Kernel

Believing Team 10 is fleeing to spare the village, Jura gives chase as Konohamaru arrives with reinforcements. Shikamaru explains that the group has run off carrying Himawari, the God Trees' quarry, and asks Kawaki to release Boruto so he can help fight what Kawaki also regards as an enemy. Kawaki, fixed on Himawari's safety, flies off with a grumbling Delta trailing him. Meanwhile Hidari cannot make sense of the leaf shinobi's defiance, and the Barrier Team stuns Konohamaru by reporting that the figure before him carries Sasuke's chakra signature. Sarada and Sumire join the fray, and Hidari darts through Claw Marks to strike Sarada with a Chidori, which she narrowly evades before landing one of her own, unsettled that he wields her clan's technique.

In a mental space, Kurama introduces itself to a passed-out Himawari, explaining that the fox once housed within her father had its life snuffed out, but that death is never final for tailed beasts, since a kernel of them eventually surfaces somewhere. Kurama is intrigued that its return came so quickly and inside Naruto's own child, crediting either the sliver of chakra she was born with or her mixed Uzumaki and Hyuga heritage. As Jura closes in and shears off a wing of the group's bird transport, Chocho enlarges herself to cushion everyone's landing. Kurama pushes Himawari to act, noting her affinity outstrips every past host, Naruto included. She attacks, but Jura shrugs it off and snaps her ankle, then destroys Inojin's beast drawing and begins growing a tree to convert her into nourishment.

When Inojin defies Shikadai's warning and lunges again, Jura drives a spike of wood through his torso, musing about the aesthetics he has been reading about. Horrified and enraged, Himawari tears free of the tree; her hair fans out, her whisker marks thicken, and her eyes take on Kurama's shape as she orders Jura to stop with far greater force. Chocho and Shikadai are stunned, Jura's interest is piqued, and Kurama observes that she has snapped, eager to cut loose alongside her. The chapter's title refers to the surviving kernel that lets a tailed beast return.