The winds blew strongly on the outskirts of the desert from where she was walking, blowing away the sand that came at her. The figure lowered her head to not have the sand go into her eyes, making sure to keep the cloak covered around her.
The figure wasn't sure just how long she had been walking in this place, it could have been hours for all she knew, but she knew that there was something important that she needed to discover if she just kept traveling.
As of recently, there were some rather odd memories that flooded in her head, memories that she knew never happened, yet somehow she could clearly see herself in them in some events that occurred, despite not knowing what those were about. Curiosity kept nagging at her to explore those new memories, and she decided to travel around to find what those memories meant. After all, she was a traveler. However, a problem occurred that it was only just a small bundle of what she gained, and while she couldn't remember what they were about, she did know one of the people that were in them showed a couple of teenagers and another person that tried taking pictures of her in a bath.
Whatever the case may be, she was determined to find out what those memories meant and see if there was more to her than she realized.
"Today, we'll finally begin training in the martial arts." Roshi spoke to both Ichigo and Krillin as all three of them were seen outside Kame House, with the two boys having been woken up at 4 AM to begin the first lesson of their training. "Before we begin though, there is something important you boys should know first. We do not study the way use martial arts just to pick fights or to impress girls. Studying martial arts will make you healthier in both body and soul and allow you to enjoy life more! However, if you or anybody else becomes threatened by someone committing an act of evil, you must strike them down in a single blow!" Roshi threw his fist out in front in an act of demonstration. "Do you understand what I'm saying so far?"
"Of course!" Krillin nodded his head in excitement.
Ichigo scratched his hair as he shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so…" he answered, having already come to learn something like that in his previous life, more or less.
"So then, I assume you're both ready for the Turtle Hermit training?" Roshi asked, and he saw both boys nod their heads. "Well if you're truly ready for my vigorous training, we'll start warming up by taking a light run. Follow me!" he exclaimed before he started jogging his way to a nearby village, with the two boys following him shortly after.
'Hehe, I heard that Master Roshi's training was severe.' Krillin thought to himself with a smirk as he was shown to be running between Roshi and Ichigo. 'That stone from last night might have backfired on me, but other than that, this is rather easy!'
The three of them have been jogging for over a couple of minutes before they arrived at a capsule house. Outside the house was a goatman that was stacking a box full of bottles of milk onto another one on the ground. "Now halt!" Roshi exclaimed as he stopped his track short when he got to the house, and the boys behind him stopped as well. "Good morning!" Roshi approached the goatman. "My name is Master Roshi, I believe we spoke yesterday."
"Ah, of course! I recognize your voice, thank you so much for this! I really appreciate it!" the goatman exclaimed in gratitude for Roshi's offer before he pulled out a map from his pocket and fully unveiled it to the old man. "Here's the delivery map."
Krillin was confused as to what they came here for. Ichigo got a sweatdrop from the goatman, having not been fully used to the strange animals that resided in this world. He and Krillin waited for less than a minute before Roshi turned his head to face them. "Alright, boys, each of you grab a box!" Roshi pointed his finger to the 2 boxes that were on the ground. "We're delivering milk!"
Ichigo was about to ask why that was the case, but the monk beside him beat him to the punch. "Huh?!" Krillin was perplexed by this. "But why are we doing that?!"
"Why not? It'll be a great workout for our bodies. Not only that, but we'll be going around making service for the community." Roshi gave his reasoning.
Ichigo wasn't so sure about the workout, but he couldn't really rebuke the old man's reasoning, and from what he remembered this was the type of stuff that Goku did as a kid and improved his strength, though he couldn't remember how much.
The goatman was taken by surprise from this. "Wait, does that mean you'll be traveling by foot?" he asked, and Roshi merely nodded his head. "Eh?! But you could use the helicopter!" The goatman pointed his finger towards the delivery helicopter towards the house.
"Nah." Roshi dismissed this as he waved his hand. "If we used that thing, it would hardly be training at all."
"But all the bottles have to be delivered by breakfast!" The goatman wanted to convince Roshi to use the helicopter and not put the two boys under what seemed to be a strenuous task.
"You don't have to worry about a thing. These boys will be more than fast enough to deliver every bottle." Roshi nudged his staff to the 2 boxes, signalling to the boys to pick them up, which they did. Roshi picked up the map that was stuffed in his pocket before unfolding it. "Alright! Let's skip the entire 2 kilometers to the first house!"
"Wait… skip?" Ichigo questioned this.
Roshi didn't bother to answer and instead started running, or rather skipping over to their next destination. The boys followed suit as they skipped right behind their master. "Sorah! Skip, skip!" Roshi spoke in a singing fashion as he skipped with his feet. "Horya! Skip, skip! Skip, skip!"
And soon enough, they all made it to the first house, with Ichigo and Krillin putting the new bottle of milk inside a mailbox and taking the old bottle of milk out.
"Alright! Now collect those empty bottles! The next house is about 1 kilometer long!" Roshi exclaimed before he started skipping again, not letting the boys take a break just yet.
"Wait, can't we get a break first?!" Krillin asked in a bit of a frenzy, already having some trouble catching his breath.
Roshi turned around to look at Krillin in a stern manner. ''Of course not! Have you already forgotten we have to deliver all of these before breakfast?!" the old man pointed his staff to a path that was filled with trees. "Here, how about we zig-zag between the trees on this path?"
Krillin left his mouth agape, and Ichigo put a hand on his shoulder. "For your sake, it might be better if you stopped talking." Ichigo said.
