End of the Snake Way
King Kai Planet
King Kai and the miniature girl on Yamiru's shoulder engaged in a staring contest.
Joey, assuming this was a game of "who blinks first loses", widened her already disproportionately large eyes, refusing to yield.
Every passing second, King Kai braced for her to unleash some absurd punchline…
"Ook?" Bubbles scratched his armpit, confused.
Suddenly, King Kai burst into laughter. "HAHAHAHA!!" He clutched his stomach, tears flying, though what exactly he found hilarious remained a mystery.
Joey flashed a peace sign from Yamiru's shoulder.
"So—" King Kai wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, composing himself. "Who's this little comedian?"
When did she tell a joke? Yamiru ignored the non sequitur. "Her name's Joey. Apparently, an alien from beyond Earth. You won't believe this, but she overheard your telepathic message to me—verbatim."
"An alien! That explains the size." King Kai nodded, then gasped. "Overheard? Like, in-her-head overheard?"
Before Yamiru could confirm, Joey stuck out her tongue. "I'm small because I want to be! Watch—"
She leapt skyward—only to plummet midair, splatting face-first into the grass.
"?"
"This place is weird…" she realized belatedly.
Just noticed? Yamiru and King Kai thought in unison. They'd assumed she was unfazed by the planet's 10x Earth gravity.
Turns out, she was. Joey promptly crawled out of her tiny crater, dusted off her pants, and with a focused "Hup!"—ballooned to the size of a house.
"See? Told you!" She crouched on the tiny planet, grinning down at the now-ant-sized Yamiru and King Kai.
Yamiru stared up. Her expression—utterly oblivious while performing the impossible—was exactly like Arale's.
He hadn't brought Joey to King Kai Planet.
She'd just… followed.
Shrinking back to pocket-sized, she floated onto Yamiru's shoulder, wiping his robe before sitting. "Yeah, this size suits me better."
"Unbelievable…" King Kai muttered, sensing her wrongness.
Yamiru decided to treat Joey like Arale: don't question, don't engage.
He politely redirected King Kai to the reason for this meeting.
"Right! The Genki Dama!"
King Kai shifted into martial arts master mode, smugly drawing out the suspense before explaining the technique he'd refined over two millennia.
(In truth, it was a joint effort—he'd borrowed heavily from Yamiru's Flying Nimbus research.)
As expected, Yamiru grasped it instantly.
On King Kai Planet, he calibrated his mindset: justice, peace, benevolence—the essence of the "Heavenly Heart".
A wisp of Heaven Energy, channeled through his halo, settled into his consciousness like a pebble in a pond.
Plink…
Through it, Yamiru finally sensed the threads connecting him to all things—the planet's flora, the air, even the distant Snake Way.
This was beyond traditional martial arts.
No matter how deep one's understanding of ki, there'd always been a limit.
The sky, the earth, the sun—their power was imperceptible to warriors.
Even Goku could only tap into it via the Genki Dama.
Now, Yamiru hovered in that same transcendent state.
Everything contained energy.
The fundamental force binding existence.
Matter and energy—interchangeable all along.
Why couldn't I sense this before?
In that hazy moment of realization, Yamiru understood: This was the limit of humanity—the limit of martial artists.
"Ah…" Joey, perched on his shoulder, stared in wonder at the faint white glow enveloping Yamiru's body. She poked at it, but her finger passed through like mist.
Yamiru clenched his fist, channeling the gathered energy into it.
"This is the Genki Dama…" he murmured.
But King Kai sensed something else—this former Earth god seemed lost in deeper thoughts.
"Is he sad again?" Joey prodded Yamiru's cheek, ignored. "So weird…"
"Yamiru," King Kai asked, "what do you think?"
"If you're asking for my opinion…" Yamiru surveyed King Kai Planet. The flowers drooped, the grass yellowed, even the air felt stale. He stared at his glowing fist. "The Genki Dama isn't complete. Borrowed energy shouldn't leave the world like this."
"Exactly!" King Kai sighed. "I know, but…" He clicked his tongue. "The perfect Genki Dama… isn't something I can achieve. To reach that level requires—"
"Becoming a god," Yamiru said.
King Kai startled.
With a flick of his wrist, Yamiru dispersed the energy. It scattered like stardust, and Joey giggled, chasing the glowing motes as if swimming through a galaxy.
"Mortals cannot perceive divine ki," Yamiru spoke slowly, his voice firm with conviction. "Just as they overlook the earth, mountains, and sky… The true Genki Dama can only be perfected by one who comprehends the realm of gods."
The epiphany struck.
He'd long wondered: What truly separates mortals from gods in this world?
Divine ki is imperceptible—
The answer had always been before him, ignored like the air beneath his feet.
The power of godhood reverts to the fundamental—the energy inherent in all things.
Thus, like the unseen forces of nature, it remains beyond mortal grasp.