As Hiashi had said, it was destined to be a restless night.
Far away at Akatsuki headquarters in Rain Village, Nagato sat in his wheelchair. He pushed himself to the window and gazed at the waning moon hanging in the distant sky, lost in troubled thought.
Ever since he'd sent Asura Path Pain to attack Konoha—and felt the puppet's complete destruction at Konoha's hands—Nagato couldn't shake the sensation of a bad premonition wrapping around him like cold chains.
Perhaps he shouldn't have been so reckless in testing Konoha's defenses.
The intelligence gathered about Konoha's Fifth Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto, remained frustratingly minimal. Perhaps he should have thoroughly investigated Naruto's capabilities before making any moves. That approach would have provided far greater confidence.
The night deepened around him with oppressive weight.
However, Nagato felt no trace of sleepiness whatsoever.
The door opened gently. Konan walked in carrying a cup of hot water. "Why haven't you slept yet? It's already very late."
Nagato turned his head and glanced at Konan in her pajamas. Obviously, she'd been preparing for sleep herself. But seeing the light still on in his room, she'd brought hot water over with quiet concern.
"I can't sleep." Nagato's voice carried exhaustion.
"Drink some water first." Konan handed over the cup with motherly care.
Nagato accepted it gratefully. The temperature of the hot water proved just right—perfectly warm without burning. He began drinking the hot water slowly, deliberately. When the warmth reached his stomach, he felt heat spread throughout his entire body. The depression weighing on his heart seemed diluted considerably.
Watching Nagato finish drinking, Konan took the empty cup back. "Is this because of Konoha?"
"Yes." Nagato nodded with heavy acknowledgment.
Konan smiled with reassuring gentleness. "Don't worry too much. Remember how difficult things were back then? We survived that. We'll survive this too."
Nagato naturally understood what Konan referenced. She meant the incident when Sansho Hanzo attacked the original Dawn organization—when they'd lost everything that mattered. Recalled by Konan's words, his eyes dimmed with grief. After a long moment of silence, he turned the wheelchair to face her directly. "That time, I lost Yahiko. This time, I don't want to lose you, Konan. I don't want to lose any more of my teammates."
"You won't." Konan spoke with quiet conviction while taking Nagato's hand. "If anyone dares attack Akatsuki, I have more than six hundred billion explosive tags waiting for them. Let them try coming."
Finally, after ensuring Nagato felt somewhat comforted, Konan departed for her own room.
The night passed in troubled silence.
Time advanced to the next morning. After finishing breakfast, Naruto brought Sasuke to the village entrance. Kurama sat perched comfortably on Naruto's shoulders like a small orange scarf.
During breakfast, Naruto had already explained today's mission to Sasuke. They were going to the Akatsuki organization headquarters, disbanding the organization and merging useful members into his own operations.
Of course, along the way there would definitely be diehards requiring resolution through combat. Although Naruto could solve the entire Akatsuki organization single-handedly, he couldn't monopolize all the action. He had to give Sasuke opportunities for practical experience.
Otherwise, Sasuke's considerable strength would remain unverified, eventually becoming flashy power without real-world testing.
Naturally, Sasuke enjoyed fighting. He was never afraid of combat—he just strongly disliked fighting with Naruto specifically.
As soon as they reached the village entrance, Naruto discovered a group of masked figures wearing black face coverings standing there, looking toward the three of them expectantly.
"Kakashi-sensei? Tsunade-san? Jiraiya-sensei? Black Zetsu? What are you doing?" Looking at the masked quartet, Naruto asked with genuinely bewildered expression.
"We covered our faces to sneak into Akatsuki's organization and catch them completely off guard!" Jiraiya declared this plan with obvious pride in his tactical brilliance.
"Catch them off guard?" Hearing Jiraiya's explanation, Naruto couldn't help his disbelieving laugh. "Jiraiya-sensei, do you honestly think that with our combined strength—with my strength specifically—it's actually necessary to catch the other side by surprise?"
Hearing Naruto's point delivered so bluntly, Kakashi immediately tore off his black mask. He complained directly to Jiraiya with barely suppressed frustration, "I said this wasn't necessary from the start, Jiraiya-senpai! You kept insisting on 'proper infiltration tactics.' I've been hiding my face behind a mask my entire career. Wearing another mask on top of it is like taking off your pants to fart—completely redundant and accomplishing nothing!"
"Kakashi is absolutely right." Tsunade also ripped off her mask with sharp, irritated movements. She glared at Jiraiya with undisguised annoyance. "With my figure, even wearing a full face mask, anyone could recognize me at a glance. This was pointless!"
"Hehe..." Jiraiya smiled with deep embarrassment, feeling thoroughly ashamed that he'd proposed such a transparently terrible idea. He also removed his mask with sheepish surrender.
In the end, only Black Zetsu remained with his face still covered.
