"So this is the troublesome man that weird creature mentioned?"

As the dust settled, Sasori stared at the approaching figure and frowned slightly.

He hated Konoha shinobi.

That much had never changed.

Orochimaru had defected, yes, but that did not erase the fact that he had once been one of them.

And if Sasori was being honest, there were a few particular kinds of Konoha shinobi he hated most of all.

White hair.

Blades.

ANBU.

By a ridiculous coincidence, the man walking toward them now checked every one of those boxes.

To Sasori, it was almost as though all the things he despised had been gathered into a single person.

Strictly speaking, the one Sasori truly hated was not Hikaru himself.

It was Hatake Sakumo—the man who had killed his parents.

By extension, his hatred naturally bled into Kakashi as well.

And once Hikaru wore a mask, unless someone knew exactly what to look for, the resemblance to Kakashi's general aura and silhouette was more than enough to create confusion.

Of course, Hikaru and Sasori had their own score to settle too.

Counting both Hikaru and his alternate identities, Sasori had already clashed with him more than once.

"So. Who exactly are you?" Pain asked coldly. His Rinnegan remained fixed on Hikaru.

Some instinct deep inside him was screaming danger.

"As for me?" Hikaru shrugged. "I'm just a passerby."

Then he smiled faintly.

"Of course, you can take that as politeness if you like. But what you just did was very dangerous."

"Then let me ask differently."

Pain's expression grew even colder. He found himself increasingly irritated by Hikaru's tone.

"What is your relationship with Orochimaru?"

"And what concern is that of yours?"

Hikaru gave a faint, contemptuous laugh before shifting his gaze toward Sasori.

"Speaking of which, there's some real bad blood between us. The man beside you caused me no small amount of trouble."

No small amount of trouble.

That was hardly a friendly phrase.

And judging by Hikaru's attitude, it was obvious he bore them no goodwill.

Nagato immediately understood what that meant.

This man was most likely an enemy.

And once someone became an enemy, there was no point in much more conversation.

Still, because Orochimaru was involved, he had not immediately attacked.

And even if Hikaru was an enemy, that was no great obstacle in itself.

If Hikaru was strong enough, then persuading him to join them was not impossible.

But first, a few things needed to be confirmed.

Without speaking, Pain glanced toward Sasori.

Sasori, meanwhile, kept staring at Hikaru.

The more he looked, the more familiar the man seemed—and the deeper that familiarity made his disgust grow.

After a moment, something clicked in his mind.

"You're that brat from before. The one with the giant lizard. Or should I say…" Sasori narrowed his eyes. "The so-called Konoha Nightingale of the Senju?"

"Konoha Nightingale?"

Nagato was not unfamiliar with that name.

Far from it.

Between what this man had done in Sunagakure and what he had done during the Nine-Tails incident, the title had already become impossible to ignore.

And according to the latest intelligence, he had already become Konoha's ANBU Minister.

No matter how one looked at it, he was dangerous.

Flying Thunder God.

Wood Release.

Either of those techniques alone would make anyone wary.

That said, wary was all Nagato felt.

Because he was the man who held the Rinnegan.

The one who believed himself to be a living god.

"Yes. That's me."

Hikaru nodded lightly, chakra already beginning to surge through his body.

"You people really are impossible to get rid of. No matter where I go, I keep running into Akatsuki."

"Who would have thought," Sasori said coolly, "that Konoha's ANBU Minister would be associating with a missing-nin from Konoha?"

"Do I need to explain myself to some runaway from Sunagakure?"

Hikaru laughed in open disdain, then turned his gaze fully onto Pain.

"A Rinnegan, huh? Interesting eyes. I used to think the tale of the Sage of Six Paths was just a legend. But it seems some legends are true after all."

"And why should legends not be true?"

Pain's tone remained indifferent, his expression utterly flat.

"The only reason people fear them is because they have no power to stand against them.

The Rinnegan belongs to the Sage of Six Paths.

He is the creator of the entire shinobi world."

"If you mean the shinobi system, then sure, you're not entirely wrong."

Hikaru shrugged.

"But if you mean he created this entire world, that's not exactly accurate. And who told you the Rinnegan is unbeatable?

The real problem is that your understanding of this world is pitifully shallow.

You know almost nothing."

The words were blunt.

Cruel, even.

And they carried not the slightest trace of courtesy.

Pain did not respond immediately, but his chakra began to gather.

It was obvious he no longer intended to waste time speaking.

