AFadingKich6

Author: Swiss Army Knife
Email: dragonswissarmyknife@hotmail.com

A Fading Ki
Chapter 6 - Definition of "Anything"

Clouds of ash and dust where just beginning to clear, though it had been hours since the first explosion had rocked the city. Fires – large and small – were still burning over the ruined remains of what had once been the largest remaining city on the earth. The few remaining people who had somehow escaped the destruction collected dazedly in the streets, many weeping.

In the midst of it all, a young man lay prostrate, weakened and bleeding. His strong, wide hands were shredded as if by glass. The discoloration and twisted nature of his right arm seemed an indicator that it had been broken.

Heh. Broken – sure.

The truth was that the boy was in agony. His arm had been snapped backward at the elbow, and through a haze of pain, he knew that he might never be able to use it the same way again. His piteous battered body was bruised and exhausted. All of his reserves had been necessary to hold up his endurance during the battle that had resulted in…this.

His city was rubble. He could see it through the slits of his eyes, which seemed impossible to open fully. Heavily, he reached up with his remaining good hand and tried to wipe away some of the blood that had run down his sweat-dampened face and glued his eyes together.

Struggling to fight off unconsciousness, the boy came to his knees. He gazed forward with undaunted determination. He had to get up. He knew that though he seemed to have “won,” the battle was far from over. The Jinzouningen wasn’t dead.

Good gosh - How was she still alive?

The despairing, hopeless realization nearly broke the young man, and for a moment his drained body shuddered, almost falling back. His head was ducked, chin pressed into his chest as he managed to sit. His face twisted with the grief of his failure. Stinging tears threatened to break through his tightly clamped eyes lids.

‘What will it take’ he wanted to sob. What else could he possibly do that he hadn’t already tried?

How could he possibly win now?

Trunks valiantly struggled to get his feet, gasping with the sudden hurt and swaying as his vision flashed a violent red. Even through the guilt, he knew that he could never find the Jinzouningen in his current condition. ‘Have to get home,’ was his first coherent thought once his faltering senses partially returned to him. ‘Have’ta find my…’ His mind suddenly jolted. ‘…mother…’

“M-mother!” It was a physical, broken cry that finally escaped from his mouth.

His mother was here somewhere. She had been in this city when the Jinzouningen used her final, amazingly powerful trump attack. His eyes rolled disjointedly around at the destruction. Whole buildings lay at his feet. His mother. She could have been…

Trunks shook his head. “No!” He cried out, drawing attention to himself from the small crowd of survivors. Their eyes widened at his condition, thought their own shock and hurt kept them from helping him.

Struck almost reeling at every painful step, the last hero of earth tried desperately to get to his home. Everywhere he turned was fire and rubble and chucks of desecrated concrete and steel. And with every step his mind continued to cry out fearfully.

His heart was almost crushed when he finally turned the last corner and found himself on the last stretch of road going out of the city. And at the end of that road… The sight that met his eyes at the end of that road was something that drenched him with relief.

Somehow capsule corp. had survived the devastation that most of the other buildings had suffered and was left more or less standing. It stood there against the red, smoking sky, it’s rounded yellow roof standing out almost proudly in the midst of the horror. Though battered and damaged, it stood – remarkably the tallest building in the area, despite its squat nature.

And it was the most beautiful sight that the young super Sayiajin had ever seen in his lifetime.

As he reached the front of his home, feeling that at any moment his legs might give out, meters from safety and help. And then, as he watched with lidded, exhausted eyes a small figure came out of the midst of the settling dust. Smallish, thin, female, unpowerful – indeed utterly defenseless to any real threat.

“…m-mother…” Trunks’ relieved, weakened voice called out to her brokenly, and at last his body gave in and he fell.

*****

She was in pain.

It ran throughout her, overriding her sense of reason. She felt it burning in her veins, crippling her arms and legs and leaving her utterly helpless. She was forced to simply lie there, open and vulnerable, too wrapped up in the hurt to fully comprehend all that was happening to her.

‘I…I lost.’ Her mind gasped.

Fear of a kind she had never known surfaced to meet with her pain, and she trembled. Juuhachigou had lost. She was dying.

She could feel it – the slow invasion of her body by this unseen enemy. She could feel it choking her mechanical half, sending panicked manic waves of pain through her. It was like lighting, dancing mockingly just out of her ability to do anything and racing at reckless speed to destroy what of her was inhuman.

Such extreme emotion, so foreign to her, ravaged her tormented mind almost as fiercely as the virus tormented her body. Grief, fear, pain. It was like a cycle of death. Fear. Juuhachigou had known little fear in her fragmented life. Yet now she felt intense fear. ‘I’m going to die.’ The words were in her mind. They wouldn’t leave her.

