The second part of our Naruto: Remastered series is here! The first part of our series was a little bit tamer in our changes, largely focused on making improvements to Sakura’s character arc before the time skip, as well as bringing in the rest of the Konoha 9 genin in a new arc of their own to help give them some time to shine before introducing the rest of the cast in the Chunin Exams. In part 2, we will be making bolder plot changes, moving events around to better fit the narrative, and creating some more moments that highlight the rest of our supporting cast some more. Part 2 was a lot of fun to write, so let’s get started, and I hope you like it!
Kazekage Rescue
The Kazekage Rescue arc is pretty great starting point as after the time skip, catching us up on what’s been happening in the Hidden Leaf village while Naruto was training and immediately legitimizing the Akatsuki threat by having Deidara capture Gaara. However, this arc also feels pretty crowded with what I assume to editor’s notes with a lot of characters being involved that don’t have much of a reason to be there, namely Team Guy, Itachi, and Kisame. It’s almost like Shonen told Kishimoto that he has to include the top ten characters from the popularity poll in this arc to get the audience reinvested after the break. So, we’re going to cut everything from this arc involving the itachi and Kisame clones and Team Guy fighting their own clones from the story. But don’t worry, we’ll still have another Team Guy and Kisame encounter later in the story.
Maybe counterintuitive to that line of thought, however, we are going to add Shikamaru to the journey to the Hidden Sand village with Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto. Given his relationship with Temari, he adds value to the arc by building on that relationship some more, and I don’t think many fans will argue against more screen time with one of the most popular couples in Naruto. Next, we’re going to have Baki follow Kankuro as he pursues Sasori and Deidara, and have Sasori kill Baki, having Baki take the brunt of Sasori’s fatal blow while trying to protect Kankuro. In his dying moments, we get a flashback to Baki getting assigned by the Fourth Kazekage to be the sensei for his children, entrusting him to protect and mentor them where he could not and then scenes where he reflects on his relationship with Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara before finally seeing Gaara overcome his past trauma to become Kazekage. We’re killing Baki off here for a few reasons: 1) justice for Hayate Gekko, and 2) more seriously, this moment doubles down on the lethality of the Akatsuki while simultaneously developing the relationship between the Sand siblings and their mentor in a way that was never done in the original. So it’s Baki’s sacrifice along with Sakura’s improved healing skills from her training that are able to save Kankuro. As Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, and Granny Chiyo head off to save Gaara, Temari has to stay behind to be the one to preserve peace in the Sand, along with Shikamaru as a delegate of the leaf. While the battles with Deidara and Sasori are going on, Temari has to convince the village elders that they cannot elect a new Kazekage showcasing her leadership and dedication to her brother, Gaara. Shikamaru levies a threat that if the Hidden Sand tries to elect a new Kazekage before Gaara is confirmed to be dead, the Hidden Leaf will consider this a coup d’etat against the current regime and will respond in kind. I think these scenes will add some appreciated complexity and political intrigue that builds upon other times that Naruto has successfully introduced similar ideas throughout the course of the story. Of course, we’ll also add some scenes with Shikamaru comforting Temari about the loss of her sensei because we know what happens to Shikamaru’s sensei later and shared trauma is shonen anime couple goals.
Our last change to this arc is possibly the most significant; I wouldn’t have Sasori killed in this arc. I think it’s too early to show that the Akatsuki has any weakness or vulnerability, and it’s a shame that we did not get more between Sasori and Kakashi given the shared history between their parents. I would have Sakura and Chiyo’s fight end shortly after Sasori reveal his true form. I would have Sakura use genjutsu along with Chiyo’s assistance during the fight to draw in close to Sasori and try to land the finishing blow before being sent flying by exploding clay from an escaping Deidara. Deidara realized that they were both to weakened from the jinchuriki sealing ritual to try and capture the Nine-Tails, mentioning that Naruto had inured Kakashi while in his two-tailed form (these injuries to Kakashi will be the reason he could not join the Tenchi Bridge mission in our remastered version instead of overuse of his Kamui). Sasori, respecting that Sakura may have been able to kill him if it were not for Deidara’s interference, tells Sakura of the meeting at Tenchi Bridge with his spy, hoping that they might kill Orochimaru for him and suspecting that his spy had likely been found out by now anyway. Now I know some people might think taking this win away from Sakura is counterproductive to the great development we did in part 1, but for now I just ask you to trust that we will give Sakura her rematch later on in the story.
