The announcement came the next morning, plastered on every gleaming digital screen in the academy. It appeared with a flashy, dramatic animation of a whisk and a chef's knife crossing like swords before bursting into flame. It was the inaugural "First-Year Flash Challenge," a pop-up cooking competition designed to test creativity, adaptability, and performance under extreme pressure. The theme, displayed in an elegant, looping script, was: "A Symphony of Air: The Art of the Soufflé."
Kenji felt the blood drain from his face, a cold, sickening rush that left him light-headed. A soufflé. An airy, delicate, notoriously temperamental dessert whose success relied entirely on perfectly whipped egg whites and a prayer. It was his worst nightmare. It was the final boss of egg-based cuisine, the Everest of his personal culinary hell. He was doomed.
"Takahashi-senpai! Did you see? Did you see?" Tanaka skidded to a halt in front of him, her pink hair flying.
She was waving her phone, which displayed the announcement.
"A Flash Challenge! A soufflé! It's the ultimate expression of technique, a monument to ego! This is the perfect stage for you to demonstrate your philosophy to the entire academy! To show them how you deconstruct even arrogance itself!"
"I… don't think I'll be participating," Kenji said weakly, already formulating a list of plausible, sudden-onset illnesses.
"My philosophy is… more of a private practice. A quiet rebellion."
"Nonsense!" boomed a voice behind him that could cut glass.
It was Chef Morimoto. She stood with her arms crossed, her expression even more severe than usual.
"Takahashi-kun, your participation is not optional; it is mandatory. The entire faculty is eager to see how your… unique approach… translates to the art of patisserie. We are all waiting to see what question you will ask of the soufflé. Do not disappoint us."
The unspoken threat hung in the air like the smell of burnt sugar. He was trapped. The prodigy had to perform.
He spent the rest of the morning in a state of low-grade terror. During his "Fundamentals of Stocks and Sauces" class, the feeling of impending doom was only amplified. He was tasked with making a simple béchamel, one of the five French mother sauces. He carefully melted the butter, whisked in the flour to make a roux, and then began to slowly add the warm milk. He stirred. He whisked. He did everything the instructor, a cheerful, rotund man named Chef Sudo, demonstrated. And then he watched in silent horror as the mixture, which should have become a smooth, creamy, white sauce, instantly curdled and separated into lumpy, white solids swimming in a watery, translucent liquid. It looked, to his cursed eyes, exactly like scrambled eggs made by someone who hated milk.
He hung his head, waiting for the gentle correction, the pitying sigh. Instead, Chef Sudo's eyes went wide.
"Astounding!" Sudo declared, clapping his hands together.
"Look, class! Look what Takahashi-kun has done! He's challenging the very concept of an emulsion! He is asking, 'Why must a sauce be smooth? Why must its components be bound together?' This is not a broken sauce! This is a sauce that has been liberated from the oppressive expectation of cohesion! It's a sauce that contains both a solid and a liquid! A commentary on duality! Genius! Absolute genius!"
Kenji needed to see Sato. He faked a stomach ache—a plausible complaint in a school where students were constantly tasting their own questionable experiments—and slipped away to their designated emergency rendezvous point: Supply Closet D, behind the rumbling, steaming industrial dishwashers.
He found Sato calmly re-wiring a faulty motion sensor on the ceiling, a tiny screwdriver held expertly between her teeth.
"They want me to make a soufflé, Sato," he whispered, his voice cracking with the strain.
"A soufflé! It's going to come out as a bowl of sweet, fluffy, oven-baked scrambled eggs! My cover will be blown, and I'll be a laughingstock! They'll ride me out of this academy on a rail of over-beaten egg whites!"
"Calm down," Sato said, clipping a wire with a soft snip. She hopped down from her stepladder, her expression focused.
"Your cover has only gotten stronger with every disaster. Just call it a 'Fallen Soufflé: A Meditation on Gravity and the Inevitability of Ambition'."
"This isn't funny! This is a high-pressure public event! I can't bullshit my way through a soufflé!"
"Then I have news that will put it in perspective," she said, her tone shifting to mission-critical seriousness.
She pulled out her phone.
"I got into the academy's chemical storage manifests. It took some creative data-mining, but I found it. A recurring weekly order for a substance called 'Cerebralax-7.' It's delivered in small, refrigerated containers. The supplier is a company called 'Ouroboros Agro-Science'."
She held up her phone, showing him a picture of the logo from the manifest. It was the serpent with the stalk of wheat.
"The delivery is signed for, personally, by Chef Ayame."
"Cerebralax-7," Kenji repeated, the name sending a chill down his spine.
"Sounds less like a spice and more like a neuro-enhancer."
"Exactly. This is what she's putting in the food. This is our proof. It's a proprietary, unregistered neuro-chemical compound designed to suppress creative and divergent thinking."
Just then, the academy's PA system crackled to life with a loud pop. It was Chef Morimoto's voice, echoing through the halls with terrifying clarity.
"Attention, students and faculty! An exciting update to our First-Year Flash Challenge! Given the astonishing, paradigm-shifting talent displayed by our new transfer student, Takahashi Kenji, we have arranged for a special opponent to truly test his mettle!"
A cold, hard knot formed in Kenji's stomach.
"In a one-on-one culinary showdown, a battle of philosophy and technique, Takahashi Kenji will face off against the top-ranked student from the 'Transformative Cuisine' seminar… the undefeated flash challenge champion, the flawless technician himself, Suzuki Ren!"
The PA system clicked off, leaving only the hum of the dishwashers. Kenji and Sato stared at each other in the dim light of the supply closet. He was now locked in a public, high-stakes soufflé competition against a brainwashed super-chef who was the living embodiment of the conspiracy he was supposed to be investigating.
"Well," Sato said, breaking the silence, her face grim.
"This complicates things."
Kenji leaned his head back against a shelf of industrial-grade toilet paper, a single, clear thought echoing in the roaring chaos of his mind.
He was so, so screwed.