Chapter 27 — You're Not Him… Yet You Feel Just Like Him
National grief — the destruction of the Land of Whirlpools.
Personal hatred — the fall of the original Akatsuki.
Through a web of carefully laid words and emotion, Oda Nobunaga had finally touched the buried nerve that even the self-proclaimed god Pain had tried to forget — the scar that still belonged to Uzumaki Nagato.
Nobunaga lowered his gaze, idly turning the teacup in his hand, no longer speaking.
Silence, he knew, was a sharper blade than argument.
And across from him, the man who wore Hanzō of the Salamander's face sat rigid and still, but his eyes — those endless rings of the Rinnegan — had begun to tremble.
Nagato's gaze lingered on Uzumaki Shion, whose half-bared back was covered in the remnants of torture — scars layered so thickly they no longer seemed human.
A vision flickered behind his eyes.
The memory of Yahiko, collapsing in the rain, a kunai driven through his chest by Nagato's own trembling hands.
"Konoha…"
He whispered the word like a curse, and yet like a prayer.
The village that haunted every page of his life.
Konoha had watched as the Land of Whirlpools — its sworn ally — was annihilated, lifting not a single hand to help.
Konoha's agents had whispered to Hanzō, feeding the lies that destroyed the first Akatsuki and killed Yahiko.
No matter how he turned it, every road of pain led back to the same place.
His lips tightened.
He looked at Oda Nobunaga — at the man who spoke of peace yet planned for war, who preached idealism yet prepared for betrayal.
And for the briefest moment, Nagato saw another man in his place.
Yahiko.
He remembered the young boy who would rob merchants in the market to feed the starving orphans of Rain.
Who, the moment he had enough to survive, would sneak back to return what he'd stolen, muttering apologies to bewildered vendors.
He remembered how Yahiko dreamed of ending war through power, yet refused to take money from those who had less.
How he had built the first Akatsuki — shouting of revolution, but acting out of love.
And now, here was this daimyō of a tiny land, speaking of alliances with nations that had once betrayed him, seeking a path between strength and compassion…
He really is like him.
Nagato's breath hitched.
"If not for your age," he said softly, voice thick with emotion,
"if you were even ten years older… I might have believed you were… a friend I once knew."
The room stilled.
Konan's eyes widened slightly — she had not expected him to say that aloud.
Nagato himself realized, a moment too late, that he had spoken not as a god, but as a man.
He coughed into his fist to mask the slip, refusing to meet her gaze.
But when he looked up again, he saw Nobunaga's expression — startled, almost… unsettled.
And behind him, Zōmajirō, his loyal retainer, wore a strange, conflicted look of his own.
So he reacted to that name…?
Curiosity flickered across Nagato's face.
"An honor," Nobunaga finally said, lifting his cup in a small toast, his voice as calm as his mask was unreadable.
"To resemble someone worthy of your memory is no small thing. I'm grateful to be compared."
But that composure only deepened Nagato's suspicion.
He could feel it — a ripple of truth hidden behind the daimyō's placid tone.
Who exactly was this man?
For a long moment, Nagato said nothing.
He studied Nobunaga in silence — the steady eyes, the deliberate calm, the measured poise of a man who had seen too much and still chose to believe.
And for the first time in years, the god of pain wanted to speak as a mortal again.
He leaned forward slightly, his voice low but intense.
"Tell me, Nobunaga…"
"Have you ever considered using pain itself — violence — to teach the world the meaning of peace?"
Konan's breath caught.
Kakuzu's brows twitched upward.
Nagato continued, eyes burning with conviction.
"You were right before — the great nations don't understand the agony of the small. They've never bled for their weakness. But what if…"
He raised a hand, the light glinting across the Rinnegan's ripples.
"…what if someone — someone as powerful as a god — could make them feel it? The same pain that we've carried, the same despair that the small nations have endured for generations."
His voice grew firmer, fervent.
"If they knew that pain… perhaps they would finally understand peace. Perhaps they would never dare start another war."
He fell silent then, his eyes fixed on Nobunaga — watching, waiting, hoping.
Because this was his creed, the one he had built his very divinity upon.
He wanted — needed — to know whether this man who reminded him so painfully of Yahiko…
would share his vision,
or condemn it as the madness of a false god.
For a moment, Nagato thought he saw understanding in Oda Nobunaga's eyes — not mockery, not rejection, but something deeper.
Something dangerous.
