Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 9 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Habikino Hatsuhiko

Money makes the world go round.

—Excerpt from the Reverse Crux Record

Three years earlier, the season had arrived for an event that college clubs all across the country made a point of throwing: the annual welcome party.

Strictly speaking, welcoming their college’s new students was only part of the reason most clubs chose to throw their parties. Drawing in new recruits with the promise of a good time was more often than not the actual primary objective—these welcome parties were more or less especially boisterous recruitment drives.

Most such events took place in bars, and alcohol tended to flow freely with no regard for the fact that the vast majority of first-year college students were underage. Underage drinking—often to excess—was a common occurrence, and, like clockwork, every year a number of clubs would end up making headlines after getting themselves wrapped up in some manner of alcohol-related legal trouble. Thus, to many new students, the club welcome parties would serve as the first taste of their new college lifestyles as well as a sort of rite of passage.

One day, in April of that year, a club known as Win-Wing, operating out of an especially well-known private university, had done as most clubs did and gathered up a group of new students for their annual welcome party. One aspect of their party was entirely unlike other clubs’ events, however: their venue. Rather than one of the usual bars or karaoke joints, Win-Wing’s party was being held in a luxury hotel’s banquet hall.

“All right, everyone—a toast, to your admission into our fair university and to our club’s continuing growth and prosperity! Cheers!” the man who was acting as the party’s host proclaimed, his voice cheerful and welcoming. The close to a hundred men and women in attendance raised their glasses in unison and echoed his call.

The banquet hall was large enough to accommodate all hundred of Win-Wing’s guests with plenty of room to spare. A magnificent chandelier dangled from the ceiling, bathing the room in gentle light, and the expansive window that occupied one of the walls offered a breathtaking, uninterrupted view of the nighttime cityscape. The party’s buffet offered delicacies from all corners of the world, and the bar in the corner of the room provided a steady stream of cocktails to the waiters who were distributing drinks throughout the room.

The sheer luxury of the event was on a level one would normally only expect from galas hosted by large business owners or politicians, yet everyone in attendance was in their late teens or early twenties. They were college students, nothing more, and a full half of them had been high schoolers just a month ago. It was such an excessive display of wealth that a fair number of those new students quickly grew uncomfortable, but the club’s upperclassmen skillfully brought them around, improving the mood in the venue in the blink of an eye.

Win-Wing’s leader, Habikino Hatsuhiko, watched cheerfully as the new students gradually grew comfortable with their lavish surroundings. He kept to the outskirts of the party, leaning against one of the walls and looking out over the whole venue.

Just as he snagged an olive-garnished cocktail from a passing waiter and was about to take a sip, a man approached him.

“Hey, bossman! What’re you wallflowering it up for? You’re the head of the club, for crying out loud! Shouldn’t you be out there making some connections?!” said the man, who happened to be the same one who’d offered up the toast shortly beforehand. Everything about him was dazzling, from the color of his hair, to his attitude, to his tone of voice. You could tell at a glance that he was the sort of college student who’d entered higher education to have a good time first and study second—if ever.

“I prefer to drink in peace and quiet,” said Hatsuhiko. “I’ll leave the connecting in your capable hands, Takurou.”

“Hah! You never change, Hatsuhiko. Crazy how a guy with pockets as deep as yours could be so gloomy, honestly. But that’s cool! I’ve got livening up this party in the bag, so just sit back and watch me work my magic!” said Takurou, head held high in a jovial display of confidence.

A moment later, his gaze dropped to the small glass in Hatsuhiko’s hand. “You’re drinking one of those little prissy things again, really? What’re they called? Marinies?”

“Martinis,” Hatsuhiko corrected. “A mixed drink comprising gin and vermouth. The name is an abbreviation of ‘Martinez cocktail.’”

“Oooh, right! I get it now,” Takurou replied with a laugh.

“H-Hey, Takurou?” a somewhat feeble voice rang out, cutting into the two men’s conversation. A cluster of young women had gathered up behind Takurou and were currently staring a hole in his back.

“Whoops! My bad! Kept you girls waiting, haven’t I?” said Takurou. “These lovely ladies are new students who I just got to know a moment ago! Seems they’d love a chance to talk with our beloved leader.”

