"Let go of me! Do you have any idea who I am?! I'm the president of Sumitomo Bank! I'll have every last one of you fired!"
Nobody spared him a glance.
Kensaku Anzai was dragged through the ground-floor lobby like a carcass, every pair of eyes in the building locked on him. The entire bank fell silent. Tellers froze mid-transaction. Customers forgot what they'd been doing. All of them stared at the man who, until minutes ago, had lorded over them from on high.
Now he shuffled past in handcuffs, wretched as a stray dog.
Those stares drove into him like needles, hundreds of them, and he felt himself being stripped bare in front of everyone he'd ever commanded.
Blood rushed to his face.
As the officers shoved him into the back of a waiting car, one thought cut through the panic.
Hiroaki!
Hiroaki Yukinoshita!
He wrenched his head around and screamed at his secretary, who stood frozen among the gawking crowd, her face drained of color.
"Get Hiroaki! Contact him now! Tell him to get me out! GET ME OUT!"
The words barely left his mouth before an officer seized his head and forced him down into the vehicle.
The secretary snapped back to life, fumbled her phone from her pocket, and ducked into an empty corridor to dial Hiroaki Yukinoshita's number.
...
...
At the same time, in her office.
Haruno Yukinoshita turned on the television, skimming the morning news. Her expression was casual, the daily ritual of gathering information, nothing more.
Then the screen cut to black for a split second.
[BREAKING NEWS]
"Hm?"
She sat up straighter.
A shaky camera filled the screen, footage shot on the run, jerking wildly. Through the chaos, the Sumitomo Bank building was unmistakable.
"Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news!" The female reporter's voice crackled with barely contained excitement. "Kensaku Anzai, president of Sumitomo Bank's Chiba branch, was taken into custody this morning by the Special Investigation Division in a surprise raid! We've captured exclusive footage of the arrest!"
Haruno's eyes widened.
On screen, Anzai stumbled forward in handcuffs, officers flanking him as he was bundled into a vehicle.
What is going on?
She stared at the television, stunned.
Yesterday, Kensaku Anzai had sat at the top of the food chain. Today he was a prisoner.
Her mind raced.
Political enemies? A business rival? An internal power struggle at headquarters?
Possibilities flickered through her thoughts and were discarded one by one.
It was too fast. Too sudden. Too clean.
A man's voice surfaced in her mind.
Seiji Fujiwara.
Could it be...?
The thought sent a chill down her spine.
But that's impossible. This is Chiba, not Tokyo. Anzai is a bank president, not some figure in entertainment or publishing or pharma. Seiji shouldn't have any leverage over him.
And yet. If not Seiji, then who?
Haruno sat in silence for a long time. Then she picked up her phone and dialed.
One ring.
"We only just parted ways. Miss me already?" Seiji's voice came through warm and teasing the instant the call connected.
Haruno pressed her fingers to her temple.
If she could have avoided hearing this man's voice, she would have.
"About that..." She sighed, choosing her words. "I'm watching the news. President Anzai..."
"That was me."
No hesitation. He admitted it outright, a quiet laugh in his voice.
"Your loan will be approved shortly."
So it really was him.
Haruno's pupils contracted. She drew a slow, careful breath.
He'd had a bank president detained. Just like that.
The sheer reach of it left her unsettled in a way she couldn't quite name.
---
The holding cell was small and bare.
Since the prosecutors had hauled him from his office, Kensaku Anzai had been locked in here. No one questioned him. No one spoke to him. They'd tossed him inside and left him alone, letting fear and uncertainty gnaw at his nerves inch by inch, like venom spreading through a wound.
He wasn't some green recruit who'd never seen trouble. Half a lifetime in the financial world had weathered him against every kind of storm.
He recognized the tactic. The deliberate isolation, the silence, the waiting. Textbook psychological warfare designed to crack his composure before the real interrogation began.
But this time, he couldn't keep his hands from shaking.
Because Seiji Fujiwara's final words looped through his skull like a curse he couldn't break.
"I sincerely hope you'll all still be laughing tomorrow morning."
He wasn't laughing now.
No. Stop. Don't psych yourself out.
Anzai slapped his own cheeks, hard, trying to force himself back to reason.
This has to be a bluff. So he found out about the villa. That kind of dirt isn't remotely enough to mobilize the district prosecutors' office. This is someone else's move. One of Hiroaki's political enemies, taking advantage of the timing. That's all this is.
