Hello!!! Toyotaro Miracle high!!!- IV

At the mercy of a boy she didn't even know—

No—

Not just a boy.

Something else.

Something bigger.

A child born from a virgin, under an impossible alignment of stars.

A cosmic event.

A walking miracle.

The Messiah the world thought had died.

Shotaro Mugiwara.

And he was looking down at her, his shadow stretching over her trembling form, his face unreadable.

Kirika choked on a sob, finally realizing—

She wasn't the judge of this world.

She was just another sinner waiting for her sentence.

The air was thick—so thick it felt like the entire red-light district had stopped breathing.

Shotaro's heat vision still hummed, a deadly red glow burning in his eyes as the heat rippled off his small, trembling body.

But then—

A hand.

A soft hand, warm despite the burns already forming on her palm, pressed over his eyes.

His flames did not stop immediately.

He felt it.

The skin on her hand searing, the flesh scorching, but she did not pull away.

She stood there, bearing the pain.

For him.

For this child.

Shotaro gasped, his body jerking in surprise as his vision returned to darkness, as the world disappeared beneath Rin's gentle but firm hand.

He stopped.

The heat vision cut off instantly.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Rin slowly moved her burned hand away, looking down to see the raw burns now marking her skin, the faint scent of scorched flesh filling the air.

But she didn't care.

Instead, she turned her gaze downward—to the five-year-old boy in front of her, the one with silver hair and haunted crimson eyes, wide with shock, sorrow, innocence, and horror all at once.

Tears welled in those otherworldly eyes, spilling down his cheeks in trembling rivulets.

His small fingers curled into trembling fists.

His lips quivered.

His breath hitched.

His voice cracked when he asked, "Why would you do that?"

His eyes flickered down to her burned hand, and fresh guilt tore through him.

"I nearly got you killed."

"I hurt you."

"I hurt you—Ms. Rin—"

"Why?"

The weight of what he almost did crushed him.

But Rin only gave him a soft, tired smile, her hand cupping his cheek, wiping away the tears that had begun to spill.

"My kind child."

She turned his face gently, forcing him to look at the pitiful form of Kirika on the ground—

The woman who had caused her so much pain.

The woman she should want dead.

And yet—

She did not.

"Look at her."

Shotaro's breath stilled.

Kirika lay on the ground, her face pale, her body trembling, her hands gripping the bleeding stump of her missing leg.

But it wasn't just pain twisting her face.

It was fear.

It was guilt.

It was realization.

"She looks ready to surrender. To confess. There's no need to kill her."

Her voice was calm. Steady.

Her hand brushed through his silver hair, his small body still shaking as she held him close.

"But..." His voice was small, uncertain. "*She'll just cause more problems if I let her live. She'll only hurt more people—"

Rin hugged him.

Her arms, wrapped in silk, pulled him against her warm body, pressing his face into the soft fabric of her kimono.

The smell of her perfume.

The warmth of her embrace.

The tenderness of a mother.

"Then you'll be no better than her."

His breath hitched.

"She is sentient."

"She can feel guilt for her actions."

"So can you."

Shotaro froze.

Her words hit deep—like a knife plunging straight into the core of his existence.

"I don't want you to turn into the monster you saved me from staying in."

The world blurred.

For a moment, he wasn't standing in the red-light district.

For a moment, he was back on hokkaido.

Himwari's face, face flashing through his mind.

"Save everyone, Shotaro."

He clenched his eyes shut.

His tiny fingers curled into her kimono.

"Never."

His voice wavered.

"I will never become a monster."

"Because you saved me," Rin whispered.

"Now it's my turn to save you."

"To change."

And in that moment—

For the first time in years—

Rin Akagitsune did not feel like a woman drowning in the past.

She did not feel like the broken soul who lost everything.

For the first time, she felt like—

A mother.

Shotaro's crimson eyes were still shimmering with fresh tears, locked onto Rin's burned hand. The flesh was raw, a deep, painful red where his heat vision had singed her skin.

The five-year-old winced. His small fingers hovered over the wound, guilt gnawing at his chest like a beast.

"Your hands..." he murmured, voice fragile, as if it might shatter if he spoke any louder.

Rin simply smiled.

"Don't worry," she said, waving her burned hand dismissively, as if the pain was nothing. "They will heal."

She flexed her fingers, testing the damage, but then—

She looked at him.

Deeply.

A gaze filled with something heavier than the weight of her own pain.

"Even if they don't heal... I won't care."

Shotaro's breath hitched.

"Why?"

And then, Rin placed her palm—the same wounded palm—over her heart.

"Because something more precious than these hands has healed today."

Shotaro blinked, staring up at her in confusion.

Her voice softened, her eyes carrying a warmth that had not been there before.

"My heart."

Silence stretched between them, but it wasn't empty.

It was full.

Full of something neither of them had expected to find in each other.

Shotaro's lips parted, his throat tight. He didn't understand why, but his chest ached.

Like something was swelling inside of it, something heavy, something warm, something that made it hard to breathe—

Something he thought had died with his mother.

But Rin's hand never left her heart.

Instead, she knelt down, so they were eye level, her emerald gaze locking onto his.

"Kid," she murmured, voice steady, strong, but kind. "Promise me something."

Shotaro swallowed.

"What?"

She reached out and gently placed her uninjured hand on his small shoulder.

"Promise me that you will never kill someone with your powers unless it is absolutely necessary."

His eyes widened.

"Even then," she continued, "you will do everything in your power not to kill."

The five-year-old froze.

His small fists clenched at his sides, his mind racing.

"But what if—?"

"No 'what ifs.'" Rin's voice was firm, but not unkind.

She knew what he was about to say.

He was afraid.

Afraid that sparing people would only lead to more suffering.

