Minato Ward, Tokyo. Matsuura Construction Headquarters, President's Office.
The black landline on the desk shrilled like a death knell, its piercing ring exploding through the spacious office.
Matsuura's eyes were bloodshot. His face had gone a dull gray from weeks of sleep deprivation and mounting anxiety.
The phone rang for a long time before he seemed to register it. His thick right hand shot out and seized the receiver.
"Hello! This is Matsuura!" His voice came out as a raw rasp.
"President Matsuura. This is the Credit Department at Chiba Bank's Head Office." The loan officer's tone was flat. "Regarding the seven ongoing projects in Minato Ward and the related stock accounts your company pledged as collateral: due to recent market fluctuations, the net value has dropped significantly below the warning threshold specified in your contract."
"Per Article 5 of the loan agreement, you must deposit an additional two billion yen in cash collateral into the designated supervisory account within twenty-four hours."
Two billion. In cash.
Matsuura's pupils contracted violently. The fingers clutching the receiver spasmed. After two weeks of market losses with all his funds trapped in stocks, he couldn't scrape together 20 million yen, let alone 2 billion.
"You… what kind of joke is this!" Matsuura shoved himself up from his leather executive chair. His thigh slammed into the heavy solid-wood desk with a dull thud, but he didn't feel it. He shouted into the phone, "Two billion?! The market's only corrected two thousand points! The land I own is worth tens of billions! What were you banks saying when you begged me to take loans?"
"President Matsuura, land prices lack immediate liquidity. This is the final assessment from the Head Office's Risk Management Committee. If the funds are not received within twenty-four hours, we will petition the court to freeze all your active project accounts and initiate bankruptcy liquidation."
"Wait! Wait!" Matsuura's defenses crumbled. His voice turned pleading, almost groveling. "Brother Yamada… we were drinking together at 'Lumiere' in Ginza just last month. Talk to the higher-ups for me. Give me three days—no, one day! The market is just a technical adjustment. It'll rebound. I can transfer the money out soon…"
"President Matsuura." The loan officer cut him off. "This is the final notice from Legal. Please raise the funds."
Beep—
The dial tone echoed in the empty office, each beep hammering against Matsuura's nerves. He stood there, blankly holding the receiver.
Two seconds later, he snapped.
"Bastards!!! Opportunistic vampires!!!" Like a cornered animal, Matsuura roared and hurled the receiver at the desk. Plastic fragments exploded across the room.
His thick arms swept wildly across the desktop. The heavy crystal ashtray, stacks of project documents, the expensive business card holder—he sent everything flying.
"Bastards, bastards, bastards!!!"
The ashtray smashed against the marble floor and shattered into sharp shards. Papers swirled through the air like snowflakes.
"President!" The office door burst open. The Finance Section Chief rushed in, clutching a thick ledger to his chest. He froze at the sight of the wreckage and Matsuura's frenzy.
Panting, Matsuura stalked over the glass and grabbed the Section Chief by the collar, nearly lifting him off the ground. "How much money is left in the account!" he roared, spittle hitting the man's glasses.
"P-President… only the payments for the downstream suppliers tomorrow, about five hundred million…" The Section Chief trembled.
"Transfer it! Intercept all of it!" Matsuura's face contorted as he tightened his grip. "Send it to the margin account at Daiwa Securities now! Save those stock positions!"
The Section Chief's eyes went wide with terror. "President! We can't! That's life-saving money! Takahashi and the suppliers have been demanding payment. If we misappropriate project funds, the sites shut down tomorrow! They'll sue us. The company's reputation will be ruined!"
"Reputation?!" Matsuura bellowed, veins bulging. "If we don't fill this two-billion hole, the bank seizes the company tomorrow! There won't be a damn construction site! Who cares about reputation!"
"Transfer the money! Now! Or I'll kill you right here!" He shoved the Section Chief hard against the doorframe. The man crashed into it and dropped his ledger. It hit the floor with a dull thud.
"Y-Yes… yes, yes." The Section Chief didn't dare pick it up. He scrambled out, casting one last resentful look at Matsuura before the door clicked shut.
Bunkyo Ward, Saionji Main Family Residence.
The air inside the backyard kyudo hall was biting cold. The polished cypress floor was bone-chilling under bare feet.
Saionji Satsuki wore a pure white kyudo uniform with black hakama. Her long hair was pinned up with a plain wooden hairpin. She stood barefoot at the shooting line, feet planted firmly against the floor.
Left hand gripping the two-meter Japanese longbow, right hand in a deerskin glove, she nocked the arrow with three fingers. Her breathing was calm and measured.
