Izuku the Reincarnated Chef By: (JoySeeker101)

by Copierpasta

Seen that nobody looks brave enough to help Izuku, may it be because he is Quirkless or because he wounded the frail EGo of an influential Chef, our Green-haired Hero is coming short of ideas, luckily helps does come from a bit farther than anticipated...WAY farther. THIS STORY IS NOT MINE

31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Battle by the sea Arc part 2: Naval counteroffensive.

UA – Support Course Labs – Mei Hatsume's cubicle -

Rumi was sitting in front of Hatsume's small lab table, waiting for the young genius to finish tinkering with a bright-pink gadget fairly phallic in shape; sparks were flying everywhere while the inventor finished giving the thing the last touches with the welder.

"So?" Rumi asked.

"Done! As promised, here is my answer to your need of surpassing Momo to fulfill your secretly-fragile ego and overblown need to be the best in everything!" Mei declared in answer while brandishing the modified adult toy like some sort of ultimate all-powerful holy sword.

"Gimme that!" Rumi snatched the thing away while blushing. "And I don't have a fragile Ego and all that bullcrap! I just love to be the best!"

"If you say so, bunny wonder." Mei answered, shrugging.

"Hey! Don't psychoanalyze me!"

"Fine, I won't. So? Do you want to try it?" Mei answered, uncaring.

"Yes! How does it work?" Rumi asked.

"Simple, first you shove my baby down your-"

"Jeez, bit more romantic?" Rumi, face red, said with an unnerved tone.

Sigh! "Delicately push the controller past your Lady Garden Entrance, then start contracting and lovingly squeeze it with your Womanly Velvet folds. The computer will do the rest." Mei said with a sarcastic tone while rolling her eyes.

"You are even less feminine than a brick… Ouch! It's cold!" Rumi said, wincing once inserted the thing… There.

"It's made of metal, what did you expect? Be thankful we waited before you used it, I was blasting it with a blowtorch, better slightly cold than red-hot." Mei answered, shaking her head and connecting several cables to the part of her invention that remained outside of Rumi's body so to link her creation to a computer screen.

"Yes, yes. Whatever. What now?" Rumi asked.

"See this little red circle? That controller you have inserted there will translate the squeezing and release of your vaginal muscles into commands. Try to make the circle move from left to right." Mei instructed, moving the screen so that Rumi could see better.

"Okay… Here comes nothing…" Rumi groaned, using her private parts' muscles to squeeze the adult toy in various different manners, but the circle didn't move an inch, it only shivered in place.

"This is… Harder than it looked…" She said.

"Ah-ha! That's what she said!" Mei said, grinning.

"You really could not help yourself, hn?!" Rumi said, disappointed.

"I am the great Mei, I take every occasion as a I don't believe in 'low hanging fruit' nonsense!" The other answered, chuckling.

"And this will help me getting ahead?"

"It's a good way to see if you are actually getting better at manipulating your crotch muscles. You want to drive your boyfriend mad in pleasure when you will finally sleep together, right? If you can learn to control and manipulate your innards muscle spasms to the smallest degree, he will definitely love it." Mei answered, shrugging.

"Manipulate your innards… You really are the farthest thing from romance and passion, hn?" Rumi said, shaking her head.

"I just don't believe in flowery language. My partner doesn't mind. And you are making some ugly facial expression, that could kill the mood too." She answered.

"Good for you two… AH-hA! I am getting the hang of it! And my facial expressions are not silly!" Rumi said, before smirking in triumph once managed to move the circle to the side of a whole centimeter.

"That's a fairly pathetic result." Mei commented, killing the other girl's smile.

"Shut-up! It is still progress!" Rumi answered.

"Very, very, very small progress."

"Whatever! How did you even come up with this idea?" Rumi answered, grumbling.

"I didn't. I just built a copy of the same Gadget that Yaoyozu girl asked me for."

"Yaoyorozu. WAIT! SHE HAS ONE?!" Rumi shrieked with wide eyes.

"Yes, she asked me to create this just last week. She is making very good progresses."

"WHAT?!"

"Can you not scream? You are distracting." Momo actually answered from the cubicle next to Mei's.

"You are here too?!" Rumi yelled, marching towards Momo and dragging behind herself the computer screen she was connected to.

"CAREFUL!" Mei yelled in horror, barely catching the falling screen and disconnecting it from Rumi's 'controller'.

"Hello, Rumi." Momo, narrowed eyes glued to her own screen, said with a nonchalant tone.

"How far have you gone!? You are already moving that fucking circle?" Rumi demanded.

"Circle?" Momo asked, confused, and moving the screen so to let Rumi see what she was doing.

"I am just now finishing my 'Soul Level 1 no armor, no weapons, no spells, no shields, no rings, no hit, no roll' Run of Dark Souls." Momo answered.

"You…"

"The original from 2011. not the remake. DLCs included. Next one will be Sekiro." She added, giving the finish punch to Gwyn without even looking at the screen.

Plop!

Rumi's own controller slipped out of her to clatter on the floor, just like her mouth hanged open in shock.

Meanwhile – Yavin Street – Green Cloud Restaurant -

A more serious talk was taking place in a corner of the Restaurant between Izuku, Detective Tsukauchi and Toshinori, the two men were sitting at a table watching the young Chef press the play button on a small recorder before setting in down.

Immediately a recording of the talk between Jun Sato and her grandfather Gouki went reproduced at a low volume so that only the Detective and Pro Hero could hear it:

"I had planned for the Li Twins to defeat Midoriya, then Chen would have stepped-in to kill the boy making it look like he had chosen suicide out of shame from his defeat… BUT THOSE MORONS HAD TO LOSE!" The old man explained with a shriek.

"Not only those two dumb sacks of shit had to lose their Cooking Challenge against Midoriya, they had also tried to poison him with Tetrodotoxin in revenge! After I specifically told them to not kill him! Chen had apparently visited them for some reason… Maybe to remind them Midoriya was HIS TARGET, and got himself poisoned! He stole the poisoned soup for some sort of show of Dominance or similar bullshit… And he died when the poison paralyzed him fast enough he slipped down the stairs and broke his neck and died! THOSE MORONS KILLED MY KILLER!" Gouki said, upturning a table nearby in blind fury.

"Where are the Twins now?" Jun asked.

"They were making a run for it, obviously! They told me all this before destroying the phone and going into hiding! But considering I just saw the news and saw the footage of their arrest, their "Daring Escape" amounted to fucking nothing! Useless bastards to the very end!" He answered, huffing still from his bout of anger.

"Are we in trouble?"

"Not yet, I used several burner phones to keep in touch and a fake name. Even if they talk the police won't have anything linking them to us."

"And Chen?"

"Same thing, his Secretary… Because apparently a professional Assassin as a Secretary and a full Team of assistants, for some unfathomable reason, contacted me to say that they will keep the money I already given them and to consider contacting them again once they find a new Killer to work under… I am getting at the end of my patience here." Gouki answered.

"So nobody knows we tried killing Midoriya?" Jun asked.

"Nobody. And I plan to keep tings like that forever." The old man answered.

The recording stopped there, Izuku just gave a sigh and rubbed his temples.

"I think you understand why I begged you two to meet me this morning, I found this damn thing taped to the door of my Restaurant and as soon as I heard it I knew this was trouble." He said, groaning.

"For God's sake! I just want to manage my Restaurant! Leave me alone!" He also thought in misery.

"This is a damn damning evidence." Toshinori commented, frowning.

"And one that probably can't be used in court either! It was taken without a Police Force official Investigation permit, but through unauthorized spying. Even if Gouki and Jun Sato literally spell-out that they wanted you dead and admitted how they planned to do it… I am not sure it would be acceptable in court, a good lawyer could counter this and paint it as counterfeit. And they have enough money to get one of those Good Lawyers." Tsukauchi added.

"And you believe it's real, instead?" Izuku asked.

"I may be unable to tell if people are lying through a recording… Or even tell when YOU are lying." He said with narrowed eyes, unfortunately getting no reaction from Izuku, "But the confession kind of fit in the holes in the Twins and Chen's case regarding the timing of their visiting you and Chen's death and true identity. And personally, I like to think you are not the sort of guy to fall into this form of forgery just to remove an enemy."

"An Enemy?"

"Jun Sato was part of the judges in the Cooking Competition you took part to, wasn't she?" Tsukauchi asked.

"… You know that?"

"Jun Sato, Ren Watanabe, Matoi Hidetaka, Yamato Kurogawa, Samui Arasaka. You already had to deal with 3 of them, and now Jun has joined the fold as yet another world-famous Chef trying to attack you. Had I not seen the pattern connecting them all, I would have had to return my badge and change profession." The Detective answered.

"I see."

"Ryukyu as well has started digging through the fake reports of contraband. Some of her sources are suggesting that a big name in the world of contraband and counterfeits has you in their sight, and with this tape being delivered to you… She is starting to think that a this mysterious person wants to use you to remove the Sato Family Shipping company from the equation." Toshinori said, ignoring Tsukauchi's glare.

"Hn?" Izuku uttered, confused.

Sigh! "There is an investigation that has been going on for years, we have been trying to keep tabs on both the Sato Shipping Company and the Cruise Company they have joined with through various marriages. Their meteoric rise in capital has always looked too 'Perfect', too sudden, to not raise suspicious, along few minor discrepancies and other small details not adding up we managed to collect through the years… And while nothing concrete has ever been found, if you add many tiny details on top of each other, Coincidences can turn into proofs." Tsukauchi explained.

"And this recording can help?" Izuku asked.

"While probably not usable in court, it still gives us a new trail to follow, because even just to show this was doctored, we will need to dig a bit deeper than usual in Sato's affairs just to prove it's a fake. And digging deep enough could make few hidden skeletons pop-out, and prove once and for all if the Sato family does really have a side-business about contraband or not."

"I am not a policeman, so I will leave this mess to you. You know how to act in this sort of situations, I am more at ease in the kitchen." Izuku answered, shrugging.

"Thank you." Tsukauchi answered, pocketing the recorder.

"You don't plan to go against Jun Sato, right?" Toshinori asked, worried,

"Letting Whitey… Or Shiro or Blackie, beat the crap out of them would be assault, so in the end I would make them a favour instead of damaging them."

"Yes, but certain beatings may not be worth it." Toshinori and Tsukauchi unknowingly thought the same thing while eyeing the chubby robot, the harmless-looking Weapon of mass destruction (To quote Gran Torino) wrapped around Izuku's neck and at the 'Monster pretending to be a Dog' sleeping just outside the door.

"Please don't, especially those two pets of yours." All Might said, clearing his throat.

"It's just a Dog and a Fennec Fox, not two walking Nukes!" Izuku said, chuckling.

"Sure!" Both men thought in sarcasm.

"What's important is that you keep your distance from Jun Sato until we are sure they really are actually not planning to kill you." Tsukauchi said.

"…" Finally the young Chef looked sheepish at the Detective's words.

"MIDORIYA!" Both men yelled.

"I just want a cooking Challenge, okay? I know it won't stop them, we are not in a Manga where things can be fixed in a cooking duel, card duel or similar stuff… But if they really don't like me I want them to put their money where their mouth is in a field where I can actually defend myself!" Izuku said with a red face.

It was one of the things he missed of his life as Zaus: resolving issues by either Cooking Challenges or beating the crap out of each other.

"If they really tried to pay assassins to kill you and tried to frame you for contraband, maybe you should consider the idea that they already know they can't match you in cooking skills." Toshinori tried saying, groaning.

