There might be some of you, who might have forgotten but for the die-hard Naruto fans, Pain is one of the unforgettable characters of the series.
Most of the fans consider him to be the villain, and yeah he is a villain, for most parts of the series. And let me remind you, Pain was not always a bad guy. But as they say, nobody is born evil, the same goes for Pain as well. Not being able to tolerate the endless suffering and agony, Pain was created.
Interesting, right? Well, now that we have got you hooked, spare a few minutes to know more about the unforgettable villain who was once the most loved hero.
“I Want You To Feel Pain, To Think About Pain, To Accept Pain, To Know Pain. Those who never understood Pain will never find peace. I will never forget the pain that Yahiko suffered and now, this world shall know Pain.” – Pain, Naruto Shippuden Episode 162
Who is Pain?
Nagato or better known as Pain is one of the most popular characters in the series. He is the leader of the ninja group Akatsuki.
His sole mission was to bring peace to the world although he chose a rather bad way to do so. For achieving his mission, he created Pain. Nagato reanimated six dead bodies, including one of his friends, Yahiko. The six reanimated bodies were known as the Six Paths of Pain, each controlled by Nagato with the help of chakra rods.
The Six Paths of Pain
The Six Paths of Pain- Deva, Asura, Human, Animal, Preta, and Naraka, were based on the six Buddhist Paths of Reincarnation. The six reanimated bodies, including Yahiko, were named after one of the different Paths.
All of the reanimated corpses had body and facial piercings that enabled Nagato to control them. They each had their abilities which, when combined, were the strongest.
For most of the series, the Pain we saw was the reanimated body of Yahiko. This Pain was named after the Deva Path.
How was Pain created?
Before we discuss how Pain was created, we must know how all of this started.
How it all started
To get to the root of this, let’s travel a bit further back, during the times of the Second Shinobi World War.
Nagato used to live with his parents on the outskirts of the Amegakure village. During the war, two of the Konoha soldiers entered their house to look for some food supplies. Little did they know, Nagato’s family was still in the house. They thought the soldiers were there to kill them, and as a result, Nagato’s parents went into a defensive mode.
To protect Nagato, his parents told him to stay inside while they dealt with the soldiers. The soldiers, surprised by the sudden attack, killed both of his parents. Upon realizing they were just civilians, the soldiers felt guilty and tried to clear up the situation with Nagato. But crushed with disbelief and anger, upon his parents’ death, Nagato unleashed his Rinnegan and killed both the soldiers.
This incident would lead Nagato to meet Yahiko and Konan.
The Creation of Akatsuki
After losing his parents, Nagato became an orphan. The food supplies were scarce at the times of the war, leading Nagato to collapse due to hunger. That’s when he met Yahiko and Konan. Together, they were able to look for resources and survive the difficult times.
The three of them decided that by using their powers they would bring peace into the world. Yahiko was the most determined among them and inspired the rest to do the same. However, to do so, the first step was to become powerful. So they headed to Konoha to become Ninjas, where they first met the Legendary Sanin, Jiraya.
Jiraya was not very serious about them at first. But later when Nagato killed a chunin to save his friends, Jiraya learned about Nagato’s Rinnegan for the first time. Then he decided to teach them ninjutsu. Learning under the Sanin, they soon formed the group Akatsuki with Yahiko as their leader. Their only purpose was to put a stop to war and bring peace to the world.
Together, they went to many places advocating for world peace. They gained many followers and were soon known among the folks of Amegakure. Threatened by their overgrowing popularity, Hanzō of the Salamander village deposed a plan with Danzō of the Leaf to bring down Akatsuki. Hanzō approached the Akatsuki saying they wanted to help them in achieving their mission of peace. Unknown of the real deal, Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko all gathered up to meet them. However, they fell into their trap.
