Chapter Hundred-twenty-seven
Another Kaioushin?! Hello, Mr. Boo!
The four stood around the broken sword in a circle, looking down at it. Kibito looked as though he were about to have a complete psychotic breakdown and was barely keeping it hidden behind a furrowed brow and a set jaw. Goku looked a little guilty over the sword's destruction but was otherwise nonplussed. It was just a sword, right? Gohan, for his part, was looking apoplectic.
"I-it's not the end of the world, right?" he suggested, glancing nervously at Xī, whose expression had changed to one of eerie calm, as though she were about to explode at any moment. "I-I mean, it's just broken in half! We can put it back together. Ki gets pretty hot, right? I can just weld it… or something… right?"
A few more seconds before Xī finally spoke. "That," she began slowly, "Was one of the oldest and most powerful weapons in the universe." Goku opened her mouth to point out that it couldn't be that powerful if it broke so easily before Xī spoke up again. "It was our best remaining chance to defeat Majin Boo. But you…" Xī held out a hand and a yardstick materialized into her palm in a flash of light. "You…" she grabbed the stick and raised it high over her head, suddenly appearing behind Goku and Gohan with her instantaneous movement, battering them repeatedly over the back of the head with it. "You stupid fightmonkeys broke it!"
"H-hey!" Goku protested as she and Gohan turtled up, covering their heads with their forearms as Xī chased after them. "Quit it! Come on! You're the one who made the katchin in the first place!"
"You shouldn't have thrown it so hard!" Xī snapped at her, completely ignoring that if the sword wasn't stronger than Goku as a Super Saiyan, it wouldn't have done much against Majin Boo anyway. In Xī's defense, she'd had a long, long day of constant, frustrating setbacks and no one taking the end of the universe seriously. Just when it looked like they finally were, they had to go and break everything.
"H-hey, why are you hitting me?!" Gohan asked. "I didn't know it was gonna break!" While Xī continued her assault, Kibito just stared down at the broken Zeta Sword. To his astonishment, sparks began to sputter out of the broken ends of the blade.
"It should have never gotten to this point!" Xī scolded them on the verge of hysterics. "Majin Boo should never have gotten out of his egg! We had chance, after chance, after chance to fix this mess, but you all just kept goofing off!"
"Uh, my Kaioushin–" Kibito uttered, trying to get her attention as the sword began to tremble.
"I mean, really!" Xī went on in an exasperated tone. "Roshambo?! Seriously?! Dragging out the fight with Vegeta for, what, your own amusement? Is this all a game?!"
"My Kaioushin…" Kibito said again, a little more insistently as smoke began to curl out of the broken sword halves and the sparking and shaking grew more pronounced.
"And for another thing!" Xī screamed, raising the yardstick over her head again.
"Xī!" Kibito shouted, the break in decorum finally getting her attention. Xī whirled around, as if ready to put turn her attacks on him instead.
"What, Kibito?!" she demanded. He pointed wordlessly at the broken Zeta Sword as it continued to spark and smoke. They all gathered around it again as its shaking became so excitable that the sword halves looked like they were bouncing on the ground. A cloud of blue-white smoke surrounded the sword and enormous sparks shot out into the sky like fireworks. There seemed to be something inside the smoke, like a person's face, and the sword halves made a sound like something screaming.
The screaming continued as wrinkled, purple hands emerged from the smoke, followed quickly by scrawny arms clothed in puffy blue sleeves. A weathered old head with pointy ears, a tuft of white hair on top of his head and a slightly-awkward white mustache on his upper lip came out next, still screaming, and was swiftly followed by the rest of the body, all dressed in the garb of a Kaioushin and in the same colors Gohan was wearing. His scream had died down into a groan of discomfort and he stopped stretching out his arms to rest one on the back of his neck, hunching forward dramatically.
