Two Fates

Kakashi is grateful for Naruto's well-timed arrival just as Sakura grasps with horror that Sasuke had genuinely intended to kill her. Naruto urges Sasuke to abandon his path, swearing he will always be there to pull him back. Sasuke only smirks, insisting he needs no rescue and craves nothing but the ruin of Konoha for how it treated the Uchiha and the silencing of villagers whose laughter and scorn are all he claims to hear. Naruto then stuns Kakashi and Sakura by revealing that Tobi has told him the truth about Itachi, and that he understands exactly what Sasuke means to do.

Sasuke retorts that Naruto, having never known parents or siblings, cannot fathom his pain, and announces he has already slain Danzo, an elder he blames for the Uchiha's destruction, feeling his clan's honour cleansed with the act. A shaken Kakashi recognises how far Sasuke has drifted from the boy of Team 7, a product of the shinobi world's endless cycle of hatred. Sasuke conjures his Chidori and advances; Naruto answers with two shadow clones. Kakashi bars them, ordering Naruto to take Sakura and run so they will not witness what he is about to do, and draws his Lightning Cutter. Refusing to let his mentor kill Sasuke, Naruto sends one clone to pin Kakashi and shapes a Rasengan with the other, then charges as Sasuke races to meet him.

As the two rush together, Naruto reflects on his lonely childhood and imagines a reversed destiny in which he wields the Chidori and Sasuke halts him with a Rasengan. Their strikes collide, recalling the clash at the Valley of the End, and Naruto silently tells Sasuke he too once hated the village and thirsted for revenge before bonds with Sasuke and Iruka, who saved him from Mizuki, changed him. Episode 215 of Naruto: Shippuden belongs to the Fourth Shinobi World War: Countdown arc and adapts chapter 485. It aired 9 June 2011 in Japan and 9 November 2013 in English, opening with Lovers and ending with Freedom.