Kashin Koji’s Role and Future Challenges in the Boruto Manga

Today, I want to talk to you about a line in Boruto Two Blue Vortex, Chapter 14, where it became clear that everyone’s favorite clone of Jiraiya, Kashin Koji himself, might be in danger in the upcoming chapters. This prompts a serious discussion about the potentially more significant impact of the Boruto manga than we might have anticipated and why Kashin Koji and Boruto might have made a mistake.

Most of us agree that Kashin Koji’s stay alive following the Isshiki battle was a sign that more would be set up for him in the future. It’s one thing to say that he was being kept alive to confront Amado eventually, and for years, that was the belief in the community. Isshiki’s assumption he made when Kashin Koji suddenly vanished is something that I clung to for a couple of years before finally moving into the camp, “I don’t care if we don’t see the body; that boy died off-screen.” But now, we have a genuine reason for why he was kept alive. It seems Isshiki’s words were only a misdirect to make us pay attention to something on the figurative left when the truth was on the symbolic right the entire time, staring us right at our blind side.

Koji was only kept alive purely to train Boruto Uzumaki, and to a degree, that’s not the wrong stance to take. However, there’s more to it than that. Koji was also kept alive for both protecting Boruto and training him but also preparing him for the apocalypse that was coming, telling him that in damn near every future possible future that he saw, he saw them fail in their attempts. However, only a few possible futures are available for them where their plan succeeds.

Koji’s destiny is more prominent, but based on the reaction in the chapter when Boruto got captured, this was an outcome that he either did not see coming or it was one he was hoping would not come to pass. Kashin Koji isn’t just limited to being Boruto’s Jiraiya, but Boruto’s Morpheus, as he’s got a hybrid role of those characters coming in for something even more significant at play. And it’s only for that reason our conversation needs to be that he might be in danger now.

To Kashin Koji’s credit, which we’ve got to give, he did an excellent job of staying hidden for as long as he did to a point I think it’s underappreciated, especially when you factor in the fact that this was laid up with the most wanted man on Earth right now, who everyone wants dead. So, the idea that Kashin Koji went this long without anyone snooping around for him is remarkable, but now the blood is in the water, and we have some genuine concerns that need to be addressed.

For starters, now that Kashin Koji has Boruto, he’s in a situation where he has to raise his alerts to high levels of time. He’s gone from the standard infiltration mode where there’s no need to worry about being found because you are perfectly hidden, which is where he was when he was hidden inside one of Orochimaru’s hideouts where he cloaked in Genjutsu and hid the whole place in Genjutsu. So now, he is in noise mode, where the enemies are aware of a potential threat and are more cautious.

That moment was crossed when Boruto returned to Konoha at the exact moment when Code was attacked, and we had everyone from the sensory unit to Shikamaru to Kawaki scrambling in the result and reacting to the sudden change of events. It was at that moment that Kawaki began to suspect and even began getting cautious that there was someone else helping Boruto because even Kawaki understood that while Boruto was a prodigy, even someone as skilled as him couldn’t be hiding in plain sight that close to the village where he could react in time to when Code invaded and get that deep into the village, not without Kawaki being aware of it, or at the very least the sensor unit who was actively looking for Boruto being made aware of it either.

When Konoha captures Boruto and gets the handcuffs that are placed on him, Kashin Koji enters into alert mode, which is that moment when the enemy either directly spots Solid Snake or tries to catch him on camera. At that point, the enemy knows without a shadow of a doubt that there is a target nearby or in the area they need to be on alert and actively looking for. It’s eliminated on-site, and that was the moment that Kashin Koji entered when Kawaki was the one who discovered that Kashin Koji’s toads were on Boruto’s body.

Kawaki can freely speak about what he saw because, as a reminder, when I brought this up in the review, I saw people raising objections to it, “How could you say that? That makes no sense.” As a reminder, Kawaki can say what he found without anyone looking at him with a side-eye. It’s not because of omnipotence that does not affect someone suspecting Kawaki of not being Naruto’s son; that’s irrelevant, and then going, “Wait a second, how would you know about Kashin Koji’s toads?” That’s irrelevant. It’s the exact opposite. It’s one of the covers that he would get. It’s because everyone believes Kawaki is Naruto’s kid; they will believe what he’s saying when he says that he found that toad, and people will take it to heart for this reason.

There’s precedent for it. Naruto’s son has had interactions with Kashin Koji in the past. Kashin Koji interacted with them when they first met Kawaki. The members of Team Seven saw Kashin Koji fight Konohamaru, place a toad on his body, and use said toad to light his entire body on fire. Naruto’s son is also someone who was in the room when Amado received the transmission for Kashin Koji, and even if Naruto’s son was not there in the room—say Boruto was in the hospital when that happened, theoretically, which he wasn’t, but we’ll take him out of the room for this example—Kawaki, the adopted son of Naruto, was there. So, in their minds, they think Boruto was there when Amado explained to everyone that Kashin Koji uses toads, so there isn’t a reason for people to raise eyebrows or concern that Kawaki would be pointing this out when he found Kashin Koji’s toads.

Reread chapters 40, 45, and 46 in that three-chapter timespan, and you’ll see what I mean about the whole toad thing. Now, this also puts Kashin Koji in that dreaded phase, which is the evasion mode from Metal Gear Solid, which, as it sounds, you’re now running to put distance between yourself and the enemy so you can find a safe spot to hide until things cool down to begin moving around again.

