Three days. Three quiet, fragile days had passed like an anomaly in the relentless runtime of Akazuchi's life. Three days of warmth, tea, and soft light had begun rewriting the corrupted data of his despair.
The wool blanket Akio had wrapped him in still smelled faintly of rain and chamomile. Every evening, Akio brewed him Darjeeling—the kind with a honey-like aftertaste that stayed on the tongue, grounding him in reality. That ritual had become the kids only fragile thread between sanity and collapse.
Akazuchi had started coding again, hunched over a borrowed laptop. But his focus fractured every few minutes, drifting toward his true machine—the one that had held everything that mattered: his world, his language, his only proof that he existed.
It lay on the sterile counter like a wounded animal, cracked and silent. Akio Hukitaske was bent over it, blue-indigo hair falling in soft streaks over his face as he repaired it with surgeon's precision.
"The structural damage is localized to the display mounting and the southbridge controller," Akio murmured, his voice a careful monotone. "The hard drive's integrity is intact. Your code is safe."
That last line—Your code is safe—was a gunshot of relief. Akazuchi's heart stuttered. The air left his lungs in a shudder. Safe. His dream, his entire self, preserved. For one fleeting instant, he almost cried.
He whispered, "Thank you."
Akio straightened, brushing dust from his gloves. "Unnecessary. It is merely a logical outcome. However…" He hesitated, glancing at the screen. "I analyzed a portion of your code—the game titled The Lonely Star. It's… elegant. The algorithmic architecture is clean, recursive, and beautiful. But the emotional payload is excessive. You've written a simulation of isolation seeking connection. It's not efficient. It reflects your current psychological state."
The compliment turned surgical. Akazuchi froze, face twisting as if struck. Akio hadn't just repaired the hardware—he had dissected the kids soul. Through words of intelegance. The words of a pharmacist, Akio had just showed him how. Akio had always seen through him. And Akazuchi never knew from the beggining, but now he knew.
Inside Akazuchi, something old and fragile started to crack. The shame was instantaneous, blistering. He wanted to scream that Akio didn't understand, that The Lonely Star wasn't code—it was him. Every cycle of torment, every logic gate, every branching dialogue tree was a confession of loneliness disguised as programming.
But he stayed silent. His throat refused to move.
Outside, rain tapped against the glass of the pharmacy window like tiny, mechanical fingers. A storm was gathering.
The Logic Gate Breached
The metallic chime of the front door shattered the fragile quiet.
Tetsuo walked in first, swaggering like a caricature of confidence, rain dripping from his uniform jacket. Behind him trailed Hiro and Satoshi—his echoing shadows.
"Look at this," Tetsuo sneered, eyes flicking over the blanket and tea. "The Crypt Keeper's got a hideout. And a servant, too."
Akio calmly set down his tools and stepped forward. "This is a pharmaceutical establishment. Your energy output is disruptive. Please stabilize your trajectory and exit."
The bullies laughed. Hiro elbowed Satoshi. "Did he just say trajectory?"
Tetsuo smirked wider. "You sound just like him, Doc. Two broken robots pretending to be human. I can your both the same." His gaze snapped back to Akazuchi, and the sneer deepened. "Still playing child games, huh? Still pretending anyone cares about your stupid code? Your parents must be so proud—dumping their paychecks into therapy and computers for a kid who can't even speak his perfetic heart out."
Akazuchi froze. The mention of his parents hit a forbidden address in his brain—a place no one was meant to query.
He had always been the family's glitch, the infinite loop that consumed money, patience, and hope. His parents' sacrifices had become his shame.
The air thickened.
Years of humiliation, the destruction of his machine, the endless nights rewriting the same line of code while crying silently—all converged into a single, executable moment.
Akazuchi's pupils shrank. His breathing evened out. The fear melted, leaving something else in its place—something cold, lucid, and absolute. For the very first time in his, entire lonely existance.
The Hacked Protocol
He didn't scream. He didn't tremble.
He simply moved.
His hand darted under the counter, where the security sensor wiring was exposed. Akio's earlier maintenance had left the circuits visible—vulnerable. Akazuchi's mind entered code mode. As he slipped his typing skills out for a function app on his laptop, all powered by module of voice breaths. He began to speak alloud. Louder than he ever did in his entire life since childhood.
IF (Threat = Active) THEN (System. Override).
Action 1: Door Lock Override → Target: Hiro.
He yanked two wires together and slammed his palm onto the lockdown switch.
The heavy glass door hissed—then slammed shut with catastrophic force. The metal frame caught Hiro squarely in the skull. There was a wet, dull CRACK. His body went limp before he hit the ground.
Tetsuo and Satoshi froze. Their smirks dissolved into horror.
"Holy—Hiro! What the hell did you do shy freak?!"
Akio stood in shock. His voice, when it came, was low and sharp. "Akazuchi, stop this! The threat is now basically neutralized!"
But Akazuchi's logic had diverged from his own morality of minds.
Action 2: Projectile Strike → Target: Satoshi.
He turned, grabbed the wooden chair beside him. Every calculation ran in his head like data.
He threw...
The chair spun through the air and struck Satoshi in the back of the head with a sickening thud. The teenager dropped instantly, face-first onto the tiles below his feet before the fall.
Silence...
Only rain and the soft hum of the pharmacy's refrigeration unit filled the void.
Tetsuo backed away, trembling. "You—you freak…"
The Final Boss Logic
He lunged. Panic, not courage, drove him. His punch was sloppy, desperate.
Akazuchi sidestepped it with eerie precision, his movements geometric and cold.
IF (Target. Action = Attack) THEN (Execute. Dodge-Sequence).
The fist cut through empty air.
