A side of a quarter moon peeked through the summer evening clouds. The grasshoppers were singing in the grass around a double-floor capsule home with a mustard-colored roof and a wooden garage behind it. A drum filled with boiling water bubbled on, fuming with vapor as Son Goku had filled it up for a night's bath before yet another sleepless night of tending to his second son's needs alongside his wife.
Inside, Chi-Chi rolled over in a semi-conscious, hazy state, vaulting over her sprawled out across the entire bed husband. The two had been so exhausted checking up on Goten that Goku's chaotic sleep position didn't even come close to bothering Chi-Chi's sleep. She just rolled up on top of him and passed out. A night where the two actually had the luxury of dozing off was a shocking development as of late, which meant that it had to be squeezed for as much goodwill as it brought with it.
Her last thoughts before tripping and fumbling into the realm of dreams were of the genuine surprise at how devoted Son Goku was to taking care of Goten. It was like a complete 180 compared to Gohan's early days, where all Goku cared about was training and he left the kid completely under Chi-Chi's care. Back then, Chi-Chi wouldn't have had it any other way. She still let Goku protect Gohan from wildlife when the little toddler got too curious and wobbled out in front of a skyscraper-sized dinosaur to pet it or to bring home wood and fish but magazines and TV shows said that tending to a son was a mother's job.
And yet here Son Goku was, volunteering for his part of the sleepless battery at the hands of his son's merciless baby caprices. It was as if the Saiyan truly saw this as a sort of training. As if this was some sort of rivalry thing to him and he genuinely wanted to one-up Chi-Chi and push himself to wake up in the middle of the night and put his son back to sleep as many times as possible. At some point, Chi-Chi wouldn't have been surprised to see him purposefully poking and tickling his son just to see him go off so that Goku could put him back to sleep himself again.
The Son Goku family home was peaceful and quiet for the night, for as long as that peace would last.
"Hmph…" Bardock gave a straight stare at a small bundle of dirt in front of a stone slab at the front end of it with "Gine" etched onto it. The disgruntled Saiyan crossed his arms and looked around as if he had expected to be distracted or identified by someone, yet neither his enhanced cybernetically augmented eyes nor his Ki sensory suggest that someone was watching his moment of tenderness with his wife's gravestone. "Yeah, I'm here again, so what… You've got a problem with that?"
The gravestone refused to give an answer or elaborate on its reasoning.
"Tsk… Yeah, I thought that sticking a stone into the ground for dead people was a stupid Earthling custom. I know you can't hear me right now. That's because you're dead," Bardock's uptight posture crumbled with his muscular arms, breaking up and weighing down by his sides. "I'm not obsessed or anything. You're not Gine, you're just a rock, so push your luck and don't make me crush you to dust!"
The Saiyan's spiteful, shaking fist out in front of him limped up, and the Saiyan relaxed with a submissive sigh. "I'm not obsessed or anything… I mean, it's not like I need sleep anymore or anything." Bardock found himself a round and mossy stone nearby that by all means should've had his rear etched into it by now and settled down on it while he stared on ahead at the stone carving longingly.
"I know you can't hear me, I know this is stupid. Even now, these eyes that manipulative robo-witch gave me can calculate the measurements of this rock, indicating where we buried your body, its age, composition, and all that junk, but one thing it can't pick up on is you. You're gone, I get that, Gine…" Bardock kept on grumbling to himself. At a certain point, he stopped feeling embarrassed about it and checking to both sides while doing it.
