Six Paths of Pain

The Six Paths of Pain is a technique used by Yūmei Kokūzō. It allows him 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, his chakra.

Use
In order to use the technique, the user remains in a large, chair-like machine that moved with six relatively short mechanical legs, and uses several large chakra rods protruding from their back to transmit chakra. From there, their chakra is picked up by the numerous body piercings that each body possesses, which act as chakra receivers. However, to control them, the user has to be ideally at the highest and closest point possible so that they can have the best range possible. Inoichi Yamanaka compared the ability to the Yamanaka clan's unique Mind Body Switch Technique, albeit on a greater scale.

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 Nagato's Six Paths, the two bodies who have not had their hair colour altered are the Deva Path which retains Yahiko's natural hair colour, the Asura Path which was bald.
 * Three of Nagato's six paths of Pain are playable in Naruto Shippūden: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3, while the other three will appear as support characters. All six will be able to appear simultaneously in three-versus-one match-ups. The playable ones are Deva, Asura and Animal, the ones whose primary function is battle, rather than support.
 * All of Nagato's 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, Nagato's technique 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.
 * All of Nagato's original six paths share the same voice actor.
 * All of Nagato's Six Paths of Pain have the same hair colour as Yahiko, except the Asura Path which is bald.