Disclaimer: the idea and characters of Dragon Ball are owned by Akira Toriyama. This is a simple non-profit fan parody.

A fair warning - there's been lots of dark moments in the story already, but this one chapter contains probably the most unsettling depictions of violence and abuse yet. If that disturbs you, you may want to skip it. While I believe it has an important purpose in the story, it is not so essential plot-wise that you can't pick up from the next one.

Chapter 44 - All quiet on the Eastern front

There weren't many places you could get (less than) fresh food in East City any more; those that were there were a lot less conventional than they used to be. All supermarkets had ended up closing less than a week into the crisis. Disrupted supply chains had starved them, and gangs of looters had done the rest. Food was still being produced and brought in in various ways, of course - not quite enough of it, never enough, and it had become distressingly common to see people beg for it in the streets, or just lay immobile, their hand still tentatively stretched out, once there was no more point to the begging. But it wasn't sold in big, shiny, clean supermarkets. A lot of it went through private channels, friends of friends of farmers who handed out stuff at extortionate prices in their basements. And some of it was still sold in shops, the small kind, with a single room full of shelves packed with all sorts of random produce. Mr. Long's shop was one of those.

"Hey, Binh!," greeted the shopkeeper. He was friendly and still retained a plumpness that really drove home that this was a man dealing with a lot more food than most, those days. "Glad to see you still haven't kicked the bucket."

The young man who'd just pushed the door open gave back a faint smile. He hadn't kicked it, true, but judging from his appearance, you would have thought it might not be long. He was lean to the point of gauntness, without much muscles on his bones. His face was similarly excavated, with prominent cheekbones and slightly sunken eyes that gave it an angular, hostile look. "Greetings, Mr. Long. Do you have anything good?"

"Anything you want, Binh. Just ask!"

"Chocolate?"

"Heh," the shopkeeper chuckled at that. "Now, let's not get too crazy."

Binh smiled back weakly and started browsing the shelves, which were packed but chaotic. He picked anything he found that looked like a good deal, without much regard for what exactly it was. The shop was a tranquil place. Mr. Quyen, in his police uniform, sat lazily on a chair next to the entrance, his hat pulled over his eyes to shield them from the light, though he wasn't asleep. Another boy was looking among the shelves like Binh, picking things up and then putting them back, with the hesitancy of someone who doesn't quite have enough money to afford most of it. Behind the counter, Mr. Long was watching the TV, which was turned at an angle that would allow anyone in the shop to at least glance at it, though the volume was kept low enough not to be a bother.

The TV was airing live images of a man beating another to death with his bare hands.

"Dang, I swear this shit is getting more brutal as it goes on," commented Mr. Long, shaking his head. Binh had finished browsing and brought his groceries to the counter, and the shopkeeper started going through them.

"Why keep it on at all?," he asked.

"I don't know," the man shook his head. "It's like a train wreck, you know? You know it's bad, you just can't turn your eyes away."

"If you don't like seeing it on TV," said Mr. Quyen, with a gruff voice, "wait until it's happening here."

"Heavens, I hope not," replied Mr. Long.

The man snorted. "Hope's got nothing to do with it. It's going to happen. Piccolo said he will visit every city, one by one. Now it's Red Ribbons Headquarters. Next, I bet it's going to be West City. Biggest one, wealthiest one. Then it's a one in three chance between us, North and South City. But they'll get here eventually. You want to avoid it, leave."

"Not many places where I could go," mumbled Binh. Then, turning to the shopkeeper, "You still accept money? I brought some stuff to barter too."

Mr. Long waved his hand. "Money's fine. They're still using it even at Red Ribbon HQ, with the Tournament and all. Banks aren't doing very well right now, but as long as people take it, money's still good for something."

The other nodded and looked for the right notes in his pockets.

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU LITTLE BASTARD? STOP RIGHT THERE!"

Binh froze for a moment, before realising that wasn't directed at him. He turned around to see Mr. Quyen with a gun out and trained on the boy that was browsing the shelves. He was trembling like a leaf.

"I saw you bag that rice," said Quyen, slowly. "You put it back and then take your little thieving ass out of this shop, and never come back. Understood?"

The boy nodded twice and pulled his pockets inside out - a few handfuls of loose rice fell on the ground from them. Then he turned tail and ran out of the door. Mr. Quyen holstered his gun back, with a satisfied smile.

"There," he said to Mr. Long. "Earned my day."

"I pay you a bit more than less than a bowl's worth of rice - that I now have to wash, too," replied the shopkeeper.

"Don't be daft, Long. Those types, they come back for more. You don't put the fear of God into them, they'll strip your shop bare. He still got off lightly. If I was still a cop, it'd be off to the jail with him."

Binh handed a few notes to the shopkeeper, then gathered his groceries into a bag he pulled out of his pocket and unfolded. "You're not a cop, Mr. Quyen?," he asked.

"What, did you think the police just decided this shithole of a shop's important enough to post an officer to guard it day in, day out?," the man laughed. "No one's a cop any more. It takes a King to pay our salary. I just kept the uniform 'cos I like it. It's not like anyone will come asking for it anyway."

