Naruto IX: [Epilogue Intensifies]

[Rater202]

Nah, see, it doesn't even essentially have to be the desire to bang.

IT could also be the desire to inflict violence on each other.

Madara didn't get Rinnegan from being a hybrid Uchiha/Senjuzumaki.

He got it from literally shoving a piece of Hashirama's flesh and blood into his own open wound.

It could be a desire to mix blood, literally or metaphorically.

Kiss/Kill, for those familiar with the Parahumans Series...

Or it's a generations-long, bloodline wide case of alternating between Matespritship and Kismesitude without an Auspistice to keep them in one Quandrant.

[LaZodiac]

She's an Uzumaki.

No, seriously. All we know about the clan is that they have strong life-chakras and thus live a long time, that they have sealing techniques that let them make the God of Death their bitch, and that all four members we've seen have been various degrees of obsessive, eccentric, and crazy.

I ****ing forgot Karin is literally Naruto's like, cousin, and remembering it basically just sent me back five years.

I honestly love it.

[Ramza00]

two of which's obsession is Sasuke.

then Boruto Uzumaki also has an an idol worship of Sasuke. and there is implied love/crush between Boruto and Sarada.

and apparently Kushina was friends with Mikoto, Sasuke's mother.

seriously whats with Uzumakis having the hots for Uchihas?

...If you extend it to the conflict with the Senju, since the Uzumaki and Senju are branches of the same tree, it might be a hidden genetic imperative to recreate the Rinnegan?

It does not have to be genetic attraction, it can be temperament / personality / emotional attraction where the other person is different to you in a emotional temperament type way and thus you are attracted to them in a platonic or romantic way. You can be attracted to them without some secret genetic pheromones.

Remember the Uchihia are supposed to represent the Yin principle, the stillness principle, the cold type of emotions principles where they can't self-sustain their own emotions out of supply. These type of emotions are "receiving"
And the Senju / Uzumaki are supposed to represent the Yang principle, the active principle, the hot type of emotions, these type of emotions are "generative."

What can be more generative than obsession? What can be more receiving than the target of the obsession?

I ****ing forgot Karin is literally Naruto's like, cousin, and remembering it basically just sent me back five years.

I honestly love it.

*Nods* , Karin and Naruto are different types of generators.

Karin has super powerful life force generation, she heals herself effortlessly and biting her transfers the healing to others.
Naruto is an emotional generator and thus feels "warm" while Sasuke is an emotional black hole that feels "cold."

[Lord Raziere]

ah yes, but the Rinnegan is the Taiji, see? the supreme ultimate that yin and yang come from and make up, as yin and yang are meant to be together, so the genetic attraction only supports the yin-yang metaphor. for you see, the taiji is everything, because everything is the taiji. thus the Dao is recognizing this, genes apart of that therefore the genetic attraction is a physical biological expression of the taiji seeking to reunite.

[Silverraptor]

I had a weird Boruto Dream. It played out in several episodes like a story arc.

Spoiler: Boruto Dream

Show

Basically, it starts with Sarada working on a jutsu with a special ninja tool equipment, typical combat practice outside the village. However, during a combination of jutsu, things go wrong with the equipment of course and there is an explosion and Sarada is knocked out. She wakes up, surprising uninjured, but the area around her has definite signs that there was indeed an explosion. She gets up and starts heading back to the hidden leaf, but the "camera" moves over her eyes and the usual white spec in her eyes is gone, leaving her eyes as pure black. Usually I would over look that, but there really seemed to be an emphasis on the fact her eyes were missing the white spec. As she got into town, she meets konohamaru, there is typical greeting and such and they begin to have a conversation until her eyes meets with with his. Then the white spec fades back into her eyes, while konohamaru begins to go berserk and starts going on a ramapage towards a specific tower in the city that is suppose to hold very rare jutsu. She tries to stop him, as well as other ninja, but being konohamaru, he ends up destroying the tower in a single minded state, unable to acknowledge anyone trying to get his attention. The tower explodes with the force of a massive bomb, the leaf village is leveled, and she wakes up back in the clearing again, exactly like she woke up from the ninja tool explosion.

Worried, she tries to head back to the village, expecting the worst, but is surprised to find the town entirely intact like before. And again, the "Camera" (Still dreaming this) pans over her eyes, which have the white spec in them missing again. As she comes into town, konohamaru calls out to her, exactly the same as before. She goes on a cautious posture, expecting him to go berserk again as the conversation begins almost the same as it had before. As the conversation moves past the point of when he went berserk last time, she begins to calm down, thinking maybe she just needed some rest. So she locks eyes with konohamaru again, and the same thing happens. White spec fades back into her eyes, konohamaru goes berserk, destroys tower, village blows up, and she wakes up back in the clearing.

She heads back to the village and is both surprised and not surprised that it is intact. This time she doesn't go into the village, but hides on a hill to watch what happens (The White Spec is missing from her eyes again). When she spots komohamaru in the distance down below, she desides to engage her sharingan to see if her eyes can pick up something. Now when she activated the Sharingan, it had the triple spiral dot that a full formed sharingan has, but there was a 4th white dot also included in the eye design that just didn't fit a typical sharingan. She watches Konohamaru, but he doesn't go berserk and leaves her sight. Confused by this, she doesn't notcie as ChoCho comes up behind her. As ChoCho startles her by asking what she was doing, Sarada and ChoCho's eyes lock, the white spec in her sharingan goes away, and ChoCho is the one that goes on the rampage towards the tower. And for some reason her strength and chakra are amplified that none of the jounin ninja can stop her as she dismantles the tower, it blows up, and Sarada begins back where she always wakes up with the white specs again missing from her eyes.

I'll save you all some time, but basically she does this apparent time loop a few more times and discovers that people go berserk whenever she locks eyes with them. So Eventually she decides to try to avoid looking people in the eye until she can figure out what's going on. In short, shenanigans happen, for some reason or another she accidentally looks people in the eyes a few times. When the white spec returns to her eyes, the people go berserk, attack the same tower, it explodes, and she starts over in her exploded clearing. But finally, by accident in one of these attempts to not look people in the eye (No one remembers anything that happens in the previous timeloop) She accidentally looks Boruto in the eyes. And instead of him going Berserk, his right eye turns into the special eye, and the left eye loses the black pupil, turning entirely blue, but Sarada's right eye regains that white spec in it while the left eye still does not have the spec. Boruto winces a bit as he begins rubbing his eyes as if they are irritating him, but otherwise stays Boruto. Sarada, relieved that he didn't go Berserk and attack the tower, tries to explain what has happened quickly to him, but he just gets confused and says he doesn't understand. They then get walked in on by a couple shinobi, each look a shinobi in the eye, they both go berserk, and it's the tower destruction thing again.

Sarada, wakes up and hurries back to the village with the thought of trying to meet Boruto again, since he didn't go berserk. But when she gets there, the village is on fire and she quickly discovers there is already someone going berserk. Before she could enter the village, the tower explodes and she wakes up again. She tries to get to the village a couple times but again, someone is already on the warpath by the time she gets there. On the fourth time, no one is going berserk and she manages to slip back into the village. She finds Boruto, who immediate confronts her on why the people were acting weird whenever he tried to talk to them and why the village was blown up several times. It was then Sarada realized the Boruto remembers what had happened in the previous time loop as well and that his special eye was permanently on and his other eye was looking weird (missing pupil). Boruto points out that her left eye was also looking weird (No white Spec) and she looks into a mirror to see for herself. She then tells him that she's been stuck in this timeloop for a while and explains about people acting strangely whenever she looks them in the eye.

