10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 346 - 347

Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 346 - 347

Yay, filler! I mean, anime-only in-depth retelling of previous events. Obito takes on the mantle of Madara. The Dawn of Akatsuki. Danzo inadvertently creates the opening Madara needs to influence Nagato.

With the death of Rin, Obito falls into despair and buys into Madara's plan to plunge the world into a mass illusion. In short order, all the mysteries surrounding the Masked Madara are solved. The black Zetsu is Madara's Will, much like Orochimaru's consciousness is saved in a bit of chakra in his famous curse marks. Madara's Will also turns the wood spikes that Obito can grow out of his new body into black metal rods. Madara reveals to Obito that the Rinnegan awakened in him many years after he had implanted Hashirama's senjuu cells to keep from dying. With those eyes, he was able to summon the Gedo Statue, which was the left over husk of the 10-tailed beast the Sage of the Six Paths had separated into the tailed-beasts we now know. Later, he implanted his awakened Rinnegan eyes into Nagato, of the Uzumaki clan, and a direct descendant of Hashirama. Obito will need his power to summon the Gedo Statue to complete the World Illusion Madara wants to create. And with that last piece of information, Madara detaches himself from the Gedo Flower keeping him alive, and dies.

With all the pieces in place, the only thing left to tell is how the former students of Jiraiya took their originally idealistic group of the Akatsuki (Dawn), and fell under the sway of Madara nee Obito. Here's where the filler begins. Most of this story was told to Naruto by Nagato when Naruto convinced him to betray Madara/Obito. It showed a confrontation with the strongest warlord Hanzo from the village of the Hidden Rain, which Nagato, calling himself Pain won. In this new telling, it is through Danzo's interference to pit Hanzo against Akatsuki that this confrontation took place. I guess we're in the middle of Obito Shippuuden.