Two Heartbeats: Kabuto's Trap

Naruto reaches Sakura in time to shield her, though not before her attacker claims that Sasuke has died. He tells her to give the words no weight, and a fight breaks out. Naruto brings the enemy down with his Rasengan, but the foe binds them together with chakra threads that tie their two hearts as one, so that if that heart ceases to beat, Naruto's will stop with it. When the opponent tries to take his own life and drag Naruto into death, Sakura strains to cut him loose, yet the special threads refuse to break.

Sasame appears and presses a Fuma clan tag into Sakura's hands to save Naruto, and only then does the group realise the Kabuto they had battled was in truth Kagero, who dies after hinting that Sasame is better off not knowing what has become of Arashi. Pressing on, they finally locate Arashi, disguised as Orochimaru, who confirms that he has genuinely changed.

Episode 140 of the original Naruto series is part of the Land of Rice Fields Investigation Mission. When it ran on Cartoon Network's Toonami block on 16 February 2008, it stood out as the only Naruto episode to carry a parental warning. It first aired 22 June 2005 in Japan, using No Boy, No Cry as the opening and Lost Words as the ending.