CHAPTER FIVE:

Shiroi entered the clearing near her home, going fast enough to make the bushes rustle in her wake. She dropped the Dragon Ball Radar and scooped up the discarded shovel from the spot she'd thrown it after burying her sister and raced to the grave.

Dirt flew into the air, falling around her in chaotic showers. Shiroi's muscles burned. Her legs trembled, threatening to give out, her arms were tense and painful, aching every time she shoveled another patch of dirt into the nearby bushes, and her lungs could never seem to inhale enough air.

Mentally, Shiroi reached out for her twin, and wailed in misery as Kuroi failed to respond. When the dragon had announced Kuroi's revival to the world of the living, Shiroi hadn't believed him. After all, until the moment of her death, Shiroi could sense Kuroi's every thought. If Kuroi truly was alive, then she should have been able to hear her twin once again. Her mind remained silent save for the mourning sound of her own thoughts.

Kuroi, both curious and annoyed by the insistent mental noise in her head, looked up from her trek up the mountain just in time to get a shovelful of dirt in her face.

"Kyaa!"

Shiroi whirled around, the shovel brandished as a weapon, her eyes narrowed and furious. What, another intruder? This time after my life?

The shovel fell to the ground with a muffled thud from numb, trembling fingers.

"Ku-ku.... Ku-chan!" Shiroi cried, tears springing into her eyes, unheedingly. "You're okay, you're not dead!" Shiroi stumbled forward and threw her arms around her twin, leaning heavily. Kuroi, unbalanced by both the sight of her stoic twin weeping and the sudden weight of her, toppled backwards with a startled yelp.

"I thought the dragon lied! He told me you were alive, but I couldn't see you anywhere. I thought you came alive in your coffin, six feet under the ground and I ran home." Shiroi pulled far enough away to look into her twin's familiar blue eyes. Alive. Kuroi was alive!

"Dragon? Anno... Shi-chan, are you okay?" Kuroi placed a hand on Shiroi's forehead, raising a black eyebrow at her lack of a temperature.

"No!" Shiroi howled, clutching her twin tighter. "I was all alone on Chikyuu! I ran away, because I couldn't stand to stay here without you. I went to the city and beat up some males who told me about the Dragon Ball Radar. Then there was that odd redhead, and then Gokuu-sama came along and helped me. He was the only one who knew anything at all. Everyone in the world is crazy and clueless. No wonder Mama and Papa came out here. We got the dragonballs together and I then I wished you alive, and the dragon said that my wish was granted, but you weren't there!"

Shiroi and Kuroi separated and sat up. Kuroi crossed her arms, "I was fighting in heaven with a male who had boobs when Dai-Enma-sama stopped me in the middle of my big flashy ball and told me that Kami wanted me. Did you know that our Kami is a tall green person with antennae?" Shiroi nodded.

"And skin like silk."

Kuroi cocked her head to the side. "Silk? I thought it felt more like satin. Wait, you met Kami?"

"Gokuu-sama took me up there to heal me after fighting with that red-head's army. Then he slapped me on the back, and I fell of the platform."

"You too?! I was trying to avoid the squat black... being with the vacant expression, and I lost my balance."

Shiroi stared at Kuroi for a moment. Kuroi enjoyed the sensation of her twin's thoughts buzzing within her mind. It was one of the things she had missed in heaven.

"I really, really missed you, Ku-chan," Shiroi whispered her black eyes soft.

Me too, Shi-chan, Kuroi responded, touching her thoughts to her sisters.

However, Shiroi failed to respond as if she was deaf to her sister's mental sending. Kuroi shrugged it off, deciding that her sister was blocking her message. Perhaps Shiroi had forgotten how to communicate mentally. A lot of stuff had happened to the both of them.

At any rate, Kuroi was hungry, and that deer that she had hunted earlier was calling to her stomach. Kuroi stood, grinning. "Hungry?"

Shiroi nodded and eased to her feet. "Very."

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Kuroi handed Shiroi two slabs of raw meat and rubbed her hands together in anticipation, eyeballing her portion of meat. Shiroi rolled her eyes and tossed the meat into the air. Kuroi shot at the flying meat with her flashy hand techniques and waited for the cooked meat to descend.

