Aria Account balance: 426.3 BTC
At exactly nine o'clock in the morning, the financial regulators and the core trading syndicate entered the office of the Exchange Director.
No lights were on. The blinds were half-closed. The room was dim.
The head of the regulatory group spoke first. He handed over a summary document. His tone was calm but tightly held.
"The account holder had mentioned in several unofficial transmissions that, if suspended by the system, she would attempt to return on the third day."
The syndicate representative followed. He listed multiple past cases in which defunct structures had found paths to reactivate. He reminded the Director that several of her followers were still active within the system, and that certain nodes had not been fully cleared.
"To prevent any remaining agents from recovering fragments of her account and declaring that she has returned to the market, we ask that guards be established immediately."
The Director reviewed the documents. After hearing the report, he said only one thing:
"Proceed according to internal protocols."
The group stood up and left. No one remained in the office.
The order had been given. By midnight, the lockdown would be complete. The seals and access restrictions would take effect.
The paperwork was sufficient. No one asked whether she would truly return.
That evening, the maintenance unit sealed the locker as instructed.
They replaced the original mechanical lock, added a dual-password system, and implemented biometric verification. A metal insignia from the regulatory bureau was affixed to the outer casing. Every action was logged. Every access request would now require an audit trail.
They issued a three-day prohibition. No logins. No remote calls. Any violation would be flagged as a potential threat and handed to the monitoring system.
The task was done. Documents filed. The workers left in silence. No one spoke of what lay inside.
The Sabbath passed.
On the morning of the first day of the new week, before dawn, the streets were empty. The sound of a cleaning truck rolled faintly in the distance.
Julian arrived.
He retrieved Aria's relics.
Julian returned alone to his apartment in Yoyogi-Uehara. He did not turn on the lights. He opened the window. The night air came in tinged with metal and the lingering damp of late summer.
He did not take off his coat. He placed the black bag at the center of the dining table, as if laying down a body yet to be buried.
He sat down. His hands rested on the edge of the table. He was silent for a long time, as if waiting for a signal, even an expired notification, even a delayed ping from the system. He knew nothing would come.
He opened the bag and took the items out one by one.
The cold wallet. The phone. The signal tags. A USB stick. Several handwritten notes with API codes. A worn-out bank card she had once linked with her fingerprint, bearing on the back her first target: ¥10,000,000.
None of it could connect to any network. They were useless now. But he touched each item with care, like holding someone's last words.
He put on gloves, then gently wiped everything clean. Dust, fingerprints, all traces of use. He wrapped the items in gray cloth, sealed them inside a lead-lined pouch. The friction of fabric sounded like a ritual incantation. Slow, precise, uninterrupted.
He did not hurry. He wanted the process to last. As long as it wasn't sealed, she had not truly left.
At 3 a.m., Julian slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped out.
He did not call a cab. He did not check his GPS. He walked into the depths of Yoyogi Park, to an abandoned metro tunnel long sealed off. He had rented a private storage unit there. It had no signal. It had no number on the city grid.
He opened the rusted steel door with a key that had always remained zipped inside his inner suit pocket.
Inside was damp, silent, and dark. The smell of soil and old cables filled the air. He walked past rows of empty lockers. His footsteps echoed.
He stopped at a bare concrete slab. No cameras. No sensors. No ID.
Julian set the bag down and began to dig.
Each blow struck the ground and struck his bones. The dust flew like ash. He did not speak. His palms bled. He did not stop.
Two hours passed. A square hole was carved out. His hands shook. Sweat ran down his temple.
He knelt and placed the sealed pouch inside, as if giving her back a form in the world.
"You won't be tried by them a second time," he whispered.
Then he began to bury her.
The broken concrete was laid back, layer by layer. Packed tight. He left no airholes. No marker. Only he would know what was buried here.
When it was done, he knelt before the slab.
He took out a marker pen.
On the bare surface, he wrote:
In case she ever comes back.
The letters faded into dust.
He stood up and walked toward the end of the tunnel.
There was a door. Locked from the outside.
He did not look back.
Aria Lin was buried outside the system.
Not in an anonymous node. Not on any on-chain gravestone.
Her name was written on paper. Her past was sealed in a place with no signal.
As if she never lived.
As if she might return at any moment.
The world held no funeral for her.
No system left a comment.
She was buried by one man alone—
beneath the ruins of what once was.