The Acknowledged One

Summary

Naruto fights to clutch onto his soul that the now-revitalized Nagato was attempting to remove from his body. B arrives at their location and attempts a surprise attack but it is foiled by the shared field-of-vision Nagato has with the Giant Snake-Tailed Chameleon and the King of Hell which had been summoned to store the young man's soul. In the clutches of Nagato's mechanical arms with a cannon pointing at him in point-blank range, the two jinchūriki are saved by Itachi and his Susanoo. Nagato, however, quickly regenerates and uses Chibaku Tensei with the intent of crushing his targets into the planetary body. Though Naruto raised the alarm that there was little they could do against this technique, Itachi rallies the group and has them use their most powerful long ranged attacks to target the center of the sphere, effectively neutralizing the attack. In the aftermath of this, Itachi is able to pierce Nagato with his Totsuka Sword freeing the Rinnegan-wielder from Kabuto's control. With the time he had left, Nagato lamented the fact that he had sullied the brilliant legacy their master had left behind and told Naruto to be the most amazing end to the trilogy that he could be. With this, Naruto tries to move out to the battlefield, but his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode wears off leading Itachi to tell him to not rely solely on his own power, but to put some trust in his comrades and their own power. After telling B to take care of Naruto, he incinerates the crow with Shisui's Sharingan and departs to deal with the person controlling the reincarnated shinobi.