Speaking of FAST updates…!
That night, those who could see the walking fiend saw that it was now not only calmer, but also amicable. And they finally got to see something else: Atsarute's face.
It removed the wrappings from around its head, and revealed a creature with long hair, black streaked with silver, thin eyebrows, and an effeminate face with sea-foam scales that shined silver when the light hit its cheek. The eyes were still bloodshot from the damage given to it earlier, and normally obscured by the shadow of its own hair, and the iris looked to still be in a state of repair, being mostly gray with splashes of color around it. Its elf-like ears peaked slightly from its hair, but they were not nearly as tall as a Namek's.
Kuririn blinked several times. It wasn't missing skin or muscle or anything, nothing like the figure that chased him in the cracks of that canyon, but he remembered what Arufuredo said earlier about this. 'They speculated that night allowed some sort of sorcery associated with the death to restore a living face.'
Bulma, eyes still wide and on the fiend, leaned over towards Chi-chi. "I didn't imagine that such an evil guy would be so handsome, did you?"
Atsarute gestured at Suraku, who had stayed and not taken his eyes off his general, and said, in as raspy a tone as before, "Same…off…"
Suraku hesitated for a moment, confused about what kind of order he was given, but he realized that it meant his helmet was to be removed, and he did per ordered. The man under it was a young Namekku-sei-jin, who looked like he'd just plunged into his adult years not long ago, bright eyed and perplexed.
All of the Earthlings were doing the tennis-ball eyes between the two unmasked figures. Not only did Atsarute look nothing like they expected, but the man who just attacked them that day was another Namek! Even Piccolo's eyes were wide in amazement. He saw other Nameks since he came to this universe, but he didn't expect to meet one like this.
"Atsarute-sama," Suraku said, "I was worried that your face would be scarred since your voice seemed so… harsh. Why does your throat sound so scratched?"
Arufuredo was about to explain to Suraku how Atsarute looked in the day, but the fiend spoke first. "Visudda…"
"Vi-su-da?" Suraku tried to sound it out, "What does that mean?"
Everyone looked at the scientist in the room, who shrugged. "I don't know everything."
"Visudda is the word for the throat chakra," Piccolo finally spoke for the first time in several hours, as he was not willing to speak to or about Suraku. He turned a moment to glance behind him (he was once again leaning upon the cell), as if to check if he could see anything, and he did not. "It's associated with conveying Truth, connection with all existence, and a bunch of other spiritual things that you Humans like to talk about in your religions."
"Is that what you mean, Atsarute-sama?" Suraku came closer to it. "A throat chakra?"
It nodded, pointed to its own throat, then to Piccolo's. "Understand now… Visudda… not trachea…"
"So," Arufuredo's face conveyed that he just made a discovery, "When you were slashing through people's throats… you were really after that 'chakra'? Why?"
It reached for the paper and pen provided to it so that it may communicate more effectively, but whilst it wrote, it grew tired, and soon fell asleep upon it instead of showing the others.
Suraku raised a brow. "Sleeping again already?"
Arufuredo nodded. "It does that. Sir, I feel the need to explain to you the events up till now… but you will not enjoy what you hear…"
.-.
The scientists had a busy day, as usual, rushing around the ship, performing experiments in the lab, and so on.
Bulma and Chi-chi were walking around leisurely down one of the few windowed hallways of the ship, talking about the turn of events.
"He is quite handsome," Chi-chi said, "and he looks very worldly. I bet that he has a hundred wives and concubines back at his palace."
"You think so?"
"Definitely! I mean, a guy like him being so high in power like that, I bet the women have no problem serving for him."
"Hmm… but remember when Arufuredo said that he didn't allow his men to ravage the women in the cities that they pillaged?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"I'm thinking that maybe he has a high respect for women. Maybe the whole culture does. Arufuredo never explained what the Puroeriun were like. I didn't even know how they looked until he took off the wrappings."
Just as they were about to pass the kitchen door, it slid open and a Vegita with his arms full of different foodstuffs walked out just in time to hear the last bit of what they said. "Who are you talking about?"
"General Atsarute. We were just commenting on his good looks," Bulma smirked, "Not to make you jealous."
Vegita chuckled. "Yeah… he's pretty all right…"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That theoretical 'gaydar' that you women are supposed to have needs repair, Bulma. Hell, I don't think that it ever worked for you. I remember when you had the hots for Zarbon…"
"So what if I did think he was cute?"
"The guy was a tropical fruit! You'd think that the pastel-purple legwarmers and tiara would tip you off, or at least the overuse of mascara…"
"And you can just assume the same has to do with Atsarute?"
