Dragon Ball if I was Goku

Aionia had been watching Bunshichi soul for six years now.

"You're holding up, little soul," she murmured to the floating screen before her, watching the boy navigate another day of hell. "But this is nothing I haven't seen in my millennia of overseeing."

The child's life was a textbook case of human suffering. One of those poverty-stricken neighborhoods where hope went to die. He didn't know his real father. His mother was sick, bedridden, completely dependent on his stepfather, an alcoholic, a gambler, and when the mood struck him, violently abusive.

When he wasn't passed out drunk, when the frustration of his wasted life became too much to bear, he used the boy as a punching bag.

Or worse.

Aionia had witnessed it all. Every blow. Every violation. Every moment of cruelty that would break most souls.

She'd seen this type of life countless times during her duty. Mortal suffering was nothing new.

But she had never seen this reaction.

Total absence of emotion.

The boy didn't cry. Didn't yell. Didn't beg. When things happened to him, he obviously resisted, tried to defend himself, survival instinct was hard to kill. But his face remained blank. Empty. Like he didn't feel any of it.

It was as if something fundamental was missing from his soul.

That's what made Aionia stay. That's what made her choose not to move on to another assignment.

This boy was different.

The Night Everything Changed.

The boy sat at a rickety table in the apartment, his mother passed out drunk on the couch nearby. He ate what was left of some instant noodles.

The front door exploded open.

His stepfather stumbled in, drunk but purposeful. He rushed to the table and grabbed the boy by the arm, yanking him up with enough force to nearly dislocate his shoulder.

"Come with me, boy! I'll show you something!"

He dragged him toward the door so fast the boy couldn't grab his shoes. Bare feet on dirty floor. Then concrete. Then he was shoved into the car.

The engine roared to life.

The ride was silent.

The stepfather never talked to the boy. In all these years, barely a word had passed between them that wasn't an insult or a threat. This wasn't going to change now.

The boy sat in the passenger seat with his usual composure, that eerie, empty calm, and watched the city lights pass by the window.

Eventually, they arrived at a street with almost no lights. Dark. Forgotten.

The stepfather cut the engine.

They waited in silence.

Then an RV turned onto the street, its headlights cutting through the darkness.

The stepfather immediately got out of the car. The boy watched him through the windshield, watched him circle around to the passenger side. The door opened. The stepfather's hand clamped around his arm again.

"Now, no matter what, keep your mouth shut. Or—" He paused, then laughed bitterly. "Actually, you never speak anyway. Guess I don't need to warn you."

He dragged the boy toward the RV.

The boy lifted his head, looking up at the man who'd made his life hell, not understanding what was about to happen. His socks were already wet from the sewage water pooling in the broken street.