Sasuke Shinden: The Teacher's Star Pupil

Sasuke Shinden: The Teacher's Star Pupil ( NARUTO -ナルト- サスケ新伝 師弟の星 , Naruto: Sasuke Shinden: Shitei no Hoshi , Viz: Naruto: Sasuke's Story — Star Pupil ) is an original story written by Jun Esaka and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto . It is the third instalment of the Naruto Shinden series. It takes place sometime after the Versus Momoshiki Arc .

## Summary [ ]

### Prologue [ ]

Konohamaru Sarutobi rides a Thunder Train bound for Konohagakure . He is returning from making a delivery to the Kazekage , a mission that was essentially risk-free. Although he's tempted to relax, he decides this would be hypocritical, as he always warns his students to remain vigilant when on a mission. So he surveys the train car's other passengers and sees Sasuke Uchiha napping in another seat. Konohamaru is surprised to see Sasuke and assumes he's making one of his routine reports to Konoha. Although Sasuke is a famous ninja and, technically, a criminal on probation, his presence on the train is going unnoticed by the other passengers, all of them ordinary people. Konohamaru decides to leave him be.

Just as Konohamaru is about to take a nap of his own, an explosion occurs in the rear car of the train. The passengers, frightened, try to flee towards the engine, away from the explosion. Konohamaru announces himself as a ninja to calm them down. Once he's gotten everyone returned to their seats, Konohamaru checks for Sasuke, who he sees is already gone; he guesses that Sasuke prioritised putting out the fire from the explosion. Indeed, by the time Konohamaru arrives at the rear car, the fire is extinguished, with the car's luxurious interior instead covered in ice. Konohamaru asks if this is Ice Release , but Sasuke insists it was a simple combination of Water Release and then Wind Release ; Konohamaru struggles to accept this as "simple".

Before Sasuke and Konohamaru can begin their investigation, they are interrupted by the arrival of a teenage girl. She is shocked by all of the ice, and is shocked again when she's told about the explosion; she's been listening to music on her headphones and so hadn't heard anything. Konohamaru questions her, and she explains that she reserved this entire car for herself but left temporarily to get visit the dining car. Before Konohamaru can ask how someone so young could afford to reserve a luxury car, Sasuke draws his attention to some debris he's found: the remnants of a timed explosive. This suggests that the culprit is not a ninja, and therefore is likely still on board.

Just as they're about to go searching, another explosion occurs, this time at the front of the train. Konohamaru notices the train gaining speed and guesses that the explosion damaged the throttle, which will eventually cause the train to crash. In the few seconds it takes him to realise this, Sasuke is already headed for the engine; Konohamaru takes this to mean Sasuke is leaving him in charge of finding whoever is responsible. He tells the girl to stay put and begins moving forward from car to car. The first car is empty, its occupants likely having fled because of how close to the explosion they were. The next car is empty as well, except for a lone woman with a baby who appears to be too scared to leave. Konohamaru tries to comfort her, but realises just in time that she is actually a transformed ninja.

The transformation gone, the woman turns out to actually be a masked man, dressed all in purple. He is joined by an old man, whose bib indicates he was transformed as the baby. The two correctly identify Konohamaru as a jōnin and express eagerness in killing him. Konohamaru is doubtful of this until ten more purple ninja from the next car join them. As the twelve swoop down on him, Konohamaru tries to come up with some way of fending them off. He is instead saved by Sasuke, whose Great Fireball Technique briefly disperses the purple ninja. From the way the other ninja gather around the old man, Konohamaru and Sasuke guess that he's the leader. So when the old man escapes through the train window and Sasuke makes no effort to go after him, Konohamaru takes this to mean that it's his job to capture him.

