Intending to exploit the moment of opportunity when King Piccolo's body still felt rough and exhausted right after his massive explosive wave, Chayote raised both her hands up in front of her. Focusing her Ki in the center of the exposed palms, two Ki waves erupted outward in an unstable and jolty pattern, molding together not too far away from where they left since they were unable to maintain their consistency for too long on their own.
The Demon King braced for impact, crossing his arms over his head and gritting his fangs, the Ki wave laid a noble siege on his defenses though, ultimately, it had failed to knock him off his feet. Faltering and waving heavy, King Piccolo huffed out an intense breath and noticed that his opponent was nowhere to be seen. Chayote had only used her combined, full-power Ki wave as a distraction to slip away from Piccolo's notice. It was a tactic that Earthlings commonly used against her during the tournament and a handy trick when confronting a more powerful opponent.
The lingering smoke parted in a spiraling hole as Chayote emerged from its midst in a headstrong charge. The Demon King was too busy waiting for an assault from above, below or from either of the sides, maybe even planning for Chayote having snuck up behind him but he didn't expect her to stay inside the smoke and just use its cover to conceal the way in which she'd attack next.
"Lima Spear!" Chayote yelled out while driving her hand and unleashing all of the Ki she had channeled from within her body while her hand had full contact with the enemy's body, essentially forming the salad-green blast inside the opponent's body as the resonating force of the blast sent them flying back. The Demon King bellowed in pain while he traveled backward a fair distance. As if knowing what was about to happen, the Demon King got completely silent and then…
The blast expanded into a turbulent sphere of erupting violence, drowning out all of the surrounding noise by merely overpowering it and emitting emerald light capable of blinding all those that laid eyes upon it from a distance within the blast's visual reach without the ocular fortitude of a tempered martial artist. The smoke had to clear at one point and Chayote could just huff out in disappointment when she saw the Demon King on his bottom with his chest cavity very much still intact.
"That's one tough bastard…" she scratched her neck. Despite the Demon King's survival of one of her strongest techniques, Chayote wasn't sure just in what condition he'd have survived. She put pretty much everything she had into that strike, intending to end the fight that way, if she didn't kill the Demon King, at the very least she'd planned to cripple him for good. And there he was, slowly sitting up and wiping the blood off of his lips, beaming an angry, death-inducing stare at Chayote.
"You've injured me… You've actually injured me!" The Demon King yelled out. His body phased out in a way that was all too familiar to Chayote, the Saiyan blinked just once before she turned to confront the enemy behind her but it was already too late. The backhanded smack tossed her flying to the Demon King's right. The Demon raced in and threw a brutal knee strike while he chopped with his elbow, creating a guillotine of limbs to crush Chayote's spine in-between of.
Everything went white for a moment, it was the sensation of being unable to draw a breath that brought Chayote back to life, realizing that the Demon King had been swinging her around on his elongated arms. Much to her misfortune, she had phased back to her consciousness for long enough for the swing to confuse her and make her dizzy but also just before the Demon King drove her head-first into the dirty layers of the ashes of Central City. While having her head stuck into the ground while her body hung lifelessly upwards robbed Chayote of any semblance of awareness of what was transpiring up above and she was a fair time away from making enough of a recovery to return to her feet, the young woman could still feel her knee twitching in a nervous impulse while it hung above ground.
Despite that valiant effort to break her spine, Chayote still felt her body, she still seemed to have all of her limbs and despite having the wind knocked out of her, the Demon King appeared to have ceased his rampage as well. Wriggling with her shoulders helped her surface a little bit for her body to slump on the ground to a more convenient position to pick herself back up again. Even if the Demon King didn't snap her neck with his stiff shots, she very nearly twisted it by resurfacing above ground.
"Heh, you really aren't a human, it seems. I've known no humans that could survive attacks like these…" the Demon King smirked with a bloody smile. Despite the bloody appearances, his Ki appeared to have just now properly begun to rustle in a fighting mood. It was just now that the Demon King was beginning to get serious, he still had a Ki level that threatened Chayote's life after taking her strongest Lima Spear to the face… Despite his praises, he was the real monster here.
"I told you, I'm a Saiyan…" Chayote stood back up on her feet and acted like her joints didn't feel like chunks of led while returning to her fighting stance. "I live for this stuff…"
"I see… That answered my next question for you enjoying my punishment since you seem to be coming back for more…" The Demon King cracked his knuckles. His body was getting used to his own monstrous power, the Ki movement inside of his system was now more akin to that of a seasoned fighter rather than a toddler with too much power in his hands. He was adapting, getting used to his new strength more and more with each exchange.
This time Chayote took the offensive, not because she had a particular stratagem that would have aided her in this clash but because she didn't think she could handle too many more of Piccolo's own attacks. A straightforward charge was the best she could do right now. Her head felt too dizzy and her mind was floating all over the place since slamming down for anything more intricate, she was a Saiyan and it was time she got down to the dirty and gritty brawling for a change.
