Since this is another short chapter, expect an update in a couple days.
It was a bright and early morning. After all the events of what took place the previous night, Roshi, Bulma, and Krillin spent the entire night rebuilding the house that Gohan inadvertently destroyed. They did it non-stop and lost an insane amount of sleep over it.
Bulma got down to one knee, placed a couple tools inside her kit and shut it. "All done." She got back up and took a look over Kame House once it was all finished. It looked as new as ever, though a few things out of the ordinary were noticeable. For one, the chicken weather vane atop the house was crooked in the form of different angles and some of the planks lapped over one another because of them being broken in many different pieces.
Besides that, it was just fine.
"The only thing that you lack now is furniture," Bulma told Roshi. The group had a pile of all the ruined furniture set in a great blaze as they worked on the house all night. It was what kept them warm throughout from the breezy weather as they slaved themselves. Now, all the furniture burnt was nothing but a pile of ashes.
Roshi nodded and picked up his shades to rub his heavy eyes. He leaned over to Bulma, rubbing his arm against her leg. "Then I guess I'll have to stay the night at your place, hehehe..."
Bulma smacked him upside the head with her toolkit, sending Roshi to the ground. "I'll make a few calls and I'll get some men to move furniture into your house within the next half-hour."
"Ah..." Roshi groaned, rubbing his throbbing cheek, "well it was worth a shot." He spat some sand out of his mouth.
Krillin fell over on his butt and let out a deep yawn. His body felt weak, practically on the verge of utter numbness. One second of shut-eye and he'd be dead fast asleep. "Man, I'm beat! I honestly don't even care that there isn't any furniture inside! I'll sleep on the damn floor if I have to." He got back up his feet and started to head up the little steps of Kame House so he could get in a long needed rest.
VROUM VROUM!
"Looks like we won't be getting any of that any time soon," Roshi said. He, Bulma, and Krillin placed their attention on the approaching vehicle.
"Who's that?" Bulma asked, squinting her eyes.
It had to be somebody that they knew. Nobody came to Kame's House unless they either knew him personally, of him or were acquainted with somebody that knew him. Whoever it was, Roshi couldn't pinpoint it either.
The vehicle touched down on land and out hopped a short and chubby guy with wild hair. He had a sword by his side and took the appearance of a Samurai. But not just some Samura...an out of shape samurai.
"Yo!" he greeted.
Krillin was so tired that he had troubled with having to distinguish the gruff voice from the sound of a falling tree. Once he rubbed his eyes a bit and got a good look at the man, he immediately recognized who he was. "Ay, you're the guy that was at Karin's place..." Krillin started to stumble over words when he tried to speak of his name. "Ehrm...itchy Yajirobe?"
"Just Yajirobe, idiot!" the overweight and offended male barked angrily. He looked over the environment and shook his head. "What a stupid place for a house. And what's up with the weather vane? Did a fish jump from the water and hit it?"
"Okay, did ya come to insult ma house or do you have news for us?" Roshi asked.
"Hn. Karin didn't tell me it would take so long just to find you fools. The furry, ole white cat knows wazzup right now. He says you, that guy with the scar on his cheek, that three-eyed baldy and that doll looking freak an-" Yajirobe shook his head, having forgotten what to say next, "just get over there now!"
"But why?" Krillin practically whined. The man wanted to just hit the hay for 20 minutes. A power nap would suffice for him to be able to get on with at least half of the day.
"Kami-sama is going to train you all," Yajirobe told Krillin. "Me, too, in fact."
"W-What!?" Krillin shrieked. Kami, the very same guy that trained Goku to become as strong as he currently was. Forget the power nap, the news Yajirobe gave him was more than shocking enough.
"Yeah, I told Karin I didn't want to fight that pine-apple head shaped alien, but Karin...pfft!"
"But I don't know where everyone else is at!" Krillin said.
Yajirobe huffed and shook his head. He figured that all he really needed to do was tell Krillin to get his friends over there and the rest would handle itself. "Fine, I'll go and try to find the rest. But you get over there as soon as possible."
"Alright!"
"Haaa!" Goku hopped back and came forth at an invisible enemy. He threw a punch and came with an overhead kick and followed with a series of quick punches to the air. He followed his serial of attacks with a jump and a kick directly behind him, acting as if he was aiming to kick his invisible target in the back of the neck.
"Goku!"
Son Goku stopped his training and turned around. Chi-Chi was just coming out the door with a purse in hand. "Yeah?"
