Characters / Naruto - Nagato

Naruto Main Character Index
The Hidden Leaf Village
Team 7 (Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Kakashi Hatake) | Team 8 (Hinata Hyuga) | Team 10 | Team Guy | The Legendary Sannin | Hokages | The Uchiha Clan | Other Leaf Village Members (Danzo Shimura)
Other Great Villages
Hidden Sand Village (Gaara) | Hidden Mist Village | Hidden Cloud Village | Hidden Stone Village
Antagonists
Hidden Sound Village (Orochimaru, Kabuto Yakushi) | Akatsuki (Itachi Uchiha, Tobi, Pain/Nagato) | Madara Uchiha
Recurring Characters
Other Characters | Hebi/Taka | Tailed Beasts and Their Hosts | Otsutsuki Clan
Others
Anime-Only Characters | Movie-Only Characters | Novel-Only Characters | Game-Only Characters | The New Era

Here be spoilers.

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Pain/Nagato

Deva Path voiced by: Kenyū Horiuchi (JP, Pain), Dave Wittenberg (EN, original), Troy Baker (EN, current) (main series), Matthew Mercer (EN, Shippūden Episode 455, Rock Lee and his Ninja Pals), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin America)
Nagato voiced by: Junpei Morita (JP), Tomoaki Maeno (JP, young), Vic Mignogna (EN)
Second Animal Path voiced by: Shiho Hisajima (JP), Stephanie Sheh (EN, TV series), Kari Wahlgren (EN, Ultimate Ninja Storm 2)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 372 (Manga), Shippuden Episode 128 (Anime)

^{Click here to see the original Animal Path} 

^{Click here to see his real body} 

This world shall know pain.

The (supposed) leader of the Akatsuki after Yahiko's passing, Pain possesses the Rinnegan, the predecessor to the Sharingan, which allows the user to use all six elements and learn any jutsu. Orphaned by the Land of Rain's civil war, Nagato was raised by Jiraiya, who believed him to be the prophecized Chosen One, alongside his friends Konan and Yahiko, with whom he would later found the Akatsuki. When Hanzo, the leader of the Hidden Rain village, and Danzo, set a trap, Yahiko was killed and in his rage Nagato summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, crippling himself in the process. Believing his suffering had caused him to become enlightened and his power caused him to become a god, Nagato took on the alias of Pain and outfitted six corpses, including Yahiko's, with chakra receivers and used them to take over the Hidden Rain village. Pain wanted to use the Tailed Beasts to create a weapon of mass destruction that could be used to put an end to war. Each of his six (actually seven) different bodies possesses a different skill, and can't be defeated unless all of them are killed at once. The bodies are all ninja Jiraiya fought as he wandered the earth. His first physical appearance has him engaging his old master in battle in the Hidden Rain Village until Jiraiya kills one of his bodies and sends it back to Konoha (along with a toad bearing the message "The real one isn't there"), but he was eventually overwhelmed and killed.

He quickly replaced the missing body with a new one and arrived in Konoha in the hopes of capturing Naruto. After his bodies engage - and in some cases, are defeated by - Konoha's villagers, he rounds them all up and uses Shinra Tensei, an ability that nukes the city. He fights the newly-empowered Naruto in a long-drawn-out battle that bumped the "Holy Shit!" Quotient up a few notches. Finally, Nagato is defeated and after accepting Naruto's ideals about peace, uses a jutsu to revive many of the Konoha ninjas he killed, dying in the process. However, Kabuto resurrects him later with Edo Tensei and pairs him with a similarly resurrected Itachi, who helps him move around. They engage Naruto and Bee, where it is revealed that he can use all of the Six Paths' jutsu without the bodies, and nearly kills the pair until a liberated Itachi intervenes and seals him with Susano'o. He is eventually revealed to be a descendant of the Uzumaki clan, just like Naruto.

His hobby was practicing ninjutsu.

Favorite phrase: "The stars are hidden on a rainy night". As a child, it was "Growing up".

