After the sting of disappointment from his outburst with Roshi, Goku had made up his mind. He would leave Kame House.
The sun hadn't yet crept over the sea when he quietly slid out of bed. Lunch was still asleep beside him, her long golden hair a wild halo on the pillow. She lay on her back, blanket tossed halfway off her body, completely bare under the faint moonlight.
Her breasts rose and fell gently with each breath, and Goku found himself staring longer than he should have. *What the hell is wrong with me?* he thought, shaking his head.
Goku padded to the bathroom, took a cold shower to clear his head, then returned to dress. As he pulled on his pants, the sheets rustled.
Lunch stirred, blinking sleepily as she turned onto her side. Her breasts shifted with the motion—one softly slapping against the other with a faint, muffled clap.
Without fully opening her eyes, she murmured in her dangerous voice, "You're gonna keep training, aren't ya?"
Then promptly drifted off again.
Goku stood there a moment, unsure what she meant. But something in her tone made him pause. He stepped forward, gently pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, and quietly left the room.
---
Outside on the porch, Master Roshi stood with his hands behind his back, staring at the pre-dawn sky.
Goku walked past him without a word, heading for the shore where Kinto'un waited.
"That cloud looks like a pichi-pichi gal..." Roshi muttered absently.
Goku didn't stop.
"Hey, Goku," Roshi called behind him. "Come with me for a minute."
Goku paused, turned his head with visible irritation. "What now, gramps?"
Roshi didn't answer immediately. He just turned and began walking toward the cliff at the edge of the island.
After a second of internal debate, Goku followed, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
They stood together at the edge, the sea far below stretching to the horizon.
"Leaving already?" Roshi asked, not looking at him.
"I don't know what I'm doing here" Goku replied bluntly.
Roshi chuckled quietly, he reached into his vest and pulled out a small, ordinary-looking seed.
"This little thing," Roshi said, placing it in Goku's palm, Goku stared at the seed with a puzzled expression. "You're joking."
"Inside you is a storm—too loud, too violent. You've got a massive amount of raw ki, but you're flooding it out like a broken pipe." Roshi's expression grew serious. "This seed is like handling a newborn. Hold it too tight—it breaks. Drop it—it's gone. You gotta feed it warmth, gently, a little at a time. Not your fists. Not your attitude. Just your presence."
Goku looked at the seed, then at Roshi. "You want me to... grow it?"
"Yes" Roshi said with a genuine smile.
---
Week 1:
Goku sat cross-legged outside the house, palm facing upward. The seed sat there.
He breathed in, focused, and pushed his ki—
*fssssst—*
The seed crumbled to ash.
"Wha-!" He caught himself, took a deep breath. "Okay. Again."
Too little ki—nothing happened.
Too much—another pile of dust.
From the kitchen window, Lunch (blue-haired and innocent) watched him with concerned eyes. "He's been at that for hours..."
Krilin walked by carrying training equipment. "Still trying to make friends with a seed, huh?"
"It's not about making friends," Goku snapped. "It's about control."
"Right," Krilin said with a smirk. "How's that working out for ya?"
Goku glared at the pile of dead seeds beside him. "Shut up..."
Month 2:
The training had settled into a rhythm. Mornings were for milk deliveries around the island—Krilin struggling with his crates and weight of 20kg on his back while Goku carrying 220kg. Afternoons were labor, mountain climbing, and sparring practice.
But every dawn and dusk, Goku sat with his seed training.
"You know," Krilin said one evening as they finished dinner, "some of us are actually making progress with normal training."
He flexed his arm, showing off modest but real muscle growth.
Goku barely glanced up from his latest failed attempt. "Good for you."
"I mean, maybe if you focused on practical stuff instead of..." Krilin gestured at the seed fragments, "...whatever this is supposed to be."
Lunch (blonde) looked up from cleaning her gun. "Kid's got a point. All this meditation crap ain't gonna help you in a real fight."
"It's not meditation," Goku said through gritted teeth. "It's control training."
"Looks like failure training to me," Krilin muttered.
Goku's eye twitched. The seed in his palm turned to dust again.
Month 4:
One morning, Lunch (blue-haired) brought Goku a sandwich while he trained.
"You've been working so hard," she said sweetly, sitting beside him. "Maybe you should take a break?"
Her innocent concern, combined with the way she unconsciously leaned against him, made Goku's concentration waver. But this time, instead of the seed crumbling, it merely trembled.
"Holy shit," Goku breathed. "It moved."
Lunch clapped her hands excitedly. "You did it!"
