The Shinwa Prefectural Funeral Hall stood on a rise overlooking the city, a modernist structure of glass and white concrete that had been built twelve years earlier with a generous donation from the Kuroda Maritime Corporation. Its main hall seated eight hundred mourners, and by the time Haruka arrived, the parking lot was already filling with black sedans and prefectural government vehicles, their drivers standing in clusters, smoking in the cold morning air.
She parked at the far edge of the lot, beneath a row of cherry trees that had not yet bloomed. The briefcase containing Yuna's testimony and the forensic photographs of the warehouse was on the passenger seat. She had made copies—three sets, distributed to three different locations—but the originals were in her hand, and she intended to deliver them directly to the journalist, Reiko Miyake, who was waiting somewhere inside the hall with her hidden camera and her photographer disguised as a mourner.
The black sedan that had followed her from her office was nowhere in sight, but Haruka knew it was nearby. She had spotted it twice on the drive over, a dark shape in her rearview mirror that maintained a precise three-car distance and never changed lanes. Tsuruta's people, she assumed, or the governor's security detail. Either way, they were watching.
She stepped out of the car and walked toward the entrance. The funeral hall's lobby was a cavern of polished marble and indirect lighting, its walls lined with enormous floral arrangements—white chrysanthemums, white lilies, white orchids, all of them sourced, she now knew, from the greenhouses of Seiun Island. A portrait of Daisuke Kuroda hung above the registration desk, showing a man in his seventies with a benevolent smile and eyes that crinkled at the corners. The caption read: "Philanthropist, Visionary, Father of Shinwa's Future."
Haruka felt her stomach turn. She scanned the crowd for Miyake, but the lobby was a sea of black-clad figures, their faces indistinguishable in the dim light. She recognized several prefectural assembly members, a judge from the district court, the president of the Shinwa Chamber of Commerce. The funeral was not merely a ceremony; it was a convening of the prefecture's entire power structure, a ritual of solidarity for a system that had sustained itself on the bodies of women no one had ever seen.
A hand touched her elbow. She turned to find a woman in a black dress and a wide-brimmed hat, her face partially obscured by a veil. "Sato-sensei," the woman murmured. "I'm Miyake. Follow me. Don't speak."
Miyake led her through a side corridor, past a security guard who nodded at them without interest, and into a small service room that smelled of cleaning fluid and old flowers. The photographer—a young man with a camera bag slung over his shoulder—was already inside, adjusting the settings on a compact device that looked like an ordinary funeral program.
"The ceremony starts in twenty minutes," Miyake said, her voice low and urgent. "Governor Nakamura will deliver the eulogy. Afterward, there will be a private cremation ceremony in the annex. Officially, it's the ritual burning of Kuroda's personal effects—letters, photographs, mementos. But the annex has been sealed off since yesterday. No staff are allowed inside except the Kuroda Memorial Services team. I talked to a janitor who said they've been running the incinerator since four this morning."
"It's not personal effects," Haruka said. "It's the records from Seiun Island. The medical files, the surrogate ledgers, the shipping manifests. And there were four infants." She described what she had found in the warehouse, the crates on the conveyor belt, Tsuruta's offer.
Miyake's face had gone pale beneath her veil. "Infants. Living infants. And you just—you carried them out?"
"The hospital has them now. They're safe. But the records are still here, and if that incinerator finishes its work, there will be no paper trail. No evidence that any of this happened. The surrogate system will go on, just without Kuroda at the helm. Nakamura will appoint a new director, and Seiun Island will keep operating." Haruka opened her briefcase and handed Miyake a folder containing copies of the most critical documents. "This is what I have so far. Yuna's written testimony. The shipping manifests. The birth registration correlations. The names of three doctors. But it's not enough. I need the original ledgers. I need the surrogate files. I need Saki."
"The woman who escaped?"
"She's the key. She was inside the disposal wing. She knows what happened to the women who were classified as unsuitable. She knows how many were killed. And she's been in hiding, waiting for the right moment to come forward. I think she's here."
Miyake stared at her. "Here? At the funeral?"
