Boruto Needs to Restore Sasuke's Pseudo-Sage Mode Fans Haven't Seen Since Naruto Shippuden

Look, I love Boruto, but the series did Sasuke dirty. The man used to tag-team deities with Naruto. Now he is a one-eyed mentor drifting around the edges of the action. There is a clean fix sitting right there in the franchise playbook: bring back his old pseudo-Sage mojo via a smarter, safer version of the curse mark. And yes, the person best positioned to do that is exactly who you think it is: Orochimaru. The irony writes itself.

Remember Sasuke’s other form before the god-eyes?

Long before the Rinnegan and dimension-hopping, Sasuke had raw, scary power thanks to Orochimaru’s Cursed Seal of Heaven. During the Chunin Exams, Orochimaru bit him, branded him, and unlocked a transformation that sent inky markings crawling across Sasuke’s body while his chakra and combat stats spiked hard. It was not true Sage Mode (no nature energy meditation required), but the boosts felt similar: speed, strength, reflexes, the whole package.

If you need a refresher, here’s the fast timeline and fallout:

• Chunin Exams: Sasuke taps the curse mark in the fight with Gaara and looks borderline feral.
• Valley of the End: He leans on it again against Naruto, pushing himself into that chaotic, high-output state.
• Itachi showdown: He goes all-in, but Itachi ultimately purges the seal using the Totsuka Blade. One swipe, and the curse is gone.
• Post–Fourth Great Ninja War: The redemption-era Sasuke distances himself from anything Orochimaru-flavored.
• Boruto era: He loses the Rinnegan, trades front-line glory for mentor duty, and Konoha’s problems escalate to cosmic nonsense again (Code, more Otsutsuki, etc.).

So why bring it back now?

Because it fits both the story and the character. The curse mark was basically a DIY, corrupted shortcut to Sage-style power. In Boruto, Orochimaru is no longer the cackling body-snatcher; he is the quietly terrifying lab dad raising Mitsuki, who conveniently has a refined, fully realized Sage Mode. In other words, the guy clearly understands how to create sustainable, non-possessive power systems now.

Picture this: Orochimaru engineers a Curse Mark 2.0 that ditches the parasitic baggage and channels clean, controlled Sage energy instead. No body takeover. No evil whispering in the back of Sasuke’s head. Just a switch that gives him the short-burst firepower he needs to stand toe-to-toe with Code or whatever extraterrestrial nightmare shows up next. It is a neat bit of narrative symmetry too. The person who once tempted Sasuke into losing control becomes the person who helps him master it.

Sasuke needs an edge, not a deus ex eyeball

He does not need the Rinnegan back to matter. Give him a lean, disciplined power-up that rewards experience and restraint, not god-tier hacks. That also plays into his current role: the veteran who picks his moments and ends fights efficiently.

Naruto once called him the 'Shadow Hokage' — a title Sasuke has never actually embraced, but the reputation still sticks for a reason.

Set that version of Sasuke loose with a clean, Sage-based curse mark and watch the room temperature drop. It would also be a tidy character beat for Orochimaru’s ongoing redemption: from corrupting prodigies to stabilizing them.

The fandom wrinkle

Yes, teaming Sasuke back up with the guy who originally branded him is a wild turn on paper. But Boruto has already recast Orochimaru as a pragmatic, largely cooperative scientist. This is one of those deep-cut fan logic moves that actually clicks with where the characters are now.

Your move, Boruto

Should Orochimaru give Sasuke a clean, upgraded pseudo-Sage Mode and put him back in the heavy-hitter lane? I am in. What about you?

If you want to revisit the full journey: Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, and Boruto: Naruto Next Generations are streaming on Crunchyroll.