The city was not empty, but you could be forgiven for thinking it so when walking its streets. Cars weren't used much; fuel had become scarce, and much of it was used to power electric generators. Many vehicles had been abandoned and looted and were now only stripped carcasses with broken windows left on the side of the road, and others were kept securely locked behind garage doors, on hold for better times that may never come back. Binh walked back home with his bags of groceries while keep an eye for anyone else he might cross, and nervous the whole time. It wasn't that everyone had turned into some kind of vicious looter willing to kill for food - but the few who had were getting bolder and more dangerous by the day.

The collapse had been so dramatically sudden that it had left many in a state of dizziness, stunned by the swiftness of it all, and those who couldn't quickly come to terms with it and adapt to the new reality had often been the first to fall. As to its causes - on the TV channels that still functioned and bothered airing any program that wasn't just replicas of old movies or the disgusting spectacle he'd witnessed in Mr. Long's shop, experts endlessly discussed the topic, often simply bouncing back and forth the same arguments. But the gist of it was that even with the entire Royal Defence Force being annihilated in one night, even with the Capital being utterly vaporized by a single attack, the King being dead, and large swaths of industry and administration disappearing along with them - even all of that should not have been nearly enough to plunge the world in its current sorry state. No, what had really happened, what had really given civilization the fatal blow was the fact that people stopped believing. They'd already seen some pretty amazing and worrying things in the past months, but now there was a green demon on TV, emerged straight out of legend, claiming the rule of the world for himself, and his army of lackeys flooding the internet and every other medium with propaganda about how they were about to bring a new order - one in which only sheer power, violence and brutality would be rewarded, over civility, restrain, intelligence or camraderie. From now on, they said, it was everyone against everyone else. Those who could take, should. The world to the strong.

This had shaken the world already, but it wouldn't have been enough either if not for the Tournament. Three days after destroying the Capital, Demon King Piccolo's army had reached the headquarters of the Red Ribbon army. From there, he held a speech announcing that he would visit every major urban centre of the world, and then the minor ones, and ask them to invite them in. If they did, there would be some changes, but life could go on. If they didn't, or worse, thought of trying to resist, then, well, everyone had seen what happened to the Capital.

Red Ribbon HQ had almost immediately surrendered, and it soon became clear that Piccolo's promise had only a loose association with truth. As they took control of the vast complex that was effectively a city, the Instruments set up dozens of improvised rings all across the place, started grabbing everyone they could put their hands on, and forced them through what they called the Tournament of the Strong. Piccolo had made it clear enough - there was no place for weakness in his new world, and anyone wanting to live in it had to prove themselves. The Tournament was a gauntlet everyone who surrendered to him would have to go through; a series of death matches that would literally halve the population. Two people in, only one could walk out - or both would be killed by the invaders. There was no rhyme or reason in the purely random choice of who got shoved in. Sometimes two equally fit and young men would face each other in something resembling fair combat; others, a pregnant woman would have to bash in the head of an eighty years old geezer who could barely move. The goal wasn't to test combat ability in any fair way. Maybe there wasn't even a goal. But what the Tournament had really done, captured by cameras both set up by the Instruments and by the journalists they had now invited and welcomed as witnesses to their atrocities for the world, was breaking those who watched it. There was no hope of resistance and very little of escape. In the future of everyone lay a ring and another human being to either kill or be killed by.

One by one, the threads of the fabric of society came loose in a catastrophic domino effect. People fled, stopped doing their job, committed suicide, or simply started looking out only for their own survival, hardening themselves in sight of what would eventually come. What was left of the King's administration crumbled, and as law and order loosened up, the minority who welcomed Piccolo's rule grew and was emboldened. Even before the invasion could come, East City had turned into a ghost of its former self, and Binh guessed, the other cities should not be too different.

With one possible exception. Three days into the crisis, West City had isolated and shut itself off entirely. People were allowed in with some selectivity by a border patrol, apparently, but no one could come back out, and no one could know about what was going on inside; even their connections to the internet had been broken, and multiple transmitter towers had been seen being physically blown up as the city locked down.

What this meant was anyone's guess. It could have been their way of defending themselves from the risk of roaming bands of minor attackers before Piccolo himself came to the city. Some speculated the city had been completely taken over by Piccolo supporters, and was ready to give in to them as soon as they showed at the gates. But some others remembered that the city was where Capsule Corporation was located, which had built those weird towers that no one knew much about, but had somehow maimed Piccolo during his assault on the Capital. They were abandoned and unmanned now in East City, to be sure, but what about the city that was the beating heart of the world's most advanced technological developments - the city which in the last months had seen superpowered heroes and a giant ape monster roam its streets? If there was hope to be found anywhere yet, it must be there. If there could ever be a chance of resisting Piccolo, it must come from there. And there were strange rumours going around, surrounding some of the things that had happened in the city in the days before the isolation had started - rumours that sounded too crazy to be true. And so, that one thought, that single line of speculation, was just about the only thing that could still give some people a faint hope that things might one day be fixed.

Which wasn't much to go on with, but one has to make do.

When he walked up the footpath through Mrs. Dinh's garden, Binh took a look at the new feature that had just appeared in front of it. A large, bright red SUV had been parked in the middle of the lawn. He hesitated for a moment before ringing the doorbell, taking some time to listen in and even peer from the window. But he couldn't see anyone, and the only noise he could hear from inside was a distant TV, too muffled to make out. After thinking about it, Binh pushed the button.

