October 14, 1988.
Nibanchō, Chiyoda Ward.
Inside the chairman's office at Ito-Yokado headquarters, the air was thick enough to choke on. Heavy velvet curtains blocked the afternoon sun, leaving only a vintage desk lamp to bleed dim, amber light across the room.
In the crystal ashtray, Seven Stars cigarette butts were piled to the rim. A few thin wisps of smoke still curled upward, unextinguished.
"Is this the data from the Shinjuku 3-chome store yesterday?"
Suzuki Toshifumi's voice was rough. His fingers drummed hard against the thin thermal paper. As the helmsman of 7-Eleven and the man hailed as the 'Father of Japanese Convenience Stores,' he looked like a lion pacing its cage.
Standing across from him, the Managing Director in charge of procurement had a fine sheen of cold sweat on his forehead.
"Y-Yes, Chairman," the Managing Director said, his voice heavy. He kept his head down, not daring to meet Suzuki's bloodshot eyes.
"FamilyMart's average daily sales per store in that block broke 700,000 yen yesterday. Ours… only 400,000."
"That's impossible."
Suzuki slammed the report onto the desk. The teacup beside it rattled with a sharp clink.
"Foot traffic in that block is fixed. Our 'Item-by-Item Management' system is razor-precise. The ceiling for bento demand in that district isn't that high. How could they possibly move 700,000?"
He grabbed an onigiri from the corner of the desk. It was a 'hand-rolled rice ball' in plain plastic wrap, with a bold label: Hokkaido Autumn Salmon · 100 Yen. He'd had his driver buy it across the street on the way home yesterday.
Suzuki tore open the packaging and took a bite.
The cheap, stale taste he expected never came. The rice grains were distinct and carried the sweetness of new-harvest rice. The salmon inside still had a slight, fresh fattiness to it. The seaweed had softened a little, but you could still tell it was high-grade.
"One hundred yen…"
He chewed slowly. The flavor spread across his tongue, but it only made his stomach sink. As a titan of retail, he knew the math better than anyone. With ingredients this good, plus labor, logistics, and store rent, the cost had to be over eighty yen. Factor in waste, and selling it for a hundred was basically charity.
"Tsutsumi Seiji, that madman," Suzuki muttered around the rice ball before swallowing with a cold snort. "Just to spite his brother and funnel cash into that InterContinental acquisition, he's letting FamilyMart run a loss-leader this aggressive? How long can a price war last? A month? Two?"
"Um… Chairman." The Managing Director hesitated before carefully pulling another document from his briefcase. "This came from the contact we planted in FamilyMart's distribution center."
"Speak."
"They… don't seem to be losing money," the Managing Director said, his voice barely audible. "Their gross margin is actually higher than ours."
Suzuki's head snapped up. "What did you say?"
"Because… their waste rate… is only 0.6%."
A deathly silence fell over the office. Only the wall clock kept up its monotonous tick-tock.
Suzuki slowly leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously worrying at the rice ball's wrapper.
0.6%.
That number was enough to make any retail veteran despair.
7-Eleven's pride, 'Item-by-Item Management,' had store managers forecast tomorrow's sales based on weather, holidays, and local events. Even executed perfectly, the waste rate hovered around 3% year-round.
And this opponent had just erased the digit before the decimal point.
Suzuki took off his glasses and rubbed his aching brow. He was a genius of the retail industry. But Satsuki had the benefit of decades of future retail experience — experience his own future self had helped create.
Faced with a cross-era advantage that defied all logic, even Suzuki didn't know how to respond.
Just then, the intercom on his desk buzzed.
Suzuki took a deep breath, put his glasses back on, and picked up.
"This is Suzuki."
"Suzuki? It's Ito."
The elderly voice on the other end belonged to Ito Masatoshi, founder of Ito-Yokado and Suzuki's true boss.
"Come upstairs. A guest wants to see you."
"A guest?"
"Yes. The young lady of the Saionji family. She says she's here to deliver the 'antidote.'"
