A dozen seconds passed. Or maybe centuries.
Finally, the water droplets were gone.
Satsuki raised her eyes and looked at Hirano and Kaifu.
"This is a very weighty pledge of allegiance, Mr. Hirano."
Satsuki's voice was clear and cold.
Hirano's shoulders, tense to the breaking point, jerked.
There's a chance! She smiled, didn't she? This will work!
He knew he couldn't show weakness now. He had to prove he was worth protecting.
"The safe's password uses a rotating schedule, but I've figured out Osawa Ichiro's habits and logic."
He forced his hands to press flat against his thighs.
"I also know the infrared grid inside the residence and the security patrol gaps by heart."
Hirano gritted his teeth.
"Give me a few days."
"I... I'll get in, take the originals out intact, and deliver them to you!"
He nearly panted the promise onto the tatami.
Satsuki watched him.
Her gaze moved calmly across Hirano's bloodless face, the sweat on his forehead, and down to his hands—still trembling despite being pressed to his legs.
"The Osawa residence security is hardwired to the Metropolitan Police Department's special alert net."
Satsuki's voice was flat, but it hit Hirano like ice water.
"Mr. Hirano. You cannot do what you claim."
Satsuki picked up her teacup.
"If I send you in and you step on the wrong pressure plate, or your hand shakes for half a second on the safe, the alarm trips. Osawa Ichiro's security team takes you immediately."
"This fatal pledge would burn to ash in minutes. And you would vanish from this world."
Hirano froze, pupils shrinking.
She'd seen through him.
He opened his mouth, but his throat was too dry for sound.
"I..." His shoulders sagged. He scrambled to explain.
If he couldn't prove his value now—if the Saionji Family didn't protect him—Osawa would gut him anyway. He might "disappear" the moment he left this residence.
Satsuki set her teacup down.
"Professional matters belong to professionals. You providing the internal security logic and password habits is enough."
She turned to Fujita Tsuyoshi, standing like a shadow outside the sliding door.
"Fujita. Notify Dojima Gen in Security, and Uncle Masato in the Intelligence System. As of today, assemble a special task force. The Saionji Family will lead this extraction. Mr. Hirano will provide the internal interface intel."
"Yes, Young Miss," Fujita said from the shadows.
Hirano's head snapped up. He stared at Satsuki, stunned.
Huh? She agreed?
Watching her take the dangerous work off his shoulders, Kaifu's jaw finally unclenched.
He hadn't bet wrong. The Saionji Family wanted these files.
Seizing the opening, he laid out his real demand.
"Miss Saionji."
Kaifu leaned forward slightly, urgency in his voice.
"Osawa Ichiro has given a direct order. I'm to give the keynote speech in the Diet plenary next week, in the Cabinet's name, advocating abolition of the Large-Scale Retail Store Law."
"He wants me to stand up and take the rage of millions of grassroots retailers."
"The Ministry of Finance's total volume regulation has already ignited public anger. If we force this bill through now, Cabinet approval will hit single digits."
He looked at Satsuki, expectant.
"I humbly request the Saionji Family use its influence in politics and finance to block the bill before next week's vote. If Cabinet approval holds, we will give the Saionji Group top priority in all future policy."
The tea room went quiet with Kaifu's plea.
The brazier charcoal popped faintly.
Satsuki looked at Kaifu.
She lifted her right hand, took her teacup, and sipped.
"Why should we block it?"
Kaifu froze.
Every prepared argument died in his throat.
He stared at the girl across from him, brain blanking for a second.
"Huh?" His voice shook. "But... if the bill passes, foreign chains will flood in... and the local retailers..."
"Prime Minister. You're looking too low."
Satsuki said it lightly.
"The Ministry of Finance's total volume regulation last month shut down real-estate credit from the banks. Do you know what that means on the ground?"
"Department Store and Seibu are sitting on mountains of high-premium land. They used to roll mortgage loans to fund expansion and debt service. Now the gate is shut. To pay the astronomical interest coming due, they have to bleed every yen of daily cash from their retail stores into a bottomless debt hole."
"That means they have zero financial capacity for new stores, supply-chain upgrades, or price wars."
"Japan's entire traditional retail sector is now extremely weak—crushed by debt, with no defense."
"And for two years, the Saionji Group's S-Mart and Uniqlo have been stockpiling cheap, high-quality inventory nationwide. We have ample cash. We have a private logistics network from Hokkaido to Kanto."
