Guess Who's Coming to Downton

The tips of the Englishwoman’s chopsticks would scarcely touch the intense flavor steaming around inside of her bowl before a firm hand suddenly clasped her wrist. If she turned to her side, she would find the intense gaze of Masuyo Ai staring straight back at her, unwavering.

Five seconds prior, the Demon of Shibuya was standing behind her counter patiently awaiting her fate.

Masuyo had dreamed her life would end this way once. Grace would open her mouth, utter a verbose "disgusting" and freeze Masuyo's blood. Her plea would fall on deaf ears as the Great Yakitori called her editor in that instant to blacklist their Shibuya eatery until the end of time. The walls would fall around her and the jaws of the earth opened wide to send her and her family deep into the infinite darkness. Critics were scary.

Their customers would always be the most cherished people in their daily lives and some of the closest friends Masuyo would ever make, but you could never underestimate the words of a critic. Especially when it came to the international scene. One bad review, one wrong dish could decide their whole future. That pivotal moment was drawing ever nearer as Grace’s chopsticks entered the soup...but was promptly stopped by the ramen prodigy suddenly standing at her side.

Gone now with the morning rush were her worries and doubts. As the sound of clamoring feet and impatient mouths faded away outside of the restaurant, an uncomfortable silence befell the normally rambunctious and carefree venue. Masuyo's presence had a way of turning the atmosphere from warm to cold in an instant. Hard steel now met golden irises.

“O̬̯̱̹i̤̥ͅͅ o̺̰͉̰͔̠i͎̦̩ Grace...what happened to your wedding ring? I thought you never took it off.” Her gaze hadn’t wavered from the traveling journalist. A tight grip from the mixed martial artist would find Grace’s forearm. The aikido prodigy excercised delicate control. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to illict a subtle creak to the small bones underneath.

At first fixated on the steaming bowl presented before her, Gwendolyn found herself in the unfamiliar and quite vexing position of being incapable attaining that which she coveted. Unaccustomed as she was to being denied what her ceaseless drive and ambition seeks. The strained efforts to move her arm eventually diverted her attention from the expertly crafted cuisine to her immobile limb and the deadpanned judgmental expression beside it. *...ohhhhhhhh.* Gwendolyn balking initially, but the dawning realization of her blunder became evident within her mind at about the same time it was expressed upon her deflated facials. So devoted was she to the fraudulent role she'd concocted that she'd made quite the grave miscalculation. And so the noblewoman's veiled masquerade became undone and the Legend of Grace Yakitori became spirited off to nothingness. Abandoning Gwendolyn to now be confronted with the vindictive presence of an individual who had every reason to bear a grudge and the physical acumen to attempt to enact it...

...or so she thought?

"Eh?!" A bewildered squint from one eye and raised eyebrow of the other best summarized Gwendolyn's befuddlement at Masuyo's abrupt accusation. Internally processing the bevy of new information presented to her within the span of seconds, from the noodle waitress continuing to address her by that blatantly falsified identity to a preoccupation to her absent wedding ring? The heiress struggled to recall ever mentioning that her persona was married, so why would...she...Gwendolyn's thought process was becoming scrambled just attempting to piece any of this together, and her time to react was limited. Ergo, after a slight shake of her head and clearing of her throat to get back into character..."AH, well...You see, I had intended to keep the tragic loss of mine beloved a secret from the public's prying eye a secret for but a few days longer, but...*sniff*...it appears I've no choice but to relive the day of their passing once again. Tragedy struck whilst we were traveling the world together and sampling seafood cuisine in Tokyo when...*sniff*...Oh, such unfathomable misfortune. And ever since that day when he indulged upon tainted blowfish, why I couldn't bring myself to bear witness to the wedding ring that symbolizes a relationship lost forever to the unending sea of time~..." Gwendolyn's theatrical performance complimented with crying crocodile tears against the crook of her arm after solemnly turning her had to the side...

