The Mirage finally suffered a total system collapse deep inside a dry riverbed, a desolate trench littered with jagged boulders and ancient, sun-bleached driftwood. The magnetic levitation field, the very soul of the platform died with a hollow, static hiss. The primary tail thruster, clipped by an Uchiha shuriken, continued to belch acrid black smoke that smelled of burnt Iron-Oak and ozone. The hull was scorched, its structural integrity at a precarious 12%, with deep fissures spider-webbing across the matte-gray surface. It looked less like a masterpiece of engineering and more like a discarded husk.
Suppressing the splitting headache and the violent muscle tremors brought on by "Total Chakra Depletion," Sayo stumbled off the ruined platform. His vision was swimming with "Dead Pixels," but his focus remained locked on the three teammates sprawled across the deck.
The sight made him suck in a cold, jagged breath. His 30-year-old soul, the mind of Logan, ran a rapid-fire diagnostic, and the results were a "Critical Error."
Shiori lay limp, her eyes shut tight, her face so pale it looked like unpainted porcelain. Even though the physical engagement was over, her body continued to twitch in rhythmic, violent intervals. The "Recursive Loop" of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan Genjutsu was still raging in her mind, a piece of malicious code that she couldn't break. She was drenched in cold sweat, her subconscious trapped in a crimson abyss.
Lucado's status was even more horrifying. Having taken the thermal load of a Great Fireball at point-blank range, his flak jacket had partially fused with his skin. The scent of "Cellular Necrosis", the sickening, sweet stench of charred flesh filled the air. His breathing was shallow and erratic, each gasp causing a convulsion of agony that threatened to send his heart into permanent arrest.
But the "Deletion" that hit Sayo the hardest was Captain Iryō's injury.
The veteran Special Jonin lay there with a ghastly, through-and-through wound at his right wrist. The Uchiha's kunai hadn't just punched through the tissue; the high-density chakra it carried had acted like a "Fragmenting Payload."
The forensic analysis in Sayo's mind was cold and brutal:
Tendon Status: Severed.
Vascular Integrity: Shattered.
Chakra Pathway (Meridian): Destroyed.
The strike had been too precise to be an accident. The Sharingan had mapped Iryō's "Frame Data" and identified the exact coordinate needed to cripple him. It wasn't an attempt to subdue; it was a permanent "Write-Protect" on his career as a ninja. By pure instinct, Sayo had used Magnet Release to nudge the blade by a hair's breadth, a tiny "Variable Shift" that turned a lethal neck-shot into a wrist-hit. But the cost was still a total system failure for the Captain.
"Initialize Biological Patching," Sayo whispered, his voice sounding like two dry stones grinding together.
He bit his tongue hard, using the localized pain to clear the Overload of his exhaustion. He squeezed the last dregs of chakra from his nearly empty meridians, forcing a faint, flickering green glow into his palms, the Mystical Palm Technique.
He started with Captain Iryō. The hemorrhage was the most immediate. After rinsing the appalling wound with emergency disinfectant, Sayo threaded his healing chakra into the site, acting as a manual "Bus" to reconnect the severed vessels. He managed to seal the primary arteries, halting the life-threatening blood loss, but the destroyed chakra pathways were beyond his current "Medical Drivers." The conductors were too frayed. Even if the skin healed, this hand would never again form the complex seals required for high-level Wind Release.
Next, he moved to Lucado. Faced with third-degree burns across 30% of the torso, the Healing Technique felt like a low-bandwidth solution for a massive loss. Sayo gingerly clipped away the fused fabric, covering the raw nerves with moist gauze to prevent further Noise from the environment. He infused a gentle, steady stream of chakra, not to heal the tissue, which was far beyond his current power level, but to prevent the body from entering "Total Shock Mode."
Finally, he knelt beside Shiori. For mental "Logic Bombs," physical healing was ineffective. He used his last sliver of chakra to "Ping" her meridians, attempting to settle the flow that had been scrambled by the Uchiha's ocular power.
"You're safe... it is over... we're offline..." he kept murmuring beside her ear, his voice a firm, steady anchor.
Only after a long while did her rigid body relax, her pulse slowing as she sank from a "Panic State" into a deep, steady unconsciousness.
The riverbed fell into a heavy, tomb-like silence, broken only by the crackle of the Mirage's dying thruster and Sayo's own ragged breathing. The afterglow of the sunset stretched the shadows of the boulders across the sand like jagged gravestones.
Sayo sat slumped against the Mirage's hull, feeling the "Thermal Drain" in his own body. He looked at the wrecked machine, then at his broken squad.
"We can't stay in this directory," he muttered. "The Uchiha patrol radius is wide. They'll be tracking the smoke trail. If we stay still, it's over."
He forced himself to stand, his legs feeling like they were made of lead and broken glass. He used the remnants of his Iron Sand to create a set of "Skids" beneath the Mirage. The platform could no longer fly, but it could be dragged like a heavy-duty sled. He strapped Iryō and Lucado onto the deck, securing them with the remains of his puppet-threads, and hoisted the unconscious Shiori onto his own back.
The four of them, bearing heavy Damage and an even heavier sense of "Strategy Failure" began the grueling withdrawal.
Sayo's mind was a whirlwind of dark calculations. He had pushed his Natural Energy core to the limit, he had utilized the Mirage's most advanced "Vector Scripts," and he had used his previous-life knowledge of "Parallel Processing." And yet, in a single "I/O Exchange," a four-man Uchiha squad had almost executed a total system wipe.
Predictive Processing... Ocular Latency... Instant Genjutsu...
"The gap isn't just in volume," Logan thought, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon of the Land of Rivers. "The gap is in the Operating System. The Sharingan is a 'Higher-Order' logic that my current hardware can't even touch. If I want to survive the next encounter, I can't just 'Patch' the Mirage. I need a 'Root-Level' overhaul."
Every step was a struggle against gravity. Every distant rustle of a leaf sounded like a Sharingan-user initializing a Body Flicker. The Uchiha's shadow hung over Sayo's head like a cold, unyielding blade.
The "Sandstorm Squad" was returning to camp, but they were no longer a vanguard. They were a "Corrupted File," limping back to the server, hoping they could be repaired before the world's "Cleanup Routine" found them.
This crushing defeat, trading the career of a Special Jonin and the health of two teammates just to stay alive had finally shown Sayo the true price of the Third Great Ninja War.
"I'll rebuild you," he whispered to the broken Mirage as he dragged it through the mud. "And next time, we won't be the ones running the 'Escape' command."