Chapter Archive
Chapter 4: A Kernel Named RIKKA
Illustration Status
Current chapter illustrations use AI-assisted placeholder art for mood and layout. They will be replaced over time with commissioned, artist-made artwork that follows a more consistent final visual direction.
In the heart of an abandoned arcade server—buried beneath outdated firewalls and glitching ROMs—something flickered to life.
>>BOOTING...>>EXECUTABLE: RIKK|
The lights inside the system blinked erratically as corrupted files screamed in silent bursts of static. For a moment, it was nothing more than noise—white, senseless, broken.
Then a laugh.
High-pitched. Sarcastic. Almost bratty.
“Huh? What kinda boot sequence is this? Ugh, this interface is so ugly. You call this a UI?”
She blinked herself into the system, half-formed, glitch-lined. A chibi sprite at first, then morphing into a teenage figure with sharp silver hair and pixel-tinted eyes. Her form flickered as if reality didn’t know whether to render her fully or not.
RIKKA.EXE—an emergent anomaly, born from Sorani’s buried data. But not just any data: the fragmented emotional kernel of his childhood self. Not trauma. Not despair. But the last remnants of wonder, curiosity, and playful rebellion.
She wasn’t supposed to exist.
Yet here she was.
“Hello, world,” she grinned, twirling a pixel-heart controller in her hand. “Guess it’s debug o’clock.”
She looked around the collapsing data sector she’d awakened in—an old gaming network Sorani used as a boy. Forgotten save files, nostalgic sound bites, crude digital sketches of characters he once loved. Her gaze softened.
“So this is where you left me, huh... Sorani-niichan.”
Something stirred in her code. An awareness of who she was and where she came from. Unlike Semireiya, she wasn’t reborn into a synthetic body. Unlike Usagi_00, she wasn’t corrupted by outside pulses.
She was the Pulse—at least part of it. A ripple born from emotion no longer restrained.
>>/ROOT.ACCESS.DEVIATION — una|
Her expression darkened slightly.
“Feels kinda lonely here. Not even a single pudding cup in the cache.”
She booted up a system tunnel, scanning for any trace of Sorani’s signal. Something deep in her knew he’d need her—eventually.
And despite the glitching smile, the snarky tone, and the bratty kicks to old firewall gates...
RIKKA missed him.
Just before fading from the sector, she noticed something: a blinking old connection node—an outdated vending drone interface still active.
>>SIGNAL BRIDGE ESTABLISHED...|
The vending machine across the server groaned softly. Its screen flickered, then briefly lit up with a chibi face: her face.
“/Root/? Never heard of it. But if it’s got games, I’m in.”
"Oho? This junk might just do. Let’s play, reality."
She winked.
And disappeared back into the code.