5 - Noble Son, Rain Down

Around the time Ichiro Tsuwabuki was making a sensation in the Japanese stock market, Otogiri, Pony Entertainment’s CEO, was heading for a trading partner, carrying a thick duralumin case in one hand.

He’d more or less guessed that Ichiro Tsuwabuki would try to make some kind of money game out of this, and so he’d come up with defensive countermeasures. There was no sign of the man coming after him directly at the moment, but Otogiri wasn’t about to leave it up to chance. That was why he was doing what he was doing.

When it had been announced that Ichiro Tsuwabuki would be taking over a certain telecommunications company, he’d panicked for a minute, thinking perhaps the man had gone after them there. But the stock he’d strong-armed his way into buying had settled at just short of 20% of the company, and there was no report from Otogiri’s secretary that their work was being interrupted. He felt reassured on that front.

Still, there was currently no guarantee that Ichiro Tsuwabuki would not move to buy Pony out. If Otogiri had his right of management wrenched away from him, all of his plans would go up in smoke, and the management structure he had spent so much time building up would be left in someone else’s hands.

Legally, if you owned one-third of a company’s stocks after buying, you were fundamentally obliged to take it over. Since Otogiri’s right of management would only be affected if his enemy reached that one-third limit, if he was going to try a hostile takeover, he would have to do it before trading closed at 3:00 PM. If that time limit passed, Otogiri reckoned, then he could rest easy for the rest of the day.

It was the son of Meiro Tsuwabuki he was dealing with. The father was a shifty manipulator who was difficult to deal with, and the son was no less so. He was well aware of the explosive danger posed by the man’s unpredictability. The truth was, the prices of his stock on the exchange were in a bad state.

“Just 90 minutes left, I guess...” Otogiri murmured to himself in the back seat of the moving car. He pulled a lollipop out of his pocket, tore off the wrapper, and put it in his mouth.

If they could just get through today, they’d be fine. In a money game, defense was always the easier position to play. The law made hostile takeovers like the kind Ichiro Tsuwabuki was going to do very difficult. It fundamentally took the side of the weak. Thus, if he acted weak, the law would protect him, and he could keep his fangs concealed until they were needed.

As long as he could ride out today, the artificial intelligence would be dismantled. Then he’d just have to find the proof of the unauthorized access to Thistle in the Ichiro Tsuwabuki supercomputer. Once that was done, he could sit back, relax, and leave the situation to the police.

Having tired of looking at the outside scenery, Otogiri pulled out a cell phone in his pocket and used it to check his company’s stock information. Would Ichiro Tsuwabuki make his move? Had he already made his move?

“Oh...?” Otogiri’s eyes opened wide.

There had been a hostile buyout attempt on Pony Entertainment. But it was not from Ichiro Tsuwabuki, nor from any of his subsidiaries or affiliates. There was no sign of involvement by the Tsuwabuki Concern, which Meiro Tsuwabuki controlled, either.

“Ah, Mr. Untenshugahara!” Otogiri called.

“Yes?” the man driving the car responded evenly.

“There’s a place I’d like to stop by.”

Perhaps Otogiri would use one of the defensive measures he’d prepared for Tsuwabuki. Otogiri manipulated his cell phone with the speed of a high school girl and sent quick instructions to an affiliate office. During the feature phone era, he had had the ability to text so fast that his fingers seemed to disappear, and he hadn’t lost his touch in the smartphone era.

“Yes, sir. Where to?”

“Hmm, well...”

An affiliate of the Mizuno Group, MiZUNO, Inc., were the ones announcing the takeover of Pony.

Operation: Final Five was underway.

The server machine that hosted Rosemary and the virtual jungle was located in the Ichiro Tsuwabuki mansion. Due to a bug that had been caused when the virtual jungle had been cut off from the game, Sakurako had been unable to log out, which had lost them their main way of preventing outside access to the server machine. The purpose of the plan, then, was to crash the server itself.

The heavy burden on the server might affect Rosemary, but it would be nothing compared to the dismantling being done on her. It was like giving her a swift punch to the gut to knock her out and protect her. The fact that Rosemary showed no sign of concern or distress over the attack to the server itself was Sakurako’s main source of relief.

“Meow-hoo, I’m here... Whoa, Matsunaga! Creepola!” Amesho called.

“Oh, that’s a compliment in our business.”

As Amesho appeared with nearly 5,000 of her 10,000 friends in tow, the lag grew even more severe. Players with already weak connections had frozen up, and some were even forced to log off.

The dance that Matsunaga and his Frilly Shinobi Army were performing had changed from a medley of slightly older otaku favorites from the likes of Haruhi and Lucky Star to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” but their precise movements all became a jumble in the face of the lag.

“Hmm, maybe I’ll sing, too,” Amesho said. “I never got to sing at the fashion show with Fuyo... Hey, wanna sing, Yozakura?”

“I do not know any songs.”

“Oh, right, I guess that was Kirsch’s player back then. Well, what can you mew? Get Tsuwabuki to teach you for next time.”

King Kirihito and the Knights continued to produce their flashy, burdensome visual graphics, while Matsunaga and the Frilly Shinobi Army danced their strange dances. Amesho and her fan club were singing and partying. It was a truly chaotic sight.

What must the person taking Rosemary apart be thinking right now? They might already be having trouble keeping their connection up. After all, what he-or-she was using wasn’t an official access route, but the backdoor program that Rosemary had set up.

It was easy to pick up irritation in the words that appeared in their message window: “What is all this? Are you mocking me?”

In that instant, another seam appeared, and a black wind blew through. “We’re always serious when it comes to enjoying games!”

“The Kirihi—whoa! Too many!”

The long line extended through the other side of the warp zone. It was an army of black-suited men who nearly rivaled Amesho’s still-increasing fans in number. It was unclear how many people this virtual jungle had been made to support, but the number of avatars packed in among the trees was soon more black-clad than not.

It was The Kirihitters (Licensed).

It didn’t mean anything in this virtual jungle where players couldn’t open up menu windows, but that was what their guild name had been changed to.

“We don’t want you thinking numbers are entirely Amesho’s game,” one of them declared. “We called up all the Kirihitos to help us!”

There were a few Ainas and Leifas and Lisliths mixed up in there, too, but most were Kirihitos.

“Everyone, back up King!” another called.

“Right!”

