Surpassing the Master

Surpassing the master drives Naruto's senjutsu training toward breakthrough as he strives to exceed even Jiraiya's incomplete Sage Mode. The episode is the training arc's heart — Naruto's shadow-clone method accelerating his progress, the toads marveling at a student outpacing the legend, the natural-energy balance that broke Jiraiya yielding to Naruto's stubbornness. Grief becomes power. It's the canon setup for Sage Mode mastery, the student surpassing the master in the very art the master died still perfecting, all of it aimed at Pain.