Orochimaru tapped the tip of his pen against the edge of the notebook, his pale fingers flecked with faint smudges of ink.
"Hmm… the problem isn't the warhead's power," he murmured to himself, eyes narrowing as if the page might reveal a secret. "It's how to make it actually strike the enemy. No matter how devastating a weapon is, it's useless if it never lands a hit."
He exhaled through his nose, a slow hiss of frustration. With my current level of technology, this is impossible. Even with years of research, there are still too many technical hurdles to overcome.
The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a dark half-smile. "I can't simply attach my Sage Art warhead to a kunai and use the Flying Thunder God Technique to blow up an Ōtsutsuki… can I?"
The thought was almost laughable—but not entirely without appeal.
And the most important question: where would I even obtain enough Sage Chakra for such a thing?
His pen scratched rapidly across the page as he recorded each idea in neat, deliberate strokes.
Another critical issue is the amount of Sage Chakra the explosive can actually contain, he wrote, pausing to underline the words twice. Since I haven't mastered Sage Mode yet, the only option is to experiment with ordinary chakra first and develop a container capable of holding far more energy.
He stopped, the faint rustle of paper the only sound in the quiet lab. A new possibility flashed across his mind.
"…Edo Tensei?"
The snake-like Sannin tilted his head, golden eyes gleaming with sudden inspiration. The Impure World Reincarnation…
Of course. The forbidden jutsu created by Senju Tobirama, the Second Hokage himself. If anyone had the audacity to carry a Sage Art warhead into the heart of battle and detonate it alongside the enemy, it would have been Tobirama. Orochimaru's lips curled in a thin smile.
Surely the man who perfected Edo Tensei wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice even his own reanimated body for victory. After all, Edo Tensei was practically designed for that kind of unthinkable maneuver.
He flipped through his notes on the First Shinobi World War, recalling the historical accounts with an almost reverent fascination. Tobirama Senju had allegedly deployed Edo Tensei countless times, resurrecting fallen Konoha shinobi and sending them back into the fray, overwhelming the Second Tsuchikage, Mū, and the Second Mizukage, Hōzuki Gengetsu.
Rumor held that the Second Raikage had ultimately agreed to an alliance with Konoha not out of diplomacy, but because he could no longer endure the endless cycle of unkillable soldiers rising again and again. Whether the tale was true hardly mattered; the legend alone revealed Tobirama's ruthless brilliance.
Orochimaru chuckled softly. "Unfortunately, there's no way to ask Sarutobi-sensei or the other elders if the story is real. They'd never admit it anyway."
He tapped the pen against the page. "Still, what a move. Morally questionable, yes… but when the stakes are survival, who cares about ethics? If we fail to kill those parasitic Ōtsutsuki, it's our world that will perish."
Across the room, Hyūga Mio watched her master scribbling furiously, her Byakugan-pale eyes betraying both curiosity and unease. She had lost count of how many times she'd seen Orochimaru fill pages with his dark, relentless calculations.
---
Author's Research Note:
In the shinobi world, many natural materials can be attuned to chakra or even infused with it. Ordinary "chakra blasters" are explosive devices that amplify their destructive power with chakra—inflicting both physical and mystical damage.
The Ōtsutsuki, however, can absorb purely mystical energy. Physical damage barely scratches them—an annoyance at best, an insult at worst. True harm requires Sage Chakra, whose unique balance of natural energy pierces their defenses.
Sage Art explosives, therefore, are invaluable. They combine physical devastation with the raw force of nature itself.
---
Black Zetsu's Unease
Far beneath the Mountain Graveyard, an ancient figure stirred.
Uchiha Madara awoke to the deep rumble of an explosion, his single functioning eye—an Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan—snapping open. The other eye, a dull grayish-white, remained lifeless. Dust rained from the ceiling as the cavern trembled.
"What was that blast?" His voice was a rasp of old power.
Madara pushed himself upright, long dark hair now streaked with silver, his once-handsome face carved with deep wrinkles and shadows. Bags sagged beneath his eyes, yet the sharpness of his gaze remained unmistakable.
Against the stone wall hung relics of a bygone era: a black cloak, a worn katana, a deadly kusarigama, and the legendary gunbai—the great war fan permitted only to the Uchiha clan's true leader. Nearby, a simple mask and a small leather wallet rested on a rough wooden table.
Though he had secluded himself here for years, it was clear Madara did not remain entirely still. His lair bore the marks of a man who still wandered, if only to keep his body from succumbing to age.
Another tremor rolled through the ground. He stepped to the mouth of the cave, his Sharingan spinning faintly. Across the dark sea, a massive column of smoke and spray marked the site of a violent detonation.
"I remember… a group of fools began constructing a facility on that island recently. A laboratory of some sort."
He narrowed his eye. "Could that explosion have been one of their experiments?"
The thought pricked at him. Years had passed since the world believed him dead, and he was not ready to reveal his survival. If his presence became known, every plan he had carefully nurtured would collapse.
Hashirama, he thought bitterly. The world must see that only Infinite Tsukuyomi can bring true peace. My way is the only way. I will prove I was right and you were wrong.
He clenched a gnarled fist. "So why… why has the power of All Creation not yet manifested?"
His sightless right eye throbbed faintly as doubt coiled in his chest. Could the stone tablet, the ancient Uchiha scripture left by the Sage of Six Paths himself, have misled him? He had followed its instructions for decades. The prophecy could not be false—could it?
