Chapter 93: Points of View

"Hey Megishima… can I ask you something?" Rindō asked tentatively, yet somehow retaining her boisterous smile.

Looking up from his cooking, the former-former third seat narrowed his eyes at his opponent; his former one time girlfriend - the red haired second seat. Turning his back on Rindō, Megishima huffed sardonically and continued to cut up lotus flowers.

"What is it Rindō?" He replied apathetically. "I know that you're uber-energetic and all, but still… you should concentrate on your dish", he stated coldly. Remembering how she had waved off his attempting to make her aware of Central's actions earlier, and failing, he simply shrugged his shoulders and ignored her.

"Hmph", he heard Rindō murmur in her annoyed non-committal manner infuriated by his non reply.

He could just imagine her annoyed pout and her gritted teeth in his minds eye; she always became petulant and angry whenever people ignored her; something that he had always seen as an inherent yet cute trait of hers, but now all he felt was frustration and disappointment.

And so, just as Megishima thought, with a petulant sigh Rindō growled under her breath and continued to roughly break up the contents of four fifty-gram bags of chilli peppers before chucking the flaked chillis into a frying pan of Kalamata olive oil.

Glancing over at her opponent the red haired girl narrowed her eyes and huffed again; louder this time to actually elicits a response from her opponent. Annoyed that her former boyfriend had a: rebuffed the call to join Central, and b: was now seemingly ignoring her attempts to question him despite his ambivalence towards leaving the council a year and a half ago.

Sighing, Rindō tried a different tact and decided to appeal to Megishima's pride. Determined as she was to get an answer from her opponent.

"I know that your the kind of chef who hates competition…" she blindly asked oblivious to the glare sent back at her. "You always disliked the food war system. And I recall you saying, on multiple occasions, that all you wanted to do was cook ramen and protect the ramen industry. And to me that was somewhat understandable..."

Pausing as she walked towards a fish tank, whereat she put on chain mail gloves, she plunged both her hands into the water and pulled out three struggling piranha.

"So..." she asked again, venom creeping into her voice - daring Megishima to ignore her again; at his peril, "I'll ask again. What brought you to Sōma Yukihira, and why have you thrown your lot in with the rebels and their way of cooking? What exactly did they offer you?"

Scowling as she once more received no answer, Rindō continued onwards with her trail of thought. "I can't imagine that Sōma has anything that a chef of your skill could want. As all you care about is 'Ramen. For now and forever'. So what changed?"

"You of all people should bloody know why I'm here Rindō!" Megishima suddenly and exasperatedly retorted. "I told you everything you needed to know back in Tokyo: plus what central was planning… but you refused to see both reason and the truth. Instead you falsely believed that you, Tsukasa and Kensuke would be safe together".

"Selfish to the end", he added spitefully. "I wanted to believe that you would see your own mistake earlier... and then talk to Tsukasa and Kensuke. But see now that you three are just too self absorbed".

Slamming his hand on the work surface; which only further emphasised his disappointment and anger towards the top three council chefs, Megishima continued with his harsh repudiation through gnashed teeth. "Had you three not acted so unbelievably selfishly by voting for the unqualified, dangerous and corrupt Azami Nakamura, then Tōtsuki would never have been taken over!"

Overtly glaring towards Rindō - and towards the obliviously still cooking Kensuke - the former third seat outstretched his right hand and gave a thumbs down verdict of both the second and third seat's actions within Tōtsuki.

"You all will be remembered for nothing more than traitors to culinary education and professional development! All of the suffering and despair that has been experienced since Azami fist ousted Master Senzaemon will forever be laid at your feet!"

"Shut up!" Rindō yelled back. "You really don't need to say what I already know..."

Blinded by silent her own regret and anger at herself, Rindō slammed a box down on her workstation - harder then was necessary - and glowered back at her opponent.

"Don't you think I feel bad enough already..." she sniffed tearfully. "Me and Tsukasa were all ready to quit central before this whole regiment de cuisine thing kicked off, but now… we're all stuck between a rock and a hard place. Plus Kenny is in a far worse state than he's ever been in..."