The meat was in her mouth the second her hands could touch it. With a muffled 'mmmm' Kuroi closed her eyes and savored the flavor. "Food." She sighed, sinking to her knees. "I don't think I ever ate in heaven. You'd think that there'd be food all over considering it's heaven. I'm glad I was there only a few days."

Shiroi glanced at her twin. "A few days? Heaven must not have been that bad for you to lose track of time like that. You've been dead for 4 weeks and 2 days. Well, you were, at least."

Pulling a bit of meat from between her teeth, Kuroi considered Shiroi. "No way. There was nothing to do in Heaven. I would have died if I had to be there that long."

"Uhm, Ku-chan? You already were dead."

"Oh. Well, I would have died again, then." Kuroi prepared another slab of meat and began gorging on it.

Shiroi munched on her meat and settled beside her blissfully sighing sister. "What's heaven like? All I got to see was Kami's Lookout."

"Very boring. Almost everyone's a spirit, and if you're strong enough you get to keep your body." Kuroi sat upright. "I saw Teddy and Mama! I couldn't find Aka-chan, though. Mama and Teddy said they hadn't found him yet. You'd think with 10 years in heaven, they'd be able to find him. Then again I can't imagine Aka-chan sitting still and waiting for Teddy to find him."

Shiroi shook her head, a slight smile on her lips. "No, Aka-chan never could stay still. He was able to be as emotionless as Mama and me, but he couldn't rein in the energy he inherited from Papa."

"Oh!" Kuroi slapped fist into the palm of the other hand. "The Fusion Dance!"

"The Fusion Dance?" Shiroi popped the last of her meat in her mouth.

"Yeah, I learned it from this tall alien. It allows you to fuse into one person, and you grow really powerful."

Shiroi sat up, and stared at her twin. "Hey, when I was in the village before you... died, I heard that the Tenka Ichi Bodokai is coming up pretty soon. We could fuse and win the money easily!"

Kuroi bolted to her feet. "Yea, and beat the misplaced ego out of a bunch of males! What are we waiting for? I'll teach you right now, and we can train as one person!"

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Uubu sighed and watched his sisters carry in the reserves of water needed for cooking dinner. The youngest, Uube, tripped, spilling her contents across the dirt path. Still being young, crying came easily to her - as it did now. Uubu smiled and walked over, kneeling beside his weeping sibling.

"What's wrong, Uube?"

"I spilled Mama's water, so now I haffa go back and fetch more!" Her tiny fists ground into her leaking eyes.

Placing a hand on her shoulder, Uubu spoke softly. "Don't cry, Uube. You're too cute to cry. Besides, little girls shouldn't have reasons to cry."

Uube looked up at her brother, his dark face nearly black in the dimming light. "But Mama needs her water or I won't get supper!" A quiver shook her lower lip.

A wide smile greeted her. "Go back to our hut and tell Mama that I'll bring the last of the water. We don't want cute girls to be wandering around at night."

"Really?! 'Nii-chan'll go get the water?!"

He nodded, smile bright against the sunset. Eyes shining, Uube giggled and ran into the village crying for her mother. Uubu's smiled faded with his sister and he again contemplated the sunset. "Gokuu-san, where are you?" He leaned over, picking up the water basket, and started towards the river.

He had only half filled the basket when a noisy splash caught his attention. Looking up, he found a grinning Saiyajin standing knee-deep in the river before him. "Yo," Gokuu greeted.

"Gokuu-san!!" Uubu fell back, gripping at his startled heart. He still hadn't grown used to Gokuu's Shunkan Idou. Regaining himself, he addressed his sensei. "Where have you been?! The village was beginning to get worried about you!"

Smiling that classic Son smile, Gokuu tucked a hand behind his head and raised the other. A giant fish encompassed Uubu's vision. "Heheh, I brought dinner."

Despite how much Gokuu had worried him by his disappearance, Uubu smiled. He did miss him. "Okaeri, Gokuu-san."

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Shiroi stared at Kuroi, her arms crossed, her face expressionless save for the lifting of a single eyebrow.

"No."

"Shi-chan I know the Fusion Dance looks stupid, but we have to do it in order to become more powerful!" Kuroi yelled, frustrated at both having to do the dance, and apparently having done the stupid dance in vain.

"No."

