Not even Naruto's teammates are safe when his quest to become the world's greatest ninja makes him capable of incredible feats of strength, but Naruto will need all his resources when a deadly plot that involves Orochmaru is revealed.
Naruto, a ninja-in-training, faces his greatest challenge when he is pitted against Neji in the third phase of the Chunin Selection Exams, a young man considered to be the most talened ninja in the village of Konohagakure.
Naruto and Kakashi, Naruto's teacher, are going to fight Itachi, Sasuke's brother; and meanwhile, Guy, Neji, Lee, and Tenten are off to fight Kisame, and Gaara and Naruto learn more about Akatsuki, their common enemy.
Sasuke finally arrives at the Forest of Death to compete against Gaara in the Chunin finals, but having to wait has heightened Gaara's bloodlust and weakened his grip on his already fragile sanity.
While Naruto studies with Jiraiya to harness the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox chakra locked within him in preparation for the Chu?nin Selection Exams, other ninja villages are secretly forming alliances against Konahagakure.
Uzumaki Naruto is determined to become the greatest ninja ever; however, he must first graduate from the academy, deal with his would-be rival, and face the terrifying force that destroyed his village twelve years ago.
Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke have signed up for the Journeyman Ninja Selection Exams, which they must pass as a group; if the tests of skill, stealth, and battle prowess don't kill them, the other junior ninja just might.
The preliminaries to the third portion of the Journeyman Ninja Selection Exams continue, and with tensions at an all-time high after one of the last combatants was rushed to the emergency room, the much-anticipated bout between mysterious Sand ninja Gaara and Konoha ninja Rock Lee begins.
Ninja trainee Sasuke, suffering the effects of a curse placed on him by Drochimaru, enters the first match of the Journeyman Ninja Selection Exams over the protests of his friend and classmate Sakura, and finds himself facing one of the formidable Sound Ninja spies.
