Kishimoto didn't waste any time blowing our minds: there is at least one other sharingan user other than Sasuke (and other than Sarada, who hasn't manifested it yet) and the person pulling the sharingan user's strings is cloaked in an Akatsuki uniform.  Shit. The balance that Kishimoto is already starting to strike with these chapters is impressive.  The interactions with kids have all the charm of the original pre-time-skip Naruto series and now we get to see our favorite characters playing all the grown-up roles that used to be reserved for guys like Jiraiya and Kakashi.  On top of all that, he's bringing back Orochimaru into the fold to see if he has anything to do with the mysterious sharingan user, and let's be serious: we all want more Orochimaru.  He was probably the best villain in the series and if I was disappointed with any aspects of the series' end, it was how Orochimaru just kind of acquiesced to what the good guys were doing.

My gut is telling me that the person cloaked in the Akatsuki uniform is one of the Taka: either Jugo, Karin, or Suigetsu.  It was unclear at the end of Naruto what kind of plans Suigetsu and Jugo stumbled into when they found one of Orochimaru's lairs.  It could be the case that they saw his plans to resurrect the Hokage again, but that was never explicitly said.  Unless I'm forgetting how they finished off that plot point, it could be that one of the Taka discovered plans to manufacture more sharingan users, which is something Orochimaru obviously had interest in since his life's obsession was arguably the greatest sharingan user of all-time, Itachi.  The Taka are also completely unaccounted for at the moment, and the presence of one of its members would tie directly to Sarada's search for Karin, who she believes to be her real mom.

It looks like next week Naruto is going to talk to Orochimaru: you have no idea how much I cannot wait for that.

Score: 4/5

Naruto 700+2 Writer/Artist: Masashi Kishimoto Publisher: Viz Media (via Weekly Shonen Jump 24)