Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball or Bleach
"He…"
A quivering voice broke the dead, frozen silence.
"He's gone!"
An adult-teenage woman desperately raced onto the deserted, heavily damaged arena, dark blue dress fluttering in the fabricated breeze of her speed, "Goku!"
A suited elder contemplatively grasped the hilt of his crane, grim realization gleaming behind his shades, "I'm." He took a moment to gather his words. What they had all bore witness to was truly a most horrifying sight to behold; an otherworldly sphere of unfathomable power generated the moment Goku unleashed a devastating beam of epic proportions to counteract the reincarnated Demon King's explosive wave. He had to choose his words carefully.
"I'm afraid he's gone from this world." He wasn't even referring to the colossal blast outright killing Goku. Out of everyone here, the wise old master was the only one who noticed his former student wasn't actually incinerated in the orb's fiery walls. He just… vanished, as though he was shepherded away to another existence.
ChiChi rounded on the master, eyes ignited in her fiery wrath, "How could you say something so heartless?!" She yelled, voice breaking at the seams. The old heavenly martial arts master didn't have it within him to correct her, heart yearning for Goku's safety just as much, "We-We had just got engaged!" Tears gushed freely from her eyes, "We were gonna be so happy!"
"Hey, guys! It's fine!" The scar-faced Yamcha tried to offer some positivity on the gloom threatening to crush them all, "We can just bring Goku back with the Dragonballs!"
Everyone's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.
Which just made it all the more heart wrenching for Roshi to extinguish their hope, but someone had to be the sensible one here and since he was the oldest it naturally fell on him, "No, my boy. I'm afraid that isn't possible." He stated, a heavy dejected sigh dispelling from his lungs, "Piccolo died in that energy ball and so did Kami."
A jolt of shock surged through their spines, recognition flashing across their horrified faces. They searched but the freed Kami was nowhere to be found among them despite being right there with them to the very end, "Kami!" Tien yelled, facing a regretful Roshi, "But how?"
"Kami and Piccolo were once one whole person but when Kami became the guardian of earth he had to segregate the evil from himself. That evil became the original Demon King Piccolo."
"No way," Krillin took an involuntary step back, tripping over his feet and falling on his backside. The implications crushed his heart under the depths of despair, "So, then…" He didn't really want the answer but Roshi half gave it to him anyway.
"Correct. If Kami dies, the dragon balls…" It never needed to be finished.
The floodgates opened up, as though the heavens themselves were weeping the loss of their light and drenching them in their tears. ChiChi dropped to her knees, hands pressed against her chest as the waterworks flowed from her eyes freely.
Bulma, too, bawled out her eyes, "Son-kun!" Oolong and Puar wailed just as loudly beside her.
Yamcha, Tien and Launch in her tsuntsun form tried hard to suppress the melancholy swelling up their hearts, words escaping them and throats drying inexplicably.
Krillin scurried on his knees like some form of rodent before running to the edge of the ring and roaring his best friend's name in an anguished scream of pure, unadulterated grief.
"Gokuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"
The Princess and the Monkey
Chapter 1
Karakura Town? Tokyo? Japan?
A blink.
Wide and blank eyes stared up at the unmoving azure sky, clouds briefly parted.
"Huh?" An utter, bruised muscled arms pulling him up from his eagle-spread position in a crater, "What just happened?" He moved an arm behind his uniquely styled hedgehog-like raven hair, frowning in annoyance, "My head feels like it's gonna burst." A sigh, irritation quickly dispelling like hot air. He stood in the gigantic crater he created, ignoring the bewildered stares he was receiving to monitor his surroundings. By some divine miracle that he would have to thank the heavens for, no one was injured in his titanic fall to the earth, so silver-lining, "Where am I?"
A bountiful abundance of jade-green grass surrounding him beyond his pit and even beyond that laid a bundle of tall buildings unlike the which he had ever seen in Bulma's hometown. Whereas Bulma's West City was comprised of mostly dome-shaped establishments and travelling tubes as though it lived in the future, this city, from a glance, looked a lot more archaic. Plenty of settlements like this on earth, though, since it had the unique quirk of being the past, present and future all at once.
