November 16, 1990, Friday.
Bunkyo Ward, Saionji Main Family Residence. First-floor side parlor.
The afternoon sun had grown thin.
The shoji door was half-open; someone was sweeping fallen leaves at the end of the corridor.
The sound of a bamboo broom scraping against the stone path traveled from a distance, absorbed for the most part by the heavy air inside the room.
Satsuki sat cross-legged in front of the low table by the window.
Spread out before her was a hardcover French edition of La Porte Étroite, with the golden Kinokuniya book label affixed to the title page.
Sunlight slanted in from the floor-to-ceiling window, casting a warm patch of light onto the pages.
Her posture was languid as she casually turned the book to page thirty-seven.
Chizuru Matsumuro stood one and a half steps to the right of the low table.
She was wearing a dark gray collarless short jacket today, paired with a white high-necked knit sweater underneath, her hair pulled back into a low bun.
Her hands were folded in front of her, her gaze slightly lowered, and even her breathing was barely audible.
The side parlor was so quiet that only the sound of turning pages and the occasional sound of the bamboo broom from outside could be heard.
Just then, footsteps came from the corridor.
The rhythm was steady and even, making a regular soft sound as they stepped on the wooden floorboards.
It was Fujita Tsuyoshi.
He stopped at the entrance to the side parlor and bowed slightly.
"My Lady."
Satsuki did not look up.
Her fingers pinched the corner of the page, flipping to page thirty-eight.
"The travel documents are ready."
Fujita took a dark blue plastic folder from his briefcase and stepped into the side parlor.
"Three passports, visas attached. Soviet invitation letter, Academy of Sciences visit letter, humanitarian donation list, Intourist reception route—"
He walked toward the low table.
Then, at a position two steps away from Chizuru—without any warning.
Fujita's right hand suddenly sprang out from under the briefcase.
The folder was backhanded toward Chizuru's face, followed immediately by his entire body.
His one-meter-eighty-two frame exploded with acceleration in an instant, compressing the air with a low, muffled thud, his right palm striking directly at the side of Chizuru's neck in a chopping motion.
The force was serious.
The speed was serious.
If it hit, the collarbone would break.
Chizuru's body had already moved the moment the folder flew in front of her.
She did not retreat.
Her head tilted slightly, the folder flying past her earlobe, the airflow from its tail blowing a stray lock of hair at her temple.
In the same instant, her left foot slid forward half a step, moving closer toward Fujita instead.
Fujita's chop missed.
She was too close; she slid inside his attack arc, so close that her shoulder almost brushed his chest.
At this distance, Fujita's reach advantage was nullified.
In this gap, Chizuru completed two movements: first, her five fingers clamped onto the inside of the wrist of Fujita's chopping arm; second, her left elbow flipped upward, aiming for his ribs in an extremely short arc.
Fujita's body voluntarily retreated half a step; upon sensing the trajectory of the elbow strike, he immediately performed a tactical withdrawal.
At the same time, his left hand had already scooped up from below, attempting to grab the elbow joint of Chizuru's extended arm.
Five fingers closed.
He grabbed nothing.
Chizuru's elbow had already been retracted before it could be grabbed.
Her entire center of gravity shifted from her left foot to her right, her body flowing out of Fujita's reach like water, moving to his left side.
There were no superfluous movements; almost every displacement was accurate to the centimeter, as if measured by a ruler.
Fujita's turning speed was also very fast.
His right foot stepped across, re-orienting his body to face Chizuru.
His left palm reached forward, his right hand retracted to his waist, setting up a standard close-quarters combat stance, and he threw a straight punch along the shortest distance.
Chizuru did not dodge.
She stepped forward to meet the fist.
At the moment the fist was about to touch her collarbone, the heel of her right palm supported the bottom of Fujita's fist from below.
Her palm heel did not take the hit head-on but, following the direction of his punch, pushed upward at a very slight angle.
The fist deviated by three centimeters.
The wind of the punch grazed over her shoulder.
After Fujita's punch was deflected, he did not pause.
His next move was a direct right knee strike, utilizing the height difference to aim straight for Chizuru's abdomen.
Chizuru immediately withdrew her palm and rotated her body ninety degrees to the right.
