On the Brink of Death

Riding Gaara's sand, Sakura and Naruto are carried toward Minato so that the Yin half of the Nine-Tails can be placed back inside the failing boy. Sakura works on Naruto mid-flight, but once the fox's chakra shroud fades she realizes her medical arts cannot undo the damage of the Yang-Kurama's removal, forcing her to cut open his chest and keep his heart beating by hand. Elsewhere, a frantic Karin races to reach Sasuke and mend him, only for Tobi to block her path with a shrunken copy of Hashirama's forest technique. She slips past the strike and lashes out with her chakra chains in reply.

Tobi runs Karin through with a wooden shaft that sprouts branches, yet she bites her own arm to heal the wound, and Suigetsu arrives firing his water bullets to cover her. Jugo follows with a grab that Tobi evades, but Orochimaru catches the masked man and briefly locks him down with a cursed seal. Madara, meanwhile, draws the Ten-Tails into his own body and starts toward Obito, spitting out the two sealed gourds that drop onto Lee and Guy as they fall back with Tenten. As Kakashi and Minato ready themselves to pry Obito loose from Black Zetsu, Yin-Kurama urges Minato to switch to sensory mode. Gaara and Sakura deliver the unconscious Naruto and lay out the crisis. Minato assigns Obito to Kakashi with Gaara backing him up and prepares the transfer, but Black Zetsu slips into the process and the fox is sealed into Zetsu by mistake. Madara reaches the scene and scolds Zetsu for stalling on the Rinnegan's recovery.

The episode belongs to the Birth of the Ten-Tails' Jinchūriki arc and covers chapters 663 and 664. Its Japanese premiere was May 28, 2015, and the English airing came on October 10, 2017. Wind serves as the opening theme, with A Promise That Doesn't Need Words playing over the ending.