Anderson had been utterly routed on the financial battlefield.
Before his mental collapse, he used the last secret fund he could still access to sign this Scorched Earth Contract. The contract was worth thirty million dollars.
What he could not have, he would utterly destroy.
He wanted to make that man called Seiji Fujiwara watch helplessly as the things they cared about were reduced to scorched earth.
The mercenary team's mission was simple:
Before dawn, use incendiaries to completely burn down the rice paddies of the Chitanda Family.
...
At the same moment, Tokyo, Fujiwara conglomerate headquarters.
In the top-floor office, a massive holographic projection was broadcasting everything happening in the Kamiyama forest in real time, from a cold, god's-eye view.
The auxiliary surveillance system of the Eye of Odin was clearly displayed before Seiji.
Through military-grade drones deployed in geosynchronous orbit and high-resolution spy satellites, it rendered every single movement of those twelve mercenaries in the form of data.
Fuyumi Irisu stood quietly attending him by his side.
She wore a form-fitting dark purple silk gown and had just finished handling an acquisition plan concerning the European energy market. A faint trace of perfume still clung to her.
Her gaze rested on the heavily armed soldiers on the screen with a complicated expression. Was it jealousy? Sympathy? Or some early pity shared between accomplices?
Seiji spoke calmly.
As if stating a cold fact, and as if giving a live tutorial to the woman beside him.
"Capital's final method is always the most primitive violence. When they lose everything within the rules, they overturn the chessboard without a moment's hesitation."
...
...
Kamiyama Town, Chitanda residence.
Inside the ancient estate, the joy of having survived a calamity flowed freely.
They had also seen the daytime press conference on television.
The Irisu Family's crisis had not only been resolved by the Fujiwara conglomerate's thunderous methods, it had even bankrupted that arrogant Wall Street titan.
Eru Chitanda's father, Tetsugo Chitanda, was happily drinking sake in the parlor with several family elders.
They were celebrating the fact that the family's agricultural supply hadn't been disrupted by the Irisu Family's upheaval. To them, the Irisu Family changing masters, and changing to the more powerful Fujiwara conglomerate at that, might even be a good thing.
Eru Chitanda sat alone on the engawa, holding a cup of warm barley tea in both hands.
She tilted her head up and gazed at the bright moon hanging in the sky. And at the family's rice paddies under the moonlight, stretching like a golden ocean.
The evening wind blew through, and the rice waves rose and fell with a rustling sound. Like a gentle lullaby.
The heart that had been clenched tight with worry for her senpai Irisu had finally relaxed.
At the press conference, she had seen her senpai's figure. Though her status had become "secretary," at least she was safe.
Everything seemed to have returned to peace.
In the dark forest far away, beyond her sight, twelve armed mercenaries were closing in step by step.
Combat boots stepped silently on the thick carpet of fallen leaves, not disturbing a single bird.
...
...
Seiji didn't take action right away.
For him, eliminating that group of mercenaries directly was simple.
It would only require having the auxiliary system of the Eye of Odin activate space-based kinetic weapons to wipe that forest off the map.
But that wouldn't bring him the "result" he wanted.
What he wanted was for Eru Chitanda, in the deepest depths of her terror, to reach out for him on her own. To regard him as her one and only savior.
He stood up from the sofa and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Looking down at the Tokyo nightscape spread prostrate beneath him, he spoke to Fuyumi without turning his head:
"Call her."
Fuyumi stiffened.
She knew what this call meant. This wasn't rescue. It was personally pushing the naive kouhai who had once gazed at her with trust into a bottomless abyss.
Fuyumi's hand, hidden beneath the silk gown, trembled almost imperceptibly.
But she didn't hesitate.
She only sighed quietly to herself.
Then she took out her private phone.
The cold light of the screen lit up her bloodless face.
She took a deep breath and pressed the dial key.
...
The Chitanda residence, the engawa.
The phone's vibration broke Eru's tranquility.
She picked up the phone, and when she saw the name flashing on the screen, she was a little surprised, then felt a flicker of joy.
"Hello? Senpai Iris... Secretary Irisu?" she instinctively corrected herself.
The daytime press conference had made her realize that her former senpai now had a new identity.
On the other end, Fuyumi's slightly hoarse and weary voice came through.
The voice carried a complicated emotion, suppressed to the extreme, that Eru couldn't comprehend.
"Eru... it's me. Listen to me."
Fuyumi's tone was more serious than ever before. It even carried a faint, barely perceptible urgency and restraint, as if she were enduring tremendous pain.
"Tonight... no matter what happens, do not leave your house. Do not go outside."
"And..." Fuyumi paused, as though making some difficult decision.
