Boruto Teases Kaguya's Long-Missing Partner

Chapter 35 of the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations manga just opened the door to a massive new mystery in the Naruto saga. That mystery unfolds as Naruto's inner circle discovers coordinates to a secret base held by Kara, the mysterious organization that is slowly gearing up for war against Hidden Leaf.

Kara's base is only accessible using space/time jutsu, which means it falls to Sasuke to infiltrate the facility and discover what Kara is hiding. Sasuke expects to find some kind of Kara workings inside the base - what he doesn't expect to find there is a shrine of holographic projections, dedicated to none other than the Otsutsuki Clan!

Sasuke quickly realizes that he's not just seeing projections of the respective Otsutsuki Clan members - he's looking at a system of partnership within the clan, with members always appearing in pairs. It's an obvious pattern in the case of Momoshiki and Kinshiki Otsutsuki - but when Sasuke activates the alter of Kaguya Otsutsuki, he makes a startling discovery: Kaguya also had a partner!

Sasuke activates the projection of Kaguya's partner and gets a first look at the mysterious figure. The big reveals don't end there, however: just as Sasuke is wondering who this new unknown Otsutsuki is, another space/time jutsu portal opens, and out steps Kara's enigmatic leader, Jigen! As it turns out, Jigen has a pretty direct connection with this mysterious Otsutsuki that was Kaguya's partner: Jigen is Kaguya's partner!

With this reveal, the entire purpose behind Kara has taken on a much more sinister role in this unfolding Boruto saga. The organization has already showed knowledge and technology way beyond anything that the shinobi world is currently capable of - and now we know that the power behind it is that of the Otsutsuki. The fact that Jigen has remained off the grid so long is ominous, and the fact that he is worthy of being Kaguya's partner speaks volumes about his true power, which we still haven't seen yet. Finally, Sasuke learns that Jigen has his own Ten-Tails beast locked up in the facility, which the villain is using as his own personal chakra reservoir.

That's a pretty dire set of threats stacking up against Hidden Leaf. Kara is now closing in on Naruto's village, with targets to capture both Boruto and Kawaki, who are marked as the "vessels." With this Otsutsuki connection, what, exactly, the voys will be "vessels" for just got a whole lot more terrifying to consider.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata. The anime airs new episodes weekly on Funimation and Hulu; new manga chapters appear monthly on Shonen Jump Online.