Tell No Tales
CHAPTER NINE: . . . The Harder They Fall
He wondered if Goku had ever felt like this.
Kuririn could not keep the parallel out of his mind. He had seen Goku in this exact situation before, at the hands of Vegeta. He remembered the sight of his friend in the hands of the horrible monster that was an oozaru, being slowly crushed. If this was what it had felt like, then Kuririn had found a whole new level of respect for the man that he had always respected more than he had thought possible. This was quite the painful experience.
He grimaced as Kyojin lifted him up to eye level, but did not close his eyes. Oh, sure, he was pretty scared right now – an understatement, to be sure; he was terrified – but he didn't exactly want the giant to know that. He did have a little bit of pride in himself.
"That was not a good trick to pull, tiniest of ones," the giant said, his voice at what would have been a whispering tone to him, but was still loud to Kuririn's ears. "You did that once before, and it seems that I was right to think that you might try it again."
Well, Kuririn had to acknowledge that perhaps that had not been the smartest of moves. Kyojin had not exactly stricken him as being very bright, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was quite dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice. He should have tried another tack.
But hindsight was perfect, wasn't it?
And so here he was, trapped in the gigantic fist of some great monster, waiting to find out just how much damage could be inflicted on a dead person such as himself. He tried to wriggle free, but his impacts into the mountainside had sapped his strength, and the way that Kyojin was holding him – squeezing him, actually – was not exactly helping.
And the pressure got tighter and tighter, threatening to crush whatever bones where left in his spiritual body . . .
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It was about time.
As if the search itself had not been maddening enough, the tiny ones had been making things even harder for themselves. While all of his victims tended to try to avoid being smashed, none of them tried things to this extent. The tiny bald one had even injured him, something that had not happened in several hundred years. Needless to say, that fact was just a little upsetting.
The smashing would otherwise have been quick, for Kyojin was not one to draw out the fate of his victims. Just because he liked to crush things didn't mean that he was cruel, after all. But the tiny bald creature had just been too annoying thus far and consequently deserved a little more suffering before his fate was handed down.
And he had to admit that this was rather fun. Even if his current victim happened to be looking him straight in the eye and was not screaming. Well, he couldn't have anything, he supposed.
Besides, this gave him the perfect excuse to crush him harder.
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It was a long run, even with the increased stamina provided by the sacred fruit. But Gohan could eventually see the huge form of Kyojin looming in the distance, rock dust still rising around him. The giant must have made a great many strikes at those peaks. Which meant that Kuririn had been doing and excellent job of evading them. There was every possibility that the boy would not really need his help at all, but it was better safe than sorry. An insurance policy never hurt anyone.
He came closer now, completely unnoticed by the giant. Even when he made it up to Kyojin's feet, Gohan was not discovered. Such an unobservant creature, but he supposed that it was like a person not knowing that an ant was crawling onto their shoe. Anything of such a size was too small and insignificant to even register a glance. And this was a very useful thing, in fact. An unnoticed bug could be a dangerous bug if given the proper chance.
And Gohan knew that he could be a dangerous bug indeed. If it was necessary, that was. It might not be.
He halted momentarily, wondering why the giant was not making any more attacks. His eyes glanced about, trying to find any sign of Kuririn, but did not catch one. At last, Gohan closed his eyes, relying on that old trick of ki sensing that he had learned at some point during his life. While the dead did not truly have anything in the way of ki, there was always a residue, he had noticed. A residue of the power that the person had possessed in life. It was almost non-existent in even mighty warriors – he had seen a few of those, in the Relegation Room – and thus was not easy to detect. But if one was skilled enough in the art of ki sensing, and could concentrate hard enough, then it was possible to detect someone by his ki.
And as it happened, Gohan was both very skilled at ki-sensing, and possessed great concentration. He was able to lock onto Kuririn's residual ki, and he opened his eyes to follow the trail.
He almost choked at what his eyes showed him. Oh, Kuririn was here, all right – and being held between the huge hands of Kyojin, looking to be on the verge of being crushed. Whatever Kuririn's strength had been before – and it had been considerable, in Gohan's observation – it had obviously taken such a hit that he could not escape form this grasp on his own. He was trapped.
