Time in the desert has a weird way of dragging and flying by at the same time. My theoretical knowledge was hitting record highs I'd basically cleared out every book in the school library and memorized my dad's entire collection but I was still staring at the same massive wall.
How was I supposed to fix this body?
I knew how to turn soil into quicksand. I knew how the physics of wind-cutting worked. I understood the mechanical transmission of puppets and the high-level energy coding of Sealing. I even had the blueprints for Magnetism the "lever" that could change everything.
But I was still a five-year-old kid who got winded walking up a steep flight of stairs. I was like a world-class coder trying to run a Triple-A game on a PC from 1995. I had the skills to slay a dragon, but I didn't have the muscle to tie my own shoes without taking a breather. Every theory I had ended at the same dead end: my own pathetic life force.
I didn't just need a weapon; I needed a tune-up. I needed a way to reach inside and repair the foundation from the ground up.
The idea started as a tiny seed and grew into an obsession. I began scouring every scroll my dad brought home and every dusty corner of the school for anything related to "biology," "repair," or "cells."
I hit pay dirt one afternoon while reading a dry-as-dust scroll on Chakra theory. There was a single sentence buried in the middle of a paragraph: "Medical Ninjutsu is based on Yang Release, using precise control to stimulate cell activity and accelerate regeneration..."
Yang Release. Cell activity. Regeneration.
It hit me like a lightning bolt. Why was I only looking for power outside myself? If Medical Ninjutsu could force cells to divide and heal, couldn't I use it to fix the "glitch" in my own system? If my constitution was weak because of low cell vitality, then "healing" was just another word for "upgrading."
I felt a rush of adrenaline that actually made me dizzy. I started hoarding every scrap of medical info I could find, but Suna's medical tech was gatekept pretty hard. Most of it was classified or buried in advanced archives. I'd hit a ceiling on self-study. I needed a mentor.
And there was only one person in the village who fit the bill: Granny Chiyo.
She was the undisputed queen of Suna's medical and puppet corps. If anyone knew how to rewrite the rules of biology, it was her. I didn't hesitate. I walked straight to her place, and this time, she was actually home.
Chiyo looked surprised to see me standing on her doorstep. I was still pale, still scrawny, but I probably looked like I was vibrating with intensity.
"Sayo? What's up? Having trouble with that puppet scroll?" she asked, assuming I was there for more mechanical advice.
I took a deep breath, gave her a respectful bow, and looked her right in the eye. "Granny Chiyo, I didn't come here for the puppets. I want you to teach me Medical Ninjutsu."
"Medical Ninjutsu?" Chiyo actually blinked. She looked me up and down, her brow furrowing. "Kid, look... Med-nin stuff requires insane chakra control. And honestly? It takes a lot out of you physically. You aren't exactly built for the workload."
She didn't say "you're too weak," but the subtext was loud and clear.
"I know my body is a mess," I said, my voice steady. "I know my chakra tank is basically empty. But that's exactly why I need this. I want to fix myself from the inside out."
I stepped closer. "I've done the reading. I know the core of the tech is about precision. Chakra reserves might tell you how many people you can save, but control tells you if you can actually fix the damage. And when it comes to control..."
I held out my right hand. I didn't waste any chakra I didn't have enough to show off anyway. Instead, I focused every ounce of my thirty-year-old willpower on my fingers.
One by one, my fingers began to move. They didn't just bend; they moved with a slow, terrifyingly smooth precision. It was like watching a high-speed camera played back at 1% speed. No tremors. No twitching. Just a deliberate, millimeter-by-millimeter motion that looked more like a machine's movement than a human's. It was pure, unadulterated "software" overriding the "hardware."
Chiyo's face went stone-still.
As a master, she knew exactly what she was looking at. This wasn't just "good" control it was a level of mastery over the nervous system that most Jonin couldn't hit in their prime. I was literally micro-managing my own muscles.
"I might never be able to save a hundred people on a battlefield," I said, lowering my hand. "But I just want to learn the basics. I want to understand how life energy works so I can find a way to patch my own foundation. Please. Just give me a shot."
The silence in the doorway lasted forever. Chiyo stared at me, seeing the jaded wisdom and the desperate hunger hidden behind my five-year-old eyes.
Finally, she let out a long, slow sigh. "Alright, kid. You win."
She turned around, grabbed a relatively new-looking scroll from a shelf, and handed it to me.
"This is the basic 'Palm Healing' primer," she said. "It's the bottom of the ladder. It's mostly for scratches and minor bruises it won't fix your internal issues or your stamina. But it's the only way to learn how to interface your chakra with a living body. If you can't master this, you can't do anything else."
"Thank you, Granny Chiyo," I said, gripping the scroll like it was a winning lottery ticket.
"One more thing," her voice went cold and serious. "Messing with life energy is dangerous. One slip-up and you can cause a stroke or stop a heart. Do not try anything fancy without checking with me first. You got that?"
"Loud and clear."
I walked away from her house feeling like I'd just been handed the keys to the kingdom. This wasn't just a jutsu; it was the start of my own personal Manhattan Project.
The road was still long, but for the first time, I wasn't just waiting for my body to grow. I was going to rewrite the code.