"Probably, but I still want to face Jun, it's a matter of Chef Pride. It's my way to fight Villains… Please understand." He answered with a sigh.

"Goddamnit, you don't expect me to let you go there alone?! A lawyer may convince a judge this was a fake, but I still don't want you to meet somebody that openly wants you dead!" Tsukauchi asked.

"I am very well protected." Izuku answered.

"Private bodyguards don't count!" The other countered.

"So what? Do you expect me to go to a Pro Hero and say 'Hey! I need you to act as my bodyguard tomorrow evening, can you help me?'" Izuku asked, rolling his eyes and asking that aloud with a sarcastic tone.

"I can do that, no problem." Mt. Lady answered, shrugging.

"Oh! I do have a couple hours free, sure." Best Jeanist echoed.

"When do we depart?" Tensei Iida, finally back working as Pro Hero, added.

"Count on us, Boss Icchan!" Mandalay, together with the other Wild, Wild Pussycats, said with a thumbs-up.

"Ready whenever you want, Kid!" Centipeder and Bubble Girl said in chorus.

And unseen by the Heroes present, several Vigilantes sent Izuku's a discreet thumbs-up.

"…" The three just looked at all those Pro Heroes awkwardly.

"Very professional… Bribed with food…" Toshinori muttered with a groan and a defeated facepalm.

"I was joking…" Izuku muttered.

"They aren't, surprisingly." Tsukauchi answered with a dry tone.

"Yeah."

"Still, a Pro Hero on the scene would make me feel more at ease. So, if you really need to Challenge Jun Sato, having one accompany you would be better, at least if things go south, in the worst case, there will be somebody legally permitted to take action and protect you with the lesser amount of issues following the act."

"Why?"

"Gouki Sato seems to have a very short temper, and by the recording, he is so desperate to see you gone to risk his good name to hire assassins to kill you. My hope is that if you actually do the impossible and win against Jun-"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence in my skills." Izuku said, frowning.

"Just being realist, Midoriya. As I was saying, IF you actually win, it may anger Gouki enough to hire a second assassin, only this time we will follow his every move closely and arrest him as soon as he tries to hire a new one. Hopefully that would give us a good enough opening to finally have the right to pull his life inside-out to look for other crimes we think he committed but could not confirm." Tsukauchi finished saying.

"So… I am bait?"

"Pretty much. It's the best case scenario, but it would finally close a case going on for more than a decade."

"If the Sato family is actually behind that."

"Goes without saying, yes."

"And who am I supposed to ask?" Izuku asked, sighing tiredly.

"I'll do it."

"…" A tense silence fell in the Restaurant.

"You sure, Endeavor?" Toshinori asked, his bushy eyebrows rising high.

"I owe the kid one, may as well pay him back." Enji answered with a savage smirk.

"You do?" Izuku asked, confused.

"Personal matters, but yes." Endeavor answered while still smiling, still remembering fondly his 'Mother' getting the poke of death from the young Chef and very likely spending most of her lovely vacation with her new husband closed in her bathroom while crapping her soul out as a result.

"I don't think I want to know." Toshinori and Izuku said at the same time.

"I will bring Shoto along, he needs to learn how to act on the field instead of sitting all day on his ass in school." Enji added.

"His class had faced far too many Villains already, he had very little time to sit on his ass as you say." Tsukauchi commented.

"Pfeh! That is up to me to decide." Enji answered, growling.

Izuku looked at him with a raised eyebrow and lifted a finger.

"Tch." Endeavor scoffed and looked away, he also kept Toshinori between him and Izuku… By coincidence, of course.

"I feel like there is a history between you and that finger, Enji." Toshinori muttered.

"Shut up." Endeavor hissed.

"So I can't talk you out of this foolishness?" The Detective asked, groaning.

"Considering I was told straight up by both The System and Adelia that Jun and her grandfather are the ones behind the Twins and Chen's visit even before I got that recording? Not at all." Izuku thought, and only gave a sigh as an answer.

"No. I need to do this, court may not believe that recording or whatever, but I do. They want me dead and I want to look at them in the eyes and see for myself how much they actually hate me."

"… This is just stupid…" The man groaned in disbelief.

"Mister Naomasa, I called you to deliver the recording to you, not to ask you permission. At best, I notified you of my future actions. Me challenging Jun Sato is not illegal." Izuku said.

"…" Tsukauchi just rubbed his temples.

"Keep the boy out of trouble, please." He finally said with a grunt.

"Do you take me for a weakling? I know how to do my job." Endeavor answered, frowning.

"Fine. But at the first sign of trouble, you will leave the scene and let the Professionals handle things." Toshinori said.

"Of course." Izuku answered.

"Good. I say we leave for now, we will let you work in peace." Tsukauchi declared, getting up from the table and paying part of his bill.

"Just be careful, young Midoriya." Toshinori added, and paying his own half of the bill.

"I am always careful, and thank you for accepting my request." Izuku answered, waving the two men goodbye.

"So? When do you plan to visit that guy then?" Enji asked, scoffing.

"Tomorrow at lunch hour. I will reach their cruise ship in a… Different manner." Izuku answered, sheepish.

"Making an entrance now?" Endeavor asked with a raised eyebrow.

"… I am told that it is necessary when being the one on the offensive." He answered, blushing.

"That American woman is a bad influence. Whatever, me and Shoto will be on the cruise ship waiting for you. Do not be late." Enji said, walking away.

"I am never late, Mister Enji. I always arrive when necessary." Izuku answered, smirking cheekily.

The man just gave an annoyed grunt and left the Restaurant.

"Himiko?" Izukui asked.

"Yes?"

"I got another appointment at Green Gourmet Garden, please hold the fort and let me know if something happens that needs my immediate presence. I'll leave the dishes for the tables on the kitchen window for you to deliver."

"Sure! No problem!" Himiko answered with a wide smile.

"Thanks."

At the opposite side of the city – Green Gourmet Garden Restaurant -

Once surfaced from the special door connecting his two Restaurants, Izuku was met with Adelia already waiting for him.

"Did she arrive?" He asked.

"Miss Kaina arrived just few minutes ago. She is already waiting for you in your office." The Powerful Witch answered, falling in step behind him to follow Izuku to his office in the luxurious Restaurant.

"I wish she had told me she was the infamous Lady Nagant during one of her visits." Izuku admitted, sighing.

"I don't think that there is a truly good way to insert in a friendly chat that you are secretly a Killer for Hire, Izuku." Adelia answered.

"Sadly true. How's she?"

"Goro is keeping an eye on her, mostly to satisfy his Paranoia about keeping you safe, but she is extremely cooperating, so it's just for manner's sake that he and Sui are watching her every move."

"I wonder why she insisted so much in meeting me." The young Chef wondered.

"She doesn't know of your powers or of your Sponsor's powers. So me and Goro too have no clue about what she wants." Adelia admitted, opening for him the door to the spacious office.

"Hello." Kaina said with a small smile as soon as their eyes met.

"Good morning, how do you feel?" Izuku asked, sitting at his small desk.

"I am doing okay. Took me a bit to escape Stain too… But I got better." Kaina answered, sighing.

"Stain?"

"He was not very happy to hear that I got paid to kill you-"

"HN?!" Goro was immediately behind Izuku, feral snarl on his face and tail raised high.

"Paid by whom?" Izuku asked.

"The Hero Safety Commission and the League of Villains." She answered immediately.

"Not very professional to tell us." Adelia answered.

"I can understand the League, since we got in their way a couple times… But a branch of the Japanese Government?" Izuku asked, worried.

"They are far, far from being saints, Izuku. Some days they make me wonder who are the actual Villains." Kaina admitted.

"And of course nobody knows because they are part of our very Government."

"Indeed."

"That is the last thing I needed, more people targeting me… Why even?"

"Your pets and Whitey. They are also curious about you." She answered.

"Me? But I-"

"I know it was you to cut that mountain, Izuku. Stain loves that story, unfortunately."

"… Ah… You and they know about that… Of course…" Izuku muttered, grimacing.

"Stain wanted to kill me since, in his eyes, I was a threat to one of the 'Good Heroes' still around." Kaina said with a weak smile.

"I am not… Okay, let's ignore for a bit how a mass-murderer likes me."

"He doesn't kill anymore, he just cripples. He said that he doesn't want to risk murdering your customers." Kaina corrected him.

"Uh?!" The others gurgled-out.

"Two pigeons with one stone! They stop being Fake Heroes and the Boy still has customers, everybody wins." The woman said with a very bad impression of Stain.

"Oh, for the love of God…" Adelia muttered, face-palming.

"And why are you even here?" Izuku asked, he was covering his face with both hands and already wishing the day to be over. And it wasn't even noon yet.

"I need your help to escape Stain, League and Commission… Please?" Kaina asked with an even more forced smile.

"WHY!? I just want to manage my Restaurant!" Izuku asked, horrified.

"How do you expect us to help you?" Goro asked, growling.

"This place and the other Restaurant have been rather hard to infiltrate," She answered.

She wanted to say 'I could not force my way in no matter how hard I tried.', but she feared that saying it, even just as a compliment to his fortress-like security, would have not helped her case.

"So, since both stores are fairly well-protected I wondered if I could crash here for a bit!… Like… A long bit..."

"…"

"I can pay my stay by working as a waitress?" Once the silence prolonged for more than two minutes, Kaina decided to add more to the plate to buy her safety.

"So this has nothing to do with the Dead-Man Switch that has been implanted in you, yes?" Adelia asked.

"… My what?" Kaina asked with a faint voice.

"Someone implanted in you a Kill Switch. At any moment they can instantly kill you." The Witch answered.

"SINCE WHEN?!" Kaina shrieked.

"That is something I can't tell for sure, it's been a while though."

"The League…" Lady Nagant muttered, and for an instant bile filled her mouth in horror.

"Can we remove it?" Izuku asked to both Adelia and The System.

"Yes." Both answered at the same time.

"Thank you, what do you want in exchange?"

"You tell me. What do you want?" Izuku asked.

"From you?"

"From Life."

"I used to think I was beyond redemption, that I deserved to die for all I did in the past. After seeing the Dark Side of Society and the Hero system… But the moment Stain started interrogating me and showed me how ready he was to dismember me… I found a small part of me clinging to life, screaming against the biggest part of my soul saying that it was what I deserved… When I escaped that psychotic moron, I found myself happy to be alive. Something I hadn't felt in a long time." She said.

"It happens." Goro said.

"Uh?"

"Sometimes we wish for death, for the liberation from suffering that dying can gives us. And yet when we are actually in a situation where we are about to die, we still grasp at any shred of hope to survive. I was in the same situation, I used to be a slave and wished for death almost daily, then one day, during a fight, I was about to be killed and instead of embracing it with elation I fought harder than I ever did and won. I survived even when that freedom, that death, was literally in my grasp." The Lizardman explained.

"What made you do that?" Kaina asked.

"I realized I wanted my life to change, not for it to be over." Goro answered with a sad chuckle.

"When you want to die, throw yourself into the sea and you'll see yourself fighting to survive. You don't want to kill yourself, rather you want to kill something inside you." Izuku said.

"Feeling philosophical?" Kaina asked, chuckling.

"Quoting a movie actually." he answered, smiling.

"I still don't believe I deserve redemption, but I want to leave behind all the killing and the fighting and just Live. Quietly, Peacefully, Forgotten. Nobody knows the real face of Lady Nagant, so I just want to spend the rest of my days as Kaina." She admitted, sighing.

"…" Everybody present watched Izuku lean back in his seat and just look at the ceiling with an unreadable expression on his face, humming from time to time.

