Only Babble in Your Sleep

Sumire walks into Amado's lab and finds the scientist pressed against the wall by Kawaki, who insists he only wants to talk. Kawaki demands an upgrade to his settings under threat of death, and Amado is forced to trigger the shutdown that puts him under. Far off in the Land of Wind, Mitsuki brings Ryū to meet Yodo and Araya. Araya greets the newcomer warmly, but Yodo only glares, a hostility Ryū clearly registers before Araya quietly tells her to ease off. Nearby, Konohamaru and Matsuri keep talking, and she notices herself behaving more like an ordinary person; when she asks to address him with an affectionate nickname, the memory of Moegi using that same name knots him up inside, though he hides it.

Searching for leads, Ryū spreads his Iron Sand as a sensing tool, calling out the sharp bloodlust rolling off Yodo, who brushes it off as normal for any ninja. Pressed by Mitsuki on why he hunts Boruto, Ryū admits he cannot fully explain it himself, only that Boruto knows too much about them and their Thorn Soul Bulbs, and that Jura marked him for death as a threat. Sarada floats the idea of dangling a Thorn Soul Bulb as bait. When Kawaki wakes, Amado offers to reroute his powers toward offense so he can stand against the Human God Trees, but attaches a price: a freshly grown vessel modeled on Akebi Sanzu that Kawaki must seed with a Kāma to bring her back, since his own carries her data. Kawaki rejects most of the terms, vowing to cut down Akebi at once should she turn out to be an Ōtsutsuki, and agreeing only to attempt the revival after every current enemy is destroyed.

Amado warns that stripping away Kawaki's near-immortal defenses for pure offense could get him killed, ending Amado's dream since only Kawaki's Kāma can restore his daughter, yet Kawaki chooses slaughter over survival and demands to be made a greater monster than his foes. As Matsuri corners Konohamaru over what Moegi means to him and hardens her wooden collar around him, Ryū draws out his own Thorn Soul Bulb and lets it hover as bait. Yodo lunges for it against Araya's warning, and Ryū freezes her, having seen through the ruse; he coats Sarada, Mitsuki, and Araya in Iron Sand and puppets Sarada into striking at Yodo, only for Araya to break the control with a massive swing of his Magnetic Iron Sand Sealing Blade.