Satsuki's voice slowly trailed off.
Shuichi was still thinking about the set of things she had mentioned earlier.
After waiting a few seconds and not hearing the second half, he turned his face.
"Satsuki?"
The daughter did not answer.
The smug smile that had been hanging on her face just moments ago had vanished.
She still maintained the posture of holding the document, but her gaze crossed over the paper and fell outside the car window.
The buildings on both sides of the road were constantly receding backward.
A bus drove past from the side.
At the intersection, someone was holding an umbrella waiting for a red light.
At the entrance of the convenience store, the day's newspapers were displayed.
Everything was no different from usual.
But the thought that suddenly popped into Satsuki's head caused the lighthearted feeling she had just experienced from calculating a good business deal to stop without warning.
Just now...
What was she preparing to do?
Promoting a new crisis management system.
Letting enterprises enter domains that originally belonged to the national security system.
Establishing cross-institution data exchange standards.
Expanding the boundaries that private security could reach.
Using Saionji's money and technology to connect the government, police, financial institutions, and large enterprises piece by piece into the exact same system.
When taken out individually, these things seemed very reasonable.
One could even say they were loopholes that Japan should have plugged after June 27.
But what if they all truly started running?
Satsuki suddenly thought of six days ago.
At that time, sitting in the study of the main residence and looking at the securities news that was a day late yet still had not appeared, she earnestly re-evaluated for the first time just how accurate her memory of "history" could still be.
Similar problems had actually appeared long ago.
On the last trading day of 1989, the final stopping position of the Nikkei was nearly a thousand points higher than the highest point in her memory.
Later, the loss-covering incident of Nomura and Nikko did not appear according to the dates she was familiar with.
All these things proved that history was shifting.
Satsuki had known for a long time.
When she opened her eyes six years ago, this world already had one Saionji Satsuki who originally should not have existed.
Every extra investment, every company, and every person who made a choice ahead of time because of her thereafter would push the future slightly to the side.
Therefore, she had never been naive enough to think that history would go down exactly according to her memory.
Yet until that day, those changes always still had a visible boundary.
The Nikkei was a thousand points higher.
The bubble still burst.
The securities scandal was a few days late.
The accounts that were supposed to be dug up were still dug up in the end.
Seibu was a bit more difficult than in original history.
Japan's economy was still trapped in that familiar recession.
Even the Soviet Union—
Even though she had already arranged so many things there in advance, the problems accumulated over decades inside that massive empire would not suddenly disappear just because Saionji bought a few more research institutes and got to know a few more officials.
Satsuki had always felt that it would probably be like this.
She would affect history.
Numbers would change.
Dates would drift.
Certain people would climb up early, and some would fall down early.
Yet the great tide truly pushing the entire era forward still possessed its own inertia.
She was just standing in the river, pushing a few more stones, slightly changing the downstream flow of the long river of time.
As for the river itself, there would not be any changes.
But the things from just now were different.
Once a new system appeared, it would grant new power to people who originally should not exist.
New power would create new demands.
Demand would generate new companies, new equipment, and new budgets.
Today it was just making a few banks re-examine ties with the yakuza.
Tomorrow it might become a nationwide unified financial review standard.
Today it was just SIS doing an information exchange pilot for the police.
What about a few years from now?
If the police, immigration bureau, banks, telecommunication companies, and even more government departments truly started using the exact same standard, would the information that originally took days to flow turn into a matter of hours?
If the crisis management system gave enterprises stronger independent security capabilities, then the next time a major incident occurred, they would inevitably respond more completely than without it. At that time, would society further demand expanding their authority?
If the government consequently began continuously procuring computing, communication, recognition, and security equipment, would those technologies that were supposed to only have a market ten years later appear ahead of time because of this money?
After every change occurred, it would re-shape the conditions when the next thing happened.
Faster information flow would change how the police handled incidents.
Stronger corporate security capabilities would change society's judgment regarding "just how much authority enterprises ought to possess."
Technologies appearing in advance would give the next round of system design tools that did not originally exist.
Thus, the new outcome would become the starting point for the next matter.
And then affect the next matter.
And the next.
And the next.
In the end—
Satsuki suddenly discovered that she simply had no way to continue calculating that chain of causality.
Because there were no answers ahead anymore.
The future in her memory had never experienced these things after all.
Or rather, would the future still be that future in her memory?
A chill slowly crept up along her back.
Even though the temperature inside the car was very comfortable, she subconsciously leaned her shoulders back a bit.
If things truly reached that step...
Would she still know what Japan in 1995 would look like?
What about the year 2000?
Would those major events she remembered still happen in the original way?
Some things might still happen.
The Soviet Union's own problems would not vanish into thin air just because she changed Japan's system.
America's industrial competition, Europe's political changes, population aging—these massive structures would not easily turn around because of a single person.
But what if Saionji continued to grow larger at its current rate and stretched its hands into even more places?
If this time she truly pushed Japan to modify an entire set of systems.
What about the next time?
And the time after that?
Satsuki suddenly felt somewhat afraid to continue thinking downward.
She was not afraid of an unknown future.
Starting from six years ago, many things she had done were not done because she knew every outcome in advance.
Investments would fail, companies would misjudge, and variables that were never anticipated might pop up midway through plans.
These things had never truly frightened her.
What truly caused chills to rise across her back was another matter.
If the changes she thought of just now truly happened layer by layer, then the future might not just become "unknown."
It would become unfamiliar.
And increasingly difficult to control.
A system originally established merely to cope with the June 27 incident might grow completely different things a few years later.
