The Unreflecting Kitchen of Kamaten Island was a realm of terrifying scale, a cathedral dedicated not to gods but to sustenance. The air hung thick with the smells of seared meat, boiling root vegetables, and the ever-present, underlying tang of the acidic Sanzu River that fed the slumbering Hitotsume, Era. Ceiling-high cast iron stoves radiated a blistering heat that made the grey ash motes dance in furious swirls. Pots large enough to bathe in bubbled over geothermal flames, stirred by ogre cooks with paddles shaped like ship's oars. The rhythmic chiku-taku of the outside world was here joined by the clang of metal, the hiss of steam, and the constant, volcanic thunder of one voice.
Mazui Kuzu, the Hell-Kitchen Warden, was a typhoon in a blood-red chef's coat. "You call that a julienne?! That's a lumberjack's hack job!" he roared, his voice a rasping cannonade that echoed off the soot-stained stone walls. He moved with a furious energy, from a steaming cauldron to a roaring oven, his 30-foot frame a blur of intimidating efficiency. His soot-stained horns, curved like meat hooks, pointing accusingly at every perceived flaw. "The Silent Saviors need protein, not pity! This stew has the structural integrity of a sigh! Fix it!"
On the vast, worn granite countertop that ran the length of one wall, Ember was a speck. A tiny, neon-pink speck diligently wiping down a surface that stretched before her like a grey, greasy desert. The seastone manacle on her forearm was a familiar dead weight, a constant, cold reminder that the satisfying bang of her power was locked away, leaving only the frantic buzz of her thoughts. Her mismatched eyes—one blue, one gold—didn't see cleaning. They saw a battlefield.
Her gaze flicked from the giant, grinding clock over the doorway to the storm that was Mazui. He bellowed, pivoted, stormed to the oven, then back to a central preparation table. He was a pattern of rage, and Ember, invisible in her smallness, began to trace it. Her eyes landed on her objective: a towering ceramic bottle of cooking oil, left uncorked near the edge of the counter closest to the main bank of stoves. It stood as tall as three of her, a greasy monolith. The open flame of the stove below licked hungrily at the bottom of a massive iron skillet.
A plan, jagged and desperate, crystallized in her mind. Tip the bottle. Just a nudge. The oil glugs out, hits the flame, and whoosh! A beautiful, distracting fire across the kitchen. Chaos. The first spark of their promised disruption. She could almost hear the ghost of Josiah sneering in her ear: "You'll burn yourself up first, idiot." She ignored him, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
She waited, a statue with a rag. Mazui finished brutalizing a sous-chef over a poorly reduced sauce and rounded the corner of a central preparation block, his attention swallowed by a row of simmering stockpots. The other ogre cooks, each the size of a house, were deep in their own tasks, eyes wide with the fear of his wrath.
Now.
Ember moved. She wasn't running; she was a darting, chaotic projectile. She shoved the cleaning rag into her belt, spun on her heel, and darted across the vast granite plain. A discarded sponge the size of a bed loomed; she hurdled it, her tattered black-and-crimson dress flapping. A giant wooden spoon lay curved like a fallen bridge; she slid beneath its arch, the world darkening for a breathless second before she emerged into the intense heat radiating from the stoves.
She skidded to a halt before the oil bottle. The heat here was a physical wall, warping the air and pulling sweat from her skin in an instant. A single bead traced a clean line through the grime on her cheek. The bottle loomed, glazed ceramic cool and slick under her small hands. She planted her feet, set her shoulder against its curved belly, and pushed with all her wiry strength.
It didn't budge. Not a centimeter.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the heat. She tried to get her arms underneath it, to lift and tip, but it was anchored like a monument. The grease-slick floor offered no purchase. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Josiah's voice cackled.
Then, the thunder approached. Mazui's voice, roaring about undermixed batter, grew louder. He was coming back.
Ember's head swiveled, wild-eyed. She spotted a giant salt shaker shaped like a mournful Jizo statue and scrambled behind it, pressing her back against the cool ceramic. She peeked out, her breathing shallow.
