October 20, 1988.
Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture.
7-Eleven Kanto Fresh Food Distribution Center.
3:00 AM.
At this hour, the unloading platform should have been a hive of Isuzu cold-chain trucks. Tonight, it was a ghost town. All twelve lift gates stood open, gaping into the dark, cavernous warehouse.
Inside the sorting workshop, the high-pressure sodium lamps buzzed with a strained electrical hum.
The conveyor belts were dead.
Three hundred female sorters in white sterile suits and masks stood at their stations, hands at their sides, eyes fixed on the motionless black rubber belts. No one spoke. The only sound was an occasional cough echoing through the steel cavern.
The supervisor checked the wall clock. The second hand ticked forward.
3:15 AM.
The raw materials still hadn't arrived.
Second-floor dispatch room.
"Are they still not here?!"
The logistics manager's voice was shredded from shouting. The black phone receiver was slick with sweat in his grip.
"What do you mean they're 'still on the road'? The Niigata rice trucks should have arrived yesterday afternoon. And the Kagoshima Kurobuta — the cold storage runs dry at six o'clock this morning."
The transport company head's exhausted voice crackled through the line, buried under a wall of car horns.
"Manager, National Route 16 is locked up. Twenty-kilometer tailback. The fleet's trapped in the middle. Hasn't moved in two hours."
"Then change routes. Take the Shuto Expressway. Take prefectural roads. I don't care how — I need that meat before dawn."
"We can't change," the voice said, then hesitated.
"As soon as our trucks leave the highway, 'Road Construction' signs go up at every intersection. Or traffic cops pull us for weight and emissions checks."
"And…"
"And what?"
"The trucks boxing us in on all sides — they're all silver-gray. S.A. Logistics printed on the trailers."
The logistics manager went still.
A dead tone hummed from the receiver. He set the phone down slowly, fingers pressing into the cold tabletop.
The blockade had arrived.
...
At the same time.
Okawara, Hokkaido.
Outside, wind and snow already had winter's teeth, scouring the double-paned windows.
Inside the Agricultural Cooperative office, the heat was cranked high, almost suffocating.
Chairman Iwamura sat behind his massive mahogany desk, unhurriedly pouring hot tea from a purple clay pot. He didn't look at the sweat-soaked man across from him — Yano, 7-Eleven's emergency procurement specialist.
"Chairman Iwamura, please, you have to help us!"
Yano was practically draped over the desk, his voice begging. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the expensive carpet.
"Tokyo's out of stock! If you don't ship, tomorrow's morning bento is dead. We'll pay more! Twenty percent over contract! Cash!"
Iwamura lifted his teacup and blew on the foam.
"A price increase, is it…"
He sighed, as if tempted. Then he shook his head, regretful.
"Yano-kun, you know. In business, integrity matters most."
He slid a document from his drawer — S-Farm's latest acquisition agreement.
"Bad climate this year. Poor harvest in the Doto region. And since the Okawara Cooperative signed an exclusive buyout with the Saionji family, we can't release so much as a potato to anyone else."
"But we have a contract too!" Yano's voice broke. "A long-term contract from last year! This is breach!"
"Breach penalties?"
Iwamura set his teacup down with a soft clink.
He opened a drawer and took out a pre-written check. Holding it between two fingers, he slid it gently toward Yano.
"Already prepared."
"Not just the penalties. A little 'apology' from the Cooperative as well. After all… natural disaster. Act of God. Beyond human control."
He lingered on "natural disaster."
Yano stared at the check.
The number was huge — enough to cover 7-Eleven's financial losses.
But he knew it was over.
In retail, if money can't buy goods, it's paper. Without goods, four thousand Tokyo stores become museums for displaying empty air.
"Chairman Iwamura, you're killing us…" Yano's voice was dry, scraped raw.
Iwamura stood and walked to the window, looking out at the snow-covered farmland — land S-Farm's capital had already sunk roots into.
"Yano-kun, as an old acquaintance, let me give you advice," Iwamura said, his voice low, tinged with fear of the leviathan he served.
"Go back. Tell Chairman Suzuki."
"Don't try to oppose that girl."
"What she controls isn't cotton or rice… she controls 'growth' itself."
...
Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.
12:00 PM. Peak lunch rush.
Inside the flagship store beneath 7-Eleven headquarters, the air was suffocating.
This time of day, the place should have been packed — white-collar workers grabbing lunch, a register line snaking to the door.
Today it was sparse. A few customers stood before the shelves, confused and irritated.
Suzuki Toshifumi pushed the door open and walked in.
"Welcome!"
The clerk's greeting died in his throat when he saw the chairman's face — dark as a thunderhead. It came out as a terrified, "C-Chairman…"
Suzuki ignored him.
He went straight to the fresh-food section.
This was 7-Eleven's heart. The fortress he'd used for the past two weeks to counter the Saionji family. It should have been stacked with gold-label Premium Kurobuta Bento and Chef-Supervised Hand-Rolled Rice Balls.
Instead, it was a wreck.
The cold cases were empty. White shelf boards glared under the lights. A few forlorn, plain-wrapped sandwiches huddled in the corner like survivors after a rout.
The price tags still read "680 yen." But there was nothing to buy.
"What is going on here?"
Suzuki's voice was quiet. It made the store manager behind him break into a cold sweat.
"C-Chairman… the morning replenishment truck never came. Word from the Chiba factory is… they're out of materials. Production lines are down…"
Suzuki reached out and touched the cold shelf.
The chill climbed his fingertips, through his veins, into his heart.
Out of materials.
For a convenience store built on turn rate, this was cardiac arrest.
All the "quality" he'd sold in the media, all the "craftsmanship" he'd built — without product, it was a joke.
Ding-dong—
The automatic door opened.
Two young office ladies walked in. They saw the empty shelves and frowned, annoyed.
"Huh? There's nothing again?"
"What's going on? They hyped it on TV. 'Craftsmanship' this and that, and you can't even buy a rice ball."
"Let's go. Across the street."
One pointed through the window.
"I heard FamilyMart dropped a Hokkaido 'Select' series today. New rice too. Only 120 yen."
"Really? Let's try it. Hurry."
They turned and left. Their heels clicked on the tile like kicks to Suzuki's face.
Suzuki didn't move.
He turned slowly and looked through the floor-to-ceiling glass at the street opposite.
There was a FamilyMart.
Under the blue-green sign, a crowd swarmed. The line spilled onto the sidewalk. A silver S.A. Logistics cold-chain truck was parked out front, workers hauling crate after crate of fresh bento inside.
Busy. Efficient. Alive.
It was a perfect negative of the deathly quiet 7-Eleven.
This was the Saionji counterattack.
No arguments. No table-pounding.
She'd simply reached out, taken his throat, and squeezed.
Suzuki stood there, staring at his own reflection in the glass.
The man once called the "God of Retail" looked old. And powerless.
He understood now. He wasn't fighting a competitor.
He was fighting a monster that controlled the rules, the resources, and time itself.
Could he use the Daiei Group to keep fighting the Saionji family?
No. Not with the board already fracturing. And even if he could — so what? The Saionji family had first-mover advantage. Breaking this would cost double, triple the resources. Ito-Yokado couldn't burn that cash.
That was the Saionji family. They could go toe-to-toe with the ruling party using money. Play a cash-burn war with them? He wouldn't even know how he died.
"Prepare the car," Suzuki said to the air behind him. His voice was hoarse.
"Where to, Chairman?" his secretary asked, rushing over.
Suzuki pulled his gaze from the bustling FamilyMart. He straightened his tie, though it was already slightly crooked.
He looked down at his shadow, long and thin in the sunlight.
"To see that girl."