Korin hopped over Yajirobe's diving grab and tapped both of his feet over his head, pushing the wandering swordsman to plant down on the ground with his face, only to rise back up on his feet, rubbing the swollen pancake and wiping faint traces of blood off of his nose.
"So I'm going to need you two to ascend this tower to the very top…" Korin exclaimed out of the blue while Yajirobe had been gathering his strength for another shot at the white cat and its fish that it has been nibbling on. Time was a factor for Korin was reducing the fish into bones at an alarming rate for his meek size.
"What do you mean?" Yamcha wondered. "Isn't your temple the top of the Korin Tower?"
"Oh, no…" Korin chuckled up. "This temple is just a testing ground, in a way. Those that climb up here with their own two hands might receive my training, get a few of my excellent gifts and then scram, having their minds blown but perfectly content for the rest of their days."
"Excellent gifts? All ye've given me was a bunch 'a beans!" Yajirobe shook his fist, a rude sentiment for which he received a knock on his head from Korin's hammer-shaped staff.
"Would it kill you to be a little bit nicer? Anyway, those that I deem truly worthy to meet Earth's guardian, Kami, I grant one of these bells to." Korin withdrew a jingling set of bells from behind him and dangled them in front of Yamcha. The set of bells seemed familiar to the martial artist so he reached for behind his belt where he had his own pair stashed away. "Those that receive these bells, can then ascend to meet Kami himself. That being said, we can make an exception just this once for Tenshinhan, I suppose, since this is an emergency."
Tenshinhan bowed his head, grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and then looked up at Korin. "Emergency?" he wondered.
"That's right. I usually have a communication line with Kami but in the excitement of the past few days, I was unable to reach him. Kami himself rarely answers so it would normally be of no surprise that I haven't seen his face in a while and a day but… Not even Mr. Popo, Kami's attendant answers, that is highly unusual. If something has happened to Kami, Demon King Piccolo is none of the world's worries…" Korin explained himself. "Earth must always have a Kami."
"If the Demon King has been killed, then Kami might have died as well, that's what you're worried about, correct?" Tenshinhan asked.
"Indeed…" Korin swiped his tail to the side to slap Yajirobe on the cheek, who tried to sneak up on the white cat on the cheek and send him falling down on his side, falling like timber.
"I've left my jet down with Bora. I can use the communications systems to reach out to Bulma and Roshi-san to find out if the Dragon Balls are still intact. If they're still active, that means that both the Demon King and Kami are alive." Yamcha suggested.
"Then we can ascend the tower and meet up with Kami, find out what he's been up to." Tenshinhan agreed. "But how will we get up there? I recall Yamcha saying that you can only scale this tower with your own two hands and it doesn't appear like there would be an extension to reach Kami climbing on."
"Normally, you would need the Nyoibou to connect the Korin Temple and God's Temple. However, if you fly using the flight technique, that would be fine too. Though if Kami is in trouble, he would be in no position to watch over your climb anyway…" Korin explained.
"I see… So that is why you've chosen Tenshinhan to accompany me, the worthy martial artist – he would be my transport up to the God's Temple…" Yamcha stroke his chin while he jested.
"I'm sure that someone as skilled as Kami-sama will see the injustice of the situation immediately and, if he's merciful, he will allow you to pick up scraps from my training." Tenshinhan bit back with a smirk on his face as well.
"Alright, alright… I wouldn't mind if you got to it already." Korin's image faded away, revealing him to only be an afterimage, one of many that scattered across the temple, making Yajirobe's head spin while he fell on his butt wheezing. Yajirobe may have had ample physical power, stamina and speed to compete with Korin but he didn't seem to be too used to moving around in such drastic altitude and it might take him a couple of days to get used to it, similarly to how it went with Yamcha and Krillin.
Without asking for permission, Tenshinhan grabbed Yamcha's collar and took off, taking his rival over the edge and swooping down to Bora's tent, where Yamcha had left his jet and where the martial artist could use it to contact Bulma and the rest of the Dragon Team. Bora ran out from his tent, his spear in hand the moment when he felt something picking up from above but his grip on his weapon eased when he saw Yamcha and Tenshinhan swoop down.
