The End of Tears
Naruto loses the mission and Sasuke leaves, but a scratched protector and a closed lethal hand prove the bond survived the final clash.
RaeRae Reacts
Episode 134 ends the Valley of the End fight with a result nobody gets to call clean.
Sasuke wins.
Naruto fails to bring him home.
Orochimaru gets the defector he wanted.
Still, Naruto scratches the forehead protector Sasuke said he could never touch, and Sasuke refuses to kill Naruto according to Itachi's rule.
The bond survives in the final choices of two boys who spent the entire battle trying to settle it with violence.
That survival is not enough to save the mission.
Naruto lies unconscious in the rain. Sasuke walks into darkness. Kakashi arrives too late.
It is a devastating loss with one stubborn reason not to give up.
Sasuke's Wings Change the Fight
Sasuke's second curse-mark state produces two huge, hand-shaped wings.
Orochimaru's power has reshaped Sasuke into something built to block, strike and carry him farther from the person he was.
One wing catches Naruto's attack and throws him across the river.
The transformation gives Sasuke the physical answer he needed against the one-tailed cloak. It also makes the cost impossible to ignore.
His body shakes with pain as the second wing tears free.
The power works while hurting him, exactly the bargain Orochimaru wants Sasuke to accept.
Both Bodies Are Running Out
Sasuke remembers the warning that the fully released curse mark erodes his body if he keeps it active too long.
Naruto discovers that the fox cloak has its own price when one arm stops responding properly.
Neither transformation offers safe, unlimited strength.
Both boys are borrowing power from forces that value their bodies as containers.
The Nine-Tails needs Naruto alive.
Orochimaru needs Sasuke usable.
The time limits force a decision. They cannot keep trading transformations until somebody calmly changes his mind.
The next exchange has to settle who remains standing.
The Valley Is Not Neutral Ground
Naruto and Sasuke fight beneath the statues of two men whose conflict shaped the village they inherited.
The location turns their personal rupture into part of a larger shinobi habit.
Friendship becomes rivalry. Rivalry becomes ideology. Ideology becomes a reason to injure the person who once stood beside you.
Naruto and Sasuke do not yet know every detail represented by the statues, but the image understands before they do.
They stand on opposite sides of a river while insisting that only force can settle what the bond means.
The Valley of the End has seen this argument before.
It will see it again unless someone eventually chooses a different ending.
Naruto Builds the Final Rasengan
Naruto forms Rasengan inside the one-tailed cloak.
The technique began as disciplined training under Jiraiya. Here, fox chakra surrounds it with wild force and turns the attack into Naruto's last chance to stop Sasuke.
Naruto is not trying to execute his friend.
He needs enough impact to end the fight without ending Sasuke's life.
That restraint does not make Rasengan harmless. The attack carries terrifying destructive power, especially with the cloak feeding it.
Naruto accepts that risk because every softer attempt has failed.
He cannot talk Sasuke back.
He cannot outlast the transformation.
He puts everything left into one reach.
Sasuke Builds the Final Chidori
Sasuke answers with Chidori transformed by the curse mark.
The lightning darkens as the power changes it.
This is Kakashi's technique filtered through Orochimaru's corruption and Sasuke's decision to leave.
Kakashi taught Chidori to a student he wanted to guide.
Sasuke now uses it to defeat the teammate Kakashi is racing to save.
He believes the final strike will cut the bond and clear his road toward Itachi.
Yet the person who defined the murder requirement still controls that road.
Sasuke wants independence while using a choice Itachi planted in his head.
Rasengan Meets Chidori
The attacks collide and swallow the boys inside a sphere of force.
This is not the first Rasengan and Chidori clash, but it is the one that decides the mission.
Both techniques carry every unresolved contradiction into the impact.
Naruto uses dangerous force to preserve a relationship.
Sasuke uses power learned from one mentor and amplified by another to reject every bond except revenge.
For a moment, the spectacle makes them look equally committed to opposite futures.
Then the episode brings the decision down to hands, targets and what each boy refuses to do.
Naruto Reaches the Forehead Protector
Naruto scratches Sasuke's forehead protector.
Earlier, Sasuke treated that possibility as ridiculous. Naruto could not even mark his forehead, so he had no chance of stopping him.
Naruto proves the taunt wrong at the only moment left.
