Dragon Ball Roshi

After embracing Hathaway for a moment, Taro released her, gripping her shoulders as he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Hathaway reached out, brushing through Taro's now graying hair, letting her hand slide down to gently touch the faint wrinkles on his face. Smiling, she said, "It's just… you've grown older, and somehow, even more charming."

Taro smiled faintly, but his mind couldn't help drifting back to the memory of Fanfan tearfully begging him to leave.

"Taro, you should go."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to see me like this!"

"You know I don't care about that."

"But… I can't bear it! It's torture!"

---

A few minutes earlier...

Taro returned to that misty place — the ancient Kaioshin's training chamber. As he appeared, the phantom figure of the ancient Kaioshin began to fade. It was unclear whether it had simply hidden itself again or disappeared entirely. Just before vanishing, it seemed to glance back at Taro, an indistinct smile playing across its face.

"Could it be that the consciousness of that Kaioshin resides within this shadow?" Taro mused for a while. "But with so many parallel worlds, so many Kaioshins, and countless training chambers across the multiverse… could this ancient Kaioshin have scattered fragments of his consciousness across all the training chambers they left behind in these parallel worlds?"

Naturally, such a question was impossible to answer.

Leaving the training chamber, Taro walked to the end of the temporal corridor and found it empty — no surprise. Extending his senses to the outside world, he first felt the immense ki of the Grand Kai, then the varied energies of martial artists training on the Grand Kai's planet, ranging from weak to strong. Narrowing his range, he located the familiar ki of the King Kai. Accompanying him was Hathaway.

With a slight smile, Taro activated Instant Transmission.

Yet, in the same moment he used the technique, he suddenly realized something. In a split second, he altered his course, appearing near the pavilion where Hathaway and the King Kai were, rather than directly before them.

Through both sharp eyesight and his spreading spiritual sense, Taro had already observed that Hathaway's appearance had aged. When he had entered the Kaioshin's training chamber, Hathaway had still looked like a woman under thirty, radiating the youthfulness of her twenties combined with the allure of her early thirties. She had been at her most beautiful.

Now, however, she seemed much older. Even her once vibrant lavender hair had dimmed.

Taro was not someone who cared about outward appearances, but seeing Hathaway like this made him realize that his brief absence in the training chamber might have lasted many years in the outside world. Although he had suspected this in the ancient Kaioshin's realm, seeing it with his own eyes now left him melancholic.

It reminded him of Fanfan.

Taro stood in silence for a long time, aware that he still appeared as a man not yet thirty. If he walked out like this, would Hathaway react as Fanfan had? Would she also weep and beg him to leave? These thoughts weighed on Taro's chest. Taking a deep breath, he raised a hand to cover his face. Gradually, his jet-black hair turned white, and the skin on his neck began to show faint signs of age.

---

"Don't look at anyone else." Hathaway tapped Taro's forehead with her finger. Even though Taro was looking directly at her, she still said it. Her gaze, no longer youthful but even more pure, locked onto Taro's eyes. "I might have become an old hag, but you still have to keep your eyes on me."

Taro collected his thoughts, shaking his head. "I'm just an old man now too, aren't I?"

At this moment, the King Kai finally interrupted, "You two can catch up when you get back. For now... Taro, how did your training go?"

"I'm not hiding my ki," Taro replied, implying that the King Kai could sense it for himself.

"Really?" The King Kai frowned. "But... although your ki has improved significantly, it's…"

"The main purpose and result of this training was finding the path I truly want to follow," Taro said, shaking his head. "Where I train next doesn't matter, so there's no need to waste more time in there."

Training there might have yielded the best results.

However, considering Hathaway waiting for him outside, Taro had chosen to leave after a brief period of meditation in the radiant light, solidifying his foundation and summarizing his insights. Once he was firm in his resolve to leave, he found himself back in the ancient Kaioshin's training chamber.

"'In there'?" the King Kai asked, puzzled.

"It's a training ground left behind by an ancient Kaioshin." The Grand Kai suddenly appeared. This time, he wasn't carrying his trendy boombox. Glancing at Taro, he stroked his white beard with a smile. "So, how did it go?"

