"The civil war in the Hidden Rain Village is over... Hanzo of the Salamander has been dead for a long time..."

"The current leader of the Hidden Rain Village is Lord Pain!"

"They say the endless rain is one of Lord Pain's jutsu, which monitors the entire village..."

"Lord Pain resides in the tower, and aside from the Angel who relays his commands, no one knows the details about him. In fact, no one has ever seen him... But it seems that the Angel was once a member of the Akatsuki, the group that opposed the old Hidden Rain Village. Perhaps Lord Pain is connected to the Akatsuki as well..."

These were the memories extracted from the Rain Shinobi.

After filtering out the unnecessary information, only the useful bits remained.

"The rain stopped?"

Orochimaru looked up at the sky. The clouds still hung thick overhead, but the rain had abruptly ceased. It was as if a sudden summer downpour had just ended. "The rain stopped so suddenly... Could it be that I've been discovered? How terrifying... A sensory jutsu that covers such a large area and lasts this long..."

Just the sheer chakra reserves required for such a technique were enough to instill fear.

And if the reports about him single-handedly killing Hanzo of the Salamander and his top subordinates were true, then Lord Pain might be even stronger than Orochimaru had anticipated. However—

"I've never heard of this name before! For someone so powerful to be completely unknown... It's strange. Every powerful shinobi grows from weakness to strength. Even a prodigy who rises quickly has that short period of rapid growth."

But this "Pain"... Orochimaru had been investigating him for months and hadn't found a single clue. It was as if Pain had appeared out of thin air.

"Is it an alias?"

Or is he truly a hidden powerhouse? Orochimaru wondered.

As he pondered, the sound of rustling paper broke the stillness around him, like a blizzard sweeping in. White paper surged toward Orochimaru, enveloping him in an instant. The sheets of paper connected tightly, leaving him no space to breathe.

An ordinary person would have suffocated in no time if wrapped so tightly.

But Orochimaru was no ordinary person.

Suddenly, his body collapsed and melted into a pile of mud, sticking to the sheets of paper and forming a small mound on the ground.

"A clone?"

In midair, a woman wearing a black cloak adorned with red clouds looked down from above. A pair of large wings made of paper kept her afloat, and countless pieces of paper fluttered around her like butterflies. From a distance, she truly looked like an angel descending from the heavens.

She stared at the small mound of earth, her expression serious.

As expected of one of the legendary Sannin, a shinobi as famous as Jiraiya. She hadn't even noticed when Orochimaru had swapped his real body with a clone. But instead of being frightened, she merely became more cautious. Orochimaru's reputation was well-deserved, but she was no longer the helpless child she once was.

"So, you're the 'Angel,' aren't you?"

Orochimaru slowly emerged from the ground, once again standing firmly on the surface. He looked up at the woman in the sky and furrowed his brow slightly.

This "Angel" was a beautiful woman. Her light blue-purple hair was styled into a bun, with a light blue paper flower adorning the right side of her head. Her pale orange eyes were cold, and her facial features were sharp and elegant. She wore light purple eyeshadow, and a lip piercing adorned the lower part of her lip. Orochimaru wasn't like Jiraiya; he wouldn't be distracted by a pretty face. Even Jiraiya, for all his playfulness, never lost focus when it mattered.

What caused Orochimaru to frown was the feeling that he had seen this woman somewhere before.

"Orochimaru, what are you doing sneaking into the Hidden Rain Village?"

"That's... Can I say I came to look for Hanzo the Salamander?" Orochimaru relaxed his brow and smiled.

He had remembered where he had seen this woman before. If he wasn't mistaken, she was one of the children that Jiraiya, in his merciful nature, had protected during the war in the Land of Rain. Orochimaru had wanted to kill those kids back then, but Jiraiya had intervened.

Later, Jiraiya stayed in the Land of Rain for a long time, seemingly taking those children as his disciples. Orochimaru had only heard Jiraiya mention them briefly and didn't know their detailed circumstances.

But now, one of those children had become the so-called "Angel."

Could it be that Pain is connected to those children?

Speculation filled Orochimaru's mind, but he lacked the key evidence to confirm Pain's true identity.

"Hanzo's been dead for a long time. His bones have rotted away. If you're going to make an excuse, at least come up with a better one... But no matter. The command from God is to kill you. Whatever your reason for sneaking into the Hidden Rain Village, from the moment you set foot here, your fate was sealed."

The damp wind howled, and the white paper swirled in the air.

With a wave of her hand, the delicate pieces of paper suddenly folded themselves into the shape of shuriken. Enhanced by chakra, they were as hard as steel.

In the next moment, the paper shuriken rained down from the sky like a downpour.

Earth Style: Earth Wall!

Unfazed, Orochimaru calmly formed hand signs. From his mouth, he released refined Earth Style chakra, summoning a solid wall of earth and stone to shield himself from the barrage of paper shuriken.

After the last of the paper shuriken struck the wall, Orochimaru caused it to collapse, stepping out from behind it with a smile.

He looked up at the "Angel" in the sky and taunted, "A secret technique that manipulates paper? Interesting! But... if this is all the power you have, you're not going to be able to write my ending, Angel."

Without a doubt, he was trying to provoke her into attacking.

Orochimaru hadn't forgotten why he came to the Hidden Rain Village in the first place. He wasn't here for a fight to the death. In fact, he had little interest in battles for the sake of fighting. Combat was merely a means to an end.

His ultimate goal was the Rinnegan.

