Quick Recap
Wow, have you ever read 500,000 words over the course of three years and realized you've forgotten half of what you've read? I sure have, and while getting chapter 67 ready I realized that having a mental health crisis and going off the grid for half a year and some was definitely not good for my reader's retention rates! So, just like I did for Myrmidon some years ago, here's an easy-breezy (read, 11k+words ) recap of my most ridiculous story yet. If you have an eidetic memory, congrats, you can skip this and get right to the next chapter. Either way, welcome back.
Obito-Sensei starts like many AU's do, with Team Seven being formed. They're all a bit different from canon for reasons that quickly become obvious: with Obito having lived and Kakashi having died (yes he's actually dead, I promise) the world is seemingly a better place. The Uchiha Massacre still happened to some degree, but Sasuke has his mother as a moderating presence. Minato is still the Fourth Hokage, and Kushina is still the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, leaving Naruto a mildly spoiled heir to two of Konoha's most famous ninja who has no understanding of loneliness (or indeed, the average person). All this means Sakura is the least outwardly changed. She still has a minor crush on Sasuke, but without Naruto's obnoxious behavior amplifying it it's just that, a minor crush that is ultimately quickly forgotten once she gets to know Sasuke better and sees he has a bit of coldness to him still. She has also inched out Ino for Kunoichi of the Year, though this is not nearly enough to make her feel worthy of being on the same team as Sasuke, noted genius, and Naruto, the Hokage's son.
Obito is a little different as well; he's infamous worldwide as Mangekyo no Obito, the advanced Sharingan eye having become widely known, and one of his eyes is an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, a gift from his deceased brother, Shisui Uchiha.
Team Seven spends several months together getting to know one another as Sakura slowly comes out of her shell, starting with her saving her teammates during the Bell Test by demonstrating her incredible stubbornness by swallowing all the bells when Obito tries to steal them from her. Naruto slowly warms up to her during this period despite having previously written her off as someone who was sort of quiet and boring, while Sasuke remains somewhat distant despite growing to respect her level-headedness and incredible chakra control. Sakura learns more about Obito, his relationship with Rin (which has stayed an indefinite friendship), and grows more confident as a ninja, finally agreeing with Naruto and Sasuke's pleas for Obito to send them on a C-Rank mission.
As is tradition, the C-Rank goes wrong. After Sakura gets some words of encouragement from Obito, she and the boys encounter a giant immortal bear in the woods, which they manage to survive meeting until Obito hastily buries it alive. When Team Seven investigates the source of the bear, they find an underground temple beneath a nearby lake dedicated to the god Jashin and filled with his followers, including a very-excited-to-be-starring-in-this-chapter Hidan. After a brief battle where Team Seven all prove their mettle, Sakura dives to the bottom of a well full of fresh blood to retrieve Hidan's heart so that Obito can destroy it, thankfully putting down our favorite bloodthirsty maniac.
The mission has three important results; Sakura takes up an interest in swordplay which leads to her friendship with Tenten, Team Seven comes to regard her as a full member thanks to her bravery, and Sakura takes in some of the magical Jashin-blessed blood that was fueling Hidan's immortality ritual through an open wound on her shoulder. After an examination, Rin declares her perfectly fine, and that the only effect seems to have been a bit of foreign natural energy settling over her heart like a metaphysical clot, where it presumably remains to this day. Time passes as the team grows stronger, closer, makes more friends, and learns more about the world, including the fate of the Akatsuki when Obito wasn't crazy and lurking around to prevent them from coming to Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan's aid when Hanzo and Root tried to take them down.
Spoiler alert, they won, took over the Land of Rain, and imprisoned the Daimyo, setting up a country ostensibly ruled by ninjas for ninjas. Whoops. And the new Nation of Rain has been invited to the upcoming Chunin Exams, along with Sand, Stone, Mist, and a host of minor villages. Cloud is notably not invited due to existing animosity and working on "weird chakra weapons," that'll probably never come up again. Team Seven enters the Exam along with the usual suspects, including Gaara, and pass the first test through brute force and traditional cleverness rather than ninja cleverness, setting a trend that will be continued going forward.
However, as they begin the second test they are rudely interrupted by Itachi, who shows up out of nowhere, breaks Sasuke's arm, acts cryptic while telling Sasuke to increase his power, and then vanishes like a malevolent fey. Get used to it, because stuff like that comprises 90% of Itachi's role in the story so far. Sakura gets a crash course in Sharingan Lore (which is more common knowledge now because Obito is infamous for his Mangekyo Sharingan) because Sasuke's mother Mikoto has told him that Itachi is keeping him alive so that he can develop an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, and Team Seven soldiers on, not sure that they'll be able to win but unwilling to give up.
Luckily for them, they encounter people willing to help; ninja from the Land of Rain! It's an eyecatching group composed of Suigetsu, Kabuto, and Haku, with Haku being an open member of the Akatsuki, and they are suspiciously helpful and open with Team Seven, who doesn't fully trust them but is happy to accept any help they can get, especially after Kabuto fixes Sasuke's arm. As they travel together a team from the Land of Stone attacks, attempting to hurt Naruto in particular and thus his father by proxy, but are shown off without too much of a struggle.
That night, Sakura has a conversation with Haku about the Akatsuki, the shinobi system, the war economy, the artificial divide of the countries, and Haku's fears for the future, as he believes something terrible is coming since historically, each war since the villages' founding has been more and more destructive. The conversation leaves a fatally deep impression on Sakura, who can hardly sleep as Haku's explanation provides something for her to latch onto and grant meaning to her nervousness, her subtle chafing at being defined solely as a ninja, and her suppressed but still present fear of death that is part and parcel with her life now.
In the morning, Team Seven completes the second test with the team from Rain at their side, causes a small panic by informing the village that Itachi is snooping around (wow, it was kinda irresponsible of them to not do that sooner, huh?), and realizes that befriending a foreign village's team makes them the odd man out, despite the Hokage telling them it was his intent something like that happen all along. He also lets them know that Gaara brutally murdered the team from Stone they chased off, which he is furious about for several reasons.
Preliminary bouts are skipped because the narrative doesn't require them, and the successful genin are paired off for a battle royale in one month's time. The bracket ends up being Naruto v Sasuke (shocking!), Tenten v Haku (dramatic!), Lee v Suigetsu (unfortunate!), Temari v Kabuto (pair the spares!), Neji v Kankuro (rough!), and Sakura v Gaara (nothing pithy here, that's actually extremely bad for Sakura, she will probably die).
With Naruto and Sasuke already having excellent support and training groups, Obito decides to focus solely on Sakura for that month and enlists Asuma in training her excellent chakra control and harnessing her affinity for Water chakra, in addition to just getting her up to par in terms of speed and strength. Sakura trains for several grueling weeks that constantly leaves her on the edge of exhaustion like a standard shonen protagonist, spends some time researching the Land of Rain and the Tailed Beasts thanks to the seed Haku planted, and is threatened by Gaara with a messy death that Kushina saves her from, demonstrating that Naruto's mom does indeed have it going on ('it' being the Adamantium Chains, a ridiculously strong jutsu that manifests unbreakable golden chains from her body). Sakura eventually has a mental breakdown, convinced she needs to give up in the face of obviously impossible odds. However, Obito manages to get her to try out her newfound affinity with both a sword and elemental ninjutsu, and she manifests the Flowing Water Blade, a versatile and deadly technique that essentially generates a water chainsaw-whip that can cut through practically anything it hits. The new technique gives her the confidence to move forward, and though she's still afraid when the Exam arrives she is ready to face Gaara.
