The morning mist rolling across the jagged green ridges of Mount Paozu was thick enough to taste. It tasted of cold dew, damp earth, and the sharp, clean ozone of the high northern range.
I sat cross-legged on a flat outcrop of gray stone high above the valley floor, my hands resting palms-up on my knees, my breathing slow and steady. My eyes were closed, but my mind wasn't resting. For the past twenty minutes, I had been stretching my Ki awareness outward, letting my consciousness drift across the rolling topography of the planet like an invisible web.
I felt the steady, low-frequency pulse of Mom and Piccolo sparring on the eastern ridge—their energy signatures rhythmic, sharp, and perfectly synchronized. Down in the valley clearing, I felt two smaller, suppressed sparks flickering with disciplined precision: Vegeta and Nappa, holding their energy output down to a flat, silent hum as part of their morning endurance drills.
Everything was quiet. Everything was ordered.
But then I sensed a dark presence in space, not far from the Earth, it was quite close actually. The darkness felt weak, like pathetically weak, I was not shocked though. After Wheelo came Turles, so I already knew what was going on.
Floating through the dark void of space, coming towards Earth was a seed, a seed that was essentially a parasitic organism which burrowed into a planet's crust, drains its life energy or Ki and sprouts the Tree of Might. And the low-class space pirate who fancied himself a false warlord, hid behind the given power the fruit grants him because he lacked the pride to grow his own strength through more… dedicated measures.
'Well, not today,' I thought and immediately began raising my Ki at a quick pace, becoming a bright beacon that would alert my allies to me.
Less than ten seconds later, the wind tore across the outcrop as four distinct figures touched down around the stone ledge.
Mom landed first, her boots biting into the gray rock, her dark eyes immediately scanning the horizon for danger. Piccolo dropped silently beside her, his white cape settling around his broad shoulders as his gaze snapped skyward. A heartbeat later, Vegeta and Nappa arrived in a twin gust of displaced air, both of them dropping their suppression the instant their feet hit the stone.
"What is it?" Mom asked, her voice tight, her stance already shifting into a low, balanced guard. "I felt your energy spike across the whole valley."
"Company," I said, pushing myself smoothly to my feet and looking up toward the pale blue expanse of the northern sky. "Six of them, just outside the upper atmosphere. One of them feels like a Saiyan."
Vegeta's dark eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits, a sharp, predatory grin slowly spreading across his face.
"Another survivor? Out here?" He crossed his arms, tilting his head back as he stretched his sensing toward the stratosphere. "Pathetic. His signature is barely worth noticing."
"It's not just the signatures," Piccolo rumbled, his brow furrowing as his sharp gaze fixed on the northern horizon. "There's a foul, stagnant quality to the energy trailing behind them. Like rot."
"If they're looking to strip-mine or scout the planet," Vegeta muttered, his tactical instincts kicking in automatically, "they won't bring their main cruiser down blind. Standard Frieza-force protocol—they'll drop an automated reconnaissance probe first to test the atmosphere, soil density, and planetary energy levels."
"Then we don't let the probe report back," I said simply. "If it drops, we find it and destroy it before it finishes its sweep. Force them to come down blind."
Vegeta let out a short, sharp laugh, clearly appreciating the directness of the approach. "Agreed. Let's move."
—Third-Person POV—
Four hundred miles to the north, the landscape shifted from the lush green peaks of Mount Paozu to a desolate, wind-scoured wilderness of jagged slate and frozen tundra.
High above the clouds a metallic reconnaissance probe detached from the underbelly of a battered, dark-hulled cruiser. Roughly the size of a small boulder—about four feet tall, sleek, and coated in refractive stealth plating—the device plunged through the upper stratosphere like a silent needle.
Inside the main cruiser, suspended in the dark void of low orbit, Turles leaned back in his command chair, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at the blue-and-green sphere below. A thin, arrogant smirk played across his dark, familiar features—the spitting image of Kakarot, save for the cold, cruel glint in his eyes and the jagged scar running down his pale armor.
"How's the sweep looking, Rasin?" Turles asked lazily, tapping a gloved finger against his armrest.
At the main console, the small, blue-skinned alien tapped rapidly at a glowing holographic keyboard, his tiny yellow eyes darting across streams of incoming telemetry. Beside him, his twin brother Lakasei leaned over the terminal, peering at the readouts.
