By Year 42, I was officially a veteran of the "Dead Last" club. My physical stats were so bad it was almost impressive. In a class of future killers, I was the kid who could barely throw a shuriken ten feet without needing a Gatorade and a nap. But inside my head? Inside my head, I was running circles around everyone.
I'd spent the last year treating my dad's old Wind and Earth scrolls like they were holy texts. Since I didn't have the "gas" to actually practice, I spent hours doing "armchair training." I'd simulate the hand seals, the chakra circulation, and the energy output over and over in my mind until the logic was perfect. My photographic memory meant I never forgot a step, and my high-spec control meant I could move my chakra with the precision of a laser.
One afternoon, the weather was actually decent low wind, high visibility. I was alone in the courtyard of our stone apartment, looking at the dry, packed sand. A thought popped into my head: I've done the math. I've run the simulations. Let's see if this code actually compiles.
I picked the simplest D-rank move I knew: Earth Release: Headhunter Jutsu. It's basically a sneak-attack move you soften the ground, sink into it, and then pop up under your enemy to pull them in up to their chin. It's low-power, high-finesse. Perfect for a scrawny engineer.
"Theoretically, this doesn't need a huge battery," I muttered, pacing out a spot in the center of the yard. "It's all about the instantaneous burst and the precise molecular softening of the soil. If I keep the output at the absolute minimum..."
I took a deep breath. My hands moved into the seals: Ram. Snake. Tiger.
The movements were crisp. Perfect. I mobilized that tiny, pathetic thread of chakra in my gut, channeled it through my feet, and shouted: "Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu!"
Buzz.
The ground beneath my feet turned into liquid silt. My body started to sink. I felt a massive rush of adrenaline it was working! I was actually sinking into the earth!
But the victory party lasted about half a second.
Right as I sank up to my shoulders, my internal "battery low" warning started flashing red. That tiny wisp of chakra was enough to "open" the ground, but it wasn't enough to "keep it open" or let me move around underneath. My energy bar hit 0% and stayed there.
The sinking stopped. The ground, no longer being softened by my chakra, instantly turned back into solid, packed desert clay.
I was stuck.
I was buried up to my chin, my body encased in dirt that felt like cooling concrete. I couldn't move a finger. I couldn't even wiggle my toes. I was just a small, pale head sprouting out of the yard like a very confused garden gnome.
"???"
I tried to struggle, but the earth was locked tight. I tried to mold more chakra, but I was empty. My 4K mental processing power was totally useless because I didn't have any fuel for the engine.
The sun started to set. I watched the shadows get longer, realizing that my shadow was just a small circle around my neck. The courtyard was dead silent. For the first time, I learned what "immobilized" really meant.
Naturally, being an engineer, I didn't panic. I started debugging.
Calculation error, I thought, staring at a nearby rock. Underestimated the sustained drain of the maintenance phase. Overestimated the capacity of the current storage cells. The 'Softening' module was successful, but the 'Navigation' module suffered a catastrophic power failure. Need to re-model the energy cost or find a lower-consumption alternative.
I was halfway through a mental redesign of the energy circuits when the courtyard gate creaked open.
My dad, Sharyu, walked in. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped from a long day at the workshop. He habitually looked around to see what I was up to, and then he stopped. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes.
There, in the middle of his yard, was his son's head, just... growing out of the ground.
"...Sayo?" he asked, sounding like he thought he was having a stroke. "What... what are you doing?"
"Hey, Dad," I said, my voice calm despite the fact that I couldn't move. "I was trying the Headhunter Jutsu. I had a power failure at the 80% mark and now I'm stuck. Think you could dig me out?"
Sharyu just stared at me for five solid seconds. Then, his shoulders started to vibrate. He tried to hold it in, but a snort escaped, followed by a full-blown, gut-busting laugh.
"Hahahaha! Headhunter... Hahaha! You definitely got the 'head' part right, kid! You're like a radish!" He was practically doubled over, the stress of his job momentarily forgotten.
"Glad my suffering is funny to you," I muttered, though I couldn't help a tiny, embarrassed smirk. It was pretty ridiculous.
Sharyu eventually calmed down enough to grab a shovel and dig me out. I was covered in mud from the neck down, looking like a swamp creature.
"You're a piece of work, kid," he said, ruffling my hair as he wiped the dirt off my face. "The seals were perfect. I saw the footprint the technique was solid. But your battery... man, you really are working with a budget model."
"Yeah, I noticed," I sighed.
He gave me a serious look. "Next time you want to test a live jutsu, wait until I'm home. You could've suffocated if you'd gone down a few more inches."
"Got it. No more solo beta-testing."
I went inside to get cleaned up, but the experience wasn't a total loss. I'd proven that my "software" was top-tier. I could execute high-level techniques with pinpoint accuracy. The problem was the hardware specifically, the fuel cell.
If I wanted to be more than a garden gnome, I needed to find a way to cheat the energy requirement.
I thought back to the Second Kazekage's notes on Magnetism. A lever. I didn't need a bigger engine; I needed a smarter way to use the energy I already had.
The plan was still on. I just needed to be a lot more careful about where I "planted" myself.