Maj, just so you know, I'm leaving out some of the sideplot with Jiraiya/Tsunade. I'm also leaving out the sideplot with Tobi/Konoha and the Akatsuki Leader. It's overall not important. Last year and this year is supposed to be mostly Sasuke. Hell, the first chapter for 2008 stated '2008: Year of the Uchiha'.
Next arc starts.
Double-page shot of Sasuke having taken down over a thousand ninja. Orochimaru remarks how amazing it is he hasn't killed anyone. Uh, this sort of pwnage is ridiculous in this universe but whatever.
Sasuke ambushes Orochimaru while he's in bed with plot-induced stupidity; Orochimaru can't move or use ninjutsu at all. He nonetheless manages to get the upper hand and paralyzes Sasuke. But rather than kill him, Sasuke turns Orochimaru's own jutsu against him.
From this battle, Sasuke gains Orochimaru's ultra-regeneration (revealed later) and the Cursed Seal no longer has any side-effects for him. Heck, he can use it to FLY now, making him the only flying character in the manga besides Deidara.
Anyway, after making Kabuto flee like a little bitch, he wanders through Orochimaru's base looking for team members. One of the former workers--Karin--sees him and IMMEDIATELY starts trying to rape him. I am not making this shit up. Keeping the Kishimoto tradition of worthless female protagonists, she has no plot-affecting abilities whatsoever other than 'sensing chakra'. He also adds Juugo and Suigetsu to his team, the former a plot device used to explain the origin of the cursed seal and the latter some loser Mist ninja who has the power to turn into water. Suigetsu also takes Zabuza's sword and wants to win Kisame's.
Anyway, Sasuke assembles this team with him as a leader to keep away anyone who wants to interfere with his fight with Itachi.
They spend a couple of chapters doing nothing but pwning some of Orochimaru's experiments and doing cool poses. Meanwhile, Naruto and friends find out about Orochimaru's death and kick off yet ANOTHER Rescue Sasuke arc, reasoning that Sasuke is going to go after Itachi and they'd better get there first. Team 10 joins them, minus Kurenai because if you don't have a penis then you don't mean anything in this manga.
Sasuke encounters Deidara in the forest who wants to kill him. Deidara's epic motivation? He used to be a terrorist bomber for-hire until the Akatsuki leader found out about him and ordered Itachi to impress him into the organization. He got one-panel pwned by the Sharingan. That's why he's so jealous.
In fact, let's list the powers of the Sharingan so far:
- Can perfectly copy any jutsu that it's seen, adding it to the user's arsenal.
- Sees through genjutsu.
- Tracks fast-moving objects with high clarity.
- Allows user to inflict genjutsu through eye-contact.
- (Mangekyou) Ultimate fire ninjutsu, burns through anything.
- (Tsukiyomi) Ultimate genjutsu, possibly only inferior to Jiraiya's as Jiraiya's can trap multiple targets.
- Can summon and control the Kyuubi.
- Can be used to SEE CHAKRA THAT'S UNDERGROUND.
- Can be used to measure an opponent's chakra.
Speaking of the last two, Sasuke easily owns Deidara the entire fight without even trying, only being put into a pickle twice: one of his wings burns off (and gets replaced later) and gets filled with microscopic bombs. Sasuke disables the bombs by electrocuting himself, which I admit is kind of cool--if it wasn't for the fact that he was using his Sharingan to do an x-ray scan of the ground to find the bombs in the ground (and then disabling them with ELECTRICITY) and also using his Sharingan to track microscopic particles.
Anyway, Deidara is almost out of steam and decides to use ANOTHER suicide blow-up jutsu. For real this time. With less than a second to spare, Sasuke pulls off the most ridiculous escape in the manga: he summons Manda, genjutsus him, crawls into his mouth, and uses the snake's body to shield himself from the blast. Then Suigetsu unsummons Manda. By the way, Sasuke was panting and out of chakra. To highlight this stupidity, Sasuke says that he had yet ANOTHER escape no jutsu up his sleeve if that didn't work.
By the way, Sasuke stops at a village full of ninja cats for a Chekov's Gun. Don't ask.
