Eclipse

by DoraMouse

ooxoo

Twist: November 12th, 763 A.D.

Yamucha sat crosslegged on a cold metal bleacher. Wishing that the world wasn't such a mess. Baseball games were at least being scheduled now but it would still be a while, before the season resumed. The home stadium wasn't in any condition to host a game but the restoration was making progress. The bleachers were new. The field below had almost been cleared. So the games were being scheduled. But they would only happen if the team showed up. Or what was left of the team, at any rate. They'd lost some players. All of the teams on Earth had.

He'd attended the funerals. Had seen the grief of the surviving family members, the co-workers and the fans. Had stood in the crowd and felt badly out of place because... Because he'd died once. He knew what happened to spirits. It wasn't all bad. It just wasn't fair, either. That struck a chord. When Yamucha had died, he'd spent one month traveling in the afterlife and then five months training on King Kais world and then he'd been wished back to life.

His death... Was it a year ago, already? It still seemed more recent. That battle had been internationally televised. Hence, being reincarnated had been great but it had also been complicated. His employers had welcomed his return but in order to continue working, he'd had to get his own death certificate revoked. Yamucha had been back to life since early May. The legal battle to declare him officially alive again had taken until August. The mansion, the bank accounts... Thank heaven for Puar. Everything was in her name, now. Because there were still some kinks in the system - not everyone had gotten the memo. In spite of the media attention, there were still a few bitter people who tried to insist that Yamucha couldn't own anything because he was legally dead. He'd gotten love letters from fans and hate mail from critics, all in the same bag. It was amazing, it was sickening...

And it wasn't fair. Why should he be wished back to life if all these other people didn't have the same chance? There were so many other people.

Yamucha knew there was a possibility that Shenlong would be summoned to reverse all the deaths caused by the black water mist. Having this knowledge was about the only thing that had made attending the funerals bearable.

Unfortunately, when he'd spoken to the Earths local god about this issue, Kami had seemed reluctant. The guardian had his reasons and Yamucha had been informed of them. The dragonballs had been used a year ago. They could only be used once a year. In late December - next month - the artifacts would become available for use again. But if they used them right away... Did they dare? It was a risk. The dark mist had only taken one afternoon to cause planetwide destruction. Anything could happen, in the course of the coming year. It might be wise to save the wish for later, Kami had explained. In case. Which meant that all of the people killed by the dark mist, through no fault of their own, might just have to stay dead.

They couldn't have been more than eight years old... Yamucha didn't care if the kids had been built by a criminal organization. That shouldn't automatically qualify them as criminals, right? They'd just been kids! Even if the kids HAD been criminals. He'd been a desert bandit once. He'd changed. Why not give them a chance?

They were beyond chances, now. The strange kids were dead. They might have to stay dead. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Yamucha understood but he didn't like it at all. He wished that he could forget the gruesome way their corpses looked.

Hands in his pockets and wind in his face, Yamucha flew home.

The main gathering room downstairs was a dimly lit mass of paper. It had become this way overnight. Scrolls and scraps. Books and notebooks. Stacked on the floor and spread out on the furniture. A technique that had apparently taken the warrior called Garlic Junior and his ancestor three hundred years to figure out was now being unraveled by the best technicians on Earth. It hadn't yet taken them a full day. Kuririn was sitting on the floor, a slightly chewed pencil behind his ear. He was thumbing through a heavy book and leaning an elbow on the cluttered coffee table. Tenshinhan was sitting in a chair on the other side of the table, hunched down and inking notes on a diagram. He'd taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. They were both intently focused on the task - an observation supported by the several half-empty teacups and takeout boxes abandoned in the layers of paper. Yamucha wasn't thrilled to see the mess.

"Ah..." Kuririn was the first to notice him. "Sorry. We'll clean up later."

Most of the books were, Yamucha knew, Master Roshis. One was Kuririns. The formulas and diagrams were descriptions of attacks. This was the academic side of being a pioneer in energy combat. When you invented a new attack, you documented it. That was how you created a legacy. Not just by developing and practicing the attacks but by being able to explain and record them. Kuririn had literally added a book to the history of the Kame school and he was only twenty-seven. He probably had a few more books left in him.

"Thanks." Yamucha lingered in the doorway and squinted at all the notes. He had invented some of his own attacks. Not all of them had been energy attacks but he'd done the paperwork. So he could look at the formulas and not instantly get a headache. But he'd never had to try and document an attack that had been invented by someone else. Yamucha was aware that Kuririn and Tenshinhan weren't just recording this new method for future reference. They were figuring it out for themselves. In order to get the new attack down on paper... They'd have to learn it.

It was a variation on the Mafuba. That was all Yamucha needed to know to make a decision. He walked away. Left them to their studies.

Yamucha left his shoes in the entry hall, put on some slippers, hung his coat on a peg and thought about getting something to drink. He was an adult. The idea of a beverage wasn't limited to what could traditionally be put in a teacup. But... He did consider his guests, anyway. Because Kuririn had been raised by monks. Tenshinhan was a maybe-not-so-former assassin. They had different reasons but they both strongly disapproved of anything that could even mildly impair a persons awareness. Not to mention...

It was early morning. Puar had left, hours ago. She'd gone with Chaozu. She was interested in law and he had a full schedule of appointments with lawyers. Kuririn and Tenshinhan had each come and gone a few times during the night. They'd left to gather more research materials or stepped out to experiment with energy blasts in desolate areas - always returning with stacks of notes in either case. Yamucha himself had been too restless to sleep after all of the most recent news, so he'd taken a few walks in the night air. Had done an impromptu patrol of the city. But there was someone else at the mansion, who hadn't left.

Prior to Yamuchas death, there had been a battle. And prior to that battle, there had been training. He'd spent eight months at Kamis Lookout. The other human members of the Earths Special Forces had been at the Lookout for training too. Yamucha had already known them from tournaments and adventures - but during the eight months, he'd gotten to know them better. The Lookout was in low Earth orbit. Yamucha had lived in a desert for most of his life. The difference of temperature between these locations was significant. Battles and exercises always created some heat but when the warriors were resting... He'd been cold. Just freezing. And so Yamucha had tried to compensate. He'd returned home. Packed some warm clothes and extra blankets. And at first, he'd assumed that everyone else was probably cold as well. So he'd learned, for example, that Kuririn was the heavy sleeper. You could throw an extra blanket over Kuririn when he was sleeping and not have to fear for your life. Chaozu, though, would be expecting it. You could walk up to him with an extra blanket when he was fast asleep and find a thank you note already waiting. Tenshinhan would not only wake up if anything got within twenty yards of him but when offered an extra blanket, he'd typically snarl that he could take care of himself and stalk off to sleep elsewhere. But the absolute light sleeper of the group... Was not the assassin. It was the samurai.

