Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly exhaled a ring of smoke as his wife, Biwako, quietly poured him another cup of tea.
"Old man, your disciple doesn't seem as bad as you make him sound," Biwako said softly, gathering up the cups that had just been used to host Orochimaru and his student.
"This guy? I don't believe for a second he's being nice out of the goodness of his heart."
Hiruzen snorted and flipped through the items on the table.
All high-grade tobacco.
All the expensive kind.
He could tell at a glance.
He even knew exactly which shop they came from—the long-standing Nara family store. Proper supply chain, clean records. It wasn't something you could casually tamper with.
"Then why has he been sending them all this time? Seven, eight months now, right?"
Biwako looked at the tobacco thoughtfully. She wasn't blind; she knew this stuff wasn't cheap.
If Orochimaru really had sinister intentions, why spend seven or eight months steadily sending gifts, never once breaking the pattern, and on top of that constantly nagging the old man to go for check-ups and take care of his health?
In terms of "model student who respects his teacher," Orochimaru had recently become the poster child.
"…It's because I don't know what he's planning that I'm irritated."
Hiruzen ground out, flicking ash into the tray before standing up with a wave of his sleeve.
Biwako wasn't surprised.
Anyway, he never smoked the tobacco Orochimaru sent; all of that ended up quietly disposed of or sold off elsewhere. It was a small bit of extra income for the household, though with the Sarutobi clan's current standing, they didn't exactly need it.
"Cough… cough, cough…"
Hiruzen suddenly doubled over with a few rough coughs. Biwako sighed, already walking toward a cupboard.
She came back with chrysanthemum tea.
Too many years of smoking. Too many years of stress. The coughing fits were practically a part of their daily routine now.
Habit was habit.
But she still had to take care of him.
After all, the Sarutobi clan only had what it had because of this stubborn old man.
Back in his own tiny home, Amamiya Kenichi began packing.
He didn't own many things to begin with, but there were certain items he absolutely had to take.
Like the materials he'd painstakingly gathered for the future production of fuel-air explosives.
Of course, he wasn't planning to build them inside Konoha.
He already had the schematics, but a few key materials were still missing. Until he had everything, the designs would just have to sit there and wait.
"Once I can make a thermobaric bomb, I should really start thinking about fuel-air cluster bombs too… But man, this research is expensive."
Kenichi clicked his tongue.
There was a saying in his previous life:
"Once the cannons fire, gold flows like water."
R&D made that twice as true.
Manufacturing costs alone were brutal.
Adding in test failures and optimization? That was money straight into a bottomless pit.
That was one of the main reasons he was holding back for now.
Once he joined Akatsuki, with their funding and resources behind him, that would be the time to really let loose.
He genuinely wanted to see it:
How would a fully armed ninja battalion fare against an actual thermobaric or cloud bomb?
"…Of course, high-end combat power in this world is still insane."
Kenichi licked his lips, thinking of a certain legendary scene.
"Just think about Madara's Tengai Shinsei. That thing is ridiculous."
Back when he hadn't transmigrated yet, he'd looked into why, with all of modern science and technology, humans still couldn't reliably intercept large, fast-moving meteors entering the atmosphere.
Then he'd learned—humankind simply wasn't there yet.
Any country that could secretly master that tech would essentially dominate the planet.
And now, standing here in the shinobi world, with chakra thrown into the mix, he had a thought:
If he could someday combine that level of orbital weaponry with chakra systems…
Star-class warships.
Sky-borne weapon platforms.
Orbital strikes fused with ninjutsu.
Domination of the ninja world wouldn't be a dream.
After all, this world wasn't just steel and petroleum.
It was chakra.
What kind of terrifying things could be born from chakra × weapons of mass destruction?
That question alone sent a thrill of excitement through him.
Inject chakra into a thermobaric warhead, for example—
What kind of evolution would that trigger?
Unfortunately, he lacked the materials to test it here and now.