Normally he would have had to wait for almost a minute - Mrs. Dinh was elderly and had a bad back, and it took her some time to walk anywhere, even inside her own house. But instead, it was only a matter of seconds before the door opened, and Binh found himself facing a giant.

"What do you want?," asked the man, brusquely.

Binh looked him up and down. He was a whole head taller than him, but also a lot more strongly built, and his black tanktop didn't leave much to guess in respect of how much muscle he had. He had very short hair, almost shaved, and from the way his muscles were glistening with sweat, Binh judged he may have interrupted him during exercise. Around his left arm was coiled the tattoo of a rattlesnake, its distinct tail sitting in the cavity of the elbow and its spires turning around and up biceps and triceps until its head peered right from above the man's shoulder, glaring threateningly at whoever was in front of him with fangs dripping with poison.

"I've, huh, brought the groceries," Binh replied. "Mrs. Dinh can't go by herself, so I agreed to help. Are you a relative of hers?"

"She's my grand aunt. I lived in another part of the city, but moved in today," he replied. He picked up the bag Binh was handing to him and appraised it, then grinned. "Awfully nice of you. You gonna continue?"

"Well, since you're here, I thought maybe it wouldn't be necessary any more?," asked the other.

The man raised a hand and grabbed his shoulder. It was sort of a friendly gesture, but it also allowed him to feel fully the strength of his grip, as he pulled him in uncomfortably close like they were best buddies. "I'm kinda busy, man. So it would be a real help if you kept it up, yeah? Just, next time, get enough for two. And some beer."

Binh looked at him.

"The beer's for me, of course," said the large man, laughing at his own joke. Then he pushed Binh away, leaving him right below the steps leading to the house.

"Name's Hao, by the way," he said, and without giving the other any time to answer, he slammed the door closed.

Three days later, Binh came back to visit the house.

The lawn in front of the porch was almost unrecognisable. Multiple vehicles, besides Hao's giant SUV, had been parked on it carelessly, to the point that most of the grass was now squashed or muddied by tire tracks. There also was trash strewn across it, mostly napkins and dirty paper cups. From inside the house came a lot of noise, mostly sounds of people shouting their lungs out, cheering and laughing. Binh frowned and hesitated a bit, but in the end, he knocked at the door.

This time it took a while for Hao to come answer. He looked significantly more annoyed by the disturbance.

"Oh, it's you," he said, looking at Binh up and down. "Brought any beer?"

"No," answered the other, firmly.

"Then piss off," snapped back the other man. "I'm busy."

"I came to see Mrs. Dinh," insisted Binh, without budging. Not that it was easy; Hao was certainly very physically intimidating, and he didn't do anything to disguise it. In fact, he obviously leaned into it, getting immediately up and close as soon as he wanted to gain the upper edge in a conversation.

"I said I'm busy," he spat. "What's she to you anyway, huh?"

"Just a neighbour," said the other. "Look, you can keep doing whatever it is you're doing with your friends. I just want to see her, check that she's fine."

"You suggesting I don't treat auntie well?," asked Hao.

Frankly, yes, thought Binh, but of course he didn't say that out loud. He just stood there.

Hao's threatening scowl stayed fixed on him for a few seconds, then suddenly seemed to relax and smiled. "You said she's a neighbour," he said. "Do you live next door?"

Binh wasn't too happy with sharing his home address with this thug, and didn't feel any sincerity from his sudden change in attitude - but neither he saw much purpose in trying to keep such an obvious secret.

"Yes, I'm in that house over there," he answered. "I knew Mrs. Dinh from before Piccolo, but just greeted her now and then, nothing more. She was perfectly fine handling herself. But with how things have become as of late, I figured she could use a hand."

"Come in."

Cautiously, Binh followed Hao inside the house. Just like the outside, the inside had changed significantly. A lot of furniture was missing, and some of what was left was damaged, or stripped of all ornaments. The carpets were dirty with mud prints and stinking of alcohol or worse. The house didn't look like a well kept place for someone to live in - it looked like the den of a band of looters who were temporarily making camp there just until they could strip it of all that had some value.

Hao led his reluctant guest to the living room. It was a mess in a similar state as the rest of the house - Mrs. Dinh used to own a large collection of books, since she had never thrown or given away one that she read after the age of ten. Now her shelves were almost entirely empty, and a few torn pages dirtied with footprints on the ground left very little hope for what had happened to their contents. Couches had been all lumped into a corner, leaving room for Hao's training equipment, mostly various sets of dumbbells and a bench. On the couches were slouching three more men, drinks in hand, hollering at the TV. On the table in front of them was a bunch of banknotes, too jumbled for Binh to guess the exact amount, but certainly more than he'd seen in his entire life, let alone after Piccolo's coming.

"We're taking bets on the next fight, Hao!," shouted one of the men to his host. "Want to chime in?"

"Who's up next?," asked Hao back.

"It's a baby fight," replied the guy, pointing at the screen. "What do you say? Win or draw?"

Binh looked at the TV, confused, before understanding the meaning of those words in horror. The sports event that got those men so excited was the Tournament of the Strong. On the stage that was being aired at the moment stood an adult man and a baby of a few months, simply laying on his back on the ground. He had heard this sometimes would happen - the rules of the Tournament were simple and allowed for no age exceptions, regardless of how meaningless that would actually make the fight. Two people were picked randomly at the whim of the Instruments doing the picking and dumped on a ring, and that was about it.

