Chapter 26, Mystery Of You.

Immediately, he notices the difference, and he hates it. From Whis in the perfectly beautiful room, surrounded by a soothing ambience, to his mother in the place where he first met her, Goku strongly feels the difference once he and Grand Curator suddenly appear before Vados. Inexplicably, upon finding Vados carelessly swinging her long legs back and forth, while she is seated on the branch of a tree, Goku feels a special sort of anger for her.

He can't decide if he feels this way, because he just left a soothing, somewhat hope-inspiring place, for a bleak looking planet, inspiring of loss and misery, or because she's sitting there on that branch, looking to be in a good mood, when she clearly shouldn't be. The only thing that he is decided on concerning her, is that being here, seeing her at all, is bothering him, and causing a deep hole of despair inside of him, that he doesn't need.

'Vados, dear,' Grand Curator's soft voice tries for her attention, 'I brought you someone.'

Grand Curator is just perfection, Goku silently appreciates, because the sound of her calming voice makes him briefly forget how he feels about being here, and seeing Vados looking like that.

It won't do him any good to wonder, but still, he can't help it wonder what it would've been like, if Grand Curator had simply sent him here by himself, instead of coming with him. He especially can't help it wonder that, when Vados does nothing to immediately recognise that her own mother just spoke to her. Apparently, after swinging her legs without a care in the world, pulling out her staff in front of her, to study the dark crystal of it with keen interest, is the most important thing . She evidently can't be bothered to give attention to anyone not directly in line with what she wants for herself.

He swears (and his heart is sinking just to admit this), Vados is planting a forest of despair, which will he will get lost in, if he's not careful.

'Vados!' he hoarsely pushes her name out of his mouth, to get her complete attention.

Either the sound of her name, or the tone of his voice does what he meant it to, because after speaking, Vados visibly reacts. Her reaction, is stilling completely. Her swinging legs stop before they can complete their current swing, her hands grip her staff tightly, as though for encouraging support, her eyes stay in position, not daring to dart here and there in inspection, but it's her pair of eyebrows that give life to the whole reaction. One eyebrow lifts a measurement higher than it had been, and the other eyebrow soon follows.

Good, he angrily thinks, she's paying attention now. As she should be. It's about time that she acknowledges their presence.

Slowly, after she lifts both of her eyebrows, she turns her face to him. Mentally prepared for that reaction, Goku prepares to stare her down, and show her that he's serious about being here, but she only spares him a look for less than a second, before gracefully sliding off the branch, and coming down to hover directly in front of him, and a little level from where his feet firmly stand.

'Who is it, Mother?' Vados asks looking directly at him, but then shifts her sight to Grand Curator.

Whatever she means by doing that, making like she's not talking to him, when she can clearly see him in front of her, he won't allow her to get away with. Whis already warned him that Vados is a difficult one to deal with. Now that he's had this experience with her, he can somehow conclude that his feelings of anger and despair around her, are the result of what he took in from Whis, but he won't allow any of that to overtake him. The most important thing here, is getting his wife back, and doing everything to keep Vados on that track, is what he must focus on.

'It's me, Goku,' he clearly announces, stepping closer to her too.

The eyes that had been looking at Grand Curator, carefully, in an unhurried way, return to him, but before they settle to meet with his, they swipe along his body, from his feet. Once their eyes meet, a small smirk breaks out of her face.

'The apprentice,' she says, almost like she's mocking him.

He starts to think that he is not that, when Vados beginning to circle him, takes the thought right of his head. From the corners of his eyes, he watches as she slowly rotates around him, studying every part of him with scrutiny, until she hits a point of satisfaction, which has her coming back to stand in front of him again. Without the small smirk from before, but even without it, everything about her behaviour, seems to say that she is making fun of him.

'The insecure apprentice, who feels extreme fear that my brother will take his wife from him,' she drawls, keeping unwavering contact with his eyes.

'Honestly, Vados,' Grand Curator says, 'do you always have to be so straightforward? Do you really believe that it would kill you, to be a little like your brother?'

In response, Vados snickers first, only then to proudly say, 'I have no need of being like Whis, Mother. He does that enough for both of us.'

'Just be nice, dear,' Grand Curator gently cautions her. 'The man has his own troubles, and you are the only one who can help him.'

'Mother…' Vados rolls her eyes, apparently unwilling to hear that, but Grand Curator refuses to allow her that.

'Vados,' she slightly scolds, 'You know very well that your father won't, and Whis can't. So I will leave him with you, all right?'

Waving a dismissive hand, Vados answers with, 'All right. Leave him.'

At least Vados is willing to hear him out, Goku thinks. The way in which Whis presented her to him, subliminally presetting a certain type of reception from her into his expectations, he had been expecting to hear her refuse him her help. He's relieved that what he thought would happen, did not, and maybe it has nothing to do with her, but he turns to Grand Curator for her part in convincing Vados to help him.

'Thank you,' he says to her.

She, in turn reaches out to take his hand and squeeze it. Anyone would think that she is passing some of her strength to him, the way that she is clutching his hand.

'I have to be going now, dear,' she tells him, her face wearing sympathy for adornment.

Like that, when she refuses to let go of his hand, and she looks at him as though she understood his pain from the beginning, understands his battling feelings of hope and despair, and will continue to understand his story even after he has left her presence, he would desperately rather that she stays. He feels like he needs her to stay with him, if only to hear her comforting voice at his darkest moment. When his darkest moment comes, and he's tempted to listen to the negative answers about getting his wife back, he'll need her here. But, he understands that she is already extending her hand more than ought to, which is why he nods to accept her leaving. As soon as he does, though, he regrets the choice, because like she was never there to begin with, Grand Curator disappears.

'Wait!' he cries in a hurried plea too late, to be heard by Grand Curator.

Vados on the other hand, does hear him, but she doesn't seem to think of it as important, as she starts to circle him again, asking him the question that he's been waiting for.

'So…' she seems to test. 'What is it, that you want me to help you with?'

'I want-'

'Me to train you?' she interjects, incorrectly predicting words far from his mind.

'That's-'

'Forget it,' she cuts him off again.

Right then, her circling comes to a stop, closely bringing her side by side with him. If not for her height and her hovering, they would be shoulder to shoulder, only with her front towards his back, and his front towards her back.

'You wouldn't last a day with me,' she completes her previous statement, sounding like she takes absolute pride in that fact.

When spoken that way, Goku feels as though a direct attack just hit his pride, making him screw his face in disapproval, and consider asking her to try him, just so she can see how he always exceeds expectations. But no, he has to reel himself in, take the attack, and get his focus back onto getting Chi-Chi back.

'Vados,' he firmly states, 'I want you to bring my wife back, not train me.'

All of a sudden, Vados bursts out laughing. Because he has no facial visual of her, he can't be sure if she is making fun of him, or if she is shocked at the truth which he just shared with her. Either way, he has to look at her face, and make her see how serious and dedicated he is to this cause of getting Chi-Chi back. She can laugh at him, as loudly as she wants, and she can think of him as someone reaching, but at least, she should do it looking at his face, and into his eyes, to see the truth of his soul reflected there.

He takes at long step backwards, to be face to face with her, even going as far as to lift off his feet and hover at a level where their eyes are in the perfect sync of vision. She must not have expected that move from him, because she goes quiet, to look at him with interested wonder. He allows her the time to study him, hoping that she will reach the true conclusion that he is not wasting his time of joking around by being here.

'Do you know,' she finally says in serious tone, 'that Lord Champa is devastated, but he has too much pride to ask me to return his brother back to him?'

'I'm sorry about Lord Beerus,' he automatically mumbles.

He really is sorry about Lord Beerus, but it's just that he hadn't realised that anyone would be affected by Lord Beerus' disappearance. Only after speaking to Whis, did he realise that he is not the only one with the heavy burden of loss to live with.

'It doesn't matter,' she says dismissively, 'because I've been waiting for you to come here.'

She has? Considering how she has been acting since Grand Curator brought him here, to now, he doesn't have any reason to believe that she has interest in helping him at all. But she's apparently been waiting for him? That's a good thing, he supposes, because it raises his hope higher than before.

'Then please help me,' he softly begs her, softening his face to show some a little of his true emotions. 'I need my wife back.'

'For my brother,' she softly begins, 'I would do it. For Lord Champa, I would also do it, but for you…' Trailing off, she makes her eyes run up and down his figure once, and then only continues to say, 'You have no connection to me. I don't know anything about you, so it's only right that you convince me to help you.'

'Convince you?'

Shock is not what he feels for asking that question, neither is it disbelief. It's rather his way of testing her words, to hear if the same consistency comes out of her mouth with the next answer.

'Yes,' she calmly nods. 'What do you say? We have a simple timed match. You and I. One on one. And the winner gets their wish fulfilled.'

Her consistency, yes, is unshakable, he sourly notes, however, that proposition, no, he doesn't even have to consider thinking about. For him, in this situation especially, there's no such as thinking about something like that.

'No,' he immediately says.

It's simple, but not a joke. It's firm, but not a stall for time. It's his decision, and not a test for her. With determined depth, he means every syllable of that single syllable word.