Sasuke begins working through the purple ninja, quickly knocking them out one after the other. Within minutes only the masked man - previously transformed as the woman - remains. He creates a steel rod beneath Sasuke's feet that rapidly shoots upward, which Sasuke dodges; the rod continues along its trajectory and pierces through the roof of the car. Just as Sasuke and the man are about to trade blows, the teenage girl from earlier enters and asks for an update. The masked man grabs her and throws her from the train, and Sasuke follows after her. He catches her in midair, sets her safely alongside the train tracks, and quickly returns to the train. But it's too late: the masked man has slit his own throat, though not before killing all the other unconscious purple ninja. Sasuke is irritated, as not only does he now have nobody to interrogate, but he expects Naruto Uzumaki will be unhappy about these deaths. He returns to the teenage girl.

As Sasuke was doing this, Konohamaru took position atop the train car, watching the old man trying to escape into the nearby forest. With his Shinobi Gauntlet , he fired a Lightning Release specifically calibrated to immobilise targets. Although he successfully hit the old man, the man was unfazed and continued his attempted escape. Guessing the man had a resistance to lightning-based attacks, Konohamaru instead pulled the man back onto the train using his kusarigama . They began trading blows, but Konohamaru realised too late that the bib the man was still wearing was actually a bomb. Its detonation badly damaged Konohamaru's leg and completely severed one of the man's arms. Although the man's injury was far greater than Konohamaru's, he remained intent on killing Konohamaru. As he approached, however, he was skewered by a steel rod that pierced through the train car beneath him; it is the same rod that Sasuke, inside the car, has just managed to dodge.

Like Sasuke, Konohamaru is disappointed that he was not able to capture his enemy alive. Rather than worry about Naruto's reaction, however, he worries about Sasuke's. Sasuke only becomes aware of what's happened when he gets back to the girl, who points, horrified, at the dead man on the roof of the train.

### Chapter 1 [ ]

Konohamaru is visited in the Konoha Hospital by his three students on Team 7 : Boruto Uzumaki , Sarada Uchiha , and Mitsuki . He tries to hide his happiness in seeing them by instead accusing them of shirking their missions. They reveal they have no missions today, which allowed them to spend the last few hours waiting in line to buy him a box of four hundred daifuku , a popular confection. Konohamaru leaves to prepare tea for them, claiming that he gets restless when confined to bed, but in actuality he does not want them to see how overjoyed he is that they would do something so nice for him.

While they wait, Sarada turns on the room's television to see what's on the news: Lily Himeno is being interviewed. Sarada doesn't know who she is, prompting Boruto to explain that she's an up-and-coming idol . As he says this, he helps himself to a daifuku, which Mitsuki and, reluctantly, Sarada also do. They are astonished by the taste, and continue to sample daifuku as Lily begins singing her latest single. The song quickly gets on Sarada's nerves and she turns the television off, just as Konohamaru returns.

To draw attention away from the fact that they've started eating his daifuku, Boruto asks Konohamaru about the bombing on the Thunder Train. Konohamaru says that the investigation hasn't yet identified any of the dead ninja, but they seem to belong to the same group since they all wore purple and all had five holes for earrings on their ears. The individual members don't cause much concern since even the leader was no more talented than a chūnin , but the fact that they would so willingly sacrifice their lives and the lives of their comrades to avoid capture is troubling. What's more, they used conventional explosives rather than ninjutsu , indicating their attacks were meant to be indiscriminate.

Konohamaru tries changing the subject by having one of the daifuku, only to discover that all four hundred are gone; Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki claim innocence. Mitsuki asks how long Konohamaru will be in the hospital. Konohamaru explains that although his leg wasn't injured too badly, there was some sort of poison in the bomb that will take longer to recover from. Thus, he'll be out for three weeks. He assures them that their training will be overseen by a talented ninja in his absence, whose identity only Boruto is able to guess: Sasuke.

Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki head for the site outside of Konoha where Sasuke will be training them. Although they are all excited to be learning from Sasuke, Boruto is particularly ecstatic, as he wants to demonstrate how his skills have improved since Sasuke was last in Konoha. When they arrive and witness Sasuke felling trees and destroying a cliffside using a single thrown kunai , however, they are reminded of how much stronger than them Sasuke is. Sasuke himself, on seeing their stunned faces, also realises that it's too soon to be teaching them such an ability.

