Cold, unchanging white lamplight replaced the sunlight, enveloping this familiar laboratory world.
Takuno's figure stood solitary within it, surrounded by the faint hum of precision instruments.
He did not immediately set about erasing specific segments of memory; instead, he sank into deeper contemplation.
The Memory Sealing Jutsu—a technology he had mastered—was certainly powerful, capable of locking away a piece of the past deep within the consciousness like a shackle.
It did indeed touch the edges of the memory field, but Takuno was well aware of its limitations: it was like a heavy curtain that could only cover but never truly touch the essence of the content beneath or destroy it completely.
To "erase" those memory fragments that existed like malignant tumors without leaving a trace was not something a seal could achieve.
This required a more refined and profound operation.
Ultimately, his thoughts inevitably landed on the Spirit Transformation Technique (Reika no Jutsu).
This idea was not surfacing for the first time. Takuno had surmised more than once that the Spirit Transformation Technique was perhaps the ultimate form pursued by the Yamanaka clan's unpredictable secret arts.
How similar the two were in their essential efficacy; both were supreme methods acting directly upon the soul and spirit.
They both possessed the power to penetrate deep into the mind and manipulate consciousness.
Although this hypothesis remained unproven, at this moment, verification was not his goal.
He only needed to confirm one irrefutable fact: the Spirit Transformation Technique, like the Yamanaka secret arts, possessed the great power to precisely touch and manipulate mental memories—that was enough.
This led him to think of the Yamanaka clan leader, Yamanaka Inoichi.
This master was a top expert who used his secret arts to dive into the minds of others and search for key intelligence within the vast ocean of memory.
However, how vast and complex a field is memory?
It encompasses the entirety of a person's life imprints since the moment of birth.
Countless details have long since sunk into the trenches of the subconscious, blurred even to the owner of the memory, yet they exist truly and untruly.
Imagine how difficult and time-consuming the process would be to precisely find a specific fragment, like searching for a needle in an endless labyrinth of memory!
It could be said that when Inoichi performed a task, the vast majority of his energy and time was consumed by filtering and excluding those irrelevant torrents of memory.
But Takuno's situation was completely different.
What he had to deal with now was not someone else's unfamiliar territory, but a small restricted area within his own mind that was already sealed.
Those few segments of memory that needed erasing, though isolated by the technique, provided him—as the owner of the memory—with an advantage Inoichi could never reach.
He knew their exact "coordinates."
Since the most troublesome obstacle had been cleared, the remaining steps appeared clear and feasible.
The "scalpel" of the Spirit Transformation Technique was perfectly suited for the upcoming "excision" surgery.
A sliver of cold light flickered deep within Takuno's pitch-black eyes; it was the determination of logic overwhelming all distracting thoughts.
The plan was finalized; there was no need for further hesitation.
Then, let the experiment begin.
After all, even the most skilled doctor would not dare to perform such precise craniotomy on their own brain at the very start; one must first practice on a model.
He needed some "experimental materials" to verify the feasibility of this theory, ensuring everything was foolproof before finally swinging the scalpel toward his own long-buried memories.
A few days later.
The laboratory was filled with an indescribable oppression, a mix of the scent of blood and despair.
Takuno stared expressionlessly at the "subject" before him.
Just now, a burst of soul-tearing pain had caused this subject to let out a non-human, shrill howl, finally falling completely unconscious under the extreme torture.
Thick cold sweat soaked the subject's clothing, and the body continued to twitch in unconscious spasms.
This was not an isolated case.
The experiments of the past few days were like repeatedly testing the boundaries of hell.
Takuno used the Spirit Transformation Technique to forcibly invade the depths of the recipient's soul with only one purpose: to precisely and permanently gouge out a specific segment of memory.
However, the intensity of the pain brought by this seemingly invisible "surgery" far exceeded the limits the physical body could carry.
The fate of most subjects was already sealed: at the moment the technique was activated, the soul felt as if it had been thrown into a lava hell.
They usually only had time to let out one world-shaking scream before their eyes bulged, the whites instantly covered by dense, bursting blood vessels.
