Naruto: The Chakra Hacker

Touki was never a man of action in his past life, having mostly practiced a sport or two in his youth, but upon discovering his passion for computing, he became almost completely sedentary. Today, that attitude hasn't changed much, because outside of his hand seal practice, his physical condition leaves much to be desired, especially now that he's forced himself to take a trip, which must mostly be done on foot or, if lucky, by wagon.

The young man's steps have become heavy as the first destination of his journey appears on the horizon: a large village located on the main road to the capital of the Land of Fire, southeast of Konoha. It is morning, but the height of the sun indicates that midday is soon approaching.

Touki can't help but feel relieved and tired at the same time. The roads in this nation aren't bad per se, but the geography is too rugged, with too many valleys and mountains, turning a distance of just 20 kilometers into a journey almost twice that, with countless ups and downs, taking him two days to reach his first destination. Fortunately, along the way, there are several villages where one can find a place to spend the night.

"Now I understand why only ninjas can travel fast in this world. It's much faster to avoid these paths and jump through the trees in the forest to reach the destination quickly," the young man thought, almost panting from exhaustion.

Unlike Konoha, this town seems like a much closer version of a medieval town, with clearly more modern technologies in some aspects (such as electric light), but with a culture more trapped in 15th-century Japan, clearly the work of the original author.

Touki's journey has several purposes, but two are undoubtedly the most important: accessing better materials to make his artifacts and finding someone who will help him advance the seals without stabbing him in the back.

Once inside the village called "Strong Leaf," he focused his efforts on the various shops and blacksmiths available, which weren't many. While the young man is by no means wealthy, his frugal lifestyle has allowed him to save enough to at least pay for quality materials, if he can find them. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, all he found was field tools and materials of far inferior quality to the worst in Konoha.

The young man realized that he wasn't going to find anything surprising in a simple town, so he had to turn his attention to the cities to find something, specifically the larger cities or even the capitals.

Without even spending the night there, Touki started walking again along the main road, slowly leaving the town behind him, as he didn't want to waste the good weather and was no longer as tired as before.

The route is quite busy, with several travelers and the occasional cart passing by him. He has thought about hitching a ride more than once, but it comes to nothing due to his apprehension and shyness.

The road continues to wind, and the journey becomes monotonous, until, without realizing it, the young man finds himself on a particular stretch of road that is quite desolate compared to what he's seen so far. The sun indicates that sunset is several hours away, and everything indicates that there should be a village beyond the horizon where he can rest, the presence of some crops underscoring this.

It's when the young man crosses a small bridge, spanning a canal, that something happens that sets off all his alarm bells. Two men emerge from some trees along the road, heading straight toward him.

Touki, without thinking, immediately turns around and walks in the opposite direction, but on the other side of the bridge there are also two men, who appeared out of nowhere.

Touki stops, his face white with fear and his legs looking as if they might give way at any moment. The young man quickly realizes what's happening and turns around again, waiting for whatever happens.

-Well well, look what we have here. A lone traveler in the middle of nowhere, with a heavily loaded backpack. I'm afraid I have to do a routine inspection. We're in charge of monitoring this road and we must make sure there's nothing dangerous inside. - Says the taller of the two, with an axe in his right hand, which he swings quite skillfully from time to time. At his side, his companion, with an impatient and nervous face, holds a short sword tightly, in an obviously aggressive posture.

-A-are you really doing this?- Touki tries to dialogue.

-Look, don't play dumb and hand over your stuff, unless you want to end up dead. By the way, I really like that jacket- the obvious bandit insists.

Touki's mind has trouble processing what is happening, since he has never seen himself in a situation like this, and his inexperience also leaves him unable to react in the many ways he planned in his imagination to a situation like this.

Faced with the victim's inaction, the bandits immediately lose patience, and the man with the sword rushes at Touki without regard for the consequences, raising his weapon with the intention of delivering a fatal blow.

Touki reacts automatically, more out of fear than any planning, taking a step back as he raises his umbrella toward the attacker. None of the bandits suspect anything strange about this action, as the gesture seems a true act of desperation.

¡Paaamm… !

The explosion is loud but short, reverberating through the surrounding forest. No one can believe what just happened, even Touki, who stares in horror at the chest of his former attacker, completely destroyed by the 50 five millimeters diameter steel pellets fired from one of the barrels of his shotgun at almost point-blank range.

Time seems to run in slow motion for Touki, who after processing what just happened, turns his attention to the man who intimidated him in the first place, who has frozen in his position, and before he can react to anything, points his shotgun at him and fires again, hitting him square in the stomach.

Needless to say, the bandit collapses to the ground, trying to cover his abdomen as his intestines threaten to spill out.

Touki fights back his nausea as best he can and realizes that everything has gotten out of control, in addition to the fact that he just used one of his secret weapons. So, panicking and almost paranoid, he drops the shotgun and begins to run toward the two bandits covering the bridge. The men in question react with fear and immediately run away, realizing the threat approaching them.

The bandits can't run more than a few meters toward the forest when a strong whirlwind lifts them off the ground and violently slams them against a pair of trees.

When Touki arrives in front of the pair of bandits, one is found with his face completely destroyed by the impact against the tree, clearly dead, while the other is on the ground with a completely dislocated leg.

-No, no, no. I'm sorry, Lord Shinobi, we didn't know it was you... please don't kill me! - The fallen man cries out in despair as he sees Touki approaching.

Touki lunges at the man, this time without hesitation, and with knife in hand tries to stab him in the chest, but the man resists desperately, screaming at the top of his lungs. However, everything changes when Touki manages to land a severe blow to the bandit's head, who, disoriented, is unable to prevent the knife from plunging into the center of his chest.

Reality isn't like movies or TV shows; death isn't a quick thing to do in combat, especially when it's done with a fist and sword. Touki receives a powerful dose of reality the moment he regains his senses, unleashing a fury of emotions, culminating in a panic attack and vomiting. All while the stabbed man drowns in his own blood.

Fortunately, no one appears on the road as Touki tries to clean up the evidence of the fight that just happened, even having to finish off the bandit who was still trying to contain his guts.

Touki, with a hardened but pale face, reloads his shotgun again, makes sure all his belongings are in order, and resumes his journey, leaving four bodies piled up at the edge of the forest.

That night, Touki didn't rest in any village or town, but continued walking without stopping until the next morning, when his legs gave out and he had no choice but to rest at a travelers' inn. The young man couldn't eat anything that day and simply locked himself in his room.

Tension, fear, nausea, and paranoia plagued Touki's mind throughout the bitter day, as he slept only sporadically, only to wake up shivering and sweating. Touki couldn't get the image of each murder he committed out of his head, and it wasn't until the next day that he emerged from his room, gaunt but functional.

"The world waits for no one," Touki thought as he resumed his journey, at a much slower pace than before and choosing to follow other travelers closely in order to have a little emotional peace. He even, in an almost superhuman effort for him, asked a wagon for a ride more than once.

Four days later, Touki sets foot in the first city in the Land of Fire other than Konoha (because despite being called a village, Konoha is the size of a city), one of the many destinations he must travel to in search of help and answers.

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