WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 189, "Resonance," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
With Boruto's Vessel Retrieval arc in full-swing, fans were chomping at the bit to see the extent of Kawaki's power. Manga readers have already gotten a glimpse, but the Vessel's true capabilities have only been teased in the anime, with Jigen, Koji Kashin and the other Kara members playing coy about what he could really do.
Episode 189 finally has Kawaki cutting loose in glorious fashion and, as he goes berserk, he ends up mercilessly destroying one of the worst terrorists in Kara's ranks.
The episode picks up with Garo coming to grab Kawaki, eager to impress Delta and the Kara superiors. He also has a personal grudge against him, as Kawaki badly injured him years ago in the Kara lair, so this mission doubles as a bit of sweet revenge for Garo. However, he underestimates Kawaki, whose hand mutates, allowing us to see how much of a super-shinobi he truly is.
This hand can absorb blows, throw out stone shards and smash almost anything in its path. To top it off, Kawaki's lightning-quick, moving at a speed that Team 7 notes is on par with Naruto and Sasuke. Konohamaru and Boruto are stunned at the display he's putting on, granted Garo's experience is counting for a lot. Kawaki's overreaches, though, as he keeps pummelling Garo, not realizing his chakra and overall strength are quickly burning out.
Thus, Garo gets an opening, but when he uses his blasters to shoot bombs at Kawaki, the Vessel's Karma activates. He's able to absorb bomb after bomb, just like Boruto did with his Momoshiki-esque abilities, and ironically, as both their marks sync up and start to resonate, Kawaki goes into a more composed Hulk-mode. He calmly approaches Garo, fries out the guns on his arm, and, in the blink of an eye, punches through his stomach.
In the manga, Kawaki's arm turns into something like a tree trunk, but the anime plays it up even more, making it look like he's stuck a giant tree through the villain. Garo's left gasping for breath after this Mortal Kombat-like finishing blow. Kawaki warns him that anyone who wants to use his body as a weapon will pay this price. And so, with the Konoha-nin watching, Kawaki charges his attack and blows Garo up.
It's like a mini-nuke went off, with the gory sight of the lower half of Garo's body strewn across the area. Team 7 is left in shock as Kawaki descends from the air with steam coming off him. As he powers down and faints, though, he makes it clear that if they turn out to be enemies, he'll do the same to them. Despite the blood bath, the team is eager to take him back to Naruto, but little do they know that Koji's monitoring, excited to see how the Vessel evolves in the free world.
