The hotel room, once a sanctuary, had become a tomb. The blinking lights of Sato's equipment seemed to mock them, a reminder of a mission that had spiraled into catastrophic failure. They were trapped, exposed, and on the verge of being captured or killed. The enemy was on the rooftop opposite, a black van full of unknown horrors was waiting on the street below, and his two most loyal, and most dangerously civilian, disciples were standing in the middle of the room, looking confused and terrified.
"Okay," Kenji said, his voice dropping into a calm, authoritative tone he hadn't used since his last active combat mission.
The panic was gone, burned away by the cold fire of adrenaline. The time for being a confused, reluctant prodigy was over. The agent had taken over.
"Tanaka, Kaito. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do not ask questions. Just do exactly as I say. Your lives depend on it."
The two students, who had never heard their whimsical sensei speak with such chilling command, just stared at him, their faces pale, and nodded dumbly.
"Sato," Kenji said, turning to his partner.
"How long until they breach?"
"Judging by their positioning, they're not planning a breach. This is a containment and snatch operation," Sato replied, her own voice a low, efficient hum as she rapidly packed her essential gear into a small, tactical go-bag.
"The sniper is for suppression. The team in the van is for extraction. They want you alive. You're too valuable to them now. They think you hold the key to their acoustic weapon."
"Good," Kenji said.
"That gives us an advantage. They won't risk damaging the asset."
He looked around the room, his mind working with a speed and clarity he hadn't felt in months. He was no longer thinking about recipes and philosophies. He was thinking about angles, exits, and acceptable losses.
"We have one chance. A high-risk, low-probability exit strategy. It's going to be loud, and it's going to be messy."
"It will be a statement," Kaito whispered, a flicker of his old programming returning.
"Yes, Kaito," Kenji said with a grim smile.
"It will be a very powerful statement."
The plan he laid out was born of desperation and years of training in unconventional warfare. It was a symphony of chaos, but this time, it would be chaos with a purpose.
Phase one belonged to Sato. She moved to the hotel room's kitchenette. She opened the small refrigerator and took out the carton of milk and the half-dozen eggs they had bought for Kenji's breakfast. She poured the milk into the electric kettle and turned it on. She then cracked the eggs into a metal bowl, added a generous amount of salt and pepper, and began to whisk them with a fork.
"What are you doing?" Kenji asked, confused.
"Creating a non-lethal, high-impact, protein-based flashbang," she said without looking up.
She pointed to the microwave.
"The scalding milk, when combined with the egg mixture and subjected to intense, uneven microwave radiation, will create a rapidly expanding protein bomb. It will rupture the microwave door and create a loud, messy, and extremely disorienting explosion of superheated, curdled egg. A tactical scramble, if you will."
Kenji just stared at her. She had weaponized his curse. It was the most brilliant, terrifying thing he had ever seen.
Phase two belonged to the disciples. "Tanaka, Kaito," Kenji commanded.
"Your job is the most important. You are the diversion. When this all starts, you are going to run. Not out the front door. You are going to go to the fire escape at the end of the hall. You are going to be loud. You are going to scream. You are going to act like terrified civilians caught in a fire. The security team in the van will be focused on this room. They might see you, but they will likely ignore you. You are not the primary target. Get to the street, lose yourselves in the crowd, and go straight to the academy. Do not stop. Do you understand?"
They both nodded, their eyes wide with fear but also a strange, fierce loyalty.
Phase three was the exit.
"The sniper on the roof has a clear line of sight to the windows and the fire escape," Kenji said.
"But he does not have a line of sight to the room directly below his own position."
He pointed to the floor.
"We're not going out. We're going down."
He directed Kaito to move the heaviest piece of furniture, a solid wood wardrobe, against the main door to slow down the breach. He then had Tanaka soak several towels in the sink. While Sato prepared her protein bomb, Kenji took a heavy floor lamp and, with a single, powerful wrench, broke the lamp off its base, leaving him with a solid, heavy steel pole.
The moment of truth arrived. They could hear movement in the hallway outside their door.
"They're in position," Sato said calmly, pouring the hot milk into the egg mixture.
She placed the bowl in the microwave, slammed the door, and set the timer for two minutes on high power.
"Thirty seconds to detonation."
"Get ready," Kenji said to Tanaka and Kaito.
"Remember the plan. Go!"
The two students scrambled for the door. Kenji waited until they were in the hallway before he turned to Sato.
Outside, the breach team began to move on the door. They heard a heavy thud as a battering ram hit the wardrobe.
"Now!" Sato yelled.
Kenji took the steel pole and, with all his strength, slammed it down onto the floor, aiming for a spot he had identified as a weak point in the cheap hotel construction. The plaster cracked. He slammed it down again. A larger crack appeared. Again. A chunk of ceiling plaster from the room below fell away.
From the hallway, they heard Tanaka and Kaito begin to scream, a magnificent, theatrical performance of pure terror. From the microwave, they heard a low, ominous humming sound.
The sniper on the roof, his attention drawn by the screaming, shifted his aim towards the fire escape. The breach team hit the door again, the wood groaning in protest.
And then, the microwave exploded.
The detonation was not a sharp crack, but a wet, concussive THUMP. The microwave door blew off its hinges and flew across the room, followed by a superheated cloud of steam and a spray of scalding, rubbery, curdled egg that splattered across the entire wall and window. It was a tactical, weaponized scramble of epic proportions.
In the ensuing confusion, Kenji slammed the pole down one last time. The floor gave way. He had created a hole, a jagged, messy, two-foot-wide portal to the room below.
"Go!" he yelled at Sato.
Sato, go-bag on her back, dropped through the hole without a second's hesitation, landing gracefully in the unoccupied room below. Kenji followed, tumbling through in a far less elegant, but equally effective, shower of plaster and dust.
They didn't stop. They sprinted through the empty room, out the door, and down the service stairs, emerging into a back alley just as the breach team finally smashed their way into the now-empty, egg-splattered hotel room above.
They melted into the Osaka crowds, two ghosts vanishing back into the city.
An hour later, they were in a new safe house, a small, anonymous apartment Sato had maintained as a deep-cover contingency. Tanaka and Kaito were there, shaken but safe. They had followed their instructions perfectly.
The relief, however, was short-lived. Sato's laptop, connected to a news feed, chirped. The headline was chilling.
"PSIA DIRECTOR GENERAL MORITA TO ATTEND G7 PREPARATORY SUMMIT IN OSAKA. GLOBAL LEADERS GATHER FOR ECONOMIC TALKS."
The summit was being held in 48 hours. At the top of Osaka's tallest skyscraper, a building whose public announcement and broadcast systems were state-of-the-art. It was the perfect target for the Compliance Chorus.
Kenji looked at the headline. He looked at his two disciples, who now knew he was something more than a chef. He looked at Sato, his partner in this escalating madness.
He was a fraud. A cult leader. A wanted man. And he was the only thing standing between Ouroboros and their plan to hijack the minds of the most powerful leaders in the world. The time for running was over. The time for a final, desperate gambit had arrived. And he knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that it was probably going to involve scrambled eggs.