The atmosphere in the restaurant broke all at once.
One moment, there had only been the low hum of conversation, the clatter of dishes, and Oden steadily working his way through the mountain of food in front of him.
The next—
a woman was standing at the table, breathing hard, eyes wide, hands trembling.
"Oden," she said.
Oden looked up from his food, expression flat beneath the blindfold.
The woman took another step forward.
"Oden," she repeated, voice shaking now. "It's you. It's really you."
Yuta blinked.
Panda sat up straighter.
Maki immediately looked suspicious.
Inumaki went very still.
Behind the woman, the sharply dressed man accompanying her was already grimacing.
"Tamaki," he said under his breath, "please."
But Tamaki didn't hear him.
Or rather, she heard him and did not care.
Her eyes were locked entirely on Oden.
She looked half-crazed.
Like someone standing in front of a ghost she had begged the world to return.
"You're my son," she said.
The table froze.
Panda looked at Oden.
Then at Tamaki.
Then back at Oden.
"…Well," he muttered, "that escalated fast."
Yusuke stepped up quickly, forcing a strained smile that did absolutely nothing to hide his discomfort.
"I'm so sorry," he said to the table. "Please excuse her. She's… in a very fragile state right now. She's disturbing your meal."
Tamaki turned on him instantly.
"Yusuke! It's him!"
Oden stared at her in silence for a second.
Then said, flatly—
"No, I'm not."
That did not help.
If anything, it made Tamaki look even more unstable.
Her breathing quickened further.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, that's not true. It's definitely you. It has to be you."
Maki looked between them, visibly unsure whether this was a family reunion or the beginning of a public mental breakdown.
Yuta, as always, looked like he wanted to de-escalate things, but had absolutely no idea where to begin.
The entire restaurant was staring now.
No one was even pretending not to.
Tamaki took another step toward Oden.
"It's you," she insisted. "I know it's you."
Oden's voice remained cool.
"You're mistaken."
"I'm not mistaken!"
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Then, suddenly, she pointed at his face.
"It's your eyes," she said. "You're hiding them."
A terrible silence followed.
Tamaki's hand trembled.
"You have serpent eyes," she said. "That's why you're wearing that blindfold."
Oden's face did not change.
"No, I don't."
Tamaki looked like she was one second away from either collapsing or clawing the truth out of the world with her bare hands.
"I know what I saw," she whispered.
Then—
before anyone could stop her—
she lunged forward.
Yuta half-rose from his seat.
Maki cursed.
But Tamaki was faster than anyone expected from a woman so visibly unstable.
Her fingers caught the edge of Oden's blindfold—
and ripped it away.
The white cloth came loose in one clean motion.
The room froze.
Oden's eyes were exposed.
And yes they were strange.
Unmistakably strange.
But they were not the serpent eyes Tamaki remembered.
The whites were gone.
The outer eye was completely black.
At the center sat a golden iris, and through that gold ran a red vertical slit, sharp and unnatural, like something predatory wearing the shape of an eye.
Tamaki stumbled back a half-step.
Shock and confusion warred across her face.
Her lips parted soundlessly at first.
Then—
"…But I'm sure," she whispered. "I'm sure…"
Her voice trembled.
"This is my son."
Oden slowly rose from his seat.
And now—
he was angry.
Just cold in a way that made the air around him feel a little sharper.
He reached down, took the blindfold from the table where it had fallen, and retied it over his eyes in one practiced motion.
Then he turned slightly toward Yuta and the others.
"I'm leaving," he said.
No one at the table tried to stop him.
Maki, for once, had nothing sharp to say.
Yuta only nodded carefully.
Panda, however, reached into his jacket and pulled something out.
A small card.
He held it out.
"Here," he said. "Keep in touch."
Oden paused.
Then took it.
He glanced down at it, then gave Panda a small nod.
"…Thanks."
"You're welcome," Panda said.
As Oden stepped away from the table, Tamaki moved again, hand reaching out desperately.
"Oden—!"
But this time Yusuke caught her.
He wrapped an arm around her and held her back firmly.
