The loud rumbling of a hovercar came far ahead of the massive dust cloud that followed it. Despite being a rare sight in these gloomy mountains, not a single pair of eyes came to take a gander at it. Not that it particularly worried the driver of the hovercar, who pressed his entire body weight on to the wheel with a face grumpy and scowling as if a calling toward the lavatory facilities would not have given the man the luxury of any thoughts other than itself.
Yajirobe pressed on the brakes, which caused the back of his hovercar to lift and nearly bend the vehicle in its attempt to stop before the fountain in the middle of the village. The lone, grumpy swordsman hopped off of his hovercar and looked around. He had no idea where any of the other Dragon Balls might have been in, though that wasn't his eventual destination–it was Muten Roshi's jet, the electronic signature of which he had registered on his hover car's radar.
"Where da heck even am I right now?" Yajirobe scratched his head while looking around. There was not a single soul out in the open for him to ask anything of, which struck him as odd. Usually, villagers were all over new arrivals. If they didn't like outsiders–they let the outsiders know of that immediately and if they welcomed their purchasing power, they let the outsider know of it also though in vastly different ways.
The chubby swordsman approached the fountain and looked around it. A sparkling gleam caught his attention. The swordsman leaned in and scooped with his hands, drawing out something mustardy in color, very similar to weathered gold though once Yajirobe realized that what he held in his hands was an entire scoop of golden feet fillings he yelled out and flung them all over the place while stumbling back.
"Wh-What da heck's wrong with dis darned village!?" the swordsman grilled to himself. "Why wouldja even do somethin' like dat!?"
The ever-hungry swordsman turned around the village, seeing more than a handful of curtains close when he gazed at them from inside the home. Normally this village would have looked like any other place around, just another plain village of capsule homes stacked in orderly fashion though the gloomy mountain clouds and the fact that most of the capsule homes lacked any vibrant colors and only used colors on the black, white or grey or yellow spectrums took Yajirobe back a bit.
"Ey, would someone come out and talk ta me already!? I need to know a few things 'ere!" Yajirobe yelled, thrashing his hands about while yelling at thin air as no villagers as much as opened their shut blinders to look back at him. "Fine, be dat way…" the swordsman blew hot air out from the depths of his chest and tightened the belt, holding his sheathed sword in place, pulling it up a few inches. "I guess no one's stoppin' me from doing some a dis into yer fountain den? How's a stranger supposed to know what's good an' what's bad 'round dese parts anyway, right?"
Yajirobe took a leisurely hop onto the edge of the fountain and untied his belt, undoing his yukata, and moved the strap of his loincloth from his funky business area only to extend it dangling over the fountain as he focused the hose that's been plaguing him the whole evening. Before the first few sprinkles could hit the fountain, however, one of the capsule homes' doors opened up. There wasn't much sunlight breaking through the clouds, but a weathered, pale old man in raggedy clothing stumbled out with red, ring-shaped irises and an eye devoid of pupils. There were signs of rotting and decay on the man's cheeks and wherever his villager attire exposed his skin.
"Come, outsider…" the man muttered with an apathetic voice as if he barely cared about the fact that Yajirobe almost peed into this fancy gothic fountain in the middle of the village. A fact that must have been blatantly untrue since the man showed his rotten face to prevent that. Something else must have been at play here.
"Huh… You don't look too good, geezer. Don't come too much closer, ya'll get whatever ya got on me too and I don't wanna deal with any 'a dat you've got…" Yajirobe's lips pulled down as he extended his hand as a preventative gesture though the man ignored it about as well as Yajirobe ignored moral quandaries.
"Come, outsider…" a shrewd, feminine voice came from the southeast to Yajirobe's direction, prompting the swordsman to gaze behind him where an old woman with all the same predicaments appeared from a compact capsule home. Both of the villagers had their eyes wide and their jaws dangling, displaying rows of sharp, almost inhuman, yet decayed teeth.