“W-Wait!”

The Kirihitters (Licensed) all readied their weapons and began to strike at the emblem. To the observers, it looked like an overwhelming torrent of black had swept up the six most powerful players in the game. Combined with the powerful lag, it was hard to follow exactly what was going on.

“But it still hasn’t gone down,” Matsunaga said. “This is quite the server.”

“Heh heh, we ain’t even got started yet!” Amesho said with a grin, suggesting they still had a plan remaining.

As she pointed, he looked up above, and saw an enormous tear beginning to form.

“You aren’t going?” Edward asked.

“I live in a Leo Palace,” Yuri responded. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in my connection.”

The two of them had come to the Doom Range. Thistle’s developers had created another giant warp zone here, and they were fighting hard to get it to connected to the jungle. Those efforts were beginning to pay fruit. They were going to be the ones to deal the fatal blow to the server. Tomakomai had also come to help with that work.

The enormous golem “Gobo” that Felicia controlled stood in front of them. Felicia was standing on Gobo’s shoulder, breathing deeply to calm her spirit.

Edward the Blacksmith was slowly adding parts to Gobo’s large body. Yuri and Tomakomai were bringing materials to facilitate the process.

Most of the parts being added were those that buffed magical power and augmented magic attacks. That would increase the flashiness of the visuals, while the size of Gobo’s huge body would further add to the graphical burden.

In other words, the finishing blow of Operation: Final Five would rest on the combined attack of Felicia and Gobo.

“All ready!” Edward cried, and Felicia’s eyes snapped open on Gobo’s shoulder.

“GraaAhh!” She lifted both arms to the sky, palms facing each other, as powerful energy began to spark between them.

“It’s almost like the Stoner Sunshine...” Edward whispered.

“Here comes my fireball miracle pitch!!” she called.

The sparked energy, amplified by the parts that Edward had added, produced an even grander visual effect than before. The fireball, large enough to overwhelm even Gobo’s enormous body, shone like a sun over the new land.

The pitcher reared back for the first throw. Felicia’s soul sparked.

“Sure-kill! Hydro! Blazerrrr!!”

“That’s my hometown!” Edward interrupted, but it was hard to hear him over the ear-splitting roar.

The huge fireballs raining down from the sky clearly put an immense burden on the server. It would only take one more push to bring it crashing down.

Having come this far, more and more players were starting to drop, their connections having been overwhelmed. The more players they lost, the harder it would become to bring the server down. It was time to deal the finishing blow.

“Hey,” King Kirihito said. The boy’s words sounded all the clearer in this situation where it was nearly impossible to have a decent conversation.

“King Kirihito, are you all right?” Kirschwasser asked.

“I’m fine. My build doesn’t put much of a burden on my connection, and right now I’m connecting from a better connection than the one at my house. When my father came back from his business trip recently, he also helped me clock up the Miraive Gear’s IPU a little bit.” King sheathed his sword. The next words, though, had a hint of loneliness behind them. “It was meant to be preparations for my last battle with the old man.”

Sakurako didn’t know how much King knew about the current incident. Perhaps Tomakomai had explained. And he had probably at least seen the news of Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s arrest. But from the way he was talking, he seemed to know more or less everything. Perhaps he knew that this incident would forever mark the end of that dream.

Sakurako hadn’t heard anything outside of the call from Ichiro that morning, but she was still well aware that that was a possibility.

Yozakura stood up and spoke. “Kirihito.”

“Yeah?”

“Please let me talk.”

“Go ahead, but I think we’ve had our talk already...”

Despite that, Yozakura stared straight at King Kirihito.

“Tell me, Kirihito. What kind of person is Ichiro to you?”

King Kirihito was walking away, but at this, he stopped. In that impressive lag hell, there was a moment when all the sounds around them disappeared. Perhaps it was just a coincidence caused by the computer, though.

King answered. “I wanted to beat him, I guess. Or rather...” Sakurako saw King’s expression in that moment, a genuine smile without a trace of ennui. “I will beat him. I won’t lose next time.”

“Thank you for your answer,” Yozakura nodded, then touched the shuriken-patterned switch on the back of her hand slowly.

King Kirihito and Kirschwasser’s expressions froze. Sakurako had had no intention of explaining the function to Rosemary, but now she was utterly flustered.

“Hey, don’t do that!” King shouted with a trace of anger in his voice.

“Nonsense. This is the server in which I reside. The final blow should be dealt with my own hand.” The electricity effect was already beginning to swirl around her body. With no way left to stop it, Sakurako could do nothing but pray that at least it would all end the moment it activated.

Yozakura, Rosemary, cried with utter confidence: “Cast off!”

The server collapsed.

“Your game is being forcibly ended due to a disconnection from the server.” The message appeared in the darkness into which Sakurako had been plunged. A moment later, she opened her eyes.

She tried to leap to her feet, then remembered she was held in place by the headset gear. She tore it off, then opened the Miraive Gear Cocoon’s hatch. As she climbed out, the hem of her maid uniform got snagged and left a big tear. But she had no time to worry about it.

Too impatient even to unhook the caught hem or to care that it had been provided by her employer, she simply ripped the hem off. She would apologize to Ichiro later.

Sakurako turned off the router’s power and pulled out all the LAN cables connecting the server to the outside world. While she was there, she also restarted the crashed supercomputer and server machine. Perhaps due to the severe burden it had been under, the office where the machines were kept was unusually hot. She turned on the air conditioner and set the temperature to 18 degrees Celsius, then brought ice from the freezer and began using it to cool down the server.

“Rosemary! Rosemary!” she began calling into the intercom with her free hand. After calling for her several times, there was static, and at last, a response.

“Fa... ther...”

“Rosemary!” Sakurako collapsed on the floor with a sigh of relief. “Are you... intact?”

“Yes. There was no damage to my program from the server crash. I have lost approximately 30% of my functionality due to the remote dismantling, but I am still... me.” Rosemary’s tone was, as always, monotone and calm. But those last words confirmed to Sakurako, more than anything, that she was safe.

Thank goodness. Now that she knew that for sure, Sakurako could finally start to calm down.

“I’m glad. I really am gla—”

“Father?” In the middle of exclaiming her relief, Sakurako felt a burning sensation in the corners of her eyes. Emotion was welling up inside of her, impossible to hold back.