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A - F

• The Ace: Where to begin? At the age of 10, Jiraiya admitted that Nagato was able to master every jutsu the former attempted to teach him, which covered jutsu in each of the 5 main elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Lightning), along with Yang-Style techniques as well! Even adult Shinobi in the series struggle to use 2 or 3 elements, much less 6. The list of techniques Nagato mastered is one of the most comprehensive in the series, covering numerous different areas. He is able to control gravity, absorb Chakra, summon seemingly immortal beasts, revive the dead, and summon mechanical armor and weapons at will, just to name a few. Before losing to Naruto, Nagato had never lost a single fight, and he had expended an enormous amount of his power before fighting Naruto, due to taking on the entire Leaf village and winning. After being resurrected, he briefly has an edge on Killer Bee and Naruto, two of the 5 people in history who have managed to gain complete control over a Bijuu and the two most powerful Bijuu no less. It's no wonder that Nagato was not only the leader of Akatsuki, but the organization's most powerful member hailed as a God by the people of the Rain Village and considered by Kabuto to be the second most powerful Edo Tensei, after Madara Uchiha. What's even more impressive is how Nagato was able to master the Rinnegan despite it not even being his, to begin with, while Tobi in contrast struggled to control the power of just one eye.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • Nagato is able to use all abilities of the Pain Rikudo that make Nagato a real Physical God. However, Nagato himself is extremely weak physically, extremely skinny, and has difficulties walking unaided which is one of his greatest weaknesses he has.
  • Deva Path Pain has limited control over gravity through pushing and pulling things, however, he can't do it continuously; the cooldown is proportional to how much power he puts into it, and in a regular battle, the minimum is five seconds. His nuking of Konoha left him drained long enough for Naruto to take out several Pain bodies, and he used the five-second window to defeat Deva Pain himself.
• Affably Evil: If you don't stand between him and a Jinchuuriki, he won't harm you. Even then he´s always polite and doesn't kill unnecessarily unless it can lure out Naruto or if you question his ideals.
• Alas, Poor Villain: He gets this treatment towards the end of the confrontation with Naruto after we learn his backstory and he decides to sacrifice his life to revive everyone killed during his invasion of the Hidden Leaf.
• Ambition Is Evil: Surprisingly inverted: Him wanting to change the world is viewed in a very positive light. How he wanted to change it is where he gets into trouble.
• Antagonist Abilities: Multi-Armed and Dangerous, People Puppets, Energy Absorption, and The Paralyzer.
• Area of Effect: Shinra Tensei hits everything in a complete spherical radius around himself. However, the more power he puts into the blast, the longer it takes for the power to return.
• Attack Reflector: Shinra Tensei can reflect any jutsu used against him, as well as people.
• Anti-Villain: He has a tragic backstory and the same goal of bringing about peace as Naruto does. His methods, however...
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Nagato was once a student of Jiraiya who dreamed of making the world a better place. One too many tragedies later and he's a terrorist leader who believes annihilating a country every so often is the best way to ensure world peace.
• Arc Villain: Pain serves as the main antagonist for the Tale of Jiraiya the Gallant and the Pain's Assault arcs. For filler, he was the biggest threat in the Tsuchigumo Kinjutsu Arc.
• Arch-Enemy: Becomes one to Naruto after killing Jiraiya, who happened to be a mentor to both of them. Taken a step further after Pain's attack on Konoha results in the death of Kakashi, Shizune, several other residents, and the destruction of the village. Their enmity becomes even more personal as Pain's motives and childhood are explored, making him similar to Naruto in more ways than one.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Pain asks if Naruto has a better solution against the cycle of hatred, but Naruto doesn't respond. Only later did Naruto respond that he would continue searching for the answer, and convince Nagato to believe in him.
• The Atoner: Nagato is re-convinced of his former pacifism by Naruto, who believes the struggle for peace is worth any personal cost to the point of sacrificing his life to atone for his actions.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The purpose of the Animal Path is to invoke this trope.
• Aura Vision: He can see chakra in a manner similar to the Byakugan.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: He's the leader of the Akatsuki, and, with the arguable exceptions of Tobi and Itachi, Pain is undoubtedly the most powerful member of his organization.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Pain's interrogation methods. He uses two main abilities to try to find Naruto, one of which can instantly read the minds of those it touches. On its own, this is perfectly practical. His other, however, can kill anybody who either lies to him or refuses to answer his question. Meaning anybody who actually knows ends up dead... This does spare him the trouble of having to look up misinformation, though.
  • His mind-reading would be practical if it didn't rip out the person's soul, making it essential that the person had outlived his/her usefulness.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Pain succeeds in killing off Jiraiya when the latter investigated Amegakure for intel. In an anime exclusive arc, he targeted and defeated Utakata, the Six Tails jinchuriki, dooming his life in the process.
• Badass Boast: "We are Pain, that's all. We are God."
• Badass Longcoat: A typical trend for Akatsuki members. However, it is an interesting example for Nagato; he wore a similar coat without the signature red clouds during Yahiko's leadership. While the Six Paths don the more familiar coats later on, this doesn't appear to be the case for Nagato himself. Nagato is actually the only member post-Yahiko to not wear a coat at all. Later played straight after being resurrected by Kabuto where he wears a dark-red long coat like the other reanimated Akatsuki members.
• Badass Transplant: His Rinnegan actually belonged to Madara, who removed them and somehow implanted them into Nagato without his awareness.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Nagato envisioned world peace and was a gentle and sweet child before his parents' murder and during his time with Yahiko, Konan, and Jiraiya. Later on, as Pain, he was the figurehead leader of a terrorist organization and maintained a cold, stoic expression throughout the six bodies he controlled.
• Bald of Evil: The Asura Path is bald. And evil.
• Battle Strip: The Deva Path has the upper-left torso of its coat torn off during its scuffle against the Six-Tailed Naruto.
• Benevolent Boss: He's a beloved "god" to his village, and genuinely cares for his country. He also this to Akatsuki being the only member who cares about the organization itself, is constantly telling the other members not to piss off each other stressing teamwork, and mourns those who die in the pursuit of Akatsuki's goals.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Pain was set up as the leader of the Akatsuki, and is the one giving out orders to the other members to hunt down and capture any living jinchuriki. However, he is actually The Dragon with aspirations of becoming the ruler of the Shinobi world and planning on supplanting Tobi after gathering the Bijuu. Despite gaining a massive Hero Killer reputation by killing Jiraiya, he was defeated by Naruto in his second appearance and after only the first of Naruto's Next Tier Power Ups.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Pain appears to conjure his chakra receivers underneath his cloak's cuffs.
• Blood Knight: Despite his ideas of peace, he really wanted to fight Naruto in his Nine-Tailed form according to the databooks. This does explain why he pissed off Naruto once to do so and complimenting him as a fellow student. And it not to mention that he briefly shows an uncharacteristic expression of awe ("The nine-tailed fox' power... is amazing...") when he fought the six tails like he was feeling the thrill of fighting a worthy opponent for the first time.
• Blood from the Mouth: Nagato coughs out blood whenever he resorts to using very powerful techniques as they require large amounts of stamina and chakra. Furthermore, Nagato's weakened and frail body makes the situation worse.
• Body Horror: The Six Paths are all controlled by chakra receivers which are fashioned into piercings around each body. Nagato himself appears to be emaciated and skeletally thin with rows of chakra receivers impaled onto his back.
• Break Them by Talking: In their battle, he was able to temporarily break Naruto's resolve by questioning his method of obtaining true peace.
• Break the Cutie: His entire backstory.
