I've finally finished reading both "The Lost One" and "The Return of the Heir", yay! I totally heart Ryo. He was so adorable especially when he first tried to call Itachi "Otou-san".

But some things are rather confusing, as in why Shiraishi acted hostile in the beginning when he really meant no harm to Sakura and Konoha shinobi? And the explanation to the mystery behind the dead ANBU was a let down as well.

Other than that, it is a good story. Still, for some reasons, I prefer "The Lost One" although this one offers the closure.

wonderful story :)

i loved how creative it was and the new characters XD.

never expected ryo to be itachi's O:

keep writing

your faithful reader frostwing :P

Really great story! All compliments! XD

this is an absolute beautiful story. reamarkable work

Thank you so much for writing this. I'm happy you made this a sequal to The Lost One. I love how you made Sakura and Itachi a family with Ryo. I think they deserve to be a family and have kids unlike many other fanfics that I've read that never do have kids. The plot was amazing and it always kept me on edge. I couldn't stop reading it, I hope you continue to write more ItaSaku whenever you have time. :)

It was the second time i read this itasaku (i read it last night in 3 hours! )

It's just sooo great D

Great story. Loved it! Nice writing style and flow. I like your version of 'how to work Itachi back into the story now that he's dead and apparently a good guy'. And I also liked the creative elements you came up with...Spring Country, the Shinju, Shinjutama and such. The Itachi/Sakura relationship got frustrating at times they way they kept "thinking" circles around each other, but I'm glad it worked out in the end. Guess the moral of the story is you can't expect it to work if you don't communicate. (Really, Itachi. For being a genius you sure are a blockhead for thinking you can have her trust when she thinks you're a mass murderer and you insist on keeping her in the dark about the truth.) Heh. It's also nice that the story spans many years.

Ryo is adorable. He's kind of like a young Naruto and Sasuke rolled into one. smart and mischievous. Incidentally, I would love to be in his shoes. He's loved by so many people, that lucky kid. It cracks me up that his main concern about the whole Uchiha thing is the nonexistent curse. LOL! I love his interactions with Itachi. And the scene where he wakes up to find Sakura and Itachi on the couch and kept asking if he has to call Itachi otou-san (while the man himself laughs LOL!) was hilarious.

At first I was a bit disappointed when it turns out they moved to Suna. I guess I wanted them to stay in Konoha where Naruto is. Konoha feels like home. But in the end I agree with your choice. It improves the whole international relations feel. The ending was great. Ryo, Minato, and Akari seem like great friends, and they each represent a different country.

I do have some questions, though. At the end of The Lost One, it was mentioned that while Tsunade and Shizune made it to Suna, Rin did not. I at first thought she died, but that wasn't the case. Was there some other reason? Was that the time she went to look for Itsuki?

My bigger questions have to do with the whole incident with the dying ANBUs. So, it turns out that Shiraishi had nothing to do with it. They sort of died from using the shinjutama fragments too much, right? But the first ANBU that was caught...did he work for Shiraishi? There was obviously some foul play with the framing of another ANBU and what not. And when Sakura confronted Shinozuka by the river, he admitted to killing the other ANBU operatives, although unintentional. That doesn't quite jive with what Shiraishi said at the end. Did I miss something? I also thought that Shiraishi's tactics were rather extreme and violent for what he was trying to do. And in some ways, it seemed at odds with his 'one should not use the shinjutama for violence/power' attitude. And once his true intentions were revealed, I couldn't help but wonder why Sai's team all got really bad vibes from him when they went to deliver their gift. Perhaps developing his character a bit more might have helped to explain things?

Once again, great story. Thanks for sharing! D

Spectacular work with this one! I gotta say - the fight scenes are fantastic!

I love the way this story and its predecessor took its time to work its way through all the questions I had. Even little things that I found curious but weren't all that important to me - those were explained later.

The interactions between Sakura and Itachi are at times clear, murky, loving, sensual, guarded, but always with a wonderful chemistry.

I didn't mind when there were misunderstandings, because I understood why they did what they did. Unfortunately, Sakura let her mind be influenced by what her assumptions (good thing she didn't tell Gemma she thought Itachi was a mindless murderer!), but all the same, she was concerned for Ryo. And with mothers, that's excusable.

Ryo by the way, is ADORABLE. Fantastic work with him and Minato as OCs. I love that at the end of the story, he and several others were given personalities, though we only were able to glimpse them for a chapter.

Love the details - love the overall story arc - however, there is one remaining question...

Please tell me Sakura either took those shards out of her body or started using them as shields! I think of all the interesting tid-bits to come out of this story, the twist about the Shinjutama was the most interesting, simply because it turned a lot of things right on its head. The story was about the Shinju clan, about its abilities; from something that was being used as a shielding properties, to it being used as a weapon, chakra storage, and then back to being a personal shield. It makes sense. And I'm glad that at least, someone put their foot down about Sakura's abuse of the stones and gave her a reason to stop. For a medic, she certainly is aggressive.

Anyway enough of my rambling - thank you for the story! It's been a pleasure reading.

Truly amazing story.

This and The Lost One are the only ItaSaku fanfics I've read through to the end (to say that I'm not a fan of pairings is an understatement-I despise such pairings due to a lot of OOCness and a lack of relevance)

You are an amazing author, having kept all the characters perfectly in-character, and constructed an awesome plot at the same time.

Hats-off..!

P.S.: It is the Mangekyou Sharingan which causes blindness, not the normal one. You might want to edit that detail. :-)

It was so wonderful it made me want to do one of those girly highpitched squeels and i would never do that :)

WOOOTT! ever since i started my itasaku craze for like a year now, i alwayyysss return to read this story. It really is one of the best out there, AMAZING job! :))))

Oh my gosh! I feel like i had just watched a feel-good romantic movie..(overwhelmed sigh). You made an unexpected turn of event in the last chapter. I didn't asume that they would stay to neither of the two obvious choices of villages. I liked how you made itachi so head-over-heels for sakura. I did have my fill of romantic fantasies from reading this story. The unfolding of the truth and behind stories about ryo and shinju clan and the the gemstone were also well-executed though i thought that there was more to it about the anbu 'assasinations' than just the after-effects of abusing the power of the gemstone since it's the main reason why kakashi pardoned itachi..oh well, it's not like that's the main focus of the

Yay! It's now one of my favorite itasaku stories and definitely will be hard to forget.

Uhm..hey, i'm just wondering.. Do you have any plans of doing a story about ryo? ...just thinking..hehe. godbless and stay well! c;

This is one of the best ItaSaku fanfics out there. And this is the first one I read since I started my ItaSaku fanfic craze a few months ago. I particularly like how their relationship developed over a course of time, I like how the story seemed natural and not forcibly rushed. Good job on that! :) Quite an interesting surprise with the child, I didn't expect that really! In any case, I think you did a fantastic job. Hope you'll write more in the future :)

Read the prequel and this story through the night. Yes, it was just that good. Thanks for a great read! Looking forward to reading your other works too.

haha I KNEW IT! XD