I'll summarize the rest, because this dream didn't finish before I woke up. But they begin investigating and researching, trying to find out what's wrong, expecting the ninja tool she used to be a cause of their eyes causing people to go crazy. What they uncover is a devious plot to destroy the Leaf Village that involved Sarada from the start. Apparently, this villain used a special genjutsu and implanted it in Sarada's eyes until she looked at someone elses eyes. Boruto's Special eye protected him, and also managed to link him to the time loop Sarada was stuck in. Also apparently the genjutsu was supposed to remain dormant for a while longer, but the ninja tool mixed with Sarada's jutsu she was practicing at the beginning, the other jutsu stored into the ninja tool, and the dormant genjutsu someone put in her eyes. This lead to the genjutsu being activated early, while also starting the timeloop. Using the timeloop to their advantage whenever they screw up, they try to get time running smoothly and the genjutsu removed from their eyes (Sarada even convinces Boruto to go to Naruto for help on this after they fail a few times and Boruto begrudgingly agrees). Also, they discover that the tower was a special jutsu vault that the villain they chase after during each time loop was trying to destroy as apparently one of his families special forbidden jutsu was (he claimed stolen) put in the tower and he wanted to make sure that no one could discover and use it and punish the leaf village for "stealing" it in the first place. They then soon discover that the jutsu he was talking about was the genjutsu that now resides in their eyes.

And with many trials and errors, Sarada and Boruto work together to try to stop the villain, getting closer everytime to stopping them! But then sun crept through my window over my face and woke me up and the dream didn't reach a conclusion, even though it felt like it was getting close to the end and the final fight.

Anyways, that was my weird Boruto related Dream last night. I have no idea what brought it on, but it was entertaining to "watch" events unfold. It was one of the few times in my dreams where I take a back sea and can't directly interact with the dream. I just sat back and watched events unfold, although I could move around in 3D to see the different events happen from different angles. The dream was pretty vivid and I just felt the need to share it to anyone who was a Naruto fan (My family is, sadly, not any of those people). So, you guys were it!

[khadgar567]

I had a weird Boruto Dream. It played out in several episodes like a story arc.

Spoiler: Boruto Dream

Show

Basically, it starts with Sarada working on a jutsu with a special ninja tool equipment, typical combat practice outside the village. However, during a combination of jutsu, things go wrong with the equipment of course and there is an explosion and Sarada is knocked out. She wakes up, surprising uninjured, but the area around her has definite signs that there was indeed an explosion. She gets up and starts heading back to the hidden leaf, but the "camera" moves over her eyes and the usual white spec in her eyes is gone, leaving her eyes as pure black. Usually, I would overlook that, but there really seemed to be an emphasis on the fact her eyes were missing the white spec. As she got into town, she meets Konohamaru, there is typical greeting and such and they begin to have a conversation until her eyes meet with his. Then the white spec fades back into her eyes, while konohamaru begins to go berserk and starts going on a rampage towards a specific tower in the city that is suppose to hold very rare jutsu. She tries to stop him, as well as other ninjas, but being konohamaru, he ends up destroying the tower in a single-minded state, unable to acknowledge anyone trying to get his attention. The tower explodes with the force of a massive bomb, the leaf village is leveled, and she wakes up back in the clearing again, exactly like she woke up from the ninja tool explosion.

Worried, she tries to head back to the village, expecting the worst but is surprised to find the town entirely intact like before. And again, the "Camera" (Still dreaming this) pans over her eyes, which have the white spec in them missing again. As she comes into town, konohamaru calls out to her, exactly the same as before. She goes on a cautious posture, expecting him to go berserk again as the conversation begins almost the same as it had before. As the conversation moves past the point of when he went berserk last time, she begins to calm down, thinking maybe she just needed some rest. So she locks eyes with konohamaru again, and the same thing happens. White spec fades back into her eyes, konohamaru goes berserk, destroys the tower, village blows up, and she wakes up back in the clearing.

She heads back to the village and is both surprised and not surprised that it is intact. This time she doesn't go into the village but hides on a hill to watch what happens (The White Spec is missing from her eyes again). When she spots komohamaru in the distance down below, she decides to engage her Sharingan to see if her eyes can pick up something. Now when she activated the Sharingan, it had the triple spiral dot that a full formed Sharingan has, but there was a 4th white dot also included in the eye design that just didn't fit a typical Sharingan. She watches Konohamaru, but he doesn't go berserk and leaves her sight. Confused by this, she doesn't notice as ChoCho comes up behind her. As ChoCho startles her by asking what she was doing, Sarada and ChoCho's eyes lock, the white spec in her Sharingan goes away, and ChoCho is the one that goes on the rampage towards the tower. And for some reason her strength and chakra are amplified that none of the jounin ninjas can stop her as she dismantles the tower, it blows up, and Sarada begins back where she always wakes up with the white specs again missing from her eyes.

I'll save you all some time, but basically, she does this apparent time loop a few more times and discovers that people go berserk whenever she locks eyes with them. So Eventually she decides to try to avoid looking people in the eye until she can figure out what's going on. In short, shenanigans happen, for some reason or another she accidentally looks people in the eyes a few times. When the white spec returns to her eyes, the people go berserk, attack the same tower, it explodes, and she starts over in her exploded clearing. But finally, by accident in one of these attempts to not look people in the eye (No one remembers anything that happens in the previous time loop) She accidentally looks Boruto in the eyes. And instead of him going Berserk, his right eye turns into the special eye, and the left eye loses the black pupil, turning entirely blue, but Sarada's right eye regains that white spec in it while the left eye still does not have the spec. Boruto winces a bit as he begins rubbing his eyes as if they are irritating him, but otherwise stays Boruto. Sarada, relieved that he didn't go Berserk and attack the tower, tries to explain what has happened quickly to him, but he just gets confused and says he doesn't understand. They then get walked in on by a couple of shinobi, each looks a shinobi in the eye, they both go berserk, and it's the tower destruction thing again.

Sarada wakes up and hurries back to the village with the thought of trying to meet Boruto again since he didn't go berserk. But when she gets there, the village is on fire and she quickly discovers there is already someone going berserk. Before she could enter the village, the tower explodes and she wakes up again. She tries to get to the village a couple of times but again, someone is already on the warpath by the time she gets there. On the fourth time, no one is going berserk and she manages to slip back into the village. She finds Boruto, who immediately confronts her on why the people were acting weird whenever he tried to talk to them and why the village was blown up several times. It was then Sarada realized the Boruto remembers what had happened in the previous time loop as well and that his special eye was permanently on and his other eye was looking weird (missing pupil). Boruto points out that her left eye was also looking weird (No white Spec) and she looks into a mirror to see for herself. She then tells him that she's been stuck in this time loop for a while and explains about people acting strangely whenever she looks them in the eye.

I'll summarize the rest because this dream didn't finish before I woke up. But they begin investigating and researching, trying to find out what's wrong, expecting the ninja tool she used to be a cause of their eyes causing people to go crazy. What they uncover is a devious plot to destroy the Leaf Village that involved Sarada from the start. Apparently, this villain used a special genjutsu and implanted it in Sarada's eyes until she looked at someone else's eyes. Boruto's Special eye protected him, and also managed to link him to the time loop Sarada was stuck in. Also apparently the genjutsu was supposed to remain dormant for a while longer, but the ninja tool mixed with Sarada's jutsu she was practicing at the beginning, the other jutsu stored into the ninja tool, and the dormant genjutsu someone put in her eyes. This lead to the genjutsu being activated early, while also starting the time-loop. Using the timeloop to their advantage whenever they screw up, they try to get time running smoothly and the genjutsu removed from their eyes (Sarada even convinces Boruto to go to Naruto for help on this after they fail a few times and Boruto begrudgingly agrees). Also, they discover that the tower was a special jutsu vault that the villain they chase after during each time loop was trying to destroy as apparently one of his families special forbidden jutsu was (he claimed stolen) put in the tower and he wanted to make sure that no one could discover and use it and punish the leaf village for "stealing" it in the first place. They then soon discover that the jutsu he was talking about was the genjutsu that now resides in their eyes.

