Naruto IX: [Epilogue Intensifies]

[khadgar567]

New chapter!

Spoiler

Show

They fight and it's...silly. Showing friendliness made the rabbit demon alien inside Boruto get mad. The frog enemy is...not actually doing anything, so Delta is showing up with her ROBOT BACK and ROCKET LEGS to cause problems, which is...such a mistake on her part.

And that's about it. Not bad, but not great. Also, the next chapter comes out on my birthday. Thanks...I guess.

@LaZodiac actually nope rabbit demon appeared to keep kama seal safe since boruto can't absorb kawaki's shot and important point is that Kawaki is trying to teach boruto how to control kama seal in Itachi Uchiha kinda way. which is a sink or swim method since he learned that way. As deltas absolute idiotic move to try to find kajin koji or kawaki shows how smart both kajin koji and old cast as she has wrong intel ( ino being the leader of the sensory team) and she jumped on gun on first chance she found kawaki while her partner kajin koji decided to keep gathering intel instead of rushing to retrieve kawaki. and he is still keeping low enough profile using not obvious tools like backpack-mounted camera drone or chakra using rocket boots. while delta being prime time idiot trying to attack Hokage of all freaking things and managed to alert entire Kohana via her entry in next chapter she is gonna have large amount of problem in her hand as unless Kajin koji interviews she is gonna be fighting anti jinchuriki class kindergartner two chunin class ninja and 7th Hokage on her own.

[Ramza00]

Sidenote Sasuke being a meme today has made me realize I am still quite mad about the whole Sasuke thing.

[LaZodiac]

Sidenote Sasuke being a meme today has made me realize I am still quite mad about the whole Sasuke thing.

Same honestly.

[Traab]

What meme? And which part about sasuke in particular ticks you off? Ok saw the meme, amusing.

[Ramza00]

What meme? And which part about sasuke in particular ticks you off? Ok saw the meme, amusing.

Atonement, Contrition, Penance, Reconciliation, and Satisfaction are different things (I may be forgetting a word or two ) , these 5 acts are seen as very separate in many cultures. I know this to be true in at least two religious background I am familiar with, but I will not elaborate due to rules about religion on this forums.

Sasuke wants to attone.
Sasuke is sorry for his past actions (contrition)
Sasuke sees his current actions as penance for his past actions.

But Sasuke has never sough reconciliation with others beyond Team 7 (Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi.) Even though it was a very big deal to Sasuke about his internal world and the greater world and how actions in the greater world can arrest and destroy people's inner world. Misunderstandings in the greater world lead to the Uchihia massacre and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Reconciliation is the "restoration of friendly relationships" with you and others, with you and the outside world and Sasuke has never sought to do this. He has never even tried.

Satisfaction here has multiple meanings and I do not mean the gratification meaning. Satisfaction I mean here is to "repair what is broken", to make "restitution," to recognize the repairs are underway and for both parties to recognize at least an attempt of restitution has been performed even if it will never be enough. This in turn allows the harmed party, the party who suffered the injustice to have faith and trust in the future.

(Notice Reconciliation and Satisfaction are very tied together.)

-----

Nobody in the village "hidden in the leaves" should trust Sasuke, and nobody in the greater world should trust Sasuke. Yes Sasuke has done many good things in the past, and he is currently doing good by being the villiage hidden ninja that protects it.

But Sasuke does not see himself as a social animal, he does not understand the purpose of bonds and the faith that bonds allow, and he is so utterly socially blind. No one can trust a man like Sasuke, and Sasuke knows first hand why trust is important due to his life experiences, but he doesn't care to even try to create this trust. It is like he has a social-blindness disorder, a mental simulation disorder, a theory of mind disorder (recognizing his world and other people worlds are different and there needs to be communication in order to unite the minds.) where he intellectually understands the needs for these things it but he also doesn't understand why actions need to change and thus his actions never change.

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New Sasuke in Boruto, the character of Kawaki, Boruto's future rival well he already understands this better than Sasuke even though we only have had 30 Boruto chapters, and Kawaki is only in 9 of those chapters (the flash foward in Chapter 1, him being unconscious / asleep in chapter 23, and now Chapters 24 to 30.) Kawaki understands he needs to repair the vace. What the vace represents thematically. Sasuke never does.

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There is a metaphor of Creation, Protection, and Destruction and it is like Sasuke thinks only 2 of those things are important instead of it being a cycle where a human must have all 3 energies in his life in order to rebirth the world anew, to repair it anew, and to preserve it anew for it is special.

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It should have been Itachi who lived. Itachi who learned Orochimaru mind transfer jutsu and used it on his baby brother to escape the sickness that killed Itachi.

[LaZodiac]

Or, in short summary; Naruto forgives his friends legitimate war crimes and actual ****ing awful behavior and forces everyone else to accept it or get yelled at.

[Ramza00]

Or, in short summary; Naruto forgives his friends legitimate war crimes and actual ****ing awful behavior and forces everyone else to accept it or get yelled at.

Yes but we are talking about Sasuke here not Naruto ^{(or the Author who makes it so even though this would not be a natural societal reaction, but authors can do wishcasting / dreamcasting for they have the power of the pen. Authors can rewrite human nature for it is their story / narrative after all )}

[Rater202]

Or, in short summary; Naruto forgives his friends legitimate war crimes and actual ****ing awful behavior and forces everyone else to accept it or get yelled at.

Not quite.

I mean, 1: Almost everybody in the series has done things as bad as what Sasuke did. Literally every major character works in a profession where you infiltrate enemy nations and murder people.

2: Everything Sasuke did is something that Gaara did in his backstory, short of the defecting to another country while under extreme duresss.

3: Sasuke literally had a piece of Orochimaru's soul inside him and influencing his behavior for most of the series and by the time it was gone he'd been molded by both soulmaru and the real deal for two years.

4: Sasuke legitimately shows signs of mental illness throughout the shipudden era and extreme mental illness is explicitly a side effect of activating the Sharingan and then seeing your loved ones die--and Flashback';s show that Sasuke had Sharingan back during the massacre, so Sasuke's sanity has been compromised for a long time.

If Gaara who is a legitimate serial killer gets a pass because he said Sorry, then complaining about Sasuke has no basis.

Regardless, Naruto didn't force people to comply.

The canon is that people were lenient to Sasuke because he helped save the World and because Naruto vouched for him.

the only person in canon who thought that Sasuke got off too lightly was Sasuke himself.

As an aside, as Bort is in Jumpforce but Naruto in Jumpforce is pre-epilog, we may soon get an idea of how Bort would think of his father in his teenage years.

