"I founded the Akatsuki Organization to end this cycle of hatred. I can stop it. To do that, I need the power of the Nine-Tails. By combining the power of every Tailed Beast, I will create a Tailed Beast Weapon dozens of times stronger than the force that destroyed this village, a weapon powerful enough to annihilate an entire nation in an instant."
"The world will experience pain. Fear of that pain will prevent war and guide the world toward stability and peace."
"But that kind of peace is a lie!" Uzumaki Naruto immediately shot back.
"Human beings are not intelligent creatures. Peace cannot be created any other way. After several decades, the pain will eventually fade, and their resolve will weaken. People will begin another war. This time, they will use the Tailed Beast Weapon themselves and be reminded of true pain. Then the world will once again enter a temporary period of peace."
"My wish is to create brief moments of peace from pain within this endless cycle of hatred."
For the first time, everyone saw Uzumaki Nagato hidden in the darkness.
He was so emaciated that he resembled a dried corpse. His real body sat within some kind of unknown apparatus, and merely speaking those words had drained nearly all his strength.
He panted for a long while before finally calming down.
"Peace is within reach."
Only then did everyone finally understand the true nature of the Akatsuki Organization.
On the surface, it appeared to be a terrorist group with no real objective beyond spreading chaos, or perhaps nothing more than a mercenary organization.
But they actually had a noble goal of their own?
They wanted to bring peace to the Shinobi World?
Could anything be more absurd?
You recruited a group of desperate criminals and Missing-nin, then claimed you were going to bring peace to the world?
How exactly?
Like this?
The idea made everyone suck in a sharp breath.
Had a handful of ordinary Wandering Ninja gathered together and said something like this, no one would have taken them seriously. At most, it would have become something people joked about over dinner.
But when a group of Kage Level experts gathered together and declared that the world was wrong, that it wasn't supposed to be this way…
This loaf of bread costs five hundred thousand. I have a dream…
No, wait. Wrong scene.
A lineup like that was powerful enough to make the entire Shinobi World pay attention and listen carefully to their demands.
Of course, first they had to beat a village like Konoha into submission.
Had Nagato said these things years ago, no one would have believed him. Being laughed off would have been the best possible outcome.
Someone as ruthless as Orochimaru could have killed all of them without the slightest difficulty.
But now their ranks included a Super Kage Level existence like Deva Path Pain, someone powerful enough to make the entire Shinobi World tremble.
"Using overwhelming military power to intimidate the Shinobi World and prevent large-scale conflict… This approach…"
Tsunade couldn't shake the feeling that it sounded familiar.
Then realization struck her.
Hadn't her Great Grandfather followed the exact same line of thought?
He had traveled far and wide to capture the nine Tailed Beasts, then distributed them among the various villages.
His goal had also been to place an Ultimate Weapon in each village's hands, forcing them to fear one another and preventing war.
The strategy had worked.
At least, it had worked while her Great Grandfather was alive.
Soon after his death, however, it had fallen apart.
Of course, Tsunade didn't know that the real deterrent hadn't been the nine Tailed Beasts.
It had been Senju Hashirama himself.
The Nine-Tails was terrifying enough.
But the man capable of capturing the Nine-Tails and beating it into submission was far more terrifying.
The true reason the strategy had worked was because Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara possessed enough power to destroy any nation in the Shinobi World.
The strategy itself wasn't necessarily flawed.
The nine Tailed Beasts simply weren't frightening enough.
Had the Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball truly been capable of destroying an entire village with a single attack like Shinra Tensei and overturning the course of a battlefield, the three Shinobi World Wars might never have happened.
That was why Nagato's strategy seemed so familiar.
It was essentially a more extreme version of her Great Grandfather's policy.
He intended to forge all nine Tailed Beasts into a single, unimaginably terrifying Tailed Beast Weapon.
Tsunade also finally understood why Uzumaki Nagato had become so enraged by her words earlier.
There had been no need for him to destroy all of Konoha, yet he had done it anyway.
Using that technique shortened his lifespan, but he had still chosen to unleash it.
How deep did his hatred have to run for him to go that far?
Tsunade had originally viewed him as nothing more than a madman, a lunatic, and a bloodthirsty killer.
Now she understood that Nagato might be radical and insane, but his words weren't without reason.
She was one of the Sannin and had participated in two Shinobi World Wars.
Naturally, she knew the situation Nagato described was real.
The great nations didn't want their own countries destroyed, so they used smaller nations as boards on which to play out their conflicts.
The great nations might lose a few shinobi.
The smaller nations lost everything. Their homes were destroyed, their countries collapsed, and civilians were forced to wander as refugees.
The Land of Rain had actually fared better than most because it had produced the Demigod Hanzo.
The great nations had at least shown some restraint around Amegakure.
In other small countries, a single Jonin could push the entire nation to the brink with no one capable of resisting.
Hanzo had been called a Demigod and stood at the peak of the Shinobi World.
And yet, even after defeating the Sannin, he still had to let them live.
