[OP: My First Story – King and Ashley]
The Collision of Impossible Dreams! A United Universe, A Universe Drenched in Saiyan Blood!
He hated darkness.
Darkness meant that he'd find himself in that cave again.
The cave that smelled horrible. Like something rotting.
Where the only light was a faint red streak piercing through a crevice he couldn't see. Shifting about. Watching him.
Soon – he didn't know exactly when, but soon – something big would fall from the ceiling. He'd reach out and catch it every time.
It hurt to hold it. Its weight tore up his arms. The stench from before was now ten-fold. Most of all, it flooded his mind with doubt, with regret and grief.
With guilt.
Yet he kept holding it. He'd hold it atop his head, despite the weight. He couldn't let go yet.
Just a bit longer.
At least until this dream ended.
That's what this was, right?
Just a dream.
"-nco!"
"-inco!"
"ZINCO!"
The blonde-haired boy slowly opened his eyes. By his side knelt his teary-eyed companion, Kaza. He smiled.
"Yo."
He was then crushed in a tackle hug.
"You-were-making-scary-noises-and-I got-scared-that-you-wouldn't-wake up-and…" she sobbed between sniffles… despite how she lacked a nose.
"SORRY ABOUT THAT… BUT CAN YOU SQUEEZE A BIT LESS HARD?" he wheezed. "I CAN'T BREATHE."
Kaza quickly released, allowing Zinco to take in a deep breath.
"Hehe, it hurts to breathe now!" he curiously noted, causing Kaza to quickly drop him to the floor in a panic.
"Ow."
Kaza briefly introduced him to steampunk-rock in a fit of shame.
Though it didn't seem it, Kaza was assisting with two fighters' grueling training regimens. Why? Simply put, she met one first.
[ 3 WEEKS EARLIER ]
"Sorry, but I have to go train now. See you to-"
"I CAN HELP!" Kaza blurted in excitement, crushing her 50th Kroukai bar in her hand in the process.
"I can't. If I spar with you, that'd mean I could hurt someone else-"
"I CAN HELP IN OTHER WAYS!" Kaza yelled again, hovering over Zinco.
"OOH! THAT'S PERFECT!" Zinco yelled back, subconsciously challenging her hyperactivity levels.
"YES!"
"LET'S GO TRAIN!"
"YES!"
[ PRESENT DAY, PRESENT TIME ]
To put it bluntly, Kaza's been on double duty ever since.
Mèi's training, she'd learned, consisted of 3 hours of intense meditation – which Kaza accompanied (usually too confused and anxious to properly meditate) – an hour of stretching (She could make the most skilled ballet practitioners looked like brittle-boned fossils by the time she finished), 2 hours of practicing picture-perfect form and fierce body conditioning by her lonesome, and – this was the important part – at least 2 hours of sparring with Kaza. Considering the academy opened its doors at 8:00 AM and ended at 12:00 PM, and she usually begin at around 12:15 or so (the time where she determined the sun was at its highest point in the sky), this gave her about 3 hours to spend with Zinco.
She'd usually walk in on Zinco in the same meditation that hopelessly confused her, breathing in a manner she'd rarely seen; his abdomen expanded as he breathed, air filling his lungs to the brim before it left in a contracted release through pursed lips. Even more, he usually had a calming aura accompanying him while he meditated; as if he were wearing a cloud.
This was the first time she'd seen him in that state of unease. Yet he just as easily brushed it aside, unaffected by whatever he'd seen.
"Alright! Let's start!" Zinco energetically bounded to his feet after stretching and tightening his belt.
"Right!"
It wasn't long before the two entered a room. It WAS Zinco's closet, an already incredibly-sizable addition to every apartment in Conton City, but Zinco took the liberty of modifying it to suit his own needs.
That is to say, he mistook it for a training room and broke down the walls around it until it was large enough for his tastes. If not for Kaza's assistance in renovating the place – repairing walls after Zinco was done bulldozing them – someone would've most certainly noticed.
A special boy, he is.
"'Kay…" Zinco pulled from a corner a large pot of grounded rock. And thus, Zinco's training regimen began.
[BGM: Project Baki – Road to Victory]
He began harshly driving his hands palm-first into the rock. For 30 minutes, he repeated this.
Yet he performed more of these motions in this seemingly-frivolous expanse of time than the average martial artist could do over the course of a day. His expression would shift from determined, to gritting, to pain-wracked, and then to that of Zen as he continued to strike the grounded rock. All the while, he took sharp breaths.
