Teammate

Team Asuma comes home and reports to Tsunade that settlements along the Land of Fire's borders lie in ruins, each marked only with an Amegakure crest. Tsunade suspects the massacres are a false-flag ploy to spark war or provoke the Fire Daimyo, and orders the squad on standby, while Shizune recalls Asuma once served among the Twelve Guardian Ninja who protected the lord. Yamato arrives next with grim news: the disturbed tombs held the bodies of four Guardian Ninja, whose techniques Shizune fears remain locked inside their corpses. With Sai wounded, Yamato has brought Sora from the Fire Temple as a stand-in, and he concludes the raiders were after Naruto or Sora rather than the monk Chiriku.

Sora's abrasive manner quickly grates on everyone. After he snubs Asuma and gets warned to behave, he insults Tsunade to her face and is booted from her office through the shattered door and wall. Told to keep him company, Naruto trails after Sora and finds him locked in a tense staredown with Akamaru, which soon draws Kiba into a scuffle when Sora treats the ninken like a mere pet. Choji joins after being called fat, and Naruto backs Sora up, touching the newcomer by naming him a comrade. Rock Lee reads the melee as friendship and piles in too. As the boys unleash their techniques, Asuma halts the assault bare-handed while Shikamaru pins them with his shadow, though a mid-air Choji slips free and clocks Shikamaru in the face.

Asuma steers the group off to barbecue, and Sora's insistence that he is not hungry is betrayed by his growling stomach. At the grill, Sora presses Asuma about whether he knew his father, Kazuma, but Asuma deflects, and Naruto seizes the moment to ask Asuma to teach Sora his art, since all three wield Wind Release. In the woods Asuma reveals his chakra blades, channels his wind nature through them, and drives the strike clean through a tree into the boulder beyond, prompting Naruto and Sora to attempt the feat with their own kunai. Far off, Furido and his team resolve to fall upon another village, one home to the Kohaku Clan.

Team Asuma reports border-town massacres bearing false Amegakure insignia, and Tsunade suspects a plot to trigger war. Yamato reveals the tombs of four Twelve Guardian Ninja were desecrated and their techniques possibly stolen, and that the raiders targeted Naruto or Sora. Sora antagonizes the village and is thrown from Tsunade's office before a group brawl breaks out. Asuma and Shikamaru end the fight, then Asuma demonstrates channeling Wind Release through his chakra blades, while Furido's team plans a strike on the Kohaku Clan.

This is the 62nd episode of Naruto: Shippuden, part of the Twelve Guardian Ninja arc. It aired in Japan on 5 June 2008 and in English on 5 January 2011. The opening theme is Blue Bird and the ending theme is Gentle Rainbow.