Konan sighed, skimming through the reports once more. A team of five chuunin had been killed in a skirmish with a group of Ishigakure ninja, a village whose relations to Ame were already unstable. The nearby village of Bakudan lay in shambles after a recent terrorist bombing and the leader was now requesting financial support from Ame - but Akatsuki was running low on money.
It was not a good day.
Sighing again, Konan filed away the reports. Things had been getting worse over the past few weeks - the number of Akatsuki members were dwindling due to deaths during missions and Kakuzu's bounty hunting wasn't earning enough money to cover the costs. On the bright side, there had been no particularly difficult political problems to solve, and trade with other villages was going smoothly.
For most of her life, Konan had to work hard through pain and war. Even though she had Yahiko and Nagato beside her, and later on, Jiraiya, she could never let her guard down. She had always been accustomed to feeling like the world around her was in chaos, and she, along with the rest of the Akatsuki, were on a mission to save it. Now she felt like it was the other way around - Akatsuki was slowly decaying from the inside while Ame enjoyed relative peace.
The whole situation felt like the calm before a storm, and she would do anything to ensure Akatsuki
was prepared for the onslaught.
She needed to have an urgent meeting with Nagato.