The Yamucha Chronicle

ooxoo

Part 10: Korins Tower

Three years passed. We didn't spend the whole time training either.

Tenshinhan and Chaozu came to Kame Island but they both refused to actually set foot in the Kame House. Despite the fact that the Crane Master had turned against them, they were still students of the Tsuru style. They didn't want to abandon their fighting techniques and they didn't wish to impose on the Kame School either. So they set up a couple of tents on the beach. I'm not sure why they bothered. They were hardly ever there. Tenshinhan and Chaozu split up for a while - to cover more ground, I guess - and explored the world, searching for a new place that they could call home. After about five months, they had narrowed it down to a list of around thirty sites. They spent the next year and half visiting the places, debating the pros and cons of each site and eventually moving into more than one of the locations.

Did they build the houses or buy the houses or inherit them? Did they collect their belongings from the Tsuru Dojo or anywhere else that they had ever lived in the past? Or did they start over, with everything new? I really don't know.

The only reason that any of us even knew they were house hunting was because Lunch went with them sometimes and she talked about it. Tenshinhan and Chaozu didn't speak to us on this issue. They didn't even say goodbye or anything when they moved off the island. We woke up one day and the tents were gone and that was it. Guess former assassins have to be extra careful about where they live and who they give their address to.

Still. Even with Tenshinhan and Chaozu absent most of the time, the Kame House felt kinda cramped. Roshi was always there. Umigame, the turtle, was there a lot. Krillen was there most of the time. Lunch was there but only when she wasn't robbing banks, hijacking trains or hanging out with Tenshinhan and Chaozu. Oolong, Puar and I were unofficially living there. And then there was Bulma.

Bulma had kind of adopted Kame Island as... Uhm. Well. Not a second home. More like a project or a hobby. That's what Kame Island was to Bulma - a hobby. The Capsule Corp mansion had all kinds of technology in it. The Kame House didn't. Apparently on one of Bulmas early visits to the Kame House, she had built and installed a telephone there. And she had enjoyed doing that so much that now she was determined to install a television. And a radio. And an intercom. And a microwave. And an air conditioner. And a few solar panels. And pretty much anything else that she could think of. I do believe that - much to Master Roshis dismay - Kame Island went through a phase where Bulma had turned the place into a tropical theme park, complete with serving robots and sound effects and light shows.

I'm no technical genius but having so many bundles of wire and electrical gadgets near an ocean struck me as hazardous. Not to mention annoying. So Oolong, Puar and I left Kame Island for a while. We went back to Ox Kings mountain to help him with the castle. Krillen eventually joined us, so he got to meet Ox King as well. And in spite of the fact that I frequently avoided Bulma, I was on better terms with her than I'd ever been before. Which translates to: we held hands sometimes and didn't yell at each other quite so often. Our relationship never got seriously romantic but the improvement felt like a step in that direction, anyway.

Funny, in retrospect. And kind of sad. I don't know why I thought it was love. We got along best when we avoided each other.

Maybe it was the double dates that fooled me. Yea. Bulma and I double dated. We hung out with various couples that Bulma knew socially and also, once or twice, with Lunch and Tenshinhan. And it wasn't bad because at heart, Bulma is a socialite. She acts different - nicer - when she's around a bunch of people. As long as the location is not any of her old schools then she likes being around groups of people. When she's just around one person then eventually she gets on their nerves and vice versa. Thus double dating was a massive improvement for our friendship because Bulma and I didn't argue with each other as much.

Lunch and Tenshinhan were my favorite couple to hang out with but that's just because I knew both of them. The other couples were all people that the Briefs family could afford to mingle with. I didn't know any of them. And... Well.

I don't know if it was Bulmas intention to make me feel like an idiot on these dates but she usually managed to. I kinda felt like an outsider around these people. They weren't orphans, they weren't martial artists - there was nothing for me to relate to. So these dates were... Improvements over past attempts and that's about it. Because the people that Bulma knows socially, a lot of them are rich and quite a few of them are Capsule Corp employees. So I'd have to dress up and pretend to be interested while these people droned on about difficulties with servants or their most recent exotic vacation or - even worse - their ideas about computer programming. And let's face it, they also made me feel poor. Because the other couples - the guy would pick up the bill. Plus the girl would always be showing off some gift with a seven-digit price tag that she'd been given on the date - a car, a diamond necklace, something. Always something. And then these ladies would turn to Bulma and ask ever so sweetly if I'd given her anything. And Bulma would always say no. Which wasn't always true. But I guess that the occasional dozen roses doesn't count as a real present in those circles.

