Hidden Cloud vs Pain

"Nagato, we should retreat."

Konan whispered under her breath. She was secretly talking to Pain, advising him to retreat.

"The fifth Raikage is back, but we don't need to fight him. We already stole the two tails."

"Your chakra is running out as well; no need to force yourself anymore."

"Let's go back, Pain."

Konan suggested the most suitable strategy to Nagato.

They might look confident right now, but even before the Fifth Raikage arrived, they were having trouble fighting the hidden cloud.

Hidden cloud was absurdly powerful. They had Itachi's complete Susanoo, Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan, the entire Uchiha clan, the eight-tail Jinchuriki Killer B, the third and fourth Raikage, and the perfect two-tail Jinchuriki Yugito.

Pain almost died violently when hidden cloud first discovered them. If Pain hadn't revived his puppets multiple times, and she didn't desperately try to save him, the Pain puppet Yahiko would be destroyed already.

Hidden cloud lost to them in the end, only because there was a lack of intelligence regarding Rinnegan.

'But the fifth Raikage revived everyone, they know a lot about Rinnegan's powers by now. We are in a bad position.'

Konan thought quickly while looking around secretly. She was waiting for Pain to retreat first, then she would take Nagato's real body and run away.

But after a few seconds passed, Pain didn't respond to her plan.

"We can't retreat."

Pain finally said in an embarrassed voice. Although Konan who knew him the best, could hear some helplessness in his tone.

"We can't outrun hidden cloud; with Fifth Raikage's support, they are practically immortal."

"We can't retreat using the sky either; Itachi Uchiha can fly using his complete Susanoo."

"If we want to retreat, we have to cause some chaos, and somehow hold back the Raikages and Itachi."

Pain considered their situation seriously, then decided what to do on the fly. He looked at Konan quietly, and she understood his plan right away.

They were good friends all their lives; Konan knew what Pain was thinking even if he didn't say it.

"Fifth Raikage! Itachi Uchiha!"

Konan spread her hands, paper bombs kept appearing around her; the bombs kept pouring out of her, like there was no end to them.

"I have a total of 600 billon paper bombs on me. Let us go, or I will drop the whole load on your village."

To prove that she wasn't lying, Konan clapped her hands and kept summoning more paper bombs around her.

Even if she summoned only 1 percent of her total bombs, half the sky was filled with her paper bombs already, and they kept multiplying without limit.

Any sane leader would give up such a fight; nobody fights this hard directly in the middle of their village.

"Are you threatening me?"

Sato plainly chuckled while rubbing his hair.

"What's the use of threatening me after everything you did?"

"What will your paper bombs even do?"

"Kill more people? Go ahead; I can revive them. Or are you trying to destroy the village again? Do it; anyway, you have already turned this village into dust."

Sato smiled at the duo with barely hidden distaste, then he cracked his knuckles.

Taking a deep breath, Sato loudly spoke, addressing his whole village. His voice reached every corner.

"Today the Akatsuki will not leave our village alive. Go ahead, Kumo ninjas; fight with all your might."

"Even if you die, I, your Raikage, will pull you back from the pure land."

"Show the Akatsuki, how strong our will of lightning is!"

Sato announced his first decision after taking the office, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

After all, the cloud ninjas had already died once. Not only was Sato giving them a chance to take revenge, he was also giving them temporary immortality.

Anyone would be motivated under such conditions.

After successfully motivating his army, Sato turned around and assigned his commanders their duties.

"Itachi, you take care of Konan. Your perfect Susanoo with Yata mirror can handle her paper bombs."

Sato bent down and started stretching, his eyes staring at a place far away from the Akatsuki duo.

"Sister, Third Raikage, you can handle Pain. You have experience fighting him; keep that in mind."

"Uchiha clan, you guys try to break Killer B and Shisui out of Pain's sealing jutsu. Use Uchiha flame formation to crack it."

"And everyone else, Pain will not let you interfere; he will try to keep you occupied; do everything you can to cause him some trouble."

After Sato finished speaking, Pain's animal path jumped down and patted the ground.

Poof

With large bursts of smoke, giant animals with rinnegan patterns in their eyes appeared.

This was Pain's idea; this was how he decided to stop Sato's undead army. Using his own undead army made of animals.

"This is not a problem. Leave it to us Sato; we can handle the situation here."

But these undead animals didn't scare the hidden cloud anymore; the third Raikage assured Sato they could handle it.

"But Sato, what are you going to do?"

"I noticed your eyes are focusing somewhere else, is there another enemy hiding somewhere?"

"Did you smell someone else in this area?"