If you threw an extra blanket over Yajirobe then you'd never see more than a few shreds of that blanket ever again. He didn't just wake up at the smallest noises, he woke up and pulled a sword - and not always in that exact order. Yajirobe was a veteran. He'd slept in trenches. His survival had occasionally hinged on his being able to chop heads first, ask questions later.

And the samurai didn't approve of alcohol either.

Yamucha wasn't terribly fond of the stuff. He'd tried it because of his baseball team mates. He'd probably been the only sober desert bandit in the history of the world but when you were a true desert bandit, alcohol was not exactly abundant. He'd been lucky to find enough water, sometimes. The alcohol was an acquired taste. Yamucha had only recently acquired the taste for it. A few cans could last him a few months. Sometimes, it helped him to fall asleep. Not always. The alcohol didn't always mix well with the energy in his system.

A cup of tea would probably just be safer, all around.

Yamucha made his way to the kitchen. The kitchen was a mass of paperwork. This had happened overnight, too. Scrolls and books and diagrams and teacups and... Yamucha did not want to look at the paperwork here. Because he didn't have a family tree - he wasn't aware of his own birth parents. He wasn't sure that he wanted to become aware of his own parents. It would have been nice, maybe, just to have a copy of his birth certificate. That probably would have made revoking his death certificate less of a challenge. But a whole family tree...

The main scroll, laying open across the middle of the kitchen table, had the name Mutaito on it in large bold and ancient cursive print. It was as much a work of art as a historical document. Other scrolls lay beside it, looking formal but less impressive. They were hard not to look at. Somewhere in all this mess, would be the name of the person who had tried to kill Master Roshi. The same person who had claimed to kill the Crane Master.

The fact that the Crane Master might be dead had not surprised Yamucha. Honestly, he'd sort of thought that either Tenshinhan or Chaozu would have killed the guy ages ago. And if not them... It still wasn't a huge surprise. Because the Crane Master had been the elder brother of Tao Pai Pai, the flamboyant and self-proclaimed Worlds Greatest Assassin. And Tao was dead. Tenshinhan had mangled Tao to near-death, anyway. So it only made sense, to assume that Tao was dead. Because he'd probably had other enemies and rivals. People wanting to defeat Tao for personal reasons and perhaps even people wanting to become the next Worlds Greatest Assassin. And if the Crane Master had essentially been a hostile jerk for over three hundred years then he'd probably made some fairly serious enemies of his own. And without his little brothers protection... Yea. Death for Tsuru-sennin really was not a surprise.

But if someone was willing to take a shot at Master Roshi...

Master Roshi had, inexplicably, become protective of his attacker. He'd told Kuririn that it was a descendant of Mutaitos and that was all. The old man hadn't wanted to give them any other names. Master Roshi had defended himself and had let his attacker survive. He had spoken to Kuririn once about the attack and was then no longer willing to speak of it. Master Roshi had decided that the matter was closed. Kuririn held a different opinion of the situation, he was concerned for his sensei. What if Master Roshi was attacked again? And there was also another valid point that concerned Kuririn: if someone had attacked Roshi then what were the odds of all the Kame style students being on a hit list somewhere? If Roshis attacker had, in fact, also killed the Crane Master then would former students of the Tsuru dojo be on that list too?

Kuririn wanted names. He wanted to know who he might be dealing with and what to expect. All of them did, now. But only one of them could pull the files.

"How's it going?" Yamucha ventured, rummaging for teabags.

Yajirobe responded without looking up. "I've seen better days."

As a samurai and a veteran, Yajirobe had special access to the files of the World Government. He could demand to see anything that concerned the battles of the past. He could claim to be building a memorial for his own ancestors and get full copies of all their records. He could pull data on anyone else who had ever been a samurai. Even with the archives of the world in rough shape, he could get the information delivered to him. So he hadn't needed to leave. And that was just as a samurai. As the current favorite student of Korin, Yajirobe was in line to become a minor god someday. That came with some additional security clearances. He could take a list of names - and a family tree was essentially just a list of names - and pull every other document on the planet known to contain those names. The kitchen looked a mess but there was a hint of organization to all the stacks of paper. Yajirobe was comparing the records and narrowing the suspects. He was tired but he'd obviously done this sort of work before.

Yamucha poured a mug of tea. There weren't any clean teacups. "We've all seen better days."

"When?" Yajirobe studied the teacup nearest him. The contents appeared to be growing slime. He sighed and took the cup to the sink, washed it out and refilled it.

The conflicting logic of these statements took a moment to grapple with. So... They'd seen better days but not many? Or... They'd seen better days but not recently? Or... Wait... No... Eh. Yamucha pulled a spatula from a drawer, faced the samurai and tapped him lightly, once on each shoulder. "I dub thee Zombie-sennin. Fearless leader of the insomniacs."

Yajirobe was nonplussed but not without a sense of humor. "Evil doesn't rest."

"Exactly!" Yamucha put the spatula away and left the kitchen.

He went upstairs. The air here had an animal texture to it which was not unexpected. There were stray pets everywhere. Sleeping on the floor and curled up on the furniture and...

Yamucha knew exactly what might cheer him. He needed to cheer up. Yesterday had been horrible and he'd hardly gotten any sleep - so he was bracing for another day of bad news on no rest. If he didn't find a way to cheer up at least a little then he was going to snap. Luckily, there was a way. It was easy. He'd invented it.

He gathered his energy and concentrated. A small sphere of light escaped the open palm of one hand, the mug held in his other hand. He flicked the weak blast towards the far end of the hall and waited. The sphere hung there, faint and buzzing. Then a paw swiped at it. Yamucha grinned and gestured. The sphere moved. The paws followed it. The sphere circled and dove, bobbed and twisted. A fluid bundle of fur and claws gave chase. The blast split into two spheres and the chase became even more animated. To the point of being comical.

