WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 227, "Team 7's Last Mission?!," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
The Naruto universe has shown fans some pretty sick moves -- especially in terms of combinations, such as when the current Hokage of Konoha and the Nine Tails Demon Fox, Kurama, formed the ultimate chakra golem with Sasuke's Susanoo. The duo also teamed up with Sakura to beat Kaguya in one of the franchise's best unifying moments, truly reiterating how important cooperation is in the shinobi world. Now, the Boruto anime has recreated a classic X-Men attack -- to devastating effect.
This is none other than the "fastball special," a popular move from the X-Men comics where Colossus literally flung Wolverine at targets. It first appeared in X-Men #100 in 1976 as the "all-new, all-different" team of international figures battled what appeared to be Professor X’s original five students.
The "fastball special" is all about any smaller hero being used as a missile by a larger one, but it's mostly Colossus and Wolverine as the metal mutant embraced the act of throwing the clawed Canadian at high-speed to damage opponents. It's usually kept in the books, although it has appeared in cartoons and even X3: The Last Stand in a Danger Room sequence.
In Episode 227 of Boruto, however, this classic X-Men attack is turned into a weapon of mass destruction when Team 7 has to rescue Konohamaru from a mountain village. Hyōgo, a Kusagakure missing-nin, kept Konohamaru and a bunch of innocents hostage, but Boruto, Mitsuki and Sarada invade in the dead of dusk with the fog rising.
They take out the terrorists around the area, and when Hyōgo flees, they decide to let Konohamaru get the knockout blow as a way of thanking him for all he did for them. Sarada's about to graduate and wants to wrap the mission up as soon as possible, and Konohamaru obliges, enjoying how his charges want him to end the mini-war. It leads to Boruto and Sarada combining their wind jutsus to create a disc that Konohamaru leaps on, all before being torpedoed at Hyōgo.
In mid-air, with his momentum exponential and chakra at full strength, Konohamaru then creates a Rasengan bomb and smashes it into Hyōgo's back. The attack is so powerful it clears the fog from the area, even shattering the villain's shades in one of the most destructive moves seen in Boruto.
Admittedly it's a tad ridiculous -- this kind of power should have shattered Hyōgo's insides or blown a hole through him, but plot convenience and the fact that the Hidden Leaf ninja don't kill leaves the villain unconscious. As the shockwave dissipates, Team 7 celebrates as they're finally glad to have their leader back, embracing how important it was to work as one in their last job together.