"Atmospheric density is optimal, boss!" Rasin chirped, his voice high and nasally. "Oxygen rich, massive biomass across four major continents, and high ambient energy levels in the crust. This rock is practically begging for the Tree of Might!"
"Good," Turles chuckled, a dark, greedy light flaring in his eyes. "A planet this lush will yield a harvest twice as potent as the last sector. Keep monitoring the probe. As soon as it finishes the soil core sample, we drop the seed."
Down on the surface, the stealth probe pierced the low cloud cover over the northern slate basin, its optical sensors spinning as it scanned the barren rock below. Without a single sound, it deployed four spindly landing struts, settling silently onto a flat shelf of dark stone. A translucent blue laser grid fanned out from its central lens, sweeping across the dirt to measure mineral composition and ambient vitality.
It didn't even finish its first rotation.
High above the basin, five figures hovered silently in the freezing wind, their eyes scanning the jagged terrain below. Because the machine had no life signature, Ki sensing was useless; they had to rely on raw eyesight and the faint, shimmering distortion of the probe's optical cloak against the gray rock.
"There," Piccolo said sharply, his keen Namekian eyesight catching the subtle ripple of bent light near a cluster of boulders half a mile down. "Northwest ridge. By the slate formation."
Yuzu didn't waste a second. She raised two fingers, focusing a razor-thin needle of compressed Ki at the tip, and flicked her wrist downward.
A silent, blinding streak of white light lanced through the cold air. There was no dramatic explosion, no wasted energy—just a surgical, pinpoint strike that punched straight through the center of the stealth probe's core. The machine violently convulsed, sparks erupting from its ruptured plating as its optical cloak shorted out, revealing its scorched metallic frame a split second before its internal power cell detonated in a sharp, localized burst of blue flame.
Up in orbit, the telemetry screen in front of Rasin violently flashed red, emitting a shrill, piercing alarm before cutting straight to static.
"What the—?!" Lakasei yelped, jumping back from the console. "We just lost the feed!"
Turles's smirk vanished, his brows drawing together in irritation. "Did the probe burn up on entry?"
"No, boss!" Rasin stammered, furiously punching keys to pull up the final millisecond of data before the link severed. "It landed intact! It had already started the soil scan, and then—boom! Sudden localized thermal spike right on top of its coordinates. Something destroyed it!"
Amond, a massive, towering brute with wild orange hair and thick battle armor, let out a deep, rumbling laugh from the back of the bridge, crossing his tree-trunk arms over his chest. "Probably wandered into a volcanic vent or got crushed by some oversized local beast. Who cares? You already got the atmospheric readings, right?"
"Yeah, the soil data is more than enough," Turles muttered, standing up from his chair and adjusting his scouter over his left eye. "Still, I don't like losing hardware without knowing why. Take the cruiser down into the northern basin. We'll drop the seed ourselves and clear out whatever's down there."
The massive, dark-hulled cruiser descended through the northern cloud layer with a low, heavy roar of ion thrusters, casting a vast shadow over the desolate slate basin. Scorching gusts of exhaust whipped up clouds of gray dust as the ship settled heavily onto the frozen ground, a few hundred yards away from the smoking remains of the destroyed probe.
With a heavy hydraulic hiss, the main boarding ramp lowered onto the dirt.
Turles stepped out first, his dark cape billowing behind him in the freezing wind, flanked closely by his five elite crew members: the towering Amond, the sleek, cybernetic Cacao, the wild-haired Daiz, and the twin engineers Rasin and Lakasei. Turles held a small, spherical containment capsule in his gloved hand—the dormant seed of the Tree of Might pulsing faintly behind thick reinforced glass.
"Alright," Turles called out, scanning the empty, wind-swept valley with a sneer. "Spread out and secure the perimeter. Rasin, find the richest mineral vein in this—"
"I wouldn't bother unpacking."
The voice didn't come from the ground. It drifted down from directly above the cruiser's forward hull, calm, clear, and entirely unbothered by the howling northern wind.
Turles's head snapped upward, his eyes narrowing as five figures dropped effortlessly from the low clouds, touching down in a loose semicircle thirty yards in front of the boarding ramp.
Turles blinked, his gaze sweeping over the group with a mix of confusion and immediate disdain. A Namekian in a weighted white cape. A human woman in a fitted martial arts uniform. Two massive Saiyans—one bald and hulking, the other shorter with proud, spiky hair and tattered blue undersuit. And standing squarely at the front of the group, hands tucked casually into the pockets of her tunic, was a five-year-old girl.
