Eye see you.

Where we last left off, Madara had found Nagato, and was going to take his Rinnegan. This week he does so. First of all, he closes Nagato’s still-open eyes, and then absorbs him using his space-distortion jutsu, dropping him off in some strange blocky world. Anyway, Madara then notes what a hassle it was getting the Rinnegan, and leaves. Back where Konan fell, a gust of wind sends her paper flying, allowing one particularly blood-stained piece to fly away. Then we go to another flashback, to when Jiraiya was the sensei to Konan, Yahiko and Nagato. For some reason, they’re wearing frog suits. Right. Anyway, Jiraiya reveals their ‘hop-in planks’, which they must flip over when they either leave or arrive, meaning that they can figure out when an enemy has captured or taken the place of one of them, as the card would be red when they are in, and would have a frog face when they are out. Konan points this out, whilst Yahiko says it’s stupid. Jiraiya goes on to say that this will be their personal code, so that they will always know the status of the other three. He then points out a hidden room and emergency escape, and then points out his own ‘hop-in plank’. He then starts their ‘water-off-a-frog’s-back’ training.

Yahiko runs out, saying he will get stronger and stronger until he can turn the country around. Some sort of word pun in this chapter somewhere. Too bad it doesn’t work in English, otherwise it would’ve been hilarious. Still, we then get a montage of them all training, Jiraiya leaving them,  training more, Konan bandaging up Yahiko and a moment between the two. Then we cut to Yahiko telling his Akatsuki that there are now too many of them for their current base, so they need a new one. Yahiko, Konan and Nagato look over their base one more time before leaving, and Konan starts to turn her plank over to show she is out. Just then, their base is attacked, and they rush through the hidden room to escape. Anyway, then we cut back to the present, where Konan’s blood-stained paper continues to fly away. Yahiko’s voice resonates, saying that they have to leave their base to make their dream come true, and that when it does, no matter how far apart they are separated, they will all come home, and they will all celebrate a job well done. Konan’s blood-stained paper flies in, covering her ‘out’ position plank, showing that she is now in. We then cut to Madara, who now has a mask fusing elements of the Sharingan and the Rinnegan, talking to Kabuto. Kabuto states that he has trouble, but he got a nice set of eyes in return. Madara answers that they were his to begin with. Zetsu then says that the information Kisame gathered has now arrived, and that things are going their way. Madara then stands, stating that it is time to capture the Kyuubi.

A pretty slow yet symbolic flashback chapter, to be honest. Not particularly interesting, but it also has some sort of draw to make you continue reading. Strange that. The whole premise of the planks has some sort of wordplay in Japanese, as ‘frog’, ‘come home’ and ‘turn over’ are all homonyms, all sounding as ‘kaeru’. Unfortunately, that wordplay is lost on us English-speaking people, so some of the chapter was pretty outlandish. Still, a pretty nice history of Akatsuki is fully developed, as is Nagato, Yahiko and Konan’s past with Jiraiya. Makes it that little more saddening that Pain killed Jiraiya. Oh well. Madara has new powers. And with those new powers, a new mask. I have no idea where he gets them, or if he just magically produces them, but the hypothetical mask maker would be fairly suspicious of these masks he needs to make. Anyway, I’m going off-topic. Now we’re going to get a final fight-off (probably), as Madara, logically with Zetsu and Kabuto, will be hunting down Naruto. Too bad Naruto’s on hiatus next week. No fret though, as Kishimoto’s one-shot ‘Bench!!’ is in the next issue.