Twelve Guardian Ninja

An arc of the Naruto: Shippūden anime running from episode 54 to episode 71, this storyline broadens the background of the Twelve Guardian Ninja and charts Naruto's progress in wind-nature training through a new character, the monk Sora. It comes after the Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission and precedes the Akatsuki Suppression Mission.

Haunted by nightmares of the Nine-Tails breaking loose, Naruto begins a training regimen once Kakashi leaves the hospital. He discovers his wind affinity and learns to multiply his practice using shadow clones, since a clone's experience returns to him when it vanishes. Advice from Asuma, a fellow wind user, helps him slice a leaf cleanly, the first step toward a new technique. Meanwhile, cloaked figures overlooking a scorched village scheme to purge Konoha and awaken the Land of Fire.

A mission near the Fire Temple throws Naruto together with Sora, a wind-wielding trainee monk shunned by his peers much as Naruto once was. The temple's tombs hold the preserved bodyguards of the Fire Daimyō, and when the coffins begin vanishing, Team Kakashi and the monks give chase into a canyon maze rigged with traps. Split apart, they face a squad of enemy shinobi: Naruto duels Fūka, whose lethal kiss drains chakra and who can wield every basic element, while his allies tangle with her comrades.

The attackers, it emerges, are after Sora, whose body was seeded with fox chakra harvested during the beast's assault on Konoha years earlier, making him a pseudo-jinchūriki. Their leader, Furido, is really Kazuma, Sora's father, the guardian who once schemed to kill the Hokage and was slain by Asuma. Feeding Sora lies about Asuma, Furido stokes the boy's rage until the leaked chakra warps his arm and, later, twists him into a tailed beast cloak that even Yamato cannot restrain without the First Hokage's necklace.

As the invaders black out the village and revive the zombie Kohaku clan, the four resurrected guardians prepare Limelight, a lightning blast meant to level Konoha. Asuma cuts them down one by one while Naruto destroys Fūka by targeting the hair that preserves her body. Cornered, Kazuma resumes his old duel with Asuma and is killed after Sai binds him. Naruto finally reaches the raging Sora and helps him expel the fox chakra, which briefly forms a miniature Nine-Tails before dissolving, unable to hold shape without a host.

With the threat gone, Sora chooses to leave the village and wander the world. Asuma and Shikamaru return to their shogi games and their running debate over who truly counts as Konoha's king. Far away, the Akatsuki pair Hidan and Kakuzu are shown hunting the Two-Tails' jinchūriki, setting up what comes next.