Akatsuki

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Akatsuki (晓)
Type	Shinobi organization whose ranks include missing-nin 63 111.
Founder	Yahiko; Nagato and Konan were his companions in its original peace movement 76 124.
Leader	Nagato, operating through Pain and the Six Paths 33 124.
Headquarters	The High Tower in Amegakure; a hidden underground chamber houses its Tailed Beast sealing ritual 124 174.
Territory	Controls Amegakure and the Land of Rain 110 124.
Occupation/Role	Gathering the Nine Tailed Beasts; governing Amegakure and conducting combat operations 33 150 151.
Status	Active but lying low after completing the One-Tail sealing; further operations are suspended 178.
First Appearance	Its cloak appears on Uchiha En’s disguise 2; the organization is first named during his impersonation of “Tobi” 4.

Background

Akatsuki originated with Yahiko’s effort to bring peace to the Land of Rain. Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan had been Jiraiya’s students during the Second Shinobi World War. Jiraiya remembers their chosen name as expressing the hope that their homeland would no longer have to weep 76.

After Yahiko’s death, Nagato and Konan continued his dream. Nagato led the organization through Pain, and Akatsuki eventually controlled Amegakure and the entire Land of Rain. Investigators from the great villages later confirmed that Hanzō was dead and the village had changed hands 110 124.

Objectives and Ideology

• Collect the Nine Tailed Beasts: The organization’s central mission is to capture the beasts and seal them into the Demonic Statue 33 151 174.
• End hatred and war: Obito describes the intended culmination as forming the Ten-Tails, making Nagato its jinchūriki, and casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi through the moon. This explanation is given while manipulating Itachi with a false promise to revive Sasuke 33.
• Make the nations understand pain: Pain uses overwhelming force to establish Akatsuki as a power the great nations must fear 113 117.
• Hold rulers responsible: Following the recruitment assessment, Pain announces plans to target the Fire Daimyo and wealthy people in the capital who have fueled wars, rather than ordinary soldiers 149.
• Recruit people who understand suffering: Pain rejects applicants motivated solely by money, personal grudges, revenge, or opportunistic loyalty 147 148.

Pain’s announced hostility toward rulers does not amount to unrestricted permission for members to destroy their courts. He reprimands Sasori after the Land of Wind operation because killing its Daimyo and devastating the capital were outside the capture mission 168.

Organization and Membership

Leadership and Documented Members

Member	Position or function	Relevant details
Nagato / Pain	Leader	Commands through the Six Paths, approves recruits, assigns missions, and directs sealing rituals 64 151 173.
Konan	Recruitment, administration, and security	Oversees trials, assigns candidate duties, registers recruits in Amegakure, and guards the One-Tail sealing 146 150 173.
Kakuzu	Resource administration and combat	Maintains ledgers and explains the organization’s merit-based allocation of food and resources 150.
Sasori	Combat operative and One-Tail mission leader	Leads the capture of Shukaku, kills Rasa, and secures Gaara in a sealing scroll 151 164 165.
Juzo Biwa	Combat operative; Itachi’s partner	Assigned to capture Tailed Beasts with Itachi and later accompanies him in the hunt for the impostor 64 149.
Orochimaru	Member with concealed outside dealings	Remains in Akatsuki while cooperating with En; recognizes En’s infiltration and does not expose him 105 147.
Uchiha Itachi	Combat operative and impostor investigator	Admitted after revealing his Mangekyō Sharingan; joins to pursue Sasuke’s resurrection 33 64 110.
Yasuo / Uchiha En	Candidate squad captain, later full member	Infiltrates under a swordsman’s identity and earns membership through the One-Tail operation 149 173.

