Returning to the Osaka Culinary Academy after the festival felt like a conquering hero returning from war, if the hero was deeply traumatized and the war had been won by accidentally convincing everyone that bitterness was a virtue. Kenji was no longer just a prodigy; he was a living legend, the Guru of the Bitter Truth. The "Takahashi Effect" had fully taken root. The atmosphere was one of inspired, joyful, and often inedible chaos.
He walked past the pastry kitchen and saw a student presenting a burnt croissant to her instructor.
"I have rejected the Maillard reaction as a form of superficial flattery!" the student declared proudly.
"I have baked the truth of the carbon! It is a statement on the ashes from which the phoenix of flavor must rise!"
The instructor, a man who a week ago would have had an aneurysm, was now nodding thoughtfully and taking notes.
In his own "Fundamentals of Stocks" class, the assignment was to make a classic, clear chicken consommé. When Kenji presented his, which had inevitably turned cloudy and greasy, Chef Sudo held it up to the light not with disappointment, but with reverence.
"Look, class!" he beamed. "Takahashi-kun has refused to strip the soul from his broth! He believes that the fats, the so-called 'impurities,' are part of the chicken's story! He has created a broth that is not just a liquid, but a biography! It is a work of profound narrative honesty!"
The most terrifying development, however, was waiting for him in the main lecture hall. Chef Ayame was gone, vanished into the shadows of her ruined corporation. But the academy, never one to waste a marketing opportunity, had decided that her legendary joint seminar must go on. A large banner hung over the stage:
"The Scrambled and the Sublime: A Journey into Culinary Duality. Now taught exclusively by the Master of the Scrambled, Takahashi-sensei."
He was now officially, terrifyingly, a teacher. His first lecture was scheduled for the following week. He had no idea what he was going to say. He imagined standing in front of three hundred students for an hour, just whisking a single egg while maintaining a pained, thoughtful expression. It seemed like his only viable option.
But before he had to face that particular circle of hell, he had a new mission. He and Sato took the train to Kyoto the next day, not in a chauffeured car, but as anonymous commuters. Their destination was The House of Serene Bean. It was located in a quiet, ancient part of the city, a neighborhood of narrow cobblestone streets, weeping willows, and wooden machiya houses. The tofu shop was a picture of timeless tradition. It had a simple, dark wood facade, a navy blue noren curtain hanging in the doorway, and the clean, earthy smell of soybeans and fresh water wafting from within. It radiated a sense of calm, history, and profound peace. It was the last place on earth you would expect to be a front for a sinister global conspiracy.
Kenji took a deep breath. His cover story was simple: he was Kenji Takahashi, a celebrated (and deeply eccentric) culinary student from Osaka, who had become fascinated with the ancient, meditative art of tofu making and wished to apprentice himself to a true master. Sato, meanwhile, would be his 'personal assistant and documentarian,' there to observe and take notes for a fictitious article she was writing about his journey.
They stepped through the noren curtain into the small, clean, quiet shop. The front was a simple retail space with a refrigerated case displaying blocks of freshly made tofu, shimmering like pale jewels in their baths of clear water. An elderly woman with a kind, wrinkled face and a serene smile sat behind a simple wooden counter. She bowed as they entered.
"Irasshaimase," she said, her voice soft and gentle.
Behind her, through an open doorway, Kenji could see the workshop. It was a steamy, warm, beautiful space. Large wooden barrels were filled with soaking soybeans. A giant, grinding stone, polished smooth by a century of use, stood in the corner. It was a world away from the cold, steel-and-marble laboratory of Chef Ayame.
"Konnichiwa," Kenji said, bowing deeply—a motion he had practiced and still felt he hadn't quite perfected.
"My name is Takahashi Kenji. I am a student from the Osaka Culinary Academy." He presented his student ID, which Sato had expertly doctored to remove any hint of his real age. "I have come to learn."
The old woman's smile widened.
"Ah, from the famous academy. We have heard of you, Takahashi-san. The papers have been writing about the new wave of 'culinary philosophy' coming from your school. They speak of a young genius who makes… interesting… eggs."
Kenji felt a hot flush of shame. His reputation had preceded him, even here.
From the back room, a man emerged. He was as old as the woman, tall and wiry, with a shaved head and the powerful, gnarled hands of a man who had worked with stone and water his entire life. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his expression one of profound, intimidating seriousness. This was the master, Old Man Tanaka (again, no relation, a fact that was becoming a running joke in Kenji's life).
"So," the old man said, his voice a low rumble.
He looked Kenji up and down, his gaze sharp and analytical.
