The ground felt cold, so Haseo quickly stood up and slightly scratched his head in confusion.
Who am I? Where am I? What happened?
Well, maybe not quite that bad, but the massive changes happening to him definitely left Haseo feeling dazed.
"Haseo-sama, how do you feel?"
Uzumaki Shikou approached again, carrying Haseo's clothes, and handed them over to him.
Haseo simply threw his clothes over the other shoulder and lowered his gaze toward the Sealing Formula marked on his right shoulder—it was just a circle, extremely simple in design. Yet this seemingly basic circle sealed away everything about Haseo.
Additionally, there was something different at its center. Previously, it had shown traces of corrosion, but now those marks had contracted into a flame-like shape about the size of a thumb joint.
"You know what," Haseo said after staring at the Sealing Formula for a while, "I think these residual marks look kind of ominous. His Sealing Formula almost looked like the [Dark Circle], you know—the mark said to appear on those so-called [Undead] beings."
But for Uzumaki Shikou, such associations didn't matter. What concerned her most was whether this Sealing Formula could truly take effect.
"Haseo-sama, your subjective perception of the Sealing Formula's nature doesn't matter. The real question is whether it's actually working."
"It should be... working fine. Right now, I can't detect any chakra flowing within me at all, so in every sense of the word, I'm pretty anxious.
Tell me, do ninjas get addicted to chakra or something? Is that even a medical condition?"
That's what Haseo said.
Right now, he genuinely couldn't feel any chakra inside himself. While such a phenomenon indeed indicated the seal was functioning perfectly as designed... naturally, without chakra, a ninja would inevitably experience various discomforts.
Haseo felt no different from a civilian now—though this subconscious sense of powerlessness hadn't completely thrown him into panic, this state was still incredibly difficult to accept.
This absolute disconnection was precisely what set Haseo's Sealing Formula apart from the Yin Seal.
Whether ninjas suffer from chakra addiction was unclear, but currently, Haseo felt just like a veteran smoker three days into quitting, going through painful nicotine withdrawal.
As one of the designers of this seal, Shikou could imagine how Haseo felt now, but she remained indifferent to his complaining remarks.
"That just proves the seal is working perfectly. From now on, as long as the seal holds, any chakra generated within Haseo-sama's body will directly flow into this Sealing Formula. It's an odd method, sure, but as long as the seal holds, Haseo-sama won't suffer from that corruption ever again."
"That's true, but... I must admit I still feel some phantom pain. Looks like I'll need quite some time to adjust and adapt to this new condition of mine."
"Although Haseo no longer felt the pain of erosion in his limbs, he should have reached a sage-like state where 'there's no pain and life feels easy.' But in reality, it wasn't quite like that.
The truth was, this kind of painful sensation had lingered on him for too long. Even now, he still faintly felt the lingering pain... So this residual pain was purely psychological—a phantom pain—but actually quite normal.
After all, something a person gets used to over time becomes a familiar presence, even if it's just pain. Weirdly enough, Haseo found himself kind of missing it, much like how he'd started missing his Chakra... Hmm, that might sound kinda messed up, but it was still perfectly normal.
"So next, Master Haseo, please try releasing the seal. If we can successfully release it and then reseal, that'll prove it works perfectly."
While Haseo was getting lost in these sentimental thoughts, Shikou was already rationally carrying out a technical acceptance inspection.
Though this current 'no Chakra' state made Haseo very close to an ordinary human, he definitely wasn't truly without Chakra. When designing the seal, Shikou naturally considered enabling Haseo to access his sealed Chakra through specific Hand Seals under this condition, thereby allowing rapid release of the seal.
Therefore, the key to breaking the seal didn't lie with Haseo himself performing the Hand Seals, but rather relied on the automatic release program embedded within the seal triggered by those specific Hand Seals.
Rat-Ox-Goat
Haseo formed the Hand Seals. Immediately, the circular ring on his shoulder seemed to break apart at one point, then one end turned inward, transforming the ring into spiral patterns. At the same time, special glyphs from the technique spread outward around these patterns—only now could people see clearly that this sealing jutsu indeed related to the Four Symbols Seal.
In an instant, both the Chakra flow and the painful sensation caused by the erosion returned to Haseo's body.
This feeling brought him comfort, yet did not captivate him.
Right after his Chakra returned, Haseo simply pricked his fingertip and performed [Summoning Technique], bringing forth Katsuyu onto his shoulder. Then immediately, he formed another set of Hand Seals, [Resealing] the technique once more. With such self-discipline, Haseo would definitely be the type who could successfully quit smoking.
The technique began to retract, ultimately becoming that ordinary-looking ring again.
This proved Haseo's Sealing Technique worked perfectly—not only temporarily solving his erosion problem, but also allowing him to instantly release the seal and regain his Chakra in case of emergencies... Although the presence of Katsuyu meant such 'emergency situations' were practically non-existent.
"Everyone, thank you very much for your efforts. Thanks to your sealing techniques, my physical issues have been resolved."
The Uzumaki clan members had worked extremely hard, so the seal had absolutely no problems. Therefore, Haseo expressed his sincere gratitude to all of you with solemnity and earnestness. Though more precisely speaking, his issue had only received temporary relief; for now, that was already sufficient.
Faced with such genuine appreciation, the Uzumakis seemed a bit embarrassed, with many instinctively turning their faces away.
The vibe was kind of weird. Did my overly polite tone make things feel distant...? Haseo was slightly puzzled by the way everyone was reacting.
"Haseo-sama..." Uzumaki Shikou's eyes shimmered, her cheeks slightly flushed. She leaned close to his ear and whispered softly, "You really should've said that after at least putting on some pants."
"Uh..."
Well, Haseo was probably a little pleased too—he'd forgotten he was still in his artfully-sacrificed state.
"Ha... Haha. No wonder there's such a breeze down there."
It wasn't because his gratitude had been too sincere that unsettled everyone. It was because the way he expressed his thanks had been overly dramatic while dressed so indecently. That mismatch between his tone and appearance made everyone uneasy.
Come on, how seriously are we supposed to take you when you're basically naked?
...
Once all the Uzumakis had left, Haseo dressed himself in under three seconds. Judging from this, he did care somewhat about his image.
And once he was completely alone, just like at the very beginning, Katsuyu, hidden on his body, began to slowly release chakra. Then, that chakra flowed into Haseo's meridians (energy pathways).
This time though, what Katsuyu delivered wasn't Haseo's own chakra, but rather Nine-Tails' chakra.
This power-filled energy instantly drove away Haseo's frailty.
See what I mean? He's back to being unstoppable again.
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