Quote Originally Posted by Kraco View Post
I don't remember a single instance of Akatsuki members fighting to find out who should be their leader. It's more than clear that most of them would never consider the others friends or anything even remotely like that - they are villains after all - but there's no profit in fighting amongst themselves. Oro's fight against Itachi was to steal his eyes, not to climb ranks.
I didn't mean it so much that way. I meant that it would be unlikely that Pain would be the leader if he was weaker than they were. It would be hard to have any sort of authority if he could just be taken down so easily. I guess being the strongest isn't necessarily a prerequisite to being the leader of this group, but I think it's implied in the Manga. He calls himself a god and everything, I don't think he's too scared of anyone in his organization.