The avalanche of ingredients cascaded across the arena floor, piling into mounds that reached the height of a three-story building. Each ingredient glowed with its own inner light—bioluminescent fungi, crystalline fruits that refracted light into rainbows, meats that still seemed to pulse with residual life. The sheer variety was overwhelming.
"The third round," the host announced, his voice trembling with barely contained excitement, "is a test of adaptability and creativity! Each team will select five ingredients from this collection of ancient delicacies and create a dish that represents the pinnacle of their culinary philosophy!"
The ST10 judges leaned forward, their ancient eyes gleaming. Even Don Slime's form seemed to pulse with anticipation.
Komatsu stepped forward, his Dragon Tooth Knife gleaming in the arena lights. He had been waiting for this moment—not just to compete, but to prove that surface cooking could stand alongside the ancient traditions of Blue Grill.
On the other side, the Ten Shell Five's champion for the final round stepped forward. He was tall and slender, with silver hair that floated as if underwater and a mask shaped like a deep-sea anglerfish, complete with a glowing lure.
"Luminous," the host announced. "Master of the Phantom Kitchen. It is said that his dishes can make diners see memories that are not their own."
Luminous bowed gracefully, his movements fluid as a current. "Shall we, young chef?"
Komatsu nodded, his jaw set. "Let's."
The rules were simple: each chef would select five ingredients from the pile and have one hour to create their dish. The ST10 judges would then taste both and declare a winner.
But as Komatsu approached the ingredient pile, he felt something strange. The ingredients were not silent. They were screaming.
Choose me! Choose me! I haven't been tasted in ten thousand years!
No, choose me! I was the favorite of the ancient kings!
I can make you famous! I can make you immortal!
Komatsu paused, closing his eyes. The voices were overwhelming—a cacophony of ancient desires, each ingredient begging to be selected, to be tasted, to be remembered.
"Komatsu!" Rin called from the sidelines. "Are you okay?"
He opened his eyes. "They're all talking at once. I can't... I can't hear myself think."
King, who had been watching quietly from the judges' annex, stepped forward. "Then don't think. Feel."
Komatsu looked at him.
"Close your eyes again. Don't listen to what they're saying. Listen to what they're not saying. The quiet ones. The ones who have given up hope of ever being chosen." King's voice was gentle. "They're the ones who need you most."
Komatsu closed his eyes.
The cacophony faded. The desperate pleas, the arrogant boasts, the wheedling demands—all of it melted away. And beneath it, barely audible, he heard something else.
A whisper.
Please...
He opened his eyes and walked to a corner of the ingredient pile, where a small, unassuming root lay half-buried under a heap of more glamorous ingredients. It was brown and knobby, no larger than his hand, and it gave off no light, no scent, no indication that it was anything special.
But when he picked it up, it warmed in his hand.
"You," Komatsu said. "You're the one."
He selected four other ingredients—each one quiet, each one overlooked, each one waiting—and carried them to his station.
Luminous watched with something that might have been curiosity. "Interesting choices. The Forgotten Root. The Silent Spore. The Weeping Algae. The Lonely Scale. And the..." He paused, his mask tilting. "What is that last one?"
Komatsu held up a small, translucent orb that pulsed with a faint, irregular light. "I don't know its name. But it's been waiting the longest."
Luminous was silent for a moment. Then he laughed—a soft, genuine sound. "You really can hear them, can't you? Not just their voices, but their hearts."
Komatsu shrugged. "I just listen."
The hour began.
Luminous moved like water—smooth, effortless, his knife seeming to flow from one ingredient to the next. His dish took shape quickly, a complex tapestry of flavors and textures that seemed to shift and change as he worked.
Komatsu, by contrast, was slow. Deliberate. He spoke to each ingredient as he prepared it, asking questions, listening to answers only he could hear.
The Forgotten Root wanted to be roasted until it caramelized, its natural sugars brought to the surface.
