Nagato's lips twitched faintly, something between a grimace and a laugh.
"Use others…?" he muttered. "That's rich, coming from someone who probably already plans to use me."
His voice was hoarse, but there was no real anger behind it, just exhaustion.
"Maybe that's all shinobi ever do. Use, and get used. Until nothing's left."
Ryusei didn't bother denying it. He gave a faint shrug instead.
"They used you wrong," he said simply. "Fed you half-truths, kept you dependent, made you believe you were chosen while quietly making sure you'd never outgrow your purpose."
He looked at Nagato for a moment, studying him like a craftsman eyeing broken glass.
"You were born with power that could've stood on its own, but they chained it to their machine until it started eating you alive."
His tone stayed calm, but there was weight behind it.
"I'm not here to preach. But if you stick around, I can show you how to use what's actually yours, not what they left behind. You might finally see the world the way it really is, not the way they scripted it for you."
Nagato's jaw tightened, his hands curling weakly against the sheets.
"You talk like I haven't heard similar words before," he said, voice low and rough. "Someone else tried to 'open my eyes', like that, and lead me toward the best way to achieve peace. You sound a lot like him."
Ryusei didn't flinch. "Do you even know what happened to the Amegakure after you passed out?"
Nagato's expression shifted; something in Ryusei's tone set off a chill in his gut.
Konan, silent until now, turned slightly toward them, her unease written across her quiet face.
"What… do you mean?" Nagato asked slowly.
Ryusei met his blind gaze evenly. "It's gone. Completely. The village, the people, the rivers, the towers you built — all of it. Wiped out in an instant. The fight between that intruder and the real Madara Uchiha erased Amegakure from the map."
Nagato froze. For a moment, his breath caught, and then he exhaled shakily. Konan's lips parted, but no sound came out.
"That can't be…" she whispered.
Nagato's fingers dug into the blanket. "That place—" his voice cracked. "We gave everything for it. Everything."
His remaining chakra flickered faintly, unstable, a pulse of rage and grief twisting through it.
Konan reached out, her hand trembling slightly as she touched his arm, grounding him.
Ryusei watched quietly, letting the silence stretch before speaking again.
"So," he said, his tone calm but cutting through the air like a blade, "what do you want to do about it? Keep mourning what's gone? Or try and take revenge, on the one who destroyed your village, your hometown… and the ones who used you your entire life without you even knowing?"
Nagato didn't answer right away.
His teeth clenched, and for the first time since waking, there was a spark in his blind, hollow eyes, something raw, heavy, and alive.
Those words — used you your entire life — echoed inside Nagato's mind like a curse that refused to fade.
If what Ryusei said was true, if those eyes were implanted into him when he was young, then someone had been watching him ever since. Guiding his every step. Manipulating every turn of his life.
And who else could do that but the Zetsu — the white one that could appear anywhere, anytime, without being seen?
Nagato's breath grew shallow as one thought led to another.
"What if they were there even back then…?" he muttered under his breath.
His memories flashed — the night his parents died, the shinobi who "accidentally" invaded their home, the way everything had spiraled from there.
No… what if none of it was accidental?
And Yahiko — that meeting, that perfect trap that ended with his death.
They had been so confident, so unguarded, almost drawn to it, especially Yahiko.
What if it hadn't been just Hanzo and Danzo behind it?
What if the Zetsu and that masked impostor had been there too, pulling invisible strings under the real Madara's orders — the same Madara whose eyes had been in his skull the entire time?
A cold fury crawled up Nagato's spine.
So that was it. His entire life, every decision, every "choice," had been someone else's script.
He clenched his trembling fists. The grief that had filled him moments ago curdled into something sharper.
He wanted revenge. Not only for Amegakure — the village that raised him, that he had tried to reshape first through Yahiko's ideals and later through his own — but for everything.
That dream, that hope, the "path to peace"… it had all ended in ash.
Hanzo was already gone, killed by his own hand. Danzo, according to the reports, had been finished by the person now standing in front of him.
But the one who truly deserved it — the one with that unknown godlike power who erased his home in seconds — was still out there.
And those who had manipulated him from the shadows, he didn't know yet how deep their role ran, but that no longer mattered.
If they were part of it, he would make them talk — or he would erase them, one by one, until he reached the truth.
At that moment, Nagato let go of his past self — the man who called himself Pain, the fool who dreamed of peace through shared suffering.
That man was dead.
Now, all that remained was someone who understood how the world really worked — someone who knew that power and revenge were the only truths left.
After all, only now did Nagato realize how foolish he'd been, chasing the grand peace while knowing so little about the world and its real powers.
That plan to gather the tailed beasts had probably been for their own selfish ends from the very start, motives he couldn't even begin to guess as well.
Eventually, Nagato's expression hardened again, though this time it was less anger, more quiet uncertainty.
"…You talk big," he said slowly. "But look at me. I'm blind. My body's broken. My legs—" his tone faltered slightly, "—have been dead for well over a year. You really think there's anything left to fix?"
Ryusei didn't look offended. He simply smiled, calm and certain.
"More than you think," he replied. "Your original potential wasn't much lower than what those stolen eyes gave you. Maybe not even at all."
Nagato frowned. "You expect me to believe that?"
Ryusei leaned back slightly. "Why not? Senju and Uzumaki bloodlines come from the same roots. Both carry the Sage's body inheritance. You proved that yourself — you held the Rinnegan longer than anyone else ever could, and survived it. That power should've killed you a hundred times over, but it didn't. It just burned through what was already yours."
