Eclipse
by DoraMouse
ooxoo
Surprises: December 6th, 763 A.D.
Eternal peace. Didn't that sound nice? No more pain. No more worry. No more training. That's what death was. No more paying the bills or avoiding paying the bills or... Everything about life just ceased to be. All the friends and enemies and memories and lessons and struggles and triumphs and failures - in the end, what did it come down to? Forever was a long time. Emotional baggage was still a sort of baggage. You couldn't take it with you, not forever. People changed. People learned. Sooner or later souls would drop the excess weight.
That's how death was supposed to be.
Something was wrong. Tenshinhan had been dead once before. He'd been on the path before. He had seen other human spirits, last time. There had been a lot of them, last time. Most had died when the Saiyans had landed. But even though the invading Saiyans had been the leading cause of death on Earth... They'd only been the leading cause of death on Earth for a few minutes, in mostly one city. People all over the world and even within East Capital had continued to die from other causes. Traffic accidents and work accidents and disease and natural disaster and... The spirits from Earth had all come to this place and lined up on this path. Waiting for judgement. And those spirits, so recently human, had already been losing their shape. They'd been turning to bright clouds.
Tenshinhan was on the path outside Lord Enmas office. The path was empty now and he was still human shaped.
This did not make any sense.
What did it mean? If the path was empty... Had people on Earth stopped dying? How was that even possible? Humans were mortal. Humans and animals and plants... What could have happened? And if creatures WERE still dying then... Where were those ghosts? Why weren't they coming here? Lord Enma couldn't take a vacation, could he? Was judgement closed for some reason? There was at least one other ghost that SHOULD be here, Tenshinhan knew. He'd seen the samurai die. But he couldn't even detect... And he was healthy, now. He didn't have a physical body to restrict and interfere with the power of his soul. His third eye wasn't slowly killing him anymore. He should be able to detect...
All that he could detect right now was the witch.
But his soul... That was kind of bugging him, too. Because he'd only been allowed to remain human shaped the last time for the purpose of training. And Tenshinhan hadn't intended to train, this time. Increasing power... It was a pointless struggle. Humans could not keep pace with alien races, that's what the evidence indicated. Even if Tenshinhan got wished back to life with new limits - and he didn't want to be, so he couldn't be - he couldn't expect to be on par with the Saiyans.
He'd been willing to just die and stay dead. He had been willing to let go of everything. So why should his soul be staying human shaped?
Tenshinhan had even kept his scar, this time. And it ached. Being brought back to life apparently only healed the injury that caused death, unless you were blown up. And since his first death had not been explosive... Since the scar had not been caused by the same injury that had killed him... The scar had not been healed. It had remained on his physical corpse, in spite of reincarnation. But the scar hadn't actually come with him, the last time he'd been a ghost. Tenshinhan peered at the crimson line on his shoulder under the ghostly memory of his cloak. This had to be some kind of warning...
"Where did you get that?" said a voice. It was familiar.
It was an assassin.
There were only two assassins that had ever been able to sneak up on Tenshinhan. And only one of those was currently dead.
Tao Pai Pai stood there, head tilted to one side and hands folded behind his back.
He appeared remarkably solid, for a ghost. He was wearing...a really badly tailored suit... As if he'd had to grab something off the rack in a rush. But it was him. Without a doubt. Tao Pai Pai. The former Worlds Greatest Assassin. He was tall and kind of scrawny. He had a thick mustache, a braid of dark hair that hung down his back nearly reaching to his ankles and the type of nose that appeared ready to plow fields. He also had the crooked smirk of a teacher who could literally get away with murder. For a fee, of course.
Tenshinhans soul was extremely human shaped while a million or so grudges resurfaced. Resolving to let go was sometimes easier than letting go. He resisted the impulse to drain his soul by launching some energy attacks and eventually spoke, in a voice that could have sharpened daggers. "You...gave me...this."
"Excuse me?" Tao had, despite being the more deadly of the brothers, also been the more likeable. He'd tempered his arrogance with humor. The Crane Master had never had much of a sense of humor. The Crane Master had always been grouchy and secretive. Tao hadn't. Tao had taken pride in being open and honest with everyone. With his caliber of skill - why lie? As the Worlds Greatest Assassin, he could get away with telling the truth. Even the truths that nobody liked. "No. I think I'd remember that."
When there was no response, Tao shrugged and continued in a melancholy tone. "The last thing I remember of life is having the snot beaten out of me by this annoying little boy with a tail. He rode on a cloud. It was very strange. Happened a few days after the 21st Tournament."
"But..." Tenshinhan reluctantly filled in his former mentor on the events since then.
Tao listened and was surprised. "ME?!" He laughed once the summary was finished and then shook his head. "You're serious, aren't you? You really believed that..." Taos expression became a blend of disappointed and distraught. "Why would I enter a Budoukai? That's not a place for assassins! We have our own tournaments, you know that! And I've always defended my brother, yes - but taking orders from him? Was that not a clue? And a weapon? Do I even need to remind you, I was only eight years away from..."
For some reason - and Tenshinhan had never had any idea what that reason was - if a fighter wanted to earn the respected title of '-sennin' then they had to be over the age of three hundred. It was an elite group. Korin was the Neko-sennin. Roshi was the Kame-sennin. The Crane Master had been, tada, the Tsuru-sennin. And Tao Pai Pai... Who was claiming to have died thirteen years ago, at age 291... Had been working towards a respected title of his own: Kaeru-sennin, The Frog Master. Because that was the title which best suited his style. Tao had not just been infamous for being an assassin. He'd been infamous for being able to stand in front of someone, stick his tongue out and poke a lethal hole in their skull. With a single strike from his tongue, Tao had killed people. He'd been infamous for being able to pick up a normal wooden board, throw it into the air with a great deal of force, jump on to it and ride the board from one village to the next. He'd had the kind of jumping skills that had made learning to hover almost an afterthought. And he had invented the Dodonpa.
