In the early morning, the entire island was utterly quiet. Both animal and human inhabitants slept soundly, all trouble forgotten. But for a certain blonde tressed human residing in the Son household, the tranquility of the Land of Dreams was about to be brutally shattered by reality.
Within the confines of Chi-Chi's bedroom, formerly shared with her late husband, Son Goku, Erasa and Chi-Chi were both sleeping soundly. Having lacked any futons for Erasa to sleep on — and the housewife being far too kind to allow a guest to sleep on the family room sofa — Erasa was made to kip in Chi-Chi's bed for the duration of their training stay.
Underneath the thick quilt, the older and younger woman were enjoying a sound sleep in their nightgowns, their chests slowly rising and falling with every breath they took. Erasa ground her teeth as she left, and turned away from Chi-Chi, tugging the quilt with her. As it were, both women were enjoying a pleasant slumber —
— and then the shrill cry of an alarm resounded through the room.
"Stones!" Erasa shouted, sitting bolt upright in response to the alarm's trilling noise. "Stones drinking tea!" Breathing deeply, it took her a moment to process that the strange dream she had was not actually occurring . She was safe in Chi-Chi's bed, staring down an analog alarm clock that hung from the ceiling, reading 4:30 AM.
"I see you're awake..." Chi-Chi commented as she sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She reached over Erasa's side of the bed, clenching the clock in her fist; while it wasn't quite hitting the snooze button, the shrill ringing noise still ceased, and the alarm itself now showed signs of denting. "I know I allowed Gohan to set the alarm, but I didn't think it would be quite so...loud." She finished lamely; even Chi-Chi's wit was hampered by an apathetic state
"Set the alarm?" Erasa flashed Chi-Chi a bewildered look. "For 4:30 AM?"
"That sounds about right," Chi-Chi glanced at the dented alarm clock as she slid out of the bed. "Do you expect your training to amount to anything if you start it in the middle of the day?"
Erasa shrugged it off without any complaint; after all, she had signed on for this herself, so she had to go along with whatever the training required, even if it meant only having four hours of sleep. Making a mental note to start sleeping around 9 PM, Erasa slid out of the bed as well, looking for the attire in which she'd begin training.
"Oh good, you've made it," Gohan said with a smile, waving to his newest pupil and dearest friend. He was glad that the alarm he set up got her on time without him personally needing to wake her. Considering what had happened the day prior, he hoped that Erasa would breach through her slump and train harder despite her failure yesterday.
"What, you'd think I'd just sleep in?" Erasa playfully inquired, pretending to sound mad when a half smile was worked up around her face as she approached -fully clothed in her training gi- for more training.
"Wha-?! No!" Gohan immediately recoiled, awkwardly interpreting Erasa's jeer as more than a little serious. He waved his hands at her with widened eyes of pleading projected across his face. "I meant it was nice to see you get up at this time. Normally the only other person I'd expect to see at this time of day was myself or Goten. I just find it a good change of pace, that's all, haha!"
"Relax, I was just kidding," Erasa rolled her eyes as she stopped in front of her mentor and dear friend.
"I'm just glad to see you're ready to continue," Gohan's face relaxed into a warm smile. It was true, he had been worried about her. He feared that Erasa might have been embittered about the end result of yesterday's training.
"If I was going to give up that easily, I wouldn't have bothered to ask you to train me, would I?" The blonde inquired rhetorically, earning a grin of approval from her mentor.
"You're right, I'm sorry for doubting you," Gohan conceded. "Now, without any further ado, let's move to your next training spot."
Erasa rose into the air, expecting Gohan to become airborne with her. Much to her surprise, Gohan remained grounded, and looked up at Erasa with a look of amused exasperation.
"What?" Erasa questioned, flushing slightly with indignation at Gohan's expression.
"Come back on down," Gohan called upwards, laughing. Erasa heeded, descending smoothly onto the shifting grass. "We're not flying there; if we did that, there wouldn't be any actual training involved, would there? We're going to take a light jog towards your next training session!"