[Ramza00]

Not quite.
If Gaara who is a legitimate serial killer gets a pass because he said Sorry, then complaining about Sasuke has no basis.

I disagree, Gaara and Sasuke did equally bad thing from their internal village perspectives (from outside village perspectives it was completely different but lets skip this.) But Gaara actually worked on reconciliation after his heel faced turned in a way Sasuke did not, so no they are not the same, they are not comparable, they are similar yet different.

[Lord Raziere]

honestly there is a lot of stupidity involving Sasuke and his clan. its hard to know where to start.

-for one, the whole thing could've been prevented if Danzo wasn't a jerk and decided to kill Shisui when Shisui was ALREADY willing to mind control his own clan for the sake of the village because like Itachi he was THAT loyal to the village over his own family. granted the mind control is bad, but its arguably step up from "kill them all" and closer to actual negotiation.

-given that the Uchiha Clan's reaction to Itachi killing them all was to accept it and let it happen, it kind of takes it out of the realm of "putting down potential rebels" and more "killing peaceful protesters" which is a bit of a grey area because magical superpowers, but still they didn't defend themselves when you think that if they were so on the verge of causing a revolt, they'd be more defiant and willing to kill someone who betrays their clan then live to expose the village about atrocity they tried to commit. especially given that only a total of three Uchihas ever truly turned against the village: Madara, Obito and Sasuke. thats three out of an entire clan of people across three generations and wars of ninja. and two of those only because the first persuaded them to. thats not really a good enough basis to think of the entire clan as traitorous or to distrust them. if the Uchiha Clan really hated the village that much to revolt and turn on them, they had AMPLE opportunity during the actual wars fought rather than do it during peacetime when the focus would be on them.

-so not only does the vast majority of the Uchiha Clan think of Madara and his insanity as stupid, not only do they remain loyal through three wars despite being mistrusted and do not turn on the village during those wars because that would be the best time to screw them over, not only are their two best and brightest members, Shisui and Itachi two of their most loyal ninja to the village, not only do they not stop Itachi from killing them, but it turns out? Danzo once tried to assassinate the Third Hokage, for reals. One thinks that Danzo was just killing them for stealing his idea. So Danzo has no place to judge them, the hypocrite. Especially with him continuing to make ROOT despite it being illegal. one wonders if the Uchiha Clan were in the right in that whole situation if they get this treatment despite all that they've done for the village.

-Sasuke himself is kind of weird, because most of the time he has no personality. You don't know whats going through his head, or why he does the things he does besides "VENGANZ!!1!" and when he isn't being manipulated by Orochimaru, he is being manipulated by Madara, Obito, or Itachi. throughout the series he is nothing but a pawn for someone else. but at the same time, the manipulation is a lot of the time made sure that its a choice for him and he takes all the wrong choices. well maybe not Ororchimaru kidnapping him, Sasuke chose to allow him to be kidnapped, but he was surrounded by four jounin level ninja and he was like one genin, there was no way he wasn't coming with even if he refused. though really, there should've been guards for the last Uchiha in the village when Orochimaru already attacked and expressed an interest learning all jutsu. and so on and so forth.

-we don't actually know what the hell is wrong with Sasuke. the eyes being sith stuff, kind of explains it? but there is a lot of things that could be cause of Sasuke being the way he is. we know that the Uchihas at least have naturally introverted personalities, we know that Itachi did to Sasuke is probably traumatizing and trauma to a kid at a young age really screws with them. so it might be plausible that introversion + trauma = someone really withdrawn. his choice of profession isn't helping, nor is all the machiavellian masterminds whisper into his ear to KILL HATE RAGE for their goals helping with his mental state either. that is so many reasons for the way he is, from trauma to genetics to abuse and manipulation, that you can't say any one thing is the overall cause, he is not a walking mental issue, he is walking PILE of mental issues.

-adding to that, there is this weird nonsense concept in Naruto where generations and events repeat to a certain extent. Sasuke is a Kakashi repeat who is a Minato repeat who is an Orochimaru repeat who is a Madara repeat, who is a Hamura repeat. Naruto is an Obito repeat who is a Nawaki repeat who is a Jiryaiya repeat who is a Hashirama repeat who is a Hagoromo repeat. Sakura is a Rin repeat who is a Tsunade repeat. you know what I'm talking about. so its implied that Sasuke is to some extent, DESTINED to repeat the mistakes of the past- that he doesn't have a choice in not becoming what he is, because a bunch of people like him before have done so as well and screwed up the world because of it. and given that it turns out Naruto was destined to save the world according to a frog, sorry Sasuke! you were always meant to turn evil then get redeemed and had no choice in the matter! congratulations on being the latest Kakashi, lelz. oh and Naruto is a complete hypocrite who was always destined to win and used his inheritance his father gave him to win at everything and the only who really worked hard to win was freaking Rock Lee, but thats another thing.

-despite all this, he somehow is popular with all the girls and the village during his academy days. which honestly is just nonsensical. yeah traumatized stoic kid is real cool, riiiiiight. lack of social skills and personality is what makes you popular with everyone, riiiiiight, newsflash: they just want him for his magical eyeballs. those sweet sexy magical eyeballs of hax. so right from the start, Sasuke is not valued as a person, but for the power he has by the people around him. which kind of sets the tone for how he sees himself doesn't it? as powerful. as someone who needs to be powerful. when he already has motivation to get more powerful. one wonders if Itachi would've been better off just telling Sasuke the truth in the first place.

-so how much of Sasuke's choices can we really place as his fault, when it seems the entire design of the world seems to be against him, from destiny, to genetics, to the circumstances of his first trauma, to how people treated him after that trauma convincing him he needs to be powerful to be respected, to being manipulated by a bunch of people who doesn't have his best interests in mind when out there alone without anyone sane to support him, to the very history of his clan weighing upon him, to the events of the war itself. but then again a lot of that is bull parts of Naruto lore that we might want to get rid of in favor of sanity and reason.

-as for his actions being excusable because "ninja" um......no. for one, Batman is more of a ninja than the entire Konohagakure No Sato combined. you want to read about a heroic ninja, read Batman, he is closer to what a ninja actually is than anything in Naruto. what Naruto magic users are, are yamabushi. and really the ones in Naruto are just chakra super-soldiers with very little of actual stealth and infiltration occurring. lets just go with soldiers because thats the closest thing you can honestly describe naruto ninja as: a military, not a spy network. and soldiers aren't just forgiven if they go crazy terrorist or whatever, they get killed like any other crazy terrorist. Sasuke coming back to be forgiven is like a soldier who deserts, becoming a crazy terrorist for three years then coming back and yelling "hey! make me your general!" while Gaara is just another soldier- he never actually betrayed his village. of course, it could all come down to execution- Gaara was a well-executed redemption and Sasuke was not and thats the end of it.

