Star Guard Mission

Running from episode 178 to 183 of the Naruto anime, this arc exists only within the animated series. It sits between the Buried Gold Excavation Mission and a run of shorter missions that follow. The plot revolves around a meteorite whose radiated chakra the hidden village of Hoshigakure prizes above all else.

Naruto learns that Neji, Lee, and Tenten have been assigned to help Hoshigakure defend a chakra-radiating star, actually a fallen meteorite, from thieves. Suspecting Orochimaru's involvement, he convinces Tsunade to let him join. In the village the acting leader Akahoshi explains that trainees who absorb the star's energy gain a rare skill called the Mysterious Peacock Method. A masked ninja soon steals the star, wielding those same enhanced techniques with far greater polish.

Naruto befriends a young genin named Sumaru and uncovers a grim truth: the star training kills most who attempt it, and even survivors risk being consumed by the altered chakra. The masked thief turns out to be Natsuhi, Sumaru's mother and one of the few ever to master the training, who had faked her death years earlier to end the practice. Akahoshi, by contrast, had murdered the previous Hoshikage to seize power and revive the deadly regimen for the sake of the village's prestige.

Akahoshi takes Sumaru hostage and kills the ailing Natsuhi when she tries to reclaim the star. The villagers only turn against him after a stricken genin reveals the harm the training caused and the truth of the Third Hoshikage's murder. Embedding the star into his body for a burst of power, Akahoshi is finally beaten when Naruto, using a technique Natsuhi left behind, shatters the meteorite with a Rasengan. The afflicted ninja are cured in Konoha, and Hoshigakure presses on with its dream of being recognized as a great village.