The Leaf’s Handsome Devil!
Sasuke emerges and rejects home, while Lee leaves recovery behind to intercept Kimimaro and give Naruto the road forward.
RaeRae Reacts
Episode 123 brings Sasuke out of the container and Rock Lee out of the hospital.
One boy wakes up stronger and runs away from everyone waiting for him.
The other can barely be cleared to train, sneaks out anyway and throws himself between Naruto and a killer.
That contrast is the episode.
Sasuke's new power comes through surrendering his body to Orochimaru's curse mark.
Lee's return comes through surgery, pain and a refusal to abandon his friends.
Naruto finally sees the person he has chased across the forest.
Sasuke laughs and keeps moving.
Then the Leaf's handsome devil arrives to make sure Naruto can follow.
Lee is absolutely not supposed to be here.
Thank goodness he never got that memo.
Tayuya Forces Her Way Through the Shadow
Shikamaru has Tayuya trapped after turning her own Doki into the first layer of his fakeout.
The strategy worked.
The power gap did not disappear.
Tayuya activates the second state of her curse mark and gains enough strength and chakra to push against Shadow Imitation.
Shikamaru cannot simply release her and reset the board. His tools are nearly gone, his chakra is low and the distance that once protected him has collapsed.
He commits to a closer-range finishing attempt because letting go means giving Tayuya her flute, movement and killing range back at once.
The trap bought him control.
Now he has to turn temporary control into survival before her cursed body breaks the technique apart.
Intelligence Cannot Erase the Power Gap
Shikamaru outthought Tayuya.
She can still overpower him.
Tayuya's second state attacks the weakest part of the plan: maintenance.
The shadow reached her. The trap closed. Shikamaru still has to hold a transformed opponent whose raw force exceeds his remaining capacity.
He knows releasing the bind will kill him.
He also knows maintaining it cannot last forever.
This is what a good plan looks like when the opponent has another form you could not test in advance.
It works, then the problem changes.
Kiba Treats Two Sets of Wounds
Elsewhere, Kiba stops long enough to tend Akamaru and his own injuries.
Both need help.
Akamaru took severe damage after the Double-Headed Wolf transformation, while Kiba stabbed himself to force Ukon out of his body. The pair escaped, but escape did not erase the damage.
Kiba treats Akamaru first because that is who he is.
Akamaru remains family, and getting him home remains part of the mission even while Sakon and Ukon search for them.
Then Kiba senses three figures approaching.
He has no way to know whether they are enemies, allies or another problem arriving while neither partner can fight properly.
The forest is moving toward him again.
Naruto Has Nothing to Show for the Clone Army
Naruto's shadow clones continue falling to Kimimaro.
He cannot land one clean hit.
Naruto fills the battlefield with bodies, but Kimimaro's bone weapons and precise movement turn every approach into smoke.
Naruto is not losing because he lacks effort.
He is losing because effort keeps arriving in a form Kimimaro already understands.
Kimimaro protects Sasuke's container while Naruto exhausts himself trying to force a direct path through him.
Then the container begins to change.
Smoke rises.
The person inside finally emerges.
Sasuke Wakes in the Second State
Sasuke's curse mark completes its second-level transformation inside the sealed container.
He steps out carrying the visible result of the process Orochimaru offered him.
Naruto has spent the mission imagining that catching the carriers means bringing Sasuke home. The fantasy assumes Sasuke will behave like somebody being rescued.
He does not.
Sasuke chose this route before the Sound Four sealed him away. The container was not a prison imposed against his will. It was part of a transformation he accepted because he believes Orochimaru can give him the power needed to kill Itachi.
Naruto has reached the target.
The target refuses the meaning of rescue.
Naruto Offers Home Anyway
Naruto tells Sasuke to return.
Everyone is waiting for him in Konoha.
Naruto speaks from the truth he understands: Team 7 cares, Sakura is waiting and people have crossed the country risking their lives because Sasuke matters to them.
Sasuke hears those bonds as restraints on the goal he has placed above everything else.
He does not answer with a debate.
He laughs.
The reaction enrages Naruto because it treats every injury behind them as irrelevant. Choji, Neji, Kiba, Akamaru and Shikamaru have paid for the chance to reach this conversation.
Sasuke walks away without acknowledging the cost.