-so really, my feelings on Sasuke is complex: on one hand everything he and his family goes through sucks dude. and from a certain point of view, the Uchihas weren't even EVIL or BAD aside from one or three notable exceptions. you can't deny that someone wouldn't be that way in some way after all that he has gone through. at the same time, how much of that is well executed, how much of that SHOULD'VE been there? should Sasuke really have been this ultimate rival who Naruto only redeemed at the very end? should Sasuke really have gotten all these weird hax sharingan stuff? could the Uchiha massacre have been written better? his redemption could've definitely been written better, perhaps if Sasuke was redeemed earlier but had to face a reversal of Naruto and his earlier positions with Sasuke being the new village outcast, it would've been better done. could it have been written better so that the whole world wasn't stacked against Sasuke into becoming what he is? things like that.

-again, Sasuke being the Katsuki Bakugo of Naruto and only pretending to turn on the village like Itachi so he can play double agent so that konoha wins would've been a great choice to set him up as a true rival to Naruto for the Hokage position while giving him more real ninja cred, but we never got that.

there is a LOT to unpack with anything involving Sasuke. something about him just brings up so many problems....

[LaZodiac]

Not quite.

I mean, 1: Almost everybody in the series has done things as bad as what Sasuke did. Literally every major character works in a profession where you infiltrate enemy nations and murder people.

2: Everything Sasuke did is something that Gaara did in his backstory, short of the defecting to another country while under extreme duresss.

3: Sasuke literally had a piece of Orochimaru's soul inside him and influencing his behavior for most of the series and by the time it was gone he'd been molded by both soulmaru and the real deal for two years.

4: Sasuke legitimately shows signs of mental illness throughout the shipudden era and extreme mental illness is explicitly a side effect of activating the Sharingan and then seeing your loved ones die--and Flashback';s show that Sasuke had Sharingan back during the massacre, so Sasuke's sanity has been compromised for a long time.

If Gaara who is a legitimate serial killer gets a pass because he said Sorry, then complaining about Sasuke has no basis.

Regardless, Naruto didn't force people to comply.

The canon is that people were lenient to Sasuke because he helped save the World and because Naruto vouched for him.

the only person in canon who thought that Sasuke got off too lightly was Sasuke himself.

As an aside, as Bort is in Jumpforce but Naruto in Jumpforce is pre-epilog, we may soon get an idea of how Bort would think of his father in his teenage years.

After defeating Kaguya all Sasuke has to do to save the world is shake Naruto's hand.

His response is to say "but first I'll kill all the kages in their sleep!" and run off to go do that. He is not comparable to Gaara, who was a child that was ruthlessly attacked by people he loved and cared about every day till he became a broken shell of a person who legitimately grows and becomes a good person once he gets redeemed.

I don't...recall Sasuke having his soul in him? I know he had the cursed seal, which has the side effect of giving Orochimaru a spawn point, but that wasn't influencing him in any way beyond the general power madness that comes with being fueled with a ton of energy.

I mean yes, the Uchiha all have horrific mental issues because they love so much their brain farts out special eyeball chakra into their eyes to give them the sharingan. We've been shown that you can fight past this with Itachi and Sarada, and "my mental issues made me try to murder the world leaders in their sleep" is not a good defense.

A thing you need to keep in mind is that Gaara literally DIED for his sins. He tried his hardest to become a good kazekage, got captured, and LEGIT DIED. That counts for a lot! And unlike Sasuke, who is a terrible person outside of his wanton terrorism and desire to rule the world due to being the world's ****tiest ninja dad, Gaara actually does come across as trying to make up for his mistakes.

[Traab]

After defeating Kaguya all Sasuke has to do to save the world is shake Naruto's hand.

His response is to say "but first I'll kill all the kages in their sleep!" and run off to go do that. He is not comparable to Gaara, who was a child that was ruthlessly attacked by people he loved and cared about every day till he became a broken shell of a person who legitimately grows and becomes a good person once he gets redeemed.

I don't...recall Sasuke having his soul in him? I know he had the cursed seal, which has the side effect of giving Orochimaru a spawn point, but that wasn't influencing him in any way beyond the general power madness that comes with being fueled with a ton of energy.

I mean yes, the Uchiha all have horrific mental issues because they love so much their brain farts out special eyeball chakra into their eyes to give them the sharingan. We've been shown that you can fight past this with Itachi and Sarada, and "my mental issues made me try to murder the world leaders in their sleep" is not a good defense.

A thing you need to keep in mind is that Gaara literally DIED for his sins. He tried his hardest to become a good kazekage, got captured, and LEGIT DIED. That counts for a lot! And unlike Sasuke, who is a terrible person outside of his wanton terrorism and desire to rule the world due to being the world's ****tiest ninja dad, Gaara actually does come across as trying to make up for his mistakes.

Yes he legit died, after being made kazekage roughly a month after he decided to stop being an omnicidal lunatic. Ok, I dont know the exact timeline but he certainly wasnt celebrating his first day as kazekage when deidara and sasori attacked, right? So his whole redemption thing took place entirely offscreen, and over a really limited time span. I mean seriously, genin to kage within 3 years? Huh? Also there is the fact that he was never an international war criminal, and pretty much everyone he ever killed tried to kill him first, most of whom were his own villagers.

[Rodin]

Yes he legit died, after being made kazekage roughly a month after he decided to stop being an omnicidal lunatic. Ok, I dont know the exact timeline but he certainly wasnt celebrating his first day as kazekage when deidara and sasori attacked, right? So his whole redemption thing took place entirely offscreen, and over a really limited time span. I mean seriously, genin to kage within 3 years? Huh? Also there is the fact that he was never an international war criminal, and pretty much everyone he ever killed tried to kill him first, most of whom were his own villagers.

It's rather implied that the Sand Village was extremely short on ninja. Just witness that Gaara is the Fifth Kazekage, after the Fourth died...um...before the attack on Konoha. Yeah, it's the dude Orochimaru killed.

So not only is there the several year timeskip, the Sand Village failed to replace the Kazekage for at significant amount of that time. That says a lot about the scarcity of good candidates. In addition to all that, Gaara is the son of the previous Kazekage, and the ninja villages just love themselves some dynasties (albeit a bit compressed over the ludicrously short history of the ninja villages).