"Oof," he declared in a high, dry old voice, "Seventy-five million years will give you such a crick in the neck!" The strange old man looked around at them, all gawking at him in shock and confusion, before his eyes settled on Kibito. "Ah, big guy, perfect. Grab my head, would ya?" Kibito hesitated for a second before his attendant's training to be subservient to Kaioushins took over and he held both sides of the older man's head. "Ah, come on, you've got a stronger grip than that!" he admonished Kibito, who held his head a little more tightly, still not entirely sure what was going on. "Thaaaat's the ticket," the old man said amicably. Then he twisted his body to the left and to the right, the action so violent and the sound so horrific that it sounded as if he'd broken his own neck, twice. He sighed and went slack in Kibito's grip, who looked horrified at what had just happened before the man stood up straight and dusted himself off. "Ahhh, that's much better," he breathed out. "Thanks again, big fella. What's your name, anyhow? You look like my last attendant."
"U-Uh… K-Kibito, your exaltedness," Kibito said with a bow as he let go of the older Kaioushin's head. The old man nodded, giving him a bit of a smile as he patted him on the forearm.
"Well, Kibito, you can call me Pracya," he told him before noticing Xī. "...Are you alright, girl?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Y-you're…" Xī gasped, blinking back tears that fell from the corners of her eyes like clusters of stars, "You're a Kaioushin!" For five million years, she had been all alone in the universe. For five million years, she had been the only Kaioushin in the universe. Millions of years waiting for another golden fruit to fall from a Kaiju tree, but only watching the birth of normal Shinjin after normal Shinjin. But now there was another one, another one like her! She threw herself at the Old Kaioushin, throwing her arms around his scrawny shoulders as she embraced him, smiling from ear to ear. She wasn't alone anymore.
"Uh… y-yes," Pracya agreed with a nod. "I– I am." He blinked, looking around in confusion. "Where are the others?" he wondered. "Where's Shengda or Bei?" He furrowed his brow, a small frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. "What have I missed?" he asked.
"And that's pretty much where we stand," Gohan said after a few minutes, despite having done his best to summarize the last five million years. Pracya nodded, his earrings bobbing with every movement of his long, ancient head.
"So," he surmised, "Boo came back and he was controlled by some fool named Bibidi. He killed all but one of the Kaioushin, meanwhile the Hakaishin did nothing, has still done nothing, and now Boo's back and wreaking havoc all over again." The old Kaioushin sighed and shook his head, perplexed. "That's quite the pickle."
"...How do you know what pickles are?" Gohan asked.
"I wanna know what you were doing in the sword," Goku put in. The other three stared at her and she just shrugged. "What? I can't be the only one who was thinking it!" It wasn't like old people were just inside swords all the time! Then again, she hadn't really broken a lot of swords, so maybe there were…
"It's a long story," Pracya grumbled with an irritated wave of his hand. "The short version: Don't get into an argument with the Hakaishin. It never goes well." This did nothing but make Goku decide that if she ever met this "Hakaishin", she'd get into an argument with him.
"Please, Daikaioushin," Xī implored respectfully as she clasped her hands in front of her, "Can you help us? There must be some sort of spell or something. You said you sealed him away with Bei and Shengda once before. Can you do that again?"
Pracya shook his head, frown deepening. "First off," he began, "Don't call me that. I know I'm old, but there's more to it than that. Shengda worked hard to be recognized as the Daikaioushin and you're the one who's been holding down the fort for the last five million years. Like I told the big guy, call me Pracya. If anyone should be calling anyone the Daikaioushin, it's me saying that to you." That stunned Xī so severely that her mouth hung open in astonishment. Her? The Daikaioushin? "As for your question," he continued, "...Nope." Xī's mouth closed again and she groaned, running a hand down her face. "Hey, don't blame me!" he told her defensively. "The sealing spell takes five Kaioushin and we've got two!"
"Perhaps I could–" Kibito offered before Pracya held up a finger.
"Zip it, Pinky," he told him curtly, "You don't have anywhere close to the training or the power to pull it off." Xī's shoulders slumped forward in defeat as she looked down at the grass. So that was it. They were done for. The old Kaioushin studied her face and stroked his tiny mustache contemplatively. "Actually," he said after a moment, "I might be able to do something…"
"What," Gohan asked excitedly as he leaned in closer, "What is it?"
"I've got a bit of talent with the ol' hocus pocus," Pracya explained, "We might not be able to seal Boo away but I could give someone enough of a power boost to blow him up!"
"Really?" Goku asked with an excited grin. "You can do that? How?" Not that she was all that interested, of course. She couldn't get back to Earth even if she wanted to. Besides, if she'd wanted to defeat Majin Boo on her own, she could have done that already. It sounded cool, though, and she was always looking for ways to get stronger.