Naruto felt curious about this. What's the actual difference between your masked and unmasked appearance, Black Zetsu?
"Black Zetsu, why didn't you take yours off?" Naruto asked with genuine interest.
Black Zetsu smiled beneath his covering. "The Akatsuki organization and I maintained a cooperative relationship for years. It feels wrong to backstab them so directly like this. If I cover my face, the psychological burden feels lighter."
Ghosts would believe you. You'd backstab anyone without hesitation to save your mother. However, Naruto didn't bother arguing the point. "Suit yourself."
"Then let's depart." Jiraiya spoke with renewed determination.
Naruto stopped him with raised hand. "Wait a moment. There's one more person coming."
"Who else?" Jiraiya asked with confusion.
After Naruto spoke, Jiraiya and the others looked into the distance. They spotted Orochimaru appearing before everyone with his characteristic amused expression firmly in place.
"Long time no see, Tsunade, Jiraiya." Orochimaru looked at his former teammates with knowing smile, offering casual greeting.
"Hmph! I'm not familiar with you anymore. You don't need to greet me." Tsunade turned her head away with deliberate coldness, completely ignoring Orochimaru's presence.
"Naruto, why did you include this guy?" Jiraiya pulled Naruto aside, speaking in urgent whisper.
Jiraiya and Tsunade had always deeply disliked Orochimaru. Although the three comprised Konoha's Legendary Sannin, Orochimaru's disturbing behavior and unique hobbies made him nearly impossible to like.
Naruto smiled with easy confidence. "Jiraiya-sensei, don't maintain such prejudice against Orochimaru. Now he serves as the biological consultant for my farm operations. He's one of our own."
"Fine. Have it your way, Naruto. But I still don't like Orochimaru personally." Jiraiya spoke with petulant resignation.
"Indeed. You should focus on liking Tsunade-san, not Orochimaru." Naruto's tone turned playfully teasing.
Now that everyone had finally assembled, Naruto waved his hand with commanding gesture. "Let's go, everyone."
Through combined Instantaneous Movement and Flying Thunder God techniques, the group arrived outside Rain Village in moments—less than one kilometer from their destination. Rain Village stood directly before them now.
Rain Village truly deserved its name. Drizzle fell from the sky like silent mourning, creating an atmosphere of perpetual weeping. However, beyond the village's immediate boundaries, the sky remained clear and bright.
The distance of only one kilometer separated two completely different worlds.
"What a depressing country!" Naruto couldn't help his emotional observation.
"See that rain? It's a wide-range detection technique called Rain Tiger at Will. As long as you enter the rain's coverage area, the Akatsuki organization will notice your presence instantly." Black Zetsu pointed toward the rain-shrouded village, acting as commentator without any trace of his earlier-mentioned psychological burden about betrayal.
Orochimaru added with technical precision, "To be more exact, if rainwater actually touches your body, Akatsuki will know someone has invaded Rain Village. As long as you avoid getting wet, you won't risk discovery."
"I see! This technique sounds remarkably effective. No wonder the Akatsuki organization could hide so successfully for years. With this method, any spy attempting to enter Rain Village's range would have absolutely nowhere to hide." Naruto gazed at the dense raindrops falling across Rain Village with genuine admiration in his assessment.
How successfully hidden is Akatsuki exactly? Hearing Naruto's words, both Orochimaru and Black Zetsu exchanged meaningful glances. Both thought simultaneously: Why does Akatsuki supposedly hide so deeply, yet you know so much detailed intelligence about them?
Orochimaru's thoughts ran considerably deeper with this mystery. Based on his extensive investigation of Naruto, the young Hokage had basically never left Konoha's boundaries. He spent most of his time engaged in physical training. However, in certain critical respects, Naruto acted exactly like a prophet with perfect foreknowledge.
Could Naruto possess an unknown intelligence network? Or perhaps he has some technique allowing him to predict future events? Under such power, anyone's secrets would lie completely exposed to Naruto's penetrating gaze.
If that possibility proved true, it was genuinely terrifying to contemplate.
Just when Orochimaru was thinking these dangerous thoughts deeply, Naruto suddenly glanced directly at him. That single look—seemingly casual but impossibly knowing—gave Orochimaru the sudden visceral feeling of standing completely naked before Naruto's omniscient scrutiny.
Perhaps Naruto already knows what I'm thinking. Everything I plan? Considering this horrifying possibility, Orochimaru felt the hairs on his back stand completely on end. A powerful thought of immediate escape suddenly burst through his mind with desperate urgency.
Suppressing the cowardly impulse to flee, Orochimaru forced himself toward artificial calm. Perhaps with Naruto's overwhelming power, he wouldn't even care about my pathetic schemes. Just like how a cow never pays attention to the ticks feeding on its hide.
The difference in strength between them resembled the gap separating heaven and earth.
