This has been a long time coming. At last I've nailed down the remaining 11 chapters, and I feel confident enough to proceed again. I'll be updating weekly.

To recap, Bra has followed Touketsu Vegeta into Nav with the Night Day Effigy. Marenna has used a binding spell to prevent Touketsu Vegeta from using Kuromon, and so now he can't send Bra back. He is stuck taking care of her until nightfall, by which point he intends to sneak her into the kingdom and bring her to the hotspot at the Necropolis. Hope you enjoy reading, and please take a moment to leave a review!

AnonymousDBZFan, I'm sorry to make you wait so long! Hope you haven't lost interest. ;

I was just delighted over your review for the last chapter. Thank you! I'm so glad you got so much out of the last chatper and that you enjoyed the interactions between Touketsu Vegeta and Bra. I had so much fun writing them together! Much like Goku and Vegeta, they contrasted so starkly that it was just flat-out entertaing for me to write their dialog. Touketsu Vegeta is definitely over his head now, lol. He can no longer really remember his experience as a father, and even then he was pretty stern and distant with Trunks at the time.

In spite of being largely in the background since Vegeta's banishment, Marenna's proven to be a rather challenging character for me to write. It is the best compliment that you're unsure about her, lol.

While writing Bra I just found myself channeling all that childhood stuff, not the least of which where fairy tales and Disney movies, lol. Much like Goku in "Touketsu" (and Trunks to a lesser extent), Bra's prescence lightened things up a bit. There ended up being a lot of allusions to fairy tales for the rest of this story, lol. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! You've really kept me going on this entire thing, and I so appreciate you letting me know that you've actually been enjoying this.

Connections

"You can't feel her?"

Vegeta shook his head. "No," he said evenly, expertly hiding his fear.

Bulma hesitated, not wanting even for a moment to entertain the unthinkable. "Well, you've said yourself she has a low ki reading. If she snuck off somewhere it could be a distance thing," she reasoned. Bulma put a hand on her husband's shoulder; she could feel the tension in his body. "We'll find her, Vegeta. She's alright."

Touketsu's brow creased in his sleep, his breathing quickening as his dream shifted.

"I envied you so much…that I found myself being tempted to take your place, in spite of my resolve to sever ties with your life."

"You stay away from them," Vegeta spoke dangerously.

Touketsu looked to the chained prince. His expression of sadistic playfulness melted away into a somber one. "A little late for that," he told him quietly.

There was a thunderclap and Touketsu awoke with a start. Beyond the headlands where Touketsu and Bra sat, whitecaps were forming over the increasingly choppy waters of Nav's blood-red sea. The two were barely being sheltered from the hard rains by the overhang of rock they were under. It was morning, the daylight obfuscated by the dark storm clouds.

Touketsu glanced down at Bra's sleeping form wrapped within his shaggy arms, anxiety spreading through his body like wildfire. He'd completely lost it when Frieza killed Bulma and Trunks. What would Vegeta do if he found his daughter missing? If he couldn't so much as detect her ki anymore?

"Keep it together, she's fine," he rasped to himself, his heart still slamming in his chest. If only he could reach out across planes and definitively tell himself that.

He let out a tired breath. Gods, how he'd been plagued by these dreams. Ever since awakening, they'd trailed after him. They robbed him of sleep and left him anguished and drained. He had to succumb to complete exhaustion before being blessed with dreamless sleep. He looked down at the top of Bra's head, his eyes dulling. Aside from his ongoing trials and regrets, some of those dreams could well have been buried memories from his time on Earth.

He studied Bra's aqua locks, and he snorted softly to himself. The way Bulma sometimes manifested in different ages in his dreams…It was almost as though he'd been having prophetic dreams of this unknown girl, they looked so much alike. He slowly raised his head and stared out at the ocean.

That dream…that dream he'd had of holding that baby. Bulma and Trunks were there. He remembered distinctly the little wisp of blue hair on the babe's head. His eyes widened at the sudden epiphany. So many of the dreams were from Vegeta's perspective. Were those dreams not entirely conjured by his subconscious? Did he in fact still have a connection with himself?

