The Healing Room was quiet, save for the faint green hum of Daetsu's medical jutsu.
The old priest ran his glowing hands over Rion's forearm. "Remarkable," he muttered, the lines on his forehead deepening. "Truly remarkable."
It had been only three days since the hunt in the Hollow Gorge. A break like this—where the bone had snapped from the recoil of Rion's own chakra—should have taken six weeks to knit.
Daetsu pulled his hands away and unraveled the bandages.
The skin beneath was pink and fresh. There was a scar—a jagged white line—but the bone underneath was whole. Solid.
"It feels... itchy," Rion said, flexing his fingers. He rotated his wrist. There was no pain, only a stiff tightness, like a bowstring pulled taut.
"It is the Uzumaki blood," Daetsu said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "We call it the Sage's Vitality. Your body does not just repair itself; it rebuilds. It remembers the stress that broke it, and it reinforces the bone so it won't break the same way twice."
Rion looked at his hand. He could feel the Cold Snake in his gut—his dense, heavy chakra—purring. It had fed his cells, accelerating the healing process with unnatural speed. It was restless. It wanted him back on his feet. It wanted to hunt again.
"I'm ready," Rion said, sliding off the cot. "I can train."
Daetsu sighed, leaning heavily on his cane. "You are healed, yes. But you are dangerous, Rion. To yourself, and to anything fragile around you."
He gestured for Rion to follow him.
They descended into the small armory beneath the shrine. Daetsu opened a heavy wooden chest. Inside lay four bands of dark, dull iron, etched with suppression runes.
"What are these?" Rion asked.
"Restraints," Daetsu said. "Made of chakra-conducting iron. Your father used them. Your problem, Rion, is that you are a flood trying to flow through a reed. You strike with the force of a falling boulder, but your bones are still twigs. Until your vessel catches up to the storm inside you, you must be contained."
Rion picked one up. It was shockingly heavy, dragging his arm down immediately.
"Forty pounds total," Daetsu said. "And the runes will actively resist your chakra flow. Wearing these is like trying to run while submerged in mud."
Rion clasped the metal bands around his wrists and ankles. Click. Click.
Immediately, the world felt heavier. The Cold Snake hissed in annoyance, suppressed by the iron. Rion took a step and the floorboards creaked under the unnatural weight. He had to force his muscles to compensate just to stand straight.
He looked up at Daetsu, a fire lighting in his crimson eyes. "Good."
While Rion dragged his weighted body through the snow, Reiko found her battlefield in the dust of the Archives.
She sat surrounded by piles of parchment, the smell of old ink filling her nose. Since the boar hunt, something had shifted in her. She had saved Rion with a basic paralysis seal, but it had barely held for ten seconds.
She watched Rion from the window. He was doing one-armed pushups in the snow, wearing the iron weights. Every time he pushed up, the snow around him was blasted away by the sheer pressure of his exhale.
He's a monster, Reiko thought, not with malice, but with a cold, terrifying clarity. He's seven years old and he's stronger than the bears on the mountain. If he ever lost control… if he ever turned that power on me…
She looked at her own hands. They were calloused, but slender. She didn't have the Cold Snake. She didn't have the Sage's Vitality. If Rion hit her—really hit her—she wouldn't just break. She would be erased.
She pulled a scroll titled "Fundamentals of Barrier Logic."
It was complex—equations of chakra ratios, geometric anchors, and spiritual frequencies. To most children, it would be gibberish. To Reiko, it looked like a lifeline.
"The Uzumaki weren't just warriors," she whispered to herself, reading the faded text. "We were the jailers of the world."
She dipped her brush in ink. She couldn't match his strength. She could never overpower the storm. So she had to do something else.
She had to learn how to bottle it.
(Three Months Later)
Winter hit the mountain hard. Snow buried the courtyard in three feet of powder, but the training didn't stop.
The passage of time had made the gap between the siblings undeniably clear.
Rion, now wearing the weights for three months, had become a force of nature. The iron bands had become a part of him. He moved through the deep snow without slowing down, his body adapting to the crushing load.
One afternoon, Reiko watched him move a fallen stone pillar out of the training circle. It must have weighed three hundred pounds. Rion didn't roll it. He gripped it with his bare hands, gritted his teeth, and lifted it. He tossed it aside like it was a sack of grain. The ground shook when it landed.
Reiko swallowed hard. She had learned three new barrier seals this month. She felt proud. But watching Rion toss a stone pillar, her pride felt very small.