"Let him, I guess he is lost in thought." Adelia said.

"Can you remove that Kill Switch?"

"Doable, not the hardest thing I ever did."

"Once removed, what will you do?" Goro asked.

"I would prefer to not leave Japan, but I don't think I have any choice, in all fairness I can't pile my own problem on your own, Commission and League already have their sight on you without my defection adding to it." Kaina answered, groaning.

"They are already considering me a target. May as well get a good deed out of it." Izuku answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Come working for me." He said, bluntly.

"You need an assassin? For what? I already told you-"

"I mean as a Staff Member. As a Chef in a future third Store I plan to open." Izuku interrupted her, smirking.

"… What?" She said.

"Either an Izakaya or a Candy Store, I still can't decided which one to open first… And I want you to work there for me." Izuku said, smirking.

"WHAT?!" Kaina screeched in shock.

"You heard me! Do you want protection from the League and the Commission?"

"And that Bomb thing removed." Goro added from his corner.

"And that too? Then in exchange I want you to live that normal life you talked about, out in the sun, instead of in the shadows. A life with a normal, honest job and no more killing and despair." Izuku said, smirking.

"… I am a Killer…"

"Do you want redemption or at least to try become worthy of it?"

"… Yes." She admitted.

"Just consider my offer, please. We will remove that Kill Switch thing, then you will be free to accept or refuse my job offer when the time comes that I open the new Store." Izuku said.

"You will remove it even if I refuse?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I? I want to help you, not own you." Izuku answered, looking honestly confused.

"Huhuhu. Aren't you a nice kid?" Kaina said with a fond smile.

"I heard that… A couple of times." Izuku answered, looking flustered.

"Is it okay with you?" The young Chef mentally asked.

"At this point in time Host Izuku has complete freedom when it comes to hiring Staff. The woman called Kaina has an Aptitude Score of 60% only, though. So The System suggest to only add her as Staff of smaller projects, like the Candy Store or Izakaya Restaurant. For any other bigger project, The System would like to suggest staff with a higher score."

"I'll remember that. Thank you. If she accepts I will start her training immediately." Izuku answered, pleased.

"Can I think about it?" Kaina, still surprised, asked.

"Sure. Take all the time you need, in the meantime we will remove that metaphorical bomb inside you. Feel free to stay here all you need…" Izuku said.

"Yes, me and Goro can share a room for the time being, Izuku." Adelia said, rolling her eyes in answer at his begging look.

"Thank you." Kaina muttered, looking down and releasing a long sigh.

"Come with me, I'll organize everything immediately and take away that little thing from inside you." Adelia said.

"Okay."

"… She can be a great asset, Master." Goro said, thoughtful, once the two women left the office.

"I don't want an asset, Goro-kun. I want a good friend and a good Staff Member." Izuku answered, smiling.

"Well said, Izuku." The Lizardman answered, returning the smile with one of his own.

The next day – Cruise ship 'Queen of the Sea' – Jun's Restaurant -

Gouki and Jun were looking at the sea, leaning against the ornate railings of one of the outside corridors connecting the Restaurant to one of the many decks of the ship, both looked troubled, and Gouki especially had a very deep frown fixed on his face.

"Something wrong, grandfather?" Jun asked.

"Ever since this morning I felt a chill deep in my bones, a sense of foreboding I haven't felt in a while." He answered, grimacing.

"Storm incoming?" Jun joked.

"Yes, and I hope it's just bad weather…" He answered with a serious tone, killing her joke.

"You are being serious?" She asked.

"Yes. Let those other brats manage the place, have a walk with me… I need a friendly face." Gouki asked, walking towards one of the decks with Jun latched to one of his arms.

"You okay? Do you want me to ask the doctor here to visit you?" Jun asked, worried.

"Already visited the fool, everything is perfectly normal, but ever since that Pro Hero demanded to board the ship, I have felt observed by something."

"Something?"

"Big, malevolent eyes. I don't like this bad feeling, Jun. I don't like it at all." Gouki answered, and his skin kept turning faintly scaled and back to normal at random intervals thanks to his nerves triggering his Quirk partially.

"Endeavor coming here out of the blue… That smells fishy, yes." Jun admitted.

In the meantime both Chef and her grandfather had reached the biggest deck of the ship, at the very front of the ship and filled in tables full of people enjoying the warm sun, their expensive cocktails and a small orchestra of six master musicians adding an air of levity and peace to the place with some soft music; Endeavor and Shoto were standing on a side wearing their respective Hero Costumes, they weren't even looking at each other while Enji kept looking at his watch from time to time.

"I really don't like this. Whatever 'This' is." Gouki muttered, snarling.

"He is ready…" They faintly heard Enji say to Shoto once checked his phone for message.

"He?" Jun and Gouki muttered in chorus.

Another man nearby got a similar message from a certain Information Broker, and with a smirk the spy acting as waiter discreetly neared the small orchestra and handed to those men a small roll of bills and whispered a particular request to them before walking back.

Immediately the orchestra switched tone to play a very tense, dramatic music piece.

"What the hell are they playing now?!" Gouki yelled in anger.

"It's a 4/4 Ostinato in D Minor! Every sailor knows it means death! You should know that too, Gouki!" The spy said to himself with a chuckle, pleased to see his small act of improvisation had the effects he expected.

Soon after the orchestra started playing, a giant yacht boldly came close to the cruising ship as if ready to board it like ancient pirates used to do, the golden name of the thing 'Goddess Rei-chan' shone brightly under the light of the sun, and standing proud on the very front of it, Izuku looked forward with a pleased smile.

"Ooh, Jun!" Izuku said with an overly-cheerful voice once a smirking Saito and Rei handed him a megaphone.

"… Please tell me it's just The Devil coming to punish me for my sins or something…" Jun muttered with a groan.

"It's me! Izuku Midoriya! Come out to play!" The young Chef said, smirking wide.

"I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THE DEVIL!" Jun yelled in dismay.

"I am here to formally challenge you to a cooking duel! If you have any honor as a Chef, you know what you must do!"

"A Challenge!"

"Oh, my God!"

"So bold! Like in a movie!"

The people present on the bridge immediately started whispering between each other in great excitement, looking expectantly at Jun with baited breath.

"Do you think he knows?" She hissed to her grandfather.

"About the Killer and the Twins? He doesn't, and even should he know, he can't prove a thing!" Gouki answered.

"You and your little friends want me to close my Restaurants? Then you better do the dirty deed yourself instead of Delegating." Izuku said through the megaphone, and the tone he said "Delegating" sent a clear message to the duo of Chef and Grandfather.

"He knows!" Both growled-out in chorus.

"He can't prove a thing…" Gouki repeated.

"But he knows." Jun countered.

"You have no choice, Jun! I won't leave unless you accept!" Izuku said, smirking.

"Let's get this over with." Jun said, eyes narrowed.

"JUN!" Gouki yelled.

"Let him get on the ship, after the Challenge we will stage an Accident and remove him. My restaurant fridge is pretty spacious." Jun said.

"… Very well, once night falls we will then drop his corpse into the ocean and play dumb when they will come looking for him. As for that fool accompanying him, we'll just tell him that as a peace offering we will let the brat have a short cruise for free, so he will leave him to us." Gouki added.

"Good idea." Jun answered, smiling evilly.

With Izuku – Yayorozu Family's Yacht -

Standing calmly on the very front of the giant yacht, Izuku watched Jun and Gouki talk among themselves.

"… Got everything?" Izuku asked.

"Recorded everything. God, they really hate you." A Police Officer hiding inside the yacht answered, the man had both his super hearing Quirk and special microphones pointed at the ship and managed to record the talk between Jun and Gouki.

"Stuffing your dead body into a refrigerator and then dropping it into the ocean! Preposterous!" Saito yelled in fury.

"Thank God my mother is not here, she would have had a stroke at hearing that." Izuku admitted, sighing.

"I-Island drones recorded everything as well, video and audio! They will have to get through me before hurting you, Icchan!" Hisashi said in blind fury, he was connected to Saito's laptop through video-call.

"Luckily you people don't have an orbital laser cannon, or I would get worried!" Izuku answered, laughing.

"…"

"You know what? I don't want to know." He then said once seen his father turn sheepish.

"I am already transmitting both recording and my official report on this to the HQ, they can squirm all they want in court, but the proof against them are piling up more and more." The Police Officer added, frowning.

"Perfect! Now I only need her to accept my Challenge!" Izuku answered, pleased.

"I can't believe you still want to go through with this." Saito said.

"Chef pride! I can't help it!" Izuku answered, laughing.

"Fine! You can have your Challenge, boy! We will let you dock and-" Jun yelled back to be heard, unaware that everything she and her Grandfather had said had been already recorded.

"No need! I'll just run there!" Izuku answered, jumping overboard… And standing on the water.

"How?!" Whoever watched, either on the yacht or on the cruise ship, yelled.

"Easy! I just lift my feet before they can break the water's surface tension!" The young Chef explained, and if somebody looked closely enough, they would see Izuku's feet being highly blurry and faint water splashes happen under him.

"That's not how Laws of Physics work!" Hisashi screeched.

"Not with that attitude!" He answered with a cheeky smile, and then ran towards the cruise ship kicking up a tall tail of water.

"If only you knew how many High Level Chefs can do this back in the Gourmet world!" Izuku thought, amused.

In just few steps he reached the cruise ship and then jumped upward to land on top of the main bridge, landing right next to Jun and Gouki.

"Good evening!" He said.

"How?! You don't have a Qu-" Gouki demanded.

"Chef secret!" Izuku said, winking.

"Ah! Here comes Whitey too!"

BOOM!

The chubby robot managed to go from the Yacht to the same ship bridge Izuku was on in a giant single jump, and landing heavily enough even that massive ship rocked heavily, and yet the parquet floor wasn't damaged.

"Ready to cook! Thank you for accepting my small Challenge, Jun-san!" Izuku said.

"Yes… No problem." The woman answered, very unsure.

Among many whispering conversations, the two Chefs made their way to the 'Little Mermaid' onboard Restaurant of Jun, the ship staff immediately prepared various tables for the judges in a whirlwind of motion around Izuku and the woman that would have shocked whoever watched that was not already used to the hectic background work of high level restaurants.

"Very well organized. Impressive." Izuku admitted, with honest words of praise.

"Why you are here?" Jun asked.

"You and your grandfather set people to kill me and the people I consider part of my family, I may not be able to prove it, but I know the truth. I came here to Challenge you, yes, but also to look at you in the eyes and see what kind of 'Animal' I am dealing with." Izuku answered, dropping the smile as soon as the two entered Jun's kitchen and remained alone.

"You-"

Swing!

"Not be mistaken. I can't be bullied. Not anymore." The knife Jun tried using as a half hearted threat turned into thin slices clattering on the floor as soon as she tried to near the blade's tip to Izuku's face, and for the life of hers, Jun had not been able to see Izuku's hands move beside a faint, single flash of light of the bone knife now in his hand moving at ludicrous speed.

"…" The woman looked at the plain knife handle now remaining in her hand, then right into Izuku's eyes.

"Now we will have a Challenge, clean and proper, where we both will give our best. If I lose, I will close my Restaurants forever, but if you lose, you, your Grandfather and everybody else will stop bothering me. This is not negotiable. Cheat or still come after me after I won, and there will be consequences."

"How dare you talk like that to me?!" Jun hissed.

"You paid for killers. The moment you or your precious grandfather signed the check for those Twins and that guy, you immediately got in the role of the Bad Guys. And no amount of you being a spoiled brat will suddenly turn you into a victim." Izuku answered, uncaring.