"R-Right!" Erasa and Gohan took off at a very brisk trot across the island. Fitting with the early morning, barely any one was awake; the only residents who were awake at this hour were either farmers, or had another kind of job that required this degree of early rising.
"Keep pace with me," Gohan called back; while not quite lagging behind him, as the Saiyan was limiting his own speed to allow Erasa to try and match his stride, she was still trailing behind.
"It's just a bit of jogging," Erasa thought to herself, trying to chase away any thoughts that might remind her of the previous day's failure.
The duo took the winding roads of the island towards a half-dome building, a common style with structures sprung from Hoi-Poi Capsules. Emblazoned on the side of the building, in large, emboldened letters, was MILK, with a cow replacing the tiddle that would have been over the I. Outside the building was a young woman who wore nothing but a pair of blue overalls clinging tightly overly her sizeable endowments; her hair was long and white-blonde, and cow horns adorned the left and right sides of her skull.
"Hi there," The woman chirped, her bright grey eyes shining at the sight of Gohan and Erasa.
"Hello," Gohan greeted her in response. "I'm Son Gohan, the one Kame-sennin called about?"
"Oh, so you're the one!" The girl flashed a charming smile complimented by a luminescent blush that clashed well with her ivory skin. "Dad told me when I was a kid that Kame-sennin might come back to train his students here, but I didn't think I'd get to see it happen in person. Though I do feel a bit put out about not being able to meet Kame-sennin in person."
"I guess even Master Rōshi is still famous in some parts of the world," Gohan couldn't help but find the woman's earnest attitude towards the venerable master to be quite endearing. Ever since Mr. Satan had become popular over the course of several years, the idea of 'true' martial arts had all but faded into obscurity, and with it, the fame and recognition that Master Rōshi held in the hearts of those who practiced the art.
"Are the crates ready?" The young adult Saiyan queried, earning another smile from the cow-girl.
"Sure, just let me get them," She replied, clenching her gloved hands and performing a fist-pumping motion that caused the girl's abnormally large mammaries to bounce. Walking into the building, leaving Gohan and Erasa in brief silence, she came out carrying two thick crates labeled MILK, with the same stylized tiddle as the side of the building. Setting them down onto the ground, she reached into her cleavage and pulled out a sheet of paper.
"This will be the delivery route," She explained to Gohan, showing him the map.
It didn't take Gohan too long to memorize the route. Once he had, the two were set for delivery, moving around the island along the path and occasionally vaulting over natural earthen obstacles. Their journey was brisk though not discomforting, giving the semblance of an almost normal chore aside from the load they carried on their backs.
While she had remained silent for several minutes, Erasa finally voiced her bewilderment at their task.
"Um...Gohan, what are we doing with crates of milk?" The blonde inquired as she lifted one up from the bottom.
"For your first training exercise, we're going to deliver these crates of milk to every lodging on the island," Gohan explained casually, handling the box with greater ease than Erasa.
Erasa nearly dropped the box, hurriedly clambering for the falling box before it could crash into the ground and spill the milk before they even began. "Our first training...is milk delivery?"
"That's right, and we're actually falling behind, it's already 4:50, so let's get started," As if trying to inspire Erasa despite the oddness of the training, Gohan approached it with quite a bit more gusto than he normally would have. "We'll break from jogging and move onto a light sprint!"
The proprietor of MILK smiled and waved, not in the least bit surprised to see her would-be-assistants go off to deliver milk on foot. After all, her father had told her of these things before; legendary martial artists who used the most unorthodox training methods.
"Didn't Dad mention a Son Gohan before?" The girl wondered, placing a gloved hand to her chin in a pondering motion. "Oh well. Must be a coincidence!"
Odd.
