"A maze is not designed to be solved. It is designed to test the character of the one who enters it."
– From a Kaishi text on garden design, The Path of Stones
NISHI-OGIKUBO DISTRICT - SATURDAY AFTERNOON
The journey to Nishi-Ogikubo was a journey backwards in time.
It was a descent into the city's forgotten layers.
The sleek, modern trams of the central wards gave way to an older, rumbling train line. It rattled through dense, low-rise residential neighborhoods.
When Riku stepped onto the platform, the air itself felt different. The sharp, ambitious energy of Shinjin was gone. It was replaced by a quiet, almost sleepy atmosphere.
This was a place the future had overlooked.
Arakawa had called it a maze, and he was not wrong.
The streets leading away from the station quickly devolved into a labyrinth of narrow alleyways and covered shopping arcades. They were too small for cars.
The shops were not bright, modern storefronts. They were cramped spaces with faded awnings and sliding wooden doors.
The air smelled of dust, damp concrete, and something else. A faint, metallic tang, like hot soldering flux and old ozone.
.....
Riku clutched the faded photograph in his coat pocket. It was his only guide.
For the first hour, his approach was clumsy. Direct. And a complete failure.
He'd walk into a shop filled with old radios or vacuum tubes. He would wait for the elderly owner to look up. He would then present the photo.
"Excuse me," he'd say. "I'm looking for this man. Have you seen him?"
The reactions were universally poor.
A suspicious narrowing of the eyes. A gruff shake of the head. A dismissive wave of the hand.
In one shop, the owner simply turned his back without a word.
Riku quickly realized his mistake. He was an outsider. A man in a clean, second-hand suit in a world of oil-stained work aprons and comfortable clutter.
He was a disruption. This was a community that did not like disruptions.
His directness was perceived as an intrusion. Possibly even a threat.
He wasn't a fellow enthusiast. He was a stranger asking questions about one of their own.
.....
Frustrated, he retreated to a tiny, smoke-filled coffee shop—a kissaten—to rethink his strategy.
As he sipped the bitter, strong coffee, his analytical mind took over.
He was approaching this like a simple database query. He needed to approach it like a social engineering problem.
He needed a plausible reason to be here. He needed a better cover story.
Takeda's obsession was classic Columbian arcade games. That was the key.
Riku couldn't just be looking for a person. He had to be looking for a thing.
Something that would grant him entry into their world. Something that would mark him as a fellow traveler on the same obsessive quest.
He finished his coffee. A new plan was formulated.
He walked back into the maze. His eyes now scanned the shops with a different purpose. He bypassed the general electronics stores. He looked for the true specialists. The ones whose windows were crammed with obscure parts and sun-faded game posters.
.....
He found it at the end of a particularly narrow alley.
The shop had no name. Just a hand-painted sign of a cartoon alien with a joystick.
The inside was a chaotic wonderland of forgotten technology. Stacks of circuit boards lined one wall. Bins were overflowing with brightly colored buttons and microswitches.
On a workbench in the back, a man in his late sixties sat. He had a magnificent, bristling white mustache. A magnifying glass was strapped to his head. He was meticulously re-soldering a connection on a large, complex board.
Riku waited patiently. He did not speak. He simply observed.
This was the heart of the maze.
After a few minutes, the man finished his task. He looked up and wiped his hands on a rag.
"Help you?" he grunted. His eyes were sharp and appraising behind his spectacles.
"I hope so," Riku began, stepping forward. "I'm trying to restore an old cabinet. A Columbian import. A 'Mustang-7'."
He used a fictional name. Something that sounded plausible.
"I'm having trouble with the power supply unit. I heard this was the best place in Torai to find vintage parts."
The shop owner, Hiroshi, grunted again. It was a sound of skeptical acknowledgment. He walked over, his eyes scanning Riku from head to toe.
"Never seen you around here before."
"I usually stick to the Denki-gai," Riku lied smoothly. "But no one there had what I needed. They said if anyone could help, it would be here."
Hiroshi seemed to consider this. "Mustang-7," he muttered, stroking his mustache. "Never heard of it. You sure that's the name? What board does it run? A J-77 board with the upgraded sound processor?"
It was a test. A technical question designed to expose a fraud.
Riku's heart hammered. But his mind raced back to the details Arakawa had given him. Purity… direct connection… simple, uncorrupted logic.
"No," Riku said confidently. "It's older than that. Pre-processor. All discrete logic gates. That's what makes the timing so unique. And so difficult to repair."
The old man's eyebrows shot up. A flicker of respect appeared in his eyes.
Riku had passed. He had spoken their language.
"Discrete logic," Hiroshi repeated with a low whistle. "A true classic. They don't make them like that anymore. All firmware and shortcuts now."
He rummaged through a dusty box. "I don't have a full power unit for anything that obscure. But I might have a transformer that fits the specs. You'd have to build the rest yourself."
"That's more help than I've gotten all day," Riku said with genuine gratitude.
.....
As Hiroshi searched, Riku saw his chance.
He casually pulled the folded photograph from his pocket. "Speaking of old classics," he said, "while I'm here… I'm also trying to track down a fellow collector."
"He was obsessed with the same era of games. I bought a rare board from his collection a few years back. I wanted to ask him about its history. This is the only photo I have of him."
He handed the picture to Hiroshi. The old man squinted at it. His expression was unreadable.
"Don't know him," he said after a moment, handing it back.
Riku's heart sank. He kept his expression neutral. "A long shot, I know. His name was Takeda."
Hiroshi froze. His hand hovered over a box of capacitors. He looked back at Riku. His eyes were narrowed with a new intensity.
"Takeda," he said slowly. "You didn't say that was his name."
He wasn't looking at the face in the photo anymore. He was searching a different kind of memory.
"I don't know this man's face," Hiroshi clarified. He tapped a thoughtful finger on his mustache. "But the name… and the obsession you described… discrete logic, the golden age… there was a fellow. Years ago."
"He came in here asking the same questions you are. Looking for the same impossible-to-find parts. He was a ghost even then. Quiet. Intense. Knew more about the circuitry than I did."
Riku's entire body went rigid with anticipation. This was it.
"He didn't come here often," Hiroshi continued, his voice distant with recollection. "But when he did, he always talked about one place. Said it was the last bastion of purity in the city. An old, run-down arcade a few wards over."
"A place called 'Arcade Astra'."
Arcade Astra. The name echoed in the dusty shop.
"It's probably gone now," Hiroshi grunted, turning back to his parts bins. "Most of those old places are. But if your ghost is still haunting Torai, that's the first place I'd look for him."
Riku bought a handful of fuses he didn't need. He paid without complaint. He thanked the old man profusely.
He had a name. He had a destination.
He stepped out of the shop and back into the labyrinth of Nishi-Ogikubo. The air no longer felt sleepy. It felt charged with potential.
The maze wasn't an obstacle anymore. It was a path. He had just been shown the way.
The hunt had been a failure, until suddenly, it wasn't.