Ame Orphans

Born from the wreckage of Amegakure's wars, the three young survivors banded together to stay alive and later became students of Jiraiya. Their bond and their longing for peace would seed one of the series' most consequential organizations.

Konan and Yahiko first found one another amid the ruin of war, later taking in Nagato, and the three scraped by together with their dog Chibi until Hanzo's clash with the Sannin cost the animal its life. Weary of being helpless, they begged the Sannin for training, and Jiraiya agreed, teaching them ninjutsu and building a shelter where they could live and learn. After three years he judged them ready and returned to Konoha, leaving the trio to shape their own path.

Their growing renown as peace-seekers unnerved Hanzo, who feared Yahiko would depose him. Allied with Danzo Shimura during the Third Shinobi World War, Hanzo seized Konan and demanded Nagato kill Yahiko to save her, but Yahiko threw himself onto Nagato's blade to spare his friend the choice. Enraged and crippled in the fighting that followed, Nagato adopted the Pain alias, wielding Yahiko's corpse as its central body, and steered the group toward the darker thing it would become.

Nagato eventually turned to Obito, who reshaped their movement into a criminal network serving his own agenda. After Pain's assault on Konoha, the words of a fellow Jiraiya pupil, Naruto Uzumaki, moved Nagato to sacrifice himself and undo the destruction. Konan, the last surviving orphan, became Amegakure's leader and raised a shrine to her fallen friends before she too died battling Obito, who then plundered Nagato's body for its Rinnegan.

The group centered on three orphans of Amegakure: Yahiko, the charismatic leader; Nagato, wielder of the Rinnegan who later became Pain; and Konan, the last of them to survive. Their mentor, the Sannin Jiraiya, trained them in their youth, and their childhood dog Chibi traveled with them before the war claimed him.