^back when itachi told sasuke he had to kill his closest friend, sasuke and naruto were not friends. sasuke probably didn't even even know naruto existed. there's no way itachi could have seen that coming. he probably assumed it would be an akamichi or an aburame or someone who could have easily been swept under the carpet and not given sasuke away as a murderer

More likely it was Itachi's back-handed/reverse psychological way of telling Sasuke to get a friend. Or, it was his way of making sure Sasuke (who was always deemed to be very emotional) didn't have the guts to kill his friend. As Hunter said, the whole 'kill your best friend' thing is somewhat fake. It can work that way, but it can also work in quite a variety of other ways. Consequently, we have to look at what Itachi hoped to accomplish by telling Sasuke to kill his friend, rather than treating the information as a true maxim for attaining the MS.

The first problem is easy, killing your best friend really is a good way to obtain the MS particulary since this story is all about bromance but killing your mother would probably work too if you loved her enough because the real trigger is the resulting emotion and its effect on an Uchiha's chakra and brain.
The second is even simpler : Itachi's character is a ridiculous mess and his actions are laughable in insight.

I really liked the Obito flash-back we had a while back, and I'm really liking this one too.

Kishi wrote too many flash-backs, he's broken! :p

Sadly, we still have at least one more mini-flashback before the end (Kakashi's concerning Rin), and potentially two if Kishimoto wants to force something with the Sage in there somewhere.

The end? You mean the end of this arc?

The end of this arc is undoubtedly the end of the series. While Kishimoto's words have never been too exact or precise in their timeline, he has indicated for the past year that the manga is reaching its end. Undoubtedly that means he has a year or more to go, but the likelihood of a Part 3 has been dwindling for quite some time.

i think that's doubtful

I know. I've been saying that MS was caused by extreme emotions since i started posting here. and was laughed at constantly. until it was proven correct of course;)

The evolution of the Sharingan through strong emotion has been a basic assumption since pretty much forever, we already had discussion about it back in 2004. If you're correct in your assessment that people are laughing at you constantly then it might be for others reasons.

^lol

The arc after this doesn't necessarily have to be as long as this one.

What would this new arc entail?
The current story arc is tying up all the loose ends of the plot (namely Madara, Tobi, Juubi and Sasuke). Once that's done there is nothing to talk about except for a short conclusion.
Well as long as Naruto doesn't find out that he is actually an extra-terrestrial that is.

In terms of plot there really isn't that much left. That's not to say that Kishimoto couldn't produce some sort of lackluster story (foreign continents?), but there really isn't any narrative left and the characters really won't change much after this war.

I was hoping for pan-dimensional.

When was it proven correct? Tobirama hardly counts for a valid source of information on MS...the guy thinks the entire clan is a cursed clan based on them killing each other which is no different than any other clans really...

Tobirama would be a valid source of information since it's obviously the author giving information through him but he never talked about the MS in the first place.

\
Whether or not the author is using Tobirama as a factual source for sharingan doesn't change that Tobirama is still speculating...not valid at all..

It wouldn't cover anything we don't already know. Just resolution. After the war is over, there is still Sasuke and his newfound knowledge to deal with. I doubt it'll be long. Of course I might be wrong and the war will be even longer than I'm hoping it'll be. When I said it wouldn't be a long arc, I meant that it really wouldn't be a long arc. Sorry if I was unclear.

I would prefer to have them from another continent, until now we have only one continent and some small islands around it. If the Uzumaki were sent to colonize it but the sage of 6 paths who was the Uzumaki's leader rebelled against that order and...
:D

I have to say that i like this manga enough to actually accept such a turn of events instead of ending it :) Sure it would have a very different taste, similarly to how DBZ was very different from DB. Despite they were different i still found DBZ enjoyable.

Considering how well they seem to get along, why does Hashirama believe that the desire for peace is the only thing that he and Madara have in common?

yes, there are other reasons. like when i said tobi would be a mixture of obito and zetsu and that he and kakashi both use kamui and would have the same MS design...

according to chap 314 shinobi train at the fire temple to learn some cool "enlightenment" power. if the author chooses to keep this info relevant (and i hope he does), perhaps hashirama trains here to learn all that sage stuff...is there really a break next week?