Pain

I blew a cloud of toxic smoke out between my teeth with a sigh even as my face splitting grin remained in place. This wasn't going to be easy; the Pseudo-Peins appear slow moving, but five incongruously slowly healing gashes on my chest say they are capable of impressive bursts of speed. Even so, these fuckers wouldn't be the slightest threat if it wasn't for the dozens of Black receivers skewering them and the fact that they seemed capable of generating more at will.

Lightning crackled between the blades of my scythe, sending jagged shadows around the broken hall. My teeth reflected the blue light, seeming to glow like my eyes as I watched the horde shuffle towards me.

I teleported into the center of the horde without a word, raising my scythe above my head. As the zompeins (peinbes?) turned to face me I pumped obscene amounts of chakra into the lightning around my blade, causing it to surge and explode. Lightning bolts shoot everywhere, many striking the walls, ceiling, and floor, some hitting me, but most hit the pseudo-Peins.

It wasn't really a technique, much like my makeshift explosion release it was more of a refined fuck up than anything else; I simply turn a huge amount of chakra into lightning chakra and let it lash out without restraint. For most it would be a suicide technique (or, more likely, a lethal training accident); as evidenced by the scorch marks and burned away flesh present all over my spasming body.

Crude as it was, the technique was effective; what were scorch marks on me were blown off limbs and disintegrations for the weakened bodies of my foes (my enhanced body being a touch more durable than the average mutilated corpse). Apparently, stuffing yourself full of conductors doesn't help defend against lightning; who'da thought, eh?

Ashes drifted in the wind pouring in from the broken walls; as high up as we were, the wind roared. Whatever Eldritch metal black receivers are made from is an incredible conductor, as evidenced by the outright disintegration most of the struck Zompeins suffered, exploding into ashes almost immediately. Those that didn't explode burst into flames as lightning crackled between the protruding rods.

Unfortunately, not all of the Peins were destroyed; dozens more poured in from out of sight, from behind walls and out of doorways. Even amongst those struck, not all were outright destroyed, many slowly getting back to their feet or rising on their arms if their legs were destroyed; some had major injuries roughly knitted together with black receivers.

I certainly could have just shrugged off the lightning crackling across my burnt skin, held up my scythe and repeated the process until everyone's dead. However… that sounds boring and painful (not to mention unreliable); two things I'd rather not combine.

The remaining Pseudo-Peins were noticeably faster than before, each moving more fluidly to boot. My eyes narrowed behind my sunglasses, Sharingan swirling languidly as their movements grew closer to what it was used to predicting; is his control limited by the number of bodies he possess? This could get complicated in that case.

I watched them swarm towards me, my grin growing steadily toothy-er as I let my soul overwrite more and more of my body. As the zompeins swarmed around me I laughed, a delightful idea springing into my mind.

Slowly, my immense amount of chakra began collecting in my core; considering the sheer amount, it was not a quick process. Luckily, my teleportation didn't cost chakra (it did cost whatever nameless divine energy Jashin used; however, she had assured me that even if I teleported across the universe twenty billion times in a second it still wouldn’t burn more energy than she produced in that same second) so evasion was a breeze. Thanks to the technique I decided on, physical movement was far from easy; even still, I did manage a few swipes of my scythe, to lethal effect of course.

Seeing a shambling mob of metal ridden zombies attempting to deal with my rapid relocations and occasional attacks, it was easy to forget this wasn't a horde of individuals but rather the singular (not all together impressive) intellect of Nagato. Still, the fact that were still only attempting to use horde tactics did not say good things for his creativity or intellect.

A white rod punching through the back of my head (accompanied by Jashin giving a helpful warning milliseconds before hand) rather effectively ended my thoughts on Nagato’s low intelligence. Unfortunately it also broke my concentration for my technique (an actual technique this time! I got it from a forbidden scroll even!) and set it off prematurely; rather than an absolutely massive explosion as I turned all of my condensed chakra into an element (the scroll recommended fire, but I probably would have gone with lightning ‘cause it's easier) and disintegrating the tower (which, in hindsight, may not have been the best idea) I only succeeded in turning myself into chunky salsa.