So what was there to do? He could feel this monster's ki easily, and it dwarfed his as much as his body did. There was no way that he would be able to strike an effective blow, or one that the giant even would notice. How could he expect to free Kuririn, if he could not do anything to warrant the monster's attention?
He had to think quickly – Kuririn did not appear to have a lot of time left. Gohan glanced around desperately left and right, trying to find something that might serve as a distraction against Kyojin, but the only thing in sight were the mountains. And those were no help, really . . . Wait.
An idea formed inside of Gohan's head, triggered by a memory of something that had occurred just as he and Kuririn had been escaping from the Relegation Room. That move he had used . . . It had seemed so familiar to him, even back then, when his memory had been at its foggiest. Something kept telling him that he knew that attack.
The Kamehameha Wave.
If he could remember how to do that, then there might be a chance to do something . . . But his memory still was not perfect, and he could not quite determine how the attack was performed.
But still, with nothing else to do – he heard Kuririn cry out from above – Gohan knew that this was the only choice. He would have to go from recent memory and work out the rest of the details from there.
And he cupped his hands at his side, whispering the first syllables to the attack's name. "Ka . . . me . . ."
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The pain was getting worse and worse. He didn't even think that it had hurt this much when he had been killed – by Frieza, not by one of Piccolo Daimio's children, though both had been pretty painful. He supposed that when you were already dead that you could handle more pain without losing consciousness or any other additional bad things happening to you. Someone like Goku would probably enjoy finding out something like that, but to Kuririn, it just wasn't very fun.
He continued to struggle, but to no avail. His strength was simply sapped too much from being thrown into the mountainside and subsequently crushed into Kyojin's hands. He wasn't giving up, though part of him wanted to. If it was just a matter of himself, he probably would have. But it was not a matter of just himself. Gohan Senior was a concern here, too. He had to buy the old man enough time to escape, to get to Judgement without being harmed by this brutal giant.
He could only hope that it was working out well.
He tried to wince, but did not have even the strength for that, as Kyojin laughed in his face as he slowly crushed him. It wasn't bad enough that he was likely suffering some fate worse than death, he had smell this thing's breath too.
But something caught his attention suddenly. A faint stirring of ki, he was surprised to note. And it was coming form nearby, almost right below him.
Despite his current situation, Kuririn could not help his curiosity in this matter. Just what was going on down there? Strenuously, he turned his head toward that stirring of ki.
And he stiffened in shock. If he didn't know better, that was Gohan Senior down there, a blue ball of ki forming between his hands. Or so Kuririn assumed – ki attacks being fired from the hands and all, as a matter of course. And Kuririn was sure of which ki attack this was. There was only one, that he was aware of, anyway, that Gohan Senior knew how to perform. Or had when he was alive.
He was going to do a Kamehameha Wave.
This thought failed to hearten Kuririn however, though he had to appreciate the old man's gustiness. But there was no way that any attack Gohan Senior could fire off was going to do anything more to Kyojin than make him itch. He appreciated the old man's thoughts and attempt to help, but it just wasn't worth the effort. There was no hope.
Or if there was a hope, it was the desperate, far fetched hope that Gohan Senior had some sort of plan. Kuririn, with nothing else better to do, decided that he might as well latch on to that hope. It was his one and only shot.
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The knowledge came instinctively, but he did not know its source. His memory still was not complete, perhaps would never be again, but as soon as he had taken this pose that he had seen Kuririn use, he seemed to know exactly what to do.
The hands were cupped at his side, heels of them touching in order to prevent any ki from escaping. And then he searched within the centre of himself, looking for that warm spark of power that was in all beings, though few enough ever managed to find it, and fewer still managed to use it. From there, it was a matter of pulling this power into his hands, forcing it outward through the skin of his palms. And he had to keep doing it, forming all of this power into a condensed ball of pure ki resting between said cupped hands. And yet more gathered there, layering it for when it had to be elongated. The more power was concentrated into it, the further the potential range. Its power could only increase so much. The Kamehameha Wave was a blast attack, not a ball attack, so some strength had to be sacrificed for momentum. It was just the way things worked.
