Chapter Forty

Seeing how Hit is the only member of your team that's available and you haven't trained yet you decide to hit him up next. Hehehe... "hit" him up.

But before you go you have a sudden epiphany. "Hey kids. I'm going to go and get myself a cold shower. And by that I mean I'll have Hit beat me silly. Wanna watch?

Maybe join?"

"Let's leave that as a "maybe watch". And we'll consider it."

"Good." You then turn your attention to your little girl. "And how about you- er... We really need a name for you don't we?"

You sit down and she hops in your lap while giggling. "A name! A name!"

"Hmmmm..." You start thinking about a name that'd be fitting for her but when attempting to come up with a fruit pun you come up kinda short. Your mind is not tailored for that kind of autism, no yours is a different spectrum.

"What do you guys think?"

"Vanilla?"

"Too obvious."

"Banana?"

"Are you serious?" You ask them. "Okay fuck it. Cranberry, strawberry, lingo- LYN! How does that sound little one? Would you like to be called Lyn?"

"Yehehey! LYN!"

"You seem to like it! Lyn it is!" You pull her in for a therapeutic hug.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Kamin asks while smiling.

"Uh-huh!" While answering her you run your hand through Lyns hair. "Hmmmm... we'll have to do something with your hair. Brushing this will be a nightmare... Maybe I could get Kale to give you a ponytail like hers..."

After the rather unceremonious baptism of the newly christened Lyn you made your way to Hit as he's the last person you haven't sparred with and one you really wanted to do but simply had other shit to worry about. The moment he notices your and your kids' arrival he raises an eyebrow and starts voicing his concerns.

"Are... you having a tea party or something?"

"No, not really. I just thought you might want to get in some training before the big event."

"And... the children? I hardly think this is appropriate for them."

You shrug. "I don't want them out of sight, especially Lyn."

"Lyn? You named her already?"

"Of course I did! She needed a name."

"Hmmm... I just didn't think you'd get that attached to a Tuffle... Speaking of which, what mind altering substance were you on to think laying with one of those... things is a good idea?" Hit asks you coldly, much to your confusion.

"Wait. You know about Tuffles?"

"Of course I do. I knew them even before they willingly turned themselves into abominations."

"Rrrrright. Thousand years old. You know, I keep forgetting that because you certainly don't act your age-"

"Neither does Vados but you don't seem to have a problem with her."

You rub the bridge of your nose in frustration.

"Okay... I'm gonna be straight with you here. I didn't impregnate just any Tuffle. I impregnated their entire planet. If that makes any sense."

"Waitwha-"

"But never mind that.

I got some neat stuff to show you."

Hit then takes a deep breath and sighs.

"Very well... Let's just... forget that ever happened."

"My thoughts exactly!"

With that settled you start pondering how you should handle this.

You nudge your head to the side. "Come. I got something to show you."

Setting up two logs next to one another and gently placing a wooden board on top of them. Patting the little set-up you smiled at the assassin. "Looks familiar?"

"The same method I used to teach you."

"Exactly. But here's a little twist."

Walking behind the logs you set up an identical set of wooden beams with another board seated on top of them. They stood diagonally away from the first one, making it nigh impossible to hit both with one attack.

"In the Makai... I had to endure constantly changing temperature, air pressure, wind and even gravity. The first time I tried to use the Flash Fist it hit its first target but then it started careening out of control."

Extending your fist you shoot out a line of kinetic energy which pierces the first target, breaking it in half before it begins to turn around in the air and striking the second one in the back. Hit observes the technique keenly before speaking up. "So that's what lead you to develop this technique."

"Sort of. At first I just used it to straighten the attack out. But after a while I realized I could do so much more with it. Care to give it a try?"

"Hmmmm..." Walking up to a fresh pair of boards which you set up Hit extended his hand and fired. The attack did not come out straight, instead it shot out at a diagonal angle and pierced both boards in one go. "Not good..."

Confused you ask him what's wrong. "What... happened?"

