Chapter 187: Wishing You Blessings as Endless as the Eastern Sea
"You're asking me that directly, but I don't know either."
"By the way, don't you know yourself? Can't you tell what state you're in right now?"
Shiromo shot back with a question.
"If I can maintain this state regularly…"
Tsunade only said half the sentence, but the meaning was already crystal clear.
"I know you want to ask whether it's 'immortality.' Are those two words really that hard to say out loud? Or are you afraid that Orochimaru, who wants eternal life, will hear it and get jealous?"
"..."
Tsunade had become completely numb to Shiromo's bluntness.
He could talk about something like this so casually.
Come to think of it, didn't Shiromo himself have any thoughts about it?
After all, this power originated from him.
"Out of scientific rigor, my answer is still the same, I don't know."
Under Tsunade's anxious, hopeful gaze, Shiromo once again said those three words.
Tsunade immediately deflated.
"How can you not know anything?"
Not knowing, my ass!
"Because I'm not sure what the lifespan of a planet is, or whether it even has an upper limit."
Shiromo shrugged.
In his previous life, not to mention planets, even the universe was theorized to have a lifespan, existing for only about 33 billion years.
By strict standards, even if you could die together with the universe, that wouldn't be 'immortality.' At best, it would be 'as long-lived as the heavens.'
And if calculated by planetary lifespan, the sun in his old world still had over five billion years left, meaning Earth would last at most another five billion years too.
Of course, the fundamental laws of the ninja world were different, and no one had ever calculated this planet's lifespan.
Not to mention how extraordinarily special this world was, so special that even the God Tree couldn't drain it dry.
So it was impossible to say for sure.
That was why Shiromo answered with "I don't know."
Extremely rigorous.
"Then you mean?!"
Tsunade's eyes widened.
"That's right. Let me give you a congratulatory blessing, 'May your life be as enduring as the southern mountain's ancient pine, and your fortune flow endlessly like the Eastern Sea.'"
Shiromo smiled and clasped his hands.
"Uh… uh."
Tsunade looked a little awkward.
It sounded nice, but wasn't this something usually said at old men and old ladies' birthday banquets?
Wait.
Her awkward expression suddenly froze.
She remembered a word Shiromo had used before.
[傻福](Shǎ fú). (fool's luck')
Not the fool's luck' in 'fools have fool's luck'.
But the other, insulting meaning.
Just phrased more politely.
So here was the problem.
The '福' (Fu) in [傻福] actually meant that other word.
Which meant Shiromo's blessing just now..."福如東海長流水"(May your fortune flow endlessly like the Eastern Sea), instantly took on a completely different meaning!
Tsunade opened her mouth, then closed it again.
If she said it out loud and Shiromo flatly denied it, wouldn't that just expose that she herself had twisted it in her head?
Helpless, she could only swallow it back down.
"Forget it, forget it. Since you're already so skilled at controlling natural energy, after I rest a bit I'll enter that state again. You can experience it a few more times and see if you can master it yourself."
"I'll teach a few medical classes here over the next few days, and might as well treat it as a government-funded vacation."
Tsunade waved her hand, no longer dwelling on it.
"Then I'm really sorry, but you won't be able to vacation."
Shiromo pulled out a list from his clothes, flipped through it, and said, "There's a mission. You and Hikari have to come with me."
"?"
Tsunade pointed at herself in disbelief.
"You already dragged the Hokage here to teach in a village, that's ridiculous enough. Now you want me to help you run missions too?"
Tsunade was basically saying she didn't even do missions for her own village anymore.
"What's wrong with the Hokage? Didn't you see the Second Hokage working as a scientist in this lab, and the First Hokage sweeping the streets outside?"
"Huh?"
She could understand the first half, after all, she was literally in Orochimaru and Grandpa Tobirama's laboratory.
But what was that second half supposed to mean?
"This place is pretty peaceful, no bandits or thieves. Big Brother's strength has nowhere to be used, and as for brains… Well, he doesn't really have those."
"So he can't do anything important."
"But just sitting around makes him feel embarrassed, so he takes on small tasks ordinary ninja can do."
Senju Tobirama explained.
Although he'd been holed up in the lab these days, he still kept an eye on his brother Hashirama.
After returning from the Hidden Mist Village, Hashirama had nothing to do, so he started copying the future Seventh Hokage Uzumaki Naruto, sending out Wood Clones to snatch up genin-level jobs all day long.
And Hashirama didn't even take the pay.
After collecting the rewards, he handed everything over to the village treasury, kindly patting Kakuzu on the shoulder and telling him to build up the village and the country properly.
Kakuzu had been completely dumbfounded.
The First Hokage clearly hadn't recognized him.
And was even working under him doing missions.
Even though genin mission pay wasn't much.
"..."
Left with no choice, Tsunade gave in and glanced at what Shiromo was holding.
"Fine. What's the mission? Where are we going? What are we doing?"
"Let's go somewhere close first."
Shiromo walked over, pulled out a map, and pointed to a spot.
...
The Land of Demons.
"Uh, what do you mean by 'first' go somewhere close?"
Tsunade suddenly felt something was off.
She didn't really care about the destination itself.
She barely remembered that small country.
"It's nothing. That 'first' is something I said to myself. I didn't plan on having you follow me the whole time."
Shiromo casually patted the map and headed toward the door.
This time he brought Tsunade along mainly to make use of her newly gained ability, basically as a group-heal support.
Of course, not to heal him or Hikari.
Shiromo himself had Crazy Diamond for repairs, single-target healing was far easier than Tsunade's current life-bestowal that left her panting.
The Land of Demons lay beneath the Land of Earth and the Land of Snow, wedged between them, a small nation.
As for why Shiromo was going there,
Two days earlier, "Black Zetsu," who had just come back from watching a movie, brought him some news.
"Black Zetsu" said that the chakra from the Dragon Vein inside the Gedo Statue was still slightly insufficient to fully convert into Tailed Beast chakra, and that the conversion process also involved losses.
And within its thousand years of memory, it had found quite a few things that could serve as chakra sources.
If they gathered the chakra from those items, not only would it be enough, it would even leave a surplus.
That surplus chakra could be stored for other uses.
For "Black Zetsu" to say this meant it had completely accepted Shiromo's plan.
And since it said the Dragon Vein chakra was still lacking and specifically "just a bit," it definitely was just a bit.
The old Black Zetsu's memories truly contained all kinds of special things, including the Six Paths ninja tools, but those had once been useless to it.
Now, drawing from those memories, the current "Black Zetsu" has made a list.
One of the entries was Mōryō of the Land of Demons.
On the surface, it looked incredibly high-level, a tentacle monster sealed away for who knows how many years, casually threatening to destroy the world.
But when you really think about it, no matter how powerful Mōryō was, it still used chakra.
Which meant it couldn't have appeared more than a thousand years ago, it must have emerged some unknown time after Ōtsutsuki Kaguya descended.
And since it used chakra, that made it a perfect absorption target for Yachihoko.
(End of this chapter)