He reaches Sasuke.
He does not direct that reach into a killing blow.
The scratch is small compared with the explosion around it, but it matters because Naruto chooses the symbol of their shared life as his final target.
He cannot force Sasuke to honor the bond.
He can leave proof that Sasuke never became unreachable.
Sasuke Closes His Hand
Sasuke changes the piercing Chidori hand into a fist.
He still hits Naruto hard enough to end the fight, but he does not repeat the lethal stab through Naruto's chest.
That choice does not erase everything he did before it. Sasuke already attempted to kill Naruto and spent the battle defending that intention.
It does reveal that he cannot complete Itachi's command when the final opportunity arrives.
The closest friend requirement remains unfulfilled.
Sasuke wins without killing Naruto.
For one instant, the bond he calls a weakness changes his hand more effectively than Naruto's argument changed his mind.
Naruto Loses
When the light clears, Naruto lies unconscious.
Sasuke stands over him as the winner.
There is no useful way to pretend the result is a draw. Naruto's mission was to stop Sasuke and return him to Konoha. He does neither.
Sasuke remains capable of leaving.
Naruto cannot follow.
The scratched protector proves Naruto reached him emotionally and physically, but proof is not retrieval.
This failure matters because Naruto cannot solve every promise through determination alone.
He gave everything his body had.
Everything was not enough.
Sasuke Leaves the Protector Behind
The scratched forehead protector falls beside Naruto.
Sasuke leaves it there when he walks away.
The object carries several meanings at once.
It marks his separation from Konoha. It records Naruto disproving his taunt. It remains with the friend he could not bring himself to kill.
Sasuke wants to sever the bond, but the evidence of that bond does not disappear.
He can abandon the symbol.
He cannot make the fight meaningless or rewrite why Naruto chased him.
The rain turns the victory into something closer to a funeral for Team 7.
Sasuke still chooses to leave.
Sasuke Rejects Itachi's Exact Path
As Sasuke moves through the forest, he remembers Itachi's instruction to kill his closest friend.
He decides he will gain power in his own way instead.
This is resistance, but it is limited resistance.
Sasuke refuses to obey Itachi's method while continuing toward Orochimaru, another man who built a path around using him.
He has not escaped manipulation.
He has selected which manipulator he will defy today.
Sparing Naruto preserves something human in him, but it does not redirect his feet toward home.
Sasuke enters the darkness alive, determined and still disastrously wrong about where freedom waits.
Kakashi Arrives Too Late
Kakashi and Pakkun reach the valley after Sasuke has gone.
Kakashi finds Naruto, lifts him and apologizes for not arriving in time.
Kakashi understood the danger and still could not close the distance fast enough. He recognizes how desperately Naruto fought.
Kakashi can save the student still present.
He cannot recover the one who chose to leave.
The River Keeps Moving
Pakkun and Kakashi discuss the irony of Naruto and Sasuke fighting at the Valley of the End.
The river continues beneath the statues like shinobi conflict continues through new generations. Their world trains children for violence and teaches people to convert grief into power.
Naruto and Sasuke remain responsible, but they inherited a system that knows how to produce this ending.
Someone Else Was Watching
After Kakashi carries Naruto away, Zetsu rises from concealment.
The battle was never as private as it felt.
An Akatsuki observer has seen Naruto's jinchuriki power, Sasuke's transformation and the result. The organization hunting tailed beasts now has another piece of information.
The personal disaster has entered somebody else's plan.
What Changes After Episode 134
Sasuke's second-state wings counter Naruto's one-tailed cloak.
Both transformations begin damaging the boys who use them.
Naruto forms his final Rasengan while Sasuke forms his curse-mark Chidori.
The attacks collide beneath the statues at the Valley of the End.
Naruto scratches Sasuke's forehead protector.
Sasuke turns the piercing hand into a fist and leaves Naruto alive.
Naruto loses the fight and fails to retrieve Sasuke.
Sasuke leaves the scratched protector behind.
He rejects gaining power exactly as Itachi ordered and continues toward Orochimaru.
Kakashi arrives too late and carries Naruto home.
Zetsu reveals that Akatsuki observed the aftermath.
The village and hospital consequences belong to Episode 135.