To bring their plan of bringing Akatsuki to completion, they kidnapped Konan. Taking Konan as a hostage, Hanzō demanded Nagato kill Yahiko if he wished to save Konan. However, he couldn’t do so. Killing one friend for another, Nagato’s conscience didn’t let him do it. Yahiko however impaled himself on Nagato’s kunai, injuring him badly to the verge of death. Trusting his plans of bringing world peace to Nagato, Yahiko took his last breath and left his friends.
Enraged by Yahiko’s death, Nagato took Konan from Hanzō. By using his powers of the Rinnegan, Nagato summoned the Demonic statue and slaughtered everyone present there. Later he cut his ties with the Amagakure village and left.
After the death of his friend, Nagato believed that peace could be brought only if one was to experience war and all the losses and agonies. Then only people would truly wish for peace. Carrying his friend’s will to bring peace, Nagato took it upon himself and created the Six Paths of Pain- even going to the lengths of resurrecting his dear friend, Yahiko, as one of them.
Pain first encounter with Naruto
The Akatsuki’s main goal was to collect the Tailed beasts and use their power for world domination. For that, the Akatsuki went to villages to collect the tailed beast. After collecting other tailed beasts, they headed to Konoha to capture Nine Tails.
Jiraya’s Death
One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the series had to be Jiraya’s death. Inorder to gather intel on Pain, Jiraya went to Amagakure alone. Upon arriving in the Rain village, he secretly met up with the people of the village. However, he got nothing. Pain sensed the intruder and sent his other Pains to confront him. Konan encountered Jiraya and fought with him. Jiraya, on seeing Konan, recalled the past when he took them under his wings and trained them.
Soon, Jiraya found Pain but was stopped by other Pains. They attacked him, but being a legendary Sanin himself, Jiraya gave his all. Despite fighting hard, Jiraya was ultimately defeated and killed. However, till his last breath, he believed that Naruto was indeed the Child of Prophecy. Although he died, he relayed the message that the real Pain was hiding somewhere else. He wrote the message on Fukasaku’s back, who later sent them to Konoha.
Pain Arc
After invading the Leaf Village, Pain devised a plan to capture the Nine Tails. He divided the works amongst the Six Paths. The Deva, Narka, and Human path went to interrogate the villagers, and so did Konan. However, no one agreed to tell them about Naruto.
While invading the village, Deva Path, or let’s call him Pain for this arc, was stopped by Kakashi. However, Deva was soon backed up by Asura Path. Kakashi was badly defeated, so Chōza and his team of shinobi along with his son, Chōji Akimichi came to his aid.
During the fight, Choza discovered that Pain’s attack had a five-second window. But despite knowing that, they were critically injured. On the other side, Konohamaru, Tsume, and Kiba did their best to fight the other paths.
Naruto Vs Pain
Since nobody in the Leaf village was able to defeat Pain and his underlings, Tsunade desperately called for Naruto. However, Naruto was at Mount Myōboku. Learning about his whereabouts, Pain got enraged. He used the Jutsu known as Shinra Tensei, or Almighty Push to destroy the village. The attack nearly flattened Konoha, which resulted in many casualties.
Finally in Chapter 430” Naruto Returns” of the manga, Naruto makes his entrance into the now destroyed Leaf village. This was when Naruto finally came face to face with Pain.
The manga chapter corresponds to episode 163 in the anime series.
After arriving in the village, Naruto used his newly learned Senjutsu and Rasenhsuriken to save Tsunade and defeat Asura Path. During the intense fight, Naruto used up most of his chakra and got caught by Preta Path. Naruto was struggling to free himself when he realized that Preta was able to absorb chakra. Using this to his advantage, Naruto used the senjutsu chakra and disrupted Preta’s chakra flow, turning him into a frog statue.
Now with only Pain left, Naruto launched forward to attack him. But was stopped in his way, as Pain pulled Fukasaku toward him, only to penetrate him with a chakra rod. Pain then used the gravity manipulation technique and immobilized Naruto, pinning him to the ground using the Chakra Disruption Blades.