"I am not spoiled!"

"Yes, you are. Just like Samui, you are a spoiled moron that for some reason wants to ruin my life because I made you feel bad. I don't know what Blackmail Samui has over you to make you comply, but if it's anything like Matoi, it probably is a long list of illegal things you should have been punished for a long time ago. And I finally understood that I am under no obligation to cover you and your crimes. Now get to cooking, it's time you do things by yourself instead of having Grandpa's money fix problems for you." Izuku said.

"I will kill you!" Jun growled.

Her growl became a whimper when the young Chef's Appetite Demon appeared behind him to heavily set a massive hand on top of her head, a projection that felt far too real and corporeal to her.

"No, you won't. What will we work with?" And just as easily as the monstrosity came, it left, as if it was never there.

"… If I win…" Jun asked, with a tone bloated by pure and putrid hatred.

"Yes?"

"Will you close your goddamn Restaurants and disappear from my life?"

"Yes."

"And you won't push for people to prove that we really tried to kill you?"

"If you stop trying to kill me and the people I care about, yes."

"… Promise?" The woman asked, looking away and speaking with a very low voice.

"Contrary to Samui, I can deal with defeat and take responsibility for my choices and actions."

"I don't trust you."

"You literally want me dead, and yet, here I am, trying to offer a solution without bloodshed. It looks like at least one of us here trusts the other." Izuku answered, shrugging.

"This situation has no solution."

"I never asked for this." Izuku answered.

"You only needed to keep your head low!"

"Low? How much lower was I supposed to keep my head!? I just took part to a cooking competition for amateurs they made for a fundraiser! I was a nobody cooking with other nobodies in a friendly competition with no stakes! It was not a world-renown Cooking Show with millions of people watching, there wasn't even TV present! It's not my fault if Samui has a weak Ego and can't accept that somebody good at something can exist out there!" He snapped back at her in answer.

"But now he is blackmailing us!"

"So? Am I supposed to let myself die because somebody somewhere gets triggered and thinks I don't deserve happiness? Who are they to decide if I deserve anything or not? Who are they to decide to punish me for daring to seek happiness and a stable future for myself?"

"…"

"You really think that now that Samui has leverage over you, he will not continue to use it to control you even after you helped him to ruin me? That one day he won't come back asking for more? And then more? Again and again?" The young Chef asked, groaning.

"…"

"I thought so." He then said once seen the woman develop an expression of misery he expected.

"… We will make two dishes each. One with lobster, the other with salmon… Free style. Even if I am a fan of French Cuisine, you can use whichever style you prefer. No time limit." Jun talked again after a very long silence, her voice was dull and faint.

"Very well. The judges?"

"Five random people will be selected,"

"You do know that I don't trust you to not cheat somehow. Even after I warned you." Izuku said, sighing in dismay.

"… It would have been more surprising if you did." Jun admitted.

"To be honest, I am more interested in you admitting defeat if I win, more than the judges' vote."

"And what if I don't admit defeat?"

"Oh, you can lie all you want, but your heart can't. We Chef don't work like that when it comes to food." Izuku answered, smirking and selecting the Ingredients he will use from the fridge of Jun's kitchen.

"Debatable…" Jun muttered, making Izuku chuckle amused.

"I am ready, you are?" He asked.

"… I am." Jun answered.

And immediately the lights turned off, extremely loud music started playing and flashing lights of various blinding colors flashed on and off following the music's tempo.

"I prepared this just in case I had no other option but actually challenge you," Jun said, smirking.

"Very well, since you can't act like an adult about this, so be it." Izuku commented, clearly disappointed in her.

"I don't care! Try to cook with all this hell going on!" She answered, humming on time with the music.

"I am wearing earplugs to cut-off the music and special contact lenses that will help me see the actual colors of what I am cooking! What about you!?" Jun thought in cruel amusement, she and her grandfather had prepared just for this occasion! With their lifestyle on the line of course they will cheat! All to avoid prison and public shaming.

"Host can cook through this. The System knows the Host knows. Just push through the new Challenge and raise to new heights, young man!" The System said, clearly heard through the deafening cacophony thanks to its immense power.

Even while surrounded by a chaos of thumping music and flashing lights, Izuku's hands never faltered of a millimeter, he just summoned the Sea Dragon Kitchen Knife from his tattoo and started preparing the fat salmon in front of him, first by removing fins, tail and head, then by cutting it vertically in half by cutting along the salmon's spine and belly, then he removed the guts and bones and washed the pristine meat now lying in front of him ready to be cooked.

"It's just Blind Cooking with extra steps… I can do this." Izuku muttered, putting a pan with butter on it on the fire to heat-up, and then closed his eyes to focus, he needed to cut-off from his ears the bones-shaking thumping of the music and just hear the butter's own sound.

"What is he doing?" Jun muttered, watching an eerie red hue outline Izuku's body while he pushed his senses beyond mere human limits.

Thump! Thump!…

...Thump…

Thump…

…

...Sizzle!

"There it is! Actual good music!" Izuku said with a cheerful tone and opening his eyes when only the pan with its sizzling butter was all the noise he could hear.

Nodding pleased with himself, he started boiling eggs in a side pan while sizzling the salmon in the pan with the heated butter for barely a minute per side just to firm it, he then removed the salmon from the pan and set it aside.

"He is cooking with that annoying smile again!" Jun seethed, annoyed to near-madness about Izuku's apparent lack of bother from her so-called strategy.

After marinating the salmon fillets, Jun had cut them into a few bars and wrapped them in bacon, then she wrapped everything again with plastic and placed the various ingots of bacon-wrapped salmon into a convection oven to heat her dish.

"Low-temperature cooking, that will be the key to my victory." Jun muttered between clenched teeth.

With Izuku -

In the meantime, Izuku was cooking some rice, and at the same time turning part of the salmon into a fine and smooth paste, and once the rice reached the right cooking time, he added to it some butter.

"Sorry if I borrow your recipe, Setsuno…" Izuku muttered, chuckling.

As soon as the butter finished melting and went perfectly integrated with the rice, he added a finely chopped onion to it and stirred carefully, then cumin and coriander seeds, cardamom and star anise went delicately sprinkled and added to the mixture, turning the rice fragrant and with a mesmerizing scent of spices, a pan of rice that soon gained an eye-catching golden color. If anybody could actually see it through all that mess of flashing colored lights.

"It takes guts to cook a recipe that complex with all this going on!" Jun yelled over the music while smirking.

"…" Izuku didn't answer, too focused in listening to the Voice of the Ingredients to actually hear her.

"Shit, of course he can't hear me, even with earplugs this noise is giving me a headache." Jun cursed to herself, displeased at the missed opportunity to add shit-talking on top of the giant distractions she was bombarding him with.

"Add a bay leaf and cinnamon stick, then pour over the stock and season generously…" Izuku was instead mumbling to himself, recalling in his mind's eye every movement of Setsuno preparing the exact same recipe he saw her make during one of their many showdowns against each other they had through the years.

He was so immersed in those memories that he was not just seeing Setsuno in front of himself cooking, but the massive Cooking Stadium they had that battle in as well went superimposed to Jun's kitchen.

The pan with the rice and stock had been then covered and brought to the boil, then the heat went lowered to its lowest setting.

"Once ready I will turn off the heat and leave it covered for 10 minutes, then stir through the lemon zest and juice, set it aside to cool, and once cool, I will need to stir though the chopped dill… Yes, I can focus fully on the lobster dish now!" Izuku declared to himself, recalling the last steps while setting a big box with a pristine smooth salmon-colored cream in the fridge.

"What has he made?" Jun wondered, curious, even with the special contact lenses she could not fully see what he was doing. To her it seemed like he had made a sort of ice-cream… With Salmon?

"It doesn't matter! My Lobster Chaudfroid never failed me! I am preparing the two dishes that won me my third Michelin Star, and I only improved since then!" Jun muttered, almost 'brutally' mixing wine vinegar and cream together to prepare the main sauce of her dish.

Izuku Side -

Having already boiled to perfection the lobsters, after gaining the Ingredient's permission to do such a thing, he summoned the Myriad Manifestation Mallet from his other tattoo and used the mallet's special properties to delicately smash the lobsters' shell open while keeping their temperature stable and reach the tasty, springy meat inside.

"The heads are in perfect conditions, and so are the lobsters' brain. Good." Izuku muttered, pleased, and setting the heads aside in a way that won't let the brain pour out.

He then used the Sea Dragon knife to chop some onion in tiny pieces at high speed, intending to prepare what was know as: "Sauce Américaine".

He sweated the onion and garlic in a little olive oil in a sauté pan just enough to begin cooking them and finally added some brandy before they could take on any colour.

"What are you using?" Jun yelled, curious.

"X.O (Extra Old) Napoleon Cognac. I found some in your fridge." He yelled in answer.

"THAT'S MY PRIVATE STASH!" The Woman shrieked in horror.

"Whoops." Izuku answered with a cheeky smile.

Ignoring her indignant shrieks, he heated-up and then ignited the brandy.

"GODDAMNIT!" While kind of enjoying her screams of anguish and anger, the young Chef hummed a simple tune to himself and gently rocked the pan's content while waiting for the flames to die down, when the very last flames dissipated he added some tomatoes and left them stew for a couple of minutes.

"I will add some white wine too, to add some more body to it." Izuku muttered, adding the wine to the thing and bringing it back to the boil for a minute or so, then he added the stock to let it simmer.

"The caviar and caviar sauce are almost ready. What is he-" Jun

Wroom!

When she looked at Izuku, she watched him transfer the contents of the pan to a blender and blitz all of it until smooth, then pass the resulting sauce through a sieve into a clean saucepan, bring it to boil to reduce it and finally add the lobster to it along some cayenne pepper and salt.

"Perfect!" Izuku said with a way too happy smile.

Next came a curry sauce of amazing scent, made with the same extra old cognac he used before and Izuku's personal blend of curry; he used all that as sauce for his Saffron rice, made with white rice, bouillon and saffron.

"Lobster curry rice ready! The other dish is almost ready too." Izuku declared happily.

"He can't really be making two complex dishes like that in this mess, even with the lenses I can hardly see how they are coming along! Burned? Under-cooked?… Perfect?" Jun muttered, and shuddered at the idea of Izuku actually managing to cook properly even though she turned her kitchen in a mind-numbing psychotic disco.

And yet, she kept watching Izuku look unbothered by everything, like when he rolled out one of the pieces of pastry he made inside a baking tray, pack half the rice he made for that dish along the middle of the pastry after removing the star anise and cinnamon; looking at him, Jun wondered if her distraction was even working at all!

"How is he not bothered?" She wondered.

"I did worse, Jun. With that attitude you wouldn't go past then first task of a Cooking Festival back home, just the initial obstacle course with High Capture Level Ingredients chasing you to eat you would break you." Izuku thought, sighing and shaking his head once seen Jun looking at him insistently.

Ignoring her once again, he moved to check his second dish, he had previously laid the salmon over the rice spread in the middle of the pastry, then put slices of the boiled eggs on top of the salmon, covered everything with the remaining rice and gently packed everything into a firm, even shape.

A second piece of pastry went then draped over the coulibiac and gently pressed against the one at the bottom and the edges sealed together to hold salmon and rice sealed inside the pastry wrap.

"Can't fully go by eye, but by timing and scent, and slightly difference in color… It's coming along perfectly." He muttered, pleased.