It made sense. They were the same person. "Listen to me, Vegeta," he murmured urgently to himself. "Bra is alright, and she's coming home. It won't do you or your family any good to go razing the planet you're on looking for her. Remember what I said before I sent you back? I told you not to screw it up. Don't screw it up, do you hear me? It was an accident that she followed me, but she's fine. She won't come to harm!" he hissed.

Touketsu's heart sank with a thought: In his turmoil, Vegeta could be tuning him out. He himself had actively tuned out his conscience several times. He'd tuned out Vegeta's consciousness trapped within him when he'd heard his voice imploring him to gather Namek's Dragon Balls and resurrect his family. He'd ignored him screaming in anguish when he bent his knee to Frieza. He'd ignored him when he forced that kiss on Bulma.

Bulma. He didn't know if she could hear him through a one-sided Bond, but he was going to try. His eyes drew closed, and he offered up a prayer to his better half. "Bulma. Anchor him. Bra is alright. She followed me into Other World but she's alive and she's fine and I'm bringing her home. I didn't intend for this to happen, Bulma. I meant to stay out of your life. I'm sorry. Gods…I'm so sorry for everything I've done," he said, his whispering voice cracking. "I won't screw it up this time. I'm going to fix this. I'll bring her home. Tell Vegeta that Bra is alright, he'll listen to you. Please, Bulma. Keep him strong." He opened his eyes when he felt Bra begin to stir.

Bra woke up, looking confused for a moment before remembering where she was. She shivered against him and pulled the hood of her red Wonder Woman robe over her head. "Can you please raise your ki, Mr. Touketsu? My daddy does that all the time to dry me off when I come out of the pool, and it really helps warm me up."

Although the Berserker phase of his transformation generated intense heat, the energy was toxic. No way he'd risk exposing the child to that. For all he knew he could kill the fragile thing. "Alright. Just a second." He'd lost connection with the Life Force, but he'd attempt it anyway. He was still in denial about it himself. He closed his eyes and focused. A minute ticked by.

"Mr. Touketsu?" He grunted. "Oh. I thought you were asleep." He growled. Bra curled up against him and waited. She began idly tapping on the strange Icejin stone in his chest. "Are you doing it?"

"Yes," he growled. "Stop that."

She stopped fidgeting, and another thirty seconds went by. "Why is it taking so long? My daddy can-"

"Yeah, well I'm not your daddy!" he snapped defensively, and she flinched. "Damn it, just…just stop bugging me, alright? I need a few minutes." He huffed as he tried again, Bra falling silent as she cuddled up closer. Nothing appeared to be happening. His chest was rising and falling rapidly beneath her, and she looked up at him. His eyes were closed, his brows drawn together as he tried to catch his breath.

"M…Mr. Touketsu?" He didn't answer. "Mr. Touketsu?" He scowled.

"What?" he gasped.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," he panted, eyes half hooded with fatigue. Marenna had mentioned chronic exhaustion as a symptom of poor Life Force flow, and he'd been feeling it. With no connection, it would only get worse.

"Look, let's just get you back in the cave and out of the wind. I'll find some dry driftwood for a fire."

"What? I don't wanna be by myself!"

"Damn it, girl! I won't be long. See that beach there?" he asked, pointing ahead at the pebbly beach that extended from the rocky cove. She nodded. "That's where I'll be. You'll see me."

She nodded again and gave a meek "Ok." Clutching her close, he dropped back down into the shallows and waded back into the cavern and up onto the dry cave floor. He set her down and turned to bound over the rocks, following them as they curved left to connect with the coastline. Bra watched him as he reached the beach and jogged up to the piles of driftwood some distance from the water. Her brows were knit in confusion. He certainly seemed to know a lot about ki, so why didn't he just fly over? It would have been faster.

