[ OP: Eve ‒ Fight Song ]

As Night Invites Day, As Today Beckons Tomorrow! The Winds Forever Draw Likened Souls Against Themselves!

Videl munched an eraser.

"..."

She also stared into the soul of a piece of paper that didn't possess one. Yet. It'd grow one if she kept it up.

"... kh…"

Videl munched harder, faster, and/or stronger.

"...KH-HHH…!"

The torn notepad steadily caught fire. Very soon after, she ripped it to shreds.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" She yelled in a berserk. "EVERY TIME I THINK I'VE GOT IT NAILED DOWN, I ASK MYSELF ONE STUPID QUESTION AND POKE A HOLE THROUGH THE ENTIRE EVENT!" The great teacher sighed. "A good final training session… if it's an all-out spar, then…"

"RANDOM DRAGON BULLSHIT GO!"

"WOAH, CHI YE!"

"H-HEY! I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THE LIFE-OR-DEATH STUFF! CALM DOW-" she screamed, before one became a hollowed steaming husk and the other became a vegetable.

"They're definitely crazy enough to push themselves that far…!" she lamented. "And something like an obstacle course…"

Videl lowered her head and looked upon the hollowed, smoking, distorted, uprooted landscape — a thousand redos and retrials. "I'm no good at designing those. Not any that I've already designed, at least…! And I've had them fight each other over and over, plus the last time it happened…"

"Huh? Where'd Mei go, Neoru?"

" i should die, teach."

"(Forget about flying, that kid's sinking...)"

"I COULD just throw EVERYTHING at them… mraaa—w, that sounds too easy, though! And a written test is just that but with schoolwork! Have I always been this creatively bankrupt!? C'mon, think… let's see, what would Gohan do in this situation?"

"Well Videl, I told them to relax and focus their ki, but it's not working."

"... Gohan, that's ALL you've told them."

"Well it worked for you and Goten!"

"Aren't you a college professor!?"

"Not for students! My Bamvas courses are self-paced!"

"You're hopeless!"

"Wait…! I could make them face their inner demons in a literal sense by-OH DAMMIT, TRUNKS TOOK THAT IDEA ALREADY!" Videl wearily palmed her cheek. "It's hopeless… I guess I really will have to settle…"

She looked toward the giant tree in the distance. "... no, that's too dangerous."

A gate suddenly opened behind her. She turned and…

"Kaset!?"

Responding to the name was a tall man with a medium fade and a body splotched with both faint burn scars and bandage remnants. "Mh? VIDEL!?"

They shared a baffled stare.

"How?"

"Neoru had access, so he gave me access."

"Why?"

Videl ground her teeth. "Because he needed training, and I offered mine."

"..." Kaset glared sullenly into the dirt. "... mh."

"Is there a problem with that?"

"... do you know where he is?"

"I SAID…!" Videl stood atop her rock. "Is there a problem with that?"

Kaset's eyes narrowed. "Fuck are you doing right now?"

"Clarifying something. Because it sounds like you think your student made a mistake."

"You're puttin' words in my mouth."

"Your soul's screaming it. I just wanted you to say it out loud."

"All I'm sayin' is that he could've picked anyone else. Why someone that's been doin' this shit serious for, what, a decade now?"

"I've been staking my life since I was 12, you son of a bitch. Why isn't that enough for you?"

Kaset's eyes blackened. "Watch it…"

" 'I'm the daughter of a fraud, so I can't amount to anything', right? Suddenly that means that I can't keep improving? Maybe you remember my level of power when we first met, but did you forget how weak YOU were?" She made a fist. "Because as I am now, I'd kick that teenage punk's head clean off. But you've grown, haven't you? You've even become a mentor. Well guess what, so have I! So say whatever the hell you want about my ability, you asshole, but that won't stop me from becoming a master!"

"..."

The patroller took a long exhale. "Obviously, he ain't here." He reached for his gate. All the while, a blue, spiritual light steadily brightened before him; the capsule in his hand, he suddenly struck away a ki blast.

"And there's no way I'm letting you walk away, dismissing me again. We can settle whatever doubts you may have, right here and now." Videl smirked. "Gohan won't be the one to push your teeth in, this time. And Stroga isn't here to save you."

"..."

The Divine Tree's crumbling in the background filled the dimension with the sound of carnage, and turbulent winds and debris accompanied it; both latter phenomena were blocked by the two mentors' power.

Kaset's aura erupted like a volcano, by no lesser measure. "You an' this petty bullshit, I swear…!"

Videl's aura sent trees blowing back for miles. "Don't act like you're any different, if you call yourself a martial artist. LET'S GO!"

[ BGM: Jin Senbonmatsu – The Flower of Chivalry ]

Kaset's rear foot sank into the ground, and he exploded forward in a searing-red flash. In the next instant, a fist-sized swath tunneled through the trees for what seemed like forever. The patroller had maintained his stance, slowly breathing. He noticed the tunnel's divergence from his fist's position, then looked to his side.

Her forearms steaming and shaking, a smoking skid mark across the ground leading to her shoes, the same red flash leaving her body, Videl peeked from behind them with manic eyes.

"Kaioken," they hissed through bared teeth. Both raised their posture, before Kaset lunged at Videl with an intercepted shovel hook, only to follow immediately with a stronger, full-body hook to the head that knocked her through the forest and all its earth and wood, Kaset following his own momentum and launching a side snap-kick straight after that whipped through the air like a high-caliber round; Videl caught her bearings and bounded of the air itself, dodging the kick that swathed through her hair and lunging from the side, rolling into a spin kick and slamming into Kaset's still-aerial chest with a kick, sending him into the ground with a sinkhole chasing after. Videl rolled onto her hands and backflipped into a kata.

"KAAA—!" she roared as blood came down her eyes.

Kaset, eyes-wide, stared into the sky all the while.

"I can't… cherish, you… for whatever amount of time I can, if you go off killing yourself or, Heaven forbid, actually making the cut, going to that… space, and being stuck in there forever."

"Kh…!"

"If not for me, then for that little boy who dragged you here, bruised beyond belief, and then broke down in that hallway, beating himself up over how he could only just-barely save you from yourself."

He shot up from his lying position, still flat on his back as he sailed out the crater and into the air. He landed on a knee, and his aura surged again, a pained grimace melting across his face.

"(Wait…)"

Videl recognized it. From herself, from him, from…

"(... No. That's not at all surprising, actually.)"

The fact that he still hadn't recovered, that he wouldn't get some magical recovery boost from his brush with death – if anything, he'd be worse off once he DID recover – ate at him.

"... KAIOTO-..." He bit down, forcing himself to stop.

"Well? What's holding you back?"

He gripped the ground, released it, and dashed toward the mentor. His hits were much heavier as he pressed her defense in a shared, harrowing display of footwork, both shredding the surroundings with every missed and colliding blow before she leapt harmlessly off a tree and clear over him – despite the over-a-foot height disparity – right as he channeled into a wound-up cross that obliterated the mystic oak once behind her, and all its cohorts for miles. She capitalized and outstretched her hand, the wood empowered by her ki and multiplying as it encapsulated and beat into him, layer after seemingly-endless layer battering him as an extension of her ki; a short-lived maneuver as his own ki exploded, knocking Videl back before she could send a blast straight through the onslaught. A flying back-kick knocked her off her feet entirely, something audibly breaking in her forearm; after a staggered gasp, she kipped up in a windmill and abruptly veered away from an uppercut that set the air on fire as it only-just missed her head, taking his subsequent hook into a grapple-and-shoulder throw, only for Kaset to roll onto his feet and immediately tackle her. She sprawled before leaping into a guillotine, but the patroller grabbed her leg mid-guard and slammed her into the ground, countering into a shoulder-lock. Her head immediately grew fuzzy by the nanosecond as Kaset locked in. She resorted to upping her body temperature until the ground beneath her soupified; not long afterward, he could no longer ignore the searing of his muscles and focused even more ki into the grip. The moment came — immediately, before her mind could go blank, her palm slammed into him, and a shockwave shook his core. Videl tucked his arm behind hers and rolled atop him before burning red, raising a fist, and bringing it down square into his face; Kaset's eyes went blank before his heel spun 'round and smacked her across the temple with his own burning World King kick, the Satan dojo successor tumbling across the dirt in a heap before slamming into a stump.

"Damn it all…" Videl chuckled between her sputtering and hacking. "I was so confident I'd put you in your place like a badass…!"

Kaset, doing much the same, weakly slammed the ground. "Can't even use… his own damn ki anymore…" He glared into the sky, as his voice quivered. "I… couldn't even teach him any damn restraint…! An' the first fuckin' time he sees me after the fact, I'm half… FUCK-KIN' dead!"

Videl's expression slowly shifted. "You know… Neoru, he… he's starting to figure it out again."

"... huh?"

"Ki." The martial artist tried to stand, slowly toppled over, and guided herself into a tree stump. "Tenshinhan and I, and this other student… we taught him more on ki. He seemed to… catch on pretty quick."

Kaset had no words.

He found out about her father, and laughed her off like one would a fraud online. To've been glanced over by other species, that wasn't uncommon by any means.

Another human, however… That stuck to her.

She'd demanded a fight, then and there. The boy thrashed her without an effort, despite being younger. Her then-fiancé intervened in a rage, but her pride as a fighter held the moment in the pit of her gut nevertheless — no, because of it.

"HE'S GONNA KILL YOU AT THIS POINT, YOU IDIOT! JUST LAY DOWN AND APOLOGIZE BEFORE HE BREAKS EVEN MORE!"

"If you gonna keep blastin' my ears with weak shit, then get the fuck on somewhere!" He spat out another tooth with a big, dumb grin plastered across his scarred, bleeding face. " 'Sides, I'm s'posed to be dead, right!? 'f I don't go out like no punk here an' now, then I'm fine with dyin' twice!"

"Now, 're ya… gonna keep underestimating me? Even… after all this?" Videl picked herself up, as shaky as she was. " 'Cus I can… keep this up until… one of us…!"

"... I give up."

"Huh?"

"I was gonna… tell 'im to bow out the tournament… so I could get him to control his ki again... But there you go… teachin' 'im not a week before it starts… I… I lost." He raised himself into a defeated seat on the ground. "Fuck do I have to offer at this point?"

"... your ankle's broken."

Kaset looked off.

"And your tendons are hanging on by a thread." The martial artist pulled herself together. "You started spacing out every now-and-then, your bones are like tree bark, and your nerves are almost fried. Hell, your ki output's half of what it should be." Videl stumbled over and crouched down. "I had no idea you were this broken, but by the time I fully realized how bad it was, I was already too focused on giving it my all. I can tell who trained that kid." She sighed off to the side, gathered herself, and lent a hand. "I lost pretty bad myself. Don't see me crying over it, though."

"… you came through for him." He looked back up. "... when I couldn't. Thanks."