"It's just that… Sometimes… I wish I didn't know that. I wish I couldn't know that. That Earthling ax-boy told me you didn't keep your body after you died and that your spirit will reincarnate before long and that that's what's for the best. Heck, maybe it is for the best. Maybe what's healthy is to let you go, let you live and enjoy your new life…" Bardock scratched his neck while looking away for the first time in a while and turning his head up to the partly clouded night's sky over his head. "Maybe I should talk to you looking up there, feels more correct, I guess…"
"Man, Gine, sometimes I wish you could still hear me and that I could talk to you. Talk to you about what a huge fucking asshole your lug of a husband is. How he keeps rushing at problems, swinging his fists and trying to make them better for everyone but only making everything worse… Shit, Gine, I nearly forced that stupid robo-witch cut our boy and grandson open and stuff some cyber gizmos inside them. I'm not even sure if that was for their own safety. I think that… Deep down, I knew it was for me. I guess, on top of being a huge fucking asshole, I'm also a selfish one at that…" Bardock stood up and stuffed his hands inside the pockets of his Earthling farmer jeans while turning away from the gravestone with a stone-firm expression that couldn't shed tears anymore, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Maybe you are for the better moving on. Reincarnating into someone as nice and innocent as you were and living your life free of the burden that is me and my bullshit," Bardock sighed and began walking off into the distance. His eyes turned to a teal-colored blink at the precise point in the sky. A location far off away into space where he could sense Gohan's Ki escalating to immense heights and then dipping down to extreme lows in a blink, suggesting that he was either pushing himself training or fighting someone truly strong.
"Here I go… Wanting to take off, soar through cold, dead space to bust inside Bulma's space station and start swinging fists in all directions like some caveman. Enough of that… I'll only end up making everything worse. That loudmouth Earthling woman and her spoiled king of a husband will just give an earful for busting up their station for no reason at all and acting like a knucklehead again…" Bardock dipped his head down while slowly walking away from Gine's grave out in the wilderness near Mt. Paozu.
"You make sure to wipe yourself clean of sin and come back to life, Gine. Live a happy and fulfilling new life that you deserve. I'll make sure to redeem for my sins too, even if just cooking in some soul-cleansing machine won't do it for the bunch of crap I've pulled. I'll make everything right, I'll work on myself so that you could be proud of me, Gine. Even if you won't know who I am anymore…" Bardock's face turned sour and twisted in sadness. And yet, it couldn't squeeze a tear out if it tried to.
A tiny, brown chickadee, an unexpected and unlikely guest at this time of night, landed on top of the gravestone and turned its head around to examine the burly man walking away on a lone and curved dirt road toward the grassy hillside. Once the man's back and his spiky hairdo vanished behind the hills, the tiny bird took off and flew away.
"Ow, ow, ow!" a lean and fit young man with a bud of spiky blond hair winced and whined in pain. A handful of bare-chested young men rested on the wooden mat and licked their scrapes. Very few of them bothered to turn to their mighty and wise master who meditated in the front and center of the temple, facing the Three-Eyed Buddha with his front while levitating suspended in mid-air and radiating white tendrils of aura from his entire body.
"Calm down, you tit!" the Launch growled, pulling out a handgun and pressing it to the temple of the terrified young martial artist. "It's not like I enjoy wrapping you up, stupid asshole, it's because Tenshinhan gives a shit about your puny ass that I even bother!"
"Launch-san, that is no way to speak to a respected pupil of our dojo," Tenshinhan's calm and authoritative voice interrupted the woman's cursing as the martial arts master straightened his back and lowered his feet to touch the ground. "You asked me to permit you to aid me with tending to my dojo, and I am most grateful for your help. Though I ask of you to try to restrain that wild temper of yours."
"Y-Yes, Tenshinhan!" Launch blabbed out before gritting her teeth and returning to bandaging up the scraped and bruised martial artist with a sweaty face. It wasn't that the task was so difficult or that the young man had so many bruises to tend to, it was just that Launch was more used to battering people and riddling them with holes rather than fixing them which was Tenshinhan's new purpose in life these days.
And yet, she'd fix as many "stupid assholes" as she had to, just so Tenshinhan wouldn't run off and leave her life again. She'll do menial labor and chores, as much of it as she needs to in order for Tenshinhan to notice her! This was a winning tactic so far, Tenshinhan kept looking all flustered and surprised every time Launch mopped the whole dojo floor by herself during off-hours and couldn't stop thanking her and blushing… Just seeing that goofy, flustered look on his face made all of this labor worth it!
"Have you considered switching into your blue-haired form while you work at the dojo, Launch-san?" Tenshinhan turned to the woman, making Launch's eyes widen and for her gaze dull out into a faint grey and lifeless look. "To be entirely honest with you, I prefer how you act when you look like her. At least when you work at the dojo."