The power felt warm in his hands, and familiar. Very familiar, as if he had performed this move many times in the past. And this unknown knowledge gave him a surety in himself, a confidence that this quickly thought plan of his was going to work.
"Ha . . . Me . . . "
He stopped gathering power now; he had all that he could muster, and all that he needed to use. Now was the time for targeting, something at least as important as the attack itself. For what good was an attack, it if did not strike the proper target? And his eyes locked upon this target. Not the giant slowly crushing his companion. No, not that at all, though that would have been the most obvious choice. For this situation, for the lack of power he had in comparison to this creature, to try and attack it directly would be not only improper, but foolish. And Gohan was not a foolish man. He never had been.
"Ha!" He shouted out the final syllable as he thrust his hands forward, pushing the energy out ahead of him. It blasted upward in a torrent of brilliant light, blanking out everything, and leaving things in a negative image when there was anything to see.
And this blast continued upward further and further, narrowly missing Kyojin's hand, the one with Kuririn in it, and struck the target that he had intended all along. The mountain.
With a great explosion of dust, the mountain began to crumble apart, and the huge chunks of rock rained down upon Kyojin's arm. Under too much stress from the weight, the arm was brought down, and the hand relaxed its hold.
And with that relaxed hold, Kuririn fell to the ground.
Gohan dropped to his knees, sweat pouring down his face, lungs burning, and air more desperate to stay out of his mouth than go into it. That attack had taken so much power that it had drained him almost completely, left him barely able to move. But he had to move in short order. It would not be long before Kyojin noticed him and decided to exact vengeance on him for such a move. And also, he had to find Kuririn. The boy might have been buried under the rock slide, if he had been unlucky.
He forced himself to his feet, still panting, and his head swam as he stood. It threatened to drag him down into unconsciousness, but he fought it. He could rest after this ordeal was over. He had not the time for such things now.
Forcing his legs to move, he headed toward the avalanche that he had created, silently hoping that he hadn't accidentally done his companion – friend – any more harm than he had already been enduring.
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Kuririn had never been so happy in his life to hit the ground.
Normally, it was not a good sensation, crashing onto the earth after failing to stop your momentum, but right now it felt great. Better than being crushed, anyway. He would take this any day of the week.
Still, despite this sentiment, he could not move for a moment. His head was too heavy and his body in too much pain. Both of which would hopefully pass quickly. The likelihood that Kyojin had been injured much by that move of Gohan Senior's, clever though it was, was not all that high. At any second, the giant could rise, and be in one heck of a rotten mood. Best to deal with him before that happened.
So when the pain dissipated a little bit, but not very much, Kuririn pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He coughed out dust, and lifted one fist to wipe the offending particles out of his eyes. Now or never, if he wanted to get this done, if only he could just manage the strength . . .
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Kuririn jumped, startled for a moment, thinking rather absurdly that it belonged to Kyojin. But in fact, and what made his mistake so silly that he could not help but feel foolish in such a dire situation, it was Gohan Senior. The old man had a concerned but relieved look on his face. And, unless Kuririn missed his guess, there was a hint of pride in that expression too.
"Well, there you are, son," Gohan Senior said kindly, and with a little bit of a laugh. "I was afraid for a moment that you might have gotten crushed under all this rock. It would have been most unfortunate.
Kuririn smiled in spite of himself. "Gee, you think?"
Gohan Senior chuckled a little, but Kuririn glanced upward and shushed him. Kyojin was prying his arm out from under the rubble, was almost through in fact, and the expression on his face bespoke that he was completely and utterly through with playing around, with stalling, with prolonging anything more than was necessary.
The giant was angry.
And once his arm was free, he quickly found them, those red slitted eyes narrowing in fury., And his leg lifted furiously, preparing for a run at them. Kuririn might have had enough time to leap out of the way with Gohan Senior, had he not been injured. But as he was now . . .
"Gohan, run!" he shouted to his companion. But the old man did not listen to him.
"Not a chance, son. Here!" was his response.
