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The story of Naruto is split into two parts. The first part, simply titled ?Naruto? spans 220 episodes. Naruto Shippuden, part two of the story, is still running and is currently at 373 episodes as of this post.
Because Ultimate Ninja Storm 2?s story starts from the very beginning of part two, I thought it would be good to do a quick summary of part one for those people who don?t know much about the series. So whether you don?t know anything about Naruto or want a quick reminder of the story so far, I invite you to read along to get caught up with the story of Naruto Uzumaki and friends (but mostly Naruto).
Arc 1: Introduction
12 years before the events of Naruto proper, a nine tailed fox demon attacked and almost destroyed the Hidden Leaf Village, which acts as the main hub village of the story. In a fierce battle, the Fourth Hokage, or Hidden Leaf Village leader, sacrificed himself to seal the fox demon away into a baby.
That baby was an orphan by the name of Naruto. He doesn?t seem too happy with this decision.
We then skip ahead 12 years to Naruto?s adolescence, where he has become known for his vandalism and pranks across the village.
After having the demon sealed within him, Naruto was ostracized by the citizens of the village, who feared his power and were angry that he was the host to a beast that almost destroyed their village. And so Naruto acts out in order to get attention from people, whether or not it?s negative.
Only one person, a teacher by the name of Iruka, was willing to associate with Naruto and be a friend to him. Since Iruka?s parents had died in the nine tailed demon?s attack, he too had acted out for attention as a youth, and so he felt that he could relate to Naruto and act as a guardian to him.
Naruto wants to graduate ninja school, but he constantly fails his ninja exams due to an inability to control his large amount of chakra, which makes it difficult for him to focus on performing techniques properly. As you can see here, his attempt to create a copy of himself has failed miserably.
Seeing his frustration, another teacher, Mizuki, tells Naruto that if he steals a scroll of forbidden techniques from the current Hokage?s home, he will be granted an immediate graduation. And as long as he returns the scroll later, what could go wrong?
Eager to prove himself both to Iruka and the village, Naruto successfully steals the scroll and begins to learn the Shadow Clone Technique, which allows him to create multiple corporeal copies of himself that can act independently.
During this time, Mizuki alerts the ninja police about Naruto?s thievery and begins a plan to kill Naruto and steal the scroll so that he can learn the techniques himself and gain incredible power.
Iruka learns of Mizuki?s plan and reaches Naruto first, in order to protect him from Mizuki. This is all well and good until he gets a giant shuriken planted in his back.
Naruto, seeing Iruka?s sacrifices for his safety, is able to successfully perform the Shadow Clone Technique and defeat Mizuki. Due to his attempted murders, Mizuki is sent to ninja jail and never seen again.
Due to his mastery of such a difficult technique, Naruto is granted an exception and is allowed to graduate from ninja school.
Each graduate is immediately placed into a team with two other graduates, along with an instructor. Naruto is placed on Team 7 with his rival, the brooding Sasuke, and his crush, the excitable Sakura (who has a crush on Sasuke). They are all put under the guidance of a high-ranking aloof ninja named Kakashi.
As a quick warm-up exercise, Kakashi asks each member of Team 7 to tell each other about their goals and aspirations. Naruto wants to become the next Hokage in order to garner respect from the people of the village. Sasuke wants to avenge his clan, who were all killed by his brother Itachi when Sasuke was a child. Sakura doesn?t have a serious life goal and just wants to marry Sasuke, since he?s a brooding hunk.
As their first task as a team, Kakashi asks them to do a skill test. Kakashi attaches two bells to his belt, and says that whoever can grab a bell from him will be allowed to continue their education; the one left without a bell will be forced to return to ninja school. Realizing that this means one of them will not be able to continue, the three members refuse to work with each other, and each of them try unsuccessfully to grab a bell on their own.
In a series of wacky hijinx, the three of them are left utterly defeated. Eventually, they learn that the point of the test was to teach them teamwork, and that they will never be able to succeed as a team without relying on each other and working together. With their lesson learned, Kakashi gives them his approval, and Team 7 passes the test.