So yeah, I can see it. At a time when the Sand Village is in crisis, Gaara steps up to become a leader. He has the family history, and he's the only one in the village at the time badass enough to meet the power level requirement.

I'm of the same general opinion as everyone else about Sasuke. When the Raikage's point is "Sasuke is an unrepentant murderer who intends to commit mass-murder in the future" and he's 100% correct...what more is there to say?

Looking at the plot of Naruto too closely will make your brain hurt.

[Traab]

It's rather implied that the Sand Village was extremely short on ninja. Just witness that Gaara is the Fifth Kazekage, after the Fourth died...um...before the attack on Konoha. Yeah, it's the dude Orochimaru killed.

So not only is there the several year timeskip, the Sand Village failed to replace the Kazekage for at significant amount of that time. That says a lot about the scarcity of good candidates. In addition to all that, Gaara is the son of the previous Kazekage, and the ninja villages just love themselves some dynasties (albeit a bit compressed over the ludicrously short history of the ninja villages).

So yeah, I can see it. At a time when the Sand Village is in crisis, Gaara steps up to become a leader. He has the family history, and he's the only one in the village at the time badass enough to meet the power level requirement.

I'm of the same general opinion as everyone else about Sasuke. When the Raikage's point is "Sasuke is an unrepentant murderer who intends to commit mass-murder in the future" and he's 100% correct...what more is there to say?

Looking at the plot of Naruto too closely will make your brain hurt.

Too be fair suna didnt KNOW their kage had died before the invasion. Thats kinda the point. So sometime in the three years after the invasion, they made this guy who used to threaten to kill everyone and was still a genin their kage. That is stupid fast to overlook things or forgive and then promote to village leader. He is still in a position to go on a rampage if he falls asleep. They have no time to determine if he actually is sane now for good or if this is a temporary thing after getting headbutted into submission by naruto. But they still went, "Hey, lets give the total effing lunatic the authority to order us all to our deaths, access to all our village secrets, and whatever powerful techniques we may have amassed over the years. He hasnt murdered any of us in DAYS!" Naruto took like 3x as long at LEAST and that was AFTER he saved the entire freaking world and proved he is both bar none the strongest shinobi ever, and absolutely dedicated to protecting his people. It would have been early but acceptable if it HAD been right at the start of his term as kazekage when akatsuki turned up. But he wasnt, they picked him right away basically. And prayed he wouldnt murder them all.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, you knew you weren't going to escpe forever!

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

So, where were we? Right, back in the middle of the Suna chunin exams!

The Cursed Puppet

We join Ino, Chouji and sakura in the desert, and Sakura collapses, because of the stresses of maintaining the Hundead Healing Hands jutsu set-up. When she comes round (after a flasback in which she apparently set herself up a second reservoir, just so she can keep operation, which is pretty badass) the trio are being attacked by some psychotic Sand -ninja and a puppet user with something close to mind transfer.

Ino gets knobbled, and the as Chouji is about to squish the puppet users teammates at giant size, she breaks off and possesses him. Ino tries to get inside Chouji's body (not like that!) to have a mental brawl with puppet-lady, while Chouji advances on them and Sakura struggles with her lack of handy chakra to fight.

Half of the episode is then randomly devoted to Sasuke, Karin and Suigetsu, which is both boring and narratively empty and I don't give two fracks about it.

Next!

Their Backs

Ino mind-punches the crazy ninja lady out of Chouji's head and Chouji pummels them out of sight. Turns out the crazy-puppet lady was a puppet and the puppet was her. Well, that's disturbing. More so that she's so childishly bent on that fect she can't handle losing and just wants revenge instead of finishing the exam. (Oh, chunin material right there, right?)

They immediately swear revenge.



Hey, Gaara? Maybe... Not employ the clearly Evil criminally psychotic ninja...? Instigate some mental health care?



Sakura is still feeling inadequate (like she always does, sadly).

We pause to randomly flash to Naruto and Jiraiya's ill-fated four-tails incident.

Back in the desert our trio get jumped again, by a sandstorm from the Sand-nin, and in the ensuing fracade, Ino and Chouji get bitten by poisonous snakes. Sakura flashes back - and shares it with Ino and Chouji via Ino's active mindlink - to when she essentially had to work out how to increase her chakra recharge rate by, like, just pure willpower. (Spiritual component after all.) That is pretty badass, actually. Not drawing power but... activingly MAKING it.

Sakura does the same and levels the enemy squad with one punch.

(Oh, the creepy demon puppet was a transformation.

Wait, why? I mean, I could understand while you're using the puppet as a decoy, but why maintain it that long? It's just silly. Little creepy, maybe, but not in the scary way.)

Sakura now feels less useless, something that will remain for about, ooh, how long until Naruto comes back to the village...?

The Hidden Plot Set Into Motion

Well, the title says it all... The assassins make their play, releasing the barrier which unleashes a gaint sandstorm into the demon desert.

This is far beyond what the genin can handle (especially the foreign genin), so Temari and Kankuro have to lead the sand jonin out to rescue the genin and get them into shelter. They give orders to the remaining Sand nin to keep the Kazekage inside. (Within about five seconds, Gaara has already legged it leaving a Sand clone his guards are to dumb to check into...)

Fu has just about been persuaded to head to the tower instead of making more friends when the Sandstorm hits.

Matsuri and company, still down a scroll, were heading towards the central tower, hoping to snag a scroll from a team which gets stuck. (Matsuri seems to think this is a bit off, but really, it's smart thinking. Not everything is about powering through (except the Forth Ninja War *sigh*).

Team Guy get stuck, and after a bit, Neji loses patience, creating a Rotation dome to allow Tenten to find something to shelter them in - which turns out to be a MASSIVE METAL SHIELD. Tenten sighs ruefully and says this is the only time she feels useful (you stop that right now Tenten, you're fricking awesome and don't you forget it!) and Lee and Neji promptly agree, because they are terrible, terrible comrades and do not deserve to wait on Tenten hand and foot, let alone the grandure of being on Tenten's team. You fracking slap them, Tenten, you fracking slap them hard!

Matsuri's team runs into the quicksand and fall in, despite their best efforts. Fu, a little ways off, hears them scream and rushes in to save them, because what happened to her is crying travesty, it really is, poor lass. She runs into Gaara, who asks why she saved them and she explains that she was told by Shibuki that if she did stuff like that, she'd make her hundred friends. (He ain't wrong, honestly.) Gaara rattles off about how Naruto Fu is. (He is also not wrong. Travesty!) Fu even tries to give Matsuri her scroll (while Gaara hides out of sight so as not to bias the exams or something, I guess), apparently because she doesn't really care about the exams (travesty!) - which we sort of knew, she's just there to make friends. But Matsuri refuses as politely as possible, saying for Gaara, they need to earn this on their own merits.

