RaeRae Reacts · Naruto Shippuden Episode 457 · Itachi’s Story

Itachi’s Story: Light and Darkness – Partner

Pain builds teams by matching usefulness rather than trust, while Itachi’s real attention remains fixed on the little brother who does not know he is watched.

Bottom line

“Partner” turns Akatsuki recruitment into a parade of people being forced into the exact relationships most likely to irritate them. Deidara loses to Itachi's genjutsu and gets paired with Sasori, another artist who thinks his definition of art is the only sensible one. Hidan survives Kakuzu's attack, destroys one of Kakuzu's hearts, and becomes the one teammate Kakuzu cannot easily murder. The comedy is sharp, but the system beneath the joke is ugly. Pain builds teams by matching usefulness, not trust, and violence functions as the entrance interview. Itachi watches the organization grow while learning that Orochimaru founded the Hidden Sound and helped attack Konoha. His immediate concern is Sasuke. Beneath every Akatsuki assignment, his real partnership remains the little brother who does not know he is being watched.

Kisame recognizes divided loyalty without demanding confession

He knows Itachi’s attention keeps returning to somebody beyond Akatsuki. Rather than forcing intimacy, Kisame reads the pattern and lets the silence remain useful. Their partnership begins with awareness instead of innocence.

That restraint makes the pairing more stable than Pain’s roster logic alone could produce. Kisame understands what it means to serve institutions that demand murder and then call the survivor traitor.

Deidara’s recruitment makes refusal conditional on victory

Akatsuki offers membership through a fight the organization expects to win. Deidara can say no only if he defeats three people already positioned to enforce the result. That is coercion dressed as a contest.

His later participation does not retroactively make the entry consensual. The loss creates humiliation, an Uchiha obsession, and a partnership Pain values precisely because both artists remain dangerous.

The artists disagree about time while agreeing about bodies

Sasori wants art to persist. Deidara wants a perfect instant of destruction. Their argument is funny because each treats his definition as obviously superior.

The moral common ground is darker. Both convert other lives into material for identity. Akatsuki can tolerate endless aesthetic conflict because neither man challenges the organization’s right to point their art at targets.

Hidan and Kakuzu are compatible through failed murder

One cannot stay dead. The other carries several hearts and routinely kills partners who irritate him. Pain solves a management problem by pairing two men who can survive each other’s worst habits.

That is not trust. It is organizational engineering built from mutual inconvenience. The system does not improve either person. It reduces the cost of leaving them violent.

Konan’s decoy role carries real risk

She locates Hidan and becomes the visible target while Itachi and Kakuzu wait. The plan works because her paper body and judgment can absorb exposure the others avoid.

Calling that support should never make it secondary. She creates the encounter, controls Hidan’s attention, and gives the hidden fighters the opening to assess instead of merely kill.

Orochimaru’s village turns private predation into infrastructure

Otogakure gives his experiments territory, followers, political cover, and military reach. The former Akatsuki member no longer operates as one fugitive scientist. His appetite has acquired borders and uniforms.

That development matters to Itachi because Sasuke remains the Uchiha body Orochimaru wants. Hiruzen’s death removes a promised safeguard exactly as the predator’s structure expands.

Itachi can return home only as a threat

Checking whether Sasuke survived requires Akatsuki cover, Kisame beside him, and an official interest in Naruto. The older brother cannot enter Konoha as family, witness, or former protector.

The cover preserves access while guaranteeing terror for Sasuke. Itachi’s protection keeps arriving in a form the protected person can only experience as danger.

Partnership remains meaningful here precisely because the people inside it can exceed the narrow purpose the organization assigned them without becoming innocent together.

RaeRae’s verdict

“Partner” is funny because Akatsuki treats catastrophic personalities like a scheduling puzzle. Sasori and Deidara debate art while making corpses. Hidan and Kakuzu become compatible because ordinary partner murder will not stick. The comedy works, but it should not hide the structure: Pain recruits through force, redirects a client’s target into an asset, and calls surveillance between dangerous people teamwork.