Yes. It has to be.
He built the argument in his mind, brick by desperate brick. Because right now, every shred of hope he had rested on one man: Hiroaki Yukinoshita. The moment his secretary got the message through, Hiroaki's political connections in Chiba would have him out within the hour.
And when I'm free, I'll make Seiji Fujiwara and that Haruno girl pay a hundredfold.
The thought worked like a shot of adrenaline, steadying his racing pulse just enough.
Anzai forced himself calm. He sat. He waited.
For his lawyer, or someone Hiroaki had sent, to walk through that door with good news.
He was certain this was a minor setback. Once Hiroaki intervened, everything would resolve itself.
Time crawled.
The clock on the wall ticked, each second a small, maddening percussion.
An hour. Maybe two. He'd lost track.
When his endurance was at its limit, footsteps finally echoed outside.
The small window in the iron door slid open. His lawyer's face appeared behind it, familiar but distorted with anxiety.
"Tsukishima-san!"
Anzai launched off the chair and rushed to the door. "What's happening? Did Hiroaki send you? Can I leave?"
Questions spilled out in a torrent, his eyes desperate with hope.
The answer hit him like a bucket of ice water poured over his head.
"President Anzai..." The lawyer's voice was bone-dry. "It's bad."
"What?!" His heart lurched. "Hiroaki abandoned me?"
"No." The lawyer's voice trembled. "He couldn't help you if he wanted to. He's been taken in himself."
"Shortly after your arrest, Hiroaki Yukinoshita was brought in by the prosecutors' office on charges of illegal political donations and insider trading."
"And it doesn't stop there." The lawyer drew a shuddering breath, fear plain on his face.
"President Saeki at Mitsui Bank has been called in by the Financial Services Agency over an unauthorized loan from ten years ago. Vice President Watanabe at Mitsubishi UFJ had evidence of his kept mistress and hidden asset transfers sent directly to his company's internal compliance department. He's already been suspended pending investigation."
"City Councilman Tanaka. Director Suzuki of the Chiba Port Authority. Almost everyone who was drinking with you at that restaurant last night was hit at nearly the same time. Prosecutors, prefectural police, one agency or another, all armed with different charges, every single one backed by hard evidence. Summons, detentions, raids."
With each name the lawyer spoke, another shade of color drained from Anzai's face.
By the last name, there was none left at all.
Mitsui. Mitsubishi. Tanaka. Suzuki.
Every name represented a deeply entrenched node in Chiba's political and financial web. Together, they formed what was supposed to be an unbreakable alliance.
And overnight, every last one of them had been gutted.
"...Seiji Fujiwara?"
Anzai sagged into his chair, whispering the name. Bloodless.
"Almost certainly." The lawyer nodded, his expression bitter.
Cold sweat soaked through Anzai's shirt.
He understood now. What Seiji had meant on that phone call.
The target had never been Kensaku Anzai alone.
It was the entire alliance. The whole entrenched, supposedly untouchable network.
And the weapon deployed against them was the full weight of the state's enforcement apparatus.
What Seiji held wasn't some amateur dirt about a single villa.
It was comprehensive, prosecution-ready evidence on every single one of them. Enough to bury them all.
A strangled sound escaped Anzai's throat.
He and his alliance, in front of a monster like that, had been laughably fragile. Tissue paper pretending to be a wall.
They hadn't even qualified as opponents.
And he, Kensaku Anzai, had been the chicken slaughtered to frighten the monkeys.
The memory of his own arrogance on that phone call crashed over him, and despair filled every corner of his being.
"It's over..."
His eyes went hollow. The words fell from his lips on a loop, barely conscious.
"It's over..."
...
...
Anzai lost track of how long he sat in that cell.
All he knew was that after his mental defenses collapsed completely, the stone-faced prosecutors finally began their work. Round after round of high-intensity interrogation.
Confronted with evidence he'd believed was hidden beyond anyone's reach, Anzai had no room to resist. He answered every question put to him.
One thought drove him: full cooperation. Leniency in sentencing.
He didn't even dare hope for acquittal.
A few fewer years. That was all he could pray for.
After signing the last page of his confession, Anzai slumped in the interrogation chair like a sponge wrung dry.
The door opened.
His lawyer walked in.