The knowledge that Kashin Koji is working with Boruto is enough to have Eida start looking for him, which is already a problem, given how overpowered her eyes are. Barring learning her eyes can’t see through Genjutsu, she should be able to see his location, but that will be the least of his worries. He also has the awakened Shinju he has to worry about.

We learned that Matsuri was out there looking for Kashin Koji because the Shinju, for reasons we don’t know, suspected that Boruto had someone helping him even before Jura learned that Boruto knew about the thorn soul bulb. The fact that Matsuri was already specifically out there looking for Kashin Koji means that they gained some intel in that brief moment that they clashed with Boruto in the Ten-Tails dimension to the point that they believe Boruto had a co-conspirator. They might not know it’s Koji, but they know someone’s helping him; perhaps one of them spotted the toad speaking to Boruto. It’s possible.

Now, it explains why Jura felt so confident that they would still be able to track down Boruto despite him running away, telling him it’s pointless to hide because they could find him. And just taking a step further, it’s not by mistake that as he’s seeing this, you’re seeing the tree where Sasuke has been stuck inside. That is explicitly done regarding manga paneling; that’s not by mistake.

And this is where Boruto might have made his mistake. It’s as simple as Boruto’s mistake of returning to the tree where Sasuke is trapped inside. That’s very well the case because of our few clues.

In Chapter 5 of Boruto Two Blue Vortex, Matsuri says that she could feel the hatred of the Ino Shika Cho in Konohamaru, so she chose to settle on Konohamaru for a target as someone she wanted to devour. Where did those members happen to be when they expressed their anger and their hatred for Moegie’s situation? They were right next to the tree. If I’m not mistaken, Konohamaru was even touching the tree, probably the first time a man touched a woman’s body, and I don’t even think that counts. And don’t even get me started regarding things like consent.

We were told that the trees take chakra from those stuck inside them. If there is some chakra connection to the trees themselves, we must ask again: is this that chakra factor? Because chakra connects people, could this have been a way that allowed them to reverse-track Boruto to get a read on his location? This may very well be the case.

When you think about it, we know Boruto and Sasuke, based on the landscape, have been fighting in the Land of Fire when Code ultimately defeated them. They would have likely been close to the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind because they had to have been close enough for Kashin Koji to meet Boruto at that tree so soon after the battle ended.

Boruto isn’t precisely going to teleport to their hideout, grab Kashin Koji, get a box of tissues, and then teleport back to that tree so someone can join him in Kashin Koji. At the same time, he’s mourning, failing Sasuke for the hundredth time, mainly when he knows Kashin Koji isn’t the type to say, “I’m sorry, Boruto, better luck next time. Things are going to work out.” Kashin Koji said, “I won’t feel sorry for you. I already told you this wasn’t going to work.”

So, that does end up being the case, and they could reverse-track Boruto using that tree that he was at when Boruto was knee-deep in his feelings and just giving Boruto’s proximity to it. In that case, it makes perfect sense that they would be able to start looking for Kashin Koji.

And here’s why we will use a real-world example to explain how they could have started tracking him down so quickly. So, say you have a theoretical fugitive. So, Kashin Koji would be the fugitive in this example. He’s on the run, and he has no cellular devices that you can use to start pinging off towers to hunt down the location, and they have no other electronic markers that you can use.

So, how exactly do you find them? He doesn’t exactly have an iPhone that says, “Where’s my iPhone?” and you track them that way. So, you pull out a map of the area, you draw a circle, or you stick a pin in the last known location, you establish parameters, and you start searching within set parameters using logistical probability to track down your target’s likely path of escape from most likely to least likely. You tighten the search net as you follow the leads. And if you exhaust all the leads within that search net, depending on how much time has passed, it’s the same thing here. You start expanding the map.

If they knew to start at that tree, in particular, it would become a matter of narrowing down the location based on whatever method of calculation they used. Again, it depends on them sensing Boruto’s chakra near that tree. Boruto, being someone who they’re all connected to since he’s Otsutsuki and they’re seeking to devour him, they identified him as the one that they want. So, it makes sense that they would have a connection to start tracking based on Jura’s statement to Boruto that running was pointless. And that goes up even higher if Boruto is again leaned on that tree, crying and sobbing and acting like a little whiny. I know he wasn’t crying and sobbing, but you get the point. That is something that does make you wonder.

With a new Shinju being created, if we learn that Shinju is Shinki, they are in the Land of Wind somewhere, which means they’re dangerously close to where Kashin Koji was hiding out. And with Eida now knowing where Kashin Koji is, it means Koji might have to start moving out into the open. And with the Shinju tracking him, I do think he’s in for a rough road ahead depending on how things begin to start falling out, which explains why Kashen Koji told Boruto and most of the scenarios that he saw, they failed in their mission, which means the odds of success are lower than the odds.

In Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, Chapter 14, we witness the increasing tension surrounding Boruto’s return and how characters like Mitsuki and Kawaki react to the unfolding chaos. As Kashin Koji’s fate becomes more uncertain, especially after his critical role in Boruto’s training, the stakes have never been higher. If you want to dive deeper into this chapter’s events, check out our detailed breakdown of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex Chapter 14.

For more insights, theories, and updates on the latest Boruto manga developments, explore the full content available on our Boruto manga blog homepage.