The Land of Lightning is known for its endless, rugged mountain ranges and constant, year-round thunderstorms.

The air here seems a bit more violent than in other nations.

Uchiha Itachi, wearing a conical hat and dressed as a traveler, walked along the mountain path leading to the Kumogakure.

This was the final stop on his world tour to scout out external threats for the Land of Whirlpools.

Unlike the decay and desolation of the Sunagakure in the Land of Wind, or the isolation and repression of the Kirigakure in the Land of Water, the entire Land of Lightning, from the moment one stepped across its border, radiated an unmasked, brazen, and aggressive martial spirit.

Everyone here, whether Ninja or civilian, carried an arrogance born of self-confidence in their eyes.

The architectural style of the towns was rugged and massive, and the roars of Ninjas training in the training grounds could be heard from miles away.

Itachi did not rush to infiltrate the Kumogakure.

He knew that for a village as xenophobic and highly vigilant as Hidden Cloud, any rash move could lead to exposure.

He stayed in the towns surrounding the Kumogakure for several weeks under the guise of a traveling merchant.

He spent most of his time observing, using his Sharingan to record everything he saw, and a small portion of his time searching for intelligence gaps that could be easily pried open.

Soon, a shocking picture of war began to piece itself together in his mind.

The first piece of intelligence he gathered came from observing the flow of supplies.

Large quantities of grain, metal, and medical supplies were not flowing into the civilian market; instead, they were being centrally allocated, labeled for military use, and continuously transported to the military fortresses of the Kumogakure.

Civilian supply had been compressed to a level that could barely maintain basic living standards.

This was a classic de facto wartime economy.

The entire nation was tightening its belt for an upcoming large-scale war.

The second piece of intelligence came from long-distance observation.

Itachi had several times in the dead of night snuck onto the high mountains surrounding the Kumogakure, using binoculars infused with Chakra to observe the activity inside the village.

He witnessed with his own eyes the Fourth Raikage A, the man known for his speed and power, repeatedly conducting high-intensity collaborative combat drills with the village's other two Jinchūriki—Nii Yugito and Killer Bee.

The drills were not simple sparring, but simulations full of targeted assault tactics.

The Fourth Raikage A's violent Lightning Release Ninjutsu, combined with Nii Yugito's agile fire attacks and Killer Bee's near-perfect Tailed Beast transformation power, formed an invincible spear of war.

Their training goal was aimed directly at how to break through large-scale defensive barriers as quickly as possible.

The third piece of intelligence was even more in-depth.

Itachi discovered that the Kumogakure's technical department was working around the clock on several special research projects.

He had once disguised himself as a food delivery person and briefly entered the outskirts of the technical department.

He saw that the researchers' blackboards were filled with complex barrier technique diagrams, annotated with various cracking schemes.

Some of these schemes even involved using high-intensity Lightning Release Chakra to create special weapons capable of temporarily interfering with, or even "blinding," Dōjutsu.

All signs indicated that the Kumogakure had not been scared off by the Land of Whirlpools' "eight pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan" deterrent; instead, like a shark stimulated by the smell of blood, they had become even more excited and greedy.

They were actively preparing for war, searching for ways to break through the Land of Whirlpools' "Omni-Directional Defense System" and counter the Sharingan's Dōjutsu.

However, the core question remained unanswered.

What exactly gave the Fourth Raikage A such powerful confidence to dare to challenge an emerging power with eight Mangekyō Sharingan warriors?

To get this answer, Itachi decided to take a risk.

He locked his target onto a high-level secretary in the Raikage's office.

This was a meticulous Jonin who was extremely loyal to the Raikage.

Conventional interrogation and simple illusions would be difficult to work on someone like this.

But Itachi possessed Tsukuyomi.

On a rainy night, Itachi used the Transformation Technique to create a minor disturbance, successfully luring the secretary into an empty alley.

Without any superfluous words, the moment the secretary sensed danger and was about to raise the alarm, Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan met his eyes.

"Tsukuyomi."

In the secretary's mental world, time was infinitely stretched.

He was nailed to a cross, and Itachi, incarnated as a god, asked the same question over and over again in the most gentle yet irresistible voice.

In the outside world, it was merely a split-second of eye contact.

When Itachi's Dōjutsu was released, the Jonin was already covered in cold sweat, collapsing to the ground in a daze; he didn't even remember what he had just experienced.

And Itachi had already obtained the core intelligence he wanted.

A top-secret meeting in the Raikage's office was completely reconstructed in Itachi's mind.

At that meeting, facing his subordinates' concerns about the Land of Whirlpools' strength, the Fourth Raikage A laughed wildly and smashed the table beside him with one punch.

"Eight pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan? Hahahaha! What you see is a threat, but what I see is an unprecedented treasure!"

"Think about it. As long as we can conquer the Land of Whirlpools and capture those Uchiha clansmen, how many Sharingan will we have? How many Mangekyō Sharingan? When that time comes, our Kumogakure will become the only true hegemon of the Shinobi World! All Kekkei Genkais will be at our disposal!"

There was not a shred of fear in his eyes, only the most primitive, naked greed.

In his view, the Land of Whirlpools was not a neighboring country to be wary of, but an unexcavated treasure trove piled with gold and silver.

The Uchiha clan were not powerful opponents, but "materials" waiting to be captured and have their eyes transplanted.

The only reason he hadn't made a move yet was that he was wary of two things.

First, the Land of Whirlpools' ultimate defensive barrier that covered the entire island and had never been seen by anyone.

Second, the space-time Ninjutsu called "Kamui" displayed by Uchiha Kei.

He believed that as long as he could find a way to crack these two things, the Land of Whirlpools' seemingly powerful "eight pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan" would be nothing more than a flock of sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

War was no longer a question of whether it would happen, but a question of when.

Realizing this, Itachi did not delay for a moment.

He immediately retreated to a safe hiding spot and organized all the intelligence he had collected over the past few weeks—including the Kumogakure's military deployment map, analysis of Ninja combat styles, tactical characteristics of the Jinchūriki's collaborative combat, and the Fourth Raikage A's war declaration filled with greed and ambition—into a detailed report.

He took a sealed scroll from his bosom.

Breaking the seal, a pitch-black crow appeared on his arm.

The crow's left eye was a slowly rotating Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, identical to Uchiha Kei's.

"Go."

Itachi channeled all the intelligence into the Kamui crow's mind through a mental link.

The crow let out a hoarse cry, its left Mangekyō Sharingan suddenly distorted, forming a tiny spatial vortex that swallowed it whole.

After finishing all this, Itachi looked up at the thunderous sky outside the window; at the end of that sky lay the direction of the Land of Whirlpools.

He appended his own final judgment to the end of the intelligence.

"The Fourth Raikage A is a hungry lion; he sees not a threat, but prey. For him, the only way to communicate is to sever his claws along with his arms."

The clouds of war were no longer ethereal deductions, but were beginning to gather for real above the Land of Whirlpools.