"Follow me when you're ready!" Roshi already took off, and the two boys began to follow him almost immediately as not to lose him. They all began to zig-zag around the trees, with Ichigo following behind rather closely, and Krillin steadily losing pace the farther they kept going. "Zig-Zag! Zig-Zag! Zig-Zag!"
Krillin thought about cheating to catch up faster, but decided against it knowing that he got caught relatively quickly the last time he tried that. So against his better judgment, the monk chose to bear with the training as he kept skipping for as long as he could handle. Eventually, all of them made it past the 1-kilometer mark and arrived at the second house as Ichigo first got to put the new bottle of milk in a mailbox and took the old one out.
"You're getting slow, Krillin!" Roshi called out as he saw the monk arriving shortly after Ichigo, though he clearly seemed to be out of breath. "If you take too much time, the milk will go bad!" he saw Krillin moving around enough just to put the new milk battle inside the mailbox and took out the old one. "Now then…" Roshi pointed his staff to a flight of stairs. "Next, we are going up these stairs. You don't have to run for this part if you don't want to." he already began to climb up the stairs, and Ichigo followed suit.
Krillin sighed in relief, thinking that maybe this was their break from all the skipping and zig-zagging they did. But when he looked upwards, his jaw dropped when he saw that the flight of stairs was severely long on a mountain to get to their third house. 'No way! I have to climb through all that?!' Krillin thought to himself, and once again he could see Roshi and Ichigo going much farther ahead of him. "Maybe I might have been a little hasty when I thought Master Roshi's training wouldn't be so tough…" he murmured to himself before he started climbing the stairs.
Ichigo was working his way upwards to the mountain, and while he wasn't nearly out of breath as Krillin was, he could feel his body getting the workout like Roshi said it would. 'This training method is weird, but I can't say the old man was lying about getting a good workout. Although... I just wish he could provide something more effective than this…' Ichigo thought to himself, and before long he made it halfway to the mountain, where he saw the old Turtle Hermit sitting on a small boulder.
"So, getting a bit tired?" Roshi asked as he looked over at the redhead youth.
"A little bit, though I can still keep going." Ichigo answered before he started going back up to another pair of stairs.
"Say, did you know that the Ox King and your grandfather used to deliver milk with me like this a long time ago, like how you're doing now?" Roshi commented as he looked in the distance of the village, and Ichigo stopped his tracks when he heard this. "It's rather nostalgic."
"So… gramps did the same thing as this, huh?" Ichigo asked as he turned his head to look at Roshi, to which the Turtle Hermit nodded his head, and the young boy turned back to face the set of stairs. "I see then… thanks for letting me know that." he said, before he started climbing back up, this time walking faster than before with a hint of motivation having gotten to him.
Minutes have passed by, and the two boys kept making successful progress, with Ichigo having almost come finishing his delivery while Krillin made it halfway. At that point, Roshi got to climb the stairs again and made it to the top, to which Ichigo already delivered the new bottle milk and took the old one out. Eventually, Krillin made it to the very top and delivered the milk before breakfast time.
"I see you finally made it. We were waiting for you." Roshi spoke to Krillin who just finished the delivery, and at this point, the young monk was exhausted.
It was then that an adolescent bald monk came out of the house and proceeded to politely bow to the three people that delivered him milk. "Thank you very much for this!" the monk then looked over at Roshi. "It's been quite a while since you last trained, Master Roshi. I see that you're in good health as usual. So, how is the training for these two going?" the monk asked.
"Well…" Roshi looked over at his students. "We barely started, so it's too early for me to say. I do, however, find good potential within both of them, that much is for certain." this made Krillin grin eagerly when he heard this, and Ichigo merely shrugged as he folded his arms. "Although, if they get to train hard for the next 8 months, they might just be able to compete in the tournament."
The monk widened his eyes in surprise when hearing about this. "Wait, do you mean the World Martial Arts Tournament?!"
Krillin was shocked to hear this, having not expected to have the potential to enter in a tournament such as that, especially when it was less than a year away. "But that's for the world's greatest martial art fighters to compete in! W-Will we really be able to enter?!"
"Only if you train seriously enough, then you might just have a chance to enter." Roshi answered. He saw that Krillin was becoming excited, but Ichigo merely showed a hint of curiosity. "However, don't think that it will be that simple, neither of you will be aiming for the top position. Right now just worry about if you'll even be strong enough to enter to begin with."
"This is awesome! If we can become so strong to enter, it'll be so exciting!" Krillin exclaimed.
Ichigo thought about joining in, besides it's not like he had anything better to do, and it wasn't like he could reject the old man's offer after the acceptance of becoming his apprentice.
"Now then…" Roshi looked back at the grown monk. "We'll be continuing our delivery."
"Make sure you do your best and respect Master Roshi." the monk told the new students.
Hours passed by as Ichigo and Krillin manage to complete every house they were sent to deliver all before breakfast. Eventually, they got back to Kame House on foot, and at that point Krillin fell down on the ground from the exhaustion he felt while Ichigo managed to stand his own, having more than enough stamina to keep going.
"We'll be delivering milk like this every day for the next 8 months. And this will just be our early morning training. Now then, we're going to start our morning training!" Roshi exclaimed as he stabbed his staff on the ground to signify to begin their next exercise immediately.
"W-Wait…" Krillin began to get back up, his face expressing disbelief as he thought they were done with their training. "There's more? But I thought we were d-done?"
"Of course we're not done!" Roshi gave a stern look. "We're just getting started! Now that the sun is fully up, we'll be starting our morning training session!" Roshi looked over to see where the closest fields were for the boys to begin their next exercise, and he spotted a farmer close by who was tending the fields with his tools. "For our morning training, we'll be helping tending the fields!"