As another wave of horrific agony rolled trough her suddenly, Juuhachigou could not help but allow a tormented cry to pass through her lips. Her body convulsed violently, her fingers clinching and unclenching without her ability to control them. The only thing that steadied her was the pressure that seemed secured around her body, holding her carefully and keeping her from hurting herself.

It was comforting to her, but she didn’t know what it was. She also couldn’t have said that she cared.

“Juuhachigou!” An anguished, fretful cry that suddenly filled her hearing.

Her mind seemed to clear slightly in sudden awareness. ‘Kuririn.’ She identified the voice and indeed the comforting arms around her. He was holding her against him, trying to steady her and protect her. She didn’t both to think that normally she might have been angry at his boldness.

A valiant effort allowed for her to partially open her eyes, searching the haze for the familiar form that was Kuririn. Her lips, pressed so tightly together, opened in a failed attempt to speak his name. She just barely made out his face in the dimness.

“Juu!” He seemed almost ready to cry – she sensed the pain and the terror in his heightened, desperate voice. He was shaking her gently, trying to arouse her to full consciousness.

Juuhachigou closed her eyes again. She was too weak to speak to him – the pain and the exhaustion was too much. The sharp agony was beginning to fad away from her, falling into a darkness that loomed ominously before her eyes. She had just enough time to feel herself being awkwardly lifted into small, strong arms before she passed into kind unconsciousness.

Her last coherent thought, ‘I lost.’

*****

Kuririn struggled to make it to the only home that he knew. He held in his arms an awkward load, cradled tenderly as he flew as fast as he dared toward a nearby abandoned city. His baggage seemed far too large for the small human to carry comfortably, and he struggled to keep hold of her as she periodically thrashed weakly in his arms.

He was scared.

"Juuhachigou," Kuririn called out to the limp woman fretfully, his voice ringing high in his fear for her.

She has fallen into a deep sleep just as he had taken off into the sky, and hadn’t awoken yet. He was afraid that she might never wake up. And what would he do then? Juuhachigou was everything to him. The thought made his eyes sting with tears and he had to swallow his cry.

What was wrong with her?

Just ahead of him, he could see his home coming into view. The familiar silent smoky buildings seemed a comfort to him. He felt that if he could just get Juuhachigou back where it was safe, then he would be able to think of something to do.

Suddenly Juuhachigou moaned in his arms, and Kuririn helplessly pulled her closer to his chest as he flew. He wished there was something that he could do to help her – anything to stop the weak trembling and pained cries.

“Don’t worry Juuhachigou,” Kuririn’s soft timid voice seemed piteous even to himself. He risked releasing his tight hold on her with one hand long enough to carefully push the blond tresses that had fallen into her twisted face as they flew. “I’ll figure out some way to make you better. I promise.”

A trail of faint blue ki trailed away behind him as Kuririn finally made it to the deserted town. He slowed and landed carefully within the hollow behind what had once been the glass frame of a huge window. It was where Juuhachigou had first taken him when she had found him and saved him. It was the highest enclosed space in the ruined city, and far enough from capsule corp. and the desecration that Juuhachigou had left behind.

Careful of the glass and the debris, Kuririn stumbled to the back of the area where he knew a spot had been cleared away, and a blanket lay unused in a pile close by. The young, frightened man was quick to straighten it and use it to cushion the unconscious woman as he laid Juuhachigou gently on the floor.

Certain she was as comfortable and safe as he could allow for, he fell back and sat beside her, a worried grieved look on his face. Struggling to catch his breath after such a desperate exertion of his strength, he pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in the worn material that covered them.

Kuririn wanted to cry.

Juuhachigou, the only person in the whole world that seemed to even remotely care he existed, was sick. Heh – sick. Sick was an understatement. Juuhachigou was dying. She herself had told him so.

He risked pulling his face away from his knees, peering over at her with a childish look of fearful devotion. Her breathing was ragged and her face was twisted with pain. He was thankful that her body had stopped the terrible convulsive shuddering and was lying still, but he could tell that she was still in pain.

‘Who would do this?’ His mind let out the lost cry.

If Kuririn had thought about it – really thought about who and what Juuhachigou was – he might have understood. If he had been open to real understanding, he might have realized that Juuhachigou was a cyborg and a murderer and that many people would want to kill her.

But Kuririn was blind. Overriding his reason and overriding even his own uncertainty about morality, was Juuhachigou. She was everything to his world, and now he was faced with loosing her. All it made him was terrified and confused. He was even angry – angry because he knew that someone else had done it to her.

And helpless. Kuririn had no idea what he should do.

