The Cursed Ghost Ship

Bound for the Land of Lightning, Naruto, Aoba, Guy, and Yamato press on through heavy fog. To fill the empty hours, Yamato spins ghost tales, to Naruto's dismay. One describes a vessel crewed entirely by the dead, said to appear amid dense fog like theirs and marked by the crows that trail it. Yamato assures Naruto that ghost ships are nonsense, yet moments later an apparently deserted craft matching every detail glides up beside them. Yamato, Aoba, and Naruto board to investigate, and Naruto meets a young boy calling himself Hishaku.

Hishaku explains that he once served among the ship's crew and now tends it alone, ever since a monster he calls the Giant Corpse Crab wiped out his shipmates. The creature strikes again, seizing Yamato, and Naruto sends Aoba to alert Guy and the others. With Hishaku's help, Naruto brings down the skeletal crab, after which the boy admits he is himself a ghost. When the crab first attacked, the captain urged the young Hishaku to flee and save himself, and the guilt of surviving while his crewmates perished had bound his soul to the ship. With the crab destroyed, Hishaku and the other restless spirits are freed at last, departing aboard the vessel that truly was a ghost ship.

Yamato recounts the legend of a fog-borne ghost ship trailed by crows, and a matching vessel promptly appears. The crew boards it and Naruto encounters the boy Hishaku. The Giant Corpse Crab attacks and captures Yamato. Naruto and Hishaku slay the creature, after which Hishaku reveals he is a ghost bound by survivor's guilt. Freed by the crab's defeat, Hishaku and his shipmates' souls move on with the vessel.

This filler installment belongs to the anime-original Paradise Life on a Boat storyline and is number 225 in Naruto: Shippuden. It aired in Japan on August 18, 2011, and in English on January 18, 2014. The opening theme is Lovers and the ending theme is Shout Out Your Desires!!!.