Naraka Path

The was the sixth of Nagato's Six Paths of Pain to be shown. It was incapacitated during the invasion of Pain by Naruto Uzumaki's Sage Technique: Rasenrengan.

Appearance
When it was alive, the Naraka Path belonged to a tall, stocky, muscular man. The anime showed him to be somewhat of a holy man in a small village, strongly emphasizing the power of prayer among his religious disciples. The Naraka Path, like all of the six paths, possessed Nagato's Rinnegan. It had a spiky mop of orange hair, which had been a gray-brown colour while he was alive. It had multiple body piercings, such as a circular stud on the bridge of its nose, a diagonal row of studs on each of its cheeks, three spike piercings in each of its ears, and a stud on each of its shoulders near its neck.

Abilities


Although it was physically strong enough to lift a man with one hand, the only ability exhibited by the Naraka Path lay in the use of summoning the Outer Path. The Outer Path is a large head which sprouts out of the ground surrounded by purple flames and possesses the Rinnegan. The Outer Path could fulfil two purposes: interrogation and restoration.

To interrogate, the Naraka Path need only catch hold of a person, causing the Outer Path to appear before them. With the victim seemingly paralysed, the Naraka Path begins questioning them. After answers are given, the King of Hell will unzip its mouth to release tendril-like arms and would draw out an apparition of the victim's life force energy in the form of an enlarged tongue. The Outer Path then proceeds to pass its judgment. If the person was lying or refused to answer the questions, the Outer Path would remove their tongue and consume it, apparently killing them. However, if they told the truth, they would be spared, although left extremely exhausted.

The second ability the Naraka Path possessed is the ability to repair any damage. To do so the Naraka Path has the Outer Path ingest the damaged body with its tendril-like arms into its mouth. Then, after some time, the destroyed body will emerge from its mouth, completely healed and rejuvenated. It did this for example to the Asura Path after it was destroyed by Chōji and Chōza Akimichi.

In all situations where Pain's bodies were shown in a combat formation, the Naraka Path always took a rear position with the others protecting it, behind even the Deva Path. This indicates that the Naraka Path's healing ability made it one of Pain's most important bodies.

Influences

 * In Buddhism, the Naraka realm, or "hell realm", is a plane of rebirth, based on Karma (actions of body, speech, and mind) built up in a previous life or lives. There are various Naraka, each containing beings that are tormented until their Karma has achieved its full and satisfactory results. The beings can then be reborn into a higher plane.
 * The Naraka are superficially similar to the Christian hell or purgatory, although there are many significant differences.
 * Before being sent to the Naraka realm, the King of Hell, Yama, will be the judge of the dead. It's believed that if you lie to him, he will rip out your tongue.