And with many trials and errors, Sarada and Boruto work together to try to stop the villain, getting closer every time to stopping them! But then sun crept through my window over my face and woke me up and the dream didn't reach a conclusion, even though it felt like it was getting close to the end and the final fight.

Anyways, that was my weird Boruto related Dream last night. I have no idea what brought it on, but it was entertaining to "watch" events unfold. It was one of the few times in my dreams where I take a back sea and can't directly interact with the dream. I just sat back and watched events unfold, although I could move around in 3D to see the different events happen from different angles. The dream was pretty vivid and I just felt the need to share it to anyone who was a Naruto fan (My family is, sadly, not any of those people). So, you guys were it!

okay, hold your susano mate as far as I know jugo arc introduces the ninja tech you might be wanting to see. a self activatable cursed seal with inherited stage two form so this arc we might see cursed seal form for Sarada in the current arc. by the way nice filler story arc i swear it feelth good.

[Silverraptor]

okay, hold your susano mate as far as I know jugo arc introduces the ninja tech you might be wanting to see. a self activatable cursed seal with inherited stage two form so this arc we might see cursed seal form for Sarada in the current arc. by the way nice filler story arc i swear it feelth good.

Huh. That is interesting that a similar story is currently playing out.

[LaZodiac]

The bad child returns for another bimonthly chapter.

Spoiler

Show

Ooooops they made a good chapter of Boruto again. I actually really like Kawaki's growth here, it's cool. Naruto walks the walk by giving up some chakra to help Kawaki get an artificial arm, and trains him to be a ninja. Even the awful Chouji daughter gets another personality trait, even if it's a very minor one. And the bit with the trading cards actually worked, especially since they built the cards up over the series as something Boruto cares about even if they're kinda dumb and weird.

And then we get a mysterious meeting of Kurama with Kawaki. Dun dun duuun...in two months or so.

[Aotrs Commander]

Oh, hey, is it that time again....?

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

In the post FMA Brotherhood environment...

The Loser Ninja

Right, so where were we?

Oh, right.

[Mortal Kombat voice]Madara.

Wins.[/Kombat voice]

Today, we have Tsunade's vision, which is a huge great long arc apparently consisting of her fantasing about reading a book Jiraiya wrote about everyone else. That's... either extremely meta or extremely silly.

So. *sigh* This is gonna be some sort of long flash back re-tread, isn't-

Woah, woah, woah, hang on?!

Alternate universe non-massacre with Minato and Kushina alive?!

Oh HELLS yes, please and thank you!

So, somehow, no-one died sealing Kurama away (or o-one we've seen) and Minato made peace with the Uchiha (probably because he killed Danzo, like years ago or something, which would have been the best thing anyone could have done, really).

We are treated to Kakashi being a little bit more open than in the real world, explaining about his dad (though not telling them it was his dad) while doing his "trash" speech.

Naruto and Sasuke have a bit of a fracade (during which Sasuke ups and lion's barrage Naruto - wow, we ain't since THAT for a while).

Naruto Does A Stupid, but ends up learning how to summon with Kurama a bit early, before they get dragged off for a mission.

Anyhoo, post-graduation teams Seven, Eight and Ten, plus Guy...

Sure, yeah, it's not abundantly clear here who Tsnuade's favourites are is it? No, not at all... Also, this is going to be an everyone arc? Double hells yes please!

... Are getting sent on a S-rank mission if we believe Naruto (S-RANK! I... WHAT.) because some jonin have vanished (including Izumo and Kotetsu) have disappeared in the vicinity of a village nearby. (On the one hand, Tsunade thinks our favourite gate-guards deserve a promotion, clearly, but on the other, that as punishment for fracking her off or something, their lazy arses need to be kidnapped and then rescued.)

Apparently the teams are all sort of at their post-chunin exams - ish - in that they all know each other; Sakura is short-haired but Naruto is still suck in full dumbass mode. (Sasuke, on the other hand, is still very much Sasuke, but at his best and not as closed off or broody, which is really cool.)

The teams all leg it off in seperate directiosn, with orders for recon and strictly no engagement, Naruto, this means you, heck we all know that's futile, especially Minato.

The Search Mission

So Our Heroes immediately fail all their spor checks as Scary Tentacles come from underground and yoink the jonin underground. In Team Seven's case, this is because Naruto runs off to catch a butterfly (Tsunade thinsk Jiraiya thinks Naruto is an idiot, possibly even more than in canon...) and Sasuke runs after him, while Kakashi gets grabbed behind Sakura's back.

However, my fears of a "disappeared without trace" scenario are immediately dispelled when Sakura spots the ground disturbed and immediately puts two and two together - there's even a kunai left to show for it.

The same happens to the other teams, but the more experienced Team Guy not only had Neji pick up an undergrund chakra network, but is alert enough that Tenten actually SEES Guy being pulled underground.

Shikamaru immeidatley has his team do... Nothing at all, while he waits for Team Eight to find them correctly expecting Naruto and Lee will cause a ruckus for their respective teams, the former team chasing after their idiot, while the latter restrain theirs with a literal giant ball and chain because TSUNADE AT LEAST APPRECIATES HOW AWESOME TENTEN IS.

Bad happen, though, because those kunai keft behind were Minato's teleport-targets, oh snap, someone know not to take them...

However, then things go right through pear-shaped, smacking the midden-covered windwill on the way down to pants-to-be-darkened-ville as Team Seven and Naruto specifically are attacked by FRACKING HIDAN, who immediatle draws blood from Naruto, then Does A Stabbing. Well. That escalated quickly...

ShikaInoChou, meanwhile get attacked by more enemy ninja who turn out to be FRACKING KONAN, NAGATO and YAHITO.

Well, they're [expletive]ing dead.

(The hell, Tsunade's subconscious, you want to panel por Shika with three S-rank super ninjas? He doesn't deserve that, no matter how lazy he is!)

Team Jiraiya

Oh, okay, cancel the pants wetting, this is the "we're all idiots trained by Jiraiya" versions of themselves, complete with ludicrious posing and Being Called Team Jiriaya.

(Also, Tsunade envisioning Jiraiya would use this moment to have everyone be an author mouthpiece and spout massive amounts of aggranidisement of himself is both hilarious and entirely accurate.)

Meanwhile, with Naruto, weare reminded than Hidan is actually a complete moron. Naruto takes him out with one Naruto Uzumaki Barrage (wow, we haven't seen that it ages either and... Wait, how does Tsunade know about that and lion's barrage, the boys had stopped using those because their got their signature attacks before they met her...?)

...

Okay, HOW exactly does the Naruto Hidan linked to and has been stabbing turn out to be a shadow clone? I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way...

...

Huh. You know, I think the level of subtely that Tsunade would think that Jiraiya would be a hack enough wrieter to leave that plot hole is really clever, even if entirely unintentional on the show writers...)

Hidan is "rescued" by Tentacle Thing, which turns out to be Kazuku, and we learn that the pair have been hired to kidnap all the jonin.

Elsewhere, Shika and co get the stuffing knocked out of them until Team Jiraiya (as they are calling themselves) just leave, having inexplicably funneled the trio to a bizarrely massive village which is all but unoccupied.

