"Was I really wrong?"
Nagato lowered his gaze to his hands.
They were trembling faintly, skeletal and veined, like the hands of a man nearing the end of his life.
He turned them over again and again, as though searching for an answer among the mottled lines on his skin.
All he found was confusion.
He was a god.
He was Pain, the leader of the Akatsuki, the man whose name struck fear into the Five Great Nations...
He had never doubted himself. Never wavered.
From the day he killed Hanzo, he had believed without question that he was right.
Make the world experience pain. Make it tremble in fear. Force it to seek peace through despair...
That was his conviction.
His mission.
The reason he remained alive.
But now...
That man had told him he was wrong.
That he had been wrong from the very beginning.
Not merely wrong, but childish, stupid, and utterly worthless.
More terrifying still...
Nagato actually thought Teizawa's words made sense.
Every sentence made sense. Every word cut to the heart and drew blood.
He wanted to argue.
Yet he could not find a single counterargument.
He wanted to deny it, but he could not deceive himself.
Centuries of warfare. Countless deaths. Trading mountains of corpses for a few brief years of peace...
Was it worth it?
He could not bring himself to answer.
He did not know.
Perhaps Teizawa was right.
Perhaps he really had been wrong.
Konan stood beside him, her deep-orange eyes filled with concern.
Her lips parted.
She wanted to say something, but no words came.
She reached out to support him by the shoulder.
Her hand paused in midair before she eventually withdrew it.
She was wavering too.
Konan thought of Yahiko.
She remembered that endlessly optimistic man who had always greeted the world with a smile.
He had wanted to change Amegakure and the entire ninja world.
But he had wanted to do it his own way.
Not through hatred.
Not through fear.
Through understanding and trust.
But Yahiko was dead.
He had died in Hanzo's trap, a victim of the schemes hidden beneath the hypocritical mask of the man who called himself a demigod.
After that...
Nagato had changed.
So had she.
They had inherited Yahiko's dream.
Yet they had chosen a different path.
They became Pain and wielded the power of the Rinnegan, using fear and suffering to remake this rotten world.
But what if they had been wrong from the beginning?
What if this was not the future Yahiko had dreamed of?
What if everything she had clung to for decades was nothing but a self-deceiving joke?
Her body trembled faintly.
Sheets of paper drifted unconsciously around her.
It was not only the two of them.
Even Kakashi, Darui, Yugito, and Akatsuchi, shinobi from the Great Nations, wore stunned expressions.
Unify the ninja world?
The idea was like a seed.
It took root within their minds, sprouted, and began growing uncontrollably.
They had lived beneath the hidden-village system for as long as they could remember.
Upon graduating from the Ninja Academy, they had been told that their duty was to protect their village.
The first time they stepped onto a battlefield, they had known that the enemy would be shinobi from another village.
They had never stopped to wonder...
Why did there have to be different villages?
Why couldn't there be only one?
Hashirama, the First Hokage, had been hailed as the God of Shinobi.
He had been universally acknowledged as the strongest.
Why had he created the one-nation, one-village system?
Why hadn't he seized that opportunity to unify the entire ninja world?
Had he been unwilling?
Unable?
Or simply afraid?
No one knew the answer.
Hashirama was long dead.
Yet the choice he had made continued to affect generations.
It had shaped the lives and destinies of countless people.
Unification...
The word was like a key.
It unlocked a door within their minds that had never been opened before.
None of them knew what lay beyond it.
But the wind slipping through the crack made them tremble as never before.
For a time, everyone's convictions were shaken.
Teizawa slowly exhaled in relief.
He had said everything that needed to be said, along with quite a few things that probably hadn't.
Surely that would calm this unstable lunatic down, right?
He raised his hand, preparing to withdraw the Iron Sand and have a proper conversation with Nagato.
Preparing to...
"No... No! You won't manipulate me!"
Nagato suddenly screamed.
His voice was high-pitched and frantic, like a cornered beast driven to the brink.
His body shook violently.
The decrepit mechanical apparatus groaned under the strain, its tubes constricting around him like snakes.
His face twisted hideously.
Madness churned within his Rinnegan.
"I can't be wrong... I'm not wrong... I'm not allowed to be wrong!"
"Nagato!"
Konan's panicked cry tore through the rain.
"Damn it... This guy's insane!"
Teizawa cursed under his breath.
He already knew what Nagato intended to do.
That fluctuation of chakra. That familiar presence.
That unforgettable thing which had once appeared in the original story...
The Gedo Statue.
This lunatic had not listened to a single word.
Boom!
A deafening sound shook heaven and earth.
It was neither thunder nor an explosion.
It was something deeper and far more terrifying.
It sounded like an ancient beast awakening from an endless slumber.
The sky darkened.
Not because of the storm clouds, but because something was blocking out the heavens.
The rain reversed course.
The air seemed to solidify.
Even breathing became difficult.
Within the curtain of rain, a colossal hand burst from beneath the earth.
Its five fingers opened like towering pillars holding up the sky.
Each finger was taller than the towers of Amegakure.
An arm emerged next.
Then a shoulder.
A head.
Finally, its entire body.
A colossal statue rose from beneath the ground.
Its entire body was gray, and its features were hideously contorted.
Its eyes were closed, and its hands were pressed together.
It looked as though it were praying.
Or perhaps waiting for something.
It was enormous.
Absurdly enormous.
It towered so high that no one could see its head even when they craned their necks.
The very sight of it made them wonder whether they had fallen into a nightmare.
The Gedo Statue.
The husk of the Ten-Tails.
The ultimate weapon summoned through the Rinnegan.
Driven to desperation, Nagato had unleashed it.
"What... is that?"
Darui's voice cracked.
"How should I know...?"
Yugito clenched her teeth as chakra surged violently through her body.
Kakashi's lone eye widened.
This was fear that came from the depths of the soul.
It was humanity's most primal response to the unknown.
The despair of an insect looking up at a colossal beast.
"Everyone, fall back!"
Akatsuchi's voice boomed through the rain.
Yet no one moved.
It was not that they did not want to.
Their legs had gone weak.
They were too terrified to take a single step.
Their minds had gone blank, and their bodies refused to obey them.
Teizawa stood at the very front.
He looked up at the colossal statue, the corner of his mouth twitching.
He had known this thing would appear.
He had known this lunatic would refuse to listen.
With a sigh, Teizawa resigned himself to what came next.
He had said everything that needed to be said.
He had tried to reason with Nagato.
If Nagato still insisted on fighting, then so be it.
The Gedo Statue slowly opened its eyes.
They were neither human eyes nor the eyes of a tailed beast.
They belonged to something far older and more mysterious.
Its ten fingers plunged into the earth.
Its colossal body pulled itself completely free from the ground.
The true apocalypse had arrived.
Konan retreated to Nagato's side, sheets of paper swirling around her.
She looked at the towering statue, then at Nagato.
Had they truly been wrong?
Perhaps.
But it was already too late to turn back.
From the day Yahiko died, there had been no turning back for either of them.
Obito stood atop the highest tower, looking down at the colossal statue with a slight frown.
The Gedo Statue had finally appeared.
Nagato had finally taken this step.
Black Zetsu emerged halfway from the ground beside Obito's feet.
An eerie glint flashed within his yellow eyes.
Obito said nothing.
He merely stared at Teizawa's back.
His Sharingan glowed scarlet in the darkness.
(End of Chapter)
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