Tokyo: Rabbit Officer and Her Evil Partner

"What? You actually have other good friends?"

"It's Minamoto Tamako, you've met her..."

"What? Minamoto Tamako is also an elementary school student? I thought she was your middle school sister!"

...

Seeing the two of them chatting away, Minamoto Tamako had to take over the conversation herself, awkwardly smiling as she noted she was already an adult and currently a criminal police officer at the Nakagawara Police Station, akin to a half-guardian for Taira Sakurako. She also thanked Mayu and Mai for taking care of Sakurako.

Mayu started clamoring again, saying she wanted to see Minamoto Tamako's police gun, and if possible, she wanted to borrow it to play with. She was very eager to have a means of long-range attack to defeat Shota and rule over Shiwaki Elementary School.

Minamoto Tamako had no choice but to educate her online, earnestly explaining that a police gun isn't a water gun; if it hits someone, it could be lethal.

Mayu didn't believe it; in the "Mischievous Flower Fairy" she's watched, the villain shoots lasers from a gun to freeze the main character in place over a mysterious flower seed. In this seven-year-old's understanding, a real gun could really shoot lasers and freeze people.

This indicates that Minamoto Tamako was lying. She's never seen a real gun and isn't a criminal police officer at the Nakagawara Police Station; she's just a normal middle school student with a whimsical imagination.

Mayu voiced her thoughts, and even added a quip to Taira Sakurako: "Your sister is so childish, we won't play with her."

After saying that, she helped Taira Sakurako hang up the phone.

Minamoto Tamako was furious and just about to call back when Fushimi Roku's phone received a call. She had no choice but to return the phone to Fushimi Roku and eavesdrop with her ears perked up.

Fushimi Roku, of course, wouldn't comply with her meddling, getting up and preparing to take the call in the restroom. Minamoto Tamako quickly stopped him and asked what it was that had to be so secret from her.

"It's my informant, understand? It must remain confidential; I must be responsible for my informant."

Fushimi Roku fabricated an excuse and dramatically shook his coat as he walked into the men's restroom to take Sazaki Gen's call.

Minamoto Tamako believed him. She knew criminal police could develop informants for special cases and even hire external advisors (like detectives) to solve crimes, though she'd never considered it in this light before.

Sss, an informant...

Just hearing the word sounded so cool, carrying a sense of mission, serving the light from within the shadows.

She'd watched police and gangster dramas where informant or undercover roles often appeared, and there were even some film protagonists who were undercover, living life on a knife's edge. Ultimately, when the truth came out, the loyalty and mission of the undercover clashed, forcing them to betray their brothers, leaving a huge impact on Tamako's young heart.

Minamoto Tamako also wanted an informant.

As a future famous detective and police chief, how could she be without a reliable source of information? A criminal police officer should have an informant or a skilled external consultant, like Sherlock Holmes' street urchins, Arsène Lupin's street gangs, or Jim Hawkins' doctor Livesey...

While Minamoto Tamako pondered over who could become her informant, Fushimi Roku finished listening to Sazaki Gen's phone report.

The Inakawa Association was able to gather Uesugi Shion's personal data so quickly largely because she herself is almost a public figure.

Uesugi Shion comes from the Uesugi family, which controls the real estate lifelines across Japan's three major metropolitan areas. Her father, Uesugi Tatsuya, serves as the chairman of the Uesugi Group. In the 1980s, through cross-shareholding with Mitsubishi Real Estate and Sumitomo Real Estate, the family's influence penetrated the Tokyo Bay land reclamation project. In 1990, during Japan's peak land prices, the Uesugi Group bought the Ginza 4th District land at a sky-high price of 1.2 billion yen per tsubo, making headlines in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Her grandfather, once Minister of Construction, specifically added a "Special Private Cooperation Clause" into the revision of the Urban Redevelopment Law, paving the way for the Uesugi Group to bid on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building project. The Uesugi family also controlled the Ministry of Construction's approval process and banking financing channels, still securing a 200 billion yen unsecured loan from Fuji Bank on the eve of the 1991 bubble burst.

Her mother, Kujo Reiko, came from a political aristocracy, their genealogy several generations back possibly linked to Kujo Yua — comparing the Kujo Family with the Uesugi family, the former has deeper political roots, while the latter boasts stronger economic power, the financial giant among financial giants.

As the only daughter of the family, Uesugi Shion also has a notably brilliant personal résumé.

In 1983, as an exceptional student, she skipped grades into the Faculty of Engineering at Keio University, studying under Kurokawa Kisho, a master of Japanese urban planning, and participated in the "Tokyo Bay Coastal Sub-Center Plan" research project;

In 1985, she was sent to the United States to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Urban Studies and Planning, majoring in postmodern architecture and theories of capital space production. Her thesis, "The Spatial Power Structure of Shinjuku's High-Rise Cluster," won the American Planning Association Young Scholar Award;

In 1988, she entered Harvard University's Graduate School of Design as an exception, completing her work on "Tokyo Vertical Urbanism during the Bubble Economy" under the guidance of tutor Rem Koolhaas, introducing the concept of "capital folds," which attracted academic attention...

That's just on the surface; Sazaki Gen also provided some clandestine information:

Through her mother's Kujo family blood ties, Uesugi Shion had formed the "Kasumigaseki-Marunouchi Underground Pipeline Alliance" with Ministry of Transportation bureaucrats, controlling 87% of the underground space development approval rights in the capital region, and the Tokyo Metro construction was mostly contracted by the Uesugi family.

After hearing this extensive report, Fushimi Roku reflected pensively. Even among heiresses, why is there such a huge disparity between people?