"I'll get straight to the point. We can now identify who's behind the burner account."
That night, in my apartment. My lawyer, Mr. Uno, set his laptop down on the table.
I showed him a sheet of paper. The shareholder register of the company that ran the social network. My name was at the very top.
Behind his glasses, Mr. Uno narrowed his eyes.
"You, Ms. Aizawa, are the largest shareholder here. ...Frankly, when I first heard it, I couldn't believe my ears."
"I didn't want to stand out," I said, and that was the truth.
From my salary as a company employee, just a little went to living expenses. Everything else, I had put into the market. I bought at the bottom of the Lehman crash, and bought more at the bottom of the COVID crash. Before I knew it, a mere office worker held thirty percent of infrastructure used by forty million people.
"Let's talk procedure."
I went on, matter-of-fact.
"Normally, identifying a burner account means filing a request for disclosure of sender information. It goes through the courts, and it usually takes months."
"Yes. A long, drawn-out affair."
"But as the victim, I can file a formal damage report with the operating company's compliance department. And the person filing it is the largest shareholder."
Mr. Uno slowly nodded.
"In other words—it can't be buried. With a damage report coming from the largest shareholder, compliance has no choice but to make it their top priority. Every step done properly, legally, cleanly. Only orders of magnitude faster."
"Exactly."
I took a sip of cold black tea.
There was no anger. Only a quiet certainty.
Revenge loses all its class the instant you let your emotions explode. What I was doing wasn't revenge.
I was simply making the person who lied pay the exact price of that lie.
"Ms. Aizawa. Let me confirm just one thing."
Mr. Uno stopped his pen.
"Throughout the firestorm, you never once pushed back. You didn't offer any explanation, either. Why?"
"Because pushing back would only have added fuel," I answered.
"If you fight lies with lies, the people watching can't tell the difference. So I quietly gathered nothing but evidence that couldn't be shaken. The bigger the fire gets, the bigger the drop when it's put out."
Mr. Uno looked at me for a while, then gave a small nod.
"...You're the type I'd never want as an enemy."
"The account called 'The Industry's Conscience.'"
Mr. Uno turned his screen toward me.
"The results of our inquiry through official channels came in today. The registered email address, the device ID, the login history. And the access point for the post at 2:14 a.m."
A single subscriber's information was displayed on the screen.
The name on a mobile carrier contract. An address. A full name.
—Rika Mochizuki.
Just as I'd expected. But it was conclusive.
"She used the same phone as her main account when she made the burner," Mr. Uno said with a sigh.
"From the same device, she logged into both her public influencer account and the burner account with the fabricated post. The logs all connect."
"And the evidence?"
"Already preserved. It can no longer be altered or deleted. Even if she deletes the account, it stays on the servers."
I looked out the window at the night view. Forty million people were still opening that app, even now. Somewhere in that sea of lights, Rika was probably clutching her phone too, unable to sleep.
"I'm going into the office tomorrow."
I put a copy of the shareholder register and the bundle of disclosure documents into my bag.
"Mr. Uno, would you be able to come with me?"
"Of course. But let's bring one more person."
"One more person?"
For the first time, Mr. Uno smiled, just faintly.
"Defamation and obstruction of business. This is a full-fledged criminal case. If you file a police report, the police will act too. —Tomorrow, an officer in charge of cybercrime will join us."
I quietly nodded.
A lawyer. The police. And full authority over the platform.
"We've secured every log," Mr. Uno said as he closed his laptop.
"All that's left is to open them up, right in front of her."