Subsequently, the flame of life would abruptly extinguish, leaving behind a distorted and rigid husk frozen by extreme agony.
Death became the most direct and cruel complication of the "surgery."
Takuno was not surprised by this.
Years ago, while studying the Death Curse Seal, he had already realized that pain too intense is lethal.
He reviewed the cold experimental records in his hand: ten subjects, nine dead.
This appalling mortality rate was not due to a lack of skill on his part.
That soul-originated pain would not lessen by a single fraction regardless of how sophisticated the practitioner's technique was; any touch or peeling, no matter how small, would trigger a landslide-like painful reaction.
The only thing Takuno could optimize was to compress this long, soul-tearing process into a brief moment, hoping to reduce the sustained torture.
Right now, the subject before him had fainted from the pain, but this was no escape.
Only a moment later, a shriller, hoarser howl erupted again, like the wail of a dying beast.
That pain, reaching deep into the marrow and boring into the soul, had actually dragged him back from unconsciousness!
Waking up in pain again, followed by even more tragic screams, then fainting from pain once more, only to be woken by pain again...
Such a cycle repeated, like a never-ending loop of torture.
Takuno watched this cruel cycle with cold eyes.
When the subject was at his last breath after several struggles between waking and fainting—and Takuno predicted he was about to follow his companions' footsteps—a miracle, or rather, a qualified "result" appeared.
Although the subject's vital signs were extremely weak, like a candle in the wind, they held on tenaciously and did not completely extinguish.
A sharp light flashed in Takuno's eyes. Without the slightest hesitation, he performed the Spirit Transformation Technique again.
His consciousness, like the most precise probe, carefully delved into the depths of the subject's soul for a thorough search.
A moment later, he slowly opened his eyes, a trace of imperceptible satisfaction flickering in the depths of his gaze.
Before the experiment, he had locked onto a segment of memory as the target.
Now, no matter how deeply he probed or how repeatedly he searched, the traces of that memory had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed in this soul.
No fragments, no residue—only an absolute void left behind after a precise "excision."
"Complete and total removal..." Takuno whispered.
This meant he no longer needed to worry that the erased memories would be resurrected due to any external stimulation or internal coincidence.
This lucky—or perhaps extremely unlucky—subject was not the first to survive the surgery, but he was the first case to successfully achieve "precise excision" of memory.
What Takuno needed to excise, besides the memory itself, included any possibility of reconstructing that memory.
However, a single accidental success was far from enough to set Takuno's mind at ease.
Rigorous experimentation required repeated verification.
Thus, several days later.
Takuno stood before the experimental table, a look of genuine satisfaction finally appearing on his face.
After multiple rounds of rigorous repeated experiments, two key results had been solidified:
Precise Excision: He was now able to stably and accurately locate and erase specific target memory fragments, with errors controlled to the minimum limit.
Instant Completion: After the preliminary work of locking the target memory was finished, the excision surgery itself had been optimized to the extreme.
All spirit energy operations and memory peeling were completed simultaneously in a near-imperceptible instant!
This "instant completion" characteristic was vital.
Because the subject he was about to perform this technique on was himself!
When performing such precise and dangerous surgery on his own soul, even a tiny bit of intense pain beyond expectations could trigger instinctive resistance or operational distortion, with unimaginable consequences.
Therefore, the surgery must be as fast as a lightning bolt; all critical steps must be completed simultaneously so that the pain does not have time to fully transmit and the consciousness does not have time to react.
After confirming the reliability and safety of the technology, Takuno did not rush for success.
He slowly left the experimental table and took a deep breath, as if to temporarily expel the heavy atmosphere of the laboratory from his body.
The continuous high-intensity experimentation, even for someone with spiritual power as strong as his, was a massive drain.
So, he chose to rest.
The next action allowed for not even half a mistake. He needed to adjust both body and mind to their absolute peak state.
Conserving energy, all for that final "cutting" that would descend upon his own soul, where failure was not an option.
Takuno took a deep breath of stagnant air; not a shred of hesitation remained in those deep eyes.
