The Night of the Tragedy

A surge in Anbu workload prompts Danzō to name Itachi a squad captain, a move that unsettles the elders Koharu and Homura. Kakashi cautions the young Uchiha to steer clear of the leadership's political games, while Itachi quietly thanks him for two years of support. At the Third Training Ground, Tenzō airs his own misgivings until Yūgao arrives to announce that she is joining the unit as its newest member. To Danzō, Itachi confides that resentment is swelling within the Uchiha clan.

Hiruzen alerts Kakashi that someone has been entering the village unseen, bypassing its barrier code, and sends him to survey every barrier placement. A masked figure studies a stone inside the Uchiha compound before vanishing through a warp portal. Kakashi collects Guy from the Academy, and as they cross the district he senses the clan's hostility toward outsiders. After reporting the planned coup to Danzō, Itachi enlists the masked man's aid and slaughters his own kin, leaving the Anbu to clean up in his wake. He warns Danzō that harming Sasuke would leak the village's secrets to every enemy nation, then secures a private audience with Hiruzen about his intentions and his brother's future. Hiruzen leaves the barrier code untouched so Itachi may return whenever he fears for Sasuke, and Kakashi learns that his time in the Anbu is over and a teaching post now awaits him.

Episode 359 belongs to the Kakashi's Anbu Arc, subtitled The Shinobi That Lives in the Darkness, and aired in Japan on April 17, 2014, with the English broadcast following on October 4, 2016. Its themes are Crimson Lotus and FLAME. Viewers noted a continuity slip in which an Academy student still bears the Uchiha crest after the massacre, and the episode also softens earlier claims that only the elders, the masked man, and Itachi knew of the clan's growing distrust, since Kakashi, Tenzō, and the rest of Team Ro were given at least a partial warning of a possible civil war.