Today Saionji was merely establishing an information exchange system for the government, but in the future it might thereby change how the police, banks, and enterprises handled risk.
Today it was merely letting important enterprises possess more crisis-handling capabilities, but ten years later, this capability might turn into some kind of power that all large companies deserved to possess as a matter of course.
And those technologies that appeared in advance due to new demands would continue to push the next round of system changes.
By that time, where matters would go was no longer something Satsuki could fully calculate just by sitting in her study and drawing a diagram in advance.
She might be able to decide the first step.
Even be able to decide many steps ahead.
But when more and more people, enterprises, government departments, and new interest groups entered into it, they would all make choices according to their own interests.
And then affect other people's choices.
The entire world would continuously grow forward amidst these interactions.
What it would grow into in the end—would it spiral upward? Or would the entire world begin to rot? Even the person who initially pushed all of this might not necessarily be able to explain it clearly.
Thinking of this, Satsuki truly felt a trace of chill for the first time.
She suddenly realized that she might be releasing something increasingly massive with her own hands.
At the very beginning, it might still advance according to her direction.
But what if one day, it grew so large that even she herself could no longer completely hold it back?
What if the door she opened ultimately led nowhere near the place she originally wanted to go?
That kind of world might still be very prosperous.
Perhaps technology would develop faster, enterprises would be stronger, and society would be more efficient facing crises.
Or it might be precisely the opposite.
No one knew.
Not even she knew.
This feeling was very strange.
It was like standing on a hillside where she had pushed the first stone down with her own hands, suddenly discovering that what was forming below was no longer a rolling stone whose landing point could be calculated.
But an increasingly massive avalanche.
Satsuki's breathing paused slightly.
Yet just as this chill was gradually spreading, another completely different feeling rose from the bottom of her heart almost simultaneously.
Unknown.
A truly completely unknown future.
If all this truly happened—
Would not that mean that even she herself would not be able to know in advance what the world would ultimately turn into?
It meant that every single choice she made might truly become a part of that future.
It meant that when people twenty or thirty years later looked back at today, what they saw might no longer just be a Saionji who earned a lot of money utilizing the bursting of the bubble and bought many companies.
If the system changed because of her.
Technology advanced because of her.
The boundaries between states and enterprises were redrawn because of her.
Even the direction the entire world was originally supposed to head toward gradually deviated because of the continuously increasing weight of Saionji over these past six years—
Then...
Satsuki felt her heartbeat suddenly speed up.
A nearly pleasurable shudder spread out from deep within her chest.
Her trace of uneasiness from just now was actually suppressed in a very short time by an even greater excitement.
If it could truly be done—
What kind of world would that be?
Where would her Saionji walk to?
And what about herself?
A person who could modify even the future with her own hands.
A person who made countries change systems, made enterprises operate according to the rules she left behind, and made technology grow decades in advance along the direction she chose.
If there truly was such a day—
Would not she herself become the—
King of that world?
When this thought popped up, Satsuki herself was stunned for a moment.
Afterwards, the corners of her mouth curved up bit by bit.
Really.
She was probably still just out of the hospital, and her head was not completely well.
To actually have thought to such a place.
Satsuki lowered her head and glanced at the document on her lap.
Right now, not even the first set of systems had been built yet.
The bill was also just being discussed by a few Parliament members and people from the official residence.
The so-called system change did not even have a shadow of a formal draft.
Just because she thought of a few ways to take advantage of the government while sitting in the car, she had already started daydreaming about whether the world decades later would be completely changed by herself.
That was looking a bit too highly upon herself.
How could history be so easily twisted away by a single person?
Satsuki leaned back against the seat.
The car window reflected the trace of smile gradually recovering on her face.
She was indeed no longer that little girl from six years ago who could only borrow her father's name and take a few million yen in pocket money to place secret bets.
Saionji was also long since not the family from the very beginning that changed market numbers just slightly, which was enough to shock her for a long time.
But to say that relying purely on the strength of her single person could make the entire world deviate from its original direction—
Was still too exaggerated.
Thinking of this, Satsuki instead completely relaxed.
She had probably really thought a bit too far ahead recently.
What would happen in the future could just be seen when they truly walked there.
She quickly put this overly distant question aside and lowered her head again to look at the document on her lap.
Just at this moment, the speed of the car slowed down.
Satsuki raised her head.
Rows of parked interview vehicles had already appeared on both sides of the road, and the security personnel responsible ahead had also clearly increased.
Through the dark car windows, one could still see the densely set-up cameras outside the entrance of the funeral hall, as well as the reporters blocked behind the cordon by staff.
Arrived.
The trace of smile that had just lingered on Satsuki's face vanished accordingly.
She handed the document back into Shuichi's hands, tidied the hem of her black dress slightly, and raised her hand again to confirm the dressing on the side of her face.
When she sat up straight again, not many traces could be seen of the young girl from inside the car moments ago who was enthusiastically calculating the government, systems, and the future.
What remained was only the solemnity suited for today's occasion.
"Father, we have arrived."
Shuichi glanced out the window.
"Mm."
The vehicle slowly came to a smooth stop.
Someone outside was already walking toward the car door.
Until this very moment, Satsuki probably still felt that those thoughts about changing the entire world from just now were somewhat overestimating her own capabilities.
But what she did not know was—
Six years had passed, and that butterfly had long since grown into the storm that changed the world itself.
The car door opened.
Satsuki stepped down from the car first.
The camera flashes outside the car instantly engulfed her small figure.
The storm of this world officially appeared before the eyes of the world for the first time.