23

Chi-Chi reached the top of the tower a few hours later when the sun was already beginning to set on the horizon. She felt exhausted, of course... but much less so than the first time she had done it. And she knew immediately that she couldn't blame it solely on not having started from the bottom.

She quickened her pace as soon as her eyes fell on her goal, forcing her arms to overcome the pain and fatigue so that she could reach the top more quickly.

Once she had reached the lower part of the summit again and could touch solid ground once more, only then did she let exhaustion overcome her, and she threw herself down on her back. She was breathing heavily and felt her arms and legs ache. But again, it was much less than her first experience a few days ago.

She lay there for a while until she felt ready to stand up again and headed for the stairs leading to the top. Dusk had just begun, and the sky was tinted orange. The clouds had cleared, and a warm breeze was blowing, caressing the aching muscles in her arms. She found Master Korin standing right in the center of the wide terrace, his back to her, although he turned in her direction as soon as Chi-Chi set foot on that level. He still carried his wooden staff with him and the blue and gold vase hanging from it.

"I see you're back," Korin said, his tone almost indifferent. "Take it."

The hermit cat quickly threw something at her, and Chi-Chi reacted by catching it out of the air with one hand. She knew what it was before she opened her palm and looked at it: a tiny Senzu bean.

"Thank you," Chi-Chi murmured, giving him a slight nod of her head as a sign of respect and gratitude. She quickly ate the seed, and instantly, the pain and fatigue disappeared from her body by magic.

"How are you feeling?" Korin asked, still feeling a bit cold in his words.

"Better... But..."

Chi-Chi was silent for a moment, then lowered her head in shame.

"I could have died," she blurted out suddenly, with deep regret in her voice. "The Flying Nimbus... rejected me..."

"But you managed to survive."

That didn't sound like a question, but Chi-Chi thought so; a reasonable question about how exactly she had managed to get out of such a terrible situation unscathed, which even surprised her.

"I used my ki. I managed to expel ki from my hands like Goku does. But I had never done it before; I didn't know if it would work."

"And you managed to climb the tower again, too," Master Korin said thoughtfully. "How did it go this time?"

"Much easier. I felt lighter doing it, faster..."

Korin nodded, pleased with the answer.

"And why do you think you were able to do all that?"

Chi-Chi didn't answer right away. She looked down again, but this time, she was looking at her hands, which she was slowly opening and closing, almost as if she was getting used to the movement of her own fingers. There was something different, and she could feel it vividly. She was different now...

"Because... I've become a little stronger," she said after a while and raised her gaze again to Korin, who nodded immediately, and Chi-Chi thought she could even see his smile. "All this time, you haven't been making fun of me or wasting my time. You've been training me..."

Korin didn't respond to that comment, but Chi-Chi didn't need to. She knew full well that it was true.

"But then, the Sacred Water...?"

"The Sacred Water is just normal water, like the kind you've always drank," Korin quickly clarified, causing Chi-Chi to jump in surprise. "This was never about drinking the water itself, but about you achieving the speed, strength, and most importantly, the mental clarity necessary to be able to take the vessel from me."

"Why didn't you tell me that from the beginning?" Chi-Chi exclaimed reproachfully.

"I told you, did you forget? I clearly told you that if you managed to drink this water," he indicated, shaking his stick lightly, making the vessel rock, "you would have become much stronger than you are now."

"But to drink it, I would have to be able to take it away. Which would mean..."

Chi-Chi frowned slightly, her discontent clearly visible in her expression.

"That's very misleading, don't you think?"

Korin let out one of his usual strange mocking laughs, which had quickly driven Chi-Chi to despair, but it was the least of her worries at that moment.

"And yet you managed to realize it yourself," Korin pointed out, still somewhat cheerful as he did so. "Would it surprise you to know that neither Goku nor Roshi realized this until after they drank the water?"

Chi-Chi started in surprise, which helped her put aside some of her anger.

"The truth is that it doesn't surprise me that much coming from Goku. But are you telling me that Master Roshi spent three years trying to take the vessel from you without realizing your true intentions?"

Korin laughed again as before, although he quickly adopted a more serious attitude again.

"To be fair, it's quite possible that he had already guessed it before, of course. What I can tell you is that everyone who has managed to get here in search of the power of the Sacred Water has done so for different purposes. To be the strongest, defeat an invincible enemy, save a loved one... And as I told you, motivations are not bad; they give us the strength to move forward. But it is very easy for them to blind us and not allow us to see what is right in front of us. Only when you manage to get rid of everything that distracts you, is when you manage to find enough clarity and balance to do what is needed. But you already experienced that yourself, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Chi-Chi whispered out of pure reflex. "When I was falling, I only managed to calm down and do what I had to do when I let go of everything else."

"It was quite an eye-opener, wasn't it?" Korin commented, nodding slowly. "I figured such an experience might do you good. That's why I ordered the Flying Nimbus to drop you."

Chi-Chi was so lost in her thoughts, and the discovery of everything that had happened meant that it took her mind longer than expected to process those last words fully. But after a few seconds, astonishment and confusion took over her face.

"What did you say?!" the woman exclaimed loudly, incredulous.