He even felt, for the briefest instant, that this man might share his idea — the belief that only pain could make the world change.
But then Nobunaga set down his teacup.
His gaze sharpened, his tone solemn.
He spoke not as a daimyō of a minor nation, but as a scholar dissecting the folly of gods.
"You mean," Nobunaga began slowly, "what Hashirama Senju once tried to do?"
Nagato's eyes narrowed.
Nobunaga continued, each word precise and deliberate.
"Yes, it worked — for a while. He created peace that lasted through his lifetime. But the moment that man, revered like a god, died… every conflict he had suppressed came roaring back."
"Humanity, it seems, never learns. We repeat the same cycle — peace, complacency, corruption, war. Over and over again. The world never truly changes."
He took a breath, voice low but resonant.
"Because the one thing humans excel at," Nobunaga said, "is failing to learn from history."
Nagato's expression darkened, his fingers twitching slightly.
"You think what I'm proposing is the same as what Hashirama did?" he said, his voice rising, tight with restrained anger.
"You think I would repeat his mistake?"
Nobunaga looked at him mildly, shaking his head with that infuriating composure.
"Isn't it?"
He stepped closer, folding his hands behind his back like a teacher before a restless pupil.
"Hashirama used his godlike power to force a fragile peace upon the world. He caught the tailed beasts — forces of chaos — and, in his wisdom, distributed them among the great nations."
"He thought balance would breed harmony. Instead, it bred envy, resentment, and fear. When he died, all that repressed hatred exploded at once."
"You speak of becoming a god to end all war. But tell me, isn't that the same path he walked?"
---
Nagato's brows furrowed. His eyes flared — the Rinnegan rings rippling with indignation.
"No. It's not the same."
He clenched his fists.
"I would not share power. I would concentrate it. Gather all the Tailed Beasts into one ultimate weapon. A single deterrent strong enough to crush nations with a thought."
"When I die, that weapon would pass to one worthy successor — someone who could continue to make the world feel pain. Only then will peace last forever!"
His voice trembled with conviction — a faith forged from despair.
Konan looked away. Even she had never heard him speak with such raw fervor.
But Nobunaga only sighed.
He did not argue. He did not mock.
Instead, he spoke with the calm certainty of someone who had already walked that same mental labyrinth — and found it hollow.
"I too," Nobunaga said quietly, "have searched for the path to peace."
He rose, stepping toward the wall of the chamber. From the folds of his robe, he withdrew a brush and a small ink vial.
Konan blinked, caught off guard as the daimyō — this odd, composed man from a minor land — began to write directly upon the wall.
"I found my answer," Nobunaga went on, "not in power, but in cause."
He turned, his eyes glinting with intellect, not fervor.
"In the archives of my family estate, I discovered something simple. Obvious, even. Yet no one seems to speak of it."
He gestured with the brush, the black ink tracing smooth, deliberate lines — diagrams, arrows, spirals of logic and consequence.
"The root of war is not hatred," he said, "but production — or rather, the lack of it."
Nagato's mouth opened, as if to interrupt — but Nobunaga raised a hand.
"Listen," he said.
And he continued writing.
"Humans produce what they need to live — food, tools, shelter. Those goods are then redistributed through systems shaped by power: strength, status, wealth."
"But distribution is never equal. Some always take more. Others are left with less. As long as resources are scarce, that imbalance festers."
The brush danced faster now, curves and figures filling the wall — population curves, supply chains, the rise and collapse of economies.
"When production cannot keep pace with the needs of a growing people," he said, "peace becomes unsustainable."
He dropped the brush.
Thud!
His palm struck the wall, scattering droplets of ink.
Everyone flinched.
"And so," Nobunaga declared, voice echoing through the chamber,
"what begins as economic tension becomes national conflict. What begins as class divide becomes civil war."
"When nations run out of means to negotiate, they turn to battle. When the strong grow weary of ruling the weak, they seek to purge them."
"And once enough blood has been spilled — once humanity's numbers fall and resources recover — only then does peace return."
He turned back toward Nagato, the candlelight casting his face in half-shadow, half-flame.
"That," he said softly, "is the true cycle of this world. Not good and evil. Not gods and mortals. Only scarcity — and the greed it breeds."
---
For a long, heavy moment, no one spoke.
Even Nagato — the god who commanded the rain — was silent.
Because for the first time, someone had offered him an explanation for war that did not rely on divinity or despair.
And it terrified him — because it made sense.