Vessel

Inside a genjutsu-linked conference, the criminal syndicate Kara confronts the disappearance of an object they call the vessel. Several members grumble over the money and labour sunk into it, while the veteran Victor insists the loss was a transport mishap and presses to recover it at once. Jigen counters that avoidable negligence, not mere delay, caused this, and Delta reframes the matter as a question of who answers for the error. The continued absence of a colleague named Amado unsettles the group, yet Jigen orders their scheme to proceed anyway.

When Koji Kashin volunteers to manage the fallout, since the crash lies within his territory, the other Inners back him over Victor's objections. As the projected figures wink out one by one, Victor snarls that only the meeting's illusion had spared Koji from a burst skull. Koji, though, turns out to be physically present, and after a thrown kunai bites into Victor's shoulder he calls up the True Fire of Samadhi, a blaze no regeneration can outlast. Far off in Konoha, Boruto trades blows with his father during a practice bout. Both his Rasengan and a lightning-charged wave simply vanish against Naruto, who reveals the cause: a prototype gauntlet built by Katasuke that swallows techniques. Naruto notes it can only absorb, never fire back the way Momoshiki once did, and Sasuke lectures the boy that the intent behind a weapon matters more than the weapon itself. Elsewhere Konohamaru reaches the wreck of an airship, discovers an emptied container, loses radio contact, and feels something drawing near.

Kara accepts that the vessel is lost and argues over accountability, with Amado conspicuously missing. Koji Kashin quietly assassinates Victor using the True Fire of Samadhi during the illusory meeting. While sparring with Boruto, Naruto demonstrates a jutsu-absorbing scientific ninja tool, and Sasuke stresses that the Ōtsutsuki danger still hangs over the world. Konohamaru and Mugino reach the ransacked crash site as an unseen presence closes in.

This is the sixteenth installment of the Boruto series and forms part of the Ao arc, gathered in the fifth collected volume. It first appeared in the forty-first issue of 2017, dated the twenty-fifth of September that year. The chapter opens up the internal rivalries within Kara and plants the mystery of the missing cargo that drives the surrounding arc.