Fujita's knee grazed her side again, but her right hand took the opportunity to land on the outside of his thigh above the knee, using the leverage to spring her body further away, opening up the distance.
She landed exactly to the rear-left of Satsuki.
Satsuki was still reading, having turned to page forty-one.
She even reached out and picked up her cup of black tea, taking a sip.
The temperature was just right.
The distance between Fujita and Chizuru had returned to three steps.
Both of their breathing was slightly heavier—but only slightly, more like they had climbed a flight of stairs rather than having experienced a life-or-death struggle.
Fujita's tie was crooked by half an inch, and there was a new crease in his shirt collar.
Two strands of hair had come loose from Chizuru's low bun, hanging by the side of her neck.
Other than that, everything in the side parlor was as if nothing had happened.
The low table had not shifted, the teacup had not tipped, and not even the pages of the book had been disturbed by the wind.
Satsuki remained seated at that low table; within a half-meter radius around her, the air was absolutely still.
The two of them, one in front and one behind, one attacking and one defending, treated the entire side parlor as a battlefield, yet they did not let a single ripple of their struggle touch within that radius.
Fujita stepped forward half a step again.
This time his attack was faster—his right hand chopped horizontally, and his left hand simultaneously flanked from below, forming a scissor-like strangulation pincer from above and below.
Chizuru's method of response changed.
She did not move close, nor did she retreat.
Her right foot stepped back a small step, and her body leaned back slightly—it was this angle of leaning back that allowed Fujita's hand-chop to sweep past three centimeters from the tip of her nose.
Then her hands moved simultaneously.
Her left hand slapped Fujita's right arm from the outside, using a deft force to deflect the trajectory of that hand-chop to the right.
Her right hand's five fingers simultaneously grabbed Fujita's left wrist as it flanked from below.
Her fingers embedded into the gap of the wrist joint, her thumb pressing precisely into the depression of the radial styloid process.
Fujita's body was controlled and pulled by this tiny joint, his center of gravity tilting forward for a moment.
That moment was enough.
Chizuru took advantage of the momentum to twist his arm outward half a turn—not using force, just twisting the wrist to a critical angle where "any further movement would cause a dislocation."
Fujita's footsteps halted.
He knew what this angle meant.
Half an inch more of rotation, and the carpal bone would slip out of the joint socket.
The two of them maintained this posture.
Chizuru's right hand controlled Fujita's left wrist.
Fujita's right hand hung in mid-air, the hand-chop posture not yet fully retracted.
Their breathing intertwined.
The side parlor was quiet for three seconds.
A very light sound of applause.
It was Satsuki.
She closed the book in her hands, folded her hands on the cover, and clapped lightly.
"That is enough."
Chizuru's fingers loosened.
The five fingers withdrew from Fujita's wrist joint in order: little finger, ring finger... finally the thumb.
Fujita's arm retracted to his side.
He flexed his wrist and stepped back half a step.
The two people's combat stances dissolved simultaneously.
Chizuru lowered her hands, folding them in front of her again.
Her breathing returned to steady within three seconds.
She turned slightly, bowing her head toward Satsuki.
Fujita straightened his crooked tie and raised his hand to smooth out the crease in his shirt collar.
Then he bent down and picked up the dark blue folder he had previously thrown, from the tatami mat two steps away.
He patted the non-existent dust off the cover and handed it to Chizuru with both hands.
"Travel documents."
Chizuru also took the folder with both hands.
"Understood."
Satsuki leaned back against the chair, her fingers slowly tracing the rim of her teacup.
She turned her head, glanced at Chizuru, then glanced at Fujita.
The corners of her mouth twitched slightly.
"Not bad."
Only two words.
It was unclear who she was evaluating; perhaps both were within the scope of the evaluation.
Fujita retreated to the door.
He leaned against the doorframe, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.
His gaze fell on Chizuru and lingered for two seconds.
His wrist bone still retained a faint, dull ache.
In terms of pure strength, Chizuru was completely inferior to him, but that suppression point was chosen too accurately.
The depression of the radial styloid process is the most vulnerable fulcrum of the entire wrist joint.
Someone with more strength but whose angle was off by two millimeters would actually be less dangerous than her.