"Yuna received a postcard from her years ago. It had no return address, but there was a photograph of an ocean view from a village she didn't recognize. I've been trying to identify the village, but I haven't had time. What I do know is that Saki said she was waiting for the right time to speak. The funeral of the man who imprisoned her—that seems like the right time."
The photographer cleared his throat. "There's a woman in the lobby who matches the description you gave me. Late forties, surgical scars on her arms, wearing a black dress that doesn't quite fit. She's been standing in the corner near the Kuroda portrait for the past half hour. She hasn't spoken to anyone. She's just—watching."
Haruka felt her pulse quicken. "Can you take me to her?"
They returned to the lobby, threading through the thickening crowd. The mourners were filing into the main hall now, their voices a low murmur of respect and condolences. Near the portrait of Kuroda, half-hidden behind a massive arrangement of lilies, stood a woman with hollow cheeks and graying hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her black dress was too large for her frame, and her hands, clasped in front of her, bore the faint white lines of old scars.
Haruka approached her slowly. "Saki?"
The woman's eyes snapped to her, and Haruka saw it immediately—the same dry, alert expression she had seen in Yuna's face, the look of someone who had witnessed horrors and chosen not to look away. "Who are you?" the woman asked. Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper, as if her vocal cords had been damaged and never fully healed.
"My name is Haruka Sato. I'm an attorney. I'm representing the residents of Shinwa Prefecture in a lawsuit against the governor, but that's only the beginning. I know about Seiun Island. I know about the surrogate collective. Yuna told me everything."
The woman's composure cracked, just for an instant. "Yuna is alive?"
"She's in a nursing home in Hamaori. Or she was. She disappeared this morning. I think she's running from the same people who are following me." Haruka stepped closer, lowering her voice. "Saki, I need your help. The foundation is burning the evidence. The incinerator is running right now, in the annex behind this hall. If we don't stop it, everything—every record of what happened to you and the other women—will be destroyed. There will be no proof. No justice. No one will ever know what they did."
Saki was silent for a long moment. Her scarred hands tightened around a small handbag she clutched against her chest. Then she said, "I came here to burn it myself."
"What?"
"The postcard I sent to Yuna—I didn't mean to send it. I was drunk. I was living in a fishing village on the northern coast, working in a cannery, trying to forget. But after I sent it, I knew they would find me eventually. So I decided to end it on my own terms. I was going to walk into that incinerator tonight, after the funeral, when no one was watching. The records, the evidence—I don't care about any of that. I just wanted the fire to take the memories. But I couldn't do it. I've been standing here for an hour, and I can't move."
Haruka reached out and took Saki's hand. The woman flinched, then relaxed, her fingers cold and bony in Haruka's grip. "You don't have to walk into the fire," Haruka said. "Walk with me instead. Help me stop them. Not for the records—for the women who are still on that island. Yuna said there were forty-one women when she escaped. That was years ago. How many are there now? How many more will there be if the system continues?"
Saki's eyes glistened, but no tears fell. Haruka suspected she had long ago exhausted her capacity for tears. "Forty-one when I left, too," Saki said. "But the number never changes. When one dies or is disposed, they bring another. The ferry comes every month. There is always a new girl from a poor village, a new bracelet, a new number. The machine never stops. It only feeds."
"Then help me break the machine."
Saki looked at the portrait of Kuroda, her expression unreadable. "He came to the island twice a year. He would walk through the ward and inspect us like livestock. He never spoke to us directly, only to the doctors. He had a ledger he carried, a leather-bound book with gold edges. He wrote everything down—the names of the clients, the genetic specifications, the delivery schedules. He called it his harvest book. He said it was his legacy."
"The harvest book is in the incinerator," Haruka said.
"No," Saki said. "The harvest book was never on the island. He kept it in his private study, at his estate in the Hokuryo district. I know because I heard the doctors talking about it. They were afraid of it. The book contained everything—not just the surrogate records, but the client list. The families who purchased children. The amounts they paid. The genetic traits they requested. It was his insurance policy, his leverage over half the powerful families in Shinwa Prefecture."
