Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Beginning ❯ Five Days ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: look for it in the 1st chapter, I am too lazy to write one

Five Days

Five days had passed. Five days of living hell on earth. Five days filled with endless torture and endless pain. Five days of trying to survive with a broken, bloodied, and starved body. No, he had not gotten any food during this continuous nightmare, nor any sleep. He felt that his limit was nearly full, his tortured body would not hold much longer beneath the mal-treatment it received every single hour.

Five days of constant agony. He had grown quite adept at dealing with extreme pain, but just when he thought he had mastered it, she came up with a new way of hurting him. In the category of imaginative torture she was clearly unbeatable. Yesterday, or at least he thought that it had been yesterday, she had found some handcuffs. She had bound his wrists tightly with them and then had hooked the short iron chain that connected the two cuffs to the ceiling, making him dangle like a sack of potatoes under her gifted use of the Agiel. The steel handcuffs had slowly eaten themselves through his skin, chafing his wrists raw while he had been hanging by his arms swinging back and forth. Every time he was moving now, the dried blood crust tore open again and red, hot liquid spilled forth beneath the iron clasps.

As his broken arm always had to carry at least half of his weight, it had never gotten the chance to heal, and by being moved every few seconds, the bone ends ground together, making the injury worse. He was quite positive that his arm was not the only broken bone in his body, but it was clearly the most serious one. His breathing was shallow because of a few broken or cracked ribs that spiked every gulp for air with a sharp pain, and his left hip must have been fractured by a vicious blow with her boot. It was quite a miracle that he had not received any internal or life-threatening wounds, but he supposed that that was part of her gift. She somehow seemed to know exactly how much he could take, stopping whenever necessary to let him recover a little bit.

Five days alone with her, the woman in the tight red leather suit. During that time, he had learned to read her emotions, to tell her general mood by the way she used her Agiel on him.

Sometimes, when he was in especially bad condition, hanging on his life by a thin thread, she just lightly stroked him with the rod, and in her twisted way of expressing feelings, it was a rare show of compassion.

Other times, when she was in a happy, playful mood, she made it a game for her to surprise him constantly with short stabs of different strength in places he expected the least. If he flinched, she giggled like a schoolgirl that got the expected reaction from her smaller brother when she had eaten his candy.

When she was hungry for some male companion and slightly aroused, she didn't use the Agiel that often but tended to work more with her body. She would slap him with armored gloves, bite into his gashes and suck his blood to satisfy her insatiable thirst. During those times, he could almost understand her unique personality. While she was drinking his thick, warm, coppery life-blood, he felt a strange kind of connection building at the edges of his mind which made him feel warm and protected despite the radiating pain.

But there were also the times when she was angry and full of hatred. Then she would let the Agiel dance over his weakened body to a cruel pace and mercilessly hit his softest spots. Sometimes, when she was in an especially bad mood, she would also turn on the pain that he felt when raising his Ki and add it to his misery, letting him suffer for countless hours. Afterwards, he would be glad when she used the Agiel again as the pain the rod caused was concentrated in one spot whereas the Ki-pain was everywhere at the same instant. And the sting of pointed stabs would ebb away contrary to the Ki-pain that would last forever, tearing at his remaining grip on sanity with its endless assault of his inflamed nerves.

Several times, he had been just inches away from giving up and breaking, somewhere deep down in the tormented borderland between life and death, and he had prayed that death would take him to escape his misery. But every time, she had been able to call him back, reminding him of his duty to protect earth, although that was not exactly what kept him alive. He would never dare to tell her, but it was the image of those deep blue, haunted eyes that had been filled with a pain that made everything he had suffered so far seem pale in comparison.

He had no clue of the cause of her pain, but it was an old, scarred wound, begging him to heal it, begging him to exterminate its source. Once, after a near-death experience, he had asked her about that pain, but that had made her so angry that she had sent him straight back to that barren wasteland on death's doorstep.

Then, at that moment, he had known that he had to help her, no matter what it would cost him, not wanting her to suffer any more. He had seen that desperate need to keep up a tough facade before, and he felt guilty for asking because she reminded him too much of his mother.

He would never be able right the crime he had committed against his mother, he could never make killing his father undone, he could never heal the wound which his dad's absence had torn into her heart. She covered it up so well, she seemed like the happiest person on earth during day for his sake and for the sake of Goten; but at night, when she thought nobody would hear her, she would break down in her bedroom, sobbing and crying until well past midnight. He knew that this was his fault, he deserved all the pain Mistress Denna inflicted on him. She just did what his mother should have done.

