Shokugeki No Hiei

Chapter 2

A Demon's introduction

One of the most annoying things that Hiei has to put up with in his day to day life now was that he continually had to deal with humans, not spiritually aware humans either, Joichiro was not really spiritually aware in the beginning, Hiei's demon energy just unlocked that awareness. Over time his skills in cooking were learned by Joichiro, his ability to incorporate his energy into his cooking naturally was a good intimidation technique for the man's various cooking battles, despite that level of cooking though, they didn't know that his soul was tainted until later. As a result, Joichiro and his wife lost a child, the wife blamed Hiei for a long time, and over the course of his stay on earth, Hiei has now been visiting now and again when the wife was gone so they could do cooking battles, but the demon still didn't try to talk with the wife.

Could have been worse though, and it did get worse, Hiei's luck turned worse as more time passed going unspoken between him and his former student, went back to demon world, found the trail of his sister, had to come back to living world and find a way to find his sibling. Met with Kurama and teamed up with him and Gouki to steal the artifacts of spirit world, got captured only after Gouki was killed and Kurama turned on him, and then was forced into community service to aid the spirit detective for time off his sentence since he was an asset to them. Then he found his sister and the scum that was holding her captive for her tear gems, a fun little thing that him and his race of demons can do is produce valuable tear stones that are formed when they cry, his corrupted ones explode after a few hundred years though.

It wasn't that long ago now that the last bit of the ordeal happened, with him finding his sister just three weeks ago, and the only notable event between fighting the Four Saint Beasts and finding his sister was going to participate in that entrance exam for going to Totsuki academy. It was a completely separate mission from the one that he now has to contend with, training for the dark tournament that he was being threatened with going to, and on top of that he now has to attend school for cooking where he'll be either looked down upon or feared for his reputation.

The legend he created so long ago was one that he did because he was bored, yes bored, he already knew how to cook because one of the many survival skills he picked up was cooking monstrous demon animals that often came after him and pairing them with demonic fruits. The only trouble he encountered after that was transferring the skills over to other animals and plants of both living and spirit world, Hiei was now the topmost chef in all three worlds, though nobody knew of him in living and spirit world because it was designed that way, by him. Long ago he created his legend within the last years of the American Civil War, and as such created the rules of said legend and the mantel that went along with it, a rule of two, master and apprentice type of rule, and he was always the master coming in and cooking before leaving. He did this every so often to remind the humans that they weren't the best at everything and there was always someone better, so he came in with the same look, no name given, and let the legend continue on like that until he thought he found an actual perfect student in Joichiro.

The point was that now, Hiei was already the demon of cooking, and now everyone at the school, seeing as how they were neatly lined up for the presentation, was going to be looking at him and wonder why he was here in the first place to learn from such a traditional school, it was pathetic. He wasn't here to learn anything, he was here to do a job and that was it, once that's done he's gone, once he's gone he'll wait a few years and they'll forget by then, he'll come in like a storm and they'll be blown away by his still increasing cooking skills, never truly knowing the legend.

It was spring now and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, casting a nice mood over the venue for the ceremony for the entering class of the esteemed academy, many of whom have never really served customers before, let alone know what it truly means to live in the real world. So they stood in neat little rows, single file lines, and all looked to the announcer to the class as she was about to announce what all would be going on for that day, until they all broke off but by that point the real test would begin for them, and the annoyance would start with him.

"We now present our academic insignia," the one addressing the rest of the student body announced, as Hiei was the only one to 'transfer in', he didn't have to sit with the rabble, "and our new freshman representative, Erina Nakiri," she announced before moving out of the way for her. The girl in question walked calmly to the side, bowed to someone official and received some pin as a prize for something before walking off to the side from where she came from, "and now we will have our ceremonial address, the academy's director, Master Senzaemon Nakiri."

The man was old and long haired, with a scar of his right eye and red eyes, he appeared to be a mob boss as the kids were calling him, "I welcome you," the very voice had Hiei want to bash the man's head in for allowing such a thing to happen to his would-be student, he still might. "You have reached the high school division, congratulations, for three years you have learned the basics of food preparation while attending our middle school division, you have furthered your knowledge of ingredients, undertaken numerous drills in which you have had to prepare dishes. You have heard a wide variety of lectures, such as cooking theory, nutrition, public health, cultivation, and managing a restaurant business, now as you stand at the precipice of the rest of your cooking lives, you will be facing challenges not just of technique or knowledge, but resolve. The resolve to see if you can live as a professional chef, and that means ninety-nine percent of you," he pointed a finger at them, "will sacrifice yourselves to the cooking gods to unveil those who move on," it almost sounded like it would be a rough trial, almost a rough trial at least.

