"Itadakimasu!" The Foreclosure Task Force, except for Serika, excimed as they took their chopsticks and start eating the Saba Misoni that Tendou cooked.

  And just after the first bite, both Ayane and Nonomi's eyes became starry as they continued to eat at an increased pace, while Hoshino ate slowly as if completely immersing herself to be an Oji-San with her eating speed, and for Shiroko, she mercilessly wolfed down the dish, as well as the bowl of rice and miso soup. Serika on the other hand went to the restroom for a bit, and after everyone finished eating, Serika walked in with her eyes widened.

  "Thanks for the meal!"

  "E-Ehh!? You all ate without me!?"

  "Well, there is no excusing out of this, but Tendou-Sensei's Saba Misoni... it really is dreamy! It melts in the mouth very deliciously!" Nonomi commented.

  "It has been a while since we've eaten such fine dishes, not only that... But it's also for free." Ayane looked at Tendou, who shook his head slowly.

  "It is my gratitude to all of you to begin with, especially Shiroko."

  "Nn. Tasty." Shiroko said as she wiped her chin with Serika's handkerchief.

  "Hey, that's mine--" Serika then tripped and fell down to the floor.

  The scene invited a hearty ughter from Hoshino and Nonomi, as the cat eared girl begrudgingly stood up and walked to her seat. However, her anger soon receded the moment the smell of the still freshly-cooked mackerel hits her nostrils, causing her cat ears to flutter and her stomach growling.

  "Aah... I finally get to eat this too... After so long..."

  "So, let's get back to the matters at hand. Thanks to our efforts, the Kata Kata Helmet Gang won't be harassing us for a while, and we can focus on our debt."

  "A debt?" Tendou asked Ayane.

  "Oh, right. We haven't told him yet." Shiroko's wolf ears perked up.

  "S-shoot..." Serika dropped her chopsticks the moment she realized.

  "The thing is..." Ayane is about to expin, but then Serika stood up from her seat, completely forgetting about the dish in front of her.

  "Stop right there! Not another word, Ayane!"

  "What's wrong? It's not like it's a secret, Serika-Chan..." Hoshino asked.

  "That doesn't mean we should go telling everyone!"

  "I'm the first and only person hearing about this currently. And Serika, your food's getting cold--"

  "You shut up! Even after he helped us, he is ultimately an outsider!"

  "Well, I'm not saying that Sensei can solve this problem on our behalf, but he's the only adult we have to turn to... Unless you have a better idea, Serika-Chan?" Hoshino gives her undercsswoman a mischievous catlike smile.

  "W-Well... Anyways! Sensei just came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden all of you start calling him Sensei this and Sensei that, haven't we made this far on our own!?"

  As Serika continued to rant about Tendou, the tter gnces at Shiroko, who sneakily pointed to Serika's share of the Saba Misoni, and with a nod Shiroko quietly pulled Serika's tray over to her side, and began to wolf down on the food, only this time at twice the speed. Nonomi held a hand over her mouth as she prepared for the ensuing scene, and Hoshino puts her hands on her ears.

  "There is no way I'm following orders from a random adult that just arrived! NO WAY IN HELL I'M TAKING ANY PART OF-- eh!?"

  Serika's ears twitched when she sees Hoshino's hands on her own ears, Ayane looking at both her and Shiroko's side back and forth slowly, and Nonomi holding back her ughter. Begrudgingly, she turned her gaze ever so slowly over to Shiroko's side, whereupon she has finished eating Serika's serving.

  "HUUUUH!?" Serika knelt down, and crawled over to Shiroko's side, shaking her shoulders as if to make her stop eating, but it was already too te.

  Nonomi bursts out ughing alongside Hoshino, and even Ayane can't help but let out a stifled ughter at the scene in front of them.

  "Nn. No worries. Sensei can cook you another."

  "Oh... Fair enough."

  "No good. We ran out of mackerel." Tendou revealed.

  Complete silence ensued as Serika's mind processed what Tendou just revealed after seeing Shiroko stealing her meal, as well as the other FTF members that couldn't hold their ughter. Her ears droop down to their lowest point and her eyes widen slowly but surely until they are at the size of dinner ptes.

  "EEEHHHH!?"

  More bursts of ughter ensued from Nonomi, Hoshino and Ayane as Serika then gred at the now clean and empty tray in front of Shiroko, before swithing her focus to Tendou, fires of anger apparent in her eyes as she goes beyond livid.

  "What's wrong? Didn't you say you don't want any part of it? From an outsider?" Tendou asked bluntly.