"This was our choice!" Taukasa interjected loudly as he stepped onto the cooking stage, appearing from the sidelines, and walking in between both Rindō and Megishima. "Our lives were hell... Tōtsuki; the way that cooking is taught here, and how the whole industry saw us as cash cowes, was emotionally draining as well as soul destroying!"

"We were either lacking or slow to being motivated enough to actually work at Tōtsuki and with our sponsors", Tsukasa continued plainly as he shoved Megishima. "Our independence was threatened by overzealous culinary figures whom wanted to gain our favours. And so we decided to make a gamble..."

"Which clearly has failed", Rindō finalised wiping a hand across her tear streaked face. "We all know that whatever the outcome of this fight... we are done. Culinarily speaking".

Shocked by the sincere awareness from his opponent as well as from Tsukasa and Kensuke, Megishima stared in amazement before re-schooling his features back to his usual stoical silence.

However, he suddenly jumped; startled by, and looked over towards the other work surface to where the current third seat stood addressing him with true emotion in his voice.

"We made this decision ourselves..." Kensuke uttered timidly, "because Tōtsuki was breaking us. We desperately wanted to continue cooking, and another way to learn by, but we were all naive".

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Kensuke's tone shifted to a cutting retort. "You don't know anything about us!" He growled bitterly. "So keep your nose out of our business".

"Master Senzaemon is indeed a great man", he continued respectfully. "But his educational and directorial style leaves little to be desired. Plus at the rate that we were working and studying, both he and Tōtsuki was unconsciously putting us under intense pressure and strain. Which caused us even greater despair".

Slamming his fist down in the work surface, the third seat levelled a hard angry glare straight roared a his immediate predecessor.

"Things need to change! If Tōtsuki doesn't understand this fact, then change needs to be forced upon it! Otherwise this world will continue to abuse, misunderstand, underestimate and swallow up even more people like us!"

Gritting his teeth as he spoke Kensuke abruptly turned his back in the conversation, he'd just butted into, and intently continued with his own dish and staring straight ahead towards Isshiki. And then with his voice retuned to his normal flat and devoid of emotion tone, he made another remark.

"All that we desired was to deal with unscrupulous and cruel chefs and educators whom take for granted the lives of their apprentices and students..." the third seat continued sedately.

"We wanted the wider culinary world to recognise the frivolous and cruel teaching methods used here at Tōtsuki. Also, how our so-called teachers all possess the inability to accept the differences in learning ability of those they are teaching".

"And..." Tsukasa added scornfully, "learning from industry experts whom never appear to know what they are doing; aside from scouting for potential apprentices, their classroom cooking lessons and theory leaves those trying to reach that level themselves reeling from having no real bearing about what the reality of industry cooking actually is like".

As the first seat finalised his words he turned back and walked over to the current third seat and patted him on the shoulder. Neither of the two friends spoke a word to one another as they already understood what they had once wanted from Tōtsuki change. But now, they both looked extremely tired.

"Come on", Tsukasa murmured to Kensuke, "I'll help you cook". Returning to his workstation, the third seat nodded with gratitude and didn't even look up from his cooking station to look at the others again.

However, Isshiki - who had just finished skinning the wild rabbit and was about to start deboning the animal - dropped his cooking utensils and made a beeline straight for his best friend.

Grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to look up and into his eyes, Isshik gazed through his friends black rimmed glasses into the hazel eyes that had always caused him so much concern.

"Ken please…" the ex-seventh seat exclaimed desperately, before momentarily glancing over at Tsukasa, "neither of you don't really mean that. Nor do you really know any of that!"

Facing his best friend Isshiki leant forwards and pulled them together so that his forehead rested against Kensuke's. "I'm sorry I never replied back to you when you left to visit Kyōto… I should have thought about how you'd react, but…"

"But what!" Kensuke abruptly interrupted, pushing Ishhiki back only for the blonde boy to grab him again resulting the attempt to separate the two of them.

