Days after the night at her apartment, Himeno acted strangely around Tom. Her flirtatious boldness had been replaced by a mixture of sharp wariness and deeper curiosity. She no longer openly tried to seduce him, but her eyes often followed him, trying to comprehend the anomaly that had turned her world upside down. Aki, noticing the change in his partner's demeanor, became increasingly convinced that Tom was a dangerous influence.
One afternoon, to celebrate their success on the Morin Hotel mission (and perhaps as Himeno's attempt to restore a semblance of normalcy), she invited all the new squad members out for ramen.
"My treat!" Himeno chirped, her tone as cheerful as ever, though there was a slightly different note as she glanced at Tom. "Even you're invited, Tom-kun. Consider it a thank-you for saving all of us."
Tom, who was bored, merely shrugged. "As long as the ramen's good, I'm in."
They sat in a simple but bustling ramen shop. Denji and Power immediately ordered the largest portions and began eating noisily. Aki ate in silence. Himeno, sitting next to Tom, kept trying to initiate light conversation, while Kobeni and Arai only dared to order the cheapest items and ate quickly.
"So, the ramen in this world isn't bad," Tom commented after finishing his first bowl. "Though I've had better in a dimension made entirely of noodles."
Denji and Power paused eating for a moment, staring at him with mouths full of noodles. "A noodle dimension?!"
Before Tom could answer, the peaceful atmosphere of the ramen shop shattered.
BANG!
A gunshot broke the silence. A small hole appeared in Denji's forehead, and he immediately collapsed onto his ramen bowl, his half-devil brain healing the wound quickly but knocking him unconscious for a moment.
Outside the shop, a man with a pistol stood, his face cold and expressionless.
Aki reacted in a split second. "Everyone, get down!" He drew his katana. But before he could move further, a woman with tied-up hair, Akane Sawatari, appeared behind him as if from thin air. She held a knife, and with a swift motion, stabbed Aki in the back.
Aki groaned in pain and fell to his knees.
"AKI-KUN!" Himeno shrieked, her eyes wide with horror.
It all happened so fast. The shooter now aimed his pistol at Himeno. Himeno, seeing Aki gravely wounded, didn't hesitate for a second. Panic and despair were evident on her face. She knew what she had to do. She was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, giving everything to the Ghost Devil to save Aki.
"Ghost..." she whispered, her hand beginning to rise.
But before she could complete her final, deadly contract, a lazy voice sounded beside her.
"Hey, hey, hey," said Tom Jacker, who hadn't even moved from his seat. He still held his chopsticks. "I haven't finished my ramen broth. You really have no manners, do you? Interrupting someone's meal."
He glanced at the shooter outside. With an invisible touch of Telekinesis, the pistol in the man's hand suddenly twisted into a shapeless metal knot. At the same time, Tom turned towards Akane Sawatari, who was about to stab Aki a second time. The tip of Akane's knife stopped millimeters from Aki's neck, held back by an invisible wall of force.
Akane gasped, trying to push her knife, but it felt like pushing a mountain.
"And you, Miss Snake," Tom said, his calm eyes now staring coldly at Akane. "No one touches my toys but me."
He snapped his finger. Akane Sawatari was thrown backward with incredible force, crashing through the ramen shop wall and falling unconscious amidst the debris. The shooter outside, seeing his weapon destroyed and his accomplice defeated in an instant, turned and tried to flee.
"Where are you going?" Tom teleported, appearing in front of the shooter, then returned to his seat in the shop in a blink of an eye. The shooter was now lying unconscious in the middle of the street with a massive lump on his head.
The entire incident, from beginning to end, lasted no more than five seconds.
Himeno froze, her hand, raised to summon the Ghost, now trembling for a different reason. She had just been about to sacrifice everything, but Tom... Tom stopped it all as if swatting an annoying fly.
Denji began to stir, his gaping head completely healed. Power was still busy trying to finish Denji's ramen. Aki clutched his wound, looking at Tom with a mixture of shock, confusion, and... something he'd never felt towards Tom before: genuine gratitude.