The man on the stage had a queasy look on his eyes, shifting them from the baby in front of him to the Instruments around him, weapons ready, and then back again. It was a commonly applied rule of the Tournament that if someone blatantly refused to fight or to put their best effort into it, both contestants would get shot, as a way of preventing anyone from throwing the fight just for the sake of letting their opponent live.

"He's scared shitless," commented Hao, with the confidence of an expert judge of the situation. He took a roll of banknotes out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. "Win."

"Your loss, Hao," laughed the other. "Methinks he's too much of a coward to actually go through with it."

"It's because he's a coward, idiot. It's the ones who think they're heroes that get themselves shot," replied Hao, taking his place on the couch. "Hey, whelp. Auntie's in the new bedroom. Go check on her, make out, do whatever the fuck you do, then get out of here."

The others took a quick glance at Binh and laughed, then turned back to the fight, where the referee had just shot in the air, signalling the beginning of the match, and didn't pay him any more attention. Binh felt grateful for that, and he swiftly left the room. It took him a moment to find Mrs. Dinh - her usual bedroom was now obviously occupied by Hao, who had savaged it as much as the rest of the house. It took him a while to realise where the "new bedroom" was, and opening all the doors of the house until he tried what had formerly been simply a closet.

The closet had been emptied, save for a pot that fiercely reeked of excrement and a cot on which lay Mrs. Dinh. She raised her head at the sound of the door opening, straining to take a look.

"Hao...?," she called out.

Binh ran to her, offering her an arm to lift her up - then decided otherwise, seeing the shape the old woman was in. She was always thin, but now she looked like little more than a bundle of twigs in a nightgown. He lifted her up without any effort. "It's me, Binh," he said. "Mrs. Dinh, would you like to come stay at my home? I'll cook you some good food, and give you an actual bed."

The old lady looked at him with dizzy eyes, but at some point she seemed to have a flash of recognition. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, that would be very nice."

With a determined stride, Binh left the room and walked straight into the living room. He didn't plan to even stop to ask or say anything, but Hao called out to him.

"Where are you going with my auntie?," he said. "You two goin' steady?"

There were more laughs from his friends. Binh didn't answer. Hao didn't seem even irritated, more like bemused.

"Ah, do whatever! One less bother for me. I was kinda worrying she'd die on me at this rate. Just keep her near, in that house of yours, you got me? Stay close by. They usually pair up people grabbed from the same neighbourhood. Hey, if you're lucky, you'll be the one who gets to fight her!"

Binh felt a surge of rage - had he been able to turn it into substance, to toss it at that despicable bunch and incinerate them in a ball of fire like Piccolo did, he'd have gladly done it then and there. But he knew that was not the case, and realistically, any one of the four burly men in the room would have easily manhandled him one-on-one - all together, he would have just been a plaything for them.

Some of the gamblers cheered, others cursed. On the TV screen, a disturbingly close shot showed the adult man clutching one of his large hands around the neck of the baby and-

Binh swallowed the anger and humiliation and turned away, walking towards the exit.

"See you later, neighbour," greeted him Hao in a mocking voice.

He left the house. If he'd ever set foot in it again, he thought, it would be to burn it down to the ground.

Of course, that ended up not happening. Binh placed Mrs. Dinh in his house, arranging a place for her to sleep by taking pillows and adding covers to a couch. Finding her clothes was going to be hard; in the end, Binh settled for simply passing her some of his own, which led to the slightly incongruous image of the elderly lady often walking around the house in jeans and T-shirt. A few days of sleep in an actual bed, decent food and use of a real bathroom made wonders for her health and mood. She took it upon herself to at least cook lunch and dinner, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Binh didn't push back too much, because obviously the work wasn't too hard on her, and if anything, gave her an excuse to be more active and focused. Besides, she was indeed able to pull surprisingly good dishes out of the scarce and low quality ingredients that Binh managed to procure with increasing difficulty.

A few days passed this way, and things changed very little. Hao did not ever come over to Binh's house, but he would conspicuously check it out now and then. At the beginning, his house was often crowded with his circle of friends, gathering to watch the Tournament and bet on it like on that first day. Then things got quieter. Two days after Binh carried Mrs. Dinh over to his place, the Tournament of the Strong in Red Ribbon Headquarters was finally declared over. Leaving behind a garrison, an elected governor, and a broken city whose streets were littered with corpses, Demon King Piccolo and his army finally departed. Just as everyone had guessed, their target for their next purge was West City. They announced it would take them two days to get there, and as they left, the world was thrown into a last weird lull, a spell of quiet during which everyone held their breath waiting to see the answer to questions that had been hanging over them for a little over two weeks now, and that basically amounted to whether humanity and civilisation would be able to survive this crisis, or if the barbaric future envisioned by Piccolo was set in stone for everyone.

It was twilight in East City, and as September was almost over now, the air was beginning to get truly chilly. The city had not gotten any more liveable, but without the excitement of the Tournament of the Strong egging them on, even the bands of Piccolo supporters seemed to have gotten a bit less violent and cocky lately. Perhaps even they were feeling the tension of the impending reckoning - though sure none of them would admit to worrying that their beloved leader would actually face any meaningful resistance. Be it as it may, things had quieted down, and Binh had even dared going a bit further than usual in his trip for groceries. When he came back, he had something to announce.