Taro calmly replied, "The Muken is not the path most suited to me."

The King Kai couldn't help but interject, "So, in these twenty-one years, all you've done in that training ground is 'find your path'?"

As the three discussed Taro's training, Hathaway stepped away. She approached the computer, shaking her head at the King Kai, who had earlier broken the keyboard with a single finger. Closing all the programs, she decided to leave it at that for now.

Taro withdrew his gaze and answered the King Kai, "Finding the path is enough."

Thinking of the Spirit Bomb technique the King Kai had kept hidden, Taro hesitated but ultimately decided not to ask for it. He had already grasped the key to communicating with and gathering natural ki on his own. Due to his unique god Tree physique, his ability to draw in and condense natural ki was likely superior to what the Spirit Bomb could achieve.

Of course, the Spirit Bomb merely gathered ki without integrating it into the body, whereas Taro needed to refine the natural ki bit by bit, gradually merging it into his being. Only then could he truly make it his own strength.

---

Not lingering on the Grand Kai's planet, Taro, having achieved results in his training, spoke briefly with the two Kais before taking Hathaway back to Earth.

Home.

"That guy... he always talks in half-measures," the King Kai muttered as he watched Taro and Hathaway vanish, along with those incomprehensible computers. Shaking his head, he sighed.

The Grand Kai, however, stroked his white beard with a chuckle. He had a premonition — one that had first arisen twenty-one years ago upon meeting Taro, but which had never been as strong as it was now. This Earthling named Taro might truly be the one the Kaioshin had been waiting for.

Someone who could become a god.

"Lord Kavishir, were you waiting for someone who could stand beside you?"

The elder sighed and left the pavilion.

Left behind, the King Kai was baffled. Eventually, he returned to his small planet to nap and count ants.

---

Taro first brought Hathaway back to their island.

Though both were eager to reunite with their long-separated son, Tam, in West City, they needed to return the bulky computer equipment to their home first.

"Caw!"

As they appeared on the island, a sharp cry echoed through the sky. Hathaway turned to look and smiled upon seeing the fiery silhouette streaking through the air. It was the very phoenix that had once carried her to catch up with her future husband. The immortal bird landed before Taro and Hathaway, its large eyes glistening with tears as it let out soft cries. Moved, Hathaway's eyes reddened as she crouched to hug the phoenix's neck. "You missed us, didn't you?"

"Caw, Caw." The phoenix flapped its broad wings, gently wrapping them around Hathaway's arms.

Taro stood nearby, shaking his head in mock reprimand. "How old are you now? Acting pitiful just because we were gone for a while. I've wasted all these years raising you."

The phoenix shrank back, looking aggrieved, and hid behind Hathaway. Shaking her head, Hathaway replied, "Can't you say something nice to it? Always so sharp-tongued but soft-hearted. And isn't it you who keeps bragging to me about raising such a great pet?" She glanced meaningfully at the phoenix as she spoke, clearly exaggerating the last part for its benefit.

As expected, the phoenix peeked out to look at Taro.

Taro playfully wagged his finger at it in the air, chuckling.

The phoenix chirped happily, flapping its wings as it soared into the sky, circling the island again and again in joy.

Using telekinesis, Taro guided the massive computer system to float along as they returned to their villa. Thanks to the magical barriers Taro had set up around the island and its surrounding forests, their home never needed to be locked. Only Hathaway, with the help of the phoenix, had ever been able to cross the mental and magical barriers covering the area.

Of course, even if the doors were locked, it wouldn't matter to someone like Taro.

Once the computer equipment was placed in the designated room as per Hathaway's instructions, Taro returned to the living room. He found Hathaway quietly observing the house's layout.

Taro approached and asked, "What's wrong?"

Hathaway shook her head and replied, "Tam… he hasn't come back."

Taro wasn't surprised. "You forgot he doesn't have the means to return."

Hathaway disagreed. "He could ride the Flying Nimbus back. The barriers around the island don't affect our family. If he wanted to, he could've come to visit."