The lack of anthropomorphic animals was a bit jarring, though.
"Um." Goku blinked, looking down into the concerned gaze of a small girl. Much like his own raven eyes, her hazel pupils also possessed an unsullied purity. A short crop of shoulder-length hair which could've been either dark blonde or light brown fell to her shoulders. A milky-white shirt with blue and red stripes running horizontally across her torso hugged her developing hips, contrasted by a long, coffee brown skirt and loafers, "Are you okay?"
Goku smiled widely, fisting his hips, "Oh, sure. I'm fine! Don't worry."
"You are not fine!" The girl said with sudden puppy-dog fury, drawing a flinch from the martial artist. Pouting, she took a step toward him, jabbing a finger at his posture, "Look at yourself! You're all beat up, dummy!"
Goku looked himself over. She had a point. The final bout of the world tournament had completely torn up his orange gi (his weighted undershirt having long since been discarded after the warm-up). The top had been incinerated in whatever colossal blast sent him halfway across the planet or wherever, leaving his badly burnt and scarred chest bare. The left pant leg was torn off at the knee and the other was partly ripped off at the ankle.
He wasn't wearing any shoes either.
He looked like a beaten caveman.
"Oh, right. Guess I'm pretty hurt after all," The scarred boy laughed.
The girl's cheek ballooned, "C'mon you!" She snatched his wrist up and began dragging him out of the crater, causing him to hunch over, "I'm taking you to daddy to get fixed up."
"Huh. Okay," Goku said blankly, eventually following behind the little girl out of a meadow and onto the pavement under his own power, "Oh! I'm Son Goku by the way."
"Son Goku?" She turned innocent orbs of curiosity his way, eliciting a nod from him. She smiled brightly, "That's so cool. You have the same name as a character of a story my daddy used to read to me and my sister. Except it's in Japanese and not Chinese."
"Japanese? Chinese?" She stopped, eyes widening in bewilderment. "What're those?"
"What do you mean, Son-san?" A worried look befell her cute face like snowfall, "Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?"
"You know, Japanese? It's what we're speaking right now."
"Really? There's a name for that?" He cocked his head, hands on his hips.
…
She just stared at his vacant expression. The unease in her stomach only expanded by how genuine he seemed in his general ignorance of their own language much less China's. Hesitatingly, she asked, "Um. Do you know where we are?"
"Nope!~" He bubbled, leaving her astonished that he would say that with such carefree nonchalance. He had the decency to look sheepish, caressing the back of his head, "I was hoping you could tell me."
"Um. Karakura Town."
"Where?"
"In Tokyo."
No bells rang.
"In Japan."
The birds could be heard chirping in the dead silence of the mindscape of Goku.
'What's wrong with him?' Her eyes softened further, small hands crossing her chest. 'He doesn't seem to remember our own language. I'm worried.' He seemed like such a starry-eyed lad too, not too much older than her big brother, being relatively unconcerned with his current circumstances. Safe to say he had taken an "everything will all work itself out eventually" approach to things. Her heart ached at his optimism.
'Right!' She decided, a look of resolve steeling her face. This softened as she went to reassure him, attaching the chan suffix to his surname, "Don't worry, Son-chan! I'm sure daddy can help you get your memory back!" He had a distinct childlike innocence about him that needed to be protected, so the chan suffix fit him to a T.
"But I still have my memory," Goku's eyes blinked.
"Let's go!" The girl just marched forward anyway, completely ignoring his comment as she spiritedly pumped a fist.
'What a weirdo.'
She stopped, twirling to face him with a sheepish smile lining her lips, "Oh! I almost forgot. I'm Kurosaki Yuzu!"
"Kay," Goku said.
Yuzu's energy was in full flow, "Now let's go!"
A monstrous, bloodcurdling gurgle roared throughout the air, sending a chill up Goku's spine.
"Whoa! What the heck was that?!" He hastily twirled, eyes landing on the bone-chilling cracks forming in the sky, "Whoa! What is that?"