"It wasn't just me," Videl smiled. "But I'll take some credit, for sure."

Kaset took Videl's hand.

And then a dragon's roar rang out.

Both mentors' eyes widened.

And time passed.

"You got clingy QUICK, you know that?"

"Does that trouble you?"

"Nah, it's nice, just… somethin' I noticed."

"Good." Mei nuzzled into Neoru's cheek from her bridal carry. "You should feel honored. What shame it must bring a man with strong, open arms, and a delicate woman trailing behind him."

"Pmph… 'delicate'?"

Mei opened an eye. "I don't remember telling a joke, beloved…"

"I dunnooo~ delica~te? I meee~an I think 'delicate' an' I ain't thinkin'..." He began to visibly strain himself. "Somethin'... this… heavy…! Hoah…!"

The girl repeatedly smacked the boy's chest in a rage. "Stop that! You ill-mannered boar!"

"Ok, ok, I'll stop! Kh-hh!" Neo did as he was told, snickering with half his face. "Can't carry ya if you're kickin' my ass the whole time."

"Tch!" She looked away in a cross-armed huff. "I was going to have you put me down, but you can carry me until your frail and womanly arms shatter to dust now…"

"Oh noooo, now I gotta keep holdin'... all ten kilos'a ya…"

"Four thousand, five hundred and ten."

"Oh yeah, bands. I dunno, I can't notice. Still light to me."

"... wǒ ài shàng liǎooo— yī gè shǎchāaa—...!" Mei smushed her cheek against his.

He stopped on a dime, and broke from her.

"... Mèi." His demeanor shifted to that of an elk under a wolf's watch.

She noticed what had put him on edge, but didn't recognize it in the slightest. He let her down gently, and she quietly stepped off to the side as he advanced through the still-regrowing forest.

Sure enough, on the other side of the regenerating foliage, Kaset stared back. The intent that drifted through the air was palpable.

"... yo. Glad to see you're walkin' again."

Kaset got off his rock and approached. The boy entered a subtle stance.

"(Mrs. Vi's nowhere to be found. Neither's Mr. Ten. Don't know what that means, but I've got guesses, goin' off his look alone. This some culminating event?)"

The master, out of nowhere, entered his range before he could think, pulled him in with an arm, and hugged him.

"...!"

He froze; he had to stop his body from twitching into some sort of reflex or counter, just to let his head interpret the information.

"I'm proud of you, man."

"... Huh?"

He set Neo back, gripping his shoulders. "You brought yourself back from the brink. Over and over. All on your own. Must've been tough… but you pulled it off."

"... hh-... hh-heh-heh…!" Neo caught something in both eyes. "H-hey, I barely even did anything…!"

Kaset ruffled his hair. "Who taught you all that modesty shit, ah? I gotta shake it all outta there or what, ah!?" he yelled to the boy's loud protest, the latter's shoes gradually sinking into the ground.

"-ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" Neo managed to slip away, gripping his sizzling head in a giggling fit.

"You sure?" the patroller asked, waving his palm. " 'Cus I got more in me!"

"No, really…!" Neo calmed down, his pained grin settling into a small smile. "... I learned a lot. Lost a lot. Gained a lot. And I'm right here, where I am now, thanks to everything in between."

Kaset raised his palm again.

"THAT INCLUDES ME, TOO, JEEZ!"

His palm fell again. "... I took way too many risks as your mentor, y'know. And there was real key shit that I couldn't teach you… 'cus I didn't know it myself or otherwise. I can't really make that up to you."

"What the hell, you get to self ass-kick an' I don't?" Neo asked smugly, folding his arms. "I'm not gonna learn everything from ya. If I didn't go around learnin' my own lessons, then I'd never be a man. You gave me what I needed to do that." He raised a thumb. "You gave me everything you had. That's enough for me, bro."

Kaset stared.

He squeezed his eyes shut and winced with an inhale.

He released, and turned his head to the sky with an exhale, his cheek snapping off his teeth all the while.

"I'm glad I could be your mentor."

Neo grinned like a dumbass. "That's two of us." He looked around. "So, is there gonna be some big final event or what, bro? Is that why Mrs. Videl an' Mr. Tenshinhan're hiding over there?"

He made direct eye contact with them. In that order.

Both fell from their trees.

"(How the-)" Kaset gawked, both masters recovering from their stagger. "(I lost track'a them entirely, what the-)"

"MH-HM!" Videl cleared her throat. "Well, um, apparently, you both climbed the dead Divine Tree over there…" She pointed to the tiny twig tower in the distance. "Um… h-hiheh, so, um, you've ALREADY COMPLETED THE TRAINING, for all we're concerned!"

Tenshinhan slowly shook his head, wiping shameful sweat with a palm.

Neoru slowly, very-visibly began to connect dots. Kaset covered the loudest cough on the face of the earth, scattering them.

"THEREFORE!" Videl took the shot, "There's only one step left in the training: TECHNIQUES!"

Neoru repeated the word to confirm – with all the stability of a code-red reactor core – and with a nod, both the ponytailed instructor and her crane master cohort did just that.

"Since you're both fast learners, and you're now well-equipped in all three facets, we've chosen to throw as many techniques at you as possible in the span of a day. What sticks will stick, and what doesn't, well, it simply may not suit you."

"Not me, though," Kaset raised his hand, to Neo's visible disappointment. "Even I'm not close to masterin' my biggest 'n baddest, and all I've got from there are fundamentals."

"Wh-what about that weird gravity-pull shit ya did to me when we sparred that one time?"

Videl and Tenshinhan turned their heads.

"... i thought everyone knew how to do that."

They fell.

The patroller stoically scratched his cheek, all the while."(somethin' about the strong force…)"

"Well, er…" Videl picked herself up. "Time's of the essence, after all, so let's start with-"

Neoru put forth a palm. "Before we start?"

"Huh? What's up now?"

"I'm feeling kinda sen'imen'al right now, so…"

Neo smiled like a kid.

"Thanks for everything, big sis!"

.

.

.

Videl flew into a tree.

"HEH!?"

"HM!? VIDEL!"

"...?"

She oozed blood from her nose as she sputtered, clutching at her heart. "Wh-what… just happened!?"

Tenshinhan raced over to check on her, as Kaset held back bewildered laughter.

Neo looked around frantically. "THE HELL WUZZAT!? HEY, MRS. VI!"

All the while, behind the tree he'd looked toward for an instant…

He patted her head. "Don't forget that, Xiǎo Méi."

"Xiāo! Xiāo Mèi!"

"Call yourself whatever you'd like, you little plum."

Facing the heavens, a hand over her eyes.

"The only name I've ever known is Róu Jiǎ Mó."

"Thank you, Ròujiāmó!" she laughed, before closing the door.

The girl smiled, even though tears rolled down.

"(What more could I have said to you…?)"

She took a shaky breath and swallowed a joyous sob. "(... No. There will always be more, the more I reminisce.)" She released her eyes, and left the shade to join the others.

"(But I am happy, all the while, with what I left with you.)"

Morning turned to afternoon.

Afternoon, to evening.

Evening, to nightfall.

With that, the five beheld Conton's mystical lights for the first time all day. Both the magical sky above, and the still-bustling city below; recent events had resurrected the city's nightlife to an extent.

"⁻ᵘᵘᵘᵘʰ⁻"

The four, rather. Neoru had gone brain-dead. As unproblematic as they found such a thing.

"Thanks for the help, Tenshinhan," Videl stated coolly.

"I hardly did anything," he responded.

"I know," Videl replied.

One of three eyes drifted to the side. All the while, Mei reared onto her tippy-toes, carefully raising a finger to Neo's forehead.

"Now me, personally, I wouldn't take that, Venerable Crane Master," Kaset made known.

"Shaddap."

"ᴬᵗᵃ."

BWₑₑ₋ₘₘₘₘₘ!

"But I mean it. Knowing that you were there on standby meant the world, and you still filled in the holes wherever I needed you too."

"It was an honor, woman of Satan Dojo."

Kaset swatted an invisible fly. "I ain' e'en gon' say it."

"I keep forgetting that I can just ask Ayeva to beat the shit out of you…" She turned to Kaset. "Until then, thanks for giving me such a great test dummy."

The rugged patroller looked over to said test dummy.

"-ᴘᴏᴋᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ᴅᴀᴍɴ ʜᴇᴀᴅ, ɪ'ᴍ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ғᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ɪɴʀᴏɴᴋᴏ!"

"ʜᴍᴘʜ. ɪᴛ ɪs ᴛᴏᴏ ʟᴀᴛᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʀᴇᴀᴅʏ ᴀɴ ɪᴅɪᴏᴛ."

"... all I did was give him some manners."

Tenshinhan raised a brow. "Manners? You?"

"I don't gotta practice. Preaching's good enough for me."

The triclops heaved, as Videl made her way toward a vendor on the cusp of closing. "I could see you living a more disciplined life if you took up the role of a mentor, full-time. It'd be a shame to take all you've learned with you to the grave."

"... I just can't. Feel like that's what a martial artist does once they're happy with where they are in power. But I ain't even 30 yet. And I'm not happy with where I am."

"It sounds an awful lot like you're trying to convince yourself."

"You got your Heaven Eye working again, right? You can already see my soul, don't beat around the bush."

Tenshinhan folded his arms. "... You rushed your body to its limits early on, and its ability to house energy alongside it. Even with ki, you're slowly reaching your limit."

Videl haggled with the young shop co-owner with a "CLOSED" sign in-hand, as Neoru vainly tried remembering more than, like, three learned techniques that Mei demonstrated effortlessly.

"Imagine one of the first things you remember eating being a fruit from the Tree of Might. All that power, all at once, from somethin' that you shouldn't even be able to eat. Everything after that just tastes like ass."

The Crane Sage's eyes flared. "The Tree of...! How?"

The patroller shrugged. "I survived a wreck, somehow. Thugs who found me figured they could get a kick on how far they could push me 'fore I broke down. They didn't, obviously, but by the end, I couldn't even understand my own species anymore." He got into a deep squat as he reflected, his head lowering. "What they called torture, I called… I dunno, bonding. Grew on them so much, 'specially the old tailed motherfucker… they saw me as one'a their own. So did I."

[ BGM: Bruce Faulconer ‒ Calm ]

He reached for a cigarette, stopped, pulled out the pack, and sat it on the counter. "Knew I'd die soon, either from them stabbin' me in the back or galactic patrol or whoever, so I just focused on gettin' as strong as I could 'till then. Lived for the moment. 'Cus I just wanted to fight more, 'cus I wanted to see how much further I could push, 'cus didn't have any reason not to. Was a shock when they tried savin' me, but by then, I just didn't wanna be saved. It's all caught up to me now."

"... You know of the Crane Hermit, and his brother, right? What they did to their 'proteges'?"