Why would anyone capable of all that ever be reduced to using a knife? And why would the Worlds Greatest Assassin, a near official legendary martial artist in his own right, need to break the tournament rules to win? What Tao had lacked in power and speed - and only around the Kame students might that have been an issue - he could have made up for with nearly three centuries worth of fighting experience and strategy. Not that he would enter such a boring tournament as the Tenkaichi Budoukai in the first place. Tao had never gone to the World Tournament in his whole life. He could have and he hadn't. There were other tournaments, Tenshinhan did know, where killing an opponent was permitted. Those were more suitable places for a professional assassin to advertise their skills. Plus the prize money was better.
"It's like a novel where the author is lazy." Tao muttered darkly, he did not like what he'd been told. "You can't just leave me dying and then turn the page and say: But who cares about him! Now it's three years later!"
Yet fate had done exactly that.
Tenshinhan was starting to catch on to the idea that his mentor had been dead for years before they'd even heard about his death. And so... The cyborg... If Tao had died shortly after the 21st Tournament... And the cyborg hadn't appeared until the 23rd Tournament... That was six years. Had the Crane Master known the whole time? Or had the Crane Master only known after the 22nd Tournament? Had it taken six years or three years for the infamous assassins corpse to be transformed?
"My elder brother always used me as a shield." Tao frowned, "It does not surprise me that he would get a puppet made in my likeness to keep his own enemies at bay."
"It wasn't a puppet, it was a cyborg." Tenshinhan emphasized, "Built from your corpse. It looked like you. It had your voice and your energy. It used a laser canon to try and mimic The Fingertip Blast. It claimed to have been awake the entire time that..."
"Red Ribbon let me die! I was working for them, when that brat left me for dead." Tao snapped. "Why would I allow anyone to take me back to them, for help to remain alive?! Why should I have trusted them? How could you have believed...?!"
"...that kid with the tail? Once a person meets him, they soon lose track of all the unbelievable things that they have seen."
"But you have an advantage!" Tao sounded incredulous, he tapped a finger lightly against his own transparent forehead. "And the pale one was a decent psychic! Between the two of you... You were always able to see the truth of things! That's what made you both such good students! You weren't fooled by disguises. You weren't caught in traps or lies. You could tell what needed to be questioned or approached with caution." Tao began to fade into a cloud of fog, as if his spirit wasn't able to hold on to the memory of his shape for any longer, though his voice lingered even after his form faded. "When did you forget? Unbelievable things are often unbelievable for a good reason: they are not true! If my corpse was awake to become a cyborg then it was awake with an imposter inside of it! And if I had ever resorted to using a knife against my own students... Then you would have come here many years ago!"
Tenshinhan was privately stunned. The warning was noteworthy but... More than that, Tenshinhan had never expected to hear that he was a good student from any of his teachers. He'd always known this fact and his friends had told him as much but... Kami had been the only teacher to praise them and that hadn't meant as much because Kami had only trained them for eight months and Kami had praised everyone. King Kai had mostly ignored them. Korin had seemed neutral. Roshi had been reluctant to comment on students of his former rival - and it was hard to take his comments seriously anyway. The Crane Master had been a grouch and had only ever bragged about his students to other people - not to the students themselves. Tao... In life... Had been honest but never overly talkative. And even the soliders who had raised Tenshinhan and taught him about weapons... Had teased him more than anything else. So hearing any sort of praise was just beyond unexpected. But for the praise to also be sincere...
With a slight stinging sensation, the scar in his shoulder healed. But only a little bit. Not all the way. It didn't vanish. Which, as soon as he recovered from the shock of being praised by someone who'd often threatened to end his life, Tenshinhan did not like. Because he understood immediately that getting rid of the whole scar might require more confrontations. Was this the path to eternal peace? Did he have to erase the scar in order to rest in peace? Who else was he going to have to speak with? Everyone that he'd ever known or targeted? That could take a while.
There was a shadow taking shape by the doorway of Lord Enmas office. It was ghostly. It was humanoid. It was familiar.
And Tenshinhan really wished that it wasn't familiar. Because at the top of the long list of people that he'd never ever wanted to see or speak to again... Was this person. Whom he hadn't seen since before - well, during - a certain ugly political revolution.
It was the only person that he'd ever killed by accident. And 'person' was not even an entirely accurate description, in this case.
ooxoo
Piccolo was meditating. What else could he do? He didn't have access to the afterlife and even if he did, he wasn't in a rush to get between two spellcasters. He wasn't trained to withstand magic. He'd barely been trained at all, really. He was eleven. He'd pretended to ignore Gohan for a year in the wilderness - although by the end of that year, he had been on close terms with the kid. He'd actually ignored some of the best warriors on Earth for nearly a week in the afterlife. He'd attempted to ignore Vegeta, repeatedly, while the Saiyan had been stranded on Earth. He'd fused with a warrior and been born from a warrior and was spirit-bound to another warrior... And between Nails, his father and his uncle... Piccolo had been given the power and the skill to become what he currently was. He had inherited everything that he'd needed, to be formidable in battle.
And he was currently meditating.
He'd tried to get to the afterlife. There were ways. There were paths from the Lookout. Piccolo had taken them before. He'd been dragged down them, a few times, to visit the afterlife dentist. But the Lookout had been sealed to him. Or maybe it had been sealed because of the apprentices. Maybe Kami hadn't wanted the cat or the pig or Kuririn coming into the afterlife. Perhaps Mister Popo had shut down the dimensional doorways, in order to discourage escape. Maybe Korin had sealed the gates. Or even the witch... If she was in the afterlife, she had the power without a doubt... Maybe the witch was preventing anyone else from coming. Maybe she wanted to limit the number of allies that Kami had access to.
