Amegakure.
Compared to a year ago, the once-bustling streets had grown much quieter. Even with supply channels through the Tailed Beast Merchant Association, the daily necessities stocked in the shops were visibly dwindling.
Even the slowest residents realized that something major had happened in Amegakure.
The Rain Ninja, meanwhile, learned from passing merchants just how dire the situation had become.
Amegakure, and indeed the entire Land of Rain, had been blockaded-not militarily, but through economic sanctions.
The most obvious sign was the rising price of imported supplies, which only compounded the hardships of the already impoverished people of the Land of Rain.
Amegakure had faced this situation before, but that had been when Hanzo of the Salamander ruled the village.
After experiencing an increasingly better life, going right back to where they had started was incredibly hard to accept.
Things had been this way under Hanzō, and now they were the same under Pain. Had the Demigod died for nothing, then?
Although the people had yet to voice such thoughts, it was only a matter of time before doubts took root.
Amegakure's senior officials had asked Angel Konan about it, but even she had no good solution.
She could only keep replenishing Amegakure's essential supplies single-handedly, holding the entire village together.
The Rain Ninja who witnessed this were moved, but even more than that, they worried about the future.
They had a vague idea of why the economic blockade had been imposed. Akatsuki, the organization hunting tailed beasts across the shinobi world, might be hiding in Amegakure, and it was a mercenary organization wanted by all Four Great Countries.
Having such a powerful mercenary organization in their village naturally gave the Rain Ninja a sense of pride. It proved that Amegakure, already showing signs of becoming the sixth great shinobi