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Once they have descended far enough from the Lookout, they all go their separate ways.
Trunks to Bulma, Yamcha to West City, Krillin to Kame House, Tien and Mr. Piccolo to…wherever it is they choose to live.
As for Son Gohan? He goes home.
Alone.
He’s not sure if there’s a word which describes what he feels; this strange mix of sadness, acceptance, regret, and a relief that it’s all over. That sensation of having experienced one of the worst days of your life, but being aware that it could’ve been so much worse for all that you could’ve done things better.
So he simply settles for being glad that it’s done. That almost everything can go back to the way it was.
… Almost
That word. It sticks in his thoughts like a splinter in his palm. Paints scenarios inspired by the oh so simple phrase “what if”, using a canvas that only ever appears because of major events and one’s own wish for a different outcome.
His father is dead. He won’t be coming back. That is his choice.
Despite it all, Gohan understands . Really, he does.
Most of his life has been lived under the shadow of threats that came for his father, as well as the events which transpired in the aftermath of the ever-escalating stakes that seemed to define his life (in spite of how relatively little time they truly took up).
He doesn’t blame him though. Could never blame him. His dad never asked for all of this.
And Gohan is so very familiar with fights he didn’t ask for.
If he were in his dad’s position? If he believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that his continued existence on Earth would only attract more danger to his friends, family, and home?
No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much he’d miss everyone. He’d make the same decision.
… Still, he would want things to be different.
He wants , here and now as his shoes touch the grass in front of his home, for things to be different.
But this is something Shenron can’t do, and a desire Gohan’s unwilling to have Porunga grant. He trusts his dad, to the point he was willing to fight Cell because his father believed he could.
So he has to respect his father’s decision. He has to let him stay dead.
But when his mother opens the front door, sweeping him into her arms and sitting him down on the couch to make sure he’s unhurt…
When she asks where his dad is, wondering why he isn’t with him…
When she hears his answer and unsteadily puts him back down, before crumbling to her knees and sobbing with her head in her hands…
For the first moment in his life, no matter how selfish it may be, Gohan wishes he was the sort of person to defy his dad. The type of person who could argue with, and convince him, to somehow come back.
That isn’t possible though. Well, not for him. He’s never needed to really argue or debate someone about something. A consequence of having only talked to enough people to be counted on two hands.
That, and the fact that roughly half that list weren’t exactly the types to be persuaded.
As Gohan thinks these things, he hugs his mom’s side. It’s a sort of awkward crouch, but some minor use of his flight lets him position himself more comfortably. Through it all, there aren’t any words he can say. At least, none that he can think of that will make things better.
All he can do is give her the time to work through this. To adjust without any interruptions.
Something Gohan didn’t get.
(Cell is gone, but he took Gohan’s dad with him. If only he’d kept control. Listened to his dad. Done anything right-
!!!
It all happens in less than a minute.
A beam of pure power, enough to hit a planet and keep going, punching through the smoke. Trunks dying before he even hits the ground.
Tears evaporating as this new power infuses his muscles and veins once again. The sadism
remember the lessons with dad. Control it.
No more mistakes.
crawling its way back to the forefront.
Lightning curls and snaps around him. The power almost feels alive, like it’s begging to strike out against everything around him.
Gohan smiles.
His dad is dead. Cell is back and even stronger . Trunks has just died.
And yet Gohan. Still. Smiles.
He wants this. Craves this.
Or is it what this form makes him want?
Does it matter?
Is there a difference? A separation? A line in the sand washed and blurred by regret and anger?
Regardless, it’s the only opportunity for closure, for revenge, for atonement , that he will get.
He’ll take it.)
…
He doesn’t know how long it takes for his mother to stop crying. His perception of time still hasn’t recovered from his stay in the time chamber.
A year in a featureless white void while intermittently operating at speeds greater than light has made living in normal time… strange.
Eventually she quiets, inhales and exhales shaking like the Earth during any of the battles for its fate. She hugs him again, kissing him on the forehead with a smile and thanking him for being so kind.
He wonders if she’d still think that had she been at the Cell Games. If she’d watched him smile unflinchingly as blood ran down his skull and the cracking of Cell’s bones reverberated through his fists and feet.
If she’d watched the power go to his head and doom the man she loved.
His mom stands, face returning to a neutral expression. Her breaths are taken in such a manner they can only be meant to calm her. She turns towards the open door, striding towards it as her fists clench and unclench.
Gohan follows. The ever dutiful son.
Unwilling to let his other parent out of his sight. The sting of his father’s loss paradoxically dulled yet fresh.
She walks outside, no more and no less than four steps from their front door.
Gohan watches, curious, as she takes one final deep breath, plants her feet, cranes her head to the sky…
And screams.
“SON GOKU!” She full names his dad, tone incredibly similar to what Gohan’s heard when she’s upset with his father doing something a bit too ridiculous.
The fact that she’s roaring his father’s name to the Heavens with that same tone, that same feeling of ‘my husband lacks common sense’, is not lost on him. Shocking as it is, some part of him begins to smile at how normal yet absurd the situation is.
And then his father answers. Voice echoing in their minds.
“Hi Gohan. Hey, Chi.”
The fear and sadness have long since vanished, replaced by an unstoppable mixture of righteous anger and concern.
“Don’t you ‘Hey, Chi.’ me! What is this about staying dead when we have some perfectly fine ways of bringing you back?! The Namekians are polite, kind, and owe you one! You know they’d bring you back in a heartbeat if we asked!”
