My new mission was a type of hell I hadn't anticipated: the search for a lost locket on the grounds of a Japanese academy. I traded tactical sweeps of enemy compounds for methodical sweeps of flowerbeds and athletic fields. My System, designed for warfare, was useless. There was no perk for "Find Small, Sentimentally Valuable Objects."
My search, however, forced me to observe the ecosystem of Bonyari Academy. I started giving names and profiles to the faces.
Subject: Ichijou, Raku. I observed him from a distance. Affiliation: Heir to the Shuei-Gumi yakuza clan. Behavior: Actively attempts to conceal his affiliation, displays an aversion to conflict, often found in proximity to multiple female subjects. Assessment: A nexus of social chaos. Physically weak, but strategically positioned in a locus of local power. He was the kind of person who in Africa would have been an asset to manipulate or a loose end to eliminate. Here, he was simply the protagonist of his own complicated drama.
Subject: Onodera, Kosaki. I saw her several times, often near Ichijou. Demeanor: Shy, kind, low-profile. Physiology: Frequent heart rate spikes and facial blushing in Ichijou's presence. Assessment: Enamored with primary target. Poses no threat. She was sweet and normal, a concept so alien to my current reality it was almost suspicious.
And then there was the Blonde Threat, or as I discovered her name, Chitoge Kirisaki. She seemed to be glued to Raku Ichijou, much to both their displeasure. Her energy was that of an unsecured grenade. Watching them together was like observing a demonstration of utterly inefficient social combat tactics: loud arguments, misunderstandings, and a tension that was palpable even to my combat-adapted senses.
My search for the locket intersected with theirs. Apparently, in the collision, Chitoge had lost a pendant with a key, and Raku, for reasons beyond my understanding, had been compelled to help her search for it. Our paths crossed several times. I ignored them, focused on my own search grid. They looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and, in Chitoge's case, pure animosity. To them, I was the "new, gloomy, weird kid." To me, they were background noise interfering with my mission.
One day, after school, my low-level surveillance of the group led me to follow them to a family restaurant. It wasn't an interrogation tactic; it was simply that Raku had been the last one near the area where I'd been taken down, and my logic dictated that following the "patient zero" of the incident might lead me to my objective.
The restaurant was an assault on the senses. Noisy, crowded, smelling of fried food and cheap perfume. It was the polar opposite of my orderly, sterile base existence. I picked a booth in the farthest corner, one that gave me a clear view of all entrances and exits, and a solid wall at my back. A habit I couldn't break.
While Raku, Chitoge, and Onodera tangled in their teenage melodrama at a nearby table, I ordered the most caloric meal on the menu: a giant katsudon with a side of beef cutlet. My body, still operating with a soldier's efficiency, craved fuel.
The drama at their table was inscrutable. Chitoge and Raku argued. Onodera tried to mediate. I focused on my meal. Every bite was an energy reload. The food was good. The peace, however temporary, was welcome.
And then, the peace shattered.
The restaurant door burst open. Five men entered. They weren't students. They wore cheap, ill-fitting suits and moved with the swagger of low-level thugs. Their eyes swept the room and landed on Raku Ichijou's table.
My System instantly lit up, a conditioned reflex.
I watched, impassively, as I brought another piece of breaded pork to my mouth.
The group's leader approached Raku's table. "Well, well, if it isn't the young master of the Shuei-Gumi. Enjoying a date with your girlfriends?"
Raku paled. "We don't want any trouble," he said, standing up, trying to interpose himself between the thugs and the girls. A brave move, but tactically stupid.
"Too bad! 'Cause we do!" the thug sneered. And the situation rapidly deteriorated.
Screams. A table overturned. And then, the unmistakable metallic click of pistol slides. Three of the thugs drew 9mm handguns.
The restaurant erupted into mass panic. People screamed, ducked under tables, scrambled for the back exit. Onodera let out a choked gasp of pure terror. Chitoge, to my surprise, grabbed a tray and hurled it at one of the thugs' heads, her rage overcoming her fear. Raku tried to shield both of them, looking like a shepherd trying to protect his flock from a pack of wolves.
