Naruto: How did Nagato become Pain? The emotional and physical transformation explained

The Akatsuki group in Naruto was created for a much more noble purpose than capturing the tailed beasts for destroying the world. The leaders of this group, who came after the founder, made Akatsuki a group of people who only seek personal gain.

But things were different when Yahiko was the leader of this group, who created it to establish peace in his home village, the Hidden Rain Village. He made this group with his war orphan friends in hopes of a bright future, but as always, peace was never an option, and he died protecting his comrades.

He passed the baton to his friend Nagato, who used Yahiko's body to create a godly being that would rule over the work with the former's Rinnegan powers. He modified Yahiko's body and mentally went through depression to take such a big step.

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The physical and mental transformation Nagato went through to become Pain in Naruto

After Yahiko's death, Nagato became assured that peace would never prevail. However, he could not fight as a leader after his injuries in the battle with Hanzo. So, he used Yahiko's corpse as a puppet by inserting chakra rods into his body and named it Pain.

He also created five other subordinates to fight alongside it and continuously granted them his chakra through the chakra rods, creating Six Paths of Pain that would show the world what pain is.

Nagato (left), Yahiko (middle), and Konan (right) (Image via Studio Pierrot)

During the Third Great Ninja War in Naruto, three war orphans gathered to get strong and establish peace in their village. These were Nagato Uzumaki, Konan, and Yahiko. They had a chance encounter with Jiraiya, one of the Legendary Sannins of the Hidden Leaf Village, who offered to help them get strong.

After making them stand on their own feet, Jiraiya left them with best wishes for their future. Yahiko had the idea of creating a group of strong shinobi who would establish peace in the Hidden Rain Village, and thus, the Akatsuki was formed. These three managed to gather a healthy amount of members, but Nagato's uncontrollable Rinnegan powers were becoming an issue.

He would burst out in emotion sometimes, which would lead to endangering the lives of his comrades. Danzo, a Hidden Lead Official, framed Nagato's action in front of the leader of the Hidden Rain Village, Hanzo, who decided to take notice of this situation himself. He invited the three founders of the Akatsuki to sign a peace treaty and framed them.

He took Konan hostage and ordered Yahiko to kill himself to save his friend. Nagato was confused as to what had happened, and Yahiko suddenly jumped towards his kunai and killed himself while saying he was leaving everything in Nagato's hands.

Nagato as seen in the anime (Image via Studio Pierrot)

After Yahiko died, Nagato's mental health broke, and he instinctively started using his Rinnegan powers against Hanzo's forces. Hanzo used his Fire Style to cripple Nagato, but he didn't stop and summoned the Gedo's statue.

As soon as the statue arrived, it sucked out Nagato's chakra and started rampaging, killing every one of Hanzo's forces. Hanzo later made a hair-close escape. After this, Nagato was convinced that Yahiko's dream of establishing peach was just a fantasy.

The six bodies (six paths) of Pain (Image via Studio Pierrot)

So, he changed Akatsuki's motto to capture all the Jinchuriki and use them to take over the world. As he was now crippled, he needed another body to take over Akatsuki, so he used his friend's dead body as his medium and named it Pain.

He also created five other bodies of Pain to assist the main body and continuously provided them his chakra with the chakra rods. Pain became the new leader of Akatsuki, who was Nagato in disguise as the war orphan, and was now convinced that the world needs to know what pain feels like.

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