Soukidan, the Following Spheres. That's what the attack was called, in the records of the Kame school and on the battlefield. A guided blast. A useful skill. But... Off the battlefield... It was Soukidan, the Ultimate Cat Toy. Which was more true to what Yamucha had been going for. The light seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect on felines. Chasing the 'attack' was purely instinctive for them.

The spheres faded just as the bundle of fur launched an aggressive final pounce. Yamucha laughed then realized which cat he'd gotten and began to retreat down the stairs.

A slightly mussed calico, one of Puars relatives - and the cats who could talk really hated to be reminded of how close to domestic pets they were sometimes - hovered and threw an actual cat toy after him. A neon cloth mouse with jingling bells attached to it bounced off the wall of the stairwell. "Brat!" She shouted.

ooxoo

There were children in the bathtub and children in the pantry and children in the bedrooms and... It was a bit much, even for ChiChi. She felt as if she'd become the main character of a certain nursery rhyme. She was starting to think that maybe the green demon - she knew his name but only cared to refer to him as a demon - hadn't kidnapped all of these kids. Which only mattered because she'd felt good about attacking the demon on their behalf. But if the kids had just been wandering out in the wild anyway... Then demon or not, he'd been wrongly accused.

Meh. He was demon. He was evil. He had a history of kidnapping. There was no point in feeling bad about attacking him. He would do something worthy of punishment, eventually. Maybe she'd just punished him in advance. Not that she'd done all that much damage, either. The demon knew how to defend himself and Gohan had calmly disarmed her after a few swipes.

How was she supposed to punish a kid who could take an axe away from her so easily?

ChiChi sighed. She loved her son. She worried about him. When he took off without saying anything, of course she was going to follow him. Of course she was going to assume the worst. The worst had happened before. She could recognize that her son was strong and intelligent and all the rest but it didn't matter, in her heart. He was her child. Her baby. He was only six! Okay, so he was six and a half. But she was the mother, the parent. She was supposed to be in charge! She was supposed to be the protective one! She didn't ever want to cause harm to Gohan but if she didn't at least upset the kid once in a while then how would he ever be able to relate to her? How would he learn to understand that she was upset? When would he grasp the truth of WHY she was upset? She felt as if her concern just bounced off him, sometimes. She felt so unappreciated.

The new kids were a blessing, even if she was a little overwhelmed. She couldn't have left them out in the wild, all dirty and tired and hungry looking. It would have gone against every maternal nerve in her body. But she'd never expected...

Peer pressure! HA! The new kids appreciated her! Gohan was getting the lesson and, for once, she didn't even have to try to be the teacher. Finally!

ChiChi smirked. She was using a very large knife to chop up some vegetables. It was early in the day but she was thinking ahead. She couldn't afford not to, there were plenty of mouths to feed.

Most of the group was a bit older than Gohan. They could help with chores. Some of them even had domestic skills. Some of them were used to watching out for other kids. There were around thirty children in total and about twenty of them were being helpers. They had slept and had made the beds. Some had slept on the couch and some had slept in sleeping bags on the floor - but they'd all made their beds. They had bathed themselves and had monitered the younger ones in the bathtub. They had known about first aid already and had only needed access to clean bandages to practice it. They had gotten changed into clean clothes and some of them could even sew - they were doing their own alterations. They were doing their own laundry.

ChiChi had cared for and stabilized the ones in need of more serious medical attention. She had held the ones who had wanted to be held and had let them cry on her shoulders. She held their hands and rubbed their backs when they had nightmares. She could sing them lullabies and read them stories. They'd listened, instead of always asking questions. She'd told them about the Tooth Fairy and none of them had tried to set traps for the imaginary creature. She'd given them paper and crayons and now had a kitchen full of bright scribbly artwork on display. Gohan had never scribbled.

They were far too polite to have been around the demon for very long. ChiChi had cooked and the kids had done the dishes. They'd taken out the garbage. They'd weeded the garden. They'd washed the windows. Even when these kids played, they always shared and were quiet and put things away neatly when they were finished. And they always asked for permission before touching anything.

ChiChi loved it. She'd tell the children to rest and have a snack. They'd tell her that their parents had raised them to behave better when they were guests.

See! She'd wanted to scream and point but had so far resisted the urge. I'm NOT the only parent in the world who tries to teach their kids this stuff!

She was eager to meet these other parents and reunite the families. On the first day of having them in, ChiChi had taken down all of the childrens names. Some of them had even recited their home phone numbers for her. So she'd started making phonecalls the minute that she'd gotten half a chance. The phone systems of the world were still being repaired from whatever had happened a month ago. People were scattered from their homes. Some addresses no longer existed, some phone numbers no longer worked. Some parents were no longer living. ChiChi had managed to make a few contacts anyway. She had gotten ahold of a few parents and relatives. She was determined to find the rest.

Her awe of the children had increased. ChiChi hadn't known where they were from, when she'd started dialing. She'd found out. East Capital City was nowhere near the Son house. These kids... To have gotten to where she'd found them, out in the forests... They must have been walking together for a long time...

ChiChi was twenty-six. Between the ages of four and twelve, she'd been walking on her own in a sub-tropical desert. Her father, the Ox King, had sent her to try and find someone who could help put out the flaming mountainside where their castle home was located. The mountain had caught fire shortly after ChiChis birth. Her mother, who had died in childbirth, had been buried there. Ox King could - and probably should - have been the one to leave in search of help when the fires started but he'd been unwilling to part from the area where his wife had been so recently laid to rest. He'd loved her so much. Besides, Ox King had earned himself the reputation of being a big scary monster. He'd been afraid that if he went out then people would just run away from him. That wouldn't help anything. So Ox King had settled down by the burning mountain to raise his only child. Ox King had talked to her constantly and had been showing her how to hunt, fish and throw an axe before she could even crawl. As soon as ChiChi had been old enough to walk and speak in complete sentences then he had sent his cute little daughter out to find help instead.

What these children had done... Because of her own experiences, ChiChi knew it was possible. She didn't just dismiss the idea. But... East Capital City. Even the parents that ChiChi had managed to find, it was going to take them a while to come and collect their children. And these parents, they'd be driving.

ooxoo

The room was a mess. Tenshinhan was aware of this. He was up to his knees in paper and half of it was crumpled. Kuririn, still sitting on the floor, was practically hidden from view by the stacks of books around him. Instead of looking like two of the most dangerous adults on the planet, they probably looked like a pair of college students cramming for a final exam.