He stared at Hikaru and said, voice flat and absolute,

"To provoke a god is an act of supreme stupidity.

I am the god who walks this world."

"A god?"

Hikaru raised a brow, then smiled.

"Then let me see whether you're really worthy of the title."

As the final word left his mouth, he closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them again, brilliant blue light shone from his pupils.

"What kind of eyes are those?"

Far away in the forest, Nagato's real body stirred as he felt a faint shock.

Through the Deva Path, he saw the silver-haired man's black eyes shift into a vivid blue.

And with the appearance of that pair of eyes came a pressure so intense it nearly made him recoil.

What eyes were those?

He had never heard of them before.

The intelligence reports had never mentioned that Konoha's ANBU Minister possessed such an eye technique.

Worse, those eyes gave him a deeply unpleasant feeling.

As though they were somehow comparable to the Rinnegan itself.

He did not know why he felt that way.

But he hated the feeling.

In his mind, the Rinnegan should stand alone.

No eye should be fit to compare with it.

"Something wrong, Nagato?" Konan asked softly. She had noticed the change in him at once.

"Nothing serious. Just something… interesting."

Nagato took a slow breath, suppressing the unease.

"It'll be dealt with soon enough."

"Are you sure?" Konan frowned.

No one knew Nagato better than she did.

And this version of him—the one who insisted everything was fine—was exactly the one that worried her most.

Still, she also knew that if Nagato did not want to say something, pressing him was pointless.

With a quiet sigh, she could only hope there would be no real danger this time.

Under normal circumstances, there shouldn't have been.

Even if Orochimaru was one of the Three Sannin, even if he had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Jiraiya, Konan did not believe he was a threat to Nagato.

Nagato had the Rinnegan.

Nagato had defeated Hanzo.

She believed that strength without question.

That said, there was one thing she remained quietly aware of.

She did not think Nagato was a god.

She had never said that aloud, of course.

But she did not believe it.

If there truly were gods, she could not imagine one trapped in a ruined body, slowly destroyed by his own power.

"Don't worry," Nagato said. "This is only a minor issue. I need to concentrate now."

"Be careful, Nagato."

Konan finally nodded and said no more.

Back at the battlefield, the Deva Path's chakra had already surged to an alarming level.

Hikaru stood watching him, expression calm.

Even Sasori and Orochimaru, standing off to the side, had begun to feel their instincts screaming at them.

When the strange chakra coating Hikaru's body fully erupted, all three felt the same thing at once:

fear.

A cold, involuntary fear that should not have existed anymore.

Every one of them had lived through enough death and carnage to think themselves beyond such feelings.

And yet now, with Hikaru standing before them, that old sense of instinctive dread had returned.

This man was dangerous.

Far more dangerous than any of them had anticipated.

"Ready?" Hikaru asked softly.

His body now looked almost unreal—blurred at the edges, wrapped in layers of blue chakra that made him seem half-present, half-illusory.

He had become something vaguely godlike himself.

"Like I said, you standing in front of me now is no different than offering me those eyes. In that case… I'll accept them gladly."

The instant the words fell, Hikaru vanished.

He became a blue afterimage and shot straight toward Pain.

This time, Hikaru truly was fighting at full strength.

He had not activated the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, but he had already stacked two major states on top of one another.

And this only confirmed something he had long suspected—

Sage Mode's compatibility was absurd.

In Naruto, almost every transformation state had shown signs that it could stack with Sage Mode.

Naruto himself had once used Nine-Tails Chakra Mode together with Sage Mode.

And while Hikaru was less certain about whether Six Paths Mode also fully integrated Sage Mode, he clearly remembered Naruto sensing the Ten-Tails as if it were a sea of pure natural energy.

The Ten-Tails was a being on the Six Paths level.

Was that not itself proof that, at the very highest stage, power and nature began to converge into the same thing?

Hikaru did not know for certain.

But he did know this:

using his Jōgan Chakra Mode together with Sage Mode caused him no discomfort whatsoever.

"Think of it as a weaker version for now," Hikaru thought. "Naruto in Sage Mode could beat Pain. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to."

The answer in his heart had already formed.

Nagato could not defeat him in this state.

Not unless he somehow managed to use every Path's ability perfectly through this single body.

Even then, Hikaru would not take him lightly.

After all, shinobi were unpredictable creatures.

And this battle was exactly what Hikaru wanted.

He wanted to go all out and understand the true limits of his current power.

