"Uh, Rhode, hello! You... you were the one who saved us, right?"
Krillin, quick-witted and pragmatic, took in the scene—their miraculous recovery, the unfamiliar but non-threatening powerful presence—and connected the dots instantly. He bowed his head slightly in thanks.
"It was nothing, really. Don't mention it." Rhode waved a hand dismissively, his gaze subtly flicking toward Piccolo. The message was clear: See? Harmless.
Piccolo remained an unreadable statue.
"Rhode, thank you so much!" Unlike the Namekian, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu voiced their gratitude warmly, quickly engaging Rhode in conversation.
As they talked, Krillin's eyes kept scanning the group. Everyone was here... except Goku. Anxiety crept back into his voice. Sensing the distant, brutal clash of titanic powers, he turned to the most obviously capable person present. "Rhode... do you think Goku can beat that guy?"
Rhode assessed the distant battle with his senses. "Hmm. He's struggling. But he still has a chance."
"That's... that's good to hear," Krillin said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
Just then, a familiar, weighty presence brushed against Rhode's mind—King Kai. Having observed Rhode's actions, the Kai had concluded this stranger wasn't a threat and was, in fact, an asset. A psychic message, laden with urgency and hope, implanted itself: The Tree. It must be destroyed. Can you...?
Rhode gave a nearly imperceptible nod. He had no issue with the request. In fact, he'd been planning to deal with the parasitic monstrosity anyway. More importantly, this was an opening. King Kai's techniques—the Kaio-ken, the Spirit Bomb—were legendary. In his own timeline, he'd been too engrossed in other pursuits to seek them out. Now, the teacher was offering a favor. A perfect opportunity for an exchange.
Not just King Kai's moves, either. The Earth warriors each had their unique skills—the Kienzan, the Tri-Beam, the Spirit Ball... Rhode wanted to understand them all. Knowledge was the foundation of creation. By learning their essence, he could one day synthesize techniques truly his own. Healing them had been the first step in building that bridge.
Having silently accepted King Kai's commission, Rhode addressed the group. "Listen, everyone. Brace yourselves. I'm going to destroy that tree. It will cut off Turles's power source and give Goku a real chance."
In his perception, Turles, now gorged on the Tree's fruit, was a raging inferno of power. Goku was holding on, but barely.
Whoosh!
A gale-force wind announced an arrival before the figure did. Turles landed with a ground-shaking thud, his aura a palpable, crushing pressure. He ignored the others, his burning eyes locking directly onto Rhode.
"Turles!" The name was a collective gasp.
The enemy was here. Goku wasn't. Krillin's face paled. "You bastard!" he screamed, stepping forward despite the overwhelming power differential. "What did you do to Goku?!"
"Kakarot?" Turles threw his head back and laughed, a sound devoid of any warmth. "Hahaha! That fool is currently face-down in the dirt, regretting his life choices!"
"You MONSTER!!" Rage overrode sense. Krillin launched himself at Turles, a tiny, furious comet.
"Trash." Turles didn't even look at him. He flicked a wrist, sending a casual but lethal ki blast to erase the annoyance.
RUMBLE~
The explosion was contained, the light dissipating to reveal... Krillin, utterly unharmed, standing within a shimmering, spherical barrier.
Turles's smirk vanished. He finally looked, his eyes narrowing at the bald monk, then flicking to Rhode.
It was Rhode's voice that broke the silence. "Krillin," he said, calm as ever. "What you should do right now is go help Goku."
Krillin, shaken but unhurt, glared at Turles, then at the protective shield around him. He gave a tight, grateful nod to Rhode.
"Do you have any Senzu Beans?" Rhode asked, already knowing the answer. They wouldn't be in such a state if they did. Even as he spoke, his fingers flicked. A single bean arced through the air toward Krillin.
"Hmph! You think too little of me!" Turles snarled, insulted by the blatant disregard. He fired another blast, this one aimed precisely at the flying bean.
But Rhode was prepared. The ki bolt struck the Senzu Bean... and dissipated harmlessly. The bean continued its trajectory, landing perfectly in Krillin's outstretched palm.
"Thank you!" Krillin didn't hesitate. Clutching the bean, he turned and shot toward the distant battle, hope rekindled.
Turles's fury now had a single, focused target. He turned fully to Rhode, the energy around him crackling with promised violence. "You. It's time you and I had a real conversation."
With the Senzu Bean secure in his palm, Krillin shot Rhode one last, grateful glance, then erupted into his full speed. He became a streak of light, vanishing over the horizon toward Goku's fallen form, leaving Turles fuming in his wake.
"Damn it!" Turles spat, his teeth grinding audibly. His furious gaze snapped back to Rhode, the source of all this interference, burning with pure, undiluted hatred.
Now that Krillin was on his way, Rhode turned his full attention to the fuming Saiyan before him. His eyes held a hint of bored disappointment. "Turles," he sighed, the name sounding like a mild inconvenience. "I already let you go once. Why didn't you use that chance to run? Why come back here just to die?"
Despite the hundreds of thousands of battle power now coursing through Turles from the Tree's fruit, Rhode's assessment hadn't changed. He was a minor nuisance, a pest that had overstayed its welcome.
Originally, Rhode had been content to let this timeline play out. Turles was Goku's opponent, a whetstone for the young hero's growth. Especially after his silent pact with King Kai, he believed that destroying the Tree and letting Goku finish the job with a Spirit Bomb was the neat, narrative-appropriate conclusion.
But Turles, in his arrogance, had chosen to return. To challenge him. The Saiyan's pride had written his own death warrant.
"I won't lose to you now!" Turles roared, but the defiance in his voice was brittle, undercut by the memory of his earlier, futile assault on that unmovable barrier.
Looking at the face so similar to Goku's yet twisted by malice, Rhode's expression settled into one of serene, detached finality. "Forget it. As fellow Saiyans... I'll make it painless."
His words were calm, almost gentle. He raised a single finger.
The air itself seemed to warp and scream as a torrent of impossible energy, invisible to the naked eye but a roaring inferno to any ki sense, violently condensed at the tip of his finger. In less than a second, it formed into a sphere of pure, white annihilation no larger than a cue ball—a concentration of power that made the very space around it tremble.
Then, a flick of the wrist.
The energy sphere didn't fly; it simply ceased to be at his fingertip and reappeared, embedded deep within the gargantuan trunk of the Tree of Might, kilometers away. There was no sound of impact.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then, the Tree... bloomed with light.
Countless searing, white beams lanced out from every inch of its bark, piercing the sky like a million needles. There was no cataclysmic explosion, only a profound, silent unraveling. Under that radiant onslaught, the monstrous tree began to disintegrate. Its trunk, its mighty branches, its canopy of leaves—all of it dissolved from the inside out, turning into a swirling nebula of glowing motes.
It wasn't destruction; it was a forced, instantaneous release.
Bang.
A sound like a sigh. The last of the physical structure vanished. What remained was a vast, shimmering cloud of life energy—the stolen essence of Earth and its countless creatures, now freed. The cloud hung in the air for a moment, a testament to cosmic theft and restitution, before it began to gently rain down, seeping back into the ravaged planet, beginning the long, slow process of healing.
The Tree of Might was gone. Erased by a single, casual gesture.
Rhode lowered his finger, his gaze returning to Turles, who stood frozen, his rage now swallowed by a yawning, primal terror. The display of power wasn't just overwhelming; it was on a scale he couldn't even process.
"Now," Rhode said, his voice still that same, quiet monotone. "About you."
Patreon Seasay