Obito and the Zetsus

• Obito Uchiha — Brings Itachi to Akatsuki and advances the Tailed Beast plan. Pain knows him as a masked man claiming to be “Madara Uchiha.” Obito declines to help during the allied invasion, intending to test Nagato’s power and take over the hunt himself if Nagato loses 33 63 113.
• White Zetsu — Reports developments to Obito and is ordered to gather intelligence on all Tailed Beast jinchūriki after Shukaku’s capture 119 168.
• Black Zetsu — Worries that Akatsuki’s premature exposure and the attention surrounding its victories could disrupt the Eye of the Moon Plan 113 119.
• “Tobi” identity — Obito says the name originally belonged to White Zetsu and that he had intended to use it when joining Akatsuki as a newcomer. En’s impersonation preempts that plan 79.

Recruitment and Advancement

Stage	Requirements and conditions
Individual admission	Pain demands proof of strength. Itachi’s Mangekyō Sharingan is sufficient to secure admission 63 64.
First recruitment trial	A fight to the death at an abandoned iron mine. Of 107 applicants, fewer than twenty remain standing at sunset; Konan’s paper birds monitor contestants and deaths 146 147.
Ideological assessment	Pain questions survivors about their reasons for joining. During this assessment, the Human Path exposes Sharo as a Kumogakure intelligence agent 147 148.
Reserve candidate	Nine survivors receive plain black wristbands but are not full members. Konan appoints Yasuo as their captain 149.
Service and field testing	Candidates repair defenses, distribute rations, and accompany Sasori on the One-Tail capture mission 150 151.
Full membership	Yasuo is promoted for his performance. Pain explicitly requires Kage-level strength; the remaining jōnin candidates may join Amegakure and qualify later 173.

• Discipline: Konan catches a would-be deserter with a paper wing and leaves him pinned in the mud as a warning 147.
• Expendability: Konan warns that reserves killed on missions are simply crossed off the register 151.
• Merit-based resources: Better food and other benefits must be earned through missions, bounties, and useful service 150.

Abilities and Operational Capabilities

Six Paths of Pain

• Overwhelming battlefield power: Pain routs a coalition of roughly ten thousand shinobi and kills Hiruzen Sarutobi 117 119.
• Gravity techniques: Shinra Tensei devastates formations; Banshō Ten’in draws targets toward attacks; Planetary Devastation traps troops within an enormous sphere 114 118 140.
• Coordinated combat: Multiple Paths and regenerating summons attack Jiraiya from different directions 140.
• Restoration: The Naraka Path’s King of Hell retrieves and restores the destroyed Asura Path, undoing Jiraiya’s attempt to remove it from battle 140.
• Memory extraction: The Human Path confirms Sharo’s espionage by extracting his memories 148.

Tailed Beast Capture

• Partner assignments: Pain pairs Itachi with Juzo for the Tailed Beast hunt 64.
• Specialist leadership: Sasori leads the first capture operation, using scout puppets to locate Gaara and directing reserves to block escape routes 151 154 164.
• Attrition and restraint: Sasori’s replaceable puppets, Iron Sand, chains, and sealing talismans outlast Shukaku’s full manifestation until Gaara can no longer sustain it 164 165.

Tailed Beast Extraction and Sealing

• Sealing vessel: The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path is the Ten-Tails’ empty shell, with nine eye sockets corresponding to the Nine Tailed Beasts 174.
• Technique: Pain uses the Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals to extract Shukaku through Chakra dragons 174.
• Requirements: The One-Tail ritual takes seventy-two hours and ten simultaneous Chakra contributors: the Six Paths, Sasori, Kakuzu, Orochimaru, and Yasuo 173.
• Security and cost: Konan guards the perimeter; participants remain fixed in position while the prolonged ritual drains substantial Chakra 173 174 178.
• Clone participation: En sends a Shadow Clone in his place, allowing him to continue his responsibilities outside Akatsuki 173.

Equipment and Insignia

• Black cloaks with red clouds — Worn by Akatsuki operatives and copied by En during his false-flag attacks 63 75 117.
• Plain black wristbands — Identify reserve candidates who have not earned full membership 149.
• Membership ring — Yasuo receives a black ring engraved with “Three” upon promotion 173.
• Demonic Statue of the Outer Path — Houses captured Tailed Beasts; its central eye opens after Shukaku’s sealing is completed 174 178.