Why were they even fighting?!
Piccolo did not have an abundance of imagination. He'd thought about maybe someday using the dragonballs to wish for mute buttons on everything but that was, to date, his creative limit.
He was only trying to meditate. It hadn't been going well.
What was a creature supposed to feel, when they expected to be wiped out of existence at any moment? Piccolo hadn't even been tempted... Well, maybe a little tempted... To visit some people and say his farewells but... What could he say? And what if he didn't get the chance to say it all? Why even try to find the words if death by spirit-bond erased him in midsentence? That wasn't going to comfort anyone, to watch him dissolve. Would he dissolve? Or would he blow up? Was it going to be like choking? Or like fusion in reverse? Was it going to hurt?
He was eleven. He'd died once before and been near death at other times but Piccolo had no idea what exactly to expect from death by spirit-bond. And he'd been wide awake and trying to expect it, for every minute of the last seven days and nights.
Which was one of the reasons that meditation was not working for him.
The other main reason was his uncle. Kami kept sending him telepathic messages that were, Piccolo understood, not meant for him. Which was not a good sign. Because it meant that Shenlong was not getting the needed instructions. And it also meant that Kami was frightened and confused. And this meant, even further, that Piccolo could not get his own telepathic messages to his uncle. Because his uncle was not open to hearing from him right now.
It was difficult to remain calm, under these conditions. But the scenary helped. Piccolo had retreated to the mountains. One of the western ranges, he hadn't bothered to learn the human name for the place. There was a nice waterfall here and a river and...
He had no idea, of course, that just over two hundred years ago this meadow had been a battleground. That one of the surviving warlords had looked down on the place and had seen the river turn red with the spilled blood of his allies. This river, that wound like a ribbon through the jagged landscape... It was clear water now, ice cold - melted from the snow of the mountains. The meadow was covered in flowers and tall grass. It was a crossing place for herds of nimble deer, seeking to escape the bears and other creatures that lived in the treeline below. It didn't appear to be the sort of location that had ever been visited by humans, much less hosted a war.
It didn't looked like the sort of location that would be called Teeth of the Dragon but the mountain range was. And this was, on some maps, the Red Ribbon River.
More than even the scenary, what Piccolo cared about was the privacy. The mountains were a natural ki block. And currently, a large part of his mind was a mess of sporadic uninvited telepathy from his uncle. So nobody should be able to locate him by detecting his energy or reading his mind. Maybe not even the witch. Piccolo could only hope. Because if the witch was truly upset with his uncle... And she had to be aware of the spirit-bond that Kami and Piccolo shared... Then she could, even from the afterlife, probably attack them both.
The spirit-bond... His uncle was frightened and confused and perhaps trapped in a place where not many could reach him. But his uncle wasn't hurt. Piccolo hadn't felt any pain from the battle. If Kami was hurt... Or had the witch found a way to isolate even that?
Or had the dragon taken all of the damage so far?
Why would the other gods allow this? Korin and Mister Popo were both warriors and spellcasters. They could reach the afterlife without dying. They had each helped to defend his uncle before - from his father, among other things. Piccolo had heard those stories. And he'd sensed the witch... Maybe the other gods were afraid of her, too?
He thought for a moment of the battle against Garlic Junior. Kami and Mister Popo had been trapped in a denshi jar. Kuririn had released them. While Gohan and Kuririn had worked together to kick Garlic Junior into a dimensional void... Piccolo hadn't been able to help as much as he would have liked. Because his uncle had been off fighting some spirits - previous guardians? - to get the cure for the black mist. This was a mental snag. Previous guardians? Guardians of what? Didn't guardians get sent back to their homeworlds when they retired? Why would the ghosts of previous guardians be Earthbound? And why would any such spirits try to prevent his uncle from curing the population of Earth? The spirits had actually caused his uncle pain. Piccolo had felt it as well and had been floored by it. All of his power and for what? He'd been beaten up via spirit-bond by some cranky ghosts that he had never even met and whose entire existence made no sense. And on the subject of things that made no sense... Really? There had been a cure for the black water mist, just standing by? In case? How long had the guardians been expecting this kind of attack? How many other cures were standing by, just in case and oh so conveniently? And why had only Kami gotten beaten up? Mister Popo had gone with Kami, had the elfin genie not fought?
And where was Korin during all the excitement? Piccolo didn't trust Korin. The immortal cat was far too smug. And the samurai who served the cat, Piccolo knew, hadn't been turned into a zombie. Korin had protected his apprentice. Why hadn't the samurai come to the fight? Eh. That was explainable. Kuririn had probably told the warrior not to bother. Although... Kuririn did not seem like the type to turn down extra help, actually. And even Gohan was rarely confident enough to say something along the lines of 'you stay here while we handle this' to an adult. Had Korin given the samurai a reason to stay away from the battle?
And where had the witch been? She'd allowed her own little brother to be turned into a mindless zombie. That seemed kind of... Well. Piccolo was not fond of Master Roshi or anything but he had to admit that permitting a dangerous martial artist to become, even temporarily, a mindless zombie seemed a smidge reckless. And the witch was also psychic so she must have known in advance...
What might have happened, if Vegeta or Goku had been on Earth two months ago? Would they have been allowed to become mindless zombies? Would they have taken sides with Garlic Junior? Or would they, independantly and without conscious control, have just flat out destroyed the planet? What if Kuririn or Gohan had not been underwater? What if Tenshinhan had been feeling better? Would they have all been zombies? What had prevented the bandit - who HAD been turned into a zombie - from powering up and causing damage? What had prevented even the pale warrior...
Hey... Had the pale warrior been turned into a zombie or not?
