Editing Hikaru ga Chikyuu ni Itakoro:Translator's Afterword (section)

====Michiru Hanasato (花里みちる, Hanasato Michiru)====

The best friend of Honoka, a heroine...and an antagonist.

I’ll state the reasons why I doubted her, going by volume,

# Noted that Koremitsu was at Hikaru’s funeral, which means that she’s one of Hikaru’s girls. As we know, in detective stories, the culprit is always one of the introduced characters.
# Had a very unique ringtone that never rang when the first anonymous message came. Normally, all the girls should have been notified.
# None.
# Second slander is about Tsuyako. So far, two girls from Heian Academy. This is important because Beni was never targeted. (To be fair, not even Hikaru knew who she was) she also had no need to tag along with Honoka when she’s a student council representative (as an extension of her being the class representative)
# Sudden appearance after Honoka debacle. She said it’s a council meeting, but the text describes the school as very quiet. If it’s the student council, there’s supposed to be many more of them, and remember, Asa-chan’s so concerned with Hikaru that she probably can’t hold any meetings in school.
# None (well, is she trying to patch Koremitsu’s relationship with Honoka, or wreck it?)
# Not her, but Hiina’s honesty about her back story eliminates her completely, given that she remains on Shungo side, and has no reason to hurt anyone. Can’t be any of the other major girls who were featured, and Honoka. In a sense, volume 8 was a misdirection. The slander about Sora only works when the framer knows if Sora’s existence and pregnancy...namely the ones who gave gifts.
# There’s no reason to wreck your own work without a purpose. One would suspect that Michiru was trying to keep Honoka and Koremitsu apart, and only when Koremitsu finally took command was the plan foiled. Notice that it was always Koremitsu trying to contact Honoka, and not Michiru doing it even though she said she did. That would be a moment where she could have attempted to call Honoka. Her being too clingy to Koremitsu because he resembles Hikaru was a strange excuse too.
# Notice that all the relevant girls received messages except for Hiina, Yu and Michiru. Hiina’s out because of Shungo, and it’s expensive to send messages from overseas unless it’s LINE, and even then, the sender phone should be known, so that eliminates Yu. The sudden doubts Michiru had of Honoka contrasts heavily with Koremitsu’s belief of Honoka, and anyone would have known Honoka’s personality after a long while of being together.

Ultimately, Michiru is painfully aware of her predicament, and detests it, feeling helpless to do anything about it. In her despair, and feeling abandoned by everyone, she became Rokujo. Perhaps if she had been more honest about her feelings like Beni did, the hassle would never have happened, but alas...

Well, no matter what comeuppance one may wish upon her, the story is still about redemption. With this, a stronger bond of friendship is born. Given how she snapped after what Hikaru did at his death, I hope that&nbsp;you won’t begrudge her too much (oh who am I kidding)

The original story has Hanachirusato as the listener, a great friend. In this sense, she’s in the friend zone with Genji, and in this case, Koremitsu. Her name, Michiru, can be interpreted as ‘yet to scatter (clear up)’, which also reflects her true nature being muddled until the very end.