Boruto: Two Blue Vortex Chapter 18 Review

The colored cover of chapter 18 features Matsuri, the Shinju derived from the chakra of Kazamatsuri Moegi, Konohamaru's childhood teammate. Our token female sentient tree appears to be in motion, one arm akimbo, the other positioned to elbow someone out of her way. The panels of her purple poncho are curved around her like petals of a flower, the black stripes on them like the pencil lines on said petals that draw pollinators toward the sweet nectar and pollen tucked at their center, the insects lured inside fulfilling a reproductive purpose for the plant. Ethereal clouds sharing her color palette float behind her, perhaps referencing scent or pollen.

Viewing Matsuri in this context, as the flower of the Divine Tree, her attraction to Konohamaru makes more sense. Her existence combines the feelings of Moegi with the botanical structure in a plant responsible for procreation. Flowers are like the nuptial plumage of birds, an aesthetic development of evolution to propagate their genetic material.

If you've followed my previous reviews, you know I've been on team #EatKonohamaru since the introduction of the Shinju. If we consider that Matsuri is a sentient flower whose explicit purpose is to ensure proliferation of their species, it seems likely that she'll be the one who consumes her target, an act of reproduction that will combine both their chakra into a new, original being. After all, it was Matsuri who was responsible for orchestrating Ryu's creation and expressed excitement about the creation of a new Shinju.

Matsuri's appearance and behavior are that of a sentient flower as well, one evolved to lure Konohamaru in. Her nails are manicured and painted a feminine pink, eyelashes long, lips red. Paired with her bodycon clothing, she's a stereotype of what might intrigue straight, masculine human desire. But its her behavior towards Konohamaru, blushing, stammering, admitting affection, and her use of the beloved suffix -chan, that draw him in.

The chapter opens with Sumire dragging her feet down the hallway to Amado's lab, eyes downcast as she reflects on her blowup with Sarada. Distraction quickly provides itself in the form of Kawaki's presence in the lab, threatening Amado's life.

Similar to when Hinata slapped the words out of Kawaki's mouth when she witnessed him justifying to Naruto why he had to kill Boruto, Kawaki is quick to assure Sumire that what she's witnessing is rational. The two scenes are eerily similar: Kawaki framing the conversation as a talk, an opportunity to explain himself, when what he's actually doing is making a declaration of violence. In both scenes, he speaks directly to an older male figure, one that stands between him and his goal of killing Boruto, while giving little acknowledgement to the female witness in the room, someone who shares deep affection for Boruto and is terrified by his words.

He treats Sumire and Hinata like innocent bystanders in these moments, women stumbling into the scene of a crime, their hearts collateral in his war against the Otsutsuki. In both scenes, Kawaki is expressing agency, the desire to act on his own, to be subordinate to no one, putting aside the past with coldness rather than recognizing his own emotions and agency.

With Amado, Kawaki is quick to dismiss the violations that have been taking place against him for almost his entire life, the implantation of Karma with Amado's assistance, the further modification of his body in Kara's labs, the invasion of his privacy and physical body at the hands of Amado since he's been in Konoha, a place where he was supposed to be safe. When we contrast this to his conversation with Naruto, we see a similar gulf between his words, what has happened to him, and his own emotions. He coldly informs Naruto that he's grateful to Naruto for giving him a reason to live, telling Naruto that he enabled Kawaki to be a kind-hearted person instead of expressing the feeling himself. He's able to acknowledge what's happening to him through words as words make him feel rational whereas expressing and feeling motions would wrestle that control away from him.

On the following page, we get the reveal that the chapter's title references Kawaki's shutdown code: Only babble in your sleep, Kawaki. It comes right after Kawaki tries to wrest control of his fate from Amado, as though Amado has always known confrontation with Kawaki would be paired with verbal justification. The term babble implies that Kawaki's words are nonsense, gibberish, childish utterances, insubstantial and unworthy of adult attention.