Otherwise, if he didn't care about consequences, he'd really be tempted to drop a "historical test" right in Konoha's central plaza.
Let the "village of peace and will of fire" experience what industrialized killing power actually looked like.
"Kenichi, what are you smiling at?"
Kakashi gave him a sideways look.
They were eating ramen.
Kenichi had chopsticks in hand, bowl in front of him, and was wearing a smile that was—objectively speaking—a bit creepy.
"Ah—nothing. Just thinking of something that made me happy."
Kenichi snapped himself back to reality, shaking his head.
He'd spent half the night thinking about the feasibility of chakra-thermobaric combinations and slept like trash. No wonder he'd shown up with faint dark circles under his eyes.
Looked like he really was getting close to joining the world's most dangerous "research team."
"Something happy?"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow.
After getting dragged around by Kenichi for so long, some of the fog in his chest had finally started to clear. He was… not quite the same as before.
"Nothing big."
Kenichi waved his hand.
The jokes he knew were mostly from a different world. They needed cultural context. Dropping them into Konoha out of nowhere would either kill the mood or get him labeled as insane.
But if he was being honest—
He had seen way too many memes involving Konoha.
Including a very special genre:
"Orochimaru's fanart pack."
There had been whole folders of it back then—
Living Corpse Reincarnation Orochimaru in girl form.
School uniform.
Black stockings.
JK fashion.
Complete with smug faces and dangerous smiles.
If Sensei ever learned that, in another world, he was a top-tier "JK character" with entire artbooks dedicated to him…
Kenichi was pretty sure Orochimaru would quit the ninja path and go into human experimentation purely out of spite.
Kakashi glanced at him again, saw that he wasn't planning to elaborate, and simply went back to his ramen.
Kenichi studied him.
For the past while, Kakashi hadn't left the village.
No ANBU mask.
No long missions.
ANBU, Root, the jōnin corps—everyone who mattered had suddenly gone quiet.
But that kind of silence only meant one thing:
Something big was coming.
Kushina Uzumaki's due date was close.
The village looked calm on the surface.
Underneath, it was already locked on course with a coming disaster.
Kenichi remembered, vaguely, that in his previous life's videos and breakdowns, many people had suspected that the leak about Kushina's pregnancy had started with Kakashi.
He couldn't confirm that.
But he knew this much:
Kakashi liked talking to empty gravestones.
If Obito was listening from the shadows…
It wouldn't be strange at all for him to pick up crucial information from such conversations.
"Kakashi, you free these next few nights? Want to come over to my place and hang out?"
Kenichi asked casually, as if it were a random thought.
"What would we do?"
Kakashi paused, but still asked.
He hadn't had any new missions lately.
Minato-sensei had told him to stay put in the village, not to stray too far.
Going to a friend's home wouldn't be considered breaking orders.
"Obviously, we're going to—"
Play gacha almost slipped out, but Kenichi stopped himself in time.
"Ahem. I got my hands on some good books. And there's a new tabletop game everyone's been talking about. Really fun."
There were no video games in Konoha.
But physical board and card games? Those existed. And they were popular.
Kenichi had already bought the newest release.
"…Fine."
Kakashi had originally intended to refuse.
After all, he still wanted to train at night.
But when he looked up and caught that faint, quietly expectant look on Kenichi's face…
The refusal died in his throat.
"Great!"
Kenichi's smile instantly brightened.
He didn't know the exact date of Kushina's labor.
But as long as, during that critical window, he could keep Kakashi at his house—or go to Kakashi's and stay there—either option worked.
When chaos broke out.
When the Nine-Tails roared and jōnin were pulled in every direction.
The moment Kakashi was distracted—
Just a heartbeat—
That would be the perfect time to take the Mangekyō Sharingan.
And if everything went smoothly…
Orochimaru's future "JK fanart" wouldn't be the only cursed content in this world.
There might also be a brand-new series:
"Sharingan Dissection Encyclopedia · Volume 1."
Kenichi couldn't wait.