Chapter 5: The Sin Does Not Disappear, and the Flames Spread – Part 1

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Translator: Soafp

---

Seven minutes after the mirror prison vanished, a post appeared on Reo's official account.

“I admit to being involved in creating and spreading false information about Sakura Minase and leaking her personal details.”

Attached was the video of Reo's confession moments before his death.

His desperate pleas and admission of guilt, along with his statement that his father's secretary had disposed of the phone, were copied countless times. Before Reo's associates could ask the platform to take it down, the video had crossed borders and language barriers and was spreading around the world.

But if all they had was a confession from a dead man, there was still room to deny it.

A false confession forced out of him under extreme duress.

The footage itself was a fake made by El.

Reo's defenders began making those claims.

Then a second post appeared, leaving no room for escape.

Attached was a 187-page electronic document.

Its title was Transaction Records Related to the Murder of Sakura Minase.

The first page contained the instructions Reo had sent to other streamers:

“Destroy Sakura completely.”
“Make her regret turning me down.”
“Make the fake images look more realistic.”
“Don't use my name. I'll pay.”

Below each message were its timestamp, connection source, and device ID, along with records of payments made immediately afterward.

A university student who had edited Sakura's face onto nude images.

A streamer who had spread false claims through several anonymous accounts.

A man who had identified the Minase family's address and phone number, then sold them to Reo.

A woman who pretended to be one of Sakura's classmates and sent false testimony to a weekly magazine.

The document connected every person, action, date, and payment in a single chain.

It also detailed how money had flowed from the political organization led by Reo's father, through a company managed by his secretary, and on to the people who carried out the attacks.

At the end of the file, one sentence appeared in red:

“Deletion does not mean it never happened.”

---

By daybreak, Sakura Minase's name—not Reo's—was topping the search results.

But this time, the messages were different.

Sakura Minase was a victim.
The rumors about her being a sugar baby and selling underwear were all lies.
What were the school and police doing?
I believed Reo and attacked Sakura.
It's too late to apologize now.

The people who had once called Sakura a liar now called Reo and his accomplices demons.

Those who had watched Reo's videos every day cursed him the most viciously. The accounts that had joined in attacking Sakura were the quickest to delete their old posts.

The anger turned on the people named in the document.

The university student who had made the fake images was summoned by his university first thing in the morning. His prospective employer announced that it was freezing his hiring process until the facts were clear, and police arrived at his home to request that he voluntarily hand over his devices.

The streamer who had run the anonymous accounts was stripped of monetization by the video platform. All his advertising deals were canceled. The viewers who had praised him until the night before now flooded his apology stream with abuse.

The man who had exposed the Minase family's address was identified by his workplace, and the company was inundated with angry calls. When police arrived at his home, he was in the middle of factory-resetting his phone to destroy evidence.

The high school announced it would establish an independent investigative committee to examine the former classmate who had leaked information from inside the school to Reo. Until that announcement, the principal had insisted that Sakura's death was “a personal matter unrelated to the school.” Now he stood surrounded by reporters, bowing again and again.

But the anger didn't stop with the people who had committed the crimes.

The university student's parents.

The wife of the man who had exposed the family's address.

Employees at the former classmate's workplace who had never even spoken to her.

Just because they were related to, or worked alongside, someone involved, people online began collecting their photos and personal information.

It was exactly the same method used to drive Sakura to the brink.

Give it the label of justice, and throwing stones becomes entertainment.

At 7:13 a.m., Reo's official account posted a third message.

“Guilt is not inherited through blood.”
“Do not attack the families of those involved, ordinary employees at their workplaces, or uninvolved classmates.”
“If you become a new perpetrator, your victim will gain the right to make a listing.”

The poster's name displayed only two letters.

—El.

It was a warning from the being that, only hours earlier, had carved up a human body like clay in front of three million people.

The accounts exposing uninvolved people began deleting their posts one after another.

---

“Nothing but grim news this morning…”

Izumi Nao turned off the television and set a fresh plate on the dining table.

Two grilled salmon fillets, a whole roll of omelet, a mountain of white rice, a large bowl of pork miso soup, a vegetable stir-fry made from last night's leftovers, and a loaf of bread she'd bought for afterward.

Almost all of it was Inori's breakfast.

“The man who was killed on the livestream was the one who was rude at the restaurant last night, wasn't he?”

“Yes.”

“And the black thing showed up in our parking lot. I bet the calls from reporters won't stop for a while.”

“Should we close for the day?”

“The police told us not to open until noon. But I plan to open tonight. I'd hate to let something like that drive us out of business.”

“You're strong, Nao.”

“It's the restaurant I inherited from my father.”

Nao sat in the chair opposite him, but didn't touch her breakfast.

Even with the TV off, her gaze remained fixed on its black screen.

“Inori, what do you think of El?”

“That's a broad question. Do you mean his appearance, personality, table manners, or internet literacy?”

“No, no. I mean, do you think what he did was right?”

Inori took a sip of pork miso soup.

“‘Justice' is a convenient word. Stick it on your fist, and you can hit people without feeling the pain.”

“That's not what I mean.”

“Then… do you think it was wrong?”

Nao didn't answer.

Her fingertips, folded together on the table, tightened slightly.

Nao's younger sister had also taken her own life after fake images and false rumors were spread about her.

Since learning the previous night that Sakura's mother had been the seller, Nao had barely slept. Reo's death horrified her, but some part of her couldn't help envying Sakura's mother.

If I listed my sister's things for thirteen yen, would El buy them too?

The fact that the thought had even occurred to her frightened Nao. She bit her lip.

“The dead… don't come back, do they?”

