The flow of the focus has changed at times for sure, I mean back in volume 66 we has a small time of a split focus with the allaince and edo Kages vs the ten tails while the other was obito and Kakashi in the Kamui dimension. However after we went away from that after a while only to get a comeback that obito and Kakashi were still fighting in genjutsu, then they really fought, obito was wounded, left, obito attempted to use rinne tensei then jubbito was born, while it took like 20 or so more chapters before Kakashi returned. He was left out of that fight and returned once obito lay on the ground exhausted from extraction. All the while we had the jubbito fight it was the only focus with the stuff like healing tsunade and company was a short side task while Madara and hashirama just stayed having their own fight offscreen which we got a peak at every couple chapters.
This time, it's really not clear, I mean maybe we get more on Sasuke and Madara, maybe we focus on gaara and naruto wherever gaara is taking him. I mean for anything else,new get the idea of any naruto, Sasuke, hashirama, Madara related stuff, it's old, it really just enforces the whole concept of parallels even more than the pairing parallel stuff. Really just going on the this, it's true Kishi used some parallelism themes in his story between characters. Seriously the way he uses naruto and Sasuke like hashirama and madaras is just like from avatar the last airbender with aang and zuko being parallel to roku and sozin yet the stories of both are inverted, roku and sozin began as friends but later became opposed to each other and sozin let roku die so he could spread the fire nation. Aang and zuko began as enemies but had purpose to do what their ancestors didn't or should have. Aang stopped the war and world from falling into chaos, zuko allied with aang rather than capture him though it took a good 50 episodes for that to happen.
In anycase, its really an open book for the next chapter when we see Kishi throw sudden new developments in. I mean some stuff we knew of before 661 was foreshadowed stuff like sakura not trusting Sasuke, Sasuke vowing to end naruto, madaras trump card (which was black zetsu waiting until obito was immobilized to use rinne tensei) etc.
Then we get the whole new hashirama plan from Sasuke, I'm suprised Kishi went the extraction route, I mean most of us were honestly expecting a quick sussano arrow to save naruto or at least try in some case, rather he was tending to his hawk and got special stuff from hashirama.
I really wouldn't be suprised if next chapter starts with the focus in Madara but midway it shifts to naruto and gaara.
Really the one thing to keep in mind though is until naruto starts his comeback, we don't need to count out the possibility of a ns moment, really we could go 4 or more chapters all on Sasuke and Madara before we see where gaara lands, our ns moment really just depends on where gaara lands, if it's minato and Kakashi, then it's not likely, if it's at the hillside with the allaince wounded, it's practically high, otherwise that destination could be something new altogether (something unforeseen gaara may do just cause kurama told him too?) really if 661 should make us learn anything by now, or any naruto fan, it's that Kishi will throw a few new minor developments, I mean he threw the uzumaki stamina and ten tails jinchurki doesn't die from extraction in as a means to keep naruto alive in the event he ever chose to do naruto losing kurama (as he did, back in 2005 or 2006 whenever the kazekage rescue arc was going on, Kishi most likely didn't think this far ahead at the time, so cases as the time went on, first all jinchurki were suited to death by extraction. For the ten tails storyline, he brought in the uzumaki stamina so in case things went that way, he was able to keep naruto alive. Then came the fact he wanted to show the ten tails but not leave it as some untouched element so he made the gold and silver brothers and made it so as long as a fair portion of the tailed beasts energy was in the gedo mazu it would work (seems cheap but it's somewhat acceptable many series did stuff like this before, not perfect conditions for the villains plan to occur but it's still effective and needs to be stopped) then obviously the front runner rule came in again, with obito losing the tailed beasts, we all assumed he would die, rather most fans assumed removing 7 tailed beasts would be overkill in the real sense, rather obito as a major villian or rather character at this point, he couldn't just be killed off, he needed to stay, otherwise there was some notion he would live given the story of the sage separating the body and chakra of the ten tails so there was a moderate basis for this story element for obito to survive the extraction.
But as I said, some minor elements are bound to come up, it's nothing surprising at this point for Kishi to throw in new sudden stuff.
Edited by Inferno180, 21 January 2014 - 09:29 PM.