Tom Jacker returned his focus to his almost cold ramen bowl. He slurped his broth loudly. "Now, where were we? Oh right, the noodle dimension." He looked at Himeno and Aki, who were still stunned. "Why are you staring at me like that? Hurry up and finish your food before it gets cold."
A clumsy, shocked silence fell over the chaotic ramen shop. Denji was the first to break it, his fully regenerated head looking at Tom in awe. "Whoa... that was so cool! You're like the 'Ramen Savior Hero'!"
"I just don't like my broth getting cold," Tom replied flatly, slurping the last of the broth in his bowl as if nothing had happened.
Power, who had finished her own food and Denji's, pointed at the unconscious Akane Sawatari. "Weird Human! Can we eat her? Maybe she has tasty blood!"
"No, Power," Aki said hoarsely. He clutched his still-bleeding wound, but his gaze was no longer on it. He looked at Tom. His expression was a complicated tableau. The hatred and suspicion he had always shown Tom were now tainted by something else, something deeply uncomfortable for him: a sense of indebtedness. Tom had not only saved his life but also Himeno's life, who had been about to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Himeno herself could only sit in silence, her eyes fixed on Tom. She had prepared herself to die. She had said goodbye in her heart to Aki. And in an instant, that tragic scenario was undone by the whim of a man who didn't want his ramen disturbed. The feelings flooding her weren't pure relief, but an intoxicating mix of immense gratitude and a deepening fear of this creature sitting casually beside her. He was no longer just an interesting anomaly; he was now her savior, in the most unromantic and absolute way.
"We need to report this," Aki finally said, trying to regain his professionalism despite the pain and confusion wracking him. He used his radio to contact headquarters, reporting the attack and requesting a medical team and an arrest team.
When the support team arrived, they found a strange scene: two powerful attackers lying unconscious, several Division 4 members wounded, and one "consultant" casually asking the trembling shop owner for more ocha.
The report reached Makima almost instantly. She listened to Aki's explanation over the phone with her serene smile, her eyes betraying no emotion.
"So, Tom-kun stopped them?" Makima asked, her voice soft.
"Yes," Aki replied tersely. "He... incapacitated both of them in seconds. Before we even had time to react."
"I see," Makima said. "Good work, Aki-kun. Make sure everyone gets medical attention. Bring both attackers in for interrogation."
After hanging up, Makima's smile widened slightly. Calculations in her mind raced at superhuman speed. Her plans had been disrupted, but in a very interesting way. Tom Jacker was not just a passive variable with great power. He was an active variable. He had shown a tendency to "protect" his immediate surroundings, not out of morality, but out of a strange sense of possessiveness. As if the members of Division 4 were his toys, and he didn't like anyone else trying to break them. This made Tom much more predictable, and therefore, much more exploitable. She just needed to ensure that Tom's interests aligned with hers.
Meanwhile, at a hidden location, Katana Man received news of the failed attack.
"What do you mean, failed?!" he roared at his trembling subordinate. "Just some low-level Devil Hunters and the Chainsaw Dog!"
"There was... there was someone else, sir," the subordinate reported. "Someone not in our data. He defeated Akane-sama and the others... without moving from his seat. He... he's not human."
Katana Man fell silent, his rage mixed with confusion. His plans, based on careful intelligence data, were now in shambles. There was a new player on this chessboard, a player whose rules of the game they didn't know.
Back at the ramen shop, after the medical team had taken Aki and the others, Himeno remained seated beside Tom. Silence fell between them.
"You..." Himeno whispered, finally finding her voice. "You didn't have to do that."
"Of course, I did," Tom replied, turning to her. "The broth was almost gone. The most enjoyable moment of a bowl of ramen is slurping the last of the broth. And they almost ruined it. Truly barbaric."
Himeno stared at him, searching for signs of deceit, for a hidden motive. But all she found was absurd honesty. He saved her life... because of ramen. A small, slightly hysterical laugh escaped her lips. She didn't know whether to feel flattered, insulted, or utterly terrified. Perhaps all three.
"Next time," she said with a faint smile, a genuine one for the first time. "It's my treat. Somewhere quieter."
"I'll hold you to that," Tom replied.