Chương 343: CH_9.28 (343)

As Takuma's trip to the prison labour camp at the Chibumi Copper Mines was confirmed, he was summoned to the ANBU headquarters for special preparations that all ANBU operatives were required to complete before their first outings. He was escorted to a medical ward deep within the headquarters, asked to clean himself with a bath, and given a hospital gown before being taken to a medical operating room. He observed the stark white, sterile surroundings lit with cold white light tinged a faint blue.

He had been in far colder environments, but the chill in the room seemed to stab his skin. Three people dressed in medical scrubs and covers over their shoes were preparing for the procedure around him as he sat in the middle of the room on the bare floor. He tried to ask them some questions, but they told him to wait for the two leads to arrive as they were assistants in a supporting role for the procedure.

They did, however, tell him that the procedure would be mostly painless even if the sharp needles of various sizes failed to inspire much confidence in their words. Five minutes later, two men and one woman walked into the room. The woman was wearing an owl-inspired ANBU mask, while the men were bare-faced. All of them were dressed in medical scrubs like the assistants. One of the men took the lead to introduce himself to Takuma.

"Good morning, Ratel. I am Scarab. I'm the fūin-nin who will be applying a death-seal on you today," said Scarab. Deep crow's feet grew beside his eyes as he smiled, giving him a friendly look. He had the leathery skin of a man who was outside a lot, which was surprising for a fūin-nin, who often stayed indoors for long hours to create seals.

"We, as a department, really should think of another name for that because death-seal sounds rather ominous," said Takuma. He didn't like the fact that something foreign, which he would rather not have at all, was going into his body, and that name wasn't making it any better.

"Perhaps we should." Scarab laughed before introducing the other man with male-pattern baldness, leaving him hair only the sides as Lacewing, the lead iryō-nin for the procedure.

"The process to apply a death-seal successfully is complex. I can't do it on my own. Everyone here will be working together to ensure it goes smoothly, safely, and successfully."

"What's the worst that can happen to me if something goes wrong?" asked Takuma. He probably shouldn't ask as that would only exacerbate his fears about the procedure, but he couldn't help but want to know.

"You shouldn't worry about that, Ratel. Lacewing and I have done this countless times, and we haven't failed yet. Rest assured, we will be triple-checking every step to prevent any and all faults. All we ask from you is to relax and leave the worrying to us," Scarab replied, skilfully avoiding giving a stress-inducing answer. Takuma nodded before looking at the owl-masked woman.

"What about you? What's your role?" he asked.

"She's here to keep an eye on everything and ensure the seal is applied properly," Scarab answered. The woman spoke.

"It's imperative that the death-seal is applied properly and that no modifications are made to the design as it goes on your body for your own safety. Given the death-seal's functionality and how intrusive it is, we don't want anyone to sneak in changes that could harm our operatives. I'm here to ensure you get the approved seal design and nothing else."

Takuma didn't show it, but the thought of someone in the room sabotaging the procedure by sneaking in a change did cross his mind, and it didn't bode well for his anxiety as he was going to spend the next couple of hours in their care.

"Let's get started," Scarab smiled. He was asked to lie down on the white floor of the dustless room. He was completely naked other than his privacy sock, and almost instantly, he could feel the eyes on his scarred body. Scarring was not strange for shinobi, but in his case, his body was too young to have the density he had. He expected questions, but it seemed everyone thought better than to ask except for one question from Lacewing,"Anything you want to tell us that's not in your medical records?"

He shook his head.

"Great. We will dull your pain, but you will be awake throughout the procedure. I hope you followed our instructions because you cannot move until the end." They had asked him to skip dinner the previous day and not eat anything leading to the procedure and drink water in moderation so nature wouldn't call during the procedure.

"What do you know about the death-seal, Ratel?" asked Scarab, making conversation as he took a brush and a special blend of chakra ink custom mixed for the procedure and began to draw on his chest, right over his heart. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"To destroy the body in case of death or capture," Takuma replied. The ANBU's death-seal was a fūinjutsu seal branded on all ANBU field operatives. It was standard policy that if an operative died on the field, the seal would burn their body to ash using chakra-fueled fire to protect the secrets in the operative's body and to ensure anything it contained couldn't be connected back to the village.

Secondly, in case the operatives were captured and foresaw torture, they were expected to kill themselves to protect any secrets. Scarab nodded.

"Thus, the name death-seal." The activity in the room began to jump up as the other two assistant fūin-nin started to draw seals on the floor around him. Lacewing knelt beside him, and his iryō-nin assistant sat behind with a tray of vials and syringes that seemed to be going into him.

"How does it work?" asked Takuma, diverting his attention from the strange liquids.

"Let's see. I can't explain everything because it would take me a while to tell you everything, and well, I can't tell you everything because the less information is out there, the less chances of something finding a way to break or misuse the seal," said Scarab as he continued to draw.

"The seal observes various signs of life in your body to determine if you're dead or alive. If it finds multiple of those signs missing—a very high number, mind you—it will trigger the chakra-fueled fire that would flood your body, eating you from inside and out."

