Hoshino turned to look at the screen. The line representing the Baht's exchange rate had just plummeted again, carving out a bottomless gap.
"Ignore it. Stick to the established strategy," Hoshino commanded sharply. "Hold our offshore positions. Do not let go. No matter what happens, do not close the trades!"
The trader nodded grimly, sat back down, and resumed hammering away at his keyboard.
"The game is decided." Takuya Nakayama stood up and deliberately smoothed out the hem of his shirt. His eyes remained completely calm. "The Bank of Thailand has played every card it had. Administrative intervention cannot change the objective fact of capital depletion. They are now nothing more than a shell, barely kept alive by a ventilator."
Hoshino stood up with him, his gaze fixed on the glaring red numbers on the large screen. His Adam's apple bobbed.
"Managing Director, what do we do next?"
"Wait." Takuya Nakayama walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, looking down at the gray, rainy Tokyo cityscape.
"Wait until they spend the very last cent in their treasury. Wait until they despairingly pull their own plug and announce to the world that they're abandoning the fixed exchange rate." Takuya Nakayama turned around to face Hoshino. "The day that comes will be the moment we cast our net across the board and feast."
Hoshino nodded heavily, feeling the blood boil in his veins.
In the trading room, the clatter of keyboards remained as dense as a torrential rain.
The red and green numbers on the screens flashed frantically.
Everything was hurtling toward that predestined, blood-soaked conclusion.
Returning from the battleground-like chaos of the trading room to the quiet of the Executive Office, Takuya Nakayama let out a long sigh of relief.
He threw himself into the spacious, soft leather executive chair, loosened his tie with a casual tug, and began unhurriedly flipping through the thick stack of faxes on his desk.
Knock, knock.
The office door was tapped gently. The assistant walked in, holding a thick, neatly bound list, and placed it respectfully on the large mahogany desk.
"Managing Director, Director Koguchi has signed off on the final shipment of materials to the E3 venue in Atlanta. Here is the detailed verification list for your review."
Takuya Nakayama set down his coffee cup, took the list, and scanned it quickly.
The list was dense with thousands of items: special laser materials for the booth, multi-story promotional posters, spare motherboards and joysticks for the latest demo units. The budget figures were even more staggering.
"How's Koguchi adjusting over there? Has he been driven mad by those American burgers and hot dogs yet?" Takuya Nakayama joked, scribbling his signature at the bottom of the list with a flourish.
The assistant couldn't help but smile as he took the signed document. "Director Koguchi is working non-stop, sir. He's practically trying to do the work of eight people. I heard he's getting less than four hours of sleep a day. But he's incredibly fired up. He even called specifically to report that Sega's booth at this year's E3 will be the most eye-catching and breathtaking in the entire venue. He said you can just wait and see the show from here."
"That guy... he works himself to death," Takuya said, leaning back in his chair with a glint of admiration in his eyes. "Tell him that health is the foundation of all work. Also, don't be stingy with the budget. Spend whatever is necessary. I want the presentation to be absolutely grand! When the players and media from around the world look at our booth, they should know instantly who the true industry overlord of this era is!"
"Understood! I'll convey the message immediately." The assistant nodded vigorously and closed the door gently behind him as he withdrew.
In previous years, Takuya Nakayama would have personally led the team to the global gaming expo to oversee operations on the ground. But this year was different. He couldn't leave Tokyo for a single moment.
For one, the financial meat grinder in Indochina was still churning at full speed. The daily volume of capital flowing through was staggering. While Hoshino was exceptionally capable, he still needed Takuya to make the final calls whenever the volatile market took an extreme turn.
More importantly, the two acquisition battles in Tokyo had reached their most critical closing stage. The timing and pressure had to be managed with absolute precision.
At Bandai, Makoto Yamashina was proving to be an indispensable asset. The moment the joint task force from PwC and McKinsey moved in, any remaining internal resistance was swept away like a collapsing dam. The once-arrogant senior directors and general managers, who had previously lorded over everyone, were now cowering, waiting for the storm to pass.
Naturally, the bloody details of this purge couldn't be hidden from the industry's most cunning old foxes.
Sotsu was the first to lose its composure—one could even say it was scared out of its wits.
Meanwhile, in a soundproofed, high-end conference room at Daiwa Securities.
Vice President Matsushima sat at the conference table, his hand gripping a luxurious Montblanc fountain pen. The nib scratched violently across the white paper before him, leaving a trail of chaotic, almost furious ink marks that tore right through the page.
Honda pushed open the door, carrying a few freshly printed documents. He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Matsushima.
"Matsushima, have you heard... about Bandai?" Honda lowered his voice, a hint of lingering dread in his tone.
Matsushima froze, his hand stopping abruptly. He looked up at his old classmate, his eyes sunken deeper into his sockets than they had been just a few days ago.
"Makoto Yamashina is a goddamn mad dog!" Matsushima slammed the pen onto the table, his voice trembling. "He threw the old guard—the very men who fought alongside the Former President to build this company—straight into the Metropolitan Police Department without a second thought! I heard Sega's audit team is now running rampant through the Bandai Building, timing their bathroom breaks to the second. Anyone who dares to utter a single word of protest gets a lawyer's letter immediately!"
Honda raised his hand and rapped his knuckles hard against the table, cutting off Matsushima's complaining.
"It's not that Makoto Yamashina has gone mad; it's that Sega is using him to send a message," Honda said, flipping open the folder in his hand and fixing Matsushima with a piercing gaze. "Bandai used to rely on its size and its grip on a few toy factories to try and negotiate terms and demand privileges from Sega. And now? They've been stripped bare and left at Sega's mercy!"
A thin layer of sweat broke out on Matsushima's forehead. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it away haphazardly, his breathing growing ragged.
"We have to speed up our own progress! We can't afford any more delays!" Matsushima clasped his hands together, the veins on the backs of them bulging from the strain. "If Bandai completes its restructuring before we do, Sega will definitely prioritize them for attention and funding. By then, if we at Sotsu try to negotiate our valuation and terms, we'll be at a massive disadvantage! We might even be left out in the cold!"
Bandai's sheer size was undeniable. Even if Sega was currently rubbing their faces in the dirt, they were still a massive, juicy piece of meat.
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