Was it just wishful thinking on my behalf or is Sauske starting to past Kakashi's level with chidori? It looked like he already whacked that big rock with Chidori about 2 or 3 time's before he activated it again and still had enough chakra and stamina to run to next village as well as how the next ep title look's he's gonna do it again.

About Gai not stopping Sauske, I think the reason that he didn't stop him was because nobody but Kakashi knew that Naruto had left the village. So I'm guessing when he saw Itachi leave the village without Naruto he figured Sauske would run into him at his house and not go to the next village over in search of him.