"If you don't move out of the way, you will die!" Augen warned, the expanding waves of his forbidden Cast now spreading rapidly overground as Fatera sensed the bitter coldness through the Wave coming from behind her. Without turning to look, she launched herself back up and away from Shin and Braka's combination attack which Shin hid his Meat Maker Axe within Braka's Blood Blade.
"Watch out!" Shin said, his expressions sinking before Braka nodded silently and hopped away from Fatera and Augen again. The pools of blood left behind by his Blood Red Prison Dance sizzling and vaporising as the wave of decay flowed over it.
"Damn..." Braka cursed, landing softly besides Shin while locking his eyes onto Fatera and Augen, "That thing is so creepy..."
"Nothing more than the blood, but yeah." Shin agreed, when suddenly a dark shadow swept overhead, and both Augen and Fatera looked up as Matty with his giant eagle Manifest glided through the air.
"What are they doing..." Fatera asked as Augen anticipated the trajectory taken by Matty as they beelined straight towards the main base of Wu's team while cruising overhead.
"They are heading straight for our base!" Augen alerted as Fatera nodded and surrounded her body with the darkened outline of her Killa mode before rocketing off the ground, leaving behind a shockwave and a massive gust of wind.
"You are not going anywhere!" Shin said, pursuing after her as a whirlwind of weaponry shot forward and flew after Fatera.
"I got it." Augen said, a silvery Card with paintings of snowflakes over it now in between his fingers. Then, he turned the card, injecting his own Wave through it before a wall of winter gale winds suddenly separated the pursuing Shin from Fatera. As Shin neared the wall, he retracted the Meat Maker Axe back into its holster as Braka manifested a pair of long knifes.
"Braka!" Shin said, as Braka roared behind him before blasting his blade forward, propelling Shin as he crashed through the wall of gale. A cold chill surrounded Shin's body as he tried to force his way through, then, Shin suddenly found everything starting to warp around his body.
He found himself in a kitchen, the cooking tools orbiting his body decelerating before they found their way onto racks on the kitchen wall. No...it wasn’t any kitchen. The smells of greasily roasted meat with heavy seasoning mixed in with the strange pleasant scents of green tea soup...It was the kitchen. His kitchen.
A burst of flames exploded in front of him, and Shin squinted his eyes before he felt a painful wack on his back.
"When you flash the flames, do it properly!" The chef said, his hard voice thundering over his head as Shin nodded and ground his teeth together. His forearm had become completely numb from gripping around the wok for hours on end, yet he still locked his fingers around its handle, his sweat drenching the towel and his palm covered with callous.
"Yes, Chef." Shin said.
"Make sure to check the temperature and color!" He said, wacking Shin once again as fatigue started to cloud his mind, "Why do I ever bother taking you in?! You are nothing compared to literally any Channeler around."
The kitchen of the Takuni family had long been dominated by muscular Channelers who were able to take full advantage of their raw physicality and combine it with the style of cooking of the Takuni way. High flames, high temperature, perfect mixture of ingredients with a sense of depth of flavour and perfectly fried pieces using a method of continuous stirring and mixing with the heavy wok.
"Shut up." Shin said, his eyes fiery, "Talk about cooking, not any of the other bullshit."
"Well, I would be talking all about your cooking if you ain't so shit at it." The chef rolled his eyes and turned aruond, "Bring the dish when you are done."
Shin glanced towards the other fireplaces where the towering Channelers loaded up plates after plates of Takuni-approved cooking before grunting and focusing back onto his own wok. He had trained his hands to his physical limits, yet the Takuni-style of cooking historically was developed based on the raw physicalities of the Takuni Channelers, who were also coincidentally one of the best military forces in the whole of the Kingdom of the Eastern Sun, as they built toughness, strength, and sharp minds in the kitchen over the fireplace.
A family of powerhouses literally forged in the flames.
Shin was all but one of the children of the massive Takuni family, however, he was born a Manifester. That means only one thing. He was destined for literally any other job than being a chef, except all he wanted to be was to a chef, to see the smiles of those that had eaten his food.
There is one iron-clad rule of the Takuni family when it comes to cooking, and it's that no one that wanted to cook can be exiled from the kitchen by anyone else. However, there were no rules about bullying or abuse, meaning those that were deemed unfit all eventually get pushed out of the kitchen through the non-official means.
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Call it forge in the fire or whatever, Shin knew he won't leave until he accomplished his dreams. And for the first fifteen years of his life, that was all he focused on. With all of his hours spent on mastering the Takuni-style of cooking to the best of his abilities...however, that wasn't enough.
