Episode 5 — Nagato’s plan to murder Obito

Setup — Konan against Jiraiya

In chapter 372, Jiraiya defeats Konan in a single technique. At the time, the reader would assume that Jiraiya is simply stronger than Konan.

Later on, however, Konan puts a much a better fight against Obito, and proves fast enough to play around Kamui, as she manages to detonate explosive tags just when Obito tries to absorb her in Kamui.

So, while the oil matchup might explain why she loses once hit, her lack of reaction to Jiraiya’s technique seems weird. Konan is fast enough to counter Kamui, but too slow to react to Jiraiya’s oil technique. That’s a discrepancy.

Chapter 372.

Setup — “Jiraiya could have won”

In chapter 383, Tendō says Jiraiya might have won if he had known Pain’s secret — that is, Nagato’s location. Later on, however, we see that Nagato, despite his limited mobility, isn’t as vulnerable as Tendō implied: his Rinnegan abilities are actually stronger when used directly by Nagato himself.

In chapter 364, Konan told Obito that Pain had never lost a single battle. Let’s correlate those three information, and we already have the structure of Nagato’s plan. We are told that:

Pain is nearly invincible.

Konan is weak. (She got easily defeated by Jiraiya.)

Nagato is vulnerable.

Here’s the obvious conclusion: if Pain is bypassed, then Nagato himself becomes an easy target. That’s what Nagato and Konan want Obito to believe.

This is why Tendō made this statement, and this is why Konan lost on purpose against Jiraiya. They assume that Zetsu is watching them and reporting everything to Obito, so they try to feed Obito false information about Nagato’s and Konan’s weakness.

Chapter 383.

Chapter 364.

Moving on to the core of this side quest

The core of our hidden plot for this episode will be Pain’s battle against Naruto.

We are told that Pain invaded Konoha in order to capture Naruto. Please take your novel to the start of this battle, chapter 430. Can you find discrepancies that would contradict this surface reading, and correlate them to Nagato’s goal of murdering Obito?

You should be able to find two major discrepancies in Pain’s behaviour, and a couple of minor ones in his performance.

First major discrepancy — Pain starts the fight during cooldown

After Naruto arrives, Tendō notes, in chapter 431, that his Shinra Tensei will be on cooldown for a few minutes, following the big one he used to destroy Konoha.

Shinra Tensei is, by far, Pain’s strongest ability, both for defense and offense. So if capturing Naruto truly were Nagato’s goal, then Pain should try to delay the start of the battle, so that Tendō can recharge. Typically, Pain could try to engage a conversation with Naruto, about Jiraiya or about his goals, in order to buy time.

Instead, Pain engages the battle. Naruto hadn’t made any move yet: he was busy asking Tsunade about the Konoha casualties. All Pain had to do was wait and let his opponents talk. But Pain himself willingly starts the fight when he is still at his weakest.

This decision wouldn’t make any sense on the surface, but makes perfect sense with our hidden goal in mind.

Chapter 431: Pain starting the fight at his weakest.

Second major discrepancy — after Naruto is defeated. (1/2)

In chapter 435, Tendō manages to catch Naruto and suppress him with a black receiver. Naruto is defeated, pinned to the ground.

If Nagato’s goal was to capture Naruto, then Tendō should just take Naruto and leave immediately.

Instead, Pain spend around two chapters lecturing Naruto about his goal. This seems reckless, because Tendō is alone in enemy territory. Although Konoha is in shambles, every minute Tendō wastes talking, is an extra minute for reinforcements to arrive. Konoha ninjas that were out of the village, such as team Gai, might still return, and Tendō can only handle so many opponents by himself.

Eventually, reinforcements do arrive, in the person in Hinata. And this is where Tendō’s actions become a clear discrepancy.

Chapter 435 and 436: lecturing Naruto after pinning him down.

Second major discrepancy - after Naruto is defeated. (2/2)

Aside from external help, the only thing that could still save Naruto, at this point, would be the Kyūbi taking over and going on a rampage. A Jinchūriki may typically lose control over their Bijū when they experience extreme emotions, such as anger. Akatsuki members know that, and they know from Itachi that Naruto is quick to anger.

When Hinata arrives, it is obvious she has a special relationship with Naruto. (“I love you.”) If Nagato wanted to capture Naruto, he should, at all costs, avoid killing Hinata, and just safely knock her out. Instead, Tendō brutally murders her in front of Naruto, and taunts Naruto about it.

Inevitably, the Kyūbi does take over, and breaks Naruto free of the black receiver. Murdering Hinata turned Tendō’s position from a clean capture to a difficult duel. This move would be illogical if capture was the goal, but makes perfect sense in our hidden plot.

Chapter 437

First minor discrepancy — clone tricks.

We already have enough major discrepancies in Pain’s decision-making to unlock our hidden plot. But to consolidate our argument, let us still have a look at Pain’s performance in battle.

The first suspicious detail would be, Pain repeatedly falling for clone tricks.

