If Buy ~If Rakuten Group Acquired SoftBank (9434)~ ①

And Then No One Could Process Data, a super-fusion epic of capital, book value, and mahjong tables, released once again from the underground warehouse of note by Rintaro Takechi, the genius who shocked social media.

The accounting youth story "If Boka (Book Value)," secretly passed down in the back alleys of note. And the legendary underground mahjong saga "The Crying Baldy."

The latest work in the "Masayoshi Son Series" that follows that lineage appears here in response to someone's long-awaited desire.

But... who exactly is that someone?
Is it a mysterious person who exists only in the beautiful mind of Rintaro Takechi? Or is it just an illusion...?

The real thrill of a Rintaro Takechi mystery novel, where mystery calls to mystery, is here.

No, is this even a mystery novel to begin with?

A bizarre fictional economic novel that even surpasses the strange book "AI 2027," which destroyed the very concept of a novel, now begins.

Grassroots Slack, old SBG local NAS, accounting Excel files on the verge of being discarded. It is said that a nameless scheduled post was left behind there quietly.

・SoftBank Group on the verge of bankruptcy.
・Middle Eastern royalty enraged by unpaid dividends.
・Masayoshi Son, a.k.a. "The Crying Baldy," reborn in the underworld.

Appearing as if to respond to that shadow was Mine Ogami, a former SBG intern and wandering accountant. What she deduced in the accounting office in Shibuya was a re-evaluation of "souls below book value."

M&A, FAX, connect scores, and spiritual assets.

Who will buy back the "balance of dreams" left behind in the telecommunications industry, and for how much?

This is the final Merger Wars of Reiwa capitalism, unfolding across the boundary between ledgers and philosophy.

Prologue: The Crying Baldy, On the Run

The glass-walled office at Azabudai Hills as night fell. There were no lights shining there anymore.

Only in one room, an electronic whiteboard placed in the corner of the executive conference room was emitting a pale blue light.

A mysterious mathematical formula left by someone was emerging.

"DCF = (Hope × Story) ÷ Responsibility"

That was the formula left behind at the end by Masayoshi Son, who was once called the world's greatest entrepreneur.

・SoftBank Group (SBG) is on the verge of collapse.
・The Nasdaq AI bubble has deflated, and investments are being written down one after another.
・The Vision Fund has become an illusion, and the corporate bond market has mercilessly closed its doors.

A private board meeting held early in the New Year of 2026.

There was only one agenda item.

"Sale of telecommunications subsidiary 9434"

(*9434 = SoftBank Corp. The stock code for SoftBank Corp., the telecommunications business company under the SBG umbrella)

The sale of SoftBank Corp., which SBG called its "treasure" until the very end. It was a de facto declaration of defeat. And the person who hated that more than anyone else was the founder, Masayoshi Son. From that day on, he disappeared.

It was not long after that when rumors began to spread like the wind that the man once hailed as the 'God of AI' was now holding mahjong tiles in a back-alley parlor.

・They say a suspicious bald man calling himself the 'Crying Baldy' won with a strange hand.
・They say he won a hand representing the 'future of humanity' with a single fax.
・They say he still believes in 'something' not written in the ledgers.

Meanwhile, on the top floor of Shibuya Scramble Square, the young accounting prodigy and former SBG intern, Mine Ogami, was clutching her head over a strange journal entry.

'Rakuten... buying 9434...?'
'No, it can't be... with points...?'

The ledgers do not speak.
But that silence is the harbinger of a storm.

The final Merger Wars over the future of telecommunications are about to begin.

Chapter 1: Signs of Acquisition

'This consolidated balance sheet, you must be joking, right?'

Mine Ogami glared at the display, her hand reaching for her coffee unconsciously. This was the Rakuten Mobile Division, Financial Planning Office. Commonly known as the Reconstruction Team.

Having just finished her internship at SBG, she had been handpicked for Mikitani's direct special mission team, valued for her extraordinary ability to analyze book values and decipher off-the-books spiritual assets.

What she had discovered was an anomaly lurking in the consolidated B/S of SoftBank Corp. (9434). While operating profit was being maintained, the parent company SBG's cash flow was already at its limit.

The corporate bond redemption schedule was as crowded as a high-stakes mahjong match, and one wrong move would lead to immediate bankruptcy.

'This... might be put up for sale.'

That premonition was quietly growing within her.

Around that time, at the Rakuten Group headquarters in Futako-Tamagawa Rise, another deal was moving beneath the surface.

To compensate for the massive losses in its mobile business, Rakuten had been selling off assets from Rakuten Securities, Rakuten Card, and Rakuten Bank. But when asked by the Financial Services Agency, 'What is your next move?', Hiroshi Mikitani answered quietly.

'An acquisition. The other way around, actually.'

AI investments, robots, points.
It was actually radio waves that had supported the entire Rakuten ecosystem.

But now, burdened with massive losses from building its own base stations, the most rational option was the counter-intuitive idea of 'buying the existing infrastructure wholesale'.

That was the plan to acquire SoftBank Corp. (9434), which handles the telecommunications business.

'We are not viewing this as a hostile takeover, but as a recovery target.'

That was stated by a former bureaucrat analyst from the Rakuten Intelligence division who collaborates with SBI. He argues that a 'super platform concept through the integration of telecommunications and finance' is essential to counter the capital alliance between NTT and SBI.

The opponent we are fighting is not KDDI or SoftBank. It is NTT. The state-owned private entity that lies beyond the amendment of the NTT Law is our true competitor.

During that strategy meeting, Mine Ogami was alone, staring at the past of 9434.

