The scarlet rain gradually ceased in the valley known as the Bone-Eater's Well.
The nauseating, turbid miasma that had once filled the air had been thoroughly purified by the supreme force field unconsciously emitted by Uchiha Tobirama, leaving behind an eerie, vacuum-like purity.
The ground was covered in scarlet sludge—the remains of the hundred thousand great demons crushed by his Conqueror's Haki.
At the center of this scorched earth, which resembled an Asura's purgatory, the stunningly beautiful priestess in white, Kikyo, sat weakly upon the ground.
Her smooth, pointed chin was firmly lifted by a finger that seemed to hold dominion over life and death itself.
Uchiha Tobirama's low voice, dripping with absolute authority, echoed in Kikyo's ears.
Kikyo's thoughts had come to a complete standstill.
Her clear eyes, which had always been as calm as an ancient well, blankly reflected the face before her—a face so handsome that it seemed almost inhuman, yet cold to the extreme.
She had once been the strongest priestess, carrying the hopes of her entire village and even the entire Kanto region.
Her entire life had been burdened by the heavy responsibility of purifying evil and guarding a precious treasure. She had never shown weakness before anyone.
Yet before this silver-haired man who could annihilate a hundred thousand demons with a mere gesture, her spiritual power, which she had always taken pride in, and the defenses she had painstakingly built over twenty years were like a fence made from withered grass, ruthlessly kicked apart.
Just as Kikyo remained immersed in this overwhelming shock—
Uchiha Tobirama's gaze shifted downward, landing casually on her right hand, which had loosened slightly from exhaustion.
There, a bead the size of a glass marble, emitting a faint pink glow, lay quietly amid the blood and filth.
The Shikon Jewel.
The ultimate divine artifact of the Sengoku Period, which had driven countless great demons and monsters to slaughter one another and plunged the land into centuries of bloodshed and chaos.
"Is this the thing those trash were willing to risk their lives to seize?"
The corners of Tobirama's lips curled into a disdainful smile.
He did not even bother to bend down and pick it up.
He merely extended his left hand and casually flicked his index finger upward.
"Hum."
The Shikon Jewel, which Kikyo cherished as dearly as her own life, instantly broke free from gravity.
It floated obediently from the priestess's palm, transformed into a streak of pink light, and landed steadily in Uchiha Tobirama's hand.
"No! You can't touch it!"
Seeing the treasure change hands, Kikyo's stunned mind finally awakened with a surge of instinctive alarm.
She instinctively reached toward Tobirama, trying to stop him. Her refined and ethereal face was etched with unprecedented anxiety.
"Put it down! That's no ordinary gem! Sealed within it are the lingering Souls of the ancient priestess Midoriko and the countless great demons she fought!"
Kikyo's voice trembled with tension.
"The jewel contains unimaginable filth and countless evil thoughts. Unless someone possesses an absolutely pure Soul capable of suppressing them, anyone who touches it carelessly risks having their mind consumed and assimilated by the malice within!"
In Kikyo's understanding, the Shikon Jewel was an ultimate calamity capable of destroying the world at any moment.
She had used her pure Soul to purify it day and night, never daring to relax her vigilance for fear that the Magatsuhi within would find an opportunity to emerge.
And now, this man actually dared to hold it in his bare hand without even wrapping it in spiritual power!
Yet faced with Kikyo's desperate warning, Uchiha Tobirama merely acted as though he had heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.
"Filth? Evil thoughts? Devouring My mind?"
Tobirama lowered his head and glanced at the pink bead lying in his palm.
His eyes, swirling with the light of stars being born and dying, were filled with utter disdain.
"Does this inferior glass marble, born in such a backwater plane, deserve to be called a divine artifact?"
"Does it even deserve to speak of devouring Me?"
The instant his words fell, under Kikyo's horrified gaze, Uchiha Tobirama casually raised his hand and brought the Shikon Jewel—revered throughout the Sengoku Period as the supreme treasure capable of driving countless demons mad—to his lips.
Then he swallowed it without hesitation.
"Gulp."
The legendary divine artifact disappeared completely.
"You...?!"
Kikyo was utterly stunned.
She stared at Tobirama in disbelief, her mind struggling to process what she had just witnessed.
He had swallowed it?
He had actually swallowed the Shikon Jewel?
That was the source of a curse that even the most powerful ancient demons had treated with extreme caution, only daring to draw upon its power little by little.