And yes, as awful as all that was, it was STILL an improvement over past attempts.

Tenshinan and Lunch were always very casual. We never had to dress up or go to an eight-star restaurant to hang out with them. I never felt out of place or under pressure to sell a kidney in order to afford a gift for Bulma. And they were certainly the most interesting couple to watch. Understand that Tenshinhan and Lunch both adhere to an ancient traditional code. I don't know how but this is something that both of Lunchs minds agree on.

If you study the surviving ancient scrolls of our world, you might notice that the word love does not appear. Ever. Not even once. Instead, the scrolls talk about duty. Because people had to fulfill duties to each other. They had to defend each others reputations, for example. Marriage was more of a political business arrangement than anything else. So the aspect of affection, if it existed at all, was resigned to being completely private. Lunch and Tenshinhan didn't verbalize their affection or even hold hands or anything but... Well. Lunch would calmly threaten to kill anyone that so much as did a double take at Tenshinhans third eye. And Tenshinhan more or less returned the favor by calmly threatening to destroy anything that offended Lunch. And both of them would blush and issue slightly less calm death threats if anyone mentioned that they seemed to love each other. Heh. Guess they felt more at ease with the concept of duty. You know... Maybe they're onto something, though.

The dating idea did eventually die out again. No severe argument this time. Bulma just decided that she was too embarrassed to be seen with me in public. I shrugged and said okay because I really didn't care anymore. So we drifted. Again. I returned full force to wandering and training, for lack of other ambitions.

Master Roshi was the only one who completely backed out of training. After the fiasco with Daimio, Roshi claimed that he had nothing more to teach us and returned to retirement. However Roshi did recommend a place where we could continue our training, a place that Goku had also mentioned before. Korins Tower.

I shouldn't have been fazed by anything anymore - right? Goku was almost constantly doing the impossible. Sometimes though, the rest of us could follow in his footsteps and that was always a bit of a surprise. I mean... I'd met Master Roshi. I'd seen the ghost of Grandpa Gohan. I'd learned the kamehameha. I'd come across legendary people and items so frequently in recent years that legendary was starting to seem dull. But Korin was mythical. People weren't even sure if Korin actually existed. Philosophers and scholars debated it. Scientists and explorers - some had tried to climb the tower. Some had tried to just take pictures of the top of the tower, using satellites and airplanes. All of them had failed to reach any conclusions.

This didn't prevent Korin from being worshipped in at least nineteen different forms with something like fifty different formal titles, many of them conflicting. In one tribe, Korin is called the wind god and is portrayed as a leafy blur. In another culture, he is regarded as a war god and symbolized as a rather evil looking thundercloud. In a few remote villages, Korin is called the guardian of small fishing boats and is represented by metallic sculptures of a fish jumping from a lily. At most reputable martial arts tournaments there will be statues that, to be perfectly honest, look like a winged monkey sitting on a dragon. And those are meant to represent Korin as the divine patron of all martial arts. Because some of the most popular stories told at tournaments would claim that Korin was an otherworldly being - an alien, some said or a god, others insisted - who came to Earth for the sole purpose of teaching primitive humans how to defend themselves.

Really, we had no idea what to expect from Korin. Would he be a leafy blur or an evil thundercloud? A winged monkey sitting on a dragon or a fish jumping from a flower? Did Korin even exist? Was he an alien? Was he an immortal? Was Korin actually a he? Had Korin been mankinds first sensei? Would Korin agree to train us?

It was kind of hard to get used to the idea of training with someone mythical. Someone who could be divine. Someone who might not be human. Someone older than human civilization on Earth. Nevertheless... Goku had survived the training. Roshi had survived it, a long time ago. So there had to be something worthwhile at the top of Korins Tower.

Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I each made the trip to Korins Tower at some point. We agreed that it would be best for each of us to go alone instead of going all at once. Recall that the main goal of training - any sort of training - is self-improvement. Which means that you have to focus on your own skills, no comparing yourself to anyone else. That's why we split for Korins Tower. Each of us had expected that once we arrived at the top of the tower - if we made it to the top and if Korin accepted our requests for training - then we'd be Korins only student.

We were wrong. Because we didn't know about Yajirobe. Yet.

Korin, as it turns out, did exist. He is smug humanoid white cat - or at least, that's the only form I've ever seen him take. He does know the martial arts. All of them. Very well. And no wonder. He's been practicing martial arts for a very long time. The few genuine hints we've had about Korins age indicate that he is comfortably more than 800 years old.

Now chasing Korin and climbing the tower - yes climbing, remember none of us flew yet - that was the training I got. Not easy but it wasn't exactly exciting work either. I don't know what had inspired me to take my sword along but I'm glad that I did. Thanks to the blade, I got in quite a bit of extra sparring against Yajirobe.

Oh. Yea. Yajirobe. Suppose you might want to know when he waltzed into this story. Well, I didn't meet Yajirobe until I went to Korins Tower for training but by then he'd already saved Gokus life. Twice. All I know for sure is that Yajirobe had - wisely - stayed out of the fights against Piccolo Daimio. So after Goku had been beaten to a pulp, Yajirobe'd had the strength left to pick Goku up and carry him all the way up Korins Tower. Honestly Yajirobe deserves a heck of a lot of credit here. Goku was age 16 at the time and with all that muscle mass, the kid wasn't exactly lightweight. I don't think I could carry Goku that far. I sure as he...heaven in this case...couldn't have scaled Korins Tower with the extra weight.

For those who don't know, Korins Tower... Uhm. I guess your world has similar structures. Eiffel Tower, the Seattle Space Needle - except that they're shorter. Much, much shorter. The top of Korins Tower is about twenty yards from being in Earth orbit. So even when you're halfway up the tower, you can't see the top. Okay? Got the mental image? Good. Now imagine climbing it. Go, on. Try to imagine. Let me tell you, it's a looooong climb. I think it took me about a week to get to the top and the hardest part was just breathing at that altitude.

That's why we were all VERY grateful when Yajirobe started delivering the senzu beans to us. He saves us from repeating the trip up the tower. Even when most of us had learned to fly, getting to Korins place was still a challenge because breathing and high altitudes simply don't go together very well. Hmph. Flying at high altitudes... It's one of those things people seem to expect you to get used to. I don't know why. Not being able to breathe isn't exactly the kind of thing a person WANTS to get used to. Trust me.

A side note. I learned, much later, that Korin is only allowed to accept one human student per every hundred years or so. I don't know who makes these rules or how anyone would enforce such rules but Korin keeps them. He only accepts one human student every century. And Goku didn't count because Goku wasn't human. We didn't know that about Goku back then. Goku didn't even know that. But Korin knew. And then there was Yajirobe, who is descended from some of Korins all-time favorite students. Hence the reason that Korin accepted Yajirobe for training. The rest of us... We were recommended by Roshi and Goku. So Korin never really agreed to train any of the rest of us. Instead, as a favor to Roshi and Goku, Korin just allowed us to join Yajirobes training.

It makes sense, I guess. The rest of us... We did all improve but looking back... Yajirobes improvement was probably the most drastic at that time. He had the benefit of Korins continuous supervision. He climbed the tower more often than the rest of us combined. He was able to spar with Krillen, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and I. Plus he was permitted to visit the Lookout to spar with Goku and Kami on occasion.

Anyway. Yajirobe and I were both happy to have crossed paths with a fellow swordsman. Yes, if I had used energy blasts then I'd have won. Easily. But most of the time, we just dueled. Yajirobe is a samurai and a swords master, his battle experience - not to mention his foot speed - made him a challenge. I don't know about winning and losing. I didn't care about that. I was just sparring.

I think I stayed on Korins Tower longer than anyone else. Except Yajirobe, he lives on that tower. As a result I became a lot faster, a bit stronger and much better with a sword. But... Maybe I should have just concentrated on the energy blasts like everyone else. Because someone had been watching Korin, Yajirobe and I train. Kami. So when it came time for the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, Kami knew that I was more prepared for a sword fight than a martial arts tournament.

That's as good a place as any to close for now.

ooxoo