Turles let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter, resting his free hand on his hip as his eyes locked onto Vegeta.
"Well, well," Turles drawled, his smirk returning in full force. "Look what crawled out of the dirt. Saiyans? Out in this backwater sector? Let me guess—Frieza's little lapdogs finally got tired of licking his boots and decided to hide out on a primitive rock?"
Vegeta's jaw tightened, a vein pulsing faintly at his temple, though he didn't flare his energy or lunge forward. Instead, he kept his arms crossed, looking down his nose at Turles with pure, aristocratic disgust. "Watch your mouth, low-class trash. You're speaking to the Prince of all Saiyans. Though looking at that pathetic crew you've dragged along, I suppose you wouldn't know anything about rank."
Turles's smirk faltered slightly at the title, his eyes narrowing as he studied Vegeta's posture. "Prince? So the royal brat actually survived Planet Vegeta after all. Doesn't matter. Bloodlines don't mean anything out here, Vegeta. Out in the real universe, only strength counts—and judging by the dust on your armor, you've gone soft playing house with the locals."
"Big talk from a scavenger," Nappa grunted, cracking his massive knuckles with a sound like breaking dry wood. "Why don't you step down off that ramp and test how soft we've gotten?"
Turles's eyes flicked from Nappa to the rest of the group, a cruel smile curling his lips. "Let's see what kind of trash you've teamed up with, Prince."
Turles reached up and tapped the side of his scouter. Beside him, Cacao, Amond, Daiz, Rasin, and Lakasei followed suit, their lenses lighting up with rapid streams of targeting telemetry.
On the ground, Yuzu gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Simultaneously, all five defenders stopped holding back. They didn't roar, they didn't posture, and they didn't waste energy blowing up the dirt beneath their boots—they simply released their suppression all at once.
The effect on the Crusher Corps' scouters was instantaneous and catastrophic.
High-pitched, frantic electronic chirps erupted across the boarding ramp as the green and red lenses flashed violently, numbers scrolling at dizzying speeds before locking onto targets that made zero logical sense.
Turles stiffened, his smirk evaporating instantly as his jaw dropped slightly.
39,500.
His eye darted to the hulking bald brute beside the Prince.
28,500.
He shifted his gaze to the Namekian, then to the human woman standing beside him.
28,000.27,500.
Cold sweat broke out across the back of Turles's neck. His own power level sat at nineteen thousand—a number that had allowed him to carve a bloody path across dozens of outer-rim worlds without breaking a sweat. Every single one of the warriors standing in front of him dwarfed him effortlessly.
Then, his scouter lens automatically snapped onto the small girl standing squarely at the center of their formation.
The numbers didn't even stutter. They climbed past Vegeta's readingt in a fraction of a second and locked into place with a sharp, piercing chime.
40,000.
"W-What is this?!" Rasin shrieked, slapping the side of his headset as if the machine were malfunctioning. "My scouter's broken! These numbers are impossible! Nobody in this sector has readings like this!"
"It's not broken," Turles hissed, his voice dropping an octave as panic began to creep beneath his bravado. He stared at Vegeta, his mind racing to make sense of the impossible hierarchy standing in front of him. The Prince of all Saiyans—a warrior notorious for his ruthless, solitary pride—wasn't standing at the front. He wasn't giving orders. He was standing half a step behind a five-year-old girl, visibly deferring tactical control to her. "No matter, once the Tree of Might is planted these people will be dust."
"Tree of Might?" Vegeta questioned.
"The only way to destroy Frieza and for a low-class Saiyan to surpass an elite is the Fruit of Might. A fruit that grants incredible power to any who eats it… so long as a planet is a sacrifice."
"Pathetic. How utterly pathetic of you to rely on such."
Vegeta had never felt such rage before but then, Yuzu decided to end this farce before Earth was endangered. Raising her right hand, she formed a tight, glowing sphere of compressed silver-white energy just above her palm. Before Turles could even bark an order to plant the seed and scatter, she snapped her fingers.
"Wakeru (Split)." Yuzu vocalised as the sphere fired forwards before bursting into seven razor-thin, high-velocity beams that curved through the air with impossible precision.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Six of the beams struck the exact center of every single scouter lens on the boarding ramp, shattering the reinforced glass into harmless dust and scorching the side of each pirate's cheek without wasting a single drop of excess energy.
