Kaida was tied to the bed like a patient from a mental hospital, while three people surrounded him. It resembled a se from some crazy stist anime.

  I, taking the lead, asked Kaida to activate the seal on his forehead. With just a thought, his whole body was covered by bck markings, ready to provide chakra to the healing seals in his body.

  "Kaida, you have to stay awake during this whole procedure, and just e for some time. I'm not giving you a pain suppressant because this is the first time such a procedure is being ducted on this seal, and the risk of adding aernal variable is too high. So, bear this pain with all your strength," Hiruzen said.

  Kaida just nodded because his mouth was already gagged with a cloth to prevent him from biting his tongue.

  Without waiting another sed, Hiruzen began removing the paths created by two fuinjutsu grandmasters, one by one. Not every path was removed, just the ones occupying too much space or those with only oination. Their main goal was to create paths that ected many healing seals, something utterly difficult but important. But for Kaida, nothing else mattered.

  What he felt when Hiruzen removed the seal AIN*, and not just any pain, but true pain. If the initial application of the seals had felt like someone scratg him from the ihis time, the scratg was twofold, and sometimes dowiove the path pletely. Hiruzen had to scratch a little deeper to remove the seal. What Jiraiya had said was true—the pain was much worse than what Kaida had felt before. Unknowingly, his Sharingan activated, aarted healing the pain inside his body, but Mitsuru stopped him, as it could have affected the procedure.

  “Don’t worry, I will heal it after every minute. Just eil then.”

  ‘One minute? I’ll die in the en seds! Stop this! I don’t want to upgrade my seal—stooopppp,’ Kaida was shouting in his mind, but no one could hear him. Or they chose not to. After all, someo the level of Jiraiya and Hiruzen could sense a person's iions just by looking at their face, even if they tried to hide it. Let alone Kaida, whose thoughts were as clear as day: I want to quit.

  The procedure tinued. After every minute, Hiruzen would stop, and Mitsuru would heal Kaida, while Jiraiya worked on maintaining the seal on Kaida’s head. For the hour, they slowly removed the seal and created paths for the new one.

  “Finally, the erasing part is done. Now we just o make the new one, which will be signifitly less painful,” Mitsuru said, her earlier cheerful personality go was hard to maintain that wheudent’s face was smeared with snot and tears. Kaida hadn’t cried st time because he’d somehow been able to ehe pain, but this time it was far beyond his limit.

  If Sharingan could evolve from pain, he would have achieved the eternal Mangekyo Sharingan by now. Mitsuru took out her handkerchief and slowly wiped Kaida’s face.

  Even though Mitsuru was trying to fort him, Kaida couldn’t hear her at all. His only focus was keeping himself awake because they were in the middle of a crucial part of the procedure. If somethi wrong now, not only would he lose the additional be from the seal, but even the previous one would be destroyed.

  Suffering all this pain aing nothing iurn? He would rather die. Hiruzen and Jiraiya smiled, seeing the burning resolve in Kaida’s eyes.

  Both of them were more than capable of managing the situation even if Kaida fainted. Heck, even a painkiller wouldn’t have affected someo Hiruzen’s level. So why didn’t they give Kaida painkillers? Because that’s how the world works—you don’t get everything you want just by asking. You must have the guts to hahe sequences of your request. Jiraiya and Hiruzen had worked on a single seal for a week, and this was the first time something like this had happened in a decade.

  To get the be of their hard work for free? Kaida wasn’t that lucky. This was a test of sorts for Kaida. He ruly wao back away from it. If he did, Jiraiya would have allowed him to quit before they even reached the Hokage building, and Kaida would never have this ce again in his life.

  Now, seeing the boy’s immense willpower, both Hiruzen and Jiraiya were satisfied that their work wasn’t in vain. And this wasirely wasteful for Kaida—having high pain tolerance was never a bad thing for a ninja.

  Jiraiya smiled and pced his hand on Kaida’s eyes, gently closing them. Kaida, who had been holding on to sciousness until now, couldn’t tinue any longer and finally let himself fall into a deep slumber.

  Jiraiya then blocked some of Kaida’s acupoints to prevent him from waking up during the procedure.

  “Let’s tinue, Sensei,” Jiraiya said.

  “Yes,” Hiruzen replied.

  Jiraiya now had to work extra hard to maintain trol over the seals and prevent them from going off, but he did it without any problems, while Hiruzeed better and more cise paths in Kaida’s seal, which he had erased.

  After pleting the mitotic regeion jutsu seals, Hiruzen started making new seals around Kaida’s hands, legs, back, torso—every part a ninja usually strengthens using chakra—and ected them to the already existing pathways of the mitotic regeion seal.

  Now, Kaida’s body had more bck markings than before, but unlike before, where the markings looked like straight lines drawn with a ruler, this time they were more refined and pleasing to the eye. Not because Hiruzen paid attention to aesthetics, but because the seal was now perfect. Except for the healing seals, everything else was on par or better than what Tsunade had, but those healing seals made Kaida’s version inferior to Tsunade’s.

  Why? Because those healing seals of Tsunade were made by Tsunade herself, the best mediinja in the world. How could they be on the same level as Mitsuru’s? Though talented, Mitsuru was not on Tsunade’s level, and even with the help of his Sharingan, Kaida’s healing was still a bit inferior to Tsunade’s. The bination of these faeant Kaida’s healing seals were not as strong as Tsunade’s.

  To pare, if someone bisected Tsunade, she could reattach herself, but Kaida? He would simply die. This difference was extreme but real.

  Whehing was pleted, Hiruzen turo Jiraiya. “I’m going home. You stay here or let an Anbu guard him,” Hiruzen said, the.

  Mitsuru also followed behind him. This pce was off-limits to aher than the Hokage and Anbu captains. To stay here, one needed Hiruzen’s permission, and since Hiruzen had only given it to Jiraiya, Mitsuru quietly left the basement.

  “You’ve got quite the willpower, boy. Maybe taking you as my student won’t be such a bad thing,” Jiraiya said, sitting dowo Kaida, silently waiting for him to wake up.

  ...

  “Where am I?” Kaida said, waking from a deep slumber, only a b c him. ‘Being pletely naked is not a good feeling at all,’ he thought, remembering why he was here.

  “You’re finally awake. You’re more fragile than I thought, sleeping for ten hours just because of that much pain,” Jiraiya said.