Haaa... yeah I'm far too behind schedule than I'd ever imagined... could I ask for forgiveness?

Also thank you for those who checked out Medica Materia the oneshot about Hisako and another one of my OC, Daisuke! Your feedback had been amazing! If you guys haven't read it, I'd love it if you checked it out :)

Don't forget to visit the poll on my profile page and vote for your favourite OC (Ayame, Chizuru and Kuchiyose) in 'A Touch of Saffron' :D Also check out what the public voted for.

So this is the next match between Alice and Rindou :D Please enjoy!


Chapter 32 - Elite Ten Reshuffle Competition: Alice vs. Rindou part 1


Alice hummed and twiddled her thumbs together. Ten more minutes and she would be out there facing off against one of Tootsuki's alumni. It was such an honour and she counted herself lucky that Rindou-senpai would be the one to taste the arse-kicking Alice had planned for her. Her skin buzzed with the electrifying anticipation from the impending battle and she felt a chuckle bubble from the cusp of her larynx. The others thought they had a lucky escape, but Alice relished the fine moment as soon as Isshiki-senpai announced that she and Rindou-senpai would be paired.

She would battle against a former Elite and she wouldn't have it any other way.

The only complaint the silver-haired Nakiri had was that the crafty crimson-haired succubus was not allowed to execute her skills past Eizan-senpai's level by Isshiki-senpai's decree. She did a mental scoff. Seriously? Isshiki-senpai thought he was doing her a favour, but Alice had stamped her feet, trying to use her petulance to her advantage to make the ever benevolent senpai to change his mind. He remained as unmoving as the mountains and merely grinned at her with all the innocence in the world. If she wasn't an intelligent woman she would tell him how outrageously absurd and patronising it was. However, with a biting grimace, she remembered that technically Eizan-senpai was supposed to be competing but since that he was doing time for his crime, she supposed finding a person who was Eizan-senpai's level or at least 'mimic' it was the best he could do. Gud, Isshiki-senpai was such a golden boy ever since he took on the mantle of being the unofficial leader of the Elite Ten council despite being only a seventh seater. Maybe it was because nobody else was bothered to take on the responsibility so he saw an opportunity and swiped it. Either way, she will force her female opponent to give her a challenge worthy of the name, no holding back or any of that nonsense.

Alice moved her fingers to twist her lone silver tress. She couldn't stand sitting on the low-standard couch any longer and rose up onto the balls of her feet. She clasped her slender fingers lightly behind her back and rocked to and fro on the balls of her feet. With no Ryou-kun in sight, as she sent him off to the viewing box, she hummed a sweet tune as she watched the large TV screen mounted on the off-beige walls of the waiting room.

"Well, you don't look worried at all. I'm pleased. If you did, then this match wouldn't be worth that free plane trip, courtesy of Tootsuki"

A voice dripping with the unnatural mix of acid and honey interrupted her thoughts.

Kobayashi Rindou was by the door. One of her slim arms was raised languidly above her head, leaning wholly against the door frame as if she was posing for a mature magazine. She rested her head against her upper arm like a pillow, her flowing crimson-red hair mussed up slightly on the side of her head tha was leaning against her outstretched arm. Her predatory eyes glittered with cold and playful mirth as she regarded Alice and a sharp pearly white tooth peeked from between her thin smirking lips. Those sharp eyes were starting to crawl beneath Alice's skin but she didn't let it get to her. Instead, Alice held her head up high, a habit bestowed upon by the Nakiri lineage and refused to show any intimidate towards the former second seater. She casted her a sugary-sweet smile of her own. Rindou-senpai's lips curled into a bigger smirk, bordering on sneering as she shifted a bit until her hips jutted to the side and her ankles crossed together.

'Let the trash talk begin'

"Don't worry, I'm going to make you wish you paid for your own trip" Alice chittered back at her from behind her fingers.