"The only thing blocking us from every city is the Large-Scale Retail Store Law—designed to protect small merchants by limiting floor space and hours for big stores."
Kaifu shivered. Ice ran from his feet to his scalp.
He understood.
That's right. Abolition helps the Saionji Family too.
Only then could their chains roll out nationally.
And the small merchants crushed between Saionji and foreign capital? Who cared?
It was just "capital efficiency."
"Osawa Ichiro wants American favor, so he's willing to be the mad dog that bites through the barrier."
Satsuki met Kaifu's eyes.
"Then let him bite."
"Since he'll take all of Japan's infamy, why should the Saionji Family stop him?"
"We need this wall to fall."
The tea room went dead silent.
Only rain sounded outside.
Kaifu bit his lower lip hard.
Satsuki was right. This was the rational, profit-maximizing move.
After a beat of despair, he breathed in.
He understood he still had to go to the Diet next week, take the nation's curses, and be the scapegoat.
But since the Saionji Family had taken Hirano's pledge, the girl in front of him wasn't doing this just to watch him humiliated.
If they accepted the defection, they already had the next moves planned.
"I understand."
"Next week, I'll stand at the Diet podium and read that speech. I'll take the nation's fury for Osawa Ichiro—and for the Saionji Family. I'll help push that wall down."
He pressed his hands to his knees, kept his posture humble, and looked up at Satsuki.
"Miss Saionji. After the bill passes... what role do you need me to play next?"
Satsuki looked at Kaifu.
She lifted the copper kettle and refilled his untouched teacup.
"You are a smart man. Political games are never about the present."
Satsuki set the kettle down.
"The Saionji Family has tailored a new script for you."
Kaifu raised his head, listening.
"Next week, you still go to the Diet. Read that speech. Take the temporary humiliation and curses from the members and the public."
"Be patient. Wait until the abolition of the Large-Scale Retail Store Law is fully implemented."
"Once it passes, Osawa Ichiro loses his united-front value to Washington. He becomes disposable. Whether the Americans keep their promises will depend on their mood. And by then, Mr. Hirano will have the treason evidence from his safe."
"At that moment, the Saionji Family will cut all media support for the Osawa Faction. We'll cut all his remaining cash flow."
"And you."
Satsuki tapped the rosewood table lightly.
"You, as incumbent Prime Minister, will take that evidence of Osawa colluding with U.S. Minister William and selling national economic barriers."
"You will order the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, Special Investigation Department, to arrest Osawa Ichiro."
"Osawa Ichiro, the source of the rot, goes to prison."
"You transform instantly from forced scapegoat to people's hero who chose justice over faction and purged a traitor of the century."
Satsuki's voice filled the quiet room.
"With that political capital, you absorb all of Osawa's legacy. Your base becomes unshakable."
Kaifu stared at the girl sipping tea, his Adam's apple moving hard.
Put the Prime Minister's dignity and millions of retailers on one side of the scale—as expendable—to clear the path for the Saionji retail rollout.
Put a hero script on the other side—one that let him take over faction power by upholding justice.
He'd spent his life in Nagata-cho. He knew betrayal.
But calculating national policy, a rival's ruin, and commercial expansion this seamlessly still sent a thrill through him.
Take temporary humiliation, gain Osawa's entire political legacy.
The ROI was obscene.
Just as ambition lit in Kaifu's eyes, Satsuki's tone went cold.
"As long as you play this hero well, the Saionji Family will fully guarantee your governing funds and political resources. We will never, like Osawa Ichiro, discard obedient pieces."
Satsuki's slender fingers took the rim of her teacup and turned it half a circle, slow.
"But the premise is..."
Her gaze pinned Kaifu like a blade.
"That after this is done, you harbor no inappropriate ulterior motives."
"Otherwise..."
She didn't finish.
But the air felt sucked out. Kaifu felt ice.
The flicker of instinct to negotiate that had sparked in him died instantly.
If he betrayed them, Osawa's fate today would be his tomorrow.
He bowed his head.
He reached out with both hands and picked up the tea before him, now lukewarm.
"Kaifu... will keep this in mind."
He raised his head and drank the bitter tea in one go.
Hirano copied him, downing his cup.
The two men stood, bowed deep to Shuichi in the main seat and Satsuki at the side.
Then they turned and left the tea room with heavy steps.
The shoji slid shut behind them, guided by the butler.
Wood on track.
Clack.
The gap closed.
Out in the courtyard, wind and rain hadn't stopped.