There was a lot of nice feedback on this story, and since I've kind of hit a wall with my other active ones, I'm probably going to be dedicating a little more time to this one as I try to write past my block.

REPLIES:

Cat McHall: Yeah, I imagine that it would be a disappointment, but I believe Tōtsuki is the place where head chefs are trained and thus only the most competitive that strove to be the best in every single action and word would really survive. I would believe that this is the Jewels Generation as most of the all-stars who left Tōtsuki in that generation weren't expelled but chose to leave to sharpen their skills elsewhere, the way Jōichirō chose to leave Tōtsuki to be wander the world. What Erina says kind of contradicts that, but that's because it's Erina seeing the mediocre chefs get cut and not paying attention to those she knows will have careers even if they leave the Academy. | lindsjune: Ahhh thank you! I just really liked the training camp for whatever reason. And I'm not sure what will come after the entire camp is finished; I might have Sōma go on an international trip to visit everyone xD Oh, and thanks for the correction! I was trying to remember Takumi's first name while writing out 'Nakiri' I guess. What's funny is that Alice's surname was correct -_- | raydark182: I'm not sure yet if they're together before the story starts, funny enough. Personally, I thought that Ikumi's infatuation with Sōma was adorable, even if it was a little random :3 | Guest: Thank you!


The buses pulled up to the small building where Sōma's trial would take place. It was barely inside of the fence that marked the boundary of Tōtsuki's land, but there was more than enough room for the couple hundred students that were currently being tested at the location. Sōma had already conversed with the other alumnus in the building (someone from 89th Generation that he didn't really recognize, to be honest) and their task was perfectly synced down to the minute details. Now, he was waiting for his 'class'.

Sōma heard the confusion from the students that had arrived in his kitchen classroom thing (he wasn't quite sure what to call it, himself). After all, he wasn't standing in the front of the room, but watching them from the back of the kitchen. He noticed that most of the students piled in boisterously and glanced around, sometimes even looking straight at him without noticing, before going to their stations to comment loudly on the objects there, mostly in confusion. Some lifted the lid to the large pot and peered in, speculating if he wanted them to make some kind of soup or something. I wonder why it takes people trained in the art of cooking so long to figure out what I'm planning, Sōma thought, remembering back to his first year and the first time he met Erina, including his jab at her for not recognizing his furikake. As more and more students piled in, Sōma began to feel a twinge of the stage-fright that had once plagued Megumi.

The students all became one major mass to him until he noticed one specific student. It was the student that he had seen before. She was wearing a grey loose-fitting jacket that wrapped around from her left side before connecting to the bottom right part of its seam with sleeves that cut off just below her elbows, and her pants were just as loose though they tightened near her ankles. There were lines of black fabric as decoration on the jacket, and some golden characters that he didn't quite recognize stitched onto the upper part of her left sleeve. He recognized one thing about the uniform, though: it was a standard chef's uniform, worn in the kitchen of those restaurants that didn't quite care for their outward appearance. Namely, a diner, just like the one he ran, though probably much less prestigious as Restaurant Yukihira was at this point.

All of the students had filed in by now. The girl was beginning to tie up her rather long dark brown hair, but rather than just tying it in a ponytail, she wrapped it up in a complicated looking bun before stabbing it with a chopstick she pulled out of her pocket. Other students were going through similar preparations: shaking their hands out, stretching their shoulders, tying up hair, rolling up loose sleeves.

"Where's the chef?" one student asked loudly to another. The other replied, "Dunno. Maybe whoever it is overslept."

The girl glanced behind her, locking eyes with Sōma. So she had seen him when she walked in. Interesting.

Sōma waited for just a second longer, listening to the complaints against him grew increasingly more annoyed and much louder before just as loudly faking a sneeze. The entire class went dead silent except for the sounds of ruffling fabric and surprised gasps as everyone turned to see Sōma smirking at them, not at all looking as though he just sneezed.

