The "Boot Sequence" of the Fourth Generation was cold, efficient, and devoid of the sentimentality that had nearly crashed the village during the previous six months.
Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, didn't waste a single clock cycle on ceremonies or parades. He took the seat of power and immediately began pushing out "System Updates" that reorganized Suna's entire strategic deployment. Inside the Kazekage's Office, the air no longer smelled of uncertainty; it smelled of fresh ink and the metallic tang of Gold Dust.
The most significant change arrived in the form of a supreme directive, signed in Rasa's own sharp, surgical hand. It was an order that felt like a heavy, collective sigh from the village's leadership:
[Change Log: Operation Ghost-Hunt]
[Status: TERMINATED]
[Directive: All external missions related to the search for the Sandaime Kazekage are to cease immediately. All dedicated search-squads are disbanded. Relevant units are to report back to their primary divisions for wartime reassignment.]
This was the official admission of "Data Loss." By terminating the search, Rasa was formally announcing that the Third Kazekage was no longer a recoverable asset. It was a painful, pragmatically necessary move that allowed the village to stop bleeding resources into a void and start focusing on the "Active Threats" at our borders. We were no longer looking for our past; we were being forced to survive our future.
The order reached Team Iryō - the "Sandstorm Squad" while we were undergoing a post-deployment diagnostic at the village's western gates.
"Finally... the loop is closed," Shiori whispered. She let out a breath she seemed to have been holding since the day the Third vanished. There was a flicker of sadness in her eyes, the mourning for a legend but it was quickly eclipsed by the relief of no longer having to chase ghosts in Area B-7.
Captain Iryō looked at the scroll and nodded, his expression unreadable behind his tactical mask. "The Fourth is making the right call. A system can't defend itself if it's obsessed with a deleted file. We're being moved into a rotational rest and reorganization cycle. Don't mistake 'rest' for 'offline,' though. We're the closest the village has to a combat-ready response team. Seize this time to optimize your gear."
I listened in silence, my mind already running the numbers on my next project. To the others, this was a moment of political transition. To me, it was a "Development Window."
With the search terminated, Suna entered a period of frantic "Hardening." The training grounds were packed 24/7 with shinobi who had seen the AB Combination's lightning and realized their own "Hardware" was woefully outdated. I was no exception. I spent my mornings refining my Magnet Release, learning how to increase the frequency of my magnetic fields to manipulate iron sand with the precision of a scalpel.
But the real work happened at night, in the workshop my father had vacated after his promotion to the Frontline Logistics Division.
I sat at my workbench, the "Great Spider MK 2" looming in the shadows behind me like a relic of a previous era. During the skirmish with the Cloud, the Spider had performed at 85% efficiency, which in a high-stakes combat environment is essentially a failure. I reviewed the logs of its movement scripts, and the "Bugs" were glaring.
The legs, I thought, tapping a stylus against my chin. Mechanical limbs are a legacy design. They have too much latency. Friction is a constant tax on my chakra throughput. The noise of the gears is a beacon for sensory types. Against a 'Lightning Release' user, the Spider is just a slow-moving target with too many points of failure.
My 30-year-old soul, the mind of Logan the engineer, began to pull from a different database, the "Legacy Data" of a world governed by physics rather than jutsu. I thought about the high-speed transit systems of Earth. I thought about the elimination of friction as a means to achieve peak velocity.
Mag-Lev. Magnetic Levitation.
In my old world, we used massive electrical currents to create magnetic repulsion, lifting trains off the tracks to achieve hundreds of miles per hour with near-zero noise. In this world, I didn't need a power plant. I had Magnet Release. I was the power plant.
The concept exploded in my mind like a high-voltage discharge.
Why use mechanical legs at all? If I could create a stable, high-frequency magnetic cushion between the puppet and the ground, I could eliminate the "Friction Bug" entirely. I could build a platform that didn't walk; it would hover. It would glide over sand, rock, and water with zero resistance.
Speed. Silence. Absolute Mobility.
I grabbed a fresh scroll and began to draft the Mirage Protocol.
I wasn't sketching a "creature" anymore. I was designing an "interceptor." The chassis would be a streamlined, aerodynamic shuttle, a flat, shuttle-shaped platform built from lightweight, chakra-conductive alloys.
I began to calculate the "Magnetic Flux Formulas" required to lift a 300-pound combat chassis. It wouldn't just be one magnetic field; it would be a "Vector-Array." By shifting the polarity and intensity of different segments of the base, I could achieve instantaneous directional changes, "Lateral Shifts" that would make traditional dodge-rolls look like they were happening in slow motion.
"I'll call you... Mirage (Shinkirō)," I whispered, the brush flying across the parchment.
The "Mirage" wouldn't just be a puppet; it would be a strategic manned platform.
Core: The Natural Energy "Divine Tree" Battery (v.1.0).
Drive: Magnet-Levitation Repulsion Field.
Payload: Integrated Iron Sand Prism Launchers and an automated "Hard-Light" magnetic shield.
As I worked, I realized that the "Divine Tree" fragment I had integrated into my Natural Energy Core was the only reason this was even possible. A standard chakra system couldn't handle the continuous "Broadcast" required to maintain a Mag-Lev field. But with the shard acting as a "Spirit Siphoning" reactor, I had the bandwidth to run a constant anti-gravity script without draining my own reserves.
The blueprints began to take shape, a fusion of Logan's mechanical engineering and Sayo's Magnet Release. It was a weapon designed to fight the Fourth Generation's wars. It was sleek, dark, and utterly silent.
Looking at the drawing, I felt a familiar thrill, the "Creator's High." The first phase was about fixing the bugs in my own body, but the next would be about rewriting the "Combat Meta" of the entire Ninja World.
The Hidden Sand was hunkering down, building walls of gold and stone to survive the storm. But in the dim light of a dusty workshop, I was building the wings that would allow us to fly above it.
The "Mirage Protocol" was officially initialized.
I stood up, my Jonin-level chakra humming in sympathy with the new design. I looked at the "Great Spider" one last time. It was a good prototype, but its mission was over. The era of the walker was ending. The era of the flyer was about to begin.
I rolled up the scroll and sealed it with a drop of blood. "Phase 1: Materials Acquisition," I murmured to the empty room. "Time to go shopping in a war zone."
The Third Great Ninja War was about to get its first true "System Update." And I was the one holding the keyboard.