Disclaimer: Chapter two. .owt retpahC

Now that's a reaction. You know that you're doing something right when a reviewer tries to strangle you to death while complimenting the plot twist. –Pulls candy out of hair- Good thing that I didn't say anything about cake…
And a little side note, Suraku was mentioned in those song fics that I wrote a while ago, when he was younger. You can check and see for yourself. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to look, since there are some things being talked of in it.
Piccolo sat down in the chair nearest to him (farthest from Atsarute) and sat down in a graceless motion before leaning over and putting his face in his hands, growling in the continually increasing frustration and perplexity of his situation. Chi-chi approached with an uncomfortable look on her face, unsure of what to say. Everyone else looked at each other in confusion.

"I think I was better off thinking that haggard woman Komugiko was Jin…" Piccolo grumbled into his palms.

"Who is Jin?" Videl finally asked, turning to Gohan, expecting him to know.

He turned his eyes up in thought. "I remember hearing my mom say that name a few times before when speaking to Bulma-san."

Bulma blinked. "I think I might have heard the name from her…"

Piccolo groaned. "Great. You had to tell Bulma, didn't you?"

Chi-Chi laughed nervously. "I guess it slipped out as gossip."

"Fuck…"

"I remember now!" Bulma snapped her fingers. "Chi-chi said that Jin was Piccolo's girlfriend!"

There was a pause, and then Vegita proceeded to laugh his ass off. "Heh heh… I knew that the dead guy had to be gay, but I never expected it to be with the Namek!"

"Vegita!" Bulma walked over and grabbed him by the hair, causing him to wince. "Dr. Arufuredo just told me that Atsarute is a woman."

"Eh?" All of the Earthlings shifted their eyes to the doctor. Piccolo was the first to rise and question him. "Why didn't you say so earlier!"

He coughed, trying to look cool as a bead of sweat came down his temple. "I neglected to tell you about General Atsarute earlier, since I thought Rabiori would've explained it to you. I'm sorry that I didn't correct you earlier, but I assumed that referring to her in male pronoun use might have been a cultural idiom."

"But why didn't you ever even speak of her being female! You never used a 'female pronoun'!"

"I used the neuter pronoun, since that is the proper way to speak of a corpse… but since she's alive, there's no reason to use it now."

Piccolo looked rather overcome, and returned to the couch. He peered into the cell to see Atsarute, sleeping once again, with a piece of paper, scribbled all over it, nearby. Arufuredo saw it as well and left the room, reappearing behind the class. He bent down and picked up the paper. "It seems to be instructions for a formula of some sort," he said, studying the paper with his eyes, "It's very complicated… I see. It's a drug to enhance cognitive processes. It says, 'Do as the instructions say and finish it by tonight.' I'll get to work on it." He disappeared out of the cell again, probably to the lab.

Suraku, who had been standing to the side this whole time, still had a confused look on his face, apparently afraid to ask anything, but walked over by Piccolo anyway. "So… you're Dorai and Piccolo?"

Piccolo blinked and looked over to the other Namekku-sei-jin. "Y-yes… Did she speak of me or something?"

He nodded. "But she said that you died. Twice."

"I did die. Twice."

A brow rose. "How did you manage that?"

"You're a Namek and you don't know about Dragonballs?"

"What! That's a lie! If you had been wished back by the Dragonballs, I would have heard of it! My grandfather holds the 1 star, and he doesn't let it go easily."

Piccolo looked at him quizzically. "Who is your grandfather?"

"Katatsu, of course!" He noticed that Piccolo didn't have any response to the name. "Don't tell me that you don't know who Katatsu is… Founder and King of Katatsu-sei?"

Piccolo shook his head.

"You're kidding."

"No."

Kuririn turned to Gohan. "You remember that name too, right?"

"Hmm? No. Should I?"

"Remember! Saichourou(a/n) told us about him!"

"Eh! I remember now!" He ran over to his teacher. "Piccolo-san! Katatsu is you're relative, too!"

"Huh?"

"What! Oh god, you can't be that Piccolo as well." Suraku leaned back. "Grandfather's first son was named Piccolo, but he had to leave Namekku-sei earlier than everyone else because he was supposed to get to a natural planet called Earth to start the colony ahead of us…but they lost contact not long after he entered the Red Stream."

Bulma tilted her head. "Why would he have to enter the Red Stream? Wasn't Namekku-sei on the same side of it as Earth?"

"Huh? You people really don't know all of this? Namekku-sei was on this side of the Red Stream before the disaster, which was the planets migration to, and through, the stream. He was to set up a colony on Earth since it was thought that the planet would already be on the other side before anyone could leave, but since they thought that he didn't make it, they instead left as soon as possible, then grandfather found an asteroid and we colonized that. After some manipulation to it by a planet maker to make it stronger and more habitable, it was called 'Katatsu-sei'."

Piccolo sighed and looked at the youth through the sides of his eyes. "Well, I'd bet that you'd like to know that he made it to Earth, just as planed, but forgot everything about Namekku-sei, as well as himself, when he got there."

"Grandfather was right, I guess. Piccolo really was still alive… and so is Piccolo's son."

"What do you mean? I am Piccolo."

