Odagiri sat motionless, turned to stone.
The questions he'd spent all night preparing, the ones he'd thought were so razor-sharp, now hung in his jacket pocket like dead weight. Waste paper.
He couldn't get a single word out.
Cold sweat traced a line from his temple down his cheek and dripped onto his suit.
He understood now.
He'd been agonizing over things like what happens if there are losses and what happens if our decisions conflict. Business-level concerns.
Seiji Fujiwara didn't care about any of that.
Didn't care about business maneuvering. Didn't care whether Odagiri made mistakes or bled money.
Because anyone who became an obstacle, anything that displeased him, could be erased with a kind of power that existed outside the rules entirely.
Which also meant the "absolute authority" Seiji had promised wasn't a lie.
The realization hit Odagiri like lightning.
A man who could casually deploy shadowy resources to handle a senior executive at an industry titan. A man who could toss evidence capable of destroying someone's life to the nation's highest prosecutorial body like he was throwing out the trash.
Would someone like that need to resort to wordplay in a business contract to deceive him?
Of course not.
He didn't need commercial leverage to control Odagiri. A single sentence, a single look, or even something as offhand as the phone call he'd just taken would be more than enough to ensure total obedience.
A man operating at that level had no reason to deceive him.
Once the logic clicked into place, the tension Odagiri had carried all night released in a strange, sudden rush.
What replaced it was something vast and hollow. Exhaustion. The kind that came from realizing you'd been fighting a war that was already over.
He unclenched his fists, smoothing the wrinkled fabric of his trousers.
So that's how it is.
...
Silence filled the suite.
Seiji didn't push. Didn't speak.
He sat there, picked up his tea again, and sipped it at his own pace, as though the phone call that could have sent shockwaves through the entire entertainment industry had nothing to do with him.
He was giving Odagiri time to process.
Odagiri's posture remained stiff, but inside, a storm was tearing him apart.
He'd thought he was sitting across from Seiji Fujiwara at a high-stakes poker table.
Now he understood he'd never even qualified for a seat.
That realization brought a helplessness that went bone-deep.
But strangely, at the far end of that helplessness, Odagiri felt something he hadn't expected.
Relief.
Twenty years of fighting. Against corporate boards, against rivals, against the system itself. He was tired.
Like a scarred, solitary wolf that had fought too many battles. No matter how fierce it was, there came a day when there was simply nothing left.
And now Seiji Fujiwara had appeared before him and said: You don't have to fight anymore. You just have to work for me.
It sounded like servitude.
But to Odagiri, in this moment, wasn't it also a kind of freedom?
His hand trembled as he reached for the pen.
The cold metal tip against his fingers sharpened his mind.
Is it worth it?
The answer came almost before the question finished forming.
Yes.
For a man who'd made his career his entire life, the chance to create without restraint on a limitless stage... that kind of temptation was worth selling his soul for.
He drew a long breath, looked at Seiji, and spoke. His voice was hoarse, but he held it steady.
"Fujiwara-sensei. One more question."
"Go ahead." Seiji set down his teacup, watching him with open interest.
"Even if you can remove every person who stands in my way..." Odagiri's expression darkened. "What I want to build is an entertainment empire unlike anything this country has seen. That will inevitably clash with the fundamental rules of the industry, and even... national law. The Broadcasting Act's restrictions on media ownership. Antitrust regulations."
Those were obstacles at a level that couldn't be solved by handling a few individuals.
Seiji listened, and then he laughed.
It was the kind of laugh an adult might give when a child earnestly asked whether Ultraman was real. Faint. Almost pitying.
"Rules?"
He shook his head.
Right there in front of Odagiri, he took out his phone and dialed a number.
It rang once before someone picked up.
"It's me." Seiji's voice, as always, was mild.
From the other end came a measured, deferential voice. A voice Odagiri had heard countless times on the evening news. Kosuke Suzuki. The sitting Chief Cabinet Secretary. One of the most powerful figures in Japanese politics.
"Fujiwara-sensei, what can I do for you?"
Suzuki's tone was the tone of a subordinate reporting to a superior.
Odagiri stopped breathing.
What am I hearing?
The second-most powerful man in the country, speaking to a young man with that kind of deference?
Seiji paid no attention to the petrified Odagiri beside him. He spoke into the phone with the casual air of someone making a dinner reservation.
