Initial Capital¥6,123,000
Underworld Deposit ¥6,000,000
Total Available Funds ¥12,123,000
The Entry
That night, Kabukicho lay silent.
The neon lights had not yet gone dark.
The light of the billboards fell upon the puddles.
The street was wet, and the air without wind.
Aria came from Shibuya in a black car without a plate or an emblem.
The car stopped before a building in East Shinjuku.
She spoke no word, nor did she look back.
She carried a black handbag and entered.
The staircase was narrow.
The walls were peeling concrete.
The air was filled with the smell of mold and nicotine.
She descended step by step, from the first floor to the fifth.
Her footsteps echoed like a hollow bell.
The elevator was long out of use.
The signal light was dark.
Beside the stairway hung old exchange rates,
marked "HKD cash rate," "USD discount rate."
The paper had turned yellow. The edges were burned.
The cameras turned at the corners.
Their red lights were steady.
Their eyes neither closed nor blinked,
as if one above were recording all things.
The corridor of the fifth floor was dim.
The light flickered.
The floor was covered with rubber mats.
Old bloodstains remained. The tape marks had not faded.
Men stood along the wall.
Their faces were different, their silence the same.
Moneylenders of the underground, smugglers from the south,
intermediaries of the night's cash, all were present.
One bit a cigarette.
One moved an abacus.
One whispered over a cold wallet.
When they saw her, they stepped back three paces.
One asked softly, "Is that her?"
Another answered, "That is the god of Kabukicho."
Another said, "From this day, none in Tokyo will fail to know her name."
Aria did not stop.
She did not answer.
She walked to the end and opened the last door.
She entered the deepest room of the fifth floor.
She sat before an old desk.
Upon it stood a computer whose fan coughed with dust.
She touched the keyboard, opened the browser, and reached the net.
She typed reddit.com.
She signed in. The account name was u/NightMarketSwitch.
She posted no picture, left no link.
In r/algotrading, she wrote a new thread.
The title was none. The words were these:
This city shall not remember me. But the market will.
When she had finished, she lifted her hand from the key.
She closed the browser and pulled the cable from the wall.
Beneath the desk was a box for waste paper and a roll of shipping tape.
She placed the laptop inside and did not look back.
Just then, her phone lit up.
A line of cold light appeared in the notification bar.
She glanced down. Her face remained still.
The amount was clear: ¥6,000,000.
The sender's account field had been wiped.
Only a single letter remained in the note: L.
It was an advance. And a sign.
The money did not belong to any of her past clients.
It was not the style of Kabukicho's club owners either.
Too clean. Too large.
It wasn't a test. It was trust.
Or more precisely, a threshold.
She was no longer a proxy for a few million yen in shell stock.
She had crossed over.
The backend transaction log read:
Initial transfer complete. Final tranche pending structure execution.
Some begin with blood.
Some leave with numbers.
She rose.
She took her bag.
She walked again into the depths of Kabukicho.
The lights had not gone out.
The city had not slept.
The trade continued.
The Cleansing
After that night, she never left the underground.
The lights of Kabukicho still shone above,
but her world held nothing but the laundering of money.
Some brought her old ledgers.
Some handed her lists of accounts.
She received them one by one and burned them all.
The fire burned in the barrel.
The pages curled.
The numbers turned to ash.
The ink ran and was gone.
She watched the ashes gather. Her face was calm.
One asked her, "Why do you destroy the old account books?"
She said, "Because the old path is dead."
She took apart the old computer.
She struck the chip with a hammer.
Her fingertips were gray with dust.
Her breath was uneven, yet she continued.
Upon the screen, she wrote a new protocol.
She set cold wallets.
She rebuilt the addresses.
She defined the exits and the entries of every flow.
She said this was rebuilding.
She said that after cleansing comes survival.
Some did not understand.
Some were afraid.
One among the gang spoke and said,
"This is too great a risk. The old books still hold the safety lines.
If you change them, all may be lost."
She looked at him. Her eyes held no light.
She lifted a can of cold Boss coffee, drank once, and spoke quietly.
She said, "You wanted miracles. I am giving you the protocol."
They were silent.
She wrote on.
Her fingers moved.
New channels appeared on the screen.
The numbers began to move.
The old links were broken.
The new lines met in secret.
Her face was lit by the screen.
She seemed awake in a time before dawn,
a watcher who prays in silence.
Some said she was mad.
Some said she had become divine.
She did not listen.
She did not look.
In her heart, she repeated the words:
Let there be order.
Let there be cleansing.
Let there be rebirth.
Anointing by the Woman
When she returned home, the sky was still dark.
The air was still. The phone was silent.
The light inside the refrigerator had gone out.
She removed her coat and sat on the floor.
She did not move. She did not speak.
The ground was cold. The wall was dry.
Her shoulders ached. Her eyes burned.
There was light in the kitchen.
Rina stood there wearing an old apron.
There were marks of soy sauce upon it.
Something was being stirred in the pan.
The flame was low. The sound was small.
Rina did not turn her head.
She said, "You are back."
Aria did not answer.
She sat and looked at her.
After a while, Rina placed the food in a worn lunch box.
It was stir‑fried eggplant, potato, and green pepper.
The scent filled the small room.
She set it upon the table and poured a cup of warm water.
Aria began to eat.
The first bite was hard at the center of the potato.
The second was too salty.
She kept eating. She did not stop. She did not speak.
Her stomach was hollow. Her throat was numb.
There were no words in her head, only a slow pain that came and went.
Rina sat across from her.
She asked nothing.
The room was still. Time did not move.
When she finished, Aria laid down the chopsticks.
Her voice was small.
She said, "You know. No one will remember me."
Rina did not answer at once.
She carried the empty cup away.
The sound of the running water lasted a while and ceased.
She dried her hands.
She came back and stood before her.
She said, "If no one remembers you, then I will."
Aria did not lift her head.
She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly.
Rina said, "I do not understand the things you have done.
But you did them. I saw."
The house was silent.
No wind came in. The walls made no sound.
The phone remained without a message.
Aria nodded once.
Rina said nothing more.
She went back to the kitchen.
The light was still on. The pan was still on the stove.
Aria sat and did not move.
After that night, they never spoke of that meal again.
She did not say thanks.
Rina did not wait for it.
Aria knew it was not an apology.
It was not farewell.
It was only the proof that someone still remembered she was human,
that she had lived,
that she had eaten,
that she was still worthy to be remembered.