Unlike Code's shutdown code, which is a pun, Kawaki's is similar to Delta's in that it references sleep, but there's no fatherly undertone Kawaki's Code. "Time to go to sleep, Delta," is something you might say to your own child every night before bed while "only babble in your sleep" feels like a command to shut up and stop wasting everyone's time. Yet paired together, the commands so different from the one used on Code, makes me wonder once again if Delta (and, as such, Akebi) and Kawaki are linked, one a favored child created out of a father's hope to save his daughter, the other a manipulated child engineered to bring about the prior's revival.

Sumire's presence at this moment, and throughout the entire confrontation, plants the seeds for what might be a larger role later in the story. She knows Kawaki's shutdown code and could utilize it (assuming he responds to her words the same way Delta did in NNG). She has the power to put him to sleep at any given time, including in a battle against Boruto who he has just vowed to destroy. But with such knowledge comes danger, the potential the shutdown code is lifted as the same time as his abilities, and Sumire is left screaming words that would alert him of her intent.

If we return to the Hinata/Sumire comparison, we don't see (in this chapter, at least) Sumire embodying the outrage Hinata expressed when Boruto's life was threatened, the fiery assertions Sarada would be sure to express when encountering such sentiment as well. She remains an observer throughout this chapter, listening to the deal between Amado and Kawaki, Amado's terms, Kawaki's stipulation. We know that in the past, Sumire has had insider knowledge (such as overhearing that Kawaki had killed Boruto) and chosen not to act on it or share it with others. Even in this chapter, she goes along with Amado's request to move Kawaki without commenting on whether shutting him down, or waking him up again later, was the right thing to do. There's a big question mark hanging over her head now--What will you do with this knowledge, Sumire?

Returning to the subject of shutting Kawaki down, it seems like a tactic performed out of desperation, but also a way for Amado to assert his control of the situation and put himself back in charge. In fact, he simply picks up the conversation where it left off, agreeing with what Kawaki just said. That is, unless something occurs between the shutdown code and Kawaki waking up once again, yet another modification meant to serve Amado's purposes, known only to Amado... and, perhaps, Sumire.

In pleading for Kawaki to revive his daughter, Amado reveals the vessel he's created for Akebi's return, yet another clone just like Delta without information downloaded into it. She's in a tank, wrapped up to the nose in cloth almost like a swaddled baby. A diamond-shaped marking or button on the tank represents Amado's intent to have Karma implanted into her.

Kawaki is silent through Amado's plea for his daughter's revival, his eyes alone speaking for him. And yet, we have to return to what Karma meant for Kawaki. To him, it was the initial sin that took his agency from him, a thing forced upon him that he never requested. This vessel made for Akebi is described as being empty, just as Kawaki was told he was empty over and over. While Kawaki later agrees to help Amado once his own goals are achieved, I can't help but wonder if there's some reluctance on his part to play the part of Jigen, forcing data into someone who never asked for it. The trauma of his own experience with Karma being implanted was depicted so strongly, a violating and transgression, pain, one of the few times in the series we saw him break, that I wonder what recreated that experience would do to him.

There's also an assumption here that implanting the Karma will go well, that the vessel Amado created won't die like so many other did on Jigen's quest to find a suitable vessel. We're led to believe that this version of Akebi will be compatible because she shares the same DNA and is empty, but there's no guarantee that she won't become yet another dead fish floating to the top of the tank she's in, and Amado will desperately have to seek out another suitable vessel before Kawaki changes his mind.

As Kawaki raises the possibility that Akebi might turn into an Otsutsuki as an effect of being revived via Karma, I think we need to return to Amado's intent to bring his daughter back to life. She was an adult when she passed away, not a child. We're led to believe she was human, just as Amado is assumed to be human. Her father's intent seems to be focused on alieving his grief without greater thought to the cycle of human life. His intent is to return his deceased daughter to the world to spend the rest of his life with her--however many years remain of it. Then for Akebi to watch her father die before dying herself. Similar to the circumstances under which Amado was going along with Jigen's plan to destroy the planet in exchange for her life, we're forced to ask what kind of life she'd have to live with no connections beyond a mortal father. This either hints to something deeper going on in the plot or a sign of the depths of Amado's selfishness.

