The Spirit Fruit Tree

The planet before them was utterly lifeless. Vast stretches of yellow earth lay bare, without a trace of vegetation. They couldn't even see any oceans.

"This... this can't be right!" Tights pulled up an image of Taluya Planet from the spaceship's database.

At that moment, Karochi suddenly realized that misleading photos weren't just a thing in his previous life—they were popular in the Dragon Ball world, too!

In the image, Taluya Planet was lush and green, with countless forests and lakes. Its land was divided into three great continents, and the rest of the planet was covered by vast oceans.

It was even more habitable than Earth, like some paradise far removed from the world! But compared with the barren wasteland before them—holy crap, the image was a total con, straight-up false advertising.

"Tights, is it possible we've just found a planet similar to the East Galaxy?" Karochi asked cautiously.

After all, they were completely out of leads now. Whether they could even get out was anyone's guess.

Tights didn't answer him. Instead, she kept comparing the two images on the screen. "No, Little Chi. This has to be Taluya Planet! Look, the continents are arranged exactly as they are in the database."

Karochi leaned closer for a look. Hm? Were they? How could Tights make sense of a map like that? Karochi was completely lost.

He glanced at Tights in surprise, feeling like they'd both slacked off in class, yet she still got perfect marks every time. Had she been secretly studying ahead?

To be fair, Tights had never gone to school—not from the age of eleven to now! Was basic education really that bad in the Dragon Ball world? Would Son Gohan even have become a scholar?

"Forget it. You wouldn't be able to tell, anyway. Just know that this planet is Taluya Planet," Tights said, not giving Karochi a hard time. As far as she was concerned, he really hadn't been to school.

It was only natural he wouldn't know this stuff. Her? Hah. She'd finished all her studies by the age of eight!

"Right, so what's going on here?" Karochi accepted her explanation. Women were always right—even when they were girls.

Tights didn't answer right away. She was still conducting a more thorough scan.

"L-Little Chi!" Tights called out, her voice trembling, as if she'd discovered something incredible.

Karochi turned around curiously. What was it? Had she found something? "Tights, what did you—?" His voice cut off as if a pair of hands had clamped around his throat. He, too, had lost his voice.

Gulp!

He slowly swallowed. On Taluya Planet, a world twice the size of Earth, there stood a tree of unimaginable size.

Even from outer space, its branching limbs and leaves were clearly visible! It was so enormous that up close, they might not even be able to tell what they were looking at.

It stretched in every direction, with no end in sight.

"The... the Spirit Fruit Tree!!!" Karochi's voice was full of disbelief. Even his words trembled! This tree was simply too famous.

Tights also stared at Karochi in shock. "This is the Spirit Fruit Tree? The thing Frieza's brother was looking for!? It's huge!"

She hadn't expected it to actually exist, let alone be in a place like this!

At last, Karochi understood everything—including the purple crystal that had sucked him in! That damn thing was a Time-Space Fragment.

It hadn't appeared in the story, but it showed up all the time in the game Dragon Ball Xenoverse! He'd played it, too. You picked a race, created a character, then traveled to altered points in history to fix them and restore the original timeline.

But why had this thing appeared in the Macrocosm? Wasn't it supposed to be under the jurisdiction of the Time Nest!? Where were the Time Patrollers? They were going to anger Zeno, and then he'd just close his hand and Erasure them in an instant.

Karochi didn't know that the Time Nest wasn't under Zeno's command.

He also finally understood why things that weren't part of the official story had appeared in the Dragon Ball world as it existed now. This world itself had been created by those two guys from the Demon Realm! It had nothing to do with whether something was canon. If this Galaxy expanded to include the North Galaxy, then the events of the movie The Tree of Might would take place.

Turles would bring the seeds of the Tree of Might to Earth and plant them, and Goku would go to stop him! Of course, if things really reached that point here, Goku definitely wouldn't win like he had in the original story. This world had already been altered! It wouldn't follow the original plot.

"I finally understand why Taluya Planet is so different from the records!" Karochi said slowly, drawing a deep breath.

Tights still hadn't caught on. She looked at Karochi in confusion. "Why!? What does the Spirit Fruit Tree have to do with it?"

"The Spirit Fruit Tree bears Spirit Fruit, which can make people stronger and prolong their lives! In the universe, every power and every gain comes at a price. Tights, why don't you guess what this tree uses for nourishment?" Karochi stared at the Spirit Fruit Tree with mixed feelings. He did feel a little tempted to take it for himself! Spirit Fruit was genuinely useful, but this thing was too cruel.

