Goku, Piccolo

Three thousand kilometers west of West City, a primeval jungle was currently shrouded in a rare torrential downpour.

The rain lashed the ancient forest like countless silver whips.

Towering trees groaned in the gale, while muddy floodwaters mixed with broken logs and silt and roared through the river channel.

"Rumble...!"

A bolt of purple lightning tore across the sky, briefly illuminating a giant banyan tree by the riverbank.

Beneath its canopy, a figure hung upside down.

It was a young man with a bare upper body and a pair of black trousers.

He had a thick, wild mop of black hair that stuck out in all directions like a sea urchin.

At that moment, he had one foot hooked around a branch, his entire body swaying in the gale like a pendulum,

while his hands tightly gripped a thick vine, whose other end disappeared deep into the rushing river below.

"Gurgle..."

The young man's stomach issued a protest louder than the thunder.

"I'm so hungry... Why hasn't this fish bitten yet?"

Goku blinked his unnaturally clear, enormous eyes and wiped the rain from his face.

He showed none of the disheveled misery of a drowned rat. Instead, he stared at the water with eager anticipation.

Just then, the surface exploded.

A prehistoric giant crocodile more than fifteen meters long—or rather, a monstrous fish with a crocodile's jaws—suddenly leaped from the water.

Greed glimmered in its blood-red eyes. It had clearly mistaken the swaying human in the tree for a delicacy delivered by the storm.

Its cavernous jaws opened wide, the densely packed serrated teeth more than capable of crushing a tank's armor in an instant.

"Whoa! It's huge!"

Goku's eyes instantly lit up like two lightbulbs, and he even began to drool.

Faced with a giant beast capable of swallowing anything, he did not dodge.

Instead, he exerted force through his waist and performed a midair crunch that defied the laws of physics.

"Dinner's settled!"

He grinned and gave his wrist a light flick. That seemingly ordinary vine instantly went taut, snapping with a crisp crack.

Then, a pure, brutish force traveled along the vine and into the monster fish's mouth.

The monster fish did not even have time to close its jaws before the tremendous force swung it through a half-circle in midair.

"Get outta here!"

Goku released the branch with his foot and, using the momentum of his spin, shot down from the tree like a cannonball, catching up in midair with the bewildered monster fish.

A simple, direct punch.

Bang!

The dull impact of flesh against flesh was drowned out by the rain.

The monster fish's huge eyeballs nearly popped out, and its massive body instantly went limp.

It slammed into the rocks along the riverbank like a lump of sludge, making the ground tremble three times.

Goku landed lightly, clapped his hands, and walked around the monster fish twice with a satisfied look.

"Great! This fish has really firm meat. It'll be best roasted."

Ignoring the torrential rain, he effortlessly dragged the several-ton catch with one hand and found a cave that offered slightly better shelter.

He rubbed his fingers together, and a ball of Kamehameha transformed into flames and forcibly ignited the damp firewood.

The firelight flickered, illuminating his face, its childishness gone and its features now sharply defined.

Over the past three years, he had traveled to every corner of the world.

Without Kami's guidance or the assistance of the Gravity Room, he had relied on his most primal battle instincts and his struggles against nature.

Gorging on half-cooked fish, Goku's cheeks bulged. Suddenly, he froze.

He raised his head. His gaze seemed to pierce the thick rock walls and the miles of rain, reaching toward the distant east.

"This feeling..."

Goku swallowed the meat in his mouth, his brow furrowing slightly before relaxing again,

"Is that Krillin's energy?"

"No, wait. I can't seem to sense Krillin's energy anymore... Could he have learned to hide his aura too?"

Thinking of his bald companion, Goku's lips curved upward on their own.

"I wonder if everyone's gotten stronger."

"If Krillin saw how tall I've grown, he'd definitely be shocked! Heh-heh, he probably only comes up to my waist now."

Goku polished off the entire fish in short order, chewing up and swallowing even the bones.

He stood up and stretched, every bone in his body cracking like popping beans.

"I'm full! Time to go!"

"Flying Nimbus...!"

A golden cloud appeared instantly.

But Goku hesitated, then slapped his forehead.

"Ah, there are still three days. I should make it if I run there. Besides... I want to test my leg strength."

With that, he took a deep breath and bent his knees slightly.

The next second, the ground split apart.

The floor of the cave collapsed directly into a huge pit, and Goku's figure had already vanished from the spot.

Amid the torrential rain, only a vacuum passage torn open by his high-speed movement remained. It took several seconds for the rainwater to fill it again.

His destination: Papaya Island!

Higher beneath the same sky, above the stratosphere.

There was no torrential rain here, only glaring sunlight and air so thin it was suffocating.

A green figure floated cross-legged above the sea of clouds.

Piccolo—or rather, Demon Jr.—wore a heavy white weighted cape. A huge white turban concealed most of his face, leaving only a pair of cold, sharp eyes exposed.