"That's 'Death,'" Daikon gestured at the sketch with his spoon as Trunks and Goten looked over the picture of Piccolo, "Most people assume the worst when they first encounter it, mostly because of inaccurate media representations, but it generally represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one – it'll represent actual, physical death in maybe one in a hundred readings."
Daikon had been pretty easy to convince to join them. Apparently he generally ate alone. Now the three teens were sitting under an old oak tree in the schoolyard, looking over Daikon's sketchbook. True to his word, the teen had brought in the canvases of the sketches he'd shown Goten the day before. He'd been right – the 'Magician,' aka Son Goku, had turned out beautifully, especially considering the fact that, as far as anyone knew, Daikon had never met Goku. Now they were looking at pictures further in the book, Goten with a sense of mingled curiosity and trepidation, Trunks with every apparent sign of genuine interest.
"What's with the pointy ears and no eyebrows?" the demi-saiyan in question asked, as though he had no idea who the person in the picture was, "Isn't your theme the Monkey King?"
"Yeah, but Death's complex, so it's extra metaphorical," the tall teen adjusted his glasses, "It's meant to represent how Death is familiar, something we are intimately linked to and aware of – hence the humanoid shape – and yet at the same time it's utterly alien, something we can't ever truly understand. See his claws? Society views him as dangerous, yet the young boy in the picture stands before him unharmed."
"Is the boy another card? Goten says your 'characters' tend to wander around."
"He's the Hierophant, he represents scholarly pursuits and spiritual wisdom, walking your talk," Daikon momentarily turned his attention back to the jar of… stuff… he was eating.
Goten wrinkled his nose. "What is that gunk, anyway? It looks like it's already been chewed."
"Peach crisp," was the matter-of-fact response, "And while it does look better before you mush it into an empty peanut butter jar, it still tastes divine afterwards." Smirking, he stuck a large spoonful in his mouth. "Mmm, delicious."
"I think I'm going to be sick..."
"So, what's the ball thingy?" Trunks interrupted, pointing at the dragon ball Piccolo was handing Gohan.
"Something I made up as a kid – I call them 'treasure orbs.'" Daikon turned his attention back to his art. "The Hierophant usually wears that one on top of his hat, in his crown chakra, representing his mastery of the knowledge within. Usually the Hierophant is a teacher, but in this case he's the student, showing that there are mysteries even the greatest scholar can still learn from. He has approached one such mystery, Death, unafraid, and in return receives wisdom in the form of the treasure orb. The six stars represent the four elements, life, and death."
"Neat."
"Thanks. I'm actually thinking of adding treasure orbs to more of my pictures, like sliding one into the roots of the tree in the Hanged Man?" he grinned at Goten, "You were saying another unifying factor beyond the tails and stuff might be a good idea."
"Oh, uh, yeah," Goten wrenched his attention away from the jar in the other boy's hands. "Are you going to put them in all your cards or just the ones in this project? I mean, how many of these orbs are there?"
Daikon shrugged. "Seven or nine, usually – I'll repeat them throughout the cards."
"Any significance to that?"
"Sacred numbers." Daikon took another bite of peach crisp.
Trunks snorted. "You sure seem to know a lot about new-agey stuff."
"I should, my dad reads tarot professionally and my mum's an energy healer. Honestly, I'm surprised you two don't know more about this stuff."
"Why do you say that?" Trunks asked mildly.
Daikon glanced at them, surprise evident in his face. "Well, you're both ki-users, right? I just assumed-" he halted as Trunks and Goten's gazes sharpened on him.
"How do you know about that?" Trunks demanded, tone cold.
Daikon blinked. "I… can sense ki?"
"But we've got it suppressed- ow!" Goten rubbed his head where Trunks had hit it.
The long-haired teen was looking at them curiously now. "Really? You both have way more than normal people; why not keep it lower if you don't want people to notice?"
"Why don't you tell us how you can sense us, first?" Trunks growled.
"Dude, chill!" Daikon glared at him. "Lots of people I know can sense ki, including the rest of my family! It's one of those things you tend to pick up in the spiritual community and it's not that hard – back off!"
It was the other two's turn to blink. "Really?"
"Yes!" Daikon continued glaring, "And unless you've been living under a rock, I don't see how you don't know tha- oh, wait a sec," he paused as a thought occurred to him. "Are you guys martial artists or something?"
The two half-breeds exchanged a look and Trunks spoke for them both. "Yeah, we've both been training since we were little kids."
"That explains it, then," Daikon sat back with a look of understanding, "You can build ki through spiritual arts or martial arts – I'm just more used to encountering the former these days, and most of the martial artists I knew weren't really aware of ki."
"So, you've done martial arts and this spirit stuff," Trunks commented shrewdly, "But your ki's almost non-existent. How hard do you have it suppressed?"
"I don't," Daikon's expression was smug now, "I keep the majority of my ki dormant when I'm not using it."
Goten tilted his head to the side. "What's the difference?"
