As Pain prepared to set out to attack Konoha, confident in his plans, Madara appeared before him. Pain narrowed his eyes at the Uchiha and said, "What is it Madara?"

Madara advanced on Pain and said, "Well, I've been thinking Pain. This organization as gone downhill as of late. Once it held the attention of the world and it still served my purposes as well as yours. But now that my purposes are no longer being served, I don't believe I want to be a part of this anymore."

Pain turned to stare fully at Madara. He came within inches of Madara's mask and said, "So be it."

Within seconds Madara was surrounded by Pains six bodies, each preparing to attack from a different location. Madara's eye narrowed then blasted back open revealing his Mangekyo Sharingan. Before any of Pain's bodies could attack they were all crushed at the same time by Madara's power. It seemed that even Pain had no idea of the true scope of Madara's eyes. Madara turned his gaze on Pain and said, "Now you and Konan will attack the Leaf village. If you are captured to be interrogated you will tell them you killed me in a coup. If they kill you on sight, then Konan will deliver the message then surrender herself."

As he spoke of Konan his eye glanced in her direction capturing her in his power as well. Pain would've been a better match for Madara if he had known the attack was coming. As it was, all he could do is watch as Madara crushed the last of his organization under his heel. Madara watched as Pain and Konan ran off in a futile attempt to attack the Leaf village. Thanks to Madara they were sure to be killed almost as soon as they were in sight. The giants had no peer.

"But that will eventually turn to their downfall." Madara said to himself as he left the cave that had been the Akatsuki hideout for so long for good. "The next generation is so impressionable."

Madara laughed to himself and disappeared into the afternoon heading for a place of hiding to plot his next move.

Everything went almost exactly as planned. Pain and Konan infiltrated the Leaf village but were quickly spotted and captured. They were interrogated and willingly gave up their information without the need for torture. This was instantly found suspicious by Jiraiya who had come to know the Akatsuki and their ways over the years. He met with Tsunade on top of the Hokage Mansion.

"I don't like the looks of this." He said. "Those two gave up way to easily. And weren't there at least three other members of Akatsuki still alive? Where did they go?"

Tsunade sighed and said, "I suppose it would be foolish to think that the Akatsuki would fall so easily."

"Madara." Jiraiya said simply. "He must be behind all this."

"What could his plan be?" Tsunade said tapping her foot impatiently. "Why would he try this fruitless attack?"

"He wasn't trying to harm the Leaf village. Ibiki told me that Pain said Madara was dead. Judging by the state of Itachi and his words there's no way that Madara would fall so easily. I'm guessing this whole thing was a plan to make us think that Madara and the Akatsuki were all killed so that we'd be lulled into a false sense of security."

Tsunade turned toward her desk and started writing. "Then we'll send out parties to search for him. He won't be able to hide for long."

And so for all intents and purposes the Akatsuki was finished. Other criminals strove to fill the gap left by the powerful organization but no one could really measure up. With the giants patrolling two major portions of the country not many criminals got a chance to rise in power. Night and day Tsunade had ANBU search for Madara or even Madara's corpse but he had disappeared completely. Eventually security decreased around the the village as it entered a period of peace. Relationships developed and fell and new bonds were formed and broken. Thanks to the giants no one in the village felt fear from the outside threats that had once been prominent in their mind.

Yet peace is never absolute. Years later, Madara was planning his next move at last.