The sound of waves crashing against the shore filled the tense and awkward silence.
The legendary Master Roshi, the self-proclaimed God of Martial Arts, slowly sat up. He brushed the sand off his Hawaiian shirt and coughed a few times, trying to salvage an aura of dignity that had already sunk to the bottom of the ocean along with his credibility. He quickly stuffed the adult magazine back into its turtle shell and adjusted his sunglasses.
"Ahem... Please excuse this little display of... earthly meditation," said Roshi, crossing his arms and adopting a solemn posture. "I am Master Roshi. What are a couple of youngsters looking for in my humble abode?"
Kaiju, whose forehead vein was still throbbing dangerously, let out a long sigh, calming his disappointment.
"I've come to train," the thirteen-year-old boy declared firmly. "I know who you are and I know your reputation. I want to learn Ki control. I want to be your disciple."
Roshi raised an eyebrow, assessing the young man. He noticed the scar over his right eye and the defined musculature beneath his shirt, but then he let out a mocking laugh, waving a hand in the air.
"Disciple? Nonsense! I haven't taken on any disciples for years. The Turtle School's training is far too rigorous for today's youth. Besides, I'm very busy with my... research," the old man replied, turning to go back home. "Go back the way you came, children."
"Even if the payment for my training includes an invaluable contribution to your... 'research'?" Kaiju blurted out, knowing exactly which buttons to push.
Roshi stopped dead in his tracks. His neck spun 180 degrees with a speed that defied human anatomy.
"What kind of contribution?" he asked, drooling slightly.
It was then that the old man's eyes settled intently on Tohka, who was floating about half a meter off the ground in her majestic astral dress. Roshi took off his sunglasses, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets at the unreal beauty of the purple-haired girl.
"Oh, holy mother of shells!" exclaimed Roshi, his nose red and a trickle of blood showing. "What a charming young lady! Tell me, my darling, would you like to give this poor, wise old man a little pafu-pafu?"
Tohka tilted her head, processing the request with her usual logic.
—Vocabulary analysis: term "pafu-pafu" not found in my main database. Does it refer to a muscle massage technique of terrestrial origin? —she asked, with complete innocence.
Before Roshi could respond and ruin the pure mind of the AI, a crushing and murderous pressure fell upon the entire island.
The ocean around Kame House stopped moving. The wind died away. Roshi felt the air leave his lungs, falling to his knees as a primal terror chilled his blood.
Kaiju had stepped between him and Tohka. Its eyes had mutated, glowing with a lethal crimson red. The sand at its feet began to crystallize from the heat of its pent-up fury.
"Listen carefully, old man," Kaiju whispered, his voice like a thousand swords being sharpened in the darkness. "If you look at her like that again, if you say one more perverted thing to her, or if you even breathe in her direction with ulterior motives... I will sink this island into the Earth's mantle with you on top. Is that clear?"
Roshi nodded frantically, sweating profusely, feeling as if he had just stared death in the face.
Kaiju closed his eyelids. When he opened them, the murderous red vanished, replaced by a pure, blinding white. He crouched down, scooped up a handful of sand from the beach, and channeled his mana. The sand glowed intensely, its molecular structure shifting in seconds until it transformed into a pair of sleek, futuristic-looking sunglasses with black frames.
"But," Kaiju continued, returning to his relaxed tone as he tossed the glasses to a trembling Roshi, "as I said, I've come to pay for my training."
Roshi caught the glasses, looking at them in confusion. "What are these?"
"A miracle of science and magic," Kaiju replied with a sly smile. "They're inverted thermal spectrum X-ray goggles. Simply put: if you wear them, you can see through any synthetic fabric or clothing, but they block your vision when they reach your skin."
Silence reigned for three seconds.
Master Roshi's jaw dropped to the sand. His eyes shone with an almost religious devotion. He raised his glasses to the sun as if he were holding the Holy Grail.
"It's... it's the ultimate treasure! What I've been searching for for decades!" the old man cried comically.
"There are two unbreakable rules," Kaiju interrupted, pointing an accusing finger at him. "First: I've coded the crystal's material. If you try to look at Tohka while wearing them, you'll only see black static and receive a fifty-thousand-volt electric shock straight to your retinas. Second: You must stay at least three meters away from her at all times. If you break the perimeter, I'll break your legs. Deal?"
"Deal! Deal! Welcome to Turtle School, kid!" Roshi shouted, putting on his glasses and staring off into the distance with a stupid grin, probably imagining mermaids or TV presenters.
...
The next day, at four thirty in the morning, the real hell began.
Kaiju ran along a dirt path on the neighboring island, panting heavily. Strapped to his back was a twenty-kilogram turtle shell. His feet sank into the mud as he held two milk cartons in his trembling hands.