*****

There was fire everywhere. Inky blackness prevailed wherever his eyes rested, wherever he sought solace. Except for where there was fire. And there was fire everywhere. He was scared of the fire. His body, which was somehow faint and unreal, shrunk away from the fires and closer to the blackness.

But the darkness frightened him too, because it reminded him he was alone.

There was nothing worse than being alone.

“Mother!” Trunks called out into the blackness, into the fires, which liked at him and taunted him, reminding him of destruction and failure. No one was there to answer him. It was utterly silent – even the fires, devouring the nothingness that he stood upon, seemed to give off no sound.

It was the silence that soon became his terror. He cowered in the darkness, tossing his head back and forth in terror of the blackness and the fire and silence. Where was his home? Where was his city? Where was his mother?

As if in response to his desperate inquiries, the nothingness seemed to take shape before him. The fire’s seemed to grow underneath piles of concrete and human bodies. In only seconds the blackness had transformed, and he was standing, gasping, in the midst of his own ruined city.

A demoness floated carelessly at its center – monstrous, undefeatable.

She turned and saw him and her eyes turned a glowing, terrifying red. Unable to hide his fear, as he was able to in reality, the boy felt the horror growing in his heart and he trembled in his fear before her. She saw him and she laughed at him, her face twisting clown-like in its terrible smile. She pointed a long clawed finger at his feet, grinning with that feral, evil expression. She ate at him with her wicked eyes, daring him to look down at his feet where she directed.

Trunks hesitated only a moment before he succumbed to her will. His wide blue eyes, cast with horror and pain, turned away from the demon in the sky and slowly looked beneath him just before his feet. With a cry of agony, he fell to his knees, sobbing at the sight.

“Mother!” His voice seemed so childish as he lifted the mutilated, barely recognizable corpse into his arms. He buried his face in her hair, headless of the blood that smeared on his face. “Mother! Mother!”

Rage enveloped him as he grasped her tightly, fueling his helplessness. Despairing him. She was dead! He had killed her! The very last one – the most important one to protect… And he had failed her! He had failed them all!

His sobbing became worse, and he screamed to the sky, knowing that no one but the demon heard him. He imagined how she revealed in his shame and his loss. He imagined how she scorned his tears.

“Little boy,” She would mock – he could hear it so clearly. “What’s wrong, infant? Babe, have you lost your mother too? Pity. Pity. Poor brat. Poor stupid filth Sayiajin!”

He screamed again, all the warrior blood within him churning and boiling until his body nearly burst. His hair erupted into golden yellow – the tangible proof of his rage. That beast! His mind erupted on that single thought. Nothing left for him. What did he have left to loose.

Trunks burst into the sky, his aura cause more fire. No time to stop the fires. All of his desire and rage and helplessness and fear was focused into killing that demon. Killing her once and for all. He could almost taste her blood, feel it on his knuckles.

But then, so unfairly abruptly, the demoness disappeared.

He burst past where she had been with a wild animals cry of devastation and fury. Stopping. Turning and looking. Fueling more pain. More anger.

He could not even avenge them! He could not even kill her for what she had done to them!

But then came the worst. It as worse than finding his mother dead – worse even than the demons laughter. It came in the voice of one so familiar that Trunks flung his body around wildly at the sound of it. He stared, unbelieving into the inky nothingness beyond his city, listening as the faint voice grew stronger.

And then a figure came out of the darkness. Trunks nearly cried out when he recognized the painfully familiar face. The large, kind eyes that had never grown hard through all the pain that the war had brought them. The face that had always smiled at him – had always softened only for him. The too recognizable wild black hair and distinctive midnight blue, unmarked gi.

It was Gohon.

Trunk’s gasped, stuck somewhere between grief and utter joy. Could it really be? Could it really be Gohon? He could change everything. He could save their world. He could save his mother. He could take the responsibility that was killing him away from Trunks, and he would never be alone.

“Sensei!” The boy cried out to the older man, his voice husky and choked. He tried to rush forward, but found that his body refused to move. A tear ran unheeded down his face. “Sensei!”

Gohon had heard his cry. His face lifted, meeting his pupil’s eyes for the first time since his death. Much to Trunk’s dismay, there was none of his trademark optimism or joy in the man’s eyes. His face, so solemn, did not smile.

“Trunks,” The voice was so deep, so monotone and featureless. It carried no expression at all save the fiercest of reproach. “Trunks, what have you done?”

The lavender-haired child was staggered. “W-what?” His voice seemed broken and childish even to himself.

The figure of his Sensei seemed to glower terribly, trembling with that terrible calm rage. “What have you done, Trunks?” His voice rose, angry and accusing. “I trusted you. Why did you let this happen? You’re mother is dead. They’re all dead. Why did you let us die?”