"Tamaki," he said, voice low and strained, "stop."
She struggled weakly against him.
"That's him! Yusuke, that's him!"
But Yusuke held on.
"Don't cause trouble for the kid any longer."
Oden did not look back.
He walked out of the restaurant and into the Tokyo night.
---
The city air felt cooler outside.
Or maybe he was just irritated enough to notice it more.
Oden walked without direction at first, hands in his pockets, hood up, blindfold back in place. The crowd flowed around him in shifting currents, neon reflecting off windows and wet pavement, but he barely registered any of it.
His thoughts were louder than the city.
'Could that woman really be my birth mother?'
The question sat badly in his chest.
Because she had known.
Not about these eyes.
But about the old ones.
The serpent-like eyes he had been born with.
Very few people should have known about those.
Himself.
Miguel.
And his family in Canada.
That should have been all.
Yet that woman had looked at him and spoken as though she already knew what had once been hidden beneath the blindfold.
Oden clenched his jaw.
Because the truth was—
those old eyes were gone.
They had shed during his years in Kenya.
Just peeled away, in a sense not even Miguel had fully understood, revealing the eyes beneath.
The true Serpent Eyes.
An ocular ability.
A monstrous one.
When they awakened, his perception had changed completely.
He saw heat.
Not vaguely.
Precisely.
Bodies glowed with their own signatures, making darkness nearly irrelevant. Smoke, foliage, thin cover, none of it mattered much anymore. Living things announced themselves through warmth, and the wounded practically screamed their location through elevated heat.
He became absurdly sensitive to movement too.
Tiny shifts in posture. A tightening muscle. A shoulder angling before a strike. Feints became harder to sell to him. Sleight-of-hand became almost insulting. In close combat, his reaction speed sharpened because, more often than not, he caught intent forming in the body before the attack properly launched.
And intent itself—
that was another thing.
His eyes, or perhaps the instincts tied to them, had grown frighteningly good at detecting killing intent and hostile presence. Bloodlust. Ambushes. Concealed malice. Disturbances caused by movement or cursed energy buildup.
More than once, that sense had warned him a fraction too early.
A fraction was all he needed.
But the worst, and most exhausting part was the awareness.
That awful near-complete awareness of everything around him.
Not true omnidirectional sight.
But close enough to make blind spots almost nonexistent.
Flanking him became difficult. Attacks from behind became harder to hide. Multiple opponents were easier to manage.
And yet—
it was exhausting.
Keeping those eyes open for too long was like asking his brain to drink the entire world at once. Information came from everywhere. Movement. Heat. Presence. Angles. Intent.
It was too much.
That was why he wore the blindfold.
Especially because of that near-360° awareness.
Without it, the city was manageable.
With it, Tokyo became unbearable in under an hour.
Oden stopped walking.
His fist clenched.
Then he punched the nearest wall.
The concrete cracked with a dull sound.
"Damn it," he muttered.
Could that woman really be his mother?
The possibility irritated him more than it should have.
Because if she was—
then what?
Why appear now?
Why like that?
Why after all this time?
His phone rang.
Oden exhaled sharply, reached into his pocket, and answered without checking the screen.
"What."
Miguel's voice came through immediately.
"Don't stay out too late."
Oden's expression flattened.
"You called just to say that?"
"I also called to give you the hotel location again, since you have the survival instincts of a raccoon when left unsupervised."
Oden said nothing.
Miguel gave him the location.
Oden memorized it.
Then Miguel added, "And don't start any fights unless you plan on winning cleanly."
"That sounds specific."
"It is."
Oden hung up.
He stood there for another moment, the city moving around him.
Then he slipped the phone back into his pocket.
All this thinking about mothers, past lives, old eyes, abandoned children—
none of it mattered right now.
Not really.
What mattered right now was Miguel.
Whatever task Miguel had come to Tokyo to help with.
Whatever role Oden was supposed to play in it.
That was enough.
That was simple.
And simple was good.
Oden adjusted his blindfold, pulled his hood a little lower, and started walking again.
Step by step—
he blended back into the crowd.
---
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