Six Paths of Pain

The Six Paths of Pain was a jutsu used by Nagato, and served as his representation in Akatsuki. It allowed Nagato to control six separate bodies as though they were his own. Each of these bodies were reanimated corpses which were both kept mobile by, and made use of, Nagato's chakra. While controlling them, Nagato used the alias "Pain", yet still regarded them as separate from himself. All the six Paths were eventually destroyed by Naruto Uzumaki during the invasion of Pain.

Use
In order to use the technique, Nagato remained in a large, chair-like machine that moved with six relatively short mechanical legs, and used several large chakra rods protruding from his back to transmit chakra. From there, his chakra was picked up by the numerous body piercings that each body possessed, which acted as chakra receivers. However, to control them, Nagato had to be ideally at the highest and closest point possible so that he could have the best range possible. Nagato's machine could also shoot chakra rods from a hole in front of it for controlling enemies.

Paths
As the name suggested, there were six bodies, or "paths", which comprised the jutsu. The only common feature shared by these bodies was their bright orange hair and Rinnegan. Each path had a number of body and facial piercings of various shapes, sizes, and patterns. Also, each body seemed to serve a specific purpose in battle, such as summoning, repair, and defense, rendering them open in other areas. This did not hold true for the Deva Path, however, which was imbued with several capabilities. Each path, with the possible exception of the second Animal Path, was in some way affiliated with Jiraiya when they were alive.

When the paths were active together in battle, Nagato was able to see through their eyes, thus registering six separate fields of vision at the same time. Essentially working as shared vision for the paths, this allowed Nagato to coordinate their attacks and to provide defense for them without a blind spot. All of the paths demonstrated incredible speed, strength and carried Chakra Disruption Blades concealed in their Akatsuki cloaks which were used to incapacitate opponents. The paths were strongest when together, using combination tactics and the element of surprise to defeat their enemies; both Jiraiya and Kakashi fell victim to this technique. When the paths were lined up in formation the Deva Path was always in the center, while the Naraka Path stayed in the back. This was to protect it, so it could revive the others who had fallen. However, his technique, although powerful, had a flaw: each of the paths had a primary function or ability. With prior knowledge about the technique and each paths' abilities, one stood a better chance of defeating them, as witnessed in Pain's battle against Naruto.

When not in use, the bodies were stored in a hidden chamber within Amegakure's tallest tower. Within the room are six "pods" on which the bodies rest; each pod is connected to the wall via pipes or wires, and has a sliding cover that appears to feature the symbol of Amegakure, which conceals the faces of the inactive body. The pods are also numbered from one through six using daiji characters, and are ordered counter-clockwise around the room as follows: 壱 (1) - Deva Path; 弐 (2) - Asura Path; 参 (3) - Human Path; 四 (4) - Animal Path; 五 (5) - Preta Path; 六 (6) - Naraka Path. This numbering scheme corresponds with the ordering of the six Buddhist paths of Reincarnation.

Preta Path


It had the ability to absorb any chakra ability as he was able to absorb and nullify sage mode jiraiya's signature technique 'Chou Oodama Rasengan' which is one of the strongest chakra techniques that ever existed.

It had the ability to absorb any chakra ability as he was able to absorb and nullify sage mode jiraiya's signature technique 'Chou Oodama Rasengan' which is one of the strongest chakra techniques that ever existed

Human Path


This path had the ability to to interrogate enemies by placing his arm over their head.When the required information was recieved he would simply kill them by sucking out their soul.Shizune is the only person to stay alive from this technique due to Nagato using the Outer path:Samsara of heavenly life technique

Asura Path


This path has the most brutal strength than the other paths as shown when he busted sage mode jiraiya's hand without any effort.He can also transform himself to an android like machine and work very effectively with the deva path who attracts an enemy towards him and Asura path could impale them and kill them.

Naraka Path


The naraka path had the ability to summon the outer path to interrogate several opponents and could revive all allies killed by the enemy.In the formation of pain he is always at the end and is protected by the other 5 paths.

Outer Path


If the person it is interrogating has said a lie it would suck their soul but if the person it is interrogating has said the truth it would spare them but would leave them in an unconsious state.This technique was used by nagato to revive all people killed during the konaha invasion of pain arc but resulting in the death of Nagato

Influences
Based upon the six Buddhist paths of Reincarnation, each body was named after one of the different "paths": Deva, Asura, Human, Animal, Preta, and Naraka. Each of these paths, or realms, represents one of the realms a being is reborn into after death, determined by the accumulated karma of their past lives. While the two lower paths, Preta and Naraka, are hellish, and the two higher paths, Deva and Asura, are heavenly, all six are considered to be paths of suffering because they perpetuate the cycle of Reincarnation; the only way to break it and ascend to a higher state of existence is to attain enlightenment.

Trivia

 * Among the six paths, the only two whose hair color have not been altered are the Deva Path and the Asura Path. The other four originally had different hair colors while alive, but were changed to orange when they came into Nagato's possession. It is currently unknown if the second Animal Path's hair color was changed, as the corpse used to create it has not yet been seen in the anime.
 * Three of the six paths of Pain are playable in Naruto Shippūden: Narutimate Accel 3, while the other three will appear as support characters. All six will be able to appear simultaneously in three-versus-one match-ups.
 * All the Six Paths of Pain except the second Animal Path had interacted with Jiraiya during his journey, while they were still alive.
 * As noted by Konan during Chapter 430, Pain's jutsu output is considerably more powerful when he focuses on the Deva Path, however this is considerably risky as the other Pains are slow to recover.