The backhand came out of nowhere.
CRACK!
Her head snapped to the side and the world spun. She hit a tree hard, bark tearing at her skin as she slid down and crumpled at its base.
Piccolo approached without hurry, rolling his shoulders like this was routine.
The pain stopped screaming and turned into weight—thick, suffocating, everywhere at once.
His fist drove into her stomach.
Chi-Chi's mouth opened, but nothing came out. No breath. No sound. The forest blurred, colors smearing together as her legs gave up and she folded to the ground.
The wind in the trees faded. So did everything else.
As her thoughts dimmed, another sound drifted in—deep laughter. Familiar. Safe.
"Higher, Papa! Higher!"
For a moment, she wasn't broken in the dirt. She was a child again, perched on broad shoulders, the sun warm on her cheeks. The air smelled like trees and food cooking over a fire.
Her father laughed, steady and proud.
"Easy there. You'll scrape the sky."
She felt his hand around her ankle—huge, careful, unshakable.
"You're my treasure, Chi-Chi, my strongest one."
Then—
Pain snapped her back.
A kick crashed into her ribs and the world flipped. She hit the ground hard, coughing as blood splashed into the grass.
"You humans should know your place. No amount of anger will ever eclipse my hatred for your kind."
He grabbed her by the hair, lifting her face to meet his.
Chi-Chi's eyes rolled back for a second, and the green face shifted again.
Now she was a kid again.
She stood in Fire Mountain's courtyard, clutching an axe that dragged her arms down. Her knee stung where she'd fallen, tears streaking her face.
"Don't cry, Chi-Chi."
Her father knelt in front of her. He wasn't laughing this time. He wiped her cheek with a careful thumb.
"Why do we train, Papa?" she sniffed. "It hurts."
He thought for a moment, then rested his hand on her head.
"Because the world isn't gentle, there are things in it that bite."
He met her eyes.
"You're my daughter. An ox doesn't bend when the wind pushes. It stays put so others can stand behind it."
He squeezed her shoulder, firm but kind.
"You don't learn to fight to hurt people. You learn so that when something ugly comes… you can make it stop."
WHAM.
Piccolo's backhand sent her sliding through the dirt. She struck a rock and went still, breath rasping in short, wet pulls.
…when the monsters come…
Her fingers twitched.
…you can stop them.
Her father's body flashed in her mind. The way Fire Mountain had gone quiet after. No laughter. No warmth.
"P… Pa…"
She dug her nails into the soil.
One eye was swollen shut.
Her ribs felt like they'd caved in.
Her Ki barely held together.
But the thought stayed.
An ox does not bow.
Her hands pressed into the ground.
She pushed. Pain screamed back at her, but she kept going.
First her knees. Then one foot.
Gravel shifted.
Piccolo stopped. He turned, just slightly, noticing her rise.
"Impossible…" He breathed.
Chi-Chi stood anyway. She wavered, blood slipping from her chin, her dress in tatters—but she was on her feet.
For a moment, her outline seemed to swell, echoing something larger. Steadier. Like the Ox-King standing behind her.
"Ha… heh."
She closed her eyes. Shut out the pain. Shut out him.
"You hate us? Then hate us."
She coughed, straightening with one shaking breath.
"Live with it."
There was no fear in her voice. No plea.
"Because even like this, I'm still here."
Her heels dug into the broken ground. Her fists clenched until her palms bled.
She breathed in.
Past the pain.
Past the fear.
Down to the small, stubborn spark her father had lit long ago—and never let die.
"Haaa…"
A spark caught.
"HAAAA!"
The air lurched.
White light burst around her—clean, fierce, alive.
It surged, forcing the dark weight around them to give ground.
Dust lifted at her feet, stones rattling, her hair tearing free as the glow climbed higher.
Piccolo turned, slow this time. His scowl cracked—not with fear, but disbelief.
"That body should be finished, where is that power coming from?!"
Chi-Chi opened her remaining eye. It burned white.
"You really thought pain would stop me?"
Her voice scraped out rough at first, then steadied, each word landing heavier than the last.
"My father taught me something, strength isn't about never falling."
She stepped forward. The ground bit back under her boot.
The light around her surged, raw and unpolished, making her presence feel larger than her frame.
"It's about standing up again. No matter how hard you hit. No matter how empty it feels!"
She lifted her fists. The stance wobbled—but it held.
"I'm Chi-Chi. The Ox-King's daughter!!"
Her gaze locked on Piccolo.
"And that means I'm not done!"
The white aura around her shifted, tightening, changing shape.
The light didn't vanish—it tightened.
What had been bright turned dense, darker, burning down into a deep red. Not clean or holy. Hot. Alive. Like something pulled straight from the heart of Fire Mountain.
The clearing heated fast. Leaves curled and burned. The ground hissed as moisture fled into the air, steam coiling around her legs.
"Hhh… hhh…"
Chi-Chi drew her hands back to her hip. Fingers tense. Familiar stance—but what gathered between her palms wasn't calm or contained. It churned. Pressed in on itself. Angry.
