Recaps

As Hidden Sand launched attacks across Konoha’s borders, Uchiha Ran joined the vanguard and led a dangerous raid on an enemy camp. He survived severe poisoning, and Tsunade began treating him and the other wounded shinobi.

• Uchiha Ran helped resolve a dispute between neighboring shopkeepers before capturing a Sunagakure spy who revealed he was searching for the missing Third Kazekage.
• Hiruzen Sarutobi ordered wartime preparations after learning of unusual activity by Sunagakure and Iwagakure, while the Uchiha Clan debated its role in the coming conflict.
• Hidden Sand attacked Konoha outposts across several fronts, and Shikaku Nara ordered the Land of Rivers forces to prepare for combat.
• Hiruzen Sarutobi mobilized Konoha’s forces under Orochimaru and assigned Uchiha Ran’s squad to reconnoiter the Land of Rivers border.
• Uchiha Ran’s squad defeated Hidden Sand patrols and cleared ambushes, helping the Konoha vanguard reach its outpost safely.
• After warning that Hidden Sand’s main force would target Mount Kikyo, Uchiha Ran joined Orochimaru’s nighttime raid on a Hidden Sand camp.
• Uchiha Ran fought through the camp, killed several puppeteers, and faced Chahachiro’s poison puppets until his Chunin subordinates helped shield him during the withdrawal.
• The raid destroyed three Hidden Sand logistics nodes but cost Konoha many casualties, and Tsunade treated Uchiha Ran and the other shinobi poisoned by a new toxin.

Uchiha Ran survived the battles at Mount Kikyo and Gale-Splitting Gorge, where his Mangekyō Sharingan helped him defeat a large Hidden Sand force and made him famous across Konoha. As Ran recovered, the war widened, and Iwagakure prepared a major offensive in the Land of Grass.

• Uchiha Ran awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan, then joined his squad in fighting Hidden Sand forces while Orochimaru led Konoha’s main army toward Mount Kikyo.
• Rasa’s assault broke through Konoha’s defenses at Mount Kikyo, but Inoichi Yamanaka’s reinforcements disrupted the attack and forced Hidden Sand to retreat.
• Baki’s forces set a trap for Uchiha Ran in Gale-Splitting Gorge, where Ran used Susanoo and his Mangekyō Sharingan to defeat the Hidden Sand attackers and capture survivors.
• Uchiha Ran sent Shadow Ran and thirty-six genjutsu-controlled Hidden Sand ninja toward Akina Mountain while his squad carried him, gravely injured, back to camp.
• Baiyun Zaojian learned that Ran had defeated more than a hundred Hidden Sand ninja, and Hiruzen Sarutobi publicized Ran’s victory despite Shimura Danzō’s objection.
• Tsunade treated Uchiha Ran and reported that he was out of danger but needed three months to recover, while the great villages raised his bounty to fifty million ryo.
• Mokume Koto learned that Iwagakure’s main force was preparing a general offensive after months of fighting and attacks on Konoha’s supply lines.