Matsuri and her firends trot off and then the assassin, having lured Gaar out, approaches him and says he needs to die - and strums his lute-lookin' thingy.

Oh no! He's going to sing Gaara to death with a rendition of Aha's Take on Me, isn't he? (That is just about the worst thing I can personally think of.)

[khadgar567]

honestly there is a lot of stupidity involving Sasuke and his clan. its hard to know where to start.

-for one, the whole thing could've been prevented if Danzo wasn't a jerk and decided to kill Shisui when Shisui was ALREADY willing to mind control his own clan for the sake of the village because like Itachi he was THAT loyal to the village over his own family. granted the mind control is bad, but its arguably step up from "kill them all" and closer to actual negotiation.

-given that the Uchiha Clan's reaction to Itachi killing them all was to accept it and let it happen, it kind of takes it out of the realm of "putting down potential rebels" and more "killing peaceful protesters" which is a bit of a grey area because magical superpowers, but still they didn't defend themselves when you think that if they were so on the verge of causing a revolt, they'd be more defiant and willing to kill someone who betrays their clan then live to expose the village about atrocity they tried to commit. especially given that only a total of three Uchihas ever truly turned against the village: Madara, Obito and Sasuke. thats three out of an entire clan of people across three generations and wars of ninja. and two of those only because the first persuaded them to. thats not really a good enough basis to think of the entire clan as traitorous or to distrust them. if the Uchiha Clan really hated the village that much to revolt and turn on them, they had AMPLE opportunity during the actual wars fought rather than do it during peacetime when the focus would be on them.

-so not only does the vast majority of the Uchiha Clan think of Madara and his insanity as stupid, not only do they remain loyal through three wars despite being mistrusted and do not turn on the village during those wars because that would be the best time to screw them over, not only are their two best and brightest members, Shisui and Itachi two of their most loyal ninja to the village, not only do they not stop Itachi from killing them, but it turns out? Danzo once tried to assassinate the Third Hokage, for reals. One thinks that Danzo was just killing them for stealing his idea. So Danzo has no place to judge them, the hypocrite. Especially with him continuing to make ROOT despite it being illegal. one wonders if the Uchiha Clan were in the right in that whole situation if they get this treatment despite all that they've done for the village.

-Sasuke himself is kind of weird, because most of the time he has no personality. You don't know whats going through his head, or why he does the things he does besides "VENGANZ!!1!" and when he isn't being manipulated by Orochimaru, he is being manipulated by Madara, Obito, or Itachi. throughout the series he is nothing but a pawn for someone else. but at the same time, the manipulation is a lot of the time made sure that its a choice for him and he takes all the wrong choices. well maybe not Ororchimaru kidnapping him, Sasuke chose to allow him to be kidnapped, but he was surrounded by four jounin level ninja and he was like one genin, there was no way he wasn't coming with even if he refused. though really, there should've been guards for the last Uchiha in the village when Orochimaru already attacked and expressed an interest learning all jutsu. and so on and so forth.

-we don't actually know what the hell is wrong with Sasuke. the eyes being sith stuff, kind of explains it? but there is a lot of things that could be cause of Sasuke being the way he is. we know that the Uchihas at least have naturally introverted personalities, we know that Itachi did to Sasuke is probably traumatizing and trauma to a kid at a young age really screws with them. so it might be plausible that introversion + trauma = someone really withdrawn. his choice of profession isn't helping, nor is all the machiavellian masterminds whisper into his ear to KILL HATE RAGE for their goals helping with his mental state either. that is so many reasons for the way he is, from trauma to genetics to abuse and manipulation, that you can't say any one thing is the overall cause, he is not a walking mental issue, he is walking PILE of mental issues.

-adding to that, there is this weird nonsense concept in Naruto where generations and events repeat to a certain extent. Sasuke is a Kakashi repeat who is a Minato repeat who is an Orochimaru repeat who is a Madara repeat, who is a Hamura repeat. Naruto is an Obito repeat who is a Nawaki repeat who is a Jiryaiya repeat who is a Hashirama repeat who is a Hagoromo repeat. Sakura is a Rin repeat who is a Tsunade repeat. you know what I'm talking about. so its implied that Sasuke is to some extent, DESTINED to repeat the mistakes of the past- that he doesn't have a choice in not becoming what he is, because a bunch of people like him before have done so as well and screwed up the world because of it. and given that it turns out Naruto was destined to save the world according to a frog, sorry Sasuke! you were always meant to turn evil then get redeemed and had no choice in the matter! congratulations on being the latest Kakashi, lelz. oh and Naruto is a complete hypocrite who was always destined to win and used his inheritance his father gave him to win at everything and the only who really worked hard to win was freaking Rock Lee, but thats another thing.

-despite all this, he somehow is popular with all the girls and the village during his academy days. which honestly is just nonsensical. yeah traumatized stoic kid is real cool, riiiiiight. lack of social skills and personality is what makes you popular with everyone, riiiiiight, newsflash: they just want him for his magical eyeballs. those sweet sexy magical eyeballs of hax. so right from the start, Sasuke is not valued as a person, but for the power he has by the people around him. which kind of sets the tone for how he sees himself doesn't it? as powerful. as someone who needs to be powerful. when he already has motivation to get more powerful. one wonders if Itachi would've been better off just telling Sasuke the truth in the first place.

-so how much of Sasuke's choices can we really place as his fault, when it seems the entire design of the world seems to be against him, from destiny, to genetics, to the circumstances of his first trauma, to how people treated him after that trauma convincing him he needs to be powerful to be respected, to being manipulated by a bunch of people who doesn't have his best interests in mind when out there alone without anyone sane to support him, to the very history of his clan weighing upon him, to the events of the war itself. but then again a lot of that is bull parts of Naruto lore that we might want to get rid of in favor of sanity and reason.

-as for his actions being excusable because "ninja" um......no. for one, Batman is more of a ninja than the entire Konohagakure No Sato combined. you want to read about a heroic ninja, read Batman, he is closer to what a ninja actually is than anything in Naruto. what Naruto magic users are, are yamabushi. and really the ones in Naruto are just chakra super-soldiers with very little of actual stealth and infiltration occurring. lets just go with soldiers because thats the closest thing you can honestly describe naruto ninja as: a military, not a spy network. and soldiers aren't just forgiven if they go crazy terrorist or whatever, they get killed like any other crazy terrorist. Sasuke coming back to be forgiven is like a soldier who deserts, becoming a crazy terrorist for three years then coming back and yelling "hey! make me your general!" while Gaara is just another soldier- he never actually betrayed his village. of course, it could all come down to execution- Gaara was a well-executed redemption and Sasuke was not and thats the end of it.

