After being reborn into this world from the womb, Minami Yuji had consistently maintained a style of making zero effort to conceal his own out-of-the-ordinary qualities.
After all, if one wished to get on better in society, then one had to put on display the corresponding value one possessed.
It was a fairly down-to-earth matter.
And it was precisely because this reliable adult had put on display a whole series of ways in which he was different from the average person that the Masayama Orphanage — which had originally been operating in some difficulty — saw its social attention soar vertically over the course of those years.
Quite a few people developed an interest in this orphanage that had been set up on a remote little island.
But no matter what their purposes might have been.
The money brought in by that vertical rise in social attention was no illusion.
That’s right — money was money.
No matter what the purposes were of the reporters who came over to interview them, of the curious people who came over to visit and look around…
the income they brought with them was real, hard cash.
The children’s daily-life needs were secured.
And he too was able, during that period, to grow up healthy and strong.
On this matter, Minami Yuji felt his own approach hadn’t really had much of anything wrong with it.
If one absolutely insisted on identifying a mistake —
Then it was probably that he had taken action without having properly assessed the surrounding environment.
Mainly — who could have ever seen this coming?
That hugely famous Japanese mega-conglomerate, that colossus of a corporate group, the Toyokawa Family, would actually take notice of a place like Mameshima.
Do you know how remote Mameshima is?
The only means of transport was a ferry that ran twice a day.
Amid Ryukyu’s endless stretches of little-island waters.
It was, quite simply, as inconspicuous as a single glass bead dropped into the water.
Even the Toyokawa Family, as a top-tier Japanese financial conglomerate with its hands and eyes reaching to the heavens, could not possibly know in complete detail about every sort of thing going on across all of Japan, let alone the newspaper that had run the headshot photo of Minami Yuji — the Mameshima Daily — which was just a Mameshima-local…
publication with a grand total of 467 readers.
Yet the Toyokawa Family of all things had somehow found out about him — this ‘child prodigy’ so utterly different from ordinary people.
And this was the part that Minami Yuji really, for the life of him, could not figure the reason for.
It was only at that point that Minami Yuji finally learned.
The identities of those two certain little girls whom his own director…
that is, Minami Mao…
had had him keep company with and play with from time to time.
Toyokawa Sakiko and Misumi Hatsune…
With that, the question that had been troubling our reliable adult was, at long last, answered.
Because in the plot of a certain anime series about a girls’ band — one that didn’t seem at all like a girls’ band anime — this blue-haired little girl called Toyokawa Sakiko was none other than the heir of the top-tier conglomerate, the Toyokawa Family…
As the heir of the Toyokawa Family, even at a tender age, Toyokawa Sakiko’s whereabouts would naturally be under the Toyokawa Family’s constant watch and concern.
And so, Minami Yuji — a person who was as far from typical as it was possible to be among his peers — quite naturally leapt straight into the Toyokawa Family’s line of sight…
What would this be like by analogy?
The young miss of the Toyokawa Family felt Tokyo’s weather was too hot, and so went out for a change of scenery to escape the heat.
And Minami Yuji was just some random passerby sitting in the shade of a tree to keep cool — except, before she’d even arrived at her destination, he, tree and all, had been directly ‘incidentally’ sent flying by this big rig that was the Toyokawa Family.
That’s right — incidentally.
This was the thing that left Minami Yuji most utterly at a loss for words.
And the problem lay precisely here.
If it had only been being ‘sent flying’ incidentally on the side by this Toyokawa Family big rig.
Then that would actually still be fairly easy to solve — at worst, Minami Yuji could simply avoid meeting Toyokawa Sakiko from then on, and that would be that.
But the problem was that the Toyokawa main bloodline — what they practiced was the ‘mukoyōshi’ (adoptive son-in-law) system.
The so-called mukoyōshi was, in essence, a means by which, when a family was lacking a male heir, or when the male heir’s abilities were insufficient, the family would select an heir from outside.
Put in plain language.
It was that the Toyokawa Family, for several generations running, hadn’t produced a single decent specimen!
What they were born were basically all female offspring — not a single male heir.
