Uchiha Yorin's declaration of "I surrender" might as well have been a straight-up confession to Konan.
Never mind what shape their relationship would take from here on out — right now, at least, it meant that Yorin and Konan had mutually confessed. The way the two of them glanced at each other, shy but full of emotion, even made Nagato smile with relief.
With that, the last bit of hesitation in his heart evaporated. From here on, he could die openly and righteously for "justice."
He had a strong self-destructive streak, and after playing the two-man act with Yorin, Nagato had already envisioned his own ending.
He'd be like Lelouch over on the neighboring soundstage — bearing all the world's hatred and sin, dying to leave behind a perfect, peaceful world.
Uchiha Yorin really was a bastard. He was planning to squeeze every last ounce out of him, then toss him aside like a rag once he wasn't useful anymore.
But if it was for world peace… Nagato could accept that gladly.
Let me die on the eve of peace, Uchiha. But if you betray our ideals, even in hell I won't let you go.
Nagato sank into a state of self-moved fervor, then lifted his eyes, blazing with fighting spirit, to Uchiha Yorin.
If Yorin had used genjutsu to scan his thoughts, he would've been utterly confused.
What do you mean, "bear the sins," "die for the world"? When did I ever say I wanted you to be the scapegoat? Stop writing fanfic in your own head, please.
He'd never once claimed he wanted to be some morally flawless, spotless ruler.
That kind of saintly sovereign only comes in two flavors. One: no actual power, completely hollowed-out puppet. Two: the type who throws out a scapegoat like Hiruzen, so he can stay "pure" while pulling strings from the shadows.
He'd long understood that a ruler has to balance favor and fear; people had to revere him, but fear him even more. Especially if he was going to be the founding emperor of a Ninja Empire, pushing through wave after wave of reform and forcing the world forward at high speed — then he'd need plenty of "fear."
Killing people, "thinning out" nobles by the handful — those weren't tasks you outsourced. They were the fastest way to accumulate real authority.
But for now, neither of them said any of that outright. Compared to those tangled thoughts, everyone in that room only wanted one thing.
To fight.
To fight like hell.
Whether Yorin demolished Nagato, or Nagato flattened Yorin — that didn't matter. What everyone wanted to see was a fight.
…
And so, the battle began.
The venue: the capital of the Land of Water.
Under countless watching eyes, "Rinyo" — Nagato wearing Uchiha Yorin's Rinyo mask — faced down the real Uchiha Yorin, who had finally shown up late.
Just before they clashed, of course, came the mandatory pre-battle trash talk.
"I'm going to kill all these nobles! Only by wiping them out can we build a new and better world!"
"Rinyo" shouted, and with chakra amplification, his voice boomed across the entire capital of the Land of Water. The Water Daimyo and all his noble cronies nearly pissed themselves on the spot.
Chakra was handy like that — who needed radio or giant loudspeakers when you could do this?
Someday, maybe they really could use chakra to fix long-distance communication problems.
…
"U-Uchiha! Hasn't the Konoha ninja arrived yet?!"
The Water daimyo yelled while shaking like a leaf, supported on both sides by bannermen as he bolted for the underground bunker.
It wasn't that he didn't "support domestic brands." It was just that he'd just watched his own Mizukage, Terumi Mei, march out with a squad of elite jōnin… and get casually wrecked by "Rinyo."
Demon of the Mist Zabuza Momochi, the monstrous Kisame Hoshigaki, the prodigy Kimimaro of the Kaguya, the ice-wielder Haku of the Yuki clan — all those names that sounded terrifying on paper had been swatted aside in seconds.
A single Shinra Tensei blew them away. A single Banshō Ten'in yanked them in for a beating. And finally, Chibaku Tensei finished the show.
When the daimyo screamed at his war officials to mobilize the bannermen, they too were crushed — by Akatsuki's "cutting-edge tech."
Laser cannons. Missiles. Puppet-weapon corps.
Was any of this supposed to exist in the world of "ninja and kunai"?
The bannermen, whether armed with fashionable modern firearms like Arisaka rifles, light machine guns and infantry guns, or with traditional swords, big bows, and lances, all got obliterated in seconds.
Those who survived ran screaming, wishing their parents had given them more legs.
What was a Water daimyo supposed to do?
He was just as desperate as the next noble.