Digging beneath the driftwood piles for the driest pieces, Touketsu gathered an armload and bounded back up the rocks. He dumped the pile onto the cave floor and glanced surreptitiously at Bra. He'd have to try channeling his true ki again. The suffocating nature of the dark ki would suck the oxygen out and turn the wood into used-up carbon char. Kneeling down, he rubbed the knuckle of his index finger against his thumb a little anxiously and pointed at the pile of wood.

Bra chewed on her thumb while she watched. Nothing happened for long moments, and Touketsu began to perspire with embarrassment. He grabbed a small piece of wood and generated the dark ki. It combusted in his hands, and he quickly brought it to the pile in hopes the fleeting fire would catch. It took several frustrating tries, but it finally took. Leaning forward on hands and knees, he blew on the small flame and encouraged it to spread.

Bra continued to watch him silently. "Mr. Touketsu?"

He stopped, his eyes sliding closed in exasperation. "What?"

"…Are you sick?"

He sat back to grab a short piece of driftwood and looked back at her. "No." He crushed the wood into splinters and began feeding the small pieces into the fire.

Bra wasn't convinced. Channeling his ki looked like it was hard for him to do. But maybe like her he just wasn't used to it. "Are you still learning or something?"

"Learning what?"

"How to use ki."

"What?!" His body darkened like an incoming thunderstorm, his eyes flashing purple for a moment as his pride stirred. "I know how to use ki, girl." The light strumming over his markings and power lighting up the Icejin stone in his chest, he felt himself gloating as the little girl looked on in amazement and a little fear. She flinched when his aura of dripping indigo power exploded over his form, and he held up his hand.

The darkness left his body to create a small, black orb hovering over his palm, his aura joining it to form an accretion disc of purple and blue fire that deformed over its top. Bra watched in fascination, her hair buffeting and pulling towards the mini-black hole. Touketsu grinned pridefully, but he faltered when he noticed that the orb was sucking in the flames from the campfire he'd worked so hard on.

He quickly closed his hand and extinguished it. "That. Is a mere fraction of the power I wield." He set to feeding the campfire which had suffered a bit from his demonstration. "I used this very power to go back in time and save your father's ass! Did you know that!?" he shouted as his head shot up to her. Eyes wide, Bra shook her head 'no'. He snorted before returning his attention to the fire, grumbling. "I was channeling my ki when I was a mere babe. By the time I mastered it, I was a toddler. You are way behind," he snarled at her as he angrily shoved another piece of kindling into the fire.

Bra looked offended. "I'm not behind! I go to the Orange Star Elementary for Gifted Children, and I'm in grade 5 at S.T.E.A.M. Academy!"

He looked up from the campfire. "Steam? What, are you learning how to boil water?"

"No! It's science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics!"

He rolled his eyes. "School can't teach you everything."

"That's why Mama teaches me, too."

"And what about your father!?" he snapped. He was beginning to think that the incident with Trunks had led Vegeta to overcorrect himself in his training approach. He was way too soft on this girl! "This is inexcusable," he said as he stood, and he pointed down at her. "You are a Saiyan princess, a royal descendant of a powerful warrior race, and you need to toughen up, kid - you have some traveling in your future. You're going to learn to channel your ki."

He didn't miss the way her face scrunched up in distaste before she dropped her head. "You're interested in flying, correct?" She looked up hesitantly. "That's good, because it's among the simplest and most practical ways to use ki. He motioned to her to follow him deeper into the cave where the ceiling was higher, and he sat down cross legged. Mirroring him, she sat across from him. "Alright. Now, you must begin by clearing your mind. Once that is done, focus your energy."

"Focus my energy?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You just do it."

Bra frowned. Her father told her the same thing and she didn't understand his instruction any better. They sat silent for a bit.

"Alright. Now that your mind is cleared, focus on the wellspring of energy inside you. That is where the Life Force flows. Do you feel it?"

"Ummm. I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't know what it's supposed to feel like! I don't wanna do this anymore!"

He growled. "And that is EXACTLY why you haven't learned. You give up far too soon! It will only get harder to learn the longer you put it off!"