"You said so yourself..." the third seat grumbled. "I'm no good at understanding people. And as much as I try to adjust to new situations and learn to be more social with whomever is in them, I always fail miserably. So why should I bother trying when my attempts are fruitless and painfull..." a flicker of bitter resentment fazed the third seat as he ground his teeth together.

"Cooking allows me the chance to experience a sense of normal that the real world takes for granted! So in a way that at least doesn't seem to expect me to be more up close and personal with other people".

"Ken don't…" Isshiki yelled quickly grabbing his friend's hand which had subconsciously begun to scratch at his bandaged left wrist. "You'll open up your scars!"

As if a second light had just gone off in the third seat's mind, the elder Tadokoro narrowed his eyes in disbelief and disdain as he then looked down at his bandaged wrists; seeing a few spots of red reappearing on the white cloth material.

Abruptly yanking his hand out of Isshiki's own, and covering up his wrists again with the sleeves of his chefs's whites, the third seat simply waved his friend's worry away. Unfortunately his words were laced with an anger that neither he nor Isshiki had been expecting.

"Don't you dare pity me..." Kensuke replied despondently. "Besides, I think a few scars tell a strong narrative".

With a frown instantly forming on his face and an angry retort fresh on the top of his tongue ready to respond to, and rebuke, Ken's self-deprecating comment, Isshiki felt someone behind him grab ahold of his arm and pull him backwards.

Spinning around on the balls of his feet, snarling angrily at the person whom had so rudely interrupted him, Isshiki was met by the grinning face of deputy director Asahi.

"Why don't you leave them be for now..." Asahi chuckled mirthlessly. "It makes for a more thrilling show".

Narrowing his eyes, Isshiki was about to lash out and punch the deputy but was stopped just in time as he saw Kensuke glance over at him with a flicker of concern in his eyes. Yet, before he could act again, Kensuke had once more turned around and removed a bowl of pastry dough from the fridge next to him.

"We should just cook..." the third seat stated bluntly, upending the bowl onto the work surface and rolling out the pastry dough. "After all… I'm just a broken person with one trick to my my name".

Clenching his fists, more out of holding back his own grief for his best friends mental anguish - and the manner to which Azami's manipulations had successfully indoctrinated him - Isshiki wiped away tears from his eyes as he stared at Ken's back.

"Concentrate Isshiki!" The voice of Megishima exclaimed. "We don't have the luxury of trying to talk them down".

Frowning at his former colleague's usage of that particular pronoun and wishing that he hadn't just loudly said it; especially with Kensuke so close, the former seventh seat returned to prepping his dish by butchering his rabbit and removing its organs.

With a final glance over at Ken, still reeling from all that he'd said; as well as internally raging against Asahi's derision, Isshiki shook his head of his remaining doubts and focused all his efforts to saving/beating his best friend. Which would also offer him freedom from Azami's evil.

"Oh wow!" Takumi stated, smiling at the display of culinary skills from Isshiki and Megishima. "They're all really giving it their all".

"Despite their opposition to what they've been told..." Erina spoke, "and their acceptance of whatever the verdict is, I can tell that Rindō and Kensuke still want to prove to us that their initial reasoning was correct".

"Yeah well", Sōma interjected flatly, "they may think that they were right but that doesn't make it justifiably true. I mean we all feel sorry for them and want to assist them in the future now... but we can't not forget about the hardships that Central unforced on us".

"Yeah…" Kuga replied morosely, bringing the conversation back to Takumi's origami point. "They're all really great chefs, I can see why people around the world look up to them and think of paying vast sums of money for their culinary skill and knowledge".

"Me on the the other hand..." he sighed despondently, "I couldn't hedge my bets against any of them".

Turning around Takumi and Sōma both frowned at the former eighth seat; thinking that the spiky haired blonde was about to fall into despair they were about to interject and cheer him up when they were beaten to the punch by Nene, who marched straight past them, towards Kuga and slapped him across the face.

"Stop. Right. Now!" Nene glowered unapologetically tired, her face blooming red with annoyance. "This is hardly the time for you to be comparing yourself with to then. Also you need to stop constantly thinking less of yourself", she continued scowling.

