Buried Gold Excavation Mission

This short anime-only story fills two episodes of the original series, landing between the Kaima Capture Mission and the later Star Guard Mission. It follows a slumping team as a routine job hides a stranger purpose.

Concerned by a string of poor results from Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba, Tsunade offers them a last assignment before she weighs sending them back for more schooling: recover a stashed treasure. Friction between Naruto and Kiba splits the group along separate trails, and Kiba keeps picking the right one. When Hinata turns her ankle, Kiba pushes ahead while Naruto stays to help, and the two who remain are ambushed and seized. Their captors belong to the Kedōin, a clan whose signature technique duplicates a target down to more than looks, and their aim is to slip into Konoha and rot it from inside.

Trapped as the enemy tries to bury them alive, Naruto and Kiba dig Hinata loose, and she knocks the falling stone back with her Gentle Fist. The team gives chase, Naruto especially furious once his copy racks up debts across the village and devours every scrap of food he had put aside. Spotting that the doubles cannot match a real body's strength, the three round them up without much trouble.

The reveal upends everything: Tsunade herself had contracted the Kedōin, staging the whole ordeal to gauge whether the team could hold together when the odds turned against them.