"I don't care," she pouted.

"You don't want to know how to fly?"

"I'll just invent synthetic pixie dust."

He blinked. "What the hell are you talking about, 'pixie dust'?"

"Well, you know that Disney movie, 'Peter Pan?'" His incredulous expression told her he didn't. "Well, Peter Pan told Wendy, John and Michael that if they use pixie dust and have happy thoughts they can all fly."

"Oh. Well isn't that nice," he said sarcastically. "Unfortunately, pixie dust and happy thought are in rather short supply around here! Listen girl, you'd better start learning that life isn't some fairy tale."

"I know!" she shouted as she got up. "I don't wanna do this anymore! I'm cold and I'm tired and this rocky floor is hurting my butt!"

Vegeta had his hands full, gods above. "Bra," he said as he stood. "This is exactly the problem. You didn't properly clear your mind first of all, and now you're focusing on your ass instead of this lesson!"

"I was trying!"

"You are too distracted by errant thoughts! You cannot move forward if you're being pulled in different…directions…"

"You remember what I told you, about your two energies contesting with each other?"

"This dark energy is isolated and oppressively heavy. Surely you don't believe you're flying right now using such energy, do you?"

Marenna. She certainly knew what she was talking about. Touketsu glanced over at the frustrated little girl fighting back tears. Perhaps…perhaps a different tack.

"Um…Bra. You said something about," he grimaced, "…happy thoughts?" She looked up at him. "You're distracted by things that are upsetting you," he said, his tone softer. "Don't focus on your discomfort. Now, I want you to close your eyes." He didn't push her, and after a moment she did as she was told. "Focus instead on how you'll feel when you lift off the ground. Focus on the sense of power you'll experience when you accomplish that. Imagine what it would be like to beat your older brother in a flight race." She smiled a little as her imagination took her there. "How do you feel?"

"Happy," she said quietly, a smile in her voice. "Excited."

"Good. Stay in that place. Because there, you're not learning how to fly - you already know how. Relax, focus on that, and let it happen. The Life Force will flow through you, unify with your desires, and make them real."

A minute went by in silence, Bra meditating on the experience of flight. Then, there was an invisible but tactile sensation of whirling energy around the little girl. Several more seconds went by, and she began to lift from the cave floor. Touketsu's eyes widened, and Bra's eyes snapped open in surprise when she felt her feet leave the ground. She dropped down a little, and her arms wheeled out.

Touketsu quickly grabbed her by the hands. "Bra, look at me." They locked eyes. "Focus. Just focus on flight." She began to lift up again, a smile turning up as she did. "Good. Good girl." She continued to lift, and he released her hands as she giggled in excitement. "Yes! Yes, good girl!"

"I'm doing it!" she laughed. She went higher to the cave ceiling before realizing how far off the ground she was. Fear flashed through her eyes, and she dropped a little.

"No, no, don't panic!" He called out as he threw out his hands. "You've got this. You're not going to fall so long as you know that. You've got this, kid," he said, nonetheless walking over to position himself beneath her. She calmed, and her levitation leveled out.

"Come up with me!" she beamed, giddy with excitement.

His smile became strained. "Not right now, kid."

"Why not? Come fly with me!"

"Not now!" he snapped. She flinched and began to lower without knowing it. He felt that damnable crushing feeling in his heart. "You know what, that's enough for now, Bra. Come on down." She continued to lower, and at the sight of her disappointment he held his arms out to her. "I'll catch you." She dropped down into his arms. "Good girl. You did well."

He felt like an open book when she looked up at him. Bra was young and innocent, but she wasn't stupid. She knew something was wrong with him. It suddenly occurred to him that she could help dig him out of this hole. This was Vegeta's daughter, and her ki signature was therefore similar to his. Her energy could help his body recognize its true ki. If that worked, the ki blockages would be cleared, and he could once again reconnect with the Life Force.

"Next lesson," he announced brusquely as he put her down. "You're going to manifest your ki into pure energy. Then…you're going to attack me."

