"Sho---
[Shotaro: Hero's Journey That Kept Moving Forward]
!!
Maria screamed, throwing her arms up like she saw a ghost in lingerie. Her violet hair erupted with the motion, a heavenly MILF in anguish. "Get over the habit of scaring this old woman with your spatial-step crap! My heart can't keep teleporting with you!"
Akira recoiled, still holding onto a graphics card as if it were a sacred artifact desecrated. "No criminal frightens me more than you just appearing out of nowhere," he shouted, eyes wide with flashback-induced PTSD.
Shotaro stood there, unruffled, coat flowing, red eyes darting between the tousled couple like a parent surveying mayhem his children attempted to pass off as a science project. His lips curled, ever so slightly—amused, yet critical.
"You two should have acclimated to it by now," he remarked serenely, his tone silky as polished steel. "Either I do it this way or burst in through the window like a crow from hell."
And with that, he rolled his sleeves up and proceeded to the motherboard like a monk approaching a sacred body.
Shotaro knelt before the strewn tech like a shrine desecrated by amateurs. Wires knotted like intestines, RAM sticks still packaged like sacred wafers, and the Rygoon processor—cunning, potent, criminally handled—was upside down beside a crusty screwdriver.
"Okay," he grumbled, tweaking his gloves. "Lesson number one, Tech 101, pre–Y2K parenting class."
He cupped the processor in his hand, holding it so that it reflected the overhead light like an enchanted gem.
"This," he announced to Akira and Maria with dramatic seriousness, "is a Ryzen 7 8700X. This is the mind of the machine. Don't probe it with metal or apply thermal paste like jam. It doesn't approve."
Maria cocked her head. "But it's a square."
"So are the diplomas of most people," Shotaro responded without breaking a beat, and Akira gagged on his air.
He gestured to the Mvideo 4070 Phoenix sitting awkwardly on bubble wrap. "And this? That's your GPU—your Graphics Processing Unit. This one is from Mvideo. It doesn't simply display images—it renders worlds within games. This is what drives your games, simulations, VR smut, whatever Kenny does in his room alone."
Akira appeared shocked. Maria laughed.
"The RAM—those tall green sticks? Short-term memory. The PC's attention span. You need a minimum of 32 gigs if you need Kenny to play, stream, and bemoan his K/D ratio all at once."
He whirled, striding back and forth like a sensei in the middle of a lecture, eyes glinting with effortless authority. "Your SSD is where you store your soul—well, your OS, games, files, and trauma. Ensure it's NVMe, not some ancient SATA relic from 2008."
Maria blinked. "And what about this small spinning fan thing?"
"CPU cooler. Without it, the Rygoon incinerates itself attempting to be helpful.
The screwdriver spun between Shotaro's fingers like a surgeon with his scalpel, delicate and unhurried, before falling solidly into his palm. "Okay. Let's take a look at the patient."
He opened the second box and stopped. One eyebrow creased beneath the burden of a half-dozen unuttered curses. "Why is there… another cooler?"
Maria, already suspended mid-apology, grinned naively. "I—uhhh—they were different, so I got both. Just in case."
Shotaro nodded once, not quite a nod—rather, a twitch of comprehension, with a resigned laugh thrown in. "Not the worst error. Could've been thermal paste in the DVD drive."
He picked up the second cooler as if it were an artifact salvaged from a doomed dig. It shone with tubes and a factory-wrapped pump, cold and strange. This one's liquid-cooled. You purchased a closed-loop water cooler.
Akira, holding a manual upside-down now and sweating as if he'd survived a tech conference in a straitjacket, cocked his head. "So… We just have it as a backup, right?"
No, Akira. No, we don't." Shotaro spoke as if in correction of a heresy by an exhausted monk. "That's like buying a fire extinguisher and flinging it beside the stove 'just in case.'" This thing circulates fluid around the processor, employs a radiator, fans, power management—
He flipped the box and poked his finger at the copper baseplate. "It's designed for higher-performance loads, overclocking. Overkill for a kid who just wants to play 'League of Slumber' and sob during story cutscenes."
Akira blinked. "There are kinds of… cooling?"
"Yes. Air coolers and liquid ones. This one," he gestured to the fan mounted and waiting to be installed, "employs plain airflow. The one you just purchased for extra money you'll never lay eyes on again? Circulates coolant through a loop. It's lovely. And pointless."
Maria pouted weakly. "Well, at least it looks cool."
"It'll be even more awesome on your resale page tomorrow," Shotaro explained, fitting the first cooler in position like he'd done it before. "Now, give me the thermal paste." And no, not Kenshiro's toothpaste tube he left in here.
