Great read.

Finally a fic that uses Danzo correctly like he acts in Canon with not only Hurizen but also Tsunada later down the lime. yeah sure Danzo and Tsunada where in a shadow war.(more like political where Tsunada was limiting his power and Danzo was trying to keep his. still lead to clashes against each other Anbu vs Root.)

Hot dang. That was intense from beginning to end. Loved it. Well done.

My favorite part here was Naruto confronting himself via the Fox, touching on the path to becoming the first fully trained Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
"Due to popular demand and a few objectively good reasons, I won't be renaming the fic anymore. Guess this is the hill we all are dying on!"
hoist the colors! No, wait, that's 'dying for your ship' isn't it?
...
close enough

Thank you for the update. I'm not good with words but I like how your building the characters, and look forward to more.

Seeing Naruto’s reactions, I will not be surprised if we soon see Naruto start to think “why I feel so weird around Hinata?” One part of Jiraya training naruto I remember well is him asking him to give a girl he likes a hug, he choses Sakura, and is walloped, in this case I wonder how it’s gonna go…

I'm amazed by the quality of this fic. Good battles, jutsu/chakra nature mechanics, world-building, absence of bashing, etc it has everything I was looking for in a rewrite.

I think it's cool that you tied Gato to the conflict in the Mist. You made his death more meaningful in regards to the development of the plot in the Mist. Splitting up Haku into two different characters and giving them personalities and goals rather than being just Zabuza's tools is also a nice touch. Haku's gender has always been some sort of a mystery in fics. Authors may either stick to the feminine looking male or change him into a female entirely. You managed to do both which I've never seen before.

What I like most about this is the buildup of relationships among Konoha 12 especially between Naruto and Hinata. The Hokage's secret project is a great idea and that made it possible for them to interact more and help each other out. I wish it was done the same way in canon.

I don't know if you made these changes deliberately or you confused them with fanon but I'd like to point them out anyway:
- I notice that you've changed Hanabi's age to match Konohamaru's. I kinda like that tbh.

- In chapter 24, Choji mentioned that they were only the second generation of Ino-Shika-Cho. I checked the wiki and it says they're the 16th.

- Would it be possible to replace all instances of Shodaime with Shodai? Nidaime, Sandaime, Yondaime all end in -me. Shodai is an exception.

It's a great fic. Thanks for writing it and congratulations on your promotion!

I approval of Hinata has co author always nice reading more about her and Naruto.

Nice that you had Naruto react to the seal more in canon while he did react to it I always felt Naruto had much more to share with how Neji acted and treated Hinata cause of the seal.

I really wanted a hug scene where Hinata hugs him from behind on the swing.

Hanabi needs to sneak some writing in would have been nice to see her calling Hinata and Naruto out from the academy window and convert her whole class to NaruHina. We would then have a year of academy students calling Naruto and Hinata a couple and further embarrass them.

Naruto and Hinata Forever:)

Knowing Danzo, I don't doubt his intention of ensuring that Orochimaru dies. Merely that I could see his end goal being that neither his Kage or the traitorous student walks away.

I really liked the first part, the way its written is a great show of somethign you can do here (or in a book) and not an anime or even manga most of the time, i fully believed the chapter was in media res and that we were on the finals already xD

Also Hanabi is adorable and i laughed a lot when i realized Kiba was talking about himself being a little shit xD

The whole hospital scene is my all time favorite now among similar scenes, so much tension and things were said i loved it, and yeah the argument (Neji and Naruto's) is better this way, anime can be weird sometimes and i hate people that write a fanfic without taking into account what just won't work in a book unlike anime, omg i can't wait until Naruto unleashes 1 tail (i bet it won't be against Neji, just a pseudo cloak liek before but with control this time) and what other jutsu's he learned.

The NaruHina moments were so sweet and i just loved them, i just love how you have them TALK things out and how little by little they help each other out.

Lastly i like how you are doing Danzo's character, not stupid evil nor incompetent and with complex motivations and ideals.

Lets all make an advanced christmass wish that next chapter manages to be done before the years is out xD

This was a lengthy chapter to read. I like that. I feel like Hinata is kind of walking on a tight rope here not really saying what she feels and leaving Naruto to figure it out, you would expect her to know how tactless Naruto is by now, but I think this is what makes her character all the more interesting to me. Also, after reading this fic and re-watching the Naruto series I feel like I would have preferred this fic to be canon and the canon to be a fic (I hope you understand what I mean). Lee revealing Neji's secret, I didn't really know how to feel about that since I thought it might be a bit too early for that. But you handled it wonderfully with a standoff between Neji, Gaara, and Naruto. Naruto's reaction to the revelation and Gaara's comments was to point and not overly done, great job. The scene with Kurama was surprising to say the least. I didn't expect you to portray Kurama to willingly listen to Naruto and put an emphasis on being deceived. However, I like this new take on Kurama a lot, most of the fics either depict him as totally uncooperative or overly friendly.
The biggest surprise was Danzo however. I really can't predict if Danzo is going to side with Orochimaru or Leaf during the invasion. the chances for either of them happening are pretty equal. Orochimaru probably promised him the Hokage position whereas his love for the village might just be enough to disregard his offer and be true with Hiruzen. Well I will be looking forward to it in the upcoming chapters. Keep up the awesome work as always :)

Welcome back. Please keep going!

This was genuinely one of the better stories I’ve read here, and actually got me back into trying to read these types of stories. Looking back over it, I also realize that it influenced several of my own decisions regarding writing, so thank for that. I hope you keep at it!

It was so awesome! I had such a hard time getting through Hinata and Neji’s fight because I was so excited I couldn’t keep track of my place on the page and I ended up hiding all the lines except one at a time so I could stay focused. I was stuck on the line where she was remembering Naruto’s words before Neji noticed her smiling for a good five minutes. It was worth the struggle.

I actually thought that their fight was done much better here then in Canon which hasn’t happened to me before yet (the original just brings so many feels) so you’ve definitely earned my trust. In fact, this story seems to get significantly better and more exciting every chapter, too bad that I’ve almost completely caught up.

I really enjoyed the battle with Tenten. It was so much fun, especially in contrast to the first fight. I did get lost in several spots though. I was confused why Tenten couldn’t just keep fending off the clones with her staff, she seemed very safe doing that. Was it because Naruto got past her with the transformed shuriken? Is that why she couldn’t rely on that style anymore? I also didn’t understand why Naruto kept the sexy transformation up after he succeeded in getting her mad? I thought that it would be a major disadvantage if she knows who the original is, or at least Tenten seemed to think that way. Did he just want to keep her riled up?

Awesome chapter, I hope you keep it up!

Danzo makes me so angry! I can’t believe he’s working undercover with Orochimaru, but at the same time it’s totally characteristic of him! I’m so glad his scene was short because he makes my blood boil!

The rest of the chapter was super enjoyable. I was really glad to see Hinata blushing and stuttering again because even though it was so cool to see her be fierce and firm in the last chapter, I was afraid she would not be the same character from canon anymore.

I also really like how Sasuke really wants to know what is going on with Naruto. It does seem to imply a higher level of concern and investment in Naruto as a friend than canon Sasuke which makes me more excited to see how he will respond to orochimaru’s influence.