Story Role and Major Arcs

Impersonation and Premature Exposure

En first exploits Akatsuki’s identity during the Shimura and Sarutobi clan attacks. Disguised as “Tobi,” he claims that Danzō commissioned the killings. Survivors later mistake the real Obito for their attacker, despite Obito’s denial 4 11.

En repeats the disguise to murder Prince Takasu, publicly presenting the killing as an Akatsuki bounty commission. The Fire Daimyo demands an investigation and proposes that the Five Great Nations destroy the organization. Pain orders his members to hunt the impostor and reduce their activity 75 78 79.

The framing escalates with En’s robberies of a Lightning-country casino, Sunagakure’s Gold Dust Trading Company, and an Earth-border Bounty Office. Itachi volunteers to investigate after connecting the impostor’s Sharingan and space-time abilities to Sasuke’s death. Meanwhile, En leaks records and rumors that guide the nations’ investigators to Amegakure 107 108 110.

Battle of Amegakure

Konoha, Kumogakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure surround Amegakure with roughly ten thousand troops. Kirigakure declines to participate. Pain refuses to retreat and treats the invasion as an opportunity to demonstrate Akatsuki’s strength 113.

Pain defeats the army and kills Hiruzen. Akatsuki members pursue the fleeing soldiers under orders to make the nations remember the organization. Subsequent accounts place allied losses at more than half the force; fewer than two thousand of Iwagakure’s four thousand troops return 117 118 119.

Kumogakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure respond with recalls, defensive measures, and restrictions on further action against the Land of Rain until Pain’s capabilities are understood 118.

Yasuo’s Infiltration

En enters Akatsuki’s recruitment trials as Yasuo, a wandering swordsman from the Land of Hot Water. Orochimaru recognizes him but conceals that knowledge. En survives the combat trial and challenges Pain’s doctrine by arguing that the powerful should experience the suffering they impose on ordinary people 147 148.

Konan appoints Yasuo captain of the nine reserve candidates. Their first assignments involve repairing Amegakure’s defenses and distributing food, before Pain sends them with Sasori to capture Shukaku 149 150 151.

One-Tail Capture

En secretly coerces a Land of Wind minister into arranging a funding offer that brings Rasa and Gaara to the capital. Sasori’s scouts discover their new location, redirecting the capture operation away from Sunagakure 152 154.

The battle escalates into Shukaku’s full manifestation and the destruction of the capital. Sasori kills Rasa. En, who deliberately helped unleash the rampage, deflects a Tailed Beast Bomb into the Daimyo’s mansion, killing the ruler while appearing to protect his squad 160 164 165.

Sasori forces Shukaku back into the exhausted Gaara and captures them in a sealing scroll. The deaths of the Kazekage, Daimyo, and western quarter’s nobles leave the Land of Wind’s leadership shattered 165 166.

Pain reprimands Sasori for exceeding the mission but accepts his explanation that Shukaku killed the Daimyo. Sasori’s praise of Yasuo’s apparent loyalty helps secure En’s promotion to full membership 168 173.

First Sealing and Operational Pause

Milestone	Chapter	Outcome
One-Tail capture ordered	151	Shukaku, sealed inside Gaara, becomes Akatsuki’s first target.
One-Tail secured	165	Sasori captures unconscious Gaara and his gourd in a sealing scroll.
Extraction begins	174	Pain summons the Demonic Statue and starts the Chakra-dragon ritual.
Sealing completed	178	After seventy-two hours, Shukaku becomes the first Tailed Beast sealed into the statue; its central eye opens.

With the great villages watching Akatsuki after the Land of Wind disaster, Pain orders members to conceal their movements, preserve normal life in Amegakure, and suspend further operations 178.

Notable Quotes

“If you wish to join, you must prove your strength.”
— Pain, addressing Itachi 63

“Akatsuki wants those who understand pain.”
— Pain, addressing recruitment survivors 147

“Want better food? Earn it yourself.”
— Kakuzu, explaining the organization’s resource rules 150