Chapter 428: The Truth of the Rinnegan
Nagato lowered his head. Silence continued spreading through the chamber, only the faint sound of Hidden Rain Village's ceaseless rain in the distance.
He raised his face again. In his Rinnegan, there was no longer divine majesty—only deep exhaustion and nearly shattered confusion.
"...If what you're saying is all true... the Rinnegan belongs to that 'Otsutsuki' clan's power..."
"...Then why do I possess these eyes?"
Naruto looked at the confusion and pain in Nagato's eyes regarding his own existential origin, calmly providing the answer.
"Because we're all descendants of the Sage of Six Paths."
He began another historical retrospective—one about shinobi clan origins, bloodline inheritance, and the true circulation path of those eyes.
"The Uzumaki Clan, the Uchiha Clan, and the Senju Clan—these three great clans with long-standing heritage can all trace their bloodline sources back to the Sage of Six Paths' two sons."
His gaze turned toward Satsuki standing quietly nearby, also listening.
"The Sage of Six Paths' eldest son was named Indra. He inherited his father's powerful ocular abilities, talent, and capability, along with... an obsessive temperament. Indra's descendants, through long years and changes, eventually evolved into what is now—the Uchiha Clan."
Beneath Satsuki's mask, her eyes flickered slightly. This was the first time she'd heard so clearly about her clan's origins being directly connected to the legendary Sage of Six Paths.
Naruto continued. "And the Rinnegan, fundamentally speaking, is precisely the Sharingan evolved to its ultimate form under specific conditions. It's the ultimate manifestation of the power lineage belonging to Indra's branch, hidden deep within Uchiha bloodline."
His gaze returned to Nagato.
"But I'm not an Uchiha."
Nagato spoke quietly, his tone filled with self-mockery and bitterness. The blood flowing in his body was from the Uzumaki Clan... if all this is true...
His body trembled slightly from intense emotional fluctuation, causing the black rods piercing his form to produce faint scraping sounds.
Yes, if these eyes truly were "his own" power... why would using them reduce him to this half-dead wretch?
He'd always thought these eyes were tools fate gave him to change the world. No matter how heavy the price, he'd accepted it willingly. But if even this "tool" itself was merely something others carefully designed and temporarily deposited in him as a "breeding ground"...
"Yes. What comes next will be somewhat long, but... this is the world's truth."
"I said before, as long as we capture 'Zetsu,' everything will become clear." Naruto emphasized this key point. "Because even the true owner of your eyes—the one who 'cultivated' them—was merely a chess piece played in that guy's palm."
He stared directly into Nagato and Konan's eyes filled with doubt and shock, dropping another earth-shattering secret.
"'Zetsu'... he's not human, not even life in the conventional sense."
"He's Otsutsuki Kaguya's third 'child.'"
"That's impossible!"
Konan instinctively objected, her face written with "absurd." That two-faced Zetsu, that guy with bizarre behavior—how could he possibly be that mythological existence's child?!
"Of course, using the word 'child' isn't entirely precise."
Naruto explained. "He wasn't like the Sage of Six Paths and his brother—children Kaguya bore and raised, inheriting legitimate power and bloodline as divine offspring."
"Zetsu was forcibly created by Kaguya using Yin-Yang Release at the moment of her sealing—a 'consciousness construct' carrying part of her will and obsession. Born with infinite lifespan, and most importantly—a mission carved into his core existence."
"Resurrect his mother, Otsutsuki Kaguya."
Nagato and Konan were shocked to numbness, passively absorbing this subversive information.
"However, resurrecting Kaguya required gathering all her scattered chakra while also needing a perfect vessel capable of containing her massive divine power. For Zetsu, who had almost no direct combat ability and could only hide in shadows manipulating hearts, this was originally an impossible task to complete."
Nagato connected the earlier narrative, a terrible logical chain gradually becoming clear.
"The Sage of Six Paths... distributed chakra to the people..." He said quietly. "Which means... the Infinite Tsukuyomi... that so-called 'Moon's Eye Plan'... its true purpose wasn't to create some illusory peaceful world at all... but to... forcibly recover and gather all of Kaguya's chakra scattered throughout the world?!"
"Correct." Naruto confirmed his speculation. "It's an efficient, global-scale chakra recovery and purification ritual. And humans trapped in illusion—their bodies would be absorbed by the Divine Tree's root system, transformed into White Zetsu."