The Exams proceed in a mostly predictable manner. Naruto and Sasuke both show their growth, having mastered Shadow Clones and the Rasengan and the three-tomoe Sharingan respectively, and mutually knock each other out in a dramatic tie. Neji crushes Kankuro with a single attack, Suigetsu suffocates Lee, Temari kicks the shit out of Kabuto (though does not come off as the more impressive ninja after Kabuto surrenders and heals his wounds in full view of everyone), and Haku and Tenten have a rather savage match that ends in a narrow victory for Haku, though he's forced to not hold back in the face of Tenten's determination and truly ridiculous plethora of weapons.
By the time it's Sakura's turn, she has psyched herself out enough that it takes more of her resolve just to get into the arena with Gaara. When he shows no interest in her, she's relieved.
When he tells her she's not worth killing, she's furious.
Most likely because of her feelings of being overlooked, at first by her team and always by her parents, Sakura flies into a rage and attacks Gaara, forcing him on the defensive, cracking his armor of sand, and eventually fully impaling him with a spear of water at the cost of a broken ankle. When Gaara hides inside a sand ball, Sakura tires herself out and calms down, deciding that she's happy to surrender now that she's made her point. Gaara, ever the sore loser, unleashes his Tailed Beast on her, knocking her out, and is restrained by various powerful people in the crowd and dragged off the narrative stage kicking and screaming.
Team Seven is not promoted to Chunin, though whether that was because of their reckless conduct or purely political considerations given to the Hidden Sand for Sakura giving Gaara a very exciting involuntary chest piercing is left mildly ambiguous. Sakura doesn't find herself minding too much, since she's been saying from the beginning that she is content with, and perhaps even expecting to fail. However, that night she is visited by Haku, which is slightly creepy given the context. He informs her that Rain is always looking for exemplary ninja, and that she has caught his eye with her performance in the Exam. Despite Sakura's protest, he leaves her a blank piece of paper which he claims could help spirit her away if she ever wishes to leave Konoha and try out another village.
Sakura manages to keep the paper secret for about a week, until she breaks and blabs about it to Naruto and Kushina during breakfast at the Namikaze household. Luckily for her, they take it in stride. Kushina consoles Sakura and tells her that the Akatsuki has good values but has not so great methods for achieving them, winks to the audience, and tells Sakura that where she goes, her team will follow. Naruto starts to teach her the Rasengan in an expression of trust, not understanding why his mother is glancing at the fourth wall.
That breakfast also foreshadows Team Seven's next big mission, with Fukasaku the elder Toad of Myoboku arriving to bitch at Minato about Jiraiya having fallen off the grid. Not a week later, and Team Seven is given an assignment to fetch the Toad Sage, with Rin tagging along for vaguely ominous reasons. Before they leave, Hinata confesses to Sakura as best she can that she's mad crushing on Sasuke, which leads to some standard teenage drama, but after some investigation and travel teenage crushes fall by the wayside when it's revealed that Jiraiya is in the Village Hidden in the Waterfall. He's guarding it against Itachi, who is apparently after its Jinchuriki, Fuu.
When Team Seven travels to Waterfall, they're introduced to village politics and Jinchuriki politics (which really are one and the same a lot of the time) real quick. They meet Jiraiya, who is missing an eye and thus naturally has gone for a full Venom Snake look, and make fast friends with Fuu, who latches onto Naruto in particular thanks to their compatible personalities and energy levels. Waterfall is terrified of Itachi, and rightfully so, but most of the leadership is unwilling to surrender Fuu to him and so happily accept Obito, Jiraiya, and Rin's offer of help, reasoning that three legendary ninja will beat one infamous one, that's just basic ninja math.
However, they're unfortunately mistaken. Early the next morning, Itachi attacks with a legion of criminal mooks and Kakuzu the Immortal, having used the Kotoamatsukami to brainwash a decent chunk of Waterfall's ninja ahead of time as well. They turn on the village as it's attacked, spreading fire and panic. Adding to the already substantial and hard to follow chaos, the reason for Rin accompanying the team suddenly becomes clear when ROOT, or at least what is left of it, arrives, with Danzo's bodyguards Fuu and Torune (yes, Fuu and Fuu are in the same place for about ten minutes, thankfully he's never named) accompanied by an unnamed Hyuuga (actually her name is Hei but that's not stated until chapter 55, so basically unnamed) armed with a greatbow (finally providing an excuse for the author to show that ridiculously large arrows are a niche but powerful weapon in battles between ninja) making themselves known and attempting to assassinate Obito for as yet unexplained past sins.
Chaos ensues: Sakura gets mind-controlled and stuck in a doll, Naruto blows a lady's hand off, and Obito and Rin team up against ROOT to scrape out a narrow victory, only saving Sakura's soul by summoning the Hokage who seems to instantly kill both Fuu and Hei, with Torune hurled by Rin beyond the horizon to an uncertain fate. The attack is repelled, but Itachi manages to capture Fuu (the Jinchuriki, not the one who just died), transforming her into the Nanabi and fleeing with Obito and Minato in hot pursuit while Jiraiya and Rin stay behind to face Kakuzu in a no doubt epic fight scene. Unfortunately, Obito-Sensei ran over-budget right before it could be shown, and so a battle that ended with Jiraiya and Rin shaken and Kakuzu down two lives out of five would be left to the imagination.
Team Seven is stuck on the back of the Seven Tailed Beast with Itachi, and engage in some stimulating fisticuffs to pass the time. Naturally, Itachi whoops their asses, but Sasuke manages to get a reaction out of him by demanding more information about the massacre, the "truth," since he has always been convinced that Itachi must have had a reason for what he did, or perhaps was even forced to do it against his will. Brotherly love and all that. Impressed by Sasuke's progress and possessed by a manic mood (and something else, but that's for later) Itachi tells the team that he was hired to kidnap Fuu, and then launches into an impassioned speech about the benefits of murdering your family.
Itachi reveals to Sasuke that not everything was hunky-dory in Uchiha-land. Turns out his family was planning to overthrow and murder the Hokage for apparently spurious reasons! Awkward! Itachi reacted like any reasonable professional teenage killer would and decided the obvious solution was killing (who coulda seen that coming) and murdered the half of the clan that was all-in on the coup, including their father. Their mother was in on it too, he claims, but unfortunately he was only able to burn half her face off before he was chased away. Go ask her for yourself if you don't believe me, he tells Sasuke, before trying to nuke Waterfall off the map just to buy himself a second of reprieve from Obito and Minato chasing him. When that doesn't fully work he also throws Team Seven off the giant bug, which seems to do the trick. Itachi gets away, and Sasuke is left with a brewing mental health crisis.