Rindou-senpai's chuckle was dry and sultry as she pulled herself up to her full height, and propped her hands on her hips. Her eyes of molten gold flashed with a hint of barely veiled savageness. Alice had once admired the sleek panther standing before her. The way she carried herself so highly despite not a drop of noble blood and the way she strutted to the beat of her own drum was enthralling to watch. She was carefree, hedonistic and whimsical. She commanded attention without even trying and she knew it. Everything she did, she owned it and made no apologies to anyone. Why should she? She lived with no regrets and that was what Alice had always wanted to be ever since she was a middle schooler. She saw her future self like Rindou-senpai.

"Oh really now? You think you could shame me so hard in front of my alma mater? Darling, you're still decades too early for that"

She stepped into the room with the grace of an Amazonian warrior. Rindou-senpai licked her lips, not sure if it was intentional or on reflex and Alice could feel her own fighting spirit rising. She turned to face her front on and folded her arms under her bust, pinning Rindou-senpai with a stare to show how calm she was. The calm before the Scandinavian blizzard.

"Then I guess we should get going, old hag. Wouldn't want to waste any more time before you forget your whisk from your spoon in your decrepit old age"

Alice didn't miss the way the corner of Rindo-senpai's feline eyes twitch imperceptibly. In a nano-second her annoyance towards Alice's cheap shot at her age and seniority was gone and her cool composure slid back into place like nothing happened. She released a haughty 'hmph' but said nothing more. She should know she walked herself right into that one. After all, the real fight was in the cooking, not the words. Alice continued to stare down at her opponent, communicating through her eyes how much she would enjoy serving her up on a silver platter with an apple shoved in her mouth. As much as she had admired her in the past, Alice wanted to be more than Rindou-senpai. The crimson-haired girl just wasn't going to cut it anymore. The way she saw it now, with all the crazy things that had happened to her from Ragnarok and back in the past few years or so, Rindou-senpai started looking like a tiny stepping stone in the cosmic scheme of things. Alice ultimately believed that she was so much more capable than the talented former second-seater could ever represent.

Her passionate embers for cooking was back with full force.

'I have Byakko to thank for that'

Deep in her heart, she probably owed Yukihira a tepid nod too.

Alice didn't need to look at the clock to know that she should be making her own way to the long stadium tunnels. The increasing echo of applause told her that the swarm were getting pumped up for the awaited third match of the week. She sauntered passed Rindou-senpai without batting an eyes. She could feel the other girls gaze searing in her as she walked by. Soon she and Rindou-senpai walked side by side, sending tense sparks into the air as they made their way out of the waiting room and into the dark depths of the tunnel beneath the audience seats. While her opponent dangled her knife case from her fingers without snapping her knuckles off, the Danish Nakiri already had her kitchen utensils set up along with her mini-van filled with hi-tech cooking appliances at the stadium.

Staring into the light at the end of the tunnel instantly reminded her of her encounter with Byakko yesterday along with her cousin and Ryou-kun. Her heart didn't clench like she expected and she was relieved for that. Perhaps closure was creeping into her system and it was a strange welcome from the suffocation she imprisoned herself in for so long. She felt a chaste phantom kiss upon her forehead when she stepped by the exact spot she had flung herself into Byakko's arms and she resisted the urge to rub her forehead.

"The contestant for today is Nakiri Alice and Kobayashi Rindou!" blared the emcee.

The two young ladies emerged into the over-bearing stadium lights and both were assaulted by the whoops and cheering bursting from the massive crowd. Alice painted an confident smile and wave politely, keeping up her 'nice-girl' act. She spied Rindou-senpai from the corner of her eyes who was blowing shameless kisses into the crowd and as she guessed, the thumping hearts of the male students started over-taking the applause like a DJ dropping the bass.