"H-How could you say that, you fucking dick!?" Launch flipped out, stomping at the side of the martial artist's head and shoving it into the mat before punting at the back and sending him flying off to the side while Launch cocked her handgun and unleashed a hail of lead at Tenshinhan. The martial artist calmly collected the contents of Launch's mag out of thin air and rattled them by his shoes. "Don't you fucking know that we're not the same fucking person, you nincompoop!"
"I seem to have aggravated you, Launch-san, I apologize for that," Tenshinhan closed the two of his human eyes and bowed with his fist pressed to his palm, genuinely requesting forgiveness. Tenshinhan's third eye remained fixed on Launch as the woman seethed and quickly replaced the magazine she emptied, though her shaky hands and watery eyes made it difficult for her to fire straight, so she showed restraint. "Ah, I believe I see it now…"
"For someone with three fucking eyes, it took you an entire lifetime to notice, you dumbass!" Launch cried out.
"Yes, you and the other you inhabit the same body, but you are not like Son Goku's Super Saiyan transformations. Not only can you not change them at will, but it is like two separate people inhabit your body, sharing it at once. I can't believe that no one did something about this for this long. The tormented life you must have lived…" Tenshinhan opened his eyes, and they shined with serene grace and wisdom.
"Is that all that you could see with those freak eyes of yours? All that bullshit about True-Sight then must have been a bunch of hogwash!" in an unexpected turn of events, Launch flung the whole loaded gun at Tenshinhan. The martial arts master calmly collected the handgun out of thin air and disassembled it into scrap parts, nuts and bolts in a blink before any of his pupils could even register he had caught it.
"This is most curious. Ever since accepting the fact that Chiaotzu has moved on to the Afterlife and leaving the world of violence behind me, pursuing martial arts merely for the sake of enlightenment, I've awakened the True-Seeing that my tribe has been capable of all along. Somewhere down the path of darkness, I had lost it, though I thought to have awakened it once more. Have I begun walking a dark path again and has my True-Seeing become clouded once more? Please tell me what I cannot see, Launch-san…" Tenshinhan looked up Launch straight in the eyes. "My treasured pupils, please leave us alone so that we can have a heart-to-heart."
The pupils did as their master encouraged them. A few of them cringed into their fists while others seemed a bit worried about leaving their wise and almighty martial arts master with that unstable, rampant agent of chaos. Their martial arts lessons had paid for themselves by merely giving them the strength needed to survive Launch's hectic fits of rage and lead-filled vengeance she went on. It was because of this very reason that a few martial artists seemed all too glad to leave the dojo for the night.
"Not only are we not the same person, but we aren't aware of what happens when we're not in control," Launch said with a trembling voice. "If I let my guard down for even a second if my nose is tickled for even just a bit, I just know that I'll sneeze again and…. And… The Other Me will run off again, run off to that Saiyan barbarian she admires or to the old geezer and the turtle and I'll never find you again!"
"Launch-san… I don't plan to go anywhere. You let your consciousness be clouded by fear. I am humbled that you think so highly of me that you let the fear of losing me cloud your mind, but the only way forward and to true enlightenment is through leaving the fear of losing, the fear of death behind. You merely live on and cherish every day doing so. You needn't worry, we are kindred souls and we shall never be apart for too long, even if you the other you leaves this dojo. In fact, you may be selfish, hogging the body that is meant for the two of you and desperately fighting off the urge to sneeze. You must let go and just live, or else you find no happiness even living your life with your bleeding, love-filled heart," Tenshinhan smiled.
"You dumbass…" Launch wept, wiping her teary eyes. "Don't fly off somewhere and die, okay?"
Tenshinhan approached the crumbled woman and wrapped his hands around her gently, like a master comforting a student. Though this was enough for Launch, just so she could feel his presence near and his body close.
"I told you already, I left the world of fighting for the sake of violence behind. I know only practice martial arts to temper my body and sharpen my mind, also to improve martial arts itself and walk the path of light," Tenshinhan gently pulled Launch's body away from their embrace so that he could look in her tear-soaked green eyes.
A crystalline aura rushed to the peak of God's Temple. Mr. Popo placed the divine watering hose on the tiles nearby and ran up to tend to the unexpected arrival of Piccolo. Kami Upa had sent the Ultimate Namekian away on a mission to find out about a dark omen he felt hanging over the Earth that he just couldn't explain. The Far-Seeing powers of the current Kami had surpassed even those of his predecessors and even at a time of peace, the divine protector could sense impending doom, just like he had predicted the coming of the Artificial Humans before.