"You're kidding me…" Krillin muttered to himself as Roshi ran over to the farmer in an attempt to have them take over for him. "This field is huge… first we deliver milk, and now we're farming? We never did stuff like this back at Oorin Temple…"
"What kind of stuff did you even do then?" Ichigo asked as he looked at Krillin.
Before Krillin could answer, Roshi already called out to them. "Alright, boys! It's time to tend the fields! If you don't finish this quickly, you will never be able to eat breakfast in time!"
"Yeah, we got it…" Ichigo grumbled his reply as he and Krillin got to the fields and picked up the pickaxes just so they could get this over with.
But before they could get started, Roshi put his hand in front to stop them. "Hold it! You can't use those!" Krillin and Ichigo looked at the Turtle Hermit in confusion. "You have to use your bare hands. This training method is required to strengthen your hands, rather than your legs and hips."
"Well, figured it wouldn't be that easy…" Ichigo remarked with a scowl.
"Oh come on! We have to do all this with our hands?!" Krillin couldn't believe what he was hearing. The training from Oorin Temple paled in comparison to what Roshi was preparing them with, and they were only just starting.
Several hours passed by as Roshi sat on the ground, waiting till the boys finished plowing through the dirt with their bare hands. They kept going at it till they finished plowing the whole area they were at.
"Hey, old man…" Roshi turned his head to look over at both Ichigo and Krillin walking towards him, as they were covered in dirt. "I think we finished just about everything." Ichigo said, his eyes having gone weary as he became hungry during the exercise.
"My hands…" Krillin looked at his hands as they visibly shook. "They won't stop hurting."
"Hmmm…" Roshi took a glance at the whole area that his students took care of, and he had to say he was impressed with the work they did. "Good work you two, looks like you'll be getting to have a late breakfast after all. But it sure took a while to finish all of that, you'll have to learn to go faster. The area of the field you'll be tending will increase every day."
They went back to Kame House, and just in time as well as Launch finished setting up the breakfast. She saw Ichigo, Krillin, and Roshi returning towards the house, and she greeted them with a smile as she waved her hand at them. "It's about time you came! Your food's gonna get cold if you don't hurry!"
Ichigo was the first to start running for breakfast as his Saiyan hunger demanded to be fed, with Krillin following closely behind. Roshi came running at last before he got inside the house. All of them sat down at their respective seats, chanting "Thank you for the food!" before they began to dig in, with the boys taking bowls of rice to eat first as Krillin and Ichigo ate it feverishly like a pack of wolves, and Roshi took his time to eat normally.
Krillin tried to find a pepper shaker on the table until his eyes spotted where it was at, his hand reaching for it as he began to spray the pepper on his food, his mind being so driven by hunger that he failed to notice smoke was emitting from how much he kept spraying. Roshi took a notice of this and saw that it was spreading to Launch, and it immediately caused alarms to go off his head as he remembered Launch being rather sensitive to sneezing. "Wait, stop! Don't put in any more, you'll trigger a bomb!" Roshi exclaimed.
"Huh?" Krillin stopped what he was doing and looked on in confusion, and once he turned his head to look at the pepper smoke spread to Launch, the skin on his body beginning to go pale once he realized what he'd done. "Oh no…"
The innocent side of Launch's nose caught a whiff of the pepper, and due to this, she threw her head back before sneezing, making the Blond side of Launch come out instead. Only now Ichigo noticed what happened when he heard the sneezing occur. "The hell do you bastards want?!" Launch spoke out in an aggressive manner before she took out her shotgun and began to fire bullets at the others almost on instinct, destroying all the food that was on the table.
"Oh come on! Not the food!" Ichigo exclaimed as he dodged away from the bullets.
"Let's get out of here!" Roshi called out before he began to run away from the house, with the boys following him behind. "We'll just eat out somewhere else instead!"
That morning Roshi took the boys to eat at a restaurant to spend their breakfast on, and the people inside were dumbfounded by how much food the kids were able to eat. After that, the three of them went back home, with Ichigo making sure that the Blond Launch got to calm down so she doesn't shoot at them again.
As of now, the pupils and the teacher were outside the house, with Roshi pinning a needle at a tree and hitting it with a hammer before placing a blackboard over the needle, as a string was attached to it just so it wouldn't fall over. Roshi also got a chair to sit on while the students sat in front of him onto a log while carrying several books with them.
"Now then, until lunch, it's study time! No matter how strong you train your body, that alone won't be enough for you to become a master martial artist. You need to train your minds as well." Roshi said. "Now we're going to start reading. Karna, begin from page 12."
"Fine…" Ichigo got to open the first book in his hands, flipping the pages till he got the right one. "Let's see… 'Ufun, that tickles! You can't be doing that, mom will be coming home soon.' said Margaret—" Ichigo's eyes began to twitch in annoyance, reading past enough to see just what he was reading, and his face began to flush. "Ok, what the hell am I reading here?!"
"Ahaha!" Roshi quickly snatched the porno book out of Ichigo's hands and threw it somewhere else. "Now where did that come from?! Silly me, I must have misplaced it with something else!" he laughed nervously as he scratched the back of his head.
"I don't even wanna know how much stuff like this you have…" Ichigo grumbled before he tried to focus back on the other book as he flipped the pages. 'Please don't let it be another stupid porn…'
12:30 in the afternoon.
Ichigo, Krillin, and Roshi were lying on their tenets after they each finished eating lunch, with the tenets being connected to a few trees whilst laying next to one another. "Alright, now we'll be taking a nap for about an hour. Work well, study well, play well, eat well, and sleep well. This is the Turtle Hermit Way." Roshi said.