Fujita Tsuyoshi, in a sharp black suit, approached along the outer corridor. The moment he stepped into the dojo's shadow, he halted.
Satsuki raised the bow above her head in a smooth Uchiokoshi – the starting posture. Fujita immediately sealed his lips, swallowing the report. He began to retreat silently into the corridor to wait.
"Speak."
Her single word cut through the cold air. Eyes locked on the distant target, she began to draw, her arms moving with slow, controlled force.
Fujita stopped. "Yes. Forgive my intrusion, Eldest Miss." He bowed, then stepped to a safe three meters away. "The Tokyo Stock Exchange has closed. This afternoon the market fell below 37,600 points. The cumulative drop over two weeks now exceeds 2,000 points."
"Intelligence confirms the liquidity crunch has begun. Our system has flagged over four hundred high-leverage corporate accounts that breached their margin call thresholds. Forced liquidations have started at scale."
Satsuki's left hand held the bow as steady as stone. As she lowered her arms into the draw, the bow limbs flexed almost imperceptibly.
"Is there any deviation between the market's decline and our model?"
"Minor offset," Fujita said, checking his briefing. "Market resistance was stronger than projected, but once we drained underlying liquidity, the downtrend solidified."
Memories of her past life were becoming unreliable. Current intelligence was everything now.
"Have the profits from the overseas options accounts been calculated?"
"We just received an encrypted report from Mr. Frank in New York," Fujita turned a page. "The slow decline spiked implied volatility. The deep out-of-the-money put options S.A. Investment planted via Cayman Islands trusts have fully activated."
"From the two billion dollars in premiums we invested, current floating profit exceeds…" Even Fujita's throat went dry. "…18.5 billion dollars. Over 2.6 trillion yen."
"Moreover, for each day the market continues its slow decline, profit expands by hundreds of millions daily."
18.5 billion dollars. Over 2.6 trillion yen.
If withdrawn in $100 bills, the 180+ tons of cash would fill two Boeing 747 freighters. In 10,000-yen notes, the 260+ tons of bills would pile higher than the Saionji main house.
That sum could buy four media giants the size of Columbia. Build ten 500-meter skyscrapers in Tokyo Bay. Buy out several top Wall Street investment banks. It rivaled the foreign reserves of a mid-sized nation.
This was finance. And it was completely legal.
A nine-fold profit. No industrial manufacturing, arms dealing, or black-market trade could match the speed of harvesting with leverage and national disaster.
In two weeks, this massive dollar position had materialized silently in offshore accounts as the Japanese market bled out.
Satsuki's left arm drifted half an inch outward. The taut bamboo bow hummed faintly. Her breathing hitched for a split second.
Half a second later, she closed her eyes and drew in a cold breath. Her wrist corrected the deviation. When she opened her eyes, a slight smile touched her lips.
Fujita saw it and knew she was satisfied.
She drew the string steadily to her chest. "Any movement from Wall Street clearing centers?"
"Not yet. Mr. Shimomura's 'Ghost' algorithm breaks orders into micro-pieces hidden in retail flow."
"They'll notice soon," Satsuki said, narrowing her eyes. "Wall Street sharks smell blood. Goldman and Morgan's prop desks are building shorts to crash the market themselves. They're likely the main force behind the avalanche."
"When the SEC realizes a hidden Asian group is taking the best cut, they'll drop the 'free market' act. They'll change rules, or cite national security to freeze our offshore channels and flip the table."
She wouldn't let the prize slip away.
"Notify Frank," Satsuki said, pulling the string to her ear. "Activate the highest-level legal firewall. Retain the top ten lobbying and legal firms in D.C. If the SEC issues a freeze order, bury them in hearings and jurisdictional disputes."
"At the same time, use this Wall Street blizzard as cover. Go silent. Cease all active offense. Let 'Ghost' refine closing orders for profit-taking. Hide our gains in the noise Wall Street creates."
"Convert every hot dollar into Swiss government bonds and physical gold, piece by piece."
"Understood. At once." Fujita bowed and withdrew.
Creak—
The composite bow groaned as it reached full draw. The string stopped, steady, beside her cheek. Perfect Kai – full draw.
In the quiet dojo, the fibers stretched audibly. The strain raised faint blue veins on her left hand.
"The tighter the leverage is pulled…" Satsuki exhaled half a breath into the tension.
She released.
"…the more complete the break will be."
Thwack!
The string snapped back with a deep, penetrating note. The two-meter bow spun in her loose left hand, the string coming to rest against her forearm.
The arrow became a black afterimage, tearing through the cold air.
Thud.
Dead center of the bullseye.