Piccolo couldn't remember anyone mentioning this. And he hadn't asked. Because he hadn't cared. He was starting to feel curious, though.
He'd been with the other warriors for a little over a month in the afterlife, traveling to King Kais world. Piccolo had only really ignored them for a week - the week ON King Kais world. He'd been pretending to ignore them, most the rest of the time. Because he had been upset with them for dying. Piccolo hadn't wanted to be involved in the battle to save the Earth, not originally. He wouldn't have worn weighted clothes to such a battle, if he'd been planning to get involved. He'd fully expected for these friends of Goku - because they had all survived BEING friends of Goku - to step up and have the whole invading Saiyan problem under control. Even after detecting the significant gap in energy levels, Piccolo had hoped to remain a spectator. And not just because he'd still wanted, on some level, to conquer the world for himself someday.
Gohan was demi-saiyan. Piccolo had gradually gained respect for the boy. Evil as Nappa and Vegeta had been... They were Saiyan. Destroying them in front of a demi-saiyan... A year before, it wouldn't have mattered. But after becoming Gohans friend... Even if it had been possible for Piccolo to kill Vegeta and Nappa... Piccolo might have hesitated. Because if Piccolo could kill a purebred then how was the respected halfbreed supposed to feel? What if the kid needed some Saiyans around when he grew up, so that he could ask them questions about his heritage? What if seeing a Saiyan die made the kid remember his Uncle Raditz again? What if the boy figured out who had truly killed his father in that battle against his uncle? It would ruin the friendship, wouldn't it? Piccolo didn't have - or need or want - many friends. But the ones that he had... The world could just crumble before he risked them. Because making friends was not easy for the green self-proclaimed demon. And he didn't want to have to endure trying to make new ones.
He also wasn't sure that he could survive losing his current ones. Was there a way to end a friendship without ticking someone off or dying? Piccolo didn't know. He didn't have that much experience with friendship and currently had no reason to speculate in this direction.
So. Anyway. A little more than a month in the afterlife... It hadn't taken long to appreciate that even though the Saiyans had destroyed these people with ease... The humans were dangerous in ways that power didn't measure. They had completed training harder than the gods had allowed Goku to do and in less time than Goku had taken. Kami had trained Goku for three years. King Kai had trained Goku for a whole year. Korin had trained Goku for... Piccolo wasn't sure. That had happened before Piccolos creation. He wasn't clear about the timeline. But he'd heard about the others. He'd seen it for himself. Kami had trained the Earths Special Forces for eight months. King Kai... All three of the human spirits who had come to the blue gods world, they'd finished the formal training in a week - before Piccolo had been reincarnated. The human warriors had not, as far as Piccolo knew, been born with their powers. They had gained their reputations from study and training. They had invented their own attacks.
Saiyans bragged about getting stronger when they survived a tough battle. Maybe Saiyans weren't the only ones who could do that. Perhaps not all forms of strength were related to power. Maybe learning from the past experiences was an important part of the equation. It took a certain strength, didn't it, to even try and prepare for the future. It took a certain courage, to be willing to confront your own fears.
A little more than anything else Piccolo wished that he could forget what he'd seen recently at the witches arena. Kuririn had fought with his own evil side. Piccolo was the descendant of an evil side. Watching Kuririn deal with the purification... Had made it painfully clear to Piccolo that, in some ways, his uncle was not his uncle. Kami had been split. Daimio was not a brother - he was the evil side. The evil side is not a relative, it is a piece of the whole. Daimio had created Piccolo, Daimio had been the one to spit out the egg but... Kami probably had an equal claim, in truth, to fatherhood. Because his uncle was, in strictly technical terms, the good side of his father. Which also, in strictly technical terms, probably made Piccolo the only living Namek who sort of had two parents. Except that they - Daimio and Kami - had started out being the same creature.
Piccolo hated to even contemplate this. Life was just a lot simpler when he didn't. But the spirit-bond had transferred to him which seemed evidence that the link existed. He wasn't a nephew, he was the son.
Gohan was a demi-saiyan. That made the boy demi-human as well, apparently. Meanwhile Piccolo knew himself to be at least half-demon but... Was the other half plain Namekian? Or part Guardian?
And what did it make the noseless girl with the pointy ears and dark spikey hair? She was at least a third human. Not that Piccolo cared about what happened to her.
No. He really didn't.
Really.
Not unless there was a way to dump the spirit-bond on to her, instead. If she was Namekian enough... If she was related somehow... Maybe she could take the link with Kami and free Piccolo from it. And that... Well. Among other things, dying by spirit-bond would no longer be a worry for him. That would be okay. Piccolo wouldn't miss that. And binding his uncle - and he was going to keep thinking of Kami that way, no matter what - to an annoying little pointy-earred girl... As far as Piccolo was concerned, that would be a sort of ironic justice.
But he didn't have much imagination, Piccolo told himself. So he also had no clue how to find out if a transfer was possible. Or how to get the transfer done. And he was in the mountains and barely able to hold a stream of thought together, with all the uninvited telepathy that was meant for the dragon. And he'd last seen the girl up at the Lookout where she had been training with Korin. And she'd been standing right there and not detectable. So if she wasn't still at the Lookout, there was no way that Piccolo would be able to find her. And if she WAS still at the Lookout... Would Korin protect her? The girl had been wearing the mark of the cat on her fighting uniform. And the mark of the witch. And she'd been training with other kids and with the apprentices. Would any of them protect her?
Would the girl even need protecting? She seemed able to fight. She could reverse energy.
What would happen, if he challenged the kid?
A leaf carried on a strange breeze smacked him in the face. Piccolo removed it with a scowl and noticed the words, in a handwriting that he'd never seen before, etched into the leaf veins. The message read: That is not a good question.
ooxoo
On the other side of the continent, in a different mountain range, was a humble and tidy cabin. Although there was plenty of evidence that numerous repairs had been made and at least one window had been recently replaced and... This cabin had been through a lot, lately. So had the person who lived there.
