Recaps

Hoshino rose through Sunagakure’s Anbu while developing Spirit Puppets and forging a bond with Gaara and Shukaku. After challenging influential puppet-making clans, he formed a new team to investigate an attack on Kankuro’s factory, leading them into the desert in search of a hidden base.

• Hoshino befriended Gaara with a smiling puppet, then passed his early graduation assessment and joined Anbu Team Six as Spirit Puppet.
• Hoshino helped Team Six defeat Onimaru and disguised Kumogakure ninja, though the mission exposed a stolen defense map and destroyed many of his puppets.
• Hoshino and his friends vowed to change Sunagakure, while he forged twelve Spirit Control Beads with Gaara and Shukaku’s Chakra and tested their powers.
• After rogue ninja attacked Kankuro’s puppet factory, Hoshino investigated and shut down Night Sand Clan shops selling shoddy puppets, drawing complaints from several clans.
• Rasa gave Hoshino authority to investigate puppet quality and appointed him captain of Anbu Team Eleven, which included Temari, Maki, Yashamaru, Arashi, and Hizuki.
• Hoshino recruited the impoverished former ninja Arashi with a puppet prosthetic and began investigating who had attacked the factory.
• Hoshino’s team found that the western barrier may have been disabled and discovered nonnative insects, while Temari reported a caravan from the Land of Lightning had entered the desert.
• Hoshino, Maki, and Hizuki searched the desert for the caravan’s base, then followed a clue from the Rat Bead to an abandoned cart and a concealed pit.

Hoshino destroyed the Black Scorpion, Night Sand, and Red Sand clans, then used their seized resources to build the Sunagakure Reform Society. With Rasa agreeing to join its leadership, Hoshino began transforming a preserved Ice Release shinobi into a puppet.

• Hoshino uncovered evidence that the Red Sand Clan had conducted human experiments and persuaded Rasa to punish the Black Scorpion and Night Sand clans, though Rasa initially spared the Red Sand Clan.
• Hoshino enlisted Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara in a takeover of clan resources, then joined Rasa’s assault on the Night Sand and Black Scorpion clans.
• Hoshino and Hizuki attacked the Red Sand Clan, and Hizuki killed Akasuna Retsu after Hoshino overwhelmed him.
• Hoshino convinced Rasa to declare the Red Sand Clan missing-nin and received authority to purge it, while Akasuna Arashi led a group of clan members toward the Land of Rivers.
• Hoshino’s Anbu teams pursued Akasuna Arashi’s forces by sea, destroyed their fleet, and killed Arashi and the remaining Red Sand ninjas.
• Hoshino gave Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara custom artifacts and assigned them roles in the Reform Society as it gathered resources and attracted villagers and ninja.
• Hoshino invited Rasa to join the Society’s leadership and divided its responsibilities among himself, Gaara, Kankuro, Temari, and Rasa, who agreed to let Hoshino proceed.
• Hoshino inspected the Society’s laboratories and began turning a preserved Ice Release shinobi into a puppet using the Human Puppet Technique.

Hoshino's puppets helped orchestrate the Uchiha Clan's escape during the massacre, while Sunagakure's raid plunged Konoha into chaos. The surviving Uchiha children sailed away, but Sasuke was abducted and the Swift Release puppet bound itself to a boy aboard the ship.

• Hoshino developed Ice Release and Swift Release puppets, then arranged with Rasa to gather Kekkei ninja and use disguised raids on nobles to fund Sunagakure.
• Bingkui spied on the Uchiha and learned that Fugaku was preparing for war, while Hiruzen rejected Danzō's demands to eliminate the clan and invade the Land of Wind.
• Danzō forced Itachi to agree to kill the Uchiha, and Hoshino sent Bingkui to help Yashiro evacuate clan members in exchange for Sharingan and secret jutsu.
• As Yashiro led Uchiha fighters out of the compound, Sunagakure spies attacked Konoha, Root slaughtered Uchiha inside the compound, and Hiruzen failed to stop the fighting.
• Itachi and Kakashi pursued the fleeing Uchiha, but Bingkui and the Swift Release puppet fought to protect their escape as survivors boarded a ship.
• Izumi awakened her Mangekyō Sharingan and fought Itachi, but both died after Obito intervened, and the Uchiha ships disappeared beyond the horizon.
• Fugaku died after entrusting his Mangekyō Sharingan to a black cat for Sasuke, while a masked man abducted Sasuke and Hiruzen chose to avoid war with Sunagakure.
• Aboard the ship, Inabi stayed with the rescued children as a boy mourned Izumi and the Swift Release puppet's Spirit Control Beads wrapped around his wrist.

Hoshino and Rasa strengthened Sunagakure against outside pressure while Hoshino developed new technology and Gaara uncovered a black-market trade in prosthetics. Hoshino’s pursuit of the trade led to a battle at Falling Rain Town, where Sunagakure forces surrounded the surviving bidders and their allies.

• Hoshino brought the Uchiha survivors to Sunagakure, where he and Rasa rejected Konoha’s demands, prepared for war, and brought the Uchiha into the Reform Society.
• Hoshino advanced his research on Kikaichū and prosthetics as Sunagakure endured a tense standoff, and Grandma Chiyo agreed to support his reforms.
• Hoshino defended the Reform Society’s labor and prosthetics policies, while Gaara exposed traditional factions’ efforts to manipulate villagers and later raided a warehouse where the Third Elder’s allies sold stolen prosthetics.
• The Third Elder revealed a wider black-market trade involving several villages, and Gaara secured his cooperation in reaching the next transaction despite the leadership’s refusal to authorize an official raid.
• Hoshino recruited Shinnō and the surviving Sky Ninja, claimed their flying fortress Ancor Vantian, and fought Orochimaru before heading toward the Land of Rain.
• Hoshino joined Yashamaru at an auction in Falling Rain Town, where Aburame Ryoma won the Secret Missile Refining Technique for 170 million ryō.
• Kitsuchi, Darui, and other village ninja attacked the auction hall, and Hoshino ordered Sunagakure’s forces to seal off Falling Rain Town as Kikaichū swarmed the trapped combatants.