Even when you were right there in all of your regal glory, in front of my eyes, I felt as if I had lost you.

1.

It was right after Saiba left, that I had succumbed into a darkness I wasn't able to pull myself from. Torrents of obsidian gales swarming above my heart, clouding every bit of passion I had. Cooking was a curse, and maybe I had felt just what Saiba-senpai did. What I pursued as my passion became tedious and repetitive, and all hard work I placed beforehand seems moot. I was slowly descending down a spiral staircase, into a void that stretches out endlessly.

"Nakamura!" I heard Ebisawa senpai. "Look, you've been acting like a zombie nowadays, why don't you travel somewhere, out of here, maybe you'll get a fresh new perspective." She told me worriedly. Maybe she was right, maybe I'm just an empty husk, I lost the goal I had set before me, so perhaps I should try to find it again.

And so with that I head to England, with no more than my knife and my clothes like a vagabond who followed no specific path. Strolling upon the bright city, I happened to rethink all of the events that has led me here. The time when I first gained people that I could call my 'nakama' in the polar star dormitory, the cooking that I used to have passion for, am I destined for a life of complete monotony?

My ruinous thoughts intensifies while my heart constantly remained empty. Even upon being accepted to intern at the local 5 stars restaurant here, there was nothing I felt other than a calamitous silence brewing inside of me. Days passed and weeks blurred, cooking is a like soup without broth, just distilled water, bubbling at a hundred degrees. Would I ever be able to embrace the passion of cooking again? No words, no smell, no taste. The future tasted so bleak.

2.

"Who was it! Who made this dish?" Your voice rang clear like a bell through a silence storm. That was when I first met you, purple eyes sparkling like amethysts and your honey-colored locks cascading your shoulders. A defiant expression was worn upon your unimpressed visage.

"What happened Mana-sama?" A coworker, the sous-chef, asked you.

"Who is she?" I asked another coworker who hid behind the counter, pallid and sweating.

"Are you kidding me Nakamura? She's the prestigious Nakiri Mana of the Nakiri household!" He hissed like a snake interrupted during its heat. The Nakiris? They own Tootsuki.

"This flavor…yes! It's definitely…" Your words brought me back to you, and I can't help but admire how powerful you looked. Your presence commands attention and respect, and even I felt intimidated, knowing that I had just served someone of such high status until I heard the next words that flow out of your mouth.

"The taste is like a mountain gorilla drumming to forget its heavy sadness." Nobody knew what or how to react to your very specific imagery of my dish.

I once heard that children of the Nakiri family were sent outside of traditional schooling and have the thorough understanding of food culture and administration pounded into them in order to have the talent and skills of manage Tootsuki in the future. It was the same for you and while you were enrolled in a university overseas, studying the flavors and cooking philosophies of the world, we had met each other.

"It's a seriously terrible dish." You said bluntly, your words like scraping a spoon across a rough aluminum surface. "It lacks passion." You stared up at me unimpressed and cold, as if wondering how on earth I ended up here.

I wasn't sure what to say, I was not even sure of the emotions flowing through me. It felt as if someone has confirmed what I had feared. Of my passion for cooking's depletion.

"Are you…" you trailed off, catching my gaze once more, "angry or resentful over what I just said?" Your words cutting through me like a pair of scissors sliding across satin, obliterating the threads that hold the fabric together. Perhaps I would've felt resigned if not for the haughty words that followed after. "If so, the only thing to do is try to make it delicious, that is what a chef is! This is the ideal form of artistry for Tootsuki."

At that point instead of resignation I felt a spark of annoyance, who are you to lecture me, the third seat and now the first seat that way, "…My dish was terrible...?" I found myself uttering words that shocked me to my core, "I'm going to make you retract those words!"

At my declaration a cat-like smile broke upon your face, highlighting your feline features. "Very well. Come at me as many times as you want." I wanted to make you eat your words through my flavors. Despite parting with bad impressions of each other, mine was that you were a mouthy woman and that your eyebrows are really weird, that was the first time we met each other.

3.

