"Chi-Chi! Wait up!"
Goku came around the corner hard, shoes slipping on the floor. He'd followed quickly, but the fear in Chi-Chi's voice had slowed him for just a moment.
"Please!" The Announcer wheezed, stumbling up behind Goku, clutching a stitch in his side.
"We... we are live on air... we can't just..."
Goku stopped dead in the doorway. The sudden halt was so abrupt that the Announcer nearly crashed into his back.
"Hey, why did you st—"
The Announcer's complaint died in his throat. He looked past Goku's shoulder, into the room. His mouth fell open.
The room was suffocatingly quiet.
The Ox-King lay slumped against the wall, unmoving. The food he'd brought was scattered across the floor.
Chi-Chi was beside him, kneeling.
She wasn't crying or shouting. She didn't move at all.
One hand rested on his chest, as if she were still waiting for something.
Her head was lowered, her face hidden by her hair.
"Stop... stop playing around." she whispered, her voice shaking so hard it was barely a sound.
Goku didn't answer. His tail, usually wagging or twitching with energy, drooped lifelessly between his legs.
His nostrils flared slightly. He knew the scent of death. He had smelled it once before, a long time ago.
He walked slowly into the room, stepping carefully over the spilled food.
He stopped beside Chi-Chi and looked down at the Ox-King's glassy, unseeing eyes.
Goku clenched his fists. The innocent excitement of the tournament evaporated, replaced by a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
"Chi-Chi..." Goku said softly.
She didn't look up. She didn't respond. She just sat there in the terrible, heavy silence, her hand resting on the still chest of the only family she had left.
Goku stepped closer, reaching out a hand but stopping short of touching her.
His face was grave, his brows furrowed in a way that made him look years older.
"He's dead, Chi-Chi." Goku said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it stopped the room cold.
Chi-Chi went rigid. For a brief moment, it felt hard to breathe.
Then she turned on Goku, her glare sharp enough to make even the announcer flinch.
"Don't you dare! Don't you dare say that word!" Chi-Chi screamed, standing up and shoving Goku back with both hands.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" She yelled, her voice cracking, the tears finally starting to spill over her angry eyes.
"This is the Ox-King! This is the Demon of Fire Mountain! He trained under the Turtle Hermit! H-He... he is the strongest man in the world!"
She turned back to the unmoving giant, grabbing his cold hand with both of hers, squeezing it tight.
She insisted, her disciplined mind fracturing under the weight of the grief, clinging desperately to the logic of a child who believes their father is invincible.
"He's going to wake up any second and laugh at us for being worried! You'll see! You'll all see!"
But the silence was stubborn.
It was heavier than any weight she had ever lifted in training.
Chi-Chi stared at his chest, that broad, mountainous chest she used to nap on when she was a toddler.
It wasn't moving. Not even a flutter.
The denial that had been shielding her mind cracked.
It didn't shatter all at once; it dissolved like ice in boiling water, replaced by a horror so absolute it made her dizzy.
"He's... he's really..."
Her voice was no longer a scream. It was a broken whisper, barely escaping her lips.
She looked around the room, her eyes wide and wet, seeing the overturned box, the scattered takoyaki, the cracked glasses.
There were no scorch marks on the walls. No craters in the floor. No signs of the titanic battle that would have been necessary to take down the Ox-King.
He had just fallen. Like a tree cut at the roots.
"Why?"
The word slipped out, fragile and confused.
He… he didn't do anything wrong. He stopped terrorizing villages years ago. He changed.
She clenched her fists, tears burning her eyes.
He was a good man. He was… a good person.
She looked back at her father's lifeless face.
The unfairness of it—the sheer, brutal senselessness—hit her like a physical blow.
Who would do this?! Why… why would anyone kill him?!
"PAPAAAAAAA!"
Chi-Chi collapsed forward, burying her face in the Ox-King's still chest. Her disciplined facade, her warrior's pride, her tsundere toughness—it all disintegrated.
She wasn't a finalist in the World Martial Arts Tournament anymore. She was a little girl who was suddenly, terrifyingly alone in the world.
She screamed his name over and over, her nails digging into his clothes, her tears soaking the fabric as she sobbed with a raw, primal grief that echoed painfully off the cold white tiles.
While Chi-Chi's heart-wrenching sobs filled the small, sterile room, Goku stood motionless beside her.
He felt a helpless anger bubbling in his chest—a frustration that he couldn't punch this problem away.