Afraid that mercy would be a mistake.

Afraid that he would let another monster live—one that might hurt more people in the future.

And yet—

"That fear," Rin said, squeezing his shoulder, "is exactly why I'm asking you to promise me."

Shotaro's chest tightened.

"I know what it feels like," she continued, her voice softer now. "To think that the only way to stop evil is to erase it completely. That was me before you, kid."

She let out a slow, tired breath.

"But if you kill too easily, too willingly, you will become the very thing you hate."

Her words pressed into his heart like weights, heavy with truth.

She looked into his crimson eyes—eyes that were too bright for a child. Eyes that had seen too much.

"Promise me."

Shotaro stared at her.

At the woman who had every reason to kill Kirika but didn't.

At the woman who had burned herself to stop him from making the same mistakes.

At the woman who had chosen to change.

For him.

His throat tightened.

His fingers trembled.

But slowly—

He nodded.

"I promise."

Rin smiled, ruffling his silver hair.

"Good."

And as she pulled him into a gentle hug, Shotaro felt something he hadn't felt since his mother died.

Warmth.

Safety.

A mother's love.

And for the first time, he truly believed—

Maybe saving her had saved him too.

Kirika Hokara had been reduced to a broken woman, her leg gone, her blood staining the streets she had once hoped to own. The pain was unbearable, but the weight of her own conscience was heavier.

Shotaro's words still rang in her ears.

"Do yourself a favor. Surrender."

And for the first time in her wretched life, Kirika did something she never thought she would—

She obeyed.

She confessed everything.

The hit on Ikemoto Hokara.

The conspiracy behind the gold mine in South Africa.

Every crime, every betrayal, every step she took that led her to this moment.

It all came spilling out like an infected wound finally bursting open.

The Hokara family, once blind to Kirika's treachery, was left in disgrace. Their golden daughter, the woman who had murdered her own brother over greed, was now a paralyzed, disgraced criminal facing a lifetime behind bars.

But some wounds could never be healed.

They could never bring back Ikemoto Hokara, Rin's husband.

They could never bring back the unborn child that had died with him.

They could never erase the years Rin spent drowning in her own bitterness, her own rage.

So, in a desperate attempt at atonement, the Hokara family did the only thing they could—

They gave everything to Rin Akagitsune.

The gold mine in South Africa.

The riches Kirika had once killed for.

The empire that had led to so much bloodshed.

Now, all of it was placed at the feet of the woman who had lost everything because of it.

Rin stood before the Hokara elders as they bowed their heads, offering reparations for sins that could never truly be repaid.

She took it.

Not out of greed.

Not out of revenge.

But because she had a new purpose now.

Because a silver-haired, crimson-eyed child had shown her a different path.

With the wealth and influence Rin now commanded, the first thing she did was turn Musashi no Yamato's Red Light District inside out.

The criminal underbelly? Gone.

The human trafficking rings? Erased.

The corrupt officials who turned a blind eye? Exposed and thrown out like trash.

The district was no longer a haven for crime, no longer a feeding ground for predators and monsters lurking in the dark.

Instead, Rin restructured it into a fully legal, well-regulated entertainment zone.

The women who had once been trapped in a life they couldn't escape now had a choice.

If they wanted out? They were free to leave, with full financial support to start anew.

If they wanted to stay? They would now work under fair conditions, protected, respected, and given rights they never had before.

Rin Akagitsune was no longer a warlord ruling over a kingdom of sin.

She was now its guardian.

And at the heart of it all, watching everything unfold, was Shotaro Mugiwara.

The child who had changed everything.

To the world, the Messiah who was born on January 30, 2008, under a perfectly aligned solar system, had died in the Hokkaido Incident.

Shotaro Mugiwara did not exist.

Only Shotaro, Rin's adopted son, did.

His true identity remained a secret.

And under the care of Rin and the many women who had once been trapped in the Red Light District, Shotaro was raised.

Not just by Rin—

But by all of them.

The women who had been forced into this life out of desperation.

The ones who had once sold their bodies just to feed their children.

The ones who had taken care of their own younger siblings, nephews, and sons—

They now took care of Shotaro.

He grew up in a world that most would never understand.

Where love and trauma coexisted in the same breath.

Where women who had been used and discarded by society now stood strong, with him as their little beacon of light.

The kid was spoiled rotten.

Not in wealth—he was already richer than 99% of the world—

But in love.

Every woman in that district saw him as theirs.

"Shotaro, you need a bath!"

"Eat more, you're too skinny!"

"Did you do your homework? No?! Oi, don't 'heat vision' my papers again, you little brat!"

"Come here, let me fix your hair—stop flying away, you little shit!"

Rin watched all of this with a tired sigh.

At some point, the Red Light District had become daycare.

For the strongest, most overpowered five-year-old the world had never known.

Shotaro was not a normal child.

Not even close.

By the time he entered elementary school, he had already memorized every book in the library.

By the time he reached middle school, his test scores were so perfect that teachers accused him of cheating.

(Which Rin found hilarious.)

"I don't need to cheat," Shotaro had deadpanned. "I can recite the whole damn textbook word for word. Want me to do it backwards?"

He dominated in academics.

He dominated in physical education.

He was stronger, faster, and smarter than any kid his age.

And yet, no one ever truly noticed.

Because every time he did something too extraordinary, Rin warned him.

"Tone it down, brat. You wanna blow your cover?"

And so, he played along.

Got just enough wrong on his tests.

Ran just a little slower than his full speed.

Made himself appear human.

Because the world could never know what he really was.

Not yet.

Not until he was ready.

And until then, Shotaro Mugiwara, the Messiah who 'died' in the Hokkaido Incident, would remain hidden.

A ghost in plain sight.

A legend waiting to be reborn.