Miyo and Sana finished filleting their fish first, sprinting toward the single lighter on the table. Miyo snatched it from Sana’s hand with a triumphant laugh and hurried back to his torch. “I’m gonna win!” he shouted, pumping a fist. “You all laughed at me during lunch. Who’s laughing now? Watch and learn, amateurs.”
The room went still as everyone’s attention shifted to Miyo. He stood there, a cocky grin plastered across his face, basking in his moment of victory.
With exaggerated flair, Miyo performed a quick, showy dance, waving the lighter around as if taunting the rest of us. Then, he held the lighter to the hose, and with one confident flick…
A fireball roared to life, swallowing him whole in an instant.
Kenji tackled me to the floor as the explosion rippled through the kitchen, a wall of unbearable heat rolling over us, setting off the other torches. I thought we would be set on fire next as the flames unfolded.
Through the haze, I caught sight of Miyo, his body ablaze, his screams cutting through the panic. My stomach lurched as he stumbled, flailing in desperation. Seconds later, the sprinklers roared to life, dousing the flames, but the damage was done.
Miyo collapsed in a charred heap. My throat tightened as I turned my face into Kenji’s chest, trying to block out the horrific sight.
“He’s…he’s not moving,” Kenji whispered, his voice shaky.
Two men in black uniforms and wearing black medical masks appeared, silent as ghosts, carrying a stretcher. They lifted Miyo’s limp body onto the stretcher with mechanical efficiency and vanished as quickly as they’d arrived.
The room fell into stunned silence, save for the water dripping from the sprinklers above. Iron Face shut off the gas valves on the cylinders.
Chef Sakamoto and Reina removed their gas masks. From the look on Sakamoto’s face, he was disappointed, while Reina portrayed indifference. Neither acknowledged us. They simply turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Iron Face’s voice shattered the silence. “You call yourselves apprentices?” His disgust was visible, and each word felt like a slap. “Weakness is not tolerated here, and neither is failure. If this is the best you can do, you don’t belong at Kage Ryu.”
The metallic tang of burned flesh lingered in the air, making it hard to breathe. One by one, the others hurried out of the kitchen. Kenji grabbed my hand, pulling me along with him.
Outside, the whispers started, low and frantic. Faces were pale, eyes wide with confusion and terror. Miyo had been burned alive, and yet Chef Sakamoto, his wife, and Iron Face hadn’t even acknowledged it. Instead, Iron Face had critiqued our performance like it was a classroom exercise.
“This is insane,” Kenji said, his breaths fast and shallow. “What the hell just happened in there?”
Jiro stopped beside us. “You saw what happened in there. This program just showed its true colors. Don’t expect it to get easier. It won’t. Good luck, Akiko. You’ll need all you can get.”
“I’ve heard not everyone makes it to the end, but I thought it was just rumors,” Sana said.
“Are you saying people are supposed to die here?” Hideo adjusted his glasses, a slight tremble in his voice.
“It’s what I heard,” Sana replied. “The ones who don’t win, it’s like they just…disappear.”
“That’s because of the NDA,” Hideo reasoned, though his voice wavered. “They can’t talk even if they wanted to.”
Kenji’s grip on my hand tightened. “What if this isn’t just about cooking? What if they’re deliberately trying to weed us out?”
Iron Face’s earlier words echoed in my mind:Everything you need to know is in the library.
“We missed something,” I whispered. “The books in the library are not all about cooking. Some of them were about emergency first aid and trauma injuries. What if the challenges are traps, and the books are the only way to prepare?”
Kenji’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s true, then Jiro’s right, and more people could end up like Miyo. We can’t let that happen to us. Akiko, we need to stick together. If we protect each other and use every advantage, we have a real shot at being the last two standing, or…”
“We’ll end up like Miyo.”
We sealed our partnership with a firm handshake. This wasn’t about cooking anymore. It was about surviving a program designed to destroy us.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Days passed without any word on Miyo’s fate, making it hard to deny the obvious—he hadn’t survived.
I tried not to dwell on it, but the image of him burning haunted me. The others seemed unfazed, treating it like another fleeting headline in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. Sana even joked that Miyo got what he wanted, saying he was now famous for something besides Yokohama Tires.
The laughter that followed, including Kenji’s, caught me off guard. I didn’t understand how they could shrug off something so horrific. Was I the only one who saw the gravity of what had happened? The next challenge could easily claim another victim. Didn’t they realize that?