From across the yard, Krilin watched the interaction with growing irritation. *She never brings me sandwiches,* he thought bitterly.
"Hey Lunch!" Krilin called out. "Don't you think you should encourage all of Master Roshi's students equally?"
Lunch (still blue) looked confused. "Oh! Of course! I have one for you too, Krilin!"
As she hurried inside, Krilin shot Goku a pointed look. "Must be nice having a personal cheerleader."
"It's not like that," Goku said, but his attention was already back on the seed.
"Right," Krilin said sarcastically. "Nothing going on there at all."
Month 8:
Months of failure had worn Goku's patience to nothing. Every day, the same routine: sit, focus, fail. The pile of dead seeds beside his usual training spot had grown into a small mound.
"This is fucking ridiculous," Goku muttered, staring at yet another pile of ash in his palm. "Ten months of this shit and I've got nothing to show for it."
He could feel his anger building—that familiar heat in his chest that he'd been trying so hard to control. His hands started to shake with frustration.
"FUCK THIS!"
In a burst of rage, Goku stood up and fired a ki blast at a nearby boulder. But something was different this time. Instead of his usual wide, explosive beam, the energy came out as a precise, needle-thin ray that punched a perfect hole clean through the rock.
Goku stared at his hand, then at the boulder. The beam had used a fraction of his usual energy but was far more focused and controlled than anything he'd ever done before.
"What the hell..." he whispered.
He felt eyes on him and turned slightly. In the distance, Master Roshi was visible through the kitchen window, but the old man quickly looked away and pretended to be reading a magazine when their eyes almost met.
Goku had caught glimpses of this over the months—Roshi watching his training sessions from the corner of his eye, never commenting, never interfering, just... observing. Always looking away the moment Goku noticed.
Now, as Goku stared at the perfectly pierced boulder, he realized that maybe the old turtle hermit had been waiting for this moment all along.
That evening, Lunch (blonde) found Goku sitting alone on the beach, staring at another pile of seed dust.
"Still fucking around with that thing?" she asked bluntly, her dangerous voice carrying its usual edge.
"I don't get it," Goku said, his voice flat and defeated. "I can't make one tiny seed grow."
His face had a genuinely depressed expression—something Lunch had never seen from him before. Usually he was either smug, angry, or focused. But this... this was different.
Something in her chest tightened uncomfortably.
Without really understanding why, she awkwardly knelt down to his level. Her movements were stiff and uncertain as she reached out and pulled him into a hug—her arms wrapping around him like she was handling something fragile that might break.
"Uh... shit," she muttered, clearly out of her element. "Don't... don't look like that, okay? It's... it's fucking weird."
She held him stiffly, patting his back in an awkward, mechanical way. Her entire body was tense, like she was fighting against every instinct she had.
"Just... figure it out or whatever," she added gruffly, but didn't let go of the hug. "You're too damn stubborn to quit now anyway."
After a few more uncomfortable seconds, she released him abruptly and stood up, brushing sand off her knees. "There. Don't expect that shit again."
She walked away quickly, leaving Goku staring after her in surprise.
Month 10:
It was almost the anniversary of Goku's first day with the seed. Dawn was breaking over the ocean, painting the sky in soft pastels. For once, Goku wasn't thinking about failure or success. He was just... sitting.
Lunch (blue-haired) was making breakfast. Krilin was still asleep. Master Roshi was doing his morning "exercises" (watching aerobics on TV).
Goku held the seed loosely in his palm, not focusing on it at all. His mind wandered to his past life, to his death, to the strange second chance he'd been given.
His ki flowed naturally, without forcing, like a gentle stream finding its way around rocks.
The seed trembled.
But this time, Goku didn't tense up with excitement. He just let it happen.
A tiny crack appeared. Then another. A small green shoot pushed through, unfurling like a miniature flag of victory.
Goku opened his eyes and saw it—alive, growing, real.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
Then louder: "HOLY SHIT! I DID IT!"
He leaped to his feet, the tiny sprout still growing in his palm. "LUNCH! KRILIN! Gramps! LOOK AT THIS!"
Krilin stumbled out in his underwear. "What's all the—" He stopped when he saw the plant. "Oh. You actually did it."
There was genuine surprise in his voice, and maybe a little respect.
Lunch (blue) came running out, still wearing her apron. "Oh my goodness! It's so cute!"
She clapped her hands excitedly, but Goku barely registered her enthusiasm. His focus was entirely on the implications of his success—what this meant for his power control, what he could learn next.