"Greetings, I've watched over your iron bird." Bora nodded and pointed at the jet. "Is your business with the God of the Korin Tower over already? I seem to recall there being three of you on the way up…"
"Oh, no, we've just landed to use the jet. Yajirobe stayed up there to train with Korin-sama while we use the jet. We're going to go up even higher, it seems…" Yamcha scratched his chest and nodded in acknowledgment of Bora before the pair rushed for the jet. After taking the front seat, Yamcha began adjusting some switches and working the tech on the jet to contact the Dragon Team while Tenshinhan stood to watch.
"How dare you take the loot that the Bearzoo Pirates have righteously stolen!?" a massive anthropomorphic bear in a pirate's robe and captain's hat and one working eye roared out. Captain Bearzoo of Bearzoo pirates pulled his sword and swung it around, grazing it dangerously close to his whited out left eye that carried a nasty scar over it that likely was the thing that put out the eye's vision permanently.
"Oh, we don't need all of the loot, Mr. Pirate, we just need the Dragon Ball…" Muten Roshi pointed at the Dragon Ball resting on a pile of golden coins, golden swords, and shields, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, plates of armor and helmets, even gold-coated food that laid scattered across the pile of treasure that spilled out of the dozens of chests that were meant to keep it contained.
"Speak for yourself, old man!" Launch cocked her gun and pointed it at the boar-pirates around her, some of whom were armed themselves while others wielded scimitars and growled at the group that just swooped out of the blue and landed on their ship before the Bearzoo Pirates could direct their cannons at them. "I'm gonna drag the last pants off 'a these guys!"
"Ya'll die, broad!" Captain Bearzoo roared while swinging his mighty blade, sending a concentrated airwave that split the deck of his own ship apart, forcing a bunch of the coin and golden loot to spill into the lower cabins of the ship from up above. Muten Roshi took a gentle leap to the side, avoiding the ship-splitting, ranged, cutting technique and hopped forward with a rather gentle roundhouse kick that sent Captain Bearzoo down for the count with both of his eyes whited out, though the right one was just rolled back and not blinded like the other one.
Launch opened fire from a pair of submachine guns at the oncoming outraged pirates while Chiaotzu used his telekinesis to stop the bullets that the pirates meant to return in mid-air. Before long, the pirates leaped into the over the board themselves to avoid the raging blonde and her ghoulish guardian, as well as the certainty of drowning as a couple of rockets that Launch had sent from a four-barrels rocket launcher she held in a capsule inside her bra, had finished the job so absent-mindedly stared by captain Bearzoo himself when he began wrecking the ship, dooming the vessel for the bottom of the North Ocean.
Puar swooped over the opening cracks in the ship's upper deck and picked up the Dragon Ball before it could roll into the crevice and become threatened to drown down under with the ship, further complicating securing the wish-fulfillment artifact. The Dragon Team hurried for their jet and took off, leaving the ship to drown.
"Damn those geezers, they've got some thick skin to take all those bullets…" Launch spat to her side. "Why are you such a wimp then?" she looked at Oolong who technically shared some semblance of similarity with the hogs of the Bearzoo Pirates due to being a pig himself.
"Excuse me? Not all pigs, thank you! So you're assuming that I can survive gunshots just because I'm a pig too? That's deeply offensive!" Oolong yelled back at Launch, not because he was bold enough to reply in the same tone he was spoken to but because the sky-scraping volume of the jet's flight forced him to.
"Can you two can it for a little bit, we're getting a transmission…" Bulma flipped a switch, letting a television screen lower from up above and let out a screen of static before the view filtered out to show Yamcha's face.
"It's Yamcha-san!" Puar cheered.
"An' Tenshinhan!" Launch pointed at the three-eyed baldy who occasionally looked at the screen from the side.
"I'm gonna kick you straight in the balls when I see you!" Bulma yelled at the screen, this time it was absolutely because she thought herself capable of speaking this way as the jet had evened out its flight path and was now sailing through the clouds as smooth as a swan. "You've gone silent for days! What's wrong with you!?"