But age was a relentless enemy. His physical strength ebbed with each year. The once-invincible warrior who had ruled battlefields now struggled even to feel his right eye. And though he had grafted Senju Hashirama's flesh into his own chest to heal a mortal wound, the results remained imperfect.
Was the harvested flesh insufficient to awaken the power of creation? The question gnawed at him, but he refused to doubt the stone tablet. Doubt himself, perhaps—but never the scripture.
Day after day the explosions continued. The laboratory's tests grew bolder, louder, shaking the sea with reckless regularity. For Madara, the endless noise was a torment.
Had he been younger, he might have unleashed Susanoo and obliterated the facility in a single strike. But now… even his prodigious patience frayed.
Hidden nearby, Black Zetsu observed the aging Uchiha with a tightening coil of anxiety.
"Why has Madara's Rinnegan still not awakened?" Zetsu fretted silently. "The fusion of Indra and Asura's chakra should have long since manifested the power of Hagoromo. Could… could Mother's memories be wrong? No. Impossible!"
The inky being clenched its formless fists. For a thousand years it had engineered conflict after conflict, guiding Indra's and Asura's reincarnations toward the grand design of resurrecting Kaguya. Yet the crucial first step—awakening the Rinnegan—remained maddeningly incomplete.
"Madara cannot die now," Zetsu whispered in the shadows. "He must endure long enough to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path… long enough to awaken the Rinnegan, or everything will be lost."
A thunderous boom shattered the thought. Gravel rained from the ceiling.
"Enough!" Madara snarled, wiping sweat from his weathered brow. His patience had reached its limit.
He dressed swiftly, wrapping himself in a black cloak and masking his face with a simple hood. His fingers brushed the great gunbai, then hesitated. Instead, he slung a katana across his back—a quieter choice for tonight.
Without another word, he leapt from the Mountain Graveyard, crossing the rocky shore and stepping onto the dark water. Each stride sent ripples skimming across the moonlit sea as he raced toward the island laboratory, a silent fury sharpening his every movement.
From the shadows behind, a mass of black sludge oozed up from the ground, twin round eyes gleaming like pale coins.
"This is risky," Black Zetsu muttered. "If he falls or falters… if he dies before the plan begins…"
---
Meeting at the Laboratory
Inside the facility, an Orochimaru shadow clone sensed the approaching presence instantly. The unmistakable chakra signature—ancient, oppressive—sent a shiver of anticipation through him.
"So," Orochimaru mused, "the legendary Uchiha Madara himself is coming. To think he'd be stirred simply by a few explosions."
His serpentine smile faded into calculation. Killing him would be… difficult. Even weakened and with only one Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, he is still Uchiha Madara. But a meeting could be… educational.
The clone transformed in a swirl of smoke, reappearing as a young woman with keen eyes and a calm, almost playful expression. She stepped outside just as the dark figure reached the shore.
"Who are you?" she called, voice cool but edged. "This is no place for wanderers. Leave at once."
Madara paused, eye narrowing beneath his hood. "Girl, tell me—what is the purpose of this building?"
He had no desire to start a fight, not when his identity was at stake. If word spread that he still lived, every nation would hunt him and the fragile equilibrium he maintained would shatter.
"This?" the disguised Orochimaru said with a casual tilt of her head. "It's a laboratory for… hot weapons."
"Hot weapons?" Madara echoed, the term foreign on his tongue.
"Yes," she replied, resting a hand on her hip, regarding him as though he were a curious relic washed ashore. "You really haven't heard of them? Were you living under a rock?"
He ignored the jibe. "Explain."
"You saw the blast over the sea, didn't you? That wasn't a new type of exploding tag. It was something different—true explosives."
"Explosives?" The word sounded strange, almost primitive, to Madara.
"They differ from exploding tags," she explained lightly. "Exploding tags rely on Fire Release techniques sealed into special paper. Explosives, however, are chemical reactions—blasts created by mixing specific materials. They don't require chakra at all."
Madara's brows knitted. So the world develops new forms of destruction while I bide my time. Even without chakra, they can create such force?
To illustrate, Orochimaru casually lobbed a small device onto the ground. With a sharp pop, it erupted, leaving a shallow crater.
"This is a simple explosive," she said. "Not even as strong as an exploding tag."
Then she produced a second device, her fingers threading chakra into its core. Madara's Sharingan flared as he watched the energy mingle with the mechanism.
The resulting detonation was far more violent, a shockwave that rattled the surrounding rocks. Dust settled slowly as the echo faded.
"This," she said, "is a chakra-infused explosive. Stronger, deadlier, and capable of far more than ordinary tags. With enough chakra, its potential is limitless. But even without chakra, ordinary people can wield basic explosives. Imagine an army of civilians armed with such weapons."
Madara studied the smoking crater, his mind racing. The world was changing faster than he had anticipated. Could his dream of Infinite Tsukuyomi survive such evolution?
"This is only the prototype of what you might call a 'hot weapon,'" she added, a faint smirk curling her lips. "Old man, your way of thinking belongs to another era."
For a heartbeat, the ancient Uchiha said nothing, his crimson eye gleaming in the moonlight. The wind carried the acrid scent of smoke between them, a quiet reminder that the shinobi world would never stop advancing—no matter how long he hid in the dark.
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