Sasuke left the woods and arrived at the site of Guy and Kisame Hoshigaki's battle. Guy sat alone on the ground, panting. Sasuke approached him and asked, "Guy-sensei, where's Kisame Hoshigaki?"
Guy replied regretfully, "He got away. Damn it, I was so close to catching him! Who knew his huge sword could fuse with his body? Then he unleashed enough chakra to flood the whole area. He's really fast in the water. Anyway, how did your pursuit of Itachi go?"
Sasuke replied, "He got away too. He wouldn't fight me at all, just kept running. There was nothing I could do."
Guy knew that, with Itachi's abilities, virtually no one could stop him from leaving unless they used Space-Time Ninjutsu. "If you couldn't catch him, let it go. Let's head back and report. I wonder how Kakashi's doing." With that, Guy took Sasuke back to Konoha.
Meanwhile, Naruto and Jiraiya arrived in a small town. After booking two rooms, Jiraiya took Naruto to a small bamboo grove behind the inn. Sitting on a large rock, Jiraiya looked at Naruto and said, "Naruto, I told you earlier to work on mastering your ninjutsu, but I haven't explained exactly how you should train. We also need to decide what direction your training should take from now on."
Naruto asked in confusion, "Decide what direction my training should take?"
Jiraiya smiled. "That's right, Naruto. You need to understand that a person only has so much time and energy. You can't master every single ninjutsu to perfection, so you need to set a goal for yourself and decide how you want to train. Take me, for example. My specialties are Summoning Jutsu and Sage Mode. You need to identify your own specialties too, rather than knowing a little of everything but excelling at nothing.