It was a little more serious than that.

They'd collaborated before. The eight months at Kamis Lookout hadn't been pure sparring - it had also resulted in a large binder. That binder was here, now. For reference. And most of the paper inside of it was covered in Kamis handwriting, which seemed ironic. Because the names of the attacks that had been recorded in this binder were Evil Beam, Evil Lance, Demons Stomp, Demons Bomb and Demons Corkscrew. There was also the Scatter Bomb and an Eye Laser technique. The binder had a name written across the front: Piccolo. The green warrior - and his father, to a lesser extent - had invented these attacks without making note of them. So Tenshinhan and Kuririn had helped Kami do the paperwork. Whether or not Piccolo realized it, he'd made them stronger. Even if they hadn't yet chosen to use any of the demons techniques, they'd learned them.

Kuririn had been busy lately. There were several new binders. They were here, too. Scattered across the coffee table. Kuririn had seen a lot of battles out in space and had, after being wished back to life and wished back to Earth, taken some detailed notes. Tenshinhan kept his expression neutral but privately wasn't sure whether to feel impressed or disturbed.

There was a binder labeled 'Gohan'. It only had one unique attack recorded in it so far - Masenkou, the Demons Flash - but there was room to grow. There was a binder labeled with the word 'Saiyans' that seemed to be full of drawings and incomplete descriptions of everything that Vegeta and Nappa had shown them. There was a binder labeled 'Freezias henchmen' and another labeled 'Freezia' and...

"Rough drafts." Kuririn explained, having noticed what the assassin was reading. "Except for Gohans attack, he helped get that one finalized. But the rest..."

He let the statement end. He didn't want to have to mention Gokus name. Kuririn missed his friend but he had no idea when - and in his mind it was a matter of WHEN, not IF - Goku would make it back to Earth. They knew that Goku was alive. They just didn't know where. Somewhere out in space, that was all they'd been told. It was difficult to dwell on for many reasons but the rough drafts were, for Kuririn, one of them. He'd been to the battles but... Goku had, for the most part, been on the recieving end of these attacks. And Goku seemed to have a special genius for fighting, a knack for learning every attack that had ever been used against him. So it would have been great to have Goku around to help record all of these new methods. It would have made the task easier.

The 'Freezia' binder contained an attack that, even in Kuririns rough drafts, was familiar. Because Kuririn had invented names for all of the new techniques that he'd seen. And the attack which had captured Tenshinhans attention had been named the Perfectly Evil Fingertip Blast.

Dodonpa, the Fingertip Blast, was a Crane school attack. How could some alien monster who'd never set foot on Earth have perfected it?! That was just wrong! And that wasn't the only wrong thing about the situation. The way this attack was described... The power was enormous.

Tenshinhan knew that he would have to try to learn this powered up version of the Dodonpa - for his own pride and sanity as a competitive warrior, he'd HAVE to figure it out - but he didn't know if it was something that he could master. Regular Dodonpa was only meant to stun people. It could slice them or burn them and do some damage but... It was, like so many of the Crane style techniques, a tactic for stalling. Chaozu had already invented a dozen useful variations on Dodonpa - but they were only useful because they didn't rely on putting every ounce of strength behind them. A trained warrior didn't have to power up to use Dodonpa. You could use it repeatedly since it didn't take a lot of energy, it was one of those attacks. It could be used at long range, close up or anywhere inbetween. It could be lethal, in the right hands, but wasn't intended to leave much evidence.

This new attack... This Perfectly Evil Dodonpa... If Kuririns notes were accurate then the attack would only be useful if a warrior needed to blow up the moon or something.

A warrior could never know what they might need someday. Tenshinhan closed the binder, placing it aside. He added it to a growing mental checklist.

Most of the scrolls and books in the room were in Master Roshis handwriting. The contents of this series traced the origins and philosophies of energy combat before finishing with two volumes of attacks. One book was for the Kamehameha, which had taken Roshi fifty years to develop. Everything else that Roshi had invented was described in the other - his last and most recent - published work. There were newer books. Kuririn had written one. Yamuchas attacks were not all energy based but he'd recorded the ones that were. Chaozu had done a book of the Dodonpa variations and he had the most legible writing.

These texts captured not only the energy attacks and their often painstaking developments but their recommended use. If you didn't write down the instructions for an attack, didn't make your intentions for the attack clear - that part of the history was bound to get lost. And if history got lost then all their efforts and strategies would be lost with it. By creating the literature, they were growing the knowledge base. Giving each other - and any future warriors who might aspire to work with energy - something to draw inspiration from. It was important, to create the resources.

Goku had been made aware of this but he'd been a teenager before he had learned to write, so he'd needed some help to record his inventions. There were a few notes in Gokus own scrawl but most of his book was filled with other peoples handwriting - ChiChi, Kuririn, Roshi, Kami, Korin. The book on the coffee table only represented what Goku had come up with by the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai. It was mostly variations on the Kamehameha. Gokus skill for learning techniques had far outweighted his ability to invent techniques, prior to being married. Marriage had apparently caused Goku to settle down and settling down may have given him time to invent something. He'd probably need to write another book, when and if - and in Tenshinhans view this was a big IF - he ever returned to Earth.

ChiChi had been a warrior but had retired at the age of nineteen without publishing anything of her own. The Ox King - ChiChis father and a former student of Master Roshi - had a book but it was mostly about axes and ways to intimidate people with your battle presence. Yajirobe was a warrior but not inclined to shoot energy beams, if he'd written about anything then it likely involved swords. Korin was a warrior and also a spellcaster, he preferred to use magic. Kami was a warrior and he did know energy attacks - but he claimed not to have invented any.

The Crane Master had written some books but Tenshinhan had no idea where those were, now. Perhaps that was for the best.

Roshi might not have developed many attacks but at least his attacks were still respectable. The Crane Master had apparently spent a hundred years on the precursor to Taiyouken, the Solar Flare. Tenshinhan had developed and perfected the actual Solar Flare, as it currently existed. Being able to blind someone with your aura was a useful skill but hardly an attack. Most of the Crane Masters other techniques had been stalling tactics or purely psychic skills - which were only respectable if your opponent was vulnerable to them. The Crane Master had also claimed to invent the technique for flying but that was not likely. He had probably just borrowed and improved the flying technique. Dodonpa had been the invention of Tao Pai Pai, the Crane Masters younger brother. If there were any other Crane style techniques then Tenshinhan had not been told about them. Which was possible.