...
In the top-floor conference room, the view was expansive. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, you could see the entire sweep of the Imperial Palace's greenery.
Satsuki sat at one side of the long table in her Seika Academy uniform. A school badge glinted on her deep blue blazer, and the ribbon at her collar was tied with meticulous care. She held a cup of hot tea and quietly watched the scenery outside, looking like a schoolgirl who'd wandered into a corporate battlefield by mistake.
Two people stood behind her.
One was Fujita Tsuyoshi.
The other seemed out of place. Shimomura Tsutomu wore his signature grey hoodie, his hair a mess like he'd just pulled an all-nighter at an internet café. He was listlessly toying with a heavy black laptop — the T3100 Toshiba had just released — but in his hands, it looked like a toy.
Thud.
The conference room doors opened.
Ito Masatoshi and Suzuki Toshifumi walked in.
"Grandpa Ito, it's been a while," Satsuki said. She set down her teacup, stood, and gave an elegant junior's bow. Her obedient demeanor made it impossible to connect her with the 'Witch' of the business world.
"It's Satsuki," Ito said with a kind smile. "How is Shuichi-kun's health? Last time at the club, he promised me a box of good tea."
"Father is very well," Satsuki replied with a smile. "The tea is already prepared. I'll have Fujita deliver it to your residence another day."
After the pleasantries, everyone took seats on either side of the long table.
Suzuki sat below Ito, scrutinizing the girl across from him.
So this was the rumored 'Operator' of the Saionji family?
"Mr. Suzuki seems to have doubts about the 'gift' I brought?" Satsuki caught his gaze. She didn't look away. Instead, she met the eyes of the 'God of Convenience Stores' head-on.
"If you're here to pitch rice balls, there's no need," Suzuki said, his voice cold. "7-Eleven has its own fresh-food factories and logistics. We don't need to outsource."
This was his pride. 7-Eleven became a hegemon through absolute control of its supply chain.
"I know," Satsuki agreed with a nod. "Your 'Item-by-Item Management' philosophy is a textbook case for the retail industry. Using a store manager's experience and intuition to anticipate consumer demand — that's a kind of human wisdom."
She paused, then continued. "But humans get tired. And they make mistakes."
She turned slightly and snapped her fingers at Shimomura behind her.
"Shimomura."
"Yeah, yeah."
Shimomura pulled a piece of gum from his pocket, popped it in his mouth, and connected the laptop to the conference room's projector. From another pocket, he fished out a phone line and plugged it into the wall jack.
Screech—screech—
After the piercing sound of a dial-up modem, an interface of green text on black jumped onto the screen.
It was an electronic map of Tokyo. Green points of light were densely scattered across it, each representing a FamilyMart store.
"What is this?" Suzuki frowned.
"This is what's happening in Tokyo right now. At this very moment," Satsuki said, gesturing vaguely.
Shimomura tapped the keyboard. One of the light points on the map flashed red, and a popup appeared beside it.
In the same second, a column of data in the bottom-right corner updated.
Suzuki's pupils contracted. He shot to his feet, his chair screeching against the floor.
"That's impossible!" He pointed at the screen, his finger trembling. "Current POS systems only batch-upload data over phone lines after stores close. How are you doing real-time monitoring?"
In 1988, without broadband or the internet, data always had 'lag.' If HQ wanted sales numbers, they waited until morning.
"Because we laid our own nerves," Satsuki said calmly from her seat. "Mr. Shimomura modified the communication protocols. Every POS machine we use is a real-time terminal. It doesn't wait for night. Every time it sells a rice ball, it immediately tells the boilers in Chiba: 'Hey, I'm down one here. Make another.'"
"Mr. Suzuki, you're using yesterday's weather forecast to decide whether to bring an umbrella today."
"But I'm looking at the rain outside my window to decide whether to go out."
Suzuki stared at the constantly flickering screen. Each flash was a completed transaction and a precise inventory correction. The stream of data was like blood racing through veins — vivid, precise, without lag.
