Inside the Mist

The Three-Tails' retreat throws a wave that hurls Naruto toward land and cuts him off from the group. A mist rolls over him and plants an illusion in which Orochimaru begs him to stop meddling before starting a body-transfer jutsu to claim Sasuke. Naruto shapes a Rasengan and drives it at the phantom's face, only for Kakashi to catch his arm; the target was really Kiba. Once the others gather, Naruto reveals the beast caused the chaos on the lake. Kakashi sends Pakkun to Konoha for Tsunade's orders and keeps Naruto from wandering off alone, given how close the fog came to making him kill a comrade.

Gozu reaches shore, rejoins Team Guren, then departs to search for Guren herself. Elsewhere, Yūkimaru tends to a waking Guren, who is startled to hear him call her home his own, before a fever from Kabuto's pills lays her low and leaves her nursing the boy instead of regrouping. Pakkun's report convinces Tsunade that the Akatsuki could close in if the beast becomes known, so she resolves to claim it first and forms the Orochimaru Search Team from Shizune, Ino, Rock Lee, and Tenten. The medical-ninjutsu users are assigned to the sealing work while Lee and Tenten cover the combat roles Hinata and Sakura leave open.

On patrol duty, Naruto slips off to brood over Yūkimaru's ties to Orochimaru's people. He repeats Jiraiya's teaching that home lives wherever people care about you, and that being remembered means never being without one. Reading it as talk of Sasuke, Sakura reassures him that Konoha will always be Sasuke's home, and Naruto quietly decides the same holds for Yūkimaru, setting out to find him. Trivia notes that the illusion let Naruto form a Rasengan without shadow clones, proof he can manage the technique unaided. This is the one hundredth episode of Naruto: Shippūden, part of the Three-Tails' Appearance arc.