.....
The cooler snapped home with a finality that echoed of salvation. Shotaro nodded at the tower in approval, smacked its matte black side panel like a high-pressure used car salesman extolling a haunted mansion, and wiped sweat from his forehead with the inside of his forearm. "That's it," he grumbled, voice raw from five consecutive hours of putting together something that may as well have been a NASA prototype dreamed up by gremlins on cocaine. "Next time, get a damn pre-assembled." Or a toaster. Or a journal. Anything but this."
Through the hallway came the frantic slap-slap-slap of undeserved hurry. Kenshiro burst into the room like a war hero home from brunch, eyes wide and awed. "Is it done?!"
Shotaro swung around him, his face pale with impatience and blood sugar depletion. "Where the fuck were you the entire time?" he accused, thrusting a shaking, betrayed finger. "You show up now? When is it complete? You Dhoni-ass little shithead. All glory, no groundwork."
Akira blinked. "What the fuck did Dhoni do?"
"He completes matches," Shotaro snarled, "only when he runs in 27 balls."
Maria, unfazed by the drama of male egos, was already swooning over Kenshiro as if he'd just created the internet. "My little angel," she crooned, her hands stroking his hair as she kissed his forehead, "your PC is alive."
Kenshiro did not answer—too occupied, he was, cradling the PC like a newborn god, eyes shaking in awe as if it could whisper secrets of holy frame rates and RTX goodness. His small fingers caressed the chassis, pausing over the LED fan as it hummed softly. The RGB lights responded, illuminating his cheeks with electric blue and demon red.
Akira crossed his arms and grumbled, "This is why he's like this."
Shotaro, worn out to the point of nothingness, allowed gravity to consume him into the sagging old beanbag chair in the corner like a loyal warhorse. His coat, draped halfway over the side like a flag of war, left faint smudges of solder and perspiration behind. He gazed at the ceiling with the empty eyes of a soldier who had looked upon too much silicon and hopelessness. "This rig's a step away from driving a Mars rover," he grumbled, his voice drier than sandpaper. "What does your son need a computer like this for?"
"
Kenshiro, mid-chunk of victory chips, opened his mouth—and sealed his fate. "Gensh—"
Shotaro's eye flared.
Not figuratively.
Literally flared.
A burning, crimson glint—cold, godlike rage simmering beneath a cracked veneer of patience. It was the look a messiah gave before flipping the temple tables. A stare that asked, silently but not gently, "You want to try saying that again, gamer boy?"
Kenshiro's soul froze. He swallowed his original sin. "Gh-ghost of Tsushima!" he corrected mid-breath, his voice cracking like a broken flute. "I wanted to experience… Japanese cultural heritage!"
Kenshiro held the PC like it was his precious firstborn. "I just… I wanted to get a feel for Japanese culture from Ghost of Tsushima," he mumbled, eyes flicking around at the adults as if he'd invoked a good enough reason. Shotaro didn't budge. Just glared at him with the deadpan heft of a man ten seconds from propelling him into orbit. "You are Japanese, buddy," he told me, his tone level, weary, and judgey in ways words aren't quite able to convey. "You want to taste Japanese culture? Go outside. Feel some grass. Get berated by an old woman with a broom on the sidewalk. Swerve a bike on the wrong side of the road. Assist someone with carrying tofu.
You don't require a 300,000 yen computer to cosplay your own past."
Kenshiro shrank a little, one hand still gripping the RGB-lit tower like it could shield him from the truth. "It's not the same…" he mumbled.
"Yeah," Shotaro said. "One costs your soul. The other costs your damn allowance and your father's will to live."
Akira, sitting beside them and still halfway buzzed from exhaustion and a lukewarm beer, just muttered, "He's not wrong."
Maria, always the calm queen of household disorder, passed by, placing a small plate of snacks in front of Shotaro like an offering of peace to a war-weary warrior. "Let's not quarrel. Boys must have hobbies."
Shotaro glared at her. "A hobby doesn't take an entire power plant to start up, Mrs. Shinkai."
"But it is educational," she said cooingly.
Oh yeah?" Shotaro replied, cracking his knuckles and leaning back further in the beanbag, his coat half-slipping off.
Kenshiro whimpered.
The PC whirred quietly in the corner, oblivious to the fact that it had turned into a monument to generational strife as well as wanton excess. The sun outside set low, golden light pouring through the Shinkai residence like a soft epilogue. And there, in the midst of it all, Shotaro sat—the only sane man in a virtual world—gazing at the ceiling.
