Chapter 5 - Chicken Hearts, Skewered

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Shirou didn't know how he got into this situation.

He just walking around campus in the evening, checking out some of the school clubs and food research societies, when all of a sudden, he had been ambushed and challenged by some strange guy in a blue-spandex. Shirou had a mind to refuse at first, of course. In the first place, he didn't even know who this guy was, but in the second place - he had no reason to want to challenge this guy.

But when he brought that he was one of the Servant Seven, and that he had the authority to expel Shirou if he turned him down, Shirou no longer had a choice in the matter.

"Alright, fine." Shirou agreed, somewhat reluctantly, "If that's how it has to be be, I'll take you!"

The man, Lancer, as he was commonly known by, only smirked. "Great. I like that spirit!"

They moved to the Shokugeki areas in preparation. There were no judges, only the two of them to taste and decide on the results. But Lancer apparently trusted him enough to be fair, even with his expulsion on the line, to judge the outcome fairly. It was all a bit abrupt, so Shirou didn't really have much time to plan what he wanted to make, but he was confident enough in his own abilities that he could make anything taste better by skillfully reinforcing its taste with the proper ingredients and preparation.

The only problem was, while that may have been good enough to satisfy his customers back at the old store, he was now facing off against Lancer, the #2 of the Servant Seven, who was even better than Archer was.

And if he couldn't even win against Archer, how could he win against this Lancer guy?

Shirou wracked his mind, trying to come up with a solution. For an instance, the image of the Kanshou and Bakuya dish that Archer made came to him, but deciding against it, Shirou quickly shook his head. It was too advanced of a level for him as he was now to make, and moreover - he didn't even know what the basic version of it looked like - and it wouldn't do him any favors to mess around haphazardly with ingredients and preparation methods.

"Ha! What's wrong?" Lancer taunted, from his table as he saw Shirou still unmoving and deep in thought, while he was already preparing his skewers, "Cat got your tongue?"

"No." Shirou shook his head, "I'm just thinking."

Shirou glanced over at Lancer's table, assessing his opponent and trying to come up with some counter-strategy.

"Chicken hearts?" Shirou inquired.

Lancer was seemed to be using some form of Chicken hearts to prepare skewers, and some sort of chicken mash to prepare chicken heart sausages.

"That's right." Lancer confirmed, and smirking, he continued, "But, I'm far more used to using Human hearts..."

"What?!"

"Nothing," Lancer shrugged it off mockingly, though he didn't seem to have been joking when he said it.

"It was just a joke."

Shirou wanted to believe it was just a bluff, but something in Cu's tone told him it wasn't.

Wait...? Did this also have to do with "Holy Food War" Kiritsugu mentioned? Was he actually being serious about that?

He would have to ask Rin about that later, she seemed to know something about this "Holy Food War" the last he asked her about it, though she only responded with silence and a cast-away gaze.

Putting that aside, though, and calming his mind, Shirou once again refocused on the ingredients before him, and the things that he could make.

In his silence, normally, he would only see the best path with which to reinforce his chosen main ingredient.

But now, curiously, there was something different. Maybe it was just a result of witnessing Archer's own cooking and preparation methods, which were so similar to his own, but now Shirou could almost see something even further beyond his own limited food horizons.

It almost like, the ingredients were calling out to him...

No, maybe it was even his mind, his own internal food landscape, which was calling out to him from within...

For the first time since he started cooking, he started to enter into a sort of preparatory trance.

I am the bone of my knife...

Cooking is my flesh, and Savoriness is my blood...

I have witnessed over a thousand ingredients...

Unknown to dullness, nor know to blandness...

Have withstood Hunger to create many dishes...

And yet, this stomach still does not yet know anything...

So as I taste,

"Unlimited Food Works..."

Shirou snapped out of his trance in the next instance, his beef and vegetable dish already prepared before him. It wasn't the most beautiful or the most elegant dish he had ever made, but he could still tell, somehow, that this dish was the best one he had made so far, in terms of taste. This was the limit of Emiya Shirou's ability as he was, right now.

Lancer looked just about finished with his dish, too.

The two exchanged a glance, and nodded. Handing over each other's dishes, they both brought up a spoon to sample each other's meals.

But in the next, Shirou knew he had lost. If Shirou's dish had the blunt impact of a hard steel beam hitting the tongue, for instance, then the depth of flavor of Cu's dishes was much, much deeper, piercing through not only through the tongue and taste receptors, but imbued with a flavor so deep that it was as though it was piercing through to Shirou's heart itself.