That was the nicest word Erasa could use to describe this as she and Gohan sprinted two kilomoeters to the nearest dwelling to leave a bottle of milk in the delivery box specifically labelled for such deliveries. She wasn't a stranger to martial arts training, so she knew this was far from a standard method to train, if it could be considered a 'method' at all.
"I won't question it," She thought to herself as they took a different path towards another home a kilometer away — with Gohan changing the sprinting to skipping. "There has to be some merit to this kind of training, if this is the training Gohan's father did."
Despite her initial misgivings with this method of 'training', delivering milk did bring one thing to Erasa's mind. A bit of happiness. If nothing else, she loved being able to help people, and even something as simple as delivering their milk to them gave Erasa a warm feeling; that she was lightening anyone's daily load in any way.
"Don't lag behind, Erasa, or the milk will sour!" True to Gohan's words, Erasa was lagging behind several paces, even with the Saiyan hybrid limiting his own speed to something he considered to be within the realm of 'human'.
Feeling a bit of a competitive spirit ignite in her, Erasa grinned at Gohan's beckoning. Making sure to keep a tight hold of the crates in her arm, Erasa began to pick up her pace, increasing the speed as much as she felt she could handle while keeping the load balanced. It was difficult at first, but after a few seconds she began to increase her speed to sprint next to Gohan.
Their eyes briefly met, a glint of enjoyment shared between master and student. The sound of their feet tapping across the earth gently, their bodies whooshing across the rural road towards their next destination. It had been fortunate that the house was within eye sight, otherwise they may had gone too fast with the arm loads of dairy products, wary of losing their grip.
"That's the kind of spirit I want to see," Gohan breathed as Erasa slipped a glass bottle of milk into the delivery box on the front lawn of the house. "Let's see you put that kind of effort into the training to come!"
Due to the size of the island, and the number of people inhabiting it, even delivering their moderate amount of milk took Erasa and Gohan several hours to complete, and by the time they had finished, the clock had since struck 7:30 AM.
Erasa, bending over with her hands on her knees, desperately trying to catch her breath, already felt exhausted. For what seemed like a very tame island, what should have been a simple delivery route was instead wrought with all kinds of dangers that made Erasa very aware of why Gohan would consider something like 'milk delivery' training; roaring rapids, fallen log bridges, being pursued by a T. rex, Erasa was beginning to think that "Hell Island" was a more apt brand for Elche Island.
"Talk about a way to work up a bit of a sweat," Gohan cheerfully stated as he stretched. "I can see you look a bit tired. You may want to recover as quickly as you can; that was just your early morning routine. Your morning routine begins now."
"W-Wait, let me catch my breath!" Erasa pleaded, her eyes widening at the statement as she inhaled deeply. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, and her throat felt like it had been sliced to ribbons; just the simple act of inhaling was painful. She knew she'd need more than a few minutes for this.
Giving Erasa more than a few minutes to rest, Gohan wasted no time in resuming their training efforts. "Now that you've rested from your wake-up, it's time to begin your morning routine of training and get your day moving. Morning training," Gohan gestured to the left of them, "will consist of plowing these fields."
Erasa, at this, only just realized that she and Gohan had stopped in front of farmland; and true enough, a farmer was busy tilling the land on his own.
"P-plowing?" She blinked in confusion as Gohan consulted the farmer to receive the okay for Erasa to continue her training here. Shrugging, Erasa walked over towards the fields, kneeling down and picking up one of the plowing hoes that the farmer had cast aside.
"You can't use that!" Gohan quickly interrupted her before Erasa could even make a swinging motion. "This will be training to strengthen not only your legs, but the muscles in your arms and hands as well. As such, you're going to plow these fields with your bare hands."
Erasa flashed her own hands a look, and saw her digits tremble briefly. "Plow these fields...bare-handed?"
"Yeah, that's the gist of it," Gohan chuckled. In a bit of his own insensitivity, he couldn't quite see this situation from Erasa's human perspective. To him, the act of piercing the ground with his own bare hands would equate to cutting butter; a simple task that posed no real harm. "The sooner you finish these fields, the sooner we can eat breakfast!"
