Two immense Ki waves were clashing against each other in the middle of a now deserted place, pushed by the two strongest warriors on Earth. Both were at their limits, but the clash only dragged on despite the exhaustion. The result of that final stand would decide the fate of the planet, and possibly of the universe as well.
His legs shivered as they gave in. His eyelids closed as the last drops of energy were consumed by his body. The internal and external hemorrhages of his destroyed left arm had caused him severe losses of blood, which only worsened his condition and his odds to win the clash of energy waves.
His right arm remained up only through the inertia produced by the release of the kamehameha from his palm, which he continued to feed with what little Ki he still had in him.
The clash of beams had produced a massive alteration in the winds, as itself produced powerful currents that raised the dust of the deserted landscape and the lighter rocks. All the animals had long left the place, and the few plants had been vaporized during the fierce battle that ensued only minutes prior.
Gohan stumbled on himself, and his wave was very swiftly pushed almost all the way. It did not matter how much his friends tried to distract Cell, or how much his father tried to cheer him up from the other side. He had given all he had and still lost.
As it became evident the battle had been sentenced, Cell began cackling. Despite the weakening of the android's kamehameha due to his overconfidence, nothing changed in the course of the battle. Cell's own wave overcame and consumed Gohan's, and the Z-Warriors could only stand still in utter shock, witnessing what would be the end of their world.
From the Other World, King Kai and Goku struggled to believe what they were seeing. The saiyan raised as human blamed himself, as he had taken the choice of coming out of the chamber early due to his overconfidence in his son's abilities and strength.
Piccolo was not about to just stand by and watch as Gohan died, though. He was the son of the fearsome and formidable Piccolo Daimao. Kami's evil half. Piccolo junior had been trained ruthlessly and with the sole purpose of achieving vengeance. And throughout his short life, everything had been about fighting to kill or fighting to survive. Such undertaking had built a cold and determined character, which meant he would never hesitate to give his own life in battle.
Not enough time had passed for Gohan's arm to even go down in realization of his own defeat, when Piccolo suddenly placed himself in between Cell's attack and Gohan's body. He had done it once and he would do it again. Arms extended, muscles tensed and a stare filled with determination.
His eyes immediately widened as pain like he had never felt before completely overwhelmed every single nerve of his body. He had wanted to say something before being vaporized. At least to tell Gohan to run away while he still had time. After all, his sacrifice was only to give the boy a second chance.
However, he could only scream at the top of his lungs. His nerves slowly began to fail as they were burnt by the android's own kamehameha, but his screaming did not stop, and neither did the pain.
Behind him, he felt Gohan's body collapse on his back. Then, he realized his sacrifice would do nothing to change the odds for a possible rematch against the android. A second chance at saving Earth.
He closed his eyes as he assumed his destiny, and let himself be eliminated from existence.
Then, all went blank. Pain vanished, but he could still feel Gohan's head resting on his back. One by one, his senses simply stopped responding. Though before his consciousness completely faded away, Piccolo could swear he felt as if he was falling down.
When he woke up, his ears were immediately overwhelmed by the sound of dozens of people talking and mumbling. He rubbed his eyes as they were not yet used to the direct light of the sun, and slowly stood up. After a few seconds, he was finally able to have a glimpse at the still blurry image of his surroundings.
He was in the middle of a crater, seemingly in the middle of a small village. What he presumed were the inhabitants had gathered around the still fresh crater to see what had happened. If he was to judge by their clothing, he would guess it was a village of poor farmers.
Then, a piercing sensation of pain overcame his left arm. It was still broken. Completely so. Of his attire, only the upper parts of his pants and the brown shoes given to him by Piccolo remained. Everything else had probably been vaporized in the battle.
Gohan could not comprehend how he was still alive. Last he remembered was barely holding on to consciousness as Cell's kamehameha completely absorbed his own. He should be dead, and the Earth should be destroyed. Then, another thought came to mind. His friends.
His eyes closed as he focused on sensing all the energy signals nearby. All were small, except for one that was immediately next to him. Said energy was extremely superior to any other that was nearby. And despite the monstrous size of it, it was very familiar.
"Mr. Piccolo!" The boy yelled as he turned around.
The namekian warrior laid face down, unconscious on the ground. Most of his attire had also been destroyed, but some of his shirt and most of his pants survived. However, one of his arms had split from his body, and one of his feet was simply missing. Steam still came out of his body, as if he had been boiling until recently.
Gohan's hearing slowly recovered enough for him to pick up some words of the noise caused by the dozens of people around them. Only three words stood out. 'Oni', 'Monster' or its plural, 'Monsters', as well as the very interesting word 'God'.
Were they calling them gods and demons?
The saiyan was not given enough time to process this as he immediately noticed that a few villagers were actually stepping into the crater. Some carried torches, while others carried buckets of water and food.
Gohan wasn't about to risk it, and so he picked the unconscious namekian up and flew off. As his blue aura erupted to further shoot himself in the air, he broke the barrier of sound. The sonic boom sound produced by the boy's speed frightened the villagers, who fled and hid inside their homes.
Gohan had chosen to stay in a mountain that was very familiar to his own home. Said mountains were only a few kilometers west of the town. Its vegetation, as in the trees, seemed dense enough to hide them while they found a way to reunite with the others.