And in order to ensure the continuation of the Toyokawa Family bloodline, and secondarily because there needed to be a male to shoulder the main pillar of the Toyokawa Family.
The Toyokawa Family really had no other recourse but to select outstanding males from outside, have them marry into the Toyokawa Family, then take them in as adopted sons and register them into the Toyokawa Family, so as to make them responsible for the Toyokawa Family’s basic operations. Read the latest chapters at novelping(.)com.
Many people who’d watched the anime might feel that the Toyokawa Family was a family that valued daughters over sons, but in actuality this was not the case.
Most Japanese families viewed ‘family name’ and ‘bloodline’ as a matter of honor, and so would do their utmost to select a direct-line male of the main house as heir.
And a method like ‘mukoyōshi’ was generally a last-ditch measure taken by the upper echelons of a family who had been backed into a corner — there genuinely being no direct-line heir, the iron tree refusing to bloom, all the offspring being female, yet at the same time needing to ensure that the family’s name (such as ‘Toyokawa’) would be inherited.
It was simply a method that a family had no choice but to adopt in order to continue its own pure bloodline.
Toyokawa Sakiko’s father, Toyokawa Kiyotsugu, and her grandfather, Toyokawa Sadaharu, had come into being in just such a manner.
For this reason, the Toyokawa Family actually placed more value than anyone on the ‘quality’ of the husbands brought in from outside.
Therefore, Minami Yuji — who had already begun to display far-above-average talent at just two or three years old — was quite naturally targeted by the Toyokawa Family.
But the problem was that mukoyōshi, within Japan’s plutocratic-family setups like this, was inherently of very low status; even if recognized as an adopted son, the mukoyōshi found it very difficult to be acknowledged by direct-line relatives.
Most direct-line relatives of plutocratic families simply regarded mukoyōshi as nothing more than tools for inheriting the family business — work-horses purely working for the family, and nothing more.
It wasn’t as though, just because you’d hung the name ‘Toyokawa’ on yourself, they would actually accept you.
Many people might feel this is rather a case of ‘the left brain fighting the right brain’ — how could one simultaneously value your abilities yet not value you as a person?
All one can really say is that Japan’s ‘national character’ simply is like this.
Sometimes, in their view, bloodline really is more important than ability.
As reference for this point, just refer to the Japanese imperial family’s intermarriage among close relatives and you’ll be able to understand.
And after analyzing all of this out, Minami Yuji really was at a loss for words.
He had no choice but to be at a loss for words.
Ever since being reborn into this world from the womb, there hadn’t been many things that had let him take it easy — he seemed to have been running hell-level dungeons this whole time.
And the result, good grief…
The hell-level dungeon hadn’t even finished yet, and you’re going and running me through a nightmare-level one on top of it…
The key thing was, back then he’d thought that little kids were really all of a sameness, all looking more or less alike — who could have guessed that that twin-tailed little girl who would cry endlessly over a single fall, who looked all dopey and slow on the uptake, would actually be the heir to one of Japan’s top-tier financial conglomerates?
As a matter of fact, this was already not the first time the Toyokawa Family had come knocking, wanting to request to adopt Minami Yuji.
Just during the time on Mameshima alone, the Toyokawa Family had come over seven or eight times, and every single time they had come bearing exorbitant prices, wanting to adopt Minami Yuji.
Even after being repulsed time and time again, they remained tireless — if anything becoming all the more determined to get hold of Minami Yuji.
There was no help for it: the talent Minami Yuji had displayed was simply far too tempting.
In the face of adult scrutiny, he could readily maintain a composed state of mind.
To their difficult questions, he gave decorous, unflustered replies.
On top of that, that intelligence far surpassing his childhood years.
If they could start from him young, start from zero, and shape him with their own hands.
Then they would surely end up with a near-perfect Toyokawa Family heir!
On this point, our ‘beloved-by-everyone’ classmate Minami Yuji really did have nothing to say either.
The main reason was that he had never imagined this kind of trashy-melodrama plotline of ‘mukoyōshi’ would happen to him.
The key part was, he was only six at the time!
You’re just going to come in and settle my marriage right off the bat?
For real?
