Naruto Volume 33 by Masashi Kishimoto

Naruto and his newly reformed Ninja Cell are on a mission to discover the traitor in the Land of Fire and the Leaf Village. Since Sasuke is still missing, he and Sakura have been grouped with Sai, another Shinobi, and put under the the leadership of an Akatsuki ninja named Yamato, who is under the direct leadership of Lady Tsunade, the Hokage of Leaf Village.

Yamato has taken on the appearance and manners of a Shinobi named Sasori, and is meeting with the spy, who is none other than Kabuto, a highly ranked Shinobi. But their supposed "secret meeting" is crashed by none other than Orochimaru himself, and both her and Kabuto appear to know that Yamato isn't Sasori.

But when Orochimaru appears to threaten Sasuke, and tries to kill Yamato, Naruto reacts by throwing himself at Orochimaru, and spontaneously taking on his Ninetails form. He and Orochimaru spar, and even Orochimaru finds himself unable to do much against the concentrated Ki that Naruto's Ninetails form gives him.

Unfortunately, Naruto has manifested another tail, and cannot control himself while he is in his Ninetails form. He attacks without thought, and even turns on Sakura when she tries to calm him down. But the distraction allows Orochimaru to knock him out and Naturo returns to human form. Yamato is able to calm Naruto's NineTails spirit, but only because some of the first Hokage's genetic material was transferred into him at birth. He is not the only child this was tried on, but he is the only survivor of the procedure, and even then, it isn't perfect.

But a surprise defection by Sai leads them to realize that he was a plant from his father, Lord Danzo. Lord Danzo appears to have made a deal with Orochimaru, and they must follow him. Sakura heals Naruto, but is herself injured- some of his NineTails Chi has seeped into her own, injuring her. And Yamato is left to tell Naruto that he injured Sakura, *not* Orochimaru. From now on, Naruto will have to rely only on his own Personal Ki, not that of the Nine-Tailed Fox spirit within him. But can he do so?

A more or less usual story for Naruto, but seeing his Fox-Spirit coming out did send something of a chill down the reader's spine. As much as you want Orochimaru to go down and go down hard, it was scary to see Naruto acting in an animalistic manner and even becoming an animal spirit that to my eyes doesn't look very much like a fox.

You can pretty much tell when reading this story that worse stuff is coming for Naruto and Sakura. At this point, I wonder how much of Sasuke's original personality remains, and whether its even worth going after him. But as we all know, Naruto won't be denied on this point. I just wonder what Sasuke is going to look like and act like from now on. Will he even resemble a human any more?

I'll be here to see, and I will want to read this from my own copy. This is a story well worth hanging on to.