Kapitel 445: Ch445. Manipulated idiot

"First of all, I think you should be grateful. I just saved his life." Rei self-righteously stated, making the still-unnamed brunette even madder.

Not that he cared how she viewed his depriving Nagato of his sight but he felt like explaining since they had time to waste until Obito finally showed up.

Someone extremely meticulous like him definitely had a way to notify him if his most important pawn was in danger. And even if not, Zetsu was on standby to do just that. After all, a play could not go on without its main actor, no?

"A-and wh-why?"

Surprisingly, it was not the brunette who responded but the still-suffering Nagato who managed to get that resentful question out through his gritted teeth and whimpering.

Rei turned towards him and put his hand on Nagato's shoulder in a friendly manner, "Look, mate, I get it. You think losing your special eyes is bad but to be honest, they were not even yours, to begin with."

Now that stopped the blind boy's seething almost instantly. He still tried to rudely shake off Rei's hand though...

Obviously, Nagato was not a complete fool. Nobody who could create and lead an organization like Akatsuki could be stupid. Arrogant and ignorant... yes. Stupid... no.

Rei counted on that fact and surmised that Nagato did his research on his eyes. It was only natural to be interested in why he had them and how he got them. Yet, not even some Kages knew about Rinnegan. It was so obscure and veiled in myths and legends that it might as well be fiction. Zetsu did his job well and the proper information about those eyes was very hard to get.

That's why Rei's sentence made Nagato still and tempted him no matter how it inwardly made him feel uncomfortable.

Seeing that, Rei smirked, "You didn't really think you are some kind of chosen one, did you?" He playfully rolled his eyes, "Well, in a manner of speaking, you are. You are Madara's chosen one. Those eyes I just ruined belong to Uchiha Madara. The real and dead one, not the ridiculous wannabe that was manipulating you for over the past decade." He nonchalantly dropped the bomb on them.

Nagato grew completely silent when he heard that, even his whimpering ceased. It was obvious he was still in pain from how tightly he clenched his fists but he was too focused on digesting the information.

Ninjas' minds worked a bit differently than civilian ones. They had to consider a lot of information on a daily basis, connecting patterns and deciding the truth from lies. It was a matter of life and death for them so Nagato would not just rashly believe whatever Rei told him without any basis behind it.

But that's where the trap laid. Rei didn't need to present proof. He knew Nagato spent over a decade in Tobi's presence and he definitely had his own misgivings. He just silently let Nagato mull over it for a bit and come to his own conclusions. No matter if they were right or wrong.

"How?" Nagato eventually asked in a quiet voice and Rei gestured for Konan to let the brunette go.

Konan pursed her lips but reluctantly obeyed, appearing next to Rei in a burst of speed, her eyes watching the brunette's every move.

The unimportant girl instantly stood up and worriedly limped towards Nagato, giving Rei a distrustful yet questioning glance.

"Tend to his wound." Rei dismissively said as he reassuringly rubbed Konan's lower back to make her relax a bit.

"Back to your question," He spoke towards Nagato, "I am sure you started learning the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, no?"

Nagato slowly nodded, hissing a bit as the brunette slowly pulled away his hands from his face, revealing his face with a horizontal gash going through his eyes and nose. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"And I guess it wasn't exactly your idea, right?" Rei led him to the conclusions he wanted him to arrive at, taking great pleasure at his minuscule reactions like scrunching of his face there, a twitch in his cheek here, or balling of his fists, as Nagato was slowly connecting the dots.

Rei didn't need an answer to his previous question. The thoughtful frown on Nagato's face told him what he needed to know. "Tobi no doubt reasoned it would have been a great boon to have a technique capable of reviving the Akatsuki members." He 'guessed', causing Nagato to flinch at how accurate Rei was.

Theoretically speaking, Nagato already had the King of Hell that could revive people but that only worked on recently deceased. Anybody who died more than just a few minutes before he was tossed as a munchie to the King of Hell's maw would not come back to life. That's where the sacrificial revive technique came to play.

Well, Rei did have Zetsu tell him precisely how Obito managed to persuade Nagato to learn a suicide Jutsu so it was less about guessing and more about simply being manipulative.

"What he didn't tell you is that you were just a pawn supposed to revive Uchiha Madara when it is time, sacrificing your own life in the process." Rei revealed decades of secret plans with one sentence, feeling extremely smug about that accomplishment.

While Nagato fell into silent contemplation, it was actually the brunette who gasped at the implications, "The technique was supposed to work without Nagato having to die." She exclaimed, reluctant to believe it.

"Sure, it does." Rei shrugged. He knew about that from Kaguya. She could do that easily depending on the strength of the revived person... not that she would waste her chakra for others like that. "But only if he had a more advanced form of Rinnegan. Unfortunately for him, he is an Uzumaki. He can wield the eyes to a very limited degree because of his ancestry but he would never be able to evolve it. Not naturally, at least."