Chaozu was not in the mood to seek company. He knew that he should perhaps go and try to find Piccolo but he just didn't feel like it right this moment. And he had the whole set of dragonballs on hand - kept in a neat little capsule - so that eliminated the need. As long as the dragonballs didn't turn to stone, that meant that Kami and Piccolo were both still alive.
Probably.
It was hard to be certain of anything when an epic magical battle was underway in the afterlife. Normal rules didn't exactly apply anymore. If anyone could find a loophole in the rules of the universe, it was the witch. Or Goku. But mostly the witch. What Goku did, when he won and/or survived against all odds, was a strange knack. What the witch could do - that was not a mere knack. She had hundreds of years worth of practice.
Which was, on some level, depressing. Honestly though Chaozu was just plain depressed. By everything. For now. His best friend had died and wanted to stay dead. His student - a five year old! - had figured out how to use telekinesis to die. The only reason he even needed to have the dragonballs around anymore was to, if the artifacts activated, wish the samurai back to life. Chaozu wasn't entirely sure if reincarnation was also an option for the kid, all things considered.
The reasons for this caused further depression. And the fact that he was on his own in the cabin...
One of the duties of an Emperor had been to act as a judge in special cases. The judge listened to both sides - and both sides would lie. Witnesses were called and they'd often lie, as well. The people involved all had their own spins and exaggerations to put on the story, to try and make the accused seem either more guilty or more innocent. But somewhere in among all the lies... Would be a thread of truth. And the ability to find that truth was prized. And once you had learned the skill, it went everywhere with you. And it was an especially useful survival skill, for an Emperor. This was how Chaozus ancestors had first become psychic. Being psychic had allowed them to keep the Imperial Court, where noble people bent the truth on a daily basis, under control. Mostly. Chaozu had been skilled enough to know that the empire was not politically sustainable. And he'd been constantly surrounded by other people - teachers and guards and attendants, among others - so seeing the future... Seeing their potential futures...
He couldn't see his own future, not usually. That was the problem with being alone. Because being alone often meant not seeing the future at all.
But you didn't have to see the future, to see the patterns in the past.
And even though he hadn't usually been left alone - the retinue had followed him everywhere - not seeing his own future had been a very serious problem, as an Emperor. Because there had been certain...events...in his future that hadn't been in anyone elses. So he hadn't always had much warning... Well. No. He sort of had. They'd stuck him on the throne. They'd told him a lot of things but he'd been distracted from their speeches by what they were thinking. Not all of their words had registered. Until it had been too late.
Chaozu could make the rare claim of having been effectively divorced before he'd even known that he was, in fact, married.
Neatly folded on a table in the cabin was the yellow tunic that Ranshin had worn. The clothes that she'd gotten from Kami. The clothes that Chaozu had bought replacements for because he didn't want to see the five symbols down the front. Because he knew what all five of those symbols meant. Although he only knew the one at the bottom because Ranshin had told him what it was. Chaozu had heard of the Jitsugen clan but hadn't recognized their mark. He'd been a tad more distressed by the four stacked above it.
The second from the bottom, right above the mark of the Jitsugen dojo was... The mark of Chaozus former empire. Which Chaozu had taken to mean him BUT the mark had also belonged, of course, to his ex-wife. Who was dead.
She'd been killed by accident. During the revolution.
Chaozu'd had no idea that she was his wife. Nor had Tenshinhan. Or any of the guards.
So it was still awkward to think about.
He tried not to.
But the fact was this: no one else had known about her, either. Not REALLY. Because... It was symbolism gone wrong, basically. When placed on the throne and crowned and blessed and all the rest... That was the ceremony. An Emperor - well, the divine part of the Emperor, apparently - was symbolically married to the Empire. The mortal part of the Emperor was later locked into a special palace full of power-hungry females and told to work on creating heirs. And that was considered acceptable because the soul of the Empire was not, ever, supposed to take on a human shape and manifest. But she had. And her...fundamental strangeness...had allowed them, after accidentally killing her, to gradually figure out what they'd just done.
If she had stayed alive then perhaps Chaozu would still be an Emperor. But her death had sealed the fate of the empire and had guaranteed the destructive success of the revolution. And, to be perfectly honest, she had died with a contented expression. Maybe death had been her wish? Because of her death, Chaozu had gained freedom from the throne and all the rituals and expectations and rules that went with it. And he hadn't been even remotely tempted to try and rebuild the empire or apply for any other active political jobs, not unless being an assassin was considered a political job. Which, sometimes, it probably was. But he tried not to think of it that way because it was still awkward to think about.
And the neatly folded tunic wasn't helping.
The third mark up was Master Mutaito. The fourth mark up was Mutaitos wife, now known to the world as Madame Uranai Baba. The fact that there even was a fifth mark - that was kind of disturbing all by itself. What kind of mark could be stacked above the witch? Korin wouldn't have put his mark there - he considered the witch to be an equal, at least. Mister Popo wouldn't have either. Kami would have put his mark under Mutaitos, out of respect.
Kami was the Guardian. And the Guardian was symbolically married to the planet. And the soul of the Earth also had a mark. And THAT was a mark that could sit above even the witch. Because the witch didn't answer to the gods. The witch answered to the goddess.
And there it was, at the top of the stack.
The mark looked like a flower. A five petal cherry blossom.
