Yajirobe: You Actually Know About Me Cutting Vegeta's Tail?

Tao Pai Pai's stone pillar vanished beyond the horizon.

Yajirobe sheathed his sword, slung it over his shoulder, and looked down at Chen Mo lying on the car hood.

"You're still lying there?"

"Give me two minutes." Chen Mo tried moving his fingers, and a wave of soreness and numbness shot through his spine. "I might've thrown out my back when I got flung away."

"That wasn't throwing out your back. That was having no back left." Yajirobe's expression remained blank as he assessed him. "How did you manage to have a punch boosted by Triple Kaio-ken caught one-handed?"

Chen Mo rolled off the hood. His knees buckled slightly when his feet hit the ground, and he had to brace himself against the car door before he could stand steadily.

Enduring the pain, he bent down and picked up his canvas bag.

"You saved me?"

"Just happened to be passing by." Yajirobe glanced at the canvas bag, his nose twitching. "You got food in there?"

"Compressed biscuits."

Yajirobe's eyes changed.

"Compressed biscuits, huh." His tone was flat, but his feet shifted half a step toward Chen Mo.

"You're hungry?"

"No."

Yajirobe's stomach growled.

Loudly.

The two fell silent for two seconds.

"Come with me." Yajirobe turned around and set off at a brisk pace. "This place isn't safe. Someone like Tao Pai Pai holds grudges. If he goes to get people, you won't be able to stop them."

"He has people he can call?"

"There's all kinds of people in the ruins. You think only ordinary people are running for their lives? Some former underworld types have gathered up a bunch of followers and taken over a few places, acting like local bosses. Tao Pai Pai doesn't run with them, but he's used to stealing things around here. If he runs into you again, you won't get lucky a second time."

Chen Mo followed his pace.

Yajirobe did not walk quickly, but his sense of direction was excellent. He wound through the ruins, taking only narrow gaps between the remains of low buildings. Occasionally, he climbed over a fallen wall, moving with an agility completely at odds with his build.

After about twenty minutes, Yajirobe stopped beneath a partially collapsed overpass.

There was a crack along the side of one of the bridge pillars. From outside, it looked like nothing more than a natural fissure in the concrete, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.

Yajirobe turned sideways and squeezed in.

Chen Mo followed. He was much slimmer than Yajirobe, but the crack was still only barely wide enough for him to pass.

His canvas bag scraped against the concrete walls on both sides with a grating hiss.

After passing through the roughly three-meter-long crack, the space inside suddenly opened up.

A natural cavity.

It was not large. Perhaps it had been a structural space left over from the overpass's construction, then the earthquake and the androids' bombardment had compressed and warped the surrounding foundation, forcibly creating a space of roughly fifteen square meters.

Several sheets of cardboard and a military blanket were spread across the ground.

In one corner stood a crude stove made from a tin can, with a small pot and several chemical glow sticks beside it.

"You live here?" Chen Mo looked around.

"Temporarily." Yajirobe set his sword beside the blanket and plopped down. The blanket slid outward beneath his weight. "I've got three or four hideouts in this area. I rotate between them and never stay in one place for more than three days."

"Afraid the androids will find you?"

"Not afraid," Yajirobe corrected. "It's called reasonably avoiding risk. Those are two different concepts."

He sat down, opened the canvas bag, and took out a compressed biscuit.

He broke it in half.

Then he handed one half to Yajirobe.

Yajirobe's gaze fell on the biscuit and lingered.

"No need."

"You saved my life." Chen Mo nudged the biscuit closer to his hand. "It's just one biscuit."

Yajirobe looked at it again. Then he picked it up and took a large bite.

After chewing a few times, he frowned.

"Too dry."

"They're post-apocalypse compressed biscuits. What else were you expecting, cream?"

"I used to eat Senzu Beans up on Korin Tower." Yajirobe finished half the biscuit in three bites and licked his lips. "One Senzu Bean could last you ten days and restore your strength and injuries.

"Now there are barely any Senzu Beans left. Korin said the soil quality has declined. The androids blasted the surface too badly—even Senzu Bean production has been affected."

"You came down from Korin Tower?"

"Came down to find food." Yajirobe leaned against the wall and patted the flattened cloth pouch at his waist. "There isn't much food left on the tower. Korin sent me down to see if I could scavenge any supplies."

Chen Mo nodded. This matched the setting from the original story as he remembered it.

Korin Tower was in a remote area, and the androids had not visited that place yet.

But the supply problem was very real.

"What's your name?" Yajirobe asked.

"Chen Mo."

