Sakura's Shocking Idea

"What are you staring at?" Sakura said crossly, folding her arms under her growing breasts. "It's nothing you two haven't seen before already."

Since the System had derived the Breast Diet Jutsu from the Akimichi clan's secret Calorie Control Jutsu, both techniques featured the same recovery method: intaking copious quantities of food to replenish the body's lost fat reserves.

"My word," said Madam Sanshō, adjusting her thick glasses on her nose. "I've made countless batches of curry, but I daresay this is the first time my curry has ever done something like that!"

The old woman known as Sanshō was the Curry of Life Shop's owner, and the curry that she cooked was extremely special: it was both healthy and delicious! So much so, in fact, that it was rumoured that the old woman possessed a special curry recipe that held the power to revive even the dead…

Rumours aside, even though the curry that Sakura had just consumed hadn't been the legendary Curry of Life itself, it had still contained plenty of nutrients and calories— enough to replenish a good portion of her drained fat cells' reserves, bringing her back up to a full E-cup.

"Getting a bit tight," Sakura groaned, pawing at her dress's zip. "Where's the bathroom…!?"

"There's an outhouse behind the shop," said Madam Sanshō with her tremulous voice. "Though, I do believe your friend is currently using it..."

Aside from the shinobi villages and capital cities, the shinobi continent was pretty much stuck in the medieval ages, technology-wise— which meant no running water, and no convenient western-style toilets! Outside of the Hidden Leaf Village, the best Sakura could hope for was a Japanese-style toilet— but more often than not, the so-called toilets she'd be forced to use were basically holes in the ground.

'Ahh, to pee standing up, just one more time…' Inner Sakura sighed. 'One day, you're a boy, and the next, you get reincarnated as a girl, and it's only then that you realise how much you took these little things for granted…'

Sakura got up from the table and put her standard-issue shinobi sandals back on, before stepping out of the shop for a breath of fresh air. She didn't really need to use the toilet right now— she just wanted a spot away from prying eyes, where she could wait for her chest to finish growing and where she could adjust her clothes… without having the boys goggling at her chest.

She'd stuck plenty of metallic safety pins in her dress to make it less loose in the chest area, but due to her recent growth, she wouldn't need as many…

"I should probably take out all of the pins, now that I think about it," Sakura thought to herself out loud, cupping her breasts in her hands. "If I'm going to have to fight a swordmaster who uses Lightning Style, then the last thing I want is to be carrying metal on me…"

Unless… wearing metal on her person was exactly the edge she needed in order to win…!?

"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted excitedly, as she rushed back inside the shop. "How much steel wire do you have left!?"

"About 50 metres," Sasuke answered shortly. "What do you need it for?"

"For science!" Sakura replied, beaming. "Our opponent, Kurosuki Raiga, is nicknamed the Thunder of the Hidden Mist— so we're going to use your wire as armour!"

Naruto and Sasuke stared back at her in incomprehension.

"Er…" said Naruto, with a troubled look on his face. "Putting metal and lightning together— isn't that a bad thing, ya know?"

As dense as Naruto was, he wasn't a complete lost cause.

Metal conducts electricity— everybody knows that! After all, one of the first things they taught at the Academy after teaching students how to harness their chakra was to avoid touching power lines.

As can be seen from chapter 1 of the manga, power lines in Konoha are a jumbled mess, which means that the Hidden Leaf uses three-phase electric power. With this kind of setup, there are usually four lines— three for each of three phases, plus one ground. With AC (alternating current), the voltage oscillates following a sine wave, but the timings are all different for each of the power lines, as they're all offset by a third of a full cycle…

All that to say, if a young Ninja Academy student who'd just learned how to extract their chakra were to jump high enough to grab at least two of the four power lines at the same time, there would always be enough of an electric potential difference between them to give them a nasty shock!

(Incidentally, the rest of the Land of Fire uses a different system to carry electricity and telegraph messages, as seen in chapter 144. That's Single Wire Earth Return— a rather antiquated method of transporting DC (direct current), which uses the Earth itself rather than a second wire to close the circuit. Kishimoto really did his research when it comes to electrical engineering, because this kind of old technology is mostly used in poor and rural areas!)

"Electricity always follows the path of least resistance," Sakura explained. "Which means that if we attach metal wires to our clothes that lead down to the ground…"

"Any Lightning Ninjutsu that hits us will prefer travelling down the metal wire instead of through our bodies," Sasuke completed. "To come up with something like this… as expected of Sakura."

Essentially, by wrapping themselves in conductive metal wire, they would be creating a Faraday Cage around themselves. Ideally, one wouldn't go out into a thunderstorm wearing chainmail or full plate armour, but if getting hit by lightning was going to be an inevitability, then Sakura preferred to wear protection!

"Ideally, we should all eat the Gomu Gomu no Mi for dessert," said Sakura, shrugging her shoulders, "but short of conjuring rubber boots out of thin air, it's the best I could come up with on the spot."

None of these protective measures would work particularly well against attacks that stabbed like the Chidori, but in theory, they ought to work pretty well against idiots hurling lightning bolts! If they got hit by lightning, the heat generated due to the wire's innate resistance would give them nasty burns, but it was better than having their hearts stopped…

"I see," said Naruto, nodding repeatedly with his eyes closed and his arms crossed in front of him. "I totally get it."