'Oh?' Vados pulls her head back as though directly hit in the face by his answer. 'You aren't willing to fight for your wife?'

Wrong.

'I'm not willing to lose her,' he clearly states. 'If I fight you and lose, that's me losing her. I'm not losing her.'

He's not stupid. He's not going to be tricked into losing his wife just like that, no. To him, there's a clear difference between choosing to agree to a match that will be over before it begins, and choosing to not lose, by declining participation in that match. He won't technically be winning by not having a match with Vados, but at least, he won't be directly choosing to lose either.

'How pessimistic, you are,' Vados pokes fun at him with a little laugh in her voice. 'Firstly, you already lost her, because you wouldn't be here otherwise. And secondly, you've never heard that nothing is impossible, apprentice? Isn't there power in love, according to your kind's sayings?'

'There's also loss in stupidity,' he quickly responds, refusing her tempting bait.

She doesn't know anything, Goku thinks while she digests his answer. She doesn't know anything about how hard it is for him to stand here, and refuse to make even a tiny attempt to save his wife from the world of disappearance. More so harder for him, when she's spewing out tantalising notions like those to him, notions that are slowly leeching the will out of his heart, to weaken it to her liking.

She really doesn't know anything, because while it's true that love does have power, and he can speak for that, what Vados doesn't know is that for the most part, most of his battles, he's always just fought using his mere strength. For quite some years, he's known that deep emotions from his core, help fuel his Saiyan power, but he's always just used his strength as his go-to leader in battle. He's always chosen that route of combat, without emotions as motivation, for a reason.

'So…?' Vados tests after some time has passed, and she has apparently took in his words. 'You won't have a match with me?'

'I won't fight you, Vados,' is his final answer.

'You know…' leaves her mouth, 'My brother holds you in high esteem, and that must be for a reason, am I right? My brother may be a softy, but his tastes in people, are particular. He's a very hard one to impress, did you know that?'

Crossing his arms to show that he neither knew that, nor cares to find it out now, Goku tells her, 'Whis has nothing to do with this.'

'No,' she agrees, 'but I figured that you being his apprentice, there'd be something special to you. But you're nothing. Anyhow, have it your way, apprentice, don't fight me.'

She encourages that last part in such a softly appealing tone, that for a scary second, he feels all of his muscles contract, while his eyeball threaten to pop out of their sockets. He reacts like that, because for that single second, it seems like Vados is going to turn her back on him, and leave him that way, alone, without a way to get his wife back. But all of a sudden, faster than he can think to stop her with a single word, a hard blow lands right in the middle of his face.

Smack!

The impact of the hit, is so much louder than the sound, which repeats in echoes several times over, almost like a rewind button is being pressed over and over, for the replay. As a result of the unexpected blow, since his body had only been prepared to freak out, that he'd lost his chance to save his wife, and not prepared to receive any type of physical damage, he's thrown all the way across the plane.

Upon landing, his bottom of his head and his back hit something hard, which is probably a mixture of aged metal and stone. He swears through the pain, that his back breaks in two, and really, he consequently only wants to let out a cry loud enough, to drain out every last tear that is inside his body, as soothing balm for his pain.

His need to let out that cry, though, is not only for the pain alone, but also for the thick combination of things that have happened so far;

How he couldn't save Chi-Chi. How he watched her disappear from the Earth. How he went looking for help, and no one helped him. How now, he's here with the one person who can actually help him, but she has no interest to. How just knowing that no power of the strength that he possesses, will bring his wife back to him. And all of that, added to the endless pain, makes him hang his head down against his will, and close his eyes to cry.

26Chapters

When his eyes first open, he can't immediately make out where he is. It's not that he has difficulty focusing them, it's just that his brain hasn't yet caught up with what is going on around him. He takes in a long breath, trying to gather himself in a mental way, but that action, costs him the obliviousness from before. While taking in the long breath, extreme pain hits him; all down his back, also in his entire body, and when he tries to lift his head to steady himself, that too, hurts.

'Have a good rest?' a voice asks.

Again, he tries to lift his head, even having gone through the torturous pain just seconds before. He manages to lift it some way up, enough for his eyes to see the feet of the one speaking to him. At once, he recognises the shoes and the hem of the green robe, and that is when everything comes back to him, reminding him, that it's not only his head that hurts this time around.

Vados...

He knows where he is. He knows what that pressure on his back is. He knows why he's feeling so much pain. He knows why he didn't immediately remember anything. He knows why thinking of her name, makes his passageway constrict. Why his lungs succumb to a heavy weight, making it hard for him to breathe, and why his heart takes a sharply precise dagger to it. He knows why he feels like he's been here forever, completely beaten up, and heavily claustrophobic.

Vados…

'I have to say,' her voice continues, when he doesn't give her an answer, 'I don't know what my brother sees in you. You're not worth his time.'

Suddenly, before he can do anything like process her words, something like a hot metallic rod pokes his chest, causing him to jump away from where he is.

How he manages to push through the pain, to jump to his feet, he won't ever be able to say, but he can say that whatever she did to him, chilled too much through his skin right down to his bones, to leave him in the same position. Breathing heavily, he looks from her, to his feet, unable to understand why she would do this to him. He starts taking steps away from her, opening his mouth to ask her to please stop, because he can't take any more, but again, he feels another sharp poke on his body. It feels like it's his stomach, which takes the damage, but his whole body feels like it's feeling the ripples of effect.

Even as he tries to choke out breaths, to make the way clear for him to call out for help, there isn't a part of him left, that doesn't feel destroyed. Right now, his body doesn't feel at home in itself, that his mind is contemplating the idea of getting out of the house of his body. It's too painful in there. Inside his body, it's painful, to the point where he can't command it to let itself drop to the floor, and suffer his pain on safe ground. Whatever she did to him, he just wants to cry out as hysterically as he can. It would be some relief for him, he believes, just to let out the pain in that form of expression.

Just then, as he is fantasising for an outlet for relieve, he feels arms come around him with gentle firmness, and instantly, he launches his aching body into them, almost like he is falling into the arms. If he could, he would latch onto them as securely as possible, however, the pain is too much to allow him to hold back onto the support, than lean into it. Ah, the minimal relief that he feels to have physical support. He still feels the pain, but just feeling that he has someone to lean onto, someone who is offering their comfort in his most painful of moments, is wonderful.

Unfortunately for him, though, the relief is short-lived. The disruption in relief doesn't come from the arms themselves, the arms in fact make him feel a level of protection. It's rather a sentence of new words spoken to him, which has him instantly suffocating, and promptly pushing in a long jump to be away from their hold.

'You will never see her again,' the words keep dancing around his ears.

Those words do it for him. No, he doesn't have the strength to fight his physical pain, but just thinking that she put her arms around him, to comfort him for the fact that he will never see Chi-Chi again, erects all of him. His head lifts up, he forces his body to stand to some degree of upright, and his eyes, he sets on hers. He sees how so unbothered, calm, and lovely in appearance she looks, and although he understands that it's within the angels' nature to always appear well put together, Vados is something different.

'Vados, please,' he despairingly rasps, bubbling with fury for her at the same time, 'I only want her back.'

How quickly, yet quietly she giggles in response, covering her mouth with her hand as if to hide it, anyone would think that he made a joke. Not in the least bit, does he appreciate that about her. It builds up his fury, in fact.

'And I only want you to prove to me, how badly you want her back,' she reveals after her giggling ends. 'What else do you think I'm doing this for? Prove to me that you want her back!'

How cold!

He hadn't thought of that. He hadn't suspected that she's been provoking him to fight her, through beating him up. Just like he hadn't considered that her beating him up, is the result of her anger towards him, for refusing to entertain a match with her. Although, now that she's given her plan away, he's beginning to remember how she kept on repeating how Whis feels about him. Maybe, Whis raised her hopes in what to expect from him, and she simply wants to test it. If it's like that, then it's definitely cold of her, to use a vulnerable moment to conduct her experiment.

'I already told you,' a shaking finger points at her. 'I can't afford to lose. I've never asked you for a favour before, but the one time that I really need you, you shove it in my face that I'm weak. You're shoving my weakness in my face!' he emotionally screams out the last sentence.

For a second, Vados looks to be assessing him, dragging her eyes all around his face, and then says, 'I think that you've taken quite a beating, and now you're quite delirious. I distastefully feel that you are mistaking me for my brother, Whis. I'm Vados, apprentice, remember that. I owe you nothing. And you mean nothing to me. If I feel like making a fool of you, I will.'

'You're mean,' he painfully sniffs out.

That statement, she accepts with a small shrug, replying, 'And you're weak,' like they are stating facts about each other, to the other, that carry no weight.

She then begins to walk to him, ever so slowly. Or maybe, it only seems like she's taking slow steps, because he is in that much pain. As she walks, he takes in successive long breaths, also feebly training his body to be ready to weather another attack from her, because that is clearly what she is coming to him, to do.

'Don't,' he begs as she reaches him, hoping to stop her attack. 'Please. I just want her back.'