"Well, it happens," he said with a laugh. "So, seems like Dojima-senpai has hammered something into you: don't speak when the head chef is speaking! Another thing to remember: never get louder than a normal speaking voice in the kitchen. Trust me, when orders start to pile up and you don't know which table ordered what and your chefs are scrambling to get sauces and soups to one another, noise is the last thing you need." Sōma began to stride forward, his long legs taking him to the front of the room quickly and deftly. "My name is Yukihira Sōma, as you should know, and I am of Tōtsuki's 92nd Generation."

Murmurs began to erupt throughout the mass of students. After all, Sōma's story was borderline legendary. Son of "Asura" Saiba Joichiro, head chef of Restaurant Yukihira, a small-town diner with a huge spotlight in the international world known for its innovative flavors, known for his creative impulse as well as his extreme knowledge of almost every cuisine in the world. On top of it all, he was one of those rare chefs who willingly associated with his customers, be they middle school students or the most elite of critics.

And, of course, who could forget that he was a former First Seat, and one from the legendary Jewels Generation, known as the Crown Jewels of Tōtsuki Academy? To be able to stand above the others in his year was a major accomplishment the eighty students in the room dreamed of.

"Now, I'm sure you'd like to get cooking and get out of here as fast as possible," Sōma said lightly. He noticed some of the students subconsciously nod at his remark. He let a smirk slip out before pointing at the two students who had done so. Coincidentally, they were the first students to loudly complain about his 'absence.'

"May I ask you two to please leave the room, then?" Sōma said pleasantly. They froze, uncertain. "I don't want anyone who doesn't want to be here, fighting for their position, to complacently breeze through my task without any passion in their hands. You're fired. Please leave."

The boys began to shout their discontent. "We haven't even cooked anything yet!" "This is unfair!" "This is almost as bad as that shampoo guy!"

Sōma walked over to their table and grabbed one of the larger knives from the utensils. Without looking, he flung it into the air, letting it spin in aerial arcs, before swiping his hand just as it began to fall, grabbing it perfectly by the handle and pointing it at one of the boys. "I'm afraid you have forgotten what Dojima-senpai told us earlier. We are the masters of these kitchens now, and we've survived all of the stuff you need to. Get out of the kitchen."

The boys left without another word, staring at the blade in Sōma's hand. As Sōma watched the students shuffle out, he remembered an incident from the summer before he joined Tōtsuki. Inspired, the red-haired young man glanced down, grabbed a pinch of salt, and threw it at the retreating students, making them run out even faster. Once the door swung shut behind them, Sōma turned back to the rest of the class and gave them a gleeful smile. All of them looked frightened now. Maybe that was because he was giving them a toothy smile as well as still holding a sharpened knife blade.

"Now that we've got that out of the way, it's time for you to cook! You have two hours to make... hmm... how about a korokke?"

The students blinked. Korokke? Deep-fried mashed potatoes with meat included? That was all? It was literal vendor food!

Sōma clapped twice (he had put the knife down by now) and laughed. "Come on, now, time's ticking!"

The students fled into a frenzy, running over to where Sōma had been standing earlier to grab for their ingredients. They grabbed their choice meats, onions, bags of flour. Some even tried to balance eggs back to their workstation, though that didn't work out for a couple students. The boxes of panko, bottles of oil, and spices began to vanish from the cabinets.

Sōma carefully positioned his hand in front of his face, concealing his smirk, as students began the final rush to grab the most important ingredient of all.

"EHH?!"

The students stared in dismay at the sight before them. Five sacks of potatoes, with the eyes grown out and some of them even beginning to decay. Removing the eyes from enough potatoes to make a decent korokke would take much too long, far longer including the rest of the preparation time they needed in the two hours, and there was no telling how many of the other potatoes were going bad.

"Chef Yukihira?" one voice called. "There aren't any potatoes. What do we do?"

Much to the students' panic and outrage, the red-haired young man just shrugged and sat on a table that had been set up in the front of the room. He stretched complacently and loudly yawned. "Why don't you figure it out? You're chefs, right?" he asked with a feline grin.

Only a few students seemed to understand immediately, including the girl he had pinpointed. Her dark purple eyes flew open before she changed direction and ran straight for the refrigerator. Sōma noticed her leave with some rather unusual vegetables overflowing from her arms as she returned to her station, beginning her preparations. He blinked before narrowing his eyes, wondering why she had an entire clove of garlic in her hands.