• Broken Ace: Despite possessing the Rinnegan, mastering all five of the main elements possessing a lot of other rare feats and being a potential prophetic figure, Nagato was a figure who underwent tragedy after tragedy as a child. Although he was able to find friends and be an important figure for Akatsuki during its earliest years, he was unable to really come close to achieving the dream he wanted. That and Yahiko's death due to the machinations of Hanzo only made things worse...
• Broken Pedestal: After Yahiko's death, becoming the leader of Akatsuki, Nagato's cynical viewpoint on the world began to contradict Jiraiya's teachings, to the point where Nagato considered it naive.
• Byronic Hero: Prior to his villainy, Nagato was a just and noble ninja who was orphaned at a young age and underwent a plethora of unfortunate events. Because of his experiences, he envisioned his goal of ending wars and bringing peace to the shinobi world.
• Canine Companion: Shortly after his parents' death, Nagato was accompanied by a stray dog, which he named Chibi. Chibi would remain by Nagato's side, even when he had met up with Yahiko and Konan. Unfortunately, the four were caught up in a crossfire between Hanzo and the Sannin, during which Chibi was accidentally killed by a stray kunai explosive. Nagato was heartbroken about the death of the dog, and the event would be a prelude to Nagato's viewpoint on the world before and after his corruption.
• Cast from Lifespan: The Rinnegan's more powerful techniques take years off his life. He dies from overusing them.
• Chewing the Scenery:
  • MY PAIN IS STILL FAR GREATER THAN YOURS!!!
  • Adding to the above, much of Episode 167 from Shippuden has Pain making several weird facial and bodily expressions thanks to the weird animation. His scream whilst using Chibaku Tensei doesn't help either.
• Child Prodigy: During his training with Jiraiya, Nagato mastered every technique he was taught, covering numerous styles, all of the basic nature transformations, and Yang Release, accomplishments extremely rare even for adults, let alone ten-year-olds.
• Child Soldier: Given that the series is heavily prominent with children in battlefields and situations involving death, this is to be expected. In the case of Nagato's, it was just as bad as the Warring States Period with Amegakure ravaged with fights and destruction. Nagato and his friends were eventually taught by Jiraiya the teachings skills of a ninja in three years, culminating with Yahiko forming the Akatsuki organization.
• The Clan: It is revealed that Nagato is a member of the Uzumaki Clan, just like Naruto.
• Combo Platter Powers: The Rinnegan's powers are basically a mish-mash of various powers that are all Story Breaker Powers in their own right.
• Cooldown: The Deva Path's gravity manipulating powers can't be performed in rapid succession; the amount of time required to recharge after use varies depending on the scale of the technique used, five seconds being the basic minimum.
• Co-Dragons: With Black Zetsu to Tobi. Prior to becoming Pain, he served as this with Konan in the original iteration of Akatsuki.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Every battle Nagato/Pain has participated in to some extent.
  • vs. Jiraiya: Though Jiraiya was able to defeat three of his Paths when Pain brought out all six he lost quickly. Pain does concede that if Jiraiya knew the secrets of his abilities, he would have had a sizable chance of defeating all six.
  • vs. Konoha: Fighting an entire village and only temporarily losing one expendable Path puts the assault square into this category.
  • vs. Sage Naruto: The first time ever that the Six Paths had faced a challenge, and that quickly disappeared after Deva Path's powers returned.
  • vs. 9-Tail Naruto, Killer Bee & Edo Itachi: Not so much a Curb-Stomp Battle as a massacre until Itachi unleashed Susanoo and used the one thing that had a chance of beating him in that situation.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • While he defeats Jiraiya pretty handily once he sics all Six Paths on him, he loses the Animal Path and is forced to retrieve a new one before embarking on his mission to capture Naruto. Pain even admits that had Jiraiya known the truth about him from the get-go, he would have had a much higher chance of winning.
  • In the anime, the Six Tails puts up a decent fight against him, managing to incapacitate one of his summons before killing two of his Paths.
• Cute Bruiser: The second Animal Path.
• The Cynic: He believes that humans can never really understand each other and the only way to fix this is to make the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and bring suffering to the entire world in order to frighten people enough to stop fighting wars.
• Cynicism Catalyst: He and Konan became villains after the death of their best friend Yahiko.
  Nagato: You think you're the only ones who matter. You think you can put off death. But that peace made you foolish and thoughtless. If you kill someone, someone else will kill you… this hatred binds us together. I want you to feel pain, to think about pain, to accept pain, to know pain.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: To use an incredibly powerful version of his gravity attack he has to take off years of his life, but can destroy an entire city in one blast. And he uses it. Although Nagato, on the other hand, is an Uzumaki, which means he has his clan's longevity, so he can use it with reduced risk.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His orphaning and the death of his parents is only just a start. What happens next is obvious, given his entire motivation came due to tragic circumstances.
• Dark Messiah: Nagato has the same goal of bringing about peace as Naruto does. His methods, however...
  Nagato: We are both but men, driven to seek vengeance under the banner of justice. However… if there is justice in vengeance, then justice will breed only more vengeance… thus forging more links in a chain of hatred.
• Darker and Edgier: Nagato, as Pain, still pursues his childhood dream of peace. His methods and envisioning of attaining his goal, however...
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Due to his legs being crippled by Hanzo and being forcibly synced to the Gedo Statue, Nagato was forced to spend the rest of his life on a machine.
• Death Wail: After Yahiko's death, Nagato summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, followed by Nagato yelling with anguish and rage as he slaughtered much of Hanzo and Danzo's men.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: As Pain, Nagato was regarded as unbeatable by various individuals, whose strength allowed him to kill Hanzō, a feat which the combined efforts of the Sannin couldn't accomplish. He continued his undefeatable portrayal by killing Jiraiya, Kakashi, and overwhelming Konoha itself. Before he faced Naruto, Pain was said to have never lost a single battle.
• Delicate and Sickly: He is crippled and confined to a mobile throne. Even after being resurrected he has to rely on Itachi to support him.
• Despair Event Horizon: He crossed it when Yahiko killed himself in order to save Konan. This can be considered the moment when Pain was born.
• Destructive Savior: This happens to be Nagato's end goal for world peace; to develop a superweapon capable of destroying a continent in an effort to terrify entire nations enough to stop fighting and enter a short period of peace. Should enmity and war occur, the superweapon would be deployed again, and the whole process would repeat.
• Deus Angst Machina: Pretty much Nagato's entire backstory.
• Deus ex Machina: Pain pulls a case of Redemption Equals Death and revives everyone that he'd killed in the last thirty chapters or so. Bonus points to him for considering himself as a god and sitting in a machine.
• Did Not See That Coming: He is shocked when he discovers that Naruto, in his six-tailed state, is not only able to resist his Shinra Tensei, but also bypass it and facepalm him. Happens again when Naruto manages to stand his ground against another Shinra Tensei, at the expense of some of Naruto's shadow clones.
• Didn't Think This Through: At first it seems his plan of essentially creating nukes and handing them out to assure mutual destruction upon villages and then to enforce peace so this does not happen is incredibly short-sighted. Turns out, he's well aware that this will last in temporary peace, but he simply doesn't care. He's too cynical to see any alternative to this short-lived peace driven by violence and hatred.
• Discard and Draw: Upon being resurrected by Kabuto, Nagato can use his Rinnegan abilities to a much greater extent than he could using the Six Paths of Pain. However, he loses the Six Paths' ability to share each other's vision and synchronise their attacks, something that Kabuto tried to compensate using the Animal Path's summons.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Set up as the leader of the Akatsuki, only to be revealed as The Dragon to Tobi. While he had aspirations of overthrowing his master, he's defeated by Naruto before those plans could take off the ground.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While killing Hanzo is justified to a degree, to kill off all of his associates, loyal followers, and relatives, children and "even babies" included seems like an overstretch.
• The Dragon: Initially seen as the one in charge, Tobi is the true leader of the Akatsuki, with Nagato only being Tobi’s right-hand man and the Akatsuki’s figurehead of sorts.
