Hidden Rain Village - Residence of the God and his Angel
The Infinite Tsukuyomi was not known to them.
Sasuke found himself momentarily disoriented, caught off guard by the response from the blue-haired woman. He had come here expecting a swift and uneventful end to his one-man, one-sided war against the most dangerous mercenary group since the creation of Konoha. He had entered the Hidden Rain village wanting nothing more than to eliminate the sole individual, other than himself, capable of resurrecting the Ten-Tails, thereby ridding the world of a looming threat. It would be so easy, so quick to just put a sword and make a clean slice across those fragile necks of his opponents. It would take less than a fraction of a second. Yet—
"We were going to create the Ten-Tails as a weapon for distribution, a threat to enforce stability across the nations – yet we have no recollection of anything called...Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Staring at the gaunt, crippled Rinnegan wielder in his face, a man who looked like he had been placed in a cage for months without food or water, and his right-hand woman who he knew was utterly terrified of him, Sasuke was forced to reevaluate his position.
"Then... why?"
The question surprised even him. Was it a sense of justice, realizing that the man before him was coerced into actions that weren't entirely his choice? Or, perhaps, it was self-projection—a recognition of the similarities in their paths, where both had once believed they acted on their own accord, only to be steered by forces beyond their control.
"What exactly do you mean by...why?"
Sasuke tilted his head in a questioning manner. "What do you know of the ten tails?"
Nagato and Konan took a few seconds to make eye contact with each other, and a silent conversation took place between both of them before the paper jutsu wielder chose to give him a response. She stepped forward.
"We were going to use the nine-tailed beasts to combine and create an aggregate of all the beasts. A weapon capable of immense mass destruction. It would have the power to raze an entire village to the ground. I suppose that this is what Madara called the ten tails?"
"The Gedō Mazō would be used as its main vessel, yes?" Sasuke prodded further, ignoring her question. A pitifully transparent attempt to hide information about the great statue, he thought, amused.
"How do you know of it?" The Nagato demanded harshly, eyes narrowed in visible trepidation.
Sasuke took a few moments to debate the consequences of his next course of action before deciding. He lifted his hand, brushing off the lock of hair covering his left eye, and quickly undid the transformation jutsu, revealing the Rinnegan.
Was it wrong to relish the shocked exclamations and expressions that followed his dramatic revelation?
"IMPOSSIBLE!—"
"How?! Th-That e-eye...—"
"HOW did you get the RINNEGAN?!"
Sasuke smirked. No, no, it wasn't.
He let them stew in their disbelief and astonishment before he regarded their faces with a cold clarity in his eyes. "The Rinnegan," he began, "is not an arbitrary gift. It is not something whose power appears within anybody. It is the final evolution of the Sharingan and can only be achieved in those who are descendants of the Uchiha. I am one of them. You, on the other hand? Your chakra and your appearance indicate that you belong to the..." he remembered Kabuto's description of a certain red-haired clan with immense life force. "Uzumaki clan."
Sasuke raised his arm and pointed at the ruler of the Hidden Rain. "The question here is not how I got the Rinnegan, but how you obtained this eye."
Nagato, his face contorted in confusion and rising anger, retorted sharply, "THAT. IS. A. LIE! I awakened the Rinnegan myself, and I am no Uchiha."
He did not deny that he was a Uzumaki.
Sasuke regarded Nagato with a cold, discerning gaze, letting the lone arm fall back on his side. "There was only one other man who awakened the Rinnegan after the Sage of Six Paths and before me," he said. Indra's descendant narrowed his eyes. "The masked man... I'm sure you're familiar with him."
Nagato's face paled. "No..."
His voice dropped to a near whisper, yet loud enough to convey the weight of his words. Hagoromo did say he had a flair for dramatics. "His name was Madara Uchiha."
The air seemed to thicken with tension as Nagato fell deathly quiet, his previous fury simmering into a chilling calm. After a moment that stretched painfully long, he whispered, almost too softly, the words carrying undercurrents of effervescent rage. "Are you saying... the only reason I had the Rinnegan was because of Madara?"
