Hiruko vs. Two Kunoichi!

Naruto tears after Deidara without realizing he is being led into a trap, and Kakashi follows despite the artist's insistence that he turn back to help Sakura and Chiyo against Sasori. Kakashi stays anyway, resolving to use his Sharingan against an enemy who managed to bring down a Kage in Gaara. Deidara finds Naruto's desperation to save a fellow jinchuriki strange and even pitiful, noting that the Akatsuki have killed such hosts before with no one rushing to their aid, most people simply relieved to see them gone.

Inside the hideout, Chiyo explains that the hunched figure before them is not Sasori himself but a puppet called Hiruko, with the true Sasori hidden and controlling it from within. Because puppeteers are weak in close combat and exposed while manipulating their tools, Sasori built Hiruko as armor against that vulnerability. Chiyo recounts how her grandson, once a celebrated puppet master of Sunagakure, began turning human corpses into puppets he regarded as art, Hiruko itself built from a shinobi of a neighboring village. She admits she joined the rescue team believing her knowledge of the puppet could stop him, only to find he has since refined it.

Confident of an edge, Chiyo whispers a secret plan to Sakura that Sasori cannot overhear, and the two charge. Sasori answers with a barrage of poison-tipped needles from Hiruko's mouth, then detaches and hurls the puppet's arm to spray still more, yet both women slip past every projectile. He can understand Chiyo's flawless evasion as a fellow puppeteer, but Sakura's is baffling to him.

While Chiyo holds back, Sakura rushes in, and when Sasori tries to skewer her with Hiruko's venomous tail, Chiyo blocks the strike and leaves the puppet open. Sakura pours her chakra-enhanced strength into a single crushing blow that shatters Hiruko completely. Sasori pulls himself from the wreckage but keeps his face hidden, and Chiyo demands he finally turn to face them, declaring that she waited twenty years and came all this way just to see her grandson's face again.

This episode is part of the Kazekage Rescue Mission arc of Naruto: Shippuden and adapts chapters 264 and 265. It aired in Japan on July 19, 2007, and in English on February 3, 2010. The opening theme is Hero's Come Back!! and the ending theme is The Way to You All.