A modern white granite building with a raised, pyramid-shaped center stood in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
This was the hub of Japanese politics, the National Diet Building, with the House of Representatives on the left and the House of Councillors on the right.
Mineko Yuki, who had still been a police academy trainee half a month earlier, sat stiffly beside the Superintendent General. Subjected to all manner of strange looks from every direction, she barely maintained a rigid smile on her pretty face.
This closed-door meeting at the highest level had begun the day after the battle in Sapporo City and continued for three days without ending.
Every attendee was a heavyweight who could shake an entire region with a stamp of their foot: governors from more than half of the forty-seven prefectures, prefectural police headquarters chiefs, members of the House of Representatives, and the vast majority of Cabinet ministers.
Even Prince Fumihito of Akishino, first in the line of succession, had briefly sat in for half an hour on the first day.
Perhaps he had found it boring, as he had never attended again afterward.
The Metropolitan Police Department had received a warning letter Tobi had mailed from Adachi Ward, leaving them jumping at shadows. For safety's sake, half the attendees had been arranged to participate remotely from elsewhere. Otherwise, the National Diet Building might not have had room for everyone.
Life's twists and turns were truly unpredictable. Mineko Yuki had never imagined that a commoner like her, whose family had been ordinary folk for three generations, would one day sit in the National Diet Building.
Although the constitution had been revised under MacArthur's supervision after the war, Japan's native political ecosystem had not been destroyed. Instead, hereditary politics and parochialism in Japanese politics had been strengthened.
Taking 2021 as