Finally, she said it. "Stay by that man's side."
Eru froze.
Her brain couldn't process it.
"That man? You mean... Mr. Seiji Fujiwara?"
Eru asked in confusion, "Why? Senpai, has something happened? He... isn't he in Tokyo? I'm so curious..."
"Don't ask why!"
Fuyumi's voice carried strictness for the very first time. Like a cold blade, it sliced off Eru's questions in an instant.
But then, the voice softened immediately, carrying a deep, heartbreaking helplessness.
"Eru, I'm... begging you. Trust me this once. Just this once."
After she said it, without giving Eru a chance to ask anything more, she hurriedly hung up.
Listening to the busy tone in the phone, Eru sat there in a daze.
This warning, abrupt and contradictory, no head and no tail, was like a giant boulder thrown into the placid lake of her heart. It stirred up an enormous swell of doubt and unease.
The core conflict had now been established.
On one side was the peaceful, stable reality before her eyes.
On the other was Senpai Irisu's apocalyptic prophecy of an impending, devastating crisis.
...
The first reinforcement came from the incompetence of a neutral party.
The local police station of Kamiyama Town.
The old officer working the night shift, named Watanabe, was yawning and listening to the oldies playing on the radio.
The phone on the desk rang. He picked it up at a leisurely pace.
"Hello, Kamiyama Police Station."
A processed, gender-indistinct voice came through the phone: "I want to report something. There are suspicious armed personnel active in Nishiyama Forest, outside town."
Officer Watanabe frowned. "Armed personnel? Did you see them clearly? Are the local hunters out shooting wild boar at night again?"
"There are over a dozen of them, in black combat uniforms, carrying automatic weapons."
"Alright, alright, I get it." Officer Watanabe cut the caller off impatiently. He just took it for a prank call from some chuunibyou kid or some drunk. "We'll handle it."
After hanging up, he curled his lip.
He casually scribbled a line in the duty log: "Received nuisance call late at night, claims of armed personnel, suspected prank."
In his eyes, "armed personnel" appearing in this peaceful little town was more absurd than seeing Godzilla come ashore.
There hadn't even been a yakuza brawl in decades.
The state's machinery of violence, in the face of a real threat, was laughably sluggish through arrogance and complacency.
...
Inside Nishiyama Forest, the mercenary squad leader Ghost was using night vision to observe the Chitanda residence below the hill one last time.
Around the residence, there were only a few elderly guards holding flashlights and yawning. They were on routine patrols. Their pace was slow, their alertness essentially zero.
"Tch, not even a basic infrared alarm," Ghost smirked with contempt. "They're practically opening the door wide and inviting us in. Thirty million dollars for a job like this, I'm almost embarrassed taking it. The client clearly overestimated these farmers."
He gave the final orders into his comms: "All units, target defense level is zero. In five minutes, reach the optimal launch position and begin the first volley of incendiaries. Remember, our target is that damned rice paddy, not the people in the house. The client wants them in despair, not international news. Clean and quick, then withdraw."
"Copy!"
"Copy!"
In the eyes of these machines who lived by killing, destroying this beautiful land was like target practice on a shooting range. A simple, dull, but well-paying job.
...
Fujiwara conglomerate headquarters.
Fuyumi set down the phone, her body going limp as she leaned weakly against the cold floor-to-ceiling window.
The city lights outside reflected in her hollow eyes, but stirred not a single ripple.
She closed her eyes.
The pure, trusting purple eyes of Eru Chitanda surfaced uncontrollably in her mind.
She had just personally betrayed that trust.
She was both executing her master's order and genuinely worrying for the fate of this kouhai.
But Fuyumi knew even more clearly that no matter how Eru chose tonight, she could not escape that man's palm. Her warning, far from being able to save Eru, would instead become a catalyst, pushing her into the abyss faster.
Seiji watched her tormented expression with no expression on his face. But deep in his eyes, a faint, satisfied glint flickered past.
He stood up, took his coat from the rack, and draped it over his shoulders.
"I'm going out for a while."
He didn't say where, nor did he explain why.
Fuyumi didn't ask either.
She quickly composed herself, stepped forward, and respectfully opened the door to his private elevator. She bowed deeply, holding the bow until the elevator doors closed.
Seiji's Rolls-Royce slid silently out of the underground garage like a black beast. It did not head toward the Chitanda residence.
He arrived at the edge of the vast rice paddies and stopped the car.
Alone, he walked into the field that stretched like a golden sea under the moonlight.
The evening wind brushed his coat and the ripe rice ears, making them rustle. As if welcoming their true master.
...
Eru couldn't bring herself to calm down.