"Mrs. Dinh," he said, gleeful. "I found crabs!"

The old woman perked up, immediately scooting to him from the couch she'd been sitting on. "Are they fresh?"

Before even waiting for an answer, she plunged her hand into the bag that Binh was holding to her and got a hold of one of the crustaceans. It was a bit on the small side, but of a bright orange colour, with vivid eyes.

"They look good, they look good," she muttered, turning it in her hands, weighing it. "But how?"

"A fisherman from the coast comes to sell his stuff a few streets from here," explained Binh. "He's making quite a bit of money in exchange for the risk."

"Thanks you so much!," the woman beamed. "I will make hotpot for dinner, then. Hand them here."

She immediately put herself to work, her movements gaining an unexpected springiness for her age. Once she had a pot of boiling water ready, she took the crabs and slammed them one by one on a wooden board, slicing rapidly and expertly like a surgeon through their shell and brains with a single fatal cut, then tossing them to cook. Each slice made Binh wince a bit - he was not used to killing any animals, even though he ate them. To Mrs. Dinh's practised hand, that seemed like second nature.

"They're reaching West City tonight, you know," he said, casually. "Well, it will still be afternoon back there."

"Hm, hm," Mrs. Dinh had ran out of crabs and was now slicing through root vegetables at speeds that made Binh worry she'd cut off a finger. "Eh, no helping it. It will go how it will go."

"I guess it will," sighed Binh. "But still, it's not like I can just stop thinking about it. I'd turn the TV on if I still had one."

"It did buy you food for a week. You need to eat more than you need a TV."

"True enough," he smiled.

"You shouldn't watch that stuff," said the woman, disapprovingly. "It rots your heart."

"I didn't mean to watch the fights. But if something happens, I want to see. If someone in West City really is ready to resist-"

"Then you will learn about it tomorrow. Better than sitting through any of that stuff."

"Hey, may be we can tell from the shouting that comes from your house," suggested Binh, with a shrug. "If they start crying, then we can be happy."

Mrs. Dinh scoffed, her benevolent expression suddenly hardening. "That bastard-," and here followed the usual, long string of insults that she never skimped on when talking about him, "-and his gang will not be there tonight. I hear them all the time when they stay in the front yard, they're loud as a pack of animals. They said they would all meet in Main Street."

"Oh." True enough, Binh had heard rumours that Piccolo supporters would gather in a single spot to watch the beginning of what they expected to be the West City Tournament of the Strong. That was not good; if whatever happened got them excited and thirsting for blood, the city could experience chaos and violence that night already, after the too short respite. But the house where they lived was far enough in the periphery to stay out of trouble. And anyway, if the events excited them that much, it meant the world was done for either way. Binh wasn't sure he cared about what happened to him in that case.

"I'll go set the table, then," he said, grabbing a tablecloth and cutlery from a cupboard. Mrs. Dinh nodded and gestured with the hand for him to go, focused on the cooking. Binh started spreading the table cloth, then, midway through the work, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn't have a TV, true, but of course the Tournament was streamed online as well. He was very well aware for the distaste that Mrs. Dinh had for the very idea of it, but he couldn't resist wanting to watch. He shut off the audio, and trusted the images to be telling enough to understand what was going on.

The army of the Instruments was approaching West City, whose skyline could be seen on the horizon. The stream came from some camera that must be mounted on a car or tank, but it was not moving - rather, the whole army seemed to wait, a chaotic column of vehicles and infantry strewn all around the camera's field of view, on road and fields alike. It seemed like the army was awaiting for something. Binh checked quickly the comment section to see if he could guess what that was about.

come on blow up those towers already

nah I want to see them fire like they did at the capital

they did nothing that time, what do you think changed?

not for that, so that piccolo blows up the city lol

The comments went on and on with similar back and forth, but the gist of it seemed to be that there had been an ultimatum - West City was to demolish its own defensive towers before Piccolo's army approached, as a sign of surrender. If they didn't do it before the deadline - which turned out to be in only a few minutes - then Piccolo would destroy the city without even approaching it.

If there was a moment in which resistance could begin, in which the direction of the last weeks could finally be inverted and humanity could strike back, this was it. Binh forgot about the table and simply stared at the small screen, where on the top left corner a timer ticked regularly towards zero, and the end of the ultimatum.

"Binh!"

He ignored Mrs. Dinh calling out to him, too engrossed and expectant. It was a matter of seconds, now. Ten, nine, eight. What would they do? They couldn't attack at such a range, obviously, but then, how would they avoid destruction? Was the city just going to go down in flames out of stubborn defiance?

There was an explosion, then another. Clouds of smoke and dust were sprayed towards the sky at different corners of the city, at the base of the towers built all around it. And the towers, undermined by the charges, fell. The demolitions must have been well studied, as the intricate lattices collapsed in an orderly manner, mostly folding onto themselves instead of crashing sideways.

The Instruments cheered and laughed, and immediately, their vehicles set in motion. The signal had been given; West City surrendered, accepted the terms, and would submit itself to the Tournament of the Strong. There was going to be no resistance. Piccolo would rule uncontested, maybe forever.

Binh almost smashed his phone on the table in rage. He'd believed it - really believed it, now that he looked back on it. Perhaps even someone in West City had believed it just as much, before realising the impossibility of that dream as soon as the ultimatum weighed on them. What did it matter now?

