Looking at the Pain in front of her, Uzu identified him as the former Yahiko.

His power was … the push and pull thing. Magnetism?

She sent out her chakra, sensing the area around her.

Feeling the meagre amount of lives left, she felt a slight pain in her heart.

Though she had never cared too much about the people in this village, even she wouldn’t remain unfeeling after knowing just how much destruction Pain caused in Konoha.

(A/N: And now … this world shall know pain! Shinra Tensei! Goddamn, that was epic as hell!)

Of the thousands of citizens and shinobi Konoha had before, only barely a few hundred are currently still alive.

Raising her eyes, she sensed a figure approaching.

Mom?

Carefully studying her Mom, Uzu noticed that she was covered in injuries and her Mom’s Byakugo seal was gone.

She used all of the chakra she stored?!

Sending out another wave of chakra, she noticed that Katsuyu was literally everywhere in the village, trying to save as many of the people she could.

Uzu watched as a few other ninja, Anbu, landed next to Tsunade.

“Hokage-sama, don’t!” One Anbu said.

“Pain … I will never forgive you! You shall pay!” Tsunade shouted, anger evident in her voice, but her labored and shallow breathing betrayed her exhaustion.

“See, Hokage, now you know at least a little of what Pain, actually is. Now you understand, do you not?” Pain said.

And to think that he was someone that Jiraiya once taught.

What he has gone through … was bad and cruel and scarring. But how exactly did it come to this?

I wonder just how Naruto managed to convince him to revive all of these people later on.

Did I even tell them about the possibility that they might be revived?

Fuck …

She looked up just as the 5 other Pain paths arrived.

The Asura Path, with the weaponized body, rushed at her Mom and Uzu watched as her Mom faltered and knelt down on one knee, holding her head in pain.

Reappearing next to her Mom with her Hiraishin (flying thunder god jutsu), her corrosive chakra coated hand shot out and she watched as the Pain ran right into it, being unable to dodge.

Black chains shot out of her arm and curled around the Pain, immobilizing him.

“Nagato. For hurting my Mom, die.” Uzu said, her face holding a fake smile.

Her chains started absorbing chakra from the Asura path, and therefore, from Nagato who was connected to the body. Through the receivers, she slowly sucked out his chakra, feeling it rush into her body.

The sheer quantity and quality of his chakra surprised her.

Then again, he is an Uzumaki and he does hold the Rinnegan …

Yahiko grunted and Uzu felt the Asura Path’s body go limp and the chakra connection between Nagato and the body was severed.

Looking at Pain now, she felt that he was actually … pretty weak?

Well, she probably wouldn’t be able to get another Pain with her chains so easily again.

So, she would need to properly plan which Jutsu’s to use against whom.

She let her cloak surround the body and completely erase it.

We won’t need that thing anymore.

Her senses picked up movement from one of the pains.

A girl?

She watched as the female Pain slammed her hand onto the floor and screamed: “Summoning jutsu!”

Uzu was just preparing another jutsu when smoke clouds popped behind her.

Naruto, three huge toads, two small ones and Jiraiya?

As the smoke cleared, Uzu was finally able to lay her eyes upon the person she had missed the most.

She felt a smile tug at her lips when their eyes met.

“Naruto …” She mumbled as he reappeared in front of her.

“It’s been too long. Can you tell me what happened?” He said, as his face warped from happy to angry and sad.

“Has Jiraiya filled you in on the different Paths of Pain and the fact that all of them aren’t his main body?” Uzu asked him before moving through quick hang signs and slamming them onto the ground.

“Summoning Jutsu.” She mumbled.

A huge slug appeared, easily rivalling Katsuyu’s size. Just, instead of having a blue back, it had a red back, mirroring Uzu’s hair color.

“Go take over Katsuyu’s job of healing. Mom needs to rest.” Uzu ordered.

The slug nodded and split up into hundreds of pieces, moving to the different Katsuyu’s and taking over their job of healing.

The chakra needed for this was so meagre in comparison to the chakra stored in her tri-seal that it didn’t even really matter to Uzu.

She spun some wood chakra into her hands and after doing a single quick hand sign, 5 wood clones grew out of her back and soon took on her appearance.