"There's a spell I know," Pracya told them, "It can draw out a person's sleeping power or hidden potential. But it isn't just a wiggle of the fingers and an abracadabra, it takes a while. So we're gonna get one shot at this. Now… let me see…" he looked between the four in front of him, eyes going white as he looked at the power hidden dormant inside them. Kibito… had almost none. Xī had a little bit of it, but not nearly enough for what they needed. Goku had some but she seemed about tapped out. Or… no, she wasn't. He had a little bit of a seer's gift as well and he could see there were two divergent paths for the Saiyan woman, each one beholden to incredible power. However, they both required resources that he didn't have and didn't have the time to collect. Which left… "Whoa," Pracya gasped, raising a trembling hand to point at Gohan. "Definitely gonna be you, kiddo," he decided.
"M-me?" Gohan asked, looking down at himself in confusion. Hadn't he already messed up enough today?
"Yes!" Xī agreed with an eager nod. "Pick Gohan! He's the only one taking things seriously around here!" She'd known he would be instrumental in defeating Majin Boo. It was why she'd picked him from the very beginning, after all!
"But I already had my hidden power drawn out back when I was a kid," Gohan pointed out, "Plus I figured I already awakened all my power seven years ago." Sure, Guru had said something about how Gohan had too much potential for him to draw out all at once but he'd always figured he had meant the kind of power Gohan had discovered when he fought Perfect Cell.
"Really?" Pracya asked with one slowly-raised and incredulous eyebrow. "You don't think your potential power's grown at all from the time you were eleven?" Well, when he put it like that…
"So you'll help us?" Xī asked excitedly. "What is the spell? Are there any components you need, how can we help?"
Pracya held up a hand for quiet. "Hooold it, hold it!" he admonished her, making Xī feel embarrassed for her childish behavior. "If I'm gonna help you, there's something I'll need in return." He snickered to himself, making Xī, Gohan, and Kibito very confused while Goku had the strangest sensation of deja vu.
"What do you need, exalted Kaioushin?" Kibito asked warily.
"I've been stuck inside a sword for the last seventy-five million years," he reminded them. "Ya know what I need? Some action!" Gohan, Xī, and Kibito gawked as he snickered, exchanging disbelieving expressions.
"Y-you're joking, right?" Xī asked in bewilderment. "Y-you don't mean?" Pracya threw his head back and cackled, grinning from ear to ear.
"You better believe it! I want at least a kiss or something, dang it!" he exclaimed. He gestured expansively as he went on at length at what exactly he wanted. "Legs goin' on for decades, a pretty little face, and a figure like–" he made a curvaceous gesture in the air with his hands. Every syllable and movement of his hands made the other three grow paler and paler.
"You've gotta be kidding me…" Xī groaned as she pulled at her face again and rolled up her eyes. Why was everything so hard? Why did people keep having to make a joke out of the end of the universe?! Goku, meanwhile, was just chuckling to herself. "What's so funny?!" she demanded.
"He just reminds me of Master Roshi," she told them. "Hey, that's it!" Goku declared with a snap of her fingers. "Hey, old guy!" she shouted, snapping Pracya out of his reverie. "I've got somebody in mind I could set you up on a date with!" The dirty old Kaioushin gave her his full and undivided attention. "She's a real looker," Goku assured him, using a tone of voice that Gohan had never heard his mom speak with before that made the whole thing kind of absurd. "Lemme tell ya," she went on, making a motion with her hands, cupping them and holding them at quite a distance on either side of her head, indicating a rather… expansive cup size.
"You're kidding," Pracya breathed excitedly. Goku gave him a wink and he squinted suspiciously. "I'll have to take a look for myself," he told her, producing a crystal ball from out of nowhere. "What's the bird's name?" he asked.
"Her name's Bul–" Goku started to say before Gohan slapped a hand over her mouth.
"Cooould you excuse us for a second?" he asked tensely before pulling his mom away to speak with her in a bit of a huddle. "Please tell me you weren't about to say Bulma," he muttered after pulling his hand from her mouth. Goku gave a shrug and he groaned.
"Why not?" she asked. "He's just like Master Roshi, I figured that's what he'd be into."