Only then did Erasa remember she had yet to have eaten anything today besides the onion soup Chi-Chi made her at twelve in the morning. The girl clutched her growling stomach, and she nodded in understanding as she immediately turned towards the fields.
Gohan, meanwhile, floated off as if to watch the fields from afar. Due to how long it would take Erasa to complete this training, Gohan took a meditation state akin to his own master, Piccolo, and was draped in a mysterious ki.
"Plowing farm fields with my bare hands," Erasa thought to herself as she inspected the soil. Mercifully, the ground was already partially tilled; piercing it wouldn't be a huge issue for the first several minutes. Taking a deep breath, she bent down and placed both her hands into the soil in a diver's position, parting the soul with difficulty. The very action caused pain to snap from her fingertips to her arms, past her shoulders and even down to her back. Despite the ground being pre-tilled, the fact that Erasa was trying to dig by hand through solid earth, an uneasy feat for a normal human.
"If I had to be accurate, it feels like I'm about to shatter my fingers, and it hasn't even been two minutes," Erasa glanced at her hands again, already darkened by soil. "Perhaps if I augment my hands with my own ki, that would make this doable." With the ease that could only come from practice, ki flowed from the center of her body, pooling into her hands. She could feel the warmth of the inner power, and raised her hands, preparing to dive back into the dirt again.
"This will be training to strengthen not only your legs, but the muscles in your arms and hands as well."
Gohan's words flashed into her mind and the girl stopped a moment before piercing the ground again. Plowing these fields hurt, that much was true, but if she wanted to become stronger, what was the point in easing up this training? It wouldn't amount to anything if she did; and then where would she be? Could she protect Videl if she can't handle her own problems?
A lesson without pain is meaningless, after all.
Taking a deep breath, filling her lungs with the rich air of the morning, Erasa dispersed the ki around her hands, and grit her teeth in preparation as she split the earth once more with her hands. The now familiar rocking pain shocked through her as she felt the slight give of the earth that indicated her fingers were successfully pushing back against the soil.
After working the fields for a good hour, Erasa began to ponder the nature of her unorthodox training. So far, it was simply farmwork and milk delivery, and none of that seemed quite like training to her. Sure, they involved physical stress on the body; the leg muscles while running with the heavy milk crates, and the arm and hand muscles whilst plowing a field bare handing. But did any of this truly constitute training?
Wiping sweat from her brow with her clean forearm, the girl pressed on, beginning another trench as she continued her torrent of inner thoughts.
"I shouldn't be ungrateful in the slightest," Erasa thought, trying to ignore the itching feeling on the underside of her fingernails, courtesy of the dirt and grime she was accumulating. "Even if the training seems to be odd, I can at least counteract that with the positive feeling I'm getting from lending a hand; in fact, that has to be the only thing these 'exercises' of the Turtle School had in common."
"Those who train in the art of budō are not to use their skills to train solely for the sake of power and glory. These arts are mastered for the sake of one's health and body — but most importantly, to protect 'freedom'. Not simply the freedom of oneself, but the freedom of others as well; these arts, your powers honed here, are to be used for the welfare of other people, not only yourself."
It was remarkable how easily these words came back to Erasa after so many years; the words of her first sensei when she and Videl were entering martial arts together. Admittedly, Erasa hadn't understood a word of it then, while Videl had hung onto every word; but now, reflecting on her teacher's words, she felt like she understood them now.
And many of Master Rōshi's exercises seemed to be following the same principle; honing your skills whilst lending aid to other people who need it. Taking a deep breath, Erasa pursued this plowing with a renewed vigor.
The entire task took Erasa three hours in total to complete, and by the time it was done, she truly felt famished. Mercifully, Chi-Chi had prepared her a hearty breakfast to eat when her morning training was completed, and, as hungry and exhausted as she was, Erasa nearly wolfed down her food in a very unladylike manner.