Sasuke’s wings make Orochimaru’s intervention impossible to ignore
The second curse-mark state changes Sasuke’s body until the boy Naruto knows is still visible but no longer visually secure. Power arrives through a form designed by the adult waiting to claim him.
The transformation does not prove Sasuke is becoming his true self. It shows how aggressively exploitation can be marketed as self-determination.
Both bodies are failing while both boys insist on one more answer
Naruto loses feeling in his arm under the Nine-Tails’ chakra. Sasuke shakes with pain as the curse state consumes time and stamina. Their strongest forms do not free them from vulnerability. They make vulnerability harder to admit.
Neither child can safely continue, yet the conflict has narrowed until stopping feels identical to surrendering the person each believes he must be.
The Valley of the End is not neutral ground
Hashirama and Madara’s statues frame a relationship that became foundational conflict. Naruto and Sasuke do not possess the full history, but the site encourages the audience to see repetition before the boys can.
Inherited patterns influence the confrontation. They do not remove responsibility or make separation inevitable.
Naruto builds the final Rasengan with an injured hand
He uses a clone because his body can no longer form the technique normally. Adaptation has always been one of Naruto’s strengths. Here, ingenuity keeps him inside a fight that is already doing severe damage.
Courage and self-endangerment coexist. Admiring the solution should not silence concern about why rescue requires this cost.
Sasuke builds the final Chidori through a body under borrowed control
The lightning remains a technique he learned through discipline. The curse mark amplifies the person using it and ties the amplification to Orochimaru’s promise.
Sasuke’s authentic skill and external manipulation are present together. Exploitation does not require the victim to lack talent.
The final collision carries two models of power
Rasengan grew through Jiraiya’s instruction and Naruto’s improvisation. Chidori grew through Kakashi’s teaching and is now intensified by Orochimaru’s mark. Both jutsu contain relationships beyond the two hands holding them.
The clash is personal, but adults supplied the tools, conditions, and failures that made it possible.
The energy sphere hides the decision happening inside it
Wind, water, chakra, and light overwhelm the frame. Beneath the spectacle, Naruto reaches for a symbol while Sasuke decides where his killing hand will close.
The emotional outcome is determined by small choices inside enormous force.
Naruto touches the forehead protector instead of taking Sasuke’s life
He fulfills the earlier claim that he could scratch Sasuke’s forehead. The gesture insists their rivalry was real and that Naruto reached him as an equal.
Naruto directs the final movement toward recognition rather than lethal victory. That choice does not win the mission, but it preserves the ethic behind his refusal to give up.
The scratch answers Sasuke’s contempt without answering his departure
Sasuke had dismissed Naruto’s ability to touch the protector. The mark proves him wrong. It cannot make him return.
Technical proof settles one argument and leaves the central crisis intact. Being acknowledged as strong is not the same as being able to save a friend.
Sasuke closes his hand instead of piercing the heart
His fingers fold at the final instant, changing the Chidori strike. The restraint suggests he refuses to complete Itachi’s stated Mangekyo condition even while defeating Naruto.
The choice matters. Naruto is still left unconscious after catastrophic violence. Mercy at the final inch does not erase the path to that inch.
Sasuke rejects Itachi’s exact path
He decides he will not gain power according to his brother’s instruction. That refusal is one fragment of agency reclaimed from the person who authored his revenge.
Unfortunately, Sasuke continues toward Orochimaru, another adult who has arranged a path around his grief. Rejecting one controller does not yet produce freedom from control.
Naruto loses the battle without being proven wrong about the bond
Sasuke stands and Naruto falls. The physical outcome is clear. Sasuke’s hesitation, the abandoned protector, and his refusal to kill show that friendship remained active inside the victory.
The bond could not stop departure. It still changed what Sasuke was willing to do.
Sasuke leaves the forehead protector as a severance symbol
The metal plate carries Konoha affiliation and the scratch Naruto made. Leaving it behind declares that both village identity and rivalry belong to the life Sasuke is abandoning.
Symbols can be discarded faster than relationships. The object stays in the rain, but the decisions made around Naruto remain with Sasuke.
The rain does not cleanse what happened
Water falls over blood, stone, and the unconscious child. The visual offers grief rather than purification. Nothing is reset because the landscape looks washed.
