Hokage & Gaara Battles

Ep 68
Anbu race to protect the Hokage while assassins appear. Kazekage grabs Hokage and escapes. 4 sound ninja erect a forcefield around the kages. Kakashi and Gai face off against a fake Anbu and others. Somewhere far from the stadium, three giant snakes are summoned and destroy a watch tower. Gaaza is too weak to commence his mission and is taken away by Temari and Kankurou, but Sasuke goes after them. Kakashi has a real bad feeling about Gaara and tells Sakura to prepare for a class A mission!

Ep 69
Kakashi summons Pakkun a small talking dog to be the 4th platoon member with Sakura, Naruto, and Shikamaru. The team goes after Sasuke to stop him from confronting Gaara. Orochimaru and the Hokage trade jutsus! They're even matched but Orochimaru has a super special technique up his sleeve!

Ep 70
Sound ninja are in pursuit of Naruto & company. They consider an ambush but Shikamaru explains it wouldn't work under these conditions. He suggests a feint operation but whoever stays behind will die. The Sound ninja are caught in Shikamaru's shadow bind technique, but he knows he can only hold them for a little while and prepares to die.

Ep 71
Orochimaru has summoned the first and third hokages and inserts red tags into them for control. The first attacks with earth/plant jutsus while the second attacks with water jutsus. The third is trapped by branches but manages to summon the Monkey God King Enma and the fight continues!

Ep 72
Sasuke meets up with the Sand team. Kankurou takes Gaara away while Temari faces Sasuke. Despite being low on chakra after her fight with Shikamaru, she puts up a fight hoping to make him waste his chakra. Meanwhile, Orochimaru reveals his true face. He has mastered the immortality reincarnation technique. The third hokage has a flashback to the time he caught Orochimaru performing forbidden experiments, then decides to use a technique not even Orochimaru knows.

Ep 73
The third hokage creates to clones in order to catch the first and second hokages. The Death God grabs their souls from their bodies, sealing them into the clones. The third catches Orochimaru, but Orochimaru calls his sword and it pierces the third's body. Meanwhile, Sasuke and Temari catch up to Kankurou and Gaara. Temari takes Gaara away. Kankurou and Sasuke face off, but then Shino shows up and says Kankurou is his opponent.

Ep 74
Shino and his bugs fight Kankurou and his puppet. Meanwhile Gaara wakes, has more flashbacks, starts screaming, and starts to transform. Gaara's left side transforms into some kind of sand monstrosity and has Sasuke running scared.

Ep 75
Sasuke attacks Gaara with shurikens but the monstrous arm absorbs them and sends them back at him. Gaara has more flashbacks where he is ignored and feared by other children. Sasuke uses his chidori, but Gaara reforms. Sasuke thinks back to his training with Kakashi, his limit is two shots. Will Sasuke try another chidori?

Ep 76
Naruto tells everyone to run. Gaara tries to attack Sasuke but Sakura stands in front of him to protect him, thereby causing Gaara to have more flashbacks about his uncle Yashamaru. His uncle tells him about love and how his mother loved him. Young Gaara tries to bring ointment for the girl he hurt but she slams the door in his face. Later a masked assassin tries to kill him!

Ep 77
Naruto throws himself at Gaara, but is easily knocked back. Sakura is still pinned and Sasuke is still down. Gaara taunts Naruto about fighting for himself instead of others. Naruto comes at him with a kunai, Gaara gets a headache which means more flashbacks - his uncle is the assassin and he tells Gaara the real truth about his mother and his birth. Back to the present, Naruto tries to summon Gamabunta, but all he gets is a little frog!

Ep 78
Naruto attacks with mutiple kage bunshins and manages a nice sneak attack with the 1000 years of pain, and uses kage bunshin to kick and punch Gaara some more, but then Gaara transforms to his full demon form! Gaara is about to crush Naruto with sand, but he manages to summon Gamabunta - who refuses to fight!

Ep 79
Gamabunta as the nine-tail fox demon charges Shukaku, the tanuki sand demon, and gets close enough to bite and grab it. Naruto jumps onto Shukaku and hits Gaara. He starts to wake up and the sand demon loses power. Naruto charges Gaara who uses desert coffin, but Gamabunta has transformed back and uses his tongue to protect Naruto. But sand seeps in from under his tongue! Meanwhile the Kohona shinobi are gathering forces and turning back the enemy. Parents of the genin are seen using their advances powers. The Hokage does not have the power to drag out all of Orochimaru's soul and instead takes away all his techniques by dragging out the energy of his arms.