Chapter 410: Stops and Starts Along the Way (3)
Day 65 After Meeting Tights
The boy left the hospital, a simple pack slung over his shoulder. Standing on the bustling street, he waved goodbye to her with a smile.
"See you again someday! I'm sure we will…"
"Bye-bye~" Tights watched as he strode away, swallowed by the crowd. "What a strange boy…" She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, amused. "Then again, a boy who's met aliens gets to be a little weird, right?" With a chuckle, she stretched and headed home, swinging her bag.
Nearby, on a bench, someone rustled a newspaper and adjusted his animal mask.
"So that's how she saw me back then… Was I really that odd?"
---
Beyond the city, the landscape shifted to lush mountains—or more accurately, the middle of nowhere.
The boy walked at first, then broke into a sprint, leaping and punching the air as if to expel the emotions churning inside him.
"Right?! KIN—TO—UN—!!" he shouted skyward, half-expecting the golden cloud to descend.
It didn't, of course.
High above, the masked figure lounged on Flying Nimbus, legs crossed, arms behind his head.
Telling the cloud to ignore the brat below wasn't just Yamiru replaying history—it was what he wanted to do.
"Unknowingly becoming part of history…" Golden eyes glinted behind the mask. "These 40,000 years… Me, as the first Kami, building Korin Tower, creating Flying Nimbus and senzu beans, founding the Lookout. Annin forging the Power Pole. Joey and her creation of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber…"
None of it had been deliberate. He'd acted on instinct, never worrying about contradictions. Yet somehow, his choices had woven seamlessly into the fabric of time.
Now that he thought about it…
Back when Bulma was little, she'd flipped through ancient tales of the "Radiant Savior" and the "White God". At the time, he'd paid no attention. But now?
I went back 40,000 years and accidentally became the protagonist of Bulma's bedtime stories.
Time had looped into a bizarre, self-fulfilling circle.
The memory of the gray-robed elder and the woman in sunglasses resurfaced—how they'd seemed both present and absent, as if straddling timelines. And that moment the woman lowered her glasses…
She looked at me across the river of time.
Yamiru exhaled. "If I'm not at that level yet, overthinking it is pointless. For now… let it unfold."
The Yamiru of today was no longer the reckless kid jumping around below.
His mind was clear. Untroubled.
---
"The Turtle School… is amazing!"
"What're you talking about, Uncle Ox? You think I'm just sightseeing? Of course I'll find Gohan! I will learn from the Turtle School!"
At dawn the next day, the boy descended the mountain, his pack light.
As he trekked through the countryside, the masked observer mused:
"If the fire in Frypan Mountain came from the Furnace of Eight Divisions under Mount Five Elements… then between now and the first time 'I' came here with Goku to borrow the Dragon Balls… what exactly happened to Annin?"
An accident?
A hot pot party gone wrong?
Joey's mischief?
Or—Annin throwing a tantrum? Unlikely. In 40,000 years, the Supreme Elderly Lord's temper had only mellowed. She wouldn't snap without reason.
Still, the inconsistency nagged at him.
Unless…
Did a certain monkey kick over her furnace?
Don't be ridiculous. That monkey should be training with me on Mount Paozu at the time.
Yamiru soared higher, watching the boy vanish into the morning light. The mask hid his expression.
Those three ki signatures…
---
"Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me…"
Crouched behind a desert boulder, the boy froze.
A young Tien Shinhan stopped walking.
Pointed directly at his hiding spot.
The two leaders turned curiously, walking around the boulder to stare down at the boy cowering in the shadows.
Though visibly fighting his instincts to flee, the boy had little room to negotiate against the cunning Crane School brothers.
Crane Hermit stroked his goatee, words dripping with honeyed threats, while Tao Bai Bai ignited a Dodonpa at the boy's forehead.
In the end—however unwillingly—the boy trudged after the trio.
In the opposite direction from Mount Paozu.
His eyes darkened, refusing to glance back at the distant mountain.
Atop the cave marked "Ten Thousand Tempering Blows," the masked figure sat unmoving in the sandstorm, watching the four figures shrink into the horizon.
---
Perhaps due to complicated emotions, Yamiru didn't follow.
Some memories, though long reconciled, weren't worth reliving—even for him.
Mostly because I might reduce Tao and Crane to atoms.
Time paradoxes? Parallel worlds? Possible, but hardly necessary.
With a sigh, Yamiru stood. Grit pelted his mask like rain as desert winds howled around him.
"The path I never finished back then..."
He clicked his tongue, turning his back to Tao's group and soaring toward emerald mountains in the distance.
---
40,000 years later
For the first time since that era, Yamiru's feet touched Mount Paozu's soil.
Beasts passing by treated him neither as human nor threat—just sunlight given human form, wandering their trails.
Thok. Thok. Thok.
The rhythm of splitting wood.
THOK! By the mountain hut, Son Gohan stacked the last log, wiping his brow. Age really is catching up...
"Hm?" The old man spotted a figure emerging from the trees—an animal-masked stranger staring intently.
Odd... but his aura is profound.
"May I ask who—?"
After a pause, the masked man approached, voice warm. "Just a passerby."
Two stools appeared. They sat before the hut, chatting idly as mountain winds rustled through the pines.
"That mask is oddly artistic," Gohan mused.