Menma Memory Search Mission

Spanning episodes 213 through 215, this anime-original arc follows the Gantetsu Escort Mission and precedes the Sunagakure Support Mission. It is a self-contained story built around a mysterious youth, an ocarina, and a village haunted by a gang of rogue ninja.

Out hunting a rare bamboo shoot for his next bowl of ramen, Naruto spots a young man adrift in a river and rushes him to the hospital. The stranger has no recollection of himself, his only clue an ocarina. That night lightning sets the hospital ablaze, and the young man saves an infant with a strange technique channeled through his instrument. Grateful, Tsunade allows him to remain in the village so long as he stays with Naruto, who dubs him Menma after the bamboo. Menma proves quietly generous, taking on chores around Konoha unbidden. When an unknown attacker ambushes Naruto atop the Hokage Monument, Menma plays a melody that floods Naruto with chakra and drives the assailant off, deepening the question of who he truly is.

Suspecting a link to the Land of Rice Fields and its music-based arts, and wary of a possible tie to Orochimaru given Tayuya's similar style, Tsunade lets Naruto and Menma travel there alongside Neji and Tenten. The road brings them to a ruined settlement that visibly unsettles Menma. Villagers attack, then relent on learning the group hails from Konoha, and a woman named Ran begs for aid, explaining that rogue ninja from Otogakure have ravaged the town over its gold mine. At Menma's urging the team stays to build a protective wall, and the villagers rally to the effort. During a renewed attack Menma is hurt shielding the village leader, and treating the wound exposes a tattoo marking him as a missing-nin.

Though the villagers turn wary, they are persuaded to help Menma, who has recovered his memories and warns that the gang boss Shiin has a fallback plan to burst a dam and drown the town. Menma leads Naruto to the mine, where he has already set explosive tags to counter the scheme, and confesses that he had once belonged to the gang, raised among them as a child before grasping their cruelty during the raid. His amnesia had been a pretense, a way to steal a little peace and to enlist Konoha against his own clan. Naruto's anger at the deception softens into sympathy for the boy's ruined past. Handing over his ocarina as a farewell gift, Menma shoves Naruto into a canyon river and detonates the tags, sacrificing himself to foil Shiin's plan. Grief-stricken, Naruto strikes down Shiin with a Rasengan, then returns to the village and finally eats the ramen Ichiraku had prepared, in memory of his lost friend.