Upon hearing his plea, Vados stops in her tracks. His mind immediately goes to breathing out some relief when he sees her taking an elegant swerve back from him, only for him to catch a sneer on her face, and realise that she's not going to listen to his plea. Although he sees her produce a sneer on her face, she moves too fast for even him to reconcile with the fact that she's moved to him. By the time that her hand lands on his chest, he swears that it feels like she literally just plucked his heart out of him.

'You're weak,' she snarls at him, her voice a completely different sound from its usual softness. 'You're so weak, that you're threatened by the idea of Whis taking over your role in your wife's life.'

She hits his chest again, and this time, unlike previously when he felt too paralysed to move, he staggers back, silently praying that his knees will drop to the ground, and save him from this pain.

'There's your weakness, apprentice,' she spits at him. 'Have you ever wondered why angels serve, even though we have immeasurable power? Our kind is transcendent of petty titles and duties, that it doesn't bother us to serve and obey. You should be grateful to know that you have a superior being as guardian over your family, and yet, you want all that glory for yourself. My brother is above associating with the likes of you and your wife, weaklings who feel the need to measure their stature in life. But I suppose, you don't have to worry about it anymore, do you? Without your wife, you'll never be threatened by my brother again, will you?'

'Shut up,' he roughly warns, just as roughly cutting his eyes to her.

In return, she only looks at him with amusement, her added laughter making him even more angry, than her, 'The truth hurts, doesn't it?' mock of a question does.

'Shut up,' he warns her again.

As if to consider him, she tilts her head to the side contemplatively. When she does that, it looks to him like she's coming to a realisation about something.

'But, I don't think it hurts enough,' she finally says, 'because if it really hurt, you'd be attempting to fight me back for your wife. Look, at this point,' she bargains with a small shrug, 'I'm willing to give you a win even for just laying a finger on me.'

This Vados! Continue to shove bait in his face, will she!

She thinks this is easy for him? She thinks resisting the urge and impulse to fight her back, even just for a second, is easy for him? Does she really think that the fighter in him doesn't want to make the attempt to make her swallow her razor words? Does she have in her head, that he likes just standing in a bent way over here, weakly watching her, and not doing anything to stop her being so harsh with him?

'Clearly,' she states, her voice returning to normal, 'you don't want your wife back as much as you claim to. You'd be fighting until your last breath, otherwise, not giving her up, by losing.'

'SHUT UP!' he explodes.

The scream is tremendous, conveying much of his mental, emotional and physical pain, more than it is to get her to stop getting words from her heartless brain, out through her mouth. It's right then, after his explosion, that he feels the most intense wave of energy yet, surge through him. Starting from his smallest toe, he feels the powerful current of energy start to flow, spreading all over him, to come to completion on his hair. His pain, he feels it disappear, and in its place, a renewed strength with a hot flame, to tear the universe in half.

Wild tingling and hype rejuvenation attack his body at the same time, while his mind, is overcome by a frighteningly light calmness, and his heart, richly fertilized with a burning need to push Vados back as far as she pushed him. He feels so much power bubbling within him, that if he puts his mind to it, he might just be able to get a shot in and win against her that way.

'Vados...' he quietly says her name.

'My goodness!' she exclaims in transparent gladness. 'I see that you're ready to fight back now, apprentice.'

When Vados starts to ready herself for a fight, taking on the stance of combat, his power reflexively perks up all the more, automatically moving his body to do the same thing that she did. His palms begin to sweat in anticipation, his heart beats a different tune, made of excitement and a prelude to victory, fuelling him to lift himself onto the tips of his feet.

'Oh!' she pleasantly remarks. 'I have high hopes for you, apprentice. Impress me.'

Impress me, he hears the words a second time.

Impress me, they sound for a third time.

The third repetition in his mind, sharply snaps the thread of dependency that had been connecting his brain to the future functions of his body.

That's a dare, he realises, a lure into her original trap.

With the realisation, happens the deflation of vigour within him. It's as though suddenly, the live-giving breath to use his power, is taken right out of him, leaving him dead instead. It's not that his energy diminishes or anything in that line, it's that his soul recognises his mistake, which would've come to pass.

'I won't fight you,' he tells her, using every effort he possesses, to close his eyes.

'What?!'

Because he has his eyes closed, he can only think that she sounds surprised, not that she looks it. He understands completely, though, because if he were her, he would feel the same shape of surprise as well.

'I won't fight you,' he quietly repeats to her, pressing his eyelids even tighter together.

Vados takes a moment, not moving (he senses this even though his eyes are closed). He can only wonder and imagine what she is thinking, what her brain is thinking of in this case. Being inside his own head, knowing that he has that great a surge of power, she must be expecting him to do his absolute best. It almost makes him want to laugh until twisted tears fall from his soul, just thinking that, because-

'You know,' the sound of her voice interrupts his thoughts, 'when you first came here, I already knew that I wasn't going to give you what you wanted. However, I was curious to experience for myself, what Whis has said about you.'

Vados really isn't going to bend, he concludes with finality. She's going to break him instead, if he doesn't give her what she wants. Damn it! If only he could fight her! But he can't. He wants to, but he can't. He really can't, because he feels the pressure of being under his own pressure. As he stands, knowing that about Vados, he desperately needs to release the energy of the immense pressure that he feels, but another part of him knows that if he loses himself to get into this fight with Vados, he will lose everything.

Sure, he believes in giving something his best, and not giving up a fight, but he just cannot abandon the knowledge of the consequences that come with giving into the very thing that his body is craving for. His body feels like it would be right for him to retaliate, as he has been pushed into a corner, to get out of, but then his mind understands that it would be wrong of him to sacrifice his word for his body. His battle, is the worst. Vados can't even begin to know it, because between what he wants, what he is capable of, and what he shouldn't want to do, is the difference of self-disgust.

'I thought I could have a little fun out of you, but then you disappointed me,' she continues. 'And really, because of that, I wasn't going to give you what you want. Except, just now, when squeezed your eyes and your body tensed, you reminded me of someone...'

He hears footsteps sound, telling him that she is moving towards him, and while he wants to be ready for her when she reaches him, he doesn't dare to open his eyes. It's important for him to keep being this way, so that he doesn't come apart and lose himself in the moment.

'She is woman from our Earth,' Vados picks up her narration. 'She is the first ever that I felt sympathy for. Do you know why?'

Nothing is all that he gives her for an answer, which must be why she touches his face, and without thinking of why she did that, he opens his eyes.

'Would you like to see?' she asks.

To him, however, it doesn't seem like a question, when she already has her staff between them, before he has his chance to answer. From the black crystal in the middle of her staff, she then refracts a globe of green light a little distance above them, making it so that he has to tilt his head back to see properly. Inside the green ball of light, it starts to show a picture of a man, pushing a woman onto a bed, apparently deaf to her repetitive cries of the word 'no.' At first, Goku is lost, he doesn't know what he is looking at, until the man roughly starts to pull the woman's clothes off her body, leaving her completely naked.

His eyes, more than his heart, intensely burn from the violence in the projection.

If his body wasn't already clenched firm to the spot, he would formed angry fists, ready to smash into the image, and teach that foul man a lesson. Her weak protests make it even worse for him, because they say to him, that she can't defend herself, especially when the man eventually pulls his trousers and underwear down, to impel himself between her legs. What hits him the most, what grabs at the sensitive flesh of his heart worst, is how when he forces himself onto her like that, she just stops struggling. In the place of struggling and protesting, she rather gets a lost look in her eyes, with tears shining inside them, except the tears don't fall.

Goku is vehemently appalled.

Beyond that even, to be watching something like that, but he can't look away. Without the freedom to choose the opposite, he feels transfixed to watch until the very end, where the man evidently feels that he's completed what he needed to do, uses some part of something cloth-like to wipe himself off, and then leaves her there. After pulling his clothes back on, he leaves her all alone, like he was never with her. It's sickening to see that sort of behaviour, more so because after all that, the woman stays in the room, laying completely still on the bed for a while, getting up a little later. One by one, she picks up her clothes, to put them back on, and seeing that, raw humiliation surrounds Goku, for her.

That she has to pick up all of her clothes, which were forcefully taken off her, just so she can put them back on her body again, because she literally has no choice but to, makes him feel disgusted.

About what happened, he's angry, and he wants to break through the green light, to kill that man, but on the other hand, he wants to be able to do so much more for the woman, than just that. But what would restore her? He can't think of anything right way, so he watches with great concern as the woman goes to her cupboard after getting dressed. Just how her hands are shaking as they reach to open her cupboard, he can tell that she is keeping herself together on the outside, while breaking down inside. He knows the feeling. To the last degree of intimacy. He knows what it's like to have an internal depot of feelings that can't be expressed to the outside world.

Out of the cupboard, she comes out with a teddy bear big enough to be Goten in size, the difference being that it's lifeless. Even as she sits down on the floor, setting the bear in front of her, and then she gently strokes the bear's face through a crooked smile, he develops the sinking feeling, that this is the worst part yet.