"You can't be. You're too young. And besides, Piccolo was said to have left with an egg that was created with his wife, Mollosuki…"

Piccolo stared at him strangely. "So now you're telling me that I have a mother? How the hell could the first Piccolo have procreated like that! Do you have any idea how young he was when he reached Earth!"

"But you said that he lost his memories, right?"

"…Yeah."

"It's not uncommon for people's bodies to revert back to childhood if they lose memories, as well as it's not uncommon for some children to age towards prime adulthood quickly if they're exceptionally intelligent, for one reason or another."

That would explain why it only took three years to grow up, Piccolo thought. There were still many other questions in his head, like about his "brothers" Tambourine and the other demons spawned by his father, but he doubted that Suraku knew any of this.

As fascinating as this whole thing was, many of the others began to dissipate, since this was all very mind-blowing. Vegita snickered as he and Bulma left together.

"Don't say it," Bulma warned.

"Nothing to worry about. I know that you're not a lesbian. Our nights are proof enough of that…I just thought that you'd like to know that I wouldn't mind if you brought in another broad as well… even Kakarotto's wife wouldn't be—"

He forgot how hard she could hit with the cybernetic device that she installed in her watch.

.-.

By night, Arufuredo had finished the solutions that Atsarute had requested. He brought out with him two flasks, one with more liquid and of a slightly different color than the other, and, as Atsarute suggested, allowed her to leave the cell. Piccolo kept his back against his wall, trying not to look at her even though artificial light was all that was on her. He wasn't reluctant to see her because of the skinless appearance during the day, but because of fear that their eyes might lock in an awkward moment.

"Atsarute-sama," the doctor asked, "Do you mind if I ask why one has more solution, and why you wanted that particular muscle relaxant mixed with it?

Instead of trying to communicate why, she picked up the flask with more liquid and swallowed the solution, and then she gasped for air suddenly. She breathed a few times through her mouth before answering, in a voice that was, even though it was still hoarse, was definitely a woman's, "This one was for me, and I'm going to need more than Piccolo for what I'm going to do. The muscle relaxant is to allow myself to be able to speak."

Piccolo's eyes shot towards her as soon as he heard her voice. He recognized it immediately. "You really are…"

She approached him with the other flask. "Here. Drink this one. You'll need it, too."

"Why?"

She grinned. "You want to be cured of the mania, right?"

"Yeah… what does this have to do with it? Is this the cure?"

"No, this will just allow you to do your job more easily. You see, we have to help each other, or both suffer the consequences." She leaned on the wall beside him. "A while ago, a general of an opposing army cursed me in his death, and while I was destroying the cadavers of the enemy in the battlegrounds, I was suddenly distracted by something, allowing the curse to infiltrate my spiritual defense. I also absorbed some of his blood through one of my wounds when I destroyed his body, sealing it. The thing that distracted me was… well… I could be wrong, but I thought that I saw you're death. You were killed on a battlefield, and that boy, Gohan, was much younger…"

"So that was you that I saw," Piccolo said, "I thought that I saw you standing above me when I died."

"But… how is it—"

"I'll explain that later. Please continue."

She nodded. "I thought that I saw you die again later, while I was preparing to lift the curse, and I did not see some Pasuko-jin approach and send a surge through the talisman that I was using, the Talisman of Eiaa, and I had to absorb it to keep from getting killed. Unfortunately, it attached to my Visudda, disrupting my energy connections, which made me succumb more to the curse, and it cannot be removed surgically without killing me."

"So where do I come in?"

"Well, before, you and your friends were just the 'catalysts' of my curse, which meant that your presence was helpful for repairing my energy connections. But, in different matters, you're the only one that can disconnect the talisman." She removed her mantle and a few straps around her neck to show what looked like a disk jammed just above her collarbone. "This is because you're spirit is actually trapped in your Visudda, for some reason, and it can pass into one's Visudda without complications."

Piccolo remembered something that his father said to him. 'I didn't spontaneously create you. You were, more or less, all ready there. I merely locked away your true spirit somewhere in your mind and replaced it with my own.' "I see."

"I will first go into your mind to free it. With that, you can go into my Visudda and disconnect the talisman. After that, there should be enough time for me to disjoin the spirits in your mind and help you turn into separate beings again. That's the only cure for the mania. How many are there, counting you?"

"Four. Three if you count Kami-sama and my father as one."

"Eh? May I see them?"

"How?"

Before he could say anything else, she placed her hand upon his cheek, some fingers against his temple, her thumb against his forehead. After a few moments, she lowered her hand. "I'll have to combine them back into one entity again."

WHAT! Piccolo heard a scream in his head. I DID NOT DO ALL OF THIS WORK JUST TO BE COMBINED WITH THAT GOODY-GOODY ASS AGAIN! SHE'S JUST PISSED BECAUSE I ORDERED HER AROUND A BIT WHILE SHE WAS IN THAT STATE!

Piccolo rolled his eyes and quickly swallowed the solution himself. "Lets get to work, then."

(a/n) Saichourou is the Japanese name for Guru. I believe that it means something along the lines of "Great Elder".
I haven't said earlier, but "Atsarute" is a Japanese adaptation I made from "Astarte".
I'm not so low taste to make the cure sex! Sure, I had two psuedo-rape scenes already, and the Mebana story will probably allude to it, but geez! Besides, what would the throat chakra have to do with sex anyway?
… Pretend that I didn't ask that.