Chapter 556: He Stole a Sword with a Flying Raijin Mark on It

By coincidence, just as Pakura stopped everyone from watching any further, Neji was finally "persuaded" to come back.

At first, Neji had still suspected that the masked Ao might somehow be his father, Hyūga Hizashi, who had faked his death and escaped.

But after Ao started blurting out increasingly outrageous declarations of love toward Kakashi, Neji suddenly decided that the man probably wasn't his father after all.

Or rather, Neji now preferred to believe his father was truly dead.

If Ao really was Hizashi, Neji would rather personally send him back to the grave before the truth ever came out.

The moment Neji returned, Naruto dragged him straight over.

Pakura had just asked whether the Konoha shinobi knew anything about the suspicious relationship between Obito and Kakashi.

Konohamaru genuinely knew nothing.

Naruto, even if he had once known something, had already forgotten it.

All Naruto vaguely remembered was Kakashi once saying that Neji had helped him tremendously by stopping one of Obito's evil schemes or something along those lines.

So the moment Neji came back, Naruto hauled him into the discussion.

"Neji, you have no idea what kind of horrifying stuff we just saw! Hurry up and tell everyone about the whole love-hate mess between Kakashi-sensei and that Obito guy."

"…"

Neji immediately fell silent.

Horrifying?

Was there anything in this world more horrifying than the time Kakashi and Obito had used Kamui to manipulate the flow of an entire septic tank?

"I don't know much. Maybe the two of them are just unusually fond of sewage."

Neji dropped that one sentence, took advantage of Naruto's stunned reaction to pull his arm free, and immediately walked away.

From beginning to end, Might Guy had never come over.

He was still off discussing taijutsu with Shira, completely unaware that his beloved rival Kakashi was supposedly about to be stolen away.

Actually, no.

Guy was the latecomer.

Obito was the original partner.

Never mind, then.

"They like sewage?"

Everyone was stunned by Neji's short but profoundly disturbing statement.

If Kakashi's summoned ninken liked sewage, that would at least make some sense.

But why would Kakashi and Obito like it?

A new term immediately surfaced in everyone's mind.

A stirring stick.

Could this be some bizarre preference the two of them had gradually developed over the course of their relationship?

…

While everyone in Kirigakure was leisurely vacationing, devouring gossip, and discussing scandals, a moderately serious incident occurred back in Konoha.

The Sword of the Thunder God, a relic of the Second Hokage that nobody had cared about for years, was stolen.

The Sword of the Thunder God was a weapon that transformed into something resembling a glowing chakra blade once chakra was infused into it, giving it impressive cutting power.

Yet strangely enough, nobody had ever seen Tobirama himself use it.

When he fought Izuna, he used an ordinary sword.

Perhaps Tobirama originally created the Sword of the Thunder God specifically to cut through Susanoo.

Then maybe he discovered it still couldn't do the job and tossed it aside.

And since even Tobirama himself apparently hadn't cared much about the weapon, later generations had paid it little attention too.

Some people inherited Flying Raijin.

Some inherited the Shadow Clone Technique.

Some inherited Edo Tensei.

Yet nobody had ever been bored enough to dedicate themselves to inheriting the Sword of the Thunder God.

Konoha had plenty of shinobi skilled with blades and swords, but nobody had ever thought to award the weapon to one of them either.

The Sword of the Thunder God was simply awkward like that.

Because it consumed the wielder's chakra, its actual strength scaled with the person using it.

Which meant it fell into an unfortunate category:

Weak people gained very little from using it.

Strong people didn't need it.

And yet, in the original story, one weakling did steal the Sword of the Thunder God.

He then got beaten easily by young Naruto and young Sasuke, and a single Rasengan shattered the supposedly legendary blade.

A combat record worthy of Kurosuki Raiga.

The thief was an obscure chūnin named Aoi Rokushō.

Aoi was technically a chūnin, but Konoha had kept assigning him to lead genin squads for years without giving him any opportunity to advance.