"I swear, the way she was eating right now, you'd think she was a Saiyan," Chi-Chi quipped, her chopsticks held in a very slack grip at the shock of seeing Erasa eat with so much zest.
"Famished, aren't we?" Gohan chuckled, not disturbed by this in the slightest; truth be told, neither he, Goten, nor his father were much in the way of table manners, and Vegeta and Trunks were the same when placed in front of a good meal. A lack of proper table manners wasn't anything new to Gohan.
Despite her full mouth, Erasa still had the decency to at least swallow her food before replying. Taking in a deep breath of air as she felt the large amount of food slide down her gullet, she replied, "You haven't the slightest clue!" before resuming eating, much to Gohan's amusement.
After their meal, it was time for Erasa to study. As Gohan was quick to explain, training isn't meant solely for the body; a fighter's mind must be honed in similar ways. In what was possibly the only other benefit to Chi-Chi forcing Gohan to study as a child, he now possessed a plethora of study material to choose from.
"With this, I won't even fall behind in my own studies," Erasa remarked, shifting through the various textbooks that Gohan had laid out for her. Glancing at the titles of several — one of which was "Mathematical Methods of Physics" — Erasa could tell that Gohan was further ahead than their own class was, and began to wonder why he needed public schooling to begin with.
Eager, however, to continue her training, Erasa chose a book that looked like it was on her level, and she began to study.
After lunch, Erasa was surprised to see that Gohan had strung up two hammocks between the trees.
"Gohan, what are these hammocks doing here?" Erasa asked, walking over to inspect one. It wasn't that she hadn't seen a hammock before, she was just confused as she expected them to continue training.
"It's time to take a break," Gohan replied, gesturing to the hammocks as if it were obvious. "It may seem a little childish, but from now until one thirty, it's time for a nap."
"Isn't that going to get in the way of training?" Erasa inquired, sounding slightly put off. "We've still got so much of the day ahead of us, doesn't it seem a little counterproductive to use that time sleeping?"
"You've forgot something important, didn't you?" Gohan raised a finger, admonishing the blonde. "What good will any of your training be if you don't give your body any time to rest and recover from it? Training, no matter how intense and effective, will eventually become detrimental if you don't take the proper time to rest and recuperate. Remember what happened to Videl."
"Y-Yeah, you're right," Erasa was taken aback. In her eagerness to become stronger, she almost made the same mistake that Videl had; pushing her body past its limits. Breaking the human wall wasn't the same thing as breaking the human body, and better martial artists than herself had forgotten this.
"Eat well, train well, study well, and sleep well: the Turtle School way revolves around this concept more than any other school of martial arts," Gohan explained, and it took him a moment to realize that his father had taken almost all of the tenets of Turtle School into his own life; minus, of course, the studying aspect.
They climbed into their separate hammocks, and soon, only the sound of the wind flowing through the blades of grass and leaves of the trees could be heard. Erasa, however, seemed bothered by the silence, and found herself unable to get back to sleep, despite being thoroughly exhausted from her eight hour training.
"Gohan?" She whispered, and received no response back.
She tried again, "Gooooooohaaaaaan."
With no solid response, Erasa's curiosity got the better of her. A sly smile crossing her face, she slipped out of her own hammock, shuffling over toward's the motionless figure of the teenage Saiyan. Peering over the hammock, Erasa saw Gohan's expressionless sleeping face; the only movement on his body being the slow rise and fall of his chest. So used to seeing Gohan full of energy, seeing him in his sleeping state had its own charm.
"His sleeping face is so cute..." Erasa mused, placing a finger to her chin as she stared, enamored with Gohan. With a mischievous streak lighting fire to her mind, the blonde girl slid into Gohan's hammock, sliding into a groove next to the Saiyan-hybrid. Almost immediately, the warmth she felt from being near Gohan made her far more comfortable than sleeping by herself.
