Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring

This entry is a self-contained follow-up to the original Naruto manga, produced under the wider Naruto Project. Its story unfolds about fifteen years past the Fourth Shinobi World War and puts Sasuke and Sakura's daughter at the center. When it reached television, it became the Sarada Uchiha Arc inside Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, filling episodes 19 through 24. In the running order it sits between the Academy Entrance Arc and the School Trip Arc.

The tale ran in Weekly Shonen Jump across the combined summer issues of 2015, with its lone collected volume reaching Japanese shelves that August. A single antagonist family, grown from cloning experiments and a fixation on the late Itachi, supplies the outside danger, while Sarada's hunt for the truth about her birth forms the emotional core.

As graduation exams loom at the Academy, Sarada grows unsettled watching classmates train beside their fathers while her own has been absent her whole life. Sifting through her wrecked home after Sakura's temper literally levels it, she discovers that a cherished family photo is doctored and spots an unfamiliar bespectacled woman, Karin, standing beside her father in an older picture. The absence of any birth record in the village deepens her fear that Sakura may not be her real mother.

Meanwhile Sasuke, heading home, clashes with a masked youth bearing the Sharingan and the Uchiha crest, and sends a hawk to warn Naruto. Set on confronting her father directly, Sarada trails Naruto toward the meeting point, dragging along her friend Chocho. The foe, a man who calls himself Shin Uchiha, proves to be a former subject of Orochimaru whose body rejects nothing, letting him spawn an army of self-copies while chasing vengeance for Itachi's death. After several ambushes, Sarada awakens her own Sharingan and at last reaches her father, who first mistakes her for an enemy.

Wanting proof, Sarada has Suigetsu run a test on an umbilical cord, and the result seems to name Karin as her mother, shattering her. Naruto steadies the girl by reminding her of the years Sakura raised her, and she chooses to help rescue her captured mother. Sasuke then channels his weakened Rinnegan and Susanoo to carry the group to Shin's lair for the final showdown.

In the closing battle Sarada unleashes her mother's monstrous strength to wipe out Shin's clones, and Sakura confirms she truly is her biological daughter. Sarada realizes the bond her family shares matters more than any test result, and Sasuke agrees. The subdued clones are handed to a new Konoha orphanage run by Kabuto, who promises to name them and raise them himself.

Back in the village Sarada shares a first proper meal with both parents before Sasuke resumes his travels, poking her forehead in farewell. A later revelation clears up the confusion entirely: the umbilical cord actually linked Sarada to Sakura, and Karin, who had only assisted the delivery while Sakura traveled pregnant, orders Suigetsu to apologize and replace the girl's glasses. The story ends on Sarada smiling at a genuine family portrait, newly resolved to become Hokage.