Instead, Sasuke instructs them to, using a method of their choosing, cause two dice to land with matching faces. He demonstrates by throwing his dice in the air and causing them to match by hitting them with a thrown shuriken . Sarada attempts to imitate this, but the dice crumble as soon as the shuriken contacts them, being merely painted sugar cubes. Boruto and Mitsuki try making their dice match using a weak Rasengan and Wind Release respectively, but even their weakest efforts create so much force that the dice are blown away. Sasuke watches them practice, reflecting on how similar they are to the Team 7 he was once part of. When Boruto asks him for tips, however, he's forced to accept that he's no Kakashi Hatake , as he's entirely unable to articulate how to do the things he's able to do through instinct alone.

Even though Sasuke isn't able to offer them advice, Team 7 happily trains until sunset. They show up for more training the next day, hoping they will make some progress with their dice, but instead are given another skill to learn: the Lorentz Gun , the same technique with the kunai that Sasuke demonstrated the day before. By using Lightning Release to create an electrical field connecting two points, anything metallic within that field will rapidly accelerate between the two. When Sasuke explains that this is a recent discovery of the Scientific Ninja Weapons Team , Boruto loses interest and goes off by himself to resume the dice training.

By the time the sun starts setting again, Boruto has made little progress. Sasuke, who's been secretly observing, encourages him not to get frustrated. He asks Boruto if his unwillingness to practice the Lorentz Gun is because he hates science. Although Boruto acknowledges he was embarrassed to be caught using the Shinobi Gauntlet during the Chūnin Exams , his current opposition to science is deeper than that: he thinks science is disrespectful to the generations of ninja that preceded him. Sasuke disagrees, reasoning that the modern scientific innovations are a result of all those shinobi's collective efforts. What's more, a good understanding of science can only facilitate one's shinobi skills, not harm them. Boruto wants to agree with Sasuke, his idol, but cannot.

Over the next week, Sasuke continues giving them new training regimens. Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki become able to occasionally get their dice to match, and Sarada and Mitsuki both make progress with the Lorentz Gun. As they enter their second week of training, however, Sasuke informs them that they'll need to train without him for a few days; there's been another bombing that he'll be leaving Konoha to investigate. All of them, Sarada especially, are disappointed, but see him off as he departs the village. They afterwards wander Konoha, trying to decide how to spend their time. As they do so they are stopped by an apparent barker wearing a cat costume. After confirming that they're ninja, the barker pulls them aside and begs for their protection. On close inspection, they recognise the person wearing the costume as Lily Himeno.

### Chapter 2 [ ]

Lily escorts Team 7 to her deluxe apartment, which is filled with objects that are either pink, cute, or both. After Lily treats them to tea, Mitsuki asks why she needs protection. Also, why she was dressed as a cat. Lily shows them an unsigned letter that she's received, which threatens to kill her if she does not cancel her upcoming performance at the Konoha Dome . Mitsuki raises the possibility that it could be a prank and suggests she consult her agency, but Lily refuses, explaining that they would just cancel the performance. When Sarada fails to find a problem with this, Lily elaborates: fans of idols can be fickle, looking for any reason to switch from adoration to condemnation. If she doesn't go through with the performance, her career will be ruined.

Sarada argues that if Lily truly wants to hire some security, she should go through the proper channels to ensure a qualified team is assigned. Lily again shoots this down, saying that Naruto, the Hokage , would cancel the performance in the interests of safety. Lily insists that Team 7 is more than capable of protecting her because of Boruto and Sarada's heritage; she doesn't know anything about Mitsuki, but assumes he's also very strong. She offers them money in compensation. Boruto is briefly tempted by a very generous check that Lily writes for them, but declines. As Mitsuki and Sarada lean towards rejecting her request, Boruto comes out in favour, reasoning that it's their duty to help. In truth, he is hopeful that successfully providing security all by themselves will earn Sasuke's approval. Because Boruto is in favour, Mitsuki agrees too. Because she is outnumbered, Sarada also relents.

