"Get her!" Tambourine screeched.
They rushed her at the same time.
Cymbal came in heavy, swinging wide, each blow meant to crush.
Tambourine stayed close, fast and vicious, claws snapping for her face and throat.
They should've torn her apart.
They hit nothing.
Chi-Chi slipped between the attacks without stepping back.
No blocks.
Just small adjustments—half-turns, a shift of weight, a tilt of her head.
A claw skimmed past her ear, taking a few strands of hair. A massive fist thundered by her face, close enough to feel the wind.
She stood where their attacks weren't.
She moved through them with quiet precision, eyes steady, breath calm.
To the demons she was a blur; to her, they were late.
Tambourine snapped, pushing harder, driving a straight strike for her chest. Cymbal followed, both fists coming down to crush her.
Chi-Chi leaned back just enough. Their attacks met nothing.
Then she stopped.
No step. No guard.
She simply let out a slow breath.
The air changed.
Pressure rolled out from her, heavy and wrong, like the moment before something dies.
It wasn't heat or fury—just a cold that settled in the bones.
Tambourine and Cymbal locked up mid-motion.
Instinct took over, older than thought, screaming the same word through every nerve they had:
Run.
Both demons jumped back at once, scrambling until their heels hit the trees.
Dirt sprayed under their feet as they put distance between themselves and the girl.
They stopped there, breathing hard, hands shaking.
Their chests felt too tight, their hearts pounding out of control.
Chi-Chi hadn't moved.
She stood where they'd left her, dust drifting around her boots.
Her arms rested at her sides, relaxed. Her face showed nothing—but her eyes were empty, deep, and waiting.
She said nothing. Just watched.
The silence pressed in.
"What… what is she?" Cymbal muttered, voice unsteady.
"That wasn't normal. That felt like she was going to kill us just by standing there."
"Don't let her near us!" Tambourine yelled, panic breaking through his snarl.
"Stay back! Don't let her touch you!"
Fear took over.
"Kill her!"
They threw their hands forward, energy flaring wild and uneven—
THWUM.
THWUM.
THWUM.
They fired wildly.
Beams of green and yellow tore across the clearing, ripping the ground apart and vanishing into smoke where the girl stood.
The air burned.
The forest shook.
Then it stopped.
Silence crept back in.
The clearing was wrecked—dirt overturned, embers glowing, a wide crater smoking at the center.
Tambourine lowered his arms, breathing hard. He stared into the dust, waiting.
"…Heh." A thin laugh slipped out.
"That's it. No one walks away from that."
Cymbal wiped his mouth and stepped closer, squinting into the haze.
"Yeah." he said, more confident now.
"Nothing left. Big talk—still ended the same."
He spat and started toward the crater.
"I'll check what's left."
"Wait..." Tambourine said, cold creeping up his spine. He scanned the haze.
Something was wrong. The air felt dead.
A thin metallic sound sliced through the silence.
Shinnnng.
Tambourine's eyes snapped wide. The crater was empty.
"Cymbal!" he shouted, panic breaking through.
"Don't move—she's—!"
Too late.
Chi-Chi was already there.
Right behind him.
She hadn't announced herself.
She simply existed where she hadn't a second before. She wasn't even looking at Cymbal—her eyes were locked on Tambourine, flat and final.
Kumokiri whispered in her hand, wrapped in pale blue lightning that snapped against the air.
Cymbal started to turn.
"Huh—?"
She didn't swing.
She drove the blade forward.
Straight into his back.
ZZZZA-KRAKOOM!
The instant the blade sank in, the power surged.
Cymbal froze.
"GHYAAAAAAAA!!—"
His roar died in his throat as his body locked solid, muscles seizing all at once.
The shock stole everything—strength, breath, even thought.
Kumokiri kept going.
Steel cut cleanly through him, the energy burning as it passed.
A flash of blue sparked at his throat—and then he was already gone.
Chi-Chi held him there for a beat, suspended, making sure Tambourine saw it happen.
She wrenched the blade sideways.
The body dropped, heavy and final, hitting the dirt with a dull thud. What was left of Cymbal didn't move again.
Chi-Chi stepped back.
She snapped the blood from the blade and slid Kumokiri back into its sheath.
Then she raised her hand, Ki gathering fast and bright in her palm.
The blast went off.
When the light faded, there was nothing left where Cymbal had been.
Just scorched ground.
Tambourine didn't shout.
"Ah...."
He didn't even think.
...
He ran.
His wings snapped open and he shot straight up, tearing through the air without looking back. All that mattered was distance—away from the forest, away from her.
Get away… just get away.
He climbed hard, then leveled out, the wind screaming past his ears. The ground shrank beneath him. For a moment, that was enough.
He glanced back.
The forest was a dot.
A laugh slipped out—thin, shaky.
"That's it. Hahahahaha! You're stuck down there. I fly. You don't!"
He faced forward again.
And stopped.
Right in front of him, perfectly still in the open sky, was Chi-Chi.
Arms crossed.
She looked at him like he'd arrived late.
"Running already?" she asked.
Tambourine screamed.
Tambourine shrieked and jerked to a stop in midair, nearly slamming into her. He flailed, barely steadying himself, his chest pounding out of control.
