Nagato was indeed surprised—but not exactly pleased.
Seeing those two women flanking Uchiha Yorin on the left and right made it obvious: they were firmly in the Uchiha camp.
Pakura was manageable; but Mei Terumi looked ready to switch to "special mode" and plaster herself all over Yorin. Look at how furious she made Tsunade—she was this close to popping Byakugō.
Yorin: "That's my news, Nagato. How've you been lately?"
Honestly? Not great.
How to put it—he kept feeling things were slipping out of his control.
He had killed the "invincible" Hanzo, avenged Yahiko, even seen Danzō dead. You could say he overachieved. He gained Amegakure, had a place that counted as a base. Yet the anxiety and emptiness inside him only grew.
Akatsuki hadn't been like this. He himself had once been a pure revenant of revenge, a herald of pain—goal razor-sharp, power immense, marching unwaveringly down what he thought was the right, righteous road to destruction.
Now he was lost.
He had already lost his grip on Akatsuki. Worse—he had no idea where Uchiha Yorin planned to take it.
For months he'd been gathering intel on Yorin; the more he got, the more confused he became.
Taken together—and assuming all of it true—Uchiha Yorin was a cold, ruthless sword-user; a proud, mad Uchiha; a sly, cold-blooded capitalist; a big-hearted patron of orphanages; a scummy exploiter of ninja cats; a super womanizer; the man behind the Fourth Hokage; the Senju's live-in son-in-law…
And adding Nagato's own leads: Akatsuki's commander; the shinobi world's biggest schemer; the power behind Amegakure; a mighty, beyond-Kage powerhouse…
So many tags you could tell the joke: "My room's too small to fit all these people."
…
Tied up in knots, Nagato humbled himself and asked Jiraiya:
"So, Jiraiya-sensei—can I trust that man?"
What could Jiraiya say? He was just as stuck.
He wasn't exactly close to Yorin either.
But he couldn't just say that to his student. So apart from platitudes like "You must feel it with your heart," he had nothing.
And frankly, he had more urgent business.
Nagato had brothers; Jiraiya had buddies.
Lately, Jiraiya felt his buddy Orochimaru was getting stranger by the day.
Thanks to Uchiha/Konoha's transport corps, the route to the Rain was open—gear and equipment moved easily.
With Yorin's money pouring in, Orochimaru's lab went up at breakneck speed.
Then a team of assistants led by Kabuto and Anko joined; Orochimaru's research tempo only climbed.
Every day, bursts of creepy "ke-ke-ke" laughter echoed from the lab—Ame shinobi gave it wide berth.
Jiraiya suspected Orochimaru had snuck back into Konoha and grabbed some very bad forbidden arts from the Hokage Tower.
Like Edo Tensei, Edo Tensei, and—Edo Tensei.
Even that he could swallow. Worse—Orochimaru seemed to have awakened the "maiden within."
Ever since he started following Yorin, his mood had been bright—Jiraiya knew that. What he hadn't expected was that lately Orochimaru was even chatting with Konan about outfits and the latest cosmetics!
What really spiked his alert was a technique Orochimaru developed as an upgrade on Edo Tensei. Jiraiya saw it: old in, young out; dead in, alive out; man in, woman out.
If Yorin had been there, he would've recognized it at a glance: "Oi—Living Corpse Reincarnation, right? You've already figured it out? As expected of you." He'd have given a thumbs up. But Jiraiya didn't know.
Jiraiya: "What the hell?!"
He was shell-shocked. He dreaded waking up to find himself strapped to a lab table, struggling uselessly before the anesthetic took him—then opening his eyes to hear Orochimaru say:
"You're awake. The operation was a success—you're a girl now."
No way!
For the happiness of my lower half—I'm out!
So the next morning, Nagato discovered—to his dismay—that his esteemed Jiraiya-sensei had run away. All that remained was a note:
"Your sensei will travel seeking truth and gathering material. I can't stay by your side. Wait for my good news. —Jiraiya"
Holding the note, Nagato stood in the wind, utterly at a loss.
Damn it—can't take this.
He wanted to run, too.
…
Luckily, Yorin finally arrived.
"Looking good."
He happily inspected Amegakure's builds—pleased to confirm hardened roads, large dehumidified warehouses, and big "truck stops" for long-haul drivers.
Using these, Konoha's transport corps could slap Land of Rain labels on goods, bypass other nations' embargoes, and dump product freely—cashing in.
Life in Ame had become unimaginably good. Soy milk if you wanted soy milk, sweet douhua if you wanted sweet douhua—brown sugar, white sugar—add as you please. Some even committed heresy—putting sugar in their tofu pudding—and didn't get lynched. That's how profitable a transit hub is.
If Nagato were just an ordinary shinobi, with fewer ideals, he'd be satisfied.
Yorin may be "Second Leader" of Akatsuki, but he spends most of his time in Konoha; Ame's little patch is entirely Nagato's—an uncrowned Amekage.
The sort of thing a certain Danzō dreamed of his whole life and never got.
Even if his ambition were larger, the "textbook" next step would be clashing with Yorin—like that same dead Danzō.
But he wasn't that man.
His oddities were mainly because he hadn't read much—his knowledge base was thin. At heart, he was an idealist.
Right now, he stood in the fog where ideals collide with reality.
He desperately wanted an answer. Even if that answer came from the very Uchiha he disliked—Uchiha Yorin.
~~~
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