They walked down into the dimmer part of the tower.
Korin padded ahead of her, passing the water jars and the rolled mats, until he stopped in the middle of the room.
The floor there was empty—almost.
A wooden door was lying flat, covered in dust. Not a trapdoor. Not built into the floor. Just… a regular, heavy door with a frame, placed there like someone had dropped it and never picked it back up.
Chi-Chi frowned at it.
"A door? It's not even attached to anything..."
Korin glanced at it, then back at her.
"Yes, at the moment, it's just a closed door lying on the floor. Which makes it little more than something to trip over."
Korin shuffled around to the top of the frame and looked up at her.
"I haven't used this in a long time."
He rested a paw on the wood.
"Grab the other side. Help me stand it up."
"You want to stand a loose door in the middle of the room? It's just going to tip over."
"Just lift."
She let out a quiet sigh and crouched down, gripping the frame. When she pulled, her arms immediately tensed.
It was heavy.
Not normal-door heavy.
The kind of weight that didn't make sense.
She pushed it upright until it stood vertical. She kept one shoulder pressed against it to steady it.
"Okay. It's up. Now what?"
"Let go." Korin said, stepping back.
She paused, expecting it to crash the second she moved. Slowly, she eased her hands away.
The door didn't fall.
It stood there on its own, perfectly straight in the center of the room, attached to nothing, casting a long shadow across the stone floor.
"It... it's balanced?"
"This isn't a door to a place." Korin said, running his paw down the weathered wood of the frame.
"It opens into the Dimension of Dreams."
Chi-Chi stared at the wood grain, skepticism written all over her face.
"The Dimension of Dreams? That sounds... vague. Is it a spirit realm?"
She stepped to the side of the door and peeked behind it.
Nothing unusual.
"Is this some kind of astral projection?" she asked, glancing back at him.
Korin shook his head.
"Astral projection is stepping outside for a stroll. This is more like letting the house swallow you."
He tapped the wooden surface with his staff.
Thump.
Thump.
"This door doesn't just take your mind. It takes all of you. Your body. Your Ki. Even that sword. And it throws everything into a space shaped by your own subconscious."
He met her eyes, expression steady.
"It's not a dream. If you're hurt in there, you're hurt out here. If you die inside…"
He let the sentence hang.
"Your heart stops on this floor."
The wind moved quietly around the tower.
"What's waiting for you in there, is the hardest thing you've faced so far."
Korin stepped closer to the door, moving around it slowly, like he was studying something alive.
"Piccolo is straightforward, he's flesh and blood. He has limits. You can hit him. You can outthink him. He's an enemy you can face."
He stopped and looked at her.
"But in there, there are no limits. You won't be fighting a demon. You'll be facing the part of you that knows exactly where to strike. Every doubt you've buried. Every fear you've ignored. Every excuse you've made just to keep standing."
Chi-Chi pushed his staff aside, but her hand drifted to her chest without thinking.
"So… I'm fighting myself?"
"The worst parts of yourself, and believe me… no one in this world can tear you down faster than you can."
The wind roared outside the tower, but in here, everything felt still.
"I understand."
Her eyes lifted to Korin.
Her hand settled on the hilt.
"If I go in there… and I stop running from what's inside me… then I won't be empty anymore. I'll know what's there."
She looked back at him, something steadier in her gaze.
"And if I'm not fighting myself… then I won't be fighting the blade either."
Her grip tightened slightly.
"It'll just be me. And it."
Korin's tail flicked once in approval.
"Exactly."
He padded quietly around the door.
"Kumokiri won't follow someone divided. If you hesitate, the blade hesitates. If you doubt yourself, it shows in your strike."
He stopped in front of her.
"To move as one with a weapon, you have to be whole. One mind. One will."
His expression hardened slightly.
"But don't think this will be simple. The part of you waiting in there knows you better than any enemy ever could. It knows what shakes you. What distracts you. What makes you falter."
He held her gaze.
"And it won't go easy on you."
Chi-Chi stared at the plain brass knob. It looked normal.
Korin explained the rules. She steps through and the door vanishes.
She cannot leave until she wins. If she loses then her mind stays trapped there forever.
The tower was quiet. Chi-Chi reached out but stopped. She thought about her father and Goku.
"I have to do this." She said.
She gripped the handle.
She said she could not live in a world like this.
She turned the latch and pulled the heavy door open.
Chi-Chi braced herself for something terrible but saw nothing. It was just the tower on the other side. She saw the same floor and the same sky.
She looked back at Korin.
It is just the room.
"...Master?"
Korin did not answer.
He stood frozen like a statue.
The dust in the air hung still.
