"Well, this is quite surprising." Ren, clad in his fake Tobi costume, exclaimed as he walked toward a bench in front of a playground for children in the heart of Amegakure and sat next to a disguised Konan wearing civilian clothes while watching the kids play.
"Isn't it a beautiful sight?" She wistfully asked in return without even turning to look toward him. "The war rages outside, but the children here can have fun without worries." The happy smile on her face widened.
Humming, Ren nodded. Yes. This was a testament to Nagato and Konan's accomplishments in Amegakure. From a certain point, they were the 'villains' of this world, but for many people in the Land of Rain, they brought peace to their lives.
Last Ren heard, Nagato stopped the Iwa forces from crossing through the Land of Rain. That saved a lot of people in his country. The Iwa would not just cross. They would pillage and plunder supplies from the locals, they would kill and rape, kick people out of their houses, and use them as cheap labor, because nobody cared about what happened in the Land of Rain.
Other small countries had it bad during wars, but the Land of Rain? They had it worse.
There was no Daimyo to complain to his peers about ninjas ravaging his lands. Hanzo the Salamander killed the previous Daimyo before he installed himself as the ruler all those years ago, before the first ninja war. It was the reason why the country went to shit and why the hidden villages could do pretty much whatever they wanted in here during wars for so long.
Their location, directly in the middle of four hidden villages, was already a bad thing for the country. But Hanzo made it much worse by making the country actually an easy and acceptable target that did not have the protection of a Daimyo.
Other Daimyos even encouraged it as a show of protest for Hanzo killing the said Daimyo. Their hired assassination attempts failed, so why not just ensure his rule will be full of misery? Who cared about the people living there, right?
Dipshits.
"What gave you the idea to call me out in this way?" Ren asked as he pulled out a lollipop from his pocket and offered it to Konan, who gave him an unamused look.
But she huffed and still took it after a few seconds.
"I bet on the possibility that you might have some sort of surveillance in Amegakure." She nonchalantly shrugged.
"So, you pretty much erected several messages made of paper that invited me to this meeting all across this village?" Ren gave her an incredulous stare, only for her to smirk at him.
"It worked, no? Besides, you are the weird one for showing up at all." Konan dryly said with a trace of exasperation in her voice, "Who does that? What if this was a trap? You didn't forget that we are pretty much enemies, did you?" She narrowed her eyes at him, and her expression turned very serious.
Ren embarrassedly scratched his head at her scolding tone and awkwardly chuckled, "Er... There is no need to reprimand me so much. For all you know, this might be a shadow clone, ya know? Tobi is a good boy!" He cheerfully exclaimed and took it as a personal win when Konan's lips quivered despite her attempts to maintain a severe expression.
With a huff, she turned back toward the kids and continued to watch them in silence.
"... Is it? A clone, I mean?" Konan softly asked after a few seconds when Ren didn't continue speaking.
"Hmmm..." Ren dragged it out, making Konan wait for the answer before he finally said in a playfully innocent tone, "Nope."
That earned him a weak kick to the side of his leg. "Don't make me wish this was actually a trap." Konan deadpanned at him.
"Oh, so it is not? Then everything is fine!" Ren grinned under his mask, but he was sure Konan could see his grin in his body language, deliberately causing her to get even more exasperated with him.
"Ass." She grumbled with a small smile.
Honestly, that woman needed to relax. He was just helping her for her sake! After all, Tobi is a good boy!
Plus, he really did not have anything to fear, even if this was a trap. It wasn't even his intangibility seal that gave him the confidence. The reason why he was so carefree was that he was not really here.
No, he didn't lie. This was not a shadow clone. That would be a waste of chakra.
Instead, it was a remotely controlled puppet. Suna had some very, very, very good disguising techniques for their puppets, and with how much Ren had helped the puppet corps lately, he gained free access to many of their techniques. Adding Ino's light-bending through wind release into the mix, and not even an S-rank kunoichi like Konan noticed a thing.
Well, at least, for now. Ren was sure that she would eventually see through it if they interacted longer. It would take only one small, inconsistent detail to catch her attention and make her suspicious. If she put in proper effort, his disguise would most likely not last long.
But he wasn't going to tell her that. Let her figure it out herself, Tobi said!
"So? What did you call me for, if this is not a trap?" Ren finally asked, breaking the companionable silence between them.
Konan's relaxed expression instantly turned conflicted. But after a moment, she donned her usual cold and aloof facade, "I want you to tell me everything you know about Obito Uchiha."
That was enough of a surprise to give Ren a pause as he threw the woman a startled look.
"... Alright." He slowly nodded, "You win. I totally did not expect that."
He did say enough to reveal Tobi's real identity when he had that little clash with Akatsuki when he gave them his first greeting after one of their meetings.
Hell, he directly called him his brother from another mother, Tobito Uchiha. Or something along those lines. He didn't really remember what bullshit he spewed back then. Nevertheless, there really wasn't much of a hop, jump, or skip from there to his real name.
What surprised Ren wasn't that they figured out Tobi's identity. It was that they came to him for intel about the guy. That was not just unexpected. It was huge. It signified that there might be some beautiful friction among the Akatsuki ranks.
Ren let out a gleeful little laugh in his mind.
Outwardly, however, he did his best to project a confused and taken-aback body language, "Why would you ask me about the good boy, my brother from another mother, Bobito Uchiha!?"
"Do you have to be so insufferable?" Konan helplessly sighed with an amused glint in her eyes.
"Of course!" Ren sagely nodded, "It is my whole schtick, after all. Bobi is a good boy!"
"To answer your question," Konan decided to ignore his antics, "Tobi started the current war by using some genjutsu on an unhappy Land of Wind noble after he did some inspection in Sunagakure. It made the man cause more trouble than he had intended with his machinations, and the next thing everybody knew, the Earth Daimyo's father-in-law was dead, killed by Suna ninjas. Voila, the war." Her gaze turned hard.
She explained the situation as succinctly and with as much detail as possible because she was not sure if the fake Tobi next to her was even aware of what was going on in the world right now.
Ren, however, inwardly perked up at that unexpected information. Now that was something interesting, wasn't it? He would have most likely never found that out if not for this meeting. Any trace of genjutsu on Koichi Shido will be long gone by now.
Konan didn't even have any idea that he was currently living in Suna or that this was very valuable intel for him. It might not have changed too much about the situation right now, but it will certainly affect Ren's plans in the future.
"Heeh~, looks like little Bobito wasn't such a good boy after all," Ren said in a very pleased tone, imagining that he probably sounded like a cat that had gotten the canary.
Because now he had a target.
Calming down a bit, he glanced at Konan and nodded, "Sure, I can tell you about my bad bro. You see, it all started when the heart of his beloved girl was stolen by his best friend..."