The long search for the Third Kazekage was a grind that drained the morale of every squad in the desert, but for me, it was the perfect "stress test." My body, tempered by the "Body Tempering Furnace Mk-II," was finally operating at peak performance. My chakra reserves were now brushing the lower edge of the Jonin bracket, and my mastery over Wind and Earth was no longer just about "casting spells" it was about manipulating the physics of the world.
Wind was my speed. Earth was my durability. But Magnet Release? Magnet Release was my "Admin Access."
I'd spent hundreds of hours in candle-lit tents and silent canyons rehearsing the frequencies. Now, with a body that could actually handle the thermal load and a chakra pool deep enough to sustain the "broadcast," it was time to take it live.
We were crossing an iron-rich gravel basin near the border when we hit an Iwagakure (Stone) recon squad. It was a standard high-threat encounter: one Jonin, two Chunin. In this war, there were no negotiations, only engagement.
Captain Iryō locked onto their Jonin. It was a brutal stalemate of Wind vs. Earth, blades versus rock-armor. Lucado and Shigure were redlining just to keep the two Stone Chunin at bay. The system was balanced, which meant it was stagnant.
I had to introduce an anomaly.
I tracked the iron-rich silt beneath my boots, feeling the "metallic density" through my magnetic field. I didn't need to summon a puppet. I didn't need a scroll. I just needed the environment.
Execute: Iron Sand Drizzle.
My fingers flashed through a custom seal sequence. I fused my Wind and Earth chakra into a complex resonance, creating a high-frequency magnetic field with me as the transmitter.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Drizzle!"
The ground hissed. Thousands of glittering black grains of iron sand rose from the dirt like a swarm of angry hornets. They didn't just float; they accelerated, folding into a dark, humming tide that I directed straight at the Stone Jonin.
The air sounded like it was being shredded by silk-saws.
The Iwa Jonin, busy trying to track Iryō's blue-wind blades, never saw the "out-of-category" attack. He tried to raise a rock-shell defense at the last second.
Inefficient. Magnet-driven sand doesn't just hit hard; it carries a disruptive magnetic flux. The grains punched through his earthen shell, and as they entered his personal space, the magnetism scrambled his own chakra flow. His "Rock Armor" script crashed. His stance buckled.
"Target staggered! Hit him now!" I shouted.
Iryō didn't need a second prompt. His combat instinct was flawless. He poured every drop of his remaining "bandwidth" into a final move. Wind Style: Vacuum Great Ball!
A compressed sphere of absolute vacuum slammed into the Iwa Jonin's exposed chest.
BOOM!
The Elite Stone ninja was finished before he even hit the sand. With their "Server" down, the two remaining Chunin lost their sync. Iryō, Lucado, and I moved in like a cleanup routine, neutralizing them before they could even attempt a retreat.
The basin went silent. The magnetic field collapsed, and the iron grains hissed as they fell back into the dirt.
Iryō stood there, leaning on his twin blades and gasping for breath. He looked at the black sand around my boots, then at me. His eyes were wide with a mix of shock and total disbelief.
"That... was Magnet Release?" his voice was a hoarse whisper. "The Kazekage's bloodline? Sayo... how?"
I just gave a small nod, my breath steady. "Still in the beta phase. It's a bit rough around the edges."
Lucado and Shigure crowded in, looking at me like I'd just rewritten the laws of gravity. They'd heard the legends, but seeing a kid pull iron out of the ground to execute a Jonin was a different reality entirely.
Over the next few skirmishes, the Magnet Release became our squad's "Zero-Day" exploit.
If an enemy tried a large-scale Earth jutsu, I'd use an Iron Sand Drizzle to scramble their seals mid-cast. If a weapon specialist attacked, I'd use a magnetic pulse to "spoiler" their kunai trajectory. I even started using iron grains to create "trip-wires" in the sand that slowed pursuit.
The kid who was once dismissed as a "sickly factory brat" was now the squad's indispensable weapon. I was their master scout, their field medic, and now, I was their heavy artillery.
The edge of the Iron Sand had been bared, and the war was finally starting to realize that the Hidden Sand's strongest legacy hadn't died with the Kazekage. It had just been updated.