"H-How?!" he gasped.
"You were on the ground!"
"You know what's funny? I didn't even know how to fly. Chasing you with Sky Walk wouldn't have been easy.
He spun, trying to bolt the other way.
He froze.
"But you were unlucky, Tambourine. I fought someone who could fly in the tournament. And somewhere between my need to kill you… and the moment you turned that tail and ran— I learned it."
She was behind him.
He snapped his head left—Chi-Chi. Expression empty.
Right—another one, hand near her sword.
Above—one more, watching him fall apart.
"No… no…" His voice cracked as he turned in place.
"Which one is real? Which one are you?!"
One of them spoke, calm and flat.
"Pick one."
Another added,
"It won't save you."
They didn't fade.
They didn't flicker.
The sky around him became a ring of Chi-Chis—afterimages held so perfectly they felt solid, a silent cage closing in.
Tambourine folded in on himself, hovering at the center of the circle, breath coming in short, panicked bursts.
No matter where he looked, those eyes were there. Watching. Waiting. The sky—once his refuge—had become a cage.
"Please… Stop. Just stop looking at me."
"You didn't stop. When my father begged." the voices said together, flat and close, as if spoken from inside his head
Silence.
Something in him broke.
The killer who had mocked death now shrank in on himself. He sagged in the air, knees drawn up, hands pressed together like a child who didn't know what else to do.
"Wait—wait, please." His words tumbled out.
"I didn't decide it. I just followed orders."
Tears streaked down his face as he pointed weakly toward the distant airship.
"It was Piccolo."
Tambourine's voice broke into panic.
"He told me to do it. That's why I exist. I kill because he made me that way." His words tumbled over each other.
"If I said no, he would've erased me. I didn't have a choice. I'm not the only monster here."
The figures around him didn't move. They just watched, silent.
He dropped to his knees and crawled forward, hands reaching out, unsure who was real.
"I can help. I'm fast. I'm strong. I'll do whatever you want."
A shaky smile twitched across his face and failed.
"I'll follow you. I'll fight for you. I'll even kill Piccolo. Just—please. I don't want to die."
His voice collapsed into sobs. He folded in on himself, shaking.
"Y-you're a hero, right?! Heroes don't kill people!"
Chi-Chi looked down at him. Nothing in her expression changed.
The afterimages faded, leaving only her.
"Are you serious?"
"Y-Yes! Dead serious! I'll be your slave!"
"Hmmmm..."
She stood there, staring at him with open disgust.
"I've fought all kinds of monsters. Some didn't care who they hurt… some didn't even understand what they were doing."
She met his eyes, her voice low, almost soft.
"But I'll tell you a secret, Tambourine."
Tambourine recoiled.
"You're the worst kind."
Her gaze hardened, lips barely moving.
"Just the kind of thing I despise most."
Tambourine saw it then.
"No—" he whispered, panic flooding his limbs.
"No, no—"
He tried to flee.
Tambourine didn't think anymore. He just ran.
He folded his wings and shot straight up, kicking at the air like it might save him.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
He tore through the clouds, climbing higher and higher, chasing thin air and distance.
Anything to escape those eyes. Anything to escape the judgment he felt on his back.
Chi-Chi didn't follow.
She only watched him shrink against the sun.
Then she raised one hand.
Red light gathered around her palm, heavy and quiet.
"Ox Crusher."
The force surged upward in a single, overwhelming wave. It swallowed the sky, burned through the clouds, and closed the distance without haste or mercy.
Tambourine looked down.
The world was red.
"Wait—!"
It hit him all at once.
Not a strike, not a blast—pressure. His wings folded against his back, his climb stopped dead, his body trapped in crushing light with nowhere left to go.
The red light took him.
It wasn't fire. It was weight. Like the sky itself pressing down on him.
Tambourine screamed, a sound that came from somewhere deep and terrified.
His wings tore apart first, breaking into ash.
He tried to fight it. Tried to push back with everything he had left. It did nothing. The force didn't just hurt him—it unmade him.
"Master—!"
The word never finished.
His shape twisted inside the light. Then it was gone.
The column kept going, tearing through the clouds and fading higher and higher, until even the red was swallowed by blue.
And where Tambourine had been, there was nothing left at all.
Just empty air where he had been.
Chi-Chi stood there with her arm still raised, as if she hadn't fully accepted it yet.
A thin line of smoke drifted from her fingers.
She kept her eyes on the sky for a moment longer, waiting—making sure.
Nothing came back.
Then she lowered her hand.
The red glow around her faded, and the forest went quiet in a way that felt wrong, like the world was holding its breath.
"Goodbye." She said, barely louder than the wind.
There was no smile. No relief.
She closed her eyes for a second, and whatever weight sat in her chest eased—just a little.
High above, inside the airship, no one spoke.
Piano was shaking, his beak clicking as he stared at the screens. The Pilaf Gang crouched together on the floor, unable to look away.
King Piccolo didn't move.
He stared at the empty patch of sky where his son had been moments ago. His expression didn't change.
Two sons gone. Both erased by a human girl who hadn't even seemed strained.
Piccolo's gaze drifted downward, settling on the lone figure in the ruined forest.
"…Interesting."