The First Challenge

Fukasaku warns Naruto that anyone who takes in too much natural energy hardens into a frog statue, and the stone toads ringing the clearing were once students who failed. Rubbing toad oil on his skin lets Naruto begin sensing that energy, though it also starts turning him amphibious with webbed hands and froglike eyes. A rap of Fukasaku's baton knocks the energy loose and undoes the change. Gamakichi explains that this loss of humanity is what his earlier remark about Naruto dying really meant, and Fukasaku notes that even Jiraiya kept frog traits after using Sage Mode.

Naruto speeds his training with shadow clones, and despite repeated beatings from the sage toad he starts to feel the natural energy around him. Asked to hoist a toad statue using senjutsu, he manages it easily, surprising Gamakichi and prompting Fukasaku to remark that the boy grasps the basics faster than Jiraiya ever did. Given a break, Naruto receives the very first novel Jiraiya wrote, the tale of a gutsy shinobi. He realises the hero shares his name, and Jiraiya's photo on the back brings back a training-day memory of the author hoping his books might change the world. Naruto quietly thanks his late teacher for something far more precious than an autograph.

Elsewhere, Madara informs the Akatsuki that Sasuke has captured the Eight-Tails, and Pain reveals a fresh body before declaring that the Six Paths are marching on Konoha. When Zetsu, Konan, Madara, and Kisame begin sealing Killer B into the Demonic Statue, however, the captured jinchuriki proves to be nothing more than a severed octopus tentacle left as a decoy.