The Next Day
The sun had just crested over the ocean when Onigiri stepped into the clearing. His feet sank slightly into the dew-covered grass, and the cool morning air curled around him like a welcome breeze. Across from him, Hachirō stood with his arms folded behind his back, gaze as calm and unreadable as ever.
They moved without speaking.
A silent dance had become their ritual—circling, stepping, measuring. Each movement was deliberate but not stiff. Onigiri had learned to stop fighting the current, to move with it, and now his footwork whispered instead of thundered.
He feinted left. Hachirō shifted with him, but didn't commit. Onigiri's right hand came up—not as a punch, but as a redirection.
The two brushed past each other.
Then Onigiri stepped back, surprised. His hand had landed gently at Hachirō's hip, redirecting a strike before it fully formed. There had been no thought—just motion.
Hachirō turned with a small nod. "You moved without hesitation. That's new."
"I didn't think," Onigiri said. "It just… happened."
"That is the body remembering," Hachirō said. "Let it remember more."
They resumed. Onigiri pushed forward, guided by sensation more than planning. His limbs no longer strained with every strike—they flowed, curved, adjusted. The power was still there, waiting like a coiled spring, but now it obeyed rhythm, not impulse.
For a moment, Onigiri forgot he was being trained.
He was simply learning.
And he was smiling.
Even in the quiet stillness of training, there was something in him that hummed just beneath the surface—like a current he didn't fully understand. His instincts, sharp and preternatural, guided him with a precision that felt alien in more ways than one. He had no name for what he was—only that he wasn't like anyone else he'd met. But under Hachirō's guidance, that power was starting to find rhythm.
His eyes tracked the subtlest shifts in the old man's stance. His ears caught the whisper of displaced air before a motion. His muscles, built for sheer force, now reacted with precision instead of domination.
Every instinct screamed to overpower.
Instead, Onigiri had learned to listen.
And it was working.
His speed, once blinding, now bent itself to rhythm. His strength, once explosive, now pulsed like a tide—measured, controlled.
There was a moment where their palms met mid-motion—Onigiri's hand halted just before a strike. No impact. No pressure.
But a gust of wind rippled through the trees behind Hachirō from the stopped motion alone.
Hachirō opened one eye and smiled faintly. "Even the wind bows to stillness."
Onigiri laughed under his breath. "I didn't know I could do that."
"You always could," Hachirō said. "You just needed to stop trying to prove it."
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Later that morning, they sat beneath the shade of a gnarled tree overlooking the water. Hachirō sipped from his bamboo gourd while Onigiri stared quietly out at the horizon, still replaying the moment from earlier in his head.
"That gust," Onigiri said eventually. "When I stopped my hand. That wasn't just raw power, was it?"
"No," Hachirō replied, swirling the liquid in his cup. "That was presence. Flow. Intention. What some call Ki."
Onigiri looked at him, brow furrowed. "I've heard the word before… but I still don't know what it really is."
Hachirō gave a small nod, as if he'd expected the question. "Ki is the breath between action and thought. The echo of the spirit made physical. It is not merely energy—it is awareness in motion."
"Can anyone use it?"
"Everyone already does," Hachirō said. "But few do it with purpose. Ki is not a weapon—it is the conversation between your body and the world around you. Most people shout. Masters… whisper."
Onigiri glanced down at his open palm. "Then what was that earlier? When I moved without thinking. Was that… Ki?"
Hachirō smiled. "That was the moment your spirit stopped interrupting your body. You didn't generate Ki—you aligned with it. A spark, not a flame. But a spark that can grow."
"So is that what I've been using all this time? When I hit too hard? When I move too fast?"
"No," Hachirō said gently. "That was just raw strength. What you did today? That was control—earned, not forced."
Onigiri nodded slowly, the weight of the idea settling in his chest.
"I want to learn it," he said. "Not just how to move—but how to listen."
Hachirō's smile widened ever so slightly. "Then we begin again. From the breath.
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Bulma stood on the edge of the clearing, tablet in hand, stylus tapping thoughtfully against her chin. She had been watching for a while now, her gaze flitting between the vitals readout on her screen and the flow of motion between Onigiri and Hachirō.
Onigiri moved differently these days. She noticed the way his steps no longer left deep impressions in the dirt, how his strikes bent with intent instead of lashing out. He wasn't just stronger—he was quieter. More focused. It unnerved her a little… and impressed her more than she cared to admit.
"Compression rings are syncing better than expected," she murmured to herself. "Muscle output down twelve percent, but reflex control up by nearly twenty-eight."
She made a note on the tablet, then glanced up—just in time to see Onigiri stop a palm strike an inch from Hachirō's chest, the air around them shifting like a heat wave.
A small pang twisted in her chest.
