"Women, of course!" Fish Ball said as though the answer were obvious.
"My master is a simple man. Some people like money, some like power, and others like powerful Ninjutsu."
"My master is only interested in controlling women."
"..."
An Uchiha who liked women?!
Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari were all stunned.
In this world, people generally repressed their sexual desires.
Ninja were more repressed than anyone.
One of the three prohibitions for Ninja was women.
Those who indulged in lust became entangled in emotion. It gave them vulnerabilities for enemies to exploit.
Jiraiya of the Sannin was one example.
When Itachi and Kisame went after Jiraiya, they used women against him.
It worked. The moment Jiraiya saw a beautiful woman, he stopped in his tracks.
Traditional Ninja therefore kept their desires in check.
The Uchiha Clan was known as an elite clan of Ninja, and its members all seemed indifferent to sex.
Take Itachi. In Itachi Shinden, he and Izumi had already become a couple.
Yet to carry out his superiors' mission, he killed his girlfriend with his own hands. She was the first person he killed.
Once the shock wore off, Gaara felt a measure of relief.
What he feared was that Liao Wu wanted peace.
Leaf Village's intelligence had mentioned that the leader of Akatsuki wanted peace.
He captured the Nine Great Tailed Beasts and abducted Gaara to extract Shukaku, all for the sake of peace.
They wanted to use the Nine Great Tailed Beasts to make a superweapon capable of destroying a nation with ease.
By threatening the great nations with devastating suffering, they hoped to make them too afraid of the losses to wage war. Fear would preserve the peace.
Whether Liao Wu wanted women or money, those were ordinary human desires.
But using suffering to