“Grace” was quick with her answer. Almost near perfect. She said all of the right things at the exact time. That should have been the dead giveaway. Half of her childhood was learning to watch for feints and to see through the deception of the overconfident and vain. Maybe this was the price of allowing her good nature to lead her by the nose. The fact that people would step into her ancestral home and take advantage of them was deplorable.

Masuyo allowed her hand to be released as she observed Grace's explanation with care, looking and listening with every word. It would have made for a world-class performance and moved the audience to tears. Unfortunately, "Grace" had already proven herself to be anything but.

"You can quit the act now. It's lost all of its charm." There was a renewed strength in her voice. The respect and cadence reserved for a superior were gone. Impatience brought forth a tone befitting the scowl on the Japanese girl's face. She wasn't doing a terrific job at hiding her disgust either. "You pulled off an excellent impression and you match her taste in fashion. Even your half-assed sob story was commendable, save for one important detail: Grace Yakitori was never married."

Masuyo leaned forward and snaked her fingers into the woman's pocket, plucking out the mask that once shrouded the faux heiress' face. "And if you spent more time on the small details, you would have also remembered that Grace Yakitori has a two-millimeter scar across her left lip after her trip to Ukraine after extremists sent a charging donkey through her falafel stand."

The aikido girl let the cloth fall to the floor and folded her arms. She stood solemnly as a statue behind the disapproving look etched across her face. Her anger was slow and radiated from her in waves, but it was nevertheless palpable. And for good reason. She couldn't believe she didn't see who this person actually was. Liars and cheats she could handle. But if there was one thing that got under her skin, one act that crossed the line of indignity and became outright unforgivable, it was an honest-to-god freeloader.

"This is just pathetic! You dine-and-dashers are getting seriously annoying!" And clever, though Masuyo did question the effort that went into this trick. Seriously, that outfit must have cost ten times what they could have paid from a single bowl of ramen. Her head tilted to one side, trying to peer an accusatory glance over the blonde vagrant's shoulder. Tourists these days have no dignity. "Come on! You can at least look me in the eye before you run out that door. If you don't have any money, just come out and say so! We're not a charity house!"

The precise origin of the phrase escapes Gwendolyn at the moment. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but succumb to the nagging sensation that somewhere in this bizarrely congenial conversation, either Masuyo or herself had effectively "lost the script", as it were. Somehow the fabricated alias she had thought up in panic-stricken impulsiveness was becoming overtly scrutinized beneath an overbearing detective's lampshade as if this blasted caricature she'd invented was somehow...non-fictitious? The sheer mathematical odds that she had inadvertently assumed the role of an actual food critic were beyond astronomical, although cementing the notion that today the heiress' possessed no luck whatsoever. Regardless, what little time Gwendolyn had to rationalize this abject ludicrousness was, in her mind, best spent upholding her camouflaged veil rather than backtrack and cement her deceit...until even than her veil was ripped to shreds before her.

"She was?!...Ah, I mean, I was?" Gwendolyn balked from being hoodwinked and cornered within her own web of lies, snapping her head back to face the stalwart noodle waitress now abandoning her cordial tone. She flinched from the brazenness of Masuyo perusing her pockets but fought the urge to thwack Masu with a prudish slap across for the cheek for her outright rudeness. Opting to allow this accusatory charade to continue until several truths did indeed become evident. *Dine and dasher? Is...does she?* Although pieces of this puzzle were beginning to become slotted into place, Gwendolyn decided to offer Grace one final chance at remaining her sole barrier between ultimately unveiling herself. All with an ingenious subterfuge on the heiress' part. "Heh...uhm, would you believe me if I said I just so happened to undergo extensive plastic surgery to correct that facial deformity?~..."Gwendolyn's false smile did little to blanket the blatant lying through her teeth.