Compared to that, his pride-and-joy system of store managers filling out order forms looked clumsy and slow. A rusty steam engine facing a combustion engine.
"So this is… the secret to a 0.6% waste rate?" Suzuki murmured, sinking back into his chair like the strength had left him.
He'd lost.
Not to the taste of the rice balls. Not to the price.
He'd lost to 'time.'
"Mr. Suzuki, your factories are now your burden," Satsuki said lightly, but each word hit like a hammer. "To keep those old factories running and cover the losses from prediction errors, your bento costs stay high. You have to sell rice balls at 120 yen just to break even."
"But across from you…" Satsuki pointed at the screen. "FamilyMart is using my system to drive costs to the absolute floor. They can offer better quality than you at 100 yen and still turn a profit."
"You can't win this war."
The conference room went dead silent.
Ito Masatoshi, silent until now, finally opened his half-closed eyes. As a capitalist, he didn't care about technical details. He cared about results.
"Satsuki," Ito said, his tone carrying a merchant's shrewdness. "Why show this to us? To make Suzuki-kun admit defeat?"
"Of course not," Satsuki said, shaking her head. "I'm here to propose a partnership."
From a school bag that looked like it should hold textbooks, she pulled a prepared folder and slid it across to the two men.
"FamilyMart took my system, but Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji is a 'poet.' He doesn't truly understand the essence of retail. He just wants it to polish his financial reports."
"But Mr. Suzuki is different." Satsuki looked at him, and for once, there was genuine respect in her eyes. The strong deserve recognition. "You understand retail. You know how to turn a technical advantage into true dominance."
"The Saionji family has no interest in running convenience stores. We just want to be quiet 'water carriers.'"
"Close your factories. Or sell them to me."
"Hand the supply chain over to me. Plug into S-Food's central kitchen and S.A. Logistics' network."
"You just do what you're best at — manage stores, serve customers, develop new products."
"As for the dirty, tiring work of cooking, delivering, and calculating inventory…" Satsuki smiled slightly, like a demon offering candy to a child. "Leave that to me."
"I guarantee 7-Eleven will remain the king that makes every competitor despair. And your profit margin will be at least 15% higher than it is now."
Suzuki stared at the document in front of him.
Supply Chain Outsourcing and Technical Cooperation Agreement.
Signing it meant handing half of 7-Eleven's lifeblood — the supply chain — to the Saionji family.
But not signing… He looked at the red light still blinking on the screen. Generational tech gap. The words pressed down on him like a mountain.
"I… need to consider it," Suzuki said, his voice raspy. He closed the file.
He hadn't refused.
That was the biggest concession he could give.
"Of course," Satsuki said, standing and smoothing her skirt. "But please don't take too long. After all…" She glanced at Shimomura beside her. The genius hacker was listlessly blowing a bubble with his gum. "President Isao Nakauchi of Lawson invited me to dinner in Akasaka tomorrow."
"I think he'll be very interested in how to become 'number two' in the industry."
With that, Satsuki bowed again and turned for the door. Fujita and Shimomura fell in behind her.
At the threshold, she stopped.
"By the way, Mr. Suzuki." She looked back. Afternoon sun spilled across her profile, tracing it in gold. "That rice ball today. It was good, wasn't it?"
"That was Yumepirika rice, newly harvested this year from Hokkaido S-Farm. If we cooperate, that becomes 7-Eleven's standard."
Looking at the girl's golden profile, a chill ran down Suzuki's spine.
She… knew everything.
The door closed, shutting out the bright sunlight and the terrifying girl with it.
Inside the office, only two old men remained, along with the suffocating tension that lingered in the air.
Suzuki pulled a cigarette from the pack. His hand shook slightly. It took several strikes of the lighter to get it lit.
Blue smoke rose.
He looked at the screen, still lit, at the green cursor still jumping — FamilyMart's sales data, alive and relentless.
"Ito-san…" Suzuki took a deep drag. The nicotine steadied him a little. "It seems the world is about to change."