A deep, involuntary breath hissed through Pain's teeth.
Kakuzu's mind, sharp and calculating, was already racing ahead. 'If this is true… then every legend, every treasure… it's all been filtered through lies centuries old.'
For the first time in decades, he felt the edge of uncertainty scrape at his pride.
Obito's lone eye burned, a storm of thoughts behind it. 'Madara… even you… just another pawn?'
Konan remained still, but Alex caught the subtle tightening of her jaw, the sign of someone processing too much truth at once.
Alex finally let the silence take over the room. He loosened his hold on Black Zetsu just enough for the creature to squirm in protest, its voice bubbling with hate.
"You think you know the plan, Nagato," Alex said, turning to Pain directly. "You think you're shaping this world with your will. But you've been walking on a path someone else paved long before you were born."
Pain's voice was low, but it carried. "And you're different?"
Alex's lips quirked, the teasing edge returning for just a moment. "Oh, I'm very different. I don't walk on paths. I make them."
He let that hang there, letting each of them imagine what that meant.
His eyes flicked to Konan again, just briefly, enough to make her notice.
"And I'm not in the business of resurrecting mothers who think they're gods."
For the first time, Konan almost smiled, finding his joke funny.
On the other side, Obito's lone Sharingan dimmed slightly in the low torchlight, the red ring almost seeming to waver. He didn't move, but inside, something cracked.
'If what he says is true… then everything… Madara's teachings, my plan… all of it… worthless.'
Nagato's expression, or rather, Yahiko's body didn't shift, but behind those Rinnegan ripples, his thoughts churned violently. He had spent years crafting his grand peace plan, sculpting it from pain and loss, convincing himself that his way was the only path to peace.
And now, Alex had stripped it bare, revealing it as just another puppet's string pulled by something far older and far more alien than human malice.
For a man who believed himself to be a god, Nagato felt a rare, unwelcome weight in his chest. 'If my purpose was never mine… then what am I?'
Konan's gaze lingered on the man hidden far away, fragile in a chair of metal and pain. She wanted to be there now, to put her hand over his and tell him that his existence wasn't meaningless. But all she could do was stand here, watching the silence between Alex's words gnaw at the people she cared for most.
The tension cracked when a soft, serpentine chuckle rolled through the chamber.
"Well, well…" Orochimaru's voice slithered like oil, his golden eyes narrowing in amusement. "You do spin an elaborate story, but tell me, how is it that you know so much? You claim to be a god… but these abilities you flaunt... foresight of history and the future... I've never heard of even the Sage of Six Paths possessing them."
His tongue flickered across his lips, the gleam in his eyes making it clear he was probing for weakness as much as truth.
Alex turned to face him fully, the corner of his mouth lifting in something between amusement and condescension.
"Of course, you wouldn't know, Orochimaru. After all, Hagoromo never had these abilities. That's because Hagoromo… and even Kaguya… were not gods at all."
The chamber seemed to be still for a heartbeat.
"They were members of an alien race who called themselves Ōtsutsuki."
That name rolled off Alex's tongue like an old curse.
A faint hiss passed between Kisame's teeth.
Kakuzu's stitched brow furrowed. Even Sasori's stoic expression twitched at the edges.
Alex began to pace slowly, his hands loosely behind his back, his voice dipping into a tone both informative and dripping with disdain.
"The Ōtsutsuki clan is an ancient race of horned humanoid creatures. You can call them Celestial beings, if you like poetic lies… or you can go with aliens, if you prefer the truth. And here's the thing... all of them, every single one of them has this fetish," He said, putting sharp emphasis on the word, "for thinking themselves equivalent to gods. A habit so deeply ingrained that they've built an entire doctrine around it."
He stopped pacing, turning his head toward Orochimaru with a smile that wasn't really a smile.
"As a parasitic species, they've spent thousands of years slithering through the cosmos, world to world, carrying out the so-called 'Ōtsutsuki Will.'"
Alex raised his hands in mock reverence, his voice dropping into a theatrical chant.
"A doctrine which dictates that their kind consume the life energy and genetic material of other worlds… in order to 'evolve' endlessly… chasing godhood that will never truly be theirs."
He lowered his hands, the mockery gone now, replaced by a sharp disgust. "In truth? They're nothing more than bastards with sky-high arrogance."
A shadow crossed his expression; his expression was cold, dangerous. "And I would enjoy nothing more than killing every last one of those clowns."
There was a pause, and then, with a small, humorless chuckle. "But those bastards are slippery… as eels."
Kisame's grin reappeared faintly at that; the image of cosmic predators compared to something from the sea amused him more than it should have.
Alex exhaled slowly, his tone shifting again to something almost instructive.
"You could even say that every ability ninja possesses today… every scrap of chakra, every jutsu… is derived from the Ōtsutsuki. You're not using 'ninja power.' You're playing with their scraps."
A soft but audible hiss of breath moved through the Akatsuki.
Kisame's jaw tightened, and Kakuzu's eyes flicked briefly to the floor.
Sasori frowned, chewing at the inside of his cheek. He couldn't accept that his art of puppetry was actually a deprived ability of some alien race.
"They," Alex went on, sweeping his gaze across each member, "are the reason I said what you're doing now is nothing but… childish. All your plans for peace, domination, destruction… are ants fighting over a crumb while giants are deciding whether to burn the whole picnic."
He let the insult sink in, then softened it just slightly. "The real threat isn't the villages... It's the Ōtsutsuki. And they all…"
He paused deliberately, letting the suspense hang. "…have a very special interest in Earth."
The room fell utterly silent again, but this time it was a different kind of silence.
Not the startled quiet of disbelief, but the heavy, oppressive stillness of people beginning to understand just how small they might be in the grand scheme.
Obito's fingers flexed slowly at his side while Nagato's gaze stayed locked on Alex, searching for some crack in his words, some sign this was all manipulation.
Konan simply watched. She didn't know yet if she believed him, but she could feel the weight behind his words wasn't feigned.
And that, somehow, was more unsettling than any lie.
--- ✦ ✦ ✦ ---
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