Land of Rain, Amegakure.
Rain fell endlessly over the village's houses, buildings, and streets.
The entire country lay shrouded beneath this unceasing downpour, a place that seemed to be weeping.
Atop the tallest tower in the village, a figure sat quietly on the platform.
He had short orange hair and wore a black cloak patterned with red clouds.
With his indifferent purple eyes, he gazed down at the nation and village that had been reborn not long ago.
He was Pain's Deva Path.
The god deeply revered by Amegakure's villagers and ninja.
A moment later, Obito Uchiha appeared behind the Deva Path and said calmly, "Pain, the plan needs to be moved up."
The Deva Path turned his head slightly, his purple Rinnegan looking toward Obito as he replied coldly, "According to the established steps, we still need three years of preparation and sufficient funding. Otherwise, it will affect my 'ultimate weapon' plan."
Obito refuted him. "I think you should already know what happened in Konoha..."
"The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Naruto Uzumaki, not only killed Shimura Danzō, but also successfully mastered the Nine-Tails' power and became the Fifth Hokage."
This news had indeed already reached Amegakure.
The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had become Konoha's Hokage—and a perfect Jinchuriki at that. This posed a tremendous threat to Akatsuki's tailed beast capture plan.
According to the original plan, the Nine-Tails was to be captured last, so as not to alert the entire ninja world too early.
But if they captured large numbers of other tailed beasts beforehand, Naruto, as Hokage and the master of the Nine-Tails, would inevitably become wary. He might even unite the other ninja villages and Jinchuriki, at which point the difficulty of capturing tailed beasts would rise exponentially.
More troublesome still, after becoming Hokage, Naruto would never leave Konoha easily. To