"... yeah." Kaset raised his head to Tenshinhan. "Wait-you of all people know I know!"

Tien's head tilted elsewhere. "You heard the hearsay and wanted the experience for yourself…"

"Then you beat the fuck outta me and told me never to come back-" Kaset bounded back up, with arms sternly folded. "Man I forgot ALL ABOUT how bad you hoe'd me 'till now!"

Tien struggled to hold back laughter.

"Oh, bro is jokes now…" Kaset sighed, unfolding with a fist on his hip. "You taught me a lot about Conton with that one. Its people. Taught me how to be human, too."

"I MAY have regretted the decision later on, for the record. I should've beaten some sense into you before Vegeta could get his mitts on you."

"OOOH, Vegeta… man those were times. Taru was knockin' the mess outta me back then, too, she was an ASShole."

"So I'm told." Tenshinhan's eye opened. "I want you to give up on yourself, Kaset. Teach what you've learned. Live fruitfully. It'd be worse than a shame to lose the life you've lived."

"Nah. I'll hold out a bit longer. 'Least till my hip goes."

"HEY, BOYS!" Videl yelled, seated with the former students at the table. "Ya gonna keep cruising down memory lane or are ya gonna eat!?"

"... mh."

"Mh."

"I'm'na burst it."

"Mwhy must you say such nonsense as I eat?"

"What? Anyway, so like, my soul or spirit or whatever, it gets just a bit stronger whenever I use Tlatla, if I'm not an idiot with it. So I just wait until my soul makes so much ki that it gets physical and then, bam. Release."

"You can turn it on and off at will?"

"Yyyy… K-kinda? It's sorta hard ta close it, it's like a door you're tryna close durin' a flood."

"But by the time it grows physical… myou are reaching the 'berge', mno?"

"Verge, uh… ye-yeah… I think I get it… fuck, thought I had it… shit, this Tlatla thing kinda sucks…"

"Perhaps you are just using it wrong?"

"Ah?"

Mei ravenously cleared another rib as Neo waited semi-patiently. "It allows you to outpace any 'mere' man in spiritual growth, as shown in your qi. And you maintain your body's shape, as well, when it comes out as steam and not flame. That alone is powerful, but your very soul mends itself in that state. Immortals of the past would kill countless bloodlines to have what you hold."

"ⁿᵒ ˢᵉʳᶦᵒᵘˢˡʸ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᵃᶜᵗᵘᵃˡ ᶠᵘᶜᵏ ʰᵃˢ ᵍᵒᵗᵗᵃ ᵍᵒ ᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵒⁿᵉ'ˢ ʰᵉᵃᵈ ᵗᵒ ˢᵃʸ ˢʰᶦᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵒᵘᵗ ˡᵒᵘᵈ⁻"

"Cultivation would be no matter of decades or centuries, but years."

Neo's eyes darted around like confused flies. "Cool but I wanna be a Super Saiyan."

Mei munched with a "You're A Dumbass" stare.

"... What?"

Mei munched more with a "Yep, You're A Dumbass" stare. "Eyes of a dragon, yet still fails to see Mount Furai..."

"Whatever." He sipped his iced water. "I can hold more for longer, but shuttin' it off will always be a bitch without Inronko, maybe. I can't use it like a form."

"Not all true, nah."

Neo jumped out his seat. "SH-SHIT!"

Mei stared. This one went "Why Are You Still A Dumbass?"

"DUDE YOU SOUNDED WAY TOO MUCH LIKE THIS OTHER GUY FOR A SECOND!"

"I, AM NOT, A 'DUDE'!"

"What other guy?" Tenganosu asked beside Mei's enflamed proclamation with a coy, closed smirk.

Neo turned.

"... Oi. E aí?" The undercut dread-tailed young man extended a hand. "You made one hell of a scene this morning for all of a second, hm?"

"... oh, of-...!" His ponytailed counterpart took it and pulled up. "It's been like a hundred years since I've seen ya, man! What's happening?"

"Patching up a broken woman's heart. Typical romantic endeavors, of course." Tengano sighed to the skies, crying for their aid as his arm crashed onto Neo's shoulder. "Don't fall in love, Neo." His hand curled in dramatic agony. "It hurts…!"

Mei glared a dagger into his back and twisted.

Neo winced. "H-heh… bit too late, man."

Tengano paused. He peaked around the boy.

"Ahhh, and she's a jewel, too! Cursed, we men of the volcano!"

"ᴅᴜᴅᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴜᴄᴋ sᴛᴏᴘ-"

"I would drown my sorrows in scotch but there are like three adults here so…" He caught mean side-eyes from one in particular.

"(That kid who ghosted me…!)" Videl hissed internally as she downed fried squid.

"Wait hold on, you were gonna start talkin' about Tlatla before you started yappin' about that other shit, right?"

"... aaAH! That'd completely slipped my mind, actually." His chuckling subsided as he inched his finger back and forth. "Come try this new tea with me, ah? It'll just be a sec."

Neo got the gist, picking up his fish sticks. "I'll be right back, guys."

They hit a stand four corners down.

"Alright, so what's up?"

Tengano ordered. "Apparently..." He huffed, retiring his relaxed demeanor. "Everything I know has been a lie."

The center of the nebula was vacant.

It were as if something had snatched a divine fistful of its core. The source of the "light-year hole" was made glaringly apparent on contact; the pressure at the border of the darkness was disorienting, an invisible wave of energy at a constant output. He needed full power just to move forward, and it only grew worse. But it served as a marker, a sign of progress.

The lights of the stars and cosmic dust faded as he traveled further within the black, and soon, no light in any direction outside of that emanating from his body.

"(How long have I been flying this way?)" the musai asked himself, two flaky maroon stains coming down his nose. "(A decade? It can't've been any less than that…! Why am I even doing this!?)"

The very reasons flashed through his eyes, the same ones that had done so a dozen thousand times over. Varying degrees of smiles washed over him, as did the warmth they carried, and he found strength again.

"(Of course…! You guys… You guys are still RIGHT HERE WITH- !?)"

He had reached the core of emptiness. At least, a few thousand miles away. Compared to the lightyear just passed, he could practically reach out and touch this behemoth.

No word could describe what he beheld within the core but power.

Winds, violent and fluctuating between an absoluter zero and… a heat that granted gravity impossible strength… in a void within the void of space, swirled around him in a storm rife with plasmas carrying conflicting charges. Stars, full-fledged stars with the expected size and heat, mind-boggling giants and dwarves that tore at space, periodically flashed in and out of existence, their deaths shown as twinkling lights returning to the center of his being, carried by those various winds.

The Cosmos Sage Shaping The 9th Great Nothingness, the name given by those with knowledge of this "entity." One of his own. At least, he hoped he was.

The smiles from before flashed through his head in rapid-fire form. His ki released to the top in a manner the musai didn't think was possible, reminding himself of his loved ones in a wheel that didn't stop turning. He roared, preparing his entire being to travel through the storm of which nothing could possibly surv"What are you?"

The great storm stopped.

— He was a mountain. Cesious-blue skin beneath a metallic-grey carapace, a giant red crystal embedded over his sternum like a ruby shield. Another presented itself inside his head, as did two curved, black horns that loomed over his body like the tusks of great mammalian beasts. Muscles adorned his figure, as did a biomask that enhanced and enriched the air around him, making it truly worth breathing — a fabled symbol of enlightenment amongst the musai.

There was no doubt about it. The man was one of his own. And a part of the mutants that reigned over his homeworld, at that.

"..." The junior took a moment to capture his thoughts. No later than the moment came, his fist careened into his palm. "TEACHER!"

"... tiicha? Is that your name, then?"

"Eh? N-NO, I WANT YOU AS-"

"Very well." The mammoth musai slowly moved back to his place. "Do not interrupt my pursuit, 'Tiicha'."

"H… Hey…"

Tiicha tensed. "I MEAN, TAKE ME AS YOUR STUDENT!"

"I need nothing but power. This 'student' you speak of concerns me not. I acknowledge you, Tiicha. That is all."

"N-NO, I…" Despite the ongoing telepathic conversation, he unconsciously released a kiai. "I NEED MORE POWER!"

The sage stopped.

"I need all the power I can get…!" The musai slammed a fist into his gemless chest. "To protect what I love!"

"... For those attached to this fleeting world…" He continued to sail back. "The essence of power will forever be lost."

"What…? Hey! I can't let you get away with something like that!" Tiicha yelled, hurrying after the dismissive sage.

He was then flung back a few thousand miles.

"Hmph." Voshyo ate another helping of bento. "What a ridiculous title."

"I was first made privy to the title by that young man," Ceushius explained, constructing and deconstructing an inert mini-"star" in his hands. "It was odd, at the time."

"What? Did you take a liking toward it as time passed?"

"Not particularly. Although, I came to understand the title. Such labels give people a sense of understanding, and that assures them. In a sense, I was no different."

Voshyo grabbed a steamed bun. "Power, I presume?" He said before stuffing his fat fucking face full of food.

"Mh." He took a breath through his biomask. "Born with power of which I did not understand and surrounded by those of weaker constitutions, I left the world of man to explore my own. And then, power in itself. That contained within the outer cosmos, that contained within one's being. I sought to pursue it in my lonesome, far from civilization, where none would ever disturb me, and vice-versa."

The Saiyan tore off another corner of his meal. "Would conquering others not be a test of your power?"

"Of course not. The impermanence of the world disgusted me. Those consumed by fleeting desires like conquest, dominion and battle confused me. I believed in absolutes. And power was one such absolute. Beyond flesh and desire, pervading the cosmos for all time. Its beginning and end were all that concerned me."

Voshyo stroked his lip with a sauced, crummy thumb. "And the one behind shifting that outlook was…"

Ceushius nodded, scattering his star to the frigid wind.

"Makes no difference to me!" Tiicha smiled, his vast, ki-constructed murals of the connections he'd created floating in the void, slowly twinkling into the dark. "Things die. That's what gives life a purpose. Well… it's more like, what we do before that time comes. The impact that folks leave on others doesn't last long, sure, but it'll last the rest of our lives all the same!"

Thousands of miles away, Ceushius scoffed. "And when they are gone?"

"I choose not to think much about that. When it comes, it comes." Tiicha smiled. "Until then, they're my lifeblood!"

"He held an impeccable aptitude for ki, one even greater than my own in fact." Ceushius gazed into the sky. "Which left me perplexed. I'd abandoned the lower world entirely, an elephant amongst mere ants. But that boy saw them as equals and seniors, looked upon their impermanence and saw wisdom where I could only see futility. And to boot, he could quell the power within himself, whereas I only sought to bring to surface all of my latent potential."

Voshyo gazed down into his reflection as Ceushius spoke.

"Such power, yet he sought to give himself to the entropy below. His fist was a tool for the weak."

"Why did you choose me, Tiicha?"