"Hey, Master Roshi, do mind if I ask you something?" Krillin turned his attention to the old master, who in turn gazed back at him. "So… just how many fighters are gonna be there at the tournament? What exactly are we gonna face up against?"
"There will be plenty of strong fighters to go up against by the time you head to the tournament, and believe me it won't be such a cakewalk, after all that tournament in itself is a magnet that attracts the strongest fighters in the world." Roshi answered. "Just make sure you train your hardest every day and you'll achieve great strength."
Ichigo listened to the conversation but hadn't said anything, with his hands resting at the back of his head, letting the relaxing atmosphere get to him. He couldn't remember too well what the tournament was like during the early days of Dragon Ball, but he was at least aware that the rules did remain in a fight, and most of the fighters shouldn't be too strong at this point in time. Even so, he shouldn't overestimate his own strength, as he himself was far too weak as of now. However, he decided to cut in. "Though just one question… what if there are others that are training harder than we are right now and are stronger than us?" Ichigo asked his master.
"Hmmm… that's a good question, and you might just be right. There may be others that train harder than we are and have greater strength, but so what if they are? If you were to fall in battle, then you'll just have to train harder even if you were to get eliminated right off the bat. Some fighters can train their whole lives but they won't be able to make it past the preliminary rounds. But you might be forgetting just one thing, Karna, fighters aren't just some mindless machines that do nothing but train, even the strongest people need a good shut-eye every once in a while." Roshi explained.
'Well... I suppose so. In that case, once I do get used to this training method, I'll just find something better to train with.' Ichigo lifted his hand towards his face and clenched it to a fist. 'I have to get my strength back…'
1:30 in the afternoon.
The students and the master were now seen in the middle of construction work that was happening around the fields, with the field itself being loaded with workers and numerous tools.
"So what exactly is this for?" Ichigo asked.
"It's for our next training session." Roshi pointed his staff at the working field. "We're going to be assisting these construction workers. You'll work some sweat, train your muscles, and even be able to get a payment like a normal part-time job."
"Wait we get paid for this stuff now?" Ichigo raised his eyebrows in interest from this.
"Well of course. Not everything gets to be done for free, after all everybody needs to earn a living." Roshi answered.
"I take it you're the one who called on the phone for help?" Roshi and the boys looked over to see a construction worker heading towards them, who was presumably the boss. "But are you sure these kids are gonna be of any use? They seem a little on the small side."
"You don't have to worry about a thing, you'll find that these kids are quite handy when it comes to stuff like this." Roshi said as he pointed his hand to the boss. "Tell you what, by the time these kids get done with the amount of work they'll put in, you can get to pay them 5 times the usual amount you receive."
"5 times?!" the boss was flabbergasted by this. "You really expect me to just pay you that much that easily?!"
"Just wait until you see what they're capable of." Roshi lifted his staff in the air. "Now start digging, boys!"
Krillin felt a sense of dread come over him as he looked at his fingernails that were used up during their morning training. He really hoped they didn't have to use their hands again, it was already bad enough as it was. "Master Roshi, do we still have to use our hands for this?" the monk asked.
Roshi shook his head. "Not to worry, you won't be using those again. You're allowed to use equipment, just not any power tools. Do I make myself clear?"
Krillin was relieved to hear this, having a grin now that he could finally use some tools to help him work this time.
With that said and done, both Ichigo and Krillin began to get to work almost immediately, starting by using shovels to dig through the dirt, unloading it onto the wheelbarrow before wheelbarrowing onto the other side of the field to dump the dirt before going back to repeat the same process over and over. All of the other workers were simply baffled by the amount of work the kids were putting into and were doing it much faster than they were capable of.
Each of them kept taking turns like this, sprinting at full speed ahead just so they could get to finish the work as fast as possible. The workers went from being flabbergasted to being in disbelief, if they hadn't seen what was happening with their own eyes they never would have believed it.
'Come on, Krillin, just try to survive a little longer, just until you finally beat them.' Krillin thought to himself as he was wheelbarrowing with some sweat coming down from his head, thinking of the time he spent in the Oorin Temple.
Krillin got thrown down on the floor by one of the senior trainees in the dojo, having already lost in the sparring match. The young monk groaned, conceding his defeat. "Ok fine, you win again…" Krillin grumbled under his breath as he got back up.
The older senior Krillin fought, chuckled as he saw the shorter monk getting up. "You really are a miserable little runt, aren't you?" he put his fists onto his hips. "Come on, are you really giving up that easily? I don't see why the master even wastes his time on teaching the likes of you." the senior, along with his peers, were chuckling at the small monk. "Just so you know, we never said this match was over until we said it is."
"Behind you!" another monk came up behind Krillin, to which Krillin could only react with enough time to turn around before getting kicked in the face, making the midget stumble backward but still kept his balance. "Well at least you managed to ensure that attack!" he then proceeded to swing his fist down at Krillin's stomach, sending the small monk flying across the room till he crashed against the wall.
The third senior sneered at Krillin's weakness, clearly enjoying seeing the midget getting tossed around. "I think I figured out why the master even bothers to keep him around, he sure as hell makes a good punching bag! So he is worth something after all!" The seniors in the room laughed at Krillin as he laid down on the floor, groaning from the pain as he clenched onto his stomach.
The sudden act of this memory made Krillin grit his teeth, as there was a surge of anger boiling in him while he was seen hitting the pickaxe on the ground. His swings became more fierce, hitting the pickaxe with more force than what he mustered with so far.
Ichigo stopped what he was doing as he looked over at the noises that Krillin was making. Krillin kept hitting the pickaxe with enough strength that its top broke apart, making it land in front of the head construction worker and Roshi.
