With no senzu beans to spare, Vegeta's voice echoed off the walls of the lookout.
"Stay here, damn it!" Bulma shouted. Instead of telling him to take it easy since he almost died fighting Buu, she tried a different approach. "I'm scared, Vegeta! You need to protect me and Trunks. Who the hell else is going to guard us and the Dragon Balls? Yamcha?"
"Hey!" the baseballer said, offended.
Vegeta shot the man a dirty look and grumbled, crossing his arms.
"He absorbed Cell," Piccolo informed them. "I can no longer stand by and just watch!"
"Piccolo," Mr. Popo advised. "If we lose you, we lose the-"
"The dragon balls, yeah, I know," the Namekian shouted, frustrated to no end. "But if Buu destroys the Earth now, what good will broken dragon balls do? If we let Gohan die, who will end the madness?"
The aforementioned teenager's energy suddenly spiked. Two fingers on his forehead, Gohan appeared, gripping a shaken Supreme Kai by the arm. Touching his shoulder was Chi-Chi, who held onto a frightened Videl. On Gohan's other shoulder was Krillin. "Here," the boy gushed, before pushing the Kai away. Once Chi-Chi and Krillin pulled their arms away, Gohan flashed Videl an apologetic smile before disappearing once more.
"What are you doing here?" Bulma said, uncertain by this new development.
"I may have a solution, but it will be risky," the deity said.
"Well, we're desperate," Piccolo snapped, irritable that he couldn't physically jump into the fray. "So what do you have for us?"
The Kai smiled, uneasy. One at a time, he unclipped his long earrings.
Back in Otherworld, Goku stared at King Kai. "There's a Kai above the Grand Kai?" he clarified.
"Yes," came the reply. "It was the Supreme Kai who arranged for the partial reincarnation of your father's soul."
Goku fell to the ground in a cross-legged position, clearly thinking hard. "I can't believe you knew and you didn't tell me," the Saiyan lamented. "I can't believe Gohan didn't tell me."
"At the time, we had no choice," King Kai sighed. "The Saiyans were ruthless. As the first hybrid Saiyan in existence, no one knew what he would be capable of... Some of the Kais feared he would become the legendary Super Saiyan and- well, they weren't exactly wrong."
"But Gohan would never use his power to hurt others!" Goku yelled, jumping to his feet again. "He's my son. I know my own son, King Kai!"
"We know that now, but we didn't know then!" King Kai yelled back, exasperated. "The Supreme Kai felt that since your father's visions reformed him before his death, that perhaps it could put Gohan on a path to greatness. Surely you notice his alarmingly high power level as a child? We certainly did."
Thinking back, Goku remembered the few times Gohan had shown ridiculous strength as a toddler, once even plowing through a century-old tree trunk by accident.
Turning his back on his mentor, Goku felt utterly betrayed. "Do you think this is a game?" he whispered. "Do the gods think they can just play with our lives, like there'd be no consequences?"
"Of course not, Goku!" King Kai pleaded. "We're usually strictly forbidden to intervene in such mortal matters. That's how serious the situation was."
"Sorry for falling in love and starting a family," Goku spat, uncharacteristically furious. And without another word, he put two fingers to his forehead.
Eyes wide behind his sunglasses, King Kai shouted, "No, Goku! You can't! You're-"
The man disappeared.
Blood seeped from Gohan's slack jaw, the boy fairly certain that the bone had been partially fractured.
"Boy dead," Perfect Buu threatened, a sinister smile creeping across his unharmed face.
"Gohan!"
"Piccolo?" Gohan thought, startled by the sudden intrusion. "What's wrong?"
"Come to the lookout. Now," the Guardian commanded. "We have a plan."
"But Buu is-"
"Forget about him for a second," came the telepathic reply. "It would seem he can't sense power levels all that well. So get over here- now!"
Dodging the sweeping tentacle protruding from Buu's head, Gohan teleported away, leaving the monster baffled.
"Buu kill boy?" the thing asked, scratching his soft head.
Gohan didn't quite know what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
Standing before him on the lookout was his father, a halo floating above his spiky black hair.
"Gohan!" the man exclaimed, gripping his only child in a tight hug. "You've gotten so big, son. I've missed you so much."
Stunned, Gohan felt his eyes grow wet. "Dad?" he mumbled, clutching onto his father's gi. "Dad, is that really you?"
"I hate to interrupt," Shin spoke. "But I have something for you, Gohan."
Confused, the teenager pulled out of his father's embrace to see the Saiyan wearing a strange earring.
Looking to the Supreme Kai, the boy saw the other earring being offered to him.
After a short explanation of the fusion, Gohan gave the piece of jewelry an incredulous look.
"Be glad that Kakarot arrived when he did," Vegeta spat. "Otherwise you'd be sharing a body with me, boy."
Suppressing a shiver at that suggestion, Gohan looked at his father. "It's permanent?" he asked, uneasy. "We'll be an entirely new person… forever?"
"It's the only way," Goku replied. "Please, Gohan."
With a shuddering breath, Gohan attached the earring to his lobe.
Buu flew around the world several times. He murdered some citizens in cold blood. Others, he chased around as if playing hide and seek. But most of the time, Buu was just hungry. He ate a lot of people-candy in the time Gohan had been gone.
Heading through another cloud, Buu slammed into something hard. He flung himself backwards in an attempt to see what building he had ran into this time.
Floating before him was a man be had never seen before.
"Hello, Buu," the stranger said. "I am Gokhan. I've come to kill you."