For the writers of the stories that move us every day, there are alternative endings to their adventures. What we see on a comic page, manga or anime television screen, was not always the first thought. And it seems that Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyamais one of the examples of this statement.
The difference in this case is that this ending, which is not the real one from the manga or anime, since it is still being developed, was broadcast on world television as a kind of alternate reality.
Dragon Ball was going to have a really heartbreaking ending and Toei Animation would have convinced Akira Toriyama of a happy conclusion to that arcbut with a death that did draw the attention of the millions of followers of the Z Warriors, throughout the world.
What is that alternate ending of Dragon Ball?
Said conclusion to the manga and anime occurs in the fourth arc of Dragon Ball Z, that of Cell and the androids. As we well know, Trunks arrives in the past to warn Goku, his father Vegeta and the rest of the Z family, of the arrival of two Red Patrol humanoids who were going to exterminate humanity.
Using a time machine, developed by Bulma, this warrior unknowingly generates several timelines. The one we are seeing ends with the adventures that are currently taking place. But in reality, as we saw in Dragon Ball Z, Trunks is killed by Cell to travel to the past and find Androids Number 17 and Number 18.
This specific reality has the particularity that evil ends up triumphing and the human race becomes extinct, because Trunks was the last of the powerful fighters who could face the villainous threats of the Red Patrol bioandroid and therefore the fate of the Earth is sentenced.
In the end things do not end this way. But in the battle against Cell, which Gohan wins, Goku does die, leaving for a few years to train in the afterlife with Kaio Sama.
This is just one of the many theories that allow the alternate realities created by Trunks in his time travels. It is not known where he actually ended all of this, but if he had, it would be truly heartbreaking.