"Come, outsider…"
"Come, outsider…"
"Come, outsider…"
Yajirobe couldn't grasp all the appearing villagers in his registry as one by one, then all together, like maddened the inhabitants of this gloomy mountain village began appearing in the central square while moving toward Yajirobe and ignoring any common decency or simple etiquette. Their iron, apathetic expressions remained unchanged, the dead-eye stare with a wide-open mouth that breathed out huffs of vapor in the chilly mountain air.
"Oh, now ya all wanna talk ta me, huh!?" Yajirobe grabbed the hilt of his sword, taking a defensive fighting stance as he prepared to cut down the first villager that came within his immediate range before going mad at the rest unless they seriously backed up and stopped their mob mentality welcoming party. "Well, dat's too bad, 'cause unless ye've got some grub, some capsules I could borrow an' maybe a map, I ain't interested in what yer sellin'. Oh… I guess some info about if I can go down this mountain range further this way would do too…"
"They're not talking to you, human. They are alerting us that an outsider wandered into their village," frightened by this sudden emergence of a high-pitched voice, Yajirobe turned toward it, seeing a sapphire-colored wraith suffering from a case of yellow eyes as it stood on all-fours amongst the crowd of dead-eyed villagers.
"A demon, ey? Well… Dat's too bad, runt, I've eaten demon before and I ain't afraid ta eat demon again. In fact, I think I'm gettin' the taste for ye folks," Yajirobe smirked, realizing that the reason he couldn't immediately pick up on this runt demon was that his Ki was just that minuscule that it shuffled well into the rich and, frankly, quite powerful for a bunch of common villagers surrounding.
"Oh? A human that eats demons? Amusing…" another voice coming from another creature just like the one that addressed Yajirobe earlier came around. The samurai jumped up and turned toward it again, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at any moment.
"I guess it's only right, demons eat humans too, after all…" another demonic wraith cackled with a mouth full of sharp, bent teeth. This one had quite the wet, swampy skin and his mouth reminded more of that of an angler fish rather than an ordinary, humanoid wraith demon.
"Hm… Eat him here or bring him to fuel the Sleeping Princess?" malicious eyes from within the crowd shimmered all around Yajirobe as more and more demons rushed in from all corners of caves and the entire mountain range to join in on the fun.
"Who knows… This one carries a sword, thinks himself a fighter, maybe? Too fat though, his blood can't possibly be worth anything."
Yajirobe's focused eyes raced up as this time he picked up a distinct Ki signature over his head. A rolling, spiky flesh cannonball of eye-raking red, decorated with a pink ribbon around it, hurled across the skyline like a meteor before landing with a resounding thud of its hefty feet atop of a capsule building. The rooftop collapsed in on the demon's weight, but the monstrous red ogre kicked the front of the building down and walked out to reveal itself in its full glory.
It was a bulky fiend, twice the size of an ordinary human and likely four times as brutish. Red, amphibian-like skin and plump, fishy lips from which two sharp fangs stuck out downward. The monster stared at Yajirobe from lemon-colored pair of beady eyes and the demon had a pair of impressively sized horns atop of its head and was dressed in gladiator-like battle armor. The notable pink ribbon hovered over the monster's shoulders and behind his head while two orange orbs shined in the limited sunlight crossed over on the demon's back.
"Ghastel, it's Ghastel!" murmurs and grunts resonated through the demonkind while the thralls all froze in place as if they were just dolls that have been turned off by the appearance of this one, chunky demon.
"Don't lower your guard, fools. This warrior just declared that he has eaten demons before. That means two things: one–he is strong enough to kill a demon, two–he's grown stronger through consuming demon flesh and should be treated as a demon himself, rather than puny humans we're used to tangling with. Bring him to the Devil's Castle, his blood will do nicely for the Sleeping Princess!" the devilish brute referred to as Ghastel proclaimed, addressing the demon horde. The hunching and squatting menace rose to their feet and let out a blood-curdling scream into the evening sky.
"Lucifer-sama will be proud!" one of the faceless horde declared.
"Maybe he'll let us raid and enthrall yet another village, outside the Judecca Mountains!" yet another nameless demon became passionate about the prospect that he described.