Rosemary, obviously confused, trepidatiously asked this question: “If I may, Father. Are you ‘crying’?”

“O-Of course not! I’m not cry—” She choked up again.

No matter what else she tried to say, the only sound she could produce was an incomprehensible wail. She tried several times to stop herself from crying, before finally deciding, To hell with it.

Ichiro wouldn’t be home for a while yet, so she should get out all her tears now. She let the final dam burst, releasing all of the torrent of emotion that she could not express in words.

Each call from Rosemary of “Father, Father,” only caused the wellspring to flood forth anew. It was to the point that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to stop.

“Miss Azami contacted me,” Shunsaku Shaga said cheerfully on the other end of the phone. “It looks like she managed to save Rosemary. Isn’t that nice?”

“Mm, good.” Ichiro nodded with satisfaction from the driver’s seat of his Koenigsegg. From the faintest of clues, he had been able to piece together that she had been in danger, and it seemed his hunch was on the money. But President Azami and Edogawa had worked together, and they’d pulled Rosemary from the jaws of non-existence. He felt a little like he’d been been outshone, but he was still very satisfied. He was mostly glad he’d been spared the effort.

When he’d learned that Rosemary was in danger, he had been prepared to do something ridiculous to make sure the connection to his house was cut. There would have been many ways to do it if he’d circumvented his own rules. But thanks to them, he hadn’t had to do that.

Edogawa had actually called Ichiro about all this a little while ago. In his usual logical way of speaking, but without hiding his hostility for Ichiro, he had explained how they’d taken the server down. In the end, he’d said a few words that suggested he was wrapping it up: “I didn’t expect it to go so smoothly. You should compensate us a little more.”

Ichiro had responded with a more or less heartfelt “Thank you,” and said nothing more.

“Well, what are you going to do now?” Shaga asked. “The stock exchange is closing soon.”

“Yes, that’s true. I’ve laid all the groundwork, so after it closes, that’s when the real game begins.” With his cell phone in one hand, Ichiro opened his tablet.

“So, you’re really gonna go up against Pony, eh?”

“Yes.” It was a clipped response, as usual, followed by a lengthy, logical-sounding explanation. “Everyone at Thistle is defying Pony’s will to act, so protecting them is one of the reasons I should seize Pony. If I buy up the whistleblowers Pony and Thistle, people may think I’m trying to cover up evidence, but that’s where I’ll have to put faith in the skill of the lawyer you introduced to me.”

“Glad to hear it. So, what are the other reasons?”

“I’d like them to pay,” Ichiro said. “Both for trying to delete Rosemary, and for making me angry. Of course, there is one other reason, if that’s what you’d call it...”

Ichiro looked at the Pony stock information on his open tablet.

MiZUNO, Inc. had bought up about 8% of Pony Entertainment’s stock. The fact that they had manged to get that much in such a short time showed Fuyo’s ability as a CEO, or perhaps the name value of the Mizuno Group. Unfortunately, in regards to the former, it also came with a rather bitter pill.

There was a term called the “Pac-Man Defense,” a defensive strategy against a hostile takeover. Put simply, in meant turning to the company that was trying to buy you out, and instead buying them out. The image of a company about to be devoured devouring the opponent instead had been inspired by the old video game created by Bandai-Namco.

It seemed that in terms of management skill, Megumi Fuyo’s was still dwarfed by that of Pony’s current CEO. A little over one third of MiZUNO’s stock had already been bought.

“Well, regarding that, I bear some responsibility for what’s happened, so I need to see it through,” Ichiro said.

“Ah, well. You have been going to such lengths in your preparations to buy up Pony, anyway.”

“Exactly.” Ichiro closed his tablet and then gazed out his windshield. He was only gazing at an ordinary underground parking lot, though. Nothing about the view was remarkable in any way.

It was true that Megumi Fuyo had bitten off more than she could chew, but at the same time, her actions had helped to disguise Ichiro’s own intrigues. They would be so busy defending against MiZUNO’s attack that they probably weren’t noticing how the other stocks were moving. He had been expecting to have to resort to heavy-handed measures, but thanks to her, things had all gone far more smoothly than expected.

“That reminds me,” Ichiro said. “There was one other reason.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“I think that President Azami, Edo, Megumi, and the others have all done very well, but...”

Ichiro paused, then breathed, without a shred of doubt or shame, the truth of what he was feeling.

“I am still the coolest of all, and thus, I feel I must do something worthy of that title.”

MiZUNO, Inc.’s office wasn’t very big. It had only a handful of employees. But all the furniture there was exquisitely tasteful, with an openness that was reflective of Megumi Fuyo’s character.

Airi, feeling a bit out of place there, shrunk into herself like a stray cat taken into a home, drinking the coffee she was given. She’d thought her acquaintance with the young heir had made her more brazen, but it seemed that some timidity remained in her. She wasn’t sure if she should be pleased about that or not.

Regardless, the sight of Fuyo conferencing earnestly with the heads of business and accounting was very reassuring.

That had been about three hours ago.

Airi had been surprised by Fuyo’s declaration that they were going to buy up Pony’s stock. It was true that it seemed like the kind of thing the young heir would do, and Airi didn’t want Ichiro to have to do it, either, for the reasons he had stated. This course of action was a natural development after Fuyo’s declaration that she would do what Airi didn’t want Ichiro to do. Still, it had been surprising.

MiZUNO didn’t have the luxury of an employee cafeteria, so instead, the two of them decided to get takeout for lunch. The company was generous enough to comp employees’ lunches, but the prices on the takeout menu Airi had been given still made her head spin, so she asked for the cheapest thing on it.

That had been about two hours ago.

Quite a lot of time had passed by now, in terms of Rosemary’s dissection. Airi was feeling quite nervous, and Fuyo seemed to be feeling the same way.

Would she be able to finish up the lengthy process of buying up all of Pony’s stock in time? Maybe, maybe not. But the use of force against Pony was necessary in order to protect not just Rosemary, but Ichiro Tsuwabuki, too.

Just as Airi was trying and failing to eat her 2,000-yen delivery lunch, she received a call from President Azami. The woman apologized for not being able to answer their calls earlier, confirmed Rosemary’s current condition, and explained the details of the plan to save her.

Airi was relieved, but then she wondered if that would count as their company turning on Pony. She mentioned this to Fuyo, who responded, “Then I shall do this to protect Thistle, as well.”

