Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 191 The Great Battle Begins

The Land of Rain, the headquarters of the Akatsuki organization.

After eight years of development, the Land of Rain has almost completely become the domain of the Akatsuki organization. Even the Rain Village, founded by Hanzo the Salamander, now has to avoid its sharp edge.

Fortunately, Akatsuki's main operations were actually conducted in the five great nations, which gave Amegakure a chance to survive and prevented it from being driven to bankruptcy.

The Akatsuki headquarters at this moment has far exceeded its size eight years ago, and has even been built into a small city, with a larger area than the original five great ninja villages.

Of course, it can't compare to the current Five Great Ninja Villages—the current Five Great Ninja Villages are only nominally villages; in reality, each ninja village is equivalent to a large city and has developed into a warlord model.

Even the Akatsuki, which is nominally closer to a public welfare organization, is now showing signs of becoming militaristic. This is not even subject to Nagato's will, but rather a spontaneous clustering effect from the bottom up.

When the Akatsuki had only a few dozen or a few hundred members, it could operate on its own, fueled by its ideals. But now that it has grown into a large organization with tens of thousands of members, it can no longer rely solely on its so-called ideals.

The void trembled, and Nagato, with a cold gaze, stepped out. Looking at the ninja village before him, which was the size of a city, a smile appeared on his face.

"It's time for the world to feel the pain... Now that I'm playing Nagato, I naturally need to find a ninja village to carry some rice!"

When the Nagato puppet entered the city where the Akatsuki were located, the Akatsuki ninjas looked at him with different expressions: some were excited, some were in awe, and some were worshipful. With just one glance, Uchiha Tou knew Nagato's status in the Akatsuki.

"Nagato, you're back."

Several sheets of paper floated down from the sky. Konan, with white paper wings, landed and looked at Nagato. She gently wiped her eyes and looked at Nagato with a very complicated expression.

"Yes, I'm back. Konan, please gather all the Jonin of Akatsuki for me. I have something very important to tell them."

Nagato looked at Konan with a smile, causing Konan to be slightly dazed for a moment. Then she came back to her senses and nodded very seriously:

"I understand, Nagato. I'll summon them right away."

In the meeting room at the center of the Akatsuki organization, there is a large round table. Perhaps to better reflect fairness, this round table was used as a prop for meeting discussions.

The round table was now filled with ninjas, and it even looked a bit crowded. Although the round table was very large, there were too many Jonin from the Akatsuki organization. At least 50 Jonin were sitting around the table.

When Nagato and Yahiko set up the round table, the Akatsuki organization was not exactly penniless, but it was also quite well-off. The entire organization had only a little over a hundred members, and there were only three Jonin, including Nagato. At that time, they never imagined that the Akatsuki organization would grow to this extent, and they even thought that the table was too big.

In reality, as an organization of tens of thousands of people, Akatsuki now has nearly a hundred Jonin. However, Akatsuki has spread out a lot, with nearly half of its ninjas operating in other countries.

Generally speaking, the ratio of Jonin to ordinary ninjas in a ninja village is about 100 to 1. Even though all ninja villages have undergone large-scale expansion in recent years, this ratio has not changed much because they are accepting geniuses from among the common people.

However, compared to other ninja villages, Akatsuki's organization had a large number of ordinary ninjas with weaker strength due to its own needs. From this point of view, Akatsuki's number of Jonin was far from sufficient. If it had the same proportion as a normal ninja village, even blowing up the Great Round Table wouldn't be enough.

A moment later, Nagato and Konan entered the conference room one after the other. A group of Jonin turned their gazes toward the two of them, especially toward Nagato, whose gazes were filled with awe.

These Jonin were well aware that the Akatsuki, an organization that could be described as purely idealistic, had developed to its current state not because of anything else, but entirely because of Nagato's own immense power.

Many Akatsuki ninjas have come to see Nagato as a modern-day Hashirama Senju, believing he could completely change the era. Their only complaint is that Nagato's personality is even more naive than Hashirama's.

