By the time Tsunade and Jiraiya finished their brief conversation, they discovered that Sasuke had already pinned Naruto to the ground with his arm twisted behind his back.
Naruto was still shouting his refusal to admit defeat, his face bright red, but it looked more like impotent rage.
While Tsunade and Jiraiya were away, Naruto had been unable to resist provoking Sasuke again.
As far as Naruto was concerned, his current strength was already far beyond what it had once been.
If he could defeat Sasuke, perhaps he could make Sasuke realize his "mistake" and return to Konoha with him.
He might even win Sakura's favor that way!
But while Naruto's idea was nice, reality was harsh.
His strength had kept improving over these months of training, but had Sasuke simply been standing still?
So when Naruto, embarrassed and angry after failing to gain any advantage with his words, threw a punch at Sasuke, Sasuke merely dodged slightly, tripped him, and twisted his arm behind his back to pin him to the ground.
At that moment, their Taijutsu was not even on the same level!
Sasuke might have taken a terrible beating every time he trained in Taijutsu, leaving his pride on the verge of exploding.
But the results were also extremely clear!
Every day, Shinji and Hidan sparred with Sasuke (itching for a fight), and occasionally Tobi joined in too. That sort of tempering was nothing Naruto could match while following Jiraiya around gathering inspiration.
That was not to say Jiraiya did not know how to teach his students.
Quite the opposite: the one who truly did not know how to teach students was actually Shinji himself.
But one kind was...
But one kind was by the time Tsunade and Jiraiya finished their brief conversation, they discovered that Sasuke