Arc 2: Land of Waves
As a fully-fledged team, Team 7 begins to take on some low-ranking missions, which infuriates Naruto, because he feels as though he?s not learning anything from doing menial tasks. After Naruto sasses off to the Hokage, the Hokage decides to move the team up from D-rank missions to a C-rank mission, one that shouldn?t be too difficult but one that?s more taxing that finding lost cats and such.
Their first true mission is to help escort a man to the Land of Waves in order to help construct a bridge that would connect the Land of Waves to the rest of the world.
However, the Land of Waves was ruled by a mafia boss who wanted to keep the inhabitants poor and dependent on him, and so he sends two rogue ninja, Zabuza and Haku, to kill the bridgemaker and Team 7. As it turns out, this was actually supposed to be an A-rank mission, but the people of the Land of Waves couldn?t pay the fee for listing it as A-rank. WHOOPS
This battle rages on for quite a while, and marks the first time that Naruto accesses the nine tailed demon?s chakra inside of him, granting him immense power but leaving him in a berserk state. After wildly attacking the two ninja, Kakashi makes the final blow, but not before Zabuza turns on the mafia boss and kills him, freeing the Land of Waves from his tyrannical rule.
So there?s a happy ending for everyone.
After defeating the ninja, the bridge construction is completed and Team 7 returns to the village one A-rank mission stronger.
Arc 3: The Chunin Exams
Soon after, the ninja exams come up, and this is the chance for all the new ninja, or ?genin?, to increase their rank to ?chunin?, which will allow them to take harder missions and increase their social status. Ninja come from all over the word to the Hidden Leaf Village, where the exams are being hosted this year.
The first part of the exam is a written portion that takes like two episodes where everyone just cheats using ninja magic until the final question is a trick that leaves only half of the genin for the next part of the exams.
The second part is infinitely more interesting and involves traversing a deadly forest and finding the battle tower in the middle. All of the teams are let into the forest, and Team 7 is quickly sabotaged by a high-rank rouge ninja by the name of Orochimaru, who is the first main antagonist of the story.
Orochimaru was originally a ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village who defected in order to pursue him goals of immortality and absolute power. Now, he wants to destroy the Hidden Leaf Village in order to prove his strength, but at the same time wants to test Sasuke in order to see if he would make a good vessel for him. Due to his excess of power, Orochimaru?s body deteriorates more rapidly than usual, so he must live by inserting his soul into other people?s bodies periodically. As the brother of the famed rouge ninja Itachi, Sasuke seemed like a good candidate for Orochimaru.
While Orochimaru is held back slightly by the combined efforts of Naruto and Sasuke, he is eventually able to put seals on both of them in order to weaken them.
Naruto is given the Five Elements Seal that reduces the amount of chakra that flows through him, including the demon?s, putting him off-balance and unable to use most of his techniques.
Sasuke gets the Cursed Seal of Heaven, which, when activated, will release some of Orochimaru?s chakra into his body and gives him heightened strength and agility. However, after it is applied, the target is left in horrible pain as the seal?s magic spreads throughout the body. After this, Orochimaru leaves, telling Sasuke that the seal he has been given is the first step in becoming strong enough to kill Itachi.
Meanwhile, Sakura learns during this fight that she has been so caught up in meddling with her teammates and their own growth that she hasn?t improved herself and realizes that she?s not cut out for the fighting lifestyle. She decides then to focus more on becoming a medical ninja, since her early proficiencies were in recovery techniques.
Eventually, the team recovers enough to finish this part of the test just in time.
Security is increased around the village due to Orochimaru?s meddling, but the exams continue on into a fighting tournament portion. Naruto has trouble dealing with how little chakra he now has access to, but is able to overcome this restriction and handily defeat his opponents in more clever ways.
I mean that he tricks a man into beating up his dog familiar and then doesn?t have to deal with twice the number of attacks.
After his match, an old ninja sage named Jiraiya appears and helps Naruto by removing his seal, and teaching him chakra control for both of his chakra sources, giving him more consistency in his techniques.
