Heaven's Senses

XXII

~~~~Hikari~~~~

I focused completely on my dish, wanting everything to be absolutely perfect. Although I had to make a few adjustments to the spices, I knew exactly what the results of my dish would do. The judges won't know what hit their senses. All of them will be rattled beyond recognition.

However, as I was putting the final touches on my dish, I could feel someone staring at me. I glanced towards where I thought the stare was coming from and saw that it was coming from the judges table. Specifically, that front judge, the woman with the blonde hair and the white dress. I heard rumors that her name was Natsume Sendawara, a pretty big head in the culinary world.

That woman was staring at me like I was the most important thing the room. I would have thought that she would follow the other judges, surveying the entire floor, but she as focused only on me. It was kind of freaking me out a little bit.

"Only a little bit of time left!" The Emcee, Yua Sasaki, said nervously and counted down. I put on the last little touches to my dish just as the timer went off and everyone stopped with their cooking.

"Time is up! Please prepare to present your dish to the judges!" The announcer said and the students started shuffling to the front in order to get their judgements.

The students would be judged basically in the same way that I had myself. Each judge could grant twenty points and the final score would be on a scale of one to one-hundred. the five highest scores would be allowed to go on to the actual tournament.

The tension became thick enough to cut with my knife as the first students went up and presented his dish. From the smell of his spices in the air, he used a unique blend of spices and light meat. He was pretty thorough with this preparations. And yet.... he didn't even get past thirty points.

Natsume Sendawara was the harshest of all the judges. As each of the students came up and gave their dishes to the judges, she awarded none of them a single point. To honest, it was kind of shocking to see how harsh she was in judging food. All the other judges would give their points, albeit how small they were, but this woman was so picky that she didn't even pass a glance to the students. She just took a bite and gave nothing.

I looked over at my brother and saw him giving off his signature stupid little smile, which meant that he was confident.

"Uh, yeah, this is bad." Natsume Sendawara said as she wiped the remains of the dish off her lips, "How could I give a score for something like this?"

"Um... okay. What about the student's score?" Yua asked nervously.

Sendawara glared at the nervous girl, "Are you hard of hearing? I said the dish was bad."

Yua shook in both nerves and terror from the judge, "Okay... so the final score is..."

The score appeared on the large screen above judges' table.

"Nineteen points." Yua announced.

I sighed and saw that once again, Sendawara didn't award any points. Tough was this woman and nothing more.

"Natsume Sendawara awards zero points again." Shun said.

"She's judged more than ten contestants, and hasn't give a single point." Ryoko added.

"Even though everything looked delicious." Soma said, and the nerves were finally coming through.

"She's pretty nasty and picky with her taste, huh?" I smirked, "But no matter how tough the shell, it can always be cracked somehow."

"Uh, sis... you're starting to scare me a little." Soma said and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, "You got a plan for cracking this nut, don't you?"