Akazuchi reached for the cheap replacement laptop Akio had brought for him just incase he couldn't fix his. His memories came fludding in and as he began to swing.
He swung it like a hammer. The metal corner connected with Tetsuo's temple. The sound was wet and final. Tetsuo crumpled—but not out. He groaned, dazed, clutching his bleeding head.
The logic continued to loop.
Akazuchi struck him even more, eyes wide and blank, and brought the laptop down again. And again. And again.
Each hit echoed like the breaking of his own heart. Blood splattered the counter. Glass cracked under his knees. Akazuchi's face twisted—not in anger, but in agony from his torment over the years.
This wasn't revenge. This was exorcism. Years of humiliation, of loneliness, of whispered pity, released through blunt metal and fury.
When the laptop finally cracked apart in his hands, he didn't stop shaking.
The Pharmacist's Intervention
Akio snapped out of shock, instinct overriding reason.
He lunged forward, grabbing the kid from behind. "Akazuchi! Stop! You're terminating your own system!"
Akazuchi struggled, limbs thrashing with a feral strength no child his size should possess. Akio's foot slipped on blood-slick tile. They both crashed to the ground, Akio still clutching him tightly.
The scent of iron filled the air.
"Stop it, Akazuchi!" Akio shouted, voice raw. "Stop before you erase yourself!"
For a moment, there was nothing but ragged breathing. Then the kid went still.
Akio pried the shattered laptop from his hands and tossed it aside. It clattered across the floor, pieces scattering like broken memories.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Rain against the windows. A single flickering fluorescent light. The faint sound of someone groaning—Tetsuo, barely conscious.
Akazuchi sat motionless, staring at his hands as if they no longer belonged to him. Blood streaked the pale skin, seeping into the lines of his knuckles.
He whispered, voice broken and distant, "I broke the code…"
Akio dropped to his knees beside him, guilt tearing through the mask he always wore.
The Unspoken Confession
"Akazuchi…" Akio's voice trembled for the first time. "I blame myself."
The teenager didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on the floor, eyes wide, pupils dilated.
"When they came in, I saw what would happen. I saw your rage like a formula unfolding. And I… I didn't stop it. I thought you'd prove them wrong. That you'd stand up for yourself. That your logic would defend you."
His voice broke. "But I was wrong. I let you turn logic into a weapon. I should've stopped you. I'm older—I was supposed to protect you, not test you. I'm sorry."
He reached out, pulled Akazuchi into an embrace. The kids body was cold, trembling.
"We'll call for help," Akio said softly. "We'll fix this. You'll learn from it, and we'll rewrite the code—together."
Akazuchi's breath hitched. Then his hands clenched into fists.
"SHUT UP!" he screamed, his voice breaking. He shoved Akio away, tears streaming down his face. "You think you can fix everything! You think you can fix me! You don't understand! You just analyze and measure and treat people like experiments! I'm not your formula, Akio!"
He was shaking violently now, every nerve on fire. "You think you understand suffering because you can label it! You don't know what it's like to wake up every day knowing you're a mistake!"
The words hit Akio harder than any punch.
He tried to speak, but Akazuchi's next words destroyed him.
"You helped me because it made you feel like the hero. But you're not a hero—you're just another liar pretending your empathy means something!"
He was wrong, and he knew it—but pain doesn't care about truth.
Akio's voice broke, desperate. "I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO HELP YOU, AKAZUCHI! Because I know what you're hiding! Because I lost everything once too!"
Akazuchi froze. The truth—Akio's buried grief, the fallen pharmacy, the secret failure he never spoke of—hung in the air like static. Even if Akazuchi didn't know the truth of his past just yet, until the near end of the first series. But that's another tale entirely.
Akazuchi couldn't face it. Couldn't face the idea that someone might actually understand.
He turned and ran.
The Runaway Node
The automatic door hissed open.
Akazuchi sprinted into the rain, his breath ragged, his vision blurred. He didn't feel the cold or the water. He only felt the pull—the endless loop dragging him forward.
Behind him, Akio shouted his name. But the sound was swallowed by thunder.
The teenager ran through the empty alleys, past neon reflections and puddles that swallowed his footsteps. His soaked blanket trailed behind him like a ghost.
He didn't know where he was going. He only knew he couldn't go back. Not after what he'd done.
The Aftermath
Akio stood in the ruined pharmacy, alone among shattered glass and blood.
He stared at the unconscious bullies, at the broken laptop, at his own trembling hands.
The fluorescent light flickered. His reflection stared back from the cracked counter mirror—eyes hollow, skin pale. As the metal secrurity doors hung loose open, over the loose push door for the bell chime.
He whispered, "Was I wrong to care?"
His voice didn't echo. The rain answered for him.
He sank to the floor beside the bloodstains, back against the counter. He reached for the phone, but his hands shook too much to dial. For a long, unbearable minute, he just sat there, breathing shallowly.
When he finally called for help, his voice was quiet, professional—like nothing had happened. But inside, something vital had broken.
Outside, sirens began to wail faintly in the distance.
And far away, in some forgotten alley, Akazuchi fell to his knees in the rain, clutching his chest, sobbing until he had no sound left.
His mind kept repeating a single corrupted line:
IF (Dream = Destroyed) THEN (Self. Terminate).
The line looped endlessly, over and over.
Until he stopped thinking altogether.
Final Image:
The camera pans back through the city—rain falling over neon signs and rooftops. The Hukitaske Pharmacy glows faintly, a beacon flickering in the storm. Inside, Akio sits alone, drenched in guilt and fluorescent light, staring at the empty chair where Akazuchi once coded in silence.
A single, unreadable line of code is visible on the cracked Akazuchi broken fallen laptop screen:
{The lonely star-will always be lonely!...}
(The screen flickers once… then goes dark...)