Gosh, guys, isn't this nice? Pretty much everyone has the same sorts of predictions and they all seem pretty plausible. Much better than some mysteries Kishimoto leaves us to try and figure out. I'm enjoying reading threads about this new chapter; everyone is on the same page in the base, it seems. Everything everyone has said has made sense.
Anyway, to the chapter itself... Do I really need to say it's great? We all know it is. I think my favorite component of this entire chapter was Orochimaru. He doesn't seem quite right, does he? I don't think so, anyway. He still wants Sasuke's body, apparently, but he seemed concerned about Kabuto and just overall more... relaxed, I guess? The way he listened and worked with what Sasuke was saying, so to speak, sort of made me think of Jiraiya. No one bash me for that, please. I mean he held that refined, ready-to-listen vibe that masters tend to have. I thought so, anyway.
I also loved Sasuke! Not that I don't always, because on a typical day I do, but he's finally growing up! He wants to meet with this special person/these special people and hear the story from their side. He wants answers to questions he never got to ask Itachi while he was revived and questions that, maybe, he's had a long time. He's ready to hear the truth, from someone who was involved with it all, and then he wants to look at the situation, nevermind his hatred towards the Leaf, as he can no longer be a child, and take action in the best way he sees fit. He's finally taking Itachi's wishes to heart.
Frankly, this entire time I've found that this revenge thing seemed to be a Sasuke-thing. It was about Sasuke's suffering on the inside, no matter what he said sometimes on the outside. And I understand that, but like I just said, it's nice to see that he finally seems to be considering what Itachi would want, seriously now, and has matured since meeting his brother - so much so he seems ready to do what is right and not exactly what he wants to do, per se.
I liked that manipulation comment Orochimaru had somewhere around the middle/end of the chapter. It seems like he can easily acknowledge that when Sasuke fled from the Hidden Leaf and sought him out for power, it was a change for the worst in Sasuke. The same could be said about how Tobi affected him, whether Orochimaru actually knows Tobi or he has simply been able to put everything together. He did say he'd been watching from Anko's Cursed Seal all this time. Maybe that's the whole reason he knows everything about what is going on in the world right now.
Orochimaru also seems to acknowledge that the change Itachi caused in Sasuke is a good one, even if Sasuke doesn't flip right onto the good side, necessarily. Then he went on to tell Sasuke that he wasn't bad the way he was now and that he was okay the way he was, basically. I thought it was nice.
But to what I meant with my opening: these special guests Sasuke seems to want to talk with. Everyone's been saying mostly the same thing: his parents, his clan, or the Hokages of the past. Me, personally? Reading it the first time around I thought of Sasuke's parents, like many others, but reading it again I started to wonder.
He might not actually know at all, but when you read it and look at it in the right sort of light, when Orochimaru questioned Sasuke about wanting to meet this person/these people, didn't it seem like he knew them personally? I don't mean he was buddy-buddy with them, just that he knew who Sasuke wants to meet with. Maybe it was just me. Going off of that sort of mindset, one would doubt it was Sasuke's parents. Why would Orochimaru have a scroll about them in specific? I think it's pretty easy to say the content of the scroll is directly linked with someone important and I just don't see why Fugaku and Mikoto, or any other single member of the Uchiha clan, but maybe the clan as a whole, would be important to Orochimaru. But if you go the other way about this maybe Orochimaru was just asking why Sasuke wanted to go and speak with someone, as this seems to me like it really might be linked with Edo Tensei, or something like it.
I think it may be related to Edo Tensei because Sasuke pressed on so strongly that Suigetsu was understimating Orochimaru and Orochimaru, aside from Kabuto, who is messed up, Orochimaru was the one person Sasuke personally knew who could use Edo Tensei. It could be any sort of jutsu, though, or maybe it's more like instructions. I don't know.
I don't know about whether he wants to meet a past Hokage or this person or that person, but I do think it's pretty clear, what with Orochimaru's ending lines, that they're going to the Hidden Leaf, at least. No matter where at in the village, it definitely seems like they're going there. That makes me seriously happy.
I want to see Sasuke's reaction upon seeing the Village Hidden in the Leaves these days. We all know the village isn't exactly in it's prime anymore, size-wise or content-wise or anything-wise. Not since Pein's invasion. Definitely not great like it was.
Anyway, I give it a 5/5. 4/5 for content, plus one more out of five just for Suigetsu being precious - something I normally wouldn't say.
We should totally get 594 tomorrow, but that's not gonna happen D8