He couldn't fight death.
He looked over the Ox-King and the scattered mess on the floor. His eyes, trained to notice danger, scanned instinctively.
"Huh?"
Amid the dumplings and broken glass, something white caught his eye. He knelt carefully, not disturbing Chi-Chi, and picked it up.
It was a small, crisp piece of paper, marked with a single black symbol:
魔 (Ma – Demon)
Goku stared at it. He wasn't great with reading, but this felt different—cold, sharp, and wrong, like the same presence Chi-Chi had sensed moments ago.
"Ma..." Goku whispered, the sound feeling heavy on his tongue.
A sudden, horrible realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
"Wait, the bags."
He scrambled over to the pile of belongings the Ox-King had been guarding.
The large travel sack where they kept their supplies—and more importantly, where Goku kept his most precious treasure—was slumped over, the drawstring loosened.
"No..."
Goku grabbed the bag and turned it upside down. Spare clothes, a towel, and some water bottles tumbled out.
But the orange, glowing orb was missing.
Goku frantically dug through the pile, throwing clothes aside. He checked the floor. He checked under the bench. He even checked under the Ox-King's lifeless arm.
"It's not here." Goku said, his voice rising in panic.
"It's not here!"
"What isn't here?" the Announcer asked, trembling.
Goku stood up, clutching the empty bag. His face was a mask of shock and fury.
"My Dragon Ball!" Goku yelled.
"The Four-Star Ball! It was in this bag! Grandpa Gohan is gone!"
He looked back at the piece of paper in his hand, then at the dead Ox-King. The pieces clicked together in his mind.
"Whoever did this..." Goku growled, a low, dangerous sound emanating from his throat.
"They didn't just kill him for no reason. They killed him to take the Dragon Ball."
hi-Chi's sobs stopped suddenly.
She lifted her head from her father's chest. Her eyes were red and swollen, but the grief in them was quickly replaced by something darker—something sharp, focused, and unsettling.
"A... Dragon Ball?"
She whispered the words, her voice rough.
Her eyes moved from the empty bag in Goku's hand to the scattered takoyaki—the last thing her father had done for her. He hadn't died naturally, or in a fair fight. He had been killed for a single, glowing marble.
She stood up, her movements stiff and deliberate, as if she were barely in control of her own body.
"That Ki... the one I felt in the hallway... the one I ignored."
She turned to look at the paper in Goku's hand—the symbol 魔 (Ma).
"It wasn't a mistake, I felt it. It was right here."
She closed her eyes, and a single, angry tear squeezed out, burning a trail down her cheek.
"I felt him, I felt that monster waiting. And I let Papa walk right into him."
She opened her eyes. The discipline of the Turtle School was gone. The composure of a finalist was gone. All that was left was a daughter's scorching rage.
"It was him," Chi-Chi declared, staring at the symbol as if she could burn a hole through it with her gaze alone.
"That owner of that Ki... he is the one who did this."
She reached down and snatched up Kumokiri from where she had dropped it. She gripped the hilt hard.
"He was here, and he can't have gone far."
"Chi-Chi, wait!"
Goku lunged forward, grabbing her wrist just as she took a step. His grip was firm, his face etched with serious concern.
"You can't just run off! We don't know who this guy is! If he took down the Ox-King that easily, he's strong! really strong!"
Chi-Chi didn't struggle.
She didn't try to pull her arm away.
She turned her head, looking at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were dry now, void of the warmth they usually held for him.
They were the eyes of a stranger.
"Let go." She said, her voice terrifyingly calm.
"I'm coming with you, he took my Grandpa's Dragon Ball. That makes it my fight too!"
"No." Chi-Chi snapped, ripping her arm free with a violent jerk.
"He took a ball from you. He took my father from me."
She stepped back, crouching low, the floor tiles beneath her boots cracking under the sudden pressure of her Ki.
She looked at the ceiling, her senses locking onto that slimy, retreating trail of energy like a bloodhound.
"I will find him. And when I do… there won't be enough left to bury."
"Chi-Chi, don't!"
"DO NOT FOLLOW ME!"
She roared the command, her aura flaring white and hot.
She didn't head for the door. She didn't have time for hallways.
Chi-Chi exploded upward.
CRASH.
The room trembled as Chi-Chi shot upward. She tore through the ceiling and roof, leaving concrete and steel bent and shattered in her wake.