Disclaimer: It's in chapter one. Go there. And I don't own Kleenex.

Whee! I finished this almost immediately after I posted the last chapter, but I decided to delay the upload a bit again!

.-T-.

The whole day had been scorching hot. Chouzu was barely able to last up with me while we trained outside, and he was very glad when he got to use cooking dinner as an excuse for going inside early. However, when I entered, I didn't get greeted with the burst of cool air like I expected. It was cooler than outside, but the AC seemed to be on the fritz again. I sighed and picked up a towel to wipe off my sweat.

Kushami entered the living room from I supposed the bathroom, as her hair was tied back and looked slightly damp. She was eating a rather large peppermint stick and headphones over her ears, completely oblivious to me as she trotted in with the beat to whatever she was listening. Better still, she was pantsless, wearing only her shirt and panties, probably to endure the heat.

I chuckled to myself and grabbed her while she wasn't looking, smiling as I pulled her towards me. She blinked and shot her head towards me before pushing back her earphones and pulling away her peppermint stick. "Tenshinhan! Damn you! Don't surprise me like that!"

"Couldn't resist," I mused, and kissed her. "Mmm," I pulled away and licked my lips. "You taste good."

She waved her peppermint at me. "I wonder why."

"No, really, I might skip dinner and have you instead." I smirked and kissed her again, bringing her more against me. But I felt Chouzu's presence enter the room a second later, and pulled her away from me. "But we really should eat first. We can't hurt Chouzu's feelings, can we?"

Kushami swiped at me half-heartedly with her peppermint, returning my smirk with one of hers. "Fine, I'll go put something on."

I turned towards the kitchen, partially regretting how hot it could be in there, when I heard Kushami sneeze behind me. I whirled my head around to see Lunch, looking slightly confused by her change of location. She saw me and smiled. "Oh, hi Tenshinhan!"

I smiled back at her. "Hello, Lunch. Dinner's ready. You might want to put something on, though."

She titled her head before she looked down on herself, and her whole face was immediately covered with a thick blush. "Y-yes, I'll go do that."

I laughed a little, and I thought lightly on when was the last time I felt so happy.

.-.

I groaned when I pulled my head from the ground. "Damnit, I fell asleep again…"

I heard Yamcha laugh from the side. "Old habits die hard, huh?"

Sleeping and eating wasn't necessary for the dead, but death didn't keep us from doing these things regardless. Such occurrences that ebb back from our lives wouldn't have bothered me so much if it weren't for the dreams that I would occasionally have. I tried not to ponder on the dreams, or how a dead man could even have dreams, before I went straight into training again.

But it's not like I would have time for either sleeping or training. Goku reached the planet Namekku-sei, and a series of battles grabbed our attention from anything else. Before we knew it, Piccolo had been resurrected and transported to the planet (much to Kaiou-sama's dismay) leaving the three of us to stand by Kaiou-sama, waiting for any bit of news that could come from the battles.

Goku was reaching levels that I might never be able to reach using his alien DNA, and even though I was rooting for him as he fought Freeza, I couldn't help but think that I might never be able to become stronger than him. The battle progressed, people were wounded, and people were killed. Kuririn was among the casualties.

"That idiot… If he only finished off Freeza before he reached his full power, this would never had happened…" Kaiou-sama now groaned, a statement that didn't exactly fill me with hope.

Kaiou-sama! Kaiou-sama? A mental transmission from someone, a familiar presence, was being sent that was so "loud" that Chouzu and I could hear it easily. Even Yamcha seemed to have been able to pick it up. This is the Kami of the Earth speaking, Kaiou-sama.

I can hear you, Kaiou-sama answered, What do you want?

I have collected the Dragonballs, and Mr. Popo is bringing the remaining one.

And?

Ah, hai… So we can now bring Tenshinhan and Yamcha back to life, whenever they're ready.

Ah, of course.

However, as you know, Chouzu cannot be brought back, being that he had already died once before, Kami-sama said regretfully.

Chouzu's head bowed sadly.

"Don't worry, Chouzu," I said in effort to reassure him, "I'll stay here with you. We'll stay friends forever."

"No, Ten-san. You can't!" He raised his hands before him and waved away the suggestion worriedly.

