Puppets (chapter)

As the group departs the research institute, Akita hands Boruto weapon manuals and her contact details and checks whether he is carrying enough healing foam; he declines more since extra bulk would slow him down. She blames her fussing on the fact that Katasuke and Chamaru are joining the party, and Katasuke, whom Boruto assumed was staying behind, shows up in a prototype mechanical suit built for rehabilitation but retooled for fighting, eager to try it out. Nearby, Sumire notices Akita's fondness for Boruto and teases Sarada about whether he is popular, then admits her own interest, which Sarada flatly deflects before the team says its goodbyes and sets off.

At the wreck they find mechanical puppets strewn about and no sign of Konohamaru. Drawn to the downed blimp, Katasuke climbs inside and discovers an empty container, and outside the puppets whir to life and attack. Ninjutsu from Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki barely dents them, and the machines answer with a relentless stream of Fire Release blasts fired without a single hand seal. Recognising them as autonomous scientific ninja weapons guarding the blimp's cargo, Katasuke wades in with his own gear, letting his suit soak up their fire until their mechanisms overheat and seize. He warns the others to cut the power sources before the puppets cool and reactivate.

Katasuke disables the autonomous puppets by absorbing their attacks until they overheat, and troubles Sarada by revealing that stolen Konoha weapon secrets are behind them, tied to information he leaked while under genjutsu. Chamaru sniffs out a kunai belonging to Konohamaru and tracks him to a cave where he is nursing Mugino's wounds. Konohamaru shares the data he gathered on the blimp's container, only for the retired shinobi Ao to appear. Boruto knows him from the train, but Konohamaru recognises him as the Byakugan Killer from the Bingo Book. When Konohamaru refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the cargo during an active mission, Ao levels a scientific ninja weapon at the group and prepares to silence them.

The chapter is part of the Ao arc and escalates the theme of stolen scientific ninja technology falling into hostile hands. In the original release Konohamaru wrongly names Ao as the right hand of the Fourth Mizukage, a line later corrected to the Fifth Mizukage in the collected tankōbon edition.