A vaguely feminine grunt of displeasure sounded from behind me, but I was slightly distracted berating Jashin. “For future notice,I prefer my warnings to come when I have time to do something about them.”

“I didn't see the threat until she was manifest enough to attack. Until the spear formed she was just bits of paper, utterly devoid of blood and shadow.” I frowned, she had somehow found a way to delay Jashin's gaze; concerning.

Now I'm faced with a poignant problem; I'm sans body in the middle of an invasion. I sent a glance at the bits of me splattered all over the walls, watching the flesh dissolve into nothing but blood and smoke. Growing my body from blood would take quite a while (not to mention how unlikely it is either Pein or Konan would just sit back and let me regrow it) and flying to an isolated area to grow one from nothing would take even longer; either way I'd lose my momentum. I knew for damn sure I couldn't posses one of the zombies; the shotgun blast of black receivers all over them would dissolve me instantly even if I did kick Nagato out of one.

A frown crossed my ethereal face; presumably Pein wasn't just blasting his citizens at random. If I had to guess (which I do), I'd say he's covering the casualties from my entrance into downgraded Paths. With a quick glance I could see the horde only seemed to be coming from the higher floors.

I phased through the floor, searching for a vacant body to repurpose. Glancing about as I flit from place to place, I accidentally got a glimpse of my soul. I couldn't help but marvel at it, looking closer. My soul looked just like my body, but a faintly translucent purple-tinted silver; even my clothes and scythe where present (oddly, my scythe seemed more solid and defined that the rest of my clothes). However, none of that managed to hold my attention for long in the face of the inky black veins crawling through every inch of my ethereal flesh. The silvery flesh directly in contact with the veins was darker, more solid and opaque than the rest.

“That would be me, my dear. I did say we were getting closer, did I not?” I figured as much, but confirmation is good none the less.

As, frankly, cancerous as the veins looked, they didn't hurt and I didn't get any sense they were harmful (to me, anyway), so I simply shrugged and went back to finding a body to continue my rampage in.

I am gonna rip those fancy eyes from that bratty faggot’s head and rape his girlfriend until she begs for more.

It took me a few minutes before I found a body that was intact enough (and unconverted) to possess. Unfortunately, said body was just a touch too alive to work. I frowned at the gasping man, watching him desperately try to push his intestines back in around the rebar that had dislodged them in annoyance. Why couldn't he be a good little peasant and die quicker?

I tapped my phantasmal foot on the air, checking the watch I don't have as I impatiently waited for him to finish bleeding out. Having never been a paragon of patience, I soon began glancing about, looking for anything I could do to hasten this peon's death.

My frustration quickly grew, driving me to reach for a fallen piece of rubble. To my great surprise I managed to grasp it, though it seemed relient on Jashin’s creeping presence seeping further into my grasping hand and making it almost opaque as my long fingers wrapped around the jagged bit of stone. Deciding to act first and question later, I wanged the rough stone at the fallen man, the force behind the projectile popping his head like a balloon filled with salsa.

With a grin, I slipped into his body; wasting no time in resuming my onslaught. The fact that my incorporeal soul just managed to physically interact with something is very, very interesting and unquestionably questionable, but it can wait; I have a wanna be god to kill and a paper angel to corrupt.

Problem is; I don't know exactly where Nagato’s real body is. I have the vague idea that it’s near the top, but considering my explosive introduction, that may not be all that true (unless Nagato is just very good at hiding that he’s on death’s door; which doesn’t actually sound all that unlikely).

Well, might as well make my way up and take a look; I've got nothing but time, after all.

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Konan sighed, wishing (not for the first time) that she had greater skill with water manipulation as she tried to scrub the blood from her hair. She had been expecting some blood when she decided to stab him through the head; what she wasn't expecting was for him to fucking explode.

She didn't like blood, never had; this distaste is the main reason she preferred to suffocate her enemies if presented with the option. Unfortunately, given what she knew of this particular enemy, she knew suffocation would never work.

