A Dangerous Mission! Journey to the Land of Waves!

Fresh off recovering Tora, the runaway pet of the Fire Daimyō's wife, Team 7 returns to the Hokage's office for its next assignment. The Third Hokage rattles off the low-stakes chores on offer, from babysitting to errands, but Naruto refuses to keep chasing trivial jobs and demands something worthy of a real ninja. Iruka reminds him that every raw genin starts small, and the Third stresses that harder missions carry heavier danger. Amused by the boy's insistence, the Hokage grants Team 7 a C-rank task: guarding Tazuna, a veteran bridge builder, on his way to the Land of Waves. Tazuna scoffs at being protected by children, yet agrees to travel with them.

On the road, two Kirigakure ninja rise out of a roadside puddle, wrap Kakashi in shuriken-studded chains, and tear him to pieces. With their teacher seemingly dead, Naruto locks up in fear, and Sasuke leaps in to save him. The attackers split, one lunging for Tazuna as Sakura plants herself in the way and Sasuke moves to back her up, before Kakashi reappears and subdues the pair with ease. Naruto suffers only a shallow cut from a poisoned gauntlet. Kakashi reveals he escaped the opening ambush with the Body Replacement Technique, having grown suspicious of a puddle sitting on a dry, clear day.

Kakashi praises Sasuke and Sakura for their nerve but voices his disappointment at how Naruto froze. He explains that he held back deliberately to learn who the enemy was after, and confirms their quarry was Tazuna, which means the client concealed the mission's true rank. Sakura urges them to abandon the job over both the risk and Naruto's wound, but Naruto instead digs the poison out with a kunai and swears never to flee or falter again, nor to fall behind Sasuke. As Kakashi bandages the hand, he notices it is already knitting shut thanks to the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. Far off, the crime boss Gatō berates Zabuza over the failure, and the swordsman silences him with a raise of his blade and vows to deal with Tazuna personally.

Team 7 completes the Tora retrieval and is assigned a C-rank escort protecting the bridge builder Tazuna. The Demon Brothers ambush the group from a puddle, appearing to kill Kakashi before Sasuke rescues a frozen Naruto. Kakashi, having used the Body Replacement Technique, captures the two and exposes that Tazuna hid the mission's real danger. Naruto cuts the poison from his hand and vows never to back down, while his wound heals from the Nine-Tailed Fox's influence. Gatō pressures Zabuza to eliminate Tazuna, and Zabuza takes the job for himself.

Belonging to the Prologue arc set in the Land of Waves, the episode adapts chapters 9, 10, and 11 of the manga. It aired in Japan on November 7, 2002, and in English on October 8, 2005. Its opening theme is R★O★C★K★S and its ending theme is Wind. The English dub heavily censored the scene of Naruto stabbing his own hand with a kunai, freeze-framing and recoloring the shots and digitally removing the blade and blood, edits that were reused whenever later episodes flashed back to the moment.