'Ryou-kun you might have won by a hair's breadth yesterday, but let me show you how it's done'

Ryou-kun's victory yesterday was no less than expected so she didn't feel the need to be proud. Obviously her aide couldn't read her mind despite popular belief, but she still took comfort in talking to a fictional version of him in her head. She imagined him staring blanking at her as she preferred him to be placid in her presence.

Alice and Rindou-senpai stepped up to their cooking stations, faced the judges and bowed to them in respect as the pre-battle ritual. The judges were leaning against the panel, inciting another challenge from the contestants to make their dishes better than yesterday's and make their stay worth it. Well, there was no way she was going to disappoint the commercial food heavyweights of Japan Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto, and the Internationally-acclaimed doctor from the top University of Japan, Haruno Sakura. Their eyes bored into hers.

Then she felt his fierce gaze drilling into the back of her head.

She told him not to come.

Alice let her smile drop momentarily as she chanced a casual look over her shoulder and found herself caught in the deep and hypnotising eyes of Kuchiyose Byakko. Of course he couldn't give a shit about her request for him not to come. He stood tall in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass of the top viewing box. He was in his school uniform which meant he skipped school yet again, just to come and see her compete. Her heart did a small flutter at the thought that he wanted to be here. His hands were deep in his pockets. His face was set in a blank expression, but his eyes told her more than she needed to know about what he was feeling. They gazed at her with such heart-stopping intensity as if he hadn't laid eyes on her in a hundred years. At least that was as close as to what she guessed was emitting through his dark hazel eyes. His touseled lilac hair was thrown up into a careless half ponytail which Alice knew he only did when he was feeling lazy. She imagined his muscles were all coiled up and his nose flaring down at her. Byakko was competitive in his soul which resembled a great tiger taking down another tiger from dominance. Hence he gave his opponents a damn good thrashing in soccer, and when he was off the field, his competitiveness dissipated back into the murky depths until he needed it again, but his leftover adrenaline was usually a problem. It was something Alice found was both a…blessing and a curse… depending on how one looked at it... mostly a blessing. Leftover adrenaline meant it still had to be burned off one way or another before it got him into trouble… which he had always left the job up to her to find 'exciting' ways to burn it off...

She bit her lip at the nostalgic memories and her eyes travelled to the two people next to him. It was Ryou-kun who almost mirrored her ex-boyfriend's posture and Erina who sat poised on a plush armchair.

Yep, he was still her ex-boyfriend.

Even after she confessed to him the full circumstances of their notorious break-up it wasn't the traditional happy ending. Her version. The truth, and they still weren't together. She couldn't let them. What did Erina and Ryou-kun expect? Their relationship to magically mend itself? No, they had been apart for too long to go back to the way things were. What Alice didn't expect however was for Byakko to be absolutely livid. Angry, yes, but murderous, no. She remembered feeling the simmering growl rumbling in his chest and seeing the massive twitch of the artery in his neck as he resisted the beastly urge to lose it for her sake. She remembered the subtle tensing and untensing of his muscles as he tightened his hold on her. It scared her and comforted her at the same time. Out of the whole story, he was abnormally fixated on 'how' Fader found out about their taboo relationship.

When did he find out?

Who told him?

How did he know it was him of all people?

How did he even know his dream career?

How did he know where he lived?

How did he know which school he attended?

How did he know his family's financial situation?

Where did he get all this information?

She just knew that Fader had somehow found out and that scared her too much to think where he got his hands on such information. Byakko kept asking about the man Fader introduced as the one to break his legs and decimate his future soccer career if Alice didn't break off their relationship. Alice admitted that she knew next to nothing about that man except that he was just an associate. A creepy associate.

She didn't know his name.

All she remembered about that young lanky man standing beside the laptop with Fader's furious face on the screen, on that fateful day was how sadistic and joyful he looked. Those dark djævel red eyes were like a pit of cruelty and it haunted her for days, snapping at her heels. It was like his knew all and could see all. She feared her Fader and she feared this man almost just as much. It was like he couldn't wait to sledgehammer Byakko's shins anyway even though he was twirling his switchblade casually between his fingers.

