The latest arc of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has brought the greatest threat that Hidden Leaf Village has ever had to face: Isshiki Otsutsuki and his ruthless Kara organization. Isshiki’s jutsu powers are far beyond anything seen from other Otstutuki, forcing Naruto to unleash a frightening new level of power to battle it. Thanks to a secret technique from Nine-Tails, Naruto has unlocked “Baryon Mode,” a state of power that gives the Seventh Hokage greater power than he’s ever wielded – at the expense of his life. However, even though things look grim, Boruto may be dangling a red herring in front of fans.
Here’s why Boruto won’t kill off Naruto… not yet, at least.
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The first (and most compelling) reason to think that Boruto isn’t ready to kill off Naruto yet is because of the very first scene of Boruto: The flash-forward time-skip. The Boruto series began with a vision of a teenage Boruto and his friend/rival Kawaki battling over a war-torn version of Hidden Leaf Village. The dialogue in the scene had Boruto telling Kawaki that he had gone too far, while Kawaki declared that the Age of the Shinobi was over and that he would send Boruto ‘where I sent the Seventh Hokage.’ The wording in that dialogue is key: it clearly suggests that Naruto’s doom comes from Kawaki’s hands. So Naruto’s Baryon Mode somehow killing him wouldn’t even match up to what Kawaki said at the series start.
Additionally, Kawaki’s claim that he “sent” Naruto somewhere leaves wide-open space for the twist that Naruto isn’t even dead in the “Teenage Boruto” era. Kawaki could be all-too-literal in his claim that he “sent” Naruto somewhere. After all, the Boruto manga has already set the stage for that kind of later event.
The Karma seals that Boruto and Kawaki have both been imprinted with make them vessells for possession by the Otsutsuki, but they also come with certain abilities. One of those abilities is teleporting across space and dimensions – a power both Kawaki and Boruto have already accessed to battle Kara. If Kawaki ages and gets more powerful, then he may be able to weaponize that transportation power and defeat Naruto by simply warping him to a place of no return.
That theory is boosted by the fact that Naruto and Kawaki are connected through Naruto’s chakra – part of which he shares with Kawaki, through the boy’s prosthetic hand. In fact, Isshiki just used Naruto and Kawaki’s connection during his battle with Naruto. While holding Naruto down, Isshiki used the trail of his chakra to locate Kawaki and warp the boy to his location, in an entirely different dimension. This battle could be the key to teaching Kawaki such techniques are possible, giving him the edge in a later battle with Naruto.
That’s all to say: there’s plenty of compelling evidence that Naruto’s battle with Isshiki is just setting the stage for a later, deeper, tragedy as Naruto, Boruto, and Kawaki experience some massive falling out. How Naruto survives Bayron Mode remains to be seen: it could end up being Nine-Tails who doesn’t make it out of this fight. That twist would leave both Naruto and Konohagakure vulnerable to the later doom seen in Boruto‘s flash-forward.
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has new manga chapters Free Online. The anime series is currently doing its own version of the Kara Arc.