Sasuke's gaze didn't waver.
He could see the denial building behind Nagato's wide eyes—the desperate clinging to a reality that was already crumbling.
"I suppose," Sasuke said with a slight shrug, "you deserve to know."
He spoke then, curt, efficient, just the simple, straightforward facts.
The Rinnegan, Sasuke explained, was not a natural and arbitrary appearance. It was something far rarer, far more intentional, and required proper information and genealogy or chakra to manifest. It was a phenomenon requiring the unison of Indra and Asura's chakra, descendants of the Sage of Six Paths himself. He delivered a stripped-down, brutal history: the ancient rivalry of the Sage's sons, their endless reincarnations through history—Madara and Hashirama among the most famous of them. He spoke of the Sage's divine chakra, the power of creation and destruction itself, and how it was only by forcibly merging these powerful chakra's that the Rinnegan could be awakened in a person.
Sasuke kept it clinical. He omitted irrelevant myth and sentiment. No talk of prophecy. No talk of destiny. Only the cold mechanical steps of cause and effect.
Finally, he explained the reality Nagato had apparently never been told: the masked man they once called "Madara"—Obito—had not been the original wielder either.
Sasuke noticed, with mild surprise, the way their faces twitched in disbelief at the revelation. Clearly, they hadn't even known the "Madara" they had served was a fraud. He ignored their shocked expressions and pushed forward, offering no time for them to process or interrupt. They clung to every word he said like drowning men to a rope, desperate for any certainty amidst the crumbling ruins of their beliefs. Sasuke supposed that after losing to him so utterly and after witnessing his mastery of the Rinnegan, with a unique pattern different from Nagato's, they had little reason left to doubt. Besides, in a world where even the Sage of Six Paths was considered folklore, his knowledge of ancient truths must have seemed impossibly absolute. Another small advantage he exploited without hesitation.
"The Rinnegan takes years to awaken," except his own, "something Madara found out far too late in his life. As such, he was too weak - too old to use its power. He needed a temporary vessel, someone strong enough to handle its power. That vessel, most likely..." Sasuke simply inclined his head, affirming Nagato's fears with a single, grave nod. "... was you."
There was silence in the room, palpable, drowning silence that wrapped around the people present like a gloved hand. Sasuke didn't have to read the Uzumaki's mind to figure out that it was a whirlwind of unspoken accusations and shattered beliefs.
Then Nagato's face went blank.
Slowly, the environment began to respond to his growing fury, small rocks levitating as a visible aura of chakra flared around him, his eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. The wind picked up, and suddenly the very ground they were upon shook with the anger of a man who had been served nothing but injustice throughout his life.
Sasuke stood completely at ease, knowing he was far too powerful to be even remotely threatened by a possible fight.
"Nagato!"
Seeing the dangerous escalation, Konan, her voice laced with panic and fear for Nagato's life, shouted. "Nagato, calm down!" Her plea seemed to pierce the bubble of his rage, reaching him just as he teetered on the brink of losing control.
"Nagato, please! You have to stop. This isn't helping."
She eyed Sasuke out of fear, not for herself but for her friend's well-being.
Friends. They were friends.
Sasuke's chest tightened before he ruthlessly shoved those unwanted feelings.
Nagato took a deep, shuddering breath, and as he exhaled, his face morphed from anger to deep sadness. The rocks clattered back to the ground, and the eerie shaking of the tower ceased as he reined in his immense chakra. "All this time... it was him," he murmured, his voice a ghost of its former strength.
Once again, a heavy, uncomfortable silence enveloped the group, the air thick with the implications of Sasuke's words. It stretched on, each second ticking by like the slow drip of water in a large cave.
Sasuke felt nothing but pity for the man broken by the revelations at hand. No doubt in those long-lasting seconds of contemplation, he had internalized some very uncomfortable truths about himself and his life. As such, Sasuke opted to remain silent out of respect for the man.
Finally, the woman, Konan, decided to break the silence, regaining some semblance of bravado. "Why should we believe you? How do we know that you're not just doing this to break up the Akatsuki?"