Yet this man had simply consumed it as casually as a piece of candy.
"It's... impossible..."
A trace of despair appeared in Kikyo's eyes.
She had expected the overwhelming malice within the jewel to erupt at any moment.
However—
One second passed.
Then three seconds.
The terrifying scene she had imagined never occurred.
At this very moment, within Uchiha Tobirama's vast internal Universe, the moment the Shikon Jewel entered his body, the wills hidden within it for centuries finally awakened.
"Hahahaha! What an incredibly perfect body! What boundless life force!"
Within the jewel, Magatsuhi, representing ultimate evil, and Naohi, representing benevolent intentions, sensed the terrifying depth of Tobirama's power, which far exceeded the limits of this Universe.
Both wills erupted with excitement.
Countless demonic remnants transformed into a pitch-black ocean of evil intent and attempted to spread through Tobirama's meridians, seeking to seize control of this extraordinary body.
"As long as we take control of this vessel, we can finally break free from the shackles of this jewel and become the sole True God of this world!"
Magatsuhi's arrogant declaration echoed throughout Tobirama's internal Universe.
But its declaration lasted only a thousandth of a second.
"To dare make such noise inside Me."
A voice as cold as divine judgment suddenly thundered throughout Tobirama's internal Universe.
Hum————!
There was no need to mobilize Chakra.
No need to activate Sage Mode.
The System's utterly unreasonable Healthy Itachi mechanism immediately detected the foreign presence and activated its highest-level purification protocol.
A supreme force of Law capable of devouring even the Soul King's Origin from the Shinigami Universe descended upon them like a cosmic millstone crushing everything in its path.
There was nowhere to hide.
There was nowhere to resist.
"This... what is this power?! No! This is impossible!"
Magatsuhi, which had been proclaiming itself the source of all evil only moments earlier, and Naohi, with its supposed righteousness, were completely helpless before this absolute suppression.
They were like two insects attempting to halt a rolling celestial wheel.
They could not even create the slightest ripple.
"Puchi!"
The manifestations of will formed from the remnants of countless great demons were instantly and completely erased.
Both their physical manifestations and their conceptual existence were pulverized without leaving the slightest trace.
[Ding! Low-level plane Law crystal detected: 'Shikon Jewel'!]
[Internal impurities and foreign consciousness have been thoroughly erased!]
[Congratulations, Host! You have absorbed fragments of the 'Time Travel Law' and 'Soul Reincarnation Law' without side effects! The Empire's Law Library has been updated!]
As the System's crisp notification faded, the Shikon Jewel—the so-called "divine artifact"—was thoroughly digested within Uchiha Tobirama's body and transformed into an insignificant strand of pure nourishment.
Outside, the night wind remained cold, while the smell of blood still lingered heavily throughout the valley.
Uchiha Tobirama slowly lowered his head.
His eyes, swirling with the light of dying stars, calmly looked down at the completely dumbfounded Kikyo.
Not a trace of foul black energy emerged from his body.
His pure-black robe remained immaculate.
His divine aura, standing above all else, had not weakened in the slightest. Instead, it had become even deeper and more vast after absorbing the new fragments of Law.
"What?"
A playful curve appeared at the corner of Tobirama's mouth.
"Did you think I would be possessed by the evil spirits within that scrap of metal and start crawling around on the ground like a madman?"
His voice carried absolute confidence, leaving no room for rebuttal.
"The peerless evil in your eyes couldn't even make Me let out a burp."
Shock.
An ultimate shock that transcended the limits of cognition and shattered Kikyo's worldview.
Kikyo raised her cold face and stared blankly at the unharmed man before her.
The heavy fate she had guarded for half her life, the calamity she had feared could one day destroy the world, had actually been resolved by him as casually as swallowing a piece of candy.
That was the Shikon Jewel.
At that moment, the mountain of responsibility that had weighed upon Kikyo's heart for so many years seemed to collapse.
In its place was an unprecedented sense of lightness that made even her Soul tremble.
"The Jewel belongs to Me now."
Uchiha Tobirama ignored Kikyo's shock and slowly leaned down, his large hand firmly gripping her slender shoulder.
He pulled the priestess—still stained with mud and blood—up from the cold ground and brought her steadily to her feet.
"Since the thing you guarded has been confiscated by Me..."
Tobirama looked directly into her eyes, his voice carrying the weight of an unquestionable imperial decree.
"Then you will accompany Me from this moment onward."
Absolute possession.