"Suzuki-san. Regarding the Cultural Industry Promotion and Support Act that's scheduled for Diet discussion next month, I have some new thoughts."
"Yes, yes, please go ahead. I'm all ears!" Suzuki's voice grew even more respectful.
"In Chapter Three, Article Seventeen, the section encouraging private capital investment in emerging media sectors, I'd like a special provision added."
Seiji's gaze drifted to the skyline beyond the window.
"The provision should read: any enterprise designated by the Cabinet Office as a strategic-level entity with exceptional contributions to the nation's cultural image may, by special resolution of a Cabinet meeting, be granted exemption from the shareholding ratio restrictions applicable to broadcasting, television, and print media."
"Does that sound feasible?"
Silence.
The kind of silence that has weight.
Odagiri's brain, battered by one shock after another, had gone white.
What is he saying?
He's... he's rewriting national law?
After a brief pause, Suzuki's voice returned. Decisive. Absolute.
"Understood, Fujiwara-sensei! You have my word. That provision will appear in the final draft of the legislation, word for word."
"Much appreciated, Suzuki-san." Seiji smiled and hung up.
He pocketed the phone and turned to look at Odagiri, who was trembling from the sheer magnitude of what he'd witnessed.
"Now. Do you still think the rules are a problem?"
Odagiri's entire understanding of how the world worked shattered in that instant.
If the previous phone call had shown him that Seiji Fujiwara wielded power over the underworld...
This one had let him witness, firsthand, that Seiji possessed the terrifying ability to rewrite the rules of the world above.
The laws Odagiri had worried about. The regulations. The so-called "rules." Before this man, they were as flimsy as a rough draft anyone could scribble over.
Seiji Fujiwara was no longer a player on the board.
He was the one who designed the board, created the pieces, and could reach down and flip the entire game at will.
Against absolute power, strategy and experience ceased to matter.
Something enormous welled up inside Odagiri. He stepped back, looked at Seiji's face, still impossibly calm, and let out a bitter smile.
He'd lost.
No. He hadn't even been in a position to lose.
He'd simply been chosen.
"Fujiwara-sensei..."
Odagiri bent at the waist. A perfect ninety-degree bow.
His voice held no more probing, no more suspicion, no more ambition of his own.
"Please. Allow me to be the instrument with which you build your entertainment empire."
...
One week later, a piece of news detonated like a depth charge beneath the calm surface of Japan's entertainment industry.
Former Stardust Entertainment chief agent Odagiri, backed by a strategic investment from the Genesis Group, officially launches new entertainment company: Asami Entertainment!
The announcement, released directly by Genesis Group's PR department and simultaneously picked up by every major financial outlet and entertainment headline, set the industry's nerves on fire.
The Genesis Group? That colossus dominating streaming, pharmaceuticals, and production had personally stepped in to bankroll an agent's startup?
And according to the deliberately vague yet tantalizing details in the press release, the deal was structured as a "strategic investment," not an "acquisition."
The implications were clear. Odagiri, the career executive who'd just walked away from his former employer, had become his own boss overnight. And behind him now stood one of Japan's most formidable capital titans.
The moment the news broke, the entire industry plunged into a state of shock and disbelief.
Inside Genesis Entertainment's own offices, employees clustered around the break room, whispering with bewildered expressions.
"Is this real? The president actually invested in Odagiri?"
"I heard Director Kikuchi handled the business registration personally. Registered capital... ten billion yen."
"Ten billion? That's insane."
"And get this. The contract explicitly states Genesis takes an equity stake but won't interfere with operations whatsoever. Odagiri has full authority. That's... unprecedented. Did the president go too far this time?"
"Who knows? Best not to second-guess him. But ten billion... if this tanks, the hole it'll leave..."
Inside Genesis Entertainment, awe and anxiety tangled together.
...
In the camps of Sony and Toho, the companies that had turned Odagiri away, the mood was something else entirely.
In SME's top-floor conference room, Director Shirakawa, the same man who'd told Odagiri not to overestimate his importance, sat listening to his subordinate's briefing with an ashen face.
"Genesis Group... Seiji Fujiwara..." He chewed on the names, his gaze venomous.
"Chairman, could this be a smokescreen from Genesis?" The director beside him, the one with the gold-rimmed glasses, spoke with a sour edge. "Fujiwara's impressive, sure, but he's young. Maybe the old fox Odagiri played him."