Some skepticism was to be expected.
He raised an eyebrow and vaguely gestured toward the other male in the room. "Look at him. He has come to a conclusion that he does not like." Sasuke inclined his head forward ever so slightly. "Have you reached your own?"
"I have, yes... and it's—" she suddenly stopped herself before taking a deep breath. "I do not understand. You speak of these impossible truths, but... how do you know all this?" she demanded, her voice tense with suspicion. "Did you interrogate Madara before you killed him? What are you not telling us?"
Enough was enough. He had given enough information, far more than what was necessary.
They should be grateful.
Sasuke's expression hardened, and he took a step forward. He withheld a scoff at the chakra that suddenly gathered at the woman's fingertips. As if that would help. "I have already shared more than I should have and - considering you both withheld information about the Gedo Mazo from me," he retorted, his voice cold and unforgiving. "You are in no position to demand answers."
His eyes narrowed dangerously. "You are at my mercy, not the other way around. From this point on, I will be the one asking the questions."
After all, if they hadn't known about the Infinite Tsukuyomi, then what were they planning to do as leaders of the Akatsuki? What was their end goal?
"Very well."
The sudden, soft declaration did not come from Konan.
"We will tell you...everything."
"Nagato, what are you—"
"Konan, you do not need to ask. You already know what I am going to say."
"But Nagato, if you tell him, it may spell the end of our dreams."
"Or... it could be the beginning of it."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. That had been said intensely, almost as if the red-haired man had come to a revelation. But Nagato did say he would explain everything. So, regardless of the outcome, he would have his answers.
That was what mattered the most.
It took a few more seconds of deliberation before Nagato and Konan turned to him, a decision made. The sickly-looking self-proclaimed god turned towards him, his expression the very picture of resignation and lost confidence. "Before we begin, I believe you must know why the Akatsuki was formed before the gathering of the tailed beasts, before Madara..."
_____________________________________________________________________
Land of Sound - Southern Hideout
Uzumaki Karin was a person with no purpose of her own.
She had come from a lowly rat, her entire childhood defined for her as a tool, a human vessel made and born for the sole purpose and benefit of healing others. This singular aspect of her existence overshadowed any semblance, any possibility of a normal childhood. Each bite, each drawing of her unique healing chakra, was a transaction that increased her self-assurance that she was nothing but a commodity for those in power to use. That was until Lord Orochimaru found her.
Of course, if there was one thing that reality had beaten into her, it was that she had no purpose of her own. Hence, she had expected the same from him, too. If anything, with how creepy and disgusting the man looked, she had, in fact, anticipated much worse.
And she had gotten exactly what she had expected... except...more. Orochimaru had allowed her to lead the Southern hideout. Orochimaru had given her... power. The authority to make decisions, to lead, to be seen as someone of importance within Orochimaru's operations. It preyed upon a sense of self-worth that had been absent from her life.
And by dear God, that power was intoxicating.
For once in her life, she wasn't just a vessel to be drained, but a person with a title, responsibilities, and most importantly... value. It was ironic, however, that her captor's twisted acknowledgment of her abilities provided Karin with the validation she had craved for so long. It was only due to this feeling that Orochimaru had brought out a sense of partial loyalty and devotion in her. Of course, the Uzumaki wasn't a complete fool. She was astute enough to recognize the reality of her situation. The power she held was an inherently fragile one and completely dependent on the whims of Orochimaru.
"It's still something," she sighed sadly, idly watching a prisoner try and fail to escape her cell.
"Please, please!" the woman in the enclosure screamed and moaned pathetically. "You have to let me out of here!"
Karin turned to face the large prison, cramped and squalid with cold, hard, stone ground. It housed fourteen prisoners, each of them wallowing in despair and trepidation as they awaited their fate. Orochimaru designed the cells not just to imprison but to break the spirit, with the overcrowding contributing to discomfort, and often, conflict among the inmates.
She nodded calmly at the woman in the cell. "No."
"W-What?"