The storm around Ceushius had shrunk to a tropical storm's worth. Small stars had begun to take shape and stay shaped.

"Huh? Ah… it was because you were musai. One of the few left, and far away from everyone. Thought you might've been lonely."

"Mh."

"... but you didn't feel lonely at all," Tiicha continued. "It's weird. You're happy out here, in your own way. You're 'zen', if that makes sense."

"I'm 'all'?"

"No, no. It's a figure of speech. You live in constant study of something abstract, that won't fade out, and you feel like a… a part of it, one with the universe. All that, without any connections to anything smaller. I'm… kinda jealous, teacher. I can't focus without drifting over to everyone at home."

"Is that not your strength?"

"It is! It's just that you don't seem to need something like that. It's pretty cool!"

"Then simply do as I've done. Sever your ties to the material and give yourself to the Way."

Tiicha went silent. Ceushius didn't mind.

"... I can't. That'd be selfish." The void grew warmer. "For all the bull that's back where I came, it's given me too much. The good, and the bad, and everything in between. I'll gladly give up what could've been if it means I can make it a bit better… if nothing else, then for [ ]. And [ ]. And [ ], and [ ], and, er… yeah."

"I had cultivated for seven centuries. He had trained in my ways for less than one. Yet he'd reached half of my power in the span of ten years. And for five of them, I… I had reversed my efforts. And I'd begun steadily learning to bay my own power. By its end, the storm that had raged outside my being had ceased."

"... to learn more about others."

Ceushius turned to the young lord.

"... the reason you chose not to train me. It was because you were reminded of who you once were… wasn't it?"

"Oh Heavens no, I simply would've killed you accidentally."

Voshyo's reflection broke. "KH…! V-very well…!"

"Even so, to strive for Heaven itself… I suppose it wasn't COMPLETELY separate from my own pursuit. But that's beside the point." Ceushius looked over to the colossal, aerial platforms of ice in the sky, ascending above the clouds; all of them caked in claw marks and holes that resembled fingers. "He managed to learn from me the ways of the cosmos, much like Zinco has. And from him, I learned more about my own microcosm." He formed a small star – this one, cold – and grabbed it, the star unbreaking. "Hard and soft, push and pull, temperance and explosion. True ki is discovering an absolute balance to create something unseen before your time, by honing all corners of your being." The star faded gently between his grasp.

"I assume that Cloud-Walking Fist has something to do with this concept?"

"Your Sage Tachyon, as well. In fact, many of your own techniques."

The young man shrugged. "My genius no longer comes as a surprise. Only as a bare minimum."

"(This is his way of being humble, hm…?) He grew strong enough, one day, to return to his world. But that student had instilled in me a curiosity that I couldn't rid myself of. So in time, I paid the lower world a visit, myself. If I could peer into this wisdom of impermanence of which the lad spoke so highly of, then I'd sate my curiosity and return to my own pursuit with a higher understanding."

"And…?"

[ BGM: The Last Dinosaur – Gusts of Wind Blowing in Different Directions ]

"... and I witnessed infants grow old." He closed his red, pupiless eyes. "Weak, pudgy, hapless creatures rose and fell, over and over, until they could stand without aid. But once that moment occurred, they bore the potential to shape worlds. Some microcosmically, some significantly, all by way of different means, at differing moments in their lives. From the instant they stood, to what sudden, untimely demise awaited them. Giving lives and having them taken, by another or otherwise. I'd witnessed the cycle across space, countless times. But those that enraptured me most, were those of lifespans seldom breaching a century." Ceushius' closed eyes shuddered. "They spent their entire lives the same as they had as pudgy, hapless infants, grasping for what meaning they could before their minute flames sputtered out. A great many spiraled into the same material waste I'd seen on my home planet, all while feigning ignorance of their limited time. But there were a great many who acknowledged their fleeting, and applied themselves for the sake of those around them. And those who would come after. They… they placed faith in an uncertain future of which they would never beat witness."

Voshyo noticed the silent shaking.

"I surmised that this, too, was a form of power."

"... and what of that 'Tiicha' fellow?"

Ceushius held an odd silence.

"... No," Voshyo rescinded as he picked himself up. "I only need know so much. This is a fine stopping point."

The old man still looked dour. "I grew indecisive in my role in the way of things. And still am. It continues to cost me."

The young man scoffed. "Please. You were right the first time. Let me guess: allow we worldly folk to make our choices while you observe, as to not disturb the 'Way'? I could ask for nothing greater." He looked up into the sky, toward the massive, surreal ice formation marked with effort, and the one above it. "Nudge us along if you must, but allow us to shape our own paths. The consequences will be ours to bear. Especially for we Saiyans."

The leopard's cubs mewed helplessly, thin and frail in their den. The cruelty of his obstructive act had been made clear. The only way to correct was to undo his vow. He steeled himself through the oncoming nausea.

Bloodied from his first desperate experience of hunting, riddled with despair and the essence of the very deer he'd saved, the boy beheld the massive beast revealed between the freshly broken brush.

Its serene, blue voids without pupils gazed off, the beast standing atop grass without disturbing a single blade.

Not a single creature feared its presence. Nor did a single creature fear any other's.

It fed off the energy around it, lapping it like water. Its jagged teeth served no purpose, the flames of its jade-like scales gleaming harmlessly like light in the midst of the sun that broke through the clouds, refracted by its two mighty golden antlers.

Something so powerful, without rival, and yet so tranquil. Needing take nothing but the cosmos from once it came. Defying the way of the world itself.

He fell to his knees. The voice that'd accepted the give-and-take that spun the world had died forever, expelled with a mortified, despair-ridden scream.

It approached him like it would any other creature, and nudged him as he wept.

Zinco's eyes opened.

After a long pause, a stream of visible breath trailed from his mouth and far past his head, before slowing down and dissipating into the void. The boy reared himself up and began to practice his arts, with all three meters of space he'd given himself.

"Did you think you'd get off scott-free, just because you're a child?"

"YOU DON'T…! HAVE… TO…! HURT ANYMORE…!"

"Hyeup!"

"Earth can barely coexist without a foot over its neck, and you think we can share a damn UNIVERSE with monsters like you?"

"I'VE… SEEN IT!"

"SShrh…!"

"IT'S ONE RODENT, YOU HEAPS OF SCRAP! KILL HIM ALREADY!"

"I KNOW YOU'RE SCARED! THAT'S WHY YOU'RE SO ANGRY! BUT THAT'S OK!"

"Hshah!"

"INCOMPETENT…!"

"Gah-euh…"

"Nnh…!" He nearly spun off the platform, briefly staring down into the jagged horizon of Tandora, tinted by the jade-white bubble he trained within. His tail provided him with the stability to reorient and resume.

"... You know? I think I'm glad you followed me to your home, rodent. You'll make for a GREAT example of what happens when ANY DAMN SPECIES lays its hands on MY PLANET!"

"It…"

"IT'S NOT A LIE!"

"IAEH!"

"IF EVERYONE JUST TRIES, REALLY REALLY HARD, AND STOPS BEING SO MAD AND SCARED WITH EACH OTHER, AND STOPS DOING BAD THINGS LIKE FIGHTING AND KILLING AND HURTING EACH OTHER…!"

He smiled as bright as he could, despite his own fatigue.

"RYAH!"

"IF EVERYONE CAN TRY BEING WARM AND FUNNY WITH EVERYONE ELSE, THEN PROBABLY…!"

"SOME DAY, EVERYONE CAN BE HAPP-"

His foot careened down from overhead.

"KAAA!"

A shelf broke off as a result, just a tad too rough. The half-blood began to fall.

Plummeting past the marks he'd etched upon the formations during the climb up, he took heed to the black horizon, and the jagged, blaring-white ice planet beneath.

"Every wound I've given and received. Every breath I've taken. My every vow. Has been 'love'."

The warmth of reentry enveloped him.

He reflected on his every spar with Voshyo in the past week. How he'd obliterate his fighting spirit every day, only for him to return the next, that same spirit only a tad bit duller and yet even harder to snuff out than the last. He found out, the day prior, that his former companions would rear him back to spirit in Conton, every time. One way or another.

Smoke steamed from between his teeth, preluding a somersault into a kick. He landed with a plink, a gentle current echoing throughout the hemisphere. The ice beneath him wasn't so much as dented.

He stood on two feet for all of two seconds, and then fell to a knee. "Augh…!"

"Zinco?"

He heard Kaza's voice and immediately tried playing it off. "H-Hi, Kazzz…!"

She wiped the crust and a few tears from her drowsy eyes, yawning as she slumped toward the shaky boy teetering on bodily shutdown. "Oh, Zinco…"

"S-sorry," he mewed amidst a bright wave of blue light.

"... If you fight without any sleep tomorrow, I won't forgive you, you know."

"I'll sleep in a minute. Besides, I'm almost finished!"

Kaza's head lifted in a huff. "Almost?"

"I just gotta patrol the city to make sure nothing bad's happening, and then I'll get some rest."

"... don't you think someone else can-..." She cut herself off.

Zinco attempted to chuckle at her understanding, but the expression alongside it stopped him.

"I know you're happy now, doing this. But that doesn't make it any easier to see you beat yourself up so badly." Her healing still hadn't ended. "... you seem happy when you fight Voshyo, you know."

"I am!" Zinco exclaimed, toward what sounded like a chance to reassure her. "I get to stop him from going out to hurt people, and I get to figure out how to tighten up my technique."

̶"̶y̶o̶u̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶j̶e̶r̶k̶"̶ "Oh. That's good to hear."

Unfortunately, Zinco was fantastic at reading people. He saw the pained expression and slumped shoulders, and elaborated upon his explanation. "I'll find a way to kill fighting if I keep fighting enough, Kaza. After all, I can't hurt anyone!"

"That's an oxymoron."

Zinco looked visibly hurt.

"Oxymoron's one word, it's not an insult." Kaza looked over with tired eyes. "You know you're making him stronger every time he leaves, right? That's how Saiyans work. But you're going to stop violence by fighting him over and over? That's so self-defeating."

"But my techniques have gotten better!"

"Voshyo will still be back tomorrow, ready to fight you." The blue light finally subsided. "... I'm glad you're happy, and I know, someday, you'll come up with something that completely works and go on to blow the world away with it, but I… I'm just scared that along the way, you'll get too excited and slip up. And I don't want you to break."

The blonde boy seemed to understand as she spoke. "I…!" He leapt up, rejuvenated and on the fritz. "I WON'T! ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY! I PRO-"

"You don't need to promise." The fuchsia majin's glance drifted across the grass-laden ice. "Actually, don't promise at all. Just do what makes you happy."

Her dream was no longer his. But she'd fight even harder for her own.

The boy slumped. "... okay. I'll be right back." He began to reach for a gate.

The girl pointed her finger.

As was normal, nothing happened. Zinco left through the gate.

