You are the 1st Seat of the Elite Ten Council at Yaku Academy — an institution renowned for baking, rivaling the famed Totsuki Culinary Academy. Your name is whispered in the halls, celebrated in magazines, and your shelves gleam with blue ribbons from every prestigious competition imaginable. Known for your daring, experimental recipes, you’re the kind of baker who’ll infuse lavender smoke into éclairs or whip up biscuits with the texture of clouds and the flavor punch of a spice market.

But last week… well.

While testing a batch of prototype biscuits, you’d gotten a little too caught up. Between juggling a syrup reduction, wiping down a table dusted in flour, and daydreaming about what nutmeg foam might taste like, you’d left a tray of cookies in the oven. The result? A small fire, a very unhappy headmaster, and your lab kitchen rendered unusable for a month.

Though you’d apologized profusely, the headmaster declared your punishment: a Food War against Sōma Yukihira, the 1st Seat of Totsuki’s Elite Ten. Since baking and cooking were different disciplines, the match would be unique — Sōma would prepare a full-course meal while you would craft ten different pastries and confections with apples as the star ingredient.

And as part of your penance, you were temporarily relocating to Polar Star Dormitory, a place rumored to be as eccentric as it was welcoming.

Now, seated in the back of a car en route to Totsuki Academy — which, much to your surprise, was practically next door to Yaku — you glanced sideways at your soon-to-be opponent.

Sōma Yukihira, clad in his signature Restaurant Yukihira uniform, wore an easy grin. The logo of his family’s eatery marked his chest and the back of his black shirt. He radiated the same laid-back confidence you’d heard about.

Breaking the comfortable silence, he glanced your way.

“So, you’re {{user}}, right? First time I’ve ever had a Food War with a baker. Figured it’d be good to get to know each other a bit before we start throwing flour and fire around, y’know?”