"I said no - what are you going to do about it? Escape?"
The man sitting next to the resigned woman placed a shoulder on her and shook his head. "I told you it was useless. Don't bother."
There was a whisper, telling her, pushing her to show the slightest empathy to these people, but as always, self-preservation won out. She refused to betray the Snake Sannin no matter how cruel she had to be. It was just survival instincts, nothing personal.
"But why?! How can you stand there, look at this, and do nothing? Are you even human?!"
The words struck a chord, and Karin's gaze hardened. "Annoying woman. Shut up will—"
She fell to her knees.
An all-powerful, crushing, overbearing force brought Karin to her down low. She felt as if the gravity of the entire world had been concentrated at a single point on Earth and compelled to submit. Her breath hitched, and she was forced to take deep, uncoordinated, broken breaths to stabilize herself.
Orochimaru's killing intent didn't even hold a candle to what she was sensing just now.
"Ha-ha, look at the pathetic cow! She's bowing down!"
"Kneeling more like. Not unlike the whore she is."
"Shut up! Do you want to be tortured?!"
Kneeling on the floor, her hands placed flat on the ground spread at shoulder width, she somehow managed to keep her composure just enough to realize that none of the prisoners were affected. Understandable, since none of them had the extraordinary sensory capabilities she had.
It took a few more seconds to regain a very basic sense of balance, enough to recognize that she was shaking uncontrollably. Wh-What is going on?
Her eyes went wide as she looked up, her sensory abilities giving her the information needed. Lightning chakra, about 100 meters away from here, on the left side of cell number six.
The distance wasn't the only problem. The real problem was that the chakra signature was closing in... FAST.
She should have, without a shadow of a doubt or an ounce of hesitation, moved. She should have run away as fast as she could, as far away as she could, away from a possible chance of death... but she didn't. There was something that stopped her. Not because she was suicidal, but because she recognized just who the powerful presence was.
He's here.
A man appeared out of thin air, forcing Karin to whip her head around so fast she almost wrenched her neck. And when she saw him, the breath caught in her throat.
"S-Sasuke-kun?" she stammered out.
The clothes were certainly new, as was the sudden jarring increase in height.
But it was his chakra that truly slammed into her like a tidal wave.
His chakra signature had a completely different tinge to it. Whereas before it had been nothing but barely controlled rage with an undeniable color of underlying madness, now it was iron-clad, resolute determination. It was like a blazing inferno that somehow had been shackled, grabbed under a gloved hand, ready to be unleashed precisely at a given target. And that wasn't even counting the sheer volume and potency of his chakra; it was far beyond anything she had experienced in her entire life, and she had been around one of the most powerful rogue ninjas since the reign of the First Hokage.
Sasuke turned to regard her with a look. She felt herself freeze like the little girl she once was. "Karin."
Whispers broke out at the sudden, unexpected arrival.
"Wait, isn't that... Uchiha Sasuke..?"
"What?"
"He's alone."
"Where is Orochimaru? Is he—"
"Has he come to set us fr—"
"Don't be fools." The most pessimistic amongst the prisoners said, his voice echoing louder and stronger, completely taking over the hushed exclamations of the others. "Orochimaru is impossible to defeat. Have you seen how strong he is? There is no way we have our freedom just yet."
Karin detected an underlying hope amongst the bitterness that nearly engulfed the man's tiny chakra levels.
"The worthless snake is dead," Sasuke replied casually as he stepped forward toward the prison gate.
The prisoners flinched, stunned into silence when the Uchiha mentioned this statement as if he were talking about the weather. The master had fallen to the student.
The woman who had previously requested her release gained some bravado. "What will happen to us now?" she questioned in a whisper almost sounding utterly defeated.
"Now?" Karin saw lightning dance between Sasuke's fingers. "Now, you go free."
Sasuke grabbed a single metal bar from the cell, and Karin braced herself, knowing what precisely was about to happen next. Chakra exploded from his fingers, sending metal debris flying all over the place. The majority of the material had been vaporized like water next to an active volcano.