She mentally ordered them to take Tsunade and the rest of the Anbu away to heal them.

“Uzu … do you know who is still alive? The live sources I can sense are … not even a tenth of what Konoha was before I left.” Naruto said.

“Naruto. Your friends are still alive, all of them. However … Kakashi-san … I’m sorry …” Uzu said, looking at Naruto with pain evident in her eyes.

She could almost hear when one of his heart’s pieces broke off.

“Uzu, Jiraiya … can you let me handle this? I alone shall be enough …” Naruto said, his voice sounding like the growl of an enraged beast.

Uzu nodded and touched his hand, leaving behind a marker for her Hiraishin, just in case she needed to save him.

She walked past him and stood next to Jiraiya who had the two elderly toads sitting on his shoulders.

“You are the Slug’s new sage, aren’t you, girl?” The male toad said.

“That’s right.” Uzu said, nodding, but not averting her eyes from Naruto’s back.

She watched as the three bigger toads killed off some of the summoned monsters of the Animal Path.

Naruto started rushing at the Pains and was met with the Preta Path, the one that was able to absorb any and all ninjutsu.

Hopefully he really knows what he is doing …, she thought, watching him continue running without stopping even for a second.

As their fists met, the Pain managed to evade all of Naruto’s attacks … until his movement grew weird.

It was a new taijutsu-style that Uzu hadn’t ever seen him use before.

“That’s our boy! He’s just like his father and Jiraiya-boy!” The male elderly toad said.

…

Uzu noticed that Pain and Naruto were consistently talking with each other, but she was unable to hear it, even with her enhanced senses.

Without turning towards Jiraiya, she asked: “Think Naruto will be able to handle him?”

Jiraiya just chuckled: “What? You don’t believe in him?”

Hearing his words, her eyes widened before a sweet smile made its way onto her face.

A few seconds later, she felt Jiraiya’s hand move towards her.

Soon enough, she felt his hand ruffle her hair and pat her head.

She watched as his face held a wide, wide smile: “I’m proud of you, little princess! You did really well learning to achieve Sage Mode … and I can see that yours is even more stable than either Naruto’s or mine. Though that’s probably because of that awesome and damn complicated looking seal on your forehead~.”

“Want one too?~” She asked teasingly.

Seeing him nod, she vowed to alter it enough for it to work on both Jiraiya and Naruto, enabling them to use Sage Mode for a longer time.

Though … they probably couldn’t use the Byakugo Seal … they just didn’t have the necessary aptitude for that.

…

Watching Jiraiya stand next to her, images of his death flashed in front of her eyes.

The way that his former student killed him …

The way that her Mom would break down and cry …

The way that Naruto would …

And, she too, she would also cry for him and it would hurt and she would feel cold and she was so glad that he was still alive.

This confident looking person standing next to her, his calm gaze that was littered with small spots of pain and regret.

She knew what it was peace he desired … and he had imparted that to all his students. Nagato, Yahiko and Konan were no exception. Perhaps, these three were the ones that believed in their teacher’s dream the most.

By the way … where is Shizune?

She sent out her chakra waves even further, searching for her chakra signature.

At some point she finally found Shizune’s corpse lying next to a crying Ino.

She felt a bit of bile rising in her throat, but she forced it back down.

“Let’s hope Naruto can still somehow-“ talk Nagato into reviving these people. The rest of her sentence got caught in her throat, she couldn’t speak it aloud …

If not … then I’ll have to use the Impure Reincarnation Jutsu on those few that are the most important to us.

Those are mainly Shizune and Kakashi though … or is there someone else too?

It certainly won’t be a pretty thing … but if that is what we need in order to continue, then I’ll bring them back.

Jiraiya’s words snapped her out of her thoughts: “What did you say?”

Seeing his calm smile, she felt her rapid heartbeat slow down again. She just shook her head and turned her attention back to the fight.

…

Uzu watched as Naruto slammed a big Rasengan filled with senjutsu chakra into the Animal Path.

Soon after, the corpse ‘died’ and the summoned animals that had been bothering the bigger toads vanished.

Naruto grabbed the body and threw it towards her and Jiraiya, who easily caught the body and stored it away.