'I'd go crazy, if I didn't have you to talk to,' the woman tells the teddy, her a dull sound. 'I know I keep telling you the same thing over and over, but... Do you have any idea what it's like to live through something like that? Can you imagine how it's like, to live through something, when your mind is disgusted and afraid, when your mind is refusing, but your body is enjoying it?'

She takes a little break to pull in a sniff, but it still doesn't look like she's going to spill the tears glazing in her eyes.

'Do you have any idea what it does to you, to be betrayed by the responses of your own body, when your mind just wants to die?' she continues to ask her bear, using the same dull sound of voice. 'Can you even begin to understand how that makes you feel as a person, about yourself?'

'That's enough,' Vados sternly announces, suddenly getting rid of the light and display.

With enlarged eyes, he snaps to her. Her abrupt manner shocks him so! How can she not be sensitive to the woman? To him, who was identifying a moment and feelings with that woman?

'As you saw,' she begins to tell him, pretending like she didn't just do something insensitive, 'the analogy here, apprentice, is not as conventional as it should be to your case, but to put it plainly, I see that woman in you. I don't know if you were originally going for that effect, but I can sympathise with you now, the way I did with that woman.'

She can sympathise with him? No. Does she even know what sympathy is? He's been begging her all of this time, to just get his wife back to him, because he would lose to her anyway, and now she wants him to believe that she has sympathy for him?

'You don't believe me,' she observes, smiling almost ruefully, which is too unlike her.

How can he? Does she think that showing him something that horrible, will make him forget how she's been refusing to help him? He really doesn't care that she wanted to humiliate him and make him feel weak, he only cares that she wouldn't hear him out. How she wouldn't listen to and understand the fact that he had a purpose in choosing not to fight her.

'Look at you,' she uses her hand to gesture to his figure. 'There you are, glowing with the ability to fight me, even to simply try, but even as I thrashed you around, you resisted the urge in your body to fight me. You fought with all of your soul, to make sure that you didn't give in to the impulse, because giving in to that impulse meant losing everything. It must've cost you the world, to keep your body in check, I imagine. What's interesting is you kept getting up, allowing me to beat you, but your mind stayed strong not to respond.'

Oh.

Her words, trace a deep crack right in the centre of the barrier shielding his inside from showing on the outside, leaving him vulnerable to being exposed. She's right, he thinks, strongly his breath, to not allow even air to pass through the new crack.

She understands. She really understands.

That he made a silent vow to get his wife back, even if it meant losing his life in the process. He'd been dead determined at first, that he'd fight whoever he had to fight to bring her back. But every deity since then, who rejected him, telling him the same thing, ultimately passed on something important to him, when it came down to him facing Vados.

Did he still have the desire to get Chi-Chi back by all means necessary? Yes. Did he still itch to punch Vados' face when she made light of his serious situation? Absolutely. Did he still feel the enticing temptation of using his emotions as a propeller to triumph against Vados? Without a doubt. But!

'I just please want her back, Vados,' he pleads his case one last time. 'That's all I want.'

That's his way of telling that the deities engraved into his understanding that having power, doesn't always mean that it can be used. Yes, he wants to take her up on her challenge, that way gaining a chance at getting Chi-Chi back, but he just can't take that chance. If training with Whis has taught him anything, it's that Whis only starts blocking their attacks, when he gets bored of dodging, and having that in mind, especially how cold Vados is, he'd have to die every day for a million years, before she allows him to touch him even with a strand of hair.

But in the end, he accepts that it won't matter to her anyway. He could get down on his knees, clutch her legs to his chest like she is the last support he has before he sinks, and pour out all of his misery to her, opening himself up to her like he's only ever done with Chi-Chi, but all she would probably hear, is a pleasing melody to her ears, that she could listen to without interruption.

'You're a mess,' she smoothly says in the process of gliding to him.

What does he care about that? Isn't that what she was going for when she started attacking him? He doesn't care about looking a mess, not when he doesn't feel anything related to good.

'Vados,' he croaks, knowing very well that she won't listen to him. 'Please, just ten seconds into the past.'

He made a small passageway to the fantasy that she would look at him, contemplating him, and then retort with condescension, but she only reaches her hand out towards him. When he sees her hand coming to him, he automatically shifts his body back only half a measurement of a step, because he instantly remembers how comfortingly she'd embraced him before, only to tell him that he would never see Chi-Chi again.

No! Just no. He refuses that. Someone kill him already, because he doesn't want to hear that. He can mentally accept it as the case of truth as it is, because clearly Vados won't entertain him, but he doesn't want to hear it.

He can't hear the words of his eternal sentence spoken to him, and by trying to move away from her touch, he's only seeking to avoid one of the two likely outcomes that her touch could bring. But unfortunately, he doesn't manage to escape her touch, as her hand makes contact with him almost immediately, and then the hottest of fiery pains courses through his skull. Most likely, she's going to take him by the head, and then toss him all the way to the other end of the universe.

He doesn't care, he thinks, weakly trying to produce a smile on his face, while one of his eyes struggles to stay open. Even if she throws him away from her presence, before she actually takes the last breath from him, he won't be discouraged from searching through the universe to find her again, and keep pleading with her. But since she's chosen to hurt him, he wonders, should he cry out in pain, or...?

26Chapters

The pain stops. At least, the pain of his skull being on fire, but refusing to burn up, stops. He isn't sure if the atmosphere around him is quiet because he stopped crying out from the pain, or if he even remembers crying out or not. He isn't sure if he remembers closing both of his eyes either, and yet, here he is quickly opening his eyes.

The silence, the absence of pain, and no words from Vados, are too unsettling to him, that he has to see for himself, what is going in his surroundings. He needs to know where Vados has taken him, so that if he is not on her planet, he can get back to her as soon as possible. Once his eyes find focus, though, he quickly realises that he is back on Earth.

At the baseball game, to be exact.

His heart stops. Completely and shamelessly.

It would be ironic, if he were to die now, after getting what he's wanted since he left this place in the first place, when he refused to die before when Vados was stomping all sorts of pain from him. It would be ironic indeed, but his heart really does stop beating.

He's back here.

He's really back here. His eyes can see everything and everyone. Only, they are exactly how he left them, and... His eyes search this way and that, but he doesn't find Chi-Chi! She's nowhere to be seen, and that jolts his unbeating heart to thud away inside his chest.

Chi-Chi's not here!

He wants to die...

He actually believed that Vados had brought him back here, back to that time before she and Lord Champa showed up, but she only brought him here, to show him that she would never give him what he wants.

She lied to him!

Not that he believed her when she said that she felt sympathy for him, but she really lied to him! She said that she understood how hard it was for him to resist fighting her, but in the end, she never really meant it, it seems.

His Chi-Chi!

His eyes can't find her, and he just... He doesn't want to continue breathing. He just doesn't want to try anymore. His soul feel so empty, now that his eyes can't find his wife, and he just can't anymore.

Where is his love? Why can't he find her? His empty soul aches. It aches so much... Where is she? Just where is she? It feels like his heart is stopping again.

'Goku...' a soft voice speaks, 'Ten seconds. That's all you have.'

Ten seconds?

Sharply, he turns his head to his left side where the voice came from, and finds Vados looking at him. She looks serious, not at all mocking or baiting, which makes him wonder if he can grab the hope that she is handing out to him?

'Vados?'

'Ten seconds,' she sternly responds, stretching out her staff in front of her and urging him to follow it with his eyes.

Her staff, as he follows it with his eyes, does this wondrous thing of encasing everyone on the field in one green bubble, but carrying each one individually, back to the positions that they had been in before any destruction takes place. Through a loudly thumping heart, he watches how each person in his circle of friends, is returned (conscious in state) to their previous positions, while they silently marvel at what is happening to them. He sees the wonder on all of their conscious faces, and something about that, makes him slowly turn to Vados. He can't say why, but he just feels the need to look at her.

In spite of his feelings, that's an incredible thing that she's doing. The look on her face is so calm and yet concentrating, but she looks different to him. For someone who has seen Super Shenron, even swallowed by Super Shenron, and then moved on to see an evil clone of himself, watching Vados do something like rearrange the current moment to a moment in a past, all because she sincerely wants to, is the most magnificently magical thing that he has seen.

'Thank you,' his heart speaks through his mouth.

Never mind what she did in the past, how she wouldn't listen to him in the past, and how she may just be doing this for her own agenda, because in this moment, he's more than thankful to her.

'Just keep your eyes on the appearance of your wife, apprentice,' she returns, but there's still no mocking in her voice.

He won't be told twice, he thinks. Already remembering where he'd failed to save her, he quickly moves there, arriving just in time to catch her reappearing there. For a second, he almost stops in proper shock, but his body overrides his mind, immediately pulling her away from that, and damn what follows that. It's not his concern if Lord Beerus' destruction ball hits somewhere, because his goal is safely in his arms.

'Uf! Goku!' Chi-Chi complains in surprise, clutching her arms around his neck.

Hearing her complaint, and feeling that they are safe away enough, he carefully settles her down on her feet. It stings him to pull away from the feel of her actual body, but he needs to make a quick glance over her, to make extra sure that she really is all right, and that no fleck of the destruction energy touched her, to leave her missing an arm, or a strand of hair.

