The case containing the Sword of the Thunder God sat on the table.
Amamiya Maki, Kushina Uzumaki, and Minato Namikaze sat around three sides of the low table.
The sealing talisman on the case glimmered pale blue beneath the fluorescent light.
Kushina held the case in her hands, turning it over and examining it for a long while.
Her fingers traced the edges of the sealing talisman. After feeling it over three times, she set the case down.
"Maki, we don't need to break this seal anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"The seal's about to fail on its own. Look at the lines of the outer chakra seal. They've faded until they're almost transparent. It won't hold much longer."
Maki picked up the case.
He suddenly remembered the Sword of the Thunder God's ultimate fate in the original story.
In the original timeline, this top-tier Ninja Tools had eventually fallen into the hands of a rogue ninja from Kirigakure.
That man had no understanding of the Thunder God Sword's value and simply used it as an ordinary chakra blade.
When Konoha ninjas later fought him, this legendary S-rank Ninja Tools had been cut apart as easily as scrap metal.
It wasn't that the rogue ninja was too weak. The sword itself had already been ruined.
Sealed away for years without maintenance, the seal on its blade had steadily weakened until it failed completely.
The lightning release chakra trapped within the seal had slowly dissipated until none remained.
In the end, the Sword of the Thunder God, once feared throughout the shinobi world, had become an ordinary strip of iron that couldn't conduct even a trace of chakra.
An S-rank Ninja Tools of such stature hadn't fallen on a brutal battlefield or met its end in a clash between powerful opponents.