Disclaimer: I took a lot of names from the Indian myth, The Ramayana. For the purposes of this fic, I really altered the plot of the myth and the characters of Rama and Sita, but you won't really see that until the next chapter.
Also, the idea that Baba opens portals to the Other World belongs to Lady Thundera. Again, it's been a long time since I've seen the episodes when Goku is in Other World. I don't know if Baba can really open a portal to Hell or not, but if she visits Other World, it's possible. I mean, she has to get there somehow.
Part Four
Gohan and Goten stood in a field nearby their two respective homes. The two brothers stared at two wooden grave markers in front of them. One was for their father. The other was for their mother.
An hour ago, the entire Son family had gathered for a funeral for their mother, who had died the other day. Since they didn't have a body to bury, they simply made a grave marker for her, next to the other empty one they made for their father years ago. They knew she would have liked that.
One by one, the rest of the family had left. Yet Gohan and Goten lingered. Neither of them really knew why they stayed. They just felt that they owed it to their mother to stay for a little longer.
Goten glanced at his older brother. Telling Gohan and his family about Chi-Chi's death was the hardest thing he ever had to do. He knew how difficult this was for Gohan, but admired the way he handled the situation, staying strong for the rest of the family… though he was no longer a fighter, he was still strong.
For a long time, the two brothers stood there in somber silence. At last, Gohan spoke. "I should have been there."
"What?" Goten asked absent-mindedly.
"I should have been there," Gohan said dully. "I knew she was getting old, but I took for granted that she was always there…"
He stared hard at the ground. "If I had visited her more often, then maybe… maybe I would have got to say good-bye."
"Don't talk like that!" Goten told him sternly. "You were busy, you couldn't help it."
Gohan shook his head vehemently. "That's no excuse. She always took care of me --- of us --- and I didn't take good enough care of her."
"Look, you didn't know it was going to happen," Goten said gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. "And she died peacefully."
Gohan kicked a few blades of grass. "It's funny," he said sadly. "You never know when it's going to happen, don't you? You know that people aren't going to be around forever, but when they actually die, it's always a shock."
"Yeah," Goten agreed. "It's just going to be so hard. She's always been there for us."
"And now we'll have to be there for each other. That's what she wanted, right?"
Goten nodded.
"You know, I'm really jealous of you," Gohan admitted ruefully.
"Why?" Goten asked, confused.
"You were the only one who got to say good-bye."
"I'm sorry… but you should know that she was thinking about you. She told me to say how proud she was of you --- of all of us."
Gohan smiled ruefully. "Thanks." He paused. "At least Mom died peacefully. And she's with Dad now. She must be very happy…"
"Yeah," Goten said softly. "Mom will be okay." His sudden optimism reminded himself of his father. Briefly, he recalled how alike the two of them had been until he'd stopped training. Yet now that he had taken it up again, he supposed he was more like his father than ever.
Goten looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, the dying light turning the sky reddish-gold. His mother had always loved sunsets…
Yeah, she'll be okay, he thought. He managed to smile. I bet she and Dad are together in Other World right now!
***
"He's in Hell."
There was silence. King Kai and Chi-Chi stared at Baba in numb shock. Finally, King Kai let out a nervous laugh.
"If this is a joke, Baba, it's the worst one I ever heard." He paused anxiously. "It is a joke, isn't it? Because Goku --- he can't be in Hell. He, of all people..."
Baba shook her head. "It's no joke. Goku is in Hell."
"Hell?" Chi-Chi whispered hoarsely, stricken. She felt as though she were about to faint. "My Goku's in Hell?"
"Goku's been in Hell for the past twenty-five years, and nobody bothered to find this out until now?" King Kai yelled, freaking out. "How could King Yemma have let this happen?"
"Goku told him that he was going to Grand Kai's planet, and King Yemma assumed that he did!" Baba replied. She added, "But if you ask me, he should have checked this out sooner. He rules Other World, for Kami's sake; he's supposed to prevent these things from happening."
"He can't be there!" Chi-Chi cried, shaking her head in desperate denial.
Baba pointed to her crystal ball. "I saw it myself. The ball never lies."
Chi-Chi refused to believe it. Goku couldn't possibly be in that terrible place! Why would someone like him be in Hell? The mere idea of it was unthinkable…
But then she remembered that Goku had been in Hell once. He had accidentally fallen off Snake Way on his way to King Kai's planet the first time he died. Only he'd escaped. So how could Goku have spent the last twenty-five years trapped in Hell if he could have easily escaped it again? It made no sense at all.
"Was it an accident?" she whispered. "Did he fall off Snake Way?"
"No, it was no accident," Baba said gravely. "It was deliberate."
"Deliberate?" King Kai repeated incredulously. "Don't tell me that idiot just went down there to pick a fight with Frieza and the other villains who are there!"