During Sasuke?s fight, Orochimaru?s seal on him begins to flare up and take over, but Sasuke is able to forcibly stop it from consuming him completely, in order to prove he doesn?t need it to become stronger. He is still able to pretty handily defeat his opponent.
Later, after the match, Kakashi decides to teach Sasuke his special technique, the Chidori. He hopes that, if Sasuke knows a powerful technique like this, he will be less inclined to succumb to the seal later on.
Sakura also has a fight but neither her nor her opponent can use attacking jutsu so whatever. Sakura wins because she has the harder punches.
There are some pretty neat battles in between these as well, but this summary is going to be long as it is and they don?t involve the main characters so let?s move on!
Arc 4: Invasion of Konoha
As the finals approach, the exam is once again interrupted by Orochimaru, who has disguised himself as another village?s leader. He summons a whole bunch of giant snakes and revives a number of Hokages in order to cause panic and destroy the village.
What an asshole.
However, the current Hokage is able to not only fight off the revived Hokages before they can make it to the village proper, but he also seals away Orochimaru?s ability to use his arms (and therefore any ninja techniques) at the cost of his life. Orochimaru is then forced to recall his snakes and retreat in order to find a way to repair his arms.
All of the ninja from the exams are able to fight off the clan of invading ninja, using their combined powers to overwhelm and outsmart the enemy. So Orochimaru?s plan fails and everything is okay for a while.
Unfortunately, at the same time during the panic, a ninja from the Hidden Sand Village, Gaara, goes into a rage and releases the one tailed demon sealed inside of him, and begins to destroy the village anew.
Naruto is able to release his own demon and fight off the berserk Gaara in a Godzilla-esque big monster fight. As another vessel for a tailed demon, Naruto is able to sympathize with Gaara, and he tries to talk Gaara down from his rage and hatred. Unlike Naruto, Gaara had no one supporting him throughout his childhood, due to his inability to control the power of the demon inside of him, causing him to kill people who got too close to him. So he came to believe that he was a monster, unable to do anything but destroy and kill. Thanks to Naruto?s sympathy, Gaara begins to believe that he can achieve greater things than his status as a monster, and is able to quell the demon inside of him.
The exams are then cancelled for the time being and no one passes. AH WELL
Arc 5: Search for Tsunade
With the Hokage dead, the Hidden Leaf Village begins a search for someone to take on the role. Although the sage Jiraiya is approached, he declines and says that he would like to search for an old friend, Tsunade, who he feels would be better for the position. During this time, he also takes Naruto on as a student, both to help him improve his chakra control and his abilities, but also to protect him from the Akatsuki, a terrorist group of high-ranking rouge ninjas who are on the search for the tailed beasts. They seek to extract the tailed demons from their vessels, killing them in the process, in order to harness that power for themselves and destroy all ninja civilization.
While Naruto and Jiraiya are preparing for their search for Tsunade, two members of the Akatsuki, Kisame and Itachi, find them in the Hidden Leaf Village and begin to fight. At the same time, Sasuke runs into them.
Believing himself prepared to fight Itachi (due to his mastery of the Chidori technique), Sasuke charges straight at him, but only ends up with a broken wrist and a lot of regret. Itachi tells him that Sasuke is not yet truly consumed by hatred and malice for him, and so Sasuke will never be able to defeat Itachi in his current state. Before Naruto has a chance to attack the two Akatsuki, Jiraiya appears and is able to fight both of them off and protect Naruto and Sasuke.
Then they disappear and are forgotten about until Part 2.
After leaving on their journey, Jiraiya tries to teach Naruto the Rasengan, which is a pure ball of concentrated chakra repurposed as a weapon. However, Naruto currently lacks the focus and control to properly pull it off.
As luck would have it, the two of them find Tsunade at some dead end bar they?ve stopped at. However, it turns out that Orochimaru has already talked to her, asking her to help heal his arms. Tsunade is recognized as the greatest medical ninja of her generation, and so he believes that Tsunade could reverse the sealing technique on his arms and return him to his former power. Orochimaru has also claimed that should she heal him, he?d also revive her lover and younger brother.
