After hearing Uzumaki Naruto's answer, Nagato fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"If the main character changes, it becomes a different story. I'm your senior disciple. We studied under the same master and looked up to the same teacher. I said before that perhaps we could understand one another, though I was only joking at the time."
Nagato looked at him quietly.
"You truly are an incredible person. You remind me of who I used to be. I couldn't believe in Jiraiya. No, I couldn't even believe in myself."
"But I have a feeling that the paths you and I take will lead to different futures."
"So I'll believe in you, Uzumaki Naruto."
As he finished speaking, Uzumaki Nagato seemed to make an important decision.
He pulled his hands free and began forming a Ninjutsu.
"Outer Path — Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique!"
The instant Konan heard the name of the technique, her face changed.
She knew exactly what using it meant.
"Konan, that's enough. I've found a new choice. The choice I once abandoned."
Nagato had been convinced.
"What? What is that?"
Uzumaki Naruto hurriedly asked.
Konan's face filled with sorrow.
"Those who possess the Rinnegan can do more than completely control the Six Paths of Pain. According to legend, they can also transcend the cycle of life and death. Nagato's ocular power controls life and death."
"The seventh Pain."
"With the amount of Chakra he has left, using a technique like this means Nagato will…"
Konan's voice trembled.
"He's willing to go this far to help him. That child changed Nagato. He truly is incredible."
Konan had already foreseen Nagato's fate.
Even so, she didn't stop him.
She had always followed in Yahiko's and Nagato's footsteps.
Yahiko believed Nagato was a god.
Therefore, Nagato's decision had to be the correct one.
At that moment, a gigantic King of Hell appeared within Konoha.
An enormous torrent of Chakra poured from its mouth and spread across the entire village.
Every person who had died within the area covered by that Chakra returned to life.
After using the technique, Nagato's hair turned completely white.
Every trace of vitality left his body.
"There's still time to bring back the people I killed after arriving in Konoha. Consider this a small repayment for my sins."
Nagato's voice had grown weak.
"That's me…"
Hatake Kakashi noticed himself sitting beside a fire, speaking with his deceased father, when he suddenly felt a pull from an unfamiliar Chakra.
"It seems you came here too soon."
Hatake Sakumo looked at him with quiet relief.
"You must still have something left to accomplish."
"Dad!"
Hatake Kakashi stared at his father in shock.
"I'm glad I got to speak with you. Thank you for forgiving me."
Hatake Sakumo smiled.
"Now I can finally move on without regret."
As he finished speaking, Hatake Kakashi's soul vanished from that place.
"You…"
Uzumaki Naruto also realized what was happening throughout the village.
Nagato panted heavily as he spoke.
"War always brings death and injury to both sides. The death of someone precious is especially difficult to accept. You can't help feeling that they never should have died."
"That is even harder for your generation, which has never truly known war."
"You search for meaning in death, but all you find is pain and anger with nowhere to go. People die like insects, leaving behind hatred and wounds that never heal."
"That is war, Naruto."
"That is what you will have to face from now on."
"Both that book and you feel as though someone arranged them specifically for me. No… perhaps this is the true will of a god."
"It seems my role ends here."
"Naruto, perhaps you really can do it."
As Nagato's voice faded, the last of his life disappeared.
Konan used her paper Ninjutsu to carry his body away.
"You're taking him too?"
Uzumaki Naruto looked toward Deva Path Pain.
"Yes. Deva Path Pain was made from Yahiko's body. He is someone very important to us."
Only then did Naruto learn that Deva Path Pain had been Yahiko all along.
As for Konan, she had already decided to leave the Akatsuki Organization.
Yahiko and Nagato had been everything to her.
Without them, remaining in Akatsuki no longer held any meaning.
Of the three, Yahiko had always been the one with the strongest ideas and the greatest passion.
His will had guided Akatsuki forward.
Nagato had been the one who carried out Yahiko's will.
Konan had simply been the little girl following behind her two older brothers.
She had never possessed an especially strong desire of her own.
Akatsuki had been the vessel for Yahiko's and Nagato's ideals, but it had long since become something twisted.
Now that both of them were gone, Konan had no reason to stay.
"Yahiko's dream and Nagato's dream have both been entrusted to you. From now on, you are their dream."
Konan looked directly at Naruto.
"If Nagato believed in you, then I'll believe in you too."
"We of Amegakure will stand with you and pursue the dream they shared."
"My name, Naruto, my refusal to give up, and even my pain… I inherited all of it from my teacher and my senior disciple."
Uzumaki Naruto spoke with quiet resolve.
Konan gathered countless sheets of paper together, shaping them into a single flower.
She handed it to Naruto.
"I hope that this time, you can become a flower of hope that never withers."
"That flower… Wasn't it the one the other Naruto used before?"
