Sage of the 'Six Paths'

[psukkar]

Madara called nagato this,


third of the SageS of sixth paths.

That S mean plural for sage. Make a note of that.

 

[GregTheGamer]

From Chapter 510: Page 12 'I am Uchiha Madara, the man who obtained Senju Hashirama's powers! Two of the six paths are now one being' He also looks at Nagato on page 16 and says 'You are the third of the six[th] paths' I assume it's six not sixth and sixth was just a translation error or something. So we know for a fact that Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama were both paths, if the parallels Kishi's set up mean anything at all I think it's safe to assume that Naruto and Sasuke are also paths. We are left with Nagato and... we hit a wall, where is Nagato's complimentary path? The fact is that he doesn't have one, he would've been introduced during the Pain arc. It could be that Tobi was referring to the Rinnegan (of which I think there is only one pair) itself which he gave to Nagato, the Sage's eyes are a path all on their own, and then the mysterious last path is the Sage's 'body' which DOES compliment the Sage's eyes. Of course the Sage's actual body is probably rotting into dust by now, so when it says that the younger brother inherited the Sage's body and physical vitality by body it must mean something that was unique about the Sage's body, some kind of physical jutsu. The only thing I can think of is the mokuton... but that doesn't quite fit, people like Yamato and Danzo got mokuton from Hashirama's cells, not Sage cells, unless Hashirama was given the mokuton as well it doesn't fit the trend.

 

[GregTheGamer]

I think to be a path you need to master one of the bloodline limits inherited from the Sage, that way not everybody with a sharingan would've been a path, neither would everyone of Senju - i.e Tsunade and her little brother - be paths. So 1) Madara became a path when he obtained the EMS, the pinnacle of the sharingan. 2) Hashirama became a path when he obtained the pinnacle of the unknown Senju/Uzumaki kekkai genkai. 3) Nagato reached the pinnacle of the rinnegan at some point, although what this point is is unknown, perhaps the ability to revive the dead. 4) Sasuke is/will be a path when his EMS is settled. 5) Naruto is/will be a path when he reaches the pinnacle of the Uzumaki/Senju kekkai genkai. 6) Unknown character, unlikely to be another EMS, or a rinnegan, can't imagine it being a byakugan user even though theoretically if it's descended from the Sage's eyes it could be. I think Jiraiya knew about the kekkai genkai of the Senju/Uzumaki, but using/awakening it is very difficult/dangerous, it probably requires tailed beast quantities of chakra to awaken, which means you need to have mastered a tailed beast first to obtain it, Hashirama controlled tailed beasts with his mokuton. Remember when that toad gave Naruto the seal key, he said it would help him master 'that jutsu', I think 'that jutsu' is either the Uzumaki/Senju kekkai genkai or it unlocks it. Therefore the final path, if it isn't someone with the Sage's eyes, is someone with the younger brothers kekkai genkai, so the final path will need to be capable of controlling a tailed beast somehow, not neccesarily as a jinchuuriki either. I've always thought mokuton was a pretty nifty technique to have, but it never seemed in the same league as EMS, what's wood gonna do against eternal flame but burn. If Hashirama were to beat Madara he'd have needed something on par with EMS, an equal/opposite counterpart, and Naruto's gonna need something similar too, cos even controlling the kyuubi alone doesn't compare with EMS imo.