A sharp, violent flashback flashed across Krillin's mind's eye—a cruel echo from the past, back when Frieza had deflected his attack and thrown his own destructive blade back at him. But this time, there was no blade to dodge. Only razor-sharp, merciless claws.
There was no time to react, no room to dodge, nothing. The wolf-thing's claws sank deep, tearing through his shoulder with brutal, calculated precision.
Krillin: "KRRGH!"
He crumpled instantly. Pain, white-hot and blinding, flared as blood soaked rapidly into his gi. He couldn't even scream properly—the sheer shock of the trauma stole the air entirely from his lungs.
Gohan: "KRILLIN...!" *Gohan's voice bellowed across the chaotic battlefield.*
The sheer, staggering volume of Gohan's shout cut through the roaring din—raw, furious, and laced with absolute terror. For a split second, even the raging war seemed to freeze in place.
Krillin was down. Bleeding out fast. And that monster—the wolf-thing—was still standing over him like a predator savoring its kill.
Gohan moved before rational thought could even catch up. Raw power surged around him in an explosive shockwave as he charged straight at the beast with murderous intent.
But Gohan was a fraction of a second too slow. Another ally was about to bite the dust.
The wolf-thing's jaws snapped shut—right down on Krillin's arm. A sickening, structural crunch echoed across the ridge as bone gave way under the pressure.
Krillin let out a raw, agonizing shriek that tore through the open air. Blood sprayed in an arc, painting the broken stone crimson beneath them.
Gohan saw red. His vision tunneled completely—no strategy left, no calm calculation. Just blind, incandescent rage. The beast had hurt his mentor, his lifelong friend… and now it was going to burn.
Gohan launched forward like a missile, while both Melody and Goten rushed desperately toward Krillin from opposite directions.
Melody reached him first, dropping to her knees, only to look down into a pair of vacant, glass-like eyes. A terror-filled scream tore from her lips just as Goten appeared beside her, immediately wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a tight, protective embrace.
Melody's scream was muffled against Goten's chest—her entire body shaking violently. Krillin wasn't just broken. He was gone. The wolf-thing had crossed a line that could never be un-crossed.
Goten held her fiercely, his own heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs—but his focus snapped instantly toward his older brother.
Gohan wasn't holding back an ounce of his power. With a golden aura flaring like an exploding supernova, Gohan reared back his fist—and punched the wolf clean through its skull, obliterating it into a cloud of ash and bone fragments.
And then, amid the dissipating gold light, he noticed something infinitely more horrifying. Blood staining Melody's side.
Goten: "You're bleeding?"
Melody had been so completely consumed by the horror of Krillin's fate that she hadn't even registered her own trauma. Now, Goten's shaken voice snapped her forcibly back to reality.
She looked down—dark blood had soaked heavily through the side of her gi where the wolf-thing had slashed her earlier. It hurt… a lot.
Melody: "It's just a scratch," *she lied weakly, though the ghostly pallor of her face betrayed how severe it actually was.* "Gohan patched me up... he gave me his last miracle bean."
Goten: *His stomach dropped like a stone, the chilling memory of her mother's confession flashing in his mind.* "A scratch? No—Mel, this was bad. Really bad."
The bean had closed the exterior laceration, sure… but the wound had been catastrophic, and the heavy blood loss had drained the color right out of her face. She wasn't fooling anyone.
Without wasting another second, Goten ripped his own gi sleeve away and pressed it firmly against the injury to staunch the blood flow—his hands holding steady, even as blind fury at himself for letting her step onto this battlefield burned in his chest.