"OH ALRIGHT FINE!!! This preposterous charade has become as tediously strenuous to uphold as it was unfathomably nonsensical in the first place." Gwendolyn pompously declared before standing out of her chair and slamming her sunglasses into the floor to a glass-shattering explosion, bitterly kicking the remnants off to the side and authoritatively folding her arms beneath her proudly puffed out bosom. "Although perhaps it was pure fallacy on my part to believe you possessed the mental faculties to perform so remedial a task as remember whom I am. It is I you, abject plebeian. Gwendolyn Dupont Bettencourt. Not some wayward waif scrapping by and dashing, and dining, or whatever it is you refer to it. Gracing your dilapidated shanty of a restaurant with mine own exalted patronage, for which I deserve to be treated as such. I can scarcely imagine you physically accost your own clientele with those boorish meathooks you call hands." Gwendolyn exuding her own dignified confidence and indomitable pride as befitting the noblewoman she was, tapping her boot on the floor like an impatient headmaster.

Catching a thief red-handed usually went one of two ways for Masuyo Ai. The thin difference between the two was a matter of ego. The low-life freeloader had every chance to admit their wrongdoings and bow their heads for forgiveness while the aikido prodigy still had an ounce of mercy to spare. That, or they could choose to stand by their greed and selfishness and leave her restaurant the hard way.

"Grace" went for the latter. No real surprise there.

What Masuyo didn't expect to get was a lecture on the backhand of her deceit. The ramen master simply stood with folded arms at the other end of the counter. She was disgusted at the outrageous way "Grace" tried to defend herself while still finding a way to insult her further. Her fists curled tightly into her palms, scanning her pretty face closely for which cheek would be best to strike first.

"I'll show you some meaty hooks, Grace. Or should I say De...Du…Dupo...Dipping Sauce?...Bonito Flakes?..." Her strong stance stood in direct contrast to the fading rigidity in her face. Every word seemed to droop her face further and tightened the crease on her brow. Just trying to repeat it was giving her a headache.

"Oi! Don't make up names! It's confusing as hell! And a lame-ass way to change the subject! I don't know any ‘Gwendolphins’ and you sure wouldn’t find any on our menu! Where does a freeloader like you get off acting so high and mighty in the first place-"

An epiphany struck the Japanese girl on the forehead. Her eyes replayed a familiar scene from the not-so-distant past when those same hazel pupils across from her now looked at her then with similar disdain. They had stood against each other like this before. For the slightest instant, she heard the roar of the crowd and felt the stage lights wash over her skin as her instincts came to life.

"I remember you. I had a match against you and Akiha Kosha back at Avalanche." She spoke the thoughts out loud as they came to her suddenly. Masuyo pointed a finger at the heiress as her identity finally became clear to her. "You're those Sausage Curls!"

Although shedding her preposterous subterfuge came with the begrudging acceptance that she had failed in her duplicity, twas a small price to forfeit in order to reclaim the refined prestige that was her exalted identity. Brief though her dalliance was in the notoriously disreputable world of "role-playing"...Gwendolyn reclaimed her illustrious personage with the fervent zeal and emblazoned regality of a soaring phoenix bursting forth from it's ashes after a millennia of decrepit stagnation. Consequences be damned if it meant continuing onward with that ridiculous charade which somehow entailed mistakenly assuming someone's real life identity. However, her liberation was met naught with the bitter contempt of someone she'd rightfully vanquished within the prominent stage of Avalanche and denied them championship gold, but with dim-witted stupification and the irksome resurrection of a nickname labeled upon her eons ago. EONS!!! Gwendolyn balking with a spastic twitch to her right eye and noticeable vein throbbing on the side of her head from being rebranded that detestable title before emphatically stomping one of her booted feet into the ground.

