Tree

Shaken by how fast Boruto has resurfaced, Code regrets not striking at Konoha sooner. Boruto orders him to call off the Claw Grime, but Code treats the demand as an empty boast, recalling how the young man fled two years earlier. Boruto stays unshaken and warns that this time Code stands to lose far more than his left eye. Sending Sarada to guide the civilians to safety and promising to talk later, Boruto sets himself against the swarm.

Shikadai locks three grimes in place so Chōchō can crush them, and when another lunges at her back, Inojin sweeps in on an ink bird carrying Himawari and snatches it aside. The beast's tail tears the bird's wing, spilling Himawari toward its jaws until Kawaki flies in, blasts the grime away, and Inojin catches her. The fallen grime opens a Rinnegan, fixated on Kawaki, then slams him into the ground while calling him an Ōtsutsuki. Enraged by the name, Kawaki triggers his Kāma and obliterates it. Close by, Boruto cleaves apart six grimes at once, lending real weight to his threat in Code's eyes, while Sarada burns through more with a Great Fireball and a Chidori, shrugging off the doubt of allies who cannot believe a genin fights so well.

The true horror surfaces when a grime bites Soegi, who had shielded a comrade; the victim is swallowed up and reshaped into a tree, and the same fate claims another bitten shinobi. Code explains that the Ten-Tails bite anyone on instinct until they consume an Ōtsutsuki and grow into a God Tree, and Boruto adds that Code's meddling has broken even that limit, urging him to scrap them while he still holds control or doom everyone. Code stays unmoved, fixed on claiming a chakra fruit whatever the cost. Boruto again offers to spare him in return for the location of the Ten-Tails' main body, calling his death otherwise meaningless, but Code brands him insane and sure to die first. As Boruto readies a Rasengan that Code writes off as a one-trick move, the swirl starts wrapping around Boruto himself rather than gathering in his palm. This is the second chapter of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, opening volume 1 of the Boruto's Return arc, first released in November 2023.