As that thought passed through him, his fist was already crashing toward Pain.

Nagato reacted immediately.

As expected of a Rinnegan user, he had caught Hikaru's movement the instant it began.

His chakra surged, and the Rinnegan exploded with force.

"Almighty Push!"

An overwhelming repulsive blast spread outward in all directions.

And Hikaru's fist arrived at the same moment.

For one frozen instant, the world seemed to stop.

His punch halted less than four inches from Pain's chest, unable to advance farther.

Violent winds spiraled around his arm, the sheer force of repulsion grinding against the momentum of his strike.

The earth cracked open.

Trees that had already been shoved back by Pain's repulsive force were torn apart entirely by the pressure radiating from Hikaru's fist.

Sasori and Orochimaru both retreated at once.

Neither had any intention of remaining close.

Orochimaru especially did not dare abandon Kabuto.

That child had been entrusted to him by Hikaru.

And after seeing this clash, the last thing Orochimaru wanted was to provoke the man any further.

"Fast reaction."

Hikaru grinned as he looked at Pain.

Of course, he knew the thing in front of him was only a corpse.

Unless one beat it into a twisted ruin, it would never show real emotion.

Still, that did not stop him from mocking Nagato through it.

At that moment, Hikaru felt utterly in control.

With Sage Mode layered on top, his already monstrous Jōgan Chakra Mode had risen to another level.

Much like Naruto after entering the second stage of the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode and adding Sage Mode to it, his power had leapt terrifyingly higher.

Hikaru did not think he had reached Naruto's later level.

After all, his Jōgan was still only in its earliest phase.

But he also believed the eye's growth curve would be frightening.

Even now, it was already comparable to the first stage of the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.

And if that was only the beginning—

the future was difficult to imagine.

Without hesitation, Hikaru vanished again.

The next instant, he appeared directly behind Pain.

And then he kicked.

A brutal kick.

With Sage Mode reinforcing his body, the force behind it reached a terrifying peak.

The impact landed.

Pain's body shuddered.

Far away, Nagato himself cursed under his breath.

Even while protected by Almighty Push, even with all that repulsive force wrapped around the Deva Path—

Hikaru's strike had still forced the body to recoil.

How strong was he?

Nagato had no answer.

But he had no time to think.

Hikaru had already disappeared again.

This time, he reappeared at Pain's flank, seized his arm, and twisted.

But even in that instant, Hikaru noticed chakra gathering rapidly in Pain's eyes.

He did not hesitate.

Rather than give Nagato a chance to launch a counterattack, Hikaru released the arm and drove another kick into him.

Pain was sent flying.

Again.

This time, his body rocketed away like a cannon shell.

Luckily for Nagato, a mountain rose in the distance behind him.

He smashed toward it in a blur.

"Boom!"

The impact shook the sky.

The mountain trembled, vast chunks of stone breaking loose and crashing down.

Only after several moments did the noise fade.

By then, the mountain had a massive hollow punched straight through its center.

Even so, Pain was not broken.

Nagato had managed to activate Almighty Push again at the final instant, using it to offset enough of the impact to save the body from total destruction.

Still, it was ugly.

After a moment, the Deva Path crawled out from the shattered stone, his Akatsuki cloak reduced to torn strips.

His body could endure such punishment.

His clothing, naturally, could not.

Hikaru watched the figure emerge and said lightly,

"You really disappoint me. The Rinnegan is wasted on you."

Pain's eyes remained fixed on him.

And for the first time, Nagato's anger began to swell in earnest.

He could not accept this.

He truly could not.

What kind of power did this man possess?

What kind of eyes were those?

Why, as the so-called god of this world, could he not put down this one opponent?

Question after question surged in his mind.

But there was no one to answer them.

And even if someone had tried, Nagato likely would not have listened.

All his life, he had believed that possessing the Rinnegan made him the living embodiment of the Sage of Six Paths.

Even if someone told him the truth—that these eyes were never his, that he was nothing but a pawn, that Madara had planted them in him for his own resurrection—

Nagato almost certainly would have refused to believe it.

"What are your eyes?" Pain finally asked.

His voice was still cold, but now there was something else buried beneath it.

"What are my eyes?"

Hikaru tilted his head.

"There's not much point in telling you. You'd still keep insisting that the Rinnegan is supreme, wouldn't you?"

"The Rinnegan is the Sage of Six Paths' eye!"

For the first time, Pain's voice rose.

"The Sage of Six Paths was the creator of ninjutsu itself. He forged the shinobi world!"