-so really, my feelings on Sasuke is complex: on one hand everything he and his family goes through sucks dude. and from a certain point of view, the Uchihas weren't even EVIL or BAD aside from one or three notable exceptions. you can't deny that someone wouldn't be that way in some way after all that he has gone through. at the same time, how much of that is well executed, how much of that SHOULD'VE been there? should Sasuke really have been this ultimate rival who Naruto only redeemed at the very end? should Sasuke really have gotten all these weird hax sharingan stuff? could the Uchiha massacre have been written better? his redemption could've definitely been written better, perhaps if Sasuke was redeemed earlier but had to face a reversal of Naruto and his earlier positions with Sasuke being the new village outcast, it would've been better done. could it have been written better so that the whole world wasn't stacked against Sasuke into becoming what he is? things like that.

-again, Sasuke being the Katsuki Bakugo of Naruto and only pretending to turn on the village like Itachi so he can play double agent so that konoha wins would've been a great choice to set him up as a true rival to Naruto for the Hokage position while giving him more real ninja cred, but we never got that.

there is a LOT to unpack with anything involving Sasuke. something about him just brings up so many problems....

you still take long road to save sasuke most easy road to save him was have a heart to heart fight with naruto as puch therapy no jutsu was all sasuke needed get out of his funk thus you basicly undo 3/4 of the the story and directly kump in to shinobi war arc as we remove the sasuke retrival arc and the remaining mess from story there is kinda no need to pain arc thus no need danzo to become hokage and no need the kakashi the mess cleaner hokage which means naruto becomes hokage right after tsunade and thanks to avoiding lots of mess series jump end much more quickly

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

And so we reach the conclusion of the Suna Chunin exams (the Sunin exams...?)

The Targeted Tailed Beast and Neji's Judgment

As the storm keeps almost everyone outn of the way, it passes by Gaara and Matsuri's team, whom he was protecting. He sends them off on their way, only to have to double backl when the creepry preist dude snags them in some sort of shadow jutsu. Gaara frees them and telles them to run - and not to tell anyone.

Creepy preist dude nails Gaara with some sort of chakra chain, which basically knackers him up from being able to do anything.

But Shakaku, miffed, does get off a signal that has Fu rushing back to the rescue (FRACKING. TRAGEDY.)

Meanwhile, Team Gai crawls out from their Tenten-provided giant frickin' shield. As Neji explains he kinda forgot to tell them they hadn't got an Earth scroll yet, he spots an exhausted Matsuri - having left her team behind when Yukata ran out of steam. They, of course, immediately abandon the exams to run to the rescue, because (despite Neji and Lee's flagrent and shameful apprecation of Best Ninja) Team Guy are fickin' boss.

Fu, charging in to the rescue makes the tactcal error of trying to break Gaara free instead of blowing the creepy priest's head off, and he manages to snag her too. Wow, that's kind of sad, but surely this trick is only going to work when there's no other ninja around...?

Fu, however, manages to summon up a cocoon which slows the drain down.

Meanwhile the dippy Sand guys find Gaara's not there, which in term causes Guy, Kurenai and Asuma (who were looking for Gaara) to realise he's naffed on ad is probably in trouble.

Team Guy and Matsuri arrive at the same time as Fu's teammate. Neji quickly twigs what's going on, and fairly easily convinces the muppets they're on the same side. Neji sends of Lee, Maturi and the dudes to go knobble preist, because he needs Tenten (because she's frickin' awesome) to rescue Gaara.

Priest dude is seriously HAX though, and is allowed to summon a barrier that shoots area attacks simultaneously with trying to simultaneously extract two tailed beasts. (Where the frack was this pillock in the Forth Shinobi War? (Probably either dead or got one-shotted out of the gate by some no-name at the start, I am right?) But hey, distraction, it works.

Neji has a bit of a squiz at the chain and then asks Tenten for a chakra blade, because OF COURSE she has one hand, because - and i don't think this has been said enough Tenten is fracking awesome.

Neji uses it to pop inside the cocoon (Gaara's first words are "I told them not to tell aynyone", haha) and then basically figures out all he has to do is Gentle First the frack out of one chakra point and bust the chain's power. And it only takes him a couple of attempts. (He's already pegged Fu and jinchuriki at this point.) (Gaara is like "I can't beleive I got rescued by you," because Gaara is hilarious.)

And then the draining jutsu backfires, and goes looking for the nearest jinchuriki chakra - which of course means it turns on creepy-priests dude, because this jutsu don't have [D]. That's just sad and a bit anticlimatic. Especially when Gaara has to ask Neji to stop the guy being killed by his own jutsu.

(Guy, Kurenai and Asuma arrive to find they aren't necessary and watch from the distance.)

Fu immediately demands Neji become one of her hundred friends and he, sort of panickingly agrees, to Tenten and Lee's amusement.

Fu and Neji? Yeah, okay I'll ship that and...

...

Dang, I made myself sad.

(FRACKING. TRAGEDY.)

Hopes Entrusted to the Future

Wrap-up time!

Gaara sends a Sand Clone to Talk no Jutsu the lead Sand rebel guy, intercut with Matsuri picking a fight with Shira, because she wants to est him because they were both trained by Gaara. Neither team really aes about winning, but Matsuri offers them their scroll anyway. She gets her arse throughly kicked. But ahaha, both teams have Heaven scrolls and they all laugh. Ahaha, you gys all just failed.

After Talk no Jutsu, Sand Rebel ninja commits seppuku, leaving things to Gaara.

Was... that a critical success of a failure...?

Gaara decide frack the third round of the exams, he can't be bothered - the genin's villages will all report from the second exam and can decide for themselves who passed becasue the power of friendship!

We see Shira and Yomi heading off to the border, leaving behind the other lass whose name asn't mentioned this episode and I can;t be arsed to look up. Were the promoted? We will never know, they will Never Be Seen Again.

The three Rain lasses also get promoted to chunin by Konan, who immediately gives them an S ranked mission.

...

Wait, what?

Isn't that kind of suci-

And the implication is they they immediately died.

Well, that's just sad.