The seventh beam lanced straight through the glass containment capsule in Turles's hand.
Turles gasped, flinching backward as the capsule shattered in a burst of superheated vapor. The dark, gnarled seed inside didn't even have time to hit the dirt—the concentrated Ki beam incinerated it down to fine gray ash in mid-air, the wind instantly scattering the remains across the frozen slate.
Turles stared down at his empty, smoking glove, his chest heaving as the sheer, suffocating reality of the situation crashed down on him. His reconnaissance probe was scrap. His scouters were blind. His prized seed was dust. And the smallest fighter in front of him possessed more raw, controlled power than his entire crew combined twice over.
"Don't just stand there!" Turles roared, his voice cracking slightly with sudden desperation as he threw his arm forward. "Kill them! Wipe them out!"
The Crusher Corps didn't need a second order. Then again cornered animals always bite first.
Amond let out a deafening, berserk bellow, his massive boots cratering the frozen earth as he launched himself forward like a runaway freight train. Muscles bulging beneath his battle armor, the towering brute drew back a fist the size of a boulder, aiming straight for Nappa's skull.
Nappa didn't even bother raising a guard. He simply stepped into the charge, letting his energy surge from zero to full output in the exact microsecond before impact.
THWACK!
Nappa caught Amond's incoming fist dead-center in his open palm. The shockwave blew a ring of dust outward across the slate, snapping Amond's forward momentum to a dead halt. Amond's eyes bulged in shock as his wrist bones groaned under Nappa's iron grip.
"Too slow," Nappa grinned savagely.
Before Amond could pull back, Nappa pivoted his hips and drove a heavy right straight into the giant's torso, breaking though the armour and making Amond look like a donut with the hole in his chest. Blood poured from the wound as Nappa dislodged his arm and let him fall.
To Nappa's right, Cacao and Daiz moved in a synchronized pincer attack. Cacao's cybernetic boosters flared blue as he rocketed across the sky at blinding speed, deploying razor-sharp blades from his forearms, while Daiz flew above them charging twin spheres of crimson energy to rain down from above.
Piccolo stepped forward, his white cape whipping violently around his frame as he shed the garment in a single, fluid motion, letting it drop heavily onto the dirt.
As Cacao lunged in with a blinding flurry of slashes, Piccolo slipped inside his reach deflecting blade strikes with the back of his forearm before spinning cleanly behind Cacao's blind spot. And then Piccolo vapourised him with a point-blank energy wave from the back. Turning him into ashes in the wind.
Above him, Daiz hurled his twin energy spheres downward, screaming in rage. Piccolo didn't even look up. He extended one arm skyward, firing a single blast that detonated both blasts prematurely in mid-air before vanishing from his spot.
Daiz barely had time to gasp before Piccolo materialized directly behind him in the smoke, grabbing the pirate by his wild hair and hurling him downward like a meteor, before Piccolo appeared right there and in one, powerful kick, Daiz's body was split into two. A beam from Nappa finished the job.
Meanwhile, the twins Rasin and Lakasei attempted to flank the left side, darting erratically across the rocks while firing rapid volleys of paralyzing energy bolts.
Chi-Chi wove effortlessly through the incoming bolts. She closed the distance in a heartbeat, ducking beneath Rasin's wild swing and driving a textbook, devastating palm strike directly into his solar plexus. The air left Rasin's lungs in a sharp wheeze as his eyes went wide, his small frame folding in half before crumpling onto the dirt.
Lakasei shrieked, swinging a desperate kick at her head, only for Chi-Chi to catch his ankle mid-air, pivot smoothly on her heel, and slam him directly down on top of his unconscious twin. She stepped back, raised her hands out and fired a wave of energy that finished the job.
From start to finish, the entire exchange had lasted less than fifteen seconds.
Turles stood frozen at the foot of the boarding ramp, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as he stared at the broken, unconscious bodies of his five elite warriors scattered across the dirt. Not a single one of them had landed a scratch. Not a single one of them had even forced the defenders to breathe hard.
Panic—cold, suffocating, and absolute—took over every instinct in Turles's body.
He didn't bother trying to fight. He didn't bother screaming threats. Turning on his heel, Turles threw himself backward up the boarding ramp at full speed, diving into the cruiser's airlock and slamming his fist onto the emergency launch override.