Lily's performance is expected to fill the Konoha Dome to capacity, with 5,000 in attendance. Although Sarada can search the audience for assassins using her Sharingan , the fact remains that Lily - who will perform on stage alone - is too easy a target. Mitsuki comes up with a solution: because Lily would be lip-syncing pre-recorded songs anyway, they can have Boruto stand-in for her by doing all of the on-stage dancing and choreography. Boruto dislikes the idea, but goes along with it since he can't come up with anything better. Over the following week, Boruto practices with Lily, learning what he will need to do through all twelve songs of the performance. While the simple act of memorising the dance steps is easy for Boruto, the shame of pretending to be a girl threatens to overwhelm him; to get through it, he must repeatedly remind himself of the praise Sasuke will doubtlessly heap upon him.

On the day of the concert, Boruto, transformed into Lily, watches from the stage as the audience arrives. He is surprised by the presence of television cameras, which Lily had not told them about. Lily, speaking through an ear piece from a safe location off-stage, assures him it's nothing to worry about and reminds him to be cute and loving, like a real idol. When the performance finally begins, Sarada and Mitsuki, both embedded within the audience, begin searching for potential assassins. Because their mission has not been sanctioned by Konoha, they want to avoid drawing attention to themselves (made more difficult with all of the cameras). As they take turns discretely looking away from Boruto/Lily's performance to survey the audience, Sarada spots two men with guns.

Mitsuki and Sarada try to follow the men, but the throng of people is too thick for them to get through. Since they're supposed to seem like Lily's fans anyway, Mitsuki crowd surfs out of the mosh pit they're stuck in; Sarada, embarrassed, does the same. Once they're free, they discover they've lost track of the men. Sarada locates them on the second level of the Konoha Dome, which Sarada worries will take them too long to reach on foot. Mitsuki points out that the current song is about to end, at which point the lights will briefly be turned off; when that happens, Mitsuki stretches up to the second level with Sarada. Mitsuki and Sarada quickly disarm and knock out the two men. The two men are then immediately shot between the eyes.

Sarada searches the Konoha Dome for the shooter, eventually locating a sniper high up in the ceiling. They have no way of getting up to the ceiling themselves, and their only jutsu that could reach that far is the Lorentz Gun. Although they've managed to perform the Lorentz Gun in combination a few times, where Sarada throws a kunai into an electrical field that Mitsuki maintains, they have yet to actually hit any of their targets. Even if they could perform it successfully now, they wouldn't be able to avoid going undetected by all the cameras, something that is especially urgent now that two of the assassins have been killed. Mitsuki offers to take all of the inevitable blame for himself, but Sarada has another idea: she dislodges one of the lights above the stage, causing it to temporarily blind everyone in the audience. In that moment, they use the Lorentz Gun and knock the sniper from his perch in the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Boruto is continuing on with the performance, following Lily's instructions about what he should be doing. As he approaches the front of the stage to get closer to the audience, his ear piece goes dead and he loses control of his body. Assuming it's a genjutsu , Boruto attempts to fight it off. He resists his body's efforts to dispel his transformation into Lily, causing his extremities to shift between Lily's and his own. The audience notices this strange behaviour of "Lily", but can come up with no explanation since the music is still playing. Boruto finally loses the struggle and he returns to his own appearance, exposing the farce to the audience. In that same moment, a Water Formation Wall appears around Boruto, returning control of his body to him.

Boruto watches from behind the Water Formation Wall as Sasuke takes the stage. Sasuke picks up the microphone Boruto dropped and instructs the audience to calmly leave the Konoha Dome. The audience overwhelmingly refuses, demanding to see Lily and accusing Sasuke of having done something to her. In response, Sasuke manifests his Susanoo , causing the audience to run for the exits. Sasuke checks on Boruto and asks him where Lily is, but Boruto is too confused to respond. Sasuke spots Lily trying to flee the area and quickly catches her. Upon seeing her up close, he recognises her as the same girl he met on the Thunder Train.