He could have used his lunar regeneration. He could have used his passive telekinesis to make the shell weigh as little as a feather. But he had sealed himself away willingly. If he wanted to awaken his Ki, the pure, vital energy that resided in his physical body, he had to break his own muscles and force them to rebuild themselves in the traditional way.
"Left, right! Lift your knees, boy! The milk isn't going to deliver itself!" shouted Roshi, sitting comfortably on a small floating bicycle beside him.
Behind them, a prudent four meters away so as not to break the Kaiju rule, floated Tohka. Her Creator had transformed her into an adorable cheerleader outfit, complete with pom-poms.
In one hand she held a Kinako Bread which she munched with absolute happiness, and with the other she waved a pompom with a robotic but enthusiastic grace.
"Your lactic acid levels are reaching a critical threshold, Kaiju. Your heart rate is 180 beats per minute," Tohka reported aloud, swallowing a bite of sweet bread. "Statistically, your legs should give out in the next 40 meters. But my emotional algorithms indicate you can make it through! Go for it, Creator! Rah, rah, rah!"
Kaiju tripped over a root, almost falling flat on his face, but managed to stabilize himself with a growl.
"Tohka!" Kaiju gasped, sweat stinging his eye. "Your moods... are too... clinical! And stop eating bread in front of me, you're making me hungry!"
The weeks turned into months of physical agony.
Kaiju plowed entire fields using only his bare hands under the blazing sun. He fled from enraged dinosaurs and swam in shark-infested lakes. Whenever his mind wandered and his instincts urged him to activate his Celestial Eyes to pulverize predators, the sight of Tohka encouraging him (or simply sitting on her obsidian throne reading a book while he nearly drowned) anchored him back to his humanity and his purpose.
One afternoon, while digging holes at a construction site with his hands covered in blisters and blood, he stopped, breathing heavily. He looked at his trembling palms.
Suddenly, he felt it.
It wasn't the icy, absolute mana of Transmutation, nor the destructive energy of the Celestial Eyes. It was something warmer, deeper, throbbing just below his navel. A spark of pure heat expanding through his weary veins, restoring his strength and hardening his exhausted muscles.
Ki. His human life energy was finally awakening.
Kaiju grinned wildly, baring his teeth through the sweat and grime. Turtle School was working perfectly. When he returned to his home universe, no arrogant demon or angel would know what the hell had beaten them up.
...
The afternoon sun bathed the small island of Kame House in an orange hue, while the rhythmic sound of the waves offered a false sense of peace.
Kaiju stood before Master Roshi, breathing with a calmness he hadn't felt in months. The heaviness in his limbs was no longer a burden; it was a constant reminder of the hot, vibrant energy now flowing through his veins. His Ki had awakened.
Roshi was reclining in his beach chair, adjusting the X-ray goggles that Kaiju had forged for him, completely absorbed in the direction of a distant yacht full of girls in swimsuits.
"Master," Kaiju called, crossing his arms. "The physical training has paid off. I feel the energy. But feeling it and mastering it are two very different things. I want you to teach me how to properly control my Ki. And not only that... I want to learn the Kamehameha."
Roshi stopped his perverted scrutiny of the horizon. He lowered his glasses slightly and looked at the thirteen-year-old boy with a mixture of surprise and mockery.
"The Kamehameha? Bwahahaha!" Roshi burst into a hoarse laugh, slapping his knee. "Kid, learning to focus your Ki to unleash a simple blast takes years of meditation. But my signature technique? It took me fifty years to perfect the Kamehameha! It's not something I teach to a brat just because he learned to sweat carrying milk."
Kaiju's expression didn't change. He knew the old man's stubbornness, but he also knew his utter weakness.
"Fifty years is a long time, it's true," Kaiju conceded, taking a step forward. "But let's just say I'm willing to speed up negotiations with a... complementary device for your glasses."
Roshi raised an eyebrow. "Complementary artifact?"
Kaiju closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his pupils glowed with the immaculate white of Transmutation. He picked up a simple beach towel hanging on a nearby chair. Divine energy enveloped the fabric, altering its properties at a quantum level. The cotton towel began to become translucent, its texture changing to that of a liquid, shimmering silk that seemed to bend the light around it.
Kaiju shook the finished fabric, which was now a majestic and light cape.
"I present to you the Absolute Refraction Cloak," Kaiju announced, in the tone of a used car salesman. "Not only does it render the wearer completely invisible to the human eye, but it also cancels out heat signatures and silences footsteps. With this cloak, a man could, hypothetically, walk right through the main entrance of the capital's women's hot springs at noon and no one, absolutely no one, would notice him."
The silence on the island was so profound that you could hear a seagull passing by in the distance.
Roshi slowly removed his glasses. His hands trembled. Thick, masculine tears streamed down his wrinkled cheeks. He fell to his knees in the sand, raising his arms to the sky as if Kaiju were the messiah of perversion.
