Class A's camp. Noon.
The long table—rough planks atop stone slabs, humble but solid—now held Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Shiina Hiyori as its unexpected guests. They sat with the careful posture of those who had not sought invitation and were still determining its meaning.
Around them, Class A students filtered in from their various tasks, fatigue giving way to anticipation. The morning's labor was complete; the reward was approaching.
And everyone's attention, inevitably, was drawn to the camp's center.
To the figure at the stove.
Sakamoto stood before the simple stone fire pit with the focused calm of a master in his element. No modern equipment surrounded him—only fire, smoke, and the bounty the island had provided. Cleaned shellfish in a shallow bowl. Mushrooms and wild vegetables threaded onto wooden skewers. Tubers and wild fruits arranged by variety.
He leaned forward and breathed gently into the embers.
Whoosh.
The flames responded as if summoned, leaping upward with sudden vitality, their heat radiating outward in steady waves. Sakamoto selected several smooth skewers, his movements unhurried, and began threading ingredients with practiced precision.
Then Ayanokoji noticed something.
A small, hand-formed clay jar. Sakamoto tilted it over the prepared ingredients, and a fine stream of white crystals scattered across their surfaces.
Salt.
The observation registered instantly. Ayanokoji's mind, never truly at rest, began cycling through implications.
Salt requires evaporation. Requires collection. Requires processing. How did they—
Beside him, Shiina's eyes had widened slightly. She, too, had recognized the impossibility.
Katsuragi Kohei, observing their reactions from nearby, made a quick calculation. The salt-making process was ingenious, but it was not a strategic secret—it improved food, not combat capability. Sharing it cost nothing and might even build goodwill.
He approached and spoke in his measured way.
"You're wondering about the salt. It's not purchased. It's produced."
"Produced?" Shiina's voice carried genuine astonishment.
Ayanokoji said nothing, but his attention sharpened.
Katsuragi summarized, striving for brevity despite the complexity of the process. "Sakamoto-kun devised it. We collected discarded plastic bottles from the shoreline—he converted them into filtering devices using burnt charcoal as activated carbon and clean cloth as filter media. Shells were calcined to produce calcium oxide, then dissolved for calcium hydroxide. Plant ash provided potassium carbonate after leaching and filtering."
He paused, ensuring they followed.
"Seawater was filtered and evaporated for crude salt, then redissolved. Potassium carbonate solution was added gradually—the solubility differences precipitate impurities. The remaining solution, containing sodium and potassium chlorides, was neutralized with acidic plant juice. Finally, kelp wash solution was added before the final evaporation to dryness."
Katsuragi concluded flatly: "Iodine-containing coarse salt. Entirely from island resources."
Silence.
Shiina's lips parted slightly, her usual composure fractured by genuine wonder. She understood the chemistry. She understood the principles. But to execute such a process—multiple stages, precise chemical reactions, controlled temperatures—with nothing but found materials and bare hands?
This is not knowledge. This is mastery.
Ayanokoji remained outwardly impassive, but internally, his analysis accelerated.
Calcium oxide from shells. Potassium carbonate from ash. Controlled precipitation. pH neutralization. Iodine supplementation from kelp.
Every step requires judgment. Proportions must be precise. Temperatures must be maintained. How does he measure without instruments? How does he know without testing?
The answer, when it formed, was unsettling: He doesn't need instruments. He perceives directly. His senses, his intuition, his understanding—they operate at a level that bypasses measurement.
Katsuragi, noting their stunned expressions, offered a small shrug. "I didn't witness the entire process myself. I'm only repeating what I was told."
He glanced toward the stove. "It seems Sakamoto-kun is nearly ready. I should assist."
Sakamoto had entered a state that transcended mere preparation.
Multiple skewers occupied his hands simultaneously—each bearing different ingredients, each requiring different heat, each demanding different timing. His wrists flicked with blinding speed, the skewers tracing arcs through the air, rotating, flipping, dancing between flame zones with impossible precision.
It looked like performance. It was, in fact, the most efficient possible method: multiple items cooked concurrently, each receiving exactly the heat it needed for exactly the right duration.
On the flat stone beside the fire, shellfish made contact with the hot surface. The sizzle was immediate and satisfying. Fragrant steam rose, carrying the clean scent of the sea transformed by fire.
