The crowd erupted at the na. Kantewinde was a legend among legends—a chef who had perfected the art of cooking with ingredients from the deepest, most pressurized trenches of the ocean. His specialty was transforming abyssal horrors into delicacies that made grown rpeople weep with joy.
On the judges' stand, Saitama leaned forward with interest. "So that guy's good?"
The monkey-masked judge beside him nodded gravely. "Kantewinde has held his ten-shell rank for over three thousand years. He once prepared a al for Whale King Moon itself—and survived."
"Survived?"
"The Whale King is not known for its patience with imperfect cooking." The judge's voice dropped. "Kantewinde's dish was deed... acceptable."
Saitama digested this information alongside a mouthful of takoyaki he had sohow smuggled into the arena. "So Komatsu's guy is going against a three-thousand-year-old chef who cooks for giant whales."
"That is correct."
"Huh." Saitama chewed thoughtfully. "Should be interesting."
Down on the arena floor, Yoda stepped up to his cooking station with the calm deanor of a man who had faced death a thousand tis and simply found it tedious. His station was simple compared to Kantewinde's elaborate setup—a single cutting board, a modest fla, and a handful of ingredients he had selected himself from the Coffin Crab's stores.
"Old man," Toriko called out from the sidelines, "are you sure about this?"
Yoda glanced back, a gentle smile on his weathered face. "Young man, I have been cooking since before your grandfather was born. A three-thousand-year-old chef is impressive, yes. But I have sothing he does not."
"What's that?"
"The taste of the surface. The mory of sunlight on fresh ingredients. The flavor of a world that has not been pickled in brine for millennia." He turned back to his station. "Watch. And learn."
Kantewinde had already begun his preparation, his bone knife moving in a blur as he filleted an abyssal eel that still crackled with residual bio-electricity. Each slice was perfect, each movent economical and precise. He worked in silence, his silver-white mask giving nothing away.
Yoda, by contrast, worked slowly. Deliberately. He held each ingredient in his hands before cutting it, closing his eyes as if communing with it. The audience, accustod to the flashy techniques of their own chefs, began to murmur with impatience.
"What's he doing? Why isn't he cooking?"
"Is he praying?"
"Maybe surface chefs don't know how to handle real ingredients?"
On the judges' stand, Saitama frowned. "They're being an."
Garou crossed his arms. "Let them talk. Yoda knows what he's doing."
King, silent until now, finally spoke. "Look at Kantewinde's hands."
Garou and Saitama looked. The abyssal chef's movents, while still precise, had slowed—almost imperceptibly, but slowed nonetheless. And his head was tilted slightly, as if listening to sothing only he could hear.
"He's watching Yoda," King said. "He's trying to figure out what the old man is doing."
The clock ticked down. The soul furnace below the seesaw kitchen crackled with hungry flas. And the two chefs worked—one fast and flashy, one slow and deliberate.
When the tir hit zero, both dishes were complete.
Kantewinde presented first: a platter of abyssal eel sashimi, arranged to look like a swimming sea serpent, its scales glistening with a sauce that seed to absorb light itself. The aroma was complex—salty, mineral, with a hint of sothing almost like electricity.
The ST10 judges sampled it first. One by one, they nodded, their masked faces unreadable but their body language suggesting approval.
Then it was Yoda's turn.
He lifted the do from his platter, and the arena fell silent.
It was not a complex dish. It was not arranged to look like anything. It was simply a piece of fish—seared on one side, raw on the other—resting on a bed of rice that had been seasoned with sothing that slled faintly of the surface. Of sunshine. Of wind. Of rain.
"This is... this is just grilled fish," soone in the crowd said.
"Yeah, any street vendor could make that."
But the ST10 judges were not moving. They were staring at the dish with an intensity that suggested they had seen sothing no one else had.
The monkey-masked judge was the first to lift his chopsticks. He took a single bite.
And froze.
His mask began to tremble. His hands shook. And then, slowly, he reached up and removed his mask—revealing a face streaked with tears.
"This taste," he whispered. "This taste... I have not tasted it since I was a child. Since before Blue Grill closed its doors. This is the taste of the surface. Of ho."
The other ST10 judges, one by one, removed their masks. One by one, they tasted Yoda's dish. And one by one, they wept.
Kantewinde, still wearing his silver-white mask, stood frozen at his station. He did not need to taste Yoda's dish to know he had lost. The reaction of the judges told him everything.
"How?" he asked, his voice hollow. "How did you do it?"
Yoda smiled, his weathered face kind. "I listened to the ingredients. The eel you used was from the abyss—it has never known light, never known warmth. It is delicious, yes, but it is also... lonely. I used fish from the surface. Fish that has felt the sun on its scales, the current in its fins. It rembers what it is to be alive." He paused. "Sotis, the most powerful flavor is not complexity. It is mory."
The crowd was silent. Then, slowly, a single pair of hands began to clap.
Saitama.
"Good job, old man," he called out. "That looked tasty."
The dam broke. The arena erupted in applause—not the polite clapping of a formal audience, but the genuine, thunderous approval of people who had just witnessed sothing extraordinary.
