Episode 72 of Dragon Ball Super, first broadcast in Japan on Christmas Day 2016 and titled Will He Strike Back?! The Unseen Killing Technique!! in Funimation's dub, wraps up the contract on Goku with a twist that is pure Goku. After being killed by Hit, the Saiyan gets back on his feet, cracks the secret of the assassin's new technique and reveals who ordered the hit.
Summary
Piccolo, Gohan and Goten cannot believe it: Goku is dead, again, and Piccolo's CPR does nothing. Then Piccolo notices something in the sky: the energy blast Goku fired upward as he fell. It drops back onto him, restarts his heart, and Goku wakes up asking where Hit went. He wants a rematch, and his family reluctantly lets him go.
Hit answers the call but stays invisible: he masks his energy and creates decoy signals to confuse his opponent, the same trick that let him sneak up from behind. As Goku searches for the real signal, Hit hits him with energy that passes through a tree without damaging it. Goku survives and realizes these are invisible energy blasts. He moves to a seaside cliff and raises his aura on purpose so Hit can find him: after three tries he learns to block the blasts, but his punches still pass through Hit. It is not an afterimage; it is something else. For the first time, Goku trembles, and not from excitement: from fear.
On Beerus's planet, Vegeta finally lays a hand on Whis, but must do it three more times to finish his training. Exhausted, he tries to bribe the two gods with steak in his grandmother's secret sauce, which naturally does not exist. Champa and Vados, meanwhile, watch the duel from afar. The angel explains that Hit uses the time stored from his Time-Skips to create a separate dimension to hide in, and reveals that she hired the assassin on someone else's behalf. Watching him now, though, she sees a martial artist enjoying himself, not a hitman on the job.
Beerus, Whis and Vegeta arrive to watch. Goku charges a huge Kamehameha that breaks through even Hit's dimension, and both end up on the ground, spent. Vegeta, prompted by Whis, works out the truth: Goku hired Hit so he could fight him at full strength, asking Whis to have his sister Vados contact the assassin. Hit leaves: he does not work in front of an audience, but the contract has no deadline. Chi-Chi arrives, worried sick, and Goku begs Vegeta not to give him away.
Our take
The final reveal is one of Super's best ideas because it fits the protagonist perfectly. Only Goku would pay someone to kill him just to find a worthy opponent. It is selfish, reckless and, deep down, affectionate toward Hit, whom he sees as an equal.
The technical side is interesting too. Hit's "pocket dimension" is a believable evolution of the Time-Skip seen in the Universe 6 arc, and Goku's fear, rare in the series, makes the duel tenser than its standalone nature would suggest.
Trivia
- Written by Toshio Yoshitaka and directed by Takahiro Imamura; it drew a 5.6% rating.
- Hit is the third character to make Goku tremble with fear in battle, after Raditz and Frieza.
- Goku is the only character in the series to have brought himself back to life.
- Whis and Vados are siblings, and that bond is exactly what lets Goku reach the assassin.
Did you know? In the main timeline Goku has always been the indirect cause of his own deaths: he sacrificed himself against Raditz, teleported Cell away, and here hired his own killer.