Shff! Shff!
Two Konoha shinobi dropped down behind their captain, hands flashing through seals. They hurled kunai to block the strange man's escape route before landing on either side of him. Chakra flared around their arms as they locked onto him in a desperate grapple—trying to restrain the one who had just slaughtered their squad leader.
One of them turned his head just enough to meet the vice-captain's eyes, giving him a silent signal—Go. Warn the village.
It was the look of a man who'd already accepted death.
Konoha had never lacked for shinobi willing to die for their comrades. Cowards were rare here.
Even Nagato—who wished for the village's destruction—couldn't help but admire how deeply this belief ran.
From childhood, every ninja in the Leaf was taught the Will of Fire: to protect the village, even at the cost of their own life. It was that very belief that had allowed Konoha to flourish in the center of the Five Great Nations—surrounded by enemies, yet standing strong as the greatest of all Hidden Villages.
The vice-captain clenched his fists. I understand. I'll alert Lady Tsunade. Your sacrifice won't be in vain.
But he barely made it two steps before two sharp cries tore through the air. His men were hurled aside by an invisible force, bodies slamming into the dirt—lifeless.
He froze, trembling uncontrollably.
Pain hadn't moved an inch. Those ripple-patterned eyes simply watched him, calm and unblinking.
The vice-captain's body began to rise, weightless—pulled forward as if seized by an unseen hand. His limbs refused to obey; even his chakra wouldn't respond.
Thud.
The black receiver pierced his chest clean through.
Nagato, linked through the Six Paths of Pain, lifted Tendō's gaze. Beyond the clearing, less than fifty meters away, loomed Konoha's great defensive wall.
Just beyond that wall was the heart of the village.
Tendō Pain had arrived first.
The other Paths would soon converge.
Then the operation would begin—
the capture of the Nine-Tails.
The Destruction of Konoha.
"Finally," Pain murmured, his voice low and resonant.
Inside the village, peace still reigned.
At a mission desk, Sakura slid a photograph toward Shikamaru Nara.
It showed the back of a toad, marked with three sets of numbers:
9.31.8
106.7
207.15
"This code…" Sakura said quietly, her tone heavy. "It was the last thing Lord Jiraiya sent us before he—"
Shikamaru folded his arms. "If anyone can decode intel from Amegakure, it's Yamanaka Inoichi. As head of the Yamanaka clan and Ino's father, his mind-reading techniques are the best in the entire shinobi world."
Sakura nodded. "And Shizune's leading the autopsy on Pain's corpse. Results should be in soon."
"Plus, according to Naruto's report," Shikamaru continued, "the message means there's no real body among them."
He exhaled through his nose, eyes narrowing. "We just have to find the truth behind this Pain guy… the one who even Lord Jiraiya couldn't beat."
At that same moment, deep inside Konoha's Intelligence Division—
Inoichi Yamanaka sat in a meditative trance, fingers pressed together in his clan's signature seal. His consciousness drifted inside the mind of a captured shinobi from the Rain Village.
He moved through the man's mental landscape, searching for any trace—any memory—connected to Pain.
But ahead of him stood a massive sealed gate, pulsing with chakra.
"A genjutsu defense, huh?" he muttered.
He formed another seal, pressing his palm to the gate. In seconds, he'd analyzed the pattern and found its weakness.
"Alright… let's see what you're hiding."
"Open!"
He released another burst of chakra.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A cascade of doors appeared—one after another, endless layers of psychic locks. Each one he broke drained more of his chakra, yet the path kept unfolding. Still more gates waited ahead, sealed tight, guarding a secret even the Yamanaka patriarch struggled to reach.
"So that's why the truth serum didn't work… This genjutsu barrier is insanely strong!"
Sweat trickled down Inoichi Yamanaka's forehead.
In the real world, his eyes opened slowly. His right hand was still pressed against the captive Rain ninja's skull, the air heavy with tension.
"Well?" asked Morino Ibiki, standing behind him with arms crossed.
"No good," Inoichi muttered, breathing hard. "Someone's layered a defensive genjutsu over his entire mind. Cracking it won't be easy."
Ibiki's expression hardened. "Probably that Pain guy's doing. Be careful—there could be a trap woven into it."
Inoichi gave a short nod. "Yeah. I'm aware."
Konoha Morgue, Room 3.
On the examination table lay the corpse of the Animal Path Pain—the one Jiraiya had taken down.
Dozens of black chakra rods had been removed, leaving behind small, blood-rimmed punctures across the body.
Shizune worked in silence, carefully scraping a fine layer of residue off one of the rods with a scalpel. Snap! The blade tip broke clean off.
She didn't even flinch, just frowned and switched tools, her focus unwavering.
These strange black receivers—embedded in every so-called "Pain"—were their defining feature.
Collecting a sample, she placed the powdered residue on a glass slide and slid it under the microscope.
Why implant these into their own bodies?
Before continuing the autopsy, she needed to understand what kind of metal this was—and how it interacted with chakra.
Konoha Intelligence Division.
"The message was, 'No real body among them…'" Shikamaru Nara said thoughtfully.
"If that's what Lord Jiraiya meant, then could all six of those Pains be illusions?"
He tapped his chin. "Maybe it's another Akatsuki member's technique—a genjutsu cast by that woman who ambushed Lord Jiraiya from the shadows. The Six Paths of Pain might've been nothing more than physical projections created to confuse him. Even Lord Jiraiya couldn't tell the difference in time…"
Sakura frowned. "That's… hard to accept. According to Lord Fukasaku, Lord Jiraiya was stabbed—killed—by real weapons. But three of the bodies he defeated somehow got back up again. It's like… they resurrected. Unreal, but it happened right before his eyes."
Arms folded, Shikamaru's tone grew colder. "You can't analyze the Akatsuki with normal logic. We've seen immortals among them before…"
As he spoke, memories flashed—Hidan and Kakuzu, the so-called immortal duo.
They had murdered his mentor, Asuma. Nearly wiped out his entire squad.
"Either way," Shikamaru said grimly, "until more intel comes in, we can only build working theories."
"Right," Sakura said, her voice firm. Her eyes shone with quiet resolve.
"Before Naruto finishes his training, we have to get as close to Pain's secret as we can—no matter how small the breakthrough."
---