Kuririn was about to form a reply, but he suddenly found his mouth full. He wanted to pull this thing out – and give the old man an annoyed glare for his trouble – but Gohan Senior shoved it further into his mouth. Reflexively, Kuririn bit down . . .
And his limbs started to feel a little better. Not uninjured, but still strong. Whatever this thing in his mouth was, it was giving him back the energy that he so desperately needed at a time like this. He managed another few chews before Kyojin reached them, and with newfound strength he blasted into the air enveloped in white ki. Just below them, Kyojin's fist ripped though the ground.
Kuririn finished chewing and then swallowed what was in his mouth. It had been some kind of fruit, from the tangy, acrid taste. He shot Gohan Senior a look, and found the old man just giving him a smile and a single nod. Kuririn did not know what he had done, but he was glad of it. And he could ask about it later.
Already, ki was gathering in his hands, preparing once more for a heavy strike. He kept Gohan Senior close to him – there was no safe place to drop him off – as Kyojin tore his fist out of the ground, glaring at them balefully.
"That is the last time you fool me, tiny ones!" the giant roared. "I will have no more of this!"
And once more, the giant charged. Kuririn increased his altitude a little, coming to the height just above Kyojin's nose. His ki gathering hand was behind his back, hiding, storing power . . .
It happened in a split instant. For the briefest of time periods Kuririn was staring straight into one of Kyojin's monstrous red eyes, and the next, the giant was sailing backward, eventually crashing into a mountainside. The mountain broke apart under the intense force, a horrible storm of solid thunder. And it continued to fall until Kyojin was buried beneath it.
A light patter of tiny stones completed their descent, accompanying the cloud of dust that had risen from the impact of the collapsing mountain.
Arm still extended from his punch, Kuririn exhaled a sigh of relief. His arm was still twitching from the force he had needed to put into that blow. And while he was exhausted, breathing heavily and a little dizzy, he could not help but feel a little sense of pride. He sure had made that shot count.
But, fearing that his dizziness might cause an unfortunate fall, Kuririn lowered himself and Gohan Senior to the ground. Once there, he left his companion free.
They stood near the spot where Kyojin was buried, one huge foot sticking out from the pile of rubble. A long, tense moment passed, Kuririn fully expecting the giant to leap up from under the broken mountain and crush them before they could move. Fortunately, though, nothing happened. Kuririn searched for the giant's ki, and he did find it, low and weak, but fairly steady. For seemingly the millionth time that day, he sighed in relief. He was really glad that he wasn't dead. During a desperate time or two in the battle, he had been on the verge of using the kienzan. It might well have been his signature move, but he never relished the thought of using it. Too deadly.
"It would seem that some congratulations are in order, son," Gohan Senior said simply. "That move took a lot of courage, and probably saved our souls."
Well, there was always that, Kuririn supposed. And actually, this wasn't so bad. He felt strong, useful, a complete contrast to how he had felt while fighting against Frieza. A complete contrast to how he felt about himself in general. Yep, he had done some pretty good work here.
But his optimism was short lived, as it usually tended to be, and he frowned. "Or doomed them. This guy was sent to track us down, or so he said, for us escaping the Relegation Room. Taking him out might not have been very bright."
This seemed to sober Gohan Senior. The old man's moustache drooped, indicating that he had taken up a frown as well. "I hadn't thought of that. You might be right, son."
Kuririn shook his head, silently wondering if this whole insane ordeal had been futile. The both of them could end up with a terrible punishment, but as he had determined before, he might be able to get Gohan Senior off the hook. There were so many dealings in this place that he would likely never fathom them, much less have done so in only a few weeks. Maybe they just should have waited. Maybe his case would not have taken as long as that office demon had said.
Again, with the hindsight being perfect. Hindsight was very annoying that way.
Considering the fugitive road that he had taken and had forced upon Gohan Senior, Kuririn decided that it was time to do things honourably for a change. Oh, they would still head to Judgement; it would be foolish not to find their destination after coming this far, enduring all this trouble. But the rest, he would deal with fair and square. And that included whatever punishment he would face for his reckless actions.
He lifted his head. "Come on, Gohan," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice level. "I think that we've got a journey to finish."