Ten minutes later, Bra had successfully managed to generate a ball of blue-white ki the size of a large shooter marble. Per Touketsu's instruction, she tossed it to him as he went flat black. She watched in curiosity as the currently invisible markings on his body pulsed once with weak light as he absorbed the energy. His body fading back to white, he stood for a moment as he seemingly just stared at his upturned palm. He dropped it to his side. "Again, Bra," he ordered gruffly.

"Why do you get all dark like that?" she asked innocently.

"I have the power to absorb others' energy and use it for myself. I can even drain enemies of their life force with a touch," he said with an arrogant and menacing smirk.

"Oh. Is that what you just did? Absorb my energy?"

"Yes."

"Why? Are you going to use it for something?"

He hesitated. He didn't want to admit his handicap in front of the little girl. "No. I'm doing this to gauge the strength behind your attacks. If ki energy disappears when it hits me, that means it's weak," he said pointedly as he looked at her. "You need to improve upon the power behind your attacks. Again, Bra. And this time, put some goddamn power into it!" he shouted as his body again went dark.

She frowned with determination. She'd show him. With a shout she flared her blue-white aura, and she generated a sphere of ki the size of a golf ball. She wound her arm back but didn't release it. Channeling the Life Force through her with a yell, it ballooned to the size of a baseball, and she threw it.

It struck Touketsu in the chest to be immediately absorbed, the energy strumming through his markings. He dropped the shadow and again looked to his upturned palm expectantly; his red eyes widened when a blue-white sphere of true ki the size of a ball bearing manifested over his palm.

"Why is it so tiny now?" Bra asked.

Touketsu reigned in a snarl as he looked at her. To challenge you! Now catch it and make it BIGGER!" he shouted as he whipped it at her. With a squeak of surprise she flinched and dodged it, and the teensy ball hit the cave wall with a spark and a hiss.

She looked at him meekly. "…Sorry."

Touketsu's shoulders dropped in exasperation, one eye ticking. "Again, Bra."

Forty five minutes later, and Touketsu generated a golf ball sized sphere of true ki. "Alright, Bra. Do as you did before and blast it."

The little girl generated a ball of energy and blasted the incoming ki back to him, the two spheres of true ki combining into one. "I'm getting tired."

"We've barely started," he grunted as his body again briefly flashed black to absorb the energy. A very loud gurgling suddenly filled the cave. He looked at her in some surprise as his body faded back to white.

"That was my tummy," Bra said sheepishly.

Shit. That was indeed a problem. Little girl or no, she was both a mortal AND a Saiyan hybrid. She'd be voracious in no time at all. Nav's crap game underscored the urgency of the situation. He suddenly tensed when he remembered something Kuma had told him.

"You're lucky you're a demon, because if you were a regular living mortal even the food at Susmir wouldn't be enough to keep you alive."

Never mind starvation, she'd die just by merit of being on this plane. How long would she last? He broke out into a sweat; she'd been exerting herself during this training. "Alright, alright, kid. We'll take a break, and I'll go fishing," he said as he pulled the effigy from under his belt and tossed it to the cave floor. The belt and metal thigh guards followed, leaving him in his blood-stained wrap. He pointed at her. "You stay right here."

"I'm tired of being here!"

"It's storming out! You're not going anywhere."

"Well…when it stops can I go play on the beach?"

"He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ok Bra, look," he said as he walked over to her and squatted down so he was at eye level. "Do you know where you are?"

"Um…in my dream?"

He shook his head once. "You followed me to Nav. It's a planet in Other World."

"Other World? Y…you mean the place where ghosts go?" She squeaked.

"Something like that, but you're very much alive. Your lack of a halo would draw a lot of attention, so you can't be seen."

Her face fell. "Why? Would I get in trouble for being alive?"

He stood. "No, but it's not…natural here." If anyone reported that a living girl had been sighted, it could make things much more complicated for him.

She frowned in bewilderment. "Well, you don't have a halo. How come you're here?"