The Demon King blocked her elbow with his own forearm, looking mighty proud of his accomplishment too, his beady black eyes looked down on Chayote both in terms of the size difference between the two as well as the gap in strength. Just when Chayote was beginning to enjoy her breathing privileges, a knee driven to her solar plexus knocked that right out of her. Tight grip locked around the sides of Chayote's head as Piccolo's claws dug into her flesh, he pulled her in to smash her face with more knee strikes but a cross-shaped block from Chayote stopped that. The female Saiyan threw a couple of wayward leg shots to the joints of the Demon King, trying to see if his knees were as weak as those of old people. The free-falling sensation and lack of iron-grip around her head suggested that while King Piccolo didn't collapse from being hit low, it did register with him when his knees were challenged that way.
The two exchanged shots again. Chayote bobbed and weaved around the elongated arms of her demonic opponent while getting up close and personal to him. His longer limbs didn't let him attack her effectively from that range and exploit the difference in speed and power. Power needed distance to build up, speed needed distance to accelerate to its full potential and Chayote was much shorter in both her height and the length of her limbs, allowing her to better utilize the short distance. The female Saiyan hopped up to finish her victorious exchange of blows with a headbutt to the bottom of the Demon King's chin that sent the murky slug-man stumbling back with more bleeding out through his gritted teeth.
"I'm enjoying this very much…" Chayote declared. "A part of me would have liked to have seen you at full power. With you being the way you are, it seems like I could just about win, you know. Even though your power level must be so much greater than mine. I wish I could have seen you with your young body…"
"Whatever you are… You're an odd little creature." The Demon King smiled while crossing his arms over his chest. "You are indeed right that my current body doesn't allow me to utilize my immense power to its fullest. Whenever I attack, I must hold something back because the use of my full strength wastes and withers that power away. Plus, at any given second, I feel a weak, squeaky yell from Kami to not destroy you. The oddest thing is that I've not heard that voice when I exterminated all those humans before… Just shows you how much of a rotten guardian that old crook was."
"Oh, so the old coot is still trying to save the Universe?" Chayote smirked. "Even from inside you…"
"Save the Universe?" the Demon King's eyes widened. "Don't be ridiculous, you clearly understand the difference between our full powers and not even I could destroy the entire Universe…"
"Oh well… I have a feeling that if I explained it to you, you'd not want to keep fighting so I won't. Just try to push that old geezer deeper down and let's go at it for hours longer!" Chayote smiled with excitement. She would have chuckled but it burned her chest a decent bit when she drew breath in. She could still feel that knee strike from earlier, in fact, she could feel almost every strike the Demon King sold her that night.
King Piccolo remained fully open and just raised his chin up, staring at Chayote menacingly. He stood there as if there was some knowledge he had that she did not and that pissed Chayote off some. She wanted to keep fighting and not engage in all that Earthling drama about saving the world. Chayote charged onward with her hands preparing a pair of Ki blasts by her side but the Demon King threw his leg up and sent Chayote flying back in an arcing trajectory. The sharp edges of his wooden boots made Chayote feel a taste of blood in her mouth and she'd been knocked down a few too many times to just pop back on her feet already.
"You're an intriguing creature. Before I kill you, I'll let you in on a little secret. Just because you're on the verge of figuring it out if you just knew what I was and what I could do. You were right when you said that I cannot utilize the full power of this body, my old body is too withered to summon forth all of our combined power, in addition, when I do succeed doing so, it happens for just a heartbeat and it permanently weakens my body by damaging it further from down inside. Not to mention that my fusion with Kami hasn't been… Perfect. It hasn't completely unified our beings, it just surrendered him under my control. The way things are now, my ambition to world domination can still be stopped, however, after tonight, there will be no such way. Not even if you use different Dragon Balls, not even then will you be able to restore your precious Kami and weaken me." The Demon King showed the lines of his fangs to Chayote in an expression of malevolent glee.
"Different Dragon Balls?" Chayote wondered, feeling her left eye swell up and obstruct her depth perception on her. She must have taken a pretty nasty shot there.
"Heh… You're completely oblivious, aren't you? Well, not that it will matter soon… You see, us Evil Tribe members possess the ability to create our offspring by spitting up an egg, however, the sons I have created up until now were just that – my sons. They would have only been able to bring out meek and mindless demonlings of their own, not true inheritors of the Evil Tribe because I've only shared a fraction of my essence and power with them but… Once I reincarnate into a young body – my fusion with Kami will become permanent and immovable, not to mention, the power that my offspring shall possess will be limitless. Yes, he will be my greatest legacy, the very best thing that either I or Kami has created. He will surpass all in power and very well might dominate the entire Universe if you are any indication of what waits out there." The Demon King continued to spout.
