Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown

Spanning chapters 484 through 515 across volumes 52 to 55, this run adapts to episodes 215 to 222 and later 243 to 256 of Naruto: Shippuden, with a filler voyage slotted between. Its subject is the buildup to the Fourth Shinobi World War as all the warring sides ready themselves. Following the Five Kage Summit and leading into the Confrontation, it charts the alliance's preparations against a foe hoarding both cloned soldiers and resurrected legends.

The Sasuke duel breaks off when Naruto shields Sakura from a killing strike, briefly reuniting the old team before Tobi whisks Sasuke away to receive Itachi's transplanted eyes. Word of Orochimaru's death reaches Konoha, Tsunade stirs from her coma just as the elders prepare to name a new Hokage, and the village turns to organising for war. Summoned to Mount Myoboku, Naruto receives a prophecy of an island paradise and a young man with mighty eyes, then accepts the key to his seal in the belief that he is ready to tame the Nine-Tails.

The leaders resolve to confine the two hosts on a hidden island, where Killer B eventually agrees to teach Naruto. At the Falls of Truth Naruto confronts a bitter shadow of himself and, after hearing Motoi's painful history with the Eight-Tails, embraces that dark self to overcome it. He then wrestles the released fox in his own mind, drawing on Sage Mode and B's aid, until the spirit of his mother Kushina appears to bind the beast and lend her chakra. Naruto reclaims the fox's power, learns the full truth of the night he was made a host, and parts from Kushina with gratitude and a promise to surpass his parents.

Naruto's new sensing ability exposes Kisame, who had hidden inside Samehada; after Guy defeats him with the Daytime Tiger, the swordsman drowns himself rather than surrender his intelligence, though a booby-trapped scroll still slips his gathered secrets back to the enemy. In Amegakure, Konan ambushes Tobi with a colossal spread of explosive tags to protect Nagato's body, yet Izanagi lets him survive, and he claims the Rinnegan after killing her. Restored and re-masked, Tobi shows Kabuto the mindless Hashirama clone and an army of roughly a hundred thousand White Zetsu grown at the cost of the sealed beasts' chakra.

Kabuto captures Yamato to strengthen that army with Wood Release and, to swell its ranks further, reincarnates a roster of fallen Akatsuki, former hosts, Kage, and famed shinobi. As both alliances marshal their forces and scouts pinpoint the enemy's lair at the Mountains' Graveyard, the reanimated horde marches out and the war stands ready to begin.