"But why throw Bulma under the bus for this creep?" Gohan asked, looking back over his shoulder at the geriatric deity who was now impatiently tapping his foot.
"Well, my boobs aren't that big," Goku explained, gesturing to her own chest. "Suno's are bigger," she went on, "But she's always had more going on with her thighs and bu–"
"Stop," Gohan begged in a groan as he massaged his temples. "Just, please, please, please stop this conversation. This is information I never wanted."
"I'm just saying," Goku insisted, "Bulma's are way bigger than either of ours."
"I just feel that I need to point out," Xī put in as she entered the huddle, "That he's giving us a weapon to use against Majin Boo and our cup doesn't exactly runneth over with options. I could care less if he wants to take this Bulma woman as his wife, we're doing it."
With a defeated groan, Gohan broke away from the huddle and turned around to Pracya again, sighing heavily. "Uh, Pracya–"
"The Daikaioushin and Kibito can call me that," he told him sharply. "You and the other mortal can call me Kaioushin."
"R-right, Kaioushin," Gohan corrected, reminding himself that it wouldn't be prudent to grab the old man by his shrunken, shriveled head and slam dunk him through the planet's core. "A-anyway, her name's Bulma. She lives on Earth and she's the owner of Capsule Corp."
Pracya nodded as he turned his attention to the crystal ball, making it float in the air as he held his hands out, searching for it. While he did so, Goku couldn't help but notice that it looked an awful lot like Baba's crystal ball. So he was like… Master Roshi and Baba put together. That was kinda weird. The old Kaioushin's eyes popped comically out of his head, cartoonishly large as he stuck out straight as a plank of wood, hovering in the air as his tongue lolled out of his mouth.
"Guess he liked what he saw," Xī observed in amused bemusement. Pracya regained his composure as he dashed over to Gohan, holding out his hand with a grin.
"Ya got yourself a deal!" he told him eagerly while shoving the crystal ball at the other three. "The rest of ya, clear out, I'm gonna need some space!" The others shuffled off a little bit. "More than that!" he told them. "Keeep goin'!" When they had moved nearly the length of a football field, he gave them a thumbs up. "There ya go!"
"U-uh… alright," Gohan agreed in confusion as he shook Pracya's withered hand, wondering what the heck he'd just agreed to. "What do you want me to do?"
"Sit down," Pracya told him. Gohan did so and the old man cracked his incredibly ancient knuckles, the sound like tectonic plates shifting before he wiggled his fingers energetically. He let out a focused hum as his eyes glowed a brilliant blue before he clapped his hands and slapped them down on the grass. An enormous blue ring formed around them, followed swiftly by another, slightly smaller ring. Beams of light spanned between the points of the inner ring, connecting and branching off, making octagons, pentagons, and triangles. Runes and symbols filled the shapes and ran in the spaces between the rings as a mighty wind stirred up the grass underneath them, filled and passed through Gohan's clothes and blew his red hair about as he looked around in amazement at the fantastic sight. Lightning danced across and between the shapes, sometimes even going through Gohan, though it didn't hurt him, it just gave him a start.
"What am I supposed to do?" Gohan asked, mystified at all of this and wondering what sort of ritual this was.
"Just sit right there," Pracya repeated, his eyes still glowing. "For around, oh, I'd say six hours or so."
"Six hours?!" Gohan echoed in disbelief and dismay. Nevermind sleeping power, how was Gohan going to wake up his sleeping butt after that?
"Sleeping powers," Pracya called out, "Awaken!" Before Gohan could do anything else, he felt an incredible surge of energy rush through him and his head snapped back involuntarily, mouth agape as light poured out of his eyes and mouth.
OoOoOoO
When Goten and Trunks unfused again, they staggered but stood on their feet. Which was definite progress from when they'd been starting several days ago, where they fell right onto their butts every time. They were also remembering more of what happened while they were Gotenks and, for Gotenks' part, they were getting much more comfortable with their brand new body and power.
"Whoa, that was awesome!" Trunks declared enthusiastically. "Like… that thing Gotenks did, how did they even do that?"
"That's me," Goten explained proudly. Trunks' eyes went wide and his mouth hung open in amazement.
"Wait, really?" he asked, impressed. "But how do they have faces and talk and everything? That was so cool!"
