The audiovisual room became both their sanctuary and their cell. For two days, Kenjiro and Haruna met there, the projector's light displaying corporate power charts or a labyrinth of legal statutes. Kenjiro, in his element, traced lines of digital and legal influence. Haruna, with brutal pragmatism, pointed out human weaknesses and corrupt loyalties.
They formed a strangely effective team, but they were crashing against the same wall.
"It's a legal fortress, Kenjiro," Haruna said, pointing to a document on the screen. "There are no cracks. Ishikawa's lawyers used the city's power like a battering ram. It's all... disgustingly legal."
"I know," Kenjiro replied, running a hand through his hair. "Every file confirms it. I've checked every transaction, every permit issued in the last five years. It's hermetically sealed."
He leaned back in his chair, the weight of defeat crushing his newfound bravery. He had stepped up only to discover he was standing at the edge of a cliff. Yui trusted him. And he was going to fail her.
That was when the classroom door opened.
Hikari Akihiko entered, juggling a stack of books that threatened to collapse. He seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
"Oh! I'm sorry," he said, jumping slightly, which caused the top book to slide. "I didn't know anyone was here. I was just looking for a quiet place to... Watch out!"
The book hit the floor with a loud thud. As he crouched to pick it up, his gaze landed on the projector screen.
"The expropriation of Commercial Block 4," he said, more to himself than to them.
Haruna stood up, her posture instantly defensive. "What do you know about that?"
Hikari straightened up, clutching the book to his chest like a shield. "Nothing. I just... read about it in the local news. It's for Tanaka-san's shop, right? The flower girl."
Kenjiro nodded, too demoralized to feel panic.
Hikari stood there, looking as if he didn't know whether to leave or stay. Finally, he spoke.
"Sorry for listening... but... you're looking at the problem the wrong way."
Haruna crossed her arms. "Oh, really? Enlighten us, you idiot genius. What is the right way?"
Hikari seemed not to notice the sarcasm.
"You are analyzing the fortress. Its walls, its defenses, its current protocols. That's why you can't find any weaknesses. You are trying to attack the system as it is now," he pointed to the document on the screen. "You should be looking for the system as it was."
Kenjiro looked up, a spark of interest in his tired eyes. "What do you mean?"
"A building isn't built on thin air," Hikari explained. "It's built on land. And that land has a history. Ancient laws, forgotten ordinances, easements that no one has checked in decades. You're analyzing the last five years. You should be analyzing the last fifty."
Haruna stared at him. "And suddenly the clumsy exchange student is a legal strategist? What's your angle, Akihiko? Why do you care?"
Hikari turned to look at her. For the first time, he didn't look away. His expression was no longer that of a clueless clown. It was serene, deep, and strangely old.
"Such a flagrant imbalance..." he said softly. "Such immense power used to crush something so small and innocent... it offends the natural order of things. I see it as an equation that has been forced to yield an incorrect result. And I feel the need to correct it."
Kenjiro felt a chill. He wasn't just talking about laws. Haruna, for her part, felt that same sensation she had in the cafeteria: that of standing before something vast and calm, hidden beneath a deceptive surface.
"Fifty years of municipal archives?" Kenjiro said. "That's... terabytes of information. Maps, decrees, council minutes. It would take weeks, months, just to sort through it."
"Not if you know what to look for," Hikari replied. "And not if you have the right tools to process it."
He headed toward the door, then stopped and looked back at them. It was a point of no return.
"My house. Tonight. I have the necessary resources. And a pretty decent internet connection."
He left the room, leaving a computer genius and a social strategist in stunned silence. They looked at each other. The idea was insane. Trusting the walking anomaly who had turned their world upside down was an incalculable risk.
But he was the only variable that had managed to break the system.
"I guess we have a new direction," Haruna said finally, with a sigh that was half exasperation, half an emotion she didn't dare name.
Kenjiro nodded, closing his laptop. For the first time in days, the probability of failure was no longer one hundred percent.
Although Hikari had told them to go to his home, he took the first step in the opposite direction: toward the Tanaka Flower Shop. Yui guided them through the city streets at dusk. Haruna walked with impassive confidence; Kenjiro, with his head down, as if fearing even the asphalt might betray him. Hikari, meanwhile, observed the city's flow with a calmness that seemed out of place.