Meanwhile, Fu and her mates get ambushed on the way home by Kazuku and Hidan. Fu immediately wants to make friends with Kazuku, and that is pretty much the last thing we will ever see from her alive.

FRACKING. TRAGEDY!!!!

Matsuri and her team don't even merit an appearance (the frack, show?), so it's back to the leaf and to no-one's surprise, all the Named Konoha ninja are promoted to chunin, except Neji, who gets fast-tracked to jonin in one go, because he's Neji Fracking Hyuga.

(Actually, no, that's fair, given his performance throughout this arc has been exemplary, showing enormous leadership skills and a fine level of diplomacy. The other FRACKING TRAGEDY.)



And so this arc ends. Think the first part was better than the rest, honestly, which is a shame, but it wasn't too bad. The "climax" really wasn't though, unfortunately. Not even a really basis action sequence.



I would just like to note i passing, the ending title sequence of this bit is kinda hilarious, with a jaunty little tune playing while a happily smiling Madara beats the living crap out of everyone and becomes the Ten Tails jinchuriki. (He's such a jolly fellow. A shame he didn't pass his sense of humour down to any of his descendants...)



Next, time, Back To The Main Plot!

[LaZodiac]

New chapter!

Spoiler

Show

Naruto does something ninja like for once! And uh...otherwise it's just a fight of goopy shapechanger lady and Naruto's foxsage powers.

It's a good chapter but suffers from Bort ****in' no, you're not getting involved in this fight you ****. Take Kawaki and run.

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto


So, start of season 20, the penultimate season... Whcih is inexplicably three time the size of all preceeding seasons except the first, which it is double...

Where wer we?

Oh, right, Naruto was down, Sasuke was down, and Madara was about to nom all the tailed beasts.

Eh, well, couldn't happen to a better villain, actually...

On the Brink of Death

While Gaar pelts tem over to Minato to seal his half of the Kurama into Naruto, Sakura is busy trying to stop Naruto dying, up to and including cutting him open - he doesn't bleed, that's not a good sign - and literally massaging his heart with her hands. (Well, she always did have Naruto's heart in her hands ahaha!)

Karin, meanwhile, goes ballistic and charges to Sasuke's presumed rescue, with Roachy and co following behind. But first there's White Zetsu and the big statue thing to get past... And Karin surprisingly shows a bit of badass ness and shreads it with the Uzumaki chakra chains (with a little back-up from the rest).

Guy, carried by Lee, sees Gaara flying over head and orders Lee and Tenten to carry him back to Madara.

Maddy, effortlessly slipping itno Ten Tails Jinchuriji form, gets a bit of a twinge and spits out the Sage's Nninja tools.

They, of course, fall from the sky and clonk Guy and Lee on the head. (So, I like to imagine Madara did that on purpose - it'd be so like him...)

Kakashi and Minato are failing to deal with Black Zetsu's attempt to steal Obito's rinnigarn, but are interrupted by Sakura and Gaara.

But, as Minato tries to transfuse the chakra, Black Zetsu either blocks or absorbs the biju charka (not quite sure which) with a sneaky "under the ground" extension.

Then Madara shows up.

Pants to be darkened time!

The Two Mangekyo

Madra and Obito exchange a few meaningless blithers, the upshot of which Obito walks forward, bringing Madra's eye and last of Kurama's chakra (BZ did steal after all).

Gaara, Minato and Kakashi leap to attack, Kakashi with Kamui, Minato with a raijin and rasagan and Gaara putting up a big sandwall.

Madara deftly tears Minato's arm off with the rasagan still going, kicks him AND his severed arm THROUGH the sandwall wall to hit Gaara and Kakashi simultaneously. BAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I had to pause the DVD, I was laughing so hard.

Madara is freaking GREAT. (See Zodi, this is pretty good!)

Obito walks up to Madara and holds out his hand - and shoves it into his chest. Madara is, honestly more put out than hurt, despite ahnd in his chest. Obito manages to grab a tiny bit of One and Eight chakra and drags it back, to be sealed in Naruto (1+8 equals 9? Really?) Kakashi Kamui's Sakura into the dimension, where she remembers to breath. Which, frankly all jokes about Sakura aside, is not unreasonble given what Madara just did.

Minato is now basically useless, with no arms, so it's Obito and Kakashi, squaring off against Madara and now... we're having a half-episode flashback to Obito half of which we've seen before frag-dammit show one and a half episodes and we have a new mini-arc STOP MAKING ZODI RIGHT, DAMMIT!!!


Also, once again we have a page out "writers don't understand how to write young children at all," which is second only to their lack of ability get scale... Five, my boney arse.

The Formation of Team Minato

So, more Obito-centric flashbacks - not really much to say (like 30% is repeated material...) until the mildy more interesting bit of Tem Minato's first C-Rank. Which only goes marginally better than Team Seven's.

They are escorting a load of secret documents to an ally village (can't be arsed to work out which one) and shock horror, mass ambush. Minato takes Obito to hold off the bulk of the enemy (reasoning Kakashi can protect Rin, so like with fighter pilots, you put the least-skilled as wingmate to the ace).

Kakashi lets one of their escorts (not the vital one) get knocked off a bridge, and just when they think they've avoided the enemy, turns out two of the remaining three are traitors.

Will credit Obito with one thing, for all the show keeps trying to make us associate him with Naruto, he's probably honeslty more like Sasuke's level of talent. Obito's fire jutsu is as good if not better than Saskue's at that age, and the latter's use of it shocked Kakashi when he saw it way back at the start.

From the next episode thing, this looks like it'll wrap up quickly which means that in all likelihood, the flashback will take longer than it will take Madara to hilariously no-sell Kakashi and Obito's "now we're on the same side again!" schtick.

*skulldesk*



Stop snickering Zodi.

[LaZodiac]

My dude the next flashback is like five chapters in the manga. It's time to learn all of Obito's backstory! All of which you've no doubt guessed by now!

[Lord Raziere]

My dude the next flashback is like five chapters in the manga. It's time to learn all of Obito's backstory! All of which you've no doubt guessed by now!

Or could've gotten much faster by reading any successfully made long Naruto fan fic at this point.

heck, you get the entire Naruto story much faster and better written by reading Naruto fan fics at this point.

sure they're altered but often so many of the things are similar or the same that it doesn't matter, since they tend to keep repeating Land of Waves and the Chuunin Exams. Sasuke often never turns evil in the first place so we skip that whole stupidity by having him just stay in the village. Often the Sandaime still dies and most fics still give Tsunade the position. Naruto still ends up with Hinata but often earlier than in canon. whether Haku and Zabuza live seems to lean towards them living to do more with them, but WHAT they do with those two depends on the fic, with the expected tendency towards being taken back to Konoha. Gaara is often still redeemed.

some fics tend to try to be more realistic or smarter about being ninjas than canon with varying degrees of success, some just for straight heroics, some get dark, some are just crazy.

