Finding My Special Ingredient

Chapter 12- Shinomiya Sensei

3rd person's pov

"Now that everyone is here, may I know why I'm here?" Aika asked as the only junior here. "I think you know why, Aika. You got another challenge." Sho said as he turned to Shinomiya. "Oh? But I'm still a student, if I do it, I'm not going to have enough sleep for tomorrow's class which is going to be worse than today. I don't get any benefit from it either." Aika said as she calculate her chances in her head. "If you win tomorrow you will serve as another person judging with me as well and you will be exempted from the exams in the morning." Shinomiya said without hesitation. "Hm? Why do you want to have a Shokugeki with me so badly?" Aika said, finally interested as she looked at him. "If you lose, you will need to work in my restaurant after you graduate." Shinomiya said as all the other alumni looked at him with gaping mouths. It took a moment before they all started complaining, the fiercest one being her father, Sho, and Hinako. It took a while before Dojima was able to make them all settle down. "It's okay, father. Anyway, Shinomiya sensei, I will agree to the Shokugeki on one more condition." Aika said, now having everybody's attention. "What is it?" Shinomiya said, a bit unhappy there was another condition but relented anyway. "Since I'm going all out on this Shokugeki, after it, if I win, I want to come in late to your class. I'm going to be so tired afterwards that I might just knock myself out. If I lose though, I will make sure to not only work at your restaurant after graduation for at least 5 years, I will also go straight to class at the given time." Aika said, her eyes revealing her fierceness towards this.

"You sure you can handle it?" Shinomiya said, not believing her, arrogance in his eyes cannot be hidden. "You don't need to worry about anything, as a Mimanoya, I won't let my restaurant suffer grievance. I will take you down, Shinomiya." Aika said, not using honorifics as she walked to the designated spot first. When they all arrived, they saw Aika waiting for them at her counter. "What should we do for the dish?" Aika asked, looking at the ingredients provided. "We will be making the assignment for tomorrow, a Nine-Vegetable Terrine." Shinomiya said while Aika agreed. "Right, how I will act now will not be said out of this Shokugeki match, can everybody in this room agree with that? If not, please step out of this room." Aika asked which confused most of them but they still nodded either way and none of them left the room. "Good, let's start then. Two hours to make the best Nine-Vegetable Terrine you have ever made. Everybody here is a judge, which concludes up to seven judges as I'm excluding myself only. When Dojima sensei says so, the time starts." Aika said as she ties up her hair, her face facing downwards, bangs covering her eyes. "Start." Dojima said as Shinomiya and Aika went to get their ingredients. Once Aika turned around though, all the chefs excluding her father and Dojima, gasped in shock. Aika once calm and serious eyes has turned into slits like it did before. "What is this? How is this happening?" Hinako asked, not understanding along with the others. "This is exactly why Aika doesn't want you to say anything about today out." Dojima said, looking at Aika's movement, seeing how fast, sharp and precise it is. "How do you know about this?" Mizuhara asked, feeling something strange about their relationship. "Because he is Aika's godfather. One of them at least." Sho said, knowing that his daughter is using everything she had.

"Aika doesn't like to use this state of herself. It's when she pushes herself to her limit, straining all five senses to get the best outcome of everything. Sometimes, I wish that nothing had ever befall on her." Sho said, eyes flashing with painful memories. "May I know what happened?" Hinako asked, worried for the girl's being. "She is the eldest of the family, naturally more harm fell on her as she was the first born. When she was just a few months old, she was kidnapped by a killer, hired by my uncle to try and gain all the properties of the Mimanoya family or she will be killed. Even though the police were there on time, in order to try and escape, she was thrown to a wall. If not for the fact that Aika wiggled so much at that time, she would have hit the wall, but she ended up falling on the soft rug. Unfortunately, the part that took the most damage was the nerve of her eyes and she went blind. She had never seen the world before till she was 3 when we were finally able to find an incredible doctor to help her. The downside was that because she didn't see the sunlight for so long, her eyes had a slit like appearance that will come out if she can't control it. The good thing is that when her eyes turns to slit, she can see as clear as a snake's. Now that she can control it, it would only come out if she is angry or when she becomes very serious." Sho said, feeling frustrated as he remembered those times. "Did something else happen as well?" Mizuhara asked, sensing something wrong but Sho never replied. "Things happened afterwards as well because she couldn't control her eyes immediately but those should be said in the future if she wants to tell us. This is something that only she should say if she wants to. Anyway, the chefs are done with their cooking." Dojima said as he changed the topic.