"I'll bet you the food in my hand that he has breasts under that humongous mantle that he's always wearing, whether from hormones or implants."
"Vegita! Really!" Bulma huffed. She didn't notice Arufuredo, carrying a mound of books, coming up beside her.
"Oh, Bulma-san!" He said, resituating himself so that he wouldn't drop the books as he stopped. "I've just isolated something about the skin cells! I analyzed what the note Atsarute wrote last night said, and I discovered—oh, am I interrupting something?"
"Oh, no. We weren't talking about anything important." She turned fully away from her husband. He scowled and continued walking. Chi-chi, giggling, left in the other direction.
"Wonderful. You see, it has to do with the changes from night to day…"
.-.
Piccolo did not sleep well the night before. If it wasn't Suraku knocking on his door to ask stupid questions like "Are you asleep?" and "Mind if I speak with you?" (And didn't even say anything outside of that. Piccolo would tell that he had something on his mind, but couldn't say what", it was his father and Kami fighting, and if it wasn't that, it was the weird dreams. He once again saw Jin in the wedding dress, this time like the second dream, where she looked as if she was skinned alive. He entered the observation room. The lights were off, and the window on the other side was opened to allow natural light to come in. He poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher in the corner. If it's not one thing, it's another…
He sat on the sofa before the cell and, for once, heard something from within it. Something rustled around, and he saw a dark figure in the shadows of it move around.
"Heh. Now I'll have a fighting chance if you do escape. I don't care if you weren't as pissy last night. You're probably trying to get everyone's guard down so that you can strike." He grinned and drank some from the glass, then recollected on the dream. Damn, I don't understand what it's supposed to mean… if Jin is that decrepit queen, what does the lack of skin symbolize? And what does Jin have to do with the cure? Father's not willing to reveal any more than those obscure ramblings…
"What does this all mean?" He said out loud.
The figure moved. "Meaning…" It mumbled.
Piccolo looked puzzled at its response. "Yes… meaning to a dream about a friend of mine."
"Friend…?"
"You know what those are, right? This one's name was Jin…" Then an idea came to him. "Do you know if Komugiko-joou went to Earth? As Jin?"
"Jin…" It shifted around some more. "Uwaki…"
He jumped in his seat. "H-how did you know that name?"
It moved up closer then rose it's face up into the daylight.
"You see," Arufuredo continued, "It has to do with the Talisman of Eiaa, which I mentioned that Atsarute stole just before death, the thing that allowed us to track Atsarute down. Among its powers is its unique ability to appear invisible under UV radiation, making it invisible in the daytime. Atsarute was using it to remove some sort of curse placed by a general that was defeated several years ago by the Puroeriun army, but when we interrupted the spell, Atsarute's only hope to not become annihilated was to absorb the talisman, thus gaining its power.
.-.
Bulma seemed rather flabbergasted by the story so far, but urged him to continue anyway.
"You see, when Atsarute-sama absorbed it, it lodged into the throat, not allowing much speech, and the energy that it emitted went through the skin, making the skin disappear at day. I found this from the dead skin cells, which were fading because they were separated from the talisman. The UV radiation also was able to go through and irritate the muscle, making Atsarute dislike being touched by sunlight."
"So… he isn't dead after all?"
"Not at all. Just injured. By the way, you just reminded me something that I've been meaning to ask…"
"Go ahead."
"I've become aware of most of your language's idioms, but the one that I've not run into is the separate pronoun use you've done for Atsarute. Are all military figures spoken of in the male form, or is it something else?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's confused me several times, but you call Atsarute 'he'."
"So?"
"You do know that Atsarute is a woman, right?"
Before she could answer, a terrified scream of a man rung through the halls. "What was that?"
"I don't know," Arufuredo dropped his books and began running towards it, "but it came from the observation chamber!"
.-.
Everyone poured into the observation room as quickly as possible to see what happened. There, Piccolo stood on the opposite side from the cell, holding his mouth and his eyes wide with his pupils contracted.
Questions sprung up everywhere, asking about what happened, which snapped him out of his shock. He lowered his hand slowly and lowered his head, realizing how horrified he just let himself act. He'd lost face, but he knew that was the least of his worries. "I saw its face…"
Kuririn understood what that meant immediately, and tried to provide comfort. "I know! He's hideous during the day. Being a bit scared about it is nothing to be…"
"That's not it!" He yelled. "That thing… That thing is Jin!"
Okay… everyone who knew it gets a candy…
...which is a fancy way of saying "More candy for me." XD