Nine-Tails, Captured!

Fukasaku and Shima ready a genjutsu chant so Naruto can exploit the brief pauses between Pain's abilities. The Deva Path yanks Naruto in with a gravity pull while the Preta Path clamps down to drain his chakra, and his Sage Mode fades. Recognizing that being held still can work in his favor, Naruto keeps gathering natural energy, which the Preta Path greedily absorbs until it overloads, hardens into a frog statue, and is destroyed.

Frustrated at how far Naruto has pushed him, the Deva Path drags in Fukasaku and kills him, then pins Naruto's hands to the ground with a black rod. Having trapped the jinchuriki, Pain declares the world will finally understand real suffering before peace can follow. Naruto brands him a hypocrite for preaching peace after slaying Jiraiya and Kakashi and razing the village. Pain counters that he pursues the same peace Jiraiya sought and is avenging what the great nations did to Amegakure during the Second Shinobi World War, having lost everyone he loved to the cycle of hatred. He asks Naruto how he would end that cycle, and Naruto, recalling the burden Jiraiya passed to him, admits he has no answer yet.

Pain explains his design: by seizing the Nine-Tails he will command all nine tailed beasts and wield them to devastate entire nations, terrifying the world into avoiding war. In time that fear would fade and humanity would turn the beasts on each other again, repeating the cycle of destruction and dread. Elsewhere, Shikamaru resolves to find the real Pain so Shizune's death means something, and Inoichi recalls a memory of Pain dwelling in a high tower. Deducing the true body must be in the tallest tower near Konoha, they set out to locate him. Within that tower, the crippled and ailing Nagato is revealed as the real Pain, directing the Deva Path, while Konan urges him to rest after coughing up blood.

Naruto destroys the Preta Path by overfeeding it natural energy, but Fukasaku is killed and Naruto is pinned by Pain's black rods. Pain lays out his history with Amegakure and his plan to weaponize all nine tailed beasts to enforce peace through fear. Shikamaru, Inoichi, and the analysis team deduce the real Pain hides in a nearby tower. The episode unmasks the frail, bloodstained Nagato as the true controller behind the Six Paths, watched over by Konan.

The installment falls in Pain's Assault arc and adapts chapters 434 through 436, running the opening A World That Was Transparent and the ending Bicycle. It delivers the first clear look at Nagato as the mind behind Pain.