Later that day -

When both were finally done cooking, Izuku and Jun took out of the kitchen to the main deck where the judges and everybody else were waiting for the results of the two Chefs work.

"What have you prepared?" Gouki asked with a tense tone, since he had been notified that the cruise ship's Military Grade radar (a small addition Gouki had secretly added to the ship to help his side-business of contraband to avoid detection) had registered the presence of few small boats following them from far away.

"And of course we got drones flying above us to record everything… Who the hell sent them?" The old man muttered, unaware of Hisashi being the one behind the big swarm of drones making sure his son was safe while on that ship.

"I prepared Salmon Coulibiac and curry lobster rice with cognac." Izuku answered, preparing various portions of his two dishes, both for the judges and other people, Gouki and both Endeavor and Shoto comprised.

Curry Lobster rice.

Salmon Coulibiac.

"I made my prized Saumon Confit Flamme and Lobster Chaudfroid." Jun answered, and many of the audience looked excited to finally try the two dishes that made the woman world-famous.

Saumon Confit Flamme.

"Ah! Before I forget! Two things, please!" Izuku said, smiling happily and putting a small spoonful of a pale-pink Ice-cream on top of the Coulibiac slices he served to both judges and audience.

"This is an unsweetened Ice-Cream made with salmon, please try it with the Coulibiac. As for the Curry rice, as you may have noticed, there is a tiny dish with Cognac to the side of the plate, I would like to ask you to try the rice by itself, then to pour the cognac inside the lobster(s) head, mix it with the lobster brain and then eat the head's content together with the roux and the rice. I promise you that the difference ion taste will be astronomical." He said, bowing.

"Bit uncouth to suckle the heads…" One of the judges admitted, unsure.

"There is nothing uncouth when enjoying a dish, as long as one has proper manners, even eating a lobster brain out of its head can become acceptable." Izuku answered, smiling.

"You know what will happen if Jun loses." The echo of Samui's message Gouki received while the two were cooking echoed ominously inside the old man's head.

"For the love of God, Jun… Win…" Gouki muttered like a prayer while trying his granddaughter dishes first, just like everybody else did.

"The taste of bacon goes so well with salmon! I never thought those two things could go so well together!" One of the judges said in awe.

"And the sea urchin sauce! It tastes so much like the sea I feel like I am swimming!" Another Judge said, almost moved to tears.

"The lobster and caviar are so very good too! One is springy and plump while the caviar eggs explode in taste at every bite! Amazing!"

"Okay, it's going well…" Jun muttered, shuddering.

"Had better lobster," And Enji immediately burned that small fragment of hope without even using his Quirk.

"So this is caviar? Midoriya-san's tasted better last time." Shoto added.

"They came to your Restaurants already?!" Gouki shrieked.

"They are regulars of both." Izuku answered, shrugging.

"Goddamnit…" Jun cursed under her breath.

"This means nothing, my granddaughter glistening salmon will break your uncouth dishes!" Gouki yelled, desperation making him grasp at anything that could assure them a victory.

"All that glimmer isn't gold. Can we move on? I need to finish preparing my new batch of beer and 'Golden White Wine' and I don't want to get back home too late." Izuku answered, not with a boasting tone either, he was really eager to get back to Green Cloud and start bottling his new batch of Elven Wine and Dwarven beer.

"!" Enji looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

Izuku only nodded, he promised the guy a bottle of each liquor as a thank you for accompanying him and he will deliver, he was not that stingy.

"Such an amazing eating experience! I don't think Jun Sato can be surpassed that easily!" A woman in the audience admitted with a dreamy smile once emptied her plate.

"It's only fair though that we try this young man's dishes too! He still worked hard for this challenge!" An old woman between the judges answered, moving Izuku's dishes in front of herself.

"Right! For the sake of sportsmanship, the boy needs a fair chance!" The other judges agreed.

"There it goes…" Jun and Gouki unknowingly thought in chorus, swallowing hard in worry while collecting their own plates.

"…"

"…"

Silence reigned on the ship as the people eating slowly went wide-eyed at the taste of Izuku's creations.

"Hn! There it is. This is what I was talking about, some good fucking food." Only Enji broke the silence, speaking with a smirk of cruel amusement while eating.

"My goodness! The rice is so fragrant! And the salmon! The salmon flavor just keeps coming and coming!" One of the Judges said in awe.

"How the hell did you do it?!" Jun asked while angrily pointing at Izuku with the fork she was eating her own portion of Coulibiac with.

"Maximizing the flavor of salmon was not that hard, to be honest… See?" Izuku answered, snatching her fork and delicately peeling apart the filling and the brioche dough.

"See this thin green line? That's a very thin spinach crepe I made and incorporated into the batter. That soft and gentle spinach flavor highlights the mellow taste of the salmon's fattiness. Making it fast enough to not let you see my secret weapon had been kind of difficult since you kept spying what I was doing." He explained with a cheeky smile.

"A double layer of crepe and brioche pastry!? Made so fast I could not see you make it?!"

"Oh, I can go even faster than that, Jun-san." Izuku answered, and some could swear his smile became extremely sharp for just a fraction of a second before returning more innocent.

"That doesn't explain why this damn thing is a flavor bomb!"

"Oh, there is a bit of my personal blend of spices, a customized seasoning mix I added to that same crepe; thyme, oregano, rock salt and much more… I even powdered some bacon and added it."

"Powdered- There was not powdered bacon in my fridge!" Jun yelled.

"Oh, I know. I had to make it myself, it was not easy in such a short time, but I believe I managed." Izuku admitted, sheepish.

"… Who the hell are you?" Gouki asked, looking at his empty plate with dread in his eyes.

"I see! Both used salmon and bacon!" Shoto said, impressed.

"Yes, but as I already told you, execution is key! You might have my fire inside you, but it's how you use it that will determine if you are a proper Hero or not! It's the skills that say who succeeds and who doesn't!" Enji answered.

"It's my fire, not yours." Shoto answered.

"… Eh! Semantics." Enji answered, rolling his eyes.

"You!" Jun hissed.

"You wrapped bacon around salmon and used low-heated cooking to make them glisten elegantly and blend their taste together. So other than looking good, the taste is perfectly homogeneous, honestly delicious." Izuku said, actually praising her dish while also breaking down the differences between his creation and hers.

"So, in order to counter the flavor of your dish, a flavor you perfected and sharpened to its absolute limit through years of trial-and-error, I went for unevenness instead. By making use of the human's mouth own structure and configuration to elevate my dish' taste, since each section is built to sense a facet of taste specifically, so if the taste is not homogeneous, the flavor profile will be perceived differently. For example the seasoning in the crepe was purposely put unevenly in it, I wanted its taste to have 'Shades' instead of being homogeneous."

"… That creates two sides of the flavor: One were you feel the unblemished taste of the salmon umami, and one where the bacon and other spices blend with the salmon's flavor to create a completely different taste." Jun said, teeth clenched hard in fury.

"Exactly!" Izuku answered.

"That means that basically the dish' flavor changes at each bite. Wrapping bacon around salmon may make it look nice, but you can't get that much complex flavor profile by doing that." Gouki added, growling and with his skin gaining faint scales.

"Another secret weapon of mine was the Unsweetened Ice-cream made with salmon I added on top of the slices! That contrast between "Hot and Cold flavor" it's what makes the dish go beyond, adding more facets to the taste of salmon into a true galaxy of salmon umami flavor! Plus Ultra!" Izuku said, smiling proud of himself.

"God I hate that saying…" Enji admitted with an annoyed grumbling, now the mental image of All Might dressed in a salmon costume while punching him (And yelling Salmon Smash!) will take weeks to leave his head!

"The taste was truly heavenly… But… The curry rice?" A judge said, eyeing the lobster curry rice in clear greed.

"Please do, just remember to mix the cognac with the lobster brain for your second bite as I asked, please." Izuku answered.

"Please God, if you actually exist, make it so it tastes bad!" Jun whispered to herself, and while squeezing her eyes shut she collected a big spoonful of rice, curry sauce and lobster meat and shoved the entire thing inside her mouth all at once.

"...GODDAMNIT!" Gouki's scream of vitriolic hatred echoed in every corner of the cruise ship while he threw his spoon away. He wanted to throw the plate too on the ground, but even his body betrayed him and refused to waste that plate of rice.

"Oh my God!" many between the judges and the audience yelled in awe while throwing manners to the wind and gorging themselves with the lobster rice.

The meat was springy and flavorful, offering a token resistance at the first bite before melting in the mouth, the rice was perfectly done and tickling the nose with its spices while the curry flowed warmly in the mouth to wrap together the taste of lobster and rice with its own blend of spices, filling mouth, nose and even soul at each bite… Then they did how Izuku asked. Blending the few droplets of cognac they were given with the brain inside the lobsters' heads, mixing them together to then slurp the mixture out and chew it with a new spoonful of rice… The result was an explosion of taste that left many breathless, almost weeping in awe.

Crash!

Jun's empty plate fell from her limp hands and shattered on the floor in thousands of pieces while she fell on her knees, looking down on the floor while silently crying and hiccuping.

"As I told you already, Jun-san. You can lie to me and yourself all you want, but when it comes to food and cooking a True Chef's heart can't lie." Izuku said, sighing and removing his green bandanna, making his unruly hair spring free to its usually messy hairstyle.

"We will now proceed to our vote!" The Head Judge, with her mouth still dirty of curry sauce from her uncouth licking of the plate, declared.

"Midoriya."

"It's over." Gouki growled with bloodshot eyes as soon as the first judge voted for Izuku.

"Midoriya."

"All this because of that boy…" Gouki's skin gained even more scales.

"Midoriya."

"Jun lost, Gouki. I specifically told you two to make sure the boy closed his Restaurants. This means that everybody will know about you and your granddaughter's dirty deeds. Your life is over. Farewell." Samui's message instantly appeared on Gouki's phone as soon as the Livestream showed three of the five judges vote for Izuku.

"Midoriya."

Crack! The phone went squeezed into tiny fragments by the old man's hand, now clawed and looking not human.

"Midoriya."

"That boy must die!" Gouki hissed in hatred while nailing Izuku with a glare lacking any sort of humanity or sanity.

"A complete victory! I didn't think it was possible!" The crowd exploded in many exclamations of awe, with the few lucky ones between them confirming how Izuku's dishes were superior to Jun's.

"Jun Sato? Gouki Sato?" It was then that the small boats following the cruise ship from a distance rapidly moved closer, each and every one of them sporting the Police Force insignia.

"The police!" Many of the people present yelled in shock.

"We received many anonymous tips about supposed illegal traffics and other assorted crimes you have supposedly committed, we would like to board your ship and ask few questions." Tsukauchi, at the head of one of the boats, asked through a megaphone.

"And of course all of you just so happened to be in the area full force! You vultures were just waiting for the right moment to pounce on me!"

"We just want to talk!" Another officer said from his own megaphone, smirking.

"Many proofs?" Izuku asked.

"The System, I-Island, Samui, Giran and few Business Rivals of the Sato Family in the world of contraband have pooled their respective proofs of the Family's illegal affairs and delivered everything to the Police Force as soon as the Livestream made it clear Host Izuku won. The System wishes to add that The System did not coordinate this flood of information. This time." The Entity answered.

"Grandpa!" Jun, still crying, looked at Gouki in pure fear.

"… It's over Jun, but we can at least take down few of them with us!" The old man yelled with crazed eyes, stripping naked and jumping into the sea.

"What is he doing?!" Many yelled.

ROAAAR!

