Hotaru paced nervously as the volunteers crammed themselves in the KFC conference room. He could feel their excitement and would have given just about anything not to be here, but such was his duty to them and to the late Kaori. He had to do it, they deserved some closure, he could at least give them that. Only then would he be free to….

  This time, he did not bother to collect their cellphones or to check for electronic surveillance. It no longer mattered.

  Nothing mattered anymore.

  Once they were all in their seats, he turned to them and bowed low. He wanted to weep. Come on. Hold it together for a few more minutes, he thought.

  As he stood back up and looked at their faces, he could see the excitement had faded and was slowly being replaced with unease. They sensed something was very wrong—it would have been hard not to.

  “Dear friends, the terrible task has befallen to me to inform you that Kaori-sama has left us. ”

  He waited for the cries and outrage to die down before resuming his statement.

  He explained everything, how they discovered that Kaori had been fleeing in her car, how her car was found at a parking near Enoshima harbor, how they found witnesses that the car had been left during the fated night of her escape, how he had confirmed she had taken her friend’s ship and sailed away, the tracking of her AIS data right into the path of the typhoon and its winds of a hundred knots capable of tearing buildings down, the few artifacts recovered from the wreckage. His efforts to track her location using surveillance satellite video records.

  Tears welled up as he carefully detailed every heart-wrenching piece of evidence regarding Kaori’s death, and they were now rolling freely down his cheeks, his eyes red, his distress evident. He choked several times, but completed his explanations, showing photos of the evidence on the big screen. When he finished his presentation, most of the audience were in tears.

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  After a while, one of the volunteers raised his hand and asked: “How do you even have satellite footage? Are we supposed to believe you can just control satellites?”

  Denial, Hotaru thought. This much was to be expected. Poor man.

  “My former occupation gave me access to… resources. And that’s all I can say on the matter. I would give anything to be wrong…” he answered dejectedly.

  “We now have the responsibility to announce the truth about the disappearance of our beloved Kaori to the world. This will be done this evening on Yuto’s podcast.”

  “Why not wait for the news to make the official announcement?” asked another man.

  “Because they have been lying all along. The police is still searching for her near Niigata. They will not report the truth about her death, they probably don’t even know, but our Kaori deserves better than that. Her fans should know of her struggle and be allowed to mourn in a timely manner.” he stated. “This is our last service to our Goddess, and we can not allow grief to stop us from doing our duties.”

  He stopped and bowed deeply. The volunteers stood and bowed back to him. He embraced his friends and prepared to leave when a quivering voice said:

  “But, we don’t really know for sure that she sank. What if she survived and was still lost at sea, desperately in need of our help?”

  Hotaru paused. He’d been grappling with that very same question. There might never be definitive evidence. Recovering her body would be all but impossible if the ship sank, but if she had, against all odds, survived a typhoon at its strongest, and he were the one to falsely announce her death, how could he ever forgive himself? If anyone could beat a typhoon, surely it would be his Kaori!

  “You are right. It’s too early to abandon hope entirely, but we might never be able to find definite evidence that Kaori sank with the ship. Tonight, we will explain everything on Yuto’s podcast and ask for anyone with a ship or with maritime contacts to conduct a search and rescue. We can also ask fans in the coastal provinces to scour the coasts for signs of her ship, the Asahi, a Lagoon 620 catamaran. I do not wish to give you false hope however, her survival is unlikely.”

  His voice broke as he said these words. A spark of hope had been rekindled at the notion she might be alive. Logic smothered it right back.