"What is what, Son-chan?" Yuzu inquired, a frightful look coming to her face, "You're scaring me."
Goku looked at her like she had grown a second head, "Don't you see it?"
Yuzu froze, horrified remembrance rolling before her inquisitive gaze, 'This sounds just like that time Karin-chan and I were attacked by-.' She didn't get to finish. Something plummeted down on the earth behind Goku with all the force of a steel safe, cratering the ground in a huge eruption. She screeched frightfully, holding her skirt down against the billows of dust blowing against her from the generated shockwave, Goku instinctively moving to cover her.
Another gurgle, this one just intoning, floated through the cloud, accompanying sinister twin yellow lights cutting through its mist.
"Whatever this thing is, it doesn't look like it wants to be friends," Goku quipped, a stony mask forming over his face.
The clouds parted, revealing to his view a pray mantis-shaped creature; body a light black and limbs a dark green. The creature's most distinctive features was a bony, white mask shaped like the face of the animal it was seemingly based on, ominous dimmed yellow orbs flicking hauntingly in its eyeless voids and a hole the size of a golf ball situated on its chest.
It stalked threateningly toward the two.
"W-What's going on, Son-chan?" Yuzu hurried, a frantic panic colouring her tone, the air distorting wildly in front of her.
"Stay behind me, Yuzu!" He said with a firm insistence, a smirk crossing his lips, "This guy wants to play."
"Huh!" She jumped. It wasn't even the fact that he outright stated he was spiritually aware like her siblings. No, it was the inexplicable aura she felt snuggly securing itself around her like a warm blanket. It was mysterious. She could only compare it to the sense of security she felt whenever her big brother came to her and her sister's aid from bullies, always triumphing despite being outnumbered. It was weird. Even though she had only just met this boy, she already felt completely protected from whatever was endangering them.
'Son-chan.'
"Yosh! Let's do this." Goku psyched himself up.
The creature didn't need any invitation, charging toward him with impressive speed for the above-average human in the World Martial Arts tournament.
Goku was far beyond the above-average human. He drove a fist through its masked countenance the instance it invaded his personal space like a torpedo, shattering it at the core. The monster wailed, its body instantly disintegrating to dust; its dying gurgle fading in a non-existent breeze like a flame.
"Oh wow," Yuzu murmured. She hadn't seen the creature Goku had just demolished, just the immense air force exploding throughout the air with all the kinetic energy of a cannon, "You're so strong, Son-chan."
"Nah. That thing was just weak," Goku insisted, frowning at the distinctive sound of the enigma he just obliterated with the ease of taking a morning stroll, "Looks like it had friends." His countenance hardened in grim resolve. From the cracks in the sky swarmed similarly dark-coloured entities, all sporting animal-based bodies of some kind. They didn't just target him this time. They scattered all over like mice, "Damn it! They're going after other people!"
Yuzu's eyes dilated in alarm, "Karin-chan and onii-chan are in danger!"
A warm shade descended over her, "Get somewhere safe, Yuzu."
"But Son-chan! My sister and big brother..."
Goku's gentle palm cupping her soft cheek soothed her, "It's okay. I'll see to it that your siblings are safe." He said, giving her such a warm smile, it made her eyes prickle.
"But you're hurt!" She argued, a sorrowful look forming in her gaze, "I'm worried."
Goku chuckled infectiously, "I'll be fine. I don't intend to get any more hurt!"
A sniffle, "You promise."
Goku's gaze softened further, "Promise."
Yuzu held up her smallest finger, "Pinkie swear."
Goku chuckled, wrapping his pinkie around hers, "It's a deal."
Yuzu beamed, stepping out of his warm radiance, "Then do your best, Son-chan!" She shot him a thumbs-up, "Karin-chan should be playing with her friends at the park and Ichigo-oniichan should be leaving school any minute."
Goku stood, a broad smile etched onto his features, "Okay, got it. Just leave it to me, Yuzu. I'll find 'em and make sure they get home safe."