Tenchi Bridge
The first thing we have to address is Sai’s characterization and mission. I think he is an interesting character to introduce us to Danzo and his schemes to secretly control the leaf, but then Sai sort of just gets dropped from that storyline. I would showcase throughout Sai’s backstory the personal relationship he has with Danzo more, how Danzo cruelly taught Sai that his duty to the Hidden Leaf supersedes any personal relationships and even the people of the Leaf, including the one with his brother, basically an ideology opposite to the Will of Fire that Naruto stands for. Sai’s mission from Danzo is to trade Naruto, who Danzo sees as dangerous to the existence of the Hidden Leaf village, for Sasuke’s Sharingan, foreshadowing Danzo’s past involvement with the Uchiha. After they capture him outside of Orochimaru’s hideout, I would also have Yamato reveal to Sai that he knew about Sai’s mission as he was also a former Root agent whose emotions were stripped away by Danzo but that forming bonds with his comrades allowed him to be his own person again. After Naruto and Sakura try to connect with Sai through the half-finished drawing of he and his brother’s journey, Sai escapes with a captive Naruto, seemingly still dedicated to his mission. At Orochimaru’s hideout, Sai appears to hand Naruto over to Kabuto, only to be revealed to be a trick that he and Naruto pulled to launch a surprise attack on Kabuto, with Sai choosing the bonds with his new comrades over his mission. Yamato and Sakura soon join the fight against a genetically modified Kabuto, who is now able to use sound based jutsu like Zaku, Kin, and Dosu, with the fight largely settling into a stalemate.
Meanwhile, our other major change of the arc will be to have Sasuke to go ahead and kill Orochimaru here. I think it makes more sense to go ahead and pull the trigger now and start Sasuke off on his own journey earlier in the story instead of happening later in the story. After the battle on the Tenchi Bridge, Orochimaru would tell Sasuke and Kabuto that the battle with Naruto’s four-tailed form caused his current body to deteriorate more quickly, and that he would have to take Sasuke’s body earlier, clearly never intending to honor Danzo’s deal for the Sharingan. Like in canon, Sasuke would seemingly acquiesce to Orochimaru taking his body before turning on him so that he can pursue his revenge for himself. The battle would go the same as well with the only change is more foreshadowing with Orochimaru pleading with Sasuke that he needs his Sharingan to unlock the secrets of jutsu before Sasuke mercilessly kills him. Sasuke would then interrupt the other battle with Kabuto to them that he had just killed Orochimaru and had severed his bonds with Naruto and Sakura as well before trying to kill them all with a giant Fireball Jutsu that destroys the base, only being saved because of Yamato’s Wood Style jutsu. Sasuke escapes, Kabuto disappears as well, and the Leaf shinobi return to the village with Sai agreeing to be Tsunade’s double agent and report on Danzo’s plans. We would finish this arc with Sasuke recruiting the members of Taka, again the same as he does originally but introducing them earlier in the story.
Akatsuki Suppression Mission
This might be my favorite arc in Naruto, so my only changes here are mostly nitpicky details. I would have Kakuzu and HIdan mention that they are going after bounties now is because they had finished capturing their assigned jinchuriki, showing a flashback of them capturing the Seven-Tails jinchuriki, Fu, along with the Two-Tails jinchuriki, Yugito, that the Akatsuki just finished sealing before they head off to collect on Chirizu’s bounty. Next, I would include that Hidan’s ritual only makes him truly immortal for a few weeks. While Shikamaru’s poetic justice of keeping him buried alive for eternity is great, I selfishly want to use Hidan during the war arc for another character’s revenge, so it works better for our version if he’s killed off after spending a few weeks six feet under. Lastly, just have Naruto’s Rasenshuriken kill Kakuzu instead of Kakashi having to finish the job. I get that Shonen wants ~some~ of their heroes to have clean records, but given that Kakuzu was a heart-stealing, bloodthirsty monster, I don’t think anyone is taking hero points from Naruto while he shows off how strong his new attack is. Plus this helps Naruto beat his Talk-No-Jutsu reputation a little bit.