"Undercooked, as the seasoning had barely made it past the very first layer." The chef said, putting his spoon down and looking straight into Shin's eyes, "You are physically not strong enough to shake the wok enough to accomplish the Takuni-style cooking. Now go clean up the restaurant."
Shin gripped his fingers into a fist until his forearm cramped. However, he simply breathed through the nose and spun around, marching silently to the main room where the Takuni family restaurant is booming with business.
As Shin scanned around the room, he couldn't help but notice a particularly rowdy table towards the corner of the room. It consists of a red-haired girl with a messy hair cut, thin frame, yet athletically built arms, a handsome looking boy with medium lengthed white hair and gem-like blue eyes, and a normal looking fellow Eastern Sunner with short black hair and brown skin.
"Oh come on! Braka, just cause there is an established way to do things, doesn't mean you have to do exactly that!" The red-haired girl said, slamming her fist into the table as the white-haired boy looked around nervously at the ruckus caused by her, "Think about it! You are free! You can do whatever you want!"
Years later, Shin came to know their names as Yuna and Matty.
"There is a reason that the old ways are the way it is! It's because it works." Braka said, his voice projecting all the way towards Shin as he came and picked up the empty plates on the table.
"And there is also a reason why it doesn't work for you!" Yuna said, her hands reaching out to Braka as his face turned red, "And it's not because of you. That's what they want you to think. They want you to believe that their way is the only way, and any deviation means failure. That's what Xing tried to do to me, and that's what the temple try to do to you."
"So what are you saying?"
"Find something that works, and that works for you." Yuna said, "That's all that matters."
Shin bit onto his lips and tried to act normal, but something within him started boiling over, and he looked towards Yuna's face, his eyes wide and emotion welling within him, "And something that simple would really work?"
"If it doesn't, keep fighting." Yuna said, her bright smile lighting up Shin's world, "Because if anything, you will at least know that it’s your fight, and your path."
Shin smiled back, and he picked up all of the dishes before returning to the kitchen, confronting his fireplace in the corner once more. Then, he breathed steadily as his Manifest extended from within, forming into sets of levers, spatulas, and chopsticks, spoons and chef's knives. Then, as those individual manifest started whirling around, Shin reached forward, activating the fire Cast and started preparing for another dish.
"Hm...not bad." The chef said, his eyebrows raised and actually sounding not disappointed for once, "The saltiness is a bit too strong, but the flavour profile is there, texture is spot on, and temperature is perfect. Perhaps there is hope in the Eastern Sun after all."
"Tsk." Shin turned around and headed back into the kitchen as the chef looked at his back, his mind wondering what finally clicked for him.
With the incorporation of his cooking tools Manifest, Shin was able to compensate for the lack of strength while completing the tasks of mixing in while keeping the temperature steady throughout the layers of cooking. However, he quickly learnt that his basic sets of tools were not enough to handle the wide array of dishes.
This then leads to him drawing up various sets of blueprints and practicing more and more. Then, as he experimented with his brand new manifest, the head Chef walked him to his horror as an orbit of cooking tools floated around his body.
With his angry footsteps, he charged forward with the Wave channeled all throughout his body, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING IN THE TAKUNI KITCHEN?!"
"I am cooking!" Shin shot back as the head chef halted for a moment, his rage becoming greater and greater before he raised his fist and clubbed Shin across the face.
"This is NOT Takuni-style of cooking!" The head chef roared, "Get you and your wack Manifestations out of my kitchen!"
"The one rule about the Takuni kitchen stated you cannot to expel me." Shin said, grunting and pressing himself up from the ground as his face became bruised completely, the taste of blood filling his mouth. Hearing that, the head chef became even more furious as he kicked Shin across the ribs and threw his body against the brick stoves, his back burning by the heat before he rolled onto the ground.
"Then there is no rule saying I can't beat you up every time you stepped foot in here." The chef said, his finger poking into Shin's back as he growled angrily. Then, the chef picked him up by the collar and tossed him out of the kitchen.
Shin blinked a few times, and the chill of the ground blended in with the chill from Augen's Casts as his mind returned to the present. Suspended in midair, he watched as Fatera's dashing figure disappeared from the horizon, and Augen's voice came from behind.
"My Winter Bark Cast not only affects the environments, but also the mind." Augen said, "So...how was your trip down memory lane?"
"It was a good reminder." Shin said, looking down at Augen and twisting his hand as a pitch fork suddenly manifested from behind Augen and it stabbed into him straight in the back. The Winter Bark Cast immediately dissipated as Shin and Braka both landed softly on the ground. They shared a glance before chasing after Fatera, leaving Augen behind as he struggled for breath.