"I'm counting on you!" She clenched her knees in an eager motion before turning and making a bee-line home.
Goku humoured her exuberance with a laugh, "She's a good kid." Gently floating overhead, Goku proceeded to track Yuzu's journey home guardian angel-style to ensure she returned home safely. Once she was securely behind the doors of a small clinic, he nodded in satisfaction and took off, dropping to the ground and blazing a rapid gust of fabricated breeze across the new town he found himself in.
The Roadrunner had nothing on him as he blitzed from left to right, cloaking himself in a shroud of invisibility with the pure speed he was traversing the streets of Tokyo's Karakura district. Women's skirts, men's hats, and people's litter alike all indiscriminately suffered in the ferocious hurricane generated by Goku's immense speed but none more so than the creepy-crawlies of the sky. One by one, they were dissolved, effortlessly extinguished just by Goku's charging through them like a man on a mission.
Thirty had fallen by the wayside before Goku picked up an energy signature spiking in the nearby vicinity, "Looks like someone's fightin'." He surmised, leaping onto a tall building in a single leap. The sight of an educational institute up in the distance caused him to smirk, "That might be Yuzu's brother's school." It was where he could feel the energy-signature radiating from.
Yuzu was a fragile girl but he did feel some dormant powers laying within her. It was safe to assume her older brother might be rocking some untapped power. "Won't know til I try!" He played a short game of hopscotch, skipping off the building's rooftops like a trained ninja before soaring over the school's fence and diving below to the playground where a tentacle monster was facing a curvaceous, auburn-haired young lady.
Well, that wasn't Ichigo and it probably wasn't Karin either considering this wasn't the park and the other unconscious kids didn't look to be playing.
"No, you don't!" Goku roared.
The tentacle monster gazed up, eyes widening in horrified alarm to see a boy darting downward to her with all the acceleration of a high-powered arrow, "What!" Was her parting words, Goku's fist driving her out of existence.
"And stay down!"
"Oh wow!" The girl drawled, hazel eyes coloured holding a similar pure innocence. Creamy legs left almost on full display by the short grey skirt of her school uniform. Blessed with an hourglass figure and sizable breasts most women would kill for, highlighted by a white dress shirt. Other clothing items comprising her uniform was a red tie, high white socks to give her some sense of modesty and brown loafers, "He's so strong."
The little fairies floating by the sides of her long, auburn hair cascading down to her back like a majestic waterfall had to agree.
"Hey, you okay there!" The boy called, making her jump a bit.
Her eyes softened in concern seeing the lacerations and burn marks all over his bare chest like Christmas decorations, 'He's all beat up. I wonder what happened to him? Did he fight more of those things like that tentacle lady?' She bowed courteously when he reached her, "Thank you for your help."
"Don't mention it!" Goku grinned, "Hey, do any of you guys know if Ichigo is around here by any chance?"
She blinked, tilting her head, "You guys?" The boy pointed to her apparent power who waved happily in return. She bonked herself on the head in playful bashfulness, "Oh, those guys! Silly me!" She smiled, gasping in recognition a moment later and hitting a fist into an open palm, "Oh, you mean Kurosaki-kun?"
"Yeah, him!" Goku beamed, "His sister Yuzu asked me to make sure he gets home safely."
"You know Kurosaki-kun's sister?"
"I just met her today."
That just left her even more puzzled. Why was he on a first-name basis with Kurosaki's sister if he only just met her today? Perhaps he wasn't big on formalities or was a country bumpkin? She wasn't one to assume the worst of people even if they didn't conform to Japan's customs.
"Oh, okay. Well, Kurosaki-kun just left. He's probably on his way home now."
Goku frowned, "So I just missed him. Oh well. I'll catch him." He turned, throwing a hand over his shoulder in bidding, "Thanks, lady."
"Wait!" The girl called, trying to reach out to him. She seemed to lose her nerve when he did indeed wait with an unreadable expression on his face. "I never got your name." She stated, reeling in her hand.
"Oh, that? It's Son Goku."