"HOW IN BLAZES DO YOU REMEMBER THAT BUT NOT MY ACTUAL NAME??!! I TAKE IT YOU REMEMBER GWENNIE-CAKES TOO RIGHT??!!" Gwendolyn snarled through briefly fanged shark teeth with a menacing aura behind her, arms rigidly quivering with visceral disdain and gloved fists tightly clenched. The aforementioned comparison to a phoenix becoming that much more apropos considering the firestorm of an inferno the heiress's rage had summoned forth from Masuyo seemingly remembering everything about their history except her. Cooler heads would prevail though when her wrathful indignation would downgrade to being vexingly miffed as Gwen settled herself started down and searching through a side pocket in her dress to produce a dainty coin purse. Except that what she produced from inside was a rolled up wade hundreds of millions of yen. Scrounging through it with bitterly mumbled words until finding the lowest denomination she had and placing it upon the table beside her noodle bowl. "There. Now I am officially a paying customer, not some thieving rapscallion. And as a paying customer, it would behoove you to remember the names of your clientele, correct? Names such as GWEN-DO-LYN." An index finger jabbing herself in the chest with each exaggeratedly emphasized syllable.

In all fairness, that was the thing Masuyo remembered most of her. And it wasn’t meant to be an insult.

Their time together was short after all. Masuyo meditated on that day often and the moments came to her in pieces. She remembered their match and how well she fought against Valley, the dazzling display, and the sound of her own anxious breaths as she awaited the moment when it would finally be her turn to step through the ropes. The fears and hopes, the excitement and energy were as fresh now as they were on that day. And even still, when she looked to the past, Masuyo could see wisps of those golden, tangled curls dancing amazingly against the stage light.

That brilliance must have been a mirage. The woman that stood before her had the face of an oni and the cry of an impudent child. If Masuyo had any regrets about getting Gwendolyn's name wrong, it wasn't showing anywhere on the aikido girl's face. She didn't voice a word of appreciation after Gwen slammed her payment on the counter. Nor did she even attempt to placate the finger digging into her chest, staring straight ahead with only the slightest fidget. As if money could wipe away any of this.

Masuyo reached up and snatched Gwendolyn by the wrist before the heiress could retract. Her steel eyes flashed with a unique intensity that only matched her adversary’s.

"I remember everyone that's earned my respect, Sausage. Liars and cheats aren't one of them." Masuyo shoved the heiress' hand back into her chest, pushing hard enough to shove her unwelcome guest back a step. She folded her arms and felt her face harden as she took a moment to prepare her thoughts. "You know something? When you insulted Valley in our match, I thought it was out of some petty arrogance. Or maybe some bad blood between the two of you. But I see through all of that now. The truth is? You're an undisciplined, spoiled little girl that bought her way into the winner’s circle. You have no respect because you've never had to work for anything to get where you are. You’re not a real contender."

Masuyo jabbed a finger back at the loathsome heiress’ face. “And I can prove that anytime, anywhere.”

The flagrant absurdity over this confrontational situation still had yet to dawn upon Gwendolyn. Whom up until just this precise instance was adamantly dedicated towards upholding her masquerading charade to disguise her true identity. However, her stance was now pivoted to an extreme degree and she know appeared deadset upon not only broadcasting her prestigious namesake to the Heaven's above but was intent on ensuring Masuyo remembered every individualized syllable of it. Jabbing each one into the noodle waitress' chest with her authoritative index finger. Unbeknownst to them, one sole businessman had ventured inside looking for an afternoon meal, but wisely saw himself out immediately when recognizing the seething animosity crackling between the pair and boiling temperature in the room as a result. Dwarfing the actual boiling soup between them. Gwendolyn backpedaling a stuttered step and twirling the wrist Masuyo rudely snagged for the second time today, but bristling not from that but from the choice accusations levied against her.  

