The Verdant Spiral Temple was as though the final breath of a world that was quickly going under ice. The air of the valley, into which it was snugged, was filled with the smell of the ancient incense and chanted Prana. It was a great contrast to the cold grave they had so recently fled. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were in the main room, and the action in the mountains was following them like a burial shroud.
Piccolo-Sensei was silent, his massive, Namekian body as motionless as the temple rock. As they narrated the tremor, the bio-weapon, the adaptive Eclipse Being, and lastly, all the mercilessness of Janebasame, he did not interrupt. His emerald eyes contracted when Sakura explained the microscopic organisms recreating Prana by cellular level. A frown made Sasuke look deeply tragic when he clinically described the data-collection behavior of the Eclipse Being. However, it was the crude, angry account that Naruto gave of the frozen village that made him shut his eyes at last, as though in agony.
A molting, Piccolo said the word echoing in the silent hall. I was hoping it was not what the legends said.
Up he stood, and with a gesture of green hand waved at a huge mosaic on the wall, at the cosmos. You are not dealing with just a enemy. You are facing an idea. A philosophy given flesh." He pivoted and looked upward toward them with their millennia of wisdom. "His name is Cell Akatsura. The Eclipsed Serpent. The Architect of the Divine Flesh.
"Who is he?" His fists clenched Naruto demanded. "Why would anyone do... that?"
It was Piccolo explaining that he was a creation who had outgrown his creators. A bio-android created on the basis of the stolen DNA of gods and the most powerful tribes, who received the implant of the spirit of the Shinra-O, the god of Prana evolution. He does not see life as sacred. He sees it as... inefficient. An imperfect symphony he should make whole and right, In one perfect note.
He indicated the mosaic, in which the signs of the two suns were already coming into contact with a third, darker body in the sky. He tries to conduct the Prana Eclipse Ritual. He will travel through the planetary ley lines during the approaching heavenly convergence. Not alone will he seize power, but he will reduce Prana--Inner, Outer, and Divine--to one point. Himself."
The hand of Sakura went to her mouth. "He'd become... a living universe. A god."
"And everything else?" And so, his voice dangerously low, Sasuke said. But what becomes of the so-called flawed life you are talking of?
The look of Piccolo was eloquent. "Unmade. Back to the Source, which he would say. The ultimate balance. A garden and a single and perfect flower. In his mind, he thinks he is doing a divine mercy.
The dreadfulness of it made its rest in the room. This wasn't a conquest. It was a re-set button of reality.
No, I said, Naruto, No, you know I can cut through you. His golden aura flashed to existence not in a flame of wrath, but in a mere, obstinate fire. "No one gets to decide that. Not in some village in the mountains, not of anybody! What I do not care about is whether he is a god or a monster. We're going to stop him."
A sneering snort escaped Sasuke. Your sentiment is as immeasurable as tedious. He was gazing beyond Naruto, at the entrance to the temple, as though he were already aware of the challenge. But a creature who wants to feed upon all the Prana, to be the only god... that is a life worth living. Pride doth not permit of the universe having but a single throne.
The heart and the pride, the two pieces of the same uncosmical coin were observed by Piccolo. "You cannot face him as you are. It is evolution as his power. Strongness will not be enough. You will need an army. His powers will be as unpredictable and powerful as you will need.
The call to action was clear. Their defence of the first part was at an end. The second was about to begin.
Naruto replied with a grim determination on his face. "Then we find one. We get rid of all those who do not desire to belong to his ideal garden.
When they went out of the temple, and the burden of their task began to sink on their shoulders, one last, murmuring thought--theirs, neither, came glancing over their minds. It was calm and lyrical and permeated with a frightening familiarity.
The seedlings have moved in the earth.How... promising.
It was the same voice as in the forest. Cell Akatsura. He had been listening. He knew they were coming. And he was anticipating it.
Act I, : The Gathering Storm. End