The week between the hearing and the court's ruling was the longest of Mahiru's life. The Seiwa Inquirer had published her story the morning after the hearing, and the response had been immediate and overwhelming. Every news outlet in the country had picked up the story, running their own versions with varying degrees of caution. Some hedged their language, careful to note that the allegations were unproven. Others went further, calling for a full investigation into the 1965 fire and Sakuraba's role in it. The public, judging by the flood of letters and calls to the newspaper, was divided between outrage and disbelief.
Sakuraba himself had made no public statement since his brief appearance at the hearing. His lawyers had issued a terse denial, calling Mahiru's article a collection of lies and insinuations. But the denial had been thin, and the silence that followed it was thicker.
Mahiru spent the week in a state of suspended anxiety, fielding calls from reporters, meeting with Samejima and Hatta, checking in on Taro and the two Kazues. The fisherman had been moved to a third safe house, this one in the northern suburbs, and was growing restless. Kazue Wada, the daughter from Yamagoshi, had agreed to testify if needed, though her health was fragile and the ordeal had taken a visible toll. Kazue Shimazaki, the daughter from Akijima, had moved into a hotel near the courthouse and spent her days sitting in the public gallery, watching the empty bench as though waiting for her father to appear.
On the third day, a new development broke. A former law clerk of Sakuraba's, a woman named Harumi Sugihara who had served on his staff in the 1990s, gave an interview to a rival newspaper in which she claimed that Sakuraba had always been secretive about his past. "He never spoke of his childhood," she said. "When I asked him once about where he grew up, his expression changed. He said that the past was a foreign country and that wise people did not visit it. I thought it was a philosophical remark. Now I wonder."
The interview was not proof of anything, but it added weight to the growing narrative. Sakuraba's past was not what he had claimed. The official biography, the one that said he had been born in Meikyo to a family of modest means, was looking increasingly fragile.
On the fourth day, Samejima called Mahiru to his office. The old lawyer looked tired, his skin more translucent than before, but his eyes were still sharp.
"I have been doing some digging," he said. "Into Sakuraba's early career. Before he became a judge, he worked for three years in the prefectural government of the northern prefecture. Personnel records are supposed to be sealed after fifty years, but I have a friend in the archives who owes me a favor."
He slid a folder across the desk. Mahiru opened it. Inside was a personnel file, yellowed with age, bearing the name "Jiro Sakuraba."
"Jiro?" she said. "He kept the name?"
"He incorporated it. Made it his legal given name. Takataro was an invention, a name he chose for himself when he entered the judiciary. But the prefectural records show his original identity registration, filed in 1965, just weeks after the fire. The document lists his place of birth as Hinagata and his parents as unknown. It is the first official record of Jiro becoming someone else."
Mahiru stared at the document. It was a bridge between two identities, the orphan Jiro and the judge Sakuraba. It proved, in black and white, that Sakuraba had lied about his origins for his entire career. It was not proof of murder, but it was proof of deception, and the deception was the foundation on which everything else rested.
"This is huge," she said.
"It is one more brick in the wall. But we need more than bricks. We need the court to rule in our favor. If Judge Hazama excludes the Wada confession and rules against the election suit, we will have won the battle of public opinion but lost the legal war. Sakuraba will survive, damaged but not destroyed."
"Can he survive? After everything we've published?"
"Sakuraba has been surviving for sixty years. He does not need to be loved. He needs only to be unindicted. If the court does not hold him accountable, he will retreat into private life and wait for the storm to pass. In five years, no one will remember. In ten years, he will be rehabilitated. In twenty years, he will be remembered as a great judge who was unfairly attacked by the media. That is how these things work."
Mahiru felt a chill that had nothing to do with the November air. "Then we have to make sure the court rules against him."
"Yes. And for that, we need something more. Something that cannot be ignored or excluded or dismissed." Samejima leaned forward, the oxygen tube hissing. "We need Sakuraba himself to make a mistake."
On the fifth day, the mistake came.
Mahiru was at her desk in the newsroom when her phone rang. The caller ID showed a number she did not recognize. She answered cautiously.
"Miss Yuzuki?" The voice was female, young, and strained with anxiety. "My name is Yuriko. I am a maid in Justice Sakuraba's household. I need to speak with you. In person. It is urgent."
"About what?"