"I understand the principle... but I have to fight a thousand year of muscle memory... To tell you the truth I didn't think this technique could be developed in such a manner so I'm... still taking it in."

"Ah, I see-" You pause. Unsure how you could teach this old dog a new trick.

"Hey kids!" You speak up. "How about you lend me a hand here? Hit's a practical guy so I'm sure he'd prefer a more... active training session."

The Tuffles look up and shrug. "Okay I guess."

"Fine by me."

"YEAY!"

You look down at Lyn and pat her head.

"Not you sweety. You be a good girl and watch. But you can cheer for daddy and your siblings if you want to."

"YEAY!"The starry eyed girl then neatly sat down and hugged her own legs while rooting for you. "GO DADDY!"

Meanwhile Hit just gives you a little smirk.

"Three against one? That hardly seems fair... for you."

"Oh I wouldn't talk like that if I were you Hit."

You respond while cracking your neck.

"My kids alone would be enough... but then who'd teach you?"

"Heh. Smartass!"

"Can you like... not call us your kids?"

"Yeah. It's embarrassing. If we weren't artificially created we'd be barely younger than you!"

"Oh hush now children! I know you like it!

Now... how about some family bonding?"

They both exchange a quick look before giving you a nod. "Excellent! Now remember! No hitting the ouchie places, no cheating and make sure to play safe... But most importantly: Have fun! BREAK!"

The three of you take off and each start making your way towards Hit from different angles. Obviously he's very capable of reading your movements and tries to dodge. But when things start to heat up and your kids close the distance he prepares to use time-skip as an escape measure. Much to his surprise though, not only you but the twins can follow him as well.

Jumping into skipped time you smash into Hit simultaneously with the twins. "WHAT?!" He shouts in surprise.

"Did I not mention that they'd be enough for you?" You ask him as you break out of skipped time. "They were designed with you in mind as well!"

As you throw your combined punch the assassin is sent flying backwards, only stopped by his own burst of energy.

Hit dusts off his forearm and then lowers them without pocketing either hand.

"Looks like this'll be an actual challenge... good."

Managing to fully synchronize your assault with the two kids you start dashing around the place at lightning fast speeds, leaving after images behind whenever you quickly change directions. This erratic movement really throws off Hit as he has to keep all your individual movements in mind, all the while he can't reliably use his time-skip.

Raising his guard he stays on the defensive while you start unloading attacks into him.

Alternating between each other, you take turns to swoop in and attempt to ram your fist into him. To his credit Hit does manage to either block or parry all of your attacks, minimizing the damage he receives. But that still leaves him in a bad spot as he can't reliably deal damage back.

Once or twice he desperately lashes out with a Flash Fist Crush but each time you make a beeline towards him and take the attack in the stead of your kids who then promptly counter him. This goes on for a while until Hits legs start shaking under the duress. "What's wrong Hit? You won't last much longer like this!"

"Evidently not." He grunts as the twins rush him and start raining blows on him. When they end their combination attack they break away from the assassin with a cocky grin.

"What's wrong old man?" "Can't believe it's this easy!" The kids start getting cocky as you approach them.

"Don't let it get to your head. He's barely winded and if I wasn't around he'd have wounded at least one of you. Not to mention he's holding back a whole lot right now."

The twins then shut up as they realize what you're saying is true. "Alright... Again!"

You split up once more and resume bouncing around the place at ludicrous speeds, waiting for Hit to make a move. Hit then looks down at his shaking right hand and tightens it into a fist. "HAAAA!"

He throws out a punch and out comes the typical attack aimed at one of the children.

Like usual you swoop in and try to block it but this time it curves around you and starts tracking Oren who looks really surprised by this.

"WHOAWHOAWHOA!" He spreads his arms and a sphere of blue energy engulfs him.

The bubble bursts in an explosion and pushes the blast away like some sort of reactive armor. "Phew... that was close."

"Nice on Hit!" You shout to him.

"Hey! I almost got injured there! Oren complains.

"Oh? Are you saying that could've hurt you?

I didn't realize you were that soft. Want me to kiss your boo-boos?"