The Naraka Path Pain would not be able to revive the Animal Path Pain anymore.

She moved her eyes to look for that exact Pain as she saw him drag the Preta Path Pain into the king of hell.

That’s the absorption Pain … if they manage to revive him …

In the time it took to blink once, she had grabbed a kunai marked with her seal and thrown it at the king of hell. She instantly appeared beside it and ripped the Preta Path Pain out of its tongue.

Another second later, she was back with Jiraiya and had stored the Preta Path Pain in her storage tattoo.

Three Pains are dead. The Asura Path is gone, completely, and the Animal and the Preta Path are properly sealed away.

Though that means that the three Paths that are left, have more chakra from Nagato available, they’ll be stronger than the prior ones.

…

[Sometime later]

The smoke jutsu used by the female elderly toad, obscured the Pains’ shared vision and made it easier for Naruto to fight them.

With her enhanced senses, she watched as Naruto’s Rasenshuriken ripped through the Human Path and totally shredded its body into pieces that could probably still be repaired by the king of hell.

Now, only the pair consisting of Deva and Naraka Path are left.

He needs to take out the Naraka Path first …

… Proofread till here

She winced as Naruto was suddenly kicked away by the only remaining Pain after having shred the Naraka Path Pain with another Rasenshuriken.

The three huge toads cornered the Deva Path Pain, or rather, Yahiko’s corpse, and were simply blown away by a shockwave.

They smashed through Konoha’s walls and were heavily injured. They were forced to return to Mount Myoboku to rest and recover.

Looking back at Naruto, she gasped, seeing his Sage Mode run out.

And that needed to happen right now?!

She just wanted to body flicker towards Naruto when she heard the elderly toad say: “Don’t worry girl. Naruto-boy will be fine. Jiraiya-boy, do the thing he prepared!”

She watched as Jiraiya pulled out a large scroll and unrolled it on the ground.

She recognized the seal engraved on the scroll as a summoning seal, or to be more precise, a revere-summoning seal.

Seconds later, after Jiraiya slammed his hand onto the scroll, a Naruto clone with filled up senjutsu chakra appeared on the scroll.

When it soon after popped and the original Naruto’s Sage Mode returned, she finally remembered that Naruto had actually had this trick prepared in canon as well.

She could only feel herself smiling in relief.

However, the Deva Path is now alone … Naruto will probably have a hard time fighting against him …

And sure enough, Naruto and the last Pain were soon locked into a fierce taijutsu battle.

Several times, Naruto was forcefully moved around by the Pain’s abilities.

Nagato should have realized by now though … that he has already lost. So far he has only fought with Naruto …

The last Pain was hurled towards Jiraiya and Uzu, when Naruto was finally able to get a good hit in after taking advantage of the five-second cooldown the last shinra tensei had given the Pain.

As the Pain stood up, she could finally hear what they were talking about.

“Naruto. You talk about justice and how killing me in vengeance is only right. And I agree. Killing me would be justice.” Pain said in his deep voice.

“However … you probably don’t know, but what I’m doing right now is getting justice for my village, my friends, my people. We are the same, Naruto. Exactly the same. We want peace and we want justice. And all that because we live in a cycle of hatred. Revenge just breeds revenge.”

Naruto just remained silent and looked deep-in-thought.

Pain recounted all the sufferings that his village and land had to go through in the wake of all the grand wars that Konoha waged on his village’s land.

“Naruto, you have no right to be the only one saying that what you are doing is vengeance and justice … because what I am doing is the same thing. Also … we are both students of Jiraiya over there. He taught us what peace is … but he was a fool to think that one could achieve it without power and without violence. Only overwhelming, godly, power could keep all those in check that have too much greed. Naruto, tell me … how would you achieve peace? How would you make those people that are filled with bone-deep hatred understand that that will only breed more hate? The only way to achieve even a brief peace is to rule over everything with overwhelming and absolute power.”

“Naruto, I want to hear your answer. How would you do it, achieving peace?”

Uzu noticed the pained look Naruto sent Nagato and she knew that he had no answer. Just like Jiraiya did not have one.

But they knew that Nagato’s path … wasn’t the right one, or so she thought.

