Chapter 538: , Human Bomb Returns! (Third update, seeking monthly tickets duck

PS: I still owe 3 chapters, last month's monthly tickets were 3000, plus 2 chapters = 5 chapters, today I made up 1 chapter, still owe 4 chapters, please help me remember~

Just as the Metropolitan Police Department had just received the "challenge letter" from Weekly Bunshun, due to Jin Kashiwagi's sudden scandal, everything was in chaos.

Tokyo, Minato Ward, near a certain large office building in Akasaka.

The sun was like a bleached coin, mercilessly scorching Tokyo.

The skyscrapers of glass and steel in Minato Ward reflected blinding light, steaming up visible waves of distorting heat, the air thick as congealed gel, each breath bringing a scorching sting.

At this moment, approaching lunchtime, office workers in suits and dresses, like fish escaping a cage, surged toward the sparse shade on the plaza and outdoor café seats, seeking a brief respite.

In this everyday scene shrouded by heat and lethargy, an extremely incongruous figure appeared.

A young person, a male ghost looking like he's in his mid-twenties to under thirty, was wandering in the plaza in front of the office building!

He stumbled out from the side-rear alley of the office building, like a broken wooden puppet controlled by invisible strings.

He wore a heavy, dark gray hoodie, and similarly outdated long pants, the clothes looked filthy, clinging to his body trembling from fear. Sweat had already soaked his hair, strands sticking to his forehead, his face an abnormal pallor, eyes wide open, bloodshot, deep in his pupils was an almost overflowing, pure despair.

"Get out! All of you get out!" he roared, his voice hoarse and cracking from extreme fear and dehydration. He acted like a trapped wild beast, frantically shoving the white plastic tables and chairs in the plaza, chairs kicked flying, making piercing screeches on the scorching ground.

Office workers enjoying lunch and chatting were startled by this sudden commotion, looking over in bewilderment. Most showed disgust and vigilance— in the bustling Minato Ward, one occasionally sees such mentally unstable homeless people or drug addicts.

This is Minato Ward! Country people shouldn't appear here! Get back to your Sankoku (a famous slum in Tokyo)!

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Crazy person? Dressed like this in this heat..."

Some whispered, others silently moved away.

Soon, two uniformed office building guards heard the news and rushed over, their faces showing weary resignation at the usual sight, trying to approach and control this "disturber of order."

"Don't come near! I told you not to come near! Get lost! Get lost!" Seeing the guards, the youth lost even more control, waving his arms, steps unsteady as he backed away, fear in his eyes almost becoming tangible.

The guards obviously didn't take his words seriously, seeing he was unarmed, merely acting mad, they continued approaching, preparing to subdue and take him away as usual.

Just as one guard's hand was about to touch his arm—

The youth suddenly stopped backing away, using a motion mixing extreme fear and resolve, he grabbed the front of his hoodie and violently tore it open to both sides!

"I told you to get lost ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

"Oooom—"

As the hoodie was torn open, the crowd felt as if collectively choked.

Exposed under the midday sun, were rows and bundles of grayish-white cylindrical objects tightly bound to his torso—ANFO explosives.

The rough texture and dense wiring, under sunlight, presented a cold, deathly feel. Even more heart-stopping was the metal collar tightly fastened around his neck, obviously a simple improvised explosive device (IED), with a red indicator light in the center, like a demon's heart, steadily and despairingly—blinked once!

"Ding-dong~ ding-dong~ ding-dong~ ding-dong~"

"Did you see it?! Did you see it?!" the youth screamed, tears and snot flowing, voice distorted: "Stay away from me! Ten meters! No, twenty meters! Anyone who gets closer, this light will flash faster, over fifty times……we're all doomed! We'll all be blown to pieces!"

"Ding-dong~ ding-dong~ ding-dong~"

Silence.

"Move back, or I'll blow up ah ah ah ah!"

"Ding-dong~ ding-dong~ ding-dong~"

Immediately after, came the suppressed, rising and falling gasps and short cries.

"Huff~ huff~ huff ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!" the two guards let out beast-like howls, in panic scrambling backward on hands and knees.

The crowd surged backward like a lake hit by a boulder, tables and chairs knocked over by fleeing people, bento boxes and coffee cups spilled, no one bothered. Panic spread like a plague, every face wrote utter disbelief and shock, the originally hot air now seeming to congeal into ice.

The youth stood alone in the center of the ruined open space, like the sole tragic clown on stage. He scanned the frightened crowd around him, as if grasping at the last straw, he cried out with all his strength toward the sky, toward any possible camera: "Father! Shinichiro Akimoto! Save me! Please save me! They……they won't let me go! Save me! I'm Shōta Akimoto!!!"

"Father! They want to blow me up! Help me, father!!!"

As the youth wailed, the people around indeed retreated to a sufficient distance, the indicator light on his neck IED stopped blinking after flashing over twenty times.

The youth breathed a little easier, he stared at the people around him with hatred and fear: "Don't come near!!!"

"Immediately! Call the police!!! Immediately, tell the police, save me, let the police come save me! Let father come save me!"

"I'm Shōta Akimoto! I'm the son of Shinichiro Akimoto! I'm Shōta Akimoto, son of Foreign Minister Shinichiro Akimoto, quickly call the police, tell them this, quickly let them think of a way, think of any way ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

As the youth announced his identity, the office workers in Minato Ward, indeed high-income and high-IQ individuals, after the initial fear and terror of his extreme behavior, some middle-aged male workers gradually calmed, stepping back while recalling exactly what he had said.

"Foreign Minister……Shinichiro Akimoto's son?"

In the crowd, someone lost their voice saying this identity.

What, the minister's son???

This sentence was like a second bomb, exploding in people's hearts. Originally just fear of explosives, now mixed with indescribable shock, absurdity, and wild imaginings of the political dark side.

This young man, covered in explosives, breaking down and wailing in the heart of Minato Ward at noon, is actually the son of this nation's top elite!

What on earth happened? Was he kidnapped? But why……explosives?

The scorching sun still burned, sunlight mercilessly illuminating Shōta Akimoto's pallid face, the monstrous explosives on his body, and that collar's red indicator light, like a death omen, steadily bright.

The heat intensified the stickiness of sweat, also steaming up the aura of despair.

The entire plaza's time seemed to freeze, only that red light swaying back and forth remained, along with the dense ANFO explosives covering his entire upper body, and his own desperate cries.

"Call the police, call the police immediately!!!"

"Hello hello, is this the Metropolitan Police? This is Akasaka Seka XX-cho XX-number in Minato Ward, there's a bomb, a human bomb!"

"The son of Foreign Minister Shinichiro Akimoto, Shōta Akimoto, has a large amount of explosives strapped to his body! He, he is begging for help, please immediately send police! Immediately!"

(End of chapter)