"Chen Mo." Yajirobe repeated it. "How does an ordinary person like you know the King Kai Fist?"

Chen Mo had already prepared an answer for that question.

To be honest, he had put quite a bit of thought into preparing it.

He needed a reasonable explanation, one that could withstand future verification.

If Goku was revived by the Dragon Balls someday and he claimed to be Goku's disciple, the lie would fall apart the moment they compared stories.

So he chose the safest explanation.

"I saw Goku use it."

Yajirobe stopped chewing his biscuit.

"You saw Goku?"

"Yeah," Chen Mo said. "A long time ago. Just once."

"When?"

"When the Saiyans came to Earth."

Yajirobe's expression changed. He straightened up, his small eyes fixed on Chen Mo.

"You were there?"

"Not exactly. I watched from far away." Chen Mo recalled the scenes from the original story, choosing his words carefully. "I was still young then, in a nearby town. The battle caused such a huge commotion that even the sky seemed to shake. I climbed up a hill and saw a red light in the distance. It was so bright that it turned the whole sky red."

He paused.

"Later, I learned that it was Son Goku using a technique called the King Kai Fist. Red energy, an explosive increase in power. He was fighting a Saiyan."

"Vegeta," Yajirobe said.

"Right, Vegeta." Chen Mo glanced at Yajirobe.

"You were there too, weren't you?"

Yajirobe said nothing.

"I spent a long time afterward asking around about the details of that battle," Chen Mo continued. "Some things came from survivors, while others I figured out myself."

"The principle behind the King Kai Fist isn't that complicated. It stimulates the energy throughout the body and raises it by a multiple in an instant. The key lies in compressing that energy and timing the burst."

"You learned it after seeing it once?" Yajirobe's tone was openly skeptical.

"I practiced for a long time," Chen Mo said. "I saw it, but it took years before I could truly use it. And as you saw, the effect is nowhere near Goku's. Tao Pai Pai caught my Triple King Kai Fist punch with one hand."

That, at least, was the truth.

"Later, when the androids appeared and you Z Fighters began resisting them, I started looking into your past."

"From the World Martial Arts Tournament to Namek, I learned from all sorts of people you had come into contact with. I basically found out the whole story—things even you yourselves didn't know."

Yajirobe thought it over and seemed to find the explanation barely acceptable.

After all, Chen Mo had not said that he had learned from Goku. He had merely said he had seen it from afar and then figured it out on his own.

A King Kai Fist learned that way having absurdly low combat power actually made sense.

"If you really wanted to learn the King Kai Fist, you should've gone to King Kai," Yajirobe said.

Yajirobe fished another bottle of water from Chen Mo's canvas bag, unscrewed the cap, and took two gulps.

Chen Mo did not stop him.

"You mentioned that battle with the Saiyans just now," Chen Mo picked up the thread again. "You should remember it clearly, right? You were at the scene too."

Yajirobe finished the water and stuffed the bottle back into the canvas bag.

"I went," he said casually.

"I heard that battle was brutal. Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu both died. Yamcha died too. Goku used the King Kai Fist to injure Vegeta, but Vegeta turned into a Great Ape. Once he became a Great Ape, no one could stop him."

Yajirobe did not respond, but his hand unconsciously brushed the sheath of the sword at his side.

"Later, someone cut off the Great Ape's tail." Chen Mo watched Yajirobe's hand.

"Yeah."

"The person who cut off the tail was you, wasn't it?"

Yajirobe's hand froze on the sheath.

He looked up at Chen Mo.

"You heard that through asking around too?"

"Did you even need to ask around about something like that?" Chen Mo said. "Among the people there at the time, count how many could have gotten behind Great Ape Vegeta and slashed him once right under his nose. Goku's bones were broken, Krillin had been sent flying, and Gohan was still just a kid."

Chen Mo shook his head.

"Vegeta, prince of the Saiyans. Power level eighteen thousand. Ten times that after turning into a Great Ape—one hundred and eighty thousand. A monster with a power level of one hundred and eighty thousand."

He raised one finger.

"One slash from you."

Yajirobe's mouth twitched.

"It was only one slash," Yajirobe said. "I ran right after."

"That slash was the key," Chen Mo said. "Without it, Vegeta wouldn't have returned to normal. If he hadn't returned to normal, everyone there would have died in that state. Goku wouldn't have survived either."

He looked at Yajirobe.

"Do you know what that meant? That slash didn't just save everyone there. Later, Goku went to Planet Namek to fight Frieza, and after that he returned to Earth to deal with the androids—the prerequisite for all of it was that Goku didn't die that day."

