Meeting

Choosing to humor Naruto, Nagato recounts how he rose to lead the Akatsuki. His childhood in Amegakure unfolded amid a conflict that Konohagakure had brought to his homeland. One day a pair of Konoha shinobi forced their way into his family's home hunting for food. His father wanted them to slip away without being seen, but the boy knocked over a vase. The intruders attacked, and his mother threw herself over him. After both parents fell to kunai, the shinobi understood too late that they had killed innocents and tried to apologize. Overcome with rage, young Nagato awakened his Rinnegan and struck both of them down.

Alone and starving, Nagato wandered the streets until he fainted in the rain. A stray dog he named Chibi revived him, and the two roamed together. When hunger nearly overcame them again, a girl named Konan gave them bread and led them to the shelter she shared with a boy called Yahiko. Yahiko admitted the food came from theft, an unavoidable wrong needed to stay alive. As the three orphans and Chibi kept up their stealing, Yahiko shared his ambition to become a god who would remake the world and wipe out war and want. Their talk was cut off by a kunai carrying an explosive tag that dropped from overhead. The children escaped the blast, but Chibi did not, and while Nagato and Konan grieved, Yahiko traced the weapon to a clash between Hanzō, ruler of Ame, and the three legendary Sannin.

Yahiko resolved that they should seek out the Sannin and be taught ninjutsu so they could defend themselves. After returning what they had taken, keeping only the food that would spoil, the trio pushed across the battlefield. An explosion nearly claimed them, but Nagato shielded the group with his Rinnegan, and they finally reached a cave where the three Sannin waited. An aside notes that Gamabunta appears only marginally larger than Gamamaru here, whereas in Part I the toad stood as tall as the One-Tailed Shukaku, dwarfing the forest.