He sat cross-legged, eyelids lowered, sinking into the valley of his inner mind.
The profound meaning of the Spirit Transformation Technique was quietly put into operation again, only this time, the goal was not external invasion but internal focus. Refined spiritual power transformed into invisible tweezers and blades, firmly locking onto the several fragments of memory deep within his consciousness that were marked and sealed.
A brief weighing crossed his heart.
Cutting all targets at once could save the trouble of repeated suffering, but the associated risks and that unimaginable, soul-tearing pain led his logic to choose a safer path: segmented excision.
He first locked the target onto that segment of memory belonging to 'Sasuke'.
That orb of memory light, wrapped in layers of seals, now hovered silently in his spiritual vision.
Takuno knew that the seal did not need to be released; what his blade needed to do was strip away the core carrying the past, along with the seal itself.
Once the cutting was successful, even if the seal remained, it would only contain a void of absolute emptiness.
Spiritual power highly condensed, and the Spirit Transformation Technique displayed its refined control.
That segment of memory was tightened and stretched by invisible force, like a tough rope.
And Takuno's spiritual intent quietly transformed into two cold-glinting shears of will, precisely positioned at both ends of the memory rope.
No hesitation, no retreat.
With a slight stir of intent, the two mental shears suddenly snapped shut!
Chila!
It was as if it acted not on an intangible memory, but directly cut into the most fragile nerve of the soul!
An indescribable pain, sufficient to instantly destroy all dams of reason, like billions of red-hot steel needles simultaneously piercing his skull and soul!
Takuno snapped his eyes open—it was not the blood-colored curse mark of the Sharingan opening, but a burst of pure bloodshot congestion due to pain exceeding all limits!
His vision was entirely crimson; the world twisted and collapsed! Control of his body was completely stripped away by this tsunami from the depths of his soul.
"Ugh, ahhhhh!!!"
A shrill scream that didn't sound human erupted from the depths of his throat!
Pure physiological instinct drove him, like a trapped beast, to use his powerful physical body to frantically smash himself again and again into the cold, hard dirt floor beneath him!
Every impact let out a dull, heavy thud; flesh and rock collided mercilessly.
He tried to use this blunt, perceptible physical pain to cover and numb that sharp, maddening agony coming from the depths of his soul.
However, this was destined to be a futile struggle.
Soul-pain was like a maggot in the bone; far from lessening in the slightest, it burned and spread even more clearly amidst the physical impacts.
This was a form of torture that surpassed the limits of human mental endurance, a flood that the will itself could not build a dike against.
Even for Takuno, whose will was as tough as a rock, the limit of what he could achieve at this moment was merely holding onto the final line with a sliver of remaining clarity, not choosing to end his own life due to this pain sufficient to destroy all desire to live.
The concept of time completely dissolved and stretched within the pain, yet seemed frozen into eternity.
Who knows how much time passed, but this underground secret room, originally built quite sturdily, was now beyond recognition.
The walls and floor were covered in web-like cracks and craters of varying depths, with dirt and gravel scattered everywhere.
These were the tragic marks smashed out by Takuno using pure physical strength and instinct alone.
He was covered in wounds, his entire body littered with shocking blue-purple bruises, and stinging bloodstains reddened his tattered clothes and the dirt beneath him.
Finally, at a certain moment, the frantic smashing stopped abruptly.
Takuno's body, as if all bones had been removed, fell straight and heavily to the ground with a crash.
He panted violently, his chest rising and falling like an old bellows; every breath pulled at the pain throughout his body.
Sweat, blood, and mud mixed—he was in a wretched state.
However, that slight rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive, proving that he had finally, forcefully, endured that darkest hour sufficient to make ordinary people lose their souls!
He lay on his back in the center of the ruins-like secret room, gasping for air, with traces of intense physiological tears and bloodshot red remaining in his eyes.
Deeper within, however, flickered a color that had never appeared since he came to this world: fear!
Fear that reached deep into the marrow and was engraved upon the soul!
That soul-tearing pain—he did not even dare to recall a single shred of it.