June 27, 1991, 8:48 PM.
Twenty-three minutes remained until the start of "Operation Stahl."
The lights outside the ryokan were all fully lit.
When Satsuki walked out of the entrance hall, Yoshinori Watanabe, Hoshino, and Yuhiro Inagawa walked her all the way down to the porch.
Further back were more than twenty executives who had accompanied the three families.
They did not say anything like they did earlier when signing the agreement; they simply lowered their heads simultaneously before Satsuki stepped down the stairs.
"Miss Saionji, you have had a hard time tonight."
Yoshinori Watanabe at the very front spoke first.
Satsuki paused for a moment and returned a bow to them as well.
"Mr. Watanabe is too polite."
"Having talked for so long today, the ones who truly had a hard time are all of you."
Hoshino smiled.
"Since you have put it to this extent, what is left is for us to go back and keep the people under us in line."
"Then I will have to trouble Mr. Hoshino."
As Satsuki spoke, she looked at Yuhiro Inagawa again.
"The same goes for Mr. Ishii's side."
"Rest assured."
Yuhiro Inagawa bowed slightly once more.
"Inagawa-kai will handle it properly."
Satsuki gave a soft "Mn", then turned and walked toward the car parked in front of the door.
Dojima Gen stepped forward first to open the rear car door.
After Satsuki sat inside, he stepped back and glanced casually at the security personnel around them who were already starting to move.
Chizuru got into the car from the other side.
Once the car door closed, the sounds outside instantly became much fainter.
Satsuki settled comfortably into her seat, and her very first action was to pick up the agreement she had just signed.
Four identical copies in total.
Each of the three families kept one, and Saionji took away the last one.
On the final few pages, the signatures and seals of Yoshinori Watanabe, Hoshino, Yuhiro Inagawa, and her own had already been affixed in turn.
Satsuki flipped to the middle.
These contents had already been discussed back and forth several times earlier; looking at them again now, there was nothing that needed modification.
At least starting tonight, many practices that had been tacitly allowed to exist in Japan's underworld over the past few decades now had a clear end date.
Of course, a single piece of paper could not make tens of thousands of people suddenly wake up tomorrow morning as law-abiding citizens.
People underneath would drag their feet.
Some would secretly keep doing it.
There would definitely be people who felt that the people at the top were meddling too much.
But as long as Yoshinori Watanabe, Hoshino, and Yuhiro Inagawa were truly willing to enforce it, everything else was simply a matter of time.
The truly troublesome part of yakuza organizations inherently lay in those overlapping organizational ties.
A twenty-year-old youth standing at a store entrance only needed to state which group he belonged to, and hundreds or thousands of people behind him would simultaneously appear in others' minds.
Now, Saionji was simply turning this relationship around and using it in reverse.
Since those below enjoyed the benefits brought by the organization's name, those above naturally had to bear the responsibility after those below caused trouble.
As long as the headquarters of the three families began to feel that keeping disobedient people around would only bring trouble to themselves, they would clean house themselves.
Thinking of this, Satsuki's page-turning motion slowed down a bit.
The effect would probably come faster than the anti-boryokudan act itself.
After all, the law had to go through the police, the public prosecutor's office, and the courts.
Yoshinori Watanabe and the others only needed to make a phone call.
Chizuru sat diagonally across from her, originally still re-clipping the few supplementary pages that had been modified during the meeting just now.
Right at that moment, a very faint static sound suddenly came into her ear.
Chizuru's movements paused.
She raised her hand to touch the wireless headset hidden beneath her hair and listened quietly for over a dozen seconds.
Satsuki noticed it, but did not rush her.
Not until the person on the other end finished speaking did Chizuru put down the documents in her hand and turn her body slightly toward Satsuki.
"Young Miss."
"Hm?"
"People from SIS just sent back news."
Chizuru's voice was kept very low.
"Washio has already started moving."
"Mnhm."
The document in Satsuki's hand turned another page.
The expression on her face did not even change at all.
"Does Dojima Gen know?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Dojima has already received the news and has made preparations according to your request."
"That is good."
Only then did Satsuki close the document and place it to the side.
