Kimimaro found himself surrounded.
Konan, Deidara, Sasori, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu.
Six directions.
Six different kinds of death.
Exactly the kind of situation lesser shinobi panicked in.
On the other side of the battlefield, Reika stood alone against the Six Paths of Pain. That wasn't an accident.
Kimimaro had signaled her earlier, a deliberate instruction to draw them away, to pressure them into falling back and keep them occupied for as long as possible.
It made more sense to him this way.
The Paths were dangerous, yes, but they were also predictable once understood.
And Reika was uniquely suited for that role.
Her adamantine sealing chains were perfect for area denial, and she had already begun integrating fragments of the Three-Tails' chakra.
With her composure, her intelligence, and his prior input on Pain's mechanics, she didn't need to win.
She only needed to hold.
And she could.
Kimimaro turned his attention back to the circle closing around him, calm settling in his chest.
He would dismantle the rest in the meantime.
...
Six bodies operating across different positions, all sharing vision.
Perfect battlefield coverage.
Each Path fulfilled a single, specialized role: gravity control, overwhelming summons, absolute chakra absorption, mechanized weaponry, soul extraction, and revival, all while keeping the true core safely removed from direct risk.
Individually limited.
Collectively oppressive.
The illusion of multiple identical "gods" crushed opponents as much psychologically as it did physically.
But once the mechanism was understood, Pain's threat curve dropped sharply.
Reika saw it now.
They were moving in formation around her, deliberate, measured, confident in a system that had broken countless enemies before.
And because of that, she didn't panic.
Kimimaro had explained each ability in such exhaustive detail that it bordered on unsettling.
More than once, she'd caught herself wondering how he could possibly possess information that precise.
She didn't ask.
She trusted him completely.
Reika stood her ground as the circle closed.
Six bodies.
Six vectors of threat.
One shared gaze pressing in on her from every angle.
She didn't rush.
She didn't retreat.
Chains unfurled behind her in slow, deliberate arcs, adamantine links humming as chakra flowed through them.
Where they touched the ground, frost bloomed outward, white ice crawling over stone and soil alike, the temperature dropping with surgical intent rather than spectacle.
So this was Pain.
Six bodies, spread just far enough apart to deny a single decisive strike, yet close enough to cover each other's blind spots.
Timing synchronized.
Reika exhaled slowly.
They finally moved first.
Animal Path struck first, summons bursting into existence around her, massive shapes crashing down to overwhelm space and sightlines.
Reika's chains snapped forward.
They didn't cut.
They wrapped.
Adamantine links coiled around limbs, throats, and torsos, sealing chakra on contact.
Ice surged over the bindings instantly, freezing flesh, bone, and summoned matter together into rigid white statues.
The summons didn't even finish roaring before they were immobilized, chakra siphoned away through the chains like water down a drain.
Animal Path vanished beneath the ice.
Useless, just as Kimimaro had said.
Missile fire screamed in from the side as the Asura Path opened up, mechanical limbs unfolding, weapons deploying in layered volleys.
Reika twisted her wrist.
Chains downsized, sharpened, and intersected midair, snapping around barrels, joints, and propulsion systems.
Ice followed, flooding into mechanisms, freezing gears, locking pistons solid.
A frozen engine didn't explode.
It died.
Asura Path moved a little back as well.
Her eyes flicked instantly toward the rear.
Naraka Path.
The most valuable one, because it could restore the other bodies, exactly as Kimimaro had warned her.
Still untouched.
Still guarded.
Of course.
Reika tested it anyway.
Ice surged outward in a crushing wave, solid frost and killing cold sweeping across the ground toward Naraka Path, only for Preta Path to step in seamlessly.
Hands spread, the nullification field bloomed, and the ice didn't shatter or melt; it vanished.
Chakra, cold, structure, all of it swallowed cleanly as the shield held firm around Naraka.
Reika's lips curved slightly.
Because the chains came next.
Adamantine links slammed into Preta Path head-on, sealing force colliding directly with absorption.
Neither yielded cleanly.
The air vibrated as chakra ground against chakra, feedback rippling outward in sharp distortions.
But the chains held.
Long enough to matter.
Ice surged up the links anyway, freezing the ground beneath Preta Path's feet, locking him in place even as his absorption field strained uselessly against the adamantine seal.
"So you cancel techniques," Reika said calmly. "But what happens when I seal the thing doing the canceling?"
But then gravity finally asserted itself.
Banshō Ten'in ripped through the field, an irresistible pull seizing her body and dragging it straight toward Deva Path, chains snapping taut as their anchors failed one by one.
The timing was flawless.
At the same instant, the Human Path moved, closing in, from behind, with practiced precision, one hand already extended, ready to tear her soul free the moment she crossed the threshold.
Yet the instant the force peaked, she slammed a powerful fuinjutsu chakra barrier into the ground before her, chakra flaring as it tore into the terrain and arrested her momentum.
Moments later, the pull finally collapsed on its own.
But before she could fully close the distance and bring her chains forward again, Shinra Tensei detonated outward.
The repulsive force erupted in a violent wave, hurling ice, debris, and frozen summons away as if they weighed nothing.
Reika was thrown back across the ground, her boots carving deep furrows through the frost.
She didn't stop.
Even as she slid, her chains snapped outward from the ground itself, surging in a counter-pattern designed not to strike Deva Path at all.
But to reach past him.
Straight for Naraka again.
Nagato felt it immediately.
From kilometers away, hidden and emaciated, he frowned.
She knew.
Not by guesswork.
Not by adapting on the fly.
She knew exactly which body mattered most.
She moved as if the intricacies of all his abilities were already mapped out, never allowing the Human Path anywhere near her, even for an instant, never relying on a single counter against the Deva Path, always layering responses instead.
Meanwhile, Naraka Path fell back as chains erupted around it from the ground itself, cold energy racing along the links in relentless pursuit.
The chains didn't just bind anymore.
They shaped. Ice spike constructs bloomed along them mid-motion, as if this sealing medium itself had finally learned to perform ninjutsu.
Asura Path was already finished, frozen solid before it could bring its mechanisms to bear, and Naraka Path had no window to restore it.
Preta Path was still partially restrained, its absorption locked in a deadlock against the sealing chains, the two forces canceling each other out on a conceptual level.
Human Path was useless in this situation, offering no defensive value at all.
Deva Path, meanwhile, was still trapped in the brief but critical cooldown of its last technique.
That left only one option.
Animal Path.
Nagato had kept it distant from the very beginning, the moment he realized its summons were ineffective against her.
Now it moved, summoning Naraka Path away from danger just in time, pulling it out of the collapsing kill zone before the chains could close completely.
Even Reika hadn't anticipated that, and she clicked her tongue in irritation.
Meanwhile, kilometers away, Nagato's real body remained hidden, motionless, crippled, relying on puppets to fight for him, yet his mind was anything but.
He hadn't expected this.
Not the white-haired leader.
That much he'd accounted for.
But this, his Uzumaki–Yuki subordinate, holding him in place for this long.
It unsettled him.
Yet, he knew he was still winning.
He hadn't used Chibaku Tensei at all.
He hadn't unleashed his more destructive versions of Shinra Tensei.
The balance of power hadn't truly tipped.
And yet, being stalled like this, forced to account for her, felt wrong.
Unacceptable.
So he made his decision.
Next, he would finally escalate and end her once and for all, before rejoining the wider battlefield and turning his full attention back to the white-haired young leader.