She knew who he was; how could she not? Nagato had spoken frequently and worriedly of the rash of violence and disappearances, to say nothing of Madara’s obvious anger and concern. Travelers butchered, whole towns vanishing in the night; and all of it connected by one symbol and legends of an immortal monster loosely clad in human flesh.

She had seen that maddening symbol in her nightmares, seen those burning eyes in the dark corners of her dreams. When she saw him, bearing that symbol across his chest, written in what she knew at a glance to be fresh blood; she knew it could be no other.

A shudder passed through her as she glanced over at the blood splattered across the ravaged hall; something deep down couldn't be convinced of his death. The word “immortal” kept skittering about in the back of her mind, not to mention Nagato's ragged, pain wracked report of killing him in a very similar way.

She shook her head, trying to put the thought from her mind as she turned to the small horde of partial Paths around her. She quirked a thin eyebrow as she watched a few collapse and one of the more intact bodies stand a little straighter and pull out a small bottle from within one of the less shattered walls.

She met this bodies fully developed Rinnegan eyes, ignoring the way he surreptitiously hid the bottle behind his back. “How are you holding up, Lord Pein?” She hated that damned title, hated the history behind it, hated the message it sent.

Even his slightly glowing eyes seemed dull, the light in them dimmer than even immediately after Yahiko's death. He sighed, an uncharacteristic display of weakness for a man so convinced of his own divinity; “Not well. Not well at all.”

Her eyes widened slightly; “Lord Pein” admitting he was anything but perfectly infallible? Unheard of; at least not since started calling himself that. “What happened?” The question felt weak, too vague to encompass just how off balance this brazen attack had left her; and yet, it was all she could think to ask.

The Path (she couldn't tell which it had become) grimaced, “His opening attack destroyed over a third of the tower, including my chamber. I'm… not doing well; my real body is badly injured.”

She kept the shock from her face with great effort. She didn't want to ask, didn't even want to think about it… “Will you survive?” Hopefully he didn't hear the tremor in her voice.

His grimace deepened, “Maybe. If I can get the-”. He was cut off by the floor behind him exploding upwards, a bit of shrapnel tearing through his skull and sending his body crashing into her.

She stumbled back, tossing the former Path aside as the cause of the explosion revealed itself: there, standing amidst the dust choked air, stood the monstrous man she had killed minutes earlier, grinning just as maniacally as before and eyes glowing brightly through his sunglasses.

Her legs turned to paper as her wings formed. Malicious, cloying laughter filled the air as she tried to get some distance from the lunatic; every piercing sound bored into her mind and soul. Hundreds of paper shuriken formed in an instant and flew through the air… only to embed themselves deep in the wall and floor where the man had been standing.

Her first sign of where he'd gone was the laughter shifting to behind her, close behind her. She whirled, rising through the shattered ceiling to try for distance once more; instincts she'd thought long gone driving her more than rational thought.

He was standing amidst a small group of (now rather mutilated and paper riddled thanks to her panicked attack) partial Paths (if either of them survived this, Nagato was not going to be happy about that). What few weren't killed by the hail of paper shuriken were cut in two with a single swipe of the man's strange scythe.

He was still laughing, he was always laughing. Even as his flesh was torn to shreds by dozens of shuriken, he never stopped laughing. The endless noise was oppressive, malignant; the air it lingered in felt heavier, the light it touched seemed to dim, it seemed to leech the heat from the wind. The inescapable sound beat against her head like a maddened war drum, even seeming to make its source, that vile creature masquerading as a man, seem to take up so much more space than he should.

Then he was gone; once again just disappearing with no signs of how. She'd seen many forms of the Body Flicker and even whatever it was Madara did; none of them fit whatever it was he did. It was just too fast, too instant to be either-

Cold fingers closed around her throat, cutting off her gasp as he appeared right in her face. His sunglasses were lowered over his impossibly wide smile, revealing his languidly swirling eyes. There was something wrong with those eyes, some important aspect of humanity was simply lacking. The blacks seemed too deep, as if they were depthless holes in his head that swallowed all light they touched rather merely observing, the purple seems almost to burn like an unholy fire.

