Madara Uchiha (episode)

is episode 322 of the Naruto: Shippūden anime.

Summary
Kabuto takes control over Mū's body and explains to Madara that he has made him stronger than even his prime. With that, Madara pushes forward and takes down a large portion of the Fourth Division using only taijutsu and kenjutsu to dominate them, with the aid of his Sharingan to evade their attacks. Temari tells Naruto to enter "that mode", but he replies that he is out of chakra and cannot. She later hits Madara with an attack that sends him away, but little to no damage is done. He then uses a powerful flame technique on the alliance, who barely manage to counter it with their combined water techniques. Madara then launches plenty of fireballs at the alliance and also reappearing in the smoke to fight. As he proceeds to defeat even more of them, he is stopped by Gaara's sand. Gaara, Ōnoki and Naruto manage to corner Madara with their techniques. However, Madara activates his Susanoo to shield himself from Naruto's Ultra-Big Ball Rasengan. Naruto enters Sage Mode and after Gaara takes Madara away from the Susanoo Naruto attacks him with a Wind Release: Rasenshuriken. However, he activates his Rinnegan and absorbs Naruto's attack, confirming Kabuto's hypothesis on the Sharingan's potential to evolve into the Rinnegan. Madara drops a meteorite on the Fourth Division, but while Ōnoki stops it, he is unable to stop the second meteorite. It falls on them crushing and killing a large number of them. There are few survivors, but they are wounded, including Ōnoki. Madara then attempts to summon the Nine-Tails but fails because it is still sealed within Naruto. He then proceeds to test Hashirama's cells inside of him by using the Wood Release Secret Technique: Nativity of a World of Trees, leaving Naruto and the other surviving shinobi of the Fourth Division in shock.

Trivia

 * In the manga, Madara attacks the Alliance Shinobi first with his Fire Release technique and then combats them with taijutsu. However, in this episode, he first engages them with taijutsu and then uses his Fire Release technique.
 * When Naruto attacks Madara with his Ultra-Big Ball Rasengan, Madara already has his Rinnegan activated for a second, but then switches to his Mangekyō Sharingan. This is most likely an animation error. However, it was corrected in the DVD version.