While Shinju was still staring at Aizen, inside the Hall of Heroic Spirits…
These heroic spirits—once unwavering in will—were now showing clear abnormalities. And it wasn't just one or two; almost everyone who had been resurrected was affected.
The first to show something wrong was Sakumo.
Konoha's White Fang—this man who always put missions above everything—was gripping his short blade now, his eyes filled with confusion.
His body didn't move at all. Only his gaze was hollow as he stared blankly ahead.
"Father?"
Kakashi's voice broke the silence.
He sensed something was off and, deeply uneasy, hurried to Sakumo's side.
He wanted to touch his father's shoulder, but stopped halfway as a strange sense of unfamiliarity washed over him.
"Father, what's wrong?" Kakashi pressed again.
Sakumo's brows were tightly furrowed, his face twisted with pain.
Then, suddenly, an unfamiliar memory drilled into his mind.
It wasn't a memory that belonged to Konoha's White Fang.
A straw-hat boy stood on the bow of a ship, shouting at the top of his lungs—
"I'm the man who's going to become Pirate King!"
The scene shattered, then reassembled into another vision.
A blond warrior floated in midair, surrounded by blazing golden aura—panting hard, clearly in terrible condition.
Facing him was a purple-and-white cosmic emperor.
A planet-destroying battle was erupting.
What… were these?
Sakumo's consciousness plunged into chaos, the sheer impact nearly driving him to a mental collapse.
The smiles of comrades, the slaughter of missions, the memories of his entire life were being overwritten by these alien images.
"No… My mission is to protect Konoha…" he muttered in broken fragments, voice full of bewilderment. "Pirate King… what even is that?"
Hearing his father's nonsense, Kakashi grew even more anxious—yet had no idea what else he could do.
Those words were foreign to him too.
But one thing was certain: his father was experiencing something terrifying.
"Father! Wake up! Look at me!" Kakashi raised his voice, trying to pull him back with sound alone.
What answered him was Sakumo's chakra suddenly erupting.
Wildly unstable—surging strong one moment, fading weak the next.
Driven by that runaway chakra, the White Fang short blade let out a shrill hum.
A silver-white slash burst out, grazing Kakashi's cheek and flying past, carving a deep gash into the hall's wall behind him.
A cold sensation spread across his face.
Kakashi touched his cheek—blood.
He stared at his father in shock.
Just now… his father had almost killed him.
And it wasn't an accident.
Shinju instantly judged the situation: it had already become extremely serious.
The situation on the other side was no better. Shinju looked toward Yahiko and Konan.
Yahiko was kneeling in agony, both hands clutching his head.
"Yahiko!"
Konan rushed over to help him up, but he shoved her away.
Her eyes were full of panic.
"Konan…" Yahiko spoke with difficulty. "What… is our ideal? And our goal?"
He asked a question that left Konan completely unable to answer.
"Is it… to find 'ONE PIECE'?"
Konan froze.
ONE PIECE? What was that?
The Akatsuki's goal had always been to bring peace to the world—
to end war, and create a world without conflict.
How could Yahiko say something so absurd—how could he not even remember what mattered most?
"Yahiko, what are you saying?!" Konan's voice broke with sobs as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. "Look at me! I'm Konan! Our dream is peace!"
"Peace…" Yahiko repeated the word. "Then why is my head… full of the sea… and Devil Fruits?"
The pain surged again. He couldn't hold it back and let out a roar.
Konan watched him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She could feel it—Yahiko was slipping farther and farther away from her.
The chaos spread among the heroic spirits faster than any plague.
Rin also started showing abnormalities.
She stood there dazed, muttering nonstop—but not medical ninjutsu terms. Instead, it was things like "kagune" and "ghoul."
Her chakra began to spiral out of control as well.
More and more heroic spirits displayed the same symptoms.
Their memories were being tampered with; their past obsessions were being twisted. If they ever woke up clear-headed, they'd probably be horrified at how they had acted.
These heroic spirits were Shinju's most solid backbone—his very foundation of power.
The order he had painstakingly built and maintained was steadily sliding toward total loss of control.
Crisis after crisis—he still hadn't resolved the issue with the Shinigami, and now his own heroic spirits were breaking down.
And while Shinju was still thinking of a countermeasure—
Kakashi narrowly dodged another unconscious slash from Sakumo. The White Fang short blade's edge almost skimmed his throat.
He didn't dare strike back, and could only stumble through desperate evasions.
Konan held the groaning, trembling Yahiko, calling his name again and again, but Yahiko's consciousness only grew hazier.
His mouth kept repeating words like "rubber" and "Haki."
The entire hall descended into bedlam.
Chakra fluctuations surged one after another. The heroic spirits' powers began clashing, and violent energy currents rampaged through the space.
Shinju stood at the center of the chaos.
He watched Kakashi's constant close calls, watched Konan's grief, watched every heroic spirit he had personally resurrected—each one teetering on the edge of self-destruction.
A chill rose from the bottom of his heart.
So the World Law Virus really was something else.
He had underestimated its terror.
It didn't just corrode the system—it was now directly "infecting" these heroic spirits, who existed through spirit and obsession.
The purer the will, the more concentrated the obsession, the more devastating the impact.
Sakumo's fixation on missions. Yahiko's craving for peace.
The very things most precious to them had become their deadliest weakness.
The virus was exploiting their obsessions, forcibly grafting "mission fragments" from other worlds into their memories.
It had to be stopped.
If this continued, they would completely lose themselves—becoming monsters that only knew how to execute chaotic, conflicting directives.
Worse still, the memory conflicts and power instability could ultimately cause their souls to collapse entirely.
He couldn't allow that.
Shinju's eyes sharpened.
To save them, he would have to use the most extreme method.
He raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and aimed his palm at every infected heroic spirit in the hall.
Kakashi noticed the movement and looked at him, questioning.
Konan lifted tear-filled eyes as well, staring at him in confusion.
Shinju didn't explain.
"In my name,"
Golden runes manifested out of thin air in his palm, rapidly spreading through the air and weaving into ten massive networks. Every cluster of runes carried powerful sealing force.
"Fuin (Sealing)!"
The instant the words fell, the golden networks snapped tight—turning into countless chains of light that shot toward every infected heroic spirit.
(End of Chapter)
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