Takurou introduced the women to Hatsuhiko one by one. They were all clearly a little nervous about meeting him, but Hatsuhiko’s mild smile and welcoming demeanor had them relaxed in no time. It wasn’t long before the social dam burst and they began barraging him with questions.

“U-Umm, so, I heard that your family manages this hotel! Is that true?”

“That suit’s an Armani, isn’t it? I’m actually really into fashion, and—”

“They say you already help manage a bunch of companies—”

“Is it true that everyone who joins this club gets to—”

Their envious gazes and nonstop queries were relentless, but Hatsuhiko addressed them one by one, politely and courteously.

As far as the university was concerned, Win-Wing’s purpose was to enable its members’ collaborative study of economic principles. In actuality, it was a club dedicated purely to real-world financial management. Its members helped manage and direct all kinds of assets, from business enterprises to real estate and everything in between.

Ordinarily, leaving that sort of management in the hands of college students would be unthinkable. Win-Wing, however, had such a consistent and undeniable track record of success that it had earned the trust of clients far and wide. Only three years had passed since the club had been founded, yet the sum total of all the assets under its control was worth well over ten billion yen.

The organization had appeared out of nowhere, grown at an explosive pace, and was now the center of attention across a massive variety of fields and industries...though to be more precise, it wasn’t the organization that had garnered all that attention at all—rather, it was its founder, Habikino Hatsuhiko, who had made it all happen. At the end of the day, Win-Wing’s success had been entirely enabled by his sharp instincts and business acumen.

“I’m telling you, you’ve gotta join! I didn’t know a thing about funds or investments or any of that stuff at first either, but Hatsuhiko taught me everything I needed to know, and look at me now! I’m the honest-to-god president and CEO of my own company, for crying out loud!” said Takurou.

“Of course, considering you can found a company without a single yen in actual capital these days, being a president on its own isn’t much to boast about,” Hatsuhiko chimed in.

“C’mon, you didn’t have to tell them that!” Takurou groaned. The little comedy act he and Hatsuhiko were putting on sent the people around them into hysterics, and Takurou seized that opportunity to whisper into Hatsuhiko’s ear. “Okay, I’m gonna go do the rounds and check in with the other newbies! You take care of these kids here, all right?”

“Right,” said Hatsuhiko. “And thanks for keeping the party running smoothly for me.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it! What’re friends for?” Takurou shot back with a winning smile and a thumbs-up. Then he slipped out from the group that had clustered around Hatsuhiko, moving on to meld with a different circle of partygoers. It was clearly a well-practiced move on his part, and it went to show how finely developed his communication skills were.

Hatsuhiko spent some time carrying on his idle conversation with the girls...until a bespectacled man surreptitiously approached him from behind. Hatsuhiko quickly picked up on the man’s presence, politely excused himself from the first-year girls, and joined up with the man before exiting the banquet hall and making his way to a nearby smoking zone.

“So, Yoshiki—did you track him down?” Hatsuhiko asked as he lit up a cigarette. His tone of voice was so cold and detached it was hard to believe it was coming from the same man who’d been chatting away so amiably just moments before.

“Yes. You were right about everything. Takurou’s the one who’s been skimming off the membership fees. I had one of my underlings investigate his office, and to make a long story short, we have all the evidence we need now. He falsified the numbers, pocketed the difference, and used it to pay off the debts he incurred to form his company.”

“So, just as I expected. Honestly...this just goes to show that no good ever comes from an idiot deciding to start his own company,” Hatsuhiko grumbled, letting out a disgusted sigh along with a cloud of cigarette smoke. Just minutes ago, he’d treated Takurou like the young man was his best friend on earth, and now, he seemed to hold him in the purest of contempt.

“What’s our move?” asked Yoshiki. “This was straight-up theft. Do we take him to court?”

“No, not yet,” said Hatsuhiko. “In fact, let him keep doing his thing.”

