Boruto: Two Blue Vortex Chapter 24 Review

Cover

I have all the thought in the world about this cover.

Let's begin by noting the name swap: Chapter 24 of NNG was titled Kawaki. Chapter 24 of TBV is titled Kawaki Uzumaki, mirroring the first chapter NNG-to-TBV switch-up of Boruto Uzumaki to Boruto. But that's far from the only identity play that's going on with this cover.

Kawaki has shed the white jacket and royal blue shirt he was wearing in the first chapters of TBV, opting instead for mission gear that's akin to the green shirt and blue sleeveless jacket he wore through NNG with the colors reversed, green on the jacket and a purplish blue for his shirt. Interestingly enough, just as Sarada's jacket pays homage to Boruto, Kawaki's pants, a colored stripe down the black fabric, also seems like a callback to his bro's jacket design. However, as green and red are opposites on the color wheel, this softer green vs Boruto's pink serve to contrast their personalities. The whole outfit feels as though he's reclaiming his earlier identity, the one he had before Omnipotence. And yet, the name on the cover reflects the reality in which everyone else is living.

Throughout this chapter, we see a changed Kawaki from the first 23 chapters, both his power up and proximity to Boruto bringing him alive. His eyes are brighter, hair more voluminous, expression sharper. It's as though life has been breathed back into his character. However, we're left to grapple with the why: is it because Amado finally lifted his limiters, restoring his true power, or is it Boruto's presence, both as a brother and an agent of change, that has brought him back to life?

Despite this, Kawaki is still Kawaki. We can see his personal disregard for himself on his "new" clothing, the bottom of his pants ripped, his sleeves, the hem of his jacket. As Ikemoto has said, his clothing design is supposed to reflect their inner lives. Just as Boruto on the run manages to maintain a neat appearance, Kawaki in the village still looks tattered and worn, not valuing what he looks like because he fail to value himself.

It's also notable that the shade of green chosen for Kawaki is so close to Jura's color that it has to be mentioned. We've seen Kawaki refer to both himself and Jura as these evil beings, monsters and Otsutsuki, dehumanizing himself in order to combat the evil he perceives in the world.

I also find the design of this cover kind of interesting, that we get Kawaki not once, but twice, a closer version of who he his hidden behind Boruto's name, his face washed out in blue as though he's still overshadowed by Boruto. The zoomed in version of Kawaki looks very much like the whole-body image, but up close, his face appear softer, eyes more visible. It's as though we're seeing two separate sides of Kawaki, divided from one another.

The Man with the Plan

The chapter opens with what at first glance appears to be a continuation of their conversation on Hokage Rock from chapter 15. However, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this meetup actually occurred later because the post-interrogation bruise marks that were on Boruto's face in that initial scene are now missing.

Boruto hatches a plan with Kawaki to aid Sarada and the others during their mission in the Sand. The initial setup was for Kawaki to get his limiters lifted, then immediately fly to the Sand to aid the team, at which point Boruto would appear and teleport everyone to safety. From how this arc unfolded, we know that Amado using Kawaki's shutdown code, then negotiating with him for his daughter's revival, made Kawaki late (as well as getting a new outfit and some higher quality shampoo, I guess?). Because of this, Kawaki was delayed and Boruto had to intervene sooner.

There are some interesting implication of their plan that I'm going to discuss when we get to the Koji/Eida conversation later. What I loved in this scene is that we finally got to see Boruto giving a pin to someone else, and, boy, did he ever deliver. I wouldn't have expected Boruto to entrust Kawaki with his Konoha pin, but it makes a lot of sense given that he's asking for his support on a mission for the village. In fact, in this arc, we get to see all of Team 7, with the sole exception of Boruto, donning their headbands (or... belt buckles, in Kawaki's case) to represent Konoha while in the Land of Wind. The look on Kawaki's face is one of shock when Boruto tosses a pin to him, probably the most expressive we've seen him thus far in TBV. But we also get that fantastic symbolism of Kawaki looking at the pin in his hand with the karma in his palm looming in the background.

Kawaki vs Jura

Kawaki's goal in fighting Jura is to buy Boruto some time to prepare his Flying Raijin jutsu, but we get an absolute visual feast in this fight, showing off how much Amado's limiters had restricted Kawaki's abilities. A few honorable mentions in this fight:

• Kawaki absorbing a Biju bomb with his Karma
• A return of Isshiki's blocks (still waiting to see if Jura can transport though these as he does with the one in the Shinju's hideout—a bad thing being that he still wants Naruto snacks)
• Using his staff to direct a blast into Jura's chest, similar to the way Boruto imbues his sword with lightning jutsu
• Jura being unable to defend against Kawaki's speed, similar to Boruto being unable to defend against Jura's speed in the previous chapter

Equally as important as what Kawaki does is what he doesn't do. In Boruto's fight with Jura, we saw him pulling out every trick in his shinobi ninjutsu catalogue to defeat Jura and coming up short. Here, despite being Naruto's disciple, Kawaki doesn't use any of his shinobi training, instead relying on both his Karma and scientific ninja tool enhancements—this reminds me of what Boruto says in chapter 15, that it would have been more ideal if Kawaki would have freed Naruto and been trained by him rather than relying on Amado's quick power up.

