Is Your Suspicion Too Heavy?

Before coming here,

Konan's mind was full of guesses about the so-called "Book of Mysteries" that the masked man mentioned.

Secret ninjutsu scrolls, foreign intelligence, geographical records—she considered all sorts of possibilities.

But she never imagined it would turn out to be a *small yellow book* filled with explicit content!

That masked man clearly had a few screws loose!

After being stunned for quite a while,

Konan turned her head stiffly to look at Kuzo and asked with a strange expression:

"Did you... make a special trip outside just to buy this book?"

"Uh, yeah."

Kuzo nodded, lifting the book in his hand. "Why? Do you want to read it too?"

"..."

Konan froze.

"No, no."

"Don't let me interrupt your reading. I'm leaving now."

As soon as she finished speaking,

Konan, with a clearly conflicted look on her face, spread her paper wings and left through the window like she was escaping. If one looked closely, her face even seemed slightly flushed.

Back inside the room, Kuzo held the small yellow book in his hand, confused.

Huh?

What was that about?

She left before I could even explain.

Sure, *Make-Out Paradise* is pretty explicit, but it shouldn't be *that* surprising, right?

Kuzo scratched his head.

Oh well. Time to keep reading.

...

...

A while later,

Konan returned straight to the meeting hall, her face still looking a bit odd.

Tobi narrowed his eyes and asked seriously,

"So? Did you find any useful information?"

"..."

Konan was silent for a moment. Then she looked directly at Tobi and said plainly,

"No."

"Your assumption was wrong."

"The book he was holding was nothing more than an ordinary novel."

"Are you being a bit *too* suspicious of him?"

At the end of her sentence, Konan frowned slightly.

Tobi, on the other hand, looked stunned.

Just a regular novel?!

This...

Impossible.

Would someone really go out of their way to a bookstore miles away just for a regular book?

Tobi couldn't understand it.

If that were true, then Kuzo had way too much free time on his hands.

He was starting to realize that he increasingly couldn't make sense of the strange behavior of this kid named Kuzo.

After a while,

Tobi decided to drop the matter for now and turned to Konan again.

"Forget it. Let's leave that aside for now."

"A few days ago, I asked you to investigate Kuzo's background in other countries. Any progress?"

It was a task he had assigned them secretly.

Hearing this, Pain remained silent, while Konan closed her eyes and slowly shook her head.

"No clues."

"After filtering through all our intelligence networks," she said calmly,

"We found that the name 'Kuzo' doesn't appear in any village or organization in the entire ninja world."

"So the most likely explanation is—"

"Just like us, all of his information was lost during the Great Ninja War."

"He's a true wanderer without a past."

Konan lowered her eyes and finished quietly.

In truth,

Halfway through the investigation, she had already begun to believe that Kuzo was someone who had also experienced the chaos of war.

Otherwise, how could he possess such a high level of strength at such a young age?

Strength always comes from pain.

Just like Nagato.

Just like Konan.

Just like Yahiko, now gone.

Kuzo, too, seemed to be someone erased from the records after the storms of war.

What's more—

A few days ago,

While talking to Nagato, Konan had made a surprising observation—

In some ways, Kuzo's appearance was very similar to Yahiko's when he was a child.

After realizing that, things suddenly clicked in her mind.

It explained why she felt a strange sense of familiarity when she first saw him.

Perhaps, that was also the reason she had unconsciously felt drawn to him from the beginning.

After all, compared to the dangerous masked man in front of her,

Konan preferred to place her faith in someone who shared a similar tragic past—

A lone youth, walking out of the wreckage of war.

"No suspicious records..."

"In other words, we can at least be sure he's not some spy sent from another village."

"...Very well."

"In that case, let's suspend the investigation on him for now."

Tobi stood up, his Sharingan flickering, his voice deep and steady.

"Akatsuki's formation must continue."

"We can't delay the plan just because of this one person."

"Before long,"

"I'll likely bring in a new member."

"You two, continue recruiting the people on the list I gave you."

"...Understood."

Pain nodded slightly.

Currently, there were only six members in the Akatsuki organization.

Excluding the two leaders—Pain and Konan—there were just Kuzo, Kakuzu, the unreliable Orochimaru, and the even more unreliable Zetsu.

To achieve their grand peace plan,

This amount of manpower was far from enough.

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