And I... I kept eating.
Threat analysis, the System flashed. Threat Level: Low. Assailants: 5. Weaponry: 3 x 9mm pistols, likely cheap manufacture. Training: Minimal. Probability of stray bullet impact at current position: 1.7%. Conclusion: Insignificant threat to asset Kage.
My heart rate didn't increase. My breathing didn't quicken. This wasn't a combat zone. It was a nuisance. It was like a couple of wasps had flown into the room. Annoying, but not deadly.
The first shot rang out. A customer screamed. A mirror on the wall shattered. The sound felt strangely familiar to me, almost comforting in its predictability. I picked up a piece of cutlet with my chopsticks. It was perfectly cooked, medium-rare.
BANG. BANG.
Two more shots. Plaster exploded from the wall a few feet from my head. I didn't even flinch, though I made a mental note to calculate if the bullet's angle could have caused a ricochet toward me. The probability was low.
A thug aimed in the direction of Raku's table. I saw the trajectory, I saw the panic on Onodera's face. Before the thug could pull the trigger, a chair flew through the air and struck him in the face. Chitoge. She had guts, I had to admit.
As the chaotic, clumsy gunfight continued, I focused on the task at hand: finishing my meal. I had paid for it. It was good katsudon. It would be a waste to let it get cold.
The commotion ended as quickly as it began. A tall, sunglasses-wearing man, whom I recognized from my surveillance as Claude, Chitoge's bodyguard, burst into the restaurant with two other stern-looking men. The thugs, outnumbered and out-professionaled, dropped their weapons and scrambled out like the rats they were.
The silence that followed was thick, laden with the smell of gunpowder and fear. The restaurant was a mess. Overturned tables, shattered glass, people sobbing on the floor. Raku, Chitoge, and Onodera huddled behind their overturned table, pale and trembling, but unharmed.
And in the midst of the carnage, I remained in my booth, calmly scooping the last grain of rice from my bowl with my chopsticks.
Slowly, one by one, they became aware of my presence. Their heads turned. Their eyes widened. Disbelief was followed by confusion, then awe.
To them, it must have been the strangest sight in the world. In a scene of terror and violence, where their lives had been in peril, a fellow student sat, finishing his dinner as if he were at a Sunday picnic. My calm was not reassuring. It was unnatural. Monstrous.
Chitoge was the first to find her voice. She scrambled to her feet, still shaking, but with anger replacing her fear. She marched towards my table.
"Hey!" she shrieked, her voice high and shrill. "Are you crazy? There was just a shooting! People with guns! We could have all died! And you... you just sat there... and ate?"
I looked up from my empty bowl. I looked directly into her eyes, my expression a blank slate. I processed her question. It was illogical. My actions had been the result of a perfectly rational risk analysis. I gave her the only answer that made sense to me.
"Nobody was shooting at me," I said simply. "And I hadn't finished my dinner yet."
I stood up, pulled out my wallet, laid the exact amount of the bill plus a decent tip on the table, and headed for the exit. I had to step over a broken chair and a puddle of spilled soda.
"You... you..." Chitoge stammered, completely unable to process my response.
As I walked out of the restaurant into the quiet afternoon, I realized my mistake. It wasn't a tactical error; my safety was never at risk. It was a strategic error, a camouflage failure.
The Kage who had survived Africa had acted perfectly. But the Kenji Tanaka I was supposed to be, the normal high school student, had failed spectacularly. A normal kid would have hidden. Would have screamed. Would have trembled. He wouldn't have stayed to finish his katsudon.
My unnatural calm, my perfectly logical reaction, was the most suspicious behavior I could have displayed. I had painted a target on my back, not with a bullet, but with a question: "Who is this kid?"
And I knew that, somewhere in the world, a detective obsessed with enigmas might one day hear about a strange incident at a Tokyo restaurant and add a new, bewildering note to the "Kaiser" file.
I had come to Japan to hide, to be a ghost. But in my effort not to react to an insignificant threat, I might have created a flash of light that would reveal my position to the entire world. Surviving this new war was going to be much harder than I had imagined.