Serenedipity

Chapter 5

Pink decorated the streets. The Sakura trees were fully bloomed. The scent of spring was everywhere as the students of Totsuki lined up in the large field. It was the High School Division Opening Ceremony. There were numerous students in the line, all of them were the ones who graduated from Junior High School. In front of them was a stage where a student was standing behind the microphone, carrying out her duty as the moderator of this ceremony. The ceremony had just started a few minutes ago and now they were presenting students.

"We now welcome our keynote speaker: the director of our Totsuki Academy, Nakiri Senzaemon-sama." the moderator stated.

"H-He's terrifying!" one student exclaimed.

"He has the entire Academy.....no, the entire Japanese food world.....under his thumb! He's the ultimate gourmand! Calling him a mafia don is an understatement!" another student said as the director of the academy stood in the middle of the stage, in front of the microphone that was on top of a table.

"He's the devil! The Devil of food!"

"Greetings. Congratulations on your advancement to the high school division. During your three years in the junior high school division, you have obtained a basic skill set in cooking and deepened your understanding of each ingredient. In addition to the cooking practicum, you attended classroom lectures on a variety of topics including culinary theory, nutrition, public health, introductory agronomics, and management. Now, you're finally standing at the entrance to the high school division. The challenges you'll now face are not about your skills or knowledge, but whether you have the wherewithal to survive as a food professional. 99 per cent of you.....are meant to be sacrificed for honing the remaining one per cent"

Senzaemon raised his finger and pointed towards everyone within the crowd, some looked really surprised, some stayed really calm. Among the thousands of people standing in the crowd, there was one who was laughing.

"He called them sacrifices. He's got quite a speech going, Bro." the dark brown-haired male commented.

"Yeah, you're right." the male with blond hair and blue eyes responded, uninterested. His focus was on something else.

"Of the 812 students who entered our high school division last year, only 76 advanced to the second year! Incompetence and mediocrity will be mercilessly excised from our student body. A thousand of first years will be whittled down to a hundred by next year, and we can count those who'll advance to graduation on one hand. Aspire to become one of the small handful of those professionals! It should be you! Hone yourself!" After a short silence, Senzaemon opened his mouth again.

"That is all." With that, he left the stage.

"All right!"

"I'm going to do this."

'This academy only has such strong name recognition because of the intense competition allowing only a select few to complete their education. Should one success in advancing to actual graduation, their stardom in the food world is assured for their remaining lifetime. but I pity those of you who're in the same generation as me. You have been destined to fight over who gets to be second place since the time you were born. The pinnacle of Totsuki Academy, and the Japanese food world, belongs to me, Nakiri Erina!' The blond-haired girl sat on one of the seats at the backstage and thought to herself.

"Finally we'd like to introduce two transfer students who'll be joining your ranks today."

Nakiri seemed surprised for a moment and thought to herself. 'So someone cut a different exam?' Her mind immediately drifted to what happened the day before. 'Yukihira.....Soma.....and Hana.....Hmph. Just the mere memory of it makes my blood boil. Nevermind all that. I'll never have to see them again.' She probably spoke too soon.