Don Sli, watching from its throne, felt its form quiver with sothing it had not felt in a very long ti.
Hope.
The first round went to the surface team.
But the duel was far from over.
The two Leaf Fish floated serenely in their crystalline bubbles, completely unaware of the culinary destiny awaiting them. Their leaf-like scales rustled with an almost musical quality, and the faint scent of sothing green and fresh—like a forest after spring rain—drifted across the arena.
Kantewinde was the first to move. His bone knife flashed, and the bubble containing his Leaf Fish burst—not violently, but with a soft pop that released a shower of rainbow-colored droplets. The fish hung in the air for a fraction of a second, suspended by nothing, and then Kantewinde's hands beca a blur.
"Warp Kitchen," soone in the crowd breathed.
The technique was srizing. Kantewinde's knife seed to be in multiple places at once—scaling, gutting, filleting, all in movents too fast for the eye to follow. Within three seconds, the hundred-ter Leaf Fish had been transford into a perfect spiral of translucent fillets, each one exactly the sa thickness, each one glistening with natural oils.
"Amazing!" The host's voice bood. "Kantewinde has completed his preliminary preparation in under five seconds! What a display of speed and precision!"
The crowd roared its approval.
On the other side of the balance scale, Yoda had not yet begun.
He stood before his bubble, his hands clasped behind his back, simply looking at his Leaf Fish. The creature swam in lazy circles, its leaf-scales catching the light, utterly at peace.
"Old man," Toriko called from the sidelines, "you need to start!"
Yoda did not respond. He continued to watch.
The crowd's cheers began to falter. Murmurs of confusion rippled through the stands.
"What's he doing?"
"Is he scared?"
"Maybe surface chefs really can't handle real ingredients."
On the judges' stand, Saitama leaned forward. "He's listening again."
Garou raised an eyebrow. "To the fish?"
"To the fish."
Komatsu, watching from the contestant area, suddenly understood. "The Leaf Fish has been extinct for fifteen thousand years. It doesn't know what a chef is. It doesn't know what cooking is. Mr. Yoda isn't preparing to cook it—he's introducing himself."
Indeed, Yoda's lips were moving—not in speech, but in sothing softer. A hum, perhaps. A whisper. A greeting.
The Leaf Fish stopped swimming.
Its leaf-scales rustled, and for a mont, the arena was filled with the scent of a forest after rain—clean, fresh, alive. The fish turned its head, and its eye, dark and ancient, t Yoda's.
And then, slowly, it swam to the edge of the bubble and pressed its nose against the crystalline surface.
As if waiting.
Yoda smiled. He reached out, and with a gentleness that seed almost paternal, he tapped the bubble.
It dissolved.
The Leaf Fish did not fall. It floated, suspended in the air before Yoda, its leaf-scales rustling in a rhythm that matched the old chef's heartbeat.
"Thank you," Yoda murmured. "For trusting ."
He picked up his knife—a simple, unadorned blade, nothing like Kantewinde's elaborate bone knife—and began to work.
He was slow. Deliberate. Each cut was a conversation, each slice a thank you. He did not try to impress with speed. He tried to honor.
The crowd, which had been restless monts ago, fell silent.
Because watching Yoda cook was not watching a chef at work. It was watching a prayer. A ditation. A love letter to an ingredient that had not been tasted in fifteen thousand years.
When he finished, the Leaf Fish had been transford into sothing that no longer looked like fish at all. It was a garden—a landscape of greens and golds, of leaf-scales arranged to look like trees, of flesh carved to look like rolling hills. It was a tribute to the world the Leaf Fish had once called ho.
Kantewinde, watching from his station, had stopped working. His bone knife hung limp in his hand.
"How..." he whispered. "How do you make an ingredient love you?"
Yoda looked up, his weathered face kind. "I don't make it love . I love it first."
The ST10 judges rose as one. Their masks were off now, their ancient faces wet with tears.
"We have tasted perfection," the monkey-masked judge said, his voice thick. "We have tasted speed, precision, technique. But this..." He looked at Yoda's dish. "This is not perfection. This is sacred."
The verdict was unanimous.
The first round went to the surface team.
But as Kantewinde stepped down from the balance scale, he did not look defeated. He looked... enlightened.
"I have much to learn," he said to Yoda, bowing deeply. "Will you teach ?"
Yoda laughed—a warm, genuine sound. "Young man, I have been cooking for less ti than you have been alive. But if you wish to learn what I know..." He smiled. "I would be honored."
On the judges' stand, Saitama was already reaching for a sample of Yoda's dish. "Finally. Let's see what a fifteen-thousand-year-old fish tastes like."
He took a bite.
His deadpan eyes widened.
And for the first ti since anyone could rember, Saitama's stoic expression cracked into sothing that looked almost like joy.
"It tastes like... ho," he said. "Even though I've never been there."
King, watching from his seat, smiled. The first round was over. But the true test—for Komatsu, for the surface team, for everyone—was still to co.
User Comments
0 comments from readers