To Kenjiro, the hum of the servers in the great room was music to his ears. His fingers, usually trembling, moved with a confidence he hadn't thought possible just hours ago. He connected cables, configured networks, and calibrated the high-resolution scanner. He was interacting with technology he had previously only seen on specialized forums. It was like connecting with a silicon god.
Haruna, meanwhile, remained standing, observing not the equipment, but the environment. The facade of the "idiot genius" had disintegrated completely, revealing an enigmatic and absurdly wealthy strategist. The pieces simply didn't fit in her skeptical mind.
Several hours had passed since their arrival, and they still weren't entirely comfortable in the place. It was like stepping into a completely different world, one that suffocated them with its opulence and silence, to the point of becoming almost unbreathable.
Then, as expected, Haruna broke the silence. Her voice sounded unusually loud amidst the constant murmur of electronic components and the frantic rustling of paper as Hikari read at breakneck speed.
"I'm going to ask what Kenjiro is too polite to ask," Haruna said. "What is this place, Akihiko? And how is it that a 'clumsy' exchange student lives in something that looks like a daimyo's estate?"
Kenjiro froze mid-click, his finger suspended over the mouse, waiting for the answer.
Hikari did not look up immediately. He carefully placed a thin parchment onto the scanner tray. Only when the device began to whir did he turn toward her.
"Inheritance," he said.
There was neither joy nor sadness in his voice. Just a flat word, devoid of nuance.
Haruna raised an eyebrow again.
"Inheritance... from whom? Your parents...?"
"My parents died," Hikari said, in a neutral voice that expressed nothing more than a fact. "Six years ago."
Haruna felt a pang of something she rarely allowed herself: a social miscalculation.
Hikari, however, continued, as if understanding that the question was born not of malice, but of the need to make sense of the impossible.
"They were historians. Academics," he explained. "They specialized in what they called 'historical gaps.' Periods and events in Japanese history that were poorly documented or deliberately hidden. Their work wasn't just academic; it was a form of textual archaeology."
He stood up and walked toward the wall where a single calligraphy scroll hung.
"About ten years ago, they found something... significant. A collection of ancient texts in a forgotten monastery that rewrote a considerable part of the early Heian period. They clarified territorial disputes that had dragged on for centuries and returned lost artifacts to their correct lineages."
He paused, giving them time to process the enormity of what he was saying.
"The Japanese government, and... other interested parties from very ancient lineages, were extremely grateful. This house wasn't bought. It was one of the gifts. A thank-you for returning a piece of their own history to them. A place where they could continue their research in peace, with all the resources they needed."
He turned back to them. "I simply... inherited it. Along with their research, their resources, and their unfinished work."
Kenjiro lowered his gaze, feeling a wave of empathy for the solitary boy surrounded by ghosts.
Haruna, for the first time since meeting him, was left without a sarcastic comeback. The explanation was so logical and, at the same time, so fantastic that it left her speechless. It answered the question about the money, yes, but it opened an abyss of new questions about the young man standing before them.
"I understand," she said finally. Her voice, this time, was soft.
Hikari nodded, as if closing a door on his past. His expression regained that intense, calculating focus.
"The past won't help us now," he said, his tone practical and direct. "Theirs will."
He pointed to the monitor screen, where the first scanned image had just appeared: a hand-drawn map of the commercial zone, dated 1952, with annotations in the margins.
"Let's get to work."
Kenjiro and Haruna exchanged a look. The surprise, the questions, the weight of Hikari's history—everything was channeled into a single, silent resolve.
For hours they worked under the artificial light; the outside world was nothing compared to the darkness behind the windows. The pile of original documents diminished while Kenjiro's database grew, transforming into a digital archive: the life of a family turned into data, a mosaic of seventy years of history.
After a while, Kenjiro was in a state of pure flow. Fear and anxiety no longer existed; the only thing remaining was the clean, stimulating logic of code and data. With rapid finger movements, he exhumed digital ghosts, tracing lines of ownership and permits through the decades.
Haruna, for her part, immersed herself in development plans and city council meeting minutes. Her mind, accustomed to dissecting social hierarchies, now applied itself to a different system with a ferocity Kenjiro hadn't expected. The girl who usually followed the school bully was now focusing on a problem to save a weak girl—something curious, considering she had always despised weak people.