.....
The terminal hummed with the languid energy of summer departures—children pulling bulging suitcases, station agents' announcements lost in the hum of fans and static—yet Fatiba Darvish remained still, unruffled by it all, her calmness like a lake on a still day amidst commotion. She had a lightweight pink hijab wrapped around a head of golden hair, her eyes moving through the crowd with contained tension. Her fingers sometimes wandered to the edge of her scarf, quietly readjusting to keep the crescent-shaped scar on her forehead hidden under the fold. Her parents weren't present. Again. And the clock on the train's arrival ticked ever-nearer.
She sat next to her with the kind of stillness that was not laziness—it was confidence. A long coat, round spectacles, a few grays woven through her otherwise black hair. A haphazard pile of loose pages hung over her lap, pages rustling faintly as a warm breeze swept through. Fatiba did not mean to glance. She didn't even know she was glancing until—
It's very rude," the woman said, her voice flat and crackly as an old vinyl record, "to sneak a look at someone's tale before they know how to finish it."
Fatiba flinched, surprised. "Sorry! I was just. bored. I didn't mean to read. I was just—curious.
"Curious is fine," the woman said with a soft chuckle, adjusting her glasses without looking up. "Boredom is a dangerous thing, though. That's when people do the most reading—without knowing it."
Fatiba gave a small, awkward laugh and folded her hands in her lap. "So… it's a book? That thing you're holding?"
"A manuscript," the woman replied. "Another one in a long, long line of manuscripts."
Fatiba cocked her head, feeling the burden in the woman's voice. "You sound weary of it."
"Because I am," she replied, glancing over the top page as if it were a prayer she'd said too many times. "I've written fantasy. Sci-fi. Post-apocalyptic thrillers. Steampunk sagas. Medieval romances. Different hues, same form. Always the hero's journey."
Fatiba cocked her head, furrowing her brows. "What's that?"
The woman did not reply immediately—she gazed at her. Really searched. As though attempting to gauge how much truth this girl would contain. And then, like a priest admitting doubt at the altar, she spoke. "It's a formula. A pattern disguised as destiny. The abandoned child. The prophecy whispered. A great evil growing. An unwilling start. The trials. The losses. The allies. The sacrifices. The final war. And then—homecoming. All stories everywhere.". Just new clothes wrapped around the same old bones.
Fatiba's frown creased more deeply, but not in doubt—she was considering. "That doesn't sound so bad…"
"It's not," the woman conceded, the hint of a smile twitching at her lips, creased and exhausted. "Initially. But write enough of them and it's like painting portraits of spectres—empty eyes, recognizable shapes, no air in their lungs. You cease writing human beings. You begin playing chess pieces.
A rush of wind swept across the station. The hem of the woman's coat whipped. Somewhere down the platform, a bell rang out like it was proclaiming a funeral procession rather than a train.
Then her voice fell lower—more hushed, more reverent. "It took me years to realize what plagued me. All those tales… they have the same ending. 'Happily ever after.' Curtain drops. Clap. The end."
Fatiba slowly nodded. "The hero's journey is done, and he lives happily ever after.
"That!" the woman said sharply, pointing with one ink-stained finger, her eyes suddenly flaring with a fire far older than her smile. "That's the part no one talks about! That's the sickness buried in the bones of it all! They end. The journey ends. And we just accept that. But what if it didn't? What if he saved the world—and then did it again? And again? And again?"
Her words poured now, raging, like a dam had burst open within her. "A hero who beats the dark lord, brings new balance, makes new friends, falls in love, suffers loss, loves again. Wakes up and does it over and over. Not because he is chosen. Not because of fate. But because no one else will. Because the world always shatters again. And every time it does, he gets back in the storm.". Every time, he loses a little bit more of himself. Every time, the people forget that he ever assisted. And he continues doing it anyway. Until he is not a hero anymore. Only a lunatic with an urge to rescue things. A goddamn captive of their own decisions.
Fatiba didn't breathe. The woman's eyes went mad now—shining not with madness, but with truth. That terrible kind of truth that visited only those who stared too long into silence.
That," the woman breathed, nearly in awe, "is what I want to write. Not a hero's quest. A damnation. A life so long and filled with service that it turns mad. A boy who keeps going even after the story ends. Because the world never stays saved.
Silence wrapped itself over the platform, not abrupt, not sonic—simply finished, as snow would fall over a cemetery. Fatiba remained immovable as stone, metal bench cold against her legs, tea growing cold in her palms. The woman next to her breathed out, slow and hollow, like she'd been holding on to that fact for a decade too long.