“Yeah, probably. But I really do think the Earth and everyone on it are better off without me.” He sounds so sure. Like he’s weighed the pros and cons, then found this to be the only solution.
But Chi-Chi just can’t see it. She doesn’t understand. More than that though, the thought that the world is better off without her husband in it…
“I don’t care that you’re in the afterlife.” She finds herself saying, voice colder than the oceans of the arctic. “Say that about yourself again and I’ll slap you silly!”
He laughs. But she knows that he knows that she’s serious.
“I’m just being honest, Chi. It’s like I told Gohan, lots of strong bad guys show up here because of me. The Saiyans, Frieza and his dad, the androids, Cell.”
Of all the ridiculous-!
“None of that was your fault! You didn’t choose to get sent here, and you certainly didn’t ask those no good jerks to cause trouble!” She points out, hands on her hips.
“But they still did.” He counters, not unkindly. “And if I’d never been here, they never would’ve come.”
Oh is that the game they’re gonna play? Well she can play it better.
“If you had never been here? If you had never been here?! I’ll tell you what woulda happened had the planet Earth never gotten lucky enough to get ya!”
Chi-Chi raises a finger.
“Bulma would have died on her hunt for the dragon balls.”
Then a second.
“My papa’s castle, my childhood home, would still be on fire.”
A third.
“Those Pilaf people you told me about would have taken over the world.”
A fourth.
“ Then , the world would’ve been taken over by the Red Ribbon army. Everybody that you saved from them would be dead, and a bunch more would have followed! Because up till you stopped them? Nobody could. ”
A fifth.
“We don’t even know who or what let Piccolo Daimao outta his rice pot! So maybe then the Earth would’ve turned into a realm of death like it did 300 years ago!”
She brings them back into a fist, then points a thumb at herself.
“The way that I see it…the way that anyone with common sense sees it, we’re the luckiest planet in the universe and I’m the luckiest woman on Earth. Because we have you. ”
Smiling, Goku realizes that he really shoulda expected this.
He promised Chi-Chi that he’d be with her for the rest of their lives…and also that he’d get a job after dealing with Cell and the androids.
If anyone was gonna argue with him about this, it’d be her. He loves that about her. The way she’s as stubborn in a conversation as he is in a fight .
…It’s hard to phrase stuff in the way she has just now. Goku’s always preferred to keep things simple, or as simple as he can make them. It’s why his thoughts of staying dead the next time it happened have been bouncing around for…gosh, he doesn’t even know how long.
Here Chi-Chi is though, tearing his arguments to shreds.
Not fully, yet. She’s still got some to go. But-
Maybe it’s a bit selfish of him, in the way he’s gotten so as he’s grown older. Like when he let Piccolo or Vegeta go because he wanted a good fight, but would always want innocent people to never get involved or hurt.
-he wants Chi-Chi to win.
He’s fine with staying dead if that’s what’s best. There’s a bunch of awesome fighters here in Otherworld, plus he knows that he’ll see his friends and family again eventually.
(Though he’s definitely going to miss them. And his wife’s cooking.)
But he’s always gonna have time in Otherworld. Forever, actually. So if he can stay with his family without endangerin’ everyone? He’d love that!
“Still, Chi. If I’m dead, no one else from space is going to try and start stuff on Earth in order to get even with me.”
“Even if that were true, which it isn’t, Earth will still be in danger from space invaders! Or didja just forget that Vegeta is living here too?”
Ah. Yeah. That’s…he didn’t really look at it that way.
“That’s not even gettin’ into how most of the people who would want to kill you would probably just settle for breaking the planet if they found out you were already dead.”
A second thing he’d looked at from the wrong angle.
“Even more than that though, who could be left?! Frieza and his dad were the rulers of the universe, right?”
Goku scrounges through his memories of the fight with Frieza. “Frieza said he was an emperor or ruler I think, yeah.”
“I say this as a princess, if guys as awful as that were in charge it’s probably because they were the strongest! Heck, given how awful they were, if anyone from space comes to Earth it’s probably going to be to thank you for beatin’ him!”
He thinks that over for a second, silent with his hand on King Kai’s back. Chi-Chi, with the same sort of ceaseless ease that she has this entire conversation, continues to steamroll over his doubts.
“I don’t know what made you think any of us are better off without you, but I won’t stand for it! Earth and everyone on it is at its safest when you are on it!”
Goku hears her take a moment to breathe. All of the screaming must’ve really been taking it outta her. He gets it, doing it too much can end up making him thirsty during fights.
“But more than that, more than everything else, me and Gohan could never be happier without you. ”
“She’s right, dad!” Gohan says, voice filled with a desperate hope Goku’s only ever linked to life or death battles. “I…I understand why you wanted to stay back! I really do! But…but if mom’s right, then please, come back to us!”
Now his smile is really big. Almost like it’s about to split his face! And…
Is King Kai wiping his eyes with a tissue? Hey, Bubbles is doing it too!
“We both want this, and I know you do too!” Chi-Chi yells. “So call the Namekians, ask them to revive you, and come back to us. Do you hear me, Son Goku?! ”
Well, with her voice raised like that, what’s he gonna do but listen?
He laughs to himself, a completely new feeling filling his heart. Because for the first time in Son Goku’s life…
“Hee hee. You got it Chi. Gohan. I’ll see you both in a bit.”
…he is happy to have lost.