His other hand was on her cheat, roughly groping and tearing away her clothes. Her eyes widened; was he really going to do this in the middle of a battle-

Pain. Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain PAIN! Cold fire burned against her chest, surrounding each nipple. At first she thought he'd stabbed her or even torn off her breasts until she realised she wasn't bleeding as his hand slid down her body. She could feel those cold (why was he so cold?) fingers probing her dry folds before that same cold fire surrounded that as well.

She managed to get her head together when he started reaching for his pants. Panicked rage turned her skin to razors, sharp paper stronger than steel slicing through the fingers around her neck. While his smile only grew at being denied, his physical lack of fingers forced him to let her go.

He barely moved as he watched her crawl away, his grin never leaving his face and that infernal laughter never ceasing. Only when a partial Path came within range did he so much as twitch; even then it was merely to crush its skull with the hand she had destroyed seconds ago.

Suddenly, he was next to a wall, driving his hand through the concrete and tearing a piece of rebar free. She took advantage of his distraction, peppering his torso with paper shuriken as he turned once again to face her.

For the first time since she'd seen him he stopped laughing, if only for a moment; “Didn't you try that already? Trying the same thing and hoping for change; seems you might be a bit touched in the head, eh? Heh heh heh heh!” And then he was laughing again, seeming amused by his own cruel joke.

Right up until the shuriken embedded in his flesh exploded and blew him to pieces. Or at least, they should have. He seemed remarkably more intact that someone in the center of so many explosions had any right to be.

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I growled in irritation; this fucking bitch seemed awfully keen on blowing me up. Fortunately, Rinri’s reinforcements weren't going to fail so easily in the face of something as plebeian as paper bombs made by anything short of a master. My skin was blackened and burned and where the bombs had gotten through my chakra mesh there were softball sized holes blown into my muscles.

For most people, having gaping holes bored into their flesh and flames licking at their skin would be rather devastating. I can regrow my whole arm in a few minutes even disregarding the shadowy smoke that seemed to vastly enhance my regeneration; holes that don't even go all the way through are no issue. In fact, I look pretty damn badass bathed in fire and surrounded by smoke, if I do say so myself.

Even so, fire fucking hurts, damn it! Being burned and exploded is starting really piss me off. I'm gonna tear this fucking brat limb from Jashin damned-

No. No. Deep breaths. I have plans for this girl. I can't fuck her if I liquify her corpse, nor can I rape her now considering that little trick she pulled with her neck; I may be turning into a bit of a masochist but sticking my dick in a blender still doesn't hold much appeal. I just have to incapacitate her and let the seals do their work.

I will have my harem, damn it!

With a grunt I kick the piece of rebar I ripped out back into my no longer fingerless hand. For a moment I just watched her buzz about in slow motion, Sharingan analyzing movements and techniques to better predict actions and Gaze pointing out weaknesses; the two abilities synced up wonderfully.

My grin widened as I saw an opening. Instantly, I vanished, reappearing slightly to the left and behind her. I didn’t bother reaching for her, even with my eyes her speed in flight was quick enough that unless I surprise her she’ll be outside my range (except my scythe, though using that kinda defeats the point of getting those seals on her); instead, I reached out to the side, channeling my chakra through the wall until it was in front of her (pure chakra moves fast) in before ramping up the amount present to explosive levels.

A wall of force and shrapnel slammed into her hastily thrown up paper shield (formed from her wings). While none of the shrapnel actually touched her flesh, the shockwave still blew her away, slamming her back into the opposite wall.

I was on her before she could recover, driving my rebar pole through her guts and into the wall behind her. I cupped her face as I twisted the impromptu lance, drawing a grit-toothed scream from her. I shifted my grip to her throat as she tried to struggle, “Now now, none of that girl. See this pole here,” I twanged said piece of metal for emphasis. “is currently doing a Hell of a lot more than just hurting. See, I stabbed ya right through your guts, and just barely nicked an artery.”