"You're a great chef, Kuga. So stop vying for comparison with Kensuke or Tsukasa... especially since they don't even know how to respond to your envy. Moreover, I thought you'd dealt with this jealousy already?"

Wrapping her arms around her fellow second year, the pigtailed glasses wearing ex-sixth seat felt Isshiki's eyes watching her, and she instantly knew that her partner was silently approving of her move to break Kuga out of his obsession with the first and third seats.

"Ieeeee!"

A banshee-like scream erupted from the sidelines of the stage; specifically from within the 'special seating area' , as one particular person yelled in shocked horror. "Bloody hell! Look at the amount of chilli peppers in chef Rindō's dish…" Yuki frantically yelled. "She'll blow the jaws off the judges!"

As sudden as her shout had startled Takumi, Sōma, Megumi and Erina - on the sidelines of the cooking stage - as well as the other central aligned chefs, the person whom was actually utilising the obscene amount of chillies grinned gainfully back towrds Yuki even as she continued with her cooking. Then with an even wider smile Rindō fully turned to face the whole lot of expelled first years and burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha! I like your bluntness, little huntress…" the second seat chuckled grasping a large carving knife in her hand; which was currently dripping with alligator blood and being held diagonally outwards in the direction of the judging table.

"And yes…" Rindō continued playfully, yet still with narrowed eyes. "The more chillies I use the more pain I can inflict on the Director and his usurper lackeys".

Flinching under the second seats withering gaze, but at the same time confused by her actions, the expelled rebels all residing within the 'special seating area' all realised that despite currently being their opponent in this food war, Rindō was now actuality an enemy of Central.

Moreover, they quickly guessed that the sole reason why she was still involved in the team food war at all was because Tsukasa and Kensuke hadn't dropped out. Or specifically because Azami had prevented them from dropping out.

And yet, as disturbed by her actions as well as her motivations, the group's joint silent realisation was that Rindō was and had always been an ally to them.

Additionally, Yuki couldn't help but smile and feel slightly elated about being called out and praised by the second seat.

"Hey… you okay?"

Turning her head, she saw Shun looking at her with a slightly perplexed but flushed expression on his face. "You look kinda weird".

Huffing in frustration, Yuki simply marched up to her fellow Kyokusei dorm mate cursing the fact that her heart was now rapidly beating and flicked him on the nose. "You idiot! Don't you know it's rude to say that to a girl" she grumbled.

"Ooh what's gonna happen with you two?"

Both Alice and Ryōko cooed, eyebrows wiggling as they stared at the two in front of them. "Love in a jail cell…" suddenly a loud crash of metal interrupted them, again drawing everyone's attention back towards the cooking stage, specifically, back on Rindō and Megishima.

"Are they… for real?" Akira murmured, paling slightly as he watched the second and former third seat argue over who would serve their food first.

"One could argue that they are being childish rather then showcasing their professional culinary skill", Ryo grimaced. "Well at least they're competitive…" Isami chuckled, earning a very subtle smirk from his brother outside the cage.

"Well let us try both dishes together", Decora's voice carried through the hall. "Both chefs: Rindō and Megishima, please step up to our table and present your finished plate of food!"

With a wide grin on her face, that evoked both maliciousness and disdain, Rindō bounded forwards carrying the three plates of food she had cooked and placed them before the judges. "What is the meaning of this!" Azami growled instantly, his nostrils flaring angrily and eyes watering as he stared at the food. "You expect us to eat something as unrefined and blatantly chilli excessive as this…"

"You. Will. Eat!"

Rindō's reply was firm and semi threatening whilst retaining an expression of polite friendliness smile on her face, that hid her supreme annoyance at Azami's treatment of Kensuke and the disdain he'd shown towards his injury. "And you will enjoy it", she growled.

"So go ahead... dig in".

Growling with irritation as he picked up his cutlery to begin begrudgingly inspecting and taste the food before him, Azami made a point to expel the second seat once Central had won the Regiment de Cuisine.