"Get me out of here! Full thrust!" Turles roared, throwing himself into the pilot's seat as the boarding ramp slammed shut and the massive ion thrusters ignited with a deafening roar.
The dark-hulled cruiser lifted off the basin floor in a violent storm of dust and scorched earth, angling sharply upward as it rocketed toward the upper atmosphere at maximum acceleration. Inside the cockpit, Turles gripped the flight yoke with white knuckles, his chest heaving as the blue sky outside the viewport began to darken into the safety of low orbit.
Just a few more seconds, Turles thought frantically, watching the altitude gauge spin wildly. 'Once I activate the hyper-drive, I'm gone. They can't follow me into deep space—'
Down on the basin floor, Piccolo stood calmly beside Yuzu and Vegeta, his index and middle fingers pressed tightly against the center of his forehead. A brilliant, spiraling coil of golden-white energy crackled violently around his fingertips, humming with a piercing, high-pitched whine that cut straight through the roar of the departing ship.
"He's breaking the cloud layer," Vegeta noted casually, crossing his arms as he watched the distant black speck shrinking against the sky. "Don't miss, Namekian."
"I won't," Piccolo said coldly.
Piccolo snapped his arm forward, thrusting his two fingers straight toward the heavens.
"Makankōsappō!"
A blinding, corkscrewing lance of golden-white light tore through the atmosphere, splitting the low clouds in half with a thunderous sonic boom that rattled the slate beneath their boots.
High above, inside the cruiser's cockpit, the proximity alarm barely had time to emit a single shrill beep before the spiraling beam punched cleanly through the rear hull, tore straight through the reinforced command deck, and caught Turles squarely in the center of the chest.
The massive cruiser hung motionless in the upper stratosphere for a single, silent heartbeat—and then erupted into a silent, blinding blossom of orange fire, scattering harmless debris across the upper atmosphere where it burned away to nothing long before reaching the ground.
Silence returned to the northern slate basin, broken only by the low whistle of the freezing wind sweeping across the rocks.
Yuzu let her suppressed energy settle back into its quiet, rhythmic hum, looking up at the fading trail of smoke high in the pale blue sky before turning back toward the south.
"Well," Nappa said, dusting off his hands as he looked around at the five unconscious aliens sprawled across the dirt. "That was barely a warm-up."
By the time evening settled over Mount Paozu, the biting northern wind had faded into a gentle, cool breeze that smelled of damp pine needles and woodsmoke. Inside the Son household, the warm amber glow of the hearth pushed back the gathering twilight, casting long, flickering shadows across the wooden floorboards.
Yuzu sat on the edge of the front porch, her legs swinging idly above the dirt yard as she stared out at the darkening silhouettes of the mountain peaks. The afternoon's skirmish had been entirely anticlimactic—barely fifteen seconds from start to finish, ending with a dead tree seed, a vaporized cruiser and zero casualties on their side. She didn't regret a single second of it. In a universe where cosmic tyrants waited in the wings, ending a threat before it could ever take root wasn't cruelty; it was basic common sense.
Her thoughts drifted forward, tracing the timeline she knew by heart. With Turles gone, the next major hurdle before Frieza would be Lord Slug. She wasn't particularly worried about the Super Namekian; between her her steadily increasing base power, Vegeta's rapid scaling, and Mom and Piccolo's relentless sparring, Slug wouldn't pose much of a threat when his cruiser eventually entered orbit.
Then, a sudden, uncomfortable realization made her frown.
The Earthlings.
She hadn't thought about Yamcha, Krillin or Tien in months. Since she had the Saiyan problem handled right out of the gate by her family there had been no need for Kami to force the Earth's defenders up to the Lookout for emergency training. In fact, as far as she knew Krillin was still lounging at Kame House, Yamcha was probably playing baseball in West City or being a playboy and only Tien was actually pushing himself in the mountains but falling behind.
If they stayed at their current levels, they wouldn't survive five minutes in the upcoming war against Frieza. In fact, now that she thinks about it, it would be detrimental to not get them prepared.
She made a quiet mental note: the moment Dad and Gohan got back from King Kai's, she was going to have to drag the rest of the crew out of their complacency and get them to go through Gravity Training.
A few hundred yards away from the house, where the mountain stream cut a cold, silver path through the mossy boulders, Piccolo sat alone on a flat stone.
