Hiruzen makes an appearance at the funeral that Tsunade doesn’t think is advisable for someone in his condition, but he believes is politically necessary until her position is secure.
Jiraiya delivers Kurenai’s will to Naruto, and Naruto opens her will, in which Kurenai bequeaths most of her possessions to Naruto, telling him to make her home- now his- a safe haven for his squadmates, and telling him how proud she is of him.
At Kurenai’s home, Naruto finds a hidden letter concealed in a hearth stone. It contains a letter from Kurenai in the event of her death, telling him a cautionary tale of her old team. She mentions Kobaru, as well as Inuzuka Nomaru, whom she says is not unlike Kiba, and might have had a chance to grow into a respectable ninja had he lived. The letter, however, mainly is about Mattai.
Kurenai mentions that Mattai was born in a farming village, and brought to the Leaf Vllage after his parents were killed, excelling despite his teammates. Mattai was a taijutsu master, as well as Kurenai’s best friend.
Kurenai’s old team also went on a border patrol mission and encountered some bandits, who might be Rock Ninja hirelings, or Rock Ninjas out of their uniform, with the use of smoke grenades suggesting the latter. The fight seemed hopeless until Mattai activated his Byakugan, enabling himself to avoid a fatal attack, which wasn’t in his blind spot.
Naturally, the village took note of this, and began to investigate how the Byakugan got outside of the Hyuuga clan. The Hyuuga Clan offered to make Mattai a Branch Family member, but this was sabotaged by Hiashi demanding to know how a “peasant” got his hands on a Byakugan, as well as the knowledge that Hizashi had (again, apparently unwillingly) been sacrificed for Hiashi. Eventually, it was determined that there was no precedent to force Mattai to join the clan.
A few months later, on the first mission outside of the village since that battle, tragedy struck. Kurenai held back to adjust her sandal, which saved her life, but enabled her to witness the Family-Unfriendly Death of Kobaru being blown to pieces, as well as Nomaru getting decapitated(one has to wonder, as Nomaru is an Inuzuka, what happened to his dog), and Mattai getting stabbed multiple times.
Kurenai repeats some of her points; she was considered suspicious as the sole survivor, and questioned why so much force was used on a small target. She concludes that the Village Council set up the mission, and were among the few who knew about it. Ibiki warned her that if she went probing without sufficient proof, she would share the fate of her team.
Kurenai is not telling Naruto this in hopes that he’ll continue her quest, but that it’s become relevant to him, suggesting that the conspiracy that killed her friends and the one that is plotting against him are one and the same. Kurenai is greatly relieved that Naruto would not turn against the Leaf Village, which is a good touch considering his attitude.
Kurenai tells Naruto to trust Iruka. She warns Naruto that he might be more vulnerable than she was.
Kurenai then identifies the possible mastermind- none other than Hiashi, who is motivated by a desire to monopolize the Hyuuga’s bloodline. Kurenai, bound by her promise to Hinata, but unable to do more for her, confirms that Hinata’s home life is abusive, and she is determined to keep her away from it as long as possible. Kurenai considers Hiashi a monster, and hopes Naruto will be there for Hinata .
Kurenai then gets to an important point regarding Hinata- she is in love with Naruto, then concludes with an emotional and heartfelt moving paragraph.
It’s good to see Naruto realizing Hinata’s feelings for him, and somewhat justified that Kurenai would include that in the letter (although I have to wonder how that would have gone if Hinata and Kurenai had been killed at the same time). On the other hand, I had hoped that Naruto would eventually discover Hinata’s feelings on his own, or Hinata would grow confident enough to tell him herself.
Naruto’s reactions so far have not been shown, which is somewhat disappointing, but if the story continues, he will have all the time in the world to act on what he knows.
Tsunade is named Fifth Hokage in a subdued affair; not unike how it’s less than a minute at the end of Episode 100, and a panel or two in the manga.
Hiashi arrives, displeased with Kurenai’s arrangement, and questioning how it would work, and hoping to use Hinata as a means of establishing a medical ninja training program, which may lead to her learning medicine in Sakura’s stead. I’ve noticed many fanfics making Hinata a medic-nin, based on her demeanor and chakra control (which is why Shizune selects her for the sealing team in the Three-Tails filler arc, despite her pointing out that she’s the only non-medic nin), but I have to wonder whether that’s necessary, or whether Hinata would benefit from learning Tsunade’s monstrous strength the same way Sakura does.
As Hiashi leaves, Hinata comes out, and talks about the training she has had, crediting Kurenai with most of her improvement. Tsunade tells Hinata to continue what she has if she can, assigning her to work with Shizune and with other teams. Tsunade says that Team 8 has been disbanded with Kurenai’s death, and she has individual solutions for them.
Shibi and Misato discuss the details of Shino’s assignment with Tsunade, and approve of them, with them fine with him not doing missions.
Jiraiya meets with Tsunade and asks for Naruto as an apprentice. Naruto is initially reluctant, but realizes that Team 8 is no more, and they are genin in name only. Jiraiya has a six month extended mission, which he reminds Naruto is the length of Hinata’s service to Tsunade.
