Cautiously standing up, Min towered equally to the girl. But she was no less furious than before, scanning the inferior digital lifeform with a frown.

"I only know one person who listens to that song, and you happen to be standing in front of them." She said, standing between him and shelter. "That being said, who are you?"

Physical Min opened his lips, but immediately clamped them shut, realising there was no microphone or headset available. So, peering at the IBM 5155, he typed into the terminals. Moments later, a dialogue bubble appeared over his character's head, the subsequent text reading: Shinmin desu. Anatahadaredesu ka?

She blinked a few times upon glancing up and reading the text.

With a doubtful 'hmm', she said. "I'm the system manager of the Shittim Chest. I serve as its primary OS. Frankly, I'm surprised you managed to breach through my security systems. Had it not been for a suspicious ping from your modem, I might've not even knew what was happening."

With some clanky typing, he asked: I was that obvious?

"Of course you were!" She pouted with a slight blush. "And here I was enjoying a slice of raspberry pie until you literally rattled my ears with that...seriously?! Do I have to mentioned that torture device you call an acoustic coupler?"

In response, he said: I have my own programming language, which is not compatible with this place. Not to mention, the CAT cables used around here are no different than the ones I used at home. With some modulation, it wasn't that hard to help myself into the mainframe and secure the building.

"Uh huh..." She nodded, her frown unchanged other than a lightened voice tone. "Not bad, for a caveman."

"Huh, nanda...?" Physical Min uttered under his breath. "Me? A primitive?"

Typing with mild annoyance, he said: FYI, I broke into the Norwegian Internet Exchange Hub in 2nd grade as a flex.

Naturally, the girl gasped, her halo shifting to light blue spikes. "Eh? Stop...you're lying."

Expecting that parricular response, he said: And that was on Windows 3.1, using nothing but an i586 microprocessor, averaging 70 to 200 MHz to crack their firewalls in 13 hours. And, yes, I was 8 years old.

"Jeez!" She exclaimed. "You either had to be super bored or you had some help. Why would you do that? That's just...that's just horrible."

With a muffled chuckle, he typed: Some nerd insulted my dad. So, I decided to show him up. Ofc, the Norwegians didn't like that and told me to FO. Ironically, the nerd was my neighbour, but he learned to stfu thereafter. We were friend since.

The girl stared at him skeptically with an spiky orange halo moments later, then said. "You are one BIG meanie, you know that? Breaking into an Internet Hub, as a kid? Well, I guess that makes me a joke to you."

"Yeah, sort of." He shrugged loudly.

"Hey! I heard that!" Arona chirped, snapping her head leftwards and behind, her attention diverted away from his digital self.

Hitching his breath and glancing at the Chest, she scurried across the classroom and poked at the screen, almost earning a curse from him.

"Nani? You think I didn't notice?" She asked. "I was wondering where those clacking noises were coming from."

"Wait a minute, uh, you knew I was here the whole time?" He inquired, his mouth gaping and his posture recoiled into the backrest.

"Well, not until you started using 'FYI' and 'Norwegian' that I became suspicious." She deadpanned, visibly eying his setup despite the Chest lying flat on the desk. "Goodness gracious, you used all that to break through my firewalls?"

"Hai." He said and nodded before glancing at his wiremod stuff. "And, yeah, I couldn't but notice that someone else tried to get in. Judging from the code fragments left behind in your cache, that someone must've used a dedicated server."

"Yeah, they tried the backdoor, but I kicked them out. Then, they tried the front door before trying to bust my walls down." She shrugged and paced around. "I kind of feel a little silly thinking of it, though?"

"Oh? Why would you say that?"

She looked at him and said. "Because I crashed multiple supercomputers, but I got defeated by an upgraded toaster and a screeching telephone."

"You? Defeated?" He parroted. "Arona desu ka?"

"Hai..."

"You actually defeated me, twice." He said and flashed a V sign. "Once with the doors, and again with that rainstorm just now."

"You claim that as a defeat?" She asked innocently with a normal blue halo appearing over her head. "I was trying to kick you out of the system until you played that song."

"Yeah..." He babbled and nodded absently, his head gradually swivelling to the CRT monitor. "I don't know what made me think of that, but...it's not the first time I got stuck in limbo."

"Yeah, about that..."

With his attention reverted to the Chest, he watched her horizontally shift her eyes before asking. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No."

With a soft 'hmm' in her throat, her lips slit open for a moment and she asked. "How did you get here?"

"Well, I would love to tell you, but right now, there's a bunch of sukebans outside that really wanna kill me. Can you do anything about that?"

"Oh, them?" She nonchalantly chirped, the CRT monitor automatically display outside CCTV footage of the sukebans continuing to struggle with the door. "You don't need to worry about that. They can hit those doors for as long as they want, but they'll never get inside. Not without some serious firepower."

Curtly nodding, he was about to turn and ask her something when his peripherals caught sight of tracer fire downing the sukebans.

Standing up and squinting at the screen, he muttered. "Uh oh."