Sasuke Is Awake, Not Recovered
The mission language can make Sasuke sound like stolen property waiting to be returned.
His emergence destroys that comfortable framing.
Orochimaru exploited his trauma and sent the Sound Four to make departure possible. Sasuke still made choices inside that manipulation.
He wants the power.
He believes revenge justifies the teacher, the curse mark and the betrayal.
That does not make Orochimaru innocent. It makes Naruto's task harder than breaking a container.
Sasuke is not unconscious anymore.
He is actively leaving.
Naruto cannot solve that with a speech shouted at Sasuke's back while Kimimaro stands between them.
He has to follow.
Kimimaro Blocks the Pursuit
Kimimaro moves to stop Naruto and intends to kill him.
From Kimimaro's perspective, the delivery has reached its next stage. Sasuke can move under his own power, and Naruto remains the one person most likely to interfere through persistence or emotional connection.
Eliminating Naruto protects Orochimaru's future vessel.
Naruto cannot chase Sasuke while defending against Kimimaro's bone blade.
The mission threatens to fail at the exact moment the container opens.
Then somebody intercepts the attack.
Rock Lee arrives in the space Naruto desperately needs somebody else to occupy.
The Leaf's Handsome Devil Returns
Lee should be recovering from surgery.
Instead, he has followed the retrieval squad into the forest and placed himself between Naruto and Kimimaro.
Tsunade's operation gave Lee a chance to continue being a ninja after Gaara's attack nearly ended his career. Leaving the hospital early risks the future he fought to reclaim.
It is also completely consistent with Lee.
He cannot accept lying safely in bed while friends face an enemy he might help stop.
Lee tells Naruto to pursue Sasuke and reminds him of his promise to Sakura.
The mission becomes a relay again.
Lee takes Kimimaro.
Naruto gets the road forward.
Kimimaro Reads Lee's Taijutsu
Lee begins exchanging blows with Kimimaro.
His speed and taijutsu create a different problem from Naruto's clone swarm, but Kimimaro adapts quickly. Bone control protects his body and turns familiar approach lines into dangerous trades.
Kimimaro also finds Lee's movements predictable.
That insult cuts directly at the fighting style Lee built through relentless repetition. Precision and drilled form made him exceptional, but a disciplined opponent can read a pattern that remains too clean.
Lee has returned before his body should be fighting and drawn an opponent whose skeleton punishes close contact.
He needs unpredictability.
He is about to get far more than anybody requested.
The Medicine Break
Lee asks Kimimaro for time to take his medicine.
Kimimaro allows it.
The pause is strange, almost polite, inside a fight where both understand the stakes. Kimimaro's rigid sense of conduct gives Lee the seconds needed to reach for the bottle brought from the hospital.
Lee drinks it.
The bottle does not contain medicine.
It contains sake.
Back in Konoha, Tsunade and Guy piece together what happened. Lee's surgery succeeded, he disappeared before recovery and he took the wrong bottle.
Guy knows the problem immediately.
Alcohol turns Lee into a natural Drunken Fist fighter.
The careful, predictable taijutsu Kimimaro just learned is about to lose its straight lines.
What Changes After Episode 123
Tayuya enters curse-mark state two and pushes against Shikamaru's restraint.
Shikamaru commits to a close-range finish because releasing her would leave him exposed.
Kiba treats Akamaru and his own wounds, then senses three approaching figures.
Naruto's clone army still cannot land a hit on Kimimaro.
Sasuke completes his second-level curse transformation and emerges from the container.
Naruto asks him to return to everyone waiting in Konoha.
Sasuke laughs, refuses and leaves deeper into the forest.
Kimimaro blocks Naruto from following.
Rock Lee arrives, intercepts Kimimaro and sends Naruto after Sasuke.
Lee's familiar taijutsu proves readable against Kimimaro's bone control.
Lee pauses to take what he believes is medicine.
He unknowingly drinks sake, setting up the Drunken Fist battle.
Tayuya breaks the hold by making strength matter again
Shikamaru’s layered plan reaches her, but the second curse-mark state gives Tayuya enough force to push against Shadow Possession. Intelligence created control; it did not remove the physical contest required to maintain it.
