Sakura's Feelings

With the gathering of the five leaders drawing to its close, Mifune names the Fourth Raikage, A, to command the combined shinobi armies. Neither Gaara nor Mei Terumi objects, and Onoki soon falls in line as well. Each leader plans to brief their own daimyo on the alliance and on the war Madara has declared. A departs alongside C and Darui to reach his brother, while Gaara sets off to locate Naruto and Kakashi, who remain in the Land of Iron.

Kurotsuchi quietly urges her grandfather to have Iwagakure eliminate both Killer B and Naruto, reasoning that removing the two jinchuriki would gut Madara's scheme and weaken Konoha and Kumo in one stroke. Onoki refuses, telling her that Gaara has reminded him of the man he once was, and that he would rather stand with the other villages than scheme behind their backs.

Away from the summit, Sakura stuns Yamato and Lee by declaring that she has fallen for Naruto and abandoned her feelings for Sasuke, whom she now brands a mere Akatsuki criminal. Naruto sees straight through it. Remembering how desperately she once chased Sasuke, how she wept believing him dead, and how she begged Naruto through tears to bring him home, he accuses her of lying to herself and to him. Sakura insists her affection is real, arguing that the village stopped treating him as a nuisance once he beat Pain. Naruto snaps that he despises people who deceive themselves and orders her to stop.

Frustrated, Sakura tells him he no longer owes her the old promise and should let Sasuke go. When Naruto begins to reveal the truth about Itachi, Kakashi cuts him off, so he simply states that he now grasps Sasuke's suffering and has made rescuing him his own goal. Sakura withdraws, telling Kiba, Sai, and Lee to head back, then privately asks Kiba to hunt Sasuke down. Sai secretly leaves an ink duplicate of himself behind with the others.

A separate thread follows Killer B, whose enka practice with Sabu is interrupted by Kisame, dispatched to seize the Eight-Tails. B channels lightning chakra into his pencil and blades, but Samehada swallows the energy and neuters the strikes. Even a headbutt from his four-tailed form leaves Kisame untouched. The episode adapts chapters 468 through 470 under the Five Kage Summit arc, opening to Lovers and closing on Freedom.