The old man: "......"
The woman: "......"
The elder frowned, as if letting out a silent scoff; the woman shrugged, her expression playfully mocking.
The figure in the animal mask stood nearby, his clenched fist slowly relaxing as he reached out… The chatting pair passed through his arm one after another, brushing past him like empty air.
Yamiru closed his hand, tilting his head to watch their retreating figures.
This woman…
Just like the mysterious elder, she seemed to exist only in "Yamiru's past"—or rather, only in the timeline of the younger Yamiru.
That's why he couldn't hear their words. That's why he couldn't interact with them at all.
Hands in his pockets, Yamiru lowered his gaze, the gold in his eyes dimming.
He deactivated his Golden Veil and looked up again—the two figures vanished abruptly, like layers turned off in an image.
When his pupils reignited with gold, the elder and woman reappeared, still walking away side by side.
Then, one after another, they took flight, soaring into the sky.
Yamiru stared at the distant specks—these two beings of unknown origin—for a long, long time…
---
South City Outskirts
A double-decker bus came to a slow stop in front of a small, shabby house. A pig-man stepped off, unable to hide his disdain.
"So poor! So remote!"
"It's fine. To me, it's all the same." The boy, still in his youthful phase, disembarked without much concern for the pig-man's scorn.
Tonpo, the pig-man, sneered at every inch of the boy's rundown home, poking around inside. But the boy had dragged him here for a reason—this isolated wilderness was the perfect place to grill some pork without anyone interfering. The boy made sure to imply as much, enjoying the way Tonpo squirmed under the thinly veiled threat.
During the interrogation, the boy learned of a school for psychic abilities in South City—funded by none other than the world's largest conglomerate, Capsule Corp.
"Capsule Corp, huh…" The boy's interest was immediately piqued. The name held a strange allure for him. I wonder if this Bulma has an older sister…?
Inside and outside the house, the figure in the animal mask was nowhere to be seen.
The night sky was a sea of stars…
Dawn crept in slowly, sunlight spilling over the grass, inching up the legs of a park bench, crawling across the seat before finally splitting the animal mask into light and shadow…
Tiny beads of morning dew coated the bench, silently sliding down the metal rails, dripping onto the tips of blades of grass before vanishing into the soil…
Yamiru sat quietly on the bench, listening to the whispers of nature.
Wisp by wisp, minuscule fragments of energy seeped out from the emerald-green grass, the crystal-clear dewdrops, even the bench itself… all flowing into his body.
Guided by the principles of the Spirit Bomb, influenced by his near-divine state, and welcomed by the trillions of pure white cells in his body… these faint energies silently gathered in his eyes, seeping into the deepest layers of his cells. Under the guidance of Ultra Instinct, they began subtly altering the very essence of his being.
After a while, the masked figure glimpsed the gray-green-robed elder passing by on a park path. He stood abruptly and followed.
The elder strolled leisurely, like any ordinary old man out for a morning walk.
Yamiru kept pace, but even with his Golden Veil, he could only see the man—nothing more. The elder's true nature remained an impenetrable mystery.
Soon, a familiar, weak ki approached.
The boy was at it again, sprinting desperately after the elder.
Yamiru listened to his younger self's shouts from behind. He glanced back—the scrawny kid was running full tilt, face twisted in frustration, yelling for the old man to stop.
The elder ignored him completely, continuing his slow walk while effortlessly leaving the boy in the dust. He passed a panting Tonpo (who had collapsed on a bench) and was dozens of meters away in seconds…
Yamiru reached the park entrance. Sure enough, the elder soon approached, walking straight past him as if he didn't exist, just like the day before.
Yamiru turned and followed.
Not far outside the park, the woman from yesterday reappeared—same oversized sunglasses, same casual demeanor—falling into step beside the elder as they chatted.
Again, Yamiru couldn't hear a word.
"They've embedded their existence into 'the timeline of the younger Yamiru'… Is that it?" Yamiru mused, trying to rationalize it in his own terms. Since he couldn't interact with them anyway, he stayed close, studying their expressions. The elder was stoic, almost grim, while the woman was vibrant and carefree.
After exchanging a few words, the woman suddenly produced a sleek mechanical device. A hologram flickered to life—
It showed the young boy lying in the park grass, staring at the sky.
