For My Friend

With Tobi poised to loose his White Zetsu Army on the Allied Shinobi Forces, Kabuto answers by fielding an army of resurrected ninja. Among them, Haku wonders why he stirs yet cannot move, and Zabuza explains that they have been dragged back through forbidden reanimation, a practice he openly despises. Asuma returns to the world as well, alongside Dan Kato, Tsunade's lost love, with Itachi and the revived jinchuriki of the tailed beasts marching in their ranks.

At the Mountains' Graveyard, Kabuto slots Deidara, Sasori, Chukichi, and Shin into a strike-and-diversion platoon, and Sasori laments how thoroughly the Akatsuki has been thinned, with only Zetsu and Tobi still drawing breath. When Tokuma spots the clone army on the move, he alerts Anko, who orders her reconnaissance party to relay the warning while she creates a distraction, only to be swiftly overpowered and poisoned by Kabuto as Deidara chases down her comrades.

In Kumogakure, old wounds nearly tear the alliance apart, with Konoha ninja blaming Suna for the invasion that killed the Third Hokage and Kiri holding Iwa accountable for a past tragedy. Gaara steps between them and confesses that he too once wanted to destroy the whole world until a certain fellow jinchuriki reached him and became his friend. He urges the assembled forces to bury their grievances against a shared enemy that has wounded every village, inviting anyone who still resents Suna to fight him once the war ends, and asks them instead to lend their strength to save the friend the Akatsuki now hunts. His words rally the troops into apology and unity as the great war opens. On the Island Turtle, Naruto keeps training with Killer B, steadying stacked blocks in his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, only for B to tell him one final task still remains.

The episode adapts chapters 515 and 516 within the Fourth Shinobi World War: Confrontation arc, and it pairs Gaara's unifying address with the roll call of reanimated enemies now arrayed against the coalition. It first aired in Japan on May 3, 2012, with the English broadcast following on September 27, 2014.