Hours and hours were placed into making dishes, plates after plates were laid in front of you and I can only watch that sly superior puff of breath escape you whenever my dish was not up to your standard. Annoyance coursed to me as I challenged you if you can do better than me. You of course proved my assumptions wrong, tying the sleeves of your kimono up as you prepared me a dish, you weren't just a haughty girl with a picky tongue without any cooking skills.

Slowly, I began to notice more details about you, like how you started a job as a taster from when you were elementary and how you were opening up the foundation of the gourmet world with your power. You'd look at me with sparkling eyes when I asked you, saying that this was the mission of those who held the "God Tongue." And I had understood that, you had to stand at the center of a dark and furious storm, pointing to the masses the correct path to walk down. I see the way you get battered and exhausted, shouldering the risk of falling to decay, and somehow, you slowly changed under my eyes.

That day, I presented another dish to you, born after trial and error but also coupled with feelings that you evoked from me. I watched you take a bite, your cheeks tinged pink a little and fo the first time, I watched you enjoy what I made. "...It's not bad. It's definitely better…than before." Those words sent flutters up my stomach and I felt a certain warmth brewing in me as I realized something about you.

You are like Saiba-senpai, you are the one who helped me take back my passion for cooking once more. What I thought I had lost forever was brought back by the mere challenge you propose to me. As long as it was you Mana, there was no telling how far the foundations of cooking will go. I studied you fluttering lashes, your mischievous little grins, your weirdly shaped eyebrows and somehow, somewhere along that line you became someone I couldn't live without.

4.

Do you remember when those playful banters morphed into something more? Do you remember the day I took your hand and you accepted me into the family? Do you remember the day I received the blessing? Do you remember the day Erina was born? Sometimes I wish we can take it all back, sometimes I wished it hadn't come to this.

I believed I could be by your side for eternity, but your ability grew too strong, too fast, for my own ability to continue supporting you. I remember when you collapsed, unable to eat anything, nothing tasted satisfactory, everything was like rotten, rotten dishes.

"Mana!" I remember shouting your name, holding you, telling you to hang in there. You left afterwards, with no more than a suitcase. Erina wasn't any older than 4, eyes wide, staring at the mother who meant the world to her, walk away like she was nothing more than something you played with, for a little while.

I resented you, dis you have to leave us? Do we really mean nothing to you? I know that you can no longer stomach food, nothing ever tasted like anything anymore but tell me, was it really necessary? You left your father, your brother, your niece, your family, your daughter…me. You left me behind.

I felt like Saiba-senpai walked out on me again, but this time its worse, because no matter how much I had felt for him, it was nothing compared to what I had shared with you. Chefs with transcendant abilities will always continue to fight against despair but sooner or later, they'll be swallowed up by the storm. It was same for you, who held the God tongue.

As the veil of darkness crept slowly back in my conscience, like awaiting an old friend, my thoughts fell back to our daughter. Then as it is, will Erina eventually follow down the same path like you? Those thoughts ate at my conscience, unworthy, decrepit, disgusting. That's right… I should change the way things are done! I'll start a revolution that erases terrible dishes by using the God Tongue as an absolute compass, with my "true gourmet" plan, I can eradicate the existence of dishes that makes people suffer. If I'm able to, even if it's only a little bit, I'll maker the gourmet world easier to live in for those like Saiba-senpai and you. I'd have to impose a strict education on Erina but I think I can avoid having her suffer the same fate of despair.

5.

I tried so hard but I failed to save anyone. Not the man I looked up to, not the woman I love, not my only child. In a time when all I needed was you, there was nobody to rely except the windy breeze that rippled fallen leaves in tiny whirlpools. Where were you when I succumbed into something so dark nobody except you could pull me out of there? Remember that you once thought of me as a spiteful man? You weren't wrong but I thought you should know that like you, the person who pulled me out of the darkness once more was our daughter. The only thing accompanying my lonely thoughts are the silent clicks of my polished shoes' heels against the concrete pavement.