An overwhelming conquest born from a difference in power so vast that resistance seemed meaningless.
Feeling the astonishing power emanating from the man before her—the same terrifying existence who had casually annihilated a hundred thousand demons—Kikyo's heart, which had remained isolated for twenty years beneath the weight of responsibility, finally relaxed.
She did not resist.
Instead, she lowered her gaze and quietly accepted her new fate.
In such a cruel Sengoku Period, being protected by an existence capable of covering the heavens with a single hand was already a destiny beyond anything the tragic priestess had ever imagined.
"Since I've acquired a new trophy..."
Tobirama looked up slightly, his gaze sweeping toward the dilapidated shrine outside the valley.
"Let us return to your residence. I have several things I wish to learn about this world."
Just as Tobirama was about to use the Body Flicker Technique to return to the shrine with the newly recruited priestess—
"BANG!!!"
A violent explosion suddenly erupted from the cliff above the valley.
Countless fragments of rock rained down, shattering the tense silence of the night.
"Who is it?!"
Kikyo instinctively stiffened.
Although she had accepted Tobirama's protection, years of fighting demons had left her highly vigilant. She immediately turned toward the source of the disturbance.
Beside her, the faint, lazy smile on Uchiha Tobirama's face disappeared.
His brow furrowed in irritation.
On a massive rock dozens of meters above them—
An arrogant figure radiating the savage aura of someone who had never encountered a truly powerful opponent was squatting there insolently.
He wore an eye-catching fiery-red robe—the Robe of the Fire Rat.
Long silver-white hair flowed down his back, while two white dog ears protruded conspicuously from the top of his head.
His golden eyes gleamed with greed and rebelliousness.
This Half-demon who had suddenly intruded was none other than the one whose timeline and Karma had been completely "corrected" by the System's underlying Laws, stripped of his original protagonist halo and reduced to a wild creature of the Sengoku era—
Inuyasha.
In this corrected world, he had never been sealed to the Sacred Tree, nor had he shared any so-called unforgettable romance with Kikyo.
To him, the Kikyo below was merely a beautiful human woman, while the white-haired man in black was nothing more than another ignorant prey.
Sniff, sniff...
Inuyasha's nose twitched several times.
Then a wild, arrogant laugh spread across his face.
"Hahaha! This great one's nose never lies!"
He suddenly stood upon the rock, planted his hands on his hips, and pointed down at Uchiha Tobirama with blatant arrogance.
"Hey! You pretty boy in black!"
"This great one smelled the mouthwatering scent of the Shikon Jewel from miles away! I don't know how you dealt with those trash demons, but your luck has run out now!"
Inuyasha raised his chin proudly, revealing rows of sharp canine teeth.
"Hand over the Shikon Jewel immediately!"
"If you obediently give that bead to this great one, I might be in a good mood today and spare your life and the woman beside you!"
"Otherwise..."
Inuyasha suddenly thrust out his right hand.
His sharp claws glinted beneath the moonlight as he waved them provocatively through the air.
"This great one will use my pride and joy, the Iron Reaver Soul Stealer, to tear you apart!"
He truly did not understand the meaning of death.
It was an absurd act of seeking destruction.
A low-level Half-demon who was not even worthy of being a snack for a Hollow—a stray dog who could barely control his own Demonic Power—actually dared to stand before a Supreme World Lord who had devoured the Shinigami Universe, crushed its gods of creation, and erased one hundred thousand demons with a casual gesture.
He demanded a divine treasure.
He even threatened to tear this cross-world emperor apart.
This could no longer be described as a frog in a well.
It was practically a fool dancing through a minefield without realizing where he was standing.
Listening to the red-clad Half-demon barking from the cliff, a trace of confusion and disgust appeared in Kikyo's eyes.
She did not know this demon at all.
All she could think was that this Half-demon seemed even less intelligent than the mindless Mistress Centipedes she had encountered before.
As for Uchiha Tobirama—
He did not even bother raising his head fully.
He simply and slowly withdrew his hand from Kikyo's shoulder.
In the silent valley, where even the air seemed to have stopped moving after being cleared by Conqueror's Haki, Tobirama's cold voice echoed softly.
"I was originally in a rather good mood today."
He tilted his head slightly.
Those supreme eyes, swirling with the starlight of destruction, casually glanced upward.
With that single glance—
"But..."
"Where did this unleashed stray dog come from, barking so unpleasantly at My feet?"