"If you mean the shinobi system, then yes. That much is true."

Hikaru gave a careless shrug.

"But if you think that means he created everything, you're mistaken. More importantly—who told you the Rinnegan is invincible?

No. The truth is simpler than that.

Your understanding of this world is shallow. You know almost nothing."

Then he stopped.

For all his contempt, Hikaru really did find Nagato somewhat pitiful.

Nagato was a tragic man from beginning to end.

Offering him a few truths he had no hope of fully understanding almost counted as mercy.

Whether Nagato could hear them, or whether he would reject them outright, had nothing to do with Hikaru anymore.

Now what remained was simple.

He would press forward with everything he had and see just how far this current state could take him.

And perhaps—if the opportunity presented itself—

he might even consider taking Nagato's eyes.

Not necessarily now.

He had only just planted Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan. He still did not know what results it would bring.

To seize a Rinnegan immediately after that, without understanding what he already had, would be reckless.

No.

Nagato could remain alive for now.

Just like Danzō had been left alive for a time.

Because men like them always had a way of producing surprises.

"Enough talk," Hikaru said at last. "Don't disappoint me further."

He clapped his hands together.

Chakra surged violently.

The ground shook.

The trembling was so intense it felt as though simply standing upright might become impossible.

"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"

This time, Hikaru did not bother with anything flashy or complicated.

He chose the technique he currently wielded most naturally.

At once, endless trees erupted from the earth, reclaiming the devastated battlefield beneath them.

But these trees were larger than before—far larger.

Towering trunks and branches burst upward and spread out in every direction like a living disaster.

Anything they touched was caught.

Trees.

Animals.

Everything.

Ordinary trees withered the instant they were overtaken.

The few beasts too slow to escape were drained dry where they stood.

Vast roots and branch-masses surged toward Pain like an unstoppable flood.

It looked less like ninjutsu and more like the wrath of nature itself.

The sight alone was enough to make Nagato's face tighten.

Because he suddenly realized something important.

Those trees were not merely attacking Pain.

They were heading straight toward the area where his true body was hidden.

If the Deep Forest Emergence reached that far, then he and Konan would both be in serious danger.

He did not doubt the trees' power for a moment.

This kind of force was not something a normal human being should have been able to wield.

"I have to stop this."

Taking a breath, Nagato focused completely, pouring chakra through the Deva Path.

Back beside him, Konan noticed at once.

She was not seeing the battlefield directly, but she could still feel the scale of what was happening through the vibrations in the earth and the sheer roar of distant destruction.

Still, her role was not to go and look.

Her role was to guard Nagato.

She bit her lip and stayed close.

No matter what happened, she would protect him.

At the battlefield, Pain's expression remained cold as ever.

Yet from Hikaru's Jōgan, the truth was obvious.

The chakra feeding the black receivers now looked less like streams and more like a flood.

The sheer volume was staggering.

For a moment, Hikaru even suspected that Nagato's reserves might actually surpass his own in raw quantity.

"Well," Hikaru thought, "he is an Uzumaki."

There was no point denying that.

His own reserves were immense, but he still suspected youth was one of the reasons they had not yet grown into something even more monstrous.

Large reserves brought too many advantages to count.

Yet some things simply could not be helped.

At that very moment, Pain raised both hands.

The chakra gathering in him reached its apex.

And even Hikaru felt a flicker of danger.

He had never underestimated the Rinnegan.

Nagato did not use it very creatively.

In fact, he never seemed to weave its basic abilities together all that well while he was alive.

But that did not mean those basic powers were weak.

When pushed to their limit, even a single one of them could become terrifying.

"In that case…"

Hikaru was not the sort to meet danger head-on out of pride.

His blue eyes flashed.

Then, with a single hand seal, the charging forest changed instantly.

The countless branches and trunks halted mid-charge as though receiving an order.

Then every one of them rose upward, layer upon layer, forming an immense wall of wood around Hikaru.

And at that same instant, Pain's gathered chakra erupted.

A white light flashed from his body—so bright it seemed to outshine the sun.

The world fell silent.

The air itself became crushing.

A sense of apocalyptic terror swept across the battlefield.

And then—

from Pain's position as the center—

an indescribable repulsive force exploded outward.

Everything nearby was annihilated.

The mountain behind him was stripped bare in an instant.

The ground sank.

The force rolled outward like divine punishment descending upon the earth.

"Super Almighty Push!"

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