"Exactly!" Another director jumped in. "Odagiri has the skills, no question, but he's too ambitious, too headstrong. Let him be his own boss and he'll trip over his own ego soon enough. We just sit back and watch the show. Let's see how Fujiwara enjoys getting bitten by that wolf he thought he could tame."
Gloating became the consensus among the old guard almost immediately.
They couldn't accept that they'd let Odagiri slip through their fingers. They refused to admit Seiji Fujiwara's judgment might be sharper than theirs.
So they chose to believe this would be the year's biggest business joke.
...
The bystanders and rubberneckers further from the action were even more direct.
Doubt. Pure doubt.
In Ginza bars, on drama set break rooms, in private group chats, discussion about Asami Entertainment raged.
"Ten billion in investment for one man's absolute control. Seriously, what makes Odagiri so special?"
"The pressure on him must be crushing. Take that kind of money and fail to deliver, and it's not just Fujiwara he can't face. His whole Idol Godfather reputation goes up in smoke."
"I still think it's a stretch. Running a startup and being an agent are two completely different things. Can one man really manage a company worth ten billion?"
"Who knows? This is either the investment of the year or the punchline of the year."
The entire industry watched Asami Entertainment, this newborn silver-spoon baby, with scrutinizing eyes.
Everyone wanted to see whether Odagiri, the subject of Seiji Fujiwara's audacious gamble, had the ability to repay that borderline-insane trust.
What happened next broke every pair of glasses in the room.
On the second day of Asami Entertainment's existence, Odagiri moved with the force that had earned him the title "Godfather."
Day one: Stardust Entertainment's most celebrated gold-standard production team, led by their director Takahashi, submitted their resignations en masse. By that afternoon, they were standing in Asami Entertainment's freshly unveiled offices on Omotesando.
Takahashi was Odagiri's most loyal lieutenant. His right hand.
Day three: Aki Arimura, a brilliant young actress who'd just won the Kinejun Best Newcomer Award under Toho Pictures, unilaterally announced the termination of her contract. She publicly stated she was willing to pay a breach-of-contract penalty of three billion yen.
By the next day, her new contract sat on Odagiri's desk. The three-billion-yen check had been issued directly by Genesis Group's finance department.
Day five: Ken Nakajima, Sony Music Entertainment's ace composer, along with his entire arrangement team, announced they were joining Asami.
Nakajima posted a single line on social media: "I can finally make the music I want to make."
...
Poaching. Relentless, savage poaching.
Odagiri tore through the industry like a bull in a china shop. No. More like a Tiger tank with unlimited ammunition, steamrolling across the map of Japan's entertainment landscape.
Every talent he set his sights on, regardless of where they were or what contracts bound them, got one treatment: money.
Offers so far above market rate they were impossible to refuse, smashing through contractual chains like they were made of glass.
And those so-called "astronomical penalty fees"? Against the Genesis Group's seemingly bottomless capital reserves, they looked pathetic.
One month.
In just one month.
The first girl group launched by Asami sold over a million copies of their debut single in the first week, shattering a record that had stood for nearly a decade in the Japanese music industry.
Only then did the rest of the industry finally wake up.
Inside Genesis Entertainment, employees watched their company's stock price climb day after day on the back of Asami's success. Every ounce of earlier worry transformed into fervent, near-worshipful admiration for Seiji Fujiwara.
"The president's vision... it's practically divine. We can't even begin to comprehend what he sees."
...
Meanwhile, in the boardrooms of SME and Toho, executives stared at their own cratering stock prices and talent hemorrhage reports with faces the color of ash.
Director Shirakawa looked at a newspaper photo of Odagiri chatting and laughing with newly crowned Best Actress Aki Arimura. His own words, don't overestimate your importance, came back and struck him across the face like an open palm.
"What... what did we let slip away?" he murmured, his eyes filled with nothing but regret.
As for the neutral bystanders, they'd long since abandoned their skepticism and popcorn.
Countless small and mid-size agencies and independent artists swarmed to Asami Entertainment's doors like sharks scenting blood, desperate for a contract.
The era had shifted. For real, this time.
Asami was the dawn of a new age.
...
In Seiji Fujiwara's penthouse, Mutsumi Wakaba was curled up in one corner of the sofa.
She wore one of his white dress shirts, the hem barely reaching the tops of her thighs.
Faint red marks still lingered on the bare skin beneath.
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