“I didn’t!” Trunks couldn’t control the outburst. He felt as if his heart were breaking. “I couldn’t kill her!”

“Liar.”

“No! I tried! I tried!” Trunks tried to explain. He felt his eyes sting with more and more tears.

Gohon was shaking his head. He didn’t believe him! “You let us die, Trunks. I trusted you. I’m so disappointed in you. Look how you failed?” He said, and his black, disgusted eyes bored through his student’s soul.

Gohon turned to go, walking back into the nothingness, sinking away from Trunk’s view.

“No!” Trunks shouted, his throat and his body beginning to be overcome with terrible pain. He reached out despairingly for his master, shouting and shouting through his pain. “Gohon! Gohon! Noooo!”

<>

“Noooo!”

Trunks awoke very suddenly with a terrible start, tears still wetting his fair blue eyes and pain shooting up and down his broken arm. He almost fell out of the bed in his nightmare-induced panic, but was immediately pushed back down. A gentle, equally tearful voiced called out to him.

“Trunks, sweetie, please lay down and be still. Baby, you’ll hurt yourself more.”

Trunks allowed himself to be pushed back down into the smooth sheets, gasping but returned to reality. He looked up to the small female form above him, and he almost started crying again.

“M-mother?” He asked in a small, very childish voice. The images from his dream – for that was what it had all been; a dream – were still vividly painted in his memory.

His mother reached down and stroked his forehead gently, smiling at him and whipping her eyes. She looked so tired. So worried. “I’m here, sweetie. You’re fine. It’s all over now. You’re home, baby.”

Somehow Trunks found the strength to open his eyes fully and gaze around him. The familiar, comfortable walls of his own room surrounded him. He felt the soft bed beneath him, and reaching up to his head carefully with his good arm, his fingertips found the gauze bandage that had been wrapped around his forehead. His broken arm had been bandaged too.

His mother watched as he hesitantly fingered the badly broken appendage. Her eyes took on a fiery light. “You frightened me so bad, Trunks, coming back here the way that you did. Not that I’m not glad you made it back, mind you. But when you passed out…” She trailed off emotionally, sniffling. “When you passed out I was afraid I had lost you. My baby.”

“How long was I unconscious, Mother?” Trunks asked, noting how weak and think his voice sounded.

The small teal-headed woman frowned, shaking her head. “It’s been almost ten hours. It’s dark outside now.”

There was a long pause in which Trunks leaned back again the deep pillow and sighed deeply. Ten hours. Ten hours since his fight with the Jinzouningen. Since he had fought her and lost. Since he had failed. The thought of failure brought back his nightmare to his mind and he shut his eyes tight against the guilt and crushing burden that it laid on his heart.

‘Gohon would hate me now,’ He thought sorrowfully. ‘I can’t beat her. She’ll destroy everything on earth and I can’t stop her!’

To think of it made his arm ache ever more painfully, and he groaned.

His mother’s sudden question was what brought him out of his reverie. “What happened Trunks?” She asked him, gripping his good hand firmly and pressing it between her palms. Then quietly and a little sadly, “You didn’t use the virus.”

Trunks looked up at her, feeling anger licking his tongue. “I used your stupid virus, Mother!” He shouted, sorrow overriding his normal characteristic respect for her. He felt so hopeless. “I used your virus and it didn’t work! She’s still alive.”

His mother didn’t say anything for a while. She just stared at him with those huge blue eyes, so much like his own, while she sat there blankly, digesting his news. She was obviously surprised.

“You were able in inject her with the virus?” She finally asked, slowly and with great care to speak very clearly.

“It didn’t work. She flew away.” Trunks repeated. A headache had risen to accompany the pain in the rest of his body.

“You’re sure you injected her?”

“Yes!”

Another long pause, and then, remarkably, a large smile broke out onto Bulma’s face. She actually started laughing, much to Trunks astonishment and dismay. He was half afraid that his mother had lost her senses.

“Mother! What on earth are you laughing about?” He exclaimed.

Tears of joy were running down his mother’s face, and she reached down and kissed his forehead. Her laughing continued. “Oh Trunks!” She said after seeing his face. “You have it all wrong. We’ve won.”

Trunks was lost. “B-but –“ He cried.

Patiently, she explained. “You’ve not given me due credit, Trunks,” She told him. “The virus you injected will kill – but as I told you before, it won’t happen immediately.”

Trunks was dumbstruck.

“Didn’t you see her exhibit any signs of weakness? Of pain?” His mother asked.

Trunks reached back into his memory of the horrid battle. He remembered his false elation – his laughter as he thought he had won. The Jinzouningen had stumbled, gasped. She had been in pain. He had seen it with his own eyes.

