Naruto – Chapter 490

So picking up from last weeks Zombie!Akatsuki reveal, lets see what else Kabuto has up his sleeve.

Madara is quite impressed by the firepower Kabuto is offering to loan him in the upcoming war, but wants to know what Kabuto’s looking in return…..turns out Kabuto wants Sasuke.  Ok then.

Madara isn’t completely convinced, so Kabuto summons his trump card – another zombie, which seems to completely freak Madara out.

Anyway thanks to this Madara reluctantly agrees to work with Kabuto, promising to give him Sasuke when the war is over.

Meanwhile nearby Anko’s team is following Kabuto trail of breadcrumbs corpses, and the Hyuuga of the group reports to Anko that Kabuto and Madara are heading down a secret underground passage……the team then heads back to Konoha to report their findings.

Elsewhere on Mount Myouboku, the toads and Naruto are having a chat about the nature of the 4 element seal and the Kyuubi.  Seems that the Kyuubi is a big ball of malevolence and chakra – its hard to get the chakra from it without also taking in its hatred.  So basically whats happened to Naruto every time he looses control, is that he’s allowed the Kyuubi’s hatred to amplify and then drown out his own hatred giving the fox a foothold in Naruto’s mind and allowing it to take control.

Naruto finally decides to man up and get his willpower into shape and accepts the Key to the 4 element seal.

Off in Kumo, Kisame is reveling in Killerbee’s stupidity and getting the inside info on Kumo’s war preparation….

Thoughts: Main thing of interest here is whats in Kabuto’s mysterious coffin that freaked Madara out so badly.  I have a suspicion that its Madara’s original body.  Clearly Madara isn’t in his original body anymore or we would have been shown his face by now – also there is a precedent for body swapping with Orochimaru so it wouldn’t be unexpected.  It does raise question of whose body Madara is currently inhabiting.   It is definitely an Uchiha body, Madara wouldnt settle for anything else given his adoration of the Sharingan – he was also in this body before the Uchiha massacre as Itachi has known this Madara since then, and we’ve seen this version of Madara with a young Pein & Konan…….so what older generation one-eyed Uchiha do we know of?  Obito anyone!?

Before Tobi was revealed as Madara a favourite theory was that he was Obito – mainly due to the hair, orange mask and single sharingan eye…..perhaps this theory was correct afterall?  Now one of Obito’s sharingan ended up implanted in Kakashi – and we know Kakashi’s mangekyou has a kind of warp-space effect…..similar to Madara’s isn’t it?  Then there’s the fact that Madara clearly said to Kakashi that his attacks would have no affect on him, which at the time I took to be Uchiha arrogance – but what if it was because their sharingan’s were originally a pair!?  Suddenly a lot of weirdness about Madara makes some degree of sense (although still not sure how to explain his ability to become incorporeal).  Quite looking forward to finding out more about this!