.
Part of him wished that he could step in and help Naruto. Another part of him lamented his own actions that must have helped cause this situation. And yet another part, the child traumatized by the 2nd Shinobi War simply hated the sight.
"Can they win?" He found himself asking.
"I know not."
They had their answer soon enough when the Uchiha was betrayed by his own creature.
"What is happening to him now?" He asked, though he already suspected from the story he had overhead.
"What I feared." His voice was grim. "But I have already done what I could to assist them."
Then the old man turned to him, "It is you I am concerned about now."
"Me?" He blinked.
"Your soul was anchored to the Living World through the Rinnegan that you had shared with Madara. With him gone and his eyes failing, that connection will soon be null."
Was that so? He had wondered if it was his regrets stopping him from passing on to the Pure World. The answer was much less poetic. But it changed little.
"Once that happens," the Sage continued. "Your soul could be lost between the world."
That.. changed a lot.
"Why is that?"
"Metaphysically, the Rinnegan is on an entirely different level than the Sharingan. To have wielded it for as long as you had, has changed your soul. I suspect even Obito, who you knew as Tobi, will now have a more flexible relation with death than anyone else. But that alone, would not be irreparable. However, you were then brought back to life via an Impure World Reincarnation. I fear, now even the Laws governing Life and Death would not know what to do with you."
As if to prove his words true, Nagato started feeling something pulling his soul. Then another pull in a different direction. Another, and another.
"Is this my punishment then?" He murmured, but the old man shook his head.
"The cause will have to be the cure. I will use the last of my essence to ensure that you arrive somewhere you could one day call home."
"What?" Nagato tried to ask, but a light emitted out of the Sage and hit him, then carrying him to the unknown.
He woke up on a sofa to the sounds of two panicking people. He tried to move, but groaned at just how weak his body was. Not the weakness he had from the loss of life energy that he had gotten used to in his sickly state, but as weak as he had not been since Jiraiya had taken them as students.
His groan attracted the attention of the two people in the room. There was something familiar about them.
"Nagato!"
His name on their lips rekindled his past memories. These were.. His parents.
Just where exactly had he ended up?