Amegakure no Sato

A small yet highly industrialized hidden village located in an unnamed country. A number of smaller villages surround Amegakure. As its name suggests, it rains almost constantly. Many shinobi from this village seem to wear a kind of mask that allows them to breathe underwater.

For many years, Amegakure was led by Hanzō; he led Amegakure's forces against Konohagakure during the Second Great Shinobi World War. While Hanzō had a huge presence on the battlefield, such that he slaughtered a Konoha platoon and allowed the young Sannin to live as a sort of punishment, Amegakure lost the war. Amegakure's location between three of the Five Great Shinobi Countries has caused it to serve as a battleground during the various ninja wars, making most of its population war refugees. Amegakure has adopted a heavy isolationist policy because of this, leading the village's defenses to be being normally impenetrable. To be admitted to the village visitors, even those coming for Chūnin Exams held in Amegakure, must go through a number of security checks and are under constant surveillance during their stay. Even Hanzō, despite his strength, constantly feared being assassinated and was rarely seen in public.

During the Third Great Shinobi World War, a group from Amegakure began advocating peace. Seeing this as a threat to his rule, Hanzō allied with Danzō Shimura of Konoha to have them eliminated. Hanzō lured them to an ambush by claiming to be interested in their ideas and Yahiko, the group's public leader, was killed. Nagato tried to take revenge on Hanzō, but succeeded only in killing the other Amegakure ninja present as well as all of Danzō's Root personnel.

Nagato, adopting the alias of Pain, soon began a civil war within Amegakure. Forces loyal to his new ideas for the village wore an Amegakure headband with a horizontal slash through the middle, showing their rejection of the former Amegakure. Pain eventually singlehandedly killed Hanzō as well as anyone even remotely affiliated with him. He similarly slaughters any remnants loyal to Hanzō that try to sneak back into the village to assassinate him. Pain's effectiveness has caused the villagers of Amegakure to regard him as a god.

Knowledge of Amegakure's civil war was not common outside of the village, and the fate of Hanzō himself was completely unknown, other villages believing him to still be in charge. Because Pain uses the village as his base of operations for Akatsuki, Jiraiya of Konoha is able to spread news of these developments during the course of his investigation into the organization. Pain goes to Konoha after killing Jiraiya, but dies. Konan takes on the duties of Amegakure's leader afterwards and swears the village's allegiance to Naruto Uzumaki.