Tsunade finally remembered.
In that alternate timeline, Uzumaki Naruto had shown Nagato a flower to earn his trust.
So this was where it had originally come from.
"Keep watching, Master!"
Uzumaki Naruto placed the paper flower before Jiraiya's grave.
He had barely taken a few steps when his strength finally gave out.
At the crucial moment, Hatake Kakashi appeared and carried him back.
Countless cheers welcomed Naruto home.
Amid the thunderous celebration, the video came to an end.
The video was over, but everyone watching felt strangely empty.
Each of them was lost in their own thoughts.
"Well done, Naruto."
A bright smile appeared on Namikaze Minato's face.
"You settled the conflict between our teacher and Nagato within your own generation."
The killing intent in Minato's heart had faded considerably.
At first, he had wanted nothing more than to eliminate Nagato immediately.
But he had watched Nagato's entire story.
He had seen how a gentle child had been driven step by step into a dead end.
Konoha had played a major role in that downfall.
Otherwise, Akatsuki had already reached an understanding with Hanzo.
It never needed to transform into the later Akatsuki Organization, filled with wanted criminals from every nation.
Danzo had destroyed everything.
Minato now understood Kaede Kitahara's earlier words on a much deeper level.
When the true mastermind couldn't be found, blame Danzo.
There was a good chance it would be correct.
In his pursuit of the Hokage's position, Danzo had committed countless atrocities while claiming everything was for Konoha's sake.
When Minato became Hokage in the future, merely restraining Danzo would not be enough.
If he didn't deal with Danzo properly, how many more disasters would Konoha suffer because of him?
Minato had also formed his own opinion about Nagato.
If he wanted Nagato to obey, words alone would never be enough.
Naruto's words sounded correct.
They were noble, moving, and filled with reason.
But hadn't Jiraiya said similar things?
Of course he had.
He had repeated those ideals constantly, and even Nagato remembered them.
Yet Nagato had rejected Jiraiya's justice, while choosing to believe in Naruto's justice and his dream of mutual understanding.
Why?
Because Jiraiya hadn't been strong enough.
Deep down, Nagato still believed that peace required a powerful individual to force reconciliation and move the world forward.
Originally, he had intended to become that god himself.
He would bring fear to the world, then use that fear to create peace.
Jiraiya held a similar dream, but he lacked the strength to accomplish it.
He couldn't even defeat the Six Paths of Pain.
In Nagato's eyes, someone like that had no right to reach for the divine authority of bringing peace to the world.
That was why Nagato had treated Jiraiya's ideals with such contempt.
Naruto, on the other hand, had defeated the man who saw himself as the god of the current age.
That made him a far better choice.
Ideals were one thing.
Strength was another.
Only by possessing both could someone have any chance of bringing true peace to the world.
Ideals without strength led to Jiraiya's fate.
He died on the battlefield without ever gaining the chance to carry out his peace or justice.
Strength without ideals described most of the Akatsuki members they had seen so far.
Peace?
What did peace have to do with them?
Nagato himself was probably the only one who truly believed in and carried out Akatsuki's supposed purpose.
Even Konan didn't seem to have many convictions of her own.
She simply followed the decisions of her two companions.
The Akatsuki Nagato truly wanted could never have been the later organization that gathered criminals from every corner of the world.
It had to be the original Akatsuki led by Yahiko.
The organization that sought peace for the Land of Rain, dreamed of people understanding one another, and wanted to change the world.
Minato could easily imagine Nagato's true attitude toward the later members.
Suppose Nagato had eventually achieved his ideal peace and created a Tailed Beast Weapon dozens of times more powerful than Massive Shinra Tensei.
At that point, those Akatsuki members would have become potential threats to peace themselves.
Nagato might very well have disposed of them.
Payday is tomorrow. Assemble at the training ground. No armor required.
That was entirely possible.
"Peace truly is an extravagant dream."
Namikaze Minato sighed.
His future son had shown him a path.
Unfortunately, it was not an easy path to walk.
Defeating Nagato, a man who possessed the Rinnegan, was no simple matter.
His future son's victory had depended heavily on coincidence.
If Naruto had failed to defeat Nagato, then no amount of Talk Release would have mattered.
It looked as though Nagato had been persuaded by Uzumaki Naruto's words.
In reality, Naruto had first exhausted every option he had and beaten him into submission.
Just look at what happened to Jiraiya, who had failed to do the same.
Nagato hadn't shown the slightest mercy.
He called him Jiraiya-sensei with every breath, yet kept driving black rods into him with the clear intention of killing him.
What concerned Minato even more was the legendary Otsutsuki Asura, hidden somewhere in the shadows.
The figure who might already have set his sights on Naruto and secretly influenced his son's personality throughout his entire life.