Amado once told Naruto that he knew a father's grief, and we see how similar the two men are in their approaches to their children once again. Amado vows to protect his revived child even if she becomes an Otsutsuki just as Naruto protected Boruto even after we learned that Momoshiki could take over, and would one day overtake, his body. Kawaki again reasserts the belief he's held since the end the first part of Boruto, that Otsutsuki are things rather than people, and that a human soul is unworthy of existence if it dwells within the body of an Otsutsuki.

Where Amado fails in is love is that he extends it to only his daughter, perhaps a glorification of who she had been, her memory made perfect through death. Naruto extended his love to the entire village (and beyond), treating each individual as worthy of recognition and respect whereas Amado treats everyone else as tools to bring about his daughter's revival. This is especially true in the case of Delta, a replication of his daughter with an attitude as shitty as Kawaki's own demeanor. I wonder if, when visiting Amado's lab, Delta would see her own face on something so loved and cherished as Amado's vessel and hate it.

As Kawaki lays out his terms for Akebi's revival, we see how his worldview has changed to classify so many as monsters: The Shinju, Code, Boruto, and himself all placed on the same level. He doesn't ask Amado to make him a monster. He asks him to make him into an "even bigger, badder monster than them," already acknowledging his own view of himself as monstrous. Stipulating that Akebi will return only after he kills those he's deemed as evil forces Amado to use all his talents and techniques to assure Kawaki will achieve his goal. Kawaki is not concerned about his survival; it's Amado who needs Kawaki to remain alive long enough to bring his daughter back.

What does Kawaki mean when he asks Amado to "use any means, scientific or otherwise," to make him into a monster? As a former member of Kara, one who witnessed the atrocities performed by the organization, Kawaki is uniquely positioned to understand the depraved lengths Amado will go to in order to achieve his goals. What's more, Kawaki knows of all the powers had by the members of Kara (with the exception of Koji's Prescience) and the existence of Shibai's cells to further enhance their abilities.

While the lore-hungry part of me hopes we'll get a deeper exploration of Kara's background and the events surrounding Shibai's cells and how they came into Amado's possession, we're seeing how far Kawaki's character has fallen since the time he spent in the Uzumaki household. Unlike Naruto who experienced pain and sought out others with similar trauma, his recognition and acknowledgement bringing both them and the world peace, Kawaki is becoming someone who demands pain to achieve his own ends. He's closer to Amado than the teenage Sasuke who sought vengeance as Kawaki's ends are not about retribution for harms done to him and those he loves, but a twisted act of love for Naruto.

Early in TBV, Kawaki didn't exhibit the same demand for strength that he does once Boruto reveals his true abilities has been manipulated by Amado. But his drive for power goes far beyond the revelation that he was nerfed, and his anger isn't centered on the man who modified him. Rather, it feels as though the experience of fighting the Shinju and Boruto, as well as seeing his own inability to protect Konoha from Code and the Claw Grimes, is what truly drives him to these extremes.

I've pointed out before that in chapter 8 of TBV, Jura unceremoniously uses Kawaki's body to puncture a water tower. Unlike the iconic fight between Naruto and Sasuke in which they challenge one another, rasengan versus chidori, only for Sasuke to discover how weak he is compared to Naruto, Kawaki learns his weak compared to everyone else. His true adversary is not Boruto, but himself. He isolates himself to the point that he lacks both friends and rivals.

It's hard to empathize with the side of himself that Kawaki embodies in this chapter. It's hard to read and heartbreaking, knowing that Naruto believed in his kind-heartedness. The thought that brings me comfort is remembering how Ikemoto framed Kawaki in the interviews from August of 2024.