Itachi Pursuit Mission
Part two of our Naruto: Remastered series culminates with the Itachi Pursuit Mission arc, an arc that has undergone a major facelift in our version given some of the changes that we have already made. First off, because we didn’t kill Sasori early, there is no reason to introduce the “Tobi” persona to partner with Deidara. Tobi was a pretty divisive character upon his introduction and even in hindsight, with his comedic value largely being hit or miss for most fans. I also think introducing Obito as Tobi early takes away from him pretending to be Madara later, especially for many fans who had correctly deduced Tobi’s real identity as soon as Kakashi’s flashback side story was given to us. So while we will tease Obito during this arc, we won’t do the full reveal until the next part of our series. The second part that retroactively changes this part of the story a little bit is that Sasuke has already killed Orochimaru, which was the original signal to the Hidden Leaf that Sasuke must be going after his brother now. This change will result in us shifting the motivation and beginning of this arc a little bit to suit our current narrative. Lastly, we’ll be twisting some other plot details to give some shine to the rest of our Hidden Leaf cast who has been on the sidelines so far.
So, we’ll start off this arc with Sasori and Deidara defeating the Five-Tails Jinchuriki, Han, before sealing them off with the rest of the Akatsuki. Pain would give the Akatsuki a status report, that they had captured every jinchuriki except the Four-Tails, Six-Tails, Eight-Tails, and Nine-Tails while mentioning that the Four-Tails is assigned to Kisame for capture, the Six-Tails is assigned to Konan, the Eight-Tails is assigned to himself, and the Nine-Tails is assigned to Itachi. Sasori mentions to Kisame and Itachi that while they were fighting the Five-Tails, he was able to extract where the Four-Tails Jinchuriki might be (as Han and Roshi were both from the Hidden Stone village), much to the chagrin of Deidara who was hoping to upstage Itachi and Kisame by capturing their target. Pain orders Kisame and Itachi to capture the Four-Tails now while also noting that Konan had located the Six-Tails as well before telling Sasori and Deidara to remain on standby as they can’t afford another careless loss like Hidan and Kakuzu, further annoying Deidara. After the other Akatsuki depart, a man in shadows (Obito) appears and informs Pain that he shall have a visitor soon (Jiraiya). The battle with Kisame and the Four-Tails Jinchuriki, Roshi, levels much of the surrounding landscape, with an anbu identifying them as Itachi and Kisame of the Akatsuki and alerting Danzo, which Sai overhears and informs the Hokage. Lady Tsunade sends word to a nearby Team Guy to pursue the Akatsuki members and gather intel on their sealing ritual; meanwhile, Sasuke and the rest of Taka also get word of Itachi’s location thanks to the battle and pursue Itachi as well. Zetsu, who had been spying on Sasuke, informs Pain who orders Sasori and Deidara to hold off the Leaf and Sasuke’s group while the rest of the Aktasuki seal away the recently captured Four-Tails and Six-Tails, as a returning Konan arrives with her target. Naruto and Sakura implores Tsunade to let them go after Sasuke, predicting that he will go after Itachi as well, and the Hokage acquiesces, sending Kakashi leading the tracking team of Kiba, Hinata, and Shino (as Kurenai is still pregnant) with Yamato leading Naruto, Sakura, and Sai as support. Danzo gives Yamato and Sai the task of eliminating Sasuke and discreetly stealing his Sharingan, which they report to Tsunade before departing on the mission.