“Huh? But...why? That’s insane! Why would we—” Yoshiki began, only to cut his own outburst off before it went anywhere. Hatsuhiko hadn’t said a word...but the glare he’d shot Yoshiki was colder than ice. That one look made Yoshiki stiffen up then glance away. “O-Okay, then. You’ve been right about everything else so far, so consider it done,” he said, then he practically fled from the smoking area.

Hatsuhiko finished his cigarette, then he headed back into the banquet hall. The moment he stepped inside, his expression reverted to the same calm, people-pleasing smile he’d worn before he left.

Habikino Hatsuhiko loved money.

No, that’s not quite right. His feelings toward money had long since transcended the realm of mere likes and dislikes. In Hatsuhiko’s mind, money drove the world forward, propped it up, changed it, and formed it. Money was the world itself.

The club he had founded, Win-Wing, was officially an organization intended to enable its members’ collaborative study of economic principles, while behind the scenes its true purpose was to manage financial assets...but unbeknownst to its members, the club had a third, actual purpose even aside from that—to serve as a factory in which Hatsuhiko could mass-produce slaves to do his bidding.

Hatsuhiko firmly believed that money was the great motivator. Money was all you could ever need. It drove people more so than anything else on the planet—and that didn’t just apply to money that you could provide. Debt was just as capable of moving people to action as the promise of money could be, and a vast number of Win-Wing’s members were indebted to Hatsuhiko. None of them, however, held that fact against him. Far from it—some of them even idolized him.

Whenever Hatsuhiko’s clubmates would find themselves in financial trouble, he would be there to lend a helping hand in the simplest way possible, lending them the money they needed. Their debts would have crushed them unless someone had stepped in to help, and he did just that, asking for no interest on his loan and setting no deadline for repayment. They revered him as a god, or perhaps a Buddha. Their gratitude could hardly be overstated...and none of them so much as suspected that Hatsuhiko himself had engineered their debts to begin with.

Take, for instance, the case of Mukaibara Takurou. He had founded a company recently, only to find himself in dire straits when its financial situation went south...but the person who had spurred him into making said company and who had pulled every string available to ensure that it wouldn’t come together successfully was none other than Hatsuhiko himself. All Hatsuhiko had to do at that point was wait for Takurou to come to him, desperate and in tears, then offer him a few kind words and a paltry sum of money. With that, yet another obedient slave would enter Hatsuhiko’s service. The matter of the embezzled club funds was nothing more than a handy bargaining chip that he could tuck away for future use.

Using those general methods, Hatsuhiko had seized control of the lives of a sizable number of his club’s members. He then proceeded to use them freely, building up even more funding and recruiting more slaves in the process. That’s all the club meant to him, really. It was a tool he could use to make “connections”—in other words, slaves—nothing more and nothing less.

The evening’s welcome party served the same end. All he wanted out of it was the chance to bring more workers into his roster, and he’d intended to spend the whole evening acting the part of the perfect upperclassman while he searched for potentially useful attendees...until, that is, a certain word had happened to reach his ears.

“‘Rich’?”

In spite of himself, Hatsuhiko had found his emotions instantly riled. The one single word he detested above all others had just cropped up in casual conversation, right in front of him.

“Tell me...do you want to be rich?” he asked the girl who had uttered the offending word, flashing her a carefree smile.

“Yeah!” the girl replied, her eyes sparkling with admiration as she looked up at him. “I want to be rich just like you!”

Hatsuhiko paused for just a moment. “I have to admit...I’ve never been fond of that word. Rich, that is.”

“Huh? Why? Everyone wants to be rich!” said the girl.

Hatsuhiko’s poker face was perfect. He didn’t let the slightest hint of the revulsion and irritation that was brewing within him show on the surface, and his attitude remained as warm and hospitable as ever. His words, however, ever so slightly betrayed his true feelings.

“I like money, yes, but I don’t like the idea of being rich. Or, more precisely, I don’t like the word ‘rich’ itself. A rich person is someone who has lots of money, and that fails to express the ideal that I aspire to,” Hatsuhiko said, much to the immediately visible confusion of everyone around him. They obviously didn’t get it. “Hmm. This is a little hard to explain, but... Well, think of it this way: being rich means that you have money, but for the word to really describe what I find aspirational, it would have to mean that you use money. Just think about it—the people we generally describe as rich aren’t those who hoard their money. They’re the people who use it, and use it effectively.”

