Ten years had come since Madara set up Pain's fall. In that time, Konoha had become the strongest of the great five villages, with Suna being right behind. Though the other villages respected the strength, they never gave up trying to find their own growth jutsu to even the playing field. But the only people who knew how to make them, never revealed these secrets. Madara and Tsunade both kept this information to themselves. Both knew how powerful and dangerous this could make even a tiny country. And neither wanted to upset the balance, well Madara didn't want to yet. He was still waiting for the right moment.

During this ten years, Tsunade retired from the position of Hokage once Team Seven had all become jounin. In her replacement, Tsunade chose Kakashi as the next Hokage. With her free time, Tsunade researched the affects the dust had on the giants. And it wasn't until one conceived a child a few years after the end, did she know what else transformed about the giants. Their sexual organs also transformed. In the human reproduction, men will either give an X or Y chromosome to the X egg. When she was examining the fetus of Asuma and Kurenia in Kurenia's womb, she discovered that the child had a different chakra than what it was meant to have. After many tests, she discovered that Asuma's giantism had been encoded on the Y chromosome, so any male born from a giant would inherit his father's burden.

In ten years, Team Seven had become powerful force, near equals to the Sannin, and this was when all were at their smallest heights. Sakura had become Tsunade's rival in terms of beauty and medical ability. Sasuke had advanced to the Mangekyou Sharigan after truly grieving for his brother's death and realizing the lose of a good man it was. Naruto had become a near physical copy of the 4th Hokage, but had still never learned he was his son. He also had created many powerful jutsu, some of which had become forbidden due to their strength.

Itachi's corpse had been preserved and his eyes untouched. Sasuke had refused the eyes when offered to him, still wanting to come to his own power on his own.

In terms of romance, between some, it flourished, while others still required some shoves out the door. It took a few years, but in this day, Temari of the Sand was engaged to Shikamaru of Konoha. The commute between the two villages, but both had earned the permission of their Kages to have the relationship. Gaara was happy his sister found someone to love, and as the Kazekage, he knew this would help the alliance between the villages. Hinata had blossomed into a beauty of her own and gained much confidence when it came to Naruto, but she still hadn't confessed. Ino had come to a similar development. While before she had a young girl's crush on Sasuke, now it was a true deep love. But both girls were ignored by their loves as each man had developed serious feelings for their female teammate. And Sakura had come to give that she cared about each man a great deal, but was still unsure of who she loved more.