"Ready?" Rion asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
He stood in the center of the snowy courtyard. He wasn't wearing a coat, just his training gi. The iron weights on his wrists were frosted over.
Reiko stood ten paces away, holding a wooden staff. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Every spar felt less like practice and more like survival.
"Don't hold back," she lied.
Rion moved.
Even with forty pounds of iron dragging at his limbs and suppressing his chakra, he blurred. He closed the distance in a single exhale, kicking up a spray of snow that blinded her for a fraction of a second.
Reiko reacted on instinct. She slammed the butt of her staff into the snow.
"Earth Shield!"
A pre-placed tag on the ground flared. A slab of frozen earth, thick as a door, shot up between them.
Rion didn't stop. He didn't even slow down.
He threw a punch.
BOOM.
It wasn't a contest. Rion's fist pulverized the earth slab instantly. It didn't just break; it exploded into dust and gravel. The shockwave of the impact hit Reiko like a physical wall, throwing her backward before he even touched her.
She rolled in the snow, gasping. He smashed through it like it was paper.
She scrambled up, tossing three kunai.
Rion didn't dodge. He swatted them out of the air with the back of his hand. The iron weight on his wrist clanged against the steel knives, shattering one of them on impact.
He was on her again.
Reiko swung her staff, aiming for his legs. Rion caught the wood mid-swing. His grip was absolute. He didn't yank it; he just held it still. Reiko pulled with all her strength, but the staff—and Rion—didn't move a millimeter.
Rion looked at her. His crimson eyes were calm, almost bored.
"Let go," he said.
He twisted his wrist. The hardwood staff snapped in half like a twig.
Reiko abandoned the weapon and leaped back, desperation clawing at her throat. He was too strong. Traps, barriers, weapons—nothing worked. He was a walking avalanche.
Rion dropped the broken wood. He raised his hand. "Checkmate."
He lunged.
It was a simple palm strike aimed at her chest. He was holding back—she could tell he was using maybe a fraction of his true speed—but the pressure coming off him was suffocating. If that hand connected, even lightly, it would knock the wind out of her for an hour.
I can't stop him, Reiko realized, panic spiking into terror. I can never stop him.
Her barriers were glass. Her strength was nothing.
I need something stronger. Something absolute.
Deep inside her, beneath the fear, the ancient blood of the Uzumaki clan stirred. It responded to her desperation. It responded to the need to contain the uncontainable.
BIND HIM!
Her spirit screamed the command.
CRACK.
From Reiko's back, right between her shoulder blades, the air distorted.
It wasn't a tag. It wasn't a barrier.
It was a chain.
A single, translucent golden chain, thick as a rope and glowing with adamantine light, shot out of her spine. It moved faster than thought, faster than Rion.
Before Rion's palm could touch her vest, the chain whipped around his torso.
CLANG.
The sound was profound—like a heavy temple bell being struck by a god.
Rion's momentum died instantly. The chain tightened, binding his arms to his sides.
Rion grunted, his eyes widening. He flexed, trying to break it. He pushed the Cold Snake into his muscles, the same power that had shattered the earth wall.
The chain didn't budge.
It squeezed tighter. The golden light burned against his heavy chakra, suppressing it, suffocating it. For the first time in his life, Rion felt completely, utterly helpless. He was a Titan wrapped in unbreakable thread.
They stood there frozen in the snow. Rion, wrapped in golden light, straining with veins popping in his neck but unable to move an inch. Reiko, panting, her back arched, the chain extending from her body to his.
Daetsu, who had been watching from the porch with a cup of tea, dropped his cup.
It shattered on the wood.
"The Adamantine Sealing Chains," Daetsu whispered, his voice trembling with awe. "The supreme bloodline... she has awakened it."
Reiko's knees buckled from the strain. The chain flickered, then shattered into golden sparks.
Rion fell forward into the snow, gasping as the pressure released. Reiko collapsed backward, completely drained, staring up at the gray sky.
Rion rolled onto his back, his chest heaving. He rubbed his ribs where the chain had squeezed him. He looked at his hands—hands that could crush stone—and then at his sister, who looked like a strong wind could blow her away.
And yet, she had stopped him cold.
"Well," Rion wheezed, a bruised grin spreading across his face. "I guess you found a way to catch up."
Reiko laughed weakly, tears of relief pricking her eyes. "I guess I did."
The Sword had become unstoppable. But finally, the Sheath had been forged.