"Son Goku. Got it!" Her exuberance returned. Bowing low, she said in gratitude, "I'm Inoue Orihime. Thanks again for everything, Son-kun."
Goku flicked her a two-fingered salute, "No problem, Orihime. See ya." And then, he was gone like the wind, a lone breeze fluttering her long hair and skirt; wide eyes locked onto the space of his instant dematerialization.
"Oh wow. It's like he teleported," She breathed.
"I'll say," One of the little fairies said, leaning an elbow on hers, "He sure is an interesting fellow, but enough about that. How about you learn how to heal?"
Orihime beamed, "Right."
XxX
Goku's senses tingled again like spiderman, bringing him to an open dirt clearance where a tall, muscled young man with wavy red locks and a peculiar heterochromatic black right arm lined with red trim was facing off against a monster with fat cheeks. Another little girl a bit taller than Yuzu with raven hair and a red baseball cap, a black tank top over a white t-shirt, black shorts and red sneakers was standing by his side, looking on in alarm at everything transpiring around her.
A younger Goku would've easily mistaken her for a little boy instead given the masculinity she seemed to clad herself with.
'That might be Karin!' Considering there were other kids some feet behind her, he would say that was a pretty good guess. "Hyah!" With a war cry, he speared his way through the creature, effortlessly eviscerating it and giving it a swift demise.
"Huh!" The tomboy blinked rapidly, bewildered, "How the hell did he take out that thing with a Goldberg spear?" Her features temporarily dried up in a deadpan when the older boy approached her, unamused eyes locking onto the wildest hairstyle she had ever seen. 'Geez. Talk about a bad hair day.'
"Hey, you Karin?" Goku inquired.
The girl let her developing hormones take over for a brief second, letting her eyes roam across his well-endowed abs and solid pecks before swallowing a thick lump down her throat. Shaking off the trance the exhibitionist had put her in, she clarified with a blink, "Yeah, I am. Why?" God, she hoped her idiotic friends didn't notice her checking out some random older teenager. The last thing she needed was to be teased, "How do you know who I am, ossan?"
Goku fisted his hips, "I just met your sister Yuzu a little while ago. She asked me to make sure you and Ichigo got home in one piece, so here I am!"
Karin ran a hand down her deadpanned face, "Of course she did." She shot him a sudden ferocious glare before striking him harmlessly in his toned ribs, much to his puzzlement, "Idiot! No wonder she met you. You're all beaten up to hell and back. How're you even standing like that? You better swing by our clinic after you're done finding Ichi-nii, you got that?!"
Goku blinked blankly, "Uh, okay," He assured uneasily, relief dispelling from his lungs when the hotheaded girl rounded on the heterochromatic armed young man after, 'Phew. Yuzu's sister sure has a temper.'
"Stay right there, big guy. I'm gonna go get my Dad!" She demanded, running off.
The young man of Latino descent stared after her retreating form vacantly, "Okay." He intoned in a quiet monotone. Eyes typically hidden by his wavy of dark crimson hair lent him a perpetual stoic expression; essentially the best poker face in the world, 'Wow. She has Ichigo's temper.'
Goku chuckled, "Well, we betta do as the lady says, huh big guy!?" The giant nodded at the joke, flinching indistinctly when his fellow well-developed teenager abruptly flickered out of existence.
"Yeah. Just going to pretend like I didn't see that." He let his fatigue wash over him, collapsing to the floor and allowing sleep to take him.
Karin's friends were standing around trying to comprehend what in the actual fuck just occurred.
"What?"
"Looks like they're starting to converge in one place now," Goku noted, jumping onto a building and seeing another open clearance. This one looked like it was under construction, though. Converge was right. It looked like they had all decided to throw a party and two young men weren't invited, a bespectacled young man in a school uniform wielding a Ki-styled bow and an orange-haired teenager sporting a full shihakusho and flexing the longest sword Goku had ever seen.
They were currently fighting back-to-back, trying to fend off the rampaging army with graceful arcs and wild swings.