"You are the boy who thinks cooking is a philosophy. Here, cooking is not a philosophy. It is work. It is respect for the bean. It is water, and fire, and pressure. There are no ideas in tofu. There is only tofu. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sensei," Kenji said, bowing again.
The old man grunted.
"We shall see. My wife is too kind. I do not take apprentices. The youth of today have no patience. They want to run before they can crawl. They want to deconstruct the tofu before they have even learned to construct it."
He stared at Kenji for a long, silent moment.
"But you have the eyes of an old man. A troubled man. Perhaps you have already learned something of patience. You may watch. For one day. If you are silent, and if you do not get in the way, you may watch."
And so, Kenji's apprenticeship began. He spent the next four hours standing in a corner of the workshop, watching the old man and his wife work. It was a beautiful, meditative process. They soaked the beans, ground them with the ancient stone, boiled the resulting soy milk, and added the nigari, the coagulant, with the practiced, intuitive grace of masters. They moved in a silent, synchronized dance, a partnership honed over fifty years.
Kenji's mission was to find a clue, any clue, that connected this idyllic, traditional workshop to the sinister Ouroboros corporation. He watched everything. He noted the brand of the soybeans, the source of the water, and the type of wood used for the pressing boxes. It was all traditional, all local, all perfectly normal. There was nothing.
Sato, meanwhile, played her part perfectly. She sat quietly in the corner, taking copious notes in a small leather-bound book and occasionally taking a photo with a vintage film camera she had brought as a prop (a camera that also contained a high-resolution digital scanner). She asked the old woman polite, insightful questions about the history of the shop and the spiritual significance of tofu in Japanese cuisine.
Kenji was starting to think Yamamoto had made a mistake. This place couldn't possibly be a front. These two old people were artisans, not conspirators. His mind began to drift. The rhythmic sound of the grinding stone, the warm, steamy air, the clean smell of soy… it was strangely calming. His guard began to drop.
That's when he saw it.
It was a small, almost unnoticeable detail. To cool the freshly boiled soy milk before adding the coagulant, the old man used a traditional method: he ladled the milk into a series of large, shallow ceramic bowls and set them on a rack by an open window. But one of the bowls, at the far end of the rack, was different. It wasn't a rustic, unglazed ceramic like the others. It was a sleek, modern, white composite material. And on its base, Kenji could just make out a faint, almost invisible logo. A small, stylized serpent coiled around a stalk of kale.
His heart began to pound. It was a KlearMind bowl. What was it doing here, in this temple of tradition?
He needed to get a closer look. He needed a distraction. He caught Sato's eye across the room and gave her a pre-arranged signal—a slight, almost invisible tug on his earlobe.
Sato understood immediately. She stood up and walked over to the old woman.
"Tanaka-san," she said with a brilliant, apologetic smile, "your tofu is so beautiful. I was wondering if I might trouble you with the recipe for your famous ganmodoki? A friend of mine is desperate to try it."
The old woman beamed, flattered. As she turned her back to fetch a handwritten recipe book, Sato took a half-step backwards, as if to give the woman more room. Her heel "accidentally" caught the leg of a low table on which sat several large, freshly pressed blocks of silken tofu, waiting to be cut.
The table wobbled. The blocks of tofu, with their delicate, gelatinous structure, slid. The result was a slow-motion catastrophe. A tofu-valanche. The blocks landed on the floor with a series of soft, wet, deeply satisfying splats, creating a pristine white mess on the dark wood floor.
"Oh my goodness!" Sato cried, her hands flying to her face in a perfect performance of mortified horror.
"I am so, so terribly sorry! I am so clumsy!"
The old man and his wife rushed over, their attention completely focused on the tofu tragedy. At that moment, while they were distracted, Kenji moved. He glided over to the rack of cooling bowls. He picked up the suspicious white bowl as if to help clean up. He quickly scanned the bottom. It wasn't just the logo. There was a faint, almost invisible double-bottom to the bowl. He ran his thumbnail along the seam. It clicked open.
Inside, hidden in the shallow compartment, was not a secret message or a microfilm. It was something far stranger. It was a small, desiccated, and very dead, frog.
Kenji stared at the tiny, mummified frog, his mind reeling. What in the world was this? A threat? A warning? A bizarre, ancient ritual?
He quickly closed the compartment and put the bowl down just as the old man turned back to him, his face a mask of weary frustration.
"You," the old man grunted at Kenji.
"Boy with a troubled soul. You are a bad luck omen. Your presence has upset the harmony of my shop."
He pointed a wet, soy-milk-stained finger at the door.
"Out. Both of you. Your apprenticeship is over."