Hiei stopped listening as his compact mirror went off, he opened it to listen to who was on the receiving end, the static soon cleared and Kurama came to show his face to him, "how is the ceremony going," the fox was turned to look at who was speaking and to listen to the speech.

"Last year we started with eight hundred twelve high school division freshmen, the number that was allowed to proceed on was seventy-sixty, the mediocre and the inept are cast aside without mercy, out of a thousand freshmen only one hundred will remain to advance," he continued. "You will be able to count on one hand those who reach graduation, the odds are not in your favor, but you can make it happen," the crowd gasped in shock at his proclamation, "study hard, cook hard," everyone must have thought they stood a chance, "best of luck to you!"

The old man walked off as Kurama was turned back to face Hiei, "I see, it seems that you're going to be quite busy here for the next while," the fox almost seemed amused with that bit of knowledge, "I'll be sure that the others remain unaware of where you are until you're needed."

"Don't bother going out of your way to keep it a secret," Hiei told his only 'friend', "I don't care what they know I do, and as long as they don't annoy me, I don't care what they do," though the unspoken agreement was that he should still keep his mouth shut, so he hung up the compact.

"And finally, I would like to introduce… a… n-n-n-new t-transfer s-s-s-s-student," the announcer was going strong at first, but the pause in the middle and stutter at the end let everyone know that this wasn't just any transfer student, "the one holding the title of Demon of Cooking!"

At the louder than normal introduction, everyone turned as Hiei came in through the other side of the stage, everyone was gaping like pathetic fish as he stopped by the podium and stood out in front of them all, a few of them palled when they saw his normal stoic and yet hard look to them. "I'm Hiei Jaganshi," Hiei didn't even try to be intimidating, he just was, he paused and let any mindless chatter about rumors being true that the demon of cooking was going to their school, when it quieted down again, he let the bombshell hit before walking off, "the Demon of Cooking."

As he walked off, he walked to the other side this time and stood before Nakiri with a stoic look on like he always had, she grit her teeth at his presence, but had to try and establish dominance, "I'll make myself clear," while flipping her hair, "if you think you'll excel here, you're wrong."

"Unlikely," he didn't even let her go on a rant like she might, "I'm already annoyed today," he almost muttered to himself as he walked past her and stopped only long enough to say this, "I am sorry for the rest of you though, because the only position open to you is second place."

You could hear her head racing as he started to walk away, not even batting an eye at her yelling at him for tearing open a hole in the small closed off area they were in, and coming face to face with the headmaster of this school, "Hiei," the demon glared at him, "I wanted to apologize for."

Hiei didn't even pretend to hear him as he brought out his right hand, the old man froze at the sight before bowing his head in shame, and promptly did the only thing he could do when the demon was here, take the beating of his life because of his mistakes, mainly to his abdomen. It started off with just a few punches, but he made the mistake of looking up, so Hiei added a few kicks in there as well before finishing the beating off with a well placed chop to the top of the old man's head, "talk to me again and I remove your stomach," Hiei just walked away after that.

Later

That day was also the start of classes, and the first thing that happened to him was being assigned a partner, "students, as of today we'll be splitting into separate classrooms for our lectures, you'll be cooking in these assigned pairs," a class aid informed, "understood?" His partner for this class was a small blue haired little girl looking human with pigtails and a not at all impressive build, the only thing about her is that she was timid, very timid, and clearly down on her luck if her sad expression was anything to go by, Hiei didn't mind her, he minded others. The rest of the class all looked at him with fear, disbelieving shock, or arrogant glares, fifty percent fear, disbelieving shock was around thirty percent, and that left the last twenty percent with arrogant glares thinking he wasn't that great of a cook as the legends claimed.

Hiei looked down at his partner doing something with her hands, some picking at invisible food bites before tossing one in her mouth, great, his human was defective, "your name is what again," he asked the girl and got her to jump a bit at being asked a question, she began to shake.

She slowly turned his way and looked up at him, "my name is Megumi Tadokoro," she didn't stutter while she spoke, which was a good sign, but she was still shaking at him speaking to her, "and you're Hiei Jaganshi," his eyes didn't even narrow at her and she started to shrink, "right?"

"Yes," Hiei answered her before looking to his cooking station, he didn't need much room, and as long as she didn't get in his way it would be fine and he didn't have to put up with her too much, problem is that the annoying habit of picking will bother him, "stop picking, it's annoying."

"uhh," Megumi turned to him before looking down in shame, "sorry, just nervous because if I end up with one more failing grade, then I'm gonna be expelled," she was still crouched down, but somehow she was getting even smaller in his eyes, and she was taller than him by a few inches.

"This is an elite cooking school, show some backbone," he ordered the girl before dragging her to her feet and forcing her to stand, she was still taller than he was, but she still felt small compared to him, probably from his stoic glare always on, "how were you even able to get into this school?"

