the smoke around this part is without a doubt from the hand of Masakatsu Sasaki

the bigger question is in what capacity he participated, since he's not credited and never has been on NARUTO.

This is a JEC-E outsourced episode and while Sasaki has never worked at the studio (to my knowledge), their paths crossed previously on Hunter x Hunter (1999), Rurouni Kenshin, etc.

HxH in particular is notable because some of his best-ever effects work is on episode #20 (post #120146) which has Akira Matsushima as animation director and Haruo Sotozaki as gengaman.

So not only would they be aware of his work but also potentially have access to his genga.

There is also a history of Sasaki's work getting re-used (without credit) in later episodes of shows (post #221716) AND even history of cross-series re-use (borderline corporate fraud) (post #219687, post #189941, post #189911, post #186581)

Since it seems to happen more than once with him and Matsushima specifically, I wonder if he has made it known that he was O.K. with it, or those with his contact information reach out whenever they want some of his effects expertise at minimal/no expense.

All of this to say, I am not sure if Masakatsu Sasaki actually worked (NC) on this episode properly, or if this is another case of his work getting re-used cross-series.

The reason this matters is because in the latter case, the characters are somebody else's responsibility (maybe Sotozaki with the usual Matsushima correction), while in the former case, this would be all his work (+Matsushima).