Facing the killing intent in Rinyo's eyes, he could only shriek, "Someone, go to the Land of Fire and call the shinobi of Konoha!"
The alliance between Konoha and Kirigakure, which he'd once despised, now looked like the smartest decision anyone had ever made.
That Terumi Mei woman was still annoying, yes — but clearly she had a brain. When you're weak, you get a stronger man to be your support. If they'd kept the "Bloody Mist" isolation policy and never reached out to Konoha, they would've had no idea what to do now.
Now that Konoha was here, the Land of Water would be safe. The Konoha ninja were here; the world could sleep at night.
He refused — absolutely refused — to consider the even more terrifying possibility:
What if Konoha's shinobi also couldn't beat Rinyo?
What then?
There wouldn't even be a chance to surrender.
So the nobles could only keep praying.
Even though the battle between Uchiha Yorin and "Rinyo" looked like a third-rate theatre skit, they still had to cling to the hope that Yorin would win.
Otherwise, the world really would end.
"You can't do this," said Uchiha Yorin, righteously. "You can't slaughter people at random. If the order collapses, everyone suffers!"
"They hardly count as innocent."
Rinyo — that is, Pain — intoned the lines Yorin had written him, deadpan:
"Before we rose up and started killing nobles, the nobles had been killing us for thousands of years. During that long and ugly history, the number of commoners slaughtered by nobles far outstrips the nobles dying today by thousands, tens of thousands of times.
What's worse, everyone took it for granted — as natural, as reasonable."
Yorin: "Nobody wanted it to be this way."
At that moment, the normally razor-sharp Yorin "dropped IQ" into full shōnen-protagonist mode.
"Even so, you still shouldn't do this. If everyone works together, we'll find a solution!"
From ancient times to now, countless shōnen heroes have shouted lines like that while punching out demon kings. And afterward, they never actually "found a solution"; they just went back to living their happy little lives.
The hero gets the princess, the queen, the maid, and the lady knight; everyone else gets… the same grim life they had before, with a new statue to worship.
Was the world "saved"?
In one narrow sense, maybe.
But was it really saved?
Nagato's answer was: no.
"Pathetic," he said, looking at Uchiha Yorin. "I can't reach you with words at all. You pathetic man — you have such power and still choose to be the nobles' lapdog.
We could stand together, you know. We could accomplish so much.
If all shinobi united, we could create an Empire of Shinobi.
We are the ones who know love and hatred; we love this world more deeply than anyone.
Under our rule, the world would be far better than it is under these bloated nobles."
Everything Yorin couldn't say openly, he had "Rinyo" shout for him — in front of every noble in the Land of Water.
Hearing that speech, the nobles of Water — daimyo and all — went livid, desperate to rush out and shut Rinyo up themselves.
How could he say such things? Stirring up the desires of all the shinobi, undermining their comfortable world?
Some of them even started worrying about Yorin.
"Please, don't let him get to you," they prayed silently.
If Uchiha Yorin really was swayed by this "revolutionary," that would be the end. Rinyo and Yorin together could really crush everything.
So — would Uchiha Yorin be swayed?
Hard to say.
Everyone knew the Uchiha were a clan of lunatics; would-be world-destroyers and would-be world-conquerors were practically a family tradition. If you were looking for Ninja World's most "standard villain archetype," it was always them.
"We're doomed," someone thought. "The Land of Water is finished. Those two monsters are going to kill us all."
But no.
Yorin surprised everyone and stuck to his "principles."
"It sounds nice," he said, "but it's just your ambition dressed up pretty. All you'll do is destroy everything."
He looked at "Rinyo" and continued, "I went to the former lands. It's a ruin. If your ambition succeeds — if the world ends up under your rule — everywhere will look like that.
I won't let that happen. So die, traitor Rinyo!"
As he spoke, Uchiha Yorin activated Susanoo: Takemikazuchi mode. Thirty-two Lightning-Cut kunai spiraled around him, and under his control they slammed toward Nagato.
"You're hopeless," Rinyo/Pain answered coolly. "Then your death will be the cornerstone of my new world. Shinra Tensei!"
Terrifying repulsion erupted toward Yorin.
A super-shadow versus super-shadow battle had begun.
With the fate of the world as their excuse, the two men launched into a duel that would "decide the future" — at least as far as the nobles' terror and the commoners' gossip were concerned.
~~~
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