Tenshinhan had learned as much of the Crane style as he'd been shown and had served his teacher. Had given the old man plenty of second chances. Really, he'd never gotten along that great with the Crane Master. There hadn't been a lot of trust. The Crane Master had been arrogant and secretive and had made a lot of empty promises. Because of this behavior Tenshinhan had chosen to idolize Tao Pai Pai instead. He'd considered Tao to be his chief mentor for a time. That had required some extra discipline. An average martial arts teacher wouldn't kill a student for messing up. But when your teachers were the Crane Master and the Worlds Greatest Assassin... Tenshinhan had been a very good student, it been necessary for his survival.

If either - or both - of his former teachers were truly dead, Tenshinhan was not surprised. Nor was he upset.

He did wonder, though, about who had killed them. And he wondered, as well, if a certain small triclops might have had a role. But Chaozu had the most contacts to draw answers from. So it had made sense to stay here and work on this, while Chaozu met with lawyers and investigated.

The Crane Master... Tao Pai Pai... Tenshinhan could have killed either of them. He'd been tempted, more than once. But he'd chosen not to. At first, he'd decided that they were just testing his patience and measuring his worth. He had felt that if he could prove his determination as a student then maybe his teachers would finally agree to teach him something more powerful. But after the 22nd World Tournament...

Tenshinhan had won the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai and had immediately needed to work with Goku to save the world from Daimio, Piccolos father. It had been a humbling experience because even as the freshly named World Champion, he hadn't been able to defeat the demon alone. In the years following, Tenshinhan had studied at Kame Island for a bit and then trained at Korins Tower. Had gained a new sense of honor. As an assassin, he could have killed anyone. As an assassin with honor, the rules changed. Tenshinhan had become more selective. Or he would have needed to become selective, if he hadn't retired from being a professional killer. Still. He'd felt that it would be inappropriate - perhaps even dishonorable - to kill his own teachers. Especially since they were no longer able to pose a threat to him. Even after the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai, where a cyborgnetic version of Tao had nearly murdered Chaozu because Chaozus psychic skills did not work on robots most of the time... Tenshinhan had gotten the chance for revenge and he'd soundly thrashed his former mentor. But he'd stopped short of killing the cyborg.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

That fight, at the 23rd Budoukai... During that battle against the cyborg, Tenshinhan had only been caught off guard once. And it had only taken that one moment to have been given a scar. The crimson line started in his right shoulder and slashed down diagonally across his chest, tapering off before it reached his stomach. An inch or two deeper and the cyborgs attack could have struck his heart. Could have punctured a lung. Could have ripped out his intestines. The scar had healed well initially but the message was clear and the fact that the scar had remained with him, even after death and reincarnation... Tenshinhan had felt that perhaps it was meant to be a warning. A suspicion which made more sense, in light of all the things that Chaozu had recently shared with them about the Red Ribbon Army. And there was also one photograph, in particular, that Chaozu hadn't even shown the others. If it was possible that the criminals were building strange warrior children - that was awkward. But if they had the mangled remains of Cyborg Tao stored in a freezer somewhere, waiting for repairs... That was going to have to be taken care of.

Right after this got taken care of.

"What do you think?" Kuririn tossed a page of equations onto the coffee table.

Tenshinhan lifted the page and studied it. His expression didn't change but he took note of a few things. First, Kuririn was getting tired. There were some minor errors that wouldn't have been in the formulas otherwise. Second, Kuririn was brilliant even when he was tired. They just about had the thing down. They were getting closer. Maybe even too close. "Hrm. It's a lot better but how about..." Tenshinhan found a pen amid the papers and hastily scratched a some 'corrections'.

Kuririn suppressed a yawn. He had a pencil behind his ear and another in his hand, both were slightly chewed. He accepted the page with its corrections and stared at it drowsily. He tried to imagine the attack that the new equations described. "Oh..." He frowned. "No. I think it's more like..." With determination, he starting writing again.

If Kuririn hadn't been so tired then he might have realized that every single time they seemed to be getting closer... Tenshinhan was deftly changing the basic structure of the formula. As it was, all that Kuririn could find to be annoyed about was the fact that he was writing in pencil but Tenshinhan kept making corrections in ink.

Tenshinhan and Kuririn were two very different people. Height, weight, age, history, skills, beliefs - it wouldn't have taken a second glance to see how different they were. Even the few things that appeared similiar between them had happened for radically different reasons. Kuririn was bald by choice - he could let his hair grow back, if he ever cared to. Tenshinhan had lost his hair shortly after becoming a triclops which wasn't a reversible phenomenon. Kuririn was a former monk who had been taught to value every living thing. Tenshinhan was a former assassin, so he'd learned the value of life by ending it for other people. They were warriors and professional about it, which was probably the main reason that they could work together when needed.

Mafuba was the other reason. Because it was where their paths crossed, so to speak.

The Crane Master and Master Roshi had been students of the same legendary teacher - Mutaito. Kuririn and Tenshinhan had each - separately and for separate reasons - chosen to take inspiration from not their own teachers but from their teachers teacher. Mutaito.

Kuririn had studied the Mafuba and had embraced the concept of guided energy blasts. He had developed his first attack: Tsuihikidan, the Following Wave. An energy beam that he could steer. Motivated by this success, Kuririn had also developed the improved and perfect versions which were faster. Double Tsuihikidan had been his next innovation: two guided waves instead of one. Then he'd tripled the attack. Then he'd quadrupled it. Somewhere along the line of experimenting with multiple guided blasts, a new attack had gradually revealed itself. The energy beams had broken down into smaller parts - all of which could still be guided. That had been the birth of Kakusandan, the Scatter Shot technique.