"Grrr..."

Hit then gives his hand a few more test squeezes. "Interesting." He then looks up at you with a smirk. "It seems I still have ways to go. But I must congratulate you! You are the second person in the multiverse that could push me to greater heights!"

"Thanks!" You land in front of him.

Hearing his compliment you start cackling like a madman. "Oh really? You like this?

Boy you're in for a surprise.... Hey kids! Don't interfere in this one!"

Hit does not react but instead raises an eyebrow. Grinning ear to ear you assume a lower stance and kick yourself off from the ground. "Here comes!"

Charging Hit head on you pull your fist back and the hitman just stares you down in confusion. He visibly tenses up and prepares his muscles for the incoming time-skip but he's shocked when it doesn't come. Raising his guard quickly he parries your attack and with his free arm prepares an immediate counterattack. However...

When he attempts to strike back he feels a sharp pain first stinging him in the chest before it spreads throughout his body, reverberating. With a gasp he involuntarily spits up some saliva as he's taken back by the invisible attack. "What's this?!" He asks, clearly shocked.

You pull back and pivoting on the ball of your foot try to deliver a spinning heel kick to his face. Instinctively Hit blocks you and then carefully observes you to see if the same thing happens again and if so, where it is coming from. Once again taken by surprise he feels an intense blow landing on his head without a clearly visible source. As he's falling on the ground he does a quick time-skip to reorientate himself so he lands on his feet instead.

"Where is the attack coming from?! Is it invisible?!"

You chuckle. "No. Watch carefully."

As you assault him again Hit doesn't even bother to raise his guard as it's clearly futile.

Instead he's watching your body intensely, trying to figure out what's going on. He spots your muscles tensing up before they begin to vibrate and seemingly realizes what's going on... and lets you punch him in the chest.

You let out a little smirk as both of you simultaneously use time-skip.

The world goes clear around you and within this realm that looks like shattered glass Hit finally sees your transparent afterimage performing the same motions you did but with a delay. He raises his hand and catches the specter representing the kinetic energy of your attacks. He smiles.

"How peculiar..."

The effect ends for you and Hit is kind enough to stop his own as well. As time melts of those crystaline structures freezing it in place, things return to normal and the regular world fades back into reality. Hit doesn't break his smile of satisfaction.

"It never occurred to me to apply my time-skip in such a manner. Applying it to yourself partially to achieve such an effect. How did you... create it?"

You scratch the back of your head with a goofy smile on your face. "I was just messing around with time-skip! That's all. I wanted to extend the effect like you do but I... couldn't. So I started erm... "pressing buttons randomly" as it were. Dial things back a bit here, crank them up there. Until I accidentally figured this out. It's not particularly strong but it's one heck of a surprise!"

He nods. "And confusing. Not many people could figure it out. Especially if they don't have the ability to break through the time barrier."

Hit then assumes「THE STANCE」 and proceeds to do a time-skip with some minimal motion thrown into it. Then you watch as a ghostly outline appears behind him, retracing his motions. "Is this how you do it?"

You nod. "Yep. That's the spice!"

"Hmhmhmhmhm." Hit chuckles. "Looks like my faith in you paid off! Would you mind if I used this little... trick of yours in the future?"

"Are you kidding? I'd be honored! Buuuut... I 'unno. With the whole tournament shebang happening I'm in need of some good shit.

You know... in case things go wrong."

"If things go wrong and you'll end up fighting the ones we are supposed to take down, we simply loose. That's it."

"Are they REALLY that strong? I know I keep asking that but it seems so hard to imagine someone that YOU GUYS would have trouble with."

Hit then shuts his eyes and you can see how intensely he's focusing on recalling the events of the last event. "I managed to knock one of them out. But I caught him off guard and he was severely weakened. While I'm confident in my ability... I'm afraid he wouldn't go down that easily this time."

"Saiyans..."

"Saiyans..." You both agree that the space-monkeys are Grade A quality bullshit and move on. "The other one... I managed to fight him to a stalemate even without my killing techniques. But I only won because he surrendered."