"Aaaaahh!" the head construction worker became frightened as the top of the pickaxe landed close to his foot. "Alright, alright! I'll pay as much as I can! But just tell him to watch out next time!"
Ichigo raised one of his eyebrows in small confusion at what just occurred. 'That was a little weird… wonder what that was about?' he thought to himself.
After finishing the construction work, Roshi led the boys to their next training session as the three of them were seen standing on a lake that was right next to them.
"Ok, now that you've worked up some good sweat, our next training will be swimming!" Roshi exclaimed as he held his staff behind him with both his hands in a horizontal position.
"There's still more?!" Krillin couldn't believe this. He thought for sure they would have been done after that last exercise. Just how much was left?
"Of course there is! There's plenty of more!" Roshi sternly replied.
"So… old man…" Ichigo began to scratch the back of his head. "Not that I want to sound in a hurry, but just how long are we gonna keep doing this? Shouldn't we get down to learning some fighting skills?"
For a moment Roshi didn't say anything, and Ichigo thought if he got him to consider. But that expectation shattered when Roshi bonked Ichigo on the head with his staff. "Ow!" Ichigo rubbed his head from the hit. "What was that for?!"
"Don't get ahead of yourself! If you can't even temper your bodies, there's no way I'd be able to teach you any kind of fighting techniques!" Roshi reprimanded Ichigo for this. "Believe me, I would be delighted to teach you this type of stuff, but the day I do so is when you have amassed enough physical strength to move this boulder here!" the old-timer pointed his staff to a large boulder that stood next to him.
"Whaaaat?!" Krillin couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But there's no way anyone could move a huge rock like that!"
"Oh really?" Roshi put his staff down before he pressed his hands against the giant rock. The old man grit his teeth as he began an attempt to push the boulder. "Gyohhh!" Roshi yelled as a vein throbbed on his head before he managed to successfully push the rock, scraping some of the ground in doing so. Krillin was stunned by what he was seeing, and Roshi took a few breaths before turning over to face his students. "D-Do you understand now? If you build up your bodies every day with training, you'll eventually be able to do what I just did!" the Turtle Hermit exclaimed as he felt a bit winded after pushing that boulder.
But then Roshi noticed Ichigo wasn't anywhere to be seen. Both he and Krillin looked from behind to see Ichigo in front of a boulder, its size rather similar to the one Roshi just pushed away. They saw the orange-haired youth pressing his hands against the boulder to push it back like Roshi did, and the old master was not amused by this. "Did you not listen to anything I just said?" Roshi was somewhat annoyed. "Without training, you won't just be able to—"
"Wanna bet on that?" Ichigo began to use the full strength residing in his child body before he managed to push the boulder away. "Graaaaaagh!" he yelled out as he kept moving the giant rock much farther than what Roshi ever did, scraping the ground in doing so before he stopped.
Roshi and Krillin's eyes bulged out in disbelief at witnessing Ichigo's physical strength, not believing what happened. "So…" Ichigo turned around to face the two. "You said you'll teach us if we pushed this, right?" he grew an amused smirk as he folded his arms.
"He… he managed to move it way farther than you did, Master Roshi…" Krillin murmured under his breath, still in disbelief at what just occurred. How was it even possible for his peer to push something of that magnitude? Where did all that strength even come from?
Roshi began to sweat. This was bad. It was way too early for them to start learning any fighting techniques. Hell, there wasn't much he could teach them about actual fighting to begin with, as the whole point of the Kame Style fighting was to incorporate everything that was being passed down to them. He didn't know how Karna was able to push that with that level of brute strength, and he had to come up with something quick to avoid teaching them martial arts. If they were to train right now, in the worst-case scenario they would start acting arrogant. And that's the last thing he wanted now. "Ha… haha… hahaha!" Roshi burst out a peal of laughter as he nervously scratched the back of his bald head. "W-Wow, I really screwed this one up! D-Don't ask how, but I picked the wrong size of that rock! Besides, it doesn't take that much effort to move it anyways!"
"Say what?!" Ichigo didn't like this at all. He knew for a fact that boulder was the same one that was intended to push away, and he did just that.
Roshi ran over to find a boulder that could be bigger than the one he just pushed back. To his luck, he already found one as the boulder he pointed to was much larger than the last ones. "There! That's the one I meant! If you could manage to move this, then your physical training will be complete!"
Ichigo sighed in annoyance from this. The old man really wanted them to push something large as that just so he could give an excuse as not to train them in fighting. As much as he wanted to prove the old man wrong, he really didn't think he could move a boulder as huge as that, at least not as of now. "Say… if you're supposed to be the master of martial arts, how about you move this to show us what physical strength can do?" Ichigo asked just so he could at least get convinced to continue what he was doing before.
"Erm…" Roshi looked over at the massive boulder, being rather hesitant. Maybe he could push it back if he were to use his full power and bulk up, but he wasn't so sure in his regular state. "Let's not waste too much time with this right now! After all we should be focusing on your training instead of this! This isn't the time to play around anyways!"
"Hey!" Ichigo rebuked. "Don't just switch the topic—"
"Well, what are you waiting for?! Start swimming!" Ichigo made a sigh, seeing that he wasn't gonna get the old man to push that boulder anytime soon. Roshi made a cough as he pointed his cane to the lake. "Anyway… you can start by swimming to the opposite side of the lake and come back up. But you've got to do this 10 times."
