NARUTO - EPISODE FIFTY-SEVEN: He Flies! He Jumps! He Lurks! Chief Toad Appears!
Naruto summoned something big at the end of the last episode...but what was it? The Chief Toad! No tail=not a tadpole! The Chief Toad Gamabunta is not happy to have Naruto capering on top of him...no he is not. He knows Jiraiya is involved somehow! J-man makes his escape while Naruto covers for him. He thinks Jiraiya summoned him when it was Naruto instead.
The chief finds this idea ridiculous.
But he does Naruto a solid by jumping out of the ravine with Naruto on his back.
With expected results.
God damn is this toad huge as it levels an entire patch of forest. Naruto fell right off and the chief isn't going to accept anyone who falls off his back as a henchman, let alone master. Since he's in the real world without J-man around he's going for a walk. Naruto challenges him to an honor duel, he's gonna stay on Gamabunta's back all day...and its going to be a long one.
Jiraiya has better things to do.
Back in Konoha Kanuro is watching Shikamaru and Chouji go for Korean BBQ like they do every day after training. Temari asks why he isn't watching Gaara, but Kankuro says that even he knows enough to not go on a murder spree in broad daylight. They talk about Shikamaru not being much of an opponent and Kankuro asks her if she regrets not entering last year's examinations considering she definitely would have passed. This brings us to the meat of the episode, the reason why the Sand ninja are here.
Long story short; the alliance between Sand and Leaf has lead to lasting peace in the region, but gave the Feudal Lord of the Land of Wind the excuse he needed to downsize the military and outsource a lot of his jobs to the Leaf, which has angered the Kazekage. The Sand decided to go along with this at first by training fewer, higher quality Ninja and enhancing them, using the Kazekage's most recently born son as a test bed.
Baki meets with the Kazekage and they discuss whether or not to send more troops to the border as backup. Kazekage thinks Gaara can get it done all on his own and dismisses Baki.
Who leaves in a bad ass way.
Naruto is putting up a good fight.
Like this.
and this!
But the day is almost done and Naruto is almost out of chakra. He's got enough for some Shadow Clones though, who save his life as he's about to pass out. He almost made it. Gamabunta respects this show of courage and he knew all along that Naruto summoned him. The last one to show this much cheek was the fourth hokage! He drops him off at the Konoha hospital, leaving behind a giant toad print.