He watched the water rush past in endless, churning currents, his cape draped neatly beside him. For years, he had defined his existence by solitude—meditating in barren wastelands, sharpening his hatred like a blade meant solely for Goku's chest. Yet over the past week, sparring alongside Chi-Chi had shattered his old limits in ways solitary meditation never could. Having a partner who forced him to adapt, to read subtle shifts in footwork, and to refine his output had pushed his strength to heights he wouldn't have reached in a decade alone.
Looking inward, Piccolo felt a strange, hollow quiet where his burning obsession used to sit. The lingering echoes of King Piccolo's desire for revenge felt remarkably small now, almost petty, when measured against the vast, terrifying horizons of power waiting out in the stars. He wasn't sure what he was becoming, only that the old path was dead when he looked upon the world.
Inside the house, seated on a heavy wooden stool near the fireplace, Vegeta stared intently into the dancing orange flames.
His jaw was tight, his fingers resting heavily against his knees. His mind kept circling back to Turles. On the surface, the space pirate was everything Vegeta despised—a weak-minded scavenger relying on a fruit to grow stronger. Yet, a bitter, nagging voice in the back of Vegeta's mind forced him to see an uncomfortable reflection.
How different had he really been? For his entire life, Vegeta had relied entirely on his royal bloodline and the Saiyan genetic trait of growing stronger after near-death battles. He had never truly trained. Neither had Nappa. Neither had Raditz.
They had simply conquered weaker worlds, coasted on their natural superiority, and stagnated under Frieza's thumb. The realization tasted like ash in his mouth, a sharp, frustrating prick to his pride that refused to go away.
At the same time, Turles's sudden appearance confirmed something else: other Saiyans had survived the destruction of Planet Vegeta. Vegeta wondered briefly how many stragglers were scattered across the fringes of the galaxy, and whether Frieza knew they were breathing.
For a fleeting second, the image of his younger brother, Tarble, crossed his mind. Vegeta dismissed the thought immediately with a quiet scoff. Searching for that weak-willed boy would only drag Frieza's attention straight to him. Better to leave him forgotten in whatever backwater sector he had been banished to.
Vegeta's dark eyes shifted toward the open doorway, catching the small silhouette of Yuzu sitting on the porch. A heavy, unfamiliar sensation settled in his chest—a grudging, undeniable sense of gratitude.
If Kakarot's brat hadn't beaten the arrogance out of him and forced him to rethink everything he knew about combat, he would have remained stagnant forever—eventually crushed beneath Frieza's boot like a common insect. In less than two weeks on this backwater rock, he had grown stronger than he had in the last ten years.
Across the room at the wooden dining table, Nappa was happily tearing a massive slab of roasted river fish off the bone with his teeth, chewing loudly.
For a man who had spent his life believing that brute force and massive energy blasts were the pinnacle of warfare, the afternoon's skirmish had been an eye-opener. Watching the Namekian dismantle two fighters with surgical precision, seeing the human woman drop the twins without wasting a single ounce of stamina, and witnessing the sheer, effortless control of the little brat had completely shifted his perspective.
By simply learning to contain his energy and strike with intent, Nappa felt sharper, faster, and far more lethal than he ever had in Frieza's army. Swallowing a large bite of fish, he decided that tomorrow morning, he wasn't just going to wait for orders—he was going to ask the human woman and the Namekian to teach him actual martial arts alongside the kid's energy drills.
Out behind the house, near the wooden washbasin, Chi-Chi hummed a soft tune as she wrung out a freshly washed gi top, hanging it neatly over the clothesline in the cool evening air.
The quiet rhythm of the chores was a welcome relief after a week of intense sparring and afternoon skirmishes. Her gaze drifted upward toward the darkening sky, where the first faint stars were beginning to blink through the twilight. She wondered how Goku and Gohan were faring on that tiny planet at the end of Snake Way, hoping her husband was keeping their son safe while they trained under King Kai.
Before heading back inside, Chi-Chi glanced around the corner of the house toward the front porch, watching Yuzu sit quietly in the dusk. A soft, knowing smile touched Chi-Chi's lips. Her daughter was far too sharp, far too tactical, and carried a strange, quiet weight behind her eyes that no five-year-old should ever possess—much like the oddities she and Goku had noticed over the past two years.
Chi-Chi shook her head lightly, picking up her empty basket. Whatever strange secret her daughter was carrying, she was still her sweet, protective little girl—and Chi-Chi had no intention of prying until Yuzu was ready to share it herself.