Chapter Text
The night the Ichibi was sealed into Rasa's unborn son, the moon was full in the sky. It bathed the sands of Suna in a cool light. There were no need for torches or candles when the moon shone almost as strong as the sun on a cloudy day. Sands swirled and eddied from the cool night winds.
Most of Sand was sleeping or quiet, but Suna's seal-masters have a job to do before they can rest.
Suna's three seal masters huddled on the outcropping of a rocky hill outside the city limits while Rasa and his heavily pregnant wife stood at the foot.
After the seal-masters paint out the Jinchūriki seal, Rasa's wife will stand in the center to have her unborn son sealed. Everything goes right, and they'll all be in their beds before the moon is at its zenith.
Chiyo grumbled about the cold in her old bones while her brother shifted from foot to foot, eager to get this over with. Unlike with Konoha, the transfer of the Jinchūriki has always been a boring affair.
"Aren't you nervous?" Chiyako, Chiyo's apprentice Chiyako. He fidgeted nervously with his long sleeves. "If we do this wrong, the one-tail will decimate the city…"
"Sure, it's like defusing a bomb," Chiyo's brother, Ebizō, muttered aloud, "But you either do it right or it's not your problem any more. No excitement anymore since the Second War ended."
"Quit your whining and circulate your chakra. We'll be done soon," Chiyo sniped at her brother. She briskly pointed to her apprentice, the third seal master on the cliff.
"Grab the brushes, Chiyiro. We'll start now."
Chiyako hurried over to the heavy bags he had had to haul up the cliff an hour prior. "Still not my name," he muttered, the old song and dance of master and apprentice playing out for the thousandth time. He quickly unpacked the massive quantity of brushes, ink, and paperweights. Given that all the sealing material was incredibly chakra heavy materials, storage seals wouldn't have been a good idea. With a heave and a grunt, Chiyako hauled a massive cloth banner out of the bottom of the bag.
The three seal-masters each took a corner and methodically unfurled the massive length of charka cloth. The navy banner spanned three meters in both direction as it unfolded.
The ancient ink carved out bold spirals and eerie mandalas as it was lit by the moon. The musty fabric so casually laid out like a picnic blanket contained the original seal Monk Jincharo used to seal the Ichibi into a teapot. Unlike Whirlpool, Suna believed in the principle of waste not, want not. The same seal has worked for the past three generations of Jinchūriki. Why should this one be any different?
While pining down the old broad cloth with the massive paper weights, Chiyako complained, "Why did I have to haul these massive stones all the way up here anyway? Couldn't I have used a storage scroll?"
His master's brother chuckled, "Bold words from someone who blew up his mastery project last week and had to try again. Think of it as a punishment for your mistakes." Ebizō pulled out the chakra conductive paper for the new seal. The new Jinchūriki seal would be overlaid and directly traced from the original seal.
Chiyo cackled. "At this rate, you're never going to move on from journeyman. All you'll be good for is copying down old seals like this one!"
Chiyako flushed bright red under the moon's silver glow, but stayed silent as he moved into position at one edge of the cloth. Ebizō unfurled the new seal paper and laid it on top of the old seal cloth. Chiyo picked up her sealing brushes with charka-laced puppet strings.
At some unspoken signal, all three fūinjutsu users pick up a brush and began copying.
For the next few hours, the three seal masters labored over the seal on the outskirts of the city.
Chiyako wiped sweat from his forehead. The spirals near the edge had been easy enough to trace as he sat on the side, hovering his torso just above the seal, but now came the hard part.
One of the hazards of creating a seal with multiple seal masters: no one except the new Jinchūriki could touch the seal paper once the process began. For his next section, Chiyako would have to use chakra stings to puppet his brush from a distance as he copied the center of the seal.
As he started the most difficult section, he began to recognized some of the components of the seal. That one's for strength, and that mark is for control. But as he got further into the copy's center, he couldn't tell what the new pieces he was copying meant. That spiral is for chakra, or maybe soul? Uh.. probably nature chakra. To power the seal, maybe?
Chiyako cursed in his head, lamenting again that his shishou was withholding the village's only scrolls on other forms of sealing until she was satisfied with her skills.
Sure would be useful to actually know what I was writing. He griped, wiping his forehead again. Even in the dead of night, Suna was still sweltering. He couldn't allow a single drop of water to hit the chakra-conductive paper. Any mistake would be disastrous.
He risked a glance to the side. His shishou was deadly focused on her side of the seal. Chiyo was conducting six brushes at once with her chakra strings, each string carefully conducted by the maestro herself. She's doing…the cage part? Reinforcing it with a mental barrier and such. Her puppet master brother, ever the sibling rival, was conducting eight chakra strings simultaneously as he worked on the gate that allowed a Jinchūriki to access the One Tail's chakra.
Which mean I'm probably working on…the sealing of the creature? Chiyako carefully guided his single chakra string at the center of the seal. He held his breath as his brush lightly danced across the seal,carving out the same path that laid on the cloth beneath the paper. While I might know the what I'm doing, I still don't know the how. I wish I knew what I was copying down.
Chiyako recalled his brush above the canvas. He need to take a breather and re-ink his brush before he completes the final step of his segment of the seal.
In the dead center of the seal, the word Shukaku was spelled in delicate, ornate print. Just looking at all the details made his head swim. Chiyako would have to copy down every one of the those details without flaws for the seal to work. One mistake, and the seal would blow up, become inert, or do something completely unexpected. What did the final term mean? Chiyako didn't have a clue.
But the moon was setting and his master approaching the end of her self-assigned segment, so he really had to get on it. Chiyako knelt back on the sand and lifted his brush with his chakra string.
No mistakes. No mistakes. No mistakes. He chanted in his head, over and over again.
No mistakes. No mistakes. He carved out the S and the H on the left side of the seal's center circle. No mistakes. Painstakingly, he moved his brush over the right and carved out the A, K, and U. The center of the term had to be completed very last.
No mistakes. No mistakes. He moved his brush back to the left of the term. He briefly closed his eyes in concentration. No mistakes. Unseen by him, a blot of ink fell from his bush as he moved it right-to left. A smear of ink fell from one side of the top of the U to the other, rounding the shape into an O. No one notices.
No mistakes. No mistakes. No mistakes. Chiyako chanted in his head, over and over again. He moved his brush to begin the U on the left. The brush skated downwards as-
"Boy, you done yet?" Chiyo shouted, breaking him out of his concentrative trance. "I'll be dead and bones by the time your done, lazy."
Her brother chortled in agreement. "You're a shinobi, not a monk! Don't worry so much. The seal's never been broken before. Even you're sausage fingers can't mess it up."
Trance broken, Chiyako lifted his brush off the paper again, accidentally flicking a tiny spot of ink above the first half the the U. He turned his head and scowls as the two seal masters.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Make fun of your poor apprentice. The only person who can bear to stand you."
He closed his eyes to spite them and quickly and carefully drew out the K, no mistakes, being careful to draw it out exactly as he remembered it. The seal was now completed.
With a huge sigh, he retracted his brush and opened his eyes.
"There. Happy now? It's done."
Chiyo snarled, "Don't take that tone with me Chiyiro." She swats him on the head as he walks away from the seal. "Go fetch the Kage."
"Not my name," he mutters as he jogs off, beige haori fluttering in the wind. The seal lies stark in the moonlight behind him as he runs off.
A single name carved out in the center of the Jinchūriki seal:
Shikako.