Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes.

Chapter 185, Section 183: Good Deeds Go Unrewarded

An old commercial street with densely packed buildings.

Tourists gathered around a plaque that read "Most Beijing Style" to take photos.

This is a trend that has become popular in recent months, starting with short videos.

Originally, this was just an ordinary plaque, but after a certain blogger took the lead, it inexplicably became a must-visit tourist attraction, and there was even a saying that not visiting here was equivalent to not having been to Kyoto at all.

This also boosted the popularity of the adjacent food street, which is bustling with diners even outside of restaurant hours.

And clearly, such a densely populated place is also a food street for the heartless monsters. Although they don't actually eat people, they do have an extraordinary love for anatomy.

So, when the first splash of pinkish-red liquid landed on a diner's skewer of raw fish, the commotion spread as quickly as ripples in a pond after a boulder has been thrown in.

"Monster! Monster!"

The crowd scrambled to escape, until a new wave of chaos erupted ahead, clearly indicating that monsters had also appeared in that direction. As a result, the two groups collided, and for a moment, no one knew where to run.

"It's safe inside, everyone come in and take refuge!"

A middle-aged man wearing an apron came out of a ramen shop and waved to them.

He didn't know what had happened, but subconsciously thought that the inside of the building would be safer, so he planned to let everyone inside to take refuge.

Hearing the increasingly loud screams behind them, the large, bewildered crowd rushed into the shop. In just a few dozen seconds, the already small ramen shop was packed with people.

Some clever people realized that people couldn't keep coming in like this, so they quickly moved some clutter to block the doors and windows. Those outside, with nowhere to escape, pounded on the doors for help, but no one inside dared to open them.

"Open the door! There are still many people who haven't gotten in, open the door now! You can't be this cruel!"

The shop owner and a group of people were desperately banging and shouting outside the door.

"Damn it, this is my family's shop! My father is still outside, you guys open the door!"

Inside the ramen shop, the owner's son panicked when he saw the crowds blocking the door.

His father was the first to let people in for refuge, and now he hasn't even come in yet, and these bastards are trying to block the door?!
He jumped onto the food counter and was about to rush over and open the door.

"Don't let him open the door!"

"There are monsters outside the door!"

The crowd, intentionally or unintentionally, blocked the shopkeeper's son from opening the door.

A man who had just witnessed a monster killing someone and whose legs went weak and who had no courage to resist suddenly unleashed astonishing strength from who knows where. He grabbed a chair and smashed it down on the shopkeeper's son.

Bang!
"Ah! What are you doing?"

The shopkeeper's son, his head covered in blood, lay on the ground, one hand covering the wound on his forehead, blood dripping to the ground. His vision became somewhat blurred, and he reached out his hand, pleading with the people around him.

"Open the door, please, please open the door! My father is still outside, please open it for a moment."

People instinctively avoided his gaze, while others looked at the attacker with strange expressions.

"What? Why are you looking at me?! I'm doing this for you! Do you really want to open the door and let everyone in? There's no room for that many people here, and the more people there are, the more monsters will be attracted. If there's no one outside, who will buy us time to wait for rescue?!"

The man argued, his face flushed, waving a chair in his hand. Someone nearby accidentally bumped into him but didn't dare say anything and silently took two steps back.

Those people lowered their eyes again and stopped looking at him.

"We're all in this together now, we have to stick together! Those who want to open the door are our enemies! Get rid of them—we have to get rid of them!" The man seemed to have gone mad, grabbing a stool and approaching the injured shopkeeper's son, who couldn't even get up.

People backed away, probably not wanting to get splattered with blood.

Just as his blood-stained chair was raised high, a bowl of ramen flew out from nowhere and landed precisely on his face, scalding him so much that he started to breakdance, yelling a few times before tripping over the blood on the floor and falling to the ground.

"If we let him keep making noise, we'll only attract monsters in."

Someone said that, and everyone's expressions changed. "Shut up, tell him to shut up!"

"Gag him!"

"Stop barking."

Soon, the man's mouth was gagged tightly, and the ramen shop fell silent, though the screams outside could be clearly heard.

The shop owner's son huddled in a corner, sobbing, one hand covering his wound and the other covering his mouth.

"Muramasa, it's the ninth Muramasa!"

A sudden, excited shout came from outside, making the people inside the shop look up in surprise.

Immediately following were more and more shouts of joy, as if they had been saved from a desperate situation.

Finally, someone couldn't resist moving aside the clutter in the window and opening a crack to nervously observe what was happening outside.

"It's alright! The monsters are all dead! I saw Muramasa Kyushiro kill them all! Hooray! Hooray!"

The man excitedly opened the window and eagerly jumped out.

The people in the shop gradually regained their composure and worked together to move the things blocking the door. They left the ramen shop in a relatively orderly and careful manner, with some even politely righting the chairs that had fallen to the ground.

In the commercial street, after Takii finished off yet another mindless monster, she didn't linger. She swung her grappling hook, leaped across rooftops, and chased after the only remaining fleeing monster, disappearing into the building complex.

The ramen shop returned to calm. The owner's son slowly and unsteadily got to his feet, walked over the mess, and stood blankly at the door.

His blood-stained gaze could see not far from the doorway, on an apron also stained with blood, bearing the name of his noodle shop.

Takatsukasa Tadashi stood beside him, also silently watching the mutilated corpse.

"Thank you for just now," the shop owner's son suddenly spoke, his voice suppressed. "Soy sauce pork ramen, extra spicy, only you and your father would order that."

"..." Takatsukasa Tadashi didn't say anything, but turned around and glanced at the plaque.

He still remembers that the first meal his father took him to eat after adopting him was ramen from here.

It's a pity we didn't get to eat the last meal; it's a bit of a waste.

But now, the same flavor can no longer be made.

"He just wanted to be a good person, why did this happen?"

The shopkeeper's son knelt down, unable to move, his head touching the ground, a gesture similar to that of other excited people celebrating their survival.

Takatsukasa Tadashi stood there for a while, then placed the suitcase beside him, glanced around without a trace of sorrow in his eyes, and left, stepping on the blood.

When the shopkeeper's son finally clenched his fist, made up his mind, and prepared to turn around and grab the knife, he saw the man who had stopped him in the shop earlier lying on the ground with his eyes wide open, a clear bloodstain on his neck that had pooled into a pool of blood. He had been dead for some time.

But he didn't seem to be dead before he came out.
On the shopping street, Tadashi Takatsuya casually tossed the kitchen knife into a nearby trash can, walked to the parking lot, and drove home.

"Won't you like to browse around a bit more?"

Takatsukasa Tetsutsugu was watching the news at home, and even though he was sitting down, you could tell that he seemed to have grown quite a bit taller.

"That's enough. What do you need me to do tomorrow, Father?"

Takatsukasa Tetsuto didn't turn around: "Tomorrow I will force a meeting at the headquarters hotel. After nine o'clock, I don't want anyone to come in or leave."

“I understand.” Takatsukasa Tadashi said without hesitation, “I will do it.”

"At any cost."

(End of this chapter)