'What's gotten into you?' she wonders with concern, eyeing him carefully.

His answer to her, besides the mammoth of a smile that attacks his face, is to crush her back into him, really just smothering her with his arms. Her surprised question says that she doesn't know what happened, but he does, and he is never letting her go again. He'll keep her in his hold like this for the rest of his life. Or better, if he could sink into her skin, seeping into her veins to be together with the life of her blood, he would do it.

'Goku…'

Chi-Chi tries to push away from him, but he gets a slight bout of panic, so he physically protests by encasing her even tighter, and trapping one of his legs between hers.

'What's wrong, Goku?' she asks him, sounding scared. 'You're scaring me.'

Aaw man, his heart takes a dive just a little. He doesn't want to scare her, it makes him feel bad that he is create a world of worry and fright for her with his behaviour, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to let her go. His need to keep her pressed to him should be the side that takes the trophy, but in reality, his need can't compare to his heart's promise of love, to always be tender with her. In the end, he slowly pulls away from her, but his hands immediately find her face to frame, because it wouldn't make sense for him to just leave her untouched.

It's Chi-Chi. It's really her. And her arms are still around his neck.

'Chi-Chi,' he heartily breathes, while his eyes admire her face.

'Why are you looking at me like that, Goku?' she breathes back, still sounding concerned.

Like how? He's only appreciating and loving her face, now that he has her back, but he supposes that from her point of view, his relieved and appreciate stare, look randomly intense that it's scaring her. Well, she might just be right if she's thinking his stare is intense. How can it not be, when she's back with him, and he can touch her if he wants to?

'Goku,' she softly calls for his attention, and drops her arms from around him, to her sides, 'tell me what's wrong.'

Again, he doesn't respond to her. He finds that it's much easier to press himself into her, widen his smile, and also graze her bare arm with his knuckles. Thank goodness for the baseball uniform, otherwise he wouldn't have the freedom to slide his knuckles down her upper arm to her wrist. At her wrist, her turns his hand, to use two of his fingers to feel her pulse under her skin. He swears, feeling the quiet drumming of her pulse, he can almost hear her heart beating within his own heart. It's not possible, of course, he knows that, but it feels like he can.

'You shirt is ripped off, and you clearly got into a fight, so what is it?' she urges him to tell her, since he hasn't yet said anything.

No wonder she looks so worried. He didn't know about his shirt being ripped. In fact, he doesn't know anything about his appearance. If he looks blue in some parts and torn at the flesh in some other parts, he doesn't know about it. At the moment, he only knows that his shirt is ripped, and her worry is justified that way. Whenever his uniform started coming off piece of fabric by piece during battle, it always signified the climax, where nothing of power would be held back. To think that even he didn't fight, he still fought to this point of ripping his shirt...

'Please tell me,' she persistently requests again.

'Nothing's wrong, I promise,' he finally replies.

He answers her, solely because he wants to kiss her. Now, he's aware that there are people watching them, and doesn't care if they are, however, doesn't trust himself to kiss her. If he already has trouble letting her go while simply holding her (his leg is still between hers, he adds), how hard will it be to pull away from a kiss with her. But, but, but, aaah! He can't have a mini internal struggle about this. He wants to kiss, and he shouldn't have to hold himself back.

All right, he decides, taking in a short breath of warning to himself, he'll do it. He'll kiss her. On the cheek. He'll kiss her on the cheek, since he can't trust his lips to touch hers. Fully decided to kiss her, he leans in to kiss her cheek, except, his lips never meet her cheek. His lips meet cold air, his arms hold cold air, and his leg remains between cold air on either side of it.

'Chi-Chi?' he calls for her, momentarily stunned, and only able to blink.

At the same time of him calling to find out where his wife disappeared to, a booming voice rich with emotional hysteria calls the same name.

'Chi-Chi!'

Even without looking, Goku knows that is the voice of Ox King, as his hysteria is only typical of him and him alone. Chi-Chi sometimes displays that trait too, but that isn't important right now. He adjusts himself to have a view of Chi-Chi and her father, and he's quite taken aback to find a line of people behind Ox King, more than he is interested to know how in the world Ox King managed to steal Chi-Chi from his arms, and take her (while in his embrace) in a completely different direction in so little time.

'Oh, my dear baby, Chi-Chi! You're alive!'

'Dad,' she replies, 'you too?'

It's not just him, Goku answers in his head. There's a line of people behind Ox King... Og, his heart laments, he won't get her back into his arms again, it seems. There's Goten, there's Gohan and Pan, there's Piccolo, and then...

'Whis?' he whispers.

Whis obviously also came back, dressed in what he had been wearing at the game, but never mind Whis! That line to Chi-Chi is too long. He wants her back in his arms already. Why can't he just have her to himself?

'Grandpa, hurry!' Goten says, jumping up and down. 'I wanna hug my Mommy!'

Where Goku is surprised at Goten even being patient enough to wait for his turn, Chi-Chi hurriedly pulls herself out of her father's embrace, and steps around him, once she hears Goten's voice. Goten then jumps onto her face, childishly winding his legs around her neck.

'Mommy!' he exclaims, his small body wiggling around her head.

'Hi, Goten,' she greets him.

Gohan apparently, Goku sees, is too impatient to wait for Goten to finish his turn, because he uses that clear space around her frontal body, as an opportunity to cling to her. Although he holds onto her with Pan in his other arm, he does it thoroughly. Silently too. He silently holds onto his mother, not speaking any exclamation or welcoming remark.

Seeing that display from his sons, Goku begins to feel selfish for wanting to have her back in his embrace again only. In his hot trail to get Chi-Chi back, and just now when she reappeared, he didn't really consider that other people felt her absence too. He'd been so concerned about himself, not realising that it wasn't just for himself, that he was getting her back. He got her back for an entire family of people. Including Whis.

'Mom,' Gohan bows down low after he eventually lets her go, 'I'm really sorry that I couldn't protect you.'

She won't know what Gohan is talking about, Goku thinks. She has no idea what happened to her, which is why she doesn't say anything, but show Gohan a small smile, and give him one last side hug. Probably because Goten is still partly attached to her head, she gives Gohan a side hug, not a full one. It's not a bad thing either, as it creates space for Piccolo to step up to her, in his turn.

'Do you see what I told you?' Piccolo growls.

His voice and his face show his disturbed state, but Chi-Chi only looks at him quietly. She may understand that Piccolo is not okay with her, but she doesn't understand why, hence her silence.

'Look what happened to you!' Piccolo scolds her. 'Do you see now what I told you about Whis?'

'Piccolo,' she says, 'I'm fine.'

Her answer has Piccolo staring at her, almost like he wants to say something else about that specifically, but she takes hold of his arms before breaking into a soft smile, and Piccolo just relents. Or he relaxes. It's one of the two, whichever is closer to Piccolo calming down significantly from disturbed mode.

'Just don't do that again,' he warns deeply, surreptitiously covering her hand with his own only for a split second, as he probably intended not to be caught doing it.

It's Whis' turn next, but Goku sees that he's not moving to be closer to Chi-Chi. He looks hesitant to approach her, and while Goku would immediately take any chance to have Chi-Chi again, he realises something very important. Whis is sorry that he couldn't protect her, neither could he do anything to bring her back, so he must think that she's going to say something about it. If only he knew that out all of them, she's the only one who doesn't remember anything.

To fix the bridge Whis thinks is broken between him and Chi-Chi, Goku moves over to Chi-Chi and begins pulling her with him, to meet Whis.

Funny enough, he would've never done that before. In fact, he would've been the first person to try and separate the two of them, but his eyes have opened since then. It's disturbing that he had to go through a horrendous situation to finally get over Whis and Chi-Chi, but that's ultimately what it took. When it came down to it, Whis couldn't do anything for Chi-Chi, despite his power, and as petty as that it is, it makes Goku feel better to know.

'Chi-Chi,' he faces her, while his finger points at Whis, 'that's Whis.'

'I know who he is, Goku,' she emits a small laugh.

He knows that, but the way they were standing afar from each other as if they were afraid to approach each other, felt to him like they needed permission to talk and be close to each other. He's to blame for that, he guesses, so it's up to him to correct it.

'Whis,' Goku turns to face him, 'I got her back.'

He's not bragging about it, but he will also not lie and think that there isn't some satisfaction in knowing that although Whis has all these wonderful magical powers, he has his limits too. He's always thought of Whis as the guy who can do anything, when really, Whis has a dependency on someone else, to execute all of that power. There's honestly nothing to be threatened about, in a someone who has a weakness just like the rest of them.

'I'm thankful, Goku,' Whis bows his head, and then looks from him to Chi-Chi, to apologise. 'I'm deeply sorry, Chi-Chi. Will you ever forgive me?'

Rather than giving Whis an answer, Chi-Chi simply opens her arms, silently inviting Whis into them. Robotically, Whis takes the single step between them, but once in there, he only stands and allows her to close her arms around him. With Whis' tall frame and Goten stubbornly clinging to her head and shoulder, it's an amusing picture to look at. He can only imagine if Lord Beerus was seeing- Wait, Lord Beerus, where is he?