Yamiru froze, stunned.
Then the woman pinched the hologram, zooming in—revealing the boy's eyes, now faintly glowing gold.
Yamiru stared at the "close-up shot" of his own golden eyes in the hologram—those faintly glowing pupils gazing blankly at the sky.
The woman in oversized sunglasses and the gray-green-robed elder continued their conversation.
Finally, the old man looked up at the sky, murmured something under his breath, and then took off into the air.
The woman clicked her tongue, stowing away the strange device. Just as Yamiru expected her to fly away as well, she suddenly paused. She glanced around, observing her surroundings, until finally, those large sunglasses slowly turned toward Yamiru standing nearby. The lenses reflected his animal mask—and the shocked golden eyes behind it.
For a brief moment, Yamiru had the illusion that her presence had suddenly become real, as if she had stepped out of the background and into his world.
Just like three days ago, when he'd felt the old man's gaze briefly lock onto him in the sky.
The woman slid her sunglasses down slightly, revealing a pair of bright, amused eyes as she looked Yamiru up and down.
"You—" Yamiru was stunned.
Before he could even ask anything, she pushed her sunglasses back up, leaving behind a playful remark:
"Well, at least shoving you along wasn't a complete waste~"
The moment her sunglasses settled back in place, she reverted to that same untouchable state—as if she and Yamiru existed in parallel timelines again. No matter what he said or did, even reaching out to stop her, he couldn't make contact.
Yamiru stood there, watching as she flew away into the distance, until finally, he rubbed his hair in frustration.
"What a pair of annoying bastards!"
With a sigh, he flopped backward onto the roadside, uncaring of the growing number of passersby and their odd stares.
Now that he knew there had been someone pulling strings behind the scenes, did that suddenly make everything meaningless?
Yamiru wasn't the type to wallow in self-pity.
He was the one who had clawed his way to where he was now—no one understood the struggle better than him.
But he also couldn't deny that it was these two enigmatic figures—with their strange attention and deliberate (or perhaps accidental) nudges—who had given the younger version of himself the chance to reach this point.
Whatever the case, while the old man and woman were frustratingly mysterious, they didn't seem malicious… and Yamiru wasn't so ungrateful as to spit on their indirect help.
Still… it'd be nice to figure out what the hell their deal was.
"Tch." He punched the ground in irritation, spiderweb cracks spreading through the concrete.
Yamiru lay sprawled on the roadside, indifferent to the world, as the sun climbed higher into the sky.
Then, at its zenith, a dark shadow cut through the blinding sunlight—surrounded by seven dazzling points of light.
Joey, playing with seven orange Dragon Balls using her psychic abilities, spotted Yamiru and cheerfully swooped down toward him—only to stop abruptly just above his stomach.
Yamiru looked up at the tiny girl hovering proudly with hands on her hips, the seven Dragon Balls orbiting her like a rotating constellation, and couldn't help but laugh. He sat up and grinned, saying in English:
"That's my girl."
The moment he said it, it struck him—he was the reason Earth had both Chinese and English.
Back in the day, he and Tights had even wondered about it.
Now he knew: over these 40,000 years, he had unconsciously let both languages persist.
And of course, after spending so much time around Yamiru, Joey understood the English phrase perfectly. She puffed out her chest even more proudly, her chin tilting up so far her face was barely visible.
With Joey and the Dragon Balls in tow, Yamiru headed to the outskirts of South City, where fewer people would disturb them.
---
Somewhere else, in a rented apartment
Tights, the runaway aspiring light novel author, looked out the window in surprise.
"How strange…"
Mount Five Elements
The Supreme Elderly Lord gazed solemnly at the distant horizon.
Papaya Island
The Turtle Hermit, freshly arrived and ready to flirt with pretty girls in his Hawaiian shirt, paused mid-step.
"Huh? Feels like I've seen this before…"
South City Psychic School
Bulma, boredly fiddling with her ray gun, suddenly perked up and rushed to the window.
Meanwhile, on campus, the boy—dragging Tonpo the pig-man along—suddenly stopped. His eyes flashed gold as he gripped Tonpo's shoulders, burning with determination.
And then—
BOOM!
The once-blue sky shattered into darkness.