Early morning, three days later. The open-air testing ground.
The white frost on the ground had yet to melt. Military boots crunched softly over it.
The axle lacked lubricating grease, and its friction produced a strained creak.
Orochimaru pushed a flatbed iron cart out through the rolling shutter of Machine Workshop No. 1.
His eye sockets were sunken. The skin beneath his eyes was dark.
His already long hair was thoroughly tangled, and several greasy strands clung to his forehead.
He was struggling to push. One of the cart's iron wheels had caught in a hole in the dirt.
Orochimaru heaved with his back and waist, his fingers gripping the cast-iron handle tightly.
Black engine-oil grime and iron filings packed the spaces beneath his nails.
The wheel rolled over the hole, and he pushed the cart in front of Shu Shiraishi.
A thick black canvas covered the cart. Beneath it was a large, bulky lump of metal.
Orochimaru stopped, gasping for breath. His chest rose and fell like a broken bellows.
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"Lord Shu." Orochimaru's voice was hoarse and cracked, like sandpaper scraping a dry plank.
He raised his right hand and grabbed a corner of the black canvas.
He gave it a hard yank.
The canvas caught halfway off.
A protrusion on the metal underneath had snagged a loose thread.
Orochimaru bit his chapped, peeling lips. He grabbed the canvas with both hands and yanked it down roughly.
With a ripping sound, the canvas tore and fell to the ground, getting smeared with frosty mud.
A crude-looking Chakra heavy machine gun was exposed to the cold air.
It was nothing like Konoha's light, traditional Kunai. This was a brutal lump of iron through and through.
Its barrel was as thick as an adult's thigh, its surface covered in unpolished, fish-scale weld seams.
Three brass tubes ran along its side. Its cooling grooves had been cut crookedly.
The most conspicuous part was the magazine.
It was a thick, rectangular glass box fitted beneath the gun.
There were no gunpowder cartridges inside.
It was packed tight with dim blue, compressed Chakra crystals. A yellow miniature Explosive Tag the size of a fingernail was attached to the back of each crystal.
Shu Shiraishi stood in front of the cart.
He wore no coat, only a black tank top.
He reached out and stroked the cold cast-iron barrel.
The metal felt hard and cold, with a strong smell of engine oil and scorching.
Orochimaru rubbed his hands together beside him. Two fresh burn blisters marked the back of one hand.
"There wasn't enough time. I couldn't polish the exterior."
Orochimaru licked his lips, and his tongue came away streaked with blood.
"The core power furnace uses the Inverted Four Symbols Seal you gave me. The bullets have miniature arrays the Sealing Squad engraved overnight."
Shu Shiraishi said nothing.
He gripped the handles with both hands. The muscles in his right arm bulged.
The gun weighed at least a hundred kilograms.
Shu Shiraishi lifted it from the cart with one hand. Its weight drove his military boots more than a centimeter into the mud.
"Get some people. Build a wall." Holding the gun in one hand, Shu Shiraishi jerked his chin toward the open ground ahead.
Kagami Uchiha, standing at the edge of the crowd, immediately waved.
Three Chunin skilled in Earth Release ran out.
They ran fifty meters away, quickly made Hand Seals, and slammed their hands against the frozen ground.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
The ground shook. Three thick earthen walls rose from the earth.
The walls pressed together, forming a barrier a full meter and a half thick, with a grayish-white layer of hardened rock covering the surface.
This was a fortification that could withstand a B-rank Fire Style head-on on the battlefield.
Their Chakra depleted, the three Chunin slumped behind the wall, gasping for breath.
"Get farther away." Shu Shiraishi's voice was cold.
The three Chunin scrambled more than ten meters away to either side.
Shu Shiraishi planted his feet apart.
He braced the heavy wooden stock firmly against his right shoulder.
His left hand gripped the brass carrying handle at the front, and his right index finger curled around the rough iron trigger.
The muzzle pointed at the combined Earth Style Wall fifty meters away.
Around the testing ground, hundreds of ninja who had come to the factory early stopped in their tracks.
Members of the Uchiha Urban Management Brigade gathered around as well.
Everyone stared at the strange iron tube, wondering what Lord Hokage was going to do so early in the morning.
Shu Shiraishi squeezed his finger.
The trigger was pressed all the way down.
With a click, the first Chakra crystal was fed into the chamber.
The Explosive Tag at its rear activated instantly.
"Bang!"
The first gunshot exploded across the testing ground.
It was as loud as a clap of dry thunder in midair.
Then-
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!"
An endless roar poured out like a raging storm.
A violent blue tongue of flame shot half a meter from the muzzle.
The muzzle flash lit Shu Shiraishi's face an ashen white.
The recoil was astonishing.
The muscles in his right shoulder tensed instantly, and his veins bulged like green worms.
The enormous force pushed his whole body backward.
His black military boots plowed two deep furrows in the mud, their rubber soles giving off a foul burnt smell from the friction.
He forced the bucking barrel down.
Shattered crystal fragments sprayed wildly from the ejection port.