Unlike ordinary ninjas, Jonin have more experience and, in addition to ideals, also consider reality more.

The reason why he joined the Akatsuki as a Jonin was partly because of Nagato's ideal of peace, but more so because he admired Nagato's powerful strength.

Nagato, having entered the room, glanced at everyone's gaze, stood to one side of the round table, and spoke calmly:

"A few days ago, based on the intelligence I received, I finally found the Uchiha who was said to bring disaster to the world in the fable, and I have already killed him."

The Akatsuki members looked at each other in bewilderment. Most of them had joined the Akatsuki later and knew that Nagato had been hunting down a certain Uchiha, but had not yet found any trace of him. However, they knew absolutely nothing about Uchiha Touu, what kind of person he was, or what kind of strength he possessed.

As for Uchiha Tou's achievements, most of them were done in secret. Even though he plundered all the Jinchuriki from the Five Great Shinobi Villages, the Five Great Shinobi Villages did not publicize it. So although these people knew that Uchiha Tou was strong, they didn't really know how strong he was.

However, there were two Akatsuki veterans among them who knew about the situation when Uchiha Touyu attacked the Akatsuki base. Although Uchiha Touyu did not attack them at that time, the aftermath of his battle with Nagato had already caused the Akatsuki to suffer the most serious losses in history.

Based on this alone, the two Akatsuki members knew just how powerful Uchiha Tou was; he was at least a powerful ninja who could rival Nagato.

"Great! Lord Nagato! The revenge for the Akatsuki has finally been taken!"

"Without Uchiha Tou, Lord Nagato, you are now the undisputed strongest ninja in the world!"

"By the way, Lord Nagato, what about the tailed beast that Uchiha Touya stole? Are the tailed beasts from the Nine Great Shinobi Villages with you now, Lord Nagato?"

Tailed beasts!? Upon hearing this, the Akatsuki Jonin, who had initially dismissed it as an overreaction, immediately became serious.

Although these Jonin who joined Akatsuki later were not very clear about some of the most confidential information, they had heard that all the Jinchuriki of the Tailed Beasts from the Five Great Shinobi Villages had been kidnapped by one person, but they could not confirm whether it was true or not.

Now it seems that Uchiha is no ordinary person. It's impossible for an ordinary ninja to wipe out all the tailed beast jinchūriki of the five great ninja villages!

"The Uchiha... are they really that strong?"

"While those Sharingan users with their ridiculously large eyes are indeed strong, they're not that powerful, are they?"

"That's no ordinary Uchiha. Our Akatsuki was attacked by him before... no, it wasn't even an attack, just the aftershocks of his battle with Lord Nagato caused us heavy losses!"

"What!? Someone can actually fight Lord Nagato?"

"Yes... the ruins of our Akatsuki organization were actually a product of that great war."

As the discussions unfolded, the Jonin present learned about Uchiha Tou's strength and the hatred he had for the Akatsuki organization. They realized that Nagato had truly eliminated a major threat this time.

"Alright, let's stop talking about it. It's all over now."

Nagato waved his hand, and the ninjas below immediately stopped talking and looked at him. After a brief silence, Nagato spoke:

"Now that we've eliminated Uchiha Tou, that major threat, it's time for the Akatsuki to develop... Everyone, please feel free to share your thoughts."

The Akatsuki's development period?! Several Jonin with simpler personalities asked, somewhat puzzled:

"Let's just continue developing according to our previous model. Nowadays, there aren't any major wars in the ninja world. Even the aftereffects of the original nationwide chakra plan have been completely suppressed by us. Even if we don't do anything, the entire ninja world will continue to develop and improve!"

However, most of the ninjas remained silent. Some ambitious Jonin exchanged glances, their hearts burning with a secret desire.

In the past, these Jonin had tried to subtly suggest that Nagato could "take it a step further," but Nagato had always firmly refused. However, things seem to be different now.