It's been months since Central has fallen, local newspapers spoke about Erina attending BLUE. That's where you are right Mana? I've heard the whispers that you've been searching for a dish you can stomach again, you're right of course, where ELSE can you find people who are capable of making the highest quality dishes? I'm sorry, I'm still sensitive to some stuffs after the whole ordeal. It's like some part of me refuses to accept the fact that the ideologies I thought would save you guys ended up destroying everything else I have left.

I paid for a simple sandwich bought from a local street vendor and allowed myself a little laugh at what I've been reduced to. The high and mighty Nakiri Azami, reduced to a street-food eating Azami, you'd laugh at me if you were here Mana. Should I just start calling myself Nakamura at this point? I've been cut off from the family anyways and I haven't seen you in so long that you might as well call us divorced.

A honk startled my thoughts. "UNCLE!" I heard her noisy voice bellow from across the street, from a black limousine. Alice, my rambunctious niece who no doubt, inherited her playfulness from your side of the family. Maybe if I ignore her she'll think that she didn't just saw me. I spot the pink-headed girl that always hang out with Erina trailing behind her, a determined look on their faces.

Wait. No, Alice's running all the way here. Should I run? Should I escape?

"Uncle! You've gotta come with us! There is literally no under way, I've been instructed to do so Grandfather and Jouichiro-san!" Wait what? What on Earth do they want to do with me? "C'mon we ain't got any time!"

And that's how I found myself dragged to the BLUE competition hall. I found myself dragged onto the spectators' platform where Sanzaemon, Erina, Saiba-senpai and Doujima-senpai were watching the competition. I tried draw attention away from myself, I'm not sure if I can face Erina right now.

"It was such a pain, though, pinning down where he was!" Alice huffed in annoyance, "Hey! What're you doing! Hurry up and get over here! UNCLE!" She bellowed after me one last time.

I could see Erina turn her gaze to me and I instinctively avoid her eyes, now that my ideologies have been proven to be as moot as Mr. Gradgrind's, I wish I could've prevented Erina from being Louisa. I should've known of her pain, honestly, is it possible for her to end up with a father worse than me?

"Fa…ther…" her voice pulled me to meet her eyes, a scintillating purple she inherited from her mother, surprised with a little tinge of worry. My heart panged at the reminder of how I hurt her.

"Oh…You're here Nakamura." Saiba-senpai addressed me.

"…Why did you call for me?" I asked him, genuinely puzzled, wasn't the end of Central the end of my relationship with all those that I held dear? Didn't my daunting failure show the world of how shitty I am? Both as a father and a human being?

"Well, you're related to all of this right?" He questioned me, "If this keeps up, then that guy's gonna steal Erina-chan away." Or so I've heard from along the way of some ridiculous wager for my daughter's hand in marriage. Just wow, a sketchy character that sounded like an over-powered weirdo, my daughter hit the jackpot. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"That seems to be so." Some part of me felt so disgusted at myself, I contributed in making her life miserable. A father is supposed to be someone who gently guide your way, teach you right and wrong and bestow you with his endless protection but all I've proven to be is an ego-centrical bastard who had a really psychotic idea on saving those he held dear. Because really, all these months wandering wherever the path took me has shown that I tried to protect those I love by causing more harm to them.

"I don't have the qualifications to be…here…" I started, looking down again to avoid meeting anyone's eyes, for the shame I felt was clawing at me from the inside. My throat constricted painfully, a reminder of how you can never take back what you did, even if you come to regret it afterwards.

"What you did at Tootsuki…" I turned to look at my ex-father-in-law, who had begun speaking, "Was not a deed that can be forgiven, there's no denying that." Some part of me felt gut-wrenching pain at the confirmation while the other simmered in boiled anger, did they invite me here for their sole purpose of estranging me?

"But you also tried to save them didn't you?" His voice rang clear, almost soft, and my heart stopped beating, they…knew? "Not just Jouichiro who was swallowed up by the storm but Mana too, and even…Erina." He continued, and I too see the changes in expression in Erina, those crystalline eyes widening at the realization.

I thought I'm destined to be alone forever and the idea of sharing something so personal felt alien but I found myself opening up, peeling all those layers of darkness little by little. I spoke of the first time I met Mana, and why I had succumbed into such ideals and by the end of the conversation, I started seeing how people's visions of me changed.