Before leaving, Naruto sees Iruka, trying hard not to be seen, and as he meets with Iruka, learns that Iruka bankrupted some of the Hyuuga elders, and acquired some of their businesses in the process.
The former Team 8 meets in Moritake’s the next night, which Shino notices, saying that he wouldn’t have considered it strange when he was less social before, but now finds it uncomfortable, and knows why- Kurenai is dead. Shino admits that he’s having difficulty coming to terms with it.Naruto admits that he’s not happy about being split up, and wants them to be a team again.
Guy approaches Naruto, and, after hearing that Naruto has refused the Toad contract, offers him the Turtle contract instead, finding Naruto better suited to it than any of his students. This is an interesting concept, although I do have to wonder how the instructors would react if they had jutsu that were suited for any genin other than their students. As Naruto waits, he ponders the details of the summoning contract, before stepping through the gate, ending the chapter, and likely what could be considered the fic's equivalent of Part 1.
So, as usual, let's review this chapter
What I Liked
- A decent point at which they can end Part 1.
- Kurenai’s letter to Naruto.
- Team 8’s last interaction
What I didn’t like
- Kurenai telling Naruto about Hinata’s feelings, rather than her doing it herself.
- Hinata becoming a medical ninja.
So that’s it for now. You may have noticed, but when I first posted this, it had been eight months since the last update, and almost three years between when Chapter 21 was posted (January 18, 2011) and Chapter 22 was posted (September 6, 2013). It's now been a year since the last update. The fic has been going for about eight years, nine months and five days as of this writing, and still is not finished yet.
Interestingly enough, Naruto, which itself is quite a long-runner for a shonen manga series, is almost over, and will end by the end of 2014. That says quite a bit about how far the story has come since Team 8 was first released (of course, Masashi Kishimoto is a professional manga artist, while Matthew "S'TarKan" Viridian is a fanfic writer).
I understand things don’t always go as planned, and real life can get in the way, but believe it’s important to be able to stick to one’s plans and update reliably when writing fan fiction. I follow that policy when writing fan fiction and have respect for those who can see a project through to the end; most of my Favorites on Fanfiction Dot Net are for completed stories.
Of course, a large part of me is interested in seeing how things will turn out in the fic, in spite of its flaws. Hinata might be overly self-deprecating and dependent on Naruto, but I look forward to seeing how that changes in the future, and how their relationship goes. I'd like to see whether Naruto can overcome his bitterness and lead the village that once shunned and persecuted him. I'm not fond of the entire "Village Council" plotline, or the demonized Hyuuga clan, but I hope Kurenai's students will uncover the truth behind her team's death and defeat the conspiracy. And while I don't always approve of the author's changes to canon, I'm interested in seeing how the author deals with the story in Part 2.
Here’s some of the things I liked about the fic in general
- Shino. The author did a good job in making him as much part of the team as Naruto and Hinata, and with his own role to play. The author made him interesting without destroying his personality, and expanded his repertoire without changing him entirely.
- The Aburames: The clan as a whole is fairly diverse andinteresting, reflecting a great deal of thought.
- Some of the canon and original fight scenes.
What I didn’t like, in general
- The various schedule slips, which not only mean the fic is slower to come out, but the author is less reliably committed.
- The villains. Orochimaru may be evil enough that he doesn’t need to be modified, but the Hyuuga Clan and Village Council are far more evil and far less interesting than in canon. Also, Itachi seems less interesting if he’s merely power-hungry.
- The Hyuuga clan as a whole. Canonically, it can be concluded that neither the main nor branch families are entirely blameless, but that they can reconcile with each other. The fic throws that out the window, and declares that the Hyuugas are all bad and those who aren’t aren’t true Hyuugas.
- Kurenai. It was good to see her showing kindness to Naruto, but less good to see her suddenly doing a better job than Kakashi.
- Hinata. She became a stronger ninja with more jutsus, but a weaker person who is less confident and more dependent on Naruto, which is not a good trade.
- Team 7. A lot of things were wrong with their portrayal, but two of the main ones that sum it all up are Kakashi being portrayed as incompetent, and them practically being unable to do anything right without Naruto.
- Gratuitous Japanese, particularly 1)Randomly having characters change the honorifics they used on others or lack thereof, 2)Being inconsistent with the show's use of honorifics, 3)Several bizarre choices, such as calling people "(name)-teme" 4)Several blatant mistakes, such as using "Ohayo" at night.
- Taking various liberties with canon by using or creating Fanon, often when doing so does not make sense. Sometimes it's understandable given when it was written, and sometimes, the author should have known better.
All in all, Team 8 has quite a few flaws, more than I previously remembered. But it has a lot of thought and effort in it, even if the resulting decisions aren’t in the right direction. While many parts got on my nerves, many others are enjoyable. Ultimately it did leave an impression on me and get me talking about it, which is an accomplishment for the author. Thank you for the interest, I hope to see you again when and if this fic is updated.
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