“Oh!” Was all that he could say. He leaned back into the bed, and all at once he remembered what his mother had told him about the virus. Slow and painful. A slow death. She had escaped him, only to die somewhere alone and in pain in the wilderness. The irony could not have seemed sweeter to Trunks than at that moment. It even seemed funny.

“She’s dead.” He laughed, and his eyes stung with the familiar sensation of threatening tears. He had cried a lot that day. Somehow now he didn’t mind so much. So happy. Not a failure. “She’s dead!”

His mother joined him in his tears and his laughter. It seemed that all their nightmares were coming to an end. All the pain and the death. It was finally going to be over.

“She’s not dead, baby.” Bulma said, stroking his head, crying. “But she will be in less than three days.”

*****

‘She’s dying.’

Kuririn sat in the darkness of the night, knees to his chest. His fingers were pressed to his head, woven in-between his raven hair. He rocked slowly back and forth, running the words over and over again in his mind.

‘She’s dying. A virus – one that’s killing her. It’ll kill her. It’s killing her now. I have to stop it somehow. There has to be a way. She…she can’t die. S-she can’t.’

The thoughts swirled painfully in his mind, making his eyes sting and his stomach ache. Guilt and helplessness. He was helpless. But he had to save her. Juuhachigou was everything in his world. Where could he go without her? What would he do? He already felt so lost and alone.

In the shadows beside him, a figure thrashed weakly, torn by fever and nightmares. The woman groaned in pain, her voice strained so that it came out as almost a whimper. Kuririn pulled out of his position and crawled over to Juuhachigou, smoothing back her hair and recovering her frailer looking body with the coarse, torn blanket.

Gently, he lifted her head and reached for the cup of water beside the crude bed and pressing it to her lips. She responded with a weak scowl, seemed subconsciously angry. But she was too weak to fight him for long, and soon sipped from the cup he offered with an unconscious powerless frailty.

It was hard for him, to see Juuhachigou this way. Juuhachigou was many things to him, but never ever weak. Never. But now she seemed so small and vulnerable. Her face was pale and hot to his palm, and she trembled as if in the clutches of a feverish terror.

Without the furiousness of her burning eyes and defensive posture, she seemed almost like a normal human woman, sick and dying with the mortality of any human being. It seemed so wrong to Kuririn.

Juuhachigou moaned again, her body tensing as another wave of pain seemed to come over her. Her claw-like fingers clutched at Kuririn’s shirt, pressing into him while he held her, trying to sooth her in her moment of pain.

“Shhhh,” Kuririn whispered to her. His eyes were squeezed shut. ‘Please don’t die.’

The moment passed and Juuhachigou’s grip on him loosened and she fell limp. Kuririn laid her gently back down, rubbing his eyes and staring down at her face. In spite of the grimness of the situation, Kuririn felt a realization come up in the back of his mind; Juuhachigou would never have let him help her or hold her if she were better. He looked down on her with perfect seriousness and lifted her hand to hold it tight.

‘You’re so much more human when you’re asleep, Juu-chan,’ His mind whispered.

Another realization came. ‘You need me.’

Juuhachigou had saved his life. She was strong and she was independent and she was his leader. She had never needed him. Not really. Not even to kill, which he could not bring himself to do, even for her. Juuhachigou had never needed him.

But as he watched her lying there so helplessly, he knew that Juuhachigou couldn’t save herself this time. And he was the only one that cared if she died. For the first and probably the only time in her life, Kuririn realized that Juuhachigou was as dependent on him as an infant.

His mouth was set in a straight line, and his eyes burned with burdened responsibility. He held Juuhachigou’s limp hand in his own trembling palms, squeezing it tightly.

“I’m your only hope, Juu-chan.” His frightened voice was barely even a whisper. “You’ll die.”

Kuririn looked over his shoulder, into the starry sky. It reminded him of the first sky that he could remember, the night that Juuhachigou had freed him from his own nightmares. Out there were the answers. Deep in the forbidden parts of his innocent mind, Kuririn was beginning to see the dark deed that was before him. The abstract thoughts slowly coming together in his mind scared him in their monstrousness.

But…

He turned back to look down at Juuhachigou’s face – no longer angry, no longer murderous, or evil, or vengeful. Only hurt. Her face was human.

“He needs me,” He stated shakily, and he swallowed his sob as the darkness of his intentions filled his mind again.

‘For Juu-chan.’

‘You have to.’

‘You promised.’