But this time, the man's face carried neither shock nor panic. In their place was an expression so strange and complex it defied easy reading.
"Anzai-san." The lawyer's voice was hoarse. "You're free to go."
"...What?" Anzai jerked his head up, certain he'd misheard. "Go? Go where?"
"Home." The lawyer kept it brief. "The order came from above. They're dropping it."
Dropping it?
His brain stalled again.
He'd just signed a stack of confessions thick enough to guarantee he'd die in prison. But looking at his lawyer's face, utterly sincere, he tumbled into a chaos so vast and absurd it swallowed rational thought whole.
What the hell is happening?
"Someone... got me out?" he ventured.
"In a manner of speaking." The lawyer nodded, then leaned close to Anzai's ear and spoke in a voice laced with something close to reverence. "Just moments ago, I received a call from someone claiming to be Fujiwara-san's secretary."
Fujiwara... san?
Anzai's entire body jerked as though he'd been shocked.
"He asked me to relay a message." The lawyer inhaled deeply, then repeated it word for word.
"Our employer says: Anzai-san is being given one chance to make the right choice. If he makes the correct decision, he may yet live to see tomorrow's sunrise."
Anzai's face drained white.
He understood instantly.
The arrest had been a demonstration. A show of force. The chicken killed in front of every monkey in Chiba.
And now, releasing him served a different purpose: turning a broken piece into a useful one.
This wasn't mercy. This wasn't "dropping the charges."
This was a leash being fitted around his neck.
"I'll choose! I choose! I'll make the right decision!"
Anzai seized his lawyer's hands like a drowning man clutching driftwood, words tumbling out in a frantic mess.
"Tell Fujiwara-san I was wrong! I know I was wrong! The loan! Yukinoshita Construction's loan! I'll approve it immediately! Zero interest! No, I'll increase it! Two billion yen more! Seven billion total!"
"Please, tell Fujiwara-san to spare my life!"
His voice was pure, naked begging. A dog groveling at its master's feet.
Every scrap of dignity a bank president might claim had been incinerated.
...
...
In her office.
Haruno had only just recovered from her morning call with Seiji, and it had taken the entire first half of the day for her nerves to settle.
Then, that afternoon, her phone rang.
The caller ID made her blink.
Anzai?
That old bastard was detained this morning. They've let him out already?
She thought for a moment. She trusted Seiji. She answered.
"Miss Haruno! Good afternoon! Ahaha!"
The voice that poured through the speaker was one she recognized and yet barely knew. The same man, wearing an entirely different skin.
"It's me! Kensaku Anzai!"
The tone dripped with a fawning, groveling quality she had never once heard from him.
"About the loan, it was my fault! I was blind! I'm lower than dirt!" His voice quivered with servility. "On top of the five billion you originally applied for, I'm adding two billion more! Seven billion total! Zero interest! No collateral!"
"You can come to the bank whenever you like. I'll personally handle the paperwork!"
Listening to Kensaku Anzai grovel through the phone, Haruno's mind blanked for the second time that day.
Seven billion yen.
Zero interest.
No collateral.
Her thoughts circled back, inevitably, to one person.
Already? One morning. That's all it took to break Anzai completely.
Seiji Fujiwara... what terrifying power.
A storm raged behind her calm exterior.
Outwardly, she kept her voice even. "Very well, President Anzai. I'll come by this afternoon."
"Yes, yes! I'll be waiting for you!" Anzai's reply tumbled out, eager and breathless.
"Then we'll leave it at that." Haruno ended the call.
The composure she'd held cracked the instant the line went dead. Shock broke through, plain on her face.
...
Meanwhile.
Elsewhere in Chiba, an unremarkable black sedan rolled through the streets.
Hiroaki Yukinoshita sat in the back seat, having also been "invited for tea" and released, though the experience had shaved years off his life. He stared at nothing, his soul barely tethered to his body.
Behind his eyes, the evidence the prosecutors had laid out replayed on an endless loop.
His hand shook as he pulled out his phone and dialed.
"It's me. The plan is off."
"All operations against Yukinoshita Construction are to cease immediately."
"Until we determine the exact nature of Haruno's relationship with Seiji Fujiwara, nobody moves. Nobody."
He hung up and watched the cityscape blur past the window, his eyes dark with a wariness that bordered on dread.
[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]