Chapter 14 — Shinosuke Nohara (03)
(Future Shin narrates with a low laugh that doesn't reach his eyes)
People think hacking is typing fast.
It isn't.
Hacking is patience. Waiting. Watching. Letting the enemy think they're safe while you sit beneath their floorboards and map the entire house.
By the time I was ready to reach Zhao Kenjiro, I had already lived six months inside the Takahara Clan's shadows(I mean I investigated for six months). Six months of collecting data, recording every lie, every cage, every vanished person. Six months of watching Hinata sleep with her hand curled in my shirt because she was scared to go to the market again.
I wasn't a kid anymore.
Not really.
Something in me had sharpened.
The night I decided to go after Kenjiro, it was raining — the cold, metallic kind of rain that feels like it belongs more to a battlefield than a neighborhood.
Hiroshi was making tea(Yeah, My old man was Addicted to tea).
Akari was asleep at her desk.
Hinata snored on my lap, clutching Shirou(Oh! Wait I forgot. Uncle Shirou part of our family, our family pet dog. I mean you can't blame me, this memory was from ten billion years ago, I can't remember correctly).
I looked at the window and said to myself:
"I need someone bigger."
There were only a handful of "big enough" people on Earth.
Zhao Kenjiro was one of them.
Leader of the Dragonfang Consortium.
The strongest human recognized by the Council.
And someone even the Takahara didn't like provoking.
Reaching him… wasn't easy.
His firewall was not made for people like me.
It was made for professionals.
It was made to keep invaders out.
And I was an invader
with a reason.
I tapped into the Nohara home's secured connection, the one Hiroshi used sparingly for research communication. I masked the signal with a noise generator I built last month — a strip of code that imitated electromagnetic interference from construction drones.
Kenjiro's firewall was like a spiked fortress.
But even fortresses have patterns.
I traced the pulses in the firewall, mapped its intervals, watched how the system responded when maintenance windows opened. I started small: a ping disguised as an equipment report, a spoofed signature pretending to belong to a Council courier.
Three weeks to get close.
Another week to find a seam.
Another to craft a lockpick that wouldn't trip alarms.
And one night — the weak hour between 2:47 am and 2:49 am — a maintenance ping for the Dragonfang internal archive didn't authenticate correctly.
Not a flaw.
A mis-click from some tired night-shift analyst.
It gave me a crack.
I slipped through.
The interior was a labyrinth of data vaults.
Encrypted logs.
Political reports.
Security footage.
And archived messages Kenjiro kept as leverage against half of United Earth.
I didn't need those.
I needed one thing:
A direct line.
Not to his office.
Not to his assistants.
To him.
Kenjiro's personal phone wasn't connected to the public network. It had a dedicated daemon — a watchdog program that sniffed intruders and deleted its own memory rather than let someone in.
It was beautiful.
And it hated me.
It took two more weeks to bypass it. Two weeks of pretending to raid dungeons in Genesis Reign while scripts ran inside my blanket, waiting for the daemon to blink.
The night it blinked — literally a nanosecond drop in activity — I struck.
I slipped a handshake key into the daemon's verification chain and let it greet me as "authorized maintenance."
I was inside his personal phone.
Kenjiro's voice messages, meeting logs, encrypted memos…
None of it mattered.
What mattered was the contact labeled:
Priority – Silent Channel
The one only five people in the world were supposed to have access to.
I tapped it.
A number appeared.
I now had Kenjiro's personal frequency.
But reaching him wasn't enough.
I needed him to take me seriously.
That meant hacking one more thing.
His Computer.
Not his public workstation.
Not his corporate terminal.
His private desk terminal — the one he kept at home, encrypted with three layers of Council-grade shielding.
It took another week of prep.
The firewall screamed at me twice.
One night, my code almost tripped a silent alarm that would've pinged Dragonfang HQ.
I nearly pulled out.
Then I heard Hinata coughing again in her sleep from the residue that bastard sprayed at the market.
And I went back in.
On the eighth attempt, the PC opened to me like a reluctant beast.
Inside it were reports, maps, threat assessments, dossiers…
I ignored all of them.
I uploaded a single folder into his private desktop:
DO NOT IGNORE — URGENT
Inside were all the Takahara files.
Every cage.
Every experiment.
Every vanished person.
Every Asura-touched log.
I encrypted it in a way only I could unlock.
Then I left one more file:
Meet me.
Tonight.