But God made man," the woman said, speaking low and dry as old paper. "And man created story. And stories." She leaned against her chair, glasses slipping just far enough to reflect the sun. ".and they all require endings.
Fatiba gazed down, brow furrows, then up at her again. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "there isn't a hero who continues on. Perhaps the majority do quit. But what if there was one? One that was afflicted with too much love, too much compassion to sleep? What if one did make the journey once… and then again?"
The woman faced her, eyes catching hers like a tack through fabric.
"Then he's not a hero," she murmured, respectfully. "He's the Hero."
Fatiba nodded, moving her lips just a fraction. "Not a chosen one…"
"The chosen one," the woman completed. Her voice broke on that final word, as if she'd spoken it a thousand times in dreams but never in real life.
Another blast of wind. The train was still not in sight. But now the air between them was charged, as though something mythical had been said and could not be unsaid.
From the edge of the sky, well out beyond the sun-baked rails, a solitary crow shattered the stillness with a metallic screech, as if a bad sign ripped open the flesh of summer. Then the train came to a stop—not glorious, not filmic, but a clanking metal box creaking to a stop—and the doors hissed open like a portent.
And out poured chaos.
A group of middle-aged guys with receding hairlines and discount cologne staggered onto the platform, already half-shove, the kind whose shirts were perpetually half-tucked and egos three drinks into. They barked, jeered—until a boot crashed into one's chest like punctuation.
"Motherfuckers," Hiroki Mazino growled, striding out like some delinquent god of war in a denim coat and raw fury. His blonde hair erupted under the sunlight like an unfiltered threat.
Behind him, Zenkichi "Bird" Gojo rolled up his sleeves with deliberate, melodramatic ill will. "Pretty sure Mugyiwara established that—Red Eye Ronin territory? No harassment. No exceptions."
The stage became a war zone. Slaps crashed like thunderbolts, kicks like fallen anvils. One guy revolved in a perfect circle before collapsing to the pavement. Another screamed in dismay before Hiroki folded him with a right hook that cracked like drywall shattering.
Fatiba blinked, holding her satchel tighter. "Wait… yeah. That's Hiroki Mazino and Gojo Zenkichi. Shotaro's right and left testicle." She repeated it matter-of-factly, as if reading from a textbook fact.
Next to her, the woman stood frozen, manuscripts abandoned in her lap.
"But… why are they beating up six middle-aged men like that?" Fatiba questioned out loud, though her voice was drowned under the increasing whap of fists against flesh.
She couldn't make out one word of what was being spoken. Only the wet beat of violence—the rhythmic, almost ritualistic thwaps and cracks that resonated down the rust-stained platform like drumming on some damned taiko drum. Within the muggy golden umbrella of late summer, the train station ceased to be a point of departure.
It became a crucible. A stage. And the only play was fists.
Hiroki shot across the floor like a bullet in denim, scooping up one poor son of a gun from behind and holding him close. "Obliques—his obliques!" he snarled, and Bird, never one to miss a signal, swooped in from the side like something out of mythology. The dropkick came down solid, like a missile hitting soggy concrete, and the man crumpled like crummy printed directions.
Another made a break for it—bad idea.
The pair closed in. Hiroki slapped his hand across the guy's face with a swiftness that sent the sound like a camera flash. Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. Bird followed, sides alternating. The fellow twirled in a circle, dizzied, dazed—a reluctant tambourine in the Ronins' war music.
Red cheeks. Redder pride. Wet footprints and torn breath.
To Fatiba, it appeared less a fight and more an exorcism—the sort that saw the devil expelled, not with holy water, but with a two-man slap combo and a spine-dropping dropkick.
Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Authority came—not in the form of sirens or firearms, but lanky limbs and an ill-fitting belt. The railway officer marched up the platform, boots clapping hard on concrete. He wasn't weak—just skinny, lengthened as if God was short of muscle and used double the bone. His gaze darted between the huddled men and the two teens gasping like dogs just out of combat.
Hey—hey! What in blazes are you two young whippersnappers doing?" the officer snapped, his voice cracking like dried-up tile.
Hiroki stiffened, cleaning blood—someone else's—off his knuckles like ketchup. "Keeping things in line," he said. "This city's within Red Eye Ronins domain."
The officer blinked. "You what?"
"You don't know?" Hiroki spoke cold voice turnning into snooty ice. "Molestation. Particularly on public transit. Particularly with children. Strictly off-limits."
"By whom?" the officer snapped, advancing.
"By Aniki," Hiroki announced, as if the name alone would move clouds.