In terms of energy combat, it was groundbreaking and legendary work. That went without question. Nothing like Scatter Shot had been done on Earth before Kuririn did it. The importance of Scatter Shot was so great that it wasn't even diminished by the fact that Piccolo had later hijacked the principles of the move in order to create the Scatter Bomb. And on paper, these attacks looked amazing. But on the battlefield... Kuririn was what made them good attacks. Scatter Shot might not have been more than a firework display without him. When your focus was on control and speed, you tended to sacrifice power. Even Kienzan, the Following Disc - Kuririns latest invention - if the warrior using it wasn't abnormally strong to begin with then the attack wasn't going to do a ton of damage.

Nevertheless, Kuririn had written the book. It represented everything that he'd come up with since the age of thirteen. He'd changed what was considered possible, for warriors working with energy.

Tenshinhan had put together a book of his own over the years but he hadn't brought it to this session. Deliberately. Tenshinhan hadn't just studied the principles of Mafuba - he'd learned the attack. He'd practiced it. Being able to practice something that was supposed to kill you was an accomplishment by itself. He'd figured it out. With the information in his head, he didn't need to reference his own book. And he didn't particularly care to share the information yet, either.

Kikouhou, the Spirit Cannon was heavily based off Mafuba. Tenshinhan hadn't embraced just one aspect of the ancient technique. Kikouhou could be guided but it was tricky because it was powerful. Anyone using Kikouhou... If they were weak, it would kill them. If they were strong, they might survive. If they were stronger and more disciplined than average, they might even be able to use the attack repeatedly. But the attack would be powerful, regardless. Mafuba had expressed the same intent - it didn't matter how strong the warrior using it was, the attack was going to be powerful. With Mafuba, though, you were guaranteed to die and you HAD to have a denshi jar. The whole purpose of the Mafuba was to trap and seal your enemy away, so you had to have something to put them in. With Kikouhou... You didn't have to seal your opponent into anything. But you could.

The attack that they were mapping now... This invention of the defeated warrior, Garlic Junior... Kuririn had named it ChouMafuba, the Perfect Evil Seal. Which meant, in Tenshinhans mind, Almost Kikouhou.

So... Freezia had used a Perfectly Evil Dodonpa and Garlic Junior had nearly stolen the Spirit Cannon. Warriors that Tenshinhan had never met were using attacks that he'd worked hard for. Worse, they were using variations on the attacks that he'd worked hard for. The Perfectly Evil Dodonpa was vastly more powerful but Tenshinhan wasn't sure if that alone should qualify it as an improvement. The Perfect Evil Seal was basically Mafuba minus the risk of dying - so it wasn't as flexible as Kikouhou because you'd still HAVE to have a denshi jar but... It was interesting to know. Not to mention deeply frustrating.

And if Kuririn succeeded in mapping these attacks... Then anyone who visited Kame Island would be able to study them.

The thing about energy combat was that energy attacks could give off light. Tenshinhan had been an assassin. As such, he'd done a lot of work in the dark. Even the jobs taken care of during the day had often required setting traps in some dark place. So energy attacks hadn't been practical for him to use because the last thing that any professional assassin wanted was to draw unnecessary attention. Tenshinhan had always been interested in energy combat, had always done the training and the research - he'd learned Dodonpa and developed Kikouhou even before meeting Goku - but he'd rarely used the talents outside of tournaments simply because they were too showy.

Energy attacks had become more important, in recent years. Giving away all of the information about how to develop them just didn't seem wise. Tenshinhan was proud and protective of his inventions - and still working on new techniques. He regarded Kuririn with a level of respect but didn't care to have all these dangerous secrets down on paper for everyone to see.

Thankfully, Tenshinhan did not need energy attacks to be effective. He didn't even need to fight.

In the hallway beyond this messy impromptu study, Yamucha darted past. He was followed by a wave of fur, feathers and scales. The stray animals were either happy to see him or angry to have been woken up so early in the morning. Possibly both. The bandit had no trouble evading the mixed herd. He wasn't at a fraction of his top speed. He skidded into the room, grinning and only mildly clawed - and pressed against the wall. His position was such that he could see the hallway without being seen from the hallway. He probably intended to leap out and taunt the creatures, once the stampede made a u-turn.

Instead the bandit paused, blinked and turned his attention towards them. Yamucha came further into the room, trying not to step on any paperwork. He crouched by a stack of books. "... How long has he been alseep?"

Tenshinhan felt that he could act, when the situation called for it. He didn't take his eyes from the scroll he was reading but feigned a tone of surprise. "He's asleep?"

It was a credible setup. Kuririn had been tired to begin with and they'd been working on equations for hours. Tenshinhan was accustomed to being able to stay awake for days at a time, when needed. Kuririn wasn't. And it shouldn't seem too weird if Kuririn didn't wake up right away because, as everyone who had trained at Kamis Lookout had noticed, he was the heavy sleeper of the group.

The stampede went down the hall in the other direction now. Yamucha glanced towards the hallway but remained still. He studied the room for a long moment, coming to his own conclusions. He was adept at detecting energy, unfortunately. He could tell the difference between natural sleep and not-so-naturally-induced sleep. Yamucha stood and carefully lifted Kuririn from the floor. "Don't ever play poker." The bandit advised, nudging at a half-empty teacup with his foot. "How much sedative was there?"

One of the benefits of being an assassin was that sometimes, you could get away with telling the truth. The truth wasn't always pleasant but nobody would punish you if they were literally scared to death of you. So Tenshinhan dropped the tone of feigned surprise and shrugged. Without breaking his calm or seeming hurried, he pulled on his jacket and started collecting paperwork. "How much tea is left?'

ooxoo

Ki is related to mood. Gohan was NOT estatic.

How was he supposed to feel? He'd never been around so many other children before. He'd certainly never expected to see so many other children in his own home. There wasn't a lot of privacy. Gohan tried not to be possessive. He respected these other kids and understood that they'd been through a lot. Heck it had been HIS idea to take them in. But he hadn't expected them all to stay for so long. He'd expected them to eat, sleep, get cleaned up and get sent home. He hadn't envisioned it as taking days.

It was irritating. It was more than irritating. Gohan didn't know what the right word was. He was six. He was an only child. He wasn't used to sharing but felt compelled to be polite - and that was irritating too. He respected these kids but he didn't like them in his space. They were reading his books and playing with his toys and wearing the clothes that he'd either outgrown or not yet grown into. And... They were calling his mother, Mom... Which struck a nerve.

But his mother didn't seem to mind. And as long as she was happy... Gohan didn't know what he could - or should - do about his own discomfort on the issue.