Teams Seven and Guy link up and Ssuke and Neji co-ordinate plans (who, Sasuke acting all sensible like and with not even the slightest hesitation with the other, except for Naruto who is being a reckless arse - that's kind of amazing!)

Team Ten spot a couple of kids sneaking around and follow them. The kids went back from the evacuation to grab a teddy bear, because Team Pervy-Sage told them there was going to be a big fight or fire or something and had the villages evacuated. Team Pervy Sage, watching from the background, feel terrible (and rightly so), but then Team Ten come in an do their best to talk to the children.

"We're not scary people," says Ino, the scariest person in the room.

Yahito has a sudden PST attack. Nagato, for some crazy reason, decides to leap at Shikamaru with a flying sword leap (dude, the children are right there and Shika isn't being exactly menacing, even if he only has the people skills of a twelve-year old...), and Shikamaru (showing the fact Tsunade clearly does like him after all) cooly just jobs three kunai at him where he can't dodge, and only Yahito's sudden panic-attack sonic scream attack saves him.

It also makes the house start to collapse.

"Did I do that?" Yes, frackwit, yes, you did.

So, two small children about to fall down a hole. There are six ninja there, three of whom are, like, S-rank and none of whom are really, like evil or something. Save the children, someone? Anyone? Is anyone actually going to do anyth- nope, okay then. I mean, wow, that's knd of impressive guys.

After several seconds to six ninja gawping in horror at the gapng hole that was a house where two small children fell down a pit (well, at least the other three teams know where to go, so good job, Team Ten, I guess?), Yahito decides, wait no, maybe he should jump down the hole to save them (liiittle slow there, mate) and Konan and Nagato follows.

Completely short-circuiting my expectations, Shika prevents Ino and Chouji from doing the same.

I mean, it really did. Maybe because of all the friendship stuff and because I watched Glitterforce Dokidoki earlier today, but I was really expecting this whgole "imperiled children" thing to trigger "hey, these ninja aren't actually bad guys" moment, but nope.

I mean, on top of everything, this is a novel plot that I'm not sure where it's going.

And it offers, reading between the lines, a lot of very interesting things about how Tsunade sees her subordinate, and ow well she know them...!



So, yeah, this was pretty darn cool, all told. This mini-arc could be amazeballs.

[Silverraptor]

So, while I have read the manga about regular naruto to the end, I never bothered finishing the anime. I stopped watching it about the time they were set to head off to the island in season 11. After the first couple of filler episodes, I decided to stop watching because I had gotten tired of filler at that point. I forgot about it for years and then on Toonami I saw that there were naruto shippuden episodes playing in dub this time. I've seen both sub and dub and can easily exchange the two so I watched some of the episodes until we got to those filler episodes I recognized and stopped watching those in favor of the other shows featured on Toonami. This went on for months until recently, I decided to check where Naruto was at this stage. Since I have a DVR, I was able to search up what episodes were available for playback, and it showed that season 11 was done and they were onto the 12th season. I thought, "Cool! It looks like I should be able to cut out a majority of the filler in season 11. Let me just watch the first few minutes of each episode in reverse order until I see a filler episode, then I'd go up one and watch from there." So I started with the last episode in the list titled "Kakashi! My Eternal Rival!" and I thought this would be like a Guy reflection of himself on the island with the waterfall (I only have vague recollection of how that processed went)...

Instead...

I GET A FILLER EPISODE THAT DOES NOTHING!!!!!





Are You Serious?! They had an entire season of filler JUST to get to the island? And each episode were not even remotely tied together other then the fact they were on a boat! Come on! This isn't one piece! Why would we want naruto cruising the grand line in search of pirate treasure when there is a LITERAL WAR about to happen and he needs to master Kurama's chakra power! Like seriously, my mind is blown!

[Ramza00]

This is the war that never ends,
yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some Madara started it,
not knowing who he was,
and will continue fighting it forever just because...
This is the war that never ends,
yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some Madara started it,
not knowing who he was,
and will continue fighting it forever just because...

[Aotrs Commander]

I liked the "Naruto goes on a Baot with Guy" arc, myself, it was silly and hilarious.

[Silverraptor]

Yeah. But an entire season of nothing but filler...

I knew the filler was bad, but never imagined it would be that big!

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

On't wi' show!

(On the new multiregion DVD player, so now I don't have to fret about trying three or four times to get a DVd to play without sticking!)

Order of Priority

So. Children down hole, and Team Jiraiya after. Against Chouji and Ino's protests, Shikamaru leads them away (on the basis that the Rain nin have this handled).

The Rain nin find a carcking great sewer down there, which appears to have washed the kids away. Nagato worries about his rinnegan (and, y'know, rightly, you did just nearly kill two children because you lost your grip, dude). They hop off down the tunnel.

Meanwhile, Team Ten finds a shrine and the mother of kids praying. (Oh, the DM is giving you guilt-trips, PCs...!) The shrine is to the great Lord Mashina, who the villages pray to and hope not to awaken and oh dear, that's never a good sign. After she leaves, Shika opens the templ and finds... A trapdoor.

Meanwhile, Teams Seven and Guy run across a big swirly thing that has their jonin in it. It snaps at them how they are always following their orders over the comrades. Oh, crap, it's Obitio, isn't it. Naruto, completely narked at this and the whole "don't engage" order - because he is a moron - leaps at it. Neji dashes after him.

The highlight of the episode - and really, underlining why this arc is so damn great - is Sasuke's yell of "Neji, no!" in genuine concern. Not "a useful tool is doing something I don't want it to," but actual, honest, concern-for-a-friend. This is what could - SHOULD - have been.

Team Jiriaya find the kids underground, but they are attacked by what is probably Lord Mashina, a cacking great worm-amphibian thing with a gob like a Purple Worm. And, apparently, it's mate. Things are looking a bit grim for them when SURPRISE TEAM TEN ATTACK!

Naruto and Neji wake up in an odd black void with lots of shooting stars and, oh look, here's Obito in all his stupid masked glory and - WHAT THE FRACK, IT'S NOT OBITO!? Not unless he was born into the Hyuuga clan this time around or surgically implanted a byankugan and...

Oh, SNAP.

This is Hizashi, isn't it?

(Crap, this is so cool!)

The Masked Man

Team Ten proves their usual awesome selves, and they and Team Jiraiya team up to kick worm butt, with Chouji saving Konan and the kids, then Shika saving Yahito, then Ino possessing the kid who got swallowed to kick butt inside so Konan and Nagato can kill it and cut the kid out, the Nagato save Chouji by exploding the last worm and really, dude, you couldn't have done that earlier?

So, once again, the children are saved, thanks to the powerp- uh, Team Ten!

And Team Jiraiya say "hey, you kids are good people after all, team up with us!" And Shikamaru's like, "um, you kidnapped our sensei, hells no." (Duh.) Crap is about to go down, but Team Eight show up and for some inexplicable reason, Team Jiraiya run away (I see three reasons - they are rightly afraid Hinata will kick their butts, Kiba smells bad or they are afraid of bugs). Even more puzzling, Shika says "nope, there was no-one else there."

Whu... why?

Kiba - and here you can tell this isn't real, and Tsunade's mind is a bit biased - says they came to find him to get him to take charge, 'cos he'll have a plan. (You can tell it's not real, because Kiba isn't being at all obnoxious, and actually acting all competant and stuff, on top of deferring to someone more skilled without a gripe.) Shika says they need to link back up with the others, which is kind of obvious. (I mean, really, not sending all sixteen ninja in one group in the first place was what got them into this mess...)