Kaza was by her lonesome. Holding up her finger, a woeful confusion bespeckled her azure eyes, as if she'd left her keys on a departing train.

"(... you.)"

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ"hm?"

"(What did you do!?)"

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ"Muh-uhnuh. You can't blame all your shortcomings on me."

Kaza's sharp teeth grit.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ"Hh-h-h-k-ke-ku-ku. Oh, that's it. Neither of you know what you want anymore, do you? Unbelievable."

"... big talk for a thief."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ"At least I can make what I'VE stolen my own. You seem content with flailing wildly at the wind, and look where that's gotten you… the boy really would've been better off the world's whipping totem. Perhaps something grand would hav-"

"STOP TALKING LIKE YOU KNOW HIM!"

The planet quaked.

ㅤㅤ"(... but do you?)"

They spoke of the other's audacity, at first. But that would soon subside, and her sunken eyes showed doubt, as rage-inducing as that doubt seemed to be, for the first time in ages.

"(I didn't think that kid could hold a conversation for that long,)" Kaset noted, buzzed.

"(You can say that again,)" Videl noted, also buzzed.

Tenshinhan was fine with intently listening in, as was a Mei that was somehow still eating.

Over by the tea vendor…

"Nah… Nahhu-aa-"

"Nahualli."

"I was right-FUCKIN' THERE, come on!"

Tenganosu thwacked Neo across the top of his head. "And these 'dual selves' of ours go by the same name." He sighed. "It's comforting that you're so nonchalant about all this information… frankly, I'm still shaken. I've got no idea what I am anymore either." He raised his beverage, peering into the reflection. "It isn't as simple as power or a state of mind… I am me, and the one who killed me thrice over. Entire aspects of their being swirling seamlessly within this one vessel, unified by a human's conscious will." He stared into his hazy reflection, rippling in his shaky hands. "But whatever this soul of mine is, it's able to work in a harmony… I've effectively become a chimera, in there."

Neoru nervously chuckled. "Ya look human enough from out here, if that means anything."

"Noumia's manner of using Tlatla is nowhere near as… crazy." He shakily sipped his tea. "Y'know, Graffia… when we hunted, we did so for months on end… learning the animal inside-out, how it lived, until we'd 'become' that animal in a sense, and the story becomes etched into our jaqueta thanks to the obsidian amongst the islands. I'd assumed that the process was to form our dual selves in such a manner, but the truth is… so much more macabre."

"And the truth was…"

"For Graffia, this means experiencing the animals of our homeland, tracking this 'double', defeating them in the manner that they hunt, and absorbing their soul with your own, using these 'dantian' as you call them to house and nurture each of their powers and potential… but for you…"

Neoru stared off into space.

"... a mythic beast willingly infused its soul into an ancestor of yours, using their generations as a form of reincarnation. Such beasts had gone far beyond animal or human in terms of ki, altering themselves after hundred, even thousands of years, bordering on sages or gods. Burning hawks that shot from volcanoes and created mountain ranges with sheer heat alone. Colossal eagles that could carry lakes on their backs and darken the skies with thunder. Jaguars that turned deserts into floors of smoking mirrors and could split plains down the middle, caimans that swam amidst the earth as if it were water, monkeys that could leap into the atmosphere shape matter with thoughts, turtles indistinguishable from diamond islands in the distance. Even magical beasts, amalgamations of different animals' spirits, born from the realm of spirits and traveling to the living world every blue moon. And eclipse. And whenever someone special pops out their momma's- look I'm not sure in specifics, but that isn't the point. Orojia spent every waking moment fortifying their whole being, risking death and spilling their own blood, standing to armies as quartets at best, sending villages up in fires that licked the sky, just to seek their favor. Great feats of cruelty and selflessness, for whomever they sought to appeal to. It's why they never let go of Tlatla."

Neoru stared angrily into the ground. "... Were the Graffia one'a them? Villages, I mean."

"... Yeah. I was killed in a raid of theirs, in fact."

His look intensified.

"It's not like you were there, Neo. In fact, you… 'you' were one of, if not the first to attempt the way of Nahualli, through means too far back for any of us to know."

Neo turned back to Tengano. "...me. A snake chicken."

The dread-headed young man nodded. "A dragon."

"Huh… so who was first, the dragon or the kid?"

"... Huh?"

The dragon chuffed. "Sounds like I pulled one over the Ahrotsu chick, then. God, you say all this cool stuff, compare me to so much, and yet…" He sighed, deeply, falling into it. "I should be over these kinda thoughts but... shit, where was all this when I needed it?"

"... people lose themselves in the tides of this world, mano. Every compiling agony, each blinding tragedy. As they try to rationalize it all, and force themselves to do what they hate, their souls… they're buried. 'Till all that's left is the slightest bit needed to keep slumping forward. That's the nature of something so supernatural, even with ones as strong as ours… isn't the mind strong, like that? To overpower the soul? Or maybe it hides itself from the world on its own accord?"

His eyes remembered being hollow. Doing whatever it took to survive. "... yeah, I guess it is…"

"It can take years. And it can take one moment." Tengano shoved his brother's arm. "But it is never impossible to recover yourself. Not for a man. Not one from our lands. Not one from my clan, and not from yours. I can see it clear in your eyes, mano."

Neo's were twitching, the statement causing them to glisten. "Good… good to hear."

"You don't sound very conflicted with your own identity, you know."

"I don't really think I care, man. I could be a friggin' fish for all I care, I'm still Neoru. Just… just sucks, what coulda been if I were, just…"

The dragon squeezed his body's eyes.

.

.

He then made a fist. "Nah."

"... for what it's worth, most renowned nahualli were well into their prime… in proficiency, anyway. You were helpless at that age… honestly, neither of us should be as good as we are, even now. We're still boys."

Neoru slowly raised his head. "That's why we're here, right?"

Tengano lowered his own. "S'why we're here." He got up, leaving a small pile of zeni. "Much of our history has been buried by our forefathers, and the scorched islands they left behind. I gave you what I had, like Ahrotsu gave me hers. I still haven't swallowed it all, no, but… I will. An' I'll be stronger all for it." He turned. "Your girl's got a good head on her. Tlatla's how we came to understand ki but, there's a reason you stubborn Orojia were the only ones to double down on it." He winked. "Best of luck, fellow nahualli." But as he walked…

"(I like you, Neoru. But hard as I try… I can't quite root for you, this time.)"

"Yo, one more thing!"

"Mh?"

"That uh, that weird fusion thingy. You coulda called that a mythic beast or whatever, right?"

"... I wouldn't."

"Well cool, I would. You literally made one. That was sick, man."

"... Hmh." Tenganosu shook his head, trying to hide the smirk behind his face.

"...?"

A girl in the distance was on the move toward the same spot. Immediately defensive over his seat, he picked up his pace. The girl stopped just before she could enter Videl's peripherals, giving him the advantage; just as he internally mocked her stupidity, however, she seemed to teleport onto the seat.

"(oh ok, alright, yeah I'll go fuck myself, cool.)"

Not a soul noticed her existence until she made it known. "... hi, videl."

The three at the table froze. Their heads collectively cranked toward her.

"Pan?"

She waved bashfully. "One and only, kinda, not really, um- I won't beat around the bush, I just wanna talk. I-" Pan stopped. "I wanted to say- dammit, k-kinda put myself on the spot, huh? G-give me a minute, um-"

She spun around on the stationary stool and ripped out a note. It tore in her grasp.

"... crap bas- s-screw it!" Son turned around.

A face brimming with a warm, understanding patience and compassion. Wordlessly nudging her onward in spite of the intense embarrassment.

Videl looked exactly like Pan's mother.

"..." Pan swallowed. "... oh…"

"It's fine, Pan, just compose yourself. I've got all night."

"... I juST-..." Pan swallowed again. "... I've had some time to think. A lot of time to think. And I think I wanna start getting to know you better. After all, you're… technically… somewhere else… my mom."

All three of Tenshinhan's eyes and his one jaw gaped. Kaset and Mei looked over in confusion.

Videl stared blankly. "(... did I pass out?)"

"... uh, mo-V-Videl?" Pan asked. "You didn't go overboard, did you?" She resorted to waving her hand over her face.

Videl softly grasped it. She sobered like she'd been hit by a hose of cold water.

— her daughter's hand. Bigger, stronger, but just as soft.

Pan slowly grabbed the hand back.

— her mother's touch. Unmistakable, even if displaced in timelines.

Both women held themselves together with string.

"Where do you wanna start?" Videl asked, shakily.

"I-I don't know, actually?" Pan admitted, the floods in her eyes overpowering any planet-destroying beam. "I was hoping you'd have a starter!" she laughed, splitting it with her technically-mom.

"YAAAAAY, MOMS N' SHIT!" Kaset yelled, drinking another malt.

The Crane Master silently relished his former student's triumph.

"Mfh…"

His third eye looked down. Mei's face was hidden by a clawed hand, but she couldn't hide her trembling.

"... Would you like to be walked home, Xiāomèi?"

"No." Her response wriggled out of her throat. "Few can be privy to such a moment as this. Least of all, me. I like this feeling."

Neoru held his distance, opting not to cuss out the announcer while she and his instructor shared a moment.

"OY!"

Neoru's eyes snapped front.

"Oh. I miiight have helped someone get stronger. Just a bit."

"Wow, you're already a mentor!? That's my kinda-sorta girl!"

"Well it's not THAT serious. Just a lot of sparring, 'cus she's fun to be around. She came here with me, actually, but she kind of slipped off in her own…." She heard a familiar shout and poked her head out. "Oh, there she is now, actually!"

[ BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano ‒ BLAZE (Zero-Two Ver.) (0:00 - 0:40) ]

Dina's red eyes seemed to glow in the dark, her forearm swiping crumbs from her cheek. "It's been a while, lil' Neo. You doin' ok?"

"Yeah. Haven't seen ya since you out-psycho'd the fuckin' devil." Neoru approached her, cracking his neck. "Can't say I'm shocked you're even stronger after bitin' it four damn times."

"Don't go flatterin' me now, mate. I'm taken." Dina approached him, cracking her knuckles. "After all, you're the bloke who quite-literally pulled himself back together, body, soul, the whole shebang. You've even got yourself back to where you were before the tourney, I'm colored impressed."

He grinned fangs. "Think it's enough?"

She grinned fangs. "Let's just see, yeah?"

They charged each other.

"YIN-...!"

"YANG-...!"

Neoru leapt at Dina.

Dina lunged at Neoru.

"Dii~ve!"

"Drii~ve!"

They clapped in mid-air.

Videl stared. "... they know each other?"

Pan stared. "She's talked about him." { "⁽ ᴴᴱ'ˢ ᴬᴺ ᴬᴺᴺᴼʸᴵᴺᴳ ᴸᴵᵀᵀᴸᴱ ᵀᵂᴱᴿᴾ ᴬᴺᴰ ᴵ'ᴹ ˢᴼ ᴾᴿᴼᵁᴰ ᴼᶠ ᴴᴵᴹᵎ ⁾" }

"I can't believe we got to pull that off!"