Immortals were eccentric. What else could you say? The goddess... Well. She was the soul of a planet. And the planet was more than four billion years old, maybe. And yet the goddess was also, on some level, mortal. Semi-immortal. Demi-mortal. Vulnerable. Chaozu was not overly fond of immortals or demi-mortals or quasi-maybe-immortals. The goddess was not an easily understood topic. How could anything be only partially immortal? Chaozu had BEEN there himself, as an Emperor, and he wasn't sure. Did being demi-immortal mean that you only partially died when you died? Because immortals could still die. Kami had proven that. And Chaozu had died twice. And it had always felt like...well...death. So was he no longer part divine? What was the difference? He didn't get it.
But grief had a way of making some things crystal clear and, especially as a former Emperor and the survivor of a symbolic marriage himself, Chaozu was starting to understand that Kami was going to need more help. Because if Kami didn't know what to expect... Then the Guardian was going to suffer.
And here was another reason not to try and locate Piccolo: Oh hi - did anyone ever mention that you have an aunt? Sort of. And she's waking up from an incredibly long hibernation. And now that I think about, it seems possible that the witch - the most dangerous mortal human and absolute last resort - has decided to kick your uncle all over the afterlife until he remembers your aunts name. He might need to try and remember the witchs real name, as well.
Hopefully, between Yajirobes ability to solve riddles and the visionary skills of two triclops and the power of an eternal dragon and the potential power of the divine sword... They could find the names.
Otherwise the Earth might need a new Guardian. To say the least.
Which was depressing, by the way. Especially since Chaozu wasn't sure what he could to do to help, from here. Earth was full of ruins and paperwork - where could a search for long-lost names even begin? Would it do any good to visit Master Roshi? Could Piccolo have inherited any such knowledge? Was Korin going to be open with this kind of information, if he remembered it? Had Kuririn studied anything like this at Orinji Temple?
The tunic... Kami had given Ranshin the clothes. Kami had put the marks on the tunic, right? If the Guardian remembered the marks of these creatures, maybe HE hadn't completely forgotten the names. THAT seemed like the best bet. But how to connect with Kami and activate those memories, from here?
Finding Piccolo seemed like a slightly better idea, now.
But the cabin was still in a bad location. Chaozu couldn't detect anyone from here. And he couldn't find the green warriors mind. And... Over the past two months Chaozu had done enough flying all around the planet and explaining things to last him forever. So... Maybe instead of locating Piccolo and attempting to use the Namek as a connection, Chaozu should just try to connect directly to someone in the afterlife. Which was not something that he'd ever done before, while alive.
Yet it was, oddly enough, exactly the kind of signal that the Tien Shan Han mountain range - sometimes called The Celestial Rocks - amplified.
ooxoo
In the afterlife, Madame Uranai Baba could have taken any form. Especially now that she had all her powers coming back. Despite this, she remained human. She remained short and old. This was a deliberate choice. She was not going to give anyone clues about her name by altering her appearance.
She stood, dressed in black and grinning, on her crystal ball and held in her hands a simple paper fan. This was one of HER tools. Madame Baba held the fan close, resting it against her top lip. Symbols appeared on the paper. Spells. Hundreds of them at a time. It was like loading a weapon. Once the spells were on the fan - with a flick of her hand and a flutter of paper, she could release as many as were needed.
The dragon was retreating.
Shenlong was stronger here and had his own spellcasting tricks as well - but it had been AGES since they'd sparred. The dragon was out of practice.
Madame Baba wasn't.
This was a part of her job, after all.
Behind and all around the witch, the clouds were being taken apart and funneled back together. Then filtered down and... There was an energy attack that Goku had learned - and who the heck had taught the warrior this, the witch wanted to know and had vowed to find out - called Genki Dama, the Spirit Bomb. The basic idea of Genki Dama was this: a warrior collects a sample of the strength from every living thing around him, gathers the collected energy into his hands and launches the attack at his foes. Who hopefully do not just dodge the energy ball or happen to be pure of heart and able to deflect it. To create the Spirit Bomb was time-consuming and placed a strain on the warrior. Which was hardly any wonder since the move was a whole lot closer to being a spell than a true energy attack. So it wasn't practical, for most warriors. The strain came not just from gathering so much energy but from essentially asking a martial arts warrior to try and become a magician. A feat like that wasn't in their training. Yet Goku had survived it.
How? Madame Baba had theories. She hadn't shared them with anyone.
Anyway. Being the Absolute Last Resort when it came to defending the world did, in fact, include a special spell. Genki Dama - Goku must have learned the attack from an immortal, hrm - appeared to be a weakened variation on that spell. So instead of gathering energy samples from nearby living things and trying to blow someone up with the resulting bright sphere... Madame Baba could take all the souls - or as many as were needed - in the afterlife and funnel their energy back into the Earth.
The spell was called, if translated into modern languages, Forgive and Forget.
Earth had dinosaurs. Earth had magical fields. Earth had aliens and shapeshifters and... All kinds of creatures lived on the planet, these days. How could any rock covered in so much life for so long not take on a soul of its own? If insects that lived for a day or humans that only lived for a week could be said to have souls then why not the planet, as well? But the Earth was a provider. Everyone who had ever lived on the planet - they lived because of her. The food and water and resources of nature... The orbit and spin of the world, as it navigated space. The chemicals of the air, the distance from the sun, the gravity - life had been shaped by the conditions on the planet. And the planet had, in turn, been shaped by life. And also drained by it.
Centuries of constantly giving your energy to the more than seven billion creatures who have decided to call you home... Well. The goddess had her limits. She was not invincible. She had gone into a state of shock. The goddess needed help. Warriors could defend her and guard her but the witch alone could revive her.
This was why Madame Baba had opened the lethal arenas around her oasis home. Even when unable to cast the full spell... Allowing some warriors to die in those places... Had helped the planet.