A plan can be correct and still exceed the body’s available power. Shikamaru’s chakra and muscles remain part of every calculation.
He reaches the right answer without possessing enough support to finish it
Shikamaru reads the music, manipulates light, captures the Doki, and places his shadow on Tayuya. The sequence demonstrates command-level judgment. He is still one exhausted child facing curse-mark amplification alone.
Failure at the final hold does not invalidate the reasoning. It exposes the resource gap around the person executing it.
The power gap becomes Konoha’s responsibility
Tsunade sent the best available squad under emergency conditions. Those conditions keep appearing as bodies left behind and solo fighters reaching the edge of capacity.
The village cannot praise Shikamaru’s intelligence as though intelligence supplies reinforcement, medical care, or adult strength.
Kiba treats Akamaru before treating the mission
In the ravine, Kiba tends Akamaru’s wounds and then his own. Protecting the partner who cannot act independently takes priority over immediately resuming pursuit.
That order is not sentimental weakness. Akamaru is a teammate whose life matters beyond the tracking service he provides.
Field treatment shows what the original roster lacked
Kiba has basic supplies and enough knowledge to stabilize injuries. The squad does not have a dedicated medic traveling behind its separations.
Improvised care can keep someone alive temporarily. It should not become the village’s substitute for medical support on a mission already known to involve curse-marked enemies.
Sakon and Ukon remain close enough that recovery cannot become rest
Kiba must treat wounds while listening for pursuit and planning another escape. The body needs stillness at the exact moment the enemy makes stillness dangerous.
Survival requires dividing attention between care and threat detection, which increases the chance of missing both.
Naruto’s clone army leaves no mark on Kimimaro
Hundreds of bodies fill the field and disappear without landing a meaningful hit. The visual scale makes the failure undeniable. Naruto has spent enormous chakra proving Kimimaro’s defense does not collapse under volume.
Persistence without a strategic update becomes resource loss dressed as courage.
Kimimaro’s economy makes Naruto’s expenditure look louder
He moves only as much as needed, uses bone precisely, and keeps attention on Sasuke’s delivery. Naruto creates spectacle; Kimimaro controls outcome.
Efficiency becomes terrifying when attached to a person whose entire identity serves Orochimaru’s objective.
Sasuke wakes transformed and still chooses the road away
The container opens after the curse-mark procedure, and Sasuke emerges in the second state before moving deeper toward Orochimaru. Consciousness returns, but the conditions around choice remain manipulated.
He has survived a process designed by the recruiter, inside territory controlled by the recruiter’s agents, after separation from every competing source of support.
Awake does not mean recovered
Sasuke’s body has been placed into suspended death, altered, transported, and reactivated. His mind remains organized around Itachi, shame, and urgency. Treating his first movement as fully informed confirmation would be dishonest.
Capacity is more than open eyes and physical mobility. It includes freedom from immediate coercion, accurate information, and enough stability to consider alternatives.
Naruto offers home because he refuses Orochimaru’s definition
He sees Sasuke as a teammate and friend rather than a vessel. The invitation back to Konoha carries relationship, memory, and the promise Naruto gave Sakura.
Home is not a perfect argument. Konoha failed Sasuke in serious ways. Naruto offers the possibility of repair outside the predator’s control.
Sasuke’s refusal is active and still shaped by coercive conditions
He ignores Naruto and continues forward. Respecting agency requires acknowledging that decision. Understanding coercion requires acknowledging how Orochimaru constructed the urgency, procedure, and isolated environment surrounding it.
Those truths coexist. Sasuke is neither a passive object nor a completely unpressured adult choosing between equal paths.
Kimimaro blocks pursuit because delivering Sasuke preserves his own purpose
He no longer qualifies as Orochimaru’s vessel, yet he protects the replacement. Stopping Naruto gives his remaining life a role inside the system that discarded his body.
The fight is not merely loyalty to a leader. It is Kimimaro defending the meaning that leader supplied.
Naruto cannot reach Sasuke while fighting Kimimaro on his terms
Every clone and direct attack spends time while Sasuke gains distance. Kimimaro does not need to defeat Naruto immediately. He needs to make pursuit expensive enough to fail.
The mission objective should determine the fight plan. Naruto’s frustration keeps pulling him toward victory over the barrier rather than passage around it.
