The Spiral of Revenge

Boruto's offer to trade his life for peace stuns Sarada and Mitsuki, and Chojuro is equally floored watching from the Kirigakure fleet. Ikada dismisses the gesture as too little to halt a war, yet Boruto maintains it is all he has left to give. When his teammates beg him to reconsider, Boruto admits he fears death as much as anyone who has already fallen in the conflict, but insists that someone must shoulder that pain to end the bloodshed. He pleads with Sarada and Mitsuki not to avenge him.

Gokai objects that the boy who killed Funamushi deserves no gentle end, and Ikada lets the grieving Funato strike at Boruto while he holds his friends back. Sarada presses Boruto on whether he truly trusts the Funato to lay down their arms once he is gone, and rising to his feet, he answers that the choice was never about trust but about what he feels he must do.

Ikada reserves the killing blow for Kobuna and shows the group a ramp that will drop Boruto into currents too fierce for anyone to surface from. Rather than force the boy's hand, Boruto speaks to Kobuna about how alike their thirst for revenge once made them, and his wish to die so their hatred might fade shakes Kobuna's resolve. To spare him bloodied hands, Boruto steps off the ship on his own.

Taunted to avenge their friend, Sarada and Mitsuki hold firm. Sarada draws her kunai with her Sharingan blazing, admitting she does hate the Funato for the brother-like friend she has lost, then casts the blade to the deck. Mitsuki does the same, reasoning that retaliation would render Boruto's sacrifice meaningless. Their restraint, along with Kobuna's sobbing question of whether vengeance was right, finally moves Ikada, who dives into the sea and rises as a towering sea dragon that splits the storm clouds and pulls Boruto from the water.

Episode 254 belongs to the Great Sea Battle of Kirigakure Arc, airing in Japan on 19 June 2022 and in English on 14 November 2023, with the opening GOLD and the ending Twilight Fuzz.

Ikada declares the war finished and orders a withdrawal, though his father Araumi refuses to yield and aims the Chakra Cannon at the Shinonome 1. Kawaki cuts the old man down with his bladed arm, telling him he has already lost. As Funato soldiers cast aside their harpoons, Boruto voices his hope for a future unlike the past, echoing Kagura's dream of a village that stands for peace, and Buntan lets go of her own revenge. Ikada confesses he is weary of hatred and would rather everyone keep smiling, and Boruto tells him he had wished only to talk and laugh together again.