“It’s impossible damn it!!!!!!”  I screamed at King Kai.  He just looked at me with a blank facial expression and squinting eyes.  “I don’t think I can do it.”  I said, slightly quieter this time.

            “You can do it Cris, I know you can.”  He replied in a quiet voice.  I shook my head and closed my eyes, not wanting to face my masters’ eyes.  I knew he was just trying to encourage me, but I didn’t need encouragement at that particular time, I needed to perform the attack.

            “I just can’t clear my mind like you can King Kai.”  I paused, waiting for his reply.  None came, so I continued.  “The level of clear-headedness you’re asking for is impossible to reach.”

            His rebuttal came quickly “It’s not impossible.  Two people have already learnt how to achieve it, and there’s no reason there can’t be a third.”

            “Well, I think it’s just asking too much.  I don’t know how you mastered it.”  I answered back in a hoarse voice.

            King Kai took a step towards me and placed a hand on my shoulder.  “Trust me on this one Cris, you can do it.  If Goku can do it, then so can you.”  I nodded, feeling kind of honoured to be mentioned in the same category as the great Son Goku.

            “You really have that much faith in me?”  I asked hesitantly.

            “Of course.”  He replied enthusiastically.  I just nodded, and King Kai went on in a whisper “Don’t tell Triono, but I think you’re a much better student than him or any other one.  Besides Goku of course.”  I smiled, storing the information away for future reference.

            “Now,” King Kai began anew, pulling back his arm and withdrawing a few steps.  “Do you want to go over how to perform the Kaioken one more time?”

            “Nah.”  I replied.  Hearing what I already knew couldn’t help me any more; after all, I’d memorized all the steps a few tries ago.  Stretch the body completely, close eyes, clear mind, keep mind cleansed for several minutes, allowing no thought to enter it, and then basically scream Kaioken and power up.

            It all seemed so simple, but in reality it was tearing me apart.  I’d mastered every move King Kai had taught me in the two months I’d been training with him, and then I hit the roadblock called Kaioken.  It was just far too demanding, even for me.  It required the user to reach some sort of trance-like state, where the body and the mind were separated, and yet operated as a pair.

            I really didn’t understand how it worked, but then again, neither did King Kai.  I’d been trying for almost half a week to reach the elusive condition needed for Kaioken, and I’d had no luck.  I was actually about to ask King Kai to teach me the Soaring Heavens Flash instead, so I could match up to Triono in a sword fight, but he had been adamant that I keep trying Kaioken.

            So I tried, for hours on end each day to clear my mind at the level King Kai wanted.  I’d come close a few times, but then a single thought would flare up in my head, and my chance would be ruined.  I just couldn’t keep my mind from pushing something to the surface, damn teenage mind.

            King Kai nodded and turned on his heel to go back toe the house.  I heard Triono and Gregory off near the “front” yard of the house, where they were sparring.  Not really sparring, more like Triono trying to slice Gregory’s head off with his sword.  Strong and fast as Triono was though, he still couldn’t do it.

            I dropped my head, and tried once more to master the Kaioken manuever.  I forced all the thoughts out of my head, and tried to keep it that way.  I actually managed to hold onto the clear head for a while, almost fifty seconds, before I heard Triono cut a deep slash into King Kai’s car.  The sound completely wrecked my concentration and the moment I’d been nearing darted away.

            I grunted loudly in frustration and turned to yell at Triono.  King Kai already was though, yelping about his precious vehicle, so I just clenched my fist and walked away from all the noise.

            I just kept walking, in really just a big circle, around the axis of the small planet.  I wandered for several minutes, my head down, my mind roaming freely as well.  I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, but I couldn’t find any glaring flaw in what I was doing.  My walk was interrupted rather rudely when I, almost literally, bumped into a tree.

            I stopped just short of the light brown bark, and silently cursed myself for my foolishness.  I looked up and down the trunk of the tree, examining the leaves, the barely noticeable sap running down the side, and the old but strong branches.  I furrowed my brow, sighed deeply, turned and sat myself down in front of the tree.  If it worked so well for Triono, why not for me?

            I crossed my legs into the normal yoga-style meditation position, closed my eyes, and began to concentrate.  Unlike before though, this time I thought back to when King Kai had been trying to first teach me the Kaioken.  I went over every word, looking for some hidden tip of some kind.  I came up empty for a second before I recalled a passing remark my master had made.  “Clear your mind, make it like a crystal.”  Like a crystal…

            I pictured a crystal, a large, diamond-like crystal sitting right in front of me.  I just stared straight ahead, into this imaginary crystal, and concentrated everything on this.  I continued to stare, thinking of nothing other than the clarity of this crystal.  I let my mind fixate on the crystal, and did nothing with my body, and I waited.  I must’ve stared for a good six minutes, and I swear no other thought entered my mind, but still there was nothing.

            King Kai had said there would be a feeling, somewhat like butterflies in the stomach, before you are able to perform the Kaioken attack.  No feeling like that came, so after the six minutes I gave up.

            I let out another grunt of frustration.  I felt like I was going to explode, everything I did met with failure.  King Kai had said that it would take me at least a few months to master the technique.  Hell, it took Goku that long of a time, but a few months wasn’t good enough for me.  I needed to perfect the attack now.  I needed to be better than anyone else had ever been before, better than even Goku.  I needed to prove to King Kai that I was worthy of using the Kaioken attack.  I needed to prove to Triono, and to myself, who was the better warrior.  I needed to master every technique taught to me, so I would be a worthy foe to the Caprians when they arrived.  In other words, I needed to finish learning the Kaioken attack.

