Kawaki Arc

The is an arc of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. It covers chapters 24 to current. It is preceded by the Ao Arc.

The Vessel
In the base of Kara, Jigen and Delta eat a meal where Delta shows her exasperation at Koji's lack of progress and Jigen calmly allows her to leave and work with Koji to report to him about any troubles, although he still insists Koji must be in charge. As Boruto and the rest of Konohamaru's Team observe the unconscious Kawaki, suddenly Boruto's seal hurt and so does Kawaki, who after being furiously reminded of his adoption at Jigen's hands unleashes a shockwave that repels them all before engaging in an uncooperative discussion with the Konoha ninja, unaware that Koji and Delta are watching. When Garō arrives, Kawaki fights with him and after being overpowered, activates his seal and effortlessly kills him and would have killed Boruto and the others had Boruto not activated his own seal. Although Kawaki makes it clear he sees them as allied with Kara, he collapses due to overexerting himself and after Katasuke inspects and is awed at Kawaki's modifications, they take him back to Konohagakure, with Koji allowing it much to Delta's angry surprise.

Integrating Into Konoha
Once back in Konoha, having decided to allow Kawaki to experience a normal life in Konoha, Naruto tries to befriend him with little success as Kawaki remains antagonistic, refusing his kindness and even accidentally breaking the vase Himawari had given to Hinata, which finally causes Naruto to snap and he unleashes his power, which Kawaki describes as being equal to if not even greater than Jigen and was frightened enough that he stops running. Soon Boruto came home and is furious over Kawaki having broken the vase Himawari made. Kawaki coldly tells him off and hardly apologizes to Himawari, which only makes Boruto angrier and after Kawaki introduced himself vulgarly, Boruto responded in kind. Although Hinata and Himawari were fine with the vase broken as the most important thing was her feelings conveyed to Hinata, Boruto and Kawaki soon had a violent altercation when they wanted to go to the toilet only to have to go outside the house, only being stopped by Naruto.

Eventually, Kawaki revealed his past to Boruto and how he obtained Kāma: he had obtained it from Jigen, who had experimented on many other children, causing their deaths, before succeeding with him. Boruto, who could not help but feel somewhat sorry and impressed by Kawaki's harsh treatment that even he himself noted was worse than death and yet he still survived for so long, agreed to consider working with Kawaki but still insisted he repair Himawari's vase before leaving for a mission. Naruto offers to help him and the two went out and it soon became clear Kawaki had little regard for social manners, even ruthlessly attacking a child just because he bumped into him, which would have certainly killed the boy had Naruto not stopped him, along with coldly refusing to share with Sarada his snack, but at the same time also revealed his trauma when he went to Ino's shop to buy a vase to replace the original, remembering Jigen just from seeing the flowers, which Naruto comforted him for. However, Boruto coldly refused it and told him to repair the original, frustrating Kawaki. Meanwhile, Koji has entered Konoha undetected while leaving Delta behind.

Delta's Assault
When Naruto sparred with Boruto, effortlessly overpowering him, Kawaki activated his seal to make Boruto use his own to begin studying Kāma, at which point Boruto quickly became significantly stronger but was still defeated easily. Nevertheless, Naruto applauded Boruto and the two mutually shared a seal of reconciliation, which surprised Kawaki who remembers how harsh Jigen was with him. Naruto then offered to have Kawaki spar with Boruto but Kawaki declined as he couldn't use chakra and unmoved by Naruto's explanation of chakra being a power that connects to others, which is the key to happiness, only expressed interest in the Shadow Clone Technique just because he could use it to beat himself up in a melancholic and self-bitter tone, which Naruto advised him against as he told him that self-hatred would mean nothing and that with friends, he could change for the better, which affected Kawaki enough that he bitterly decided to repair the vase despite struggling, unaware that Koji has found him but decided to not try to capture him as he would not win against Naruto, which caused Boruto open up to Kawaki and offered to train with him to better use Kāma. During the spar, Kawaki easily handled Boruto's attacks before proceeding to unleash a blast that Boruto could not absorb and was injured in process. When the two made a seal of reconciliation, suddenly Boruto's hand healed as he and Kawaki felt a reaction from their seals, which worried Koji as he felt that meant Boruto could have the same power as Jigen.

