25 days?!
When the red warning text for [Low Performance Mode] flashed across his mental screen, Hiroki nearly lost the calm he had forced upon himself through the Task Manager.
What kind of sick joke is this?!
Forget twenty-five days — he wouldn't even survive twenty-five hours.
The Cloud Ninja captain had already made it clear: once they left the village, they would "take care of" him somewhere quiet.
A full-disk copy? Impossible. His system's data transfer speed was abysmal.If only I could upgrade my hardware…
He clenched his mental fists. Forget brute force copying — that's just the dumbest and slowest approach imaginable.
He had to survive first. Then he'd figure out how to escape with Kushina.
Maybe he could start small — copy just one ninjutsu to free himself from the ropes, then, when the timing was right, delete the enemy's techniques… and maybe—No. That wouldn't work. He had no instant-kill ninjutsu. He needed something lethal before making a move.
And even then, killing one wouldn't save him. The other Cloud Ninjas weren't connected to him — he couldn't delete their data.
Hiroki forced his mind to race.The first step now—stall for time.
Delay until Minato arrived like in the original story, or until Konoha's Anbu caught up.But how was a programmer supposed to buy time?
He couldn't exactly install a Trojan horse in someone's brain…
Wait.
Trojan horse?
Hiroki's eyes flashed in realization.Could he… infect the enemy?
Then he immediately shook his head. No, no. Even if I could corrupt one guy's mind, the others would kill me before I finished uploading.
There had to be another way.
He quickly clicked Cancel on the transfer window and reopened [Sakuchi's Computer].
Where does a true programmer look first when searching for vulnerabilities?The answer was obvious.
[Temp] Folder.
Every system's most overlooked spot — a chaotic heap of logs, caches, and temporary files. Meaningless to most, but a gold mine of insight into what the system was really thinking.
Hiroki double-clicked.
Instantly, a flood of messy file names appeared — footstep_sound_01.wav, leaf_scan.jpg, task_priority_log.txt…
These were the sensory and thought caches from Sakuchi's brain — fleeting impressions and subconscious fragments.
He scrolled fast, scanning for anything useful.
Then his mental cursor froze.
Suspicion_Captain_Credit_Distribution.log
His pulse quickened. He opened it.
|xx-19:07:35|
"That Uzumaki brat is priceless... The captain better not be planning to take all the credit for this mission…"
Bingo.
Hiroki's brain whirred like an overclocked CPU.That's it. That's my entry point.
He almost laughed out loud — but stopped himself just in time.He opened Task Manager and terminated joy.exe.He needed perfect composure. This wasn't over yet.
He couldn't create a brand new thought inside Sakuchi's mind — that would be too suspicious. But he could amplify an existing one.
He'd take this spark of doubt and turn it into a wildfire.
With precision, his mind became a keyboard.He copied Suspicion_Captain_Credit_Distribution.log and pasted it.
Suspicion_Captain_Credit_Distribution_Copy.log
He renamed it value_assessment_hostage.log, opened it, and inserted a new line:
"The unconscious kid beside me shouldn't be killed yet. What if the captain uses the time I spend dealing with the body to run off with the red-haired girl and take all the credit?"
Then, without hesitation, Hiroki selected the edited file and spammed Ctrl + V hundreds of times inside the [Temp] folder.
Hundreds of nearly identical "thought files" flooded Sakuchi's active memory — a tsunami of doubt overwriting his consciousness.
In the real world, the Cloud Ninja squad was racing through the forest, the border of the Land of Fire just ahead.
"That's far enough," the captain said coldly. "Sakuchi, handle the brat. Make it clean — no traces."
"Understood," Sakuchi replied automatically. He dumped Hiroki onto the ground and drew a kunai.
But just as he raised it — a flash of suspicion cut through his mind like lightning.
Wait… should I really kill him?What if the captain's planning to ditch me while I'm busy here?What if he takes the red-haired girl and runs — and claims all the credit for himself?!
The thought felt natural — like it had been building inside him all along.
"Captain, wait!" Sakuchi blurted suddenly.
The captain stopped, annoyed. "What is it now? Quit wasting time."
"Captain, I think there's something off about this kid."Sakuchi nudged Hiroki's limp body with his foot. "Think about it — he sneaks out of the Academy with the Uzumaki girl, and we just happen to run into them together? Doesn't that seem too convenient?"
The captain scowled. "You're overthinking it. The brat's chakra is pathetic — he's nothing."
"No! It's because he's weak that it's suspicious!"Sakuchi's tone grew more confident, the false thoughts taking deeper root."What if it's an act? What if he's some hidden protector, secretly guarding the Uzumaki kid? If we bring him back for interrogation, we might learn something valuable about Konoha's defenses. Even if not, we can kill him later!"
The captain hesitated.Sakuchi's reasoning wasn't wrong — and they were pressed for time.
"Tch… fine," the captain grunted. "Keep him for now. But if he causes any trouble, you finish him yourself."
"Yes, Captain!" Sakuchi replied, secretly pleased that he had "seen through" his superior's supposed scheme.
Hiroki, still hanging limply over Sakuchi's shoulder, exhaled in relief.His gamble had paid off.
The first-ever "junk data attack" in ninja history had worked — converting a death sentence into a temporary reprieve.
But a reprieve was still death, just delayed.He needed a real plan — and fast.
He refocused on the Ninjutsu Library still open in Sakuchi's system. So much knowledge... and he could barely copy a fraction of it.
Damn it. But survival comes first.
He selected three techniques:
Rope-Removal TechniqueLightning Release: Pseudo DarknessBasics of Cloud Flow Style
Escape, offense, and groundwork for future physical infiltration — perfect priorities.
New tasks appeared in his download list:
[Calculating required time and space…]3 files, total size: 17.24 MBCopying from: Sakuchi (D1:) → Hiroki (D:) — Ninjutsu BackupRemaining files: 3
|File Name|Size|Estimated Time|
| Basics of Cloud Flow.zip | 5.6MB | About 1 hour and 2 minutes |
|Rope-Removal.zip|640KB|About 7 minutes|
|Lightning Release: Pseudo-Darkness.exe|11.0MB|Approximately 2 hours and 3 minutes|