"If you guys are staying here," Yamcha clocked in with the protective, hero spirit that he's always had, "then I'll stay as well!"

"What are you talking about?" I turned to Yamcha, feeling somewhat annoyed about such a hasty declaration. "Bulma's waiting for you."

Yamcha tensed up. "But…"

Our argument was momentarily stopped by Kaiou-sama as he continued to talk with Kami-sama about the specifics on Earth's Dragonballs. But it of course continued soon later, when he pulled me aside from Kaiou-sama as he kept watch over the battle in Namekku-sei.

"What's the idea of bringing Bulma into this!" he growled, "You say that as if you didn't have an obligation to Lunch!"

"He's right, Ten-san," Chouzu came in, "You can't stay here, either. Lunch-san and Kushami-san are waiting for you as well."

"The way I see it, you have twice the obligation I do to return!" Yamcha furrowed his brows at me.

I sighed. I hadn't told anyone about what happened between Kushami and I after that day, and I managed to keep myself from having to speak about her all this time. I figured it was best that Chouzu and the others didn't know, and that it would only give them unnecessary worries. "Lunch and Kushami have better things to do than wait for me."

They both stepped back a bit, making sounds of confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?" Yamcha said.

"I trained all the time, neglected her, was overprotective of her, and I did terrible things to her… I don't deserve her," I explained flatly, trying not to let emotion come in on me as I spoke.

"What? Wait, I know that you can seem a little overbearing at times, but come on!" Yamcha faked a laugh. "Anyone that can put up with a girl like Lunch is pretty amazing."

"That's just it. I can't put up with her, and she can't put up with me." I turned away a bit. "We broke up not long after we began training at Kami-sama's temple."

Chouzu frowned. "Ten-san…"

"Why didn't you tell us about this before!" Yamcha fumed, "And why do you think she wouldn't want to see you come back to life! Lunch isn't the kind of person that would want you to die, and I doubt that even Kushami would want that, not matter how hotheaded she can be!"

"He's right!" Chouzu balled his fists defensively. "They have to be waiting for you, no matter how angry Kushami might have been! They both still love you! They have to!"

I shook my head. "I'm not so sure about that…"

.-L-.

How long have I been out?

The first thing I did when I sneezed was look at a calendar. It'd been months since I last transformed again, and I sighed. I didn't mind when a couple of days were lost, but I didn't like losing such long periods of time. It confused me a lot and I always felt like I was getting left behind somehow.

Whatever was keeping me from returning to my normal self must have stopped, though. The next time I sneezed, I came back only half a day later, and this more natural pattern stuck. However, whenever I came to, I felt woozy, sometimes dizzy, and I would often trip on the various bottles that would usually be lying around in whatever room or apartment I happened to be in at the time. There were even times that I came to in a bar, still with the same wooziness, just with people looking at me strangely for my transformation.

I also realized that my eyes always felt hot, and when I looked in a mirror, they looked red and puffy. I wondered if I was sick, so I decided to do something that I learned to do when I was younger to find out. I took a piece of paper and wrote on it a question to ask my other self, it said, "What's wrong?" and I folded it up and put it in my pocket.

It worked like always, and when I came to from another sneeze, I found a balled up piece of paper in the same pocket. I pulled it out and opened it to find that it was the same paper, and the answer was written right beside my question, written in a handwriting that looked like my own except the strokes were more brusque and not as neat:

"Tenshinhan and Chouzu are dead. Yamcha has died, too."

I stared at the words for a long time until I felt tears rolling down my face. Then I dropped the paper and put my hands over my face. I cried really hard all night, not wanting to leave from the strange motel room that I found myself in. For the first time in years, I felt completely alone. I felt like I didn't have a friend in the world. I felt like everyone had left me behind while I was transformed. I kept sobbing until I had no tears left.

But no matter how much I didn't want to move, my other personality seemed to think otherwise. Whenever I sneezed, I found myself at a new place. There was a map and a leather book with a bunch of clippings in it, and I eventually figured out what was happening. I was going towards Eggtown to see the Itadaki mansion. I didn't realize until I came up to clippings about a birth of "Itadaki Lunch", mentions of her orphaned, and pieces her case files that the Itadaki mansion was actually my home.

I started to cry again, and I wondered if I could fit in somewhere in the childhood home I forgot.