• Dragon with an Agenda: He is one to Tobi, since his final plan completely contradicts the plan Tobi has. Whilst Tobi wants to bring back the Ten Tailed Beast to achieve world conquest, Nagato wants to develop a superweapon to stop wars and bring small bouts of peace before the weapon is bought to use again. Of course, it's possible that Tobi didn't let Nagato in on the full details of the Eye of the Moon Plan.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Nagato, using the Six Paths of Pain, gave Naruto the fight of his life. Using his own single body after being resurrected, is an even more massive badass despite his crippled legs, as he managed to overwhelm Naruto (in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode), Killer B (in perfect jinchūriki form), and Itachi (who, this time, lacked the weakness of low chakra reserves and eye side-effects). Who knows what would have happened if this guy could've used his legs?
• The Dreaded: Jiraiya nearly shat himself when he heard that Pain had defeated Hanzo, who a younger Jiraiya had failed to defeat even with the support of his team. He goes to his Super Mode to counter Pain's power but sadly it's not enough, as he didn't have enough information on it. Sometime later Pain makes the whole of Konoha wet their pants when he effortlessly destroys the village.
• Driven to Villainy: Loses his parents, is orphaned and homeless, loses his pet dog, kickstarts an organization only to be betrayed by his country's leader, leading to his dearest friend's suicide. What do you think would happen after Nagato went through all of this?
• Dueling Messiahs: His fight with Naruto. Pain wanted to bring peace by creating a horrifically destructive jutsu (which would get used), thereby horrifying/scaring everyone into peace for a long time. Once time lets people get over it, they will use it again, after this there will be a very long period of peace, rinse and repeat till the end of time. Naruto wanted to achieve peace in a much more moral yet still unexplained way that he still probably hasn't come up with.
• Due to the Dead: He was seen to be quite respectful to the fallen and the dead. Suggesting that Akatsuki mourn for Deidara after his passing, and he reprimanded Kisame for calling Hidan and Kakuzu the "Zombie Combo". After his battle with Jiraiya, he held a moment of silence for his former teacher, out of respect for his power.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Pain's plan for the Tailed Beasts is a rare tragic example that subverts Utopia Justifies the Means. He wanted to create and give free access to a Fantastic Nuke so powerful its use would deter future wars, seemingly forever. But he eventually explains that he doesn't expect this peace to last, just create a Vicious Cycle that alternates between mass annihilation and living in fear thereof. In essence, Pain became so obsessed with bringing peace that he went past Utopia Justifies the Means to aiming for a world technically at peace, but worse off for it.
• Elemental Powers: During his training with Jiraiya, Nagato mastered all five nature transformations, and unlike Kakuzu it was his natural affinity for all five natures.
• Energy Absorption: The Preta Path has the ability to absorb chakra in any form. This ability is primarily defensive in nature as it is capable of absorbing chakra from an individual through physical contact. In addition to this, the Preta Path is able to absorb ninjutsu-based techniques, thereby nullifying their effect. This is done by forming a barrier around the user's entire body, allowing them to absorb attacks from all directions. During the 4th Shinobi World War, Nagato used the Preta Path ability to absorb Killer B's chakra while he was in his Version 2 form. He then apparently used the chakra to revitalise his body to its state before it was emaciated by the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. It also restored his hair colour back from white to red.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Naruto's third one. Both of them are students of Jiraiya who seek to continue the will of their sensei and bring peace to the world. Bonus points for they both being a fellow descendant of the Uzumaki clan.
  • Even more so to Minato. Both of them were Jiraiya's student with rare Story Breaker Powers whose best showing involves curb stomping a big shinobi army, both were assumed to be the child of prophecy, both became leader of their village & genuinely loved their village. The only difference was Nagato willingness to cross any line to save his village & having a wider worldview, beyond a single village.
  • Funny enough he is one to Kushina Uzumaki as well, making him this trope for the entire family. Like Kushina, he was an Uzumaki displaced by the destruction of their village. They both possessed exceptional chakra & were given rare powers that are associated with legendary Rikudou Sennin with the purpose of using them as tools for somebody else's work. While Kushina found love & respect from everyone in Konoha, turning her into an idealist, Nagato faced constant warfare & death, becoming a cynic. They even died during separate attacks on Konoha, with one pulling a Heroic Sacrifice while other pulling a Redemption Equals Death sacrifice.
  • He can also be considered one to Hashirama Senju, the founder of the very village Nagato came to hate. They both suffered numerous childhood tragedies as a result of the constant wars that occurred, which led to them founding organizations alongside their best friends (ie. Madara and Yahiko) that could reform the current Shinobi system and put an end to world conflict (ie. the Leaf Village and Akatsuki). Their immense power led to them being likened to gods by their respective villages, with Hashirama earning the moniker "God of Shinobi" while Nagato was outright worshipped as a god by his village. Nagato's plan for the Tailed Beasts can even be seen as a dark mirror of what Hashirama did. While Hashirama distributed the Tailed Beasts to the other villages as peace offerings and thus encourage mutual cooperation, Nagato instead sought to use the Tailed Beasts' chakra as a weapon of mass destruction that would frighten the hidden villages into keeping the peace. To top it all off, being an Uzumaki made Nagato a distant relative of Hashirama and the rest of the Senju.
• Evil Cripple: Nagato lost full use of his legs after saving Konan from Hanzo's fire attack. After absorbing the Eight Tails' chakra as an Edo Tensei, he regains the use of them, but the lack of muscle memory as a result meant that he couldn't fully move about on his own.
• Evil Red Head: Yahiko, and all of Pain's bodies (even the ones that weren't in life) except the bald Asura path, have orange hair, while Nagato has dark red hair.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Nagato introduces Naruto to his backstory on the death of his parents, displaying that he never really got over it. The death of Chibi left him devastated and Yahiko's suicide was what eventually drove him off the deep end. His partner Konan is the last personal confidant he has left when Nagato operates under the alias of Pain.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Has the Rinnegan, after all.
• Face–Heel Turn: Nagato was initially an idealistic boy inspired by Yahiko and Jiraiya to aim for world peace. Unfortunately, tragedy constantly befell on him multiple times, culminating on Yahiko's death. This, alongside Tobi's influence, caused Nagato to descend into a dark path. He still retains his goal of world peace, despite his view of attaining it.
• Faith–Heel Turn: Nagato was inspired by Jiraiya, whom had mentored, cared and trained him for years. His teachings were also influential to Yahiko, and in turn, Akatsuki before Yahiko's death. Much later on due to tragic circumstances, Nagato, as Pain, has come to see Jiraiya's teachings as too childlike and outdated.
• Fantastic Nuke: His powered up Shinra Tensei can topple and flatten an entire village to the ground. Though it requires Nagato to channel all of his chakra to the Deva Path, temporarily sacrificing the other five paths.
• Fat Bastard: Preta Path is overweight, symbolizing his ability to endlessly consume chakra.
• Fallen Hero: Nagato was once an idealist through Jiraiya's tutelage until he lost his best friend and Tobi sunk his claws into him.
• Freak Out: Nagato after Yahiko's death.
• Freudian Excuse: He wants to make the ultimate weapon of mass destruction and bring suffering to the entire world because he saw his parents killed by enemy ninja and grew up orphaned in a country constantly embroiled in both civil wars and war with other countries. When he, Konan, and Yahiko lead a peaceful organization, they're attacked by Hanzo, backed by Danzo, both of which have brought a small army with them thinking the group are revolutionists. When Nagato is left with the choice of killing Yahiko, the leader or watching Konan be killed, Yahiko grabs Nagato's knife and kills himself with it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: While he is a descendant of the Sage of Six Paths and the Uzumaki clan, he was born to a normal family of non-shinobi people, as well as a Street Urchin who stole food to survive. Who would've thought he'd grow up to be the "leader" of the Akatsuki, killing Hanzo who defeated the Sannin, and reducing the Leaf Village to a crater and creating a mini moon in his acts as a Physical God.