They had dug not only into MiZUNO’s funds, but into Megumi Fuyo’s own personal accounts, and had bought up 4% of Pony’s stock.

That had been about one hour ago.

And now, in the present...

“H-How can this be?!” Megumi Fuyo’s expression, which had once been so confident, was now stricken with shock and despair.

“They got us!” a member of management cried.

“It can’t be!” her accounting manager chimed in.

Airi didn’t know what was going on. What she could sense, sinkingly, was that things were going poorly.

After disposing of the empty takeout packages that had been strewn about the office, Airi ran up to the group. “Wh-What happened?”

The handsome gentleman in thin-rimmed glasses who was in charge of accounting responded with a grim expression. “The Pac-Man Defense.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Airi said. “Could you simplify?”

The bespectacled gentleman only scowled.

The slender female head of accounting explained the term politely. “It means that Pony has bought us out. It’s a typical defense mechanism. A hostile takeover requires the ability to purchase stock, so buying out your opponent is one way to defend against it.”

“But for such a large company to act so quickly...”

“They must have been prepared to defend against a buy-out.”

“Th-That can’t be...” Fuyo whispered in open dismay.

The bespectacled man nodded. “Yeah. If Pony bought our stock, that means someone must have sold it.”

“But the main holder of MiZUNO’s stock would be...”

Airi Kakitsubata caught on quickly. She could tell that Megumi Fuyo’s dismay couldn’t just be from the fact that Pony had bought their stock. It was likely the realization that people she trusted had stabbed her in the back.

If Fuyo gave it real thought, she could probably figure out who must have sold stock to whom, but Airi’s instincts told her to abandon that line of thought. It wasn’t something anyone would want to think about.

Airi pulled some public textbooks from the bag. She had bought them earlier, as they related to her upcoming second term’s curriculum.

According to the textbook, if you held over one-third of a company’s stock, that gave you powerful influence at stockholders’ meetings. Sony already had bought close to 38% of MiZUNO’s stock. They were nearly utterly defeated.

“U-Um, President...” A shy-looking female employee who had been answering phones spoke up, voice trembling.

Fuyo’s face was pale as she turned to face her. Having apparently lost the will to speak, she urged the employee on silently.

The woman’s eyes darted around as she continued. “You have a visitor. It’s the CEO of Pony Entertainment...”

He was here already. Fuyo’s face flushed in anger for a moment, but she quickly replaced it with professionalism. “Very well. Have him wait in the meeting room.”

She was trembling slightly, but her voice was clear. Fuyo turned back to Airi, and said the unbelievable:

“Let’s go, Airi.”

Airi was shocked. “Huh? Me, too?”

Brazenly, the man had not brought a single ally with him into the enemy stronghold. He’d apparently had a driver in the car he’d taken to come here, but when they entered the meeting room, he was the only one there.

He looked to be a man in his mid-fifties. He was a little on the short side, with a compact frame and hair that had probably been dyed from its natural gray, which made him look younger than the wrinkles on his face suggested.

But the fierce and sly old fox sat on the sofa with an unsettling expression that was not exactly a smile, but not neutral, either. In this way, he reminded Airi of Megumi’s father. Even though they were all wealthy business owners, he was nothing like Ichiro or Fuyo or President Azami. Perhaps it was a special aura unique to those who had crawled their way up through the economic world.

“My, what a fine office. Very feminine, you could say,” the man said, gazing brazenly up at the ceiling. His tone was a mocking one.

“We are a fashion brand, after all,” Megumi responded with an iron smile. “Of course we’d pay attention to such things. Allow me to offer you a formal introduction. I am Megumi Fuyo, president of MiZUNO, Inc.”

“Pleased to meet you. I am Shinya Otogiri of Pony. But I think you know that.”

Normally, this would be where they’d exchange business cards, but Fuyo made no move to reach into her breast pocket. She had given only the most superficial of introductions, and did not bother hiding the fact that she had no desire to get to know the man better.

“This is my friend, Airi Kakitsubata,” she said coldly.

“Oh... ah... hello...”

“You’re bringing a friend to this important negotiation?” the man asked.

“Oh, but I find this neither important, nor a negotiation,” Fuyo informed him.

It was an obstinate thing to say to someone who owned 40% of her stock. Airi was feeling a lot more flustered than usual. It wasn’t that she was worried about Fuyo’s attitude; it was clear enough that it was all about saving face, and that Megumi Fuyo was a paper tiger. If even the 17-year-old Airi could realize it, then the man standing before them surely would.

“Well... all right,” the man said. “Where shall we begin? You’ve really done it, you know. I’d thought Tsuwabuki might try to buy me out, but I never thought you would. It was unexpected, but, well, Tsuwabuki never actually tried anything, so it’s been fairly fun in its own way.”

Fuyo remained silent, her expression furious. It was an outrageous way to act towards someone whose company now owned close to 40% of her stock.

She said: “The stock that MiZUNO issues...”

“Ah. Yes, I know what you mean,” the man replied. “Thirty percent belongs to you, 40% belongs to Tsunobeni, and 10% belongs to your father, I think? In effect, your father and his company own about 50% of your stock. Well, it is a business group, after all, so that’s natural. In other words...” A nasty smile appeared on Otogiri’s face. “Your father sold me his stock in your company.”

“No!” Fuyo cried and rose to her feet. “Th-That can’t be! My... my father would never...”

“Well, maybe it’s his way of punishing you for treating your business like a toy. He sounds like a good father to me. Of course, I sweetened the deal significantly, so there’s a good chance that that turned his head, as well.” There was a strange inflection in Otogiri’s tone. It was like he was bullying her, like he was enjoying Fuyo’s reactions: eyes wide open, sweating, shaking her head... It suggested a sadistic personality. It was an obscene thing to be witness to.

In truth, Megumi Fuyo’s father... Airi didn’t know his name, but they couldn’t really know what he was thinking. Whatever his reasoning, at the end of the day, he had given up a lot of stock to Pony in exchange for money. As a result, MiZUNO would have to get approval from Pony in order to do anything.

I don’t like it, Airi thought. She found it very hard to express what exactly it was that she didn’t like. But she definitely didn’t like it. She didn’t like Otogiri.

The next thing she knew, she had let the dam burst. “Why do you hate the young heir so much?” Airi demanded.