With a monstrous roar, a terrifying creature, a mix between an old man and a giant kraken, appeared from under the waves, a human head and torso adorned by dozen of long tentacles in place of normal human arms and hands, his giant body was now covered completely in ash-colored scales, Gouki towered over the cruise ship and glared at Izuku in pure hatred with his three red eyes.

"MIDORIYA! IF I GO DOWN, YOU WILL GO DOWN TOO! I WILL DRAG YOU AND YOUR FAMILY DOWN TO HELL WITH MINE!" Gouki yelled, his mouth was full to the brim in shark-like teeth.

"Gouki Sato! You are under arrest!" Tsukauchi yelled.

"I don't think he cares about that!" Saito Yaoyorozu answered while desperately maneuvering the yacht himself to not be toppled over by the tall waves Gouki created at each movement he made.

On the ship -

People screamed in panic and hurriedly ran inside the ship in a futile attempt to seek safety while Gouki's many tentacles easily wrapped around the cruise ship making it tilt heavily to the side.

"Get down!" Shoto yelled, half his body covered in fire and half in ice.

"NO, Shoto!" Enji roared.

"But-"

"You still can't control your Quirk! You will hurt both him and everybody else! A misfire and the entire ship will burn down!" Endeavor said, glaring at Shoto.

"… What?"

"My Fire, and 'yours', create powerful flames that are hard to control! You will make unnecessary collateral damages and put innocents at risk." Enji said, shoving Shoto aside and walking towards Gouki by himself.

"You worry about others now?" Shoto asked, almost sarcastic.

"What? You think I got to second place just because my Quirk is powerful? Or because I am pretty? A Hero needs attitude and good mentality, blasting your problems away is inexcusable, both as a proper Pro Hero and as a Rookie! Now be quiet and observe! I apparently need to teach you Heroic Manners and Fire Quirk Handling procedures! Honestly, what the hell are they teaching nowadays in UA, how to sign autographs?" Enji said with a sneer.

"… What?" Shoto muttered, confused.

"I am happy you are having a Father-Son moment! But I may need assistance!" Izuku yelled, annoyed, while using his Myriad Manifestation Mallet and Star Eating Turtle Wok to fend off Gouki's whipping attacks with his massive tentacles.

"Don't hurt him too much, that idiot may still try to sue you for excessive self-defence after openly trying to murder you." Enji answered, shooting small fire projectiles to blast away the tentacles wrapping around the cruise ship.

"I know! That's why I am using blunt force! Heavy Gong Vajra Pester!" Izuku answered, inflating his right arm's muscle through Knocking and punching a giant tentacle away so hard it slapped against Gouki's own face.

"ARRGH! Damn you! I will be arrested all the same, may as well go to prison smiling with the knowledge I killed you!" Gouki yelled.

"Sir! He is too big! Our tranquilizing darts are not made for somebody with a giantification Quirk!" One of the agents said in horror.

"Keep shooting! I already alerted Ryukyu and Mt. Lady! If Endeavor can't make him calm down, they will!" Tsukauchi answered.

With Izuku and Endeavor -

"How the hell do you punch that hard?" Enji demanded, and nailing a tentacle with a spear of fire that made Gouki shriek in agony.

"A good diet!" Izuku answered, using the tentacle Whitey was holding down to run up to Gouki's face and slap him with the enlarged Wok hard enough the resounding gong-like sound went heard for miles.

"Augh!" the old man stepped faintly back, but finally letting go of the cruise ship.

"Then give me your diet plan, boy!" Enji answered, catching the falling Chef and putting him down kind of gently.

"Too much?"

"If they ask, I knocked out that moron's teeth." Endeavor answered with a frown.

"I WILL EAT YOU!" Now fully blinded by rage, Gouki sent every tentacle at once against the two.

"Too many at once! And the boy is too close for me to use a wide are attack!" Enji thought in anger.

"Whitey! Catch!" Izuku yelled, surprising Enji by lifting him and throwing him out of the way for the robot to catch.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Enji yelled once Whitey deposited him back on the ground.

"ARGH!" Izuku yelled as a tentacle wrapped tightly around his body.

"I got you now, boy!" Gouki yelled in triumph, stepping back a bit from the cruise ship so to enjoy having Izuku in his grasp.

"I really, really hope you are right about this, System!" Izuku thought, taking in a huge breath to scream.

"BURN HIM, ENDEAVOR! NOW THAT HE IS AWAY FROM THE SHIP!"

"But-"

"DO IT! I TRUST YOU!" He yelled, surprising Enji and Shoto.

"… GODDAMNIT!" Enji closed his eyes tight and covered himself in fire.

"Father! No!" Shoto yelled in panic, already imagining Izuku reduced to a charred corpse.

"Watch, Shoto! This is how a Fire Hero controls his flames! Plus Ultra: PROMINENCE BURN!" Endeavor yelled launching forward a sea of fire that only barely melted the handrails of the ship's bridge with residual heat while the full blast caught Gouki's entire body.

"Now, Host." System, voice calm and expressionless as always, said.

"Here goes nothing!" Izuku emptied his lungs and then started inhaling Enji's fire just like he with the blue flames of Dabi.

"The hell is he doing?!" Both Shoto and Enji yelled with wide eyes.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" Completely covered in fire, Gouki gave a loud scream of agony and fell backwards into the water while Izuku, unscathed tahnks to his eating Enji's flames, started fallig as well.

"Host!" Whitey's arm shoot out like a rocket to grab him and pull him back on the ship, once grabbed Izuku, the robot then gently helped the young Chef stand on the half-destroyed deck.

"You okay?" Shoto asked.

"… BEEEEEEEEUGH!… Sorry." Izuku answered with a thundering belch and few wisps of fire escaping his mouth, of course he blushed dark red in shame.

"You ate my fire?! Are you insane or something?!" Enji shrieked.

"It was the only plan I had to protect myself from your fire, it's not the first time I do this." Izuku answered.

"That adds questions instead of answers!" The Pro Hero yelled with clear anger.

"I can't say much because- Eugh!" Mid-way though his answer, Izuku felt something HOT bloom inside his chest that punched air out of his lungs and made his eyes bulge out in a grotesque manner.

"What's happening?" Shoto asked.

"Flame of Good absorbed. Using the Flame of Evil with its core of Anger, Greed and Sorrow, and the Flame of Good with its core of Longing, Ego and Pride as kindling to create a Heaven-Earth Obsidian flame!" The System declared, and at each word, the heat inside Izuku's chest, heart and soul grew one-hundred-fold.

"Oh, God!" Izuku whimpered, sweating profusely while his skin got so red to almost emit light like super-heated metal, an unnatural sight that actually scared both Shoto and Endeavor.

"Heaven-Earth Obsidian Flame created! Heaven-Earth Obsidian Flame: Flame of the Sin of Pride is now your to use, Host!" The System declared once the fully-matured mystical fire started burning brightly inside Izuku's heart…

"Oh, shit!" Too bad the resulting flame was even more explosive in power than anticipated, and Izuku's cheeks soon inflated as he tried to futilely hold back the excess fire trying to escape his lips.

"Midoriya! Endeavor! DIE!" Using the very last strength the heavily-burned Gouki still possessed, the giant Umi Bozu Human reemerged from the sea while holding over his head the biggest rock her could find at the bottom of the ocean, holding it over his head and ready to sink the cruise ship uncaring of even Jun's life being at risk.

"Oh, Fu-FWOOOOOOOOOSH!" Izuku chose that exact moment to lose the battle against the fire mounting inside his mouth, and with a loud whooshing sound, a human-sized ball of condensed acid-green fire exploded out of his mouth to fly towards the enormous rock Gouki was holding above his head while leaving behind a faint tail of bright lightning-like sparks of energy.

PUFF!

Even if the small fireball was easily dwarfed by the massive boulder, the bullet of fire made the giant rock evaporate on impact, literally, leaving nothing behind except few miserable droplets of molten rock that added even more burning marks to his already half-charred body.

"...I wish to cooperate with the Police Force towards a peaceful resolution of this situation." Gouki said with a faint, squeaky voice unfitting with his giant and monstrous appearances after a couple seconds of stricken silence.

He was no scientist, but he still knew rock didn't evaporate unless the fire striking it was absurdly hot, and his poor body was way less sturdy than stone, even if his spirit was willing to kill Izuku, turning into a handful of ashes was still a big reason for him to step down before the young Chef started spitting ludicrously-hot fire again.

"That's some nice fire, kid." Endeavor admitted, pleasantly impressed.

"…" Shot was unsure about the pang of jealousy he felt at seeing Enji praise somebody else's fire, he was fairly sure he hated his father…

"Thanks, that surprised me as well." Izuku admitted unsure.

Now that the excess fire had been expelled, he felt the swirling of that green fire lazily spinning inside his heart, an impossibly-hot green fire with small arches of golden lightning lazily circling nonstop around the solitary flame burning endlessly inside his soul.

"Congratulations to host Izuku for defeating Jun Sato and unlocking your own Heaven-Earth Obsidian flame! Now the Star-Eating Turtle Wok can be used for cooking as well, train hard top master its profound powers, young man!" The System said with a short victory jingle.

"Thanks… Just for the sake of curiosity… How hot is this fire?"

"An Obsidian Flame is closely related to the Primordial Fire from which Creation was born. It's far hotter than Quark-gluon Plasma, Host. So far hotter than that that the two can't even be put in comparison." The Entity answered.

"… That doesn't really answer my question." Izuku muttered, sighing.

"We finally put him to sleep, which is better since he started screaming in pain as soon as he returned to normal, clearly his Quirk gives him way thicker skin when transformed, too bad that level of burns hurt like hell for normal humans." Tsukauchi said, walking on the deck to face Jun Sato herself.

"Am I in trouble?" Jun asked.

"Very likely. We had our doubts about your family, but could not prove anything concrete, then when Midoriya-san left his Restaurant to come Challenge you, we got bombarded by Snitches that almost broke our servers with the sheer volume of proofs against you. It seemed like The Enigmatic Giran and many others decided to join forces to ruin you. We followed from distance just in case, and as you can imagine, your grandfather's bout of madness will give us the opening to see if those proofs are indeed real or fake."

"And if even just half of them are real?" Jun asked, already knowing the answer.

"Even just half of it will sign you and your family's doom. Please come quietly." Tsukauchi asked, showing her a pair of handcuffs.

"One of those snitches is Samui Arasaka, you know?" Jun tried saying with her head held low.

"Everything was delivered anonymously, and we will probably check the validity of your claim, but you should probably focus on looking for a good lawyer to defend you in court, instead of pointing fingers." The Detective answered, dragging her away gently.

"Does every Challenge of yours end like this?" Shoto asked.

"Not with police involved or a fight for my life… I think." Izuku answered, unsure.

"I will need you all to answer few questions too." Tsukauchi said.

"Sure." The two Heroes and one Chef answered in chorus.

"Wait for my Lawyers, Izuku!" Saito yelled.

"Okay, just don't call-"

"Especially The Ogre!" Saito added.

"Oh, Goddamnit." The poor Detective cursed under his breath.

Sighing in dismay, Izuku followed the group back to land to answer the many questions of the Police Force, all the time grumbling annoyed at the time he was wasting, because he really wanted to try the Turtle Wok! That poor thing waited for far too long to be used for cooking!

"For God's sake! I just want to manage my Restaurant! Leave me alone!" He also thought in misery, can't a man work without being bothered by morons?!

Meanwhile – Hospital

A doctor was calmly walking next to a nurse pushing a wheelchair with a woman sitting on it.

