A few episodes later, Naruto appears again. He continues his training but still fails, his clones are blown out by the overcharge and fatigue. The rain that started around the time of Asuma's death also reaches the training ground. Naruto falls to the grass, so Kakashi tries to comfort him. He keeps trying but soon some of his clones start tranforming in the cloaked Fox, so Yamato intervenes several times. Naruto eventually feels surrendered and falls again. A raindrop falls over his headband, and Naruto somehow remembers his last encounter with Sasuke. He gets up and confides his doubts in Kakashi, who notices he's not his usual self, he is like a bit depressed. One could say that he felt something bad happened. While he talks to his sensei, Sakura remains watching from the woods, even despite the rain. Sai comes with an ink umbrella, and asks how it goes. She knows that is hard to modify the chakra's nature and shape at the same time, so she thinks it's hard for Naruto, he never has been a good student. She looks as hopeless as he is, and thinks it might be impossible (looks like Naruto's depression has gotten into her). Sai, who was more optimistic, suddenly decides to switch. He tells that Naruto is too dumb to think he can suceed on this training, he's wasting time while others in the village are trying to stop the Akatsuki. He criticizes him until Sakura can't hide her anger anymore, damages a tree and threatens him. She starts to defend her partner, he may be sometimes a knucklehead childish guy, but he has saved them countless times. He never gives up and every time people expect him to fail, he proves them wrong. That's Naruto Uzumaki. Sai smiles and shows her a book, words reveal the true feelings. He knows now that she trusts Naruto unconditionally, he was testing her. She blushes, and then he leaves, after telling that Naruto is going to make it. She stays with the umbrella and watches her partner, silently telling him to hold on. Naruto tells his sensei that the problem is that he's trying to do two things at the same time, like looking at the left and the right. Kakashi inadvertently gives him an idea: use a clone to see right, and the other one sees to the left. Naruto quickly gets an idea, so he starts using two clones beside himself to produce the wind type chakra in the rasengan. In the meantime, Izumo, Kotetsu and Shikamaru arrive back to tell Tsunade what happened. The rain stopped, and Shikamaru offers to tell the sad news to Kurenai. A quiet Tsunade orders the funerary services and sends them to spread the news. Izumo reaches Yamato, who tell Kakashi and Naruto the stunning news about Asuma's death. This part of the storyline abruptly returned to Naruto's training. Still, it was well done. The rain was the picture surrounding Asuma's death, and sent some kind of sadness to Naruto and Sakura. Anyway, I loved the scene when Sai tested Sakura. He made her switch her speech from negative to optimistic. He knows how much she knows and cares about Naruto, so he doesn't want her feeling down about him. And like the book says, words reveal true feelings. Also, the image of her standing in the rain supporting her partner was really nice. Then, Naruto's idea to make a progress was very simple. But what Kakashi said means that only Naruto has enough chakra to divide such task on two clones. To finish this part, the brief comedy moment at the end with Kakashi was kind of unnecessary.
As for the other side, the Akatsuki are sealing the Nibi from Yugito (how bad, she deserved a better storyline). Hidan is upset, and discuss with the leader, Pain. In the last episode, he mentioned to Kakuzu that one day he'd curse that leader. Turns out that he and Tobi are the most recent members, but he was never really convinced about Akatsuki's goal. Hidan has his own beliefs and goals. So Pain tells him that he's affiliated to the organization, and at the end its goal will allow him to achieve his own goals. The leader explains that their plan involves three parts, first the money, then the war and finally the total control. He says that war is inevitable, no matter the reason (vengeance, money, love, pleasure, beliefs), so they will create an army of mercenaries to the service of the poorest and weakest villages damaged by the war between the biggest countries. They will also use the tailed beasts to control the outcome of the war, and so eventually the five big villages will disappear. At the end, they will dominate the world and all the countries will depend on them. Or this is what I got. Now, this common idea of world dominion given by the enemy is obviously simple. It's logic but simple. But there's a background behind Pain's idea, some reasons that will be showed in a later arc. I guess the Akatsuki's goal could have been in the shadows much longer but at some point the viewer has to know. Still, seems that Orochimaru left because he has his own goals, like Hidan. Orochimaru is more selfish, he doesn't care what happens to the world, he wants immortality and intended to destroy Konoha because he wanted, it was personal. Anyway, the remarkable about Akatsuki is that they're interested in the other villages, at least this involves all Naruto's world. This is why Orochimaru is stepping down as the main villain of the storyline. Naruto's world goes beyond Konoha.
As for the other side, the Akatsuki are sealing the Nibi from Yugito (how bad, she deserved a better storyline). Hidan is upset, and discuss with the leader, Pain. In the last episode, he mentioned to Kakuzu that one day he'd curse that leader. Turns out that he and Tobi are the most recent members, but he was never really convinced about Akatsuki's goal. Hidan has his own beliefs and goals. So Pain tells him that he's affiliated to the organization, and at the end its goal will allow him to achieve his own goals. The leader explains that their plan involves three parts, first the money, then the war and finally the total control. He says that war is inevitable, no matter the reason (vengeance, money, love, pleasure, beliefs), so they will create an army of mercenaries to the service of the poorest and weakest villages damaged by the war between the biggest countries. They will also use the tailed beasts to control the outcome of the war, and so eventually the five big villages will disappear. At the end, they will dominate the world and all the countries will depend on them. Or this is what I got. Now, this common idea of world dominion given by the enemy is obviously simple. It's logic but simple. But there's a background behind Pain's idea, some reasons that will be showed in a later arc. I guess the Akatsuki's goal could have been in the shadows much longer but at some point the viewer has to know. Still, seems that Orochimaru left because he has his own goals, like Hidan. Orochimaru is more selfish, he doesn't care what happens to the world, he wants immortality and intended to destroy Konoha because he wanted, it was personal. Anyway, the remarkable about Akatsuki is that they're interested in the other villages, at least this involves all Naruto's world. This is why Orochimaru is stepping down as the main villain of the storyline. Naruto's world goes beyond Konoha.
