No, they just been basically sparing/having a friendly competition with each other, and using Takumi's knife as a excuse to turn it into a Shokugeki. Not any title matches. Those three have been going at each-other as well over using their seats as the ante for their Shokugeki. It could be they are were given a seat, and don't feel a need to clime the rankings since their all friends.
I would have preferred his brother since we rarely see him at all. Megumi is the second girl so she always going to have at least one match in a tournament. That brother as a satellite character does not have that.
I wasn't talking about them fighting for seats, I was talking about how Takumi was fighting with Souma on a daily basis and was beating him almost 50% of the time, someone that close to Souma in ability should be higher seated not seventh.
Also I was talking about Megumi instead of Souma when the brother was kidnapped, of course it should have been little brother but the plot was for him to be in dispair having no support, and that's why I thought Megumi would have been better.
As for this weeks chapter....I am pissed off right now, all this time no mention of her mother and this is the crap we get, it's a friggin joke. well on the bright side we can now rest easy that Azami wasn't a scumbag who seduced a innocent girl and then dumped her once he got a position of power, instead he's a scumbag that got together with another piece of trash and somhow managed to produce a child who isn't completely messed up, it just takes gramps value up a notch for taking Erina away from those two.
Then again I wouldn't be surprised if the subplot for mother abandoning her child was because she was jealous of her daughters ability or couldn't handle her daughter critiquing her cooking or something equally petty that the mangaka will think will make us feel sorry for her, but will do the opposite, like how Asami's backstory made him look more pathetic instead of actually understanding his reason for abusing his daughter.