"Kenichi, you're not into—"
Sasori clearly misunderstood him. Amamiya Kenichi froze for a second, then hurriedly waved his hands.
"Relax, I only like cute girls. Very cute girls."
He emphasized his preferences at once.
He really didn't want Sasori to get the wrong idea and think he had some strange fetish. That would be a disaster. Sasori was still a very normal person mentally, and Kenichi was a steel straight man. His type was the soft, adorable kind of girl.
Of course, "cute" was a very rough summary. If he really started breaking it down in detail, he could probably talk for an hour.
Getting into Kumogakure was… not going smoothly.
The merchants in front of them were being searched in a way that could only be described as humiliating.
They were ordered to strip completely, and the shinobi even used water to scrub their faces, checking for any trace of makeup or disguise.
Of course, given the current situation, it made sense. In wartime, Konoha was just as paranoid about outsiders.
The merchants seemed used to this treatment by now.
Kenichi's face, however, did not look good.
He still had a sealing scroll on him — and inside was a thermobaric bomb.
If they really had to go through that level of body search, where was he supposed to hide something like that?
He also noticed that the Kumogakure shinobi here weren't taking bribes at all.
Every merchant cooperated honestly.
Even that uncle earlier, who clearly loved solving problems with bribes, was now standing obediently in line.
Sasori's expression was just as ugly.
Even if it was for the mission… letting other shinobi search him to that extent? He really couldn't accept it.
That wasn't a security check. That was an insult.
"Let's fall back for now. We made it this far anyway," Kenichi said.
He glanced up at Kumogakure ahead. From the outside it looked calm, but he knew there had to be barrier squads maintaining a village-wide sealing formation.
Originally, Kenichi had planned to infiltrate Kumogakure and plant the thermobaric bomb inside the village.
But judging from their current alert level, sneaking in would be extremely difficult.
And even if they got in, getting back out would be hell.
So either he forced his way in — which would definitely trigger Kumo's ANBU — or he came from above.
Right now, the ninja world had never really experienced air raids.
Village barriers were usually hemispherical, covering a certain height above the ground.
And any ninjutsu fired from above would be easy to sense and intercept. So naturally, nobody had seriously developed aerial tactics.
Frankly, there weren't even that many shinobi who could fly.
The Tsuchikage, Deidara… but Deidara was probably still playing with clay in some classroom right now, so he wasn't a factor.
Kenichi's idea was:
Find a highest possible point →
Use a glider or similar to fly over Kumogakure →
Open the sealing scroll mid-air →
Let the thermobaric bomb drop →
Boom.
But he soon realized that wouldn't work.
Kumogakure itself was already built on high ground.
Right now, he and Sasori were still at the foot of the mountain. To even reach the village proper, they'd have to climb up.
Still, Kenichi decided to pull back with Sasori first. Staying near the gates any longer was asking to be flagged.
After a quick exchange of looks, he cast Temple of Nirvana to disrupt the shinobi nearby, then grabbed Sasori and slipped away from the main gate.
Kumogakure's reaction was fast. A few figures instantly flickered over to the gate area — likely ANBU.
But Kenichi and Sasori had plenty of ways to conceal their presence.
For the moment, they didn't have to worry about being tracked.
"Kenichi, how are you planning to get in?" Sasori asked.
They'd come all the way to Kumo's doorstep — he knew the village itself had to be Kenichi's real target.
But openly making an enemy of an entire village… was that really okay?
Even as someone who killed the Third Kazekage, Sasori knew very well:
He'd only managed it thanks to his identity and poison.
In a frontal fight, it would've been hard to say who would win.
"We don't need to go in," Kenichi shook his head.
Originally he'd planned to infiltrate Kumo to look for clues about Kinkaku and Ginkaku's burial site.
But seeing Kumo's level of vigilance now, he knew there was basically no chance of slipping inside unnoticed.
So: either break in by force, or come from the sky.
Kenichi licked his finger, held it up, and felt the wind direction and speed.
He did a quick estimate in his head, and a preliminary plan formed.
Kumogakure's location was good defensively, but it also made attacking from above tricky.
Still, there was a workaround—
He could build a simple hot-air balloon.
Use the clouds and mist for cover, ascend to a higher altitude, then use wind chakra to push the balloon into position over Kumo.
Once they were overhead, he could just drop the bomb.
With chakra, the balloon's rate of ascent would be much faster than in his previous world. As long as they got up before anyone noticed, the plan would already be half a success.
"What's this?" Sasori finally couldn't help asking.
He watched Kenichi work and stared at the strange fabric structure he was sewing together. If he didn't know better, he'd think Kenichi was just… making clothes.
"A hot-air balloon. You've never seen one?" Kenichi gave him a weird look.
In his mind, hot-air balloons were ridiculously low-tech.
So low-tech that he had just assumed the ninja world had to have them already.
He'd even been worrying that Kumo might have some kind of balloon-detection tool… only to find out Sasori didn't even know what a hot-air balloon was.
"Hot-air… balloon?" Sasori's face made it obvious this was his first time hearing the term.
Kenichi's mouth twitched.
If even a battle-hardened guy like Sasori had never seen one, then the ninja world probably truly didn't have this tech yet.
Thinking back, he'd never seen one in Konoha either — but he hadn't thought much about it at the time. After all, the tech content of a hot-air balloon was really, really low.
In his previous life, people had already launched hot-air balloons around 1783. That says enough about how simple it was.
"It's something that can take us up into the sky," Kenichi explained briefly.
"But to be safe, we'll also need to make two parachutes."
Sasori was very interested.
With his help, the hot-air balloon and two parachutes were quickly finished. Before long, the balloon, boosted by Wind Release, was rapidly climbing into the sky.
Looking down at the shrinking forest and the tiny silhouette of Kumogakure, Kenichi's eyes shone with excitement.
"Fear it! Be honored!" he laughed, pulling out the sealing scroll that contained the thermobaric bomb.
"You'll be the first ones in this world to witness the power of science!"
(End of Chapter)
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