Boruto: Two Blue Vortex Chapter 21 Review

Cover

Holy aura, Batman.

This cover feels like a sister piece to the cover of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (NNG) in which Sarada's Mangekyo Sharingan (MS) activated for the first time. In that image, she's facing away from the viewer (literally averting her eyes), her glasses purposefully removed so she cannot see. On that cover, below, she's clad in the colors of her family, her father's blue and her mother's pink from their childhoods, a fusion of the girl who wasn't strong enough to keep the boy she loved in the village and the boy himself who had to leave.

Compare that cover and title, one that relies on her father, with the one from Boruto: Two Blue Vortex (TBV) chapter, 21. Sarada is touching her glasses as though she just purposefully put them back on, staring straight ahead rather than looking away. The titular power is her power, the power of a girl who once believed herself to be an ordinary shinobi, unlike her father. This Sarada is a formidable force, once who can stand on her own two feet, still her father's daughter, but rather than relying on him, she's on a path to surpassing him.

What's additionally noteworthy about this chapter cover is how it compares to the first Sarada cover from TBV. Sarada from the chapter two cover—Tree, which also could be read as a reference to her father—appears calm and collected, though her eyes are still cast slightly downward rather than looking straight forward. Her hair is smooth, one arm akimbo broadcasting her defiance. Behind her is a wall of bricks, a wall she built up between her desires and aspirations and her fears. She appears petulant, cocky, broadcasting an air of come-at-me-bro. In the chapter 21 over, that attitude is gone, the threat of Sarada painted on the page behind her, a black hole sucking everything into it. She appears self-assured and calm, ready to face the future head-on.

There's another difference between these two Saradas, though. The Sarada of early TBV appears put together, her hair smooth, her earrings in place. On the Mangekyo Sharingan cover, we see that her hair is whipped around and mussed, her earrings swaying. Yes, this is an effect of her MS abilities, showing the results of gravitational disruption, but it's also Sarada herself unraveling.

Let's take a quick look at the background text on the original Japanese cover, translation courtesy of saladsandbolts on Reddit.

In the land of despair, an ominous star floats. Frequently recalled memories. Standing there is a girl earnestly aiming to be Hokage.

In her translation, saladsandbolts calls out the specific use of the use of ominous star, a harbinger of misfortune. I see two possible ways to view this, one more menacing than the other. If we view this line referring to the first awakening of Sarada's MS, we can read "the land of despair" as the world Sarada faced after Omnipotence and her eye as the "ominous star" Sasuke witnessed to let him know that a true calamity had occurred and that his daughter spoke the truth.

However, a secondary analysis of this could view this as being text referring to the present, that they are now existing in the land of despair and Sarada's MS, what surrounds her as she literally floats aloft, is the ominous star itself, a harbinger of misfortune. While awakening her powers might have saved them now, perhaps it portends ill for future events (a theory we'll explore a little more later).

Flashback Fest

For long we've been asking for Sarada's perspective of her character arc, and, boy, does chapter 21 ever deliver. We start out with a series of flashbacks contextualizing the events of NNG from Sarada's perspective.

First up is Sarada talking to ChoCho in what appears to be a conversation that takes place after events in The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring. Just as Sarada told Boruto of her goal to become Hokage in the last chapter of that series, she is divulging the same desire to ChoCho, who had been her traveling partner on her quest (their quest?) to find her father(s).

Though their conversation (oh, dear lord, I need more ChoCho/Sarada bff content) takes place over two panels, it's a deep look into Sarada's psychology before the beginning of NNG. After seeing Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura in action, Sarada has decided it's her dream to be Hokage, which she shares with ChoCho. But along with that inspiration came seeing all three members of old Team 7 in close combat, cementing for Sarada how wide the gulf was between her abilities and the strength of her parents' old team.

ChoCho replies to Sarada with her own, slightly less lofty, desire to obtain a hot boyfriend, to which Sarada replies, "I envy your carefreeness." What this tiny scene tells us is that Sarada views romance as vapid in comparison to her goal, as something that would get in the way of her ambition to be Hokage rather than compliment it. When this flashback transitions into the Hokage Rock moment that ended the first arc of the NNG manga in which Boruto throws his support behind Sarada's future, we see her feelings for Boruto bloom. However, that moment also inextricably ties her goal of being Hokage in with a spark of romance involving Boruto, two desires that seem to be in opposition with one another.