The ground rock had become a cauldron of fine dust, down to the very bottom.
Once he was finished, his hands were red all-over. His palms were worse off. Kaza still hadn't gotten over the grisly process, as Zinco could see from her teary eyes.
"Sorry…" he grinned, before his expression hardened once more. "Kaza, can you…"
"Y-yes…" the ground lit up with small rings in sporadic patterns.
"You can do it, Zinco!" Kaza cheered as Zinco postured himself low. His abdomen raised as high as it could.
" 'Kay…!"
The next exercise began.
Air shot out from within him as he dashed between the rings like a bolt of lightning, passing through each in a single movement. His eyes were forward, gazing ahead and fearless of what lied below him. He cleared the room in a second, his feet not once straying outside or even touching the rims of the rings.
"Hoooo…."
He brought down his left foot slowly, exhaling as his abdomen seemed to deflate.
"Now… uh… what comes before…" he looked over to Kaza with a lost look on his face.
"199 MORE!"
"RIGHT!" he bashfully replied.
"Don't worry! Just get to 70, and we'll go from there!"
"OSU! THANK YOU!" He roared. Kaza grinned.
After 200 runs, and 185 successful runs… and 20 instances of Kaza losing track of how many he'd done… the next trial began.
Zinco pressed his hands together near his center-mass, taking a deep abdominal breath, and summoning twin orbs of ki. Kaza formed a ring around him, a meter in circumference. A bead of sweat dropped from the tailed boy before he exhaled, slowly driving his fists outward and opening two determined eyes of emerald.
" 'Kay."
The balls were willed onto him, relentlessly bolting toward his hide. Zinco weaved formlessly through them, confined to a meter's worth of space. Every half-minute, they'd get faster; Zinco focused on quick exhales upon a dodge, and quick intakes whenever levity was granted to him. Still…
"Gngh…!" he hissed as an orb zipped past him, close enough to singe his arm and dent his balance.
"Just a bit further…"
The second orb zoomed in to finish the job, only for Zinco's upper half to go completely limp and sink into the ground, his hips holding him upward. He snapped back upright in time to butterfly-kick through the narrow space which the twin orbs offered him as they shot past in a final erratic effort to catch the boy unawares.
The next time they rocketed toward him, he took a full breath through the nose before shouting in a burst of spirit, holding position and stopping the orbs completely with outstretched palms.
"Shaaaaa…."
They shrank. He'd given it his all for more than half an hour.
"Kaza?" He glanced over to his pal in order to start his next exercise.
One problem.
Kaza had gone catatonic.
"K…Kaza?"
"You don't need to say sorry so much, you know? One sorry is the one that matters most!" he said cheerfully after Kaza saying nothing but the phrase for minutes on end now. "Also, I couldn't say my sorry because you were saying yours a lot."
Kaza had to stop herself from apologizing. She was then handed the two, now penny-sized ki orbs by Zinco.
"Can you…"
Kaza nodded before concentrating, the two elongated tendrils coming down her forehead wiggling all the while. Before long, she threw them outward.
Two gleaming, humanoid entities landed in their place.
Kaza'd discovered this ability of hers through a desire to help Zinco spar without harming anyone. Despite their origins, they could punch and move like any other combatant.
And much to Kaza's dismay, Zinco planned on taking them both on, simultaneously.
He confidently nodded at her, signaling to begin. He took a breath, puffing his cheeks like a puffer fish would puff. Puffily.
And, reluctantly, his tendril-haired companion obliged.
[BGM: Kenji Fujisawa – Osu, Karate Way!]
With a sharp exhale, he raised his forearms against his assailants, a loud bang resulting from the force. Both strikes failed to meet their mark, before the two constructs readjusted themselves once more. Zinco was thrown into the defensive.
This time, however, his body acted as his shield.
He grit his teeth, his stomach expanding and contracting at a steady, relaxed rate as the constructs wailed on him relentlessly. After a final inhale, he repelled the two with his palms, subtle shockwaves to their cores forcing them off him. They split up, covering his left and right blind sides.
Zinco's focused frown twitched a bit.
"Osu."
The boy became a blur, a torrent of forearm blocks and palm deflections as he took both energy-based combatants on, constantly zipping about at lightning-dwarfing speeds in order to ensure he wasn't faced with too much pressure, with his pursuers never too far to miss a punch or kick.
Yet Kaza followed his movements with ease.
