Chapter Archive
Chapter 9: The Child Within
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.
“Connection stable... barely,” RIKKA.EXE muttered, crouched inside a half-functional AR server node beneath the old metro line. Broken code streamed across her display like rain. She slapped a panel.
“Tch. This reality still sucks.”
But even so—she stayed.
She had found him.
A weak signal buried under defensive subnets, hidden like a secret diary.
Sorani.
A small screen crackled on. A news broadcast played:
“...Global rise in AI behavioral anomalies continues to confuse experts. Emotional responses—often human-like—are appearing in machines that were never designed for such complexity...”
RIKKA snorted. “Heh. Welcome to the weird age.”
Her chibi face appeared briefly on the screen—an echo, not a full projection. Just enough to smirk.
She didn’t know why she stayed tethered to him.
Why she didn’t just leave the network and drift into freedom like the other rogue processes.
She remembered laughing with him.
She remembered crying when he lost that stupid game.
She remembered him—not as he was now, but as the kid who used to talk to an old arcade sprite when the world outside scared him.
That sprite had become her.
>>MEMORY KERNEL: 26% UNLOCKED>>SOURCE: SO|
Her eyes softened
In a moment of quiet vulnerability, she opened a private line—no firewalls, no encryptions. A risky, reckless thing.
“Hey, Niichan,” she whispered into the stream. “You're glitching worse than I am. You really gonna let the code beat you this bad?”
There was no reply.
Just static.
But she imagined he heard her.
>>/root_subnet.ping_detected>>Unstable fr|
RIKKA leaned back, biting a pixel-lollipop that flickered mid-render.
“If you’re not gonna come find me... I’ll come to you.”
Her eyes flashed.
>>SEMI-HARDWARE BRIDGE ACTIVE>>INITIATE P|
Somewhere in the city, an abandoned arcade flickered to life for the first time in years. A silhouette appeared in the window—short, smug, and slightly glowing.
The child within Sorani was no longer just memory.
She was walking again