The scene before him left Kakashi utterly astonished.

"The injuries... they’re all healed??"

Hatake Satoru, of course, knew the reason, but to protect the information about Naruto, the top priority was still to eliminate the Human Path.

The Deva Path slowly opened his mouth.

"It seems Naruto is not in the village right now."

How does he know? He had personally blocked the Human Path’s actions the very first moment.

"Oh no."

Hatake Satoru had been careless. The Naraka Path’s ability wasn’t just the King of Hell, used to revive the other five paths. There was also ’Judgment.’ The King of Hell would swallow the soul of a person who told a lie. While it couldn’t directly extract memories, it was enough to rule out certain answers.

It turned out, when the Naraka Path was on the Archaeopteryx, it had spotted Shizune helping to evacuate civilians and dove straight down at her.

Using the King of Hell’s Judgment ability, it interrogated Shizune.

"Is Naruto currently in the village or not?"

"I... I don’t know."

Shizune painfully answered the Naraka Path’s question.

"Then die."

The King of Hell pulled out Shizune’s soul and swallowed it. Shizune’s body went limp.

Shizune was dead.

Hatake Satoru’s momentary lapse of composure made Pain even more certain of his own answer.

"It seems you’re quite familiar with my abilities."

"On the way here, the Naraka Path did interrogate people who knew Naruto’s location. But it seems they all held firm to that so-called ’Will of Fire’ you talk about."

The Deva Path shrugged, speaking with a tone of helplessness.

"Your moment of hesitation just now confirmed my judgment."

Hatake Satoru had lost his cool. This wasn’t his usual standard.

"Is that so? And what can you do even if you know? Without the exact location, you still can’t capture him."

Hatake Satoru’s emotions were getting worked up. These words weren’t his true feelings; he was speaking against his conscience.

He knew what would happen next. With Naruto not in Konoha, Pain naturally wouldn’t hold back.

Ever since letting Obito get away and spending a day in the Kamui dimension, Hatake Satoru’s mood had been terrible. In his own mind, his strength was far above these people. Losing was something that should never have happened.

And this mood was now affecting him in subtle decisions. This was also the reason he had overlooked the Naraka Path’s ability. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Hatake Satoru’s breathing became slightly rapid. Kakashi sensed something was wrong with Hatake Satoru and hurriedly tried to calm him.

"Stay calm, brother. Don’t let him provoke you."

"I don’t need you to lecture me."

Hatake Satoru was losing control. The Kagune on his left hand had already manifested. It seemed the next fight was unavoidable.

"Huh?"

Hatake Satoru felt a sudden cool sensation on his right hand, as if something had crawled onto it. The Kagune on his left hand struck without hesitation.

"Squelch."

It turned out to be a slug summoned by Sakura, which had just arrived. Sensing Hatake Satoru’s attack, the slug quickly split and dodged, minimizing the damage.

"Calm down. I am your reinforcement."

Even in Konoha, not everyone had seen a slug. Facing an attack, the slug naturally assumed Hatake Satoru was also among the enemy group.

Hatake Satoru realized his mistake and reduced the Kagune’s power to the minimum to avoid accidentally injuring Kakashi beside him and the slug that had just arrived.

"That’s Lady Tsunade’s summon. It seems the information has been relayed."

"No, not this time. It was Sakura who summoned me."

"Sakura? That is quite unexpected."

Kakashi was very pleased with his student’s growth. The slug also helped bring Hatake Satoru back to his senses.

What was wrong with him? Getting so rattled over a minor setback. He had so many comrades right here. Sasori was surely fighting somewhere in the village too, in a place he couldn’t see.

Hatake Satoru adjusted his breathing, feeling the slug’s healing. He wasn’t injured, but he could still feel the warmth. Is this what comrades are like? It seems I’ve been alone for too long.

Since coming to this world, Hatake Satoru had never fought alongside anyone. He had always just acted on his own ideas. Shisui, Mangetsu, Itachi—to him they were comrades, but more like tools. It seemed he needed to change his way of doing things.

...

Over on Sasori’s side, as soon as he came out from the underground base of the Uchiha Clan, he was attacked by summoned beasts. Sasori didn’t hold back either, immediately unfurling the scroll for the Hundred Puppets Performance.

"It looks like it’s time for a real fight. Let these foreign ninja and civilians witness my art."

"Poof."

Full of fighting spirit, Sasori had just summoned the hundred puppets one by one from the scroll when the two giant summoned beasts right in front of him simply vanished...

This was Hatake Satoru’s doing... Seeing this scene, Sasori almost coughed up blood in frustration. He was just getting serious, and the enemy directly disappeared.

In the distance, ninja evacuating civilians saw the massive scale of Sasori’s puppet technique. Thinking he was also an intruder, they immediately sent two men his way to intercept.

"Invader from the Akatsuki organization, you won’t succeed."

Though their words were tough, facing Sasori’s Hundred Puppets Performance, their voices trembled with fear.

Sasori obviously didn’t want to deal with them. He jumped straight onto a rooftop to search for enemies. However, the two idiots below seemed clueless and threw several kunai at Sasori, some with explosive tags attached.

The attack instantly angered Sasori. Having his targets vanish into thin air was irritating enough. Now he was being harassed by these small fries. Sasori controlled one puppet to charge at one of the two ninja.

"Urk... ah!"

With a cry of pain, that ninja fell unconscious. Sasori fixed his gaze on the other ninja. The ninja, terrified by the overwhelming difference in strength, collapsed to the ground.

Sasori did not press the attack. He wasn’t here to invade Konoha. Sasori threw a Sunagakure forehead protector at the ninja sitting on the ground, then moved on upwards. He still had a fight to attend to.

Seeing the forehead protector, the ninja realized he had attacked the wrong person. Helping his companion up, he returned to the task of evacuating civilians.

...

Outside Konoha, Killer Bee and his group had also arrived.

Killer Bee’s route was different from Pain’s, so he hadn’t seen the slain guards. It wasn’t until they got close to the village that Killer Bee noticed something was wrong. It seemed the village was under attack.

"Master, something seems off about Konoha."

"Yeah, I noticed it too."

Though Killer Bee usually seemed a bit unreliable, in this situation and facing his disciple, he changed his usual style.

"Don’t enter the village yet."

"Given the current situation, if we rush in now, we’d probably be mistaken for accomplices."

Killer Bee’s consideration was not without reason.

The four of them stayed near the village, observing the progress of the battle.