"Of course not!" Baba snapped. "Goku may not be very bright, but he's not that stupid! I meant deliberate because he was taken there by force!"
Chi-Chi was stunned by this new revelation. "You mean he was captured?"
"That's impossible!" King Kai shouted. "Goku's one of the strongest fighters in the universe… he wouldn't let himself be captured like that!"
"It's not always the strongest person who wins," Baba said darkly. "You were right, King Kai; Goku's death wasn't a natural one. In fact, he was killed so that he could be taken to Hell shortly after he arrived in Other World."
"What?" King Kai shrieked, looking more flustered by the second.
"So someone did kill him!" Chi-Chi exclaimed. "But how? King Yemma said that Goku never even knew what hit him…" On a sudden hunch, she asked fearfully, "Did Frieza have anything to do with it? Or Cell? Or anyone else that Goku has fought?"
"No. As far as we know, they're still locked in prison cells," Baba explained. "Besides, they don't have the power for something like this. King Yemma looked through his files and we think we know who's responsible for this whole mess."
"Who is it?" Chi-Chi wanted to know.
"Come on, Baba, cut the suspense!" King Kai urged.
"It was a sorceress by the name of Sita."
"Sita?" King Kai repeated blankly. "I don't think I've ever heard of her."
"Not very many people do," Baba said, frowning. "There wasn't much on her in King Yemma's files, but I'll tell you what I know…
"A couple of centuries ago, Sita was a princess on a planet called Vishnu, until she was banished. For what, I don't know. During her exile, she sold herself to dark forces and became a witch. For some reason, she was obsessed with men who wronged women. If a woman had been cheated on or treated badly by a man, Sita knew about it, and punished them brutally.
"At first the women of the planet liked this. The women of Vishnu were often married off at young ages to whoever their parents had arranged the marriage with… and in most cases, they were treated poorly. The men could have as many spouses as they wanted, but the women were forced to stay as pure as snow! They had no rights at all…"
"Couldn't they just leave them?" Chi-Chi asked curiously.
Baba shook her head. "On that planet, divorce was unheard of. It was their custom to stay with their spouses, no matter how horribly they were treated. The only way they could escape was if their husband died, and usually they were married off to another person the moment that happened."
"That's awful," Chi-Chi murmured. She'd heard of domestic abuse on television shows. She couldn't understand why some wives would purposely stay with men who continued to hurt them. Luckily, she wouldn't know what it was like to be in those sorts of situations; Goku would have never done anything to harm her like that. But if she had been in a marriage like that, she would have left, and damn the consequences.
"So you can imagine how delighted the women were when Sita came along," Baba continued. "Some women went as far as to go to Sita and request for her to kill their husbands, which she was only too happy to do. She became known as 'Sita the Avenger' to them.
"This went on for several years until Sita grew too powerful. The ways that she killed the men became more gruesome. The people finally woke up to what she was doing. Warriors all over the planet tried to kill her, but none of them were a match for her power.
"The battle lasted almost a year; almost the entire planet was wiped out. Naturally, the only way to defeat magic is with magic, so the survivors hired sorcerer to banish her to Hell. However, she was able to keep her powers when she crossed over. She was able to escape the ogres that guarded Hell and built her own fortress far from their reach…
"Being in Hell worked to her advantage. She can't leave Hell, but she can use her powers to kill people --- mostly men --- on other planets and drag their spirits down to Hell."
"So Sita used one of her spells on Goku!" King Kai concluded. "That was why Gohan or Goten couldn't sense any other powers when Goku died! It all makes sense! Sita must have sucked all the ki out of him, which explains why he was so tired. That's how he died!"
"Exactly," Baba agreed. "She probably used some spells to make sure that Goku couldn't fight back and dragged him down to Hell after he left the check-in station. Kami knows that he wouldn't have spent twenty-five years there if he were able to fight back and escape…"
Chi-Chi just stood there, trembling in silent rage. This Sita was responsible for murdering her husband. She took him away from her and their family and trapped him in Hell!
"Why?" she demanded aloud. "What does Sita want with Goku?"
"I'm not sure," Baba muttered, thinking hard. "The only possibility I can think of is that Frieza and the other villains wanted revenge on Goku. Maybe they hired Sita to kill him and bring him to Hell so that they could destroy him for good. But like I said, they're locked in their prison cells, so that's impossible."
"Unless they escaped again," King Kai said seriously. "After all, it happened before…"
"Is Goku still there?" Chi-Chi asked frantically. "They haven't killed him again, have they?"
"He's still there," Baba told her. "Nothing's happened to him --- not yet, at least. When I saw him through my ball, he was…" She hesitated. It seemed as though what she had to say next was difficult to say.