But perhaps, if he could ease Mistress Denna's pain, he could ease at least some of his guilt about killing his Dad. He was well aware of the fact that he was completely selfish, destroying a housewife's life and then begging for redemption. He knew he should be damned in hell for it.

That was why he had been struggling to stay sane during those five endless days. This was the punishment he deserved, the punishment for killing his father, the punishment for such traitorous thoughts: living hell on earth. He did not allow himself to hate Mistress Denna for hurting him, it was not her fault that he had been so careless, instead he started hating himself for being so inconsiderate and unable to control his powers. He deserved all of that pain, but Mistress Denna surely did not deserve that haunted and tormented look that had screamed out to him in that one instance, and so he swore to himself that he would do everything in his might to heal her suffering. Everything.

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The boy was really strange. She had never met a human being as strange as him. By now, she should have broken him about five times over, but that was not the case. She couldn't remember anyone giving her a work-out like him. She had inflicted more pain on him than on any other victim before, including Richard with the Sword, she had held him at the brink of death for many hours, being only millimeters away from killing him several times, and he had not broken.

The most peculiar thing though was that he did not seem to hate her. Sure, the first time she had met him and given him his first lesson, he had looked at her with venom, but the longer she had been playing and working on him, the less his hatred got. By now, she had the unsettling feeling that he was actually looking forward to the pain she would inflict on him in regular torture sessions. He seemed to like being hurt very much, maybe out of a hidden masochistic streak of his very complex personality, but this made everything she had thrown at him useless. She had to find another way to get past his mental defenses against pain, because she surely did not want to report to HIM that she had failed her task.

Most information about her victims, she got from the look in their eyes when she held their gaze after bringing them back from death's doorstep. Many pupils were extremely dilated, swallowing the irises to remain a dull black that was filled solely with pain and terror, afraid of what she would do next to them. But his eyes were not at all the eyes of a small, frightened boy, but rather of a very compassionate being wise beyond his age. And instead of revealing his soft spots, their focused blackness drilled through her carefully perfected facade as if it was made out of thin paper, down to the core of her soul, seeing every one of her dark secrets.

To tell the truth, she was almost scared of those sparkling black eyes that penetrated her exterior so easily; and when he had asked her about her pain, she had lost her nerves for the first time in many years and had almost killed him. That also scared her, his ability to make her loose her calm.

Slowly, she got up from the plain, king-sized bed that filled almost the entire room. The only other piece of furniture was a simple black dresser which matched the ebony color of the bed with an even darker shade of wood, and gave the room a mysterious feeling.

She stretched her cramped up muscles which hadn't relaxed since she had started working on the boy, and began braiding her long, thick hair. It was the same hair that Richard with the sword had admired so much that he had used it as a focus to suppress his anger. She smiled, her first sincere smile in a long time. He was the first one to show her what love really was, and so she had kept her hair in remembrance of him. It had just grown a little bit longer, touching the small of her back.

Working quickly, she donned her red Mord-Sith-outfit and went to see the unusual boy who was hanging in the adjoining room.

Opening a small, carved wooden door which separated her room from the training room, she was greeted by the sight of her current trainee. His previously spiky hair had been flattened to his head by the blood she had spilled, and his head hung low as he was no longer strong enough to hold it up. Almost every square inch of his toned skin was covered in cuts and bruises, his well-defined muscles were clearly visible through the practically non-existing clothing, and although he was bloody, sweaty, starved and weakened, he still posed a gorgeous sight which aroused her tremendously. Had he not been so young, she would have taken him to bed several times over the previous nights which she had spent cold and lonely. But maybe that was the key to his breaking. She would have to try that out later on.

He must have heard her move the door or sensed her otherwise; in any case he was too weak to actually say anything, but he opened his eyes and looked at her calmly, holding her gaze with those ageless black eyes devoid of any hatred.

Deciding that he had been hanging long enough, she took the chain from the rusty hook on the high ceiling. With a cat-like hiss of pain, he collapsed to the ground, being too weak to catch his fall of a few inches. As he laid on the floor, she could almost feel something akin to pity for the boy, he rather looked like a load of boneless jelly than a human being. Now, it was time for him to heal a little bit, otherwise he could be crippled for life, and HE would not like that at all. In fact, HIS specific orders had been to not cause any permanent damage, and the boy would need his strength for the 'exercise' she had planned out for that evening. That evening, she would not be lonely and cold any more.

