The scroll is heavier than I expected when I unroll it across the stone floor. Thick parchment, ink that looks like it bled from something alive, not written by hand. The symbols twist if I stare too long, like they know I don't belong here.
I bite the inside of my cheek, hesitate, then drag the kunai across my fingertip. Crimson beads well up fast. It stings more than I want to admit, but I press my palm down anyway, right in the center of the swirl.
"Alright. Big moment. Don't screw it up."
The words escape me in a whisper, a nervous laugh hitching in my throat.
I slam my hand down.
Poof!
A puff of smoke bursts around me, gray and choking. My heart leaps — anticipation, excitement — then drops flat in my stomach. The smoke clears. The floor is empty.
"…that's it?"
I pull my hand back, staring at my bloody palm. Nothing. Not even a pathetic lizard or an angry pigeon. Just empty stone, mocking me.
"Maybe… maybe I messed up the timing."
I try again. Harder this time. Hand down, chakra forced through my veins, out my palm.
Poof!
More smoke. Nothing.
I cough, wave the smoke away, squinting into the emptiness like something might suddenly appear if I glare hard enough. Still nothing.
"…broken. It's broken. My scroll's defective."
I roll the parchment back a little, check the seals, then snap it open again like maybe I'll catch the trick if I move fast enough. Same ink. Same curves. Same mocking silence.
I repeat it a third time. Then a fourth. My fingertip's throbbing now, blood smearing the symbols, the smoke so thick it stings my eyes. Still nothing.
Frustration claws at me. I push myself up, stalking toward the closest of the Six Paths. Preta — the one with the dead stare, the one who looks like the husk of a man.
I hold out my hand, palm still dripping. "See? Look at this. I did the blood, the seal, the slam. Perfect form. And all I get is puff—" I clap my hands together, a cloud of dust shaking off them, "—like some cheap stage trick. I think mine's defective. You've got spares, right? Swap me out."
Preta doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Just stares at me with those hollow eyes that aren't his own. A wall of silence that presses harder than words ever could.
"…Right," I mutter, lowering my hand. "Of course. Should've known. I get the lemon scroll."
Inside, I can feel the panic simmering. If I can't even manage a summon, then what the hell am I doing here? They're going to find out. They're going to know I don't belong.
I press my bloodied palm against my pants, wiping it clean, pretending I don't care. Pretending the emptiness inside my chest isn't louder than the rain outside.
Preta's silence grates on me more than words ever could. His eyes — or Nagato's eyes, whatever they are — just bore into me, unmoving, unblinking. I almost want him to say something cruel, mock me, anything. But he doesn't.
The silence stretches until I hear the soft creak of the door behind me. I don't even need to turn. The shift in the room's weight tells me who it is.
Deva. And Konan.
The air feels heavier just with them entering. Deva walks like a judgment given form, every step a verdict. Konan glides behind him, calm, paper-petals still clinging to her shoulders like the rain refuses to let her go.
I swallow, forcing my voice out too quickly: "Wait — I can get it, just… just watch."
I spin back toward the scroll, slap my palm down again, chakra ripping from me in a rush.
Poof!
The smoke curls up, whirls, fades. Empty.
The emptiness stares back at me harder than any set of eyes in this room.
My throat is dry. I force a weak laugh, scratching the back of my head, smearing blood in my hair."Sorry. I, uh… guess I can't get it. Must be me. Probably not cut out for…You know… animal sidekicks."
The words feel small the second they leave me. Shrinking in this tower built on gods and corpses.
Konan's gaze softens — not kind, not pitying, but like a teacher who already knows the answer to the question her student keeps getting wrong. Her voice is calm, even, but every syllable is final: "Without a contract, there is nothing."
Her words hit harder than Deva's presence.
I blink at her, stupidly. "Contract? What do you mean by contract? The scroll—" I point down at it, the ink still wet with my blood, "—this is the contract, isn't it? Isn't this how it's supposed to work?"
She shakes her head slowly, hair swaying with the motion. Paper wings seem to peel from her back, just slightly, catching the torchlight."The scrolls you read were not instructions. They were recorded. Prison. Curriculum. They do not grant what you cannot claim."
My stomach sinks, the realization clawing through me like rust through iron. So all that time poring over symbols, tracing them like they held the key to making me equal, they weren't teaching me. They were binding me. Training wheels, shackles, call it whatever you want — but never the freedom I thought.