The question shocked her but she couldn't ponder on it as the teacher came in, "pay attention, good morning, time to learn, my young apprentis," his introduction got a resounding 'good morning, master chef', from all but Hiei, who just stared back as if he was starting to get bored. "Ze moment you step foot in ze kitchen, you are responsible for producing extraordinary food, regardless of your gastronomic experience nor your pedigree in life, my class rules are very strict, any dish zat is not an A will be viewed as an E, and zat, my friends, is a failure," he announced.

"Chef Laurent Chappelle," Megumi muttered to herself before looking to Hiei, who was still bored, "he's famous the world over for being incredibly strict even for Totsuki, last year he failed his entire class of fifty students, and eighteen of those flunked out just because of his lectures."

"I should care about that why," Hiei questioned back and got a few others that were overhearing his conversation with her to tune in on, "I don't know his reputation, he doesn't know mine," he narrowed his eyes, "and it doesn't matter either way because we just have to pass, so be silent."

"Apprentis, today's menu item is boeuf bourguignon," Chappelle announced to them, "it is a staple of the traditional French cuisine, I've put ze recipe on the ze whiteboard for you to follow, you have two hours to prepare it, present your dishes once they're complete, Commence a cuire."

Hiei got to work getting the ingredients out, since they didn't know what they were cooking before it was starting to be put on the whiteboard, Hiei knew this dish better than most, in fact, the recipe being used on the board right now is his own, it's one he refined from the original one. Since then though he has learned how to refine his technique and chop down the need for much of the time, so the first thing he did was get the ingredients and notice the head tilt of confusion from the girl, "start on the vegetables," he ordered her, she still looked confused, "just do it."

She did so and left him to his work, in this instance you don't really have to measure much, only thing needed to measure was the secret ingredient he was using, and even then it wasn't really impressive, the other students only really noticed him though when he didn't simmer the beef. Megumi stepped in at that moment, "what are you doing, if you turn up the heat to high you'll burn it and we'll fail the assignment," her question drew Chappelle's attention, Hiei though didn't listen, and instead focused on what he was doing with his cooking, his demonic cooking.

Demonic cooking was a very different form of cooking than what others are used to, for demon chefs it would just be any other day to turn out an ordinarily impossible dish into something of an everyday occurrence, demons did have superior reflexes and senses after all, so they could do it. Those that specialize in the manipulation of demon energy can step that up to another level and truly be able to be called demonic chefs, performing miracles in the kitchen and turning a bowl of instant ramen into a meal truly befitting royalty with their skills, and Hiei was at the top in skill. The only one at the same level as him would be the only one who's ever beaten him in a cooking battle, and the only one that he could say with absolute certainty he could see himself not fighting a true fight with, though he'd never admit it to anyone, his cooking rival, The Gourmet.

The other students couldn't believe it, if they tried something like that they'd burn the meat, no, they'd ruin the dish and also burn the vegetables, because it wasn't just the meat in there that he was cooking, he was actually cooking the meat with the vegetables at the same time. Normally this would be impossible to do, especially with the full requirements that has to be done with all of the different areas first, but he could do things no other person could, his sight of 'devil's eye', giving him an advantage over others, his reflexes able to keep everything separate. Right until the moment that they can be put together and start to blend them and their flavors, so it was with great skill that he was able to blend them all together as well as make the sauce while still keeping an eye on the entire dish, Megumi looking like a nervous wreck.

Soon, the entire thing was done, "Chappelle, we're ready," Hiei did nothing with flare, it was just sat on the front desk and he left to clean the dishes, not even waiting for the critique, and just going ahead and acting like he already passed, Chappelle either respected that or was annoyed.

The chef chose to instead focus on the food, and pressed his fork on the top of the beef, "it's perfectly tender, dare I say, fork-tender, even," Chappelle sounded amazed at this, with the amount of time it took to cook the meal, prepare the ingredients, they got done in half the time. Despite being fork-tender, he still used a knife like you normally would and cut into the beef, the steam and extra juices flowing freely out of the cut, the chef took a good bite of the dish and looked as if he had finally been sent to heaven, and he even smiled as if experiencing true joy. "Aah, C'est merveilleux," and with that the chef that Hiei later learned never smiles, smiled with bliss at the improved dish, "chefs Hiei and Megumi, you both get an A, however it is a shame I do not have ze auzority to give you two a higher grade than an A, for the dish was perfection."

"Hn," Hiei grunted as he was still just cleaning, going slow and not taking too much of his time, he had nowhere to go but out into the woods after this, perhaps even just go across the town, across most of the country and sleep on a random tree, no he'll just go find a tree on the property.