Carefully, she took off his handcuffs, licking away the sweet, warm blood which was her way of apologizing. He reacted promptly to it as he relaxed and almost ... purred. He had done that before when she had been sucking his blood which meant that he actually enjoyed it, no matter how much pain he was in. Never before, she had heard such a sound coming from a human throat, but she made herself remember that he was only half human. His Saiyan half was a mystery to her, and that must have been the reason for his ability to resist all of her training completely.

Never letting go of his raw, tasty wrist, she turned him on his back and untangled his limbs which was quite an easy task in his relaxed state. When she got done, she saw that he was curiously watching her, his watchful eyes following her slow movements without any trace of open or hidden fear on his chiseled features.

Seeing his broken arm, she sighed. It was in really bad shape, the bone-shards seemed to have caused a lot of damage as it was swollen to almost double its normal size and colored an angry purple and blue. She would have to cut it open to remove all splints sticking into his flesh.

"I will have to operate on your arm to set the broken bone. Do you think you can hold still on your own or should I tie you to my bed? This is part of your training, so I won't let you fall unconscious."

He seemed to ponder a while over that thought as his eyes defocused a little bit. Then, suddenly, he whispered in a hoarse voice, rusty from previous screaming:

"Will your Agiel hurt me when you are not touching it?"

She raised a graceful eyebrow and nodded. Seeing what he was getting at, she let him talk.

"Would you ... borrow ... me your Agiel as a ... distraction ... , Mistress Denna?"

That was indeed an interesting question, she didn't think he would have the guts to ask her.

"How do I know that you will give it back to me and not try to escape?"

He seemed to have waited for a question like that as he answered immediately with a determined expression in his lively eyes.

"First, I don't think I could do anything in my current condition ... Secondly, you can always turn on that strange Ki-pain, and ... thirdly, ... I don't know what it means to you, but ... you have my word ..."

His voice trailed off as he stared deeply into her cold eyes, watching for any sign of having displeased her. She was too preoccupied with returning his stare to take any offence at his statement, and she could see his seriousness about the matter, that he was strictly honor-bound. There was no deception in those coal black, glittering eyes, but ... something else ... something she had not seen for a long time ... some kind of ... fearless trust?

Now, how the hell did she get the idea that he trusted her? That was completely irrational.

Shaking her head clear from that ridiculous thought, she opened the short silver chain around her right wrist and handed the Agiel slowly over to the boy. When he shut his good hand over the rod, she easily recognized the signs of pain, like the dilating pupils, the slight sweating, and the short, trembling breaths, but soon, he relaxed his entire frame and closed the lids over his grateful eyes, erasing all signs which would indicate that he was hurting.

"OK, I want you to listen to me, there might be a chance that you need to do something like that later on. First I'm gonna clean the dagger and your arm so that it won't get infected that badly."

He opened his ageless eyes again and released the Agiel, letting it drop on the floor. She furrowed her eyebrows in a frown. He had treated her precious Agiel like a simple piece of wood which could be thrown away carelessly; that had earned him an additional hour tonight before she would invite him into her bed.

Moving his hand towards her dagger and completely oblivious to her anger, he whispered:

"I can disinfect wounds much better than water. Let me show you."

With those words, he grabbed her hand and concentrated. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and he panted, while she was much too surprised to remove her frozen hand. A strange tingling feeling enveloped her wrist where he touched her, and when he let loose a hoarse scream, she could feel some kind of warm power run down her fingers and into her blade. Shortly, the knife glowed in a dark blood-red as if it had been heated in a forge, then it turned back to its usual steely grey appearance.

He was panting much stronger than before, his chest heaving, and his whole body was drenched in sweat, trying to get over the pain.

She just sat there and stared at the strange boy dumbfounded. Had he just managed to access his Ki and channel it into the knife despite the magic she had woven to separate him from his life-force? But that should be impossible, the pain should have been much too great, it should have paralyzed him completely. Perhaps she had made a mistake when initiating the magic contact. Another explanation would be that you couldn't shut all the life-force away as the being would die from lack of energy. Or maybe it was due to his alien heritage. She shuddered when imagining HIS reaction. HE would surely not look down kindly on that fatal development, she had to find a way to break the boy quickly so that HE wouldn't be enraged.