Mazui stomped into view, his face a familiar landscape of irritation. He grabbed the handle of the skillet on the front burner, gave it a professional jerk, sending its contents—sizzling vegetable scraps—flying into a scrap bucket. He slammed it back down on the flame. Then, muttering about "incompetent dolts," he reached for the very oil bottle.
Ember's blood turned to ice. Her plan was dead. He was just going to use the oil normally. Her shoulders tensed to her ears. She watched, helpless, as his massive, scarred hand closed around the bottle's neck.
Her eyes darted, searching for anything, any flaw in the kitchen's terrible order. Then she saw it. On the shelf above the stoves, next to a rack of brutal cleavers, sat the pepper shaker. Its twin to her salt-shaker hiding place. And running down its side was a fine, dark crack.
A new idea, born of pure, manic desperation, flashed. A grin spread across Ember's face, wide and utterly unhinged.
As Mazui lifted the oil bottle, beginning to pour a golden stream into the skillet, Ember burst from her hiding place. She scrambled up a stack of discarded cloths, using them as a ladder to reach the higher shelf. The heat from the stoves below was blistering, singeing the ends of her hair. She ignored it, her focus absolute.
She positioned herself behind the cracked pepper shaker, bracing her feet against the rough stone wall of the shelf. She placed her back against the cool ceramic, right over the fault line. With a grunt that was pure strain, she pushed.
The shaker rocked. Mazui, below, continued his pour, his attention on the skillet.
Ember pushed again, her muscles screaming, her seastone cuff scraping against the shelf. Come on!
With a final, desperate heave, she threw her whole weight forward.
The pepper shaker teetered on the edge for a heart-stopping moment. Then it tipped, plunged off the shelf, and shattered on the granite counter with a sound like a gunshot.
A colossal POOF of fine, black pepper exploded into the air, a dark, fragrant cloud that engulfed the immediate area.
Mazui, caught mid-pour, blinked. He turned his head toward the sound, his face a mask of impending, apocalyptic rage. "WHAT IN THE BLAZES—?" he began to roar, and in doing so, he took a deep, involuntary breath.
The result was instantaneous. His eyes, already wide with anger, bulged. His nostrils flared. His massive chest hitched.
"AAAAAH—CHOOOOOOOO!"
The sneeze was a seismic event. It shook his entire frame. His head jerked forward violently. The hand holding the heavy oil bottle flung out instinctively.
The bottle sailed from his grip, arcing through the peppery air. Time stretched. Ember watched, her mischievous grin frozen, as the bottle turned end over end, spilling a glittering cascade of oil. It didn't just hit the stove.
It struck the edge of the blazing skillet and shattered.
A wave of flammable liquid met open flame.
The world turned orange and roaring.
WHOOMF!
A fireball erupted, not a tidy flame, but a rolling, hungry wave of heat and light that raced across the stovetop, following the trails of spilled oil. It licked up the walls, engulfed a hanging rack of dried herbs (which caught with a cheerful crackle), and sent a plume of black smoke boiling toward the ceiling.
Mazui stumbled back with a roared curse, batting at his singed eyebrows. The ordered chaos of the kitchen shattered into pure, screaming pandemonium. Cooks dropped their utensils, grabbing buckets and blankets. A pot of soup boiled over, forgotten. The alarms—great, clanging iron bells shaped like gears—began to sound, their dissonant clangor fighting with the roar of the fire and the eternal chiku-taku from outside.
Ember, crouched on the high shelf, watched the beautiful, terrible chaos unfold. The frantic shouts, the scrambling giants, the spreading fire that painted dancing shadows on the wall. She pulled Mr. Cinders from her waist and gave the charred rabbit a swift, secret squeeze.
Phase one was a success. The cradle had just been given its first, sharp rock. And somewhere deep below, in the dreams of the Hitotsume named Era, perhaps something stirred.
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