Chapter 26

"Supper, no!" Tea cried out, as Supper jumped after the falling jug. Without thinking any further, he jumped after her, before Karin could stop him. "Idiot," Karin muttered. He lifted his stick up. "Kintoen!" he called out, and a strange yellow cloud hovered above him. "Bring those two back up here," he commanded, and the cloud flew down, following his orders. Karin waited expectantly at the top, hoping that the magical cloud wasn't too late.

A minute later, the Kintoen appeared at the top of the tower, carrying with it Supper who was triumphantly holding the precious jug of water. Beside her was her brother, but there was something different about him. "Tea! Supper! Are you all right?" Karin asked anxiously, the did a double take as Tea, who now had black hair instead of blond, asked him instead, "Who are you?"

Karin was speechless for a moment. What had happened to Tea? He turned to Supper for answers, but she was still too overjoyed with her prize to realise Karin's bewilderment. "Look, Karin-sama. We got the magical water. Can we drink it now?" she asked. The brown cat just nodded, and Supper took a swig, then offered it to her brother. "Thank you, Supper," Tea said politely and took a sip. That was really uncharacteristic of him. He was acting more like Supper rather than his usual self. By now, Supper had looked at herself and Tea expectantly, hoping for some kind of effect from the water, but feeling and seeing nothing. "What does the water do?" she asked Karin, who just shrugged. "Nothing." he repied matter-of-factly. "It's just ordinary water."

"What?!" Supper exclaimed. "You tricked us into trying to get it off you--" "Exactly," Karin said, "and you have to admit, it's good exercise for you two. Now, can you tell me what has happened to Tea?"

"Tea? Oh, watch," Supper took off the feather she was wearing in her hair, which was the style in which the girls of the village dressed. She brushed the feather lightly over Tea's nose, who sneezed once and instantly turned blond again.

"Supper!" he exclaimed. "What happened?" And then he realised. "Oh no. It's happened again."

"Don't say that, Tea," Supper said. "I miss seeing you like that."

"I told you, I don't want to change into me with black hair. It makes me weak." Even as he said it, Tea felt a pang of guilt. The double personality was a trait from their mother which only he inherited, and he didn't want to be disrespectful or ungrateful to her. But the black hair personality was soft, and when he was in that mode, he couldn't fight well, and couldn't protect his sister. Plus, when changing from one mode to another, he would lose memory from the other self, and this leads to a lot of danger when one was living on the streets. He remembered the day when they both nearly died in a street fight. They were only saved when the blond personality emerged. Tea won the fight, but Supper was seriously injured. It wouldn't have happened if he were in the blond mode from the start. And from that day, Tea swore never to let his other personality emerge, ever again. He'll be the aggressive, yellow-haired streetsmart Tea, even if he did miss the softer side of himself. But he had to be tough, Tea told himself, in order to survive the harsh life of the streets and to take care of Supper.

"But you don't have to be," Supper said. "And you don't have to protect me anymore. We've both grown so much stronger than we ever were when we were living in the streets, and we're not going back there. This is our home now." She knew exactly what he was thinking.

"She's right, you know. The two of you are way stronger than the average human now, although not yet in the league of Upa," Karin interrupted. "Moreover, if you only rely on your current personality to win the battle, then you're fighting with a major weakness anyway, and sooner or later somebody will figure it out and exploit it."

Tea said nothing. He knew Karin was right. But what could he do about it other than repressing the soft personality from ever emerging?

"Don't worry, Tea," Karin answered his unasked question. "I'm sure there's a way to control the double personality and use it to your advantage. What advantage, you ask?" He winked and gestured to the yellow cloud beside them. "Try sitting on the Kintoen," he said to Tea.

"The what? What is this thing?" Tea wondered, poking his fingers into the yellow magical cloud. "You rode it to get back here after you jumped off just now," Karin informed him. "Why don't you try sitting on it now?" Tea shrugged and leaped above the cloud, expecting to sit on it, only to find himself falling right through the Kintoen and landed hard on his butt on the floor.

"Ow!" he cried out, then faced Karin angrily. "What's your point, cat? Why did you trick me? If it's to show how easy it is to be duped when I lose my memory from the transformation, I already know that."