'And that ratty fur-lined jacket had seen better days'

Trust Alice to critique somebody's fashion choice as much as she critiqued a dish, even if it was a traumatising experience. Alice finally tore her eyes away from her ex-boyfriend and faced Rindou-senpai. She sent a wink her way and Alice smirked back.

"The theme today is Nature. You may begin cooking… NOW!"

The gong rang loud and proud.

Alice pressed a remote in her pocket and the shutters of her mini-van slid open with a loud rattle like a Transformers robot, revealing the gleaming and precisely organised cutting-edge cooking appliances inside.

'Let the show begin!'


Rindou felt right at home in the spotlight. It was like being the lead actor in a play or theatre, or the prima donna of an opera or ballet, all rolled into one. This was what she lived for. She thought she left Tootsuki in the good hands of the ninety-second generation which the old-man-Nakiri had knighted as the Crowning Jewels but she would just see for herself to see if they deserved such a knighthood. Rindou flipped her luscious into a high pony tail, rolled up her uniform sleeves and got to work. She cranked her oven into preheat and turned on her ice-cream machine.

"Just so you know Alice-chan! I'll be making an extra serving just for you to try!" she called out as if the little Danish pastry was her long-time friend.

"What a coincidence, I planned to do the same for you!" She replied back as any BFF would.

Rindou chuckled lowly and started immediately on the almond and praline cream. She stirred the glucose and almonds together until they coated like morning dew and baked it in the oven on her lined tray until they were golden and caramelised. Humming at the same time, she then transferred the nuts into a thermomix along with some almond oil, blending it at high speed with small additions of sugar, the praline paste and salt until they were completely combined. Next she brought the cream and milk to the boil on the stove. Rindou flitted her eyes over to the judges who were looking curiously. She licked her lips when the indigo-haired CEO hottie glanced her way. Rindou squeezed out the excess water from the gold-leaf gelatin she had soaking earlier and dissolved it gently into the hot cream and milk mixture, stirring with the precision of a sand-artist. Then she poured her molten mixture into the thermomix with the praline paste until a new smooth paste was formed. Rindou sniffed the aromatic praline mix and placed it in a bowl and threw it into the fridge.

"How are you going Alice-chan! Holding up okay there?" Rindou called out over her shoulder.

"As good as the first fifteen minutes could get!" she called back just as jovially.

Rindou turned back to her task at hand. Right now was the lavender cream. She simmered some more cream and added the delicate lavender, leaving it to steep for ten minutes. After it was up, she brought it back to a simmer and then passed it through a chinois, discarding the lavender out at the end. She then poured it into a blender and let it whirl until it created a vortex whilst she poured in the sugar and expertly cracked only the egg yolks, straight from the shell. She gently dropped in the left over gold-leafed gelatin into the lavender cream mix. Its soothing scent mixed with the sweet cream was nothing short of wonderful. She delicately measured out half a gram of carrageenin iota powder into the blender. This was a compound derived from red seaweed used for soft elastic gels in cooking she brought over from overseas.

The little Danish pastry wasn't the only one who dabbled in molecular gastronomy.

Now it was time for the chocolate cream. Rindou worked through it like clockwork. This theme that Isshiki-kun had pulled from his butt was actually quite interesting and she couldn't wait to dive head-first into her well of creativity to conjure up her interpretation of 'nature'. Ever since she started working in the US, she'd absorbed a lot of the idiosyncratic styles of the American food trends ranging from gourmet all the way to street food. The vibrant and sleepless city of New York became her new home as soon as she started her intense full time job with one of the five-star restaurants owned by one of the mega-conglomerates of the Western world. She worked her way into becoming the sou-chef through bucket loads of blood, sweat and everybody else's tears. She wasn't a cryer. Never was and never will. Her drastic sea-change after graduation was the best thing that ever happened to her. As soon as she had stepped onto the American pavement since landing, she felt her spiritual wings burst forth.

New York was where she thrived.

Rindou finished her chocolate cream and glanced back at Alice again. It looked like she was making some sort of green apple sorbet. So far, she had a green theme going. How typical, Rindou only hoped that her interpretation of the theme 'nature'was more than just slapping futuristic green alien food on the plate or into a conical flask. The crimson-haired chef started on her own sour cherry sorbet. Rindou glided gracefully across her kitchen station and heated the glucose in water over the stove until it was just right. While that was happening, she placed the sugar and sorbet stabilizer in a bowl, added the glucose when it was ready and whisked it at the optimal higher temperature. Rindou grabbed the cherry puree and poured it over the heated sugar mixture and blended it together with the stick blender until it was a glossy and smooth. When it was done, she placed it over an ice bath. She couldn't help dipping in a finger and tasting the addictive and refreshing punch of the berries. She released her finger with a quite pop and moaned, caressing her tongue all over the inside of her mouth as her lids fluttered closed, focusing on the sexy cherry flavour. When she opened her eyes, the audience eyes were gawking at her, just the way she liked it too. Especially when the boy's mind went extinct. Once the cherry puree was cooled enough, she popped it into the ice-cream machine and churned it before putting it into the freezer.

"Alice-chan! I heard NASA and Nakiri International are in the works to create food astronauts could enjoy in space since the stuff they eat now is pretty bad as bad gets. Is that true?" rang out Rindou as she began her chocolate crumble.

"NASA made the right choice to come to us. So yeah, be ready to see Nakiri approved gourmet food being sent up into space in the next few years! I will personally see that happen" the silver-haired Nakiri replied back with such excitement.

Rindou felt something barbaric stir in her heart.

"Well I hope you get to bring your boy-toy to Denmark with you, since that's where all the action will be happening" said Rindou without missing a beat.

She watched with unnerving giddiness as Alice faltered in her grasp of her ISI 1L mousse gun as she seemed to be in the middle of preparing some sort of yoghurt foam. Rindou took in every iota of apprehension and anxiety which danced through those ruby-red eyes which one would mistake for utter concentration. Oh, she knew all about that little water-works display with that boy-toy of hers. Rumours circulated that the tall, handsome stranger she saw lingering like a wraith in the shadows of the stadium tunnels was her ex-boyfriend and the two shared some sort of Romeo and Juliet complex that resulted into something disastrous. Well, the rumours were actually more like Rindou eavesdropping on them and about to spread them, but what the hell, they're bound to seep into the pool of false stories and lies, drunk up by the rest of the student population anyway. She might as well… give it a nudge towards the inevitable. That was how scandals worked. Hence the term 'worst kept secrets'.

The little Danish pastry just huffed and ignored Rindou after that, which evoked a chuckle from her. This was so fun! Well if she wasn't going to take the bait, it wouldn't do her any harm in throwing another bone at her until she got a reaction she could pull and tease with no mercy. Rindou flipped her hair back and squared her shoulders as she moved through the finishing touches of her chocolate crumble element.

"I hope you're alright. I mean, what kind of guy makes a girl cry like that? You really know how to pick them. But still, it was brave of you to aim for the forbidden fruit because hell hath no fury like a father scorned" Rindou taunted further.

Her opponent remained silent as if she didn't hear a word, but she knew each word slammed into Nakiri Alice no matter how hard she tried to erect that fortress of cold indifference that Nakiri's were so good at. Call her a bitch or whatever, but Rindou wasn't above playing dirty, especially in the emotional aspects. A chef's cooking ability stretched as far as their mental strength. If their mind wasn't strong enough to handle the pressure, any type of pressure, then it was all on them and Rindou had spent years of honing the ability dig under her opponent's skin in shokugeki's.

It was when Rindou was in the middle of making green tea moss when Nakiri Alice answered back.

"Your mouth is moving more than your hands! How about you get back to the real fight before I put your mouth to good use and make you suck—"


"ONE HOUR TO GO!"

Alice tuned out Rindou-senpai and her annoying sniping after she shot back with something unpleasant of her own. She hoped her once-upon-a-time idol heard it over the emcee just then. Please… those sorts of asinine traditions were supposed to be done before the fight and stay in the cliched locker room. If Rindou-senpai insisted in carrying the trash-talking out onto the battle field also, then Alice would humour her to a point. Alice wondered if her years out of Japan after graduating had dulled her concentration. The Danish Nakiri was focused on her tasks at hand, executing her techniques with the precision of a surgeon and she had no time to deal with nonsense. She would be lying if she thought the barbs about Byakko didn't irritate her more than the ones directed soley at her, but she squelched down the feeling. A thousand questions about how Rindou-senpai new about their… predicament… threatened to hound her, but she jammed them all into a box so she could focus on this competition. She could think about it all she wanted after it was over.

During their back and forth banter, Alice caught a glimpse of what laid under the manipulative façade the former second-seater erected. She reminded her a bit of Eizan-senpai, only a more annoying and girl version of him. She found glee with messing with people heads, distracting them from what she was cooking. She and Eizan-senpai played dirty. Was this why Isshiki-senpai asked her to come back to compete in his stead? Perhaps.

Alice, went through her mental checklist of all the elements she had completed.

'I've done the caramel centre, pistachio mousse, green apple sorbet, the white chocolate matcha coating, apple blossom pearl, the matcha moss, and preparation for nitro lime yoghurt foam. I'm more than halfway there.'

The caramel centre was to go in the centre of the frozen pistachio mousse which would be moulded into perfect spheres and freeze. Then those perfect spheres were to be coated in tempered white chocolate matcha, while everything else would garnish around it. Purposeful and delicious garnish of course!

Not once did Alice thought she had bitten off more than could chew when she decided to make a dessert dish consisting of eleven elements.

Eleven!

Ha! Take that Ryou-kun! This will beat his eight-textured chocolate to Valhalla and back! Of course she practiced this dish many times over in the past, although at the time it was only a simplified version of what she was creating now. 'Simplified' meaning it only had four elements at first and in the last twenty-four hours, Alice had improvised six more elements especially for this occasion.

Byakko was the first person to try her protoype eleven-element dish yesterday.

It was after she had calmed down enough to remember that she should've been preparing for this day. She had offhandedly dismissed him to go home but he well… wasn't budging anywhere so she had begrudgingly allowed him to stay in her club-room to watch her work. He probably had wanted to compensate for all those times they've been torn apart. She allowed the warmth of the memory of him taking his first bite of her dessert in over a year, overtake her and guide her the rest of the way. His eyes had never once left hers as he had slipped his first spoonful into his mouth, sucking the frozen dessert gently off of it and had swallowed it slowly. Alice had unconsciously mirrored his movements and swallowed her own pooling saliva thickly as she watched his prominent Adam's apple bob up and down. She hadn't known what she had done until his small smirk brought her out of her long deprived musings. She had missed that. She had missed watching Byakko eat her creations and happiness that consumed her. Her creations for him and the warmth and emotions it cascaded her with.

Alice made lightning-fast work on the dulce crémeux. First she heated the white Swiss chocolate and then caramelised it until it was golden. She then soaked her gelatine leaves and at the same time brought the milk in the saucepan to a boil. Alice turned her attention to her next set of ingredients. She whisked together sugar, egg yolks and corn flour until it was light and creamy. She poured the warm milk over the egg mixture and whisked them like her life depended on it. She returned the whole mixture back to the stove and slowed down her movements into delicate stirs until it coated the whisk beautifully. Once she deemed it thick enough, she added butter and mixed it together until it was fully incorporated, then she added the gelatine she had soaking to the warm crème pâtissière and continued to whisk it until it dissolved. Once that was done, Alice plucked the bowl of melted caramelised white chocolate from earlier and stirred it into the crème pâtissière and then strained it through a fine sieve into her stick blender canister and set it aside to the fridge to cool. Once it was cool, she blitzed it until it was silky smooth and transferred it to the piping bag. That was the eighth element down. She did a mental fist pump at her mental Ryou-kun.

