Episode 6 — Konan’s battle tactics

Move 1 — The opening performance

Konan’s main asset is that Obito underestimates her, as we saw in the Pain episode. Her first priority is to maintain that advantage. It’s a universal rule in Naruto, which we will keep seeing in nearly every quest: if your opponent underestimates you, make sure they keep doing so.

Accordingly, Konan opens the fight with a direct paper shuriken attack. Obito simply phases through it. It seems Konan is just wasting chakra on a technique she should know will not work, but that’s exactly her purpose.

The move is not meant to injure Obito, but to let Obito believe she is weak and doesn’t have any plan.

In the same panel, we can see Konan is acting almost hysterical, screaming about the village’s treasure. Once again, this is intentional: she wants Obito to believe she isn’t acting rationally, and is following blind anger rather than a solid plan.

Chapter 509.

Move 2 — The fake last resort

Konan then attempts a suicide attack.

As we said in the first slide, this is the main discrepancy: if Kami no Shisha is already prepared, why use a weaker suicide move first?

Once again, that’s exactly the point. You only use a suicide attack as a last resort, after exhausting every other option. That’s the conclusion Konan wants Obito to reach.

Konan knows that Obito is going to save her, because he needs her alive in order to extract the Rinnegan location. If he could have found the Rinnegan by himself, then Obito wouldn’t have bothered fighting her to begin with. So the attack is actually safe: Konan knows both she and Obito will survive it.

The purpose of this move never was to kill Obito. With this move, Konan wants Obito to believe he has already seen her last resort. The fake final move is meant to hide the existence of the true final move.

The fake last resort. (Still chapter 509.)

Obito reaching the conclusion Konan wanted.

Move 3 — The exhausted act

After the fake suicide attack fails, Konan appears depleted, both physically and mentally.

She pants. She looks helpless. She doesn’t seem to be preparing any follow-up move.

By this point, Obito believes the battle has already ended. Konan got him exactly where she wanted.

Move 4 — Positional brilliance

With the battle seemingly over, Konan engages a conversation with Obito. In doing so, she gets him to look at her.

Please look at Konan’s position. She is hovering above Obito, so when he talks to her, he looks upwards… Away from the lake beneath him.

This is the opportunity Konan has been building up to. She can activate her trap, while Obito is not paying attention to what’s happening under his feet.

By the time Obito realises the fight is, in fact, not over, it is already too late to escape. What a brilliant sequence of moves by Konan!

Engaging a conversation. (Still chapter 509.)

Hovering over Obito in order to get him to look up, away from the lake.

Activating the trap mid-conversation.

Conclusion

So, Konan played a brilliant sequence of moves. And at this point, you might be wondering: what was the point of this episode? Brilliant or not, Konan’s tactics were ultimately irrelevant: Obito survived thanks to Izanagi, killed her, and got the Rinnegan.

This is a valid question, but we will not answer it yet. Konan’s failure, and the irrelevance of her plan, will be a major clue in the third part of this walkthrough: the pious meaning of the novel. We will get back to Konan then.

For the moment, let us enjoy Konan’s tactics, and prepare ourselves for our next side quest. Our next episode will focus on Madara.

Konan’s failure (chapter 510) will be explained in due time.