"Of course," I mutter under my breath, trying to laugh, but it comes out cracked. "Figures. I've been shadow-boxing with smoke this whole time."
Deva steps closer, and the floor feels like it shifts with him. The storm rattles the tower outside, but in here, the thunder comes from his voice alone.
Deva steps closer, shadows stretching with him, as if the whole tower leans toward his gravity. His voice cuts through the stale air — deep, absolute, unchallenged.
"Forget it," he says. "You already wield Shinra Tensei. An ability none have commanded but me."
The words hang in the room like the toll of a bell. Final. Eternal.
For a heartbeat, I forget to breathe.
Did he just—?
My mind scrambles, tumoring over itself. Shinra Tensei. Almighty Push. His signature move. Pain's thing. Nagato's divine hammer. The technique that sent Jiraiya to his grave, that flattened Konoha, that made gods out of corpses. That technique — and he just said I wield it.
Me.
My blood goes cold. My mouth opens, shuts, opens again. Nothing comes out but a hoarse whisper:"…No way."
I replay it in my head — every fight I memorized, every databook entry, every wiki line I scrolled through back in my old life. No one had Shinra Tensei but Pain. Not even Nagato outside of the Paths. Just him. Singular. Unique. Untouchable.
And now?
I swallow hard, heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to punch out. If what he says is true, then I'm walking around with godhood in my veins — a technique that rewrote nations — and I didn't even know how to aim it until now.
But if it's true… if he's acknowledging it… Then what does that make me?
Special? A threat? A replacement?
Every possibility is a noose.
I force a grin anyway, because if I don't, I'll drown in this storm. "Heh. So what you're telling me is…" I spread my arms wide, cloakless but playing it grand, "…I'm basically you. The second coming of Pain."
It's bravado. A joke. A shield.
But the way Deva looks at me — not anger, not humor, just that abyss of Rinnegan eyes swallowing me whole — I realize the danger in trying to wear his crown, even in jest.
A pressure builds in the air, sudden, suffocating. My instincts scream before my brain catches up.
"Oh, shi—"
BOOM.
The world lurches as an invisible force slams into me, crushing the air from my lungs. I hit the wall so hard that cracks spiderweb behind me, stone dust raining into my hair. My back screams in pain, chest heaving like I've been kicked by a giant.
Pinned in the debris, I wheeze out, voice ragged but laced with bitter humor: "Okay… first coming still has… anger issues."
My lungs are still trying to remember how to work when I peel myself off the wall. Stone dust clings to my hair, to my lashes, every breath tasting of crushed mortar. My ribs ache like I've swallowed thunder.
And still — still — I force myself upright.
Because if I stay down, I'm nothing. If I stand up, I'm at least pretending to be something.
I drag in a shaky breath, wipe the blood off my lip with the back of my hand, and grin through the pain. "Yeah," I croak, voice raw, "I'll take that as a compliment. Second coming confirmed."
Deva doesn't move. Doesn't need to. His silence weighs more than his power ever could.
The truth is, I should be terrified. I know exactly what Shinra Tensei did in the story. What he did with it. Flattened forests, erased armies, cratered Konoha into a scar on the map. And me? I can barely aim it without pancaking myself into rubble.
But fear has never looked good on me. So I smirk. I joke. I act like the fall was part of the plan. Because if I let them see I'm scared, I'm done.
"Guess godhood comes with a learning curve, huh?" I mutter, coughing dust from my throat.
Konan's lips twitch — not cruel, not sharp. Soft. Like she's hiding a laugh.
And then it happens.
Something drops onto my face, muffling my words, smelling faintly of rain-soaked parchment and ink.
I claw it off, blinking through the grit. And freeze.
Black. Heavy. Clouds stitched in blood-red. The fabric of fear itself.
An Akatsuki cloak.
For a second, I just stare. My fingers tremble as I hold it up, tracing the clouds, the crimson swirls that mean power, terror, infamy.
It's ridiculous, but my throat tightens. This… this is the thing I wanted. The thing I imagined when I first realized where I'd landed. Not the jutsu, not the scrolls. This. Recognition. A seat at the table of monsters.
Konan is smiling now, hand to her mouth to stifle it, eyes brighter than I've ever seen them. She crouches down just enough to meet my eyes."You are still only a reserve," she says softly. "But you've earned this much."
Her words sink deeper than any blade.