"On the other hand, in Boruto, it's Kawaki who is in the position of someone who shows a strong attachment to the main character, Boruto... It will be more like Kawaki showing his evolution as a character."

What this tells me, I hope, is that Kawaki is the one who is going to undergo development through the course of Boruto, and what we are witnessing now is how far he's going to fall before something changes his direction.

While Kawaki is delivering a kill list that would have gotten him sent to the guidance counselor's office if he'd ever gone to high school, we have Konohamaru on a date with a tree while Sarada and Mitsuki, with Yodo and Araya, contend with Shinki.

Our first glimpse of what is happening in the Sand is Ryu meeting Araya and Yodo, and the youngest Shinju sensing Yodo's feelings of bloodlust when he spreads out his iron sand as a reconnissance tool (the same way he used it when discovering Code spying in the Shinju's hideout). What follows is a dance of shinobi deceit in which neither the members of Team 7 or Team Shinki are aware that Ryu knows the steps as well.

Sarada witnesses first hand what happens when a kunoichi puts her desire to save a teammate above the functionality of a mission when Yodo attacks Ryu on her own rather than relying on team work. The other interesting detail is that Araya uses a technique he created in concert with a teammate against the same teammate (or close enough, with Ryu sharing similar abilities to Shinki). It's a reminder that teamwork not only strengthens coordination between members of the team. Each team member becomes stronger individually as well. Sarada, Mitsuki, and Kawaki (and, perhaps, Boruto) might have become stronger over the past three years had they been training together rather than torn apart.

The Ryu fight raises two questions for me: One, how does Araya's swordsmanship intersect with his prior puppetry abilities. And two, much more pressing, where did Ryu get the Thorn Soul Bulb from? Was it his own creation to deceive them? Are Shinju able to remove their OWN Thorn Soul Bulbs? Or did he reach into the Shiju's hideout and pluck one from the tree? If that latter option is the case, who will this Thorn Soul Bulb one day become?

While the new gen's meet-and-greet is going horribly wrong, Konohamaru is having problems of his own on his date with Matsuri. I wrote a lot about Matsuri when we reviewed the chapter cover, but it's interesting to note that she remains blushing throughout her entire conversation with Konohamaru, even after he tells her that her color is good. It's as though everything she does is purposefully designed to get him to drop his guard and get closer to her.

While we can read Konohamaru's memories of Moegi as his unrequited affection for her, we can also see that he's surprised by his own response when he reacts to Matsuri using that name, stating, "So, you see. It's surprising me, too. But it's giving me goosebumps." It could be that his reaction to Matsuri isn't just caused just by Moegi, but by an effect that Matsuri herself is having on him.

When she deduces that his reluctance to get close to her is due to his memories of Moegi, Matsuri turns from a delicate flower into a carnivorous plant, her petals curling up around her head into sharp, forking wooden teeth, prepared to devour him.

A part of me is hoping that Konohamaru's slip up is part of a greater strategy and that he has some shinobi subterfuge up his sleeve. Otherwise, the plan that Koji laid out to Boruto that is mostly likely to result in a positive outcome (the new gen team taking on Ryu before joining Konohamaru to defeat Matsuri) is up in smoke.

In this chapter, we see that Jura's inability to understand human emotions is a feature of him being the Shinju that originated from the Ten-Tails. Matsuri is able to comprehend attraction and jealousy, Ryu betrayal and trickery (not to mention breaking the fourth wall!). While Jura is the most dangerous of the Shinju according to Koji, the others seem able to weaponize human emotions for their own benefit.

What comes next? Will Amado accept Kawaki's terms? Will Sumire finally say something other than "Kawaki????" Will Boruto endanger himself and the planet to save his friends? Will we return to Jura's bookshop adventures? Is it finally time for Matsuri to chow down on some Konohamaru Snacks?

Let me know your thoughts on what will happen next!