When Team Seven gets back home, Jiraiya, Obito, and Rin give them a crash course history lesson on ROOT (Danzo's dead, Jiraiya killed him, Obito killed most of the rest on Minato's orders), village politics and the Tailed Beasts (they suck, and Itachi having a Jinchuriki of his own is an unprecedented escalation in rogue ninja power), and chakra itself as well as Ninshu (an ancient creed that preceded the spread of ninjutsu, which Jiraiya considers to be a sinister corruption of the true purpose of chakra). Sakura and Naruto are sad, but Sasuke is determined to find out if what Itachi told him was true and so confronts his mother alongside Obito, desperate for her to tell him Itachi is a liar with an active imagination.
No, she says. He was pretty on point.
Mikoto explains that the Uchiha Clan looked at how Rain had been transformed into a nation ruled by shinobi and thought it was probably a good idea to get in on that action, plotting to expand the mandate of the military police to the entirety of the Land of Fire by replacing Minato with a more dynamic and active Hokage, who coincidentally would be an Uchiha who would agree with all their policy changes. Things get heated, and while Mikoto stands strong Obito and Sasuke both consider her a power hungry asshole and turn their backs on her, fully expecting that the clan will be punished for their past traitorous plans.
It isn't though, which neither of them are particularly happy about. Minato is not interested in punishing a clan that was already decimated for its mistake, and so leaves Mikoto to stew as an experienced but no longer trusted ninja. While Rin forces Sasuke to keep moving forward and confront his mixed feelings, Obito confronts Kushina about not punishing Mikoto, and is horrified to discover what he already knew at heart, that Kushina considers herself a weapon and doesn't really blame Mikoto for treating her like she believes she should be. The argument ends inconclusively, with Kushina calling out Obito's cruel side, and they settle into an uneasy detente.
In the midst of this all, Minato is trying to figure out if Rain really did just steal a Tailed Beast for themselves, which would put them on the same level as the Big Five Villages, which would be extremely awkward and potentially dangerous. Knowing that there's no way they'd tell him the truth if he asked, and not trusting any of his current spies in Rain enough to think they'd be able to get reliable information, he goes for the pro gaming move and decides to take advantage of Sakura's existing sympathy to the Akatsuki and her extant invitation to defect to the Nation of Rain, approaching her with a very special infiltration mission which he does not extend to Naruto and Sasuke because of their tremendous value and the danger of losing them to a foreign power.
But Sakura, though she is brilliant, is expendable, and so she's the one the Hokage picks to travel to Rain and find out if they really do have a person-nuke now.
Sakura's birthday comes around as she prepares for the mission and she spends it with her friends, receiving thoughtful and thematic gifts, including a new knife from Ino and Tales of a Gutsy Shinobi from Kushina. Naruto has an ominous dream about Sakura leaping off a cliff which definitely has no foreshadowing whatsoever, and at her party, Sasuke reconnects with Hinata, who he had initially rebuffed thanks to his volatile emotional state when returning from Waterfall, promising to go on a date with her once they're back from their next mission.
That doesn't happen, because Sakura 'defects' once they've left the village, running off in the middle of the night and leaving Obito to deal with Naruto and Sasuke if they try to chase her. They do, and pick a fight with Obito in the process, who naturally trashes them. However, Naruto and Sasuke's determination and resolve not to bring Sakura back, but to go with her and share the danger of defecting to another country reminds Obito of himself when he was younger, triggering a cascade of violent introspection that ends with Obito realizing that since Kakashi died, he has essentially shut himself down and left the running of his life to others, smothering the flame of ambition that had pushed him to greatness in the first place. With this revelation, he allows Naruto and Sasuke to leave with his blessing, telling them in his own way that he loves them and he trusts them to make the right decisions to keep Sakura safe.
Naruto and Sasuke catch up with Sakura, convince her that they'll be stronger together, and are spirited away to Amegakure by Konan, where they meet both Yahiko and Nagato and are interrogated as to their defection and why they've arrived. Sakura tells the truth that she's been sent as a spy, and the extra truth that she agreed to be a spy because she wanted to see if Rain really was all that anyway.
Meanwhile, Obito and Minato nearly come to blows, with Minato unused to and not expecting Obito's newfound independence. Obito manages to convince him that his son and Sasuke defecting won't be the end of the world, and that they'll be back stronger for the experience. Minato concedes, and having impressed Rin with his rediscovered ambition Obito goes about self-actualizing, rebuilding himself into a person instead of a hollow shell content to be led through life by other's orders and desires. However, Konoha as a village is furious and confused at Team Seven's defection, and blames Obito and Sakura's parents for pushing three brilliant young children away from the village, isolating them.
In the heat of things, Obito and Mikoto also have a brief fight about Sasuke's future, which ends with him learning she's had a Mangekyo Sharingan this whole time, presumably since the massacre. More on that later.
Team Seven does their best to integrate into Rain over the course of a year, taking a variety of missions on behalf of the revolutionary nation with the goal of becoming reliable and eventually getting Sakura into the Akatsuki so she can determine whether Fuu is there or not. Sakura helps Rain negotiate with the Hidden Waterfall, dueling its sole surviving Elder Eiji, and engages in a mock pursuit of a genius independent ninja Katasuke Touno, chasing him into the Land of Lightning where he intends to spy on behalf of Rain. Before leaving on this mission she meets Jiraiya in the Land of Rain, learning he apparently periodically visits his old students and that he deeply disagrees with the current goals of the Akatsuki, seeing them as just another Village that only claims to be moving towards idealistic goals. He also probes Sakura about loyalty, not just to the Hidden Leaf but also her beliefs about in general. It seems particularly important for him to know what she'll do when reality inevitably disappoints her.
"If the world let me down, if the Akatsuki let me down, I would just have to make it what it should be," Sakura tells him, summing up her character arc across the entirety of the fic. It's enough for Jiraiya, and though it's probably not directly related, the Amekage promote Sakura to Chunin after the meeting, ensuring that no matter what timeline she's in she'll always beat Naruto and Sasuke to that first promotion.
In the midst of all this, something happens that none of the characters are aware of. Team Seven meets their undercover contact in Amegakure, which turns out to be Orochimaru of all people. However, while Orochimaru may put on a show of loyalty to Konoha and Ame, he is truly out for himself, having a hidden base in which he is conducting all manner of experiments. The crown jewel among them is also the most dangerous; Team Seven finds an Edo Tensei of Madara Uchiha, brought back as a withered and helpless old man deprived of his eyes, out of which Orochimaru has obviously been pulling secrets. However, none of them can act on this information, as Orochimaru seals their memories with a technique that he has presumably been using to hide his indiscretions from Rain as well.
Much like the cut that saved Sakura's life, this plot will not be brought up for quite some time.