“But, wait...isn’t that the same thing?” asked one of the new students. “Like, you have to have money if you wanna use it, right?”

“Wrong,” said Hatsuhiko, shutting the student down outright. “You don’t need to have money to use money. Debts, loans, stocks, investments...there are all sorts of means available, really. If you don’t use money, you’ll never earn it either. Only idiots spend their whole lives diligently budgeting and squirreling away their savings. In fact, keeping savings is a phenomenal waste of money in and of itself! Why would you let all that value slumber away in a bank account? It’s pointless. Our government has sticky fingers, after all. Whether you keep it in the form of land or liquid assets, just having money alone gives them the right to tax the shirt off your back.”

Hatsuhiko knew what he was talking about. Asset management was his bread and butter, and as he carried on, the people around him became more and more invested in his lecture.

“Money makes the world go round—in other words, money is only meaningful when you spend it and keep the cycle going! That’s what allows you to insert yourself into the cycle’s center, and once you’ve made it there, you can use all the money you could ever desire. When I hear people boast about their savings and assets, all I can do is laugh at them. They don’t get it—using money is what really matters. It’s not about having the most; it’s about moving the most.”

That, in Hatsuhiko’s mind, was why wanting to be “rich” meant you’d missed the mark entirely. When the peasants, in all their pathetic jealousy, called someone rich, they were invariably talking about the sort of person who knew how to use money, not how to hoard it. The idea that only those who had money could use it was a foolish, tragic misunderstanding, and it was why the poor would remain poor forevermore, forming the base that the rest of society could stand upon.

“That, you see, is why I chose to go all out and throw such a lavish party to welcome our new members. I’m spending freely to invest in you, in the hopes that you’ll provide big returns in the near future,” Hatsuhiko concluded. He’d noticed that his lecture had ended up coming across as a little stiff, so he decided to wrap things up on a positive note.

Just as he’d expected, that last line had lifted the new students’ spirits. They were all smiles, and the party returned to its former festive atmosphere.

Nobody present had figured out Hatsuhiko’s true motives. They were far too wrapped up in the truly unfamiliar world of luxury they’d stumbled into to suspect for so much as a moment that he had every intention of turning them into his slaves. He would use money to use people, and use people to use money. All in all, Habikino Hatsuhiko’s life was coming up roses...

“Bwa ha ha!”

...until that very moment. Until the moment a dry and seemingly sourceless laugh echoed through the hall. It was a scornful laugh—a laugh that made it very clear you were being looked down upon in every possible sense.

“Ahh... My bad, honestly. This is supposed to be a whole occasion for you, so I was trying to hold it in, but I just couldn’t manage it. It’s no use... I can’t... Bwa ha ha! Bwaaa ha ha ha ha!”

Hatsuhiko’s gaze finally landed on a man who wasn’t even so much as attempting to restrain his loud, raucous laughter. He was a man of contrasts, his black coat offset by his silver hair. His eyes, partially hidden behind a pair of round sunglasses, were mismatched as well—the left eye black, and the right a shade of crimson. The party was taking place at a luxury hotel, and everyone in attendance had dressed as formally as college students were capable of, but he was an exception that stood out like a sore thumb. In one hand, he held a plate, and in the other, a pair of tongs. It seemed he’d been partway through piling a mountain of cake from the buffet onto his dish when his laughter had gotten the better of him.

“Who is that man?” Hatsuhiko asked a nearby clubmate.

“A new student. His name’s, uh...Kiryuu, I think. None of us invited him, but he showed up anyway, and he hasn’t talked to anyone since he got here—he’s just been eating. I’m pretty sure he only came for a free meal.”

New students showing up to a club’s welcome party for a free lunch was hardly unheard of. Generally speaking, those sorts of parties were paid for by the club’s upperclassmen, so there were always a few opportunistic first-years who decided to hit up as many welcome parties as possible and eat for free for the better part of April.

“Hello there, Kiryuu,” Hatsuhiko said, keeping up his agreeable front as he approached the thoroughly eccentric man who’d crashed his party.