However, upon immediately tasting the forkful of Szechuan-style alligator meat, his whole anger towards the second seat was replaced by sheer frustration as the utter deliciousness of the dish overwhelmed his very core.

Fiery heat and supreme flavour fought each other for dominance in his mouth. And as much as he tried to withstand the onslaught of chilli he couldn't hold back his desire to quench the fire by motioning his aides to bring over a glass of cold milk.

Feeling his entire body quake in his seat, Azami was just about to lean forwards to vote for central when he suddenly felt secondary waves of deliciousness striking him which, this time, made him loose control of the 'burst' causing everyone in the venue hall to shriek as they once again were disrobed by the power of the Nakiri families 'gift'.

Gritting his teeth as he abruptly realised that all of his top V.I.P supporters had just been disrobed and were screaming in horror at having that done to them, he began to try and calm his mind from the deliciousness of the food he was eating.

Yet a smile etched its way onto his face as he failed to hide his approval of this dish, despite the resulting effects to his followers, denoting to all in attendance whom was ultimately responsible for orchestrating this reaction from him.

Azami suddenly gritted his teeth in frustration as he finally realised what Gin had meant by loosing such powerful potential chefs. He was going to have an extremely hard time trying to defend and explain his decision to expel all three of the top seats.

Darting his eyes back up to the highest elite viewing box, he suddenly understood what the 'rebels' had meant by central 'loosing' Kensuke's three top WGO benefactors, and how the wider culinary world would react to Orencia, Velasquez and Ainu's descriptions of Central.

"Shit!" He growled under his breath. "I messed up..."

Slamming his fists down on the table, startling both Decora and Corage, Azami narrowed his eyes and spoke venomously at the second seat. "Don't think for one moment that you are safe in Tōtsuki… Miss Kobayashi!"

"Don't you dare call me by my family name!" Rindō spat back, angrily stalking forwards and jabbing her finger at the Director. "Your only worth is the name you married into! And continue to used despite being exiled by your own father-in-law... as well as the weight of your Tōtsuki educational experience! Other than that..." Rindō yelled loudly, "you're nothing but a lying manipulative sociopath!"

With fire burning in both chef and director's eye; and with the other judges and the emcee unable to break them apart, due to either present nakedness or not wanting to step into the middle of such a furious rage, the second seat pushed herself forwards and spat onto Azami's his jacket.

"I never should have joined Central in the first place…" she stated flatly. "Cooking is only fun when you are free to do so with the people you love".

Smirking as she spun around and marched off, Rindō caught sight of the look of wide-eyed realisation and embarrassment on the face's of Tsukasa and Kensuke.

"You are expelled for this Rindō!" Azami growled cleaning his suit and throwing the dirty towel right at his own allied chef.

The sudden uproar of cheers that came from the 'caged' rebels was almost too good not to laugh at. And knowing what they all now believed was the case; as probably did Senzaemon, Jōichirō and Dōjima, Azami simply bit his lower lip prevent king himself from outright spoiling their false sense of security.

"But I will say this..." he uttered plainly. "Both sides have produced amazing plates of food, but the decision on who is decided the winner still remains with us".

Standing tall as he pointed outwards at the two competing chefs, Azami couldn't help but grin as he enjoyed the moment of crushing the small hope that the rebels thought they'd got.

"Despite Miss Kobayashi's immediate expulsion from Tōtsuki, as well as that of chef Megishima..." Azami sedately explained, "plus the rules that all Food War's follow; clearly stating that if the 'winner drops out or quits halfway through then their opponent gets the victory', we of the judging panel are all of the opinion that the rules will be ignored for this battle".

And so by our agreement the result..." Decora laughed cattily, "the winner of the second bout of the third round remains Miss Rindō Kobayashi of Central!"

R.I.P:

Benjamin Ferencz. Nuremberg Prosecutor and Lawyer.

Paul O'Grady. Comedian, Actor, Writer, Gay Rights activist and Drag Queen.

Dame Mary Quant. Pioneering Fashion Designer and Creator of the '60's Look' Miniskirt.

Walter 'Wally' Fawkes. Jazz Clarinettist and Satirical Cartoonist.