These other children... They'd been wandering in the wilderness for at least a month. They'd walked out of East Capital City and had followed the coastline. East Capital City was - as the name indicated - in the east but also the far north. These regular kids... They must not have taken many breaks. Because they had walked slightly more than half the length of the continent. Another couple of weeks and the ragged group might have made it to the southern shore. They might have been able to see Kame Island.

Most of the children had started with shoes. Their shoes had fallen apart. All of them had bandaged and blistered feet, now. All of them limped.

Bearing this in mind, Gohan respected them. He'd refrained from threatening anyone. Plus he felt guilty around them sometimes. Because the dark mist had fallen to Earth a month ago, Gohan had been a part of the battles against Garlic Junior. He'd helped to save the world. Except... The world was still a mess. If the dark mist could have been prevented... Maybe these other kids wouldn't have had to endure their long walk. They wouldn't have had any reason to leave home.

Except... Well. Maybe THESE children would have still had reasons to leave home. Because they were from East Capital City. So it wasn't JUST the dark mist that had caused devestation. East Capital City was the place where Vegeta and Nappa had landed, a year ago. Gohan hadn't been fully aware of all that had happened back then. He'd been terrified and confused for most of that battle - and cautiously happy, once his father had returned. But he was aware, now, that the Saiyan spacepods had crashed in the city which had caused damage and panic. Then Vegeta and Nappa had stepped out of their spacepods and had promptly caused further damage and panic. A populated section of East Capital City had been vaporized. That had been a year ago. The East Capital of the world had cleaned up but not rebuilt. And the residents had not recovered from the shock of those attacks. Some of the kids, especially the ones older than Gohan... They still remembered seeing those blasts. They remembered what it was like, to watch their neighbors vanish.

It was no wonder, that these children disliked aliens so much.

His mother tried to get them to sit still, sometimes. She wanted them to rest and heal. But these kids were in the habit of being on the move, now. They fidgeted and paced a lot. They wanted to stay busy. They'd done all of his chores, which Gohan appreciated even though on some level he was sure that he could have done the work faster and better.

Really, the other children were not bad company. They were cautious and some avoided him - but others had talked to him. They walked with him and could speak to him about the types of subjects that adults wouldn't have understood. Some of them knew jokes and could make Gohan laugh. He'd been able to play card games and board games with people around his own age. They'd taught Gohan how to sew, how to turn rubber bands into musical instruments and all sorts of things. They had traded first aid tips and suggestions for keeping warm when you had to sleep on the ground. They had respectfully not touched a single thing belonging to his father.

They kept mentioning someone called Shirley.

Being a six year old, even a genius of a six year old, Gohan didn't understand the whole world. But what he knew was that pretty much all the warriors - good or bad - that he'd ever dealt with were male. Until about week ago, his mother had been the only female warrior that Gohan had even heard of and she'd retired from fighting long before his birth. Then... Mere days ago, he'd spotted the flying triclops girl. Gohan still had no idea why she'd fled in terror from him. He was determined to locate her again - just say hello. He wanted to introduce himself and be introduced. He wanted a better look at her. He wanted to see if she really was a warrior, too.

Gohan had an idea of how he was going to accomplish this. He was planning to go her house. Gohan was assuming that he knew who the three-eyed girls father was. And he was assuming that Kuririn would know her address.

It still thrilled him a bit to think of the little triclops. Another child warrior! It didn't even matter if it was a girl. Just to know that another kid could fight with energy - that was a relief. Being the only demi-saiyan on Earth and maybe the only demi-saiyan anywhere... Gohan knew that he wasn't considered normal. It was a burden, sometimes. His parents had always told him that it was okay to be unique but it was hard to come to terms with. Gohan didn't really want to be so special. He didn't want to be the only demi-saiyan. He didn't want to be the only anything. He didn't want to have to deal with people calling him an alien or treating him like he might just explode in their faces someday. Even the friends that he'd made... How many normal six year olds were friends with the warriors who defended the world? How many normal six year olds had friends like Dende, who now lived on another world? Gohan had traveled to outer space. He'd been in battles. Had fought to live and had watched others die. He'd seen the Eternal Dragons - both of them - and...

Normal was a rare thing for Gohan. He wanted to experience it more, wanted to try and understand the concept better. If there was at least one other child warrior on Earth, that made him a little more normal. Didn't it?

But for now... There was this Shirley to investigate. From what Gohan had overheard... She had been the main hunter for the wandering children. She had defended them from wild animals and had taught them first aid. She had been vital to the groups survival, it sounded like. So the question was: where was she now? There hadn't been anyone named Shirley in the group at the house. The kids who had talked about her wouldn't say what had happened but they also hadn't seemed too sad when they mentioned her name. So maybe she wasn't dead. Had they thrown her out of the group? But they all seemed to admire her... Maybe there had been an argument. Or maybe she'd left on her own. Could she have gotten lost, while defending the group? What if she was still out there in the wild? Even if she was clearly capable of surviving... To be alone in the wild, that had to be scary. Gohan, in fact, understood exactly how scary.

So Gohan was currently out looking for this Shirley person. With so many other kids in the house, he could sneak off unnoticed. That was nice.

He stood in the forest, frowning and inspecting the dirt. It was the right forest but... Was this the right spot? There didn't seem to be many footprints. Gohan looked at the trees but didn't find much help there, either. It was hard to to be certain. All the trees looked about the same, in this place.

Gohan was trying to retrace his steps. Trying to find the exact location where he and Piccolo had first stumbled across the wandering kids. Because that would give him a good starting point, for the search. This Shirley person... Gohan hoped that she hadn't gotten too far. He wondered how long she'd been separated from the other kids. He wondered which direction she might have gone.

Searching for someone should not have been so much trouble.

However most of the wandering kids, they hadn't been very strong. Well. No. That wasn't accurate. Any group of kids who could survive in the wild for a month AND nearly walk half the length of a continent, it wasn't right to say that they were weak. The other kids had strength but it was not the kind of strength that Gohan had been trained to detect, that was all. Their physical energy levels had not been significant. They were survivors but not warriors. And they were still recovering from their journey so with their health impaired, their physical energy signatures had been further weakened. Thus aside from jokes and sewing and first aid... Aside from invoking a certain amount of protective jealousy on the issue of parents and a certain amount guilt on the issue of strength... The other kids had inadvertantly taught Gohan another sort of lesson. Because they had made Gohan aware of the fact that not only was he NOT normal but he couldn't even detect a normal person with ease.