Naruto remains injured, Sasuke remains endangered, and the retrieval team remains scattered. Weather can close a scene without resolving its consequences.
Kakashi arrives after the decision
His tracking work finally brings him to Naruto, but Sasuke is gone. The lateness is not merely a plot beat. It records a system that sent children first and senior care afterward.
Kakashi can save Naruto’s body now. He cannot undo the fight or claim the mission was adequately supported.
Finding Naruto alive should produce relief and accountability
The immediate priority is medical care. After survival is secured, adults owe an examination of why a genin fought nearly to death at the endpoint of a mission commanded by another genin.
Relief often lets institutions skip review. This mission should not be allowed that escape.
Sasuke walking away is neither clean freedom nor simple kidnapping
He chooses the road, rejects Itachi’s precise demand, and leaves Naruto alive. He is also a traumatized minor moving toward an adult who marked his body and intends to use it.
Respecting agency does not mean ignoring coercion. Protection does not mean treating the child as village property.
Orochimaru wins this stage because he offered a future-shaped story
Konoha offered return to the existing order. Naruto offered friendship and belonging. Orochimaru offered progress toward Sasuke’s stated goal, even though the offer was predatory.
A safe alternative must address the desire for truth, justice, and strength rather than asking Sasuke to pretend those needs disappeared.
Naruto’s promise fails because promises cannot replace infrastructure
He promised Sakura he would bring Sasuke back and gave everything he had. Personal devotion cannot substitute for intelligence, adult staffing, medical planning, trauma care, and political honesty.
Calling Naruto insufficient would punish a child for an institutional design failure.
Sasuke’s restraint deserves recognition without absolution
He does not kill Naruto. That decision interrupts Itachi’s command and keeps open the possibility of a different self. He also chose techniques that could easily have killed him before the final moment.
Growth is not an all-or-nothing verdict. One ethical refusal can coexist with grave harm that still requires accountability.
The observer turns private tragedy into actionable information
Another presence watches the aftermath, reminding us that conflict at the valley is never fully sealed between two friends. Organizations gather intelligence from children’s pain.
Surveillance adds danger because vulnerability becomes something outside actors can exploit rather than a signal that care should arrive.
The river keeps moving while the relationship remains unresolved
Water continues beneath the statues after Sasuke leaves and Kakashi arrives. The movement suggests time will carry both boys forward even when neither has finished this argument.
An ending can be decisive without being final. The mission ends in failure; the bond does not.
The fight proves love can influence violence without making violence loving
Naruto’s attachment shapes his refusal to kill. Sasuke’s attachment shapes his final restraint. Those choices matter. The injuries remain real.
Care inside a violent act does not transform the act into healthy communication. It shows there is still something available to build on later.
RaeRae’s full take
Episode 134 gives us the famous collision, but the smallest movements break me more than the explosion. Naruto reaches for the forehead protector because he wants acknowledgment, not Sasuke’s death. Sasuke closes his hand because some part of him refuses to purchase power exactly the way Itachi ordered.
Naruto loses the mission. He does not fail as a person. No child should have been expected to solve grooming, clan trauma, village secrecy, and lethal defection with friendship plus one Rasengan.
Sasuke leaves under his own feet, but the road is still shaped by adults who want his body. Respecting that choice means taking his reasons seriously. Protecting him means refusing to pretend Orochimaru is freedom. Both truths survive the rain.
RaeRae checkpoint: Naruto’s loss does not prove the bond was false. Sasuke’s final restraint proves the bond still mattered, even while both boys caused and carried terrible harm.
RaeRae's Verdict
“The End of Tears” gives Naruto a loss the story cannot soften.
He promised Sakura he would bring Sasuke back.
He fails.
Sasuke gets away and moves closer to Orochimaru.
That outcome matters more than any comforting argument about who could have aimed where.
The final choices matter too.
Naruto reaches for the forehead protector instead of treating Sasuke as a target to destroy.
Sasuke closes his Chidori hand instead of killing the friend Itachi told him to sacrifice.
The bond does not win.
It survives.
For now, that is the only opening Naruto has left.
Receipts and official routes
- Episode number and licensed title: Naruto Official Site.
- Japanese title, synopsis, and May 11, 2005 broadcast record: TV Tokyo.
- Streaming availability varies by region; use the licensed route maintained in the episode directory.