The seed was emptied, and then had the grief stuffed back into it. Later, it was found that a seed that hadn't been tampered with was taking the grief from the seed that was; though it's not known if this was the untampered seed soaking in 'loose' grief, or if the tampered seed was actively pushing the stuff out.
As for trying to deal with Akiko's underlying issues, there are a lot of things I could say, but won't. I will say, however, that it's still probably not too late, assuming Akiko's currently just haggling with the Fukushima group over their own consultation fee*. And to be blunt, something about them is going to be needed to be done, because without dealing with them in some fashion she's not going to abide by Ishinomaki's terms.
*I think, I've completely forgotten what the current leading vote is.
Anyways, on the seed emptying thing, you can simply show it to her as an example of something you're working on, but isn't ready yet because it will require further observation and testing to make sure there's no long term side effects; as well as the fact you need to figure out what to do with the massive amounts of grief the process leaves hanging around, and you can't work on that if you're constantly running around putting out fires. One of the reasons you want peace is so that you can actually take some time to work out long-term solutions that don't require your immediate presence.
