First came the "Tavern," where there wasn't even a drop of alcohol to be found.
Then came the "Marine Headquarters," which had practically become the "Seawater Headquarters."
Then the Akatsuki caught up, and its leader, Nagato Uzumaki, suddenly discovered a terrifying truth among the entire organization, he seemed to be the only one actually working.
"You betrayed us so many times?! When? During the mission to capture the Jinchūriki? Impossible! In such a short amount of time, how could Uchiha Chinatsu possibly persuade all of you to defect? Was there not even a trace of loyalty left toward Akatsuki?!"
Pain completely lost his composure.
He originally suspected there was only one traitor within Akatsuki.
Now it felt as though everyone except him had changed sides.
Kakuzu, Hidan, Deidara, Sasori, Kisame Hoshigaki, Naruto, Sasuke, and Hiruzen Sarutobi...
The battle had gone from six against one, to six against three, and now to six against eight.
How had the numbers suddenly reversed?
Pain lowered his head, clenched his teeth, and far away in the hidden base, Nagato coughed violently, a trace of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"I'll make all of you pay for betraying me!"
The Six Paths of Pain erupted into action.
The Deva Path, Asura Path, Human Path, Animal Path, Preta Path, and Naraka Path charged toward the eight opponents from multiple directions.
These eight were no ordinary shinobi.
More than half of them had originally been recruited by Nagato himself. Combined with Chinatsu's foreknowledge and the intelligence gathered over the years, they had already thoroughly analyzed the abilities of the Six Paths of Pain.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you need not fear a hundred battles.
At this moment, the eight people confronting Pain understood the Six Paths almost as well as Nagato himself.
Several exchanges later, not only did Pain fail to gain the upper hand, but the Six Paths were being beaten into a miserable state.
The Deva Path retreated several steps, dust covering his black cloak.
Nagato was confused.
Completely confused.
These people seemed to know the Six Paths better than he did.
The moment the Animal Path prepared a summoning technique, Kisame immediately interrupted him.
Before the Naraka Path could summon the King of Hell, Deidara's clay explosives and Sasori's puppet attacks forced it to retreat.
Why did they know exactly which body possessed which ability?
The Naraka Path's purpose was to repair damaged Paths and extract information through the King of Hell.
How did they immediately recognize it as the highest-priority target?
And why did everyone switch their attacks to the Deva Path the moment Shinra Tensei was activated?
How did they even know Shinra Tensei had a five-second interval before it could be used again?
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
Nagato felt as if an invisible hand was controlling everything from behind the scenes.
He was supposed to be a god.
Yet now he felt like a puppet dancing on someone else's strings.
The six Paths were trapped by the combined assault.
As long as the Deva Path could not successfully unleash Chibaku Tensei or a large-scale Shinra Tensei, the battle remained completely under the control of the eight-person team.
Two immortals.
Two Akatsuki artists.
The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki.
The last Uchiha avenger.
The Third Hokage.
And Kisame Hoshigaki, the Tailless Tailed Beast.
With such a lineup, even the legendary Six Paths of Pain found themselves constantly suppressed.
The worst part was that several of the people attacking him were originally Akatsuki members.
How could Nagato possibly feel good about that?
Absolutely impossible.
Just as Kisame's punch smashed into the Asura Path's face, Nagato finally realized what had been bothering him this entire time.
Where was Uchiha Chinatsu?
The entire reason Pain personally came to Konoha was because of her.
Capturing Naruto and the Nine-Tails was only part of the objective.
But now Naruto was here.
Sasuke was here.
Even Hiruzen Sarutobi was here.
So where exactly was Uchiha Chinatsu?
Someone who had managed to turn so many Akatsuki members against him could not possibly be hiding out of fear.
If she wasn't here...
Then she could only be
"Damn it!"
Nagato instantly understood.
He abruptly opened his eyes inside the hidden base and turned toward Konan.
"Konan! We have to... cough cough... leave immediately!"
Although Konan didn't understand the reason, she could clearly hear the urgency in Nagato's voice.
However, less than ten seconds after he spoke
BOOM!!!
A massive explosion tore through the wall of their hideout.
Wood splinters and stone fragments flew everywhere.
Nagato and Konan instinctively raised their arms to shield themselves from the dust.
Then, within the smoke, the person Nagato least wanted to see slowly walked forward.
Uchiha Chinatsu.
"Paper Release? A secret technique derived from chakra control. Interesting, but unfortunately, abilities like this aren't particularly useful against me."
Chinatsu casually waved her hand as she stepped into the hidden base.
This hideout was concealed inside a giant hollow tree deep within a forest.
Konan had carefully covered the entrance using her Paper Release, making it appear completely natural from the outside.
Ordinary shinobi would never discover it.
Even sensory ninja would struggle to locate it.
Unfortunately, Chinatsu was not ordinary.
Long before Nagato realized the danger, she had already located the hideout through years of preparation, intelligence gathering, and information from previous encounters.
Konan had placed too much confidence in her camouflage.
Nagato had focused almost all his attention on controlling the Six Paths of Pain.
Neither of them noticed Chinatsu waiting outside.
Everything unfolded exactly as she expected.
Nagato stared at Chinatsu.
His expression turned extremely ugly.
At the same time, because he hadn't completely severed his connection with the Six Paths, his consciousness remained divided.
Outside, the Six Paths continued getting beaten down.
Inside, Chinatsu had already reached him.
It was a complete disaster.
"You should disconnect from the Six Paths for now. Your body is already being sustained by the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. Continuing to divide your attention like this won't do you any favors."
Chinatsu shrugged.
"And honestly, do you think I came here just to beat you up? I'm actually a very peace-loving person."
Nagato nearly choked.
Peace-loving?
Was there anyone in the ninja world less qualified to say that?
Still, he couldn't deny reality.
If this had been the original timeline, Nagato would already have captured multiple Tailed Beasts and launched his plan.
But now?
Jiraiya was still alive.
The Three-Tails Jinchūriki survived.
Rōshi survived.
The Four-Tails remained free.
The Akatsuki members had been taken away one after another.
The Six Paths of Pain were currently being used as training dummies outside Konoha.
And now even his real body had been found.
At this moment, Nagato's face looked not only exhausted but utterly defeated.
For the first time since obtaining the Rinnegan, he began questioning whether his path had truly been correct.
Chinatsu cleared her throat.
Although she disliked Talk-no-Jutsu and had never considered herself good at persuasion, she still preferred peaceful solutions whenever possible.
So after thinking for a moment, she reluctantly decided to give it a try.
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