Goten grinned, beaming at Trunks' praise."I kinda had an idea like that but I guess I just never knew how. But Gotenks is strong enough that they can do anything they want!"
The idea sparked something in Trunks eyes and he grinned, rubbing his hands contemplatively. "Whatever they want, huh?" he echoed. "Hey, you saw when your mom's hair got all huge, right?"
"Yeah," Goten replied with a nod, "Why?" Trunks just kept grinning and, after a couple seconds, she grew a grin of her own that matched his.
OoOoOoO
Outside of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, out on the Lookout proper, Bulma heaved a sigh. "Guess we're staying up here tonight," she muttered as she started rooting through her handbag.
"It's no trouble," Dende assured them all. "Mr. Popo, would you please get the sleeping bags?" Popo nodded and walked off into the temple while Yamcha raised an eyebrow.
"Sleeping bags?" he echoed. "Where the heck were those when we were up here for a year training for when Vegeta and the big dude showed up?"
"Yeah," Krillin put in, "We spent a year sleeping on hard tiles!" Tenshinhan shrugged.
"I've slept on worse," he said blithely.
"How?" Yamcha asked incredulously. "It's hard stone!"
"Hey, at least the stone's all flat," Chaozu piped in, giving Yamcha a start. He'd kind of forgotten that Chaozu was around.
Bulma huffed out a laugh as she finally found the capsule she'd been looking for. "Sleeping bags?" she asked incredulously. "What are you people, cavemen?" She opened the capsule and tossed it onto the ground. An enormous, multi-story penthouse emerged from a plume of smoke, making the others all gape in amazement. That was until the Lookout suddenly began to tilt in the direction of the penthouse and everyone scrambled to fly up to keep from sliding off the edge, with Tenshinhan tucking Kani under one arm since she couldn't fly yet. She didn't seem to mind all that much.
"Please put it back!" Dende frantically implored while Bulma moved just as frantically to comply with the request. She pressed the button on the side of the penthouse and was nearly sent hurtling out into space as the Lookout drastically righted itself, thankfully saved by a beleaguered Piccolo and his stretching arm.
"Maybe a smaller one," he suggested dryly as he set her down. Bulma nodded and popped out a much more economy-sized Capsule house, which the Lookout didn't seem to mind at all.
"This one's only got three bedrooms," she admitted, "So I guess we'll be needing those sleeping bags, anyhow."
"Dibs on one of the beds!" Krillin, Yamcha, Lazuli, and Chi-Chi said in unison.
"Spar ya for it," Yamcha challenged with a smirk, already getting into his guard.
"Why?" Krillin asked. "There's three. Besides," he added with a quirk of his eyebrow, "Do you really want me to kick your retired butt in front of your family?"
"I'm, what, three years older than you?" Yamcha retorted hotly.
"Hey," Suno chided, "Maybe don't raise our ki while Majin Boo's still roaming around, huh?" Yamcha and Krillin, looking appropriately scolded, looked down at the ground and Suno sighed, massaging her temples. "I wish I could see what was going on down there."
"I've been keeping tabs," Piccolo informed them. They looked at him in shock and he shrugged. "Nobody asked."
"How?" Launch asked curiously as Ten shifted Kani to sit on his shoulders.
"It's one of the perks of being Earth's Guardian," Dende explained, "Which I guess Piccolo is still able to access. From up here, we can see anything happening on Earth at any time."
"Did Mr. Piccolo tell you that you could do that?" asked Shou as she looked back and forth between the two Namekians, one slightly taller than her and one slightly shorter. In the background, Mr. Popo waddled out of the temple with a tower of colorful sleeping bags.
"Oh, no," Dende explained, "I figured it out on my own, doing… research. With my powers." He gave a sideways glance and cleared his throat.
OoOoOoO
It had been approximately two days since Gohan and Dende had… "broken up." In that time, Dende had used that ability to watch "Sleepless in South City" fifteen times at various movie theaters.
"Mr. Popo!" Dende groaned from beneath a small, ziggurat-like tomb of ice cream cartons. "I need more rocky road! The cold hasn't numbed the pain yet!" He then began to blubber in a manner most undignified for a Guardian of the Earth.