The air thudded with it, a low pulse you felt more than heard.
High above, metal rattled. Breath caught.
Piccolo's smile slipped.
He straightened. Unfolded his arms. His cape dropped as the pressure reached him.
For the first time, he was paying attention.
"Oh? The spark thinks it's a volcano."
Piccolo felt it then—and his confidence thinned. This wasn't just ki. She was burning herself to keep it alive.
"THIS IS FOR EVERYONE!" Chi-Chi yelled, her voice rough, close to tearing apart.
The red glow swelled, harsh and ugly. Stone under her boots softened, then gave way.
"OX—"
She stepped forward.
"CRUSHER!"
She drove her hands out.
The blast wasn't elegant. It was raw. A roaring surge of red force tore forward, ripping the ground open as it went, swallowing trees and stone alike. More collapse than beam. More fury than control.
Piccolo didn't move. He just stared, eyes wide, the red tide filling his vision.
Then it hit.
BOOM.
The impact rolled through the forest like a sudden quake. Trees bent, the airship lurched, and the ground where Piccolo had stood simply gave way, swallowed by dust and heat.
Chi-Chi stayed where she was, forcing the attack to last even as her body screamed to stop. Her vision dimmed, the world narrowing until it was just the blast and her breathing.
Then it ended.
The light vanished. Her knees hit the ground.
She caught herself with shaking hands, gasping for air that burned on the way in.
Heat drifted off her skin as she lifted her head, staring at the thick cloud of smoke and debris hanging in the space where the Demon King had been.
The forest went quiet. Not peaceful, empty. Fire popped somewhere in the distance.
Chi-Chi could hear her own heart, loud enough to drown everything else.
She waited.
One second.
Then another.
A voice drifted out of the smoke.
"Finished?"
Cold slid down her spine.
A casual sweep of air—no effort behind it—pushed the smoke away.
Chi-Chi stared.
Piccolo stood in the crater. Not braced. Not wounded. Just there. Arms folded. Exactly where he'd been.
No scorch marks. No blood. Not even a tear in his clothes.
He hadn't defended himself.
He looked at his shoulder, flicked away a bit of dust, then back at her.
"Hm, that's it?"
He stepped forward. The ground cracked under his boot.
"I was expecting something loud, something that meant something."
His eyes narrowed.
"But all you did… was make noise."
A drop of rain hit the scorched ground at Chi-Chi's feet and hissed.
Then another.
Then the rain came down hard.
Ash and grime washed off her skin, soaking what was left of her clothes, dragging her hair into her eyes.
"…No way, that hit clean. Everything I had."
Piccolo started walking.
Splash.
Splash.
Unhurried. Each step deliberate, cutting through mud and steam like it wasn't there.
He tilted his head, rain sliding down his face.
"So now you see it, how far out of your depth you really are."
Something in Chi-Chi snapped.
Shock burned away, replaced by something hotter and uglier.
She clenched her jaw, dropped into her stance, eyes locked on him.
"NO!"
She drove her fists forward in a rapid burst—not aiming for his body, but for the space in front of her, striking the air itself.
Her fists snapped forward in rapid bursts.
Each strike sent a compressed удар of air ripping ahead of her, hammering into Piccolo one after another. The rain tore apart around the impacts, the ground churning beneath his feet.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The blows landed—chest, shoulder, jaw—bursting on contact, kicking up mud and water.
Piccolo kept walking.
He didn't raise his arms. Didn't flinch. The force rolled over him, tugging at his clothes, bending the rain around his body—but it didn't slow him down. Not even a step.
She pushed harder, forcing her arms to keep up even as they screamed in protest. Her strikes blurred together, the sound flattening into one long, brutal rush.
The ground between them tore and buckled under the pressure.
Piccolo kept coming. Step by step. His gaze never left her, bored, steady.
"Enough."
He said it quietly—and still it cut through everything she was doing.
He walked straight through the last of it. The wind snapped his cape, tugged at him, but that was all. He was suddenly too close.
Chi-Chi froze.
She tried to pull back, to shift, to do anything—but her body was already moving.
Piccolo raised his fist.
It wasn't a technique. Just a punch.
His fist caught her square in the face.
The impact landed with a dull sound.
Her head snapped back, breath ripped from her lungs, blood spilling as the rain swallowed her cry.
Her feet left the ground.
For a moment, she was weightless—then she was gone, thrown backward like she weighed nothing at all.
She tore through the clearing and hit stone hard, her back crashing against a jagged boulder at the forest's edge.
The rain kept falling.
The rock split on impact, a deep crack running straight through it.
Chi-Chi stayed there for a heartbeat, pressed against the stone, arms hanging loose. Then she slid down, leaving a dark streak behind, and collapsed at the base in the mud.
She didn't get back up. The rain soaked into her clothes and pooled around her still body.
Piccolo lowered his fist. He didn't bother looking at her—only at his hand, wiping the blood from his knuckles with quiet disdain.