Boruto’s Latest Rescue May Have Blown His Cover to Jiraiya

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations latest arc has taken Boruto and Sasuke back in time to the Hidden Leaf village of Naruto’s youth, during the pivotal interval between the original Naruto series and the drastic events of Naruto: Shippuden. Like any Back to the Future-style time travel story, Boruto and Sasuke’s time in the past comes with the heavy risk that the pair could irrevocably change their present day reality by interacting with people they know and love, or changing the course of events in others ways. Well, after the most recent episode of Boruto, it seems as though the former concern is about to become a real one.

Check out this scene from Boruto episode 131 “The Power of The Nine-Tails”, which seems to hint that Jiraiya is realizing that there’s a much more significant connection between Naruto and Boruto!

As you can see above, the decisive moment of realization comes when Urashiki Otsutsuki makes his move and kidnaps Naruto. Boruto and Sasuke jump into battle to mount a rescue, and the battle gets heated enough for Boruto to pull manifest the Rasengan to try to bring Urashiki down. The only problem? At this point in Hidden Leaf’s history, the Rasengan was only passed on from its creator, Minato Namikaze (aka Naruto’s Dad), to three other users: Kakashi, Naruto and Jiraiya himself. In other words, it’s impossible for someone like Boruto to know about or be able to use the technique.

That mystery is only compounded later, when Jiraiya witnesses Boruto soothe Naruto and calm his Nine-Tails power from raging out of control. Jiraiya realizes that Nine-Tails responds to Boruto’s chakra, which should be impossible, as the beast is sealed to Naruto. Between Boruto’s Rasengan use and chakra sync with Naruto (not to mention the fact that the two look and act just alike), it’s a fair bet to assume the Toad Sage has put the pieces of this puzzle together, no matter how impossible it may seem. We get hint as of much when Jiraiya ends the episode by uniting Boruto and Naruto under his wing to train them both together.

A lot of fan speculation has now turned to how Jiraiya’s realization will affect the future. some fans think that this changed past could save Jiraiya’s life, while others think the real powerful story would be Jiraiya knowing he could alter fate, but instead choosing to accept whatever fate comes his way, refusing any safety net of future knowledge. It would definitely get the tears leaking from longtime Naruto fans.

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The series ran for 700 chapters overall, and was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex that ran from 2002 to 2017. The series was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which 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.