Naruto

[Sanoske]

Hopefully, but it won't happen. The Sauce is heading for Konoha, and unless Madara forces him back into his hammer-space eyepatch, he's going to be running into a rather defenseless village.

Maybe we'll see Homura and company fight and have their own pre-death flashbacks. Sasuke's running out of targets to take revenge on.

We got to see Chiyo fight what-his-puppet-face, which was awesome. I've always kinda wanted to see the two Konoha elders duke it out.

[Tetrarien]

Hopefully, but it won't happen. The Sauce is heading for Konoha, and unless Madara forces him back into his hammer-space eyepatch, he's going to be running into a rather defenseless village.

Maybe we'll see Homura and company fight and have their own pre-death flashbacks. Sasuke's running out of targets to take revenge on.

Well Naruto was supposed to be heading back to Konoha with Yamato IIRC right? I'd imagine he'd eventually stand in the way should Sasuke/Madara lay siege to the town.

And Sakura's out of her mind. I can understand her reasoning somewhat, wanting to handle the situation on her own since she's relied on everyone else for so long. But a fight against Sasuke at this point would be over before it even started.

Only thing I want from their group is to just investigate the scene of the Sasuke/Danzo fight so that Sasuke's evilness can be confirmed via 1) the killing of Danzo and 2) somehow figuring out that Sasuke killed one of his own teammates in order to accomplish his goal.

[Lucavi]

Call me crazy, but I actually liked it better when Sakura was internally torn and didn't have the resolve to actually fight Sasuke. The way she's acting now is childish and self-destructive.

She has no idea what powers he has, or what allies he has with him. She used to be a by-the-books ninja who knew the risks and knew about the value of teamwork, but now is willing to throw all of that out of the window to dive into hell with guns blazing. She's acting far more immature than when she was a sobbing little girl - at least that was realistic, if at all annoying.

It's too much of a personality shift in her - it doesn't feel natural at all. I'd rather her fight alongside Naruto if they're going to take down Sasuke, especially as Naruto now has the resolve to stop Sasuke himself. Some sage techniques coupled with smashy-smashy would make for a lot of fun - I could see them battering this weakened Sasuke around like a pinball if he's out of chakra.

[EternalSnow]

Call me crazy, but I actually liked it better when Sakura was internally torn and didn't have the resolve to actually fight Sasuke. The way she's acting now is childish and self-destructive.

She has no idea what powers he has, or what allies he has with him. She used to be a by-the-books ninja who knew the risks and knew about the value of teamwork, but now is willing to throw all of that out of the window to dive into hell with guns blazing. She's acting far more immature than when she was a sobbing little girl - at least that was realistic, if at all annoying.

It's too much of a personality shift in her - it doesn't feel natural at all. I'd rather her fight alongside Naruto if they're going to take down Sasuke, especially as Naruto now has the resolve to stop Sasuke himself. Some sage techniques coupled with smashy-smashy would make for a lot of fun - I could see them battering this weakened Sasuke around like a pinball if he's out of chakra.

I think she is just tired of it all and feels there is no hope in trying to save someone who doesn't want to be saved.

[Eaglestrike]

Call me crazy, but I actually liked it better when Sakura was internally torn and didn't have the resolve to actually fight Sasuke. The way she's acting now is childish and self-destructive.

She has no idea what powers he has, or what allies he has with him. She used to be a by-the-books ninja who knew the risks and knew about the value of teamwork, but now is willing to throw all of that out of the window to dive into hell with guns blazing. She's acting far more immature than when she was a sobbing little girl - at least that was realistic, if at all annoying.

It's too much of a personality shift in her - it doesn't feel natural at all. I'd rather her fight alongside Naruto if they're going to take down Sasuke, especially as Naruto now has the resolve to stop Sasuke himself. Some sage techniques coupled with smashy-smashy would make for a lot of fun - I could see them battering this weakened Sasuke around like a pinball if he's out of chakra.

Yes, but, Naruto has a theme of the 3-man teams. And in the Sannin fight it was Jiraiya (Naruto) beaten by Orochimaru (Sasuke) who got his ass manhandled by Tsunade (Sakura). And think about it, we've seen one Sakura fight since the time skip, she did alright. Sasuke and Naruto both have gotten huge power ups since then, what is to stop Sakura from also having some hidden tricks up her sleeve? If she still is the by-the-books ninja she used to be, who was rather skilled at genjutsu back in the way, she could potentially fight her way around a lot of the eye techniques and such.

I'm not trying to say Sakura would win, it's obvious she wouldn't. But does Sakura know how strong Sasuke is? And do we really know how strong Sakura is?

[Abandon]

Sakura can be hella fist happy all she wants. But once the jew star of sasugay gets going, her luck is going to run out, hella fast. She's no Killer Bee with the mad funny clotheslines, I'll tell you that now.

[Lucavi]

We really don't know how strong any Non-Naruto or Non-Sasuke character is. Think about how much screen time any of the original 12 get outside of those two. Nobody is ever shown training, much less fighting someone. Mangaka like Kishimoto seem to always be happy to just leave outside character development to filler.

I know its hard work making a new chapter each week, but come on - don't introduce a multitude of characters if you cannot find a way to reasonably develop them.

Hajime no Ippo does a good job (most of the time) with introducing new characters and showing progression. Naruto used to do this in part 1, but Part 2 has seen so many new villians and characters that its just impossible to feature any of the old ones. Konoha has been relegated to Naruto, Sasuke, and some rare sightings of Sai, Kakashi, and Yamato.

