"Are you saying Naruto has also noticed Akatsuki?"
Inside the Hokage Office Building, in the heart of Konohagakure.
Tsunade sat at her desk.
Looking at Shikaku and Kakashi, who had just returned from Snow Ninja Village and rushed straight here to report on the situation, she spoke with a solemn expression.
"Yes, Fifth Hokage. He didn't say so outright, but from the way he acted, Naruto should have had some direct contact with Akatsuki. Orochimaru was once a member of Akatsuki, too, so Naruto may have obtained some information from him."
A glimpse of one detail could reveal the whole picture.
A few small clues could provide a view of the entire situation.
As the man with the highest IQ in the Naruto world,
Shikaku's ability to analyze intelligence and predict the course of events was among the very best.
When it came to Akatsuki,
and with some intelligence support from Jiraiya,
Shikaku could make the right judgments.
"The other villages don't seem to take this very seriously, but I think Naruto has a point. I don't know what he based his estimate of their timeline on, but we should still prepare in advance. Especially the Sand Ninja. If Akatsuki really does make a move, the Sand Ninja will likely be their first target."
Jiraiya could investigate Akatsuki's general situation and potential targets.
The other villages could do the same.
The difference lay only in how much importance they placed on it, and whether they believed what they learned.
At least in the original story,
before Akatsuki actually made a move, almost no one in the vast Shinobi World believed it had the nerve or the ability to gather the Tailed Beasts—not counting Jiraiya and Tsunade. Countless madmen and ninja villages had once declared that they would gather the Tailed