"Piccolo, have you found out anything about the dark omen Kami-sama had?" Mr. Popo clenched his fists with a curious inquiry.
"Hmph… Move aside, djinn, I've got something to discuss with Kami," Piccolo showed his fangs to the bothersome magical entity. Looking terrified, the djinn stumbled back, granting the arriving Ultimate Namekian passage.
"Piccolo-san…" Dende's voice came from the entryway into the main palace of the God's Temple as the slightly grown Namekian emerged from the shade. "What's the matter? Have you found out about the dark omen that Kami had sensed?"
"We've got more pressing issues right now. There was a myriad of clashes with Artificial Humans all over the world that I couldn't tend to because I was on Kami's ridiculous goose chase!" Piccolo hissed, frightening the teen Namekian and forcing him to stumble aside from the entryway into the temple. "Right now, something's going on inside the Capsule Corps Star. Gohan's Ki is all over the place and so is Vegeta's, even Trunks was injured. That's where I need to focus my attention, not chasing some dark omens!"
"And yet you are here, not up there…" Kami Upa's voice made Piccolo turn his beady eyes toward the shadowy entrance where shady traces of human muscle sinew emerged from, illuminated by moonlight alone. "I wonder why that is? Perhaps it is because you know better than to doubt my omen. Because you recall how you would have spent your time chasing after Frieza and missed out on the Artificial Human threat entirely if it weren't for my bad feeling a few years before?"
"I'm not doubting your abilities. You're doing a fine job protecting this planet, far better than that joke of a predecessor of yours did," Piccolo reared his teeth and looked away momentarily not to appear too imposing and aggressive but returned his stern look to Kami Upa's shape in the entryway not too long after. "But I want to know if that dark omen of yours is truly worth ignoring the danger to all of our lives in case the Artificial Humans truly have resurfaced. I want to know just how grim that omen of yours truly is."
"You are the most powerful being on this planet, Piccolo," Kami Upa sighed with a grave voice. "Maybe that's why I expected better of you than to doubt my senses. Let the Saiyans and the brawlers take care of the Artificial Humans. They're not of Dr. Puri's making, Dr. Puri is living up to her word. These are merely ghosts trying to imitate her genuine threat. Raw power and bragging is all this monster is good for. Even though its power may surpass yours, your time is better spent seeking out the source of the dark omen I sense ahead of us."
"Now I know you're getting old, Kami," Piccolo smirked with confidence. "There is no way in hell there's an Artificial Human stronger than the last Namekian warrior."
"Maybe, maybe not…" Kami Upa sighed. "But rest assured, if the dark omen that keeps me awake at night comes to pass, that Artificial Human will be the least of your worries. It is a dark cloud that grows each passing day, yet it is elusive as the shadows themselves. I fear it knows about us and that it knows too well how to remain hidden until it doesn't need to hide anymore. If a creature this wise to our ways feels it doesn't need to fear us any longer, not even the Ultimate Namekian will be enough to stand in whatever its intentions for Earth are."
"What about you? You're the last of the Namekian Dragon Clan. Your magical potential may surpass even that of the Kami, what do you think about all this?" Piccolo turned to Dende, who jumped up as if startled by boiling water.
"Me? Oh… I… I've been sensing the same thing, Piccolo-san. I don't believe it to be a dark omen like the Artificial Humans, however, to me it feels like… Profound sadness. The monster we seek isn't malicious, it doesn't seek to kill or subjugate us. It is a tragic entity I cannot make out with terrifying power behind it," Dende proclaimed, making even the Kami Upa curious as the grown man turned to his apprentice with a focused and inquisitive stare.
"Fine," Piccolo closed his eyes with grump oozing out of his body language. "But only because you were so on-point about the Artificial Humans. I'll leave this Artificial Human business alone to resolve itself and keep looking into this illusive omen you're sensing."
With a crystalline, shimmering aura, Piccolo took off from the God Temple, soaring madly toward the Earth's surface down below to resume his search for the elusive and tragic monster that had Kami Upa and Dende so awestruck and under the weather lately.