"But you did ride it, Tea," Supper interrupted. "I rode it too." She jumped up and landed perfectly on the cloud. "Look, I'm sitting on it. I didn't fall, " she said to the astonished Tea.

"But why can't I sit on it now if I could when my hair is black?" Tea wondered.

Karin smiled. "The Kintoen," he explained, "is a magical cloud. Only those with a pure heart can ride it."

Tea gaped. "If that's so, does that mean I'm--"

"Everybody is a mixture of purity and evil," Karin said. "In most people, the mixture is evenly balanced, but at one end you have people like TaoPaiPai, and at the other end there's people like Supper." He turned to face her. "It's extremely rare to find people like you. In fact in my lifetime, and I've lived a long time, I've ever known only one person who could ride the Kintoen right up to adulthood." That person was of course, Son Goku - an irony that the one born from a race of vicious killers possessed a heart so pure. "As the number of people capable of riding the Kintoen declined, so does the Kintoen itself. This is the only one that exists now," Karin continued, turning his attention back to Tea. "As for you, your unique ability to split between your good and not-so-good personalities just saved your life in this case. So you shouldn't think of being pure as a weakness, Tea," he said gently. "In many ways, it's stronger than any physical strength you could ever dream of."

He let the twins soak in all he's told them, as he bent down to pick up the jug. That they've been able to knock it off him in such a short while was proof of their strength, agility and their ability to co-operate well with each other. "A good thing you managed to catch the jug before the Kintoen caught you, Supper," Karin said. "I didn't," Supper corrected him. "At least not the first time. I tried to catch it, but it was too far down. Then suddenly I found myself sitting on the Kintoen, and the next thing I knew, Tea fell down and landed right on top of me. I guess that was when the feather got to his nose and made him sneeze."

"Then, how did you get the jug?" Karin asked.

"Well, I saw that it was about to reach the ground, so I jumped after it," Supper replied. "Luckily, I managed to catch it before it touched the ground."

"Then, the Kintoen caught you again?" Karin asked.

"Yes, but before it did, I thought I was going to fall to my death. So I tried to float like Tsuru did, and I managed to do it, for a while. But I tell you, it was really hard to keep it up. I was falling again when the Kintoen came and saved me." She patted the cloud fondly as though it was her favourite pet.

Karin and Tea were astonished. "You... you can fly now?" Tea asked disbelievingly. If he didn't know her well enough, he'd say she made the story up. But of course he knew she's quite incapable of lying. Supper nodded, beaming. "But only for a minute," she said.

"Show me!" Tea pleaded. "I'll try," Supper said, "but I don't really know how I did it just now. I just remember concentrating..." She closed her eyes and concentrated hard. Nothing happened. Seconds passed. Then slowly, slowly, she began to rise in the air, to Tea and Karin's amazement, before crashing down on the floor, panting heavily. It was only an inch above the floor, and for less than thirty seconds, but float she did.

Tea was excited, enough to abandon his tough guy facade. "You can fly!" he exclaimed. "Teach me!" He grabbed Supper, who was getting up from the floor, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Clearly, flying was very taxing on her energy. "I still don't quite know how to do it," Supper said. "We'll learn together," she said as she allowed Tea to help her up.

Karin just smiled silently to himself as he watched them. Obviously, they were very talented, more so than the average human. Maybe one day they will become the new protectors of Earth, now an empty position with the death of Trunks. Of course, they'll never be a strong as a Saiyajin, but at least they can be the next generation of warriors like in the days before Son Goku.

Karin cleared his throat. "This is an unexpected development. To celebrate this occasion, there will be some changes in your training starting from tomorrow. You'll carry twice the load and you must climb in half the time you took today."

Tea and Supper fell over in shock. They were expecting less workload on their training after today's demonstration of Supper's new ability.

"To be able to fly, you'll need to be able to control your ki," Karin explained, much like what Tsuru told Supper months ago. "To do that, your body and mind must be strong and disciplined enough. So that's why you need even more intensive training." He smiled. "I'm happy to have students as talented as you. I'm really looking forward to training you ki techniques."

The sun set, ending the day. But a new day will begin, and new challenges for the two warriors in the making.

Chapter 27
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