"That's right," Korin nodded, seemingly unfazed by the reaction his words had provoked in his guest. "You surely know that I gave that cloud to Goku, don't you? I have the ability to command it to change states if I require it. That's how you passed through it."

"Have you lost your mind?!" Chi-Chi snapped, advancing towards him with a clearly furious attitude. "You could have killed me!"

"True," Korin replied matter-of-factly. "But as I said, I thought an experience like that might be useful to you in understanding what we're doing here."

Chi-Chi stopped less than a meter away from Korin, looking down at him in annoyance, her fists clenched tightly at her sides, and her lips pursed in a grimace that almost looked like pain. However, even though she might seem upset from all accounts, the old master could clearly sense that it was actually about something else; anger was almost always just a mask for something else. And this was most noticeably externalized when the woman lowered her gaze again, and small traces of tears threatened to escape from her eyes.

"How could you?" she reproached him, her voice radiating more pain than anger. "I thought for a moment... I thought that..."

She wasn't able to finish her sentence, but Korin knew immediately what she was trying to say and what was causing her so much pain. It hadn't been the deception or even the possibility of dying. What hurt her at that moment was something else...

"You thought your heart had lost its purity, didn't you?" the hermit cat said solemnly. Chi-Chi remained silent, looking at the ground with her dark hair covering her face. "It isn't, but I'm afraid it was pretty close. Your pure heart is your greatest strength right now, my child, even if it doesn't seem that way. If you let the feelings of hate and anger, and especially the desire for revenge, continue to dominate you as before, you will lose yourself in them. And that would be a pitiful loss. So let go of all those emotions that corrupt you. Let go of suffering; let go of hate; let go of guilt..."

"Guilt?" Chi-Chi exclaimed in dismay, quickly raising her face again. Her eyes and cheeks were wet.

"You can't hide it, not from me. More than all the other emotions, the one that dominates you the most right now is guilt. Isn't that true?"

Chi-Chi didn't respond, which was enough of an answer.

"Why?" Korin asked shrewdly, prompting her to speak. It seemed as if Chi-Chi wouldn't give any answer for a moment, as she just stood there unsteadily, her body trembling slightly.

"Because... because..." she stammered in a small voice, hugging herself as she tried to calm a cold that didn't exist. "Because I'm weak," she finally said, feeling as if those words were scraping her throat as they came out. "Because I'm stupid... Because I'm a coward... Because I couldn't protect my family... I hate Piccolo for taking my son. I hate Goku for leaving me alone with all this. I hate these Saiyans for destroying my family. I hate Krillin and the others for leaving me behind. But..."

Her voice broke off, and a series of sharp sobs took the place of her words. Her body shook even more, her arms clung tighter to her body, and heavy, dense tears began to flow from her without restraint.

"I hate myself even more for not being able to do anything about it!" she exclaimed loudly into the air.

As if all the strength in her body were escaping with her, she collapsed to her knees on the ground. She then leaned her body forward until her forehead almost touched the ground. And there she stayed for a long time, just crying and moaning, allowing herself to feel all that stabbing pain that pierced her chest.

It was painful but liberating to be able to say it out loud. She had felt so lost and alone on that whole trip, carrying on her shoulders a heavy rock that she actually felt unable to hold. It was much easier to blame Goku, Piccolo, Krillin, and even Master Korin for all her ills than to accept her inability to protect her son and husband and the life she had built with them and loved so much.

She felt so frustrated, so helpless, so useless... Letting herself fall and crashing to the ground would have been the easiest thing to do, and perhaps even the best thing for everyone. But she still hadn't done it; she had clung to life until the very last moment.

As time passed, Chi-Chi seemed to calm down. Her crying lessened, as did the trembling in her body. All this time, Korin remained standing in his place, silent, just waiting. When it seemed that his guest was feeling better, he dared to approach her cautiously and placed one of his claws on her back in a comforting manner.

"The moment you can let go of all that, you will become the great warrior you can be," he told her in a firm but comforting voice. "But now, tell me. What is it that you want to do?"

Chi-Chi slowly stood up and rubbed her face with her hands, wiping away any traces of tears. Her eyes and cheeks were red. Korin had taken his distance from her again and extended the staff with the vessel in her direction.

"You know that the content of this vessel is only water," the hermit said. "With that in mind, what will you do now?"

Chi-Chi stared at the vessel in silence for a while. She finished wiping her face, then stood up, adopting the firmest posture possible given the situation.

"You told me you would let me go up to see Kamisama if I took the vase from you. That was true?" she asked in a harsh voice.

"I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it," Korin replied, nodding.

The young warrior nodded as well; that was all she needed to hear.

"Then let's continue."

Without further ado, Chi-Chi quickly adopted a combat stance. Korin smiled with satisfaction and got into position as well. The sun was already setting on the horizon, when Chi-Chi launched herself towards the old master again, extending her hands towards the longed-for vessel of water.

Author's Notes:

I'm just stopping by to comment that, regarding Korin's ability to order the Flying Nimbus to release someone, I based it on what he does in an episode of Dragon Ball with the Dark Nimbus carrying Tao Pai Pai. I understand that this only happens in the anime, but well... Let's suppose that a similar principle could be applied to the Golden Flying Nimbus we know if it were necessary to do so.