"Here I go!" Goku swooped into the action like an eagle, leading with his leg in a wide roundhouse kick into one's head, unleashing a powerful overarching shockwave that quickly incinerated the rest of them in its potency, leaving the two boys staring in astonishment, "Anddddd that's that!"
"What the hell…?" The tangerine samurai gaped, "How the hell did you do that? Where the hell did you even come from? What're you?" He rattled off in rapid succession.
"Hey, one of you wouldn't happen to be Ichigo, right?" He asked, seemingly ignoring all of the boy's questions, much to his annoyance.
A distinctive scowl hardened his already surly countenance. Actually, just from that distinct sullen expression alone, Goku could already tell he was Karin's and Yuzu's older brother. Karin's patented frown was there to see on his face, "I'm Ichigo," He grumbled impatiently, "Now answer the question. How the hell could you defeat all of those hollows like that?"
"Hollows?" Goku blinked, "Oh, you mean those masked monsters, right?"
"Uh-huh." Ichigo clarified testily.
"Dunno," He shrugged, laughing in a carefree manner, "They're just weak, I guess."
"Seriously!" The two gawped, only drawing another chuckle from Goku.
"Oh, yeah! Ichigo," Ichigo's stupefied face resumed its usual scowling look, "I just met your sister, Yuzu. She wanted me to come by and make sure you got home safely."
"Wait! Yuzu!" Ichigo said, frantically grabbing hold of Goku's shoulders with a panicked expression, "Crap! Is she okay? What about Karin?!"
"She's okay! They're okay!" Goku woozily exclaimed, comfortingly patting the younger teen on his shoulder with a warm-hearted gaze, "One of those hollow things or whatever attacked 'em but I took care of 'em no problem. Yuzu's at home waitin' for ya and Karin should be home, too, by now."
Ichigo sighed, tension draining from his shoulders like he had just experienced the best-ever massage, "That's a relief," He breathed out, stepping out of the older boy's personal space with newfound appreciation in his eyes, "Listen, I don't know if you're a Quincy or Shinigami or whatever, but thanks."
Question marks rolled around Goku's head like a trio of dice tumbling upon the surface of the casino table, "Quincy? Shinigami?"
"Never mind." Ichigo deadpanned. An immense pressure flooding the area caused him to dilate his eyes in unbidden alarm, "The hell?!" He whisked his panicking gaze to the sky, blanching when a gigantic segment of it parted as though it were a curtain; a massive grotesque hollow the size of a skyscraper and bearing a long nose stepping through its entry, one large white boot-shaped foot at a time. "What the hell is that thing?"
"How should I know?" The bespectacled boy yelled, shoulder-length blue hair swaying in the chill breeze whistling his form. He grimaced, clenching a fist in bitter frustration, 'Damn it! It wasn't supposed to end up like this!"
The trepidation they were feeling was of course replaced with a wild bonfire of excitement in Goku, "They brought out the big guns, huh?" He smirked, getting the younger teens to look at him like he was a lunatic. "I'm getting excited."
"Did you hit your head as a baby?" The archer snarked.
Goku opened his mouth to answer in the negative until realization made him reconsider, "Wellllll," The boy flinched. "I gotta scar at the back of my head, so!" He grinned cheekily, unabashed by the boy's bewildered stare, "Maybe."
"Unbelievable!" His head fell into his hands, "Forget I ever asked."
"Run, Ichigo!" Goku heard a delicate yet tough feminine voice bellowing out from some distance behind the trio, "That's a Menos Grande! You can't win!" Locating the voice, Goku found a petite raven-haired girl slumped on her knees (wearing the same uniform as Orihime) beside a green-clad man.
"Aaaa-aaaaa!"
Of course, Ichigo didn't take her advice. He was a rowdy teenager and that was just what rowdy teenagers did. Instead, he vacuumed in a huge intake of air, then needlessly bellowed out a tremendous Tarzen-like war cry for the pure flex and charged his adversary with all the reckless abandon of Leeroy Jenkins. This made it all the more comical when Ichigo's broad sword bounced harmlessly off of the behemoth's foot before the entire limb flicked him back to the two like a pebble.