"Everything's fine, Bulma. We were just a bit busy… We've confronted Demon King Piccolo and beat him. Tenshinhan tried destroying him with a Kikoho but… Tell me, Bulma, are the Dragon Balls okay?" Yamcha tried explaining everything that happened as soon as he could, the opportunity of meeting Kami himself atop of his temple and surpassing not only Tenshinhan but also Goku and Chayote seemed to excite him too much to take his time talking to his girlfriend.
"What!? You beat the Demon King!?" Muten Roshi drove his shoulder into Bulma's nearly shoving the blue-haired girl out of the driver's seat entirely. "That is unbelievable news indeed! Tenshinhan did you destroy the Demon King!?"
"That's what we're trying to find out, it's going to take too long to explain, Roshi-sama, please tell us if the Dragon Balls are active, it's important to know that," Tenshinhan answered.
"W-Well…" Bulma grunted while pushing Muten Roshi out of her way and getting the handle of the jet back in control, "We haven't collected them all just yet. We've just recovered the sixth and the seventh isn't too far away. The sixth was on a pirate ship in the North Ocean and the seventh is further north, in the Glacier Region."
"S-So… The Dragon Balls are active then?" Tenshinhan's face paled out with dread.
"H-Huh? Y-Yeah…" Bulma nodded, "What's all this about?"
"Shit…" Tenshinhan ground his teeth. "That means that the Demon King Piccolo escaped the blast range of my Kikoho somehow and survived. You guys need to be careful. He's old and weak now, plus, he couldn't have recovered from the injuries he sustained in such a short time so it's likely that Chiaotzu or Muten Roshi could take him as he is now but… Be careful."
The connection went out with a white blink that left the screen black and with a mechanical hum, the television screen rolled back up into a compartment over the front window of the jet. Bulma grit her teeth together and could just barely restrain her fury over being dismissed like that the first time Yamcha contacted her after such an emotional departure.
"I swear… The Dragon Balls are all he's thinking about!" she grumbled. "What was that all about!?"
"It's good news! Ten-san beat Demon King Piccolo!" Chiaotzu exclaimed.
"It is… But… The plan still hasn't changed. The Demon King Piccolo went into hiding and there's no way of finding him without Chayote or Baba's aid. Our best shot is still to collect the Dragon Balls and ask the Divine Dragon to destroy the Demon King now that he's weakened." Muten Roshi declared with a grim expression.
"What's the matter, Muten Roshi-san?" Chiaotzu wondered.
"It's… Something that those two implied… They understood that Demon King Piccolo is alive because the Dragon Balls are active, right? That means that they have somehow found out that if the Demon King was truly gone, the Dragon Balls would become inert. Likely permanently…" Muten Roshi stroked his beard.
"What?!" Bulma's jaw dropped. "How is that possible?!"
"I am not sure… One possible answer would be that the Dragon Balls were created by Demon King Piccolo himself and they were sustained through his magic alone. Who knows… Maybe the magic in the Dragon Balls is what allowed Demon King to survive Tenshinhan's blast? Anyway… This is not ideal but it is good news." Muten Roshi sighed.
"Ten-san used the Kikoho again…" Chiaotzu sighed.
"True, that was reckless of him, especially if the implication that he had already had Demon King Piccolo beat by then was true. Still, if there was one time to use the Kikoho and gamble with one's own life – it's against the Demon King himself…" Muten Roshi declared. "Let's move on for the seventh Dragon Ball and hope for the best."
Spiraling like an arrow, the jet drilled through the skies, propelling toward the final Dragon Ball in the set of seven, resting deep within the massive Glacial Region.
"Well… That won't end well…" Yamcha sighed, blowing out the full chest of air all at once. "Bulma's gonna kill me when we meet face-to-face, and just when we made-up too…"
"All the more reason to fly up to God's Temple and start training there," Tenshinhan smirked.
