June 14th, 2021

Oishi didn't expect to find any other flowers at the old man's gravestone.

To be honest, he'd expected to have to clean away graffiti and trash –tokens of affection from those in Hinamizawa who viewed the dam and anyone connected with it as a threat to their very existence. He'd bullied –and in vain– for at least someone to keep an extra eye on it, to prevent desecration.

But to his surprise, not only was Oyassan's grave clear of any debris or paint, there were even a pair of beautiful blue hydrangeas in matched vases on either side of the headstone. At first sight, his brain leapt into overdrive, trying to think of who left them, why. Did Oyassan have family that didn't come to the funeral? If so, why? Was this given by a lover who didn't dare come forward, someone who believed in the curse? A friend? The missing man of the group of six, come to apologize for some reason?

After a few seconds of furious speculation, Oishi realized that he speculated to no purpose and growled out a sigh, clenching his hands around the spray of flowers he himself carried. The case had been officially closed, and he wasn't allowed to investigate it anymore.

That didn't mean anything. Oyassan had taught him everything about how to be a man, become a father in everything but blood –Oishi wasn't going to just roll over and accept the verdict handed down by his lousy superiors, men who wouldn't know honor or dedication if it bit them in the ass. He wouldn't be disrespecting Oyassan by blithely accepting such an obvious cover-up as this.

"Damn Sonozaki witch." he grumbled, bending down to arrange the flowers. Maybe the dam was a very real and very present threat in her mind, but no matter what the Dam Opposition Movement did, no matter how palpable their hatred or hard their fists as they marched and bellowed at him and the other riot police, they'd never killed anyone. Never come close. And sure, maybe Oyassan would've been the prime target for that, but Oishi could've sworn that Oryou Sonozaki was smarter, more patient than this.

Killing Oyassan, the figurehead of the dam-building movement in Hinamizawa, the man who was actually managing the construction of that hated edifice –of course that would be a powerful boost of morale, but this wasn't the medieval ages anymore, and Oyassan wasn't the person directly in charge of building the dam. It wasn't his decision to put it here, nor would his word have any weight in canceling it. Like Oishi, the government paid him to do a job and do it well, and if he died, well, there were legions of other government workers to follow. As far as stopping the dam project went, killing Oyassan was pointless –a senseless, violently hateful waste of life.

Oryou Sonozaki could be as cruel as the winter snows, but she was also a woman with an adamant will and uncanny intuition, as crafty as a fox and as patient as stone. She didn't drag everyone who disrespected her to the torture chamber that the Sonozakis were rumored to have, no more did she label the Hojos object of the entire village's hatred until they berated her publicly. She was ruthless, but she also wasn't stupid or easily overcome by emotion. Murdering a man for being a government worker, when she knew that more would come hot on his heels and Hinamizawa may even draw national attention for being full of public unrest –why would the old woman do something that she knew would bring so much trouble for so little profit as a brief break in dam construction?

Unless she really had been driven into utter and demonic hatred by the flames whipped up by her followers. Such an action didn't fit the person Oishi knew, didn't gel with all his hard-won instincts as a detective, and yet –who else in all of Hinamizawa had the power to reach right inside the police force and issue commands, ensure that things were closed quickly and quietly with no fuss? It had to be her, it could be nobody else but her, but something in his soul twinged with hesitation whenever he tried to pin the blame on the Sonozakis and their organization. There were scraps of things that even the Sonozakis didn't have, things their resources couldn't explain, and what if he was making a mistake…?

Oishi firmed his jaw. He was looking for ghosts where there were none, and he had more than enough on his plate to handle already. Somehow, some way, he'd find the evidence to pin this crime on the Sonozaki woman, and he'd make her grovel at Oyassan's grave in apology for what she had done. If he couldn't make her regret killing his father-figure, he'd at least make her see what she had done, see the life that she had brutally and needlessly cut short.

Every year he swore this, every year in every fragment, stretching out as far as the eye could see. Again and again, he swore to Oyassan that he would avenge him, that he would make the Sonozaki woman pay for what she had done, but never in any of those fragments, on any of those years, could he find a single scrap of evidence leading to her.

And no wonder, for –though Oishi did not know it– his guess was far off the mark, through no fault of his own. As far as anyone in Hinamizawa knew, the Sonozakis were the only ones with the power and influence to influence the police forces in such a way, to force the closing of cases and brush away whatever tantalizing shreds of evidence might emerge, to make the crimes look so clean, so free of any tangible human traces. But those in Hinamizawa did not know everything about their home, and there was another organization, even more subtle and strong than the Sonozakis, who were actually pulling the strings.

That one integral missing piece eluded Oishi for many years, many fragments, until the last of them, when the truth was revealed and the bonds of hate that imprisoned his heart melted and snapped. He cried from the relief of it, the relief of no longer having anyone to hate, and later went to Oyassan's grave again, to apologize and to deliberate on his next choice of action.

There he found the Sonozakis he had despised for so many years, Akane and her daughter Shion, with the blue hydrangeas he had admired every year, and an offering of ohagi personally made by the woman that he had thought killed Oyassan. It was an offering of apology, Akane explained, that since now the conflict was over, no hatred needed to be kept or held onto. If Oyassan was still alive, she explained, she would have invited him out for a drink and let bygones be bygones –but since he was dead, she and her family could only apologize and wish that things had been better.

And Oishi saw, and understood, and as the sun broke through the cloudy skies, he smiled and steeled himself to help Rika Furude and her friends, knowing at last that he could be free of his hatred and hold his head up high.

10.25 AM, USA Central Time