Here all the battle and the Pain's arc had a strange unexpected moment, pointless and unexplainable. Kishimoto failed in common sense, or he was forced to make a fan service. Naruto is trapped by Pain, with a black metal steel stabbed through his hands. He still rejects his crazy idea of peace, but Pain keeps saying that humans are not smart, the cycle of hate will continue if he doesn't stop him, there's no other way. Nagato tells Naruto that he doesn't have an idea of how to bring peace to the shinobi world, Jiraiya's wishes are an illusion. The only thing he can do is to give him the Kyuubi's power. Then, Shima first tries to encourage Naruto, he is the prophecy child, Jiraiya and Fukasaku died believing in him, he can't fail them now. But Pain easily sends her away with his power, knocking her out. Naruto's anger keeps increasing. He is stabbed on other parts of his body through nothing fatal, with the objective of immobilizing him, as Nagato explains. And just when he attempts to take him away, Hinata, who was struggling by watching this, intervenes (to her bodyguard's dismay). Pain retreats a little, while Naruto desperatly tries to send her away, shouting that Pain is at another level, she must leave, run away. He asked everyone not to intervene. But she doesn't care, she says she knows she is being selfish, she thanks him for inspiring her, making her grow away from fear, tears and shyness, so she will be glad of dying protecting him. She says she loves him. Then, she starts battling Pain, but he easily sends her away with powerful minor blasts of his Shinra Tensei. She gets up, with some blood in her face, and fights with her technique that uses Byakugan. When she reaches Pain, she manages to hit him once on the face, and takes the opportunity to remove one of the black metal bars from Naruto. But Pain recovers soon, and sends her away with more power now. She barely manages to get up, and tells Pain that never give up is her ninja way. He doesn't understand it, but anyway, atracts her in the air and stabs her, seemingly killing her. He tells Naruto that his parents were killed by Konoha shinobis right in front of him, just like this. Naruto stares at the scene, powerless, shocked, and inmediatly transforms into the Kyuubi. Pain states if he hates him now. Soon, Sakura and the Hyuga shinobi notice the huge wave of wind coming, she realizes something bad is happening. On the other hand, Inoichi, Shikaku and Shikamaru plan to start a search for Nagato on the higher grounds around Konoha, in teams of two members, and with sensorial shinobi, to be more effective. Kaysuyu is told to tell the other villagers about this mission.
Here the storyline was really bad. Why? Because Hinata's meddling was shocking, unexpected, pointless, with no arguments. Episode 166 of Shippuden, and she barely appeared on the arc pursuit of Itachi and Sasuke, with basically two dialogues, and then, one episode where she couldn't say a word to Naruto because she fainted twice. So where's the reason? This came out of nowhere. She spent three years of no seeing him, she had no interactions, no dialogues, no story, she doesn't know this grown up Naruto, she knows nothing about what happened to Gaara, how he feels about Sasuke's hatred, his training with the rasenshuriken, the battle with Akatsuki, or the big loss he felt when Jiraiya was killed, how much he wants Tsunade, the Mount Myoboku, Fukasaku, the senjutsu, and many other things, events involving him. She bases her love, or her crush, on a few lonely childhood experiences. On the first part of Naruto, they had more interactions, he supported her during the fight with Neji, and the conversation before the last test of Chunin exams. But that was it. Besides, almost all the flashbacks showed here, in the manga don't exist. So he never protected her when they were children, because she was never bothered by bullies at that age. It's not canon. And after all, she has bodyguards, her father, people watching over her, so, how likely was that flashback? It was invented, and not by Kishimoto. So, with all that, and more important, the last three years!!! The characters grow up, matured, have experiences, missions, what was she doing all that time? It's known more about Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, Kiba, Shino, Neji, Konohamaru, Udon, Moegi, Asuma, Kurenai than her. That's a big plothole, she had basically no appearances, no storylines in all Shippuden until this chapter. It was never showed even a reaction while learning of Kurenai's pregnancy, the woman who always supported her as sensei. And here, with these actions, she admitted it, she was being selfish, she knew she could do nothing for Naruto. She knew she wasn't really helping him, but she did it anyway. Besides, the fight in the manga, lasted a couple of pages. It was extended, and romanticized for the anime. This tells that Kishimoto wrote it reluctantly. He didn't really think, like if he was forced. This is because what Hinata was written to do here, was totally incoherent, zero logic, zero arguments, with no valid reasons. At the end, she served as the last straw to make Naruto transform into the Kyuubi. And even this is a questionable decision. I expected Naruto to show some other trick under his sleeve. Like Shima said, Jiraiya and Fukasaku gave their lives for him, so his answer should be to honor them, and defeat the enemy, not transform into the Kyuubi. Indeed, he was accumulating anger and hate against Pain, the villain killed Jiraiya, destroyed Konoha, killed Kakashi (and Shizune if he doesn't know), left Tsunade on a serious state, killed Fukasaku, knocked out Shima, and is the head of Akatsuki, who gladly captures the jinchurikis, murders them and extract their power, all to grant a "peaceful world" based on fear and massive destruction. Hinata's supposed death was only the last straw. I'm curious to know what would have happened if Hinata didn't appear. Or Naruto had a plan to use his last clone with natural energy, or he planned to transform in a Kyuubi with one or three tails, when he was away from Konoha, to protect the remaining villagers. The good part of this episode was Shikaku, and Inoichi's plan. Still, was a brief moment. Sakura realizing the big power at the end of the episode was just to remember she is still there. Sadly, for some reason, didn't seem like Katsuyu was updating her about what happened.
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