Seals

Clac.

Chains made of yellow chakra came out of the seal with a dry snap, and rose like spiraling snakes, trapping the air around them, until the space in the center of the room seemed distorted.

The air became denser. Heavier. An aura of confinement took over everything.

Takeshi then undid the seal with a snap of his fingers, releasing the trapped energy.

Looking at Riki he said. — Now... it's your turn.

Riki approached, breathing deeply. Sweat was already beginning to appear on the back of his neck, not from the heat, but from the pressure that the seal emitted even when deactivated. He picked up the brush with his right hand and touched the tip to the ink, his eyes searching each line of the parchment as if searching for secrets among the strokes.

He began the drawing. First spiral: firm; Second: irregular;

On the third stroke, a slight tremor in his hand made the line go over the limit, the ink running out of the diagram.

"Stop," Takeshi ordered. "You're accumulating too much chakra in your fingers, control your breathing, the ink responds to what you feel."

Riki closed his eyes and started again.

The central spiral was firmer, two layers, three, four…

But on the seventh, the stroke became irregular, and an inner rune was misaligned.

ZUUUMM

A crack echoed through the room, sparks of chakra exploded from the incomplete seal, a sudden pressure pushed Riki backwards, he fell sitting down, panting. The tips of his fingers throbbed, and his eyes began to burn.

"That was…" he murmured, trying to get up.

"A partial rejection," Takeshi replied. "The seal tried to activate even though it was incomplete, if it were a spiritual sealing seal, you would have burned part of the chakra system in your arm."

"Now try again."

The boy gritted his teeth and knelt down once more...

Third attempt...

Now, he drew in silence, using rhythmic breathing, and remembering the spiral meditation, the way the flow of chakra was divided into concentric rings.

But as he finished the diagram, he forgot an anchoring rune, and when he channeled the chakra, the seal collapsed.

CRACK!

The sound was sharp, like glass breaking.

Riki fell to the side, his hands shaking and a metallic taste in his mouth, a trickle of blood running from his nose, his head throbbing and it wasn't just the pain, it was mental fatigue, it was as if his mind was being pulled out and forced back in with violence.

"Every mistake takes its toll," Takeshi said, approaching with a cloth to wipe away the blood.

Riki grabbed the old man's wrist, refusing his help, staggering to his feet, his knees weak, but his eyes... his eyes shone with determination. Almost anger.

"Again."

Takeshi just crossed his arms and nodded.

"That's what I wanted to see."

Fourth attempt.

The brush moved cautiously now, each stroke following the muscle memory newly created by the mistake, the ink seeming to obey more, as if his mind was beginning to understand the language of the seal, and not just copy it.

One spiral.

Two.

The anchoring rune was written correctly.

The outer lines vibrated.

He channeled chakra, more slowly.

The seal glowed... and the chains began to form, but they trembled and crumbled.

"More chakra in the balance rune!" Takeshi shouted.

Riki reacted too late.

The chains collapsed, and a wave of return hit him like an invisible punch. He was thrown backwards and slammed into one of the columns. He coughed up blood and fell to his knees. His chakra was in tatters. "You almost made it, the mistake was minor." Takeshi approached, now with a serious expression. "But minor would also be the margin between sealing a bijū... or unleashing it upon your people." Silence reigned for a moment. Riki spat on the ground, the chakra around his body trembling as if every cell screamed for rest. But he stood up again, shaking like a leaf. "One last time," he muttered hoarsely. Takeshi remained still, but inside he felt a growing respect, there was something in the boy's perseverance that went beyond mere discipline. It was ambition, and it was a fierce desire for success. Riki sat down. With his brush in hand, the silence was absolute and shrill, and then he drew.

The training lab had emptied, leaving behind only the muffled silence of the basement, the heat of the chakra still vibrating in the walls, but Riki remained seated before the failed seal, his body hunched over and his fists clenched on his knees, his forehead dripping with sweat, the muscles in his arms and shoulders trembling discreetly.

The feeling was similar to having fought for hours, and he knew that feeling, the exhaustion that came from manipulating advanced seals was different: not just physical, but deeply mental, as if each failed attempt drained something more than chakra, drained his very willpower.

Takeshi sighed and approached with the calmness that characterized him, lightly touching Riki's shoulder.

— That's enough for today, young master. Tomorrow… We'll try again.

Riki didn't answer.

He just nodded, getting up with effort, his legs were stiff, his eyes were burning, and there was still a slight buzzing sensation in his hearing, as if the seal had interfered with something other than his chakra, his flow of thought.

The path home was always the same: spiral staircases leading to the ground floor, wide corridors of dark stone, molded into the very rock of the valley.

The torches illuminated the path with an amber light, casting long shadows on the walls. Riki walked slowly, his step dragging, while he felt the palms of his hands throbbing, the residue of the malformed seal still vibrating in his tenketsus.

"Why didn't it work?" he thought. "The structure was right. The mudras were clear. The flow was controlled. And yet..."

The scene repeated itself in his mind: the seal forming, the concentric circles shimmering... and then the collapse.

A sudden rupture, an explosion of scattered energy.

It was like trying to assemble a complex mechanism with millimeter-sized parts, only to discover in the end that one gear had been misaligned from the beginning.

"I can't afford to fail like this. Not here. Not with everyone."