Senpai Irisu's "trust me," filled with anguish and pleading, was like an invisible needle stabbing again and again at her heart, the heart that was always brimming with curiosity.
An indescribable emotion wrapped around her like vines, coiling tight.
That emotion was a mix of intense curiosity and immense unease.
She wanted to know what on earth had happened.
Why had her senpai's voice been so desperate?
Why had she told her to stay by that man's side?
That man should have been in Tokyo, a thousand miles away, basking in the praise and reverence of the entire world.
It didn't add up.
As if in a trance, she stood up.
Without even taking the time to greet her father in the parlor, she lifted the hem of her kimono, slipped on her geta, and left the brightly lit residence.
Eru walked alone toward the rice paddy that rippled under the moonlight.
That place was the foundation of a hundred years of the Chitanda Family's legacy, and the most peaceful harbor in her heart. No matter what worried her, the moment she heard the wind blowing through the rice ears, she could find peace again.
But not tonight.
When she reached the path along the field, by the bright, almost otherworldly moonlight, she saw a black, upright silhouette right in the center of the rice paddy. He was standing there quietly, as if already merged with the night.
"Mr. Fujiwara... Seiji?"
A little surprised, she called out tentatively.
The figure slowly turned around.
It really was him.
Wasn't he supposed to be in Tokyo?
Why was he here, alone, silently, in the middle of the night, standing in her family's rice paddy?
Eru lifted the hem of her kimono and carefully stepped down from the path.
"Mr. Fujiwara, why are you here?" she asked, raising her delicate face.
"I came to watch a curtain fall." Seiji spoke slowly.
His voice was unusually clear in the silent night, and unusually cold.
"A curtain fall? What curtain fall?" Eru grew even more puzzled.
Seiji raised his hand, saying nothing.
He merely gestured with his chin, signaling her to look behind him. What he was indicating was that vast, boundless golden rice paddy. The pride of her family for a hundred years. It was as beautiful as a painting under the moonlight.
"In half an hour." He spoke in a tone that stated a fact, devoid of any emotion. "Everything you see before you will be reduced to scorched earth."
The words struck Eru like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, slamming straight down on her head.
Her mind went blank in an instant.
"...What are you saying? Scorched earth?" Her voice trembled slightly from extreme shock, barely able to form proper tones. "Is this... is this a joke? This... this is our family's..."
Seiji didn't argue with her.
He knew that words were always pale in the face of fact.
He simply pulled out his own phone from the pocket of his expensive suit. He unlocked it with his fingerprint, opened an application, and held the screen in front of her.
"See for yourself."
Eru extended a trembling hand. Those hands that had once cradled countless books in pursuit of knowledge now felt that this small phone weighed a thousand pounds.
She lowered her head and looked at the screen.
On the screen was a video playing live. Filmed from high above, with an eerie green tint. It was thermal imaging.
In the video, more than a dozen humanoid silhouettes radiating searing white heat moved in standard tactical formation through the forest on the western side of her home, swift and silent.
She could clearly see the long, rectangular outlines of rifles in their hands.
She could clearly see, in their backpacks, those cylindrical objects emitting the same intense heat, all of identical shape.
She could clearly recognize that the forest was Nishiyama.
She had often gone there to gather mushrooms as a child, and it was filled with childhood memories. And the direction they were advancing pointed, precisely and without deviation, at the rice paddy beneath her feet.
In the face of this fully armed force of violence, it was as fragile as a paper lantern. They looked as though they had stepped out of a Hollywood war film.
In an instant, an icy, bone-deep terror surged from the soles of her feet straight up to the crown of her head, like a tidal wave through a broken levee, drowning every thought she had.
"Who... are they?" Eru's voice was already breaking with sobs she couldn't suppress. "Why... why are they doing this?"
She raised her head, her purple eyes filled with pleading and helplessness.
"Mr. Fujiwara... you... you must have a way, don't you? Please, save my home... save this rice paddy..."
Seiji calmly took the phone back from her hand and put it back in his pocket.
Looking at Eru's face, drenched in tears like rain-soaked pear blossoms from her terror, he felt not a flicker of pity in his heart.
This was the moment he had wanted.
In the moment of her greatest shock, helplessness, and despair, he slowly raised the final, the only, deal.
"Of course I can save it."
He took a step forward. The distance between them was now only inches.
The aura emanating from Seiji enveloped her completely.
His voice dropped to a devil's whisper, audible only to the two of them.
"But this land, from this moment on, is my property."
He reached out and lightly traced the back of his finger across Eru's tear-streaked cheek.
The motion was gentle, yet carried a possessive intent that brooked no argument.
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