Naruto, Sakura, Sai and Yamato head out for a new mission near the Fire Temple. When the other party fails to show up at the rendezvous point, the team gets separated and Naruto stumbles upon one of the four hidden tombs they came to protect. Due to a misunderstanding, he fights one of the monks-in-training from the Fire Temple, Sora, who also uses wind chakra based techniques. After the confusion, the monks and Team Kakashi travel to the Fire Temple, and Naruto recognizes it from his nightmare.

As Pain tells Naruto about why he does what he does, Hinata appears on the scene and confesses her feelings to Naruto. In order to save him, she attacks Pain... Things are about to get messy and Naruto is about to go over the edge!

Naruto thinks back to the time when Team 7 was on a mission to capture a group of thieves who stole a golden statue. When making a move on the thieves, Naruto and Sasuke had managed to take back the statue but were separated from Sakura, who was captured. On top of that, the thieves' leader had used a special thread-like technique to bind one of Naruto's hands to one of Sasuke's. Literally stuck to each other, would Naruto and Sasuke be able to work together to save Sakura and keep the golden statue safe at the same time?

As he is resting, Naruto starts dreaming his past experiences with Sasuke that made the two friends closer. When he tries to follow Kakashi, who is in pursuit of Sakura, he is stopped by Yamato, saying that he has orders from Kakashi to return Naruto to Konoha. Naruto devises a plan to sneak out and leaving a shadow clone to fool Yamato. He goes into Sage Mode to locate Kakashi. He then starts remembering the experiences that brought Sasuke pain in his life. Naruto decides what he can do for Sasuke if they come face to face.