Chapter 333: Kaguya the Loser Dog
Endless darkness swallowed him whole, as if he'd been dropped into some bizarre realm of pure chaos — his mind wiped blank, incapable of a single coherent thought. King Piccolo, the Dragon Ball world's own great demon lord, was down for the count.
Ryū hadn't killed him outright, though — he'd simply knocked the "green freak" out cold, leaving him in a state of deep unconsciousness.
That knife-hand strike had landed a bit harder than intended — King Piccolo would probably need at least a day or two of unconsciousness before he could even scrape his way back to awareness.
Hm... though actually, that wasn't quite right either — King Piccolo was Namekian, not human, so he'd likely wake up in half that time or less.
Even cutting that time in half, though, that still put his waking up nearly a full day out.
The reason Ryū hadn't killed King Piccolo was simple — this green freak's bond with the Dragon Ball world's Kami hadn't been severed yet.
Once that link was cut, there'd be plenty of time to finish him off.
The Ancient One, who'd been tracking the fight inside the mirror-space the whole time, dissolved it the moment she saw King Piccolo go down for good.
Ryū and King Piccolo, both of whom had vanished from the real world, reappeared once more in everyone's sight.
Back from the mirror-space, Ryū gave the King Piccolo at his feet a light kick, and seeing him lie there without so much as twitching, spoke up. "He shouldn't be putting up any fight now. Good time to sever the link with Kami, don't you think?"
The Ancient One, having sustained the mirror-space for nearly ten minutes straight, nodded at that. "Having him knocked out cold does make it easier for me to run through my options."
She paused a beat, then went on, "If none of my methods work, we'll need Yukari-senpai to step in."
The Ancient One might be the Sorcerer Supreme of the movie-canon Marvel world, revered by countless people — but in her own eyes, Yukari had a few thousand years on her and had been practicing magic since long before she was even born.
So calling her "senpai" felt perfectly natural to the Ancient One. What was the alternative — copying Kaguya and calling her "nee-san" instead?
Coming from some cute young thing, that kind of address wouldn't feel off at all.
But the Ancient One was the Sorcerer Supreme. Picture her calling Yukari "nee-san."
...Yeah, no. That mental image was almost too much, frankly unimaginable — the dissonance would be off the charts.
Ryū watched the Ancient One tinker away with all manner of strange spells for a few minutes, then let his attention drift elsewhere — magic wasn't something a martial artist like him could ever really wrap his head around.
Much the same, he figured, as how a magic-user would never quite understand why a martial artist's body could get so absurdly powerful in the first place.
A rather critical question suddenly occurred to Ryū — if King Piccolo's bond with Kami got severed and he then killed the guy, wouldn't that mean Piccolo Jr., from canon, would be stillborn before he was ever even conceived?
Piccolo Jr. was the... son King Piccolo had spat out?
Well, whatever the exact mechanics were, he came out of King Piccolo's mouth, so "son" seemed like the fair term.
In the original Dragon Ball, he'd helped the protagonists out plenty, backed up Master Roshi more than once, even protected Gohan several times over — a solidly positive character, all told.
Should he wait for King Piccolo to spit Piccolo Jr. out before finishing him off, then?
Hm, that plan was actually pretty workable — it would preserve a decently important positive character from the original story while still taking out a demon lord who thoroughly deserved to die.
And then have Master Roshi properly raise (brainwash) that Piccolo Jr. — who knew, maybe he'd turn into a capable right hand for Roshi somewhere down the line.
Huh, why did scheming like this make him feel like some shadowy mastermind out of a movie, pulling strings behind the whole plot?
Shaking off the idle speculation, Ryū turned the two golden Dragon Balls over in his hand, eyeing the red stars glowing inside them, and muttered, "Add Master Roshi's ball to these, that's three. Four more to go."
He'd watched Dragon Ball as a kid, and a lot of the finer plot details had gone fuzzy since — the only two balls whose exact locations he remembered clearly were the one hanging around Master Roshi's neck, and the one belonging to little Goku.
Where the rest of them were, he honestly couldn't recall — but that hardly mattered.
He already knew exactly what a Dragon Ball's "presence" felt like, and Observation Haki could pick up on the voice of practically anything in existence — a few days circling the planet ought to be enough to track down the rest.
He had to admit, a fully developed Observation Haki was ridiculously useful — practically like gaining a dozen superpowers all at once.
Things like massive-range sensing, mind-reading, precognition, X-ray vision, ultra-long-distance sensing — the whole suite came bundled into a fully matured Observation Haki.
With nothing better to do in the meantime, Ryū let his awareness slip into the chat group — and found Yukari, Tatsumaki, and the others already spamming away in there.
This quest hadn't turned out to be all that difficult, in the end — not because the enemies were weak, but because the chat group's firepower was simply that overwhelming.
Aside from King Piccolo, still alive, every last one of the demon-kind — including the two rule-breaking transmigrators — was already thoroughly, permanently dead. Not a single one left standing.
Eternally Seventeen: "That's right, Little Tornado wasn't pulling your leg. Our perpetually single Admin-sama is officially my man now — currently living off my hard-earned dime, if we're being honest."
Eternally Seventeen: "The poor eternal bachelor still hasn't realized he's landed himself a rich woman who'll happily support him for life."
Kaguya-sama: "Σ(°△°)︴ What Tornado-nee said earlier — it's actually true?!"
Kaguya-sama: "Yukari-nee and Admin-sama are really actually a couple now?! It's not April Fools' Day, is it? We just had New Year's a little while ago — Lunar New Year hasn't even hit yet!"
My True Form Is Cola: "Kaguya-senpai might look fine on the surface, but deep down she's probably taking a critical hit for like 9999 damage right now!"
Street-Corner Illustrator: "Oof, hits close to home. A perfect loser-dog origin story right there — a whole year of effort, and nothing to show for it."
I'm Rolling In It: "Sounds like none of you really get men. Speaking from Uncle Tony's own experience, the Admin's definitely angling for a harem — otherwise why would Yukari-senpai be the first one he locked down? Let Uncle Tony break it down for you."
I'm Rolling In It: "First off, Yukari-senpai's taken in Sakura Matou and is raising her like her own daughter. Second, Yukari-senpai's got two shikigami — the gorgeous kind, at that."
I'm Rolling In It: "So you all know what that means — the Admin's clearly got ulterior motives. Buy one get two free, what a steal! What an animal... I'm so envious— ptooey, I mean, furious!"
[Member "I'm Rolling In It" has been muted by Admin "RawrSoFierce" for 1 hour.]
RawrSoFierce: "I log in for two seconds and the first thing I see is a certain playboy digging his own grave, expert-level."
PS: Stockpiling's underway — posting three chapters a day, banking one! Been holding off on updating too fast lately, just in case my brain goes fuzzy and I write some brain-dead plot point without realizing it — wouldn't want to accidentally get pinched by the Great River Crab's claws. That'd give me a real headache.
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