"Follow your lead?"
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow slightly, a thoughtful smile appearing on his face.
"It seems you had your own reasons for joining this organization."
River smiled. "Everyone who joins the Akatsuki has their own agenda, don't they?"
Orochimaru paused briefly, then nodded.
Since they both came from Konoha and already knew each other, they soon grew considerably closer.
"Did you defect from Konoha too?"
A little later, as they walked along a narrow path in Amegakure beneath black umbrellas, Orochimaru asked softly.
He looked up at the fine drizzle falling from the sky.
The members of the Akatsuki usually operated quite independently. This gathering had been arranged so they could get to know one another.
Something like this would almost never have happened in the original story.
The cold, detached Pain would only have treated everyone as tools for achieving his goal, never making such a well-intentioned effort to bring them closer.
River also looked up at the drizzle, quietly reflecting.
Bonds are the best way to bring people together.
Humans were humans, after all, not actual tools. People had feelings, and spending enough time together would naturally foster affection.
"Make the Akatsuki something more than a cold organization."
"Perhaps they all joined with different agendas at first, but once they've spent enough time together and developed new feelings and new bonds..."
"Then this place will become their new home."
"Only then, Nagato, will the organization we've built have warmth-and the power to truly change this world."
River had said those words to Nagato shortly after joining. Judging by his time in Amegakure, Nagato seemed to have genuinely taken his advice.
Although the changes were still small and their effects difficult to see, that subtle influence would gradually grow with time.
Quietly lowering his gaze, River looked at