Forgive and Forget meant reclaiming, from the souls in the afterlife, all the energy that the Earth had lost from supporting life. Humans sometimes spoke of coming from ashes and also ending in ashes. Being born from the world and then returning to the world in death. That sort of thing. The concept was true. Madame Baba just hadn't had the power to cast this spell for about three hundred years. So the ghosts had piled up, in the afterlife and beyond. But now that the witch could drastically reduce the spirit population... She had. And so the clouds were funneling back towards the Earth, a spectral river of souls across space. A flowing string of light across the darkness. As the souls were absorbed by the planet they lost memory and individuality and went beyond even the powers of the eternal dragon to reincarnate.
Maybe the last thirty years - and especially the last two - had been so full of...ahem...adventure just because the Earth had not been feeling well? Lifeforms had always fought over the planet but usually her resistance was better. The goddess didn't usually let wars drag out too much, she didn't like being fought over all the time. She had ways of keeping conflict to a minimum. So maybe once the goddess started to recover then life on Earth could resume being slightly less...adventurous?
Due to the witches power being reduced by a bargain... In truth, the goddess had not been fully functional for roughly four hundred years. The previous Guardian had not been nice to the planet - which was why the witch had killed him. Even with the spiritual equivalent of a massive IV now being hooked up, the planets recovery might take a while. Garlic Junior, monster though he was, had actually helped by altering the world population. More dead people meant more souls to draw energy from and also less life on Earth to support. The burden on the provider was reduced. This was WHY the damage had to stay done. It was also WHY Madame Baba had allowed the dark mist to fall to Earth. She had known that the drastic changes would help stabilize the soul of the world.
The Guardian could definitely help to further speed that recovery - AND with more peaceful methods - if only he could be smacked into realizing this.
Madame Baba was not just a witch. She was a mystic. A fortuneteller. A matchmaker. A person who made their living - and she been alive for more than five hundred years so why knock the system - by telling people some things and not all things. Because what was so mystical, about telling people everything? What good were the answers if people didn't know the questions yet? People didn't usually want to know everything, anyway. Where was the fun of discovery, if they knew everything? And it was also more profitable just to keep answers short and let customers return later, if they had to know more. Let them learn a little at a time. That made it managable. People couldn't remember everything at once.
The Guardian had better start remembering. He'd married the planet. Yes, it was a 'symbolic' marriage but what the heck difference did that make? There had been vows and gifts had been exchanged. The bride had not been present for the ceremony - since the ceremony had taken place at the Lookout and not on Earth - but that was traditional. And also, in this case, fortunate. Because it meant that the bride had been absent for the string of attacks that Daimio, Garlic and even that arrogant creep the Crane Master had launched. And... Well. Yea. The planet was not young. Not by mortal standards. There had been other Guardians, in the past. The bride had hardly needed to attend her own wedding anymore because - there was no point in denying it - she'd been married a few times. Still... Symbolic or not, the most recent marriage was a partnership that had lasted for just over three hundred years now. Kami was a nice enough sort but if he couldn't remember the proper name of his wife then he didn't deserve to be her husband anymore.
One of the husbands, anyway. The World Emperor was symbolically married to the World, too. He wouldn't survive a visit from Madame Baba if she went back to Earth anytime soon. But the current World Emperor, Kyoto Amaterasu, had only been married to the world for the past eleven years. Because Daimio had killed the previous World Emperor, King Furry. So that left Kami as the senior husband to a bride that he might not have actually physically met. Still. Kami had LEARNED about the Earth and watched over her and... Of course, any goddess more than four billion years old was going to have several different titles. Earth and World and Mother Nature - those were just a few such titles. However the goddess did have a name, as well. And the World Emperor might not know it but the Guardian HAD to.
And if Kami couldn't even remember the true name of the witch then she wasn't going to answer ANY of his questions.
Mortal though the witch was, she had killed Guardians before. Because it was part of her job. And the witch took her work very seriously. But she did, also, feel some respect towards Kami. So Madame Baba was willing to keep assaulting the dragon for now. She didn't have to - she was choosing to. That gave the Namek, who was clinging to the dragons left antler and trying to deflect some of the magic, more time.
There was an attempt at telepathy from Earth. Ooo. Nice use of the heavenly mountain range. Madame Baba continued to grin, fluttered her fan, released a spell and swatted the attempt at telepathy into oblivion. But that would be too easy!
Below, the soul of a battered planet shifted and yawned and rolled over and went back to sleep. Not visibly, though.
ooxoo
Out in the wilderness, Piccolo was stalking around with a grumpy expression and trying to figure out who could have possibly written a note on a leaf. Where had the note come from?! He didn't see or hear or detect anyone. And nobody should have been able to find him. He was in the mountains which were natural ki blocks. And he was powered down. And his mind was both guarded and invaded by telepathy from Kami - which mostly consisted of screamed directions and warnings that were meant for Shenlong. So who could have even found him?
In the absence of another warrior or anything humanoid, Piccolo regarded the landscape as empty.
But he was, without being aware of this, standing on someone.
Everyone on Earth was.
The wild birds and insects and plants and fish and nimble deer that resided in the landscape all paused. On some level, but not a visible level, even the river and waterfall and mountain range paused. The energy of the planet was changing. The change was tiny but persistant, it would grow. Sooner or later, even the regular humans and humanoids might notice.
Could the soul of a planet snore?
ooxoo
Madame Uranai Baba was the most detectable thing in the afterlife. There was no sneaking up on the witch. And the soul of a planet was being coaxed towards consciousness. The journey might take a while but the formerly comatose goddess was snoring. What this meant, for a skilled psychic on Earth, was that now more than ever was the time to invest in headache medication.
ooxoo
In the afterlife, a different soul. Her name was Meiji. Because the empire had been called that - the Meiji Empire. Meiji was the soul of that place. She had been young, as far as strange lifeforms went. Perhaps if she had lived longer then she would have been given other names as well. But life had been an unpleasant experience at times. Representing the collective consciousness of an empire... Being aware of all the minds that roamed around inside the borders of that place... So many voices in her head, so many feelings flashing through... From the noble to the wicked and the rich to the poor...