"I'm going shopping with my dad today," she told him, "I'll be gone for a while, so I'll need you to watch after Gohan today, okay?"
"Oh, yeah, not a problem!"
"I mean it, Goku," Chi-Chi said sternly. "Don't just train out here for a couple hours and then go check up on him for a few seconds."
"Well, how else am I supposed to train?"
"Heh. Maybe you can train that mind of yours instead." Chi-Chi clicked a capsule and tossed it over. The little object in her hand poofed into a car once it hit the ground. "I won't be long. You can at least spend some time with Gohan." Chi-Chi got into her car and sparked the engine. "See you in a bit!"
Goku waved Chi-Chi as she took off in the car. "See ya..." Once Chi-Chi and the car were no longer in sight, Goku turned around, scratching the back of his head. He had just woken up a couple hours ago and started his training a bit after he ate breakfast. He looked forward to rigorous training for the rest of the day, but he'd have to watch his son.
"This is a bummer." It wasn't the fact that Goku didn't like spending time with Gohan. That was his favorite thing to do when he wasn't fighting or eating. But it was that he'd have to watch his son, who was more than enough occupied with his studies. To watch him until Chi-Chi came back would be to compromise a lot of his training, something that Goku really didn't wanna do.
Thinking back on his most recent conversation with Chi-Chi, a lightbulb flashed brightly over Goku's head.
Gohan was told by Chi-Chi that she was going off to shop and he was given the option if he wanted to go along with her and his grandfather or stay home and study. Gohan, being the little Einstein he was, saw this trick question from a mile away. He loved hanging out with his grandfather, but he chose studying to remain on his mom's good side.
The kid completed all the studies necessary for the day, but Chi-Chi would have him going further so he wouldn't have to worry about having any overdue work. The boy was already around ten lessons ahead, so who's to say he couldn't enjoy himself a little? He loved to read and this was what he did when he wasn't studying or doing simple exercises to work that big brain of his.
It was a book about the possibility of Extraterrestrial life. Gohan had already gotten confirmation of such things existing. Hell, he had the blood of an alien running through his veins. What he found interesting about the book were the countless theories of there either having extraterrestrial presence or there not being such a thing. He liked how the people with claims of there being alien life explained things, but he also understood why the people who disagreed did, in fact, disagree.
He was getting really into the book.
KNOCK KNOCK
Gohan closed his book shut immediately and set it to the side, covering it with a notepad. He opened another book, grabbed his pencil and pretended as if he was writing in one of the exercise books.
Goku slowly opened the door to check on what Gohan was doing. "Hey, son. I hope I'm not interrupting your studies."
Gohan's heart sunk with a feeling of relief, initially thinking that his mom had come back. "No, you're okay." He put his pencil down and closed the book.
"Studying hard, huh?" Goku asked.
"No, I was actually reading this." Gohan picked up the other book he was reading and showed it to his dad.
Goku welcomed himself into Gohan's room and grabbed the book that his son showed him. He looked at the cover, reading the title out loud. "The Possibility of Extrater...Extraterrestreal..."
"Extraterrestrial," Gohan corrected.
"Exterrestrial life. What's that mean?" Goku asked, pointing at the funny word.
"It means aliens," Gohan answered, "the book is about the chance of there being actual aliens out in the universe!"
"Why are you reading it?" Goku asked, "you do know that they do exist, right?"
"Well, yeah. I was just..." Gohan stopped speaking.
"Just what?" Goku prodded.
"Nothing," Gohan finished. The kid pondered on if he should even explain why he was reading the book. Knowing how his father was, he probably still wouldn't understand. "Do you need something?" he asked, deciding to change the subject.
Goku closed the door behind him and sat on Gohan's neatly-made bed. "Actually, no. I came to talk to you about something."
Well, this certainly had Gohan's attention. He turned around his chair and sat on it backward, his knees pressing down on the soft cushion. "What is it?"
"Remember when I asked you if you wanted to fight and all and you said that you wanted to be a scholar?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I want you to know that I think it's a good thing you want to be something different. But at the same time, you can do a lot of great things with your power, things greater than even I could. It's not to say I want you to go out and put your life on the line to save the world or anything, but I just think your power can't be wasted. I don't want to see that happen."
"I don't mind the fighting," Gohan told Goku, "but..."
"But what?"
"But I just don't like the bad side to it. Like last night." Gohan frowned at the thought of that evil man stomping on his dad. "I don't want to see that happen to you again."