Smiling at the thought of Gohan's reaction when he woke up, Erasa slid a thin arm over Gohan's torso, pulling him close so that she could sleep next to him, and began to drift off immediately.
"Gohan, can you lend me a h-" Chi-Chi walked out of the spherical home that was the Son Residence, looking for her son to lend her some assistance, but stopped when she saw Erasa and Gohan, sound asleep on the hammock, the former's arms wrapped around the latter, a smile on her face. Chi-Chi silently walked off, smiling to herself.
"What's...pressing me?" Gohan thought to himself as his eyes slowly opened, darkness giving way to blinding sunlight. Blinking rapidly, he felt a extra bit of light weight pressed against him, and as it hadn't been there when he had falling asleep, he was wondering if he was still dreaming.
Still groggy, the man craned his head downward to inspect the source of the weight, and his eyes widened in shock to see Erasa, smiling contently. Instinctively, he sat bolt upright, and it was only through restraining himself that his torso didn't impact Erasa's head for considerable damage. Nevertheless, his movements gave Erasa a very unceremonious wake up as she was thrown off the hammock, landing onto the soft grass beneath them.
"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" Erasa groaned, rubbing the back of her head, one eye closed in a wince. Her open, sapphire orb looked up at Gohan, glistening with comical tears of pain. "Gohan, what was that about? Haven't you ever heard of an alarm clock?"
"I-I'm sorry," Gohan quickly apologized profusely, extending a hand to Erasa, who took it, and he helped her stand up. "I was just...you were sleeping...I didn't expect..." The boy sounded so absolutely flustered that Erasa forgot her pain in a moment of absolute humor. She knew she'd made the right move, just to see Gohan get flustered like this.
"Anyway, let's move on!" Gohan cleared his throat, forcing an impromptu change of subject. His flushed face gave his embarrassment away, however. "Your next training exercise awaits, so let's begin!"
Without wasting a beat, Erasa was forced into construction duty next.
"You see, this island is still expanding. With a population of 300 and still growing, buildings and structures are being built all the time. So your training exercise this time will be construction duty! This training will build up your muscles, and the workers have even graciously agreed to pay you."
Steering a wheelbarrow full of dirt and gravel away from one of the digging sites, Erasa had to admit she was working up quite the sweat from this activity alone. Though her hardhat protected her from the beating rays of the sun on her head, it didn't stop the sweat from sticking to her skin. She swiped her brow with her forearm, sighing.
"I won't be demotivated with this!" Erasa told herself firmly. "I can do it!"
"You could say we're on the downhill stretch here," Gohan said, leading Erasa down a hill towards a vast lake. Even in her exhausted, sweatridden state, Erasa couldn't help but be enamored with the sight of the lake. Having only seen bodies of water like this before, with Gohan, it always seemed to make the sight something special that only the two of them should see. A vast expanse of blue, refracting the light of the sun so that it glittered vibrantly; Erasa almost sighed at the sight.
"It's beautiful," She breathed, elated to finally see a lake up close. Walking over to the shore, Erasa knelt down, dipping her hands into the water, splashing the refreshing, cool liquid onto her face.
"Your next training exercise," Gohan smiled, glad to see Erasa's enjoyment of the scene, "will be to swim ten laps from the other side of the lake and back. Ten laps will be all you need to complete this exercise. Not only will this improve your breathing, but swimming is an exercise that vastly strengthens a multitude of muscles around the body."
"Swimming shouldn't be too hard," Erasa nodded firmly. While she would have to swim in gi — unable to remove any semblance of clothing due to the obvious presence of Gohan — she'd always been good in the pool, if only because Videl often dragged her swimming when they were younger. "And then there was that incident with the swimming noodle..." Erasa thought, her face reddening in embarrassment as she tried to shake off that terrible memory.