### Chapter 3 [ ]

Team 7 enters a room backstage, where they find Lily bound to a chair by Sasuke; Lily is outraged, claiming innocence of all wrongdoing. Sasuke informs Boruto and the others of his suspicion that Lily is one of the people responsible for the recent bombings. To confirm, he removes the wig she's been wearing, revealing that her ears have a row of five hole piercings, just like the purple ninja from the Thunder Train. Sasuke has learned that this is a sign of membership in the Purple Moon Religion , a naturalist group from the Land of Water with strong isolationist beliefs. Because Konoha and the wider Land of Fire have fuelled the technological advances that have made travel over great distances so much easier over the last few years, they have earned the ire of the Purple Moon Religion's leader: Lily's father.

Lily doesn't dispute anything that Sasuke says about the Purple Moon Religion, but insists that she has since disassociated herself from the group because she no longer agrees with her father's views. She now only wants to be an idol in the Land of Fire. Boruto and the others try to vouch for Lily, but Sasuke persists in questioning her, asking why the Purple Moon Religion would now be after her. Lily says her father felt betrayed when she left the group and that she's always known they would try to kill her eventually, the recent attacks being proof of that. She offers herself as bait if it will help Sasuke catch them. Rather than accept this, Sasuke asks where Lily's father is. For the first time, Lily has little to say, and instead she tries avoiding the question entirely.

Since Lily isn't forthcoming, Sasuke attempts to interrogate her with his Sharingan. He is stopped by Sarada, who insists they should respect Lily's desire to protect her family; in the same position, Sarada wouldn't sell out Sasuke. Sasuke is reminded of his older brother, Itachi , who sacrificed everything to protect Sasuke. Sasuke relents, but insists on keeping Lily in custody. The next day, the news is scandalised by Sasuke's actions at the Konoha Dome, accusing him of conspiring against Lily under Naruto's orders. Sasuke provides little information to the press, only going so far as to say that Naruto was uninvolved. As the media rails against Sasuke, the members of Team 7 are unable to say anything in his defence, as they've been unable to get in touch with Sasuke since he sent them home after Lily's interrogation. Boruto is overwhelmed by guilt, not only for pushing Sarada and Mitsuki into taking the mission in the first place, but also for now bringing such criticism down on Sasuke.

A week later, Boruto is woken in the night by one of Sasuke's hawks , which delivers instructions about where to meet. Boruto hurries there and joins Sarada, Mitsuki, and Sasuke. Sasuke explains that the remaining Purple Moon Religion extremists will be sailing back to the Land of Water soon, meaning this is the last chance to arrest them and their leader. Team 7 tries to apologise for the negative coverage he's been receiving, but Sasuke insist there's nothing to apologise for. Boruto disagrees with this, believing it's vital that people know Sasuke has only been defending Konoha. Sasuke says simply that being resented is part of his job.

As they make way for the harbour that the religious extremists will be sailing out of, Sasuke asks about when Boruto lost control of his body. From Boruto's description, Sasuke believes that someone used a Lightning Release jutsu on him, creating electrical signals resembling those that the brain uses to control the body. Since the manipulation was stopped when Boruto was surrounded by Sasuke's Water Formation Wall, that would mean that the user needs line-of-sight to maintain the jutsu. Boruto is confused about how water could disrupt electricity, so Sasuke explains that his Water Release has been purified to specifically limit its conductivity. Sarada is similarly confused about why, if members of the Purple Moon Religion can use ninjutsu , they've been resorting to ordinary bombs and guns during their attacks. Sasuke explains that the extremists' reverence of nature has caused them to prefer science. Boruto is quietly frustrated by this mention of science, yet cannot help but notice that somebody as talented as Sasuke has learned to make use of science and ninjutsu both.

