The others in the cave stared. That may have been the first time they'd heard Lord Hyūga
justify his famously elitist views. Perhaps Pain's speech-making was infectious.
"Well, he's not
wrong," Inuzuka said after a few awkward seconds. "I mean, you said it yourself, hovering man. The most obvious way that ninja and civilians are different is that we can kill them just by poking them hard enough. If we don't remind them of that every once in a while, they might start getting ideas above their station, and that's bad for everyone."
"You've lived down to my expectations, Hyūga Hiashi," Pain said. "Anyone else?"
No one said anything, which was answer enough. You couldn't trust a mass-murdering lunatic with the fate of the world, even if you wanted what he was offering. Which Minori did. She'd lost most of the people she loved to war, some of them today.
"It comes down to this after all." Pain sighed. Some part of him relaxed that Minori hadn't even realised was tense. "You can't stop the ritual. You lack the skill. It took all of us to develop, and that combination of specialists will never be seen again."
"We can," Minori found herself saying, with that tongue that refused to consult the rest of her. "Everyone else can get to safety, and then one person can kill him and take the consequences. I'm the least valuable person here, so…"
Of all the gazes that pierced her just then, Pain's was the most intense.
"You really mean that, don't you?" he asked.
"I…" Minori's voice was trembling now that she understood what she was saying. "I think if it has to be somebody, it should be me." The one who didn't deserve to survive while everyone else died. She'd hidden in the shadows, reiterating her lack of power like a mantra, while her allies were dying around her one by one. Why couldn't it have been Usamatsu who survived? Or Mana, or Shishi or Kuga? What had
she done to deserve to live while they died?
"I'm willing to offer a compromise," Pain said suddenly. "Two hours to shut down the ritual safely."
"And what do you want?" Lady Tsunade demanded. "Because you can promise us the moon, but you ain't walking out of here alive."
Lord Hyūga opened his mouth. Minori couldn't see the expression on Lady Tsunade's face from where she was, but Lord Hyūga closed his mouth instantly.
"Freedom for my friends," Pain said.
"Your friends are dead," Lord Akimichi finally spoke up. "I'm sure you're lucid enough to know that."
"Freedom for my friends," Pain repeated. "You'll let them go, and you won't fight any of them unless they fight you first."
"No," Lady Tsunade said flatly. "Even if you can bring them back, which is bullshit, they don't get to walk away after what they've done."
"You are injured and low on chakra," Pain replied with the uninvolved air of one checking off boxes. "Factoring in Lady Senju's wounds, I am presently the strongest shinobi alive. I could abort the ritual right now and destroy this island. I could shut down this ritual safely, destroy you all before you could confirm whether it was safe to attack me, and try to restart the ritual somewhere else. Or after destroying you, I could kill the jinchūriki since they are no longer any use to me, and use my powers to escape, leaving six Tailed Beasts to rampage across the Water Country."
He could abort the ritual at will. Minori's life still wasn't worth anything even if she tried to sacrifice it.
"Freedom for my friends, in exchange for my life. I have the ninjutsu."
There was silence for a long time.
"How do you know we won't just attack them once you're dead?" Asuma asked.
"With the greatest possible respect," Pain said, "you and what army?"
"How do you know
they won't just attack
us once you're dead?"
"I will tell them not to."
Ten incredulous stares.
"I have gathered some of the most brutal, remorseless killers the world has ever known, and persuaded them to set aside their differences and follow me in pursuit of a single pacifist goal. Everything leading up to this moment has been possible only because of their loyalty and trust in me. Didn't you wonder why not one of them tried to escape in the face of the most powerful alliance in human history?
"Besides, with both your chakra and theirs depleted, there would be massive casualties. Will the few survivors on either side throw away their lives in the name of revenge?
"I may be alone, but Akatsuki's mission statement remains unchanged: let me save lives or you will die."
-o-
The glow around the young man was faint now as he stood at the cave entrance looking down at the battlefield.
"How many more times before we're satisfied?" he whispered.
The survivors stood around him, each ready to strike the second he reneged on their deal. He'd already shown them, very slowly, the hand seals he was going to use.
Pain didn't raise his voice the way ninjutsu users usually did. It was even, so very even.
"Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique."
The abomination rising from the ground was every bit as horrific as he'd described. She didn't doubt for a second that it was a demon king from the Naraka Path, something that could only be summoned by a man who was an abomination himself. She needed only to look into its deep, baleful eyes, which were completely identical to Pain's.
The demon's maw opened wide, as if to consume every corpse on the battlefield in a single desecrating bite. But instead, streams of beautiful green light, like dancing kami who'd accidentally wandered into hell, poured out of its mouth and unerringly towards corpses (or pieces of corpses) wearing black cloaks with red clouds. Before her eyes, bones reattached themselves, were covered in flowing flesh, and finally tightly in skin. Fragments of human being drifted towards a single central point and reassembled. Some had to claw themselves out into the open world while the light briefly sustained them. One man stood up, gazing in bewilderment at his hands as if seeing them for the first time.
"It's over," Pain said loudly but clearly. "Thank you for staying by my side, and for devoting yourselves to a madman's dream. If I can make just one more selfish request of you, my friends… find your own ways to keep that dream alive. Even if there are no shortcuts to world peace, humanity can still do it the hard way."
With that, he fell to his knees, and was dead before he hit the ground.
Down below, seven figures left in silence.
