Chapter 7


From the bathroom, Chi-Chi returns to the kitchen with her hand on her forehead, unsure of whether to make her fingers scratch her forehead, or to press her palm further against her forehead for heavier pressure there. Considering that she neither has a headache, nor feels uncomfortable pressure in her head, it's quite telling that she's conflicted over something so trivial and meaningless, at least in the sense of aiding her current situation. It's telling, in that there's a bigger issue within her here, that she can't dare to outwardly express, but urgently –for relief's sake- needs to push out of her, hence she minimally manifests her overall feelings through that single undecided action.

'Pardon us for entering without proper notice,' a voice that she's vaguely familiar with rudely cuts through her walking haze, 'but I'm afraid that we have an urgent matter to collect here.'

Having looked up and around to find where the voice is coming from while it was still speaking, at the end of those words, she finds herself looking at two people who she didn't even consider to be here for any reason. Never once in her mind, did she entertain the thought of the Destruction god and his servant being in her house, even accidentally, and yet, here they are, standing in the middle of her kitchen as though they belong here.

Their smug postures while standing in their spots, like they have more than enough rights to be here, would normally stir her up the wrong way, but not this time. She also would've berated them on appearing in the privacy of her home without an invitation, but with how Goku managed to work her up all the ways of displaced, she doesn't have any more room in her nerves, to be worked up.

'What is that matter?' she specifically asks the person who spoke.

Since they are here, uninvited at that, she might as well skip the pleasantries of welcoming them formally. Just because they made the choice to appear inside her house without permission, she especially can't care for formalities and sucking up to them, in the hope that she will be spared from destruction, if the Destruction god suddenly feels the need to destroy her.

'He goes by the name of Zamaku,' the servant lets her know. 'He is a fusion of Goku and Zamasu, and he is potentially too dangerous to be on this Earth.'

A small involuntary sigh leaves through her mouth, as she looks from the Destruction god to his servant individually. The god, she observes, appears like he has been in better places than her home, and would rather not be here, while the servant appears to be at ease, unbothered by anything in general. As a pair however, standing in the middle of her kitchen, she just doesn't have the time for entertaining them.

'What is it that you really want?' she wants to know.

Out of her mouth, the question feels strangely tasteless, that she has to subtly open and close her mouth in a tasting motion, to see if she can find some residue flavor within. When she doesn't find even a trace of taste, her mind goes on automatic alert that something is not right here. The Destruction god suddenly snapping his attention to her at her question, just further adds to her private alert.

'Watch your tone!' he growls. 'We are not your everyday peasants!'

They may not be her everyday peasants, but they sure behaved like it when they broke into her home without her permission. She may not call them out aloud on doing such a classless thing, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't feel some way about it. He can say all he wants about being superior, however, in her eyes, doing inconsiderate things places him on a level with everyone else, and no amount of destructive power will be able to get rid of that fact.

'I need to know what you really want,' she says, looking at the attendant again, 'because I am in the middle of something.'

What she really means, what she isn't telling them, is that she is in a disturbed state of frustration, irritation and curiosity in varying doses, although enough to unsettle her fundamental core. If anyone were to consider that only hours ago, her husband was recovering from an injury that he got from an evil god, also that that said evil god did the despicable act of killing her son, and then her husband returned home merged with that same evil god, they'd understand her feelings, and why she doesn't feel up to dancing around in circles to get answers from the same line of people as the god directly responsible for her feelings.

'Of course,' the attendant appears to understand her meaning by nodding at her. 'Coming here unannounced, we should've expected this, however…'

Pausing in his speech, his purple eyes look into hers, seemingly with the intention of penetrating beyond her irises to the next best thing, which is her soul, and dig out from there what's really important. Much more than she refuses to use his name, (because even though she knows it, she doesn't believe that they are amicable enough for her to use it), she dislikes the manner in which his eyes are trying to dissect her into her soul, for only he knows what. She dislikes that added onto his indiscernible quiet manner, his stare is more than just visual capture, and for that reason, she clears her throat and averts her eyes to the other one.

'Look at me, my dear,' the attendant tries to bring her attention back to him, which she reflexively gives him.

She realises too late that she's gone back and done the very thing that she'd been trying to avoid, but when she considers how his already soft face has become soft in the time between looking away and him telling her to look at him, she decides to keep eye contact with him. The way that he looks now, it's more like he realises that he'd been trying to intrude, and would rather that he not make her feel uncomfortable. She doesn't know if she should trust that about him, except, she has nothing to lose in giving him the benefit of the doubt.

