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My name didn't matter in real-life. To my family and the rest of Tokyo's bustling passerby, I was just a regular tanuki in his early thirties. Sure, I required a wheelchair to navigate parts of my apartment and mainly the street, but I didn't stand out much as an average Japanese citizen. My mother supported me, and so did my older brother and younger sister, as well as my neighbors (at least, in theory), despite the tragedy of my past often defining their view of me.

Little did they realize kind, innocent Sato Arashi lead a double life. One I learned from my father, firsthand. Once upon a time, we all respected Sato Naoki. He worked as a high-ranking accountant for a trading firm. He often worked overtime to provide for his family, sometimes staying overnight at the office for close to three days, yet somehow found the time to attend my competitive baseball games each month at my high school. He even listened to me with my mother as I rambled on and on about how computers worked at the kitchen table. He scolded my older brother Tetsuo if he pulled a practical joke on me, as well as found the strength to help raise my baby sister, Hinata.

I used to love him, as did my mother and siblings. Then, we finally learned the cruel truth behind his smiles. We discovered the debts accumulated from years of gambling and excessively risky stock purchases. Five and a half million yen, or roughly over $41,100 in USD. He'd been careful to conceal it from us, but once the loans grew out of control due to exorbitant interest rates, Naoki-baka decided to go into hiding from the loan sharks.

Their plan to drive my bastard father from the shadows to collect their debts?

Kidnap me, then leave me crippled and bleeding on the doorsteps of our family home after carving out the Achilles tendons on both of my legs. I could never properly walk again.

Even with his middle child hospitalized, Naoki still didn't appear. He couldn't find the bravery to face his family, look me in the eye, and explain...why? Fortunately, my descriptions for the attackers led to police arresting every mammal who participated in my attack, who were then all sent to prison under testimony from the moneylender himself--a two-faced bear named Taka--that they were acting outside of his orders. Unfortunately for the ursine brute, he couldn't chase us for the uncollected money until Naoki turned up deceased. He did try to offer to pay for our medical bills, but we refused.

I often tried to avoid thinking back to that awful year. Denial, anger, depression, and intense pain all blurred together while some classmates, teammates from the baseball club, my siblings, and mostly Mom came to see me during visiting hours. What stood out to me the most were their sympathetic eyes, looking at me like I was...broken. It hurt even more than the severe injuries to my ankles.

As I lay in anguish on the hospital bed for endless months, worrying for my mother and siblings as they scrambled between lawyers and seeing me, I learned an important lesson on pain. Pain was temporary, but trauma remained buried deep within.

However, I went through the ordeal somehow sane. At least, sane enough. I did manage to graduate from high school but couldn't attend the ceremony due to my recovery period. My torn heels still barely allowed me to talk, to the point I couldn't even travel a short distance to use the bathroom without collapsing to the floor in agony. The inaccessibility of our family home and the small suburb we lived in also made things difficult for me, due to the wheelchair never being considered during its construction.

Funnily enough, I had to consider myself lucky sometimes. Long before my birth, back when both Japanese and Westerners still felt the fresh memory of World War II in their minds, mammals with physical disabilities basically possessed no rights. Back then, I would've likely been placed in an adult institution for most of my life. If not to be experimented on in some instances by doctors, then likely abused or neglected by staff. At best, my family would've done everything to keep me hidden away like I were a shameful secret. Fortunate enough for me to be born in modern day then, huh?

Anyway, I decided to move out on my own when it became clear my mother wasn't able to fully care for me due to my baby sister and needing to keep a stable income. She barely slept, lost so much weight, and barely smiled anymore. It broke my heart to see her happiness wither away like a shriveling flower. So, I had a long talk with Mom. We agreed that I'd move out on my own, much to her reluctance. All she asked of me was to keep a promise to call her weekly, to eat healthily, and not hesitate to call her or my older brother Tetsuo for help if needed. All of which I easily kept.

To make a long story much shorter, I traveled down a rabbit hole of sorts once I moved into my own apartment. From the first day in the hospital to my first night in a wheelchair-accessible apartment on the ground floor of a Tokyo apartment, I...changed. Nothing would ever be the same for me.

The Sato Arashi everyone knew died that day. Once could argue I'd not been living until I finally realized the truth: society in Japan wasn't fair. It needed to change for the better. If a loan shark like Taka could prey on Naoki and myself, only to get away with it scot-free, then things desperately needed to change. Luckily, I didn't only have my ruined baseball career to fall back on. My good grades and know-how with technology allowed me to make a living repairing phones and laptops. It paid enough for groceries and the bills, plus some of my grown savings to purchase an expensive computer. When I wasn't spending my time with family members or a few of my remaining friends, or fixing computers for impatient clients, I learned how to hack.

I wanted to be like the hackers in the West, who used hacking to promote activist causes like government accountability or social justice. As for the 'Yonhyakuyonishi'--or the '404 Stranger'--his message was simple: bring incredible legal reformation to the loan lending industry in Japan. I often did this by leaking emails of moneylending companies that revealed the awful methods used to intimidate and steal from clients. One of my first victims happened to be Taka, who now faced life in prison after evidence stolen from his workplace computers revealed him to be connected to a cold murder case.

He served as a test case. A personal case to begin my endeavors that went on over several years up to the present day. In all that time, I'd become a feared name in the Japanese criminal underworld without wanting to. All I cared about was bringing light to how unfair the moneylending system had become for citizens. I wanted to make sure no young man like myself could go through what I did, all because his sperm donor thought he could get away with his greed. Thus, I continued my efforts. The 404 Stranger's activism could often be seen whenever a loan shark's personal information, emails, etc. were leaked online, or when the moneylenders' websites crashed beyond recovery, or when compromising photos of illegal acts were taken, either to be given to the police or tabloids. Most of the time, both.

During his downtime, the 404 Stranger had a different goal: find my bastard father, Naoki. So far, I had been unsuccessful in my efforts, but I hoped to one day confront the older tanuki for the same he brought on his family. If not to face consequences for abandoning his family, then to give me closure.