Naruto Chapter 445

[Abdula]

And a quick question if anyone knows the answer, what does the rinnegan do? He's essentially controling six puppet bodies or something like that right now, but what exactly are the rinnegan powers? When he killed those guys as a kid, he didn't have any puppet bodies or anything like that.

This came up before. Jiraiya mentioned that Nagato is able to use all six elements, which no one person can do, and that the rinnegan possesses the most powerful doujutsus in the world. On top of that, from everything that was said they make it seem as if Rikudo sennin was omnipotent. However other than chibaku tensei, Pain hasn't shown us anything near that level and he himself said his chibaku tensei is nothing compared to what Rikudo supposedly could do.

I mentioned this before but I think at some point something happened to them that resulted in Nagato's body being in the condition we presently see it in and in order to compensate for that weakness, he began using the other six bodies and created Pain. Most people disagreed with me though. Most seem to think that Nagato made his body the way it is in order to gain power which seems to contradict what Jiraiya said. Indeed if all the things that was said about Rikudo and the rinnegan are true then Nagato would have only made himself weaker.

Either way I guess we'll find out what the case is soon.