"But in the end…I couldn't save a single person." Not the person who gave me passion for cooking, not the woman I thought I'd devote my life to, not the child I swore I'd protect. "Not a single one…" I trailed off.

I turned to the balcony watching the scene unfold, "I accept Yukihira Soma's strength as a chef." It is undeniable, especially the way he had proven himself when I was Tootsuki's headmaster, "However, in the end it's impossible for one person alone."

I scanned the Heaven's Keep to see a glimpse of lemon hair and magenta pupils, watching like an overseer from the sidelines. My heart struck like a chord in a silent studio within my chest, beating so still as the surrounding pans around me. Your eyes never met mine as I stood over the balcony, watching you feeling as if there were miles and miles between us.

Even when you were right there in all of your regal glory, in front of my eyes, I felt as if I had lost you.

I swallowed thickly and continued with the conversation, "Without that inhuman-like power, cross knives, you won't be able to stop the despair of the God's tongue." I stared out, trying to focus on anything but you, "In order to save Erina and Mana, there's no choice…but to have him as the champion."

"Do you really think that?" Saiba-senpai asked, a knowing smile gracing his features.

No. Honestly, I'm not sure but I have accepted a long time ago that I no longer have the capabilities to help . But as long as someone, someone can help you live a little easier in this world…

Even if it isn't me. I hope that you'll be happy Mana.

…

IMPORTANT NOTES (nah not really but pls read to make me happy :^D)

Hey there it's ya girl Teeturtle feet, I make it my mission to humanize and hit those characters with the pity soda. Did I write it well, have I successfully turned a monster human? Or make y'all pity him? Anywhoo I started this because, I'm just so angry after watching Avengers: endgame and decided that if I blow my steam by writing something that equally depresses me, maybe I'll feel better. (Coz I have father issues too! :"D so nice to be represented)

However, this extended joke went too far and somehow…I began to pity Azami. M'boy, used to hate hime so much that I read the manga pages with one eye closed because honestly, he gives me the heebie jeebies. But suddenly while reading the most recent chapter and deciding to write this, I somehow began to pity our friend here, he's a little wrong up there but his intentions at heart was to save people he held dear.

Treat him like a 5-year-old, first of your big bro figure just buh-bye and vanished because he couldn't handle the pressure of the culinary world, a burnt-out genius. This made him feel sad and maybe he cried a few tears and refused to leave his room and then suddenly a new friend came and they become bffs and then suddenly when they were playing 'house' happily, his bff fell sick and leave him. Because of the abandonment issues this guy obtained through being ditched by his wife and SENPAI, his already weird, childish brain believes that the only way he could save them is by obliterating all bad dishes. "Can't hate bad food if there aren't ANY bad food amarite? *winkwonk*"

So he tried to save Erina-teddy and his bff and his big bro by doing what he believes is right, even if it actually isn't. With that kind of drunk mindset, somehow, I shed tears while writing this fic and jamming to "kill this love" and setting all my spotify playlists on repeat. Anyways I hope you enjoy this story. And this author's note. Ofc. Alsoooooo is Azamana a thing now? It's a little sweet although we probably won't see them reunite or something, the notion is cute.

Also you don't know how I cringe every time Asahi says "cross" like some over-powered bambino. Yikes so many times I nearly slipped and added my own sarcastic commentary but this fic is first person so RESTRAIN! PLEASE RESTRAIN TEETURTLE FEET! Ugh I hate Asahi lmao, so hard to write something sad when all I feel is burning fury for the existence of this character. Also ughhh the struggle, to write whoever was in the elite ten as of Azami's first seat reign. I suppose Ebisawa is probably there? It was Doujima at first but I keep second guessing myself and after checking wikis and the manga for reference I guess he was already out? So I ended up changing it haha.

Pls review if u want to see more of them, just don't roast me pls my conscience is still fragile from Endgame. Thx (I hereby officially plant the Azamana flag on this site yes)

-Teeturtle Feet