Mari's father leaned back in his leather chair, the silence of the study feeling heavier now that his daughter had swept out. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number he knew by heart—the private line of the Kurosawa estate.
The phone rang twice before a deep, formal voice answered. "Kurosawa here."
"It's me," Mari's father said, his voice still carrying a hint of disbelief. "I just had a visit from Mari. She... she claims the 'Ghost' is back. And she just handed me a black card with more credit than our entire annual revenue to buy the old school."
On the other end of the line, there was a long, thoughtful pause. Then, a low chuckle rumbled through the receiver.
"I know," Dia's father replied, his tone surprisingly calm for a man who had just seen a phantom return. "Ruby is still with him at the Takami Ryokan as we speak. Dia arrived home just moments ago, looking more alive than I've seen her in three years."
He paused, and Mari's father could hear the clinking of a ceramic bowl in the background.
"She brought back a bundle for the twins," the Kurosawa patriarch continued. "Some kind of aromatic porridge... *Bubur Ayam*, I think she called it. She said it was the first meal their father made for them. Out of curiosity, I tasted a bit of the leftovers."
"And?" Mari's father asked, leaning in.
"It was... truly good," Dia's father admitted, his voice softening. "Warm, complex, and... honest. It doesn't taste like the food of a man who ran away. It tastes like the food of a man who traveled to the ends of the earth just to learn how to come back."
The two most powerful men in Numazu sat in a shared, contemplative silence. For three years, they had watched their daughters struggle in the shadow of a missing man. Now, the atmosphere in the town was shifting.
"He's buying the school, Kurosawa," Mari's father added. "He wants to turn it into a home for all of them. All nineteen of the mothers and every single child."
"A school transformed into a sanctuary," Kurosawa mused. "Hmph. It is bold. But if he truly has the power—and the heart—to hold that many lives together, then perhaps the 'Ghost' was never a ghost at all. Perhaps he was just a Panda waiting for the right moment to wake up."