Kuririn closed his eyes tight and leaned down close to Juuhachigou’s face. So close that his forehead touched hers. Then he whispered into her ear, “You don’t have to worry Juuhachigou,” He told her, trying hard not to cry. Juuhachigou didn’t like it when he cried. “I’m going to go find the person that hurt you. I’m gonna make them fix you again. You won’t have to hurt much longer. I know where the one who hurt you is – I can still feel him, Juuhachigou. He’s not so far away. I’ll go and I’ll make him fix you. I’ve got a plan, Juuhachigou. You’d be proud of me, maybe. I promise I won’t let you die.”

She couldn’t hear him, but Kuririn didn’t care. He carefully laid down her hand at her side, standing reluctantly to leave her. He whipped embarrassedly at his wet cheeks as he stood before the broken window, trying to gather the courage to leave her.

He looked back over his shoulder one more time and then he remembered what he intended to do. The thoughts were like ice water poured into his heart, and he almost gave a physical cry at the feeling of it. Could he really do what he planned?

‘Anything,’ Kuririn tried think of Juuhachigou. ‘I promised I would do anything.’

And with that thought, he took off into the clouds.

*****

The next morning was a gray one. The pale orange sun seemed coated with drifting dust, rising from the piles of debris from what was left of the city. It was quiet and new, but dampened by the desecration of night before.

Trunks still lay back against his bed, and he sighed softly with a semi-peace that he had not had since his blissfully ignorant and remarkable short “childhood.” His heart, while still tense and fearful in part, felt that there was hope – that his nightmarish life might really be over.

If his mother was right.

Gohon had taught him many things as he had grown. Many good things – like hope and integrity and the responsibility to protect his people. But Gohon had also taught him darker truths. In his life, he had taught Trunks that what was worth fighting for could also be hopeless, and in his death he had taught Trunks that no matter how hard you fought you could still fail. He had also taught Trunks that even the good guys could be killed, while some of the most evil refused to die.

The Jinzouningen was like that. She would not die.

All throughout his few hours of rest – the first few hours of true rest that Trunks could remember having – the back of his mind had not allowed him to forget this fact. ‘Failure’ seemed to ring in his ears, warning him that he did not know if she were dead; that he did not yet know if he had won.

What if his mother where wrong?

Growling in frustration, Trunks called out into the hallway, “Mother!” He knew better than to move. The beating that he had taken so easily in order to get close to the Jinzouningen had cost him dearly in strength. His body was thrashed.

Only a moment later, responding footsteps came down the hall. Through the open door, the short blue haired mother walked in, smiling hesitantly and sympathetically. She carried a tray of sweet-smelling food in her arms.

She came to sit at the edge of his bed, setting down the tray on the table beside him. With motherly tenderness she stroked his lavender bangs, which Trunks endured tolerantly. “Do you need something, baby?” She asked him, noting the seriousness of his face.

The youth looked down, sighing uncomfortably as if a great pressure lay upon his bandaged chest. “Mother, I have to ask you something. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Bulma frowned, anticipating his words. “Trunks, why won’t you trust me?” Her words were not unkind, but comforting. “I told you that the virus would kill her. And it will. You even told me that you saw it working.”

“But she left, mother. She was able to fly away.”

“Then she’ll die somewhere else, Trunks.”

There was a moment of silence as the young man tried to quiet the raging voices at war for the security of his mind. He wanted to believe her. Oh how he wanted to believe that it was over!

Finally, he asked slowly, “Are you sure that there’s no way? There’s no way that she could cure herself?”

Bulma spoke. “No, Trunks. The only way to stop the process is to use the anti-virus, but its locked away in the lab. She can’t heal without it.”

Trunks fidgeted uncomfortably at the prospect of an antidote. “It’s not safe here. She’ll come looking for it.” He voiced anxiously.

Bulma wasn’t concerned. She smiled at him sadly. “You don’t have to be afraid of that, Trunks.” She told him. “She won’t be physically able to come looking for it by now. She can no longer save herself.”

Trunks sighed, drained. ‘She can’t’

*****

It was morning before Kuririn stopped flying and set down quietly on the outskirts of the ruined city, which still smoldered. Kuririn looked on in horror at the destruction, and his heart constricted as he remembered that Juuhachigou was the one that caused it. His head throbbed as he tried to justify it, but his heart told him that there were no answers.

He thought of her now, helpless as the people she had killed. ‘How could you do this to people, Juu-chan?’

But then quilt returned to him, descending over him like a stifling blanket that sought to suffocate him. Who was he to judge Juuhachigou? He too had killed, and now he intended to do something even worse.

Kuririn took a halting breath miserably. ‘No other way to save her.’ He thought.

Juuhachigou was most important. She…she was.

