Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Advent Children ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Advent Children

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own. Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. How will it cut the Prince of the Saiyans for he is to realize his suffering truly is a double-edged sword.

 

This is an A/U story concerning mainly Vegeta, suffering and joy, responsibility and how he's to deal with a new kind of pain that not only strikes unexpectedly, but leaves him in a situation he'd never thought he'd have to face - for every Yin there is a Yang. Events take place after the Buu Saga.

 

Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z belongs to Akira Toriyama. Enough Said.

Prologue

 

It was dark and cold. Only the rain that drizzled down pierced the eerie silence that had fallen upon the land. A shadowy figure walked forward with heavy, burdened steps - each one of them hesitated and quiet. His clothes soaked and worn, clinging onto his every well defined muscle that still to this day spoke of the hidden powers that no common man could ever even begin to comprehend. The world had no need for the likes of him no more. He was older, but he was still the warrior he had been all his life. It was all he had ever known and with the exception of one other, no one else had understood what it meant to fight for the fight alone. Now the world was different though. Peace and prosperity ruled the land and such strength, power and greatness were not needed anymore. They had fought for it to happen for so many years and now that it was here, what became of them? What becomes of a warrior who has no war?

He finally came to a stop and slowly his eyes shifted to the stone before him. Carved and beautiful, yet so hard and so very cold. The Saiyan Prince dropped on the wet ground on his knees and carefully reached with his hand to touch the cool, smooth surface to brush his fingertips across the letters engraved in it. With each letter his mouth spoke without emitting a sound. When he got to the last one, his hand helplessly slid down until it met with the ground once more. He felt hollow.

 

Silently he watched as a small candle flickered wildly, casting a halo of warmth and pure light above a withered flower that had been carefully placed before the stone before giving in to the strong wind and rain. With one final flicker of light it burned out. Vegeta felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach. Just like that had also he lost all that he had in this world. In a world where he once had nothing but his hate - his craving for revenge - until one day, as if mocked by the gods of fate he'd found himself settled down with a family that accepted him unconditionally. Kami forbid, even loved him. Fight as he might, that was something he couldn't let go of. Not even selling his tainted soul to the devil himself was enough to break the bonds that had formed almost unnoticed. How did it happen? He brushed his fingertips against the flower and watched as a single petal dropped on the wet ground. Suppose that was something he'd never know. Some things were best left untouched.

 

For years Vegeta had thought he were the one to leave this world before everyone else and maybe he was selfish to say so, but that was the way he preferred things to be. He was a warrior and that was also the way he wished to meet his destiny. On the battle field with nothing but his pride, honor and power as his allies. He'd been born, raised and lived in the heat of battle and that was also where his life should end. Hear the cry of the beast in his ears, taste the salty blood in his mouth, feel the radiating power in his muscles and go down in glory - giving all he got to make sure he would also take down his enemy. Just to hear Oozaru roar one last time...

 

The other choice, live waiting for his end, see the life slowly escaping your body but to know you would be doomed to face the end alone because of who you were...how was he supposed to deal with that? Just wither away in silence as time in his hourglass slowly ran out. The pair of ebony eyes shifted on the flower once more. He felt as if it symbolized what he was becoming. Once so strong and radiating, yet one day fragile and weak. Dead.

 

Death was not his fear. It never had been. How could it have been? For a warrior fear of death wasn't an option. Only the purest or the most corrupted of beings could afford a petty feeling such as that. They had something to lose. Him on the other hand...

 

His gaze fell upon the dark sky that was shrouded by heavy clouds that seemed to stretch to the far edges of heaven. Rain drops streamed down his hard features that had not changed nearly at all even after all the decades he had seen. Still they held their cold and arrogant attitude, which he had carried throughout his life like a cape on his shoulders, but the eyes of once a ruthless demon had changed. It was so subtle and imperceptible that only those who really knew him could tell there was a glint hidden behind the shadows that no one saw. No one, but those who had first brought it alive within him.

 

However, where there was a glint of hope, there was also a cloud of doubt. An old pain that stung his soul even today. It was from that pain however where a sense of peace flowed about him, wrapping itself around him like a warm blanket of silk. The irony of his life...he almost smirked at the mere thought. His double-edged sword that cut him deep like a katana's blade, yet the blood that never flowed. Old wounds healed, but the scars never left.

 

Picking up the flower he studied it in his hand, twirling it between his fingers as one by one the dead petals dropped on the wet ground. Would it all end like this? His thoughts drifted back in time, long buried and forgotten memories surfacing.

 

He saw places... He saw faces...

 

The wind in his hair and scent of the rain tingled at his senses as his eyes closed. The flower floated down on the ground.

 

He remembered everything...