To Our Next Generation

In Zeno Year 3106, the New Turtle Hermit completed its fourth inter-universal patrol mission and returned home. The bridge was quiet—not because no one was speaking, but because everyone was processing the journey in their own way. The Loner's pale golden sphere floated above the main node of the Star Topology, its heartbeat pulses as steady as ever, though it shone just a little brighter than before departure. The blue-skinned girl said it was "happy," and no one questioned her judgment, because her empathic sense had never been wrong.

Talos's granddaughter sat in the captain's chair, leafing through Mutaito's Notes. The notebook had been passed down through several generations. Its pages had yellowed, yet the writing on every page remained as clear as ever. She turned to the newest page—it was densely filled with records of every new civilization encountered during this patrol, every new connection established, and the performance of every fourth-generation disciple during the mission. The voyage log, meanwhile, meticulously recorded every segment of the New Turtle Hermit's journey from departure to return, the contents of every inter-universal communication, and the process of marking every newly discovered coordinate.

On this mission, they found the final unmarked coordinate on the Guides' Star Map—a planet entirely covered by ocean. It had no land, no intelligent civilization, but its entire ocean was one vast living organism. It did not speak. It did not transmit signals. It had simply floated silently through the void for hundreds of millions of years. The fourth-generation disciples spent a full week finding a way to communicate with it: not through language, not through energy pulses, but through rhythm. Taking turns on the bridge, they used the subsidiary nodes of the Star Topology to send heartbeat pulses synchronized with its tides. On the seventh day, the entire ocean lit up with a pale golden radiance. It was not the response of an intelligent life-form. It was life itself saying, "I'm here." The blue-skinned girl named that light the Heartbeat of the Sea and formally registered it as the ten-thousandth-plus node in the Turtle Hermit School's inter-universal connection network.

On the journey back, they received another message from Bulma's granddaughter aboard the Briefs. She had completed something even more astonishing: integrating the Guides' signposts, the Nage People's communication protocols, the Night Watchers' observation data, and the patrol data accumulated by the Turtle Hermit School over the past several decades into a public database open to any civilization in the universe. She gave it a very plain name—the Complete Map of the Connection Sea. Anyone, any civilization, as long as they were willing to connect to the Turtle Hermit School's inter-universal communication network, could freely access complete information on all known star regions. She said it had been one of her great-grandmother Bulma's wishes before her death. Back when Bulma organized this data in the underground laboratory beneath The Lookout, she had written a sentence in her notebook: a scientist's mission was not to provide answers, but to leave better tools for those who came after. The Guides burned themselves into signposts not so people would remember them, but so others could travel farther than they had.

When the New Turtle Hermit docked at the Connection Sea spaceport, morning training had just begun on Mount Paozu. The beach outside the dojo was packed with people—not only Turtle Hermit School disciples, but also student representatives who had come from Universe 6's Saiyan homeworld, graduates of New Planet Namek's warrior tradition, and a new group of young blue-skinned students from Universe 4. They had not come to welcome heroes returning from a patrol mission. They had come for the annual Turtle Hermit School gathering. The tradition had endured for decades, beginning back when Master Roshi was still alive. Once a year, rain or shine.

Goku and Vegeta sat side by side in the old rattan chair outside the dojo, its surface polished smooth from use. Their white hair stirred gently in the morning light, and each held a bowl of freshly cooked seafood porridge. Goku lowered his head and took a sip, his tail swaying slowly behind him. "Vegeta, did you read the fourth generation's patrol log this time? It's dozens of pages long. More than everything we wrote back then put together."

"I did. Her wording is more precise than yours was, but she makes just as many typos."

Goku grinned. He flipped through the voyage log his granddaughter had sent back, carefully reading every page—the newly discovered oceanic life-form, the newly established inter-universal connections, the new complete-map database. What this new generation was doing had gone farther than anything he had imagined when he trained in the Kaioken at The Lookout. He looked at a holographic photograph tucked inside the log—a group shot of all the fourth-generation members in orbit around the newly discovered ocean planet, with the pale golden sea they had named the Heartbeat of the Sea behind them—and fell silent for a moment before handing it to Vegeta.

"Do you think we ever imagined the Turtle Hermit School's patrol logs would reach this point someday?"

Vegeta accepted the picture and glanced at it, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "Back then, you couldn't even understand the Turtle Hermit's operating manual. Now your granddaughter writes voyage logs, and my grandson repairs cross-law scanners."

They laughed at the same time. Commands from the fourth-generation disciples' morning drills rang out from inside the dojo—Talos's granddaughter was leading a new batch of students in laps, Lazuli's granddaughter was teaching the youngest children by the reefs how to weave their first thread of ki, and the blue-skinned girl stood beside them, using energy empathy to help calibrate their precision. The quiet Saiyan boy had become the patrol mission's vice-captain. In the training hall, he was teaching new students the Turtle Hermit School's basic principles of drawing power from the dantian for punching. His explanations were still as concise as ever, but his demonstrations were so precise that every joint angle could have been used as teaching material. Nappa watched from the entrance of the training hall, carrying a broken pillar over his shoulder and grinning. Lapis stood expressionlessly beside him and suddenly said, "You didn't teach nearly this well back then." Nappa froze for a moment, then laughed even louder.