Rei suddenly blinked as he finished explaining and his eyes gave the woman an inquisitive look, "By the way, what's your name? I think I forgot to ask."

That earned him a small nudge to the side from Konan and a prompt eye roll.

"I am Amagi Mika." The brunette said with a frown, her hands not stopping to tend to Nagato's wound.

When Rei heard her name... he shrugged her existence off. At first, he thought she was a canon character he was forgetting about but he had no recollection of a character with that name. As he thought, she simply was not important.

"You are quite skilled at medical ninjutsu." Konan quipped.

She was glad about that. Usually, it was her who kept the 'prisoners' alive. Mika being capable of healing enabled Konan to just relax and let Nagato's life in her hands. After all, the woman clearly cared more about his life than Konan ever would.

"Mhm." Mika neutrally hummed, not willing to start a conversation with the woman who almost killed her. She could still feel the painful tingle from the small cut on her neck.

"Rude." Konan frowned, causing Mika's cheek to twitch a bit.

The brunette wanted to scream that she was almost decapitated just a few moments ago by Konan so being rude was a mild response in her opinion but... she was smarter than that and kept quiet, focused on helping Nagato while glaring to nowhere.

While this was going on, Rei was screening the town with his senses, quite surprised at the instilled order and the improved quality of life of the inhabitants. Being under Akatsuki clearly helped this town a lot and he was a bit curious if other settlements in Ame were like this.

'Not all that villains do is bad, huh?' He thought. He doubted Akatsuki would be the villain from the perspective of the Ame people. Not after their lives were improved so much thanks to them.

And yet...

Rei looked at Nagato with a sigh. The redhead clearly knew only might makes right. That was the entire basis behind his 'gather the bijuu and threaten the other nations' plan. As stupid as it was, Rei could see it working.

Of course, as with everything, it would require some poor, ignorant, and arrogant sods to die so the others could see he was not joking but... in a world like theirs, the strongest could easily take the reins.

Nagato also obviously wanted to improve people's lives and Rei blamed Jiraiya for his naive outlook. The man was no true ninja. He might dress like one, and he might have a semblance of thinking of one instilled to him by Jiraiya but…

He was just a misguided idiot with too much power to be healthy who was manipulated from his early childhood. Whether that manipulation was done by a white-haired peace-loving pervert or fake Madara, it didn't matter as it caused its fair share of damage.

Nagato could not think for himself. Even if something was clearly fishy with Tobi for years, he ignored it and blindly chased his stupid goal. Rei… really couldn't understand the man.

'Speaking of fake Madaras.' Rei turned around, his hand snapping upward and catching the wrist of a person that appeared from a swirl.

Rei looked at the kunai that was supposed to end up in his back and raised his eyebrow at the new arrival. "Did you really think this would work?" He looked at the man with an orange swirl mask whose single Mangekyo Sharingan was glaring at Rei from behind it in utter rage.

"Do you have any idea what you have done?" The fake Madara menacingly growled.

Rei just pleasantly smiled at that, "Why don't you explain it to me as if I was five?"

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Kapitel 446: Ch446. Stupid move

Tobi snarled at Rei's provocation, unable to control his feelings due to the realization that the Tsuki no Me plan was completely ruined.

Without Madara's Rinnegan, there was no way to bring Madara back to life or even summon the Gedo Mazo, nor to seal bijuu into it. Without Madara's Rinnegan, there was no way to go forward and every plan and machination became completely meaningless.

From Zetsu, Obito knew how Madara unlocked Rinnegan. One needed a very strong Uchiha with Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan to have the blood and flesh of a powerful Senju implanted into his body and then wait for the eyes to evolve.

But even with Madara taking in Hashirama's flesh, it still took considerable time.

The biggest problem was... the Uchiha and Senju clans were no longer in existence. As far as he knew, the only people capable of evolving Rinnegan were himself, Sasuke, and Itachi Uchiha. And even then, there were no sufficiently strong Senju around.

The last remaining Senju was Tsunade and Obito kinda doubted her strength. She was like a puffed-up peacock, full of pride and attitude... Yet, Obito knew she was supposed to be the weakest of the Sannin Trio. Compared to Hashirama, she kinda fell short, in his opinion.

That wouldn't have been a problem otherwise but Obito suspected the stronger a Senju is, the stronger his chakra is, the quicker the evolution process would go.

Yet, the same problem was with the Uchiha side. Between Itachi, Sasuke, and himself, the closest to Madara strength-wise was him and he knew well that he fell short of the man's prime by a large margin.

How long would it take for a new set of eyes to be evolved from the available components? Fifty years? Hundred years? More?