Other students floundered. Some went to the refrigerator, others ran back to the pantry. Sōma decided to stop hiding his smirk and leaned back on his hands. "As soon as your korokke is ready, please bring it up here," he called out. A few students responded with a "Haii!" or a "Yes, chef!" and Sōma quickly remembered their faces so he could recall them again when they brought him their food to judge.

Yukihira closed his eyes, taking in the smells of the students cooking and the sounds of hot pots filled with oil singing and fizzing. He heard the sounds of the refrigerator door being opened and closed, which he dismissed with a snort. Some people prepared korokke with the cool of the machine, he knew. Perhaps an hour passed before someone approached him. He opened one eye to see who it was.

Not someone he had noticed earlier. It was a girl with pinkish-brown hair tied back in a single braid, wide green eyes, and trembling pale hands that had obviously never seen a kitchen. Something in her eyes seemed to expose her nerves and lack of confidence, two traits that Sōma had long since learned to be wary of. Sōma decided to reserve his judgment until he saw her plate.

"That's a, um, rather small korokke," Sōma commented, poking the potato ball with a fork. "Seems more like a tater tot to me."

"I-I tried to salvage what I could of the potatoes, sir," she said in a miniscule voice. Sighing, Sōma put the fork down in favor of just holding the korokke with his hands. It was still hot, as she had just taken it out of her pot, but it was manageable, and Sōma bit off half of it with one bite.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He knew that if he were Erina, he would have some peculiar metaphor about elephants at a safari in his mind's eye. Pursing his lips slightly, he stared at the korokke, trying to see what had happened.

"Did you refrigerate this?" he asked.

"H-Haii, chef."

"Where did you refrigerate it?"

"I-I'm not sure, sir."

"It definitely got some foreign tastes in there. Maybe the natto? No, probably the fish," Sōma said with a sigh. "I'm afraid I can't pass you. You have the time remaining to try again.

She looked ready to cry, but she merely bowed quickly and rushed back to try it again. Sōma furrowed his brow; the girl reminded him of Megumi from before she found her confident stride, and though he wished to let her through, he knew that his job entailed slicing down students' careers for cooking errors and not just management errors like citrus shampoo and a reluctance to cook. Other students approached them with their own creation, some of which he approved of but most of which he disapproved of, sending the students back to try again. Of course, some students incited his famous temper.

"Honestly, don't you know what a rotten potato smells like?!" he nearly shouted at one boy who had the audacity to try and hide some of the grosser parts of the potato in his korokke. Sōma really had the urge to literally dropkick the food onto the ground, Chapelle be damned. "You're expelled. Get out of here."

"B-but I have thirty minutes!"

"I. Don't. Care," Sōma ground out through his teeth. "That you would try this on a professional chef is embarrassing enough, but now I don't know if you would treat the customers in a restaurant setting. You could shut a place down by thinking that you can get away with this!"

The boy left in tears, and the remaining students buckled down even more. The ones who had passed were staring at Sōma in a rather terrified manner, but he didn't really care anymore.

"Excuse me, chef."

Sōma's irritated glance snapped towards the girl in front of him. A girl with a dark brown bun in her hair and determined purple eyes. A girl with a knife callous and a myriad of scars on her thumbs.

The other students winced in pity for her, but she did not budge, merely holding her plate with the korokke.

"I am done. Please judge my food," she said, bowing her head slightly.

Sōma took her dish and first allowed the scents to wash around him. There was a much more distinct freshness about the korokke, and it looked much lighter in color than the others that he had seen. She also had chosen not to include a sauce the way that other students had. Carefully, he took his fork and broke a piece off to examine the insides.

A buttery, rich scent drifted up and tickled his nostrils, engulfing him in a world of golden steam. He noticed some of the juices begin to slowly trickle out, and the brown pieces of meat within the korokke were much more colorful than that of her peers. He thought he saw the smoky-clear tendril of a noodle spiral through the korokke as well, which baffled him, and other vegetables peeked out from the inside of the korokke. He speared the piece he had cut off onto his fork and placed it in his mouth.