'As I was saying,' he picks up after elegantly clearing his throat, 'Coming here unannounced was not the ideal thing to do, however, the situation that we find ourselves in, is not ideal either. In short, my dear, we've come to take your… Well, the one with your husband's body.'

She suspected as much, she wryly thinks while her heart does something close to resembling a mini heart attack. When she saw them in the middle of her kitchen (the purple god especially looking bored), she suspected that they had come for Goku, hence, her mind going into private panic. It's only that now, getting to hear the words said, brought out into the open air, anxiety cannot remain contained and private within her anymore.

'You want to take my Goku?' her anxiety surfaces through her words.

'It is safer for the Earth if he is not here,' the attendant replies in a way of gentle reasoning.

Partly flabbergasted at his answer, and not in the good way at all, she takes a step away from them. In her rising anxiety, she wants nothing more than to get away from the pair that wants to take her Goku away from her. She supposes that anxiety is stupid that way, that it has no reasoning ability, to discern that physical attempts at flight, don't overrule the reality of emotional turmoil. Even so, she feels that distance between her and the pair, is the better thing for overall.

'You can't take him,' she shakily breathes out. 'Not my Goku.'

'That's not him!' the god suddenly outrages. 'He's a destructive blend of two beings, one of which is stupid, and the other, evil.'

In dealing with her merged husband so far, everything within her, her feelings, her thoughts and her questions magnificently elevated. With how he arrogantly kept pushing her, it was inevitable that everything elevated beyond their normal peak. Push her, he did. Upset her, he also did. Make her want to throw him out of the house for an hour, he excellently brought out of her. And yet, even with all that, she never once considered him to be dangerous. Besides being smug, he hasn't proved to do anything threatening to the Earth.

And stupid, really?

Inaccurately accusing Goku of being 'destructive and dangerous' is one thing, but how dare he, he who has no real knowledge of the man she is married to, come into her house -uninvited as he did-, stand before her like he is better than her on all the planes of the universe, and then insult the man who's life means her heart willingly pumping blood for her own life? How dare he, look at her and accuse her husband of being stupid?

For this, she will not stand!

She kept her composure with them so far, only showing so much aggression as politeness could tolerate along with it. She also allowed them the courtesy that they quite frankly, in her opinion, don't deserve. She tolerated them arousing anxiety within her, and she was going to tolerate them for a little bit longer, until her limit was passed, but no more! They crossed the very sacred line of insulting her husband in his own home! Respected gods with destructive powers or not, this pair is leaving her house. Instantly.

'And now that you've so wisely informed me of that,' she says, closing her eyes specifically to censor herself, before continuing, 'please get out of my house.'

'What?!'

The question is more of a screech than anything else. It's pitched just right too, to convey the amount of surprised disdain that the speaker feels, and make her focus her attention on him once again. Her renewed focus on him, after seeing how outraged he is at her comment, brings a satisfying sense of pleasure. If only she could feel like this, instead of feeling anxious for Goku's presence.

'How Rude!' the god indignantly insists. 'Don't you know who I am? I could destroy you right here!'

Is that a threat, she wonders, silently challenging him with her eyes for a moment. Goku threatened to do the same thing earlier, but if he couldn't bring out fear in her, why would a god that she doesn't have any relation to, be able to? Also, since he asked, does he know who she is?

'Now, now,' the attendant calmly intervenes, breaking their silent challenge, 'there's really no need for any of that, Lord Beerus. Remember that it is we who are intruding inside her home. She is every bit as entitled to want to kick us out, don't you think?'

While the grunts his disapproval as a spoiled child being chastised would do, she rather thinks that the attendant is a good voice of reason. Perhaps, the attendant is the tamer to the brute god, which wouldn't surprise her at all, because ever since she found them in her kitchen, the god has been comporting himself as one prone to tantrums.

'But,' the attendant carefully turns to her to say, 'I would advise you to be careful with how you speak to Lord Beerus, my dear. He is the god of Destruction, after all.'

He is the god of Destruction, yes, that she acknowledges, but does she care? At the moment, no, she does not. His role as god of Destruction, doesn't give him the authority to treat her as he will in her own home. She would like to believe that at a time when her husband didn't crawl under her skin beforehand, and the pair of them didn't shake her up even more with their ludicrous demands of taking him away under the pretence of 'danger', she would've paid them more respect and formal behaviour. Although, if they can't afford her respect, she has no incentive to give it back to them.