That evening, the annual gathering was held as scheduled on the beach beside Turtle Hermit House. Hundreds of disciples in orange martial uniforms had arrived from all twelve universes. Bonfires burned across the sand, their light painting every face red. Goku and Vegeta were ushered to the front of the central fire, while Talos and Lazuli sat together on a reef—both had full heads of white hair now, but their backs remained straight. Krillin sat with Lazuli's granddaughter, golden patterns of light from the Star Topology flowing slowly between their wrists. Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu sat in their old place beneath the rattan trellis. Nappa carried a new broken pillar, carved with the dates when fourth-generation disciples had completed their first independent patrol missions that year. Lapis helped him hold the pillar steady, saying, "You carved it crooked," though his hands never let go.

Goku stood and looked around, holding his bowl of porridge. He took in the crowd—he knew every face, and every face reminded him of days long ago. Back then, the dojo had been just a small wooden house, and there had only been three disciples. Now orange uniforms stretched from the entrance of the dojo to the edge of the beach, reaching deep into the night beyond the bonfires' glow.

"This year's annual gathering is a little different," he said. His voice was not loud, but everyone heard it clearly. "This year, the fourth generation completed its first fully independent patrol—no elders aboard the ship, no remote guidance. From beginning to end, they did it all themselves. They found the final coordinate on the Guides' Star Map and opened the Complete Map of the Connection Sea to the entire universe. The fourth generation has officially taken over. They aren't taking over from one person—they're taking over the Turtle Hermit School. In the past, it was passed down one person at a time—Master Roshi passed it to Talos, Talos passed it to his daughter, and his daughter passed it to her granddaughter. But starting with the fourth generation, it will no longer be passed to just one person. It will be passed to everyone. Whoever puts on the orange martial uniform is Turtle Hermit School. Whoever is willing to answer another person's signal in the darkness is Turtle Hermit School."

He raised his bowl toward everyone.

"Turtle Hermit School, enduring without end—to our next generation!"

Hundreds of bowls rose at once. The orange uniforms became a warm sea of light beneath the bonfires, while the crisp clinks of bowl rims and the answering cry of "Enduring without end!" echoed over the beach for a long time. Nappa shouted from the crowd, "Next gathering, I'm bringing an even bigger broken pillar!" Lapis replied, "You say that every time." The corner of Vegeta's mouth lifted. He did not raise his bowl very high, but its rim lightly touched Goku's. Sitting on a reef, Krillin looked at the bowl in Goku's hand. A crooked character for "Turtle" was carved into its base, something Goku had secretly scratched into it while training at Turtle Hermit House. Decades had passed, and the character had worn faint, but it could still be seen. Krillin drew his gaze back and looked down at the identical bowl in his own hands. Its base bore the same crooked "Turtle" character, carved deeper and more messily—he had carved it himself, during his second year training at Turtle Hermit House, while Master Roshi was taking a nap. On this beach, every porridge bowl had the same character carved into its base, every orange uniform bore the same emblem, and every disciple carried the same words in their heart—defeat was acceptable, but fear was not.

As the bonfires gradually died down, moonlight over Mount Paozu fell across the dojo's lintel. The orange flag embroidered with the character for "Turtle" fluttered softly in the sea breeze, and the carvings along its pole glimmered faintly silver beneath the moon. Inside the dojo, the fourth-generation disciples were leading the fifth generation's newest young students through evening breathing exercises. A little girl sat cross-legged on the sand, her eyes tightly shut and her brows knotted. No matter what she did, she could not feel the ki in her dantian. Talos's granddaughter crouched in front of her and gently placed a hand on her head.

"Don't rush. Close your eyes. Feel the sound of the waves—every time a wave hits the shore, that's the rhythm of your heartbeat. Your ki flows through your body to that rhythm. Don't think about it with your head. Listen with your body."

The little girl kept her eyes closed, and her brows slowly relaxed. After a while, she suddenly opened her eyes and looked at her palm in delight. A faint, faint golden glow hovered above it, as weak as firefly light, yet clearly visible in the night.

"I can feel it!"

Talos's granddaughter grinned and reached out to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Then she stood and clapped her hands toward all the fifth-generation children practicing their breathing. "That's it for evening training today. We continue tomorrow morning—ten laps around the island, and no using ki."

"Yes!" the young voices answered in unison.

Goku and Vegeta sat on the old reef, watching. Goku lifted his hand from his knee and placed it over the two footprint hollows they had worn into the rock over decades. Then he raised his head to look at the star-filled night sky above. He had been to every one of those stars. Every one had a Turtle Hermit School patrol station, a Turtle Hermit School dojo, and Turtle Hermit School disciples standing guard.

"Vegeta. What do you think the name Turtle Hermit School really means?"

Vegeta remained silent for a long time. Then the corner of his mouth rose slightly. "It means that when those kids run ten laps tomorrow morning, no one will be left behind."

Goku turned to look at Vegeta and grinned. That smile was exactly the same as when he had first met Talos on Mount Paozu, exactly the same as when he first activated the Kaioken at The Lookout, exactly the same as every time he faced an enemy stronger than death itself.

"That was better than anything I would've said."

"Once in a while."

They stood at the same time and headed toward the dojo. Behind them, the New Turtle Hermit slowly turned amid the starlight of the Connection Sea, the hand-painted character for "Turtle" on its bow aimed at the next blank star region never marked on the Guides' Star Map. At the dojo entrance, the seafood porridge still bubbled and steamed on the stove. Puar snored beside it, his tail curled into a circle. The small line carved into the dojo lintel decades ago had faded slightly gray in the sea breeze, but every character remained as clear as ever—"Master said no using ki, but you can keep running." Enduring without end—the journey was not over.