"And Goku didn't die that day because of your slash."

Yajirobe froze for a moment.

His hand left the hilt of his sword, and he scratched the back of his head.

"When you put it that way, I guess that's true."

"It's not 'I guess.' It's true." Chen Mo's tone was utterly serious. "A lot of people remember Goku using the King Kai Fist against Vegeta, remember Gohan turning into a Great Ape and striking back, remember Krillin launching the Destructo Disc. But hardly anyone remembers who cut off the tail."

"That was the real turning point of that battle."

Something appeared on Yajirobe's face that Chen Mo had never seen there before.

It wasn't pride. It was the relief of being seen.

In the original story, Yajirobe had always been the one standing outside the spotlight.

He ran after the fight and never took credit.

Everyone knew Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Piccolo, but few remembered Yajirobe.

He was used to it.

But that didn't mean he didn't care.

"You've got a pretty nice way with words." Yajirobe patted his belly and finally broke into a full smile. "Way better than Tao Pai Pai. That guy only knows how to call me the world's greatest assassin. My ears have calluses from hearing it."

"Tao Pai Pai is pretty annoying."

"He's not annoying." Yajirobe waved a hand. "He's weak and loves bragging. He never mentions how Goku slapped him away at the World Martial Arts Tournament back then. Now that the androids have killed off all the strong ones, he bullies ordinary people in the ruins, snatches a few crackers and bottles of water, and thinks he's hot stuff again."

Chen Mo leaned against the wall and stretched out his legs to relax. The backlash from the King Kai Fist was slowly fading, but the soreness deep in his muscles remained.

"Yajirobe."

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask you about something."

"Go ahead."

"Is Master Roshi still alive?"

Yajirobe tilted his head and thought for a moment.

"I think Korin mentioned it when I last got in touch with him. Master Roshi is still on that island of his. The androids never went over there."

Chen Mo felt a weight lift from his heart.

"What do you want with Master Roshi?" Yajirobe asked.

"To learn." Chen Mo said, "You saw it too. My King Kai Fist is a rough, self-taught technique. My foundation is too weak. I need to systematically learn how to use ki and improve my physical abilities. Master Roshi's Turtle School is just right for that."

Yajirobe looked at him for several seconds.

"You've got some ideas," he said. "But if you want to get to Master Roshi's place, walking alone won't cut it. The South Sea is far away. There are people like Tao Pai Pai along the road too."

He patted the sword beside him.

"How about this? Tomorrow, I need to head back to Korin Tower to deliver something to Korin. Korin Tower is north, the opposite direction from where you're going. But I can take you on a detour first and drop you at the Route 44 intersection. From there, head south along the coastline. You'll see Master Roshi's island in three days."

Chen Mo pushed the canvas bag toward him.

Yajirobe rummaged through the crackers inside, counted them, then seriously divided them into two portions.

"Oh, right." After dividing the crackers, Yajirobe suddenly said, "What you said just now, about cutting off the tail."

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell anyone I did it."

Chen Mo was taken aback. "Why?"

Yajirobe put his share of the crackers into a cloth bag.

"I hate trouble. What if word gets out and someone comes looking for a fight?"

He leaned his sword against the wall, pulled a blanket over his belly, and closed his eyes.

"Get some sleep. We leave early tomorrow. The roads aren't safe in the afternoon. Tao Pai Pai usually comes out in the afternoon."

Chen Mo watched the fat man start snoring within three seconds of pulling the blanket over himself.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

He went over tomorrow's plan in his mind.

Go to Master Roshi and learn the basics. Improve his physical condition.

Raise his power level from 5 to at least something respectable.

His system panel flickered to life in the darkness.

[Current Emotion Points: 0/300]

[Emotion Collection Target: Android 18]

[Note: Target's current location—Northern Mountains. Searching for Dr. Gero's laboratory.]

Chen Mo's eyes snapped open.

She had already gone to look for the laboratory.

The matter of the remote control was real. Once she found it, she would crush the thing.

But Cell was real too.

If Android 18 encountered the developing Cell in that laboratory—

Chen Mo clenched his fists.

No. Cell had not taken shape yet. In the original story, Cell would not crawl out of the incubation tank until much later.

But this timeline had already been changed by him.

He had told Android 18 where the laboratory was.

If she went there early and opened the incubation tank—

Outside the cave, the wind howled over the ruins.

Yajirobe turned over beneath his blanket, and his snoring shifted to a different tune.

Chen Mo stared at the ceiling in the darkness as a thought wormed its way into his mind, impossible to drive away.

He might have screwed up.