The Shadow of the Mastermind

Boruto's class gathers at the hospital to check on Sumire, and though Wasabi and Namida credit her with rescuing them, she deflects the praise toward the Hokage. Shino wrestles with blame for having launched the workplace-experience program in the first place, while Iwabee remarks on how often these attacks keep striking. When Boruto shows up, he apologises to Sumire and shoulders the fault, convinced a botched mail run cost the team its patrol time. Naruto pulls him aside and reveals the culprit behind Sumire's collapse, nearly drained of chakra and under Sakura's care.

Rather than bench his son, Naruto leaves Boruto's role to Shino, and the teacher chooses to treat the boy as an adult capable of noticing what others miss. Reinstated at the post office thanks to Tayori's word on their behalf, Boruto, Mitsuki, and Shikadai resume their rounds across the village. Meanwhile Sai combs a fresh crime scene and turns up traces of Wood Release, raising the unsettling possibility that Root, the organisation he once served, has a hand in the affair.

After the spirit keeps striking wherever the boys happen to be absent, Boruto reasons that it has learned their delivery pattern. Shikadai counters by recruiting classmates to blanket every route at once, with Iwabee's borrowed fireworks ready to flag any sighting. The bait works: believing every road watched, the ghost slips into the deserted post office, possesses Komame, and begins tearing the place apart.

Boruto and his allies double back, having deliberately left the office exposed. While Komame hurls letters and parcels as weapons, Iwabee raises an Earth Release wall to shield them, and Tayori's fierce guarding of a single package loosens the spirit's grip enough for the boys to knock Komame senseless. As the ghost flees his body, Boruto flings an explosive tag after it. The masked man steering the haunting shakes his pursuers, and when Mitsuki finally locates him, the two share a wordless standoff before Mitsuki lets him walk away.

This is episode 11, part of the Academy Entrance Arc, first broadcast in Japan on 14 June 2017 and in English on 15 December 2018. It carries the opening Baton Road and the ending Dreamy Journey.

The installment ends on an ominous note, as an unseen voice remarks that the chakra siphoned from the victims is being collected to awaken Nue. The moment plants a seed for the larger mystery driving the arc, linking the ghost incidents and Root's shadow to a single concealed agenda.