Now, with a new mission, she hunted for the footprint of human greed: recurring names, shell companies, decisions that subtly benefited the Ishikawa Conglomerate long before the current plans were announced.
Hikari, meanwhile, was the center of the operation. He read absolutely everything. He didn't scan or skim: he read. Every document, every marginal note, every faded stamp, with a concentration impossible for a human being... or at least, for a normal one. His mind didn't process information like a reader, but like a system; he saw not just the words, but the connections between them, the absences, and the inconsistencies.
Past midnight, frustration set in.
"There's nothing," Haruna said, rubbing her eyes. "Piles of shady deals, yes. Politicians in Ishikawa's pocket for thirty years, of course. But nothing illegal. Nothing we can use. Every 'i' is dotted, every 't' is crossed. It's like they spent decades preparing for this moment."
Kenjiro nodded despondently from his station.
"She's right. The legal chain is perfect. I've traced the property ownership back to 1948. Everything is in order."
Then, Hikari's calm voice cut through the disillusionment.
"Kenjiro, stop."
Kenjiro's fingers hovered over the keyboard. Hikari leaned over one of the monitors, which displayed a high-resolution image of a building permit dated 1953. It authorized a small expansion of the flower shop's greenhouse: a mundane, seemingly irrelevant document.
"Zoom in there," he ordered quietly, pointing to a bottom corner of the document. "On the municipal approval section."
Kenjiro obeyed. The image enlarged to reveal a smear of faded ink, looking like a simple printing error.
"Enhance."
The image pixelated slightly, but the shape began to define itself. It wasn't a smear. It was a stamp. An almost invisible one, overlapped by a larger, darker one. It depicted a stylized chrysanthemum, distinct from the standard imperial seal.
"What is that?" Haruna asked, stepping closer.
"It's the seal of the Post-War Reconstruction Historical Infrastructure Bureau," Hikari replied immediately. "It was dissolved in 1958. Most of its records were lost or improperly archived. Kenjiro, I need you to search the city's urban planning archives, but not the current ones. Search the digitized archives from between 1950 and 1955. Ignore building permits. Look for public utility maps: water, gas, sewage... anything underground. And filter the search for any map containing this symbol."
Kenjiro went to work. For a minute that felt like an eternity, the screen showed only progress bars. And then, a result appeared. A single file.
It was a map of the Meiji-era aqueduct system. Most of it had been destroyed during the war or replaced, but a small section, marked as structurally intact but non-functional, ran directly beneath the Tanaka flower shop's plot. And over that section, stamped in faded blue, was the same chrysanthemum.
Attached to the map was a block of text.
Kenjiro read the words aloud: "'Any land containing a designated remnant of Meiji-era historical infrastructure is protected under Historical Preservation Ordinance 11-3. No demolition, deep excavation, or structural alteration may be performed on said land without a special permit from the Cultural Heritage Commission, a process requiring an impact assessment of no less than six months and a public hearing.'"
Haruna stared at the screen. Then she looked up at Hikari.
"How...? How did you know?"
"The greenhouse," he replied, as if it were obvious. "In 1953. They needed deeper foundations. The city would have approved it without issue, unless there was something underground that required the supervision of a specific agency. The stamp was the anomaly. The only piece of information that didn't fit the pattern."
Haruna slumped into a chair, an incredulous smile escaping her lips. Then she looked at Kenjiro, who was staring at her with wide eyes, while a slow, genuine smile spread across his face.
"It's an anchor," Haruna said, finally understanding. "A dormant law from seventy years ago that anchors that property to the past, out of Ishikawa's reach. They can't touch it. Not without starting a legal and bureaucratic battle that would expose their entire operation to massive public scrutiny."
"Not only can they not touch it," Hikari corrected softly, allowing himself a sliver of satisfaction. "The law stipulates that the responsibility for the custody of said historical remnant falls upon the landowners. Ishikawa can't just buy the shop from them... by law, the Tanaka family are the guardians of a piece of the city's history."
They had found the crack in the fortress. And it was big enough to bring the whole thing down