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The negotiations beneath Kikyō Mountain Castle, the weighing of gold against blood and territory were a high-level diplomatic process that Sayo could not influence. For him and the small squad he now led, reality was much smaller and far more brutal. There was only one directive left: evacuate the severely wounded from this land of despair and return to the Land of Rivers main camp. It was the only coordinate left in their database that offered a sliver of familiarity, even if it was now a coordinate of defeat.
The process was far more difficult and oppressive than any combat mission Sayo had ever executed. They were completely disarmed. In the world of a puppeteer, this was the ultimate "System Nullification." Sayo's severely damaged but precious Mirage platform, along with the puppets that the other master-craftsmen regarded as their very lives, had been confiscated by Konoha Ninjas. Whether intact masterpieces or charred wrecks, they were collected by expressionless men and placed under centralized supervision.
At this moment, they were truly "Naked Units", unarmed, defeated, and left with nothing but the meager contents of their medical kits and the dry rations they carried.
A Konoha squad of twenty, led by a stern-faced Special Jonin, "escorted" them. It was a surveillance detail, a constant monitoring of their movement to ensure no "Malicious Scripts" were executed. Although the Konoha ninjas adhered to the ceasefire and refrained from physical assault, their wary, distant gazes were like shards of glass. Their posture as victors - shoulders square, weapons at the ready pierced the heart of every Sunagakure ninja like a needle.
Sayo, as the temporarily designated administrator of this broken unit, bore the greatest pressure. He wasn't just managing logistics; he was managing a collective psychological collapse. He organized the manpower to carry the most critical comrades on makeshift stretchers, while constantly moving through the ranks to soothe those whose spirits were on the verge of a total crash.
He himself was redlining. Continuous command, the battle with Sasori, and the high-output defense of the retreat had drained his mental energy. Only the weak, steady energy flow from the Chrono-Furnace on his wrist, the "pocket energy watch" kept his biological system from a total shutdown. It was a small stream of Natural Energy that acted as a continuous maintenance patch for his weary muscles.
The journey back became extraordinarily long. The route that had been a path of fire and ambition for the Suna army on the way in was now a trail of sorrow. The grim traces of the previous week's advance were visible everywhere: broken kunai, scorched scraps of sand-colored clothing, and bloodstains that had turned into dark, permanent data points in the dirt. Every groan from the stretchers added immeasurable weight to the march.
No one spoke. The only sound was the heavy, rhythmic thud of boots and the rhythmic creaking of the stretchers. The shadow of failure and the humiliation of being "Prisoners of War" weighed on their hearts like leaden fetters. The eyes of the young puppeteers were hollow; they had lost their machines, their dignity, and their faith in the system they had been built to serve.
Sayo watched all this, his heart heavy, but his engineer's mind refused to let the process hang. He was the backbone of these remnants. He moved back and forth, using his proficient Medical Ninjutsu to provide emergency "Hot-Fixes" for those whose wounds were festering. He shared his scarce water and rations with the weakest units, issuing instructions in a calm, clinical tone that provided a much-needed anchor for the group.
Finally, after several grueling days, the massive frontline main camp in the Land of Rivers appeared on the horizon. For a microsecond, a flicker of "Homecoming" warmed the squad's spirits.
However, the sight that greeted them instantly shattered that comfort.
The camp still stood, but the "Domain Headers" had been changed. The fluttering banners of the Sandstorm had been deleted, replaced by Konoha's Fire Crest. Every ninja defending the perimeter was wearing a Konoha flak jacket. The troops under Akimichi Torifu had already arrived and taken full control of the location, exercising the victor's prerogative to occupy the enemy's infrastructure.
A Konoha patrol approached, exchanging data with Sayo's escort. The Konoha Special Jonin turned to Sayo, his voice as cold as a system error.
"You may enter the camp's original medical sector to settle your wounded. Unauthorized movement into the primary directories is strictly forbidden. All actions require our approval. The material warehouses have been seized as reparations. We will provide basic medical packets and rations according to the protocol."
Sayo silently nodded. There was no room for argument, no "Admin Rights" to reclaim. Under the undisguised surveillance of the Leaf, he led his exhausted, demoralized team into what had once been their own fortress.
The camp was an empty shell. Most of the Suna personnel had been relocated or "Quarantined." The formerly bustling training grounds, the places where Sayo had once calibrated his Spiders were now being patrolled by Leaf units. A strange, suffocating atmosphere of oppression permeated the air.
They painstakingly settled the wounded into the medical tents. The supplies distributed by Konoha were a drop in the bucket compared to the high volume of "Critical Damage" in their ranks. Sayo led the survivors who could still move, helping to treat the injured and clean up the camp in a numb, mechanical silence.
Like ghosts, they moved within their own walls, restricted and monitored at every turn. Their former ambitions, the dream of conquering the Land of Fire and solving Suna's resource crisis had dissolved into nothingness. All that remained was the bitterness of defeat.
As the sun set, Sayo leaned against the edge of a quiet tent, his dark eyes gazing at the distant Konoha banner snapping in the wind. A continuous, faint warm current emanated from the watch on his wrist, a reminder that his internal "Natural Energy" core was still operational. His body was exhausted, but amidst the humiliating silence, his eyes began to gather a faint, hard glimmer of light once more.
Failure was a historical fact, but as long as the "User" survived, there was a future. How to survive this "Prisoner" state and accumulate the data needed for a rebuild would be the problem he faced next. The Land of Rivers camp was no longer a staging ground for an attack; it was a massive POW camp, and their fate now rested on the "Final Compile" of the negotiations within Kikyō Mountain Castle.
"The hardware is broken," Sayo whispered to the dark horizon. "But the architect is still online. We'll reboot. We have to."