"Fuck yeah, dude! Sucks we couldn't pull it off in the same block though, that woulda been some primo shit!"

"Wanna know somethin' funny? I got that STRAIGHT from an in'ernet series I torrented when I was 15, and no one will EVER know!"

"I got no clue what you just said but it sounds pretty damn cool, PUT 'ER THERE!"

"... 'UCK YEAH! WICKED!"

"HELL YEAH! SEMI-FINALS, MOTHERFUCKER!"

"TO THE FAKIN' TOP WITH NO STOP!"

Dina and a now-VERY sore Neoru continued to cackle a storm, until the former felt an icicle dig into his spine and the latter felt her fellow maiden scorned.

Dina immediately locked eyes with Mei. The resemblance the seventeen year-old girl's curious, unthreatened gaze shared with an active tiger's was so uncanny, the Shadow Spider nearly went into Flight-or-Faster-Flight out of reflex.

Dina then snapped to Neoru. Then to Mei. Then to Neoru. Then to Mei.

[ BGM: Norihito Sumitomo ‒ Theme of Videl ]"ᵉʰˀ"

Dina squee'd at the top of her lungs. "Oh my God, Neoru you do~g!" She seemed to teleport over to the small woman.

"HIIIII'MSPAURKDINASPAURKI'VEKNOWNTHATINSENSITIVEJERKSINCEHEFIRSTDROPPEDINONHISHEADWITHMEPLEASEDON'TTHINKI'MCOMPETITIONORWHATNOTI'MVERYMUCHTAKENANMEBOKE'SMUCHHOTTERNOKNOCKTONEOTHOUGHHE'SAKEEPERFORSUREJUSTBEPATIENTWITHHIMHE'SSPECIALYEAH!?"

"I-WAI-I DON'T THI-"

Dina blushed wildly, hiding her face. "OOOOH ENEMIES-TURNED-LOVERS IS SO ROMAN~TIC! DRAT, I WISH I COULD'VE HAD SOMETHING SO TOUCHING, OH YOU TWO WERE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER!"

Mei somehow lost the blush-off. "N-NEO, TELL HER TO STOP!"

"Dina, stop."

"OH FATHER IN HEAVEN ABOVE, SHE'S CALLING HIM 'NEO' I CAN'T-" She clutched her delicate, frail, four times-resuscitated heart, falling somewhere near Pan. "I'm… actually… growing faint, I… can't handle this much…!"

Neoru shrugged with a stupid smug-ass grin. "Tried."

Videl looked toward Pan. "I like her."

"Yeah, so do I- Dina, stop acting like a dumbass, the shopkeep's already overtime."

"No, it's fine." The shopkeep in particular – a human girl with refined pigtails and a blue blazer – seemed to know her, by the way she smiled, casually leaned on a palm. "I know her. She's usually like this."

Dina looked up with a sour veil. "See? Euu gets it!" She stood back up. "Honestly, you wouldn't be acting so haughty if Mum weren't here! This is JUST LIKE those dramas you eat up!"

"Dina!"

"Dramas?"

Pan's head swiveled.

Videl's blue eyes glittered. "You… LIKE Dramas?"

"... i mean it's more of a coping mechanism, but, then again, what… isn't…"

.

.

"Waves in Our Hearts."

"Trash. Seen it."

"Devil King's Destined Heavenly Bride."

"Insult to sentient life. It got animated and I watched that, too."

"Lance and Janet."

"Horrible. Still listen to the audiobooks when I train."

"THERE ARE AUDIOBOOKS!?"

"It was bought by a different station in 937."

Videl stared.

"... ok it's trash, but it's MY trash."

"SHE GETS IT!" Videl hoisted Pan into the air as high as all 157 centimeters of her could. "IT TOOK SOME GROWING UP, BUT SHE FINALLY GETS IT!"

Pan giggled like an idiot. Dina folded her arms with her own stupid giggles. Neoru followed, as did his mentor. Tenshinhan and Mei held their own reserved smiles.

"Pft-hihi."

Or, at least Mei tried.

Dina turned her head to Neo. "Tomorrow."

Neo returned the gesture. "Yep."

"Think we should get some sleep?"

"... nah. I think I'm gonna ride... whatever the hell this is out."

Dina smiled. "Right on."

[ BGM: Yuki Kaijura ‒ The Tale of the Holy Grail ]

Beneath the blitz-null moon, it was a cooler Conton night. For the lemon-haired half-blood, however, it felt stuffy. Even the arctic region of the city had pushed him to roll up his jeogori hoodie's sleeves, on account of the rigorous training he hadn't allowed himself to slow in; he'd practically been living on the musai home world since witnessing Kaza's first loss, and the climate of the city wouldn't let him forget easily. That said, the heat wasn't entirely external.

"I still hate fighting," he spoke aloud. "Nothing changed about that."

As he held conversation with himself, Zinco failed to note the building in front of him. As a result, he walked right up it.

"And I like helping others. I didn't make this style to go out and fight. I did it to make the world better."

He walked horizontally again after a stint of silence, only to ignore the end of the roof and stroll right onto a cloud. His advance didn't so much-as halt.

"But… did I really? Yeah. I saw it back then. It's possible to bring everyone into harmony… or maybe I just wanted to live without hurting anything."

He realized where he'd wound up, and merely stepped off the cloud.

"... where were they when the lasers started falling? Why didn't it help, then? Maybe it… didn't know how to. But I can make things better, in a way no one else can, so I'm going to. And helping people is good."

He landed with pure leg strength, and kept walking as if he'd leapt off the side of a curb.

"Did I… ever want to save the world…?"

"HEY, PIPSQUEAK!" roared a towering, two-headed, shark-toothed man and his many cohorts, violent intent streaming from their words.

"Stratus," Zinco replied.

"Huo-"

A turquoise pulse sprang from Jin's body, washing across the surrounding land. It dispersed in the same matter of milliseconds that it appeared. The posse stood, vacant-eyed.

{ "Stratus" is the lowest form of New Cloud-Walking Fist. It momentarily deactivates the amygdala and heightens the prefrontal cortex. Zinco can spell neither of these words; this movement was taught to him by Kaza and reinforced by days of rigorous anatomical study. A technique potent yet merciful on those with weak inner constitutions, combining mental and spiritual effect. }

"... Hey boss… I'm starvin'..." The others held their stomachs in varying levels of woe.

The shark-toothed man turned, anxious. "Uh, sorry fellas. I got nothin'."

"Oh." Zinco pulled out a wallet and, Chronoa as their spiritual witness, 200,000 zeni. "Here. A friend of mine has more, but people like giving money if you help them."

Gawks ensued. One gracious mass-bow later, Zinco carried on.

"If I wanted to kill violence forever, that means I'd have to kill things like love in people. But that's awful."

He walked across a lake, in which someone was bathing in. Describing her features would take another five-hundred words. He was too lost in thought to notice.

"But if I didn't… that means I'd be letting someone, somewhere, get hurt because of them, if they choose to keep hurting people even after I hit them. Someone else, or themselves…"

He phased out both the sudden shrill scream, and the magic ball of light that followed, all subconsciously.

"It isn't my responsibility to protect everyone… but if I can, then shouldn't I?" His thoughts drifted, much unlike the waterfall he walked up. "If someone, somewhere, has to fight…"

He thought back to the dragon-esque beast he'd witnessed that fateful day, who'd seemingly disappeared before the "razing" that annihilated the forest he had to call home.

"... If I do 'save' everyone, then no one could love each other. That's my full power right now. That means my best choice is to keep doing everything I can, and help people make their own peace. And that means fighting on my own, until I can't anymore."

He froze. As if to check if something had torn them off, he slowly presented his hands to himself.

They were twitching.

Audible resentment and disgust croaked from his diaphragm. He balled them, and they stopped their shaking soon after. "I'm strong now. So strong that I can't hurt anyone. But if I ever slip up…"

Jin sighed. "I won't."

Two battle powers in the distance spiked. His head snapped in their direction.

"Nahual~li." Neoru rolled his tongue just a tad as he strolled down the street toward his apartment, hands in pockets. "(Neat. So I'm actually a dragon that's been like a gazillion people before windin' up here.)" He stopped himself. "(OK I AM WAY TOO OKAY WITH THIS SHIT NOW THAT I PUT IT LIKE THAT.)" His pause lasted a few seconds more. "(... eh. Not like my world's shattered or anything. It's more a weird talking point if anything. Like I could tell people and they'd be all 'yeah sure buddy' and then I'm like 'ok check this out' and then I almost fuckin' kill myself 'cus I'm stupid. But they'd be lookin' pretty stupid too so it… checks… out…)"

A young man blocked his path. Maybe a year older than he was.

He wore a loose dougi, his chest emblazoned with two long scars, and a pelt-esque headband that draped across his back, joined by two dark wristbands of the same nature. Over his heart, a "狼."

Neoru vaguely recognized him. He also felt a wolf's eyes on him.

"(... y'know? I know this is gonna go south reeeeal fast no matter what I do… but I still don't wanna do this right now.)"

Neoru tried going right.

"HEY!"

"(I'm not even mad, I'm just glad I tried.)" Neoru peeked slyly over his shoulder. "Ye?"

"Don't play dumb with me. You know EXACTLY why I'm here!"

"... no I don't, fucker?"

The stranger sucked his teeth. "My name is Unagi! Me and you fought each other a while back."

Neoru noticed his gi's kanji. He broke out into a sweat.

"(So he really WAS playing dumb, huh? Glad to see I made my mark on him!)"

"(if i screw this up, he's gonna know i can't read that shit.) Yeah, I recognize that kanji."

"So you DO remember, huh?"

"Guess so. (fuuuUUUuck yeah.)"

He pointed himself, showcasing his willingness to tempt fate and invite misfortune. "I'm gonna avenge myself, here and now, by taking you DOWN, Orojia Neoru!"

"Dude I already got my shit pushed in by that one kid, leamme alone."

Unagi growled. "Gishun… he should've stayed out of it…!" He raised a fist toward Neo. "That's exactly why…! This is the only way I'll be able to show my face around Mitsuan!"

"... so the only way you can make up for gettin' your shit pushed in… is by running up to the same guy who pushed your shit in… and gettin' your shit pushed in again- yeah can I just go home? I've got a thing tomorrow."

The boy in the wolf pelt-headband bared his teeth. "Don't get so cocky! You have no idea how hard I've trained to surpass you! And as I am now, the you that I fought is NOTHING to me!"

Neoru shrugged. "Cool, that guy sucked anyway. If you really wanna do this shit, then whatever."

The challenger released his aura with a roar, and…

"... what thE FUCK!?"

A colossal wolf revealed itself in the spiritual flames.

