A figure passes through the gates. It's an older Naruto, who has returned from a long training journey with Jiraiya. Naruto Uzumaki is back!

Shikamaru remembers the time when Teams 7 and 10 joined together to flush out a band of bandits who were terrorizing a nearby village and had kidnapped the headman's granddaughter. With no assistance available from Kakashi or Asuma, Shikamaru was forced to lead the team of genin to the bandits' fort and come up with a plan to rescue the headman's granddaughter.

Shikamaru begins to feel the pressure of shouldering the lives of his friends in the upcoming Fourth Shinobi World War. To help ease his mind, Shikaku sends his son along with Tenten on a mission to Mokuzu Island to replenish supplies.

Given the day off, Sai spends it strolling the village and drawing. He initially encounters three children that he at first finds it difficult to interact with but later realises that two of them remind him of his team-mates Naruto and Sakura. He has several flashbacks of their time together and the bonds they share. In the end he uses the doors of a destroyed house and paints a mural of Team 7 along with Sasuke holding hands.

Kiba trains hard to catch up to Naruto, who is now hailed as the hero of the Leaf Village, but with little success. Feeling desperate, Kiba asks Kakashi if he could train him.

The Nine Tails, having been released from Madara's control, continues to wreck havoc in the city. The Third Hokage summons the Monkey King Enma and drives the Nine Tails away from the city. Minato then returns to the city and with the help of the toad Gamabunta is able to restrain the Nine Tails long enough for him to teleport it along with his family to the outskirts of the village. Kushina binds the Nine Tails and as Minato prepares to do the Reaper Death Seal to seal away half of the Nine Tails Chakra and seal the rest inside Naruto using the Eight Trigrams Seal. He also seals a bit of Kushina's chakra to help Naruto tame the Nine Tails. All of this is witnessed by the Third Hokage and a few other ninja.

A reanimated Granny Chiyo attacks Kankuro and Mifune’s team. Kankuro fights back by using the human puppet of Sasori. The sight of Sasori causes Granny Chiyo to recall the painful memories that led her grandson to create his human puppets.

Sasuke and Itachi team up to stop Kabuto’s Reanimation Jutsu. But Kabuto’s new ability to use Nature Energy has made him a difficult target for the brothers to land their Susano’o attack.