### Chapter 4 [ ]

On reaching the harbour, Team 7 finds the crew of the cargo ship being used by the Purple Moon Religion waiting for them. They've already been contacted by Naruto and informed of the situation, so have vacated the ship so as not to get caught up in Team 7's efforts to capture the extremists. The ship's auto-pilot has been programmed to sail the ship to the Land of Water; in order to prevent the Purple Moon Religion from escaping, Team 7 won't begin their mission until the ship leaves the harbour. They study the ship from a distance to determine its layout and then, once it starts setting sail, sneak aboard. Sasuke instructs Sarada to scout the ship with her Sharingan. Although he could do it himself, Sasuke has chosen to follow Naruto's example: just as Naruto let Boruto finish off Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki so he could gain experience, Sasuke wants Team 7 to gain experience by doing as much of this mission on their own as possible.

Sarada pinpoints the locations of all the extremists on the ship, as well as the locations of several bombs. Without letting anyone see him do it, Sasuke confirms this, though he's also able to conclude the bombs are using timers, not pressure triggers. Because the extremists are in three general areas, Sasuke sends Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki to capture everyone within an assigned area; he advises them to be stealthy and to minimise damage to the ship. Sasuke, meanwhile, will disarm the bombs. Sarada brings up the extremists' willingness to kill their own comrades, and worries that she won't be able to match up against that sort of resolve by herself. Sasuke believes that very resolve makes the extremists weaker, quoting that, "those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash." Sarada is cheered by this. Sasuke gives Sarada a Shinobi Gauntlet and sends everyone on their way.

On the ship's deck, Mitsuki finds four extremists constructing another bomb. He stretches his arm into their midst, takes the bomb from them before they can arm it, and quickly knocks two of them out. The other two are able to get to water scooters and flee the ship. Mitsuki leaps to the nearest, holding on despite the waves and the extremist's attempts to dislodge him, but Mitsuki is able to knock him out and gain control of the scooter. He cannot catch up to the other extremist, however, as both their scooters have the same maximum speed. From studying his own scooter, he finds the ignition switch along the side; by flipping the same switch on the extremist's scooter, he could slow it down briefly enough to catch up.

Mitsuki waits for the right moment, riding cresting waves to give him a good vantage, and then performs a Wind Release strong enough to flip the switch but not so strong as to destroy the scooter. He succeeds and the other scooter slows, a successful application of the dice training he did with Sasuke. Before the extremist can figure out what's happened, Mitsuki is upon him and knocks him out. He sets this second extremist alongside the first whose scooter's he's been using and tries to return to the ship, but the scooter is unresponsive. Guessing that it was damaged crashing against the waves, Mitsuki contemplates how best to save the two extremists' lives. Before he can make an attempt to swim back to the ship while carrying them, the ocean surrounding him turns to ice, stopping the scooter and creating a bridge back to the ship. Mitsuki assumes it is Sasuke's doing.

Below deck on the ship, Boruto tries sneaking up on a lone extremist. He knocks the man out with a Rasengan, but this dislodges some of the surrounding containers, alerting the rest of the ship to his presence. Sarada is drawn to the location and, seeing Boruto was responsible, ridicules him, as she was just about to knock out her own targets. As they bicker, a Lightning Release attack cuts between them. They take shelter and, after Sarada reports there are four extremists, Boruto charges at them. When he sees another incoming Lightning Release, he attempts to block with Water Formation Wall. Unlike Sasuke's, his Water Formation Wall is not purified against electricity, meaning he is now an easier target. Boruto reels from the shock until Sarada knocks out his attacker. Another extremist fires a gun at them, but misses and is knocked out by Sarada.

Boruto and Sarada follow the remaining two extremists out on to the deck. They are fired at from the far side the ship, so Boruto weaves across the deck and knocks the shooter out. Boruto is immediately shot in the shoulder by the fourth extremist, but Sarada disarms him and knocks him out before he can shoot Boruto again. Believing all the extremists have been dealt with, Sarada approaches Boruto to treat his wound. As she does so, Boruto notices he is losing control of his body again. Just before his body can be used to strike Sarada, Boruto warns her away. He is forced to pursue her and continue attacking, so he pleads with her to knock him out. She explains that his body would continue moving even if he's unconscious, so instead she focuses on locating whoever is controlling him.

