In the Shikkotsu Forest, a Katsuyu roughly the size of a train car lay plump and thick on the ground.
Haseo and Uzumaki Shikou stood beside it. Haseo reached out, gently brushing his hand against Katsuyu's skin. Under his touch, the surface rippled, then slowly spat out a rugged stone coffin.
Once the coffin was fully exposed, Haseo opened it, revealing the Reincarnated Being inside… Compared to ordinary living or deceased individuals, Reincarnated Beings always bore eerie black markings across their bodies, as if this form had been hastily stitched together. In a way, that's exactly what they were—bodies pieced together from scraps.
Then, Haseo reached behind into his Ninja Tool Pouch and pulled out a scroll. He unfolded it and laid it over the being's face.
"Forgive me for this."
This scroll bore the Third Hokage's Impure World Reincarnation Technique—it acted like a "key," granting non-casters limited authority to manipulate Reincarnated Beings.
"We can begin now, Shikou."
As he spoke, Haseo stepped aside from one side of the coffin, gesturing for Uzumaki to step forward.
"Yes, Master Haseo."
Uzumaki Shikou approached the coffin. She rolled up her sleeves, baring her pale, slender arms, and began reapplying the Four Symbols Seal onto the Reincarnated Being—this time to re-seal the Nine-Tails once more.
Actually, what Haseo needed her to do was upgrade the Four Symbols Seal into the Eight Trigrams Seal.
Though transforming one seal into another wasn't typically straightforward, in this case, it proved surprisingly easy… For Uzumaki Shinobi who could use the Four Symbols Seal, the Eight Trigrams Seal also came naturally. After all, these two techniques were fundamentally connected.
To put it plainly, the Eight Trigrams Seal is essentially made by stacking two Four Symbols Seals together—it was a "double lock."
Besides being more secure, the design concept of the Eight Trigrams Seal differed from the Four Symbols Seal in another important way—it was intentionally designed with gaps for external communication… The tailed beast's chakra could leak through the gaps between the two stacked Four Symbols Seals.
This ensured that while the tailed beast remained securely imprisoned, its chakra could simultaneously allow the jinchuriki to gradually adapt to and eventually control and utilize its power—a disturbing ingenuity in human cruelty toward Tailed Beasts. They not only sought to neutralize the threat but even attempted to exploit its benefits.
Haseo aimed to make use of the otherwise idle Nine-Tails' chakra, so he chose to implement this method, allowing the Nine-Tails' chakra within the seal to naturally leak outward.
The original seal on the Reincarnated Being had already been set by the Uzumaki clan. With the authorization granted by the Third Hokage's technique, Shikou naturally had no trouble operating it.
But to guard against the Nine-Tails breaking through the seal, Shikou's movements remained exceptionally cautious. In the humid heat of the Shikkotsu Forest, sweat soon dampened the long red hair on her forehead, sticking it to her cheeks.
Firstly, she placed another Four Symbols Seal around the existing one as an outer defense. Then, using a sealing key, she opened a small gap within the inner Four Symbols Seal just large enough for the Nine-Tails' chakra to flow out. Since reincarnated beings were not true Jinchuriki—they were already undead bodies—there was no concern about too much Nine-Tails chakra dispersing and possibly causing its rampage or mental confusion.
Nor was there any need to worry about damage or erosion caused by the Nine-Tails' chakra on their physical forms... What harm could possibly affect an Impure World Reincarnation?
In fact, Haseo's requirement was simply to ensure the Nine-Tails could not escape. As long as that condition was met, the opening in the seal could be as large as needed.
Modifying such a seal took roughly two hours altogether, and during the process, Shikou exhausted herself as thoroughly as if she had been the lead surgeon in a complex operation.
Haseo handed her a towel. Shikou let out a long sigh, took the towel, wiped her face, then stepped back a few paces and sat down on a tree stump to rest.
"Lord Haseo, when setting up the second Four Symbols Seal, I used the reincarnated being's chakra rather than my own, so there's no concern about weakening or loosening over time."
Haseo nodded. When dealing with the Nine-Tails, such caution was reasonable, since nobody knew exactly how long the beast would remain sealed within the reincarnated body. Therefore, the "shelf life" should be considered when designing the seal.
After resting for a while, Shikou felt her strength return sufficiently, so she began working again on the second individual.
Altogether, it took four full days before Shikou completed redesigning and reinstalling all seven seals.
By now, the seven stone coffins had been resealed and spaced two meters apart, neatly arranged in a row.
However, they weren't simply placed on the ground—they were set atop an exceptionally large scroll resembling a giant carpet.
This was the penultimate step. Carefully and methodically, Shikou drew special techniques onto each coffin and the underlying paper, round after round. Eventually, each technique extended a line that converged at a single point like blood vessels leading into a heart.
Due to the utmost secrecy surrounding this mission, all the work here had to be done solely by Shikou. These intricate seals and chakra-guiding techniques drained vast amounts of her energy, and it was clear that she had grown noticeably thinner in recent days.
Haseo couldn't really help with any of this; he simply stood by like a strict overseer watching idly... Fortunately, he at least understood his role well enough to play the part of the courteous assistant, dutifully serving tea and water—better than just standing around offering useless critiques, anyway.
After gathering the chakra from the seven sources, Katsuyu squirmed forward and slowly swallowed both the stone coffin and the intact technique beneath it as a whole.
Next came the final step—"encapsulation." Shikou needed to inscribe another technique onto Katsuyu's body so it could temporarily store the Nine-Tails' chakra instead of letting it dissipate randomly. Fortunately, this technique already existed. She could simply replicate it directly from the Katsuyu currently residing at the Kagenami Underground Base—the one that stored the Two-Tails' chakra.
Once this last step was completed, dusk had once again fallen.
The mission was finally over, and Uzumaki Shikou let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her body swayed unsteadily—she nearly collapsed from exhaustion—but Haseo quickly reached out and caught her shoulder just in time.
Entrusting such a complex, systematic task entirely to one person—even though Shikou was a gifted Uzumaki shinobi, she wasn't Mito Uzumaki—Haseo realized he had been rather inconsiderate in hindsight.
"I'm fine, Lord Haseo," Uzumaki Shikou shook her head, struggling to stay conscious. "Now we must check whether the technique works properly."
"Mm."
Haseo supported Shikou as they stepped backward a distance. Then, Shikou formed hand seals. As soon as she finished, the seal patterns on Katsuyu flared up with chakra brimming with explosive energy before dimming and growing quiet again.
Yet Katsuyu had already transformed dramatically—it no longer resembled just a slug at all. Instead, it felt like the beating heart of some primordial beast—vast energy pulsing rhythmically, breathing like ancient power reborn.
This…
was unmistakably the Nine-Tails' presence.
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