Deidara and Sasori cut off Sasuke and Naruto’s groups respectively. The Deidara and Taka fight pretty much goes as it did in canon, just minus the parts with Tobi. Hinata spots Sasori’s surprise attack with her Byakugan and warns the group. Sasori begins battle with the whole group using his 100 puppet jutsu, but Kakashi, Sakura, Sai, and Shino decide to stay behind and fight Sasori so that Naruto, Hinata, Kiba, and Yamato don’t lose Sasuke’s trail. As they fight, Sasori tells Kakashi he should want revenge on him since it was his father, Sakumo Hatake, that killed his parents which prompts us into some flashbacks. In the flashbacks, we would learn that Sakumo Hatake’s last mission with his team was to provide information about an ambush to the Hidden Sand, but when they were captured by the enemy, Sakumo decided to save his allies rather than complete the mission which led to Sasori’s parents being killed in the ambush and also the animosity between the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Sand at the start of the story. After Sakumo committed suicide because of how the villagers and those he saved vilified him over the failed mission, we get the abridged version of Kakashi’s side story as we did in the anime, seeing how his father’s death affected his belief that the rules come before allies before Obito’s apparent death gives Kakashi new resolve to never abandon his friends. As Kakashi and Sasori fight, Sasori questions why Kakashi hasn’t given up on Sasuke, to which Kakashi would reply with his iconic quote about while those who break the rules are scum, those who abandon their friends are worse than scum, so he will never abandon his students. As the fight nears the end, Sasori summons a number of identical puppets to his original body to attack the Leaf ninja, saying that cherishing people that leave you is pointless, and the only way to ensure people’s memories remain permanent are through his puppet art. After Sasori targets Sakura, Kakashi is taken down by Sasori’s poison while Shino makes it seem like he was taken out by the poison, when in reality his insects had created a neutralizing toxin while he sends beetles to find the real Sasori, noticing that the flow of his chakra was different than the puppets he controlled. After Shino communicates this, Sai launches an attack at the real Sasori who blocks it, but Sai’s real goal was to manipulate his ink jutsu into Sasori’s joints, leaving him vulnerable for Sakura’s chakra infused punch. Sakura tells the broken, dying Sasori that the connections we make with others and how we choose to remember them that make shinobi alive, causing Sasori to imagine reaching out to his parents and Granny Chiyo upon his death. Sakura begins to work on curing Kakashi of Sasori’s poison, with Kakashi telling her that they should push forward and finish the mission, but Sakura just retorts that her sensei should listen to his own advice sometimes, referring to his quote on not abandoning friends. I really enjoyed writing this fight, building on an interesting villain in Sasori and his existing relationship with one of the main characters, while also building on the backstory of a mysterious character like Kakashi’s father and how that affected Kakashi’s relationship with his students.
Meanwhile, Team Guy finds where Kisame and Itachi are sealing the jinchuriki. Neji notices with his Byakugan that the Kisame and Itachi they see are actually water clones before Kisame launches a water wave at the Leaf ninja, revealing that they had already finished the jinchuriki sealing and had prepared an ambush. Zetsu arrives to tell Itachi that both his brother and Naruto were nearby, so Itachi leaves to go capture Naruto and the Nine-Tails. Rock Lee tries to chase after Itachi, but Kisame cuts him off with a slash from his sword which Guy blocks. Team Guy engages Kisame with Lee, Guy, and Neji struggling to find an opening close range thanks to Kisame’s Samehada while Tenten uses long-range ninja tools to try and break through Kisame’s defenses. Rock Lee opens up the fourth gate, but is surprised to see that Kisame is able to keep up with. Still Lee’s speed creates an opening for Neji to use gentle fist to seal off some Kisame’s chakra points. Kisame surprises Lee and Neji with a close range water shark jutsu, however, reveals that even without access to all of his chakra, he still has more chakra than the four of them combined which is why they call him the tailed beast without a tail. Having injured Lee and Neji, Kisame goes in for the kill, only for Tenten to use her ninja tool to steal his sword from him, but she is surprised when Samehada attacks her, with Kisame telling her that Samehada can only be wielded by someone whose chakra it likes. As Kisame unleashes a large water wave filled with water sharks, Might Guy releases the sixth gate to save his students, using Morning Peacock to evaporate the sharks and seemingly defeat Kisame. See I told you I would make up for cutting that fight earlier! Itachi finds Naruto’s group before they can reach where Sasuke and Taka are resting after their battle, and he separates Naruto from the rest of his group by using shadow clones and genjutsu. While they are alone, Itachi asks Naruto why he cares so much about his brother like he did in the original story and hides Shisui’s genjutsu inside of Naruto here as well. Hinata, using her genjutsu, is able to locate Naruto, so Yamato, Kiba, and Akamaru launch a surprise attack on Itachi who reveals this was another one of his genjutu illusions. Itachi seems to notice something in the distance and departs, seemingly taunting Naruto by saying that he’ll see his brother soon. Back at the other battle, Kisame reveals that he survived Guy’s attack. Both opponents resolve that they would have to step up their game if they were going to kill each other, but then Itachi arrives and tells Kisame it’s time to go, with Kisame noticing that the corner of Itachi’s eye was bleeding. The Akatsuki retreat, and Guy decides get his injured students back to the village rather than pursue two high level enemies. Anbu then arrive at each of the Hidden Leaf ninjas locations to tell them that Lady Tsunade has ordered them to return to the village, only foreshadowing that the Hokage has terrible news for them (see Jiraiya the Gallant - which in our timeline will be happening concurrently with the current battles but would still be the next arc that the audience would see).