Lee arrives as an answer nobody expected to be available
Rock Lee appears after surgery and recovery have only begun. His entrance is thrilling because the squad desperately needs help and because standing again carries enormous personal meaning.
The same entrance is medically alarming. A child recently facing possible permanent disability has entered a lethal pursuit without the recovery timeline the operation deserved.
The Handsome Devil returns before his body is ready
Lee’s identity as a shinobi pushes him toward usefulness the moment movement becomes possible. He wants to prove the surgery did not end his path and that he can help friends in danger.
Being able to arrive does not guarantee readiness for sustained combat against Kimimaro.
Tsunade’s permission and medical instructions need clear boundaries
If Lee was allowed to leave, the limits should include medication, exertion, warning signs, and immediate return. If he left without approval, the hospital’s safeguarding failed.
Either way, the situation cannot be treated as a clean comeback simply because the timing saves Naruto.
Lee gives Naruto the one resource the mission needs most
By taking Kimimaro, Lee frees Naruto to continue after Sasuke. He does not need to defeat the opponent immediately. He needs to hold the route.
The exchange restores mission alignment. Naruto stops spending every clone on a barrier and moves toward the person he came to retrieve.
Kimimaro reads Lee differently because taijutsu changes the information
Lee attacks through speed, rhythm, and physical technique without ninjutsu patterns Kimimaro has already dismissed. The matchup demands new timing.
Kimimaro adapts quickly, but Lee finally forces him to engage the person in front of him rather than process another identical clone wave.
Two damaged bodies meet because neither believes usefulness can wait
Kimimaro is dying and serves Orochimaru. Lee is recovering and serves the rescue. Their moral contexts differ, but both push bodies beyond safe limits to preserve belonging and purpose.
The contrast asks whether devotion should require people to spend the future they are fighting to keep.
The medicine break is funny because Lee treats protocol as absolute
Lee asks for time to take his medication, and Kimimaro pauses because the request falls outside the combat rhythm he expects. The absurd politeness creates breathing room.
The scene also puts medical dependence on screen. Lee’s body requires scheduled care even while he performs confidence.
Medication cannot turn recovery into clearance
Taking prescribed medicine may manage pain or support healing. It does not restore tissue instantly or guarantee combat safety.
The distinction matters because young athletes and fighters often interpret symptom control as proof the underlying injury has disappeared.
Sakura and Guy should not learn about this deployment after the fact
Lee’s care network includes people who understand his surgery, training habits, and willingness to overextend. A safe return plan would involve them.
Individual courage should not bypass coordinated medical responsibility simply because the mission urgently needs another body.
RaeRae’s full take
Episode 123 gives us one comeback and three warning signs. Shikamaru’s plan works until Tayuya’s curse-mark power exceeds what his exhausted body can hold. Naruto’s clone army keeps moving without creating progress. Sasuke wakes without becoming free of the conditions Orochimaru engineered.
Then Lee arrives, and yes, the entrance hits. He gives Naruto the route forward and forces Kimimaro to solve a completely different fighter. The joy comes with a medical alarm attached.
Lee just fought for the chance to keep his shinobi life. Konoha should protect that future instead of treating his first ability to stand as permission to spend himself again. A comeback is real when recovery remains part of the story after applause.
RaeRae checkpoint: Lee’s entrance saves Naruto’s route and triggers every medical alarm. Being able to arrive is not the same as being cleared to spend a recovering body.
RaeRae's Verdict
“The Leaf's Handsome Devil!” is built around two returns moving in opposite moral directions.
Sasuke emerges with the power he wanted and treats home like a joke.
Lee leaves a hospital bed with a body that may not be ready because his friends need help.
One boy accepts pain to cut his bonds.
The other risks pain because those bonds matter.
Lee's choice is reckless, loyal and exactly what Naruto needs. He takes Kimimaro so Naruto can keep the promise made to Sakura.
Then he drinks the wrong bottle.
Kimimaro thought Lee's movements were predictable.
That problem is about to solve itself in the messiest possible way.
Receipts and official routes
- Episode number and licensed title: Naruto Official Site.
- Japanese title, synopsis, and February 23, 2005 broadcast record: TV Tokyo.
- Streaming availability varies by region; use the licensed route maintained in the episode directory.