He grew increasingly resentful and eventually decided to steal the Sword of the Thunder God and defect to Amegakure.

According to what he told Konoha, Amegakure had ordered him to steal it.

Which was rather absurd.

At the time that storyline was written, Amegakure was still little more than the nameless background village represented by a handful of disposable Chūnin Exam contestants.

But anyone familiar with the later story knew that Amegakure was actually controlled by Akatsuki and Pain.

An order from Amegakure effectively meant an order from Pain.

If Amegakure had simply been some weak minor village with no competent jōnin or meaningful combat power, then wanting the Sword of the Thunder God as a prestige weapon might have made sense.

But Akatsuki?

What did they need it for?

Was Kisame supposed to pick it up and start practicing uneven dual-wielding?

Besides, Aoi never actually handed the sword over to Amegakure anyway.

He kept it for himself.

So there was good reason to suspect that Aoi had pulled the same trick Black Zetsu did with the "Mother's canned peaches" nonsense—borrowing someone else's name and authority to make his own desires sound official.

In reality, he probably just wanted the sword.

His grievance was strange too.

He was not strong enough to become a jōnin, so Konoha kept him as a chūnin leading genin squads.

Wasn't that actually a good thing?

If he lacked the strength for jōnin-level missions, promoting him anyway would only increase the odds of him getting killed on some dangerous assignment.

One could only say that Aoi Rokushō desperately wanted upward mobility.

There really was no helping him.

He was always going to defect eventually.

And now—

This was the "eventually."

Aoi Rokushō stole the Sword of the Thunder God just as he had in the original story.

Tsunade was informed.

She did not panic.

She did not even send anyone after him.

Because one important detail was different from the original timeline.

Senju Tobirama himself had been revived through Edo Tensei.

And if Tobirama had personally created the Sword of the Thunder God…

Did anyone seriously believe he hadn't casually stamped a Flying Raijin formula somewhere on it?

There was absolutely no reason to hurry.

If they wanted the sword back, or wanted Aoi arrested, Tobirama could handle either with a single sentence.

Besides, the Sword of the Thunder God was hardly some world-breaking divine artifact or strategic superweapon.

For now, it was actually more useful to let Aoi escape and see where he intended to go.

Perhaps that would expose whoever was behind him.

Meanwhile, Aoi Rokushō was fleeing at full speed without stopping.

He had no idea Konoha had not sent anyone after him.

From his perspective, he had just stolen an overwhelmingly powerful legendary weapon.

Surely Konoha had already deployed a massive ANBU force to hunt him down.

So he did not dare slow down for even a moment.

Unlike in the original story, however, Aoi did not head toward Amegakure.

Modern Amegakure had become the heart of the new shinobi world.

It was the central link holding together the alliance and peace between the Five Great Ninja Villages and the rest of the world.

Going there would be the same as voluntarily exposing himself.

So where could he go instead?

Naturally, somewhere with hidden anti-government forces.

Sunagakure or Kirigakure.

After considering the two, Aoi decisively chose Kirigakure.

Compared with Sunagakure's endless desert, where there was almost nowhere to hide, Kirigakure's islands were covered in dense forests and thick mist.

Far better terrain for disappearing.

And Aoi had heard something else.

Kirigakure's new Mizukage was supposedly just an ordinary woman.

Sunagakure's new Kazekage, meanwhile, was the One-Tail's jinchūriki—and supposedly had a suspiciously intimate relationship with Konoha's Nine-Tails' jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto.

If Aoi went to Sunagakure and joined some rebel faction, Konoha would very likely throw its full support behind Gaara and help wipe them out.

Kirigakure offered much better odds of both survival and successful rebellion.

And so, carrying the Sword of the Thunder God with him, Aoi Rokushō found his way to Kirigakure's Bloody Mist Restoration faction.

There, he met Hoshigaki Nanami's younger brother and father—

Two utterly fanatical men determined to drag Kirigakure back into the Bloody Mist era.

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