Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Being of Sound Mind and Body ❯ Death-Wish ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z.

Author's Notes: Well, the last chapter seemed rather controversial. I was expecting that. This chapter is lighter, but seemed to be harder to write. Or start, anyway. It's more of a transition and tying up loose ends. Hope you enjoy it.

*sigh* I can't read any reviews, so I'm just gonna plow ahead. Get the rest of this out here. If you want to write and review and wish for me to be sure and see it, maybe leave me an e-mail or catch me on FF.Net.

Chapter 10: Death-Wish

You know, these feelings of imminent death all surround Earth. I know I'm going to die on Earth. Or rather, I know I'm going to die when I get to Earth. So the question is: What if I split? Leave. Change course right now, instead of writing this depressing account and dwelling on how I'm going to die. There's nothing to stop me. I have no allegiance to Frieza. Raditz is dead. Vegeta doesn't need me-hasn't needed me since he was fourteen, and maybe even before that. There's not much he can do to stop me. He's probably asleep at this very moment. He wouldn't notice I was gone until he got to Earth, and then he probably wouldn't bother trying to find me. I mean, he didn't seem to care about wishing Raditz back. I'm no better than Raditz in his eyes. And we're in the frontier of explored space anyway. I could find some backwoods planet… maybe fake my own death. Live out the rest of my life there. I wouldn't have to go on endless purge missions. Or constantly worry about Vegeta. Or watch every word and action just to make sure that I live another day. It'd be nice…

But I'm not going to. I'm just going to keep on pathetically following Vegeta, like always. Even if it means my death. Believe me, I've had plenty of opportunities through the years to just pick up and leave. In fact, this account has gotten to a huge chunk of my life that can be described as just that-one big missed opportunity for escape. I was practically alone. I never saw Frieza. The only word I got from the Kold Empire was from orders they sent me, reports I sent them, and stop-offs at bases for supplies and maintenance. We were sent out into the backwoods of space. Not like where I am now, but it was pretty remote. Even the bases out that way had seen Frieza maybe once. There were no extremely loyal followers like there was in the heart of Kold territory. Raditz and I could have just left and have barely been missed. It's not that I'm a coward. I'm just practical. I've known since day one that a life under Frieza is no life at all. I'm not invincible, after all. The shadow of death has been hanging over me ever since the day Frieza took over the Saiyan Empire. But have I done the most logical thing-escape?

Ok, so maybe I'm not that practical. I can try to fool myself into thinking that I have no allegiance, and nothing is holding me back. I've said things, like I'm no longer a Saiyan, and I'm just a lone warrior. But those are all lies. Self-delusions. That's the scary thing. I'm not just a prisoner of Frieza, I'm a prisoner of myself.

I don't mean to go off the philosophical deep-end. I guess dying men get like this. Well, ones that are contemplating their own imminent death. People who die unexpectedly don't really have any worthwhile last words. They're not really caring about what might have been. Or what particular religion they do, or don't, follow. Or even their loved ones most of the time (I say "most of the time" because of mothers. Those can get pretty nasty.) Most of the time they're thinking, "Ow. There's a big hole in my chest," or, "I wonder if my insurance covers this." I know what they're thinking because dying people tend to think aloud. It can get pretty funny sometimes. Ok, maybe only in a macabre way, but you take what humor you can get.

And that was a disturbing tangent. Anyway. Back to my story. I left off with Raditz and me leaving for frontier purging. That's the sort of place they send individuals or small groups for severe training. Or just to get rid of them. I think it was more the latter in our case. Frieza wanted Vegeta alone, and he couldn't do that with me and Raditz dropping in every two or so weeks. And maybe he wanted to get rid of us permanently without losing Vegeta's trust. Ha. Trust. Was Vegeta that deceptive, or did Frieza have a blind spot? Vegeta is scarily deceptive, but it's impossible to fool Frieza. Too many people are space dust for doing just that. I honestly don't know how Vegeta's been able to pull off living all these years. He must have developed split personalities-an obedient one around Frieza and a rebellious one around us. Who knows what Frieza did to the boy those years that I wasn't there.