Third Raikage asked Sato in a low voice, but Sato laughed out loud; he didn't bother keeping his voice down this time.

He did not mind if Pain and Konan overheard him; in fact, he wanted them to hear what he was about to say next.

How else will he make them afraid? Make them fear for their lives? Like they did to his sister, before they killed her.

"I can smell another man's presence outside the battlefield."

The moment Sato's voice fell, it made Konan and Pain freeze in shock.

"1 km from here there is a tree made of paper; inside that tree is a hollow area."

"A man is hiding there; this man's smell is faint, but both Konan and Pain have his smell on their bodies."

"I believe he is their partner, he also smells like an Uzumaki; I am going to check out who this guy is."

At this point, Konan and Pain's faces were hard to look at. Sato cracked a big smile seeing this.

He already knew this was Nagato's smell. Sato purposely told them this information, he told them he knew Nagato's hiding place, just to make them afraid.

This was Sato's revenge on them, for murdering his family and destroying his village. He will make them very afraid, before he kills them.

"Another Akatsuki?! Go Sato, we can't let that guy escape."

The third Raikage immediately took charge.

"During our fight, I analyzed Pain's fighting style; I have almost figured out his Rinnegan's abilities."

"With some help from the Byakugan, I won't lose to him anymore."

Being the experienced ninja he was, Raikage already had a counterplan against Nagato's rinnegan.

Sato was satisfied with third Raikage's intelligence. In the original story, Jiraya understood Rinnegan's abilities after just one fight with Pain.

Of course the Raikage can do the same.

And if he needed a Byakugan user's assistance to fight Pain confidently, Sato can arrange that without problem.

"Hinata, please assist the teacher and sister with their fight."

Sato turned around and smiled at his wife.

"Try not to approach the battlefield; I can revive you, but I don't like seeing you die."

"I will be right back. Take care, everyone."

Hinata smiled and gave Sato an okay; she went into her curse mark stage two right away.

Sato breathed out, turned on his lightning release chakra mode, and bent down.

Bzzzt

The world around him slowed down. Sato enjoyed Pain and Konan's desperation, as they tried to stop him from approaching Nagato.

But Sato's men stopped their attempts; they could only watch him rush towards Nagato helplessly.

For Sato himself, the world was standing still as he rushed towards Nagato's position. This was how the world looked to a user of thunder chakra mode, when they reached their full speed.

By the time Sato arrived near the paper tree, which Nagato was hiding in, it shook violently with the blowing winds.

Whoosh

Sato didn't even have to destroy the tree himself; the wind from his extreme speed uprooted the entire thing.

"You are an Uzumaki? You look like an old man."

Sato folded his hands, commenting on the skinny Nagato sitting inside the ruined tree.

"You have a rinnegan as well. I see, I understand what's going on."

"You are a living person, but Pain smells like a dead body."

"Pain is your puppet isn't he? You are the real user of the rinnegan."

"I can see why you used a puppet like Pain; you are paralyzed. You can't even move without a wheelchair."

Sato shook his head with pity, and Nagato remained silent, while gripping his wheelchair tightly. His purple rinnegan carefully looked at Sato.

The rinnegan was a dangerous power; it was a mythical eye not seen in a thousand years. Under this situation, no good ninja would stare at it directly.

But Sato didn't care. His multicolored eyes and Nagato's rinnegan stared into each other.

This action proved to Nagato, that Sato was aware of Rinnegan's abilities, or he was confident he could beat him regardless of his abilities.

Nagato breathed out; whatever it was, he knew he needed to fight the strongest Raikage this time.

"Fifth Raikage."

Nagato clapped his hands, his thin arms were tremblingly but firm.

"Coming here was your greatest mistake. I might be in a wheelchair, but I am not defenseless."

"Summoning jutsu-"

SQUELCH

Nagato stopped speaking, his head tilted back and his vision went dark abruptly.

He felt a sharp pain in his eyes, and his powers disappeared right after. It was pretty obvious what had just happened, but he couldn't believe it.

Nagato tremblingly touched his eyes and soon became desperate. His eyes were no longer there; he had two bloody holes in his face.

After a few more seconds, the pain struck him harder. Nagato understood right away that someone had plucked out his rinnegan, directly from his eye socket.

"Who! Who did it? Answer me!"

Nagato screamed with rage; he turned his head angrily towards Sato. His bloody holes 'looking' at Sato with wrath.

"You! You are the one who took my eyes!"

"Only you are fast enough to steal them without me realizing."

"Fifth Raikage, you don't know what you just did; Rinnegan is the only way to save the ninja world."

"In your hands, Rinnegan will destroy everything!"