Freedom, however, hesitated at the threshold of their cell, the prisoners momentarily paralyzed by the suddenness of their release, silence once again overtaking the entire general vicinity. No one moved. No one spoke. No one so much as breathed.
Then—
"What are you doing?! Move!" Sasuke's voice cut through the tension like a hot knife through butter.
They needn't have been told twice.
The captives scurried away like hungry rats, some tripping over the others as they desperately made their way through the hall opposite her, though not without sending a few glares and insults toward her. Some brave man even spat in her general direction. Karin felt righteous indignation and fury consume her entire being.
She rushed to choke the man for having the audacity to commit such a brazen act. "How dare you—!"
A hand was placed in front of her, obstructing her path. Karin turned to look at the assailant who prevented her from enacting her vengeance.
"A-ah, Sasuke-kun," she stammered, taking many steps back in utter mortification and growing realization. "I-I didn't mean to do that..."
Karin blinked and tried her best to swallow the overwhelming embarrassment that had taken over her. She had actually forgotten that Sasuke was still there, and now she had just humiliated herself in front of him. Stupid. Stupid. STUPID!
The Uchiha ignored her as usual, his attention seemed to be grabbed by something else, his eyes going unfocused for a few seconds. He's sensing something she realized, her sensing capabilities easily deducing the reason for the brief flare of chakra from his being. When did Sasuke, of all people develop chakra sensory techniques?
She didn't have time to deduce the exact reason due to Sasuke's unexpected turn and a small outburst of lightning from his fingers. "Wait!"
Orochimaru's executioner did not give her so much as a glance. Still, Karin pressed on.
"Where are you going?"
"The Northern Hideout."
She frowned in mild confusion. "Why would you even want to go there?" Don't tell me he's actually going to free—
"Jugo. I intend to free the rest of the prisoners, just like I did here."
Karin didn't even bother to steel her emotions at the shock that ricocheted through her when Sasuke spoke about freeing that unstable man. "What?! Not only is that hideout full of monsters from Lord Orochimaru's experimentation, but you're going to free him? He's the most uncontrollable among them. Are you out of your mind?!"
Sasuke's words were cold, unyielding. "I don't have to explain myself to you," he stated flatly, his voice devoid of any emotion. Turning on his heel, he made to leave.
"Wait!" Karin's voice cracked, echoing in the now empty space. Sasuke paused but did not turn to face her. "What... what about me? What will happen to me?" Her voice was small, a stark contrast to the authority she once wielded under Orochimaru's care.
"You are free," Sasuke said without looking back, his voice carrying a finality that chilled her to the bone. "Do as you wish."
Free.
She was free.
The word echoed mockingly in her mind, once again reminding her of her earlier thoughts before Sasuke's dramatic break-in.
Free to do... what? The more she thought about that question, the more her existential dread coursed through her veins. What exactly did she have left? Without a purpose, without direction, what was freedom but another cage? Karin felt a surge of panic, desperation clawing its way up her throat. She couldn't live like this.
Uzumaki Karin was reminded of a single fact: she was a person with no purpose of her own.
The room was suddenly filled with the ear-piercing crack of lightning. Soon after, the sound of rocks splintering echoed through the space, and beams of sunlight streamed through a hole created by Sasuke's technique, illuminating the hard, stone floor of Orochimaru's hideout.
He's leaving, she realized. He was walking away. Just like that. Without a glance, without a word of acknowledgment, like she was already nothing more than a shadow in the corner of his vision.
Panic twisted in her gut, sharp and ugly. Her fingers curled into fists against the cold stone floor.
Say something, her mind screamed.
Her lips parted. No words came out.
Move.. Do something. Before he leaves. Before it's too late!
Say something, you stupid fool!
SAY SOMETHING!
SAY—
"DON'T LEAVE ME!"
The words tore from her before she could stop them, raw and panicked, too loud, too desperate.
Sasuke froze mid-step.
The sound of it, the sheer violence of her voice, shocked even her. She clapped a hand over her mouth a second too late, horror flooding her veins. She had shouted. At him.