“I don’t know.” Naruto finally said and Pain rushed at Naruto.

…

“Hiraishin!” Uzu shouted, having coated her arms in chains when she noticed that Naruto was being held by the throat and the last Pain was just about to ram a chakra receiver into Naruto’s stomach.

She appeared in front of Naruto and grabbed at Pain’s hand, who just barely managed to dodge and jumped back, throwing the black metal stick at Uzu.

Shit! She shouted in her mind, managing to deflect it with her palm before the rod embedded itself into her chest. It hit the ground with such speed and strength, that it buried itself completely, not a single bit of it reaching out of the earthen ground.

Gathering senjutsu chakra in her hands, she flashed through a few hand seals before finally shouting: “Wood Release: Giant Tree Spears!”

Watching the Pain dodge multiple tree roots and be forced to use his special ability, she pulled out a kunai and threw it into his direction with all the strength her body allowed.

The kunai shot at the Pain and being in the air, he was unable to dodge at all.

Just before the Kunai hit him, Uzu appeared behind the kunai and senjutsu Rasengan in hand, slammed her hand onto his chest. The swirling ball of chakra ripped through his flesh and destroyed his body, finally ‘killing’ the last of the Pains.

She bent down and forced a bit of chakra into the body, pushing out the chakra receivers. After she healed all the damage on the corpse, she stored it in her seal together with the kunai that she had taken out of Yahiko’s corpse. Jiraiya might or might not want to see his student one last time and give him a proper burial.

She stood up, straightened out her slightly disheveled clothes and walked up to Naruto who sat on the ground, panting heavily and having deactivated his Sage Mode.

She held out a hand to him and smiled when their gazes met.

…

Sigh, she’s really strong … she took him out so easily too.

Now … all that’s left is to take out the ‘real’ Pain … meaning, Jiraiya’s former student, Nagato. If possible, we need to take away his Rinnegan too, though Jiraiya-sensei never told me why …

Seeing her hold out her hand to him and smile at him, he couldn’t help but give her a bright smile in response, though pain was still evident in his expression. Konoha had simply lost too much today, but … Uzu was still alive and his friends were too … he’d manage, somehow.

Grabbing her hand, he felt her chakra rush into his body and rapidly repair the wounds he had.

I can’t use Sage Mode again … my body is too exhausted. Even though I still have several more clones ready to transfer me their senjutsu chakra … it’d do me good if I don’t use any more for now.

…

She gently pulled him to his feet and hugged him when he was finally steady on his feet.

She stood on her toes and gave him a small but meaningful kiss before teleporting towards Jiraiya.

“Sigh … Nagato, huh.” Jiraiya said upon seeing them arrive.

Uzu nodded and let go of Naruto’s hand to form a few hand seals.

“Wood Release: Giant Phoenix.” She mumbled as she slammed her hands onto the ground.

A huge red-golden majestic bird grew from the ground.

It took a few seconds before it fully formed and Uzu felt proud at what she had managed to create.

Wonderful … it’s exactly like I imagined it to look like …

Looking into the majestic creature’s eyes that seemed to convey intelligence and power, she said: “Bow.”, while having a gentle smile on her face.

The bird obeyed and moved its head closer to the ground.

Uzu looked back at Naruto and Jiraiya and said: “Get on. It’ll take you to Nagato. I’ve already sensed his position and the phoenix can easily bring you there … though it’s in a cave, so you’ll need to leave the phoenix outside.”

Naruto just looked at her with wide eyes before he sighed: “You won’t come with us?”

Uzu nodded: “I’ll take care of healing some more critically injured people. I’ll let you two deal with Nagato. I believe in you~.”

Naruto, maybe you can get him to revive the people of Konoha … if there’s anyone that could do that, it would be you.

When Naruto and Jiraiya finally stepped onto the Phoenix’s huge head, it spread its wings and let out a loud cry that send a boom through Konoha’s destroyed land. If the bird didn’t have everyone’s attention until then, then it certainly did now.

As the Phoenix flapped its wings and finally took off into the sky, several gusts of wind created by its strong wings managed to lift debris into the sky and made it fall all over the earthen pit.

