Ah, the Medicine of Youth

Lee brings Sakura a special remedy Guy prepared for the comatose Tsunade, grateful to the Hokage who once healed him when no one else could. The two look back on the grim stretch when Lee lay badly hurt and struggled to recover. After Naruto thoughtlessly drinks the last of the medicine, he pledges to fetch the Jofuku flowers needed to brew more.

Donning the green jumpsuit Guy once gave him, Naruto sets off for the Jofuku Forest, only to find his official assignment with Ino and Sakura points to the same place: delivering a message to a woman living there.

Along the way Naruto spots the multicolored Jofuku flower and plucks it, triggering an apparition of Gaara conjured from his memory. He channels Lee's taijutsu against it, but its Sand Armour turns aside his strikes, so he switches to ninjutsu and finishes it with his Naruto Uzumaki Combo and a Rasengan.

Furofuki, the forest-dwelling woman, accepts the letter, which turns out to be Guy's own request to bring the flowers back to Konoha, revealing that Naruto's personal quest and his mission were one and the same. She explains the apparition is a defense the blossoms project, taking the shape of the picker's greatest rival.

The episode is filler set within the Past Arc: The Locus of Konoha. A continuity error dresses the Gaara apparition in his Part II outfit, which Naruto had not yet seen at this point in the timeline. It opens on Diver and closes on U Can Do It.