"...so, is that it you say? You think me some mollycoddled, pampered princess whose sterling silver spoon has never left my mouth, and knows nothing of earnest sacrifice or strenuous labor merely due to the fact I don't wile away my time in abject filth like you and mop the floors of some repugnant hovel of a restaurant?" Gwendolyn glowered with her feathers thoroughly ruffled and hazel tinted menace in her eyes, but calmly breathing in through her nostrils and breathing out with a sneering smirk all her own as she folded her arms to match Masuyo. "WELL...consider your challenge accepted than. I see now that fate played it's guiding hand superbly this day as it clearly sought for me to instill a thorough education upon this lost little girl. Imagine what you'll learn when this undisciplined, spoiled little girl in abjectly pathetic defeat. By all means, decide upon the time, date, and conditions that suit you best. Oh, shall I contact Valley so she may hold your hand once again? Although, even her assistance would have done little to save you from that pitiful display of a squash match against that rotund behemoth..."

Gwendolyn's final words cast a spell over space and time. Henceforth, silence reigned at the ramen restaurant. The volatile atmosphere that thickened the air and tightened the back of her throat was suddenly dispelled. All that remained left her frozen on the spot. Had a customer walked in at this instant, Masuyo's wide-eyed gaze would have caught their attention first, right until they noticed the color draining from her face.

Bashira Matsumoto. Her last match and a loss she wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon. Neither would the rest of Shibuya. On paper, it wasn’t a result to write home about. Masuyo had lost before, she would do so, again and again, many times over until she reached the peak. But that fight, that woman….that beast. Bashira cut her pride and ensured that it remained completely shattered on the ring floor on that decisive night between them. The thought of being left beaten and bruised paled in comparison to the humiliation of the entire world’s gaze lingering on that moment. She knew someone from AFW would eventually recognize her. But for it to end up like this.

The fog refused to clear. Masuyo’s storm-laden gaze met the refined golden eyes of her unwelcome guest with unwavering resolve. Suddenly, the corners of her lips stretched across her cheeks, grinning intensely in the haughty heiress’ face. "Right here! Right now!"

Her resounding declaration carried out into the street. The sound stopped the feet and flow of Shibuya's morning commute for the slightest instant. Inside, Masuyo clenched her fist tight, raising her calloused knuckles trembling in a sudden passion towards the heiress' face. "One round, just you and me. Pin, submissions, knockouts, I don’t care. If you’re really the best, then don’t hold back. You can attack me however you want. I’ll even let you cheat. Valley said that was your speciality.”

Prudency simply insisted that Gwendolyn stay abreast of current affairs within AFW. Especially given her exalted positioning within the corporation alongside its exceedingly competitive and uniquely...diverse, climate of potential adversaries. The overwhelming majority of whom thrive on usurping those considered at the pinnacle of their careers and supplant their positioning atop the mountain's peak. Gwendolyn had just not intended on spying a recognizable raven-haired waitress from her past being flattened down upon by a grotesque mammoth of a woman during one of her casual perusals of AFW's broadcastings. Nor had she intended for Masuyo's reaction to be quite so visceral given the outcome if that fateful match was clear as daylight to the heiress since early on into the match's inception. However, the snobbish aristocrat neither bristled nor flinched in the enraged face of what was an emblazoned fighting spirit stalwartly standing opposed to her.

"...*giggle*...Why I haven't the foggiest inclination as to whatever you could be inferring to~...Furthermore, tempting an offer though that last addendum is, a lady of mine own sophisticated prestige has specialties all her own that will suffice in imparting today's lesson. I can assure you that such uncouth handicaps will not be necessary in educating this particular wayward waif~..." Gwendolyn mischievously tapped her index finger on Masuyo's nose to emphasize her wording, a demure smile and serenely composed demeanor undaunted by the Demon's volcanic temperament. A backpedaling step and pivoting stroll taken towards the exit doors as the haughty blueblood began taking her leave of the restaurant alongside some parting words. "Very well. Whatsay we reconvene within this establishment in, let's say 30 minutes. Garbed in suitable grappling attire with the intent towards settling this strife wherever within this dilapidated hovel you wish to be defeated in. Ta~..."