Alley behind Old 7th Street Market.
Come alone.
— L.F.69.
And then I cut the connection so fast my hands stung.
I sat in my dark room, breathing like I had sprinted for miles.
If Kenjiro ignored me, I was dead.
If Kenjiro traced me, I was dead.
If the Takahara found out before he did, my family was dead.
I didn't sleep.
When dawn crept in, I washed my face, put on my worn-out jacket, and walked out of the house with my hood up.
The streets were quiet.
Shop doors still shut.
Fog clinging to the ground like pale fingers.
Old 7th Street Market was nearly abandoned — just rusted stalls and old holo-signs flickering in glitchy neon.
I slipped into the alley behind it.
And waited.
Thirty minutes.
One hour.
Was he coming?
What if he ignored the file?
What if he dismissed it as a prank?
What if—
He arrived without sound.
One moment the alley was empty.
The next, Zhao Kenjiro stood at the entrance like a shadow that had always belonged there.
Tall.
Sharp eyes.
Hair slicked back in a style only someone confident as hell would wear.
Black coat.
A pressure around him that didn't belong to normal humans.
He stepped into the alley, hands in pockets, gaze sweeping effortlessly until it landed on me.
His eyes narrowed.
"You're the one who hacked my PC and Phone?"
My throat felt tight.
I forced myself to nod.
Kenjiro didn't move closer.
He simply exhaled once — a small breath, like he had been waiting centuries for a worthy surprise.
"…Kid," he said quietly, "nobody has ever done that before."
I swallowed. "It wasn't easy."
"That's an understatement."
He stepped into the light. "Your intrusion was the cleanest I've seen in decades. It took me twenty minutes to even realize it wasn't an inside job."
I blinked. "…Is that a compliment?"
"For anyone else? No."
He paused.
"For you? …Yes."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Kenjiro drew closer, his footsteps barely audible on the old pavement.
"So," he said, "you wanted to meet me. Why?"
I slid my hand into my jacket and took out a small drive.
A drive filled with copies of the Takahara files.
"They're experimenting on people," I said. "Not volunteers. People taken from towns. They're doing gene mutation work. Illegal spirit conduction. They're working with… things."
Kenjiro's expression sharpened.
I held out the drive.
"I have proof."
Kenjiro took it without hesitation.
The moment his fingers touched the drive, his aura changed.
A cold, precise violence settled around him.
He flicked the drive once, activating its holo-screen in midair.
He scrolled.
He slowed.
He stopped.
Then he looked at me with an expression I had never seen on an adult's face when looking at someone my age.
Respect.
A quiet, heavy respect.
"…Kid," he said in a low tone, "most adults don't have balls like you."
I shrugged, though my heart hammered in my ribs.
"They messed with my sister."
Silence.
Heavy, crushing, absolute silence.
Kenjiro closed the hologram. His eyes were no longer sharp — they were lethal.
That was the moment he decided the Takahara Clan had dug their own grave.
He didn't need me to explain further.
He didn't need my reasons.
He didn't even need to hear another word.
But he did speak, after a beat.
"You remind me of someone."
"Who?"
He smiled faintly — the kind of smile that only appears when recalling a demon you respect.
"Lin Xuan."
I froze.
"Wait— you mean that Lin Xuan? The strongest being on Earth?"
"Yes."
Kenjiro tucked the drive into his coat.
"And you're just like him."
I blinked. "How?"
He raised a brow. "Unhinged enough to hack Systems you shouldn't hack. Stubborn enough to take justice into your own hands. Dangerous enough to succeed."
I scratched my cheek. "…He's my parents' friend."
"Well, congratulations," Kenjiro said dryly. "You're even crazier than him at your age."
My face heated a little.
Kenjiro sighed. "I'm disappointed, though."
I stiffened. "Why?"
"Because Professor Akari and Professor Hiroshi didn't ask me for help."
His voice dropped.
"We're not too close, but we are friends. I would have helped."
I looked down.
Kenjiro muttered, "Lin Xuan will be pissed when he finds out. That idiot thinks he's the only one allowed to protect everyone."
The air felt lighter for a moment.
Then Kenjiro asked the question he had been holding.
"What do you want in return, kid?"
I didn't hesitate.
"Ten million UC."
Kenjiro stared at me.
"Are you insane?"
"Yes."
"No."
"Fine. One million."
"No."
"Five hundred thousand."
He rolled his eyes. "…Fine."