If you want to hear what happened to Vegeta all that time, you're out of luck. He never told me all of it. Whenever I would pry… well, he just didn't want to talk about it. And what he did tell me, I would never reveal. So, for once, I'm going to solely be focusing on what Raditz and I did instead of mentioning Vegeta every other sentence. I know I tend to do that. I guess Raditz is right. I guess I am like a fussy old mother sometimes. Of course, he knows now that he isn't allowed to call me that anymore. At least… I keep forgetting that he's dead now!

Raditz and I grew very close in those seven years we were in the frontier. I was finally able to teach him, and he got incredibly strong. Of course, I was always twenty steps ahead of him, but he got good enough to be an elite. It would have done his father proud. Maybe then his father could have overlooked Raditz's mental inadequacies. That had always been a problem between Raditz and Bardock. They spoke completely different languages, and I don't mean Common and Saiyan. Bardock tried to teach Raditz what he knew, but Raditz just didn't have the capacity or the interest in those things. I guess that's why Bardock thought that Raditz ran away.

It was nice to have an adult to talk to though. Vegeta had been a young teenager, but Raditz was 21. He had seemed so much a boy when I first joined Frieza's Army, but now he had grown so much while I had changed very little. And we could actually talk. Conversation on Zarbon's ship and on planet Frieza was always so careful. And prolonged conversation between an elite and a non-elite was nearly unheard of-even between two of the same race. But now we had a semblance of freedom. Oh, don't get me wrong. He was no replacement for Xientlap, but he was a help. I realized it was better than trying to converse with an arrogant little 14-year-old prince who looks down on people as a defense mechanism. A lot better. Sometimes we'd just stay on planets we'd just purged-out in the jungle where we didn't cause much damage-for a night. Just so we could get the feel of planet beneath our feet. And we'd just talk. I told him stories about his father. We'd talk about escaping, or maybe even finding that brother of Raditz's. Of course, it was just talk. We wouldn't really escape. And Raditz wanted to wait a while before bringing Kakarrot into our nightmarish world. Mostly to let him get stronger. I had my doubts that Kakarrot was even alive, but I kept those thoughts to myself. Why take away Raditz's hope? Surely he must have thought about Kakarrot being dead, but he just never said it. He probably thought that if he said it, it would be true. We believe stupid things like that.

But talking about Kakarrot got us to thinking. Well, got me to thinking, anyway. I'd never really considered it, but could there be others like Kakarrot? There was that whole plan I formulated with King Vegeta and Bardock. We had planned for Planet Vegeta being blown up. We had tried to make the Saiyan Empire indestructible. All those children we'd sent off into space-and we hadn't heard a peep from any of them. What struck me in momentary whim became my obsession for years. I refused to accept that we were the last of the Saiyans. It just wasn't logical that all those babies had been killed. And by that time they'd all be at the very least nine years old. I had to find out. Every planet we purged-we'd even stop by some other planets just to look-we'd search. Maybe, if the planet was still intact, they were just hiding out. Or here's a wild hypothetical. What if they bumped their head and lost all their memory? I know, it's a bit melodramatic, but at the time, I would have believed anything. Hey, now that I think about it, that's what happened to Kakarrot. Heh. Go figure.

The years went by just like that. Search, destroy, and move on. I know I talked about Frieza's frontier bases, but we rarely went to those. We could get our supplies from the planets we destroyed. Both of us were pretty fair at ship maintenance. Now that I think back on that time, it was a pretty good time in my life. There wasn't much hassle. I was pretty much in command-a position I've never really liked giving up. There were rarely any immediate threats on my life. Besides purging and sending in reports, I didn't even feel like I was in Frieza's Army anymore. It was a nice feeling.