Itachi and Kisame are different because recognition develops inside the assignment. Kisame understands that somebody waits behind Itachi’s silence. Itachi accepts a partner who knows village loyalty can demand unbearable crimes. Their bond does not make Akatsuki healthy or erase the missions they complete. It creates a pocket of practical honesty inside an institution designed to use divided people. Hiruzen’s death then pulls every roster joke back toward Sasuke, the real relationship Itachi is preparing to approach through another lie.

Episode 457 rebuilds the Akatsuki roster

Episode 457 is titled “Itachi's Story: Light and Darkness – Partner.” The Japanese title is “Aibō.” The episode aired in Japan on April 21, 2016.

The story follows the recruitment of Deidara and Hidan, Orochimaru's pursuit, and Itachi's decision to check on Konoha after Hiruzen's death.

Jūzō's death leaves Itachi without a teammate

The previous episode proved that a rough partnership could become genuine under pressure. Akatsuki responds to Jūzō's death by reorganizing its pairs.

The emotional loss becomes an operational vacancy.

Kisame becomes Itachi's next partner

Pain pairs him with Kisame Hoshigaki, another former Mist swordsman carrying a violent reputation. Kisame's history with compromised missions and betrayal makes him a fitting companion for Itachi.

Both men understand what village loyalty can demand from a shinobi.

Kisame notices more than his grin suggests

His manner is blunt and often amused, but he reads people carefully. He knows a person who thinks about final messages probably has someone waiting behind the silence.

That perception makes him harder for Itachi to dismiss.

Their partnership begins without innocence

Neither man expects trust because they share a cloak. Each knows the other has killed allies, left a village, and accepted secret work.

Honesty about danger creates a strange stability.

Pain orders Deidara's recruitment

Akatsuki needs another powerful member and identifies a young bomber from Iwagakure. Deidara already uses forbidden explosive clay according to his own artistic obsession.

The organization sees talent that can be pointed toward larger targets.

Sasori joins Itachi and Kisame

The puppet master helps approach the recruit who may become his new partner. Pain has already decided that their skills belong together before either artist agrees.

Compatibility means destructive output, not emotional peace.

Deidara does not want to join

He values autonomy and believes his explosive work proves his artistic vision. Akatsuki membership would place orders and another artist above him.

Refusal is a sensible response to three criminals arriving with a job offer.

Recruitment becomes a contest

Akatsuki does not negotiate benefits or ask about shared goals. Deidara must fight for the right to refuse.

Violence turns consent into a prize awarded only to the stronger person.

Deidara trusts the spectacle of his clay

His creations move, fly, and explode on command. The work is designed to seize attention at the instant of destruction.

He believes that visible force will establish his superiority.

Itachi controls what Deidara sees

Sharingan genjutsu defeats the bomber before his spectacle can secure the result. Deidara experiences his own perception as unreliable.

The humiliation reaches deeper than losing a normal exchange of attacks.

The defeat creates a lasting Uchiha grudge

Deidara cannot accept that Itachi's eyes made his art feel small. He later trains specifically to resist Sharingan genjutsu.

Akatsuki gains a member and creates a private obsession at the same time.

Deidara joins under coercion

His presence in the organization should not be mistaken for enthusiastic agreement. He lost the fight that Akatsuki used as the condition of refusal.

Power decides the contract.

Sasori receives the new partner

Pain assigns Deidara beside the puppet master. The pairing has obvious tactical range and immediate personality friction.

One believes art lasts. The other believes art explodes.

Their argument about art begins immediately

Sasori values permanence through preserved bodies and puppets. Deidara values the brief perfection of destruction.

Akatsuki has paired two killers who can debate aesthetics while making corpses.

The joke hides a shared moral distance

Both men transform death into material for artistic identity. Their disagreement concerns duration, not whether other bodies should become tools.

Chemistry does not require goodness.

Orochimaru has deserted Akatsuki

The former member remains dangerous because he knows the organization and pursues his own experiments. Akatsuki cannot treat his departure as an ordinary resignation.

Sasori and Deidara receive the order to kill him.

Deidara inherits an enemy he does not know

His first partnership assignment involves cleaning up a conflict that began before he joined. Akatsuki membership comes with institutional grudges.

The new recruit learns the history through an execution order.