Some ninjas who are more familiar with the history of the ninja world even connected Nagato Uzumaki and Touya Uchiha with Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. The formation of the five great ninja villages and the First Shinobi World War were closely related to the alliance and division between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha.

Now it seems that Nagato Uzumaki, the modern-day Hashirama Senju, directly killed Tomo Uchiha, who was Madara Uchiha. Doesn't that mean that the entire ninja world belongs to him alone?

Thinking even deeper, having just eliminated the only opponent who could rival him, he began inquiring about the Akatsuki's development strategy... It seems that even the leader of the Akatsuki is starting to feel restless.

Although they had many thoughts in their minds, none of the ninjas spoke. Instead, they focused their attention on Nagato, their eyes filled with a mixture of emotions, including excitement, anticipation, and fear.

And Nagato Uzumaki lived up to expectations, speaking words completely different from his usual style:

"You're right, the ninja world is indeed at peace now, but the key question is, how long can this peace last?"

"As we all know, when the First Hokage was alive, the entire ninja world was very peaceful. But as soon as he passed away, the five great ninja villages immediately launched the First Shinobi World War, and within just thirty or forty years, three more Shinobi World Wars were fought!"

"If one day I'm gone... will the current peace in the ninja world suddenly collapse?"

Upon hearing this, the few naive Jonin who had been the first to speak were immediately dumbfounded and speechless.

The average lifespan of ninjas in the ninja world is only thirty or forty years. With the successive occurrence of several ninja wars, the entire ninja world has not had more than 30 years of peace in the past few hundred years. This has made all ninjas rather short-sighted—because these people simply cannot imagine what hundreds of years of peace would be like!

Nagato said, "I can maintain peace while I'm alive, but what about after I die?" For these simple-minded ninjas, maintaining peace while alive is already a good thing; after death? Well, that's just how it is.

However, very few Jonin are simple-minded. Most, if not ambitious, are extremely eager to improve. At this moment, a Jonin with one eye blind showed a hint of excitement on his face and spoke:

"Lord Nagato, I have a way to bring lasting peace to the ninja world!"

"If we could merge the five great nations of the ninja world into one country, and make the five great ninja villages and our Akatsuki organization one ninja village, wouldn't we no longer need to fight each other, and wouldn't lasting peace be achieved?"

These words were like a bomb dropped into muddy waters, and all the ninjas began to murmur amongst themselves.

"This plan is excellent. Once the ninja world is unified, there shouldn't be any wars in this world for at least a hundred years!"

"How could you do this? Isn't Akatsuki a peaceful organization? Swallowing up other ninja villages and countries completely contradicts the principles of Akatsuki!"

"For lasting peace, some sacrifices will always be necessary; these sacrifices will become the foundation for future peace!"

"Heh, that's what the five great ninja villages said when they launched the Fourth Shinobi World War!"

"Do you really think Lord Nagato is like those ninjas from the Five Great Ninja Villages? With Lord Nagato's power, conquering the Five Great Ninja Villages would be a piece of cake."

"Our Akatsuki organization's mission is to achieve peace through dialogue and communication, not through violence!"

"Times have changed! No one can stand against our Akatsuki anymore!"

The ninjas below his eyes were making a lot of noise. Nagato's Rinnegan unleashed a powerful aura without hesitation. The terrifying aura made all the Jonin tremble and immediately shut their mouths.

Staring with his pair of purple six-tomoe Rinnegan, Nagato's gaze swept over all the Jonin. Every Jonin who met his eyes felt their hearts tremble and lowered their heads.

The ninjas below his eyes all fell silent, and Nagato nodded.

"What you all say makes a lot of sense. Unification is indeed a good way to achieve lasting peace."

"As for violating the Akatsuki's principles... you must understand that the Akatsuki's most fundamental goal is peace. Whether this peace is achieved through dialogue or violence makes no difference."

(End of this chapter)