In the manga, Sarada literally looks away from Boruto the moment she starts to feel something for him, averting her eyes, before turning back to stare at him, though I prefer the moment in the anime where she simply runs away from what she's feeling, a physical representation of the emotional behavior she displays over and over throughout the story.

What we see next is Sarada running through the village, perhaps towards the Boruto and Kawaki confrontation on Hokage Rock that results in Omnipotence. As she's running, we see different flashbacks, providing us with her frame of mind: Sumire's confession of her feelings for Boruto contrasted with Naruto imparting his philosophy of how he treats villagers as family. What's especially interesting in how these two flashbacks are framed is how Sumire raised the topic of other people's feelings for Boruto

"...does that bother you, Sarada? That other girls might like Boruto? Well, it certainly bothers me." vs "As Hokage, all people in the village are family."

This allows us to immediately perceive the ongoing conflict inside Sarada. Not only does she view romance as antithetical to her future ambitions, but she's conflicted over what it means to treat all people in the village as family. When Sumire asks Sarada about her feelings for Boruto, she frames it as asking Sarada if she views herself in competition with other girls, in conflict with other people in the village, wanting something herself that others might also desire. To Sarada, this is not how a leader of a family would act, so she rejects the premise outright whereas she might have responded differently had Sumire asked, "Is Boruto someone special to you?" In order to be a good friend, a good leader, Sarada rejects her feelings for Boruto, tamping them down instead of acknowledging them.

Sarada's inner monologue as she runs lets us know her perception of self—and that the oft-maligned line during the anime Boro fight in which Sarada engages in negative self-talk about everyone else saving her is an accurate portrayal of her viewpoint. She believes herself to be not an extraordinary shinobi, unlike her dad or Naruto, and, thus, she can't focus on anything beyond becoming Hokage and protecting the entire village.

Pause to Focus on the Past

One of the consistent undercurrents in Boruto is the idea that perhaps the old generation parents didn't share enough of their past with their children. As a parent myself, I think it's hard to explain the full lore of how you became who you are to your kids, accurately knowing what would be relevant and helpful to their development vs what they'll be talking about in their therapist's office fifteen year from now. But Sarada's view of Naruto and Sasuke as extraordinary and herself as simply ordinary come from a warped perception of how the old generation became powerful, and, perhaps, just a smidge of her embodying the belief that she's her mother's daughter and not part of her father's legacy.

The power that Sasuke and Naruto have both came from their own emotional connections and powers granted to them. For Naruto, it was both his Uzumaki chakra combined with Kurama. For Sasuke, it was his Uchiha heritage combined with a couple of years chilling with an evil snake scientist. As Sasuke's daughter, there's nothing saying (as we learn in a few page flips) that Sarada herself cannot become extraordinary, particularly if she pursues her bonds, just as Naruto did with Sasuke (and others) and Sasuke did with Itachi (and Naruto). When Sarada views the older generation, she sees them as having always existed in their adult state. She focuses on training and dedication rather than seeing the exceptional circumstances that collided to bring about their extraordinary abilities. This also means she misses her own exceptional strengths as a shinobi, exemplified by the, "Wow." "Are you really just a genin?" reactions of other shinobi in the second chapter of Boruto.

Back to Flashbacks!

Where does Sarada's determination to be the person who protects everyone and Konoha's future lead? Straight to Boruto having to save her, thus being turned into a cyclops, further cementing her perception as someone who is powerless, weaker than those around her. The flashbacks affirm this view, Kawaki demanding that she move aside, Mitsuki declaring that he's the one who will kill Kawaki, Shikamaru informing everyone that the unstoppable force that was Naruto is gone, likely dead. She even witnesses her own father falling under the spell cast on the rest of the world, speaking of his student Boruto as as an enemy capable of killing his own father and mother.