Yajirobe switched stances, extending his right foot forward, having taken the offensive in this battle as there was no way he could avoid a battle from breaking out. The samurai threw his body forward in a silent dash as he unsheathed his sword and carefully guided it around the enthralled villagers, slashing down every demon within his reach with a single strike. A handful of demons exploded into pieces as one survivor gazed down at its body and witnessed his upper half sliding down his lower half, much to its panic.
"A castle, eh? I could use a soft place to sleep over in and a table to kick my feet back on during dinner. Yer boss sounds rotten though, I think I'll kick 'im out," Yajirobe proclaimed, cleaning the demonic entrails off of his blade as he sheathed it again and took a fighting stance while the demons quivered and drew back in terror while the thralls stepped in to block the swordsman access to their monstrous slavers.
The skies turned even darker than they already were as winged fiends clouded the heavens. Yajirobe leaped up and over the heads of the villagers to slice clean and quiet in all directions before re-sheathing his sword. When the swordsman landed back on the ground, the flying demons splattered into meaty chunks that Yajirobe reduced them to.
"What incredible speed and precision…" Ghastel seemed taken aback. "Someone of such power could likely fuel the Sleeping Princess all by themselves… Everyone, this man must not escape, his blood will be ours!"
Shrieking with madness, the demons dashed around the villagers and flew upward again, attacking Yajirobe from all fronts completely devoid of any common sense or wary for their own well-being. Where they couldn't dash around their poor thralls, they dashed through them, ripping limbs and bodies apart with their bare hands as they wished to do with Yajirobe if they could put their hands on him in the first place.
"I'll fillet ya!" Yajirobe promised as he once again drew his sword, but this time it wasn't just a normal slash. Yajirobe coated his very blade with shining Ki that upon slashing with the sword cut and flew apart from the blade like a slashing projectile. With thunderous violence, they slammed at the exposed and puny bodies of the demonic horde, splitting them to pieces before the Ki explosion decimated each grunt completely. With a barrage of slashes, Yajirobe turned to his side and faced Ghastel standing right in front of him while the thralls became uneasy one by one, as this ronin had exterminated the demonic horde controlling their village.
"Grrr… How's this possible… By a mere human's hand?" Ghastel stumbled back, shoving away a handful of still dazed villagers and pushing them back while he demanded more space. Shrill shrieks filled the air as the humans freed themselves from mental control one after another after most of the demons that had been slain hit the floor. Yajirobe drew his sword and raised it over his head in a high-stance while his feet split and knees bent for balance.
"Yer da largest one 'ere, probably the tastiest too…" the swordsman mumbled out without a hint of fear about facing a literal demon that the rest of the horde held in high regard and either feared or hated.
"Y-You…!" Ghastel bellowed as he charged forward, grabbing a villager by his foot and trying to swat Yajirobe aside with the poor man. He only succeeded to swipe at thin air as the swordsman himself had been long over Ghastel's head and drove his sandal into the center of the demon's face. This left a sandal-shaped indentation in the flesh while the poor villager used as a human weapon fell from Ghastel's grip and scurried away, shrieking and panting in terror.
"Open up, ya bastard!" Yajirobe yelled out as he thrust and slashed wildly at Ghastel's abdomen, failing to cut the massive demon to bits as he did to the nameless horde before him but stabbing and cutting the demon open, pouring purple blood in goopy splatters all over the ground. Yajirobe finished his combination with a charging shoulder strike that sent Ghastel slamming into and through a capsule house and wrecked it thoroughly.
"Impossible!" Ghastel roared as the house he busted into burst from his violent departure from it through the ceiling. The demon general took it to the skies, riding two parakeet-colored ethereal clouds that blazed in flame-like shape over Ghastel's feet. "A mere human… Even if you ate a hundred demons… Such power… W-Where did you go?"
Ghastel threw his head around to each side, searching for Yajirobe frantically before the swordsman appeared right over his head and slashed at Ghastel's head, opening up a mean gash stretching out from the top of Ghastel's scalp and going down to his crotch. The demon had been tougher than to just get split into two like that though he staggered back with his eyes rolled back as the sudden shock of pain from the cut overwhelmed his senses.
