Kohei Tanaka - The East is Burning Red
This is it.
Years of training and preparation has led to this moment of truth.
Her short orange hair is covered by a crimson hairnet. Her navy blue blazer is removed and the white dress shirt she wears underneath is rolled up past her elbows. A plain white apron, heavily dusted with the marks of many battles, fits tightly around her body. Hoshizora Rin takes one final breath before facing her ultimate challenge: baking a cake.
Rin has been studying cooking from the renowned cooking legend, Master Nozomi. Her fabled cooking abilities, capable of perfectly making any dish from any cuisine, have earned her the moniker of the Toujoufuhai. It is after this nickname that Master Nozomi has named her style of cooking and it is under this name that Rin has trained for the last couple of years. Of the seven other disciples who also followed Master Nozomi at the beginning of Rin's tutelage, only she remains. And now, for her succession exam, the first year has to prove her mastery over the 11 cardinal pillars taught by the Toujoufuhai School of Culinary Arts: Skinning, Chopping, Marination, Boiling, Pressure-cooking, Steaming, Frying (with a separate test on the subsection of Stir-frying), Broiling, Grilling, Roasting and, last but not least...
Baking.
Twelve grueling, consecutive tests straining the limits of Rin's culinary abilities must be passed—alone. All of Rin's time in the last couple of years has been spent with Master Nozomi from eating to sleeping, training to resting. To now have to do everything by herself is quite daunting, but the hard and unforgiving training she underwent, all the blood, sweat and tears, is paying off; thus far Rin has completed eleven of the tasks with flying colors. Now, only one more trial remains before she is eligible to learn the succession technique of the Toujoufuhai and inherit a title denoting her as one of the culinary masters of the School.
When the mind and the body are in tune, there is no force on earth that can match their power.
The first tenet of the Culinary School of the Toujoufuhai: there should be no wasted movements, for each movement is a direction of the mind. Thus it is with extreme precision and intent that Rin extends her arms straight out to the sides.
"School of the Toujoufuhai, nya."
Rin slowly rotates her left arm to point up and her right to point down. She exhales slowly and gently while brings her limbs together, holding her hands together heel to heel.
"Gluten. Protein. Moisture. Carbon dioxide. Sucrose. In the name of these Five Progenitors of Baking I call to you nyeow."
The orange haired girl springs to action. She thrusts one empty palm towards the cabinet containing the flour.
"The Flour of Structure, nya!"
The door of the cabinet bursts off its hinges as a stream of flour flies out of the enclosed space and swirls around Rin.
"The Salt of Strength and Subtle Flavor, nya!"
Another thrust with the opposite arm and a pinch of salt from the countertop joins the maelstrom of flour.
"O Tenderizing and Moisturizing Sugar, nya!"
Rin extends her arms out together towards a cupboard and curls her fingers inwards. Sugar bursts out of its cage and becomes part of the dervish of ingredients.
"O Living Yeast of Gas Production, nya!"
In the same way a jar of yeast (and the fridge it resides in) is obliterated and its contents joins the whirling powders.
"By the Seven Utensils and Six Appliances, merge now in substance and spirit, nya!"
Rin slowly brings her hands to rest under a mixing bowl, and the typhoon of ingredients settles into it gently. The orange haired cook now reaches out and grasps one of the Sacred Weapons—tools of great power forged in times of antiquity to aid the true chef in her endeavor to conquer the chaotic forces of Food: the Wooden Spatula. Wielding this Holy Utensil, Rin mixes the flour, sugar, salt and yeast. The spatula, directed by Rin's measured movements, cuts through the ingredients in wide spirals. Under the guidance of such power, the minority ingredients spread themselves uniformly into the flour. Satisfied with her work, the ginger lays the Sacred Weapon aside and holds the bowl with both hands.
"Multiple Powders, One Substance, nya."
The first step of many is complete.
Nozomi watches her disciple from the shadows of the kitchen.
In truth, the final examination is just as anxious for her, the master, as it is for the student. How many of her previous pupils have fallen to the treacherous blades of the Four Cardinal Knives? How many have been consumed by the flames of the Iron Spit? Each death and failure weighs heavily on the purplenette's mind, and yet all she can do is watch and hope that she has drilled her apostle hard enough. And so far, this one has not disappointed her.
Nozomi nods in approval when Rin uses the Divine Palms of Blending to add milk and melted butter into the flour mixture. Her heart swells with pride when her student invokes the powers of the Whisk to beat some eggs and LEMON EXTRACT into the recipe.
Rin is demonstrating complete mastery over the core principals and techniques of the Culinary School of the Toujoufuhai. Each movement, big but controlled, each word of a mantra chanted synchronizes her body and mind, frees her soul to direct the ingredients on an astral level. This is how practitioners of the Toujoufuhai can achieve perfection in their cooking.
Nozomi continues observing as Rin continues with her process. The batter is set aside to let it rise. Meanwhile, the orange haired girl begins making the syrup. She combines sugar and water and more LEMON EXTRACT in a saucepan and puts it over medium heat. This next part is going to make or break Rin's test.
It's come down to this.
Although Rin is fairly confident that she has done everything properly up till now, the next step will confirm whether that's true or not. The chef-to-be breathes deeply as she prepares to bake her cake. The steps leading up to this moment were important, but so is this act of baking itself.
The orange haired girl inhales through her nose and exhales out her mouth, letting her chi flow smoothly throughout her entire body. This step of baking is going to be different from all the other parts before it. As it is with any procedure involving heat, the user must approach it with proper intensity to get the optimal result. Hence, it is with much spirit that Rin shouts:
"This oven of mine is burning red, nya!" (Indeed, it is hot. The oven has already been preheated to nearly 400 degrees)
"Its loud roar tells me to grasp victory, nya!" Rin's hands shoot out and snatch the pan containing the cake batter. Her chi billows out to form a halo behind her in molten hues of yellow, orange and red.