In the meantime, he had calmed down a little bit, and moved his hand to his broken arm. Doing the same as with her dagger, he released a tiny flow of his Ki. Though this time, he was apparently not as careful as with her, because all the hair on his forearm was burned away and his skin was slightly singed. She shook her head. How he had been able to access his Ki was still a mystery to her, but a mystery she would solve as soon as possible after tending to his injury. Readying her knife, she frowned and admonished him:

"That was not very wise. If I were you, I would go for the Agiel, because I'm going to start now."

He just smiled knowingly and reached for the magical rod. Gritting his teeth, he prepared for the pain that would follow.

Cutting deeply into his forearm, she started the surgery, and was rewarded with a throaty moan emerging from his chest, but he did not move an inch. When she had cleaned away all of the pus, blood, rotting flesh and could actually see the fracture of the bone, she was surprised how much it had already healed. The only problem was that it had not healed the right way. Some of the bone splinters had gotten in between the split ends, and so the previously white bone had ended up in a dark, deformed knot. Sighing, she knew what she had to do.

"I will need the Agiel back because I have to break your arm again so that it can heal properly."

He looked through her with glazed-over eyes which radiated immense pain, but he had still heard her voice. Slowly, he released the Agiel, and she saw how hard he must have gripped it as his palm was one big, bloody mess. Without thinking, she grabbed the Agiel with one hand and his good wrist with the other one, leading his oozing wound to her mouth, licking away his sweet, coppery blood. His reaction was immediate as he relaxed and smiled, calming down considerably, and his black eyes even got their sparkle back. When she thought the time was right, she jammed the Agiel directly on the knot in the bone, breaking it anew, but never letting go of the sweet taste of his palm when he convulsed beneath her in a reaction to the pain.

After she had cleansed out all of the bone shards with one hand, she pressed the two ends together the right way while sucking more of his blood. He whimpered slightly, but it was mixed with that strange purring rumble that originated from somewhere deep in his chest.

Stitching the firm muscles together, she kept on tasting his warm flesh in her mouth, and it cost her some of her concentration because he tasted so male, so good, partly like a human, but there was a thicker, a sweeter tinge to it than human blood. Finally, she bandaged his arm with white, stiff linen, adding two splinters of wood to keep it immobile so that he wouldn't injure himself any further. Considering his fast healing rate, he would only have to wear the make-shift cast for one or two days.

When she was done, she never let go of the hand, but looked down into his curious eyes. They had lost all of their pain, and were filled with the trust she thought she had just imagined earlier, but there was something more, something utterly alien to her, something she was not able to recognize.

Starring into that black deepness, she failed to register that he had cleared his palm away from her hungry mouth and brought her own hand to his lips. His intense gaze held her firmly in one place, and she did not move a muscle, just like a frightened rabbit hypnotized by a rattle snake.

She saw what he was doing, but her brain failed to process the information, and so she was completely taken by surprise when he bit into her palm, sucking her blood like she had earlier done to him. It seemed to mean a lot more than the simple physical act of drawing blood though, because she felt some kind of presence in the back of her head, but she shrugged it off. He then seemed to act on pure instinct alone when he clasped her injured hand with his, their fingers interlacing, their wounds pressed tightly on each other's. His voice was surprisingly strong and deep, not sounding like the small boy laying on the ground in front of her, and his black, hazed eyes looked through her to a distant point far away."From now until eternity we shall be bonded by the Sharing. Let us share everything we have, be it happiness or pain."

After the last words had poured over his lips, she felt a searing wave of his Ki shoot through his warm palm into hers, and up her arm, until it mixed and mingled with her body, her life-force, leaving her a dizzy feeling.

Suddenly, a lot of knowledge about the hybrid flooded into her mind through a door that had been forcefully shoved open. She smiled malevolently, breaking out of the trance she had been put in by that strange kind of rite, and she was once again in full control of the situation, ready to exercise her profession as Mord-Sith.

Nothing better could have happened. Either the boy was really stupid or he couldn't control his instincts; in any case, he had done her a huge favor. Now she knew the way his brain worked, and now she could start the REAL training. She knew where she had gone wrong with her magic, and she would never make that mistake again. HE would be very pleased, and the boy would break like everybody else.

