Nyra Emberveil's challenge hangs in the air, hot and sharp as a ghost pepper. The entire refectory is a tomb of silence, every eye bouncing between the goddess of flame and the weirdo in the safety vest.
Caelan meets her furious glare with a placid blink.
"Okay," he says.
Just… okay. As if she'd asked him to pass the salt.
A vein throbs in Nyra's temple. "Okay? Is that all you have to say? I just vowed to destroy everything you stand for!"
"It's just that the apron isn't really flammable," Caelan replies, his voice matter-of-fact. "It's a high-polyester blend. It'll mostly melt. It would be a mess."
For a terrifying second, it looks like Nyra might spontaneously combust. Her hands clench into fists at her sides, knuckles white. The sheer, infuriating calm radiating from him is a direct insult to her passion. She lives and breathes for the roaring fire of the kitchen. This boy treats it like a minor inconvenience.
Before she can unleash the inferno building in her chest, a new voice cuts through the tension, bubbly and surgically precise.
"Hold that pose! The lighting here is divine for a rivalry shot!"
A girl with ink-black hair tied in twin tails and glasses perched on her nose slides between them, her phone held aloft like a holy relic. She moves with a practiced, predatory grace. Zadie Nightwell. Founder, editor, and sole reporter for Aurum Eats, the academy's kingmaking social media channel.
Her screen is already live. Caelan can see the little hearts and comment bubbles flooding the feed in real-time.
Zadie frames a shot that captures Nyra's fiery rage and Caelan's bewildering placidity. "Zadie here, live from the Grand Refectory, where transfer student—sorry, what's your name?"
"Caelan Veston."
"—Caelan Veston just brought Lucien Argent to tears with a bowl of repurposed leftovers!" she narrates, her voice a rapid-fire staccato. "And in response, the Crimson Flash, our very own Nyra Emberveil, has issued a challenge!"
She shoves the phone closer to Caelan. "Your technique—you called it a 'Maillard Orbit'? My DMs are blowing up. Is that from a recognized culinary school, or did you just make it up?"
"It's just a way to make things spin," Caelan says, already trying to edge away from the phone's lens. He came here for anonymity, and he's somehow ended up in the crosshairs of the campus's two most intense personalities within his first hour.
"It was more than a spin," a choked voice says from behind them.
Lucien Argent is on his feet, his silver-perfect hair disheveled. The tears are gone, replaced by a haunting confusion. He looks at Caelan, not with hatred, but with a profound, earth-shaking awe.
"I… tasted it," Lucien says, his voice barely a whisper. "The broth. It felt like… a memory. Like sitting in a kitchen I've never seen. It was warm."
That's the boon. The quiet miracle of Leftover Alchemy. Food that delivers not just flavor, but feeling. Caelan fed Lucien's arrogant soul a dose of humble empathy, and the shock has short-circuited his entire worldview.
Nyra scoffs, refusing to believe it. "It's a flavor profile trick. Psychological seasoning. It's not real craft."
"Then face him and prove it!" Zadie chirps, pivoting her phone back to Nyra. The view count on her stream ticks past five hundred. The entire academy is watching. "The people want a showdown! Remnants versus Purity! The Apron of Chaos versus the Knives of Order!"
"I will," Nyra snaps, her eyes fixed on Caelan. "This academy has standards. It has a soul. And I won't let him mock it."
Caelan sighs. His dream of a quiet life is evaporating like steam from a hot pot. He just wants to find his dorm, lie face down for a solid hour, and pretend none of this happened.
He turns to leave, pulling his tray of nutrient paste with him. It looks even more depressing now. "I'm not really interested in a formal match. Sorry."
He tries to push past the crowd. He makes it three steps before a chime echoes through the refectory. It's the official campus-wide alert tone—crisp, authoritative, and impossible to ignore.
Every large screen in the hall, which usually display menus and announcements, flickers to black. Then, white text appears, stark and official, under the Aurum Academy crest.
// CULINARY DUEL SANCTIONED //
The murmuring crowd falls dead silent.
CHALLENGER: NYRA EMBERVEIL (YEAR 1)
RESPONDENT: CAELAN VESTON (YEAR 1, TRANSFER)
THEME: RECLAMATION
Challenger will be provided with ingredients of the highest grade and purity. Respondent will be provided with the collective leftover ingredients from today's lunch service.
VENUE: ARENA KITCHEN SIGMA-7
TIME: TOMORROW, 18:00 HOURS
BROADCAST: LIVE ON THE AURUM NETWORK
BY ORDER OF THE STUDENT CULINARY BOARD
Zadie lets out a squeal of pure, unrestrained journalistic ecstasy. "It's official! The board sanctioned it! This is the fastest a transfer has ever been thrown into a primetime duel!"
Caelan stares at the screen. His name is up there in lights, a target for the whole school. He was trying to become invisible, and in five minutes of cooking, he's become the main event. His stomach sinks.
Nyra gives him a sharp, victorious smile. Her element is the arena. The pressure, the audience, the clock—that is her home. She's dragged him out of the shadows and into the blazing spotlight where she rules.
"Looks like you can't run away, Vest Boy," she says, her voice low and confident.
He looks from the giant screen to her burning eyes, then down at his ridiculous pink cat apron. It feels less like a joke and more like battle gear now.
He came here to learn what it felt like to be normal.
But as the entire student body stares at him, a mix of scorn, excitement, and disbelief on their faces, he realizes one simple truth.
For him, this is normal. And tomorrow, in a high-tech arena, he will have to prove that even the most discarded things—be it ramen, an ingredient, or a weird kid in a safety vest—have a soul worth saving.