There are assets in this company that human hands have yet to reach...

Communication networks, sales networks, corporate customer bases.
And the existence of a certain archive was shaking her memories.

Back from her internship days, the words Masayoshi Son once muttered came back to her.

The ledger contains the future. For those who can read it, that is.

At that moment, an email arrived on Mine Ogami's PC screen. The subject line read as follows.

A gift from the Crying Bald

Attached was a scan of an unfamiliar fax.

What was written there was the 'lost debt' of 9434, which was not even recorded in the ledgers.

Chapter 2: The Acquisition Drama in a Fax

It was like an anachronistic talisman.

The scanned fax image had this written in a faded Mincho font.

Memorandum of Debt Guarantee Agreement (Unregistered) dated June 30, 2024. SoftBank Corp. hereby agrees orally to act as a backstop in the event of default regarding the issuance of corporate bonds by SoftBank Group Corp. to a UAE state-owned fund.

Mine Ogami's hand stopped.
It was not on the books. However, it was an unofficial guarantee liability that definitely existed in reality.

Something like this... inside 9434...

It was the largest negative off-balance-sheet asset held by SoftBank Telecom.

A so-called spiritual debt that was left only in the memories of those involved, never recorded in contracts or registrations due to Masayoshi Son's convictions.

Where did you get this text?

Mine Ogami sent a message with a trembling voice to the anonymous account named Crying Bald who sent the fax image.

After a while, a detached reply came back on the chat tool.

"It was still lingering in my mental ledger. That was the final receipt from the era when SBG was buying up the future, collateralizing national credit and dreams."

　At those words, Nomine shuddered.
　M&A is, by nature, a battlefield of numbers and strategy. But this war was different.

"This is a battle of exchange between ghost debt and mental assets.

　Meanwhile, preparations were underway on the Rakuten side as well.
　The acquisition-dedicated team hastily assembled within Rakuten Securities, the "Orpheus Unit," already had its sights set on acquiring a majority stake in 9434 shares."Orpheus" is the name of the legendary bard from Greek mythology. He was the man who stepped into the underworld and tried to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice, with the power of his music.

　With a melody that captivated even the gods, he moved Hades' heart and was granted permission to take his wife and escape the underworld. However, he broke the one condition—never to look back until they reached the surface—just before they reached the exit. In that instant, his wife was pulled back into the underworld forever, and everything returned to nothingness.

　That is the reason the Rakuten acquisition team bears that name.

　They are extracting assets from the underworld of 9434. But within those assets are the illusions of the past that must never be looked back upon, the dreams that were never recorded in the books, and the shadow of Masayoshi Son.

　Miyazawa, in charge of finance, mutters while running his hands through his hair.

"No, if 9434 just tips over, we can buy it. But... if SBG collapses, its shadow will fall upon us too. Along with the very ground we stand on..."

"The problem isn't the book value. It's what's off the books."

　What they were dealing with was neither Rakuten's financial structure nor SBG's leverage. It was a black hole named "the absent Masayoshi Son".

"He is still moving behind the scenes."

　Immediately after that, a message arrived again from the anonymous account.

"The next thing I'll send is the third ledger, which depicts the collapse of the telecommunications myth. I am sending you the mental consolidated financial statements of 9434 that no one has ever seen."

　At that moment, the PC screen of Ogami Nomine went dark for an instant.
　What appeared in the window that remained open was a financial statement she had never seen before.

"Non-regular Consolidation: The Record of the Weeping Bald"

　The document, marked as such, was truly a phantom ledger.

　She is convinced.

"This M&A war isn't about fighting over telecommunications infrastructure. This is the final settlement of information and integrity."

　And now, the battle has begun between Rakuten and SBG, and the curtain finally rises on the mental accounting war 'What If Buy'.

Chapter 3: The Final Receipt and the Ghost of Masayoshi Son

It was neither a ledger nor a financial statement.

It was not a 'receipt' for an acquisition, but a 'final receipt.'
While it indicated the final profit and loss of the SoftBank Group, it was a spiritual liquidation statement that no one had issued and no one could claim.

Mine Ogami projected it onto the screen with trembling hands.
'Off-the-Books Consolidation: The Crying Bald's Record' The page marked with this had the following note attached:

'The liabilities recorded in this consolidation table are the remnants of expectations borne by those who once sold dreams. The acquirer must be prepared to inherit this not as an asset, but as a curse.'

'A curse... is it?'

Mine said, as if spitting out the words.
But she could understand.

This receipt was a copy of the future debt that the decision-maker named Masayoshi Son had left behind in this country.

Who on earth had written this consolidation?

It was neither an AI nor an accountant.
The true identity of the anonymous account 'The Crying Bald.' It was Masayoshi Son himself.

He had not died. Nor had he disappeared.

He had retreated off the books on his own, using his telecommunications empire as a tombstone to clean up the aftermath of his own dreams.

He who controls telecommunications controls the future.
That conviction had not left him, even to the grave.

'This acquisition drama, in the end, won't be a negotiation, but a ritual.'

It was Lisa Oba, Rakuten's negotiation agent, who muttered that. A sharp operator who had interned with Mine in the past and now secretly ran Rakuten's M&A department. In her hand, she held a classified report from a government-backed fund.

'SBG isn't selling 9434. They are just looking for someone to put their funeral portrait on the ledger.'

This was no longer a transaction. Who would take on the remains of his ambition...? It was a matter of inheritance and memorial services.

Mine stood up in silence. The resolve to buy a ghost was what was required now.

(To be continued)

Rintaro Takechi