CHAPTER NINE: . . . The Harder They Fall
He wondered if Goku had ever felt like this.
Kuririn could not keep the parallel out of his mind. He had seen Goku in this exact situation before, at the hands of Vegeta. He remembered the sight of his friend in the hands of the horrible monster that was an oozaru, being slowly crushed. If this was what it had felt like, then Kuririn had found a whole new level of respect for the man that he had always respected more than he had thought possible. This was quite the painful experience.
He grimaced as Kyojin lifted him up to eye level, but did not close his eyes. Oh, sure, he was pretty scared right now – an understatement, to be sure; he was terrified – but he didn't exactly want the giant to know that. He did have a little bit of pride in himself.
"That was not a good trick to pull, tiniest of ones," the giant said, his voice at what would have been a whispering tone to him, but was still loud to Kuririn's ears. "You did that once before, and it seems that I was right to think that you might try it again."
Well, Kuririn had to acknowledge that perhaps that had not been the smartest of moves. Kyojin had not exactly stricken him as being very bright, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was quite dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice. He should have tried another tack.
But hindsight was perfect, wasn't it?
And so here he was, trapped in the gigantic fist of some great monster, waiting to find out just how much damage could be inflicted on a dead person such as himself. He tried to wriggle free, but his impacts into the mountainside had sapped his strength, and the way that Kyojin was holding him – squeezing him, actually – was not exactly helping.
And the pressure got tighter and tighter, threatening to crush whatever bones where left in his spiritual body . . .
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It was about time.
As if the search itself had not been maddening enough, the tiny ones had been making things even harder for themselves. While all of his victims tended to try to avoid being smashed, none of them tried things to this extent. The tiny bald one had even injured him, something that had not happened in several hundred years. Needless to say, that fact was just a little upsetting.
The smashing would otherwise have been quick, for Kyojin was not one to draw out the fate of his victims. Just because he liked to crush things didn't mean that he was cruel, after all. But the tiny bald creature had just been too annoying thus far and consequently deserved a little more suffering before his fate was handed down.
And he had to admit that this was rather fun. Even if his current victim happened to be looking him straight in the eye and was not screaming. Well, he couldn't have anything, he supposed.
Besides, this gave him the perfect excuse to crush him harder.
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It was a long run, even with the increased stamina provided by the sacred fruit. But Gohan could eventually see the huge form of Kyojin looming in the distance, rock dust still rising around him. The giant must have made a great many strikes at those peaks. Which meant that Kuririn had been doing and excellent job of evading them. There was every possibility that the boy would not really need his help at all, but it was better safe than sorry. An insurance policy never hurt anyone.
He came closer now, completely unnoticed by the giant. Even when he made it up to Kyojin's feet, Gohan was not discovered. Such an unobservant creature, but he supposed that it was like a person not knowing that an ant was crawling onto their shoe. Anything of such a size was too small and insignificant to even register a glance. And this was a very useful thing, in fact. An unnoticed bug could be a dangerous bug if given the proper chance.
And Gohan knew that he could be a dangerous bug indeed. If it was necessary, that was. It might not be.
He halted momentarily, wondering why the giant was not making any more attacks. His eyes glanced about, trying to find any sign of Kuririn, but did not catch one. At last, Gohan closed his eyes, relying on that old trick of ki sensing that he had learned at some point during his life. While the dead did not truly have anything in the way of ki, there was always a residue, he had noticed. A residue of the power that the person had possessed in life. It was almost non-existent in even mighty warriors – he had seen a few of those, in the Relegation Room – and thus was not easy to detect. But if one was skilled enough in the art of ki sensing, and could concentrate hard enough, then it was possible to detect someone by his ki.
And as it happened, Gohan was both very skilled at ki-sensing, and possessed great concentration. He was able to lock onto Kuririn's residual ki, and he opened his eyes to follow the trail.
He almost choked at what his eyes showed him. Oh, Kuririn was here, all right – and being held between the huge hands of Kyojin, looking to be on the verge of being crushed. Whatever Kuririn's strength had been before – and it had been considerable, in Gohan's observation – it had obviously taken such a hit that he could not escape form this grasp on his own. He was trapped.