"C-Could it be the life on the planet!?" Taluya Planet had once been a living world with intelligent life. Now it had become this wasteland, and the Spirit Fruit Tree's size defied all reason.

Karochi slowly nodded, then quickly shook his head. "You're half right. It doesn't just absorb the planet's living things! The planet itself is part of its nourishment!"

If Karochi ever planted one of these things in the universe, he'd probably be destroyed by Beerus—even if the hero's crew didn't get to him first!

Tights covered her mouth in shock, her eyes wide. "H-How could such an evil plant exist in the universe?"

Such an abomination deserved to be destroyed!

"Come on, Tights! Never mind anything else—we're taking the fruit from that tree." Karochi had recovered from his shock. The tree definitely had to be destroyed; he wasn't about to give up his humanity for a little power! But there was no reason to destroy the fruit along with it, was there? This stuff was a treasure.

Tights couldn't follow his train of thought. "Shouldn't we destroy the tree?" Something this strange and evil deserved to be wiped out!

Tights gave Karochi a searching look. Had her stinky little brother developed some improper ideas? Like planting these things across the universe for the sake of power?

"Uh... Tights, what's with that look? Of course we're destroying the tree. But the fruit on it is already ripe. Wouldn't it be a shame to destroy it?" Karochi put on an expression as if he couldn't bear to waste food. At the same time, he sidled up to Tights with a mischievous grin. "I've heard that just one fruit can greatly increase your strength, prolong your life, and even do wonders for your skin."

At that moment, Karochi looked just like a devil, trying to tempt Tights into following him straight to hell!

Could she really fall for it? As an upright young woman with perfectly healthy values, a beautiful girl from Earth, of course she could. "Really? Really!? Will it make me look like Rielbea?"

Tights was so envious of Rielbea. Her skin was so soft and smooth, it looked as though a little squeeze would make water come out! Tights had grown into a lovely young woman herself, with fair, delicate skin. But she had to admit she still fell quite a bit short of Rielbea.

Hearing what Tights wanted, Karochi couldn't help thinking she was asking for too much! Even if she collected all seven Dragon Balls and summoned Shenron, he'd probably have to say, "I'm afraid I can't do that!"

"Pretty... pretty much!" Karochi wiped the sweat from his brow. It was true that Spirit Fruit could improve your skin, but it couldn't completely transform you or give you a whole new face!

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Tights could hardly wait to try one.

I'm telling a kind-hearted lie. Foolish Tights still doesn't understand reality~ Amen. What was the point of comparing herself to those cheater Elves? They embodied perfection! You couldn't find a single flaw in them; they were as exquisite as dolls.

Karochi actually thought that made them less beautiful. Everyone had flaws!! It definitely wasn't because he got too embarrassed to speak whenever he saw Rielbea.

Taluya Planet had probably been drained dry only recently. Its atmosphere was still intact, though the ground had been completely cracked open! As they entered the atmosphere, the huge, twisted roots coiling across the land came fully into view.

The exposed roots alone were over a hundred meters thick. One could only imagine how enormous the tree itself was!

Meanwhile, Whis and Chronoa, the Supreme Kai of Time, were still outside the Time-Space Crystal, unsure how to proceed.

This Time-Space Crystal didn't belong to the proper timeline. The safest course was to completely Purify the evil inside, then take it back to the Time Nest and seal it away!

After all, there were still trillions of living beings inside. Destroying it outright would be wrong!

"Then, Mr. Whis, I'll go in and completely Purify what's inside, then bring it back to the Time Nest," Chronoa said helplessly. If this had been a proper timeline, there would have been no need for so much trouble! She could have Purified the evil aura from outside the Time-Space Crystal, and the power of historical correction would have dragged it back onto its original timeline.

But this was different. It was like a small world the Demon Realm fellows had copied from the Galaxy! The original timeline didn't accept this piece of spacetime.

"Oh my, I'm sorry to trouble you, Supreme Kai of Time! By the way, it seems two of the little ones from my universe were sucked inside. If you can, please take the trouble to bring them out, too!" Whis hadn't forgotten Karochi and Tights. Of course, whether the two of them lived or died didn't really matter to him.

As one of the highest-ranking gods in the universe, he didn't concern himself with the lives of mortals. It wasn't that he was heartless; it simply wasn't part of his duty.

For example, if you had to kill one person to save ten thousand, would you do it or not?

Gods like Whis and Beerus were responsible for the entire universe! To them, narrow ideas of good and evil were nothing but a joke.