Through this trauma, as Sarada processes Sumire's belief that Kawaki and Boruto switched places due to Eida's shinjutsu abilities, we see her dark eyes lightening, alternating between their all-black state and lighter irises, until, in a flash where she fully processes that the teammate she loves has been cursed by an evil alien, dies, is revived, loses his eye, then loses his identity, her MS fully manifests.

In a transition worthy of the pure cinema gif, the panel of Sarada's first MS awakening transitions to Boruto, his eye bandaged, saying "Mangekyo... Sharingan?" to Sasuke in a tone we can practically hear through how it's drawn. (The way my heart bleeds, imagining Sasuke bandaging Boruto's eye.) This is how we get the explainer of Sarada's MS and Sasuke's thought process that led him to save Boruto, abandoning the village and turning on his own memory in favor of protecting his forgotten student. In another brilliant transition, Sasuke tells Boruto that Sarada will immediately understand her abilities and what she's capable of before we return to the present in the next panel, Sarada staring at Mitsuki with her MS activated, a swirling black mass behind her.

A Master Class in the Abuse of the Term "Aura"

Sarada finally gets the opportunity to inform her team that she's the one wielding so much power that they have to protect themselves from the havoc she's about to wreak.

This fight truly should be read in concert with the entire Ryu fight to understand how overwhelmingly powerful Sarada has become, able to deflect his strikes without moving a muscle. With just a turn of her head, a twitch of her eye, she's able to selectively control gravity itself, lifting herself up in the sky and causing Ryu to bow down before her.

Neutron Star Theory

It appears that the black spheres are what alters gravity, and Sarada controls them. They're not voids or black holes, as speculated, but dense centers of mass (Ryu's body molds onto one of them his body arching across its span rather than being sucked within it). Sarada's power is that of a neutron star, the densest object in the universe, born when the core of a sun collapses in on itself, crushing every proton and electron into a neutron. Wait, isn't that like a black hole? you're probably asking yourself? A black hole results when stars with a higher mass collapse. How strong are neutron stars? Well, let's hear it from an actual scientific source rather than an English major: One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 trillion kilograms (or 1 billion tons) on Earth – about as much as a mountain. If we want to connect Sarada's ability to Naruto's Baryon Mode, baryons are subatomic particles with an odd number of valence quarks, protons and neutrons among them.

(That's as far as my astrophysics understanding goes, but perhaps my American astronomer friends will soon find themselves cast out of academia, have to move their families back in with their parents and, thus, I'll be able to spend all day sitting around with them, asking questions about their former fields of study and how it applies to manga before they have to clock in for a 12-hour work shift at the iPhone factory.)

((Yes, somehow I know almost a half-dozen astronomers. It's a long story, but the main takeaway is that if you want to have cool friends in middle-age, play ttrpgs as a teenager.))

What's interesting about Sarada's MS ability to manipulate super-dense objects of mass is that it still leaves open the possibility for Kawaki's emptiness to represent a black hole. As I've pointed out before, Sarada and Kawaki have motivations that come from the same origin: Naruto. However, the way their motivation and emotional inspiration from him manifest is different. That neutron stars and black holes are both created by a collapsed star is yet another uniting point between them, symbolizing how a single celestial body can collapse, possibly creating two different entities: One that draws things two it, the other that sucks things in and causes them to disappear.

Psycho Uchiha: Monologue Time

For long, we have pleaded with the narrative gods (i.e., Ikemoto) to let Sarada speak her own truth, to tell us what she's feeling in her own words rather than forcing us to speculate. Does he ever deliver!

(I think this is a sign that Boruto is the kind of story we need to be patient with. Characters will eventually get their moments, get their due, but with the monthly release, it takes a while to get there. Do not lose faith when your favs aren't on display. Trust that their time will come.)

Sarada declares to Ryu (and Mitsuki and Araya) that she's no longer averting her eyes, a reference both to her inherited abilities and the emotions within her. She explains that she's been powerless to stop the tragedies around her, causing her to fear that she'd never be able to be Hokage, so she chose to look away from the emotions inside of her, suppressing her response to Sumire's feelings for Boruto and her own feelings towards him, assuming her emotions were a source of weakness. But we only have to return to Tobirama's explanation of the Uchiha clan's love and it's connection with their abilities to understand what happens to Sarada.

