This was a very good chapter. I really loved the Uchiha compound in general

Oh so we're not going for the nuke strat... Interesting... Wonder what it could be

I genuinely feel like this sasuke and this Sakura are really good together. They parallel development they went through just sells me on it I guess. Naruto feels like some kind of childhood crush in comparison.

This is too good a story to end before it's time

Genius

I don't read many romance centered or sakura as mc stories but I started this one on a whim and I'm glad I did. I already want to apologize for what I expect will be a not at all organized or well written review.

Your writing style is fantastic and managed to kept me engaged despite what I initially thought was a way too slow start. The grammar has also been good enough that I haven't encountered anything particularly jarring aside from a misplaced or extra word here and there. Your descriptions really help build the atmosphere and visualize the environment and while sometimes I think they drag on a bit too long, generally you've done a great job.

The characters have been portrayed very well and its been fun to see them develop as the story progresses. Your tweaked interpretations on some like Konan and of course Naruto, have been especially good. The only one I don't particularly like is Itachi. I can't bring myself to think of him so differently as he is here and much prefer his silent stoic cruelty and the dutiful shinobi persona of his, like the first Naruto clone. Other than that though, I think everyone else has been handled well.

The plot to me personally has been the weakest aspect of the fic.

The pacing has been really weird. The slow start focusing heavily on Katsuro and Sakura's initial relationship and how it changed them was well done and properly introduced us to what the characters were like in this story. Then the subsequent happy moments when they meet again and continue doing so with the slowly building tension as Sakura starts being targeted were also great. But the betrayal moment at the girl's house felt slightly rushed. I wish there had been some more talking there or even introspection in or after the heat of the moment, especially from Katsuro's side. Sakura has the feeling of sudden betrayal and then has to deal with consequences of the girl and her own loss but Katsuro's feelings about the apparent betrayal weren't explored very much during or after the incident, instead just being glossed over for feelings of protecting Sakura by staying away from her. Feelings of guilt at the outcome or justification to himself for his actions and his involvement could have helped the betrayal feel more impactful and given more depth to his motivations.

The timeskip forward to Team 7 getting their A ranked mission is where the pacing starts feeling noticeably bumpy to me. Obviously Team 7 had spent a lot of time together further developing their relationships and, with Sasuke warming up a bit, they had become much better friends. But the move to a romantic relationship between Sakura and Sasuke seemed to come out of nowhere, especially since it seemed like you were just setting up Sasuke to be just a really close friend of Sakura's after the initial years of hostility. One part of this is because the relationship between Katsuro and Sakuro was built slowly and deliberately in detail over all the previous chapters whereas Sasuke seemed to have his turnaround from almost outright hostility to romance in just a couple of chapters. I don't mind the relationship itself, since love triangles are undoubtedly a good source of conflict, just the pace at which it happened on screen and how artificial it seemed, especially with the scene of Katsuro seeing them. That scene came straight up out of nowhere and felt really forced, especially since its such an important scene in its role as part of the catalyst for Katsuro's change into Naruto. I also wish his feelings about the sight had been more complex than they were. Rather than just jealousy and betrayal, a component of guilt at his own part and actions which ended up in her almost dying would have been great. He's never shown to acknowledge his actions and try to understand how Sakura must have felt after the fire which ends up making him look really shallow as a character.

The next arc of Katsuro slowly coming to want to join the Akatsuki was once again done well. It resembles the initial chapters in its role as one continuous journey, like that of Sakura's time in captivity and her development, which I think both works well and you manage to do well. The chapters with multiple disjointed moments being told one by one has a bit of a jarring effect and to me are much weaker chapters. The descent into insanity Katsuro experiences before finally turning to Naruto was interesting but felt a bit too long since the rest of the arc was faster paced and ends in the very slow build up of that chapter.

The last 4 chapters have been a weird in that they have been really interesting in exploring Konoha and Sakura's place in it, but also being the type of disjointed chapters which I don't particularly like. The type being the mainly character focused chapters whereas the chapters where the plot is involved and still the characters are being developed come off as much stronger overall, such as when Sakura and Katsuro were having their meetings yet the alliances of Konoha and Akatsuki were both also simultaneously developing, which were also disjointed chapters but still worked. Of course I'm not saying the plot isn't involved at all here, which would be blatantly wrong considering the exploration into the Uchihas and the traditions of both the Senjus and civilians are shown, but just not with direct relevance.

Now to finish this mess of a review. I'll say that while there are flaws here from my perspective, its still a very well done piece of work and all my criticism of pace and plot must be taken into account in the context of this being fanfiction and just a passion project. I hope I got my points across fairly clearly if not concisely and didn't repeat myself too much. Thank you for writing this and hope to see more soon.

This is really shaping up to be better than I expected.

Always love your chapters and your notes. And really starting to feel there will be an importance to some of the spiritual things from the capter before. I really want to see more from the canon team 7. Who knwos what will happen next? Good day to you!

Bruh idk what’s going on here and I don’t want to drop the story yet but where’s Naruto?

Love the chapter notes

So sweetttttt noice

Noiceee

Narusaku Bonds for the win

Noice

Love it, you a genius writer brotha