The young woman's name was Chika Fujii, and her sister had disappeared four years ago from an artist residency in the mountains north of Izumi. The sister's name was Nozomi, and she had been a painter of some promise — accepted to the Prefectural Art Academy at eighteen, exhibited in group shows by twenty, profiled in a local arts magazine by twenty-two. Then she had applied for a residency at a new studio space in a town called Yamamura, a remote village that had been revitalized in recent years by an influx of artists and craftspeople fleeing the rising rents of the city. The residency was sponsored by a foundation called the Asano Trust, and Nozomi had been thrilled to be accepted. She had sent excited messages for the first month. Then the messages had stopped. When Chika contacted the foundation to ask about her sister, she was told that Nozomi had left the residency voluntarily, her whereabouts unknown. The police had filed a missing persons report and done nothing further.
"The Asano Trust," Sakura repeated. She was sitting with Chika in a café near the bookstore, the signing table abandoned, the remaining copies of "The Final Secret" stacked unsigned in the back room. Haruki had taken over the event logistics while Sakura slipped away, and she could hear him on the other side of the café, his voice calm and authoritative, explaining to the publisher's representative that something urgent had come up.
"I tried to find out who was behind the foundation," Chika said, her hands still shaking around a cup of tea she had not drunk. "But everything was hidden. Shell companies. Blind trusts. The same kind of thing you wrote about in your first book, with the Void collective. I thought maybe it was connected, but I had no proof, and no one would listen."
"Asano was my mother's maiden name," Sakura said. "Someone is using it. Someone who knows about the connection — about her, about Tanizaki, about the Negative School."
Haruki joined them a few minutes later, his laptop already open, his fingers already pulling up property records and corporate filings. He had been searching for traces of the Asano Trust while walking across the café, and the results were already accumulating on his screen.
"The trust was established three years ago," he said, reading from the display. "The listed director is Keiko Morimoto. The funding comes from the same network of shell companies that owns the Nullity Arts properties and the Kitayama museum. It's the Morimoto family. They've been operating the Asano Trust alongside everything else."
"Using my mother's name," Sakura said. "Without my knowledge. Without anyone's knowledge."
"It gets worse. The Yamamura residency isn't the only thing the trust funds. It also sponsors a gallery in Kitayama, a scholarship program at the Prefectural Academy, and a visiting artist program that places established artists in residence at universities across the country. All of it under your mother's name. All of it connected to the Morimoto network."
Sakura sat back in her chair, the café's ambient noise fading to a distant hum. Keiko Morimoto had told her that the family wanted to preserve the Negative School's legacy. She had offered Sakura the directorship of the museum, the chance to shape the narrative, the opportunity to become the keeper of the flame. She had never mentioned that the family was already using Yuki Asano's name — Yuki Aoki's name — to fund a network of residencies and galleries that stretched across the country.
"What happened at the Yamamura residency?" Sakura asked Chika. "Do you know anything about what Nozomi was working on? Who she was in contact with?"
"She was studying traditional pigment-making techniques. That's what the residency was supposed to be about — learning to make paint from natural materials, minerals and plants and things like that. She sent me photos of the studio, the mountains, the pigments she was grinding by hand. Then, in her last message, she mentioned that she had met someone. A visiting instructor who was teaching a special workshop on 'organic pigment preparation.' She said he was brilliant. She said he had studied with a famous artist, but she wouldn't say who."
Sakura felt the blood slow in her veins. Organic pigment preparation. The phrase was a euphemism, a polite term for the technique she had studied in the temple chamber, the technique Kuroda had perfected over decades. Someone was still teaching it. Someone was still spreading the spiral.
"Do you have the name of the visiting instructor?" she asked.
"No. She never told me. She said it was a secret — that the workshop was invitation-only, and the participants weren't allowed to talk about it. The last message she sent was three days before she disappeared. She said, 'I'm getting closer. He says I'm almost ready.'"
The words hit Sakura like a physical blow. She had read those exact words before — in Miyu's social media posts, in the weeks before her death. Getting closer. He says I'm almost ready. The same language, the same pattern, the same progression toward a threshold that only went one way.
"Kuroda is in prison," Haruki said, his voice low. "He's been in prison for eight years. He can't be teaching workshops in Yamamura."
"No, but he trained others. He had students we never found — students who learned the technique and then disappeared into the network. The Morimoto family has been funding residencies and galleries for years. They could have been placing Kuroda's former students in teaching positions all over the country. The spiral didn't end when Kuroda was arrested. It just went underground."
She turned to Chika, whose face had gone pale. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the Yamamura residency. Every detail, no matter how small. Names, dates, locations, photographs. Anything that might help me find out who the visiting instructor was and what happened to your sister."
Chika nodded, pulling out her phone with trembling hands. "I have all of her messages. I never deleted them. I couldn't."
"Good. Send them to me. All of them." Sakura stood up, her exhaustion forgotten, the old familiar intensity settling over her like a second skin. "I'm going to find out what the Morimoto family has been doing under my mother's name. And I'm going to find out who's still teaching the spiral."
She called Keiko Morimoto from the café's back room, not caring that it was after business hours, not caring that her voice was shaking with rage. Morimoto answered on the third ring, her tone as composed as ever.
"Aoki-san. I understand the launch event was a success. Congratulations."
