The name echoed through the Eternal Kitchen like a struck bell. Even the bubbling pots seemed to pause, the sizzling flames to dim.
Toriko's fists unclenched slowly. "Frohze," he repeated, the name unfamiliar yet somehow resonating in his chest like an echo of something long forgotten.
Starjun's expression had gone unreadable, but his hands trembled almost imperceptibly at his sides. "Acacia's wife. The original God of Cooking." He paused. "Our... mother."
The word hung in the air, heavy with implications none of them were ready to process.
Rin's eyes darted between Toriko and Starjun. "Your mother? But she's been dead for—"
"Centuries," Starjun finished. "Yes."
Golden Chef Gigi nodded slowly, his ancient eyes holding depths of knowledge that seemed to stretch back to the dawn of gourmet civilization. "Frohze possessed a gift that no chef before or since has matched. She could hear the voice of ingredients—not as Komatsu hears them, with empathy and understanding, but as a conductor hears an orchestra. She could direct them, harmonize them, bring out flavors that existed only in potential."
Komatsu stepped forward, his face pale but determined. "The recipe I found in the Gourmet Pyramid... it talked about a 'pure heart' being the key to cooking [GOD] without sacrifice. Was that Frohze?"
"Indeed." Gigi gestured to the chained beggars, the guards, the soul flames licking at the cauldron. "The Blue Nitro, in their arrogance, believed that 'pure heart' meant a heart free of guilt, of fear, of doubt. They sought to create such hearts through suffering, through sacrifice—hence this... abomination."
Zebra's fists crackled with suppressed sound waves. "And you just went along with it? For centuries?"
"I went along with nothing." Gigi's voice sharpened. "This kitchen existed long before I arrived. I have merely... maintained it. Kept it from causing greater harm. And I have searched for another way."
Toriko looked at the beggars, at their hollow eyes and emaciated frames. "What happened to them? Why are they here?"
"Debt. Exile. Theft. In Blue Grill, as in many civilizations, the desperate are easily disappeared." Gigi's voice was heavy with old sorrow. "Don Slime has been preoccupied with Ichiryu's revival for so long that he has neglected the shadows of his own kingdom. I have done what I could to mitigate, but..." He spread his hands. "I am one chef. This kitchen is vast."
Starjun moved suddenly, his blade flashing. Chains fell from the wrists of the nearest beggars, who scrambled back with cries of fear and relief.
"No more," Starjun said, his voice low and dangerous. "This ends now."
The guards shifted uneasily, but Gigi raised a hand to stay them. "Stand down. The young master speaks with authority."
"Young master?" Sunny's eyebrow rose.
Gigi's gaze rested on Starjun, then Toriko. "They are Frohze's sons. In Blue Grill, that means something."
Toriko and Starjun exchanged a glance—brief, uncomfortable, but something flickered between them. Not quite understanding, not quite acceptance, but a thread of connection that hadn't been there before.
Komatsu, meanwhile, had approached the cauldron. The soul flames leaped at him hungrily, but he didn't flinch. He simply... looked. Listened.
"The [GOD] in here," he said slowly, "it's scared. It's been cooked for so long, fed by so much suffering, that it's forgotten what it's supposed to taste like."
Gigi's eyes widened. "You can hear it? Even through the soul flames?"
"I can hear everything." Komatsu turned to face them, and there was something different in his expression—older, wiser, touched by the weight of what he was perceiving. "The ingredients in this kitchen... they're not just regenerated scraps. They're echoes. Memories of the real ingredients. They remember what it was like to be whole, and they're hungry for that feeling again."
Saitama, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke. "So make them whole again. That's what you do, isn't it? You listen to food and make it happy."
Komatsu blinked, then laughed—a surprised, genuine sound that broke the tension. "When you put it that way, it sounds so simple."
"It is simple." Saitama shrugged. "People just like making things complicated."
Garou snorted. "Says the man who punched a meteor."
"It was a very big meteor."
The tension in the kitchen eased. Even some of the beggars cracked weak smiles.
Toriko approached the cauldron, standing beside Komatsu. "What do you need to fix this? Truly fix it, not just... patch it?"
Komatsu closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses. The kitchen pulsed around him—the ingredients, the flames, the long history of cooking and suffering and hope. And beneath it all, a faint golden thread, connecting this place to something greater.
"I need to talk to Frohze," he said. "She's the only one who really understood how to cook [GOD]. If I can learn from her, even a little..."
Starjun's jaw tightened. "She's dead. Has been for centuries."
"She's here." Komatsu opened his eyes. "In the Soul World. I saw her. At the Spirit Food Gate."
Starjun and Toriko exchanged another glance—this one charged with something neither was ready to name.
"Then we find her," Toriko said. "We ask her. And we find a better way."
On the cliff above, hidden from mortal eyes, Frohze watched her sons with tears streaming down her translucent cheeks.
"They're good boys," King said quietly beside her. "They get it from their mother."
Frohze couldn't speak. She could only watch as Komatsu began to reorganize the kitchen, as Toriko and Starjun freed the rest of the chained beggars, as Zebra and Sunny argued about the proper way to dismantle the soul flame mechanism without destroying the cauldron.
"She's right about one thing," King continued. "This kitchen is an abomination. But it doesn't have to stay that way."
Frohze finally found her voice. "What do you want me to do?"
"Teach them. All of them. Not just Komatsu—Toriko, Starjun, the others. Show them that cooking doesn't have to be built on suffering." He paused. "And while you're at it, talk to Ichiryu. He's been hiding in the depths of the Soul World for too long. It's time he came home."
Frohze wiped her tears, her form steadying. "And if he won't listen?"
King's smile was sharp. "Then we make him listen."
Below, the kitchen was transforming. The soul flames dimmed, no longer fed by fresh victims. The cauldron's temperature dropped, and for the first time in centuries, the Eternal Kitchen smelled not of suffering, but of hope.
The feast wasn't ready yet. But it was coming.
And nothing—not Acacia, not the Blue Nitro, not even the hunger that devoured stars—was going to stop it.
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