I nodded.
Then added, "But I want one more thing."
He tilted his head. "What is it now?"
"I want the bones of the Takahara Clan Head."
Kenjiro froze.
"…Bones?"
"Yes."
"…Why the hell would you want his bones?"
I shrugged. "I'll make a sword out of them. And a tea table for my father."
Kenjiro's eye twitched.
Then he burst into laughter — loud, sharp, a sound that cracked through the alley like lightning.
"Kid," he said, wiping a tear, "you really remind me of that guy."
"Lin Xuan?"
"Yes."
He looked at me — truly looked — and the amusement slipped into something harder, more dangerous.
"Don't worry," he said.
"You'll get he's bones."
He turned to leave.
"Mr. Kenjiro."
He paused.
"Thank you."
He didn't turn back.
He just said,
"Don't thank me yet."
And walked into the fog.
Leaving me alone in the alley, breathing the cold air, my fists clenched, my heart finally — finally — steady.
For the first time in months…
I felt like the world was shifting
back
in our favor.
But I underestimated something important.
When men like Zhao Kenjiro move, the world doesn't just shift —
it breaks.
The next morning, United Earth's political arena trembled beneath its expensive shoes.
It began with a meeting.
A quiet one.
The kind where invitations didn't go out; they simply appeared on desks of people too powerful to refuse them.
Arun, leader of the Yamato-Khalsa Clan, arrived first.
Representatives from eight major clans followed, each of them masking their nerves with perfectly tailored coats and synthetic perfumes.
None of them spoke.
And then Kenjiro walked into the room.
He didn't carry his usual relaxed swagger.
He carried a storm.
He put the drive I gave him onto the holo-table.
Pressed a finger.
And the horrors inside Project Morrow lit the room like a burning sun.
Cages.
Files.
Gene experiments.
Spirit conduits twisting through bodies not meant to hold them.
Asura-tinged data patterns.
Faces of the missing.
The room fell silent.
Erik whispered, "This… this is—"
Kenjiro silenced him with a look.
"No excuses. No delays. No votes."
He pointed at the Takahara insignia stamped across the logs.
"They crossed lines you don't come back from.
And they targeted a child."
Arun's jaw tightened. "Which child?"
Kenjiro's eyes darkened.
"He's friend's."
That was all he needed to say.
The clans didn't vote.
They didn't debate.
They didn't ask for verification.
They stood.
And the Takahara's death sentence was sealed.
Clans do not always wage war with swords.
Sometimes they wage war with erasure.
The Takahara compound fell before the sun rose the next day.
Dragonfang elites raided the laboratories like a silent plague — moving through steel corridors like ghosts, confiscating everything, dragging officials out of offices, shutting down servers before alarms could ring.
Arun's Khalsa fighters controlled the district.
A strike team from the Han-Seong Guild shut down communications.
Two medical overseers from the Council were flown in to identify victims pulled from underground rooms.
By midday, every Takahara official was in custody or dead.
By evening, the Takahara Clan was gone.
Not punished.
Not exiled.
Gone.
Erased from public records.
Erased from registries.
Erased from the map.
Their crest — the black crane — was pulled down from every building and burned.
I should've felt triumph.
Instead, I felt tired.
Tired in a way no Fourteen-year-old should feel.
When Kenjiro called me that night, his voice was curt.
"It's done."
I didn't answer immediately.
Hinata's cough echoed down the hall, weak and sharp, like a tiny knife hitting the same point on a wall over and over.
"…Thank you," I finally said.
Kenjiro exhaled like someone who'd forgotten how to do it properly.
"You can thank me after your parents stop pretending they're invincible."
I frowned. "What?"
He continued, "I'm sending a doctor. Someone who actually knows what she's doing. She'll be there by morning."
"Doctor?" I repeated.
Kenjiro hung up.
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat by Hinata's bed, listening to her uneven breaths, her tiny fingers curled around my sleeve while she slept.
The Takahara Clan was gone.
But they had left a scar behind.
Hinata's cough hadn't disappeared.
That made something in me cold.
The next morning, a soft knock sounded — too gentle to belong to a soldier, too steady to belong to a frightened civilian. Akari opened the door, and a young woman stepped inside as if the air made room for her.
Silver hair drifted down her back like strands of moonlight.
Her eyes — serene, moonlit, glowing faintly — held a calm that could silence storms.