Reserve or not, leash or not, it doesn't matter. They're acknowledging me. In this world, acknowledgment is everything.
I clutch the cloak to my chest, eyes burning, heart hammering against it like it wants to escape.
"More than food," I whisper under my breath, "more than jutsu…"
I stand, drape it over my shoulders. The weight is perfect. Heavy, grounding. The storm outside seems to hush for me, just for a moment.
I look at them — at her — and for the first time since I arrived in this cursed tower, I feel like I belong.
Of course, belonging here is a death sentence. But for a moment? For a fleeting moment? I don't care.
I twirl once, strutting, spreading my arms like Deva."I am Pain!" I declare, voice booming with mock authority. "Bow before me or I'll… confiscate your forehead protector!"
Konan giggles — actually giggles — behind her hand.
And then—
BOOM.
Another invisible hammer smashes into my chest, sending me crashing through the wall into the next chamber. My ears ring, body buried half in rubble.
I groan, raising one arm like a surrender flag."Okay!" I cough. "Maybe too soon."
The dust swirls, and Konan's laughter echoes through it, lighter than the storm.
I'm still coughing plaster out of my lungs when Deva's shadow falls over me again. That damn silhouette could block the sun itself.
"Konan," he says, voice flat, final. "Take him to his quarters."
Quarters.
For a moment, I blink dumbly through the dust, half thinking I misheard. My quarters? As in… not this dungeon floor, not stuck here with the six hollow mannequins standing like grave markers?
I push myself upright, brushing rubble off the cloak draped across my shoulders."Wait— hold on. Did you just say quarters?"
Deva doesn't answer. He never does. The weight of his silence is heavier than his words.
Konan, though, nods. Calm, collected, like she's telling me the weather. "You'll be moved higher in the tower. A room to yourself."
I freeze. My gut twists with something sharp — relief tangled with suspicion. A real room. A door. A bed. Almost sounds… human. Which means it can't possibly be that simple.
"You're serious? You're actually letting me move?"
Konan tilts her head, paper petals whispering against one another. "If you prefer, you may remain here. Among them."
I glance past her, toward the Six Paths. Five unmoving, unbreathing bodies with Nagato's eyes glowing faintly in the gloom. But it's Preta's stare that hooks me — empty, endless, watching me like a shadow waiting to swallow the light.
A shiver crawls down my spine. I force a laugh that comes out higher-pitched than I'd like. "Stay with him?" I jab a finger at Preta, who doesn't even blink. "Yeah, no thanks. Hard pass. Love what you've done with the corpses, really, but I'll take my chances upstairs."
Konan's lips twitch, and for a heartbeat, I swear I see something like amusement in her eyes. Deva doesn't so much as flinch, but the air between us feels like it's vibrating, like I'm one wrong word away from another push through a wall.
I clutch the cloak tighter around me, try to steady my voice."Besides," I mutter, "I don't think I'd survive a slumber party with Mister Personality here. He's already got that thousand-yard stare down pat. I like sleeping without wondering if I'll wake up missing organs."
Preta's silence presses back, heavier than the rain outside.
Konan finally gestures, a smooth sweep of her arm toward the stairs. "Come. Before you test their patience further."
I hesitate, casting one last look at the Paths, their stillness too alive, too wrong. My skin crawls just standing near them.
Yeah. Whatever waits upstairs, whatever leash they put me on, it has to be better than this graveyard.
I follow Konan, the cloak dragging just a little on the stone, feeling like chains and wings all at once.
The stairwell spirals up like a throat swallowing me whole, every step echoing with the storm outside. My new cloak drags lightly at my ankles, too long, too heavy, like it belongs to someone taller, older, stronger. Which, of course, it does.
Konan leads the way, her paper wings fluttering faintly with every shift of air. They glint in the torchlight, catching fragments of shadow like shards of glass. She doesn't speak at first, and I almost don't want her to. Silence here feels safer than answers.
But eventually, her voice carries back to me, calm and measured, like a teacher pacing a lesson."You've joined Akatsuki. We are not like the others who call themselves shinobi. We are a collective… a family, of sorts. We do not fight for villages or for nations. Our purpose is greater."
I tilt my head, trying for innocence. "Greater? Like… world domination greater? Conquer-everything-and-slap-our-logo-on-it greater?"
She glances back at me, expression unreadable. The paper at her shoulders rustles like an exhale. "No. We are a group working to change the world. To bring peace where there has only been war. The path is difficult. Bloody. But it leads to an end no one else dares seek."
