Dust fell back toward the building, but Chi-Chi was already gone.
The wind tore past her face, stealing the last of her tears. She didn't cry out or fight it. She closed her eyes for a moment and shut everything else out.
The noise below, the rush of air, even the ache in her chest.
She locked onto the feeling—the sharp, wrong edge of the killer's Ki.
Found you.
It was moving east, fast but careless. Not running. Confident.
Chi-Chi opened her eyes and shifted her course, easing out of the straight climb into a silent glide. She pulled her energy in tight, shrinking it down until it barely existed—something she'd seen done before, but had never truly managed.
Until now.
She leveled out, keeping herself lost in the sun's glare.
Up ahead, she spotted him.
Green skin, wings spread wide, moving with easy confidence.
Her hand slipped toward Kumokiri, the urge to strike rising fast and sharp. It took effort to hold it back.
Not yet.
She focused instead on what he carried over his shoulder.
It was a simple canvas travel bag. On the side, a familiar patch—one she'd sewn herself years ago.
Her father's bag.
It sagged under the weight of something round. He had it.
Her grip on the sword tightened.
He killed Papa, took the Dragon Ball, and now he's just... flying away.
She saw him pull a scrap of paper from his pouch, glance at it, and laugh.
The reaction stung, but she held back.
She slowed her breathing and kept pace with him, staying high and just out of sight, close enough to follow without being seen.
I need to know where he's going. I need to know who sent him.
More than anything, she wanted him to know fear.
Not just to end him, but to make him understand what he'd taken.
Chi-Chi slipped into a passing cloud, vanishing into the mist while keeping her eyes on him below. She wasn't thinking about who she used to be.
She was focused.
Waiting.
They moved farther from the noise of the tournament, over forests and toward the mountains to the north.
Chi-Chi stayed back, keeping a steady distance as she followed him through the clouds. Every change in his path, she matched without thinking.
Her eyes stayed on the bag over his shoulder.
Time dragged.
The air thinned, growing colder.
Then he slowed and dipped sharply, disappearing into a thick bank of clouds.
Chi-Chi stopped at the edge of the mist and looked down, expecting rock or a cave below.
Instead, she saw an airship, huge, suspended over the mountains, waiting.
"So that's it, that's the hive." Chi-Chi whispered, the wind whipping her hair around her face.
A hangar door slid open along the airship's side. Tambourine folded his wings and went straight in, vanishing inside with her father's bag.
The door started to close.
Chi-Chi hovered there for a moment.
This wasn't random.
He wasn't alone.
She looked at the narrowing gap, thought of her father's smile, the food on the floor.
Whatever fear she had left, it burned away.
"Good, now I don't have to hunt you all down one by one."
/////////////////////////////////
The bridge doors slid open with a hiss.
Tambourine stepped through the steam, wings folded, wearing a smug grin. He passed rows of monitors without a glance, ignoring the three small figures huddled by the controls.
"He's back! And look! He has a bag!" Shu whispered.
"Quiet, you fool! Don't draw attention to us!" Pilaf hissed, adjusting his tiny cap nervously.
Mai swallowed and pulled her coat tighter. Ever since they'd opened the cooker and let him out, the ship had felt wrong.
At the center of the bridge, seated on a tall, imposing chair, was King Piccolo.
He looked old and worn, his green skin lined with age.
Even so, the malice around him was unmistakable, pressing down on everyone in the room.
"Master."
Tambourine announced, dropping to one knee with a heavy thud. He lowered his head in reverence.
"I have returned."
"Did you find it?" King Piccolo croaked. His voice was deep and scratchy, like boulders grinding together deep underground.
"I did, my King."
A small orange sphere rested in his hand, warm with light. Four red stars glowed inside it.
"The Four-Star Dragon Ball," Tambourine declared, holding it up like a trophy.
"It was in the possession of a large human at the tournament grounds. He attempted to keep it from me, so I snapped his neck."
"Excellent." King Piccolo stared into its orange glow.
He placed the ball in a velvet box and stood up, his joints cracking.
"Tambourine. You have a taste for blood, do you not? You enjoy the act of killing more than the act of searching." Piccolo said, looking down at his first son.
"I do, Master." Tambourine grinned, his sharp teeth glistening.
"Very well. Your wish will be granted. We will divide our roles. I shall birth a brother for, one created solely to hunt the Dragon Balls. While you wipe the martial artists from this world."
The Pilaf Gang cowered in the corner as Piccolo's chest began to heave.
He inhaled deeply, his throat swelling to a grotesque size. His face contorted with effort, veins bulging on his forehead.
"Hnnngh... HAAAA!"
SPAT.
Piccolo opened his mouth and expelled a large, slimy white egg covered in purple spots.
CRACK.
The egg shuddered. A claw broke through, then another. With a rough growl, something forced its way out.
This one was nothing like Tambourine, short, thick, and solid, built more for strength than speed.