To the Sannin, that battle was an unbearable humiliation.
The three of them had joined forces and still lost. Their enemy had spared them and even bestowed upon them a title that appeared honorable but was, in truth, deeply humiliating.
But viewed from Hanzo's perspective, wasn't it just as humiliating?
Three intruders had marched straight to his doorstep and turned his own living room into a battlefield, smashing everything in sight.
He had beaten those three unruly brats black and blue, but he hadn't dared kill them.
He could leave bruises, but he couldn't tear them limb from limb.
Behind each brat stood a well-fed, muscular parent holding a massive club.
Hanzo had feared the powerful forces supporting them.
That battle had been an enormous humiliation for both sides.
Even so, what could Hanzo do?
He still had to stand there and watch the three of them leave.
Everything Konoha suffered in the video was merely a reenactment of what had happened when the Land of Rain became a battlefield.
Uzumaki Naruto's friends, family, comrades, teachers, and master had all died in that single attack.
But hadn't Nagato's comrades, family, and village also been reduced to ashes?
Unfortunately, there would always be ambitious people in the Shinobi World who wanted to provoke war.
Most of the time, even Tsunade couldn't stop them.
At that thought, Tsunade opened her mouth, but she no longer had the strength to curse anyone.
"A Tailed Beast Weapon dozens of times more powerful than Shinra Tensei? Is that truly possible?"
Namikaze Minato frowned deeply.
Shinra Tensei had numerous limitations. It shortened the user's lifespan and required a long recovery period.
But in terms of destructive power, it had already exceeded the limits of ordinary Ninjutsu and entered the realm of myth.
Then Minato suddenly remembered something.
In the darkness behind Nagato, the faint silhouette of some enormous monster had appeared.
It looked familiar.
He had definitely seen that creature somewhere before, though he couldn't immediately remember where.
Then it came back to him.
Wasn't it the monster that had appeared in the earlier video featuring his son Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Sakura Haruno as the New Sannin?
The image had been vague and difficult to make out, but it had to be the same creature.
If Deva Path Pain's description was accurate, then that monster truly possessed power far beyond Shinra Tensei.
But that also proved something else.
The Akatsuki Organization had succeeded in the future.
They had managed to create the Tailed Beast Weapon they intended to use to enforce their version of peace.
"So that monster is the Ten-Tails mentioned in Kaede Kitahara's diary?"
Namikaze Minato connected the Tailed Beast Weapon described by Deva Path Pain with the Ten-Tails mentioned by Kaede Kitahara.
Now many things finally made sense.
The Massive Shinra Tensei alone had enough power to destroy Konoha.
If the Ten-Tails truly possessed dozens of times that destructive force, then it was undoubtedly a worldwide catastrophe.
No wonder the major shinobi villages had united.
No wonder his son and Uchiha Sasuke would one day be called saviors.
If they saved the entire Shinobi World from a monster like that, how could they not be considered saviors?
"Nagato…"
Jiraiya found himself drawn into the peace Deva Path Pain described.
It was cruel, twisted, and distorted.
But at last, Jiraiya was beginning to understand what his student had been thinking.
Until now, he had been completely unable to comprehend Nagato's actions. He had assumed the boy had simply strayed onto the wrong path after Yahiko's death.
Now he was starting to understand.
Jiraiya still didn't know exactly how Yahiko had died, but the event must have devastated Nagato enough to give birth to this philosophy.
Human beings weren't intelligent creatures.
They could never truly understand one another.
So under those circumstances, Nagato had given up on being human and decided to become a god among men?
No wonder he called himself a god.
He intended to judge the conflicts of humanity from above.
Wait.
Why did that sound so familiar?
Wasn't Kaede Kitahara always shouting something similar in his diary?
Being human was too exhausting, so he was done being human!
So that brat had learned it from here?
Had the Akatsuki consisted of nothing more than several Kage Level shinobi, their words might have forced the Shinobi World to listen, but Jiraiya could guarantee the Five Great Shinobi Villages would never have accepted their philosophy.
As the greatest beneficiaries of the existing system, the Five Great Shinobi Villages would never willingly embrace such an idea.
But once Nagato possessed the power to destroy Konoha with a single attack, and once he eventually assembled the Tailed Beast Weapon that was supposedly dozens of times stronger, his proposal became feasible.
One village-destroying attack alone wouldn't be enough to force the entire Shinobi World to bow.
Everyone now knew the technique had an interval and a recovery period.
As long as a weakness existed, someone would find a way to exploit it.
Had Uzumaki Naruto known Namikaze Minato's Flying Thunder God during that battle, even the Deva Path might have been killed before he could react.
The Five Great Shinobi Villages would never surrender so easily.
Shinobi were stubborn creatures.
Many of them were willing to disregard even their own lives.
But that determination still had limits.
If Nagato truly completed the Tailed Beast Weapon he described, he wouldn't need many attacks.
Three shots would be enough to make all Five Great Shinobi Villages kneel and call him daddy.