Jiraiya, Kakashi, then Hinata. The sequential line of suffering Naruto encounters is sudden. No time to mourn Jiraiya, no time to lament not being there for Kakashi, and no time to fight against wrath when a fallen comrade lies damaged in front of him. Such is pain. A swift whimper, and then eternal silence. Something precious can dissipate in seconds, as if all those memories shared amount to merely that against the cruel fate of timeless violence. A fate Nagato witnessed twice too many, and a fate Naruto is now coming to know. A man can never be impervious to this pain, but a god, surely a god can.
If pain can scar even the best of men, then it isn't absurd to say the very concept of pain can be considered divine. To take pain as a namesake, thus diagnosing divinity. The prescription to ascend pain is to experience it. Nagato believes pain to have cured his mortal immaturity. So by spreading his prescription universally, then perhaps the entire world would come to mature as well. But Nagato could never become pain. He could never truly become a god. He feigns apathy for Yahiko's memory against Jiraya, yet reveals his true human emotions against Naruto. "I will never forget Yahiko's pain." This is not an utterance from the lips of the divine. This is not the phrase of a god immune to pain.
Nagato seeks liberation from the vicious cycle of violence through violence. He believes this avenue to be righteous because he deludes the reality of his position. Those who are above pain are different when they spread it because it is aligned with purpose, a purpose called peace. But Nagato's purpose is blighted on two fronts. His first blight: A perpetuation of the same cycle he had come to despise with his actions. He was hurt, and that hurt has lingered with him even now. He has never been above pain. This is not a method for world peace. It is a method for retribution against the world. And this idea is only solidified with his second blight, his compromise.
Nagato had given up. Any peace he could acquire even with his godly means could only ever be temporary. After the dust settles and the destruction is hidden by something new built on top, the masses will eventually forget the perpetrator. The people will forget pain. No method will last. No peace can usurp the inevitability of conflict. Nagato is sound on step one of the equation. Conflict is an inevitable factor of human existence. It is the same reason why he, a human, is propagating so much conflict now. But Naruto shows him a different step two. After experiencing pain, enduring it, and even enduring his proceeding hatred, Naruto faces his sibling disciple with a different answer. This answer is not necessarily conveyed through his words, but his actions, or rather, his lack of action. Naruto was previously speechless when confronted with Nagato's solution. He had no answer because he, much like his enemy, had yet to confront his pain. "I'm going to kill you, then bring peace to the ninja world." That wasn't Naruto talking, but his hatred. Hatred for the one who killed his master and his sensei. If those were not Naruto's words, then would his hatred bring the peace he desires? No. It wouldn't. Naruto himself didn't believe this. Hatred merely clouded his words. He didn't hate Zabuza, didn't hate Gaara, didn't hate Sasuke, and didn't even hate Kakuzu, but Naruto is finally faced with a man he has every reason to despise at the climax of this conflict. His wrath would be justified, just as Nagato believes his wrath towards the world to be justified. However, Naruto does not strike when confronted with the face of pain because he had already struck down the true face of pain immediately before this meeting.
Naruto's enemy was never Nagato, but pain. He conquered his, so he would help conquer Nagato's. Naruto didn't conquer his alone either. Naruto would've never had the chance if it weren't for Minato . And he might have already crushed the leaf long before Nagato ever could if it were not for Iruka. Naruto looks at his enemy, a path that was once lost, now finally retrieved. He doesn't just see a propagator of pain but a victim as well. To save Nagato, he would have to reveal the answer he couldn't muster back then. It's an answer that doesn't even have a solution, but what it does have, is a step that truly transcends pain. If the shinobi way is defined by conflict, it is only the first chapter of a much bigger story, for Naruto's second chapter is defined by endurance. A chapter inspired by the theme of his master's whole original story. The tale of a man who does not conform to the hypocrisy of shinobi. Those who aspire to be emotionless tools, when it is that very emotion that compels them to be emotionless in the first place, these human emotions fuel wars that necessitate tools in a ceaseless cycle. This man simply stands against a dreadful curse plaguing the world, but that alone makes it a novel story. And this hero who aspires to attack the parasite, not its host, is named Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto, turning fiction into reality amid his opposition. He confronts Nagato with the words he once inspired. It is all his cursed soul ever needed. Someone to not only look at him but to show him where his failings lurk.
Naruto emerges as a proponent of endurance and demonstrates clearly where the merit in it lies. And so Nagato too is saved by another. He endures his hatred to muster one last action, not against the world, but for it. Naruto would have merely become the victor if he executed his nemesis in the name of vengeance. When finding resolution by reaching his opposition, though, he retrieves something much more valuable, both literally and metaphorically. Through Nagato, Naruto learned pain, and it is only through experiencing pain that endurance could be demonstrated at the resolution of this arc, thereby saving Nagato. Through this conflict and pain, maturity spawned. But it only matured with support. It only matured with endurance on both sides. And it is when all these threads connect that mutual understanding is found.
Empathy alone was not enough to reach the lost in this conflict, Soon endurance on top of that would not be enough either. Naruto could rest easy on this growth for now, though. When he learned empathy, he was rewarded with the title shinobi, and after enduring hatred at the finale of this arc, he is rewarded with the title hero of the leaf.
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