(Sorry, when writing this chapter I forgot that the Monkey Talisman allows shapeshifting, so please just bear with it.
Revising the entire chapter would be too much trouble.
I’m truly sorry!!) The midday sun blazed down fiercely on the earth, and even the air seemed to shimmer and warp from the heat.
In a bustling small town several hundred kilometers from West City, the crowd moved about as busy as ever.
“Boss, how much is this mask?” A clear, bright voice rang out in front of a general goods store.
The shop owner was a short, stout middle aged man who had been fanning away flies with a palm leaf fan, and he looked up at the sound, only to freeze for a moment.
Standing before him was a young man of around thirteen or fourteen years of age.
The young man wore a simple short sleeved martial arts uniform that revealed lean, fluid lines of muscle, with a pair of orange martial arts trousers on his lower half and a black belt tied at his waist.
Most striking of all were his eyes, deep and dark as obsidian, and the brown tail swaying gently behind him.
“Oh…
oh!
Good eye, young man!” The shop owner snapped back to his senses and hurriedly put on a smile.
“This mask is made after the image of a ‘demon’ from the ancient theatrical traditions of the east, and it’s only five hundred zeni.” The young man picked up the mask.
The mask was a ghastly white all over, painted with blood red fangs and glaring eyes, and it did look genuinely ferocious.
“Interesting.” The corner of Son Gokai’s mouth curved slightly upward, and he tossed down a few banknotes, picked up the mask, and snapped it onto his face.
“Keep the change.” Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, the shop owner felt his vision blur as a gust of wind rose out of nowhere, sending all the hanging wares in the shop clattering and jangling wildly.
By the time he opened his eyes again, the young man’s figure had vanished without a trace, as though he had never been there at all.
Out in the wilderness beyond the town.
A streak of white light was charging forward at an incomprehensible speed!
“Rabbit Talisman, Godly Speed!” Beneath the mask, Son Gokai’s eyes shone with an excited gleam.
Four years.
During those four years at Kame House, in order to forge his foundation and prevent his body from developing a dependence on them, he had sealed away nearly all of the talismans’ active abilities.
The Rabbit Talisman in particular he had held back and refused to use the entire time, relying entirely on physical strength alone to swim in the sea and run on the beach.
That feeling had been like someone accustomed to driving a Ferrari being forced to ride a three wheeled pedicab for four years.
But now, all the shackles were gone!
“That feels amazing!!” Son Gokai could not help but let out a long, triumphant shout.
The scenery around him had already become nothing but blurred streaks before his eyes.
Trees, rocks, and rivers were all left behind in an instant.
This speed had long since surpassed the speed of sound, and had reached some even more terrifying level beyond that.
He could feel clearly that the wind was no longer a resistance, but a mount tamed by the magic of the Rabbit Talisman.
‘With my current base battle power, combined with the Rabbit Talisman running at full output…’ Son Gokai assessed inwardly while continuing his flight.
‘At this point in time, across the entire earth, other than the unfathomably deep Mr.
Popo up in the Lookout, there is probably no one who could beat me in pure speed.’ ‘Even the old Kami himself, in a straight comparison of movement speed alone, would absolutely be no match for me.’ This sensation of commanding extreme velocity stirred a playful impulse in him.
When he passed over a lake, he did not even choose to simply fly across it, and instead used his overwhelming speed alone to run straight across the surface of the water as though it were solid ground, leaving behind a long white wake that took a long time to settle, startling countless waterbirds into flight.
Mount Paozu was already in sight.
“Whoosh!” The rushing wind stopped dead.
Son Gokai’s figure materialized in an instant before the familiar courtyard.
The shift from extreme motion to absolute stillness carried not a trace of awkwardness, as though he had simply been standing there all along.
Looking at the wooden house before him that he had rebuilt with his own hands four years ago, a flicker of warmth passed through Son Gokai’s eyes.
Morning glory vines had crawled across the fence, and a few heavily patched martial arts uniforms were hanging out to dry in the yard, ones that he and Goku had worn as young children.
“Grandpa?
Goku?” Son Gokai pushed open the courtyard gate and called out softly.
No one answered.
The house was completely quiet, and there was even a thin layer of dust on the table, which made it look as though no proper cooking had been done here for quite some time.
“Not home?” Son Gokai walked to the stove and felt the bottom of the pot, which was ice cold to the touch.
“Something’s not right.” He closed his eyes, and the stillness of heart brought on by the Tiger Talisman allowed him to instantly spread his perception outward.
(The formal ability to use “ki” for sensing should not technically come until after Goku’s time at the Lookout, but there is no reason Master Roshi would not know how, so the author is writing it as already learned here, which should not affect the reading experience.) Although he could not yet search half the globe with “ki” the way characters could in the later Dragon Ball Z era, finding two familiar ki signatures within the small stretch of Mount Paozu was an effortless task.
“Hm?
Over that way.” Son Gokai opened his eyes and fixed his gaze toward the mountain stream to the southeast.
There was a ki there, young and inexperienced but extraordinarily vigorous, like the rising sun at dawn.
That was Goku.
“But…
where is Grandpa’s ki?” Son Gokai furrowed his brow.
He swept through his entire sensing range and found no trace of Son Gohan’s presence at all.
‘Strange, Grandpa isn’t on Mount Paozu?
Did he go somewhere far away?’ Though he felt a sense of unease, he was not too worried.
Son Gohan was a martial arts grandmaster, and on this earth the people who could pose a threat to him could be counted on one hand.
‘I’ll drag that little brat out first and ask him, then I’ll know.’ Son Gokai touched the demon mask on his face and let a mischievous grin show.
‘Four years without seeing each other, let me see just how far you’ve grown, you “protagonist.”‘ Beside the mountain stream, a waterfall cascaded down and gathered into a clear, deep green pool.
A spiky haired little boy lay bare bottomed on a large rock at the water’s edge.
His tail, which had grown back, hung down into the water, swaying back and forth gently like a nimble little snake, stirring up small splashes.
This was twelve year old Son Goku.
“Come on…
come on…
my tail tastes real good…” Son Goku muttered to himself with his mouth watering.
His stomach had long been growling with hunger, and today’s luck had been poor, with no big fish caught yet.
Just then, a dark current suddenly surged beneath the surface.
A giant strange fish over two meters in length was drawn in by that lively tail, slowly drifted up toward the surface, opened its gaping maw full of sharp teeth, and bit hard at Goku’s tail!
“There it is!” Son Goku’s eyes sharpened, and in the instant the strange fish clamped down, he put sudden explosive force into his waist!
“Hey!!” His entire body leapt up through the air, then plunged headfirst into the water, and a moment later.
“Crash!” The strange fish slammed down hard on the grass, flailing wildly.
“Haha!
Got it!
What a huge fish!” Son Goku jumped over excitedly and landed a punch square on the strange fish’s forehead, and the strange fish immediately rolled its eyes and went still.
“Heh heh heh, roasted fish, roasted fish!
It’s been ages since I’ve had such a big fish!” Son Goku hummed an unrecognizable little tune and was just about to drag the fish home.
Suddenly.
A chill rose from behind him.
It was a beast like intuition, an instinct forged through years of fighting wild animals in the mountain forests.
“Who’s there?!” Son Goku spun around sharply and dropped into a defensive stance.
In the shadow of the trees behind him, at some unknown moment, an additional figure had appeared.
The person wore a ferocious demon mask, arms folded across the chest, looking down at him from above.
I found this one intresting