"I cannot say on the phone. Please meet me at the east gate of Meikyo Park, at six o'clock tonight. Come alone. I am afraid of what might happen if anyone sees us together."
The line went dead.
Mahiru stared at the phone, her mind racing. A maid in Sakuraba's household. A woman who was afraid. It could be a trap, another of Sakuraba's moves in the game he had been playing for sixty years. But it could also be the break she had been waiting for.
She called Samejima. "I just got a call from a woman who says she works for Sakuraba. She wants to meet."
"It could be a setup."
"I know."
"Do not go alone."
"If she sees someone with me, she might run. And if she has information, I can't afford to lose it."
Samejima was silent for a moment. "Then take precautions. Text me the location. Keep your phone on. If you do not check in within an hour, I will send someone."
The east gate of Meikyo Park was a modest entrance, less frequented than the main gates, bordered by a grove of cherry trees that were bare and skeletal in the winter evening. Mahiru arrived at five-fifty and waited, her hands in her coat pockets, her breath misting in the cold air.
At six o'clock precisely, a figure emerged from the shadows of the trees. She was young, perhaps twenty-five, with a round face and nervous eyes. She wore a plain winter coat over what looked like a service uniform, and she kept glancing over her shoulder as she approached.
"Miss Yuzuki?" she whispered.
"Yes. You're Yuriko?"
The woman nodded. "I have worked in Justice Sakuraba's household for two years. I clean the house, prepare meals, tend to the garden. I hear things. I see things. I have been too afraid to speak, but after I read your article..." She paused, her voice catching. "I cannot be silent anymore."
"What have you seen?"
"Two nights ago, Justice Sakuraba had a visitor. A man I had never seen before. They spoke in the study for a long time. I was bringing tea, and I heard them through the door. The visitor was angry. He said something about a confession that had been stolen from Yamagoshi. He said the journalist had it now, and everything was falling apart."
Mahiru felt her pulse quicken. "What did Sakuraba say?"
"He was calm. He said the confession was not admissible. He said the court would rule in his favor and the journalist would be discredited. But the visitor was not satisfied. He demanded more money. He said if he did not get it, he would go to the police and tell them everything."
"Who was this visitor?"
"I do not know his name. But I saw his face when he left. He was a young man, well-dressed, with a scar on his left cheek. And there was something else." Yuriko reached into her coat and withdrew a small object wrapped in cloth. "After the visitor left, Justice Sakuraba asked me to clean the study. I found this under the chair where the visitor had been sitting."
She unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a small metal button, engraved with a crest. Mahiru recognized it immediately: the insignia of the Meikyo Metropolitan Police.
"The visitor was a police officer?"
"I believe so. I think he was someone Justice Sakuraba had been paying for information. Someone who knew about the investigation, who could warn him when witnesses were found or evidence was discovered."
Mahiru's mind raced through the implications. If Sakuraba had a source inside the police department, it explained how he had known about Kibe's notebook, about her trip to Akijima, about the safe houses where Taro had been hidden. It explained how Kusakabe had found her in Hinagata. Sakuraba had not been guessing. He had been informed.
"Will you testify about this?" Mahiru asked.
Yuriko's face paled. "He will destroy me. I have a family. My mother depends on my income."
"I can protect you. I have lawyers who can help. But I need your testimony. Without it, Sakuraba will continue to evade accountability."
The young woman hesitated, her fear almost visible in the cold air around her. Then she nodded, a small, frightened movement. "I will do it. For the dead. For the truth. But you must promise me that he will not get away."
"I promise I will do everything in my power."
Yuriko gave her a phone number and an address, then vanished into the darkness of the park, her figure dissolving among the bare cherry trees. Mahiru stood alone for a moment, the metal button cold in her palm, the weight of what she had just learned pressing down on her.
She called Samejima from the park. "I have a witness. A maid from Sakuraba's household. She overheard him meeting with a police officer who was feeding him information."
"Does she know the officer's name?"
"No. But she has a button from his uniform, with the police crest. And she is willing to testify."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. When Samejima spoke again, his voice was different, harder. "This changes things. If Sakuraba has been paying a police officer for information, that is obstruction of justice. It is a new crime, one that is well within the statute of limitations. It gives us leverage."
"Can we use it in the election suit?"
"Perhaps. But more importantly, it gives us grounds for a criminal complaint. If the officer can be identified, he can be questioned. If he confesses, he can lead us to Sakuraba." Samejima paused again. "I will call a contact in the Internal Affairs division of the police. This needs to be handled carefully. A corrupt officer is a dangerous opponent."