"He was suffering," she finished quietly. "He was in pain… both physically and emotionally. Someone was torturing him. I think it was Sita, yet I couldn't tell. It was horrible. I've known Goku for a long time, and not once have I seen him that --- helpless."
Upon these words, Chi-Chi's hands clenched into fists. Her fury was escalating further every minute. Goku --- her Goku --- was being tortured?
How dare she? she thought angrily. How dare she? How dare she make him suffer like that? I don't know how terrible those men were like on Vishnu, but Goku is certainly not like them!
"This is not good," King Kai said grimly. "We need to get him out of there… but how?" He turned towards Chi-Chi. "I'm really sorry that you had find this out… HEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Chi-Chi was standing on the edge of Snake Way, and would have surely jumped if Baba and King Kai hadn't pulled her back at the last second. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult to do, since Chi-Chi was taller than the two of them combined.
"Are you crazy?" Baba shrieked, holding on to her arm. "You nearly fell right into Hell!"
"Let me go!" Chi-Chi yelled, struggling against their grip. "I have to go there! He needs me!"
"I want to help Goku too, only this isn't the way to do it!" King Kai shouted, trying to pull her back to safety.
"I'm not going to just stand here while my husband rots in Hell! " she screamed. She wrenched herself out of their hand and darted to the edge.
"WAIT!" King Kai hollered in panic. "If you jump off Snake Way, you'll be stuck in Hell forever! It doesn't matter whether you're a good person or not, you won't be able to go back to any of the good planets! Do you really think Goku would that to happen to you, even if he was in trouble?"
King Kai's words couldn't help but make Chi-Chi stop and think. The image Goku's face suddenly appeared in her mind. No, he was right. Goku certainly wouldn't wand her to be stuck in Hell forever. Reluctantly, she stepped off the edge and back onto the path.
Still, she wasn't about to give in yet. There had to be another way…
"Isn't there another way I can get to Goku?" she wanted to know. "A way that you can help me out of Hell?"
"Unless you can fly or do Instant Transmission like Goku," Baba said dryly. "Which I doubt you can. There is King Yemma's trapdoor to Hell, but that's just as bad as falling off Snake Way…"
She froze. "No --- wait a minute… there is a way. I can open a portal to Hell. If we do that, I can just reopen it and pull you out…"
"No!" King Kai shouted. "No, no, no, no, no, a thousand times no! Opening a portal to Hell? All the monsters locked in there could escape!"
"It would only be open long enough for her to get in," Baba protested. "It could work…"
"No, it can't!" King Kai argued. "If King Yemma got wind of what we were doing, he'd send us to Hell! He'd never allow it!"
"I don't care whether he allows it or not!" Chi-Chi snapped. "This is Goku we're talking about! He's risked his life to save everyone more times than I can count! Why wouldn't King Yemma allow bending a few rules if it means saving Goku?"
"That's true," King Kai admitted grudgingly. "But it's still too risky! There are so many things that could go wrong with this plan! All the villains Goku's fought? If they caught you in Hell and discovered that you're his wife, they'd destroy you! Goku would kill me if something happened to you!"
"I don't think he'll have time to kill you since he's being tortured by a psychotic sorceress," Baba pointed out dryly.
"Look, let's get King Yemma's permission to send Pikkon or another warrior from Grand Kai's planet to help him," King Kai begged.
Baba shook her head. "No good. If Goku was unable to defeat Sita, then how would any other fighter stand a chance? Come to think of it, you wouldn't fare any better," she added to Chi-Chi.
Chi-Chi was very insulted by this. Yet although she would never admit it, they did have a point. She was certainly no match for anyone Goku had faced. She'd learned the hard way when she slapped Majin Buu for supposedly killing Gohan. The fact that she had given up fighting to be a wife and mother was a further disadvantage.
"I'm the daughter of the Ox-King," Chi-Chi told them in a rather dignified voice. "I'm not a Saiyan or have extraordinary powers, but I am strong! I'm not as strong as Goku, my sons, or any of their friends, but I still know how to fight!"
"That isn't enough!" King Kai said, shaking his head. "Don't you remember what I told you earlier? If your body's destroyed in Other World, you won't exist!"
"And the same thing will happen to Goku if I don't do something!" Chi-Chi shot back. "Besides, I have my youth back; I'm in a better fighting condition than ever. I can take care of myself."
"What makes you think that you can do anything to help Goku?" King Kai demanded. "Sita would probably defeat you in two seconds --- no offense --- if you even make it through Hell. How do you know you can do this?"
"I don't," Chi-Chi replied grimly, "but I can try."
For what must have been an hour, King Kai kept trying to convince Chi-Chi out of going. It was no use. Whenever Chi-Chi made up her mind about something, that was it. It was just like when Gohan and Goku were on Namek and she forced Bulma's father to make a spaceship so she could go after them. Everybody tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant on going. The only difference between now and then was that she never actually made it to Namek…
Only this was different. This time, she was going. If Goku knew she was in trouble, he wouldn't hesitate to go after her. What kind of wife would she be if she wouldn't do the same for him?