The wind outside stopped blowing.
"Master?" Chi-Chi stepped through the frame to get a better look.
"What's going on? Why is everything—"
The door slammed shut behind her.
She spun around and reached for her sword but the exit was gone.
Korin and the room vanished.
The sky changed from blue to dark purple.
Fast clouds swirled overhead.
The air felt heavy.
Chi-Chi looked at the railing.
Someone sat there wearing her exact clothes and sword.
The girl looked up.
She had Chi-Chi's face but her eyes were black pits.
The copy smiled and hopped down.
"Finally, I wondered when you would stop playing hero and visit."
"You expected me?"
She reached for her sword but found nothing.
The sky smeared and the tower faded. She felt dizzy and stumbled. Her feet landed on a soft rug instead of stone.
She looked down.
Her feet were bare and small. Her hands were tiny and smooth. Her scars were gone. She looked six years old again.
She looked around the sunny room. It was her bedroom. She saw her dolls and the big bed. The air smelled like sandalwood.
Pleasant Mountain, before the fire.
She was back in her castle home.
She walked to the door and touched the furniture.
The wood felt real.
A heavy rhythm drifted in from the hall. It was sobbing.
Chi-Chi stopped. She knew that sound.
She pushed the door open.
The hallway was dark.
The crying was louder now.
She wanted to hide but she walked to the stairs instead.
Below her the Ox-King knelt by a bed. He looked small. He held his head in his hands.
A woman lay on the sheets. She was pale. Her breathing rattled in the quiet room.
Chi-Chi held the railing tight. It was her mother.
"Mom!"
Chi-Chi scrambled down the stairs and reached for the limp hand hanging off the bed. She just wanted to feel if she was still warm.
Her fingers touched the pale skin.
The room exploded. The soft sheets turned to ash and the candlelit dark became blinding orange. Chi-Chi fell forward, landing on hot, scorching dirt. The air tasted like sulfur.
She looked up. She wasn't in the bedroom anymore. The castle was gone. The mountain was screaming.
"Papa!" she yelled.
"Stay back!"
Through the smoke, she saw the Ox-King. He was swinging his massive axe at the fire, screaming at it to stop, tears evaporating on his face.
Chi-Chi felt small.
She looked at her empty hands.
Just a little girl watching her father lose his mind.
She tried to run to him, but the ground cracked open and magma cut her off.
She watched the fire swallow the window where her mother had just been.
I fixed this, I grew up. I found the Bansho Fan. I put the fire out.
"Did you?"
The voice was inside her head. It sounded like her, but cold as steel.
"You put out the flames. Congratulations."
Chi-Chi shut her eyes.
"But look at what was left, you just cleaned up the grave."
"Shut up!"
"You saved a broken man, you just learned that if you aren't strong enough, everything you love burns."
The fire around them turned purple.
The heat changed.
It didn't feel like a forest fire anymore.
It felt stifling, like a kitchen with no ventilation.
Distorted faces pressed in through the smoke, Bulma, Krillin, her father.
"You aren't a warrior." the Bulma-thing said.
"Look at your hands. Are they meant for a sword? or for a broom?"
"You're a placeholder." Krillin laughed.
"You're training for a war that doesn't want you."
Her father's giant hand felt heavy on her head.
"Why fight it, sweetheart? You're good at caring for things. Your place isn't in the arena. It's in the background, waiting for the heroes to come home."
"That's not me! I am a martial artist! I have a legacy!"
"Your legacy is a marriage certificate." the dark doppelgänger said, stepping out of the smoke.
"It's cooking meals for a man who isn't there. It's raising children to finish the fights you couldn't. Just put down the sword, Chi-Chi. It's easier."
Chi-Chi fell to her knees. The dirt burned her legs.
She covered her face, sobbing.
"It's a lie, Master Roshi believed in me. Everyone..."
But the whispers didn't stop.
They surrounded her.
Chi-Chi pulled her hands away from her face and looked at them.
They looked like hands meant to hold a bowl of rice, not a weapon.
Was I really born for this?
Am I fighting the way the world is made? Am I trying to be a storm when I am just a shelter?
She squeezed her eyes shut.
The sword in her mind did not feel like her soul anymore.
It felt heavy.
It felt like a weight she was never meant to carry.
"Is this all I am?" she whispered.
A girl pretending to be a warrior until the world makes her sit down?
"No."
The word was quiet but it stopped the other voices instantly.
Chi-Chi froze.
She looked up from her small hands.
The woman from the bed stood in the center of the white room.
She was not sick anymore.
She stood tall in a dress the color of dawn.
Her eyes were warm and clear.
"Mom?"