"I have to warn you, however, to watch out for the bull shark," Gohan said darkly, his voice containing an edge to it now, "While I included this exercise at Master Rōshi's suggestion, this is the one time I'll let you back out of it." It was obvious that Gohan was concerned for Erasa's safety. While confident in his own abilities to save her should something go terribly wrong, he also wasn't going to chance it by simply throwing her into a lake and telling her to swim.
"A bull shark?" Erasa contemplated the severity of the situation. Should she jump into the lake with that creature, there was a high chance of being bitten, or worse, eaten, before Gohan could get to her. However, discounting the ocean, where there would be, at worse, different sharks or even poisonous jellyfish, this lake was the best locale to complete an exercise like this.
"I'll do it," Erasa replied firmly, and Gohan nodded firmly. Erasa stood at the shore, tightening the obi on her gi, before casting fear to the side and throwing herself into the water, breaking the surface. She relished the feeling of the cold liquid on her body, the sweat washing itself away. Erasa was free to separate the water through her own strokes, propelling herself forward. Kicking lightly, she increased her own speed, the water flowing around her body as she swam through. She took periodically deep inhales as she made her way to the other shore, relatively free of any harm. Clambering out, she waved at Gohan, who waved back, still nervous as Erasa flung herself back into the body of water.
"For this exercise, we'll be developing your reflexes," Gohan explained, as he finished tying a knot around Erasa's waist, to a rope which was attached to a large tree. "You'll dodge these incoming attacks within the range of this line of rope."
"What 'enemy'?" Erasa asked, tugging gently on the rope out of curiousity.
"You'll see in a brief second," Gohan replied, snaking around the tree, towards a beehive. Using his own hand, he chopped the hive in half, and quite predictably, a horde of angry, buzzing insects flurried out of it. Within seconds, Gohan had already vanished, reappearing on a boulder three feet away.
"What!? BEES!?" Erasa's shrill cry came from near the tree, and the girl made a mad scramble around, the rope keeping her literally leashed to the tree as the bees descended upon her in a fury.
"In hindsight, I should have asked if she was allergic to their stings," Gohan mentally scolded himself for that careless action.
"And with that, your day's training is concluded," Gohan replied, clasping his hands together; the bees, having given up on Erasa, had flown off, and in an irritation, the girl ripped the rope in half, pulling the trunk of the tree inward towards her, with Gohan having heard an audible groan from the tree itself.
"Is this the kind of training I'll be doing everyday?" Erasa inquired, inspecting the multiple bee stings that now dotted her body like angry red bumps.
"In a manner of speaking," Gohan replied, reaching into his pocket. "However, this is actually just a warm up to get used to your exercises. For the duration of your training, you'll be doing these same exercises, but with this." He pulled out a Hoi-Poi Capsule, tossing it towards Erasa, who caught it. It exploded in her hand, releasing a large turtle shell from its confines. "This is a 20-kilogram turtle shell; your training will consist of these same exercises, while wearing this shell."
Erasa inspected the object, realizing just how heavy it felt. "I really am going to be put through the ringer for the next six months..." The girl thought with some trepidation as she simply collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.
Her first day of training was over, and yet she couldn't believe it was going to get more difficult from here.
A/N: This chapter was a bit hellish to put out. Not due to the difficulty of writing it, but writing it coincided with so many things. Dentist appointments, activities with my friends, most notably the Miku Expo, which was so awesome, but so distracting. Thankfully, however, I managed to get this chapter up and running and I couldn't be happier.
And here's what I realized; my beloved story has hit the double digits! That's right! All of you have witnessed the first double digit chapter of my story, and to everyone whose stuck around this long, thank you. I'm very grateful, as this is my first ever long standing series, so please, continue with me on the rest of this journey!
I think that's it, actually. There aren't any puns in this chapter that need addressing! Once again, let's thank Demod20, my good friend, for reviewing this chapter and looking it over before I even post it up to you guys, to make sure it's in reading condition. He's such a great help!
Stay tuned, everyone, for the next exciting chapter of The Erased Chronicles!