'Whis, where's Lord Beerus?'

His impulsive question pulls Whis out of Chi-Chi's hug, leading him to point a long finger towards the sky. Following the finger leading to a place the other way in the low sky, Goku catches three figures with his eyes. One is Vados, he notes, he'd never mistake her white hair. And then there's Lord Champa, whose bulkier body he would never forget other, currently pushing Lord Beerus to the side. As soon as Lord Beerus gains stability for the shove, he goes to shove his brother right back, and so they go back and forth. It's interesting of them to behave that way, but Goku guesses that might just be their own way of showing their love for each other. He better leave them to continue as they are, and rather get back to showing his own love.

'That felt lovely and warm, by the way, Chi-Chi,' Whis remarks about the hug, like he knows nothing of it.

Laughing, she replies with, 'You have so much to learn, Whis.'

While Whis has so much to learn, Goku thinks with a sneaky smile, he's going to attack Chi-Chi with another long embrace, because at least he knows how to appreciate a hug in the moment, not afterwards. But then just like before with the kiss, everyone else who hadn't come close to welcome Chi-Chi back, step forward and his chance is lost.

Og, now he has to wait again.

26Chapters

'Dad, how did you get Mom back?'

That question, he doesn't want to answer, even coming from Gohan, but it does remind him of something that he completely forgot about. Supreme Kai. He left Supreme Kai at Zeno's. Uh-oh.

'Hey, Whis!' he calls.

Since he stepped away to allow the others space with Chi-Chi, he joined Gohan, Piccolo and Ox King on the side, a little way from the big group. Gohan took the opportunity to ask him how he did, only, it placed Goku on another path. It's just as well that Whis comes over to him, because he can't find Supreme Kai's energy on Earth.

'Yes?' Whis presents himself.

'I can't find Supreme Kai on Earth.'

'He's still with the Grand Priest. He is fine.'

Yet another redirection, Goku sourly thinks, as this redirect from the topic in his thoughts, is towards the Grand Priest, and only bad memories of him come to Goku.

'Your father is not really nice,' Goku tells Whis.

'He is,' Whis opposes him. 'He simply has rules to abide by, and being lenient with one person, potentially means being lenient to every complaint that comes to him. Could you imagine the balance of the world, if he let everyone get what they want, simply because they have that option?'

True. Whis has a point, but still, Grand Priest should've helped him. He hadn't been asking for something bad for the world, or even something useless.

'You're mistaken, Goku, what you are thinking,' Whis says. 'That is why you can never be a god of Destruction, or in any other godly form. I am quite proud of and thankful that you persisted until my sister changed her mind, but it also made me realise that you cannot be a god, as I had hoped.'

Hang on, had Whis began scouting him at some point, probably wishing that he would take over the role of Destruction god, once he reached a certain level? It seems to make sense now, how the whole time Vados kept calling him an apprentice...

'Whis...' he starts to add up what he has so far in information. 'Were you...?'

As if he is daring Goku to finish that question, Whis raises an eyebrow. Goku would've taken the challenge and completed his question, if Whis didn't almost immediately appear to have absently lost interest in the conversation.

'Excuse me, Goku,' he silkily says. 'It appears that Lord Beerus and Lord Champa have finished their welcome, at last. I must go, and welcome my Lord back.'

After that, Whis conveniently excuses himself, disappearing without allowing Goku the opportunity to stop him.

'Dad, you didn't say. How did you get Mom back?' Gohan wants to know, taking the opportunity Whis left behind.

'Yes,' Piccolo supports, 'if Whis disappeared, and he couldn't turn back time, how did you get Chi-Chi back? I mean, even if Whis had been able to, didn't he once say that he can only rewind time by three minutes?'

What? All that? Goku switches his view from Gohan to Piccolo. Does he really have to go from the start to now? The truth is, he doesn't want to repeat all the rejection and that to them, and even if he did, he doesn't know how Vados redid everything. He never got the chance to ask her.

'It was Vados,' he tells them. 'I will have to ask her. She's mean, though. She's not like Whis.'

'Did you fight her?' Piccolo wonders. 'Is that why you look like that?'

He won't answer that, he'll ignore, but yes, in a way, he did fight Vados.

26Chapters

Organically, all the separated groups gather together after everyone else leave. His immediate family being the only other group left (Videl offered to take Pan home, while Gohan spends some more time with his mother), they somehow find themselves surrounded by the group of gods.

'Chi-Chi,' Whis speaks with a smile after clearing his throat, 'Lord Beerus has something to say to you.'

Chi-Chi who has since moved stubborn Goten to her hip, steps forwards to hear what Lord Beerus had to say to her.

'Lord Beerus,' she nods.

'Um...' Lord Beerus clears his throat, and then looks at Whis with uncertainty.

Probably for encouragement, Whis nods to him, following that with looking at Chi-Chi, and saying, 'Go on, my Lord.'

Lord Beerus clears his throat again, clearly uncomfortable with what he has to say. His squinting eyes and reluctant expression give away that Whis had something to do with whatever Lord Beerus has to say.

'Um...' he tries again. 'I wanted to... Um... I wanted-to-tell-you-that-I-am...'

'Lord Beerus,' Whis impatiently urges, like he is scolding a naughty child.

'DON'T RUSH ME!' Lord Beerus barks at Whis. 'I'LL SPEAK AT MY OWN PACE!'

Suddenly, without giving a warning that it was going to happen, Whis uses both of his arms to cling to Lord Beerus' arm. As Whis squeals his apparent delight, Goku is reminding of Goten hanging onto Chi-Chi for some reason.

'Oh, Lord Beerus,' Whis happily cries, 'I thought I would never see you again.'

From the way Whis is wiggling Lord Beerus' arm, Goku guesses that hearing Lord Beerus shout at him, reminded Whis of how close he came to not ever seeing the one person that he has had all this time. He can really understand Whis' sentiments.

'Whiiiiis!' Lord Beerus complains deeply. 'Let me go!'

Funny enough, Whis does let go of Lord Beerus, something Goku hadn't been expecting, but the way he corrects his stance after clearing his throat, is just too funny to Goku. He can't believe that Whis would act like that, as though he hadn't just been clinging to Lord Beerus like a little child to their mother, and then fix himself as if no one saw him act that way.

'As you were saying to Chi-Chi?' Whis directs to Lord Beerus.

In turn, Lord Beerus gives him a look, but Whis shrugs, inclining his head towards Chi-Chi, and then prissily closing his eyes to remove himself from the exchange. Lord Beerus then turns back to Chi-Chi.

'Uh...' Lord Beerus turns back to Chi-Chi. 'Whis insists that I need to apologise to you, so... Um... I... Uh... I really-liked-the-food-that-you-gave-Whis-the-other-day. Make sure to properly teach him how to make it.'

Goku is shocked. That is his apology? That, what he said really fast, and had nothing to do with apologising, is his apology? It doesn't even really sound like an apology, it seems more like permission for Chi-Chi to spend time with Whis. Although, whatever it is, thank goodness Chi-Chi seems to find it amusing, otherwise he would've said something to Lord Beerus.

'You remind me of Piccolo, Lord Beerus,' she says to the god, a warm smile on her face.

'I'm right here!' Piccolo quickly rejects that.

That way, he's probably protesting that he can't be remembered while he is here with them. Also, he's mostly protesting, because he doesn't like the comparison to Lord Beerus.

'You also didn't say what you really want to say to me,' she tells Piccolo, 'but at least I understand both of you.'

'It's just as well that you understand, Chi-Chi,' Whis supports her, 'because I doubt that he will say anything about destroying you.'

So wait, Chi-Chi knows about being destroyed?

'That was an accident, Whis!' Lord Beerus defends himself, although, he does seem uncomfortable talking about it, as though it takes him back to a place where he didn't like being.

So really, Chi-Chi knows? She hasn't been acting like someone who knows anything, but he will tuck that away for now. Now that they are on the subject of apologies, he should also make his apology to Lord Beerus for what he did. For what he caused his sons and Piccolo to do with him.

'Lord Beerus...' he starts. 'I'm sorry about...'

In the space where he pauses, Lord Beerus nods and waves his hand away, communicating that he shouldn't bother with that. He appreciates to know that Lord Beerus doesn't hold a grudge against him, as he also holds no hard feelings for Lord Beerus. What happened was an accident, and in the end, he got Chi-Chi back, so there is really no need to hold a grudge.

'Thanks, Lord Beerus,' Goku appreciates, 'but I want to know why Supreme Kai was still alive when you disappeared.'

At the time immediately following the destruction, when the people around him were trying to come up with solutions to getting Chi-Chi, he hadn't once considered that Supreme Kai wouldn't be there when he looked for him. It was only after Vados restored everything, and he had to stand back and allow the others to welcome Chi-Chi back, that he remembered that little bit of information. He'd almost freaked out with thoughts of what he would've done had Supreme Kai disappeared too, but luckily his eyes on his wife, quickly reeled him back from that possibility that never came to be. Except that now, he is curious about it.

'Creation can create destruction, but destruction cannot create,' it's Vados who answers that for him.