"... I assume the seal will be using my chakra, right?"

"Yes."

"What if I cut off the chakra to the seal?"

"First, the seal maintains an artificial chakra storage. Of course, chakra can't be stored indefinitely, so it will replenish that storage overtime, so you can technically cut off chakra, but you'd need to do that for a week to drain the seal completely."

"I assume there's a catch to that."

"The seal will be grafted right into your chakra pathway system." Chakra was essentially life energy. A small amount flowed through all living beings at all times, even if they hadn't trained to actively mix chakra to use for jutsu, like in the case of shinobi. When that natural, ever-present chakra flow was cut, it led to a condition called 'chakra exhaustion', which caused the body's organs to shut down, leading to rapid death.

It could happen when someone exhausted their chakra reserves, but it also could be done willingly while making mistakes performing acts like chakra masking—which was the act of limiting the flow of chakra to hide one's presence from the special chakra senses of a sensory-nin. A shinobi could only limit their natural flow so much as approaching zero triggered a state identical to chakra exhaustion, leading to rapid death.

The chakra pathway network, which was present throughout the body, served the same function for chakra as blood vessels did for blood. By grafting the seal into the chakra pathway system, ANBU ensured that chakra would always flow through the seal unless someone cut the chakra flow through their body, resulting in death, which would trigger the chakra-fueled fire, burning the body to a crisp.

"What about the Hyūga?" asked Takuma, thinking about a scenario.

"Can't they use the Byakugan and their clan's taijutsu to block chakra flow by jamming tenketsu?" The Hyūga clan, with their Byakugan, could see the chakra pathway system and the needle-tip-sized tenketsu points on it. Tenketsu were nodes through which chakra could be released, and they controlled chakra flow like control valves.

The Hyuga's taijutsu allowed them to hit those tenketsu points to block the chakra flow, barring the target from releasing or moving chakra through their body, temporarily removing their ability to use jutsu. Scarab smiled.

"To arrive there so quickly; I'm impressed, Ratel. Unfortunately, Hyūga's Eight Trigram taijutsu doesn't block chakra flow completely. If they could do it, they would be the strongest clan in the world, able to kill people by blocking their tenketsu. Instead, they reduce the chakra flow to a point that's insufficient for even a D-rank jutsu. To everyone, it physically feels like their chakra has been sealed""...

I didn't know that," said Takuma as he gazed at Lacewing, who was preparing for some kind of procedure in the corner of his eye. He was also beginning to feel drowsy from whatever they had injected into him.

"And well, you don't need the Hyūga. A sufficiently skilled iryō-nin can completely block specific pathways," said Scarab as he continued to cover his body in script.

"To combat that, the seal will connect to all the pathways that go through your arm. If you want to cut chakra to the seal, you will have to cut all the chakra to your arm—and if you do that, the arm will rot off your body long before the seal runs out of chakra."

"... Or you cut off your arm," said Takuma. He didn't feel like the drugs were putting him to sleep, but it made him so warm and comfortable that he didn't mind taking a nap.

"Correct."

"Isn't that a fault? What if an enemy chops my arm off?"

"We couldn't figure out anywhere else to put it without the seal interfering with smooth chakra flow that creates problems with using jutsu."

"What's the process of removal?"

"A short medical procedure will be done when you leave the ANBU," said Scarab before getting up to move and letting Lacewing take his place.

"Which arm do you want the death-seal on, Ratel?" asked Lacewing with his assistant carefully holding medical equipment for a precise and delicate surgery. Takuma felt as though he was floating on a cloud while lying on a cold, hard floor.

"Left," he answered.

"Will the seal be visible?"

"You can hide it at will." For the next two hours, the fūin-nin drew a complex fūinjutsu design on the floor. Two squares atop each other, offset by ninety degrees, inscribed in a larger circle. In the centre of it all was Takuma, covered in dozens of lines of symbols that continued on the floor and extended far out. The iryō-nin, on the other hand, had operated on Takuma's left delt in preparation for the seal to graft itself into his chakra pathway network.

And during all that time, the owl-masked woman triple-checked every inch of the fūinjutsu ink work. Scarab stepped around the ink on the floor until he was next to a semi-conscious Takuma.

"Should I proceed?" he asked the owl-masked woman for authorisation to bind the seal. The woman didn't answer. For a minute, she went through a checklist on her clipboard before nodding and giving him the go-ahead. Scarab knelt beside Takuma, took a deep breath, and gathered his chakra as he weaved hand seals before slowly touching the seal circle over Takuma's heart. A wave of power rippled through the room, and the symbols in the room began to glow until they were shaking.

He weaved another set of seals and pressed the seal circle over the left delt, and the glowing symbols began to enter Takuma's body. Almost immediately, Takuma seized up before his muscles began to spasm. His left delt steamed as a blood-red ANBU insignia of stylised flames was now etched into his body like a tattoo.

"Congratulations, Ratel. You're now approved for field deployment."