            I punched the ground in aggravation, and almost yelled out again, but caught myself.  I took in a deep breath instead, and thought back to calmer times.  I thought of Phoenix and I, always together in The Arena.  I thought of my endless nights with Karnai as he taught me the most advanced techniques he had at his disposal.  I thought back to my days with Master Roshi, of the morning routine I still held true to each and every day I trained.

            I remembered even farther back, to my days spent training, and my nights spent with Seana.  Just remembering her face slowed my thoughts, and at the same time created a stab of fear.  Just as I was recalling her, a thought popped in my head:  What was she doing now?  Surely she’d figured I was gone training again, but over a year had passed, and she was probably worried.

            I wanted to stop the train of thought, but was un-able to.  Maybe she was more than worried, maybe she thought I had died, against Triono for all she knew.  I began to get the butterflies my stomach, but it certainly wasn’t leading to Kaioken.  I began taking in short, rapid breaths, as I continued to contemplate what was happening with Seana.  Maybe, just maybe, she’d given up on me.  Moved on to another man, another life, forgotten about me completely.  I shook my head, trying to rationalize that our bond had been too strong to be overcome by time, but the more logical part of my brain took over, telling me the obvious truth.  She was human, and so was I.  She’d undoubtedly gone on with her life and moved past me.

            My mouth fell open, my neck craned back, and I began to cry.  I couldn’t help it; there was no way I could.  She’d meant the world to me, and now I’d most likely have to go on without her the rest of my life.  When Krillin had coaxed me to come along with him to fight against the Caprians, I’d agreed mainly for one reason: Seana.  Now that she was cut off from my life, what more did I have to protect?

            I quickly incinerated my tears with my ki power, as I screamed in rage.  How could I be so stupid as to let Krillin whisk me away, without even telling her where I was going?  I pounded the ground, and moved to my knees so I could punish the grass more savagely.  I continued screaming, letting out all the hate and sorrow I felt for myself at the time.  I suddenly wanted to destroy everything on the planet, and just get back to my life.

            After a few seconds though the insanity passed, and I fell to the ground, face first.  I lied there for several seconds, waiting for King Kai, Triono or Bubbles to come and see what was wrong, but they never came.

            I didn’t know what to do, lying there, nothing but the blood red anger running through my head.  Suddenly a thought popped up.  I began to retrace the steps to the Dragon Shock, which King Kai had taught me not too long before the Kaioken attack.  Once I’d remembered all that, my mind wandered to when King Kai had first given me a sword.  “Be careful with that thing,” he’d said, as he handed me the sword “You might poke someone’s eye out if you aren’t.”  I’d chuckled and then began practicing some basic strikes and blocks, which I’d been mimicking after watching Triono practice with his sword.

            After that I thought of the trip down snake way, and then of meeting King Yemma at the entrance to heaven, and of fighting Phoenix back on earth… and so my mind went on a distant journey, where I would literally backtrack my way through my life.

            My brain brought up virtually every clear memory I had.  Everything from my death to my first Kamehameha, to my first fight with Triono, to my first meeting with Seana, all the way back to when my dad hit my mom for the first time and then ran away.  I remembered it all, and then suddenly, I was done.

            I’d run out of memories, out of past experiences for my mind to run over.  So I laid there on the ground, thinking of nothing, hearing nothing, my body numb from the voyage through memory highway.  I stared out, into nothing really, just the orange sky and the grey trail of Snake Way.

            For how long I just sat there, doing nothing, I don’t know, but then suddenly I realized, I wasn’t sitting.  I was standing straight up, walking straight towards Snake Way.  I had no recollection of starting to walk, not even of walking.  So you can imagine the fear I felt at not having any memory of my recent actions.

            Soon though, almost instantly, the fear was replaced by another feeling, a sort of tingling in the pit of my stomach.  No sooner did I realize it was there, and then it spread, shooting straight up my chest to my throat.  I tried to scream in confusion, but I couldn’t, the feeling had cut off my air.

            I tried to stop walking and collect more air, but I couldn’t, it was like I’d lost all control of my body.  I just continued to trot on at a steadily pace, the feeling inching up ever higher.  As I neared the spot on King Kai’s planet where Snake Way would be directly ahead of me, the feeling rose ever higher, covering my eyes and forehead, before reaching a climax near my skull.

            I suddenly realized what was happening.  I was there, I’d reached the point I’d struggled to get to.  Suddenly I stood in a directly straight line to Snake Way, I regained all of my senses and control of my body.  I knew it was my only chance, so I took it before the feeling could escape me.  “KAIOKEN!!!”  I screamed at the top of my lungs, as I concentrated all of my ki energy into my core before letting it explode around me.

            The surge of energy that came was so un-expected it almost killed me.  My muscles bulged, to almost twice their original size.  The energy inside my body felt like it was going to burst out, ripping me to pieces.  My entire body burst into red flames, and all around me, it felt like the air was alive.

            I stood there, looking out on Snake Way, and just held the Kaioken attack.  My muscles weren’t ready for the stress though, and began to bubble, like water when it’s boiling.  For a split second I thought I might actually explode, as I had no idea how to disengage the Kaioken.  I realized though that the simplest way was to expel my aura, as I’d done many times in the past.

            With a simple push of inner ki, my flaming aura dispersed itself in every direction, and my muscles instantly began to recede, reducing back to their normal size.  Once they’d completely resized, I fell to the ground, gasping for air.

            King Kai came up behind me from seemingly out of nowhere, bent next to my ear and whispered, “I told you you could do it.”