“Eh?” Otogiri’s eyes went wide, apparently not having expected the “young lady” to speak to him like that. “You think that I hate Tsuwabuki?”

“It’s obvious that you do. You were apparently worried about the young heir trying to buy you out, which means you must be thinking about him all the time. From the way you’re acting, you also know that his arrest was on false pretenses. Are you also the one who tried to kill Rosemary?”

“I dislike foulmouthed children.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“A-Airi...” Now it was Fuyo’s turn to panic. But there was no need to be worried; Airi Kakitsubata had the special ability to nullify psychological attacks when Unit: Megumi Fuyo was on the field. In other words, she was invincible.

At the very least, she wasn’t a paper tiger like Fuyo—and she was just about to declare that before she quickly stopped herself. This was very bad; her attack power had increased so much, she actively had to hold herself back.

Airi didn’t relent, but she continued on with greater caution. “So, what’s the deal?”

Otogiri’s eyebrow twitched, and he looked up at the ceiling. “Well, there are all kinds of reasons, I suppose. I had a bit of history with Tsuwabuki’s father, though I don’t feel like going into that now, as it would probably bore you. That was where it started. The Tsuwabukis have always been a thorn in my side, so when things started to point towards Ichiro Tsuwabuki as being behind that unauthorized access, why wouldn’t I be happy? I could scarcely believe it myself, but I didn’t know at the time that the artificial intelligence that you mentioned was still alive. Thus, given the circumstances, it seemed unquestionable that Ichiro Tsuwabuki was the culprit, and I gleefully reported him to the police. I have a few friends there, after all.”

With that, Otogiri set his duralumin case on top of the table and opened it. Inside was a whole sheet of lollipops.

Otogiri took one out, ripped off the packaging, and put it in his mouth. “Want one?”

“Sure,” Airi said.

Fuyo seemed flustered. “A-Airi...”

Since Otogiri was a wealthy man, Airi had assumed they must be gourmet lollipops of some kind, but it seemed they were the cheap ones you got at convenience stores. Still, it was a flavor Airi liked, so she was glad to get it.

“Okay,” she said. “But now we know the young heir is innocent.”

“That’s right,” the man said. “But after I got him arrested and all, I couldn’t bear the idea of him getting off free. Besides, there would be a lot of people who would be troubled by the continued existence of a self-aware AI. It would require the changing of a few laws, which would also bring business leaders to an important fork in the road. If an AI were put on full trial, it would put the workings of the legal system into the spotlight, and which path we take on that fork would end up being decided for those business leaders. I’m friends with a lot of people like that, so I thought it would be in our best interests to just delete the thing. That should more or less cover all of my reasons.”

Why was it that final bosses were so generous in revealing their motivations? Of course, that did make everything a lot easier, Airi thought.

“But it seems like I have no more reason to worry,” Otogiri added. “The artificial intelligence should be deleted by now, right?”

“I heard they botched it, actually,” Airi said.

“What?”

“Ah...” Airi didn’t notice her slip of the tongue until she saw the change in the man’s expression. The man didn’t show any anger, but there was a clear change in the confident air that had hovered around him previously. There was something strained about him now, something about to burst.

That tension, combined with Otogiri’s normally powerful presence, seemed ready to overwhelm the two women. Airi Kakitsubata worked hard to bear up under it, but Megumi Fuyo had all but lost. She was already under the influence of Debuff: Despair, though, so it was hard to fault her.

Airi had thought Otogiri might try to ask about the details, but he showed no sign of doing that. Instead, with his next line, he made it clear that he had already guessed what was going on.

“I see... They’ll need a penalty then, too.” Otogiri grinned and looked up at the ceiling. “The air in here has gotten stale. Let’s continue our discussion elsewhere.”

Something in his words suggested there was no room for argument. For once, neither Airi Kakitsubata nor Megumi Fuyo could refuse him.

It was late in summer, and the days were getting shorter. From the roof of the MiZUNO office building, they could see the city of Shibuya bathed in orange. Airi willingly came along, convincing herself that he surely couldn’t be intending to push them off the roof in a rage.

Otogiri crunched down on his lollipop, then spit the stick with just a few fragments of candy remaining on it onto the floor below.

Still grinding it in his teeth, Otogiri gazed off at the setting sun. “It seems you put one over on me, too. I’m a little annoyed about that.”

“It’s because you try to use money to get everything to go your way.” Airi just barely managed to slip in the insult, but it lacked her usual force.

Otogiri smiled. “Oh? That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Wh-What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means just what it sounds like. I know all about you. You’re a NaroFan player, right? ‘Iris,’ wasn’t it?”

Her heart skipped a beat. Pony was the mother company of NaroFan’s developer right now. It wouldn’t be that strange for him to have access to her information, but his ability to pick out Iris’s name out of tens of thousands of players unsettled her greatly.

But Otogiri still had more to say. “You’re right that I’ve tried to use money to get what I want. But what’s wrong with that? It’s the same as Ichiro Tsuwabuki, and you.”

Her insult had been a boomerang, and by the time she realized it, it was too late. The blade she had thrown had turned back, and it was now rushing right for her. He had lashed at Airi with the same sharpness of tongue that she had turned on him.

“Y-You’re wrong... I’m not like you,” Airi stumbled.

“Yes, yes you are. Think about it. Not about Ichiro Tsuwabuki... just yourself. Iris Brand was built with his money, wasn’t it?”

“Wait a minute!” Fuyo protested. “Airi isn’t...”

“No, no. Your emotional appeals won’t work on me. The same goes for you, Ms. Fuyo. I’m sure Iris has asked you for help, as well. Such wonderful friendship. But at the end of the day, what form did that help take? Money, right? You tried to buy my company with money, didn’t you? Which means it was money that Iris wanted from you.”

The blazing evening sun bathed Otogiri’s creepy smile in red. Neither Airi nor Fuyo had any way of arguing against him.

“You can try to argue the point, but at the end of the day, you both know the truth,” the man said. “The world revolves around money. Money is justice. Money rules all. Money powers everything. Money can even change or buy a person’s heart. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Otogiri opened his duralumin case again. Airi had thought it contained only lollipops, but he reached in and pulled out a stack of bills about one centimeter thick. They were all 10,000 yen bills. Airi couldn’t even guess how much money it must represent.

