Chapter 153: What Is the Motive?
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The air grew heavy after Fugaku's words.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The gathered shinobi stood frozen, their eyes wide with disbelief.
The disciple of the Fourth Hokage… responsible for the Nine-Tails' attack?
They knew Minato Namikaze's three disciples well:
Hatake Kakashi — son of the White Fang, Konoha's prodigy.
Uchiha Obito — a cheerful but clumsy boy, once the laughingstock of his class.
And Nohara Rin — the gentle-hearted medic-nin who had perished in the Third Great Ninja War.
But Rin was dead, long ago. And Obito — wasn't he crushed beneath the rocks, giving up his life to save Kakashi?
That left only one survivor: Kakashi himself.
Some exchanged glances. Could the Hokage be referring to him?
He did possess a Sharingan, after all — a gift from Obito himself.
But no. Fugaku had said clearly — a rogue Uchiha. Kakashi, though he bore one of their eyes, was not of their clan.
That left only one possibility.
The boy who had supposedly died — Uchiha Obito.
Fugaku's calm voice cut through their unease.
"Indeed," he said, "the one who unleashed the Nine-Tails was Uchiha Obito."
The murmurs died immediately. Faces hardened. A few jonin narrowed their eyes, trying to reconcile memory with the truth before them.
If he survived… why didn't he return? Why attack his own village?
Minato's disciple, turning against his teacher… his friends… his home. The idea was unthinkable.
Tsunade crossed her arms, frowning deeply. Obito? The same boy who used to blush when Jiraiya teased him about Rin?
The gathered shinobi could not comprehend it. Even if Obito had lived and awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, what reason could justify such betrayal? What could drive him to destroy everything he once fought to protect?
Was Fugaku lying — trying to deflect suspicion after using his Sharingan to control the Eight-Tails himself?
Fugaku seemed to sense their doubt. His expression didn't change as he produced a scroll from his cloak — the personal storage seal he carried at all times.
That scroll contained his most guarded secrets: Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan, Obito's left Mangekyō, Danzō's Sharingan-infused arm, and meticulous records of key events that had shaped the shinobi world.
Without a word, he unsealed it.
With a puff of smoke, something heavy dropped to the ground.
When the white haze cleared, the shinobi gasped.
Lying before them was a corpse — head and body separated, perfectly preserved, as though frozen in time.
Even without the orange mask, the features were unmistakable.
Half of the face was pale and warped with scars — the other half still bore traces of youth, of the cheerful Uchiha boy who had once dreamed of becoming Hokage.
Tsunade's eyes widened in recognition. So it really is him… She had seen Obito many times when Minato and his team came to visit Jiraiya.
Her gaze shifted to the hollow sockets of his eyes — empty. Fugaku must have taken his Sharingan after the battle.
The air turned tense. A faint, sinister chakra still clung to the corpse, heavy and suffocating.
Now, even the most skeptical among them began to believe.
This truly was the body of Uchiha Obito — once a dead last, now a monster whose name had nearly destroyed Konoha.
But one question still burned in their minds: Why?
Why would he do this?
Fugaku met their eyes, his tone steady.
"I'll explain," he said. "The truth is as follows."
He paused briefly before continuing, his words deliberate and solemn.
"Uchiha Obito was crushed during the Third Shinobi War — but he did not die. Someone rescued him from the brink of death. Because his body was severely damaged, he was forced into a long recovery. One day, the person who saved him told him something — that the girl he loved, Rin Nohara, had died."
A few shinobi stiffened. The memory of that tragedy was still fresh in Konoha's collective heart.
"Obito rushed to the battlefield," Fugaku continued. "But when he arrived, he saw his closest friend — Kakashi — pierce Rin through the chest with his own Chidori."
The silence deepened.
Everyone knew what that meant. The Uchiha's emotions were a double-edged blade — capable of awakening divine power through unbearable grief.
"Driven by despair and rage, Obito awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan at that very moment."
Fugaku's words hung like a curse over the stunned assembly.
No one spoke. No one even breathed.
At last, one jonin found his voice. "Wait… that incident… are you referring to the Three-Tails Jinchūriki case?"
Fugaku inclined his head slightly.
Recognition spread through the ranks. Of course. The reports from that time — the Hidden Mist had kidnapped Rin, sealing the Three-Tails within her to unleash it on Konoha.
And Kakashi… forced to kill her to prevent the destruction of the village.
Now the story made sense — and yet, it was horrifying.
No wonder he snapped.
The boy who once believed in comrades above all else had seen everything he loved destroyed before his eyes.
Fugaku's voice lowered.
"From that day on, Obito was no longer the same. The man who saved him used his grief to twist his heart, turning him against the village — against the world itself."
He didn't need to say the name of that man.
The more astute among them already understood.
There was only one figure in history who could manipulate an Uchiha that completely — the ghost of the past itself.
Uchiha Madara.
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