Kurosuki Family Removal Mission

Spanning episodes 152 through 157, this anime-original arc follows the Bikochu Search Mission and opens onto the Academy Student Lead Mission, then the Gosunkugi Capture Mission. With Jiraiya away and no word on his return, a restless Naruto takes on a removal job that doubles as a chance to chase leads on Sasuke.

Training alone in the forest, Naruto stumbles on three battered men from the Katabami Gold Mine and carries them back to Konoha. Once they recover and beg for help against the gang terrorizing their home, Tsunade pairs Naruto with Team Guy, partly to keep his mind off his fruitless search for Sasuke and Jiraiya. Lee shares that the gang answers to Raiga Kurosuki, once counted among Kirigakure's Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, and Naruto seizes on the idea that Raiga might have a trail to Kisame, Itachi, and ultimately Sasuke. En route the team stops at a restaurant Lee knew from his early training days, run by an old woman named Sansho whose signature dish, the restorative Curry of Life, once nourished young trainees. Sansho laments that her son Karashi left home chasing a warped notion of strength.

At the mine the shinobi find the townsfolk too broken to accept rescue, and learn that Raiga takes a deranged delight in funerals, burying victims while they still live. After they cut through his underlings, one of whom proves to be Karashi, Raiga confronts them directly. His ferocious lightning techniques are matched by a genjutsu so potent that even Neji's Byakugan cannot pierce it. The team eventually realizes the illusion, along with much of Raiga's power, radiates from a small boy riding on his back. Named Ranmaru, the child wields a rare dojutsu, and once Naruto separates the pair he sends Ranmaru tumbling from a clifftop using a Rasengan to sever the link.

Recovering the boy, the group learns Ranmaru had stayed with Raiga willingly, the two bound by mutual understanding, Raiga having given the child a purpose and a will to live. The parallel to Haku and Zabuza stirs Naruto, who refuses to let Ranmaru walk that same doomed road and offers him another one. Yet Ranmaru, sensing Raiga clings to life beneath his wounds, pours nearly all his own energy into reviving him. Enraged at the sight of a seemingly lifeless boy, Raiga turns on the team, and without Ranmaru's eyes he instead drinks in the raw force of a lightning storm to amplify his attacks. Nursed back by Tenten, Ranmaru finally grasps Naruto's message and, with Sansho and Karashi, uses the Curry of Life to rouse the fallen shinobi. When he pleads with Raiga to end the pointless fighting, the swordsman brands it betrayal, and once Naruto overpowers him, Raiga grants himself one final funeral by shocking his own body lifeless with his lightning. With the town free, Ranmaru takes up a new life as Sansho's apprentice, and the team heads home.