"Naruto, are we going straight in now?" Jiraiya asked with tactical curiosity.
Naruto didn't answer Jiraiya's question directly. Instead, he took one deliberate step forward, appearing immediately within Rain Village's detection range. Rainwater began falling across his body.
As soon as he entered the coverage area, the muscles throughout Naruto's entire body began vibrating at tremendously high frequency.
Everyone watching witnessed an extraordinary sight. Sound emanated from Naruto's body—frequency far denser than chironomid wings beating. The air surrounding him seemed to become illusory and blurred with distortion. Concentric ripples oscillated outward from approximately five centimeters above Naruto's body surface. When rainwater fell and entered these ripples, it was immediately shaken away violently. The water couldn't touch Naruto's actual body at all.
"That's absolutely amazing!" Jiraiya watched with undisguised envy burning in his chest. If I could master such a skill, I wouldn't need to just peek through windows anymore. I could charge directly into the women's bath, moving through it like an unstoppable force!
"This guy is definitely targeting me specifically." Tsunade felt simultaneous shame and fear grip her heart. "Judging by the vibration fluctuations around Naruto's body, that frequency should be roughly one hundred times the wing-flapping speed of chironomids. If he'd used such high-frequency vibration technique on me during our 'sparring session,' I would have been knocked unconscious within seconds from the sheer resonance!"
She'd originally believed that even though Naruto was Jiraiya's student, he wouldn't share Jiraiya's fundamentally dishonest nature.
Now it seemed crystal clear—master and apprentice walked the exact same perverted path.
"What tremendously powerful physical conditioning!"
But in Orochimaru's analytical eyes, what he observed was Naruto's superhuman physique operating beyond normal limitations. As Tsunade had calculated, one hundred times the frequency of chironomid wing-flapping was absolutely terrifying. To withstand such tremendous vibration frequency required extraordinary bodily resilience.
One should understand that chironomid wing-flapping frequency measured approximately one thousand times per second. Multiplying by one hundred meant Naruto sustained one hundred thousand vibrations per second throughout his entire muscular system.
Truly overwhelming strength. And with such impossibly fine manipulation control... The current Naruto might already transcend normal human categorization entirely. Is he approaching divine status?
Thinking this internally, Orochimaru felt his desire for researching Naruto's physical cells intensify dramatically.
The cells of Senju Hashirama compared to Naruto's cells are absolutely worthless garbage! This wasn't the first time Orochimaru had experienced this humbling realization in his scientific heart.
"Orochimaru-kun, Black Zetsu—do you think the Akatsuki organization can actually perceive my presence like this?" Naruto asked with genuine curiosity while watching rainwater spray away from his vibrating form.
"Probably shouldn't be discovered?" Black Zetsu answered with notable uncertainty in his assessment.
While Naruto experimented playfully with the Rain Tiger at Will detection technique, at the center of Rain Village—atop the tallest spire—Nagato's eyes showed dark circles from obvious sleep deprivation. He clearly hadn't rested well the previous night.
Throughout the entire night, he'd maintained that terrible premonition of approaching danger.
He absolutely hated this bad feeling. But his disciplined cultivation allowed him to maintain fragile composure despite the anxiety.
However, just after Naruto entered Rain Village's detection range, Nagato felt the ominous premonition in his heart strengthen dramatically—becoming almost unbearably intense.
He looked across Rain Village shrouded in perpetual drizzle, sensing carefully with his Rinnegan's perception. Yet he detected no one entering the village's boundaries whatsoever.
"Konan." Nagato called her name softly with quiet urgency.
Following Nagato's summons, a paper butterfly flew gracefully to his side. Then countless additional paper butterflies merged into the first one's form. When no more butterflies remained separate, the accumulated mass unfolded and transformed. The paper shifted and reassembled until finally taking Konan's human shape—appearing beside Nagato wearing her black cloak with red cloud patterns, lavender hair falling around her shoulders.
"What's wrong, Nagato?" Konan asked with immediate concern.
"Konan, I sense that someone has infiltrated Rain Village." Nagato spoke with absolute conviction despite lacking concrete evidence.
Hearing this declaration, Konan's expression sharpened with alarm. "Someone actually sneaked into Rain Village? Did the Rain Tiger at Will Technique provide any warning?"
Nagato shook his head with visible frustration. "That's precisely the problem. The Rain Tiger at Will shows no detection of infiltrators entering Rain Village. But the bad premonition in my heart has grown stronger than ever before."
"For absolute safety, Konan—let's investigate personally." Nagato spoke with appropriate caution given the circumstances.
As Konan's acknowledgment fell, her figure transformed into countless paper sheets once again. The papers folded rapidly, becoming small butterflies. Then these paper butterflies launched outward, flying in all directions throughout Rain Village's expanse.
The heavy rain continued falling relentlessly. But it couldn't affect the paper butterflies' flight patterns in the slightest.