-Prior to the Nine-Tails Attack, Sekitangara Smithy-

Having bid Lady Uchiha adieu I was left with a slow enough work day to continue my adventures in homemade muzzleloaders.

Anyone who's taken a 7th grade level chemistry course knows the rough chemical makeup of black powder. You take charcoal, saltpeter, and organic sulfur, you mix. Now the proportions are not something I'm going to get into as, according to Sarutobi-Oji, the Firework Maker's Guild would lynch me if I wrote down their secrets and they found out.

So, the smoothbore firearm is, in essence, an angry tube with two holes drilled into it. Fill it with your powder charge, prime the primer pan with a small amount of black powder, hit it with a lit match or a flint and boom. Literally.

Now, Pop had a crossbow that he had never been able to sell so I had repurposed it's stock and trigger mechanism, so instead of letting a tensed string forward, it released a small spring hooked to an arm that I could fit a slow match to.

The barrel was the more difficult part to source. Y'see, getting a tube with one end not drilled through isn't exactly the most common request, as such, I had to channel my previous life's grandpappy and pull some redneck engineering.

I had managed to source a threaded pipe and end cap that I mated together whilst adding some liquid solder to the threads. I used a rat tail file to painstakingly carve out a flash hole, and set the jury rigged barrel into the crossbow stock with every amateur gunsmith's best friend.

The tactical hose-clamps.

So it was on this day, that I Sekitangara Isshin, at the tender age of five, gave the Hidden Leaf Village it's first taste of redneck chicanery.

In the backyard of the shop there was a small stump that Pa had yet to remove, utilizing more hose clamps, I rigged the contraption to point towards the sky. I poured a seventy grain charge of black powder down the bore, wadded it with some thin pieces of cotton rag.

I'm not stupid enough to actually send a projectile into the sky, because y'know, gravity, but I did make sure to compress the powder enough to get a good 'Pop' with just the wadding. I rigged up a thirty foot string, plugged my ears with cotton balls, lit the slow match, and took cover.

I pulled the string, and the violent explosion that followed was much louder than I expected.

I'm so glad our shop borders a training ground. Hopefully most folks will just think it was just a jutsu gone wrong. Not unheard of.

I stepped out of the shop to observe the now destroyed project, and the now technically removed stump.

"Powder charge…way too fucking much." I muttered, checking the exterior of the shop for any damage and sighing in relief when finding none. I began the process of cleaning up the debris from my test before my dad showed up.

"I'll say, Sekitangara-chan." ….oh no, a witness. I slowly turned, clenching the broom in hand as I met the evilly grinning face of Uchiha Mikoto.

"...Discount on Itachi-Sama's Tanto?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a gracious gift to the young Uchiha Heir."