Panicky, anxiety-ridden ease, but ease nonetheless.
In, out. In, out. His breathing never faltered, not once.
He continued this for hours, allowing the blocking to strengthen his limbs; and as time passed, so too did the constructs' fighting styles. It took a considerable period of time, but chips in Zinco's defenses presented themselves as his sparring "buddies" grew more random with their attacks; he'd deflect an elbow only to narrowly bound over a tackle, and then be struck by a flying sobat before he could set his feet on the ground. It was here that his true test began.
After taking a construct to the side with a sudden burst of speed, he responded to its attempted counter-knee with a light pull to deprive it of balance before flipping it and setting it upon the ground gently, all while the second ki construct barreled toward him in a chaotic, animalistic fashion. In the heat of the moment, disaster struck the boy:
"WAIT, ZI-"
With no time to react, his palm slammed into the apparition's head, dispelling it.
After a long pause, his eyes widened in shock before going somber.
"Not there yet…"
The formerly-immobilized construct glimmered away behind him, tiny blue droplets of light slowly scattering into nothing.
[ ONE WEEK EARLIER ]
"That's… a new one…" said Trunks, seated.
"Is that good or bad?" Zinco replied.
"I mean… morale has shot through the roof since the exam was announced. People wouldn't take such an announcement well."
"That's ok!" Zinco smiled. "You can keep the X ham part and just take the bad part out!"
Trunks scratched his head. "See that's the problem with your request. The 'bad part' you speak of is the reason why people are excited in the first place."
"W-WHY!?"
"I can't really help the fact that Conton City is packed with pugnacious teenagers with little-to-no regard for their personal safety at the moment. Sorry, but for their sake, I can't cancel the tournament. But if you're that adamant about not fighting, I'm working on a segment for those who plan on taking up a position that doesn't involve fi-"
"I'LL FIGHT."
Zinco's fist raised.
"If this is the only way to stop this, then I'll fight the fight!"
Trunks stared.
"So… you're gonna protest?"
"Yes! I'm gonna test myself in the pro-est way!"
"…Oh. You go do that."
"OSU!" Zinco yelled as he ran out of the office.
" 'Fight the fight…' What is that kid planning?"
[ PRESENT DAY, PRESENT TIME ]
Kaza approached the beaten blonde, his moppy hair covering his face as she healed him.
"What's wrong?" he suddenly asked, giving the Majin a jump. "You have that look again. Like you wanna cry."
"I-it's nothing! I just… have allergies!"
"Oh."
She maintained her healing, once more taking advantage of the fact that Zinco didn't know what those were.
"… Kaza?"
"Hm?"
"… is there a reason you're lying?"
His tone never lost that innocent inflection.
Kaza froze. Panic spread across her face.
"I-"
"It's ok!" Zinco's eyes shined through his bangs. "I'm not mad." He surged his upper body upward, fists pumped. "But you can tell me anything! I'm the bestest secret teller ever-"
Zinco flustered.
"-K-KEEPER! I-I didn't mean-uh…"
"I hate it."
Kaza welled with tears, a small smile from Zinco's prior goof still present.
"I hate what you all do to yourselves."
She gripped Zinco harder.
"I can't stand seeing it… how bad you look after everything… and I don't know why…"
Her smile faded, as she sobbed.
"Why you can't just stop?"
A finger brushed aside Kaza's tears.
"I'm gonna make a world."
[BGM: Rei Kondoh – Unification of the Land]
He stood against the blue light of the closet door, despite his injuries.
"I'm gonna make a world where people don't need to make others suffer. Where no one has to hurt each other, or hate each other. And I'm gonna do it without making others suffer!"
He pumped up his arms.
It'll be ok if I have to do things that hurt, because I'm not other people! I just have to get strong enough to take it!"
His fists fell to his side.
"And I'm absolutely, positively gonna get strong enough to fight fighting, not other people! So strong that I can't hurt anybody but the fight!"
His vibrant, emerald eyes were honest. Resolute. And they simmered with an unyielding, convicted flame.
"… Zinco…"
.
.
"That was a lot…"
Zinco's face went red.
"I'm still not good with words…"
"But I want to see you do it. Make a world without fighting."
It was Kaza's turn to stand.
"And I want to stand by you while you do it!" Kaza declared, blue eyes radiating.
"If you believe that you can do it this much, then so do I!"
Zinco's eyes watered, his grin getting even stupider.
"O-OSU!"
"OSU!" Kaza repeated louder.