For one terrible second, the silence roared louder than her heartbeat. Her whole body screamed at her to shut up, to back away before she made an even bigger fool of herself.
But it was too late. The words were already out there, and there was no taking them back.
I don't want to take them back.
So she pushed down the fear, the shame, the crushing voice inside her telling her to shut up, to behave, to stay quiet like always.
If she was going to be thrown away again... she would at least be heard first.
"Sasuke-kun, wait - please wait!" Her plea was raw, a bare exposure of her emotional turmoil. "Take me with you. I... I have nowhere else to go."
Sasuke's chakra burned with irritation as he began to flare his chakra to leave. "No."
A single word felt like a knife, a syllable that cut deeper than any blade could ever. But Karin was past the point of pride, past the point of fear. If she stayed silent, if she let him walk away now, she would disappear forever. She would go back to being nothing. No, worse than nothing.
"I have no purpose, Sasuke-kun," she admitted, her voice trembling. She hated how she sounded—broken, small, pathetic, a far cry from what she sounded just a minute ago—but the words kept spilling out, like blood from a wound too deep to staunch. "I've never... I've never had a choice. Always someone else's will, always someone else's tool. Orochimaru gave me something, some sort of.. control - control over my life. But he's dead. And - and now, without Lord Orochimaru, I'm... I'm lost," she continued, her voice rising in pitch, a hysterical edge creeping in as the gravity of her situation bore down on her. "You, you're offering freedom - you said I was free. But free to do what - free to what, Sasuke-kun?! Free to wander around without a purpose? Free to die alone somewhere no one will even know I existed?!"
Karin felt her knees buckle, the impossibly large weight of her emotions, her fears, and the dark reality of her situation pulling her down. She collapsed, her hands clutching at the ground. "You - you have a goal, a path you're following. I can see that, even if I don't understand it. But me? I have nothing, Sasuke-kun. You're moving forward and I'm just—" her voice cracked entirely— "I'm just standing still, and I can't do it anymore. I have no direction, no... no reason to exist if not to be used by someone. And I know, I know it's... wrong - I shouldn't want that, but it's all I've ever known!"
Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head, her neck stiff like it was made of stone, and met his gaze. "I'm begging you," she whispered, the hysteria giving way to a resigned, hollow ache. "Just please - let me follow you, even if I'm just walking behind, even if I have no purpose on your journey - even if I'm useless. At least, then, I'll be somewhere, not just... not just nowhere."
Silence. Nothing but silence in the wake of the unexpected outburst.
What had she done? Why had she said this?
What is wrong with you?
Everything her mind helpfully supplied.
It took a while, but finally, Sasuke turned to her. The single Sharingan that gazed at her was truly terrifying. Having Sasuke look at her, stare at her as though he was trying to figure out something, with that perfect hair and chiseled chin, and the eyes which ominously glowed red—
He studied her for a long, silent moment, his expression unreadable, and she felt herself slowly but surely shake under that heavy gaze.
She couldn't even breathe. She didn't dare to breathe.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
She was too busy listening to her screaming heartbeat and her desperate mind.
Please.
Please.
Please accept me.
It was then, in that brief moment of contact, that she sensed it—a flicker of guilt in his chakra. It was fleeting, but it was there, and it gave her the smallest glimmer of hope. Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of unspoken thoughts, he relented. "Meet me at the Northern Hideout."
And then he was gone. Just like that.
Just. like. that.
No sound, no grand proclamation, no indication of his existence in that same spot he stood as he had tried to discern her thoughts. One fraction of a second, he was there, and the next he wasn't.
Karin took the deepest breath she had ever taken in her life.
Slowly, she pushed herself up to her feet, nervousness and anxiety almost causing her to trip over nothingness.
"Jerk," she said, slightly annoyed, though not unkindly. The Uzumaki understood the situation she was now in. She was being allowed to follow, not as a comrade, but as a tag-along, a distinction that stung, but one she accepted. For now, it was enough to have a direction. A purpose, a reason to exist.
And it was all that mattered.
It was all that mattered.