Several days later.
A complete dossier lay before Orochimaru, and he had been staring blankly at it for a long time.
The dossier contained detailed records of a joint mission carried out by Konoha's Root Organization and the Land of Rain. The mission was to wipe out a resistance organization within the Land of Rain called Akatsuki. Although the dossier contained nothing as useful for identifying people as photographs, it at least recorded the name of the so-called Akatsuki's leader... Yahiko.
After all, Akatsuki had not kept itself completely secret in its early days. In fact, they had presented themselves as shinobi of the Land of Rain. Most of those who joined Akatsuki were very young shinobi, and their goal at the time was to bring peace and stability to the Land of Rain, this Land of the Fourth War. Based on that ideal, Akatsuki had been quite active and had maintained no shortage of outside contacts, allowing information about the organization to leak out.
They had even maintained contact with the Rain Village, the official armed force of the Land of Rain, until their naive idealism was betrayed by harsh reality. Akatsuki's rapid expansion and accumulated strength had seriously threatened the rule of the Rain Village's leader, Hanzo of the Salamander, so Hanzo had decided to eliminate them.
According to the intelligence Orochimaru had obtained, the mission had ultimately succeeded. Root Organization and the Rain Village had dealt with Akatsuki's leader, but both sides had also suffered heavy casualties.
After that mission, Akatsuki had vanished without a trace.
"Vanished without a trace? Heh." Once Orochimaru came back to himself, he could not help laughing.
He had basically confirmed the connection between the current Akatsuki and the original Akatsuki, so he sneered at the claim that the mission had succeeded.