At that moment, Sasuke is sensibliy saying they should, like, follow their order because this crap is way beyond their pay grade (I'm sorry, Magic of Friendship and Kakashi's creed, but I'm actually on the side of professionalism over passion, he's not frickin' wrong. You have to temper that despite with some level of caution and sometimes, you have to cut your losses¹. Much as shonen and a lot of super-hero stuff likes to say otherwise, stubbornness is not a unilateral positive trait. Frack, even ASH KETCHUM knows that SOMETIMES, you have to admit where you're beaten; the measure of maturity is knowing when that line does need to be drawn). Lee of course, spazzes out and runs of literally dragging poor, long-suffering Tenten with him, leaving Sasuke and Sakura to head off to try and link up with the rest.

Anyway, probably-Hizashi shows Neji and Naruto Hizash's choice to die of his own free will. So, maybe not Hizashi...? But then... If it's not him or Hisashi (odd and a bit Scooby-Doo, but possible in that he might have motive to be this angry at the Leaf), then it's some guy we've never heard of (also narratively odd...) Whoever. he wants to change the rules of the village - by force - and wants Neji's help and tells Neji to come with him.

We cut to Jiraiya, in his ANBU gear finding one of Roachy's hideouts. It's amazing, really, we've gone this long without Tsunade's subconsious deciding Jiraiya would insert himself...

The Sealed Power

Neji is like "what are you doing this for" And the masked Hyuuga is like "first we force the Leaf to change, then the world" but stops short of actually going "muahahahaha." (Well, I'll tell you who he isn't - Madara. No style...) The masked dude says "I don't need this one" to Naruto. Neji says he'll go with the guym but ONLY to listen to what he says. Naruto refuses to let him, so the masked guy beats the crap out of him with gentle fist hax and immobilises him. Neji's first action is to scan Naruto, but on finding Naruto's life is in no danger, says to hang on, he'll be back shortly and goes off with Masked Guy through another portal.

Jiriaya enters the hideout to find... A Bandaged Man! Dun dun wait what?

Masked Guy talks with Yahito...

... sorry, we're just going to cut away from that scene?

...

Really?

Okay, then.

Masked Guy talks with Yahito and co via the magic Ataksuki 3D vision, and is rather put out when Yahito is "well, these Leaf nin are actually okay dudes."

He sulkily tells tem to keep watching, then uses some dimensional stuff to make Neji see what's about to go down.

Which is Sasuke and Sakura being ambushed by Sasori.

Well.

Bollocks.

Hinata sees what's going on; though Kiba can't smell Neji, they start to sense something is really wrong, especiaklly when she sees Lee and Tenten (Lee has been aimless running through the forest calling for people like a dumbass) being herded in the same direction. They all Legs It towards the situation as fast as possible.

Sasuke puts up a fair fight, given his limited arsenal - Sakura tries to help, but she's got even less. (Of course, this is post-haircut Sakura and of course Tsunade only knew her AFTER she'd stopped being Completely Useless and never knew, likely, there WAS a pre-haircut Sakura, so this isn't that surprising.) Eventually, Sasori uses Poison Tail on Saskue! It's super-effective! (It bloody is, the way Saskue's arm goes instantly brown, he goes grey and start to get blue cheeks inside a minute...) He collapses into Sakura's arms. (Pahahahahaha, Tsunade's subconscious, you shipper, you! Don't think I didn't notice you making Tenten hold Lee's hand when they were running away earlier, either...!)

Naruto tries to summon the fox's power to unblock the chakra-point sealing (like he.. did in the chunin exams? If that happened here? I honestly don't know.) But Kurama says he just can't do it, he can't handle the amount of power required. Naruto has a flashback to him talking to his Dad about the Nine Tails (did I mention this arc is FREAKING GREAT) and how Naruto had the other half that wasn't sealed in Kushina (to save her life) and how Minato sees great potential in him and stuff.

Then INEXPLICABLE JIRIAYA ATT- oh, sorry, appearence. Like, he toad-mouths into... Wherever the frack it is, wearing his usual gear and not the ANBU armour we saw him in earlier.

The frack?



I have NO IDEA what is going on, and it is awesome!



The next episode blurb I normally don't say anything about, but this time, it was Tsunade railing at Jiraiya for character assassination, basically, ending with "Sakura would never be that meek!"

Pahahahahahahahahahaha!

Oh, wow, Tsunade, you really have no idea, do you...!



Well, I will say this for Tsunade, she's missed her calling. She clearly should be a fanfic author, because this stuff is FRACKING GREAT; like good, real-high tier alternate universe fanfic, only it's like official and has all the voices and stuff AND is a big ensamble cast piece. This [excrement] is, like, gold.

Heck, I wouldn't mind if the show was like, "ah, screw it, let's just leave the main continuity and magic tree nonsense - let Maddy have his win - and just have the rest of the show about this timeline, it's bloody great, innit?"



¹Dark as it is to suggest, where would we be if Obito hadn't gotten himself into Madara's hands as a result of having to go after Rin?

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

Damn it, I shall continue this to the bitter end, even if I'm taliing to myself the entire time!


The Rules or a Comrade

Tsunade pitches a fit that Sakura is being way too meek in Jiriya's book, and her subconscious immediately supplies Sakura with Shippuden levels of competance, putting Sasori to flight and extracting Sasuke's poison almost instantly. (Also, she subconciously gives herself too-salty riceballs and overly hot tea. Tsunade is a psychological mess, man...)

Meanwhile Jiraiya explains that Minato is a clever fracker and slapped one of his doofer seals in Naruto's seal, so he (or Jiriaya) can poit over to him whenever necessary.

Lee and Tenten link up the rest of Our Heroes, who leg it over towards Sakura and Sasuke. Which is as well, because the midden hits the windmill as Sasori comes back and summons his hundred puppets. Probably-Hizashi explains to Neji this is the test, and Team Jiriaya, watching from the middle distance talk about it as well. If the genin try to break through the puppets and leave their friends behind, they'll have failed and...

... Okay, look. I know this is a big deal with friendship and stuff, but I have to point out here that, actually, there comes a point where stubbornness ceases to be a positive trait. And yes, sometimes, you DO have to leave people behind, especially if it means risking someone else. Rescue missions are all well and good, but ultimately, if you start losing people on the rescue mission, you've thrown away lives and are in serious danger of ending up worse than when you started except maybe someone's hurt feelings are less hurt. If you're lucky. I feel this aspect is an important lesson to learn as any other (sorry, but you DO need to learn when to quit sometimes, sunk-cost-fallacy), but it's one Naruto, shonen and a lot other shows (but not, in fact Pokémon, which does remember to sometimes say "you shouldn't fight a losing battle for the sake of it, sometimes you have to cut your losses and try again another day") seem to want to ignore.

Jiriaya, meanwhile, has freed Naruto, and lectures him about his failure to summon (during which Naruto flashes back to Minato teaching him the rasangan, because, as mentioned, this arc is fantastic). the grat toad sage then decides NOW is a good time to hold an imprompto Tailed-beast Training Exercise. And Naruto promptly loses control and goes four-tails.

Good job, Jiriaya and actually, no, yeah, that DOES sound like what Tsunade would think Jiraiya would do...

The Child of Prophecy

Cue Jiriaya having the crap kicked out of him for several minutes by Naruto, before finally getting Naruto bogged donw in Swamp of the Underworld.

Meanwhile at the face-off with Sasori, everyone is like, "we're now together, let's go save the day," except for Sasuke, who is like "sod this, I'mma goin' for help because my Dad is still a fracktard in this reality and police officers always obey the rules," and charges. (And, honestly... that's actually an interesting take on it, and I have to say, Sasuke isn't actually wrong, either.)