The officer snorted. "What in the world is an Aniki? This isn't a stupid anime. Who is that, even? Tell me his name."
Bird moved up beside Hiroki, arms crossed, teeth flashing in a grin honed like something sharp. "Sho
[Shotaro: Journey Of A Hero That Kept Moving Forward]
taro Mugyiwara," he announced.
Then, softer. Darker. "And if you feel you're ready to do battle against him, officer… please. You have my permission. Arrest us."
The officer hesitated, regarding the boys once more—their position wasn't defensive. It was stating. And he wasn't getting paid enough to test declarations made in bruises and blood. He held his hands up, stepped back one pace.
"Go ahead. Beat their ass," he muttered, voice low with resignation. "I'm not dumb enough to go against him."
And just like that, the authority left. The station returned to stillness, if not silence. The only soundtrack now was the groaning of six grown men, all old enough to know better, all sprawled across the platform like trash left out in a summer storm.
Fatiba watched, unsure what she had just witnessed. The violence was loud, but it had a strange justice to it. Like thunder striking a tree already hollow with rot.
That was when the woman behind her placed a hand on her shoulder, warm and steady. Her voice was quiet, but heavy, like something long held in the chest.
"Japan is… polite," she started. "Orderly. Efficient. One of the world's safest nations, or so we like to tell ourselves."
Her hand curled into a slightly tighter fist.
"But no heaven it is."
Fatiba spun around, brows creasing.
"There's a darkness that creeps through the cracks here," said the woman, her glasses glinting in the gold of the sunset. "You won't see it in brochures. But if you're a girl in uniform, a school uniform, you learn quick. Not in books. Not from teachers. But from the hands in the crowd."
Fatiba's lips parted in puzzlement.
"Rush hour is the devil's hour," the woman declared. "The trains are crowded—so crowded you can't move, can't breathe. And that's when it occurs. Fingers, palms, whispers. Men old enough to be fathers—sometimes even women—making use of the push of bodies to grope, to touch, to assault. Always behind you. Always out of sight."
Fatiba felt a shiver run down her spine.
They do it because they can. Because they believe the crowd will conceal them. And because the girls… they remain silent. Due to shame. Due to fear. Due to the fear of not being believed."
The woman's voice became harder, no longer melancholic—now icy.
"Others have safety pins. Others resort to padded bags, big coats. Some abandon the trains altogether."
Fatiba swallowed.
And even when they yell, even when they struggle," the woman said, her eyes narrowing, "there's always somebody who will say, 'Maybe she made it up. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe her skirt was too short.'"
There was silence again. Not peace—just silence.
"And that," the woman whispered, "is why boys like that exist. The Red Eye Ronins. Because sometimes the system fails the weak. So somebody has to.
She released Fatiba's shoulder and stepped around her, the wind catching briefly at her coat, as if the heat itself were attempting to temper the cutting edge of what had just been said. She gazed out across the station—not as a passenger, not even as an observer—but as one who stood looking across a battlefield still ringing with the whispers of a thousand unspoken battles.
"They're not heroes," she spat, voice flat, eyes far away. "They're symptoms."
Symptoms of a country that ironed its surface even with politeness and propriety but allowed rot to pool quietly underneath. Where silence wasn't merely golden—it was mandated.
And whatever this Mugyiwara's up to," she went on, voice suddenly charged with legal contempt, "it's unconstitutional. He has no jurisdiction. No badge. No court to back him. The law is founded on systems, on balance—judges, officers, prosecutors. If individuals begin taking justice into their own hands…"
Fatiba remained silent. She merely gazed. She wanted to protest. But she couldn't.
"Right?" the woman pressed, turning half-way, observing her.
"Uh. kinda have to agree.
The woman nodded slightly. Then softly—"But because he's the strongest… his words become law."
She waved a hand out toward the moaning men on the platform, strewn about like leftover luggage. "It's not the pain that teaches them. Pain disappears. It's the humiliation. The shame of getting slapped into the concrete in front of witnesses. The kind of shame you can't sue out of existence."
She narrowed her eyes. "And when the legal system shakes at his name, when no judge dares to rebuke him, when the police slide quietly away rather than charging…"
Her voice was a whisper.
"Then perhaps… perhaps he isn't doing anything wrong."
She started to walk away, measured steps disappearing into falling dusk, her voice trailing like incense smoke behind.
"Because the world can have a little chaos."
And as the sun seeped into the steel rails, everything reduced to gold and shadow, her final words remained:
"Because it takes a little chaos in the heart… to birth a dancing star."