"I hate to get in the middle," Baba said loudly, silencing King Kai and Chi-Chi, "only we're wasting time! I don't know how long Goku can hold out. If we're going to do something to help him, we'd better do it now!"
King Kai frowned, appearing to be making a big decision. "It's suicide!" he said weakly, making one last effort.
"I'm not afraid," Chi-Chi said flatly. And she wasn't.
"Oh… all right, let's do it," King Kai sighed in defeat. "I just hope Goku knows how lucky he is. Not many people would risk an eternity in Hell for their loved ones…
"Okay, here's the plan. Baba will open the portal for Chi-Chi. The two of us will use Baba's ball to check on you, and I'll contact you if necessary. And if anything goes wrong, we'll reopen the portal and bring you back whether Goku's with you or not. I don't care how much you yell at me! I'm going to make sure that nothing happens to my best student's wife."
"Thank you," Chi-Chi said quietly. "You won't need to worry though."
"I sure hope not. And remember, don't trust anyone in Hell," he warned her. "It wouldn't be Hell if there were trustworthy people there."
"Okay."
"And whatever you do, don't tell anyone who you are… especially that you're Son Goku's wife!"
"All right, already!" Chi-Chi said impatiently. "Just open the portal!"
Baba raised her hands and started chanting. A trickle of light appeared, hovering over the path. It grew larger and larger until it was roughly the size of a window. Chi-Chi peered inside. She shuddered at the sight she beheld…
King Kai saw her fear. "If you don't want to do this, it's all right…"
"No!" Chi-Chi said firmly, keeping her features set. "I'm okay… I can do this. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," he replied.
"You're going to need it," Baba muttered under her breath.
"Thanks," Chi-Chi said dryly. She took a deep breath. This for Goku, she reminded herself. I can do this --- I hope I can…
She held her head high and, without a second thought, leapt through the portal into Hell.
To be continued…
A/N: I know, I know, evil cliffhanger, but believe me, it's won't be the worst one in the fic. I hope that since a lot of questions you've been asking about Goku's death have been answered in this chapter… however, the reason why Goku's been taken to Hell won't be revealed until later chapters. All I can say is when the time comes, prepare to be shocked. *laughs wickedly*
Happy Easter to everyone!
Maria Cline: Chi-Chi doesn't really have time to train; she's more concerned with finding Goku. After all, he could fade into nonexistence at any second. But she still knows how to fight, and she will fight for her man. I really like your G/CC stories too. When are you going to continue them?
Sara: You're right. King Yemma didn't bother to check because he was certain Goku was at the Grand Kai's planet. About Goku having opportunities to fight… well, let's just say you'll find out what happened to him in Hell later…
Carrie: How Goku got into Hell was explained in this chapter. As for why Sita dragged him down there in the first place… you'll find that out later.
ChiChiko: This cliffhanger is probably even worse. You're just going to have to wait and see what happens.
Jessica C: What did Goku do? Hmmm… good question. I remember the DBZ episode when Pikkon and Goku went to Hell to recapture Frieza, Cell and the other villains, so yeah, you could go to Hell and come back. It's a matter of getting there. King Yemma told Goku to be careful not to fall off Snake Way because if he did, he couldn't go back. He did anyway, but he escaped because he's Goku :). In this case, it's a little different. You'll have to see whether Chi-Chi can make it back alive --- or at least as alive as a dead person can be. LOL!
VidelChan313: Nope, it's not good. Not good at all.
Lady Thundera: Yeah, ff.net is a real pain sometimes. I always thought it would be funny if King Kai and Chi-Chi met. No, Goku's not having a good time in Hell. In fact, I think that Chi-Chi is seriously going to kill me when she finds out what's happened to him there, and I think you will too when you find out.
Lady Athena X: Totally agree with you on Chi-Chi's character. I'm glad you liked Chi-Chi meeting her mom. I came up with a lot of ideas of what would happen to Chi-Chi in the afterlife, and meeting her mom met the final cut. What's interesting about the painting of Chi-Chi's family in DB was that they didn't show her mother's actual face. Oh, well. This leads me to wonder about Goku's mother… Chi-Chi didn't take the news about Goku too well, but she's on her way to get him back. After all, nobody messes with her man!
Sadako-Tokumei Kibou: A lot of people never expected Goku to be in Hell. And I don't think you're going to expect the reason why Goku's in Hell either…
Caryl MC: Here's your update!
Gwuinivyre: I like Chi-Chi too. She, Videl, and 18 are my favorite DBZ females. Yes, they should have shown more G/CC moments, but DBZ is an action driven show. Besides, there were some good G/CC moments, rare as they were.