OoOoOoO
"Research…" Dende reiterated, apropos of nothing. "So, Piccolo, what's Majin Boo up to?" he asked, desperate for a change of topic. Piccolo turned his gaze earthward, his antennae bobbing thoughtfully and his ears shifting slightly this way and that.
"Well," he observed, "Majin Boo's killed almost half of the world's population, which is about what we figured." Everyone shuddered and shifted uncomfortably. "I don't see Babidi anywhere… if I had to guess by the purple smear on one of his gloves, Boo killed him. He seems to have… built some kind of house out in the plains near Ginger Town."
"Out of what?" Videl asked incredulously.
"You don't wanna know," Piccolo assured her with a sidelong glance. "Now, let's see…" then his mouth hung open in disbelief. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me…" he groaned.
OoOoOoO
"This is crazy," Hercule muttered as he began piloting his personal plane down toward the ground near Majin Boo's last known sighting by the King's satellite imaging. "This is crazy, this is crazy, I'm gonna die, this is crazy." He kept repeating this mantra as he landed the plane, as if he needed to get it all out of his system so he could put on a big smile. "Just a little kid," he reminded himself as he reached into the back of the plane to find the satchel of offerings that he'd brought with him. It was less efficient than a box of capsules, but a big red bag looked more impressive. "Just a kid who doesn't know right from wrong," he said again. "You can fix this. You're the world's hero. Time to act like it. They believe in you. Don't be a coward again." If Hercule were being entirely honest with himself, this had a lot to do with the events that had happened several hours ago– although it felt like half a lifetime ago at this point– both the fact that he had completely frozen up during Spopovich's rampage and the condescending way Suno had treated him in their tournament match.
Even more than that, though, this had been brewing inside Hercule for about seven years now. All of the fame, the wealth, the adulation, the merchandising and the sponsorships… he hadn't earned it. He hadn't deserved any of it. No matter what the rest of them tried to tell him, no matter what the world thought, the most useful and important thing that Hercule Satan had ever done in his life was die.
Well, he planned to change that, Hercule decided as he slung the bag over one shoulder and strode confidently to the door of Majin Boo's strange, insect-like house. He was going to prove that he deserved to be seen as the world's hero. He was going to save the world all by himself and on his own merits. As he knocked on the door, Hercule couldn't help but idly wonder just what the heck this thing was made out of.
When the door opened, sliding up toward the ceiling, it made a faint sound like the distant wailing of a thousand damned souls and Hercule had to fight an urge to cut and run, screaming his head off. Holy shit.
"Hello!" Majin Boo declared cheerfully as he stuck his head out of the door, looking down at Hercule curiously. "You want sell Boo something?" Hercule wondered for a moment what poor bastard had been crazy and unlucky enough to try and door-to-door sale Majin Boo. "Or you here to fight Boo?" Boo wondered with an excited grin.
"N-no," Hercule assured him with a grin of his own as he tried to keep all of his blood from draining into his feet. "I'm not here to fight or sell you something or anything like that. I don't wanna bother you, Mr. Boo," he said, "My name's Hercule," he said, "And I wanna be your friend!"
Boo cocked his head slowly to one side, like a dog hearing a strange noise. "Friend?" he repeated, as if this was the first time he'd ever heard of the word.
"Yeah," Hercule agreed with a nod, "A friend! Someone who you can talk to, who you can trust and rely on, who wants to play games with you and stuff! Someone that'll never treat you badly or be mean to you!" Hercule could see what looked like… tears in Boo's eyes? Hercule didn't know it, but the sum total of Majin Boo's interactions with all sentient life had either been people running from him in terror, fighting him, or being mean to him. "Would you like a friend, Mr. Boo?" Hercule asked.
"Yeah!" Boo cheered as he threw his skinny arms out and lifted Hercule up off his feet to wrap him in a bear hug. "Hercule is Boo's best friend!"
'Alright, so far so good!' Hercule thought to himself. 'Now he just has to not hug me to death…'
OoOoOoO
Piccolo's jaw hadn't left the floor of the Lookout. This… this was ridiculous. 'If Hercule actually saves the world,' he thought sourly, 'I'm taking the first taxi-via-Shenron to New Namek.'
SSV/N: If you're wondering, Pracya is Sanskrit for "East."