Nagato went silent at that. Even Konan's usual blank composure wavered, her blue eyes flicking toward Ryusei.
"So yes," Ryusei continued evenly, "your vitality's ruined, but not beyond repair. I have ways to fix that."
Nagato's blind gaze lifted slightly, curiosity slipping through his caution. "Ways…?"
Ryusei smirked faintly. "I don't make bad investments. Since I saved you, I intend to make use of you. And that means restoring what you lost — or more."
He let the silence stretch before speaking again. "Ever heard of Hashirama Senju's cells?"
Even Nagato's breathing hitched slightly at that name. Konan frowned, remembering vague rumors about experiments and unnatural regeneration.
"Those cells can heal you," Ryusei explained. "Not just your legs. Your whole body. They can restore your vitality, make it stronger than before. You'd maybe finally be able to use your full potential instead of living like some half-dead puppet hooked to machines."
"This, interestingly enough," Ryusei went on, "was also the very thing all three of those who manipulated you used on themselves… and conveniently never offered to you, to not jump out too much."
Nagato's lips parted, but he said nothing. The memory clicked almost immediately—he had sensed something similar in them before, in that fake Madara's chakra, and even in Zetsu's unnatural body.
"And you… have those cells?" he asked quietly.
"I do," Ryusei said. "And I can make them work for you properly. A perfect transplant, gradually done over time. No rot, no side effects."
Konan's gaze narrowed slightly. "And why help us?" she asked softly. "You expect obedience in return, don't you?"
Ryusei chuckled under his breath. "You can call it cooperation. I prefer to think of it as… rebuilding value."
Nagato said nothing. His silence wasn't disbelief now, but contemplation.
Ryusei then added casually, "And it's not just that. I plan to push it even further — the Slug Sage Mode. You've heard of it, right?"
Nagato's expression shifted; he knew of the term, if not the details.
Jiraiya had mentioned the sage paths before, the contract realms that enhanced one's chakra beyond human limits.
"You're serious," he said slowly.
Ryusei nodded once. "Tsunade and I are the only two in the world with the contract now. It's the perfect next step. If you survived wielding the Rinnegan, surviving that will be nothing. And once you do, you'll be completely rebuilt from the ground up and never have to rely on anyone's power again."
The idea was insane — and yet, for the first time since waking up blind and broken, Nagato felt something other than bitterness. A spark.
Konan's eyes softened slightly as she looked between them.
She could sense that flicker too, that small pulse of life in his chakra that hadn't been there just moments before.
Still, her thoughts were cautious. 'We've been used before. Lied to before. If this is another trap, I'll make sure he regrets it. Even if he saved us like that masked man before. We saw how that went...'
But outwardly, she simply said quietly, "If what you're saying is true… then prove it."
Ryusei smiled faintly. "Oh, I intend to."
Nagato's blind gaze, meanwhile, was fixed on the ceiling. "I believed in peace once, and it burned. I won't chase illusions again. But I could hunt the ones who lied."
Nagato also knew he wasn't really in a position to refuse—especially with Konan involved. His own life didn't matter much anymore anyway.
After hearing Nagato's quiet acceptance, Ryusei felt a small wave of relief.
He looked at his soon-to-be experiment—a former self-proclaimed god—with a bit more appreciation than before.
He hadn't expected the ex-prophet of pain to be this reasonable so quickly.
Once a so-called savior, now a project on his table. Fate had a sense of humor.
Still, what he offered Nagato wasn't that bad considering their current situation.
In fact, Nagato could end up extremely useful—especially when it came to that Toneri's father, with a very 'juicy' Tenseigan, in particular.
As for the Akatsuki, that organization was a joke now.
Four members left: Obito, Dual Zetsu, Sasori, and Kakuzu.
Also, they were at least a decade or more before their "prime".
Obito could still be very dangerous, especially since Ryusei had directly observed that he recovered his other Sharingan somehow there, despite being two years younger, but Ryusei felt confident he had already surpassed him, in offense at least.
The true Madara was the only one worth real attention there now.
The rest barely mattered.
Kakuzu was early Kage level at best, while Sasori—though stronger than expected—was more of a curiosity, and was now a clear level above Kakuzu, unlike in the original series perhaps.
Ryusei had spied on Sasori once through a sensory clone and discovered that the puppet master had developed a strange new art: Mercury Release.
A fusion of iron, heat, poison, and magnetism—a kind of living metallic toxin.
An impressive evolution, maybe the first external elemental fusion of its kind.
After Ryusei defeated and humiliated him back when he'd saved Pakura, Sasori had built himself a new humanoid puppet body, like in the original, but perhaps out of revenge, out of pride, he mastered that new technique he didn't have in the original series at all.
Ryusei imagined the man still brooding somewhere, planning payback on him for that time.
He scoffed at the thought.
'If he shows up in front of me ever again, then I'll erase him with a flick of my hand...'
Madara, however, was a different matter.
But their paths didn't need to cross yet.
For now, Ryusei's focus was elsewhere, on acquiring that celestial power, the Tenseigan.
Compared to a veteran ghost like Madara, the Moon seemed like an easier conquest.
In truth, Ryusei preferred a world where Akatsuki still roamed freely, chasing tailed beasts and stirring conflict; the more chaos that spread, the easier it became for him to move unnoticed.