"Doing experiments?"
The familiar voice made Amamiya Kenichi jolt so hard his whole body shivered.
He instinctively used Shunshin to dodge—
—and slammed straight into the table in front of him.
He spun around and saw that the previously empty base now had one more person in it.
His teacher, Orochimaru.
Arms folded, expression weird, watching him quietly.
Kenichi's heart tightened.
He knew exactly why sensei had shown up so suddenly.
She'd definitely noticed that the previous lab… was gone.
"Sensei, there was… a small problem with the old lab," Kenichi confessed honestly. "I… kinda blew it up while experimenting."
Lying was useless—Orochimaru had plenty of ways to investigate.
A single lie needed countless more to cover it; Kenichi felt it was safer to come clean now than let things spiral out of control later.
"…Mm. I know."
Orochimaru's tone was calm. She didn't sound angry at all.
Kenichi quietly exhaled.
"That lab didn't have anything too valuable in it anyway. I did see the word 'explosive' in what you were just writing, though. What exactly were you working on?" Orochimaru asked with interest.
She knew this disciple of hers saw the world of science from some very strange angles, so when she came back, found the lab gone, and then saw Kenichi scribbling formulas, she'd leaned over for a look.
And discovered—she didn't really understand what he was trying to do.
Not that she didn't understand explosives—
She just didn't get her student's bizarre train of thought.
"Yes, sensei, that's something I… developed myself. I'm in the middle of testing it." Kenichi answered honestly.
His teacher really must have studied abroad in Gotham or something.
Why else would she like silently appearing behind people so much?
Though to be fair, it was also because once Kenichi entered "research mode," his focus completely tunneled in and he ignored his surroundings.
"Next time, you still need to be more careful. If someone stabs you from behind while you're distracted, that'd be a pretty ridiculous way to die."
Kenichi suddenly thought of Madara getting black-tiger-heart-struck by Black Zetsu.
"…Explain it," Orochimaru said lightly.
She had originally been fully prepared to be furious.
After discovering her lab had vanished, she'd come looking for her student in a very bad mood.
But when she actually found him here, scribbling formulas and muttering to himself, curiosity had quietly pressed her anger down.
So she decided to wait.
She wanted to hear what kind of strange idea her disciple had this time—
Then decide whether or not to get mad.
Orochimaru knew about explosives. Some mining companies used them to open mountains and dig tunnels.
But they were dangerous, hard to carry, and their raw power wasn't particularly overwhelming—
Any high-level Fire jutsu could outdamage them.
So she really had no idea why her disciple was so interested in researching explosives.
Kenichi could only give a vague explanation.
After all, "thermobaric bombs" didn't exist in this world; he had no real vocabulary for them here.
So he claimed he'd seen someone using a special kind of explosive while on a previous mission, and had been inspired to research whether explosives could be modified to increase their power and applied in other ways.
"Your idea isn't bad. The head of the Konoha Mining Company once did similar research," Orochimaru commented.
She wasn't very interested, though.
Compared to messing around with explosives, researching jutsu had far more promise.
Fire Release alone could already easily exceed explosive power.
But since her disciple seemed genuinely invested, Orochimaru didn't feel like pouring cold water on him.
Instead, she started sharing some of what she knew—if nothing else, it would help him avoid unnecessary detours.
Kenichi listened carefully.
In any line of research, having access to prior data and "papers" saved an enormous amount of time.
"…Explosives are relatively stable by nature, but once chakra is integrated into them, they start to react and completely lose function. Only fire-nature chakra is an exception…" Orochimaru explained in detail.
Kenichi couldn't help glancing at her a few more times.
Did sensei… actually research this before?
Otherwise, how could she know this much?
But he quickly noticed something important.
What Orochimaru described… didn't match what he'd experienced.
According to her, once chakra fused into explosives, they'd simply fail—
But in his case, the moment he added lightning-nature chakra, the mixture underwent a violent reaction.
Why the discrepancy?
Could it be because he was using thermobaric compositions, not regular explosives? Maybe the properties were simply different.
That explanation sounded very plausible.
Clearly, the shinobi world hadn't invested seriously in this kind of research. In the future, it'd really just be Deidara—the explosives artist—who'd push the "art of explosion" into the spotlight.
And frankly, Deidara's bombs weren't very reproducible.
Other people could barely learn them, and in terms of pure yield, they lagged behind many modern weapons from Kenichi's previous world.
The only real advantages were C4's operability and portability.
"Right. Since you're back—how did the funding collection go?" Orochimaru finally remembered the main topic.
Kenichi immediately pulled out everything he'd "earned" from Kado and laid it out.
He didn't hide anything.
He had already blown up one of Orochimaru's labs—just not being forced to pay for that was blessing enough.
In his previous world, something like that would've meant working off debt for a lifetime.
"More than a hundred and twenty million ryō. Not bad. A bit low if we split it between the two of us, but I picked up some on the way back as well."
Orochimaru tossed out another scroll.
More money. Another fifty million or so inside.
Together, it was a very decent sum—enough to complete Akatsuki's funding request.
Kenichi remained calm.
He already knew that sometimes villages would tacitly allow their shinobi to "relieve" wealthy foreigners of a portion of their assets.
As long as it wasn't too outrageous, all the major villages quietly accepted this unspoken rule.
After all, once the rich were robbed, they'd naturally seek protection from ninja.
Which meant… more missions, more contracts, more income.
And the loot taken could also be "taxed" by the village.
It was very much like the old British Crown authorizing privateers—
State-sanctioned pirates.
Watching Orochimaru calmly sealing the money into another scroll, Kenichi suddenly had a bold idea.
He knew it was dangerous.
But some urges were hard to suppress.
This was—
for science.
He slowly reached out his hand…
And stretched it toward his teacher's head.