Taro fell silent for a moment before replying, "Kids grow up. Just because he could ride the Nimbus as a child doesn't mean he still can." After a pause, seeing the look on his wife's face, he smiled. "I know you miss him. Let's go see him together."

Hathaway smoothed her hair and gave a soft smile, though worry lingered in her eyes.

The phoenix, which had followed them inside, flapped its wings. Taro flicked a finger in its direction with a chuckle. "Fine, we'll take you along too."

---

West City.

The bustling metropolis hadn't changed much in the past twenty-one years. The same towering skyscrapers, crisscrossing roads, and constant stream of vehicles filled the city. The most notable difference was the evolution of transportation. While old-fashioned wheeled cars still populated the streets, a few hover cars occasionally passed by. However, they ran on designated tracks, falling short of the ubiquitous flying vehicles Taro remembered from the Dragon Ball world.

Even the fashion of the citizens had shifted noticeably over the years.

Taro, Hathaway, and the phoenix — which Taro had shrunk down to the size of a red dove using transformation magic — walked the streets of West City. The phoenix, accustomed to this disguise in crowded areas, seemed unbothered. After all, in its true form, it often attracted stares and murmurs as though it were some rare novelty. Perched on Taro's shoulder, it blinked its large eyes and observed the bustling city below, finding little difference from what it had seen decades earlier.

Hathaway, on the other hand, carefully scanned her surroundings, as if searching for something. Suddenly, her gaze locked onto a sign hanging outside a second-floor window across the street: "Green Net Café."

A faint smile crossed her lips. Their son Tam hadn't wasted the opportunities she'd left for him. "Well done, my child."

Taro's eyes wandered to a massive building several stories high. On its exterior, a giant screen displayed an advertisement: "StarTech's latest desktop series, powered by the Hathaway5 processor…"

The company's logo was unmistakable. It was the very same one Hathaway had created for her operating system years ago.

"Desktop computers? StarTech?" Taro murmured with a grin.

Hathaway, smiling proudly, took his hand. "Let's go. To my parents' house."

---

In a park, a distinguished-looking man strolled with a little girl, holding her hand. His demeanor exuded calm authority, and his casual attire, though seemingly simple, revealed fine craftsmanship and high quality. Yet, an underlying melancholy clung to him, tempering his aura of success.

"Ninn, tomorrow is the weekend. Tell Daddy, where would you like to go?" the man asked, looking down at the child.

The little girl was stunningly beautiful, like a porcelain doll, and exceptionally quiet. Her bright, expressive eyes seemed to speak for her. Upon hearing the question, she tilted her head up and replied, "I want to see the 'Nimbus' Daddy always talks about!"

The man paused briefly before responding softly, "Didn't Daddy tell you? The Flying Nimbus is lost; I can't find it anymore."

"Oh…" Ninn nodded, sensing something amiss in her father's words but choosing not to press further. After a moment of thought, she asked, "Can't Grandpa find it either?"

"Ninn..." Tam crouched to lift his daughter into his arms. Looking into her intelligent eyes, he said seriously, "Daddy doesn't want you to talk about your grandpa, okay?"

"I upset Daddy," Ninn said, lowering her head.

"No, Daddy's not upset." Tam sighed, but the little girl remained silent, her head bowed. He stroked her soft, wavy purple hair and said gently, "Alright, maybe Daddy is a little upset, but that's because of your troublesome grandpa. It has nothing to do with you, understand?"

Only then did Ninn lift her head, nodding quietly. In a soft voice, she said, "Ninn will be good and won't mention Grandpa, because Daddy doesn't like hearing about him. Even though Ninn really wants to meet Grandpa."

Tam's rough hand ruffled her hair, and he chuckled. "Where did this clever little girl come from? Are you trying to tease Daddy?"

The quiet girl smiled, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth — though one front tooth was missing. Realizing this, she quickly pressed her lips together. A missing tooth is ugly; no one can see it.

"Haha, my little fashionista," Tam laughed. "How about we visit Great-Grandma's house?"