He didn't expect to obtain it easily.

Before coming into contact with the Rinnegan itself, he needed to gather as much information as possible. This Angel was highly valuable as the only person in contact with Pain. Perhaps he could extract some crucial information about Pain from her.

Paper Style: Paper Wheels!

It seemed Orochimaru's taunts had angered her. A new attack surged toward him like a raging storm. The countless sheets of paper around her gathered together with a rustle, forming spinning wheels about a meter in diameter. Their edges were sharp as blades, and they spun at incredible speed.

The deadly force of these spinning paper wheels was far greater than the earlier paper shuriken.

If the paper shuriken's power was one, the paper wheels' power was easily ten.

The paper wheels began their charge.

Orochimaru leapt backward, dodging the paper chakram falling toward him. However, with a resounding "boom," the stone-paved ground beneath his feet shattered from the force of the impact. If that blow had landed on a person, it would likely have cleaved them into two mangled pieces of flesh.

But that was just the beginning.

The paper chakram, which missed its target, didn't scatter into paper shards like the earlier paper shuriken. Instead, it accelerated again from the crater it created in the ground, hurtling once more toward Orochimaru. At the same time, other chakrams spinning rapidly in the air joined in, aiming straight at him.

"The destructive power has increased significantly, but... there's no fundamental change," Orochimaru remarked calmly, assessing the oncoming chakrams. While speaking, he formed hand seals and unleashed a newly mastered forbidden technique.

[Ninjutsu: Edo Tensei]

Three coffins were summoned from beneath the ground.

At the top of the tower.

"It's Orochimaru!" Uchiha Obito exclaimed, genuinely surprised.

Just earlier, they had been discussing recruiting Orochimaru into the Akatsuki, though they hadn't found him yet, so it hadn't been put into action. But now, out of nowhere, Orochimaru had come straight to them. It was almost too good to be true.

After a brief moment of shock, Obito couldn't help but think his luck was pretty good—everything seemed to be falling into place.

However, Obito frowned slightly, looking at Pain, and asked, "Pain, didn't we agree to recruit Orochimaru into the Akatsuki? Why did you give Konan a kill order? I've told you before, there aren't that many powerful rogue ninjas in the shinobi world. If we kill one, we lose one."

After detecting an intruder, Pain had stopped using his Rain Tiger at Will technique and sent Konan to investigate the intruder's identity.

The Rain Tiger at Will technique had a vast sensory range but its flaw was that if the target found shelter from the rain, the sensory connection would be lost. Because of this limitation, after narrowing down the area, Pain dispatched Konan to track down the intruder's precise location.

Konan did not disappoint.

Soon after, one of her paper clones returned with information: the intruder was none other than Orochimaru, the S-rank rogue ninja from Konoha, and one of the Legendary Sannin!

"Orochimaru may be one of the Sannin, but he won't be so easily killed. If Konan does manage to kill him, it would only mean that his reputation was undeserved, and Akatsuki doesn't need someone like that," Pain replied indifferently.

"Well, that's true. Orochimaru probably won't die that easily. Among the rising stars, he's one of the best," Obito nodded, maintaining his pretense as Uchiha Madara.

"But if Konan isn't strong enough..." he trailed off.

At that moment, a man dressed in the same black cloak with red clouds, his long orange ponytail tied neatly, and similar black piercings on his face stepped out from the room's depths. Most striking were his lavender Rinnegan eyes, identical to Pain's.

"You plan to deal with Orochimaru yourself?" Obito realized. No wonder Pain wasn't worried about Konan failing—he planned to intervene personally if necessary.

"If Konan can't handle it, I'll recruit him myself. Konan's paper butterflies will guide the Animal Path to Orochimaru. As for you, Uchiha Madara, do you plan to join the Akatsuki officially now?" Pain asked, staring at Obito.

So far, the Akatsuki only had four official members: Pain, Konan, Zetsu, and Kakuzu, who was busy earning money outside. Other than that, there were only a few auxiliary personnel, which was clearly not enough. If Pain didn't plan to handle all the hunting by himself, he needed to recruit more members.

"No need for now. Give me the status of a provisional member. Once the plan to capture the Tailed Beasts begins, I'll officially join," Obito declined Pain's offer once again, preferring not to reveal his existence to more people just yet.

He thought it better to use his spare time to figure out how to grow stronger.

Just because he wasn't seeking immediate revenge on Uchiha Zongxuan didn't mean he had let it go. It was only because he couldn't defeat him yet that he was holding back.

He was simply biding his time.

Someday, he would reclaim what had been taken from him!

"As you wish," Pain said, glancing at "Uchiha Madara" before closing his eyes again. He refocused on the Animal Path's clone, which was following Konan's paper butterflies, guiding it through several towers until it finally reached the lower levels of one.

There, he saw Orochimaru, and Konan engaged in battle.

Or rather, it was more like a game. Orochimaru, like a snake toying with its prey, was slowly pushing Konan to her limits. Except for her ultimate technique, she had already used everything she had, performing the Dance of the Shikigami to its fullest.

But unfortunately, she was up against Orochimaru—the man who had mastered over a thousand ninjutsu and forbidden techniques.

Especially Edo Tensei. In the original timeline, Kabuto used this very technique to cause massive trouble for the Allied Shinobi Forces—a force that represented the entire ninja world.

"What's that... a Sharingan?" the Animal Path's eyes widened in disbelief, as it saw Orochimaru leading three Uchiha clan ninjas in an assault against Konan.