"Do you think I like doing these stupid moves?! No! I don't want to look like a moron, but it increases power. Don't you want to be more powerful? Powerful enough to get all of that money at the Tenka Ichi Budokai?"

"We're doing fine financially as it is. We don't need the money from the Tenka Ichi Budokai."

"Yes we do! It's family tradition. We haven't gone to the Tenka Ichi Budokai since our family died. We're weak from not testing ourselves against others. The Fusion Dance will help us beat everyone there. Two people in one body."

Shiroi glared at her sister for a while. Then, with an irritated growl she turned her back on her sister - her thinking pose that demanded Kuroi to wait and not interrupt her until she turned back around - while she pondered some more the profits of doing the Fusion Dance (which didn't look like a dance at all).

Kuroi fidgeted impatiently while Shiroi stared into the darkening sky. To give herself something to do, Kuroi began to go through the kata their father had taught them to perform before going to bed. It consisted of 252 moves, all of which the girls had to hold for a minute. It was bliss compared to the Morning Kata.

Shiroi turned back around while Kuroi was holding the 34th move. "If we fuse, we can never unfuse, can we?"

Kuroi stared at her sister for a while, thinking, then grinned. "The spirit who told me about the Fusion Dance said it wasn't permanent. We can unfuse whenever we want to."

Shiroi rolled her eyes. "Fine. But if we're stuck in the same body, that means that the both of us have to cooperate in controlling the body, yes? That means that when you want to go headfirst into something dangerous, I'm going to stop you. Physically. I'm not going to let you break my neck too. If you kill our body, I die as well."

Kuroi grinned again. "I've been lucky so far. That one guy who killed me caught me off guard, that's all. And you killed him, so we don't have to worry about him anymore, right? We fusing?"

Shiroi glared at her sister. "Yes."

Kuroi whooped and jumped into the air. "Yatta! Alright, let's get going! You remember the moves?"

Shiroi snorted. "How could I forget, they are the stupidest poses I've ever seen in my entire life. I will be glad to never do them again."

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Dende smiled and leaned back from the edge of his lookout, satisfied at his success. The white haired twin's thoughts were difficult to influence; almost as difficult to influence as Trejiita. He was still having trouble with said Saiyajin. He was stubborn, that one. Shiroi was just very thorough in her decision making. A swirl of wind disturbed his cloak and he turned, smiling. "Hello, Piccolo-san."

"Hello, Dende." Piccolo glanced over at the edge of the platform then back at Dende. "Something's happening."

Dende tried to smile his most innocent smile. No one must know about Trejiita just yet. "Is there?"

Piccolo's eyes narrowed slightly. "I used to be Kami, you can't fool me. If there's a new threat to Chikyuu, you can't keep it a secret."

"There's no new threat to Chikyuu. If anything, there's a new ally."

Piccolo's mouth twitched, forming a half scowl; one Dende knew meant that Piccolo was confused but didn't want to admit. "Ally? I don't feel anything."

Dende smiled and returned his attentions to Chikyuu. "That's because they aren't ready to fight yet."

"What? Not ready to fight yet?" Piccolo followed Dende's gaze and looked down at Chikyuu himself. It was times like this he wished he had Kami's eyes again. Granted he could see all of earth from here, but he could not discern individuals, nor their thoughts or importance in the stream of Chikyuu's future. "Who are they? Son would be more than happy to train them."

Dende was silent a moment. "He cannot do that."

"Well if not Son, then maybe Kuririn. If no one else will, then I can submit them to my training." Piccolo sneered. He didn't relish training anyone else, especially if they proved to be a child. Gohan was a handful, and by how Dende was talking, they might well be a brat.

"None of you can meet them. Their fate will be altered, and that must not happen." Dende's voice was soft.

"What?!" Piccolo swirled to face Dende's quiet features. "Why not?"

"These next few months will be very precarious. I must lead them in the right direction to meet their fate. Only then will they be ready to meet Chikyuu's protectors."

Piccolo stared at Dende. His voice was almost... affectionate. Scowling, he resigned himself to looking down at Chikyuu. Dende wasn't going to tell him any more, this he knew. Until the time came, he would just have to practice patience.

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"Fu..." The twins swung their arms around, concentration written across their faces.

Their voice echoed together as their knees raised in unison. "...sion..."