“Bwa ha ha! ‘Kiryuu,’ huh...? Sure, let’s go with that. It’s a decent enough name for a place like this.”

“You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself! Out of curiosity, what exactly are you laughing about?” asked Hatsuhiko, his persona unbudging even in the face of Kiryuu’s flagrantly disrespectful attitude. Hatsuhiko was determined to act the gentleman to the bitter end.

“Oh, nothing major,” said Kiryuu. “It’s just...this whole farce has been so downright unsightly, I couldn’t help but crack up.”

Hatsuhiko fell into an intense silence. Had Kiryuu caught on? Had he realized the true intent behind this joke of a welcome party? All signs seemed to point to the man in front of him being very aware that Hatsuhiko’s only motive for throwing the event was to gather up a stock of useful pawns. With that fact in mind, the event took on a new light. It was nothing more than a cluster of gormless youths, lured in by the promise of a free party at a luxury hotel only to be cajoled by the club’s members into joining, never suspecting the grief it would bring them in the long term.

Yes, he has a point. It really is an unsightly farce, Hatsuhiko admitted to himself. This was not, however, the first time someone had caught on to one of his welcome parties’ true designs. People who were quick-witted enough to pick up on that sort of thing had just as many uses as the unthinking dullards who were lured in unawares. The question is, how will I make this man into my slave?

For just a moment, the wheels in Hatsuhiko’s mind began to turn, his calculations hidden by his ever-radiant smile...but it wasn’t long before he realized his own mistake.

“Bwa ha ha!”

Kiryuu’s derisive laughter wasn’t directed at the clueless throng of new students, or at the club members who swarmed to Hatsuhiko’s side, ready to do his bidding.

“Honestly...there’s nothing more unsightly—and nothing funnier—than a man who’s under the misapprehension that he’s something special.”

Kiryuu sneered with contempt, with disdain, with an arrogant air of superiority...and he directed every bit of it toward Habikino Hatsuhiko himself.

“Are you...referring to me?” Hatsuhiko asked, his smile growing ever so slightly strained.

“That’s right. You,” said Kiryuu. “Who else would I be talking about?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow. Please, enlighten me—in what way do I strike you as ‘funny’ and ‘unsightly’?” Hatsuhiko pressed, his tone taking on a note of insistent emphasis. Kiryuu’s scornful sneer, however, didn’t fade. The look on his face was starting to prick at Hatsuhiko’s pride, and a sense of indescribable discomfort and rage began to build within him.

“Money,” said Kiryuu. “You really talked our ears off about it, huh? All that stuff about how to use it and whatever. I’m sure you thought you were dispensing some eminent advice from up on that high horse of yours, but from my perspective it was a joke—and a damn funny one. You don’t know the first thing about money.”

“You think...I don’t understand money?”

“That’s right. You’re convinced you’re a master when it comes to using money...but the truth is the exact opposite. From my perspective, it’s money that’s been using you.”

Hatsuhiko fell silent, aghast at the accusation, and Kiryuu smiled.

“You know what you are, deep down? A slave to money,” Kiryuu declared with a look that made Hatsuhiko feel like he’d seen right through him.

With that, Kiryuu spun about on his heels, his long coat whipping around behind him with a snap, and he strolled away.

“A slave to money, and that slave’s slaves. Looks like everyone here’s a slave in one way or another,” Kiryuu said, completely indifferent to the fact that the atmosphere in the room had turned cold as ice. He headed over to a seat where he’d left his personal effects and a paper bag, collected them, then made for the exit. “It’s tragic, isn’t it...? Seems everyone’s a slave to something, at the end of the day. And I’m no exception, slave to my destiny that I am,” he muttered in a melancholic tone as he bade the party farewell...only to be stopped by a waiter stationed by the banquet hall’s exit, who politely explained that bringing food home was against hotel policy and confiscated the impressive number of Tupperware containers Kiryuu had hidden in his paper bag, much to his dismay.

