Dead Demon Consuming Seal

The Dead Demon Consuming Seal is a seal which invokes the power of a spectral entity known as the that can only be seen when it grasps one's soul. Once called upon, the Shinigami hovers behind the user and wraps its left arm with prayer beads, uttering some unintelligible chanting, after some time a cursed seal appears on its arm. The soul of the summoner is then partially separated from the body and restrained by the Shinigami's hair as it thrusts its arm into the user's chest to grab the soul of its target. At the user's command, the Shinigami then performs the sealing by dragging the target's soul into the user whose stomach is branded with the seal's mark. However, the sealing is double-edged as the user's soul is devoured by the Shinigami along with the target's, both souls trapped for all eternity within the fiend's stomach.

It is also possible for the user to seal multiple targets through the use of shadow clones. The methods of sealing vary, Hiruzen needing to get close to his targets in order to perform the sealing, while Minato was able to extend the Shinigami's hand to grab Kurama.

In the two known cases where the Dead Demon Consuming Seal was used, Minato and his predecessor Hiruzen are unable to completely take their respective opponents' entire souls with them. In Minato's case, due to the immense chakra that Kurama possessed would be too much for the Shinigami to consume, he instead has the entity devour Kurama's Yin chakra so the weakened Tailed Beast's composition would be purely Yang. In the scenario Hiruzen having the Shinigami only take a part of Orochimaru's soul within his arms, it reveals that the body parts dealt in such a manner suffer from necrosis and paralysis, causing the target extreme pain that worsens over time. However, prior to entering a new host to undo the damage, Orochimaru sought Tsunade as her talent as a medical-nin could heal his arms. However, the loss of the arms were permanent as long as they are sealed, as Orochimaru could not use the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation until he retrieved his arms' soul.

Due to the nature of the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, those whose souls are sealed away by it can't be reincarnated. However, this can be rectified if the seal is broken. The procedure involves invoking the Shinigami using a mask from the Uzumaki Clan's Mask Temple, cutting open the Shinigami's stomach (which will also inflict the same wound on the invoker of the Shinigami) and releasing the souls, which can then be reincarnated into host bodies through a technique such as Impure World Reincarnation.

Trivia

 * During his discussion with Kushina on how to deal with the Nine-Tails, Minato stated: What he meant by this is unclear as the Hokage did not elaborate.
 * In the manga and anime, Hiruzen calls this technique by its full name, . The databook entry for this technique drops the "Sealing Technique" part.