"When I was little, my dad told me a fable. That story just gave me a burst of inspiration," Ino began to explain slowly.
"It's about an ancient Ino-Shika-Chō team from a long, long time ago. They took a mission from a filthy rich merchant who didn't have any heirs. The merchant threw down a challenge: whoever completed it perfectly would inherit his entire fortune. He handed each of them one million ryō and ordered them to buy something that could completely fill his massive, luxurious estate."
"The gluttonous Akimichi blew his million ryō on a mountain of food, stuffing several rooms to the ceiling before kicking back to gorge himself. But the rest of the rooms and the massive courtyard remained totally empty.
The lazy Nara bought a bundle of candles, planning to fill the estate with pure light. But because he was way too lazy, he only bought a single bundle.
The estate was massive, and after realizing he didn't have enough candles, he flat-out refused to walk back to the store. In the end, he only lit up a tiny corner of the mansion.
Only the clever, diligent Yamanaka—who deeply appreciated a beautiful life—bought a massive shipment of flowers and planted them all over the courtyard. The sweet floral fragrance drifted through the air and filled every single inch of the estate. Naturally, the Yamanaka clan won."
"I get it. You're saying we should weaponize something similar to a floral fragrance to completely fill the vast Kamui dimension..." Kakashi rubbed his chin, nodding thoughtfully.
'Indeed,' Kakashi thought. 'If we relied on shit, the Five Great Nations would probably have to pool their entire combined sewage reserves just to fill that void—and even then, it would critically cripple their agricultural fertilizer supply.'
But if they weaponized an airborne scent or gas? That would be infinitely easier to deploy. It really was a fantastic fable.
"No, wait! Ino, why the hell is your version completely different from the one my dad told me? You remembered it wrong!"
Just as Kakashi silently praised the clever parable, Chōji suddenly shouted, totally derailing his train of thought.
"The ending is totally different! Unlike the Yamanaka clan, who obsessed over flashy but useless flowers, the Akimichi clan valued highly practical things and were personally blessed by the Sage of Six Paths. After eating his fill, the Akimichi waddled out into the garden and took an absolutely massive dump! The ungodly stench instantly pierced the heavens and completely overpowered the Yamanaka's weak floral scent. The Akimichi clan took home the prize!" Chōji proudly recounted his version of the lore.
"What the hell?! Chōji, your version is absolutely disgusting, okay?!" Ino scrambled back in sheer horror, furiously fanning her hand in front of her nose as if Chōji had literally just recreated the story right in front of them.
"What do you mean, my version? It's obviously your Yamanaka clan that doctored the history books! The Akimichi clan secured the food, so the Akimichi clan won the bet!" Chōji shot back, deeply offended.
"..."
Kakashi stood right next to them, a massive drop of sweat sliding down the back of his head.
'Yeah... Ino-Shika-Chō is officially dead.'
"Um, you two, please stop arguing. Both of you are completely right. You both just gave me fantastic inspiration." Kakashi quickly stepped in to defuse the ticking bomb. "Oh, and please, absolutely do not repeat this story to anyone else. Promise me."
He desperately clamped down on the gossip.
He legitimately feared that if this conflicting lore leaked, not only would the current generation's Ino-Shika-Chō brutally disband, but the active senior Ino-Shika-Chō squads might actually start throwing hands.
That would be a diplomatic nightmare!
Kakashi couldn't help but sigh heavily.
He was practically working himself into an early grave just trying to babysit the alliance's fragile friendship.
This was way too exhausting.
Fortunately, the headache wasn't for nothing.
He had finally cracked the strategy!
The core mechanic was airborne scent.
For example, he could warp a massive payload of aerosolized knockout gas straight into the Kamui dimension.
The second Obito woke up in that void and tried to escape or pop his intangibility, his lungs would get instantly flooded by the gas trapped inside.
But there was a glaring flaw: Obito had grafted a massive culture of Hashirama cells into his own body.
A basic anesthetic that dropped a normal shinobi wouldn't necessarily even make him drowsy.
So what was the workaround?
Kakashi's single visible eye unconsciously drifted straight toward Yamato.
'Am I seriously supposed to use Yamato as a living crash-test dummy to formulate the right dosage?'
"Kakashi-senpai... why exactly are you looking at me like that?" Yamato suddenly shuddered violently.
