Kazekage Rescue Mission

This arc launches the second half of the series, spanning volumes 28 to 32, chapters 245 to 281, and the first thirty-two episodes of Naruto: Shippūden. It centres on the effort to save the Fifth Kazekage from Akatsuki. In the manga it follows Kakashi Gaiden, while the anime places the Sunagakure Support Mission before it, and both lead into the Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission afterward.

After two and a half years training with Jiraiya, Naruto comes home to find his peers risen in rank and Gaara now leading Sunagakure as Kazekage. He rejoins Kakashi and Sakura as a reformed squad. Meanwhile the Akatsuki pair Deidara and Sasori strike the Sand village, and though Gaara fights fiercely to protect his people, Deidara's explosive clay overwhelms him. The pair carry him off, and their organisation begins a three-day ritual to extract his tailed beast. Learning of the abduction, Team Kakashi sets out for Suna, joined along the way by Temari.

At the village, Sakura's medical skill saves a poisoned Kankurō and provides a scrap of Sasori's cloak to track the enemy, with the elder puppeteer Chiyo joining the pursuit. Tsunade sends Team Guy as backup. Akatsuki stalls both squads with disguised body doubles of Itachi and Kisame, buying time to complete the sealing. Chiyo and Sakura corner Sasori, dismantling his puppets, the human-puppet Third Kazekage, and finally his own puppet body, learning of a spy he planted in Orochimaru's ranks before he dies. Naruto and Kakashi chase Deidara, and Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan helps drive him off, though only a clone is destroyed.

The teams reunite too late to prevent Gaara's death, leaving Naruto devastated. Chiyo attempts her reincarnation technique but lacks the life force to complete it, so Naruto lends his chakra, and she revives Gaara at the price of her own life as the people of Suna look on. Mourning Chiyo, the Konoha shinobi bid the Sand siblings farewell, and a small trail of sand guides Gaara's hand into a grateful handshake with Naruto. Elsewhere, a surviving Deidara recovers his lost arm and encounters the masked newcomer Tobi, who seeks to fill Sasori's empty place in Akatsuki.