  "Y-You... I DON'T APPROVE OF YOU!"

  Serika lividly stormed out of the clubroom, and went straight home, grumbling along the way both in anger and hunger.

  "It sure is hard being popur. I didn't even get a chance to eat." Tendou sighed, a small smile forming on his face.

  "Ne, Nee! How about if I go treat you to eat outside, Sensei~?" Nonomi raised her hand.

  "That would be a good idea. Do you know any good pces to eat around here?"

  "The one and only, of course!"

  During their trek to where Nonomi wanted to bring Tendou, Ayane begins to tell him the problems that the FTF are facing, particurly the debt that the school owed to a company of loan sharks called Kaiser Loans. Because of the interest rate, now the debt has reached over 900 million yen, or to be precise, 962.350.000 yen in total, something that caused Tendou to let out a whistle of disbelief at the amount he just heard. However Tendou mentally noted what point of interest that Ayane revealed, the Kaiser Loans company that held the debt.

  Tendou personally never had an issue with loan sharks or debts of any kind, however he does recall when his rival, Kamishiro Tsurugi, an aristocrat of the Discabil Family in Japan, fell into debt ever since he took over as the head of the family (and also it's sole member ever since his older sister died), and had to gain sums of money by killing worms of various amounts for ZECT. And thanks to ZECT no longer requiring his services when Tendou's best friend, Kagami Arata, became a Rider for ZECT, Tsurugi no longer received monetary rewards for killing worms, no matter how many he did. It became worse thanks to Tsurugi holding a ramen (which he pronounces as La men as if it was an exotic French cuisine) cooking duel which involves him hiring chefs from all over the world to try and best Tendou's ramen. And thanks to more and more shenanigans, his butler Jiiya, who happens to be a legendary cook as well, struggled even more in trying to revive the family's finances. In the end, it is revealed that Tsurugi turned out to be a worm himself, and due to a promise Tendou made with him, the former is forced to kill Tsurugi in front of his love interest Misaki Yuzuki. After the worm threat ended in the end of 2006, Misaki preserved the legacy of Tsurugi's family by becoming a president of a franchise of restaurants that followed Jiiya's culinary teachings.

  "Sensei? You're spacing out." Hoshino said, snapping Tendou out of his reminiscing.

  "No. I'm just reminiscing about a rival of mine from a long time ago. He fell into debt as well."

  "A rival? Uhe~ It seems that even a person wearing a super armor like that can have a rival."

  "Kabuto is not the only one of it's kind. There are 9 others, each with a different insect motif."

  "What's Sensei's rival's motif? Your's is a Kabutomushi beetle." Ayane asked, now also curious.

  "A scorpion. Sasword."

  "...A scorpion? Isn't a scorpion an arachnid?"

  "ZECT chose it out of all insects. Although it did foreshadow what my rival's true self was."

  "ZECT?" Shiroko asked.

  "They're an organization. Paramilitary, took the role of defenders back where I came from, without any concern for human lives. When you see me in Masked Form, you see their logo on Kabuto's left shoulder pad."

  Shiroko then recalled seeing it, and responded with a simple "Nn."

  Ayane then pried more, asking what ZECT is trying to protect his homeworld from, however Tendou responded that the answer is for another day, as Nonomi finally pointed to the pce she recommended. A ramen shop, in one of the few surviving urban streets of Abydos. Tendou reads the sign of what the ramen shop's name is. "Shibaseki Ramen," to which he then entered first, with the FTF members following suit behind him.

  "Master! One serving of... Sensei, what do you want, again?"

  "Just one bowl of the regur ramen."

  "One bowl of regur Shibaseki ramen!" Nonomi completed the order.

  "Right, right!" The owner of the shop replied, who is revealed to be a humanoid Shiba Inu dog, with two scars on his face.

  After a few minutes, the bowl is put on top of Tendou's table, before he inspected the ramen inside.

  "The broth... It's kelp and cutlet. Considering we're in a desert, this is rare."

  "Eh? You know what the broth is made out of with just a single gnce?" Ayane asked, with a tone of amazement.

  "I learned it from Grandmother, also from a book published by whom I would call humanity's treasure. Itadakimasu."

  Tendou took several strands of the ramen using his chopsticks, and ate it before trying the soup. His eyes widen the moment he realized something within the fvor.

  "This fvor... No way!"

  "Heh! I would have never imagined I would see you, in a different life!" The Shiba Inu proudly said.

  "Master Shiba...? Sensei...?" Nonomi's eyes widen.

