At the rear of the hall, where the logistics corridor met the hidden smoking area, the lighting was far dimmer than in the main space.
Yamada, a former foreman from Matsuura Construction, wore faded, worn work clothes. He hid in the shadows behind a stack of spare bar stools at the corner of the corridor.
His rough fingertips picked at the expensive gold-leaf wallpaper that had just been applied to the wall. His heart still pounded in his chest.
Ten minutes earlier, he had rushed into the hotel's back alley on impulse. The bone-chilling winter rain quickly doused that impulse.
Saionji Construction's reputation in the industry was notoriously strict. Even if this building was a distressed project they'd taken over, their team's re-entry and heavy investment in renovation should have left the security network airtight.
By the time he reached the fire door in the second basement's unloading area, he had already started to reconsider. He mocked his infiltration plan as naive.
But since he was already here, he gritted his teeth. He decided to try his luck one last time. He grabbed the heavy metal handle of the door to the staff stairwell and yanked it outward with force.
The heavy fire door pulled free from its frame with a clang, opening a gap.
Yamada froze. In the dim light, he saw the state of the hinge. A wooden wedge caked in dried cement was jammed into the electronic magnetic lock.
One of his fellow workers had hammered it in months ago during Matsuura Construction's build phase to make it easier to drag high-voltage cables.
It made sense, he thought. No matter how powerful Saionji Construction was, they couldn't change the reality of an impossible schedule.
The Saionji family had forced the building's interior decoration and security system replacement through in an extremely compressed timeframe.
The newly stationed team had likely focused all their attention on surveillance for the core venue and VIP passages. They hadn't had time for manual inspections of legacy physical blind spots like the second basement.
That frantic rush to open the banquet on schedule had given him an opening.
And so, stepping on those cement stairs for which his wages had never been paid, he slipped silently into the fortress.
Yamada turned his head and peered through the crack of the staff passage door.
Several waiters in crisp uniforms were pushing heavy silver dining carts past the far end of the passage.
On the carts, crystal-clear fresh Hokkaido sea urchin and Caspian caviar were heaped on large bone china plates, crowned with costly slices of French black truffle.
The lavish aroma drifted through the crack and into Yamada's nose. He swallowed hard and shrank deeper into the shadows, afraid of being spotted by the passing waiters.
After the carts rolled away, Yamada shifted his numb legs. At the corner ahead, the door to a hidden smoking room near the banquet hall's perimeter stood half open.
Several presidents of small and medium enterprises who had retreated from the front hall to catch their breath were talking in low voices.
"Twenty million yen just to get in the door… The Saionji family's appetite is huge this time." One president took a deep drag of his cigarette, his tone resentful.
"To scrape together this 'face-saving' charitable donation, I sold two CNC machine tools from my factory to a secondhand dealer for scrap prices yesterday."
"What choice do we have?" another sighed, grinding his cigarette into the sand tray on top of a trash can.
"Ministry of Finance inspectors are watching. Banks won't lend. If we skip this banquet and don't show we still have spare money for charity, suppliers will block our factory gates by tomorrow morning. This money buys our lives."
Crouched in the shadows, Yamada heard every word.
Hearing these bosses complain about hardship just to save face, his fingers tightened against the wall. Dirt under his nails scraped the surface, and a faint sting followed.
Chiba Bank had pulled their loans and driven President Matsuura to his death, defaulting on wages for the workers. Now these men were standing on foundations built with unpaid labor, using money from sold machines to play this polished game of charity.
Indignation rose in his chest, but in this strange, pressure-filled environment, his body stayed pressed to the cold wall out of instinctive fear.
The banquet hadn't officially begun. The tens of billions in cash promised in the newspapers hadn't been distributed yet.
He had to keep waiting here.
He wanted to see it with his own eyes—whether that so-called 'relief fund' assembled by the capitalists would actually reach low-level workers like him who were nearly starving.
...
Behind the one-way glass on the second floor.
Inside the VIP monitoring room, the lights were dim.
Current Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, escorted by several personal bodyguards, reached the second floor via the dedicated underground unloading elevator and entered the room.
Kaifu wore a deep black formal suit. He walked to the leather swivel chair at the center, faced Saionji Satsuki sitting upright in it, and gave a slight bow.