"10 times?" Krillin looked at the amount of distance that would require them both to get to the end and come back. It would take work, but at least this exercise seemed easier to do. "Well… that doesn't seem so bad…"
Ichigo and Krillin got to the edge of the surface, as they would have to swim with their clothes on. They dived into the water and began to swim to clear their first lap. Roshi watched them for a bit before raising his eyebrows, having forgotten to tell the boys an important detail. "Oh, wait! There's just one more thing I forgot to mention! For whatever reason, there's a shark in this lake!" he warned them.
Ichigo and Krillin abruptly stopped their swimming as they did a double-take on what the Turtle Hermit just told them. "Wait, did I just hear that right?" Ichigo asked more so himself.
They waited for a little bit to see if what Roshi said was actually true, and Ichigo widened his eyes when he felt movements coming from inside the water that wasn't either his or Krillin's. Ichigo started swimming at full speed ahead to avoid whatever shark was in there. It was at that moment that a shark emerged from behind Krillin, opening its large mouth to reveal a large set of sharp teeth. And it was hungry. "Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Krillin yelled out in shock before he started swimming for his life as the shark began to chase him.
"Why is there a frigging shark in a lake?!" Ichigo wanted to know as he and Krillin swam as fast as they could before they eventually managed to reach the other side of the lake.
They kept doing this over 10 times just as Roshi told them to do so all while avoiding getting eaten by the shark. Both of them successfully returned without a scratch, but Krillin was left tired after all the adrenaline left him, as the boys climbed out of the water and got in front of Roshi. 'Just great, now my new clothing is all wet…' Ichigo thought to himself as he looked at the clothing to be completely drenched, along with his hair. 'And I really liked them as well…'
"Good job, you two!" Roshi exclaimed with a smile. "Now let's get down to our last exercise of the day and be done!"
"H-Huh?!" Krillin was stunned due to having to continue another set of training without taking a break. He felt tired enough as it was with everything that happened, but at least this would get to be their last training session.
Ichigo and Krillin were seen tied up with rope to a tree by Roshi, and were confused as to why they were being tied. "Why exactly are we tied up?" Ichigo asked.
"This exercise of this session is to test your reflexes. And as for why you're tied with a rope, you're going to be dodging your enemy's attacks within the range of that rope." Roshi answered. "Sometimes in fighting, we get to be backed up to a corner and must dodge our enemy within a limited space."
"Ok… but what exactly are we dodging from?" Ichigo asked once more, being wary that the old man hadn't said anything on what they're going to be dodging to begin with.
"You'll see soon enough." Roshi began to tiptoe his way to the tree they were at, being rather steady in his steps while looking upwards. Roshi then whacked a beehive with his cane before running away as fast as he could, hiding behind another tree. "Your training begins now!"
"What does he—" Ichigo and Krillin looked over at the direction of something buzzing, and to their shock, they saw bees coming at them. "BEES?!" Ichigo already reacted by giving a chase. "How the fuck do we dodge bees?!"
"Don't just run away from them! You have to dodge!" Roshi exclaimed from the sidelines. ''If you don't dodge swiftly, you'll keep getting stung!"
"Easy for you to say when you're hiding behind that tree!" Ichigo rebuked as he continued to run from the bees as much as he could while trying to swat the bees away. ''Get off, damnit!" there was an uncontrollable orb of bright yellow energy emerging from his hand before firing it off. Ichigo widened his eyes when realizing what he did. "Oh shit—!" The blast hit the tree before completely destroying it whilst causing a small explosion to occur, making him and Krillin get launched by. "Owwww…" he groaned from the pain he felt. "I didn't mean to do that…"
"Eh?!" Roshi ran over to the boys, seeing that the tree, the beehive, and the bees themselves were vaporized. "Are you two alright?!" He was relieved to see that they only held a couple of bruises, but other than that they were fine.
"About as fine as we can get…" Krillin groaned as his eyes were spinning.
Roshi looked over at Ichigo. 'He can already draw out his Ki? Since when was he able to do that? I knew that he clearly possessed a ton of potential and talent, but this is something completely different.' he thought to himself. 'Maybe this type of training might not work very well for him. In fact, I might need to step up my game.' he helped them get up on their feet. "Alright, I think that's about enough training as of today.
"Wait, that's it?" Ichigo was somewhat surprised by this. Surely he thought there would have been more than this. That can't be all of it, right?
"So it's finally over?" Krillin was relieved to hear this. He thought there never would have been the end of it. ''But uh… Master… is our training going to be this difficult every single day?"
"After what happened right now, I decided to change my workout routine for you two." Roshi remarked. "Krillin, you're still going to keep up the exact same training regiment we just did, but this time you're going to be wearing a 20 kg Turtle Shell on your back until you become fully adjusted to the workout routine." Krillin fell down onto the ground, wishing that he had been injured at that moment. Roshi looked over at Ichigo. "That goes for you too, Karna, however you're going under a different training method since this clearly won't be working out for you very well. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yeah, got it." Ichigo nodded his head, seeing no problem with this. He wanted to get stronger anyways.
Deep into the forests of the island, Ichigo traveled with Roshi, now having been finished with the workout routine and took off the Turtle Shell, as Roshi told him it wouldn't be needed for the upcoming training he was about to take in.
He wondered what it would be about. Whatever it was, it sure as hell better be worth it. He needed to get stronger, and quickly. The walk lasted for quite some time before they finally reached the destination, and when they did Ichigo stopped his tracks in surprise, having not expected to arrive at a waterfall.
"Well, we finally made it. This is going to be your main training from here on out after you finish my training routine." Roshi said, looking at a great waterfall that resided before them. The waterfall in itself stood at about 500 feet tall, with extremely powerful waves soaring downwards, along with multiple rocks that seemed to pop out of the waterfall.