G - L

• The Gift: While he wasn't formally educated, Nagato still manages to stand out among most characters. Possessing the Rinnegan, trained by Jiraiya, immense talent and mastery and a consideration for world savior. While he does go down a darker path, he fronts an organization composed of incredibly power S-Ranked Missing-Nins.
• Go Out with a Smile: With his faith restored by Naruto, Nagato dies with a smile on his face, wondering if perhaps all the circumstances that led him to his end were the work of a real god. When he breaks into the shrine housing Nagato and Yahiko's bodies, Tobi wonders if Nagato was smiling out of spite towards him.
• Goal in Life: After going through the death of his parents and his pet dog, Nagato was influenced to stand up for his orphan friends and work towards bringing peace to their home village Amegakure and the Ninja World. Even after his fall to villainy, Nagato kept his dream of world peace intact, despite becoming more accepting of violence, brutality and other morally questionable actions.
• A God Am I: Wielding the Rinnegan and believing the traumas he experienced in his youth had enlightened him to the true meaning of pain and suffering, he considered himself a deity, and believed he had evolved beyond a mere human being.
• God Guise: During his battle with Naruto, he reveals that his A God Am I attitude is simply a farce on his part. He actually does not think that he's a god. In fact, he repeatedly tells Naruto during their battle that he is only a man, and that he himself is extremely well aware of his own mortality.
• Gonk: The Asura Path.
• Good Is Old-Fashioned: He viewed Jiraiya and his beliefs in peace as childish because they would lead no where.
• Gravity Master: The Deva Path can manipulate attractive and repulsive forces with objects and people. With the Chibaku Tensei, a black sphere is released that attracts all the surrounding matter to create a huge makeshift terrestrial body.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: He pulls a weird one on Naruto: after he impales Fukasaku, he throws the corpse at Naruto, which distracts him long enough for Pain to pull him in and pin him down.
• Handicapped Badass: Following his first fight with Hanzō, Nagato's legs were badly damaged and his body was left frail. This limited his mobility for the rest of his life and rendered his original body largely defenceless. He regained some of his former mobility after being reincarnated and taking some of the Eight-Tails' chakra. When not handicapped, Nagato could rapidly move around a battlefield, closing the gap between himself and his opponents fast enough to force them to retreat. Unfortunately, he is unable to use his legs to evade his sealing by Itachi.
• Head Blast: The Asura Path has a laser cannon hidden inside its skull.
• Heartbroken Badass: The leading figure of an elite criminal organization, possesses the Rinnegan and thus is speculated to be a prophetic figure, comes across as a deity towards his village, is one of the most powerful and terrifying ninjas to ever exist and is a natural prodigy, yet in all of this, Nagato is simply just a broken man who's entire life was mired in war, death and suffering. He still recalls the deaths of his parents, Chibi and Yahiko, signifying he never got over them.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Nagato was a sweet, adorable boy during his youth. Among the trio consisting of him, Konan and Yahiko, he was the most sensitive and emotional out of them all.
• The Heavy: While he turns out to simply be The Dragon to Tobi, his position as the Akatsuki's apparent leader and public face makes him the greatest and most prominent threat for the first half of Shippuden, until he dies and Tobi initiates the Fourth Shinobi War.
• Heel–Face Turn: After talking with Naruto, Nagato pulled it realizing the error of his path and accepting Naruto's ideals about peace, also regaining his faith in Jiraiya. Subsequently he uses a jutsu to revive many of the Konoha ninja he killed, dying in the process.
• Hellish Pupils: The Rinnegan. Best shown when Pain impales Naruto's palms together to the ground, followed by a vision of the Rinnegan opening ominously behind a stunned Naruto.
• Hero Killer: Killed Jiraiya, Kakashi, Shizune and Fukasaku, and nearly killed Hinata and Choza. Subverted in that he brought them all back to life, except for Jiraiya.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Initially Akatsuki sought to work with Hanzo but they were betrayed and Yahiko was killed as a result. Afterwards he sought Hanzo out and killed him off and everyone associated with him in order to establish himself as casting God's judgement.
• Hive Mind: The Six Paths of Pain technique, which controls six bodies that are in constant communication, and it's justified in that they're being controlled and coordinated by one person. Each path is also granted a different power...
  • Deva Path: Which has limited control over gravity through pushing and pulling things, as well as the ability to create what is best described as a miniature black hole.
  • Asura Path: Which transforms the body into a cybernetic Anatomy Arsenal, including an Arm Cannon, Beware My Stinger Tail, Multi-Armed and Dangerous, Multiple Head Case, Rocket Boots and Rocket Punch.
  • Human Path: Which can read the mind and soul as well as tear it from the body.
  • Animal Path: Which summons Bond Creatures controlled by the Rinnengan, including a Stone Panda, a Giant Buffalo, a giant centipede, a giant bubble blowing crayfish, a Hell Hound that can separate its many heads into new bodies, a gigantic drill-beaked bird and Giant Chameleon.
  • Preta Path: Which absorbs and seals chakra and ninjutsu.
  • Naraka Path: Which summon an entity that tears the tongue from liars and regenerates the other paths.
  • Outer Path: Which can resurrect the deceased as well as controls the Statue of the Outer Path.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Preta Path puts Naruto in a hold to drain away all of his chakra. Since he can't move anyway, Naruto takes the opportunity to gather up more sage chakra. Draining that turns Preta Path into a frog.
• Hollywood Cyborg: Asura Path's powers allow it to transform and create a variety of cybernetic weapons.
• Humans Are Bastards: Nagato's personal experience of war and losing loved ones made him incredibly bitter about human beings, and believes that in his end goal, people will find a way to start wars after a peaceful time period.
• Hydra Problem: The Animal Path can summon hounds that split when cut or struck.
• Hypocrite:
  • He tells Tsunade to not be haughty. Considering the fact that he call himself to be a god and that he's divine... Well, arrogance is blinding, isn't it?
  • He condemns the system of five hidden villages because their "peace" is built on a set human lives despite the fact that Nagato himself is going to bring a lot more of human lives the sacrifice for the sake of what he calls "peace".
  • Despite of all his ideas of peace, he himself markedly loves battle and violence as for example in during his climactic fight against Naruto when Naruto at his mercy, he critically injured Hinata right in front of him instead of just taking him to the Akatsuki only because he really wanted to fight Naruto in his Nine-Tailed form.
• Iconic Sequel Character: Pain does make an appearance pre timeskip, albeit only as a hologram, and he continues to do so for much of Shippuden. He is given slight glimpses of his facial features, including the Rinnegan, until his full appearance with him and Konan talking to Tobi whilst the latter proclaims about possessing "Madara Uchiha's power". From there, he establishes some of the most iconic and important events in the series, such as his battle against Jiraiya, delivering the death of said character, his invasion on Konoha, his fight against Naruto which led to Hinata's declaration of love and his direct meeting with Naruto as Nagato. He eventually winds up as one of the most influential antagonists in the series.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • As Pain, Nagato seems to be certified on the giving end of impaling his opponents. He killed Jiraiya and Fukasaku with chakra receivers fashioned in a similar way to spears. In a filler arc, he manages to subdue Utakata by throwing his chakra receivers onto his tails and does the same to Naruto by ramming a receiver onto his palms and inflict shallower ones on his back. In the climax of his fight against Hinata, he nearly killed her with a stab from his receiver.
  • Nagato himself gets the receiving end on his own accord, courtesy of the chakra receivers being impaled behind him by the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which rendered him physically frail and requiring a machine for movement.
• Implacable Man: Pain's modus operandi until he faced Naruto.
• In the Blood: As a member of the Uzumaki clan, Nagato was endowed with a very powerful life force, enabling him to survive attacks that would have normally killed anyone else. Nagato summoning the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and being connected to the statue would have killed him, had it not been for his life energy, which instead resulted in him emaciating and crippling him.
• Insane Troll Logic: All his arguments about his plan to end all the war are absolutely illogical. His plan was to create a weapon so powerful it could destroy an entire country in a single attack. Thus ending all wars out of fear of the weapon's use and ushering in an era of true peace. But Pain also knows that people will eventually forget about all that and just go back to fighting so they used his weapon again and this will allow future civilizations to experience the terror of destruction themselves and revert to peace for short periods before doing it all over again. So he claims that wants to create "true peace" though any adequate person would say that his plan will not lead to anything resembling "true peace" at all. But apparently he just can't think of a better plan.
• It's Personal:
  • Because Konoha was partly responsible for the tragedies in his life, he held a great deal of animosity towards the village. Although Jiraiya's influence improved his opinion of the village during their time together, he eventually came to believe that Konoha profited from the tragedies of others and hated it and his former teacher.
  • Initially wanted to strike a partnership with Hanzo during Akatsuki's tenure with Yahiko's leadership. When Yahiko died due to betrayal on Hanzo's (and Danzo's) part, Nagato attempted to kill him immediately. While he initially failed, he would later have his revenge years later when he mercilessly kills Hanzo as Pain to usurp leadership over Amegakure. To further the point, Pain even had all of Hanzo's family and close associates killed.
• I've Come Too Far: Never stated outright, but given how much of his power and lifespan he invests into attacking Konoha personally, it's implied he has hit the organization's Godzilla Threshold; With eight (actually seven since they only had the tentacle of the Eight Tails, but as Tobi proved, that would still do the job to an extent) Tailed Beasts gathered, Pain is within spitting distance of his Evil Plan and thus he took no mercy with the Hidden Village, with thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. He does try to repair a lot of the damage he'd done by giving life back to all those he killed during his rampage before passing on.
• The Juggernaut: Up until he fought Naruto, Pain had not been defeated once and was strong enough to take on and overpower Jiraiya, one of the strongest ninjas of his time. His unstoppable demeanor reaches a head when he arrives in Konoha, where he proceeds to slaughter a large amount of civilians and powerful ninjas, including Kakashi, despite losing one body, and single-handedly destroyed the village with a powered up Shinra Tensei. That, and possessing the Rinnegan allowed Pain to access a plethora of powers never seen before for most characters and having techniques that can cause large-scale destruction make Pain among the strongest characters in the series.
• Kick the Dog: His nearly killing Hinata to demonstrate a lesson of pain to Naruto.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: He's the one who killed Hanzo.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Hanzo invokes this to him in a lose-lose situation to either kill Yahiko or else Konan dies. The end results were obviously catastrophic on Nagato's part.
• Knight of Cerebus: In his first appearance he kill one of the most influential mentors to Naruto, Jiraiya and then single-handedly destroyed the Leaf Village, and brought Tsunade to a coma. He also killed numerous named characters, such as Shizune and Fukasaku, lead Kakashi to his death, and nearly-killed Hinata, though these were reversed with his redemption, other than Jiraiya.
• The Leader: Appears to be the leading figure for the Akatsuki, giving out orders to his subordinates and initiating the technique to extract a tailed beast from its jinchuriki. Ultimately, it turns out he is a front to the actual leader, Tobi.
• Leitmotif: "Girei", which perfectly captures everything about his public appearance as a god-like entity ruling Amegakure from the shadows.
• Lie Detector: The Naraka Parth is able to summon the King of Hell, with which to threaten and kill his enemies should they be caught of lying.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Deva Path. When you can keep up with and beat up on both the Four-Tailed and Six-Tailed manifestations of the Nine-Tailed Fox while simultaneously taking whatever it can dish out, you deserve the title.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Yahiko was this to Nagato. In fact, it was Yahiko that inspired Nagato to pursue world peace and his idealistic nature during his childhood. That being said, Yahiko's suicide was an event Nagato was never able to move on from.
• Love Makes You Evil: A platonic example. If continuous misfortune and tragedy wasn't enough, Yahiko's death was what ultimately drove Nagato to cynicism and villainy.