The flavor, once so rich in scent only, exploded tenfold the second he touched his taste buds. Sōma felt himself being transported through his imagination to what appeared to be the scene of a festival. Lit streets filled his gaze around him as he ran through the streets until he reached a park. Black buildings gave way to the darkened silhouettes of trees as he stared wide-eyed at the star-filled sky above him. With no warning, yellow and white fireworks exploded in front of him, filling his senses with the excitement and child-like joy of his past while washing over his palate with a refreshing aftertaste. Each flavor was distinct and a wonderful experience in and of itself, and part of that was dedicated to the different inside of the korokke. Unlike the typical potato fried food, none of the flavors were really absorbed away from the morsels that were kneaded into the vegetable mash. The meat was far juicier than any that he had tasted in a korokke, and the noodles provided some interesting texture with a bounce as opposed to the soft innards of the korokke. Sōma savored the last tiny bits of food as he felt the bread-like food melt in his mouth.

"This korokke... it's not made of potatoes, is it?" he asked.

The girl shook her head. "It's boiled cauliflower prepared with butter and cream. My mother once made it for me like this. And the beef is traditional Korean bulgogi with a soy sauce and caramelized onion base and garlic to flavor. There's japchae in there too, much like our own kind of korokke, though we call it keuroket, and there are green onions and other fresh vegetables I found, chef."

"We?" Sōma couldn't help but ask, setting the plate down.

The girl's chin raised slightly out of her own sense of pride. "My name is Mun Seoyun, sous chef of Mun Shikdang, a diner based in Seoul," she proclaimed, earning herself some rather dirty looks from the rest of the room. The prejudice against common cooking was still profound, Sōma noticed.

Sōma felt another smirk stretch across his face as he held out his hand. "Well, Mun-chan, you passed with flying colors."

She took his hand before whooping and yanking the chopstick out of her hair, smiling triumphantly. She quickly bowed shallowly to him before running over to the group of people who had also passed. Sōma noticed that the pinkish-brown haired girl, who he had since passed after his initial dismissal, greeted her with shining eyes and a squeal, hugging her until Seoyun complained. Another boy he passed, one with blazing orange hair sticking up all over his head, slapped her on the back, earning himself a glare and a threatening fist. He stuck his tongue out at her and five seconds later was the not-so-proud new owner of a rather large bump on his head, which he gingerly poked with a wince.

Sōma shook his head at the antics, which reminded him of Yūki and Ryoko's typical shebang and maybe even Aoki and Sato's rivalry. Why did his peers from Polar Star, so focused on enjoying their time at school, pop up even now, five years later when he had to focus on eliminating students? It just made his job that much more difficult.

Soon, he was calling out for the students to stop and for any last attempts to bring him their dish. Around twenty students crumpled to the ground with groans and discouraged cries while another seventeen or so rushed up to him with their attempts. After tasting their final tries, Sōma only passed around ten more students before sighing and standing.

This challenge was to weed out those who can't see past their own idea of what a food item is to reinvent and recreate with different ingredients. In the cooking world, a lack of basic ingredients is always something you have to learn how to work around. Anyone who can't manage to come up with a decent replacement for something as widely used as potatoes doesn't deserve a place at Tōtsuki, Sōma thought grimly. He remembered Inui saying something similar in their brief discussion before the task to what he thought, and while it saddened him that he had to dismiss so many students, it was that crucial adaptability that made his name so well known in the industry now. Sighing, he gathered the remaining students and sent them to the bus, instructing them to be prepared for their next challenge to come.


Now, this is where I have found some difficulty. In the original manga/anime, there are maybe ten tasks including the 50-Dinner challenge and the Breakfast Buffet challenge. I have created thirteen that I feel would fit throughout the five days. For now, I'm planning to add in an extra day before the Breakfast challenge in order to fully explore all of the possibilities, but Seoyun won't show up for all of the challenges. I've been creating other student characters that will be the key focus in each challenge, with some repeats. Thanks for reading!

Also, if you're curious how many people Sōma ended up 'firing', it will be revealed next chapter!

Mun Seoyun is my original character, haha. If you want to know what she looks like, imagine a nicer version of Akako from Detective Conan. Also with purple eyes. It's the closest comparison that I can think of off the top of my head.

~Shriayle