My eyes snap open to the familiar sight of my ship's ceiling, before I let out a groan of pain. My head felt like it was pulsing, going through the worst migraine I ever experienced.
It takes a few seconds for me to process exactly how I got here, eventually remembering the experience I had with the dragon and realizing that Lila must have dragged me back to the cave once I had passed out.
"Lila...?" I called out. "You there...?"
After a few seconds of silence I come to the bright conclusion that she wasn't here before I sat up, unable to stop the groan that escaped my lips when I did so.
Looking around at my surroundings, I saw that there was nothing to indicate where she had gone. I go to stand, but it's like my body was fighting against me.
I haven't felt this drained since I was a child, training myself to my absolute limits when I had just barely gotten basic motor functions. Safe to say that I didn't miss this.
I push myself to stand up, but the moment I managed to get out of bed I feel my legs give out from under me and I drop to the floor on my hands and knees.
"Zyleth!"
Hearing the familiar voice of Lila calling my name, I look up and see her standing in the door to my ship. She immediately rushes towards me, putting my arm around her shoulder and helping me sit back down on the bed.
"Are you alright, what's wrong?" She asks, giving me a once over. "Are you hurt?"
"No, it's not pain." I tell her honestly as I place my head in my hands, rubbing my forehead. "I just feel really drained..."
"Well, no surprise there. You've been out for a few hours. I don't know what happened during the... birth?" She says, which causes me to looks up and raise an eyebrow at her wording, but she continues on despite the look I'm giving her, "But I was sensing your energy throughout the process. Well, through a part of it at least..."
"And?" I asked, wondering what she was getting at.
"And it seemed like that dragon was sucking the life out of you. What kind of ritual was that?" She asked, looking at me with a worried gaze. "I get the practical sense of having your own wish granting orbs, but 'Dragon of Death' doesn't exactly sound like a good thing to name the dragon that inhabitants them."
"Technically his name is Bahamut, Dragon of Death is just the title." I said with a weak chuckle.
Judging by her unamused expression, she doesn't find my attempt at humor very funny.
"If you're feeling well enough for jokes, then I'm going to assume that you feel well enough to start explaining." She said with a stern stare.
"Explain what, exactly?" I asked her.
"Explain why a mortal like you knows how to speak the Divine Language." She replied.
"Oh... that..." I groaned, holding the side of my head as the headache refused to go away. "One of the wishes I made on the Namekian Dragon Balls was to have the ability to speak every language ever made."
"Why? Seems like a bit of a waste." She said, trying to understand the logic.
"Because the Namekian Dragon Balls require a person to speak Namekian so that they can actually make their wishes." I tell her.
"Okay, I understand that, but why didn't you just have one of the Namekians speak to the dragon for you?" She asked.
"I did, and then I knocked him out after I made the first wish because I didn't want to use a middle man to speak my wishes for me." I replied.
"Why?" She presses further.
Jesus Christ, this woman and her never ending amount of questions...
"Because I also told them that I was there to revive a friend of a friend, which made them think that I was there for purely selfless reasons." I told her.
"And you weren't?" She asked.
"Well, one of the wishes I was planning to acquire was immortality, so..." I told her bluntly.
"Wait, you're immortal?!" She exclaimed.
"No." I shook my head, "The consequences of taking it would set me back quite a bit, so I eventually traded that wish for the knowledge of creating my own set of Dragon Balls."
As those words left my mouth, my eyes suddenly widened with the realization that the Black Star Balls were probably still sitting in the middle of that clearing.
Almost as if reading my mind, Lila stands up and heads to a storage compartment in the corner of the ship, taking out the Seven Black Star Dragon Ball and tossing it over to me.
"Looking for that?" She says, smiling softly. "I figured that you probably wouldn't want them just laying around in the open, so I went back and grabbed them after taking you back here."
I look at the glistening orb in my hand and smile a small bit before tossing it back over.
"Thank you." I said, giving her a nod of gratitude.
Her face goes red a tinge and she immediately looked away, placing the Seven Black Star Ball back into the compartment with the others. Looking more closely, I saw that the model I had made was also in there as well.
Good, I really hoped that I wouldn't lose that during the Dragon making process. I doubt that I would die, or that the dragon would somehow get destroyed, but I should really make sure that model is properly secured.
Lila clears her throat and walks back over, sitting beside me on the small bed, "Okay, so I know how you know the Divine Language, now will you explain why you were using it during the..."
"Please don't say birth." I told her.
I don't have a problem with her referring it as a birth, but it's the awkward way that she paused and then said it that made it seem more embarrassing than it was supposed to be.
"And to answer your question, I didn't even realize that I was speaking the Divine Language." I lied, which caused her to look at me confused. "I thought I was speaking English the entire time."
"English?" She asked, looking as though she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
"The language we're currently speaking." I tell her.
"You mean Common?" She asked.
"Whatever..." I said as I rolled my eyes in annoyance.
"Mm..." She hummed in realization. "So... you didn't know that you were speaking an entirely different language?"
Entirely different is a bit of a stretch...
Isn't the Divine Language just English but in reverse?
"Yeah, that's right." I nodded.
"Do you think that you used it subconsciously because of the Dragon Balls themselves? Like they were influencing you?" She asked.
"I don't know." I shrugged. "Doesn't really matter to me. The Divine Language, English, fucking tongue clicking, I don't care what language it prefers. As long as they were created and I can make a wish, it's fine by me."
Taking out my Time Ring and Potara Earring look alikes from my pocket, I put both of them back where they belong before I hold out my hand in front of me, my palm facing upward, and summon the pouch of Senzu Beans from my ring.
"What the-?!"
"Storage ring. Shrinks down an item and holds it inside until I call on it." I told her, somewhat lying. "Same with my earring."
In my defense, it technically it wasn't a lie. They did hold items inside of them. They just can't hold anything but the pouch and fruit.
Trust me, I've tried.
"Yes, but why do they look like a Time Ring and a Potara Earring?" She asked.
"I have no idea what either of those things are." I lied again.
If I was reincarnated with one of those System screen things instead of as Goku Black, I feel like my {Lying} skill would be maxed out by now. Probably even prestige.
Lila looked at me with a suspicious gaze before letting out a big sigh, "Please just tell me that you didn't kill a Kai for those things... Then again, it's not like I can believe a word that comes out of your mouth..."
She shook her head, holding her face in her hands.
I raise an eyebrow and look at her with a curious expression before saying, "I didn't kill anyone for these. They are replicas. Imitations of the real thing."
She looks up at me, seemingly searching my eyes for the truth.
"So you do know what they are." She says.
"I do." I said with a dismissive shrug before taking out a Senzu Bean from the pouch and eating it.
My strength returns to normal and my headache fades. I can even feel that I've gotten a bit stronger than I was previously.
Did that dragon seriously drain so much of my energy that it put me in a state of near death?
Just how much did it eat, the damned glutton?!
"Are you going to be keeping secrets from me the entire time?" She asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"Of course not. That would be a terrible foundation to build our student-teacher relationship." I said with a lighthearted tone.
She looks at me with a raised brow, seemingly both amused and annoyed by my comment.
"I suppose that I'm not going to know one way or another." She sighed, standing up beside me. "This is not how imagined spending my lifetime... Or second one, at least..."
"Hey, at least you can't say that it isn't interesting." I replied, grabbing the Black Star Dragon Balls and heading to exit the cave.
Lila stares at my back, rolling her eyes before her mouth turns upward into a small smile, "Yes, I suppose that is true..."
[Word Count: 1,666.]