M - R

• Madness Mantra: "(Now) Do you understand pain?"
• Magical Eye: The second-most powerful ones in the setting. It gives him the powers in the Super Power Lottery above although due to his immobility he is forced to divide his abilities between six puppets.
• Malevolent Mutilation: The Six Paths are literally covered in chakra receiver body piercings.
• Mass Resurrection: He uses the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique to revive all the Konoha villagers he killed.
• The Man Behind the Curtain: The Six Paths of Pain are insanely powerful, but they're just puppets. Nagato is extremely weak physically, extremely skinny, and has difficulties to walk unaided.
• Many-Faced Divinity: Aside from having literally multiple bodies, the Asura path can grow additional faces on itself in a direct inspiration from the Asura.
• The Messiah: Averted in the end. While Jiraiya trained Nagato in the hopes that he will be seen as the Child of Prophecy in the future, this never came into fruition, and the title would instead be manifested to Naruto. Despite this however, Nagato, under the alias of Pain, was seen as this by Amegakure residents during his leadership.
• Messianic Archetype: As he wielded the Rinnegan who, up until that point, was only wielded by the Sage of Six Paths and many had dismissed it as myth, Jiraiya came to speculate that Nagato was the Child of Prophecy, destined to bring peace to the shinobi world. He was also naturally gifted and was able to master all five main elements, alongside much more.
• Mighty Glacier: Nagato is able to use all abilities of the Pain Rikudo, making his main body one the strongest individuals in the Naruto universe. But due to his almost immobile legs, he cannot dodge by his own; that is one of his greatest weaknesses he has. That's why he let the Pain Rikudo fight.
• Mind Manipulation: Via Your Soul Is Mine!, the Human Path can absorb all knowledge a target has.
• Mirror Character:
  • Prior to his breakdown and corruption, Nagato was remarkably similar to Naruto. Both were orphaned at a young age, struggled with loneliness, displayed great camaraderie, and were able to rally up a group of followers for their lifelong goal of world peace. To further their similarities, they were trained by Jiraiya, and in one of Jiraiya's novels, a character named "Naruto" was based on Nagato himself.
  • In addition to Naruto, Nagato was also not so different from Obito Uchiha. Both were orphans who wandered around the streets whilst trying to persevere, were incredibly emotional and lonely and deeply treasured camaraderie and friendship. The similarities become much more deep upon the revelation that Tobi was Obito; both suffered massive tragedies that eventually distorted their philosophies and began to pursue them in a bleaker, violent manner. Both of them were also responsible for the deaths of their former masters and aimed for world peace, albeit in a very twisted fashion. The last similarity is how both tend to be shadowy counterparts to Naruto himself.
• Misery Builds Character: Once an orphan who grew an idealistic boy who forms a long-lasting bond with two friends, trained by a legendary shinobi and aims for world peace. His end result; to become further broken by betrayal from his country's leader and the death of his best friend, become more cynical and become the leader of a terrorist organization. Essentially, Nagato's path is a dark inverse to Naruto's.
• Moral Myopia: He lampshades this to Naruto. Naruto says that after killing his mentor, sensei and village he has no right to claim he desires to bring peace. Nagato, through the Deva Path, instantly asks then how come only Konoha has the right to talk about peace, when they killed his family, friends and destroyed his village. A horrified Naruto couldn´t answer and instead looked away from Pain's stare.
• Morality Pet: Konan is the only thing that's kept him tethered to humanity, to the point that even though Tobi and Zetsu know she's a ticking time bomb in betraying them eventually, to dispose of her would bring Nagato's wrath on them. Akatsuki Hiden even revealed that Tobi once sent Konan on a suicide mission in hopes of removing the last emotional crutch Nagato had, which would make him easier for Tobi to manipulate.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Asura Path can create multiple arms, true to its name.
• Must Make Amends: After being convinced by Naruto that Jiraiya's path is the correct one, he sacrifices himself to resurrect everyone he'd killed during his attack on Konoha.
• My God, What Have I Done?: As a child, he and Yahiko were assaulted by an Iwagakure ninja. Fearing for his friend's life, Nagato used his Rinnegan to kill the Iwa-nin. Nagato was remorseful for killing the Iwa-nin, but Jiraiya convinced him that sometimes violence and personal pain was necessary to protect others.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • The Six Paths are named after the six possible reincarnations in Buddhism; God (Deva), Human (Masunya), Demi-God (Asura), Animal (Tyriag), Hungry Ghost (Preta) and Hell (Naraka), with appropriately thematic abilities divided among the six corpses he uses for it.
  • The first words of his Deva Path's two primary Jutsu combine to make the word Shinrabansho, a Japanese theological term for describing all of creation. Hence, they would translate as something like "Push and Pull of All Things".
• Named After Someone Famous: Nagato likely derived from a Iga Jonin named Fujibayashi Nagato.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Well, duh! Who wants to be friends with a guy called "Pain"?
• Necromancer: With the Six Paths technique, Nagato is able to reanimate and control at least six different corpses via chakra receivers fashioned as body piercings inserted around the body.
• Nice Guy: In his youth, Nagato was a shy, caring, and humble boy with an idealistic dream and was determined to step up for his friends and goal.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Naruto was down for the count and demoralized... until Pain almost killed Hinata, which resulted in the Nine-Tails coming within a hair's breadth of being completely unsealed.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: This is a man whose only desire in life was a world of peace and compassion, and he struggled to make life better for everyone. Fate's response was to destroy everything he held dear in the cruelest possible way, thus causing his Start of Darkness.
• Nosebleed: A more serious example. As the Deva Path uses Chibaku Tensei, Nagato's nose bleeds due to the excessive amount of chakra he is using.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: His capture of the Six-Tails is expanded on in the anime. It truly goes to show how much of a joke even the most powerful ninjas of the current generation are to him.
• One-Man Army: During his attack on Konoha, when the Six Paths were dispersed throughout the village to act strategically, they managed to wreak devastation and kill many powerful shinobi. Nagato had effectively almost singlehandedly overpowered the village.
• Only Sane Employee: He seems to be the only member of Akatsuki that cares about the organization itself, and is constantly telling the other members not to piss off each other and not make light of their comrades' deaths. Justified in a way, seeing how he was one of the co-founders of the original Akatsuki.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Losing his parents was his first source of pain in his life. As a child, he would break down into tears being reminded of them and even as an adult he admits he still can't get over his loss.
• The Paralyzer: He manages to paralyze Naruto's movements somewhat when he stabs him with multiple control rods.
• The Pawn: He was a pawn in the grand scheme of Madara and eventually Tobi's plans. As Madara implanted his Rinnegan into Nagato and planned to use him to revive himself. Tobi required Nagato to synchronize with the Gedo Statue, and intended to have Nagato use the Rinne Tensei on Tobi should something happen to him. Nagato, however, already was formulating his own plan, and ultimately made his own choice to betray Tobi in favor of Naruto's idealism.
• Peaceful in Death: He smiles while passing away, musing about the path Naruto had undertaken and choosing to put his faith onto him after being impressed by his unwavering willpower and idealism.
• People Puppets: Nagato could form what he calls his "Six Paths of Pain". By embedding black receivers throughout the bodies of six corpses he arranged them to resemble body piercings. Nagato was able to control all of them remotely as though they were his own.
• Perpetual Frowner: Nagato was mostly seen with a calm, serious face, even when taking on tough battles for the most part. Considering what he went through as a child, its hard not to blame him for looking so grim.
• Person of Mass Destruction: In general, Pain is a one... er, six-man army who can level villages on his own. In particular, his Shinra Tensei technique. It's also been shown that he is perfectly capable of being a one-man army on his own, since he is the Six Paths, and can use the abilities better than through People Puppets.
• The Philosopher: Easily summed up as "Humans Are Bastards" and "War Is Hell".
• The Poorly Chosen One: Nagato was raised by Jiraiya, who believed that he to be The Chosen One of an ancient prophecy destined to save the world and his best friend Yahiko also believed in it. However, later Yahiko died, Tobi sunk his claws into Nagato and he becomes Pain...
• Power Floats: With Nagato sacrificing the other five paths for a brief moment and putting in most of his power onto the Deva Path, the latter gains the ability to levitate. This isn't used again due to the amount of chakra needed to allow for it.
• Pride: Well, you might expect from a man dare to call himself a god. Also, this is the ultimate cause of his defeat: See Pride Before a Fall a below.
• Pride Before a Fall:
  • When he has Naruto pinned down and impaled with six chakra draining rods to prevent movement. Instead of simply capturing him right then and there, he stabs Hinata in a way that would make her bleed out quickly without immediate medical attention. Turns out those chakra draining rods are no match for six tails of the Kyuubi's power, and his trump card is no match for eight tails. Pain snatches defeat, but also some redemption, from the jaws of victory because of nothing but his ego.
  • The same can be said of his annihilation of the Hidden Leaf Village shortly beforehand. Despite having already won the battle and gotten what he wanted (the location of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki), Pain insists on physically destroying the entire village before leaving, expending significant chakra to do so and severely straining himself. It's entirely possible that, had he not been weakened by this effort, he might have been strong enough to succeed in his capture of the Kyuubi. And it's particularly notable considering that, up until this point, despite his repeated A God Am I declarations, Pain had demonstrated a very realistic evaluation of his own abilities, putting careful thought into his strategies and averting Explaining Your Powers to the Enemy to great effect. In both the above instances, he did what he did to make others know pain, showing how important that motivation is to him.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "Now, the world shall know pain... SHINRA TENSEI"
• Purple Is Powerful: Courtesy of the Rinnegan.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gave one to Tsunade about the big villages not caring if they hurt the smaller ones. She's not convinced and claims that even the big villages suffer. Not to be outdone, Pain's response was to crush the village.
• Redemption Equals Death: After being impressed by Naruto's conviction, he uses up the last of his power and his life to revive everyone killed during his invasion of the Hidden Leaf.
• Retcon: The Rinnegan and Nagato himself have some alterations to their story some time after Pain's defeat and Nagato's death. The Rinnegan was first introduced as the third dojutsu, similar to the Byakugan and Sharingan except far more powerful. Nagato's backstory goes on to show that Nagato had this ability at a very young age, and everyone assumes he was born with the ability, Jiraiya assumes as such and every other character agrees with this assessment despite Nagato being a nobody with no otherwise known connection or reason to inherit the Rinnegan. Sometime later, it's stated that his eyes were Madara's and one actually needs Uchiha and Senju DNA to create and use the Rinnegan, and that Madara just secretly gave them to Nagato to retrieve them later.
• The Reveal: He's revealed to be a member of the Uzumaki Clan upon Tobi's collecting of his corpse, citing his red hair as means of identification, in the same vein as Kushina's. Naruto himself never finds this out, however.
• Ruling Family Massacre: When Pain killed Hanzo and took leadership of Amegakure, he proceeded to kill all of Hanzo's relatives and associates to secure his control of the village and demonstrate his divine punishment. Although, Nagato may have had a more personal reason for doing so other than just taking over the village, as Hanzo was responsible for Yahiko's death.