So what was there to do? He could feel this monster's ki easily, and it dwarfed his as much as his body did. There was no way that he would be able to strike an effective blow, or one that the giant even would notice. How could he expect to free Kuririn, if he could not do anything to warrant the monster's attention?
He had to think quickly – Kuririn did not appear to have a lot of time left. Gohan glanced around desperately left and right, trying to find something that might serve as a distraction against Kyojin, but the only thing in sight were the mountains. And those were no help, really . . . Wait.
An idea formed inside of Gohan's head, triggered by a memory of something that had occurred just as he and Kuririn had been escaping from the Relegation Room. That move he had used . . . It had seemed so familiar to him, even back then, when his memory had been at its foggiest. Something kept telling him that he knew that attack.
The Kamehameha Wave.
If he could remember how to do that, then there might be a chance to do something . . . But his memory still was not perfect, and he could not quite determine how the attack was performed.
But still, with nothing else to do – he heard Kuririn cry out from above – Gohan knew that this was the only choice. He would have to go from recent memory and work out the rest of the details from there.
And he cupped his hands at his side, whispering the first syllables to the attack's name. "Ka . . . me . . ."
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The pain was getting worse and worse. He didn't even think that it had hurt this much when he had been killed – by Frieza, not by one of Piccolo Daimio's children, though both had been pretty painful. He supposed that when you were already dead that you could handle more pain without losing consciousness or any other additional bad things happening to you. Someone like Goku would probably enjoy finding out something like that, but to Kuririn, it just wasn't very fun.
He continued to struggle, but to no avail. His strength was simply sapped too much from being thrown into the mountainside and subsequently crushed into Kyojin's hands. He wasn't giving up, though part of him wanted to. If it was just a matter of himself, he probably would have. But it was not a matter of just himself. Gohan Senior was a concern here, too. He had to buy the old man enough time to escape, to get to Judgement without being harmed by this brutal giant.
He could only hope that it was working out well.
He tried to wince, but did not have even the strength for that, as Kyojin laughed in his face as he slowly crushed him. It wasn't bad enough that he was likely suffering some fate worse than death, he had smell this thing's breath too.
But something caught his attention suddenly. A faint stirring of ki, he was surprised to note. And it was coming form nearby, almost right below him.
Despite his current situation, Kuririn could not help his curiosity in this matter. Just what was going on down there? Strenuously, he turned his head toward that stirring of ki.
And he stiffened in shock. If he didn't know better, that was Gohan Senior down there, a blue ball of ki forming between his hands. Or so Kuririn assumed – ki attacks being fired from the hands and all, as a matter of course. And Kuririn was sure of which ki attack this was. There was only one, that he was aware of, anyway, that Gohan Senior knew how to perform. Or had when he was alive.
He was going to do a Kamehameha Wave.
This thought failed to hearten Kuririn however, though he had to appreciate the old man's gustiness. But there was no way that any attack Gohan Senior could fire off was going to do anything more to Kyojin than make him itch. He appreciated the old man's thoughts and attempt to help, but it just wasn't worth the effort. There was no hope.
Or if there was a hope, it was the desperate, far fetched hope that Gohan Senior had some sort of plan. Kuririn, with nothing else better to do, decided that he might as well latch on to that hope. It was his one and only shot.
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The knowledge came instinctively, but he did not know its source. His memory still was not complete, perhaps would never be again, but as soon as he had taken this pose that he had seen Kuririn use, he seemed to know exactly what to do.
The hands were cupped at his side, heels of them touching in order to prevent any ki from escaping. And then he searched within the centre of himself, looking for that warm spark of power that was in all beings, though few enough ever managed to find it, and fewer still managed to use it. From there, it was a matter of pulling this power into his hands, forcing it outward through the skin of his palms. And he had to keep doing it, forming all of this power into a condensed ball of pure ki resting between said cupped hands. And yet more gathered there, layering it for when it had to be elongated. The more power was concentrated into it, the further the potential range. Its power could only increase so much. The Kamehameha Wave was a blast attack, not a ball attack, so some strength had to be sacrificed for momentum. It was just the way things worked.