"Ah." Goku rose from the bed and pinched his son's cheek. "And you don't hafta if you get stronger. It doesn't have to be through fighting, but just training. You train to get stronger just in case bad guys do come around. See, I won't be here forever and I'll need somebody to be able to hold down the fort."
"I'd like to, but mommy won't let me."
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her, son."
"But to go behind her back and do that would be wrong."
"Yeah," Goku said solemnly, "I honestly don't like the idea of doing it either, but I really think it's for the greater good. But, I'll leave the choice for you to make. If you don't want to train, then that's fine."
Sometimes, Gohan felt he needed a break from all the studying and constant work. At other moments, he just preferred to spend time with his mom and dad. With the former, he spent a lot of time with and his dad, not as much with his mother. "Does training me mean we get to spend more time together?"
"Of course!" Goku said, eyes beaming in delight. "You and me all the time when Chi-Chi's not here."
Gohan's brown little tail went to wagging back in forth. "Yeah! I'll do it."
And just like that, Goku hit the jackpot. All he had to do was a little convincing and his son would go for it. Now, today was going to be even better than he had originally thought.
Piccolo stood in the middle of the green fields, the very same one that he and Goku were located in the midst of fighting Raditz. The Namekian was sweating bullets, training hard. On certain days, he trained his body as hard as he possibly could and on other days, he merely meditated, keeping his mind sharp and focused.
Right now, he was replaying the entire fight he had with Raditz. He played out many different scenarios in his head as he imagined the fight with Raditz, looking for different angles to get one over the Saiyan. He played all the good scenarios that could have gotten him the win, but he also played the more realistic ones where he had a great potential of perishing. Doing the latter helped Piccolo realize that these little mistakes weren't to be made when fighting up against a being such as Goku's brother.
"I'm coming for you...pant, pant...the both of you."
Everyone was getting into a serious training regimen. Such things would be expected from people like Krillin, Goku, and Piccolo.
But there was an outsider, doing the very same thing.
Raditz was out near the edge of the cave in the early morning, having awoken on a full stomach due to the hefty meal he had the night prior. Their bones were out on a stick that he used to roast them.
The Saiyan had his shirt off to remove clothing while he sweated profusely. Raditz remained only in his black trousers, having disregarded his gauntlets, boots, as well as his near broken chest-plate armor.
"One million, four hundred and ninety-eight thousand..."
He had been doing constant pushups for the past couple hours; from the moment he woke up till now, he showed no signs of letting up. "One million, four hundred and ninety-nine thousand..."
With as much might as he could, Raditz lowered himself once more. His biceps were aching and his chest red as a tomato. His entire body was shaking as he hit the very last rep. his heart was pounding and his bones felt like they were going to crack, everything that made up of his body was pushed to the very limit. Still, it was only last rep and it wouldn't be completed unless he pulled through. "One million, five hundred thousand!"
Once Raditz followed through with that last push-up, he rolled over on his back, panting heavily. It wasn't until after he hit one million that he started to feel an aching soreness all around his body. Push-ups was just the first exercise of the day, something to warm him up.
He started to seeth at his very teeth upon realizing that this was his first day of hell.
He next had sit-ups, which he aimed to go for at least ten million, following 5 million squats. This was all he needed to get himself through the afternoon and onto the evening, which he would spend the rest of by shadow boxing.
"HYA!"
"HYA!"
Raditz threw constant jabs forth. He was wet from head to doe, body aching from his shoulders to his very calves. But he didn't give up still. He winced through every movement but kept pushing.
"Kakarot..." Raditz threw another punch. "I. Will. Surpass. YOU!" He threw another punch, this time with enough force that the wind coming from his fist broke off some of the stalagmites from inside the cave.
He hopped back and rendered a couple dozen kicks into the air within a matter of seconds. All of this hard work was something he did every other day. His schedule would consist of one day of training, and the next hunting for food and water to prepare himself for the following day of gruesome exertion of the body.
Raditz ignored every time he felt he broke something in his body and pushed himself to the brink as he trained. The embarrassment that his baby brother bestowed upon him couldn't be forgiven! He imagined how many people within Freeza's Force were laughing behind his back. Hell, he figured Nappa and Vegeta probably did the same thing.
He wasn't going to forgive Goku for what he had done, even bothering to let him live. For everything, his little brother was going to pay.
Raditz would be there to make sure of it.