Damn it. "Ok, well a very few people that live here don't have halos."

"Why?"

"They're gods."

She gasped in awe. "So you're a god?"

He was about to refute that when he thought better of it. You know what, he basically was! His power was so great he could turn solar systems into black holes. He had the ability to cross dimensions and travel through space time. He had lived for possibly thousands if not millions of years as a terrifying beast, yet he hadn't aged at all. He crossed his arms and tilted his head up proudly. "Yes."

"Wow," she breathed, then her brows drew together in confusion. "I thought you said you were a monster?"

"Uh. I'm your family's monster. Mortals are fearful creatures, and they call everything they're afraid of 'monsters'," he said with an arrogant wave of his hand. "In reality, I am a god."

Her eyes lit up in excitement. "What are you a god of?"

He was a half second away from telling her 'destruction', when he thought better of it; he couldn't continue scaring her, not if he wanted her trust in getting her home. "I'm the God of…Travelers and Crossroads."

She scrunched her face up. "What?" That sounded lame.

"Yes." He cleared his throat. "I grant safe passage to those traveling between the Mortal World and Other World. Seeing as how you need to go back to your family on the Physical Plane, you would do well to heed me, girl. I'm the one who's going to get you home, understand?"

She nodded, "Ok," she said respectfully.

"Alright. I'll be back soon," he said as he turned and went out into the storm.

Outside, Touketsu experimentally tried connecting with the Life Force. By the gods… Hope stirred within him when he could feel it ever so slightly. He attempted to create a ball of true ki on his own. He felt the Life Force begin to come together within him like thin, frayed threads. After a minute, a tiny, bead-sized sphere manifested in his palm. With a small smile, he quickly drew it back in and repeated the process several more times, his connection increasing a bit more. It wasn't enough to levitate with, but this was a start. Sweeping aside concerns that he may have compromised Bra, he dove into the water to fish.

A half hour later, Touketsu breached the water with a gasp and holding a large, writhing fish by the tail. If he killed the damn thing now it would start rotting immediately. He dove back beneath the waves, dragging his scaled captive behind him as he swam back to the cave. The water becoming more turbulent, the fish wriggled and fought as the water moved and swelled. It slipped out of his grasp and swam off out of view.

Damn it! He swam after it when a massive wave heaved beneath to lift him back up to the surface. The giant wave crashed onto the beach, sending him tumbling onto the sand. He lay there for a moment, The water trickled past him back into the ocean as his eyes cracked open. With a grunt he began to push himself up, his long hair plastered over his face and shoulders and wet sand caking his bare chest. It was then he noticed the stout pair of legs standing a short distance from him.

With a start he looked up. Before he could react, the huge figure grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up, someone else grabbing him by the other arm. He was moved through the air so fast he had barely blinked before he was standing before a wooden hovel. He was shoved inside.

"What do you think you're doing, idiots?!" he shouted as he whirled around, his wet hair whipping through the air and his tail lashing in agitation.

"Shhh!" Nappa hushed, holding his hands out at the feral-looking, water-logged prince.

"You dare shush me?!-"

"Vegeta," Raditz hissed over his shoulder as he placed the large piece of wood that served as the door over the entrance. "Everyone was starting to believe you were dead. What are you doing here?"

He shook the water out of his hair and looked away. "That's my business," he growled as he removed the soaked wrap.

"You can cross planes, right?" Raditz asked as Touketsu wrung the water from the garment. "You need to leave. There's a warrant out for your arrest."

He scoffed as he put the wrap back on. "And that concerns you?"

Nappa and Raditz said nothing, but it was quite clear to the prince what they were thinking. Zeygorn had defeated him in the arena in brutal fashion, and the queen barely needed to lift a finger in order to subdue him. He'd normally be pissed that his underlings dared doubt his abilities, but he knew he was compromised. Because of his disconnect with the Life Force, there had been no Zenkai Boost after his near-death experience. Now he couldn't even so much as fly, and further use of the dark ki would cancel out the small gains he'd made with Bra.