As the above battles are going on, Tsunade has called Danzo to her office so that she can confront him on his dealings behind her back. Danzo only says that he is ensuring the protection of the Leaf and its assets from the foolish ideals of Hokages current and past. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Toad Fukasaku with Jiraiya’s last message, cutting from the grieving Tsunade reading the message to ordering Danzo to send Anbu to tell all Leaf shinobi to return to the village. After the Leaf Shinobi retreat, Kabuto arrives at Taka’s location, telling them he knows where Itachi is going and only wants to help his master’s successor one last time. Sasuke accepts the information, but sends Kabuto away, but not before Kabuto secretly awakens Orochimaru’s consciousness within Sasuke’s curse mark, thinking to himself that this should help tie up loose ends before the next stage of his plans. I really like including this scene because from this stage forward, we’ll be positioning Kabuto as an equally cunning villain in the endgame of the story with his own motivations. On the way, they are intercepted by Kisame who tells them that only Sasuke can continue forward, which Suigetsu says is fine with him as he wants Kisame’s Samehada. Suigetsu launches at Kisame with Zabuza’s Executioner Blade, telling Jugo and Karin not to get involved while Sasuke presses onward to Itachi. Kisame recognizes Suigetsu’s abilities and asks about his borhter, and we get Suigetsu’s backstory growing up and wanting to become a member of the Seven Swordsman like his brother, but then his brother was betrayed by the seven swordsmen who fled the village as rogue ninja. Suigetsu tells Kisame that he planned to kill each of the ninja that betrayed his brother and take the weapons they no longer deserved before he was captured by Orochimaru. Suigetsu says even though the others died before he could get to them, he’s glad that he followed Sasuke to one of the unworthy bastards. Kisame eventually defeats Suigetsu however. A raging Jugo charges in to fight against Kisame while Karin tries to drain his chakra, but Kisame proves too strong for them both, seemingly killing off Taka in one fell swoop before cutting away (Taka will return in Aveng.. I mean Naruto: Remastered Part 3). Then, we would go ahead and finish out this arc with the fated battle between Sasuke and Itachi, instead of waiting until after the Tale of Jiraiya the Gallant before continuing Sasuke’s revenge story, of course keeping the battle between brothers the same as it was since it’s one of the best battles in Naruto. The only change would be that Orochimaru’s consciousness was only awakened thanks to Kabuto and chose to appear and take over Sasuke once he was out of chakra, with a furious Itachi finishing Orochimaru by sealing him in the World of Chakra with the Totsuka Sword (the Chakra World is a key term that will come up later, but basically just think of it as our version of the Shadow Realm from Yugioh for now). The last thing that we see for this arc is a man in Akatsuki robes (Obito) carrying an unconscious Sasuke away from the battle, saving the reveal about Itachi’s true nature for after the Invasion of Pain for a bit of a better narrative flow. You don’t want to fully reveal the hidden boss before you’ve defeated the current boss you know!
But that’s it for the second part of our Naruto: Remastered, hope you’re enjoying everything so far! Let me know in the comments if what changes to the story you like and what you might do differently. We’ve got more to this series coming, so make sure you subscribe so that you can keep up with our story!