Smirking, she gracefully got up and sauntered towards the white mattress and the white pillow on the black bed-frame, leaving the boy unconscious on the cold floor. Earlier that day, she had thought she would have to bring his gorgeous body with her to teach him the ways a man and a woman could interact, but this method was much better and more prone to succeed. She was grateful for that huge break-through, she had earnestly began to doubt at her abilities as a Mord-Sith. Leisurely, she stripped the tight, red leather of her uniform until all of her naked, silver-white glory was exposed to the cool, fresh air, and she slipped contently under the warm, white covers. Rolling over on her side in her favorite position, she curled up into a comforting ball, concentrating on what she would show him. It was time to dream, yes, she would dream for that boy...

He was caught in a black, seemingly endless void. He went over the last few events, trying to think of a reason for the change of surroundings. What had just happened? His Saiyan instincts had taken over for a short period of time when his mind had been weakened from the pain of the operation, and he had bitten her warm palm, drawing blood. He had pressed his wound onto hers, probably in a symbolic exchange of life-blood, and he had given her some of his Ki. He was sure it was some kind of Saiyan ritual, as the words that had tumbled from his mouth had sounded strange and ancient.

We are bonded by the Sharing.

What did that mean? Bonded? Sharing?

Surely enough, he had felt some kind of connection building between them, and he had felt her access his memory when he had shot his Ki into her arm. He had expected to be permitted into hers as well, but instead, he had landed in that huge universe of blackness where he couldn't do anything, not even move his legs or his arms or blink.

Suddenly, after a long period of bored floating, he heard a warm, female voice crooning to him from far away, gradually coming closer.

"Wake up, Hun. Come on, wake up!"

His eyelids hardly lifted. Or were they lifted? He couldn't decide on which of the two statements were true and he didn't want to. He was so tired, but the insistent, annoying voice would not let him escape into sleep. His eyes slowly focused on a beautiful, oval face with full cheeks and many lines from the harsh weather, framed by wonderfully curly, brown hair that reached down to her shoulders. The face that hovered over him was so familiar. Where had he seen it the last time? But before he could come to any conclusion, his traitorous mouth decided to move on its own.

"Yes, Mom."

His mother had woken him up like every morning. Why hadn't he immediately recognized his mother? But that woman looked unfamiliar at the same time, upsetting him greatly. It was as if two different sets of mind would argue over dominance in his head, giving him dual perspectives on the same things, confusing him to no end. Was she his mother or was she not his mother? He wanted to scream. This had to be the beginning of madness.

Mechanically, he got up, looking through the familiar room, though unfamiliar with its settings at the same time. A small window on the far wall revealed some first golden rays of the morning sun raising over the horizon, dying the sky in various colors ranging from orange over red and purple to one of the most startling blues which mirrored the one of his eyes. The walls were clean and plain white, giving the room an open and serene feeling which was enhanced by the clear shapes of the crude, wooden bed and the beautiful dresser made by his Dad. That seemed quite unbelievable. His dad had made this wonderfully crafted dresser. His dad was a carpenter. He shrugged at the two clashing opinions and pulled out some clothes, a pair of blue socks and a nice little aqua-marine dress printed with tiny yellow flowers. The dress would compliment his eye- and hair-color nicely.

A dress?

Yes, a dress. Hadn't he always worn a dress? That seemed strange. As strange as the thought that he had blue eyes and blond hair. He was a girl, wasn't he?

By now, he was really confused about his two arguing opinions on everything. Was he a girl that had always been wearing dresses or was ... he ... ... a ... ... ...

His thoughts were suddenly halted as the mind that had identified his dad as the maker of his wooden dresser had one the fight and had forced the other one to retreat. Enormously grateful that this head-splitting argument was over, he let that mind take unconditional control, erasing all controversial thoughts." You - are - Denna - You - live - here - You - are - a - girl"

This sentence was repeated over and over again, embedding itself deeply in the young brain, making it forget that there had been anything else.

Yes. That is my name. I am Denna. How could I ever have doubted that fact?

Denna shook her small head vigorously. She laughed, her voice ringing like thousands and thousands of little silver bells. Today, she had really strange thoughts. When waking up, she had almost been convinced that she was a boy who had had to save the world countless times. She laughed some more. How funny.

Skipping a few steps, she danced down the creaking stairs to begin a new day.

A/N: So how do you like this twist? Any ideas how I could improve the story? Lol, I am so desperate for feedback that I would even accept f l a m e s ... PLZ review!!!