### ***Arc 2: The 4th Wheel***
From the serene, sunlit living room of the Swiss villa—now more a home than a safe house—Hikari watched the world through a different lens. She had access to the same intelligence feeds as Renji, the same network access as Kuro. But she wasn't looking for targets or system vulnerabilities. She was looking at people.
Specifically, she was looking at Maya Williams.
She had a small, discreet window open on her tablet, showing a schematic of Kuro's lecture hall. She could see his biometrics (heart rate slightly elevated), his keystroke patterns (a significant pause before replying to Maya), and a transcript of their private conversation.
"…subjective feedback loop," Hikari read aloud to herself, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. She sipped her tea. "Oh, she's good."
Hikari had noticed Maya weeks ago. She was quiet, observant, and she looked at Kuro not with the awe or confusion most students did, but with a spark of genuine intellectual curiosity. And, as Hikari's hyper-empathy could tell even through a grainy security feed, a definite, blossoming crush.
Kuro, of course, was utterly oblivious. He could predict a stock market crash from a single tweet but couldn't recognize flirtation if it hacked into his mainframe and left a romantic poem on his desktop.
Hikari decided to take matters into her own hands. She was the family's emotional anchor, and that included ensuring her socially-crippled genius of a brother didn't die alone surrounded by servers and cats.
She opened a new, anonymous chat client, creating a temporary identity: "Athena9." She found a student forum Maya frequented and sent her a private message.
**[Private Message to MayaWilliams from Athena9]**
**Athena9:** *Hey, weird question. I see you're in Tarayashi's AI ethics class. I've been trying to talk to him, but he's kind of hard to read. Any advice?*
Hikari watched as Maya paused her own work, her biometric signature showing a flicker of surprise and intrigue. She was creating a shared experience, a common ground.
Maya typed back.
**MayaWilliams:** *Oh, yeah, he's definitely in his own world. You just have to be direct. And talk about the work. He doesn't really do small talk. At all.*
**Athena9:** *Good to know! I was just gonna ask him if he saw the new Blade Runner anime. Bad idea?*
**MayaWilliams:** *Probably. Try asking him about the philosophical paradox of creating a sentient AI that could never truly prove its own consciousness to its creator. He'll talk for an hour.*
Hikari smiled. Maya didn't just like Kuro; she understood him. This had potential.
**Athena9:** *Wow, that's super specific and brilliant. Thanks! You're really good at this.*
She closed the chat. She had planted the seed. She wasn't just manipulating. She was… helping. Nudging. Engineering a social outcome for the good of all parties involved. It was, she mused, a far more satisfying and ethical use of her skills than psychological warfare. For now.