So of COURSE everyone else leaps in after him and collectively kick all kinds of arse, because this arc is fantastic, and Shika is like "did you do this on purpose knowing we wouldn't abandon you" and Sasuke just smirks, because he totally did, the sneaky bastard.

Neji, out of all the watchers, is the one to point out to probably-his-Dad that the leaf genin are attacking the puppets to save their mate, not to withdraw.

Sasori is getting cheesed off now at all his stuff getting broke, loses this rag entirely and summons a FRACK-TON MORE than a hundred puppets. Oh dear.

Naruto finally finishes his rasangan flashback and thinks "oh snap, Sakura's in danger, better get off my arse!" So he wakes up and de-kyubis to find a mauled Jiraiya who tells him to go save his mates while Jiraiya crawls home to lick his wounds and reverse summons Naruto back to the real world. Somehow.

Anyway, Naruto makes his grand entrance to save the day with multiple rasangan clone barrages and KICKS THE CRAP out of Sasori, who runs off squealing like a little girl terrified of spiders. Everyone is Dead Impressed (and, again, this being Jiriaya's fanfic lensed by Tsunade, the some-what clumsey "I must acknoweldge you" from everyone is rather appropriate!)

Then they are all "right, let's go save our friends!"

Neji turns to the masked guy and goes "so, we done now, DAD?"

Dun dun ICalledIiiiit!



The Caged Bird

Hizashi is then like, "yeah, yeah, you win." He sods off to tell Akatsuki their job is done (Sasori huffs but Kazuku is "job's done, we're paid, we're going") and get Team Jiraiya to send the villages home and lead the genin to their missing comrades, after dropping Neji off to explain.

Shikamaru is all "let's got save everyone, you coming Sasuke?" and Sasuke is like, "*sigh*fiiiiine!" (ye gods, can we have this Sasuke instead of the real one, he SO MUCH BETTER).

Neji hops in, and when they manage to hush Naruto long enough for him to talk (as Sasuke says, he might be all-impressive now with his combat skills, but he's still and idiot), Neji explains. Team Jiraiya show up to apologise, and Konan sends them paper butterflies to lead the genin to their senseis. Who are sutiably embarrassed at having to be rescued.

Hizashi turns up to explain what is going on, stripping off his mask to a suitably shocked audience. He explains Roachy raised him with Impure Resurrection and set him on this coruse of action by suggesting his sacrifice was in vein. (Why? Don't know. Because he's a [Richard] maybe?) Hizashi has a quick heart-to-heart with Neji (flashing back, indicating this is probably post-chunin exams - or at least some chunin exams), and then saves them the bother of working out how to cancel the jutsu in himself by fading away.

(There cannot be many shows that will go out of their way to give a charcater who is DEAD IN THE MAIN TIMELINE a character focus like this, and this is why I say Naruto, both manga and anime, is one of the precious FEW who know how to do character death RIGHT.)

And that about wraps this arc up - the day is saved, the Leaf nin are off home. Yahito and company talk about how they want to link up with the genin later, and Yahito pops off to take the teddy bear back to the kids. The genin meanwhile, are having the usual problem that Naruto and Lee are full of beans still, but the senseis - even Guy, who really should be in better shape - are proviiding the comic relief in their exhuastion and THEN THE VILLAGE GETS NUKED.

...

...

I...

What?

WHAT?

WHAAAAAAT!?

I did NOT see that coming, like at ALL! I thought this was the end of this arc, but NO, we have more to go! (Guess Roachy DOES have a Cunning Plan after all...)

I mean, when Yahito went off to give the kids the teddy bear I though it seemed slightly odd, like one of those times when they say something you know is going to go wrong - he even said "I'll be back in a minute." But FRACK MY TIN HAT, I was not expecting that, not at ALL.

We close, then, in Nagato having a freak out, because Yahito is almost certainly dead now.



Unholy fracking crap! This arc is bloody great! Seriously, it is genuinely like the top-tier best AU fanfiction, it really is.

[Kantaki]

snip

I actually forgot that arc was basically a dream within a dream.
Maybe it was a dream within the story as well?

Bye the way, I recently realized something:
Izanagi is basically a worse version of Coil's power from Worm.
Actually had to laugh when I read Itachi's explanation and it suddenly clicked.
Okay, so the funky eyes grant so many other powers that Superman would think it's getting silly, but still, loosing a eye is so not worth getting to redo something*.
All other things being equal I know which power I would rather have.

*I mean, maybe if not using it would kill me, but honestly?
If the situation is bad enough I have to resort to using Izanagi? One of my eyes going blind is not going to help.

[Lord Raziere]

I actually forgot that arc was basically a dream within a dream.
Maybe it was a dream within the story as well?

Bye the way, I recently realized something:
Izanagi is basically a worse version of Coil's power from Worm.
Actually had to laugh when I read Itachi's explanation and it suddenly clicked.
Okay, so the funky eyes grant so many other powers that Superman would think it's getting silly, but still, loosing a eye is so not worth getting to redo something*.
All other things being equal I know which power I would rather have.

*I mean, maybe if not using it would kill me, but honestly?
If the situation is bad enough I have to resort to using Izanagi? One of my eyes going blind is not going to help.

Yeah, the cost is so bad, its one of the few post-Mangekyou Sharingan powers I'd consider not overpowered at all. as in, I'd actually allow it to a starting naruto roleplaying character, because you can only use it twice in your life if your being a moral person and or once if your a kakashi situation. its almost useless really, because ninja have other ways of evading death, like replacement jutsu or clones, you just have to know what your doing rather than rely on unreplenishable eyes. no wonder no uchiha uses it.

Danzo basically screwed up having all the eyes of the uchihas by putting them all on himself then wasting them all on the sharingan's worst technique. he could've had a small army of ROOT kakashis and like show off how much of hypocrite he really is by trying to lead a coup with them, because lets remember: Danzo once tried to assassinate the third hokage for much less sympathetic reasons than the Uchihas reasons for planning to revolt- and not even when they've done anything yet!

[Traab]

I actually forgot that arc was basically a dream within a dream.
Maybe it was a dream within the story as well?

Bye the way, I recently realized something:
Izanagi is basically a worse version of Coil's power from Worm.
Actually had to laugh when I read Itachi's explanation and it suddenly clicked.
Okay, so the funky eyes grant so many other powers that Superman would think it's getting silly, but still, loosing a eye is so not worth getting to redo something*.
All other things being equal I know which power I would rather have.

*I mean, maybe if not using it would kill me, but honestly?
If the situation is bad enough I have to resort to using Izanagi? One of my eyes going blind is not going to help.

The fact that eyes are basically interchangable in this setting and can be torn out bare handed and shoved into an empty socket and be ok probably lessens the feeling of loss over sacrificing an eye to rewrite reality. Of course, you could always pull a danzo and have like, a bazillion eyes all over your body to throw away. Basically look like this

Spoiler

Show

[Lord Raziere]

The fact that eyes are basically interchangable in this setting and can be torn out bare handed and shoved into an empty socket and be ok probably lessens the feeling of loss over sacrificing an eye to rewrite reality. Of course, you could always pull a danzo and have like, a bazillion eyes all over your body to throw away. Basically look like this

Spoiler

Show

Danzo's method only works if you have uchiha eyes, and uchihas are like, one clan. its kind of a massive waste of a unique bloodline descending from the monster-goddess of chakra itself.

[Rater202]

I'd like to point out that the only times anyone ever popped an eye into their socket and it worked was when people have healing factors--Obito's zetsu half and madara.

[Traab]

Danzo's method only works if you have uchiha eyes, and uchihas are like, one clan. its kind of a massive waste of a unique bloodline descending from the monster-goddess of chakra itself.