The Silent Spore wanted to be fermented, its dormant flavors awakened by time and patience.
The Weeping Algae wanted to be dried and ground into a powder, its tears transformed into seasoning.
The Lonely Scale wanted to be fried until it was crisp, its solitary nature celebrated rather than hidden.
And the unknown orb...
The unknown orb wanted to be the center. The heart. The thing that held all the others together.
Komatsu built his dish like a architect building a home—each ingredient placed with care, each flavor complementing the others, nothing wasted, nothing forgotten.
When the hour ended, both dishes were complete.
Luminous presented first: a towering structure of interlocking flavors, each bite revealing something new. The ST10 judges tasted it and nodded appreciatively.
"A masterpiece," the monkey-masked judge said. "Complex, surprising, utterly delicious."
Then it was Komatsu's turn.
He presented a simple bowl. Inside was a broth, clear as glass, with a single floating dumpling at its center.
"This is... this is all?" someone in the crowd asked.
Komatsu nodded. "This is all."
The ST10 judges were skeptical, but they raised their spoons and tasted.
The moment the broth touched their tongues, their eyes went wide.
"This taste..." the monkey-masked judge whispered. "It tastes like... like the first meal I ever had. Like my mother's cooking. Like home."
The other judges nodded, tears streaming down their ancient faces.
"How did you do this?" one of them asked. "How did you make us feel something we had forgotten?"
Komatsu smiled. "I didn't do anything. The ingredients did all the work. I just... got out of their way."
The verdict was unanimous.
The third round went to the surface team.
But as the crowd erupted in cheers, Komatsu was not celebrating. He was looking at Don Slime, who had risen from its throne.
"The final round," Don Slime announced, its voice echoing through the arena, "will be between our remaining champions. The surface team's... Komatsu. And Blue Grill's..."
It paused, its tiny eyes gleaming.
"...Me."
The arena erupted into chaos.
"Make the bald man full?" Garou's eye twitched. "Do they have any idea what they're asking?"
Saitama, oblivious to the weight of the challenge, patted his still-flat stomach. "I'm pretty hungry again. Those mammoth snacks were just an appetizer."
The ST10 judges exchanged worried glances. They had witnessed the bald man consume an entire Gluttonous Mammoth—enough to feed half of Blue Grill—in mere minutes. His stomach seemed to be a portal to another dimension.
"This is impossible," the monkey-masked judge whispered. "No chef in history has ever satisfied an appetite like that."
Don Slime's form rippled with amusement. "Impossible? Perhaps. But the Soul World does not deal in possibilities. It deals in necessity. If the surface team cannot satisfy this one judge, how will they satisfy the countless hungry spirits waiting beyond the Spirit Food Gate?"
Komatsu's team huddled together.
"We're doomed," Sunny said flatly. "Saitama has eaten enough food to sink a battleship. And he's still hungry."
Toriko rubbed his temples. "There has to be a way. He's still human—well, mostly. His stomach has limits."
"Does it?" Coco asked. "I've never seen him full. Not once."
Rin wrung her hands. "What are we going to do?"
Komatsu was silent, staring at the ingredient pile—the sea of extinct delicacies, each one pulsing with ancient flavor. Then, slowly, he began to walk toward it.
"Komatsu?" Toriko called after him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to cook," Komatsu said. "I'm going to cook until he's full. However long it takes. Whatever it costs."
He reached the ingredient pile and closed his eyes. The voices of the extinct ingredients rose to meet him—a chorus of longing, of forgotten flavors, of dreams deferred.
Choose me.
No, choose me.
I was the favorite of the ancient kings.
I was the last of my kind.
Komatsu opened his eyes. "I choose all of you."
The crowd gasped.
"You can't choose all of them," the host said. "The rules clearly state—"
"The rules say both sides must cook as many Spirit foods as possible," Komatsu interrupted, his voice steady. "It doesn't say I have to stop at five. Or ten. Or a hundred." He turned to Don Slime. "I'm going to cook until I run out of ingredients. Or until Saitama runs out of appetite. Whichever comes first."
