Crono's Story by Traum

Chapter 18 Triono

Death.

One single word, that struck fear into the hearts of every single man, woman and child. No one in their right mind could say that they did not fear death, fear their own mortality. Death is the root of all fear in the world, and the sooner you realize this, the sooner it conquers you.

To me though, death was un-consequential, a mere inconvenience that would take at most a year to right. The dragon balls made this possible. Indeed death had no hold on me, and I relished this fact.

Death was my specialty though. Creating it, conquering it, and ultimately doing without it. Just a while ago I'd been given a weapon with which to excel at it even more.

When Krillin had come to King Kai's small lump of green a few months ago, he'd brought with him a bag, and within it a few items. Among them was a long bladed samurai type sword, which King Kai had given me to train with, and later on take back to Earth to use against the Caprians. The sword was thin, silvery-white, pointed on only one side, and extremely heavy.

It seemed like one of King Kai's many hidden talents was his mastery of the blade. He'd taught me how to control every aspect of the sword, so after only a few weeks I'd mastered it's basic uses. (ex. Slashing, blocking, stabbing, sheathing etc.) A little while after that he taught me a technique called the Doominator, which was very similar to the Triple Strike, except with a sword. The technique was fairly easy to perform since I'd previously mastered the Triple Strike, but the next attack King Kai taught me was much harder to learn.

It was called the Dragon Shock, and it was performed like so: The user holds the sword at shoulder height, legs bent, blade sticking straight forward, and faces the opponent. Once ready, they zanzoken in front of the target, and then quickly zanzoken behind them. They then repeatedly zanzoken literal circles around whoever it is their fighting, confusing their opponent beyond words. Occasionally they would stop and quickly slash their enemy with the heavy sword, but the trick was to not let the attack slow down the zanzokening.

The attack was truly a test of physical capability, and I had still been unable to master it after nearly two months of sword training. I came close to finishing it once or twice, but I usually just ran out of energy, collapsing to the ground. I was walking the path I hadn't wanted to, doing physical training a lot more than my usual mental discipline.

Almost luckily though, my training with King Kai was nearly complete. In the five months I'd spent with him, I'd mastered every technique he'd taught me, save one, and I'd become incredibly powerful as well. I couldn't wait to see what Cris would think of me when we met again, no doubt he would be impressed beyond belief. Little did I know, I'd be seeing him all too soon.

I was beginning to practice Dragon Shock, by the tree on the small green planet, when King Kai walked up to me, and asked me something. "Triono, what do you think you've learned from me in the past five months?"

I stopped on the spot I was on, placed my sword into its leather sheath on my belt, and thought about my question. King Kai seemed to be serious for the first time in a while, and it was kind of upsetting. After a few seconds I answered, "Well, I've learnt a bunch of different ki attacks. I've mastered how to use my sword, my body, and my mind." I frowned slightly, thinking of more to say. "I've learnt how to fight beyond my wildest dreams." Bubbles came out from behind the house to my left, and that reminded me of something else. "I've learnt to respect everything I see, not just what I think is worthy of my respect." King Kai nodded, a grim look on his face.

"Well," he started, before taking a deep sigh. "that's about all I can expect to teach a student. So it's with a happy heart I can tell you that the Z warriors down on Earth have almost collected all the dragon balls, and are going to wish you back; sometime tomorrow probably." As he told me, a rush of excitement ripped through my veins, and I smiled broadly. I'd be going back, to meet all my new allies, to train for the Caprians, to- wait a second, I wasn't supposed to be wished back for another three months, so why was I going back so soon?