I'm going to stop following this story now. The latest chapter reiterates points that have been made in the last chapter and takes 8,000 words to do so.

My rating is 2/5

 

The latest chapters have tapped me out as well. A lot of shocking stuff happened, but only because it was shocking, not because it made sense. The entire Orochimaru stuff just makes my head hurt, and is so overdone it's honestly funny. We had Naruto locking Orochimaru in a bathroom and boiling him alive, while getting Kabuto onboard somehow maybe, and Naruto has him scream the names of people he killed to beg for mercy and...is this a joke?

 

Was kinda ok tho. Not good but meh. I'm just waiting for them to meet again.

 

I've been following Uzumaki for a long time, and I definitely don't mind a more introspective/literary style of writing, as Almost Electric has - but neglecting plot for emotional resonance has its limits, especially when one has Orochimaru being defeated by... boiling water. The Wizard of Oz calls, and he wants his copyright back.

 

I still think this is the most hilarious thing.

Still not caring about any/all of the plot threads involving Sakura though. That's always my thing about 'Team Seven' fics.

 

I do feel like this story is starting to drag now. Came for the Fem!Sasuke originally, but right now it seems like there's nothing going on that I care even a bit about. Satsuki is just teaching a Genin team, and that's almost never interesting. Naruto is flitting about aimlessly trying to occupy Sasuke's canon role, except that he has no vendetta like Sasuke had with Itachi and later Konoha to drive him since he's already gotten rid of Orochimaru and Kabuto.

And man are those ROOT parts of every chapter getting annoying to read. Praise Danzo, praise Konoha, glory to the call...gag me.

Hopefully things start getting interesting again soon.

 

Towards the start, I was annoyed because it stuck too close to canon. Now I actually miss it because I realize that the story is just fucking stupid when it's not being guided by canon.

For one thing, Naruto trying to fill in canon Sasuke's role just doesn't work for me. Canon Sasuke was focused completely on Itachi, who was just a great fucking villain (ayy lmao). Everything he did was to fulfull his goal of killing Itachi and regardless of how likeable or unlikeable he was, it was something I could follow and understand. Meanwhile, what the fuck is this Naruto even doing at this point except just floundering about?

In canon, Sasuke is defeated by Gaara and saved by Naruto, curbstomped by Itachi and put in a torture coma, sees Chidori defeated by Rasengan in destructive power, gets his ass kicked in by the Sound Four, and is offered power by the guy who killed the strongest ninja in the village. Puting aside the morality of it, its a pretty clean line from one end to another. Naruto's road to abandoning Konoha is so contrived and weird that I sometimes had to check if I was reading a non-canon Omake or something.

Like others have said, this take on female Sasuke is pretty good but there's just nothing for her to do and no character for her to play off of. I wasn't a fan of the whole "lets bring back Sasuke" plotline in canon and replacing edgy broody murder boi with somewhat angery orange boi doesn't make it any more palatable.

2/5

 

I've never had much issue rationalizing Naruto ditching Konoha in any scenario that bears some general resemblance to canon. The village was pretty awful towards him on the whole in Part I, and it's honestly more of an oddity to me that he was able to keep putting up with it throughout the early part of the series.

He does seem like a bit of a rudderless ship, but I'm not necessarily bothered with that now (in contrast to what I wrote in an earlier post back in March). Maybe the whole point for him is that it doesn't matter where he is or what he's doing, so long as he's not back there bring treated like a piece of shit for the high crime of existing. He also did say that part of what he was doing was in an effort to be seen and bait Itachi into making another try on him so that he could off the dude and get him out of Satsuki's life for good.

 

TBH when Orochimaru got burned to death in a shower I stopped following this. A shame, because I felt the characters and writing were pretty good, but IMO the plot sort of lost its way.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't be bothered by Naruto pulling a Tsunade and going "fuck this I'm out". It's the part where he joins up with an obviously evil body-snatching, child experimenting, missing-nin that feels off. Of course, it's the kind of stupid shit that I can see an angry teenager with issues pulling due to hubris, but it's not really narratively satisfying, in my opinion.

Naruto being directionless would be fine, but I just wish the writing was tighter because it feels like there are too many words being used to convey very little.

That felt like something right out of a crackfic, yeah.

 

Was it really that different from what Sasuke did upon leaving him in canon? Naruto pounced on Orochimaru when he was at his absolute weakest and most vulnerable due to his body failing, and was delirious enough not to notice that Kabuto was not Kabuto until it was too late. The boiling shower part was his deliberate effort to make the whole experience as degrading (and excruciating) as possible for a creature who deserved no dignity to begin with.