S - Y

• Sadistic Choice: When Hanzo attacked his group out of paranoia he had to kill Yahiko or else Hanzo would kill Konan. When Nagato freezes up at the thought of hurting either of his friends, Yahiko Takes a Third Option: he grabs the arm the chooser was holding a kunai in and stabs himself with it.
• Satellite Character: He was one to Yahiko in the backstory. For all that he's supposedly prophesies to change the world, he spends all his time orbiting Yahiko and tells Jiraiya that all he really wants to do is protect Yahiko and Konan. After they form the Akatsuki, Nagato becomes Yahiko's Lancer, dedicating himself to ensuring his friend's dream comes true. When Yahiko dies, and Nagato loses a planet around he snaps and becomes Pain...and is still trying to fulfill Yahiko's dream of a peaceful world, not so much because he cares, since it was Yahiko's. Even after all this time, he's still chasing his friend's ghost.
• Schizo Tech: The Asura Path tosses around heat-seeking missiles, rocket-propelled punches, and laser cannons.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Although the Six Paths were individually strong, they were at their most formidable when used together, with the simultaneous use of all six being the primary reason for Pain's infamous invincibility. This was because the six Paths, as well as the Animal Path's summons and the King of Hell, let Nagato share their vision, allowing him to coordinate their movements with maximum efficiency. They could attack from multiple angles and dodge attacks they couldn't have seen but that occurred within another Path's field of vision.
• Semi-Divine: Nagato possesses the Rinnegan and has abilities that could be likened to those of a god, but he is still a human and is just as vulnerable as one.
• Shadow Dictator: He rules the Hidden Rain Village as a god after annihilating everyone even remotely associated with the old leader, but nobody's ever actually met him in person.
• Shipper on Deck The anime makes him out to be one for Konan and Yahiko during Akatsuki's formative years.
  Nagato: "Do you like Konan, Yahiko? ... I think Konan likes you."
• Shirtless Scene: Deva Path's coat is shredded during his fight with Six-Tailed Version 2 Fox Cloak Naruto.
• Shoot the Medic First: The Naraka Path can infinitely revive the others as long as he's around.
• Shrinking Violet: As a child.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: After experiencing more losses after Jiraiya's departure, he came to believe Jiraiya's beliefs as false and considered true peace wasn't possible. Part of the reason he doesn't capture or kill Naruto immediately is that he can't stand Naruto's Heroic Spirit and wants to hammer the cruel reality of the world into his head before finishing him off, but unfortunately for Nagato he just does not break.
• Slasher Smile: The Asura Path seems to have its facial expressions fixated to this.
• Spanner in the Works: His Redemption Equals Death spoiled plans for both Tobi and Madara. Both wanted to use him to their advantage and both were unhappy with his betrayal.
• Sphere of Destruction: Nagato can use Chibaku Tensei, which has the Deva Path creating a black orb that uproots the earth on a large scale and forces them upwards to collide with the orb and fuse with other debris that is drawn in, essentially creating a small planetoid.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Nagato and his Six Paths of Pain can generate black chakra rods from their bodies. They also serve as piercings inserted into the bodies of Pain, so Nagato can control them. The Six Paths of Pain then create more of them in battle from within their cloak. By stabbing a target with these receivers Nagato can transmit his chakra into them, hindering their movements if pierced with only one receiver, and completely paralyzing them if pierced through multiple pressure points.
• Squishy Wizard: For all the power the Rinnegan gives him, with his horribly mangled legs he's not going anywhere unaided.
• Start of Darkness: He lived in a state of constant war, as his homeland was the battleground for all the bigger countries' wars. For years, he was subtly manipulated by Tobi. Then, his parents were killed in front of him. Eventually, the death of his dear friend Yahiko and his subsequent crippling drove him to share his Pain with the rest of the world.
• Start X to Stop X: Pain's grand plan is to get people to see first-hand the horrors of fantastic nuclear warfare and make war much less likely by virtue of mutually assured destruction. He flat out states that his plan is a stop-gap measure, and he expects them to resume fighting and nuke each other once they've forgotten how terrible it is. And eventually, revert to peace for short periods before doing it all over again.
• The Stoic: He definitely fit since the death of Yahiko. Especially as Deva Path.
• Story-Breaker Power: There's a reason fans accuse him of being a God-Mode Sue: His Rinnegan and Senju ancestry give him ridiculous amounts of chakra that rivals the Nine-Tails, a virtually unlimited number of summons, level entire cities, create miniature moons, read minds, rip souls from peoples' bodies, and revive the dead all while being in a wheelchair.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: He was introduced as a mysterious, shadowy figure in Part I, referred to only as "the Akatsuki leader" by other characters, and his face wasn't revealed until halfway through Part II where he turned out to be...some guy we had never seen before, and even that turned out to be the Yahiko / Deva Path body and not his true form, who was also a total stranger up until that point in the story.
• Street Urchin: Nagato was forced to wander around the streets of Amegakure after being orphaned by Konoha ninja who accidentally killed his parents. The only individuals who noticed and looked after him were his stray dog companion Chibi, Konan, and Yahiko. Only when they found Jiraiya did they settle down in a definite shelter.
• Summon Magic: The Animal Path can summon creatures and the other Six Paths of Pain.
• Superpower Lottery: Of all the superpower lotteries in Naruto, Pain hit the absolute jackpot. It's revealed that he was actually given his eyes by the Big Bad, Madara Uchiha. He still hit the jackpot, but more by virtue of being one of the few related to the Senju bloodline that he didn't hate with a passion. The basic abilities of the Rinnegan include the ability to see Chakra, access to all five basic nature transformations, and the ability to create black Chakra receivers, which can disrupt the Chakra of anyone stabbed by them. Along with these abilities, Nagato has other abilities, which are split into 7 categories. These are described as "Paths" within the series itself.
  • Deva Path: gives the user the ability to control attractive and repulsive forces.
  • Asura Path: enables him to summon mechanical armor, which can allow him to grow extra limbs, extra faces, fire missiles, lasers, and generate blades.
  • Human Path: allows him to remove a person's soul, along with reading their mind.
  • Animal Path: allows him to summon a variety of different beasts, all of which seem to be immortal. He is also able to see through the eyes of each animal as well.
  • Preta Path: gives him the ability to absorb Chakra.
  • Naraka Path: allows Nagato to summon the King of Hell, through which Nagato can interrogate and punish anyone who lies to him. The King of Hell can also resurrect any of Nagato's separate ''Paths".
  • Outer Path, which allows the user to revive the dead, summon the Gedo Mazo and utilize Chakra chains capable of binding the Bijuu.
  • Notably, due to injuries sustained during battle, Nagato also created an entirely new technique with his "Paths", dubbed the ''Six Paths of Pain" or the "Six Paths Technique". This allows him to split each of the above 7 ability sets between himself and six corpses. He uses his Chakra receivers to control each of the bodies, while his true form, the 7th Path, is safely hidden some distance away. This also gives him the ability to see through each set of eyes for his different bodies, granting him a total of 7 fields of vision at once.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Amazed by Naruto's answer to world conflict, he is reminded of not only Jiraiya but himself when he was younger. Deciding that he will place his faith in Naruto, he uses the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique to revive everyone that died during his attack on Konoha. As a result, he dies from overusing his chakra.
• Teach Him Anger: Well, or pain in any way. He stabs Hinata in front of Naruto to "teach him pain" and prove that humans can never really understand each other. He's convinced that his pain is stronger than anyone else's so Naruto's resulting fury is no threat to him. Naruto proves him very, VERY wrong.
• This Cannot Be!: He loves saying it. The same Shinra Tensei that destroyed the entire home village was rendered useless by Naruto twice, leading to that phrase. Naruto, while in his six-tailed fox form, not only blocked it with a massive amount of chakra but he reflected it, hurling Pain into a cliff 2-3 miles away. He also resisted the attack a second time after coming out of his rage... using a hundred shadow clones. Pain's final resort to containing 6-tailed Naruto didn't work. Naruto broke out, with Pain saying "I can't believe it." upon seeing him in his skinless eight-tailed state.
• Together in Death: Before being sealed by Itachi's Totsuka Blade, he tells Naruto that he will return to Jiraiya's side and watch over his fellow pupil. Konan's own death strongly implies that once the Edo Tensei is undone, the Rain Orphans are reunified in the Pure World along with Jiraiya.
• Took a Level in Badass: Went from a sniveling brat to a godly badass over the course of his Backstory.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Once he's brought back as an Edo Tensei, he's shown to be far more mellow and light-hearted than he was as Pain.
• Took a Level in Cynic: After Yahiko's death and more losses, he came to believe that the world could only understand peace through the mutual understanding of pain.
• Took a Level in Idealism: When Naruto meets with Nagato in person after defeating the Six Paths, the two began to talk about Nagato's past, and eventually, their differences in ideologies. Naruto does manage to win over Nagato's thoughts, and as he sacrifices his life to restore the lives of those he had killed, he reconsiders his ideological view on the world and places his trust onto Naruto.
• Too Powerful to Live: The guy leveled an entire village on his own and resurrected hundreds of people. It's implied that had he not expended most of his chakra fighting Naruto he would have survived the usually fatal after-effects of the latter and been able to do it again. Coupled with his Heel–Face Turn thanks to Naruto, and...
