"Konan..."
Nagato hadn't appeared personally before others in many years—let alone facing an enemy. Now confronting the foe and the bright corridor lights, he felt slightly dazed, as though shedding his role as a "god" and recalling his captive friend.
Since the enemy had found the greatest weakness of the Six Paths of Pain and clearly understood his abilities, Nagato figured his own defeat could be imminent.
"Huff!"
He spread his hands. The Rinnegan's Universal Pull activated.
Link's body was dragged forward by a massive gravitational force. However, Link casually flicked a few Wind Blade shots again.
Against an opponent like Nagato's crippled body, there were far too many ways Link could claim victory.
Annoying jutsu...
Nagato didn't dare treat those seemingly simple wind blades as trivial. Placing his palm on the ground, he summoned a giant panda statue to block the attacks. At the same time, the chameleon seized him inside its mouth, smashing through the wall and quickly turning invisible to escape.
He never noticed that, in the instant the chameleon swallowed him, there had been an odd "misalignment" in the shadows on the chameleon's tongue.
Boom!
Just after the chameleon burst through the building, it was surrounded by a host of bubbles created by Utakata, each exploding. After the blasts, the chameleon's mangled body lost its invisibility.
"Gone."
Utakata, whose entire form was cloaked in a shimmering blue glow, raised his head to see the pallid-skinned Nagato sitting astride a giant summoned bird up in the air. Nagato was once again stretching out his hand.
(He's going to use Shinra Tensei, presumably?) Utakata quietly concluded, immediately weaving hand seals to fire off another round of bubbles. Pop! The resulting bubble flattened under the terrifying repulsive force, but did not burst; it simply absorbed Shinra Tensei's push.
So it was out of range? Nagato thought, yet made no attempt to close the distance. Instead, he commanded the bird to carry him into Amegakure's labyrinth of buildings.
His body was far too fragile. Even if he reabsorbed the chakra from the Six Paths of Pain, any slip-up here might see him killed. And since the enemy was already inside his base, with plenty of spare bodies for the Paths, as long as his chakra wasn't spent, he could drag things out.
Tap—
As Nagato perched the bird on some elevated pipeline, the so-called "god" sat with arms propping his feeble body, looking quite haggard. But no sooner had he steadied himself than he sensed a familiar chakra approaching. Turning to look, he saw Link wearing a faint smile in the corridor's illumination.
"Planning on playing hide-and-seek with me?" Link asked, tone relaxed.
"Hn!"
A mechanical arm sprouted at Nagato's shoulder. Its pale hand detached, blasting forward.
Smack!
Link, having topped up with a combination of Canceling Shadow Clone to restore stamina, swallowing a ration pill, and using Delicate Illness Extraction to remove residual damage—thus staying in peak condition with the Fifth Gate open—just slapped the flying mechanical hand aside.
Whish!
Deprived of its hand, the mechanical limb morphed swiftly, several steel cables flailing in the air. Beneath the layered steel "muscles," a hidden cannon muzzle glowed blue-white, and the muzzle flared as it fired a laser beam.
A scorching ray that tore through the building behind them, warping the air with intense heat—yet it failed to hit its intended target.
"Too slow, y'know."
Link teased lightly. Hanging upside-down from the overhead walkway, he wore the same faint grin.
Ever since devouring the actual chakra of certain Tailed Beasts to grow stronger, his physical prowess soared at a mad rate. Even without using the Shadow Army or mutated ninjutsu, as long as he opened Eight Gates to the Fifth Gate, his base physical strength alone rivaled a person at the Sixth Gate. And thanks to specialized training and his unique regeneration, his stamina outclassed even the thick-eyebrow duo's.
He was now an unassuming but monstrous presence at the Kage level. Factoring in his mutated jutsu and massive shadow legion, he belonged in the super-Kage tier, able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Hashirama and Madara from the Valley of the End fight. Pain's Six Paths—once the height of power in earlier arcs—could hardly measure up to him now.
Zing! Zing!
Nagato fired several more homing missiles in an attempt to cover his retreat.
Link completed a single seal, wind swirling around his palm. Rushing forward, his extremely condensed wind-infused palm swatted away each homing missile, turning them into fragments, before coming just short of closing in on Nagato.
Shinra Tensei!
Nagato finally had no choice but to rely on his final method for survival. The fierce wave of repulsion erupted. Forced to dodge it, Link flicked his own severed palm across. Slamming him face-first into a cylindrical pipe so hard that Nagato nearly slipped off, losing control of his body.
He got to share in the same painful head-smash that had earlier befallen Konan (#4). The instant he lost balance, the jolt to his chakra prevented him from forming any jutsu. All at once, a half-transparent rope extended from that severed hand around his throat and drilled into his body.
Hence, a tidal wave of chaotic "information" assaulted his mind. Already drained from controlling the Six Paths—and now suffering a brutal collision plus mental interference—Nagato's Rinnegan eyes rolled back.
…Though with Rinnegan's concentric rings, it's hard to show them 'rolling up.'
But in any case, he fainted on the spot.
"Zoom—"
From nowhere, an orange-masked figure—Obito—reached to grab Nagato.
Smack!
A speed-specialized Eight Gates shadow, which had hidden in Nagato's shadow from the start, immediately landed a punch through Obito's lower back up into his torso.
"Guh?!"
Obito's eyes widened in disbelief. He tried forcibly to weave a seal, but the second blow snapped his head around a full 720 degrees.
He had been thoroughly killed.
Tch…
A moment later, as the Eight Gates shadow stooped to extract the Mangekyō Sharingan, Obito's entire body vanished from reality.
Izanagi—the ultimate rewriting of fate.
So you want to play cunning, Obito?
Shadows swarmed from Nagato's body. Countless black silhouettes pinned down the unconscious invalid. Meanwhile, further shadows extended under Link's feet, searching the corners of Amegakure for any more high-value members of the Akatsuki.
At their level, a single shadow might be unstoppable by normal shinobi, let alone many of them. The only ones who could possibly handle that might be Black Zetsu or Obito.
Link sighed.
"Failed to kill him, but oh well—
At least they had captured Nagato. Retrieving the Rinnegan to bring back to the main world ended the threat of a Ten-Tails resurrection in this Fourth Parallel World. The rest was just follow-up.
At worst, Link thought, Obito might still be skulking around. But lacking a Ten-Tails or the Rinnegan, what could he do?
Hence, minimal details remained.
"How is it?" Utakata, still in Tailed Beast Mode, landed and resumed his role as a "chakra battery."
"We messed up. The masked man got away," Link said, voice full of regret. He'd prepared carefully to spring the trap, only for it to fail. A pity.
No matter—nabbing Nagato was enough. With no Rinnegan in this Fourth-World timeline, the Tailed Beast threat was solved.
"Now let's see if there's any Akatsuki left," Link murmured, gazing upon the battered Amegakure.
~~~
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