"You are making huge progresses, Miss Monoi. I am positive we will soon be able to let you out of our fine establishment and will be free to return to cooking." The doctor said with a pleased smile.

"Me too, doctor. I am glad I am out of my breakdown." Monoi answered.

"Stress is dangerous, remember, You should never underestimate it." The nurse added, smiling gently.

"You are right, I promise I will be careful." Monoi promised,

"I already know what I must do. I just need to get out of here as soon as possible to fulfill my part of the Deal." Monoi thought, knowing well what the System ordered her to do in exchange of her getting back her cooking skills and Quirk. Along a chance to get her Life back on track, only this time with a huge dose of humility.

At the same time – League of Villains Hideout -

All for One looked at the dead body on Daruma's table with a thoughtful expression.

"Dead, hn?"

"Shot through the head with high caliber bullets. Custom Bullets." Daruma answered with a meaningful look.

"Quirk-erasing ones?" AfO asked, growling.

"Indeed. Somebody used his very creation against him, almost poetic." Daruma answered, shaking his head and covering Overhaul's corpse with a white sheet and walking back to his microscope.

"So his Quirk is gone. A real waste. The gun?" AfO asked, already not caring anymore about the dead Yakuza boss.

"Nowhere to be found, we are still looking for it." The scientist answered,

"Find it, we can't let something that dangerous just lying around." All for One answered, sitting back on his life-support chair.

"We will work harder, Sensei." Daruma answered, nodding.

"Good. What about Shigaraki? Did you find him?"

"We found him in an Arcade, just playing angrily. For once he didn't go bothering that dog."

"Finally some good news. Keep an eye on him, we still need him for the Operation." All for One said, almost cracking a smile even!

Unknown to them and everybody else, Shigaraki's peaceful sleep was not due just to his setting a new high-score at the arcade, but also from the big gun safely tucked under his clothes, with the psychotic young man dreaming of the day he will finally get to use it on all the people that he hated.

Omake time:

Inter-dimensional Ingredient hunt:

How to derail the Plot with a couple dishes.

"Groan!" With a whining of both metal and mutated flesh, the giant behemoth that used to be a huge robot dressed in fine parade attire, and now piloted by a wriggling mass of mutated human flesh in a mocking parody of a body, collapsed on the ground, dead once more.

"Okay! That thing's dead! Let's go!" The small machine inside the shining lamp dangling from the young man's belt said as soon as it was clear the possessed puppet was truly dead.

Nodding, the young gentleman with a robot arm started running towards the Hotel where his friends were hiding, the same place from where came the cry for help of those same friends, now under attack from somebody.

"It's all too quiet…" The small cricket robot muttered as soon as the Hotel's entrance came into view.

When The boy arrived, from outside nothing seemed out of place, as if there was not an enemy attack ongoing.

"Hn!" With a soft groan, the young man pushed open the Hotel's heavy doors and entered.

"You are alive!" And immediately a young woman yelled in relief to welcome him.

"Of course he is! Our friend is a sturdy puppet boy! Isn't that right, Compagno?" A man with flamboyant clothes and top hat answered with a wider smile from, right behind her.

"Eugenie, Venigni…" The boy muttered, still getting used to his slowly-developing human emotions.

"Happy to see us? Well, it's all thanks to our newest guests!" Venigni said, laughing.

"Ehm… Why are those guys hanging there?" Gemini asked, unsure.

"GOOD JOB FOR FINALLY NOTICING, TESTA DI CAZZO!"

It was then that the boy known as P looked up to see that indeed there were people hanging upside-down, only wearing their underwear and with both arms and feet tied.

"WAAAAAAH! I will never get married now!" One of the girls in the group of hanging naked human salami cried in shame and horror. She was the one wearing a fox mask still.

"Con quel carattere di merda che ti ritrovi, stare a culo di fuori non cambia nulla."

"Shut-up, Cat!" The woman snapped in answer.

"Those voices… The Cat and the Fox?!" Gemini yelled in disbelief.

"And the black rabbit brotherhood… And the asshole posing as Alidoro." Eugenie explained, spitting on the face of the fake Alidoro once again.

"What happened?" P asked, confused.

"These rude criminals tried attacking us to kill all of us and kidnap Geppetto, our recent Guests and their own puppet took offense to that and decided to administer Justice. The ropes these ruffians had took along to decorate the entrance with a giant 'Hypocrite' sign have then been used by our saviors to instead tie the invaders up. I find the concept of stripping them excessive, but Mister Whitey had apparently been programmed with that concept of punishment in mind, and we could not stop him from carrying it out." Pulcinella, Venigni's personal butler puppet, explained with impeccable manners.

"Quite the minimalist design, I must add, but the materials used and the building prowess needed to create such an invincible and yet funny-looking puppet truly are exceptional! I believe that once fixed Krat, I will create a commemorative toy of Mister Whitey to celebrate our saviors!" Venigni added with his usual flourish.

"We had just finished hanging them to dry when you arrived, I believe that we will leave them there for just a bit more as punishment, in the meantime we will decide what to do with them," Belle added, giving a malevolent smirk to the trapped people.

"This is highly unnecessary!" 'Cat' yelled in answer.

"I just want to heal my brother's eyes, okay?! The Alchemists offered a lot of gold coin fruits in exchange of this!" 'Fox' added.

"We'll fix that too. The boy decided to throw you two a bone, for some reason." It was then that the old lady, the owner of the Hotel, walked into the scene helped by an elegant walking stick.

"Antonia…" P muttered.

"YOU WALK?!" The others instead yelled with bulged-out eyes.

"Indeed I do, thank you for noticing." Antonia answered with a very cheeky smirk.

"… What have you done? You look a lot younger! What product did you use? Because I want that too! Sure I already look Perfect as I am, but adding some extra shine to perfection never hurts, giusto?" Venigni asked immediately.

"Turns out our Chef Guest was cheekily hiding some Alchemic knowledge from us!" Antonia answered, chuckling.

"The markings on your face! Your Petrification Disease is gone?!" Eugenie added, shocked.

"Milady! You are healed?" Antonia's puppet butler Polendina asked with a very human hopeful tone.

"I am, and to answer you, Venigni, I have regained a good ten years of youth as a side-effect from the cure our new friend gave me," Antonia answered, looking so alive many could think she returned into being a springy and rambunctious teen girl instead of just returning into being a middle-aged woman.

"In my defense, those Gold Coin fruits are more intense than I imagined. I only wanted to heal her and fix her health, not turn back Time that much. But this is why 'Test Dishes' exist for, to test Ingredients." Izuku admitted, walking in the scene followed by Momo… And with Giangio latched to his leg to be dragged around by the Chef.

"SHARE YOUR NOTES! PLEEEEASE! THAT'S THE Life Elixir we have been trying to make perfect for ages, and you achieved a perfected version just by cooking! And you even created the perfect cure for Petrification Disease on top of it, one without a single drawback! JUST NAME YOUR PRICE! Anything! We'll give you everything you want!" Giangio begged, rather pathetically, while clinging onto Izuku's leg with both arms.

"No! After learning how that tree was created, we won't share a thing with you and your friends!" Momo answered, creating a crowbar from her navel and use it to literally pry the man away from her boyfriend.

"There are ways to reproduce the tree artificially without sacrificing a human. Since the Host completed this part of the mission, the Storage Area will be equipped with the necessary materials to achieve the artificial Gold Coin Tree." System answered, although the Thing's tone still sounded distant, as if the Entity was occupied elsewhere and 'screaming' to be heard from that far away.

"Still not going to tell these people how to replicate my Healing Cuisine," Izuku answered, sighing.

"You helped them?" P asked, confused.

"They are your friends and family, they were holding-on and waiting for you to come back and save them, so I wanted to do my part." Izuku admitted.

"Thank you." P answered, hugging the Chef instead of shaking his hand like he offered,

"Glad… To be… Of help…" The young Chef groaned a bit under the strength of the hug.

"A big help indeed! And as promised, I will re-print for you every cook book of Krat's most delicious recipes!… If our friend P here can spare a minute to visit one of the bookstores in the Lorenzini Arcade to recover both the portable printing machine and the data slates necessary for me to print the books from." Venigni answered, showing a blinding smile.

"And lots of paper." Eugenie added.

"That too."

"I can do that." P answered, and both Izuku and Momo were reminded of young Shoto Todoroki's own manner of speech.

"Are you sure? We can go there ourselves." Izuku said.

"Please, let me." P answered with a faint begging tone.

"… Okay. Just be careful." The two answered.

With a nod, the young gentleman walked towards the giant machine in the middle of the hotel and then disappeared in a swarm of small blue particles.

"… One day I will discover how he does that." Venigni hummed with a petulant tone.

"While he is gone, we need to decide what to do with Geppetto." Antonia said with narrowed eyes.

"When I heard the King of Puppets openly state that Geppetto was the one to initiate the puppet Frenzy, my heart bleed, Dio mio, the very pioneer of Puppet Creation, behind this atrocious mess… I asked our friend if he too heard it, and when he said no, I was overjoyed and lied about not hearing it either… No son deserve to hear how his father became a mass-murderer." Venigni admitted, shuddering.

"Sometimes we need to Lie, Lorenzini. Truth has a weight very few can bear." Eugenie answered, patting the man's back in a comforting manner.

"All this crusade of his, all to resurrect a son he already brought back to life…"

"Are you sure he is doing this just to have Carlo back?" Venigni asked.

"I have known that fool the longest among all of us. He is a brilliant inventor and Alchemist, but outside of that, he never was good at hiding his feelings. I can recognize Geppetto's Manic Look when it comes to a project he is obsessed with." Antonia answered.

"I should have suspected something when he asked me for the pieces to create the King of Puppets, some were...excessive, for the project he talked about, I should have guessed he was planning something far more nefarious for the future." Venigni admitted.

"Again, he is good at making puppets, so he could dissimulate, but in humanity, I can read him like a book. The notes Polendina managed to memorize while cleaning his office helped giving me enough details to piece together that fool's plan. Having a puppet that is the spitting image of Carlo roaming about was was ticked me off about why he suddenly returned to Krat."

"Happy to serve, Madame." Polendina answered, bowing.

"So… What now?" Izuku asked.

"Now we collect as many survivors we can from this Hellhole and we leave, I will then assemble a task force of many, MANY heavily-armed soldiers and we will come here to clean-up with lots of bullets and bombs and fire. And if some wandering Alchemists happen to fall to cross-fire, eh, accidents happen." Belle answered.

"We can help! If that guy heals my brother's eyes, we will help!" Fox said.

"Definitely!" Cat added, nodding rapidly.

"Sorry, but I don't trust you."

"What about Geppetto?" Momo asked.

"He will face trial and have a judge decide his fate, he has done a lot for the advancement of humanity, and also caused the death of thousands. Justice will decide if he will be imprisoned or hanged for his crimes." Belle answered, walking away to recover the bound and gagged Inventor.

"…" Izuku just looked at her walk away, sighing at the notion that indeed, Geppetto's crimes were far too atrocious.

"HE ESCAPED!" It was barely a minute later that a scream of both anger and disbelief echoed in the entire hotel.

"Crafty old miscreant!" Antonia cursed.

"The old fart ran away! And he took something with him!" Belle declared from the railings of the first floor.

"What did he take along?" Venigni asked.

"I don't know, but it's big."

"I tied him up! How did he escape?!" Eugenie asked.

"There were shoe markings on the floor and a discarded puppet, he must have remotely controlled one of those lying about around his office.

"You left him with puppets?!" Antonia said.

"They were not active and he had his hands tied!" Eugenie tried saying.