"So what exactly am I supposed to do here?" Ichigo asked as he folded his arms.
"I want you to reverse the flow of that waterfall."
"... Come again?" Ichigo turned his head in bewilderment at Roshi, not sure if he heard that correctly. "I'm not sure if you realize this, but that just can't be possible. That is literally going against the laws of nature."
"You heard me right, and I won't repeat myself again." Roshi looked over at the waterfall. "You wanted to get stronger, didn't you? This is what you're getting. Besides, a man uses the term laws of nature as a generalization of a phenomena that he doesn't understand. If you think moving something like this is impossible, then you haven't seen anything on what it's like for humans to surpass their limits and see what they're truly capable of. It's true that someone like a Kami would be able to reverse something like this, but any other mortal can become as strong once they reach the level of a Superhuman. Besides, I'm not telling you to just punch the whole waterfall, that would be going too far, I just want you to at least make its course climb up. Although, be careful not to get fully hit by the waves. Those things are violent enough that they can tear through military tanks and airplanes like they're nothing. If you can manage to reverse the flow, then I have nothing else to teach you."
Ichigo was somewhat nervous about this, but nevertheless, he had to accept this. "I... I'll see what I can do with this."
"Well, I'll be leaving now. Make sure you try your hardest." Those were Roshi's last words to Ichigo before he began to walk away.
Before anyone knew it, 3 months had already passed by rather quickly. Ichigo and Krillin worked to train their hardest under Master Roshi's training, but Ichigo kept training diligently to do what Roshi told him to accomplish. But the task proved to be extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, as Ichigo could barely get to be inside the water with how cold it was, and each time he threw every strike with all his might, he couldn't get anywhere close to performing the task Roshi assigned him to do.
By this point, Ichigo fully got used to the workout routine, and now wore a 40kg Turtle Shell on his back each time he began that session, only wearing it off when he performed the waterfall training. The longer he kept training under that, the more pain his body went under from the violent waves he kept striking against.
Ichigo got thrown back through several trees as the waves of the water pushed him away. "Gagh!" Ichigo gasped out loud in pain as his body was shown to suffer from cuts and bruises from how long he kept training. He started to get back up, walking towards the enormous waterfall with a stubborn look plastered from him. "Again…" he murmured to himself.
This is something he would do every time, the cause of the waterfall would give Ichigo injuries for him to bear through until he could no longer train. He would wait until he got healed up just to go train again, and each time he recovered Ichigo kept becoming more powerful, and before long his senses became extremely keen to his surroundings.
On the coast of East City, the same woman that was previously seen traveling to a desert had now moved into a city as several months passed by. As of now, she was seen eating at a restaurant on her own, having settled down in a hotel for a while.
Now that more time passed, she was able to get more memories running through her mind, having been showcased of some training she went through. What sparked her interest was the training she saw wasn't exactly… normal so to say. The memories that came through her mind were visions of sparring sessions between herself and a blond man, both of them wearing black robes. Other sessions included herself, having been surrounded by this strange surge of electric energy coming from her body.
These training sessions were anything but normal for her. Each of them revolved around performing superhuman feats and having a set of powers she didn't think existed. 'Ok… so either I have a really weird case of having amnesia, which I know can't be the case because I know nothing like that ever happened throughout my life. I mean the others would have surely told me something about this.' she thought to herself as she gave the waiter the bill to pay for the food before going ahead to exit the restaurant.
'I did train some martial arts of my own, but nothing like what I saw…' she put her bag over her shoulder as she walked among the street. 'And those memories... I definitely do see myself in there, but it's very different. This can't be someone else's memories. So the only thing that might be possible for me… is that these different types of memories are from another life…'
Ichigo slowly shot his eyes open, groaning as he began to shift his body upwards, but he felt a weight of pressure gently pushing him down. His head was leaning against something rather soft, and not anything hard like the ground, which he expected to be laying on.
"Easy there, you shouldn't move around very much in the condition you're in." he heard a rather soft feminine voice speaking to him. Ichigo turned his head to see just who was talking to him, and his eyes widened when seeing who it was… but it wasn't anyone he was familiar with.
It was a woman of light skin, golden colored eyes, 3 red whisker marks on each of her cheeks, with colored hair that had furry black ears on top of her head. She has a voluptuous figure, with her dress revealing her toned legs, and her most distinctive features were the large 9 white tails on her back. Her outfit appeared to be a combination of a shrine maiden's outfit with qipao, the red and white combo with the detached sleeves obviously resembling that or shrine maiden while the certainly skimpy dress took a bit after a qipao
"There… you should be able to move around now." the unknown woman told him with a smile, her hand glowing with a color of purple as she held it over Ichigo's bare chest. "How do you feel?" she asked as Ichigo got off her lap and checked himself out.
Ichigo felt that his body wasn't running at its full capacity just yet. The injuries, cuts, and the bruises were mostly covered with bandages. "I feel alright I guess." Ichigo commented as he clenched his fist. "Although… who… exactly are you?" he asked. 'Who is she anyway? I don't remember her ever appearing in Dragon Ball...'
"Oh, right!" the woman made a sheepish grin as she scratched her head, all of her tails wiggling around in doing so. "This is actually the first time you met me when I was treating your wounds. You usually don't really wake up until after I'm done."
"Treating my wounds?" Ichigo wrinkled his eyebrows over this. "You mean you're the one who's gotten to heal me in the times I passed out?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that… although I'm not exactly too good when it does come to healing people."