Haruka felt the pieces shift in her mind. The harvest book was not in the incinerator. The harvest book was still in Kuroda's estate, which meant it was still accessible, still potentially recoverable. But accessing it would require a warrant, and no judge in Shinwa Prefecture would sign a warrant against the Kuroda estate on the word of a disgraced attorney and a former surrogate.
Unless the funeral itself provided the justification.
"Miyake," Haruka said, turning to the journalist who had been standing silently behind her. "I need you to do something. Film the eulogy. Film everything. And when Governor Nakamura takes the podium, I want you to be ready to broadcast live."
"Live?" Miyake's eyes widened. "Sato-sensei, I'm a print journalist. I don't have a broadcast setup."
"Your photographer has a camera. Your phone has a streaming app. That's all you need. The moment I stand up and interrupt the ceremony, start streaming. I don't care if only ten people watch. I need a record that cannot be erased. Can you do that?"
Miyake hesitated, then nodded. "I can do that. But if you're wrong—if the evidence isn't there—you'll be arrested for disrupting a state funeral. Your career will be over. You'll probably be disbarred."
"I know," Haruka said. "But I'm not wrong."
The bell in the main hall chimed, a deep bronze note that reverberated through the marble lobby. The mourners were seated now, eight hundred figures in black, their faces turned toward the altar where Kuroda's casket lay draped in the white chrysanthemum flag of Shinwa Prefecture. Governor Nakamura was already at the podium, adjusting the microphone, his face arranged in an expression of dignified grief.
Haruka took Saki's hand again. "Will you come with me? Will you stand in front of all these people and tell them what happened to you?"
Saki looked at her for a long moment. Then she reached into her handbag and pulled out a small object—a plastic bracelet, yellowed with age, its surface scratched and worn. The number 3715-9 was still faintly visible on its surface. She had kept it. Through all the years of hiding, all the years of silence, she had kept the bracelet that marked her as property of the Seiun Medical Research Foundation.
"Yes," Saki said. "I will tell them."
They walked into the main hall together, Haruka in the lead, Saki behind her, Miyake and the photographer slipping into seats near the aisle. The hall was vast and silent, the air thick with incense and the weight of institutional power. Governor Nakamura was speaking, his voice amplified and smooth, extolling Kuroda's philanthropy, his vision, his dedication to the families of Shinwa Prefecture.
"Daisuke Kuroda believed that every family deserved the gift of children," Nakamura intoned. "He dedicated his life and his fortune to making that gift possible. The Kibo Project, which he founded and sustained for fifteen years, brought hope to hundreds of childless couples. His legacy will live on in every child whose life he touched."
Haruka walked down the center aisle, past the rows of mourners, past the security guards who hesitated, uncertain whether to intervene. Saki followed, her head high, the bracelet clutched in her hand.
"Governor Nakamura," Haruka called out, her voice cutting through the amplified eulogy like a blade through silk. "You speak of Kuroda's legacy. Will you speak also of the women of Seiun Island? Will you speak of the numbers on their wrists, the babies taken from their arms, the incinerator that consumed the ones who could no longer produce?"
The hall erupted in murmurs. Security guards moved toward Haruka, but Miyake was already streaming, her phone held high. The photographer's camera clicked rapidly, capturing every face, every reaction. Nakamura froze at the podium, his mouth open, his prepared remarks forgotten.
And Saki stepped forward, raising her bracelet above her head like a talisman, her scarred arms bare in the funeral hall's cold light, and began to speak the names of the dead—the women from the disposal wing, the ones who had been burned, the ones whose names had been erased from every record but her memory.
The incinerator in the annex continued to burn, its orange glow pulsing against the windows, but inside the hall, the fire of silence was finally being extinguished. Haruka stood beside Saki as the woman spoke, and she knew that whatever happened next—arrest, disbarment, ruin—she had done the thing she came to do.
The truth was out. The machine was exposed. And somewhere in the Hokuryo district, in the private study of a dead man, a leather-bound ledger with gold edges was waiting to be found.
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