Toriko and Komatsu stood as if petrified, their faces tilted skyward, mouths agape in a perfect tableau of stunned vacancy. That was Horse King Heracles. A sovereign. A walking cataclysm. A being whose name was synonymous with the untamable apex of the Gourmet World.
And it had just been… broken in. Like a stubborn stallion in a royal stable.
"Can a human… do that?" Toriko's whisper was frayed at the edges, his pupils pinpricks of disbelief. He had Terry, a cub blessed with the Wolf King's lineage, but that was a bond forged from infancy. The idea of dominating a full-grown, conscious King in its prime was a heresy against the natural order.
Komatsu's legs simply gave out. Thud. He sat heavily on the ravaged earth. "A dream… This has to be a dream…" he mumbled, his face a masterpiece of the "Thousand-Yard Stare of Cosmic Shock." "The Horse King… tens of thousands of years old… ridden…"
The image was branded into their souls: the dark gold deity, the defiant titan, the staircase of light, the ascent. A myth written in real time.
"Oi. Earth to hungry people."
A blunt slap on Toriko's shoulder jolted him back to the cracked, trembling present. Saitama's utterly bored face filled his vision. "Weren't we here for that 'AIR' thing? My stomach's doing backflips. Let's move."
His tone was that of a man inconvenienced by a delayed bus, not someone who'd just witnessed a cosmological power shift. To Saitama, who had seen King forge and shatter stellar giants, riding a horse—even a twenty-thousand-meter-tall one—was visually interesting, but fundamentally mundane. Neighbor walks dog. King rides planet-horse. Same category.
Garou watched the last golden ripples fade in the high atmosphere, arms crossed, a scowl etched on his face. "Hmph. Show-off." The word was dripping with disdain, but it was a thin veneer over a churning ocean of pure, unadulterated envy.
Damn it, King!
Always one step ahead! Always the grand spectacle!
I need a mount. Something fiercer. Something that makes that overgrown pony look like a petting zoo attraction!
Their destination was the Hill of Late Rain, where the Food King AIR hung like a captured green sun. The environment was warped by the fruit's own exhale; the air was thick as syrup, slowing movement to a dreamlike crawl. Raindrops fell with lazy, exaggerated grace, as if time itself had been sedated.
Beneath the colossal, cloud-piercing tree, they found the others. Coco, Sunny, and Zebra had converged, their teams bearing the marks of their own harrowing journeys.
"Toriko! Komatsu! You made it!" Coco's relief was palpable as he hurried over, his preternatural senses already tingling with the residual, world-bending energy clinging to them.
"Oh ho ho~ Komatsu-kun, we've been anxiously awaiting your culinary expertise," Sunny purred, a dramatic hand tossed through his luxurious hair.
Zebra didn't bother with pleasantries. "HEY! TORIKO!" his voice boomed, shattering the thick air. "What in the seven hells was that?! The whole damn continent tried to somersault! And what was that light show in the sky?! Was that the HORSE KING?!" He jabbed a thick finger upward, his face a mask of belligerent confusion.
Toriko took a steadying breath, his expression a complex map of exhaustion, residual terror, and a strange, electrified awe. "It's… a long story. First, these are Saitama and Garou. Powerful… allies we met." The word 'ally' felt inadequate, but 'walking natural disasters' seemed impolite.
Saitama gave a casual wave. "Yo. Heard there's super expensive juice here?"
Garou ignored them all, his gaze locked on the giant fruit hanging like a low-hanging planet. Its emerald glow pulsed with a life force that made the gourmet cells in his body hum in response.
"Coco! Sunny! Zebra! You won't believe it!" Komatsu finally found his voice, exploding with manic energy. He gesticulated wildly, painting the air with his hands. "King! He tamed the Horse King! He rode it! Like a literal horse! Then he made stairs out of light and rode it into the sky!"
The three Heavenly Kings stared.
"Tamed… the Horse King?" Coco repeated slowly, as if testing the sanity of the words.