"To achieve this goal, Zetsu began a millennium-spanning scheme. He modified the stone tablet the Sage of Six Paths left in the Uchiha Clan's Naka Shrine underground—that sacred object passed down through Uchiha generations. Zetsu fabricated content like 'Infinite Tsukuyomi is the only method to save the world' and tampered it into the tablet's original text."
Over the following thousand years, Zetsu continuously sowed discord between each generation of Indra and Asura's descendants, fanning hatred, prompting them to fight and kill each other.
"He did this hoping some generation's Indra descendant could defeat their contemporary Asura descendant and seize the latter's power."
"Only when Indra and Asura's powers combine could it possibly guide the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan to evolve to its final form—the Rinnegan."
"And only by opening the Rinnegan could one see through the 'deeper level' content Zetsu tampered with on the tablet, thereby 'comprehending' the so-called 'Moon's Eye Plan.'"
However, throughout long history, despite continuous conflict, every generation's Indra reincarnation... not a single one could defeat the Asura reincarnation.
"Until... several decades ago."
Naruto brought the timeline closer to an era more familiar to Nagato and Konan.
"This generation's reincarnations came as Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara."
Konan couldn't help saying, "But... according to all records and legends, the Battle of the Valley of the End saw Uchiha Madara defeated and killed. Senju Hashirama achieved victory."
"No, that's not the full truth." Naruto shook his head. "Before the final battle, Uchiha Madara preset Izanagi on one of his Sharingan—an Uchiha Clan forbidden technique that can sacrifice that eye's light to transform unfavorable 'reality' into 'illusion,' thereby rewriting outcomes."
"He used Izanagi to rewrite the reality of his 'death on the spot.' Simultaneously, during his battle with Hashirama, he successfully seized a small piece of Hashirama's body tissue. Then, carrying this trophy, he faked his death and escaped, going into hiding."
"Madara transplanted that piece of tissue from Senju Hashirama containing Asura's power into himself, attempting to catalyze his own power's fusion and evolution."
"But ultimately, it was merely a stolen small portion of flesh, not complete Asura power. Uchiha Madara spent decades until his lifespan neared its end, approaching death—only at that moment did those coveted Rinnegan finally awaken."
"Nagato...!"
Konan called out worriedly. She saw that as Naruto's narrative deepened, especially hearing key points like "Madara cultivating the Rinnegan" and "awakening only near death," Nagato's entire being froze.
His whole body radiated an aura of desperate cold.
Why did he "suddenly" awaken the Rinnegan as a child?
Why did using these eyes so consume his life, causing his body to collapse?
Why grant him leadership of "Akatsuki" and the grand mission to "collect Tailed Beasts and create peace"?
"And he set up a massive plan." Naruto's voice continued. "The dying Uchiha Madara needed someone who could continue executing the 'Moon's Eye Plan' after his death."
"That person is my target all along—Uchiha Obito."
"Zetsu deceived Madara, and Madara deceived Obito. And Obito..."
"He killed your original Akatsuki members, deceived you, made you believe in that path of creating peace through pain, made you willingly become this Rinnegan's 'keeper' and 'user,' and became... the most important chess piece for collecting Tailed Beasts and ultimately activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi."
"..."
The path he'd believed in and practiced throughout his life while enduring pain... the Rinnegan he viewed as salvation and mission... the Akatsuki he, Yahiko, and Konan built together... everything...
Was it all merely a cold, massive deception woven across a millennium?
He... was never any "Child of Prophecy," never a "god," not even a "revolutionary" with autonomous will.
He was merely a chosen "container" temporarily storing important components, a pitiful puppet driven by lies toward the goal of world destruction?
He didn't want to believe it.
His reason screamed in rejection—this was too bizarre, too dark, too despairing.
But... what reason did Naruto have to fabricate such a complex, detailed, yet subversive story to deceive two prisoners with no resistance left? To show off? To torment? Neither seemed sufficient motivation.
And those doubts about the eyes' origins, the cost of using them, Obito and Zetsu's strange behavior, the faintly discordant feeling in the Infinite Tsukuyomi's description... all the details he'd previously ignored or forcibly explained now found chillingly reasonable explanations under this "deception theory."
***
80+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces