Whatever sleep still clung to Takumi was abruptly shaken off when he walked into the kitchen to see Mizuhara Fuyumi dragging a stool to the front of the room. The rooms at the Resort were just as plush as Yūki had predicted, and it had led to the occupants of Polar Star wiling away hours late into the night in Zenji's room (he'd promptly pulled the covers over his head at 10pm and fell asleep out of exhaustion). Though the students had compared their workshops with each other, none of them had been in Fuyumi's class, so Takumi had little to no idea what she would ask for.

His heart began to race. Takumi had researched Fuyumi while waiting for the rest of Polar Star to finish their dinner challenges, wondering why Shun had pointed out her specifically to him. What he read was nothing short of incredible: a young Japanese chef who managed to convince his home country that she was Italian to her core, that her nationality was nothing more than an unfortunate happenstance that she had long since overcome.

As much as Takumi hated how he was looked down upon in Japan for his lingering accent and his clearly European features, he'd been eyed just as strangely in his hometown for the features he'd inherited from his father. Both countries who claimed Takumi would love not to out of some sense of otherness they sensed in him, and he'd subconsciously resigned himself to being treated that way for the rest of his life.

Fuyumi had left a land who would have welcomed her prowess happily and entered one that, at first, must have despised her, and within a few short years she had them eating out of the palm of her hand and declaring her dishes as quintessential examples of their most precious staples. Even without the sensational personality or performance of her peers, she had easily floated to the top of Italy's food scene and didn't seem like she was ever going to come down. She was declared La Regina dell'Acciaio by critics both local and abroad, and the Italian journalists who wrote page-long exposés about her raved, flaunting her talent to the rest of the continent.

Takumi wanted that. He wasn't sure what about it he wanted, whether it was the unconditional respect and awe with which she was written about or the way her food had enraptured his country. All that he knew was that she was the pinnacle of who he wanted to be, and the first step to walking in her footsteps (and perhaps, in years to come, surpassing her) would be to impress her in this workshop.

Which he knew nothing about.

"Class," Fuyumi said, still crouched on a stool at the front of the room. "Congratulations for surviving your first day here. You must have done so, so well." The deadpan of her voice turned her words sarcastic, and whatever nascent pride Takumi's classmates had from their success withered on the vine.

"Now that we have those pleasantries out of the way, put your tools away. You will not be permitted to use them for this task."

Murmuring echoed through the room as the students began to reluctantly put their knife cases under their stations. Takumi nervously tapped the case holding his mezzaluna before carefully storing it away.

"You will be using the tools provided at your station. You will be working by yourself, so don't try and find a partner. You have two hours to prepare for me a plate of a dozen bruschetta. The contents of your bruschetta's topping is completely up to you, and you have a slew of ingredients to choose from in the back." She glanced over the whole class. They were all watching her intently. "Begin."

For a brief moment, Takumi wondered what the catch for this task was. There was no way it was as simple as making bread, toasting it, and spooning tomatoes on top. Something had been set up, though the difficulty of the task wasn't as immediately visible as the one given in his previous workshop. He decided that he'd worry about it when the time came to worry about it and instead ran to the pantry to fetch ingredients for his bread. Baguettes required a couple of long rests, so Takumi felt it most prudent to prepare his loaves first and get to the rest of the recipe while he waited for his bread to proof. As he was mixing his yeast into a slurry of honey and water, he heard the first few cries of dismay.

"Hey! Are you trying to squirt me?"

"What? I'm just cutting tomatoes!"

"Well, keep your tomato juice to yourself!"

"Didn't you already take basil?"

"I needed more. D'you have a problem with that?!"

Takumi felt like there was something big he was missing. He quickly mixed his dough into a ball, put it in an oiled bowl, and set it to the side under a damp cloth.

A dozen bruschetta. Four of three kinds: a sweet, a savory, and a classic. Ingredients: prosciutto, tomatoes, goat cheese, mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, basil… As Takumi ran through his plan in his head, he began to prepare his station for all of the ingredients he wanted to use.

The second he had the chef's knife in his hands, Takumi knew what the challenge was.

He stared at the edge of the blade in dismay. It wasn't completely blunted, of course, but it was close enough that the knife was almost unusable. It was the sort of wear that every professional chef knew to avoid: blunt enough to make cooking hard and sharp enough to seriously injure someone if they mishandled it. If a professional chef's knife looked like that, they'd lose serious credit in their field for not noticing and correcting it sooner.

They're all blunt, Takumi realized in horror as he grabbed all of the blades from the block in front of him and stared at their edges. Even the bread knife. They're barely usable.

He looked around; it seemed like all of the other students, upon discovering the ill-prepared knives, decided to double-down and just attempt to cook with them. Many were shouting as their tomatoes split unexpectedly after being crushed rather than sliced by the edge of their knives, others grimacing as their herbs were squished and not neatly cut.

A wild idea began forming in Takumi's mind, one that, if he pulled it off, would push him ahead of everyone else in this class. I have thirty minutes for this first proof. Another thirty for the second. And then around twenty to bake the baguettes. He ran through his plans again. I don't need a full hour for my preparations, and I can finish them while the bread is baking.

Takumi ran back towards the pantry, but he stopped right before it. He'd wondered why there was a station of chef's tools here before, but this time he easily found a ceramic sharpening steel. He took the rod back to his station, picked up the chef's knife he'd chosen, and began running it across it with brisk motions. Takumi was no stranger to tool maintenance, but this was the first time that he'd had a set time limit to finish by and knives in such bad shape. He found himself working a bit more hastily than he'd prefer, one eye on the clock as his hands moved almost robotically to work the knife's edge into something at least usable. His arms began to ache from holding the sharpening steel in a steady horizontal position, but he ignored the burn as the knife slowly became more honed, more usable. He ran the blade under water and dried it off before carefully pressing his finger against the side of the knife to feel its edge, going back to the sharpening steel when he felt it wasn't good enough. After twenty minutes, he felt reasonably confident that the chef's knife, at least, was decent. It was nowhere near his typical standard, but it was passable.

Now, for the much more annoying one.

Takumi had to stop when the bread knife was only somewhat usable in order to shape his dough into loaves, cut slits along the tops, and leave them to proof again. He couldn't prevent the breath out in relief as the chef's knife he'd taken so long to prepare cut through the dough effortlessly, barely tugging as he ran it along the loaves. As soon as the loaves were proofing, he set back to sharpening the bread knife.

"Chef Mizuhara, I'm done," another student said, approaching nervously with their plate. Takumi winced at the sight of their bruschetta: the bread was cut in different thicknesses, the knife having clearly angled while they were slicing it, and they had decided to crush tomatoes rather than attempt to cut them to prevent further visible flaws.

Fuyumi sat up slightly to see what was on the plate. She didn't even bother to taste it. "Please try again," she said flatly, settling herself back on the stool. For a brief second, it looked like the student was going to protest before they deflated and headed back to their station.

Takumi managed to get enough of the bread knife to a usable state just as his baguettes were going into the oven, which meant he had just a little over twenty minutes to prepare the rest of his ingredients. He blew out a breath with one quick exhale before heading to the pantry one last time and coming back with a basketful of ingredients. He ignored the slow progression of students who failed to impress Fuyumi as he reduced a handful of basil down to a sauce-like consistency with the knife he'd taken such pains to prepare and sliced and diced whatever else he needed. Bowls of tomatoes and peaches were set aside, neatly categorized alongside the cheeses Takumi planned to pair with the two fruits. When his baguettes were fully baked, he let them rest for five minutes while he finished cutting strips of prosciutto and artfully arranging them into whorls that he'd transfer later. Takumi took a brief moment to stretch his hands before picking up the bread knife and carefully slicing uniform pieces of bread to toast, taking care not to use the section of the knife he hadn't sharpened. Putting the bruschetta together was nothing compared to the gauntlet of tasks he'd set himself to prior; in a matter of minutes, Takumi was wiping his hands and plate and staring down at his completed plate.

Is it enough? Takumi snorted to himself at that sudden worry. It was far too late to fret over his decisions, seeing as his food was sitting in front of him, toast slowly losing its crunch the longer the toppings sat on it. He squared his shoulders, picked up the plate, and walked to the front of the room.

Fuyumi gave him the same emotionless dull-eyed look that he recognized from her cover shoots before she glanced down at the plate and something else flickered in her expression: anticipation, maybe, or something more akin to interest. "What's your name?" she asked.

Takumi cleared his throat slightly. "Aldini Takumi, chef." He inclined his head slightly, holding his plate slightly higher. "I'd like to present my dish: summer bruschetta, three ways."

Fuyumi hummed in the back of her throat, taking the plate from him. She carefully picked up one of the bruschetta and examined the delicately rolled slice of prosciutto that it boasted. "Your toast is completely uniform, and you've displayed four— no, five different knife cuts across this dish. I'd wager to say every ingredient has been prepared slightly differently. How did you manage this?"

"While waiting for my dough to proof, I took the time to sharpen just one knife and used it in as many ways as I could," Takumi said. "If you choose the right chef's knife, you can accomplish all but the most specialized cuts, after all."

"Indeed." Fuyumi nodded to him. "Thank you, Aldini-san."

Takumi held his breath as she carefully took a bite of the prosciutto bruschetta. His mind ran through the ingredients he'd used (whipped ricotta mixed with the smallest specks of basil he could feasibly chop them into without a mezzaluna, a swirl of lemon mixed with olive oil to offset the overall fattiness) and he began to worry about every single way that it could have gone wrong. It was both an eternity and a millisecond later that Fuyumi nodded, picked up a differently adorned bruschetta (peaches quickly sauteed with a flicker of white wine on goat cheese with tarragon, spiced honey drizzled on top), and silently tried it as well. By the time she'd gotten to the third (diced tomatoes tossed in olive oil on a disc of mozzarella with a single basil leaf underneath), Takumi relaxed enough that he was able to breathe again. She hadn't dismissed him. She hadn't said anything bad (yet?). He was doing fine.

Unbeknownst to Takumi, Fuyumi was quietly experiencing the full breadth of what his food presented. The image came to her in three parts, each additional flavor deepening the sensation as if colors of ink from a printer. It was indistinct: clearly, the meal hadn't been created with any particular purpose in mind. What was immediately obvious to Fuyumi was that the thing fueling this wasn't a memory, but a desire, some glimpse of a future that was yet to come. She could see this boy in front of her, perhaps more unchanged than he'd like but with clearer eyes and a full acknowledgement of the hunger to succeed that clung to him along with a satisfaction that he'd torn down the detractors who tried to throw themselves in his path. The story Aldini Takumi's food told was the one he wanted to be his, and she wondered if he knew how strongly it came out.

She leaned back, eyes closed. If she was being honest, the three bruschetta clashed with each other. All three could have easily stood on their own, but they didn't necessarily harmonize. If the plate in front was presented to her in a Shokugeki, she would probably dock points for its lack of cohesion. Even now, the flavors warred in her mouth, one trying to reign over the others.

But this was a class. And he'd excelled in the specific test she'd laid out for him. What was this gastronomical clash but thumbing everyone else's nose in his success? I identified the best solution and I succeeded with so much time to spare that I could have done it thrice over. And you would spit on me? It was presenting himself as the immovable object that every other student would try to budge, and if it was sloppily done, better here in a classroom than out in a more serious scenario.

"This is good," Fuyumi said. Takumi started. She smiled slightly at the way his eyes widened at her compliment. "You did well. You can either wait outside or at your station as you wish."

"Grazie, Chef Mizuhara!" Takumi bowed to her before making his way back to reclaim his knife set and mezzaluna case. It was only when he had his mezzaluna in his hand that he realized it was shaking.

Takumi stared at his traitorous hand, wondering just what he was so quietly worried about. Fuyumi hadn't taken the time to tear down any of the students who disappointed her the way some of her peers did; Zenji had groaned out his recollection of a particularly acerbic set of words he heard in his workshop the day prior, and Shun had just winced when asked about how many students had been dropped from his class. The alumni had been given full control to be as strict as they could be, and they were, for the most part, taking complete advantage of that.

For the last twenty minutes of the workshop, Takumi found himself watching Fuyumi as she either refused to try a student's dish and sent them back to try again or gave a dish a taste and passed the student. Not once did she try something and then ask for another attempt. Neither did she hold a student's past failings against them; a handful of students had managed to pass on their second attempt, and a few others even after their second. A shocking number of students still found themselves lacking when Fuyumi called time, and she simply gestured towards the door, stating that the students knew how to get back to the parking lot where their bus awaited.

Takumi lingered as the rest of his classmates filed out, hesitating by where Fuyumi crouched.

She turned crimson eyes on him. "Did you need something, Aldini-san?"

"I, erm." Takumi suddenly doubted if this was a good idea.

Fuyumi simply waited patiently for him to continue.

"I was wondering if you had further notes on my dish," he muttered. "I know you said it was good, but I wanted to know what I still had to improve on."

The alumna observed him thoughtfully before unfolding herself and sitting properly on the stool. "Summer bruschetta, three ways," she recollected. "A caprese-inspired combination, peaches, and prosciutto. My main feedback would be that including all three was a bold move, especially since they'd be competing to be the main flavor profile a customer consumed. If I were to serve anything like this in Ristorante F, I would have split it into three possible appetizer offerings, I think. Some of your preparations were a bit stilted, but I'm sure if you had all of your tools available, you'd have been more successful there. In terms of the challenge, you completed it fully in a way that the other students seemed to consider unorthodox, though I did expect it out of at least one of you."

Takumi simply nodded. It was a fair critique. He followed her out of the room and towards the parking lot.

"Aldini's not a Japanese name, is it?" Fuyumi flicked the light switch off. "Until you introduced yourself, I did wonder how a student would be so familiar with more traditional bruschetta flavors."

"Ah— yes, that's right," Takumi said. "My family owns a trattoria in Florence."

"Lovely city. Great place to buy truffles and porcinis, even if I think the steak is a bit overrated."

"It does feel a bit tacky to recommend a kilo of steak to every tourist," Takumi admitted.

"Yes." She gave him one final nod. "Aldini-san, you've probably noticed, but the alumni talk. If there's one thing some of my colleagues haven't outgrown, it's gossiping and squabbling like children."

Takumi blinked.

"Your name has come up a couple of times already," Fuyumi continued. "Inui-chan didn't have anything too effusive, but Sekimori-san and Dōjima-san both had notable words. You might be worried about whatever your future at Tōtsuki is, but you can at least be assured that some of us who have successfully matriculated are looking forward to seeing you join our number. The Academy is tough, but you have the attitude and the base level of skill and kitchen logic to soar, not just scrape by."

Takumi wasn't sure whether to be grateful for her reassurance or spooked that she seemed to know his insecurities so well.

"Cooking speaks volumes," Fuyumi said to his ambivalence. "And if you don't get to your bus in the next three minutes, it'll probably leave without you and you'll have to walk back to the main building."

"A-ah! Thank you, Chef Mizuhara; I hope I can prove myself to you again this week!" Takumi hurried through a bow before bolting for the parking lot.

Fuyumi watched him run off before she tapped her chin with an idle finger, shook her head clear of thoughts, and walked down a different hallway.


The Polar Star residents had decided to just keep their breakfast and dinner rotations from Tōtsuki Academy proper, which meant it was Ryōko's turn to whip something up for them in the Resort's expansive kitchens. Sōmei and Ikumi had joined them too, which Takumi was beginning to realize would probably be a trend long after the Camp wrapped up.

Yūki squealed when she saw what Ryōko was offering that night. "Oh, I was just dreaming about this side dish!" she said with a sigh, popping one of the little triangles in her mouth.

"It's my latest marinated tempeh recipe," Ryōko explained to the newcomers joining them upon seeing their politely confused expressions. "Just this year, I've started tempeh production just to compare it to tofu, and this is one of my favorite preparations for it. I've also got some miso soup prepared, in case anyone's stomach feels like it needs soothing."

"I'd never considered the outreaches of fermentation like this," Sōmei commented, examining one of the tempeh triangles on his rice bowl. He delicately bit into it. "I'd always imagined your practice included more moonshining than anything."

"There is a lot of that too, to be fair," Takumi muttered.

"Not bad, but I think I prefer beef," Ikumi pronounced.

"How on-brand of you, Mito-san," Shun said.

As Ikumi whipped around to glare at Shun and raise a threatening fist, a crackling echoed across the intercom system. Gin's voice soon followed it: "Students, please be dressed and ready to meet at the main banquet hall in one hour for an overview of your schedule tomorrow."

"That doesn't sound good," Daigo muttered, glaring at the ceiling.

"No kidding," Shōji snorted, shoveling the rest of his rice into his mouth. "I thought we were done for the day, not at the alumni's constant beck and call."

"They're the chefs," Yūki said, sounding resigned to the fact.

"Let's go see what they're planning, then," Shun said. He glanced around. "Could someone make sure Marui-san's conscious?"

"Already on it." Daigo and Shōji saluted the group at large before stomping off to Zenji's room.

Sōmei snorted at their blustery exit. "I'm suddenly sympathetic to Marui-san's delicate nerves."

Takumi highly doubted that, for some reason.

As they made their way down to the banquet hall, Takumi felt himself being tugged to the side by an insistent hand. He turned to see who was pulling him along and nearly froze in surprise when he saw Momo there.

"Akanegakubo-san?" he asked uncertainly.

"Aldi-nyan," she said, her voice completely deadpan. She looked around conspiratorially before shooing away the rest of the Polar Star group, who had waited to see why Takumi stopped walking. Takumi gave them as reassuring a smile as he could as he gestured for them to leave.

"Did you need something? I'm not sure what you'd want from me—"

"Shh." Momo's eyes narrowed. "Boys are so, so loud. Just listen, yeah?" When it became evident that Takumi wouldn't interrupt her, she continued. "The thing that Chef Dōjima is calling everyone for is the next big challenge. Rindō-senpai gave Momo a brief overview of what it was, so Momo's been prepared for it, but if you expect me to teach you how to make desserts after this Camp is over, you better be at Tōtsuki to receive those lessons. Momo refuses to fly to Italy." She spat out the country name like it was a curse.

"I mean, I'd love to not drop out," Takumi muttered.

"Tss!" She glared at him until he fell into a mulish silence. "Don't spend all night overthinking the task."

"What?"

"What did Momo just say about talking?" She sighed. "Boys. You're all so impossible."

Takumi rolled his eyes and waited for Momo to get to her point.

"There's nothing to gain from trying to come off as too impressive in the next task," she said. "If anything, you'll lose a lot trying to look the coolest or be the most advanced. Momo doesn't think that Aldi-nyan is the type to start being too fancy, but you have to promise to focus on the point of the task, not on your ego."

"Are you going to tell me anything else about it?"

Momo held Bucchi up so that Takumi was looking at it instead of her. "Nope!" She immediately whipped around and began walking towards the banquet hall again.

"Thank you, Akanegakubo-san. You're welcome, Aldini-san. I hope we can continue a cordial professional relationship in the future. Me too, Akanegakubo-san. Good luck on whatever this task is," Takumi muttered to himself as he ducked into the room himself and tracked down his friends.

Sōmei raised an eyebrow at him. "Well? What did the cookie goblin want from you this time?"

"Sorry, cookie what?"

"I'm fairly certain you heard me the first time."

Takumi just shrugged. "Nothing much, honestly," he said. "She said something cryptic about whatever this announcement is going to be."

Sōmei didn't seem satisfied with his answer, but he couldn't say much more before someone tapped on a microphone and handed it to Gin. He stepped forward, flanked by a couple of the alumni that Takumi didn't recognize.

"Hello there, students," he said. His voice cut short any remaining whispered conversations. "Rest assured, you are finished for the day. After this announcement, you are free to wile away the night as you see fit.

