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"Zetsu, what news do you have on the jinchūriki that participated in the chūnin exams?" Pein ordered more than asked the plant-like being. The current level of strength would be essential knowledge for the group as it would benefit them in capturing all of the jinchūriki.
"Ah yes, the jinchūrikis within Konoha during that time put on quite a show. There have also been some very interesting developments regarding the Kyuubi jinchūrikis." White Zetsu was the one who answered in his usual playful tone. Him and his black counterpart had watched the entire chūnin exam finals, hidden from view of everyone, Kages included. Black Zetsu had been seething in anger and rage ever since he saw the only non-jinchūriki child of the Hokage compete. It wasn't like him to be angry, he was usually serious, critical, and even harsh to everyone, but he had never been angry before.
"What kind of developments exactly?" The figurehead leader of the Akatsuki asked once more. He was getting irritated that things weren't going according to plan, they had enough strength and numbers to start hunting the jinchūriki as of now, of course the Bijū had to be captured and sealed in order from least amount of tails to the greatest so that the Gedō Mazō could slowly adjust to its power returning.
If they were to seal a Bijū with a larger amount of tail before the ones with a lower amount were sealed, the sealing process would take much longer and be much harder on the physical body and the chakra of those sealing it because the statue would have too much power already. That was the reason that they would be going in order of the number of tails.
"As we expected, the Sanbi jinchūriki, Yagura, has perfect control of the Bijū sealed within him and is incredibly strong. He will be quite difficult to subdue and capture, but that wasn't very surprising. What was interesting is that there are no longer three Kyuubi jinchūrikis, only two. The Kyuubi's chakra inside of the Yondaime Hokage's second son ripped itself out of the boy and fused with the other half of itself inside of his daughter, leaving the boy without a trace of its chakra. This means that the Kyuubi is whole once again and is sure to be far stronger than we had anticipated." White Zetsu informed the group excitedly, there was a reason that he was occasionally referred to as 'chatterbox'.
There was a collective silence among the group of S-Rank shinobi as it was unheard of for a Bijuū to actually forcibly remove itself from its host. There have been cases where a third party has somehow gained control of the beast and ripped it out of the seal holding it, but never before has it done so on its own. For those who were hunting the Bijū this was a very interesting development.
At least to some it was.
"You call that an important development? All that means is that we have one less jinchūriki to capture." Menma's dislike for Kushina and anyone related to her began to show as he voiced his opinion.
"No, that was just the tip of the iceberg. What really matters is what happened during the Suna/Oto invasion of Konoha." This statement caught the attention of most of the other shinobi in the room. It had been a week since the invasion occurred, but Konoha was keeping the betrayal of Suna quiet for now until the rebuilt their village and bolstered their strength. Seeing the questioning looks he was receiving, White Zetsu chose to elaborate, "Yes, the Yondaime Kazekage chose to side with Orochimaru and Otogakure and they invaded Konoha with their combined forces during the final stage of the chūnin exams. Though they were forced to retreat and lost nearly three-fourths of their forces in the process. What matters to us though is that Portgas D. Naruto, the eldest son of the Yondaime Hokage, managed to kill the Suna jinchūriki during the midst of the invasion." Zetsu spoke, earning a surprised look from Law. He was the only one among them to possess the initial 'D'. As to what that initial meant, only the few of them knew the vague details concerning that name, but the one thing that was certain, no matter how confusing it was, was that the Clan of D were the natural enemies of God
A thick silence filled the cavern once more as everyone processed White Zetsu's words.
The death of the Ichibi would be a major setback in their plans as it was the first Bijū that they needed to seal. This meant that they would have to wait until the Ichibi was reformed somewhere, or that they would need to start hunting the other Bijū first and seal the Ichibi last. They would most likely be doing the former since it should only take a few years at most for it to reform.
"...That is quite troublesome indeed...With the death of the Ichibi jinchūriki, our plans will have to be pushed back. The last time a jinchūriki was killed, it took the Bijū three years to reform, I assume it will take the same length this time..." Pein announced to the rest of the organization with an irritated look on his face.
"And what exactly are we supposed to do until that time comes? Surely the jinchūriki will have grown in strength by then, especially the younger ones." Crocodile questioned as he blew out a puff of smoke from his cigar.
"We need to know how strong each of the jinchūriki currently are so that we are adequately prepared. We had already prepared to do this anyway, so that plan hasn't changed. Each of the teams is to report back here when they are done, and be sure not to kill any of the jinchūriki, we can't afford to have the plan delayed further than it already has...The rest of you are on standby for now. Continue to gather funds and strength for the duration of our operation."
Most of the members of the room gave a simultaneous response of "Hai, Leader-sama!", while the more silent and reserved characters merely nodded their head.
Seeing that everyone understood the current plan of action, Pein continued, "Good, do all of you understand your current objectives?"
His question was more rhetorical than anything and not exactly meant to be answered, but strangely, someone spoke up.
"...Actually Leader-sama, I'd like to be the one to test the Kyuubi jinchūriki this time around." The deep voice of Black Zetsu spoke up. Though his voice was far darker and filled with much more rage than usual. He suppressed it quite well, but every shinobi in the room was S-Ranked, in other words the highest ranking in the Elemental Nations, nothing got by them.