He looks at her, remembering that she's been here with them too. 'But Whis said they are a set with Supreme Kai.'

'They are,' she confirms, 'but they are not linked in that way. Only direct harm to a Supreme Kai can affect a god of destruction, who directly falls under creation. Damage to creation doesn't mean the creator takes the same damage. That's the simple explanation of it. Also, it has nothing to do with you, what gods and angels get up to.'

He feels that she didn't really explain it well, but he decides to accept that and move on from it. Starting a new topic specifically for her to answer, is the best way to move away from her 'simple' explanation and her last comment, which just escapes the territory of being snide.

'Okay,' he says. 'So how did you get me back to the moment to save Chi-Chi, and everyone remembers it?'

'Wouldn't you like to know?' Vados slyly asks, giggling afterwards.

'That's why I'm asking, obviously,' he replies through a frown.

'Oh, apprentice,' she smiles, apparently enjoying him as he is. 'Know this; Every event in creation is recorded, no matter how insignificant, and angels have abilities far beyond you can imagine. I could tell you how I did what I did for you, of course, but I won't.'

She's really just something else, this Vados. It's only who could follow something so stingy with shy giggling, to make it appear innocent. Really, when Goku thinks about it, Vados has no shame enough to make her be nice. That she said about angels being above everything in essence, to the point where they aren't bothered by trivial things, must expand all the way to her people skills, because she really couldn't be bothered to be polite.

'You're not like Whis at all,' Goku mumbles darkly, talking straight from his thoughts. 'You're mean.'

'I am?' she sarcastically asks, eyeing him carefully too.

'Uh huh.'

He won't lie to her, and evidently, she doesn't find that admission offensive. If she did, wouldn't be stretching out her staff towards him, resulting in him feeling restored just like that. Unsure of what she did to him, he looks down at himself, and finds that his uniform is back in one piece. She must've gotten rid of the bruises too.

'There!' Vados proudly announces. 'You look much better that way. I must say, though...' she pauses to look him in the eyes, and then continues, 'There's something about you. A mystery... About you... That intrigues me...'

Again, she pauses, but this time, her eyes go from the bottom part of him, to the top, making him wonder what she's doing evaluating him like that. Also, what is this mystery about him that she is talking about? He doesn't know anything about that, he's just himself, and that is always how he has been.

'I could never understand what my brother saw in you...' she picks up speaking. 'I always thought you were a nuisance, but it's there... That mystery... It's strangely alluring.'

After finishing, Vados brings her eyes to meet his, but he's just blank. Even when she reaches out to touch him, softly making a show of dusting off one side of his chest, he stays completely blank. She's a strange one. She should make up her mind. All this mocking him and treating him like he's nothing, and then changing to admiring him against her will, is emptying his mind of thoughts. If not for Chi-Chi suddenly swiftly darting her arm forward, to first hold Vados' wrist, and then push Vados' arm back from him, to complete the act with coming to stand directly between him and Vados, he would've continued to stay blank.

'Whis,' Chi-Chi's authoritative voice warns, 'your sister...'

Wow.

Instincts he didn't even know he had, spring to life.

Chi-Chi, wow.

That, he loves.

So much.

It makes him feel a certain type of way, that Chi-Chi would react like that. Towards someone like Vados, no less... Wow, he feels hot about it. Like really, really, really hot, that his inside is burning . And wow some more, the fact that she didn't even talk to Vados directly... Man, that's so... It's like she's making herself known to Vados, but deliberately ignoring her, to say that she doesn't have time to spare for the angel, and that is something on its own... She's now pulling her hand away from Vados' hand, but Goku just can't stop seeing her acting that way with the angel.

'Vados,' Whis silkily warns his sister in turn, as instructed by Chi-Chi, 'kindly take your intrigued interests to your own universe, please.'

Although Whis did say that his sister annoys him sometimes, the way in which Whis responds to Chi-Chi's request, it settles into Goku's understanding, that Whis is not special at all. Well, yes, he is, he's Whis, of course he's special, but to Chi-Chi, he's apparently just any other person who she can tell what to do. Ha! Here he had thought Whis would be special, but it looks like Whis will be just like the rest of them to her. He won't be escaping her rules, it seems.

Hihihi, he mentally giggles the way Goten would in special cases, he's so glad to know that about Whis. Maybe he should move close Vados again, make her touch him, to get that hot reaction from Chi-Chi, and then watch Whis obey her, to make him feel like this again. He really feels tempted to do it, so he looks around Chi -Chi and Goten to Vados. He catches Vados eyeing Chi-Chi, not really sceptically, but with something along the lines of disbelief and amusement, which explains her smile perfectly.

'Father was right,' Vados decides to face Whis, 'you have way too much fun in your universe. So take care of him, brother. I might just take him from you, if you're not careful.'

Through a distinct face of distaste, Whis asks, 'Shouldn't you get going, Vados?'

What a subtle way to tell his sister that it will never happen, Goku thinks. Whis is generally nicer, but even he has his own ways of telling someone to shut up, or mind their business, politely, yet somewhat savage to the attentive mind. That must be why, without giving Whis an answer, or expression, Vados abruptly turns to her god of Destruction, to announce that it's time for them to go.

'Lord Champa, we're going.'

'Yes, yes, let's,' Lord Champa lazily nods at Vados, and then faces his brother. 'But hey, you, Beerus! Don't think that next time you die, I'm coming back here to greet you.'

'You'll die before me anyway,' Lord Beerus sneers in response as he turns away from his brother.

Goku couldn't have expected more than that from Lords Beerus and Champa, but man, whoever decided that Whis and Vados, as well as Lords Beerus and Champa should be from the same universe, probably made a funny choice. All four of them obviously have a strange way of expressing themselves around each other.

'You wish!' Lord Champa says like he can't accept his brother to have the word. 'Vados, let's go.'

'I already said that. There's no point in you repeating it,' Vados retorts, but she positions herself to leave with Lord Champa anyway.

'Vados...' Whis haltingly calls her before she can leave

'I know, Whis,' she answers his call.

It's like she doesn't want to hear Whis say what he wants to say, so Goku automatically assumes that Whis wants to say something about her returning to this universe. When Whis speaks, however, Goku finds himself taken aback by the unseemly transition from chasing his sister away to this.

'Even so...' Whis insists, 'Thank you.'

As genuine as Whis' expression of gratitude was, a genuine smile spreads on Vados' face, preceding a courteous head bow. It's really nothing overly significant of a response to be awed by, and yet, Goku feels like he is seeing a side of Vados, that's not rudely direct or mocking, but simply angelic. She easily embodies all that is truly angelic in the imagination. It's only too bad that she extends only a small moment of her time, to share one last look with Whis, before disappearing with Lord Champa, because he would've liked to fix that picture into his mind as the image for whenever her name is mentioned.

'By the way, Whis,' Lord Beerus says after a while, 'we should also get going. All of this today, has taken my good spirits away.'

'You weren't in good spirits to begin with, my Lord,' Whis seems to remind him. 'You didn't even want to come to the game, but all right, we shall leave. Everyone...' he directs his eyes to the rest of them. 'We will be seeing you soon. Under happier circumstances, I hope.'

'Yeah,' Goku agrees, not because he wants to see them go, but because he would like what's left of the rest of the day, to be spent with Chi-Chi.

'See you, Whis,' Chi-Chi bids, being the only other person to speak.

Not long after that, Whis and Lord Beerus disappear the way Vados and Lord Champa did, but in their stead, they leave the spirit of leaving behind. Gohan is the first to be possessed by that spirit, suggesting that they should all head back home, seconded by Ox King, who says that they need to have a little celebratory barbeque outside the Son house, and offers to do all of the cooking. Chi-Chi expresses how she likes that for a change, and not asking for the opinion of either him or Piccolo, the four start walking off, verbally gathering ideas for what else to add to the barbeque.

'So...' he absently starts, consciously trying to dull the sudden ache that just awoke in his heart for seeing Chi-Chi walk off.

Seeing her actively walking off, lively chatting away with Gohan and Ox King while bouncing Goten around on her hip with each step, his heart really squeezes together, pressing out of him tears that he never got to cry since the destruction. The shadows of repression that had been covering his heart, acting as some strong guards to help him stay focused and not breakdown, fade off. In fading off, leaving him unguarded, the emotions from before he got her back overflow from his heart, in the form of tears. His heart feels an excellent sense of relief through releasing tears, and at the same time, it feels a heavy type of nostalgia for earlier when he had her body pressed into him, clearly confirming her actual presence to him.

'So...'

He feels a warm hand on his shoulder, before he remembers that Piccolo never left him. It's only Piccolo, and he isn't afraid to be expressing himself like this in front of him, but he still begins to wipe his tears away hastily. He then looks at Piccolo.

'All right?' Piccolo asks, to which he nods.

He's only emotional, he answers in his head. He's allowed that, he believes. After losing a wife, and then getting her back, he is allowed to have his emotional moment. But more than that at the moment, he should be appreciating Piccolo. Piccolo is here with him now, and he had been there when it came to attacking Lord Beerus for destroying Chi-Chi. And speaking of attacking...

