Bushy Brow's Pledge: Undying Love and Protection!

Sheltering beneath a tree, a badly sleep-deprived Sakura nurses the wounds of Sasuke and Naruto. A squirrel snaps her out of her haze, and she drives it off with a kunai, never realizing Team Dosu had strapped an explosive tag to its back. Nearby, Rock Lee pauses on a branch and vows to catch every one of twenty falling leaves, convinced success means Sakura will love him. He gathers nineteen before spotting the tagged squirrel and rescuing it, destroying the explosive.

Dosu and his squad move on Sasuke, and Sakura springs several traps to defend her comrades, only for Dosu to dismantle her efforts with ease and sneer that she has no business being a ninja. As the Sound shinobi close in for the kill, Lee crashes onto the scene, hurling the three aside and declaring he will protect Sakura until his death. He wrenches an underground root upward to block Dosu's strike.

Judging that the moment satisfies Might Guy's rule that the forbidden move be reserved for defending someone precious, Lee catches Dosu and unleashes the Front Lotus. Zaku cushions the impact, sparing Dosu, and with Lee's body seized up from the technique's strain, Dosu turns his own sound-based ability on him, boasting it outpaces Lee's taijutsu since it travels at the speed of sound.

This installment of the Chunin Exams arc adapts chapters 50 through 52. The source notes Lee's leaf-catching wager echoes the classic he-loves-me game, and flags a continuity slip in which Shikamaru and Choji swap sides around Ino between shots.