Shortly after Sakura and company chase Katasuke towards the Land of Lightning, Obito is sent in pursuit of him as well, as Konoha has been keeping an eye on him for some time. Obito misses his team by a day thanks to the potent power of dramatic irony, but in a small border town called Hiyama in the Land of Frost he discovers Kisame, still wielding the legendary sword Samehada but having skipped becoming an infamous missing ninja, instead having settled down to avoid the eyes of the law and defend the people of a place that have no interest in digging up his past. Kisame at first believes Obito may have come for him, but when that proves not to be the case he's content to lead him to Katasuke and the Cloud ninja team escorting him before departing. Obito scares the shit out of the Cloud team and interrogates Katasuke, learning that he's a brilliant scientist who is developing chakra-compatible technology, especially prosthesis limbs.
Obito ponders that before his team had left he would have just kidnapped Katasuke, but now he's feeling more charitable and trusting and lets him depart to the Land of Lightning with an offer to come to Konoha if he feels mistreated there. This ends up being a horrible mistake that kills hundreds of thousands of people, but the Sharingan can't see the future (well, not his anyway), so Obito thankfully doesn't know that. Meanwhile, Rin is growing more attracted to Obito now that he's becoming closer to his old self, but doesn't really know how to healthily handle those feelings yet.
With his mission finished, Obito departs on a personal errand to find Mount Myoboku, determined to make a summoning contract of his own in a further bid to secure his independence. After some time he locates the path to the quasi-extradimensional space with his Sharingan and arrives there after a perilous journey through an unstable rift in time and space that nearly crushes him alive, wandering around and taking in the plus-sized insects and natural-energy soaked land in wonder and appreciation.
Of course, Obito's sight-seeing is interrupted when he approaches the titular Mount Myoboku and is challenged by the Guardian Toads, Gamaken and Gamahiro. The huge Toads explain to Obito that if he wishes to forge a contract of his own he has to defeat them to prove his worth, since he's not being sponsored by an existing summoner. Instead of defeating them, which he easily could, Obito proclaims that fighting potential allies is stupid (wow, foreshadowing!) and stubbornly tries to make it to Myoboku relying only on his speed and the Kamui to avoid getting pasted by two megafauna with equally large weapons. It mostly works out for him: Obito exhausts Gamahiro and makes it to the foot of the steps of the mountain, but Gamaken has more stamina than expected, and Obito passes out with the job only half done.
However, when he wakes up in the mountain under the care of the Toad Elder Shima, he's told that what he did was still more than enough to catch the Great Toad Sage's attention, and as the leader of the Toads of Myoboku that's really all that mattered. A groggy Obito is led to an audience with the even groggier Great Sage, as well as the Elders Fukasaku and Shima, and when asked why he didn't just… ask Minato for the contract, proclaims he wanted to earn it himself. Fukasaku points out that by not even fighting the Guardian Toads Obito proved he has no need of summons, and Obito retorts that he wants the contract not for assistance in battle, but so that no matter what is happening or where he is he can ask for help, something he hasn't done in a decade.
It's enough for the Great Toad Sage, which bids Fukasaku and Shima to fetch the contract scroll and muses to Obito about Jiraiya and his legacy, noting that he's now trained three men who've contracted with Myoboku now: Yahiko, Minato, and Obito himself. But Obito, the Sage notes, may be the most important yet, and all because of one falling stone…
Obito doesn't make the connection, because, like, how could he, and asks Fukasaku and Shima what the Sage is talking about when they present the scroll. They explain that the Sage is blessed and cursed with uncertain visions of the future, and that he once gave Jiraiya a prophecy that one of his students would save the world by bringing a great revolution that would change everything.
Obito sours; he doesn't like the idea of fate for very Uchiha reasons, and more than that he can only see such a prophecy as a foretelling of the Akatsuki's victory, for good and ill. Though Fukasaku warns him not to be narrow minded, he doesn't think about the fact that if it's true, such a prophecy could equally apply to Minato, to him, to anyone else Jiraiya could train in the future, or even to all of them.
As Team Seven continues to integrate, Naruto begins to learn Medical Jutsu with Kabuto's help, and though he rapidly makes progress he soon finds that while he can heal himself easily, he has more trouble with other people, thanks to either a quirk of his chakra or a mental block. In the midst of his training, he, Kabuto, and Kabuto's mother Nonō (a former Konoha ninja and ROOT agent who defected to Rain with Kabuto accompanying her thanks to Danzo dying at Jiraiya's hands) are sent to the border of the Land of Earth to retrieve a VIP named Kagami Kaguya, cousin of Kimimaro Kaguya, who somehow made his way to the Nation of Rain as well to become one of the Akatsuki's Commanders despite his young age. Kagami has been employed by the Hidden Stone, which sends its own team to retrieve Kagami before she can get too far away; a group of genin named Tamako, Hideaki, and Takeshi, led by elite jonin Yui Tono.
While Naruto makes a connection with Tamako, it's not enough to dissuade the Stone ninja from trying to complete their mission, especially since Yui holds a personal grudge against his father. A brief battle ensues, which does not end in any fatalities, but by the end of it Naruto learns two unsettling facts. The first is that Tamako has been given an Artificial Bloodline by the Hidden Stone based off of the Kaguya Clan's Shikotsumyaku, allowing her to cover her body in living steel, with Kagami guessing that Tamako is not the only ninja who Stone has modified in this manner, since she's just a genin. The second is how his father fought in the Third World War, with Yui revealing that he marked her with his Hiraishin and used her as bait to assassinate her allies while keeping her alive. While Naruto knew that his father is a war hero, he'd never been too fussed with the details and seeing Minato's capacity for brutality shakes him, especially with how Yui had to have the mark burned off, leaving her with a horrific scar covering half her torso.
However, Naruto does learn how to heal others thanks to breaking through his mental barrier, and quite well too, so it's not all bad.
Some time after this, nearly a year after Team Seven arrived in Rain, Sasuke runs across a truly thrilling plot-point; counterfeit money. Thanks to his Sharingan, Sasuke is able to identify the false funds while leading a mission with Suigetsu and Tayuya to take down a smuggling ring, having been promoted to Jonin thanks to his overall excellence as a ninja; he has found the promotion somewhat disheartening, as it's allowed him to peak behind the curtain and see that Rain, and probably all the major villages, is a bit dysfunctional and often functions more by inertia than smart decisions. Sasuke informs Rain about the currency; it is all from the Land of Fire, despite the smugglers having acquired it in the Land of Waves, which piques the Amekage's curiosity. Seeing this as an opportunity to increase the Nation of Rain's standing with the other Villages and better establish its validity as a cooperative great power, the Amekage instruct Sasuke to head a large team of elite shinobi to the Land of Waves, leading Naruto, Sakura, Karin, Suigetsu, and Haku alongside fellow Jonin Zabuza Momochi. The Rain shinobi depart for Fukami City, Wave's newest and richest city due to its newfound connection to the mainland via the Great Channel Bridge. Once there, they decide to get in touch with the local black market, which seems to be where the currency was coming from; Sasuke proposes pretending to sell Zabuza's legendary blade, the Kubikiribocho, which Zabuza is extremely unhappy about but relents to after Haku agrees it's an excellent bait.