"I need to leave half an hour to assemble…" she murmured to herself.

She didn't bother looking over at Rindou-senpai and instead ploughed onto the next element, the pistachio sponge. This element was a little 'unconventional' as it involved having to use a microwave of all things to make a bloody sponge cake! It was built into her little minivan. Technology was technology and she wasn't going to use the oven, just so she could make little sponge cake circles if there was a quicker and easier method. She couldn't stop the images of Erina finding out that one could make a cup-a-cake in a microwave by throwing all the ingredients into a mug and just zap it on high heat. She placed all the ingredients for the matcha green sponge and then transferred it to another one of her ISI mousse gun and promptly charged it twice. The great thing about using a mousse gun for the sponge cake was the how it aerated the cake mix so that it was super-duper light and fluffy! She discharged the mousse gun into four paper coffee-cups (she could already feel the Nakiri ancestors howling from their shrines) until it was half full. Then she placed them into the microwave on high heat for forty-five seconds until it was cooked through and puffed up just as she predicted. Once it was done, she cut and peeled away the coffee cups gently, as to not damage the delicate and aerated sponge and placed them into an airtight container. She looked up at the judges, trying to gauge their thoughts and feelings at this point. So far Uzumaki-san seemed to be amused by what had verbally transpired before them. Doktor Haruno had her phone in her manicured hands, probably answering her work emails. However, Uchiha-sama remained the same as he was since the beginning, except with his eyes closed in a meditative state. Suddenly a burst of cheering erupted from the side and she chanced a look to see the embarrassing Polar Star Dormitory inhabitants cheering for her.

"YOU CAN DO IT ALICE-CHII! POLAR STAR REPRESENT! WOOOOO!"

The silver-haired Nakiri wondered when on earth had she become part of that rag-tag crew of misfits and who gave them to right to call her as their own? If she was in Erina's position, she would've cringed from the cloying words and pretended not to know them, but since she wasn't, she decided to be a good sport about it and flashed them one of her famous diplomatic smiles. This stunt must've had been under Yukihira's influence.

Once her pistachio sponge was done, the oversized clock hand struck six.

"Thirty minutes to go!"

Time to assemble.


Rindou licked the corners of her lips as she chucked her kitchen utensils she no longer needed into the sink. She pushed everything to the side to make room for assembling her masterpieces. She had made eleven elements just like Nakiri Alice did. She wanted to give a salute for her underclassman to pull all eleven elements s within two hours just as she had done and with the same speed. The second-string Nakiri sure had grown a lot since Rindou had last saw her and as soon as the match had begun, there would be no room for disappointment in this hearty battle.

Rindou saw it was time to finish off the three different types of cream she had reserved in the mini-fridge. The almond and praline cream, the lavender cream and the chocolate cream. She removed the creams and whisked them one by one in the electric mixer until medium peaks formed and the cream was smooth and able to hold itself, then transferred each of the them into separate piping bags.

With half an hour left, she saw it fit to assemble too, just as the little Danish pastry was doing. She piped the lavender cream, the soft chocolate cream and the almond and praline cream into the base of her serving bowl, and sprinkled it with a delicate shower of the almond brittle she had already prepared. Next she gently placed a disc of tempered chocolate on top and pressed it down lightly. She happily piped another amount of the chocolate cream in the dead centre of the chocolate dish. This was so that she could sprinkle her chocolate soil in place. She did so with gusto as it evenly tumbled over the chocolate dish and the chocolate cream to form a small cute mound. Rindou felt her heart quicken as the adrenaline pumped through her as the finish line would soon be breathing down her neck. She exhaled noisily as she added a teaspoon of her cherry brandy jelly cubes over the plate. Her visual and gustatory masterpiece was slowly coming together. She couldn't rush this. The former second-seater sprinkled a little of the green tea moss evenly over the chocolate soil and then added the crystallised fennel fronds around the floor of the serving bowl.