"Miss Saionji," Kaifu reported in a low voice.
"The Chief Cabinet Secretary has designated my itinerary tonight as a 'private unofficial visit.' News has been completely blocked at the Cabinet Press Club. The zaibatsu and media downstairs still don't know the Cabinet has intervened in this banquet."
Satsuki sat in the swivel chair, her gaze fixed through the one-way glass, overlooking the fragrance-filled banquet hall below.
She looked away, picked up a thin document from the solid wood tabletop in front of her, and handed it to Kaifu.
"Your Excellency Kaifu, this is tonight's opening speech," Satsuki said, her voice clear and cold. "You should understand your role tonight."
The Prime Minister lowered his head and accepted the document from the young woman with both hands. If a reporter captured this scene, it would seize every front page.
Their eyes met briefly in the dimness.
His secret appearance tonight was the final weight the Saionji family would use to crush the zaibatsu below.
Once he, the Prime Minister, appeared on the main stage to preside, this zaibatsu-led charity banquet would instantly escalate into an open exercise of national executive power.
Anyone who was perfunctory in the donation segment would be openly defying the national market bailout and publicly opposing the government.
Moreover, this bailout held the moral high ground. Anyone who refused would be the first vilified by the public.
"I understand." Kaifu tucked the speech into the inner pocket of his suit and stepped aside.
Managing Director Endo stepped forward. He spread a reorganized Target Debt Divestment List across the table.
"Eldest Miss, all invited guests are inside," Endo reported quietly.
"Among them, Iwasaki of Mitsubishi and Yagi of Mitsui are near the champagne tower. Yoshiaki Tsutsumi of Seibu is speaking with several parliament members in the center of the hall. Fuji Bank Vice President Kagawa is to the right of the cold buffet."
He tapped a note at the bottom of the list.
"The Non-performing Loan Transfer Agreements in the private reception room are printed, and the legal team is on standby."
Satsuki leaned forward slightly. She extended her index finger and traced the list one name at a time.
Her gaze lingered on Mitsubishi and Mitsui for half a second, then skipped past them, finally settling on several core targets in the center of the list.
"It's time, Father."
Satsuki picked up the bone china teacup on the table and took a sip of warm black tea. She tilted her head, looking down at the hunting ground below.
Shuichi stood to the side. He straightened the collar of his dark suit and gave a slight nod.
"Let's go, Your Excellency Prime Minister."
Shuichi and Kaifu turned together, opened the wooden door of the VIP room, and walked toward the spiral staircase leading to the first-floor hall.
Inside the hall below.
The lights above, diffused through Echizen washi, shifted subtly. The soft lighting at the periphery dimmed, while warm white lights in the main stage area lit in sequence, naturally drawing all eyes to the platform.
On the semicircular stage, the orchestra's performance glided past its final note, and they quietly lowered their bows.
The synchronized change of light and music caused conversation in the hall to die down. Guests stopped what they were doing and turned to face forward.
The sound of leather shoes on the wooden stairs was steady and clear.
Under hundreds of gazes, Saionji Shuichi and Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu walked onto the main stage side by side and stood still in the bright halo.
The entire banquet hall fell into a silence that lasted several seconds. Even the sound of breathing seemed cut off.
In the front row.
Mitsui's Yagi and Mitsubishi's Iwasaki narrowed their eyes. With Kaifu here, the nature of this banquet had completely changed.
Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, who had been speaking loudly at the center of the hall, felt the smile on his face slowly freeze. He now had to consider whether to cut employee wages further.
As for the SME presidents on the periphery who planned to give token donations, and Vice President Kagawa, who was hiding massive bad debt—
Their faces went ashen in an instant.
Shuichi stepped up to the microphone.
He reached out, gripped the metal stand lightly, and pressed it down.
"Screech—"
A brief burst of audio feedback scraped through the hall.
The piercing noise shattered the dead silence.
Media reporters in the audience snapped awake. The flashes of hundreds of cameras erupted in the same second, forming a blinding sea of white light.
The flashes froze the scene: the prey below with their varied expressions, and the smiling Prime Minister on the platform, together marking the opening of this banquet.