Part of her was proud—ridiculously so. She had been there since the beginning, had seen Onigiri at his most raw and out of control. But another part of her, one she kept buried under logic and calculations, felt something else.
Jealousy.
It wasn't fair. She was the one who built the rings. She was the one who brought him into her home, taught him how to live here, how to talk, how to eat. But it was that old man who got to help him understand himself. Who got the calm, collected version of him. Who got to teach him something that she couldn't.
She tightened her grip on the stylus.
"Stupid old man," she muttered under her breath.
But as soon as the words left her mouth, guilt crept in. She blinked, confused at herself.
Why was she jealous?
She should be thrilled. Onigiri was finally learning to control his strength, to find peace in who he was. He was thriving. This was what she wanted.
So why did it feel like he was growing away from her?
He wasn't just learning to fight—he was learning to live without needing her. That thought scared her more than she wanted to admit—even if she couldn't explain why.
But why did it scare her?
Bulma looked down at her tablet, at the data she'd been tracking for weeks, at the boy she had helped keep grounded through chaos. Maybe she just… wanted to be enough.
Enough to help him. Enough to understand him.
She took a steady breath and let it go. "Focus, Bulma," she whispered. "This is still your win too."
With a flick of her wrist, she deployed a small capsule. It popped open with a soft fwip, revealing a floating diagnostic drone—a modified version of one she used for flight testing. It hovered up and began scanning Onigiri's movements in real time.
But then something shifted.
The drone buzzed—once. Then again. A warning blinked red across her tablet: "Unrecognized Signature Detected – Interference Source Nearby".
Bulma narrowed her eyes. "That's not mine…"
Over the treetops, a sleek, oblong device zipped into view—unmarked, metallic, and silent. Its lens pulsed faintly red.
"Uh-oh," she whispered.
The Red Ribbon Army was watching.
Before Bulma could react, the foreign drone zipped lower, scanning the area with a thin red laser. It locked onto Onigiri's heat signature and emitted a faint mechanical chirp—collecting combat data.
Across the clearing, Hachirō halted mid-motion, his gaze snapping skyward. Onigiri noticed the sudden change and followed his master's eyes, confused.
"Trouble?" Onigiri asked.
"Not yet," Hachirō said calmly. "But that is no ordinary scout."
Bulma snapped her tablet shut. "It's Red Ribbon tech. Recon model, mid-range. Designed to observe high-output energy signatures. I didn't think they were active this far west."
The drone emitted a low hum and began to rise again, clearly preparing to retreat with the data it had gathered.
"Onigiri," Hachirō said, voice still low. "You may wish to end its memory."
Without a word, Onigiri's body tensed—not from anger, but with focused intent. He stepped forward once, then vanished in a blur.
A single palm strike collided with the drone mid-air. No sound. No flash. Just a crunch of metal and a scatter of parts raining down like ash.
Silence followed.
Onigiri landed softly in the grass.
"Data erased," he said quietly.
He looked down at his hand for a moment—the one that struck. There was no satisfaction, no adrenaline rush. Just stillness. Focus. Control.
Bulma sighed with relief—but it was short-lived.
"If that drone transmitted anything before it was destroyed," she said, "we're not going to stay hidden much longer."
Hachirō nodded solemnly. "Then we must be ready—not just to fight, but to remain clear in our purpose. Power draws eyes. And the world is watching to see what we become.
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That evening, as the fire crackled and the stars began to peek through the canopy above, Hachirō sat across from Onigiri, the flames casting flickering light across his weathered features.
"You've grown much," Hachirō said, voice calm. "More than I expected in such a short time. But there is still more to learn—more to see."
Onigiri looked up from the fire. "You want to leave the island."
"I want to explore the world. It teaches in ways no master can. I want you to come with me."
Onigiri hesitated. His mind flashed to Bulma—to the first face he saw when he awoke, to the girl who had given him his name, his home, his place in this strange new world. She had been there when he was lost. When he didn't even know how to exist here. She didn't just help him live—she helped him belong.
"I… I'm not sure I can. Not yet."
Bulma, who had been listening nearby, tried to keep her voice light as she stepped closer. "You don't have to worry about me, you know. With your speed, you could be back in West City in no time."
Her smile was playful, but her eyes held something else.
"I've got my own journey to make anyway," she added. "I've actually been working on a radar to locate these mythical things called Dragon Balls. They're supposed to grant any wish. So yeah—I want them."
Onigiri looked at her, silent. He opened his mouth as if to say something more, something deeper, but the words caught in his throat.
"Besides," she said, nudging him lightly, "you'll probably get too zen without me. Someone has to keep you grounded."
He chuckled softly. "You better come back. With stories."
She grinned. Then, after a brief pause, her voice softened. "Don't forget about me, alright?"
By sunrise, their paths would split—for now. But the bond they'd forged on this quiet island would follow them across continents, battles, and years—growing just as they would.