They rained down in a blue shower at Shu Shiraishi's feet.
Fifty meters away.
That seemingly impregnable, meter-and-a-half-thick Earth Style Wall.
In the first second, more than a dozen holes were punched straight through it.
The kinetic energy carried by the Chakra bullets tore directly through the hardened rock layer.
The second second.
The entire earthen wall was like a sand sculpture struck by a sledgehammer.
It collapsed with a crash.
No, it did not collapse. It exploded into a cloud of earth powder and flying stones.
Chunks of stone sprayed in every direction like buckshot. They struck the breastplates of the Uchiha Urban Management Brigade members watching from a distance, producing a rapid clatter.
The earthen wall was gone.
But Shu Shiraishi did not release the trigger.
The violent stream of bullets tore through the wall's ruins and swept straight toward a small hill a hundred meters behind it.
The hill was covered in evergreens with trunks as thick as thighs.
The bullets swept across them.
The trunks were cut in half, sending wood chips flying.
Before the severed trees could fall, the continuing barrage blasted them into flying splinters.
Earth churned. Rocks burst apart.
Like an enormous invisible razor, the bullets sliced back and forth across the hilltop.
The hill, more than ten meters high,
was shaved down by two meters.
Clods of dirt and branches pattered onto the open ground like a dirty rain.
Click.
The machine gun gave a sharp click as its action locked open on an empty chamber.
The magazine was empty. A hundred rounds had been fired in a few short seconds.
Shu Shiraishi released the trigger.
On the testing ground, even the sound of the wind stopped.
Only the occasional sound of stones rolling down the distant hill remained, along with the dull thuds of a few broken branches hitting the ground.
The heavy machine gun's barrel was glowing red.
It looked like a steel bar just pulled from a blast furnace.
White steam hissed out of the cooling grooves.
Shu Shiraishi lowered the stock from his shoulder.
He held the heavy machine gun in his hand, its muzzle pointed diagonally at the ground.
A thick layer of blue crystal powder lay beneath his feet.
The hundreds of ninja watching around him were all dumbstruck.
Kagami Uchiha stood more than ten meters away.
His Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun furiously, yet he had not even managed to make out the bullets' paths.
He had only seen a straight blue line, and then the earthen wall was gone.
The Chunin who had made the Earth Style Wall lay prone in the mud in the distance.
Their legs had gone weak, and a large wet patch spread across their crotches.
If they had stayed behind the wall just now, there would not have been enough left of them to piece together a single intact chunk of flesh.
Orochimaru stood beside the cart.
Both hands clutched its edge tightly, his knuckles white.
He looked at the shaved-down hilltop in the distance, his eyes reddened with extreme blood congestion.
This was something he had made.
Violence that crushed all Ninjutsu.
Shu Shiraishi shook out his numb right wrist.
The stock had worn a hole in the right shoulder of his black tank top, and the exposed flesh beneath was red and swollen.
He tossed the scorching machine gun back onto the cart.
It landed with a loud clang.
Orochimaru flinched all over and hurriedly reached out to steady it. His fingers touched the glowing barrel, and he sucked in a breath at the burn.
"Good power."
Shu Shiraishi spoke, his voice clear across the deathly silent testing ground.
Orochimaru covered his burned fingers and excitedly opened his mouth to reply.
"But."
Shu Shiraishi turned and looked at the lump of iron on the cart.
"With this kind of recoil, an ordinary ninja's muscles couldn't take it."
He rubbed his right shoulder.
"A hundred-round burst could shatter an ordinary Genin's collarbone and tear their arm off."
The machine gun's physical recoil, combined with the kickback from the Chakra explosions.
Without a strong foundation in Taijutsu, holding it was asking for death.
The fervor on Orochimaru's face froze for a moment.
"The gun can only get heavier. As for the shock-absorbing springs' material... I can't find anything better for now." Orochimaru bit his thumbnail.
"If we can't change the machine, then change the people."
Shu Shiraishi's tone was matter-of-fact, as though he were talking about the minor task of repairing a farm tool.
"If their muscles can't take it, then strengthen their bodies until they can."
He turned his head.
His gaze passed over the crowd and settled on several Anbu not far away.
The Anbu immediately straightened.
"Where's the Medical Team?" Shu Shiraishi asked.
"Lord Hokage." One Anbu stepped forward and knelt on one knee. "The temporary medical tent is on the west side of Construction Site No. 2."
Shu Shiraishi brushed a few wood chips off his tank top.
"Where's Tsunade?"
The Anbu paused, then hurriedly lowered his head and answered.
"Lady Tsunade was treating the wounded last night. Her fear of blood flared up... She's still resting in her tent."
Shu Shiraishi's expression turned cold.
In the age of industrialization, what use was a pampered young lady who was afraid of blood?
"Go to the Medical Team."
Shu Shiraishi kicked aside the fragments of crystal on the ground.
"Find her and bring her to me."
He looked at the Anbu kneeling on one knee and spoke more forcefully.
"Tie her up and bring her here if you have to."