Sayo stood outside Elder Chiyo's front door, the coarse desert wind whipping at his charcoal-gray Chunin vest. He drew a deep breath, focusing on the rhythmic pulse of his Natural Energy-tempered heart to steady his nerves. Clutched in his right hand was a specially-made sealing scroll, its surface cool to the touch. This scroll carried the culmination of months of "Development Sprints," a thousand failed simulations, and the physical manifestation of his dream: the Mirage prototype.
He knew this step was the ultimate "Code Review." Chiyo's approval wasn't just about ego; her decades of battlefield experience and master-level understanding of Suna's "Legacy Hardware" could identify the structural bugs Sayo's engineering soul might have overlooked.
He knocked, a firm, rhythmic strike. Moments later, the heavy wooden door creaked open. The elder regarded him with a flicker of surprise, her sharp eyes scanning him with the precision of a diagnostic tool. She sensed a fundamental shift in the boy since their last session, a presence that was calmer, deeper, and radiating an almost indescribable, high-frequency excitement.
"Sayo? You're early for our rotation," Chiyo said, stepping aside to let him pass. "Is there a problem with the logistics wing?"
"No problem, Elder," Sayo said gravely, bypassing the usual pleasantries. He followed her into the workshop, a cathedral of mechanical history crammed with puppet skeletons, ancient scrolls, and the heavy scent of pine resin and oil. He turned to face her, his expression unyielding. "I've finished the prototype. I've built a new class of puppet, and I require your guidance for the final calibration."
"Finished?" Chiyo arched a brow, her interest piqued. She knew Sayo's gift for the Puppet Technique was extraordinary, but his tone suggested something that surpassed a simple "graduation project." "Let's see the output, then. Initialize the display."
Sayo nodded, backing up to clear a central space on the stone floor. His hands moved in a blur of hand-seals, a crisp, low-latency sequence. "Release!"
Poof!
A veil of white chakra-smoke dispersed, revealing a sleek, never-before-seen platform that seemed to defy the very architecture of the workshop. It was a matte deep-gray shuttle, its lines sharp and aggressive. But it wasn't the aesthetic that froze Chiyo's heart; it was the physics. The 400-pound chassis hung a palm's breadth above the floor, hovering in a state of perfect, silent equilibrium. Faint, milky-white runes glimmered along its hull, exuding a quiet, overwhelming sense of "Source Code" power.
"Wh-what…?!" Chiyo's composure, forged in three world wars, vanished in an instant. Her cloudy eyes snapped wide; she instinctively stepped forward, her hand reaching out as if to touch a ghost.
Levitation. Without supports. Without visible chakra threads. It was a "Zero-Day" exploit that defied every principle of puppetry she had mastered in her seventy years.
"It's called Mirage," Sayo said, his voice ringing with the pride of a lead architect. "It's a Mag-Lev mobile platform. I've integrated Magnet Release resonance to create a stable repulsion field between the chassis and the iron-rich sand of the desert."
He began a rapid-fire technical breakdown, his mind syncing with Logan's engineering database. He detailed the anti-gravity theory, the vector-thrust nozzles designed for 360-degree maneuvering, the integrated reconnaissance arrays for real-time battlefield telemetry, and the multi-purpose folding grab-arms that could perform field repairs or mid-flight combat maneuvers.
Chiyo listened with a concentration so intense it was as if she were trying to "Reverse Engineer" his words in real-time. Every concept he introduced - Mag-Lev, vector propulsion, aerodynamic foils, pried open a new window in her understanding of the craft. To her, puppets were wooden tools controlled by strings. To Sayo, this was a vehicle.
However, when he reached the "Kernel" of the matter, the energy source his tone shifted to one of extreme caution.
"…I've powered the primary drive with a Beginner-tier Natural Energy Puppet Core."
"Natural Energy?!" Chiyo's cry was sharp enough to cut through the hum of the machine. Her expression changed from amazement to raw, unadulterated terror. "Sayo, do you have any idea what you've done?! You've dabbled in the 'Forbidden Force'! That is the power of the Tailed Beasts and the ancient Sages! One slip in the conversion logic, one micro-second of lag in the containment field, and you aren't just dead, you're petrified stone!"
Her voice turned harsher than he had ever heard it, laced with the dread of a leader who had seen what happens when ninjas try to play god. She grabbed Sayo's arm, her grip like a vice.
"Please, rest assured, Elder," Sayo said, keeping his pulse steady. "It's not a direct-draw. Through a specialized Spirit Siphoning Seal, I've built a middleware interface. I draw a hair-thin wisp of essence, then dilute and convert it through multiple step-down barriers. Look at the telemetry, it's running at less than 5% thermal capacity. It's rock-steady."
Chiyo leaned in, her own chakra reaching out to sense the Mirage. Indeed, the energy was vast and pure, yet it felt uncannily gentle, nothing like the raging, chaotic Natural Energy she had encountered in the village's forbidden archives. Yet, her grimness did not lift.
She pulled him close, her eyes as sharp as kunai blades, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Sayo, listen to me. This secret... this core... it doesn't just change puppetry. It could reformat the entire Ninja World. If the Cloud or the Leaf learn that a child of the Sand has cracked the code for controllable Natural Energy, they won't just try to steal it. They will delete you. They will delete this village to ensure no one else has this 'Root Access.' You must guard this core with your life. Tell no second soul, not even the Kazekage. Do you understand?!"
A chill ran down Sayo's spine. He saw the "System-Level" consequences in her eyes. "I understand, Elder. Apart from you and my father, the core's logic stays offline."
Only after that solemn vow did Chiyo's posture relax, though the worry remained etched in her face. She turned back to the Mirage, her professional instincts finally overriding her fear. She began to circle the platform, her fingers brushing the joints and the runic nodes with a surgeon's touch.
"The hardware is visionary," she muttered, her "Master Mode" taking over. "But the implementation is still in beta. Here, the magnetic field is unevenly distributed at the rear flank. You're losing 10% of your lift efficiency. Recalibrate these three runes."
She pointed to a cluster of vector nozzles. "These are too complex. In a high-impact combat scenario, the sand will jam the micro-gears. Borrow the joint-design of my 'Father' and 'Mother' puppets, simplify the transmission. Reliability is a feature, Sayo, not a hindrance."
"The sensor array's barrier is too narrow," she continued, her hands moving with the speed of a developer. "I'll teach you a wider 'Spider-Sense' layout used by the Anbu. And your weapon hard-points... they lack internal cross-bracing. If you fire a high-output Iron Sand prism during a high-speed turn, the recoil will shear the chassis."
One by one, Chiyo cut to the heart of the "Bugs" that Sayo's lack of combat experience had missed. She held nothing back, pouring out a lifetime of military engineering to perfect every sub-system of the Mirage.
Sayo drank in every word, his mind frantically updating his blueprints. The master's insights were like a massive "Service Pack," clearing away the vague and unseen details in a flash.
The old master and the youth sank into a deep-dive discussion of the weapons of tomorrow. In the dim light of the workshop, the hovering Mirage stood as a silent witness to a fusion of minds: the legacy wisdom of the past meeting the high-spec innovation of the future. Under Chiyo's guiding hand, the "Mirage Protocol" was no longer just a prototype; it was becoming a masterpiece.