The Expert Among the Chefs | Yukihira Souma

A Misleading Dish

Sakura burst through the doors of the kitchen. "Time to cook!" she exclaimed loudly, attracting her usual stares and whispers. She walked right up to Soma's discovery of Takumi using duck. Even the other students were staring.

Right away, Sakura walked up to the two and snatched Takumi's duck away, inspecting it closely.

"Hey!" Takumi cried indignantly trying reach for his freshly hunted duck.

Sakura raised it well above her head and ran her fingers across the top. "Hmm...you two chose a good duck. At least we don't have as many hopeless cases as I thought."

A few students deflated. Takumi and Isami exchanged glances and grins while Soma tried not to think about the fact that she had technically just acknowledged him as a "hopeless case."

A moment later, the Aldini twins and Sakura both started cooking. Students admired Sakura's agility while they also admired Isami's speed. When Takumi pulled out the mezzaluna. There were gasps and widening eyes. She had to admit, Sakura had rolled her eyes at quite a few of the ridiculous assumptions.

Takumi smashed the herbs he and Isami had collected into a slightly more than clumpy green paste before he handed it off to his twin.

From her station next to them, Sakura briskly walked over to the Aldini duo. "Oi, Isami. Could I borrow the mezzaluna for a moment?" Isami looked over to his brother uncertainly. Takumi frowned slightly but nodded his head. Isami grinned, showing off his sharp teeth before handing it over to Sakura. She nodded her head. "Thanks."

The other students plus Soma and Tadokoro could not believe what they were seeing. They watched as if it was a shokugeki. Completely forgetting about their cooking task, they gawked in awe as the three of them continued to work their magic. On her abandoned bench, Inui giggled quietly to herself.

Sakura had never used a mezzaluna before. Of course, she knew what it was; and considering how Takumi and Isami had shifted their hands from side to side on the handles at such speed, she basically just had to move her arms up and down really fast in a steering wheel motion. She started.

Even the Aldini's gasped. Their eyes widened. As far as they knew, Sakura didn't even know how to work a mezzaluna, or even what it was! Of course, they were wrong but that didn't change the real fact that she never learned to use one.

When she was done, Sakura's breath hitched a bit. But other than that, she showed no signs of struggling with the mezzaluna. She handed it back to a dumbstruck Aldini and went back to cooking.

By now, even the Aldini twins were watching along with the entire class even when they knew they were supposed to be cooking. It was time to continue with the sauce. She would need the chicken's blood. Underneath her cooking station, a chicken squawked. Sakura reached for the chicken and placed it on the cutting board.

More whispers:

"Wait, the chicken's still alive!"

"Does that mean-"

"She's going to kill it alive?!"

Sakura grasped for her knife. Before she killed something, she always wished it a peaceful resting. It was respectful, which is why she did it. Before positioning her knife just above the chicken's breast, Sakura waited a moment to wish it a peaceful rest on its journey to the afterlife.

Without flinching, she swiftly sliced the chicken into two, the serration of the knife hitting the cutting board with a loud thud. Specks of blood landed on her cheeks and nose. Most of it ended up splattering on her pure white chef's uniform.