The power felt warm in his hands, and familiar. Very familiar, as if he had performed this move many times in the past. And this unknown knowledge gave him a surety in himself, a confidence that this quickly thought plan of his was going to work.
"Ha . . . Me . . . "
He stopped gathering power now; he had all that he could muster, and all that he needed to use. Now was the time for targeting, something at least as important as the attack itself. For what good was an attack, it if did not strike the proper target? And his eyes locked upon this target. Not the giant slowly crushing his companion. No, not that at all, though that would have been the most obvious choice. For this situation, for the lack of power he had in comparison to this creature, to try and attack it directly would be not only improper, but foolish. And Gohan was not a foolish man. He never had been.
"Ha!" He shouted out the final syllable as he thrust his hands forward, pushing the energy out ahead of him. It blasted upward in a torrent of brilliant light, blanking out everything, and leaving things in a negative image when there was anything to see.
And this blast continued upward further and further, narrowly missing Kyojin's hand, the one with Kuririn in it, and struck the target that he had intended all along. The mountain.
With a great explosion of dust, the mountain began to crumble apart, and the huge chunks of rock rained down upon Kyojin's arm. Under too much stress from the weight, the arm was brought down, and the hand relaxed its hold.
And with that relaxed hold, Kuririn fell to the ground.
Gohan dropped to his knees, sweat pouring down his face, lungs burning, and air more desperate to stay out of his mouth than go into it. That attack had taken so much power that it had drained him almost completely, left him barely able to move. But he had to move in short order. It would not be long before Kyojin noticed him and decided to exact vengeance on him for such a move. And also, he had to find Kuririn. The boy might have been buried under the rock slide, if he had been unlucky.
He forced himself to his feet, still panting, and his head swam as he stood. It threatened to drag him down into unconsciousness, but he fought it. He could rest after this ordeal was over. He had not the time for such things now.
Forcing his legs to move, he headed toward the avalanche that he had created, silently hoping that he hadn't accidentally done his companion – friend – any more harm than he had already been enduring.
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Kuririn had never been so happy in his life to hit the ground.
Normally, it was not a good sensation, crashing onto the earth after failing to stop your momentum, but right now it felt great. Better than being crushed, anyway. He would take this any day of the week.
Still, despite this sentiment, he could not move for a moment. His head was too heavy and his body in too much pain. Both of which would hopefully pass quickly. The likelihood that Kyojin had been injured much by that move of Gohan Senior's, clever though it was, was not all that high. At any second, the giant could rise, and be in one heck of a rotten mood. Best to deal with him before that happened.
So when the pain dissipated a little bit, but not very much, Kuririn pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He coughed out dust, and lifted one fist to wipe the offending particles out of his eyes. Now or never, if he wanted to get this done, if only he could just manage the strength . . .
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Kuririn jumped, startled for a moment, thinking rather absurdly that it belonged to Kyojin. But in fact, and what made his mistake so silly that he could not help but feel foolish in such a dire situation, it was Gohan Senior. The old man had a concerned but relieved look on his face. And, unless Kuririn missed his guess, there was a hint of pride in that expression too.
"Well, there you are, son," Gohan Senior said kindly, and with a little bit of a laugh. "I was afraid for a moment that you might have gotten crushed under all this rock. It would have been most unfortunate.
Kuririn smiled in spite of himself. "Gee, you think?"
Gohan Senior chuckled a little, but Kuririn glanced upward and shushed him. Kyojin was prying his arm out from under the rubble, was almost through in fact, and the expression on his face bespoke that he was completely and utterly through with playing around, with stalling, with prolonging anything more than was necessary.
The giant was angry.
And once his arm was free, he quickly found them, those red slitted eyes narrowing in fury., And his leg lifted furiously, preparing for a run at them. Kuririn might have had enough time to leap out of the way with Gohan Senior, had he not been injured. But as he was now . . .
"Gohan, run!" he shouted to his companion. But the old man did not listen to him.
"Not a chance, son. Here!" was his response.