"Now, the reason we gathered you all is to inform you of your first test tomorrow."

Murmurs began to bubble in the crowd of students.

"Why are they telling us about this task now, then?" Ikumi muttered to herself. "Feels like they're jumping the gun a bit."

"You will be tasked with cooking for Tōtsuki Resort's breakfast buffet. While your menu will only hold one item, it will be held to the Resort's standards. Breakfast is an incredibly important part of hospitality: it is the first thing they will experience upon waking up, and it sets the tone of their entire day. With that in mind, your course must also stand out from typical breakfast buffet meals; recall, of course, that this is the Tōtsuki brand you are representing. Your dish must feature the egg. You may draw from your experience in any type of cuisine or cooking, and you may speak with any staff member or alumnus if there's an ingredient missing from the pantry vital to your dish's success. Breakfast starts at 6am tomorrow, so you must be prepared and ready for customers by then. Facilities are prepared for you if you'd like to spend a part of the night testing recipes, but you are not required to do so. Good luck, students."

Frantic students began sprinting towards the kitchen while others stood, frozen in shock at the task ahead of them.

"Do you get it now, Aldi-nyan?" Momo had sidled up to Takumi in the mayhem. "Remember, the point of the task."

"Don't overcomplicate," he said. "Yes, I see what you meant."

She made a satisfied hmph! sound. "Momo will be excited to see what you come up with. Maybe it'll even be cute enough to eat."

"Do you have something planned already, if Kobayashi-senpai warned you what this task would be?"

"Momo has some ideas," she said airily, pulling Bucchi's arms and twisting him around (Takumi winced in sympathy). "Momo hasn't decided on one, though. A good chef always tests her concepts before committing." She immediately turned and headed towards the kitchens. "Momo will leave some for you to try, Aldi-nyan," she called over her shoulder. "Then you'll really see the gulf between us."

"I look forward to it," Takumi called after her. "I think," he added to himself.

"Aldini-san!" Ryōko called to him, walking over from the stage. "We've got a kitchen to ourselves; come join us!"

"Ah, yeah! One second!"

By the time Takumi arrived in the kitchen the Polar Star students had claimed, Yūki had wheeled in a whiteboard and was frantically scribbling the word "egg" on it over and over again. Zenji looked like he was dozing on the kitchen counter, and Shōji and Daigo were back at each other's throats over a stovetop. Shun and Sōmei had completely ignored whatever nonsense was going on and moved to the other end of the kitchen, and it looked like Ikumi was ready to join them.

"Ah, it's worse than I expected," Ryōko muttered to herself. She walked over to the board, deftly took the marker out of Yūki's hands, and gently pushed her towards a station, poking Zenji awake and smacking both of the other boys with a wooden spoon in the process.

"Geez," Ikumi sighed in relief. "She really has them on lock, huh? Can she afford to spend time rallying them, though?"

Takumi watched as Ryōko rather efficiently set the rest of Polar Star to experimentation before turning to a stovetop of her own and setting out four pots. "I think Sakaki-chan's already got an idea in mind."

"Hm? What makes you say that?"

"She's not mixing any eggs together," Takumi pointed out. "She's just setting out different portions of rice with broth. I saw her speaking with a staff member earlier as well; I think she settled on an idea immediately and she's figuring out the rest of the meal."

Ikumi hummed thoughtfully. "Seeing as we have less than eight hours to prepare for this task, it feels like the best way to tackle it is just to start with the first idea you have," she muttered to herself. "In that case, I'll have to make a call of my own." She glanced over at him. "Will your dish need any meat? I'm going to get some steak sent here tomorrow morning, I think."

How in-character. "No, I think I'm going to go the complete opposite, actually," Takumi said.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. Good luck, Aldini-san." Ikumi wandered over to a test area of her own, took out two dozen eggs, and began briskly whisking.

Takumi sighed as he looked at the time. Just two hours, he decided. It's not worth agonizing over tiny details until daybreak. Flavor experimentation now, then sleep.