Anyway, Naruto and friends are catching up with Sasuke. Sasuke chidoris a couple of Naruto bunshin and easily pwns a Itachi bunshin that Naruto couldn't do anything against. Anyway, Itachi wants Sasuke to come with him to the Uchiha hideout to finish things and has Kisame stand guard. That's right, Sasuke's new team was utterly worthless. By the way, the mangaka confirms Team Hebi's loser status in an interview--he wasn't planning on giving them any fights until the editors of Shonen Jump made him. Such authoral integrity!
So Itachi and Sasuke share some backstory. We find out these things:
Itachi didn't perform the Uchiha massacre by himself. In fact, he was a sidekick to Uchiha Madara the whole time.
By the way, Uchiha Madara, the founder of the Konoha clan is alive after 100 years. Back before the creation of the major shinobi nation, the clans of Konoha were scattered. The Uchiha clans enslaved most of the clans they came against after pwning them. And here's the dark secret of the Uchiha clan:
To gain the Mangekyou Sharingan (an evolution of Sharingan), you need to kill your best friend. However, MS causes blindness. To prevent this blindness, you need to take the eyes of your brother which causes ANOTHER Sharingan evolution. That's why Itachi kept Sasuke alive. Why Itachi didn't take Sasuke's eyes before he was strong enough to challenge him is up for debate, but the general consensus is PIS. Regardless, Itachi is going blind from using Mangekyou Sharingan and wants to harvest his brother's eyes before he goes completely.
In a massive lulz-inducing moment, Itachi calls his mentor a complete failure because he got his ass kicked by the Shodai and crippled by Yondaime. Itachi wants to kill Sasuke and surpass Uchiha Madara and take control of the Uchiha clan... even though he killed all of them. Itachi makes a Light Yagami face and he and Sasuke fight.
... or not. Here's how the 'fight' progresses.
There's an exchange of taijutsu and chidori variants. And genjutsu. For four chapters. After the fourth one, we realize that none of the exchange was for real, they were just facing each other in an EPIC STARING CONTEST using Sharingan. By the way, Zetsu rolls on in and observes from the shadows. His sole purpose is to explain to the reader what's going on by talking to himself. That's right, Kishimoto had degraded his most mysterious villain to that of a narrator for a poorly-drawn Hanna Barbera cartoon. Though I would like to note that the art quality massively improves for this fight. Gee, I wonder why.
Anyway, Sasuke is immune to this EPIC STARING CONTEST so Itachi is all 'fuck it' and decides to inflict an old-school beatdown on Sasuke. He pins him to the wall, and prepares to pluck out Sasuke's left eye--
--then it's revealed that it was Tsukiyomi genjutsu. Sasuke breaks out of it. When asked how he did it, Sasuke replies (THIS IS NO SHIT) 'I broke out of it with my HATRED'.
By the way, Itachi's vision is going MUCH worse after this move and is clutching his eye in pain. There's a katon enchange, which Sasuke flat out wins, and Sasuke actually hits his brother with a shuriken. Making Itachi the first character to get hit with one since the first chapter.
Anyway, Itachi is like 'fuck this' and goes for Ameratsu. That's right, he's using the ultimate fire genjutsu (flames that last for seven days that burn as hot as the sun) on someone he wants to harvest bodyparts from. Yeah, sure.
Sasuke's epic escape from it? ... he uses a variant of kawarimi no jutsu, Orochimaru-style. That's right, the first jutsu from the beginning of the manga. Since Itachi is going as blind as a bat he doesn't notice this until he cancels the jutsu from lack of chakra. By now he's bleeding from the mouth and eye.
Sasuke then uses some more dragon-flame shaped katons on his brother, which Itachi barely handles. The surroundings get blown to hell and there's a storm outside. Itachi comments on Sasuke's lack of chakra. Sasuke then states that it's time for his ultimate ninjutsu.
That's right, Sasuke is going to use his strongest attack seen so far when he's out of chakra. Itachi, meanwhile, is blind to the point where one of his eyes devolved to the regular Sharingan, out of energy and chakra, with all of his strongest moves having failed. He's gained no strength whatsoever since his first appearance, where he effortlessly owned three jonin.
At no time during this fight did Itachi gain the upper hand on Sasuke nor did he show any moves other than some standard hand-to-hand moves, Sharingan genjutsu, low-ranked katons, and Ameratsu/Tsukiyomi.
Epic failure. Kishimoto's worship for his angsty pretty-boy has completely wrecked the manga.
