"Every building is a tomb. It holds the echoes of every person who has ever passed through it. A true historian does not listen to the living; he listens to the walls."
– From The Concrete Soul, a Kaishi architectural treatise
TORAI PUBLIC LIBRARY - SATURDAY
Riku spent his Saturday in a state of quiet, focused preparation.
He would not make the same mistake he'd made in Nishi-Ogikubo. This time, he would be the architect of his own approach.
He returned to the fortress of knowledge. He used their collection of city maps and business directories to plot the location of Arcade Astra.
It was in the Kita ward. A sprawling, aging residential district.
The arcade itself was listed in a directory from nine years ago. It vanished from all subsequent editions.
It was, just as Hiroshi had suspected, a ghost on paper.
He spent the rest of the day absorbing the culture he was about to enter. He pored over old issues of Columbian Arcade Monthly.
He memorized the names of classic games. The specifications of their hardware. The slang of their devoted fans.
He was no longer just an analyst with a secret. He was method acting. He was building a persona layer by painstaking layer. He was becoming the collector he pretended to be.
.....
KITA WARD - SUNDAY MORNING
On Sunday morning, he set out.
The journey to the Kita ward was a slow descent into the city's past. The sleek efficiency of the central train lines gave way to a single, rattling carriage that swayed through neighborhoods of tightly packed wooden houses.
He found the street easily. It was a narrow, forgotten commercial road. A relic of a time before megastores.
A fishmonger laid out his wares. An old woman swept the pavement.
And there, sandwiched between a bicycle repair shop and a laundromat, was his destination.
The sign was so faded as to be almost unreadable. But the ghost of the name was still there: Arcade Astra.
The colorful, space-themed artwork was peeling. It was bleached by years of sun and rain. The glass front was grimy. The interior was dark.
For a heart-stopping moment, Riku thought he was too late.
But then he saw it. A single, flickering fluorescent light deep inside. And a small, hand-lettered sign taped to the door that read, simply, "Open."
.....
He pushed the door open. A small bell announced his arrival with a sad, tinny chime.
The air inside was thick and still. It was heavy with the scent of old wood, dust, and the unmistakable ozone tang of aging electronics.
It was a time capsule.
The room was dark, save for the glow of a single machine in the corner. Its screen was running through a silent, hypnotic attract mode.
The other machines stood in neat rows, their screens dark. They were tombstones in a digital graveyard.
Behind a small counter at the back, a man sat on a stool. He was hunched over the exposed guts of a joystick, a soldering iron in his hand.
He was thin and wiry, with tired eyes. His face was etched with the weary resignation of a man watching his world slowly disappear. He didn't look up.
Riku cleared his throat. "Excuse me."
The man, Mr. Sudo, sighed. "If you're here about the rent, tell the landlord I'll have it next week."
"I'm not the landlord," Riku said quietly. "I'm a customer."
Sudo finally looked at him. His gaze was skeptical. "A customer? The only game I have running is Starfall 77. The power supply on the others is shot. You're wasting your time."
Riku walked further into the arcade. "Actually," he said. "I'm here about the hardware. I'm a collector. I'm trying to track down a board for a pre-processor cabinet. Discrete logic."
He had spoken the magic words.
Sudo's weary expression shifted. It was replaced by a flicker of genuine interest. He stood up.
"A collector?" Sudo said. "You don't look like the usual types. You're looking for discrete logic boards? Why? They're a nightmare to maintain."
"I love the purity of them," Riku replied, echoing Arakawa's words. "The direct connection. The uncorrupted logic. No shortcuts."
Sudo nodded slowly. A sad smile touched his lips. "Purity. Yes. That's the word for it."
He had found a fellow believer. "Not many of us left who appreciate that."
.....
They talked for nearly half an hour. Riku, armed with his research, spoke knowledgeably about signal chains and power supplies. Sudo lamented the rise of microprocessors and the death of true craftsmanship.
A fragile trust was built. Finally, Riku knew it was time.
He pulled the photo from his pocket. "You know," he said, "the man who got me interested in this hobby was an old acquaintance. I lost touch with him years ago. I was wondering if you'd ever seen him around."
He handed the photo to Sudo. The old man took it. He held it under the light of the single working game. His breath caught.
"Takeda-san," he whispered. His voice was filled with a stunned reverence. "My god. I haven't seen him in five years."
Riku's heart hammered in his chest. "You knew him?"
"Knew him?" Sudo looked up, his eyes wide with memory. "He was more than a customer. He was a pilgrim. The last of the true believers. After his company failed, this place became his refuge. He said it was the only place where things still made sense."
"What happened to him?" Riku asked gently.
"He disappeared," Sudo said, his voice dropping. "About five years ago, he came in one last time. He looked thinner. Haunted. He told me he was selling his collection. Said he needed the money to 'disconnect'."
"Disconnect?" Riku echoed.
"That's what he said. He was looking for a place where he could finally be quiet." Sudo shook his head. "He kept one board for himself. A custom machine he'd built. Said it was the only one that mattered."
"Did he say where he was going?" Riku pressed.
"Not exactly," Sudo said. "But he talked a lot about Kichijoji. Said it was the only neighborhood left in Torai where a person could still live a simple, analog life. Full of old bookshops, jazz cafes, and artists. A place you could get lost in on purpose."
Kichijoji. Another name. Another thread.
.....
Riku stayed for another hour, listening to Sudo's stories.
Before he left, he fed a handful of coins into Starfall 77. He played three games. It felt like a proper offering. A thank you.
He stepped out into the late afternoon light. He had a new destination. More importantly, he had a new understanding of his target.
Takeda Masaru wasn't just a programmer who had failed. He was a purist, a philosopher who had seen the coming tide of the digital age. And he had chosen to walk away from it.
The hunt was no longer just for a man. It was for a hermit. A ghost who had tried to erase himself.
And Riku knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that a man who tries that hard to disappear will not want to be found.