Clack. Clack. Clack.
The recovered Dragon Balls hit the grass, now inert and transformed into dull, grayish stones. At a glance, they were nearly identical, impossible to tell apart.
But Rhode wasn't fooled. He had marked each one mentally the moment he intercepted them. Sorting quickly, he set aside four: the three-star ball from Master Roshi, the two-star ball from Dr. Brief, the four-star ball from Gohan, and the seven-star ball from the Ox-King. These were borrowed and needed to be returned. The other three could scatter; he'd find them again next year.
"Rhode, did the wish work?" Dr. Brief asked, leading his family over as the spectacle concluded. They looked at him with a mix of awe and curiosity.
Rhode paused, focusing inward. He felt... nothing. No surge, no new instinct. "It should have," he said, a note of uncertainty in his voice.
Aira, who also felt no different, scoffed. "I thought you'd wish for something amazing. Not this... useless space-survival trick."
"It's not useless," Rhode countered, annoyed at her dismissal. "It removes a critical Saiyan weakness. We can't survive in a vacuum. If our ship or planet is destroyed, we die. Now, we have a contingency. We can fight in space. We can go all out on a planet without dooming ourselves. It's strategic freedom."
Aira's expression shifted from disdain to dawning understanding, then to excitement. The image of battling freely in the endless cosmos clearly appealed to her warrior spirit.
Rhode just shook his head at her predictable reaction. He gathered the stone orbs, handing the two-star ball back to Dr. Brief. "They'll reactivate in about a year," he explained. Then, without further ceremony, he lifted into the air, the remaining three stones in hand. "The others are borrowed. I need to return them."
In a blur, he was gone.
His journey was a quick circuit: Kame House, Mount Paozu, and finally Fire Mountain, returning each Dragon Ball to its guardian with thanks. Duty done, he shot back to West City, the familiar hum of the Gravity Chamber calling him back to his true purpose.
Back in the sterile white room, the rhythm of intense training resumed with Aira. Their goal was clear now: push their power to new heights. Once strong enough, they would take a ship to Namek, seek its Dragon Balls for another wish, and then venture deeper into the cosmos to learn from other worlds.
The space-survival ability, though currently imperceptible, was a foundational safety net. In this real, unpredictable universe filled with malice, having his ship destroyed no longer meant an automatic death sentence.
Yet, a power level hovering around 10,000 felt insufficient for a trip to Namek. While he bore no ill will, and the Namekians were peaceful, the universe was rarely so simple. He needed strength enough to handle the unexpected, to ensure he was a guest, not a casualty.
With this resolve, he and Aira plunged into a new cycle of brutal conditioning. Days were spent in the Gravity Chamber—a symphony of crushing pressure, clashing limbs, and controlled ki blasts under ever-increasing multipliers. Evenings brought solitude. While Aira pursued her own relentless drills, Rhode would vanish to desolate regions. There, under the open sky, he would hone his ki control to razor-edge precision and continue his solitary, meticulous research into the Oozaru's power, seeking a path to a transformation that was not just controlled, but refined. The path to true mastery was long, but every ounce of pressure, every spark of insight, was a step forward.
As for Aira, her nightly routine of extra training continued unabated. But now, she added a new destination after her Gravity Chamber sessions: Kami's Lookout. With the guardian's permission, she took full advantage, devoting additional hours under Popo's emotionless but supremely effective tutelage to refine her ki control. She was leveraging every resource.
The two Saiyans fell into a strict, grinding rhythm, and time became a river measured in sweat and suppressed power surges.
Perhaps the initial explosive gains from learning cultivation had plateaued, or maybe it was simply the nature of their still-developing adolescent bodies. Their power continued to grow, but the leaps were less dramatic than in those first frantic half-months.
Rhode felt no anxiety. Without an imminent catastrophe breathing down his neck, he could afford patience. He trained with methodical, unhurried focus.
As for the impending doom of Planet Vegeta? He was under no illusions. Salvation was impossible. Not with Lord Beerus's tacit approval behind the scenes, and certainly not with Frieza himself present. How could he possibly stop it? Furthermore, the bonds of kinship among pure-blooded Saiyans were functionally non-existent. His parents in this life, and Aira's, were long gone. His feelings toward Vegeta's fate were detached, clinical. At most, if opportunity and capability aligned, he might save a few lives. That was the extent of it.
Months blurred past.
Inside the Gravity Chamber, now set to a crushing *50x*, Rhode and Aira fought. They wore minimal protective gear, their attacks brutal and without quarter. In moments, both were a mosaic of bruises, cuts, and scorch marks.
"Again!"
These were just surface wounds, not worth a Senzu Bean. Rhode's command was a guttural roar. Aira responded in kind, and they launched simultaneous, point-blank ki blasts.
**Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!**
The chamber lit up with a relentless barrage. They fought like sworn enemies, each strike meant to maim, to break.
**BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!**
**BANG! BANG!**
The concussive symphony of their battle peaked, and then fell silent. Both figures finally collapsed, their bodies pushed to the absolute brink, hovering on the edge of oblivion.
**Crunch. Crunch-crunch-crunch.**
The sound of Senzu Beans being chewed broke the stillness. Seconds later, both Rhode and Aira sprang to their feet, wounds vanished, energy radiating from them in vibrant waves.
"So strong!" Aira exclaimed, exhilaration blazing in her eyes. The accumulated training of months, compounded by the near-death surge, made her feel invincible. "Now, I could kill King Vegeta in an instant!"
The thought of the Saiyan monarch, with his battle power just over ten thousand, now inspired not reverence, but contempt in her. Among Saiyans, respect was ultimately dictated by strength, not birthright. King Vegeta ruled because he was the strongest—or so the story went, its truth murky with politics and hidden power.
While Aira buzzed with triumphant energy, Rhode's expression remained placid. He looked at her, his gaze cool and assessing, almost pitying.
"Do you think," he asked, his voice flat, "that you're strong now?"
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