Sasori follows Kabuto's intelligence

Kabuto remains connected to Orochimaru while serving as a source within Sasori's network. Every link contains deception layered over another loyalty.

Akatsuki intelligence depends on people whose allegiance cannot be assumed.

Orochimaru's snakes detect the pursuit

The target knows his former organization well enough to prepare for hunters. Sasori tells Deidara to watch from above so escape routes remain visible.

The new pair starts with a mission that tests coordination immediately.

Sasori reveals the Third Kazekage puppet

The puppet master uses the body of Sunagakure's missing Third Kazekage as his strongest human puppet. Iron Sand turns a dead leader into a reusable weapon.

Sasori's art preserves power by erasing personhood.

Orochimaru answers with a reanimated Kazekage

His Impure World Reincarnation summons another version of the Third Kazekage. The episode stages a grotesque mirror: corpse puppet against reanimated corpse.

Two men fight over how best to use one dead person's body.

The Third Kazekage resists Orochimaru

The reanimated leader pushes against control rather than serving as a silent technique. His remaining will disrupts the experiment.

The moment restores a fragment of agency that both villains tried to remove.

Orochimaru escapes the confrontation

The pursuit fails to produce a body, and the former member survives. Sasori cannot report a confirmed kill.

Akatsuki must plan around an enemy who knows too much.

Sasori reports the missing corpse

At the next gathering, he tells Pain that Orochimaru is probably alive because no body was found. Absence becomes meaningful evidence.

The organization refuses to confuse an interrupted fight with completion.

Itachi explains Impure World Reincarnation

His knowledge helps the group understand how Orochimaru could use a dead shinobi and still escape. Itachi contributes intelligence without revealing every thought about his former village.

Useful analysis protects his place inside Akatsuki.

Pain leaves the Orochimaru issue open

Without a confirmed location or reliable kill route, the organization delays the matter. Akatsuki can be patient when immediate force offers no clean result.

That patience contrasts with the coerced speed of recruitment.

A new request comes from the Land of Hot Water

Yugakure wants help eliminating a killer believed to be immortal. The peaceful reputation of the village does not prevent violence from growing at its edges.

Akatsuki accepts the work and sees another possible recruit.

Hidan kills as religious practice

He follows Jashin and treats slaughter as worship. The ritual symbol, blood, and sermon turn murder into a claimed sacred obligation.

Ideology gives appetite a structure without making the victims less dead.

Kakuzu recognizes that money is not the motive

He sees a corpse killed without profit, vengeance, or ordinary strategic gain. Hidan's violence confuses a man who usually measures bodies in bounties.

Different motives can produce the same brutality.

Itachi looks for the reason behind the display

He notes that simple killing could have been accomplished in easier ways. The ritual form matters to Hidan.

Understanding method helps reveal the person they are hunting.

Konan joins as the sensory support and decoy

The team needs someone who can locate the target and draw him into the open. Konan takes the visible risk while Itachi and Kakuzu remain concealed.

Her role is tactical, not decorative.

Hidan attacks Konan

The immortal killer sees another body for his faith and moves without hesitation. He does not know that two Akatsuki members are waiting.

The bait becomes a coordinated trap.

Itachi and Kakuzu reveal themselves

They interrupt the attack and contain Hidan's options. The encounter shifts from requested elimination to evaluation.

Akatsuki often recruits the threat a client wanted removed.

Kakuzu becomes the natural test

He has multiple hearts and a history of killing partners. Hidan cannot be frightened by ordinary fatal wounds.

Their clash tests two different versions of survival.

Hidan survives Kakuzu's attacks

Damage that should end a normal opponent fails to keep him down. His immortality turns Kakuzu's preferred solution into temporary inconvenience.

For once, murdering a difficult colleague will not be easy.

Hidan destroys one of Kakuzu's hearts

The ritual fighter proves he can hurt a man protected by several lives. Kakuzu's surprise becomes respect measured through danger.

Each recognizes a durability the other cannot casually dismiss.

Konan offers Akatsuki membership

The organization changes the assignment from elimination to recruitment. Hidan's killings remain useful if Pain can direct them toward Akatsuki targets.