Coincidentally, at around the same time Hinata, Shikamaru, Ino, and Kurenai are being dispatched to the Land of Waves by the Hidden Leaf, having also uncovered the counterfeit currency conspiracy and been dispatched to take care of the issue. When they arrive, Hinata quickly realizes that they're not alone. Not only are Team Seven and the Rain ninja accompanying them present, but Fukami City is also home to several other groups of ninja, many of which are from the minor villages. However, one such group is Gaara's team from the Hidden Sand, which particularly draws Hinata's attention for obvious reasons.
The group from Konoha hatches a half-baked plan to grab Team Seven and flee home, reasoning they can do so and then return to complete their mission regarding the currency. Somehow, it doesn't go well; while they do manage to kidnap Sasuke with some clever use of Shikamaru and Ino's clan jutsu, the rest of the Rain ninja are very promptly after them, and the Leaf ninja quickly realize that there's little chance they could make it back to Konoha before being caught. Seeing an opportunity to start mending bridges, Sasuke convinces Hinata and her companions that they have the same mission, especially since the Nation of Rain was intending to hand the perpetrators over to the Land of Fire regardless. Though there is some initial resistance, both teams eventually agree to cooperate, putting a truly ridiculous amount of ninja on the job (this is also something Zabuza is extraordinarily unhappy about). They both begin to scour the city for clues while the Leaf team tries to figure out what exactly has happened to Team Seven in the time they've been gone, and why exactly they left.
Before long, Sakura is dropping oblique hints to Ino and Hinata to take a look at her back with the Byakugan: this is because when she left, Minato marked her with the Hiraishin, both to track her and potentially be able to pull her out of danger if necessary. In this case, it also functions as a reliable mark of loyalty, showing that the Hokage could bring her back at any time. The joint teams investigation efforts also bear fruit rather quickly, not by finding a lead on the currency production but by drawing attention to themselves. They are approached by Darui, a shinobi from Cloud and the Raikage's right hand man, who circuitously informs both search teams that he has been sent by the government of the Land of Lightning to clean up one of their messes, and that while it would be best for his mission if he chased them off, he would prefer if they follow him to a certain location on the docks instead.
From this, Sasuke and Kurenai deduce that the Land of Lightning is the one responsible for the counterfeit money, which explains why it apparently focused solely on the Land of Fire's currency, and sent Darui to conceal their misdeeds, but for whatever reason, Darui or the HIdden Cloud itself has intentionally sabotaged the mission. Perhaps because they do not agree with Lightning's aggressive policies… or perhaps it's to lead them into a trap.
They're half right.
That night, Darui leads Hinata, Sakura, Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru, and Kurenai towards a modest warehouse on the city's docks while Sasuke, Karin, Haku, and Zabuza meet up with a black market buyer who took the bait on the Kubikiribocho, hoping to cover both possible leads. Both end up being disasters for different reasons.
On Sasuke's side, the buyer ends up being a nationalistic businessman from the Land of Water, who has summoned shinobi from the relatively near Hidden Mist to retrieve the legendary sword, and possibly losing the sword finally causes Zabuza to snap; unwilling to follow Sasuke's directions any longer he attacks and begins murdering the Mist shinobi, brutally executing the businessman and spreading chaos across the northern part of the city.
On Sakura and Naruto's side, the warehouse ends up being trapped with explosives, but not by Darui or the Hidden Cloud. The reason that Darui was sent wasn't just to clean up the mess caused by the counterfeit production, but because the original operation had been stolen from the Land of Lightning and co-opted by a familiar face: Hei Hyuuga, the Root agent who narrowly survived Minato cutting her throat during her attack on the Hidden Waterfall and went about finding other ways to undermine and destroy the country and village who betrayed her and Danzo.
Hei badly injures Kurenai and Darui with her explosive trap and nearly kills Hinata, Sakura, and Naruto with her frightening greatbow, but despite the shock and viciousness of the attack Hinata, Suigetsu, and Sakura rally and chase after Hei while Naruto stays behind to keep the wounded alive. The Hyuuga splatters Suigetsu across the docks, and only Hinata pulling out the Kaiten keeps her and Sakura from being torn apart by a Shadow Arrow jutsu that nevertheless leaves Hinata with a nasty poisoned cut across her side. All too aware that they are dramatically outclassed, Hinata does something she'd sworn she never would; Hei is a member of the Branch Clan, and Hinata activates her clan's curse seal to bring down the Root agent and save Sakura's life.
Sakura has time to tell Hinata who she suspects Hei is, remembering her from Waterfall, before the Root agent proclaims her hatred of Konoha and activates the seal herself, committing suicide by the agonizing curse seal as Hinata and Sakura watch it horror. The trauma of the event and the poison she was struck with knocks Hinata out, though she manages to warn Sakura that Gaara was alerted by the explosion of the warehouse and is coming their way before she blacks out.
As Sakura drags Hinata back to Naruto, Gaara and his team end up intercepting her, and a tense standoff ensues. Since the Exam, Gaara has grown more controlled, but his feelings towards Sakura have developed from ambivalence to a deep obsession and hatred, as she is the only person to ever make him bleed. Sakura quickly realizes that Gaara's team will do nothing to stop him from killing her, and she flees with them pursuing her, barely managing to pass Hinata off to before Naruto loses her temper with Gaara and speaking truthfully to him, calling out his obsession as infantile and telling him to get a life.
Gaara doesn't take this well.
The explosion attracted ninja from all across the city, not just the team from Sand, and in the course of a bloody temper tantrum Gaara ends up murdering many of them as he's attacked by just about everyone due to being a clear and obvious threat to the innocent people nearby. In the chaos, Sakura manages to land a nasty hit on Gaara's face, obliterating his "Love" tattoo and badly damaging his hand.
It's not enough: Gaara causes significant civilian casualties, murders his sensei Baki when Ino takes control of the man in a bid to get Gaara to back down, and eventually completely unleashes Shukaku, leveling a quarter of the city in his desperate attempts to kill Sakura and everyone else getting in his way.
The catastrophe invites retribution; Sasuke and Haku arrive to save Sakura's life, and Zabuza attacks Gaara, cutting off his arm and driving him into retreat even in his Shukaku-form. Sakura and Haku chase after him, and find Zabuza and Gaara having a final duel beneath the Great Channel Bridge, with Zabuza clearly favored to be the winner thanks to his greater experience.
However, it's not to be; from a distance, Temari supports her brother by blowing away Zabuza's mist jutsu and revealing his position, and Gaara takes advantage of the opportunity and Sakura and Haku's overzealous counterattack by bringing down the entire bridge on top of everyone involved. He'd been sent to Waves in the first place to destroy their profitable new trade route, having been working at eroding the foundations of the bridge for several days prior, and though Sakura stabs him again before the bridge collapses he still refuses to go down.
Sakura survives, though barely, thanks to Haku dragging her out of the ruin, but Zabuza saves Haku and is buried at sea for it. The Sand team makes a messy getaway, and Haku almost goes after them before Sakura holds him back, desperate and in pain and feeling like if Haku goes she will die alone. Haku relents, and the siblings escape.