Meiji had wanted to help them all - because they were all a part of her. Logically if every single citizen in the empire could be happy and productive then it would, in turn, be good for her own health. Also it would be good for her marriage. The Emperor would have an easier job to do, if the empire was at peace. Being a compassionate idealist Meiji had felt intensely loyal to the First Emperor. So Meiji had manifested. Not always in human shapes. And she'd interacted, trying to help. Usually by repairing things or leaving things that people needed where those people could find the gifts. But... Well. It was hard to please everyone and that was a polite understatement. Some citizens had been thankful for her anonymous random gifts but others had been angry, greedy, fearful or suspicious. And the Emperors... Meiji had been symbolically married to every single one of them. But they'd forgotten about her, after a while. Which hurt. It had reduced her strength, to be forgotten. Yet even that would have been tolerable if all the Emperors had been good people. Unfortunately a few had been corrupt and... It had made her sick. Meiji had shared the suffering of her citizens. She'd had to stop manifesting, during the worst times.
The Last Emperor... Meiji had liked him but she'd witnessed, as well, how much the role of the Emperor had changed. All the rules, the politics, the rituals... Nothing really got done anymore. There were so many limits. How could anyone be expected to reach their potential in such an environment? How awful, that such a cute and smart kid would just have to wither on the throne. Or worse. All over the empire had been the whispers of rebellion because putting a child on the throne was apparently some sort of open invitation to ambitious would-be conquerers. Nobody had expected for the kid to be intelligent or organized or able to resist or defend... Meiji had heard those whispers - how could she not? And they had troubled her. What could she do? How could she help? Should she stand with her citizens or with her husband? She was going to get hurt, either way.
Knowing of the struggles to come, Meiji had chosen a side.
Her death had only been an accident from the perspective of her killers.
Tenshinhan had never expected to hear any kind praise from a teacher. Nor from a past victim. Especially not THIS past victim. But the soul of an Empire can get away with hugging even an assassin. Which meant that Tenshinhan could now count the number of times that he'd been affectionately hugged, in his adult life, on two hands instead of one. It also meant that he was rendered mute.
In combat, the hug was not an uncommon device - it allowed the victim to be drawn closer and often worked well, to catch the target by surprise. A quick hug and a stab to a handy pressure point or a vital blood vessel... As a professional assassin, Tenshinhan was not registering the affection. Instead he was thinking about all the reasons why it was not a good idea to allow anyone to put their hands where he couldn't see them. And this hug was close to being a choke-hold so... Yes, he was already dead. No, that didn't change his opinion.
He escaped without a sound. But Meiji was still on the other side of the door, outside of Lord Enmas office.
Inside Lord Enmas office was...office furniture. Massive office furniture. On Earth, Tenshinhan was considered tall. In this room, he couldn't see the top of the desk without flying. Lord Enma appeared, to anyone who knew of both of them, like Ox King. But Lord Enma was purple-skinned and much bigger. And that was saying something because Ox King was a giant to begin with. Tenshinhan only knew of this because he'd once been dragged - half by Lunch, whom he still regarded with suspicion and half by Chaozu, who had politely insisted that they needed to practice not being assassins in a social setting - to attend the wedding reception of Goku and ChiChi. So he'd met the Ox King, in a kind of glance-across-the-room-and-be-told-who-that-giant-is way. And all that Tenshinhan had really thought about, at the time, was escaping back into solitude. But he'd also considered that being a giant was probably even less fun than being a triclops.
Then, a year ago and for the first time, Tenshinhan had died. Lord Enma was an immortal. Lord Enma was the Judge of the Dead. Lord Enma had the same beard and mustache and general shape as Ox King. He wore the same type of glasses as Ox King. He even wore the same type of horned helmet. But if Lord Enma took off his helmet then he would still have horns. Given the similarities, it was kind of challenging not to wonder if ChiChi was even fractionally descended from the Judge of the Dead. That might help to explain Gohans otherwise inexplicable power.
But only because the office was neat and tidy and apparently empty did the assassin have time to think of these things.
He remembered that Chaozu had complained about this office. Chaozu was short, the office had made him feel microscopic. Kuririn hadn't mentioned it but... Tenshinhan had gained a bit more respect for people who had to endure being short, after being here. No mortal could pass through Lord Enmas office and feel tall.
Where was Lord Enma?
Judgement was something that Tenshinhan had mixed feelings about. He didn't expect to be given a favorable review but he also saw no point in putting it off. He was dead for the second and last time, that was his choice. He was at peace, he kept reminding himself, with the decision. If judgement was the last hurdle to making that peace eternal... Fine. Good. Let the process begin. Hopefully it wouldn't take long. The afterlife was kind of getting on his nerves. Which he hadn't anticipated. Because usually being in the afterlife meant blending in more, less people - or creatures - staring.
But Lord Enma was not here. What right did Lord Enma have, to take a vacation? How could the purple orge be absent? It didn't make any sense. People were still dying! Tenshinhan knew this because he was, after all, one of the more recently deceased.
Someone was staring at him.
Only the witch was detectable, at the moment, so looking for energy signatures seemed pointless. But the stare was coming from the top of the giant desk. So Tenshinhan flew up to see who was there. This was a short trip.
Standing on the surface of the desk, next to the Book of the Dead, was the ghost of a man. He wore a fighting uniform. He was grinning and holding, with the calm air of someone who knew how to be a parent, the ghost of a little girl. Tenshinhan recognized the little girl - it was Ranshin. But he didn't recognize the man.
Master Mutaito had existed before the invention of cameras.
ooxoo