Leaning together, they pointed their fingers. "HA!"

The woods fell silent as the twin's dance finished. Slowly, a heavy breath broke the silence. "WHY DIDN'T IT WORK?!" Kuroi half yelled.

"Maybe it takes a few seconds," Shiroi suggested. Both remained motionless. After a full minute Kuroi broke the connection and stood, stomping a foot.

"That no good alien, it gypped me! It just wanted to teach me a stupid dance and see me make a fool of myself!"

Shiroi straightened herself and crossed her arms in thought.

"I bet you its laughing its head off this very second. Ooooh, when I die, guess who I'm coming after." She stomped her foot again. "The things I'll do! It'll regret ever having wronged me!"

"Wait, there has to have been something we did wrong," Shiroi interrupted her twin's tantrum. Kuroi's lips twitched in irritation. "Let's try it again."

Sighing in resignation, Kuroi moved to her starting point. "It better work this time."

Falling into her own starting stance, Shiroi nodded at her twin. Concentrating, the twins again performed their dance.

"Fusion HA!"

"..."

"THAT KISAMA! I'M GUNNA KILL IT!!!!"

Shiroi shut out her twin's ranting, carefully thinking the moves over. "Ku-chan." Pale blue eyes flitted over, burning with annoyance. "Show me the dance again. Go through it slowly, one move at a time."

Complying, Kuroi retraced the moves, if a touch violently.

"That's it!"

Kuroi blinked at her sister. "What?"

"I was doing one of the motions wrong. That's why we weren't fusing. Let's try again."

Excited now, Kuroi nodded. Together, the twins began the dance. Moving in unison, they performed the dance perfectly.

"Fusion HA!" Again the woods fell silent as all nearby wildlife quieted.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! WHY WON'T IT WORK?!?!"

Shiroi sighed, ignoring Kuroi. What are we doing wrong?

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A dark form slipped unnoticed inside of Capsule Corp.'s housing wing. Only the family of Capsule Corp was allowed in the area, whose security was twice as heavy. The form managed to slip past each security-bot and failed to activate the invisible trip-wires.

The form turned a corner, sneaking along the hallway leading to the president of Capsule Corp's personal bedroom suite. He stilled at the sound of a small voice, calling out boldly.

"Mama! Can I have a drink of water before I go to bed?"

Trejiita flattened himself against the wall around the corner he had recently turned; holding his breath as Bulma appeared and strolled down the hallway to her daughter's room.

"Just one glass, and then you have to promise me you will go straight to sleep."

"I promise!" came the chipper reply. Trejiita smirked. Judging by the lack of sleep in the girl's voice, Bra would be up for another hour before finally settling down for the night.

Trejiita inched closer to the open door of Bra's bedroom, and peered in. Bulma was sitting on the bed while little Bra gulped down a glass of water. He watched in silence as Bulma tucked her daughter in, placed a butterfly kiss on the child's forehead and wished her a goodnight. Silently, Trejiita slid back to his hiding place down the hallway.

The moment Bulma exited the room a chill slid up her spine and the presence of another someone in the hallway caught her attention. "Who's there?" she called out in a demanding voice. "Come out where I can see you! I'm calling security," Bulma warned, inching further into the hallway where the presence that she had felt originated.

A waft of cool air brushed against her cheek, drawing her attention to an open window a few feet away. Bulma shut the window with a hasty click. Her fingers clutched the sill of the window, as she gazed into the dusk sky through the tinted glass. Who could her visitor have been? Her security systems were top of the line, and her secturity-bots were strong and quick enough to be a hot item among the rich and reclusive all over the world.

Could it have been...? Bulma quickly banished that thought. He was dead, as was their son. They both had been dead for the past year. Shenlon had boomed in that dragon-voice of his that neither Vejiita nor Trunks could be returned to the world of the living. Fresh despair and grief filled Bulma so quickly she didn't have the time to banish her tears. Sniffling loudly, Bulma ferociously dashed the tears out of her eyes.

"Mama?" Bra asked, tugging gently on her mother's pants. "Are you okay?"

Bulma smiled, sniffled a final time, and scooped up Bra. "Yes, Bra-chan, Mama's just fine. Now, what did you promise me?"

