Aiko’s brow furrowed. “But why a maze? And why do we need a shortest route?”
One evening, as the city lights flickered below, they sat side‑by‑side on the roof, a portable speaker humming a soft electronic melody that the AI they’d built together had generated.
“Exactly.” Natsu’s eyes glittered. “Now, why don’t you run the program and see what path it chooses?” Layarxxi.pw.Natsu.Igarashi.teaches.his.stepsist...
He typed a new function, naming it wander_factor . The code inserted random, small variations into the path cost, encouraging the algorithm to occasionally take a longer, more scenic route.
“First, we define the graph,” Natsu explained, pointing at the code. “Each node is a point in the maze, and each edge is a possible step. The weight of the edge tells us how ‘costly’ it is to move there—think of it like the difficulty of climbing a steep hill versus walking on flat ground.” Aiko’s brow furrowed
“Do you ever think about where this will take us?” Aiko asked, eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky was a bruised shade of violet.
Natsu laughed, the sound mingling with the distant hum of traffic. “And when that day comes, I’ll be right there, teaching the next stepsister—or maybe a friend—how to find her own way.” “Exactly
His stepsister, Aiko, was fifteen, a shy girl with an unruly mop of dark hair and an unquenchable curiosity. She’d spent most of her childhood watching Natsu disappear into his laptop-lit world, only to reappear with a fresh batch of gadgets and half‑finished inventions.