Puppets

Setting out with the researcher Katasuke and his ninja dog in tow, Team 7 reaches the crash site and discovers puppets strewn across it. When one springs to life and strikes, Boruto downs it with a Lightning Release arrow, and the rest activate to encircle the genin. Sarada and Mitsuki counter with fire and wind, but the machines rise again and open fire without hand seals, marking them as self-operating scientific ninja tools. Katasuke steps up, absorbing their attacks until the weapons overheat, then has the team destroy the puppets' power supplies and keeps one for study.

Guided by Konohamaru's scent, the team finds him tending the wounded Mugino in a cave and trades accounts of the mission. Their reunion is broken by Ao, who levels a weapon and demands to know what the airship's container held. Konohamaru refuses, so Ao opens fire with the very attack the puppets used; Katasuke absorbs it, letting a Rasengan smash the weapon, but Ao answers with a hidden prosthetic that shoots Konohamaru and rips off one of Katasuke's absorption arms. Mugino grabs Ao and collapses the cave to buy the others time, telling them to flee. Ao claws free of the rubble and sets out to kill them all.

The installment belongs to the Ao Arc and adapts chapters 19 and 20. Katasuke's guilt over intelligence he may have leaked while under genjutsu underscores how Konoha's technology reached Kara. It premiered in Japan on 31 January 2021 and in English on 6 September 2022, with the opening BAKU and the ending Answers.