"Reincarnation? Offspring? You mean you'll like… Have a kid on me? Ewww!" Chayote covered her own nose and stuck out her tongue in disgust.
"I didn't expect you to understand. All your kind seems to know and crave for is punishment anyway. Well, if my reincarnation ever meets your species, it will deliver all the punishment they crave… As for you, it is time you get gone!" the Demon King raised his fists up and roared out as strain of enormous Ki passed down his body in a channel that seemed to evaporate from his body in the shape of a vaporous aura of scarlet with emerald linings. Electricity passed up and down the Demon King's body as he channeled his seemingly endless power all into one, giant blast. "Explosive Demon Wave!" he yelled out when raising his hand up, the other grabbing hold of his wrist to better control the vast amounts of Ki he had channeled into his technique.
The blinding beam of light seemed to extend into oblivion, running past the crumbled remains of Central City and streak outside the Earth as not leaving the orbit seemed to affect its speed and destructive potential. The ground underneath rumbled and shook making dodging the attack by just jumping or rolling aside almost impossible, requiring at the very least an impressive amount of aerial maneuvering to avoid any damage whatsoever.
The Demon King panted and breathed heavily while his body slumped up into a hunched back and his arms hung down by his sides. The face of the withered, old demon was covered with sweat that washed the blood present on his wounds away while at the same time dyeing more and more of his face with that purple hue.
"Not a trace left, huh…?" the Demon King twisted his lips into a forced smile. "Still, what a troublesome martial artist, I might need to hasten my plans for reincarnation now… You might just need to finish my job of taking over the world for me, my son…"
"Pinto Spear!" a voice cut through the eerie silence, just as the diving streak of black cut through the skies and the gloomy clouds above, parting them to reveal the full-moon hiding its shy face behind them for just a moment. Chayote slammed into the Demon King from up above in a mad dive and buried the Demon King into the ground as deep as she could drive him to before taking a jump out of the hole.
"Where are you looking at?" King Piccolo's voice made Chayote widen her eyes in shock as she felt a grip around her heel, pulling her in from behind. Just as she had avoided the Demon King's attack by taking it to the sky and leaving behind and Afterimage to strengthen the impression of her obliteration, the Demon King had used his own immense speed advantage to avoid Chayote's dive and have her needlessly take a plunge to solid dirt while exploiting the opening afterward.
"Why are you so damn hard to get rid of!?" The Demon King roared out as he waved and slammed Chayote about, swinging her with his elongated limb and smashing through every obstacle, every upright wall of a building, every stone he could find while scanning the ruined wasteland with his eyes. King Piccolo concluded his surprise attack with the old spin and release trick, tossing Chayote through a handful more rocks and letting her leave a dragging tunnel on the ground where she landed.
"I mean…" Chayote writhed and coughed up some blood before sitting up and picking herself back up on her feet. "You just stood there and fired that thing at me, I might have felt too banged up to interrupt it but you didn't expect me to just take it and die, did you?" she chuckled to herself in defiance of her opponent's will to destroy her.
The Saiyan cupped her hands together. Of all things, she had expected to rely on this technique the least. Still, her other maneuvers were all close-distance strikes and rush attacks that relied on her physical superiority over her opponents. She was more injured and tired now than she'd ever been on Earth or all throughout her life. It would have been a naïve mistake to rely on more Pinto or Lima Spears to do seal the deal now, at least with the Demon King's current state where he was more pissed than close to dying.
"Ka…Me!" Chayote chanted. "Ha… Me!"
"What's this now!?" the Demon King froze for a second. It took him a decent amount of time to realize that this wasn't the Mafuba that he was being targeted by but by the time that he had realized that it was too late to counterattack. Chayote thrust her arms forth and let out a triumphant yell from the bottom of her chest.
"Ha!" as a white, blinding, destructive Ki wave streamed forth from Chayote's hands. The beam spiraled onward, emitting a high-pitched squeak as it stunned the old Demon King, leaving him very little time to react. The Demon King parted his hands to the side and yelled out just before the beam consumed him and he took the full brunt of the blast.
Chayote's hands took a powerless plunge down afterward as she stared at the settling smoke and the tunnel that her very own Kamehameha wave had left. This was the only time that she could rely on such a technique. A time when she was confident in what she was doing and truly happy. No longer did her Ki control fail her, it was now that she truly could begin to carve her own path of a martial artist…
"What was that exactly?" a disgusting chuckle made Chayote sigh in disappointment when she realized that the Demon King stood behind a wall of smoke and dusted his tattered clothes off of the rubble that she had thrown at him. "Seemed like a decent enough smokescreen for you to flee after but you forgot the fleeing part, it seems…" the Demon King let out a confident laugh from the bottom of his lungs, just to make Chayote realize how truly outmatched she was when the all the tricks were used out and the fight got to the final stages when both of their feet were against the razor's edge and only power mattered.
Why? Why did she have to die again, just when she began carving her own path!?