Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-30168130-20170115054258/@comment-4912646-20170115062201

Slight correction, but the receivers weren't fired at Sasuke by Black Zetsu, they were actually fired by Madara out of Obito's right half while it was coated in his "will" — an ability Madara apparently had which was never explained or mentioned again after that scene, unfortunately.

As for the relationship between the Rinnegan, black rods, TSB, and Black Zetsu, it's really complicated and unclear. We've seen rods created both with and without the Rinnegan, but they are apparently related in some way. Madara claims the rods and Black Zetsu are both made of his will, but we later find out he's wrong about Zetsu. They also seem related to the white substance Madara made using Hashirama's cells, since they come out of Hashirama's clone and Obito's right half several times. And Obito turned a Truth-Seeking Ball into black rods (or something that looked like them) one time, which is weird because he could just create rods the normal way if he wanted to. Then the databook refused to give a technique entry for both the black receivers and "will materialisation", which was pretty much the last hope for clarifying this stuff.