Sumire opened her mouth as if to say something, but no words came out.
Even through the mask, Boruto could tell she was shaken—awkward, conflicted, unsure.
After helping her regain her balance, Boruto took a step back. His movements were calm, almost gentle, yet unmistakably firm.
"Why…?" Sumire finally whispered.
"So you can give up," Boruto answered quietly. There was no mockery in his tone—just a strange mix of helplessness and certainty.
Sumire clenched her fists. "My life… my mission—everything I've carried since I was a child—is revenge. To inherit my father's will and destroy Konoha.
And you… You're helping make sure I fail!!"
Her voice trembled, fast and uneven—as if she were burning up the last of her resolve.
"It's fine."
Boruto spread his hands lightly. "No matter what you do… I can stop it."
"You…"
Her voice cracked. Beneath the mask, her cheeks must've been burning again.
She forced a breath, steadying herself. Then she bit the tip of her thumb, forming a hand seal with practiced precision. The shyness vanished from her eyes—replaced by something cold and determined.
"Summoning Jutsu—Nue!"
The bull-head mark on her back glowed fiercely. Boruto had filled in the last missing segment earlier—giving the seal its final push.
A deep, bestial roar tore through the clearing.
A massive figure materialized from distorted space—tawny fur, a grotesque visage, claws like blades, and a long serpent tail thrashing behind it.
Its red eyes locked straight onto Boruto with murderous intent.
Compared to Nue, Boruto looked tiny—almost insignificant.
Boruto examined it for a moment, raised an eyebrow, and muttered, "A stitched-together chimera like this dares to square up against me?"
Sumire's voice tightened. "Boruto… how do you plan to stop this now?"
But Boruto still didn't look concerned.
He didn't even acknowledge Nue, even though it could unleash enough chakra to level a district if it reached critical mass.
Instead, he picked up the black robe Sumire had dropped, shook it out, and put it on casually.
Sumire blinked in confusion. She didn't understand what he was doing.
"Do you mind if I borrow the mask too?" Boruto asked without looking at her.
"Do whatever you want," Sumire replied coldly. "My target is the village behind you."
She tore off her mask and tossed it to him.
Boruto caught it effortlessly. "The moon really is pretty tonight… a good night for peace."
He lifted the mask, lowered it over his face… and then the air exploded with chakra.
Wind howled.
The ground cracked beneath him.
The sky itself seemed to ripple.
Boruto released both his eyes—Jōgan and Tenseigan—at full force.
A violent burst of luminous chakra erupted from his body, sending Sumire tumbling back despite her attempt to brace herself.
When she landed, Boruto was already floating above Nue, gaze emotionless behind the mask.
Four jet-black orbs of compressed chakra materialized behind him—Truth-Seeking spheres reshaping themselves into rod-like pillars.
With a single gesture, Boruto flung them outward, forming a square around himself and Nue.
His hands flashed through seals.
"Barrier Ninjutsu — Four Red Yang Formation!"
Crimson walls of chakra shot upward, tightening around them like a burning cage.
Outside the barrier, Sumire stood frozen.
Her breath caught in her throat.
"W-what… what is he…?"
Inside the blazing red prison, Nue attacked without hesitation.
The ground shook as its claws tore through the air, releasing slicing wind blades toward Boruto. Its snake-like tail whipped around with terrifying speed, striking again and again.
Boruto drifted upward lazily, avoiding each strike with minimal movement. When the tail swung down, he formed a shield from a Truth-Seeking orb; the impact crashed harmlessly against it.
"I expected more," Boruto said flatly. "Don't you have something like a Tailed Beast Bomb?"
Nue snarled, enraged—its chakra flaring even hotter.
Outside the barrier, the village was already mobilized.
A cluster of elite shinobi arrived—Naruto among them.
The sky reflected the blood-red barrier, turning the whole area into a glowing battlefield.
"What happened…? Who's fighting in there?" one guard whispered.
Even Naruto, though composed, showed a flicker of confusion.
"Someone set up the Four Red Yang Formation alone?" Kakashi murmured beside him. "That's… not ordinary."
And inside—
Boruto finally lifted a hand.
"Sage Art — Water Release: Water Spirit Wave."
A sphere of water hardened by sage chakra condensed at his fingertip and shot forward at impossible speed. It slammed into Nue's chest, staggering the beast and forcing its chakra to flare wildly.
Above Nue's head, Boruto manifested two glowing Eight Trigrams seals—compressing and restricting its chakra flow.
A Jonin gasped. "He's… sealing it?"
Naruto's expression tightened. "That… that's the Eight Trigrams Seal."
Sumire panicked; she could feel the pull on the connection she shared with Nue.
She bit her lip hard.
"—Nue, retreat!"
Because Nue's dimensional origin was foreign to the shinobi world, no earthly seal could fully bind it.
At her desperate call, the beast's form began to blur, its outline fading.
Boruto didn't try to stop it.
The seal flickered and died.
Nue vanished from sight.
"Did he… let it escape?" Naruto muttered, bewildered.
But before anyone could move—
A final flicker of Nue's tail appeared, scooping Sumire up and swallowing her whole before phase-shifting out of space entirely.
And then—
Boruto turned toward the gathered shinobi outside the barrier.
Even behind the mask, his eyes glowed—cold, steady, unyielding.
Everything had gone exactly as he planned.
The barrier collapsed in a quiet burst of red light.
As Naruto and the others prepared to charge forward—
Boruto's entire body shimmered with blue light, space distorting like ripples around him.
"Spatial ninjutsu!!" Naruto shouted.
In the blink of an eye, Boruto—and the barrier rods—vanished from the world.
Naruto took a half-step forward, but Kakashi raised a hand.
"Without Sasuke, we can't follow him," Kakashi said calmly. "That dimension… It's not one we can enter."
The shinobi could only stand there, stunned, watching the empty clearing.
The leader of the Moon had disappeared.