Buried Gold Excavation Mission

The Imposter Arc spans from episodes 175 and 176 of the Naruto anime. This arc is preceded by the Land of the Sea Arc and is followed by the Hoshigakure Arc.

Summary
Noticing that lately Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba have been a rather low success rate in their ninja missions, Tsunade decided to give them one final chance to succeed or be sent back to the academy to restart their training. Their mission was to retrieve a hidden treasure. Initially, Naruto and Kiba kept getting into arguments about which way to go, which resulted in them taking different directions and each time Kiba emerging the one correct. Along the way, Hinata injured her ankle, forcing Kiba to go on alone while Naruto stayed with Hinata. After Kiba left, Naruto and Hinata were attacked and captured by mysterious ninja. Naruto later awoke to discover that he and his friends were replicated by their captors. The captors revealed themselves to be of the Kedōin clan, a clan with a special transformation technique that copies a person beyond just looking like the target. Their plan is to infiltrate Konoha and destroy it from the inside.

The enemies attempt to crush Naruto and his team in a cave-in. Kiba and Naruto manage to free Hinata who then uses her Gentle Fist to repel all the rocks. Later, Naruto and his team escape the cave and go after the Kedōin clan. To Naruto's fury, his double goes around the village building up a huge bill from various restaurants and even eats all of Naruto's saved food at home. After finding the doubles, it is discovered that they can't replicate the original's physical prowess and are easily able to capture them. Later, it is revealed from Tsunade that she actually hired the Kedōin clan to test Naruto and the others on how well they could handle such a situation.

Episodes