Peace.
The word sinks into me, twisting. I know this speech. I know where it ends — the grand vision, the Eye of the Moon Plan, the illusion of harmony painted across the sky. Peace in chains, in lies. Nagato's pain given form, Madara's hand pulling strings.
But I can't let on that I know that. Not yet. So I blink, feigning stupidity, lips curling into a crooked grin. "So you're basically the ninja UN. Except with more black cloaks and fewer HR departments."
Her gaze lingers on me, sharp enough to cut, before she turns back toward the steps. "There are others. Many others. But you won't meet them yet. Not until the time is right."
I let my eyes widen, feigning curiosity I don't need. "Others? Like… how many are we talking? Five? Ten? A whole football team?"
Konan doesn't laugh, but I swear her shoulders loosen, the faintest sign of humor tugging at her. "In time, you will understand. For now…You are here. With me. With Pain. That will have to be enough."
I slow a little, fingers brushing the cloak's hem as if the fabric itself might whisper secrets. The words sink deeper than I expect. With me. With Pain. No mention of anyone else. Just them.
Trapped in this tower. Leashed to gods.
But if I have to be leashed… if I have to be caged…
My lips tug into a half-smile, softer this time, the kind that almost feels real. "Stuck with you and Pain, huh? Honestly… doesn't sound too bad."
Her steps falter for half a heartbeat. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that I see it.
Then she moves on, silent again, and I follow, cloak swaying with each step, wondering if I just said too much… or exactly enough.
The stairs open into a long hallway, torches flickering in rhythm with the storm outside. Konan doesn't stop walking, but her voice deepens, like she's weighing the words before giving them to me.
"You wonder what your place is here."
I blink at her back. "Uh… yeah. Kind of important. Don't want to show up to the wrong orientation, y'know? 'Akatsuki 101' seems like a class you don't want to fail."
She ignores the jab, or maybe it just slides off her paper shell. "Akatsuki is not a village. There are no missions from daimyo, no councils to appease. We take what must be done into our own hands. We carry the burden others refuse. Each of us has a role to play. Each role matters."
My chest tightens. I know the roster. I know their roles — the monsters, the zealots, the broken toys. Hidan, the immortal fanatic. Kakuzu the miser. Deidar, the artist with bombs for paint. Every one of these is dangerous enough to bend nations.
And me? Dropped into their midst like a bad punchline.
I force my voice lighter. "So what's my role then? Comedy relief? Guy-who-brings-snacks? Pretty sure you don't need another god walking around. One's plenty."
This time, she does glance at me — eyes cool, unreadable. "Not comedy. Not a god. You will be something more practical. A presence where one is required. A guard, perhaps. A shield."
A guard.
The words crawl under my skin, anchoring heavily in my gut. I know what she means without her saying it. Someone to stand close. To watch the tower. To protect Nagato the way she does. To be chained to his side as another piece of living armor.
I almost laugh. Almost. Because isn't that the cruelest joke? Dropping me here with foreknowledge of everything, every betrayal and downfall — only to chain me to the epicenter of it all?
My heart pounds, and I bite down on my tongue before too much slips out.
Play dumb. Always play dumb.
I scratch my head, but then instead of the same old shtick, I go for something a touch bolder, a shade of stupid braver. "Alright then—call me Guard Boy. I'll protect Konan for as long as I breathe. Frontline coverage, 24/7. No extra charge."
She stops mid-step. For a sliver of a second, the corridor holds its breath with us. Konan turns — slow, deliberately — and looks at me. The paper at her shoulders shivers; the torchlight catches something like a memory in her eyes.
"We'll see," she says, small, measured, and not quite a promise.
Her answer lands like a hand on my shoulder: neither blessing nor dismissal, only the cool weight of possibility.
I tuck the cheeky grin away, folding it into the façade I wear. Konan moves on, leading me further down the corridor, paper whispering against itself with every step.
Inside, though, the storm isn't outside anymore. It's in me.
Because I know the truth: this isn't an opportunity. It's a leash. A post was hammered into the ground with me chained to it. And yet… part of me can't help but wonder if standing this close to Nagato, to Pain, might let me steal more than just recognition.
Maybe power. Maybe destiny. Maybe enough to rewrite everything I thought I knew.