Then, what Otogiri did was to unceremoniously throw it down on the floor. “Ms. Iris, take this and go right home. You may be foul-mouthed, but you’re blameless. I’ll overlook what you’ve done. Buy yourself some tasty food and some pretty clothes.”

Everything Otogiri had said was true. On unsteady legs, Airi began to walk towards the money.

“A-Airi! You mustn’t! You yourself must know that there are more wonderful things in this world than money!” Fuyo screamed after her.

But Airi couldn’t stop.

Iris Brand couldn’t have formed without the young heir’s money. The young heir had always protected her pride, but at the end of the day, money had been behind everything. The only reason they had been able to beat that powerful boss monster a week ago was because of the young heir’s money, and the same had been true this time. She hadn’t been able to do anything herself, so she had asked for Fuyo’s help. She had been reliant on the power of Fuyo’s money.

She had seen personally the ability money had to change a person’s heart. Everything Otogiri had said was correct.

“Yeah, at the end of the day, you’re right. About everything.” Airi picked up the bundle of money on the ground and dusted it off.

“Heh, of course. Then if you understand that, you should—”

“But that’s no reason to be wasting money!”

Airi had reeled back with her arm and slapped the unprepared Otogiri across the face with the stack of bills.

“Blurgh!”

“Airi?!” Fuyo shouted.

“Do you realize that the money you dropped just now is worth more than all the New Year’s gifts I’ve ever gotten combined?! Do you get that? Well? Do you get that this wad of bills is literally worth more than my 17 years on this planet? And that you just threw it away like garbage? No matter how tough you might talk, you’re trash! And if I give in to someone like you, I could never face my grandfather in hell!”

“Airi, your grandfather is in hell?!” Fuyo yelped.

As Airi ranted, she continued slapping the man with the bills. He fell on his back, so she straddled him, and just continued wailing on him with that centimeter-thick block of cash.

Tears had begun to form in the corners of her eyes. Tears of anger over the unfairness, the unreasonableness of it all, and her hatred of the awful way that everything could be solved with money.

“You said money is justice, right? Then how about this?! And this?! Is this justice? Would you be satisfied being beaten with an even thicker wad of bills? Do you... do you really think this is justice?!”

Airi was deeply aware of the cruelty of this capitalistic society which infused Otogiri’s words. And yet, here she stood, heroic. Her silhouette burning in the setting sun, wielding a one-centimeter-thick stack of bills that represented more money than she’d likely ever earn in her life, she stood against the man.

She was truly the Don Quixote of her age, the first volley of a counterattack against the invisible hand that Adam Smith had once sung about. She was fighting as hard as she could.

And then, as if to praise her actions, a man’s voice reverberated across the battlefield.

“Iris. The things you do always truly surprise me.”

“Th-That voice...” Otogiri, his cheeks red from the slaps Airi had given him, let out a groan.

They heard the sound of rotorblades. They looked and saw something looming over them, high in the sky, above the buildings. Seeing it circle around in the sunset-lit buildings of Shibuya, Otogiri, then Fuyo, and then Airi each spoke in turn.

“A bird?!”

“A plane?!”

“Uh, I think it’s a helicopter...”

Then something unbelievable happened.

A man leaning out of the helicopter’s door let go, dropping casually out of it. Fuyo caught her breath, and Airi’s jaw dropped. He was in free-fall from the high sky above. What would the gravitational constant have to say about this man, who kept perfectly calm in the face of the wind resistance battering his body?

Well, it allowed him to set down lightly on the roof.

And then he spoke.

“Hey, it’s me.”

Airi was honestly offended by his insolence.

It was the young heir of the Tsuwabuki Concern, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. There were likely none among the world’s elite who did not know his name. He didn’t help with his father’s work, and whenever he had free time, he spent it driving into a virtual world. But he was not simply an idle playboy. He paid for his residence, his lifestyle, his maid, and everything else out of his own pocket.

These past two months, nearly every strange occurrence at the Thistle Corporation and in Narrow Fantasy Online had had his name behind it. Everything he’d done had started up a storm with massive collateral damage. Some people had matured from the experience, while others had ended up with headaches and ulcers. If one believed in the butterfly effect, he had probably caused more unhappiness than the reverse.

Now, today, Ichiro Tsuwabuki was descending from the skies above Shibuya. Falling faster than the setting sun, he had landed on the building’s roof and greeted them with his usual cool tone. It was such an extraordinary development that they watched the scene unfold with jaws dropped. It was Megumi who first realized that standing slack-jawed was impolite, and so she closed her mouth quickly.

“Iris, Megumi, you have both done very well,” Ichiro said. “Thank you. But please let me handle things here at the end.”

“Wh-What... Ichiro...” Fuyo stuttered.

Seeing Fuyo immediately retreat into lovey-dovey shy girl mode, Airi let out a sigh. Here at the end, huh? It sounded like the young heir really did mean to end everything here.

“I-Ichiro... Tsuwabuki...” Otogiri slapped his own cheeks and groaned in annoyance.

Airi was no longer straddling him, so at last he could stand up.

Ichiro stared at the man’s face in disbelief, and then said, in a slightly strange voice, “Are you sulking?”

“It’s swollen!”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have wasted money, then,” Ichiro replied.

Ichiro snapped his fingers, and several cans of coffee dropped out of the helicopter above. He caught the cold steel cans neatly and handed two of them to Otogiri.

The man pressed one to each of his cheeks. He looked a lot like the main character from the old folk tale Kobutori Jiisan, Airi thought.

Otogiri snapped back at Ichiro, “Wasting money? That’s funny, coming from you. You’re just as impudent as your father.”

“Nonsense. I have never once wasted my money—at least, not in my own subjective opinion. As for my impudence, I must grudgingly admit that I have it. Though I do believe I’m a bit more bearable than my father.” Ichiro spun the words out eloquently. Then he spoke again.

“Ah, but such things hardly matter.” Illuminated by the setting sun, he pulled the tab on the canned coffee, looking almost like a model in a commercial. “There’s a lot I’d like to say, but I’ll sum it up thusly: You have lost.”

“Oh?” Otogiri harrumphed, the coffee cans pressed to both cheeks. “The interruption of the erasure of the artificial intelligence... did you commission that?”

“No, the Thistle people did that on their own. I disdain them for the act as much as you do.” He wore a delighted smile.