"Yer one tough bastard, though ye've told me some interestin' things. I didn't know ya could get stronger by chowin' down on demon fillet. I'll keep dat in mind for da future. Now I'd like ya to stand still…" Yajirobe sheathed his sword and took an offensive drawing stance.
"No, no, no no…!" Ghastel grumbled, trying to cover up the leaking gash spanning the entirety of his chunky body. "Some human hick will not devour me! Your blood will fuel the Sleeping Princess and give it the energy it needs to destroy the Sun. Then, demons will rule this world and make all humans our thralls!"
With the second wind that he experienced through the force of sheer will and self-inspired hype over the goals of his master, Ghastel flung the pair endings to his pink ribbon toward Yajirobe, each of the ends appeared to be guided by some supernatural force as the ribbon tried wrapping around Yajirobe like a bandage. Each end only wrapped around the other end, forming a round knot and landing where Yajirobe once stood while the chubby samurai vanished to the other end of the village, drawing his sword and slashing multiple times in quick succession to send his crescent-shaped Ki projectiles toward the demon and knock him out of the flight.
With Ghastel having landed on his face, bottoms up, "I told ye to stand still!" Yajirobe yelled out as he rushed toward the fallen foe, delivering a rising sword slash and sending Ghastel flying as Yajirobe's blade failed to cut too deep into the demon's flesh, instead bouncing Ghastel's body off like rubber into the air. Yajirobe dashed forward to position himself behind where Ghastel would land as he sheathed his sword and breathed in a cool and deep breath, focusing all of his Ki for this next drawing slash.
As Ghastel was about to hit the ground, Yajirobe sprung into action, gripping the hilt of his katana and opening up his eyes, with his right hand, the swordsman unsheathed his blade at an incredible speed that seemed to illuminate the gloom covering the mountainous village and outpace the flash of lightning itself, splitting the falling demon apart with a single cut. With Ghastel's body seemingly frozen in mid-air to Yajirobe's superhuman perception, the ruthless ronin cut, again and again, reducing his devilish opponent to a tower of ham slices stacked up before him until Yajirobe blew all the air out and sheathed his sword again.
"I-Incredible skill…" a villager gasped upon witnessing a single wandered eliminating the entirety of the demons plaguing the mountain range.
"You fool, this oaf doomed us all. Now Lord Lucifer's vengeance shall descend upon us like never before. He shall turn the ire of the Sleeping Princess against our village and reduce us all to rubble," a pale elder shook in his rubber boots before falling on his back so hard that one of his feet slipped out of its boot.
"It took Lord Lucifer centuries to gather enough blood for the Sleeping Princess, even if he takes centuries more, he'll crush us like insects and use that power against us!" a woman shook and let out a shrill scream into the evening sky before hurrying off to her home and slamming the door shut behind her.
"Man, what a loudmouth broad… Shut yer trap, won't ye?" Yajirobe scratched his ear. "I already told ye runts I'm takin' dat castle over and eatin' that scary demon in it. I can use a place ta stretch my legs in overnight."
"No one has ever entered the Devil's Castle and returned…" a villager muttered.
"I can see why. Dis village is a real dump…" Yajirobe rolled his eyes and picked up Ghastel's remains over his head like a plate of pancakes he was ready to eat. "Maybe dat castle's got some nice fires ta cook dis fat bastard nice and crispy…"
"Just who was that man?" the villager wondered as Yajirobe took off on foot toward the castle looming further in the mountain range. The Judecca Mountain range swallowed half of the Devil's Castle, though the half that stuck out from the mountains seem well-decorated and looked after. Red lights shined brightly from inside, suggesting vivid activity inside the castle walls.
"Perhaps a demon, even worse than the ones that haunted our village. Maybe even demons have nightmares of their own and this man is what demons label a monster?" the village elder shook his head in disbelief, breathing out an easier breath knowing that the object toward which Lucifer would take vengeance upon would walk straight into his castle and spare the village of a potentially devastating fate to come.