Yamcha never imagined he would end up in his current situation as the so-called Desert Wolf. When he first left the town with that martial arts manual he had picked up, he had only wanted to become a respected and powerful martial artist. But before he realized it, he had spent years surviving on the outskirts of the desert, waylaying travelers for a living.
Thanks to his decent skills—and the unique nature of the desert—Yamcha had never encountered anyone from the Martial Arts Association playing hero around him. Of course, that was also because he never went too far. He never targeted the truly weak. Even when he did rob someone, he only took half their belongings.
After all, the manual he found had once belonged to a notorious scoundrel that everyone wanted a piece of.
After years of grinding through the desert, Yamcha had finally grown confident that he had gradually improved the techniques from the manual and made them his own. How many years had it been since he left that little town? He couldn't even recall his youthful dreams clearly anymore. The pretty little girl from the village had faded from his memory too—he couldn't even remember her name.
Strangely, he had grown more afraid of girls as time passed...
At some point, Yamcha had started turning bright red and getting tongue-tied every time he saw a girl. He couldn't explain it—was it a psychological thing? A disorder? A phobia? Maybe, deep down, he felt unworthy of facing that clean, innocent girl from his hometown in the state he was in now.
He really wasn't sure.
But that was all in the past.
Then, a stunningly beautiful face appeared in his mind. What a gorgeous girl—fresh and charming. Though drenched in sweat, it only added to her allure. Beads of sweat rolled down her neck, tracing along her delicate collarbones, sliding into...
The sweaty girl looked at him, her face filled with concern.
Was she worried about me...? Hehehe... heh...
"Yamcha! Yamcha!"
The beautiful girl's lips opened—but the voice that came out was his pet Puar's!
What the hell!?
---
Yamcha suddenly snapped his eyes open, startling Puar, who was floating in front of his face.
"Yamcha, you're finally awake!" Puar let out a sigh of relief. He was thrilled. Yamcha's condition of blushing around girls had gotten worse—he actually fainted this time!
"..."
Yamcha lay on the ground, mouth agape. The chasm between dream and reality left him devastated. Where was that beautiful girl? His eyes darted around, and from his upside-down perspective, a girl with a purple single ponytail entered his field of view. Yamcha immediately filtered out the spiky-haired boy beside her and the half-shaven head behind that—his gaze locked directly onto her.
So it wasn't a dream...
Bulma frowned. This guy was so annoying, always staring at her so rudely. Sure, it was probably because she was too beautiful, but still—couldn't he at least be more subtle about it? With a huff, she snapped, "You're awake? Then get up already! We've still got a long way to go..."
"Goku, Krillin, let's go."
She called out as she took out her capsule case, slid her fingers over it, and selected a fresh capsule. Tossing it out onto the half-sand, half-rock ground outside the cave—BOOM!—a convertible off-road vehicle popped into existence.
"Why didn't you pull that out earlier?!" Krillin, the little bald guy, followed her into the car, grumbling.
"There are so many capsules, how would I remember what's in every one?" Bulma took the driver's seat like it was the most natural thing in the world. Whether she was telling the truth or not, only she knew. Without even turning her head, she said, "Goku, let's go!"
"Okay!" Goku had eaten his fill and regained his strength. He looked at Yamcha, sensing this guy might be really strong. But whatever—Bulma was already on the move. Goku leapt onto his floating Nimbus Cloud, and vwoom—he shot out of the cave, quickly catching up with Bulma and Krillin.
Yamcha didn't even notice that Goku had a flying Nimbus. He just stood there, staring blankly at the car disappearing into the distance, not snapping out of it for a long while.
Puar, puzzled, called from beside him, "Yamcha? Yamcha?"
Yamcha finally blinked and came back to reality, letting out an awkward laugh.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Uh..." Yamcha scratched his face, then suddenly clapped his hands together and deliberately put on a sinister grin. "Puar, did you notice just now? That girl's capsule case... Ha, she's a rich little chick!"
"Ah! Yamcha-sama, don't tell me you're planning to...?" Puar jumped in surprise, eyeing him suspiciously. "But aren't you really scared of girls? Especially pretty ones..."
Its voice grew quieter and quieter under Yamcha-sama's gentle side glance.
Meanwhile, in the off-road convertible speeding away, Bulma was driving one-handed while pressing buttons on the Dragon Radar with the other. The signal for the final Dragon Ball was still far away—probably a few hundred kilometers. If they didn't want to cross the desert straight through, they'd need to take a detour.
Elsewhere, in a barren wasteland.
In a labyrinthine underground fortress, inside a hidden command room.
A small green-skinned dwarf, wearing a black-and-red cap, sat in front of a console. Whether he was a fan of the old Planet Company or what, no one knew, but the front of his cap bore a pattern that looked like the One-Star Dragon Ball—also the logo of Planet Company.
His outfit was even more ridiculous. On the front of his shirt were two big characters meaning fried rice, and because of his build, they took up the entire space, making him look all the more absurd.
This self-proclaimed Emperor Pilaf pressed a button on the console in front of him. From the ceiling, a large spherical device dropped down—it was a special kind of globe. On its surface, seven light dots glowed. One of them overlapped with their current coordinates, while the other six were grouped together, steadily moving toward this location…
"Whoever you are, those six Dragon Balls… will stay right here." Pilaf chuckled darkly, clutching the Two-Star Ball in his hand.
---
Another week or so passed.
On Muten Island.
Hathaway flew back toward the island riding the Phoenix. She had just finished a full day of work at the West City research facility. Earlier, she'd heard from Fabeli that Gero had quietly left the institute more than half a year ago. Hathaway found it a bit regrettable—he had been a truly talented young man. A pity they had such different ambitions.
Sure enough, when she got home, her husband Taro was already waiting for her mid-air.
Whoosh whoosh—the Phoenix flapped its wings, hovering beside Taro.
Taro stroked the Phoenix's feathers, chatting and laughing with Hathaway as they flew toward the house at the center of the island.
"Jarvis logged an incident of destroying a civilian surveillance device... did you ask him to do that?" Hathaway asked with a smile, stepping off the Phoenix while holding Taro's hand. She removed the headband that shielded against high-altitude wind currents.
Taro nodded. "Yeah, I did. Because... I didn't want Bulma to see that footage."
"Oh? It was somewhere Bulma and Goku passed through?" Hathaway had already heard about Bulma finding Goku and the two of them beginning their journey to search for the Dragon Balls. With Taro's words, she instantly pieced it together.
"Goku was drugged. His main personality was knocked unconscious, and the Kakarot persona broke free from my seal. But since it was induced entirely through chemicals, the timing wasn't ideal—so even Kakarot wasn't completely lucid. Acting on instinct, he ended up devouring that orc who harbored malicious intent…"
Taro said this calmly.
"What…" Hathaway was stunned. She frowned slightly. "Does Goku know about it? Wouldn't that leave some trauma…"
"You're overthinking it. Goku's heart is pure. He doesn't dwell on things. As for Kakarot... even if he finds out what he did later, I doubt he'd care. Saiyans are naturally brutal." Taro shook his head.