By the time Year 39 rolled around, I still hadn't quite outrun my "nightmare mode" start. Two years in, and I was still the runt of the litter. Compared to the other kids in the neighborhood, I was painfully small, with skin that stayed a shade too pale and a cough that never really went away. A single bad sandstorm could lay me out with a fever for a week.
My dad, Sharyu, was terrified to leave me alone, and daycare wasn't exactly a thing in a village currently funneling every cent into a world war. So, I spent my childhood in the one place where he could keep an eye on me: the Fourth Maintenance Squad's workshop.
It became my second home and honestly, my favorite.
The workshop was a massive cavern carved deep into the rock of the village, protected from the wind and sun. It had a very specific smell that hit you the second you walked in: a mix of fresh-cut cedar, heavy-duty machine oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of Chakra-conductive alloys. For a guy who spent his previous life in an automation plant, it was the best perfume in the world.
Sharyu had built me a "playpen" in a windless corner using old, sanded-down puppet planks. It was stocked with soft blankets and fresh water, keeping me out from under the feet of the mechanics while giving me a front-row seat to the show.
At first, I just slept through most of it. My body was still a low-battery device that died every two hours. But as I got older and my "awake" time increased, that corner became my observation deck. My thirty-year-old brain began to feast on the only thing in this world that made total sense to me: the puppets.
The bay was a madhouse. Guys in grease-stained gray coveralls who were honestly more like mechanics than ninjas were constantly swarming over puppets that looked like they'd been run through a woodchipper.
Clang! Clang! A hammer would beat a warped titanium-alloy joint back into shape.
Screeech A lathe would shave down a charred limb, sending up a spray of sawdust and sparks.
I didn't blink. I couldn't. Gears, link-rods, ball-and-socket joints, bearings these weren't just "ninja tools" to me. They were art. They were logic.
I'd watch one of the techs clamp a shattered puppet arm to a bench and pry open the casing. To most people, the inside was a mess of wires and wood. To me? I was looking at a high-precision transmission system. I'd watch them use tweezers to realign hair-thin Chakra wires until click the wooden fingers would twitch. The look of pure satisfaction on the tech's face? I knew that look. That was the "I finally fixed the bug" face.
My dad was the master of the floor. Sharyu was the squad leader for a reason. His hands were huge and calloused, but when he worked on a puppet's core, he was as steady as a surgeon. He could tell a bearing was worn just by touching it, and he could spot a clog in a Chakra circuit from across the room.
Every time I watched them work, my heart would start racing. The memories of my old life as Logan, the automation engineer, would come flooding back. I used to live for blueprints, CNC machines, and assembly lines. My one big, ridiculous dream had been to build a life-sized, walking mech a Gundam for the real world. But back on Earth, the physics were a nightmare. Power density, actuator speed, material stress it was all too much for one guy in a garage.
But here?
Chakra.
The more I watched, the more I realized: Chakra was essentially a wireless, biologically-driven supernatural motor. Those etched runes on the wood? Those were circuit boards. The "Puppet Technique" wasn't just magic; it was a high-level user interface for remote-controlled robotics.
My engineer brain started overclocking.
That gear train is smart, but the lubrication is garbage the desert sand is just grinding it down. A simple dust-seal would double the lifespan.
That elbow joint has a terrible range of motion. If I swapped that for a universal joint, the flexibility would go through the roof.
Is that... a differential? Man, these guys are hitting sub-millimeter precision with nothing but hand tools and magic. Imagine what they could do with a proper lathe.
A massive, electric thrill surged through my tiny chest. This world was dangerous and my health was trash, but it had machines.
In my old life, I could never build my Gundam. The tech just wasn't there. But here? With Chakra as an impossible energy source and metals that responded to thought?
I could actually do it.
I looked over at a corner where some obsolete, broken-down puppet models were standing like sleeping wooden giants. They were clunky, old, and destined for the scrap heap. But I didn't see junk. I saw a chassis.
In that moment, the dream I'd buried back on Earth found a new home in the oil-soaked dirt of the Sand Village. I was still too weak to stand for long, but my eyes were wide and burning with a light every engineer recognizes when they find the project of a lifetime.
The world was on fire outside, and I was a sickly kid with no powers. But I had a workshop.
And for now, that was enough.