But Zinco had one, final portion of his training.
The most hellish trial imaginable, one that many abandon before completion on account of the unbearable pain it brought. Yet the power it brought to those who endured was unimaginable.
And Kaza was ready to assist him all the way through.
"Ready?" Kaza asked, concern painting her voice.
Zinco took a shaky breath, lungs expanding.
"Osu."
"Alright! Let's begin!"
SLAM!
"5 TIMES 1!"
"SI- WAIT NO, 5!"
"YES! NOW 5 TIMES 2!"
"… … .! UWAAAAH!" the boy yelled, clutching his head in agony.
"5 PLUS 5!"
"T-TEN!"
"THAT'S TWO 5s!"
"… I… I… I UNDERSTAND!"
The two studied for the remaining 30 minutes.
Because a unifier needs mental strength, as well.
[BGM: Kenji Kawai – Reigen's Theme]
"I don't understand."
Kaza watched with fading patience as a beetle-faced geezer hopped in circles, chanting a bizarre language while repeatedly throwing his hands to the sky.
"Of course, you don't. You aren't trained in the ways of a TRUE S-Class Exorcist!" his flat-faced, beaded and ring-necked cohort responded, blocking Kaza's path with 10 rotating, segmented arms also covered in sacred beads.
"Ex.. or… cist?"
"PRE-CISE-ALLAY!" the obscurer flamboyantly replied. "You see, my impeccably-grotesque friend, beyond this hill lies an angry evil spirit!"
"W-What!?" the Majin exclaimed, notably shaken. Mostly from the "grotesque" remark, but still. "How do you-"
"PRE-CISE-ALLAY!" he screeched, putting his finger in Kaza's face as he cut her off. "I've honed my ability to sense the aura of spirits throughout all my days, and you MUST believe me when I tell you that what I've sensed atop this peak is the most resentful, rage-filled, spiteful, hateful, bitter, rancorous, malignant…"
The pancake-faced guru whipped out and scrolled through a Thesaurus, much to Kaza's hidden annoyance.
"… vitriolic auras I've ever sensed! It may take DAYS before this foul ghost has been purged!"
"Gueyshi, Gueyshi!" the geezer notified from a distance.
"Is that so? I stand corrected, this very well may take WEEKS!"
"I-but-I-"
Smoke began to raise from Kaza's head cavities.
"S-SORRY, BUT I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! SOMEONE'S COUNTING ON ME!" she yelled, spooning the daylights out of the oddballs before her before leaping over them.
"P-pardon my rudeness, but I have to go! I'm already late!" one final pleasantry before she zoomed up the hillside to the plateau above.
"…"
"… Geeyshi…!"
"Oh come now, Kueku, that's just obscene!"
As she neared the top, a chill went down Kaza's would-be spine.
[BGM: Kenji Fujisawa – Thugress]
Deep-orange ki strands, somewhat-resembling a spider's webbing, ethereally dangled from the plateau.
Kaza gulped, even though she knew who this aura belonged to.
Now closer than ever, the aura's pure rage caused her body to break out in shivering fits.
She was angrier today.
With a final leg up, the grassy plateau's peak was reached.
And there sat Xiāo Mèi.
Her hair, now unrestrained by what was an already-large looped ponytail, resembled a dark-red mass of writhing appendages. The grass surrounding her had been cut to shreds.
Grief, Agony, Resolve, and Rage. All poured through her.
"M… Mèi?" Kaza muttered.
It stopped.
The revenant stood.
"Good afternoon!" she smiled.
Mèi began re-looping her hair with the help of ki.
"There are people down there that think you're a ghost."
"Is that so? Curious."
"Yeah." Kaza giggled uneasily.
"Mèi?"
"Hm?" she turned, nearly done with her ridiculously-long hair.
"… Why is your…"
Kaza struggled getting out the question, before swiftly changing it.
"Your… your hands! Why are your hands so bruised?"
"I have never told you?"
She formed a spear-like shape in her hand.
"I use the rock along this edge to strengthen my hand."
She giggled at Kaza's shocked expression.
"It does not compare to the hot coals I was made to use as a child, but I suppose it is still quite a shock, no?"
"Uh… yeah."
After another quick session of stretches, Mèi thrust herself upward and….
And took a breath. Less like a relaxed sigh and more of a small kiai.
"Let us begin." She stated, taking a stance.
"… Are you ill?"
Kaza looked like she'd seen a ghost.
"I-uh-no!"