"We're not flying up there to train, remember, we're going up there to check up on Kami and find out why he's been vacant the past couple of days…" Yamcha reminded the overly excited rival of his. Even though Tenshinhan was burning up with a passion to train, Yamcha couldn't quite blame him for the same passion burned inside him too. This was his chance to not only catch up to Tenshinhan but also surpass him, training with Kami himself, training on the divine plateau of martial arts might just be the break he needed to make the gap between him and the rest disappear completely.
The two jumped out of the jet and Yamcha reduced it to a capsule and added it back into his case. There was no need to put Bora through the strain of watching over their "iron bird" anymore, especially if they would be gone on the God's Temple for a longer period of time if Kami truly agreed to train them as Korin's chosen. The worthy ones…
"You're leaving up there again?" Bora wondered.
"Yeah. All the way up this time…" Yamcha nodded.
"You… You guys haven't by any chance heard from my son, have you? He left a few years ago…" Bora asked.
"To learn from Fortuneteller Baba? Yeah, he became her apprentice. Last time we saw him in the tournament, he's grown some and adopted a new style, even got himself some fancy face-paint. He's truly morphing into an admirable young man." Yamcha nodded.
"Face paint? So he's gone this far ahead to earn himself face-paint… While my heart is sad I was not there to apply it myself, as a father, I could not be more proud!" Bora nodded with a rich smile on his face.
"Why don't you go and see him? Someone as tough as you could cover the distance in a week on foot or so…" Tenshinhan wondered.
"I cannot. I am the protector of the Sacred Land of Korin and Upa will be the protector after me." Bora declared and pounded his fist like a hammer against his chest. The fearsome tribal warrior was a sight to behold when he got worked up, Tenshinhan had to admit that much.
"Alright, we're sort of in a hurry, aren't we?" Tenshinhan nodded and grabbed hold of Yamcha's wrist. His feet left the ground slowly in the beginning but then the two began blasting off for real. It would have taken entire days to levitate up to Korin's Temple and past it normally so Tenshinhan had to truly kick it up a notch.
The journey up and through the heavens seemed almost infinite. It took at least fifteen minutes for Tenshinhan to cover the distance up to the and then past Korin's Temple and Yamcha had to hand it to him with how impressive that was but it appeared as if though their journey had still just begun. At some point, the martial artist stowaway could only wonder if the lack of breathable air so high up, the cold and the general aftereffects of such a speedy trip were worse compared to the endless shifting view of the skies. Yamcha couldn't even recall if he'd ever seen the ground and not the fading away layers of clouds when looking down…
"There it is, the temple!" Tenshinhan declared, forcing Yamcha to look up at the floating, ancient platform up above covered with colorful decorations of red, blue and marble-white. Recalling his initial climb up the Korin Tower, Yamcha wondered if Kami was truly observing and controlling those reaching out to his temple for he could recall taking more than a few thunderbolts on his first trip up the Korin Tower whereas now the trip seemed almost… Tranquil.
The place was completely silent, so much so that the gentle taps of Tenshinhan and Yamcha's boots touching the pristine white tiles of the temple seemed like it had resonated all throughout the place and through even their own bodies as all noise did when one's ears were clogged. Maybe it was just some nasty aftereffect of the thin atmosphere and the immense altitude but… There was an eerie atmosphere about the entire place that could not have been denied.
"You… Weren't whom I've been expecting…" a tall, slim and stumbling figure appeared from the doorway far ahead, past the gardens and the rows of trees, from the palace at the northern end of the platform.
"The Demon King!?" Yamcha took a few steps back.
"No, remember what Korin told us – they were once two and the same. The Ki of this man feels completely different somehow…" Tenshinhan stopped Yamcha from doing something stupid.
Kami, the guardian of Earth looked so weakened and drained of all semblance of life. Jolts of lightning occasionally left his body but this was no mere show of power for the electricity appeared to hurt Kami himself more than anyone else. Something was very wrong. Kami didn't look to be in any health whatsoever to watch over the world in his current state, he barely looked better than the Demon King looked when Tenshinhan tried destroying him once and for all.
Training indeed would have to wait.