Team Seven is left in the ruins of a city with thousands of dead and injured civilians, Sakura on the edge of death, and Sasuke with a burned and crippled arm thanks to a mishap with his experimental Lighting Rasengan.
It's a hopeless situation, but Naruto is good at getting people out of those no matter the timeline, and with Karin's help he saves Sakura's life, keeps Sasuke's arm from falling off despite his friend's protest, and drains himself dry twice sending out clones and personally rendering aid to the casualties as the city screams in agony, keeping the situation in Waves from getting worse. By the end of the night he's a legend in the country, the blond boy who tried to fight off the demon and then saved countless lives with his glowing hands, though he's too unconscious to know it. With the damage addressed as best it can be, Team Seven bids a bitter farewell to Hinata, Ino, Shikamaru, and Kurenai, both parties too hurt and tired to dream of another conflict, and returns to Amegakure with the mixed news that while they did find the source of the currency and cooperated with Fire in the course of the investigation, the evidence has gone up in flames and Fukami City suffered an incredibly terrible wound, collateral damage in the endless conflict of shinobi and nations that has wracked the continent for a century.
Sasuke's arm is still burned and shattered beyond repair, but it turns out to be a non-issue; when he turns the report in to Yahiko and Nagato, Nagato unleashes the Naraka Path and the King of Hell on him out of appreciation of his devotion and talent, devouring Sasuke's entire body and replacing it with a fresh one, working arm included. It's a mind-blowing experience that leaves Sasuke with a lot of deeply uncomfortable questions, but he takes it in stride and walks away from the meeting with body at peak potential and a dossier about Itachi's actions since he left the Hidden Leaf, the Amekage finally trusting him enough to share their information about Itachi with him… though not whether they hired his brother or not.
Things are happening fast now. Sakura recovers from her coma, having been inundated with dreams about how to keep something like the atrocity in Waves from ever happening again. You gotta have a deterrent, a Bijuu of her own, and if Rain did take Fuu she completely understands why now. Thanks to her bravery and courage and clear head, Haku tells her, she's being invited into the Akatsuki; after all, Sakura realized that killing Gaara would be an international disaster, even more than the attack on Waves, and wouldn't benefit the Nation of Rain at all. That's why she stopped him from chasing them, right?
Right, Sakura says, buried in feelings of being a fraud. Definitely, yes, totally. At least she's in the Akatsuki now, having finally accomplished her goal and nearing the end of her mission.
Meanwhile, as time has passed Obito and Rin have grown closer and closer, going on weekly dates that Obito hasn't yet realized are dates. Rin is sent to the Land of Waves on a humanitarian mission, and Obito invites himself along to help shortly after meeting with Hinata, Ino, and Shikamaru. From them he learns about how his team is doing, and gives them permission to spread the truth behind Sakura's defection to those they trust, no longer completely trusting Minato's judgements.
In the Land of Rain, Obito mostly retrieves corpses and saves buried people before running into Tsunade, who has come to offer her peerless services at a steep price in the ruined city and brought Shizune and Tonton along with her. Tsunade and Obito butt heads, Tsunade unwilling to believe he's changed after years of being Minato's attack dog and Obito trying to convince her to help the city for free with a healthy bribe from Rin. Tsunade eventually relents, seeing the change in Obito and learning that the blonde boy she's heard so much about from the people of Waves is Naruto, the Hokage's son, who she immediately holds in higher esteem than the Hokage.
After meeting Tsunade, Obito finally screws up his courage and asks Rin out on a date, who is understandably extremely confused since she thought they had already been doing that. She takes it in stride though, since both she and Obito know he's desperately trying to play catchup on a decade of emotional development, and they go out to a fancy sushi place when they return to Konoha, finally making things "official."
But because Obito can't have nice things, Itachi interrupts their date less than ten minutes in.
He takes a seat as casually as you can next to Rin and very politely asks Obito where Sasuke is, since Mikoto doesn't seem willing to tell him. Obito, in shock, realizes over the course of the conversation that Itachi is extremely detached from reality and doesn't know that Sasuke defected to Rain, something that is common knowledge across the nations thanks to the notoriety of the Uchiha clan. Rather than answering any of Obito's many questions, Itachi leaves him a gift and departs with a threat that he'll blow up the entire restaurant if he's followed: the missing eye of Shisui Uchiha, which Itachi stole all those years ago on the night of the massacre.
The eye sends Obito metaphorically spiraling into the past, finally showing the readers the night of the Massacre. In keeping with Obito-Sensei's themes about things being both better than otherwise and worse than you'd hope, the Massacre did not wipe out the entire clan but was unbelievably brutal; Itachi murdered Fugaku and then took on Obito, Mikoto, Minato, and Kushina essentially back to back, standing untouched despite only being thirteen after defeating Obito in hand-to-hand combat, blasing his mother with the Amaterasu, leveling the Hokage with a Tsukuyomi meant for Sasuke, and then unleashing the Kyuubi from Kushina's seal with a look despite being ensnared in her Adamantium Chains. With that done, Itachi flees, recognizing that the odds have only turned in his favor for a moment, and Obito chases after him after Mikoto revives the Hokage (an apparent impossibility given how the Tsukuyomi works that he only notices in hindsight) and Minato begins the treacherous work of suppressing the Kyuubi as his wife suffers.
Obito catches Itachi, but despite biting off two of his fingers can't stop him from escaping; the Massacre is now fully contextualized and Obito returns to the present with an important question for Minato. Just what the heck did Itachi show him with the Tsukuyomi which he had intended for his little brother?
Minato remembers, but he never cared much about it since he thought it was an illusion meant to disturb and distract him. Itachi showed him a world destroyed and rebuilt, united in a quiet peace, friends and enemies standing side by side. To both him and Obito, it doesn't make sense, so they file it away for later as Minato sends ObitoOibto off on a mission to retrieve Katasuke Touno, who has apparently decided to defect from the Hidden Cloud.
Meanwhile (well, the day before), Sakura is being inducted into the Akatsuki and learning all sorts of fun facts about the revolutionary organization with Haku and Nono guiding her through the process. Some important facts that she picks up include that the Daimyo of the Land of Lightning was replaced with Rain's help, with an intentional warmonger being put in his place to ratchet up conflicts with the neighboring countries of Water and Frost, which many Akatsuki members are actually in favor of since they think it will make exporting the revolution there happen sooner. Sakura also learns that the organization is basically divided into three groups, between those who worship Nagato, those who believe in the cause of the revolution and lessening conflict, and those who wish to spread war for ostensibly the same aim, and is interrogated by several members about her ultimate goals and what she thinks of the organizations means.
The Akatsuki holds a meeting establishing the increasing tension among the nations, and finally answers the question that Sakura defected to learn the truth about: Itachi was not working for Rain when he plundered the Hidden Waterfall, because Rain does not have Fuu or the Nanabi. In fact, Itachi has recently reemerged and kidnapped another Jinchuriki, Yugito Nii and the Nibi from the Hidden Cloud. Relieved, Sakura requests a personal meeting with the Amekage to confirm the truth and update them on her and her team's plans for the future, which the Amekage grants.