Obito didn't have an answer for that but he knew it wouldn't be anytime soon, if ever. Somehow, he doubted quantity would make up for quality, and compared to the legendary ninjas, Madara and Hashirama, the quality of this time fell short by a lot.

That's why Rei ruining Nagato's eyes put an instant stop to his and Madara's plans. It was over.

Obito's body fully materialized and the swirling around him stopped. He had no idea who the bastard in front of him was but he knew he was strong. If the interception of his sneak attack was not proof enough... And Obito prided himself in being able to sneak up on people with his Mangekyo... then the state Nagato was in was enough to convince Obito to take Rei seriously right off the bat.

The second his last use of his Mangekyo ceased, he instantly reactivated it, this time aiming directly at Rei's chest and causing the air there to swirl, sucking the middle of Rei's chest inside...

Obito wanted to prematurely close the portal, ripping Rei's chest into shreds and quickly ending him but to his surprise, he found himself unable to do it.

The swirling continued on and on... the portal between Obito's personal dimension and the place Obito targeted refused to be closed.

"What the heck is going on!?" Obito growled in frustration, trying in vain to forcefully interrupt his Jutsu. At this point, he would be glad even if Rei came out unscathed.

His Kamui usually did not use a lot of chakra as long as he opened a portal, hopped through it, and instantly closed it. He could use it constantly that way. Yes, the swirling teleporting took time but that was mostly for the shock effect and style, rather than because of necessity.

After all, in the middle of combat, he could relocate parts of his body to his dimension, making himself seem intangible to his opponent. If the technique took a lot of chakra, it would be unusable.

But... it had its own rules and disadvantages. Right now, his Kamui was trying to suck another being, which was a massive expenditure on chakra. That's why Obito tried to do it quickly, just open a portal and close it right after a part of Rei was sucked in.

Him being unable to close it sent alarms and panic through his head as his chakra was sucked out of him at a quick pace.

Rei watched the distraught Uchiha in front of him and chuckled, "You really are arrogant as the rest of your clan, aren't you?" He quipped with a smile, "Did you really think your Jutsu had no counter?" Rei shook his head, "All it took was using a Space-Sealing Seal right after you opened your little portal." He curtly explained and Obito's eyes widened in disbelief.

No wonder he could not close the portal! The entire space around them was locked in its previous state... which meant the portal would be maintained until the seal holds. Yet, the portal needed to be fueled by something and that something was Obito's chakra.

Obito's face paled at the implications and he frantically started to try forcefully closing the portal, not even realizing he was trying to jerk his wrist out of Rei's hold.

Rei, however, just tightly held his wrist and laughed in amusement at Obito's pitiful attempts.

He had many countermeasures against Obito but... why fight a prolonged battle when he could just cause the man to exhaust himself to death without even moving an inch?

Both Maki and Nagato could feel the quickly decreasing reserves of Obito and even though Nagato was blind, he had a clear picture of what was happening just by using his chakra sensing and hearing. Both of them were full of horrified awe at the ease with which their co-leader was defeated and realized they are lucky to be still alive. If these two intruders intended to kill them, then even if the initial ambush failed and Nagato had the time to mobilize his Paths, it wouldn't have mattered.

Konan also watched what was happening but unlike Nagato and Maki, she was just disappointed. Akatsuki was supposed to be strong and people in the know often compared them to Yozora with reverence.

Yet... the idiot got caught in such a simple trap!?

How friggin hard was it to understand that space locks are the biggest threat to him and prepare accordingly? And he had literally NOTHING to counter them? And this was supposed to be one of the best S-rank ninjas in the current Elemental Nations sans the Village on the Other Side?

Really?

Sure... Uzumaki were not back in business that long and they definitely did not sell these kinds of seals to their customers but back in their heyday, they were known for their ability to lock space. It would be prudent to prepare for the eventuality...

'I guess my worldview is a bit skewed due to Rei's views.' Konan wryly smiled.

It took barely three minutes and Obito's fierce thrashing started slowing down, until he totally stopped moving thirty seconds later, letting out a muffled wheeze before he powerlessly fell to his knees and inclined his head down as the swirling on Rei's chest slowly ceased.

Rei blinked and let Obito's wrist go, his arm instantly falling down, and then he put two fingers on Obito's forehead, giving him a gentle shove that caused his body to fall over on its back.

Rei pursed his lips, staring at the sprawled Obito on the ground, his sole Mangekyo Sharingan still staring at the ceiling from behind his mask...

"Yup, he is dead." Rei shrugged as he felt no chakra signature from the body in front of him, and turned back towards Nagato and Maki who nervously gulped at having his attention.

---

Author Note:

If you feel like it, feel free to leave your thoughts on how Obito was dealt with and if you think it is realistic or have some misgivings :D. I find myself curious about your opinion.

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