Kuririn was about to form a reply, but he suddenly found his mouth full. He wanted to pull this thing out – and give the old man an annoyed glare for his trouble – but Gohan Senior shoved it further into his mouth. Reflexively, Kuririn bit down . . .
And his limbs started to feel a little better. Not uninjured, but still strong. Whatever this thing in his mouth was, it was giving him back the energy that he so desperately needed at a time like this. He managed another few chews before Kyojin reached them, and with newfound strength he blasted into the air enveloped in white ki. Just below them, Kyojin's fist ripped though the ground.
Kuririn finished chewing and then swallowed what was in his mouth. It had been some kind of fruit, from the tangy, acrid taste. He shot Gohan Senior a look, and found the old man just giving him a smile and a single nod. Kuririn did not know what he had done, but he was glad of it. And he could ask about it later.
Already, ki was gathering in his hands, preparing once more for a heavy strike. He kept Gohan Senior close to him – there was no safe place to drop him off – as Kyojin tore his fist out of the ground, glaring at them balefully.
"That is the last time you fool me, tiny ones!" the giant roared. "I will have no more of this!"
And once more, the giant charged. Kuririn increased his altitude a little, coming to the height just above Kyojin's nose. His ki gathering hand was behind his back, hiding, storing power . . .
It happened in a split instant. For the briefest of time periods Kuririn was staring straight into one of Kyojin's monstrous red eyes, and the next, the giant was sailing backward, eventually crashing into a mountainside. The mountain broke apart under the intense force, a horrible storm of solid thunder. And it continued to fall until Kyojin was buried beneath it.
A light patter of tiny stones completed their descent, accompanying the cloud of dust that had risen from the impact of the collapsing mountain.
Arm still extended from his punch, Kuririn exhaled a sigh of relief. His arm was still twitching from the force he had needed to put into that blow. And while he was exhausted, breathing heavily and a little dizzy, he could not help but feel a little sense of pride. He sure had made that shot count.
But, fearing that his dizziness might cause an unfortunate fall, Kuririn lowered himself and Gohan Senior to the ground. Once there, he left his companion free.
They stood near the spot where Kyojin was buried, one huge foot sticking out from the pile of rubble. A long, tense moment passed, Kuririn fully expecting the giant to leap up from under the broken mountain and crush them before they could move. Fortunately, though, nothing happened. Kuririn searched for the giant's ki, and he did find it, low and weak, but fairly steady. For seemingly the millionth time that day, he sighed in relief. He was really glad that he wasn't dead. During a desperate time or two in the battle, he had been on the verge of using the kienzan. It might well have been his signature move, but he never relished the thought of using it. Too deadly.
"It would seem that some congratulations are in order, son," Gohan Senior said simply. "That move took a lot of courage, and probably saved our souls."
Well, there was always that, Kuririn supposed. And actually, this wasn't so bad. He felt strong, useful, a complete contrast to how he had felt while fighting against Frieza. A complete contrast to how he felt about himself in general. Yep, he had done some pretty good work here.
But his optimism was short lived, as it usually tended to be, and he frowned. "Or doomed them. This guy was sent to track us down, or so he said, for us escaping the Relegation Room. Taking him out might not have been very bright."
This seemed to sober Gohan Senior. The old man's moustache drooped, indicating that he had taken up a frown as well. "I hadn't thought of that. You might be right, son."
Kuririn shook his head, silently wondering if this whole insane ordeal had been futile. The both of them could end up with a terrible punishment, but as he had determined before, he might be able to get Gohan Senior off the hook. There were so many dealings in this place that he would likely never fathom them, much less have done so in only a few weeks. Maybe they just should have waited. Maybe his case would not have taken as long as that office demon had said.
Again, with the hindsight being perfect. Hindsight was very annoying that way.
Considering the fugitive road that he had taken and had forced upon Gohan Senior, Kuririn decided that it was time to do things honourably for a change. Oh, they would still head to Judgement; it would be foolish not to find their destination after coming this far, enduring all this trouble. But the rest, he would deal with fair and square. And that included whatever punishment he would face for his reckless actions.
He lifted his head. "Come on, Gohan," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice level. "I think that we've got a journey to finish."