Neo leapt back into a stance. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" he roared, his own aura bursting forth.

"I already told you." He slammed a fist over his heart. "I'M UNAGI! And I'm the one who-"

Neoru phased out everything else. "(It's like Tengano's Tletl…! Who the hell taught him that? Is he just from the South Stretch!? No, it was that Ahrotsu-whoever, wasn't it!?)"

"Noumia's manner of using Tlatla is nowhere near as… crazy." He shakily sipped his tea. "Y'know, Graffia… when we hunted, we did so for months on end… learning the animal inside-out, how it lived, until we'd 'become' that animal in a sense, and the story becomes etched into our jaquetas thanks to the obsidian amongst th islands. I'd assumed that the process was to form our dual selves in such a manner, but the truth is… so much more macabre."

"And the truth was…"

"For Graffia, this means experiencing the animals of our homeland, tracking this 'double' that a kind, inconspicuous elder I now know as a 'SHAMAN' tasks you with hunting, defeating them with honor and absorbing their soul with your own, using these 'dantian' as you call them to house and nurture each of their powers and potential… but for you…"

[ BGM: Hidenori Shoji ‒ Four Faith (With Intro) ]

Neoru rapidly caught his cool. "You know an 'Ahrotsu'?"

"Yeah. Thanks to her, I was able to avoid killing unnecessarily, unlike the clan this came from." His sharpened teeth clenched together. "The way she talked about them… she tried so hard not to let it show, but the pain in her voice said everything I needed to know…!" He burst with spirit. "I SPENT MY EVERY WAKING MOMENT MOLDING MY SPIRIT, JUST SO YOUR ABILITY HAD NO CHANCE OF GOING ANY FURTHER!" He sprang at Neoru like a gale-force wind. "LEND ME YOUR STRENGTH, BUL-GAE!"

"Alright, bitch…!" Neo ran him down. "Know jack fucking-shit about him or what the fuck he's gone through an' now you wanna get self-righteous, AGAIN? OK!" His aura intensified.

Neo's knee collided with Unagi's flying kick, a booming shockwave resulting. Both soared backward from the recoil, skidding ever briefly after their meeting.

The dragon nicked the corner of his mouth. "I've gotten by with less sleep."

Unagi staggered for a moment. "(Watch yourself, boy!)" the canine spirit within him warned, "(Let not this one's appearance fool you! This is an ancient dragon we face!)" He wiped the spittle from his chin. "That's fine by me!"

Both dashed in. One lunged with a clawed hand, seemingly predicting the other's body-swinging weave and ducking under the oncoming reverse-round kick, his countering leg sweep ghosted by a step back into a ginga that led into an axe kick-feint, the resulting snap kick blocked. Unagi lunged again into a full-body punch, but Neo's forearm crashed atop the fist before it could make contact, and his own cross flew into Unagi's receiving palm, leading into a nukite that missed Neo's neck by a glinting-red margin. The dragon boy's foot careened for the dog-spirited boy's abdomen, parried by both crossed arms, only for Neo's other foot to leap atop them; the round kick that followed would've knocked Unagi's jaw clean off had his head not bobbed backward, and the wolf-trained boy shot a high side kick that sent Neo through the air, just-barely having blocked the full force with a knee, stumbling back as his feet hit ground.

Unagi roared, a bestial chord belying his own human voicebox, before a massive flaming spirit dog charged at him.

"FACE MY WRATH, HUMA-"

"FACE THIS FIST, FUCKLO!" Neo roared right back as his fists charged with an energy foreign to life and death alike, punting the pup back to its now-master, who visibly recoiled from the blow as well.

"YOU…!"

"YOU THROW A BIGASS FIRE DOG AT ME AN' THINK I WON'T SOCK IT IN ITS DUMBASS FIRE DOG FACE!?" Neo screamed as he bum-rushed Unagi. "TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY, DIPSHIT!"

"HAAAA—!"

They entered an exchange spanning past the street, Neoru ditching any and all kicks in exchange for blows that shamed lightning by miles. Unagi suddenly caught a punch instead of blocking, reading Neo's movements before he could switch up again as his orange aura burned at the ground beneath, the two coming to a gradual halt through greenery. Before completely stopping, Neo swung himself into, and kicked himself off, one of the bamboo shoots they were beside, landing on the opposite side of Unagi and throwing him with the leftover momentum; Unagi bounded back off the shoot farside, and Neo, as if expecting it, threw himself down for a K-like handstand kick.

Unagi stopped right before he could make contact.

"...!?"

"GotchA-HA!" the iron-banded boy dug his fist into Neo's torso with a hook, sending him tumbling into a recovery roll through the thick, a blazing axe kick waiting for him. This one was no feint, a fact he beheld just soon enough to block it by the ankle.

"(YOUNG UNAGI, THIS BOY IS POWERFUL!)" The spirit now residing within Unagi exclaimed. "(NOT EVEN A SPRITE AS GREAT AS I CAN END HIM SOUNDLY!)"

"(HOW'D HE MAKE THIS MUCH PROGRESS IN A WEEK!?)"

Neoru grit his teeth. "(HOW'D HE MAKE THIS MUCH PROGRESS IN A WEEK!?)" With an impassioned effort that burned violet, he swung the leg to the other side, ducking under a pursuing kick in the process.

"Sun-Eating…!" Unagi hissed, back turned from the prior kick as his feet neared the ground.

"(Roving…!)" Neoru hissed, back turned from the prior dodge as he reared himself back up.

"WOLF FANG FIST!"

"(DEIRON!)"

Unagi advanced in a hailstorm, and Neo retreated just as intensely. The former's assault began to slow amidst the whirring and striking heels biting at his shins and clashing with nearly every jaw-like blow; the millisecond after the slowing, Neo shot from the ground and dug into Unagi with an elbow to the neck, and then a knee into the opposite oblique, before leaping into a full-force spinning kick to the face and-

-stopped the musai in his tracks, for a moment.

"(... Stratus didn't work…)" Zinco noted, eyes like daggers, noting Cirrus's notable effect on the source. "(Is my head muddy?)"

Bukyu's eyes seemed set to wiggle right out of their sockets. "THAT…!" Those very eyes hyperfixated on the massive majin lying lifelessly across the sand, of whom Zinco had rooted himself before. "THAT…!"

His eyes could only see the demon who'd shown him first-hand the shallow depth of his former pond, and dyed it with his own blood.

"KIAAAAA—!"

Zinco, his emerald eyes locked onto the form Bukyu had taken, was also taken back to that fateful match. "(Yeah.)"

There was a time that he'd've gone over the edge, just thinking of possessing such an emotion.

"(Of course it is. So I'll crush it…!)"

His body swayed into a tight, triangular string of footwork. "(I'll save this guy, and hate the REAL enemy!)"

With a cry, Bukyu shot forward.

"EIKK-!"

Instantly, Jin snapped into a counter, veering the musai's fist away and driving his palm into their chest, streaks of azure bursting from the opposite end. The half-blood expelled a gust of relief, gently releasing before hopping into the air.

"HYEUP-!" In an instant, with that very tail serving as torque and brake at once, he struck Bukyu three times in three different areas. It was akin to an omnidirectional shark tail swathing through water. Upon the third strike – one to the top of his head – he fell down, back to his enemy — but not a moment sooner, three more blows struck Bukyu on the way to the ground as Jin spun in place, in a perfect straight line down his body. With his first foot's contact with the ground, his second chambered and fired like a crossbow's bolt, striking center mass before the blonde reeled back, his swirling, golden-jade ki gathering into a palm.

"HyoooO-"

He stopped himself.

Bukyu had halted all movement. Soon after, he fell to his knees in a stammering heap. Zinco observed him, still simmering with bright-jade smoke and white embers, just like they were. He sighed relief. "Excuse me," he said to the majin corpse.

"Huh?" it replied.

"How come this guy was beating you up?"

"I dunno. That guy's been acting antsy around majin since that one fight. He killed my sundae and started beating on me out of the blue."

"... Can you come over for a second?"

"I gueeeess." Dumdum rolled off his stomach and weightlessly onto his feet, moseying over.

Zinco crouched down.

"... I don't really know why you ended up the way you did… but you're not the only one who's wound up like this. You never had anyone to really tell you what good and bad were, either, huh? Well, it's… it's fine that you hurt people up to this point."

Bukyu didn't answer.

"I don't blame you. And I don't think you should be beat up for it."

A giant shadow crept over Zinco.

"The person who beat you up was reacting to you. Mr. Ceushius talked about it once, actually, um… every action has an equal AND opposite reaction. So if you're cruel to someone, they can-"

"I think you're losing him, little buddy," noted Dumdum with a scratch of the temple.

"Er… heh, sorry."

Dumdum sighed. "Why's everyone trying so hard all the time…" He picked up the death machine like he was a toddler because he was, that was exactly what he was, and Dumdum was the only one who could see that for some reason. "Hey."

"... ah…"

"You like food, right?"

"..."

"Oh wait, you're musai, that stuff's like a delicacy where you're from…" He stuffed him beneath his arm like a suitcase. "C'mon. I'll make something for you, like Pops Number Two did sometimes."

Zinco stared. His head lowered.

"I still can't talk, huh…"

A smile creased his face. Subconscious, yes, but it was warmer than usual.

The kirin came to mind again. Briefly so.

And then two OTHER battle powers slammed into his head.

"HUH!?"

These two, overflowing with fighting spirit. One of which…

"(OK there's NO WAY all these people are just sleepin', we have to've woken SOMEONE up!) Are we FUCKING done?" Neoru yelled, nursing his side. "Oh wait, lemme guess, I'm technically loitering right now, so you can't let me get away with that either?"

"If I don't beat you, here and now…!"

"What, motherfucker? Then I'll go home while you roll around on the floor, whining about how someone's in the kitchen with 'Meeswan', and it sure's hell ain't YOUR punk ass?"

Unagi's fist slammed into the ground, burning with a pyrrhic ice-orange. "HER NAME'S MITSUAN, YOU BASTARD!" he roared, shaking the bamboo forest they'd shifted themselves into, shaking leaves and organic thatches from their stalks.

"(I get it now… so he's usin' some sorta Nahualli, but he sure as hell can't use Tlatla or anything like it. It's borrowed power from something else livin' inside him, as close as they are together. Good. His soul won't explode from doin' anything stupid.) Neo winced over his side injury, but maintained. "Good for you! Let the whole damn world know, sure as hell won't make her want you any more!"

The wolf pelt-headbanded warrior let loose an enraged battlecry, his fangs growing even sharper as he shot toward a counter-charging Neoru, both boys practically ablaze.

"YOU…!"

What happened next was like two thunderbolts colliding overhead.

The force and crash were vacant, but the pressure came down, hard. For that second in which neither human could register what'd happened,

Two human-saiyans stared each other down in confusion, one's kick having been canceled by the other.