The long-haired teen shrugged. "Suppressed ki, people still see you just fine. If you send your ki dormant, however… you're harder to notice. People see you, but their gaze just sorta slides over you instead of sticking." Shifting his focus, Daikon's ki rose to a more normal level for an average person, and he seemed to come into sharper focus.
"So that's why we didn't remember seeing you before!" Trunks gave a satisfied nod, "I knew I wouldn't have missed an ass like yours!"
Goten glared at his boyfriend as Daikon turned scarlet. "Is there a reason you make yourself so hard to see?"
Daikon shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't get along well with most people. It's easier like this; if they don't notice me, I don't have to interact with them."
"You seem pretty at ease with us," Trunks pointed out.
"Yeah, it's weird," Daikon tilted his head and squinted at them a bit, "It's like… you guys are easier to read than most people."
They sat in silence for a moment, digesting this new information. As often happened when it was just him and Goten, Trunks broke the silence.
"Okay, can you teach us how to make our ki go dormant? Because that sounds like a stupidly useful skill."
"No!" Goten interrupted before Daikon could respond, "I am 100% against this idea, on the grounds that Trunks is a big enough pain in the ass as it is without adding pseudo-invisibility to his skill set!" he held his hands across his chest in an x of denial. "No way!"
Just then the bell rang, signalling the end of lunch.
"Want to meet at my place after school and trade ki techniques?" Trunks offered as they packed up and headed in.
"Can't- I watch my sisters after school on weekdays."
"Saturday, then," Trunks gave a winning smile.
"Sure, Saturday." Giving them a two-finger salute, Daikon started jogging off towards the school.
"And you better sit with us again tomorrow!" the lavender-haired half-breed shouted cheerfully after the retreating figure, who waved an acknowledgement over one shoulder without pausing.
OoOoOoOoOoO
"Are you sure that was a good idea, Trunks?" Goten asked later as they were walking back to Capsule Corp, "Inviting Daikon over to your house like that?"
"Oh, it was better than a good idea, chibi," Trunks smirked, looking very much like his father, "It's brilliant! And it worked better than I could have hoped!"
"Because everyone's coming over on Saturday?"
"Exactly!" Trunks pointed one finger in the air in triumph, "Either his cover will be blown or we find out this is all the biggest coincidence in the history of the world! Either way, come Saturday, we find out the truth about Daikon!"
OoOoOoOoOoO
The misrepresentation of the Death card and things similar to it in popular media actually does annoy me a lot – it breeds fear around something that people don't actually need to be scared of. Personally, I'm not scared of death. That a great deal of pain might proceed my death, yes, totally, but not the dying itself.
I have done the peanut-butter jar thing, but with apple crisp. Because I don't like peaches.
Ki-sensing: I don't think this would actually be very hard to do – saiyans might be better at it than humans, but Goku's able to do it from the beginning of the entire series with no training at all and a much, much lower power level (and yes, I've done my power level research as well as my tarot research), so I don't think humans would have many problems with it with a little training.
On sensing Goten and Trunks' ki: I imagine they keep their levels pretty low at school, just because I've always gotten the impression you can keep another person's ki, regardless of ki-sensing abilities, if it's higher than your own by a great enough amount, but I don't think they'd keep it as low as your average human's. More like in the low 100s as opposed to the upper 100,000s, or whatever.
"Wait, are you saying there's a bunch of humans running around with higher-than-average ki and none of the Z warriors noticed?"
Actually, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, but for good reasons. There's humans out there with decent power levels – the competitors from the old-fashioned Budokais can't have died out entirely – if you ignore the saiyan insanity. Also, I'm taking a page out of the Namekian handbook in this instance, specifically that you get two types of ki-users: fighting types and healing types. Dragon Ball and DBZ focus on the fighting type humans, but I see no reason we can't have healers interspersed in the population as well. As for why the healers have never been targeted by the bad guys who can sense ki, my concept is that a healer's ki feels somewhat different than a fighter's ki – gentler, less active – so if you're looking for someone who's gonna fight you, it would be really easy to overlook a healer, because their ki wouldn't stand out as much. This is not to say that a healer can't learn martial arts or a fighter can't do some healing – we've seen various characters lend each other energy before in DBZ (though that may have happened mostly in the movies – gonna be honest, I read this series, I didn't watch it). But a fighter's not going to be able to perform complicated healing techniques, like mending a broken arm, and likewise a healer's not going to be able to fire an energy blast without doing themselves some serious damage as well.
Building ki through spiritual arts vs martial arts: as far as I'm aware? True facts, yo. At least in this world. If you believe in this stuff. ;)
The length of these ANs: honestly, this is me limiting myself. I do insane amounts of world-building in my head, but a lot of it never comes up in the fics I write just because there's no way to reasonably have the characters discuss it. But it's still neat stuff (I think) that is at play in the fic, so I'm doing my best to let you guys in on stuff without going crazy with these notes. I am dubious of my success in the latter half of that goal…