• Touch of Death: While the Human Path is able to read minds via placing its palm onto a victim's head, it also causes their souls to be grabbed and forcibly ripped out of from its physical body, killing the victim instantly.
• Tragic Keepsake: He kept Yahiko's corpse as his most treasured and powerful Path of Pain, Deva.
• Tragic Villain: He lost his parents because two incompetent Konoha shinobi thought they were combatants and not civilians, his best friend kills himself to save him and Konan, and his dog, Chibi, was killed by a stray explosive when he was a child. Once his past is expanded upon, he becomes a far more sympathetic character.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Konoha ninja killed his parents in self-defense and, upon realizing they were only civilians, tried apologizing to Nagato. Overcome with grief, Nagato used his Rinnegan for the first time to kill them and avenge his parents.
• The Unfettered: A villainous example, as he's willing to do anything to achieve peace.
• The Unfought: Subverted. Nobody ever fought Nagato himself during the Pain arc, but he's revived by Kabuto using Edo Tensei, allowing him to have a proper battle against Naruto.
• Unknown Relative: A downplayed example. Nagato is a member of the Uzumaki Clan, thus making him distantly related to Naruto.
• Unstoppable Rage: Nagato slips into this after Yahiko dies. From that point on, he roars furiously as he summons the Demonic Statue and proceeds to kill much of Hanzo's men and members of ROOT.
• Unwitting Pawn: To both Tobi and the real Madara Uchiha. Nagato's role was to capture the Tailed Beasts for them, though it's unknown to what extent he was aware of the Eye of the Moon Plan. In Madara's case, Nagato was meant to bring him back to life once the plan was near completion, but that was thwarted by Tobi deciding to hijack the plan for himself and Nagato sacrificing his life to resurrect the Konoha ninja he killed instead.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Until the world stomped on him and his dreams until there was nothing left. After making peace with Naruto, his good nature returns.
• The Usurper: He becomes the leader of Amegakure after swiftly killing off Hanzo, the village's militant head.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Subverted. First, he claimed that wants to achieve utopias by harnessing the power of the tailed beasts to make a weapon of mass destruction that could destroy a country. If a war was started with one side lacking ninja, they would turn to Akatsuki, who would wipe out the entire opposing nation. After this, most countries would be too scared to start a war. However, he then reveals an even more cynical expectation that brings it toward Dystopia Justifies the Means: Pain knows that people will eventually forget about all that and just go back to fighting. Planning to leave it for future generations, Pain believes that the weapon will allow future civilizations to experience the terror of destruction themselves and revert to peace for short periods before doing it all over again.
• Villain Ball: During his climactic fight against Naruto, when he has Naruto at his mercy, he proceeds to blow up Konoha and critically injure Hinata right in front of him to try to prove a point instead of just taking him to the Akatsuki. Naruto snaps and gives in to the Nine-Tails, which proceeds to kick Pain's ass.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • With Konan, a friendship that began since they were children.
  • While they were no longer villains at that point, he surprisingly got along well with Itachi during their time as Edo Tensei zombies. He didn't seem to take it personally when learning that Itachi had been a spy the whole time.
• Villain Has a Point: When Naruto roars out on him for talking about peace, despite killing two of Naruto's teachers, hurting those he holds dearly, and destroying the village, Pain counteracts by asking Naruto why does Konoha have to talk about peace whilst other villages like Amegakure have to suffer due to them becoming battlefields for the Five Great Nations. Considering what Nagato went through as a child, and experiencing war and suffering first-hand, he is not wrong in that assessment. When Pain asks Naruto what does he have to offer for world peace, the latter is simply unable to answer.
• Villain Respect: As part of his Affably Evil he showed certain respect to his opponents and praising them for their skills and ability but to a greater extent shows this to his former sensei Jiraiya whom he considered strong enough to be able to defeat him if Jiraiya had prior knowledge about him.
• Villain with Good Publicity: A downplayed example. While most characters don't exactly hold a good opinion about Pain, the village of Amegakure seems to hold him up in very high regard, looking up to Pain as a "God". This is because Pain not only leads Akatsuki but also governs Amegakure.
• Visionary Villain: Nagato seeks peace just like Naruto does, but his party to getting there is a lot darker and bloodier.
• Violence is the Only Option: He sought to show the world the meaning of pain by using an ultimate weapon to deter future wars, by means similar to "mutually assured destruction", only then would people understand each other and begin peace.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Nagato is actually topless during the events of the series. His appearance is... not pretty to say the least.
• War Is Hell: He grew up during the 2nd Shinobi World War in Hidden Rain where the conflict between major nations was centralized. He lost his parents and ended up wandering alone in hunger until he met Yahiko and Konan. During the 3rd Shinobi World War, he lost Yahiko. Before his death, he explains how terrible war can be senselessly losing people causing never ending hatred and pain.
• The War to End All Wars: His plan was to create a weapon so powerful it could (and would) destroy an entire country in a single attack. Thus ending all wars out of fear of the weapon's use and ushering in an era of true peace. Of course, he's also cynical/realistic enough to expect that this won't really last as people begin to forget how terrifying the weapon is, war will flare up again, and the weapon will be used to enforce peace, over and over…
• Walking Spoiler: The sole fact that Nagato is alive is a huge spoiler. And it not to mention that simply showing the 6 paths of Pain is a spoiler, given Jiraiya fights and defeats only three bodies.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His goal is essentially gaining world peace by using the threat of, essentially, nuclear warfare in order to frighten people enough to stop fighting wars.
• When He Smiles: Although calm and stoic for the most part, there are times in which Nagato puts up a smile. Of a particular note, when Jiraiya mentors and inspires him for his dream, Nagato's response was to showcase a large, adorable smile.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Nagato had optimistic dreams about world peace during his childhood and as a member of Akatsuki under Yahiko's leadership.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He was witnessing his parents being killed when he was still a child. Though he did get revenge by activating the Rinnegan and killing the two shinobi who were mistaken as assassins. Nagato became an orphan, finding companionship from Yahiko and Konan, and was taken in by one of the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya, who took him and his friends in and taught them the ninja arts so that they could protect themselves and each other. This all went downhill as the group was locked into a Sadistic Choice that resulted in Yahiko's death, following which Nagato slaughtered a good number of the opposing force at the cost of his health. Nagato then obsessed with finding a method to establish absolute peace: whatever brought him into the Big Bad's clutches, it led to him demolishing a village full of people and leading a one-man (well, six or seven) assault against Konoha.
• The Worf Effect:
  • His invasion and destruction of Konoha are basically him showing off just how powerful he is.
  • Asura Path is defeated in one fell swoop by Naruto, to demonstrate how strong Naruto has become.
  • During his battle with Naruto as an Edo Tensei, Nagato puts the nearly-mastered Nine-Tails Chakra mode Naruto and Killer Bee on the ropes with little issue until they work out a weakness of his jutsu, whereas before Pain struggled to defeat the uncontrolled 6-tailed state.
• Worf Had the Flu: Pain versus Naruto could have been much more one-sided with the odds heavily against Naruto had it not been for the fact that Pain was trying to capture Naruto, not kill him. It also didn't help that he'd just finished fighting and leveling a village, and his most powerful body had its powers disabled at the start of the fight, and said body doesn't regain its strength until after Naruto destroyed the rest. That's not even getting into the fact that Nagato is in a crippled state to start with, forced to channel his chakra from a rather large distance, or the fact he still had enough power to revive the entire village by the time Naruto could barely even make his way to Nagato's location. When Nagato is revived during the fourth great war, he at first overpowers the improved Naruto, Killer Bee, and an Edo Tensei Itachi ^Note Itachi, who suffered mainly from poor stamina reserves in life, gets way more leverage out of the Jutsu than Nagato. and only loses when Kabuto forces him to use a technique that leaves him wide open (despite Kabuto's attempt to eliminate this vulnerability). All while Nagato still can't use his legs.
• World's Strongest Man: The strongest member of the Akatsuki, even acknowledged by Tobi as being invincible. His defeat by Naruto, Itachi, and Killer Bee drove Kabuto to resurrect the original Madara Uchiha. In fact, outside of Madara, Nagato is acknowledged as the single strongest Shinobi in an army that includes the second Tsuchikage, the Third Raikage, Ginkaku and Kinkaku, and Hanzo of the Salamander. And even then, Madara is tampered with by Kabuto to possess powers that he did not have until he was nearly dead of old age in his first life (Rinnegan and Wood-Style) in a physically restored youthful body.
• Would Hit a Girl: Notably, almost killing Hinata and attempting to kill Tsunade when she didn't agree with his opinion.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Hell Path had no reservations about using his jutsu in order to kill Konohamaru.
• You Remind Me of X: Naruto reminds him of his younger self, cue this line:
  Nagato: You are an odd kid… You remind me of myself when I was young… I couldn't believe what Jiraiya believed in… nor believe in myself… but you chose a different path. In you, I can see another future. I… will believe in you…

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"It seems my work ends here, Naruto. I believe you can bring true peace."

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