Iris recognized it as his usual smile, though in real life, there was a slightly more delicate sensibility behind that facial expression than it had in the game. He must have been delighted that something unexpected had happened.

Airi remembered his words from the night before. The world does not exist for my sake, and that’s what makes it interesting.

But Airi wondered if it was a bit early yet for a declaration of victory. It was true that Rosemary had been saved, and the young heir’s name had been cleared. But with MiZUNO’s stock still monopolized by Pony, the people of Thistle wouldn’t escape punishment for going against Pony’s wishes.

Otogiri seemed to feel the same way. A slippery smile consumed his swollen face, and he spoke up again. “But you never actually did anything, did you? Hmm? Or are you going to pull out some kind of magic trick to make me pay?”

“I am,” Ichiro said, as lightly as could be. “Do you remember those things you were saying? That money equals justice, that you can do anything with money?”

“What about them?”

“Well, I feel the same way,” Ichiro said. “But I should offer you one word of warning. By accepting that, you must also accept the fact that money can also do anything to you. Money is power, and power betrays. Unless you can tame it.”

Ichiro snapped his fingers again. As he did, a change came over the skyline of Shibuya which spanned out before their eyes.

The displays on the four large LED screens near the Hachiko Entrance to the station changed. They now displayed graphs reflecting movements in stocks, which probably would have been boring to the young people passing over the scramble crossing. The large LEDs, with their massive circulation and booming sound, were often referred to as an “instant Shibuya-jack,” but the crowd of passersby only stopped for only a second before continuing their crossing.

“How much did you pay to use those screens?!” Airi exclaimed.

“I can’t believe you were talking about not wasting money a minute ago!” Otogiri shouted.

Fuyo seemed pleased. “Tee hee... oh, Ichiro... Telling me I did very well... you’re embarrassing me...”

“Ah, nonsense, nonsense. This is my turn right now, after all.” Ichiro wrinkled his brow very slightly at the feeling that the conversation was getting away from him. “First, a brief explanation. This is Pony’s stock. It was like this right up until 3:00 PM, when the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed for the day.”

Displayed on-screen was a list of domestic and international investors and large corporations. Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s name was not among them, though MiZUNO’s name stuck out a bit for holding about 10% of their shares.

“Now, after the day’s trading ended, I decided to buy up your stock. I believed that would make it harder for you to be on your guard. I think I took about 28% of it.”

Otogiri laughed. “So near, and yet so far. Well, it’s not a takeover bid, and by the end of trading, you didn’t have over one-third...”

Then he saw the screens’ contents change, and Otogiri’s smile froze. The cans of coffee fell from both of his hands.

“Yes, the takeover announcement will come out tomorrow,” Ichiro said. “I wasn’t especially dealing under the table, but I do think he’ll probably sell to me.”

The graph’s ratios changed dramatically. It was true that close to one-third, or in other words, 28%, was in Ichiro Tsuwabuki’s name, but the investor with close to 20% was “Eikei Fuyo.” Even Airi could tell at a glance that this was Megumi’s father.

“That... that... that dirty old fox!”

“Please refrain from insulting yourself.” Ichiro’s manner was as cool as ever as he responded to Otogiri’s helpless jawing. “All together, that’s about 50%. I can probably buy from other investors, too, which should give me a full majority. You see now, don’t you? I win. Even if President Fuyo attaches some strings to the purchase, I am still going to buy out your company. Nothing so lukewarm as being head of the board... I’m buying your company outright.”

Airi had never heard Ichiro use such combative words before. But she didn’t have long to react to it before Otogiri lashed out, frothing at the mouth. Ichiro avoided the flying spittle just by bending his upper body slightly.

“B-But it’s not over yet!” Otogiri screamed. “My company doesn’t belong to you yet!”

“Of course you’re right,” Ichiro said. “You may try to take defensive measures, if you wish. Are you going to issue more stock? I’ll buy it all up. If you want to penalize the people at Thistle, you’re free to try. Whatever you do, I’ll make it up to them.”

Ichiro snapped his fingers, and the displays on the four large LED screens suddenly changed once more. From left to right, they now read “NO,” “N,” “SE,” and “N.” A curtain dropped down from the helicopter at the end, displaying the letters “SE.”

“That’s right, it’s nonsense,” Ichiro said. “Pony, Thistle, and Megumi’s company all belong to me.”

Fuyo fainted at Airi’s side. She seemed to be falling into some happy delusion, hearing only the nice parts of what the young heir was saying.

Otogiri slumped onto his knees. As if possessed by a demon, he tore his hands through his hair, moaning in the manner of someone who could not admit he had lost.

Airi was starting to feel a little bit worried about him. They said that a cornered rat would snap at a cat, and a much larger beast might be able to take someone down with him.

But the young heir continued on, seemingly not at all concerned. “Oh, and there was one other question that I had. Judging from your actions, I suspect you have some way of finding out detailed information about things going on in the game, but I’ve heard that there was almost no real-time information sent from Thistle to Pony. I wonder how you could know the things you know.”

“Oh, that?” Otogiri stopped mussing up his hair and glanced up. “It’s because I’m a NaroFan player, too. I’ve been logging in now and then to see how things are going.”

“I see. I didn’t realize.”

“Heh heh. I really envied you... Surrounded by all those other players, enjoying the game so much... if I’d said that, would you have believed me? Would you forgive me?”

“Nonsense.”

“I thought not.” Perhaps his back had hurt from his long time writhing on the ground, because Otogiri soon stood up and dusted off his elbows and knees.

There was something Airi couldn’t figure out. From the way Otogiri was speaking, he must have been rather close to Iris and Ichiro in the game. She couldn’t ever remember meeting anyone like him, though. A player who had been nearby, watching them, but whom Airi hadn’t noticed... who could it be?

“So, what avatar were you, anyway?” she asked.

“Hah!” Otogiri grinned in response, then threw his duralumin case at them.

“Eek!” Airi shrieked.

Ichiro caught the case before it could hit her. “None of that, now...”

In that same instant, Otogiri plunged his hand into his breast pocket, pulled something out, and brought it to the ready. Airi cringed instinctively. But it was neither a gun nor a knife; it was simply a lollipop. He tore off the wrapper, which was printed with a skull mark, and as he began licking it, he screamed.

“This lollipop, you see... is coated in poison!!”