Later in the novel, it is revealed that Nagato’s Rinnegan is actually Madara’s. According to Madara himself, his eyes are particularly good at detecting clones, and indeed, in Hashirama’s flashback, we can see Hashirama could only defeat Madara with a clone feint after the latter was too exhausted to keep his Sharingan active. So Pain systematically falling for clone tricks is weird.

This discrepancy has a surface defense: Nagato simply isn’t as skilled as Madara with the Rinnegan. But it still is suspicious that, in the entire novel, the one fight where Naruto’s clone tricks work the best, happens to be the fight where he is facing the best anti-clone eyes of the story. It wouldn’t prove anything just by itself, but it’s one more clue in our quest.

Clone and transformation tricks, chapters 433 and 434.

Madara’s anti-clone eyes. (Chapter 577 and 626.)

Second minor discrepancy — sensing

At two points of the novel, Nagato demonstrates exceptional sensing skills:

In chapter 367, he detects Jiraiya across an entire village, and describes his chakra signature.

In chapter 580, Itachi tells us that Nagato is the one who found Kabuto’s location — something which the entire alliance had failed to do.

And yet, in chapter 442, Tendō fails to realise he is surrounded by Naruto clones, in spite of Naruto’s strong chakra signature.

This discrepancy has a surface defense too: one could argue that Nagato used specific techniques (the rain in Amegakure; reverse-engineering Edo Tensei to find Kabuto thanks to its similarities to the Pain techniques), rather than traditional sensing. But Tendō suddenly being inept at sensing still is one more minor clue to consolidate our hidden plot.

Tendō sensing Jiraiya from across his village. (Chapter 367.)

Nagato locating Kabuto. (According to Itachi, chapter 580.)

Tendō failing to notice he is surrounded by clones. (Chapter 442.)

Third minor discrepancy / coïncidence — natural energy

In chapter 435, Gakidō absorbs too much natural energy from Naruto, and eventually turns into stone, leaving Tendō as the last remaining Path of Pain.

Nagato failing to realise this energy is dangerous is slightly surprising, considering:

He is supposed to be a fantastic sensor.

He fought a Sage Mode user in the past. (Jiraiya.)

This isn’t a strong discrepancy — one could argue that Nagato didn’t know the inner workings of Sage Mode. However, the coïncidence is still interesting, because Gakidō gets defeated just before Tendō, by murdering Hinata and taunting Naruto about it, awakes the Kyūbi.

Gakidō would be the best answer to the Kyūbi taking over. Later in the novel, when Bee uses his “Version 2” cloak to attack Edo Nagato, the latter answers with Gakidō and easily negates the attack. So Pain happens to lose his best anti-Kyūbi weapon, just before triggering the Kyūbi’s rampage…

Nagato not realising Natural Energy is dangerous. (Chapter 435.)

Chapter 550: Gakidō would have been the best answer to a Kyūbi chakra cloak.

The hidden plan

With that, we have unlocked our hidden plot: Pain lost on purpose against Naruto. What a move!

Here’s the idea. In order to lure Obito into a trap, Nagato is trying to create both an emergency and an opportunity.

Emergency: with Naruto captured, the Jūbi will be summoned soon. If Obito wants the Jūbi, he has to act soon and take the Rinnegan from Nagato.

Opportunity: with Pain out of the picture, Nagato is more vulnerable than he will ever be. Obito needs to kill him before Nagato can recover and recreate Pain.

So the plan was to have Pain lose the battle, then have Nagato himself capture Naruto with a black chakra receiver. From there, Obito uses Kamui to immediately go after Nagato, expecting an easy kill, and falls into whatever trap Nagato and Konan had prepared.

Retrospectively, everything makes sense.

Nagato needed Pain to lose, but in a sufficiently believable way that Obito wouldn’t suspect a trap. This is why:

Pain engaged the fight while Shinra Tensei was on cooldown. With Pain’s main ability unavailable, Naruto managing to defeat several Paths appeared more credible.

Tendō provoked Naruto into a Kyūbi rampage. A defeat by Naruto alone might look suspicious, but with the Kyūbi stepping in, it looked more believable.

Gakidō got turned into stone just before that. Without Gakidō, Tendō was forced to use Chibaku Tensei to deal with the Kyūbi — depleting Nagato’s chakra reserves, making him seem even more vulnerable.

Tendō wiped Konoha with a giant Shinra Tensei. In the same logic, it made Nagato seem exhausted.

Konan threw her fight against Jiraiya, to let Obito think she would be a non-factor in his attempt to murder Nagato.

Chapter 439: some theater, assuming Zetsu is spying on them.

Why the plan fails

You may be wondering: if the plan was so brilliant — it clearly was —, and if everything was going exactly as envisioned, why did Nagato suddenly give up and use Rinne Tensei instead? Why would Nagato suddenly change his mind when he was so close to victory?

That’s a valid question, but we will not answer it just yet. This part will be solved in a later side quest.

For the moment, let us appreciate Nagato’s and Konan’s fantastic plan, and rejoice, for we have solved one more side quest, bringing us closer to the true ending.

Nagato’s suicide (chapter 448) will be explained later.