The second he locked eyes with Kakashi, thick goosebumps erupted across his arms.
He recognized that specific look immediately.
'Danger!'
"Um, Kakashi-senpai, I just remembered I have some extremely urgent business to attend to..."
"What kind of urgent business could you possibly have at a time like this? The fact that you answered my summons proves your schedule is completely clear, doesn't it?" Kakashi ruthlessly chopped down Yamato's weak excuse.
"Uh, it's inspiration! That bizarre story those two just told gave me raw inspiration. It makes me want to... want to... go take an absolutely massive dump! Yes, that's exactly it! I literally can't hold it anymore, Kakashi-senpai. Goodbye!"
Yamato's panicked brain scrambled and somehow spat out the absolute worst possible excuse.
The second the words left his mouth, he cast a Body Flicker and bolted, giving Kakashi no chance to stop him.
"Sigh." Kakashi dragged a hand down his masked face.
If Yamato absolutely refused to be his lab rat, who else possessed a freakish biological constitution similar to Obito's?
Naruto? Naruto definitely fit the bill, but the kid was currently off tracking down Sasuke and couldn't be recalled right now.
Thinking of Naruto and Sasuke instantly jogged Kakashi's memory—Team Seven technically still had one more member.
Sakura.
Sakura had studied under Tsunade for quite a while now, meaning her natural resistance to toxins and narcotics should be incredibly robust.
But...
After a brief, horrifying hesitation, Kakashi aggressively vetoed Sakura as a test subject.
Sakura was a teenage girl.
If he forcibly drugged his female student with potent knockout gas—and potentially had to cycle through various other sketchy narcotics to find the right cocktail—even if absolutely nothing untoward happened, he would never be able to wash the stain off his record.
And if something did accidentally go wrong? Kakashi's reputation would be irreversibly annihilated!
'Looks like my only option left is the snake,' Kakashi thought, glancing toward Konoha's Research Department with another heavy sigh.
...
Booking a ticket on the Flying Raijin express, Kakashi warped straight into Amegakure, tracked down Orochimaru, and pitched his tactical concept.
"This is a highly specialized Water Release ninjutsu that Lord Second specifically engineered to counter the Uchiha clan. It is a targeted, airborne technique modeled entirely after Kirigakure's Hidden Mist Technique and the Mizukage's Skilled Mist Technique."
Orochimaru pulled out a small, pressurized bottle equipped with a spray nozzle and handed it to Kakashi.
"A Water Release jutsu targeting the Uchiha?" Kakashi accepted the tiny canister, utterly confused.
'What happened to the actual ninjutsu?' he wondered. 'Why the hell is he handing me a spray bottle? And what exactly is sloshing around inside this thing?'
"Precisely. You merely need to shatter this bottle—which contains a highly pressurized, concentrated liquid—inside the Kamui dimension, or warp the payload in with your dōjutsu the exact millisecond you activate the spray mechanism. Do that, and you will perfectly neutralize the masked man and cripple his ability to utilize his Sharingan."
"However, strictly because its effects are so terrifyingly potent, you must exercise extreme caution when deploying it. Do not let yourself get caught in the blast radius," Orochimaru warned, flashing a helpful, entirely creepy smile.
"Yes, I completely understand. Because I also possess a transplanted Sharingan, I naturally fall under the crosshairs of this specialized anti-Uchiha formula, correct?" Kakashi lightly tapped his covered eye and nodded in dead-serious comprehension.
"Uh, mm. Yes. That is the general idea."
"Thank you."
Kakashi gripped the bottle and turned to leave, but right before he stepped out the door, he paused.
"Um, would it be a breach of operational security to explain the exact chemical principle behind this legendary anti-Uchiha formula?"
"The chemical principle is incredibly straightforward," Orochimaru hissed softly. "The extreme, industrial-grade pepper spray packed inside rapidly expands into a Lethal Chili Hidden Mist Jutsu. It physically burns their corneas, making it entirely impossible for the Uchiha clan to literally keep their eyes open."
"..."
'Wait, is it seriously that brain-dead simple?!'
Kakashi slowly lowered his head and stared blankly at the tiny aerosol bottle resting in his palm.
The top-secret, brightly colored red liquid sloshing around inside... was literally just concentrated pepper spray?!