Speaking of which, he needed to get back to her. "You swear fealty to the Saiyan throne?" Touketsu asked, and they nodded without hesitation. "Then I command you to get the fuck out of my way before I blast you away," he said as he strode towards the door. They both moved to stand in front of it, and he quickly uppercutted Raditz before plowing a fist into Nappa's stomach. He dropped the big Saiyan with a double axe handle when he doubled over. "What did I say?!"

Raditz cradled his jaw. "Vegeta do you really want to go out that way?! A public execution, drawn and quartered?"

"My choices are my own!"

Raditz straightened and stood over Touketsu, his expression stern while Nappa slowly got up. "You're the prince of our people, right? You represent all Saiyans, and your choices impact us all." Shaking his head at the Mid-Class's persistent idealism, Touketsu turned away to pace. "You're going to again risk dishonoring the Saiyan legacy-"

"-Shut up."

"-yourself, and your lineage with an inglorious death?-"

-Shut up!"

"-YOU'RE THE LAST OF THE ROYAL BLOODLINE!"

"I'M NOT!"

Silence descended over the small room. "Y-you're…what?" Did Vegeta have a long lost brother or something?

Touketsu's shoulders dropped. "I'm not the last," he said tiredly. He didn't know if they could grasp the insanity of all this, but he couldn't avoid the topic any longer. He gave them both their full attention and took a breath. "I have a son." Their jaws dropped, their expressions becoming more incredulous as he continued. "I took an Earth woman as a mate, and I had a son. I continue to live on the Physical Plane…right now, and Prince Vegeta now has a daughter, too. He shook his head. "I'm not the last."

They continued to just gawp at him. "Uh, Vegeta…" Nappa began slowly. "I think maybe ya swallowed too much seawater."

Touketsu growled. "Imbecile. Damn it, this is why I didn't tell you two about ANY of this shit that night. You're too fucking stupid! You see what's become of me? Well, I've also been split in half. There is a version of me that lives on Earth, a version that didn't become this," he said, gesturing to himself. "And now his daughter followed me here and the little runt is probably freaking out that I'm not back yet!" He stood seething at their gaping expressions for but a moment. "I've wasted enough time on you two." He threw the door aside and jogged back to the pounding shoreline, lightning cracking in the sky and the rain pouring down.

He skid to a stop when he saw the tiny, red speck flitting about in the sky. "Son of a bitch!" Bra had coming looking for him, but she was flying in the opposite direction in her search. He was severely regretting teaching her how to fly. He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Bra! I'm over here!" She couldn't hear him, and she was flying further away. "Bra!"

Nappa and Raditz jogged out after him. The prince was being completely reckless, out in the open and yelling at the top of his lungs. He was going to be discovered!

"Vegeta! What-"

"The girl, damn it!" he shouted as he pointed up at her. "The brat went looking for me. Fly up and get her before she gets electrocuted." He saw them hesitate in confusion, and he grit his teeth. "Damn it, I can't fly in this form! Not anymore. Go to her NOW before she gets herself killed!"

Slack jawed for only a moment more, they nodded and shot up into the sky to meet her. "Oi! Kid!" Nappa called out.

Bra started and looked from one enormous, haloed man to the other. They were dressed like soldiers, their armor strangely similar to the kind her daddy wore. They were absolutely huge and very intimidating. "Am…am I in trouble?" she squeaked. Mr. Touketsu warned her about any of the residents spotting a living being here.

They both saw that she was about to bolt. "Uh, no, it's okay," Raditz said, his hands out. He would have swooped in and grabbed her, but he'd used the same approach on his nephew, and it did NOT go well. He wasn't about to piss Vegeta off by manhandling his supposed daughter. "This is a bad storm, and you need to land. Come with us." She hesitated. "We're friends of-"

"Gotcha!" Nappa flew in and snatched her up with one giant arm. He sped back down to the beach with her screaming in terror all the way.