Konan's "we'll see" still rings in my ears as we reach the end of the corridor. The air shifts — cooler, less suffocating — and the hall opens into a broad chamber near the tower's upper levels.
The storm is closer here. I can hear it thrumming against the stone, can feel the windows rattling in their frames. The scent of rain bleeds through the cracks, sharp and metallic, like the whole sky is a forge beating steel.
Konan stops in front of a tall iron door. She rests her hand against it — delicate, but the steel yields to her touch as if it were paper. The door creaks open to reveal a sparse room. A bed against one wall, a desk near the window, a single lamp sputtering with chakra-light. No clutter, no softness. Just space and silence.
I take a hesitant step inside, my new cloak dragging across the floor. The room feels too big for me, like it's already waiting for someone else. Or maybe like it's a cage dressed up as quarters.
"…This is mine?" I ask, voice low, almost afraid it'll echo.
Konan nods, her expression unreadable. "You may roam this level. No lower, no higher. This space is yours, but your freedom ends at these walls."
Of course. A leash with longer slack is still a leash.
My eyes wander. The window pulls me like a magnet. I drift toward it, press my hand against the glass. The storm is endless — sheets of rain slicing down, clouds pressed low and heavy, Ame drowning itself in its own grief.
I can see why Nagato chose this place. A kingdom of suffering for a god of pain.
Konan's voice cuts through my thoughts. "There is one rule above all. At the end of the hall, there is a room. You must not enter it. Ever."
I freeze, fingers tightening against the glass. The way she says it — calm, precise, but edged like a blade — tells me everything. That room isn't just forbidden. It's sacred. Dangerous.
Chekhov's door, dangling in front of me like a lit fuse.
I turn back to her, forcing a smirk. "So… roam the halls, stare at the rain, don't touch the mystery door. Got it. Sounds like paradise."
She doesn't rise to the sarcasm. Just inclines her head, paper wings folding tighter against her back. "It is more than most receive."
She's right. I know she's right. And yet, standing here, cloak heavy on my shoulders, the storm pounding just beyond the glass, I can't help but feel it — the weight of the leash coiling tighter around my throat.
But still… recognition. A room. A cloak. It's something.
And in this world, something can be everything.
Konan lingers in the doorway a moment longer, as though considering something unsaid. Then she turns, leaving me alone in my new cell of stone and stormlight.
I sink onto the bed, cloak still wrapped tight, staring at the window until the rain blurs my reflection into a shadow I barely recognize.
Time slips strangely in the tower. Minutes feel like hours, hours like days. The storm outside never changes — endless rain hammering glass, thunder rumbling through the walls like a heartbeat I can't escape.
I sit on the bed for a long while, staring at nothing, cloak bunched in my fists. The silence gnaws at me until I can't take it anymore.
The door creaks softly when I pull it open. The hall stretches out, torches guttering in the draft, their flames bending toward the stairwell like they're trying to flee.
And there it is.
The door at the far end.
It doesn't glow. It doesn't breathe. It just is. Heavy wood bound in iron, a shape against stone. And yet it feels louder than the storm, like the whole tower leans inward around it.
Konan's warning echoes in my head: You must not enter it. Ever.
I take a few slow steps into the hall, my bare feet whispering against the cold floor. The cloak sways around me, too loud in the silence. My chest tightens the closer I get, like the air itself is thickening.
I stop halfway, staring at the door. My mouth is dry, but the thought forms anyway.
"That's him."
Nagato Uzumaki.
I know it without anyone saying it. I know what waits beyond that door: the man pulling strings, the broken body wired into a machine, the god pretending at peace.
The true heart of Akatsuki.
And if Konan's words are to be believed, my job is to guard him.
The thought makes me laugh — sharp, quiet, brittle. I am a guard dog for a god. A pawn on the wrong side of history, staring at the man who will flatten Konoha with a single jutsu.
But another thought slips in, darker, sharper.
If I'm stationed here… if I'm this close… maybe I'm not a pawn. Maybe I'm sitting right on top of the board, close enough to tip it over when the time comes.
The storm howls through the windows, rattling the hall. I smirk at the door, whispering to myself:
"Guess that makes us neighbors, Nagato."
For a moment, I swear the door breathes back at me.
I turn, retreating into my quarters before the weight of it crushes me. The door clicks shut behind me, but my eyes keep flicking back toward the hall, even with stone between us.
The leash is tight. The walls are cold. But now I know where it leads.
And I know exactly who's on the other end.