"Oh, for fu… for the love of God." The old Lady almost cursed like a sailor, and only stopped herself by virtue of her strict upbringing.

"How do we capture him then? Where is he even going?" Belle asked.

"The Alchemists Island." Cat and Fox said in chorus.

"Hn?" The others chorused.

"The plan was to come here, trash the place, kill you all and take Geppetto to the Island. There is a submarine parked at the Ruins waiting for departure." Cat said.

"Shut up!" One of the Black Rabbits tried saying,

"To be fair, no sense in keeping secrets now! The black rabbits would have stayed behind to stop any pursuers long enough for the submarine to depart. While those two would have brought Geppetto to Simon Manus." The man posing as Alidoro added.

"Knowing that fool, he would have let you all capture him, so to get to the island with a very good alibi to do whatever he needs there. I won't go into details, for obvious reasons, but Simon may have what Geppetto needs to bring Carlo back, you all would have been his ticket for a free ride to the island." Antonia said.

"But we ruined that." Momo said.

"Yes, so now he is probably going there by himself." Belle answered.

"There are only a handful of secret passages that lead to the ruins under the hotel, one of which can be opened by playing a very specific tune on my piano." Antonia added.

"Want us to go capture him?" Izuku asked.

"No! Too dangerous! There may be plenty of killer puppets and Mutated Carcasses, you are far too important to risk your life just like that!" Giangio answered immediately.

"Ignoring his whining, he is also right. Unfortunately, the only one that can get Geppetto back and stop Simon is P… Or Carlo, if the ergo inside his Heart has fully awakened." Venigni answered.

"We need to tell him as soon as he is back, the choice will be up to him." Antonia said.

Much Later -

Discovering the truth about his entire existence, assaulting the Alchemist island, fighting through hordes of enemies, fighting a very unfair battle against that Lightning Psycho Woman, then killing Simon Twice (First as a man, then as a quasi-God) and then fighting against what he later discovered was his old, reanimated corpse Geppetto used to create a psychotic puppet and then resurrecting Sophia thanks to a puppet version of her body that had been created with maniacal attention to details by Simon himself for "reasons" the young man didn't want to think about… All in the span of barely three hours.

Carlo regretted becoming a Human Puppet as soon as he returned to Krat Hotel after going through all that, because those last few hours will probably gave an ulcer to his half-robotic (soon to be fully human) stomach, along the nightmares and bad memories and split hair and so on.

"...Nnngh…" Geppetto in the meantime was slowly opening his eyes.

"Oh, Look. The fool is awake." Antonia said with a mocking tone.

"Where… Am I?" Geppetto asked, after noticing the handcuffs strapping him on his makeshift bed.

"On a train dear Giangio organized for us as soon as we left Krat. We will leave our Chef friend to the first stop we reach, but you instead, you will keep traveling with us, to the dear judge that will decide your fate." Antonia answered.

"How?"

"My fault. Or better, my fault with the help of my new recipe: Gold fever chicken wings: Krat Style. I turned the Gold Coin Fruits into a spice I added to the main sauce of my personal version of one of Krat's iconic dishes, the fruits enrich the taste of both wings and sauce with a spicy and faintly sweet undertone, similar to curry if I have to say." Izuku answered.

"HOLY FUCK! This is delicious!" The resurrected older brother of the Black Rabbits, now back into being a normal and rational human instead of a raving rabid psycho, yelled in awe while gorging himself.

"You are no longer a growling mad dog, Big Bro! I am so happy! You are back to normal!" The female Black Rabbit said, sobbing in happiness.

"And it fixed my eyes for good too! I love it!" Cat echoed, talking with his mouth still full.

"Such amazing Healing properties! Erasing the negative mutations of the Elixirs and resetting the human body to top form and health! Prodigious!" Giangio as well was gushing nonstop and taking endless piles of notes.

"And it tastes good!" The people eating all agreed happily.

"Yes, yes. Whatever. The non-healing version of the dish is good or whatever. But I want to see how the one with healing powers is made!" Giangio answered, annoyed.

"When Carlo went to capture you, we secretly followed him, and when you took that lethal attack for him to save him from your own creation, Izuku and me intervened to save your life with one of his healing dishes." Momo explained.

"Carlo…" Geppetto said.

"You called me son." Carlo answered.

"Took him far too long to see the truth right under his nose." Antonia commented, rolling her eyes, and making Polendina chuckle amused.

"I was just… So desperate… To make up for the time I wasted, for all the love I could not give you…" Geppetto said, looking away while squeezing his eyes tight to futilely hold back his tears.

"The judge will decide if you will get life prison or be hanged, just in case, maybe you two should just enjoy this short time together." Belle answered, walking away to be a lone for a bit and mourn the death of her partner.

"Can't say I deserve any other punishment." Geppetto admitted, bitterly.

"Will we be able to visit you if you don't get hanged?" Carlo asked.

"We will make an appeal." Sophia answered, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"…" Izuku and Momo just watched in silence as everything unfolded.

"This was a tragic adventure." Izuku admitted.

"But something tells me our involvement changed things in a small but significant manner." Momo answered.

"I really hopes so." Izuku answered.

But the System didn't actually care about all that, the Entity had chosen that specific world in that specific point in its timeline because, while macabre, that place also offered 0% chances of a woman chasing Izuku!

Sophia was a Puppet-Human and had eyes only for Carlo.

Eugenie was not interested in romance at all.

Belle was mourning.

Antonia was too old.

There was finally no way for the usually mess to happen!

"Ah! By the way, part of the reason why it took me so long to organize this train was that I had to call and report to the Organization I am part of, and as I expected, they are offering you a position in our ranks, a rather HIGH RANK position, I may add!" Giangio said, smirking.

"Uhu?!" Izuku and Momo muttered, confused.

"It's a rather extraordinary honor, but if me and my brothers and sisters are right, the knowledge you possess may propel our experiments forward of the equivalent of many, many decades!" The man said, nearing the door connecting their train cabin to the next one.

"And as such, your joining us will come with many perks! Besides plenty of funding and helpers for your own researches, a noble title will also be yours!" Giangio said with wide, dramatic gestures.

"And as soon as I mentioned that you can actually make people younger, healthier and eternally beautiful… If my theory about your food's powers is correct… Another perk added itself to our offer." Giangio said, opening the door with a flourish.

"Good evening, Brother Izuku!" Many, many young women said in chorus, and all of them looked at Izuku in pure, lustful hunger.

"All of them promise to be very 'thorough' in their convincing you to join us. If a strapping, virile young man like you catches my drift." Giangio said, smirking.

"…" While Sophia immediately covered Carlo's eyes while glaring at those girls, and Pulcinella did the same and covered Venigni's eyes… Izuku only paled considerably in horror.

"FUUUUUUUUCK!" Both Teens yelled, and thanks to Whitey, they blasted out of the train and after landing on a roll on the ground, they ran away FAST!

"NO! Please come back! I swear they are very healthy, virgin and open-minded! They don't mind sharing!" Giangio yelled in despair.

"I don't think that the issue is that…" Antonia answered, facepalming.

With Izuku and Momo -

Both teens ran and ran, conscious that thanks to their respective training regimen, stamina was not an issue, and while running and screaming, they desperately jumped through the portal that opened in front of them to bring them back home for yet another Sortie that while a complete success, once again ended in Izuku having to run away…

And yet, this time the System was completely silent through the entire ordeal...

Ŷ̶̨̢͓̯̩͛̎̃̉͛̓̒͘̕ỏ̴̮̹̳͛̀́̚ͅù̶̳̗̄̒͛̔ ̵̧̛̘̬̄͑̈́͗̓̀̀͠c̶̡̞͖̖̠̗̬͈͔͙̒͜a̵̘̗̻̹̘͔̿̿͆͜n̶̢̗͑͑̾'̸͇̰̼͎͎̈́̊͐̋̑̂͋͠t̴̢͕̤̼̼̳̹̊̋̾̎͘̕ ̴̨̖̥͔̞̻̹̘͔̙̀͒̔́̇͆̉͘̕͝h̴̲̙̤̟͐̄́̀̈͝i̷͖͓͂̉d̸̛͕͚̺̱͚̺̞̻͕̈́̏̓̏̔̂͌̊͝ě̷͚̄̏͐͗͗̍

̶̼̲̬͍͔̜̽̂͌͛̏̅̀́̐̍͜͠

̴̲̲͑͆Y̶̝̱̥͊̓͌̈͘ọ̷̯͙̼̦̤̄̈́͂̃͐̈́̋u̸̧͐̓̊̎́̀̚͠ ̷͚̤͙̩̤̊͆͒͋́̆͑̕͘c̷̠͚̰̖̗̪̦̄̆̾̎͆́͒͑͊͆͜͠a̷̢̧̯͎̱̻͕̼̱͎͍͗͗͑n̴̢͉͕͚̰̥̼̻̑̈́̇̅̾͘͜'̷͕̦̼͊̈́̉ṭ̶̦̣̤̺̈́̂̔̓̒͊̕͝ ̷̡̼̺͖̮̘̰͉̀͋̂͛̅̀͑̒̄͋̅ḩ̸̛͓̰͑̽̏͐̉͂͠͝i̴͖͚̳̭̎̐̾̉̿͜ḑ̵̩͕͐͌̈͠ȅ̸̢̯̝͉̗̻̦̐͛͋̂̇̌͜͠

̵̨͎̲̳͕̥̪̲̱̻͑̈͒̅̈̃̈́͜͠

̵̢͖̜͎̻͙̯͛̈̐̔́̍Y̸̧̟̹̬̦̭̱͙̒̎̅o̶͓̱̟͛͐̂͊̇̏͝ų̸͈̗͉͍͈̯̀̏̿̎ ̷̲̦̮̟̥̀̉͊̈́̄̚̕c̸̹̳̥̖̥̪̠͗̾̅̇̇ạ̴̱̦͖̲̥̜̟̓̅͒̅̉̀̚ͅn̸̡̛̪̭̠̩̲̪̫̖̿̈̀̉͂̐̋͆̑'̷̨͖̥̠͔̩̘͍̺̔͒́̆̈́̑̌̈̂̎t̵̢̢̝̬̱̫̳̭͔̉̀̄͑̊̊̎̕ ̷̡̓̏̀̑̐̓̿̄͋͘h̴̢͐͠ͅi̷̢̛̩̥͔̺̻͕̮̎̇̅̽͠d̶̨̘͍̣͈̘̙̣̃̂͌̊ę̸̼͖̟̭͙̗̲̰͗̌͑̉̆̕͝͝

̵͖́

̵̭͖̄̿͘͜Y̸̠̪̽̿̈́o̷̝̎̂̈́͂͘u̷̪̦̔͆̎̒̓̈́̋̏ ̵̨̤̭̳̮͐̏͗̽̽̈́̾͜c̶̲̟̻͚̽̊͂ą̷̢̰̣͈͎̩̹͙̫́͋͂́́̆́͌͌̀n̶̡̧̨̳̳͉̓͋͌́͆'̵̪̺͉̮̼̊͜t̴̡̨͍͚͔̝̟͉͚̫̺̔͛̀̿́͝͠͝ ̵̡̱̦̅͆͑̏̽̊̃h̵̡̬̖̞̰̟̎̿̓̈́͒̈́i̶̛͇͍͙͉̘̹̒̽̒͆̅̑̿͘͘͝d̶̢̩̈̋͒̃̈͂̔e̷͈̩͔̺͖̫̦̻͇̼̾̀̆͆̌͜͠

̴̢̥͍̙͈̘̠́̓̄