"Whyyyyyy?"

"He thought it wasn't fair that I had to fight him with a handicap... Though I suspect if we went on I'd have still won."

"How so?"

"The technique he relied on to surpass me had an... interesting side effect. Interesting as in it was killing him."

You pause for a moment. "HUUUUUH?"

"He has a technique which amplifies his strength, speed and senses two fold. But he could increase that to a ten times multiplyer.

However with each stage he dealt exponentially more damage to his body. He was killing himself just to fight me. And to further prove my point... I managed to assassinate him after the tournament."

"Okay... But then how is he able to participate?

Is he a ghost?"

"Hehe... Not quite. He used his own ki blast to resuscitate himself and restart his heart."

"Huh... kinda like a defibrillator? Gotta make a note of that." You whisper.

"Yes. He's a crafty one. A genius when it comes to fighting."

"So uh... if I faced them-"

"I'll state this again. If you face them, even in a severely weakened state victory might still be impossible for you. And I'm not sure I have any technique I could give you that could help.

Most of mine that'd work are illegal by tournament rules as they are lethal, not to mention they are too complex to master in a week."

"Awww..."

"But fret not. Knowledge is power. And that I can give you-"

You listen eagerly to Hits description of the two Saiyans. "The first one is short, with a big ego."

"Not really a quality I can spot by just looking at him..."

Hit pauses as if embarrassed to even say something like this. "He has a widows peak that takes up roughly half his head."

You snicker. "You're joking!"

"No."

"That's hilarious!"

*ahem* "Anyway... he's very prideful and straightforward. Not much of a martial artist but a brawler that's been through innumerable fights. He knows how to defeat someone in combat and prefers to do it with excessive force, battering the opposition into submission."

"Uh-huh."

"Despite his lack of technique he is very dangerous. Your best bet would be to avoid a straight up fight with him. Though... if you fought in a way he perceives "cowardly" he may get enraged... And you know how the-"

"Saiyans..."

"Saiyans... yes. The other is much more peculiar. His name is Goku. You don't need to know how he looks like. The first thing he'll do is introduce himself to you. He's kind of a simpleton in a casual situation but he's a fighting genius."

"Idiot savant, got it."

"Anyway he's much more... complex. He managed to see through my time-skip and countered it."

"...HOW?!"

"He predicted where I would be at any given point but 0.1 seconds in the future. By predicting all my moves he managed to beat me into submission... And that's when I started actually improving for the first time in about a thousand years." Hit stretches out his arm and starts squeezing his hand. "Up until that point I had no need for improvement. I thought what I had was sufficient... for everything. Turns out I was wrong. Thanks to him motivating me I started increasing my time-skip."

"Uh-huh. So... how do I beat him?"

"Honestly? I don't know. The best advice I could give is be as unpredictable as possible... but not so random that it becomes predictable. Does that make sense?"

You pause and start thinking about that.

"Yeaaaaah... I think I do. And I have just that!"

"Oh?"

"Magic!"

"I... don't think card tricks will be enough for him."

"Not like that! Actual magic. I have it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But I don't have much of it and as such I haven't practiced enough. I have like... one technique that's developed. The rest is... more like stuff I make up on the fly. Like making fire sprout from the ground, etc."

"I see. But if it's that unusable then how are you going to capitalize on it?"

You come up with an idea... Well in actuality the idea has been formulating in your head for a while now but only now did you decide to actually bring it to fruition. Moving a few paces away from Hit you find a comfortable little spot and sit down while trying to work out the gist of it. As you do however the kids start pestering you.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhhh... I'm meditating."

"What's meditating daddy?"

You pat the ground next to you. "Come. You can do it with me. You close your eyes and breathe like this. Nice and slow. In and out. In and... out."

"In and out..."

As you do you reach deep into yourself so you can tap into the magical powers dormant within you. But it doesn't go unnoticed.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOHOOOO!"

"Hi Buu."

"GAH!"

"No. I'm just minding my own business. Didn't want to bother you. So... how are ya doin'?"