Watching the Phoenix disappear towards the tallest mountain in Konoha’s surroundings, she created a few wood clones and sent them to places that had injured that were in more critical condition. Though, she only personally healed children or shinobi that were critically injured. She made sure that they wouldn’t die and left the rest to the slugs and other medics.

Appearing next to the hospital after body flickering across the remains of Konoha, she found that it was still mostly intact.

She used her wood style to reinforce it’s pillars and modified the building to be able to hold more people. She added several new floors and stabilized them with her wood style.

She would certainly be one of the most needed people during the rebuilding of Konoha.

Finally, she made sure to Hiraishin to her mother who had apparently suffered some serious wounds, which she knew because one of her clones that had carried her away earlier had popped itself to let her know. Tsunade would need a slightly longer time to recover, especially after her massive overuse and straining of her chakra pathways.

And if Nagato doesn’t revive the people whose bodies are still whole and thus revivable, then … Mom would wake up to a world without Shizune, her favorite apprentice and the niece of her previous lover.

She healed Tsunade and made sure that she would recover much sooner than in canon, she at least wouldn’t be unconscious for too long.

…

Healing another few people, time passed, and she wondered whether Naruto and Jiraiya were able to …

…

Beautiful, Uzu thought, watching the bright lights of souls returning to their bodies as if stars were falling from the skies.

Bright and sparkly lights flew through the sky above Konoha and a bit more than three fourths of its previous population was revived. Still, too many people lost their lives today to say that it wasn’t a tragedy.

The highest number of casualties came from civilians as their bodies were sometimes completely crushed beneath buildings and were unrevivable.

The city lay in ruins, though most of its people were alive again.

Konoha cheered and laughed as precious family members started coming back to life and fires of hope were reignited.

They are back, is what they thought.

They praised the three formidable Sages of Konoha that bravely defeated Konoha’s most vicious and strong enemy yet.

…

Hearing her Phoenix cry in distress in the distance, she stopped healing her current patient and instead chose to leave it to a clone and Hiraishin towards Naruto. Something must have happened, she thought.

Arriving next to Naruto, she found him badly bruised and bloodied on the ground.

Observing her surroundings, she saw Konan and Jiraiya equally injured and covered in blood.

She didn’t find Nagato’s body anywhere.

She kneeled next to Naruto and heard him whisper: “H-Heal Konan as well …”

Uzu just nodded, before taking his hand and infusing some chakra into him to jumpstart his own healing process.

So many of his bones are broken … this’ll need time to heal, even as a Jinchuuriki.

She created two tree roots and let them carry Jiraiya and Konan towards her and infused some healing chakra into the parts of their bodies that held the severest injuries. Soon enough, Konan woke up and thanked Uzu before she looked at Naruto and gave him a sad, but thankful smile. Then Konan just split up into pieces of paper and vanished from the cave.

Sometime later, Naruto fell asleep to help his body recover from his injuries and Uzu carried Jiraiya and Naruto onto the phoenix and flew back to Konoha, where she landed on the new hospital roof and dropped to the ground with Jiraiya and Naruto being held up by roots that grew from her body.

Rather quickly, she was led towards two adjacent hospital rooms that were located in the high security area, which was usually guarded by Anbu.

In one of the rooms, she found Shizune sitting next to Tsunade who was unconscious on her bed.

Uzu smiled at her: “I’m glad you are alive.”

Shizune laughed slightly in return before she said: “Likewise.”

Uzu gently laid down Jiraiya’s body onto the bed next to Tsunade’s and quietly bid goodbye to Shizune before leaving the room again.

Stepping into the other room, she noticed that it only held one bed.

She took off Naruto’s bloodied clothes and washed the wiped the blood off his body.

Positioning him on the left side of the bed, she took off her white cloak and her sandals and laid down next to him, sharing the blanket with him.

She checked his body for injuries one last time, hoping to not have missed anything, before finally curling up, her face facing him, and falling asleep.

…

A/N: Someone took the Rinnegan! :3

Hmm, the last parts of Shippuden are rather vague in my memory … I’ll be following brief plot points and hopefully be able at least make the developments seem reasonable :3

(I don’t really have the time to rewatch the whole arc … or maybe I do? I don’t know O.o … we’ll see :3)