Chapter 4: Naruto awakens his Rinnegan, and almost immediately uses it to resurrect Hinata after Haku accidentally pierced her heart moments before.
Chapter 10: Naruto teams up with Kurama to break the Cursed Seal Orochimaru branded them with. Meanwhile Hinata and Kiba beat the crap out of six Ame Genin, Hinata begins developing the Water Release: Rasengan, and Gaara fights Orochimaru head-on.
Chapter 11: Gaara resists Shukaku's influence for the first time, and Team Eight arrives to help him fight off Orochimaru.
Chapter 12: Gaara figures out that Shukaku has only been pretending to be his mother, and resolves to never obey him again.
Chapter 13: Naruto finally gets through to Kurama. Mizuki reveals himself as an antagonist, and has a downright epic fight with Naruto and Hinata.
Chapter 14: Hinata demonstrates her Character Development by defeating Neji, and Gaara gets his match with Naruto.
Chapter 18: To unlock the Naraka Path, Naruto pulls a Shut Up, Hannibal! on the King of Hell. Hinata discovers she has the potential to learn Sage Mode without help from a summon, like Hashirama Senju did.
Chapter 19-20: After all of the Foreshadowing that implied Hiashi was going to get between Naruto and Hinata, he instead enlists their help in a plan to abolish the Caged Bird Seal after Naruto eventually becomes Hokage. And his plan explicitly requires Naruto and Hinata to get married. Then, Mizuki returns to capture Gaara, but Tenten pulls a Big Damn Heroes to buy enough time for Naruto and Hinata to pull an even Bigger Damn Heroes, saving both of their lives and finally killing Mizuki.
Chapter 22: Naruto and Hinata have the most epic, over-the-top fight in the story up until that point. Against EACH OTHER.
Chapter 25: Hinata wins the Chuunin Exam tournament. Then, in the invasion, Gaara fights an Edo Tensei of his father and delivers this line:
Bankai. Kuroshi Tanuki.
Chapter 26: Tenten leads a team of Big Damn Heroes consisting of Asuma, Zabuza, Haku, Kankurou, Temari and Sasuke to help Jiraiya fight off Manda.
Chapter 28: The Hokage's will offers Naruto a chance to join the ANBU and he accepts.
Chapter 31: Kurama's backstory shows that he was once almost exactly like Naruto, and this is particularly evident in his sparring with Gyuuki:
Kurama: Give up, on me giving up!
Chapter 32: Naruto prevents Itachi from using Tsukuyomi on Sasuke, and actually chases him off with Hinata and Kurama.
Chapter 33: Naruto and Hinata take on Tsunade, and although they get their asses kicked, the chapter ends with this:
Jiraiya: Once Naruto is finished his term as an ANBU squad leader, he should be ready to take up office as the Sixth Hokage.
