After quietly listening to Black Zetsu's account, Obito did not make an immediate judgment. Instead, he sank into a long silence and deep thought.
Even after learning the true face beneath Menma's mask, the doubts only grew rather than diminished. Like a tangled ball of thread, one question after another surfaced.
Black hair was a disguise. His real hair was blond, and his eyes were blue...
At first, Obito suspected it was merely a coincidence, perhaps someone whose hair and eye colors resembled his teacher's. Yet Black Zetsu had specifically emphasized that the face bore at least an eighty-percent resemblance to the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze!
Obito knew very well that Black Zetsu had no reason to deceive him over such crucial intelligence.
Yet that was precisely where the contradiction lay—the evidence proving this man was Minato Namikaze was nearly as plentiful as the evidence proving he was not!
The Flying Thunder God Technique, a ninjutsu similar to the Rasengan yet even more powerful, blond hair, azure eyes... Taken together, every one of those traits pointed to his teacher, the man known as the Golden Flash.
First, there was the matter of age. Obito tried to sort through his thoughts. If his teacher had faked his death just as he had, then it was understandable that his appearance would have changed over the years... But Black Zetsu had described an exceptionally youthful face, one that looked no more than eighteen or so. That simply defied common sense.
Second, there was the extraordinary emotion he had displayed toward the second Nine-Tails Jinchuriki—Kushina Uzumaki.
According to Black Zetsu, Menma had exposed a fatal opening in battle precisely because Orochimaru had used Kushina's Edo Tensei Body, causing his mask to be knocked off. Even when sealing Kushina, the grief he revealed had been