With that, she brought out a board detailing a humanoid figure.
"Mèi, is the tail really-"
"Háowú yíwèn!" Mèi asserted, somewhat annoyed at how the question had been asked, like, five times now in different phrasings. Kaza dejectedly nodded.
[BGM: Hiroyuki Sawano – From Either Way (1:22 – 2:17)]
"Now… let us start!" Mèi dashed toward the dummy in a burst of speed. She hit splinters, as Kaza evaded her at the last millisecond. Mèi followed, aiming at only the red dots placed in certain areas around the dummy while making sure that her feet moved by themselves and her breathing never grew too erratic. There was never more than one of the young former-assassin's feet on the ground, and her lightning-fast phalanx jabs made it appear as if she had 8 arms instead of 2. Yet Kaza was always a step away. Mostly because she was pretending that Mèi wanted her dead, and not the dummy. True, her speed was greater, but there was an area where she lacked considerably:
Mèi suddenly shot off her right foot to Kaza's left, throwing the tall fuchsia girl out of loop.
"WAH-"
"There."
Mèi's left fist flashed in a bright orange glow, and she skewered the attached tail.
After 20 minutes, she'd done it. Not before her legs gave out from under them, and she began gasping for air.
"You were awesome, Mèi!" Kaza cheered. The scarlet-haired beauty looked up and grinned.
Then Kaza threw off the tail.
"Now without the weakness!"
"Shì…de…"
Mèi, after 40 minutes of chasing the dummy possessed by the god of swiftness, ended the session on her back.
Though it seemed she used "his" method of breath control, she wasn't as good at maintaining it. Still, it allowed her to recuperate quickly.
"Mèi, can I suggest something?" Kaza asked, the dummy – which, aside from 8 holes, was in decent condition – laying by her side as she sat.
"Of course."
Kaza thought back to her previous sess-
"But tail stays."
Her previous sessions.
"You're getting worse as the session goes further."
"I… I have seen…"
Mèi raised herself into a crisscross position.
"But I don't know why... My breathing?"
"I think it's more than that."
The Majin pointed to her eye.
"Your eyes get frenzied after a while."
"What?" Mèi responded, shocked. "I was trained to bay my emotion when I fight. How could this be?"
"It's in your aura, too. It's like you're always angry, but it spikes when you continue to fail over and over. I think… you get frustrated too often. Maybe that anger makes it worse?"
"… What would you have me do with this anger?"
"If it's holding you back, you can just get rid of it!"
"… I need that rage, Kaza."
"I don't think you do!" Kaza suddenly objected.
"You must understand-"
"DO I NEED TO?" Kaza's voice cracked. She was starting to resent that part of herself, as she choked down the oncoming sob. Mèi looked on with sorrowful eyes, as the night sky's black crept upon the two.
"There are terrible creatures in this world. Beasts with no sense of honor or mercy. They revel in their power to conquer, to kill, to take. They have taken from me that which I cannot be given back. If I want to avenge that which has been lost, avenge myself, then I must 'keep this rage.' I do not want you to share this anger."
Her dead, hazel eyes were honest. Resolute. And they burned with a quiet, pain-staked fury.
"I only wish that you know why I feel it."
"… I… I can do that."
Mèi smiled, before giving a solitary nod.
"Still, this 'frustration' of mine must be put to death. I ask that you assist in this task."
Kaza's mood had taken a nosedive. Two conflicting dreams, belonging to those whom she found dear; and yet, she felt compelled to help them both become stronger. And with that resolve of hers in mind, she replied.
"How?"
Mèi responded with a fist.
[Self-Contained ED: Takanori Nishikawa – Crescent Cutlass]
"WA~AH!?" Kaza dodged just in time.
"A 'Killer Art' requiring such precision as mine must adapt! As must I!" Mèi stated sternly, redirecting herself with a mid-air butterfly kick before pressing on the assault with razor-edged thrusts and kicks, as if she were a living dagger. "Kaza, I ask that you raise your fist against mine!"
"But-"
"No more words! You wish to master your own power, no? Then dance with this miserable fool before you, so that we may push each other over these flaws!"
"I-I-WAI-NRGH!"
Kaza lashed out, knocking Mèi off the plateau.
"… N-no…"
But with a sudden appearance of golden-orange threads, Mèi rained down a kick which Kaza subconsciously deflected.
"!?"