Her presence was quiet, graceful, steady… yet carried an unmistakable weight, the kind only a true healer could possess.
Yan'er.
A gifted doctor whose hands had saved warriors far stronger than most people could imagine.
Respected, gentle — and terrifyingly competent.
And right now, she was the woman who would save my sister.
She glanced around the chaotic living room — chemical stains, tea cups, scattered blueprints, Hinata's toys — and her expression didn't change. She simply nodded once, as if confirming something to herself.
"Ken sent me," she said softly.
Akari's breath caught. "Y-You're—"
Yan'er nodded politely. "Yes. I've come to help you."
Hiroshi bowed with quiet sincerity. "Thank you for coming."
Yan'er didn't waste a second.
She walked straight down the hallway, navigating our home, stopping at Hinata's door without needing directions.
I scrambled after her.
"W-Wait— she's sleeping—"
Yan'er gently pushed the door open.
Hinata lay curled under her blanket, breathing shallowly, cheeks flushed a faint red. Each breath rattled with the stubborn cough that refused to die.
Yan'er knelt beside the bed.
She didn't ask what happened.
She didn't ask how long it had been.
She didn't ask for medical files or explanations.
Her hand hovered above Hinata's forehead, fingers glowing faintly.
A warm golden light bloomed from her palm — soft, soothing, pure.
It fell over Hinata like a gentle rain, sinking into her skin, her lungs, her breath.
Hinata's chest eased.
Her cough faded into nothing.
The tension in her tiny hands melted.
Her breathing deepened into peaceful rhythm.
After a quiet moment, her eyes fluttered open — clear, bright, alive again.
"Shin-nii…?" she whispered.
Something inside me cracked.
Relief.
Fear unwinding.
Months of rage dissolving into the air.
Yan'er rose gracefully. "She's fine now."
Hinata sat up immediately, stretching her arms with newfound energy.
She giggled, bright and full of life.
"Shin-nii! I feel yummy!"
I blinked. "…You mean healthy?"
"Same thing!"
Akari rushed in and swept Hinata into her arms, crying into her hair. Hiroshi pressed a trembling hand against Hinata's head, whispering thanks under his breath.
Yan'er stepped back, crossed her arms…
And then glared — sharply — at my parents.
"You two," she said.
Akari froze.
Hiroshi stiffened.
Yan'er's voice sliced through the room, soft but edged like a scalpel.
"You are friends with Us.
You have allies who would erase worlds to protect you."
Her moonlit eyes narrowed.
"And yet… you didn't ask anyone for help."
Akari opened her mouth. "We—"
"You what?" Yan'er interrupted. "Wanted to handle it yourselves? Didn't want to trouble anyone? Didn't want to seem weak?"
Hiroshi looked away.
Yan'er wasn't finished.
"You nearly lost your daughter.
You nearly broke your family.
And you let a child carry a burden no child should ever carry alone."
Silence.
Cold, heavy silence.
Akari's shoulders shook.
Hiroshi clenched his jaw.
And even I… couldn't look up.
Yan'er sighed — not in anger, but in a sadness that cut deeper.
"Lin Xuan will be furious," she murmured.
Then she turned to me.
Her voice gentled.
"You did well."
My chest tightened painfully.
"…Thanks."
She rested a hand on my shoulder.
"Next time," she said softly, "don't suffer in silence."
Her words hit harder than any enemy attack.
Because they were true.
For months, I had carried everything alone.
The fear.
The fury.
The exhaustion.
The weight of all the things I couldn't tell my family.
All because I thought I had to be strong enough.
But now—
Now the real giants had stepped in.
The adults of our world.
The monsters who protected us.
The ones who turned entire clans to dust when pushed too far.
Suddenly… I wasn't alone anymore.
That afternoon, the Takahara Clan no longer existed.
Newspapers called it "political restructuring."
Online forums whispered conspiracies.
The Council released a bland statement about "illegal activities discovered."
None of it mattered.
What mattered was Hinata racing through the hall again, stealing my food and Shirou running after her like always.
Akari laughing in her lab again, nearly blowing something up on accident.
Hiroshi enjoying his tea without checking the windows every five minutes.
What mattered was my family
safe
again.
For a moment… life felt normal.
The chaos returned.
The warmth returned.
The laughter returned.
And like an idiot, a hopeful idiot…
I let myself believe it was over.
I thought that was the end.
But fate…
had other plans.
Next Chapter: Shinosuke Nohara — 04