"Akatsuki will not fade, Konan. Take in the sights of this continent with me. Unity and order across the continent-I will bring you true peace!" Seeing that Konan understood, Otsutsuki Toneri reached out with his right hand and gently stroked her cool yet tender cheek, smiling warmly as he spoke.
His smile was so confident at that moment that Konan fell into a daze.
But after coming back to her senses, Konan could not help smiling bitterly. She paid no mind to Otsutsuki Toneri's right hand caressing her face.
"If... you had just been a little earlier..." Konan murmured dejectedly. The light radiating from Otsutsuki Toneri at that moment was so dazzling.
But why had he not revealed his goal a little earlier?
If he had brought it up before, so many things would not have needed to happen, and Nagato would not have had to die.
But...
Thinking of Nagato, Konan could not help sighing. She had taken too much for granted. How could Nagato back then possibly have listened to anyone else?
"There was no earlier, Konan. You know better than I do what the people in Akatsuki were like. What I need is an Akatsuki that obeys my orders completely," Otsutsuki Toneri said flatly. Akatsuki's former members had been unruly and defiant.
How could they have sincerely obeyed Otsutsuki Toneri? Making them truly submit would have been far too difficult.
He could certainly have overwhelmed them with absolute strength, but was there any need for subordinates who paid lip service while defying him, or even secretly undermining him?
Kakuzu, Sasori, Hidan, Itachi-almost all of them were like that. They had their own ideas, beliefs, and wills.
Getting them to genuinely accept him would not have been easy, and their strength did not meet Otsutsuki Toneri's requirements anyway.