Willpower or Foreshadow?

As we know from their interaction in Konoha, Boruto's karma immediately resonates with Kawaki's, but since becoming fully Otsutsuki, Boruto senses that he cannot control his Karma when it's activated, giving Momoshiki an entry point to take control of his body.

But he flies away and gets himself under control. Great, right?

That was my initial reaction, too, but if we pay attention to the paneling, while Boruto is up in the sky, telling himself to calm down, we see Kawaki going from using his Karma in battle to deactivating it when approaching Jura. So, was it really that Boruto can control his Karma, or was it just responding to Kawaki when it disappeared?

I'm wondering how Boruto perceived this event. Does he now believe he can control the spread of his karma through willpower, and will that lead us down a dark path in the future, or was Boruto actually able to calm himself while still being relatively close to Kawaki?

A Real Monster

Losing a leg, an eye, and several chunks from your chest and torso might bother most of us, but Jura's response to finding himself ass-down in the dirt is to pull out his handy little reference book to help jog his memory about Kawaki.

Let's just be clear about how insulting this is... during their previous interaction, Kawaki hardly registered enough to be remembered, such that Jura has to go, "Ohhh, right. I thought you were pathetic last time we fought, but I just needed to check my notes because it was so forgettable."

I've written before about the theme of sacrifice in this arc, and Jura seems to key in on something similar as he begins to interrogate Kawaki about his favorite subject: love. He notes that Inojin's sacrifice for love seems to have set off a series of power ups in the new generation characters. Hima tries to sacrifice herself for Konoha as well, Yodo's sacrifice for Shinki awakens Sarada to her true power, Boruto puts himself right into Jura's cross hairs to save Konohamaru before Kawaki shows up. It's as though each act committed through love brings with it the potential to bring forth immense power in others, leading Jura to believe that while love is a weakness, it might also be a source of human evolution.

As we've noted in the past, all the Shinju are connected to their targets through bonds of love held by their original versions, so when they desire to consume a target through love in order to evolve, they are instinctually experiencing what these humans are going through as well.

Back at the Lab

Before we continue with Jura's observations on love, let's take a detour to the scientific ninja tool lab in Konoha where that bastard Amado is still using a camera implanted in Kawaki's eye to spy on him.

Look, I know why this is there for plot purposes, but I find it to be such a violation of human privacy that it make my skin crawl. What's more disturbing to me in this case is that Sumire is sitting with Amado as well, watching the world through Kawaki's eyes, and seems to react the most to hearing that Sarada took down a Shinju rather than, oh, I don't know, VIOLATING KAWAKI'S PRIVACY BY USING A CAMERA IN HIS EYES TO SPY ON HIM.

Maybe she doesn't know it's in his eye... or maybe she's been working with Amado all along on this and is aware of the "enhancements" that have been made to Kawaki for Amado's convenience. I'm just a bit stunned here. On one hand, we'll have to see how Sumire reacts to knowing that Sarada awoke a new power, which is inferred to be linked to love by Jura. But, more importantly, I needed to know if she'll tell Kawaki that Amado has been spying on him using his own body.

I'm just like Hidari right now. This is "totally ick."

Kawaki on Love

Jura asks for Kawaki's honest opinion as to whether love is just a flaw or also a source of strength... Kawaki responds by blasting him in the face. While that methodology has been effective on other foes (Garou, Hidari, Code (if we don't take into account that it backfired and damaged Kawaki instead), what we get from this moment is seeing what a monster Jura truly is.

As Matsuri said before, she hears the trees everywhere underground. Here, we see them emerge, joining with Jura to fix all the damage that has been dealt to him in the fight, similar to the healing Hidari experienced. So we know that any time Jura is on the planet, he's going to be able to heal himself unless he gets one-shotted.

With his body restored, Jura settles onto a throne of roots to continue his conversation with Kawaki, starting off by mentioning he never expected him to come to Boruto's rescue. Simply by looking at Kawaki, he's able to deduce that Naruto is still alive. (This seems like a bit of a stretch, but I think he knows that the only thing Kawaki theoretically cares about is Naruto, so by joining forces with Boruto, he still has something left to protect.)

Jura then goes on to say that he still wants to eat Naruto, stating that he believes it's due to his connection with the tailed beasts, which (as we know) are Jura's closest relatives on the planet. It could even be that because Jura was created from a juvenile ten-tails and used and abused by Jigen, he's seeking parental love, just like Kawaki.