"Binh-"

The second call was weaker, almost a plea given with a creaking voice, and Binh suddenly realise something must have been wrong. He rushed to the kitchen to find Mrs. Dinh almost collapsed on the ground, sitting against the kitchen counter, breathing heavily.

"Mrs. Dinh! What's wrong? How do you feel?"

"Dizzy- my head-" she moaned, in pain. "It must be the pressure. Don't worry. Just help me-"

"Blood pressure? You have trouble with that?"

Mrs. Dinh nodded. "I had to take medicines- but they're-"

They're back in the house, realised Binh. Of course, when he'd taken her away, he had not considered any of that, he'd just been worried about subtracting her from the abuse she was being subject to as quickly as possible. Now there was no way to find a pharmacy, so the only possible place to get those medicines urgently, in the hope that taking them would at least start relieving her symptoms, was the house.

"Where were they kept?," asked Binh.

"You can't go-" heaved the woman. "I didn't want you to go, that's why I didn't say anything."

"Don't worry. He's out tonight, remember? On Main Street, with his friends. I can just get in from that one broken window on the front, and then get out. He'll never realise I was there in the first place."

Mrs. Dinh hesitated a moment, then nodded. "In the room - where you found me - under the cot."

The young man put a hand on her forehead, and she seemed to relax a bit, closing her eyes and breathing in more regularly. He got up. His eye and hand went to something that the woman had let fall when she'd collapsed - a sharp, pointy kitchen knife she'd been using to cut up vegetables.

Hao should have been outside, celebrating Piccolo's latest victory and waiting for the new Tournament to begin. He'd said it, and he believed it. There should have been no risks involved.

Still, Binh grabbed and sheathed the knife, sticking it into his trousers' pocket.

Entering the house was not hard. Binh was right - the broken window on the front was an easy way in. All he had to do was carefully remove a couple of shards from the bottom part of the frame, to avoid risking cutting up his feet on them when he stepped in. Then, moving slowly, he slid in between the remaining shards, touched the floor on the other side, and pulled up his other leg, and managed to get in, having made no noise and having not hurt himself with the glass.

The house was not too different from the last time he'd been in, except perhaps that now the smells and chaos had gotten worse. Binh had taken to thinking of it as a pigsty at this point, which made it a pretty fitting den for the man that occupied it, all in all. He moved slowly, entering the living room with a soft, stealthy step. It was not like he needed to, but simply acting like a thief sneaking into a house made him instinctively feel like he had to do that. Still, the house was empty, so ultimately, it was pointless.

He thought about turning on the lights, but that might have been seen from outside, and he wanted to attract as little attention as possible. Never mind that, there was enough light filtering from outside that he could still tell the general layout of the room, and he remembered where he was supposed to go. He walked close to the wall, still irrationally grateful for the soft carpeting under his feet that muffled his steps.

His way to the closet was unimpeded. Once inside, he closed the door behind him, turned on the light, and quickly started rummaging under the filthy cot where Mrs. Dinh used to sleep, that had not been moved yet from where he left it. Sure enough, tucked under where her head would have been when resting were several blister packs of round, red pills. Binh grabbed all the ones he could find and stuffed them inside his free pocket, then hurried out of the room and walked back into the living room.

Sitting on an armchair he'd given his back to before was Hao. He looked at him with a sort of dazed surprise. He was surrounded by empty beer cans, and looked himself as if he'd just woken up from a drunken stupor.

"The fuck you're doing in my house?!," he growled.

It's not your house, would have been the correct answer, but Binh's heart pounded hard in his chest as he was far too aware of how dangerous the situation was. "I was just-" he started, stuttering. "Mrs. Dinh needs her blood pressure pills. She's feeling sick. I had to come take them, I didn't think you were in, you have no use for them-"

"YOU WANT TO FUCKING ROB ME?!," roared Hao, insensate, and a mass of a hundred kilos of angry, drunken muscle mass tossed itself against Binh. He punched him in the jaw, sending his head spinning, and hurling him to crash into the wall. Binh screamed and fell to the ground, a broken nose already dripping blood. He raised a hand in front of himself, as a pathetic defence.

"Please, listen, please, she could, she could die," he gasped, desperately. "You want her alive, right? For the Tournament? If she dies, you don't have your easy win, right? Please let me bring her these."

"You think I need her for an easy win?," Hao laughed. "I can have an easy win against you, shithead."

Not if you kill me now, thought Binh, but he didn't get a chance to object as a second punch hit him square in the mouth. There was a crunching sound, and Binh bent over, coughing and spitting. A spurt of blood and several broken teeth fell out. His mouth was full of a horrible metallic taste.

"Pleahe-" he tried to say. Hao's hands closed around his throat, and started pushing. His strength was insane compared to Binh's own - he struggled, but it felt to him like trying to move a brick wall, or bend a still beam. It didn't help that he felt weaker as the pressure increased and what little air he still had in his body ran out at dramatic speed.

Binh's right hand went to his pocket, and touching something hard and smooth, he suddenly remembered. His fingers felt the plastic handle, looked for the right way to hold it, serrated themselves around it. He wouldn't have a second chance at this.

In a single instant, he drew the knife, then drove it with all his might into the unguarded space between Hao's ear and his shoulder, using his arm's full strength to stab the man's neck. He didn't know where the carotid artery was precisely, but he hoped he would hit it.