However, the meeting muddles things. With a mutual use of Nagato's King of Hell, Sakura and the rest learn that Rain did in fact hire Itachi and Kakuzu to steal Fuu from the Hidden Waterfall, (is it relevant that Rain specified they wanted the theft of the bijuu to be a bloodless infiltration rather than an invasion with hundreds of sleeper agents?)inbut that Itachi went rogue and didn't deliver the goods, presumably murdering Kakuzu (since the mercenary never reported back) and taking the kidnapped child with the giant monster inside her for himself. Sakura spends some time pondering military alliances and lingering on the idea that came to her in her coma: that to really guarantee peace, you need a deterrent, and the best deterrent is violence, so a nation that truly desires peace needs more violence than anyone else, and the best way to do that is to have a Tailed Beast or two to cause giant spontaneous explosions. She's not able to resolve the paradox, but she is able to float her idea to resolve the sticky defection situation to the Amekage: Team Seven should become ambassadors.
As ninja of both villages, she argues, they could bridge the gap between Rain and Leaf, uniting two of the most powerful villages and making the world a safer place overall. Also wow total coincidence they'll get to have their cake and eat it too with all the new friends they've made, isn't that great? The Amekage are positive but ask to have some time to work out the particulars, which Team Seven is totally fine with, and so they retreat to wish for a brighter future.
The next day, Haku delivers Sakura's new Akatsuki outfit to her in her apartment, a very fashionable hoodie. They discuss their feelings and the possibilities that being Ambassador Ninja holds, and there's chemistry in the air. Sparks are flying; they lean closer.
At this point, pretty much everything goes wrong all at once.
Amegakure is attacked; an explosion of tremendous power decapitates many of the city's buildings and sends a firestorm raging through it. Team Seven is scattered across the city; Haku and Sakura high in Sakura's apartment, Naruto with Karin and Kabuto in a restaurant, and Sasuke walking the streets with Suigetsu.
Sakura is sent flying along with her entire apartment building, losing sight of Haku in the chaos and only surviving by pure luck. The restaurant is blown to pieces, and while Karin keeps the shinobi inside alive through a sudden manifestation of Adamantine Chains she and Naruto are still faced with certain death thanks to the firestorm until Kabuto sacrifices his life to keep them alive with his medical ninjutsu. Sasuke and Suigetsu see the blast coming, and Suigetsu shields Sasuke with his own body, saving Sasuke's life at the cost of his own.
Somewhat simultaneously, Obito is in the Land of Lightning, retrieving Katasuke Touno per the Hokage's request. Katasuke's in a bad spot, held captive by one of the Lighting Daimyo's personal ninja (a woman named Mei, unrelated to the Mizukage), but Obito breaks him out and spirits him away into the Kamui, noting that his artificial leg has been removed. Once free, Katasuke breaks down, professing terror at the prospect of going to Konoha, and reveals to Obito that rather than working on advancing his mechanical prosthetic technology in the Hidden Cloud he was forced into developing weapons for their chakra technology division, culminating in a Tailed Beast Cannon meant to harness the power of Cloud's Jinchuriki and project it up to thousands of miles away, creating the equivalent of a nuclear artillery piece which can strike almost anywhere in the world with enough destructive force to annihilate cities.
Obito is naturally not thrilled about this, and delivers Katasuke and his warning to Minato, knowing that Cloud's trump card can't remain a secret. The Hokage takes the news better than expected, content in his own ability to defend his village from even such a terrible weapon, and when he leaves to interrogate Katsuke in more detail Kushina points out to Obito that regardless of how dangerous the cannon is, Kumo would be insane to use it on a peer power like Konoha, especially since it hasn't been fired before and its capabilities are unproven.
If they were malicious enough to fire it at all, they would target a smaller, less well regarded village, Kushina and Obito agree. Like Rain.
Struck by that horrible premonition, Obito goes to Amegakure, and finds it consumed by fire. Though he doesn't know it, the only reason the city is still standing at all is because Nagato deflected most of the attack at the last second, sending six of the eight beams of chakra fired by the cannon careening off into the sky and forcing the remaining two to detonate several hundred meters off the ground a kilometer or so outside the city proper.
Obito takes a moment to consider whether he'll stay sane or become a murderous monster, and thankfully defers to the former as he dispatches a toad to infiltrate the city to determine whether Team Seven is still alive or not. He returns home to update Minato again, and after a heated argument with the Hokage about how they're going to get their kids out leaves it to Orochimaru, who Minato is already reaching out to. As he rests and waits for the signal to meet up with the Sannin and collect his team, Rin joins him to finish up their date. Obito falls asleep in her arms, thankfully able to hide away from a violent world for one more night.
In a shattered Amegakure, Naruto and Sakura do their best to help the people of Rain, with Sakura leading rescue efforts and Naruto using his medical jutsu to save hundreds of lives. Eventually, they find each other at a gym-turned-hospital, collapsing together thanks to their exhaustion, stress, and severe injuries. Obito's toad finds them shortly after this, but is chased off by several Rain ninja including Nonō, who takes them into custody as spies in nation that's obviously under attack
During this time, Sasuke is snoozing, having been put in a coma both by his near-death experience and his Mangekyo's sudden and traumatic awakening. Konan sends a clone to collect him, but the situation gets a little more complicated when she learns that she's not the only one who's looking to pick Sasuke up: Itachi is there too, having arrived just behind the blast which killed about one-hundred thousand people, and he is completely unwilling to let Rain take his little brother captive. Itachi protests his innocence in regards to Rain's near-destruction to Konan, but does admit that not giving them the Nanabi may have contributed to the state of affairs.
Konan doesn't care much for Itachi's excuses after his betrayal of their bargain, and neither does Nagato, who arrives at her call. Impatient and enraged, Nagato immediately attacks Itachi and overpowers him in a ridiculous display of ninjutsu, attempting to rip out the rogue ninja's soul and learn his motive for hunting not just the Nanabi, but the Sanbi and Nibi as well. Itachi is beaten, but before Nagato can finish him the Uchiha's shadow intercedes, screeching and trying to drown Nagato like it has a life of its own. Nagato and Konan are both stunned by the unexpected attack, and Itachi takes the opportunity to grab Sasuke and flee, dumping Yugito Ni, Fuu, and the Sanbi on top of Nagato to keep him from chasing.
Three Bijuu against a single man is an impossible battle, but Nagato proves that some people's worship of him is justified and solos a third of the world's superweapons with minimal collateral damage, breaking Fuu's spine, burying Yugito, and brainwashing the Sanbi while taking some brutal wounds in the process. Despite his heroism, Itachi does manage to get away. In the wake of the battle, Rain is left with three Bijuu where before they had none, and Nagato finds a mortally injured Haku among the other wounded. Soon afterwards, the leadership of Amegakure meets to try and determine who could be responsible for their attempted destruction, and what their response should be. Konan and Nagato caution caution, but Yahiko and Kimmimaro are both somewhat emphatic that Konoha was probably responsible given the timing of Sakura's mission succeeding and the village immediately exploding and advise an immediate counterattack. The meeting ends inconclusively, with the Amekage deciding to interrogate Team Seven to satisfy their suspicions.