.-K-.

Eggtown didn't take much of a road trip, but there were several empty tissue boxes and liquor bottles in my wake. I managed to calm down the drinking, but as soon as I let Lunch know about Tenshinhan and Chouzu, the amount of money that I had to spend on Kleenexes peaked.

When they said that Eggtown was a rural hamlet, they weren't kidding. The town was little more than a few dirt roads running between some houses and small businesses. There were several private farms nearby (and by "nearby", I mean two or three kilometers away), and there were only a few businesses that had branches elsewhere.

And the community was tight knit enough; an older man walking down the market immediately picked me out as an out-of-towner. "Hey!" He said in his Northern accent, "You're not from these parts! You a city girl?"

I didn't really like being called out. "Yeah, what is it to you?"

He laughed. "No mean to offend, ma'am, just curious why a pretty woman such as yourself would come to a back-woods place like this. Just passing through?"

"No, actually. I came about the Itadaki mansion."

"The Itadaki mansion!" He shrunk a bit from me. "You ain't someone with a big check trying to buy up the place, are you?"

"I might be," I said nonchalantly, "What's it you you?"

He shook his head. "No one's been interested in that house ever since Zen and Toffee died years ago. People I guess think it's cursed. The bank technically owns it right now, but no one ever goes in to take care of it, and it's starting to get creepy to go by it at night."

I asked him to direct me to the bank, which hid did rather reluctantly. When I entered, I stifled the urge to pull out a firearm and shoot up the place. After all, I was here on legal business.

But I hadn't exactly bought property in a while. Even though I was sure that I had enough cash on me at the moment to cover whatever price they throw at me, I doubted that the large bills would keep me inconspicuous. Worse, since I stole my money from a bank, the numbers on the bills might be recorded on the database as stolen.

How lucky I felt when I found that this boondocks bank had no branches or affiliates, and that they were used to transfers in big bills. Farmers that are paranoid with others handling their money made things a lot easier for me.

And when I finally got to see the mansion, I discovered that the guy was telling the truth when he said no one was keeping the place up, or so much as entering the place, for that matter. I had to jig the key a bit before the old lock would turn (geez, I never have such a hard time picking locks), and when I shouldered the door to wrench the thing open, I fell into a room that seemed at first to be nothing more than dust and cobwebs.

I was surprised that I didn't sneeze, but I coughed and hacked like a chain smoker with asthma for what seemed like hours. When I could finally get my wits about me, I opened my eyes to a well-furnished windbreak antechamber, wall to wall with antiques and authentic artwork, displayed to astound any new visitors. Everything was covered thick with dust, but there didn't seem to be any water kind of water damage.

I laughed to myself a bit, thinking that if I didn't own this place, I would loot it clean in a second. "It seems that the bank didn't even enter the place, let alone liquidate the furnishings."

Finished with this antechamber, I went ahead through the big wooden doors on the other end, which creaked harshly for want of oil in the hinges, and burst into the main foyer. Where the short hall I was in before was impressive, it couldn't hold a candle to the swooping double-staircase and the dark, marble floors of this expanse. The furniture was for the most part in the same condition as the room before, but the once fine rugs that lined the stairs and spotted the floors still managed to become tattered from age, and the chandelier hanging above looked far from safe.

A tall portrait at the left caught my attention, and I approached it. Within a gold-leafed, wooden frame was a family of three: A man stood above the rest, wearing his purple hair short and balancing a pair of glasses before his dark eyes. His suit looked gray; I couldn't tell if it was painted that way or if the dust hid the real color. The smile on his lips and the cut of his face showed him to be a young, caring man rather than a business tycoon. A woman sat beside him, her blond, curly hair tied back to show off her big, foreign-looking green eyes. Her aquamarine dress had a modest design, but I knew that the material she wore was likely some fine silk. She looked young as well, yet her smile seemed much more motherly.

And on that woman's knees, in a pink dress and a big, red bow in her purple hair…

The dust that I've been kicking up settled on me, and I started to react. Damnit!

Achoo!

In Japan, "Northern" accent is associated with what we would call a "Southern" accent, since there are more farms in Northern Japan.
I already started the next chapter a few couple of days before I uploaded this as well, just so you know.