"That still doesn't answer my question on who you are and what you're doing here." Ichigo remarked as he folded his arms, making a scowl in doing so. ''In fact, come to think of it, I've never seen you here up until now." he also found it strange that he never even sensed her. Was he that focused on his training that he missed an energy signature from her? No, it couldn't be. Even if he was so focused, he couldn't have missed sensing an energy signature like hers.
"Well… I guess you could say this is where I live." the woman scratched her cheek as she sheepishly grinned. ''And as for what I'm doing here, I just saw you start doing your training on that waterfall, and I was just curious to see what you were up to. It's not exactly every day where you see a young boy hitting a waterfall like this one."
"I wasn't really trying to hit it…" Ichigo looked towards the waterfall. He saw his upper clothing laying on the ground, though they got ragged with how much the waves of water were tearing them up. "Well… technically I was, but it's just that I was set with a task to reverse the flow of this thing." he began to walk back to continue his training. "Thanks for the help and all, but I'm gonna have to get back to my training."
"With the state you're in right now?" the foxy woman questioned this. "I hate to break it to you, but you might wanna quit that training of yours if you'll keep repeating charging in without thinking."
"There's nothing to worry about. I'll be healed in no time, besides I've had worse injuries than this." Ichigo remarked as he was about to leap over to one of the rocks poking out of the water.
"That's not what I meant. I'm talking about how troubled your mind seems to be." the woman replied back to this, and it made Ichigo stop his track. "I couldn't help but notice that each time I saw your training, the look in your eyes just seemed to hold… sadness in them. You look so troubled that at times you don't even seem to pay attention to what you're doing, and because of that you get knocked around by the waves of water and crash through trees." she saw Ichigo looking back at her, giving a small glare, but she gave a glare back to him. "Don't get it twisted, it's not like I can read your mind or anything of that sort, it's just that... I can just tell how people can feel by reading their body language and the look in their eyes."
"... And what of it?" Ichigo tried to remain in his posture, his glare looking as though it could pierce through ice. "What's your point?"
"Oh brother…" the woman sighed as she scratched her head. "Look, you don't have to pull a tough guy act on me, kid. You're not exactly gonna get anywhere if you want me to go away. And even if you did, nothing is gonna change about you finishing whatever task you have with that waterfall. You'll be stuck through the same progress you're currently in. Maybe if you let me help you, you might actually get somewhere."
"So… why would you just help me all of a sudden?" Ichigo questioned this. "I don't know you, and you don't even know me. Yet you would want to help me? Just what exactly are you gonna get something out of this?"
"You don't have to make this sound complicated. I'm trying to make this simple for you to understand." the woman put her hands in the air. "I'm going to help you come to terms with whatever problems you're dealing with. Like I said before, in your current state you'll be getting nowhere as you are now. But if you just let me help you clear your mind, you'll be able to reverse the flow of that waterfall before you even realize it." she then shrugged her shoulders, putting her hands behind her head. "But… if you still don't want my help, then it's your choice. I'm not forcing you or anything like that, in fact you're free to do as you please. But it would be a shame if you did refuse, besides I think you actually have good potential to be pretty strong."
Ichigo's expression softened as he began to take in the unknown woman's words. Maybe she did have a point and he was just being stubborn. Why wasn't he just listening to her reason and just accept the deal already? His guard lowered down as he stopped folding his arms, looking down at the ground. The woman could see that she was getting through to him. She just needed a little more push. "Well? What's it gonna be?" she asked.
Ichigo closed his eyes before he released a sigh out of frustration. "If it's to help me get this task done faster… then the only answer I have for you, is that I'll have to accept your help." he moved his head upward to look back at the unknown woman. "But even then, how are you going to do that? I only have a month left till I have to participate in the World Martial Arts Tournament."
The woman made a smirk. "Really now? You're participating in that tournament?" she got up from the ground she sat on and walked towards the young boy. "Well, that just gives me all the more reason to help you out." she got next to Ichigo as she looked at the waterfall with an eager grin. "Trust me, by the time you're done training under me, you're going to be the strongest under the heavens." she looked back at Ichigo. "So then, what are we waiting for?! Let's get this thing started!" she pointed her thumb to herself. "And since you wanted to know my name, you can just call me Ahri!"
Well, it might as well be about time that I got to finish this. Next up we should be finally heading into the 21st tournament and have the fights begin there. And now I should probably head over to explain some things.
Now the training segment with Roshi implementing with Ichigo and Krillin is mostly the same like it was done with Goku and Krillin in Canon from the original Manga, with the whole milk delivery training, tending fields, study sessions, the construction work, the swimming, and the bee dodging, except the difference being is that Ichigo does adapt to most of these a lot faster considering what he was already shown to be capable of doing considering who Ichigo even is, since I did show earlier on he does know how to use the Kiai attack, the Kamehameha a lot earlier than what Goku first showed, and some usage of the Ki energy, although it's a bit uncontrollable as of now.
So the thing with the waterfall training is that this is really more so taken from the series known as Saint Seiya where it showed the scene of Shiryu overcoming the waterfall training just so he could get his Bronze Saint armor. This manner of training is similar with Ichigo, except this is something to actually improve his physical training, as Roshi's methods weren't going to work on him too much, and it's also to more so expand on the island a little more as well.
Now as for who the woman was in the first scene of the chapter and later on in the restaurant scene, I can't really say or show who it is just yet since that would be going into spoilers. Now as for the other woman that Ichigo met in the last scene going by the name of Ahri… my co-author and I are gonna be going for other crossover series just to fit the ones in the DB cosmology and how they should work out, just like the ones that I showed for the waterfall and the Ahri scene. Now as for Ahri herself, if you do have some trouble on more so visualizing her appearance, the version of her that's being used is from the League of Legends (Standard Skin) form of Ahri.