"The Asano Trust. You're using my mother's name to fund a network of artist residencies. One of the residents disappeared four years ago from a studio in Yamamura, and the last person she mentioned was a visiting instructor who was teaching organic pigment techniques. What do you know about this?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. When Morimoto spoke again, her voice was more careful than usual. "The Asano Trust was established to honor your mother's memory and to support emerging artists working in the Negative School tradition. I should have mentioned it earlier, but I did not want to distract you from the book."
"You didn't want me to find out that you're still spreading Kuroda's technique. That you're placing his students in teaching positions. That another woman may have died because of a workshop funded by my mother's name."
"No one has died. The resident you're referring to — Nozomi Fujii — left the program voluntarily. There was a disagreement with the visiting instructor about the direction of her work, and she chose to withdraw. The police investigated and found no evidence of foul play."
"They found no evidence because they didn't know what to look for. I know what to look for. I've spent nine years learning what to look for." Sakura's voice hardened. "Who was the visiting instructor?"
"A former associate of Kuroda's. A student from the early years of the Void collective, before the murders began. He left the group when Kuroda became violent, and he has spent the years since trying to reclaim the technique for its original purpose — self-exploration, not self-destruction. He is not a killer, Aoki-san. He is a reformer."
"A reformer who uses the same language Kuroda used. The same grooming patterns. The same progression toward a threshold that only goes one way."
"I understand your suspicion. Given your history, it is entirely reasonable. But not everyone who studied the spiral became a monster. Some of us — some of them — are trying to salvage something from the wreckage. The Asano Trust is part of that effort. Your mother's name was chosen because she was the one who escaped. The one who refused to let the work consume her. We wanted to honor that legacy, not Kuroda's."
Sakura stood motionless in the café's back room, her phone pressed to her ear, the rage in her chest warring with something more complicated. Keiko Morimoto had given her the missing pages. She had arranged for her to read the Vermilion Requiem. She had offered her control of the museum. And now she was claiming that the Asano Trust was an attempt to redeem the Negative School's legacy, not to perpetuate it.
But Chika Fujii's sister was still missing. And the words in her last message were still the same words Miyu had written. And somewhere in the mountains north of Izumi, a visiting instructor was still teaching young artists how to dissolve the boundaries of the self, using techniques developed by a man who had murdered at least five people and probably more.
"I want the name of the visiting instructor," Sakura said. "I want a list of every artist who has taught through the Asano Trust since its founding. I want access to the residency records for Yamamura, and I want to interview the staff who were present when Nozomi Fujii disappeared. If you refuse, I will include a chapter about the trust in the paperback edition of 'The Final Secret,' and I will make sure every reader knows that the Morimoto family is still funding the spread of Kuroda's technique under my mother's name."
Morimoto was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was measured, conceding. "I will have the records sent to you tomorrow. The visiting instructor's name is Takeshi Yano. He is sixty-three years old. He was one of Kuroda's earliest students, but he left the group in the early 2000s, years before the murders began. He has cooperated with the police investigation and has never been suspected of any crime."
"And Nozomi Fujii?"
"She left the residency in the middle of the night. She packed her belongings and walked to the train station. There is security footage. The police reviewed it and confirmed it was her." Morimoto paused. "I am not hiding anything, Aoki-san. I am trying to build something that can survive the past. If you want to be part of that effort, the offer still stands. If you want to tear it down, I cannot stop you. But I ask you to consider, before you act, whether destruction is still the only tool you know how to use."
Sakura hung up without answering. She stood in the back room of the café, listening to the muffled sounds of the event winding down, the publisher's representative thanking the remaining attendees, Haruki's voice explaining that the signing would resume shortly. She thought about Chika Fujii, sitting in the front of the café with her untouched tea and her four years of unanswered questions. She thought about Nozomi, walking to a train station in the middle of the night, captured on security footage, disappearing into a darkness that might have been escape or might have been something else entirely.
She thought about her mother's name, being used to fund a network of residencies and galleries that claimed to be reclaiming the Negative School's legacy for good. She thought about the spiral, which could be painted inward toward destruction or outward toward something else — something she was still learning to name.
When she emerged from the back room, Haruki was waiting for her. His face was tired but alert, the face of a man who had just realized that the story he thought was over was only beginning a new chapter.
"What did Morimoto say?"
"She said the trust is trying to reform the Negative School. To salvage something from the wreckage. She said the visiting instructor is a former student who left Kuroda's group before the murders started." Sakura paused, looking toward Chika, who was still sitting at the corner table, her phone clutched in both hands. "She said there's security footage of Nozomi leaving the residency voluntarily. That the police confirmed it was her."
"But you don't believe her."
"I believe the footage exists. I don't believe it proves what she thinks it proves. We both know Kuroda's network was capable of making people disappear in ways that looked voluntary. Forged postcards. Fake messages. A woman walking to a train station in the middle of the night could be escaping — or she could be walking toward someone who was waiting for her."
Haruki nodded slowly. "What do you want to do?"
"I want to go to Yamamura. I want to see the residency. I want to talk to Takeshi Yano and the staff and anyone else who was there when Nozomi disappeared. And I want you to keep digging into the Asano Trust — every artist they've funded, every residency they've sponsored, every instructor they've hired. If there are other missing women, I want to know about them."
"You're supposed to be on a book tour. The publisher — "
"The publisher can wait. Chika Fujii has waited four years. There might be other families who have waited even longer." She met Haruki's eyes, and whatever he saw in her expression made him close his laptop without another word.
"I'll book the train tickets," he said. "We leave in the morning."
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!