By suppressing her heart, Sarada also suppressed the abilities that would increase her strength, interpreting her emotions as a source of weakness rather than a source of power, her feelings as something that would inhibit her goal rather than advance it. Or, in Sarada's own words, "I rejected all of [my feelings], not realizing I was also rejecting the power hiding inside of me." She declares that she can't become Hokage if she doesn't accept herself and the reality in front of her first.

Symbolism of Selective Gravitational Force

We're all subject to gravity, an equalizing force that keeps our feet planted to the ground, the atmosphere surrounding our planet, the spinning of the planet, the rotation around the sun, the very existence of day and night, summer and winter, the existence of life itself all owed to gravity. Naruto's philosophy to being Hokage is like gravity, a force that applies equally to ever single villager. It's akin to Naruto's explanation of chakra, a binding force that joins everyone together.

When Sarada finally decides to stare head-on into her own emotions, she recognizes that some bonds are greater than others. She aspires to be a Hokage like Naruto, but her heart exerts its own force, applying to some more strongly than others. This is reflected in her ability, Ohirume. As Mitsuki states, "She's able to pick what it applies to."

Contrast this with how Naruto utilizes Kurama's chakra during the war arc and the way he protects villagers during Momoshiki's attack, sharing a bit of his power with everyone and spreading himself (literally, with shadow clones) around those he wants to protect. Instead of splitting herself into pieces or sharing her ability, Sarada's power up selectively pulls things towards her, choosing what things will hold more weight than others in her world.

Amaterasu/Ohirume

Someone with more background in eastern pantheons is more qualified to do a deep read of how Amaterasu and Ohirume are two names of the same goddess and what that might mean for Sarada going forward. What I wanted to point out is that this ability is Sarada's version of Amaterasu (same goddess, different names). Unlike her uncle and father, she's not going to get ever-burning flames that turn all to ash before extinguishing. This is a well-crafted nod to how her aspiration to be Hokage differs from that of Sasuke, who wanted to burn the darkness away from all five villages with his "only his own flame and then keeps on living by eating the ashes."

Deja Vu and Dire Possibilities

And now, we arrive at the fun stuff section of this review.

As I was reading the fight between Sarada and Ryu, something felt eerily familiar to me. It started with noticing how Mitsuki caught Sarada after she passed out while flying, then the manner in which she passed out while flying, then the way in which she makes Ryu bow before her.

Let's do a rundown of similarities between Manifestation!!, chapter 43 of NNG and Mangekyo Sharingan, chapter 21 of TBV, starting with the Sarada/Sarada covers.

A four-man team in dire straights against an inhuman enemy with regenerative abilities who they seem to have no chance of defeating.

A manifestation of god-like abilities.

Demeaning their enemies as lesser beings.

Absolute obliteration of the enemy through a modification of familial jutsu.

Mid-flight blackout after destroying the enemy.

Having to be saved by Mitsuki at the last second.

Achieving the goal of freeing a person who'd been sealed away (still pending in the case of Shinki).

Okay, Shear, you've given us a lot of screenshots, but what the fuck are you getting at?

Well, my mind is split between two different readings of these similarities, one predicting a upturn in the plot's progression, the other boding ill.

In chapter 43, Boruto was taken over by Momoshiki for the first time, the revelation that he's steadily becoming a homicidal alien the first horrible reckoning in the story. This is the beginning of the end, as it were, of Boruto's dynamic with Kawaki, the disruption in his shinobi path, the event that leads to the destruction of his family and everyone's memories.

But the difference between Boruto's manifestation of Momoshiki and Sarada's embrace of her MS is that Sarada is becoming more of herself, not less. This is an event Sasuke saw as being a great help, something Koji foresees as necessary to prevent the worst possible future. Just as Momoshiki's emergence was the start of a calamity, perhaps Sarada's (second) MS awakening is the beginning of fixing the future.