Unfortunately, while Sasuke is being nabbed, Naruto and Sakura are facing similar circumstances; while being held prisoner, they are busted out by Orochimaru against their will, who murders their guard and gloats to them about the likely consequences of their imminent "escape." With Rain in chaos, the guard dead, and Sakura vanishing, Orochimaru is sure the blame for the attack will fall on Konoha, and he is more than happy to push the misunderstanding as hard as he can. Minato, he says, has finally made a mistake, and soon he'll finally be able to dance on the Hokage's grave. Naruto and Sakura fight back, but it's pointless: even Sakura cutting Orochimaru's head off with her flowing water blade is completely ignored, and they're both kidnapped and spirited out of the village.
Obito picks them up, exchanges some tense words with Orochimaru, and then brings them to Minato to answer some questions about what happened in Rain and if they ended up having Fuu or not, the original reason for Sakura's mission. Sakura and Naruto confirm that Fuu wasn't in Rain, not knowing the dramatic irony of their situation, and then demand to go back to retrieve Sasuke, who they refuse to believe is dead. Minato and Obito correctly deduce that Sakura's loyalty at the moment is extremely tenuous and agree to allow her to accompany the Sasuke recovery team, which is made up of Obito, Rin, Mikoto, and Hinata.
As the team departs, Sasuke is waking up and spending some quality time with his brother. Itachi congratulates Sasuke on awakening his Mangekyo and, as Sasuke tries to leave and avoid this bullshit, dumps some exposition on him, explaining his plan to gather the Bijuu, build animosity towards the Nation of Rain, and leave Konoha in a position of unassailable strength to save the world. He asks Sasuke for help, explaining that with him, Sasuke, and Obito united, three Mangekyo Sharingan could overthrow society and write a new world order into being like Hashirama and Madara did all those years ago.
The mention of Madara trips Sasuke's memory; the juinjutsu that Orochimaru sealed his memory with broke when his Mangekyo awakened, and he suddenly recalls everything the man told Team Seven in confidence that they would never be able to tell anyone else, as well as the existence of the Edo Tensei Madara. Sasuke, being a good boy and a better Jonin, immediately sends a Shadow Clone to Amegakure to inform the Amekage about the traitor in their midst as Itachi continues to ramble to him.
In the midst of Itachi's talk, the retrieval team arrives, and he pulls Sasuke into a Tsukuyomi to tell him his most unsettling secret, finally contextualizing his actions throughout the entire fic: Itachi thinks he is going insane. Some of his actions don't make sense to himself, like killing Shisui, and he has gaps in his memory. He is convinced, and convinces Sasuke, that there is another him, a dissociative personality, which is far more capricious, destructive, and greedy than him, and he begs that Sasuke be ready to stop him if the other him ever takes over for good. Sasuke is, to put it mildly, deeply unhappy about this burden being put on him, but he accepts his brother's burden as Obito, Sakura, Naruto, Mikoto, and Hinata arrive. After a brief round of threats and promises, Itachi leaves, and while Sakura tries to make another break for Amegakure her team and Hinata manage to talk her down from defecting again, finally returning Team Seven whole to Konoha.
Of course, that's not necessarily a good thing for everyone. Sakura feels dissociated from reality back in the Leaf, unable to reconcile what happened in Rain with returning to her original home, and Naruto isn't much better off. They both improve a little after an impromptu therapy session with Gai and his team, but the trauma of seeing your friends die right in front of you and a fifth of a city getting wiped away isn't something that can be banished so easily.
While this is happening, Minato is desperately trying to arrange a meeting at Mount Myoboku with Yahiko, seeing the world steadily tumble towards a violent conflagration. The government of the Land of Fire is beginning to issue missions that will drive other villages into conflict with Rain, such as a half-billion Ryo payout for busting out the imprisoned Daimyo of Rain, and the Land of Lightning and the Hidden Cloud are invading their smaller neighbor the Land of Frost, seemingly confident no one will challenge their military might despite having not yet admitted to attacking Amegakure. Minato doesn't want the work of nearly two decades to collapse around him, but he's struggling to find a realistic solution to everything that doesn't involve a tremendous amount of murder.
While Sakura and Naruto struggle with bad memories, intrusive thoughts, and their place in the world, and the shinobi villages grind towards a confrontation, Sasuke is reconnecting with his mother.
Mikoto and Obito share some words of wisdom with Sasuke regarding the Mangekyo Sharingan and how to handle the fear of going blind (pro-tip, don't use it, that's what actually advances the blindness), and for the sake of being prepared for an uncertain future Sasuke tests his eyes out to see what they're capable of. Ironically, Sasuke discovers that his eyes contain the powers Kagatsuchi (which enhances chakra manipulation) and Nakisawame (which allows him to see ten seconds into the future), both of which will certainly cut down on moment to moment uncertainty in his life. Mikoto decides to take Obito and Sasuke to the secret Uchiha stone tablet to further educate them about the Sharingan and its history, which Obito has been wanting to anyway, and the three of them descend into the basement of Naka Shrike.
There, they find a very undead Madara Uchiha waiting for them.
Finally clearing up any remaining questions about the backstory of the fic, Madara spends a chapter old-man-rambling to Sasuke, Mikoto, and Obito about the Rinnegan, his conflict with Hashirama, what he was up to when Obito never showed up to be a convenient patsy (turns out it was losing hope and dying alone), and critically the creation of both the White and Black Zetsu with his will and Hashirama's genetic material. The Uchiha trio learn the truth behind Nagato's power, and Obito reads the tablet and finds out about the Infinite Tsukuyomi and the Ten Tailed Beast, finding himself disgusted with Madara's escapism.
What Madara places the most importance on, however, is that his "Will," Black Zetsu, abandoned him before he died. He is sure that BZ went to Nagato to influence him to follow Madara's path and enact the Infinite Tsukuyomi, but Sasuke is the only one with the necessary context to realize that no, BZ didn't go to Nagato: he went to Itachi. Black Zetsu is the other that Itachi fears is taking him over, having been guiding him since the massacre and covertly helping him whenever he was in trouble, pinning Team Seven down in both their meetings with Itachi and throwing back Nagato when Itachi's defeat seemed assured. Sasuke attacks Madara in a rage, blaming him for his brother's actions, but Madara tells him that BZ cannot force someone to do anything, only reveal what is true inside themselves and bring out their hidden strength. If Itachi killed his family, it was his will, not Madara's, that made it happen.
Unable to handle yet another world shattering revelation, Sasuke leaves his mother and Obito with Madara and ventures out into the village, searching for stability and not sure where he'll find it.
And that's that! This recap only covers the broad strokes, not lingering on certain thematic underpinnings to the story like the perceived importance of sacrifice or the question of loyalty to the state or individuals, but stuff like that is what reading the actual fic is for. Also, while I did reread both the story and my outline for this, I can't guarantee that I got everything important in, so if you see something you think is atrocious for being left out, lemme know. Thanks for your patience and attention; I'm gonna try to get back on track now.