The car had already driven away from the ryokan.
Through the dark car windows, the figures standing under the rear porch could still be seen growing further and further away.
Satsuki turned her head and looked toward the other side.
What first came into view, however, was not the Tokyo night view.
It was a car.
A pitch-black bulletproof SUV was driving almost right alongside the right side of the vehicle she was in, lagging behind by less than half a car length.
Further ahead, there were vehicles as well.
There were also some behind.
If viewed from above, the car Satsuki was currently riding in was almost entirely enveloped at the very core of the motorcade.
After tonight's meeting concluded, that Washio would fail to restrain himself was originally one of Saionji's expected outcomes.
Even the person who went to find Washio had been arranged by the SIS.
Strictly speaking, this matter could not be considered any sort of formal plan right from the start.
It felt more like an idle move casually dropped by Satsuki.
If Washio ultimately chose to endure it, then nothing would happen.
The agreement would still be signed.
The three families would still go back and enforce it.
Saionji would not suffer any losses either.
But if he truly was provoked by those words and did something with the people under him, things would instead become even simpler.
The agreement had just been signed.
An executive of a secondary group under the Sumiyoshi-kai would openly violate the boundaries just established and even directly make a move against her personally.
By then, even Hoshino himself would have to give Satsuki an explanation.
Saionji could also just take advantage of this incident to push the rules established today down another level.
It would be best to let those people who still felt "what the top signs is for the top, and those below can still run their own business just the same" see with their own eyes—
whether the new rules actually counted or not.
Satsuki leaned back against her seat, gazing at the streets continuously retreating outside the car.
When all was said and done, things like yakuza had to be cleaned up sooner or later.
The better public security was, the more willing ordinary people were to spend, and the more willing enterprises were to operate.
Especially in the future, as Japan's population aging grew increasingly severe and the growth space that domestic consumption could support became smaller and smaller, overseas tourists would gradually become an increasingly important part of the service industry.
Yet who would be willing to specially take a dozen hours of flight and run to a tourist destination where one could see a bunch of gangsters collecting protection money right out of the station?
Therefore, even if just for those lovely foreign tourists, these obstructive things needed to be cleared out.
Moreover, those organizations surviving on violent debt collection, forced land acquisition, and corporate extortion were constantly breeding new crimes in themselves.
In the past, the government felt that completely moving against them was too troublesome.
And corporations sometimes truly had use for such people.
Now the times had started to change.
Since it was going to change, it might as well change thoroughly.
"However..."
Satsuki spoke up suddenly.
Chizuru raised her head.
"Young Miss?"
"Even if preparations have been made, there should still be a certain degree of conflict later, right."
After finishing, Satsuki turned her face back around.
The person who had just been thinking about yakuza, the tourism industry, and Japan's future industrial structure suddenly wore a hint of a smile on her face.
"Chizuru."
"Yes."
"You must protect me well when the time comes, oh."
Chizuru was momentarily stunned.
Afterwards, her waist immediately straightened.
"Rest assured, Young Miss."
As she spoke, she was even preparing to rise from her seat.
"Chizuru shall swear to protect the Young Miss to the death. If danger truly occurs, no matter—"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait."
Satsuki hurriedly reached out and grabbed her.
Chizuru's body, which had already left the seat slightly, was pressed back down by her.
"Are you really prepared to kneel down to me inside the car?"
"But Young Miss just now—"
"I was just saying it casually."
Satsuki was somewhat amused and exasperated.
"Alright, there is no need to be so nervous either."
Chizuru sat there, looking as if she did not think this was a matter that could be spoken of "casually" at all.
Seeing this, Satsuki could only lift her chin toward outside the car window.
"Take a look."
Chizuru looked over accordingly.
The SUV on the right was still firmly guarding that spot.
The car body had no special markings, and even the license plate was the most ordinary Tokyo license plate, yet the people sitting inside had already changed into full protective gear.
Further ahead, there were two more.
Most of the personnel transferred over tonight had even been in the Middle East region a few months ago.
They had followed Dojima Gen into real war zones, handled high-risk transport, engineering support, and personnel evacuation for the multinational forces, and participated in several small-scale local conflicts in between.