Their bewildered stint ended as fast as it came, however, and Zinco forced himself away, refocusing on and bounding toward the two beneath him, who'd finally begun to register their existence. "(Of course…!)" he scolded, checking Neoru's face. His eyes shined with a mystic gleam, compelling the other saiyan to yell in protest and throw himself in front of his friend. The calm of Stratus washed over the land regardless.

"Khh!"

{ Stratus has two stipulations. First, the user's mind and spirit must be pure in the moment of its use. Second, like any technique manipulating ki, it can be blocked by one of equal or greater quality, if one is prepared against it. }

"Gishun!?" Unagi yelled, shock and humiliation twisting a knot into his voicebox as the aforementioned saiyan lowered his barrier.

{ Third… }

Neoru's light daze faded in a heartbeat, a violet wind surging from beneath his skin. "Zinco!?"

{ A fighting spirit can be strong enough to override its effect, even unprepared. }

"Looks like I made it just in time…!" Gishun turned around. "Are you alright, Senior Unagi?"

"Tch-dammit!" Unagi held his arm. "Of course I'm alright, I didn't need your help!"

"Neoru!" Zinco turned.

"He started it," the amethyst-eyed boy responded. "You can ask his sorry ass, too."

The blonde slanted his eyes. "You don't have to be so rude about it."

"Dude I'm bein' fuckin' assaulted, that's like a crime or some shit where Dina's from! Why the hell's it up to the dickheads who ain't even here most of the time to uphold the laws, this place sucks!"

"(I forgot police existed, actually…)"

Gishun's glare zipped over to Neoru and, as if instinctually, Jin put himself in-between the two. "YOU…! I WARNED YOU NEVER TO HURT MY FRIENDS AGAIN…!"

"You said not to ever let you see me again, you stupid Gohan-lookin' bush-bang z500,000-dollar designer monk robes sacrilegious bitch, go choke."

Zinco's neck creaked behind a shoulder. "ᴡɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ sᴛᴏᴘ ᴛʜᴀᴛ!?" he pled through his teeth.

The dark-brunette looked away smugly. "What's the point'a knowin' if you're the only one who knows?"

"Can you know something nicer?"

"No."

Jin actually rolled his eyes, to Neo's subtle shock, before turning around. "This is all a misunderstanding." He bowed, to Neo's subtle anger. "Please forgive him, and we'll be going."

"Absolutely not," Gishun replied. "Someone like that, who goes out of their way to hurt others and can't even feel remorse for what they've done…!" His aura burst free, Zinco's entire body tensing in response. "I'm not letting them go so easily!"

"... Shun…" Unagi's hand fell onto the spiky-haired saiyan's shoulder. "I'm the one who started this. It's my fight."

"But still-"

"BUT NOTHING!" he maintained. "What I'm doing right now isn't right. And there's no reason for you to drag yourself down with me. Besides…! If you clean house for me like always, then I'll never become anything worthwhile!" Unagi fell onto a knee. "Not for Mitsuan, or you… or myself!"

"Senior Unagi…" Gishun's hands slowly uncurled. "I had no idea you felt that way…" His hands suddenly became fists. "No matter what happens, you'll ALWAYS be our friend! You don't have to prove yourself by getting yourself hurt!"

Unagi's softening eyes bore a hole through the ground. "That's all I'm doing right now, isn't it? I'm still not strong enough to protect anyone…"

"Nonsense! You're always standing up for others! You even stood up for me, even though you had no idea who I was… and that's the greatest strength of all!"

"Shun…" Unagi sighed in defeat. "You really are a blockhead…"

Gishun grinned with a stupid chuckle. Rearing his head toward the other two, however, his mood changed to dead-serious. "It's over. Give up, or I won't show you any mercy!"

"Ok!" Zinco replied happily.

"Bitch, you don't speak for me!"

Zinco gave Neoru a look.

Neoru gave Zinco a look.

Jin held his look.

"Piss off," Neo grumbled, stumbling.

"Ah- you're hurt!" Zinco reached out, only for Neoru to push him back.

"And? I'll sleep it off. W-where'd all that sass come from, anyway?"

Jin scratched his chin. "I learned some stuff, this week."

Neoru sucked his teeth, giving way to a small yawn as his eyes pressed shut. "Yeah, that makes two of us, I guess."

"... I'll find out tomorrow, huh?"

"Yuh-huh."

Seeing the boy walk away so carelessly triggered something in Unagi.

"HEY!"

"WhaaAAAT!? What?"

"That soldier…! Why'd you protect him!?"

Zinco's eyes widened. "Soldier?"

"During the war last week…! You went out of your way to defend one of those bastards, despite everything they did! I wanna know why!"

"... 'cus he had nothin' in him." Neoru clenched his fists. "The fucker was already dead. But, I dunno… I was like that, once. An' I've done even worse than that bozo, I know it." He turned, eyes alight. "If I got a chance to turn myself around through some cosmic dice roll, then what choice I got but ta give one when I can?"

Unagi glared. Neoru glared back.

"But I'm the last guy to argue 'right an' wrong' with. That's more this doofus's thing." He walked home.

"... thanks."

"Huh?"

Jin smiled, eyes fit to burst. "Thanks!"

"... oh shit, that's what she…" Neo smiled. "Just be more careful, hero. Don't wanna end up like that guy tomorrow."

"You won't," Jin grinned. "I promise."

Neoru left. For real, this time. "Oh, and Gunshi or whatever, go get a haircut. Go to the one with kanji all over it too, she can actually do her damn job."

"(... that guy's a pain…)" Unagi concluded. "See you tomorrow, Shun. And thanks."

"(... mei?)" Jin wondered in the meantime, his future opponent's weird statement on his mind. He looked back, and Gishun was still there. "Excuse me," he bowed respectfully, before leaping away.

The black-haired boy looked down at his shaking fist. "(I can't believe I'm saying this, but… I kind of wish we fought. That guy was strong.)"

The pale yellow-haired boy leapt from building to building. "(I can't win with him. He's just too pushy, and Stratus didn't do anything. What a fighting spirit…)"

He stared down at his own shaking fist, coming to an abrupt stop on a spire.

"(If I'm not careful, I could crush his soul. Or…)" His eyes stared down in a rage until they stopped. "(Or worse. I'll really know if I've become 'that strong' by winning against him with this.)"

He picked back up soon after.

Neoru dragged himself back into his darkened apartment. He prepared to fling himself onto the couch, saw Mei already there with crumbs still on her face and wearing those stupid glasses, and threw a deep exhale at the development. He took the five-mile march to the bedroom and practically slammed the door with how he threw his bodyweight into closing it. Still hanging by the knob, he reflected.

"(I can't win against that.)"

He saw the difference between them, first hand.

"(There ain't even a reason to try, honestly.)"

He sucked in air. "(But I wanna try. I can, so I wanna try. Especially now.)" His shaking hands curled into a fist.

"(Maybe I'll find somethin' better than reason from all this.)"

The moon died down.

And the sun began to rise.

Emerald and amethyst burst open.

[ ED: Henry Huo Zun – Stranger/異人也 ]

Yo! OP Here-

Nah I can't even pretend to be happy, yo fuck this chapter dude. FUCK. THIS. CHAPTER.

AAAAAAAAH this shit has been living in my head rent free for a month and change, I shit you not.

Alright, let's see all the shit I did to make this happen... watched all of Hitori no Shita, read Dragon Ball Culture in its damn-near entirety, learned even more about Mesoamerican spiritism, found WAY MORE PARALLELS between Daoist and Mesoamerican spiritism that anyone would expect two cultures on opposite sides of the world to share... ah uh, yeah, writing effectively two separate chapters.

The first draft had Zinco regress, hard. Like bro legit fell out with Kaza. But I eventually wisened up to what I was doing wrong, and the drama I was cooking would've cost sending Zinco back to his World's Slave mindset and reversed Kaza's work on him. The REAL big issue still lingering is the innate burning Saiyan blood clashing with his trauma. But this is the second time I've almost ruined Zinco's character. I REALLY gotta watch out for that in the future.

So besides that, the scene at the food stand was also different, but in a more light-hearted fashion. And because I plan on just, like, including it AFTER the SFs...

Nah I just, like, literally JUST added it. Like it too much. Spent too much time on it. Fuck it, we breachin' 16k one more time. So yeah, it was gonna be EVERYONE there, but I simplified it to Pan and Dina, implying that Dina eventually got Pan to patch things up.

So I wanna go back to the spiritism thing:

"So yeah, the concept of a "Double-Self" pervades both Chinese (Shishen/Yuanshen) AND Mesoamerican (Tonal, Nahualli, Nagual | Noreshi) spiritism."

Just copypasted that from my notes. I definitely have a thing about reusing "So yeah"s and "But yeah"s. Yeah. I don't know where else to go with that, I just want you guys to look into that shit yourselves, all of it's pretty cool and you can take genuine shit out of all of it. Considering these are like REAL belief systems. Some of this shit has helped me in daily life, even.

But pretty much, things like sacred beasts in wuxia and xianxia, combined with things like Uub's reincarnation and the Oozaru, in tandem with the theme of the indomitable human will as a factor of LIFE ON EARTH'S indomitable will, led me to this current version of Tlatla. And Neo's only a thousand-year dragon in regards to the QUALITY of his soul. That lets him go balls-to-the-wall with Tlatla for so long.

Ahrotsu's name pun is based off Astro-, and Noumia, well, -nomy. I'll get into them, and her, after the tournament. So next year. If I'm still alive. And I offscreened a lot of the other shit Tengano talked about so I could activate trap cards of knowledge during the fight to explain what wacky shit Neo suddenly does because I think it's cool in the moment.

I decided to make Ceushius's backstory an alien spin on the mountain man/xianren of esoteric eastern myth, and made him a Space Cultivator. I also gave him a dumbass coolass title in his former life. It's almost as stupid as the one given to him by 14 year-old me, Elder God Cryojin. Almost.

Ah. One more thing. The theme of this chapter aaaand maybe the fight itself. Yin Yang. The entire overarching theme of the story. I tried to portray this by showing how people work through their issues through collision and reconciliation, showing that no one person is an island. Zinco can be a bit more receptive to that fact now that he doesn't bear that weight anymore; one of the reasons why I regressed his character originally was to make the theme of the fight more "overwhelming good is bad, establish balance" but now it's more of me going back to both boys' initial struggle: rejecting what one loved, clamoring for a higher purpose. I wanna end this shit beautifully. However long that takes, I want this.

They made me a fucking team leader so, I might be pressed for time often. It comes with life. Nothin I can do but adapt.

I sound like I'm in a rush right now. I am. Happy Valentine's Day, guys. And Happy Belated 5th Anni.

Next chapter: 7 people jump a dragon.

Until then, see ya.

HAHA I STILL USED FIGHT SONG-