Recaps

Ling uncovered Root’s experiments, allied with Tsunade to bring down Danzo, and joined the Anbu as Crow. During a mission in Amegakure, Pain’s trap separated him from his team and led him to Xi, whose clan contract and the Ryūmyaku powered the Abyssal Corridor.

• At Hiruzen Sarutobi’s funeral, Ling sensed Root watching him, then accepted a mission to investigate a sleeping town and left Konoha with Aoi and Inuzuka Gaku.
• Ling and his teammates traced the town’s affliction to a maple tree and a root-bound corpse, then fought Root operatives over a damaged scroll and its Yin Release core.
• Ling absorbed a fragment of the scroll, awakened unusual scarlet eyes, killed two Root attackers, and returned to Konoha with the injured Inuzuka Gaku and Kuromaru.
• Ling met Tsunade in secret, gave her evidence of Root’s actions, and accepted protection in the Anbu training program while sharing intelligence about Danzo’s hidden laboratory.
• Ling discovered signs of forbidden experiments beneath the Forest of Death and survived a shadow monster’s attack, prompting Tsunade to increase his protection and move against Danzo.
• Ling warned Tsunade of a possible Orochimaru-Akatsuki transaction and helped bait Danzo’s attempt to seize his ocular power, allowing Tsunade’s forces to destroy the laboratory and defeat Danzo.
• Tsunade killed Danzo, disbanded Root, and appointed Ling Special Jōnin and an Anbu under Fox, who gave him the codename Crow.
• Fox sent Ling and Azure Phoenix to Amegakure to investigate Akatsuki activity, but Pain and Konan ambushed the team and Ling escaped through an underground fissure.
• After being swept down an underground river, Ling found Xi chained to Six Binding Pillars and learned that Pain was twisting her clan’s contract with the Ryūmyaku to power the Abyssal Corridor.
• As Pain accelerated the contract’s erosion, Xi directed Ling to damaged runes on a pillar, and Ling struck them with the Fragment’s power using “Purifying Erosion: Barrier Break!”

Ling escaped Pain’s control of the Ryūmyaku, then returned to Konoha and confronted Root remnants and an ancient contamination threat. The Eyes of the End targeted his powers and personal bonds, leaving Konoha facing a spreading resonance network and traps designed around Ling’s abilities.

• Ling and Xi escaped the Ryūmyaku shaft with Araki’s help, then joined the resistance attack on a secondary node, where Konan killed Araki before Ling and Xi destroyed the tower and Tsunade’s team rescued them.
• After recovering in Konoha, Ling investigated Root remnants with Fox, uncovered their research into the Dead Demon Kiss, and helped repel a gray-mist attack at B-7 Outpost that identified him as a Key Holder.
• Ling, Fox, and Xi intercepted a Priest who was weakening the Shrine of Sealing Evil, and Ling destroyed the Priest’s core and an ancient shadow before the shrine’s seal failed.
• Ling’s damaged eye seal exposed him to the Eyes of the End, whose Guidance Protocol tried to manipulate him, but Ling used his beliefs to disrupt its core and began training with Ibiki to detect conceptual pollution.
• Ling and Konoha’s leaders expanded their defenses as contamination spread through archives and historical sites, while Ling used Thought Runestones to resist induction and developed the Star-Seer Eye with Sasuke’s help.
• Ling and Sasuke weakened the resonance network at the Memorial Stone grove, but the High Priest escalated the threat by targeting conviction sources and preparing contamination traps, while Ling sensed danger closing around his companions.