Kuririn pushed the battle away from his mind, trying to clear his head. He had to focus, concentrate on the power that he had felt with Juuhachigou. The huge power that she had fought, and had done this to her. It as so faint now, and Kuririn wondered if the person knew how to lower his ki like Juuhachigou had taught him. Or maybe…maybe the Sayiajin was hurt too.

“Sayiajin.” Kuririn pronounced the word uncertainly. He could only remember hearing it once. Juuhachigou had said it when he found her, dying, the night before. A Sayiajin had hurt her. Kuririn was lost to the significance of what that meant.

He crept around the city, following the ki that had hurt Juuhachigou. It was not so far away now and remained very still, but it was still on the opposite side of the city. And no matter how much that he was tempted, he could not bring himself to walk straight through it. He was uncomfortable around other humans. He wasn’t sure he could stand to look into their pained faces.

When he reached the building that contained the ki that he was searching for, Kuririn stopped dead. It was large and squat and a pale, worn yellow in color. On the side, the words “Capsule Corp.” were painted in broad faded black letters. The small human stared at the building, struck dumb at the sight of it. He felt his breathing increase, and his head began to throb with a terrible headache.

‘This building…’ Kuririn pressed his hands to his head. ‘Have I…been here?’

No, of course not. Kuririn scolded himself for his weakness and pressed his already harbored ki still lower, as low as he could make it and still stand. He ignored his pounding head, and cautiously approached the building.

There were two people inside – Kuririn could feel them. Both were small, even to him. It confused him, because he knew that not just anyone could hurt Juuhachigou. As he came closer, he found a small door at the back of the building. His face set grimly as he faced it. He lowered his head, lost in a moment of indecision.

‘For Juuhachigou,’ His mind reminded him. He headed for the door.

Kuririn had never been a building before. Not one with doors and ceilings and walls that were not smashed and open to the air. It immersed himself in the shadows as his widened eyes washed over the chairs and the photographs. The carpet beneath his feet seemed foreign.

But what disturbed him most…was that despite the strangeness, the house did not seem alien to him. He felt like he had been there before, many times. His heart rate increased. He blinked painfully through another wave of pain that struck his head like a thunderbolt.

‘Where am I?’ He wondered.

“Mother!” A sudden voice from a nearby room brought Kuririn back from his thoughts so suddenly that he jumped, pressing himself flat against the wall in fear.

Answering footsteps came towards him from a corridor that lead away from the room, but stopped somewhere before reaching him. Kuririn exhaled, relieved. Though he had told himself that he would do anything to save Juuhachigou, he honestly didn’t know what he would do if unexpectedly faced with a human.

Fortunately, he was temporarily spared the decision. The footsteps faded and Kuririn began to hear soft voices. His senses told him that the “Sayiajin” was close by and that the two humans were together.

‘I should listen to them.’ His said to himself. He slipped quietly into the hallway, feeling slightly sick as he stared at walls that he knew, but had never seen. He felt bizarrely like an intruder in his own home. But that was silly. Kuririn didn’t have a home.

Kuririn finally came close enough to an open door to hear what was being said. Silently, he approached even closer, longing for a peek inside. He edged closer, to the very edge. The voices were so close now – so close he could hear every word.

<>

A young sounding male voice spoke. “But she left, mother. She was able to fly away.”

“Then she’ll die somewhere else, Trunks.” A female voice.

<>

Kuririn stood ridged. ‘They’re talking about Juuhachigou.’ He thought. He knew it. To be sure of himself, he closed his eyes and focused. His eyes snapped open. Yes, this was the Sayiajin. The one that had hurt Juuhachigou. He was right in the room – close enough for Kuririn to attack.

Kuririn felt rare anger began to creep upon him. He didn’t fight it. Anger would make it easier not to feel guilty. Slowly, he stealthily peeked through the door, careful to remain unseen. What he saw in the room shocked him.

Through his wide black eyes, Kuririn saw a young boy lying in a bed. He has soft purple hair and a troubled, bruised face. Kuririn saw the bandages that were wrapped around his head and his arm. He felt the low ki, and he knew that he was facing the Sayiajin.

But he was a boy!

Not much older than some of the children from the family he had helped. A young person. A young adult. No, not an adult yet. Not a child – not an adult. Kuririn was confused. This piteously injured man-child had been the one who had hurt Juuhachigou so badly?

And the other human confused him as well. She was a woman, not much taller than he was. Her face was soft and tired, and she sat next to the Sayiajin, stoking his hair affectionately. ‘She’s his mother’ The thought popped into his mind before he understood all that they meant.

The word “mother” carried unusual emotion for Kuririn. He somehow understood the concept, but his understanding was limited as to someone who had no experience of their own to aid them. He continued to watch her sooth the boy, his eyes trained on her.

