Tailed Beast Bombs.
Right now, they were basically one of the most terrifying things in the entire ninja world. A walking WMD that roared, ran, and complained when bored.
Honestly, Amamiya Kenichi couldn't help suspecting whoever "designed" Tailed Beasts had sneakily referenced missiles or nukes.
A mobile launch platform with its own will, spewing high-yield chakra projectiles with ridiculous destructive power? Come on.
If it weren't for the poor range and ballistic limitations of the Tailed Beast Bomb, Kenichi would've genuinely believed they were the chakra-world counterpart of strategic missiles or tactical nukes.
He'd always been curious:
Tailed Beast Bomb vs modern hot weapons – who wins?
Unfortunately, back in Konoha, there had only been one Nine Tails. And on the night of the Nine Tails attack, he hadn't even built a thermobaric bomb yet.
So no field test. A pity.
But now?
Now things were different.
With thermobarics already proving themselves, Kenichi was genuinely looking forward to one day seeing a full missile barrage sweeping a battlefield clean. At that point, wars would be completely different.
Hell, given that the Ōtsutsuki clan were literally aliens, there had to be flying ships or something somewhere out there. They couldn't have just swum through space to get here.
"Kenichi, do you think what I mentioned just now is actually possible?" Sasori's question cut through his train of thought.
The two of them were walking along a mountain path. Kenichi was mentally plotting where to set up their hidden launch site for the hot-air balloon that would carry them to the Frost Country frontlines.
"You mean that idea?" Kenichi replied. "The biggest problem is how you're going to restrain the soul. But, Sasori—if you're serious about it, why not just make yourself into that AI?"
Earlier, Sasori had been talking about using captured souls as "artificial intelligence"—permanent, controllable operator brains for puppets.
Kenichi thought it was… naïve.
Basing the safety of an AI on the loyalty of human souls?
Yeah, no.
Humans were walking contradictions. Some stayed loyal for life. Others could betray you between breakfast and lunch. Someone might be a perfect subordinate now, but what about after they gained more power? After they tasted authority?
Once a person held too much power in their hands, ambition tended to sprout like weeds—quick, aggressive, and very hard to uproot.
History proved that clearly enough.
So rather than betting everything on someone else's loyalty, Kenichi felt a more reliable solution was simple:
Do it yourself.
"Think about it," he continued. "You're going to turn yourself into a puppet eventually anyway. Why not go one step further?"
He glanced over at Sasori, eyes sparkling with malicious inspiration.
"Your original body becomes the core puppet. Your brain gets turned into a super-processor. Your puppet network gets remote-controlled by you, personally. Isn't that way safer and stronger than gambling on other people's souls?"
"Me… becoming the AI myself?" Sasori murmured.
He fell silent, clearly thinking it through.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
Capturing people, extracting their souls, conditioning loyalty—that all took huge effort and time. And even then, you couldn't be 100% sure nothing would go wrong later.
But if he became the core…
As long as he built receivers in all his puppets that responded only to his unique brainwaves or chakra signature, he could control an entire legion with zero risk of betrayal.
And in the future, maybe he could go even further…
Kenichi had no idea that his casual suggestion had lit up a whole cascade of terrifying ideas in Sasori's mind. If he did, he'd probably keep pushing.
A technologically ascended Sasori was nothing but good news for him.
A stronger ally, better puppets, and more experimental data.
The only small concern was: if Sasori did complete his "ascension" and became some kind of pure-machine will, would he lose his human emotions and trigger a ninja-world version of a robot uprising?
But then Kenichi thought about it and relaxed.
If it really came to that… there was always EMP.
And honestly, a full-blown machine revolt wasn't easy in this world anyway. The industrial level was way too low. Kenichi couldn't even get machining precision down to the nanometer level—hell, even consistent millimeter precision was tough.
Mass-producing advanced puppets would be extremely hard, unless Sasori somehow became Kazekage and turned the whole Sand Village into his industrial factory.
And even if he did?
With monsters like Madara and the First Hokage still existing in history—and the likes of Obito and Nagato walking around now—Sasori's mechanized revolution would hit some very, very hard walls.
"Come on," Kenichi said, shaking his head. "Even if you really want to build that, it's not something you can finish in a day or two. We've got a bomb to drop first."
Step one: hot-air balloon.
Step two: science.
Once again, with experience from last time, building the balloon went much more smoothly. Before long, the fabric envelope was inflated, the basket secured, and they drifted up into the sky.
"…Kenichi, you really do love tea," Sasori remarked, watching his partner casually brew a pot in the swaying basket.
He'd met all kinds of weird shinobi. But this was his first time seeing someone sip tea in a hot-air balloon, on the way to commit a war crime.
"You don't get it. I'm raising the teapot," Kenichi replied with a straight face.
Ever since he'd bought this clay pot, he'd solemnly decided to "raise" it properly.
A well-kept teapot, supposedly, could infuse pure hot water with a tea fragrance all on its own. The more you used it, the better it got. That was art.
When he was little, he'd once scrubbed his grandfather's "dirty" old teapot until it shone.
He got beaten half to death that day.
"But I have to say," Sasori continued, glancing around the basket, "this invention really is useful. If you took it to market, you'd probably make a lot of money."
Kenichi's lips twitched.
"If this thing goes public, the world is going to get much more chaotic," he muttered.
He had a theory: the reason there were no planes, bombers, or jets in the original story was because once you added an air force, the entire structure of war changed.
And Kishimoto probably didn't want to draw all that.
Air superiority was a revolution in warfare. Once aerial power existed, mountains, walls, fortresses—everything became vulnerable.
If shinobi villages ever developed true air units?
Surprise "blitz" raids from the sky
Instant strikes deep into enemy territory
Sand's desert defenses and Iwa's mountains turned into decorations
The balance of the Five Great Nations would flip overnight.
So in this world, there were hardly any serious flying technologies. Not even hot-air balloons.
"Let it leak, and this world will become a lot more interesting," Kenichi said. "But also a lot harder to predict."
He shifted the nature of his chakra, then formed the seals.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
A surge of wind filled the balloon and pushed them faster through the clouds, in the direction of the Frost Country.
"Kenchii," Sasori asked suddenly, staring down at the shrinking world beneath their feet, "do you think it's possible to build a base in the sky?"
Kenichi's eyes lit up.
Now that was a fun idea.
Note: Want to see what happens long before anyone else? Read up to Chapter 135+ on patreon.com/nakai01 and support the story with a Power Stone.