"It's..." Shirou started, "It's my loss..." He admitted.

Shirou had even used Artoria's "Wind King" spice to deepen the impact and flavor of his own dish, having hammered it into the meat, and yet...

Still, he was no match for Lancer.

It was frustrating, but that was the expected result.

"Well, of course it would be." Lancer said, "But for a new chef at Totsuki, you're not half-bad."

Shirou sighed, "Well, not like that'll matter much now that I'm getting expelled."

Lancer gave a furtive and curios look, "What do you mean?"

"Wasn't that what we agreed on?"

Lancer laughed, and shook his head. "Is that what you were so worried about, boy?"

"?"

"No, the deal was only that you'd be expelled if you turn down my match, not if you lost."

"But, just for the record," Lancer continued, "I was just testing the waters this time."

Lancer clicked his tongue. "Tsk. I don't know why he's so interested in you, but apparently something in you caught his interest."

"He?"

"My..." Lancer hesitated, trying to find the right word, "Well, patron, in a certain manner of speaking."

"Right..." Shirou said, "So I'm not expelled?" He asked.

"For now." Lancer said, "But if you want to survive in this school, you'd better improve quickly! Not everybody's going to be as merciful as I am, boy."

Shirou nodded, knowing he was right.

Having said his part, Lancer made to leave, right as Artoria found Shirou and rushed to meet and scold him for wandering off his own, passing by Lancer in the process.

Wandering down the dark hallway on his own, Lancer sighed in exasperation.

"These orders are such a pain, If only she hadn't been caught so easily, that stupid girl..."

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Shirou filled Saber in what had just transpired, and after receiving a fierce scolding from Artoria about his recklessness, they made to head back to the Type-Moon dorm.

But curiously, Artoria mentioned that she had seen Lancer somewhere before, when he had been with Bazett.

"Bazett?" Shirou asked.

"Ah, I met her in class a few days ago," Artoria explained, "We talked for a bit, but I haven't seen her in while..."

"I see."

They spent the rest of their walk discussing the miscellaneous things they had seen around the school, the clubs, and the research societies and just generally had a good time in each other's company.

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At the Type-Moon dorm, Shirou parted with Saber as she headed back to her own room to go back to sleep, and he quickly made to go see Tohsaka, only to unexpectedly find her in her room with Archer hanging around, of all people.

"Boy..." Archer greeted him, tensely.

"Archer..."

Rin had explained to him that Archer had apparently taken a particular interest in her after their match a few days ago, and had offered to tutor her in cooking. She was a bit miffed at first, thinking it just another of his acts of condescension and arrogance, but upon seeing his sincerity in wanting to help her improve, she eventually agreed.

That was the situation, apparently.

But there was another thing that caught Shirou's attention.

Namely, the knives in Archer's hands. They were a very elegant and beautiful set of knives, one white, and one black, adorned with red shell-like patterns.

"Isn't that...?" Shirou began.

"Oh? I see you've noticed." Archer commented, "These knives are my pride and joy, Kanshou and Bakuya, the dishes of which are named after them."

"I see." Shirou said.

Even with Archer being the kind of arrogant guy that he was, at least his knives were very beautiful.

But in any case, Shirou refocused, still intent on asking Tohsaka what she knew about this strange "Holy Food War". Over the past few days, in fact, Shirou had heard vague murmurings and rumors about the event around the school by wandering around, though only very briefly, and nobody would really give him any sort straight answers when pressed.

"Please, Tohsaka." Shirou asked, "It's important to me, I have to know."

Archer, leaning against the back-wall of the room, scoffed.

Tohsaka hesitate and was clearly still reluctant to say anything about it, but could how determined Shirou was to uncover the truth about the matter.

"Alright," She agreed, "But, not today. Tomorrow, let's go see Kotomine. He knows more about it than I do."

She still looked reluctantly, and vaguely off-put for some reason, though Shirou was just glad she agreed in the end. He nodded, and headed back to his own room.

Tomorrow, then, they would go to see Kotomine at the church where he worked during his off-times, and maybe finally start to get to the bottom of this.

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Chapter 5 - Chicken Hearts, Skewered END


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Author's Notes:

This was more of a transitionary chapter than anything.

Next chapter is where it really starts to kick-off, as the true nature of the "Holy Food War" is revealed.

I know I say that a lot (lol), but it's true.

For this story, especially, the first few chapters were kinda of like comedy and build-up, but the next few parts are where things really start to get serious, and where Shirou starts finding his own ways to improve, become better, and begins to become a proper chef in his own right.