'I was simply trying to say that he's staying here with me,' she calmly announces, stepping back to them to be as clear on the subject as she needs to be.

'My dear,' the attendant quietly replies, 'you misunderstood. I wasn't asking. You don't have a choice in the matter.'

Just in time, she stops herself from snorting out a laugh at the revelation. She doesn't feel like laughing, least of all with them, and yet, there's something about his quiet answer that calls for an amused snort from her. She stops the snort from sounding out just in time, but the emotion behind the snort remains untouched inside of her, which is why she repeats what she said previously.

'He's staying here with me.'

It's a simple statement of fact. If he wants, he can interpret that as her telling him that he misunderstood her as well, and that they don't have a choice in the matter like he just said to her, but all it really is, is a statement that she won't back away from. It's final, she's decided that she's not going to debate about it. She is the wife in this equation, which means that what she says, goes without a break.

At this new determined repetition, the two look at each other as if to communicate something. She watches as the attendant raises his eyebrows and the god respond to that, by doing a slow motion rolling of his head. After he completes what she assumes is a frustrated dance with his head, he gathers himself to look at her. For a brief second, he looks like he's going to say something every unpleasant to her, but then he simply pushes out a long breath, to regally place his hands behind his back.

'Whis,' he calls in a drone, 'get the evil idiot. We're leaving.'

'Right away, Lord Beerus,' the attendant compliantly replies.

Oh no, he won't, Chi-Chi's anxiety accelerates, making her adopt a stance that's ready to block him from moving if that is what it will take. Only, the attendant doesn't attempt to move as she though he would. Where she expected that he would move around the house to find Goku, he simply stretches out his staff towards the bathroom, and the next thing that she knows, a naked with slippery looking skin, Goku appears floating near them. And unconscious. Realising that he's not conscious, her feet automatically take her to him in three long steps, following the instructions from her feelings.

'Goku…' the scared whisper of his name leaves her mouth.

They don't understand, these gods don't know what it is that they are really doing. They don't know the harm in taking Goku away from her. This god spoke of Goku being a danger to the Earth, when in reality, the danger is taking him away from her.

She knows Goku in ways that no one else does. She has an emotional bond with him, which no one else can brag about. She knows how to get him to see reason, and she can break through his reluctance and more. She knows his body, and has a connection with it, like no one has ever had the privilege of experiencing. And because of all this, she's the only person that he should be in contact with, until she can figure out what's keeping him and Zamasu merged. Finding that out, will be the key to unlocking their merge and separating them. Yes, she doesn't like the idea of Zamasu's thoughts being in control in that body, but there's comfort in seeing first-hand that Goku has control of his body, and would never use it to harm anything.

If Goku stays with her, she could very well tame Zamasu's mind through Goku's body, but if they take him away, they might just increase Zamasu's hostile resistance to something that might just overwhelm her Goku. Simply put, she thinks that away from her, the only one that knows Goku, Zamasu, feeling taken against his will eventually get her Goku killed, and no, the gods won't be the ones to suffer that loss. Taken against his will, held captive,

'Please don't take him,' she pleads to the pair, who brilliantly ignore her.

High on stifling anxiety, she feels desperate. Desperate even to get on her knees and beg them to allow him to stay with her for rehabilitation, if it comes to that. However, in ignoring her plea, the two demonstrate to her that she has no chance against this.

'Get some clothes on him, Whis,' the god roughly commands as though she didn't speak at all. 'He's not about to enter my planet as he is.'

When the seemingly pleasant attendant nods as a sign that he will carry out the command, she feels like a nail is being driven into a specific spot in her heart.

When he waves his staff and clothes cover Goku's body, she feels her stomach attempt to make an exit from her body.

And when, out of the blue, the three vanish from her sight, without giving her the smallest chance at groveling at their feet for her husband's body, she feels her body shatter.

Anxiety aside, dinner on the stove forgotten, with a damaged heart, a displaced stomach, and shattered body, she weakly collapses to the floor. They took her vulnerable husband away. She's lost her husband just like that, and she doesn't even know where to begin with getting him back. And even if she does get him back, what's to say that Goku's side would've survived, more than Zamasu's?