"UWAAAAAAH!"

"You like what you see, huh? Well sorry to make you angry but a deal is a deal. You get eyes. That's it."

"BAH!"

"I know it's frustrating. But a deal is a deal.

I'll let you taste some."

"NYEH!"

"Wait... what do you mean not only the food?"

You shake your "head" in the metaphysical landscape of your mind. "Whatever. Listen Buu we'll chat later but now I'm a bit busy. Got this move I wanna work out."

"HuhuHUUUUUUU!"

"Yes. You may watch..." *sigh*

Once you managed to tap into the slumbering bedrock of magic sufficiently your eyes snapped open and turned black, much to the shock of those around you. "Okay... that's new." Kamin observes.

"Are you okay Daddy?"

"Y-Yeah! Totally! My eyes just do that sometimes."

"They didn't before-" Oren comments.

"SINCE THE MAKAI! Jeez."

"Well whatever it is I hope it helps you with... whatever you are trying to do."

"Thanks Hit. See kids? This is how you act supportive."

First step of your master plan was using space manipulation to create a sort of... bag of holding. Which is much easier said than done.

First off creating a wormhole is apparently much, MUCH easier than creating something with only one exit point in it. You try twisting, turning and bending the fabric of reality as much as you can but it just doesn't seem to be enough. Whenever you create the little ring which would lead to a sold of fold in space it just fizzles out and dies, no matter what you try or how many times.

After a couple hours of this the parties present grew bored of your performance and started occupying themselves with anything else. With Hit apparently teaching your kids how to play some sort of space-poker or something similar.

Though it frustrates you that his first choice was to teach your kids gambling you are kinda more absorbed by your own failings. Sitting in the same spot, covered in sweat you pant as you ran out of juice. Hit looks up from his card game and speaks up.

"Are you done?"

*pant* *pant* "Yes... I'm tapped out..."

"AAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAA!"

"Shut up you disembodied as-" You bite your lips before Lyn could hear your loud swearing.

"What did you say?" Kamin asks you.

"Nothing... Dad is just... having some problem with his demons." Then as you quiet yourself you hear a faint murmuring in the back of your mind. Apparently Buu doesn't realize only you can hear him so whispering is pointless.

"No that's stupid! Why would that work?!

ARGH! Fine! I'll try!"

You extend your clenched fist and point your middle, index and little fingers forward.

Making circular motions with them you do the exact same thing you've tried a hundred times already... and it works. Pulling back for a moment you look down at your hand in utter confusion. "Are you... shitting me... Extending my little finger... fixed it?"

"UH!"

"T-Thanks Buu! I appreciate that!"

"GAH!"

"Thanks Buu. Here!"

You speak up and feel a few older memories float away into nothingness until Buu catches wind of them and begins sniffing them.

Since apparently Buu has a very... child like mind you find it fitting for him to get a few of your childhood memories, or at least very early ones. Maybe that way he can actually develop with them.

A mixture of both good and bad emotions.

Childlike wonder and excitement, the sensation of pain when you fell over and scraped your knee, loosing a game, coming home and getting hugged by your mom just to name a few. The reactions of your little "guest" are as mixed as the memories he received.

He naturally devoured the happy ones with glee and seemed to derive a great deal of enjoyment from them. But at the same time he was less inclined to eat the not so pleasant ones as he was more interested in staring and laughing at them. However hunger is a great thing indeed and since he doesn't know what patience or rationing are he devours them as well, at which point his disposition towards them changes a great deal and he becomes... apparently saddened.

"Heh... You are getting "Planted" as well?

Just don't pop out another kid for me. Got enough already.bMaybe a biological one or two still interest me but I'd like to make those myself now..."

Leaving the now bawling eldritch abomination you return to realspace where you take a look at your little mallet space. Conjuring up every bit of magical energy you could muster into a ball you toss it in without giving it much more thought. After that you waited until your reserves filled up again and tossed that in as well.

You did this almost religiously for the remainder of the week in between sparring sessions and cooking until the faithful day of the tournament has finally arrived.