Boruto is forced to continue following Sarada around the ship, attacking her relentlessly. He tries to somehow find a way to regain control of himself, at which point he would somehow create purified water to break his controller's signal. After Boruto's body starts to land a few attacks against Sarada, she goes on the offensive, taking advantage of the fact that his body hasn't been accustomed to dodging to strike him successfully: purified water, emitted from her Shinobi Gauntlet. The instant he regains control of himself, Boruto takes a defensive posture with Sarada, alert to any sign of their attacker. After a few minutes of this, just as they start to think their attacker has fled, a bomb activates nearby. While they're busy escaping the blast, their attacker fires upon them. They trace the shots to their origin and see it was Lily.

Boruto is disappointed to see Lily, now wearing purple. Sarada is incensed and throws shuriken at her, but they veer from the vital points Sarada aimed at to Lily's outstretched hand. When additional shuriken have the same results, Sarada resorts to close-combat, only to have the shuriken fired back at her. As Sarada blocks these, Lily moves close to Boruto with her gun aimed, which he forces away as she fires. Boruto tries to pry the gun from her hand, which she allows, instead sticking her hand in his mouth. She then emits electricity from her hand, which courses through Boruto's body and debilitates him beyond being able to muster a defence.

Sarada punches Lily, releasing Boruto. As Boruto regains his senses, Lily remotely attracts a kunai from his pocket to her hand, which she proceeds to use to try and slit open her own throat. She is stopped by Sasuke, who observes plainly that she's escaped house arrest. Unable to free herself from Sasuke, Lily endures Boruto's pleas for an explanation. Said pleas are interrupted by another of the extremists - the fourth to be knocked out earlier - leaping from the ship and using Lightning Release to make himself into a bomb. The explosion rocks the ship and starts breaking it apart. To prevent the ship from sinking, Sasuke explains he will freeze the ship in place with ice. While he's focused on this, Lily escapes his grasp and leaps overboard. Boruto jumps after her.

### Chapter 5 [ ]

Lily regains consciousness and finds herself in some confined area of the ship; the room's ceiling is now its wall, indicating the ship is sinking. When Boruto sees she's awake, he assures her the ship has been suspended in its current state for some time and will likely remain so until Sasuke rescues them. As they wait, Boruto inquires about Lily and her abilities. Lily explains that her father spent years teaching her how to use Lightning Release to control others, offering himself as a target to test on. Although she knows he'd likely been planning to attack the Land of Fire for years, she's long worried that being subjected to her Lightning Release so often only worsened his extremism.

When Lily finally mastered controlling others with Lightning Release, she was to be sent to the Land of Fire to further the Purple Moon Religion's goals. Her own idea was that she would become a celebrity in the arts and would use her fame to spread the religion's teachings. Her father disapproved of this because it would take too long, and instead wanted her to be a spy who would carry out terrorist acts. They had a falling out and Lily went to the Land of Fire alone, without her father's permission. He ultimately tracked her down on the Thunder Train and tried to kill her, only for him to be killed instead; he was the old man skewered by the steel rod.

Lily expected there would be additional attacks, which she used as a pretence to recruit Team 7. When she took control of Boruto at the Thunder Dome, she wanted him to be discovered as her impersonator. She hoped this would enrage the populace against Boruto and, by extension, his father, Naruto. And as Naruto became embroiled in scandal, Lily hoped Konoha and the rest of the Land of Fire would be brought down with him. Thus would the Purple Moon Religion's objectives be realised without any civilian casualties. Since the plan at the Konoha Dome didn't work, she followed Boruto to this ship and took control of him, hoping to use him to destroy the ship and thus cause a similar scandal.

