Chapter 16: The Weight of Money.
Amanika Koji was a man who understood the world not through laws or morality, but through influence. He didn't need to throw punches to break someone-he simply had to pull the right strings.
And tonight, he was going to unravel Aqua's.
The room was dimly lit, the soft hum of his computer the only sound. A glass of expensive whiskey rested on the desk, untouched. The city outside was alive with blinking lights, a pulse of industry and wealth. Koji had built his empire from nothing, carving his place among Japan's financial elite with precision and ruthlessness.
But this? This was different.
Aqua wasn't a businessman. He wasn't a politician or a crime lord. He was something else. A shadow in the system, a name that held power without any visible infrastructure. There were no official records of his wealth, no corporate entities tied to his name.
Yet, Aqua moved money. A lot of it.
Koji had spent weeks digging, calling in favors from bankers, hedge fund managers, and offshore brokers. There had to be something. No man controlled power without a foundation beneath him. No man stayed hidden forever.
He scrolled through encrypted financial statements, tracing invisible lines. Aqua's wealth was like a ghost, appearing only in whispers-unregistered accounts, money transfers that never left a trace, corporations that didn't exist outside of shell papers.
But Koji was patient. He knew where to push.
He leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the polished wood. "Alright," he murmured, activating a secured call line.
The voice on the other end answered after a single ring.
"You found something?"
Koji didn't waste time. "Aqua doesn't own anything. At least, not directly."
A pause. "You're telling me a man with that much power has no assets?"
"No, I'm telling you he's smarter than that." Koji glanced at the documents in front of him, his mind assembling pieces. "His money moves through other people. Investors who don't exist on paper, holding companies that dissolve the moment you look at them."
The voice on the other end exhaled. "That's not normal."
"No, it's not," Koji admitted. "Which is why I'm going to make sure it stops working for him."
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The first strike was subtle. A shift in stock values, a targeted sell-off. Koji used his network to destabilize assets that Aqua's proxies had invested in.
It wasn't just about removing money-it was about removina trust.
Stockholders panicked. Investors pulled out. Quietly, cracks began to form.
But Aqua didn't react.
Most men in his position would have scrambled, their hidden assets thrown into chaos. But nothing changed.
No retaliation, no counterplay.
Koji's gut twisted.
Aqua wasn't just rich. He was untouchable.
Koji clenched his jaw. He hated this feeling. The feeling of pushing against something that wasn't there, of fighting a ghost.
He picked up his phone again. "Increase the pressure."
"How much?"
"All of it."
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The next move was more aggressive. He pulled strings in international markets, blocking Aqua's silent partners from moving funds. If Aqua truly had influence, he'd be forced to show his hand.
Koji wanted him to retaliate. That was the key-getting him to play the game.
But still, nothing.
No resistance. No cracks in the facade.
Koji wasn't dealing with a businessman. He was dealing with something else.
He rubbed his temples, staring at the data. 'This doesn't make sense.'
Every major financial player, no matter how powerful, left a footprint. But Aqua?
He left nothing.
Then, a new email appeared. An anonymous sender. One attachment.
Koji opened it.
His breath caught.
It was a bank record. A transaction. Offshore.
And the name attached to it shouldn't exist.
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Koji did not believe in ghosts. He believed in power, influence, control.
But what he saw on his screen shouldn't be possible.
The account was registered under a name that had been erased decades ago. A person who, according to every official record, was dead.
And yet, their bank account was still active. Money still moved through it. Aqua was using it.
Koji's pulse quickened. This wasn't just financial deception. This was something far deeper.
He picked up his phone. "Get me a full background on this account. Everything. Right now."
A pause.
Then-
"Sir... I don't think you understand."
Koji's grip tightened. "Explain."
"The account doesn't exist. At least... it shouldn't. The name? It was deleted. Wiped from every database. Not just sealed-removed."
Koji's blood ran cold.
This wasn't just fraud. This wasn't just money laundering.
This was rewriting history itself.
And for the first time, Koji realized Aqua might not be playing the same game as them.
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Koji's fingers hovered over the keyboard, his mind calculating possibilities at breakneck speed. He had dealt with corporate fraud, government-level corruption, and financial warfare. But this?
This was something else.
A man could be erased from history. Governments did it.
Crime syndicates did it. But money? Money never vanished. Even in the darkest networks, even in the most secure vaults, money always left a trace.
Yet Aqua's financials weren't just hidden. They had been rewritten. Unmade.
Koji's breath was steady, but beneath the surface, his heartbeat had picked up.
This wasn't about offshore laundering. This wasn't about shell companies or high-level deception.
This was something beyond human hands.
His phone vibrated. He answered immediately.
"Tell me."
The voice on the other end was hesitant. That hesitation made Koji's stomach tighten. His informants were the best. They didn't hesitate unless the answer itself was dangerous.
"Sir. This account... it's linked to something classified. High clearance. Government-level."
Koji's grip on the phone tightened. "Whose clearance?"
A pause. Then-
"There is no 'who.' Just a lock. An administrative void."
Koji's fingers drummed against the desk. "You're saying this isn't just erased. It was sealed off."
Another pause. "More than that. It's like... like someone rewrote the system itself to make it as if this account was never real. But the money still moves, sir. The transactions are still happening."
That shouldn't have been possible.
If a person's records were erased, their bank accounts should have ceased to function. No legal name, no tax records, no identity verification-that should have killed the account instantly.
But Aqua's money moved like a ghost.
Not just hidden-untouchable.
Koji exhaled slowly. "What about the names linked to it?"
The informant hesitated again. "There's... one recurring signature in the background. A name attached to several high-profile transactions, but it's not a person."
Koji narrowed his eyes. "Not a person?"
"It's a project."
A cold silence filled the space between them.
Koji's mind calculated at lightning speed. Government black budgets. Classified experiments. Inhuman research.
A name that didn't exist. A fortune moving outside the laws of reality.
And a project buried so deep that even his network couldn't find details.
For the first time in years, Koji felt something unfamiliar.
Not fear.
But something close to it.
"Send me everything you have."
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Koji leaned back in his chair, staring at the glowing data on his screen. His office was silent except for the soft hum of the city outside.
He had expected to find shell corporations, offshore laundering schemes, bribery trails. He had expected to find leverage. A weakness.
Instead, he had found a black hole.
Aqua wasn't evading detection. He wasn't covering his tracks.
He was operating in a different layer of reality.
Koji wasn't a superstitious man. He didn't believe in ghosts or gods. But he understood power. And this kind of power didn't belong to normal people.
Aqua wasn't just a man with wealth. He was something more.
Something worse.
Koji reached for his whiskey and took a slow sip. The burn grounded him. He had faced men who thought they were untouchable before.
They bled like the rest.
Aqua would be no different.
But if brute force couldn't reach him, Koji would have to take a different approach.
If money couldn't break Aqua, then he would have to find something that could.
He reached for his phone again, dialing another number.
The line picked up.
A woman's voice. Sharp. Intelligent. Amused.
"My~ My~ Koji. What a rare surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Koji didn't waste time. "I need a name traced. A project."
A pause. Then-interest.
"Oh? You usually don't come to me for things like this. What are you chasing?"
Koji's jaw tightened. "A ghost."
The woman chuckled. "Aren't we all?"
Koji exhaled. "Find me everything you can. No matter what it costs."
A longer silence. Then, a simple response.
"Understood."
Koji ended the call, staring at the name on his screen.
Project: Aqua.
The game had just changed.