Team 7

Hiruzen approaches Kakashi Hatake about taking charge of a fresh group of Academy graduates. The offer barely stirs the jonin until the Third Hokage mentions that one recruit is the boy of Minato Namikaze, the mentor Kakashi lost years earlier. His interest caught, Kakashi quietly looks in on all three prospects at their homes, and a stop by Sakura Haruno's residence ends with her parents, Kizashi and Mebuki, ushering him and the Hokage indoors.

Hiruzen lays out the reasoning behind how he sorted the new cells, and Kakashi at last agrees to the posting. At the Academy, Kurenai Yuhi and Asuma Sarutobi collect Team 8 and Team 10, leaving the future Team 7 waiting behind. Pausing at the Memorial Stone, Kakashi trades a few words with Yamato, who senses his senior shifting, however faintly. He then walks straight into a childish trap rigged over the classroom door and lets it strike him, using the moment to gauge how poorly his three charges cooperate. Only after his bell exercise do the graduates earn his approval and become an official team.

Hiruzen names Kakashi as the instructor for the cell carrying Minato's son. Kakashi conducts informal visits to Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno, meeting the Haruno parents along the way. Team 8 and Team 10 depart with Kurenai and Asuma while the remaining trio lingers at the Academy. After absorbing the doorway prank and judging their teamwork nonexistent, Kakashi administers the bell test, which the three pass to formally become Team 7.

This is the 361st episode of Naruto: Shippuden, placed within the storyline titled Kakashi's Anbu Arc: The Shinobi That Lives in the Darkness. It first aired in Japan on 8 May 2014 and reached English viewers on 4 October 2016. The broadcast opens with the theme Crimson Lotus and closes on the track FLAME. Its cast reaches beyond the core team to feature Iruka Umino, Minato Namikaze, and childhood glimpses of the future Sannin.