Boruto ridicules Lily's entire plan as improbable. She doesn't disagree, but insists it was the only way she could come up with to aid the Purple Moon Religion; despite her disagreements with her father, Lily is ultimately a product of, and thus indebted to, her upbringing. Boruto argues that Lily and the Purple Moon Religion could instead change with the times, just as the ninja world is now doing: after centuries of using only ninjutsu, science is becoming increasingly commonplace among ninja. Even Boruto, though he personally dislikes science, acknowledges that he'll need to find some way of accepting it.

Boruto and Lily's talk is interrupted by Mitsuki, who speaks to them from beyond their compartment. He explains that, although the ship has been stopped from sinking because of Sasuke's ice, the fuel tank is leaking and threatens to pollute the surrounding waters. Because of that, ten seconds after Boruto feels the ship "jump", he is to break himself out of the compartment with his Rasengan. Boruto and Lily are confused by this.

Elsewhere, Sarada marvels at the huge amount of ice Sasuke created around the ship. Sasuke asserts it was a simple matter of compressing the water's molecules together, forcing them to become solid. At Sasuke's instruction, Sarada uses the strength learned from her mother to pick up the ship's anchor and hurl it into the air. Sasuke then creates an electrical field around it, creating a massive Lorentz Gun. As the anchor is rapidly pulled high into the sky, the frozen ship is pulled along with it.

Boruto follows the instructions he was given: ten seconds after the ship becomes airborne, he breaks open the compartment that he and Lily are stuck in. The compartment crumbles away and Boruto sees the ocean far below. He can also make out the ice bridge, upon which are Mitsuki and the captured extremists. Boruto turns back to look at the ship and sees it being burned away with Blaze Release: Kagutsuchi . Two figures leap from the ship after them who, upon catching up with Boruto and Lily, turn out to be Sarada and Sasuke. As they near the ocean below, Sasuke takes hold of Lily while he, Boruto, and Sarada slow their descent with Wind Release, landing safely.

### Epilogue [ ]

Back in Konoha, the members of Team 7 watch an interview with Lily on television. She absolves Sasuke of any wrongdoing at the Konoha Dome and instead takes responsibility for the attempted attacks against Konoha. Konoha's ninja are bewildered that Lily, a major conspirator in the attacks, could not only have such a stark change of heart, but could furthermore be allowed to choose the forum for her own confession. Yet it seems to work, as the wider population largely forgives Sasuke's actions. In truth, Naruto hopes that Lily can be an intermediary between the Purple Moon Religion and the rest of the world; the members who attacked the village were part of a fringe group whose violent tendencies are not representative of the religion's other members. Allowing Lily to speak on television is the first step toward accomplishing that.

Team 7 visits Konohamaru in the hospital, just before he is to be discharged. This time they've brought him exactly four daifuku so that they will not run the risk of eating more than their share. Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki eat theirs, but before Konohamaru can eat his own there is a knock at the door. Sasuke enters and is offered a daifuku by Boruto. Sasuke declines, prompting Boruto to eat the fourth daifuku instead, depressing Konohamaru. Sasuke informs them that he will be leaving Konoha again and that he does not know when he'll return. Sarada is not sad about this in the way that she has been in the past; though she will be lonely with him gone, she knows that, wherever he is, he is protecting the village. Sasuke pokes her forehead as they say their goodbyes.

Boruto finally notices that Konohamaru has once again not been able to eat any daifuku and resolves to go and buy some more, some of which he vows to save for Konohamaru. After he leaves with Sarada and Mitsuki, Konohamaru asks Sasuke what it was like training them. Sasuke declines to call it unpleasant, which Konohamaru takes as proof that Sasuke has mellowed out from when he was young. Their talk is interrupted by Boruto's return, who asks Sasuke to train him again the next time he's in Konoha. Sasuke promises to do so.

## Trivia [ ]

- In the character introduction of the English novel, the Third Hokage is incorrectly stated to be Konohamaru's father.