"Cymbal. That is your name. You will hunt the Dragon Balls. Track and deliver them to your king."
Piccolo announced, breathing heavily from the exertion.
"Understood." Cymbal growled.
Piccolo turned back to Tambourine.
"As for you, my son... your leash is off. Forget the Dragon Balls. Your mission is to cleanse the Earth of the pestilence known as martial artists. Return to the tournament list. Hunt down every single fighter who participated in the last ten years."
Piccolo's eyes narrowed cruelly.
"I want the knowledge of the Mafuba erased from history."
"With pleasure, Master." Tambourine cackled, flexing his wings.
As Cymbal moved toward the cargo bay and Tambourine turned away, no one noticed the faint signal on the rear sensor.
The laughter in the room cut off.
King Piccolo stiffened. The smile left his face, and he rose from his throne in silence, the room suddenly tense around him.
"M-Master?" Pilaf squeaked, clutching his hat, his teeth chattering.
"Is something wrong? Did we calculate the coordinates incorrectly?"
Piccolo didn't acknowledge anyone.
His gaze lifted to the ceiling, steady and intent.
"You were careless, my son, you led a rat directly into our nest."
Piccolo rumbled, his voice low and dangerous.
"What?" Tambourine blinked, looking around.
"Look up." Piccolo commanded.
Tambourine, Cymbal, and the others looked up into the rafters. At first, there was nothing—just shadow and metal.
Then they saw her eyes.
Chi-Chi was clinging to the ceiling, upside down, perfectly still. Her hair hung loose toward the floor, her body tense but calm, her sword secured on her back.
Mai let out a sharp cry.
Chi-Chi wasn't looking at everyone. She was staring straight at Tambourine. Her eyes didn't blink, didn't waver.
In that moment, she felt more dangerous than anything else in the room.
"What... who is that?" Tambourine stepped back, unnerved not by her power, but by the sheer unnatural stillness of her presence.
Chi-Chi didn't answer. She simply uncrossed her arms and let go.
She fell in total silence.
THUD.
She dropped into the center of the room, boots striking the deck hard.
She didn't brace or settle into a stance. She just stood there, straight-backed and still.
Surrounded by monsters, she should've looked small. Instead, the room seemed to close around her.
"Eeeek! An intruder!" Pilaf shrieked, scrambling behind the throne.
Chi-Chi didn't react to the noise. She ignored the humans, ignored the demon on the throne.
She stepped forward, slow.
Then again.
"You." she said.
Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the hum of the ship's engines.
Tambourine blinked, genuinely confused. He looked left, then right.
"Me?" He let out a nervous, mocking laugh.
"Do I know you, girl? I've killed so many martial artists lately, they all start to look the same."
He didn't know.
To him, she was just another ant. Another nameless face in a list of victims.
The lack of recognition didn't make her angry. It made her stare grow emptier.
The bridge went deathly quiet.
King Piccolo, who had been watching with half-lidded amusement, finally spoke. His voice rumbled like thunder trapped in a cave.
"You walk into my ship, and ignore my presence?" Piccolo said, leaning forward on his throne, his massive frame casting a shadow over her.
The air pressure in the room spiked.
Piccolo's presence filled the bridge, crushing and heavy. Mai and Shu collapsed, struggling to breathe.
Chi-Chi didn't react.
She turned her head slightly and glanced back at him, her eyes empty of fear—or concern.
"I'm not talking to you." she said.
Pilaf's jaw dropped. Tambourine froze.
Piccolo's eye twitched.
She wasn't misjudging him. She was brushing him aside.
"This girl is insane." Tambourine stammered, feeling the sweat run down his back.
Chi-Chi turned her gaze back to Tambourine as a white, violent aura began to leak from her body, twisting around her like flames.
"You are the one who snapped his neck. You are the one who killed my father."
Tambourine blinked, pretending to think. He tapped a claw against his chin.
"I killed him?" he said, mockingly.
Then he looked back at her and smiled—wide, cruel.
"Who was he again? Was he the fat one?"
He shrugged, hands lifting in a fake apology.
"Sorry. I really can't remember every cockroach I squash. They all make the same crunching sound, you know?"
"That's fine, you don't need to." Chi-Chi said. Her voice didn't waver.
Her hand tightened on Kumokiri.
"You won't remember anything soon anyway."
The threat lingered in the air.
Cymbal stepped forward, the floor creaking under him. He flexed his hands, saliva dripping as he grinned.
"You've got a lot of nerve." He said.
He lifted a claw to strike—but a wing snapped out in front of him.
"Enough, brother." Tambourine said calmly.
Cymbal glared at him.
"Why? She's right there."
"Because she's not here for you." Tambourine said, stepping past him. He looked at Chi-Chi with a thin smile.
"She came all this way for me."
He opened his arms slightly, amused.
"For her father." he added, laughing under his breath.
"It'd be rude to turn her away."
He lowered his stance, power gathering in his hands.
"You wanted me? Fine. But this won't be quick."