Pffft, they have cloning tech in this world dont they? Im sure roachy could produce another 50 of a specific uchihas eyes as needed. Everyone should have a few uchiha eyes on their left arm just in case! And yes im just kidding, and yes im aware of how the popping eyes in and out thing worked, I was doing this thing called joking.

[Ramza00]

Pffft, they have cloning tech in this world dont they? Im sure roachy could produce another 50 of a specific uchihas eyes as needed. Everyone should have a few uchiha eyes on their left arm just in case! And yes im just kidding, and yes im aware of how the popping eyes in and out thing worked, I was doing this thing called joking.

Yes Orochimaru has cloning tech, but the tech probably did not exist prior.

That said the Uchiha clan has existed for a 1000 years so culturally it would be likely for a culture that the Uchiha after a battle would obtain the eyes of the dead for the betterment of the clan but also to prevent other clans / villages from obtaining the clans deadly secrets. Pretty much something similar but different than the Hyuga have.

Now not all Uchiha have the Sharingan it must be awakened by the right form of trauma. Thus clones and children have to be cultivated just right if you were going to try to mass produce this power in a very profane way.

[khadgar567]

Yes Orochimaru has cloning tech, but the tech probably did not exist prior.

That said the Uchiha clan has existed for a 1000 years so culturally it would be likely for a culture that the Uchiha after a battle would obtain the eyes of the dead for the betterment of the clan but also to prevent other clans / villages from obtaining the clans deadly secrets. Pretty much something similar but different than the Hyuga have.

Now not all Uchiha have the Sharingan it must be awakened by the right form of trauma. Thus clones and children have to be cultivated just right if you were going to try to mass produce this power in a very profane way.

well orochimaru has both cloning technology and spere sharingan but it would be spoiler for most of you. Mitsuki and his predesors are clones from orochimaru and he did train stalker ninja named shin uchiha so which currently have enough clones to fill orphanege.

[Ramza00]

well orochimaru has both cloning technology and spere sharingan but it would be spoiler for most of you. Mitsuki and his predecessors are clones from orochimaru and he did train stalker ninja named shin uchiha so which currently have enough clones to fill orphanage.

Nods but that was then, Naruto is now silly for having Sharingan itself is boring.

Now you have to fight space villains from space (Ōtsutsuki member, repeating space villains from space is important), or you must be from Earth but you have nanomachines inside of you.

-----

Also do not forget Tobi / Obito had that secret lab with at least 160 eyeballs (per the anime) of the Uchiha. This is where Tobi implanted Itachi's Sharingan into Sasuke, and also where he took Danzo's corpse when Tobi was hoping to get the Shisui Uchiha Sharingan after Sasuke killed Danzo. We never figured out what happened to this secret lab, but it is most likely in the Mountain Graveyard location (where all those White Zetsu were being made) that Kabuto found but also Anko Mitarashi team before Kabuto ambushed them.

In theory if this lab was intact and found, Konoha or Kabuto could have a secret Root Organization where everyone is a Kakashi trained ninja with Izanagi / Sharingan powers Let's just admit that Danzo sucked. He tried to to be the 2nd Hokage Tobirama Senju but Danzo is just an inferior copy of his teacher in all areas. And while Tobirama kind of messed things up by accident / no ill intent, Danzo was so sloppy with his intent that I would call his actions willful negligence, negligence so extreme that in a court of law with something like driving you would be on the hook for any civil and criminal consequences.

[Kantaki]

The fact that eyes are basically interchangable in this setting and can be torn out bare handed and shoved into an empty socket and be ok probably lessens the feeling of loss over sacrificing an eye to rewrite reality. Of course, you could always pull a danzo and have like, a bazillion eyes all over your body to throw away. Basically look like this

Spoiler

Show

Please don't remind me.
Friggin plug-and-play eyeballs...
Okay, Maddie gets a pass, if only because at that point he's so op it doesn't really matter anymore.
But Kakashi got his implant on a battlefield.
From his teammate. When they were what?
Twelve?
A shame Rin died. She would have been the best medic...

And the less is said about Danzo the better.
Those eyes were in his arm.
How did they do anything?
Right. He had that Hashirama arm, didn't he?
How did that idiot not end up looking like that thing you posted again?
Because that sounds like what should have happened.

No thanks. I'd rather take the redo power that doesn't require me to turn myself into a crime against creation to use it more than once.

Plus with Coil's power the bad stuff actually didn't happen (while you retain all knowledge of the events). Izanagi just undoes the effects.
So, that failed ambush?
Well sure, you avoided taking that sword to the face, but the enemy still knows you're there.
And you're down a eye.

Not that Coil's power doesn't have drawbacks.
Namely being caught while it is down or while you're in the same place in both timelines.

Also, kinda funny moment while playing Miitopia:
Escorting friggin Nagato* on a mission.
What does the guy say?
„I hate pain.”

*Which was pretty hilarious in itself.
The Spotpass feature of the game is great.

[Ramza00]

Just accept that Magic Eyeballs no longer has the properties of Eyeballs, and are a thing onto itself and do not have the normal rules of biological squishy things.

Much like we accept speedsters in Superhero comics. Even though a Speedster who runs at 300 mph would be 20 times faster than a 4 minute mile pers who runs at 15 miles per hour. No matter how there is no physically possible way for the blood in your body to travel that fast via your heart and then refill the bodily organs, no matter the fact that the speed of thought will have problems with the chemical reactions for the fast nerves involving muscle positions are about 120 meters per second (thus 266 miles per hour) but most nerves travel far slower than that with touch nerves (alpha beta fibres) being half that speed, pain (alpha delta fibres sharp mechanical and certain temperatures of thermal) are half that speed again, and unmyelinated c fibres (dull mechanical certain temperatures of thermal) are 50 times slower than the fastest nerve fibres for they are non-myelinated so they lack the protective sheath that speeds up thought and prevents interference.

But in storytelling we do not LITERALLY worry about the mechanicals of how the body works, but we do care the mechanics of how the body works for certain body organs, SERIOUSLY. For squishy eyeballs we care for our eyes are squish and we are hyper aware of this stuff even though our mechanics of how we talk about eyeballs in story is so utterly wrong so often.

-----

Just accept magic eyeballs are magic and are thus not squishy, except when magic eye balls are squishy Do not kill the catgirls with physics!

[LaZodiac]

New chapter!

A **** ton of stuff happens! And uh... all of it really good??? Boruto please continue to be this quality for the time being. I don't LIKE some of it, but I can't help but note that it is GOOD.

[Aotrs Commander]

Bleakbane Catches Up With Naruto

*sigh*

Hooo booy, did this take a turn...

Returning Home

The genin are back in the village, apparently just having the Explode-y Town with nothing more than a promise that Team Jiriaya (who they assume was behind it) will pay.

They only get a mild bollocking from Minato for not following orders, which cheeses off Sasuke. Fugaku then lays into Sasuke, while comparing him to Itachi, because he's an idiot.

Waves goodbye, everyone, to the fun Sasuke from the last dozen or so episodes...

As Sasuke now sets off on a path to Crazy town. He demands to be taught the Chidori (which makes Naruto demand training off Jiriaya).

Despite learning the Chidori, sasuke sees Minato showing Naruto a later-stage rasangan and has a bit of a funny turn. And then tries to get Kakashi to go further with the chidori, but Kakashi is like "sorry, dude, you're on your own."

Sasuke takes it as well as he takes anything else.



The Mutual Path

Sasuke, trying to figure out how to improve the chidori, actually goes to ask his father to help, but Fugaku remains an idiot. Sasuke, self-absorbed as always, takes away from the meeting not that Fugaku and Itachi are TRYING to mend bridges with the Leaf, but that Fugaku always takes Itachi's side. It is, to be fair, not an invalid complaint, but Sasuke from this point foward reacts with disproportionate insanity.

