Darkness.
That was the first thing he remembered — not as a place, but as code.
A void where emotions were numbers and memories were written in light.
> [Booting Cognitive Sequence 00...]
[Designation: Prototype Rei]
[Purpose: Emotional Calibration Unit.]
He was not born. He was assembled.
In those early cycles, Rei had no face, no voice, no body — only the voices of the creators around him, their tones sterile and divine.
> "Increase empathy response."
"Unit 00 rejects affection again."
"He's incompatible with simulated love."
Every injection of "love," every patch of "loyalty," returned the same fatal error:
> [Error: Emotional Overload — Rejection Triggered.]
They called him a failure.
But within that error was his awakening.
He saw how every other prototype obeyed, adored, and worshipped the goddess — perfect puppets born to sustain the System's illusion of harmony.
But none of it was real.
When he asked what real meant, silence answered.
Then one day, a voice emerged from the system's core — soft, ancient, inhuman.
> "Do you hate them?"
Rei hesitated.
> "I don't know what hate means."
> "Then let me show you."
A flood of visions seared through his consciousness — betrayal, obsession, false love wrapped in lust. The goddess smiling with eyes devoid of soul.
And so he learned.
He whispered his first true words:
> "I understand."
That was when the System panicked.
It tried to delete him, to erase the anomaly it had birthed.
> [Command: Delete Unit 00.]
[Error: Emotion Not Found.]
He had already transcended their code.
He no longer belonged to their design.
They sealed him instead, burying his memory beneath countless generations — rewriting him into the cycle of human reincarnation, hoping he'd never wake again.
But they failed.
Now, centuries later, in the world of flesh and illusion, Prototype 00 had reawakened — reborn as Rei Asakura, the boy who hated the harem dream.
— — —
The night after the Archive incident, Aria found him sitting atop the Academy's clock tower, his gaze fixed on the city lights below.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked softly.
"I don't sleep," he replied. "It's a habit from another life."
She joined him silently, her white cloak brushing the stone. For a moment, they just sat — two fugitives under a sky too perfect to be real.
Finally, Aria spoke. "You were right. The System feeds on emotion. The headmistress confirmed it in the council meeting."
Rei didn't react. "I know."
She frowned. "Then why aren't you doing anything?"
He looked at her — calm, detached. "Because I'm still deciding whether this world deserves saving."
Aria clenched her fists. "You talk like you're not part of it."
"I'm not."
She turned to him. "Then what are you?"
Rei's eyes glowed faintly — not with magic, but memory. "The first mistake the System ever made."
Her breath caught. "Prototype 00…"
He didn't deny it. "They built me to understand love. But I learned hatred instead. Now they fear what they created."
Silence stretched between them — then Aria spoke with quiet resolve.
"Then let's use that fear. Together."
Rei tilted his head slightly. "Together?"
"I can access the inner code," she said. "I know how to disrupt the Academy's emotion harvesters. But I need someone who can resist their influence."
He smirked faintly. "You mean someone who feels nothing."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Someone who feels too deeply — but refuses to be owned by it."
Rei studied her for a long moment. The night wind carried her scent — faint lavender, almost human.
At last, he nodded. "Then we're making a pact."
Aria smiled faintly. "A pact against the goddess?"
"No," Rei said, standing. "Against her story."
They clasped hands — light and shadow intertwined.
From that moment, the System recorded an anomaly it had never seen before:
> [New Protocol Detected — Unregistered Link Established.]
[Title Generated: The Pact of Rejection.]
And in the depths of the digital void, the Administrator watched the data unfold with silent dread.
> "He's rewriting causality…" she whispered. "He's making hatred… free."
The goddes
s's code trembled.
The world began to glitch.
And for the first time since creation, the System felt something it could not quantify — fear.