'Hey, Piccolo, you can do the Kamehameha too?'

It's his way of lightening the air around him, so he is glad to see Piccolo's eyes widen as though appalled and embarrassed at the same time.

'That...' Piccolo tries to talk his way out of that topic, but he doesn't quite know what else to follow it with.

'Thank you for that,' Goku taps his shoulder, adding a small bounce of a joke into his tap, only to not make Piccolo feel cornered by his own care for Chi-Chi.

'Don't thank me. It's the Kami in me,' he dismissively grunts in response.

He says that, but they both know that is only something that he says to not accept the responsibility for the fact that he actually does care about Chi-Chi. To be honest though, denying it looks much cooler on him, and it just affirms the fact that he does, so Goku doesn't mind it at all.

26Chapters

Later than he meant to, he walks to the house, to join everyone. He didn't like to have been away from Chi-Chi for that long, but after Piccolo said that he was going to see if they need any help with the barbeque, Goku reasoned within himself that it would be better if he stayed behind and took care of the tables, chairs, dishes and whatever litter was left behind by the baseball game gathering. No, he didn't like cleaning and packing up all by himself, but his body knew better than his mind, that if he went over to the others, he would be hogging Chi-Chi all to himself. The poor woman already had a silent Goten clinging to her, so his body knew to keep him busy away from the house where the others were.

He's approaching the house, and the rest of them later than he meant to, that's true, but now that he's getting closer to where they are, seeing their happy faces, he's glad to have allowed them that time with Chi-Chi alone. He will get his chance to have her all alone, so it's only fair that he made the time available for the others to welcome her back without him. Gohan and Ox King both needed that time especially, because they don't live with her, and while it's still light enough outside before it's completely night-time, at the end of the meal, they will all have to go home without her. Who knows if they will suffer little panic attacks here and there, if they don't have her in their sights... No, what he did was right.

Even now that he's going to join them outside, he'll tame himself enough to allow them all the time that they want with her. He will keep to himself, only entering the conversations here and there, but never fully dominating them. He's thinking of that being the plan, as his feet carry him to the other, but she suddenly turns away from whatever she's preparing with a large spoon in a bowl, his feet stop on their own.

Silently, they have a moment where their eyes make full contact, and a world of words is exchanged between them. She's still at least fifteen steps away from him, but she knows, just like he knows, that they need to be close to each other, only, his feet all of a sudden feel heavy when he tries to lift them. Fortunately for him, Chi-Chi follows their moment and leaves her bowl behind to start moving to him.

Thank goodness, he internally sighs.

He needs her with him. It's not a matter of hogging anymore, it's just a matter of urgency to have an organic moment with his wife, which isn't one-sided. She, just like him, knows how it is, that is why she is making her way to him as he stands. But it's wrong, his mind tells his body. He can't be standing here, waiting for her to reach him, as though she needs to be near him, more than he needs it. He has to meet her in the middle, so his feet need to get over their own weight. Not only that, but watching her walking to him, makes him feel a vibrant colour of excited, and at the same time, a dull depth of torture, because his eyes only translate to him, the distance that isn't disappearing between them.

No, he has to meet her in the middle now.

Thinking that, he forces himself to start moving in great steps to her. Each step, he counts, so that his foot doesn't remain pressed longer than half a second to the ground, and he can make it to her in time. When they finally meet, leaving only a breath between them, they each take a long minute to look at each other. He lovely looks down at her, and she peacefully looks up at him, causing warm lights to ignite within him.

He loves her. He just does.

'Hi,' he softly lets out.

During the previous silent minute, he wondered if he should say hallo to her, because it seemed like he should. It felt like he should give her that hallo given after a long day, that one that welcomed and expressed feelings of longing when they weren't together. His feelings clearly won over that debate, because he just greeted her. In response, she brings a formed fist between them, slightly grazing his cheek with it, apparently greeting him back that way. He again begins to wonder of he should say something else to her, or just back in the moment with her looking back at him, but then she walks around him, and he is momentarily left confused about what to do next. His confusion lasts no longer than a blink, because her delicate arms reach around him from the back, pulling him back into a hug against her chest.

It's what that hug makes him feel, that's everything.

Instantly, he feels his expression change, one, for feeling her hands around him, and two, realising the love from her, that is in the arms around him. Wholeheartedly, he leans into her embrace, because he's got a second chance to love her again, and this time, he's going to do it like it's the first time ever, staring with this embrace. He will love her, he swears, like he was never in love with her before, and he's only now beginning to experience it. He will induce butterflies in his own stomach, and he will make his muscles weak to move whenever his eyes see her, and then when it comes to the real choice of love that he makes every single day, to stay with her, even when they don't get along, he'll strengthen that.

'I didn't feel anything,' she says to him in a whisper. 'You know, when I disappeared.'

Not that he wants to stop her, but they are going to talk about that now? From how she hasn't said anything since she returned, he has been under the impression that she had no interest in discussing it. She didn't particularly seem eager to talk about it when everyone was welcoming her back, if anything, she seemed like she didn't want to make a deal about it at all. But knowing that she didn't suffer as she disappeared, is good to know.

'I did,' he tells her, feeling drained just remembering that. 'All of us did. Even Lord Beerus.'

'But you forgive him, right?'

'Do you not want me to?' he quickly asks.

He won't lie, it wouldn't be ideal, but if she wants him to hang onto what Lord Beerus accidentally did against him for a while, he can overlook his current forgiveness. It wouldn't be easy to overlook his forgiveness either, but for Chi-Chi, he'd fight that forgiving part of himself, to retract his forgiveness.

'No, it's not that,' she lets out a short, pressing her head into his back, and he swears he hears her next words from his own heart. 'I just want to be with you today.'

Aah, that feels so good to hear, because it's like she's telling him that she's been all over the universe, doing all sorts of things today, that all she wants to do now, is be with him. No talk about what happened, or what didn't, she only wants to be with him. Oh, he melts within, she shouldn't worry about that. He plans on thoroughly making love to her body, and soul for whatever is left of the night when the others have left, and Goten is fast asleep. He wants to forget himself around her, on top of her, deep within her, and everything else about her, and afterwards, he wants to talk about nothing important with her, until the next night comes.

'I want that too,' he says, gently rotating in his arms so that he is facing her by the end of his confession.

Being face to face with her, his one arm automatically goes around her, while the other arms shifts to allow his hand to tuck in through her hair at the base of her head, and his face leans down to hers, to press a lingering kiss on her cheek.

This woman...

She went through cold winters alone. She slept in their big bed alone through those nights. She tucked their sons into bed alone. Without him by her side, supporting her. She taught their sons alone, and she waited for him alone. But never once, did she give him the ultimatum that he had to choose between his fighting life, and her. She never did. She complaint here and there, yes, she half-heartedly made threats here and there too, but she never made him feel like she wouldn't be there once he came back, and she is the one who he came close to losing for all eternity today.

'Chi-Chi,' he inhales her name just because he can.

She asked him for one thing, a friend, but his ego got in the way. His fear got in the way, because Whis made him see exactly what he put Chi-Chi through, but still, she stayed with him. He could've been with another woman (he's disgusted to think of any other possibility), but he doubts that she would've been as Chi-Chi is to him. Maybe any other woman would've been three hundred percent supportive of his fighting, and left with him whenever he decided to leave, but then what? What would there be to miss, if his wife was there with him at all times?

Gosh, there's been such a development in him. From a child, to an adult, to a married man, to a father, to a grandfather, through all of that, this woman stuck by him, and he just has to let her know now how he feels. He understands that the more serious stuff, can wait until some other morning, that he can tell her all about his feelings and trials another morning, because tonight, he's just going to appreciate her being back, but he does need her to know one serious thing tonight. That serious thing, he can't say with his lips on her cheek, so he draws back from her, bringing the hand tucked into her hair, to come and cover the lower part of her forehead and part of her cheek.

'I'm never living without you, Chi-Chi,' he declares.

'At some point, you will have to,' she says, probably thinking of how she will age while he remains looking young.

'I don't want to.'

'You don't have to want it,' she soothes. 'It will happen, but you being here now, is important. That's what matters.'

He wants to argue with her, he's itching to in fact, but that's enough for now. That type of conversation will only lead him to a place where they both don't want to be, so he will let it go. Like she said, she only want to be with him today, nothing else should be important between them.

'We'll talk about that later,' he tries to divert, because he briefly thought of gathering the Super Dragon Balls to wish for her immortality.

'Okay,' she shows him a small smile. 'But Goku, you'll tell me everything, right?'

'Mh-hm.'

'Everything, everything?' she prods. 'Even about Vados?'

Huh? Vados? What?

Sure, he'll tell her about Vados. The whole story of how she came back, revolves around his interaction with Vados, and how she came to feel sorry for him, that way giving in to what she originally thought she wouldn't do, so it will be kind of hard not to talk about Vados.

'Yeah,' he nods, 'I'll tell you.'

'Okay,' she replies, her smile widening like she is satisfied. 'You'll stay away from her too?'

Hm? And that? What was that casually random question?

This Is It, The End.