[Abandon]

Sakura will get trashed. Badly, badly trashed. If anything, with Sasugay being hurt like he is, Madara will eye-warp them out of there and give him time to heal up before storming Konoha.

[Lucavi]

Of course she'll get trashed. No minor character ever wins against a major character. Sasuke will trash everyone and this manga will end. We know.

[Tetrarien]

Agreed about Lucavi's point of Sakura's change. Though I think it's mainly just her going through a "breakdown" of sorts. She just had a ton of shit thrown her way: Sasuke's still evil, he potentially kidnapped/killed a jinchurriki, the kages all called for his head, all of her friends declared that they'll take care of Sasuke themselves, and then she gets told that she has been making Naruto suffer just as much as Sasuke has. It all kinda just made her "snap" and feel that they only way to overcome all of that is to face the source of all that shit, Sasuke, on her own.

To Eaglestrike: IIRC Sakura was never actually skilled in genjutsu. It was just mentioned that genjutsu would be her strong point if she were to focus on it. However all we've seen from her is medical jutsu and super-strength. If she were going to learn genjutsu it would've been during the time skip, and there really haven't been any points since then where she would've learned it.

Personally, I'm hoping that Sasuke recovers a little and reaches Konoha a little before Naruto does. As much of a one-sided battle it may be, I'd like to see what some of the other rookies (Neji, for example) can manage against Sasuke.

[ravbane]

Look at it this way: Sasuke just lost his healer and another one is coming his way. Wouldn't put it past her.

[EternalSnow]

We really don't know how strong any Non-Naruto or Non-Sasuke character is. Think about how much screen time any of the original 12 get outside of those two. Nobody is ever shown training, much less fighting someone. Mangaka like Kishimoto seem to always be happy to just leave outside character development to filler.

I know its hard work making a new chapter each week, but come on - don't introduce a multitude of characters if you cannot find a way to reasonably develop them.

Hajime no Ippo does a good job (most of the time) with introducing new characters and showing progression. Naruto used to do this in part 1, but Part 2 has seen so many new villians and characters that its just impossible to feature any of the old ones. Konoha has been relegated to Naruto, Sasuke, and some rare sightings of Sai, Kakashi, and Yamato.

I agree with you. When I saw sakura fight against one of the akat members I was shocked at how bad ass she had become. So I do agree with what you're saying. : P

[Eaglestrike]

To Eaglestrike: IIRC Sakura was never actually skilled in genjutsu. It was just mentioned that genjutsu would be her strong point if she were to focus on it. However all we've seen from her is medical jutsu and super-strength. If she were going to learn genjutsu it would've been during the time skip, and there really haven't been any points since then where she would've learned it.

Personally, I'm hoping that Sasuke recovers a little and reaches Konoha a little before Naruto does. As much of a one-sided battle it may be, I'd like to see what some of the other rookies (Neji, for example) can manage against Sasuke.

What I meant was just that she'd be able to handle going against genjutsu fairly well, not that she'd use it. Genjutsu is fairly useless against eye people. But if she could get out of genjutsu thrown at her she'd get past a good bit of what Sasuke can do. Jeweye with blood loss is the bulk of his jutsu past genjutsu and she could be like "My medical prowess tells me he's 15cc of blood from passing out!" and win by TKO.

[Lucavi]

I'm frustrated. All 4 of my main manga (Hajime, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece) have all had chapters this week that, while drawn well and are nifty, have frustrated me.

Way too many spoilers to go into them all, but I think this is the first time ever where I've been frustrated with the direction each has gone in.

[Abandon]

Nah. Even if he can't use it effectively against her, he's been tuned for 3 years by Snakeboy to be a killer. He's been training to do one thing; kill. Not be a good ninja, this motherfucker is an assassin. Send me here, I kill there. The jewstar of Sasugay isn't only good for genjutsu. Fire, big flaming things with bows and shit.... not to mention his formidable fire techniques, his sword of hax.... the kid is loaded.

[Eaglestrike]

Sakura (most likely) has reraise. And with all the blood Sasuke loses in a fight all she needs is one fist to land to knock him out really. Not that it'd actually happen. However, I could see something happen where Sakura knocks a weakened Sasuke out, tries to talk to him about things and then he still betrays her and starts killing people, now newly healed and refreshed. And then we get Sannin v 2.0, Sakura gets taken out early and Naruto v Sasuke for the end of the show.

Final chapter shown has Sakura waking up from being knocked out to go rez Naruto.

[Tetrarien]

Good point Eagle. Makes sense considering she was able to release herself from Kabuto's genjutsu during the exams. But at this point I feel Sasuke's genjutsu is way to advanced for her to overcome.

And this...

Nah. Even if he can't use it effectively against her, he's been tuned for 3 years by Snakeboy to be a killer. He's been training to do one thing; kill. Not be a good ninja, this motherfucker is an assassin. Send me here, I kill there. The jewstar of Sasugay isn't only good for genjutsu. Fire, big flaming things with bows and shit.... not to mention his formidable fire techniques, his sword of hax.... the kid is loaded.

Especially since he's actually quite ok with killing people now, even if they have nothing to do with his revenge.

Only way Sakura even lands a punch is if Sasuke is already worn out and distracted during a fight with someone else, and she just sucker-punches him from behind.

[Khajit]

Sasuke is pretty weak right now with the stab wounds overexertion of his eye and whatnot. I think it would be interesting if she tore the shit out of weakened Sasuke and Madara rescued him.

[Abandon]

She won't even get an opportunity to get to that; Madara will get him out of there asap to heal.

[Eaglestrike]

Or what if Madara Genjutsu's Sakura, who doesn't get out of it. And ends up healing Sasuke for his assault on Konoha?