Chapter 558: The Sword of the Thunder God Is Apparently a Product Line

Because the Sage Mode shortcut was rather private and not something to be discussed openly, Hoshigaki Chinrei dismissed everyone else and began experimenting with it late that night.

Why didn't he let his son Shizuma try first?

Partly because their particular brand of fatherly affection came with plenty of mutual suspicion.

And partly because Shizuma was still too young to use the shortcut in the first place.

So Chinrei gave his son and the villagers another task.

They were to remain outside and monitor Aoi Rokushō, who had been knocked unconscious with drugged tea, keeping track of his condition in real time.

If Aoi woke up, discovered his treasure was missing, and came looking for trouble, they needed to delay him long enough for Chinrei to finish his training.

And just as they feared—

Aoi woke up.

The village had brewed the drugged tea using locally grown leaves.

Unfortunately, those particular leaves had an unusually strong stimulating effect, which significantly weakened the sleeping medicine mixed into them.

Normally, even after the drug itself wore off, the victim would simply continue sleeping naturally until morning.

But the villagers knew their tea was unreliable, so they had compensated by giving Aoi a much larger dose.

They kept urging him to drink more.

Aoi had never encountered people who pressured guests into drinking tea instead of alcohol.

Assuming it was some strange Kirigakure local custom—and not wanting to offend anyone so soon after arriving—he politely drank cup after cup.

Which was precisely why he eventually woke up.

His bladder simply refused to cooperate.

After stumbling outside to relieve himself and finally finishing, Aoi instinctively reached toward his waist.

Then his face went pale.

The Sword of the Thunder God was gone!

Had he simply left it inside the room?

Or…

Aoi did not dare think any further.

He immediately turned to rush back and check.

"AAAAAAARGH—!"

At that exact moment, a horrifying scream erupted from Hoshigaki Chinrei's house.

Chinrei had spent quite some time studying the Sword of the Thunder God's hilt, only to discover that no matter what he tried, it did absolutely nothing to accelerate his Sage Mode training.

Then he remembered some of the things Shizuma had explained before leaving.

High-end ninja tools, for example, could sometimes run on electricity.

Others were powered by chakra and activated automatically once energy was supplied.

Chinrei immediately understood.

He positioned the supposed treasure correctly, infused chakra into it, and waited eagerly to experience the power of this legendary Sage Mode training artifact.

The result was…

Well.

Everyone knew that when Gojo Satoru fought Sukuna, slashes could appear anywhere on his body.

And yes.

Anywhere meant anywhere.

So all those people online claiming they could fight Sukuna themselves should probably experience the slashing part first.

Between Gojo repeatedly using Reverse Cursed Technique to repair horrific wounds and Kakashi spending three days inside Tsukuyomi being subjected to Itachi's relentless torment, who had suffered more?

Hoshigaki Chinrei apparently wanted firsthand experience.

The instant he infused chakra into the weapon, the Sword of the Thunder God's blade activated.

The sudden pain made Chinrei convulse and lose his grip.

During the convulsion, the weapon unfortunately managed to perform several additional "precision cuts."

Once the sword left his hand and lost its chakra supply, the glowing blade gradually vanished.

And that was when Senju Tobirama arrived.

Tsunade had informed him that someone had stolen his largely useless old Sword of the Thunder God.

Tobirama might not personally care much about the weapon.

But that did not mean other people were free to steal it.

So after estimating how much time had passed and making sure Aoi had probably already reached whoever was behind him—allowing them to catch everyone at once—Tobirama decided to deal with the matter that very night.

He would eliminate the problem and recover the sword.

And then…

He materialized inside the room.

Saw the colorful disaster in front of him.

And immediately wished he could gouge his own eyes out.

Why had he come here?

He didn't even care about the Sword of the Thunder God!

Why hadn't he simply teleported in a stack of Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags and erased the entire place from existence?

Technically, Tobirama's real body was still busy with important work in his laboratory.

The one who had come here was only a shadow clone.

But as the creator of the Shadow Clone Technique, Tobirama understood its mechanics better than anyone.

Whether a clone was voluntarily dispelled or destroyed by force, all of its memories would return to the original.

Normally, that was an enormous advantage.

A shadow clone could gather intelligence with no lasting risk to the user.

Tonight, for the first time in his life, Tobirama realized the technique had a downside.

What happened if the intelligence itself was mentally contaminating?

What if simply seeing it once inflicted permanent psychological damage?

At this moment, Senju Tobirama was filled with despair.

And an intense desire to destroy everything.

The little bomb was about to explode.

"W-Who are you?"

Hoshigaki Chinrei lay weakly on the floor, staring in bewilderment at the white-haired man who had suddenly appeared inside his bedroom.

He could not understand why a perfectly good ninja tool had suddenly turned into some kind of cursed sharpener.

He could not understand why a stranger had appeared in his room.

Hadn't he specifically ordered people outside to guard the area?

Then realization struck.

He understood!

This man must also be after the treasure.

He must have secretly interfered with it using chakra, increasing its output and causing Chinrei's catastrophic accident!

"Damn you, I—"

"Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags."

Tobirama expressionlessly pulled out sheet after sheet of explosive tags and rapidly covered the entire room.

"Father! What happened?!"

Shizuma's voice came from outside.

Other villagers were shouting as well.

And among them was Aoi Rokushō, furiously demanding that Hoshigaki Chinrei return the Sword of the Thunder God.

Sword of the Thunder God?

What kind of name was that?

Oh.

Was that what this particular device was called?

Not bad.

Rather imposing, actually.

Chinrei remembered Shizuma mentioning that these kinds of products often came with distinctive names too.

Things like Spring Breeze X, Soft Catgirl, Silken Thread X…

So the one in his hands was called the Sword of the Thunder God.

No wonder the name sounded so domineering.

"If I can't have it, you're going to destroy it?"

Chinrei sneered when he saw the explosive tags.

"Not a chance!"

He had long since prepared himself for death.

What was the Bloody Mist he wanted to restore?

A village where teammates and classmates shared no affection at all.

Where everyone was a potential enemy.

Where you either killed someone else or were killed yourself and became part of the mist.

If that was the world he wanted, then why should death frighten him?

The only thing he feared was the Bloody Mist never returning!

"Shizuma! Catch!"

Dragging his badly injured body upright through sheer force of will, Chinrei seized the Sword of the Thunder God and infused the last of his chakra into it.

"Make Kirigakure return to the Bloody Mist!

"This is the last of my chakra!"

The glowing blade expanded enormously, becoming sharper and brighter than before.

With everything he had left, Chinrei hurled the weapon through the wall.

Because so much chakra had been poured into it, the blade remained active for several seconds even after leaving his hand.

The Sword of the Thunder God sliced straight through the wall and flew outside.

Yes.

With his final strength, Hoshigaki Chinrei had passed both his treasure and his will on to his son.

Under almost any other circumstances, even Senju Tobirama might have felt a brief flicker of respect for such determination from an enemy.

But after everything he had just witnessed?

His heart remained completely unmoved.

Outside, Hoshigaki Shizuma caught the Sword of the Thunder God, which was now unfortunately stained with several highly questionable colors.

Tobirama immediately detonated the explosive tags—

And activated Flying Raijin.

"Flying Raijin Slash!"

Shhk.

Shizuma remained frozen in place, still gripping the sword's handle.

A thin red line appeared across his neck.

As he collapsed, only one final thought remained in his mind.

'You old bastard…'

'So you were working with an outsider to screw me over from the start?!'