Toriko: Canon SL. Chapter 21: Lightning Fruit

Seto stood leaning against a large rock at quite a distance from his partner. Blitz was lying next to him, watching what was happening. Seto was quite impressed by what was happening. On their way to the next ingredient on their list, Mathew had seen an old acquaintance, or he had seen Mathew. and the man on the ground had thought it a tasty idea to eat the shadow dragon, thus unleashing a voice missile. Mathew had replied with a lightning dragon fang, clashing with the sound technique, before jumping down and attacking Zebra.

and now here they were, throwing the other guy around. Neither of them used their special abilities, except their enormous strength. And where Zebra stood 255 centimeter tall, making him a giant with enormous strength to boot, Mathew with his 185 centimeter easily kept up with Zebra. And even though Zebra was ever so confident in his own overwhelming strength, Mathew’s strength was equal to Zebra’s strength. Maybe even somewhat greater.

after half an hour of brawling, the two stopped their fighting and rested somewhat. As they did, Seto took out his cooking gear and some of the ingredients Blitz carried in his saddlebags. As Zebra smelled it, he started to drool, before wiping his mouth and walking toward Seto and the food he was preparing. Mathew followed the giant, until they both stood in front of Seto as the chef cooked some food.

as Seto finished cooking and presented the food, Zebra started eating. Mathew and Seto quickly gave their thanks and started eating as well. as they ate Mathew asked, ‘what brings you to these parts Zebra? Some good food?’ Zebra grinned as he chewed on some meat, ‘I hope so. I heard rumors of a special fruit from the heavens with incredible flavor. I want to taste if this is true.’ Mathew smiled, ‘same goes for me and Seto. We’re after the same fruit; lightning fruit.’

Zebra swallowed the meat with a splash of sake, ‘so you guys know what this ingredient is. tell me, is it worth eating?’ Seto shrugged and replied, “we don’t know yet. But since it is on Mathew’s ingredient list, it being a special preparation ingredient and it being capture level 87, we think it will be rather tasty.” Zebra was surprised by Seto’s way of speaking, but didn’t say anything about it.

Mathew continued, ‘a lightning fruit grows on a lightning tree, which is a small seed that can grow within clouds. When lightning from that cloud strikes the ground, the seed gets planted. Also, the planting lightning will explode on impact and burn its surroundings. Once everything, plants and animals, have been burned and turned to ashes, they’ll seep into the ground. And the root system of the lightning tree will spread quickly, sucking up all the nutrients in the ground. The more plants and animals, the bigger the area, the bigger the fire, the more nutrients, the more the tree grows and the better a flavor it develops for the single fruit it grows.’

Zebra nodded, ‘so, how big can this fruit grow?’ Mathew shrugged, ‘not sure. but seeing as we’re standing on barren ground and seeing that strange tree form in the distance, I’d say pretty big. The bigger the area that was burned, the bigger the tree grows. The bigger and better the fruit.’ Zebra grinned, turned toward the tree, before unleashing his echo map. It was still about ten kilometer toward the tree. And it had already been five kilometer. So there was a diameter of about 30 kilometer with that tree in the middle. Zebra grinned, jumped toward the tree, before using his jet voice, launching himself at the tree at high speed. Mathew grinned, before unleashing both beast and strength mode, rushing after Zebra. Seto simply packed up his stuff, sat down in Blitz’s saddle, before asking the shadow dragon to follow Mathew. the dragon unfolded its enormous wings and took off towards the tree.

as Zebra reached the tree, Mathew reached it four seconds later. The latter sealed both beast and strength mode and looked up at the tree, which was about a hundred meter tall. And its fruit, which hung in a cage of branches, was about the size of a normal house. Mathew bumped Zebra in the elbow, ‘big enough to share right?’ Zebra frowned, ‘finders keepers! I was here first!’ Mathew shrugged, ‘than please, by all means, have at it. just know that if you take that attitude, I won’t share the fruit with you after I capture it.’

Zebra grinned, before launching himself up with his jet voice, going after the Lightning fruit, which looked like a house sized cloud, being dark lavender with some yellow glowing markings on it. as Zebra reached the first branched, the spikes growing on it were launched at him. he dodged them, but not the lightning threads attached to them. these shocked him higher, where higher branches shot down their spikes, bringing Zebra down to the ground. Mathew nodded, ‘my turn.’

