Chapter 79: The Ghost in the Ink
The silence in the rented room at The Grumbling Gryphon was a different creature now. It was no longer tense with paranoia, but thick with the weight of a decision. Laron had scurried off to secure a steady supply of high-grade parchment and inks, buzzing with the energy of a man building an empire. Briza had taken up a silent vigil in the courtyard below, a statue of watchfulness guarding the golden goose.
I was alone. A blank sheaf of parchment, a cheap, ordinary quill, and a pot of standard ink sat on the small wooden table before me. This was the part I'd been both dreading and craving. The choice.
My mind was a chaotic library of worlds. I could bring the friendly, neighborhood heroics of Spider-Man, a tale of power and responsibility that might resonate in any universe. I could unleash the raw, cathartic destruction of the Hulk. Or the epic, world-spanning adventure of One Piece, with its boundless sense of freedom.
But my heart kept pulling me back to the one that felt like home. Dragon Ball Z. The planet-busting clashes, the screaming auras, the transformations that redefined power for entire generations. It was my first love, the series that had defined my childhood obsession with anime.
I reached for that memory, ready to conjure the image of Goku, hair blazing gold, facing down Frieza on a dying Namek.
But my hand hesitated over the parchment.
It felt… hollow. Wrong. Like building a cathedral starting with the spire.
I remembered the first time I'd seen DBZ, a random episode during the Namek Saga on SABC 2. It was all about the overwhelming power, the screaming, the spectacle. It was only years later, driven by obsession, that I went back and found the original Dragon Ball. And it changed everything.
That's where the heart was. It wasn't a story about gods; it was the story of a boy who became a god. It was about a naive, tailed child named Son Goku leaving his lonely mountain home to find a wish-granting dragon with a brilliant, brash girl named Bulma. It was funny, it was whimsical, it was packed with adventure and martial arts tournaments and a cast of characters who felt like friends. The epic scale of DBZ didn't diminish because of it; it was enhanced. Every gut-busting Kamehameha in the later sagas was built on the foundation of a little boy learning the technique from a mischievous, perverted turtle hermit.
If I was going to bring my all-time favorite to this world, I had to do it the right way. From the very beginning.
The decision settled in my soul like a stone sinking into a still pond. A profound calm washed over me. This wasn't just a business decision; it was an act of preservation. A tribute.
I pushed the ordinary quill and ink aside. This required something more. I opened Laron's velvet case and carefully lifted out the magical scribe. It felt cool and inert in my hand. I placed a fresh sheet of the high-quality parchment he'd procured on the table, smoothing it with a reverence I didn't know I possessed.
I closed my eyes. I didn't just try to remember. I descended. I pushed past the noise of Ros, past the memory of goblin blood and the cold gaze of the System Administrator, past the lingering fear of the Shadow-Wurm. I traveled down a neural pathway worn smooth by a thousand childhood viewings, a thousand re-reads.
I built the image in my mind, not as a fan, but as a creator. I focused on the clarity, the emotion, the essence.
I saw a boy. Not a warrior. A child. Wild, spiky black hair. A mischievous glint in wide, innocent eyes. A monkey tail twitching curiously behind him. He was dressed in the iconic orange-red gi. He stood with a confident, animalistic grace, a long, red-tipped staff, the legendary Power Pole slung over his shoulder. Behind him was the lush, untamed wilderness of Mount Paozu.
I held the image until it burned behind my eyelids, vivid and perfect.
Then, I began to speak, my voice a soft, steady whisper in the quiet room.
"The scene is a lush, wild mountain landscape. A young boy stands facing the viewer. He has wild, black, spiky hair and bright, earnest eyes. A long, furry monkey tail swishes behind him with playful energy. He is dressed in a simple, sleeveless top and loose, orange-red trousers, a long staff with red tips resting on his shoulder. He looks ready for adventure, fearless and pure."
The quill in my hand flared to life with that familiar pearlescent glow. It leaped from my fingers and danced across the parchment. This time, its movements were different from the aggressive slashes that had created Frieza. They were fluid, energetic, brimming with a youthful vitality. Lines flowed, creating the dense foliage of the mountain. Ink swirled to form the boy's wild hair, captured the innocent determination in his eyes, the playful curve of his tail.
