Disclaimer: I saw one in chapter two once. Weird, huh?

Does this story seriously only have 2 readers, or do I only get to see 2 reviewing? #somewhat confused# Hmm... oh well. I guess I'm just spoiled from GVD and MOTS.

They searched every corner of the hill for the reanimated corpse, but they weren't aware of the trail of blood that it was leaving until twilight came. The blood lead from the cave into the empty fields, and it didn't look like Human blood, so they assumed that it was wounded.

"Kuririn," Gohan turned to him, "Did you manage to wound him?"

"No. Besides the Tayo-ken, all I did was run like crazy from it. It might have gotten hurt by the rocks while running through, but I doubt it." He thought for a second. "When I saw its face, I could see its blood running. Maybe the blood's just coming from where it's getting holes from decomposition...?"

Gohan lowered his head. "That's... possible, I guess. Do you suppose that the Tayo-ken did damage? The scream that it made was... terrible."

Arufuredo nodded. "You said that you could see the blood running... so that might mean that the blood vessels were still intact and working..."

"Do you think that the flash that Kuririn made broke the blood vessels behind its eyes?" Bulma broke in.

"I believe that's the most logical answer. If that's the case, then it's going to be blind for a while. If it were still acting like a wild animal, it will probably only go into hiding and tend to its wounds. However..."

"What? You don't think that its acting like an animal anymore?" Videl looked a little surprised by how he phrased it.

"I know what he's talking about," Gohan nodded, "It seemed like it started planning ahead." He turned to the guys that were driving the cage. "Did it do that before?"

One of them shook his head. "When it was still free, it just killed whatever it came to, but just before we captured it, it started killing more selectively."

"We'll have to track after it immediately," Arufuredo ordered and hopped into his vehicle. "Being blind might slow it down, but we can't go at it by leisure if it's starting to gain cognitive advancement. Remember: walking fiend or not, this is General Atsarute that we're dealing with!"

.----------------------.

Piccolo spent most of his day up to this point alone smoking and drinking. He had been in the same bar for the past 5 hours at least, just sitting in the corner booth while guzzling the alien booze and smoking some sort of concoction wrapped in a paper. On other planets, it wouldn't have been too long to be hanging around in a place like this before someone challenged him to a fight, out of drunkenness or any other menagerie of reasons. But this planet was rather docile in comparison due to its low population density and no one had given him a reason to kill them, so he had to go out of his way to do so after he finished his drink.

Several men, all wearing similar garb with a large black mantle on their shoulders, came in together. They went up to a man at the bar with the same mantle. "Hey, boss!"

He turned around and looked at them. "Anything I should be informed about?"

One shook his head. "No, we just wanted to greet you." They began to fill up the other stools before the bar. "Boss" ordered them a round.

After a while of talking, they started on how they were getting restless to do something.

"Can't really help it," Boss lowered his head with a serious face. "This town isn't exactly very exciting. We came here to rule the town as the Black Capes and avoid gang warfare... and that we certainly did! Just... too quickly..."

"Hey," a gang member snickered, "They've got a new Sureibu statue in the graveyard.

A few of the others laughed and responded positively to that comment, but some, including Boss, rolled their eyes.

"What's with you and those naked lady statues? They always get taken down by the end of the week anyway," Boss said and had another gulp of his drink, "I'm surprised that people keep trying to get them in."

"C'mon! Don't you find it interesting that the town keeps taking them down?"

"Not really. Small towns like this tend to be bitchy like that."

"But this time, we could take it tonight before they decide to destroy it. It'd be a shame if they got this one, too. It's one of Sureibu's finest works that I've seen. You'll think so too once you see it."

"It's just a statue!"

"It's still more interesting than what we've been doing, right?"

Boss glared at him for a while. "Fine." He threw the money for the drinks on the counter. "We'll go and take the statue. Some of you guys can be real perverts, though..."

They laughed as they left. "Hey! It's not our fault that all the women in this town are married..."

The graveyard, eh? Piccolo thought, How fitting. I'll kill them there... after a few more minutes. He took another puff from the roll and another sip from the glass. This alien stuff is so much better than anything that I've ever had on Earth.

When he had just finished the roll, his keen ears picked up the sounds our people screaming. He stood up and searched the ki around him. He couldn't find anything... except that he couldn't sense the gang that was in here a few minutes ago. He quickly ran to the cemetery... before he even knew where the cemetery was, and saw their bodies on the ground. They seem to have all had their necks snapped... quick, clean deaths. Upon further examination, he noticed that their mantles were missing, and the boss was no where to be seen. Could it be that another gang came, then killed them and took the leader? He scratched his head. I guess that makes sense... some city gangs on Earth did stuff like that. More likely, it was a gang that they had problems with in the past... This theory was shot down when he saw Boss' body, slumped in the shadow of a gravestone with his throat torn apart. He ran up and looked at the tears in the flesh closely. This was done by hand. It must have escaped, and it's here somewhere. That must be why I got here without having to ask where it was... He searched through his surroundings for a moment, then back at Boss. His mantle is gone as well. Did it kill all of these men, or just him? If it killed all of them, then it probably took their cloaks as well-- but why

He heard the faint sound of ripping cloth. It was very faint, and he wasn't aware of it for quite some time. He searched for where it must be coming from, but the volume didn't seem to get any louder no matter where he looked. Then, his feet took him somewhere where his body could pass. The only thing that seemed to block him was air, but when he tried to move forward, it didn't happen. Strange... I don't feel or see a wall... He pushed his hand forward, and it stopped at a certain point as well. He pushed harder, and it gave way. A few seconds later, he heard a soft thump, and the dust on the ground before him stirred up a bit.