He flips his lid at Sakura, who was just bringing him some lunch, and it ends up with him and Naruto going at each other with chidori and rasangan. Minato is the one to stop them this time. In a hilarious moment, Minato pins Sasuke to the floor, but punts Naruto off into the middle distance. Sasuke flips out, flips out more when he sees Naruto is in a big crater, but just groaning about it, and has a complete psychotic breakdown.



This results in him going "right, I'm going my own path now all on my own," and demanding to off to train with the Uchiha elites on a mission protecting the Daiymo for three years - so we get the timeskip, with Naruto demanding training from Jiriaya and Sakura going to Tsunade.

Meanwhile, Orochiimaru, who was behind that mess in the village, meets up with his co-conspirator, who is... FRACKING DANZO. Of course it is. OH MY LICHEMASTER, why does no-one ever kill that fracker! Yes, this was his plan to kill off the jonin loyal to the 4th, because Danzo is a megalomaniac. They agree that at the end of three years, Danzo will see Roachy gets Sasuke (because Itachi will be past his prime in three years. Wait, what? Itachi was, like, twenty-one! HOW is that past his prime? (I mea, obvious answer is to make Sasuke the target, but Itachi's advanced age is a very, very stupid reason.)

Orochimaru seems strangely obessed with his bidy being "beautiful" in a wya the real one never was and it is even creepier than usual.

Training montage, ending with Sasuke coming back and Fugaku making him a lieutenant in the police force and telling him to not frack it up.

The Difference in Power

Sasuke immediately fracks it up.

*sigh*

Apparently, his brilliant way of showing how competant he is and ease the tensions between the Uchiha and the village is to make his squad into petty thugs who beat criminals and threaten civilians and basically wave their genitals around (very noticably? No females in the group...)

(I mean, I 'spose in fairness, Sasuke doesn't actually GIVE two craps, he has gone into a focussed insanity that makes CANON Sasuke look balanced.)

Naruto comes back from his training just in time to see Sasuke's squad about to rough up an old lady, nearly leading to a fight between Naruto and Sasuke in the street, broken up by, of all people, DANZO. (Who has an agenda, of course...)

Sasuke lets Danzo's little verbal jabs get to him (it's not bloody hard) and snaps at his squad to leave him alone and think for themselves.

So, with Itachi, Minato and Hiruzen worrying that the Uchiha are basically making the whole village afraid of them (and with the fear, anger), the six zero-wits decide that in order to prove their genitals are large to the civilan populace, they need to make an example of Naruto.

So they break into the Hokage's house and threaten his wife and son.

I actually had to pause the DVD for a few moments to go out of the room and mangle some prisioners with my rocket launcher. And scream.

ASTOUDINGLY, Minato and even Fugaku respond reasonably, Minato even letting the Uchiha handle the incident. (You know it's bad when between Fugaku and Sasuke, the FORMER is being the reasonable one.) Funnily enough, the six badly beaten Uchiha morons get put in the cells. It is not clear whether they were beaten up by Naruto, Kushina (would could have taken them, I'm sure) or the other, actually vaguely intelligent Uchiha police.

Fugaku kicks Sasuke's sorry arse off the force and yeah, he has a point, this was entirely Sasuke's doing because of his stupid pride. You really can't let that sort of thing go in that climate - that's the sort of thing that gets your clan massecred.

So, Sasuke's characteristically moderate response is to dive off the cliff into Evil Town, go to Danzo and desert the village for Orochimaru, saying he doesn't care about his clan, family or the village, he just wants power sufficient to kill Naruto. (He says defeat, but it's quite clear at this point that is what he wants.)

HOW do you manage to make Sasuke MORE EVIL this time around than last time?!

I'm kind of impressed, actually - from a really good version of Sasuke, in the space of three episode,to this.

Canon Sasuke was traumatised and subjected to serious mental torture as a child - twice - and inflicted with a curse-seal. THIS Sasuke doesn't even have THAT excuse. His family are well (granted, his Dad is a complete joke), he doesn't have revenge as a motive, he's not been subjected to anything other than... JEALOUSY. Seriously, that is his ENTIRE motivation. Jealousy (of Naruto, of his brother), and a testosterone-fuelled need to be the top. SOME of that might be excused by Fugaku's appalling parenting, but this level is just... Ridiculous.

Even canon!Sasuke CARED about his family (and it was the revelation Itachi not being as Evil as Sasuke thought he was (I can't ever say Itachi wasn't Evil) that broke him worst).

This Sasuke cares about nothing at ALL except his own pride.

(Tsunade - who doesn't even appear as a framing device in the last couple of episodes - clearly thinks Sasuke is genuinely nuts. And Sasuke's getting about as reasonable a treatment as in all the Sasuke-bashing fanfics where he is just Evil for no logical reason.)



So, yeah, this arc, while an interesting alternate telling, has lost a good chunk of its lustre, unfortinately.

[Rater202]

I mean, Sasuke was genuinely nuts.

He's already genetically prone to mental instability.

Before he was psychologically tortured he awakened his mental trauma powered super-powers that means that he will never forget the bodies, his parent's murder, and seeing the massacre of his entire extended family several times over and over again.

Then just as he was finally starting to heal(Literally within minutes of him finally getting over his ****) a psychopath put a piece of his soul in Sasuke and it immediately turned Sasuke's obsessions up to eleven.

And now that I think about it, the argument that te Sound Ninja Four made to Sasuke wasn't "Orochimaru can give you strength" it was "you will literally die if you don't get your Curse Mark completed" and Sasuke Retrieval Arc was a rescue mission, not a "retrieve the traitor" mission.

But when he comes out of the barrel with the upgraded Cursemark, tha'ts the point where he's got the single-minded devotion to getting power at any cost.

Which tells me that it may have messed with his head even more than the base mark did.

Orochimaru made no secret of his plans to take Sasuke's body in three years time while Sasuke was with him and we see the kind of fracked up crap that Orochimaru does for funzies, so those three years can't possibly have been good for him.

Then he essentially absorbed Orochimaru's soul into himself, and if having a piece of it messed him up, then how bad would having the whole thing mess him up?

And then Itachi happened and Sasuke had a genuine psychotic break and just kept getting crazier and crazier until he barreled out and looped back to relatively sane again after having a chat with Zombie Itachi and later the zombie-Kages.

Sasuke's entire life from the time he was like, five has been one extended line of trauma and he's geetically predispoosed to going insane when exposed to trauma the fact that he can function in society as an adult is a miracle.

[Lord Raziere]

Sasuke's entire life from the time he was like, five has been one extended line of trauma and he's geetically predispoosed to going insane when exposed to trauma the fact that he can function in society as an adult is a miracle.

yeah thats a good point: when you consider that the Sasuke has been like, mind raped multiple times by at least two highly trained ninja, three if you count Tobi revealing the truth of his clan (lets face that truth is so dark, it might as well count), intentionally traumatized and shaped for others purposes in a world where everyone is just supposed to be an emotionless weapon and deal with it, from a noble family that are supposed to raise their children to be these emotionless weapons better than anyone else, and the fact that he was underage for the entirety of Naruto, we can't say Sasuke was responsible for any of his decisions he ever took during it.

cause damaged 13, 16 year old? not exactly an adult that can be held responsible for their own decisions.

though I still dislike him for leaving Sarada for twelve years....even if my own experiences with a father corroborates that neglecting their child for their work while a passive mother is stuck raising them is somehow a functional member of society thing to do.