Even in such a state, Naruto tried to reason with Pain. However, Pain only replied that order to achieve the true peace that their former sensei Jiraya hoped for, was only possible through force. He even told Naruto his plans about using the tailed beasts to wipe out the nations and bring peace.
Seeing Naruto in such a state, Hinata tried to help him by going up against Pain herself. But even the Byakugan Princess was no match for Pain, as she nearly died. Hinata’s pain triggered Naruto to unleash the Nine Tails. His seal was nearly broken and Kurama was about to get out. Luckily, Minato came to the recuse and prevented Naruto from Breaking the seal. The destructive power of Kurama shocked Pain, so he used Planetary destruction to capture him, but breaking out of it, Naruto successfully defeated Pain.
After defeating Pain’s last body, Naruto used the receivers on Deva’s body and tracked the real Pain, Nagato. He went to him and tried to talk to him. In his reply, Nagato told him about how he and his friend trained with Jiraya and had hoped to bring peace to the world. He also told him about the betrayal they faced and lost to Yahiko. Naruto related with Nagato to some extent but managed to convince him that their Jiraya sensei would not have asked for such peace that came from inflicting harm to others.
Finally, Nagato came to realize that he was too blinded by hate and rage, he got lost. He believed Naruto and decided to stop. He used the Outer Path to release all the souls and revive the dead. Thanks to this, Kakashi, Fukasaku, and Shizune were able to come back to life.
Before his last breath, Nagato trusted his will to Naruto. Konan then left Akatsuki and took both Yahiko’s and Nagato’s bodies to Amagakure. She handed a paper flower bouquet to Naruto, entrusting her and her friends’ will to him.
Talk no Jutsu for the win!
What an interesting fight, wasn’t it? That puts an end to Naruto and Pain’s encounter. But here are some topics that might interest you.
How did Nagato get Rinnegan?
The Rinnegan was the most divine eye amongst the “Three Great Dōjutsu”. Only Kaguya had Rinnegan but Hogoromo soon awakened them after he wounded his brother. So, to fully awaken the Rinnegan you need to have either Indra’s or Ashura’s chakra and complete it.
However, born without any connection to Ashura or Indra, Nagato received the Rinnegan. Turns out. Madara had implanted his Rinnegan into Nagato so that he could take it back once he was resurrected in the future. Both Nagato and his parents were unaware of this.
Which clan did Nagato belong to?
Believe it or not, Nagato belonged to the Uzumaki clan. The clan had a great alliance with the Senju clan and even were blood relatives. After the destruction of their clan, the remaining survivors resided in Uzushiogakure, However, some did flee to surrounding nations.
Even the red hair screams Uzumaki, doesn’t it?
Why was Nagato hiding?
After his fight with Hanzō of the Salamander Village, he was badly injured in his legs. So he hid in a place in the Rain Village and used Chakra rods to control his Pain body. Because of the long and regular use of his chakra in massive amounts, Nagato got weak. Finally, when his final body was defeated, he lost all his power and died.
Will Nagato come back?
Probably not. Though he became an ally, in the end, he was already at his end. His death made the audience believe he was not evil but was made evil. Many fans were able to
sympathize and understand him.
What is Talk no Jutsu?
Used by Naruto to make Nagato stop, the Talk no Jutsu is a powerful Jutsu.
Created by Hogoromo Otsutsuki, The Sage Of Six Paths, the Talk no Jutsu is one of the founding principles of the original Ninshū. By using such Justus, one can talk to their enemies and change their lives forever.
Just kidding, It is just a fan-made Jutsu. Fans use it to mock Naruto, as we see him winning over almost every opponent just with his talk.
The Pain Arc was certainly something else, wasn’t it? Fans did enjoy the immense battle and emotional rollercoaster from the deaths of their favorite characters to some love confessions. No matter how long has it been, fans still love the series.