Although Minami Yuji didn’t exactly have any kind of marriage phobia.
But to have someone at the age of six suddenly come up and go, ‘Hey, old Minami, you want a wife or what?’ — and then get fixed up with a ‘dopey, slow-on-the-uptake’ blue-haired wife…
to go off to some place and serve as a pure tool-man.
Swap that around onto anyone else and it’d probably be unacceptable to them too.
And so he had decisively expressed his refusal.
So —
“Was it that same old hag who sent you lot over again?”
The moment he entered the room, Minami Yuji turned his head to the side and looked over at the formally-suited person in charge across from him on the tatami.
“Old hag…” Even though this formally-suited person in charge was a man of considerable refinement, upon hearing this form of address, he still couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth.
But very quickly, he shook his head.
“It was Madam Miki who sent us.
It has already been two years since our last appointment, and she wishes to meet with you once again.”
“…Is that so…
it’s already been two years, huh.”
How to put it.
He had, in fact, long since anticipated that this day would come.
Japan was a textbook capitalist society.
Having money didn’t exactly mean being able to do whatever one pleased, but people who had money were perfectly capable of dancing back and forth on the red line of Japanese law.
The Toyokawa Family, as a top-tier financial conglomerate, had taken the principle of resorting to any means necessary and pushed it to the absolute extreme.
The very fact that they had been able to locate this kind of place itself indicated that the Toyokawa Family had definitely done some investigating into their family situation; today’s visit was probably more along the lines of scouting the location, wanting to find out whether he was here.
If he simply ignored it, then in all likelihood similar farces would only become more and more frequent later on.
After all, as a top-tier financial conglomerate — the Toyokawa Family, which had risen since the post-war era on the strength of energy and metals — was inherently incapable of, and didn’t need to, care about the feelings of someone like Minami Reiko.
To put it plainly, the Toyokawa Family was a huge clan, and within it there was more than just that one faction of Toyokawa Sakiko and Toyokawa Sadaharu.
So —
Minami Yuji stood up.
Minami Reiko, behind him, seeing him stand up, the expression on her fair-skinned face instantly underwent a change, and she anxiously let out a sound: “Yuji —”
Because she had picked up on it — just then, Minami Yuji seemed to have made some kind of decision.
Her expression was anxious, and she wanted to say something more.
Because Minami Yuji was looking at her.
Smiling, looking at her.
“Relax, Reiko-nee.”
He said.
This really was just a word of comfort from an eight-year-old child.
Comfort coming from the mouth of an eight-year-old child really ought to have had no effect whatsoever.
Yet for some reason, the agitation and unease that had only just been roiling in Minami Reiko’s heart…
In that moment had — astonishingly — all vanished into thin air completely.
She let out a soft sigh.
This time, she did not say another word more, merely silently meeting his gaze.
Because she had discovered something…
Whether back during the time on Mameshima, or right now…
It seemed…
as if she had been being taken care of by Minami Yuji this whole time.
So she wasn’t going to say anything more.
She would respect Minami Yuji’s choice.
And seeing that Minami Reiko’s emotions seemed to have stabilized, Minami Yuji also turned his head to the side.
This time, his gaze fell on the other side — onto Aqua Hoshino and Saitou Kyoko.
“Sorry about this, Aqua, Auntie Kyoko — you’ve seen the situation for yourselves; the household really isn’t in any state for receiving guests today, so I’ll have to trouble you to head back early.”
“…No, it’s us who should be the ones embarrassed — for paying you a visit so abruptly.”
Saitou Kyoko really did live up to being a working adult — just one glance at Minami Yuji, then another at the crowd of people standing beside him, and she understood what he was planning to do.
And so she gave a crisp nod of the head.
“Let’s go — take me to meet that old hag who’s still got half a life left and hasn’t kicked the bucket yet.”
Minami Yuji turned his head back, opening his mouth cleanly and decisively.
That’s right…
Not the nominal head of the Toyokawa Family clan, Toyokawa Sadaharu.
But the one standing behind that party…
The one who, on the current timeline, has not yet passed away…
the present true power-holder of the Toyokawa Family…
Toyokawa Sadaharu’s mother-in-law…
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