When the next day dawned, Takumi didn't feel great but he could tell that some of the students in his assigned hall had stayed up all night and would most likely end up stumbling through the breakfast buffet. He looked around to see if he could see any familiar faces; Ryōko waved to him from where she was setting up at a station along one side of the hall, and Miyoko narrowed her eyes at him but nodded sharply anyhow. Momo was in a further corner, ignoring everyone who glanced her way, and Shun shuffled some bowls around on a counter at his kitchen.

The student at the station next to Takumi froze as he approached and put his tools down. He ignored them as he checked to make sure all of his chosen ingredients had been delivered, taking out his first set of eggs and cheese to start his preparations.

"Aldini?!"

He paused in the middle of shaking his dressing to see Erina staring at him, holding a stack of trays. When they made eye contact, she slammed them down on the counter and glared at him.

"Nakiri-san," Takumi acknowledged as neutrally as he could. "I suppose this will be the first time I get to see you cook? I'm looking forward to it."

She stared at him before scoffing and flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "I suppose," she said. "You'll get to see just how far ahead my cooking is compared to yours."

"Y'know, Akanegakubo-san said almost the exact same thing to me yesterday," he commented. "Do all of you Elite Ten trainees have lessons on how to talk to everyone else?"

Erina spluttered for a moment before she turned back to her counter with a huff. "You'll just have to see for yourself, I suppose," she spat over her shoulder.

Takumi blinked. "Ah— alright, then." He checked on the dishes he had set in the oven approximately ten minutes apart and took the first one out, setting it aside to cut with his mezzaluna.

"Students, it is now 5:55am." The intercom flickered into life with Gin's voice. "Your judges will begin arriving momentarily, and the task will begin soon afterwards. Your main challenge this morning will be to serve at least two-hundred dishes in the next two hours!"

Takumi heard what sounded like footsteps echoing from further down the building, and as he looked up from the first ten dishes he'd prepared, he saw two Tōtsuki employees open the doors to the hall.

People of all ages flooded in, from children who were far too energetic so early in the morning to elderly men who eyed the students with both avarice and some disdain. Some members of the crowd were in uniforms that proudly displayed the Tōtsuki name and logo, crisp bow ties at their throats. The students nearest to the door seemed to balk at the sheer number of people pouring into the hall.

"Joining us this morning: our food suppliers have graciously agreed to judge this task along with their families. They have already been told that you were to create a breakfast dish with an egg meant to wow and surprise them. These are the people Tōtsuki Resort trusts to bring the highest quality ingredients to work with— they are strict, and their palates are top tier. They know the standard the Resort holds itself to, and they will be searching for that among all of you students.

"Also judging are members of Tōtsuki Resort's staff, led by my sous chef, Sena Hiromi, and my maitre d'hotel, Sakuma Tokihiko. These are employees that have been trained to my standards, not just Tōtsuki's, and they know the bar we internally set when serving our guests. You must impress these staff in particular: no matter how many dishes you serve, if Sena-san or Sakuma-san inform me that your dish concept is sub-par, you will not pass this challenge.

"And finally…"

Takumi froze for the first time all morning, his hands faltering over his bowls. Was he imagining things, or did he see a navy blue braid in that crowd?

He blinked hard.

No, he could definitely see at least one familiar face: golden eyes, bright red hair, and a cheshire grin, heading directly towards him.

"The third-years of this year's Elite Ten have taken the time out of their schedules to come and see the newest Generation cook for themselves!" Gin announced, unknowing of Takumi's slowly growing nervous panic. "While their opinions will not weigh in the way that my staff's will, this is your chance to impress your upperclassmen and open doors to your own futures.

"The challenge begins now! Good luck, students!"


If you saw the earlier version of this, apologies! Apparently the notes I had here didn't save and I had to retype them all.

The bruschetta combinations Takumi decided on were chosen for the reasons that Fuyumi listed, and all are fairly common combinations from what I can gather.

It's been interesting adapting Momo to a plausible first-year version of herself. Sōmei is less tricky if only because he's around a bit more in the story. Hopefully, her character develops itself a bit more during this arc.

Thank you all for continuing support :)