Side Story: Issei-chan & Cooking
Issei wasn't really sure how to cook with the new oven that her parents had bought just a week ago, the day before she went back to school for exactly one day before she transferred to a new one. It was a convenient thing that it even existed in the first place, seeing how at first they pretty much lacked any consistent ways of reheating food, but even in her own honest opinion (that she shared with her parents) it seemed as if that simply microwaving their food was too lazy and inconsistent over recooking it instead. It was like that for years by now, but it seemed as if her parents had gone past their silly taboo and just got one anyway.
And that was the crux of the problem. Issei wanted to bake the potato she found in the fridge the day before, part of the groceries that her mother had bought last Friday that somehow didn't get bunched up with the rest of their dinnertime meal. She hid it in a plastic bag behind some of the cans of beer that her dad would drink during stressful days in order to prevent either one of her parents from using it. It was on this Sunday morning that she would finally attempt to cook something on her own, and hopefully with Nobunaga's experience in the matter thanks to learning the necessity of feeding her army, she would make a really good baked potato.
I mean, it was only a baked potato. Poke a few holes, rub some olive oil and salt on it for a few minutes then plop it in the oven to cook for like an hour, then serve. Easy, right?
Wrong.
It didn't occur to Issei at first that the oven they used was not intended for long term usage at all. Or any heavy duty cooking that wasn't simple cookies or a day-old frozen slice of pizza, because really, whose dumb idea was it to slap a ceramic plate not designed for long term heat on to the microwave for OVER an hour of cooking? Or that the oven she used was not in fact designed for such a purpose at all, being a humble rudimentary microwave oven and not a rotisserie oven, or hell, the oven built into the kitchen stove in the first place, meant for cooking and baking.
In fact, the entire time she thought she had to constantly twist the knob in order to cook the food in the first place, immediately moving it back to the 30 minute counter upon listening to the telltale sound of a Ding! 3 straight times. She reasoned, essentially, that cooking the food for a full 2 hours would help make the potato grow softer and crispier over time, which was fair enough, but if it honestly came at the cost of the outer layer of her plate slowly peeled off because of the immense heat, or the burning plastic smell coming from the back of the microwave, or especially not the black smoke that came with said burning plastic smell... then honestly speaking, she shouldn't have bothered.
Which was where she was now, being scolded by her parents over her airheaded behavior upon learning of the new, and now broken microwave oven they just bought. They were thankful that it was replaceable by warranty, the delivery men noting just the next day that it wasn't the first time a little kid tried this. She looked at the ground with flushed cheeks, unable to hide her growing embarrassment over the "Microwave incident", as the neighborhood had grown to call it over the years. Smoke had come out of the kitchen window from her end, and a neighbor fortunate enough to see through it saw her break the machine, spread the word to her gossipy elder sister, and allowed the ball to roll from then on.
In her defense, she actually didn't know that what she used was not intended for such a purpose in the first place, neither the host nor the tenant actually. In Nobunaga's own words upon realizing their blunder, "I didn't know that was going to happen, really. The grail would give me general knowledge over things in the modern day, but apparently cooking techniques are specific enough to not be included."
With all that said, she sat down alone on the dinner table and was allowed to eat her potato, no longer hot but still as tasty as ever. On the opposite end was the microwave she just broke, the plug poking on a slab of meat while its rear sat on top of a stack of books. She sighed, taking her knife and cutting through the thick skin of the potato to reveal the real prize inside. Thinking it over, Issei thought about how easily she was able to return to a semblance of normality after a week of insanity and losing her innocence. She held her spoon and shoveled a chunk, then poured some sour cream over it.
If this was to be her life from here on out, then it would do her well to prepare for the things to come. But as it was, she just needed to enjoy life, any problems that needed fixing would be fixed on their own when their time of relevancy had passed. After all, she had enough of reflecting on her actions for now, so instead she'd do her best to come and go, she guessed. Like, every day since she got these powers and suddenly she had anxious self reflection after anxious self reflection. If she kept this up, she'd make even Sasuke Uchiha and Shadow the Hedgehog proud, a comparison that made her frown.
"Screw those guys, they don't know how to have fun!" She ranted at her plate, which did not respond. She sighed, but paused for a moment what she just heard. What did, respond, was a whir, a whistling sound normally associated with certain types of cooking equipment, and really big doohickeys she didn't know how to operate. She looked all around the empty room to find the source of the noise, until realization struck.
Snapping her head to the other side of the table, she witnessed the broken down microwave moving ever so slightly, its cable floating and the plug embedded deeply onto the meat. She wordlessly watched as the oven door snapped open, and the food was guided inside, and it snapped closed. A flash of light filled the room for a brief moment, and suddenly the food was gone. The machine waved its "hand" at Issei, motioning her to start eating, and Issei could swear that its "head" moved for a moment there.
Her left eye twitched. Deciding that attempting to rationalize the absurdity of her situation even knowing the supernatural nature of the world, she nodded and put the soggy potato in her mouth. Satisfied with what she's made despite the technical issues that came with it, she smiled. At this point, she had completely accepted her circumstance, and began to ask the microwave oven to pass her the salt, who obliged.