"So what now?" Goku asked, still staring at the sprout with analytical interest.
Master Roshi appeared in the doorway, stroking his beard. His expression showed genuine shock—the same look he'd been giving Goku from a distance for months, but now without trying to hide it.
"Not bad, kid..." he said slowly, though his tone suggested it was far more than "not bad."
Roshi was truly stunned. He hadn't been expecting Goku to succeed—not this quickly, at least. It reminded him of the Kamehameha incident all over again. Techniques that had taken Roshi years to learn and develop, Goku seemed to master almost immediately.
"Oh yeah!" Goku suddenly remembered something. "Excuse me, Lunch."
Before anyone could react, he reached out and grabbed a few strands of her blue hair, tickling her nose with them.
"Ah... ah... ACHOO!"
The familiar transformation occurred instantly. Lunch's hair shifted to blonde, and her entire demeanor changed. She looked left and right with her usual intense, dangerous expression, clearly disoriented by the sudden personality switch.
In front of her, Goku was stretching his hand wide open, displaying the cracked seed with its tiny green sprout. His face was lit up with a big, genuine smile—the kind of innocent joy that was rare to see from him.
Seeing his cute, joyful expression, blonde Lunch felt an unfamiliar warmth in her chest. Her cheeks flushed slightly with happiness for his success, but she fought to maintain her serious demeanor. She crossed her arms and looked away stubbornly.
"Took you long enough," she said in a classic tsundere fashion.
Krilin, who had been watching the exchange, suddenly jumped at the opportunity to show off his own progress. He was still wearing his 20kg turtle shell.
"Me too! Come see my progress!" he announced excitedly.
He ran outside, followed by everyone, toward the massive boulder that Goku had been using for his strength training. Positioning himself in front of it, he placed both hands on the rock's surface.
"Now look!" he declared.
Krilin put his entire body into the effort, his face turning red as he strained with all his might. Slowly, incredibly, the enormous boulder shifted—just a few centimeters, but it actually moved.
Roshi was genuinely baffled. A year ago, that rock might as well have been a mountain to Krilin.
Goku walked over and gave Krilin's turtle shell a proud smack with his hand. "Nicely done," he said, acting like a big brother despite being younger.
The praise from Goku seemed to mean more to Krilin than any amount of recognition from their master.
After witnessing their progress, both Goku and Krilin approached Roshi with a request.
"Master, can you teach us how to actually fight now?" Krilin asked. "I mean real techniques, not just endurance and mental training."
Roshi shook his head dismissively. "That's not important right now. You'll continue the same training, but this time we're doubling the weight on your backs."
Both students groaned in unison.
"But," Roshi continued with a slight smile, "next month you'll be entering the Tenkaichi Budokai. With all this training, your senses have become incredibly keen. From fighting real opponents, you'll naturally develop your own unique fighting styles."
"What's the Tenkaichi Budokai?" Goku asked, genuinely curious.
Krilin looked at him in surprise. "You don't know? It's the martial arts tournament where all the strongest fighters in the world compete!"
Goku's eyes lit up with interest. After a full year of training, a deep need to fight someone truly strong had been building inside him. The idea of facing the world's best martial artists was exactly what he'd been craving
One Month Later
Goku, Krilin, and Master Roshi stood beside a car, all dressed in neat suits and ready for their journey. The months of intense training had transformed both young martial artists—they looked stronger, more confident, and ready for whatever challenges awaited them.
Lunch (in her blue-haired form) came out to see them off, carrying a packed lunch for their trip.
"Please be careful out there," she said sweetly, handing them the food. "And make sure to come back safely!"
After a day of traveling, they finally arrived at their destination. Before them stood the magnificent Tenkaichi Budokai arena—a massive, traditional pagoda-style building. Enormous banners fluttered from the walls, displaying the tournament's symbol and announcing the competition to the world.
The building was surrounded by smaller pavilions, training areas, and vendor stalls. A sea of people flowed around the complex—martial artists from every corner of the globe, each wearing their traditional fighting attire or representing their particular schools and disciplines.
The crowd was a fascinating mix of fighters: massive, muscle-bound brawlers; lean, lightning-fast specialists; mysterious figures in flowing robes; and everything in between. The air buzzed with excitement, tension, and the unmistakable energy of warriors eager to test their skills.
Goku stood at the entrance, taking it all in. After a year of isolation on a small island, seeing this many fighters gathered in one place was both thrilling and overwhelming.
"So this is where we find out just how strong we really are," he murmured, his hands already itching for a good fight.