But the searching for Saiyan children produced nothing. I KNOW we sent some to that part of the universe, but they were just nowhere to be seen. Questioning people was no help at all. Our uniforms were enough to scare anyone witless, and most of the time it was justified. If there had been Saiyans on any of those planets, the people we asked didn't have the presence of mind to remember them. Sometimes there were reactions to our tails, but that could have been anything. Not many races have tails, so it could have been just general curiosity. We finally did stumble across something, though. Most of the planets we destroyed were so primitive they didn't even keep effective written records. They relied on oral history, which necessitated our personal interrogation tactic. But on THIS planet… I can't remember the name… they had a pretty decent level of technology. No space travel, and still relying on hand-written paper texts, but a pretty accurate history record, even if it was written like a piece of literature. For people who had almost never encountered life from other worlds, they were pretty accepting of us. I was kind of glad we didn't have to kill them. It was just a random populated planet we visited. On the other hand, they didn't know anything about the Kold Empire, so they didn't fear us. That was… kind of nice. It's a bit tiring to be feared all the time by everyone. Not only do you have to keep up a reputation, you have to keep your physical defenses up all the time. You never know when some young punk protecting his planet will get in a lucky shot. Or, in a universe with endless possibilities, you never know when just one backwoods hick will be stronger than you. I mean, hey, I could be killed by a warrior on Earth. The data on that planet said there were no warriors that even came close to even Kold entry level power, but then there was that one that killed Raditz and Kakarrot. You never know.

I didn't even have to ask those people about Saiyans. They automatically recognized our space pod and our tails. They didn't know anything about Saiyans-just that there had been a boy with a space pod and a tail that had been killed on their world. When I asked what had killed the boy, they showed us diagrams and paintings of men who came in more space pods. I then found they also recognized our uniforms. It was what the men had been wearing.

Ok, something didn't make sense to me. Why were they so helpful to us when we encompassed everything that had brought violence to their planet? That usually doesn't cause people to welcome you with open arms. More like open fire. I'm not one to mince words, so I asked them straight up. They thought… and this is no lie… that we were an oppressed people and they felt pity on us. Imagine! Us! An oppressed people! Ok, so maybe we were, but that's not the point. We could have destroyed their entire world without even trying hard. We wouldn't, but we could have. And they felt pity on us! What's wrong with this universe! Doesn't the name Saiyan strike fear in the hearts of men anymore? Apparently not. But it shouldn't strike pity in the hearts of men. We're vicious killers. Great warriors. A proud people that doesn't take any crap from anybody. We don't get pitied.

At least, that's what I was thinking at the time as I was leaving the planet. I was just pissed that we came so close to a Saiyan only to find they the boy had been killed. When I calmed down, I was able to sort through the facts. The boy had been killed. By men. In our uniforms. Kold soldiers. And the planet wasn't destroyed. That meant…

Piece by piece I put the puzzle together. Hundreds of planets with similar stories. It was five years before I could convince myself. That… he knew. He had known all the time why we were sending children into space like crazy. All this time we thought we were so clever, and we weren't fooling him a bit. He'd made sure that Raditz, Vegeta, and I were the only Saiyans. He had hunted down the children like animals or slaves. He had purged us. It… was unthinkable. And horrifying. And made me so angry. Everything I had tried to do in life had been in vain. I couldn't protect Vegeta anymore. All the plans I had made with King Vegeta and Bardock were nullified. I'd given up everything and had accomplished nothing.

I spent the next year practically suicidal. I wouldn't eat or sleep until I was half-dead. I'd go berserk in purges, just hoping that someone would get in a lucky shot and just end it all. Or maybe I thought Raditz would get sick of me and blast me when I wasn't looking. You remember, Saiyans don't kill themselves. That is dishonorable. We get in a fight we can't win and let our opponent do the rest. There is honor in such a defeat. I thought maybe Fate would take pity on me and end the joke of my life. My life had been over for years anyway. Those were some of my darkest hours-darker even than the times Frieza had captured me. There were no more endless hours of talk with Raditz. No more searching for Saiyans-for I knew there were none. Even when Raditz talked about Kakarrot still being alive, I called him a fool. I know he wanted to kill me sometimes, but I had practically raised him. He just couldn't. It must have been scary for him too. I had guided him all those years, and I was lost.

I'm not still like that. I probably wouldn't have survived if I had stayed like that. What broke me out of it? You're not going to believe me. I know you're not. In fact, I bet my… uh… Hey, what do I own, anyway? Never mind. Anyway, if I had anything, I would bet it that you wouldn't guess what pulled me out of my depression. But would you believe that it all centered around a purge, and got me severely punished afterward? Well, it was worth it.