The shop was a small oasis of life in the middle of the concrete jungle. Yui's parents welcomed them with a mixture of hospitality and caution.
"School friends?" asked Mr. Tanaka, wiping his hands on a soil-stained apron.
Yui didn't know how to answer. Were they friends? They barely knew each other.
It was Hikari who stepped forward. He gave a precise bow.
"Tanaka-sama. My name is Hikari Akihiko. We have not come to offer you false hope, but to ask for your trust. We know what the Ishikawa Conglomerate is doing. And we believe there is a way to stop them."
Mrs. Tanaka shook her head, a silent tear rolling down her cheek. "Son, we have spoken to lawyers. They told us there is nothing to be done. It is legal."
"The current law is their weapon," Hikari agreed. "That is why we must not fight on their battlefield. Ishikawa's strength is new, built on steel and recent contracts. Your family's strength is ancient, built on the land and history. New fortresses are loud, but old foundations are deep."
His words captured Mr. Tanaka's attention. Hikari had addressed him not as a businessman, but as the custodian of a legacy.
"To find the solution," Hikari continued, "we don't need to look at Ishikawa's blueprints. We need to look at yours. We need every document you have. Not just current deeds. Everything. Inheritance papers, old building permits, tax records from your grandparents, anything that goes back to the founding of this shop. The answer lies not in their strength, but in your roots."
There was a long silence. Mr. Tanaka studied the face of the young man before him. He saw a seriousness that belied his age, a confidence born not of arrogance, but of deep knowledge. He looked at Kenjiro, who nodded with a shyness that was strangely reassuring, and at Haruna, whose fierce gaze seemed to say, I won't let them trample us.
Finally, the man sighed. "My wife and I... we have nothing left to lose. Wait here."
He returned minutes later with a worn wooden box. Inside was a jumble of yellowed papers and folders tied with faded ribbons. His family's history, reduced to paper and ink.
"Our whole life is in here. Please... be careful."
Hikari took the box with both hands, as if receiving a sacred object. "We will treat it as if it were our own. Thank you for your trust."
The address Hikari had given them didn't lead to an apartment complex, but to an old, quiet neighborhood. They stopped in front of an imposing solid wood gate, set into a wall that seemed to surround the entire block.
"Is this a joke?" Haruna muttered.
"My parents... were historians," Hikari said simply, as if that explained everything.
They didn't enter a house. They entered a world. A gravel path wound through a meticulously tended garden, where a red-leaved Japanese maple leaned over a koi pond.
The main house was a traditional dark wood residence, with wide eaves and sliding doors. Its size was overwhelming. In the distance, at the back of the property, they could make out the silhouette of a second building, smaller and more austere, with the unmistakable shape of a dojo.
Kenjiro felt like he had walked into a glitch in the matrix. The data didn't add up. The clumsy exchange student with no history lived on a property worth more than the entire Ketsueki board of directors.
Hikari guided them to a large room. The contrast hit them again. The space was traditional, with tatami mats on the floor and framed calligraphy on the wall, but in the center was a massive low table surrounded by equipment that would make the academy's computer lab weep with envy. Multiple monitors, rack-mounted servers humming silently, and a high-definition projector aimed at a blank wall.
He placed the Tanaka's wooden box in the center of the table; it was an artifact from the last century amidst the technology of tomorrow.
"Right. This is where we start. Kenjiro, I need you to digitize every page of these documents. Use the high-resolution scanner. Create a database with text recognition and cross-reference by date and keyword."
Kenjiro, snapped out of his stupor by the clarity of the command, nodded; it was impossible for him to refuse such equipment.
"Haruna," Hikari continued, turning toward her. "I need your perspective. While the documents are scanning, we will review the development plans for this district from the last seventy years. I want you to look for patterns, names, political connections. Anything that seems out of place."
His tone wasn't that of a classmate. It was that of a general deploying his troops.
"And you, what are you going to do?" Haruna asked, crossing her arms, halfway between shock and defiance.
Hikari sat down in the lotus position. "I am going to read."
He closed his eyes for an instant. The war for the Tanaka family flower shop had begun, not with a shout, but with the silent hum of a scanner and the rustle of old paper.