Zebra growled as Mathew brought out his claws. Mathew jumped up against the tree and started climb running. Mathew dodged the spikes and used the lightning resistance he had gained during his trip to vegetable sky to negate most of the damage the lightning threads did when they hit him. however, when he went beyond Zebra’s highest point, more and more spikes were launched and rained down on him, combined with a rain of lightning threads. Mathew tried to dodge them, but ultimately was tied up in lightning threads, before being struck by spikes and dropped down to the ground.

as Seto arrived, he found both hunters with some burn marks on them. after they explained what had happened, Seto knew how to help them. he’d stay on the ground, staying in contact with the tree and with both hunters, telling them when the tree would strike and how. Both hunters agreed and went up the tree again in their own way. And Seto did as he had said. But keeping up with the speed of this trees actions and reactions, as well as needing to warn both hunters, was quite difficult.

both hunters advanced higher than Mathew’s first try, but were eventually bound, pierced and brought back to the ground. Zebra began calling the tree cocky and threatened to roar it down. Seto stopped him, “you really shouldn’t. if this tree is destroyed, the fruit will self destruct. So no cutting it down. That being said, you can try to destroy the spikes it shoots at you.” Zebra frowned, ‘are you sure that won’t destroy the fruit?’ Seto shrugged, “no I’m not. But seeing as those spikes are not connected to the nutrient system in the tree, I think it’s safe to destroy them.”

Zebra growled, looked up at the tree and replied, ‘if this destroys the fruit, I’m taking it out on you!’ Seto sighed, focusing his soul on Mathew, “not an easy customer to handle.” Mathew nodded and climbed into the tree again. as the spikes came at them again, Zebra and Mathew destroyed them. and as those were destroyed, the lightning threads vanished. Doing this, they kept on going higher and higher.

but the higher they went, the faster the spiked were launched and the more painful the shocks of the lightning threads were. Mathew used his lighting dragon fangs to counter attack, but found the opposing lighting growing more powerful with each hit. Zebra’s rage grew with each hit he took and the giant really had to hold back, so he wouldn’t destroy the tree.

after the fifth time the two hunters hit the ground from quite high, Seto nodded, okay, enough with me simply warning you. this time I’m going with you. also, I think it’s best if we keep our guards up.” Mathew nodded and devolved, than evolved his turtle shield. Taking it apart in dome form, than placing the plates over his shoulders, arms, legs, back and chest. Zebra created two sounds walls on his arms and Seto surrounded himself in a ball of wind. The three went into the tree again and this time Seto used his wind to blow the spikes of target. Mathew and Zebra kept on destroying the spikes as they got closer.

as they climbed higher, Mathew remembered how in his battle with the lime bear he had used his electricity to form a magnetic field within himself to counter the gravity. he created the same magnetic field, but this time placed them on his shields and reversed the polarity. Instead of attracting, whatever came close to it was repulsed. Mathew felt the stinging burns over his body, the fact he was slowing down and that he was getting hungry. He would need to eat something good soon. And that lightning fruit would be on the menu.

but even with the three of them going into the tree, keeping their guard and their shields up, the lighting tree managed to bind them and send them crashing down to the ground. Mathew nodded, ‘okay Zebra, how about we try something new?’ Zebra frowned, ‘you got an idea tiny? Let’s hear it.’ Mathew nodded, ‘we’ll share the fruit, split it in half. Half for you, half for me. in exchange for us splitting the fruit, we work together to get the fruit.’

Zebra looked up, looked at the condition he was in, than nodded, ‘sure. but how are we going to pull that off?’ Mathew nodded, ‘as we went up last time, I noticed a few things. You were definitely the fastest. Seto had the greatest defense and I had the greatest lightning tolerance. So I was thinking; I jump up, you give me a boost with your voice, Seto shields me in a ball of wind and we launch me at the fruit, at top speed. that should work I think.’

Seto shrugged with a smile, “not like we have anything to lose.” Zebra shrugged, ‘fine, we share the fruit. But you better be darn sure to get it Mathew.’ the latter nodded, activated his beast mode, ran at than up the tree. Zebra unleashed a sound blast as Mathew made a big jump. Seto wove an air bubble around Mathew and Mathew added his magnetic shield to the air bubble. With no air resistance and sound of speed, avoiding the branches and spikes was easy. Mathew managed to get to the fruit, that hung at the top, in twenty seconds.

Blitz than swooped in, catching Mathew and the fruit and bringing both back down to the ground, as the tree shriveled up and shrunk back into the ground, now that its only fruit had been picked. As Mathew and Blitz came down, Seto got his cooking equipment and started preparing the fruit. Seto prepared it quickly, efficiently and made the fruit as tasty as possible, also leaving a few pieces raw, as the fruit was already tasty. Eventually Seto presented some fruit pieces made into candy, some cooked fruit, some fruit juice, some raw fruit and some fruit sauce. Seto divided it equally, splitting the portions in half. With all the effort they had done to get this fruit, even Zebra gave his thanks for the food, before digging in. even half the fruit was half the size of a normal house. So it was still pretty big and lots of food. Mathew shared his half with Seto and Blitz.

as the food entered his body, he felt like his body was electrified, but in a good way. All his cells were suddenly brimming with life. along with that, the fruit was delicious. And with the size of the tree and the fruit, Mathew wondered if it might have been higher than a capture level 87. Whatever the case, they had gotten the fruit, were enjoying its incredible flavors and its rejuvenating effect. And with six ingredients down, Mathew only needed to get his fangs on two more ingredients, before he was deemed ready by his trainer to enter the gourmet world. Next up; the bubble fruit.