After Daily Life Arc 2: Part 2 (Kindness)
There was a noise.
Ayame groggily blinked awake. She recognized the Sawada Household's living room, the couch she vaguely recalled sleeping on earlier and the heavy blanket over her shoulders, freshly laundered. A quick glance showed Engetsu still asleep, curled up in the chair next to the couch. Her soft glow lighting the room in silver moonlight. Ayame stretched, feeling out. Mostly everyone was asleep and in their proper rooms (the most important being Tsuna because if he wasn't in bed, Ayame was going to make sure Nana grounded him until his next birthday).
Except for one.
Which might explain the noise.
Ayame peeked into the kitchen and sure enough there was Bianchi attempting to cook. A new poison perhaps? Most likely given the purple smoke rising from the stove. Ayame looked at the clock hanging on the wall: 3:48am. She wasn't sure why Bianchi was cooking now though. Unless she had a hit? But Ayame didn't think so.
Unless it was for Ienari, then she wholeheartedly approved.
"What are you cooking?" Ayame asked, curious.
Bianchi whipped around, ready to fling the pot at Ayame. "Ayame-san," Bianchi said, relaxing. "What are you doing up?"
"It's a bit early to cooking," Ayame said, fighting a yawn. "Especially ones that create toxic gas."
Bianchi gave a frustrated cry, turning off the stove and dumping the pot in the trash. Ayame made a mental note to buy Nana some new pots and prepare a long argument why she had to buy new pots. (Because Nana would tell her not to spend her money so frivolously, but it was Ayame's money so point was moot in her opinion.)
"Not the right poison?" Ayame asked.
"It wasn't supposed to have any poison at all!" Bianchi cried out.
Ah. Ayame's mind instantly made the connection. The reason why Bianchi was cooking now was so she could practice without anyone else seeing her. Especially if she was trying to do without the whole poison cooking aspect. Ayame did recall that everything Bianchi cooked since coming to Namimori had turned poisonous. Originally Ayame had thought it was Bianchi refining her technique, but if she was trying to cook normally…
"So you can't cook normally?" Ayame asked. It was late, she was tired. Best to confirm her hypothesis before making any faulty assumptions.
"No!" Bianchi said. She stared down at her hands. "I just want… I just want to make something that Hayato can eat."
'Siblings,' Ayame thought fondly.
Yawning, Ayame said, "Well you might want to stop leaking your Flames into your cooking then."
Bianchi looked at her, startled. "What?"
"Your Storm Flames," Ayame repeated slowly.
"I don't know how to use my Flames," Bianchi protested.
Ugh. It was too early for this. Stupid mafia and their inability to teach anything properly. "Of course you do," Ayame said. "That's how your Poison Cooking works. You're channeling the disintegration aspect of Storm Flames into your food, which turns normal food into their poisonous toxic counterpart. So, simply tighten up your control and you should be able to cook normally."
"What?" Bianchi repeated.
"Can you summon Storm Flames?" Ayame asked.
"No!"
"Okay, you're doing it in reverse then most people," Ayame said. "Look the first step for most people is the ability to summon the Flames, the aspect of each type, Disintegration of Storm for example, comes after that. Except you're summoning the disintegration aspect without the use of Flames. That's actually quite impressive. It's my understanding that only Skies, Mists and the occasional Cloud are able to call upon their aspects without Flames."
Bianchi just looked at her confused. Ayame had her sit down and grabbed a cup of uncooked rice from a container. She placed a small handful in front of Bianchi. "Show me how you would turn this into Poison Cooking."
"I just cook," Bianchi said, frustrated.
"Try," Ayame said.
Bianchi frowned and cupped her hands around the uncooked rice. Within seconds, the rice turned purple and faint smell of rot tainted the air.
"Remember that feeling," Ayame instructed. She handed Bianchi another small handful. "Try again."
Bianchi did. Except this time, from across her, Ayame flexed her own aura. Her own spirit energy slowed down Bianchi's corrosive disintegration.
Three minutes later, Bianchi stared down at the purple grains of rice. "That… was much harder. What did you do? Things felt cold and then lukewarm."
"In general, Storm Flames are a Yin aspect, so I counteract your Yin with Yang to slow it down. Yin is cold, Yang is hot, so when I slowed you down, things felt lukewarm," Ayame explained tiredly. "That's the most basic way to slow or stop something, by the way. Beside the cold, what else did you feel?"
"Like something sharp and prickly, like it was angry that I was holding onto it and that it just wanted to run wild and freely," Bianchi explained. "It's familiar, like when I cook all the time."
"That would be why it's called Storm Flames," Ayame said. "That type of energy wants to run wildly and freely, without care of where it goes, what it hits, just like a storm. Next time you cook, try to rein that feeling. You should be able to cook normally if you succeed with that."
"But how do I learn to control that?" Bianchi asked.
Ayame yawned. "There are some basic techniques. Meditation is always the default answer by the way, but there's some techniques like the paper cutting. By learning to summon the aspect when you want to, controlling how much you want or how little, it should be easier to separate it from your cooking. You probably woke that ability at a young age and it latched onto first medium it could properly channel itself through."
"And you can teach me those techniques?" Bianchi asked. "What's the catch?"
"No catch," Ayame said. Uncontrolled abilities and unknown limits were a hazard and if she could teach someone better control, she was all for it. Bianchi's Poison Cooking wasn't harmful (outside of those Bianchi purposely targeted) but it could be better.
"You can always ask Tsuna if you don't want to rely on me," Ayame said. Bianchi was more likely to trust Tsuna than her at least. "Or Fuuta."
"Fuuta?" Bianchi asked.
"Haven't you noticed? Whenever he does his rankings these days, nothing floats off the ground. He learned how to separate the gravity aspect of his ability from the ranking aspect," Ayame said.
Fuuta had picked it shockingly fast. But given how freely he used his ability and the fact that his parents most likely taught him some things before their deaths gave him a better foundation than Ayame had originally expected. That and Ayame was exceedingly familiar with the gravity aspect of Spirit Energy. She had Engetsu to thank for that.
"I had noticed," Bianchi said. "You taught him that?"
"Yes," Ayame said. "But I'm not teaching you right now. Bed, sleep before Tsuna discovers we're both awake at this hour. I've been good lately! I do not deserve his look of disappointment over my sleeping habits!"
She would teach Bianchi after the sun had risen.
A little plot point I had discovered too late -ninja-
Visually, the manga/anime always show Flames being used the same time as the 'aspect' (i.e. when healing you see Sun Flames) because otherwise how would you know the character is doing something right? The harmony of Sky Flames (without the Flames) is a popular fandom theory. So I took it a step further and applied it to all the Flames. If they could use the 'aspect' without the need for Flames. (i.e. Yamamoto can just touch someone to calm them down without a hint of Flame in sight). The ability to separate is what led to the idea that Bianchi's poison cooking was the result of the disintegration of her Storm Flames. The same way bread turns moldy and thus 'poisonous' to us.
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