Don Slime was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, its form began to shake—not with anger, but with laughter.
"Young chef," it said finally, "you have audacity. I like that." It waved a gelatinous hand. "Very well. No limits. Cook until you drop. Let's see how long your spirit can endure."
On the other side of the arena, Luminous had already begun his work. His Phantom Kitchen technique allowed him to cook multiple dishes simultaneously, each one a masterpiece of flavor and presentation. Plates appeared before Saitama in a steady stream—seared this, braised that, a soup that shimmered with inner light.
Saitama ate. He chewed. He swallowed.
And he kept eating.
"Not bad," he said between bites. "Got anything else?"
Luminous's mask twitched. He doubled his efforts.
Komatsu, meanwhile, had not yet begun to cook. He was still listening. The ingredients spoke to him—not in words, but in feelings. In memories. In the taste of sunlight that had not touched their leaves for millennia, in the echo of ocean currents that had long since ceased to flow.
He began to work.
His hands moved not with Luminous's speed, but with purpose. Each ingredient was handled with reverence, each dish crafted with care. He did not try to impress with technique. He tried to satisfy.
The first dish reached Saitama: a simple soup, made from the Forgotten Root and the Weeping Algae. Saitama lifted the bowl to his lips and drank.
His eyes widened.
"This... this tastes like..." He paused, searching for words. "It tastes like the first time I had a warm meal. After a long, cold night. When I was a kid."
Komatsu smiled. "That's what the Forgotten Root wanted. To remind someone of home."
He turned back to his station and began the next dish.
The minutes turned to hours. The hours turned to... something else. Time seemed to lose meaning as Komatsu cooked and cooked and cooked. His hands blistered. His back ached. His eyes grew heavy with exhaustion.
But he did not stop.
Luminous, by contrast, was slowing down. His Phantom Kitchen technique was powerful, but it was also draining. Each dish required a piece of his spirit, and Saitama's endless appetite was consuming him.
"I... I cannot..." Luminous stumbled, his mask slipping. "How... how does he keep eating?"
The crowd watched in stunned silence as Komatsu's dishes continued to arrive before Saitama—dozens, hundreds, each one simple, each one perfect, each one tasting of something the bald man had forgotten he missed.
And then, finally, impossibly...
Saitama set down his chopsticks.
"I'm... I'm full."
The arena went silent.
Don Slime rose from its throne, its form trembling. "Full? You're full?"
Saitama patted his stomach—now, for the first time, slightly rounded. "Yeah. That last dish... the dumpling. It tasted like... like the meal I always wanted but never had. The one my mom would have made, if she'd had the time." He looked at Komatsu, his deadpan eyes holding something that might have been gratitude. "Thank you."
Komatsu swayed on his feet. His hands were raw. His face was pale. But he was smiling.
"The winner," the host announced, his voice barely a whisper, "is the surface team."
The crowd erupted, but Komatsu barely heard them. He was already falling, his exhausted body finally giving out.
Toriko caught him. "Easy, partner. You did it. You won."
Komatsu's eyes fluttered. "Is... is Saitama really full?"
Toriko looked at the bald man, who was now eyeing the remaining ingredients with renewed interest. "For now," he said. "For now."
Don Slime floated down to the arena floor, its form shifting with something that might have been respect.
"Young chef," it said, "you have accomplished something I have never witnessed in over a billion years. You have satisfied an appetite that should have been insatiable." It paused. "The Spirit Food Gate will open for you. The Soul World will welcome you. And the [ANOTHER]..." It bowed its gelatinous head. "The [ANOTHER] will be honored to be tasted by such a chef."
Komatsu, barely conscious, managed a weak smile.
The third round was over. The duel was won.
But the true challenge—the journey into the Soul World, the hunt for the fish treasure—was only just beginning.