Brain Overload—Failure?
Hiroki frowned, eyes darting between Kakuzu and the unmoving tendril lying on the ground.No… it wasn't that his technique failed—it only worked on the tentacle itself.
That realization clicked instantly, and his thoughts flashed back to the strange system name that appeared when he first connected:
Kakuzu_Kakuzu2
Wait—did that mean every part of Kakuzu's body, even those five heart-bearing monsters, were all independent computers?
Without hesitating, Hiroki scooped up the lifeless tentacle and sprinted back, fingers twitching as he began another connection attempt mid-run. His goal was clear—read its memory, crack its code, and find a solution.
He'd found a way forward.
"Kushina! Nawaki! Fall back—don't get in Orochimaru-sensei's way!" he shouted.
"Got it!" Kushina was already moving, darting toward cover.Nawaki hesitated, his eyes fixed on the twitching black tendrils, fear flashing across his face—but he gritted his teeth and followed.
Meanwhile, Kakuzu stood unmoving, his scarred face creasing slightly."…So it only works in close range? No, that's not right." His voice was calm, analytical. "The reports mentioned his 'poison' can affect targets from a distance too. So it's not poison…"
Orochimaru didn't give him time to think.
"Genjutsu: Meet Me in Naraku!"
Kakuzu's vision flickered—but he immediately broke free, grimacing in irritation. "Your illusions won't work on me, snake."
He'd lived too long to fall for such tricks. Over the years, he'd developed dozens of methods to instantly purge illusion effects from his mind.
But Orochimaru wasn't finished.He changed hand seals again, eyes gleaming.
"Genjutsu: Demonic Illusion – Nirvana Abode!"
Feathers began to drift from the ceiling like falling snow, each carrying the subtle pulse of chakra.Kakuzu squinted, realizing Orochimaru was targeting all his components at once—treating his split body as separate entities.
Clever.Ineffective—but clever.
He sneered. The Lightning Mask surged forward again, electricity crackling.
"Lightning Release: Pseudo Darkness!"
Orochimaru's response came instantly.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
Two Orochimaru clones appeared beside him, their combined gusts tearing through the lightning.Wind once again triumphed over thunder.
Kakuzu inhaled deeply, finally taking the fight seriously.No wonder this man was called the Third Hokage's prized student. His versatility was ridiculous—elemental mastery, summoning, sealing, illusion—he had it all.If he had a weakness, it was only one: youth. His chakra reserves weren't deep enough yet to fuel high-level, wide-range attacks.
As long as Orochimaru kept his distance, he posed little real threat.And Kakuzu's Earth Spear made him nearly invulnerable up close.
But his attention shifted.That boy… what was he doing?
Hiroki nearly swore aloud."What the hell is this system?"
Inside his consciousness, the data from Kakuzu's tentacle unfolded before him—but it didn't look anything like a normal human's inner structure.
Normally, when Hiroki accessed someone's "computer," he saw two main drives:
Drive C: system files — muscle control, reflexes, automatic body processes like breathing and hormones.Drive D: memory — skills, experiences, ninjutsu data.
Every person, even animals, followed that model.He'd tested it before—mice, too, had the same structure.
But Kakuzu?The screen before him looked nothing like that.
"Where's the system folder? Where's the damn muscle driver?" Hiroki muttered. "How do you even move without a control kernel?"
No system files.No temp cache.Not even a "thought buffer."
Then how did his Brain Overload attack even affect this tentacle in the first place?
This wasn't just bad architecture—this was a bug-ridden mess!
Hiroki exhaled sharply, forcing down his frustration. He could complain later. For now, he needed to understand it.
This opponent didn't operate like anything else he'd encountered.But there was a pattern.
Kubernetes.
The term flashed through his mind—a distributed system architecture he'd studied in his previous life.Ordinary people were like single computers: all their processes, files, and drivers were self-contained.But Kubernetes systems were different—more like a company structure.
The master node handled all thinking and decision-making, while the worker nodes only executed commands.
The realization hit him hard.Kakuzu's tentacles are worker nodes!His main body acts as the central server!
That would explain everything—why his Brain Overload only froze the detached tentacle. The attack hit the local "node," not the "master."
It wasn't a failure. It was a network issue.
If Kakuzu's body was structured like a Kubernetes cluster…Then there had to be a communication protocol linking them.
Hiroki's eyes narrowed as his interface scanned the tentacle's code.
There it was:
EarthGrudgeProtocol.dll
The Earth Grudge… The forbidden jutsu that let Kakuzu sew himself together with living threads — his very core.And now, its digital counterpart.
If anything handled the communication between the main body and the tentacles, this was it.
"Got you," Hiroki whispered, opening the file.
Lines of code scrolled past like lightning.
Only the core segment was visible, but it was enough to understand the structure.A communication protocol — defining packet formats, transmission functions, verification mechanisms… everything that confirmed which tentacle belonged to the main body, and how chakra orders were transmitted.
There were even contingency functions for lost connections and location mapping across multiple "nodes."
It was a perfect parallel to a distributed computing cluster — and Hiroki finally saw the weak point.
His lips curved into a grin.
Now he knew exactly how to take Kakuzu apart.