The day after graduation, I followed my dad toward the massive stone complex west of the Kazekage Building. This was the Puppet Workshop the heart of Suna's military-industrial complex.
The vibe here was night and day compared to the Maintenance Squad. The Maintenance wing was all about emergency triage and frantic repairs. The Workshop was different. It was cold, methodical, and quiet. Instead of the smell of burnt oil and despair, the air here smelled like high-grade pine, chakra-conductive alloys, and industrial-strength solvents. You could hear the steady thrum of chakra lathes and the rhythmic clink of chisels. It wasn't a repair shop; it was a factory.
A squad leader who looked like he hadn't smiled since the Second Great Ninja War checked my papers and led me to Workshop Three: Limbs and Articulation.
"Tota!" the leader shouted into the room. "New Genin Sayo. He's your responsibility. Show him the workflow. Don't let him break anything."
A teenager, maybe seventeen or eighteen, looked up from a workbench. His face was smudged with grease, but he had a friendly, high-energy look in his eyes. He blinked when he saw how small I was, but he gave me a quick wave. "Got it, Boss. I'll handle it."
The leader walked off. Tota wiped his hands on a stained apron and walked over, offering a hand. "Welcome to the grind, kid. I'm Tota. I've been here two years. You're the one Granny Chiyo hand-picked, right?"
"Sayo," I said, shaking his hand with a firm, professional grip. "Looking forward to working with you, Senior."
Tota seemed surprised by how calm I was. Usually, nine-year-olds in a place like this were either shaking with nerves or touching things they shouldn't. He started walking me through the facility. He showed me the blueprint racks, the material storage where everything had to be signed out in triplicate, and the different machining zones.
"Since it's your first day, we're starting with the basics," Tota said, leading me to a pile of rough-cut wooden forearm shells. "I need these joints sanded down to spec. Don't take too much off, or the tolerances will be loose. Here's the sandpaper start with 80-grit and work your way up to 400."
It was the most repetitive, boring task in the world. For most Genin, it would have been a "hazing" assignment. For me? It was a quality-control dream.
I sat down at an empty bench, picked up a forearm, and got to work. My movements were robotic. I didn't waste energy moving my whole arm; I just guided the sandpaper with my fingers, applying uniform pressure along the contours. My brain was basically running a "surface finish" algorithm.
Tota stayed nearby, probably expecting me to complain or mess up. Instead, he watched as I finished one part, checked it against the calipers, and set it down in a perfectly neat row. Then the next. Then the next. My speed was terrifying because I wasn't making any mistakes.
By lunch, I'd finished the entire day's workload. Flawlessly.
Tota leaned over the bench, looking at the parts like I'd just performed a magic trick. "Sayo... where the hell did you learn to sand like that? Did you work in a factory in a past life or something?"
"I spent a lot of time in Maintenance," I said, unwrapping my rations. "You learn to be efficient when you're working with scrap."
"Genius," Tota muttered, clearly impressed. "Alright, after lunch, we're moving you to seal-etching. It requires way more control, but I think you can handle it."
I settled into the rhythm of the workshop instantly. I was the quiet kid who never made a mess and always hit his quotas early. The senior craftsmen started calling me "the Ghost" because I'd finish a project and move on to the next one before they even noticed I'd started.
But as my professional life was taking off, my home life took a hit.
A few days later, my dad sat me down for dinner. He looked different his posture was straighter, and he'd dusted off his old flak jacket.
"Sayo," he said, his voice unusually formal. "Now that you're settled in at the workshop, I've applied for a transfer. I'm going back to the frontline Puppet Corps."
I set my chopsticks down and looked at him. I could see the fire in his eyes. He'd spent years in logistics because he wanted to keep me safe while I was sick, but the ninja in him was hungry for the field again. He wanted to be more than a warehouse manager.
"Father..." I started, but he held up a hand.
"I'm a Shinobi, Sayo. And I'm your father. I can't stay in the backlines forever while the village is struggling. It's time I did my part."
I realized then that this was a matter of pride for him. I nodded slowly. "I understand. Just... watch your back out there."
The transfer went through forty-eight hours later. I watched Sharyu gear up, check his weapons, and hand over the keys to the Maintenance Squad to his successor. He clapped me on the shoulder, gave me one last serious look, and walked out into the sand.
The house felt twice as big and twice as quiet that night. No more dad checking my homework or worrying about my breathing. I was officially living the life of an independent adult in a nine-year-old's body.
My world shrank down to two things: the cold, gleaming parts in my hands at the workshop, and the endless, secret sea of knowledge in my scrolls at night. I was alone, but I was focused. And in the silence of the workshop, the "Spider MK 2" was finally starting to take shape.