Meanwhile, the livid Delta had found Kawaki using a drone and proceeded to enter Konoha to bring him back herself. A fierce fight quickly ensued between Naruto and Delta, with Naruto successfully overwhelming and wearing down his opponent while holding back to not harm his watching children as Kawaki noted how far Naruto surpassed Delta and that it was obvious as a dance that Naruto was leading the fight. However, when Delta revealed her trump card, that of a destructive beam that not even Naruto could heal from, Naruto began to be pressured enough that Boruto tried to help only to make Delta attack Himawari, causing Naruto to shield her only for Kawaki to take the attack, infuriating Delta and Naruto, with Delta being angry that Kawaki had damaged his valuable body and Naruto being infuriated with her tactics. Now angered, Naruto decisively pummeled Delta and soon overloaded her absorbing eyes and defeated her. However, the drone Delta used exploded Delta's body and fled as Koji expressed that Naruto's power, while terrifying, still could not defeat Jigen and only the Kāma could do it. At the base of Kara, Delta raged at her defeat as the other Inners mocked and made it clear that the next time they try to retrieve Kawaki, they will send in someone stronger than her. Jigen swiftly silenced the argument, noting on how Delta had defied his orders and questioning about Koji's whereabouts. As Boro is perplexed by how Koji is disobeying the order of retrieving Kawaki before Konoha came in, Jigen, interested when Delta said Koji was gathering information, asked Delta about it and Delta told the other Inners about Boruto having Kāma, surprising all of them, even Jigen, as Corde noted that he had searched Naruto and Sasuke but found neither of them had the seal, along with also noting that Boruto wields a real Kāma as his could increase in strength with Kawaki's upon resonating, which caused Jigen to smirk as he knew that Momoshiki was behind it.

Jigen Makes His Move
Meanwhile, Kawaki, inspired by Naruto giving a prosthetic hand to him despite it inhibiting his chakra, asked to learn ninjutsu from him and gradually opened up to others. He eventually is moved to tears when Kurama reveals just how similar Naruto's childhood was to his own when he was searching for the last piece of the vase and was confronted by Kurama. However, as Boruto and Mitsuki left to ask Tsunade about the similarities of the Strength of a Hundred Seal, Sasuke, in his investigation of a location from the coordinates retrieved from Kara, discovered two terrifying revelations: Kaguya had came to Earth with a partner and that another Ten Tails was imprisoned in the location. To further his concern, he saw Jigen came and absorb chakra from the Ten Tails to transform into Kaguya's partner, the power of the resulting form being such that it caused Sasuke to sweat and Sasuke decided to retreat and warn Naruto rather than face him.

Jigen decided to finally retrieve Kawaki personally and forced Kawaki's Kāma to open a portal for him, a process that alerted Boruto, and arrived on Konoha himself right in front of Kawaki as Naruto was just worried about him. Koji, who had been watching all along and had been anticipating Jigen making a move, was astonished and perplexed at Jigen's ability to just so easily appear before Kawaki, as he wouldn't have needed to order the vessel retrieval mission, only to be soon caught by Jigen, forcing him to stop watching the events, as he came to the realization Jigen was never fooled by him and had been merely baiting him to know his motives. His immense power being instantly sensed by Ino, terrified by the level of darkness she sensed from him, Ino immediately contacted Naruto who had her station the Police Force as backup but not to intervene immediately in his one-on-one fight with Jigen. As Naruto coldly rebuked Jigen's apology for having shoes on in his house and attacked him, he soon found himself outmatched by Jigen, who easily kicked and pinned him down with black rods. Jigen then turned his sights on Kawaki and effortlessly restrained his adopted son when he tried to punch him, expressing disgust at his prosthetic arm and noting it was just a tracking device and Kawaki was merely a bait for Kara and only Jigen himself had ever did anything truly for Kawaki's sake, along with also denouncing Naruto as being a mere peace-obsessed foolish coward who cares only for the peace of his village, but Kawaki defiantly stood up to him and his Kāma progressed to the point a horn came out of it, shocking Jigen on how much Kawaki had progressed. Naruto, now freed, kicked Jigen aside and Jigen then activated his Kāma, intent to kill the Seventh Hokage for interfering.

Immediately, Kawaki surrendered to Jigen, noting that Jigen was far more powerful than Delta and could very well kill Naruto, in exchange for no fights between him and the Seventh Hokage. Although Jigen agreed to the terms, Naruto refused to cooperate so Jigen teleported him to another dimension but was stopped from leaving by Sasuke, who along with Naruto decided to face Jigen there as they could fight fully, which merely caused Jigen to laugh at them. As Naruto and Sasuke fought with Jigen, who proved to be a challenging opponent even against both of them at once, being able to somehow cause black rods to appear in their person to stab them and vanish out of nowhere to dodge their attacks, while all those that did connect were easily repelled by Jigen's Kāma enhancing his physical prowess and allowing him to absorb jutsu, eventually Sasuke realised that Jigen's true ability was to manipulate matter to a molecular level to shrink objects and himself to a microscopic level and just as easily return to normal. With this knowledge, after another short but still fierce round, they ultimately cornered Jigen when Naruto tricked him into revealing himself by having him absorb his jutsu for Sasuke to attack but Jigen managed to escape using his Space-Time Ninjutsu and after praising them for their abilities and having revealed to him his weakness, calmly activated the transformed state he was in when he absorbed the Ten-Tails' chakra, leaving even Naruto and Sasuke nervous at the power of the form.

Chapters
Kawaki Arc pt-br:Arco de Kawaki