The cleanup after Seika High's cultural festival stretched into the small hours, transforming the once-vibrant campus into a labyrinth of half-dismantled dreams under the harsh glare of portable floodlights that buzzed like insistent fireflies. The phoenix arch at the gates had been the last to yield, its neon edges finally powered down with a reluctant sigh from the AV club seniors, leaving the entrance framed in stark shadows that seemed to swallow the stars overhead. Confetti clung stubbornly to the pavements, trampled into abstract patterns by the feet of volunteers who moved like ghosts in the dimness—hauling crates of crumpled lanterns, coiling strings of fairy lights that still held the faint warmth of the night's magic, and sweeping up the glittering detritus of joy. The air carried a medley of scents: the fading smoke of fireworks mingling with the earthy dampness of dew-kissed grass, undercut by the metallic tang of exposed wires and the occasional whiff of cold takoyaki from abandoned griddles. It was a time for reflection, for the quiet ache of endings, but for Kai Tanaka, it was anything but still.
He trudged along the edge of the quad, a coil of extension cords slung over one shoulder like a makeshift yoke, the weight a welcome distraction from the locket's photo still burning in his pocket—the sepia image of Dad, young and unscarred, arm linked with Akemi L., the vanished witness whose statement had just cracked open a sliver of the hit-and-run's fog. TO-7 plates, rainy '22 night, Mori pressure—micro-steps, Emiko called them, but each one felt like a stone dropped into still water, rippling out to unsettle the life he'd rebuilt in the ordinary. Haruka walked a step behind, her yukata traded for jeans and a festival-stamped hoodie that dwarfed her frame, a broom in hand as she swept stray confetti into neat piles. She'd been quiet since the grieving circle's close, where Akemi had emerged from the shadows—older, lines etched deeper by years of relocation and silence—to press a contact into Kai's palm: Endo's thread leads to the insider. Gentle, Kai. Grief's a chain, not a cage.
"You okay?" Haruka asked, her voice cutting through the night's hush, soft as the broom's swish. She paused, leaning on the handle, her breath fogging slightly in the chill. The floodlights cast her in stark relief, turning her into a silhouette edged with gold, and Kai felt that familiar pull—the way she grounded him without trying, her presence a steady rhythm against his racing thoughts.
Kai set the cords down, rubbing his neck to ease the knot. "Yeah. Just... Akemi's story. She saw it all—the swerve, the plates—and poof, gone. Relocated under Mori's thumb, family uprooted. Dad pulled her from one shadow, only for another to swallow her." He pulled the locket from his pocket, thumbing it open again. Dad's grin, boyish and fierce, stared back, arm around Akemi's shoulders in what looked like a post-case toast, coffee cups raised. "This net—the lockets, the circles—it's saving what he couldn't. But the plate? TO-7. Means a trace, somewhere. Garage logs, DMV whispers."
Haruka stepped closer, her hand finding his, cool fingers lacing through his dirt-streaked ones. "One ripple at a time. The festival showed that—threads pulling us forward, not back. Emiko's got the next nudge, right? Her silences are louder than songs sometimes."
As if summoned, Kai's phone buzzed in his pocket—a single ping, Emiko's signature brevity: Flickered light? Signals speak in code. Cleanup's cover—follow the strobe. He showed her the screen, the words glowing like a beacon in the dark. "There it is. Flickers—festival lights? Morse, maybe. Dad loved codes; old cases full of 'em."
The floodlights ringed the quad in a grid of white pools and inky voids, but one—near the old wing's fence, where the cleanup crew had strung temporary halogens for the final sweep—caught Kai's eye. It strobed irregularly, a stutter in the beam that painted the shadows in erratic flashes: short-short-long, pause, long-short-long. Not a bulb failing; deliberate. Morse code, Dad's trick for stakeouts—SOS? No. Kai pulled out his phone, app scanning: F-L-I-C-K-E-R... M-E-E-T... A-R-C-H... M-I-D-N-I-T-E.
"Midnight arch," he translated, pulse quickening. "Alumni signal game? Embedding Dad's cases—codes from the files."
Haruka's grip tightened. "Cleanup cover—clandestine. Mori insider?"
The group reconvened under the arch's dim pulse, Sora hauling a crate of lanterns, Yuki trailing with wide-eyed awe, Yumi and Aiko arriving with a thermos of leftover tea. "Strobe Morse?" Sora asked, setting the crate down with a thud. "Festival finale flair? Or spook signal?"
Yumi traced the flashes on her phone: A-L-U-M-N-I... C-H-A-I-N... I-N-S-I-D-E-R... W-A-I-T-S. "Game on. Post-trinket—grieving net's next layer. Codes from Hiroshi's old logs: stakeout signals, case ciphers. Meet's the prize."
Aiko sketched the flashes mid-air, her pad filling with dots and dashes. "Romantic—shadow spies. But the insider? Cracks the alibi?"
Midnight crept, the campus emptying to echoes. Under the arch, shadows coalesced: a figure in a long coat, silver hair catching the strobe—Endo, flanked by a woman in her 50s, sharp suit, eyes shadowed. "Tanaka-kun," Endo greeted, voice gravel-soft. "Signal received. This is Reiko M.—Mori's ex-CFO, '92 alum. Turned state's after the gala. Your father's code brought her out."
Reiko extended a hand, grip firm. "Hiroshi saved my career once—pulled strings on a falsified audit. Owe him. The hit? Alibi cracks: Sedan TO-7, Mori's garage fleet. Driver? Nakamura's nephew—Ben's dad, alibi 'family dinner.' But logs: Dinner at 8, crash 9:15. Gap filled by my tip: Ben Sr. at Mori's safehouse, 'discussing relocation' for Akemi. Pressure call—'Quiet the witness, or lose the firm.' Recording exists—anonymous drop to PD tomorrow."
Kai's world sharpened, the strobe syncing with his heartbeat: T-R-U-T-H... L-I-G-H-T-S. Alibi shattered—dinner lie, safehouse truth. Micro-step to justice.
Haruka squeezed his arm. "Cracked wide."
Resolution: Meet dissolved into dawn plans—Reiko's drop, Endo's threads. Group debrief under arch: Cheers hushed, bonds tighter.
Emiko: Signal strong. Next: 'veiled' festival mask? Or let truths dawn?
Kai pocketed the code sheet. Everyday: flickers not faults, but flares.
End of Chapter 24
(Next chapter tease: A "veiled" festival mask—etched with hidden engravings—unravels during a post-festival cleanup as part of an alumni masquerade game, revealing encrypted invitations to a secret support gala where a veiled guest delivers the hit-and-run's smoking gun: a dashcam clip from the rainy night that names the driver and seals Mori's lingering web.)