The next day, a spaceship streaked silently across the sky before hovering midair above the settlement.
"A weird bird…" The camp's inhabitants gaped upward.
Away from the crowd, in front of a tent, Yamoshi pulled out a remote control and pressed a button. With a hiss, the ship's hatch slowly opened.
"Leaving already?" Yamiru walked over, arms crossed.
He studied the vessel. The design of this era's Sadala ships was nothing like Freeza Force models from the comics—yet it didn't feel "primitive" either. If not for the fact that this was tens of thousands of years in the past, there'd be no sense of dissonance. 'Tens of millennia… enough for civilizations to rise and fall multiple times, leaving behind fragments and legacies.'
Yamoshi pocketed the remote. "Yeah. Since we can't really help here…"
Namek appeared behind her. "Annin and her master said only Earthlings can resolve this. So staying serves no purpose."
"…" Yamiru paused, then replied coolly, "'Must be solved by Earthlings themselves'—what a strange restriction."
"Right?!" Yamoshi floated up, turning back in frustration. "What's wrong with relying on allies to end a conflict? Isn't that better?"
"Probably because," Yamiru said quietly, "under normal circumstances, no Earthling could ever hope to defeat those demon kings."
Namek added, "And Earth isn't isolated from cosmic visitors, though traffic does seem to have dwindled lately…"
Yamiru: "But to eliminate the chance of 'a random powerful alien swooping in to fix everything'…"
Yamoshi, now higher up, blinked. "Wait! You're making it sound like… someone deliberately set up these weird rules?"
"Just speculation."
"Who knows the truth? The only one who might is the one who told us…"
"Rules are rules."
In this back-and-forth with his alien friends, Yamiru calmly closed the topic. Annin and Sherie approached side by side.
"Leaving already?" The silver-haired Sherie smiled.
The identical phrasing made Yamiru's eyes flicker. "Yeah, we're leaving." He met Sherie's gaze.
Her lips held a faint, unreadable curve. Annin, surprised, asked, "Yamiru, you're going?"
Yamiru gleaned nothing from Sherie's expression. 'Does she know I'm from the 'future'?' The angel's motives were inscrutable. Those bizarre "rules" suggested Earth's demon crisis wasn't as straightforward as it seemed—Sherie likely had a hand in it.
'What's her role here? Is she on Earth's side? If so, as Annin's master, she could've trained her to unimaginable heights instead of relying on that furnace's generational power stacking! Neutral, then? But why take a disciple at all? Why gift the furnace?'
'Or… is she aligned with the demons?' That was laughable. An angel could erase Earth effortlessly if they wished. Concepts of good and evil were mortal concerns—gods operated beyond such notions. The very existence of Destroyers proved that. Why would a being like her care about one planet's fate?
'In other words, since she's already involved, the conflict should've ended the moment she stepped in—whether in Earth's favor or the demons'. Yet this war has dragged on for centuries, with Annin reincarnating repeatedly, still no resolution.'
'What is Sherie's goal?'
'Is she… just here for entertainment? Or is this stalemate her desired outcome?'
"No." Yamiru's thoughts raced, but his expression remained neutral as he turned to Annin. "Yamoshi and Namek are leaving. There's something Yamoshi must resolve in her homeland."
Yamoshi nodded firmly. "I can't keep running away."
She ascended higher, Namek following. "But at least Namek's got my back." Yamoshi gave a thumbs-up. "You guys hang in there! If we wrap things up on Salada, we'll come check on you."
If I survive, she added silently.
"Goodbye." Annin waved at the sky.
"You can do it, Yamoshi. You have incredible latent power." Yamiru couldn't resist adding more. "Don't lose your original heart—but don't suppress your anger either! If something pisses you off, just punch it hard enough…" Playing the prophet was exhausting. Honestly, he'd rather skip the convoluted explanations.
Under Yamoshi's puzzled gaze, he smirked and raised a thumb. "And if all else fails, like-minded comrades will help you! Five should do the trick."
"…" Annin stared at him, baffled.
Sherie stood calmly, one hand behind her back, the other now holding a scepter that had somehow appeared. She glanced at the crystal orb atop it.
"No clue what you're talking about, but thanks!" Yamoshi waved, then flew into the ship under the camp's collective gaze.
Namek turned to Yamiru. "Take care."
With that, he followed Yamoshi inside. The hatch sealed shut.
Behind tinted windows, Yamoshi watched the figures below until—with a hum—the ship accelerated instantly, piercing the atmosphere and vanishing.
"The weird bird's gone…"
The crowd murmured before dispersing.
Yamiru finally lowered his gaze from the sky and clapped his hands. Without turning, he asked the two behind him:
"So… when do we leave?"
"You're really coming?" Annin sounded surprised.
"Are you joking? I'm an Earthling too."
Yamiru half-turned, his voice firm.
"If I turned a blind eye to this, I wouldn't deserve to keep training in this martial path."
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