The half-blood saiyan had already begun to gather wood, in preparation to build a humble hut for himself and the namekian. It was a light job for him, even if he could only use one of his arms. He was used to doing it back home, though with the purpose of using it for fire. Admittedly, he did not know much about building.
As he arrived back at the spot he chose and left the logs on the floor, he noticed that Piccolo had already sat up. He had woken up while he was gone.
"Mr. Piccolo, you woke up!" Gohan said as he noticed that his right arm was still missing.
The namekian seemed to ignore the boy's greetings as he directly spoke about something else. "I can't sense anybody else that we know. There's only you and me."
The half saiyan raised an eyebrow in confusion. His onyx eyes already showed great concern at the implications of what his master was saying.
"You lost, Gohan. We lost. It makes no sense that we are still alive and the world is still perfectly okay." He turned his face to give the boy a serious look.
"Maybe someone else took Cell down. Maybe the others are just very far away or in Kami's Lookout and that's why we can't sense them."
Piccolo sighed as he turned his head back to its original position. "If they were at Kami's Lookout, both of us could very easily sense their Ki. In fact, at this point, at least I should be able to sense their Ki even if they were on the opposite side of the world."
Gohan sat down on a log he had close to him and put his only available arm over his face. He was trying to hide his tears.
"I'm not sure what's going on. I just know there's no other familiar Ki signals, there's no Kami's Lookout and overall, there's no other decently-sized Ki signal either." He finally regenerated his missing arm, letting out a small moan of pain. He was still very tired, and he knew that Gohan was as well.
Piccolo stood up and turned around. He had regenerated his missing foot as well. He pointed his finger at Gohan, and gave him one of his attires in perfect state, though without the cape because of the added weight. Then, he did the same trick on himself.
"I'll build the hut, you should rest your arm." At one point in his life, he had had to build a shack for himself. Hiding from the world did not leave one with a lot of options of where to sleep.
Gohan raised his face to look at his master. The sorrow on his face was clear.
"I want to help."
"I know. So why don't you explore a little? We do need to find out at least where we are."
An old man smoked from his pipe while he was sitting on his couch. His eyes were closed as he let the smoke produced by the herbs of his pipe do their magic. The muscles of his face were relaxed, showing that even before smoking he was already in a serene demeanor.
The room he was in was very small. Apart from his own, it only had three more couches and a low wooden table in the middle of them. And with that, the room's space had run out.
On the table, a series of documents had been placed. They went all the way from tax reports, to mission requests. After hours of discussing taxes and administrative issues, the time had finally come to discuss the requests for missions.
The old man was wearing a white tunic, though he was missing the traditional headpiece of the Hokage. He failed to see the need of wearing it in council meetings.
Opposite to him, a slightly younger man was sitting. Were it not for dye, his hair would be just as white as the Third Hokage's. Additionally, half of his face was covered in bandages, and most of his body under a dark tunic.
On the other two couches, two more elders sat. One was Homura, an old man with glasses and a simple beige tunic. The other was Koharu, an old woman wearing a dark kimono with some gray details.
She was the one to speak first.
"Homura and I have already revised the first request. We decided to discuss it first because we believe it's ridiculous and rejecting it seems obvious." Her tone was firm and arrogant. If they were not official documents of Konoha, she would have thrown the ones for this specific request away, like trash.
"What is it about?" Serenely asked the Hokage, who continued to smoke like a chimney.
Homura cleared his throat. "A small village in the northern territories of the Land of Fire reported the appearance of, and I quote, 'an Oni and a God' after they fell from the skies."
Koharu spoke up once again. "They say the only proof they could provide is being held by some fanatics who are now worshiping it." She shrugged, almost making fun of the ordeal. "We see no reason to believe it and we think we'd be wasting the time of our shinobi with this."
"How much is the reward they offer?" Asked the man of the bandages.
Koharu and Homura glanced at each other.
"They're offering up to thirty million ryos." Admitted the elderly woman.
Danzo seemed satisfied. He lowered his head, indicating he had made a decision already. The Hokage exhaled a small cloud of smoke. Then, he smiled serenely.
"Seems fun. Accept the mission." Declared the old man. "We have accepted more ridiculous missions before. And clearly Danzo liked the amount."
The remaining two elders sighed and nodded. Homura grabbed a seal from the table and stamped the document, which indicated the mission had been accepted.
"Assign a C-rank. I already have someone in mind for this one." The Hokage smiled, knowing a certain blonde boy would be very excited to hear about the mission.
Notes.
So I guess I'm back for another try huh. This time I'll do things very differently, so even if I somewhat consider this a rewrite, things will, well, go very differently. It's been a while since I've posted any fanfics, but I've certainly tried to do some different ideas and just very quickly fell out of love with it. I've also been doing original stuff, which has now most of my time, but I decided to give this idea another go, as I believe I've improved a lot since I dropped the last one. I also don't really like a lot of decisions I made then, and such.
So, don't expect frequent updates. These few days I'll probably do it frequently but because I'm kind of excited and I have the time, but I get busy and I usually have other things to do. I'll try to be dedicated to this, at least one chapter a week, but I don't promise anything.
Anyways, see you soon with chapter 2. Remember to leave your thoughts and feedback on the reviews, and support if you like!