“No.”

Inori answered immediately.

Nao looked up.

“Not even El?”

“He can't bring them back.”

“…How can you say that so certainly, Inori?”

Inori's chopsticks paused for a moment.

“If it were possible, the seller last night would have asked for her daughter back instead of asking for revenge.”

“…I suppose so.”

Nao nodded as if trying to convince herself.

Inori returned to his meal.

Time was the one thing he couldn't create. Even if he could bring matter into being from nothing, shatter stars, and rewrite the laws of the world, he couldn't make something that had happened unhappen.

That was the one absolute limit of El's power.

“By the way, Nao…”

“What?”

“Could I have more bread?”

“You can't ask for more when you haven't even finished that whole loaf.”

“To me, a loaf is one slice.”

“Honestly… Why don't you become a competitive eater?”

Nao stood up, exasperated.

As he watched her leave, Inori glanced at the smartphone she had touched moments earlier.

At the top of the search history was: Elcari — how to list an item for thirteen yen.

Inori said nothing.

A verdict required the seller's own resolve.

---

At school, there was nothing anyone talked about except Reo's case.

Before the teacher entered, students crowded around desks watching the execution video. Some turned away when the blood appeared, but none of them stopped the playback.

“Do you think El really is a god?”

“No, it's definitely CGI. Reo's probably alive somewhere.”

“The news said the police recovered his body.”

“If it was just him, he got what he deserved. Who's going to be killed next?”

At his desk, Inori ate the two-tiered lunch Nao had packed for him.

It had only been an hour since he arrived at school, but he was already hungry. Everyone in the classroom was so engrossed in the gruesome execution video that no one objected when he opened his lunch between first and second period.

A girl by the window cautiously asked him:

“Amou, what do you think of El?”

“If you watch that while eating, it might help you diet.”

“No, I mean—do you think he's a champion of justice?”

Inori set down his chopsticks and looked at her phone.

On the screen, Reo was pleading for help, his body cut apart.

“He may be a useful mirror.”

“A mirror?”

“A mirror forces you to see the things you normally try not to look at. But that doesn't mean you'll like what you see when you look into it.”

The girl looked puzzled. But as she gazed at Inori's profile, she seemed to forget she'd asked him anything and fell silent.

Across the classroom, Aoi Yuki had heard what Inori said.

At her desk, her friends were talking about Reo's case too.

“But it's scary, isn't it? In Sakura's case, there was evidence for everything at first, right?”

“If there were anonymous accounts, photos, and even testimony from classmates, I'd believe it too.”

“But the people who attacked her had made all that evidence themselves.”

“Then what are we supposed to believe?”

The moment one of the girls said that, Aoi felt a chill deep in her chest.

The videos left in Inori's cloud storage.

The small camera purchased under his name.

His fingerprints found on the camera.

That day, all the evidence had pointed to Inori.

So she hadn't questioned it.

She had trusted the purchase history on a screen more than the words of the childhood friend she'd known for over ten years.

It wasn't me.

Inori's desperate voice in the principal's office came back to her.

Please, just listen to me—

She had been the one to cut him off.

I feel like even the part of me that loved you has been tainted.

Why was she remembering his face from that day now?

Inori had returned after five months with the same face as before.

But the way he looked at her had changed.

He didn't even hate her.

He looked at her as if Aoi, as a person, mattered no more than a stone lying by the side of the road.

“Inori…”

His name slipped from her lips.

Aoi hurriedly covered her mouth.

Across the classroom, Inori didn't turn around.

The boy who used to notice no matter how softly she called his name was gone.

---

In the third-year classroom, Ichinose Makoto kept checking his phone.

He had watched the video of Reo being killed five times the night before.

He didn't want to watch, but he couldn't stop replaying it.

A man who had used others to frame his targets.

A man who paid people to fabricate evidence, then watched from a safe distance.

His crimes exposed, he had been killed with his body manipulated like an image.

Reo's case was far too much like what they had done to Inori.

Ichinose opened the private group chat with his accomplices.

Delete every video of the riverbank.

Get rid of the iron pipe we used to beat Inori.

Erase every trace of the car we used that night.

Within a minute, all three had read the messages.

But only one short reply came back.

What's the point of deleting it now?

Ichinose's fingers stopped.

There was a point. If they deleted everything, there would be no evidence.

That was what he had thought the night they sank Inori into the sea. That was why they had deleted the video, thrown away the iron pipe, and cleaned the car over and over.

The sea had swallowed Inori's body.

For five months, no one had found him.

It should have all been over.

But one phrase, repeated around the world since Reo's death, wouldn't leave Ichinose's mind.

—Deleting something doesn't mean it never happened.

Ichinose shoved back his chair and strode to the classroom window.

Across the courtyard, he could see Class 2-3 in the opposite building.

Inori was eating his lunch by the window.

He wasn't talking to anyone. He was just moving his chopsticks, yet the girls around him kept glancing his way and then quickly looking elsewhere.

At last, Inori lifted his head.

Even with the two buildings between them, Ichinose felt as if their eyes had met.

Inori didn't smile.

He didn't look angry.

He glanced at Ichinose for a moment, then returned to his meal as if he'd lost interest.

That was all.

Ichinose reflexively pulled the curtain shut.

There was no proof that he would be next after Reo. No evidence that El knew about Inori's case, or that Inori had any connection to El.

Even so, sweat ran down from Ichinose's forehead, crossed his chin, and dripped onto the classroom floor.

His phone buzzed again.

He looked at the screen fearfully. A reply from one of his accomplices had come in.

Makoto, he really was dead, right?

Ichinose couldn't answer.