'Mother Nature is as beautiful as she is complex'

Rindou brought over her tray of tempered chocolate twigs. What was 'nature' without elements that actually looked like 'nature'? Rindou picked the elderflower blossoms from their twigs and scattered it around her centre pieces like a fairy ring. And then topped it with small clumps of finger lime pearls.

Tick

Tick

Tick

Her internal clock pounded relentlessly and she felt time begin to draw closer like the bitch she was. Rindou ran her tongue over her teeth as her vision suddenly sharpened and everything before her was crystal clear. The shining moment! She finally added a quenelle of the sour cherry sorbet right in the centre of her nest of chocolate twigs.


Alice had no time to lose now.

She spooned the moss crumb on the base of four plates and made a well in the centre of them. She piped five dots of the dulce cémeux inside each well and around the moss crumb as well. She quickly retrieved the matcha chocolate coated pistachio mousse balls with caramel centres from the airtight container in the fridge and sat is it in the well of the crumbs. Alice sliced the pistachio microwave sponge to approximately three centimetres high and placed it on one side of the crumb.

"Fifteen minutes to go!"

She looked up at the clock on reflex, even though she heard the emcee loud and clear. She proceeded to add two apple blossom pearls to the place and then she rested the dried fennel fronds against the matcha ball. Alice felt excited pearls of sweat transpiring from her forehead. She was running on pure adrenaline and it was starting to make her high. The pressure right now was enormous, but it fuelled her beyond belief. She stilled her shaking hands as she cut several thin slices of green apple using a mandolin into eclipse shapes. Using a matcha powder shaker, the dusted the top of the matcha coated pistachio mousse balls and then dusted off to the side of her centre piece too.

'Now for the exciting part!'

Alice excitedly threw on her safety glasses and goggles. She shook the ISI gun of the nitro lime yoghurt foam and dispensed it onto a large metal spoon. Using the second metal spoon, she carefully pushed the foam into her vat of liquid nitrogen. The metal counter top was over-flowing with the enthralling mist of the cold gas. She could hear the audience's 'oohs' and 'aahs' as it never ceased to amaze them when she broke out the fun stuff from her never-ending stash of kitchen gizmos. Her cooking styles wasn't hers unless it looked like this was coming from a laboratory. When she knew the nuggets of lime yoghurt was crisp, she used a slotted spoon to break the 'nitro' apart in the liquid nitrogen to form lovely flakes. Her face broke into a grin and removed the flakes from the liquid nitrogen and transferred them to small bowl. She then added a rocher of the green apple sorbet to one side of the matcha coated pistachio mousse balls and then placed a spoonful of the nitro lime yoghurt foam flakes on top of the sorbet rocher.

Finally, she garnished micro mint around the perfectly spherical centre piece of her 'Nature' dish with a flourish

The gong resounded like a foghorn in the night. Time was up.

"First to finish is Nakiri Alice! Please step forward and present your dish!"


The dishes here are very detailed, so if it makes you uncomfortable or is too technical, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! It's for those who are interested in gourmet cooking. Kind of makes me realise how helpful the illustrations are in the manga ... My shokugekis are normally very detailed as my way of paying homage to the crux of the manga, however I still struggle with summarise. Let me know if you prefer a 'gentler' writing style for shokugekis and I will hold back some.

Until next time, stay fresh (like the Prince of Bel-Air). See you soon!

Signing-off

-TripWire-dono