"It's... it's majestic! It's the golden ticket to paradise!" sobbed the old man.
"Mental note number 412: The Creator is actively encouraging the geriatric specimen's criminal behavior by bribing him with military-grade optical camouflage technology. Internal suggestion: evaluate whether this makes us complicit in harassment under Earth laws."
Tohka's voice echoed from the roof of Kame House, where she was sitting eating a huge bowl of rice.
"Ignore ethics, Tohka, we're doing business!" Kaiju shouted upwards, before turning his attention back to Roshi and extending his cloak. "Do we have a deal, Master?"
Roshi snatched the cape with lightning speed, clutching it to his chest.
"Deal! Of course we have a deal! We'll start right away!" he shouted, his lazy attitude disappearing completely, replaced by the aura of a true martial arts sage (albeit motivated by the wrong reasons).
...
During the following weeks, Kaiju's routine changed drastically. Physical exhaustion gave way to mental exhaustion.
Roshi taught him how to find the "center" of his body. For Kaiju, the greatest challenge wasn't gathering energy, but separating it. His entire life had depended on pure Mana and the divine energy of the Celestial Eyes, which felt like a cold, endless ocean in his head and eyes. Ki, on the other hand, was hot, earthy, and originated from his very core, from his human life force.
"Ki isn't magic, boy," Roshi explained one day, walking with his hands behind his back. "It's the vigor of your cells. It's the fire of your spirit. You have to draw it from the depths of your stomach and channel it through your arms. If you mix it with that strange eye magic of yours, you'll ruin your meridians."
Kaiju nodded, his eyes closed, mentally sealing his divinity to become purely human. He felt the spark of heat in his stomach and forced it up his chest, spreading to his shoulders and finally to the palms of his hands.
—Now, the posture! —the Master ordered.
Kaiju brought his wrists together at his hips, opening his palms as if holding an invisible sphere. He bent his knees, anchoring his feet firmly in the white sand.
—Focus. Feel the energy of your body flowing toward that single point. And when it's about to overflow... release it with all your spirit.
Kaiju took a deep breath. The heat in his palms began to manifest physically. A small, bright sphere of blue light began to form between his hands. The air around him began to hum, stirring up tiny grains of sand.
"Ka..." murmured Kaiju, feeling the Ki condense.
"Me..." The sphere grew, illuminating his face with an electric blue glow.
"Ha..." His muscles trembled from the effort of containing so much non-divine life force.
"Me..." Tohka, from a distance, stopped chewing, her amethyst eyes scanning the astonishing levels of pure energy that her Creator was generating without using his eyes.
Kaiju thrust his hands forward with a scream that tore at his throat.
—¡HAAAAA!
BOOM!
A massive torrent of blue energy, as thick as the trunk of an ancient tree, shot from its hands with a deafening roar. The recoil from the attack sent Kaiju sliding backward, leaving two deep furrows in the sand.
The Kamehameha ripped through the air, creating a shockwave that raised walls of water on either side as it flew across the ocean's surface. The burst of blue light continued for miles before finally impacting the water in the distance, triggering a colossal explosion that sent a geyser of steam and foam soaring into the clouds.
The wind roared across the beach for several seconds before everything fell back into a deathly silence.
Kaiju fell to his knees on the sand. His arms were slightly steaming, and his lungs burned as if he had breathed fire. Gasping was difficult. Unlike his magic, which barely tired him, expelling his Ki had left him physically drained, exhausted to the core.
But a huge, wild, victorious smile spread across his sweaty face.
He had done it. In a single afternoon.
Master Roshi was petrified. The adult magazine, the Quantum Refraction Cloak, and even his sense of pride had been left behind in the sand. He stared at the steaming horizon, then looked down at the panting teenager on his beach.
The old man had trained geniuses before. Son Gohan, Ox Satan... but this wasn't genius. This was monstrosity. It was as if the boy had been born to break the boundaries of the universe.
Tohka descended swiftly, her boots touching the sand without making a sound. She knelt beside Kaiju and, producing a silk handkerchief from thin air, began to gently wipe the sweat from his brow with overwhelming tenderness.
"Your physical energy levels have dropped to a dangerous fifteen percent," she said, her brow furrowing slightly with concern, though her eyes shone with pride. "But your rate of destruction was... flawless. You did amazing, Kaiju."
The thirteen-year-old boy leaned against her, chuckling softly. "Thanks, Tohka... Now, old man..." Kaiju looked up at Roshi, his gaze sharp. "What's next on the syllabus?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hey everyone, I got my first review for this fic. And even though it's not 5 stars, I'm happy that you at least like the crazy stuff I come up with. As a thank you, I uploaded this chapter. That's all for now. Take care.
∧,,,∧ ~ ┏━━━━━━━━━┓
( ̳• · • ̳) ~ ♡ Thanks for reading ♡
/ づ ~ ┗━━━━━━━━━┛