<>

The boy spoke up, “Are you sure that there’s no way? There’s no way that she could cure herself?”

The mother answered quietly. “No, Trunks. The only way to stop the process is to use the anti-virus, but its locked away in the lab. She can’t heal without it.”

“It’s not safe here. She’ll come looking for it.” When he spoke, his voice sounded worried.

The mother seemed unconcerned. “You don’t have to be afraid of that, Trunks.” She told him. “She won’t be physically able to come looking for it by now. She can no longer save herself.”

<>

Kuririn turned away from the door, pressing the back of his head to the smooth wall. His mind struggled to understand the significance of what was said. He couldn’t understand all of the words. “Cure” and “anti-virus” and “lab” were new concepts to his reborn mind.

“I’ll be back in a minute, Trunks,” The mother’s voice came out very clear and close to Kuririn’s ear.

Startled, he realized she was coming out, and he quickly retreated back to room with the door. But Kuririn had just reached safety when he realized that the footsteps followed him. Panicking, Kuririn’s eyes wandered over the room. Another door, closer than the one that lead out, was propped slightly open. He ducked inside just as the woman came into the room.

Flabbergasted, Kuririn discovered that the door did not lead anywhere. “Closet” the word came to him, and he wondered how he knew it. He also felt stupid.

‘Why am I hiding?’ Kuririn thought angrily. ‘I’m stronger than her. She isn’t stopping me from leaving.’

Kuririn’s resolve was weaker than his words. He was much much stronger than the woman. He knew he could never bring himself to hurt her. And besides…he reminded himself grimly…he had come to this house for a reason.

But how had his position changed because of what he had just heard? His enemy was weak and injured. He could not fight Kuririn the way that he had fought Juuhachigou. And aside from that completely…Kuririn didn’t like the idea of attacking him when he couldn’t fight back.

‘Juuhachigou would be ashamed of you,’ Kuririn told himself, cursing his mental weakness. He didn’t have the energy to wonder whether or not to question Juuhachigou’s view of morality.

Kuririn forced himself to remember what he had decided in the darkness of the scarred building where he had left Juuhachigou. His eyes began to sting as he remembered her pained face. He remembered how he had held her. How she needed him. She had seemed so human to him. It wasn’t right for her to suffer like that.

“The Sayiajin is my enemy,” Kuririn mumbled the words aloud, breathing hard. His head hadn’t stopped pounding since he entered the building, making it difficult for him to think clearly. He felt empty, like someone who was being forced to commit a terrible sin – as if he were a prisoner, resigned to his fate. He felt the dullness eating at his heart. Dullness made it easier.

“She can no longer save herself.” The mother had said that. Kuririn remembered. Juuhachigou couldn’t save herself. Only Kuririn could.

Kuririn peeked out of the cracked door, watching the woman out of one eye. She had lost her false outward happiness as soon as she had left her son, and her smile was gone. She sunk into a chair, her face sad and worried. Kuririn understood the look of anxiety. ‘She is worried for her son.’

An unreasonably wave of jealously rolled through Kuririn as he watched her. It brought him no anger, but a deep grief that depressed his mind even further. He knew the word for what he saw. It was “love.” The mother loved her son.

‘He’s lucky,’ Kuririn thought, his eyes trained on her. So lucky because someone loved him and would protect him. He was lucky to have a mother. ‘He must love her back so –‘

‘S-so…much?’

Kuririn gasped. His heart constricted painfully, and his eyes grew wide as he considered the terrible thought that had occurred to him. He couldn’t believe that he had thought it. Couldn’t believe he would even consider!

But…

Kuririn’s plan had been vague. He knew that he had to save Juuhachigou. He had come to find the one who had hurt her, childishly believing that he could somehow force him to fix her. He had imagined that he would have to hurt – maybe even kill. That plan was past him now. It was foolish.

‘The Sayiajin is helpless now,’ His mind formed the unthinkable in his mind, even as he watched in horror. ‘He would never fix Juuhachigou, even if you killed him. He won’t “cure” her. But if you took his mother…the mother he loves…’

“No!” Kuririn gasped, pressing his knuckles into his eyes. ‘I can’t! She’s defenseless! I can’t steal her!’

“Kidnap.” Another new word, supplied somehow to his mind.

‘She’ll make him help her. He won’t let you kill his mother. He’ll help Juuhachigou. She’ll die if you don’t. She’ll die. You’ll kill her Kuririn. You told her you would save her. You – ‘

“Promised.” Kuririn finished out loud, and he felt sick. “I promised.”

He turned back to the crack of light that was the doorway. The woman was still sitting alone at the table.

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~End Chapter~

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