"Rode it? Stairs of light?" Sunny's flawless composure cracked, his face a picture of elegant incredulity. "Komatsu-dear, have you been sampling some… experimental mushrooms?"
"BULLSHIT!" Zebra's roar made the sluggish raindrops vibrate. "That's HERACLES! The 'Strongest on Land'! A fossil that predates human history! You're telling me someone just saddled it up and went for a joyride?! What kind of crack-addled fairy tale is this?!"
As the rider of a Daruma Giant Horse, Zebra understood the scale of the Horse King's power better than any of his fellow Heavenly Kings. He'd felt the tremors, seen the sky-rending lightshow, and assumed a battle of apocalyptic proportions was raging. But taming? That word didn't belong in the same universe as 'Heracles.'
"Tamed?" he bellowed again, the word tasting like ash. "You expect me to believe that fossil got broken in like a damn show pony?!"
"It's the truth," Toriko said, his voice low and steady, cutting through Zebra's bluster. "We witnessed it. Every impossible second of it."
The silence that followed was thick, heavier than the dense air around the AIR tree. Coco's normally serene face was pale, his poison-reading mind struggling to compute the data. Sunny's flamboyance had wilted into stunned stillness. The shared, unspoken shock between them was a tangible force.
"Enough gawking!" Garou's voice, sharp with impatience, shattered the quiet. "The clock's ticking and my stomach's screaming. Are we harvesting this oversized fruit salad or not?"
Komatsu snapped back to the present, his chef's instinct overriding the cosmic awe. He closed his eyes, his Food Luck reaching out, listening to the silent song of the ingredient before them.
"No!" he exclaimed, eyes flying open. "We can't! Not yet!"
"Why?" Saitama asked, his simple logic clashing with culinary mysticism.
"It's not ripe! Not truly ripe!" Komatsu's hands moved as if tracing the fruit's aura. "The ancient methods… they would work now, but they'd only unlock seventy percent of its potential! It would be a crime against flavor!"
Coco's brow furrowed. "The ripening window is nearly closed. We can't wait indefinitely."
"We don't have to wait long!" Komatsu's eyes shone with a fanatic's light, the conviction he'd gleaned from the ingredient itself. "For one hundred and twenty percent perfection… we must wait for the exact moment it reaches full maturity and detaches naturally from the branch! And it must be processed—perfectly—in the instant it touches the ground! That nanosecond is when its life force peaks, when its flavor transcends!"
"Process it in the instant it lands?!" Sunny flung his hands up, his hair swishing dramatically. "That's not cooking, that's madness! A physical impossibility!"
"Komatsu," Coco said, his voice gentle but firm, "even in this slowed space, the fall will be a matter of seconds. The precision required… it's beyond any chef's skill."
"I am not joking," Komatsu stated, puffing out his small chest. His voice held an unshakable certainty. "This is 'AIR's' own wish. My Food Luck heard it. If we can achieve that perfect instant… the taste will redefine 'delicious.'"
"One hundred and twenty percent…" Saitama whispered, a river of fresh drool tracing a new path down his chin. The promise was catnip to his soul.
"Enough prattling!"
Garou cut in, his irritation reaching its peak. He cracked his neck with a sound like grinding stones, his gaze sweeping over the doubting Heavenly Kings with utter contempt.
"You're all overcomplicating it. 'Can't let it fall too fast'? 'Need to control the timing'?" He scoffed. "Child's play. Leave this trivial matter to me."
Coco, Sunny, and Zebra exchanged looks of pure, unadulterated skepticism. This arrogant newcomer, this 'reinforcement,' was now claiming he could manipulate the very flow of an event? Control time itself around a Food King's harvest? It was an arrogance that bordered on delusion.
Garou ignored their doubts. He took a step forward, his focus narrowing on the gigantic, glowing fruit hanging above. A vicious, confident smile touched his lips. If King could tame a King, he, Garou, would orchestrate a miracle. And he'd do it without any flashy armor or golden stairways. Just pure, refined, absolute control.
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