Raditz hung in the air blinking before speeding down after them. "Goddamn it, Nappa."

Touketsu ran to where Nappa had landed, Raditz not far behind. "What the hell are you doing, you fool!? You're going to hurt her!"

"Oh, uh, sorry, Vegeta. Just wanted to get her outta the storm."

Vegeta? Was her father here? Bra squirmed around to look. "Mr. Touketsu!" She leaned out of Nappa's arms and flung her arms around Touketsu's neck.

Touketsu growled in embarrassment. "Yes, it's me." Nappa let go of her, and Touketsu pulled away, one arm cradled under her bottom. "Didn't I tell you to stay in the cave?" he reprimanded as he leaned out of her grasp. "What were you thinking? You could have been struck by lightning!"

She dropped her head in shame. "I was getting scared. Water started coming in, and I didn't know where you were and-"

"Forget it, forget it," he waved her off, not keen on any of her ensuing blubbering. "You're fine, now." He looked to Nappa and Raditz as she again wrapped her arms around him. "We're waiting this storm out at your shack, you two," he shouted to his underlings before striding off towards the shelter.

Raditz looked at Nappa. "Didn't he lose his hand?" Nappa just shook his head and shrugged before following the prince.

Alone in her throne room, Marenna brooded as it stormed outside. He'd indeed compromised her. If she wasn't, she'd have had the presence of mind to use the binding spell as a preventative measure the moment he escaped Volkfangr. When she'd declared to him that she'd treat him like the other Inimicus, she'd meant it. Her heart, however, had shown her otherwise the night he nearly died. She'd been completely undone, already mourning his death.

If he'd attempted Kuromon from Nav to Earth, all he had to do was step through. Her moment of clarity to perform the binding spell had been far too late. She cursed the night her daughters accosted him in the bathhouse. She'd been slowly unraveling ever since, her decisions emotionally swayed. She'd maintained her distance from him up until the night she'd visited him at his dwelling, but she knew she'd been in denial. She'd been breaking her own laws for him. She was failing as an objective ruler.

Her daughters had reported on several occasions his use of Kuroshimo on the Inimicus, thankfully without destroying their souls. They hadn't witnessed the single time that that he had. When the two Inimicus failed to attend the Tournament, Marenna had suspected him. She knew the prideful man would seek out other sources of energy, and his malnourished spirit would set him up to make terrible mistakes. Still, she'd looked away.

She'd felt out for him in the past, to get a gauge on his mental state while maintaining distance, but doing so had proven futile. He was closed off even when they first met, and she could only feel out his mood and communicate to him telepathically if they were close to each other. Part of the very reason for his mental fogginess and closed mind was his poor connection with the Life Force. Undoubtedly, it had gotten worse.

If he was on Earth, it would be in her own best interests that her peers apprehended him. Looking away and letting the other Shin handle him was certainly a better alternative than seeing him sacrificed to Queen Zarkala's insatiable fury. If he was on Nav…she had a difficult decision to make. She shifted her thoughts away from Touketsu and onto Lenitsa, the upcoming Forgiveness Festival. It was being held today, and she was expected to oversee it.

Touketsu Vegeta's claim to be a god of travelers and crossroads was a little nod to Sarutahiko Ōkami, also called Saruta-Hiko. A Japanese god of travelers and crossroads, he's said to stand at the crossroads between Heaven and Earth. Often described as a kind of tengu, his name can be read as "Great god Prince Saruta" or "Field-monkey prince".

"Focus my energy?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You just do it."

That was a little reference to the first story, when Trunks give Touketsu a lesson on how to do Gallic Gun. Trunks was apparently passing along Vegeta's instruction, lol.

The Lenitsa Festival is a play on Maslenitsa, a week-long Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday. It has its roots in a pagan Slavic celebration that banishes Winter and welcomes Spring. On the last day of the festival, called "Forgiveness Sunday", an effigy of "Lady Maslenitsa" is burned. Lady Maslenitsa symbolizes Morana, the Slavic Goddess of winter and death.