Bra squirmed and protested. "But, Mama, I don't wanna go to bed."

Bulma managed to keep the child in her arms as she returned to Bra's bedroom. "But, Bra-chan, you promised me you would go to sleep. You don't want to be a liar, do you?"

Bra pouted out her lower lip. "Yes!"

Bulma narrowed her eyes in disapproval at her daughter, who glared in return. Bulma changed tactics. "Well I don't know about you, but I'm tired."

Bra's glare softened in curiosity. "You are?"

Bulma nodded sluggishly. "Mmm-hm, very tired. I've had a long day. Do you mind if I lay down in your bed?"

Bulma placed Bra on the bed and settled down beside her daughter, laying her head on the pillow, and closed her eyes with a relieved sigh. Bra watched her mother in fascination.

"Are you really tired, or are you just pretending?" Bra asked, touching her palm to her mother's cheek. Bulma remained still, her breathing slow, yet shallow. Bra continued to sit on the bed for another minute before yawning and curling up next to her mother.

Within moments she was asleep.

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Shiroi kept her back to her ranting counterpart, desperately trying to tune her out.

"Kuso! I bet it's some huge plot to humiliate us! MOLTAN! Yes you, in heaven! See that tree there? This'll be what happens to you once I get my hands on you!" Squatting, Kuroi prepared for a big flashy ball.

"Cut it out, Kuroi!" Shiroi snapped.

Kuroi nearly fell over and stared, big flashy ball forgotten. She only uses my full name when she's in a really bad mood. Lips pursing, Kuroi turned her own back on her twin and stared at the invisible horizon line. After a few minutes, she sighed and began her Night Kata.

Pleased, Shiroi continued thinking. After a while, she hit her fisted hand into the palm of the other. "Dragonballs."

Kuroi dropped her lifted leg from her sidekick and blinked at her twin. "Dragonballs?"

Shiroi grinned at Kuroi. "Dragonballs. They grant any wish you have. Gokuu-sama gave me the Dragon Ball Radar, so we can collect them and wish to be fused."

"Gokuu-sama. You said that name before. Who's he? Another Kami?"

"No, but I think he's a demi-god. He can stop bullets, and when we were fighting an army it took him less time to take down the majority of than it took me to fight twenty guys. And he knows Kami-sama."

"So lets go collect the Dragonballs," Kuroi demanded impatiently. Shiroi started to nod, but then she realized that she didn't have the Dragon Ball Radar in her hands.

"Ah! Where's the Dragon Ball Radar?" Shiroi scoured the clearing they sat in. Kuroi ran around in circles, screaming in frustration that she had no clue what to look for.

As she was lifting a rock, Shiroi retraced her steps, noting that she had it when she raced home, but not when she was digging up Kuroi's grave. She raced back up to the graves, Kuroi sprinting beside her.

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The twins stared at the silent radar in Shiroi's dark hands.

"Isn't it supposed to do something? You said there's supposed to be a huge dragon that comes out and grants wishes."

"No, you use this to collect the dragonballs. The dragon comes out of those."

"But isn't this supposed to do something too?"

Shiroi again clicked the button on the top of the inactive radar. As before, only a pale grid greeted her. "Yes, but I don't know why it isn't."

Sighing, Kuroi stood shrugging. "I'll be over there until you figure out how the thing works." At this, she again began her Night Kata.

Shiroi put the radar on the ground and stared at it, her face tense with concentration. "Maybe it has to recover," Shiroi muttered. Kuroi continued to perform the kata, her ear tuned into Shiroi. "Maybe with every wish that it performs, it take energy away from the dragon."

"Or the Dragon Ball Radar isn't working," Kuroi offered, punching the air slowly and holding still when she finished the punch.

"It's working, but it won't detect the dragonballs. After the wish I made, they turned to stone. They need to recover."

"For how long?" Kuroi turned to her sister, her blue eyes pleading.

"I don't know. The dragon grants three wishes, I made one. So however long the dragon takes to recover from three wishes, divide it by three."

"But we don't know how long the dragon takes for three wishes."

"Exactly. So, we wait."

Kuroi groaned. "But I hate waiting."

Shiroi smirked at her sister. "Either that or spend forever trying to fuse with the Fusion Dance."

Kuroi glared at Shiroi. "I can wait."