That comical conclusion to Kriyuu’s gatecrashing adventure, however, escaped Hatsuhiko’s notice entirely. His fury, roiling away within him like a sea of magma, had reached its peak. He wasn’t registering anything he saw at all, and his hands shook with such potent rage that the olive in his cocktail glass spilled to the floor, taking most of his martini with it.

Three years later—that is, in the present day—the sun shone on Hatsuhiko through a massive window almost the size of the wall it’d been built into. It had been designed to allow visitors to enjoy an unrestricted view of the nighttime cityscape, and it was the very same window in the very same banquet hall that Hatsuhiko had thrown frequent parties at when he was in college. Hatsuhiko stood alone in the center of the hall, dwarfed by its immense scale. He’d bought the hotel from his father some time ago, banquet hall and all, rendering it his private property and enabling himself to use it however he saw fit.

After graduating from college, Hatsuhiko had turned his efforts to expanding his already impressive enterprises. He’d founded countless companies, gotten his feet wet in all corners of the business world, and accumulated a vast fortune in the process. The connections he’d formed in Win-Wing had indeed proved helpful out in the real world. His clubmates had gone on to work in banks, as government officials, at major food manufacturers, in pharmaceutical companies, as doctors...and every one of them bore the misapprehension that Hatsuhiko was their benefactor, meaning he could effortlessly use them however he pleased. Many of them still hadn’t paid off their debts to him, and he used that leverage to force them to leak confidential information to him.

Hatsuhiko was walking the path to greatness. He’d been featured in magazines and on TV as a young and brilliant entrepreneur over and over. He was the subject of envy and admiration from all and sundry. He had it made.

“...”

And yet...Hatsuhiko was unfulfilled. There was an emptiness within him—a void that had been sitting vacant since three years beforehand. No matter how much money he made, no matter how many achievements he racked up, that empty space was never filled. Quite the contrary, in fact. The more money he spent, the larger the hole seemed to grow.

“A slave to money, am I?” Hatsuhiko muttered, mulling over the phrase that had been thrown at him three years prior in that very room. To this day, he still didn’t understand the meaning of Kiryuu’s words or the intentions that had led him to say them. What he did understand with painful clarity was that they had been a rejection. Kiryuu Hajime had disavowed Hatsuhiko’s lifestyle, his values, his identity, and the very world he’d lived in, from start to finish. He’d disavowed him, mocked him, and laughed in his face.

Hatsuhiko sat in a corner of the room. Still and silent though he was, an inferno of violent emotions blazed within his eyes.

“I have to get back at him. I’ll never be satisfied otherwise,” Hatsuhiko said to himself. “I’ll never be able to move on...until I make Kiryuu Hajime submit to me.”

It was for that purpose alone that Hatsuhiko had agreed to join the Spirit War. He’d already made his fortune, and a man of his capabilities could grant his wishes by his own power. He didn’t desire anything from the spirits. He was fighting for one purpose: to settle the score with Kiryuu.

That grudge was what had led him to buy the hotel from his father as well. He wanted something to remember his meeting with Kiryuu by—to make sure that blot on his history would never fade. Even now, the humiliation he’d felt that day still festered within him. Hatsuhiko had lived his entire life looking down at the people around him, and when it finally came time for him to be looked down upon himself, the experience had left him shaken to his core like nothing else before or since.

That was when the door to the banquet hall opened, and a visitor stepped inside.

“Hello there. Nice to see you,” said Hatsuhiko, the indignation vanishing from his expression in an instant, replaced by his usual smile so smoothly that it was like he’d swapped one mask for another. “It’s a good thing that at least one of us gave his actual contact information, isn’t it? I had a feeling that you’d use it to get in touch if, say, something unexpected happened to you.”

Hatsuhiko’s visitor didn’t say a word. His dismal scowl made it clear how terribly ill he felt, and if it hadn’t, the dark bags under his eyes and his deathly pale skin would’ve done the job nicely. There was barely a trace of vitality to be seen in him, and he tottered across the room, his steps dreadfully unsteady.

“So, what’s wrong? You certainly look like you’ve seen better days...Akutagawa Yanagi.”

It was Yanagi indeed. The boy whom he’d tasked with the assassination of Kiryuu Hajime had made his way directly to Hatsuhiko’s doorstep.