What does it feel like to hand-craft a thermobaric bomb?
Kenichi Rainmiya honestly had no idea before this.
Now he knew.
And… it was kind of awesome. Terrifying, but awesome.
Watching a thermobaric bomb go from nothing to a complete, deadly piece of hardware right in his own hands—that sense of achievement was insane.
The only downside was that the thing looked a bit rough.
After all, he didn't exactly have access to precision lathes or industrial-grade machinery down here.
Trying to chase high-level machining accuracy in this world was basically a fantasy.
But with chakra and his Sharingan helping him control every cut, weld, and joint,
Kenichi had still managed to successfully put together a functioning thermobaric warhead.
"Dropping this from high altitude is going to be a pain, though…"
He eyed the bomb, frowning.
Even at its lightest configuration, this thing weighed at least five tons.
That was a stupid amount of weight.
No ninja was jumping around freely in the sky while hugging that.
Fortunately, there was sealing jutsu.
"Good thing I can stick you in a scroll," he muttered.
He had already set up a crude, manual trigger system.
Press the button, and after ten seconds the detonator would fire, the fuel-air mixture would form, and the bomb would bloom into the first glorious thermobaric "firework" in ninja world history.
"Once I toss it, I just need to run like hell."
He rubbed his chin, mentally estimating.
There was only about 4.5 tons of explosive mixture inside.
But with a thermobaric design, that translated into an effective yield of roughly forty tons of TNT.
He carefully sealed the completed bomb into a storage scroll.
The scroll in his hand felt almost weightless.
Kenichi lightly tossed it and caught it, nodding in satisfaction.
This thing barely qualified as a "successful reproduction," but it still counted.
If you brought this to his previous world's military engineers,
they'd probably have an aneurysm on the spot.
No quality inspection.
No standardized assembly line.
No proper testing equipment.
Even the metal casing had been literally hand-hammered together by Kenichi himself.
The seams were a little uneven, the structure a little crude—
from the perspective of modern industry, it was ugly as sin.
But in this world,
in a ninja society with basically no industrial infrastructure,
this thermobaric bomb was already peak craftsmanship.
Honestly, the fact that he'd managed to build it without blowing himself up mid-assembly
was already proof of his "superb technical skills."
Of course, his Sharingan—which was practically a built-in microscope—
had done a lot of the heavy lifting too.
You could say this was a thermobaric bomb infused with pure "ninja flavor."
As for a fully industrialized, millimeter-precision production standard…
Yeah.
That would probably have to wait until he dragged such concepts into this world.
Right then, he felt his ring heat up slightly.
A familiar wave of intent flowed through him—
Nagato was pulling him into that strange mental "conference room" again.
"Meeting time, huh?" Kenichi scratched his head.
Looked like the Akatsuki group chat was going live again.
It'd been a while.
He was curious what Nagato was planning this time.
He relaxed his body and let his consciousness sink.
The next instant, his eyes opened into that dark, towering space once more.
First thing he saw:
To his left—Orochimaru.
To his right—a familiar silhouette who gave him a small wave.
Kenichi immediately recognized him.
Scorpion.
There were three more figures present:
Nagato's Deva Path, Konan,
and a man whose figure Kenichi could pick out from memory at a glance—
Kakuzu.
"This meeting is mainly to finalize team assignments," Nagato said directly once everyone was present.
He'd learned his lesson:
If you let Kenichi speak first, there was a real chance the agenda would never recover.
"This new member, 'North,' will be partnered with 'Void' from now on," Nagato continued.
Orochimaru's eyes slid toward the newcomer.
The newcomer calmly met his gaze.
Their eyes locked for a heartbeat—
then both silently looked away.
"'Blue,' you'll be teamed up with 'Jade,'" Nagato went on.
That part had been pre-decided.
Akatsuki's structure was simple: two-man cells across the board.
Originally, Nagato had considered pairing Kakuzu with Kenichi,
since Scorpion seemed to get along with him.
But after thinking about Kakuzu's… relatively stable personality,
Nagato abandoned that idea.
He really didn't want Kenichi to drag Kakuzu into becoming another chaos generator.
That would be disastrous.
"Got it, Pein."
Kenichi answered cheerfully.
Konan covered her face.
Again.
If Akatsuki's headcount weren't still so low—
if every member weren't so critical—
she was sure Nagato would've already kicked Kenichi out long ago.
Kakuzu glanced at Kenichi, then at his leader.
There was a hint of amusement in his eyes.
He remembered Nagato saying something earlier like:
"Within the organization, we'll try to address each other by ring name."
At the time, Kakuzu had wondered why he said "try."
Now he understood.
"Rainmiya Kenichi," Nagato said, giving him a deep look.
"I look forward to seeing the results of your research."
Kenichi's smile stiffened.
Oh, Sage of Six Paths above.
He really had forgotten.
He swore on his neighbor Uncle Sam's leather shoes.
"Ahem… I've… been busy researching other projects lately," Kenichi faked a cough.
"I'll start on that as soon as possible."
The "that," of course, was the promised agricultural research—
the hybrid rice project that was supposed to feed the Land of Rain.
So far?
He hadn't even opened a notebook for it.
Not a single folder was created.
All his time had gone into the thermobaric bomb.
Fortunately, Nagato didn't press the issue.
After assigning teams, he moved straight to missions.
Orochimaru and Kakuzu were responsible for generating funds—
preferably by completing bounty missions.
Right now, Akatsuki still wasn't ready to be exposed to the major villages' intel networks,
so working off bounty lists was the safest, most efficient option.
As for Kenichi and Scorpion,
Nagato gave them a scouting and recruitment job:
Head to the Land of Water.
Observe a rogue ninja named Momochi Zabuza.
Evaluate whether he was qualified to join Akatsuki.
If he passed, they were to guide him to Amegakure.
If not… they were to kill him and cash in his bounty for Akatsuki's coffers.
"Momochi Zabuza, huh? One of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist…"
Kenichi scratched his cheek.
He'd heard the name, sure.
But the details of Zabuza's abilities were fuzzy.
He did remember one thing though—
in the "future" Akatsuki lineup he knew, Zabuza was nowhere to be seen.
So either he never passed the evaluation…
or he joined and then died shortly afterward.
Either way, that was future Zabuza's problem.
Kenichi's job was simple:
Find the guy, watch him, and make a judgment.
The meeting ended soon after.
Kenichi's hand lightly tapped the scroll at his waist.
Inside it lay a rough, hand-made, bug-riddled thermobaric bomb—
the kind that would make any serious engineer cry…
But in this world,
it was ready to rewrite the rules of war.