  "So it is you!" Tendou said in amazement.

  "It has been a very long time, indeed. Where were you after 2006? Your friends tried to visit but you weren't home."

  "I was travelling the world in my pursuit of cooking knowledge. I... I never returned home. How about you? If you were here... does it mean that..."

  "Yes. I have passed several years after Bocchama did. When I first id eyes on the denizens here, I thought I was in heaven!"

  "I... I could say the same about that st part. Still, are you working alone?"

  "I have some waitresses on part-time. Although one called in sick today."

  Tendou then looked at the board listing the part-time waitress names, and one particurly struck him as familiar despite being written in kanji instead of katakana, before Master Shiba suddenly called him out again. When he realized it, he has tossed several ptes in the air. And with his reflexes, Tendou was able to catch one pte on his right foot, one pte on each of his hands, and one more pte on top of his head, before he then juggled them up into one stack.

  "Hahaha! I missed that stunt of yours, that I wanted to see it again after all these years!"

  "If so, can I do the honors? For old time's sake." Tendou asked, as he gnced at the still boiling pot in the kitchen.

  Everyone else (except for Hoshino who drifted off to her nap, and missed the stunt that Tendou pulled) was in disbelief, especially Ayane considering she doesn't believe in reincarnation.

  The next day, school went normally for Serika, and to her satisfaction Tendou didn't visit since said visit is scheduled for the day after, and she happily skipped over to the Shibaseki Ramen shop to start her part-time shift. She is mentally cheering inside as she doesn't have to deal with Tendou for an entire day, and she can have that entire satisfaction for herself.

  "Master, I'm here!" Serika called out.

  "Don't call me Master."

  Serika's heart sank the moment she heard that voice. When she looked back at the kitchen, there stood Tendou, wearing a white apron over a bck T-shirt and denim jeans, as well as having a bandana wrapped around his head.

  "It is I.*"

  (*The way Tendou refers to himself here is Ore-Sama.)

  "W-why are you here!?"

  "I happened to know the owner."

  Serika is about to turn around and leave, when suddenly she is blocked by Nonomi in her path.

  "Serika-Chan, good evening!"

  "You followed me here!?"

  After 5 minutes of expnation and storytelling about Tendou and Master Shiba's past life, Serika puts on her waitress uniform, and (begrudgingly) carried the bowls of ramen that her clubmates have ordered. Her expression is both annoyed and livid at the same time, as Nonomi and Hoshino teased her uniform's appearance, to which Serika angrily told them to finish the meal and leave immediately. Before they started eating, Tendou came out of the kitchen with his own bowl of ramen in hand, and walked to the table where the FTF members (except Serika) are seated. He sees that there is a bit of empty space next to Shiroko, and another next to Nonomi. Both girls looked at him, however Shiroko taps on the side of her seat, clearly wanting Tendou to sit next to her.

  Honoring their spaces however, Tendou took a stool and sat on the edge of the table, causing Nonomi to pout and Shiroko to look away in disappointment.

  "S-Still, there is no way that Sensei can beat Master Shiba in cooking ramen, right!?" Serika asked.

  "Nope. We both use the simir techniques."

  "Eh?"

  After the squad has finished eating alongside Tendou, Master Shiba came along and revealed to Tendou that in this new life of his, he has a new motto, "As long as the customer wants, I will do my utmost to provide them with delicious food." To which Tendou respected, even though the amount of customers that has come to eat in the shop has gotten less and lesser. Tendou pardoned himself before leaving, telling Master Shiba that he was called back to SCHALE. A few moments ter after Tendou left on the Kabuto Extender, the rest of the FTF went home as well, except for Serika who is still on her shift.

  That night however, during Serika's trip home, a smoke bomb is thrown in her path from an alleyway, and before she is fully incapacitated, she was able to see the red officer helmets worn by the Kata Kata Gang officers. What they didn't notice however, is a bulky figure on his motorcycle, watching from the other end of the alleyway which leads to another street.

  "I still think this is a bad idea!" One helmet gangster said.

  "What do you have to worry about, that Sensei is just one guy! And look at us here, 3 APCs fresh from the factory, against his oddly designed bike."

  Serika could hear the helmet gangsters underestimating Sensei, as she struggled to move against the ropes that bound her in the back of a delivery truck that was commandeered by the leader of this harassment squad. Deep inside she regretted being too harsh at Tendou, when he is in reality just trying to help, albeit in his own strange ways. But now no matter what she do, she cannot get loose from the binds, and her phone is out of reach to call for rescue, at least it was until she heard a transmission coming in through her earpiece.