As expected, Kawaki doesn't respond particularly well to hearing Jura's dinner plans, but Boruto appears, ready to teleport them both away. I just love that in chapter 12, Kawaki put his hand on Boruto, and Boruto told him to take it off or lose it, and here, Boruto puts his hand on Kawaki and Kawaki brushes it off to finish his conversation with Jura.

Now, we finally get Kawaki's perspective on love... which is he doesn't give a crap about it. But I don't really think that's what's going on here. We've seen a lot of different dynamics with love in TBV thus far.

• Boruto is strengthened by the love of his past and acts out of love.
• Sarada suppresses her love.
• Eida doesn't understand why she loves.
• Mitsuki confuses love for identity.

But here, we see Kawaki saying he doesn't care about love, but I don't think that's the case. Instead, Kawaki doesn't connect the protective instinct he has toward Naruto with love. (We can recall Amado's words here, that Kawaki's love for Naruto can be viewed as madness.) But Kawaki himself is so alienated from his own feelings that he believes he's protecting Naruto to be righteous, because he believes the world needs Naruto to exist in it, without connecting that to his own feelings for Lord Seventh.

Going back to the Kawaki and Jura connection, Kawaki credits Jura for his taste in targets, acknowledging that Lord Seventh is a source of love. But when it comes to Kawaki's own feelings and motivations? They're entirely alien to him.

Aaanyway, Kawaki says he's going to kill Jura and then flips him off before leaving with Boruto.

The End to the Worst First Date Ever

If things couldn't get worse for the man who went on an impromptu murder-date with his childhood teammate's evil clone, Konohamaru's trip to the Sand is concluded with getting a shoe to the face when Boruto and Kawaki teleport to rejoin the others. Up next, a return to Konoha with Moegi's Thorn Bulb!

The other thing I thought was notable here was Mitsuki saying Kawaki's name in surprise. Obviously, it's because he didn't expect Kawaki to have arrived, but it also seems that his interactions with Boruto haven't yet made him demonize Kawaki..

The Consequences of Brotherhood

Remember I said that we'd return to Kawaki and Boruto's plan a little later?

We cut into a conversation between the person who can see the future and the person who can see the past and present, reviewing events that just occurred. Eida expresses that it went well, however Koji disagrees, saying: This shouldn't be praised. This was way too dangerous a wager that could have easily destroyed even the good futures.

While this sets up what is probably the next arc, Mamushi targeting Eida, let's return to what Boruto wanted to happen during his mission: Kawaki was supposed to get his limiters lifted and immediately go to support Sarada and the others. Then, Boruto would appear and they'd fight the Shinju together, then teleport away when Jura shows up.

What would have happened if Kawaki hadn't been late?

We know Koji arranged this mission to take down the Shinju, but also with the goal of awakening Sarada's MS. Would that have happened if Kawaki, then Boruto appeared? From what Koji said, Sarada would not have used her MS if Boruto had been there. Was Yodo's sacrifice necessary to push her over the edge? There's also the fact that if Kawaki showed up, then Boruto showed up immediately after, Jura would have appeared next, before any of the other Shinju had been killed. Thus, it's likely Boruto's plan might have only succeeded in returning his friends to safety without them achieving anything else that happened in this arc. No MS, no Thorn Soul Bulbs.

Perhaps the back-and-forth we see between Boruto and Kawaki is a summary of what he wanted to happen, and that Boruto would have held back until the group actually needed his teleportation abilities. But, again, would Sarada have used her MS if Kawaki had been there, if Yodo hadn't been injured... I don't think so. So, not only did Boruto endanger himself, which would trigger the end of the world, he also might have prevented Sarada's power up for the sake of his friends' safety.

Totally Ick

Back at the Shinju hideout, Jura is grinning to himself while Hidari flips through a book. When questioned as to why he's smiling, Jura says it's because Kawaki complimented him, leading Hidari to call his reaction "totally ick."

This seems quite funny, but this is the first time we've seen Jura experience such a human emotion as flattery. And it's source is Kawaki, the human individual he's connected to through their shared fixation with Naruto, not to mention (as I noted previously), their shared background with Jigen. Even though it's funny, it's notable that Jura feels something here, and it's linked to Kawaki, thus furthering his desire to speak with him more later. Hidari expresses disgust to see his leader acting in such a cringe human manner.

What's next?

I don't know if the Sand arc is fully concluded, or if we'll see Shinki and Moegi freed as a part of it. We've gotten a hint that the next arc will be about Mamushi's pursuit of Eida, which could interfere with their plan to release Moegi if he's in Konoha.

With Eida taking the focus of the next chapter, I feel as though we might be set up for more interactions between Eida/Sarada/Sumire as they continue to reside in the same house, the older girl living for the drama between the other two. I'm not sure if I expect Boruto to return to Konoha and stay there (being the wanted man that he is), but this could also provide Eida with the opportunity to talk to him, which she expressed a desire to do in chapter 8.

Overall, excellent chapter that moved the plot and characters along in some very significant ways!