Overall a pretty good chapter, the whole Gouzen thing went pretty good, I think his general fear of Pein's anger at failure makes the situation believable. The Jiraya thing felt a bit rushed but overall well done, not like you could have dragged it out too much. Glad this stories back, can't wait to see what comes next.

fiiinaally! jez only been waiting a year did you say? :P i dont got any criticism for ya but i do have praise!

keep the good work flowing!

I can see how Konoha is proving to be dangerous for Pein's plans now that they're on the verge of finding a way to extract the biju from its host.

It'll ruin everything :O

Still one of the best stories out there

I am happy to see the rest of that story, and to notice your writing talent hasn't decayed at all. It is still very enjoyable.

The scene flows well, especially the discussion with the Sandaime, and the one between Naruto and Gouzen. I still, however, expected the first to be more... resentful of his teammates. Though it can be explained by his pathological narcissism, with his need of being accepted. I still expected a more passive-aggressive demeanor, even if he was faking friendship. Like a few remarks or some condescending sentences.

The only other bad point, in my mind, is Jiraiya's sudden change of heart. True, most of it was off-screen, but I still expected him to be thorn between his loyalty to his mentor, who he is going to derail up the plans quite hard, and his plans for the future. Just my personal opinion, mind you.

Anyway, the chapter was great and very engaging, and the plot twists interesting. I await the two next chapters with impatience.

Can't wait until the next chapter xD!

I like this fic! I really enjoy an anti-Konoha Naruto. It's refreshing to get fics that go in a different direction from normal. Just as a tip, though: when introducing your OCs, quit going into lengthy explanations about who they are and what accomplishments they've achieved, or how they've gotten to where they are. We don't need their history like that. Instead, let all of that come out naturally through their actions, or through remarks or thoughts from other characters. For example, in Masahiro's introduction, it reads like you're just reading facts right at the audience. In that way, it breaks up the scene rather needlessly. If you had framed each fact as a more obvious observation or memory from Sarutobi, however, it would have been much smoother. As it stands, placing that kind of special emphasis on these Takai Jonin has made them stand out as an unnatural addition to the canon universe.

So you ending Naze after the next two chapters? So that you can do a sequel.

AWESOME! I can sooo see this leading to Jiraiya joining Akatsuki with Naruto. Of course, it will take some time for Naruto to trust Jiraiya enough with this info, but I can see it going there.

Also, yeah, Naruto should probably take Jiraiya's offer and combine it with his own plans. If Jiraiya will roll with that, which, come to think of it, he probably wouldn't.

Alright, sorry bud...

I can't finish this. I've been reading it in 1 go and I can't continue past chapter 15. The way you portray Naruto as a sick and twisted fuck, and then try to justify your portrayal of him by having him convince Anko to help him with his ritual, has put me off this story altogether. I was a bit put off by his ritual in the beggining, but that 1 thing right there just ruined it for me.

It's a shame though, 'cause I like your writing style. :(

Good luck with everything.

I'd like to first say that this isn't just me flaming you but I feel that maybe you'd like to hear the particular perspective of your writing that I have to share. I really did enjoy this fic for the first our or five chapters. Then I slowly began to get bored. Kept reading because you threw in a moment here or there to hold my attention, but never really got into it. At chapter nineteen I will abandon reading this fic and I thought you might like a few suggestions. (Not that you have to actually do anything with them, you have something like 700 reviews so you must be doing something right.)

Anyways, to me it felt like your story just degraded into action. Now, while moves, cartoons, anime, etc, can get away with being pure action, just because it's cool to look at, written work can not. Written work can include action scenes, and often Action/Adventure genre works are littered with such scenes, however the main focus of all literature is plot and character development. Because (as was the case that I began to feel when reading your fic) READING 100,000 words of nothing but action scene after action scene gets... tiresome.

I'd also like to point out something that I feel is a pretty common mistake with authors of fanfiction. An obsession with "power level". This is something that has stemmed from the start of the Naruto fanfiction phenom. Back in the day, (around 05 through 07) there were a tremendous amount of fics that literally went like this: 1)Naruto trains really hard. 2) Naruto blows away everything in canon, there is no character development, attempt at original plot, or any conflict. 3)Fic dies. Ever since then, there has been a stigma on "Overpowered Naruto" fics. Because readers would read these fictions and not enjoy them, they looked for a common reason to blame for all of these fics, they looked for what made these fics unpleasant to read. And a scary majority of readers at the time, (Myself included) linked the incredible dulness of these fictions directly with Naruto's power level.

The truth, I've come to ind however is something quite different. Power level has nothing to do with how enjoyable the fiction is to read. Who cares if it's believable, it's FANFICTION of an ANIME about NINJA CHILDREN. No, the real problem with those fictions were the problems that I stated earlier, no character development, no attempt at an original plot, and any innate conflict that may have stemmed from a fiction based on fighting was non existent because of the fact that all of the fights were Naruto yawning and the opponent being blown into the next country from the shock-wave.

There were a few different spots in your fic where it was quite obvious in just reading your work, and only further made clear by your authors notes, (which by the way I only ever skim) that you were clearly worried about Naruto's power level in comparison to other non original characters, and it had an adverse effect on your writing. Around the chunin examas, things seemed... forced, for lack of a (or rather, another) long and drawn out explanation.

So I guess to sum up my long and slightly inebriated ramblings, I think you've put waaaaay to much action in your fic. You're way to worried about Naruto's power level and therefore things and fights that a reader would assume to be easy are far more difficult directly interfering with the flow of the fiction. And you just haven't really advanced the plot well.

Holy shit I just wrote you a book.

Anyways, despite all that, I did end up reading this nearly to the "end" (the last current chapter) and did like several things about your writing style. So good luck in all your en-devours and I hope that you may find this useful.

-Aidis

Love the story

As someone who likes long hair and has had to deal with numerous annoyances in regards to cutting it I am afraid the humour is lost on me...

i read this page and thought i would argue a point or 2 you itachi and orochimaru getting into the village it is not that they just let them but that one they are crazy good ninja so they have crazy good stealth skill but even that would not be explained in the manga they use to be high profile ninja of the leaf so they knew what holes were in their defense so they could slip in unnoticed. and even then orochimaru had an army at his back to fight of the leaf with out that i doubt he would of gotten far(and i wouldn't say they lost a huge chunk of their forces it never said how many they lost so it could be minimal for all we know) and itachi may have fought 3 joinin but he only took out 1 and even doing that took a high chakra use jutsu in the tsukuyomi and the fight wasn't even 5 min max before he fled.

and with pain blowing up the whole village himself i wouldn't say he would have because he did blow it was made out to be so strong he seemed to be like a god and his attack on the leaf was to show you that god like i wouldn't say sage mode made him god like even with the power ups he has got since then he still is having tough cause naruto pwned a strong character doesn't make him god like and naruto didn't even pwn him anyway it was a pretty close mode was just something naruto needed at that point. like we have seen in previous fights naruto has great battle insticts and he had reached his peak with the jutsu he had the only thing he was missing was the raw power to put him up there with the crazy stong ninja.

banzaiiii