Ayanokoji watched, his meal momentarily forgotten.
Heat distribution. Rotation timing. Ingredient-specific requirements. All managed simultaneously. All without apparent effort.
This isn't cooking. This is orchestration.
Shiina watched with different eyes. Her appreciation was aesthetic as much as analytical—the grace of Sakamoto's movements, the way firelight played across his features, the absolute focus that excluded everything except the task before him.
She had come here on Ryuuen's orders, to observe, to report.
But watching this, she found herself grateful for the assignment.
The flames crackled. The aromas deepened. And around the long table, Class A waited with the quiet anticipation of those who had learned to trust completely in the figure before them.
The plates that arrived before Ayanokoji and Shiina were rough-hewn—fired clay, shaped by hand, bearing the marks of their creation. But the food they carried was anything but primitive.
Grilled mushrooms, their edges crisped to perfect char, glistening with natural oils that caught the midday light. Shellfish meat, plump and steaming, the aroma carrying both the clean breath of the sea and subtle herbal undertones from the leaves they had been wrapped in. Tubers roasted to golden tenderness, their sweetness concentrated by fire, garnished with a sprinkle of algae dressed in that sour citrus juice that mimicked vinegar.
Colors harmonized. Textures contrasted. Aromas layered and deepened.
This was not survival food. This was cuisine.
Ayanokoji and Shiina exchanged the briefest of glances—a silent acknowledgment that they had both underestimated what they would find here. Then they raised their simple wooden utensils and tasted.
The mushrooms burst with juice at first bite. Salt—that impossible salt—brought out their inherent sweetness without overwhelming. The shellfish yielded willingly, tender and resilient, carrying no trace of the ocean's harshness, only its complex minerality. The tubers melted on the tongue, sweet and satisfying.
Each bite dismantled another assumption about what was possible in this environment.
Ayanokoji set down his utensil. His voice, when it came, carried no exaggeration—only flat acknowledgment of fact.
"Excellent."
Shiina's soft praise followed, her eyes holding genuine wonder. "Sakamoto-kun... to create such food under these conditions. It's truly remarkable."
Kamuro Masumi approached with her own plate, her movements carrying that studied casualness that was, in truth, anything but casual. She settled into the empty space beside Sakamoto with the ease of long practice—or the appearance of it.
Her gaze swept briefly over Shiina, registering the other girl's praise with an expression that might have been neutrality but wasn't, quite. Then she turned to Sakamoto, her voice carrying a deliberate bluntness that seemed almost protective.
"It's good. Well made."
Shiina's lips curved slightly—the faintest smile, suggesting she had noticed something worth noting. She continued eating in small, appreciative bites, offering no reaction beyond that subtle curve.
Kamuro ate in silence, her attention on her food, her posture carefully unremarkable.
Ayanokoji observed.
The silver-haired girl from Class B—genuine appreciation, nothing more. The purple-haired girl from Class A—something more complicated. A proprietary awareness. A claim staked without words.
And Sakamoto...
Sakamoto sat at the table's center, eating with the same unhurried grace he brought to everything. If he noticed the currents flowing around him, he gave no sign. His attention seemed to be on the food, on the sea view beyond the plateau, on nothing in particular.
The eye of the storm. Unaware? Or simply uninterested?
Ayanokoji filed the observation away. The dynamics around Sakamoto were complex and layered—friendships, rivalries, attractions, resentments. Understanding them might prove useful. Or it might simply be another data point in an ever-expanding file.
He met Sakamoto's gaze across the table and offered the simplest possible acknowledgment: "Very well done."
Sakamoto's hand rose. His middle finger found the bridge of his glasses, pushing them into perfect position. The lenses caught the fading glow of the cooking fire, flaring into warm opacity.
"My apologies for the inadequate hospitality."
The words were humble. The delivery was flawless. And the effect, on everyone present, was to make them feel not that they had received poor hospitality, but that they had somehow been honored by Sakamoto's attention.
Ayanokoji resumed eating, his mind cataloging.
He deflects praise by apologizing for things that don't require apology. He centers himself by acting as though he were peripheral. He controls by appearing not to control.
Masterful.
The meal continued. The sun climbed higher. And around the rough wooden table, students from three different classes shared food and silence and the strange, fleeting intimacy of a moment that would not come again.