Hao gasped, his eyes widened. His throat made a croaking sound, and when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out, just an angry wheeze and a gush of blood. But he didn't die. Instead, his eyes got angrier, and his hands started pushing even harder, as he made more beastly sounds, shook harder, smashed Binh against the wall and then down on the floor, one, two, three times, every one making his brain rattle around in the skull to the point where he thought it would end up pulped. Binh's fingers were still clutched around the knife, and now he pulled, as strong as he could, and tossed the knife to his right. It spun and slid on the floor until it ended up in the gap under the sofa.

From Hao's neck wound blood squirted with high pressure. Binh was drenched in it, and as they made him more slippery, he slid his fingers now under Hao's, trying to separate his hands, and finally regain some breath. No dice, they wouldn't budge, and now Binh felt his consciousness fading and his limbs growing cold from the suffocation. But even in that daze, he could tell that finally, finally the pressure was easing. Hao's rage subsided, overcome not by calm but by weakness. His eyes were getting unfocused, and eventually, one of his hands let go. Lots of blood had left his body, and what was still in it couldn't be enough for him to function properly. He was dying, and in the last glance of his eyes that Binh got he could see well enough that he was aware of it - that he must have suddenly realised as the cold came over him, and life flowed out. The understanding, the fear. For a single moment, those eyes turned from threatening fires fuelled by anger into those of a scared child. Then they were just two empty gelatinous orbs of organic matter, with nothing behind them any more.

Binh breathed in the air avidly, as he needed it desperately, no matter how much it stank of alcohol, piss, and now, blood. He touched his face, feeling around the jaw for broken and loosened teeth. He winced with pain when his fingers glanced the profile of his nose, now bent on one side in an ugly shape. It took him a few more breaths to even find the strength to get back on his legs. He didn't give any more of a glance to Hao's body; his mind felt empty as he tried to grapple with what had just happened, with what he'd done, with what would he say to Mrs. Dinh, coming back with her medicines covered head to toe in someone else's blood.

He dragged himself out of the house, quickly checked that no one else was around to see him skulk in the night, then slowly walked out of the front yard and into his own, up to the door. His hand was shaking and it took him a few tries to even manage to stick in the key and turn it. When he finally went inside, the house was silent. He called out.

"Mrs. Dinh, I'm back! I- I found them!"

His throat hurt with the effort of shouting, and no one answered. He slowly reached the kitchen, and there he saw Mrs. Dinh, still sitting on the ground, back to the cupboard, exactly like he'd left her. She was still. He kneeled next to her, looking for the pills in his pocket.

When he found them, he tried to push one to her lips. The mouth didn't respond to the thumb trying to gently push it open. The skin felt slightly cooler than it ought to to the touch.

Binh tried to feel for breath from the old woman's nostrils. He looked for a pulse by pressing his fingers on her wrists and neck. He found nothing.

He let his arms fall and sat next to her body, empty, defeated. The pills rolled on the floor, now useless.

At some point, Binh had gotten up from his place next to Mrs. Dinh's body and went to the living room. He'd not bothered washing, changing out of his bloody clothes, or trying to medicate his wounds. Instead, he simply grabbed his smartphone and went back to check the stream from West City. He knew there may as well have not been any hope any more. He just did it as an automatic gesture, his shocked mind looking for something to fix itself on rather than the immediate reality of that horrible night.

The Instruments had walked into the city. Piccolo had been greeted by no one else than the current owner and manager of Capsule Corporation, Bulma Briefs - who had essentially inherited the company after her father died in the Capital's destruction. She was playing it smart, Binh had to acknowledge. Cameras followed them closely now as she led the invaders into the city. Binh wanted to laugh at the idea that she or anyone else would oppose any kind of resistance, now. No, obviously, the girl had decided to do the clever thing, understanding all too well where the wind blew from now. The city was ready all right, but only to welcome its new overlords.

Bulma led Piccolo through the streets. There was a crowd standing on attention around a long road as the Instruments paraded through it with their tanks. She sat together with him on an luxurious convertible car that proceeded slowly at the head of the parade, and seemed to be chatting amiably with him, showing off the city's various landmarks and facilities. It was just her, Piccolo, and a blonde Instruments officer driving the car.

The parade took almost one hour. Binh didn't feel anything about it. No keen disappointment, no despair. It was what it was, after all. He'd managed to barely win against a normal human stronger than him earlier that night, and it had served no purpose at all. What chances could anyone have against a demon? In the end, he was right. The world would go to the strong.

The end point of that trip was a stadium. The camera shifted to following Bulma and Piccolo now, close enough that they could be heard talking. Obviously it had all been arranged so that the world could get first seat views in how a proper welcome to the Demon King ought to be organised.

"This used to be the West City Dinos' stadium," explained Bulma, smiling. "Does Your Majesty have an appreciation for baseball?"

"I have never heard of it," replied Piccolo, with his own ferocious grin. "Flute, you know what this is?"

"A pretty tedious affair," said the blonde officer that was trailing behind the Demon King as a personal attendant. "Your Majesty probably would not enjoy it."

"Hmmm, well, I might decide to be the judge of that later," laughed the demon. "But right now, we're here for a different sort of sports."