But I'll offer a different interpretation of this moment if we return to the text of the Japanese cover, which refers to an ominous star floating in the land of despair. Let's contrast that with how the Jougan is called the Star of Hope, Isshiki referring to Jiraiya as the Star of Change, a figure whose fate Koji is trying to embody. An ominous star is far different from these, a harbinger of misfortune. It's just as likely that Sarada's MS might signal the beginning of a darker future, especially now that we know Koji believes in necessary evils to achieve his ends. If this is an accurate prediction, we can see how it parallels the first big misfortune of the Boruto series when Momoshiki takes over, what first appears to be a massive power up for our main character heralding his demise. It's an open question whether Sarada's MS signals a change toward a better future or a darker one, both for her and the rest of the planet.

Cracks in the Alliance

Through the Claw Grime that falls out of Ryu during his demise, Jura watches as his ally is destroyed, a thorn soul bulb containing Shinki forming after his "death." After Sarada passes out, the scene changes to Eida dictating the events of the battle to Koji while Boruto listens in.

When Eida confirms Yodo's death, Boruto asks Koji if he knew that the mission would suffer casualties if Boruto didn't step in. Koji avoids the question, responding that Sarada wouldn't have awakened her MS had Boruto been there. (Perhaps because she needed to be forced into a corner to use it, perhaps because seeing Boruto would have caused her to further repress her feelings.) When Boruto pushes back on this, Koji says his reaction proves that he was right not to tell Boruto about the possible outcomes of the battle.

An increasingly irritated Boruto then inquires about Konohamaru, asking if he truly stands a chance against Matsuri. Koji's response is along the lines of, Don't you dare fucking go. Jura can sense everything the other Shinju feel. He will see you and he will kill you.

As I've pointed out in the past, it's not in Boruto's character to standby and let anyone die, perhaps with the exception of Code, so he defies Koji, appearing on the battle field as the top third of Matsuri, looking like a CPR dummy, is about to end Konohamaru. Before she can even finish the third syllable of his name, Boruto smashes her into a hundred tiny, angry pieces, thus ending Konohamaru's worst first date ever.

(If we recall what a rotten wingman Boruto was during the Remon arc, we can assume Konohamaru has learned better than to invite him on any future dates from here on out.)

Koji, teeth gritted and sweating, declares that Boruto is an idiot who will ruin everything while Jura, with a suspicious glint in his eye, witnesses Boruto's arrival through one of Matsuri's remaining eyes.

Predictions!

1. Is Yodo actually dead? Eida confirms her death, but she only sees the present and past, not the future. I think there's a chance that the moment Yodo was bitten by a Claw Grime, some of her chakra might have gotten consumed. Perhaps she'll still turn into a tree or, when the world is saved, the record of her body that exists inside the Divine Tree will return. Or maybe she's really dead-dead.
2. Team 10 vs Matsuri! I know we were all hoping for a old Team 10-like revenge arc involving Matsuri rather than Hidari, and I don't think that has been precluded yet. We can assume that Jura is going to take the field next, where he'll have the opportunity to not only nab Shinki's Thorn Soul Bulb, but also Matsuri's (or scrape up the little Matsuri chunks left behind by Boruto and glue them back together like a leaky vase). At any rate, I don't think Matsuri is gone just yet, and we still might get Team 10 as Konohamaru's wingmen on his second date. It could also come to pass that she's not quite dead yet and while Boruto contends with Jura, she gets to chow down on Konohamaru! #TeamEatKonohamaru foreva.
3. The Return of Shinki. Though Jura might have the opportunity to grab his Thorn Soul Bulb, I think it's more likely that Sarada et ali get their hands on it and revive Shinki, thus showing us what it'll look like when someone trapped in a tree gets revived.
4. Who is going to save Boruto's ass? Whelp, Boruto has defied Koji and saved his sensei, thus putting himself and the future of the world at risk. What happens next? Perhaps Boruto can nab Konohamaru and deliver him back to Konoha, then disappear before Jura catches him. Perhaps Mitsuki has regained enough energy to put himself between Boruto and Konohamaru long enough for him to escape. Perhaps Kawaki will finally appear, ready to try his shiny new power up on some prime Shinju real estate.

Who knows? I sure as hell don't! But I'll be waiting on the edge of my seat to find out what happens in... another 30 days.