Chizuru, as if nothing had happened, stood back in the position one and a half steps to the right of Satsuki with her eyes lowered.
Fujita withdrew his gaze.
He silently revised a judgment in his heart—entrusting the close-protection security in Moscow to her was indeed more suitable than his own people.
The side parlor returned to quiet.
Only the sound of the bamboo broom scraping the stone slab outside and the subtle sound of Satsuki reopening the pages of her book remained.
Satsuki took a sip of tea; the temperature was just right.
Then—"Make way, make way—!"
A flurry of rapid footsteps came from the depths of the corridor.
The "patter-patter" sound of slipper soles rubbing against the wooden floor grew closer, moving as fast as if she were running.
Emi appeared.
Her hands were clutching a bulky, silver-gray suitcase so tightly that she had to turn sideways to squeeze through the doorframe of the side parlor.
The suitcase's zipper was stretched to its limit, the sides bulging, revealing several different colored wires and the handle of a yellow screwdriver from the gap that had not been zipped shut.
Carrying that suitcase, she stumbled into the room and placed it on the tatami mat.
The weight of the suitcase hitting the floor caused a depression in the straw surface of the tatami.
"I am here—!" Emi wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, squatting down with a flushed face to open the suitcase.
The contents inside looked like they had been through a small explosion.
Three boxes of 3.5-inch floppy disks were crammed crookedly in the corner; the plastic cover of one of them had pried open, revealing the floppy disk inside labeled "MIPS_ref_v3.2."
A gray-white Toshiba T3200SX portable computer was wrapped in a towel and stuffed in the middle, the power adapter cord tangled around its lid.
Beside it was an oscilloscope probe, its metal clip exposed, almost poking into a stack of paper next to it.
That stack of paper was a MIPS R3000 instruction set manual photocopied from the Todai library, its corners already curled.
Beside it were two hardcover textbooks—"Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" and "Introduction to VLSI Systems," with the barcode of the Todai Faculty of Engineering library stuck on their spines.
There was even a soldering iron lying diagonally at the bottom of the case.
A 30-watt Hakko brand, with a trace of burnt rosin still remaining on the iron tip.
Scattered nearby was a roll of solder wire, a pack of spare soldering tips, an anti-static wrist strap, and six or seven different types of adapter plugs—Japanese flat pins, German round pins, British three-pin square holes, and two homemade converters she had potted with epoxy resin herself.
Chizuru looked at the opened suitcase without saying a word.
Satsuki leaned against the low table, resting her face in one hand, and glanced at that silver-gray suitcase.
Ah, it was the same last time we went to America, taking a bunch of messy things... has she not changed this habit yet?
"Chizuru, help her pack it up."
"Once we get there, the things in the room could be searched at any time." Satsuki took a sip of black tea, the rim of the cup obscuring half her face. "Do not let them confiscate Emi's treasures as espionage equipment."
"Yes."
Chizuru walked to Emi's suitcase and knelt down.
"Ms. Suzuki, pardon me."
She reached out and pulled the Hakko soldering iron from the middle of the tangled cables.
Then, for the oscilloscope probe with the exposed metal clip, she found the anti-static wrist strap from the bottom of the case and wrapped the clip with it.
"Ah—!" Emi's body sprang up instantly.
She lunged over, shielding the soldering iron with both hands, lying flat on the tatami.
"No! That is very important! Do you know that soldering tips of that precision cannot be bought in Moscow at all—"
"Ms. Suzuki, this is My Lady's instruction." Chizuru's voice remained flat. Her hands did not stop, continuing to separate the tangled adapter plugs by specification. "I will not break them, so please rest assured."
Emi lay on the floor, still shielding the soldering iron, her eyes fixed on Chizuru's hands.
Hearing the words "My Lady", she immediately wilted.
She wanted to ask Satsuki for help but found Satsuki holding her black tea, watching her with a half-smile.
In this situation, there was usually no room for negotiation.
It was forbidden to disobey Satsuki-chan.
She let go of the soldering iron and instead squatted to watch.
Resting her forehead against her knees, she let out a tiny whine, like a cat that had its tail stepped on but had no choice but to submit.
"By the way, who are you?"