"Of course," Bulma bowed slightly. "As Your Majesty can see, inside the stadium, twenty different rings have been set up. If it pleases Your Majesty, then these could be used for the first matches of our very own Tournament of the Strong."

"It pleases me, it pleases me," Piccolo nodded. "Flute, send the necessary orders. NOW!"

That last outburst seemed slightly out of place. The two exchanged a glance.

"Of course, Your Majesty," said the attendant. "Please relax and leave everything to me."

The tension in the Demon King's expression seemed to be relieved, and he smiled again. As Flute began talking into his phone, Bulma led Piccolo to a special dais, decorated and furnished with luxury items of all sorts. In the centre of it, a throne covered in red velvet faced the stadium.

"Your Majesty's seat," she explained, with a bow.

"I see you're really trying to get on my good side!," laughed Piccolo. "Well, aren't you the cunning one. Do you expect me to reward your hospitality?"

The girl seemed slightly uneasy. For the first time, she hesitated before answering. "If it pleases Your Majesty, of course," she replied.

"Hm, then reward shall it be." The King's eyes flashed with malice. "You will receive the honour of fighting the opening match of this Tournament of the Strong. How does that sound?"

"Your Majesty-" there seemed to be a moment of emotion running through Bulma's expression, but it quickly subsided. "As you wish, Your Majesty-"

"What is it? Disappointed?" Piccolo grinned, extending a finger to touch Bulma's cheek with the tip of his claw, running slowly down it. "You thought if you were a good enough girl, you would get exempted from fighting?"

"Actually, Your Majesty-" She hesitated for a moment. "I was hoping that I would get to choose my opponent."

The Demon King's eyes widened. Then he erupted into a savage laugh.

"Your opponent! You're so eager to kill someone, little girl?" He looked at her with amusement. "Very well! I will grant your request. Ask who do you want to fight, and I'll send my men to fetch them. Let's see if you can back up your words."

"Actually, Your Majesty, there will be no need," she replied. "The person I wish to fight is be in this stadium already. I would be happy just calling them down once I am on the ring."

"Really? Well, I am looking forward to seeing this mysterious fighter then. FLUTE! Have you sent those orders?"

The stream continued, focusing now and then on the inane banter between the Demon King, his attendant, and Bulma, now on wide shots of the stadium, as it was getting filled to the brim with the Instruments. At least one tenth of the army, and almost all of its officers, seemed to be seating somewhere, as the rest spread around the city to gather participants to line up for the rings.

Binh thought he should turn it off. He remembered Mrs. Dinh's words - it rots your heart. What point was there in watching further? The way things would go was really obvious. He would have wanted to feel disgusted at the abject show of collaborationism Bulma Briefs was making, but he couldn't really manage that either. Regardless, there was no point in seeing her choose someone - maybe an elder or a child - just so that she could guarantee her own survival, and then go through with it. He should turn the phone off. He should look away. He should go on and do - what?

He kept watching.

The stadium was full, now. The crowd murmured, full of excitement for the imminent violence that would erupt. With great pump, Bulma Briefs, followed by several other employees of her company - Binh thought he recognised one Yamcha, whom he'd seen sometimes in the news, first as baseball player, then as local West City superhero - walked into the field, and leaving the others behind, she took her place on the central ring, the bigger and most prominent one. She had a microphone, handed to her so she could still talk with the King until the time for her fight to begin came.

"Bulma Briefs!," shouted Piccolo, raising from his throne. "I have to say, your hospitality has pleased me greatly. Everyone else who our army will eventually visit should learn from you - I'm sure they would not want me to feel disrespected by too poor a welcome."

There were applauses and laughter from the bleachers.

"As such, you have earned the honour of a small courtesy from Demon King Piccolo himself. Speak, Bulma Briefs! As the first participant of the Tournament of the Strong of West City, who do you wish to fight?"

Binh's finger hovered over the power button. What else there was to see?

"You."

The stadium froze into silence. Demon King Piccolo's expression turned into surprise, then outrage.

"What have you just said?," he growled.

"You," repeated Bulma, clear as day.

Binh's hands trembled. All of a sudden, he felt something. He felt desperate, he felt angry, he felt happy. He wanted to scream. From deep inside him, tears of both sadness and relief welled up and came up to his eyes, hitting him with the full weight of everything that had gone on in the last hours, all that he had done and seen. Here was something that may make it all worth it. Here was a glimpse of a different future, one in which he would not be forced to live forever like that, a wild dog in a world in which it's kill or be killed forever.

Here was hope.

"Come down your throne, King Piccolo!," shouted Bulma, loud enough for the whole world to hear. "Come down, face me, and show us all how does a demon die!"

This chapter was one of the oldest ideas I had about the story since the beginning - you had to see rock bottom to appreciate what comes after. If the ending made you feel hyped, good - things are finally about to heat up!

By the way, this one chapter specifically is kind of based off an old one shot of mine. It's not available in English, but it was a similar story of civilians - a brother and his younger sister - trying to survive in the ruins of a city during Majin Boo's short reign of terror. While the actual events were pretty different, there were a few shared points, like the depiction of a collapsing society, the sense of powerlessness in front of a supernatural threat, the divide between reactions to the crisis and even the violence erupting among survivors. I sort of took that template and reworked it here inside this story. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, dour as it is - and rest assured, now it's finally time for some much needed catharsis.