Satsuki had specifically read the operation assessment given by the US military later on.
The evaluation was quite good.
At least from the standards of Americans, this batch of people had far exceeded the level ordinary corporate security should possess.
"These guards just came back from the battlefield."
Satsuki leaned back into her seat again, her tone relaxed.
"Even the US military thinks their performance is pretty good. No matter how formidable Washio's people are, they surely cannot be harder to deal with than the Iraqis, right?"
Hearing the last sentence, Chizuru's expression finally loosened a bit.
Satsuki glanced toward the front again.
"Besides, I also prepared a full set of low-lethality weapons for them."
When she reached this point, she herself felt somewhat emotional.
"The approval for that batch of items was not easy to get."
"In order to get everything needed for tonight fully assembled, Kenjiro specially had someone run through the paperwork again a few days ago."
As Satsuki spoke, she raised her hand and tapped lightly on the nearby car window with her knuckles.
Unlike the crisp sound of ordinary car windows, it only emitted two very deep, muffled thuds.
"And this."
"The protection of the entire car has been upgraded again."
She pulled her hand back.
"According to the test report Dojima gave me, ordinary rifle rounds are very difficult to shoot directly through it."
"As for those few small pistols of Washio's, it goes without saying."
Chizuru nodded.
She also knew about this part.
"Yes."
"According to the SIS's previous arrangement, the ones handed over to Washio's side were four US-made Raven Arms MP-25 pocket semi-automatic pistols, using .25 ACP pistol rounds."
She thought for a moment, then added:
"We have also checked the firearms that the Washio-gumi was able to access previously. Aside from these four, most of the existing few also belong to pistols and shotguns, and the quantity is small."
"Frontally penetrating the body armor currently used by special personnel is difficult, let alone vehicle-grade bulletproofing."
"Mn."
Satsuki nodded with satisfaction.
This was the true insurance tonight.
The guns were real, of course.
The SIS even deliberately had the person responsible for providing the weapons repeatedly remind Washio:
Saionji had many guards.
If he really wanted to make the other party "learn a lesson", going empty-handed was meaningless.
Washio ultimately accepted them.
As long as his men really pulled out the guns tonight, or even fired a shot at Saionji's car, the nature of the matter would no longer be as simple as "the subordinates acting on a momentary impulse."
Openly firing a gun on the street, and what is more, firing at her—tomorrow all of Tokyo would explode.
By then, Saionji only needed to stand in the position of the victim and lay out everything that happened tonight.
As for those guns themselves—
"However, small caliber can kill people just the same."
Thinking of something, Satsuki straightened up a bit.
Chizuru looked at her.
"Say it to Dojima again."
"Tonight, everyone responsible for frontal control must use rubber bullets for compulsory subjugation."
Satsuki paused slightly.
"I do not hope to actually cause fatalities."
"Since we are prepared to capture them anyway, breaking a few bones does not matter."
After listening, Chizuru quickly lowered her head.
"Yes."
She raised her hand to reconnect the wireless headset.
"Mr. Dojima, additional instructions from the Young Miss..."
Satsuki looked back out the window.
The vehicle had already entered the flow of Tokyo's night traffic.
The buildings in the distance were still brightly lit with dense clusters of lights.
The bubble had already burst.
Many corporations were laying off employees.
Land prices and stock prices were still falling downwards.
Yet looking from the streets, this city was still startlingly prosperous.
Store signs stood one after another, taxis were parked along the roadside, and people who had just finished overtime were coming out of office buildings one after another.
Tokyo remained one of the wealthiest cities in the entire world.
In the future, it would not truly turn into ruins just because of a bubble bursting either.
It is just that many things needed to be reorganized.
Finance was like this.
Enterprises were like this.
The underworld was naturally the same way.
Chizuru had finished transmitting the command.
Hearing her sit back down properly, Satsuki did not speak again either.
She leaned back into the spacious seat and gently closed her eyes.
Having talked for several hours just now, she was indeed somewhat tired.
Leaving the remaining matters to Dojima would be fine.
Everything was completely under control.