Target

A flashback to the years Boruto spent away opens the chapter, showing him drilling his swordwork before pausing to ask Sasuke how far he has come. Sasuke admits he has little left to pass on, since the boy absorbs everything so quickly, and he likens Boruto's drive to Naruto's, at last grasping why Sarada begged him to keep her friend safe. In a later memory the pair clash with Code and his Claw Grimes, Sasuke opening a wound across Code's left eye. Ordering Boruto to flee rather than help, he insists they cannot win yet, urging the boy to live on, build on his lessons, and guard Sarada before he charges in with lightning coursing through his blade. Boruto returns to find the Claw Grimes cut down, Sasuke pinned against a tree, and takes up his teacher's sword.

Back in the present, Konohamaru discovers Team 10 beside a tree that has grown around Moegi, caught while shielding a mother and child. Her students and Konohamaru swear to free her. Sensing that grief and fury, Matsuri intrigues Jura, who reads it as a spark of individual awareness even though the God Trees share one body and one hunger for the Otsutsuki. Jura, craving Naruto specifically, tells the others to heed their inner urges and settle on personal prey. Matsuri claims Konohamaru, Bug's tree fixes on the watching Ada and rattles her mid-meal with Daemon, and Hidari names Sarada, all of which Jura endorses. When Hidari asks what they even are, Jura dismisses the question as pointless, valuing what they do over what they are.

Ada suspects the God Trees sprang from the chakra of everyone the Claw Grimes consumed. Elsewhere, Sumire and Amado weigh Boruto's return, and Amado admits he cannot recall who reworked Kawaki's body, recognising his own craftsmanship and Akebi's data in the Kama despite memories that say otherwise, leaving him convinced they were altered. Since Kawaki carries what he needs, Boruto is no threat to him. The chapter closes on reunion: Boruto tells Sarada that Sasuke doubted his own memories for her sake, and she pulls him into a hug, scolding him for being late as he apologises and says he is home.