In seconds, it was done. The quill dropped.
I opened my eyes.
And there he was. Son Goku. In his first appearance. Perfect.
A wave of emotion hit me so hard it stole my breath. It wasn't just nostalgia. It was a profound, aching sense of homesickness. This wasn't just a drawing; it was a piece of my soul, a artifact from a world I would never see again. I saw myself, a kid sitting on a worn-out carpet in a living room that felt a million miles away, watching this boy's adventures unfold. I remembered the friends I'd debated power levels with, the video games we'd played, the sheer, uncomplicated joy of it all.
A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down my cheek and splashing onto the wooden table. I didn't bother to wipe it away. For the first time since waking up in that godforsaken cave, I truly, deeply missed Earth. I missed my family. I missed the internet, the endless scroll of memes and messages. I missed the comfort of knowing there was a whole world of stories just a click away.
This quill wasn't just a tool for business. It was a tether. And right now, the pull was agonizing.
But with the pain came purpose. I had to keep going. I had to build this bridge, not just for the Pele, but for myself.
I worked for hours, lost in a trance. The quill became an extension of my will. I didn't just pull images from memory; it felt like the quill was helping, pulling the memories to the surface, making them sharper, more vivid than they had any right to be. It was as if the magic wasn't just in the rendering, but in the recollection itself.
One by one, the founding members of this new universe appeared on parchment.
Bulma Briefs: I rendered her with her iconic blue hair in its first, pigtailed style, a modern girl with a laser gun and a scowl of impatience, standing next to her capsule-made car. The contrast of sci-fi and fantasy, right from the start. Oolong: The little pig shape-shifter, drawn in his true form, looking sly and cowardly. I even smiled as I described his pudgy face. Yamcha: The desert bandit with his signature scar, looking handsome and roguish, with Puar, his small, cat-like companion, floating nervously beside him. Kuririn: The bald, mischievous monk-in-training, my favorite character. I drew him with his six-pointed scars on his forehead and a determined, slightly scheming look in his eyes. Emperor Pilaf, Shu, and Mai: The comically inept first antagonists. I drew them in all their ridiculous glory, Pilaf in his royal cape, too small for his throne, with his dog-like and fox-like lackey.
Finally, I came to the core of it all. I concentrated, pouring every detail I could remember into the quill.
"The scene is a starry night sky. Seven orange orbs with red stars inside float in the air. They begin to glow with an unearthly light, converging. The light forms into the shape of an immense, coiling Chinese dragon, scales shimmering with green and gold energy. Its eyes glow red, its whiskers flow with cosmic power. This is Shenron, the Eternal Dragon, a being of immense and awe-inspiring power."
The quill worked, its movements slow, majestic, and filled with a weight that the other drawings lacked. When it finished, the image of Shenron seemed to suck the light from the room, his presence emanating from the parchment like a silent promise.
Exhausted but exhilarated, I finally set the magical scribe aside. The artistic foundation was laid. Now came the hard part: the words.
I picked up the ordinary quill. Dipping it in the common ink, I began to write. And the words came easier than I expected. The plots, the dialogue, the gags, it all flowed out of me. The quill's magic had indeed done something, lubricating the gears of my memory. I wrote about Goku meeting Bulma, about the wish-granting Dragon Balls, about the first quest. I stopped just short of introducing Kuririn and the start of the training arc with Master Roshi. That little first arc ending with the wish by Oolong should be enough. It had enough action, humour and twists. The biggest being Goku's Oozaru transformation.
I wrote until my hand cramped and the sunlight outside the window faded to dusk. Parchment filled with my messy, Earth-style script lay scattered across the table and floor, a chaotic storyboard for a revolution.
I was no longer just Kaizen, the System's lab rat. I was a Mangakaka. A translator of worlds. And as I looked at the face of the little boy with the monkey tail, I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that I had chosen right. This was my legacy. And it was just beginning.
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