He'd been surprised at how difficult the task was. Even in his own home - when the other kids were in plain sight and less than ten feet away - Gohan hadn't always been able to detect them instantly. Because it was a challenge, to look past his own energy. So out in a forest... When he didn't even know if he was close to the right location... And what if this Shirley person was hurt? She might not have enough energy to detect clearly.

Relying on ki didn't make sense.

Gohan kicked off the ground, took to the sky and stared down at the treetops. They all looked about the same from this viewpoint as well.

When Gohan had been younger, he'd heard stories about the forests. He lived by a forest so it had been inevitable perhaps. There were a lot of stories. The forest was so dense, the scenary so repetative... Sometimes people went missing. They just walked into the trees and were never seen again. Even experienced hikers and campers, even people wearing tracking devices... They got disoriented. Rescue parties with airplanes and search animals would search for months - and sometimes also go missing. The forest just made them all disappear, somehow. But those who did walk out of the old growth forests... Sometimes people came out of the trees claiming to have seen the ruins of a lost city or a flock of animals thought to have gone extinct ages ago. It would cause a lot of excitement but would never lead to any solid discoveries. Because the people could never relocate any of the wonders that they'd seen.

The forest had an energy of its own. Gohan didn't like it. He wished that his father was with him. He wished that Kuririn or Piccolo were here. But they weren't. His father was in outer space, still. Piccolo had flown off in a bad mood a few days ago and hadn't raised his energy since so Gohan knew that his visits weren't welcome. And Kuririn was at a supposively boring meeting with other adults.

Gohan turned, still hovering and trying to decide what part of the landscape was the right spot. He didn't want to give up. Gohan was aware that probably nobody else was looking for Shirley - what if he was the girls only chance? He couldn't give up. The forest was starting to spook him but... That wasn't logical. Gohan tried to reason with his own mind. He'd seen a lot of scary things. Forests were not on that list. Really, after all that he'd witnessed in the past two years... What could be so frightening about a bunch of ancient trees growing close together?

He dropped back among the trees, flying slowly and studying the ground. His presence startled a number of birds and animals and also...

There was a scream in the distance. Gohan spun around and had to consciously resist the impulse to throw an energy blast. The scream had caught him off guard but... A flash of pale green light exploded into existence, the energy registered instantly. The three-eyed girl! And... She was fleeing in terror? ...Again?

Gohan really didn't understand why. Instead of immediately giving chase, he landed. Gohan went over to the area where the little triclops had taken off from and looked around, wondering if something in the forest had scared her.

He about fell over in shock.

There WAS another person here. A girl. Bigger than him, taller than him. Probably a few years older than him. With her back to him. Another warrior? She looked like someone who had been in a fight. But even from a distance... Her whole stance... It was absolutely familiar. And when Gohan got closer, he could see her pointy ears.

Piccolo is a FATHER! Was the first joy-soaked rationalization that crossed Gohans mind and caused his heart to expand. This didn't last for more than a split-second, though. The logical side of his brain kicked in. That's not possible...

Gohan was six. Before he'd started leaving home and having adventures... He'd always gone to bed early. And there had always been bedtime stories. His mother had read to him from books but his father had told him things. Thus Gohan knew the story of how his parents had met and knew the story of their wedding. He knew about every world tournament that his father had participated in. The 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai had been Gohans favorite bedtime tale for ages - because when he was younger, Gohan hadn't realized that his fathers stories were all true. In the past two years... What his father hadn't taught him about the recent history of the world, life experience and Kuririn eventually had. So Gohan knew that Piccolo was only supposed to be eleven. And he knew that eleven year olds weren't normally parents. And even if Piccolo maybe wasn't normal - which was one of the reasons that Gohan had always tried to befriend his mentor, it was nice to think that someone could relate to being an outcast - this pointy-earred girl... She looked like she might be close to the age of eleven herself.

Even without this knowledge... Dende and the other Nameks who had been stranded on Earth for ten months - they had all been male. They had politely explained that Nameks could only be born when an adult spit out an egg. And not all of the adult Nameks had that ability. And the resulting children... Because ten Earth months had been roughly equal to two Namekian years... So yes, some new Namekian children had been born on Earth while the Nameks were stranded. Gohan had actually gotten to see the process. And he couldn't imagine Piccolo spitting out an egg. And he really couldn't imagine anything so human-looking hatching from such an egg. And he had been shown that nothing female could be Namekian.

It didn't make SENSE that she was so familiar! It just wasn't possible! She COULDN'T be related to...

The girl with pointy ears faced him. She didn't have a nose. The logical side of Gohans brain saw what it was up against and attempted to take a vacation.

...she... but... how?

"You can detect energy, can't you? That's how you found us, right?" The girl was approaching. There was something about her that made Gohan take a step back.

Look at her hair! Gohans brain rallied, trying to fend off the flood of confusion. She has dark spikey hair. That's familiar but it's not causing any panic, right? Because lots of people have dark spikey hair. There are at least five adults that you've known with dark spikey hair. Vegeta, Yamucha, that samurai who cut Vegetas tail off, your uncle who's dead now and your father. Heck YOU have had dark spikey hair. So maybe Piccolo isn't the only pointy-earred resident of the Earth. Maybe Kuririn isn't the only noseless warrior in existence. She might just be a complete and utter stranger who happens to have a few traits in common with the people that you know. Get a grip!

"Uhm..." Was all that squeaked past his vocal chords. Because he could detect energy. This girl wasn't anywhere near the strongest thing that Gohan had ever detected but even her ki seemed familiar.

The pointy-earred girl glared in the direction of her departed peer - the little triclops clearly wasn't coming back - and then frowned down at Gohan. He'd never met her before but, even without the nose, it was a frown that he'd seen many times. She seemed to reach a decision. "Where did the lady with the axe take my friends? They had BETTER be okay."

"YOU..." Gohan felt mildy dizzy as his brain reached a new conclusion, "...are Shirley?"

She flicked her ears, glared at him more intently and stood as if ready to attack; bringing together a closed fist and an open palm. "What, you don't think it's a tough name?"

ooxoo