The client's problem becomes Akatsuki's asset.

Hidan accepts for his own reasons

He remains committed to Jashin and takes interest in Kakuzu's unusual survival. Membership gives him missions without requiring him to abandon personal slaughter.

Akatsuki does not demand moral conversion.

Hidan and Kakuzu become partners

The pairing works because each man can survive what makes the other unbearable. Kakuzu cannot permanently kill Hidan in a routine outburst. Hidan cannot casually destroy all five hearts.

Compatibility is built from mutual inconvenience.

Their immortality does not create trust

Shared resistance to death gives the pair endurance, not affection. They argue over religion, money, timing, and methods.

The organization only needs them functional enough to finish missions.

The title applies to several unequal relationships

Itachi and Kisame develop wary understanding. Sasori and Deidara are coerced artistic opposites. Hidan and Kakuzu survive one another.

Akatsuki uses one word for bonds with very different human content.

News arrives about the Hidden Sound

Akatsuki learns that Otogakure has recently appeared and suspects Orochimaru's involvement. A new village gives the deserter territory, followers, and cover.

His private experiments are becoming a political structure.

Orochimaru joins the attack on Konoha

Information connects the Hidden Sound with Sunagakure's assault on the Leaf. The operation reaches the village Itachi agreed to protect from outside.

Akatsuki news suddenly becomes family news.

Hiruzen has died

The Third Hokage fell fighting Orochimaru. Hiruzen was the leader who favored diplomacy during the Uchiha crisis and promised protection for Sasuke afterward.

His death removes one of the few official safeguards Itachi could still name.

Itachi immediately thinks about Sasuke

The younger brother remains in the village attacked by Orochimaru, the man who wants an Uchiha body. Itachi cannot trust reports alone.

His calm Akatsuki face hides urgent personal fear.

He volunteers to inspect the situation

The mission can be justified as evaluating Konoha and the Hidden Sound. Privately, Itachi needs to know whether Sasuke survived and whether Danzō still honors the threat keeping him away.

Espionage provides the only acceptable route home.

Kisame understands that someone is waiting

His earlier questions about final messages gain new meaning. Itachi's decisions keep pointing toward one person he refuses to name freely.

Kisame does not need the full confession to recognize attachment.

Partnership lets Itachi return without admitting why

Traveling with Kisame preserves the Akatsuki cover. The organization believes its members are pursuing Naruto and intelligence.

Itachi can check on Sasuke only while performing the role of a threat.

The episode makes recruitment look like capture

Deidara joins after losing. Hidan joins after Akatsuki accepts his violence. Neither enters through a shared peace program.

Pain builds an army of useful outsiders first and supplies the larger ideology afterward.

Akatsuki turns incompatibility into design

Pairs cover tactical weaknesses and keep dangerous members under another dangerous person's eye. Friction can prevent private agendas from going unnoticed.

The system treats surveillance as teamwork.

Itachi's real loyalty remains divided

He completes Akatsuki work, contributes intelligence, and helps recruit members who will later threaten jinchūriki. He also watches the group partly to protect Konoha and Sasuke.

Mixed motives do not erase the harm done under either purpose.

Partner connects organization history to personal fear

The episode could have been a simple Akatsuki roster tour. Hiruzen's death gives every recruitment scene a destination.

Itachi is heading back toward the brother whose life just became less protected.

Episode 457 prepares the Part I encounter

Itachi and Kisame will enter Konoha under the stated goal of finding Naruto. Sasuke will see the brother he believes murdered their family for selfish power.

Episode 458 closes the story by returning to that lie, the battle between brothers, and the truth Sasuke finally received too late.

What I am carrying forward

Kisame became Itachi’s partner. Itachi defeated Deidara in a coerced recruitment fight, and Pain paired the bomber with Sasori. Konan helped draw out Hidan, whose immortality made him a durable match for Kakuzu.

Akatsuki learned Orochimaru built the Hidden Sound and joined the attack on Konoha. Hiruzen died, removing one of Sasuke’s promised safeguards. Itachi volunteered to inspect the village under Akatsuki cover. Episode 458, “Truth,” closes the arc around the lie Sasuke inherited.