But my favorite naruto fan fic is probably Echoes. its the only fan fic where everything goes so completely off the rails that Naruto starts traveling across parallel universes, faces three Madaras, begins to hate the Hidden Leaf village, runs into an endless number of alt versions of himself not all of them good or sane, its dark, insane and somehow the only thing that might surpass Yet Again if only for sheer drama and tension involved that Yet Again lacks.

[Aotrs Commander]

My dude the next flashback is like five chapters in the manga. It's time to learn all of Obito's backstory! All of which you've no doubt guessed by now!

What AGAIN? Didn't we do that already on the point he was revealed? Ye gods, what else do we need to freakin' know?

...

Wait, no, you must be thinking of that, the episode after next is The Blue Beast vrs Six Paths Madara, that can't be Obito's backstory again!

...

Can it?

[LaZodiac]

What AGAIN? Didn't we do that already on the point he was revealed? Ye gods, what else do we need to freakin' know?

...

Wait, no, you must be thinking of that, the episode after next is The Blue Beast vrs Six Paths Madara, that can't be Obito's backstory again!

...

Can it?

Yeah I'm probably mixing up flashbacks. Obito's already shown off his Colossus Roar. Soon it's time for good stuff again! Only to be diminished by bad things.

[Gray Mage]

All this talk about flashbacks reminded me of this meme (which is, I think, sadly true):

Spoiler

Show

[Aotrs Commander]

All this talk about flashbacks reminded me of this meme (which is, I think, sadly true):

Spoiler

Show

*snerk*

It is also, sadly probably true, which yet another crying tragedy...



It kills me, it really does, all these shows that have a massive, cool ensemble cast - which I like, I'm very rarely interested in stuff about one character - but only like one or two of the lead characters ever get to do anything.

[Ramza00]

I may explain later but this episode (the two mangekyo) is extremely important, Madara explaining the differences between Ninshu and Ninjutsu. Why is important? For the biggest ass pulls prior to this episode are Ninshu related as are the biggest ass pulls after this point.

Whenever something miraculous happens like a deus ex machina it is often related to Ninshu, Sealing Jutsu, or both where a Sealing Jutsu is incorporating Ninshu.

Hell if you want to be literal Talk No Jutsu is Ninshu. So even though the speech is boring it may be important to rewatch the Madara Ninshu speech. Else when asspulls happen in the future you may get angry but what happens is instead of a wizard did it, Ninshu did it, and this is an anime / manga about wizards who call themselves ninjas.

[Traab]

*snerk*

It is also, sadly probably true, which yet another crying tragedy...



It kills me, it really does, all these shows that have a massive, cool ensemble cast - which I like, I'm very rarely interested in stuff about one character - but only like one or two of the lead characters ever get to do anything.

Yeah im pretty sure naruto and that swing have spent so long on screen together they are considered a common law couple. Wait, would that make hinata the other woman?

[Aotrs Commander]

Yeah im pretty sure naruto and that swing have spent so long on screen together they are considered a common law couple. Wait, would that make hinata the other woman?

*snerk*

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

You'll Be My Backup

Kakashi pretty easily offs one of the two before Minato shows up, and the dying ninja reveals that, no Team Minato, your scroll is in another ninja. (Specifically, the one Kakashi let fall off the bridge and wrote off earlier. Whoops.)

Obito goes off on one to rescue him, dragging the rest behind him. Obito manages to save the dude, but not the scroll, so Kakashi charges off into the thick of the enemy to get that back. (Which he doe, because Kakashi.)

More repeat flashbacks of the whole final Team Minato mission and then end flashback.

Kakashi and Obito square off against Madara... And after all that build up, all they do is combine their Kamui to spend Obtio off to shove the chakra back into Naruto.

Well, that was anit-climactic.

And the, Guy arrives!

The Blue Beast vs. Six Paths Madara

The mysterious guy Karin noticed by Saskue is Kabuto, now mind-raped by Izangi into being good. Yeah, this out of all the redemptions, sits with me the least well. Definitely the Stupid Part.

Moving on...

Guy goes seven gates and his chakra goes blue and he hits Madara with his biggest attack and knocks him around and nearly dies from the counter if not for Lee leaping in.

As the last combatant effective against Madara, Guy decides it's time to stop playing around, and become the Red Beast instead of the Blue Beast and Ohhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhhhhh! THAT'S why he's the Blue Beast, it's to do with the CHAKRA colour of the GATES he can open! Unholy crap! Ha, a mystery some thirteen years in the making revealed!

Then why have Guy flashback. So, turns out he couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu either (but he MUST not be a crippled as Lee in that regard, we've seen him use a summon at the very least!)

His dad was an eternal genin, which is interesting. (Guess he must be real proud of the height Guy's reached, seriously.)

Also, there are occasions when I believe that the village ninjas could have done more than inore Naruto, such as the pair of chunin willing to beat up a pre-academy student, after mocking his father. Kakashi comes in and kicks the crap out of them, expresses his disbelief that Guy didn't manage to punch them, and walks off with his dad. (Reading between the lines here, one imagines this is Sakumo's tacit encouragement of Guy and Dai and that if Kakashi hadn't done it, Sakumo would have done.)

Papa's Youth

This is pretty much what you'd expect from a Guy flashback, lots of running around and self-rukles and youth and manly tears and all that. Not much to really say, except Guy's dedication is impressive and Kakashi was so far beyond Saskue at academy age it isn't even funny.

He clearly CAN use jutsu a little bit, seeng as he did manage at least a partial clone, which is more than Lee.

Some amusement from seeing chibi Aoba and Genma, though. Chouza, Shikaku and Inochi were also older than I thought, seeing as the former was apparently Guy's sensei.

And Might Dai went out a genin against the Seven Swordsman, covering his son and his son's teammates? Well that's a hell of an exit, and one you kinda gotta be proud of.



Next time, FINALLY, we get to see Madara and Guy square off...!

[LaZodiac]

I mean he's also the Blue Beast because something something blue and green are the same in Japan.

[Ramza00]

I mean he's also the Blue Beast because something something blue and green are the same in Japan.

Damn you are making me think of Kanji and suddenly it hit me about Izuku Midoriya's name. I can't believe I did not get this till now.