When You Curse Someone, You Dig Your Own Grave

Arriving to reinforce Asuma's squad, Kakashi asks that both a distance fighter and a healer be spared to Shikamaru so he can finish off Hidan on his own. As Sai and Sakura break away, Sakura leaves Naruto with the reminder that everything now rests on his shoulders. On the trek through the trees, Sai wonders aloud whether it was wise to let Shikamaru chase a vendetta by himself. Sakura counters by recounting a talk with Tsunade, who once revealed that Shikamaru had been offered a place among the Twelve Guardian Ninja, and she names him the sharpest mind the Land of Fire has produced.

Deep in the forest, Hidan closes in with his retractable spear, only for Shikamaru to seize control with his Shadow Gathering Technique, dragging every explosive tag he had planted earlier and fastening them to his opponent. He then collapses the earth below Hidan, shattering the Jashin ritual circle and dropping the zealot into a pit dug six feet down. Shikamaru explains that this is Nara land, sealed to outsiders and forever watched by the clan's deer, then lights Asuma's lighter and declares that cursing his teacher was the moment Hidan sealed his own fate. A fleeting image of Asuma appears at his side, granting him the Will of Fire, and Shikamaru hurls the flame into the tags, detonating Hidan. In the clearing, Naruto squares off against Kakuzu, whose five hearts leave three still beating. Using shadow clones to probe him in close range, Naruto analyses the enemy from their gathered memories, then channels his half-finished wind jutsu into a spiraling new weapon: the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.

The installment adapts chapters 338 and 339 of the manga and belongs to the Akatsuki Suppression Mission arc. Watching the improved Naruto, Kakashi glimpses the shape of his old master, the Fourth Hokage, standing within his student. Choji picks up on the shrill hum of the technique and grasps that it stems from the staggering volume of chakra packed inside it.