As it turns out, Tsunade, Jiraiya and Orochimaru had originally been on a ninja team together as children, where they were considered (and are still considered) to be the strongest ninjas of their generation. However, they had all left the village at one point or another in order to pursue their own goals.
Tsunade initially refuses the invitation to become Hokage, because she believes it?s a worthless title and a thankless job. Naruto fights her about this, since his dream is to gain the respect that the title brings. Tsunade is intrigued by Naruto?s passion, and so she decides to set up a test for him.
If Naruto can perfect and master the Rasengan technique in one week, she would return to the village in order to become Hokage. Naruto agrees, and goes into isolation for a week in order to focus solely on the Rasengan. A week later, Tsunade hears nothing from Naruto and meets up with Orochimaru. However, it turns out Tsunade?s plan had been to kill Orochimaru to stop him before he could cause any more damage, and so they begin to fight. Later, Jiraiya joins the fight along with Naruto, who has mastered the Rasengan with the help of the Shadow Clone Technique.
After battling on the ground, the three former friends then summon giant monsters to fight and it?s a grand old time. The battle ends with Orochimaru leaving throughly defeated and Tsunade agreeing to become Hokage. On the way back to the village, Naruto discusses his joy in mastering the Rasengan, which he believes will give him the edge over Sasuke and his Chidori. Also Naruto learns how to summon frogs just like Jiraiya but that doesn?t play too big a part in the story for now.
Arc 6: Sasuke Retrieval
After their return, Sasuke, angered by his inability to pose a threat to Itachi, picks a fight with Naruto right after leaving the hospital with his fixed wrist. As they fight, Naruto admits that he wants to be recognized by Sasuke for his improvement and told that Sasuke properly considers him a rival. However, Sasuke?s pride is too great to admit that someone like Naruto could be as strong as he is. There?s a sort of classist motivation behind this as well, since the Uchiha clan members were seen as elites and the Uzumaki clan was pretty low-class. Eventually the fight is cut short by Sakura, and Sasuke leaves to brood.
In the evening, Orochimaru?s pupils appear to Sasuke and invite him to join them as a new student. Since he has also been branded with Orochimaru?s seal, the students tell Sasuke that he could learn to control this power and become stronger than he could ever imagine. They tell him that Orochimaru will give him everything he needs to be able to defeat Itachi, and with that Sasuke decides to leave the village in order to meet up with Orochimaru.
As Sasuke is exiting the village, Sakura sees Sasuke and tries to get him to stay in the Hidden Leaf Village with his friends. She says that she?s in love with him and that he should stay in order for her to support him, but Sasuke is too focused on revenge and knocks her unconscious to make sure he can escape without trouble.
The day after, a retrieval team is put together from some of the strongest students from the Hidden Leaf Village, with some reinforcements from the Hidden Sand Village. And so they begin their top-priority mission to bring Sasuke back to the village. No Ninja Left Behind, as they say.
In a number of fierce battles, the group is able to defeat Orochimaru?s pupils one by one, which culminates in a final battle between Naruto and Sasuke in a place called the Valley of the End.
During this fight, Naruto is pushed to unleashing more of the nine tailed demon?s power, to the point where the chakra aura around him grows a tail and he becomes more animal in look, manifesting stronger than ever before. At the same time, Sasuke succumbs to Orochimaru?s seal, which gives him a demonic look along with increasing his overall power.
Through a long and arduous battle, leaving both of the ninja at their limit, Sasuke eventually comes out victorious, and decides to leaves Naruto for dead. Naruto is later discovered by Kakashi, who finds his weak body in the Valley of the End and brings him back to the village to recover.
Then, after recovering, the three members of Team 7 go their separate ways: Naruto leaves the village with Jiraiya to learn how to better control and wield his chakra, in the hopes of one day bringing Sasuke back.
Sasuke leaves with Orochimaru to become his pupil and begin training to kill his brother.
Sakura stays with Tsunade in the village as an apprentice in order to become a better medical ninja.
Then, after a two and a half year time gap, our heroes have completed their training, and so begins Naruto Shippuden.