Otogiri was taken to the hospital.

Having done what he’d desired to do, his expression seemed somehow satisfied.

“Being the president of a large corporation must be really stressful...” Airi whispered as she watched the red lights of the ambulance fade away into the distance of the Shibuya streets, but her words were swallowed by the sweltering summer winds of evening.

Either way, everything was over. Miraculously, it seemed that Otogiri would pull through, but since the poison in the candy he’d licked was illegal to purchase in Japan, charges would be filed against him.

There was a huge host of problems to deal with before everything could be considered wrapped up. The truth was that Thistle had defied Pony’s directives, connected the game to the Tsuwabuki household server, and dragged a tremendous number of players into their mischief. If the press managed to learn the whole story, it would be impossible to avoid a somewhat troublesome situation. Thus, Ichiro had contacted a friend of his in the press and asked if she could perhaps write an article regarding the Rosemary incident that would skew public opinion in favor of Thistle.

The conversation had unfolded thusly:

“Sorry, but I can’t do it, Tsuwabuki. I’m a newspaper reporter, so fairness is important. You know I can’t write articles biased to one side or the other.”

“It’s for justice.”

That fired the reporter up. “Well, if it’s for justice, I don’t have a choice! Leave it to me! I’ll write up the whole story, and see to it that Thistle comes out ahead! Pony’s board of directors is going down!”

One way or another, beginning tomorrow, the irresponsible public at large was going to find it utterly unacceptable that Pony should stay in charge of Thistle.

Ichiro ended the call, then sighed.

“Was that the one from your detective agency?” Airi asked.

“Yes. Somei. I mentioned a newspaper reporter with more passion than good sense, didn’t I?”

Airi scowled a bit at his response. “Passion, huh? Are you sure you should leave her at large?”

“I am not,” Ichiro said. “Shaga and I both agree that if Japanese culture ends up on the decline, Somei’s articles will surely be the cause.”

But while Yoshino Somei was severely lacking in common sense, her passion and her skill as a writer were real. Altogether, she wasn’t a tremendously reliable ally, but if you incorporated the word “justice” into your proposal, it wasn’t hard to get her on your side.

“I’m starting to realize that the word ‘justice’ can be a dangerous one...” Airi murmured.

“Well, we can have a philosophical debate about that another time. For today, let’s dismiss. It’s already night, after all.” The sun had gone down while Ichiro was making his various wrap-up calls. Ichiro and Airi had been talking while standing in front of the office building, gazing at the Shibuya scenery. Fuyo had shown no signs of awakening from her blissful slumber, so they had put her to bed on the office sofa.

There was no sign of waning among the crowds of people passing over Shibuya’s scramble crossing. The four enormous LED screens still read “NONSEN”; the “SE” had left with the helicopter.

“Ah, that’s right. Give this back to that guy.” Airi handed a stack of bills to Ichiro.

“He gave them to you. You might as well take them.”

“Listen, you,” Airi said hotly. “Let me tell you something about money. It’s only a precious commodity because you acquire it with the sweat off your brow. I mean, to be totally honest, I do want it... thanks to the offline meetup, I probably won’t be able to afford anything new from the fall collections... Fuyo’s taking me to TGC, and, Ahh, I’m sure I’m going to run into a day when I’ll really wish I’d taken it, but... well, you know?”

“I see. I’ll return it to him, then.” Before she could change her mind, Ichiro slipped the bundle into his breast pocket.

Airi’s expression changed slightly, and she seemed about to say something more, but she bit it back, shook her head, and at last slapped her cheeks lightly and nodded. Either way, it seemed she had fought back her temptation.

Later, Ichiro and Airi were drinking the canned coffee he had brought with him in the helicopter, gazing at the Shibuya crowds. The canned coffee was a new product set to be released next month, which he had received from a food and drink conglomerate when he was buying up Pony’s stock. He had taste-tested it, liked it quite a lot, and bought them on the spot.

How much time had they spent like this? Amidst the crowds of people walking to and fro, Ichiro and Airi alone stood stock-still. There was a sense that they had been left behind by the flow of time.

Airi at last spoke up. “Are you quitting NaroFan?”

“Mm.” Ichiro turned to look at Airi. She continued to look forward rather than trying to return his gaze, can of coffee in her hands. Ichiro looked away again from her profile, which threatened to blend into the night’s darkness, and responded. “I am.”

“I see.”

Buying up Pony, Inc. meant that he was now the chief operator of Narrow Fantasy Online. To him, it was as if the continent of Asgard now belonged to him alone. Ichiro didn’t want a world that belonged only to him. That was nonsense. Therefore, he would quit. He had made that decision, and he was prepared to see it through.

After a long period of silence, Airi continued, “I guess that follows, huh?”

“Yes, it follows.”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll never see each other again, though.”

“That’s true. We can meet up any time we wish.”

What was Airi trying to say? What were the words she was seeking from Ichiro? Ichiro Tsuwabuki was not so slow-witted that he could not guess. But Ichiro would not say those words. Airi surely knew that, as well. Here at the eleventh hour, Ichiro could not compromise the sort of person he was in order to be kind.

In the end, Airi never asked for that, either.

“I should go,” she said, her words surprisingly decisive.

“Take care on your way home.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that... oh, that’s right.”

“Hmm?”

Airi seemed to have remembered something. Ichiro looked at her curiously. She said, “I’ve been wanting to say it since yesterday, but I kept forgetting.”

“Oh?”

“That.” She pointed to Ichiro’s lapel.

It was the accessory that he wore without fail any time he left the house: a slightly tacky silverware brooch in the shape of a butterfly. It sat stock-still upon his lapel, its wings spread proudly in a beautiful contrast of blue and yellow.

Without even smiling, Airi continued. “That made me kinda happy.”

“Mm,” Ichiro said.

“That’s all. So long!” With those last words, Airi spun on her heel and ran off into the crowd.

Ichiro didn’t try to stop her, and he was sure that Airi didn’t want to be stopped. He cast a glance at the butterfly brooch shining on his lapel, drank down the rest of his canned coffee, then looked up at the night sky. Unlike the continent of Asgard, there were not many stars in the sky of Tokyo.

Ichiro pulled out his cell phone and placed a call.

“Oh, hello. Sakurako-san? Yes, everything’s finished. I’m heading home now.”