  "Grandmother said this: When not close by, one is even closer."

  The cargo door of the delivery truck is then shot open from a few ion-beam projectiles that hit it's corners. And outside in the dark of night in the middle of the desert, Serika sees Kabuto, on the Kabuto Extender, racing after the gang's convoy.

  "I-It's him! He really is chasing us!"

  "Open fire!"

  The APCs' turrets begin to rotate, however Kabuto managed to disable two out of three of the APCs by shooting the barrels of their cannons, while the third APC successfully opened fire, to which Kabuto swerved to the side to evade the cannon bst.

  "Cast Off." Said Kabuto as he tinkers with the buttons on the Kabuto Extender's dashboard.

  "CAST OFF"

  Both Kabuto, and the Kabuto Extender's metal armor parts then spring off from their respective bodies, Kabuto in rider form while the Extender became resembling that of an ATV, albeit with a beetle's horn protruding in the front serving as a ram and ptform. The horn on the chin of Kabuto's helmet rises up to the forehead.

  "CHANGE BEETLE"

  The Kabuto Extender is driven over to the APCs that had their cannons disabled, and Kabuto uses the horn in it's front to flip the APCs upside down, rendering them useless, while he dodges the third APC's shots along the way. Said APC doesn't see more action for long too, as Kabuto sets the Extender on autopilot, and jumped onto the horn to which it then rose upwards for Kabuto to jump, and with a chop from the Kunaigun's axe bde, the cannon of the third APC is rendered useless. Serika's mouth became even more agape the moment she sees him jumping back onto the seat of the Kabuto Extender, and effortlessly flipped the APC upside down using it's horn. The truck is forced to stop after Kabuto shoots off the back wheels, and the gangsters in the front cab begin to leave the truck, taking aim at Kabuto with their assault rifles.

  The other gangsters that were cooped up in their APCs managed to escape, and regrouped with the ones guarding the truck.

  "Open fire!" The officer leading the group ordered.

  "Clock up"

  "CLOCK UP"

  And within a few seconds of the gangsters opening fire, each one of them were sent flying across the sands by an unseen force after Kabuto vanished in front of them, down to the st officer standing, who slung her rifle back on her shoulder as she dashed towards her fallen comrades, holding a hammer on her left hand. She puts on a stance as she looked around for Kabuto, until he appears a mere few inches in front of her.

  "CLOCK OVER"

  "Eek!" The girl fell down to the sand beneath her.

  "Grandmother said this: Fancy fvors cannot hide poor cooking. You can barely even stand right now, and you try to use your bravado to protect your comrades. However, how are you supposed to save anyone if you can't even hide your fears?"

  "I-I..."

  "I gave all of you a finger flick as punishment, previously. This is the second and final warning. If you harass these girls from Abydos one more time..."

  "1 2 3"

  The sounds akin to that of an emergency siren is heard the moment Kabuto flips the horn of the Kabuto Zecter back to it's original position.

  "The punishment is even heavier than it is today."

  "I... I get it! W-We'll retreat!"

  With that, the gangsters regain their footing, and ran across the vast desert in retreat upon being ordered to. With no other obstacle in the way, Kabuto walked to the delivery van, and chopped off the ropes binding Serika.

  "You..."

  "It's alright. I'm right here..."

  Kabuto extends his hand toward Serika, as she took her bag and rifle with her before taking said hand. Kabuto then pulled her towards him before putting her on a princess carry, before ordering Arona to activate the "Put-On" mechanic on the Kabuto Extender, to which the sprung out metal parts all come back to the motorcycle as the horn in front retracted backwards. The bike is then restored to it's normal form as a result, as Kabuto puts Serika on the backseat of the bike, before hopping on himself, and drove off into the night back towards the Abydos urban areas.

  "Sensei... You're annoying!"

  "Why is that?"

  "I-I could have taken them on all by myself, i-it's not like that I needed your help!"

  "Heh." Kabuto chuckled.

  "But..."

  "But?"

  "T-Thank you, at least, for saving me!"

  "The feeling's mutual."

  As they finally reached the streets, Kabuto drove through the nearly empty urban area, driving past a shotgun-carrying girl who then turned her attention toward the speeding motorcycle. Her purple navy hat nearly gets sent flying off her head as she held on to it using her right hand. Her gloomy purple eyes gze over the sight of the knight-like figure carrying the student on the backseat. An unhinged smile forms on her face as she then walked towards the direction of the Kabuto Extender's chosen path.