"Kurosaki-san!" The archer cried, kneeling down next to a dazed Ichigo pulling himself off the ground, "Are you an idiot? What the hell were you thinking?"
"Well, I figured if it's anything like a tree, I would just have to continuously hack it down one piece at a time until I can wack it in the face," Ichigo explained his simplistic thought process, imagining a 2-D version of himself chopping down the behemoth hollow's entire body before finally stabbing his face.
The archer gawked, "Did you also hit your head as a baby?"
"Well, there's no need for that, Ishida." The Shinigami said bluntly, drawing a deep exhale of annoyance from Ishida Uryu.
"Yosh! Now it's my turn!" Goku smirked, audibly slamming a fist into a palm.
Uryu groaned, "Not you, too, damn…" His words simply fell by the wayside like a dying car from the boy's inhuman leap, rupturing the ground from where he stood and instantly propelling himself to the face of the giant spiritual entity like he had flown using a jetpack. A trail of pure air pressure even accompanied his takeoff, a testament to the immense force he had soared with. A fist then met a widowed face in an explosive impact and that was all she wrote. Seriously, it was as though a bomb had been planted into the behemoth's body.
The top half of its body just exploded, unable to withstand the immeasurable kinetic force applied behind the boy's single punch, the bottom half fading away like it never existed; the sky returning to normal.
Eyes widened, jaws dropped, and faces comically blanched white; those who had just bore witness to Goku's sheer display of physical prowess were the textbook definitions of slack-jawed spitless, gaping wordlessly at Goku softly landing on the ground again like a trained cat.
"What the hell?" Uryu murmured in disbelief, "He just…" He swallowed, "eviscerated that thing like it was nothing."
"Okay, someone needs to tell me how someone that young can be that freaking strong," Ichigo insisted in annoyance. The guy couldn't have been much older than him. Sixteen or seventeen at best was his guess. There should honestly be a law of some sort in place forbidding how disgustingly powerful kids can become before reaching a certain age in his opinion.
Goku held up a V, "Looks like I win."
"Seriously," Ichigo deadpanned, drawing a giggle from Goku.
Goku walked over to him, helping him up to his feet, "C'mon, Ichigo. We should probably get going. Your sisters are probably worried about you."
"Yeah, yeah," He groused, looking over Goku's battered body in exhausted irritation. It was a miracle that he still somehow had so much energy to move around looking like that. The older teenager looked like he had just survived a war zone or something. "You need to get your ass patched up at my family's clinic anyway."
"Funny. Karin said the same thing."
"No, you don't say."
"Before that." The two blinked, looking behind Ichigo to find the green-clad man approaching on them on wooden sandals, thudding the ground with a cane. An army-green karate-styled Gi covered his figure, matching the hakama long shorts falling past his knees, contrasted by a dark green haori patterned with an intricate diamond-like design on the back. A bucket-shaped green and white striped hat covered his waves of sandy blond hair, casting a shadow over a mischievous glint twinkling in his eye.
"A moment of your time, if I may?" He said with a distinct polite and bubbly tone, hiding a similarly impish smile behind the cover of his green and white striped fan.
"Mr Hat-and-Clogs?" Ichigo's brow raised.
Goku pointed at himself, "You mean me?"
"Yup!" Mr Hat-and-Clogs bubbled, "I think I might be able to shed some light on your timely arrival in our friendly neighbourhood."
"Oh." Goku blinked in recognition. He should've expected as much given the nature of his passage to… wherever here was again. He crossed his arms, "You seen it, huh?"
He nodded, "Yup. I believe I have a rough idea of what transpired." He made a sweeping gesture backwards where the raven-haired girl was waiting with two kids and a huge man, "Now if you'd so kindly." Goku shrugged, walking off to meet up with the gang.
Ichigo rapidly looked back and forth between Mr Hat-and-Clogs and his sisters' saviour in increasing irritation, "Can someone please explain to me what the hell's going on?"
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Kurosaki-san!~"
"…Gimme a break."