Trunks carrying Goku's spirit into a future that has already lost him, that's the entire show in one episode. This special doesn't exist to move the plot forward; it exists to prove that some people matter so much that their absence becomes a character itself. A kid fighting androids alone, talking to a ghost, is Dragon Ball Z at its most honest about what it means to inherit someone's will instead of their power.

Trunks goes back to his own future and is reunited with Bulma, but the calm does not last when Androids #17 and #18 strike again. After rescuing an old man from them, Trunks puts his Hyperbolic Time Chamber training to use and wipes out both androids without much trouble. Three years on, as he gets ready to travel to the past with news of his win, one more threat appears: Cell in his Imperfect Form. Meanwhile, in the present, Goku starts his new existence in the Other World. Counted as episode 98 of Dragon Ball Kai, this action special with comic touches was first slated for broadcast in Japan in March 2011 and ended up as a home video extra.