.----------------------.

Arufuredo was able to discern the fiend's ki even though it was trying to suppress it. "It might remember how," he said, "but it still can't build enough concentration to do it flawlessly. We might catch it again in no time."

"Where do you think he's heading?" Gohan asked.

"Huh? Who?"

"General Atsarute."

"Oh, pardon. It seems to be going towards Daaru town. I'm not sure why... perhaps the energy that the population creates is drawing it there."

Bulma pulled the her hair, fluttering in the wind, out if her face. "Don't you think that we're going a little too fast for Goku?"

His eyes widened and he decelerated. "I didn't realize that I was going so fast..."

"You sped up gradually," Bulma said, "You must really be getting anxious about losing Atsarute like that."

"No... no, I just got to thinking about some of the complications and events leading up to this." He sighed. "I barely noticed how much time has passed since we started out. It managed to travel very far very fast. We might not catch up to it until late morning."

.----------------------.

Piccolo had been standing there a while before he realized that it was gone. He lowered his hand and searched around. Having no luck, he jump up atop a tall pillar and used the point for a wider range. Nothing out of place was in sight, but the horizon was slowly getting lighter. Damn! It's almost morning! Those two will be waking up soon... He growled at his misfortune. He didn't get to kill anyone, and he had all of this pent up tension that he still had to get rid of.

They were becoming conscious, and he could feel himself peel back from them, already straining to escape from them. I'll have to go back to the inn and try to sleep it off. A pain shot through his arm again. If I can make it, that is...

He turned to jump away back into town, but Neil screamed for him to wait.

What are those? he asked, pulling their body back to look at the bodies of the former Black Cloak Gang, Victims?

Piccolo growled. "Would you believe that they were that way when I got here?"

"Bastard!" Neil used Piccolo's own vocal cords again. "I don't give a damn if we're dying! Do you think these people's lives are really worth--"

"Just fucking shut up! I didn't do it this time!.. Aackk!" Another surge came through, and blood broke from the seam again. He began to wander where Kami-sama's voice was since it was delaying in breaking up the fight, but he soon found Kami-sama's thoughts; they were corrupted and garbled by the mania, holding no coherent string. "Damnit! Figures that the senile old man would go first!"

"I've stayed quiet all these years to make way for your personality so that you wouldn't force me out, but now that Kami-sama sort of sealed the deal here, I came to realize that I couldn't possibly spend a lifetime in the same mind with a demon like you!" Neil hissed in spite.

Kami-sama shouted, but it wasn't a phrase; only some sort of expression of anger, pain, and turmoil.

Piccolo couldn't stand it anymore, and he knew that they couldn't, either, but he had to keep hold of himself. He managed to take a mental foothold and latch onto it, trying his best to not be torn away from himself. He knew that Neil understood what was happening, but obviously didn't care. I'm the only one at work here... I knew that merging with that old man would be the death of me... Just keep focused; I can't lose my concentration...

Some cars were coming in from the distance, but he tried to ignore them, but as they got closer, he could feel the ki coming from them. "W-what are they doing--" That distraction was all that it took for him to lose his grasp. He struggled to get it back, but it was no use. The red seams all along his body were tearing apart, and now it was all he could do to keep from screaming.

"It couldn't be..." Gohan said when he saw the figure on top of the tall column in the graveyard.

"Piccolo!" Kuririn got up in the car and screamed.

The vehicles stopped and everyone emptied. The Earthling rushed to gather around the column, yelling to their friend. The ground was rumbling all around it, like great powers were at conflict. They kept focused up as the dark clouds that seem to have been summoned by these forces blotted out the rising sun.

When Bulma reached the pillar herself, she shrieked and thrust a trembling finger towards the column. "There's blood coming down it...!" Running down the pillar were thick streams of dark, purplish blood, channeling through the carved fluting towards the base.

Before any action could be taken to help him, a bright light seemed to shoot out from the clouds, hitting Piccolo and knocking him off the pillar, trails of his blood following him. He fell several meters away, and the blood splattered and pooled around him. There was a slight hesitation before everyone ran to him and gathered in a tight circle, shouting for him to show a sign...

"Oi! Piccolo!"

"Piccolo-san!"

"C'mon, wake up!"

"Just say something! Anything!"

...But there was no response.

Well... My ass could be getting flamed by this... XD