I released her throat, patting her check condescending as I stepping back, “Now, I'm sure you could easily pull yourself off that little wall; but, if you do, you'll swiftly exsanguinate.” I shrugged, “That pole is currently the only thing keeping your blood mostly inside you, it comes out and so does your life blood.”

I turned away, blatantly exposing my back to her. As I swaggered away I smirked at her over my shoulder, “I'm not gonna rape ya, I'll let you come to me. I'm off to kill your boyfriend, so do me a favor; keep me in your thoughts.” I tapped the side of my head as my smirk grew to a full fledged grin.

The explosive shuriken she threw at me hit nothing but air as I vanished to higher places. While Zompeins harassed me at every turn, my swanky Sharingan managed to help me guess where Nagato's real body was based on where they defended the most. While extrapolating on there predictive ability felt somewhat strange, my delightful magic eyes showed they had many uses (no wonder Uchiha made such great policemen).

My smirk never left my face as I kicked down a wall, blowing chunks of concrete into Pein's already highly damaged “throne” room. Seeing the emaciated man inside made this whole thing feel somewhat pathetic; all this effort just to kill some cripple?

The feverish light in his powerful eyes dispelled any illusions of weakness… or sanity. Sane men don't ever hold expressions like that.

His raspy voice rang out over the howling wind rushing through the large cracks in the walls. “Konan is dead then?” Somehow, I was surprised that he spoke; though that may have been due to the fact the spikes sticking out of his back seem to have been driven through his chest. He was bleeding so heavily I was surprised he wasn't dead already.

I simply laughed, neither confirming nor denying his statement; let him wallow in his misery.

Pein let out a strained, gurgling laughter, a smile way too large to be genuine spreading across his face. “I suppose your here for my eyes then.”

It wasn't a question, but I answered anyways, “Ee-yup. Figured I'd complete mine. Hell, I might just start collecting them; go after some Hyuuga and whatnot.”

Nagato chuckled lowly, “Is that so?” Black receivers slid from his palms, “Well I don't think I'm gonna let you…” So saying, he drove the spikes into his eyes and out the back of his skull.

Or, at least he tried. Madara’s Sharingan is not to be underestimated, easily seeing his intent and providing me plenty of time to teleport forth. Had I come here before acquiring my fancy eyes or without activating them, I'm sure his suicidal act of spite would have succeeded. As is, my booted foot slammed down on both spikes, redirecting them into his throat instead.

I laughed at the stunned expression on his face, “What, did you think I was just going to sit back and let you do that? I can teleport, dumbass; nothing is outside my reach.”

I didn't bother waiting for him to finish dying before pulling out a spoon-like tool Rinri had provided for removing eyes (apparently he was professionally insulted by me using my fingers for Madara) and scooping out his magic orbs. Were his throat and lungs not choked with blood and metal, I'm sure his screams would have been magnificent.

A less informed man may have just left his body there for any serpents to lick up; I was not such a man. Blue flames consumed the room, devouring every ounce of blood and flesh that once made up a would-be legendary terrorist and half-blind visionary.

I watched the flames flicker, absorbed in my fascination with the beautiful destroyer for several minutes before Jashin reminded me I had places to be. I need to get these eyes popped in my skull and fused with my current pair (Jashin assured me that will be automatically done). I should also make sure Konan didn't actually bleed to death.

Teleporting away, I frowned at the scene that met my eyes upon finding where I left the Paper Angel. She was gone, leaving only a blood stained hole in the wall to mark where I'd left her. Even without my eyes spelling it out for me I could see what she'd done: she flew off, leaving the rebar in place to keep herself from bleeding out.

Well… that's fine, I guess. She'll come back; those seals will ensure it. I doubt she'll be able to keep me out of her head for long, and so long as she's thinking about me those seals will sway her opinion towards a more positive light.

I turned away, vanishing mid turn to reappear in Rinri's shop. My frown deepened into a dark, hateful scowl when I reappeared in the middle of a blazing bonfire. It didn't take long to see what had happened, someone had ransacked the town… no, based on the distant laughter, someone was in the process of ransacking my fucking town!

Whoever was rock fucking stupid enough to attack my home territory was going to fucking suffer for this.