Mahiru returned to the newsroom and wrote up her notes from the meeting, careful not to reveal Yuriko's identity. The story was growing again, new tendrils reaching into new darkness. Sakuraba's network of influence was not just historical, not just a matter of old favors and older fears. It was active, present, a living thing that still reached into the institutions of power.
On the sixth day, Samejima called with news. "Internal Affairs has identified the officer. His name is Shiro Kaneda, a detective in the organized crime division. He has been under suspicion for corruption for years, but no one has been able to prove it. If the maid's testimony is credible, they may finally have enough to move against him."
"Will they?"
"They are moving carefully. Kaneda has powerful friends. But if the button matches his uniform, and if the maid can identify him, they will have no choice."
"And Sakuraba?"
"One step at a time. First Kaneda. Then, if Kaneda talks, Sakuraba."
The seventh day arrived grey and cold, the sky over Meikyo heavy with clouds that threatened snow. The court was scheduled to issue its ruling at ten in the morning, and the corridors of the High Court building were packed with reporters, lawyers, and spectators. Mahiru arrived early and took a seat in the front row of the gallery, her heart beating hard against her ribs.
Kenzo Emoto sat beside her, his face calm but his hands gripping the edge of the bench. "Whatever happens," he said quietly, "we have already won something. The truth is out. The public knows. The election maps will be redrawn, whether this court orders it or not."
"But Sakuraba—"
"Sakuraba is one man. The system he corrupted is larger than he is. Even if he escapes legal accountability, his legacy is destroyed. That matters. Not as much as justice, but it matters."
The judges entered, and the courtroom fell silent. Judge Hazama took her seat at the center of the bench, her face as unreadable as ever. She adjusted her glasses, shuffled a stack of papers, and began to speak.
"This court has considered the evidence and arguments presented by both parties. The question before us is whether the electoral maps used in the 2025 general election violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The plaintiffs have argued that the maps were drawn based on fraudulent census data from 1965, and that this fraud has distorted representation for sixty years."
She paused, her eyes scanning the courtroom. "The court finds that the plaintiffs have established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the 1965 census data for the village of Hinagata was indeed falsified. The original data collected by Tetsuya Shimazaki, which this court has admitted into evidence, shows a population significantly lower than the official figures. The testimony of the cartographer Osamu Kibe, as recorded in his personal papers, confirms that this falsification was deliberate and that it was used to justify electoral district boundaries that would not otherwise have been sustainable."
A murmur ran through the gallery. Mahiru gripped the edge of her seat.
"However," Judge Hazama continued, "the question of whether this sixty-year-old fraud renders the current electoral maps unconstitutional is more complex. The maps have been redrawn multiple times since 1965. The current disparity is driven largely by urbanization, not by the original fraud. The court cannot find, on the evidence before it, that the 2025 election results would have been different absent the 1965 census falsification."
The murmur turned to something louder, a wave of confusion and disappointment. Hatta rose to his feet, his face tense.
"Therefore," Judge Hazama said, her voice cutting through the noise, "this court rules as follows. First, the 2025 general election is declared to have been conducted in a state of unconstitutionality. The vote disparity exceeds what is permissible under the equal protection clause of the constitution of Seiwa. The Diet is directed to redraw the electoral maps within six months and to hold a new election using the corrected maps."
She paused again, and Mahiru felt her heart stop.
"Second, the court declines to rule on the criminal allegations against former Justice Takataro Sakuraba. Those allegations are not properly before this court. However, the court notes that the evidence presented raises serious questions about the integrity of the 1965 census and the conduct of certain individuals involved. The court directs the clerk to forward the relevant materials to the Public Prosecutor's Office for review."
The courtroom erupted. Reporters shouted questions. Lawyers scrambled to their feet. Hatta was arguing with one of the judges about the scope of the ruling. But Mahiru heard only the last sentence, echoing in her mind like a bell.
The court had referred the case to the prosecutor.
Sakuraba was not safe. Not anymore.
She looked across the courtroom, toward the side door where Sakuraba had entered and exited a week before. It was closed. He was not here. But she knew, with a certainty that settled into her bones, that he would not go quietly.
The hunter had become the hunted. And a cornered animal is always the most dangerous.
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