So many people are complaining about this chapter because of the flashbacks, already... I liked it, regardless of the fact that not half of it was placed in the present.
When I first read it I had just woken up, so reading it the first time around, half sleep and what not, I was a little impatient, too. I liked the beginning with the Uchiha Brothers, but the sight of flashbacks made me unhappy. The fact that the flashbacks went all the way out to the end of the chapter also made me unhappy. It's true that so much of the chapter being flashbacks is an absolute pain, but Kishimoto is trying to show us something.
The first time I read this, I caught onto a parallel between Itachi and Kabuto and Sasuke and Naruto right away, though it's only a slight one. For Naruto and Sasuke, Naruto was the one with nothing at the beginning and Sasuke was the one with at least someone else. For Kabuto and Itachi, you can put them in the same roles. Swap Naruto out for Kabuto and Sasuke out for Itachi.
But just because Itachi had things didn't mean he wasn't lost growing up. Didn't mean he had everything while Kabuto was out somewhere with nothing; neither had a solid, even faded, grip of who they truly were. Kishi is trying to compare Itachi and Kabuto and show that they can sympathize with each other. He's trying to, with these flashbacks, give us a look at why Kabuto is the way he is now.
He had nothing then, so now he wants everything. He was nothing, so now he wants to be someone important. Like with the way he starts talking about leading Akatsuki as a sort of right-hand, as well as holding some control over the outcome of the war and actually being able to fight the Uchiha Brothers at this point. Right now he sees himself as someone with power and control over other things and people; someone crucial to an outcome, a result. Someone that's making a difference, good or bad. Obviously, in his case, it's bad, right now.
And yet the second time I read this that's what I wondered about. I recently heard a song where, at one point, one person asks another what they see when they look at themselves - F~ck You by Archive - and thought of Kabuto, if he were to stand in front of the Waterfall of Truth. What would actually come out to meet him? The person he once was, who wanted a place in the world that he rightfully belonged in and was needed in? I think that's exactly what he'd see.
But right now he sees himself differently. At one point in this chapter Itachi talked about being able to face what you can and cannot do. Kabuto, right now, thinks he can do everything and that Itachi is just saying that because he "knows" he'll "lose." That isn't the case, though. The reason we see Naruto in one panel and he talks about comrades and such is because he's, partially, making a reference to what he told Naruto earlier on, about letting others help you. Everyone has their own skills and their own weaknesses, no matter what. Kabuto thinks he's high and mighty right now, but he's not. Because, like the way Naruto has, say, Shikamaru to plan while he fights and so forth, Itachi has Sasuke there - well, I'm not sure about right now because of what Kabuto is about to do - to cover his weaknesses and help his already strong points.
Kabuto doesn't get that everyone needs comrades. He doesn't get that a single person cannot do everything - and that, if anyone could, it wouldn't be him. The flashbacks are meant to show us he wanted someone and to be needed, but right now it seems, to me, like he has so much power that it's going to his head, absolutely, and the place in the world he wanted, with other people, is buried away, or perhaps long gone.
I'm done ranting for now; I have to go to school.
My Rating of Naruto Chapter 582: 4/5.