As I was saying, Raditz and I were sent to purge this one planet. Just a standard purge way off in the frontier. We landed, but our navigational systems had been screwed up, so we ended up landing in a forest instead of in the middle of a city. No big problem, just really inconvenient. And the natives might get a chance to organize. After flying for about an hour, we found a city-obviously the capital. I looked around at the natives in grim amusement-they were all running about shouting about a holy man. I told you some of the funny things you can hear from dying religious people. At least this time it wasn't flaming breasts. I waited just a few minutes more, maybe out of cockiness or maybe it was my death-wish manifesting itself. I was just about to do my city-clearing attack when I noticed a high power level on my scouter. It had been a while since I'd had a real challenge, so I waited. I remained there, standing next to what looked like some sort of adult cinema, and remarked to Raditz about the irony of where we were meeting the holy man. He didn't laugh. I thought he just didn't get it, but then he turned completely pale, as if he were seeing a spirit over my shoulder. Which was where the holy man had arrived. I turned around to see what sort of monstrosity these people had picked to worship, but it wasn't a beast. It was a ghost. For once in my life I almost gave in to superstition. For before me, in a robe that failed to mask his features that were so different from the natives, stood a tall, slender, dark purple man with horns on his head and arms. Xientlap.

So many things went through my head. I could be dead without even noticing. This planet could be Hell. I could be hallucinating, or dreaming, or maybe the past few years had been a dream. `Cause there was Xientlap. Smiling. As if nothing had ever happened. I could barely hear the natives around me screaming. I think they wanted him to kill me, but I'm not sure. You know, people can be so judgmental, just because you have to kill them. But maybe that was it. Maybe I was at judgment, and Xientlap was a god, surrounded by clamoring angels. But Xientlap broke my illusions by saying, "Did you think Kriei could ever kill me?"

I laughed. He'd done it. He'd actually done it. He'd escaped-faked his own death like I'd been contemplating for years. But he hadn't waited until he was alone in the frontiers. He hadn't even done it on a purge mission, when he could have easily gotten lost in the fray. He'd done it right in the heart of Kold territory. I'd have called him a fool if it wasn't for the fact that he'd gotten away with it. I asked him a few questions, just to make sure he wasn't a shape shifter or something like that. He wasn't. He was as real as every hair on Raditz's head. Then we fought. We made a big show out of it - something about me having to purge the planet and Xientlap having to protect the planet. It was all a show for the natives anyway. Then we made a big thing about Xientlap persuading me not to purge the planet. Then FINALLY we could get away from the crowds of awe-struck hicks and talk.

We went to Xientlap's new home. It was an abandoned castle that he and some followers had fixed up. At least, that's what it looked like. I later found out that it was a former guard tower. The planet I had arrived on used to be a prison planet for war criminals. It made sense. Where else would Xientlap go? Ironically, the planet these people were from got into a world war and ended up nuking both sides. Only the war criminals were left. They'd tried to set up some kind of civilization. I mean, generals convicted of war crimes can be the most civilized type of murderer. But each project had utterly failed. But they were making progress since Xientlap was there. He had started a religious movement. Well, less focus on religion and more on finding inner redemption. Some kind of moral gobbledygook.

Xientlap HAD faked his own death. He knew what Kriei was planning and had put a very realistic model of himself in his place. Tolin was dead, though. Xientlap had chosen to let Tolin die because the suspicions we had of Tolin were true. He had caused many people to be tortured to death in much the same way as Kriei had done. And he possibly knew of Xientlap's plan. I pointed out that Kriei had almost killed Vegeta, and that shocked Xieltlap. He hadn't known that Kriei would go that far. He had actually planned for me and Vegeta to escape with him, but he couldn't tell us with Tolin and Kriei always around. And then I was so late getting to his room… I could have been free! With Vegeta. And I would have probably rounded up Raditz. But I was too late. Although, thinking back, would I have gone? Probably not. There was still a matter of paying back Frieza for all that he'd done. And avenging our people. That's why I ultimately stayed. Everything is to kill Frieza. You see? I can't run away even when I really want to.