"Yes! And nyeow, HEAT ENTRY!" Without gloves or any protection, Rin stabs the batter into the center of the heat and retracts her arms swiftly before slamming the oven door shut.
"ERUPTING BURNING OVEN, nya!" The ginger slams the over door shut and the appliance explodes in a cloud of grey smoke and yellow sparks.
The orange haired girl uses a chi technique to blow the obscuring haze out of the kitchen before it sets off any alarms. Rin's arms swirl and spin so fast they leave phantom images of themselves behind. A gust of strong wind ushers the miasma out a conveniently open window. Now that the smoke is gone, Rin cautiously pads over to where the oven used to be.
The pan is there on the floor, unharmed.
The heat of the explosion has done in an instant what normally should have taken 25 minutes and bakes the cake perfectly. The outside is crisp and brown and the inside should be soft and nearly golden. Rin dons a pair of oven mitts and lifts the pan up to the countertop. She removes the saucepan with the syrup from the stove and turns it off. Next, she begins to brush the syrup onto the cake in long, artistic strokes. After brushing about half the syrup onto the top of the cake, the ginger flips the cakepan over and brushes the remaining syrup onto the bottom of the cake.
With her work done, Rin grabs a plate and puts the cake right side up on it. Now all that's left to do is have Master Nozomi evaluate the cake. But where is the purple haired woman?
"Where are you looking?" a voice, smooth and melodic, calls out from behind her. "I'm over here. Right over here."
Rin turns around to come face to face with her instructor of many years, Master Nozomi. She is dressed in her usual attire of purple linen shirt and pants.
"Master, nya!" Rin greets eagerly. However, Nozomi's expression is stern.
"Nnrrrr... Answer me, Rin!" shouts Nozomi as she leaps into the air. In a single vault, the legendary chef clears the length of the kitchen and stands on the opposite side of Rin. The purplenette extends one fist out towards her orange haired pupil. "The Culinary School of the Toujoufuhai!"
"The Winds of the King, nya!" Rin shreds her hairnet and reforms it into a bandanna, which she immediately ties around her forehead.
"Zenshin!" Nozomi sprints full tilt towards her student, fists swinging.
"Keiretsu!" Rin answers in suit with strikes of her own. The hurricane force winds generated by their punches meet in the center and cancel each other out in explosive fashion, demolishing all the furniture in the room.
"TEMPA KYOURAN!" Master and disciple come together in the center of the room trading blows. The clashes of their fists create powerful shockwaves that obliterate the kitchen into shattered bits of drywall and rebar.
Finally, a particularly strong pair of punches meets in a blaze of yellow electricity. The duo of teacher and student hold their poses, stances low and outer arms curled back, and in unison shouts:
"LOOK! THE YEAST IS BURNING RED!" In the background, a curtain of red and orange fire erupts out of nowhere.
"Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen."
"The yeast is burning red, nya?"
"Oh crap, the oven!"
The yeast may not be burning red, but the yeast cake is certainly burning black. Dark smoke pours out of the oven, and it is only thanks to Nozomi quickly turning on all the exhaust fans in the kitchen that the smoke alarm doesn't go off.
"Boy, we really messed up, nya," mumbles Rin as she opens the oven door. Another suffocating black cloud of smoke being released forces both girls to cough and wait for the smoke to disperse. Once they can finally breathe, Rin tentatively yanks out the cake.
'Messed up' is an understatement. The yeast cake is charred black beyond recognition, and scraping the burnt pastry out of the pan will take hours. The girls are lucky they're not charged with damaging school property.
"But you know, it's strange," Nozomi muses as she turns on the tap and picks out a knife. "We may have gotten bored and carried away with our playing, but we still should've had fifteen minutes before the cake gets this burnt."
"Nya, 400 degrees is pretty hot," replies Rin while chipping away at the obsidian brick that was their cake.
"It's not hotter than the usual temperature for baking."
"No, it's over twice as hot as usual actually, nya."
"Wh-what? What temperature do you usually bake at?"
"About 190"
Nozomi frowns and stops scrubbing. "That low? Water doesn't even boil at that temperature!"
"Nya? That's nearly two times the boiling point of water. Even Rin knows that, nya."
"...Wait."
By this point, Rin has also stopped cleaning, and the two partners in cooking engage in a tense staredown.
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"Do you not use Freedom Units?"
"Do you nyot use sensible units?"
"..."
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"..."
Yellow and green eyes crinkle in mirth before the pair bursts into laughter.
"Next—haha—next time one of us comes up with a recipe, they're in charge of setting the temperature, nyahahaha."
Nozomi, still shaking with laughter, nods her agreement.
Eventually, the two school idols settle down and resume their cleaning. With their knives, they pick away at the black boulder...
...and pick...
...and pick...
...and pick...
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"Hey Rin, wanna see the Toujoufuhai's special cleaning technique that will get rid of all messes in ten minutes or less?"
"Oh boy, do I, nya?"
The madness never ends.
I try my best to translate everything to English, but Toujoufuhai is a special case. Nozomi's last name roughly translates to "Eastern strip", and "Undefeated of the Eastern Strip" sounds just awful. Therefore, I opted to use 'Toujoufuhai' instead. It has a nice ring to it.
While G Gundam is, obviously, the main inspiration for this story, the role of Shaolin Soccer cannot be downplayed. That perfect parody movie lends a lot of life to this fic that would otherwise not be here.