"JIÉLE!" Mèi exclaimed as loud as she could without wounding her throat, as the two clashed. "HOW WILL YOU LEARN TO CONTROL YOUR QI IF YOU NEVER LEARN ITS TRUE EXTENT!?" Kaza found herself blocking and dodging exceptionally well… better than she knew she could.
In fact.
Though faint, in the back of her mind.
She was enjoying the exchange.
And the two girls fought beyond the "sun's" departure.
Within an eternal forest, a "wayward Dragon" tears at itself in order to find the wings strong enough to allow a search for its place upon the earth.
Within a metal shell away from space, a "stray Tiger" dances before its reflection in order to prove its right to roam amongst its fellow beasts, all while fleeing the memory of the sanctuary from which it came.
At the summit, a "proud Shisa" heeds the arrogant roar of the tiger beneath it, seeking to overcome the barrier of legend imposed before it with bare fists, while its comrade boldly challenges the art of warring with its brute strength alone.
A "desolate Butterfly" compels itself to flutter alongside an "unwavering Qilin" as it aims for its ambition of a just world's creation, while it witnesses that dream clash against a "vengeful Spider" which seeks the fall of a warrior race in the name of its torn web and broken limbs.
And a "berserk Rakshasha" recklessly hungers for the strength to take a bloody revenge, as a meek carp watches on, harboring dreams of bearing its own claws and fangs.
Will these 7 be worthy of heaven's eye?
Will they notice its gaze, as their own fiercely follow the dreams which they pursue?
Time will tell.
6/4/2023 Patch Notes: Removed all "Měi" mentions in favor of "Mèi". It wasn't a mistake, and I get why I did it at the time, but it seems more in-character for Mei to be up-front and use her identity instead of a fun mock-name her master gave her. If you're new to this story, this'll add up in time. So uh, yeah.
10/25/2024 Patch Notes: Minor tweak to Zinco's training. Kaza's now the one who lost track of numbers. Changed "you people" to "you all."
Yo! OP here!
So, like, Detroit's under siege n' shit cus of the Great Value Plague, that sucks. Will probably die before I can finish the story, sucks as well, but at least the effort was cool as hell. Besides, who knows? We'll probably come out of this ok. That's what makes humans annoying.
Regardless, I went through 3 sick shows these past few weeks: Space Dandy, FLCL, and Dorohedoro. Yep, 3 shows that do whatever the hell they want, and they do it well. I also started investigating Thunderbolt Fantasy only to find out it's Puppet BASARA. Meaning I'm going to be hailing this show as the best thing since sliced bread if I'm not dead by next chapter.
Are you guys doing alright? God, I hope so.
In any case, d'ya like that pedantic shit at the end of this chapter? That pretty much signals that I have everyone's training and drive established.
You know what that means?
That's right!
Character growth time.
...
No bruh I SWEAR this is gonna be good. Seriously though, this'll be the last sequence before the tournament actually begins. It'll help develop bonds and shed actual light on characters' backstories instead of cryptic shit, as well as make everybody happ- make everybody stronger. Fruits of labor will be abound, and more fights pitting the main characters against randos that I'll hopefully forget the existence of after the chapter they appear in. Yeah.
Regarding Zinco's ambition: it's a stupid fucking dream and he's stupid for trying. Doesn't mean he'll ever stop, just means he'll continue seeing truths that change the way he thinks about his dream. The people around him will also influence how he sees it; in the future, a certain irredeemable tyrant's gonna effectively break his perception of people's potential for good. That'll hurt the tyrant much more than it will hurt Zinco, and believe me, it's gonna fucking CRUSH our golden boy.
I say his dream is dumb like Mèi's is any bette-
That's getting ahead of myself. Anyway, let me just put this off-topic concern to rest and say that I want Neoru's clan to be a fusion of MESO-AMERICAN and Japanese cultures, not just Brazilian. That mean I'm gonna retcon his brother speaking Portuguese? Uh... I dunno... Yeah, actually. Portuguese implies his clan was found at some point ((Future-Future OP here, again. No it doesn't. Like... like fuckin HOW, bitch? It's a made-up clan. Wh-whatever, OP is a moron)), and I've got plans to make his native island a lost world-type hellhole that the Arogi (it's Arogi now. Sounds more like -Ology than Orogi did) ((FUTURE FUTURE OP here: shut up, past-me)) have adapted to, also explains why they've never shown up as well as why they weaponized Fighting Spirit.
Stay safe, stay sanitized, stay sane, stay healthy, stay loved.
Gonna go read Vagabond now.
That's about it. See ya.