I spent a couple more days on Xientlap's planet, for he had pretty much taken over the planet. He really is a leader, and not a military one like I am. He is a spiritual leader. And a social one too. You really couldn't tell, after all those years of Xientlap's rule, that the people there had once been the scum of the military. It was so peaceful… well near perfect. Instead of the Hell that was my first impression, it was more of a paradise. I had peace of mind. I had my best friend, who sympathized with everything I'd gone through in the past few years. Especially when I told him of the Saiyan hunt. We theorized for a bit on if this had been done for every race, or if Frieza just had a thing with Saiyans. Raditz and I, all in all, had it great. No worries. No murders. No long flights in cramped space pods (god, I wish I could stretch my legs!). That's why I knew I couldn't stay. It was paradise. I didn't deserve paradise. And I still had a prince I was devoted to. I had to leave. I left despite all of Xientlap's protests. But he knew my reasoning. He wouldn't stop me. So Raditz and I packed up and left.

Our navigational systems still weren't doing well, especially the auto-nav, so we spent a week in utter sleepless misery piloting the ships manually. When we finally limped to the nearest Kold base, I was so sleep-deprived and delirious that I'd actually forgotten to fudge my reports that it looked like I'd purged the planet. I just passed out and let the medics take care of me. When I woke up, I was on Frieza's main planet.

It was an eerie feeling-waking up millions of miles from where you remembered falling asleep. The eerie feeling passed soon enough, though. It gave way to severe pain. Frieza declared open field day on me, and even took some time for himself. I think it was two weeks before I was allowed to stay in a semi-mobile state. If the severity of the punishment confuses you, think of this. Command had been placed on my shoulders. That is a sign of trust with Frieza. He trusts you to command well and complete every mission flawlessly. If you do not, you are little more than a traitor. I say a little more, because I didn't die. A traitor would have died. Instead, my command was taken away. I was still elite, but not in the running for the rank of sergeant. Really, I'm glad. I wouldn't have liked to have a command position on Frieza's terms anyway.

Raditz had been re-evaluated-his strength and battle experience tested. He was placed in the elite. You may think that this would be a good thing, but at least as a non-elite he was the strongest non-elite. His status changed to one of the weakest elite, and the only ones he could fight and train with were elite. So he pretty much stayed beaten up all the time. At least that made him stronger. And we were more partners than commander/commandee. Maybe it was ultimately better that way.

When I became fully conscious for the first time in weeks, I was greeted by the smirking face of Vegeta. It took a minute for it to register in my head. He was older. And slightly taller. Not much, though. He was 21 or 22. Somewhere in there. Which meant he was a man. I had missed all of his growing into a man, but now here he was. It took everything I had in me to school my expression. It was like a great burden taken off my mind seeing him again. His smirk grew wider, as if he knew exactly what was going through my head. He had something that had only come in flashes before, but now surrounded him like an aura. Royal bearing. I was actually a little intimidated in his presence. He informed me that I and Raditz were under his command, and that we would go on purging missions after the tournament. I asked him if he was entering the tournament, but he laughed in a way that made me feel like I was two feet shorter than him. He said he had no time to waste on such frivolities.

The boy had… changed. So much. I watched him closely in the next couple of days, and indeed until today. There are so many expressions that he gets that can only come from Frieza. That disdainful sneer. That passionless stare that makes you feel like less than a worm. That smirk-crueler than any smirk he had given growing up. Indeed, crueler than any his father had given. The passionate, vengeful child was gone. In its place was a torturously changed Vegeta-one that I could barely reconcile with the memory of the boy I had half-raised. He no longer looked to me for instruction. He gave orders. He didn't care that I'd been practically a father to him a mere seven or eight years before. He didn't care that Raditz used to be able to frighten him with scary stories. He saw us as followers-subjects and subordinates. In effect… he became exactly what I wanted. And for that foolishness I can never forgive myself.

I never found out what happened to Xientlap's planet. I dared not ask anyone. As much as it kills me to admit, I wasn't sure of Vegeta's loyalties at the time. He was in commander training, and commanders tend to be extremely loyal to Frieza. I didn't know how corrupted Prince Vegeta was. He didn't reveal any of his emotions like he used to. He is an enigma, and I haven't been able to figure him out since then. But I will discuss him more when I write about the next era of my life. The final era of my life, actually. It's a good thing too. I don't have much time to finish this. Earth is looming closer. But for now, I will get some rest. Maybe sleep will help me forget my cramped legs. It's ironic. I don't want to get to Earth, but I do. Maybe my death-wish never really has gone away.