"Komatsu don't forget to repay the debt that you owe for getting your life saved, you'd better treat that old man to an awesome meal someday" Toriko told the young man.

"Hey! I'm the one that saved him from being eaten, i better get something too!" Ao pointed out.

"That's right, your reward shall be this!" Toriko grinned pulling her over and smashing his lips against hers literally out of nowhere.

Even Coco couldn't have seen it coming.

Ao was caught off guard and froze for a few seconds before rearing back her leg and piledriving her knee straight into Toriko's most vulnerable spot.

"WHAT IN FUCKIN HELL TORIKO?!" she yelled at him and it echoed around the cave "You're fucking lucky i don't kill you for making a pass at me, no actually you will die once i tell Zebra! You've just lost ANY chance you had!" she yelled at him before she huffed and stomped away.

Coco looked at Toriko in pity as the man wriggled on the ground in pain and shook his head before catching up with Ao, Komatsu and a limping Toriko following him.

"Careful Ao, you can't see in this darkness as well as i can, let me lead the way alright?" Coco asked as kindly as possible so as to not invoke the wrath of the Queen.

Ao huffed turning her head "Fine" she bit out and Coco took the lead with a thankful smile thrown her way.

~~~~~

"We finally made it!" Toriko whimpered out his voice a pitch higher then normal once the group eventually reached the Cavern Lagoon.

The  white sand beach in cave was absolutely gorgeous with crystals hanging from the ceiling and growing out of the ground reflecting the light of the sea fireflies onto the crystal clear lake filled with colorful corrals.

"What a beautiful place" Ao whispered in awe taken in by natural beauty of the sandy beach.

"Alright! Let's get to whaling!" Toriko said tossing off his shirt.

Ao went behind some rocks to change, having something to change into in her backbag.

She walked out from behind the rock having changed into a black bikini top with a decorative rainbow stripe and bikini shorts with a belt that held a gentle type knocking gun.

Toriko blushed seeing her but then winched when a phantom pain shot up through him, which Ao noticed and smirked to, Coco just shook his head at them.

The trio of Bishokuya then dived into the clear water.

They soon found the Puffer Whale which had gathered together into a giant one for protection, the pack broke apart however to mate and the hunt was on.

Ao was the first out of the three to actually get to it, Toriko and Coco watched in awe as she flawlessly suppressed her presence and used the gentle type knocking gun she had to stun and capture Puffer Whales.

The two hunters not wanting to be outdone by a girl began hunting as well but in the end both of them combined could only catch ten while Ao had managed to catch twice as much.

Once on shore they asked her how she had done it and she simply replied "Training"

But now the real challenge began, well for Komatsu as he was tasked with cutting the Puffer Whale after Coco had shown it to him on one of the caught Puffer Whale.

Ao was already cutting up the Puffer Whales she caught flawless time again with the knife set she always had in her backbag, again the two Heavenly Kings (Toriko specifically) asked her why.

"Training" she yet again replied but she saw that the blue haired male had more questions, she sighed.

"While you four went your separate ways thinking you were done training with the old man, i stayed behind, largely because i didn't have a choice, the old man had more training up his sleeve it was supposed to be for all of us but since you left i was forced to start without you"

"For two years i travelled across this world going through the harsh training and nearly dying more times then i care to remember, to name a few incidents there was dehydration, low oxygen, starvation, drowning, high gravity, low gravity and so many more"

"I went though the most brutal terrains you could think of all to train my mind, soul and body ready for the Gourmet World" Ao explained as she paused in cutting up the Puffer Whales she caught.

"Alright, will you tell us how you do it then?" Komatsu innocently asked.

Ao's brow twitched but she managed to stay calm by taking a deep breath "No, you'll just have to go through the same training i did before getting anything out of me" she said.

The two Heavenly Kings frowned feeling guilty for leaving her to deal with such utter hell and multiple near death experiences all alone, yet they couldn't help but wonder why was she still so fond of Zebra then?

~~~~~

After eight tries Komatsu hadn't had one successful try, they were on their last Puffer Whale.

"And i'm done" Ao startled Komatsu as he had been so focused on the Puffer Whale, thankfully he hadn't cut into it yet.

The three men looked over to her pile of Puffer Whales all of which had their poison sack successfully removed and piled into another stack to the side.

"Alright, i'll take a two for the recipe, one for a plate of shashimi and two for sake and five to aunty Setsuno, the rest will go on the market" Ao said sorting out ten of the twenty and splitting that further to five.

Which she then put into a Gourmet Container and labeled it for aunty Setsu, then she put the ten left into a bigger container labeling that for the market and a third one for the poison sacks, they sold for good money in the Underground Market.

The rest she got started on the prep work for the recipe, shashimi and the sake.

The three men turned back around to their own singular Puffer Whale and with Coco's help Komatsu successfully took out the poison sack and served the Puffer Whale up as a plate of shashimi much like Ao had done with one of hers.

Ao joined up with the boys on the picnic blanket bringing over her dishes as well.

After saying thanks they all first dug into Komatsu's shashimi plate and while the men were lost in the taste Ao was not impressed.

"It's too chewy, still good but you've relied on the natural taste of the Puffer Whale too much, while it's good any ingredient can be elevated with even a little bit of something extra, for example try my shashimi" she said.

The three of them did and instantly noticed a difference, Ao's brought out the flavor of the Puffer Whale even better and melted in the mouth without too much chewing.

"Wow, this is even better then Komatsu's!" Toriko exclaimed eating more.

"Amazing you used lemon to cut the fattiness for a better taste and mouthfeel correct?" Coco asked also going for more.

"I can neither confirm or deny that" Ao replied.

Komatsu knelt infront of Ao, kowtowing to her "I know when i'm beaten, teach me oh Queen of Cooking!" he said.

Ao looked him over, analyzing the small man "I'll consider it but let's just enjoy  our meal first yeah?" she said digging in as well.

The laughter rang through the cave as the four of them enjoyed a hearty meal of Puffer Whales topped with Puffer Fin Sake.

They had just finished their fine meal when suddenly something came out of the water, it was a creature unlike any other with a metallic face and covered in black fur and oozing a sinister aura.

It was dragging a bag full of Puffer Whales behind it and it turned to face the four of them.

Coco and Toriko attempted to intimidate the creature while Komatsu hid behind a rock and Ao just stood there seemingly frozen out of fear but that wasn't the case, she was studying the creature.

The creature wasn't interested in a fight however and just walked past them and out of sight.

"What was that thing?" Toriko asked.

"I've never seen such ominous and sinister electromagnetic waves" Coco commented.

"It came out of the sea, from a depth of one thousand meters, is there really a living creature that can do that?" Toriko asked.

"That was no living thing" Ao said bringing the attention to her "That was a GT Robo and let's hope we don't run into it again" she said.

"GT Robo?" Toriko asked.

"You seem to know a lot about it" Coco said.

"I do but i'm not telling you anything, go ask the old man if you're really so curious" Ao told them.

~~~~~

The group climbed out of the cave and arrived back at the mouth of the cave to witness the remains of a massacre.

"Wh-what happened here?" Komatsu asked.

"It was probably that GT Robo" Ao said casually stepping over a body as she walked out of the cave, having changed into her usual outfit before they had left the beach.

Then with a short mighty roar Shiro landed nearby and Kiss following suit with a caw, the two masters of the sky having just finished a race of sorts.

Ao hoped on Shiro and Coco followed suit getting on Kiss, the group said their goodbyes and promised to see each other some other day before the two flew off in opposite directions.